Take the Long Way Home

     The Apocalypse remains a sort of Rorsche blot for Christians

This is hilarious in its truth.  What are you?  Pre-mil (pre-trib, post-trib)? post-mil? a-mil? preterist? partial preterist?

My father is a pre-mil, no rapture, dispensationalist, not the Baptist variety, but he sees Revelation as a coded message about the last days.  My Presby church, being covenental and amillenial, sees Revelation quite differently.  Not necessarily as a literal last days, but a more figurative look at salvation history.  More recently the partial preterists are gaining ground in the Reformed circle.  They see Revelation as mostly already happening in the 1st century, but also being a typology for the last days as well.  I’m confused just typing this! (and have probably misrepresented all views b/c of this confusion!)

This confusion has led me to avoid Revelation, to not make an opinion of my own.  I’ve looked at all the views, see the merit of each, but have not been convinced enough of any one to take a stand on any one of them. 

Hahn contends that “for most of the early Christians it was a given:  the book of Revelation was incomprehensible apart from the liturgy.”  So Revelation is not about the end times at all, but about the Mass?  Sure, but we have to remember that the Church has taught for centuries that the Bible operates on various levels at all times: literal, figurative, allegorical, etc.  So it’s not a question of either/or, but both/and.  I mean really, would God have inspired John to write about something that would sit in the back of people’s Bibles (not that they would have had them for about 1600 years, but that’s a different train of thought!) for 20 centuries?  It makes more sense to believe that the message is for all Christians in all times.

     What John describes is the passing away of the Old World (Old Jerusalem, Old Covenant, Old Temple - destroyed in 70 AD) and the creation of the New World (New Jerusalem, New Covenant, New Temple - Christ’s body, the Church, New worship in the Spirit).

Hahn goes on to describe the correlation between the description of heaven in Revelation to the Temple in Jerusalem.  The Menorah (Rev 12:1), the altar of incense (8:3-5), four carved cherubim (the four living creatures), 24 elders (priests) replicate the 24 priestly divisions in Judaism, the sea of glass (4:6) would have been the Temples largepool of bronze, and the ark (11:19)  The Jews of the day would have recognized John’s description of heaven as looking like the Temple.  Worship in Jerusalem mirrored worship in heaven, but worship now doesn’t just mirror what’s going on in heaven, it joins the worship in heaven!  And where on earth can we find a universal church that worships in a manner that is true to John’s vision?  Where can we find priests in vestments standing before an altar?  Where do we encounter men consecrated to celibacy?  Where do we hear the angels invoked?  Where do we find a Church that keeps the relics of the saints within it’s altars?  Where does art extol the woman crowned with the stars, with the moon at her feet, who crushes the head of the serpent?  Where do the faithful pray for the protection of St. Michael the archangel?  Where else but in the Catholic Church, and most particularly in the Mass?

I went back and read Revelation - its always been fascinating, but I read it with a new pair of eyes - I think I buy what Mr. Hahn is selling.  The more I study, the more sense it makes.  Oh, if only you’d known me a year ago!

Ukranian emissairies sent this word to their Prince, Vladimir of Kiev in 988 AD after witnessing Mass in Constantinople, “We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth.  Never have we seen such beauty… We cannot describe it, but this much we can say, ‘there God dwells among mankind’.”

     The Apocalypse shows us that [Jesus] is here in fullness - in kingship, in judgement, in warfare, in priestly sacrifice, in Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity - wherever Christians celebrate the Eucharist.  God dwells among mankind right now because the Mass is heaven on earth.

     The Book of Revelation os not as strange as it seems, and the Mass is richer than we ever dreamed.

     What then should be our image of Jesus’ second coming?  For one it is Eucharistic, and it is brought about as the Mass brings heaven to earth.  We are here to be transformed:  to die to self, live for other, and love like God.  That’s what’s happening on the altar of our churches.  As the fire descended from heaven to consume the sacrifices on Solomon’s altar, so the fire descends to consume the disciples at Pentecost.  The fire is the Holy Spirit.

     We can look at suffering in our world as part of the story whose ending we know.  Christ is in charge, we fight to gain our throne but the victory is assured.  All of history leads to the marriage supper of the Lamb.  Communion with His Church was the reason He became man and bled and died!  All of history ends with the last chapters of Revelation.  In 22:17 the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come”.  God wills that we, as the Church, play a role in salvation.  We, with the Spirit, issue the call to mankind.

Here are some more random thoughts (mostly quotes) on Scott Hahn’s Lambs Supper

     We offer ourselves and all that we have.  Not because we’re so special, but because we know that the Lord can take what is temporal and make it eternal, take what is human and make it divine.  Everything we have goes on the altar, to be made holy in Christ.

