The nature of the Gospel

[kevinkuck78]

I was reading something the other day by a Catholic author. He suggested that the ideas and notions associated with the Gospel in the Anglican and Protestant traditions were entirely different from the Catholic idea of the Gospel. I was just wondering what everyone thinks about this and what makes it so? Is it transubstantiation that makes the nature of the Gospel so different in our understanding of the Gospel or is it something else?

 

[Oxford_Cleric]

Future posters will be much more theologically astute that I can be, but my simple thought, as one who has spent time in both traditions, is that in Catholicism, Christ removes the barriers to communion with God and with each other (Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free), and brings life to the world. In Protestantism, the concept of substitutionary atonement is predominant - Christ took the punishment due to our sins so that, if we believe in him, we can escape Hell and get to Heaven. In Catholicism, salvation is something organic; in Protestantism, it is something legal.

 

[kevinkuck78]

Okay, that’s kind of what I was thinking. In my own reflections, it was seeming that in our tradition the belief in transubstantiation establishes the perpetual self-giving nature of God (organic) versus the Protestant idea of a moment in the past. Rather than being about a moment in history, it seems to me that the Catholic notion of “good news” is that we are united to Christ in his death and resurrection in the “here and now” of the Eucharist.

 

[Oxford_Cleric]

I think so. J.R.R. Tolkien, who as you may know was a devout Catholic, wrote in one of his letters that, in his view, the real target of the Reformation was the Eucharist, and the priestly power of consecration, and not primarily the issue of “faith vs. works”, which Tolkien referred to as a “red herring”.

 

[kevinkuck78]

Oh thank you for pointing me in that direction. I just found a great quote from Tolkien on the matter:

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament… There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death. By the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste -or foretaste- of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.

The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.

 

[po18guy]

I think so. J.R.R. Tolkien, who as you may know was a devout Catholic, wrote in one of his letters that, in his view, the real target of the Reformation was the Eucharist, and the priestly power of consecration, and not primarily the issue of “faith vs. works”, which Tolkien referred to as a “red herring”.

Oh thank you for pointing me in that direction. I just found a great quote from Tolkien on the matter:

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament… There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death. By the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste -or foretaste- of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.

The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.

I would like to thank the two of you for asking and for encapsulating the fundamental differences between the two traditions. I have noted that much (if not all) of protestantism confines the atonement to the past - risking its dismissal from the consciousness. I see this as epitomized in the “once saved, always saved” ideology.

And, how analytically perceptive of Tolkien to note that the Holy Eucharist was indeed attacked by the reformation. I note also that Saint Augustin began life as a sinner and ended as a Saint, whereas a prominent force behind the reformation began as an Augustinian Saint and ended as a sinner. Being a “big picture” type, I note that there is one who patrols this earth seeking to undo all that is good and holy. His method is to appeal to man’s ego (self) exactly as he did in Genesis 3.

 

[bcuster]

In my own reflections, it was seeming that in our tradition the belief in transubstantiation establishes the perpetual self-giving nature of God (organic) versus the Protestant idea of a moment in the past. Rather than being about a moment in history, it seems to me that the Catholic notion of “good news” is that we are united to Christ in his death and resurrection in the “here and now” of the Eucharist.

This is the thought that came to me as well. It is comforting for me to realize that the Gospel is not only organic, but outside time. The union with Christ is a reality, not just imagined.