What do we mean by saying, "Salvation history? We mean the story of Our Father's dealing with the human race. At the start, He picked one people for special help, and planned later to offer this special help to all people. We can see this from what St. Paul says Ephesians 3. 3-6. Paul says that God has revealed to him the mystery that earlier times had not known. It was this: not only the Jews, but the gentiles too are called to be part of the people of God!

But even before Christ came, Our Father did provide for the gentiles, who were not among the chosen people. St. Paul reasons this way in Romans 3. 29: "Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not the God also of the gentiles?" St. Paul means that if God did not take care for the salvation of all, He would act as though He were the God of the Jews only. But, St. Paul insists, He did take care for all. He did this through faith. He did this even for those who had never heard of the future coming of Christ.

We can see this from what St. Paul tells us in Romans 2. 14-16. There Paul says that Spirit of God, who is of course the same as the Spirit of Christ, writes His law in the hearts of all. Those who accept that law, may not know that what they are accepting is the Spirit of Christ. Still, they really accept that Spirit of Christ, if they do what He tells them in their hearts to do. So they have what we could all an implicit faith. So, because they accept the Spirit of Christ — without knowing that that is what they are doing — they can even be called Christians. For St. Justin the Martyr, around 150 A.D., in his First Apology (46) said that many in the past who even might have seemed to be atheists, were really Christians, because they followed the Divine Word. That is what we have just described. St. Augustine wrote about this, in his Retractations (1. 13. 3) where he answered the pagan Celsus. Celsus said it seemed as though God took no care of people in past times. St. Augustine said: "This very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed before. It was not absent from the beginning of the human race, until Christ Himself came in the flesh, and then the true religion, that already existed, began to be called Christian." Scientists don't agree on how old the human race is. But in 1983 Allan Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley, wrote that all the human there are today descended from one mother, who lived 350,000 years ago (Science News, August 13, 1983). Many scientists today think Wilson is right, but they now say the mother lived 200,000 years ago (Newsweek, Jan 11, 1988).

The oldest religions for which we have good records are those of the Near East, especially, the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. The Pyramid Texts, carved on the walls and rooms of Egyptian pyramids, tell us much. They date from about 2800 B.C. These peoples all were polytheists, that is, they believed in many gods. However, many anthropologists tell us that the most primitive peoples we know about, seem to have worshipped only one God, and many of them called Him Sky Father. It is likely that our whole race was similar at the start, after the fall of Adam and Eve.

Abraham the Father of All Believers

Abram, later called Abraham, came from Ur, near the north end of the Persian Gulf. His father Terah moved the family north to Haran (Genesis 11:25-31). When did the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live?, Educated guesses run from about 2000 to 1700 B.C.

When Abram was 75 years old, God told him to move to Canaan. He did that with His wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and their followers (Genesis 12:4). In chapter 15 of Genesis we read that God promised Abram his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky. Abraham believed God. The faith made Abram righteous: he became in the right with God, he received what we call sanctifying grace. St. Paul, in Galatians 3:6-9 and all of chapter 4 of Romans, says we become children of Abraham by imitating his faith, and in that way we too are justified. (Later we will see what St. Paul means by faith. Briefly, it includes belief in what God teaches, confidence in His promises, obedience to God's commands, and love.)

But St. Paul stresses that Abraham got this justification even before God commanded him to be circumcised, for God did not order that until later, in chapter 17 of Genesis. In that chapter, we read that God changed the name to Abraham from Abram, and changed his wife's name to Sarah. This happened when Abraham was 99 years ago, and Sarah was 90. She had been sterile, unable to have children, all her life. Yet God promised that in the next year she would have a son, Isaac, and that through him Abraham would be the father of many nations.

Sometime later, when Isaac was still a young boy, God ordered Abraham (Genesis chapter 22) to offer Isaac as a sacrifice on a certain mountain. Abraham did not hesitate, even though this seemed to clash with the promise that many nations would come from him through Isaac. He went ahead, and was on the point of actually killing Isaac, when an angel told him to stop. He then offered a ram, who was stuck in the bushes, in place of his son. This was magnificent faith which held on even when it seemed impossible to believe.

Toward the end of his life, Abraham arranged to have Isaac marry one of his kinsfolk, Rebekah (Genesis 24). Abraham left all his possessions to Isaac, and died at the age of 175 (Genesis 25).

Isaac had twin sons, Esau and Jacob. God changed Isaac's name to Israel, which became the name of all the Hebrew people (Genesis 32:29). Jacob had twelve sons, each of whom was the head of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

One of the most beautiful and moving stories in Scripture was that of Joseph, the older of the two sons of Jacob by Rachel. Joseph was favored by his Father. So his brothers became jealous of him and sold him as a slave into Egypt. There he was put into prison for refusing the advances of the wife of his owner, for she charged him with exactly what he had refused. In prison he was able to interpret dreams of two of the Pharaoh's former servants. One was executed, the other restored to favor. The one who was restored forgot Joseph until the King himself had strange dreams. So they called Joseph was summoned. He said the dreams meant 7 years of great crops were coming, and then seven years of famine. Joseph said they should save grain in the 7 rich years. Pharaoh made him Vizier, that is, second in command in Egypt. When the famine came, Joseph's aged father had to send his brothers to Egypt for grain. They did not recognize Joseph, dressed as the powerful Vizier. He put them to some tests, but finally in a most dramatic scene said: "I am Joseph, your brother." Can we imagine the look on their faces! The Pharaoh invited Jacob and the whole tribe to move to Egypt, to Goshen. Jacob however had asked to be buried in Canaan with Abraham and Isaac. Joseph did as his Father asked.

Before dying, Jacob gave a blessing to each of his sons, and foretold about Judah (Genesis 49. 10): "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes." Shiloh meant the Messiah, the one who was to be sent. This prophecy was fulfilled most dramatically! For there always was some kind of ruler from the tribe of Judah until 41 B.C. when Rome put Herod over them. Herod was supposed to follow the Jewish religion, but was not from the tribe of Judah. By birth he was half Arab, half Idumean.

The Messiah in Prophecy

At this point let us say something about the marvelous sweep of our Father's plans, and the prophecies over the whole time of the Old Testament. We are going to get help from some ancient Jewish documents called Targums, to understand the prophecies. These were old Aramaic translations of the Scriptures, which were free in their language, and filled in interpretations to show how to understand the prophecies. We know the Jews saw these things without seeing them fulfilled in Christ, for they rejected Him. We know that after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. the Jews lost interest in the Messiah until about 500 A.D. Even then they did not speak of most of the ancient prophecies, only that he should be of the line of David. So we can be sure these Targum interpretations were very early, before 70 AD, for they could not have been written in the centuries when the Jews no longer cared to speak of the Messiah. Yet the Targums saw the Messiah in very many places in the Old Testament.

Here are the chief ones. Right after the fall of Adam and Eve, God promised (Genesis 3:15): "I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will strike at your head, you will strike at his heel." The Targum saw this was in a way Messianic, and said it involved a victory for the sons of the woman. Today the Church (cf. LG # 55) with the help of fuller light from the Holy Spirit, sees Our Lady, the Mother of the Redeemer, and her Son in this text.

When the Jews were near to the promised land after their long wandering, the King of Moab hired a pagan prophet, Balaam, (Numbers 22-24) to curse the Jews. But Balaam, moved by God, could not curse them, instead he blessed them, and foretold that a star would arise out of Jacob. The Targums know this was the Messiah. Centuries later, sometime before 700 B.C., the great Prophet Isaiah in 9:5-6 spoke of a child, whom the Targums said was the Messiah: "A child is born to us, a son is given to us, the government is upon his shoulder. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, God the Mighty, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

Now since the large passage of Isaiah 7:1 through 12:6 is called and is, the Book of Emmanuel, it is clear that the child of Isaiah 7.14 is also the Messiah: "Behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." The Targums as they are today do not make this line messianic. But we know that the great teacher Hillel of the time of Christ did say it talked about the Messiah. We know that later Jews stopped calling it Messianic, to try to oppose the Christian use of the text.

When the Magi came to Jerusalem to ask where the new King was to be born, Herod called in the Jewish theologians. They had no difficulty replying it was at Bethlehem, according to the prophet Micah 5:2.

The Targum also knew that Isaiah 53, — the prophecy of the Passion — was messianic, though again in their eagerness to oppose Christ, they later distorted it. And Jesus Himself on the cross let us know that Psalm 22 referred to His Passion. In that Psalm verses 16- 17 say: "They have pierced my hands and my feet." No wonder that some fine Jewish scholars today, like Jacob Neusner, say that at the time of Christ, the Jews were strongly expecting the Messiah.

Further, if even the Jews could see so much in these prophecies, it is evident that Our Lady, full of grace, would see it all the more easily. For when the Archangel told her (Lk 1:33) that her Son would reign over the house of Jacob forever, she could not miss the fact that He was to be the Messiah. Jews in general then said the Messiah would reign forever.

Moses and the Ten Commandments

Easily the greatest human figure in the Old Testament was Moses, who is mentioned 80 times in the Old Testament, more than any other person. He came from the tribe of Levi, which was to be the priestly tribe. When a new dynasty of Pharaohs came in Egypt that did not remember the great things Joseph had done, the Pharaoh began to oppress the Jews. He even ordered all boy babies to be killed. But the mother of Moses put him into a basket on the edge of the Nile. There the daughter of the Pharaoh found him, and raised him as her own. Later Moses left the royal court, and went to Midian, where God appeared to him in a burning bush (Exodus 3), revealed His name, and told him to go to the Pharaoh to deliver the people of Israel from slavery. It took ten plagues to make Pharaoh willing to release them.

After this Moses led them through the Red Sea, which miraculously opened for them. They came to the foot of Mt. Sinai, where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), written on two stone tablets (Deuteronomy 4:13).

The Gospels will picture Jesus as the new Moses. He is the prophet Moses foretold (Deuteronomy 18:15 and Luke 24:27). The passage of the Red See was a prefiguration — that is, a prophecy by action rather than by words — of Baptism (1 Corinthians 10:2). Moses gave the law, which Jesus said must stand (Matthew 5:17). St. Paul may seem to say we do not need to keep the law (Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:28). But as the Second Epistle of Peter warns us (2 Peter 3:16) St. Paul often speaks unclearly. But if we study his words, we see that he really means that to keep the law does not earn heaven, though to break it earns the opposite (Romans 6. 23). St. Paul also says often (1 Cor 6. 10) that those who sin greatly will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. A child does not say he earns what he inherits from his parents: he gets it because they are good, not because he is good. Our Lord expressed the same truth when He said (Matthew 18:3): "If you do not change and become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven". Again, Moses gave the people manna in the journey to the Promised Land; Jesus gives us the Bread of Life, Himself in the Holy Eucharist ( John 6:32). When the people were dying from the bites of serpents, Moses put up a bronze serpent on a pole so that all who looked on it were healed: the Cross of Jesus saves us from eternal death (John 3:14). Moses had a priesthood, but that of Jesus far surpasses it (Hebrews 8:54). God made a covenant with the people through Moses, promising favor if they would obey (Exodus 19:5); Jesus sealed the New Covenant in the obedience of His own blood (Hebrews 9:11-22).

