Hey, how about those Dominican Sisters of Mary? They’ve made it all the way to the final round of the American Bible Challenge!! What winsome ambassadors those ladies are – radiantly Christian and really, really good with a Bible. We can hope that this will serve to allay some of the Evangelical concerns about the Catholic Church’s stance vis-à-vis Bible-reading. Let’s just say there’s a lot of weirdness out there. Many Evangelicals “know” that Catholic nuns are ignorant of Scripture (of course they must be, the thinking goes – if the Church allowed nuns to read the Bible, the Church wouldn’t have any nuns!) If you google around, you can find testimonies by former nuns who claim that the Church discourages or makes difficult or even forbids Bible-reading by religious sisters. Three former nuns tell their stories:

In fact, during the whole 10 years I was in the convent with 200 other nuns, we had one Bible between us. But – we never opened it.

When I had those quiet times in my room, I remember one time trying to read the Bible but found it very boring. I was in the convent for almost two years and I can only remember picking up that Bible that one time.

Following her operation she awoke praising the Lord for sparing her life and asked me to read aloud from the Bible. I began to shake all over for, as a Roman Catholic nun, I was never allowed to read the Bible.

Two of these stories demonstrate a lack of interest in the Holy Scriptures on the part of some nuns, which is sad but plausible. The third, however, corroborates the suspicions of Evangelicals who have been told that the Church would really, really rather that Catholics not crack open the Bible lest they find out how badly they have been hoodwinked. The Bible-smart Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, with their glowing faces and Christ-like demeanor are hard at work laying that myth to rest. It’s kind of hard to support this story of the “forbidden Bible” when comparing it with the success of the sisters on the Bible Challenge, or with the historical record, for that matter. After all, Pope Leo XIII, who reigned from 1878 to 1903, made no secret of the fact that he thought that Bible reading is kinda important:

…it is well to recall how, from the beginning of Christianity, all who have been renowned for holiness of life and sacred learning have given their deep and constant attention to Holy Scripture.

Those who believe in the putative diabolical conspiracy to keep religious sisters ignorant of the Scriptures have a hard time explaining words like that; the pope was basically exhorting anyone who wishes to lead a holy life – like nuns – to immerse herself in the Bible. Of course, a variation of the myth claims that the Catholic Church, which USED TO forbid nuns to read the Bible, has been forced to change its tune by the constant clamor of Bible-loving Protestants against this obvious injustice. The historical record, again, makes that claim look pretty dopey. Take St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who lived and died in 19^th-century France:

In my helplessness the Holy Scriptures and the Imitation are of the greatest assistance; in them I find a hidden manna, genuine and pure. But it is from the Gospels that I find most help in the time of prayer; from them I draw all that I need for my poor soul. I am always discovering in them new lights and hidden mysterious meanings.

So I sought in holy Scripture some idea of what this life I wanted would be, and I read these words….

It has long been the custom among men to reckon experience by age, for in his youth the holy King David sang to His Lord: “I am young and despised,” but in the same Psalm he does not fear to say: “I have had understanding above old men, because I have sought Thy commandments, Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths; I have sworn, and I am determined, to keep the judgments of Thy Justice.”

We live in an age of inventions; nowadays the rich need not trouble to climb the stairs, they have lifts instead. Well, I mean to try and find a lift by which I may be raised unto God, for I am too tiny to climb the steep stairway of perfection. I have sought to find in Holy Scripture some suggestion as to what this lift might be which I so much desired, and I read these words uttered by the Eternal Wisdom Itself: “Whosoever is a little one, let him come to Me.”

I opened, one day, the Epistles of St. Paul to seek relief in my sufferings. My eyes fell on the 12th and 13th chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. I read that all cannot become Apostles, Prophets, and Doctors; that the Church is composed of different members; that the eye cannot also be the hand. The answer was clear, but it did not fulfill my desires, or give to me the peace I sought.
Then descending into the depths of my nothingness, I was so lifted up that I reached my aim. Without being discouraged I read on, and found comfort in this counsel: “Be zealous for the better gifts. And I show unto you a yet more excellent way.” The Apostle then explains how all perfect gifts are nothing without Love, that Charity is the most excellent way of going surely to God. At last I had found rest.”

In a nutshell, St. Thérèse had a Bible and she knew how to use it, unlike the ex-nuns quoted above.

Bible-literate nuns could be found wherever and whenever female religious orders existed. Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz of 17th-century Mexico wrote a letter (now known as “A Reply to Sor Filotea de la Cruz”) in which she cites or alludes to Lk 1:43, 1 Sam 9:21, 2 Cor 12:4, Jn 21:25, Ex 33:13, Est 5:2-3, Ps 50:16, 2 Cor 12:11, Dan 9:21-27, Job 38:31-32, Gen 18:23-33, Mk 3:6, Jn 11:47-57, Ex 34:30, Jn 11:47, Isa 11:10, Lk 2:34, Mt 27:28-31, Job 1:7, 1 Pet 5:8, Jn 12:31, Gen 3:18, Lk 23:27-28, SoS 3:11, Jn 11:8-9, Jn 10:1-31, Jn 11:16, Jn 10:32-33, Lk 22:54, Lk 9:33, Lk 22:57, Lk 22:56, Judges 4:4-14, 1 Kings 10:1-3, 1 Sam 1:1-20, 1 Sam 25:2-35, Est 5-9, Josh 2:1-7, 1 Cor 14:34, Titus 2:3-5, Wis 1:4, Rom 12:3, Ps 141:5, Joel 2:13, Pr 31:23, Lk 7:44-45, SoS 1:2, Ps 116:13, 1 Tim 2:11, Mk 16:1, Jn 12:3, Lk 10:40-42, Acts 17:28, Titus 1:12, Lk 1:46-55, and Ex 2:1-10.

A letter!

Imagine if she had been writing a book….

By the way, where did she get all that from if the Catholic Church allowed her no access to a Bible?

The case of St. Teresa of Ávila needs no comment; she is said to have quoted from Scripture over 600 times in her writings. St. Teresa lived in 16^th-century Spain, at the time of Martin Luther who as everyone knows spent a great deal of time studying the Bible, which the Church made no attempt to keep from him, when he was an Augustinian monk.

