If Jesus said “Call no man father”, why do we still call priests and biological dads (etc.) “fathers”?
- Since the bread and wine really is the body and blood of Christ, not a symbol, why did Jesus say “Do this in remembrance of me” at the last supper?
- Why do we go to priests for confessions to tell them your wrong-doings and not just pray to God for forgiveness instead?
- If the Church practices humility, why does the Pope sit on a “throne” and is “wealthy”?
**1. **
It was symbolic. In a similar way God commanded:
Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.
However, the Lord later commanded to “
make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover” for the Ark of the Covenant, and later, in the desert, He told Moses: “
make a fiery serpent and raise it as a standard. Anyone who is bitten and looks at it will survive”. The words of the Lord must be understood, lest we end up literally “plucking out and throwing away” one of our eyes, only to have the Lord tell us: “
Are you also still without intelligence?”
2.
“Remembrance” is an English translation. The original Latin Bible (Biblia Sacra Vulgata) read:
hoc facite in meam commemorationem
The Catholic translation Douay-Rheims 1899 renders the most accurate translation:
Do this for a commemoration of me.
A
memorial is not like bringing to mind something long gone, like when we sing the
Auld Lang Syne at New Year’s Eve… this is what the Catechism teaches (emphasis mine):
1362 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial.
1363 In the sense of Sacred Scripture the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men.184 In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real.
1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial
3.
Consider the following: Christ, before His passion, taught His disciples to pray, and the prayer included these words:
dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris
(Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors)
In this prayer we are asking God directly for forgiveness. However, the Lord expressed clearly that it was His divine will to establish the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a personal encounter between the sinner and an apostle acting in the person of Christ.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” At this, some of the teachers of the Law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!” Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sin
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. …] If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
Before His death, the Lord manifested - much to the amazement of the teachers of the Law - that Christ could forgive sins. After His glorious resurrection, the first thing Christ does is send His apostles - not all disciples, but only the apostles - to forgive sins acting in his person. And pay close attention: to forgive and to not forgive! For the confessor needs to discern whether there is true repentance and contrition - we do not have the “right” to be absolved.
St. Padre Pio, who was blessed with the charisma of
cardiognosis, would know immediately if a person he was confessing had repented or not, and often he would close the window and tell loudly to the sinner to go away immediately - something that always brought true contrition and repentance into that person’s heart. Yet how often we (and I in top of the list) take absolution for granted…sometimes even condescend to sin, thinking that we can always confess later…
4.
Why did God command the Ark of the Covenant to be made in pure gold? Why did God command Moses to take his sandals off while standing on holy ground? True poverty is
poverty in spirit. The Vicar of Christ is the visible head of the Church, and He represents Christ on earth. We do not honor the man - whom we call
servant of servants - we honor God. As for the wealth,
this post of LilyM is very profound. However, wealth is a very relative concept. Compared to the people living in certain third-world countries, most of us are incredibly rich. Yet, though we may be very devout Christians, we do not necessarily sell everything we own, unless we have a clear vocation to a religious life in which we embrace the vow of poverty. For most of the world, us “average” Christians also sit on a throne and are wealthy…perhaps, then, we should be using our “authority” and our “wealth” - which we have done nothing to deserve - for the benefit of those who lack them. This is to be humble, and this is what the Church teaches us. Poverty in spirit. Because poverty born from a sense of pride is more harmful than richness carried humbly like a heavy cross.
Kind regards!
