Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 41

Why I Welcome "Laudato Si’"

A sign greets visitors to the meditation garden at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, Ariz. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)

Why I Welcome Laudato Si’ | Dr. Leroy Huizenga | CWR

Francis' encyclical may have problems here and there, but it’s our job as Catholics first to listen, to read the encyclical, to pray through it, to interpret it faithfully

I'm a Benedict XVI man. I came into the Catholic Church thanks largely to his witness—his way of doing theology, his confrontation with modernity, and above all his teaching on the centrality of liturgy. Many of my convert friends and younger priests would say the same. Francis has been an adjustment, and while we read Benedict and Francis in continuity with real integrity, they are different men and different popes, certainly regarding matters formal. Ignoring that fact is dishonest.

You’d never know it by perusing the Internet, unless you’re extremely discriminating and selective, but many who were initially skeptical or confused find themselves warming to Francis. Because if you’re careful—if you read reliable sources, do some thinking, and interpret the Holy Father with that highest of theological virtues, charity—you find that most complaints about Francis are ill-informed and off-base, the fruit of suspicion, not faith; of ideology, not fidelity.

Take, for instance, the matter of episcopal appointments. It may sometimes seem that Francis is so big on collegiality he chooses bishops and cardinals from all sorts of philosophical wings of the Church (including some who really need to give the Catechism a good, solid read and think long and hard about what they really believe) as if the Church’s Tradition were simply the aggregate sum of the opinion of the world’s episcopate as currently constituted. But some of the most controversial appointments appear to be working out rather well, much better, at least, than the reactionary right feared. Conversely, some of the bishops appointed by John Paul II and then Benedict have had serious issues with fidelity, with governance, and with rhetoric (“hirsute flabmeisters” comes to mind).

Binary thinking is problematic. It’s not Catholic. Black and white thinking is indeed a problem, but good people default to it because (for good reason) they fear the opposite is the raw relativism of limitless shades of grey. That opposition is itself a binary. But the Truth shines in vivid living color, radiant as the light of God himself, neither black or white nor grey; textured, not flat; analog, not digital. Pitting Benedict against Francis runs that binary risk, and rejecting an encyclical out of hand (as many have indicated they would do) before it’s even released is binary ideological insanity.

Encyclicals are not Holy Writ; they are not divine revelation as such. But they are authoritative interpretations for the present moment, drawing on the past and leaving a legacy for the future.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Watch: Ignatius Press editorial staff members discuss “Laudato Si”

Ignatius Press president Mark Brumley is joined by Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder of Ignatius Press, editor Vivian Dudro, and John Herreid for a discussion of the new encyclical Laudato Si':

"Laudato Si'" focuses on the heart of man and the disorders of our age

Pope Francis waves as he arrives to lead his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican June 17. (CNS photo/Max Rossi, Reuters); right: The cover of "Laudato Si", to be published by Ignatius Press (www.ignatius.com).

"Laudato Si'" focuses on the heart of man and the disorders of our age | William L. Patenaude | CWR

The central thesis is that the fallen nature of the human heart and the resulting brokenness of human relations is the cause of the crises in our lives, families, nations, and now the life-sustaining ecosystems that form our common home

With the long wait over, the release of Laudato Si' will shift conversations from what Pope Francis might say in his encyclical on the environment to more important ones of what he has said. It is likely that many in Rome hope that now that the document has been released, its words will ease much of the anxiety that has saturated these past months.

That said, there are statements in the encyclical that will successively upset, delight, and challenge most everyone, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Gospel and the Church’s social teachings do similarly and have always done so. But because so much of the pre-release commentary of Laudato Si'attempted to spin the narrative along predictable ideological lines—referring to it (positively or negatively) as a “climate change encyclical” or expressing worries that the Holy Father would place a papal seal of approval on specific political or economic ideologies—it will take some time before the Holy Father’s words can be processed, discussed, and appreciated.

What’s in it

Laudato Si' is translated “Praise be to you.” The title comes from St. Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures, which addresses Christ in gratitude for the goodness of nature. The encyclical is divided into a prologue and six chapters. The first chapter examines the problems of our age—environmental, yes, but also the breakdown of social relations. As did Saint John Paul II, with his concept of “human ecology,” and Benedict XVI, most especially Caritas in Veritate, Pope Francis stresses the link between human and environmental crises, which he says “are ultimately due to the same evil: the notion that there are no indisputable truths to guide our lives, and hence human freedom is limitless.” (6).

