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Basic statement of faith
Perhaps atheists are right. Perhaps there is no God, or at least no God the nature of which exists in the mind of a Christian, i.e., a personal God. Perhaps Jesus Christ was just another founder of a religion, like Zoroaster, or Buddha, or Muhammad. Or perhaps He didn’t exist at all, he is just a myth created by Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, et al. Perhaps this is all there is and when one dies, that’s it. Perhaps there is no immortal life and perhaps there is nothing after death. Perhaps.
On the other hand, perhaps there is a personal God. Perhaps He did become man in the person of Jesus Christ. Perhaps we are immortal and upon death pass into another realm. Perhaps.
Well, my own faith in the latter is based on two things: 1) that it is possible that the latter is true. The mere fact that it is possible is cause enough for me to give pause. When I stopped practicing my faith after my marriage broke up in 1970 I began a long journey of discovery. I studied all the religions, including that most difficult of faiths, Atheism. And, from 1970 to 1974 I was working on my masters in Ancient History. That study brought me into direct contact with the history of the first four to five centuries of Christianity and the writings of the Fathers of the Church. And one question kept nagging and nagging and nagging and nagging at me: “What if the Catholic Church is right?” Why does it keep teaching these unpopular and difficult teachings stubbornly and unchangeably through all the centuries, even in the face of strong criticism, ridicule, persecution, and so forth? I could simply not bring myself to any sort of infallible conclusion of my own in the face of that 2,000 year argument. Who am I to match wits with the likes of Albert, Alphonsus Liguori, Ambrose, Anselm, Anthony of Padua, Athanasius, Augustine, Basil, Bede the Venerable, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Catherine of Siena, Cyril of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ephraem, Francis de Sales, Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory the Great, Hilary of Poitiers, Isidore, Jerome, John Chrysostom, John Damascene, John of the Cross, Lawrence of Brindisi, Leo the Great, Paul, Peter Canisius, Peter Chrysologus, Peter Damian, Robert Bellarmine, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Thomas Aquinas, and on and on, the writings of whom are often so brilliant and ingenious as to leave me breathless and who are individuals infinitely more intelligent than me. How could I ever be so arrogant to think that I know better than they? Who am I to question them? So, maybe Atheism is the true religion, but in view of the other possibility, I mean it is possible, I must side with the more hopeful and less depressing opinion.
This life is so unsatisfying: after all we grow old and die, unless, mercifully, at least to the atheist, we die young. Good grief, if this is all there is, nothing could be more depressing than that prospect. We are burdened with sicknesses, wars, tragedies, evil, loneliness, and a desire to be loved, often unfulfilled or unrequited. We are never totally satisfied: we must labor to survive, to put food on our tables. We are burdened by demands from the greedy rich and other injustices, and so on and so forth. How can I possibly believe in a world like that? Oh, I do realize that much of this is counterbalanced by much joy and beauty in the world – the beauty of nature, the sublimity of great music, and momentary joys we do experience in companionship, and so forth. But these alone are not enough to dissuade me from my faith. Actually I see them as a hint of the next realm, a faint reflection of God, of the Beatific Vision.
Of course Christianity, and other religions as well, do teach that there are such things as Heaven and Hell in the next realm. So, if the Catholic Church is right, does that mean that those who subscribe to the Atheist denomination will go to Hell? The Church teaches that one would go to Hell in the next realm only if one consciously chooses to do so, i.e., consciously chooses to deny God, i.e., Love. The Church teaches that in that particular realm, one does not suffer eternal fire, literally, but one simply exists without love because they have chosen to go it alone. And, as the saying states, “But for the grace of God go I.” There is a myth that Jesus told Peter a secret. He said, “Pete, I am going to tell you something but I do not want you to tell anyone, okay, because if you do, it will give everyone the license to behave as they wish, or misbehave as they wish. The secret is that in the end everyone gets to go to Heaven, but pleeeeeeease, don’t tell this to anyone.” Lol!
