Author Archives: Eric Wolf

Death: Punishment or Consequence?

Throughout the Bible, God reveals Himself to us because of His desire for a loving relationship with each one of us. Sin is our rejection of this loving relationship that we enjoy with God.

St. Paul states, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23) Here we see that death is a result of sin and is the opposite of eternal life in Christ. The connotation of ‘wages’ is that death is something that we earn; it stems from our choice.

Many read parts of the Old Testament and overlook God’s perpetual love; focusing on the repugnant gore and violence, they assign undue weight to the horrible things that happen to people. How could a God who is Love do or allow these horrible things to happen? If God really loves us, the thought goes, would He be so unrelenting and harsh? This theology considers death as a punishment. I suggest instead, and will explain below, that the result of sin (wages earned) is not punishment but rather consequence.

A definition of punishment is “the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense”, while consequence is “a result or effect of an action or condition”. If death is punishment, then it would come from God as a penalty for our misbehavior. As consequence, however, death does not come from God, but rather out of the nature of our not accepting the relationship of love that we enjoy with God. Spiritual death is the absence of a relationship with God- our not even acknowledging His existence. Physical death is a consequence of our existence in this material/physical world that is limited by space and time.

Sin – the rejection of God’s intended relationship of love – enters human reality in Genesis 3 with the depiction of Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden fruit. As portrayed in the Bible – Old Testament and New – God’s reaction to sin is one of protection for the sinner. God’s response in Gen 3:17-19 (and Gen 3:16) is clearly that God, in the aftermath of the sin, prepares humankind for life in this new reality that exists as a result of sin. He is not punishing Adam and Eve, but rather lovingly protecting them. God is forewarning them of the new reality that they have chosen; forewarned is forearmed! This understanding is consistent throughout all facets of the Old Testament including the psalms and narrative and prophecy and wisdom literature; it is also consistent throughout the New Testament.

Indeed the Bible, as an indicator of our relationship with God, is the story of our journey from the Garden of Eden through death/sin to redemption/eternal life in Christ as portrayed in Revelation.

In the Old Testament God is consistently the Good Shepherd tending His flock, perpetually bringing the outliers (sinners) back into the fold, i.e., a loving relationship. All it takes is our sincere repentance, which is a result of our acknowledging our true and happy relationship to God: that He is the Creator and we are the Created.

— Eric Wolf

Saint John Paul II

John Paul II’s papacy is noted for many things, yet two stand out for me as significant in his legacy to the Church. Saint John Paul IIToday as the liturgical date for canonization of our two recent popes is not without meaning – even irony –  for one of these.

First of all, who is John Paul? Saint John Paul was born Karol Jozef (Charles Joseph, in English) Wojtyla of Polish nationality in 1920. As an adolescent in Nazi-overrun Poland during World War II, Wojtyla lost close friends and got an up-close view of authoritarian and totalitarian government. As the only pope to serve from Polish ethnicity, John Paul was uniquely qualified in the role he took on in the first decade of his papacy to affirm the dignity of man and thereby assist in bringing on the demise of the atheist Soviet Union.

His Mercy Endures Forever…

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, proclaimed by John Paul in the Jubilee Year of 2000 to be permanently celebrated on the Second Sunday of Easter; Psalm 118 is the Scriptural celebration of God’s Divine Mercy. John Paul’s proclamation was at the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska, the Apostle of Divine Mercy’, a 20th century Polish nun who received visions of Jesus and Divine Mercy. While John Paul was an ambassador or role model for divine mercy, no image would be more powerful that that of Saint John Paul meeting with his would-be assassin to forgive him. John Paul attributed his survival of the shooting to the intercession of the Blessed Mother.

Theology of the Body

Saint John Paul’s contribution to theology- the study of our relationship with God- comes from a series of 129 lectures given between 1979 and 1984. His Scripturally-based discourses focused on what it means to be human, created in the imago Dei, image and likeness of God. Anthropologically speaking, John Paul presented an integrated understanding of a human person – body, spirit, and soul. His vision means that if we truly see others, we can see God in each other; we can know God by truly seeing who one another is.

