Catholic Interpretation

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Is there a websit that offers the Catholic understanding of particular passages? For instance, if I want to find the Catholic understanding of John 3:36. Thanks.
 
From the Haydock Douay Rheims Commentary…
The divinity of the Son is in this chapter proved as clearly as in 1 John v. 7. “There are three who give testimony in heaven; the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.” Which verse is entirely omitted by Luther in his version; for which omission he is severly reproved by keckerman. But while Catholics and Protestants deduce from this and many other places in Scripture, the divinity of Jesus Christ, as an indubitable and irrefragable consequence, how may learned Arians, Socinians, and Unitarians read the saem texts, and deduce quite contrary consequences? How clearly does this preove that the Bible only cannot prove the exclusive rule of faith. With reason does the Cambridge divinity professor, Dr. Herbert Marsh, ask in his late publication on this subject, p. 18, “Are all Protestants alike in their religion? Have we not got Protestants of the Church of England, Protestants of the Church of Scotland, Protestants who hold the profession of Augsburgh? Have we not both Arminian and Calvinistic Protestants? Are not the Moravians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Quakers, and even the Jumpers, the Dunkers, the Swedenborgians, all Protestants? Since, then Protestantism assumes so many different forms, men speak quite indefinitely, if they speak of it without explaining the particular kind wich they mean. When I hear of a Swedish or a Danish Protestant, I know that it means a person whose religion is the Bible only, as expounded by the Synod of Dort. In like manner a Protestant of the Church of England, is a person whose religion is the Bible only; but the Bible as expounded by its Liturgy and Articles. How, therefore, can we know, if we give the Bible only, what sort of Protestantism well be deduced from it?” — In the same publication, Dr. Herbert Marsh, p. 21, adds, “Protestants of every description, however various adn even opposite in their opinions, claim severally for themselves the honour of deducing from the Bible irrefragable and indubitable consequences. The doctrine of conditional salvation is an indubitable consequence to the Arminian. The doctrine of absolute decree, an indubitable consequence to the Calvinist. The doctrines of the trinity, the atonement and the sacraments, which the Church of England considers as indubitable consequences of the Bible, would not be so, if the Unitarians and Quakers were right in the consequences which they draw from the Bible. But the consequences which they deduce appear indubitable to them.” This the professor properly styles protestantism in the abstract, or generalized, and nearly allied to apostacy from Christianity: a system, p. 16, “by which many a pilgrim has lost his way between the portal of the temple and the altar — disdaining the gate belonging only to the priests, adn approaching at once the portals of the the temple, they have ventured without a clue, to explore the inmost recesses; and have been bewildered in their way, till at length they have wandered to the devious passage, where Christianity itself becomes lost from the view.” See his Inquiry into the consequences of neglecting to give the Prayer-Book with the Bible.
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Website Ref: haydock1859.tripod.com/
 
Lampo said:
Is there a websit that offers the Catholic understanding of particular passages? For instance, if I want to find the Catholic understanding of John 3:36. Thanks.
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Catena Aurea - The Golden Chain
Of St. Thomas Aquinas
The Golden Chain is a commentary on of the Gospels by the Early Church Fathers compiled together.
catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.html
John 3:36. He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.

CHRYS. Having said, And what he has seen and beard, that he testifies, to prevent any from supposing, that what he said was false, because only a few for the present believed, he adds, And no man receives his testimony; i.e. Only a few; for he had disciples who received his testimony. John is alluding to the unbelief of his own disciples, and to the insensibility of the Jews, of whom we read in the beginning of the Gospel, He came to His own, and His own received Him not.

CHRYS. i.e. has shown that God is true. This is to alarm them: for it is as much as saying, no one can disbelieve Christ without convicting God, Who sent Him, of falsehood: inasmuch as He speaks nothing but what is of the Father. For He, it follows, Whom God has sent, speaks the words of God.

AUG. What is it, that God is true, except that God is true, and every man a liar? For no man can say what truth is, till he is enlightened by Him who cannot lie. God then is true, and Christ is God. Would you have proof? Hear His testimony, and you will find it so. But if you do not yet understand God, you have not yet received His testimony. Christ then Himself is God the true, and God has sent Him; God has sent God, join both together; they are One God. For John said, Whom God has sent, to distinguish Christ from himself. What then, was not John himself sent by God? Yes; but mark what follows, For God gives not the Spirit by measure to Him. To men He gives by measure, to His only Son He gives not by measure. To one man is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge: one has one thing, another another; for measure implies a kind of division of gifts. But Christ did not receive by measure, though He gave by measure.

