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The Purifying Fire of Dividing, Divine Love

Detail of "The Sacred Heart of Jesus" by Salvador Dali (1962).

The Purifying Fire of Dividing, Divine Love | Carl E. Olson

The Readings for Sunday, August 14th show that Jesus causes division and brings unity for one and the same reason: He is both the scandal that divides and the Savior who unites.

Readings:
• Jer 38:4-6, 8-10
• Ps 40:2, 3, 4, 18
• Heb 12:1-4
• Lk 12:49-53

In the summer of 2007, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a document containing “responses to some questions regarding certain aspects of the doctrine of the Church.” It carefully re-articulated some important Catholic teachings about the nature of the Church, meant to help Catholics avoid various “erroneous interpretations which in turn give rise to confusion and doubt.” 

Predictably, many media outlets sensationalized the contents of the document and ran headlines such as “Vatican hits ‘wounded’ Christian churches,” as though the teaching “that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church” is somehow new to the Vatican, the pope, or Catholicism. Of course, it isn’t. Yet that didn’t keep some Catholics from expressing their outrage at the supposed “intolerance” coming from a backwards and “polarizing” Pope Benedict XVI. 

One Catholic, in a letter to the editor of the Detroit Free Press, lamented what he described as the “believe-what-we-say-or-leave’” mentality of the Catholic Church. “I hope all of us will start acting more like Jesus…”, he wrote, “simply passing along love, peace and goodness to others.” 

That letter writer would do well to read both the document he wrongly criticizedand today’s Gospel reading, which describes Jesus explaining that He has “come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” This is a reference back to the third chapter of Luke’s Gospel and John the Baptist’s explanation that the Messiah “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” and that He will burn the chaff “with unquenchable fire” (Lk 3:16-17). Like the prophet Elijah, who called down fire from heaven to consume his enemies (2 Kgs 1:10-14), the presence of Jesus often caused violence and disturbance—not because He opposed love and peace, but because the destruction of evil and sin demanded a violent, active love. Only through bloodshed and sacrifice will peace be fully established, and then only at the end of time. 

Many theologians and authors have tried in recent decades to warp the Gospels and remake Jesus into a sort of mild-mannered self-help guru who never uttered a disturbing word or made a shocking comment. Yet Jesus stated that He would bring division, even among families, setting parents against children. This is painful to consider, but it has often been the case: sometimes the one who enters the family of God must turn his back on father, mother, and siblings. 

To take up modern terminology, Jesus came to apply shock therapy to the ailing hearts and souls of those lost in sin. The fire that He gave—and continues to give through His Church and the sacraments—is the burning life and the transforming energy of the Holy Spirit, which consumes what is weak and wanting while purifying and enlightening the minds of those who follow Him. “As fire transforms into itself everything it touches,” remarks the Catechism, “so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power” (CCC 1127; cf. 696). 

That transformation is ultimately an all-or-nothing reality; there is, in fact, a “believe-what-we-say-or-leave” aspect to Catholicism, although it is far better expressed as “believe-what-He-says-or-leave”. Jesus causes division and brings unity for one and the same reason: He is both the scandal that divides and the Savior who unites. The bloody Cross is the scarlet line that separates and a steady tie that binds. 

As the Letter to the Hebrews states today, the Cross is shameful to many. But for those who have their eyes fixed on Jesus, the Cross is the ladder to joy and life. The theologian Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, in reflecting on martyrdom and the cost of discipleship, once wrote that the “only valid response” to the death of Christ on the Cross “is to be prepared to die for him, and even more, to be dead in him.” Through that death comes real peace; in that death we experience true and abiding love. Yes, indeed, let us start acting more like Jesus!

(This "Opening the Word" originally appeared in a slightly different form in the August 19, 2007, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

New: "1 & 2 Samuel: Ignatius Catholic Study Bible" by Curtis Mitch and Scott Hahn

Now available from Ignatius Press:

1 & 2 Samuel: Ignatius Catholic Study Bible

by Curtis Mitch and Scott Hahn

This volume in the popular Bible study series leads readers through a penetrating study of the Books of 1 & 2 Samuel using the biblical text itself and the Church's own guidelines for understanding the Bible.

Ample notes accompany each page, providing fresh insights by renowned Bible teachers Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, as well as time-tested interpretations from the Fathers of the Church. They provide rich historical, cultural, geographical or theological information pertinent to the Old Testament book - information that bridges the distance between the biblical world and our own.

It also includes Topical Essays, Word Studies and Charts. The Topical Essays explore the major themes of 1 & 2 Samuel, often relating them to the teachings of the Church. The Word Studies explain the background to important Bible terms, while the Charts summarize crucial biblical information "at a glance".

Curtis Mitch, a former student of Scott Hahn, is the General Editor of the complete Ignatius Study Bible series.

Scott Hahn, Ph.D., well- known as the author of several best-selling books including Rome Sweet Home and The Lamb's Supper, is a professor of scripture at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, and a very popular scripture scholar and speaker.

"With copious historical and theological notes, incisive commentary and tools for study, the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible is outstanding for private devotion, personal study and Bible study groups. It is excellent for evangelization and apologetics as well!"
— Stephen Ray, Host ,The Footprints of God series

"The Ignatius Study Bible is a triumph of both piety and scholarship, in the best Catholic tradition: simply the most useful succinct commentary that any Christian or other interested person could hope for."
— Erasmo Leiva, Author, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word

“What is the mark of a Christian?”

Detail from "Christ Leading the Apostles to Mount Tabor" by Lorenzo Lotto (1512).

A Scriptural Reflection by Carl E. Olson on the Readings for Sunday, August 7, 2016

Readings:
• Wis 18:6-9
• Ps 33:1, 12, 18-19, 20-22
• Heb 11:1-2, 8-19
• Lk 12:32-48

“What is the mark of a Christian?” asked St. Basil in his work, Moralia, which is a guide living a morally upright life in the world. How might we answer this question? To be kind. To be charitable. To give to the poor. These are all good answers, but St. Basil’s answer emphasized something else: “It is to watch daily and hourly and to stand prepared in that state of total responsiveness pleasing to God, knowing that the Lord will come at an hour that he does not expect.” A true Christian is vigilant, meaning he is ready to hear God’s word and to respond accordingly.

Today’s readings are about vigilance, especially as they relate to the virtues of faith and hope. In fact, vigilance is really impossible with faith and hope, for the disciple of Christ stands prepared because he believes in faith that the Lord has come and will come, and because he believes in hope that Christ will fulfill the promises granted through the new covenant, the Church, and the sacraments.

The Book of Wisdom was written by a well-educated, anonymous Jewish author living around Alexandria, Egypt, between 180 and 50 B.C. The “night of the Passover” was, of course, a definitive moment for the Israelites. “It was a night of watching by the LORD, to bring them out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 12:42). The vigilance kept on the night of Passover was based on the promise and the “knowledge of the oaths in which they put their faith,” which had been given to them by God through Moses.

This vigilance was not just a matter of waiting and watching, however, for it also involved the sacrifice of an unblemished lamb. The blood of the lamb was to be put on the doorposts as a sign of their faith, and then the lamb was to be eaten (Ex. 12:3-14). This led, then, to two essential acts: the liberation of the people and the destruction of their enemies.

Hebrews 11 is a powerful, even poetic, celebration of vigilant, active faith. It opens by stating that faith “is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things no seen.” Faith is rooted in God’s actions and words in the past and looks with hope toward the future and “a better homeland, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16). Abraham, filled with faith, obeyed when he was called to go to the promised land. Vigilant, he responded, even though he was not certain of where God was leading him, but believing that God had a prepared a city for him.

That city is heaven, the new Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God. There is but one holy land, and it was inaugurated by Jesus Christ, who is the new Moses, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). He inaugurated the kingdom through preaching and teaching, and by establishing the Church, the “little flock” referred to in today’s Gospel. “The Word of the Lord,” states Lumen Gentium, “is compared to a seed which is sown in a field; those who hear the Word with faith and become part of the little flock of Christ, have received the Kingdom itself” (par. 5).

Again, vigilance and obedience are essential; those who listen with anticipation and respond in faith will receive the Kingdom. Jesus’ exhortation to alert faith is meant for all Christians, but he explained to Peter that his words held a special gravity for the apostles and their successors. The master, Jesus, has given his servants, the apostles, unique authority in the household of God. The slothful or ignorant servant will suffer severely. “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” 

Our prayer should echo that uttered by Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, that we will be “completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action” (CCC 260).

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the August 8, 2010, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

 

Quick thoughts on the ultimate purpose of canon law and social doctrine

The interior of St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Chicago, Illinois (Wikipedia)

Carl E. Olson | The Dispatch at Catholic World Report

And what is real social justice? The Book of Revelation answers that important question.

In his most recent column, Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, points out something that every Catholic should know:

The Church’s Code of Canon Law contains 1,752 laws covering everything from the structural organization of the Church as the people of God, the teaching of the Faith, the sacramental life of the Church, the administration of the material goods of the Church, and even penal and procedural law. But lest any of us (especially canon lawyers) forget the purpose of all of this body of law, the very last law (or “canon”) states that the “salvation of souls”, which must always be the supreme law of the Church, must be kept before our eyes.