This does not mean we do not need to do anything, since His sacrifice was infinite. No: St. Paul makes clear many times over that we are saved and made holy only if and to the extent that we are members of Jesus and like Him in all things, e.g., Romans 8:17: "We are heirs together with Christ, provided that we suffer with Him, so we may also be glorified with Him." Moses sealed that Old Covenant with the blood of animals; Jesus sealed the New with His own blood (Hebrews 9:11-22).

David, Royal Ancestor of the Messianic King

For all his greatness, Moses was not the ancestor of Jesus. Our Lord, on the human side, came from the great King David. The genealogies in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke make that clear. St. Paul too in Romans 1:3-4 says that the Gospel is the good news about the Son of God, "who came from the line of David, according to the flesh."

So often in the Gospels we see Jesus called the "son of David" and the "seed of David." At the Annunciation, as we already saw, the Archangel told Our Lady: "The Lord God will give Him the throne of his father David; he shall rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:32-33).

Just as David was the ruler of the kingdom of God on earth, so Jesus is the Head of His visible Kingdom, which is to last forever. The words "Kingdom of God" can vary somewhat in sense in the Gospels, but very often they mean the Church in this world and/or in the next. For example, Jesus told His enemies that "the kingdom of God will be taken from you, and given to a people who will yield a rich harvest." It meant that the fact that they were rejecting Him put them outside the Kingdom of the Messiah, the Church, the People of God (compare Romans 11:13-24, where the tame olive tree stands for the original People of God, which lost so many branches through their lack of faith in the Messiah, while gentiles from the wild olive tree were engrafted into their places). We see the fact that the kingdom often means the Church in the parable of the Mustard seed (Matthew 13:31), in the parable of the net (Matthew 13:47-50), and in many other places. At the end of the world, the angels will separate the wicked from the just, and the wicked will go into hell forever.

Jesus also made clear, especially in Matthew 5:1-12, that the joy of the Kingdom comes even in this world to the poor in spirit, to those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked in His name, and hunger or even suffer for what is righteous.

The earthly kingdom of the Church will continue in the heavenly kingdom (cf. Vatican II, LG # 48). Vatican II also taught (LG #8): "The one Mediator, Christ, established and constantly sustains His one and holy Church as the visible community of faith, hope and love, by which He pours truth and grace upon all.

Jesus is our Way, our Truth, and Our Life (John 14: 5-6). He is the Truth because it is from His teaching that we learn what we need to know to reach Heaven. He entrusted the interpretation and guarding of these truths to His Church, to which He promised divine protection in its teaching.

Jesus is also our Way, since by His example as well as by His teachings, He showed us how we need to live in this world, to attain our eternal goal. We need to follow His rules, the Commandments, and to move also in the direction of the ideals given us in the Eight Beatitudes.

He is our Life, because He gave us the Mass and the seven Sacraments, which feed, nourish, and heal us at every point in our lives. And He gave us His own prayer, the Our Father. Through the Sacraments and prayer we are born again into life, for to those who receive Him "he gave the power to become the sons of God, those who believe in His name, who are not born of blood or of the will of the flesh or of man, but of God (John 1. 12-13).

How to Give Reasons for Our Faith

When we were small, we believed things just because other older people said so. But when we grow up, we should, as St. Peter urged us (1 Peter 3:15),"Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you."

Let us sketch the chief lines of how this is done. We begin with the Gospels, but do not at first look upon them as inspired — we still have to prove that. So for now, we think of them only as ancient documents. We give them many tests, such as we use on other ancient documents. We reach the point where it is clear we can get from them a few simple, uncomplicated facts about Jesus (We mean things not entwined in an ancient culture, things that eyes and ears can pick up so directly and without any need of interpretation that danger of bias is not present). We look and find these six simple things:

1) There was a man called Jesus. 
2) He claimed He was sent from God, as a sort of messenger. 
3) He proved this, by working miracles in situations where there was a tie
   established   between the miracle and His claims (e.g., Mark 2:1-12,
   where He cured the paralytic to   prove He had forgiven the man's sins). 
4) He had an inner circle in the crowds that followed Him, and He spoke
   more to them,    and 
5) told them to continue His work, His teaching. 
6) He promised God would protect their teachings: "He who hears you hears
   me" (Luke 10:16. Cf. Matthew 1:17-18). 

He identifies with them — that is, says He who hears you hears me — not just in the way in which He identifies with the poor. No, He says they are speaking in His place as teachers, not as poor. So, finally, we see in front of us a group or Church, with a commission to teach by a messenger from God, and promised divine protection on that teaching. Then we not only may but should believe its teachings. Among other things, it tells us that this messenger from God was really God, that the ancient documents we used are really inspired, that there is a Pope, and what powers he has. 

PART TWO: The Apostle's Creed

Christ our Truth

For about the first century and a half, the creeds, the professions of faith probably did not always have the same wording. But, as St. Paul tells us in Romans l0:9: "If with your mouth you confess that Jesus is the Lord, and in your heart you believe that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." We need now to fill in an explanation: That word saved has three meanings in Scripture: 

1)rescue from temporal dangers, 
2) entry into the Church, 
3)reaching heaven. 

The foolish mistake some fundamentalist Protestants make, of saying "saved" means being infallibly sure of heaven as a result of just once "taking Christ as your Savior" — this has no scholarly backing at all. It is not found in Scripture. Here in 10:9 saved means entry into the Church by a profession of faith. The first evidence of the use of a fixed formula comes in the questions a candidate for Baptism at Rome was asked, in the early third century (cf. Hippolytus, Tradition of the Apostles 21). With some further fill-ins, this became the standardized wording for a confession of faith in the western churches, the Apostles' Creed. Even if the Apostles did not directly compose it, yet it goes back to the basic truths they preached, in accord with the commission given them by Jesus Himself (Mt 28. 19-20): "Go then and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you."

The Roman Catechism of Pope St. Pius V officially explained this so that Pope John Paul II called the Catechism "a work of the first rank as a summary of Christian teaching.

Our belief in the truths of the Creed is not just an opinion; no, it is a most firm acceptance of these things on the authority of God Himself who has revealed them, so that we will also have confidence in His promises, and obey His commands (cf. St. Paul, Romans 1:5, "the obedience of faith", i.e. the obedience that faith is). That is why Vatican II (On Revelation # 5) tells us that in faith "a person freely commits himself totally to God, giving the full commitment of mind and will to God who reveals, and voluntarily assenting to the revelation He has given."

We know what God has revealed by means of the teachings of the Church Jesus founded, as we saw in part one. If anyone thinks the words of Scripture are self-interpreting, so that he does not need the Church, he has only to look at the yellow pages in the telephone book, and see the countless denominations, all of which claim they know the "obvious" meaning of Scripture. But it was not to these denominations, which did not even exist then, that Jesus promised "He who hears you hears me" (Luke 10:16). They appeared on the scene only centuries after Jesus. If His promises could fail for centuries, we could not trust His promises as all.

The basic revelation of the message of Jesus was completed when the last Apostle died and the New Testament was completed (Cf. Vatican II, On Divine Revelation #4) Any revelation after that time is called "private" to distinguish it. (The word private is used even for a revelation addressed to the whole world, such as Fatima). There is to be no new public revelation until the glorious return of our Lord at the end of time.

His Church teaches in varied ways — at times by a solemn definition, at times by less formal statements. The key point to watch is whether or not the Church presents some truth as to be held definitively. It can do this in rather formal public utterances, or in the day to day teaching given throughout the world, presenting things as definitive (Cf. Vatican II, LG #25). All these teachings are protected by the promises of Christ. At times too the Church teaches in a way that is not definitive. Even then we should not only keep from openly contradicting, but should accept it in our minds, with the understanding that there could be a far-out possibility of a slip. Yet the experience of centuries shows that is much more remote than is our belief that a dish of food we often eat out of a can, is free of the deadly poison of Botulism, even though we do not send all cans to a lab for checking. The divine protection Jesus promised to the Church is so great that if the entire Church, people as well as authorities, has ever accepted something as revealed — even for one period of history — that belief is infallible (Vatican II, LG # 12). If a later generation falls away from that belief, what was once infallibly guaranteed cannot become untrue. We find what God has revealed in both Scripture and Tradition, which both come from the same source, and tend to the same goal. Yet they are not identical. Vatican II, On Divine Revelation # 9, said: " The Church draws her certainty on what is revealed not only from Sacred Scripture."

But we look to the Church for the guaranteed interpretation of both Scripture and Tradition. Vatican II said, On Divine Revelation # 10: "The task of authoritatively interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on [Scripture or Tradition] has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ." So a theologian who would say he must ignore the Church to find the truth is not a Catholic theologian, and his search is apt to end in failure.

First Article of the Creed: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth."

In this article we express our belief in the existence of God. He is a pure spirit, that is, He has no matter at all, and no parts.

We call Him Father, since He is the supreme source of everything, the one "from whom all Fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its name" (Ephesians 3. 16).

We call Him the Creator, since He has made all things , not out of some previously existing material, but simply out of nothing. Now to bring nothing up to any degree of being is an infinite distance, and so we see He has infinite power. By just willing it, He can do all things. So in Genesis 1 He merely spoke and said, "Let light be." And light came into existence. Really, He did not speak in our sense of the word; He merely willed it, and it came into being.

To describe Him we use the word attributes. These are the perfections that He has, which we attribute to Him by comparison with creatures. Some of His attributes belong to Him by His very nature; others belong to Him in relation to the world He made.

The chief attributes that are His by His very nature are His unchangeability and eternity. He is unchangeable. Since He has the fullness of being, He could not change into anything higher or better, or acquire anything: "I, the Lord, do not change", He said through the prophet Malachi (3:6). We call Him eternal not in the sense that there always was time, and in it He always was. No, since He is unchangeable there is no past or future for Him: all is one unchanging present. So when we say that He made the world — a past expression — to His divine mind it registers as present! "Before the mountains were born, before you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are, O God" (Psalm 90:2). There are attributes that follow upon God's relation to this world. He is omnipotent or almighty because "nothing is impossible to God" (Luke 1:37). The book of Sirach 23:20 says: "Before they were made, all things were known to Him." So He is all-knowing, or omniscient. We say He is present everywhere. In Jeremiah 23:24 He said: "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" Yet He is not present in the sense of taking up space, as we do: we say a Spirit is present wherever it causes an effect. He caused all things to come into being, and keeps them in being. Since He rewards good and punishes evil we call Him all-just. St. Paul wrote (Romans 2:6): "He will repay each one according to his works." He guides and directs the paths of all creatures, and hence the First Epistle of Peter 5:7 can say: "Cast all your care upon Him, for He takes care of you". He is all-good since He is the author of everything that is good, and wills eternal good to us. Psalm 136:1, "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good."

