June 2008 Archives

Obviously, I’ve been scribbling a bit in my spare time (see the two posts below).

I wanted to get these two done quickly. The results look rushed, but hopefully they'll still be useful. At any rate, they'll have to do for now. I’m still swamped and behind, and the swamped-ness and behinded-ness isn’t going away until after the first of August. However…

Given the recent political decisions in California and New York, and the previous ones in Massachusetts, I think I need to press ahead with the next installment in the sacraments series:

HOLY MATRIMONY

I won’t likely get anything posted on it until after the first of August, but I will try. No promises.

There have been times when I’ve heard, “We simply want to get back to what the early Christians believed. The Catholic Church of today doesn’t follow what the early Church taught, so if we could only get back to that…” A variation of that is, “The Catholic Church added many ideas in the Middle Ages. The early Christians didn’t really believe what the Catholic Church teaches today.” In a word: RUBBISH!

Let us have a look at what the Christians of the first few centuries thought of the Eucharist. These are just a few.

“And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed. My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” This quote, from Matthew 26:39, puzzled me for many years. I asked about it, of a variety of sources, but never got a satisfying explanation. What cup is He talking about?

“It is finished”, is part of John 19:30. It is here in John that we find the key to the puzzling cup in Matthew. I had always been told that this quote dealt with our redemption. As one Protestant friend once said to me long ago, “It’s the work of Christ that was finished. His work of salvation was finished on the Cross.” Ok - but - well, not really. He hadn’t been resurrected yet, so there was still something to be done (Romans 4:23-25). To my uneducated eyes, this still didn’t look quite right.

Both of these will play into our next discussion of the Eucharist, and the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament. However, to join the cup from Matthew 26:39 to the phrase in John 19:30, we have to start by stepping back in time. Our first stop is in Exodus, and…