When do we apply the crown of thorns to Jesus?

We know that we crucified our God by our sins.  We drove the nails.  But when do we mock the true kingship of Jesus?

Isn't it when we live our lives professing to be Christians, but putting our own pleasures and desires first?  " Yeah, Jesus is my Lord and Saviour and all that, but right now I'm...." insert any of your desires here: wealth, security, esteem, sex, revenge.

The Romans soldiers were mocking Jesus with the crown because they believed in Roman power-who needs a king from a powerless place like Jerusalem?  They thought they knew what what real power was.

So all along, I thought that I give respect to the Eucharist, nod my head at the name of Jesus, take mass seriously, and check off a whole list of devout practices.  But generally, I mock Jesus on a daily basis.

The Real King of Israel

It occurred to me that perhaps the ancient Jews who expected their messiah to lead Israel to freedom against Rome might not have been wrong. In fact, the recent readings in the Catholic church (during the Christmas season) seem to really imply a redemption of Israel as a nation. Perhaps the only thing lacking, and still lacking, was the recognition of Jesus as that Messiah. What might have happened had the majority of the Jews had simply believed that Jesus was the Messiah? Here is a possible subjunctive history, based on my recollection of the scriptures.

1. The temple aristocracy would probably still have convinced Pilate to crucify Jesus.  This is a good thing, as it is through the Crucifixion that Jesus obtains our eternal salvation.  I think we can all agree that these politicians, like ours today, were likely self interested players.
2. All Israel would have mourned the death of their Messiah, and waited for their God (that is, The God) to react.
3. The Resurrection would have been met with great jubilation.  The evidence of the past three years would have been confirmed, and Israel would realize the the whole Messiah thing was going to proceed quite differently from their expectation of military victory over Rome.  They would naturally await commands from their Leader.
4. I would not presume to speculate what these Orders would be, but we can, based on both history and the scriptures though, we can speculate on what the results would have been.  
1. Many Roman soldiers would likely have been converted, vastly reducing Rome's ability to suppress the Jews.
2. The new Christian community would not differentiate the Jewish religion from Christianity, although the temple aristocracy might have attempted to keep up the ruse to retain their power.  With everyone following Jesus though, they would have no real power.
3. Since Judaism as a religion was tolerated by Rome,  there wouldn't have been the persecutions that occurred in our history.
4. Military attacks on Jesus and his followers would undoubtedly have occurred though, and victory after victory would have accumulated.  Some, perhaps by Jesus' being the best military strategist since Alexander, but most by odd happenings, like walls falling down because of trumpets being blown.
5. Since Israel was a Roman territory, there would not have been conflict with Rome, and Jesus would likely have been consulted by Roman generals in the region, although, in the years 30-100, most of the action is in Britain and Germany.
6. By around the year 100, people would have noticed that Jesus wasn't getting any older.  I presume that saved individuals would still grow old and die though; how else would they get to heaven?  There would likely be a clamoring for Jesus to take the Roman throne, although not by force.

I think we'll leave the rest of the history to your imagination.  How the Roman aristocracy might have responded is hard to predict.  Some might have been converted (this was the period of the five good emperors), but Jesus' triumph would, of course, continue.

What would happen if the Jewish nation (that is, the worldwide nation) converted now?

Mary's Physical Binding to The Christ

It occurred to me that we, as humans, are not very faithful unless we are physically bound to another.  This thought initially was focused on a husband and wife, who, in the best example, will stand by each other no matter what.

But then, I thought of how all Jesus' disciples abandoned him, except Mary and John.  So Mary we understand-she was His mother.  But why John? 

Could it have been that he was so moved by the very human heartache he saw in Mary?  The divinity of the man Jesus can be very hard to understand, but Mary's is easy.

The picture is the alter at St. John's in Warrenton during adoration.  Behind Jesus on the alter, you can see the three statues of Jesus on the cross, Mary looking at him, and John looking at Mary.  Like John, we are very lucky to be drawn by Mary to her Son!

How Valuable is Humanity?

Aquinas' Summa is quite clear that as a person of the Trinity, Jesus is fully God.  And He was fully man.  Jesus was God made man.  So this isn't news - every Christian believes this.  But what struck me as amazing was that Almighty God was (is?  Yes, we believe that Jesus is still in His resurrected flesh.) man.  What is inescapable is that we are of the same stuff.

I suppose that is what St. Paul meant in Heb 2:6: "What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?"  Man appears to be a worthy vessel.  And our souls must be of similar character.  Our souls must be of the same type of substance of almighty God, and our bodies fitting physical "containers". Our dignity is, or perhaps more accurately, was, almost divine.