Of course many religious sisters have been unable to read the Scriptures for themselves; in that case the Church herself taught them the Scriptures. St. Clare of Assisi, who lived in the 13^th century, was “unlettered” and learned the word of God from the friars who preached at her abbey. As the Golden Legend tells us:

On a time it happed that the pope Gregory defended that no friar should go to the house of the ladies without his leave. And when the holy mother St. Clare knew that, she had much sorrow in her heart, because she saw well she might not have that which was needful, which was the nurture of Holy Scripture, and said to her sisters with a sorrowful heart; Now forthon well may the pope Gregory take from us all the friars, when he hath taken from us them that nourished our souls with the Word of God. And anon she sent again all the friars of her house to the master or minister, for she said she had nothing to do to have friars to get them bodily bread, when they failed them that nourished her and her sisters with the Word of God. Anon as the pope Gregory heard this tiding he repealed that which he had defended, and set all at the will of God.

Other nuns were better educated. History records that St. Gertrude the Great, a nun in 13^th-century Germany, devoted herself to studying the Scriptures, patristic writings and theology, and wrote simplified versions of difficult scriptural passages in Latin and in her native German. Her devotion to the Bible comes as no surprise, because her abbess, Gertrude of Hackeborn, required her nuns to be well-educated in the Scriptures.

St. Leoba, an 8^th-century native of England, traveled with St. Boniface to the court of Charlemagne, where she was a good friend of and tremendous influence upon his queen, Hildegarde. St. Leoba’s Vita tells us that “So great was her zeal for reading that she discontinued it only for prayer or for the refreshment of her body with food or sleep: the Scriptures were never out of her hands…. When she lay down to rest, whether at night or in the afternoon, she used to have the Sacred Scriptures read out at her bedside, a duty which the younger nuns carried out in turn without grumbling.” And the Vita Sanctae Geretrudis tells us that the Belgian St. Gertrude of Nivelles was very familiar with Holy Scripture, to the point where she had much of it memorized. Perhaps these were exaggerations, but they are strange claims for contemporaries of Sts. Leoba and Gertrude to put into writing if the 7^th- and 8^th-century Catholic Church did not permit nuns to read the Bible.

Examples stretch from the 19^th-century American St. Elizabeth Ann Seton who “prayed her way through life’s joys and struggles using Sacred Scripture,” to 5^th-century St. Egeria, quoting from and alluding to the Bible in all her letters from the Holy Land. Saints like Thérèse, Elizabeth Ann, Teresa, Clare, Gertrude, Egeria and Leoba, and run-of-the-mill sisters like Juana and Gertrude of Hackeborn lived in different parts of the world in different centuries over the past 1500 years – where and when exactly did the Catholic Church keep the Scriptures from its religious sisters??

Have there been nuns who were ignorant of the Scriptures? I’m sure there have been, and still are. The point is, there has never been a Church conspiracy to keep them that way.

Former nuns hoping to sell horror stories to those with a conspiracy-theory bent have fallen on hard times. While there have always been (and sadly, always will be) religious sisters who find the Bible boring, the Church has never stood between them and Jesus. History is full of biblically literate, Christ-honoring religious, and the Dominican Sisters of Mary put a modern-day face on that. And I say, God bless them!! All the best to them – if the Bible Challenge would quiz the contestants on the 7 books Protestants removed from the Old Testament, I know the sisters would have the competition all sewn up!

Does or did or will the Catholic Church ever keep religious sisters from reading the Holy Scriptures?

Nun of the above.

On the memorial of St. Mateo Correa Magallanes

Deo omnis gloria!

Need Help With Your Prayers?

May 19, 2013

Holy Spirit

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Flies on the wall have all the fun. Imagine being present in the Upper Room during the period between the Ascension and Pentecost. Nine intense days of prayer, and then an explosion of power that makes the atom bomb look like a fizzle.

According to Scripture:

They went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.

I wish I could’ve been there. I imagine the apostles, one-by-one or as a group, going to the Blessed Virgin and saying something along the lines of:

“Hail, Mary, mother of Jesus Who is the Christ! We have heard the story you tell of the Annunciation, and we proclaim with the archangel Gabriel that you are indeed full of grace! The Lord is with you! There has never been another woman like you, and never shall there be! We, the apostles of Jesus Christ, recognize that our apostolate is rooted in your “fiat”! You are holy, and because of this you merited to bear the Incarnate Son of God, blessed be His Holy Name!

Mary, you whom Jesus gave to John the beloved disciple as his mother, and who therefore are by extension the mother of all of us who believe, we ask you now to pray for us – we are sinners. God will hear your prayers. Ask Him to send us the Comforter Who was promised to us. Ask Him to provide the Power to go out and make disciples of all nations. Ask Him to give us all that we need to bear witness to His resurrection.”

And she did.

And the rest, as they say, is His-Story. The Church recognizes the nine days that the apostles spent in prayer with the Blessed Virgin as the first novena. The world is still reeling from God’s answer to that prayer.

So if you feel like your prayers aren’t going any farther than the ceiling, try bringing in the big guns. EWTN has many novenas you can pray for your intentions. Entrust those intentions to the Mother of God, who always prays in perfect conformity to the will of God.

And then stand back….

On the solemnity of Pentecost

Deo omnis gloria!

You Won’t Like Me When I’m Protestant

May 17, 2013

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My daughter, who entered the Church as a 10-year-old, is now a senior at the local Baptist university. She has come up against something that all Catholics face sooner or later – dumb-as-dirt anti-Catholic bias. It turns out that she has professors who harbor the wish that she will be saved by rejecting key elements of Catholic doctrine, thus rendering her a Protestant in Catholic clothing. This is not really surprising; she has had some wonderful teachers these past couple of years (including an art professor who took the time to explain to the class the Biblical basis of the Catholic doctrine of relics, and a choir director with some very positive things to say about Pope Francis). Some professors, however, have not been so positive. Those professors would agree with the phrase, “The only good Catholic is a former Catholic.” My daughter, who was offended to have her Christianity called into question, told me sadly, “Mom, if they think I’m not a very good Christian, it’s because I need to be a better Catholic, not a worse one!”

Well put. Protestants often think that what Catholics need to do is to break from the official teachings of the Church, to adopt more Protestant ways of looking at things, more Protestant approaches to theology, more Protestant methods of worshiping God. There’s just one little thing they’ve overlooked – When we Catholics become more Protestant, we simply become part of the problem. To paraphrase the Hulk’s alter ego, David Banton:

You won’t like me when I’m Protestant.