CHRYS. By Spirit here is meant the operation of the Holy Spirit. He wishes to show that all of us have received the operation of the Spirit by measure, but that Christ contains within Himself the whole operation of the Spirit. How then shall He be suspected, Who said nothing, but what is from God, and the Spirit? For He makes no mention yet of God the Word, but rests His doctrine on the authority of the Father and the Spirit. For men knew that there was God, and knew that there was the Spirit, (although they had not right belief about His nature;) but that there was the Son they did not know.

BEDE. We must understand here not a faith in words only, but a faith which is developed in works.

CHRYS. He means not here, that to believe on the Son is sufficient to gain everlasting life, for elsewhere He says, Nor every one that said to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. And the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is of itself sufficient to send into hell. But we must not think that even a right belief in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is sufficient for salvation; for we have need of a good life and conversation. Knowing then that the greater part are not moved so much by the promise of good, as by the threat of punishment, he concludes, But He that believes not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him. See how He refers to the Father again, when He speaks of punishment. He said not, the wrath of the Son, though the Son is judge; but makes the Father the judge, in order to alarm men more. And He does not say, in Him, but on Him, meaning that it Will never depart from Him; and for the same reason He says, shall not see life, i.e. to show that He did not mean only a temporary death!

AUG. Nor does He say, The wrath of God comes to him, but, abides on him. For all who are born, are under the wrath of God, which the first Adam incurred. The Son of God came without sin, and was clothed with mortality: He died that you might live. Whosoever then will not believe on the Son, on him abides the wrath of God, of which the Apostle speaks, We were by nature the children of wrath.
 
John 3:36: He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.

From A Commentary on the New Testament, prepared by the Catholic Biblical Association, 1942, page 308:
36. The decisive reason for accepting Christ is that salvation rests with Him. He who believes has life (cf. John 1:12); he who “is stubbornly disobedient” (Greek) will have instead of life the anger of God (cf. John 17:2).
My :twocents: …
What does it mean to ‘believe in the Son’? As can be seen by its apposition to “stubborn disobedience” in this verse, to ‘believe in the Son’ means to be willingly obedient to all the teachings and commands of the Son, to conform your life, your thoughts, words, and deeds to what the Son said as found in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Oral Tradition and as interpreted by his ordained teachers and pastors, the bishops of the Catholic Church in union with Peter’s successor the bishop of Rome (the pope). In short, to ‘believe in the Son’ means to live the Catholic faith with willing obedience.
 
To your more general question about online Catholic Commentaries, in addition to the sites already suggested, you might also want to look at the commentary found in the New American Bible at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops website and in the downloadable Christian Community Bible at the Claretian Missionaries’ Claretian Communications website.
 
Heres what Jimmy Akins has to say:

As far as I have been able to document, only seven passages of Scripture have had their senses partially (not fully) defined by the extraordinary magisterium. These definitions were made by the Council of Trent:

(1) The reference being “born of water and the Spirit” in John 3:5 does include the idea of baptism.

(2–3) In telling the apostles “Do this [the Eucharist] in memory of me” in Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24, Jesus appointed the apostles priests.

(4–5) In Matthew 18:18 and John 20:22–23, Jesus did confer a power on the apostles to forgive sins, and not everyone shares this power.

(6) Romans 5:12 refers to the reality of original sin.

(7) The presbyters referred to in James 5:14 are ordained and not simply elder members of the Christian community.
 
A Lutheran pastor quoted Leviticus 19:1-2 saying that when God said, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy”, that God wasn’t commandingus to be holy, but He was making us holy. Hopefully, I’ve articulated his point. Is the Catholic teaching the same as the pastors’?**
 
Lampo said:
A Lutheran pastor quoted Leviticus 19:1-2 saying that when God said, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy”, that God wasn’t commandingus to be holy, but He was making us holy. Hopefully, I’ve articulated his point. Is the Catholic teaching the same as the pastors’?**

St. Peter uses this passage from Leviticus to encourage Christians to live soberly and obediently, to live in a holy manner:
13Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:13-16)

We are made holy in Baptism (Ephesians 4:24) yet one will be saved only if he “continues…in holiness.” (1 Timothy 2:15). Therefore, the author of Hebrews says, “Strive … for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14)
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