Time Travel

Given Christ’s promise to preserve the Church, examine the historical timeline of Christianity and ask, “Where was Christ’s Church in between the time of the apostles and the Protestant Reformation?”  The popes, the bishops, and those peculiarly Catholic doctrines, such as the Eucharist, can be seen in an unbroken line tracing all the way back to Christ.

Think of the movie The Time Machine and how, as the machine carries you backward in time, the surroundings change, artifacts come and go.  Realize that, as you move back through time, all other Christian groups that now exist begin to disappear. While, century by century, as you travel back to the time of Christ, the Catholic Church is there —usually in its seemingly perpetual state of internal difficulties and external challenges, but there it is.  Arriving in the first century, what you don’t find is “nondenominational” Christianity; there are no Calvinists, no Baptists, no Jehovah’s Witnesses, no Mormons.

Certainly the Catholic Church in the early sixteenth century was in need of reform. However, unlike Saint Francis of Assisi, whose wise and brilliantly successful approach ultimately reformed the Church; Martin Luther chose a path of rebellion that failed to reform the Church he once loved while initiating a never-ending cycle of bitter divisionin the Body of Christ.  Consequently, at the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church did undertake the urgently needed ecclesiastical reforms that Luther had identified. Meanwhile, for the five hundred years since Luther’s rise to prominence, an endless splitting off of denominations has plagued the rest of Christianity, and continues today.

Foundation and Preservation

Foundation is the second of Madrid’s three signs of that Church established by Jesus of Nazareth.

Christ told the apostle Simon, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Furthermore, after Christ speaks to the apostles about “the greatest among them,” he goes on to speak directly to Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you all [the pronoun here is plural] like wheat; but I have prayed for you [Peter - the pronoun is singular here ] that your faith may not fail.”

The Catholic Church can present an unbroken line of continuity from the present day back to Christ himself.  Any Church established by someone other than Christ cannot credibly claim to be the Church established by Christ.

Furthermore, embedded in Christ’s statement to Peter being the Rock is a decree of preservation, Madrid’s third sign of that Church established by Jesus of Nazareth.  "Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." And later in the Gospel of Matthew, after his Resurrection, we hear Christ promise, “… behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  Thus, we have Christ’s promise to preserve the visible Church, which he established.

Visibility

Visibility is the first of Madrid’s three signs by which to discern the Church founded by Christ.  Protestants teach that the Church is invisible.  That it is comprised of all people everywhere who believe in Jesus, and that the true members of the Church are known to God alone.  Although there are some traces of truth, this model leaves out critical features that Christ taught about the nature of the Church.  Even those who believe only in the invisible church belong to a particular church which they attend every Sunday. However, those who believe only in the invisible church generally conclude even though they may have chosen a particular church to be active in, the specific church they go to doesn’t really matter.

In contrast, Jesus declares to his hearers: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven”

This is an assertion that the Church would be clearly visible… to those willing to look.  Without question the Catholic Church is clearly visible to all - Catholic and non-Catholic, Christian and non-Christian alike.

Why Catholic...

For the next series of FYCV we are going to consider Catholicism specifically.  The primary sources for this series are Patrick Madrid’s Why Be Catholic? And an article by Fr. Dwight Longenecker, “How Do We Know It’s the True Church?”

Madrid and Longenecker offer two different frameworks for testing the legitimacy of a Church as established by Christ.  So along with Madrid’s three signs, I want to strengthen his case by adding what I believe to be the four most compelling traits from Fr. Longenecker’s list of six.  I will then conclude the series with comments on a few of an array of blessings that the Church established by Jesus of Nazareth provides.

It is helpful to think of each sign or trait as a single strand, that taken together, form a rope of evidence that can readily carry the weight of the Catholic Church’s bold claim to be the Church established by Christ.

First we’ll take up Madrid’s three signs:  Visibility, Foundation, and Preservation. Protestants teach that the Church is invisible.  That it is comprised of all people everywhere who believe in Jesus, and that the true members of the Church are known to God alone. Although there are some traces of truth, this model leaves out critical features that Christ taught about the nature of the Church.

Why Can’t Every Day Be Like …. ?

Do you recall Elvis Presley singing, “Why can’t every day be like Christmas?”

 Well, in the language of Las Vegas, I’d like to see Elvis’ Christmas and raise him Advent.

 “Say what?”  you ask.  Every day will “be like Christmas” – in eternity.  At least for those in a right relationship with God.  So, the more appropriate question is, “Why can’t every day be like Advent?”

Why Advent? Advent is a time of waiting. The Oxford definition of waiting is: “staying where one is or delaying action until a particular time or until something else happens.”  In short, waiting is supposedly doing nothing until something happens.  However, waiting for something or someone specific is not at all like doing nothing.  For example, on the eve of Thanksgiving, I was at the Midway Airport in Chicago waiting for my two oldest sons to pick me up.  It was late, raining, and dark.  They had texted me to look for a silver Dodge SUV. It seemed that all the silver SUVs in Chicago were there at Midway driving by the arrival area!  Waiting consisted of looking over each vehicle: is it an SUV?  If so, is it silver? If so, is it a Dodge?  If so, is Jason driving?

That may be the kind of waiting Advent should be.  Looking and asking, "was that Jesus?  Was God speaking to me?  Was that an inspiration of the Holy Spirit?"  Given that, every day should be like Advent.  We will become the best-version-of-ourselves if we look back over each day asking those questions.  St. Ignatius called it the “daily examen.”

Why can’t every day be like Christmas:  Every day will be like Christmas in eternity if we make the effort to make every day here like Advent.

If you would like a one-page, simplified guide to the daily examen, click here:Request Daily Examen Guide

If Not Resurrection, Then What?

I do not pretend that any of the foregoing is a definitively conclusive argument that will bring a skeptic to admit that Jesus must have been raised from the dead.  It is always open to anyone to say, “I can’t think of a better explanation, but I know there must be one, because I intend to hold to my presupposition that dead people don’t rise.”  In fact, the Gospels tell us that thinking Jesus was a vision was the first conclusion of witnesses. They had to be convinced otherwise by Jesus’ behavior.  

And for us today? Well, as hard as it may be to accept that resurrection is possible, all other explanations for why Christianity arose, spread so rapidly, and why it took the shape it did, are far less reasonable as historical explanations.  Logic resides with the Christian explanation. 

The origins of Christianity, the reason why this new movement came into being and took the unexpected form it did, and particularly the strange mutations it produced within the Jewish hope for resurrection, and the Jewish hope for a Messiah, are best explained by saying that something significant happened.  Furthermore, the accounts in the four gospels provide the most plausible explanation.  There is no historical evidence for any other event that would explain all of these remarkable outcomes.

There are various motives why people may not want, and often refuse, to believe this.  But the honest examiner should weigh the alternative accounts against the testimony of the Gospels.   And, to date, none of them have anything like the explanatory power of the simple, though utterly challenging, Christian one.   Sound reasoning (i.e. critical rationality) points to Jesus rising from the dead.