On a related note, Lectio Publishing has just released a new book whose author extends the concept of Theology of the Body – as John Paul himself suggested should be done – to explore the human stages of childbirth, impairment, and dying as spiritual signs pointing to our own human imago Dei. Discover more about this interesting and readable book on the Lectio website, and download an ePub excerpt.

Did You Know?

In the last blog I talked about Saint John XXIII as having rocked the Catholic world by convening Vatican Council II and the following pope- Paul VI as continuing the Council for three more sessions/years. When Pope Paul VI died in 1978, Cardinal Luciani was elected pope and took the names of his two predecessors signifying that he would continue in the ideas and work of the Second Vatican Council. This Pope John Paul I would be the last in a centuries-long line of Italian popes (at least until this writing!). We do not hear anything about John Paul I because he died a month after becoming pope. Cardinal Wojtyla was then elected pope, taking the name of John Paul II again continuing the tradition of Vatican II. John Paul I was one of the shortest papacies in history; John Paul II was the third-longest serving pope in history.

Interesting tidbit: according to John Allen, a reporter assigned to the Vatican, of the 268 popes in Catholic history, only 80 have been canonized, and prior to today, only seven had been canonized in the last 1,000 years!

And in memory of Saint John Paul, I give you his Scriptural mantra: Peace be with you!

— Eric Wolf

Saint John XXIII

This Sunday, which concludes the eight-day celebration of Easter, we will witness something that has never occurred – the canonization of two popes in one ceremony. Excitement is high in part because adult Catholics are very, even personally, familiar with John Paul II, and elder Catholics (myself included) have a memory of the avuncular John XXIII and his astounding call for Church reform.

Pope Saint John XXIII portraitPope Saint John XXIII, born Angelo Roncalli in 1881, was ordained a priest in 1904 and was active as both a papal diplomat and a diocesan bishop. Elected pope by the College of Cardinals in 1958, one of his first acts was to buck the hierarchy and call for an Ecumenical Council- the first in nearly a century. The theme of this blog site is ‘aggiornamento for 21st century America”; Saint John XXIII popularized the Italian term, which means a ‘bringing up to date’, in his description of the reason for Vatican Council II: it was time to fling open the windows and allow in fresh air. The holy pope presided over the first session of the historic Council in Autumn 1962 and then died in June 1963. The remaining three sessions of the Vatican Council continued under the auspices of Pope Paul VI in the autumns of 1963-65.

As Pope, John wrote two encyclicals- papal letters to the whole Church- Mater et Magistra (Mother and Teacher, referring to the Church, 1961) and Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth, 1963).

But what makes John – or anyone – a saint?

The word ‘saint’ comes from the Greek hagios, literally meaning a holy one/person. The New Testament uses the term to refer to one who believes in, and lives a life according to the model of, Christ Jesus. This would be people not unlike you and me hopefully. As the Church has evolved, the term saint has taken a more eschatological nuance and we acknowledge specific people in the Church Triumphant- those who have passed into life with the Lord in heaven. The Church does not claim to know everyone who is in heaven, but it recognizes two methods of identifying people as being in heaven:

  1. those who have been martyred for their faith;
  2. those for whom there is evidence of their having lived an exemplary Christian life (after which the Church deems the person “Venerable”) and for whom there is overwhelming evidence of a miracle that can only be ascribed to this person, which is evidence of their now being in heaven (after which the Church deems the person “Blessed”).

Canonization is the Church’s formal recognition of a person’s both having met either of these two qualifications and also after an additional miracle is documented.

Canonization does not make one a saint; it is merely our recognition that the person is indeed a saint (in heaven). One can be a saint in heaven without our declaring it or even our knowing it. The purpose of canonization is to provide official models for us to follow or from whom to get inspiration to a Christ-like life, and also as an intercessor for us as a strengthening of our relationship with Christ.

The need for a second miracle attributed to Saint John XXIII was waived by the Pope as is his prerogative. The healing miracle that was obviously at John XXIII’s intercession is, well, incredible! Read the official witness here. Watch for a follow-up blog on Saint John Paul II later this week.

— Eric Wolf

Thy Kingdom Come

The Old Testament, especially the prophets, spoke of the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed one, who would save Israel and usher in the Day of the Lord, that is, the time when God would exercise His power to vanquish evil.

