A Failure of the Early Church? On the Lord's Supper as Symbol

This week, I listened to two different Baptist sermons on the Lord's Supper.  Baptists, like most Protestants, believe the Lord's Supper to be a symbolic ritual in which we remember Jesus's sacrifice for our sins.  They do not believe that the bread and wine/juice actually is Jesus's precious, glorified Body and Blood.  Rather, it is just a symbol of Jesus, and they celebrate the Lord's Supper in memory of his death.

Put this way, this teaching seems to be rather mild and easy to accept.  Even though many Christians believe the Lord's Supper is much more (infinitely more, in fact) than a symbolic ritual, the idea of it being a symbolic ritual sits comfortably in the minds and hearts of millions and millions of Christians around the world.

Although it would be worth discussing the theology of this belief itself, I will focus on a problem that, for most Protestants, seems to be completely off the radar - a problem that, theology aside, makes it virtually impossible to believe that the Lord's Supper is only a symbol.

The problem with the Protestant doctrine is that the claim quickly becomes too large through what it implies.  In other words, despite the mild packaging given the Lord's Supper, to believe the Lord's Supper is only a symbol is to make extraordinary, staggering claims about the history of Christianity. 

The early church unanimously believed that Jesus was really and truly present in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper.  Many of the pastors of the early church who taught this learned their faith directly from the apostles themselves! Almost all of these early pastors were martyred for their faith, which serves as a testament to the truth of their claims.

Take, for instance, St. Ignatius, who was an early bishop of Antioch and a student of the apostle John.  On his way to being thrown to the lions around 110 AD, St. Ignatius wrote letters to the churches in each city through which he passed.  In these letters, St. Ignatius makes the following remarks:

"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).

Other writings from the early church can be read here, though every Christian should take some time to read these quote in context by purchasing a volume of the writings of the early church fathers, such as these volumes by William Jurgens, which I highly recommend given their exhaustive index and cross-references.

My claim (which should be easy enough to disprove if false) is that the apostles passed on to their successors the doctrine that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist - that the bread and wine are truly and substantially his body and blood.  (Please don't take my word for it!  I invite every reader to study the writings of the apostles' students and their successors.  Consult the primary sources, not what some third party - even myself - has to say about the primary sources.)

Now, let's pause for a minute and assume, like Baptists believe, that the Lord's Supper is only a symbolic ritual.  If this assumption is true, then logic forces us to conclude that what St. Ignatius was teaching was not true.

This conclusion immediately raises a dilemma for Christians: am I going to believe my Baptist interpretive tradition over the teaching of a pastor who received their faith directly from an apostle?

Let's push the Baptist assumption farther and assume that St. Ignatius was teaching heresy over in Antioch.  If he was the only Pastor who distorted the original gospel message, then where are the other faithful students of the apostles who passed on the correct understanding of the Lord's Supper?

Also, we know from the early church that when someone taught heresy, there was an outcry.  Where is there a record of the outcry against St. Ignatius's false teaching?  In fact, if a number of early church fathers went astray, you would expect even more of an outcry from those successors of the apostles who had maintained the true Christian faith.   Moreover, if those who were distorting the Gospel message had no commitment to the original deposit of faith Christ left with the apostles, you would expect there to be some amount of disagreement between their teachings.  After all, if you are not going to remain obedient to the apostles and to the true Gospel, why remain obedient to and consistent with the teachings of the other heretics?

Further still, if these early heretics knew that their teachers, the apostles, taught them one thing, and that they were about to martyred for beliefs they knew were not true, why do we never here of a single early church father admitting moments before death that what they believed was actually a human tradition that someone had made up after the apostles had died?

Put simply, the historical evidence suggests that the early church consistently believed that the Eucharist was Christ's Body and Blood, not a symbolic representation of it.  The Eucharist is the same flesh that suffered for our sins, as St. Ignatius emphasizes.  The flesh on the cross was not a symbolic flesh.