Even though everything the Three Persons do outside the Divine nature is done by all Three, yet it is suitable that we attribute some works specially to one or the other Person. So we speak of the Father especially as the power of creation, of the Son as the wisdom of the Father, of the Holy Spirit as goodness and sanctification.

2. The Holy Trinity

Perhaps the deepest, the most profound of all mysteries is the fact that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet we do not speak of three Gods, but only one God. They have the same nature, substance, and being.

We came to know this immense mystery because Christ revealed it to us. Just before ascending He told them: "Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). We know that these Three are not just different ways of looking at one person. For at the Last Supper, Jesus told us: "I came forth from the Father. So He is different from the Father." But He also promised: "If I go, I will send Him [the Paraclete] to you... He will guide you to all truth. (John 16:28, 7, 13). So the Holy Spirit is also different.

Even though the Three Persons are One God, yet they are distinct: for the Father has no origin, He came from no one. But the Son is begotten, He comes from the Father alone. The Holy Spirit comes or proceeds from both the Father and the Son. These different relations of origin tell us there are three distinct Persons, who have one and the same divine nature.

The First Epistle of John (4:8) says, "God is love." Now to love is to will good to another for the other's sake. The Father wills divinity to the Son; Father and Son together will divinity to the Holy Spirit, who is the love of the Father and the Son. This complete self-giving of the Three Persons is the divine model for the love we should have.

It is strictly correct to say that God is love, since if we said that He has love, there would be a duality, two. But He is totally unity. He is identified with each of His attributes. So He is mercy, He is justice, and therefore in some way, mercy and justice are identified in Him. We can see something of this when we notice that if someone goes on sinning, He gradually loses his ability to see spiritual truths: this is justice, but it is also mercy, for the more one understands of the spiritual truths, the greater his responsibility. Similarly, one who makes steady progress spiritually, finds ever-increasing light to understand spiritual things: in a sense this is something earned, is justice; but more basically, it is mercy, for no creature by its own power can generate a claim on God. All He gives is unmerited mercy.

3. Creation and Divine Providence

To create is to make things out of nothing, with no material at all being used. We cannot ask: why did God wait so long before creating the world, because before creation, there is no time. Time is a measure of change on a scale of before and after (Aristotle, Physics 4:11). Therefore when — if we may use that word at all in speaking of eternity — there was no change, there was no time. Time began to be when changing creatures came into being. Time is a restless continuous set of changes. Ahead is a moment we call future — it quickly changes into present — then quickly changes into past. God could have created from all eternity, and the world would have been eternal. For there is no point in eternity (if we may use such a word) at which He did not have the power to create. But Genesis 1:1 tells us, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." And Christ told His Father :"You loved me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24).

St. Irenaeus wrote: "In the beginning God formed Adam, not because He was in need of humans, but so He might have someone to receive His benefits" (Against Heresies 4. 14. 1). So we can say He always loved us, since He always willed us the most basic good, existence. Beyond that, He wills that, "all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). If to will good to another is to love, then this is really love. But when we love, we need a starter, we need to see something good or fine in another. But God began (if we may use that word) to love us when we did not exist. His Son died for us when we were still sinners (Romans 5:6).

When we say that He created for His own glory, we must understand these words the way Vatican I meant them: He made a creature that by its very nature would give glory to God, even though God gains nothing by that glory. (We read this in the acts and decrees of Vatican I, found in Collectio Lacensis , VII. 116). Similarly, He wants us to obey because all goodness says creatures should obey their Creator, and because as St. Irenaeus said, He wanted to have someone to whom to be generous in infinite goodness.

He keeps all things in existence by the same power by which He brought them up out of nothing. "And how, if you had not willed it, could anything continue in being if you did not will it?" (Wisdom 11:25). Our dependence on Him for continued existence is like that of the images on the movie screen dependent on the projector.

His providence watches over and guides everything: "No creature is invisible before Him: all are bare and uncovered to His eyes" (Hebrews 4:13). His wisdom "extends from end to end mightily and governs all well" (Wisdom 8:1).

As we saw from 1 Timothy 2:4, He "wills all to be saved". That will to save us is so great that He did not spare His only Son, but sent Him to a horrible death, to make eternal life open for us (Rom 8:32). Thus He really, "proved His love" (Rom 5:8). For the greater an obstacle the one who loves can get over in trying to bring happiness and well-being to the beloved, the greater the love must be. So He gives His helps, His grace, most abundantly, since the infinite price of redemption (cf. 1 Cor 6. 20; 7:23) paid for an infinite treasury of forgiveness and grace for each individual one, for "He loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). This does not mean that someone could say: Since I have so great an abundance going for me, I can sin greatly most of my life, and pull up short at the end. No, one who sins much becomes spiritually blind, incapable of receiving the graces God so greatly wills to give him.

If we follow up the most basic comparison used by Our Lord Himself in the Gospel we would say: God is our Father. As such, He wants all His children to turn out well. But if someone then throws aside His graces to such an extent that he cannot be saved — becoming blind — then with sorrow the Father must let him be lost. But otherwise, He will save us, not because we earned it, but because He, like any good Father, wants all His children to turn out well. So St. Paul speaks of sinners as not being able to "inherit the kingdom" (1 Cor 6:10; Eph 5:5). When we inherit from our parents, we do not say we earned it: we get it because they are good, not that we are good. But we could have earned to lose that inheritance by being evil. So Paul said in Romans 6:23: "The wages of sin [what we earn] is death; the free gift of God [unearned] is eternal life." As a student once said: "As to salvation, you cannot earn it, but you can blow it." If we live with this attitude and realization, we fulfill what Our Lord called for: "If you do not change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).

The very first grace is normally the grace to pray. Other things then follow. St. Augustine wrote well: "See these things, Lord, mercifully, and free us who now call on you. Free also those who do not yet call on you, so that they may call on you, and you may free them" (Confessions 1:9).

When God decided to create the human race, it was inevitable to give them free will — otherwise it would be something other than the human race. He saw this would give an opening to great evils, but also to very great goods. He decided to as it were buy the package. There is so much evil in the world. Why? Physical evils result from the frailty of creatures, made out of nothing. To stop all of these, God would need to multiply miracles very frequently — but then He would contradict Himself, constantly going beyond the laws of nature which He Himself had established. Moral evils come from the fact that He gave us free will — opening the way, as we said, to great good, and great evil. Again, to prevent these would take miracles of grace constantly, which would be out of order. And it would reduce human freedom also. However, He can and does draw much good out of evil, e.g., evils provide the material for the patience of the just; physical evils give opportunity for much charity. 

4. Angels, Good and Bad

An angel is a pure spirit, that is, an angel has no matter, no body. They are of a nature higher than ours. They are often sent by God for certain duties on this earth, in fact, the word angel means "one who is sent" or "messenger." The oldest references to angels in the Old Testament might leave us wondering if angels are separate beings — or does the phrase "messenger of God" merely means God? (cf. Judges, chapter 6). But in the later part of the Old Testament and in the New Testament it becomes entirely clear that they are distinct creatures. We see this by many references to them in Scripture, e.g., Psalms 148:2; 103: 20-21; Matthew 22:30; Luke 1:26; 2 Peter 2:4; Revelation/Apocalypse 5:11. Each angel is a person, and has a mind and a will like ours.

The angels were not created in heaven, that is, with the vision of God. If they had had that, sin would have been impossible. But God gave the angels some sort of command — we do not know what — and some obeyed, some did not. Those who disobeyed were fixed in evil, and became devils. When we sin, our intelligence is limited by the material part of our intellect, the brain in our heads. For a material brain is much less powerful than the spiritual intelligence our souls have. This means that we seldom see things as fully as possible at once. But an angel has no such limit, and hence sees everything as fully as possible at once. So he cannot go back on his decision, and say: "I see it differently now; I wish I had not done that". The fallen angels, the devils, still keep the great powers natural to a pure spirit. So they can do things that seem like miracles to us.

The good angels are sent to guide and protect us. They too have great powers. Each of us has a guardian angel. This is implied in Scripture and is found in the constant Tradition of the Church. After Peter was delivered from prison by angel, the disciples said in astonishment: "It was his angel" (Acts 12:15).

Our guardian angels are able to put good thoughts into our minds, and to protect us. Psalm 91:11 says: "He will command His angels about you, to guard you in all your ways." In time of temptation they can give us both light and strength. They never stop praying for us, and they present our prayers before God.

Clearly, it is only good sense to venerate our guardian angel, to cultivate their friendship, to thank them, to ask their help. So God said in Exodus 23:20-21: "Behold, I am sending an angel ahead of you, to guard you and bring you to the place I have prepared. Listen to his voice, and do not rebel against him, for my name is in Him, and he will not forgive."

Because of their disobedience, the wicked angels were condemned to eternal punishment. St. Peter, using poetic language, says: "When the angels sinned, God did not spare them, but consigned them to the pit of hell to be kept for the judgment" (2 Peter 2:4).

As we said, the will of the devil is fixed in evil, and so he tries to seduce people, to harm them spiritually, and even to bring them to hell. He wants to lead us from the faithful service of God. First Peter 5:8-9 advises: "Be calm and watch, for your enemy the devil goes about seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, strong in faith, knowing that your brothers all over the world have the same trial."

God permits the devil to do this as a result of His decision to create spiritual beings, having free will. To thwart that regularly would be to contradict His own natural laws. He does draw good out of evil: temptation gives us the opportunity to show our faith and to trust in Him; it give us the chance to grow in virtue by the struggle. And He has given us a powerful counterforce in our Guardian Angels, and the Blessed Mother, and ordinary Saints.

5. Nature and Origin of the Human Race

We are creatures made up of spirit and matter, body and soul. Our spirit is the immaterial soul, which our senses cannot feel. But our faith tells us it is there. So by way of our soul, we have some share in the nature of the angels.

We can see that we have a spiritual soul in this way. Each of us has a concept or idea of dog in general. Our mental dog is not high or low, long or short, sharp-nosed or pug-nosed. If we hired the very best artist, offered him any sum and his choice of mediums: oil paints, carving, casting etc., to make an image of our dog, we would get nothing. For no material can hold this concept. So that in us which holds it is not material, but spiritual. This is all the more obvious in our concepts of goodness, truth, justice etc.