The remaining five chapters plot a course through and beyond the symptoms and causes of these problems. “The Gospel of Creation,” offers a brief catechesis on the environment as seen from the “very good” creation accounts of Genesis and then through the incarnational proclamation of the Gospels—which highlights the relationship in Jesus Christ between God and creation.

In the third chapter, “The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis,” Pope Francis examines the role of sin in the modern age. A Catholic response to all this follows in the concluding three chapters on “Integral Ecology, “Lines of Approach and Action,” and “Ecological Education and Spirituality.” This final chapter concludes with a rich array of Catholic theology and spiritually to conclude a tale that, for Christians, should sound familiar.

In other words, Laudato Si' follows the arc of salvation history to understand and offer a way out of the personal, communal, and planetary disorders of our age.

Climate as a common good

It is in the opening chapter that the Holy Father discusses climate change, a topic he pairs with the general issues of pollution, waste, and a “throwaway culture.”

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

"Benedicta": Chant to Make the Heart Glad

(Photo Credit: Christopher McLallen)

Benedicta : Chant to Make the Heart Glad | Christopher S. Morrissey | CWR

Benedicta , the debut Gregorian chant CD from the Benedictine Monks of Norcia, takes the form of a concept album about the life of Mary. And it is a perfect soundtrack to prepare you for the practice of prayer.

In the midst of the day’s work, a little break is always welcome. Sometimes this takes the form of a clever YouTube diversion recommended by a friend. For example, a recent favorite of mine was a highly intelligent Latin rendition of “Let It Go” from Disney’s hit movie Frozen: “Libere.”

It got me thinking. What if a hit musical was first composed in Latin, and then only later translated into various national languages? Well, I can only wish. Having taught Latin at the university level for a decade and a half, I know how small the interest and appetite would be for such a thing.

Besides, the movie musical is a quintessentially American art form, and so it is only appropriate for the songs from Frozen to appear first in English. Nowadays, Latin translations of any pop culture phenomenon — take Harrius Potter, for example — are merely the final seal of approval bestowed by unassailable mass appeal.

But what if we could have access to a genuine cultural sensation that was in fact native to the Latin tongue? What kind of experience would that be?

Last week, the Benedictine Monks of Norcia released Benedicta, their first recording of Gregorian chant. As I have been listening to it, I can’t help but take it as the answer to those very questions.

Just as movie musicals are best experienced in the language of their birth (pace clever translators), so too are the liturgical meditations on Scripture best experienced in the Latin tongue that has sung those daily prayers for centuries.

Eighteen men strong, the Benedictine Monks behind this album have set up a monastery at Norcia, the fifth-century birthplace of St. Benedict, ancient Nursia. Impressively, the average age of these men is 33. Many of them have come from America to Norcia, where they live according to the perennially wise monastic Rule of St. Benedict.

Recently, they learned the art of brewing from some Trappist monks. And so their monastery has become famous for its delicious Birra Nursia, which is not yet available in North America, but which is nonetheless worth the trip to Umbria, Italy. The beer has a Latin motto: Ut Laetificet Cor, “To Make the Heart Glad,” which is a clever allusion to the approbation of wine in Psalm 104:15.

Scriptural allusions — made in Latin, no less — are hardly the stuff of today’s pop culture. And yet what would be more appropriate for Catholic religious who brew beer? “A cold beer never bothered me, anyway”; that may be the right sentiment, but surely Ut Laetificet Cor is the motto that is right and just.

In the same way, there is a tradition of prayer full of Latin allusions that stretches across centuries. And these monks are part of that still-living tradition. They spend hours every day chanting the Divine Office in a prayerful and meditative spirit. Just as they share the fruits of their labor with us in their beer-making, so too do they now give us, with this recording, a taste of their prayer life.

I must admit I was skeptical when I was presented with yet another Gregorian chant CD to review.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Providence, Prosperity, and Purpose

"Sower" (1888) by Vincent van Gogh [WikiArt.org]

Providence, Prosperity, and Purpose | A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for June 14, 2015 | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Ez 17:22-24
• Psa 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16
• 2 Cor 5:6-10
• Mk 4:26-34

“If the providence of God does not preside over human affairs,” wrote St. Augustine, “there is no point in busying oneself about religion.” But what is providence? It is sometimes confused with fate and blind destiny. Correctly defining it requires the recognition that God created all things for a purpose and he, as Frank Sheed stated in Theology and Sanity, “has made provision that each being should His purpose. This overruling provision which God has made, that His plan be not stultified or any way frustrated, is His Providence.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church begins a section on providence (pars 302-24) with an apparent paradox: Creation is good and has a “proper perfection”, yet it is also incomplete: “The universe was created ‘in a state of journeying’ (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it” (par 302). The guidance of God along this great journey is “divine providence.”

