The Temple of the Whole Christ: Dedication of the Lateran Basilica and the Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome

On the Thirty
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Church celebrates the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, one of the principal sanctuaries in the entire Catholic Church. While it would be tempting to suggest that the Church is thereby suggesting that we are to simply celebrate the construction of central sacred buildings within the Church, there is something deeper at work here; something that includes the actual building yet transcends any one structure.

In the readings for this week, the deeper mystery at work is able to be viewed by means of the mystery of the temple.[1]

FIRST READING: Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12

The angel brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the façade of the temple was toward the east; the water flowed down from the southern side of the temple, south of the altar. He led me outside by the north gate, and around to the outer gate facing the east, where I saw water trickling from the southern side. He said to me, “This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah, and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh. Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish, for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh. Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”

The importance of the temple in the covenantal life of Israel is hard to overestimate. Among the many important aspects of the Temple that we could mention here, the most pertinent point to emphasize is that many Old Testament texts envision a new (renewed) temple cult in the future age.

One important text is Isaiah 2:2–3:

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths” (Isaiah 2:2–3; cf. Micah 4:1–2).

While Isaiah contains other texts related to this hope for a renewed temple (Isaiah 25:6-9, 28:16, 56:4-8, 66:20-23, etc), the prophet Ezekiel also has pivotally important things to say about the renewal of worship and the temple in the coming age. For example, in Ezekiel we find an extended prophecy concerning the renewal of the people of God for a renewed cult (cf. Ezekiel 36–37), with the book concluding by means of an extended and detailed account of the eschatological temple and its sacrificial cult (Ezekiel 40–48).

In this temple, we discover a table that appears to also be an altar (Ezekiel 41:21-23), an altar that is described as having a mercy seat for its ledge (Ezekiel 43:14-27), and a prince who will provide sacrifices, which strikingly include peace and grain offerings that are described as having “atoning” significance (cf. Ezekiel 45:15).[2]

In our text for this Sunday, the prophet describes life-giving waters flowing from the eschatological temple and bringing life to anything it touches. In light of this prophecy, there is some evidence to support that during the feast of Tabernacles, large amounts of water were poured down the southern side of the Temple in a kind of liturgical anticipation of Ezekiel’s Temple.[3]

In summation, due to the nature and place of the Temple in the faith of Israel, the hope for a glorious Temple in the end times makes good sense, and in the responsorial Psalm, we are able to see just how important the Temple was in the faith of Israel.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM: Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9

R. (5) The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!
God is our refuge and our strength,
an ever-present help in distress.
Therefore, we fear not, though the earth be shaken
and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea.

There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.
God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed;
God will help it at the break of dawn.

The LORD of hosts is with us;
our stronghold is the God of Jacob.
Come! behold the deeds of the LORD,
the astounding things he has wrought on earth

In Psalm 46 we find an excellent example of the preeminent place the Temple played in the covenantal life of Israel. In direct contrast to the rather unstable nature of life, the life of the Temple is secure, for within it dwells the God of Israel. In fact, it is from the Temple that God reigns over the nations.

In fact, the temple and its very furniture were closely identified with divine realities. For example, while it is well known that in Exodus 33:20 God tells Moses that “you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live,” it is less well known that Numbers 4:20 says something very similar regarding the furniture kept within the Tabernacle, “they shall not go in to look upon the holy things even for a moment, lest they die.”

As a result, it is possible to describe the sanctuary itself and its furniture as something akin to a physical manifestation of God. As the great Old Testament scholar Gary Anderson suggests, “these texts exhibit ancient Israel’s deeply held view that God really dwelt in the Temple and that all the pieces of that building shared, in some fashion, in his tangible and visible presence.”[4]

In other words, to behold the glory of the Lord in the Temple was life and peace for Israel. However, when Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, it was as if life itself for Israel had ended. This can be seen in Ezekiel’s famous “dry bones” prophecy, for Israel in exile without the Temple is likened to a valley of dry bones in need of new life (Ezek 37:1-14).

When Judah returned from exile in the latter part of the sixth century B.C., the Temple was rebuilt, yet it was clearly not the glorious end-times Temple prophesied by Ezekiel. Even after Herod’s restoration projects, the second-Temple was not the meeting place of the nations wherein life-giving waters flowed and brought healing to those who came in contact with it.

In turning now to the second reading, the Apostle Paul makes a rather startling claim: the promised Temple is at last being built.

SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17

Brothers and sisters:
You are God’s building.
According to the grace of God given to me,
like a wise master builder I laid a foundation,
and another is building upon it.
But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,
for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there,
namely, Jesus Christ. 

Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

In one of the more remarkable statements in his entire corpus, the Apostle Paul tells the church at Corinth that they are the temple. In light of the temple’s profound participation in the divine presence and life, Paul’s identification of the church with the temple would appear to entail a rather startling statement about the community’s participation in divine realities.

As N.T. Wright concludes, “If the spirit of the living God dwells within his people, constituting them as the renewed tabernacle (or the new temple. . .), then the work of this transforming spirit can and must be spoken of in terms, ultimately, of theōsis, ‘divinization’.”[5]

Moreover, it also appears correct to suggest that Paul viewed the church as the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel regarding the promised end-times Temple (cf. 2 Cor 6:14-7:1, Eph 2:20), one in which the nations would come to Mount Zion and be renewed by life-giving waters.

In coming to the Gospel reading for this week, we are able to gain a clearer rationale as to how all of this fits together, for in John’s Gospel Jesus begins his public ministry at the Temple, an event that can be seen as the key to unlocking John’s Gospel.

GOSPEL: John 2:13-22

Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money-changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money-changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
“Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
At this the Jews answered and said to him,
“What sign can you show us for doing this?”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews said,
“This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?”
But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture
and the word Jesus had spoken.

In writing his Gospel, John is clear that his purpose is to elicit belief in Jesus as the Son of God (John 20:30-31). In particular, John makes use of signs from Jesus’ life that point to his divine identity, climaxing with the last and greatest sign of the cross and resurrection.

Here in our reading we discover an important aspect in the disciples coming to believe: after the resurrection, they believed the Scripture and Jesus’ words. However, can we say more about what they come to believe in light of the overall context of our passage?

In order to answer this, it is important to take a closer look at this passage within the context of John’s Gospel as a whole.

When Jesus enters the Temple precincts, he casts out the money changers and then declares himself to be the temple. Yet it is important to ask: why? Is he simply upset about making money in the temple? Is he speaking hyperbolically to make a point?

Rather than hyperbole, it appears that Jesus is stating something essential to his life and mission, namely, that He is the promised temple. In fact, in John’s Gospel this can serve to unlock the inner purpose of the book, for John places this story at the very beginning of Jesus ministry, suggesting that Jesus identity as the temple is central to his life and mission, as well as the literary theme of the Gospel.

In John 1, Jesus is the Word made flesh who “tabernacles” among us (John 1:14), as well as the “lamb of God” who takes away the sins of the world. (John 1:36) Beyond this, in the same chapter Jesus tells Nathaniel that he will see angels ascending and descending on him, implying that he is the new Bethel, the house of God (John 1:51, cf. Genesis 28:10-22).

Coming to chapter two, before our passage is the wedding at Cana (John 2;1-11), wherein the symbolism points to Jesus being the bridegroom who marries the people of God. Yet in Isaiah in particular, God promises to both marry his people and feed them with choice wines. Where does this occur? In Isaiah 25:6-9, Yahweh defeats death on Mt. Zion and offers his people choice wines, while in Isaiah 62 it is Yahweh who comes to marry his people

This brings us to the reading for this week, a passage that serves to make explicit what has been implicit in John 1:1-2:12: the fourth gospel is about the life of the new temple, that is, of Christ and his church. With this being said, it is important to ask: how does one participate in the liturgical life of this new temple?

John’s Gospel offers some important clues, perhaps even “signs” as to how one joins the worship of the new temple. In John 3:5, Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be born again through water and the Spirit in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

While some suggest that Jesus is simply speaking about the Holy Spirit in two interrelated ways, this interpretation fails on a number of fronts, not the least of which being this would mean that when Jesus states that one must be baptized by water and the Spirit, he would be saying that one must be baptized by the Spirit and the Spirit.