Our soul can exist apart from the body. It will never die, because being spiritual, it has no parts, and so cannot come apart. It will live forever in happiness beyond what we can imagine, or in the reverse, eternal damnation. The Book of Wisdom 3:1-4 says: "The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment will touch them. They seemed to die, to the eyes of foolish people, and their departure was considered evil... but they are in peace. Their hope is full of immortality."

Each human soul is directly created by God Himself, it is not produced by or derived from the parents. The parents produce only the human body, and do even that, only with the help of God's power. The uniting of the soul with the body is called infusion. Modern biology knows that at the moment of conception, when the 23 chromosomes from each parent join, the complete genetic pattern of a unique being is already present. So abortion is gravely sinful.

6. Original sin

God had given to our first parents three levels of gifts: 

1) basic humanity, consisting of a body and soul, with mind and will. Each
   has within it certain natural drives and needs. No one of these is evil in 
   itself, but without the help of some added gift to coordinate them, they tend
   to get out of order, to rebel. 
2)God gave to our first parents an added gift, which is just such a
   coordinating gift, which made it easy to keep each drive in its place. (It is
   sometimes called the gift of integrity). When Adam and Eve sinned, the
   lower flesh began to get out of line, to rebel. Hence Adam felt the need of
   cover; before the fall, he did not feel that, for the flesh was easily docile.
   God gave them also exemption from physical death, which otherwise
   would be natural to a being composed of parts, body and soul, which can
   come apart, and so die.
3) He gave them the life of grace, which made the soul basically capable of
   the vision of God in the life to come.

God clearly intended they should pass on all thee gifts to their children, including us. But they lost all but the basic humanity by sin. Hence they transmit to us only that basic humanity, without the other gifts.

The new baby arrives without the grace God willed it should have. An adult who sins mortally also lacks that grace: hence both can be said to be in the "state of sin", they lack the grace they should have, except that the adult is that way by his own fault, the baby without any fault. John Paul II explained, in a General Audience of October 1, 1986: "... it is evident that original sin in Adam's descendants has not the character of personal guilt. It is the privation of sanctifying grace... ." Privation means the lack of what ought to be there. So when we speak of transmission of original sin, it would be more accurate to speak of non-transmission of sanctifying grace.

When we say or hear that our mind is darkened and will weakened, we mean this only in comparison to what it might have been. Hence John Paul II also said in a General Audience of October 8, 1986: "According to the Church's teaching it is a case of a relative and not an absolute deterioration, not intrinsic to the human faculties... not of a loss of their essential capacities even in relation to the knowledge and love of God." In other words, original sin took our race down only to the essential level, the first level we described. It did not make it positively corrupt, surely not totally corrupt as Martin Luther thought.

Many today think that the human body evolved from lower beings. If they say that this happened without any help from God, it is atheistic evolution. Not only theology rejects that foolish idea, even mere reason rejects it: it supposes that matter could lift itself up and up higher by its shoelaces, as it were, with no outside source for the new higher or added being that turns up each time it rises to become a higher kind of a being.

Pius XII in Humani generis in 1950 told us we may consider as a possible — not as something proved — that God established some natural laws that would bring about this evolution from lower to higher. Even so, He would need to supply the higher being at each point where it would appear, especially the human soul. We would call this theistic evolution, that is evolution involving the power of God at so many points. The scientific evidence for bodily evolution is almost non-existent. "Research News" in Science, November 21, 1980, reported that the majority of 160 scientists at a conference at the Field Museum in Chicago said Darwin was wrong in supposing there had been many intermediate forms between species, e.g., between fish and birds. The fossils do not give one clear case of that. So the scientists decided on "Punctuated equilibria", the theory that a species might stay the same for millions of years, and then suddenly by a fluke leap up into something higher. No solid proof was reported as offered at the meeting.

As we mentioned briefly earlier, Science News, August 13, 1983, reported that Allan Wilson, of the University of California, Berkeley, said his study of specimens of mitochrondrial DNA from all over the world, showed all existing humans come from one mother, who lived 350,000 years ago. More recent studies by many scientists agree that there was only one mother, but lower the age to 200,000 years (cf. Newsweek, January 11, 1988).

Through the narrative of the forbidden fruit, the Sacred author tells us that God gave our first parents some kind of command, whether it was about a tree or something else. Whatever it was, they violated His orders, and fell from His favor, losing sanctifying grace. (Here we need to keep in mind what is said in the chapter on Scripture in general on genre, patterns of writing).

As we said, since our first parents sinned, they did not transmit sanctifying grace to us. There is, of course, the exception of Jesus and Mary, who were conceived with that grace. Without it, the soul is not capable of the vision of God in heaven.

Right after the fall, God promised to send a Redeemer. God said to the serpent in Genesis 3:15: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her descendants and yours. He will strike at your head, you will strike at his heel." About this text Vatican II said (LG # 55): "These early documents [meaning chiefly Genesis 3:15, and Isaiah 7:14), as they are read in the Church, and understood in the light of later and full revelation, gradually bring to light the figure of the woman the Mother of the Redeemer." We notice the careful language. The council said the Church now sees Our Lady in this text, but only with the help of later revelation, which gradually made it clear. It did not want to say that the original human writer of Genesis saw all this — we do not know if he did. 

PART THREE: The Apostles' Creed II - V

Second Article: "Jesus Christ His Only Son, Our Lord"

1. The Incarnation

This article teaches that Jesus is the Redeemer promised to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15, the only Son of God, and by that very fact, Lord of all Creation. He is the second Person of the Holy Trinity, sent to the world by the Father to become man and save us from our sins. So St. Peter said in Matthew 15:16: "You are the Christ, the son of the Living God". The name Jesus means Savior, as we see from Matthew 1:2. The name Christ means the Anointed one (cf. Acts 10:38).

We can easily see He was not the same as other great religious teachers. He not only worked miracles that could be authenticated, but worked them in contexts such that there was a tie established between the miracle and the claim, as we see in the healing of the paralytic in Mark 2. He foretold His own resurrection; He lived a life of such holiness that He could challenge people: "Which of you can convict me of sin?" (John 8:46). Hardly anyone else would dare to give such a challenge! His teaching rested not on human reasoning but on the divine authority which He claimed, e.g., when He said several times over: "You have heard it was said to them of old... but I say to you" (Matthew 5:27-44). He inspired His followers to follow Him even to dreadful deaths. If someone objects: other religions have had martyrs too — correct. But not one of them can provide the solid support of data that we can, as shown in our sketch of apologetics in part one. He founded a Church whose doctrine can and does develop in the same line, that is, without reversing any previous teaching, over all centuries. He made clear this was the divinely given means of getting peace in this life and eternal salvation in the world to come.

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" wrote St. John (1:14). So the Second Person of the Holy Trinity assumed human nature, He who "In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1)

He became man to redeem us from sin, that is, to pay the debt of our sins, as Leo the Great said (Letter to Flavian, June 13, 449). We read in the Epistle to the Ephesians (2:4-5): "God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive again together with Christ."

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 brought to the climax the long debates about the make-up of Jesus: He is one Person, a Divine Person, having two natures, divine and human, in such a way that these two natures remain distinct after the union in the one Person. We call this union "hypostatic union" from the Greek "hypostasis" which means person — two natures joined in one Person. His human nature is the same as ours except that He was without sin, even though He was tempted as we are (Hebrews 4:15). However, this does not mean that He had within Him disorderly passions. The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 defined this truth against "impious Theodore of Mopsuestia".

His divine nature is the same as that of the Father. The Council of Nicea in 325 defined that He is "one in substance [homoousios] with the Father".

The Church has repeatedly taught, e. g, in the Encyclicals of Pius XII on the Mystical body and on the Sacred Heart, that from the first instant of His conception, Jesus' human mind had the vision of God, in which all knowledge is available. This was reaffirmed at least implicitly in the Encyclical Sempiternus Rex of Pius XII, and in the Letter of the Holy Office under Paul VI, of July 24, 1966 which complained: "There creeps forth a certain Christological humanism in which Christ is reduced to the condition of a mere man, who gradually acquired consciousness of His divine sonship." Pius XII in his Encyclical, Humani generis, in 1950, pointed out that "if the Popes in their Acta pass judgment on a matter thus far debated, it is clear to all that according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, the question cannot be considered any more open to free discussion among theologians." He added that these statements come under the promise of Christ, "He who hears you, hears me" (Luke 10:16). Of course, that promise cannot fail.

Really, theological reasoning even without the help of the Church can reach the same conclusion thus: Any soul has the vision of God if, besides grace, the divinity joins itself directly to the human mind, without even an image in between (no image could represent God). Now since Jesus has a true humanity but it is joined to the divinity in such a way that there is only one Person (the hypostatic union), it is obvious that His human soul and mind was joined to the divinity directly, even more closely than an ordinary soul is joined in the vision, in which the soul remains one person, while God is a different Person. But in Jesus there was only one Person. So He not only happened to have the vision: it could not have been otherwise.

What of the words of Luke 2:51 that He advanced in wisdom? St. Athanasius in the 4th century found the answer. In his Third Oration Against the Arians he said: "Gradually as the body grew and the Word manifested itself in it, He is acknowledged first by Peter, then by all." In other words: There was no real growth in wisdom, only a growth in manifestation. If at age 3 for example He had shown His full wisdom, it would have been overwhelming. Rather, He chose a gradual self-revelation. Only late in His public life did he say such things as, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) and, "Before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:57). As to His saying that even the Son did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), Pope Gregory the Great gave us the answer in his Epistle to Eulogius: "... in the nature of His humanity He knew the day... but not from the nature of humanity did He know it." That is, it registered on His human mind, but His humanity was not the source of that knowledge.

Finally , Plato, the great Greek philosopher, in his Symposium 203, wrote: "No god associates with men". Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics 8.7 wrote that friendship of a god with a man is impossible, the distance is too great. What would they have thought had they learned that God actually became man, and even, that He willed for our sake to submit to a horrible and shameful death? In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 21:23 says: "Cursed be everyone who hangs on the wood". No wonder St. Paul told the Corinthians (I. 1:23) that the doctrine of the cross is folly to the Greeks, and a scandal to the Jews!

Third Article: "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary"

1. The Blessed Virgin Mary: Her Privileges and Relation to Christ and His Church

According to a late tradition, the parents of Our Lady were St. Joachim and St. Anne, natives of Bethlehem who lived in Nazareth.