Each of today’s readings touch on the mystery of God’s providential work. The reading from Ezekiel is a passage that follows the “allegory of the eagles” (Ez 17:1-10). The background is the tragic Babylonian exile. The king of Judah, Jehoiachin (“the topmost branch” of the cedar, Judah), had been taken into exile in 597 B.C. by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (the “great eagle”). Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah, was then set up as a vassal and swore an oath of allegiance to the Babylonian ruler. But Zedekiah then sought to align himself with Egypt (“another great eagle”) and Pharoah Hophra, and so was swiftly punished.

The question remained: would Judah once again prosper? “True, it is planted, but will it proper”? (Ez 17:10). The answer, said God, is an emphatic “Yes!” The cedar, Judah, would once again be planted “on a high and lofty mountain” and bear fruit and become “majestic”. God’s covenantal promises to his wayward and downtrodden people would be fulfilled through his providential care: “As I, the Lord, have spoken, so will I do.”

Scripture is filled with stories of man’s failure and God’s mercy and providence. Many times, of course, the people of God had to suffer greatly for their sins. And the ways by which God fulfilled his promises were not always obvious or expected. What is required of man, St. Paul emphasized in his second letter to the Christians in Corinth, is fortitude and courage in the midst of difficulties, “for we walk by faith, not sight.” Yes, Paul acknowledged, he would prefer to be in heaven with the Lord, a longing he also expressed to the Philippians (Phil. 1:23). But the first priority is to please God by pursuing his will, for we know that each will “receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.” Providence, then, is not at all contrary to man’s free will, even if we fail to fully understand how God is working in particular situations.

This inability to comprehend the depths and widths of God’s providence is addressed in the two parables spoken by Jesus to the crowds. The first parable emphasizes the divine, invisible power animating the growth of the kingdom of God. A man must scatter seed in order for his crop to grow, but he does not control the earth and the biological process of growth: “Of its own accord the land yields fruit.” And what of the sower of the seed? He “knows not how” the growth takes place; it is beyond his understanding. The second parable parallels the reading from Ezekiel: what began as a small seed—“the smallest of all the seeds on the earth”—becomes a great tree with “large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”

The proper response to divine providence is not anger or frustration, but humility and thanks. “In all created things discern the providence and wisdom of God,” wrote St. Teresa of Jesus, “and in all things give Him thanks.”

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the June 17, 2012 edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

The Actor, the Author, and the Real ‘Father Brown’

The Actor, the Author, and the Real ‘Father Brown’ | K.V. Turley | Catholic World Report

The priest who was the inspiration for Chesterton's great detective also played a central role in the conversion of Chesterton and many others

Crime fiction fans are well aware of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown and his place in the Pantheon of great detectives. Nevertheless, in contrast with the seemingly endless speculation as to the ‘real Sherlock Holmes’, there has been little such debate about the origin of the priest sleuth. However, a recent book, The Elusive Father Brown (Gracewing, 2010), by Laura Smith, goes some way to rectifying this, detailing as it does the life of the cleric who formed the basis upon which Chesterton’s characterization was based, and who played a part in at least two very public conversions.

But, before the denouement, as in the best detective yarns, let's recap what clues there may be within the Father Brown stories. On reflection, it is easier to say what we don’t have because when you join up any clues found therein they lead precisely to nowhere. Whereas Conan Doyle left bits and pieces to make up the history and character of his hero, Chesterton did no such thing. In fact one could say that H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man comes to mind more than the Great Detective when considering Fr. Brown. And yet there are clues, but, as in all the best detective fiction, you have to read the text closely to discover them.

What so we know? Fr. Brown is English, from rural Essex. One suspects that this region, known for a particularly flat landscape, was deliberately chosen for someone as self-effacing as he is non-descript, remembered more for his unruly umbrella than his face. In each story he is far from being the center of attention—not to begin with anyway—but for all his lack of ‘presence’ there is a curious air about him. Interestingly, this appears to have nothing to do with the supernatural per se as his powers of deduction are always purely logical, even when others have jumped to conclusions that are not of this world. His powers of observation are second to none; he misses nothing, especially when something is ever so slightly amiss, and it is this that often leads to the culprit being discovered.