Now, before you get cocky with your new found worth, just look what you've done with what you are.  You have made your own dreams (and for most of us, that means our pleasures, for others, pride in self control) our God, rather than our creator.

Some of this may sound heretical, so in the interest of not being burned at the stake, or at least keeping a millstone off my neck, let me clarify a few details.  If indeed our souls are of the same substance as God, our substance was created, not "chipped-off" as it were.  As the creed makes clear, Jesus is consubstantial with the Father - not just the same type, but the same very stuff.  Also, my writing skills are not really up to this topic.  If I have accidentally or foolishly expressed something here that actually is heretical, then is was accidental or foolish.  Read the Summa yourself, and draw your own conclusion.

The Simplicity of the Eucharist

At adoration this morning, while reading Aquinas' Summa Theologica, I had this thought.  Aquinas and Dante both showed how God is perfectly simple.  He is not composite, but one. 

Isn't the Eucharist a perfect symbol of this?  So when Jesus becomes bread & wine, wouldn't this carry symbology too?

I want to be clear: the Eucharist is not a symbol of Jesus, it is Jesus.  But
that he becomes bread is meant to teach us of God's ultimate simplicity.

The 4th Sorrowful Mystery

What are we to learn from this mystery?  The Father allowed the Roman executioners to compel Jesus to take action.  Jesus didn't just endure carrying the cross, he had to take action.  He had to bear the weight, and move it forward.  Is this the result of us trying to compel God to our own will?  Superstitions, astrology, or even poorly utilized Catholic prayers ("Saint Anthony, please come around...") are attempts to control God himself.  The only way we can control God, of course, is if He were to allow it.

Why would He allow it?  The obvious reason is to make His Will be done: to convince us that He really is in control, to draw us to Him, to set things up as he Wills.  But it is really a violent thing we try to do when we try to control God.

BTW, I don't mean to imply that the cute invocations of the saints for needs minor and major are necessarily bad.  The Almighty wants us to implore His help in everything.  Done with humility and respect, I see nothing wrong with asking Saint Anthony to intercede because "something is lost, and must be found".  I don't think that burying a statue of Saint Joseph upside in your yard to sell your house qualifies as respectful though.

A related idea is that there are certain things you must do in order to get or retain God's favor.  This is, however, a superstition.  What must you do?  Go to mass every week, confession and communion once a year.  The bar is pretty low.

As a Child

So Aquinas' Summa Theologica is pretty complicated, and its very size may convince some that the theology is very complicated.  But the Summa seeks to prove that God is ultimately simple.  Perfectly simple.  This is also Dante's conclusion in Paradiso (the third part of the Divine Comedy), that God is infinite, but infinitely small.

So the simple minded, like a child, have an advantage over the learned in understanding God.  Sort of the opposite of what the gnostics claimed.

The Transfiguration (Matt 17:1)

So here's what came to me at adoration this morning. I was praying the luminous mysteries, and when I got to the fourth, I was thinking "boy, if the world could only see You [referring to Jesus in the Real Presence of the Eucharist] as Peter, James and John saw You during the Transfiguration". Then, as I was looking at the Presence, I thought of the word "Transubstantiation". Really, it just "popped" into my head.

So that was the message: the Real Presence is our version of the Transfiguration, and the Lord Jesus is transfigured, showing the glory of God the Father, but this time in the form of a host of bread. Now this isn't what we would ordinarily call glory, but then neither would we identify the cross as glorious. Unless we see it with new eyes.

My eyes got a little newer this morning.

Test blog from phone.

Confession & the Real Prescence

I often get the impression that priests run out of things to say in confession, and so resort to formulaic responses. I sympathize with them; imagine having to listen to anonymous people talk about themselves for hours on end! (I guess it'd be like being forced to read random blogs.) So, I would guess most priests develop a few usable responses that apply to various situations. A sampling of ones I've heard are:

"Praise God for an excellent confession."

"God is speaking to you in special ways."

"Meditate on and pray for help to better."

Nothing wrong with these, but after you've heard them a few times, you might wonder what you're getting out of it. After all, this sacrament really is about you, isn't it? But what if, you had actually gone to Jesus Christ Himself, and he gave you the same response? Wouldn't you meditate on it, analyse it word-for-word, and try to remember the the slightest inflection in his voice? Wouldn't it become really meaningful?

It really is about you, you see, because it depends on you whether you actually hear the Lord, or just a wearied priest.

