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“Offer it up!” -Redemptive Suffering

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God’s Infinite Wisdom, Love, & Plan for Mercy for Whole World:  Christ on the Cross!  There is no other way!!  There is nothing more necessary, nothing more sufficient!!!  Nothing more pleasing to the Father-God; the Creator of Heaven & Earth, the Great I AM!!!  The Author of all Life!!!  Yes, Jesus!!!  Yes, Jesus!!!  I say:  Yes, Lord!!!  Amen.  Amen.

However elegantly constructed, something seems missing in our explanations of suffering. That missing thing is Someone.

Excerpted from “The Truth of Catholicism” with permission of HarperCollins.

“Offer it up to God, for the souls in purgatory or in reparation for your own sins.” That stock answer (which is almost never heard these days) strikes many Catholics today as lying somewhere between quaint and cruel. Perhaps there was something more going on here, though. For that answer attempted to link our suffering here and now to the redemptive suffering of Christ, and to the purification that the grace of Christ can work in our own lives and the lives of our dead friends and relatives. That is no small thing. Besides, as a famous Catholic writer of liberal disposition once said in criticizing the contemporary Catholic loss of a sense of redemptive suffering, “What else are you going to tell the kid as the dentist comes at him with that drill?”

Suffering, in the Catholic view of things, is a mystery. By “mystery,” Catholic theology means not a puzzle to be solved as Sherlock Holmes would do, but a reality that can only be grasped and comprehended in an act of love. There is no “answer” to the problem of suffering in the sense that there are answers to questions like “Was Alger Hiss guilty?” or “What is two plus two?” The Church has always believed and taught that there is a different kind of answer to the question “Why do we suffer?” That answer takes us directly into the heart of the Church, which is Jesus Christ.

That Jesus Christ is a suffering redeemer has been a shock and an offense since the first days of Christianity. The challenge of belief in a redeemer whose victorious strength is displayed in his weakness may be greater today than at any other time in the past two thousand years, given our culture’s resistance to the idea that suffering is the necessary path to beatitude or human flourishing.

But that is the mystery — the profoundly human mystery — of suffering. Dogs and cats and pandas feel pain. Only human beings suffer. That fact should suggest that there is a link between suffering and the essence of our humanity. Pondering that link is an opening into the entire Catholic story about the world and about us. In that story we meet an even more astonishing proposal. God’s answer to suffering is not to avoid it, or deny it, or blame it on human folly. God’s answer to suffering is to embrace it — to enter the world in the person of His Son, to redeem suffering through suffering.

Redemptive Suffering

The Bible, Pope John Paul II notes in his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris, is a “great book about suffering.” In it we encounter many instances of that “pain of the soul” which is the worst form of human suffering: the death of one’s children, one’s spouse, loved ones, the fear of annihilation, barrenness, exile, persecution and mockery, loneliness and betrayal, the prosperity of the wicked amid the misery of the just, unfaithfulness and ingratitude. Suffering, in the biblical world, clearly has to do with evil. We suffer when we experience evil.

Still, the Christian conviction, drawn from the first chapter of the Hebrew Bible, is that creation is essentially good. Evil is not a coprinciple of creation, as in other ancient religious systems. If the world God created is essentially good and yet there is evil in the world, evil and good must be somehow related. Evil, John Paul writes, “is a certain lack, limitation, or distortion of good.” Illness is a deprivation of health; a lie is a distortion of the truth. We suffer, the Pope suggests, because of evil, but that very suffering points us toward a good. Suffering is caught up in the interplay of good and evil in the world. Suffering is enmeshed in the mystery of human freedom.

The Bible sometimes describes suffering as a punishment for the evil we do, but that punishment, the Pope suggests, is also linked to good. The punishment “creates the possibility of rebuilding goodness” in the person who suffers. This, John Paul underlines, “is an extremely important aspect of suffering.” Suffering opens up possibilities for the breakthrough of good, for “conversion,” for our becoming the kind of people who can enjoy beatitude with God, because we “recognize the divine mercy in this call to repentance.”  AMEN!!!  AMEN!!!  AMEN!!!!  Praise Him!!!  Praise Him, Church!!!  Praise Him!!!!!  Let the Earth resound with the Glory of God!!!!  AMEN!!! AMEN!!!!  AMEN!!!

Still, the Pope suggests, the mystery of suffering is not ultimately susceptible to rational explanation. However elegantly constructed, our explanations leave us dissatisfied. Something seems missing. That missing something, the Pope suggests, is in fact someone: Jesus Christ.

God’s love, which was so great that it burst the boundaries of God’s inner life and poured itself forth in creation, is “the ultimate source of the meaning of everything that exists,” including, of course, the meaning of suffering. Learning that “love is…the fullest source of the answer to the question of the meaning of suffering” requires not a rational argument, but a demonstration. That is what God has “given…in the cross of Jesus Christ.”

The entire life of Christ points inexorably toward the cross. Jesus’ human life is a growth into the world of suffering to which he responds by his healings. Those healings, both physical and psychological, are signs that the Kingdom of God, a world beyond suffering, is breaking into this world. Yet even as he heals the suffering, Christ suffers. He experiences exhaustion, homelessness, the misunderstanding of those closest to Him. When Peter rebukes Jesus for saying that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer, Jesus turns on the fisherman and calls him “Satan” (Matthew 16.23). Slowly, relentlessly, the net of hostility closes around Jesus, and the crux of the matter is at hand: the moment in which to link suffering to love in the passion of the cross.

Christ’s was an “incomparable depth and intensity of suffering.” Christ suffers as a man, but “insofar as the man who suffers is in person the only begotten Son Himself,” John Paul writes, Christ’s suffering has a cosmic and divine density that is “capable of embracing the measure of evil” contained in the whole of human history. As the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar puts it in almost frightening language, we cannot imagine what agonies that entailed. What it would mean to “bear the burden of the world’s guilt, to experience in oneself the inner perversion of a humankind that refuses any sort of service, any sort of respect, to God” is beyond our comprehension. We cannot imagine the suffering involved when the Son takes on Himself all that the Father finds abominable. Yet that is what Christ suffers on the cross.