     “Lift up your hearts!”  We lift them up to heaven and sing Holy, Holy, Holy with the angels and saints.  The New Covenant is not a book, it’s an action (a covenant is a family bond initiated and renewed with an action - with Abraham it was a cutting, circumcism), the New Covenant action is the Eucharist.  Jesus said, “This is the New Covenant in my blood.”  The Eucharist is the renewal of the covenant, just as the Passover was the renewal of the Old Covenant.  In Communion we renew our bond with the eternal family. 

     The priest lifts up the host and chalice and says, “Through Him, with Him, in Him, all glory and honor is Yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever.”  We respond, “Amen”.  This is traditionally called The Great Amen.  In the 4th century, St. Jerome reported that, in Rome, when the Great Amen was proclaimed, all the pagan temples trembled.  What a great picture!  The pagan temples trembled at the “agreement” of the people of God!

In this next quote, I’m jumping into the middle of a discourse where Hahn is comparing the Mass to the Our Father.  Very interesting concept!  And one that was new to me.

     By uniting our sacrifice with Jesus’ eternal sacrifice, we have seen God’s will done “on earth as it is in heaven”.  We have before us Jesus, “our daily bread”, and this bread will “forgive us our trespasses” because Holy Communion will wipe away all venial sins.  We have known mercy, then, and so we will show mercy, forgiving others and through Holy Communion we will know new strength over temptation and evil.  The Mass fulfills the Lords Prayer.

I love this part of Mass:  “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I am healed.”  For some reason this phrase speaks volumes to me.

The next bit is very long - I apologize - it’s basically the whole last chapter of the book, but it was great.

     To go to Mass is to renew our covenant with God…to go to Mass is to receive the fullness of grace, the very life of the Trinity…God’s life is a gift we must receive properly and with gratitude.

     From the moment you walk into church, you place yourself under oath.  By dipping your fingers into holy water, you renew the covenant begun with your baptism… Doing this you testify, as you would in court… When you make the sign of the cross you renew your obligation to live up to the rights and duties of the New Covenant.  You will love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; you will love your neighbor as yourself.

     Many times during Mass you say “amen”, this means agreement; so be it.  It’ s more than a response, it’s a commitment.  At Mass you are not a spectator, you are a participant.  The Mass is a solemn oath you take before countless witnesses.  We will be held accountable for what we pray and what we hear.  To hear the Word of God, to receive the Bread of Life.  These are profound mysteries; they are incredible gifts; yet they are also mighty commitments.

     We want the blessings of the covenant and not the curse.  The more we are prepared for Mass the more grace we will take away from Mass.  The grace available is infinite.  The only limit is our capacity to receive it.  Grace makes up for every weakness of our human nature.  With God’s help we’re able to do what we could never do on our own:  namely, love perfectly, sacrifice completely, lay down our lives as Christ did.

     We need not travel to other countries to be martyrs.  We need only do the same things we’ve always done - but now making those actions, thoughts, feelings, etc an expression of love for the Father, an imitation of the Son within us.  That’s what it means to live the Mass.  That’s the splendor of the ordinary:  the workaday world becomes our Mass.  That’s how we bring about the Kindgom of God

I really “get” Scott Hahn.  I think it’s because of our similar backgrounds, but I read along going, uh huh, uh huh.  So much of what I was taught in Reformed theology fits into Catholicism so neatly.  I find myself reading and not making any notes, because, well, I already knew that so why would I comment on it, and then all of a sudden, I go, Wow, now that’s cool, and make a note.  Then I go back and look at my notes and they make no sense, there’s no order to anything, it’s just a seemingly random selection of quotes that I liked.  No one could follow my blogs on his books and come away with a sense of what he was trying to get across (at least not the whole picture - only the parts that are new to me or interesting to me).  Alas, this one will be no different….

In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle.  With all the warriors of the heavenly army we sing a hymn of glory the Lord; venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Savior,our Lord Jesus Christ, until He , our life, shall appear and we too will appear with him in glory.                  from Vatican II

Hahn begins the book explaining the Jewish sacrificial system.  This is crucial because we have to understand this system to see where and how Jesus “fulfilled” it.  He is called the Lamb of God, both in the gospel of John and Revelation (and in the Mass), what was the lamb, what was it’s purpose?  In the Passover the sacrificial lamb died (lamb killed, blood spread over doorposts, lamb eaten) as a ransom, in place of the first born of the household. 

 Was all this sacrifice (the whole system of animal sacrifice) merely empty ritual?  No, it was established by God, but it did require an internal sacrifice as well.  Ps 51:17, Hos 6:6  Jesus himself took part in this system - he did what was required of a devout Jew - he followed the whole law. 

