True Catholic

The problem with the Pharisees was that they followed the rules. What’s wrong with that?

There was a period of time when I studied Canon Law and got myself upset with all the priests who didn’t follow the rules. I thought I was right to be angry with them. But who am I to be angry?

I realized that many of the things that made me upset were optional. Eventually I realized that, within very, very broad limits, the pastor of a church is the absolute ruler of that church. What happened in one church did not have to be happening in all Catholic churches.

Ours is a universal Church. A Maronite Mass has to be different from a Latin Rite Mass. It has to be different in order to be faithful to the teachings of the Church.

There are things, like the perpetual virginity of Mary, which one must believe in order to be a Catholic. There are things that Catholics must do.

We must believe that Mary had only one child, Jesus. A priest does not have absolute license about what is said and done in the Mass.

We must remember that the Church is Jesus. It is only Jesus who has the right to get angry.

written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG AS YOU LISTEN:

The reality of our Catholic faith is: there are fewer things that we have to believe in to be Catholic than you have to believe to be a Southern Baptist. And there are probably many other faiths that fall into that category.

In our family right now there is a little bit of turmoil going on and it relates to women and the way that women dress. For example there are people who hold that exposing your arm like that, basically marks you as a harlot.

Now, you almost have it right, but your collar needs to be buttoned up so that you can only see a little bit of your chin. There are only certain ways that you should act.

And, within your own family context, because you are priest, prophet and king, you get to do certain things that, in fact, the church reserves to its priests, not even to its deacons, but its priests explicitly.

And one of the difficulties that we have in our world, in our Catholic world, is to understand what is important and why it is important, and how so many of the others things that people get all upset about really are very peripheral.

One of the things that caused a great deal of consternation back then and causes consternation today is we no longer use Latin.

Well, the reality is that when St. Jerome came along everything was in Greek. The preaching… everything was in Greek. Smart people spoke Greek. If you wanted to communicate with people of the better class, and for the most part, in most parts of the Roman Empire, if you wanted to communicate with people at all, you spoke Greek.

The exception was the very lowest of the low, the vulgar, the common folk. The common folk didn't speak Greek. So St. Jerome translates the Bible into the Vulgate. It is there for the vulgar people because everybody can understand it.

And so, after the Vatican II they let you put the Bible into the vernacular... he's laughing... and that was a major transformation. People went, "Oh no! We can't do that! We can't have the Vulgate!"

Well, the funny thing is, if you read about the council of Trent, they dealt with that exact issue. They said, we need to translate the Bible into the Vulgate so everybody can hear it, meaning English, German, whatever. And at that time they didn't say "No", you can't do it." They said, "The time is not appropriate." The time became appropriate.

So what does this have to do with the dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major? The Basilica was built... remember [I spoke about] Eusebius on Friday... St. Athanasius, the Arian heresy, the Gnosticism heresy, and the councils after the formation of the Church, where they set out and understood what the teachings of the Church were.

And it was Eusebius, and right after Eusebius that they built this church. They promulgated Mary the Mother of God.

They answered the question, "Who do you say I am?" And the answer to the question... and we see it in the Nicene Creed, which we did on Friday, we see it in the Apostles Creed... Jesus is wholly human, wholly divine. And what does that make Mary? That's the answer to the question of who do you say Jesus is.

As reflected in the book of Revelation that they give us today, the reading from it, we have the image of the heavenly Jerusalem that is very crucial and important to understand. We see, when you read Revelation, and you think about Mary, you need to think about Eve because Eve was the first woman and she denied God by disobeying Him.

Mary is the second Eve who obeyed God. "Thy will be done." And so we have, in the person of Mary, a completion of this woman, this young girl, who bears the son who is wholly human, wholly divine. Who is the culmination of the first covenant. Who is the culmination of faith history from the moment of creation.

The second event occurs with Mary where, instead of Eve who went around with bare arms, denying God by lying, we have Mary, which places Mary at the center of everything.

And when we look and say, "Okay, what does it mean to be Catholic?" you come back to the question: "Who do you say I am? I'm wholly human, wholly divine. Who is my mother? She is the mother of God, the Eucharist."

These are central things. They do not deal with issues of whether Darlene has her arm exposed. They do not deal with the issues of in what language do you listen to or read the Bible. It does not deal with these peripheral matters because what is the important thing that has to be filtered out from everything else, is that the purpose of the Holy Catholic Church is to give everyone the opportunity, through the Church, to spend all eternity with God in the Heavenly kingdom you find in Revelation. It is a completion. It is a full circle.

So when people start saying, "Well, you can't be Catholic", or "If you are Catholic you have to do the following things..." Mayve, it is not necessary that you button the top button on your shirt. It may be advisable, but it is not required.

The same thing is, we look in here, we see the holy water, we see saints, pictures, icons. Are they, in and of themselves, necessary to be Catholic?

Is it required for you to believe in devotion to the Divine Heart of Jesus? No. Are there certain things that you have to believe? Yes, they're in the Nicene Creed.

We have to believe that Mary is the mother of God. We have to believe that Jesus is wholly human, wholly divine. That He died on the cross for us. He rose from the dead.

But all of these other things that divert us away from the central object of our Faith, our ultimate goal of spending eternity in the heavenly kingdom, those are peripheral things.

Those are the things that people get all excited about and there are all sorts of schisms and everything else because, frankly, the people in Milwaukee don't celebrate the Mass correctly. They don't. Therefore there is something wrong. Now, was it Weakland up in Milwaukee? Yup. So there was something wrong. But that is the reality that we face, is that we know... I'm going to pick on Belinda, because she is kind of ignoring me today... we know that when she was raised in the Catholic faith and not an English word was spoken she still became a great Catholic because the rest of it is peripheral.

It's the core of the belief. And this core of the belief pivots in a very real way on the great answer that Mary gave, "Thy will be done." That is the transition point. That is why we have the Basilica [in Washington, D. C,], we have all these churches, this one included, dedicated to Mary.

Because it is central to Our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is central to answering the crucial question that we have to face. "Who do you say I am? Because if you say that I am wholly human, wholly divine, I died on the cross for us, we have to get back to Mary."

And that's why we have these wonderful Marian devotions. It is a recognition of the centrality for our faith history of moving towards Jesus for all eternity. And it doesn't matter, on a physical aspect, whether or not you wear shorts to Mass, whether or not you have your arms exposed. The reality is that the very core is how do we answer our question of "Who do you say I am?" and how do you live your life in accordance with your answer to that question.

August 5, 2019 3