Reconcilable Differences - 6

Reconcilable Differences - 6: Creator of heaven and earth

Selections from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paulist Press, 1994 (condensed) which Protestants can say "Amen!" to:

ARTICLE 1, Paragraph 4: The Creator

279 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Holy Scripture begins with these solemn words. The profession of faith takes them up when it confesses that God the Father almighty is "Creator of heaven and earth" (Apostles' Creed), "of all that is, seen and unseen" (Nicene Creed).

280  Creation is the foundation of "all God's saving plans," the "beginning of the history of salvation" that culminates in Christ. Conversely, the mystery of Christ casts conclusive light on the mystery of creation and reveals the end for which "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth": from the beginning, God envisaged the glory of the new creation in Christ.

I. CATECHESIS ON CREATION
282 Catechesis on creation is of major importance. It concerns the very foundations of human and Christian life: for it makes explicit the response of the Christian faith to the basic question that men of all times have asked themselves: "Where do we come from?" "Where are we going?" "Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?" The two questions, the first about the origin and second about the end, are inseparable. They are decisive for the meaning and orientation of our life and actions.

II. CREATION - WORK OF THE HOLY TRINITY

290 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth": three things are affirmed in these first words of Scripture: the eternal God gave a beginning to all that exists outside of himself; he alone is Creator (the verb "create" - Hebrew "bara - always has God for its subject.) The totality of what exists (expressed by the formula "the heavens and the earth") depends on the One who gives it being.

291 "In the beginning was the Word. . . and the Word was God. . . all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." The New Testament reveals that God created everything by the eternal Word, his beloved Son. In him "all things were created, in heaven and on earth. . . all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." The Church's faith likewise confesses the creative action of the Holy Spirit, the "giver of life," "the Creator Spirit" ("Veni, Creator Spiritus"), the "source of every good."

292 The Old Testament suggests and the New Testament reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit, inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative cooperation is clearly affirmed in the Church's rule of faith: "There exists but one God. . . he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom," "by the Son and the Spirit" who, so to speak, are "his hands." Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.

III. "THE WORLD WAS CREATED FOR THE GLORY OF GOD"

293 Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: "The world was made for the glory of God." St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things "not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and communicate it," for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand." The First Vatican Council explains:
"This one, true God, of his own goodness and "almighty power," not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . ."

294 The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us "to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace," for "the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man's life is the vision of God: if God's revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word's manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God." The ultimate purpose of creation is that God "who is the creator of all things may at last become "all in all," thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude."*

*1721 Christian Beatitude: God put us in the world to know, to love, and to serve him, and so to come to paradise.  Beatitude makes us "partakers of the divine nature" and of eternal life. With beatitude, man enters into the glory of Christ and into the joy of the Trinitarian life.

1722 Such beatitude surpasses the understanding and powers of man.It comes from an entirely free gift of God: whence it is called supernatural, as is the grace that disposes man to enter into the divine joy.

1727 The beatitude of eternal life is a gratuitous gift of God. It is supernatural, as is the grace that leads us there.(Emphasis added.)

Reconcilable Differences - 5

Reconcilable Differences - 5: I believe in God

Selections from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paulist Press, 1994 (condensed) which Protestants can say "Amen!" to:

     Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything.

I. "I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD"
200     The confession of God's oneness, which has its roots in the divine revelation of the Old Covenant, is inseparable from the profession of God's existence and is equally fundamental. God is unique; there is only one God: "The Christian faith confesses that God is one in nature, substance, and essence."

201     To Israel, his chosen, God revealed himself as the only One: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Through the prophets, God calls Israel and all nations to turn to him, the one and only God: "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. . . . To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

II. GOD REVEALS HIS NAME
 203    God revealed himself to his people Israel by making his name known to them. A name expresses a person's essence and identity and the meaning of this person's life. God has a name; he is not an anonymous force. To disclose one' name is to make oneself known to others; in a way it is to hand oneself over by becoming accessible, capable of being known more intimately and addressed personally.
 204    God revealed himself progressively and under different names to his people, but the revelation that proved to be the fundamental one for both the Old and the New Covenants was the revelation of the divine name to Moses in the theophany of the burning bush. . .

"I Am who I Am"
206     In revealing his mysterious name, YHWH ("I AM WHO IS," I AM WHO AM" or "I AM WHO I AM"), God says who he is and by what name he is to be called. This divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is--infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is the "hidden God," his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes himself close to men.
207     By revealing his name God at the same time reveals his faithfulness which is from everlasting to everlasting, valid for the past ("I am the God of your fathers"), as for the future ("I will be with you"). God, who reveals his name as "I AM," reveals himself as the God who is always there, present to his people in order to save them.

