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Read more about the article The Communion of Saints

The Communion of Saints

Why do Catholics pray to saints? “Love one another even as I have loved you.” (Jn 13:34)  These were Jesus’s words at the Last Supper to His beloved apostles.  He calls us to love as He loves.  He has given His example for us to follow: He washed feet, cared for the sick, showed compassion for those who mourned, and prayed unceasingly for His apostles.  All these things we are called to do as He did them.  When we pray for one another, we are doing as Jesus commanded.  Often at the end of our prayer we include the words “in Jesus’s name, Amen” because Jesus told us “whatever you ask in My name I will do it .” (Jn 14:13) Jesus further said,  “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me.” (Jn 15:4)  Apart from Jesus we can do nothing, but this scripture also reveals to us something of the mystery of the Body of Christ: we are all “members of the Body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27) and all the works and prayers we offer are done for His glory.  As beings given the gift of eternal life (Jn 6:40), we abide continually in Jesus whether we are here on earth or in Heaven. Thus, in Heaven we continue our prayers for one another for His glory. The Apostles’ Creed, which is the statement of faith professed by all Christians, contains the phrase “communion of saints.”  As members of the Body of Christ, those “branches” in Heaven as still connected to the vine.  Those in Heaven, in fact, are more perfectly connected to the Divine Will of God than those of us here on earth.  On earth, we still struggle between doing our will and doing God’s Will.  In Heaven that struggle has ceased; all in Heaven are perfect. They love perfectly. They offer praise perfectly. They are in perfect alignment with God’s Divine Will. They pray perfectly.  As Christians we pray for one another.  We often ask our friends to pray for us.  But do we ask the friends who have no relationship with God, or do we ask the friends who love God?  If we ask those who love God, then why wouldn’t we ask those who love God perfectly? Just as the prayers of our believing friends are far more efficacious than the prayers of those with no relationship with God, aren’t the prayers of those perfectly in line with God’s Divine Will even more efficacious?  As Catholics, we do not worship angels and saints, but we do know that they love us and desire to help us.  Our human friendships do not end at death, but continue into eternity. We do not go to Heaven to exist on our own little islands; we go to Heaven and are united as one.  In Heaven, Jesus’s prayer “that they may be one” (Jn 17:20) is…

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Read more about the article What is Lent?

What is Lent?

From the Question Box: Why do Catholics have Lent and why do you fast? Scripture tells us: “There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven: a time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)  We look to nature and the patterns that God created to understand the rhythms and cycles in nature and in our lives.  These cycles have a spiritual element as well as a physical element.  Just as God created cycles with day and night, the seasons, birth--life--death, our spiritual journey has a cycle as well.  God gave a time to plant and a time to harvest, and He also gives us a time for spiritual planting and spiritual harvesting.  Thus the cycle of Lent precedes Easter. In our journey to become closer to God, we are often as consistent as the waves on the beach; the tide comes in, the tide goes out.  We experience the push and pull of having worldly demands as well as spiritual demands on our time.  There is a continual battle between our wants and our needs.  The gift of the seasons of the Church (and I mean all Christianity here) is therefore another sign of God’s great mercy and compassion for us.  He gives us the seasons in the Church to focus on different aspects of our spiritual progress.  Just as He gives us day to work and night to rest, He gives us Lent to really focus on drawing nearer to Him. Lent maintains the Biblical patterns God set forth in Scripture.  Moses fasted for 40 days when he was with the Lord receiving the 10 Commandments (Ex 34:28). The forty days of Lent repeat the pattern of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert in which He fasted and prayed at the beginning of His public ministry (Lk 4:2-4). Lent is the time of spiritual planting through fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.   Jesus instructs his disciples how to fast in a way that is pleasing to God: “When you fast . . . wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others you are fasting . . . and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” (Mt 6:16-18) Jesus models for us the incredible power of fasting when the disciples fail to cast out a demon and turn to Jesus who casts it out and explains, “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17:20)  In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke gives numerous examples of the disciples fasting to know the Will of God (Acts 13:2), for spiritual strength before a great undertaking (Acts 13:3-4), and for spiritual growth and wisdom (Acts 14:23).  While Catholics often fast throughout the year, the Church calls us to be united in our fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Lenten prayer amplifies our spiritual growth by looking deeply at Jesus’ suffering starting…