The salvation of souls. How often do we hear this language in the Church today? Not very often, I am afraid. And yet that is the very mission of the Church!

Quite right. But how often do we hear that the essential point of Christianity is to help the poor, or to seek social justice (more on that in a moment), or implement better programs for healthcare, education, and what not? Quite often. But everything in and of the Church should be oriented toward the ultimate goal of bringing people—by the grace of God, of course—into saving communion with the Triune God. Archbishop Sample says:

Why am I emphasizing this point, you may ask? Because I sincerely think that we are in danger of losing our focus in fulfilling the mission that Christ has entrusted to all of us in the Church. Our ultimate mission is to bring as many people as possible into the one People of God, to incorporate them into the one Body of Christ, and be built up as the temple of God, animated by the Holy Spirit. The gift of eternal salvation is the greatest gift God has given to us, a gift that was purchased at a great price, the blood of his only begotten Son. ...

It seems our current environment cultivates the opposite view. Our culture seems to tell us that the way to life is easy and wide, and most people find it, while to find the road to destruction is narrow and hard, and really very few people end up there. I go by our blessed Lord’s words.

Part of the reason I think that we are in danger of losing the essential and primary message of salvation of souls is based on how I see many people defining what it means to be a good Catholic. Many people have reduced being a good and faithful Catholic to being nice, tolerant and doing good works. They think if we do service projects for the poor and needy, and don’t make any judgments about human behavior and sin, then we are fulfilling the Gospel mandate.

"While it is a good and even essential thing that a disciple of Jesus care for the poor and seek justice for the oppressed in this world," he adds, "there is so much more to the message of redemption in Jesus Christ. We must follow the Ten Commandments, avoid sin, and repent and seek forgiveness when we fail. Our eternal salvation depends on all these things, as Jesus himself taught. 'If you love me, you will keep my commandments.' (John 14:15)". As a certain document of the Second Vatican Council summarized matters:

Christ, having been lifted up from the earth has drawn all to Himself. Rising from the dead He sent His life-giving Spirit upon His disciples and through Him has established His Body which is the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation. Sitting at the right hand of the Father, He is continually active in the world that He might lead men to the Church and through it join them to Himself and that He might make them partakers of His glorious life by nourishing them with His own Body and Blood. Therefore the promised restoration which we are awaiting has already begun in Christ, is carried forward in the mission of the Holy Spirit and through Him continues in the Church in which we learn the meaning of our terrestrial life through our faith, while we perform with hope in the future the work committed to us in this world by the Father, and thus work out our salvation. (LG, 48)

Then there is the matter of "social justice", which has often become a sort of mindless mantra of those looking to attach deeper meaning to whatever political agenda or ideological project they are pushing, selling, or supporting.

Continue reading.

Why the Church Cannot Reverse Past Teaching on Capital Punishment

(Photo: us.fotolia.com/fresnel6)

by Edward Feser Joseph M. Bessette | Catholic World Report

If Pope Francis were to teach that capital punishment is “absolutely” immoral, he would be contradicting the teaching of scripture, the Fathers, and all previous popes, and substituting for it “some new doctrine.”

Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a two-part article on Catholicism and the death penalty. Part 2 will be posted later this week.

Pope St. John Paul II was well-known for his vigorous opposition to capital punishment. Yet in 2004, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- the pope’s own chief doctrinal officer, later to become Pope Benedict XVI -- stated unambiguously that:

[I]f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment… he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities… to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible… to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about… applying the death penalty… (emphasis added)

How could it be “legitimate” for a Catholic to be “at odds with” the pope on such a matter? The answer is that the pope’s opposition to capital punishment was not a matter of binding doctrine, but merely an opinion which a Catholic must respectfully consider but not necessarily agree with. Cardinal Ratzinger could not possibly have said what he did otherwise. If it were mortally sinful for a Catholic to disagree with the pope about capital punishment, then he could not “present himself to receive Holy Communion.” If it were even venially sinful to disagree, then there could not be “a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics.”

The fact is that it is the irreformable teaching of the Church that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate, not merely to ensure the physical safety of others when an offender poses an immediate danger (a case where even John Paul II was willing to allow for the death penalty), but even for purposes such as securing retributive justice and deterring serious crime. What is open to debate is merely whether recourse to the death penalty is in practice the best option given particular historical and cultural circumstances. That is a “prudential” matter about which popes have no special expertise.

We defend these claims in detail and at length in our book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of the Death Penalty, forthcoming from Ignatius Press. What follows is a brief summary of some key points.

Sacred Scripture

The Church holds that scripture is infallible, particularly when it teaches on matters of faith and morals. The First Vatican Council teaches that scripture must always be interpreted in the sense in which the Church has traditionally understood it, and in particular that it can never be interpreted in a sense contrary to the unanimous understanding of the Fathers of the Church.

Both the Old and New Testaments teach that capital punishment can be legitimate, and the Church has always interpreted them this way.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Mary, Martha, and "the better part"

"Christ with Martha and Mary" by Mikhail Nesterov (1911).

Carl E. Olson | On the Readings for Sunday, July 17, 2016

Readings:
• Gen 18:1-10a
• Ps 15:2-3, 3-4, 5
• Col 1:24-28
• Lk 10:38-42

Americans are, generally speaking, a pragmatic and practical people. We know how to get things done, how to organize, how to make a plan and put it into action. Work may be “a rat race” and “a grind,” but we take satisfaction in knowing we work hard, do a good job, and are productive members of society. 

But to what end? 

By “end,” I mean “ultimate end.” This question is pursued relentlessly and with sometimes unsettling results in the little classic, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (Ignatius Press, 2009), written in the 1950s by the German philosopher, Josef Pieper. Western man overvalues work, Pieper argued, and he has lost the meaning and importance of true leisure, instead substituting shallow entertainment and empty diversions. Leisure is essential to be whole, and the soul of leisure is “divine worship” of the Creator. “Celebration of God in worship,” writes Pieper, “cannot be done unless it is done for its own sake.”

Hold that thought and cut away to the dusty, first-century village of Bethany and the home of Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus. Jesus, having told his disciples of his approaching suffering and death and having performed healings and exorcisms (Lk. 9), was likely ready for a brief respite before heading into Jerusalem, just two miles away. Martha was an exemplary hostess. She believed, at the very least, that Jesus was a great prophet, and she took pride in treating this friend and guest of distinction to the finest care and food (note the clear parallels with today’s reading from Genesis). And so Martha was busily preparing and serving food, even while her sister, Mary, sat at the feet of Jesus, listening to him speak.

What happened next was not an ordinary part of Semitic culture and hospitality: Martha sought to draw Jesus into the middle of a domestic disagreement. And she pulled out all of the stops in doing so, employing the guilt trip (“Lord, do you not care…”), playing the victim card (“that my sister has left by myself…”), and employing the exasperated demand (“Tell her to help me”). Things went from agreeable to awkward quickly!

I’ve heard the words of Jesus interpreted sometimes as being a rebuke to Martha. But that is unfair to Martha and it skews, or misses altogether, the essential point. The Church Fathers are quite agreed on this point. St. Gregory the Great, for example, wrote, “For what is set forth by Mary, who sitting down gave ear to the words of our Lord, save the life of contemplation? And what by Martha, so busied with outward services, save the life of action? Now Martha's concern is not reproved, but that of Mary is even commended.” He then arrived at this vital conclusion: “For the merits of the active life are great, but of the contemplative, far better.” Everything that Martha did was good. Yet in pursuing good things, she overlooked the greatest good.

What was it? Mary, in sitting at Jesus’ feet, showed her submission to him. She literally “listened to his word”; that is, she listened to the logos of the Logos. She was completely and wholly present to the Incarnate Word; there was no practical end to this being present, for it was simply an act of love and worship. “To cling to God and to the things of God,” wrote St. John Cassian, “this must be our major effort, this must be the road that the heart follows unswervingly. Any diversion, however impressive, must be regarded as secondary, low-grade and certainly dangerous.” And St. Ambrose sums it up perfectly: “Do not let service divert the knowledge of the heavenly Word.”

Mary, in choosing “the better part” had made the right choice. She completely gave her attention and herself to the Lord, fully aware of the Word of God present in flesh and blood, and in spoken word. In so choosing, she gained what could never be taken from her.

 (This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the July 18, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

The Joys and Challenges of Filming the Story of Salvation History

The Joys and Challenges of Filming the Story of Salvation History | CWR Staff

Steve Ray, who has been working for 16 years on the ambitious "Footprints of God" series, discusses his vision, describes the difficulties, and asks for assistance as the project nears the finish line.

Author and apologist Stephen Ray (CatholicConvert.com) along with his wife Janet, entered the Catholic Church in 1994, a journey from the Baptist tradition to Catholicism described in Ray's first book, Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church. Since then he has kept busy with giving numerous talks, leading pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Rome, and other locations, and writing more books, including Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church, and St. John's Gospel: A Bible Study and Commentary. 