Those Evangelicals tend to want to overlook the points of
agreement between orthodox Catholics (meaning those faithful to the teaching of the Church) and conservative Protestants. As a faithful Catholic, I am bound to confess my belief:

- in the Trinity, with God as the Creator of the universe

- the Incarnation of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, conceived miraculously by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, Who literally suffered, died and rose from the dead before ascending to be seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to resurrect the dead

- in the Holy Spirit Who is the third Person of the Trinity

- in the evil one who is a being we call the devil

- in salvation by grace through faith

- in the inspiration and infallibility of Holy Scripture

and in many other doctrines to which an Evangelical can only respond with a hearty “Amen!” These points of agreement are very often overlooked by people who want to tar Catholics with the same brush that they use on non-Christian cults, despite the fact that an excellent case can be made from a Protestant standpoint that anyone who worships the Triune God cannot be considered a non-Christian.

The root of the word “Protestant” is the verb “to protest.” Hoping that Catholics will begin to “protest” the authority of the Church might not turn out the way that you had hoped, my Evangelical friend. I know that you are hoping that we will embrace sola Scriptura and sola fide, 7-Day creationism and the doctrine of the secret rapture as you do when we protest the authority of the Church – but you realize that other results might be forthcoming, don’t you? Remember Victor Frankenstein? He too meant no harm, but experiments with multiple variables can be hard to control….

There are Catholics who are doing exactly what you think you want Catholics to do – breaking from the official teachings of the Church. That, in essence, makes those Catholics “protestant” because they reject the exclusive authority of the Catholic Magisterium (the teaching office of the Church) to interpret Holy Scripture. Those folks have got “a better idea,” just as Martin Luther did when he decided to teach that justification is NOT by faith (as the Church teaches), but rather by faith ALONE. They’ll tell you, just as Luther insisted, that they won’t let the Catholic Church do their thinking for them! They think for themselves! Just what you are hoping Catholics will say!

Cue the sinister music, because this is where things start to get ugly. You think Catholics should reject the authority of the Church, just as you do? Well, these folks agree with you completely; they reject any claims the Catholic Church makes to the exclusive authority of interpreting Scripture. They therefore deny the Virgin Birth, the literal Resurrection of Jesus from the dead as well as our own future resurrection, the existence of Satan, and the infallibility of Scripture, while proposing a host of other doctrinal novelties that will curl your Protestant hair! In this they are not alone; there are plenty of liberal Protestants who will gladly join hands with them in insisting that God is whatever they happen to believe She is. This scary little group will merrily deconstruct the narrative of salvation history, disassemble the canon of Scripture, and decry the belief in a future life as a holdover from medieval foggery. They will agitate for abortion, euthanasia and same-sex everything and anything. These men and women will be only too happy to join with Protestants in affirming the one and only doctrine all Protestants can agree on – the Catholic Church is WRONG!

But they are NOT your friends, dear Evangelical. Trust me. They are your worst nightmare.

The Catholic Church teaches that Protestants are our fellow Christians, our separated brethren. Might you come to the point where you can consider us your friends in Christ? Just remember, inciting protest can backfire. Some very volatile chemicals react in that mix. I would rethink that wish that Catholics might become more Protestant, if I were you. Because sometimes wishes come true…

… and you might be creating a monster!

On the memorial of St. Paschal Baylon

Deo omnis gloria!

Photo credit: The Incredible Hulk by Jeremy Thompson

Nøkken by Theodor Kittelsen

A Double-Edged Sword

May 15, 2013

Apologetics

Signs and Wonders

May 12, 2013

Holy Spirit

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When I was in high school, my mother, a lifelong Methodist, became a fervent charismatic, something of which my father thoroughly disapproved. As a family we attended the nondenominational Scottsdale Bible Church, but during the week Mom would take me to charismatic meetings. With my mother I once attended a small gathering of charismatics to listen to the preaching of Frances and Charles Hunter, and to watch as they “healed” several of those present suffering from leg-length discrepancy. I guess no more serious ailments were afflicting those present that day. There was a great hoopla and a cacophony of tongues, and everyone went home happy.

I’m not claiming that God never used Frances to heal anyone – I simply don’t know that. But I do know that on that day no one was healed, yet we pretended that several had been. And that was not unusual, nor was it of evil intent. Our hungry hearts yearned for God to manifest His power in our sight. We simply loved God so much that pretty much everything had to be viewed as a “miracle.” To think otherwise was evidence of a lack of faith.

That wore thin after a while. I began to realize that some of the vaunted “healings” among charismatics were most likely cases of medically unsophisticated individuals being told by their doctor that he had seen “something” on an x-ray, something which might just be an artifact, but which needed further investigation because, although highly unlikely, he could not completely rule out (worst case scenario) cancer. Said individual, who heard the doctor say, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, CANCER” requests prayer for the “cancer which was found on the x-ray.” Fervent prayer ensues. Said individual returns for further tests, and it turns out that the “something” seen on the first x-ray isn’t there anymore, having been merely an artifact as the doctor suspected. Said individual, however, returns to his church utterly convinced that he has been healed of “the cancer that my doctor told me he saw on the x-ray,” and reports the “miracle” to the congregation who believe it without questioning, not wanting to be accused of a lack of faith. In my few years as a charismatic (and in my mother’s many years – she was involved right up until progressive dementia made it impossible to attend church), neither of us was ever confronted with a medically documented miracle among the “healings” reported in our midst. And that was a lotta “healings” over the course of a lotta years.

Obviously not all Protestants fall prey to this theology. In fact, some swing the other way. They are cessationists, claiming that miracles went out with the apostles. Calvinist cessationist B.B. Warfield, in his Counterfeit Miracles, sought to debunk Catholic claims of miracles, and fumed against the “exploitation” at Lourdes, inexplicably drawing into his argument the writings of the atheist French physician Émile Zola to show that the healings at Lourdes are but a fraud (Zola was actually a witness to a miracle at Lourdes, the healing of
Marie Lemarchand, yet declared, “Were I to see all the sick at Lourdes cured, I would not believe in a miracle!”). Warfield, though a Christian, was apparently of the same persuasion as Zola. “Lourdes does not register her failures,” he groused, claiming that the fact that more Catholics are left uncured after a visit to Lourdes than receive healing is somehow proof that the whole thing is a hoax – though Warfield was undoubtedly familiar with the passage in Acts 12 where Sts. Peter and James are arrested. The church prayed fervently for them both; Peter was miraculously released from prison by an angel, and James was executed. According to Warfield’s logic, that episode demonstrates a 50% failure rate on the part of the early church and its prayers, and thus by his reasoning the Good News was a hoax as well.