In Christ on the cross, we meet the triune God’s “eternal…plan…to clear out all the refuse of the world’s sin by burning it in the fire of suffering love.” Christ’s passion is the embodiment in history of “the fire that has burned eternally in God as [a] blazing passion,” the passion of resolute and radical love. God burns for the world to enter into this divine passion. For that to happen, the burning love of God in Himself must reach out to the world and redeem it by consuming everything in the world that is incapable of love, including evil and suffering.

That is what happens on the cross when, in obedience to the Father and in the most profound act of self-giving love, the Son takes all the world’s evil upon Himself, including the evil of death. On the cross, Balthasar writes, two eternal realities meet: “God’s fury, which will make no compromises with sin but can only reject it and burn it to ashes, and God’s love, which begins to reveal itself precisely at the place of this inexorable confrontation.” The cross is not the end of the story. On the cross, evil and death are overcome through redemptive suffering. Christ conquers suffering by his “obedience unto death,” which the Father vindicates in the resurrection.

In the mystery of God’s love, burning its way through the world and through history, the moment of catastrophe is, in truth, the moment of liberation.”

Love,
Matthew

The Horror of Suffering

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“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for Whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.   I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” -Philippians 3:7-11

All sin is a failure to be convinced of the Truth OR a failure of believing that it is true.

The consequences of sin are twofold, eternal and temporal. By sin a person incurs the guilt of offending God and loses God’s friendship and his right to the inheritance of eternal happiness. Absolution remits this guilt and loss. The second consequence of sin is chastisement, either here or hereafter, for violating God’s ordinances. This chastisement must be satisfied by penance here or atonement in purgatory. The penance that the priest gives in confession is imposed in the hope that with the proper disposition of the penitent it will satisfy for the temporal chastisement due for the sins confessed. The penance imposed may not, however, adequately satisfy for the chastisement due the sins; hence it is customary for penitents to voluntarily do various works of satisfaction for their sins, although absolved. The Church by its seasons and practices of penance reminds the faithful of the need of doing penance outside that imposed in the confessional.

-from Catholics Come Home, Sacrament of Reconciliation

1. Confession helps us to better “know thyself.”

St. Augustine and countless other saints and doctors of the Church talk about the importance of knowing ourselves well. Through coming to know ourselves better, we realized how fallen we are, and how badly we need God’s help and grace to get through life. Frequent Confession helps remind us to rely on God to help rid us of our sins.

2. Confession helps us overcome vice.

The grace we receive from the Sacrament of Confession helps us combat our faults and failings and break our habits of vice much more easily and expediently than we could otherwise do without the sacramental grace.

3. Confession brings us peace.

Guilt from the sins we commit can make us feel all mixed up inside and cause us to lose our peace and joy. When we hear God’s forgiving words to us from the lips of the priest in Confession, a burden is lifted off our shoulders and we can again feel the peace of heart and soul that comes from being in a good relationship with God.

4. Confession helps us become more saintly, more like Jesus.

Jesus was perfectly humble, perfectly generous, perfectly patient, perfectly loving—perfectly everything! Don’t you wish you could be as humble, generous, patient, and loving as Jesus? Saints throughout history have felt that way too, and they have frequented the Sacrament of Reconciliation to help transform them into people who are more like Christ. Little images of Christ—that’s what saints are!

5. Confession makes our will stronger.

Every time we experience the Sacrament of Confession, God strengthens our will and our self-control to be able to resist the temptations that confront us in our lives. We become more resolute to follow God’s will and not our own whims.  His Grace Abounds!!!  I have experienced, benefited, and am sincerest witness to His merciful Love!!!  Ask, knock, seek for the strength to resist temptation, or to do any other holy work possible, YOU WILL RECEIVE IN SPADES!!!  A BOUNTIFUL HARVEST OF GRACES, OVERFLOWING, PACKED DOWN, SOLID.  MERCY!!!!  HAVE FAITH!!!  BE STRONG!!!!  BE NOT AFRAID!!!!  HIS LOVE ENDURES FOR AGES UPON AGES.  AMEN!!!!

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-by Cynthia Stewart

Suffering and evil are distinct and yet interrelated concepts in Catholic thinking. Ultimately, the fall of humanity is the cause of all suffering. Humans were created to exist in harmony with God, but instead they chose the path of disobedience, which brought suffering and death into the world. Catholics believe that while humans have the free choice to disobey, they can never find true joy and peace except in harmony with and obedience to God. As St. Augustine says so eloquently in his Confessions, “Our hearts find no rest until they rest in You.”

In the Catholic view, human action is not the only cause of suffering: while God as the source of all goodness can never act in a manner that is evil, God may send suffering to open the hearts of those who have refused to hear God’s call. In their pride and complacency, humans think that they need neither God nor the grace God offers, but tragedy, sorrow, and suffering can lead to transformation. Because this world is prelude and preparation for the afterlife, even a life filled with suffering is useful if it causes the person to turn to God and accept divine grace. This, Catholics believe, is a central fact of existence: that God uses everything, even suffering, to call people back to God.

The Catholic Church teaches that with their limited vision humans do not have the ability to see all the consequences of actions and events, and something they recognize as evil may also be the impetus for great good to occur: God is able to bring good even out of the evil that humans commit. When Catholics look at a troubled history that eventually led to a better situation, they recognize the hand of God drawing the whole process to a happy conclusion. In fact, this is the lesson of the felix culpa, the happy fault: human sin brought suffering into the world, but it also paved the way for God’s incarnation to occur. The evil remains evil, but the good that God causes to flow from it is greater still. According to St. Augustine, even this perception of good coming from evil is the result of a limited view: from the cosmic, eternal perspective of God, everything is ultimately good because God uses everything in the service of goodness.