Steve and Janet have also kept busy working on writing, filming, editing, and producing the award-winning video series for Ignatius Press titled ”The Footprints of God”. The Rays and their crew have completed eight of the ten films and are busy making preparations for the final two films, including raising money to help with the costs of filming on location in countries including Israel, Turkey, Italy, and Egypt. 

Catholic World Report recently caught up with Steve shortly before he and Janet left the country to lead a pilgrimage in Rome and Assisi. 

CWR: You’ve been working on the “Footprints of God” film project for 16 years. Where did the idea come from and how did you get started on such an ambitious project?

Steve Ray: It started in the middle of the night around 2 a.m. Without any forethought I woke up with a start. I sat up in the pitch dark and grabbed my wife and began to shake her, "Janet, Janet! Wake up, we have to make a ten-part video series on the history of salvation from a Catholic perspective!" I had woken her up so abruptly she she was shaking from fright. When she finally realized what I was saying she responded, “What? Are you crazy? I thought the house was on fire or you were having a heart attack. You woke me up in the middle of the night and scared me half to death to tell us we have to make movie? We can't even take good pictures—how does God expect us to make movies? You're crazy, go back to sleep."

She rolled over and went back to sleep but I was wide awake—and I was on fire. For the rest of the night I was at my computer with fingers flying, getting it all down out of my head before it disappeared. The ideas flowed like a waterfall and by the time the sun came up I had the whole outline of the series figured out, along with the title. It was going to be called The Footprints of God: The Story of Salvation from Abraham to Augustine. It would consist of ten parts and each one would explain how God has come to his people to offer redemption and salvation—to the point that he even got his own feet dirty doing it!

CWR: How did Ignatius Press get involved in the project?

Steve Ray: We called Ignatius Press to tell them our idea. They invited my wife and I out to San Francisco for lunch and a meeting. I presented my idea. By the end of the lunch we had their approval and the funding for the first movie Peter, Keeper of the Keys. Within six weeks we were flying over the land of the Bible in helicopters getting the aerial footage, and six weeks later we were filming Peter in Israel and Rome. We are grateful from the bottom of our hearts for the unflagging support and funding from Fr. Joseph Fessio, Mark Brumley, and Tony Ryan of Ignatius Press.

These movies couldn’t be like anything else out there. We wanted them to be unique and one of kind—and they are! 

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

"We have lost sight that Christianity is foundationally a mystical and not a moral religion..."

Tedmund Chan, the Associate Editor of the Thomas International Center, recently interviewed Fr. David Meconi, SJ, about Called To Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification (Ignatius Press, 2016), which he co-edited with Carl E. Olson:

A recipient of the pontifical license in Patrology from the University of Innsbruck and a D. Phil in Ecclesiastical History from Oxford University, Fr. Meconi is currently Assistant Professor of Early Christianity in the Department of Theological Studies at St. Louis  University, Director of the Edmund Campion Centre for Catholic Studies, and editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review. He is also a former president of the Jesuit Philosophical Association, a Fellow at the Augustinian Institute at Villanova University, and member of the ecclesiastical board of the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. His recent publications include The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification (Catholic University of America Press), the forthcoming The Enemy Within: Augustine on Sin and Self-Sabotage, and his editing of the Cambridge Companion to Augustine and of On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Cultivating a Contemporary Theology of Creation.

Fr. Meconi, many Latin Catholics are suspicious of deification or theosis as not being a properly Christian teaching. Could you please give us a short explanation of what the Catholic teaching on deification is? Why isn’t it more familiar to Catholics in the West (or in the United States)?

We have lost sight that Christianity is foundationally a mystical and not a moral religion: we are saved not so much by what we do or not do but who we become. Galatians 2:19-20 is a perfect snapshot of this: Paul says he is now dead to the law because he is alive in Christ and it is Christ who is now living his fully human life.  The Catholic teaching on deification (look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church §460 for an excellent synopsis)​ maintains that God becomes human so we humans can become godly–no longer having to live a merely fallen life as incomplete and sinful humans, we can now partake of God’s own life and become immortal, perfectly wise, loving, and so on.​

How would you respond to the claim that the teaching of deification is not important or relevant to the Christian moral and spiritual life, as we’ve managed without it for so long? What does deification add to our understanding of the Christian life as being rooted in charity, the sacraments, and life in the Church?

Everything is grace, everything. In the Gospel of John, for example, Jesus Christ makes it quite clear that without him we can do nothing, absolutely nothing (Jn 15:5).  Deification is the honest admittance that we are all in need of grace, not only for our mere existence, and not simply for the glory of being human, but especially for our sanctification which makes us God’s own sons and daughters.  The sacraments are the channels of this new union, as they continue Christ’s own incarnate presence in the world.​

It seems that quite a few books on deification by scholars both Catholic and Protestant have been published recently in the English-speaking world. The attention being given by Western Christian scholars to deification may indeed be an indication that something is missing in contemporary presentations of the Gospel. How does this particular volume of essays serve to change that?

Continue reading on the Thomas International Center website.

Sinners, Prophets, and the Business of Heaven

"Christ in the House of Simon" by Dieric Bouts (c 1420-1475)

Sinners, Prophets, and the Business of Heaven | Carl E. Olson | On the Readings for Sunday, June 12, 2016

Readings:

2 Sm 12:7-10, 13
Ps 32:1-2, 5, 7, 11
Gal 2:16, 19-21
Lk 7:36—8:3 or 7:36-50

What did the most famous king in the Old Testament and a poor, anonymous woman in the Gospels have in common? They were both sinners. They were both in need of forgiveness. And they both knew it.

King David’s sin is as well-known as the woman’s sin in today’s Gospel reading is unknown. David, having witnessed the beauty of the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of David’s loyal warriors, arranged to have Uriah put on the front lines of battle, where he was killed. It was the darkest moment of David’s often magnificent and noble life, and the king finally confessed to the prophet Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” In the Psalm written after Nathan had confronted him about his murderous actions, the repentant David wrote, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. … Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance” (Psa. 51:10, 14). 

David’s life and sin were chronicled in great detail, by others and by himself. His remorse was expressed with poetic poignancy by his own pen. It is quite a contrast to the sinful woman who came to the house of the Pharisee where Jesus was invited to dine. Her name is not given, her sins are not described or listed, and if she uttered any words, they are not recorded. She may have been a prostitute; whatever the case, her sins were apparently public and well-known. 

These various facts and details are not of primary concern to Luke the Evangelist because he is intent on revealing Christ’s mercy, love, and power to forgive sins. “You perceive,” wrote St. Peter Chrysologus about this particular story, “that Christ came to the Pharisee’s table not to be filled with food for the body but to carry on the business of heaven while he was in the flesh.” 

A significant amount of this business of heaven was worked out within the earthly context of Jesus’ ongoing debates and confrontations with the Pharisees. The host, the Pharisee Simon, was concerned with judging—was Jesus a true prophet?—which is why Jesus asked him a question that required his judgment as a Pharisee, an interpreter of the Law. Simon, in judging rightly the answer to Jesus’ question, rendered judgment upon his own actions, or lack of actions. The problem was that Simon, like many of the Pharisees, was fixated on the letter of law, while failing to love the Giver of the law. 

Put another way, Simon had asked Jesus into his home in order to judge Jesus, while the sinful woman sought out Jesus in order to kiss and anoint his feet. The Pharisee wished to stand face to face with the Incarnate Word in stubborn wariness; the woman desired only to worship at his feet in a silent act of vulnerable love. She did not have to give verbal expression to her sorrow and repentance for her actions spoke louder than words. Her sins, Jesus said, were forgiven “because she has shown great love” and because of her faith: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

We are not saved by faith alone but, as the Apostle Paul told the Galatians, who were being tempted to embrace a form of Pharisaism: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). Faith, James emphasized, is dead without works—and those works are animated by charity and oriented toward God and neighbor (James 2:8-18). 

“To err human,” wrote Alexander Pope, “to forgive divine.” That is the essential message of today’s readings, which unflinchingly point out man’s sinful ways while rejoicing in God’s merciful ways. All of us—famous kings and unnamed women and everyone between—are sinners, and Christ died for us so that we, as Paul writes, can be crucified with Christ and thus truly live by faith and love.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the June 13, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.) 

"A work of deft apologetics ... [an] admirably argued and consistently instructive book ..."

From Edward Short's review in The Catholic Herald of Carl E. Olson's book Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? (Ignatius Press-Augustine Institute, 2016):

Olson is at his best when confuting those like the liberal Protestant theologian John Selby Spong, who claims that the Resurrection must mean something other than that Christ rose from the dead. For Spong, since the Resurrection found in the New Testament and celebrated by Christians worldwide for more than 2,000 years cannot be squared with our technologically advanced, scientific society, it is necessary for obliging liberal theologians to disabuse “fundamentalist” Christians of outmoded views and to offer instead a more plausible “spiritual” definition of Christ’s greatest miracle. And thus, as Olson argues, “Spong and like-minded thinkers … shred and reassemble the New Testament in Frankenstein-like fashion, creating a monster that is part pseudo-spirituality, part slavish scientism”.

