Postscripts From The Catholic Spitfire Grill

Because some days your faith just needs a little shot in the arm....

In A Shocking "Confession" from  Willow Creek Community Church Bob Burney quotes Senior Pastor Bill Hybels as saying the following:

Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.

And

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

And

Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he’s asking us to transform this planet.

The opining by the very well-meaning and the good Christian Protestants on this forum is generally that people are "hungry for the word of God." and that seeker sensitive churches do not adequately deliver that. One member said the following:

Sorry if I am so cynical, but I find it amazing that there was no mention of what the Holy Spirit wants, and what Jesus told them to do. Haven't they ever read Jesus saying "Do you love me? Feed my sheep."? It is His church for crying out loud. Why not ask Him what it is He wants done? Why not look to what the church in Acts did, that produced "Christ-followers" that turned the world upside down, and followed Him willingly to the cross, and the coliseum, and stake? No - we'd rather poll another 500 churches that have been following us in the corporate marketing approach to churchianity to see what they think we should do. [Emphsis mine]

To which every fiber of my being wants to cry out, YES!! That is EXACTLY what they want. In fact, I think they were driven from their non-seeker sensitive churches looking for it. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Word of God that people are hungry for is Jesus in the Eucharist.  John 1:1" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." You will notice that the Word is a Divine Person sent from God, not a book.

We are to feed on every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God!! Matthew 4: 4 "He said in reply, "It is written: 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God."

We are to feed on the Bread from Heaven (John 6), Jesus, who is the fulfillment of  Manna a substance that looks like bread but acts like meat (rots and gets maggots Exodus 16:19). 

Yes, we are to know Sacred Scripture which contains the words of God (ignorance of Sacred Scripture is ignorance of Christ) but we are to FEED on the WORD of God, the fruit of the Tree of Life (the cross)!! And the WORD that we are to feed on is JESUS himself in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. 

YES!! we are to become the church of Acts. That would be the same writer of the Gospel of Luke who told us in Luke that the disciples recognized Him in the breaking of the Bread (Luke 24:35). Their hearts burned when He opened the Scriptures (Luke 24:32) for them but the KNEW Him in the breaking of the bread. This would be the same Church of Acts that devoted itself to the breaking of the bread (Acts 2:42) (and the Apostles' teaching....that would NOT be the NT since that wasn't written yet.)  I have seen very few Protestant churches (I know they are out there.) where it could rightly be said that they devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread. 

But it isn't necessary to "bring back" the Church of Acts. It never went anywhere. It's alive and well and just down the road at your local Catholic parish. We've devoted ourselves to the teachings of the Apostles, to prayers, and the breaking of the bread (Acts 2:42) for the last 2000 years. There have certainly been some rocky times but the gates of hell are not prevailing against the Church founded by Jesus led by His steward on earth currently in the person of Benedict XVI. I wonder if the same could be said even 100 years from now of Willow Creek Community Church or churches like it?

And as loathe as I am to type it all out in one word so the search engines can find it, given what happened the last time. I really think that this is part of what I was saying in reponse to Pastor Furtick when he posted on Church Shopping earlier this year and the Willow Creek article just illustrates it...SO Pastor Furtick, are you listening? Are you learning from Willow Creek Community Church? Your congregation (and others all across the world like yours) is hungry for the WORD (See John 1:1), the Fruit of the Tree of Life, The Bread of Heaven. Come on home to Rome....we'll leave the light on.

There. Now I've said it. Maybe I can behave myself on the other forum.

Sometimes I just wonder how on earth "we" got to this place. How can people look at the same Bible and come to such utterly different conclsuions? I heard the following today which was offered to me as proof that Jesus was not speaking about His Body and Blood in Holy Communion literally:

Jesus said: Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.(Deuteronomy 8). We are never meant to just read the Bible. We live by the Word and it feeds us.

But I hear sentiments like that regularly. Here's another example:

When Jesus said, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God....should we eat; literal Bibles or books of doctrine? No. He refers to our utter dependance on Him, who is THE Word of God.

Am I the only one who sees something like that and nods her head and says, "Exactly! Look here in John 1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Am I the only one who thinks that the Word of God, clearly delineated in Sacred Scripture, is Jesus? And so, far from being scriptural evidence against the Real Presence, it is evidence FOR it?

And the fact that two reasonable people can look at the same scripture and come to such widely disparate conclusions is also powerful reason for the teaching authoity of the Church.....and those who stated the above didn't agree with that conclusion of mine either. Sigh.

