If You Were Accused Of Being A Christian, Would You Be Convicted?

You may have noticed that I am no longer posting under the assumed user name Aquinas_54.  I also have changed my profile on Disqus and WordPress to substitute my real name for that user name.  The purpose of this post is to explain why I have done this, although the title above pretty much gives that away.

The purpose of this blog is to witness to and discuss my Catholic faith and Catholicism in general, which means to witness to Our Lord Jesus Christ.  For some time I have done as many, many others do in social media, and with the sole exception of Facebook, have posted comments and essays and tweets under assumed names.  My reasons were probably much like most other folks: fear of being personally attacked, stalked, fired from my job (no longer an issue since I'm retired now), or even, as seems increasingly likely in our anti-Christian culture, legally harassed or arrested for what I write.

Well, I'm done with that.  Being a follower of Jesus Christ means being willing to take whatever this fallen world sends our way.  Jesus made clear again and again to his disciples that they should expect to be persecuted and hated, imprisoned and even killed for His sake.  He never promised us an easy road.  Let's take a quick look at some of Our Lord's own words in Sacred Scripture:

(Matthew 10) [32] So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; [33] but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. [34] "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. [35] For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; [36] and a man's foes will be those of his own household. [37] He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; [38] and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. [39] He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Amid all the warnings, let's not forget, our Lord also promised great things to those who follow him.  See, for example, the Beatitudes, the opening salvo, as it were, of the great Sermon on the Mount:

(Matthew 5) [10] "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [11]"Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. [12] Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you"

That's pretty straightforward talk.  And it's God the Son doing the talking.  Somewhat belatedly, it occurred to me not long ago that by masking my social media utterances behind an assumed name, I was failing to acknowledge Jesus Christ before men.  And I was ignoring his warning that being his disciple is not a path to tranquility in this world, but in the next.  The question I used for the title of this post is one I've heard before, though I don't recall where, but it certainly provides food for thought, doesn't it?  When I stand before my Lord at the hour of my death and face his judgment, I want the answer to that question to be a clear and ringing YES! 

Am I being a big brave guy by doing this?  No, I don't think so.  After all, this isn't a totalitarian dictatorship or Islamic caliphate...yet.  And I have no job or business to lose, no children for whom to fear.  I'll admit I am still a little bit worried about how some of my friends may react to the things I write (and have written, now searchable...yikes!), and maybe even concerned about all the other people "out there" who may see my words and find them offensive, hateful, bigoted, stupid, or whatever other labels they may have for someone who tries to adhere to the ancient teachings of the Catholic Church.  But that's what being a real Christian means.  He told us so himself.  It's time to pay attention and practice what I preach.  If that means I lose some friends, then maybe those people aren't really my friends in the first place.

God bless everyone, and onward we march!

Laudator Jesus Christus!

Easter--An Under-Appreciated Feast

April 4, 2015

So, here we are.  The disciplines of the Lenten season are about to expire, and we Catholics began this evening, at Easter Vigils around the world, to celebrate the most important event in human history, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  Alleluia, He is risen!  Just typing that phrase gives me little chills.  But how different that is from the way I looked at Easter (not to mention Good Friday) for most of my life.

Growing up, I don't recall ever being taught much about the absolute necessity for the Resurrection as the foundation of our faith.  We kids were much more interested in Christmas, for all the obvious reasons, and even in the late 1950's, where my earliest memories lie, our culture seems to have pretty much relegated Easter to a distant second place, with bunnies and candy and eggs, and like that.  Maybe my Catholic friends back then took it more seriously than we did, but if so, they never talked about it with us non-Catholics.  Sure, we got Good Friday and Easter Monday off from school, even in the public schools, and I'm sure our Protestant ministers gave nice sermons on the importance of the Crucifixion and Resurrection on Easter Sunday, but to my recollection we just didn't hear much about it otherwise, and everyone still acted as if Christmas was the really big feast. 

