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The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us the most important reasons why we must <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/infant-baptism">baptize infants</a>:
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Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer baptism shortly after birth (CCC 1250).
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<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/to-explain-infant-baptism-you-must-explain-original-sin">Original sin</a> is a reality from which each and every human person desperately needs to be freed. Biblically speaking, Romans 5:12 is remarkably clear on this point:
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Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.
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Even if nothing else was <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/to-explain-infant-baptism-you-must-explain-original-sin">said in Scripture</a> implying infant baptism, we could conclude it to be necessary just from this simple fact: babies need to have original sin removed from their souls.
But there is more.
St. Paul, being a Jew, as well as all of the apostles, understood the idea that true religion is a family affair. A Jew became a Jew when he was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. They did not have to first “accept Moses as their personal prophet” before they could be circumcised. And according to Paul, baptism is the fulfillment of circumcision:
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In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ. . . . You were buried with him in baptism (Col. 2:11-12).
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The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, which I quoted above, has the word &#8220;and&#8221; placed between “Christ” and “you were buried.” I left it out because it is not in the original Greek text. The Greek indicates that baptism is the circumcision of Christ!
This seems trivial to us today. Okay, so baptism is the “circumcision of Christ.” But this was not trivial to first-century Jewish Christians who were being challenged to circumcise their children “after the manner of Moses or else they could not be saved” (see Acts 15:1-2). Many were being persecuted because they chose infant baptism instead of infant circumcision. As Paul says in Romans 2:28:
<blockquote>
For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal.
</blockquote>
What is this “spiritual circumcision” of which Paul speaks? Baptism, according to Colossians 2:11-12. Not the shedding of foreskin, but the transformation of the inward man through the sacrament. As a fulfillment of that which is only a type, baptism does something circumcision could never do: &#8220;baptism now saves&#8221; us (1 Pet. 3:21). The change that occurs is not physical; it is spiritual. As it is often said, what you don’t see is what you get in all of the sacraments, baptism included—and infant baptism included, too.
Elsewhere in Scripture we find a close association between baptism and circumcision. In Galatians 3:27-28, Paul says:
<blockquote>
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
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Paul&#8217;s point is that baptism is more inclusive than its Old Testament antecedent. You had to be a free, male Jew to be circumcised. And when were males generally circumcised in the Old Testament, by the way? At eight days after birth (Gen. 17:12). Paul’s point is that in the New Testament, baptism is open to all. Of course babies would be included.
This idea of baptism as the circumcision of Christ, therefore opening up the legitimacy of infant baptism, is at least implied in other biblical texts as well. You&#8217;ll recall that on Pentecost, Peter preached to thousands of Jews, who already had an understanding of their faith involving a family covenant, and said, &#8220;Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. . . . For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, everyone whom the Lord calls to him&#8221; (Acts 2:38-39).
If Peter believed that baptism is exclusive to adults, he was a terrible teacher!
The Lord explicitly &#8220;called infants&#8221; to himself in Luke 18:15-17:
<blockquote>
Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciple saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
</blockquote>
These were not just children who were being brought to Jesus. The Greek word here is brephe, which mean &#8220;infants.&#8221; And again, the Jews listening would understand that the parent’s belief and obedience suffices for the child until he is old enough to own his faith. The parents bringing children to Christ, according to Christ, is equivalent to the children coming to him on their own. Moreover, because babies are icons of what we all should be—that is, they put up no obstacles to the work of God in their lives, and they can most obviously do absolutely nothing to merit anything from God—infant baptism makes sense, as they are reminders of “the sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation” (CCC 1250).
From the very beginning, whole “households” received baptism. There is no reason to believe that infants would not have been included (see Acts 11:14; 16:15, 33; 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:16). For brevity&#8217;s sake, I will use just one of the five examples cited in that parenthesis. I encourage all reading this to take a look at the other four examples as well.
When Paul led the Philippian jailer to Christ in Acts 16, he said to him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). He does not say that all in his household must first believe. He simply says they will all be saved. How could he say that? Paul seems to have understood what St. Peter had already preached back when Paul was still persecuting Christians (in Acts 2:38). The promise of faith and baptism is for the jailer and his children.
Jesus said, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved” in Mark 16:16. Many claim this to mean that faith must precede baptism. And this would seem to exclude infants as possible candidates for baptism. Seems airtight. Can an infant possess faith? No. Therefore, a baby cannot be licitly baptized.
Although this argument may sound convincing on the surface, it does not survive serious scrutiny. First, Jesus did not say faith must precede baptism for an individual. He simply said one has to believe and be baptized in order to be saved. He said nothing about the two having to be accomplished in that order for the individual.
Moreover, even if we were to accept as fact that faith must come first, even though Mark 16:16 does not say that, this would not exclude the possibility that the faith of the parents suffices until the child reaches the age of accountability.
Second, a strict reading of Mark 16:16 has devastating consequences. A baby cannot believe. Does that mean that all babies who die without believing will not be saved? Of course not! The thief on the cross was presumably not baptized. Does that mean he would not go to heaven? Of course not! Belief and baptism are necessary to those who have the opportunity to obtain them. If they were to be impeded from being able to believe or be baptized, and that could be the case for many different reasons, then God would judge them in accordance with what they were responsible for.
This last point gets to another reason why infant baptism is so important. Sometimes we are accountable not just for ourselves, but for others as well (see Ezek. 3:18-19). Parents are responsible for baptizing their babies. If they knowingly do not do so, they break God&#8217;s covenant in a serious matter. Like the paralytic in Matthew 9:2-6 who was completely dependent upon others to bring him to Christ in order for him to get his sins forgiven (and his physical healing), a baby is completely dependent upon his parents to bring him to Christ.
And notice as well that it was the faith of those who brought the paralytic to Christ that God used instrumentally for the paralytic&#8217;s salvation: “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven’” (v. 2). Whose faith did Jesus &#8220;see&#8221; here? “Their” seems to refer back to the “they” of the same verse: “And behold, they brought to him a paralytic . . .”
The faith of the parents suffices when they bring their infant to be blessed by Christ via &#8220;the circumcision of Christ.&#8221;
Paul clearly teaches that circumcision never justified anyone, at least in the sense of the initial gift of justification. “We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham . . . before he was circumcised” (Rom. 4:9-10). So doesn’t this prove that baptism does not save us, either?
Three points:
First, as I said above, baptism is the fulfillment of that which was only a type in the Old Testament. The fulfillment is always more glorious than the type. Thus, “baptism does now save you” (1 Pet. 3:21) in a way that circumcision could not.
Second, it is true that Abraham and David were Paul’s two examples of justifying grace occurring apart from circumcision in Romans 4. And yet, Abraham instituted circumcision by divine mandate, and David was, in fact, circumcised as a little baby. Indeed, God also declared in the Old Testament that &#8220;any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant&#8221; (Gen. 17:14). It is not a contradiction to say both faith and circumcision were necessary to remain within God’s covenant in the Old Testament, even though circumcision played no role in initial justification.
Third, the faith of the parents sufficed when it came to circumcising a child. Do we not see that principle in the New Testament as well? Jesus saw the faith of the friends of the paralytic and healed the paralytic in Matthew 9:2. When people cannot have faith, the faith of family or friends suffices. So it is with infant baptism. The faith of the parents sanctifies the children, as Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:14. This is just as much a New Testament concept as it is an Old Testament concept.
So if you have the Faith, and you&#8217;re on the fence about baptizing your baby . . . wonder no longer. Baptize him!

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Ask Me Anything

When it comes to love, English is impoverished. It’s not that English-speakers don’t love but that our language is so limited. “I love God,” “I love my wife,” “I love chocolate ice cream” all use the same verb, but that word cannot mean the same thing in all three cases.
Sociologists speak of the Sapir-Whorf thesis. Put simply, it explains differences in language based on users’ need, which, reciprocally, shape or limit the speaker’s way of seeing reality. Like “love,” English has one word for that white powdery thing that falls from the sky: “snow.” Eskimo languages, by contrast, have many words for snow. English has to approximate them by multiplying adjectives. Muruaneq is “soft, deep snow,” which is different from ughugesnaq, “wet snow that is falling”—each of which will require different actions to get home. A quick but precise noun conceptualizes X and distinguishes it from Y, enabling rapid life decisions.
So why is English a one-word “love” language?
C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Four Loves, which explains the four Greek words for “love.” They range from attraction (including physical attraction) to affection (emotional attraction) to friendship to benevolence.
I’m stressing the differences in “love” because it’s relevant to an image I want to discuss from another C.S. Lewis book, The Great Divorce. It has to do with “love” as eros and its deformation in lust.
The Great Divorce discusses the dead who come from a “city” on a bus trip to the outskirts of heaven. The identity of that “city” is fluid: for those who, on their heavenly peripheries day trip, are attracted to stay, it is purgatory. For those who choose to take the return bus, it’s hell.
Don’t be surprised that the return bus is usually full. One of the tragic consequences of the mystery of sin is that, having grown accustomed to it, we feel naked and insecure without its familiarity. It’s like that natty, worn out sweater with holes that should have been thrown out long ago but you still wear because “it feels good.”
I was particularly gripped by a scene in which an angel encounters a soul with a lizard on its neck. The soul is headed back to the bus. He’s a little put off by the angel’s presence because he knows that the reptile—which symbolizes lust—has not kept its promise. The lizard promised not to keep whispering dirty ideas into his ear, since the soul knows that “his stuff won’t do here,” but it “won’t stop.” So the soul is ready to take his inappropriate companion and go back to hell.
The angel proposes another way, albeit by steps.
“Would you like me to make him quiet?” The soul seems enthusiastic about the prospect.
“Then I will kill it.”
But, on approaching them, the soul already feels uncomfortable. “You’re burning me,” the soul bellows, “retreating.” When the angel asks whether the soul really wants the pest killed, the latter begins to temporize. “You didn’t say anything about killing him at first.” That’s so “drastic.” All the soul wanted was lust’s “silence,” not necessarily its separation. And he wanted its “silence” because, well, its overt visibility is “so damned embarrassing.”
The angel isn’t diverted. “May I kill it?” The soul parries: let’s talk “later.” Really, thank you, didn’t mean to be a bother. See you.
But the angel doesn’t give up. “There’s no time.” Now is the time (literally, since heaven is the eternal now).
The soul keeps multiplying excuses. “I shall be able to keep it in order now.” A “gradual process” is better than a nip in the bud. I’ll feel better about it tomorrow.
In the end, the soul admits its fear: in killing it, you’ll kill me. The angel assures the soul that’s not true. But “you’re hurting me now.” The angel is clear: “I never said it wouldn’t hurt you. I said it wouldn’t kill you.”
In the end, after further hemming and hawing, the soul finally musters himself enough to agree. As the angel’s hand approaches, lust grows louder, pleading, “You’ll be without me for ever and ever. It’s not natural!” At last, in the end, comes the soul’s decision: “Damn you and blast you! Go on . . . get it over. Do what you like. God help me. God help me.” (He will!)
The angel then plucks the lizard from the soul’s shoulder and fatally twists its neck. At the same time, the soul “gave a scream of agony such as I had never heard on earth.”
What then happens is amazing.
The soul begins to grow in stature, “not much smaller than the Angel.” His beauty emerges.
The lizard, too, changes. From an ugly reptile emerges a vigorous white stallion, which the soul approaches and nuzzles. Then the soul hops on its back and, together, both ride off to the mountains—the heights—of heaven.
Human beings are sensory creatures. The world comes to us through our senses, including touch (which includes sex). Eros is that love which most directly affects the senses. It is powerful. It gives us “lust” for life and love. It drives us forward.
In itself, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/better-than-sex">eros is very good</a>. It’s when its power is directed in the wrong ways that the powerful stallion becomes the creepy lizard hanging on our necks.
St. Augustine was an erotic man. His misdirected eros led to many sins and wasted years. But when his lizard was killed, he became a saint whose spiritual vigor outdid many.
Catholicism does not ask we deny the senses. It does ask that we put them in the service of the good. The failure to control them leads to lust; their discipline supports love. “Love” and “lust” are not cousins. They are just two four letter words.
Our sensual world confuses them. One example: think of the wreckage pornography brings to so many lives, damage that seems irreparable. And think of its ubiquity, along with the sexualization (“pornification”) of our world.
Now, imagine what great saints would arise if that eros were channeled into true love instead of lust. If we stopped making excuses and snuggling in our sins. If, by God’s grace, we cast off the lizard and mounted the white stallion.
Our Lady, Queen of Purity, pray for us!