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Read more about the article Eucharist

Eucharist

From the Question Box: If Jesus is in the bread, why do we eat Him? This question touches the heart of our faith and ponders the very nature of who God is and what His relationship with us is.  The people of Jesus’ time asked this question as well.  To begin to understand this mystery, which is the very center of our faith, we need to contemplate several theological truths. First, consuming the Eucharist is not cannibalism.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us in paragraph 1367 that the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist is one and the same, although the manner of offering is different.  The Eucharist is a non-bloody sacrifice.  The Eucharist makes present the sacrifice of the Cross and applies its fruit: everlasting redemption (CCC#1366). Second, we consume the Eucharist because Jesus told us to do so.  Jesus reveals the Eucharist to us in John 6: 51 – 58: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is food indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eats me, will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread, will live for ever.” To comprehend what He is telling us, we need to look at God’s revelation to us in the Old Testament.  We must realize that the entire Bible should be viewed as one book, one tapestry if you will.  Just as colors are woven into a beautiful cloth and each color enhances the entire picture and contributes to the images, so too each book of the Bible contributes to our understanding of the truths God has revealed.  One must look at the entire Bible to understand the context and meaning of each book.  Just as removing one color from the tapestry removes depth, beauty, and meaning from the picture, so too we need every book in the Bible to understand what God is revealing to us. Our first encounter of bread and wine being offered is in Genesis when Melchizedec, the King of Salem (Salem means peace and we refer to Jesus as “the Prince of Peace”), appears to…

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Read more about the article Are You Saved?

Are You Saved?

This is the question I was asked as I opened my front door to a smiling man from a Protestant church.  I admired his courage in going door to door and his obvious love for God.  He expected a yes or no answer to his question, but he came to a Catholic home, and the answer is much more complex. Just as there are differences in language between Americans and our friends across the pond (for example, we say “backyard” and they say “garden”), there are also differences in language between Catholics and Protestants that have evolved over the last 500 years.  Many of these differences come from differences in theology, so I will begin here. Protestant (denominational and non-denominational) theology thinks of salvation as a singular point in time in which the Christian officially accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. Protestants sometimes say “name it and claim it,” referring to the promises Jesus has made in scripture to those who follow Him. If Protestant theology on this topic can be thought of as a point on a line, Catholic theology is a ray (an origin point on a line continuing in one direction forever).  For Catholics, salvation begins at Baptism. At Baptism one becomes a member of the Christian community, a member of the family of God.  Original sin and personal sin are wiped away.  We believe in one Baptism, so if a person is baptized “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” whether in the Catholic or Protestant faith, it is valid. Baptism is the beginning of the journey for Catholics.  We learn and grow in our faith as we are nurtured by our families and our faith community.  We read scripture, pray, attend weekly Mass, receive the sacraments of the Church, and do our best to live the Gospels.  We take to heart Jesus’s own words, “Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me will also do the works that I do,” (Jn 14:12) and “If you love Me, you will My commandments (Jn 14:15).”  It is for this reason that the Catholic Church and its members founded the university system[1], started credit unions, founded hospitals and schools, and is active in ministering to the poor through many organizations such as St. Anthony’s Dining Room and the St. Vincent de Paul Society.  We recognize that by serving others, we are serving Christ (Mt 25:40).  Yet, all of us are human; we make mistakes, sometimes even ignoring the gift of faith, and all of us find ourselves in need of forgiveness.  Catholics therefore speak of “conversion.”  Conversion is the journey of trying to become more and more like Jesus as we put the Gospel into practice in our daily lives. The Beatitudes, from the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7), are who we strive to become.  For Catholics, we believe that all people have free will, so it is possible to reject the faith and choose to…

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