Nevertheless, there is little if anything of physical description given to the character: ‘he had a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he had eyes as empty as the North Sea.’ That's little help if one is waiting at a London train station to meet this priest—but we would meet him nonetheless, and the clue is in that last word: priest. He is undoubtedly that; his manner, his movements, and his speech all betray his vocation. Take, for instance, the ending of “The Hammer of God”. It is the solving of a crime and the unveiling of a murderer, but also, paradoxically, and, in the end more importantly, the saving of a soul. Rest assured no one suspects Fr. Brownof being anything other than a priest.

Perhaps that is because the character was modeled upon a real priest Chesterton had met in 1903.

Continue reading...

Failing to Make the Moral Case for Marriage

Failing to Make the Moral Case for Marriage | Robert R. Reilly | CWR

The retreat to the position of defending religious freedom means that the issue of the immorality of sodomy and other homosexual acts has been abandoned—both in and out of court

Why have the pro-natural family forces been losing in court? Intentionally or not, Judge Richard Posner explained the reason in a 7th Circuit Court ruling (Sept. 4, 2014), in which he decided against the Indiana and Wisconsin laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman:

"The state [Wisconsin] does not mention Justice Alito’s invocation [in the Windsor case] of a moral case against same-sex marriage, when he states in his dissent that ‘others explain the basis for the institution in more philosophical terms. They argue that marriage is essentially the solemnizing of a comprehensive, exclusive, permanent union that is intrinsically ordered to producing new life, even if it does not always do so.’ [US v. Windsor, 133 S.Ct. 2675, 2718 (2013).] That is a moral argument for limiting marriage to heterosexuals. The state does not mention the argument because as we said, it mounts no moral arguments against same-sex marriage.” [Baskin v. Bogan, 766 F.3d 648, 669 (7th Cir. 2014) (emphasis added).]

While Justice Alito recognizes that there is a moral argument for limiting marriage to heterosexuals, it was not only the State of Wisconsin that failed to make such a case. Neither have the States of Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, or Tennessee in Obergefell, the decisive case now before the US Supreme Court. I believe that this is one of the key reasons that the pro-natural family position has been losing in most of the cases thus far.

With the moral foundation missing, an air of unreality pervades the federal court system. Let us see how unreal by looking at a couple of examples. When invalidating Oregon’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage (May 19, 2014), US District Judge Michael McShane wrote in his opinion,

“I believe that if we can look for a moment past gender and sexuality, we can see in these [same-sex] plaintiffs nothing more or less than our own families. Families who we would expect our constitution to protect, if not exalt, in equal measure.” [Geiger v. Kitzhaber, 994 F. Supp. 2d 1128, 1147 (D. Or. 2014).]

This is an extraordinary remark. What Judge McShane calls “gender and sexuality” is the only means by which families are generated. Since families come from parents, you cannot look past parents and still have a family -- because there would be no family there. Homosexual acts cannot generate families; therefore, their “families” cannot be the same. If there are children present, we may be sure that both parents of the children are not present in that family. That is a lot to look past.

In Virginia, US District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen voided as unconstitutional that part of the Virginia state constitution and the Code of Virginia that define marriage as between one man and one woman. Ineptly, she began her decision on February 13, 2014, by confusing the basic texts of the American Founding (since corrected by her). She apparently thought that the phrase “all men are created equal” comes from the Constitution. It is, of course, perhaps the single most famous line in the Declaration of Independence. Judge Wright Allen appealed to this principle to endorse same-sex marriage on behalf of two lesbian and homosexual couples who brought suit against Virginia.

Why did Virginia have laws against unnatural marriage in the first place?

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Fr. Robert Spitzer, author of "Finding True Happiness", warns of "cultural implosion"

From TheBlaze.com:

Spitzer, author of the new book, “Finding True Happiness,” has been on a journey to explore a multitude of psychological, philosophical and theological theories about human happiness, telling TheBlaze in an interview this week that it’s essential for people to consider his conclusions.

“We have four fundamental set of desires in us,” he explained, describing the first two levels of happiness as being too focused on the self. “No good end will ever come from level one and level two happiness, if those are the two things that really matter to us.”

