First Talk

What we are called to believe?

We are called to believe certain things based on our Catholic Faith. I would like to start with a story from the Acts of the Apostles that's about me and a warning to me. Uticus is restored to life. On the first day of the week when we gather to break bread Paul spoke to them because he was going to leave on the next day. And he kept speaking until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where they gathered and a young man Uticus who was sitting on the window sill was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. Once overcome with sleep he fell down from the third story he was picked up he was dead. Paul went down and through himself upon him and said as he embraced him don't be alarmed there is life in him. Then he returned upstairs and broke the bread and ate and after a long conversation that lasted until daybreak he departed. And they took the boy away alive and were immeasurably comforted. I take this as a command to Christian Preachers to know when to shut up. I have a friend John Shea in the Chicago Diocese who says if you can't say it in simple language don't say it at all. It's not worth saying. So I am going to try and be a simple as I can be. Because the Christian religion would not have spread around the world if we talked about Plato and Aristotle and Aristophanes and all these long dead Greeks. And all these long dead Christian theologians and I will try to keep it as short as possible. As I said we will keep our questions to the end I will make my talk about 50 minutes I make sure that there are no windows that you are sitting in and if you fall asleep let me know so we can catch you ahead of time. There is a lot of confusion on to what we believe. There shouldn't be because the message has not changed in 2000 years. The message remains basically; I take it back the message is the same. There may be confusion of language but there is no confusion of to what the message really is. First and foremost the Catholic Faith is not and intellectual ascent to a set of systematized bullet points we don't yes, yes, yes and no, no, no. On the contrary Catholicism is a historical religion. Now what does that mean? That means simply and very importantly that it arrives in a concrete history. It is about events that occurred in this world Human events about human being like you and I. And it starts with the call of a very specific people and we can't avoid this if we are to be Catholic Christians today we cannot avoid the fact that our faith is rooted in the Jewish religious experience. I had a great friend and a teacher Sr. Arilda if you can believe a name like that. She was a great teacher. When she wanted something important she wrote it down and she said say it three times. Our faith is Jewish, our faith is Jewish, and our faith is Jewish. It's based on the religious experience of that stiff necked hard nose people that people have tried to wipe out 4 or 5 times and never succeeded the Jews. And specifically the history of Catholicism in our faith is based on a historical human being cal Jesus of Nazareth. I have trouble with that word; please excuse me as a New Orleanian has a hard time saying Nazareth. In particular we base our faith on the life, death and resurrection of the Jewish Carpenter workman whatever he was Jesus of Nazareth. In a nut shell Catholics are called to believe that in his life and in his death and in his rising again the power behind the universe that everyone calls God has spoken finely and definitively about God's will to human kind. That's what we me by Revelation ends with the death of the last apostle. In Jesus of Nazareth God has showed us the proper way in how he wants human being to live. Now that's very easy to say but what does it consist in, that's what were going investigate over course of the next 4 nights. Jesus came proclaiming a Gospel called the reign of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. Those are all the same things. In Jewish the Jews never said the name of God they called him Lord, they called him everything but his name only one day of the years was God's name allowed to be said, and it was said by the priest on the Day of Atonement inside the temple he said the name of God which was Yahweh I am who I am with you. Otherwise the Jews spoke indirectly about God. Matthew who says kingdom of heaven or reign of heaven is a very good Jew. So when he is saying heaven he's really referring to God not necessarily to the kingdom of the afterlife but to where God lives. Jesus set forth the program that is called the kingdom of God how we should live and that is expressed in the 8 Beatitudes, and there are 4 of them in Luke I believe, 4 or 6. This is Jesus'' program on how we are to live as Christians. First is blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven this is a complete reversal of how the roman world looked upon things. Remember where Jesus comes from he comes from a roman world the ancient civilizations that existed in the Tycrus Euphrates River Valleys. Israel is just as you know with the war going on right close by it's within scud missile distance a little more than a hundred miles are so, and Jesus is a product of that part of the world and at that time it was ruled by the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire was the greatest plunder aide in the history of the world. What the Romans did that was by trickery, deceit or however they could they grabbed up individual parts of the world and Jesus'' part of the world was very important because it sat across the trade routes of spice and silk. Silk came from China in the East and came through India and Pakistan and Iraq which was ruled a people called the Parathions and Israel sits across that. The Romans exulted human wealth and human achievements they built great monuments to themselves they concord the world. They celebrated the rich Jesus celebrates the poor. Jesus celebrates the meek, he says the meek are the one who possess the land, not the wealthy not the rich this is a revolutionary program, and he's saying if you''re going to be wealthy you are going to have a hard time getting into my kingdom. Blessed are they who mourn they are comforted, blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice they shall have there fill. Blessed the merciful they will obtain mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, single mindedly attached to the gospel they shall see God. Blessed are the peace makes for they are called God's children, blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This is a complete reversal of a way that the Romans wanted people to live. They wanted the rich on the top and all the