My own faith has also been reinforced by powerful internal experiences that are often difficult to explain or understand. I returned to the practice of my faith in 1996. Prior to that time I had little control over my temper and was always getting bent out of shape by things much too easily and much too often. After I returned and started going to Mass and Holy Communion, I changed in an instant. I haven’t lost my temper since, i.e., but for the grace of God go I. You could say that the change was simply due to a psychosomatic causes – I felt, if even subconsciously, that receiving the sacraments would help me, and so, as a self-fulfilled prophecy, I changed. In other words, as the atheist / scientist would explain, there is a natural / scientific explanation for EVERYTHING. Maybe. But it just doesn’t make sense to me that EVERYTHING can be measured by science – how arrogant! I consider this to be the greatest error of science. It has always made sense to me, even when I was trying to find my way out of the Church, that there is much much more to the universe, to existence, than science will and can ever measure and ascertain. And for every discovery that science does make, it only raises an infinite number of new questions and ad infinitum.
How can I explain the day I returned to the Church in 1996? I was driving towards a friend’s house on 180th Street on a Saturday afternoon with no plans to return to the Church. But as I was passing St. Elizabeth Ann Seton church, a sudden, inexplicable whim came over me and I decided to pull into the parking lot and go to confession for the first time in 26 years. I entered the church and sat in the back pew waiting for someone to emerge from the confessional so I could then enter it. But while I was waiting, a very beautiful young woman (maybe late 20s) came out of nowhere and sat next to me. She then turned to me and said, and I repeat exactly, “You are a returning Catholic, aren’t you.” I said, “Yes, I am, how do you know.” She said, “I just know.” She then took my hands into hers and gave me a little homily about the return of the prodigal son and that I would find much love here. She than got up and entered the confessional. After a couple of minutes she emerged, hugged me and said, “You won’t ever see me here again.” I thought, “What!? What was this all about?” This must have been some sort of weird coincidence but I often like think that was the Blessed Virgin Mary welcoming me back to the Church. I have never seen that woman since that day. It’s a nice story but how do I explain weird things and coincidences like that – their timing. How do I explain other weird personal experiences and obvious answers to prayers? How do I explain? How do millions, nay, billions, of other practicing Catholics explain their personal experiences. Okay, I am sure there MUST be a scientific explanation for all of these superstitious (or supernatural?) things, or is there? And on and on and on. . . .
Credo:
First there is the Nicene Creed, but here I would rather simply state my creed in my own words. My faith hinges upon both the realm of possibility and the pedigree of transmitted teachings. Thinking logically, if something is possible, then it might be right. In view of possibility, I cannot logically assault a teaching as untrue given the possibility that it might be true. I cannot be so arrogant to think that I have some sort of corner on the truth in the face of the possibility that something with a greater pedigree of teachings might be true. By pedigree I here mean that dictionary definition given in the sense of derivation, origin, or history. Therefore it is difficult for me to dismiss teachings that have a line of derivation or origin much earlier, historically, than teachings that have come later. It is difficult to dismiss teachings that have a literary richness, long history, and wealth of and weight of evidence relative to its origins to which no other tradition can compare. Of course I am talking about my Catholic faith. There is more to the universe, and to all existence, than what our senses can perceive or measure, even with the help of all of the scientific instruments. What we can perceive is only a small fraction of what is really there. It is like sound; we can only hear within a certain range but there are sounds beyond the measure of our perceptions. The same can be said of light. We can only see within a very narrow band, yet there is much more beyond our capabilities to see. Much more exists than we know. The so-called spiritual universe consists of this unknowable universe, a universe we may come to know better after we die to this very limited existence. What we know of the universe barely scratches the surface and each new discovery only creates more questions. If what we know and perceive is all there is, then this pathetic existence, this pathetic world, is really not worth it. There is a universe which our senses cannot see. Part of that consists of an omnipotent God. This God is the prime creative and maintaining force in the universe, a universe which consists of much more than what astronomers say was created by the so-called "Big Bang." This God is beyond our understanding and, being omnipotent, can do anything. Therefore He is capable of creating the universe and of knowing every hair on every head. He is a personal God who is aware of each of us more intimately than we know ourselves. He can interact with our material world. We can interact with the spiritual world in some ways, usually by means of prayer. This God hears our prayers, knows our desires, and our needs, for this God is part of the reality of the nature of the universe. The universe is in constant flux; there is a power behind this. Call it what you will. One name for it is God. Of the nature of this God, only so much has been revealed to us. Among this revelation is the teaching that this God consists of three persons occupying one nature. This concept of the Trinity is beyond our grasp, as is most of creation. This God, in the form of the second person of this Trinity became one of us; He became man incarnate and dwelt among us. This person was, and is, Jesus of Nazareth. He was born, lived for about 30 years, and was executed by crucifixion under the Roman governor of Judea at that time, Pontius Pilate. THE definition of God is this: God IS Love. This life He lived among us was for the purpose of manifesting His love for all of us. As the Nicene Creed states, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, lived among us, died, was buried and rose again on the third day. He did this to exonerate humankind from our sins. Man has a proclivity to sin because of the Original Sin, or as St. John Vianney wrote, "Sin is the executioner of the good God, and the assassin of the soul. It snatches us away from Heaven to precipitate us into Hell. And we love it!" [from his work On Sin] This execution is God’s way of showing us His love for us, for "greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." [John 