Catholics distinguish between physical evil and moral evil. Physical evil is simply a lack of perfection: all of creation moves toward ultimate perfection in the coming kingdom of God, but nothing on earth yet achieves it. Moral evil is the greater issue, one that is all-pervasive in this world. It is moral evil to which the Church’s Catechism refers when it says, “There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil” (309). Yet moral evil, too, is simply a lack of perfection-in this case, perfection of the human will.

Just as God has not created a world of physical perfection, saving that for the coming kingdom, so too God has not created a world of moral perfection in which people do not have the ability to sin. St. Augustine explained that God is the source of everything that exists, and everything God created is good. Evil is the absence of good, so therefore it must not have real existence. It is instead a lack, the absence of good. God created humanity, Lucifer, and the rebellious angels as beings of goodness, but also endowed them with the freedom to choose their paths. They chose to turn away from the good, and in doing so their capacity for goodness was diminished. It is this lack, this diminishment, that is evil. Augustine’s formulation has proven to be the most influential understanding of evil in the western Christian tradition.

When they speak of evil, Catholics often make reference to Lucifer, or the devil, who is called the Father of Lies. Lucifer’s power lies solely in his ability to persuade humans to do his will, just as he persuaded the rebellious angels to follow him, and the result is just as disastrous. Lucifer is mirage and subterfuge, creating the illusion that following him will lead to happiness and light when all that will result is chaos and evil. He therefore causes evil, but only with the willing participation of humans utilizing their free will to choose diminishment of the good. He may be called the Evil One, but Catholic belief does not grant him the power to execute the evil he envisions. His power is very limited, his bid for predominance in heaven already thwarted, his final defeat already destined, just as the end of suffering and evil in the world to come is already destined.”

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O Lord,
You are the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
You do not grow faint or weary;
Your understanding is unsearchable.
You give power to the weak,
and strengthen the powerless.
Even the young will grow weary,
and will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for You
shall renew their strength,
and shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint. Amen.
Adapted from Isaiah 40:28-31

“It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted. Those doing penance of old are found to have done it before the saints. It is written in the Gospel that they confessed their sins to John the Baptist [Matt. 3:6], but in Acts [19:18] they confessed to the apostles.” –St Basil the Great (Rules Briefly Treated, 288 [A.D. 374])

Love,
Matthew

“I’m Catholic, but…”

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-by Oliver Llewellyn

“I’m Catholic, but… I don’t believe in ….” How many times have you heard those dreaded words? What does being Catholic even mean? Is it merely a cultural identity tag that people inherit through birth, or does it mean so much more? Can you be truly Catholic while then denouncing certain Church doctrines?

By its very definition, being Catholic means existing in a faithful relationship with the Magesterium, and accepting the notion of Apostolic Succession. How can anyone claim to be Catholic while openly disagreeing with the teachings of the Apostles’ successors? Protestantism today displays the visible scars of this individualistic approach whereby essentially theology and dogma are moulded around individual convictions. If you don’t like an interpretation of a particular section of scripture, then simply move to another Church until you hear a homily that you agree with.

Unfortunately Catholics are not immune to this phenomenon of adapting God and theology to our own needs and desires. If we don’t like a particular teaching of the Church, then we may simply chose to ignore it, or worse still openly object to it, while still maintaining that we are ‘Catholic’. Who am I to disagree with the Magesterium of the Holy Catholic Church? Is there a chance that some of the teachings of the Church will challenge me both intellectually and spiritually? Of course. May I have to spend significant amounts of time in prayer trying to understand a particular doctrine? Of course. But what I do not have any right to do is declare Church doctrines as errant – to struggle with doctrine is one thing, but to declare it false is another.

The Holy Catholic Church does not pretend to be a democratic institution in which theology is determined by the majority of believers.  Truth is NOT determined by a majority, but by a simple minority of ONE, the GREAT I AM, OUR CREATOR AND LORD!!!!  OUR JUDGE AND GOD!!!!  JESUS CHRIST, TRUE GOD AND TRUE MAN!!!!  The Author and Protagonist of ALL TRUTH!!!!  Truth does NOT fit neatly into sound bites!!!  Life is NOT that simple!!!  Neither are we nor should we be!!  At the head of the Church is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit was sent to guide the Apostles (not you or I) and their successors into all truth. Do we really expect that the way of God would not challenge us? Do we really expect the way of God to be susceptible to societal changes of opinion?

Should we then simply blindly accept whatever the Church teaches? I’d hesitate to go that far. God gave us minds, hearts, wills, and intellect for a reason!!  Use them, rightly, to give Him honor, laud, glory, and praise!  Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of Endless Glory!!!!   I believe that we are all called to faithfully examine our own beliefs and those of the Church. If you do find yourself in a situation where you are seriously doubting Church doctrine, then what should you do? Well here are a few suggestions that have helped me in the past:

  1. Make sure you know what the Church actually teaches. I can’t remember the amount of times that I read a ‘belief’ of the Catholic Church, or had people question me about so called ‘beliefs’, and later discovered that that Catholic Church doesn’t even teach these ‘beliefs’! Always check a teaching with the Catechism or your local parish priest. After all, you may find that you have spent precious time doubting something that the Church of Jesus Christ has never even believed. Papal infallibility can seem off putting when you falsely assume that the Church believes that Popes are born without sin and are actually incapable of sinning throughout the lives. The concept becomes much easier to digest when you understand what the Church actually believes.
  2. Spend time reading around the topic/belief you’re struggling with, and try to understand the origin of the Church’s belief (e.g. scriptural verses) and the implications of the belief. Merely being able to recite the Church’s teaching on contraception doesn’t mean that you will automatically find yourself agreeing with it. Spending time learning what the church believes about the marital act and studying Humanae Vitae will, however, help to understand the Church’s teaching.  It is beautiful.
  3. Pray about the issue. The God of the Universe, of Heaven and Earth, of Time and Space is eager to help you understand His Truths.  Don’t ignore Him.  He will give you ALL you truly need.  Knock.  Seek.  Find.  Have it opened unto you.  O ye of little faith!!!!  Don’t be afraid to tell God that you really don’t understand something, and that you actually find some beliefs incredulous. I’ve always found it really helpful to ask the Saints to intercede on my behalf and join their prayers with mine when I’m going through periods of doubt.  AMEN!!!!  AMEN!!!  AMEN!!!!!