Her most fundamental privilege is that of being the Mother of God. We do not mean she produced the divine nature, of course. But her Son is God, so she is the Mother of God. Similarly, Mrs. Jones shares only in the production of the body of her son John, not at all in the making of his soul. Yet we do not say she is mother of the body of John Jones, but of John Jones, the person. Pius XI quoted St. Thomas Aquinas with approval in saying that "From the fact that she is the Mother of God, she has a sort of infinite dignity from the infinite good that God is. (Lux veritatis, Dec. 25, 1931, citing Summa I. 25. 6. ad 4).

She conceived her son by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). The Archangel first told her that her Son was to be the Son of the Most High. However, any devout Jew could be called a son of God. But there was more: the angel told her He would reign over the house of Jacob forever: right then she would know He was to be the Messiah, for Jews then commonly believed the Messiah would reign forever. Finally, the angel said He would be conceived when the Holy Spirit would "overshadow" her. That word, she would know, was the one use to describe the Divine Presence filling the ancient Tabernacle in the desert (Exodus 40:35). Her Son was to be called Son of God "for this reason". So that He was the Son of God in a unique sense. From this alone she likely knew of His divinity, especially when she would add the words of Isaiah 9. 5-6 that the Messiah would be "God the Mighty". Even though the Jews found that text hard, she, full of grace, would readily grasp it.

So this was a virginal conception, that is, without the intervention of a man. Both Matthew and Luke make this clear. If we believe the Gospels, we will understand that readily. The teaching of the Church, already in the oldest creeds which call her "ever-virgin" tells us she remained a virgin during and after His birth. Some have tried to say the teaching on her virginity was not physical, but just a way of expressing her holiness. But it is more than that: Vatican II (LG # 57) wrote that His birth "did not diminish, but consecrated her virginal integrity." That word "integrity" refers to physical condition.

Therefore when the Gospels speak of the "brothers and sisters" of Jesus, they do not mean other children of Mary. The Hebrew words were very broad, could cover any sort of relationship. For that matter, modern English uses these words even more broadly for members of fraternities and sororities.

As a result of this Divine Motherhood, because it was fitting for Her Son, she obtained the great grace of the Immaculate Conception, defined by Pius IX in 1854. This means that from the first instant of conception her soul had sanctifying grace, in anticipation of the future merits of her Son.

Vatican II, Pope John Paul II and others understand the Greek of Luke 1:28, kecharitomene, to mean "full of grace". The Greek perfect participle is very strong, the root verb means to put someone in the state of grace/favor. And especially, the word is used instead of her name. This is like saying someone is Mr. Tennis — the ultimate in tennis. So she is Miss Grace, the ultimate in grace. Pius IX, in defining the Immaculate Conception, said that even at the start, her holiness was so great that "none greater under God can be thought of, and no one but God can comprehend it"! One of the oldest teachings of the Church is that she is the New Eve: just as the first Eve really contributed to the disaster of original sin, so Mary the New Eve really contributed to removing it, that is, to redeeming us. Every Pope since Leo XIII, and Vatican II, in seventeen documents have said that her role in redeeming us extends even to a part in the great sacrifice of Calvary itself! It is a general principle, that if something is taught repeatedly by the Church, even on a level less than a definition, the teaching is infallible.

Vatican II, echoing earlier papal teaching, tells us that at the cross she was asked even to "consent" to the death of her Son (LG # 58). Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical, The Mother of the Redeemer, set out to further deepen that teaching (as he tells us in his Guardian of the Redeemer [on St. Joseph]). He showed that this was the "deepest self-emptying in history" for her and her Son. That she in it practiced "the obedience of faith". Now since all perfection lies in positively willing what God wills whenever we know His positive will, she was called on to positively will that He die, die so horribly. All this in spite of a love so great that "only God can comprehend it" — for Pius IX had said, as we saw above that her holiness was that great even at the start. But holiness and love of God are interchangeable words. So her suffering was such that "no one but God could comprehend it." As we would expect, having shared at immense cost in earning all graces, she shares similarly in distributing all of them as Mediatrix of all graces. This truth too has been taught numerous times by a long series of Popes, everyone from Leo XIII through John XXIII.

Pius XII, in defining the Assumption, explained that "Just as the glorious resurrection of Christ was an essential part and final sign of this victory [over sin and death by Calvary] so that struggle [Calvary] which was common to the Blessed Virgin and her Son, had to be closed by the glorification of her virginal body". That is, the struggle, a work common to the two was a common cause. It brought Him glorification; it had to bring the same to her. (In all this it is understood she is subordinate to Him, and really depends on Him for all her ability to do anything at all).

As a result, just as He is now King of the Universe, she is Queen of the Universe. "And her kingdom is as vast as that of her Son and God, since nothing is excluded from her dominion" (Pius XII, Bendito seia, May 13, 1946).

Chapter 8 of the Vatican II Constitution on the Church is entirely on her. In it the Council goes through in detail her association with Him. She is eternally joined with Him in the eternal decree for the Incarnation. She will remain eternally joined to Him as Queen in His Kingdom. And the council went through in detail every one of the mysteries of His life and death, showing in each case her close association with Him. The place the Father gave her is really all-pervading, in His approach to us. In writing this, Vatican II wrote more extensively about her, went farther theologically than all previous Councils combined! In spite of talk that it downgraded her, it was the opposite. Vatican II could really be called the Marian Council.

On the floor of the Council, Paul VI declared her Mother of the Church. This was not entirely new. Pius XII, in a message to the Marian Congress of Ottawa, Canada, on July 19, 1947 said: "When the little maid of Nazareth uttered her fiat to the message of the angel... she became not only the Mother of God in the physical order of nature, but also in the supernatural order of grace, she became the Mother of all, who... would be made one under the Headship of her Son. The Mother of the Head would be the Mother of the members."

Fourth Article: "Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried"

When Jesus died, His body and soul were separated, for that is what death means. They remained separated until the Resurrection, but His divinity remained united to both His body and His soul.

How did His death produce the effect of Redemption? Sinners had, as it were, taken from one pan of a two-pan scale — an image to represent the moral order — what they had no right to take. The Holiness of the Father, loving all that is morally right, wanted the scales of the moral order righted, wanted the debt to be paid. Further, the imbalance was infinite, so that only a divine Person incarnate could rectify it, by giving up satisfactions He could have lawfully had, and by suffering things He did not owe. Pope Paul VI wrote (Constitution on Indulgences, Jan 9, 1967): 

It is necessary... for the full remission and... reparation of sins, not only that friendship with God be reestablished... and amends be made for the offense against His wisdom and goodness, but also that all the personal as well as social values, and those of the universal order, diminished or destroyed by sin, be fully restored, ... through voluntary reparation... . Indeed Christ, 'who committed no sin, ' suffered for us, 'was wounded for our iniquities, bruised for our sins... . by His bruises we are healed. ' Thus there was established as it were a treasury of 'the infinite and inexhaustible value the expiation and the merits of Christ our Lord have before God.

We willed to suffer so much also "to draw all things to Himself" (John 12:32) by proving (cf. Romans 5:8) the immense love of His Heart, which went to such lengths to make eternal happiness open to all.

Further, since as St. Paul tells us (cf. Romans 8:17), we are saved and sanctified to the extent that we are not only members of Christ, but are like Him, therefore we too must share in this work of reparation. Jesus wanted to draw us to imitate Him in His work of satisfaction.

So we might join with Him, He commanded "Do this in memory of me." So it is precisely in the Mass that we bring our offering of whatever obedience to the Father we have carried out since the last Mass, and we present too our penance of reparation, to be joined with the obedience and reparation of Jesus and His Mother at the double consecration, when He Himself, using a human priest to carry out the same dramatic sign He used in the Upper Room, presents again His willingness to obey the Father, to make reparation for sin. We might note: Even though in the U. S. we have a dispensation from Friday abstinence, the Church cannot dispense us from this obligation of penance, in union with the sufferings of Jesus and His most holy Mother.

Fifth Article: "He descended into hell, the third day He rose again from the dead"

1. Christ's Descent into Limbo and His Resurrection

After His death, the soul of Jesus, still united to the divinity, descended into the realm of the dead, which the Creed calls "hell", in the old English usage. It does not mean at all the hell of the damned. He visited what is called the Limbo of the Fathers. For the just, who had died in the state of grace, and had paid all the debt of their sins, were still not admitted to the vision of God until Jesus had died.

When a soul reaches the vision of God, by that vision, it knows all that pertains to it on earth. But without that vision, it would not know any of these things, unless God might decide to give a special revelation. Of course, then, the afterlife was very different then from what it is now. So we can understand some otherwise strange texts in the Old Testament. Job 7. 9-10 says that the dead one "does not return to his house." Of course not, the resurrection will be not a return to the present mode of life. Psalm 6:6 asks "who in Sheol can praise you?" Sheol is the realm of the dead. The Psalmist is thinking of the grand liturgical praise of God, which the Hebrews really loved. That liturgical praise of course is not found in Sheol. In Isaiah 38:19 we read that "those who go down to the pit cannot hope for God's fidelity." The "fidelity" means God's faithful keeping of His covenant promises. Those in Sheol cannot appeal to the covenant. Qoheleth 9:10 says there is no work in Sheol — of course not. It says there is no knowledge — that is, of what goes on on earth. Jesus came to take them out of that drab and dull place. Then there was fulfilled what St. Paul wrote in Philippians 2:9-10: "God exalted Him and gave to Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth." This can also refer to the power of Jesus over satan. The passage is poetic, and so need not mean that Sheol is under the earth.

Jesus rose from the dead, as He had foretold in John 2:19-22, and elsewhere. Sometimes Scripture says He rose, that is, by His own power. In as much as He is God, this is true. It also says the Father raised Him: this is true, thinking of His human nature.

So many witnesses saw Him after this resurrection, for example we have an enumeration of them in First Corinthians 15:5-8.

How can we arrange in plausible order the events after His resurrection? In more than one way, e.g., : 

1) Magdalen and other women come to the tomb at dawn, and see it is
   empty, 
2) In excitement she or they run to the Apostles (Matthew here, between
   20:8 &9, omits the visit of Peter and John, our item 3), 
3) Peter and John do not believe but do run to the tomb, and see it empty.
   They do not see Jesus, 
4) Peter and John leave, Magdalen then sees Him, takes Him for the
   gardener; He makes himself known, 
5) Jesus appears to Peter, 
6) He appears to two men on road to Emmaus, 
7) They go back to the Apostles, hear Peter had seen Him, 
8) He appears to the Eleven, gives them the power to forgive sins. 
9) Thomas was absent, Jesus comes again, 
10) Further appearances at Lake of Galilee.