15:13] While Jesus was living among us, He taught many things, much of which is not necessarily in Scripture alone. These teachings were either eventually written down and gathered together to form what we call the New Testament, or were passed down by means of Sacred Tradition through the centuries to our present day, as protected and taught by the Holy Spirit, as Jesus had promised. All that is written in the New Testament was originally passed down by means of Tradition also, because Tradition, i.e., word of mouth, was all there was at the beginning of the Christian era. While Jesus was living among us, He founded a Church (Latin "Ecclesia"). When He said to Peter that "upon this Rock I will build my Church [Matthew 16:18] He was talking about this Ecclesia or Assembly of the People who make up His Church, which we know as the Mystical Body of Christ and Communion of Saints. It consists of the souls in Purgatory, those still on their journey on earth, and those in Heaven. And we are all Brothers and Sisters in Christ and are all much closer to each other than we realize. This Church is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, also known in today’s world as the Catholic Church, centered in the Vatican under the auspices of the successor of the Rock, the Pope. Therefore what is taught today by the Church, in dogma and morals, is what was taught by Jesus, who is God. The Church has unswervingly taught these things, unchanged, through the last 2,000 years. Therefore one should pay attention to the teachings of the Church, no matter if some of them seem difficult, because they are the teachings of Jesus, i.e., God, and the possibility exists that this may very well be true. Jesus, being God, rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven where He sits at the right hand of the Father, as the Nicene Creed states. This is by way of symbolically stating the position of Christ in eternity, as God, the son, of God, the Father. God, the Holy Spirit is the personification of the Love that exists between God the Father and God the Son. I believe that we will all be physically together in Heaven for eternity in a state of total love, happiness, satisfaction, and ecstasy that is beyond our understanding. I believe that no complete love, happiness, or satisfaction is attainable in this life, but only in the next life, the next realm, oft referred to as Heaven. I believe God has given us free will and we can reject His love and his saving grace by the free will to sin. For love is a free gift and not even God can force anyone to love Him. Hence He has given each of us this free will to choose for ourselves. We have the freedom to reject the redemptive act of His Passion and Death. For love is a conscious act and overcoming the temptation to sin is a conscious act which manifests our love of God. If we accept God as our savior from our sins, we gain the gift of grace. And without His grace, we can really do nothing on our own toward our eternal happiness and love. “There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church— which is, of course, quite a different thing.” [Bishop Fulton J. Sheen] A Sampling of Scriptural Verses That Support a Number of Catholic Teachings The Church is the infallible custodian of the Truth as transmitted to us from God. 1 Timothy 3:15: ". . . the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of truth." John 14:26: "The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name--he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you." The Church is the recipient of that teaching. There should not be divisions, as numerous denominations, in the Church. John 17:20-23: ""I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me." Romans 16:17: "I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles, in opposition to the teaching that you learned; avoid them." Scripture is not the only posit of Truth, but Sacred Tradition is also part of Divine Revelation 2 Peter 1:20: "First of all, you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation." Acts 8:27-31: The eunuch was reading Isaiah when Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading. The eunuch said, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" The Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, is the unerring guide to understanding Scripture. 1 Corinthians 11:2: "I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions as I have delivered them to you." 2 Thessalonians 2:15: "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter." John 21:25: "There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written." The Papacy Matthew 16:18-19: "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." Justification and Salvation James 2:24: "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." Philippians 2:12-13: "So then, my beloved, obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present but all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work." No one, after having been "saved" is guaranteed salvation; given our free will, anyone can fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12: "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." Galatians 5:4: "You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace." Baptism as more than just a symbolic statement of salvation, it is regenerative, gives grace, and the Holy Spirit. John 3:5: "Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Acts 2:38: "And Peter said to them, 'Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The truth of the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist. Luke 22:19-20: "Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.' And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.'" John 6:47-66: "'Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.' The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 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. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.' These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then many of his disciples who were listening said, 'This saying is hard; who can accept it?' Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, 'Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.' Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, 'For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.' As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him." 1 Corinthians 10:16: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 1 Corinthians 11:27-30: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgement upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died." Purgatory 1 Corinthians 3:14-15: "If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire." ======================================================================
What the early church believed and practiced is different from what many or most Protestant groups believe and practice today. The following was firmly established as early as 150 AD or as late as 450 AD in the universal church.