Jesus is both priest and victim at the crucifixion.  His sacrifice of himself did what no animal sacrifice could do - forgive sins.  He is our Passover Lamb.  But what does this mean?  No more sacrifices?  No more system?  No more priests?  Did God totally change everything that had gone before?  “In the clear light of the New Covenant, the Old Covenant sacrifices make sense as preparation for the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our royal high priest in the heavenly sanctuary.  And it is this one sacrifice we offer, with Jesus, in the Mass.”

     We offer You His body and blood, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world.  Lord, look upon this sacrifice which You have given to Your Church    (Eucharistic Prayer IV)

The Eucharist is foreshadowed also in the “todah” of ancient Isreal.  Todah means “thank offering” (just like Eucharist).  It was a sacrificial meal to celebrate divine deliverance.  Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) said, “Structurally speaking, the whole of Christology, indeed the whole of Eucharistic Christology, is present in the todah spirituality of the Old Testament.”  Even more interesting was the prediction of the ancient rabbis that said, “In the coming age, all sacrifices will cease except the todah sacrifice.  This will never cease in all eternity.”

In 107 AD, St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, wrote, “Take care then, to have but one Eucharist.  For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to show forth the unity of His blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, along with the priests and deacons, my fellow servants.”

The Mass is one offering, and that is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which renews our covenant with God.

All my reading so far seems to prove that the early Christians had a system of worship, a system of sacrifice (the Eucharist).  These were similar to the OT systems that were fulfilled in Christ, so fulfillment must not mean done away with, but renewed, revealed in its fullness.  Effective sacrifice (one that is perpetual, not having to be redone over and over), effective system.  Any routine can become mindless, but that is not the fault of the routine, but of the person.  I tell my husband, I love you, have a nice day, every time he goes to work, this can become routine, meaningless, empty words.  Does that mean I shouldn’t tell him?  Do I have to come up with something new every day?  Maybe the problem is not the routine, but me, maybe I need to examine my heart and make the words mean something.  Religious systems are the same.  When the Isrealites came to the Temple routinely God rebuked them.  But he rebuked them for the state of their heart, he didn’t say, make a new system.

I’m reading the Scott Hahn book, The Lamb’s Supper, but I want to take a moment to describe what I was taught about communion in my Presbyterian PCA church. 

My church taught that communion was as close to heaven and communion with the saints that we could have on earth.  They reject transubstantiation and consubstantiation, but instead subscribe to the idea of spiritual presence.  I was taught that communion is a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven (described in Revelation).  They consider it (the bread and wine, aka crackers and grape juice, of communion) to be a supernatural food, one that gives a real “communion” with Christ, but one done through faith.  They say that Christ does not come down to us in his body and blood (he can’t because his physical body can’t be in more than one place at a time; it can’t be in heaven and on earth at the same time - their rejection of transubstantiation is basically based on philosophy, not Scripture), but through the Holy Spirit we are lifted up to Him.  Through the sacrament we are united to Christ through the Holy Spirit.  It is a means of grace - a way that God strengthens us.  But they reject the meal as a sacrifice. 

The funny thing is, although this is what my church teaches, I never caught the lesson until earlier this year.  My Sunday School class was studying the Westminster catechism.  We were on the questions surrounding the Lord’s Supper, so we got an indepth view of what the church believes about it.  I was floored - I had no idea it was anything other than a solemn memorial.  What a great preparation for understanding the Eucharist!  And trust me, God had to bring me to this by degrees.  I was shocked (and dismayed) at finding out how “mysterious” my PCA belief was supposed to be.  I don’t think I could have handled the whole “miracle”, “mystery”, that is the Eucharist, all at once.  God brought me gradually, but quickly (all in a few months, but step by step).

Once, someone asked me what denomination I belonged to.  I told them, and they responded, “Oh, Presbyterian, they’re a lot like Catholics, right?”  My mouth literally dropped open and I replied (probably in a nasty tone of voice), “No!  We are nothing like Catholics!”  How ironic that now I’m discovering how close I really was to Rome all along.  My PCA foundation of covenant theology is being built on and coming to fruition in Catholicism.

Okay, so Mary was/is a big problem for me.  It has been drilled into my head for so long that Catholics worship Mary that I’ve gone over to the extreme on the other side - I have never considered Mary worth even studying.  I recall a womens Christmas luncheon where the “talk” was about Mary, and I remember shuddering, thinking, “Why are they talking about Mary?  It’s Christmas, talk about Jesus.”  What did Mary have to offer?