The above list isn’t meant to serve as an infallible guide to resolving all our spiritual doubts and needs, but I’m offering advice from my own personal experience of doubting the beliefs of the Church. Interestingly enough, I can honestly say that I’ve always managed to become fully reconciled with the teachings of the Church. Of course some teachings have been more difficult than others to agree with, but through the grace of God I’ve always been moved to a point of complete communion with the body of Christ.

So the next time we hear the words “Unam, sanctam, catholicam” at Mass, let us spend a minute to dwell on their implications, and may we remember that there is only one church of Jesus Christ, and that church is not answerable to you or I, but is headed by Jesus Christ and is guided by the Holy Spirit.”

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Pray Psalms 135, 136.

ALL I want, in this life, or the next, is MY JESUS!!!

Love,
Matthew

Feb 15 – Bl Jordan of Saxony, OP, (1190-1237) – Second Master General of the Order of Preachers

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http://vocations.opeast.org/2014/02/05/novena-to-blessed-jordan-of-saxony/

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-by Br Jordan Scott, OP, English Province

“Blessed Jordan of Saxony (1190-1237) was born in Germany to a noble family and lived there until he moved to Paris to attend its famous university. It was there that he met St Dominic and, after his encounter with Reginald of Orleans, he was clothed in the habit in 1220. Only one year later he was elected by the General Chapter to succeed Dominic as Master of the Order.

Described by his early biographer Gerald de Frachet as ‘the most worthy successor of Dominic’ Jordan has always been remembered as ‘a mirror of every aspect of religious observance, an exemplar of virtue, a man [of] unblemished chastity of mind and body. ‘

Indeed, Jordan’s example is said to have drawn a thousand men to join the Order and his intercession is still called upon to stir up zeal in men and women and lead them to consecrate their lives to God in the white habit of St Dominic.

In the many stories told of Blessed Jordan mention is always made of his charity, patience and love of others. He never failed to confirm the brethren in the faith and reassure them in times of trial. It was, undoubtedly, this commitment to building up his brothers and sisters that drew him to the attention of the devil who, it is said, after many attempts to destroy Jordan in both body and spirit eventually tried to make peace with him, offering to never tempt the brethren again if the holy friar would refrain from preaching against him.

Perhaps Dominicans throughout the ages have occasionally thought: ‘If only Jordan had taken the devil up on his offer.’ It would certainly make life easier if the tempter stayed out of our way! But of course, such mischievous thoughts are in fact signs of an unnecessary despair, a despair in which Blessed Jordan would never leave his brothers.

It was said earlier that Jordan’s life was characterised by his confirming and strengthening the brethren in times of difficulty and trial but how did he do this? He would do what the Order of Preachers exists to do: proclaim the Good news. The news that victory belongs to our God, that Jesus has freed us from our sins and saved us from all unrighteousness.

Whenever anything bad happens to us, whenever we feel weak or oppressed by our wrongdoings we can follow Jordan’s advice and turn to Christ on his Cross. Calling out to the Sacred Heart we can plead ‘Lord, have mercy us’ and as He Himself said: ‘Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest’ (Mat. 11:28).

Jordan of Saxony is credited with introducing the practice of singing the Salve Regina in procession at the end of Compline, done, it is recorded, to calm the spirits of the Brothers, who were being tried by the devil.

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ,
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.

℣ Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.
℟ Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

Oremus.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriosæ Virginis Matris Mariæ corpus et animam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici mereretur, Spiritu Sancto cooperante præparasti: da, ut cuius commemoratione lætamur; eius pia intercessione, ab instantibus malis, et a morte perpetua liberemur. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum.
℟ Amen.

Love,
Matthew

Into the Breach – the joie de guerre for Christ

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http://www.intothebreach.net/into-the-breach/

Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.
Christ, the royal Master,
Leads against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See his banners go!

Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.

At the sign of triumph
Satan’s host doth flee;
On, then, Christian soldiers,
On to victory.
Hell’s foundations quiver
At the shout of praise;
Brothers, lift your voices,
Loud your anthems raise.

Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.

Like a mighty army
Moves the Church of God;
Brothers, we are treading
Where the Saints have trod.
We are not divided;
All one body we:
One in hope and doctrine,
One in charity.

Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.

Onward, then, ye people;
Join our happy throng.
Blend with ours your voices
In the triumph song:
Glory, laud, and honor
Unto Christ, the King.
This through countless ages
Men and angels sing.

Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.

Text: Sabine Baring-Gould, 1834-1924
Music: Arthur S. Sullivan, 1842-1900

Love,
Matthew

Help for non-Catholics & Catholics in understanding Catholic marriage…

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-by Jacob Lupfer, a Methodist who admires the Catholic Church.

“Most people following this month’s Synod of Bishops on the Family in Rome are aware that the specter of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion is the most controversial and difficult issue among many controversial issues being discussed.

I have followed reports from the Synod closely and have been very interested in Catholic perspectives on divorce, remarriage, and the sacraments. As a divorced and remarried person with an abiding respect for Catholicism, I suppose I am more interested than most. Few Protestants believe that remarried persons are unworthy to receive Communion. Many Protestants are wondering, “What’s the big deal?” A few have asked for help in understanding the debate. I hope to helpfully to offer some explanation here.

The puzzled Protestant must first consider Catholic teaching on marriage. For one thing, marriage is a sacrament (one of seven, whereas Protestants have only two – baptism and the Lord’s Supper). As an efficacious sign of grace, a man and a woman, after giving consent, mutually confer the sacrament upon one another in the presence of the Church. It is not the work of a priest or a church or a civil magistrate. And, following words attributed to Jesus himself, marriage is indissoluble: “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”

The next difference concerns divorce. Protestants typically assume that if a court grants a divorce, then the marriage no longer exists. In Catholicism, civil divorce is a mostly meaningless distinction. Church tribunals can grant annulments, which decree that the marriage was invalid. In recent generations, especially in territories like the U.S. where courts came to easily grant divorces, the standards for receiving an annulment have liberalized. (Though fewer U.S. Catholics are marrying, marrying in the Church, and seeking annulments.) Without an annulment, the Church considers the couple married as long as both spouses are still living. No action of a civil court can change that reality.

Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate has complied some helpful data on marriage, divorce, and annulments.

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Here is where it becomes complicated regarding Communion. A civilly remarried Catholic is, in the eyes of the Church, living in adulterous relationship. Every sex act with the new spouse is considered a mortal sin. Whereas Protestants came to accept subsequent marriages and stepfamilies without much trouble, the Catholic Church considers these situations “irregular” and maintains that without an annulment, the initial marriage remains intact. A civilly remarried Catholic could receive Communion if s/he is celibate. In Protestant churches, it would be virtually inconceivable for a pastor to confront remarried people about receiving Communion. But this gets to two more differences: fitness for receiving Communion and the nature of Communion itself.

In the United Methodist Church of my childhood, the minister invited everyone to the Lord’s Table, saying, “Ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways: Draw near with faith and take this holy sacrament to your comfort.” Over time, the language of intentionality was shortened and arguably watered down a bit. The most frequently used UMC Communion ritual now says, “Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another…” Regardless of denomination, the invitation is relatively simple for Protestants: If you repent, you are welcome to partake. In true Protestant fashion, you are competent to determine for yourself your fitness to receive the sacrament. You and God know your heart. No priest or catechism is necessary to assist in that determination!

Not so in Catholicism. You cannot say, “Well, I am in good conscience, being happily and faithfully remarried.” Furthermore, if you receive Communion in a state of grave sin, you commit another grave sin.

A final significant difference between Protestants and Catholics on this question concerns the nature of Communion itself. Most Protestants suppose that the major Christian debates about Communion concern the frequency with which it is celebrated and the mode by which it is received. But this obscures a greater, more fundamental difference. For Protestants, Communion is a community meal, a moment of personal devotion, and a remembrance of Jesus himself. For Catholics, it is Jesus himself. Christians differ about how exactly Christ is present in the bread and wine. Liturgical Protestants hold that Communion is more than a remembrance. But for Catholics, through transsubstiantation, the elements become the actual body and blood of Christ.

With an arguably “higher” view of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Catholics take more seriously the idea that communicants must receive Him worthily. For the civilly remarried Catholic, this is apparently impossible without changes in Church doctrine.

In convening the Synod of Bishops, Pope Francis deliberately sought a diversity of views. Some theologians, most prominently Cardinal Walter Kasper, have argued that civilly remarried Catholics be allowed to receive Communion. The most vocal opponents have been Cardinal George Pell and Cardinal Raymond Burke. Their Eminences have engaged in a spirited and sometimes pointed public debate. Based on reports of the Synod’s first week, there seems to be an openness to pastoral innovation, but there is no sign that bishops want the Church to abandon its belief in the indissolubility of marriage.

Unsurprisingly, many lay Catholics have also weighed in on the question. Since Protestants will instinctively be sympathetic to the view that remarried people should be permitted to receive Communion, I will highlight two traditionalists. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has a characteristically thoughtful blog post that includes links to his other writings on this and related issues. In a provocative column, civilly remarried laywoman Louise Mensch states: “I am a divorced Catholic. And I’m sure it would be a mortal sin for me to take Communion.” Her perspective gives expression to the Church’s sense that Catholics in irregular relationships should attend Mass and remain part of parish communities even though they cannot receive Communion.

Protestants who wish to understand why it’s a big deal for Catholics to even debate the idea that remarried people can receive Communion, must bear in mind these vital differences:

  • Marriage as a sacrament vs. ‘merely’ a God-ordained union
  • Sacramental marriage vs. civil marriage
  • Annulments vs. divorce
  • Clerical/Church determination vs. individual determination of worthiness to receive Communion
  • “Real presence” as real presence vs. “Real presence” as holy mystery or ‘mere’ remembrance

Regardless of your position, Protestants should take note of the Synod’s consideration of how the Church can nurture marriage and family life. The challenges the pope hopes to address are not uniquely Catholic problems.”

Love,
Matthew

Mass without Communion, single-life, obedience, etc.

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We are easily confused and forgetful.  Simple creatures, simple used here in its most derogatory sense.  Knuckle-draggers.  How quickly did Adam & Eve given THE Garden of Eden, think it was theirs to do with as they wish?  To abuse?  Unthinkingly?  Unknowingly?  Ingrates!!!!  Morons!!!!  Idiots!!!!  Imbeciles!!!!

How easily no longer a gift with very livable stipulations?   How quickly?  We still do.  We feel we are God made, an oxymoron, all the theists in the audience just shuddered at those words, in the image and likeness of ourselves.  Self-referential is always bad logic, etc.

I AM ALWAYS, HAVE ALWAYS BEEN terrified of a vow of obedience.  I still am.  Given twenty-five years of corporate human authority relationships, THAT HAS DEFINITELY NOT LESSENED, ITS GOTTEN WORSE!!!  SO MUCH EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY, ST DILBERT CORPORATE, ORA PRO NOBIS!!! MUCH, MUCH WORSE!!!  I am most willful.  My own way is one of, if not THE greatest pleasure I derive in life, free will, my own.  In the Order of Preachers, there is ONLY ONE VOW:  OBEDIENCE.  There is no need for any other with that ONE.

