Matthew 13:24-30

 The Parable of the Weeds-Matthew 13:24-30 

No wonder so many want to claim Augustine as their own. 

Beautifully reasoned. Soundly Biblical yet coming from a Catholic priest and bishop. When you take up and read, do so carefully, paying attention to important details…

Not that I am all that, but I finally started to read St. Augustine as he is -a Catholic-the capital C, Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church kind.That made a huge difference. Then I entered the capital C Church myself. 

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There are those who, though called believers, are not so. There are believers in whom the sacraments of Christ are subjected to abuse; persons who live in such a way that they themselves perish, and they ruin others. They themselves perish by evil living; they destroy others, however, by giving the example of evil living. Do not wish, my dearly beloved, to be associated with such as these. Seek the good; cleave to the good; be good.

Do not be surprised at the large number of bad Christians who fill the church, who communicate at the altar…They can exist along with us in the Church of this time, but they will not be able to remain in that assembly of saints which will be after the resurrection. For the Church of this time, since it has good mixed with bad, is compared to a threshing floor where grain is mixed with chaff; but, after the judgment, it will have all good members without the evil. This threshing floor contains the harvest sown by the Apostles, watered by subsequent good teachers down to the present times, somewhat bruised by the persecution of enemies, but with the remnant not yet purged by the final sifting. Nevertheless, He will come concerning whom you recited in the Creed: ‘Then He will come to judge the living and the dead,’ and, as the Gosel says: ‘His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor, and will gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.’

Let the old faithful members hear what I say; let him who is the grain rejoice in the tossing; let him remain; let him not depart from the threshing floor. Let him not, following his own judgment, try to free himself from the chaff, since he will not be able to remain on the threshing floor if he wishes to separate himself now from the chaff. Furthermore, when He comes who distinguishes without error, He will not raise to the granary what He has not found on the threshing floor. Whatever grains have now withdrawn from the threshing floor will then boast in vain about their stock. The barn will be filled and closed. Fire will consume whatever has remained outside. Therefore, my dear brethren, let him who is good put up with the evil; let him who is bad imitate the good. On this threshing floor, in truth, grain can degenerate into chaff; and, on the other hand, grain can be restored from chaff. These changes take place daily, my brethren. This life is full of punishments and consolations. Daily those who seemed good do wrong and perish; and again, those who seemed evil are converted and live. For, ‘God does not will the death of the sinner, but only that he be converted from his ways and live.’

Hear me, O grains of wheat; hear me, you who conform to my desires; hear me, O grain. Do not be saddened by the intermixture of chaff; the evil will not be with you forever. To how great an extent does the chaff press upon you? Thank God that it is not heavy. Only let us remain the wheat; then, how abundant soever the chaff may be, it will not oppress us.”

St. Augustine, “Sermon 223: On the Vigil of Easter”

More on Mary - some random thoughts, FWIW

I don’t want to exaggerate Calvin’s contribution to the women’s liberation movement, but he did in effect seek to liberate the Mother of God from what he believed to be idolatrous worship of Mary. Read his commentary on John 2:1-11. 

He still held a high view of Mary’s piety and godliness, but rejected key Marian doctrines of the Church. 

One of the things that started to bother me about Evangelicalism and even more so about Calvinism is that there was no coherent theology and philosophy of femininity and motherhood. Only a kind of legalistic framework. Mary is pretty much erased from people’s memory. Yeah, that might be exaggerated, but I’m not sure. I think that the incoherence in gender theology and philosophy that I was seeing might have something to do with this Protestant confusion about who Mary, the Mother of God is. 

[Some questions that I couldn’t answer adequately when I was an Evangelical:

           Who is Mary? 

           What IS a woman?

           What IS a mother?

           There is a lot of talk about what women should be doing, but why?] 

Is it a stretch to say that feminism can trace it’s founding to Calvin? Probably a stretch, but I wonder... 

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Complementarity, patriarchy, mutuality. Those three battle it out in Evangelicalism. Where is the coherence, the balance? There is no referee, only strong opinions. 

What’s missing? For me it was the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and matriarchy. 

Patriarchy has male headship. 

Complementarity has male leadership and female submission, even mutual submission. 