The irony is that I had no problem talking about other women in the Bible - Eve, Rahab, Ruth, Esther, Abigail, Rachel and Leah, etc.  But not Mary!  To even mention her sent up red flags in my mind.  To even consider becoming Catholic meant really looking hard at my own mind (and the minds of my fellow Protestants) to see what the problem truly was.  Were the Catholics worshipping her, while saying they weren’t?  Were they worshipping her without realizing it?  Is it possible to worship someone accidentally?  Had they exaggerated her position?  Could I believe in her sinlessness?  Her assumption? 

     *I find it funny that I didn’t even know about the “immaculate conception” or the assumption until I began to study Catholicism.  I thought the immaculate conception referred to Jesus!  To Mary being a virgin!  I had more hurdles to overcome than I even knew existed!

Before I  read Scott Hahn’s book Hail, Holy Queen I had already reconciled certain of my objections.  Because of explanations given by eloquent Catholic ladies on my favorite homeschool forum, I knew that the Catholic Church did not teach worship of Mary, and if indeed anyone did worship her, they were not doing so with authority from Peter!  I had also noticed, much to my chagrin, that the Early Church Fathers treated Mary with much respect and spoke of her often.  They contrasted her with Eve in the same vein that Paul contrasted Jesus with Adam.  Obviously the Co-Redemtrix idea has had a very long tradition!  Those early leaders did not treat Mary with the kid gloves that I did.  So, I approached this book hoping for an explanation of the Biblical basis, and the tradition that led to the Church’s current teachings on Mary.

I’ve never had any problem with God as my Father or with Jesus as brother, I see that idea in Scripture, but Mary as Mother?  I had never made the connection - Jesus is my brother, so his mother is my mother.  But is this Scriptural as well?  Is his “earthly” mother my spiritual mother the way his (earthly? spiritual? how do you define it?)Father is my spiritual father?  Hahn thinks so, in fact he sees Mary, not just in the gospels, but all through the Bible.  He sees her through “typology”, which has always been used (in my experience) to see Jesus throughout the Bible, so why not Mary? 

Mary = the New Eve:  I’m familiar with the comparison of the old Adam to the new Adam - Paul’s comparison of Adam and Jesus.  But many of the ECF’s make the same comparison between Eve and Mary.  Eve disobeyed, Mary obeyed.  Sin comes through Eve, redemption comes through Mary (through her womb in the person of Jesus).  To badly paraphrase Justin Martyr and Iranaeus, as Jesus undid Adam’s sin, so Mary undoes Eve’s sin.  In Genesis we see Eve do battle with a serpent, and lose.  In Revelation we see Mary do battle with the dragon, and win.  So, Eve as a ”type” of Mary:  Eve is the mother of all the living, Mary is the mother of all with new life at baptism.  At first I wanted to reject this comparison because it’s not found in Scripture, but it’s hard to argue with the men who wrote about it in the 1st century - men who knew and learned from the disciples. 

Mary = the New Ark of the Covenant:  (Rev 11:19 - 12:2)  This was another totally new concept for me.  I’ve read Revelation, heard a few sermons, read a couple of articles, but never put together this last of chapter 11 and beginning of chapter 12.  Never made this connection between the revelation of the ark and the description of the woman.  What was the ark?  In the OT it was a box that contained the word of God (the 10 commandments), Aaron’s rod (sign of the priesthood), and manna.  In the NT it’s a womans body that contains Jesus (called the Word of God, our high priest, and the bread from heaven). 

Mary = the Church:  the woman in Revelation, although I think meant to convey Mary, also conveys the symbolism of the Church.  The woman is said to have birthed the members of that church, making her our mother.  But as the Church, she is also the bride of Christ.  I must admit that any reference to Mary being (even symbolically) simultaneously the mother and the bride of Christ makes me a little queasy.  I haven’t quite gotten past that, even with the Scripture that Hahn points out.

Mary = the Queen of Heaven:  This was an interesting history lesson - according to Hahn it was customary in ancient Isreal (and the surrounding countries) for the mother of the King to stand in as Queen because of the multiple wives of the King.  In the Epic of Gilgamesh (I’m taking Hahn’s word for this, I haven’t read this) the Queen Mother was considered the advocate, the intercessor, for the people.  He also points out a passage from 1 Kings 2:19 where Bathsheba does likewise.  According to this example (or type) as the mother of the King (Jesus), Mary has the role of Queen, and does her part - intercedes on the people’s behalf.