Throughout this admirably argued and consistently instructive book, Olson never loses sight of why understanding the Resurrection is so vital.

“Secular humanism simply does not satisfy hungry souls and searching hearts,” he writes. Nor does it tell us anything reliable about Christ, or his Resurrection. When it comes to the atheists who command so much respect in our uncritical culture, Olson is unsparing.

Read the entire review on the Herald's site.

More praise for the book:

"Every year, right around Easter, the super-skeptics come out in droves to call into question the truth of the Resurrection. In Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Carl Olson does an excellent job of laying out the key questions raised by skeptics and offering compelling and well-researched answers. A must-read for any Catholic whose ever wondered about the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus."
— Dr. Brant Pitre, Author of The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ

"Carl Olson offers a cogent survey of the most common objections to the historicity of the Resurrection, doing the particularly invaluable work of tracing their historical roots and philosophical assumptions in an accessible way. This book is an essential resource, especially for teachers, catechists, and anyone involved in evangelization."
— Amy Welborn, author of the Prove It! series of apologetics for Catholic teens

"This is a doubly scandalous book. It's about the greatest scandal in history, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it's a scandal in its own right because it dares to argue (convincingly, I think) that the Resurrection actually occurred and that all the arguments against its historicity have fallen flat, including recent arguments from the New Atheists and others. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? will give delight to believers and distress to unbelievers. What more can one ask?"
- Karl Keating, Founder, Catholic Answers

"'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ... we are of all men most to be pitied.' So says St. Paul. In his new book Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? Carl Olson demonstrates there is no pity necessary—the resurrection is true! He analyzes and presents the historical and objective reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central and crucial fact of all human existence. Written for novice and scholar alike, this book will convince even the skeptic."
— Steve K. Ray, Best-selling author and Host of "The Footprints of God"

"Conversant with both the relevant scholarship as well as the misconceptions and false presentations of Jesus current in contemporary culture, Olson’s book is an inviting, readable introduction to the question of the resurrection that deepens one’s faith in the fundamental fact of Christian faith—that Jesus Christ was truly raised from the dead."
— Dr. Leroy Huizenga, Associate Professor of Theology, University of Mary (Bismarck, N.D.)

"Scholars are often busy 'rethinking' the Resurrection of Christ only to find, so they tell us, that it never happened, or perhaps that Christ never happened. Carl Olson has read over these various theses and examined  their credibility. Not surprisingly, he finds them wanting on this or that particular issue of fact or logic. The Resurrection is at the center of Christianity. Olson's book shows quite clearly why it is and that it is. The scholarship that opposes the Resurrection is seen to be deficient not only in faith but also in reason, in scholarship itself."
— Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University

"For the earliest Christians, to preach Christianity meant primarily to preach the Resurrection. It was the focus of every sermon reported in the book of Acts. It was the heart of the good news which the Christians brought to the world. Yet in some circles today, it has become fashionable not just to doubt the Resurrection, but to question such basic facts as Jesus' very existence. That's why this new book by Carl Olson is so desperately needed. As St. Paul did in the first century, Olson affirms the life-changing power of the Resurrection. But he does more: he shows how the best evidence and contemporary scholarship affirm what Christians have believed for centuries, that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Comprehensive, well-researched, and accessible, this is the best defense of the Resurrection from a Catholic perspective."
— Brandon Vogt, Content Director at Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and founder of StrangeNotion

"Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? is a brilliant and lucid presentation of the overwhelming evidence for Christ's resurrection. Like a skilled surgeon, Carl E. Olson masterfully analyzes and dissects the radical skepticism and iniquitous criticism that often dominate the study of the Gospels. The question and answer format allows the reader to follow the arguments in a logical progression, and is a wonderful medium for Olson to showcase his unique talent for keeping the reader interested and engaged while bridging the chasm between academic scholarship and the armchair intellectual. This book should be required reading for every priest, deacon, seminarian, catechist, apologist—anyone who wants to strengthen their Christian faith and deepen their love of Jesus Christ."
— Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, author, Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality

The Blessed Sacrament: It's either All or nothing

"Communion of the Apostles" by Fra Angelico (1440-41)

The Blessed Sacrament: It's either All or nothing | Carl E. Olson 

On the Readings for May 29, 2016, The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Readings:
• Gen 14:18-20
• Ps 110:1, 2, 3, 4
• 1 Cor 11:23-26
• Lk 9:11b-17

Shortly after my wife and I entered the Catholic Church in 1997, I had a conversation with an Evangelical friend that was as disconcerting as it was friendly. A.J., who I met in Bible college several years earlier, was curious about the Catholic doctrine that the Eucharist is the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. I say “curious” because A.J., unlike some of my other Protestant friends, was not really bothered or offended by this belief, merely puzzled. After much discussion, he said, “I don’t see what the big deal is. I believe that Communion is symbolic, and you believe it is more than a symbol. But, either way, we’re both Christians.”

His comment surprised me because it was readily evident to me—as it is to many Protestants—that the Catholic belief in the Eucharist (shared by Eastern Orthodox and Ancient Oriental Christians) is an “all or nothing” proposition. If the Eucharist is Jesus, it calls for a response of humble acceptance; if the Eucharist is not really Jesus, it is an idolatrous offense against God—worshipping bread and wine as though they are somehow divine.

On this feast day celebrating the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the readings reveal, in different ways, the truthfulness of the ancient and consistent belief in the Eucharist. It is fitting that this great mystery has ancient roots in one of most mysterious of all biblical figures: the priest Melchizedek, who makes just one historical appearance in the Scriptures (Gen. 14:18-20), is mentioned once more in the Old Testament (Ps. 110:4), and then reappears in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Having just left the battlefield, Abram encountered the “king of Salem”, who was also a “priest of God Most High.” Melchizedek brought bread and wine to Abram and blessed the patriarch, and Abram responded with a tithe. Both actions indicated Melchizedek’s superior position, as noted in the letter to the Hebrews (Heb 7:1-7). It is the first time a priest is mentioned in the Scriptures, several centuries before the Hebrews had a priesthood.

“The Christian tradition,” the Catechism states, “considers Melchizedek, ‘priest of God Most High,’ as a prefiguration of the priesthood of Christ, the unique ‘high priest after the order of Melchizedek’” (CCC 1544, 1333). Christ’s priesthood is superior to the Aaronic priesthood. Because He is the Son of God and is God Himself (the argument of Hebrews 1), His priesthood is validated by His eternal nature and His infinite being (Heb. 7:16, 24ff). Melchizedek’s importance lies in his loyalty to God Most High, the purity of his intentions, and his sacrifice of bread and wine.  He represents a time when the priesthood was part of the natural order of family structure. By establishing the New and universal covenant through His death and resurrection, Jesus Christ formed a new and everlasting family of God, bound not by ethnicity, but by grace and the Holy Spirit.

And because Jesus is God, He is able to give the household of God His Body and Blood for the nourishment of soul and body, and for the forgiveness of sins. By providing this Eucharistic banquet, a foretaste of the Kingdom of God, He fulfills the promise of a worldwide family of God foreshadowed in the person of the king-priest Melchizedek. The feeding of the five thousand, described in today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel, anticipates and represents the sacrament of the Eucharist, as Christ miraculously feeds—with the assisting hands and efforts of His priests, the Apostles—those who hunger to hear His words.

If the bread and wine remained unchanged, Christ would be, at best, equal to Melchizedek. But the King of Kings said, “This is my body that is for you”, and the High Priest declared, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” The Eucharist is Jesus Christ. That is the great truth we humbly celebrate today—and every day we receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the June 10, 2007, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

"'Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?' contains a wealth of apologetic information...."

From a recent PopFam.com review of Carl E. Olson's new book Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?:

In spite of the author’s pre-determined perspective, Olson does of good job of dealing with many specific objections that non-religious (and sometimes anti-religious) thinkers raise as so-called proofs that the “historical Jesus,” not the miraculous Jesus, is the authentic Christ. He addresses logically and methodically the skeptic’s perspective and makes a compelling case for believing in miracles—specifically the miracle of Jesus’ Resurrection. ...

Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? contains a wealth of apologetic information … if any of your family members are more the intellectual type, this will be a fascinating book that prompts thoughtful faith discussions for days to come.

Read the entire review. 