Lust Is Not Love’s Cousin

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People celebrate every St. Valentine’s Day using heart shapes. Greeting cards bear them, cakes and candies are made in this shape, and they’re used as decorations on anything connected with the holiday.
The shape—usually red, with two round lobes at the top and a point at the bottom—is idealized and only approximates what a human heart looks like. But how common it is raises a question for the modern mind: Why do we use it this way?
At least in the secular sphere, Valentine’s Day celebrates romantic love, but in modern medicine, the heart is just a set of muscles that rhythmically contract to push blood around inside our bodies. What’s the connection?
The answer, as you might expect, goes back quite a ways. People have always known the organs of the body. Between cutting up animals and cutting up other people, they were quite familiar with them. But they didn’t always understand their functions.
For example, today we associate thought with the brain. This is known as the cephalocentric (“head-centered”) hypothesis, but this view wasn’t dominant in history.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was one of the best anatomists in the ancient world. He noted all the blood vessels around the brain and concluded that its function was to allow the blood from the heart to cool down (On the Parts of Animals 2:7). The brain was, in essence, a heat management organ.
On the other hand, there seemed to be a direct connection between the heart and mental phenomena. If you’re seized by a strong emotion—love, lust, fear, anxiety, excitement—your heart speeds up. In the absence of such emotion, it slows down.
Sometimes—particularly at moments of peak emotion—your heart may even “skip a beat.” (Technically, one chamber beats early, before it’s fully filled with blood, so you don’t feel the beat; then it over-fills as the normal cycle reasserts itself, and you feel a more pronounced thump.)
It thus became natural for people to associate the heart with mental functions like emotions and intellect. This is known as the cardiocentric (“heart-centered”) hypothesis.
Several other factors may have also contributed to this view, such as the fact the heart is hidden (like our mental functions), that it is at the center of our bodies’ extensions (suggesting it’s important), and that if it stops working, you die (associated with the spirit leaving).
Whatever the factors, the idea that the heart is the seat of the mind was common in ancient cultures. Thus, when the ancient Egyptians mummified you, they kept your heart inside your body, but they took out the brain so that its moisture wouldn’t cause the body to rot. This would have been done for the two ancient Israelites who we know were mummified, the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph (Gen. 50:2-3, 26).
The Israelites also accepted the cardiocentric model. Thus, a man is said to rejoice “in his heart” (Exod. 4:14) or to have his heart “broken” (Ps. 69:20)—an expression we still use today. Angry people have their hearts grow hot (Ps. 39:3), and hearts “melt” with fear (Deut. 20:8). The heart is the seat of courage (2 Chron. 17:6), and God may fulfill the “heart’s desire” (Ps. 21:2).
In addition to the heart being seen as the place of these emotions, it was also seen as the seat of the intellect. Thus, before the Flood, God saw “that every imagination of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5), and when Abraham heard the prophecy of Isaac’s birth, he laughed to himself and “in his heart” said, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?” (17:17). This mode of language is even applied to God himself, for after the Flood, “the Lord said in his heart” that he would not curse the ground again because of man (8:21).
The cardiocentric model continued to be used in the New Testament. The heart is still spoken of as the seat of emotions. Thus, Paul tells the Colossians to sing “with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16), and he tells the Thessalonians that he wishes God will “encourage your hearts” (2 Thess. 2:17).
The heart is similarly envisioned as the seat of the intellect. Thus, Simeon prophesies that through Jesus, the “thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35), and when the disciples argue about who is the greatest, Jesus knows “the thoughts of their hearts” (9:47).
The image of the heart continued to be prominent in the post-apostolic age. After the year 1000, devotion began to grow to the heart of Jesus. A prominent example is the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-you-can-personally-console-jesus-in-gethsemane">Sacred Heart of Jesus</a> devotion revealed to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque between 1673 and 1675. This devotion depicts Jesus’ heart surrounded by flames of love, with a crown of thorns and a cross above it, and a solemnity commemorating the Sacred Heart is celebrated on the third Friday after Pentecost.
Ordinary people continue to use language based on the cardiocentric model today, such as when we say that someone is “big-hearted,” “cold-hearted,” or “tender-hearted.” We may say that someone has a “heart of gold” or a “heart of stone,” or that he is a “bleeding heart.” People “learn things by heart.” And of course, the Grinch’s “heart was two sizes too small.”
We do this without even thinking about it, the same way we speak of the sun rising and setting despite what Copernicus and Galileo had to say. For us ordinary individuals, this doesn’t raise much of an issue. The presence of the cardiocentric model in folk expressions is no big deal.
But what about when it appears in Scripture or Church documents—like those approving the Sacred Heart devotion? Does it conflict with the cephalocentric model that regards the head rather than the heart as the seat of mental activity?
The cephalocentric model also has a long history. It actually pre-dates Aristotle, having been proposed by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras around 550 B.C. Fans of the theory included Aristotle’s teacher Plato and the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, so it’s not as if the idea was absent from Western thought.
Following the Scientific Revolution, evidence mounted that the brain is more associated with thought than the heart, and by the early 1800s, neuroscience had developed to the point that cephalocentrism was firmly established.
The Church knew this, and so in 1899, Pope Leo XIII explained the Sacred Heart in symbolic terms, stating that “there is in the Sacred Heart a symbol and a sensible image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love one another” and that “whatever honor, veneration, and love is given to this divine heart is really and truly given to Christ himself” (Annum Sacrum 8).
Similarly, in 2024, Pope Francis stated that “devotion to the heart of Christ is not the veneration of a single organ apart from the Person of Jesus. What we contemplate and adore is the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, represented by an image that accentuates his heart. That heart of flesh is seen as the privileged sign of the inmost being of the incarnate Son and his love, both divine and human. More than any other part of his body, the heart of Jesus is the natural sign and symbol of his boundless love” (Dilexit Nos 48).
What about the Bible? Does the cardiocentric language it uses mean that the biblical authors didn’t understand the role of the brain and the heart? They lived before the Scientific Revolution, so they would not be expected to, and that’s not a problem from the perspective of biblical theology.
The Second Vatican Council taught, “Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth that God wanted put into sacred writings” (Dei Verbum 11).
It also taught, “For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking, and narrating that prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another” (op. cit. 12).
We therefore must distinguish between what the biblical authors assumed to be the case and what they were asserting by the language they used. When Luke says that Jesus knew “the thought of [the disciples’] hearts” (Luke 9:47), he’s asserting that Jesus knew their thoughts, not that these thoughts were literally housed in their hearts.
We don’t know which school of thought Luke subscribed to. As an ancient physician, he may have been a cardiocentrist or a cephalocentrist, but either way, it was normal for people of his day to speak of thoughts as coming from the heart—as is often the case for us today. In any event, Luke is not trying to teach us a medical theory; he’s telling us that Jesus knew what the disciples thought, and this assertion—not any background assumptions in the way it is expressed—is what is guaranteed to be true.
On the other hand, we shouldn’t be too quick to assume a strict correlation between the brain and mental phenomena. In the first place, there’s what’s known as “the little brain in the heart,” or the intrinsic cardiac nervous system (ICNS). It’s about forty thousand neurons that help regulate the heart’s activity, and things like a racing heart can affect emotional states (e.g., by causing fear and panic).
Even more surprisingly, there is evidence from heart transplant surgeries that something more than the physical organ—at least information—is being passed between patients. In one example, neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hearts-Code-Tapping-Wisdom-Energy/dp/0767900952">recounts the cases</a> of men he refers to as Jim and Frank. Jim had bad lungs and received a heart-lung transplant. However, Jim’s own heart was still good and was given to Frank. After the transplant, Frank’s personality changed to be more like Jim’s, Frank began exhibiting Jim’s food preferences, and during intimate moments Frank began calling his wife by the name of Jim’s wife (123-124).
Ultimately, neither the heart nor the brain may be essential for mental activity. Consistent with Christian teaching on life after death, the evidence of near-death experiences reveals that people continue to have conscious experiences even during cardiac arrest, when the heart has ceased beating and brain activity goes offline within seconds. Yet people in this condition accurately report things happening around their physical bodies and even in other rooms of hospitals that they have no sensory access to.
All of this serves as a warning against reductionistic theories that would too closely tie the mind and emotions to physical organs like the heart and the brain. Given the complexity of what we observe, this whole area is—as it was in biblical days—a mystery.

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What If I Was Poorly Catechized? Invincible Ignorance and Responsibility