If the above paragraph is correct, then the history of the early church's teaching on the Lord's Supper can be interpreted in one of two ways.

1. A major, global cover-up/distortion of the true Gospel message.

2. A faithful, consistent, global adherence to the teaching of the apostles.

Now, assuming that #2 is not an option for Baptists, let's push the implications a bit further.

Let's say that every single apostle chose successors who turned out to be unfaithful to the original message (so unfaithful that almost every single one of them would submit to marytrdom without a peep regarding their having changed the Gospel message).

The consequence of this massive failure of the apostles in choosing "faithful men" to pass on the traditions that had been given them is that error was taught and idolatry promoted for the first 1,500 years of church history.  The Sacrifice of the Mass, the worship of the Host, the Sacraments - all of it - is one gigantic mistake - one enormous distortion of what Jesus's church (the one he offered his sacrifice for and sent His Spirit to maintain) was supposed to look like and believe.

Thus, to believe that the Lord's Supper is a symbolic ritual is ultimately to believe that:

1.  The apostles completely failed at their Great Commission (Matt. 28:20) by failing to find anyone to faithful transmit the faith.

2.  Every student of the apostles and their successors changed the Gospel in a consistent and unchanging manner and promoted this lie without ever once altering it further in time or place for centuries - and all of this through countless martyrdoms and persecutions.

3.  Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to protect His Church from error and guide it into all truth, but something prevented the Holy Spirit from achieving this goal even as early as the time when the apostles were passing on the faith to their successors.

4.  Christianity, from Jesus's perspective, was an utter and near-complete failure until the time of the Reformation.  Jesus founded a Church that wouldn't really come into being until 1,500 years after he founded it.

5.  Only after the Reformation do we finally see the New Testament Church as Jesus and Apostles envisioned it, despite the fact that outside the Catholic Church there are tens of thousands of denominations preaching conflicting interpretations of the Scriptures.

I suggested earlier that to believe the Lord's Supper is only a symbolic ritual is to make an extraordinary claim about the history of Christianity.  Should anyone then wonder why history is the last thing most Baptist pastors mention when they preach about the Lord's Supper?  For these pastor's to mention what the Early Church believed about Jesus's Real Presence in the Eucharist is to raise serious alarms in the minds of anyone willing to push the implications to their conclusions.  Many people whose whose minds and hearts are open to these conclusions have pushed their way right into the Catholic Church, even though this is the last Church these Protestants would have ever dreamed of joining.  They, like so many converts, find themselves surprised by truth!

Let us open our minds, our hearts, and our wills to the fullness of the faith that has been faithfully passed down to us from the apostles and through their successors so that we Christians, two-thousand years later - can know the lord Jesus Christ in His fullness.  Through the breaking of the bread, let us come to know Christ how he loves for us to know Him (see Luke 24:13-35 and following)!  Let us share in communion with the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity with our Lord and Savior, the divine spouse of our souls!

Praise be Jesus Christ now and forever!

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Afterword:

How might we explain the tendency for Christians to believe things without understanding their implications?  One contributing factor is the way in which we conceive doctrine in our minds.  If our doctrinal beliefs are imagined as a bullet-point list, then it is difficult for our minds to see their relationships, not to mention the relationships between doctrines and their historical development.

On the other hand, if we see doctrine in a more symphonic manner, where each truth melodiously intersects with other truths, and with the contexts for these truths (history included), then our minds are able to see truth as an organic whole, as a...Person!  Our minds can perceive the beautiful splendor of truth as all the pieces (doctrine, history, theology, morality, etc.) fit together. 

The truth of the Catholic faith amounts to far more than simply having a bullet-list in which each item is correct.  Rather, the truth of the Catholic faith allows one to fit all of life together in a way that glorifies the Father.  To be a Catholic is to be connected with Scripture and Tradition in the heart of the living Body of Christ, the Church, and through this relationship, be connected with all of human history that finds its center and meaning in the person of Jesus Christ.