With this being said, it is clear that in John 7:37-39 the living water that Jesus gives is the Spirit. However, rather than seeing baptismal water and the Spirit as mutually exclusive, it appears best in light of John 3:5 to take them as directly connected. In fact, it is particularly interesting to note that when Jesus offers living water in John 7:37-39, it is during this is during the feast of Tabernacles, the same feast where it appears that at the time of Jesus water was poured down the southern side of the temple in anticipation of the coming of Ezekiel’s temple.[6]

All told, it appears valid to suggest that it is through the life-giving waters of baptism that the promise of Ezekiel is fulfilled and all nations can participate in the worship of the new temple. This appears to be further explained by Jesus in John 4, for he tells the woman at the well that the time has come where the location of worship is not as important as worship through the Spirit in Christ. In other words, the life-giving waters that Ezekiel promised have come through the waters of baptism, and through the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the new temple is at last being built.

Conclusion

In conclusion, our readings for this week point us toward the realization that the church is the promised temple, yet so is Jesus. So, which is it? Is the church the temple or is it Jesus? The answer is both, and perhaps the best way to understand this is through Paul’s metaphor of the Church as the body of Christ, or what Augustine called the Whole Christ. Due to being one mystical person, Christ the head and the Church as his members, the Whole Christ is the fulfillment of the promised eschatological temple, and in this, we find the fullness of salvation and as members of his body become by grace what Jesus is by nature, sons and daughters of God, and the new temple. As paragraph 797 of the Catechism states:

“What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church.” “To this Spirit of Christ, as an invisible principle, is to be ascribed the fact that all the parts of the body are joined one with the other and with their exalted head; for the whole Spirit of Christ is in the head, the whole Spirit is in the body, and the whole Spirit is in each of the members.” The Holy Spirit makes the Church “the temple of the living God.”

NOTES 

[1] For more on the Temple, see Yves M.J. Congar, O.P., The Mystery of the Temple, translated by Reginald F. Trevett (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1962); G.K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004).

[2] See Andrea Spatafora, From the “Temple of God” to God as the Temple (TGST 27; Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1997), 38–47.

[3] For more in this regard, see Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B, The Gospel of John, SP 4 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press), 234.

[4] Gary A. Anderson, “To See Where God Dwells: The Tabernacle, the Temple, and the Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition,” Letter & Spirit 4 (2008): 18

[5] N.T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 2:1021.

[6] For more see Moloney, John, 234-235.

The perennial challenge of exegetical and theological authority

In a stimulating article over at First Things blog, Stephen Webb addresses a topic that most theologians are forced to wrestle with at some point in their lives, namely, "Who has the Authority to Write Theology?"
                                                                                    
Webb highlights the work of Robert Saler entitled Between Magisterium and Marketplace, where Saler suggests that the enterprise of contemporary theology boils down to a debate between the approaches of Schleiermacher and Newman.

 In Webb's summation, Saler suggests:

For Schleiermacher, theologians should hover above ossified religious traditions by perching on the precarious edge of daring creativity. For Newman, prudence alone should lead any theologian to conclude that private fancy is not enough to sustain theological discourse. Schleiermacher advocates for virtuosity, Newman for anonymity

 Webb continues by noting that Saler distinguishes between two contemporary groups under the broadly Newman camp:

Newman is the father of what Saler calls “polis ecclesiology,” which he divides into two camps, a “high magisterial” one dominated by the writers associated with this magazine (First Things; Reinhard Hütter, R. R. Reno, and Paul Griffiths) and what we could call a “magisterium by imagination” influenced by Stanley Hauerwas and John Milbank.

 For those who are interested in reading more from Webb's article, please look here: http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/11/who-has-the-authority-to-write-theology

How Do Law and Love Relate? The 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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How does love relate to law?  The two can seem opposed, a contrast to one another.  Love is a romantic dinner for two on a veranda overlooking the Seine.  Law is a solemn old man in a black robe, sitting behind a high podium with police officers at his side. 

The Readings for this Sunday insist that law and love, as strange as it may seem, are ultimately united.  Without love, law is cold.  Without law, love is mere emotion.  The Readings show the unity of the Old and New Testaments in pointing to the love of God as the highest law.

This Weekend in El Paso

www.apostolateofguadalupe.com

Yes, don't forget older scholarship--like this collection of essays. . .

Anthony Le Donne just had a great post up relating how New Testament scholar Dale Allison apparently encourages students to familiarize themselves with the work of older scholars.

My doktorvater, Colin Brown, felt the same way. He always encouraged me to read the works of scholars such as C.H. Dodd, T. W. Manson (far too often overlooked, in my mind!), and Vincent Taylor.

Well, in that spirit, I thought I'd post about a book I just received a book in the mail that I'm really looking forward to reading:

Robert Banks, editor, Reconciliation and Hope: New Testament Essays on Atonement and Eschatology (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1974).