Mutuality has complementarity in a way, but there was something I could never quite figure out. There was a lot of talk about androgyny...and I was doxed, ...and my personal life invaded. That was years ago...

Then I read the Eastern Orthodox Church Father, St. John Chrysostom. He had all of it, except the androgyny part that many of today’s egalitarians love to talk about to somehow support their gender idealogy.

Chrysostom didn’t shy away from the great themes of Patriarchy. Matriarchy. Complementarity. and Mutuality. 

Read the little book On Marriage and Family Life - which is a collection of his homilies on the subject. Marriage isn’t either this or that. It is both and. Equilibrium. Both complementarity and mutuality. Both Patriarchy and Matriarchy. Male and female relationships reflect those natural ways of interacting. 

That’s one aspect of Orthodox Christianity that I like. They don’t run from paradox. They seek equilibrium. Both complementarity and mutuality can be true. Patriarchy includs matriarchy. They are not mutually exclusive. The roles are not reversed or blended or denied.  Honor your father and your mother. Your father is not your mother and your mother is not your father. The father is head of the family. The mother is in the yoke with him, beside him, working together towards a common goal. Mutual respect. Not the same or interchangeable. Equal doesn’t mean same. Hierarchy in God’s economy doesn’t mean oppression.  

Egalitarians emphasize mutuality almost exclusively as far as I can tell. I’m sure I’m wrong, but I spent a LOT of time trying to figure out where they were coming from. I tried to understand, and I have the wounds to prove it. 

Egalitarianism can’t mean that there is no hierarchy at all even though they claim to not be hierarchical. It didn’t make sense to me. I was told that I was following Satan. That has something to do with male dominance being a result of the Fall and part of Satan’s plan for the human race. Absolute equality is what God intended. Anyone promoting traditional male-female roles is evidently following Satan. 

Yet the egalitarians want to be leaders, so it’s not really about equality.  I wasn’t woke. I have no desire to be. None whatsoever. My brain has recovered from trying to understand egalitarianism. Nothing works the way they say it does - not even their own relationships.

In any musical group, for example, there has to be a hierarchy. That goes for a symphony orchestra, a choir, or even a rock band. Otherwise there is cacophony as each musician tries to exert his or her dominance over the group. If the leader gets too heavy handed, then the group breaks up. If the leader doesn’t actually lead, then chaos is the result. Sure. It’s not gender based, but it’s not marriage or the Church either. 

Anyway...etc...

No hard feelings. 

Felix culpa...

St. Irenaeus - New Testament Canon

I have an app called Universalis. It’s a great resource. Today there was a reading about St. Irenaeus who lived in the 2nd Century AD. 

He was a disciple of St. Polycarp who was a disciple of the St. John the Evangelist. 

His greatest contribution to the Church was his apologetic work against gnostic heresies.  He was recently declared to be a Doctor of the Church. You can read more about that at the Simply Catholic website. 

He also helped in settling the arguments about what writings belonged in the New Testament canon. 

He is venerated in the following Christian Churches. Note that there are Protestant groups that venerate saints. Say what? 

Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Catholicism

Assyrian Church of the East

Eastern Orthodox Church
Lutheran Church
Oriental Orthodox Church
Anglican Communion

Second Reading: St Irenaeus (130 - 202)

Irenaeus was born in Smyrna, in Asia Minor (now Izmir in Turkey) and emigrated to Lyons, in France, where he eventually became the bishop. It is not known for certain whether he was martyred or died a natural death.

Whenever we take up a Bible we touch Irenaeus’s work, for he played a decisive role in fixing the canon of the New Testament. It is easy for people nowadays to think of Scripture – and the New Testament in particular – as the basis of the Church, but harder to remember that it was the Church itself that had to agree, early on, about what was scriptural and what was not. Before Irenaeus, there was vague general agreement on what scripture was, but a system based on this kind of common consent was too weak. As dissensions and heresies arose, reference to scripture was the obvious way of trying to settle what the truth really was, but in the absence of an agreed canon of scripture it was all too easy to attack one’s opponent’s arguments by saying that his texts were corrupt or unscriptural; and easy, too, to do a little fine-tuning of texts on one’s own behalf. Irenaeus not only established a canon which is almost identical to our present one, but also gave reasoned arguments for each inclusion and exclusion.