More praise for the book:

"Every year, right around Easter, the super-skeptics come out in droves to call into question the truth of the Resurrection. In Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Carl Olson does an excellent job of laying out the key questions raised by skeptics and offering compelling and well-researched answers. A must-read for any Catholic whose ever wondered about the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus." — Dr. Brant Pitre, Author of The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ

"Carl Olson offers a cogent survey of the most common objections to the historicity of the Resurrection, doing the particularly invaluable work of tracing their historical roots and philosophical assumptions in an accessible way. This book is an essential resource, especially for teachers, catechists, and anyone involved in evangelization." — Amy Welborn, author of the Prove It! series of apologetics for Catholic teens

"This is a doubly scandalous book. It's about the greatest scandal in history, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it's a scandal in its own right because it dares to argue (convincingly, I think) that the Resurrection actually occurred and that all the arguments against its historicity have fallen flat, including recent arguments from the New Atheists and others. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? will give delight to believers and distress to unbelievers. What more can one ask?" — Karl Keating, Founder, Catholic Answers

"'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ... we are of all men most to be pitied.' So says St. Paul. In his new book Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? Carl Olson demonstrates there is no pity necessary—the resurrection is true! He analyzes and presents the historical and objective reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central and crucial fact of all human existence. Written for novice and scholar alike, this book will convince even the skeptic." — Steve K. Ray, Best-selling author and Host of "The Footprints of God"

"Conversant with both the relevant scholarship as well as the misconceptions and false presentations of Jesus current in contemporary culture, Olson’s book is an inviting, readable introduction to the question of the resurrection that deepens one’s faith in the fundamental fact of Christian faith—that Jesus Christ was truly raised from the dead."  — Dr. Leroy Huizenga, Associate Professor of Theology, University of Mary (Bismarck, N.D.)

"Scholars are often busy 'rethinking' the Resurrection of Christ only to find, so they tell us, that it never happened, or perhaps that Christ never happened. Carl Olson has read over these various theses and examined  their credibility. Not surprisingly, he finds them wanting on this or that particular issue of fact or logic. The Resurrection is at the center of Christianity. Olson's book shows quite clearly why it is and that it is. The scholarship that opposes the Resurrection is seen to be deficient not only in faith but also in reason, in scholarship itself." — Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University

"For the earliest Christians, to preach Christianity meant primarily to preach the Resurrection. It was the focus of every sermon reported in the book of Acts. It was the heart of the good news which the Christians brought to the world. Yet in some circles today, it has become fashionable not just to doubt the Resurrection, but to question such basic facts as Jesus' very existence. That's why this new book by Carl Olson is so desperately needed. As St. Paul did in the first century, Olson affirms the life-changing power of the Resurrection. But he does more: he shows how the best evidence and contemporary scholarship affirm what Christians have believed for centuries, that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Comprehensive, well-researched, and accessible, this is the best defense of the Resurrection from a Catholic perspective." — Brandon Vogt, Content Director at Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and founder of StrangeNotion

"Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? is a brilliant and lucid presentation of the overwhelming evidence for Christ's resurrection. Like a skilled surgeon, Carl E. Olson masterfully analyzes and dissects the radical skepticism and iniquitous criticism that often dominate the study of the Gospels. The question and answer format allows the reader to follow the arguments in a logical progression, and is a wonderful medium for Olson to showcase his unique talent for keeping the reader interested and engaged while bridging the chasm between academic scholarship and the armchair intellectual. This book should be required reading for every priest, deacon, seminarian, catechist, apologist—anyone who wants to strengthen their Christian faith and deepen their love of Jesus Christ."  — Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, author, Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality

“Christ is risen!”: The Big Bang within Time and Space

“Christ is risen!”: The Big Bang within Time and Space | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report

The movie Risen, now out on DVD, captures, in cinematic and artistic form, some key points I make in Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?

A few months ago, while writing Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?, I was able to watch the movie Risen, which releases today on DVD. It was fortuitous as the film captures, in cinematic and artistic form, some key points that I emphasize in my book.

Prior to seeing Risen, I was concerned that the film might fall into a some of the traps that trip up many films made from a Christian perspective. One of those is a certain gauzy piety, which can make real people and events appear as if they exist and occur in another realm and world, almost completely divorced from the grind and grit of reality. Another common flaw is a heavy-handed preachiness, in which a central character launches into an Al Pacino-like soliloquy in which All Is Explained, thus eliminating any real sense of narrative and mystery. A third problem in some Christian cinema is poor production, or uneven acting and writing.

 

While viewers of good will can and will disagree about certain details in Risen, I think the movie both avoids those three problems and, at times, has moments of real cinematic brilliance. Right from the start, the film is rooted in the dusty and often violent chaos of first century Palestine under Roman rule. There is no romanticizing or sugarcoating of the poverty, brutality, and fear faced by so many ordinary Jews of the time. Death and difficulty are common fare, and they have a deep and lasting impact on Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), the Roman military tribune who is tasked by Pilate to investigate the startling disappearance of a the body of the crucified Jesus (Cliff Curtis).

Secondly, while there is plenty of dialogue—the film is presented (at least on one level) as a sort of a detective story, so much discussion ensues—there really isn’t much if any preaching. Even when Clavius and Jesus have a conversation toward the end of the film, the point is usually more about posing the right questions than providing tidy answers. It’s not that the film doesn’t point to good answers. Rather, it’s approach is somewhat similar to novelist Walker Percy’s tactic of being “diagnostic” rather than didactic. And, in fact, the film has a strong existential quality to it, as it begins and ends with Clavius alone and in the desert, still pondering the great Mystery he has encountered through a seemingly ordinary mystery.

The production and acting in Risen are excellent, and Fiennes, in particular, delivers an impressive performance. The movie, in the end, rests squarely on his shoulders, and he conveys a serious mixture of Roman roughness and spiritual restlessness. He is meant, it seems to me, to represent the serious modern skeptic, who has profound doubts but is also open to something more than just a short life without any real meaning.

At the start of my book, I emphasize that the Resurrection has, from the start, both scandalized and divided.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Trinity: A Mystery for Eternity

The Trinity: A Mystery for Eternity | Carl E. Olson

On the Readings for Sunday, May 22nd, The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Readings:
• Prov 8:22-31
• Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
• Rom 5:1-5
• Jn 16:12-15

The apologist and novelist Dorothy Sayers dryly noted, in an essay titled “The Dogma is the Drama,” that for many people, even some Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity is, “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the whole thing incomprehensible.” There are likely a few Catholics who would candidly admit, “Well, the Church teaches that the Trinity is a mystery—and it’s certainly a mystery to me!”

In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (CCC 234). It goes on to explain that this great mystery is the most fundamental, essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith” and that it is a mystery of faith “in the strict sense”—it cannot be known except it has been revealed by God (CCC 237). A theological mystery such as the Trinity is a truth about God known only through divine revelation, not by reason or philosophy. It is like a well with no bottom from which we can drink endlessly, our minds and souls never going away thirsty.

Belief in the Trinity—one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is a distinctive mark of the Christian Faith. The first few centuries of the Church were filled with controversies and careful definitions regarding the one nature of God, the three Persons of the Trinity, and their relationship with each other. Yet the dogma of the Trinity cannot be proven in the usual sense of “proven” and “proof.” But this does not mean that the dogma of the Trinity is contrary to reason or that reason cannot be applied to understanding it to some degree (cf. CCC 154); it means that the Triune reality of God is ultimately beyond human reasoning. As St. Augustine remarked, “If you understood Him, it would not be God” (CCC 230).

Today’s readings do not use the term “Trinity,” of course, because it doesn’t appear in Scripture. But they are some of the many texts the Church has looked to as either foreshadowing the reality of the Trinity or giving explicit witness to it.  The reading from Proverbs is one of several Old Testament passages that describe the wisdom of God, which is often referred to as a sort of personal being or reality. Some of this language is taken up in the New Testament to refer to the Son, including St. Paul’s description of Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). Or, similarly, in a passage that bears a strong resemblance to today’s reading from Proverbs, the “one Lord, Jesus Christ” is described as the one “through whom all things are and through whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:6).

While the Old Testament contains hints and suggestions, the mystery of the Trinity was revealed with the Incarnation—first at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River, and then in His teachings. Jesus spoke of the intimate communion between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, including in today’s reading from the Gospel of John. “Everything that the Father has is mine,” Jesus tells the Apostles, “for this reason I told you that he”—the Holy Spirit—“will taken from what is mine and declare it to you.” The Father sends forth the Son so that, as St. Paul wrote to the Romans, we might have peace with God, while the Holy Spirit pours out God’s love, all so we might be justified and made right with God.

In his great work The Trinity, St. Augustine summed up the heart of the Church’s belief in the mystery of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by simply stating, “If you see charity, you see the Trinity.” God is One and three Persons; He offers His divine life and love to those who believe in Him (CCC 257). The Trinity is not just a mystery to us, but also for us.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the June 3, 2007, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Lord, Not Legend: A Review of Brant Pitre’s "The Case for Jesus"

Lord, Not Legend: A Review of Brant Pitre’s The Case for Jesus | Dr. Leroy Huizenga | Catholic World Report

The new book by a notable young Scripture scholar addresses both the dominant paradigm in academic biblical studies and the more popular errors about Jesus and the New Testament.

A Tale of Two Paradigms

The dominant paradigm reigning in academic biblical studies today is marked by radical discontinuity. That’s why people who know the basics of the Christian story—whether they believe it or not—are often nonplussed when they encounter radical reconstructions of Jesus and earliest Christianity. Others, of course, applaud them, finding that such radical reconstructions get them off the hook with the traditional Jesus and the Church. Gone is the Jesus who saves us, replaced by a Jesus who either affirms us, or is ultimately irrelevant, or who encourages whatever vague spirituality is du jour. In either case, they are presented with a reconstruction in which Jesus is alone, cut off, isolated—divorced from Judaism, from the Old Testament, from the Gospels, from the Church. The real Jesus, radical reconstructions insist, is some sort of mystic, or revolutionary, or Cynic, or teacher, or prophet, whose Judaism is incidental and irrelevant at best and who has been hidden—often deliberately—by the later dogma of the Church, even by the biblical Gospels themselves.

