euphemos

While praying morning prayers this weekend, a verse from Psalm 8 struck me. Psalm 8:2 says “Out of the mouths of children and infants you have brought praise, to confound your enemies, to destroy your vengeful foes.”

I had an interesting dream in November of 2006. I found myself in an old house. It was well lit and comfortable, but not sumptuous. The hardwood floors were enhanced with slightly worn, but still beautiful rug runners, and the detailed, but not ornate woodwork was smoothed and darkened by years of loving touch. It was dark outside. Indeed, it was perhaps empty outside. As I stood in the hallway, demons began to assault the house, coming in the doors and windows, sometimes singly, sometimes in a mob.

Fortunately, I had my handy-dandy demon-slaying arsenal with me, consisting of such items as:

• A shotgun with silver buckshot
• A high-powered water gun loaded with holy water
• An assortment of crosses
• Stakes (wooden stakes, not meat steaks)
• A bible
• Candles, bells, and other movie-exorcism tools
• Grenades
• A single-use rocket launcher
• A Desert Eagle .50 Caliber semi-automatic handgun
• A crossbow
• A giant glowing sword

Don’t ask how I managed to have all these things at my disposal, it was a dream after all.

As the demons entered, I began blasting away with my various weapons. As I hacked away at the attacking enemies, I began to feel frightened when I realized that my weapons had little or no effect. Perhaps you recall that ever-so-lovely movie “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”, in which Robert Patrick plays a liquid-metal robot? It was somewhat like that… I’d blast a giant hole in a demon, and it would take a step back, “heal” itself, and resume the assault.

Throwing away my physical weapons, I congratulated myself for thinking to engage the enemy with spiritual weapons. I quoted the words Jesus and the Apostles used when they cast out demons, prayed powerful prayers of command and defense, and generally did all of the things you’d expect someone to do in a dream with a comic-book movie flavor. These memorized anti-demon prayers and scriptures were hardly more effective than my rocket launcher.

I began to fear in earnest. The house was under assault, the enemies were in the door, my armor was in tatters, and my weapons were of no effect. Not knowing why, I fell to my knees, and prayed from the heart “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21)

Immediately, the demons fled into the nether, the door slammed shut behind them, and all was again light and warmth and peace. I awoke with a fresh understanding:

Of all the weapons we possess, praise is perhaps the most powerful.

This spirit of praise and implicit trust in God gives power to all our efforts. It is not coincidence that James wraps his instruction to resist the devil as he does, where he writes:

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:7)

As the church (the “house” of God) finds herself under assault, it is critical that I keep my focus on the Lord, his goodness, and his greatness, rather than the enemy, and upon praising God and submitting myself to him, placing myself under his authority rather than attempting to “use” his power.

In the interest of full disclosure, there is some confusion about the translation of Psalm 8, particularly with verses 2 and 3. Biblios, via their parallel translation reference for this verse demonstrates some of the problems translating this from the Hebrew. There’s much less disagreement, however, that Jesus quotes this verse, and I’m going with his interpretation, which seems to come from the Greek version of the psalm.

Matthew 21 (From the USCCB and Compare translations)
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And he said to them, “It is written: ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of thieves.” The blind and the lame approached him in the temple area, and he cured them. When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wondrous things he was doing, and the children crying out in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant and said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; and have you never read the text, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nurslings you have brought forth praise’?”

Different interpretations of God’s will do not necessitate that one is “right” and the other “wrong.” In many cases, when a dispute arises among two groups or individuals sincerely seeking God’s will, the dispute exists because we’re asking the wrong question. We know that God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts, but often we attempt to conform his mind and thoughts to ours, instead of the other way around.

The example that immediately comes to mind is that of Paul and Barnabas, in their dispute over whether John Mark should join their expedition to visit the brethren in the cities where they’d preached. Read more

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. — Jesus Christ (John 6:56)

“[Those] Who possesses God’s love, finds so much joy that every bitterness transforms itself into sweetness, and that every great weight becomes light. One must not be astonished because living in charity you live in God:
‘God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him’ (1 John 4:16)
Thus, living in God you can have no bitterness because God is delight, gentleness and never-ending joy!
This is why God’s friends are always happy! Even if we are sick, poor, grieved, troubled, persecuted, we are always joyful.”
St. Catherine of Sienna: Embrace Jesus on the Cross, loving and beloved From the “Letters” of St Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380) (letter no. 165 to Bartolomea, wife of Salviato of Lucca).

Those who preserve their integrity remain unshaken by the storms of daily life. They do not stir like leaves on a tree or follow the herd where it runs. In their mind remains the ideal attitude and conduct of living. This is not something given to them by others. It is their roots… it is a strength that exists deep within them — Sun Tzu

O inestimable Love! You enlighten us with your wisdom so that we may know your truth and the subtle deceptions of the devil.
With the fire of your love, set our hearts alight with desire to love you and to follow you in the truth.
You alone are Love, alone worthy of being loved!
(St Catherine of Sienna)

A family member is investigating Catholicism, and raised two primary objections to the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The first – Jesus had to humble Himself to become man, it doesn’t seem right that he would debase himself to become bread and wine. The second – Why do we need the real presence?

