Posted on 05/15/2018 7:28:18 AM PDT by Salvation
The first reading from Tuesday’s Mass is Paul’s farewell speech to the presbyters (priests) of the early Church. Here is a skilled bishop and pastor exhorting others who have pastoral roles within the Church. Let’s examine this text and apply its wisdom to bishops and priests as well as to parents and other leaders in the Church.
Paul’s Farewell Sermon – The scene is Miletus, a town in Asia Minor on the coast not far from Ephesus. Paul, who is about to depart for Jerusalem, summons the presbyters of the early Church at Ephesus. He has ministered there for three years and now summons the priests for this final exhortation. In the sermon, St. Paul cites his own example of having been a zealous teacher of the faith who did not fail to preach the “whole counsel of God.” He did not merely preach what suited him or made him popular; he preached it all. To these early priests, Paul leaves this legacy and would have them follow in his footsteps. Let’s look at some excerpts from this final exhortation.
From Miletus Paul had the presbyters of the Church at Ephesus summoned. When they came to him, he addressed them, “You know how I lived among you the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia. I served the Lord with all humility and with the tears and trials that came to me … and I did not at all shrink from telling you what was for your benefit, or from teaching you in public or in your homes. I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus … But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem … But now I know that none of you to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels will ever see my face again. And so I solemnly declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God … (Acts 20:17-27 selected).
Here, then, is the prescription for every bishop, priest, deacon, catechist, parent, and Catholic: we should preach the whole counsel, the entire plan of God. It is too easy for us to emphasize only that which pleases us, or makes sense to us, or fits in with our world view. There are some who love the Lord’s sermons on love but cannot abide his teachings on death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Some love to discuss liturgy and ceremony, but the care of the poor is far from them. Others point to His compassion but neglect His call to repentance. Some love the way He dispatches the Pharisees and other leaders of the day but suddenly become deaf when the Lord warns against fornication or insists that we love our spouse, neighbor, and enemy. Some love to focus inwardly and debate doctrine but neglect the outward focus of true evangelization to which we are commanded (cf Mat 28:19).
In the Church today, we too easily divide out rather predictably along certain lines and emphases: life issues here and social justice over there, strong moral preaching here and compassionate inclusiveness over there. When one side speaks, the other side says, “There they go again!”
We must be able to say, like St. Paul, that we did not shrink from proclaiming the whole counsel of God. While this is especially incumbent on the clergy, it is also the responsibility of parents and all who attain any leadership in the Church. All the issues above are important and must have their proper places in the preaching and witness of every Catholic, both clergy and lay. While we may have particular gifts to work in certain areas, we should learn to appreciate the whole counsel and the fact that others in the Church may be needed to balance and complete our work. While we must exclude notions that stray from revealed doctrine, within doctrine’s protective walls it is necessary that we not shrink from proclaiming and appreciating the whole counsel of God.
If we do this, we will suffer. Paul speaks above of tears and trials. In preaching the whole counsel of God (not just your favorite passages or politically correct, “safe” themes), expect to suffer. Expect to not quite fit in with people’s expectations. Jesus got into trouble with just about everyone. He didn’t offend just the elite and powerful. For example, even His own disciples puzzled over His teachings on divorce, saying, “If that is the case of man not being able to divorce his wife it is better never to marry!” (Matt 19) As a result of Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist, many left Him and would no longer walk in His company (John 6). When Jesus spoke of His divine origins, many took up stones with which to stone Him, but He passed through their midst unharmed (Jn 8). In addition, Jesus spoke of taking up crosses, forgiving one’s enemies, and preferring nothing to Him. He forbade even lustful thoughts, let alone fornication, and insisted we learn to curb our unrighteous anger. Yes, preaching the whole counsel of God is guaranteed to earn us the wrath of many.
Sadly, over my years as a priest, I have had to bid farewell to many congregations. This farewell speech of Paul is a critical one I use to examine my ministry. Did I preach even the difficult things? Was I willing to suffer for the truth? Did my people hear from me the whole counsel of God or just what was “safe”?
What about you? Have you proclaimed the whole counsel of God? If you are a clergyman, when you move on; if you are a parent, when your child leaves for college; if you are a youth catechist, when the children are ready to be confirmed; if you teach in RCIA, when the time comes for Easter sacraments—can you say you preached it all? God warned Ezekiel that if he failed to warn the sinner, that sinner would surely die for his sins but that Ezekiel himself would be responsible for his death (Ez 3:17 ff). Paul can truthfully say that he is not responsible for the death (the blood) of any of them because he did not shrink from proclaiming the whole counsel of God. What about us?
We must proclaim the whole counsel of God, not just the safe or popular things, not just what agrees with our own politics or those of our friends. We must present the whole counsel, even the hard parts, even the things that are ridiculed. Yes, we must proclaim the whole counsel of God.