Perhaps in a later post I'll reveal the striking way this became clear to me, but this post is for you.

Mary an Immovable Object?

An old logical puzzle is: what happens if an irresistible force is applied to an immovable object? This is often applied by children who will ask: "Can God make an object too big for Him to move?", where God is the irresistible force. The standard answer (which comes, I think, from Lewis' Mere Christianity) is that God can do any thing, but that question is nonsense.

So, could God have brought His Son into the world through anything less than a sinless virgin? The Catholic version of Jesus Christ is that no, the Saviour is too great to have been born of anything less -- the idea itself is simply nonsense.

What's the Point of Mary's Perpetual Virginity?

Protestants often balk at Catholic devotion to Mary. But that devotion is there as a teaching aid. In general, Mary's exalted position speaks to the majesty of her Son. What could a little girl add to the majesty of the Son of God? Only that he could not be contained, or born from, a lesser vessel. Much has been written on this, and I won't add to that,

What I recently realized though, was what Mary's status teaches us about us. You see, if Jesus must have been born by a pure, that is, sinless vessel, then Mary would have to have been sinless.  But her status must have continued throughout her life, not just until the birth of Jesus.  Why her whole life?   Because if she ever sinned, she would have been a sinner, just like us.  That is, we sin because we are sinners, not the other way around.  Mary remained sinless because she was not a sinner.  Thus, the Church claims she is ever virgin, and that she was assumed into heaven (her assumption speaking of her perfection at the end of her life).

And what about us?  We will be sinners until the end of our life, not matter how much God may purify us in response to our prayers.  Humiliating, isn't it?

Brain Images of Woman in Vegetative State Hint at Awareness - Los Angeles Times

The issue here is that someone discovered information suggesting that people in a persistent vegetative state may be more aware of what's going on than previously thought. What I find most interesting is the vehemnet arguments that the research is wrong, flawed, or that the patient was already getting better. As if "getting better" wasn't an indication that there was brain activity. The naysayers are clearly speaking from the agenda that the family members must be allowed to remove the "burden" of a vegetative member by killing them (usually by starving them to death).

Mary's meaning

My oldest son developed a serious, though non-lie-threatening, medical condition, and the role Mary plays for Christians became clear. She had to watch her son suffer, and she models for us what a true Christian is to do: trust in God. She was able to be this model only because, by God's grace, she was sinless. She didn't confuse herself with the "if only" thoughts that plague the rest of us.

What does this have to do with the "Real Presence"? The thought came to me while praying (for my son) in front of the Eucharist.

When the Real Presence is Missing

I was at the Fort Myer Chapel in Arlington National cemetery today for the funeral of a friend. I was struck by the stark beauty of the chapel, but I as moved into the pew, I was acutely aware of the lack of a tabernacle. There was nothing (that is, no One) to genuflect to before I entered the pew.

How lucky we are to have the One in every Catholic church. There is Someone to kneel before!

Viva Il Papa!

Eucharistic Devotion

I heard that someone said they thought I have a special devotion to the Eucharist. I could see how someone might make this mistake. I suppose I could say that I have a special devotion to John Paul the Great. Perhaps you could say I have a devotion to Mary (albeit a poor one). But I don't think that you can have a special devotion to the Eucharist.

We are called to give our entire lives to Jesus. And the Eucharist is Jesus. Special devotions, like one to Mary, are supposed to lead us closer to a complete gift of ourselves to Jesus. But since a devotion is really the gift of just a part of us, we can't possibly have a proper devotion to Jesus (without his grace), we can't have a proper devotion to the Eucharist. All we can do try, and pray for the grace to understand.

Taking the Bible Literally

Let's be clear: the Bible is the Word of God. So am I saying that we shouldn't take the Word literally? I'm not saying that -- the Word says that. Jesus used parables to teach. He clearly didn't intend for us to take the parables literally (i.e., we aren't to pay orchard workers the same wages regardless of when they start), but he clearly intended us to take the teachings seriously.

So did Job exist? Was there really a great flood? Perhaps, but it is irrelevant. Just as it's irrelevant whether or not a Samaritan ever found a beaten Jew by the side of the road.

And since Jesus is the Word, and Word used parables, the Bible is (by definition) not to be taken literally.

Note though: when the Bible says "... the LORD says...", that was probably meant to be taken literally. And please don't take this as license to re-interpret the Bible for your own ends.

Principle of maximum entropy and Bible Critics

WARNING - This is tough mathematical/physics topic.