To Be a Better Baptist

Through this blog, I hope to help Baptists become better Baptists, Methodists better Methodists, Presbyterians better Presbyterians, and non-denominationalists better non-denominationalists.

But already we hit a problem!

What does it mean to become a better Baptist?

To put it another way: How can Baptists become "better" if becoming better "Baptists" must ultimately mean rejecting something of what it means to be "Baptist" to begin with in order to replace it with something better?

Let me clarify: I'm not speaking about the person who is not following common Baptist mores--such the prohibition against consuming alcohol--by consuming an occasional beer; or a person who is not following Baptist beliefs by denying the trinity; or a person who is not following Baptist ritual by refusing to attend church every Sunday.  Such a person, according to the Baptist perspective, would need to become a better person by becoming more Baptist.

I'm talking about how can we improve the Baptist version of Christianity itself.  More importantly: how can we move Baptist Christianity forward/up rather than laterally/sideways?  Is it possible to conceive of making the Baptist faith "better" and not just "different?" 

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It is difficult to conceive in today's Christian climate of bettering Baptists since measuring such a forward improvement assumes an objective, unchanging standard--some knowable goal--toward which Baptist Christianity is progressing.

For instance, if someone, somehow, knew which interpretations of the Bible and of sacred Christian Traditions were true and which were false, then such a person could conceive of the Baptist faith improving by keeping all the Baptist doctrines that are true and discarding those that are false.

If someone knew which elements of liturgical worship were taught by Jesus and the apostles, then we could improve Baptist liturgies by maintaining those elements that are necessary, discarding those that are forbidden (I'm not suggesting there are any), and including those elements that have been commanded.

If someone knew what moral teachings conform to the will of God--and conform the human will to God--then we could improve the Baptist moral code by reinforcing all the more strongly those prescripts that lead to holiness, discard those that unduly bind the conscience, and add certain moral laws that are not currently being taught or followed.

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Catholic convert Scott Hahn is known for teaching that "God loves us just the way we are, but he loves us too much to allow us to stay that way."

To return to the beginning: I hope that I can encourage Baptists in their faith by both encouraging them in those parts of their faith that are true, holy, and beautiful, while simultaneously helping them to become better Baptists by seeing clearly those parts that have to be discarded in order to move forward.

The good news of the Catholic faith for non-Catholics is this: it is possible to move forward.

Not every change to a denomination needs to result in more splitting, which historically is precisely what has happened.  If every denomination was able to move forward toward that which is objectively true and holy, then our changes would result in greater and greater unity!

But can we conceive it?  And do we want it?

Some people can not conceive it precisely because they do not want it!  The will, we can not forget, is the guardian of the mind.

The Catholic Church is different from every denomination that has split from her in that she remains, as she has since her inception, the objective standard.

Does this mean that the Catholic Church can not improve?  Absolutely not!  However, the Catholic Church always improves by becoming more true to itself.  It is the Catholic Faith that is the standard--the Catholic Faith that has been passed down in the form of authoritative teachings, a rich liturgical tradition, an unchanging moral code, etc.--and it is this standard that the church of every century must always dynamically work toward.

The ancient Catholic Christian faith is also the standard Jesus has established by which non-Catholic Christian faiths can be measured.  Only when non-Catholic versions of Christianity each begin measuring themselves by an objective standard will forward movement become not just possible, but conceivable.  The wonderful gift of infallibility, which Jesus has given as a gift to the apostles and their successors united with the chair of Peter, is the means by which our Lord has maintained an objective standard throughout the centuries.

April 30, 2010 Response to Pastor Witmer, Lighthouse Baptist Church

For any interested readers, Tobe Witmer, pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Newark, DE has briefly responded to my essay on his Bread of Life Sermon.  I encourage everyone to read my essay and his response, which can be found in the comments underneath.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Pastor Witmer for considering my commentary on his sermon.  As I have said elsewhere on this blog, achieving Christian unity will only occur if Christians talk to one another with respect, openness, love, and a Christ-like, zealous desire for the perfect unity that Jesus once prayed for (John 17) and St. Paul commanded.  We can not ignore differences, because to do so is to ignore the author of division, Satan himself.  We can not pretend differences do not exist, because to do so is to ignore a reality that is contrary to the Gospel.  And we can not accept differences ("I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe."), because such a philosophy is directly contrary to the mind of God (see John 17).