Jimmy Akin explains some of the meaning behind Mark 4:11-12 and why Jesus would have wanted to conceal the truths of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/parables">parables</a> to some people, and further explains how this relates to predestination.
Transcript:
Host: Go to Justin in Hamilton, Ohio listening on the Catholic Answers app. Justin, you are on with Jimmy Akin, what&#8217;s your question?
Caller: Hi Jimmy, my question is, well I was reading reading my Bible and I was coming across a verse in the Gospel of Mark chapter 4 where he says, &#8220;He answered them, &#8216;The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables so that, &#8220;they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand; in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.&#8221;&#8216;&#8221; What exactly is he trying to say? Like when I&#8217;m reading and I have a hard time understanding, is he saying that he&#8217;s saying these things in parables so people don&#8217;t understand?
Jimmy: This is one of the most difficult verses in the New Testament and I won&#8217;t really be able to do it full justice here. You might want to check out my commentary on Mark which is just called &#8220;Mark: A Commentary,&#8221; it&#8217;s by Jimmy Akin, it&#8217;s available on Verbum Bible Software. But I can give you a brief explanation here.
Now one of the things that God often does in Scripture is he often uses things like parables. Prophecy is also frequently given in a kind of symbolic, almost parable-like way rather than just an explicit straightforward statement, and there seem to be a couple of reasons for that, at least a couple. One of them is that sometimes truths are complex, and they&#8217;re rich, and in order to fully mine them it&#8217;s helpful to use an analogy rather than simply having a short statement. If you made a short statement, it would tend to flatten them out, whereas if you give them in a symbolic form, and you&#8217;re forced to think about it and wrestle with it, you may notice additional dimensions that you wouldn&#8217;t if just a short statement were given. And so the richness of these things is part of why God gives us parables and prophecies.
Also there&#8217;s a certain intrigue factor to them. We&#8217;re more likely to wrestle with them and absorb their message if they&#8217;re given to us in this somewhat enigmatic way, because our minds are attracted to mysteries and enigmas, and so if God gives us a mysterious, enigmatic statement we&#8217;re gonna be inclined to think about that more deeply than if he just told us something flat-out. We&#8217;re likely to learn our lesson better.
Having said that, there are specialized situations where knowledge is meant to be broadcast in a way that conceals it, and that seems to be what Jesus is referring to here. Jesus did not come to make his message apparent to everybody so that everybody would repent and believe. Now he came to make salvation possible for everybody, but the means by which he chose to do that in concert with the Father was by his redeeming death. And so he came to die, he came to function as a prophet who, like many of the prophets before him, would encounter opposition and disbelief on the part of many people, and who would eventually put him to death just like many of the previous prophets were martyred&#8211;only unlike them, through his death the redemption of the world would be accomplished.
And so what Jesus is talking about here is when he talks about &#8220;lest they see and understand&#8221; and so forth, basically that&#8217;s another way of saying &#8220;Part of the reason I&#8217;m using parables is so that those who would not think about them and dwell on them, those people who aren&#8217;t willing to engage the parables in a constructive way and learn from them and absorb their spiritual lessons and convert, so that those people will follow their appointed course and they will end up choosing to martyr me so that I end up fulfilling my mission as well.&#8221;
And so it&#8217;s a kind of complex situation, much like those that we actually find in parables. But it&#8217;s not that he doesn&#8217;t will everybody to be saved&#8211;he does&#8211;but he knows certain people are not going to cooperate with his offer of salvation, they&#8217;re not going to take him up on it, and as part of that he&#8217;s willing to communicate in this somewhat mysterious way, so that those who are open to God&#8217;s message will study the parables and interpret them and internalize them and be saved, whereas those who aren&#8217;t willing to engage God in that way will not do so and they&#8217;ll end up fulfilling his mission.
Host: Does that help you, Justin?
Caller: Yeah, yeah that&#8217;s a&#8211;yeah, that&#8217;s a large pill to swallow at once.
Jimmy: Yes it is.
Caller: Okay, I do have a quick question. So with your explanation, I&#8217;m thinking and trying to rationalize what you&#8217;re saying, could that be in a way like some people believe in predestination?
Jimmy: In terms&#8211;well, there are themes of predestination that are related here. It doesn&#8217;t intersect in a direct way, because, I mean Jesus is not talking about predestination per se in this passage, but God&#8211;you also have to clarify how are you using the word predestination, because in some circles the word predestination is used to refer to a decision God makes on no basis&#8230;that God&#8217;s just going to pick certain people to do certain things. And that&#8217;s not the the vision of this that I just articulated, which involves those who are willing or unwilling.
The choice that Jesus makes to leave certain people in their ignorance is based on their unwillingness to engage God in an open constructive way, because if someone is willing to engage God in an open constructive way then they&#8217;ll think about the parables, and they&#8217;ll eventually solve them, internalize their meaning and be saved. So it&#8217;s not that God&#8217;s picking people randomly to go to Heaven or Hell; the dividing line is between those who are willing to be open to God&#8217;s grace and those who are not.
Host: Thanks Justin, I hope that that was helpful to you.

Did Jesus Speak In Parables So People Wouldn’t Understand Him?

<div>How can Catholics use 2 Maccabees 12:46 as a justification for purgatory when St. Jerome rejected its authority as Scripture?
</div><div>It is true that Jerome did not initially accept 2 Maccabees as Scripture and thus would not have used the texts from the book to support belief in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-purgatory-in-the-bible">purgatory</a>. But this in no way undermines the canonicity of 2 Maccabees.
First, Catholics do not consider the early Church Fathers infallible. Therefore, one should expect to find some Fathers teaching things that are not consistent with later defined teachings.
Second, there is evidence that Jerome later accepted the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel despite the belief of the Jews of his day that they were not Scripture. In his response to Rufinus (11:33, A.D. 402), Jerome makes explicit that it is the judgment of the Church by which the canon is to be settled. He writes, “What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches?”
<a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/jerome-saint">Jerome</a> would also eventually include all the deuterocanonicals in his Vulgate edition of the scriptures.
So, rather than Jerome’s initial denial of 2 Maccabees’ canonicity undermining the Church’s acceptance of the deuterocanonicals into the canon, the story that his denial is a part of actually supports it.
</div>

How can we use 2 Maccabees for Purgatory when St. Jerome Rejected It?

<div>If people in a state of mortal sin repent with imperfect contrition at the moment of death, can they still attain eternal salvation?</div><div>Imperfect contrition means a sorrow for sin that is not motivated by supernatural charity but by fear of punishment. Of itself, imperfect contrition is good and reasonable as far as it goes, but it does not suffice for the removal of the obstacle of grave sin. So the best thing for the person to do is to ask God for the grace of loving him and repenting because of his goodness, not only because of his punishments. It is practically certain that God will grant this grace to those who ask for it, since he himself has commanded us to love him!
</div>

Is Imperfect Contrition at Death Enough?

How Specific Do You Need to Be For a Good Confession?

What does Catholic tradition actually teach about racism? Did Jesus have anything to say about it? Father Hugh Barbour explains how the ancient Faith deals with a term coined in the modern world.

Racism for Catholics

<div>As a Catholic, may I officiate at my niece’s wedding? She and her fiancé are both unbaptized. But they are also planning on not having any children. </div><div>In general, a Catholic could officiate at wedding of two non-Catholics, provided there are no obvious impediments, for example, a prior marriage. 
In addition, although your niece and her fiancé are to be commended for desiring to make a lifelong commitment, they will marry invalidly, because they are positively excluding an <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/4-musts-that-make-a-catholic-marriage">essential element of marriage</a>: openness to children. And because it’s an essential element, this applies to even a natural marriage—that is, the type of marriage your niece and her fiancé will be attempting—not just simply to sacramental marriage between two Christians. 
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church provides: 
<blockquote>Unity, indissolubility, and openness to fertility are essential to marriage. Polygamy is incompatible with the unity of marriage; divorce separates what God has joined together; the refusal of fertility turns married life away from its &#8220;supreme gift,&#8221; the child (GS 50 § 1). (CCC 1664, emphasis added).</blockquote>
The Church’s Code of Canon Law affirms: 
<blockquote>The internal consent of the mind is presumed to conform to the words and signs used in celebrating the marriage.
If, however, either or both of the parties should by a positive act of will exclude marriage itself or any essential element [i.e., good] of marriage or any essential property, such party contracts invalidly (1101, §§ 1–2, emphasis added). </blockquote>
Again, the Church means categorically excluding children, as opposed to perhaps delaying having a child, and that point might help persuade your niece and her fiancé. 
Consequently, I encourage you to lovingly tell your niece and her fiancé that they need to be open to children to marry validly, and thus to have you officiate as a faithful Catholic. I realize that’s a “big ask,” given how they’ve been raised and otherwise formed by the culture. But speaking the truth in joyful charity is key and distinguishing between categorical exclusion vs. limited delay re: openness to children could win her and fiancé over. 
If your niece still refuses, then let her know that, out of genuine love for her and fiancé, both for their temporal well-being and concern for their everlasting good, that you will charitably decline officiating. 
I’d still try to be a part of her life, which she may not open to, at least for a while, but you’re the kind of person who could plant good seeds in her life over time. God bless your efforts abundantly! (John 10:10; Rom. 8:28). 
</div>

Should a Catholic Officiate a Non-Catholic Wedding?

Can Mary Save Us?

On May 2, 2024, the House of Representatives passed the “<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6090/text">Antisemitism Awareness Act</a>,” partly in response to an uptick in antisemitic displays at U.S. college campuses in recent years. The act could help students file civil complaints if they feel they have been victims of antisemitic discrimination.
The Catholic Church condemns all unjust discrimination, and <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2024/documents/20240202-lettera-ebrei-in-israele.html">Pope Francis even said</a> this past February that the Church “rejects every form of anti-Judaism and antisemitism, unequivocally condemning manifestations of hatred towards Jews and Judaism as a sin against God.”
Some critics are concerned that the bill’s definition of antisemitism, which is drawn from the <a href="https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism">International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance</a>, is too broad and would make basic Catholic doctrine antisemitic. They focus on one part that says it is antisemitic to “[use] the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.” In response, they say that the Bible and many Church Fathers speak about “the Jews” killing Jesus.
So is it accurate to say “the Jews killed Jesus”? Is it antisemitic?
The Second Vatican Council taught that “the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today” (Nostra Aetate 4). Some Catholics, however, argue that all the unconverted Jews in the time of Christ (thus exempting the Blessed Virgin and the apostles) were responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. Some even claim that all unconverted Jews in history since the Crucifixion carry a unique guilt for Christ’s death that other sinners do not share.
It is obviously false that all non-Christian Jews at the time of Christ’s death were responsible for his crucifixion, for the simple reason that not all of them were consulted! Only a tiny portion of the Jewish population called for his death. Further, many Jews who did not formally become Christian still had a positive attitude toward Jesus and his movement (see Acts 2:47) and almost certainly would not have approved of Jesus’ death.
When it comes to later Jews being responsible, this idea comes from an interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel, which describes Pilate washing his hands, saying, “I am innocent of this righteous man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Matthew then says the crowd answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (27:25).
What do we make of this “blood curse”? To start, the biblical text never says God honored it. Nor would such a curse, even if it was honored, apply to every future Jew, since nearly all of them are not descended from the small crowd present at Jesus’ sentencing.
In the second volume of his work Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI writes:
<blockquote>When in Matthew&#8217;s account the &#8220;whole people&#8221; say, &#8220;His blood be upon us and on our children&#8221; (27:25), the Christian will remember that Jesus&#8217; blood speaks a different language from the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:24): it does not cry out for vengeance and punishment; it brings reconciliation. It is not poured out against anyone; it is poured out for many, for all. . . . Read in the light of faith, it means that we all stand in need of the purifying power of love which is his blood. These words are not a curse, but rather redemption, salvation (187).</blockquote>
For another interpretation, the crowd’s exclamation in Matthew 27:25 may refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 as being part of a divinely appointed punishment upon those who rejected Jesus. It was not uncommon in Israel’s history for future generations to be afflicted because of the sinful actions of Israel’s rulers, such as Solomon’s idolatry (1 Kings 11) being the catalyst for the division of the kingdom and the Jews’ subsequent exile into Babylon.
Historically, some Catholics, including through medieval regional councils and in papal documents, did argue that Jewish hardships throughout history represented a similar kind of punishment for Jewish involvement in the Crucifixion. However, these assertions did not rise to the level of definitive magisterial teaching. In fact, the sixteenth-century Catechism of the Council of Trent rejects the idea that Jews bear more guilt for Jesus’ crucifixion than non-Jews:
<blockquote>In this guilt are involved all those who fall frequently into sin; for, as our sins consigned Christ the Lord to the death of the cross, most certainly those who wallow in sin and iniquity crucify to themselves again the Son of God, as far as in them lies, and make a mockery of him.
This guilt seems more enormous in us than in the Jews, since according to the testimony of the same apostle: If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory; while we, on the contrary, professing to know him, yet denying him by our actions, seem in some sort to lay violent hands on him.</blockquote>
But even if Jews throughout history are not uniquely responsible for the death of Jesus, what about “the Jews” of Jesus’ time?
The Catechism of the Council of Trent refers to “the Jews” killing Jesus, and several Scripture passages (John 5:18, Acts 10:39) use similar language. In 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15, St. Paul says, “For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men.”
Paul’s phrase “the Jews” is a reference not to all Jews, but to a particular group of Jews in Palestine who were persecuting the Church. Other scholars have proposed that the Greek word Ioudaiōn in the New Testament can also be translated Judeans and that in some verses, this context makes more sense than the broader term “Jews.”
John 7:1 says, “After this Jesus went about in Galilee; he would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.” But there were plenty of Jews in Galilee, so what is meant in this passage is not “Jews”—i.e., non-Christian followers of Yahweh—but rather Judeans, and specifically the Jews loyal to political leadership in Jerusalem. This interpretation also makes sense of Paul’s exhortation to imitate the Christians in Judea who withstood persecution at the hands of the persecutors in that area, the Judeans (a role Paul once held before his conversion).
The Catechism also gives this insight into how we ought to understand Jewish responsibility for Christ’s death:
<blockquote>The historical complexity of Jesus&#8217; trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone. Hence we cannot lay responsibility for the trial on the Jews in Jerusalem as a whole, despite the outcry of a manipulated crowd and the global reproaches contained in the apostles&#8217; calls to conversion after Pentecost. Jesus himself, in forgiving them on the cross, and Peter in following suit, both accept &#8220;the ignorance&#8221; of the Jews of Jerusalem and even of their leaders (597).</blockquote>
It is inaccurate to say, as some critical scholars might allege, that the Romans were completely responsible for Christ’s crucifixion. Scripture clearly teaches that some members of the Jewish leadership saw Jesus as being such a grave threat to the social order that he needed to be killed (John 11:50). However, as we saw in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council quoted earlier, this guilt cannot be laid upon all unconverted Jews at that time, and much less so on Jewish people throughout history. Indeed, we must remember humanity’s collective involvement, through our sins, in Christ’s death on the cross. This is why the Catechism states that
<blockquote>in her magisterial teaching of the Faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that &#8220;sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the divine Redeemer endured.&#8221; Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself, the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus, a responsibility with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone (598).</blockquote>