The first turns out to be a strong argument against consubstantiation, and makes transubstantiation more palatable, so to speak. The Church teaches that the bread is changed into Christ’s body, and the wine into His blood. They are no longer bread and wine, they are the body and precious blood of Jesus. The early Protestants didn’t deny the Real Presence, but, in an effort to distance themselves from the Church, proposed consubstantiation as a compromise. In consubstantiation, the bread and wine remain bread and wine, and this would indeed raise a question as to the propriety of Him becoming bread and wine. Transubstantiation, the complete change of one substance to another, avoids this difficulty. Transubstantiation, of course, raises the question of why the body and blood appear to the human eye to be bread and wine, but the discussion of substance vs. accidents of appearance is a another can of worms.

So, having dispensed with the argument that it would be improper for Jesus to debase Himself to become bread and wine, why do we need the Real Presence? In short, just as we need physical food for our physical being, we need spiritual food for our spiritual being. As the USCCB says, “Jesus gives himself to us in the Eucharist as spiritual nourishment because he loves us… By eating the Body and drinking the Blood of Christ in the Eucharist we become united to the person of Christ through his humanity. ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him’ (John 6:56). In being united to the humanity of Christ we are at the same time united to his divinity. Our mortal and corruptible natures are transformed by being joined to the source of life. ‘Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me’ (John 6:57)… By his Real Presence in the Eucharist Christ fulfils his promise to be with us ‘always, until the end of the age’ (Mt 28:20). As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, ‘It is the law of friendship that friends should live together… Christ has not left us without his bodily presence in this our pilgrimage, but he joins us to himself in this sacrament in the reality of his body and blood’ (Summa Theologiae, III q. 75, a. 1).”

A few helpful resources:
John Young, Transubstantiation and reason 

USCCB – The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist

1 Corinthians 11: 27, 29 – Paul indicates strongly that the body of the Lord is truly present.

John 6: 25-71, particularly 52, where they understand Him to say they must eat His flesh, and He does not clarify it, merely reaffirms it (53, 54, 55, 56, 57, and 58), even though the cost (66) is that many left Him. In other cases, he did correct misunderstandings:
Matthew 16:5-12, concerning the “leaven of the Pharisees.”
John 3:1-15, where Nicodemus didn’t comprehend being “born again

One of the earliest saints, Saint Ignatius of Antioch (~106 AD) criticized those who “abstain from the Eucharist and the public prayer, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same Body of our Savior Jesus Christ, which [flesh] suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness raised up again” (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 6, 7).

In any case, logical arguments aside, I choose to emulate St. John Chrysostom, whom Pope Paul VI, in Mysterium Fidei quotes as saying “Let us submit to God in all things and not contradict Him, even if what He says seems to contradict our reason and intellect; let His word prevail over our reason and intellect. Let us act in this way with regard to the Eucharistic mysteries, and not limit our attention just to what can be perceived by the senses, but instead hold fast to His words. For His word cannot deceive.”

St. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome (Romans 5:3-5), encouraging them to remember

Tribulation leads to Perseverance,

Perseverance leads to Proven Character, and

Proven Character leads to Hope.

Modern feel-good pop-psychology churches most often focus interpretation of this scripture upon tribulation as a means of strengthening, and proving the strength of, our character. I wonder if perhaps it might be more helpful to shift our focus to realize that perseverance through the Lord’s grace and strength leads to us having proven God’s character, giving hope that He will sustain us to the end.

The word ‘dokime’ (δοκιμή) has been translated variously as trial (Douay-Rheims), approvedness (ASV), experience (KJV), character (RSV), probatio (Vulgate, proving/trial/approval/proof/demonstration), and proven character (NAS). William Barclay gives the sense of the original meaning as “Dokime is used of metal which has been passed through the fire so that everything base has been purged out of it… It describes something out of which every alloy of baseness has been eliminated. When affliction (tribulation) is met with fortitude, out of the battle a man emerges stronger, and purer, and better and near God.”

Faith in our own faith may, in fact, be more harmful than helpful, but if we place faith in God, He will never disappoint us. Proving our own character, in the sense of eliminating those base things which are an obstacle to grace, makes us a better conduit of that grace, but if we consider our character proven in the sense of having confidence in our character, we may find ourselves upon a dangerous road. St. Peter’s example painfully reminds us our own strength of character is insufficient, and confidence in that character, misplaced. Paul tells the Corinthians the power of God reaches its perfection in weakness. So much so that when he is weak, then he is strong. (2Cor 12) If perseverance leads us to trust in our own strength, we’ve missed the point entirely.

Perseverance through trial allows God to purge our character of that which is unworthy of entering His presence. Confidence in our own character gives us only a false hope that we’ll persevere to the end, but confidence in God’s character gives us hope with substance – faith.