Mary, ever virgin poses no problem for me.  I can see both sides of this in Scripture, and I’ll lose no sleep over coming down on this side of the equation.  No word (thus no concept) for specific male relatives, only brother.  Then to me it only makes sense that the Greek word that fits the Aramaic concept be the one used - brother - to mean cousin, uncle, etc.  So when Jesus is described as having brothers, it can easily mean cousins.  The early fathers are helpful in this too, they seemed to agree that Mary was a virgin afterwards.

The Immaculate Conception:  This was a new one, and one that I didn’t accept easily (not sure if I’ve completely gone over or not yet).  Virgin Mary, no problem, sinless Mary, problem.  Augustine was convinced; I might need a little time.  I must emphasize here that her sinlessness was not a merit that she earned, but was grace imparted to her by God.  She needed a saviour just like me, but unlike me she was responsible for raising the Son of God.  God gave her the grace a little earlier, but it was still based on Christ’s merit, his life, his works, his death, etc. 

The Assumption:  honestly, this one is easier than the sinlessness.  I have examples of others in the Bible who were assumed, why not Mary? 

The Mediatrix:  I must quote Hahn here because I do not totally understand this concept, but I like it:  “By consciously uniting our sufferings to our Lord’s redemptive sufferings, we become coworkers.”  He ties this with Paul’s line in Col 1:24 - “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, the Church.”  Mary is the “best” coworker, our best example of how to follow Christ, how to unite our suffererings to his.  Jesus is our mediator; Mary is like the Queen mother of the OT, our advocate to Jesus, pleading our case while we plead it as well.  She is praying for us, while we pray too. 

Because these ideas are new, my initial reaction is to reject them, to see them as stretches, to read too much into the text.  It takes a second reading to realize that these “types” are no more clear than those that point to Christ.  If I can see the text pointing to Christ, and not think it is a stretch, then why do I argue when one points to Mary?  Just because I’m familiar with a concept does not make it right, and the converse is also true, just because I’m not familiar with a concept does not make it false. 

I’ll end here with a few quotes from Hahn:

     “God did not create and redeem the world in order to get more glory, but rather to share it, in due proportion, with all of us.  There is no tug of war between the Creator and His creatures.  The Father made and redeemed us through the Son and the Spirit, but He did it for our sake - starting with Mary, in whom it was accomplished not only first but best.

    Do we detract from Christ’s finished work by affirming its perfect realization in Mary?  On the contrary, we celebrate His work, precisely by focusing our attention on the human person who manifests it most perfectly.”

     “We live our sonship best by listening to Mary and loving as she loves.  Listening means responding when she says, ‘Do whatever he tells you’.  Loving means choosing Him, in every instance, over sin.”

Scott Hahn opens his book talking about our natural need as humans to confess our sins.  The relief that it brings in human relationships, as well as our relationship with God.  Then he begins to describe what confession of sin was like in the old covenant.  I have to quote him here, because this is quite a graphic picture that is shocking to me as a 21st century gal:

     Imagine yourself, after recognizing that you have sinned, preparing to make your confession and sacrifice.  This could only be done at the Temple in Jerusalem, so you would have to plan your journey…Depending on the type of your sin and its gravity, you might have to offer a goat, a sheep, or even a bull.  You could bring one with you,or if you had the money, buy one from the merchants in Jerusalem.  You would of course, have to subdue the animal…Once in Jerusalem, you would lead your beast uphill to the outer court of the Temple.  At the inner court, you would tell the reason for your sacrifice.  Then, in front of the altar, someone would hand you a knife, and you - yourself - would kill the animal.  You yourself would butcher the animal.  YOu would do the cutting and the ripping.  You would do the separating of the parts.  You would detach the bloody limbs and take out the organs and hand it all, piece by piece, to the priest for burning.  You would remove any waste matter from the intestines and purify those parts.  You would also sing penitential psalms while the priest caught the animals blood and sprinkled it over the altar.

 This is the idea of confession that would have been very clear to the apostles - this was the normal way of dealing with sin.  This was very much personal involvement in confession. 

Hahn says, We cannot appreciate the NT at all if we have no understanding of the OT sacraments.  Jesus did not come to replace something bad with somehing good; He came , rather, to take something already great and holy - something God Himself had already begun - and bring it to divine fulfillment.  What does fulfillment mean?  Most of what I’ve been taught says that fulfillment means replacement - old replaced by new.  Does it mean finish, as in to end?  Or does it mean renew?  There is a change, obviously (I don’t have to bring bulls to the temple!), but what does this entail?  Is the ritual completely done away with, or is it changed, renewed?

Hahn says, All of God’s work in the Old Covenant did not vanish into irrelevance with the coming of Jesus Christ. There is no yawning chasm separating the Old Covenant from the New…Thus the Old Covenant signs - the oath, the meal, the sacrifice - find perfection in the New Covenant sacraments. 