Did ‘the Jews’ Kill Jesus?

Catholic Answers’ Jimmy Akin and host Cy Kellett take a nostalgic trip back to the 1970s—a time of questionable toys, bizarre TV shows, and zero safety regulations.
Transcript:
Cy: Magikarp sounds like how people say magic harp.
Jimmy: How many people actually say Magikarp these days?
Cy: I think there might have been one in the.
Jimmy: I know, I know. There&#8217;s a Magic Flute. You know, there&#8217;s an opera about that.
Cy: That&#8217;s so funny that you think of the opera and I think of the Saturday morning TV show with. With Jimmy. What was his name?
Pufnstuf
Cy: HR Pufnstuf Yeah.
Jimmy: He&#8217;s your friend. When things get tough, I All the.
Cy: Don&#8217;t do it, Jimmy. I know you know all the words to the HR Pufnstufsong. I actually am kind of tempted to have you do it, but don&#8217;t do it.
Jimmy: Okay? I&#8217;ll do whatever you want. I&#8217;m a mechanical boy, like a mechanical toy.
Cy: I was enjoying it. I was kind of getting into it.
Cy: By the way, if you&#8217;re young and you have never been exposed to HR Pufnstuf, and you don&#8217;t know why people our age are weird, because this is what we watched on Saturday morning. Sid and Marty Krofft was a CIA conspiracy against the Mile or something. I don&#8217;t know, man. It was crazy. I had forgotten about click clacks.
Jimmy: Yeah, we should explain. Just before we came back on, we were talking about wild stuff from the 70s, and Cy mentioned avocado-colored household appliances.
Cy: Yeah.
Jimmy: And I mentioned all the dangerous games that we had that were then pulled off the market. And we both, at the same time, said lawn darts, which were these. They were about a foot long, as I recall, and they had a metal core with plastic fins, and you&#8217;d throw them and aim at targets on the lawn.
Cy: They were knives for children to throw at each other. It was. That&#8217;s what it was.
Jimmy: Yeah. And I think adults played lawn darts, too. But when you get kids running around and you&#8217;re throwing pointed metal objects, you know, it&#8217;s like this is like a little game of javelins with children running around, but also click clacks.
Cy: What a click clack was. It was kind of like a bolo, but there were two plastic spheres, hard plastic, that were connected by a cord. And you&#8217;d hold the cord in the middle and you&#8217;d swing it back and forth so that the two plastic spheres would clack into each other twice with each swing. And so you&#8217;d be going, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.
Cy: And a. Okay. This is a noisemaker, which is going to annoy parents, but kids love noisemakers.
Jimmy: Yeah, but the real problem is you&#8217;re gonna hit someone with those hard plastic spheres, you may hit yourself in the head. You may hit another child. You might deliberately throw it at another child to hit them. So. Well, there are some kind of dangerous toys.
Cy: I think that it&#8217;s Australians. That there&#8217;s some kind of weapon where they put two balls on the end of a string and you throw it.
Jimmy: Oh, that&#8217;s a bolo.
Cy: Oh, yeah. Okay. So of course that&#8217;s what we tried to do. Be like, hey, run down the street and I&#8217;ll try to see if I can get these around your legs. So children are knocking each other&#8217;s brains out with heavy plastic balls. The 70s was awesome. It was awesome.
Cy: After this, we&#8217;ll throw lawn darts at each other. Amazing, amazing time. But then the fun thing was then you could get in the station wagon with no seat belts and just play sports in the back of the car.
Jimmy: Just in the back of the car.
Cy: Rumble around in the back of the car while you went on a drive with no air conditioning.
Jimmy: Did that all the time. I should correct myself. It&#8217;s not bolos, but bolas that are the throwing weapon that you could use to, like, if you&#8217;re a gaucho in South America, you could, you know, catch an animal by throwing a bola at it.
Jimmy: We also had another thing that I really. Look now. We had some toys that got taken off the market that I don&#8217;t think they needed to like. There was one toy that I really liked that was. It was called a Thing Maker. And what it was was a. It was a little light bulb powered oven. Basically. They had the Easy-Bake Oven for girls, and they&#8217;d make little things that were.
Cy: Was that for girls?
Jimmy: I was not aware of that.
Cy: Well, I love Easy-Bake Oven.
Jimmy: All right, go ahead.
Jimmy: Primarily for girls, but they also had an equivalent for boys that were primarily for boys where you could take these metal trays and pour goop in them. And they had these bottles of goop and then you put that into the Thing Maker and it would heat it up and cause the goop to solidify as this kind of rubber. And you&#8217;d make these little creatures. And they had like Creeple People was one of them. And it was these little creepy looking characters that you could make.
Jimmy: And I loved playing with the Thing Maker and the Creepy Crawlers and Creeple People that I made with it. But because those little metal trays got hot, they ended up taking it off the market. And I think that was maybe a little. I mean, it&#8217;s not meant for 2-year-olds or 4-year-olds. But I think older children could play with that without it being a problem. Once you learn, you gotta have a little patience and restraint while it cools down.
Cy: Children can deal with heat. Like sometimes we under. Like for all of human history, children have been dealing with fire and heat. Like, if you&#8217;re responsible, they can deal with it.
How are they gonna learn if they don&#8217;t burn their fingers once in a while?
Jimmy: You know, there also was another that I really liked that was. This would have been late 60s or very, very early 70s. But there was a kind of plastic goop. It was thicker than the goop you&#8217;d use with the Thing Maker, which was. Had a consistency before it was baked. Kind of like glue.
Cy: And then you make a frog or something out of it.
Jimmy: You&#8217;d be all kinds of cool stuff, little monster something. But there was another kind of goop that came in a tube and this goop was thicker and more rubbery just out of the tube. And what you. And it was all kinds of different psychedelic colors. And what you do is you&#8217;d squeeze out a little bit of this goop onto the end of a straw and then you take the straw and blow into it and the goop would inflate and you would have your own custom-built goop balloon with an irregular shape and all these psychedelic swirly colors on it.
Jimmy: And then you pinch it off and you could play with your balloon. And I thought that was really cool too. But apparently the goop was toxic or something the way they made it.
Cy: Get over it.
Jimmy: Oh, sorry. Yeah. And so they ended up pulling it off the market. But I thought it was fun.
Cy: Yeah. And we. Did you, did you ever get the opportunity as a child to make a tie-dye shirt? This was also a big thing. You get a. Magically a white T-shirt turns into an actual fashion statement. Like it was a wonderful adventure making the tie-dye T-shirt.
Jimmy: I didn&#8217;t have that as a child. My parents were a little too square for that.
Cy: Oh yeah.
Jimmy: But I do actually have a tie-dye shirt now. But these are ones I bought, not ones I made. I first got a tie-dye shirt because I thought they were looking interesting. But I first got one when I was in grad school in college, at least this first one I remember.
And I had had some toe surgery for an ingrown toenail and I needed to wear Birkenstock sandals after the toe surgery. And no, there&#8217;s a method to my madness because in grad school, I was assigned as a teaching assistant. And I had, I had, you know, longish hair and I had a beard. It wasn&#8217;t as long as it is now, but I had longish hair and a beard.
And I was assigned as a teaching assistant in grad school in the philosophy department. And so I was assigned to teach Introduction to Philosophy. And I did very well at it. I had my faculty, you know, student evaluations were top of the department, and they actually gave me an award for teaching.
And I remember one day one of my fellow grad students who was also a teaching assistant, he couldn&#8217;t make it to one of his classes and asked me to sub for him. And he was not the clearest communicator. And so I went and I taught his class. And this was towards the beginning of the semester and I had, like, several students come up to me after the class eagerly saying, are you our new instructor now?
Cy: They understood you.
Jimmy: So. But one of the challenges, because I wanted as part of this course to do Intro to Philosophy, I wanted to cover philosophy of religion. And I wanted, and this was a state school, this was University of Arkansas, so this is not a religious school. And I wanted to be able to present religious content in a way that would not trip sensitivities for students that were, you know, hostile to Christianity or things like that, because, you know, young people.
And so what I did was I got out my Birkenstock sandals from my toe surgery and I bought a tie-dye T-shirt and I put on the tie-dye T-shirt. And then I go in and teach philosophy of religion. And I can talk about religion without looking like Jerry Falwell. And it worked.
Cy: Yeah, yeah. There are advantages to being a hippie. You can talk about stuff that the guy with the tie on can&#8217;t talk about.
Let&#8217;s take a break. The 70s was both better and worse than, and now I&#8217;m recalling better than people remember it. It had some. Yeah, it was a real mix. Not so good for Patty Hearst. But for the rest of us, there were click clacks.
We&#8217;ll be right back with more Jimmy Akin right after this on Catholic Answers Live.