The book is a Festchrift presented to Leon Morris on the occasion of his 60th birthday. (Yes, the scholars here are somewhat more recent than some of those mentioned above--but the book is 40 years old now!)

I ordered the book because it features an essay on "priesthood" in Paul--a topic I am researching--but looking through the table of contents more carefully, there seems to be a number of interesting pieces.

Anyways, to Allison's insistence on remembering the contribution of scholars from earlier period, I say a hearty, "Amen!"

Ratzinger on the Abuse of Ecclesiastical Power

"Those who talk nowadays of the abuse of power connected with doctrinal discipline in the Church generally have in mind only the misuse of authority on the part of the Church’s ministerial office, which doubtless can occur. But it is entirely forgotten that there is also a misemployment of the authority conferred by one’s mission: the exploitation of the readiness to listen and to trust, which even today men still manifest toward the pronouncements of the Church, for a purely private utterance. Ecclesiastical authority actively serves this misappropriation of power when, by giving it free reign, it makes its own prestige available where it has absolutely no right to do so. The solicitude for the faith of the little ones must be more important in its eyes than the opposition of the great."

--Joseph Ratzinger, The Nature and Mission of Theology: Essays to Orient Theology in Today’s Debates (trans. Adrian Walker; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 62–63, 64.

Join Us Friday: Catholic Answers Radio Live from JP Catholic

This Friday Catholic Answers' Radio Program, hosted by the irrepressible Patrick Coffin, will be doing a special broadcast live from JP Catholic.  In the first hour (from 3-4pm Pacific), my colleague John Kincaid will be addressing the question, "Was Paul a Christian?" I will be up in the second hour answering the question, "Are the Gospels Historical?"

If you're in the southern California area, I hope you can join us and be part of the live audience.

The "Trans-political" Kingdom of God: The Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Human beings are political animals, Aristotle famously suggested, and Jesus would agree. However, the readings for this week reveal that the political nature of the Kingdom of God transcends the regimes of this age and those who rule them. This is seen immediately in the first reading from Isaiah 45.

First Reading: Isaiah 45:1, 4–6

Thus says the LORD to his anointed, Cyrus,
whose right hand I grasp,
subduing nations before him,
and making kings run in his service,
opening doors before him
and leaving the gates unbarred:
For the sake of Jacob, my servant,
of Israel, my chosen one,
I have called you by your name,
giving you a title, though you knew me not.
I am the LORD and there is no other,
there is no God besides me.
It is I who arm you, though you know me not,
so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun
people may know that there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, there is no other.

In this first reading we encounter the figure of Cyrus, King of Persia, who famously liberated Judah from Babylon and allowed them to return to Palestine in the latter part of the sixth century B.C. It is impossible to doubt the strength of Cyrus and his empire. Yet the prophet is clear that Cyrus’s success was ultimately due to God’s deeper providential purposes in human history, purposes that are here described as his covenantal fidelity to his chosen people of Israel.

In particular, it is clear that God has chosen both Israel and Cyrus in order to make clear that he alone is the true God and King of the nations, for beyond the rise of Cyrus and the fall of Babylon is the Lord of history and the true King of the nations. This leads nicely to the responsorial psalm, for in her worship the covenantal people of God gather to acknowledge the true King of the nations, thereby uniting liturgy and politics in a rather public manner that at first blush should strike us moderns as quite alien.

Would the Real Pharisees Please Step Forward? The Debates on Marriage

I posted on this issue already, and took the post down because it was not stated with enough precision.  But upon further consideration, I believe my essential contribution was correct, and wish to restate it more accurately.

In the context of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, there has been an attempt by some to characterize the position of those who support current Church teaching and practice on divorce and remarriage as “Pharisaical,” while associating those who wish to accommodate some form of ecclesiastical blessing of second marriages within the Church with the evangelical mercy and love of Jesus.

This is extremely ironic, because in point of fact, it was the Pharisees who were very open to divorce and remarriage, but Jesus who opposed it. 