Today, of course, we live in a post-Christian culture which is more and more willing to engage in outright persecution of anyone who takes Christianity seriously, (although, obviously, they haven't started killing us yet here in the good old U.S.A.; please pray for our persecuted brethren in the Middle East and Africa).  Most in public schools don't even dare mention Good Friday or Easter out of fear of "offending" someone, much less give kids a school holiday.  Instead, we have "spring break", which is just another week of vacation, or for many college students, something most resembling a pagan orgy. Religious significance is ignored or even actively suppressed.

So as I made my journey into the Roman Catholic Church ten years ago, I was for all practical purposes learning from scratch about the true importance, not only of Easter, but also the entire Paschal Mystery. As usual, the depth and breadth of Catholic Church teachings about the Resurrection bring marvelous rewards to those who plumb them.

As for the Resurrection itself, St. Paul makes the importance pretty clear in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, as follows:

[12] Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
[13] But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised;
[14] if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
[15] We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
[16] For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.
[17] If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
[18] Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
[19] If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.

That does get the point across, I believe!  Catholic theology has taught me that all of Salvation History is bound together as a single piece, most especially the events of Holy Week, from the entry into Jerusalem to the Last Supper to the Passion and finally the Resurrection, but without that last one, the whole thing loses its meaning.  We would all be like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke's Gospel, men without hope, sadly reflecting on what might have been (even though they had the "might have been" part wrong, as did most of Christ's followers, since they were looking for an earthly King who would open a can of you-know-what on the Romans and liberate the Jews.)  Without the Resurrection, the Crucifixion was just another Roman execution of a rabble-rouser.  Without the Resurrection, the Pharisees could have just gone back to being Pharisees, (which I guess they did anyway, but they wouldn't have had Christians to kick around), and the Sadducees would have gone on arguing with the Pharisees about whether there is an afterlife, instead of converting to Christianity in such large numbers that they basically ceased to exist as a major faction in Judaism.  Indeed, as Paul points out, absent the Resurrection, Christ Himself would be just another prophet, killed by the people to whom he was preaching. 

We Catholics, of course, get an added celebration every year at the Easter Vigil, when we welcome  all those who seek full communion with the Church that Christ founded, and who receive the Sacraments of Initiation:  Baptism (if not previously baptized using water and the Trinitarian formula set forth by Jesus in the last verses of the Gospel of Matthew), Confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist.  In these events, we celebrate souls receiving new life in Christ, the sealing of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the hope of eternal salvation, seeing in each of them the promise of the Resurrection itself.  It does help to keep the mind focused on the real-world impact of the central event, in addition to making us able to share the joy of these new Catholics and their families and friends as we all share in the joy of the Risen Lord's opening of the gates of Heaven.

And that, as St. Paul reminds us, is really the point.  The Resurrection of Christ in his glorified body gives us the hope of eternal life.  What else is there, really, to live for in this life?

As Catholics, it seems to me that we also bear in mind to a greater extent than most other Christians (except our Orthodox brethren, of course) that Good Friday always precedes Easter Sunday.  The burden of human sin had to be carried to the Cross and atoned for in our Lord's suffering sacrifice before the opening of Heaven could make any sense.  This is why we use the Crucifix, rather than an empty Cross, as a symbol of our faith: because we need to be reminded of the price of our redemption.  As St. Paul also said, "...but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles." 1 Cor 1:23.

One last point, which came as a great surprise to me upon my entry into the Church, is that the Catholic Church continues to celebrate Easter all the way to Pentecost, fifty days later.  Each day in the "Octave of Easter" is a liturgical Solemnity, and the equivalent, liturgically speaking, of Easter Sunday itself.

Yes, as I have learned, the Church takes Easter very, very seriously.  What a pity that so many Christians today, including many Catholics, no longer act as if they fully understand its true significance.

A happy and blessed Easter season to all!  Laudator Jesus Christus!