In my final Protestant incarnation I was a Baptist, and took the middle road. I had trouble buying into cessationism. I believed that God still healed people. Didn’t the Gospel of Mark tell us that “These signs shall follow them that believe; they shall lay hands on the sick, and shall recover”? I didn’t think that charismatics were wrong to expect miracles. Miracles just didn’t, in my opinion, seem to be forthcoming among the charismatic assemblies with which I or my mother were associated. Despite my disenchantment with charismatic “healings,” I nevertheless remained convinced that God can and does work miraculously in this world. When we were regaled with occasional tales of healings on the mission field, I believed that those might not have been mere rumors and exaggerations. I knew that God the Holy Spirit was still at work in our day.

I just didn’t have any documented proof of that.

Now, consider this announcement from late last year:

Today, 20 December 2012, Pope Benedict XVI received in a private audience Angelo Cardinal Amato, S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints. During the audience, the Holy Father authorized the Congregation of the Causes of Saints to promulgate the following twenty-four decrees regarding [among other things]:

- A MIRACLE, attributed to the intercession of Blesseds Antonio Primaldo and 800 Companions, laypersons of the diocese of Otranto, killed in odium fidei on 13 August 1480 in Otranto (Italy); cult confirmed on 14 December 1771; martyrdom recognized on 06 July 2007

- A MIRACLE, attributed to the intercession of the Blessed MarÍa Laura de Jesus Montoya Upegui (in religion, Laura of Saint Catherine of Siena), founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Virgin Mary and Saint Catherine of Siena; born on 26 May 1874 in Jericó, Antioquía (Colombia) and died on 21 October 1949 in Belencito, Medellín, Antioquía (Colombia); beatified on 25 April 2004

- A MIRACLE, attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Anastasia Guadalupe García Zavala (in religion, María Guadalupe), cofounder of the Handmaids of Saint Margaret Mary and of the Poor; born on 27 April 1878 in Zapopan, Jalisco (Mexico) and died on 24 June 1963 in Guadalajara, Jalisco (Mexico); beatified on 25 April 2004

Yeah, right – would have been my charismatic response. As a Protestant I just KNEW that those Catholic “miracles” were bogus. Obviously bogus. Since the Catholics had their theology all messed up, I reasoned, there’s no way God doesn’t work real miracles in a charismatic assembly but does work them when Catholics pray. Impossible.

Today the above-mentioned two women and one large group of men are being canonized by Pope Francis. The story of why one of them, Laura Montoya, is being declared a saint is a good illustration of the work of the Holy Spirit, the work that I as a charismatic was looking for, the work that I as a Baptist was still longing to see, in the Catholic Church today:

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (CNS) — In early January 2005, Carlos Eduardo Restrepo, a Colombian anesthesiologist suffering from lupus and a severe infection in his thorax, faced death.

His family and friends were preparing for the worst. He was given last rites. But then an image of Blessed Mother Laura Montoya appeared to him, he said.

“I remember it very well. In the moment, I was calm. I prayed to her: Help me get through this and it will allow you to get to the altars,” he told the newspaper El Colombiano.

Restrepo survived and was cured of his disease.

“If this wasn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is,” he said.

Pope Benedict XVI recognized it as a miracle last year, making it the second miracle attributed to Mother Montoya. In 1994, a Colombian woman, Herminia Gonzalez Trujillo, who had been hemorrhaging due to uterine cancer, was cured after praying to Mother Montoya.

Mother Montoya will be the first Columbian saint, with two thoroughly impressive, modern-day, physician-documented miracles under her cinture. From a Protestant perspective, kind of hard to explain.

Since becoming a Catholic, I have REVELED in the miracles leading to the canonization of various saints. These appear from time to time in newspapers and magazines, all documenting that the cures simply cannot be explained from a medical standpoint, and that they occurred after Catholics petitioned various “servants of God” for their prayers. One of the most extraordinary recent cases was the healing of an American boy, Jake Finkbonner, leading to the canonization of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. Jake himself tells the story on his website:

We thank the doctors at Children’s Hospital for all that they did to save my life. I wouldn’t be here without them. I also thank all the people that prayed for me. Obviously, God heard their prayers. This decision to canonize Blessed Kateri is something that the Vatican and the Pope declared, based on testimonies given by parishioners, my family and my doctors. Congratulations to the Catholic Church and the Native American culture in the canonizing of the now Saint Kateri.

My scars came in 2006 when I was just 5 years old. I was playing basketball for the Boys & Girls club, it was the last game of the season and the last minute of the game. I was running down court with the ball, I stopped in front of the hoop to shoot when I was pushed from behind. I flew forward and hit my mouth on the base of the portable basketball hoop. Lurking on the surface of that base was Strep A, also known as the “flesh eating bacteria” or Necrotizing Fasciitis. When I hit my mouth, my tooth pierced the inside of my lip and from that small pierce is where the Strep A entered into my body. By the next day I was fighting for my life. I am so thankful to the doctors at Children’s Hospital in Seattle that saved my life.”

Jake’s skin was being eaten away by the bacteria, and the decision was made to invoke the prayers of then-Blessed Kateri, a Native American (Jake’s dad is a Native American) whose skin was scarred from smallpox. The necrotizing fasciitis just disappeared.

And there are more signs and wonders. One miracle is necessary for the beatification of an individual, and one for canonization, so let’s take the case of the recently canonized Australian saint, Mary MacKillop:

Miracle #1: Veronica Hopson, 1961

”I went to see [my doctor] because I was tired and lazy and because of the bad cramp I was getting, because of the transparency in my hands and because everyone kept telling me I didn’t look well,” Mrs Hopson told the Vatican when it was investigating MacKillop’s life and works.

”He arranged for me to go into hospital. At that time I did collapse and couldn’t do any work at all.” She was diagnosed with acute myeloblastic leukaemia and told ”death was the evident outcome”.

”I thought she had perhaps a month to live,” said her haematologist, Redmond Dalton.

The nurses believed she was ”beyond prayers”. Her husband, Allan, told the Vatican: ”The doctors told me not to expect anything.”

Mrs Hopson went home to die on November 17. Her marriage was confirmed in a Catholic ceremony on the same day.

A month later she was back in hospital, sicker than before and with excruciating abscesses in her left arm and right thigh.

Veronica Hopson recovered completely and went on to give birth to six children. She credits the prayers of the nuns invoking the aid of Mary MacKillop for her healing, and so does the Vatican.

Miracle #2: Kathleen Evans, 1990s

“My name is Kathleen Evans. I’m married to Barry. I’m a mother of 5 and a grandmother of 20 including 2 great grandchildren. I come from the small town of Windale in Lake Macquarie. In the 1990′s, I was diagnosed with a non small carcinoma in my right lung.