By contrast, traditional Christianity (whether Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or fundamentalist) sees Jesus in terms of continuity. In broad strokes, he fulfills the Old Testament promises, and the Gospels of the Church (however conceived) faithfully record eyewitness accounts of His Virgin Birth, miracles, prophecy, and teaching, his sacrificial death, his bodily resurrection, as well as his commissioning of the apostles to go and make disciples of all nations.

The dominant paradigm reigning in academic biblical studies today was developed largely by German scholars of a Lutheran confessional persuasion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. D. F. Strauss suggested the disciples made up almost everything in the Gospels out of Jewish legends, while Rudolf Bultmann claimed not only that the Old Testament could not be considered Scripture for Christians (and thus irrelevant for understanding Jesus) but also that most everything in the Gospels was a post-Easter retrojection back into the life of Jesus and thus that we can know next to nothing about the historical Jesus. Meanwhile scholars such as Heinrich Holtzmann were busy arguing that Mark, and not Matthew, was written first among the Gospels, while Walter Bauer was arguing that orthodoxy didn’t exist until history’s victors in what became the later Church invented it, with Adolf von Harnack contending similarly that later Christian dogma was an imposition upon the Gospels, the earliest Church, and Jesus himself.

The dominant paradigm reigning in academic biblical studies today, being developed originally by Germans prior to the horrors of the Holocaust, is also laden with anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism of a genteel but not necessarily virulent sort. While some like Bultmann did join the Confessing Church and oppose the Nazis, others like von Harnack were busy finding ways to deny Jewish scholars important professorships. In any event, to enlightened German Lutheran eyes, Judaism and Catholicism were cut from the same cloth. They belonged to the old world of sacrifice and ritual which the Reformation and its child the Enlightenment had buried forever. It would be inconceivable to such scholars that common, normal Judaism could inform our understanding of Jesus or earliest Christianity—this is why Germans excelled at exploring Greco-Roman backgrounds—or that Jesus and the earliest Church could be understood in Catholic terms.

The greatest contemporary popular exponent of the dominant paradigm today is Dr. Bart Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, a former fundamentalist whose forays into textual criticism made him a liberal Christian for a time but ultimately an unbeliever. A friendly convivial fellow and a serious, sober scholar, neither an anti-Catholic nor anti-Semite, Ehrman has sold millions of books popularizing the paradigm of discontinuity in several books, in which he endeavors to show the Gospels are unreliable and that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet far different from the Jesus Christ the Church has worshipped as divine son of God.

Pitre Revives Lewis’ Trilemma

Brant Pitre’s most recent popular offering, The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ (Image, the Catholic imprint of Doubleday, 2016), has Ehrman’s work as its gentle target as Pitre presents a spirited defense of the tradition paradigm of continuity among Judaism, the Old Testament, Jesus, and the Gospels. (Full disclosure: I wrote a positive blurb of an advance draft of the book.)

Interestingly, Pitre doesn’t discuss Jesus’ continuity with the Catholic Church, probably be cause he wishes to present an argument congenial to Christians and seekers of all stripes, even as his presentation would be fully at home in Catholic Christianity. Indeed, he begins with an Anglican, the famous C.S. Lewis, who offered the famous “trilemma”: a man who said the sorts of things Jesus did about himself was either a liar, a lunatic (“on the level with a man who claimed to be a poached egg”), or Lord. As most people don’t want to concede Jesus was deceived or deceptive, Lewis’ logic is designed to force readers to accept the third, fateful, option: Jesus was, and is, Lord.

Lewis, a man of letters who expressed explicit disdain for Bultmann and German scholarship, accepted the Gospels’ testimony about Jesus self-presentation as true. At this point the radical paradigm of discontinuity raises its head in protest, however, claiming as Ehrman does that there’s a fourth option that Lewis dismissed: the Gospels do not in fact represent the truth about Jesus, that the Gospels are largely legendary. All, then, hinges on the Gospels’ reliability. If they present Jesus faithfully, then Lewis’ trilemma works. If not, it doesn’t. And so Pitre offers a tour-de-force showing that the Gospels do indeed do so.

The book falls into two parts.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Three Births and the Third Person of the Trinity

"Pentecost" by Titian (c. 1545) [WikiArt.org]

Three Births and the Third Person of the Trinity | Carl E. Olson 

On the Readings for Sunday, May 15, 2016, Pentecost Sunday

Readings:
• Acts 2:1-11
• Ps 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34
• 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13 or Rom 8:8-17
• Jn 20:19-23 or Jn 14:15-16, 23b-26

He is silent, yet sounds like rushing wind; he is invisible, but appears as tongues of fire; he is constantly working and giving, but is often overlooked and underappreciated. 

He is the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, the third Person of the Trinity. He has many names in Scripture, including Advocate, Comforter, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of grace. 

In the second chapter of the Acts of Apostles, the coming of the Holy Spirit is described as “a noise like a strong driving wind” and his presence as “tongues as of fire.” Notice how elusive the language is: the Holy Spirit is not a driving wind, but is like such a wind; he is not a tongue of fire, but appears as one. There is a paradox here, which is so often the case with the Holy Spirit: he is both very elusive and yet constantly active. It’s as though you see something or someone out of the corner of your eye, but no matter how quickly you turn, they are gone.

Isn’t this the sense conveyed by Jesus, who said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8)? The word “born” is deeply significant for there are three very important births, or creations, described in Scripture in which the Holy Spirit moves and acts, giving life.

These three births are closely connected. First, there is the birth of the cosmos and the creation of the world: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). There it is again: the Spirit was moving. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et vivificantem (Pentecost, 1986), further notes that the presence of the Spirit in creation not only pertains, of course, to the cosmos, but also to “man, who has been created in the image and likeness of God: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” (par. 12).

The second instance is the conception of the God-man, Jesus Christ. What did the angel say to Mary? “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk. 1:35). Once again, the Holy Spirit is active; he is coming with power. Once again, he is intimately involved in bringing about a man. In the first creation it was Adam; now, the new Adam.

The third birth, or creation, took place at Pentecost, fifty days after the death and resurrection of Christ. “The time of the Church began,” wrote John Paul II, “at the moment when the promises and predictions that so explicitly referred to the Counselor, the Spirit of truth, began to be fulfilled in complete power and clarity upon the Apostles, thus determining the birth of the Church” (DV, 25). At Pentecost, the Church—the family of God and the mystical body of Christ—is birthed by the Holy Spirit. And he is the soul of the Church. “What the soul is to the human body,” wrote St. Augustine, “the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 797).

Emile Mersch, S.J., in The Theology of the Mystical Body (Herder, 1952), wrote: “The Holy Spirit is continually being sent, and Pentecost never comes to an end.” The Acts of the Apostles reveals the Holy Spirit “ceaselessly coming down into the world, no longer under the form of fiery tongues, but through the intermediary of the apostles and their preaching.”

He is still coming, filling, moving, and giving life. Let’s pay attention!

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the May 23, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Carl E. Olson on the Catholic theology of human deification

Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille is Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Theology-Philosophy, University of Saint Francis (Fort Wayne, IN) and author of Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy (University of Notre Dame, 2011). He is a regular contributor to Catholic World Report and his "Eastern Christian Books" site is an invaluable source for information about books about Eastern Catholic and Orthodox history, theology, and spirituality. He recently interviewed Carl E.  about Called To Be the Children: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification, recently published by Ignatius Press; the two discussed the genesis and purpose of the book, common reactions to the Church's teachings about theosis/deification, misunderstandings about the teaching, the Scriptural foundations for deification, and why this topic is so significant for ecumenical relations between Catholic and Orthodox believers:

Though it's been almost a decade since Daniel Keating's book Deification and Grace appeared from Catholic University of America Press, lingering suspicion of divinization or deification in Catholic circles is still to be found, which is staggering and stupid in equal measure. Happily, however, we now have what I hope will be the definitive answer to that nonsense: a new, and wholly welcome, collection of articles co-edited by Carl Olson (my editor, in fact, at Catholic World Report) and the Jesuit priest David Meconi, a patrologist who teaches at Saint Louis University. That collection, Called to Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification, really, really deserves a place in every Catholic library large and small so that, among other things, it can finally drive a fatal stake through the heart of the foolish notion one still finds in some Catholic circles (including as late last year at a major Catholic university in Europe) that theosis (deification or divinization) is (a) some esoteric and suspect "Eastern" notion held by those "schismatic" Orthodox; (b) something quasi-pagan and therefore suspect; or (c) both of the above.