But we can pray for unity, we can join our hearts with Christ's, and we can be obedient to Christ and submit our wills to him, so that if he is calling us to change our beliefs, we will exhibit the humble "obedience of faith" (see Romans 1) and follow Him where He calls us.  Thy will, Lord, not mine be done!

And we can talk!  How rarely Christians who disagree about fundamental doctrines actually sit down and consider what each other really believes! 

When I read Pastor's response, a paragraph from a G.K. Chesterton's essay "Where All Roads Lead" came to mind.  The paragraph can be read here, and it begins with the words "Now, I have noted first this common consciousness..."

The basic idea on which Chesterton so eloquently remarks is that "new" ideas grow old quickly, but the truth stays ever-young.  Pastor Witmer's response speaks of an idea (a particular flavor of Christianity) that is 500 years old.  I am trying to share a Christianity with Pastor Witmer that is 2,000 years young.  One beautiful thing about Catholicism is that it grows fresher and more vibrant with every stale complaint made against it.  And how many times have we Catholics heard the same criticism summed up with the words "faith alone?"  Yet, does Pastor Witmer's response really answer or engage the teachings of that ancient church that I shared in my essay?  Pastor Witmer cited the context of his message as a reason he did not address all the verses of John 6 pertinent to his topic, but are we to believe that he would have interpreted "the Bread of Life" spoken of in John 6 any differently had he dwelt longer past v. 51?

In the near future, I will revisit my essay and Pastor Witmer's response and try to draw out what seem to be the areas of explicit agreement, the areas of hidden agreement (areas that Pastor Witmer thinks contradict the principle of salvation by grace alone), and areas of real disagreement.  I believe I will be able to show that there are some very real agreements between Baptists and Catholics that seem, through the lens of what Baptists are usually taught about Catholicism, to be areas of profound disagreement.

The question for our hearts always remains:  are we ready to rejoice in these unities and dissolve the false divisions that we have allowed Satan to sow in Christ's mystical body?

Are we ready to open our minds and hearts to really understand what each other believe, or will we remain content to live with the straw men of our long-standing prejudices?

Again, I thank Pastor Witmer for showing a willingness to respond and begin a conversation, and I invite Pastor Witmer to respond to some of the very real arguments I made in my own essay for the Real Presence of Jesus Christ - Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity - in the most Holy Eucharist.  I especially invite Pastor Witmer to address my remarks regarding the dichotomies on which his interpretation of John 6 seems to rest.

May the Holy Spirit blow anew on Christians and bring about perfect unity, true doctrine, and a vibrant faith!

Response to Joshua Harris (Covenant Life Church) Interview on Dug Down Deep

I recently sent the following letter to Joshua Harris, pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD.  After sending the letter, I did some more research on Pastor Harris only to discover that he is the author of a book that made the rounds during my college years: I Kissed Dating Goodbye.  Harris's new book, Dug Down Deep, explores the relationship of doctrinal truth to our relationship with Christ.  Harris points out that one can't separate doctrinal truth from devotion to and relationship with Christ; indeed, you can't have one without the other.  My letter below, as the interested reader will learn, picks up on this notion of truth.  If truth is both objective and critically important, as Pastor Harris and I agree, then how do we come to a correct knowledge of the truth, especially considering that there are a number of "truths" about which Pastor Harris and I disagree?

That, my friends, is the question...