"A God merciful and gracious" 
211     Despite the faithlessness of men's sin and the punishment it deserves, he keeps "steadfast love for thousands." By going so far as to give up his own Son for us, God reveals that he is "rich in mercy." By giving his life to free us from sin, Jesus reveals that he himself bears the divine name: "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will realize that 'I Am.'"

God alone IS 
212      He transcends the world and history.
213     God alone IS. God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.

III. GOD, "HE WHO IS," IS TRUTH AND LOVE
God is love
218     In the course of history, Israel was able to discover that God had only one reason to reveal himself to them, a single motive for choosing them from among all peoples as his special possession: his sheer gratuitous love. And thanks to the prophets Israel understood that it was again out of love that God never stopped saving them and pardoning their unfaithfulness and sins.
219     God's love for Israel is compared to a father's love for his son. His love for his people is stronger than a mother's for her children. God loves his people more than a bridegroom his beloved; his love will be victorious over even the worst infidelities and will extend to his most precious gift: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son."
220     God's love is "everlasting": "For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you." Through Jeremiah, God declares to his people, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you."
221     But St. John goes even further when he affirms that "God is love": God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.

Reconcilable Differences - 4

Reconcilable Differences - 4 (Carol - 2)

      Mike Bishop is a goal-oriented person. When we all went on trips, he made sure the SUV was gassed up, the kids had been to the bathroom and there was plenty of food and a huge cooler of drinks on board. Carol was a process person. She more or less floated through life, enjoying every bit of it but enjoying too reminiscing about the past or about the Lord as she walked or drove, her cup of tea, complete with tea bag, always in hand.
     She was afraid of two things. One was the breast cancer that had taken her mother's life. She was afraid to have mammograms, put off going in for check-ups. While they were still at Creighton and early in their marriage, she and Mike had watched all four of their parents die and later her beloved brother and only sibling would also pre-decease them. When Carol finally got the diagnosis that she had cancer, it wasn't breast cancer after all. It was ovarian cancer. She fought it with radiation and chemo. Her hair fell out and she would greet us at the door bald, still outwardly relaxed and amiable. She was ready to die but she didn't want to leave her family.
     Her second fear was of flying. Yet she overcame that fear to fly with her family to Rome and step down into the waters at Lourdes. She battled cancer for seven years but Rick was diagnosed with cancer after four of those years and beat her to the finish. They prayed their Catholic prayers for healing, we prayed our Protestant prayers for healing--and neither of them was healed in this life.
     During treatments her doctors told her she had to give up, or at least water down, her beloved cups of tea. Tea was her trademark. It didn't surprise me, when I got into figuring out anagrams, that "Carol Elizabeth Bishop" was a "tea czar."

     I was with Carol a lot toward the end. For all her knowledge of theology, she was clinging to the simplicity of the gospel. She would tell me she was just asking Jesus to "take care of His little lamb."
     After she passed into the presence of her Lord--I was at her hospital bedside when she did--there was no reason for Mike and me to socialize anymore. The darkroom became a catch-all for things like Christmas presents which needed to be hidden and wrapped and clean laundry that needed to be folded. Digital photography, which Rick would have disdained, was coming in and we couldn't even sell his view camera or the Beseler/Minolta 45A enlarger with a 4x5 condenser head, the Rodenstock Apo-Rodagon and Schneider Apo-Companon lenses, the Saunders easel or the drymount press.
     But when I started dating Jerry I called Mike and set up a time when the three of us could eat out. Somehow I felt like I needed his approval. It was the first time I had noticed that either of the men had a moustache.
      I started this post to discuss Catholicism but have been wandering down paths of nostalgia, just as Carol would have.
     After Carol left this life, I wanted very much to be a mother figure for Mike and Carol's daughter Julianne. We did get together a couple of times to cook a meal. I cooked one for Jerry while she cooked the same thing to take home for her dad and brother. But Julie rapidly passed me in the cooking department and the absence of her mother was always bittersweet in the background, contributing to our feeling tongue-tied and shy together. Then, too, Jerry and I were busy with our own lives and travels.
     Still, I want to develop that friendship. For one thing, in spite of the fact Julie was adopted, she is very much like her mother. She is bright and articulate, really committed to the Catholic faith, and has considered seminary and a religious vocation. I enjoy our discussions, iron sharpening iron. The last time we parted after meeting for lunch and having an in-depth discussion of Matthew 16:13-20, I think we both headed for our Bible concordances and Greek lexicons when we got home, like the Bereans of Acts 17:11, to "examine the Scriptures and see whether these things were so."