Irenaeus also wrote a major work, Against the Heresies, which in the course of denying what the Christian faith is not, effectively asserts what it is. The majority of this work was lost for many centuries and only rediscovered in a monastery on Mount Athos in 1842. Many passages from it are used in the Office of Readings.

Mary crushing the head of the serpent

Of course, Mary crushing the Serpent’s head didn’t end when she bore the Son of God as her Son. Because she is alive in Heaven she can and does advocate for all her children, all those who believe in Jesus Christ - Son of God, Son of Man.

Think of how a mother protects her children, even being willing to give her life for them. People often talk about this or that mother being like a mother bear. She will fight for her children. Now look at the image of Mary crushing the serpent’s head. It starts to make more sense. 

We have a Mother on our side if we ask her for help. In fact, she is often there for her children even when they don’t know it or believe that she has that grace.  

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Every time a person says no to God he or she is saying yes to Satan. 

Every time a person says yes to God, he or she is saying no to Satan. 

Eve said yes to Satan and her decision gave him the advantage over the rest of the human race. Satan thought he won, that God’s plan for the human race was defeated from the start. 

However, Satan did not count on the Woman whose yes reversed Eve’s no. How so? By bearing the One who defeated sin, death, hell, Satan, and all forms of evil. 

How does a believer defeat Satan, stomping on his head? By saying yes to God and no to sin. 

How do we do this? By God’s grace, as did the kecharitōmenē, - the one already fully graced at the moment of her conception by God’s sovereign act. 

Mary defeated Satan by God’s grace. 

By God’s grace in Christ, so do we. 

The image of Mary stomping on the dragon should fill us with hope. What God did for and through her, He can do for me as I stomp on the dragons in my own life through the power of Christ in me, the hope of glory. 

There’s also the element of being saved through the child bearing..., but that’s another related subject as to why Satan doesn’t want women to have children.

Those are just some thoughts on the subject of Mary’s crushing of the head of the serpent, Satan. It needs more development, but I think I’m on the right track. 

Most Protestants do not pray the Rosary or ask the Saints in glory to pray for them. I do. The Saints are willing to help us and to encourage us along the way - as Hebrews 12:1,2 indicate. They are in the stands, cheering us on which means they are alive and want us to succeed in our race as we keep our eyes on Jesus. 

Hebrews 12

English Standard Version

Jesus, Founder and Perfecter of Our Faith

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

And Scripture talks about the prayers of the Saints. Yes. Protestants insist that this cannot mean that those Christians who are now in God’s presence are praying for those of us who are still in the race down here on earth. May I say that the Protestant view is a man made, dogmatic interpretation and not necessary at all. 

The Church recognizes specific men and women who are Saints in heaven. The Church also recognizes that there are many more Saints in Heaven that are not recognized officially. 

Revelation 5:8

English Standard Version

 

8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

 

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Yes, if God had not intervened by His grace in her life, Mary would not have been able to live a sinless life. She would have inherited original sin from Adam just like everyone.  However, God did intervene and saved her completely at the moment she was conceived in the womb. 

Mary’s sinlessness was not an issue for Martin Luther. It was Calvin who changed the doctrine to make Mary a sinner who had inherited a fallen nature and was an active sinner like everyone else except Christ. Most Protestants have continued with his error. Calvin cherry picked Augustine, yet claimed to be Augustinian - only if he got to control what was true and what was false. That is a problem prevalent in Protestantism. Everyone claims his or her own authority as binding. 

 

Protestants don’t have to reject the doctrine of Mary’s sinless life. Not all do, in fact. I guess Martin Luther didn’t get the dogma of the Immaculate Conception exactly right, but he was close. It’s clear from the following statement what he did believe. He was a Catholic priest after all. 

 

Luther’s words follow:

It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin.

(Sermon: “On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God,” December [?] 1527; from Hartmann Grisar, S.J., from the German Werke, Erlangen, 1826-1868, edited by J.G. Plochmann and J.A. Irmischer,

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Here is the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in a short statement. Sure. Not all Christians believe this, but no Christian should be scandalized by it, especially those who hold to a monergistic view of salvation. What God wills, He does. 