Scripture does not categorically condemn, for instance, bride purchase, the non-consensual marrying-off of a raped daughter to the man who raped her for 50 shekels of silver (Deuteronomy 22), reproductive concubinage, or BDSM in marriage; but Godly morality does nor consist in avoiding only what is expressly condemned in Scripture.
That’s welfare — are you sounding like a democrat? LOL!
Teach them to grow and cook their own food.
CS Lewis once commented along the lines that God doesn’t seem very interested in what we call civilization. His sermon “The Weight of Glory” explains why:
“...Perhaps it seems rather crude to describe glory as the fact of being “noticed” by God. But this is almost the language of the New Testament. St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him (I Cor. viii. 3).
It is a strange promise. Does not God know all things at all times? But it is dreadfully reechoed in another passage of the New Testament. There we are warned that it may happen to any one of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words: “I never knew you. Depart from Me.” In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all.
We can be left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored. On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged. We walk every day on the razor edge between these two incredible possibilities....
...It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf
Looking with mortal eyes, we think nations and culture and civilization are great things and men nothing next to them. Laws are important. Men are not. But in the eyes of God, it is nations and culture and law that are trivial. What matters greatly is not if you are a slave to a mortal man, but if you are a bondservant to God Himself! The number of one’s wives matters far less than if you encourage them to follow and love God, or discourage them. How we raise our children is of great interest to God. Who we vote for...not so much!
(There's about 60 of them listed in the Wikipedia article on "paraphhilias," which is the DSM-VI term for what was previously called perversion. And they don't list them all!!)
What they all have in common, is that they are turned away from what Biblical revelation holds to be good: natural procreative sex. That is, in Biblical terms, an exceptionless norm. See for yourself.
There is not one word in Scripture that authorizes turning sex away from its procreative purpose--- which is what contraception does. That's what contraception has in common with all the other acts which are against natural sex.
Your long quote from C.S. Lewis is, I think, some of bis best writing. Thanks for sending that.
“but Godly morality does nor consist in avoiding only what is expressly condemned in Scripture.”
I’ve never made that argument. God’s Word contains the wisdom that can be applied to all kinds of things.
... but you can’t just make up things out of whole cloth.
This is the source you’ve put forth to justify your condemnation of preventing conception - a whole cloth argument.
For example, “Thou shall not murder.”
Apply it to abortion.
Apply it to any contraception that results in abortion.
And as a final point, God also gave married people sex as a pleasurable experience, not meant to result in conception every time it is enjoyed.
Side story. Christian neighbor of mine took his son aside to explain sex to him. Kid listened carefully and then said, “...so you and mom did it 4 times?” (They had 4 kids).
Don’t Catholics teach the same thing -— if you sin, then repent, and ask for forgiveness, you’re forgiven? I’ve read right here on FR, that if you’re baptized a Catholic, you’re a Catholic no matter what. I don’t know of any protestant doctrine that says it doesn’t matter what you do, because you’re saved, no matter what. I DO know of protestant churches that preach the whole Bible that teach, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” It’s not just Baptists who teach once saved, always saved. I know some churches preach that everything and anything a Christian does, is forgiven past, present, and future. If that’s what they’re teaching, they better back it up with plenty of scripture, and explain it thoroughly, because a false sense of salvation, is no salvation. I can accept it, IF what they mean is, no matter what you do, if you truly repent and ask forgiveness, you’re forgiven, but that doesn’t give you a license to sin. If you’re following Jesus, you’ll sin, anyway, because we’re human and we all sin, but you will not do it joyfully, because the Holy Spirit will “needle” you about it, if it takes the rest of your life, to get you to the realization that you sinned, and need to ask for forgiveness. Then some teach, “If you fall into sin, or start living like you’ve never been born again, then you obviously DIDN’T get born again, like you thought you did, because a true Christian, can’t “backslide”. But the Bible teaches that you CAN backslide, but not easily. What I DO know, is that we are to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling”. In other words, we are responsible for learning and applying the Word of God, to the best of our ability, once we have become Christians. The Holy Spirit is our guide, and He will let us know when we stray from the truth, IF we are sincerely seeking the truth. God has no grandchildren.
“What they all have in common, is that they are turned away from what Biblical revelation holds to be good: natural procreative sex. That is, in Biblical terms, an exceptionless norm. See for yourself.”
And there is where you are in error.
Biblical revelation endorses only sex between married couples.
He endorses this sex for pleasure, “Drink deeply, O lovers.”
This leaves all other sex as morally wrong.
I never said that conception is supposed to happen every time you have sex! That's not possible --- it's not the design! Women are designed to be able to conceive about 5 days of every month (that is, sperm can fertilize an ovum if it is deposited in the woman's genital tract during the 5 day "window of opportunity" before or immediately after ovulation.)