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Hi Pastor Joshua,

I just stumbled across your interview about Dug Down Deep through a link on Denny Burk's website. At Burk’s website, I listened to your talk at SBTS, and my ears were piqued when I realized you preach right around the corner from where I live. So I did some poking around and found this interview: http://www.joshharris.com/2010/03/an_interview_about_dug_down_de.php

The interview brings up the following questions in my mind:

If "we can't know him [Jesus] and relate to him in the right way without doctrine," then what provisions did Jesus leave his Church so that they would know correct doctrine? Many good, honest Christians pray for the Holy Spirit to guide their interpretation of Scripture, yet still believe in different doctrines. Doctrines, as you correctly note, basically constitute a person's or church’s interpretation of Scriptural teaching.

Yet, if not knowing correct doctrine is tantamount to not knowing Jesus (at least in as full a way as he wants to be known by us), then how can a Christians ever really be sure they know Jesus fully? To repeat: what provisions did Jesus put in place so that if ever there were competing ideas about what doctrines (i.e. interpretations of Scripture) were true, Jesus’s followers would know for sure which ones should be believed?

Your interview speaks about truth in a number of different contexts:

"building your life on the truth about God;"

truth doesn't cater to culture (it doesn't "speak their language") but rather should be given "straight up" so that it can accomplish "God's work;"

"your life interpreted by God's truth;"

"truth and theology [can't be separated] from devotion and relationship. You can't have one without the other;"

"I think we all struggle with [getting the truth from our head to our heart];"

"Getting truth into our heart starts with meditating on truth;"

"Expository preaching of God's word will deepen your grasp of biblical truth;"

and "We need both the truth of Jesus and the compassion of Jesus if we would rightly represent him to a lost world."

All of these statements seem to treat truth as something objective, solid, and unchanging. It doesn’t get swept along with culture. It is solid such that we can build our life on it and interpret our life by it. The truth of the Gospel is something that was just as true in 200 AD as it is in 2000 AD. (It might give your readers pause to know that the vast majority of Christian pastors preaching the Gospel in 200 AD—those who had learned the Gospel from the students of the apostles themselves—taught truths that are quite different from some of the ones taught at CCL.)

Yet, very few of your statements about truth give your readers any idea of where they can find this truth. In other words, getting truth into our hearts really begins with knowing how to get truth into our minds, and into our ears, since “faith comes by hearing.”

If truth is objective such that we can measure ourselves by it, then how can we know if the truths we believe didn’t really begin as the reflection of ourselves, of our own individual readings of scripture, of our own weaknesses in Scriptural understanding, etc.? After all, the Bible is a book written in languages that could not be more different from our own, to a culture that could hardly be more different from our own, etc. The average reader of the Bible does not know the expressions, the assumptions, and the traditions of the Jewish culture within which the New Testament was written and received. Yet, many evangelical Christians today reject the teachings of those earliest fathers of the Church who DID read the Bible in this historical context, and who did learn the Gospel message even from the apostles themselves. (Ignatius of Antioch’s teaching on the Eucharist as being the body and blood of Christ is just one example among many. Many Catholic and Protestant scholars agree that Ignatius was a disciple of the apostle John.)

I agree with you completely that "truth and theology [can't be separated] from devotion and relationship. You can't have one without the other."

But what is the pillar and foundation of truth?

At the same time that I applaud you and encourage you in your work in spreading the gospel and for connecting how our relationship with Christ relates to the Truth who is Christ, I wonder if I might challenge you to articulate more clearly exactly how it is that you believe Christians can know with certainty this Truth. Also, please forgive me if you address these questions in your book. Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll read your book asap!

Thank you for your time and for all the work you have done for God! May you and your loved ones experience a blessed Holy Week, and may the peace of Christ be with you!

Let us join our prayer this week with Christ’s high priestly prayer in John 17: “that they may be one.” Sanctify us, oh God, and teach us the fullness of the truth that was “delivered once to the saints” (Jude 3). Give us hearts that are open and obedient to following the truth wherever it leads us!

Your brother in Christ,
Daniel

Response to Fairwinds Baptist Church March 28, 2010 Morning service

As I grade my students' papers this evening, I've been listening to some recent sermons from Fairwinds Baptist Church.  This blog post will record some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I listen...