After x-rays and scans were taken, my GP sent me to a heart, lung surgeon. He put me in hospital for a biopsy. The surgeon explained that he hoped to remove my right lung as my youngest child was only 13. And by taking the lung out, it might give me 5 or 6 years to see him through high school. What he found was that the cancer was very aggressive and had spread into my glands. He was concerned that one of the glands was too close to the aorta. He also asked for an x-ray of my head to be taken. He found that a secondary had started at the bottom of my brain. This put paid to any operation.

I was then sent to a chemotherapist who gave me no hope of the chemotherapy working.

The next step was radiotherapy, only to be told that any ray treatment would help with the side effects and perhaps give me a couple more weeks at the end. For this to happen, I would have to go to the hospital for 10 consecutive days. I was too sick for that. Besides the odds were just not worth it. I was only given a couple of months at the most to live. So I said thanks, but no thanks. I went back to my doctor and asked him to see me through until the end. All this took 1 month.”

A friend gave Kathleen a relic of Mary MacKillop which she wore night and day. Family and friends asked Blessed Mary for her prayers, and Kathleen began to feel better. She was eventually declared cured by her doctors, and was alive to see the 2010 canonization of the saint whose intercession she believes led to her recovery.

Three female saints, five medically inexplicable cures. But now, to give holy men their due, the canonization miracle of St. Juan Diego:

On May 3, 1990, in Mexico City, nineteen-year-old Juan José Barragán suffered from severe depression and, wanting to commit suicide, he threw himself from the balcony of his apartment, striking his head on the concrete pavement thirty feet below, despite his mother’s frantic attempts to hold onto him as she cried out to Juan Diego for help. The young man was rushed to the nearby hospital, where the doctor there noted his serious condition and suggested that the boy’s mother pray to God. To this, the young man’s mother replied that she already had prayed for Juan Diego’s intercession. For three days, examination and intensive care continued, and physicians diagnosed a large basal fracture of the skull – a wound that normally would have killed at the moment of impact, and even now destroyed any hope of survival or repair. Given the mortal nature of the wounds, on May 6 all extraordinary medical support was ceased, and young Juan José’s death was thought to be imminent. But that same day, Juan José sat up, began to eat, and within ten days was entirely recovered, with no debilitating side-effects, not even so much as a headache. In the scans, the doctors could see clear evidence of the life-threatening fracture, but to their surprise they noticed that the bone was mended, with the arteries and veins all in place. Astonished, they requested more tests by specialists for second opinions, only to have their original assessment confirmed. Impossible, unexplainable, it was declared a miracle.

A cause for canonization very dear to American hearts is that of Venerable Fulton Sheen. Will this be the miracle that brings him to beatification?

“One year ago today I delivered my son, a stillborn. For a moment he was placed in my arms quiet, blue, and limp. The midwife and her assistant then took him from me and began CPR. They could not find a pulse. He did not breathe. Because we were at home (it was my third, planned homebirth) 911 was called.

While CPR was continued and we waited for the ambulance my husband took water and baptized him using the name we had agreed upon, James Fulton. I remember sitting on the floor saying, “Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen” over and over again in my head. I suppose it was as close as I could come to a prayer; I suppose it was my way of asking Archbishop Sheen to interceded for my son.

The paramedics came and rushed James away. In route, as they tried to restart his heart, they gave him two doses of epinephrine by lines in the shin bone. Neither worked and one leaked out, turning his whole right leg – from toe tip to buttock – black and blue and purple. In the ER the doctors and nurses worked on him for another 18 minutes or so. A nurse practitioner told me she wanted James’ mother to be able to hold him alive for a little bit. Five minutes, an hour – she just wanted my son to be alive long enough for me to say good-bye.

They did a sonogram of his heart. It fluttered but it didn’t beat. A nurse held his foot; she later told me it was cold, like the expression “cold and dead”. He was intubated and getting oxygen, but there was no way that the chest compressions were adequately circulating the oxygen to the brain and other organs. Following the orders of the on-call neonatologist they stopped working on him so they could call time of death.

My little boy, James Fulton, 9lbs and 12oz, had been without a pulse for 61 minutes.

Everyone stopped working. And then his heart started.”

Although it was apparent that James Fulton would live, physicians held out no hope that his life would ever be a normal one. Both an EEG and an MRI showed brain injury from lack of oxygen. The family and everyone who knew them continued to pray, invoking Fulton Sheen’s intercession:

Eternal Father, You alone grant us every blessing in Heaven and on earth, through the redemptive mission of Your Divine Son, Jesus Christ, and by the working of the Holy Spirit. If it be according to Your Will, glorify Your servant, Fulton J. Sheen, by granting the favor I now request through his prayerful intercession – that James Fulton’s body heals and functions normally and that he is spared any brain damage. I make this prayer confidently through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

And God heard the prayers of His servant. James Fulton Engstrom is a normal, thriving toddler with no sign of brain damage.

Impossible!

But true.

Don’t get me wrong – I believe that God can and does work the occasional miracle among Protestants, and even for unbelievers who need that extra push towards Christianity. But my persistent belief that miracles must be out there despite the fakery and false hope of my past experience has been validated by the miracles of the saints. The claims of the Catholic Church are thereby validated as well.

There was recently exciting news concerning the canonization of Blessed John Paul II, who is one step away from being declared a saint. The miracle which led to his beatification was the healing of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a French nun suffering from Parkinson’s. A second potential miracle is apparently under consideration, and rumor has it that he may be canonized as early as October.

And when he is canonized, I’ll be grinning from ear to ear. Miracles do happen.

I knew it!

On Ascension Sunday

Deo omnis gloria!

Photo credit: Stained glass window in the southern section of the ambulatory, close to the Lady’s Chapel. Depicted is the raising of Dorcas by Saint Peter in the upper section with the inscription Peter said Dorcas arise and she opened her eyes, and the release of the Apostles from prison by an angle (Acts 5:19) with the inscription I was in prison & ye came unto me. Created by Heaton, Butler & Bayne in 1889. By Andreas F. Borchert

Like Jesus

May 9, 2013

Holy Spirit

1 Comment

The Ascension was never my favorite Bible story, containing as it did all the elements of a monumental tragedy – at least as far as I was concerned. The poor, shell-shocked disciples of Christ, barely recovered from the horror of the Crucifixion, just beginning to exult in the reality that even death could not defeat their Lord, gullibly follow Jesus up the Mount of Olives, and He leaves them! How could He?? I know, I know – He mumbled something about having to leave so that He could send the “Comforter.” Paraclete, Schmaraclete! was my well-reasoned response. I want JESUS! The story was a triumph for Him – He got to go Home! I was stuck here….

