Accountability before the Judge of Man

This past Friday, we watched a documentary interview with a contemporary priest, Fr. Steven Scheier, who lived an ordinary life of a priest, until he was near death in an accident. In the interview with Mother Angelica a few years ago, Scheier recounts his extraordinary story. On October 18, 1985, he was traveling from Wichita to his parish in Kansas. According to Fr. Tommy Lane, Fr. Scheier was involved in a terrible accident: a head-on collision with a pickup truck. Fr. Scheier was thrown from his vehicle. His entire scalp was cut off on the right side. He had suffered a broken neck, and the second cervical vertebra was broken. One of his parishioners who happened to be in the hospital was told he was being given a 15% chance to live. But he recovered unexpectedly and was able to return to his parish. He was saying Mass, and started reading the Gospel of Jesus' parable of the fig tree "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, `Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?' And he answered him, `Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure. And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'" (Luke 13: 6-9). While reading it in the Church, the page became illuminated, enlarged and came off the lectionary towards him. After Mass, Fr. Scheier remembered a conversation that had taken place shortly after the accident. In that conversation Fr Scheier found himself standing before the judgment of Christ. He says the Lord took him through his entire life, and showed him how he had failed in his priestly service. Fr Scheier said “yes” to everything Jesus said about his life. Now before Christ he was talking to Truth and when you are talking to Truth you can’t give excuses. At the end of his judgment his sentence from Jesus was hell. Fr. Scheier said “yes” as that was the only logical thing he deserved. At that moment, however, he heard a woman say, “Son, will you please spare his life and his eternal soul?” The Lord replied, “Mother, he’s been a priest for twelve years for himself and not for me, let him reap the punishment he deserves.” “But Son,” she said, “if we give him special graces and strengths then let’s see if he bears fruit; if not, your will be done.” There was very short pause, after which Jesus said, “Mother, he’s yours.” Fr. Scheier experienced Jesus’ mercy but Mary was the one who interceded for him.

That was the interview which reminded everyone of the truth of our lives. Our eternal life depends on how we live our present life in this world. Although we know that God is all-loving and merciful, it does not free us from responding to the calls of the Spirit of Jesus who knocks on our doors relentlessly. The experience of Fr. Scheier is particularly relevant to our way of modern life. Especially when the beast is here to swallow every faithful, who can guarantee his eternal life? We are all, very likely, the fig tree and Mary, our mother, continues to implore her unique son as the vinedresser did in the parable. How long will the Master be patient? Our three years are not forever. This was a priest who performed his regular duties as required, but he himself confessed in the interview that he thought with his mind only and not with his heart. It is a mystery how God uses all things, even near-death experiences, to save souls. We know for sure from recent scientific research that the subjective element in Man's experience, in this case near-death experience, cannot be discounted as mere illusions. Here is a possible miracle but the real miracle is surely the transformation of this brother who "was dead and now is alive" (Luke 15: 32). This is the work of God who saves. He is our hope.

References:

http://www.ewtn.com/

http://www.frtommylane.com/homilies/year_c/lent3.htm

Mere Christianity!