     I hope, whatever our differences in doctrine, Carol and I end up at the same place.

Reconcilable Differences - 3

Reconcilable Differences - 3 (Carol - 1)

     Until Carol's death ten months after my husband's, our best friends were Roman Catholics.
     All four of us, Mike and Carol, Rick and I, shared a love of photography. The men designed, built and stocked a state-of-the-art darkroom to print both black-and-white and Cibachrome. Every Friday night for 25 years or so we would all go out to dinner and then back to the darkroom where over hot tea and diet Cokes, surrounded by a swirl of large dogs and growing kids, we talked and laughed and tried to produce a really good print or two.
     We took photography classes together. We even went on some vacations together, to botanical gardens and national parks to take pictures we could print when we got home. Often Carol composed their pictures and Mike took them. She had a wonderful sense of composition. In addition to photographs, she made every room in their house--and their garden--a thing of beauty. She could arrange a nest of robin's eggs with a pheasant feather or two in front of a photo she and Mike had taken of a path through birch woods inlaid with golden leaves and you felt at once both that you were in an art gallery and that you were totally at home.
     Whenever Mike and Carol went on vacations of their own, she would always find some object of delight to bring me. A butterfly etched on glass to hang in a window. A illustrated book of church cats. A Royal Copenhagen plate picturing an owl on a snow-covered branch under the full moon. Corals: red, white, and blue. And shells. Marvelous shells: a chambered nautilus. A Cloth of Gold Cone, a Pink Conch. And an encyclopedia about shells. (She knew the Latin name for every shell and every plant.) I still keep these things on display around the house and they still remind me of her. Once Mike overruled her and brought me a huge Victorian pitcher and basin painted with blue Chinese figures. But she was wrong for once. I love that, too.   
     Carol was a National Merit finalist and had gone to Catholic school from kindergarten through Creighton University so she had had a top education. She was so well-read and had so many interests, everything from gardening to art to literature to theology--that we had wonderful times together. I think one thing that made me feel comfortable in their home was that, despite the fact she and Mike were committed to the Lord through their Catholic faith, there wasn't one out-and-out Catholic symbol in their house--not one rosary, not a single panel of an emaciated Jesus gazing dolefully upward from the cross.
    She could discuss anything without feeling threatened. In discussing Catholic doctrine, she made such fine distinctions, between venerating Mary and worshiping her, for example, that when she had shared what the church taught I could see that it was much closer to what we Protestants believe than I had thought. I doubt if most Catholic laypeople make such fine distinctions.
     Although she was really, really bright and really articulate she was laid-back and enjoyed discussions. She didn't get het-up by them or defensive about ideas, as I did. (Fortunately we were both pro-life.) I'd pace around, arguing things, getting louder and louder, waving my arms and starting to call the Catholic position on a given subject "stupid" or "insane" (as I write this, I realize that is exactly what my father did, exactly what he would say about anything he didn't agree with). She would sit in an arm chair in their wonderfully appointed living room or den, one foot tucked under her, nursing her ubiquitous cup of hot tea in one hand while stroking the ears of one of their also ubiquitous dogs with the other. When I was ranted out, she would point out something I'd missed or misunderstood--amiably and with a touch of her marvelous humor. 