No, I was not a big fan of the Ascension. It might have helped if I had known that the Ascension was actually all about: ME.

Question: Who is the light of the world? Little-known fact: I AM.

Hang on a minute – Jesus proclaimed in John 8:12 that HE was the Light of the World.

Absolutely correct. It is, however, also absolutely correct for me to insist that I am the light of the world, because Jesus said I was, in His Sermon on the Mount.

In fact, if you read the New Testament carefully, you’ll notice that an incredible number of “parallel” claims are made along those same lines. Jesus would explain to his disciples that He was something specific like the Light of the World, and later in Scripture we would be told that WE were (or were to become) that very same thing. A few examples:

Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. Jn 3:16

“For you are all sons of God
through faith in Christ Jesus.” Gal 3:26

Jesus has been appointed “the heir of all things.” Heb 1:2

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…” Rom 8:16

Jesus is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Col 1:15

“For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Rom 8:29

Jesus is “the radiance of [the Father's] glory and the exact representation of His nature….” Heb 1:3

“For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature” 2 Pet 1:4

Jesus is “the apostle and high priest whom we confess.” Heb 3:1

“But you are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own….” 1 Pet 2:9

Jesus is the “one mediator between God and men” 1 Tim 2:5

“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority….” 1 Tim 2:1

Jesus was “crucified in weakness, yet He lives by God’s power.” 2 Cor 13:4

“Likewise, we are weak in Him, yet by God’s power we will live with Him
to serve you.” 2 Cor 13:4

Jesus is seated “at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Heb 1:3

“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms
in Christ Jesus….” Eph 2:6

We are called to be what Jesus is, to imitate Him in all things (except in His divine Essence – we will not become God, but we are commanded to become god-ly.) Jesus was very God of very God, but He did not spend His earthly existence sitting around marveling at this fact. Jesus “went about doing good.” This means, obviously, that we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. One small problem… We are unable to do anything of ourselves!

“Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Jn 15:5

Make that one BIG problem – Jesus just ascended to the Father, and He didn’t take us with Him! And so much is expected of us, as the “parallel” statements make abundantly clear!

Jesus was sent: “I am not here on my own, but He who sent me is true. Jn 7:28

“As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” Jn 17:18

Jesus became “a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth….” Rom 15:8

“Your attitude should be the same
as that of Christ Jesus, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant….” Phil 2:5

Jesus said, “The Father who dwells in me is doing His works.” Jn 14:9

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Eph 2:10

Jesus was “a Man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs.” Acts 2:22

“…he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these
he will do.” (Jn 14:12)

The Father gave Jesus “authority over all people” Jn 17:3, to “reign forever and ever” Rev 11:5

“… if we endure, we will also reign with Him.” 2 Tim 2:12

Jesus is “the one whom God appointed as the judge of the living and the dead.” Acts 10:42

“Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?… Do you not know that we will judge angels?” I Cor 6:2-3

Jesus “gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” Eph 5:2

“… offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God” Rom 12:1

Jesus is “the Holy One of God.” Mk 1:24

“like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves
also in all your behavior” 1 Pet 1:15

Jesus said, “I love the Father” Jn 14:31 , and “As the Father loves me, so I also love you” Jn 15: 12

“Love one another, even as I have loved you.” Jn 13:34

The Ascension looked to me like a recipe for disaster! So much is expected of us, yet we are simultaneously informed that without the One Who just ascended, we can do nothing! Not only does He leave us, but He insists that He MUST leave us, so that we can receive “the Comforter.”

It’s all starting to fall into place…. We aren’t the only ones who can do nothing of ourselves – Jesus said the very same thing about Himself:

…the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing….

There’s a plenty good reason that we can do nothing of ourselves. Even the second Person of the Trinity could do nothing of Himself! That’s why He makes it clear to us that the Father loves Him, and He loves the Father. The Bible tells us that God is Love – God the Father is Love, God the Son is Love, God the Holy Spirit is Love. You and I are not, obviously, but we have to be in order to enter into this progressive endowment of responsibilities and the resulting ability to fulfill those responsibilities. Love is what makes it possible for us to participate in the life of God. And therefore, the Comforter was sent to fill us, the Comforter Who is the Love between the Father and the Son, so real that He is actually a Person of the Holy Trinity. If we are expected to live the life of Christ in this world, we must be filled with the same Love He is filled with, and with the power of this divine Love. Thus, of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. We are made partakers of the divine nature. Each Christian becomes a part of this divine bucket brigade, as God’s love pours out from the Father, to the Son, to us and through us to our neighbor.

Note the divine progression of Love flowing from the Father, to the Son, to the disciples, to the world. As Jesus receives from the Father, so He also gives to us, but not so that we can sit around marveling at how privileged we are. As Jesus went about doing good, so must we. As He gives to us, we are to offer to others: love, forgiveness, prayers, assistance, forbearance, mercy. We who have received from Jesus what He received from the Father are now commissioned to react as Jesus reacted to those gifts: by laying down our lives and taking up the work the Father has prepared for us. When Scripture defines who the Christian is, and what his mission is now that he has been born again, it simply points us back to Jesus’ nature and mission, because that says it all. We were loved so much that God gave His only begotten Son to save us, so that we could lay down our lives and save others (and yes, it is legitimate to say that we play a limited, supporting role in the salvation of others, as St. Paul said, “I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.”) Jesus left us so that we might experience His life more fully, or as St. Paul put it “that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” St. Maximus the Confessor probably expressed it best: we are called to nothing less than total participation in Christ. We, the members of the body of Christ, are literally co-workers with God (1 Cor 3:9) and partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). As members of His actual body, how could we not be? Pope Pius XII expressed the concept in these words:

“As He hung upon the Cross, Christ Jesus not only appeased the justice of the Eternal Father which had been violated, but He also won for us, His brethren, an ineffable flow of graces. It was possible for Him of Himself to impart these graces to mankind directly; but He willed to do so only through a visible Church made up of men, so that through her all might cooperate with Him in dispensing the graces of Redemption. As the Word of God willed to make use of our nature, when in excruciating agony He would redeem mankind, so in the same way throughout the centuries He makes use of the Church that the work begun might endure.“

“…so in the same way throughout the centuries He makes use of the Church that the work begun might endure” – this is the Catholic understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation, that Jesus became Man so that men might become members of Jesus’ very body. Jesus did the will of His Father, and now intercedes for us that we might do exactly the same thing, following in His footsteps, by exactly the same Power that He relied on, the Holy Spirit Who is Love. The Ascension is a textbook illustration of the way God demands something impossible of us only to show us our need, and then steps in to do what needs to be done through us. Over the next 10 days we will see this in the story of Pentecost, as the apostles pray with the Blessed Virgin for 9 days before receiving the power necessary,the Holy Spirit, to fulfill the Great Commission Jesus gave them at His Ascension.