James 5:14-16; this is one of many Scripture passages that “bugged” me as a Protestant.  James says to confess to one another, but he says this in the middle of a passage about elders (presbyters, priests) praying and annointing.  James does not say, confess your sins to Jesus, or confess your sins in prayer, but confess to one another, in the context of praying with presbyters.

Another of those passages that never made sense to me was John 20:23 where Jesus gives the apostles the power to forgive sins.  Why would Jesus do this?  Why would He need to?  Why not just tell them to confess their sins in prayer to God and God would forgive them?  What was the point here?  This is where the sacrament of reconciliation comes in - this was the model that Jesus was setting up.  People confess their sins (to another person) and God forgives their sins through the man of His choosing (the one who represents Him on earth). 

Hahn stresses that confession must be real, there must be contrition for sin.  There is no manipulation of God: 1) you must be sorry for your sin  2) you must confess  3) you must do your penance.  Our sins are offenses against God, any penance that we perform cannot make full restitution.  Christ makes up for our lack.  The work of reconciliation is not primarily ours.  It is Christ’s, and it was accomplished on the cross.  Through the sacraments we come to share in His work, by His grace, and to know His benefits.  We do penance then, to provide restitution and repair the damages done by sin, but also to restore and strengthen our bond of love with Christ and the people of God.

I completely misunderstood penance, as a Protestant.  I saw it as “making up for sin”, and I scoffed that a few prayers would make us “okay with God”.  Now I see that there is a whole different emphasis here.  I saw the priest as trying to do something only God could do (and this is true, but in my thinking he was usurping God’s place).  I saw penance as the penalty for our sins, not as conforming us to Christ’s image by suffering like He did.

     God’s sovereignty is not threatened when He shares His power with others.  Indeed, the power remains His own.  Christ is still the Priest behind the priest.  He is the Priest within the priest, and he is the Priest acting through the priest.  So we don’t go to the priest instead of going to Christ… Christ has instituted these creaturely means for the health of our soul.

Hahn introduces another new concept (at least for me); of original sin.  He suggests that original sin is not a positive quality inherited by each man from his forefathers, but rather the lack of a quality that he should have inherited, but didn’t because of Adam’s sin.  He says that sin is not a stain on the soul, but sin is the absence of grace.

He also suggests that the real penalty for sin is not the punishments that we might get (either in penance or by natural consequences), but is the liking of sin itself.  Our punishment is not wanting to get rid of barriers to God, of not having the grace we need to resist.

When I was a good little protestant girl, I went door to door evangelizing.  We had a canned series of questions that we would ask people, and also of answers that we would give back to them.  One of these “explanations” was of what Jesus did for us on the cross.  You see he paid the penalty for our sins, it’s like in a courtroom; you are declared guilty of a crime that you really committed, but Jesus steps in and takes the punishment for you.  Most folks in the deep south are familar with this concept and so they accept it, but every now and then we had someone a little more savvy.  They would say, You can’t do that.  Someone else can’t take your sentence.  You can’t send innocent people to jail for the guilty ones, it doesn’t work that way, it’s not fair.  I never spent much time analyzing this, I just assumed that these people just weren’t going to understand, I didn’t look at my analogy to see if it was flawed.  But there was one little flaw in the presentation (and in my whole belief system) that never made sense to me - confession.  If Jesus paid the penalty for my sins, then why did I have to confess and ask forgiveness when I sinned?  Weren’t they forgiven?  Wasn’t I declared righteous?  And why did the Bible always talk about being judged by our works on the last day?  Why was I judged if I wasn’t guilty anymore?  What of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:14 and Mark 11:25 where he says that we will be forgiven of our sins IF we forgive others when they sin against us?  Why do we need forgiveness for a pardoned act?  When Jesus gave his disciples the power to forgive sins he specifically said that if they didn’t forgive the people’s sins then those people weren’t forgiven!!

The Bible tells us to ask forgivenss for our sins, that our sins separate us from God, that only the righteous will see God.  We are told to put to death the sins that remain in us.  This is why Jesus taught the disciples to fast… This is why self-denial has always been a hallmark of true Christianity…