The 70s Were Dangerous! (And Fun)

<div>Did St. Francis really say, “Lord, grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to deal with the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference”? 
</div><div>As with a number of famous St. Francis quotes,<a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/will-the-real-st-francis-please-stand-up"> this one is misattributed</a>. The Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote what we now commonly call the “Serenity Prayer” that is often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. The earliest version of the prayer comes from a 1927 Christian student newsletter that attributes this prayer to Niebuhr: “Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.” The prayer increased in popularity after a secretary at Alcoholics Anonymous noticed it in a 1941 New York Herald Tribune obituary and began using it in the context of addiction recovery.
</div>

Did St. Francis really create the “Serenity Prayer”?

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In evangelization, your ethos matters. Be a Catholic in practice.

Few Christians can honestly say they have never had their belief in God tested. Most of us have encountered difficulties along the path of faith and have been tempted, perhaps when experiencing suffering and evil, to reconsider our convictions.
Not even the saints are exempt from such temptations. Mother Teresa, for example, experienced profound temptations to religious doubt. In a letter to her confessor, she wrote, “Do not think that my spiritual life is strewn with roses—that is the flower which I hardly ever find on my way. Quite the contrary, I have more often as my companion ‘darkness.’”
To some, this might appear scandalous. How can saints experience such temptations? And what should we, who are far less holy, make of our own hesitations to believe?
Before we move forward, I should clarify what I mean by the term doubt. I do not mean what Bl. John Henry Newman meant in his <a href="http://www.newmanreader.org/works/apologia65/chapter5.html">Apologia Pro Vita Sua</a> when he noted, “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt. . . . Difficulty and doubt are incommensurate.” Here he refers to a willful rejection of belief. In contrast, what I mean here by doubt is closer to what Newman meant by difficulty.
Doubt presupposes belief, or the acceptance of something as true based on the authority of another—and wherever belief is, doubt tends to follow. Why? Because we are keenly aware of human fallibility. We know we can (and do) get things wrong or partially right, and we know that this is true about others. So no matter how certain we might feel in our convictions, there is always a chance that a “perhaps” moment of doubt will surface. “Perhaps I am wrong,” we might admit. “Perhaps it isn’t true.”
When it comes to spiritual matters, doubt and belief come as a package deal. It is not only believers who must face this reality, but unbelievers, too. Even the most hardened atheist must eventually choose to accept a truth about what he cannot see. And he must face the fact of his own intellectual limitations. Thus, a “perhaps” moment is no less likely for the unbeliever: “Perhaps it is true,” he may privately and even painfully wonder.
The point is that doubt can be understood as a natural possibility that arises from authentic belief. Thus, Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Ratzinger) wrote in his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Christianity-2nd-Communio-Books/dp/1586170295">Introduction to Christianity</a>:
<blockquote>Both the believer and the unbeliever share, each in his own way, doubt and belief if they do not hide from themselves and from the truth of their being. Neither can quite escape either doubt or belief; for the one, faith is present against doubt; for the other, through doubt and in the form of doubt.</blockquote>
Atheism, or the willful rejection of God’s existence, is a sin against the virtue of religion since God has adequately revealed himself in nature (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2125, Rom. 1:18). So doubt in the absolute sense is bad. But doubt in the form of a temptation is—like any temptation we experience passively—not a sin. In fact, inasmuch as it stimulates us to contemplate further the mysteries of Christianity, a trial of faith may refine and strengthen our religious conviction and thus be considered a good. Fr. Dwight Longenecker <a href="http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/blessed-john-henry-newman-explains-faith-doubts-and-difficulties">suggests that</a> we “experience trials in the faith for three reasons: to strengthen us, to clarify our beliefs, and to help us proclaim the gospel.”
Doubt compels us to examine our deepest convictions about reality. And as Socrates implied in one of his famous maxims, only the examined life is worth living. Therefore, doubt makes life interesting because it forces us to think about reality. It awakens the mind and restores the will. It compels us to make new or renewed decisions about where we are going in life. G.K. Chesterton, a convert from agnosticism, understood the potential value of doubt when he remarked, “Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them” (Orthodoxy).
A good illustration of the tension between doubt and belief can be found at the Council of Elrond in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, when Frodo vows, “I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.” It is clear that Frodo doesn’t know how he is going to pull it off. It is also clear that his will is fixed: he will march forward despite the thousand difficulties clamoring in his imagination.
When we face doubts—or difficulties—regarding our belief as Catholics, we encounter a similar choice. Will we march forward in faith and seek out answers? Or will we turn our backs on the path we have trodden in faith? It is only when the believer chooses unbelief that doubt results in sin. It all comes down to the will.
Mother Teresa, like all the other saints who experienced severe temptations to doubt, had an iron will. When she wrote in the above letter to her confessor that she has had “more often as [her] companion ‘darkness,’” she did not end her thoughts there. In fact, the next line revealed the true depth of her faith, despite extreme trial: “And when the night becomes very thick—and it seems to me as if I will end up in hell—then I simply offer myself to Jesus.”
She overcame doubt, above all, by standing firm in her faith and entrusting herself to the Savior she knew but could not feel. The little saint of Calcutta chose to walk by faith and not by sight, and we are all called to do the same. For “the men signed of the cross of Christ,” as Chesterton muses in his <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1301231h.html">Ballad of the White Horse</a>, “go gaily in the dark.”

Is It a Sin to Doubt God’s Existence?

<div>Did Mary have marital relations with Joseph after Christ's birth, as stated in Matthew 1:25?</div><div>For many, it would seem so, since Matthew uses the word until: “[Joseph] knew her [Mary] not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus” (Matt. 1:25; emphasis added). But the word until (Greek, heos) can be used in more than one way.
It can indicate a change in the future when a select period of time is complete. And this is how many critics of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/mary-ever-virgin">Mary’s perpetual virginity</a> understand Matthew to be using the word in the above passage.
Heos, however, can also be used in a way that doesn’t indicate a change in the future. It can be used merely to express “hither to” or “up to” (Strong’s #2193)—that’s to say, a select period of time without indicating change in the future.
For example, Deuteronomy 34:6 speaks of no man knowing the precise location of Moses’ body “until [Greek Septuagint, heos]  this present day.” Did the author intend to express that circumstances had changed when these words were penned? Of course not.
Heos is used similarly in the Greek version of 2 Samuel 6:23: “And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to (Greek, heos, meaning until) the day of her death.” If heos is being used to indicate change after a select period of time, then we’d have to say that Michal had children after her death. But that’s absurd.
Paul also uses heos to indicate only a select period of time without change in the future in 1 Timothy 4:13, 1 Timothy 6:14, and 1 Corinthians 15:25.
Since heos doesn’t necessarily connote a change in the future after a select period of time but can be used only to reference a select period of time without change in the future, it follows that Matthew 1:25 doesn’t undermine the Catholic belief in Mary’s Perpetual Virginity.
As such, it’s sound exegesis to conclude that Matthew uses heos merely to emphasize that Joseph had no sexual relations with Mary before Jesus’ birth without indicating any change in the future.
For more information on this topic, see Tim Staples&#8217;s article, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-we-know-mary-was-a-perpetual-virgin-0">&#8220;How We Know Mary was a Perpetual Virgin.&#8221; </a>
</div>

Marital Relations Between Mary and Joseph?

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People say this verse destroys Catholic teaching… does it?

<div>Would you recommend handing Mormon missionaries the Catholic Answers tract on Mormonism?</div><div>Certainly. In fact, we have a number of both <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract">tracts</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine">magazine articles</a> from which you can choose in witnessing to Mormons. Just search under both using the word “Mormonism.” It’s certainly worthwhile to share our resources with Mormons, but you’re more likely to be effective if you take the time to share them in Christian charity (see 1 Pet. 3:15) rather than simply handing them to the missionaries.
</div>

Should Mormons Be Given Our Mormonism Tract?

Tim Staples affirms to a Protestant caller wishing for Christian unity why the Catholic Church is the most unified, whole, and true church, moreso than any Protestant denomination.

Barriers to Reconciliation With Protestants

<div>In your article, "Jesus Puts Mary in Her Place," you cited two examples in Scripture of how our Lord is not humbling his mother, contrary to some Protestant views. As a third example, what about John 2:4, in which Jesus says, "Woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come"? Scott Hahn argues well that Jesus is referencing Genesis 3, and that, unlike Eve, the first “woman,” Mary is her docile to her divine son at the wedding of Cana—and thus God’s will in cooperating with his plan of salvation. </div><div>You’re <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/jesus-puts-mary-in-her-place">absolutely right</a>—that example is a perfect fit. And I agree that we should see in “Woman” a reference to Eve. If you trace the chronology of John 1–2, it goes like this: 
<ul>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="1">“In the beginning” (John 1:1, obviously recalling Genesis 1:1); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 1: John prophesies about Jesus (John 1:19–28); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 2: “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him” (John 1:29); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 3: “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples” (John 1:35); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 4: “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee” (John 1:43); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 6: “On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples” (John 2:1–2).</li>
</ul>
The Hebrew calendaring uses “inclusive numbering” (which is why we say that Jesus rose “three days later,” even though by our counting, Friday to Sunday is only two days later). So, John saying that the wedding of Cana is “on the third day” means (from our counting) two days after what he’s just described. In other words, John’s new Genesis, which begins “in the beginning,” then has six days (just as Genesis 1 does). On day six in the Genesis week, you’ve got the creation of Adam and Eve, only Eve isn’t called Eve yet. She’s called “Woman.” Now, we’re at day six in the “Johannine week,” you’ve got a wedding, and you’ve got Jesus and Mary, and Jesus calls his mother “Woman.” 
</div>

The New Eve’s Cooperation With God’s Will

<div id="cs_control_3683" class="cs_control CS_Element_Textblock">
<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<h3>Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Lectionary: 283</h3>
</div>
</div>
&nbsp;
<div id="cs_control_3684" class="cs_control CS_Element_Textblock">
<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<div class="bibleReadingsWrapper">
<h4>Reading 1    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/13:26">ACTS 13:26-33</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
When Paul came to Antioch in Pisidia, he said in the synagogue: 
“My brothers, children of the family of Abraham, 
and those others among you who are God-fearing, 
to us this word of salvation has been sent. 
The inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders failed to recognize him, 
and by condemning him they fulfilled the oracles of the prophets 
that are read sabbath after sabbath. 
For even though they found no grounds for a death sentence, 
they asked Pilate to have him put to death, 
and when they had accomplished all that was written about him, 
they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb. 
But God raised him from the dead, 
and for many days he appeared to those 
who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. 
These are now his witnesses before the people. 
We ourselves are proclaiming this good news to you 
that what God promised our fathers 
he has brought to fulfillment for us, their children, by raising up Jesus, 
as it is written in the second psalm, 
You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.”
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="cs_control_228452" class="cs_control CS_Element_Textblock">
<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<div class="bibleReadingsWrapper">
<h4>Responsorial Psalm    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/2:6">2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11AB</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R.    (7bc)  You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
“I myself have set up my king 
on Zion, my holy mountain.” 
I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: 
The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; 
this day I have begotten you.” 
R.    You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
“Ask of me and I will give you 
the nations for an inheritance 
and the ends of the earth for your possession. 
You shall rule them with an iron rod; 
you shall shatter them like an earthen dish.” 
R.    You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
And now, O kings, give heed; 
take warning, you rulers of the earth. 
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice before him; 
with trembling rejoice. 
R.    You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="cs_control_228454" class="cs_control CS_Element_Textblock">
<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<div class="bibleReadingsWrapper">
<h4>Alleluia    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/14:6">JN 14:6</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord; 
no one comes to the Father except through me. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="cs_control_228453" class="cs_control CS_Element_Textblock">
<div class="CS_Textblock_Text">
<div class="bibleReadingsWrapper">
<h4>Gospel    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/14:1">JN 14:1-6</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
Jesus said to his disciples: 
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. 
You have faith in God; have faith also in me. 
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. 
If there were not, 
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 
And if I go and prepare a place for you, 
I will come back again and take you to myself, 
so that where I am you also may be. 
Where I am going you know the way.” 
Thomas said to him, 
“Master, we do not know where you are going; 
how can we know the way?” 
Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. 
No one comes to the Father except through me.”
</div>
Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Daily Holy Mass: Friday, May 8, 2020

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Is Santa fun… or does it come with a cost?