If the eight points above are doctrinally wrong, does this not indicate that God let the universal church fall into gross error almost immediately, and persist in that error until the dawn of the Reformation? What does this say about Christ's promise that the gates of hell will not overcome the church (Matt 16:18) [see also 1 Timothy 3:15 and John 14:26 (see below)]? Did Luther, Calvin, and other Reformers reinvent Christianity with the principles of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide? Neither principle was believed for the first 1500 years of Christian history, and yet they are the foundation of Protestantism. [http://www.speroforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6037] It is very simple: Most Protestant interpretations which are used to refute Catholicism did not exist until the Protestant Reformation or, if they did exist, they were pronounced as heretical by the Church, only to be resurrected by the Protestant reformers. Martin Luther, on his own authority, and he alone, unilaterally, decided that sola scriptura and sola fide are the truth. Either he was right, in which case he must have had some sort of inside information from God, something he never claimed, or he was wrong. If he was right, than 1500 plus years of Catholic teaching was wrong. And this simply does not jibe with Jesus's promise to protect the Church from error. Some individuals and sects have fallen into error, but the Church, His Church, the one He founded -- No Way!!! This is why the Church has not changed even its most unpopular teachings, such as its teachings on Chastity in a society in which fornication seems to be the norm; and its teachings on contraception, an extremely unpopular teaching, even among many so-called Catholics, a teaching the disobedience of which is indicative of a terrible loss of faith in God's Divine Providence; and its teachings on abortion; and its teachings on the all-male priesthood; and its teachings on Peter, the Bishop of Rome; and so forth (see Unpopular Catholic Truths by Oswald Sobrino). These teachings are very difficult, but they are teachings that have been passed down from Jesus and the Apostles, teachings that can be found in the earliest days of the Church. So how can the Church change them? It cannot and it will not, even at the risk of having millions abandon it. Most Protestant dogma did not exist until the 16th century. Catholic dogma has existed since the time of Jesus and the Apostles. A careful study of the earliest Christians shows a Church that is a description of the Catholic Church today. Quibbles about cosmetic issues within the Church notwithstanding, and scandals within notwithstanding. Jesus never said anything about having no sinners in His Church. There were sinners among the Apostles themselves. He talked about the wheat and the weeds. Some books that may be helpful: The Beginnings of the Church by Frederick J. Cwiekowski The Churches the Apostles Left Behind by Raymond E. Brown The Mass of the Early Christians by Mike Aquilina We Look for a Kingdom by Carl J. Sommer Mary and the Fathers of the Church by Luigi Cambero One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic by Kenneth D. Whitehead The Spirit of Catholicism by Karl Adam The Formation of the Christian Bible by Hans von Campenhausen Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church by Henry G. Graham Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church by Stephen K. Ray A Biblical Defense of Catholicism by Dave Armstrong More Biblical Evidence for Catholicism by Dave Armstrong And the writings of the Fathers of the Church (see their writings in this web site) Please click here to visit the Rachel's Vinyard web site. Thank you.
 May the peace of Christ always be with you. St. Anne Teaching the Child Mary by Bartolome
Murillo (1618-82)
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