Suffering did not, in my opinion, receive adequate attention in the Protestant circles in which I ran.  Although I had a pastor who emphasized fasting, it was still not clear to me why.  Why do we fast, why do we deny ourselves?  Where does suffering come into play?  I was told that unintentional sufferering was a result of living in a fallen world.  While on earth we must endure suffering, and the only positive to be found was that it made us long for heaven where suffering will finally end.  Or suffering could be brought by God as discipline.  That God wanted to teach us something.  And this is not a bad thing, we should long for heaven and we do live in a fallen world, and we can learn through our suffering, but is this it, is this all that suffering can offer?  If so, then why bring it on intentionly (like in fasting or self denial)?  We can choose suffering, to turn away (for a time or for all time) from something good to achieve something great - participation in Christ’s suffering, putting to death any idols we might have).  We make sacrifices the same way that the Jews did.  Their altar sacrifices cost them something.  They had to give up something good - money, animal, time - to get something great - forgiveness, reconciled relationship.  We must discipline ourselves to resist temptation (temptation can come in the form of good things - food, money, sex).  We must learn to choose love for God over our own comfort.  Suffering teaches us detachment from this world and attachment to heaven.  We see suffering as a curse, but Jesus (in the Beatitudes) sees it as a blessing.  Self denial is not about giving things up because the world is bad, but because the world is good and might destract us from God.  It is a matter of choosing between good and best. 

This view of suffering gives meaning to the mundane everyday things that we do, like housework/chores/taking care of kids, etc.  I’ve always been told to do these things as I was doing them for the Lord, that they were meaningful.  But this seems to give the idea teeth.  My sacrifice accomplishes something.  Each sacrifice is changing us, making us more like Christ, more acceptable to God.

Hahn says penance is not suffering for sufferings sake, it’s not the gross imposition of a sadistic God or authoritarian Church.  Penance is, rather, the willing removal of any obstacles to God’s love for us and our love for God.  It is an inchoate giving of our whole self, moment by moment, to God. .. Each act of penance conforms us more to His image.  We accomplish this partly through self mastery, but mostly through our correspondence to God’s grace… The sacrament of penance is an act of penance best practiced with an attitude of penance within the context of a life of penance.

We should have goals for overcoming sin and growing in virtue.  This is where regular confession helps.  It not only gives us the grace we need to fight sin, if our confessor knows us and knows our struggles and can help us with strategies to overcome sin.

Sacraments are not magic spells, God does not sanctify us without our cooperation.  We must examine our consciences before confession, finding  sin patterns.  This should be done daily and should be both general and particular.  We need to know our sins and our motivation for commiting those sins.

As a Protestant, I have vehemently opposed the idea of a “treasury of merit”.  This goes against all my protestant teaching - this was one of my BIG obstacles to overcome in looking at Catholicism.  But here again, I find that I’m surprisingly pleased to find Scripture and Tradition on the Catholic side.

     Hahn quotes a Rabbi Nahum Sarna:  God delivered Lot from the catastophe through the merit of Abraham.  This ‘doctrine of merit’ is a not infrequent theme in the Bible and constitutes the first of many incidents in which the righteousness of chosen individuals may sustain other individuals or even an entire group through its protective power.  Job “would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of [his children]; for Job said, ‘It  may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts’. (Job 1:5)  Job seemed to think that his merits would suffice for his children.  Why is this principle okay for Job and not for us?  If this idea of a treasury of merit is true then why could we not draw from it as well?

The corporate aspect of Catholicism echoes the OT faith.  We are NOT lone rangers - us and God (or us and our Bibles).  We are an army, collectively fighting evil and Satan.  It’s not me against the powers of evil, it’s all of us together.  My success is not mine alone, but contributing to the greater success of the Kingdom.  My failures are not mine alone, but the whole Kingdom’s.  Our personal sin weakens the fight.  This is why we confess to the Church - my failings are their failings too.

But we must hate our own sins more than the sins of others.  We can gage how much we love God, by how much we hate the sin that separates us from Him.

Our prayers are usually lists of our desires to God - this is not bad, but through penance God changes our focus to what we need to gain eternal life, not just what we want.

Just as Zacheaus was unburdened by his confession and restitution, we can be too, by our confession and penance.

What matters most in confession is the relationship between us and God, it’s not just about following the rules.  Only by confessing our sins do we allow the Lamb of God to take them away.  The Bible doesn’t just say that God forgives our sins, but that he takes away the sin of the world.  He changes our hearts from stone to flesh.  He makes us new creatures.

The things that I think will change me the most, if I become Catholic, are confession and the Eucharist.  Being accountable for my sins, my spiritual growth, having to ‘fess up to my shortcomings - the things that most people don’t see - and the mercy that will flow from hearing the spoken words - you are forgiven - will change me forever.  I long to hear the words of absolution and I long to commune with my Saviour in the intimacy of the Eucharist.  These two ideas - so foreign to me once - draw me in a way I cannot explain.  They offer me a much closer relationship to Jesus than I ever experienced outside the Church.  Much in the same way that the “communion of saints” provides a very real link to the past.  I am  not alone - I have brothers and sisters who have travelled the same road I am on.  We are fighting together.  I have no desire to worship them (the whole idea seems silly, how can people think this is what I”m going to do?), but I am becoming fond of the idea of praying with them.  I am getting used to the idea that heaven is not disconnected with earth, that God is truly the God of the living and not the dead.