Reconcilable Differences - 2

Reconcilable Differences - 2

     Not long ago Jerry and I watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I couldn't do anything for a long time after it was over but sit and stare, chest and throat tight, as scenes replayed in my mind and I thought about how adults teach children prejudice.
     It reminded me of a conversation I had with our youngest granddaughter when she entered kindergarten last year. Our daughter Becky was chrismated in the Russian Orthodox church just before she married a Roman Catholic man. Now they live in Oklahoma and attend a Catholic church. When the time came, Becky enrolled our 5-year old granddaughter Katherine in a Catholic kindergarten.
     I had spoken of God to Katherine from her infancy. We had had simple sweet moments of fellowship together. I was careful never to say anything to conflict with or criticize the Catholic church. Katherine spontaneously gave herself to God last year and drew me a picture of her doing so for my birthday--one of the best birthday presents I ever received.
     In mid-October Katherine and I were chatting over our Ojo video phones and suddenly she asked, "Grandma, do you go to a Catholic church?"
     "No." I felt exposed.
     "Then you probably aren't a Christian."
     So now it begins. "Yes I am!"
     "You probably don't love Jesus."
     I was saddened. "Yes I do!"
     We left it there but I wondered whether something had been said by one of her teachers. Maybe the line had been drawn between the innies and the outies, between "us" and "them." I wondered what conclusion Katherine had come to about me as a result of our talk. I wondered whether Becky had been within earshot of it and what she thought--about Katherine's questions, about my answers, about my faith.
     A few weeks later Becky commented to me, "Today Katherine said, 'Both my grandmas are sticklers for Jesus, aren't they?'" (Her other Grandma is Catholic.) So maybe Katherine realizes Jesus Christ is the common denominator, that it is the relationship with Him that matters.
     But it makes me sad that something may be trying to drive a wedge between my granddaughter and me in spite of the fact we both know and love the Lord. But many of our Protestant schools and churches do the same thing. It is drilled into us: "Catholics aren't Christians. Catholics aren't saved. Catholics are relying on their own works to get into heaven and therefore can't go there."
     I beg to differ. Some Catholics are Christian. Some Protestants are. And some Orthodox are. In every one of these forms of Christendom there are people who are not only members of their organization but branches drawing life from the True Vine.
     There are Jews who know their Messiah. There are Muslims (I know of several) who may still think of themselves as Muslims but are following the way of Isa, whom they read about in the Koran and whose words in the New Testament they believe and seek to obey, who are personally connected to Him by faith. I am going to boldly assert that these believers are every bit as much Christians as the rest of us. 
     "God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son;" the apostle John points out in I John 5:11-13, "anyone who has the Son has life, anyone who does not have the Son does not have life. I have written all this to you so that you who believe in the name of the Son of God may be sure that you have eternal life." (This is from a Catholic version of the Bible, by the way, the Jerusalem Bible.)
    These individuals compose the invisible body of Christ on earth. There are undoubtedly believers in every part of the world who attend no church at all but have put faith in Jesus Christ, having heard of him somehow, maybe met Him in dreams, even though they don't know that what they have, what they are, has a label.

RECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

     My granddaughter's recent questions stirred in me a desire to resume a series I began in 2010 on His Scribe called "Reconcilable Differences", studying the beliefs Roman Catholics and Protestants have in common. First I'll re-run the series to date. Then I want to continue it:

Reconcilable Differences - 1

". . . That they may all be one. . . perfected in unity. . .so that the world will know that You sent me." Jesus praying to his Father, Gospel of John, chapter 17.
    Last year (2009) I read a 688-page Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1994 by Paulist Press. I wanted to know official Catholic doctrine, as opposed to Catholicism practiced (perhaps inconsistently) by individual members of the Catholic church. I read every word, underlining many passages and filling the margins with thoughts and questions.
     I came away with two strong impressions. The first was that there are irreconcilable differences between those whose ultimate authority is the Roman Catholic Church and those whose ultimate authority is the Bible.
      The second was that there are a surprising number of areas of agreement between the two groups.
      More than that, I came away profoundly moved, my faith deepened by the way the Catholic Catechism presents those areas of agreement. They not only rang true Biblically but evidenced centuries of study and meditation, of honing and polishing rich truths. I learned something about God. I learned something about faith, about the significance/sacredness of communion and baptism, about prayer.
     In a series of posts, I want to share some of these commonalities with you. I do not want you to feel threatened by these passages from the catechism. They are not intended to pry you away from what you believe, only to reinforce and help you appreciate what you already believe in the light of the fact believers in all three major traditions of Christendom--Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant--share these beliefs.
     We all believe, for instance, in the Apostles' Creed (and in the Nicene Creed, which further defines the Apostles' Creed):
     We all believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
     We all believe he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
     We all believe he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, that he descended into hell and on the third day rose again.
     We all believe he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, that he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
     We all believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic (i.e., universal) Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

     We all believe that the Bible, from which these creeds are taken, is the written word of God. We all believe in living by the Ten Commandments. We all believe in praying according to the Lord's prayer. Although beliefs regarding the real or symbolic presence of our Lord in the Eucharist differ radically, we all practice at least two of the sacraments established by Jesus Christ: baptism and partaking of his body and blood.
     We agree that not to believe these truths is not to be a Christian. This is bedrock. This is our common heritage.
     I want to look more closely at some of these non-negotiables with you in future posts.

NOTE: This series is written in gratitude for Paul Cowan (transferred to Glory 7-27-2010), who dedicated his life to drawing together in unity Christ's people in the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches.)