rest of the poor folk down on the bottom. This is Jesus revolutionary program for how we are to live with one another. Number 2 there was a scribe a scribe is like a lawyer people even got the creeps about lawyers even back then Jesus does not have many good things to say about lawyers one of which he said woe to those lawyers you put burdens on those people that you would not put on yourself or raise. A scribe is a person who interprets the law for people who says this is what you should do to be a good Jew. Comes up to Jesus in the temple Lord, what must you do to merit the kingdom of heaven the kingdom of God. Jesus looks at this fellow and he says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and all your mind. 2nd Commandment you shall love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus is not being very revolutionary with this. It comes right out of the mosaic covenant. It is something very Jewish but he says what happens to people we get these laws and all these other little laws we miss the big picture. A scribe said to him in the gospel of Mark yes I got it, you know God doesn't what burnt offerings what they did in the temple God wants us to love him with all our heart and to love our neighbor as thyself. Jesus says to him you are close to the kingdom of heaven. So these are the two great statements of Jesus as he sums up the Jewish law he brings back all the practices all the things that are in the Jewish law and he brings them together in a one statement, that is, love God, love your neighbor and this is the practical the Beatitudes are the practical things that Jesus does. This in a nut shell what Jesus'' teaching were. Very simple there's not a lot to it not word wise but you could fill libraries with it. The first Christian the Apostles and Mary Magdalene had an experience of Jesus after he had died and that experience was that of Him being alive. They saw him they touched him they met him in the breaking of the bread the wonderful story of the two missionaries who were walking on the road to Amouse. They come upon a stranger and the stranger says where are you going and they said we are going up to this village would you mind if I walk with you , he said no, go right ahead come right ahead. And he said why do you have such long faces on you? They said well don't you know you must be the only character in all the world that didn't know what happened in Jerusalem. This Jesus of Nazareth who we thought was the Messiah was crucified he was turned over by high priests and we thought he was going to be the consolation of Israel. The stranger says to them you fools, don't you understand that Jesus'' life is the consolation of Israel. They said as he goes on there hearts burned within them but they couldn't recognize him, even though we know who he was we know the minute Luke tells the story who the stranger was. And they get to a place where they go into an Inn and he sits down with them to break the bread with them and this is where they recognize him in the breaking of the bread. What that means is, in our Eucharistic celebration we meet and encounter Jesus as alive in this community, St. Dominic's community all over every Catholic community. This is the historical basis that we base this faith what I am going over with. The first Christians this was not a psychological effect, Elvis was a powerful person with people but that's not what we are dealing with, with Jesus and the apostles and the first Christians were the first who caught onto that criticism real quick. They understood that people would say it's just your imagination running away with you. It was not there imagination it was not a psychological thing it was they actually had an experience of him as being bodily alive; Jesus now then and forever. And in our community what we tried to do is to keep in contact with this experience they felt a powerful serge of revolution from the salvation of the bondage of sin and they began to ransack through the entire tradition looking up titles for Jesus. They called him Son of God, God, and so forth and so on they gave him these titles price of peace. They were going back through Jewish tradition ransacking it looking for names for him. And what is it we say that a belief in Jesus is the oldest affirmation in the church today, the oldest prayer is, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. That is our faith. That is in a nut shell a very small nut shell the historical basis of our faith; the life death and resurrection of Christ. We are going to talk about how Jesus was thought to be God. Next week we are going to talk about specifically how Catholics understand the Church? I''m going to do comparisons of what Protestants believe and so forth. Catholics believe and the Greek Orthodox believes. What is the Church? We have some really big problems with all the other Christian denomination and I think it's fair to you for you to understand exactly what we believe about the structure of the Church. The following week we are going to talk about the differences in what Catholics believe about scripture and Protestants, Anglicans, Greek Orthodox, and Catholics are very slight. Our differences are manly about judicial things about who is in charge Sacramentaly and Geek Orthodox are really close. And finally on the fourth night we will talk about the sacraments and what our beliefs are in the world to come. Tonight we are going to talk about who is Jesus Christ? This was the great burning question that the first early Christians had to answer. Now, the first Christians being Jewish, they new him Peter, Paul, his mother knew him even Mary Magdalene. They were just overwhelmed with his new being. His new life. They really didn't have to ask these questions. But something happened in the year 70 and in the year 70 something terrible happened. Prior to Christianity and Judaism was part of the same thing. Christianity was a group of Jews bidding to become the soul of Judaism. There is a point in archeology called Capernaum which you probably remember it was Jesus second home town he was born in Nazareth but grew up in Capernaum. It was a fishing village on the northern side of the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberius. People have small fishing boats and even today people still fish today. In that little town the Franciscans St. Francis'' followers the archeologist the dug into the Jewish Synagogue and below that they found the remains of the synagogue that Jesus taught in and preached in. Directly across the road they were digging again and they found a house this house this house dates from the first century; which would put it at about the time of Jesus, very hard to date things