Let’s review the relevant texts:

Thomas Oden's "Change of Heart"

InterVarsity Press is advertising a new book by the well-known Protestant theologian Thomas C. Oden, who transitioned from 1960's style Protestant liberalism to a kind of Patristic "mere Christianity." Oden offers the following anecdote about the pivotal moment in his "conversion," which came about through a fraternal correction from a colleague, Jewish scholar Will Herberg:

"Will was trying to show me that the errors I was making were much deeper than I had realized.  I tried to defend myself.  Suddenly, my irascible, endearing Jewish friend leaned into my face and told me that I was densely ignorant of Christianity, and he simply couldn't permit me to throw my life away.  Holding one finger up, looking straight at me with fury in his eyes, he said, 'You will remain theologically uneducated until you study carefully Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas ... If you are ever going to become a credible theologian instead of a know-it-all pundit, you had best restart your life on firmer ground.  You are not a theologian except in name only, even if you are paid to be one."

Yes, Dr. Oden, and Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas had another thing in common: they were all Catholics in communion with Rome.  We would love you to consider their ecclesiology!

Ratzinger's Ever-Relevant Erasmus Lecture

In my class Philosophy and Biblical Interpretation, I had the privilege of introducing our first quarter MA students in biblical theology to Cardinal Ratzinger's (Benedict XVI) Erasmus Lecture (January 27, 1988). Among the many remarkable features of this lecture, one section stands out in my mind for its definitive relevance for the future of exegesis and theology.

After broadly discussing the basis for Dibelius's and Butltmann's exegetical method, Ratzinger then continues:

  "But I think we must go a step further in order to appreciate the fundamental decision of the system which generated these particular categories for judgment (i.e., of Dibelius and Bultmann). The real philosophic presupposition of the whole system seems to me to lie in the philosophic turning point proposed by Immanuel Kant.

According to him, the voice of being-in-itself cannot be heard by human beings. Man can hear it only indirectly in the postulates of practical reason, which have remained, as it were, the small opening through which he can make contact with the real, that is, his eternal destiny. For the rest, as far as the content of his intellectual life is concerned, he must limit himself to the realm of the categories.

Thence comes the restriction to the positive, to the empirical, to the "exact" science, which by definition excludes the appearance of what is "wholly other," or the one who is wholly other, or a new initiative from another plane.

In theological terms, this means that revelation must recede into the pure formality of the eschatological stance, which corresponds to the Kantian split. As far as everything else is concerned, it all needs to be "explained."

What might otherwise seem like a direct proclamation of the divine can only be myth, whose laws of development  can be discovered. It is with this basic conviction that Bultmann, with the majority of modern exegetes, read the Bible.

He is certain that it cannot be the way it is depicted in the Bible, and he looks for methods to prove the way it really had to be. To that extent there lies in modern exegesis a reduction of history into philosophy, a revision of history by means of philosophy.

The real question before us then is, can one read the Bible any other way? Or perhaps better, must one agree with the philosophy which requires this kind of reading?

At its core, the debate about modern exegesis is not a dispute among historians: it is rather a philosophical debate. Only in this way can it be carried on correctly. Otherwise it is like swordplay in a mist.

The exegetical problem is identical in the main with the struggle for the foundations of our time. Such a struggle cannot be conducted casually, nor can it be won with a few suggestions. It will demand, as I have already intimated, the attentive and critical commitment of an entire generation."

Food and Clothing at God's Banquet: The 28th Sunday of OT

 

Food and clothing are necessary for life, and they are both themes in the Readings for this weekend.  Food and clothing go together sometimes: for example, we still dress up for a formal banquet or a fancy date night.  Some people still try to dress well for mass, and that’s a good custom, because how we dress shows the importance that we place on the event.  No one shows up for a job interview in a tank top and cut-offs, for example.  Is Mass as important as a job interview? 

But our external dress is not the point of this Sunday’s Readings.  Instead, they focus on the idea of a spiritual supper, and the spiritual preparation or “dress” that is necessary to participate in God’s ultimate wedding banquet. 

Our readings for this week begin with Isaiah’s famous prophecy of a feast on Mount Zion:

Level-headed advice from Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

Time for a "gut check". 

Whatever is "new" is not necessarily true. At the same time, however, that does not mean that real advances are never made. 

An authentic Catholic approach to theology can never claim that all that can be said has been said but it should also avoid the trap of simply paying attention to the "latest trends".  

Or as the great twentieth-century Catholic theologian, Garrigou-Lagrange, said. . . 