The funny thing is…pssst, it’s secret…marriage IS a vow of obedience!!!!  DAMN!!!!  Low-blow!!!  Sneak-attack!!!  Don’t tell anyone!!  No one will ever get married, again!  An implicit, ableit profoundly strong vow to the good of the family, NOT one’s own agenda, preferences, will, willfulness, etc.; the obedience of love.  The obedience of Christ to the Father, of the creature to the Creator simply for the gift of being.  SUM, ERGO AGAPE!!! It makes no conditions!!!  It does not negotiate!!!  Love is NOT reasonable!!!  It wants what it wants, and will never settle for less!!!  It is very demanding/immature that way!!!  Shhhhh…..misery loves company.  We need more marrieds!!!!  (Maniacal laugh, Ha, ha, ha, ha…..!!  Join us!!!  Resistance is futile!!!)

From divorced and remarried, to excommunicated, to conscious of mortal sin, what is Mass without Communion?  Really?

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-by Rev. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

“Mass is not just so you get Communion! For hundreds of years, the majority of Catholics did not receive Communion most Sundays of the year but were expected at Mass. The Eucharistic celebration is a re-presentation of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Communion perfects this by uniting us to Jesus, but the Mass has value even if you don’t receive Communion. Being present at the death and resurrection is one of the most wonderful things we can do.

Before we even consider Communion for the divorced and remarried, we have to reflect on the value of Mass without Communion – both as a whole Church and with each individual couple.

Many people, at least in Canada and the USA, think that they cannot participate in Mass without receiving Communion. This is false. Communion perfects one’s participation in the Mass, but one can participate without receiving Communion.

I remember the difficulty of explaining to a non-Catholic child at a Catholic high school what value there was for him to show up at Mass with his class. I understood the reasons, but I still had  difficulty in communicating it clearly. A reflection by the Church on this point would help us all be able to explain this aspect of our faith better.

A deeper reflection on single life, especially those called to non-consecrated chastity

We have told single people clearly that they need to live the chaste life. However, there is more than chastity. How can their friendships have meaning? How can they serve? What are they called to as single people? What gifts can they offer the Church?

We need to reflect on those who don’t choose singleness, at least directly or initially. We have had a lot of reflection in the Church on those who consecrate their singleness to God — priests, religious and the like — but not much on other single people.

A single layperson can do a lot to build up Christ’s kingdom in ways married people can’t. There is a pragmatic level I think most can agree on: since single people don’t have kids to raise, they generally have more free time. However, I have a sense of a deeper spiritual significance. Unfortunately, I can’t concisely and clearly indicate what this is. I hope that some reflection on this, either inside the synod or outside of it, can help us all express the significance better.

The ones who’ve gotten the most press regarding this reflection are those with same-sex-attraction, but I think it also applies to many others. For example, someone might dedicate themselves so fully to a cause – anything from the pro-life movement to extending our knowledge in some scientific field – that they don’t have much time to date. Another might simply have bad luck in trying to find the right person. Spiritual Friendship has started to pursue this reflection, at least for those with same-sex-attraction, although I’m not sure of every reflection they make. Reflecting more on non-consecrated singleness will help these people be stronger members of the Church.

Supporting Francis’s initiative to improve the marriage annulment process

Last month, Pope Francis published some norms to simplify the annulment process. I hope these changes help people in this difficult situation and that the synod fathers concur. The rules put forward by Pope Francis might have seemed technical but some of them will have positive impact quite quickly. For example, a friend was telling me about someone who has been waiting 11 years for an annulment because their ex-spouse lives in Russia and the Russian tribunal won’t act. With the new norms, the tribunal here can act without the Russian tribunal because one of the parties currently lives here (before these norms, a tribunal would need to certify other tribunals that could have jurisdiction didn’t want the case before proceeding).

I think we can point to some positive points of the annulment process. For example, John W. Miller wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “The annulment … involves facing what happened, not denying it, and the process includes helping you avoid failing relationship patterns in the future… In my entire experience of getting divorced, the church dissolution was the only time someone asked me that raw and caring question: What really happened?” For him, the annulment process helped resolve issues from his marriage and divorce.

Support faith-filled families

Cardinal Dolan blogged about the need for us to support “those who, relying on God’s grace and mercy, strive for virtue and fidelity.” He also referred to those who give up careers to take care of their kids. These families may not be perfect but represent the ideal we hope that other families strive for. If we want to strengthen families, we need to support these families. At times we can fall into the danger of reaching out to each marginalized group that we forget those in the center. Once we support these families we can often use them as an example for other families that the ideal is possible.

Centering on such families helps us also show that divorce can be avoided and having more than two kids doesn’t make you certifiably crazy. Without witnesses to the Church’s teaching on marriage, few people today will accept that teaching.

Explain the value of commitment to young people

Today, the percentage of young people getting married is dropping more and more. Our culture has stopped valuing commitment at all. This can also be seen from a drop in religious life and commitment to the priesthood. I think it would be great to reflect on the value of committing your life to another: whether that other is another person or God himself. Hopefully the synod can help us get away from a temporary culture.

Lack of commitment destroys the family. A family is made by a stable couple that is  fully committing to each other in marriage. Even long-term cohabitation is not stable because at any moment, either one can leave.

The questions dealt with here will be almost prerequisite questions: Why commit? What value does commitment add? Can commitment last a lifetime? Why commit to another person or to God in a vocation? In the past, these questions were presupposed, but they are often not today. The younger generation has certain values it can teach us but it struggles in this area.

Conclusion

This list is obviously not exhaustive. To a certain extent I’ve presented areas I know we can reflect on and improve without certainty on the best route for improvement. I felt that the proposals getting most media airtime either change doctrine or dangerously bordered on doing so. Instead these are five areas that the Church has a general teaching on, but where there is still a large area open for further reflection. All of these improvements begin in reflection and theory but have a concrete and practical application to help the family or those around the family (such as single people). Whether the synod talks about these or not, each of us can reflect on them more deeply and hopefully improve the Church’s pastoral practice.”

Love,
Matthew

Jaded? Try the tenderness of His Heart…

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This life, this world is a cold, cruel, arbitrary, brutal place.  We know this.  What saves us from total despair?  His tenderness of Heart.  Mt 11:28-29.

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-by Charlie Johnson, a former Calvinist, is embracing his new Catholic faith.