The title of this post is that of a great book written by C. S. Lewis whose conversion from atheism to Christianity brought many fruits in the 20th century. The book was published and translated into many languages, not the least Arabic. That is how I learned about it. I read it first in Arabic some 30 years ago when it was published in Cairo, Egypt. My lecture here is about mere Christianity, but unlike Lewis, it is only a few lines long. In the Christian faith, God not only makes history and is beyond history, but also enters into it. He becomes a creature with all its limitation, even though he remains perfectly Divine with limitless power. In his humility, He was born in a manger, raised as a son of a carpenter, died on a cross as a criminal, and rose to eternal life when everyone was asleep. If Mary Magdalene did not tell his disciples, no one would have ever known! Mary herself thought he was the gardiner. The disciples traveling to Emmaus did not recognize him. A few days after his cruel death, he was walking and talking with them. When he appeared to the 10 apostles who were hiding for fear of the Jews, they first thought they were seeing a ghost! And when Thomas joined them, he also doubted that the Master was real until he touched the Master's wounds! For fourty days he spoke with them reassuring and confirming. For fourty days he showed them himself, now in his glorified body, ate with them and, before his ascension, blessed them. What transformed these fearful disciples? What made them go in the synagogues to preach and teach? What power made Stephen the first martyr utter the words "Forgive them" when the elders of the Jews were stoning him to death? I do not think this story can be brushed off as a fiction. The "enlightened" liberal Biblical scholars of the Enlightenment down to Bultmann in the 20th century sought to "demythologize" it. But more evidence shows otherwise. No one thinker now doubts the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. By all accounts, the empty tomb and the testimony of so many people, from the apostles including Paul in his early epistles to the 500 who saw Christ at once plus the many writings of early Christians are only the beginning. St. Paul himself described it in his first letter to the Corinthians written in th early 50s " But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then we are also false witnesses to God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead came also through a man." (1 Cor. 15: 12-21). According to contemporary Biblical scholars the firstfruits represent the portion of the harvest offered in thanksgiving to God which implies the consecration of the entire harvest to come. Christ's resurrection is not an end in itself; its finality lies in the whole harvest, ourselves. What is the meaning of the Resurrection for us TODAY. What does Christ recall to your memory? The young adults who attended the lecture gave beautiful testimonials from their own experience. Let's just go over one. One said that when she ignored a beggar her younger sister reminded her "What would Jesus do today if he were you?" Her answer was a person who felt and experienced solidarity with the beggar. She acted on it immediately, apologized to him and gave him food. You may act differently. However following her conscience, she did act. Christ was hidden in this beggar. He was in need as surely he is in many hungry people in the world. It does not matter how many times we worship in Church or how many times we take the Eucharist as long as we fill ourselves and ignore the other. She acted - Not only prayer but also action. We do not need to be scholars to follow Christ. In the simple things we can also become saints.

Source of Revelation: Tradition or Scripture?

My lecture last Friday was the first attempt to re-express the Catholic faith in as simple way as possible to my audience. Following the format of the RCIA, we looked at the Christian revelation. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches believe that revelation is expressed not only in Scripture but also and more importantly in Tradition. Tradition includes the liturgy, sacraments and unwritten doctrines of the Christian faith. The books of the Bible were not dictated by God, like some fundamentalists believe, but they were inspired by God in the community of His people. Furthermore, the sacred authors of the different books of the Bible wrote the books under God's inspiration using their own understanding, in the context of their culture at the time of writing. There are different literary forms and different styles in the books of the Bible. Look, for example, at Genesis and compare it with Song of Songs. One is a narration in figurative language about the origin of the human race and the other is poetry about God's relationship with his people. God does not force people. He always requires the cooperation of the human mind with the divine gift (grace).

To give you one example about the importance of Tradition, have a look at the last chapter of the Gospel of John. The author wrote "But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. " (John 21: 25). It is an expression that tells Christians two things: First, Jesus did many other things that are not written. Second, implicitly the reader needs to inquire the author about those other things. Note that the author is one of the apostles or a close companion. Note also the expression. It is not a scientific account because "the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." If the author refers the reader to the apostles, this means that he wants the reader to listen to the apostles, their close companions and successors.

How was the New Testament written? There are 3 phases. First, the disciples of Christ listened to his words and witnessed his miracles. Second, they preached what they experienced to the world around them. Third, when they were being martyred or getting older, the Christian community asked them to commit to writing what they were preaching.

Based on contemporary historical research, the first written accounts were some of the Letters of St. Paul around 49 C.A. The historical gap between the death and Resurrection of Christ around 30 C.A. and the letters of Paul is less than one generation. Many contemporary Biblical scholars and researchers using archeological evidence are boldly saying that there is very minimal chance of corruption of the text. But it is important to note that Tradition is recognized by almost all Biblical scholars to be the source of the written material in the Bible. Without the Church there is no Bible. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) authoritatively declares that the source of both Tradition and Scripture is God himself in his revelation (1). Since this lecture is meant to address the basic teaching of the Church, only this official reference is mentioned below.