"The desire of the true philosopher is, indeed, to acquire an accurate knowledge of philosophy, but he does not consider the temporal sequence of doctrines, as if these were the criterion or sign of their relative truth, and as if this sequence of doctrines were always and necessarily an evolution in the ascendant order, but never a regression and senile decline. From the fact that Scotus came after St. Thomas [Aquinas], it does not follow that his doctrine is truer, and that later on there is greater perfection in the eclecticism of Suarez.  

We must use the historical method in the history of doctrines, and this is indeed of great help in understanding the state and difficulty of the question, so as to give us, as it were, a panorama of the solutions of any great problem. But in philosophy we must employ the analytic and synthetic method proportionate to it. In theology, however, we rely first upon proofs taken from the authority of Holy Scripture or divine tradition, or even the writings of the holy Fathers, and in the second place on arguments drawn from reason, while, of course, not neglecting the history of problems and their solution."  

--Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The One God: Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas' Theological Summa (trans. B. Rose; St. Louis: Herder Book Co., 1943), 13.

"The Faithfulness of God— Where Justice and Mercy Meet": The Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the perennial questions of humanity is as follows: Is God just? In the readings for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, we find a series of passages that address the question of God’s justice, beginning with the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel.

First Reading: Ezekiel 18:25–28
Thus says the LORD:
You say, "The LORD's way is not fair!"
Hear now, house of Israel:
Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?
When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies,
it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.
But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed,
he does what is right and just,
he shall preserve his life;
since he has turned away from all the sins that he has committed,
he shall surely live, he shall not die.

In order to understand the nature of the prophet’s declaration, it is helpful to view it in context, for throughout the first 17 chapters of Ezekiel, the prophet has repeatedly declared that Judah is about to be sent into exile in Babylon as punishment for their sins.

In fact, one of the primary reasons that Judah was to be sent into exile was due to their corporate “heart problem” described by Ezekiel and Jeremiah at length, a problem that centers on failing to circumcise their hearts not just their bodies. As a result, Deut 30:1 states that the exile is the inevitable covenant curse for this inability to follow the law. 

Bible Trivia for the Day

At 66 chapters, Isaiah is the longest prophet, followed by Jeremiah with 52, and Ezekiel with 48, right?

Wrong.  In Hebrew word count, Jeremiah clocks in at almost 30,000 words, followed by Ezekiel's ~26,000 and Isaiah's ~23,000.  Isaiah is the shortest major prophet.

At 28 chapters, Matthew and Acts are the longest book of the New Testament, followed by Luke with 24, right? 

Wrong.  Luke is longest with ~16,800 Greek words, followed by Acts at ~15,800 and Matthew with ~15,600.

Does God Reward His Workers? The 25th Sunday in OT

The Gospel Reading for this Lord’s Day raises the issue of the fairness of God.  Jesus, being a good teacher, wants his students to think.  He teaches in parables that—on the one hand—do indeed communicate truth and answer questions, but—on the other—do raise new, puzzling questions that require the student (discipulus means student, after all) to think. 

1.  Our First Reading emphasizes the distance between God’s perspective and ours:

Confronting Sin in the Church: The 23rd Sunday of OT

I don’t like personal conflict.  I try to avoid it as much as possible.  Probably most Americans do.  I’m not sure what it’s like in other cultures, although I’ve heard of others where open social confrontation is more common.

This Sunday’s Readings deal with situations in which Christians have a duty to confront one another.  They don’t make for comfortable reading in a culture that puts a high value on keeping the peace and minding one’s own business.

The First Reading is the great “Watchman” passage from the prophet Ezekiel:

The Cost of Discipleship: 22nd Sunday of OT

It's been a tough week for Michael and I at our respective Universities, trying to keep up with the start of classes and a press of academic and administrative duties.  So this week I'm posting an unaltered re-run of a commentary on the Readings from three years ago:

If last Sunday’s Readings were a soft-ball pitch, a nice high arc to knock out of the park, this Sunday’s Readings are a wicked curve ball for the Catholic preacher.  Nonetheless, while these readings aren’t the “feel good” homiletical experience of last week’s, the truths are just as important and just as “Catholic.”

We begin with a troublesome passage from the prophet Jeremiah:

Peter and the Popes: The 21st Sunday of OT

 

In terms of Catholic “preachability,” this Sunday’s Readings are a soft-ball pitch, a long high arc that every homilist ought to be able to knock out of the park.  The lectionary readings have been set up for a clear explanation of the nature of the Papacy and its basis in Scripture.