That's five days a month, max.
For long stretches, women aren't fertile at all: 3 weeks of every month, months after childbirth if she's anovulatory because of breastfeeding, and decades after menopause.
All those times are of course OK for sexual union, with no new baby possible.
Enjoy!
But I agree with all that. Did you think I disagreed?
Then how is that "where" I am in error?
Because it is not for the purpose of procreation, but for enjoyment and bonding.
I didn't say that "only" "purpose" of every sexual act is procreation.
???
Enjoyment and bonding are an important part of sexual goodness. Let me wave my hands and say Hooray. It would be wrong to do something to deliberately impair pleasure-bonding, just as it would be wrong to do something to deliberately impair fertility.
God 's wisdom put pleasure and procreation together for a purpose. It's a great design. The more you know about it, the more awe-inspiring it is. God is a genius!
"What they all have in common, is that they are turned away from what Biblical revelation holds to be good: natural procreative sex. "
You made this argument to define every form of sex that isn't for procreation as a perversion.
This is false.
I did not. But evidently I did not make myself clear. Let me try again.
I did NOT say that every form of sex that isn't for procreation is a perversion. This is what I did say:
"They [the perversions] are turned away from what Biblical revelation holds to be good: natural procreative sex."
There's a difference between simply enjoying sex that doesn't happen to be effectively procreative (like having intercourse when your wife is pregnant or post-menopausal) and deforming sex by turning it away from procreation.
The very design of female sexuality is that it is only intermittently fertile. (Unlike males, who are normally always fertile.) So simply having sex when it's quite clear that it can't be fertile --- but enjoying it for its good pleasurable and bonding power --- is great. That's actually part of the design. The fact that pleasure is much more continuously available than fertility is a built-in feature.
For which I say, "Yay."
Contrast that with actually sabotaging natural fertility: like spermicides or toxic jams and jellies or barriers or deliberately wreckovating your reproductive system via drugs or surgery.
That's the difference I was trying to get at.
It's a case of accepting that (occasional) fertility isn't a glitch. It's a feature.
Accepting God's design of the body is God-pleasing and spouse-pleasing in marriage. It shows respect for the design.
Dismantling God's design by drugs-devices-destructive surgery, treating a wife's body as if her fertility were a big mistake that needs to be cut out or chemically suppressed or "fixed": that's wrong.
It's treating a gift as a design flaw.
It's akin to the trannies treating their whole body as a design flaw. It's rejecting the embodied design of your sexuality. Actively trying to sabotage a natural function sets people against their own bodies.
Accepting sex as what it actually is, is good.
“Not “the Whole Plus Some,” but “the Whole Grows.”
Great post.
It is your leap of illogic that is false.
You use perjorative words like “Dismantling” to describe choosing not to get pregnant now.
It is not found in Scripture.
I did NOT say that "choosing not to get pregnant now" is wrong, or is dismantling sexuality.
There are about 32 million couples worldwide that use NFP because they "choose not to get pregnant now." This responsible choice is not a problem, and they do it without using any kind of contraceptive drug, device, or surgery --- that is, without de-naturalizing sex.
To repeat: planning, avoiding, achieving, or postponing pregnancy can all be done without dismantling the nature of the act.
By "dismantling" I mean altering or impairing the nature of the body or deviating the practice of intercourse in order to make sex non-fertile. I don't like to go into detail because it's repugnant, but if you prefer I will put it in a private message.
But please note that by "dismantling" I mean "dismantling." Tip: Ovulation is the primary hormonal event of a healthy menstrual cycle. Contraceptives dismantle this highly intricate system. Using pills - subdermal implants - injections - hormonal IUD's to sabotage women's normal hormonal levels disrupts female bodily health.
Surgeries to intentionally impair systems are even worse.
People who for their own legitimate good reasons want to avoid pregnancy, need to do it in a way that respects women's bodily integrity and the design of natural sex.
That shows respect for the Designer and (I want to yell this) respect for the woman God designed.
Resuming pleasant natural voice. Peace be with you. Over and out.
“There are about 32 million couples worldwide that use NFP because they “choose not to get pregnant now.”
Nah. You were first upset with Onan because he wasn’t willing to give his seed to his brother,s widow, even though it wasn’t about birth control. In fact this was the totality of your argument from Scripture.
Now you’re advocating for not having sex to avoid pregnancy.
Scripture gives one reason to avoid sex - prayer - for a short time.
I’m sticking with the guidance from a God.
It's not honest sex. That's the problem.
Peace to you.
Bedtime for Mrs. Don-o.
“It’s not honest sex. That’s the problem.
No. He was judged because he selfishly did not want to obey God’s covenant and raise up children to his brother. Just read the context.
Best.
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