PART FOUR: The Apostles' Creed VI - VIII

Sixth Article: "He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty"

1. The Ascension of Christ and His Glorified Existence

After 40 days He ascended. During this period, He actually gave the primacy He had promised to Peter, as we read in John 21. The many events between His resurrection and ascension preclude the theory that He ascended on Easter. His ascension does not mean that heaven is somewhere up in space. This was a way of making clear that He was leaving the present mode of existence. St. Paul in Colossians 3:1 urges us to live our lives now as if we had already died, had risen, and had ascended with Him. In a mystical sense we have done that, in that our Head has done that. In the physical sense it is still in the future.

He ascended to receive the glory of the conqueror of sin and death (Philippians 2:8-11); to be our Mediator and advocate with the Father (Hebrews 9:24); to send the Holy Spirit as He had promised at the Last Supper (John 16:7); and to prepare a place for us as He also promised (John 14:2).

Now He is seated at the Father's right, which means He has had as He said "all power given to Him in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). He always had that power as God, but now exercises it as man, as King of the Universe, with His Mother beside Him as Queen of the Universe.

As God He is everywhere, but not as man, though He is present most widely in the Holy Eucharist even as man.

Besides this real bodily presence, there are other lesser forms of presence. Vatican II explained the various forms of presence, in the Constitution on the Liturgy , # 7: 

Christ is always present to His Church, especially in liturgical actions. He is present in the Sacrifice of the Mass in the person of the priest, 'He is the same one, now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the Cross [citing the Council of Trent].' But He is most greatly present under the Eucharistic species. He is present by His power in the Sacraments, so that when anyone baptizes, Christ Himself baptizes. He is present in His word, for He speaks when the Sacred Scriptures are read in the Church. He is present, finally, when the Church prays and sings the Psalms, He who promised 'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst.'(Matthew 18:20)

Seventh Article: "From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead"

1. General and Particular Judgment

Jesus will come at the end of time to judge all human beings. This is called the parousia, His second coming. It was foretold by the angels as He ascended: "This Jesus who is taken up from you to heaven, will come in the way in which you saw Him going into heaven" (Acts 1:11).

There are two judgments for each one of us. At once after death we will be judged on our life. The Epistle to the Hebrews says (9:27): " It is appointed to men to die once, and after that comes the judgment". Then. "Each one will receive his pay, according to his works" (1 Cor 3:8).

The general judgment at the end of time simply solemnly confirms the particular judgments of each one, with the difference that then the body as well as the soul will receive what is due it. And all God's judgments will be revealed as most just.

We do not know what form it will take. In Matthew 25:31-46 we read a picture of that judgment, with the good on the right of the Judge, the wicked on the left. We know there will be such a judgement, but its precise form we do not know, for there is no place on the globe where all men of all centuries could stand before the Judge. It will however certainly give the solemn sentence, and will, as we said, reveal to each one the justice of all the judgments of God. God can reveal this interiorly by one touch as it were, as He does at times in Interior Locutions, which can convey any amount of knowledge at one stroke.

2. Eternal Punishment

There can be no change of heart towards God, for or against His will, after death. Hence hell and heaven must both be without end.

The chief suffering of hell is the loss of God. In this life, we can go comfortably without thinking of Him. But then it will be different. For one thing, our senses now keep telling us this world and this life are the only important things. Then that din of the senses will be gone. But more especially, when we cross into the next life, as it were, the light goes on. In this life, our intelligence has two components, the spirit intellect that is proper to the spiritual soul, which is tied to the marvelous, but yet material instrument in our heads. The latter limits us greatly. But at death, that limit is gone. Then even if the soul does not at once see God, it carries with it the information on Him, but then really understands, and wants Him intensely. To lose Him forever, or to be in a twisted state of wanting Him, yet in revolt against Him — this is the chief pain of hell. Scripture often speaks of fire in hell. On May 17, 1979, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explained: "She [the Church] believes that there will be eternal punishment for the sinner, who will be deprived of the sight of God, and that this punishment will have a repercussion on the whole being of the sinner." This will be, then a bodily pain. The imagery of fire means it will be a suffering as intense as that caused by earthly fire.

Of course, those who have sinned more will suffer more. But for all, there is no end to suffering and despair.

3. Purgatory

Mere reason suggests there must be a Purgatory. So many people seem to be good, but not so greatly good that they should be fit for heaven at once. Again, not nearly all are so evil as to deserve hell. So there should be a means of purification and paying the debt of temporal punishment for those not fit for hell, nor for heaven at once. (Of course Luther would say we can sin all we want and still go to heaven at once, if only we believe it is all covered by Christ's merits: Epistle 501 to Melanchthon).

There is not much in Scripture on Purgatory except that in Second Maccabees 12:45 Judas sends a collection to the Temple for those fallen in battle, found with amulets on, "that they might be freed from this sin." Luther saw so clearly that this referred to Purgatory — which he rejected — that he rejected this book too, declaring it not part of Scripture. Some have tried to see an implication of Purgatory in Matthew 12:32. There Jesus speaks of the sin against the Holy Spirit that will be forgiven "neither in this world nor in the next." But the expression quoted is known in Rabbinic literature, where it means merely "never". Still less could we deduce purgatory from First Corinthians 3:11-15. Paul means if the work of some Christian worker has been of such low quality that it burns down, he himself will be saved "as through fire." But the fire seems to mean the apocalyptic fire of the last day, not a fire of purgatory. But our belief in Purgatory rests on the definitions of the Church, at the Councils of Lyons II, Florence, and Trent.

The essential, perhaps the only suffering of Purgatory is the loss of God — it is like what we described in speaking of hell, except that in Purgatory there is no despair, rather, great consolation from assurance of salvation. Is there also something like fire in Purgatory? A host of private apparitions say there is; the Church has never pronounced on it. In fact the Eastern part of the Catholic Church has no such tradition. Many theologians say the suffering is greater than anything on earth. Neither Scripture nor Tradition tells us if that be so. We do know that the souls there cannot merit or help themselves in any way anymore, they can only suffer. We know we can by prayers and penances relieve them, and somehow, they are enabled to know it when we do that, and they pray for us. How long should we pray and sacrifice for a particular soul? We do not know. St. Augustine in his Confessions (9:13), written 10 to 15 years after the death of his mother, St. Monica, still asked for prayers for her. If we can believe the private apparitions, Purgatory may last the equivalent of many years (we speak thus, for there is no time in Purgatory). For certain, it is terribly wrong to virtually canonize a person at the funeral, as Protestants do under the influence of Luther's sad mistake. Sadly not a few Catholics are imitating them.

Eighth Article: "I believe in the Holy Spirit"

1. The Holy Spirit in the Trinity and His Mission in the World.

We already said the most essential things about the Holy Spirit in explaining Article One. Let us add a few things here.

He makes holy the souls of the just by His presence. But a Spirit is not present in the sense of taking up space. We say a Spirit is present wherever it causes an effect. In the soul, the Holy Spirit transforms it, making it basically capable of taking in, after death, the infinite streams of knowledge and love that flow within the Holy Trinity. Thus we are really "sharers in the divine nature" ( 2 Peter 1:4). This is a dignity so great that any earthly honor is insignificant besides it.

He comes with his Seven Gifts. These make the soul capable of taking in the special lights and inspirations He sends in a much higher way than what is had in ordinary graces. We do not notice much of any effects from these Gifts until we have advanced rather far in the spiritual life, for great docility and purity of heart are needed.

On Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down visibly on the Apostles. He gave them the power to speak in strange tongues to the crowds that came to Jerusalem for that Feast. He also transformed them, from selfish and timid men into giants of courage and faith.

PART FIVE: The Apostles' Creed IX - XII

Ninth Article: "The Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of Saints"

1. The Mystical Body of Christ

Speaking of full membership in the Church, Pius XII, in his Encyclical on the Mystical Body, said it is the society of those who have been baptized, and who profess the faith of Christ, and who are governed by their bishops under the visible head, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome.

The Church came into being when Christ died on the Cross, but it was formally inaugurated on Pentecost, when He sent the Holy Spirit as He had promised. St. Paul speaks of all Christians as members of Christ, so that with Him, they form one Mystical Body (Cf. 1 Cor 12:12-31; Col 1:18; 2:18- 20; Eph. 1:22-23; 3:19; 4:13). St. Paul did not use the word Mystical. It was developed more recently to bring out the fact that this union is unique, there is no parallel to it. It is not the same as the union of a physical body, nor that of a business corporation.

The Church, the Mystical Body, exists on this earth, and is called the Church militant, because its members struggle against the world, the flesh and the devil. The Church suffering means the souls in Purgatory. The Church triumphant is the Church in heaven. The unity and cooperation of the members of the Church on earth, in Purgatory, in Heaven is also called the Communion of Saints. When St. Paul uses the word "Saints" in opening an Epistle, he does not mean they are morally perfect. He has in mind Hebrew qadosh , which means set aside for God, or coming under the covenant. Being such means of course they are called to moral perfection. But of course, not all have reached it in this world.

The word Saint in the modern sense means someone who has been canonized by the Church in recent times, or was accepted as such by the Church in earlier times. If a person is shown to have practiced heroic virtue — beyond what people in general do — in all virtues, the title Venerable is given; with two miracles by that one's intercession, the title is Blessed; two more miracles can lead to canonization and the title of Saint. 2. The Marks of the Church

We often speak of the four marks of the Church: one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic. We do not mean that these are distinctive enough to prove the Catholic Church is the only Church of Christ. But they do help.

Christ established only one Church. "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5). Presently we will speak of the relation of members of other churches to the Catholic Church.

We say the Church is holy, not in the sense that all members are holy — far from it. But her Founder gave it all the needed means to make people holy. The Church is Catholic because it is universal: "God wills all to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). It aims to take in all persons, in fulfillment of the command of Christ in Matthew 28:19.

We say the Church is apostolic because it goes back to the Twelve Apostles chosen by Christ Himself. The Pope and Bishops have their authority in succession from the Apostles. The Pope is the visible Head as Vicar of Christ, Christ is the invisible Head. We know Christ intended His Church to last until the end of time, because He explicitly said: "Behold, I am with you all days until the consummation of the world" (Matthew 28:20). Again, many of His parables make this clear, such as the parable of the net in which the good will be separated from the evil at the end, or the parable of the weeds in the wheat, with the same idea.

There can be, and are, bishops validly ordained who are not in union with the Pope. These are called schismatics, and lose many graces by their rejection of the Head of the Church.

Vatican II taught that just as Peter and the Apostles formed a sort of college, with Peter as the head, so in a somewhat similar way, the Pope and the Bishops also form a college (LG chapter 3). This relationship is called collegiality. However Vatican II also taught in that same chapter that the Pope can even, if he so wishes, give a solemn definition of doctrine without consulting the Bishops, and that He has immediate authority over everyone in the Church, including each Bishop.