The idea behind maximum entropy is fairly simple -- don't make assumptions, any assumptions, about data that you don't have. For instance, if you flip a coin three times, and get three heads in a row, what can you say about the fairness of the coin? You clearly can't say that it is a two headed coin, because that would be an assumption about the next several flips. Now if you get 100 heads in a row, you have a lot more information, and you might be ready to take that leap.

On to the Bible. Let's take the story of Adam and Eve. Bible critics are quick to point out that based on our knowledge of genetics, there could not have been only one man and one woman, therefore, the Bible cannot be without error. But where in the Bible does it say that God only created one man and one woman? You see, if you are going to take the Bible literally (which, by the way, I don't think it should be, but more on this tomorrow), you have to recognize that the Bible doesn't tell you everything that happened. If you make assumptions about occurrences not related, you will get different interpretations, which will most likely be incorrect (entropy again).

For the curious, entropy is a measure of disorder. I have a few children whose rooms have lot's of entropy! If you make assumptions about information you don't have, you limit the amount of alternative occurrences outside the related story, and thus have a lower information entropy (a more ordered story) than one with the uncertainty. Detective stories take extreme advantage of this principle, as the detective usually keeps an open mind about facts he/she hasn't got evidence for.

Chewing on The WORD

Go to Google and search for "Chew on the word of God". You will see many references to descriptions of meditation as "chewing" on something. Many describe it as "chewing the cud" like a cow does. This is a very apt description of what it used to be like to read the scriptures.

When the old testament was originally composed in Hebrew, there was no punctuation and no vowels. Here's what the above paragraph looks like written like that:

gtgglndsrchfrchwnthwrdfgdywllsmnrfrncstdscrptnsfmdttns
chwngnsmthngmnydscrbtschwngthcdlkcwdsthssvrptdscrptn
fwhttsdtblktrdthscrptrs

It does save space, but it is very difficult to read. Even the Greek Septuagint was written with no punctuation (although they did have vowels). I presume that the voweless Hebrew wasn't as difficult to read as voweless English is, but it did take a great deal of effort to read. You really had to chew on the text to understand it. You had to chew on the Word of God. You had to chew on the Word. And in so doing, the text would become not just something you read, but it would become a part of you.

This is, of course, exactly what we do when we receive the Eucharist.

For Lack of a Better Term: Welcome to Ratzinger's Rottweilers.

For Lack of a Better Term: Welcome to Ratzinger's Rottweilers.: ""

Belief in the Real Presence is also identical to obediance to the Pope. Am I equating Jesus and the Pope? No, of course not. But you can't have the Real Presence, that is, you can't have Jesus Christ Himself, unless you have a valid priesthood.

I guess, technically, I'ma little off base here. The Eastern Churches, which are not fully united with the Pope (yet), do have valid sacraments and apostolic succession. But they ought to be united with the Pope.

Pope John-Paul II

While the world is so taken with John-Paul the Great, let us remember that most of what he wrote, he wrote in front of the Tabernacle. He claimed his strength came from the Eucharist. He believed in The Real Presence. If you have respect for him, and who doesn't, then you should take very seriously The Real Presence. If you don't believe in The Real Presence, then you should wonder why this man, who accomplished so much, believed it so earnestly.

The Start of The Real Presence Blog

I feel awful.
I've been a devout Catholic for only about four years now, so some basic tenants of Catholicism still take me by surprise. The meaning of Holy Week was one of those. And I feel awful.

I figured out for the first time this year that Holy Week is itself a week-long Mass. Here's how that works: the Mass warps time and space to make it all present. It starts with the triumphant entry into Jerusalem (the warp starts at the "Holy, Holy, Holy", where all heaven joins us. More on this in a later post.). It is, of course, the Lord's Supper. And it is the Sacrifice, the Real Presence, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, of Jesus Christ. The Sacrifice on the alter is not simply in remembrance of the crucifixion -- it is the crucifixion. And the resurrection is there too, as Jesus comes to life within us as we consume him.

So this year I realized that Holy Week was the same time warp, only it starts on Palm Sunday, and this time warp runs in real time. We celebrate mass again on Holy Thursday, the tabernacle is cleaned out, and the remaining consecrated hosts were moved in a procession from the main church to the school. Adoration, in front of the portable tabernacle, proceeded until midnight. The adoration is great, for we can make up, in a pitifully small way, for the apostles who fell asleep. Until midnight. At midnight we must all leave.

I just got home, and I feel awful. I just left Jesus, who in warped time, has just been arrested. And we all left the school, leaving Jesus all alone. Just like the apostles did. I feel awful. God help us.