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My recording began as the worship leader was emphasizing that today was Palm Sunday.  "This is PALM SUNDAY MORNING," the leader emphasized two or three times.

This emphasis raises so many questions in the ears of me, a Catholic listener:

Where do you get the idea of including Palm Sunday in your liturgical calendar?
If you get it from the Catholic Church, why do you take this one particular day from the Lenten calendar but not others, such as Ash Wednesday?
Why do you emphasize a particular day as part of a liturgical calendar, when the Bible doesn't specifically command this day to be celebrated?  Could this be a tradition of men?

I ask these questions only because I find it so common for the Catholic Church to come under attack by certain denominations, only to find those same denominations quietly borrowing from the rich traditions of Catholicism.  It is a tricky game to play: on the one hand, non-Catholic groups seem to want to visibly separate themselves from the Catholic Church from which their ancestors broke.  On the other, these same groups can't make the break complete, in part (I would suggest) because the best, truest, holiest things about them are all things found in the Catholic Church.


The gospel message (at least an important part of it): Everything God desires to give to his Church can be found in the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church is the natural home to everything God has given His Church.

If you are not a member of the Catholic Church, you do not have access to everything God desires to pour into your life as a member of the mystical body of Christ.  To paraphrase Catholic-convert G.K. Chesterton, you probably have three or four things that are emphasized to the exclusion of one hundred other things that God also desires you to have (the fullness of the truth and the sacraments being two of the biggies).  This is NOT to say that those 3-4 things are not good in and of themselves.  Further, it is plain that some non-Catholics accomplish more for the good of the kingdom with those 3-4 things than some Catholics do with everything.  However, we don't want to measure our gifts relative to how other Christians (of any denomination) are using theirs.

We should measure our willingness to accept God's gifts against his generosity to give them.  And God's generosity will NEVER be outdone.

Let us adopt the simple spirituality of St. Terese of Liseaux, who summed up her desire for spiritual goods in terms of her response as a child to the toys of her siblings:

"I want it all!"

As a Catholic, I don't just want Palm Sunday, I want the entire liturgical calendar of our ancestors.
As a Catholic, I don't just want to hear the word of God, I want to commune with Him through Holy Communion.
As a Catholic, I don't just want to be washed with water that symbolizes my salvation, I want to be washed clean by water and Spirit through the sacrament of Baptism.
As a Catholic, I want the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.  I want truth that is unchanging, that is eternal, and that is not blown around by the latest theological fad or schismatic tradition.  The truth is objective, and thus it can be named.  The fullness of revealed truth subsists in the Catholic Church.
As a Catholic, I want it all: the Bible (all 73 books), the Mass, the Sacraments, the History, the (unchanging) Traditions (unchanging), the Saints, our spiritual Mother Mary, and the unparalleled Beauty found within the Catholic Church.  I want the Doctrines and the Moral Teachings that have been preserved by saints, doctors, and martyrs of the Church.  I want a Church that has been, is, and will always be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.  I want the Church founded on the Rock (Peter and his successors, each of whom participate in a unique, Sacramental way in Christ headship of the Church), the Church that holds the Keys of the Kingdom, and the Church that is so mystically united to Christ that Satan will never successfully influence (and thereby corrupt) a single one of her doctrinal or moral teachings.

With one short life to live, why settle for anything less?

Yet, we must pray that God increase this want, because not in a million years could I want these things for myself as much as God wants to give them to me.

Yes, today is Palm Sunday!  Let us rejoice and thank God for the ancient Church that delivered to us this celebration.  And let us worship together, in unity, our Lord and King!

Okay, time to get back to grading and listening...

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Next came a baby dedication.  Pastor Carlo made it very clear that they were praying this baby would come to know Christ as Savior at a young age.

Because this phraseology brings up a question that I have never heard Pastor Carlo address, I'll go ahead and ask it again:

If this baby died before coming to know Christ as savior, would it go to heaven under any circumstances?  If so, what would those circumstances be?  Would admission into heaven still depend in some way on the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus?  And finally, can you back up your answers to these questions from the Bible?