“The world, it seems, is full of both crisis and triumph. The world’s problems can make any compassionate person feel helpless. The world’s problems can give any cynic his fodder. The triumphs? Well, often they can be hard to locate. Usually because they are small things. I saw a woman on TV handing out bottles of water to refugees in Hungary and I cried. What a beautiful thing. I can’t do that. I am not in Hungary. But I can do some small things. I can promote some small kindness today. A small kindness is a great triumph.

I have found that most people are rather pessimistic about the world. I know I have been. And seeds of that are probably still evident in my daily milieu. But when I discover truth – the truth of kindness -, it gives me immense hope. Once upon a time, when I suffered greatly under the weight of such intense existential questioning and depression, I never imagined I could experience a sustained disposition of joy. But this kindness has brought me great joy.

A Christian will not have an effective religion unless he sees its source. It is true that a man died for the lost and downtrodden. But a message of salvation, I think, is insufficient if there is no Great Affection intrinsically attached to it. I was a Christian for a long, long time before I knew that God liked me and smiled at my presence. God has great affection for me. And a kind heart – the likes of which no other kindness can match.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is an image that provokes a confused reaction in me. I want to recoil at the sight of it. A bleeding heart, punctured by thorn. But then I cannot take my eyes off it. There is no greater symbol for human nature than the heart. The thing that keeps the blood going, giving life.

I cannot escape it no matter how much I try. I have tried to come up with a better answer. But all I know is that the most effective religious observance is knowing the kindness of Christ. When I have hated myself the only remedy I can find is kindness. When I have hated others the only remedy that has sorted me out is kindness. When the world goes black to me and all I see are grim faces of disapproval, the only remedy is the affectionate smile of a Savior.

The Sacred Heart tells us of Jesus’ humanity. That he is not an abstract idea or fanciful thought meant to encourage positive emotions. The Sacred Heart imagines the heart of Jesus, exposed and aflame with life. It is crowned with thorns, pierced through by an instrument meant to usurp his status as king. He wears it gladly. I keep the image of the sacred heart close to me because it reminds me of his burning love when I get jaded.

The most important thing ever is knowing Jesus and the tenderness of his Sacred Heart.”

“O Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!”  -traditional McCormick family aspirational prayer.

Love,
Matthew

Offering the Lord our poverty of time…

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Creator of life, time, and all things,
You have gifted all to all.
There is great irony, and even tragedy, in our poverty of time for You.
If You should suddenly appear,
the world would drop everything
to come and see and hear You.
It need not be that dramatic.
You are here. You told us You would be with us, always.

If we couldn’t afford to spend any time with the most important other person in the world,
our relationship with them would wither and die.
We know this.
We grow or fail in our relationship with You, as with another.
You are God.
With You all things are possible.
Help us in our poverty of time.
Help we Marthas grow in holy jealousy of our sister, Mary.
Who has chosen better.
Help us remember, as you told Martha “few things are needed, indeed only one”.
Help us to understand why that pearl of great price, why that treasure in a field,
should be and is all consuming.
You tell us, in the end, You will say to those You do not know, “Away from me! I do not know you.”
Know me, Lord. Help me to know You.
Help me choose that one necessary thing,
not in debate or negotiation,
but in holy, loving surrender, to You.  Amen.

Love,
Matthew

The Early Church…

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Jim Papandrea, PhD, taught me my course in Church History for my catechectical certification in the Archdiocese of Chicago.  I also know him from Holy Family Parish, Inverness, IL.

Q. There are a number of books out on the writings and teachings of the Church Fathers. How is yours different?

A. This book doesn’t just talk about the Church Fathers and their teachings, it demonstrates how the Catholic Faith today is consistent with the faith and teachings of the Church Fathers. One of my goals for this book is to show that continuity, which was one of the things that drew me back to the Church. In my study of the early Church, I realized that what the Catholic Church teaches is pretty much what the early Christians believed, and what the early bishops and theologians taught. And that continuity between the faith of the early Christians and of the Catholic Church today is part of what led me to say, “I have to be part of this.”

Q. Why do you think most Protestants refuse to accept or even consider the writings of the Fathers and the practices of the early Church? 

A.  I think in general Protestants are gaining an appreciation for the Church Fathers, though it can often be very selective. But there is an assumption within the Protestant mentality—a modernist assumption—that people who lived more recently are necessarily smarter than people who lived a long time ago. That’s an oversimplification of it, but the point is that in many ways the Reformation plays into the Enlightenment idea that what is newer is somehow automatically better than what is older—that cutting ties to a tradition might be better than holding on to the tradition. Again, I’m over-simplifying here, but this allows Protestants today to treat important aspects of the early Church as quaint but outdated and to assume that we now know better. For example, when I teach my Protestant students that the Church has always believed in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, many of them are perfectly comfortable accepting this and yet continuing to hold a theology of the Eucharist that is strictly symbolic or memorialist, without feeling any need to consider that maybe the long history of belief in Real Presence says something about the truth of that doctrine.

Q. Which Church Father has the most to offer the modern-day reader when it comes to giving an overview of how the early Church practiced?

A.  That’s a tough question, because all the Fathers offer a different perspective. It would be a little like asking which of the four Gospels has the most to offer when it comes to giving an overview of Jesus’ life. We need all four, because they give us four different perspectives. We also have to remember that, like many of the New Testament documents, the writings of the Fathers were meant to address specific situations, and so we don’t get anything like a systematic theology until the Middle Ages. Personally, I gravitate toward the Western Fathers. For doctrine, Tertullian and Novatian are extremely important, but they were rigorists, and Novatian was eventually a schismatic. So they’re a mixed bag. I like Ambrose and Leo. Many scholars would probably say Augustine, but he had his issues, too, and the Church rejected a significant portion of his teachings (e.g., election). On the other hand, most of the major controversies were in the East, and we can’t understand the results of those doctrinal debates without the likes of Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, not to mention the Cappadocians. If I were to suggest some of the writings of the Church Fathers to a modern-day reader who wants a good introduction to the primary sources, I would say begin with some of the earliest ones and their most important or most accessible documents. That would be Justin Martyr (I Apology) and Irenaeus of Lyons (Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching). Other interesting early documents would include the letters of Ignatius of Antioch and the Diary of Perpetua.