Often without even realizing it, Catholics say things all of the time that set the Protestant hair on fire. Most Catholics I know have a pretty good idea that Protestants think we worship Mary but they don't really realize what it is that "we" say that gets them all riled up about it. Just start talking about Mary as a 'channel of grace' and watch them get really tense. Now I am not advocating purging this from our Catholic vocabulary but I am suggesting that we be prepared to toss a little water on those flames when we are given the opportunity.

How many of us have run into someone who is either about to purposefully jump into flagrant sin or is already there and is "enjoying" so much they don't care to quit just then? The excuse given is that they will repent at some future point. Ignoring the fact that this is a sin of presumption on the Mercy of Our Lord, and ignoring the fact that we are not guaranteed a future in which to repent (I am reminded of the angel's advice to the sinner in The Great Divorce....all moments are present in this one.) this is a dangerous course to chart because we become what we do. We cannot commit acts of selfishness and become selfless. We cannot commit acts of untruthfulness or uncharitableness or faithlessness and not have them cloud our conscience and prevent even the desire for repentance down the road. To deliberately turn away from Grace changes our souls. It wounds. It disfigures. Eventually we become like the sins we commit. (Please note that I am not saying that any sinner is beyond hope of salvation. Only that by deliberately turning away from God as I have described above so wounds us and so clouds our conscience that we become less able to even see the need to repent.)

I think it works in reverse as well. For example, the act of bearing a child transformed me into a mother. As another example, I have the privilege of being an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. I assist the priests and the deacons in distributing Holy Communion at Mass and to those who are unable to attend Mass during the week. I have noticed that Our Lord has taken this thing that I do and used it to change what I am and this blog is part of that transformation. Just as Our Lord has allowed me to distribute His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, He has blessed that ministry and multiplied it like the loaves and the fishes to every part of my life. I bring Jesus in the Eucharist with me in other ways all of the time as I talk to people about the joy of being Catholic. The physical actions of what I do as a Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion has somehow been imprinted on my soul and I have become what I do. Does everyone who acts a Eucharistic Minister become one in other ways? Probably not. I am sure that it is possible to close oneself off to the grace that God would bestow. I know it is certainly possible to bear a child without truly becoming a mother. I also know that there are extraordinary means of transformation as well. Some people become mothers without physically bearing a child in their wombs. And I am equally sure that there are many Catholics who spiritually bring the Eucharist to others without having ever performed the act physically at Mass. Nevertheless, I think there is a profound connection and I personally observed a marked transformation in my own life that began with my becoming a Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. 

How much more so for Our Lady? She bore Jesus in her womb. She shared Him with Joseph. She shared Him with the shepherds right after giving birth. (If you've ever given birth, think about the depth of that sacrifice!) She shared Him with Anna and Simeon in the Temple. She had Magi dropping by the house unannounced. She shared Him with the Apostles, the disciples, and all of those whose lives He touched while He lived on earth even though she probably could have used His help at home. She shared Him with all of us when He dies on the cross. What kind of transformation must have been etched on her soul in these acts of charity and obedience? She had a lifetime of sharing with others the Word of God, and the Source of All Grace. She was a channel of that Grace in life as she etched upon her soul and become what she did. Perhaps God could have and would have used another means to bring Our Lord into the world had Mary said "No." The fact remains that she said, "Yes." Through the disobedience of Eve, sin entered the world. Through the obedience of Mary, the God's Son took flesh and dwelt among us and she was the channel of that Grace. If God's Son was the source of all Grace, that she is the channel by which that Grace became man and dwelt among us. She lived a life of sharing that Grace with others on earth.  She became what she did and is privileged to remain so for eternity.

My daughter had her First Holy Communion today. It was wonderful and beautiful. She just kept telling me how happy she was and neither of us could stop smiling. She's been so anxious to receive the Eucharist and often tearful at mass in anticipation. I asked her after she had received the Eucharist for the first time, if she was going to die of joy on me (a la Blessed Imelda). She looked at me, smiled, and said that she just might. At her retreat in preparation for this happy day, I was asked to write a letter to share with her today. I thought I would share it here.

My dearest [Little Spitfire],

I love you very much. I pray for you a life of health, loving family, and happiness, but most of all I pray that no matter what the cost even if you're called to a life of great sacrifice, that you will say "Yes!" to Jesus no matter what He asks of you.

I pray that you will grow in favor with men and women, but most of all that your life would be pleasing to Our Lord. I pray that you will grow close to Jesus in all ways especially in the Eucharist.

I pray that I will always be able to provide ths support and disciplne that you need and that you will lean on Jesus when I fail.

Ask me anything. Tell me everything. Together with Our Lord, we'll find our way home to heaven. No matter what, I want you to meet me in heaven.