I address these concerns in much greater detail in a previous post.

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The majority of the service was what many Baptist churches call a "cantata," where the chorus basically sings a greater-than-usual set of pieces tied together by a common theme.

Even though it was Palm Sunday, the first song sung by the Choir was "Jesus Christ is Risen Today."  And, right after, a new worship leader spoke about glorifying our risen Christ, a Christ who lives.

In the Catholic Church, we place a greater emphasis in the liturgical calendar on what Palm Sunday really offers us: a chance to place ourselves in the position of those who waved palms in the air when Jesus arrived on donkey's back, and also of those who would soon yell "Give us Barabbas," and "Crucify Him!"  We meditate on Christ's death on Palm Sunday; we consider that Jesus died before we allow ourselves to consider that he now lives.  We take time to do this, almost a whole week, in fact.  We trace Jesus's footsteps to the upper room, where he offered himself through the institution of the Eucharist.  We follow him out into the night on Holy Thursday Mass, which ends not with singing but with a somber, silent procession out of the church.  We arrive back at Church on Good Friday, where we recite once again the passion and death of Jesus, and we kneel on our knees and kiss the cross of Christ, uniting our sufferings with his, meditating on our own impending death as well as the little deaths we experience everyday.  On Holy Saturday, we experience Jesus's absence.  Every tabernacle across the planet is emptied of its usual resident, the Lord of Hosts.  Jesus is absent from us.

The Easter vigil Mass then begins in darkness, and as all of salvation history is recounted in Word and Psalms, and as the light of Christ is spread by candlelight around the sanctuary, we recognize Christ as the light of the World and as the Savior foretold from Genesis 3:15 and through every later stage of salvation history.  Jesus Christ is RISEN INDEED!   We proclaim it with great faith and fervor!

The Catholic Church in her wisdom knows that we human beings need this.  We need a week of focus on Christ's death to really savor in a unique way (during the year) the power and glory of Christ's resurrection.  Let us humbly take the Church's wisdom into consideration as we carefully plan how our liturgies follow the liturgical calendar!

Surely, it is not wrong to sing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" on any day, as he is truly reigning in heaven.  Yet, the point of the liturgical calendar is not to remind God of this fact.  The point is to remind us, but more deeply, to make the passion of Christ present to us - and to make us present to it.

I invite my non-Catholic brothers and sisters to consider giving the Catholic Church a try.  You may find that its liturgical calendar alone allows you to experience time and the truths communicated through this theological sculpturing of time to be impressed ever more deeply in your heart and soul.  Come join the thousands of converts to the Catholic Church who have found their spiritual lives deepen beyond anything they had thought possible, even through such simple things as the liturgical calendar.

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Another song picked up on the language Jesus used at the last supper: "Do this in remembrance of me."  To which the choir responded: "we remember what you did for us."  I comment on this here only to point out that the Hebrew that Jesus used means something much closer to: "Do this as a memorial offering of my sacrifice."  If read against the background of the Jewish passover, which uses the very language that Jesus was drawing on, then we can presume that Jesus meant and was understood to be communicating something much closer to the Catholic understanding: that Holy Communion actually makes present and re-presents the sacrifice of Christ.  We don't just remember back across the years; rather the event that took place years ago is made present to us, and we to it.  We enter into the sacrifice of Christ and participate in the offering of this sacrifice.  While at one level of how our mind is working, one might be able to call this "remembering," this is not likely the only thing Jesus had in mind.

I invite my Baptist readers to study a good Catholic study Bible such as the Navarre Bible, or consult one of the many good sources explaining the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist.  You will learn, as I once did, that if we only read the Bible through the lens of our 20th-century, western prejudices ingrained in our English language, you likely interpret it quite differently from what the original writer intended, and what the original audience unanimously understood.  (Speaking of: I invite you to study the writings of the early church.  Ask them the question: how did you understand Jesus's words "Do this in memory of me"?)

