Word to the Wise
Friday, November 14, 2008 - Friday in the Thirty Second Week in Ordinary Time
[2 John 4-9 and Luke 17:26-37]Anyone who is so "progressive" as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.
The various New Testament documents that follow the gospels are valuable for showing us the various ups and downs of the Christian community as it grew slowly but surely beyond its roots in Palestine to spread around the Mediterranean. St. Paul's letters can be especially colorful in showing the various problems that he was asked to resolve (cf. First Corinthians!). The short passage that we have today from a short letter known as the Second Epistle of John gives us a sample from another community than those founded by St. Paul. We who have such things as the Catechism of the Catholic Church may find it difficult to understand the challenges faced by the early church in teaching about the identity of Jesus as Son of God, risen from the dead and who has sent the Holy Spirit among us to help us continue his mission. It took hundreds of years for the church to reach a definite formulation that would stand the test of time. Nevertheless, this challenge still remains. Such groups as THE JESUS SEMINAR continually attempt to redefine the teaching or actions of Jesus (e.g. his resurrection) in such a way as to suit the demands of a scientific and secular world. The benefit of having such a structure as the "magisterium" of the church is that it reliably tells us what the content of our faith is. We can very easily find the "God of our desires" but the only way we know if that is true is by checking our own desires! Our church community continues to reflect on the message of Jesus. This is not just the role of theologians and Popes. But eventually a reliable truth is understood and that is what we look for. The Catechism is a statement of that truth and we can rely on it. AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
66 ms
4