And what a thoroughly catholic collection it is, too! It really does show the universal breadth of the Church, and some of her many diverse traditions, communities, and expressions. Thus we have, inter alia, chapters on deification in the Latin and Greek patristic traditions; in the Dominican and Franciscan traditions; deification in the French Catholic spiritual tradition; in the neo-Thomistic tradition; in the thought of Cardinal Newman (who was, of course, so deeply immersed in the Fathers, especially the Greeks); in the teaching of Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II; in the thought of Pope John Paul II; and in the liturgy (a chapter most aptly written by David Fagerberg, author of such works as On Liturgical Asceticism, which, like his break-out book Theologia Prima: What is Liturgical Theology? shows deep immersion in the Christian East).

All this and more is to be found in a handsome book (bearing on the front cover what is my favourite Byzantine icon of all time, Theophanes the Greek's rendition of the Transfiguration) that is both affordable and accessible to your average "lay" reader. This book really does belong in personal and parish libraries as well as those of every Catholic academic institution.

I asked the editors for their thoughts on this book, and Carl was able to respond. Fr. David is engaged in an extended period of travel just now, so I hope to have a chance to hear from him later.

AD: Tell us about your background.

Olson: I was raised in a Fundamentalist Protestant home, and my father was the co-founder of a small Bible chapel in western Montana that is still going strong. One of the great things about my upbringing was the immersion in Scripture, which would later play a key role in my decision to become Catholic and, more specifically, my recognition of the incredible truth of theosis, or deification. After a couple years of art school, I attended Briercrest Bible College in Saskatchewan, Canada, which proved to be a pivotal time for me, as I was (rather surprisingly) exposed to a wide range of Catholic and Anglo-Catholic theology and writing. Not only did I learn a great deal, I also learned how much I didn't know (a lot!), which spurred me on to studying a lot of Church history and theology on my own.

That led, eventually, to the realization that I was reading a lot of Catholic (or Anglo-Catholic) writers--Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Russell Kirk, and T.S. Eliot stand out--which led to my reading of the early Church Fathers, Newman, Aquinas, and John Paul II. More to the point, I wound up listening to a Scott Hahn tape series "The Catholic Gospel," which was actually a class he taught at the time at Steubenville. His focus was on "divine sonship," and he delved into a wide range of theologians, including Matthias Scheeben (the subject of a chapter in the book), whose Mysteries of Christianity was an eye-opening read. I also read Fr. Emile Mersch's Theology of the Mystical Body, which further impressed upon me the essential truth of deification. I was very happy and honored that Scott graciously wrote the Foreword to the book, because his influence on my own study and thought was substantial.

My wife and I entered the Catholic Church in 1997, and that same year I began working on a Masters in Theological Studies from the University of Dallas, via that school's Institute for Religious and Pastoral Studies. Those three years of theological formation were invaluable for many reasons, not least a firm and deep grounding in the teachings and practices of the Church. This topic continued to be an important one for me, and I ended up writing a paper on the theme of deification in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which has been revised and included as a chapter in this book.

Finally, I must note that our family has attended Nativity of the Mother of God Ukrainian Catholic Church in Springfield, Oregon, since 2000, and my understanding and appreciation of theosis has deepened even further through the Divine Liturgy, the friendship and teaching of Fr. Richard Janowicz, and the weekly Bible study I've taught there for over fifteen years.

AD: What led you to collaborate on Called to Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification?

Read the entire interview on Dr. DeVille's "Eastern Christian Books" site. 

Olson's Resurrection

Olson's Resurrection | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Catholic World Report | The Dispatch

“Resurrection doesn’t mean becoming a spirit but having one’s mortal body transformed into a spiritualized body, a bodily manner of existing wholly animated by the Spirit of God.” — Carl E. Olson, Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead: Questions and Answers About the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus(Ignatius Press-Augustine Institute, 2016), 172.

I.

Grammarians, logicians, and other rare species that care about the meaning and accuracy of words in a language might wonder just what the title of these reflections might mean. First of all, just who is this “Olson”? Are we implying, as the order of the words can mean, that this Olson gentleman has somehow been “resurrected” among us? Just what does “resurrection” mean, after all? Is it just another word for medical “resuscitation” so that, like Lazarus, the revivified will live a while longer only to die again? Does the title refer to those “after-death” experiences that scientists these days are busily investigating? Would not this “resurrected” Olson mean, in logic, that he had been dead for some time so that he might need some assistance in getting back on his feet again? The currently living, after all, do not need to be “quickened”, as they quaintly used to say, though they may need to be incited into thinking accurately about these things.

Well, the “Olson” in question is none other than Carl Olson, the editor of this very Catholic World Report web site. He resides in Oregon, where no one, based on my numerous visits there, seems to possess, as yet, a resurrected body. I understand, though, that, if someone is in a hurry, the state’s pioneer “assisted death” laws can quickly dispatch anyone from this life into the great beyond. Once there, if he is not happy in his new digs, he might request a resurrected body sooner than he originally thought.

Olson is an unabashed fan of the Oregon Ducks, though I am not sure if this adds any further credibility to his well-articulated arguments about the resurrection. I have not yet consulted him on the new mandatory requirement at Oregon State University that every student must undergo “social justice training” to matriculate there. Given what this “training” probably means in terms of ideology, it sounds like a totalitarian mandate if I ever heard one. But Olson lives in Eugene, not Corvallis.

II.

In any case, “Olson’s Resurrection” refers to his very readable new book Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead: Questions and Answers About the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, which examines, in question and answer form, the basic issues about the resurrection of Christ. A significant amount of literature, one accumulating over the centuries since the event itself, has denied the resurrection of Christ itself or one of its basic implications. Since this doctrine and fact of the resurrection, as St. Paul said in the beginning, are the stones on which the faith rests, the only real way to undermine Christianity is to deny, explain away, ridicule, or otherwise seek to show that such an event never did or could have happened. It was, it is often claimed, contradictory, unscientific, incoherent, unhistorical, or all of the above Many fancy and sophisticated attempts, on-going over the centuries, try to explain that Christ’s resurrection could not possibly mean what it is taken to mean, namely, that Christ did what He claimed that He would do, or what the Father would do for Him. He would rise from a very terrible death administered in Jerusalem at the hands of Roman and Jewish officials during the reign of Tiberius Caesar.

Olson recognizes that the only way that one can deal with the denial of something presented as a fact is to examine the reasons and evidence given for this denial. And the historical reasons given are legion. The history of theology and science has been filled with ingenious and fanciful efforts to show why the resurrection never happened. People, especially intellectuals, seem to realize that they must deal with this extraordinary claim that Christ did rise from the dead. For if it is true, it cannot just be passed off as if nothing important for the human race really happened in the cosmos. We could, for instance, maintain that Christ never existed. Problem solved. Olson goes through the evidence given against Christ’s historical existence. It turns out that there is just as much evidence, if not more, for the existence of Christ as for any other historical character of his time. To deny Christ’s existence is a dead end street, followed only by those who choose to be willfully blind to the evidence.

Well, let’s admit Christ existed. But He was not God, right?. Who was He then? A nice guy? A fraud? An imagination of the Apostles? A revolutionary? A madman? A deluded visionary? Each of these avenues has been tried again and again. None of them, on examination, squares with the evidence we have of what Christ was in the era in which He lived. A favorite line is that the risen Jesus was a mythical creation, or some projected spirit of the imagination of the Apostles who, in their disappointment at His death, projected this return. He was never really there. He was only “imagined”. From the evidence, the people who would be most annoyed by this thesis would be the Apostles themselves, whose testimony  gives no indication that they ever thought the resurrected Christ was anything but real flesh and blood.

As Olson shows, the last people who really expected the resurrection were the Apostles themselves. Right up to the end, moreover, they kept thinking that He would restore the Kingdom of Israel in this world as a political entity. Interestingly, as I have sought to show in my book, The Modern Age, this effort to make a perfect kingdom in this world to be the mission of the collective human race is the principal alternative to Christ’s personal resurrection and what it portends to be the real and final destiny of each human being who ever actually existed in this world. The Apostles were themselves a bit slow to catch on to what Christ was teaching them. Christ was patient with them. He just kept correcting them about what He was talking about.

But Christ did what He told the Apostles that He would do—that is, He would suffer at the hands of the Jewish and pagan authorities, die, rise again, and finally return to His Father. This sequence, repeated over and over again in the New Testament, is what happened. After the events and the Ascension and Pentecost, the apostles looked back more carefully on what happened and how they were involved in the whole situation. They began to see that Christ died and rose “according to the Scriptures.” That is how they came to explain what had happened. They learned that Christ’s Incarnation, life, and death, was in fact the central point of the redemptive plan that the Father had worked out all along.

III.

Olson examines each principal historical effort to explain why Christ did not rise as He said.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

“God became a human, so humans could become God”? Catholic scholars explain human deification in new book

The first generations of Christians saw in their new lives in Jesus Christ a way to transcend all the limitations of sin and death and become new creatures. St. Peter expressed this as “participating in the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4), while St. Athanasius stated it succinctly 300 years later: “God became a human, so humans could become God.” This is the heart of the Christian faith and the pledge of the Christian promise: that those baptized in Christ become “divine” through their partaking in God’s own life and love. This is why Christians can live forever, this is the source of their charity and their holiness, this is why we do not need to live in a world ruled by fallen instinct and sinful desires. We have been made for more, for infinitely more.