The context of the Old Testament reading should be explained.  During the lifetime of the prophet Isaiah, the royal steward of the palace, a certain Shebna, was arrogating himself by adopting royal privileges.  In particular, he was having a tomb cut for himself in the area reserved for the royal sons of David.  Like Denethor in the Return of the King (not an accidental parallel, by the way—Tolkien was a thorough Catholic), he was forgetting his place as steward and confusing his role with that of the king.  As a result, the LORD sends an oracle to Shebna via Isaiah, to the effect that Shebna will be replaced in his position by a more righteous man, a certain Eliakim son of Hilkiah:

The Still Small Voice of God: 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

There is so much turmoil in the national and international news these days, it makes it difficult to maintain a sense of peace.  Instability in Ukraine, Israel, and Iraq seem capable of spiraling out of control, leading to regional or international war.  Christians are targeted for elimination in Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere.  Closer to home, we witness worrying erosion of religious liberty in developed countries, such that being known as an advocate of traditional Christian sexual morality could cause one to lose one’s job and suffer character assassination.  A legal path is opening up to force the closure of all Christian public institutions (schools, hospitals) that refuse to endorse the new sexual ethic.  If this were not enough, all of us face the turmoil of our private lives: struggles to overcome sin in ourselves and our families; illnesses and surgeries; financial struggles; temptations against faith; discouragement and dryness in prayer.  It can feel overwhelming for the individual believer who wakes up each morning to face what seems to be an overwhelming avalanche of challenges on a personal and public level.  

The Readings for this Sunday Mass address the struggle of the believer to stay in relationship with God in the face of overwhelming distractions and threats.  In the midst of wind, waves, earthquakes, the voice of God still speaks to us.

1.  The First Reading is 1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a:

Getting Wisdom: 17th Sunday of OT

 

When I was a kid, the phrase “Get wise!” was a provocative taunt—essentially, a way to start a fight.  It meant something like: “I invite you to act like a smart aleck, so I will have an excuse to assault you physically.”  My elementary school career was a bit rough.

But what does it really mean to “Get wise” or “Gain wisdom”?  The Readings for this Sunday’s Mass teach us about this issue.

During this part of Ordinary Time in Year A, the Church is pursuing a lectio continua (continuous reading, i.e. reading in order) of both Romans and Matthew.  (This excellent website by Fr. Just provides an overview of the pattern of the Lectionary. ) The First Readings are taken from key passages of the Old Testament, chosen (more or less) to complement the Gospel reading.

Hypocrites in the Church: The 16th Sunday of OT

Our Readings for this upcoming Lord’s Day involve a meditation on both God’s mercy and his justice, and the complex way both virtues of God are expressed in his government of human affairs in general and his people in particular.  We see that God’s apparent tolerance of evil in the short-term is an expression of his mercy and desire that all should repent; yet ultimately God can and will establish justice. 

1.  Reading 1 Wis 12:13, 16-19:

Gentle King of the Universe: 14th Sunday of OT

Well, folks, it has been a long, long time since we’ve had a reading on
Sunday from Ordinary Time (since March 2, to be exact), but here we are: we’re mostly “stuck” in Ordinary Time until the end of November.  Not that that’s a bad thing!  Ordinary Time has extraordinary insights.

We are in Cycle A of the Lectionary, reading through the Gospel of Matthew.  Sundays 9–13 of Ordinary Time were either skipped or pre-empted this year by the Solemnities Pentecost through Sts. Peter and Paul.  So we pick up Matthew again in media res, “in the middle of things.”

This Sunday we find Jesus more or less in the middle of his earthly ministry (Matt 11), and the Readings are marked by a strong theme of the restoration of the world-wide Kingdom of David.

1. Our First Reading is Zechariah 9:9-10: 

Body of Christ, Manna for the Journey: The Readings for Corpus Christi

This weekend is another great liturgical feast, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, otherwise known as Corpus Christi.

Corpus Christi is one of a handful of feasts that celebrates the very gift of the Eucharist itself.  It is one of my favorite feasts, because the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was instrumental in my becoming Catholic.

Back in the Fall of 1999 I was reading through the Apostolic Fathers and came to this passage in Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrneans (c. AD 106):

But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes.