The first of these desires is physical in nature and is what Spitzer calls “external material happiness” — a form of contentedness that people experience from eating a delicious bowl of pasta, or from acquiring material possessions.

“There’s a perfectly legitimate form of level one happiness that we all need,” Spitzer said. “Every once in a while a guy ought to have a good bowl of linguine.”

But Spitzer said that problems emerge when people get stuck at level one happiness, where they assume that these material possessions and immediate gratifications are all that there is to finding success and joy. It is then that the priest said that “significant problems will emerge.”

“It’s not enough,” Spitzer said. “You’ve got these other desires in you.” ...

“About 70 percent of our young people will be ego comparative dominance by the time they finish high school,” he said. “If they’re not on top, the feelings of inferiority, judgement, despair [take root], but the winners are no better off. They can never let their true selves be exposed.”

If one ends up stuck at this happiness phase, Spitzer said that he or she isn’t considering, ‘What does God think of me?’”

It’s when one ends up in the third and fourth level, though, that the paradigm shifts quite a bit, Spitzer said, calling the third phase “contributive” and referring to the fourth as “transcendence.”

And:

He said that denying a higher power would mean denying perfect justice, truth, love and beauty — but that’s not all.

“It’s a denial not just of God, it’s a denial of transcendence. You deny transcendent fulfillment,” he said, noting that he believes God has placed a desire in everyone’s heart to seek him out. “We are desperately in need of being in contact with God. God has been in contact with people since the beginning.”

Read the entire article at TheBlaze.com.

Gnosticism vs. The Incarnation: The Ancient Battle Renewed

“Temptation of Jesus Christ” (1901-03) by Ilya Repin [WikiArt.org]

Gnosticism vs. The Incarnation: The Ancient Battle Renewed | John B. Buescher | CWR

The contemporary sexual revolution is thoroughly Gnostic, attacking the institution of marriage, thwarting the conception of children, and denying the differences between men and women

There is a tale, whose threads are too long to unravel here, of the meanderings of an idea through history—the idea that, as Nicolas Gómez-Davila parsed it, man is “a god imprisoned in the dull inertia of his flesh, or a god who elevates matter as his cry of victory.” This is the “knowledge” of both the old and the new Gnostics: We are not who we think we are, but gods imprisoned in matter. And knowing that we are gods is the condition for freedom, for it is only our wills that keep us from rising up divine.

If man is a god, then his essence is a will, exercised in purely unrestricted freedom. His sovereignty is expressed gratuitously. That sovereign will must be identical in everyone (or else it is not sovereign), and everything else about individuals exists as mere accidents, signs, or externalities. Indeed such things are impediments to which our wills are shackled.

The ancient form of the tale includes these basic propositions:

The prison in which we are shackled is matter. Yet matter does not matter. It is a dream into which we were born, and in which our spirits serve time in blind darkness, until death, or emancipation.

The creator of this world of matter was demented or malevolent. He is not the One who is the source of our spirit and our freedom.

Being born into this world is our problem. Exiting this world is the solution. Our bodies—and all the things that derive from being embodied and being pinned down into particularity—are features of our prison. That is most especially true of the most basic particularity of our bodies: the division into male and female. It is the primordial cleft, which ramifies throughout all other distinctions. In our highest form, we are androgynous.

Acting upon the sexual distinction, therefore, is the most basic sin. Above all, conceiving and bringing children into this fallen world of matter merely traps their free spirits and consigns them to bondage. When born, everyone has been conceived in the sin of his parents and is clothed in the prison uniform of his signifying flesh.

The ancient Gnostic responded by avoiding the generation of children. Some of them became extreme ascetics and totally celibate and even sacramentalized their fasting unto death. But some of them became “free spirits” who flouted all sexual taboos and customs—upon which the world’s prison bars were built—and engaged in every sort of sexual irregularity. It demonstrated the Gnostics’ contempt for the deep distinctions and features of the material world and how they were living purely in the spirit, and no longer bound by the world. It was a sign of contradiction to the fallen world, and was, in itself, a way to arise out of it, ringing the changes on what that world held to be sin, entering into it, but without being caught in it, and thereby wearing it out, exploding it from the inside, deconstructing it, turning the sexual act into something that would not result in the conception of children. Such acts too, for the Gnostic, could be sacramental.

