Ordinary of the Mass
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Lenten Observance
Lent brgins this Wednesday!
“Receive
thy sight; thy faith hast saved thee.”
Imagine
being in the crowd, and hearing those words: “Receive thy sight,”
and then seeing someone who has been blind for as long as you have known him,
suddenly able to see, and suddenly able to get around unassisted. Or,
even more dramatic, imagine being the blind man yourself. This is but
one of the miracles we hear about in the yearly round of the Gospels—but all
of them must have had a similarly spectacular effect on the people who
witnessed them.
For
the most part our Lord's miracles were not cures of psychological, or even
spiritual illnesses. They were very often external, physical things,
about which there could be no doubt. People blind, and deaf, and dumb,
and lame for years—or even for a lifetime—even a few, literally
resurrected from the tomb! These were true miracles, well attested to by
countless witnesses—not parlor tricks, designed to confuse the gullible.
These were miracles which so convinced men and women, that in many cases they
became ready to lay down—and, did lay down—their lives for the love of
Jesus Christ.
And
these men and women included not just the simple people, but the sophisticated
as well. Scribes and Pharisees came to see Him, and to seek His advice.
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea, members of the Sanhedrin, became His
disciples—as did a Roman Centurion. Even King Herod wanted to see what
He was all about.
Yet,
several of our people called to my attention an article in the newspaper a few
weeks ago, claiming to be written by biblical “scholars” and
“scientists,” and maintaining that all of these witnesses had been deluded
or defrauded. If memory serves, the article is one that gets
“recycled” every five or ten years—perhaps when the religion editors run
out of scandalous things to print about the Church. The article tried to
contend that there was no real Christ; at least not one who was divine, and
worked miracles. What they referred to as the “Christ of Faith,”
they said was a fable, invented by the writers of the first or second
centuries—someone quite distinct from what they called the “Christ of
History.”
Perhaps
the most galling thing about these people was that they still considered
themselves Christians, rather than admitting their Atheism. They
rejoiced in having separated all of these fables from the “Christ of
History,” to produce a wonderful “Christ of Faith.”
Of
course, this “Christ of Faith” asked no moral behavior of them, beyond a
vague sort of “brotherhood of all men.” And since he wasn't divine,
he had nothing to say about man's relationship to God—or if, indeed, there
even was a God. He held out no special help to these men who had created
him—no prayer, no Sacraments, certainly no Mass or Real Presence! This
dubious do-gooder “Christ of Faith,” is nothing much more to believe in
than Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny.
Unfortunately,
there are many such people out there. They speak with great authority,
invoking “science” and “scholarship”—and looking down their noses at
pious believers with utter disdain. But in spite of their haughty
attitude, these people are conducting themselves neither as scientists, nor as
scholars.
A
true scholar always attempts to begin his research with as little bias as
possible; leaving an open mind to enable him to consider the information he
finds along the way. Our new “biblical scholars” don't do this.
They start out with a philosophical position—not a scientific, but a
philosophical position—which taints their reasoning immediately:
“Miracles
cannot happen; therefore miracles do not happen; which proves that they cannot
happen.”(!)
Given
such a starting point, it is kind of difficult to read the New Testament
without bias.
A
true scientist is always careful to insure that his apparatus is capable of
measuring the effect he wants to study. (For example, he won't go
looking for bacteria with a telescope.) A true scientist will admit to
himself that there are things which are simply not the proper subject of his
research. He may, for example, be able to tell us something about how or
when Creation took place, but must admit that as a scientist, he is not in a
position to say why Creation took place, or what might be its moral
implications. The honest scientist will leave these questions, quite
properly, to theologians and philosophers.
A
true scientist carefully records his observations and formulates his
experiments in such a way that they can be duplicated by independent
researchers, who have nothing to gain from their success or failure. Our
alleged “biblical scientists” have nothing like this to show. They
have nothing more to show than conjectures based on false premises. They
read each others' works and comment favorably on them, so that each can point
to approval by “authorities” and “experts” in the field.
Our
so-called “biblical scholars” and “scientists” are no more scientific
than the Marxists, who claimed to be doing “scientific analysis” of
science, economics and history. Remember the fruit of their labors—70
odd years of famine, misery, and oppression in Russia, China, and the Slavic
countries.
Our
Blessed Lady told us that “Russia will spread her errors.” In a very
real sense, that is what we are seeing in this distortion of the “Christ of
Faith.” It is the same atheistic materialism and disregard for true
science, which brought about Marxist Communism. It is equally doomed to
failure in the long run, precisely because of its disregard for truth.
The
Christ of Faith and the Christ of History are one and the same. As
Catholics, we should never be ashamed to stand up for our beliefs. The
miracles of Jesus Christ are real—and even in this scientific age, are
occasionally worked for those who believe in Him. We, like the blind
man, have only one thing that will make us whole—our faith in the divinity
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