In fact, complete sanctification is the goal that God has for all Christians. It’s all of God’s grace working in the lives of believers. Mary is an example of what God wills for all His children eventually - that we be without sin. 

Eastern Orthodox Christians have a different view since evidently they don’t accept St. Augustine’s teaching on original sin. Even so, they believe that Mary, by God’s grace, lived a sinless life. 

491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, 134 was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854: 
 

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. 135 

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Catholics are Idolators! Gasp, and clutch your pearls!

There is a very kind Protestant theologian and pastor on You Tube. I think he’s Reformed Baptist. Anyway, he basically said that Catholics are idolators while saying that he couldn’t judge people’s hearts. It’s about, you know, the icons and images used in devotional worship.

Now, I am sure that some worship saints, but Catholics are warned not to. It’s complicated, I know...

So, here’s my response that I would like to save here.

This nice pastor is trying to build bridges, which I appreciate, but he “went there”. No offense meant or taken and everywhere, really, in a short space of time. It was some kind of rebuttal or something...

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I don’t see how you are debating with Catholicism. You seem to be arguing with your Mom, the Church, my dear separated brother. I’ve been there…sola scriptura is a doctrinal development, the result of Protestant tradition. Scripture is a result of Church Tradition. It would be nice if Protestants recognized those two facts. Tradition is not necessarily bad even in the opinions of Protestants. Otherwise why are there so many and varied Protestant traditions that are held with great dogmatic insistence?

Friendly advice. If you are going to try to refute Catholicism, know what the Church actually teaches. The CCC is free online. Idolatry is rampant in Reformed circles and the subject of numerous sermons on the subject. Protestants are idolatrous evidently.

The truth is that every believer has to face the issue of his or her own idols. Even you, my brother, are an idolator. Besides, you don’t understand what an icon is in practice. Remember. Luther opposed the iconoclasts among the Lutheran ranks. If they were idols as being used to worship false gods who were really demons, wouldn’t he have become an iconoclast himself instead of opposing the removal of icons from churches? 

Here’s a good book on idolatry written by a Catholic woman - gasp! Strange Gods by Elizabeth Scalia. 

Your arguments are weak at best and even a bit silly may I say? How can I say that? They used to be mine, and I was weak and silly! Not that I am now strong and smart, but I do understand better what icons are and how to properly use them in worship. Basically, worship the God who created the saint and realize that God’s goal is that every believer become saintly. Godly if you prefer. Christlike. 

There is a great cloud of witnesses that have gone before and they are cheering us on. Really. They can pray for us - which is another issue...

Take care, and God bless! Stay away from idols! 

https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Gods-Unmasking-Idols-Everyday/dp/1594713421

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Granted, I may be projecting my own journey on him, but when I started looking up what the Church actually taught, my attitude began to change. Then, when I started to read the Church Fathers in their Catholic or Orthodox context, well the walls began to fall. 

And then I was introduced to the Communion of Saints...in a very personal way...

Mary - the Blessed Virgin

The lack of a mother in Evangelicalism is one of the main things that God used to bring me into the Church. That might be unusual. Not sure. It’s not just that most of what the Church and even the reformers believed about the Blessed Virgin has been scrubbed from Evangelical teaching. The Church as our mother is gone as well. Along with it, motherhood itself to a large degree, although there are many Christian women of all kinds returning to the home. I could not find a coherent theology and philosophy of sex and gender in Evangelicalism. IMO, that lack of coherence has done damage to Evangelicalism. Evangelicals understand the aspect of complimentarity in a marriage. Man and women complement one another. 

Some Evangelicals understand that Christianity is patriarchal, and it is. What I didn’t see in Evangelicalism is matriarchy. Patriarchal Evangelicalism is odd and has led to a number of epic failures in families. No, not all, but I could tell you stories of amazing successes and some horrible, horrible failures - but I won’t here. Are there more successes than failures? I have no way to know that. The patriarchal movement is not my cup of tea, even though I read a lot of the literature on the subject. I always wondered where the matriarch was. If there are patriarchs, there have to be matriarchs.