Sexual activity engaged in by the unenlightened followed the logic of the prison world and resulted in its continuation into succeeding generations. Sexual activity that might be engaged in by the enlightened was done to arouse the “spirit,” but then to turn it to a purely spiritual purpose and away from the generation of children. The strategy was the uncoupling of the act from its worldly consequence, the generation of children.

At the very heart of this was the determination to undermine the foundation of this prison world. Whether the strategy was one of extreme asceticism or extreme licentiousness, the point was the same—the defeat of the material world by the freed spirit, whose essence was its own divine, sovereign will, unencumbered by any consequences that were not the expressions of its free choice.

The Current Gnosticism

This Gnostic logic underlies our contemporary sexual revolution, including the sacramentalizing of same-sex activities, the attack on traditional marriage, the evaluation of procreation as mere breeding, the treating of pregnancy as an unhealthy state that should be annulled or healed, the offering of contraception as a means to avoid that state, the evaluation of abortion as a way to avoid the supreme sin of bringing into the unwelcoming world a soul that would be marked with the sign of its iniquitous conception, and the offering of assistance—as a kindness—to those who would freely choose to end their lives.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Bible and the Eucharist

Pope Francis elevates the Eucharist during Mass outside the Basilica of St. John Lateran in observance of the feast of Corpus Christi in Rome June 4. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Ex 24:3-8
• Psa 116:12-13, 15-16, 17-18
• Heb 9:11-15
• Mk 14:12-16, 22-26

I’ve written several times about the centrality of the Eucharist in the decision made by my wife and I when we decided to become Catholic. Our recognition, by God’s grace, of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was not sudden; I would be hard pressed to think of an exact moment when I realized, “The Eucharist really is Jesus!”

Rather, it was a long and rather steady process.

Reflecting on it these many years later—we entered the Church in 1997—I liken it to the gradual and mysterious recognition of my love for the woman who has now been my wife for 21 years this week. There was, of course, the initial spark of attraction, followed by the sort of relational dance—awkward, exciting, confusing—that many couples go through as they embark on a courtship. There were conversations, questions, and time spent thinking about each other. And when it finally dawned on us that we did, in fact, love each other, it was as though the wonderful fact had been staring us in the face for many weeks and months before we “got it”!

My recognition of the Eucharist was set in motion when I was a young boy, a Fundamentalist who knew nothing about the Eucharist or the Catholic Church. But I was taught to love Jesus and the Bible. And who better to bring me to the Catholic Church than the Incarnate Word who founded the Church and the written Word of God gifted to the Church by the Holy Spirit? While growing up I read and heard many of the key stories in the Old Testament, including that of Moses leading the people out of Egypt and being given the Law at Mount Sinai. I was familiar with the “blood of the covenant”, and the establishment of animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins.

Later, while in Bible college as a young Evangelical, I came to see more clearly how Jesus is the new Moses, sent by God to save his people from slavery to sin, and that as author of the Law, Jesus was able to perfectly fulfill the Law (see Mt 5:17-18). One of my final classes (bearing the clinical-sounding title “Bible Synthesis") explored both the continuity and differences between the Old and New Covenants. We learned that while Moses was the direct mediator between God and the people, able to speak directly to God and to relay “all the words and ordinances of the LORD,” Jesus is the perfect, final and everlasting mediator between God and all men. Moses was able, as God’s mediator and prophet, to play a vital role in God’s plan of salvation, overseeing the establishment of the covenant at Sinai. But it was only Christ, fully divine and fully human, who could establish a new and eternal covenant through his life, Passion, death, and Resurrection.

As the Epistle to the Hebrews relates with profound theological insight, Christ’s priesthood does not involve the sacrifice of animals in the Temple, but offering himself—the new Temple—as the perfect, unblemished sacrifice. He is the Lamb of God whose body was broken and whose blood was shed on the Cross. Risen from the grave and seated in glory, he now offers his flesh and blood, soul and divinity, in the Eucharist.

Scripture, then, was essential in my education in the Eucharist. But I also had to sit at the feet of the Church, listening to her supernatural wisdom. If the Church is the mystical body of Christ, as I was also seeing, then the Church is able to instruct about the Body and Blood of her head, Jesus Christ. The saints, doctors, and teaching office of the Church gave witness.

“For in the figure of bread His Body is given to you,” stated St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “and in the figure of wine His Blood, that by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ you may become the same body and blood with him.”

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the June 10, 2012 edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)