The New Testament Greek noun basileia refers to something associated with a king; in English we translate this word as either ‘reign’ or ‘kingdom’. In the New Testament, Jesus saw His ministry as revealing the presence of the reign or kingdom of God. Jesus himself is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The reign of God is no longer in the future; when we have faith we are dwelling right now in the kingdom of God.

Jesus healed in order that people would have faith and believe. Jesus taught and preached so that people would understand the new paradigm and believe. The Gospel According to Matthew focuses significantly on Jesus’ teaching and preaching (Mt 5 – 7 et al).

At one point (Mt 6:9-13) Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray- and so we have the Lord’s Prayer. We recall that Hebrew poetry is based not on rhyme as in English tradition but rather on repetition or various types of related parallel phrases. The Lord’s Prayer is a New Testament example of Hebrew parallelism using five supplications each with a parallel phrase.

Our Father who art in heaven = hallowed be thy name

The opening sentence is an example of synthetic parallelism: the second phrase builds on and expands the meaning of the first phrase.

Thy kingdom come = Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven

How often do we unthinkingly break this sentence after the word ‘done’; perhaps for breathing purposes we tend to make two equal size phrases. However, in terms of Jesus’ meaning as He teaches us to pray to the Father, the sentence is better paused after the word ‘come’: ‘Thy kingdom come’ is our basic supplication. What does this mean? Remember one of the purposes of parallel poetry is to confirm meaning.

This is an example of synonymous parallelism, in which the second phrase has the same meaning as the introductory phrase. Typically one phrase can define one or more terms in the other phrase. So we find that ‘Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven’ defines ‘Thy kingdom come’. Jesus doesn’t just announce the coming of the kingdom, He is telling us what that means. The kingdom of God means that the will of the Father is fulfilled not just in the next life but right here and now! Wow, what a difference a Savior makes!

When we pray the “Our Father’ let us put the pause after ‘come’; if we need to break up the second phrase, let us do so to punctuate Jesus’ message by placing a pause not after ‘done’ but rather after ‘Earth’.

— Eric Wolf

The (Inspired) Word of God

Christians believe that the Bible (Old and New Testaments) is the inspired Word of God. Human authors wrote the various books over a millennium; each however was inspired by God. inspire means both to ‘breathe in’ and to ‘fill one with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially creative’.

God did not dictate to the human authors, as for example Islam claims that God/Allah dictated the Qur’an to Muhammad. Rather we believe that the Holy Spirit infused human authors with the understanding of what God wished to communicate, so that the authors could do this appropriate for human understanding yet without theological error.

Recently a friend shared with me an insightful article written by Jason Carlson and Ron Carlson entitled Is the Bible the Inspired Word of God?. To paraphrase their article into a Catholic context, let’s delve into what the Church understands about the formation of the Bible.

Although our term ‘Bible’ comes from the Greek word (biblion) that means ‘book’, the Bible is not one book but a collection of 73 books.

The 46 books of the OT were composed over a period of 10 centuries leading up to the time of Christ; portions had been taken from written stories from perhaps several centuries earlier. The 27 books of the NT were written over the last half of the first century AD/CE. During this long span of time that the books of the Bible were composed, the culture and society changed dramatically many times.

These 73 books were written by an untold number of authors- several dozen at the least. They were a wide variation of educated and not-so-educated people including priests, prophets, preachers, apostles, kings, courtiers, scribes, fishermen, a physician, and regular people like you and me. There could not have been collaboration between the disparate authors.

The Bible, and indeed a sizable number of the books, are not of a single literary genre. Throughout the books in each testament we find story, poetry, prayer, prophecy (speaking on behalf of God), wisdom, novellas, letters, and history. Yet each holds true to the central message of God’s creation and plan for our salvation.

The books were originally composed in at least 3 different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. This would seem to lead to confusion and dissonance, yet the opposite is true- the books agree on their message of God’s love and care for His human creation.

The various authors composed the books on 3 separate continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe, from Jerusalem (Israel) to Rome (Italy) to Babylon (Iraq) to Alexandria (Egypt). Again this cultural variation would seem to lead to less cohesion, yet the opposite is true: the Bible is consistent in its message of who God is and what our relationship is with Him.

The consistent message throughout the span of the Bible points us to the One author- the Bible is the Inspired Word of God.

— Eric Wolf