Motherhood is in Evangelicalism in a way, but not like in Catholicism. Catholics see motherhood and fatherhood on full display every time we enter a church building. Our Blessed Mother is at Jesus’ right hand, and Jesus’ foster father, Joseph is at His left hand. Father, Mother, Son - the nuclear family. The traditional Holy Family looks down on us every time Mass is celebrated. It’s a strong and unmistakable statement. Father. Mother. Children. It’s been that way since the beginning of creation.

St. Pope JP II lost his mother and after that he found comfort in our Blessed Mother. I can’t find where I read that, so take it FWIW. I heard him preach in Santiago de Chile back in 1987. I was watching on television, but what struck me was how Christ centered it was. It didn’t make sense since his motto was  “Totus Tuus” which is "the abbreviated version of the Marian consecration according to de Montfort”. Now it makes more sense to me. Mary leads us to Christ. I am not Marian per se, but I understand how being Christ centered and Marian are not necessarily mutually exclusive. 

The fact that this great man found comfort in Mary as his mother makes sense to me. My mother passed away. I felt like a motherless child. I was happy to read JP’s comments about how he devoted himself to our Blessed Mother. Make of it what you will. Here’s something that no longer made sense to me. Evangelicals think that Mary is dead. It is a grave sin to pray to the dead. Catholics pray to the dead saints, so we are sinning when we pray to saints. 

Jesus taught that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who are not dead. They are alive with God. There’s more to it than that, but the gist of it is that Catholics are not praying to dead saints.

Protestants tune out Catholics at that point, but anyway... Catholics don’t worship Mary and the saints alive in Heaven with God, either. We ask them to pray for us as we would ask other Christians for prayer, but that’s another point that doesn’t make sense to Protestants. We respect them because they are in God’s presence in a way that we are not yet.

Even sola scriptura believers should recognize the contradiction in “saints are dead, so praying to them is necromancy". God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Things didn’t add up for me anymore since prayer to the saints as in asking them for prayer is a very ancient practice in the Church. The Church is very clear about not worshipping any created being, not even the Blessed Virgin. Asking for a christian to pray for us is not worship. In that sense we pray to the saints - and I do. We usually ask Christians that we respect to pray for us, knowing that it is likely they will. How can all the ancient saints and millions of Christins through the ages be practicing idolatry and necromancy by praying to the Saints in Heaven? It’s possible, but not likely. I believe that I am in good company. Make of it what you will.

Protestants strain the gnat when they focus on dogmatic pronouncements. The problems in understanding what the Church is teaching are much deeper than whether or not Mary is perpetually Virgin and other dogmas that non Catholic Christians find odd and wrong. The confusion in Protestantism, IMO goes to the very nature of what it means to be a man and woman created in the image of God. Was Mary just a body that God used to make a baby? What does that say about God? ...and so forth. What IS woman? What IS man? etc... Some Protestants like to discuss those deeper issues, but still miss the mark, IMO. 

Enter a Catholic Church. Contemplate the images at the front of the sanctuary. Understand why they are there.

https://aleteia.org/2016/07/08/let-us-pray-the-earliest-known-marian-prayer/

A LOT more could be said, and has been said. These are not some secret doctrines that have been hidden from humanity and just now revealed. The practice of venerating and praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary goes way back to the early Church. Here’s an interesting article talking about a prayer to Mary that dates from AD 250. I’ll end with this.

Beneath thy compassion,
 we take refuge, O Mother of God: do not despise our petitions in time of trouble, but rescue us from dangers,only pure one, only blessed one.

The earliest known Marian Prayer, like the Gospels, is written in Greek. That is why, in it, the Virgin Mary is called “Θεοτοκος”, the “Bearer of God”, which is already a theologically relevant detail (as we will try to explain). This prayer, as explained on Trisagion Film’s Website, was “found on a fragment of papyrus that dates all the way back to approximately AD 250”, only a couple of centuries after the Death and Resurrection of Christ, approximately a century before Constantine and the Edict of Milan but, more importantly, two centuries before the Third Ecumenical Council, the Council of Ephesus, in which the Virgin Mary was proclaimed “Mother of God”.