Q. Although the doctrine of purgatory isn’t taught explicitly in Scripture, it is referred to implicitly. Give some other examples of current Catholic practices that are found throughout the writings of the Fathers but seem to be absent from Scripture. 

A. Most of the Marian doctrines probably fall into this category: the Immaculate Conception, the perpetual virginity, and the Assumption. But in the book I show how they are doctrines that logically result from our beliefs about Christ and that these ideas were already present in the faith of the early Church. The Hail Mary, like purgatory, is one of those things that Protestants might argue is not in Scripture, and yet it is based on Scripture and reflects Catholic understanding of Scripture.

Q. From an apologetic standpoint, are the teachings of the Fathers a good way to break down someone’s adherence to the notion of sola scriptura

A. It worked with me. To be fair, the Reformers had a healthier view of Scripture and Tradition than people today who hold to a strict version of sola scriptura. But what you find when you study the history of the Church is that sola scripture leads to heresy, since heresy is the result of trying to interpret Scripture out of context, without the checks and balances of Tradition (i.e., interpretive precedent). At the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, the Arians were the sola scriptura party. If the Church had held to sola scriptura, it would call into question the doctrine of the Trinity—the very doctrine that defines Christianity. Now, to be clear, the doctrine of the Trinity does come from Scripture, but the word Trinity does not, and our understanding of the Trinity is the result of the interpretation of Scripture. To put it another way, if we held to a strict understanding of sola scriptura, we would not have the Nicene Creed, which is another defining element of Christianity. And yet the Creed is actually a summary of what we learn from Scripture. So to reject the authority of Tradition is to ignore the ways in which our ancestors in the Faith interpreted Scripture and to try to reinvent the wheel and do interpretation in a vacuum, cut off from those who went before us. These are the things you realize when you read the Fathers.

Q. It seems that rejection of authority has always been an issue, from the fall of Adam and Eve to the Arian heresy to the Protestant Reformation and beyond. Taking that rejection into another sphere, would you say that rejection of authority (in this case of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution) has led to a similar outcome in the current moral climate in America?

A. Yes, I think so. But it’s also a rejection of tradition. That same humanist/enlightenment mentality that says what is newer is automatically better, and that people who live now are necessarily more enlightened than those who lived in the ancient world, has led to a kind of relativism that makes the individual his or her own highest authority. None of what came before me—whether it’s authoritative writings (Scripture, the Constitution) or authoritative Tradition—carries as much weight as what I think, because I should have the last word on what is right and wrong, at least for me. If I disagree with the authority or the Tradition, then the authority or Tradition must be wrong and should be changed. That’s the mentality we’re dealing with.

Q.  What Did the Church Fathers Say About Purgatory?

A.  From a time even before the earliest surviving quotes from the Church Fathers on this subject, we know that the belief in purgatory existed among the grassroots of the faithful. A second-century document known as The Acts of Paul, which contains the story of the “The Acts of Paul and Thecla,” mentions the practice of prayer for the dead in such a way as to imply a belief in purgatory—and it does this as though its readers should not be surprised by it. Although this document is not authoritative for the Church, it does show that as early as the second century, a writer could take it for granted that Christians believed that it was beneficial to pray for the souls of the dead, which also tells us that they believed in purgatory. Another famous document, the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas, is actually the diary of an early third-century martyr, Perpetua, executed for her faith as public entertainment in an arena in North Africa in the year 203. In this story, as well, it is assumed that those who have died can benefit from the intercession of the living.

Let’s look at what some of the Church Fathers had to say about Purgatory…

St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (c. 250)

Cyprian was the bishop of Carthage, in North Africa, during one of the worst and most devastating persecutions the early Church faced at the hands of the Roman Empire. In a letter, he explains the difference between those who are forgiven for their sins by the Church and those who die as martyrs:

“It is one thing to stand for pardon, another thing to attain to glory: it is one thing, when cast into prison, not to go out thence until one has paid the uttermost farthing; another thing at once to receive the wages of faith and courage. It is one thing, tortured by long suffering for sins, to be cleansed and long purged by fire; another to have purged all sins by suffering. It is one thing, in fine, to be in suspense till the sentence of God at the day of judgment; another to be at once crowned by the Lord.”

Cyprian asserts that those who die as martyrs have no need of the purification of purgatory, for they “have purged all sins by suffering,” and “at once receive the wages of faith and courage,” which is, “to be at once crowned by the Lord.” On the other hand, those who do not die as martyrs suffer a different kind of torture, that is, they suffer grief for their sins. They are “tortured by long suffering for sins, to be cleansed and long purged by fire…” This is clearly a reference to purgatory.

Lactantius, lay teacher of North Africa (c. 300)

Similarly, Lactantius wrote that it was possible for a person to reach a point of sanctification in this life which would exempt him from purgatory, but that this was not likely, since for most of us our sins outweigh our goodness.

“But when he shall have judged the righteous, he will also try them with fire. Then they whose sins shall exceed either in weight or in number, shall be scorched by the fire and burnt.”

It would be a mistake to read this as physical fire. Lactantius seems to have understood the fire as “real,” in a way, but he described it as a kind of spiritual fire that would purify souls.

St. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa (c. 380)

Bishop Gregory preached a sermon on the dead, in which he combined his understanding of 1 Corinthians 3:15 with 2 Peter 1:4, which says we “may become partakers of the divine nature.” But, Gregory wrote, no one is “able to partake of divinity until he has been purged.

It should be clear from our brief study that anti-Catholic legends claiming that the concept of purgatory was invented in the early Middle Ages are untrue. There are many other early Church Fathers that could be quoted here, including Hilary of Poitiers, John Chrysostom, and Gregory the Great, but it will suffice to conclude with Augustine.”

Love,
Matthew