The Quintessential Question of our Faith



Dear Theophilus,

In this past week’s Gospel reading (Lk 9:18-24), Christ asks the quintessential question of our faith:

“Who do you say that I am?” (Lk 9:20)

Our entire faith hinges on how we answer this very pointed question.

If, like Peter, we answer: “The Christ of God.” (Lk 0:20), then everything else should fall neatly into place. There can be no further questioning of our faith. There certainly should be no further questioning of what we believe in or how we act morally and theologically.

Christ is asking us to either accept him for all that he is, or to reject him.

It’s on this question that the arguments of our Christian brethren that feel they can pick and choose Christ’s teachings that are relevant to them begin to fall apart. For, if they cannot accept all that Christ teaches, then how can they consider him to be The Christ of God?

How can we not consider the Eucharist to be the source and summit of our faith when Christ told us “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Jn 6:51) if he is not The Christ of God?

If Jesus is truly The Christ of God, then how can we not consider the teaching of the Catholic Church to be divinely inspired when, appearing to the disciples after the Resurrection, Jesus said to them “’Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them, (Jn 20:21-22) a commissioning that continues to this day in the conferring of the sacrament of priesthood. A priesthood in the Catholic Church commissioned when Christ said: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” (Mt. 16:18)

The teachings simply fall into place once we truly understand what it means to answer Christ’s question like Peter did at his institution as the fist Pope: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Mt. 16:16)

The list of what becomes indisputable when we answer this question, Who do you say that I am? is too lengthy to discuss in a blog post, there are 2865 paragraphs in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It’s all there, and if Jesus is The Christ of God, then each of those paragraphs makes perfect sense.

As Fr. Robert Barron puts it so well (as he always does) in his Catholicism Series, if we do not answer like Peter, then there is very little to differentiate Christianity from the other world religions. If Jesus is not The Christ of God, then he is little more than a prophet, like Elijah or Mohammed, who have had (or claimed to have had) a revelation from God. If Jesus is not The Messiah, the Son of the living God, then he is little more than a new Buddha who has fond another path towards enlightenment. If Jesus is not The Christ of God, then could he be the next incarnation of Vishnu, come to teach us how to attain Moksha?

This is the quintessential question of our faith. How you answer it forms the core of what you believe and compels you how to act on those beliefs. So,…

Who do you say that He is?

Benedict XVI - Thank You, Danke, Grazie, Merci



Dear Theophilus,

This morning, Pope Benedict XVI announced his abdication from the Papacy. I'm sure that this will be a happy day for many liberal Catholics, as well as many who like to attack the Catholic Church and what they think it represents. On the other hand, it is a sad day for many Catholic's of a more conservative nature, like myself, because of the uncertainty of the direction the conclave will take.

I don't think there were any surprises with Benedict XVI's pontificate. As Cardinal Ratzinger and Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith, Benedict XVI was already quite well known for his traditional views of Churhc doctrine - views that many seem to have forgotten that were also held by the grandfatherly Blessed John Paul II. When I think of those who criticized Benedict XVI for his teachings on Life, Marriage and the Ordination of women, I think of something Toronto Archbishop Cardinal Collins once said: "Perhaps the majority of Catholics have some difficulty accepting the teaching of Church on some issues - that doesn't make them right."

From the time of Christ, the Catholic Church has always been, and probably always will be, counter-cultural. We need to give a prayer of thanksgiving for men such as Benedict XVI who are strong enough and wise enough to continually point towards the Truth of divine revelation.

Please join me, dear Theophilus, in praying that the conclave to choose the next successor to St. Peter will allow itself to be guided by the Holy Spirit to do God's will here on earth.

Why the Catholic Church is the Source of Truth



Dear Theophilus,

In trying to defend and explain Catholic teaching recently, I was asked why the Catholic Church should believe that it has a monopoly on the Truth. The person asking was a self-professed ‘None’, claiming to be neither Catholic nor any other denomination – just simply a Christian trying to figure out what Christ would want us to do. His biggest bone of contention was that he thought the Catholic Church to be exclusionary with its doctrinal laws and that Christ would want to include everybody. I agreed with my interlocutor wholeheartedly, unfortunately he had a hard time understanding that it is not the Catholic Church that excludes individuals, but rather the individual sinners that chose to exclude themselves from the teachings of Christ through the Catholic Church. This is when the question of the Catholic Church being the holder of God’s Truth was asked.

I knew that a simple answer of Christ building his Church on the rock of St. Peter and the subsequent genealogy of papal succession wouldn’t cut it as an answer. Nor would either Christ’s commissioning of St. Peter with the keys to heaven or the sending forth of the Apostles be sufficient. I’m pretty certain that the person asking the question already had the answer he wanted to hear in mind – that only a personal Christ known through the Bible could express the Truth, and not the College of Cardinals.

I was left scrambling for an answer coming from his own perspective to convince him. It was only 2 days later that I found an appropriate way to answer the question on the primacy of the Catholic Church while reading How to Listen When God is Speaking by Mitch Pacwa, S.J.

My line of argument had to start from common ground, a belief that we both held – that God, our Father, is the creator of heaven and earth and that Jesus Christ was his Son. Agreeing upon this we could then recognize the divine nature of Christ and his oneness with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Trinity. Although the mystery of the Trinity is difficult to get one’s head around, there is nothing in this statement that any Christian would deny – even the staunchest anti-Catholic Protestant.

From here we need to ask ourselves: Whom did Christ come to teach? The answer being all of humanity. Jesus taught mainly through parables, using the language and symbols the people of his time and place could understand. These parables have been handed down to us through scripture to be read and applied to our contemporary lives. However, and this is important to the point of the Catholic Church having the ability to unpack the lessons of the parables for us, after teaching the parables to the crowds, Christ would then take the 12 Apostles aside and teach them how to understand the deeper meanings of the parables so as to be able to explain them to those who seek the Truth (Mt 13:16-23, 36-43 and Jn 13:17-20). From this we can acknowledge that although Christ is the undisputed source of the Truth, his apostles became his preferred source for the interpretation of the Truth for the lay people.

The question for us remains, however, of how this authority to interpret Christ’s teachings has been handed down throughout the ages in the Magisterium of the Catholic Church? To answer this we need to examine how Jesus wanted his teachings to be handed down and interpreted. To know this, we join Jesus and the Apostles at the table of the Last Supper where Christ promises them the guidance of the Holy Spirit:

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that will come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (Jn 16:13-15)

This was reaffirmed for the Apostles when Christ appeared to them in the locked room after the resurrection:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn 20:21-23)

It’s amazing that these same words are said to Catholic priests 2,000 years later when they are ordained as the Archbishop breaths on them.

This conveyance to the Apostles of knowledge and ability to understand and interpret Christ’s teachings is reiterated when he appears to them after the resurrection in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 24:45) as well as at Christ’s Ascension into heaven (Acts 1:8).

As we continue to read the Acts of the Apostles, we learn of the great deeds that were done in Christ’s name and how the Early Church developed in Jesus’ absence, handing down Christ’s teaching from one generation to another. We cannot begin to believe that these holy and righteous disciples, infused with the Holy Spirit, would have deviated from Christ’s intent. As Christ’s teachings were transmitted by the disciples from one generation to the next, they were guided, as Christ promised, by the Holy Spirit to form the doctrines of the One Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church of today. A Catholic Church that can trace the source of its teachings to the 12 men who, breathed on by the risen Christ, came to understand the scriptures so as to speak the Truth.

If we truly believe that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church on earth (as all Christians are called to believe), then we must also believe that the Apostles and their descendants – the Catholic Church – were called to carry out His will until the end of time.