I’m reading Scott Hahn’s Swear to God: the promise and power of the sacraments.

“[Sacraments] are symbols that genuinely convey the reality they signify…Ordinary signs convey an idea about something.  Sacramental signs convey the sacred reality itself.”

This is difficult for the protestant trained mind to comprehend.  This is in the realm of the virgin birth and the incarnation.  These ideas I can handle because I’ve heard them all my life.  There’s no “rationality” behind them, but I believe them (by faith I suppose - the only other alternative seems to be brainwashing).  But with Catholicism, I’m asked to put quite a few more things into the “mystery” pile.  This is the humanist legacy of the reformation, I suppose.  I tend to think that perhaps liberal protestants have taken reformation ideas to their logical conclusion - no mysteries at all, nothing that can’t be “logically” argued.  Can you logically argue the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?  I can base it on my own and others experiences, but it remains somewhat “mysterious”.  The logical humanist (perhaps post-enlightenment) side of me wants to limit the number of mysteries I define myself by.  But is this truly Christian?  Is it even Biblical?  Does the last 6,000+ years of record support it?  I know the last 2,000 years do not.  I read about mystery and miracle in the Early Church Fathers and the medieval and modern church fathers as well.  Why do I want to deny myself access to it?  Why do I accept small miracles in my own personal faith story, buy deny these bigger miracles (Eucharist, stigmata, healing, baptismal regeneration, etc)?  If Jesus says, “This is my body,” and bishops in the 2nd century say, “this is his body”, why do I want to argue?

In the OT, God dealt with his people in a very physical way.  In the NT I’m told that Jesus fulfilled this and “spiritualized” the covenant.  Even if this is true, does “spiritualization” automatically rule out using physical things to convey those spiritual truths?  If everything is “spiritual” then why baptism? why communion?

–note– something that never made sense to me as a protestant– why do we need crackers and grape juice to remember Jesus’ sacrifice?  I never forgot about it.  This sacrifice is mentioned whenever the gospel is preached, why the extra reminder?  Also, baptism - what was the need?  It was explained to me as the NT equivalent to circumcism, the sign of joining the believing community.  Water, standing for the washing away of sins (but always a BIG point made about how the water didn’t actually wash your sins away).  Why the physical signs if they didn’t do anything?  I was told that we do it because Jesus told us to, and I get that.  He told us to do it, so we do it, but why?  Why did he tell us to do it?  If everything is spiritual, why physical signs with no power?  I was even told that the signs in the OT had no power either.  Circumcism didn’t do anything, the sacrifices didn’t do anything, they only looked forward to when somebody would come and do the things that the signs represented.  So why institute them?  I still don’t get this.

“… the sacraments do not depend upon the strength, the skill, the intelligence, the eloquence, or even the holiness of the individual priest.  For it is Christ who acts - though through His unworthy minister - in every sacrament… Every sacrament produces its effects by the power of Christ alone, and not at all by our own labors or the labors of our priest.”  So does this mean that we can manipulate God?  That anyone can partake of the sacraments and grace is doled out like pez?  This was my criticism of sacramentalism before studying it.  Now, for myself, I had no problem asking God for “grace” to get me through my day any old time I wanted.  I ask, God gives.  How is this model any different?  I would have argued that God only gives when you “ask according to His will”, and I think I would be right.  God knows our hearts and our motives and he acts accordingly.  If I come to Him in the Eucharist, asking for his grace, will He withhold it?  I don’t think so, anymore than when I come to Him in prayer and ask for it.  But it seems to me that so much more is offered in the Eucharist, much more than I ever thought to ask for.

“God does extraordinary things through ordinary means.  He uses the natural to do the supernatural, the human to accomplish the divine.. Yet great as the sacraments are, they are not permanent institutions.  They are our participation now in a life we hope one day to know more fully.  When Christ comes in glory, all sacraments will cease.  Now we know Him through signs, as though through a glass darkly (1 Cor 13:12).  Then we will see him as He is (1 Jo 3:2) and we will have no need of signs.”

This makes sense to me!  We DO still need signs to know Him.  Even with the Holy Spirit we can only compare Him to what we know.  We have physical lives in a physical world (just like in the OT).  God used physical signs with spiritual significance in the OT, now because of the incarnation we have a better idea of who God is and what He is like, but we still have limitations!