I was shocked by the italicized line, because I realized that no one who held to standard Protestant views of the Eucharist would have written something like that.  “Transubstantiation” as a term may have come years later, but Ignatius’ view of the Eucharist was clearly that it had become transformed into the flesh of Christ.  Since Ignatius was writing ten years after the death of the Apostle John, there was not enough time for him to have gotten “confused” on this issue.  It dawned on me that Ignatius was simply reflecting the views of the early Christians on the Eucharist—views that they must have gotten from the Apostles themselves.

In any event, the Readings for this Feast have obvious and strong relevance to Eucharistic doctrine.

The First Reading, taken from Deuteronomy, reflects on the gift of the manna to the Israelites during the forty years in the wilderness, an obvious type of the Eucharist:

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

 Three Angels of Gen 18 as Symbol of Trinity

At the end of, and following, the Easter Season, we have a sort of “trifecta” of major feasts: Pentecost, Trinity, and Corpus Christi, as the Church celebrates the central mysteries of the faith before the Lectionary returns to the readings of the Ordinary Time cycle on Sundays once again.  This June we get a sort of “quadrafecta,” with the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul landing on the Sunday after Corpus Christi. 

In any event, this weekend is Trinity Sunday, a meditation and celebration of the central mystery of the Christian faith, the dogma that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions.  Christians alone believe in one God, who nonetheless exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Strangely, our Readings for this Sunday tend not to be classic “proof texts” for the idea that there is more than one person in the Godhead.  Instead, the readings tend to focus on the character or essence of God.  This is appropriate, because as we will see, the character of God is very different, and the meaning of salvation history as well, when one knows God to be a Trinity of persons. 

Reading 1: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9:

Glory of Love: The 7th Sunday of Easter

In the provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and Omaha, Ascension Day is observed on it's proper day, and this Sunday is observed as the Seventh Sunday of Easter.  It's a shame that so much of the country will not have a chance to meditate on these Scriptures, but perhaps even those of us living in areas where the Seventh Sunday is not celebrated can benefit by bringing these Readings to our prayer.

(If you're looking for the Ascension commentary, it's below.)

Holy Mother Church offers as an intriguing theme in these Readings: the paradoxical relationship between glory and suffering.  We find these two motifs expressed particularly in the Second Reading and Gospel.

1. Our First Reading is Acts 1:12-1:

After Jesus had been taken up to heaven the apostles

returned to Jerusalem

from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem,

a sabbath day’s journey away.

God Mounts His Throne with Shouts of Joy: The Readings for Ascension Day

In most of the USA, Ascension Day is observed this Sunday, whereas in the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia, it is observed on its proper day, Thursday May 29, forty days after Easter.

1. Ascension Day is an unusual Feast, in which the “action” of the Feast Day actually takes place in the First Reading rather than the Gospel. We typically think of all the narratives of Jesus’ life as recorded in the Gospels, overlooking that Acts records at least two important narratives about the activity of the Resurrected Lord (Acts 1:1-11; also 9:1-8).

In the first book, Theophilus,
I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught
until the day he was taken up,
after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit

Building the Temple of God: Fifth Sunday of Easter

Since the beginning of time, human beings have sought to construct buildings that would bridge the gap between the temporal and eternal, earthly and heavenly planes of existence.  These temples have taken widely differing forms in many cultures.  One of the greatest was the Jerusalem temple begun by Herod the Great (73–4 BC), an architectural marvel of the ancient world while it stood. 

The authors of the New Testament texts in this Sunday’s Readings were well familiar with Herod’s great temple, yet they were convinced that God had begun the construction new and greater dwelling place for himself in their own time, consisting not of gathered stones, but of a gathering (ekklesia) of human beings, first of whom was Jesus the Christ.  Thus, our Readings are filled with images of the building of the Church, the new sanctuary that would replace the old and continue to serve as God’s habitation on earth till the end of time.

1.  Our First Reading is Acts 6:1-7:

Burning Hearts and Open Scriptures: The Third Sunday of Easter

 

How do we know that Jesus was someone and something different than the numerous religious leaders or founders of religions that have appeared on the stage of world history over the centuries?  Last week we examined one way that he is different: unlike Buddha, Mohammed, or Zarathustra, Jesus rose from the grave after his death, appearing and talking to his followers at length.  In this week’s liturgy, the Third Sunday of Easter, we examine another remarkable piece of evidence for the uniqueness of Jesus: the fact that his suffering and resurrection were strikingly foreshadowed by the sacred writings of the prophets of Israel, hundreds of years before his earthly sojourn.