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Another song meditated on the crown of thorns, proclaiming, "they crowned you with thorns, but we crown you with praise."  While I appreciate the sentiment, and we should rightly crown Jesus with praise, it is important not to forget that we also crowned Jesus with thorns, and we continue to do so every time we sin.  It was our sins that Jesus took on.  What do our sins look like?  We need only take a long look at a crucifix to answer that question.  On Palm Sunday, it is also appropriate that we place the words "crucify him!" on our lips, since we indeed proclaim this when we sin, when we refuse to believe, when we refuse to be unified (did not Jesus offer his passion so that we would be unified in John 17?), when we refuse the riches of grace God wants to put into our lives.  Of course, we are all guilty of each of these sins, and God calls us to repentance and to suffering.  There is a sense in which the crown of thorns will remain in place until each of us has joined Jesus in wearing it.

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On the Abuse Crisis

In the last few days, I've encountered four items related to the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church that provide an insider's look at the situation.

1.  The Pope's pastoral letter to the Irish Church. 

2.  George Weigel's summary/analysis of the Pope's pastoral letter.  For those of you who are in a hurry, Weigel captures some important quotes from the letter itself.

3.  Fr. Dwight Longnecker getting to the root of the problem.

4.  Fr. Longnecker's summary of Philip Jenkins's analysis of the abuse crisis.  While neither Longnecker nor Jenkins make excuses for the evils that have been committed, it is important not to bite the bait offered by the secular media, who often make out this crisis to be something exclusive to the Catholic Church.  Here is an excerpt from Longnecker's post:

However, Penn State professor Philip Jenkins (who is not a Catholic) has written the most objective book on the subject, and he summarizes his arguments in this excellent article. In light of his work, we should remember some basic facts and principles:

• Priestly celibacy is not the issue - married men are more likely to abuse children than unmarried
• Most child abuse takes place within the home.
• All religious groups have pedophile scandals, and the Catholics (while the largest religious group) are at the bottom of the list statistically.
• Child abuse is prevalent in all areas of society: schools, youth organizations, sports, etc.
• Statistically, of all the professions, Christian clergy are least likely to offend. Doctors, Farmers and Teachers are the professions most likely to abuse children--not clergy.
• Among clergy offenders Catholic priests are least likely to offend.
• Catholic cases of pedophilia make more headlines because of anti Catholic prejudice and because the Catholic Church is bigger and more lucractive to sue.
• Pedophilia and Euphebophilia are different problems. The former is sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children. The latter is attraction to teenagers. Most cases branded 'pedophila' are actually 'euphebophila.'
• Most of the cases of euphebophilia are homosexual in nature, however the politically correct do not want this problem to be associated with homosexuality.
• The number of Catholic priests guilty of pedophilia is very small.
• What we now call 'cover up' was often done in a different cultural context, when the problem was not fully understood and when all establishment organizations hushed scandals. They did so for what seemed good reasons at the time: protection of the victims and their families, opportunity for rehabilitation of the offender, the avoidance of scandal to others. It is unfair to judge events thirty years ago by today's standards.
• When lawsuits are looming people smell money. We must be wary of false accusations.
• The accused must be entitled to a fair hearing. The church should insist on hard proof of the abuse, and for the sake of justice, ensure that the innocent are not prosecuted.
• When guilt is established the offender must be punished, not sheltered.
• Distinctions must be made between types of abuse. Some offenses are worse than others. Verbal abuse or corporal punishment during a time when that was acceptable, while lamentable, is not the same as sexual abuse or extreme physical abuse.
• Sexual abuse of an adult, or a sexually experienced older teenager is wrong, and damaging, and should be punished, but it is not the same as the sexual abuse of a younger, innocent child.
• Number of offenses must be considered. One lapse is not of the same seriousness as repeated, persistent and premeditated offenses.

Wow!

Wow!

Praise be to God, and may the Holy Spirit continue to work in the hearts of those whom He calls.