Reference:

(1) http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

The Essence of Existence - A Theory of Everything

If you are not ready to read contemporary scientific findings, then skip this post. I could have posted it on another one of my blogs. What I am saying here after all is not a dogma of the Church but only an opinion - a theory for the Catholic mind. The reason for this post is two-fold: 1. We cannot escape the advances of science with an appeal to the "God of Gaps" if you know what I mean. There have been advances in many branches of natural sciences. However, natural sciences without philosophy are like limping apes. 2. I am a member of the Catholic Church. I cannot pretend to belong to either the fundamentalist Protestant communions, nor the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The first believe in the Bible only-no tradition - and some of them interpret it fully literalistically. The second still live mostly in the spiritual treasures, liturgies, and Ecumenical Councils of the first millennium-by all accounts, a static spirituality that fails to take into account the development of doctrine and tradition which the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council proclaims. The entire essence of existence, God himself, is a relationship or relatedness, according to Joseph Ratzinger (Now Pope Benedict XVI) "God, too, is absolute permanence, as opposed to everything transitory, for the reason that he is the relation of three Persons to one another, their incorporation in the "for one another" of love, act-substance of the love that is absolute and therefore completely "relative", living only "in relation to". As we said earlier, it is not autarchy, which knows no one but itself, that is divine; what is revolutionary about the Christian view of the world and of God, we found, as opposed to those of antiquity, is that it learns to understand the "absolute" as absolute "relatedness", as relatio subsistens." (Introduction to Christianity, 1968). Relationship rests on communication. I will not be able to relate to you if I cannot communicate with you or if I do not have the intention of communicating with you. We know that the first communication in infants takes place when they suck on their mothers breasts. As little as one month, Children start imitating their parents and people around them and they learn how to communicate in gestures before they learn language. This research correcting the great Jean Piaget was confirmed by Giacomo Rizolatti, and his neuroscientists team in 1996 in their discovery of the mirror neurons. Imitation is the basic element in René Girard's theory of mimetic desire on which he argued since the 1970s to be the basis of human behaviour that was redeemed by Christ (Christ in Postmodern Philosophy, 2008). But communication goes deeper than using mere language. There is also body communication or body language. What matters in the end is the result: Relationship! John Polkinghorne, retired professor of nuclear physics at Cambridge University, wrote, in one of his latest books: Quantum Physics and Theology, about relationship as science is attempting to discover it at the subnuclear level: "Quantum theory brought to light a remarkable form of entanglement between subatomic particles that have once interacted with each other (the so-called EPR effect), which implies that they remain effectively a single system however far they may subsequently separate spatially- a counterintuitive togetherness-in-separation that has been abundantly confirmed experimentally as a property of nature. The physical world looks more and more like a universe that would be the fitting creation of the trinitarian God, the One whose deepest reality is relational" (Quantum Physics and Theology, p.104). Not only at the human level. Not even at the living cells level. But also at the microcosmic level there seems to be an inherent structure that calls for relationship. We started with God and we will end up with God. But in between we move from the Big Bang, the formation of the high energy singularity as Stephen Hawking likes to call it, into galaxies, hundreds of thousands, to arrive into the Sun, and eventually the Earth. In his popular formula, Albert Einstein thought that energy can be transformed to matter and vice versa. The Big Bang in its simplest explanation is nothing but the beginning of a process of transformation of energy to matter. In this entire process non-living matter has solidified. Wait a minute or, in fact, 10 billions of years. Life then starts on Earth. In some 3.7 billion years humans appear from apes. Here it is again to keep going: From God comes the universe, a highly concentrated energy in a singularity. The universe explodes and is accelerating while energy is transformed to matter. Matter is inanimate and in this inanimate matter there seems to be a certain reality of relationship at its deepest level. Fast forward...Life begets plants, fish and so on until animals appear. There is a complexification of life as it develops. Man is at the top of this chain. Where is God? He is not sitting back or resting as the ancients imagined. God is at work always as Christ teaches (John 5:17). God is within us supporting and developing his creation. God is not in heaven above but here within his creation guiding it into fruition. But He can't hide anymore. His inner being "relatedness" as Ratzinger says is starting to be seen, and in the "fullness of time" he is united to his creation in Christ. This is how far we understand the Mystery of the Incarnation. For he is not only with us but his kingdom, that is he himself, is within us (Christ). This is partly why we as Catholics and Orthodox eat him in the Eucharist. Not only do we eat the flesh but the living flesh of Christ united with his divinity (The Body of Christ.) With the appearance of humans there is not only complexification of life but of brain too. According to the 2009 Winter issue of "The Brain," the human brain is endowed with a neurochemical hormone called Oxytocin that is responsible for inducing social memory in humans. Oxytocin triggers the drive for social attachments. Moreover, recent studies in 2008 have shown that oxytocin is the agent for bonding between new mothers and their infants. It is also the agent that helps people find their life partners in monogmous love. The only other species that was found to carry oxytocin is the monogamous prairie voles. This leads us to contemplate the possibility that our love at the natural level is built in as much as it is a social encounter with the other. The scientific finding that oxytocin leads to a monogamous sexual life confirms what the Catholic Church has been teaching for nearly 2000 years. In the same publication, the well- known neuroscientist Antonio Damasio confirms that “our emotions are crucial for making good decisions” (The Brain, 2009). Of course, this does not at all exhaust love as a supernatural gift from God. Love of enemies is not found in any creature except in Christ's humanity and his saints. Since Original Sin, there is no other way to overcome human selfishness other than the gift of God's love which means self-emptying love. Now we have stretched the theory of everything from the pure Mind of God to the inanimate matter to living creatures to man who is the epitome of creation fully saved in Christ. And in Christ we know there is only self-emptying love that transcends matter yet joins it in his incarnation to the divine. This is the basis of the Trinitarian God of Christians. It is the power of not only collaboration as seen in lower creatures, and not only in communication as is seen in inanimate matter, and not only in natural love as is seen in humans, but after all in self-emptying love that the Father eternally gives to his only begotten Son and his Son, accepting it in gratitude, returns it back to the Father...That binding love that is the Holy Spirit.