3 Things Christians Should Admit Rhett Got Right...

Episode 61: Year B &#8211; 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode, we’re going to focus on three details that are relevant to apologetics. The first comes from the first reading, which is taken from Jonah 3:1-5, 10. The related apologetical topic is God’s immutability (the doctrine that God can’t change). The other two details are in the Gospel reading, which is taken from Mark 1:14-20. The related apologetical topics are Jesus’ divinity and Messiahship.
Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012124.cfm">Click Here</a>
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&nbsp;
Hey everyone,
&nbsp;
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
&nbsp;
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
&nbsp;
In this episode, we’re going to focus on three details that are relevant to apologetics. The first comes from the first reading, which is taken from Jonah 3:1-5, 10. The related apologetical topic is God’s immutability (the doctrine that God can’t change). The other two details are in the Gospel reading, which is taken from Mark 1:14-20. The related apologetical topics are Jesus’ divinity and Messiahship.
&nbsp;
Let’s start with the detail from the first reading. After we’re told that the people of Nineveh repented of their evil ways, we’re told the following, “When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.”
&nbsp;
There are two questions that arise here: 1) Is the Bible affirming that God directly causes evil? 2) Is the Bible affirming that God changes?
&nbsp;
Concerning the question of whether the Bible is affirming that God directly causes evil, it depends on which kind of evil we’re talking about. If the question pertains to moral evil, or sin, then the answer is no. In no way can God cause moral evil; otherwise, he’d fail to love himself, which is metaphysically impossible. For further details on this, see my article, “God does not cause us to sin.”
&nbsp;
If the “evil” is natural evil, or suffering, then I would argue that God can and does directly cause such “evil.” The key, however, for reconciling this with God’s goodness is to see that such caused evil takes on the form of punishment and thus is taken up into the order of the good.
&nbsp;
Imposed suffering in and of itself is an evil. But when such suffering is imposed on account of a proportionate crime, then such suffering takes on the character of a good. Punishment is good because it rectifies that which is disordered. It puts things right by associating displeasure with bad behavior, which is the order that should have been present in the first place. Moreover, punishment manifests the truth of such an order.
&nbsp;
Now, in the case of the people of Nineveh, the Bible is revealing that their evil ways were meritorious of a proportionate imposed suffering, or punishment. This being the case, such imposed suffering, or evil, caused by God wouldn’t have been inconsistent with his goodness.
&nbsp;
What about the question of whether this passage affirms that God changes? This is an important question because philosophy tells us that God can’t change. Are we to believe that the God of the philosophers is incompatible with the God of the Bible?
&nbsp;
The answer is no. And the key is that the author is employing anthropomorphic speech, which is speech that attributes to God human characteristics to help humans relate to God but are not meant to be taken literally.
&nbsp;
Aquinas addresses the same sort of question when he deals with an objection that arises from the language of God repenting that he made wicked men during the days of Noah (Gen. 6:7). Here’s his response:
&nbsp;
These words of the Lord are to be understood metaphorically, and according to the likeness of our nature. For when we repent, we destroy what we have made; although we may even do so without change of will; as, when a man wills to make a thing, at the same time intending to destroy it later. Therefore, God is said to have repented, by way of comparison with our mode of acting, in so far as by the deluge He destroyed from the face of the earth man whom He had made.
&nbsp;
For Aquinas, describing God as repenting is simply a way of describing God’s actions according to our mode of acting, which is an anthropomorphism. The ascription is justified because there is a similarity. The similarity, as Aquinas explains, is that what was made is destroyed. Insofar as this is present in our mode of repenting and in God’s providential plan, the Bible describes God as repenting.
&nbsp;
But due to the greater dissimilarity, the ascription is metaphorical. The difference is that when we repent it involves a change of will whereas for God there is no change of will because the order of cause and effects is determined from eternity in a single act of will.
&nbsp;
Now, Aquinas is addressing God repenting in the case of destroying wicked men. In the passage from Jonah, there is no destruction of anything. Rather, such destruction is not brought about when, so it seems, God intended for it to be brought about. So, it seems a bit more difficult to explain.
&nbsp;
Again, the ascription can be described as an anthropomorphism. The similarity would be that no destruction would result on account of the Ninevites’ repentance. The dissimilarity, however, would be that our intention to destroy would change to an intention to not destroy whereas for God no such change of intention is involved. God simply wills from all eternity that the Ninevites do not experience destruction on account of their repentance and the biblical authors describe that reality according to our mode of changing intention.
&nbsp;
So, there’s no conflict between what we know about God’s immutability by way of philosophy and the Bible’s language of God repenting of destroying the Ninevites.
&nbsp;
Let’s now turn to the Gospel reading and the two details present there. Here’s the Gospel passage from Mark 1:14-20:
&nbsp;
After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: 
&#8220;This is the time of fulfillment. 
The kingdom of God is at hand. 
Repent, and believe in the gospel.&#8221;
As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, 
he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; 
they were fishermen. 
Jesus said to them, 
&#8220;Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.&#8221; 
Then they abandoned their nets and followed him. 
He walked along a little farther 
and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. 
They too were in a boat mending their nets. 
Then he called them. 
So they left their father Zebedee in the boat 
along with the hired men and followed him.
&nbsp;
There are two details that I want to focus on here. The first is the content of Jesus’ preaching: “the kingdom of God” and “the gospel.” Both can only be appreciated against the backdrop of the Jewish prophetical tradition.
&nbsp;
Consider, for example, “the gospel,” or euangelion. Isaiah 40:9-11 states, “
 
 “[9] Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings [Gk., euangelizomenos]; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, fear not; say to the Cities of Judah, &#8220;Behold your God!&#8221;… the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules….[11] He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”
&nbsp;
Jesus is proclaiming the fulfillment of this “good tidings”: God is in their midst, God is coming with might in judgment on the enemies of God’s people, and God is gathering his sheep.
&nbsp;
But more specifically, Jesus is proclaiming that he is God in their midst, he is bringing victory over the enemies of God’s people—sin and death, and he is gathering his sheep. Recall, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd . . . I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:14, 16).
&nbsp;
The “kingdom of God” signifies the fulfillment of God’s promise of his servant David to rule over the reunited Israel. Ezekiel 37:24-28 reads,
&nbsp;
24 &#8220;My servant David shall be king over them…25 They shall dwell in the land where your fathers dwelt that I gave to my servant Jacob…and David my servant shall be their prince for ever. 26* I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them… will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore&#8230; 27* My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people&#8230; when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore.”
&nbsp;
Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom is a proclamation of his Messiahship.
&nbsp;
The last detail that I want to focus on is James and John’s immediate leaving of their father to follow Jesus. Recall, “Then [Jesus] called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat
along with the hired men and followed him.”
&nbsp;
Scripture scholar Mary Healy, in her book The Gospel of Mark, explains,
&nbsp;
[I]n response to Jesus’ call, there is a complete abandonment of both occupation and father. To part so suddenly with their father would have been shocking in the social context of the day, where family obligations were paramount (see Sir 3:16). It illustrates the absoluteness of Jesus’ claim, taking precedence over even the closest human bonds (Mark 10:29–30).
&nbsp;
In other words, Jesus’ call for them to leave their father and follow him hints to his self-understanding of being divine. How could Jesus make such a claim unless he believed himself to be God?
&nbsp;
So, the first reading and the Gospel for this upcoming 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, doesn’t disappoint when it comes to apologetical topics. We have opportunity to reflect on
&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>God’s causality in relation to evil,</li>
<li>God’s immutability,</li>
<li>Jesus’ Messiahship, and</li>
<li>Jesus’ divinity</li>
</ul>
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As always, I want to thank you for subscribing to the podcast. And please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well at sundaycatholicword.com. You might also want to check out the other great podcasts in our Catholic Answers podcast network: Cy Kellet’s Catholic Answers Focus, Trent Horn’s The Counsel of Trent, Joe Heschmeyer’s Shameless Popery, and Jimmy Akin’s A Daily Defense, all of which can be found at catholic.com.
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One last thing: if you’re interested in getting some cool mugs and stickers with my logo, “Mr. Sunday podcast,” go to shop.catholic.com.
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I hope you have a blessed 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time. Peace!
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Does God Ever Change?

<div>Why does God make humans go through life and then face judgment instead of giving us the choice to be with him or not instantly upon creation? Life brings impediments that can us lead astray and that would not be there with an instant decision.</div><div>Our salvation is worked out over the course of a lifetime and not instantly upon creation because we are embodied persons and not angels. Angels, being pure spirit, made their decision for or against God at the moment of their creation. If they chose against God, they fell forever with no chance of repentance. That is because pure spiritual beings are not subject to change over time. Humans, being embodied persons, are subject to change over time, and therefore can continue to repent until death.
Catholics sometimes wonder if it is unfair to the angels not to have a chance to repent; you&#8217;re wondering if it is unfair to humans to have to go through life. The answer in both cases is that angels and humans were created differently, and our respective judgments correspond to the gifts and the limitations we each experience according to our nature. For more information, I recommend reading <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Theology-Beginners-Frank-Sheed/dp/1887593926">Theology for Beginners</a> by Frank Sheed.
</div>

Why Can’t We Be Saved at Our Creation?

<div>Is it only the pope who is infallible? Are the bishops also infallible? What about priests? </div><div>For an overview of the Church’s teaching on infallibility, see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/papal-infallibility">our tract on the subject</a>.
</div>

Is Only the Pope Infallible?