With all my love,

Mom.

Perhaps the best part of the day was when I suggested that we might be "too busy" to go Mass on Tuesday as is our custom. (Little mommy-lie said to see what she would say.) The look on her face was priceless. She's serious about her faith and that makes a mommy happy.

• In Genesis 14:18 Melchizadek offers bread and wine and prefigures the bread and wine offering instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper. Hebrews 6:20 confirms this connection by describing Jesus as a "high priest for ever after the order of Melchizadek." (Hebrews 7:1-7 is also helpful)
  
  
• The Passover Lamb was killed and eaten. In perhaps one of the most powerful metaphors for Salvation written by God into the very lives of the Chosen People to secure their deliverance from Egypt (literally a land of death) the Angel of Death passes over the homes with the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. Those without the blood of the lamb on the doorposts lose their firstborn. Here we see that the lamb not only provided blood for the doorposts but nourishment for the journey to the Promised Land.
  
  
• When wandering through the dessert for 40 years God provides manna which sustains them on the journey to the Promised Land. It looks like bread but acts like meat (gets wormy and rots not molds -- Exodus 16:20).
  
  
• The Sin Sacrifice in a powerful confirmation of the meaning of the Passover Lamb. It too is killed and eaten.

While the Eucharist was instituted as a Sacrament at the Last Supper it does little good to parse the words of the events of the Last Supper without looking at the broader context of Scripture itself.

2. Jesus set the stage for it before the Last Supper.

I find it interesting that the "Bread of Life" discourse comes right after the people ask him for a sign that they might see and believe. He has just fed 5000 people (prefiguring the multiplication of His Body for the Church in the Eucharist) but they are asking for more. What follows is "the sign" that will help us "see and believe" but at the end of his discourse many LEAVE him and He doesn't call them back because they misunderstood!

First Jesus claims the superiority of His Bread over that of the manna given in the wilderness. (Verses 48-50) How can earthly natural bread acting only as a symbol be superior to the miraculous manna provided by the Heavenly Father in the wilderness?

Second, everyone present understood Jesus to be speaking literally of his own body. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" v 52 and "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" v 60 Many of his disciples who had spent much time with Him. Who spoke the same language as He did, who understood that He often spoke inparable and symbolically and allegorically understood that Jesus meant exactly what He said and LEFT HIM!!

Contrast this to other places in scripture where Jesus corrects and explains what He means when He is misunderstood. For example in John 3:3-5.

Nicodemus clearly misunderstands what Jesus meant and Jesus corrects his understanding. He does similarly in John 11:11-14; Matthew 19:24-26; John 8:21-23; John 8:31-36: and John 6:32-35.

When his audience rightly takes him literally, Jesus confirms what He has said and repeats it. For example: Matthew 9:2-6.

If I may paraphrase...the Scribes say to themselves "Did He just forgive someone's sins!? That's Blasphemy!" and Jesus replies "Yep. That's exactly what I did! And it isn't blasphemy because I have the authority to do so!"

Another example of Jesus confirming and repeating a literal statements is in John 8:56-59 (and John 6:41-51.)

So in this case where Jesus' audience is clearly taking Him literally. What does He do. Correct and explain? Or confirm and repeat? Look at verses 53-58 again....

repeats and confirms

repeats and confirms

repeats and confirms

repeats and confirms

repeats and confirms

repeats and confirms

This does not sound like the language of symbolism. His disciples are leaving. The 12 Apostles are shaken so badly Jesus asks them if they are going to leave too; but, Jesus didn't back away one iota from what is a VERY hard teaching to accept.

And it IS hard. But OT Sacred Scripture is clear. Deliverance from sin involves sacrifice and that sacrifice is eaten. NT Sacred Scripture is also clear Jesus is our Perfect, Spotless, Sin Sacrifice....the Lamb of God. Jesus himself makes sure we don't miss the connection in the Bread of Life Discourse and in the Institution of the Eucharist when He says "This IS my Body." and "This IS my blood." Maybe, just maybe, we could parse our way around the language the accounts of the Last Supper were the only words of Jesus we had regarding this mystery but it isn't.

Then we have the confirmation in the testimony of the Church as found in the events that happened after the Last Supper.

In 1 Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

1 Corinthians 11: 23-29 23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, 24 and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. 27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. 12
28 A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment 14 on himself.

How can unworthily participating in a symbolic remembrace bring judgment on someone. It's disrespectful, yes, but making one "answer for the Body and Blood of Our Lord"?