The Church is also called the People of God, that is, those who come under the new and eternal Covenant (cf. Exodus 19:5; Jeremiah 31:31-33). St. Paul in Romans 11:17-18 pictures Christians of his day — and so also today — as being engrafted into the tame olive tree, which stands for the original People of God, into places left empty by the fallen branches, Jews who rejected Christ. 

3. Teaching Authority and Infallibility

By the Magisterium we mean the teaching office of the Church. It consists of the Pope and Bishops. Christ promised to protect the teaching of the Church : "He who hears you, hears me; he who rejects your rejects me, he who rejects me, rejects Him who sent me" (Luke 10. 16). Now of course the promise of Christ cannot fail: hence when the Church presents some doctrine as definitive or final, it comes under this protection, it cannot be in error; in other words, it is infallible. This is true even if the Church does not use the solemn ceremony of definition. The day to day teaching of the Church throughout the world, when the Bishops are in union with each other and with the Pope, and present something as definitive, this is infallible. (Vatican II, LG # 25). It was precisely by the use of that authority that Vatican I was able to define that the Pope alone, when speaking as such and making things definitive, is also infallible. Of course this infallibility covers also teaching on what morality requires, for that is needed for salvation.

A "theologian" who would claim he needs to be able to ignore the Magisterium in order to find the truth is strangely perverse: the teaching of the Magisterium is the prime, God-given means of finding the truth. Nor could he claim academic freedom lets him contradict the Church. In any field of knowledge, academic freedom belongs only to a properly qualified professor teaching in his own field. But one is not properly qualified if he does not use the correct method of working in his field, e.g., a science professor who would want to go back to medieval methods would be laughed off campus, not protected. Now in Catholic theology , the correct method is to study the sources of revelation, but then give the final word to the Church. He who does not follow that method is not a qualified Catholic theologian. Vatican II taught (On Revelation # 10): "The task of authoritatively interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on [Scripture or Tradition], has been entrusted exclusively to the living Magisterium of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ."

3. No Salvation Outside the Church

The Church is sometimes called the universal sacrament of salvation. That use of the word sacrament is broad, not strict. It is true in as much as the Church is the divinely instituted means of giving grace to all. But the Church is not a visible rite — it rather confers these visible rites which we call the seven Sacraments. From the fact that the Church is God's means of giving grace, is it is clear that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. This truth has even been defined by the Church more than once, e.g., in the Council of Florence in 1442. However we must take care to understand this teaching the way the Church understands it. We just saw that the Church claims the exclusive authority to interpret both Scripture and Tradition. So one like Leonard Feeney who interprets the teaching on the necessity of the Church his own way is not acting like a Catholic theologian at all. The Holy Office, on August 8, 1949, declared that L. Feeney was guilty of this error. Because of his error, he rejected several teachings of the Magisterium, saying they clashed with this definition — but they clash only with his false interpretation, given in private judgment. Pius IX (Quanto conficiamur moerore, August 10, 1863) taught: "God... in His supreme goodness and clemency, by no means allows anyone to be punished with eternal punishments who does not have the guilt of voluntary fault." Vatican II (LG # 16) taught the same: "They who without their own fault do not know of the Gospel of Christ and His Church, but yet seek God with sincere heart, and try, under the influence of grace, to carry out His will in practice, known to them through the dictate of conscience, can attain eternal salvation." Pius XII had said (Encyclical On the Mystical Body) that one can "be related to the Church by a certain desire and wish of which he is not aware", i.e., by the desire to do what God wills in general.

Precisely how does this work out? We saw on our very first page that St. Paul insists (Romans 3:29) that God makes provision in some way for all. We saw that one of the earliest Fathers, St. Justin Martyr (Apology 1:46) said that some, like Socrates could even be Christians because they followed the divine Word. Now St. Justin also said that the Divine Word is in the hearts of all. Then we notice in St. Paul's Romans 2:14-16 that

"The gentiles who do not have the law [revealed religion] do by nature the things of the law; they show the work of the law written on their hearts." And according to their response, they will or will not be saved. Clearly, it is this Divine Word, or the Spirit of Christ, the Divine Word, that writes the law on their hearts, i.e., makes known to them what they should do. If they follow that, although they do not know that that is what they are following, yet objectively, they do follow the Logos, the divine Word. And so St. Justin was right in calling them Christians. We can add that St. Paul in Romans 8:9 makes clear that if one has and follows the Spirit of Christ, he "belongs to Christ." But, to belong to Christ is the same as being a member of Christ, and that is the same as being a member of the Church. Not indeed by formal adherence, but yet substantially, enough to satisfy the requirement of substantial membership. Indeed, Vatican II even wrote (LG # 49): "All who belong to Christ, having His Spirit, coalesce into one Church."

So, St. Paul was right: God does take care of them; St. Justin was right too: they can be Christians without knowing it. Otherwise, God would be sending millions upon millions to hell without giving them any chance at all, if they lived far from places where the Church was known, e.g., in the western hemisphere before 1492.

That fact that salvation is possible in this way does not mean that there should be no missions or attempts to bring back the Protestants. Richer and more secure means of salvation are to be had with formal explicit adherence to the Catholic Church. Therefore we need to make every effort. In regard to Ecumenism, it is good to keep in mind a rule from Vatican II, in its Decree on Ecumenism (# 11): "It is altogether necessary that the complete doctrine be clearly presented. Nothing is so foreign to true Ecumenism as that false peace-making in which the purity of Catholic doctrine suffers loss, and its true and certain sense is obscured."

4. The Church and the State

The Church is of divine origin. The state is of human origin, it is necessary to provide things for human needs that are such that individuals each alone cannot obtain them, e.g., a system of courts, police, fire dept. etc.

Since it was established by the Divine Redeemer, the authority of the Church is higher than that of the state. We should obey all legitimate orders of the state. We may and must disobey immoral commands or laws contrary to those of God and the Church.

In Romans 13:1-2 St. Paul says: "Let every person be subject to higher authorities. For there is no authority except from God. Those that exist, are put in place by God. So one who resists, resists the ordinance of God."

There are chiefly three kinds of governments: monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutional government, according to Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics 8:10. Each is good if it promotes the common good. But if those with power use it for their own selfish ends, it is evil. God is willing to accept any of these, if it promotes the common good. He does not specify how those in power are to be chosen. But, once they are chosen, the power comes from Him, not from the people, as St. Paul made clear in the verses we cited above. St. Paul even says the state has the right of capital punishment, in Romans 13:4: "It [the authority] is a minister of God for good to you. But if you do evil, be afraid. For not without reason does he carry the sword. For he is the minister of God and agent of [God's] wrath on evildoers." In the Roman situation, the right to carry the sword meant the right of capital punishment. So we may not say it is immoral or unchristian. We may only, if we wish, debate if it is an effective deterrent.

It is important to notice that three things are needed to make a democracy function as it should: 

1) All who have the right to vote should use it , but only, 
2) if they are well informed on the issues (otherwise they may be voting for
   evil), and, 
3) they must vote for the common good, not just for the advantage of their
   own group.

Vatican II (On Religious Liberty) taught that all have religious freedom. This does not mean they have a right to be wrong: God gives no one a claim to be wrong. They have a claim not to be jailed, executed etc. for their beliefs. They may hold and follow them in private and in public, alone and in groups, "within due limits." However, Vatican II further specifies (On Religious Liberty ## 4 and 7) that the state must exercise "due custody for public morality" and that non-Catholic churches must abstain from anything that involves "improper persuasion aimed at the less intelligent or the poor."

Vatican II also taught that public authority must see to it, as a matter of justice, that public funds for education are given in such a way that parents are really free to follow their consciences in choosing schools (On Christian Education #6). For parents are the primary educators of their children.

Tenth Article "The forgiveness of sins"

This forgiveness was won for us through the sacrifice of Calvary. It is dispensed through the Church, though even without the Sacraments, God will forgive one who is truly repentant, i.e., sorry for sinning because God is good not just to us, but in Himself.

Eleventh Article: "The resurrection of the body"

Death entered into this world by sin (Romans 5:12). So all will die, with the exception that those who are alive at the return of Christ at the end, will never die (First Thessalonians 4:13-17). In verse 17: "Then [at His return, and after the resurrection of the dead] we the living, will be taken together with them [the risen dead] in the clouds to meet the Lord" (Cf. 1 Cor 15:51).

There will be a resurrection of all, as St. Paul explains in First Corinthians chapter 15. Those who have been faithful to Christ will rise glorious, their bodies transformed on the model of the risen body of Christ, who could travel instantly at will, could ignore closed doors and come through anyway, but yet had real flesh. St. Paul says the risen body is "spiritual " (15:44). It is still flesh, but such that the flesh is completely dominated by the soul, so that it can no longer suffer or die.

St. Paul insists that because Christ our Head rose, those who are members of Him must also rise. So, to deny the general resurrection would imply a denial of Christ's resurrection (1 Cor 15:13).

No matter what happens to the body after death, the omnipotence of God can recall the material of the body. In fact, we now know that because of metabolism — in which every cell is constantly being torn down and rebuilt — in a normal life span a person has the material for many bodies. We will, of course be the same persons after the resurrection as we were before death.

Twelfth Article "And life everlasting. Amen".

In commenting on article VII we spoke of Purgatory and Hell. Now we consider Heaven. The Second Epistle of Peter 1:4 says by grace we are "sharers in the divine nature." We learn from John 1:1 that the Father speaks a Word. It is not a vibration in the air, but it is substantial, it is the Second Divine Person, coming from the Father by as it were an infinite stream of knowledge. Between Father and Son arises love, which again is substantial, is the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, coming forth by a stream of infinite love. Only a being that is part divine could as it were plug into these infinite streams. Grace here gives us the basic ability to do that.

As we saw in speaking of hell, death breaks the bond between our spiritual intellect and the material brain. Then the lights go on, and one knows God greatly even without seeing Him. The soul, if properly purified, and if all debts to the objective order are paid, will finally reach that vision. We are all finite, limited receptacles, trying to take in the Infinite. In this life our capacity for that can grow indefinitely, with increases of sanctifying grace. Then whatever capacity the soul has will be completely filled, fully satisfied. Since the vision is infinite, it can never become dull. Further, St. Augustine says (City of God 10:7) that the angels participate in God's eternity. Eternity for God is timeless. Things do not just go on and on, He takes in everything in one view, as it were. Similarly the soul in that vision does not just go on and on: it simply is unbelievably fulfilled, happy, satisfied. St. Augustine said well (Confessions 1:1): "You have made us for yourself, and restless are our hearts until they rest in you."