In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Joe Heschmeyer to discuss why some individuals leave the Catholic Church. Joe continues with details about the importance of community and guidance in faith, addressing the concerns raised by callers like Sarah.
Transcript:
Caller: I was a Catholic and I actually chose to leave the church. And it&#8217;s not for some great theological reason. I joined the church as a teenager because I love the history and the tradition that I felt like I was learning and et cetera. But what I have found, and as I said, it&#8217;s really not a theological reason, is just a real lack of community. I don&#8217;t have children, I&#8217;ve moved multiple states probably every two to three years. And I&#8217;ve never been to a parish that had a sense of community where I could meet people, particularly, you know, people that were working and professionals, etc. They seem to have some offerings for children, some for senior citizens and nothing else. You show up to Mass and you go home. The other issue that I had, and this is, this was probably what pushed me out the door, is it seems in our ever secular world, you know, particularly the United States, they never heard from any of the parishes. I went from really some, something I could put my teeth into in day to day living and how to, you know, here&#8217;s all these secular vices or things that I&#8217;m seeing and I just saw nothing from the, from the church. I saw no guidance on the day to day reality of living in the United States with things that the church says that you shouldn&#8217;t have, that you shouldn&#8217;t be doing. And even to this day I don&#8217;t see the church making statements anywhere. Oh, Sarah really kind of crushed me out. All right, let&#8217;s get Joe&#8217;s response and I&#8217;ll come back to you, Sarah, thanks.
Joe Heschmeyer: Well, first of all, I&#8217;m really sorry for the way you&#8217;ve been treated. I&#8217;m really sorry for feeling like alone in the parish. That should never happen. And I know that&#8217;s a lot of the experience of a lot of people and in some places in the U.S. probably more the norm than the exception. And it&#8217;s a problem that we, I think, as the community need to work on to make it feel more welcoming. And it&#8217;s hard to do. You know, we try to do with things like greeters and that&#8217;s good as far as it goes, but I think we need more like it needs to be something where as individual Catholics, we, we have that sense of community. I don&#8217;t, I don&#8217;t know if the solution is more, you know, parish programs. I think the solution is more a community sense of ownership that we need to be inviting people in. Like the, the Jews in the Old Testament take hospitality very seriously. You look at the way Abraham greets the angels in the book of Genesis and so on from there. Like you need to treat people with hospitality very seriously. And we sometimes treat that as kind of a trivial bit of etiquette where no, it really is connected to virtue. It really is connected to living holiness. So I&#8217;m sorry that that was not lived well in your experience. I won&#8217;t ask you what diocese or anything. I would say that thanks be to God is not universally the experience. You can find good churches in some places is harder to do than others, but you can find churches where you have more of that sense of community. And I think you can also be part of the solution by just saying, this is my church too. Like, you&#8217;re a baptized Catholic, you&#8217;re one of us. And just say, how do I make other people feel more at home in that? Because I think you&#8217;re absolutely right that in a lot of places everything is kind of structured for retirees or for children. And for everyone else it can be a little difficult. But things like, for instance, the parish is five minutes from here, has a fantastic mothers group that meets every week. And it&#8217;s been such a tremendous aid to stay at home moms who are trying to live the faith and maybe don&#8217;t get a lot of adult interaction, you know, those kind of things. But that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s not something where the pastor&#8217;s leaving it. That&#8217;s something where the moms are, are just putting in the time and effort and the sweat and making it happen. And I don&#8217;t know that there&#8217;s a solution other than that, that the people who feel really called and convicted there, if we don&#8217;t step up, nobody else is going to. So I think that&#8217;s the first thing. On the second one, I wanted to get a little clarification about what you mean about day to day living. Do you mean that you could use more like here&#8217;s guidance in terms of spirituality and how to live a prayer life? Well, do you mean like political things or social issues or what. What is it that you were looking for and not finding specifically and not
Caller: not necessarily from our priest, but probably from the priest at the time where I was going, it just seemed to be. And then going on up, for example, any of the myriad of social issues that you see today that are just seen as fine. Any of the ones that the church, I feel like historically has been very open about, about that this is wrong. I just feel like we just don&#8217;t talk about it anymore. Do you mean things like abortion? Well, I think abortion, but I think there&#8217;s so many more you know, it used to be. I mean, you could go down the list. Did you, did you feel one. But that&#8217;s a big one.
Cy Kellett: Did you feel like you get. Or do you feel like you get clearer moral teaching in your Protestant church than in the Catholic Church?
Caller: Yes, absolutely. Got it. Someone stands, someone is not scared to stand up and say, you should not be looking at pornography. I see what you&#8217;re saying. Okay, I&#8217;m following you now. Yes. That kind of thing. Right. Homosexuality. Right, right. Never heard that from the Catholic Church.
Joe Heschmeyer: You know what, Sarah, I would say this. It&#8217;s kind of. Your question is funny in a certain way. And please don&#8217;t mishear what I&#8217;m saying there. Just because so much of the world criticizes us for allegedly constantly talking about those things. But then you&#8217;ll find pockets where the preaching just kind of conspicuously avoids it. I do think younger clergy tend to be a little bolder about speaking into that. I also think there&#8217;s a certain pastoral sensitivity to the fact that it&#8217;s much easier to have those hard conversations one on one than in front of a couple thousand people, particularly maybe sensitive sexual topics when there might be a lot of children present. It&#8217;s very hard to know how do we talk about something like pornography in front of a mixed company? You know, like, that&#8217;s as tricky to do. And so I want to both respect the difficulty there, that there&#8217;s a reason why some priests really struggle to drive that home. Or maybe they speak a little too obliquely about it. There may be a little better about it in the confessional than they are at the pulpit because they&#8217;re able to do a little more. They can be a little more open about the details of it without scandalizing anyone. But at the same time, I think you&#8217;re right that there is a need to preach on those issues. But that really isn&#8217;t. To put it this way, that&#8217;s not really a church level problem. That&#8217;s an individual priest or parish level. Maybe that&#8217;s an issue where you talk to the pastor and say, I think we really could use a homily on X, Y or Z. And maybe he would be open to some words of encouragement, or maybe you&#8217;d find someone who, who preaches that a little more fervently down the street. Certainly you can find Catholics online. You can find statements from the USCCB and other Catholic sources. You can find papal statements about all of those issues and really explicitly kind of acknowledging where the problems are with those. You know, so I don&#8217;t know if that Helps. There&#8217;s not a lot that we can do about the fact that, like, maybe your local parish is a little too lukewarm. Or maybe the preaching isn&#8217;t what you would like it to be.
Cy Kellett: Could I just add, Joe, however, that like you said, not a churchwide problem, but one thing that is a churchwide problem is since about the 1960s, there has been an internal struggle in the Catholic Church that we should be honest and open about. Where bishops argue with other bishops, priests argue with other priests, Catholics argue with other Catholics about what should be the messaging, so to speak. And we have a serious messaging problem in that. I mean, right now, the US Bishops are frankly as divided as. I mean, not divided in the sense that huge numbers are on each side, but they&#8217;re very divided about how you should talk about. Even things like politicians who are supportive of abortion. They just can&#8217;t settle it. And so there is an unsettledness in the Catholic Church that I think you would not have gotten before the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Joe Heschmeyer: Yeah, I think that&#8217;s totally true. I think the other thing worth pointing out here is that when Protestants are at that ill ease with one another, there tends to just be a schism. And, like, they go off and form different groups. And so then you can find the preacher who says the things you want them to say, who. Who really convicts other people in the sins they&#8217;ve got. Or you can find the, you know, the priest who. You know, the preacher, excuse me, who. Who goes in the opposite direction with the Catholic Church. It really is, you know, James Joyce called it, Here comes everybody. That you&#8217;ll find, you know, people who are very convicted of the teachings of the church. And unfortunately, there&#8217;s wheat and weeds in the church. There are people who have both legitimate disagreements, but also sometimes they just don&#8217;t seem to believe everything the Catholic Church believes and teaches. And so that is a real problem. I am admittedly blessed. I live in the archdiocese where the head is. Archbishop Naumann is the head of the Pro Life Committee for the usccb. So we don&#8217;t have the particular problem Sarah&#8217;s talking about. But I know a lot of places do where maybe the bishop doesn&#8217;t speak out as he should. Maybe the priests don&#8217;t feel comfortable speaking out as they should. I think that&#8217;s a problem with courage maybe as much as anything else. And I do think the best thing that can happen there is some polite but forceful kind of encouragement.
Cy Kellett: Sarah, I gotta leave it there. Cause we gotta take a break. As a matter of fact, I&#8217;m late for the break. But that was such a great conversation, I didn&#8217;t want to leave it. Thank you very much for the call. We&#8217;ll go to Alan Cleveland when we get back. We gotta take this very quick break.

I Left Catholicism Because There’s No Community…

How can the Catholic Church teach that baptism is necessary for salvation when the Bible shows people receiving the Holy Spirit before baptism and Paul tells us that Christ did not send him to baptize but to preach the gospel? The author of Meeting the Protestant Challenge, Karlo Broussard, explains.

Is Baptism Really Necessary?

We’re now at the time of year where Christians everywhere remember Jesus’ death. Christians read the Passion accounts in Scripture, Catholics practice the stations of the cross, and both CatholicsNOW and other Christians meditate on the tremendous suffering Jesus underwent for their sake.
From such mediations, Christians of all stripes will sometimes hear the pious sentiment: “Jesus suffered more than anyone <a href="https://billygraham.org/answer/is-it-true-that-jesus-suffered-more-than-any-other-person-did/">ever did</a>.”
For Catholics who grew up hearing such things, this idea might not get a second thought. But for many others, this assertion is jarring. Yes, crucifixion is an agonizing form of torture—but was Jesus’ crucifixion really the worst suffering ever, considering the millions of others who have died by <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/halloween-blood-and-gore-done-properly">comparable executions</a>?
Indeed, other people have been crucified in worse ways. Some victims of Roman crucifixion would languish on their crosses for days, even weeks.
But suffering is measured not only by the exterior injuries, and it is even more than just the sum of all physical sensations. For us complex human beings, suffering is deeper than that, bringing into play our minds, emotions, bodies, and spirits.
Take for example my young son. The same physical stimuli certainly affect him and me in different ways. Taking away his toy appears to be the worse pain he’s ever experienced. But he’ll faceplant on the carpet and get up without a care. His dad, by contrast, normally tolerates the loss of a stuffed animal with more grace—but struggles even to get off the couch without grunting and pain.
My son and I experience the same pain differently because we are different. Our bodies are different. Our awarenesses are different. Our emotional possession is different.
Jesus Christ is like us in all things but sin (Heb. 2:17-18, 4:15). But Jesus’ sinlessness had a sizeable impact on his experience of suffering. Sin has a numbing effect on our senses. In our fallen state, we certainly suffer—but manifold bodily and mental imperfections dull our experience of pain. We can become distracted. If things get bad enough, we merely pass out. We’re not always fully present to ourselves.
But Jesus’ perfection extends even to his body. He’s always in complete possession of his body, and so has an awareness of even the slightest physical stimuli we might not appreciate. A perfect body is more sensitive than our imperfect ones. In the Garden of Eden, this is a good thing, giving greater pleasure than fallen man ever tastes. But on a cross, it would be torment; Jesus, in his perfect body, felt the physical pains of crucifixion more severely than any other person would have (see Summa Theologiae III.46.6).
Perhaps even more profound was Jesus’ non-physical suffering.
Our Lord also had a perfect mind. He’s always in complete possession of his thoughts and emotions. But just like how his sinless body gives him a special sensitivity to physical pain, so does his sinless mind give him a special sensitivity to mental anguish.
For us sinners, emotions arise in us mostly without our control, and in proportion to our external circumstances. If I see a spider, I have a modest jolt of fear. If I see a really big spider, I have a slightly bigger jolt of fear. We never really experience these emotions completely; rather, we experience them according to the whims of our internal and external states.
St. John Henry Newman tells us that Jesus was in full control of his emotional states. Being both God and perfect man, he didn’t feel fear unless he chose to feel fear. And when he chose to feel these negative emotions in his Passion, he chose to feel them perfectly.
The mental sufferings of Jesus on the cross are beyond our imagining. He is ridiculed; abandoned by his friends; and forced to sit, helpless, as his mother weeps. He experienced all the typical negative emotions we might in such torture: fear, sadness, anger, and so on. But we would feel them in a limited way, and at different times experience each one more or less. Our Lord experienced all of them to their maximum, and all of them at the same time. In both his body and his mind, then, Jesus suffers with an intensity possible only for the perfect man.
Still, his sorrow does not end there. Like us, Christ suffered in body, mind, and soul. And his spiritual pain would perhaps swallow even his physical and mental anguish.
Imagine if we were to experience a huge stock market crash, like what last occurred in 2008. My son might pick up some emotional cues from his parents, the news anchors, or neighbors on the street. He might experience some modest secondhand anxiety, but at most, he’ll be a little confused and a little worried.
But I would feel tremendous anxiety. I would fear for my financial future, for the investments of my friends and family, and for the stability of my country. I would suffer more than my son, because I would understand the consequences of such a calamity that he, at his age, simply could not.
On the cross, Jesus faces the sins of the entire world. Not only does he suffer physical crucifixion and mental pain, but he also offers himself as a spiritual sacrifice for the whole of man’s sinfulness (CCC 599-603). We would revolt at the sight of all the world’s violence and crime. But compared to Jesus, God and man, we are mere children in our understanding. The horror our Lord felt, mired in so much evil, is greater than any horror conceivable to us mortals.
On all accounts, then, the pious sayings are true. Jesus truly suffered more than anyone ever did, or ever will again. His body, mind, and soul were overwhelmed with pain.
But this is meant to give us hope. The enormity of Jesus’ sufferings isn’t just some theological nicety, nor a guilt trip about how much we owe our Lord.
Jesus Christ suffered all these things out of love. He suffered more than anyone has suffered before—so that he might get close to you. We all carry our own sufferings into Holy Week. They are less than the pains of our Savior, but they can take us to our limit just the same. In each and every one of these infirmities, we know we are not alone. We know that Jesus always understands what we’re going through, because he went through it, too.
The reading for Good Friday, cited above, says it best: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Our remembrances this week are sad and somber, as is appropriate, given the depths of Our Lord’s suffering. But it’s precisely those depths that also give us hope at this solemn time: the shared hope of Christians everywhere.
We call it Good Friday, after all.