John the Baptist calls Jesus "The Lamb of God" in John 1:29. He is called the Paschal Lamb in 1 Corinthians 5:7 and the symbolism is repeated frequently in Revelation. The Paschal Lamb was to be eaten (Exodus 12:8 and 46)

Beyond the evidence of Sacred Scripture we have the witness of the early church. This witness is important because in a way, it is our first commentray on Sacred Scripture. What the earliest Christians believed and practiced was taught to them by the Apostles themselves and reflect the understanding the Apotles themselves had of what Jesus said. St. Ignatius, a disciple of the Apostle John wrote this in 110 AD:

The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist was believed and taught in the church from the beginning. Denying the Real Presence was one of the first heresies! The Romans tossed early Christians to the lions for cannibalism...a charge that would have been VERY easy to refute by simply making clear the symbolic nature of the Eucharist but these brave men and women died for what they knew to be the Truth. Jesus is present Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist.

Ok...the thread a while back about the Holy Communion/gluten (http://www.sonlight-forums.com/showthread.php?t=92911) has been percolating in my mind and I have done a little looking and what I have found has been very interesting.

 

Now I have always been taught that “fine flour” was wheat flour exclusively. It is one of those pieces of brain lint that I have….don’t know how I know, only that it has been hanging around in my brain for a long time. Here are a couple of on-line sources:

 

Here is one: http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Def.show/RTD/ISBE/ID/3428

 

From: http://www.houseofdavid.net/pgs/bread-grains-bible.shtml

 

Bread could also serve as a sacrificial offering in the ancient Temple, but only unleavened bread made of “fine flour” (pure wheat) was acceptable. This subject is another example of how English translations of the Bible can be misleading. The King James Authorized Version translates this offering as a “meat offering,” but what the Hebrew version is actually referring to is a “cereal” or “meal” offering.

 

This is from my Theological Book of the Old Testament

 

1512 “[Hebrew letters that I won’t try to reproduce here] (sōlet) (fine) flour

 

       The word (from Akkadian salātu “crush”), denoting a finely ground flour, is known throughout the ancient  Mediterranean world (e.g. Akkadian siltu, Arabic sultun,  Aramais sûltā, Egyptian tr.t. As opposed to qemah “meal” which came from whole kernels and bran, this finest of flour was ground exclusively from the inner kernels of the wheat (hence, LXX semidalis, Vulgate similia). Though available to all, it was expensive and considered a luxury item (Ezk 16:13; cf Rev 18:13), to be used especially in entertaining important guests (Gen 18:6)

          

  Fine flour figured prominently in the Levitical sacrifices (Lev 2, etc.), the offering of the twelve tribal leaders at the inauguration of the tabernacle worship (Num 7), the regulations relative to the fulfillment of the Nazirite’s vow (Num 6:15), the consecration ceremony of the priests (Ex 29:2ff.), and the ordination of Levites, whom God graciously allowed to that the place of the firstborn in a life of dedicated service to him (Num 8:8). The fine flour reminded the priest and Levites of their high calling and the fine quality of their service and dedication to God of all the fruits of their labor (cf I Peter 2:5).

  

I won’t list every instance that fine flour is mentioned in the above definition but I will flesh out the Levitical sacrifices and fine flour and add a couple of other references:

 

Lev 2:1 “When anyone wishes to bring a cereal offering to the Lord, his offering must consist of fine flour….”

 

Lev 5:11 (As a sin offering for a poor man) “If he is unable to afford even two turtledoves or two pigeons, he shall present as a sin offering for his sin one tenth of an ephah of fine flour.”

 

For the daily cereal offering Lev 6:8 “He shall then take from it a handful of fine flour…”

 

In the peace offerings Lev 7:12 “When anyone makes a peace offering in thanksgiving, together with his thanksgiving sacrifice he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers spread with oil, and cakes made of fine flour mixed with oil and well kneaded.” It is interesting to me that “cakes made with fine flour are different” and in addition to “unleavened wafers.”

 

Fine flour was part of the purification from leprosy (Lev 14:1-32) (which I have always understood to be symbolic of one’s purification from sin but I am not a theologian)

 

And part of the Feasts of First Fruits and Pentecost offerings. (Lev 23:4-32)

 

And fine flour was specified for the temple showbread (Lev 24:5)

 

Part of the offerings made to the Lord on entering the Promised Land (Num 15:1-12)

 

And re-iterated in the directions for offerings and feast in Numbers 28-29

 

I also found these articles on the internet that I also found very interesting:

 

http://www.affcrit.com/pdfs/1996/03/96_03_ml.pdf

 

Spiritual meaning of Drink offering:

 

http://www.biblemeanings.info/Words/Religious/Drink_offering.htm

 

Just thought I would share some of the bunny trail I went on…