Sola Scriptura

Scripture is infallible because it is God breathed. The Holy Spirit is its Divine Author. There are numerous human authors that God spoke through. They spoke infallibly because God cannot fail and His Word never fails.

The Holy Spirit is what makes the Church infallible as well. Does that mean that she never makes mistakes? Of course not, but she will not fail as per the words of Jesus. The gates of hell will not prevail against her. All Bible Christians believe that - including or especially Catholics.

I think that in these discussions on Scripture vs. Tradition, the origin of Scripture and the origin of the Church gets all muddled and clouded. Neither are man-made, but human beings distort, change, and add all kinds of stuff to interpretations. The basics are not man made. The Church and Scripture work together to clear up errors and misunderstandings. The great Ecumenical Councils are examples of how the Church works to clear up errors.

The traditional Christian understanding is that both the Church and Scripture are infallible. It’s like a marriage, and you can’t have one without the other.

Protestants and all other non Catholic Christians accept at some level the idea of inter denominationalism or trans denominationalism. Few think that theirs is the only true Church, but each denomination believes that their way is either good or the best if not the only. Few denominations refuse to have any contact with other congregations outside their own groups.

There are problems with that, but at least there is some concept of the fact that all Christians, all believers in Christ as our Savior are part of the body of Christ.

The main problem in my understanding of denominationalism is the fact that Jesus chose a Bride, not a haram. There is only one Church, not many churches. Scripture clearly teaches that.

See Eph. 4:1-6

Questions:

1. Which came first? Apostolic tradition or the New Testament? 

2. In other words, which came first? The formation of the Church, or the writing of the New Testament? 

3. Who decided what books belong in the NT canon?

Are either of them - Church and Scripture - fallible? Will either of them fail and disappear, or will both enter eternity?

Both the Church and the Word of God are eternal.

The two stand or fall together. God’s Word is true. The Church is pillar and ground of the truth. Both Scripture and Church are infallible. Scripture teaches that. The Church teaches that.

1 Timothy 3:14, 15 

For example. St. Thomas Aquinas' primary appeal was to Jesus’ words as recorded in Scripture for his understanding of transubstantiation.

Here’s how I see it. Jesus said clearly “this is my body, this is my blood”.

Jesus said it. I believe it. 

How does that work? Thomas explained how that worked. How can bread be real bread and essentially the body of Christ at the same time? A similar question is how can Jesus be both God and Man?

Notice the “sola fides” in the text of Thomas’ hymn, Pange lingua. Faith in what? Faith in the words of Jesus. Take them at face value. Work out your understanding of the meaning from that point forward. It CAN literally mean what Jesus said it means. We can be partaking of the literal body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. If the Creator, Maker, and Sustainer of the universe says so, then it is so. He created everything out of nothing after all.

What God says, is.

Protestants take Jesus’ words as more figurative than literal, or totally figurative, but Jesus’ words are the correct starting point. Church Tradition must not contradict the very words of Jesus as they were preserved by the Church and then written down in Scripture.

Verbum caro, panem verum
Verbo carnem éfficit:
Fitque sanguis Christi merum,
Et si sensus déficit,
Ad firmándum cor sincérum
Sola fides súfficit.

The Word as Flesh makes true bread
into flesh by a word
and the wine becomes the Blood of Christ.
And if sense is deficient
to strengthen a sincere heart
Faith alone suffices.

Sola Scriptura - some random ideas - fact check me if you wish

Most Protestants don’t think back to the time when there was no New Testament. What guided the Church until the NT Canon was identified? That would be Tradition which included OT Scripture - including the Septuagint.  What part does Tradition play now? Most don’t know that sola scriptura doesn’t mean only Scripture. It means that the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. All other authorities are fallible. And that’s a problem.  In the Bible the Holy Spirit is said to have breathed out Scripture, making it infallible and absolutely authoritative. In the Bible the Holy Spirit birthed the Church and filled her with infallible discernment, leading her into all truth.  The common thread? The work of the Holy Spirit who cannot lie or fail.  It’s absurd to say that Scripture is infallible and God-breathed, but the Church is fallible and unable to discern what truth is. The fallible-infallible model of sola scriptura is self refuting.