A new book, Called to Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification, offers essays from more than a dozen Catholic scholars and theologians to examine what this process of “deification” means in their respective areas of study. Editors Fr. David Meconi, S.J. and Carl E. Olson have gathered fifteen chapters showing what “becoming God” meant for the early Church, for St. Thomas Aquinas and the greatest Dominicans, the significance it played in the thinking of St. Francis and the early Franciscans. It shows how such an understanding of salvation played out during the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent, as well as in French School of Spirituality, in various Thomist thinkers, in John Henry Newman and John Paul II, at the Vatican Councils, and where such thinking can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church today.

No other book has gathered such an array of scholars or provided such a deep study into how humanity’s divinized life in Christ has received many rich and various perspectives over the past two thousand years. This book therefore hopes to bring readers into the central mystery of Christianity by allowing the Church's greatest thinkers and texts to speak for themselves, showing how becoming Christ-like, becoming truly the Body of Christ on earth, is the only ultimate purpose of the Christian faith.

Dr. Scott Hahn, author of Rome Sweet Home and the author of the Forward of Called to Be the Children of God, writes, “Rescue from sin and death is indeed a wonderful thing—but the salvation won for us by Jesus Christ is incomparably greater. And that is the subject of this book. In all its parts, this book, like Christianity in all its parts, is about salvation. But that means it’s about everything that fills our lives, on earth and in heaven.”

“The richness of Catholicism is on full display in these marvelous essays as they show how Scripture’s revelation of theosis is both taught and embodied throughout the Church’s history. I loved reading, pondering, and praying with this marvelous book,” says Dr. Timothy Gray, President of the Augustine Institute and Senior Fellow at St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. 

Dr. Brant Pitre, Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary and Graduate School of Theology, says, “At last, we have an up-to-date, comprehensive, and readable introduction to the classical doctrine of divinization. Called to Be the Children of God is a must read for any serious student of Catholic theology.”

“In the explanations of the historical developments of this doctrine, the reader discovers openings into Christian literature that will enrich the spiritual life and theological understanding through deepening our understanding of the effects of God's grace and indwelling, particular through Baptism, the Holy Eucharist and other sacraments,” says Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J. of EWTN and Ignatius Productions.

Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus of Georgetown University, explains, “To follow the history and meaning of what it means that we exist to be adopted into the Trinitarian life of God is the exact purpose of this most welcome and well-presented text.”
 

About the Editors: 

Fr. David Meconi, S.J., a professor of theology at Saint Louis University, is the editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review. He has published widely in early Church theology and broader Catholic issues, most recently the Annotated Confessions of Saint Augustine, and The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification. 

Carl E. Olson, MTS, is the editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight. He is the author of two best-selling books, Will Catholics Be “Left Behind”? and The Da Vinci Hoax, and the author of hundreds of articles on theology, Scripture, current events, and apologetics.

Fr. David Meconi, S.J., is available for interviews about this book.

To request a review copy or an interview with Fr. Meconi, please contact: Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or [email protected]

Product Facts:

Title: CALLED TO BE THE CHILDREN OF GOD

The Catholic Theology of Human Deification

Editors: Carl E. Olson and Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J.

Release Date: April 2016

Length: 292 pages

Price: $22.95

ISBN: 978-1-58617-947-2 • Softcover

Order: 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com

The Image of Man Has Been Raised Up: On the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord

"The Ascension" (1305) by Giotto [WikiArt.org]

by Carl E. Olson 

"You ascended into glory, O Christ our God, and You delighted the disciples with the promise of the Holy Spirit. Through this blessing, they were assured that You are the Son of God, the Redeemer of the World."
—Troparion for the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Feast of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ 

"Christ's Ascension is therefore not a spectacle for the disciples but an event into which they themselves are included. It is a sursum corda, a movement toward the above into which we are all called. It tells us that man can live toward the above, that he is capable of attaining heights. More: the altitude that alone is suited to the dimensions of being human is the altitude of God himself. Man can live at this height, and only from this height do we properly understand him. The image of man has been raised up, but we have the freedom to tear it down or to let ourselves be raised." 
— Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, from Images of Hope: Meditations On Major Feasts (Ignatius Press, 2006) 

Readings: 
• Acts 1:1-11
• Psa. 47:2-3, 6-7, 8-9
• Eph. 1:17-23 or Heb. 9:24-28; 10:19-23
• Lk 24:46-53

"As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven." (Lk 24:51)

With these simple, matter-of-fact words, Luke describes the Ascension of Jesus, expressed even more concisely in the Creed: "He ascended into heaven." This event is so important for Luke that the Acts of the Apostles opens with a description of the same event. As the disciples looked on, Luke records, Jesus "was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight" (Acts 1:9). Mark's account, heard today, is equally direct and succinct: "So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God" (Mk. 16:19).

This dramatic moment has been celebrated in the Church on the fortieth day after Easter since the earliest centuries. Some of the Church Fathers, including Augustine, said that the feast had been observed since the time of the apostles, although the earliest evidence of its celebration dates to the fifth century. In the Latin Rite in the United States the Feast of the Ascension is one of six solemnities, the others being the solemnities of Mary, Mother of God (January 1); the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15); All Saints (November 1), the Immaculate Conception (December 8), and the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ (December 25). 

Despite being a solemnity and a holy day of obligation, the Feast of the Ascension is sometimes completely overlooked or not given much attention. Ask Catholics what is the significance of the Feast and answers aren't always immediate. The rather mysterious nature of the Feast is heightened in some ecclesiastical provinces by its transference from the sixth Thursday of Easter to the following Sunday. In a way, the Solemnity bears a resemblance to the sacrament of Confirmation, the exact meaning of which is not always understood well and suffers for not being more clearly explained and comprehended. 

This occasional murkiness is unfortunate because the Ascension is such a joyful event in the work and life of Jesus Christ, as well as being a vital reality in the ongoing life and mission of the Church. To appreciate this joy and vitality we should keep in mind what the Catechism of the Catholic Church states about the liturgical calendar: The Church, "in the course of the year, . . . unfolds the whole mystery of Christ from his Incarnation and Nativity through his Ascension, to Pentecost and the expectation of the blessed hope of the coming of the Lord" (CCC, 1194).

Hinted at here are revealing parallels between the Incarnation and the Ascension and between the Nativity and Pentecost. In the Incarnation the eternal Son of God took on human nature in order to save mankind. By the power of the Holy Spirit, divinity and humanity were united in one Person; the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14) and lowered Himself to the level of dust and death. The Nativity is the physical, outward revelation of this reality: the Christ Child is born and history and the world are never the same.

At the Ascension the crucified, risen Son of God returns to His Father. Having descended to dusty earth, He now returns to heavenly glory. Having conquered death, He ascends to eternal life. But He returns to the right hand of the Father not just as the Word, but as the Incarnate Word. The doors of heaven are now open and humanity can now approach the throne room of God, the way having been paved by the life, death, and resurrection of the God-man. Pentecost, finally, is the manifestation of the God-man's Church, which is both human and divine. The Church was revealed to the world on that day—fifty days after Easter—by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All of this theology is nice enough, but what does it mean for us? It means the Feast of the Ascension is a celebration of salvation won. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that "in the Eastern Church this feast was known as analepsis, the taking up, and also as the episozomene, the salvation, denoting that by ascending into His glory Christ completed the work of our redemption." The tendency is often to think of the Resurrection as the culmination of Jesus' salvific work, but it is the Ascension that places the final stamp of approval on the sacrificial and victorious work of our Savior. This is beautifully expressed in the first chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might: which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens ... (Eph. 1:17-20).

Now that the Incarnate Son of God has ascended into heaven and sits in the throne room of God, mankind can follow. United to the Son through baptism and deepening communion with Him through reception of the Holy Eucharist and the other sacraments, the hope of heaven is ours. 

"The ascension of Christ is our elevation," declared Leo the Great in a sermon on the Ascension, "Hope for the body is also invited where the glory of the Head preceded us. Let us exult, dearly beloved, with worthy joy and be glad with a holy thanksgiving. Today we not only are established as possessors of paradise, but we have even penetrated the heights of the heavens in Christ." Where the sin of the first Adam closed the gates of Paradise, the righteousness of the new Adam has opened them wide. 

Jesus promised His disciples that He would prepare a place for them (Jn. 14). Because of the Ascension, we know He has prepared a place for those who are His. Because of the Ascension, we have the hope of His return and of our future passage into glory. "The Ascension, then," Pope John Paul II explained in May 2000, "is a Trinitarian epiphany which indicates the goal to which personal and universal history is hastening. Even if our mortal body dissolves into the dust of the earth, our whole redeemed self is directed on high to God, following Christ as our guide."

Our Guide has come, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. Let us celebrate the Feast!

(This article was originally published in 2004 in Our Sunday Visitor in a slightly different form.)