The Ascension was a key event in the divine plan. Our Elder Brother has been glorified, and is now praying for us as we, filled with the Holy Spirit, do the works that God has prepared for us to do. This is the reason we were created. We will be just like Him one day, to the glory of God the Father.

Practice starts now.

On the feast of the Ascension of the Lord

Deo omnis gloria!

Tom, Dick and Teri Think Things Through

May 5, 2013

Apologetics

6 Comments

Tom, Dick and Teri are employed by a large corporation. They meet in the lunchroom every day to encourage and pray for one another. Today, Teri is running late. She enters with a large salad, and seats herself next to Dick, who is discussing something earnestly with Tom.

“I’m so hungry, I could bury my head in this salad and eat my way to the bottom of the bowl! Move over, guys. What are you talking about? Not me, I hope!”

Dicks smiles and obligingly scoots to the right. He waits while Teri prays over her food.

“Tom’s just thinking way too much, as usual. He’s all twisted out of shape over Christian history.”

Teri chews on a carrot. “Christian history? You mean, like Martin Luther?”

Tom shoots Dick a “see what I mean?” look. “Yeah, in a way, Teri, that’s exactly what I mean.” Tom glumly slurps his soup, till Dick feels obliged to explain.

“Tom’s worried about people becoming Catholic. For some reason he thinks Christians just don’t know enough about Christian history, and he thinks if we were better informed we wouldn’t be tempted to become Catholic.”

Teri looked shocked. “Who’s tempted to become Catholic? Protestants don’t become Catholic – it’s the other way around! My church is full of ex-Catholics!”

Dick continues to speak for Tom, who is staring down at his soup bowl.

“Yeah, mine too. But he thinks a lot of theologically astute Protestants have become Catholic, and that worries him.” Dick peers skeptically at Tom.

“Name one!” Teri challenges belligerently.

Tom sighs. “Thomas Howard, Robin Maas, Reinhard Hütter, Bruce Marshall, Trent Dougherty, Robert Koons….”

“Who?” Teri asks.

“…J. Budziszewski…”

“Who??” Teri repeats.

“… Jay Richards, R.R. Reno, Joshua Hochschild, Leroy Huizenga, Richard John Neuhaus, Robert Wilken…” Tom drones on.

“Who are these people?” Teri asks. “Do they go to your church?”

“…Paul Quist, Richard Ballard, Paul Abbe…”

Dick speaks up as Tom adds to his list.

“No, they are apparently well known, well respected Protestant scholars – theologians, philosophers, seminary professors, pastors – who have turned Catholic! Tom’s all upset because he thinks this proves something.”

“…Thomas McMichael, Mickey Mattox, David Fagerberg…”

“I haven’t heard of any of these guys!” Teri asserts as she bites into a tomato.

Dick, who has apparently finished his burger, says he knows a few of them.

“I know J. Budziszewski – he was a prominent Protestant philosopher. I heard about Joshua Hochschild getting kicked out of Wheaton when he turned Catholic.”

“…Philip Max Johnson, Michael Root, David Mills…”

Dick perseveres. “And Thomas Howard, he’s Elizabeth Elliott’s brother.”

Teri looks shocked. “THE Elizabeth Elliott?”

“Yep,” Dick continues. “He was a professor at Gordon College before he became Catholic.”

“…Douglas Farrow, Gerald Schlabach…”

“We get the picture, Tom!” Dick cries in exasperation. “What do you think it proves?”

It is Tom’s turn to look exasperated. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear about Frank Beckwith!”

Teri opens her mouth, but thinks better of it.

Dick explains. “Beckwith was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society. He reverted to Catholicism.”

“And then there was the Geisler/Betancourt fiasco!” Tom blurts out. “Norm Geisler and Joshua Betancourt wrote a book trying to put Beckwith’s reversion into proper perspective from a Protestant point of view. Then, Betancourt becomes Catholic!”

Dick looks shocked. Teri looks bewildered. She stabs at her salad as she speaks.

“Well, I don’t see where it’s a big deal. I’ve never heard of any of these people except Elizabeth Elliott, and she’s not Catholic. So what if these guys wandered off? I mean, it’s tragic, but Catholics become Protestant every day. I mean, Catholics are converting to Protestantism in droves!”

Tom stares out the window.

Dick leans back in his chair. “Tom’s point is that these guys he’s talking about are theologians and professors, the cream of the crop who’ve been recognized by other Protestants as excelling in their fields. You can hardly say that they never really understood what the Bible teaches. So why are they going over to the other side?”

“To the Dark Side, you mean,” Teri snorts.

Tom glowers at her. “A well-known Reformed pastor said that all those former Catholics you’re talking about, the ones who are filling our pews, wouldn’t be welcome at his church because they’re ‘religious consumers’ who don’t care about doctrine! After saying that, HE became Catholic!”

“Look,” Dick says to Tom, who is slumped over his minestrone. “So a bunch of well-known Protestant thinkers defected. Teri’s right. Catholics become Protestant every day. I bet they’re losing their theologians and philosophers to us at 10 times the rate we’re losing ours to them!”

“Oh, yeah?” Tom queries, turning to look at his friend. “Name one.”

“I can name five!” Dick asserts, “Chris Castaldo, Josh McDowell, Rick Warren, James McCarthy, and Tim LaHaye – all well-known Protestants who are former Catholics. I’m sure there are dozens more.”

“You’ve got it exactly backwards,” Tom retorts sourly. “I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill Catholics who converted and then went on to become well-known Protestants. I’m talking about well-known, well-respected, theologically astute Catholics who converted to Protestantism – whether they then became well known as Protestants isn’t my point. And you can’t name anyone like that, can you?”

Dick frowns. “What difference does it make?”

“We’re losing our best and brightest!” Tom laments. “We’re losing our teachers – our leaders! Why? How? These people certainly understand the Bible – a lot of them were seminary professors; they taught the Bible!”