Even more absurd is the fact that most Protestants do accept the fact that the Church is led into all truth and somehow got the NT Canon right. Even the Lutheran church saw the madness that Luther was leading it into with his ideas on what books belonged and what books did not belong in the NT! The guy was on a tear.

Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation - and maybe others - didn’t meet his criteria, but the Lutheran church had the good sense to veto him on that.

Most don’t know the history of the OT canon - or canons, rather - and how they came to be. Most don’t know that the Protestant OT Canon is not older than the 1st century AD.

Protestant tradition about the OT canon was determined by Martin Luther and then Bible publishers in the 19th Century. I’ve written about that in other posts. Luther decided that the Hebrew OT was the correct canon. There are problems with that, like the fact that NT writers quoted and referenced the Greek OT.

Here’s a list of Deuterocanonical references in the NT. This is a big deal. If the books that Luther removed from their place in the OT and put in the back of his Bible translation are really part of the OT canon, then there’s a big problem for Protestants’ view of sola scriptura.

No matter. Read your Bible - the one sitting on your shelf that has been unopened. All Christians have a common NT canon, so don’t worry about the other stuff. Take and read - which is what St. Augustine did.

Ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. But be careful what teachers you choose to help you.

Stick with the tried and true. Get familiar with the Church fathers especially St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom. They are clear and it’s as if they were speaking to us today. Yes, the Holy Spirit will enlighten you, but not all on your own.

Go to the local perish. Take an RCIA class. Learn what the Church teaches.

Memorizing and Bible reading or listening

 Phone apps for Bible reading and memorization are helpful tools. Catholic Christians are Bible Christians, too, don’t you know. 

1. I have been using the Bible Memory app. My personal list includes Peace, Prayers of the Apostles, The 10 Commandments, The Armor of God, The Beatitudes, The Lord’s Prayer, The Love Chapter, Top 100 Verses, Uncategorized.

It’s easy to use. You can memorize from any Bible translation you wish. Catholics and Protestants should find this app to be mostly neutral. Its focus is memorization. 

2. The Amen app  is put out by the Augustine Institute. 

It’s free. I especially like the fact that the ESV is the Bible version that they use. Augustine Institute also also publishes a Bible in a Year that uses the English Standard Version Catholic Edition. 

Right now I listen to their recorded daily Mass readings and their Daily Reflections. 

Bible thumpers turned Catholic - or not - should love this app. It’s mildly Protestant friendly. 

3. The Hallow app  from Ascension is similar to the Amen app, but a little more contemplative, a little more Charismatic. There are some well known names doing readings for them. 

This app uses the Revised Standard Version, 2nd Catholic Edition.

Ascension publishes the Great Adventure Catholic Bible. Most Bible thumpers familiar with dispensationalism will appreciate the format. It’s not exactly dispensational, but it uses a Bible timeline similar to that school of thought. 

Jeff Cavins is the main influencer. 

This app is quite Protestant friendly. 

4. I also use the You Version Bible app. It’s okay, but not very Catholic friendly. 

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So, that’s where I’m at as far as Bible apps are concerned. Last year I went through the whole Bible with Father Mike and Jeff Cavins on the Hallow app. 

This year I started with the Bible in a Year on the Amen app. I made it through January. Now I just do the Daily Mass Readings and little devotional that goes along with it. 

I got the Bible in a Year published by the Augustine Institute. The little devotional summaries that accompany each day’s readings are quite fantastic. Maybe I’ll do February in May. 

After going through the whole Bible with Fr. Mike it dawned on me. Protestants who ignore the Deuterocanonical books are missing out! Reading them won’t hurt anyone. No one says that they are of the devil - at least I don’t think so. There is probably someone who says that now that I think of it. 

I like the fact that many Catholics are seeing the need to read through the whole Bible systematically. I feel like that’s kind of a new thing. 

So far so good - Part 2 - Bible Memory

1. I am doing pretty good on going through the Bible in a non-specific period of time. I usually make it through in a year, more or less. 

So far so good. 

2. Bible memory - I keep forgetting to include that in my daily routine. So, here I go again. 

I think it’s very important to do. Just a little bit every day.