Threadkiller,
I agree that Jesus cannot be separated from the scriptures, for our Lord âisâ the scriptures - the Word of God. We come to fully know Jesus in His teachings and sayings, but not to the exclusion of His actions, which reflect and confirm what he is telling us. His parables certainly require interpretations, unlike his more direct teachings and commands. However, his actions taken alone without reference to his words in the scriptures would leave us absolutely wondering. What Jesus says and does is who He is to us. His ministry of teaching and healing together with His passion, death, and Resurrection present the whole Person to us.
Yet Jesus was condemned to death for what He said, not for what He did. And in His fatal words there is not much room left for wondering: âI Am. From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of Heaven.â Then the High Priest tore his robes and said,âHe has blasphemed. He deserves to dieâ (Mt 26:63-66). Jesus would not have fulfilled His greatest act of love on the Cross if He had not first told us who he really was. Until this point in His life, He had never been more explicit in revealing His true identity.
Earlier in his ministry, Jesus was accused by his enemies of working for the devil as he cured the sick and healed the lame. What He did made less of an impression on the scribes and pharisees than what He had said to them. He had just cured a paralytic with these words for the benefit of some teachers: âSon, your sins are forgiven,â and to his enemies,"Which is easier to say to the paralytic, âyour sins are forgiven youâ or to say, âGet up, take your mat and walk.?â But that you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sinâ, he said to the paralytic, 'I tell you get up, take your mat, and go home â " (Mk 2:12). Our Lordâs enemies could care little for what he did, for they had no faith in His words. In fact, what Jesus had just told them in their hearing range paved the way for His eventual arrest. For those of us who have faith in the Word of God, this miracle served to confirm Christâs divine authority. But if Jesus had never verbally alluded to His true identity, and left us with only an inexplicable supernatural act, I doubt there would presently be a Church and her traditions. Protestants accept Christâs divinity just as we Catholics do, but they either question or reject our Marian doctrines and dogmas. What Jesus tells us about himself is not so implicit as the Assumption of Mary. Our Marian doctrines rely far more heavily on Old Testament typology than do our dogmas concerning the divinity of Christ and the Holy Trinity.
Thatâs just it: There is no other saint or human being other than Mother Mary who exists in heaven body and soul with Jesus, having preceded all the rest of us before the Resurrection. And we know this to be true because of our personal understanding of our Lord based on His Word. It is not simply because Jesus showed concern for His motherâs welfare as she stood at the foot of the cross with the beloved disciple. Jesus had already said,âHonour your father and mother. Anyone who âcursesâ his father or mother must be put to death.â (Mt 15:4) These are very strong words on our Lordâs part which clearly shows how vital keeping the commandments is and how important they were to Him. Jesus obeyed all the commandments while he was on earth. Would our Lord ignore His own commandments and go back on His Word in heaven by applying the âcurseâ of Eve on His own Mother? âIn pain you shall bring forth childrenâŚuntil you return to the ground from which you were taken. For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return.â (Gen 3:16,19) I think not, for what He says is explicitly clear. Now Our Lord cannot break His own commandments, for He never commanded himself to follow them. But since our Lord commanded us to follow them, naturally He would think them worthy to follow. Would Jesus have broken the First Commandment, if he had prostrated himself and worshipped the devil after having given in to the temptation of possessing all the kingdoms of the earth? A needless question, for the Bible explicitly tells us how Jesus responded and what he told Satan: âIt is written. The Lord your God shall you worship, and Him alone shall you serve.â (Mt 4:8-11)
âNo one obeys the Fourth Commandment of honouring father and mother more fully than Jesus, who is Son of God and Son of Mary. It is fitting that Jesus would honour His mother, truly the Mother of God, by preserving her from the corruption of the grave and by glorifying her body in heaven before the general Resurrection of the body for all the other saints on the last day.â
From the Apostolic Constitution,â Munificentissimus Deusâ, of Pope Pius Xll (1950)
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
It is articles from Juniper Carolâs old 1950s study, plus some objections of William Webster answered. I donât name him or link to him. Heâs kind of silent on the Internet anyway, except when someone posts links or text to his anti-Catholic articles.