“My pastor didn’t go to seminary,” Teri chimes in. “He studied the word of God for 7 years before he founded our church. He’s like the apostle Paul; he learned the Gospel from no man.”

Dick senses the need to keep Teri on track. “Tom thinks the problem is Christian history.”

Tom becomes animated. “If we could just do a better job of teaching Christian history, I think that would help. I mean, the average Christian thinks that Christian history begins in 1517! People need to know what Christians were doing before the 16^th century! A lot of these Protestants-turned-Catholic quote a 19^th-century Protestant-turned-Catholic who said, “To be deep in history is to cease being Protestant.” We just do a lousy job of teaching Christian history!”

Dick looks thoughtful. “Well, yeah, but it’s pretty hard to teach about an underground church that left no records! I mean, after Constantine took over the church, the real Christians moved up into the mountains. Our minister explained that the last real Christians produced the Nicene creed in the 4^th century, and from that point on the church basically lived in hiding. You know, Augustine, Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome,” he eyes Teri, but decides not to explain,” they were still Christians – the Reformers referred constantly to their writings. But the reason no one hears about the Christians between the 4^th century and the Reformation is that they went underground! There’s no way to tell the story of those people.”

Tom looks skeptical. “Actually, the ‘church fathers’ you’re talking about were already apostate. Augustine said things like “Faith without works is not sufficient for salvation,” and “Mortal sins are forgiven through repentance, prayer and almsgiving.” Athanasius, too, believed that a Christian could lose his salvation through “mortal sin.” He called Mary “the Mother of God” and believed in her perpetual virginity. He believed that the bread and the wine really become Jesus’ body and blood. I mean, seriously, the men who formulated the Nicene creed were Catholic bishops! No, Christianity went off the rails earlier than the 4^th century. My pastor read to us from Fox’s Book of Martyrs about Ignatius and Polycarp dying for the faith in the 2^nd century – they were real Christians. But after that, it was all downhill. That story about the true Christians going into hiding bothers me, though….”

Dick is about to ask Tom about this, but Teri pipes up.

“I know who those guys are!”

“What guys?” Dick asks.

“Ignatius and Polycarp!” Teri proclaims. “My pastor warned us about them!”

“He did?” Dick asks.

“Yeah, he warned us about the writings of the so-called ‘Christians’ who lived after the apostles. Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna were two of the names he mentioned. They were the false teachers mentioned in 2 Peter 2! As soon as the apostles were out of the way, those false teachers commandeered the “Church.” It’s all there in the writings of the “church fathers”! My pastor said there was a first-century document called the DDK which told people to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day, and that gave prayers unknown in the New Testament as a pattern for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper! That’s not Christianity! Ignatius of Antioch called his church “Catholic” – that really oughtta tell you something! He said that communion bread really WAS “the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ”! That’s cannibalism, not Christianity! Polycarp – he is supposed to have been the disciple of John the apostle, but he went off the rails preaching works-righteousness. He wrote that the Lord Jesus will raise us from the dead IF we do His will and walk in His commandments and love the things He loved, abstaining from all unrighteousness, covetousness, love of money, evil speaking, and false witness. That’s WORKS! And both of those men insisted that Christians must submit themselves to the “presbyters and deacons” as to God and Christ! “Look upon the bishop even as upon the Lord Himself,” is what Ignatius said. My pastor told us to run screaming if anyone tried to get us to read the writings of the ‘church fathers.’ There wasn’t a Christian among them! The true Christians went into hiding just as soon as the apostles died!”

Dick and Tom stare at Teri, and then look at each other.

“So, what’s your problem with the true Christians going into hiding?” Dick asks Tom.

Tom shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that. That’s the story that I’ve heard all my life – that true Christians were driven out of the “Church” and were persecuted for their beliefs. So they took their Bibles and went up into the mountains, living in their own communities and teaching their children to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth.”

“Right…” Dick says leadingly.

“Well,” Tom admits, “I can think of a few reasons why that seems… implausible.”

“You think too much,” Teri tells him.

Tom continues. “I mean, what if Teri’s version is true – what if the apostasy happened almost immediately? Then there couldn’t have been all that many Christians, but they were scattered over a broad area, from Jerusalem to Antioch to Rome. So those Christians went into hiding in “the mountains” where they would escape notice. So that means no one was left in society to give a faithful witness to the truths of the Gospel. Isn’t that the opposite of what Jesus commanded? Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature was the commandment! If they were hiding, how did they do that?”

Dick frowns. “I’ve always assumed that when they went into hiding, they converted the people they came into contact with. I mean, it’s not like they would have refused to share the Gospel. They were running from the Catholic Church that wanted to silence them. Of course they would have converted the people in the areas they settled.”

Tom nods. “Okay, then who did they convert?”

Dick snorts.

“I’m serious!” Tom asks earnestly. “Who did they convert? If they were really fleeing from the reach of the Catholic Church, they would have gone out into barbarian territory, right? Well, who did they convert? Which pagan people groups were ever converted by Bible-believing Christians before the Reformation?”

Teri and Dick stare at Tom, thinking this through.

“The Catholic Church did not control the whole world – far from it! Those people most likely would have moved to other lands to get away from the Catholics, to places where their proclamation of the Good News would have set things on fire! Right? Where did that ever happen??

Tom is not done. “And another thing. My pastor preached a sermon on the canon of Scripture. He told us that the New Testament canon of Scripture wasn’t even decided until the 4^th century. So if I’m right, or if you’re right, Teri, then those real Christians fled to “the mountains” without Bibles! I mean, I suppose they would’ve had the Old Testament, but not the New! How did that work??“

Tom is looking genuinely disturbed. “Seriously, are we talking about a tiny, inbred group of Bible-believing Christians living up in “the mountains” for centuries without Bibles? A group that went unnoticed by Catholic Europe because they were so ineffectual, so silent, so withdrawn, so invisible that no one knew or cared that they were there, until Martin Luther rediscovered the Gospel and they could come out of hiding? Seriously???”

Dick shakes his head slowly. “That doesn’t sound right….”

Teri stands up to go back to work. She scowls at Tom. “You think too much.”

On the sixth Sunday of Easter

Deo omnis gloria!

—Forget The Roads

Just follow The Way!

Nun of the Above

Need Help With Your Prayers?

You Won’t Like Me When I’m Protestant

A Double-Edged Sword

Signs and Wonders

Like Jesus

Tom, Dick and Teri Think Things Through

Follow “Forget The Roads”