within 10 or 20 years. But we know that this was the first century and do you know how we know it's the first century, because of these little oil lamps they found tiny little oil lamps that Christians used in their first ceremony. They are very peculiar to first century Palestine, Jewish Christians and they found these little things and on the walls own on the meeting house, early Christians were written on the wall, Peter and Jesus. At the same time that there were Jews at the same time that would despise this they were fighting up until 70. The year 66 the Jews revolted against the Romans. They were much like the state of New Mexico revolting against the United States. They beat Roman legions and destroyed them and the Romans came after them no one messed with the Romans. Killed most and the Jews survived they are Gods chosen people he protects them and in they survived. We are not going to have all these people believing this thing and that thing we are going to have our beliefs solidified. And all you heretics, you Christians, you followers of John the Baptizer, you are out. Hit the road. We do not want you in our midst any longer, and they had what was called condemnations. They called the Christians Minion which means little ones. So Christians went one way and Judaism went another. That's a split that has caused a lot of the problems in the world. But anyway Jesus did not come to found a new Church but to reform Israel but when they rejected Jesus the Church came into existence, and this Church went West and when it went west they encountered the people called the Greeks. They were great philosophers they wanted to know the INS and out of things Jews were not interested with what's inside they wanted to know what the thing did. You hear the Jews speaking about who God not is but what God did for them, listen to the Exodus accounts to the Jews and it says God, God who delivered you out from the hands of the Egyptians they took you from the house of bondage and brought you out of the land of Egypt and put you into this land flowing with milk and honey. That's the way they spoke about God what God did for them Greeks wanted to know who God was they want to know the ins and outs of things and that's what we are going to talk about a little tonight. Is to how people came to realize that Jesus of Nazareth was Devine. It happens with an emperor Christianity was an underground set that was living in the Roman Empire we don't know how many people were living in it, it was constantly persecuted, it wasn't easy to be a Christian in the early days. Because you had a burning sense to the emperor. Christians said we don't burn incense to anyone but God. The Romans wanted people to worship Rome. Claudius wanted to be made a God please Claudius was here grandson and she hated him she made him promise that he would make her divine. That she would be worshiped. Did they actually believe that, I don't think the believe that they were God they believed that the Romans state was the greatest to humanity. They wanted the memories to be remembered for a very long time. But any way Christians couldn't do that so they lived underground. We have the great stories of Torsisius the young man who rather give up the Eucharist had himself stumped to death but Roman kids. But them along came an emperor who was looking for a religion to stick his empire together with. You see religion can be used for other things than religion. And in the old world they used it as glue to hold together there subjects. This emperor was a man who had a British mother and Yugoslavian father. He was born in a town called Molis on the Danube River. His father was the Ceasar of Britain. He ruled from a town called York today, his name was Constansious Cloriss and his son was Constantine. He moved to unite the Roman Empire again and what he does is on the night before the battle claims years later that he sees a sign in heaven and the sign says this you shall conquer. On that shield he sees a cross which is the sign of the Christians so what does he do he puts the saying on all the shields and he conquers and he takes the religion of Christianity to unite his empire with. Christianity is allowed to come out and flower after being underground for more than 300 years Christianity flourishes under Constantine, but we''ve got all sorts of beliefs about what Jesus is. We got some people believe he is a divine man that came down from heaven they got some who believe he is a spirit, that he's not really dead at all we''ve got millions of beliefs. One thing this emperor wants is he doesn't want a lot of different beliefs and neither does the Church. The Church has to decide what are we going to realize about Jesus Christ? As a result we have what is called the First Ecumenical Council in Asia Minor. That formulated the first part of what we called the Crede we read at mass Sunday. It defines the divinity; it defines under no certain terms that Jesus is One in being with the Father. These council fathers sit down in this place and there was a show about this about John…? He did work on Egypt. There is no roof on the building anymore. He held the meals in the open cause he didn't want them to get too used to it he held the council he did the first part of the creed, one in being with the father brought up by Arius he was thinking you know there was a time when Jesus didn't exist because he wasn't born so therefore God existed before Jesus so therefore God existed before Jesus. So Jesus is a secondary God, and the Church said no, in some ways that some people believe that stuff. The Church proclaimed that Jesus Christ and the Father were one in being. The human Jesus came into existence at a time but Jesus himself was the Son of God one of being. In 325 A.D. the 2nd council was held in Constantinople this case people were saying the Holy Spirit he's not quite divine he quotes the scripture and the fathers get together again. The 3rd council was in Ephesus is where Mary ended her life; was a great trade city. They all met there the person by Mystorious the Archbishop of Constantinople the Blessed Mother is not the mother of god. He said God can not have a mother a human being would be before God. It claims that Mary should be know as Mary the Mother of God. Also, whatever if he is human and divine, 4th council at Calsidone in 451 they defined Jesus and fully God and Man, Jesus True God True Man. Chalcedon 451 he is proclaimed to be one person with 2 nature he is fully human and fully God. This is our belief about who Jesus Christ is. He is one Divine son of God, Holy Spirit equal person Jesus the incarnate word pitched his tent among us. Jesus Christ is one person who is human and divine.