When the glorified body at the resurrection is joined to the soul, it too will share in its own way in the reward the person has earned. It will be as we said, on the pattern of the glorified body of Christ.

The Blessed too will be united with others there, especially those close and dear to them in this life.

And as a secondary but immense source of blessedness they will see Our Lady. Of it Pius XII said well:

Surely, in the face of His own Mother, God has gathered together all the splendors of His divine artistry... . You know, beloved sons and daughters, how easily human beauty lifts up and makes a gentile heart ecstatic. What would it ever do if it could contemplate clearly the beauty of Mary! That is why Dante saw in Paradise, in the midst of "more than a million rejoicing Angels, a beauty smiling — what joy! it was in the eyes of all the other Saints"; Mary! (Pius XII, To Catholic Action Youth, December 8, 1953. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 45: 850. Internal quote is from Dante, Paradiso 31. 130-35)

PART SIX: Commandments I - III

The Book of Exodus, chapter 20, tells how God on Mt. Sinai revealed to Moses the Ten Commandments (also called the Decalogue) giving them to him on two stone tablets. In Deuteronomy 5 Moses is pictured as telling all the people the Ten Commandments. Exodus 32:15 describes how God Himself gave Moses the two stone tablets which He had made. Moses broke them in anger when he saw the people had fallen into idolatry; in chapter 34 Moses cuts two more tablets to replace the ones he had broken.

There is some difference in grouping the commandments, and hence in numbering, between the more usual Protestant and the Catholic lists of the commandments. The sense is the same.

Some have doubted if these laws could have been transmitted orally so many centuries. We reply: We do not know the date of the Exodus, and therefore, of the law; but the chief suggestions are about 1290 B.C. (under Rameses II) or around 1450 B.C. (perhaps under Thutmose III). In either case, writing was known before that time in Egypt and in Mesopotamia. We have the Law Code of Hammurabi — his dates are uncertain, perhaps about 1792-50 BC. His Code has 282 laws, some of them quite similar to those of the Ten Commandments, though the first four commandments of the Decalogue seem to be unique to the Hebrews. Further, oral transmission in ancient times was remarkable. Thus for long the name of King Tudiya, first king of Assyria, was considered only a legend. But now tablets have been found at Ebla, showing a treaty between King Ebrum of Ebla, and King Tudiya, dating from about 2350 B.C., about 13 centuries before the Assyrian King lists were written down (Cf. G. Pettinato, The Archives of Ebla, Doubleday, N. Y. 1981, pp. 70, 73, 103-05). These ten commandments are simply the code of basic morality. Our Lord accepted them and said He came not to destroy but to fulfill. He also perfected them, making them broader in some things (Matthew 5:17-48). And He summed them up in the two commandments of love of God and of neighbor. The Old Testament had the first, love of God (Deuteronomy 5:4-5). It had the second, in a way (Leviticus 19:18), but the Jews understood neighbor to mean only fellow countrymen. Our Lord extended the word neighbor, in the parable of the good Samaritan, to mean all humans. (Let us recall here what we said in speaking of Moses in our opening sketch of salvation history, and of the relation of the words of St. Paul to those of Jesus).

God cannot gain anything by our obedience. But He wants us to obey for two reasons: 

1) Moral goodness requires that creatures obey their Creator. He, being
   Holiness itself,  loves all that is good; 
2) He wants to give us good things; His commandments tell us how to be
   open to receive   His gifts, and how to avoid the penalties built into the
   nature of things (since sinful things   are contrary to our nature, and so are
   harmful to us).

In accord with this, the Old Testament says that the law is wisdom. It is that. In Deuteronomy 4:6 Moses tells the people that if they obey the law, other nations will say: "This great nation is really a wise and understanding people." The Jews carried this idea to such lengths that the Palestinian Targum on Deuteronomy 32:4 asserts that God Himself spends three hours a day studying the law!

The First commandment: "I am the Lord your God, you shall not have other gods before me"

The commandment most directly prohibits the worship of false gods, and, to follow up, prohibits images. The Jews were very prone to such idolatry before the great exile. Afterwards they seem to have been largely healed.

The prohibition of images does not apply now, since the danger of idolatry has gone. Our images of Our Lord, His Mother, and the Saints, are just helps to devotion. We do not adore them. We only venerate them, but even the veneration goes not to the image but to the holy one for which the image stands.

We need to avoid also superstition, which is offering worship in an improper manner, probably based on false revelations, e. g, prayers that if said for a set number of days will have an infallible result. Vain observance would be magic or satanism. Sadly, there is explicit worship of satan today. The Ouija board is dangerous, and we should avoid it, since part of its results come from automatic writing, but often enough satan intervenes.

We must also avoid sacrilege, which is scornful treatment of a person, place or thing dedicated to God. To receive Holy Communion in the state of sin is sacrilege. We avoid also simony, which takes its name from Simon Magus, who tried to buy with money the gift of working miracles . St. Peter rebuked him strongly (Acts 8:9-24). To give a stipend for a Mass etc. is not simony. It is not buying the Mass, it is an offering for the support of the priest, or a means of sharing specially in the Mass.

In a loose sense, not a strict sense, some people today "worship" the false gods of secularism, which says this world is the only one to be considered, or hedonism, which makes pleasure the goal of life, or Communism, which denies the existence of God, seeks happiness in a so-called classless society in Russia the very opposite has been true, great privilege and luxury for the ruling class.

On the positive side, we are to worship God, which means most essentially, adoration and obedience. Adoration means recognizing who He is, and who I am in comparison. This is due in justice, but also, more importantly, in love: we recognize that God is not only infinitely good to us, but also in Himself. As such we should respond by pleasing Him by making ourselves open to receive His gifts — for that pleases Him. that is what love for God means. In no other way to we really give Him anything. The central virtue that gave all its value to the sacrifice of Jesus was His obedience to the will of the Father. Without it, His death would have been a tragedy, not a redemption.

Sacrifice for us (some pagan peoples had different ideas of sacrifice) has an external sign, which is there to express and perhaps even promote the essential, which is the interior dispositions. God complained through Isaiah (Is 29:13: "This people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." The ancient Israelites at that time seemed to think their participation in their liturgy meant merely making responses and singing — these things were good, but the obedience was lacking. We must join our obedience — carried out in the recent past, or to come in the near future — to the offering of Jesus, when, through the human priest, He puts Himself on the altar under the appearance of separation of body and blood, to express His continued attitude of obedience to the Father. So catechists say our role in the Mass is ACTS:
adoration,
contrition, 
thanksgiving, and 
supplication. 
We should do these things, but we must not let them cause us to forget the real center is obedience (Cf. Romans 519 and LG #3).

Outside the time of the sacrifice of the Mass, we should of course pray. Regular times are called for to insure we do not forget prayer altogether.

To God we give adoration, it the sense just described; but to Our Lady and the Saints we give only veneration, honor, something less than adoration. The sacrifice of Jesus is infinite, and so in a way we should need to do nothing. Yet St. Paul insists that the whole Christian regime means we are saved and made holy if and to the extent that we are not only members of Christ, but like Him. That includes being like Him in the work of reparation for sin (cf. Rom 8:17-18; Col 1. 24).

Second Commandment: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."

1. Blasphemy and cursing

The chief thing prohibited by this commandment is taking the name of God in vain, i.e., using it in and empty way. Ordinarily this will not be more than venial sin, but it should be avoided. The Jews in the last centuries before Christ would not pronounce the word Yahweh even in prayer. Instead they said Lord.

Blasphemy means any speech, thought or action that shows contempt for God. It is very grave. The Old Testament called for the death penalty (Leviticus 24:16).

When someone confesses cursing and swearing, it usually means neither thing. He means using damn or hell, or vulgar four letter words dealing with the results of elimination. These things are very rude, and mark a person as low class. But, unless someone really wishes evil to another, they are not sinful at all.

A vow is a promise made to God to do something better than what is obligatory. A vow imposes a real obligation. Deuteronomy 23:22 warns us not to make a vow and then not keep it. Whether or not mortal sin is involved depends on the importance of the thing vowed.

To take an oath is to call God to witness that what one says is true. It is lawful to do so, if there is sufficient reason.

To make a false oath is perjury. It offends against God's truthfulness, since it calls Him to witness to a lie. Proverbs 19:9 says one who does that will not go without punishment.

An adjuration is the solemn use of the name of God to strengthen a command. This is permissible if done with the right intention, and in cases where such a thing is really called for.

Third Commandment: "Remember to keep holy the Lord's day."

1. Sundays and Holy Days: Mass Obligation

In Old Testament times, this commandment required keeping the Sabbath (Saturday), holy and a day of rest. The day was moved to Sunday by the authority Christ gave to His Church, to commemorate the Resurrection of Our Lord and Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles. The latest Code of Canon Law restates this obligation for us: there are false reports there is no longer an obligation.

Our participation in the Mass must be most of all interior, joining our obedience to the Father to that of Jesus. At the Last Supper He used the seeming separation of body and bloody (by bread and wine) to stand for death, and He thereby said to the Father that He would obey His command to die. The Mass repeats hat He did through the ministry of a human priest. The obedience of the Heart of Jesus on our altars is a continuation of the obedience in which He died. One way to carry out our part would be to spend a few minutes before each Mass, to see what one has done in obeying the Father since the last Mass. If well done, this can be presented along with the obedience of Jesus at the double consecration. If some things are not well done, regrets are called for. One can also look ahead to the time soon to come to see: is something coming soon in which I know the will of the Father? Then: Do I mean to do it? This too can be joined to the obedience of Christ. The external things, making responses, singing etc. are very good, but not the essentials of participation.

Of course, grave reason can excuse one from Sunday Mass, e.g., physical impossibility, sufficient sickness, great difficulty of getting to Mass, or the need to care for the baby or sick relatives, when no one else can take these duties over at the time.

Besides Sunday, we must take part in Mass on Holy Days of obligation. In the United States these are: 

January 1 (Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God), 
Ascension Thursday (40 days after Easter), 
Assumption (August 15) , 
All Saints Day (November 1), 
Immaculate Conception (December 8), and 
Christmas (December 25).

Sunday as a Day of Rest

In the New Code of Canon Law, the Church has revised this obligation, in Canon 1247: "They must also keep from such work or business as would inhibit the worship to be given to God, the joy proper to the Lord's day, and the due relaxation of mind and body."

There is much latitude given, but to merely do all day on Sunday the same job one does all week would surely be wrong. Sunday ought to be a day that is special and different to a considerable extent.

PART SEVEN: Commandments IV and V.

Fourth Commandment: "Honor your father and your mother."

God commands us to honor parents because we owe them our very being. Jesus Himself gave us the example, for He went down to Nazar