On the drive home today I caught Dr. Matthew Bunson on Kresta in the Afternoon. He shared two details - both related to art - that I never considered in relation to the Conclave; and both speak to the gravity of the Cardinals' actions.
First, just before entering the Sistine Chapel, the College of Cardinals will gather to hear a sermon in the Cappalena Paolina (Chapel of St. Paul). And the Cardinals will listen to that sermon beneath Michelangelo's fresco, the Martyrdom of St. Peter. Looking at that fresco, each of them knows what election to the Papacy entails.
Second, once the Cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel, they will engage in their deliberations under Michelangelo's Last Judgment. They will elect Peter's Successor beneath that sobering reminder that each of them will have to answer to God for how he voted.
Whether we are Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, "non-denominational," or a variety of Christian somewhere in between, each of us has a pope. Each of us has someone we:
1) look to for direction in living the Christian life, and
2) appeal to as an authority in explaining why we interpret Jesus' teachings the way we do.
It might be the founder of your denomination, a favorite author, pastor, or ... simply yourself.
Some may object, "I just go by what the Bible tells me. I don't need someone to interpret what Jesus said to me." But my friends, unless you are reading the Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, you are depending on someone else's interpretation of what Jesus said! And even if you are reading the Bible in its original languages, you still have interpret the meaning - the intent - of its words. Let me give a few examples:
- When you read the gospel accounts of Jesus' Last Supper, if you understand His words "This is My Body" and "This is My Blood," to mean anything other than that the bread and wine have literally become His Body and Blood, then you are engaged in interpretation. The same can be said of Jesus' words in John's Gospel, "My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. He who eats [trogein in Greek, meaning "chews, gnaws on"] my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (Jn.6:55-56).
- Jesus told the Apostles, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you
retain the sins of any, they are retained" (Jn.20:23). If you do not
believe that Jesus gave the shepherds of His Church the power, in His Name, to forgive sins, then you are engaged in some type of interpretation.
- If you believe that we are saved through faith alone, and
that works play absolute no part in obtaining final salvation, then you
are interpreting the Epistle of James (the only place in the Bible where you find the phrase
"faith alone") in some sense other than the text's
face-value, "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" (Jas.2:24).
Now, if you have read these verses (or the multitude of similar ones) but haven't experienced a pull toward the Catholic Church you either
a) haven't truly wrestled with them, or
b) believe there is another way to interpret them
We Catholics are very comfortable with their face-value meaning. If you understand them in a way other than at face-value however, what is your authority for that? What is the weight of your argument? Whose insight are you relying on, and what are their (or your) credentials?
I glossed over or tried interpreting them other ways - for a couple of years - but the more I learned, the more I found myself humbled. Time after time, when I really dug into Scripture and how it was understood by its earliest readers - in 70 A.D., 90 A.D., 107 A.D., 150 A.D. - those in a far better position to understand its original meaning, their interpretation always matched what was being said by the Pope today!
I realized how I had went for years denying the Pope's gift of infallibility, but acting as if I was infallible! (And seriously, what credentials did I have?) I denied that the Pope was the Successor of Peter, holding the "the keys of the Kingdom," with the power to "bind and loose" (Mt.16:19) but lived my life as if I did - as if I was the final arbiter of what Christ taught! The thing is, when I finally buckled down and did the research, every piece of historical evidence spoke in the Popes' favor instead of mine (or anyone else's)! Here's but one example.
A little unsettling to think about? Tell me about it. What it finally came down to for me was this: "Jesus, I know that you didn't appoint me as an infallible authority. I need help, I need guidance, to understand Your teaching and how to live it out. If You appointed the Pope as a shepherd for me - and I am now convinced that You did - then I accept him."
Each of us has a pope, it's just a matter of, "Who?"
Today the Church celebrates the "Chair of St. Peter" - Jesus' establishment of the Papacy. (If you would like to read more, you can click here, here, or here.) What I want to focus on today is the question Jesus asked Peter, because it's the question he asks you and me - "But you, who do you say that I am?"
Just last week the Holy Spirit gave me opportunity to repeat that question to someone. A friend had emailed to ask if she could run a couple of religious questions by me. When we sat down I expected a couple of factual questions about what Catholics believe or why we do this or that, but my friend dove straight into the deep end: "I haven't been to church in a long time; but I believe that Jesus is God, and I believe that everything the Bible says is true. But I also have a very open mind, so on a matter like gay 'marriage,' I think that so long as two people love each other and it makes them happy, they should be able to go ahead and get married. I am like that on other matters too. Am I going to go to Hell for that? I think I try to be the best person I can; could I still go to Hell for thinking differently?"
Alright, first thing I did was to ask to back up from the question of going to hell for a moment and start with what she had told me about her faith. I reflected back, "You told me that you believe Jesus is God, believe in the Bible; but then you also want to say that certain actions, that you know directly contradict Jesus and the Bible, are alright - so long as they make a person happy. Seems to me that you are trying to hold two contradictory statements in your mind at the same time." She smiled and shook her head, acknowledging that she understood that was exactly what she was doing.
I continued, "When you say that you believe Jesus is God, you are saying that you believe He created this world we live in and that He understands what will and will not ultimately lead to our happiness. Our emotional reactions to something are not the real measure of what is good or bad. A twelve year old boy might tell you that sniffing model airplane glue makes him feel happy; but you, with a wider knowledge base, understand that it can also damage his brain. If we believe that Jesus is God and that He understands - objectively, perfectly understands - what leads human beings to happiness; then to say that He is wrong on some point doesn't make any sense. You can't have it both ways."
"So far as who is going to heaven and hell, no one but God can tell you that. What I can say is that He has told us - again, objectively speaking - which actions are compatible with the lives of his children and which are not. But what factors lessen or increase a person's culpability for those actions ... only God knows a person's history - how much of the truth they have been exposed to, their thought processes, the movements of their hearts. I don't despair for anyone's salvation; I pray for God's grace to be at work in them, just as I pray for it to be at work in me. Heaven is the culmination of a relationship with God. And like all relationships, a relationship with God is dependent on our response. If you had never responded to your boyfriend's dinner invitations, you wouldn't have much of a relationship today. God invites us to get to know Him in many ways: meeting Him at church on Sunday, receiving the sacraments, reading that Bible that He went to so much trouble to bring to us. Do we live our lives in the way He has asked us; or do we tell him that we know better and go our own way? At the moment of death, when this life ends and everything around us melts away; will we find ourselves next to God or at a distance? If at a distance then we will experience loneliness, and that loneliness will not end. That is Hell. But it was us who moved away from God, not the other way around."
"Jesus asked the apostles and He is asking you, 'Who do you say that I am?' You answered, 'God.' Alright. Now what are you going to do about it?"
My friend has a good head on her shoulders and love in her heart. I am excited to see what this next year holds for her.