This is my thought: The essence of existence is the relationship of love...The eternal Triune Love that slowly reflects his inner essence in creation and, in the loving redemptive cross of Christ, brings in this process this creation, in spite of its sin in the human race, to that eternal Love: God.

Water as an agent of sanctification

This past Friday we watched a very good documentary movie on "Water - a great mystery." The movie presents new scientific research backed by such scientists as Prof. Kurt Wuthrich, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry (2002), and Dr. Martin Chaplin of London South Bank University. According to the theory of this research, water is fundamentally restructured at the molecular level when blessed with a good intention to others. It also insists on good intentions between people are reflected in a beautiful molecular restructuring of the structure of water even though it remains chemically the same. The reverse intention causes destructive results. Good music such as those of Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven have a positive effect while heavy rock metal music will reflect restructuring of water molecule in a negative way.

The movie also brought testimonials from a Christian perspective including such high ranking authorities as Orthodox Patriarch Kiril I of Moscow (elected in Feb. 2009).

Following the scientific work, the movie attempted also to present water as a main source of good energy in most religious traditions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Eastern religions.

In the Biblical account, Moses crossed the Red Sea. According to the theory of this research, he transformed water in his prayer. Jesus Christ used his own divine power to transform water to wine. Water is an agent for goodness and joy. In baptism by John the Baptist, he used water to help people repent. Baptism is a sacrament in the Christian Church where the baptized is immersed in water. Baptism is related to the Resurrection. The New Testament tells us we have been buried with Christ to rise again with him (the act we go through in Baptism). Moreover, water is a symbol of life not only material but also at a deeper spiritual level, it symbolizes and materializes the work of the Holy Spirit of God. In Genesis 1, the Spirit of God was said to be moving on water to bring about order out of chaos and create the entire universe.

We must understand that the movie presents theories and not necessarily facts. Here is what I think: 1. The most important thing that the movie said is that the essence of every thing is true love coupled with gratitude. This is the basis of Christianity in the deepest sense, coupled with Truth. 2. I do not believe that water itself blesses us. It is only an agent that the Spirit of God uses to sanctify us. The ideas that water has a power and memory by itself can be dangerously pantheistic as in Hindu and Buddhist religions. 3. It is good to know that other religious traditions use water as an essential part of their devotions. The Catholic Church believes that other religious traditions may have part of the truth and grace that fully exist and are expressed only in the Catholic Church. The closest to Catholics are of course the Orthodox Churches which are true Churches with probably 99% agreement on everything. These are followed by Protestant Christians with whom there is much in common based on the Creed. Next in the scale are Jews, our elder brothers from whom Jesus came. Next are Muslims whose religion is arguably based on ancient Jewish and Christian schismatics. Next are people of main world religions including Hindus. Next are atheists including Buddhists, and all agnostic beliefs. The fullness of truth exists only in the Catholic Church. Christ is risen - He is truly risen