No One Has Suffered More than Jesus

<div>Can Muslim marry a Catholic? I’m dating a Catholic woman and the problem is that I need to raise children in Islam, not in Christianity. Although I will let her do her ceremonies. Can we perform marriage in a mosque only?</div><div>Catholics needs a dispensation to marry an unbaptized person (can. 1086 §1). In order to receive that dispensation, the following conditions (can. 1125) must be met:
<ul>
<li>the Catholic party must commit to remaining Catholic</li>
<li>the Catholic party must commit to raising the children Catholic</li>
<li>the unbaptized party must commit to the Church&#8217;s understanding of marriage (permanent, faithful, life giving, and until death)</li>
</ul>
If those three requirements are fulfilled then a dispensation can be obtained for the marriage. If the marriage ceremony in the Church would cause grave difficulties, a dispensation can also be obtained for the marriage to take place elsewhere (can. 1127 §2).
While the first and third requirements might not be a problem for you, it would appear that the second requirement (baptizing and raising the children as Catholic) is going to be a big problem.
</div>

May a Catholic Marry a Muslim?

What are blessings REALLY? Why do we say, “God bless you”?
In this episode, Jimmy Akin masterfully unpacks the mystery of blessings! From praising God to powerful invocative prayers that call down good, to constitutive blessings that consecrate people, churches, and objects. Discover who can give them (spoiler: even YOU!), how they actually work and why every baptized Christian is called to be a blessing. Get ready—your view of “God bless you” will never be the same!
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TRANSCRIPT: 
Coming Up
The two great commandments are love of God and love of neighbor.
Part of loving your neighbor is willing his good, and God is the source of all that is good in the world.
So Christians sometimes love their neighbors by explicitly wishing that God will help the person by doing good for him.
They say things like, “God bless you!”
That statement is a blessing, but over the last 2,000 years, blessings have taken a wide variety of forms, and they can be a little confusing.
So what are blessings? What do they do? And who can give them?
Let’s get into it!
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Howdy, folks!
We’re in our second year of the podcast now, and you can help me keep making this podcast for years to come—and get early access to new episodes—by going to <a href="https://patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast">Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast</a>
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What Are Blessings?
The English word Bless is used to translate the Latin word Benedicere and the Greek word Eulogein. Both of these mean “To speak good.”
In Scripture, the terms have a variety of uses. For example, one may bless God by speaking good of God—i.e., praising him.
For example, in Psalm 68, we read:
Psalm 68:26, ESV
Bless God in the great congregation,
the Lord, O you who are of Israel’s fountain!”
And in James 3:9, we read:
James 3:9, ESV
With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father.
In addition to praising God, another prominent use of the term blessing is speaking good about something other than God in hopes of bringing about good effects.
Thus in Genesis 27, the patriarch Isaac intended to bless his son Esau to bring good things upon him, but through Rebekah’s intervention, this blessing was stolen by Jacob.
To bless is the opposite of to Curse. In Latin, the term for cursing is Malidicere, and means “To speak evil.”
When a person curses something, he speaks evil about it hoping to bring about evil or bad effects.
For example, in Numbers 22-24, the Moabite king Balak sought to have the prophet Balaam curse Israel to harm the nation, but through God’s intervention the curse was turned into a blessing.
Blessings and curses of this type are sometimes called Invocative because they invoke either good or evil upon the person or thing.
Whether the blessing or curse ultimately achieves its effect depends on the will of God, who is the one being invoked and asked to help or harm someone.
Another kind of blessing has developed which involves permanently changing the status of someone or something by setting it apart for a holy purpose.
This type of blessing is sometimes called a Constitutive Blessing because it constitutes the person or thing in its new, holy status. This form of blessing is also sometimes referred to as a Consecration.
The Catechism states:
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1672
Certain blessings have a lasting importance because they consecrate persons to God, or reserve objects and places for liturgical use.
Among those blessings which are intended for persons—not to be confused with sacramental ordination—are the blessing of the abbot or abbess of a monastery, the consecration of virgins and widows, the rite of religious profession, and the blessing of certain ministries of the Church (readers, acolytes, catechists, etc.).
The dedication or blessing of a church or an altar, the blessing of holy oils, vessels, and vestments, bells, etc., can be mentioned as examples of blessings that concern objects.
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What Can Be Blessed?
A wide variety of people and things can be blessed.
The Catechism specifically mentions persons, meals, objects, and places.
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Who Is Involved?
There are several parties that can be involved in a blessing. They include:
<ul>
<li>The person being blessed (or those that are helped by a blessed object or thing)</li>
<li>The person who performs the blessing</li>
<li>The Church, which has authorized some blessings to be given in its name</li>
<li>God, who is the ultimate source of all blessing</li>
</ul>
As James 1:17 says:
James 1:17, ESV
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Now, the Church is not directly involved in all blessings but only those it has authorized. These may be considered Official Blessings. They involve the intercession of the Church, as expressed through the authorized person performing the blessing.
Other blessings—such as those performed by ordinary people (e.g., when we say “God bless you” to someone)—may be considered Unofficial Blessings.
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Are Blessings Automatically Effective?
Are blessings automatically effective? The answer depends on whether it is an official, constitutive blessing or not.
In the case of official, constitutive blessings—such as the blessing of an abbot or abbess or the blessing of a church or an altar—the answer is yes, the blessing automatically takes effect.
If the Church’s official rite of blessing has been used for an abbot or abbess, that person really has been consecrated or set aside for a holy office, even if the man or woman is personally unworthy.
Similarly, if a church or altar has been consecrated, it really has been set apart for sacred use.
When it comes to invocative blessings, the matter is different. Blessings are not sacraments but sacramentals. In fact, the Catechism notes that
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1671
Among sacramentals, blessings (of persons, meals, objects, and places) come first.
Sacraments are rites instituted by Jesus that God has promised to use to distribute his grace—especially sanctifying grace—so long as the recipient does not put a barrier in the way of receiving it.
By contrast, Sacramentals are rites instituted by the Church, and so God has not promised to distribute his grace on each and every occasion that they are performed. The 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia states:
Catholic Encyclopedia, “Blessing”
Blessings are not sacraments; they are not of divine institution; they do not confer sanctifying grace; and they do not produce their effects in virtue of the rite itself, or ex opere operato. They are sacramentals.
Similarly, the Catechism states:
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1670
Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church&#8217;s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it.
In general, whether an invocative blessing has its intended effect will depend on the piety of the one receiving the blessing and whether it is God’s will for the person to receive the intended good.
&nbsp;
What Effect Do Blessings Have?
What effects do blessings have? The Catholic Encyclopedia states:
Catholic Encyclopedia, “Blessing”
They produce the following specific effects:
<ol>
<li>Excitation of pious emotions and affections of the heart and, by means of these, remission of venial sin and of the temporal punishment due to it;</li>
<li>freedom from [the] power of evil spirits;</li>
<li>preservation and restoration of bodily health.</li>
<li>various other benefits, temporal or spiritual.</li>
</ol>
All these effects are not necessarily inherent in any one blessing; some are caused by one formula, and others by another, according to the intentions of the Church.
The particular effects that a blessing involves will depend on the words used in the blessing—i.e., what does the blessing ask God to do?
For information about that, one should consult The Book of Blessings for the words used in official blessings.
&nbsp;
Who Can Perform Blessings?
Who can perform blessings? There has long been an association between blessings and the priesthood. In Numbers 6, we read:
Numbers 6:22-27 
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons [that is, the priests], saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,
‘The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’
So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
However, blessings were not restricted to just the priests. In the Old Testament, the patriarchs gave blessings to their children, and various prophets (including Balaam) also pronounced them.
Furthermore, Israel—like the Church—was called to be “a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6, Revelation 1:6). As a result, there are situations in which laity also can give blessings. The Catechism explains:
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1669
Sacramentals derive from the baptismal priesthood: every baptized person is called to be a “blessing,” and to bless.
Hence lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priests, or deacons).
The Church’s Book of Blessings notes who can perform which individual blessings.
Sometimes this will be the bishop, sometimes a priest, sometimes a deacon, sometimes a lay person, and sometimes any one of these.
Among others, laity are authorized to perform the blessing of an Advent wreath, a Christmas manger or Nativity scene, a Christmas tree, and throats on February 3rd or St. Blaise’s Day.
They also are authorized to help with the distribution of ashes on Ash Wednesday, though the blessing of the ashes is reserved to a priest or deacon.
There are no limits to who may perform unofficial blessings. Any person can say, “God bless you” to another, bless a meal, or bless their children.
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Learning More
If you’d like to learn more about blessings, the single most authoritative source on them is the Church’s Book of Blessings. It contains not only the texts used for individual, official blessings, it also contains introductions to the individual texts, as well as a general introduction to the subject of blessings.
Another helpful resource is Fr. Stephen J. Rossetti’s book The Priestly Blessing: Recovering the Gift. It contains a discussion of the history of blessings in light of Church teaching and the opinions of theologians.
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God bless you always!