Why I'm "No" on the Rapture, But "Yes" on Mary's Assumption

In my last post I shared my reasons for giving up belief in the Rapture.  Introduced to it by author Hal Lindsey, and confirmed in it during my time in a non-denominational church, study brought me to the conclusion that it was not a legitimate element of Christian Faith. Despite its popularity among Christians in the U.S., not only did it have no basis in Scripture, but it directly contradicted what Christianity has always taught - that in the last days, the Church will share Christ's Passion in an intense way, and then at His return, His Resurrection.

The wild thing is, at the same time that I believed so whole-heartedly in the Rapture, I also argued against the Catholic belief that Mary was assumed into heaven.  Do you see the irony?  I was absolutely convinced that Jesus was going to raise the entire Church up into heaven, but totally opposed to the Catholic dogma that Jesus had already done so for His Mother!

My change of heart occurred long before I came to have a positive view of the Catholic Tradition regarding Mary's assumption.  My thought process went something like this:  

• The Bible does not say that Mary wasn't assumed into heaven.

• The Old Testament does speak of two other people having been assumed, Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11-12).If it was true for them, then couldn't it be true of Mary?

• Matthew's Gospel states that at the moment of Jesus' death, "The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. (Mt. 27:52-53).  Wasn't it reasonable to believe that after these appearances they too were assumed into heaven?  Again, if it was true for them, then why not for Mary?

• If the assumption occurred at the end of her life, then wouldn’t portions of the New Testament already have been written? Did the Bible have to explicitly say it for the event to have occurred?

• There are tons of things not explicitly recorded in the Bible; the Holy Spirit moved John to end his Gospel with that very thought, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (Jn. 21:25)

• The Assumption coincides with, dovetails into, Scripture; whereas a pre-Tribulation Rapture is in contradiction to the overall picture of the last days painted by the New Testament.

• Belief in Mary's assumption is witnessed to in writing prior to 400 A.D. (although it claims to go back to the apostles), while the Rapture does not make an appearance until 1850.  

• The Assumption squares with the Christian reality that glory follows suffering (Mary's share in Jesus' Resurrection came only after she shared in His suffering upon the Cross [Lk.2:35; Jn.19:25-37].)  The Rapture on the other hand, holds out a false expectation regarding freedom from suffering and persecution.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians have of course always said that the Christian Faith was not be limited to those things explicitly stated in Scripture.  (No legitimate point of belief could ever contradict Scripture, but there is not a requirement that it be explicitly stated in Scripture either.)   

If you, however, object to Mary's assumption because you are a "Bible-only" Christian, then you really ought to take a second look at John's vision in the Book of Revelation.  And as you read, please keep in mind how the Gospel of Luke's identified Mary with the Ark of the Covenant (compare Luke 1:39-45,56 with 2 Samuel 6:2-3,6-12,16) and how in the Gospel of John, Jesus always addressed His Mother as "Woman" (Jn.2:1-5; 19:25-27):

"Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon…the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne ... " (Revelation 11:19-12:5)

Something to consider. Catholics do not appeal to any particular verse of Scripture as a proof text for the dogma of the Assumption; but the above verses certainly do not hurt their case! As I looked more into the foundations of Catholic belief in the Assumption, I discovered that it had a much more ancient pedigree than whatone could find for the Rapture.Once Constantine became Emperor and Christianity was no longer a persecuted sect, Christians were able to erect churches over the sites sacred to them (such as the Holy Sepulchre in 336 A.D.). These sites had been preserved in the local church's memory throughout the centuries. One of the sites, close to Mount Zion where the first Christian community had lived, had always been reverenced as place of Mary's Dormition ("falling asleep). It was not the place where Mary's body resided however - only the place where it had temporarily rested before Mary was raised body and soul into heaven.   

Although different local churches could point to the tombs of the Apostles and martyrs and boast of having their relics (bodies), there was never any such claim made in regard to Mary.  Had their been a body, the early Church would have cherished it.  But instead of a body we have this memory, this witness, from the time of the apostles, ingrained within Christians in and around Jerusalem.  Just a little research on the web can provide early witnesses:

"If therefore it might come to pass before the power of your grace, it has appeared right to us your servants that, as you, having overcome death does reign in glory, so you should raise up the body of your mother and take her with you, rejoicing into heaven. Then said the Savior [Jesus]: 'Be it done according to your will" (Pseudo-Melito The Passing of the Virgin 16:2-17; 300 AD). 

"Therefore the Virgin is immortal to this day, seeing that he who had dwelt in her transported her to the regions of her assumption" (Timothy of Jerusalem Homily on Simeon and Anna; 400 AD).

"And from that time forth all knew that the spotless and precious body had been transferred to paradise" (John the Theologian, The Falling Asleep of Mary; 400 AD) 

"The Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary] rejoices with the Lord's chosen ones..." (Gregory of Tours, Eight Books of Miracles, 1:4; 575-593 A.D.)

 St. John Damascene, living in the desert outside Jerusalem in the early 700's, gave the same testimony:

"In the Holy and divinely-inspired Scriptures no mention is made of anything concerning the end of Mary the Holy Mother of God; but we have received from ancient and most truthful tradition ... the Apostles ... opened the coffin.  And they were unable anywhere to find her most lauded body ... Struck by the wonder of the mystery they could only think that He who had been pleased to become incarnate from her in His own Person and to become Man and to be born in the flesh, God the Word, the Lord of Glory ... was pleased even after her departure from life to honor her immaculate and undefiled body with incorruption and with translation prior to the common and universal resurrection." (Second Homily on the Dormition of Mary, c.715 A.D.)

The celebration of Mary's Dormition in the liturgy was first recorded in Palestine in the late 400's and was taken up throughout the Eastern Church and then the West throughout the 500's.  

In the end, I see the Assumption's credibility as standing head-and-shoulders above the Rapture's:

And thus, I was forced to change my tune.  Which is good because on top of everything I have already shared, in 1950 Pope Pius XII used the power of the keys to definitively state that Mary's assumption is a legitimate point of the Faith that has come to us from the Apostles.  To neglect it is forego knowledge of one of the "many other things" that Jesus did that were not written down in Scripture (Jn. 21:25), but have been preserved within the living memory of His Church.  And that Church is, in the words of Scripture, "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

"Discovering Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Bible" - LIVE PRESENTATION

What was it about this image that caused over 

9 million Aztecs to convert to Christianity?

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Come and find out for yourself Thursday, December 12th, 7 p.m., at 

St. Boniface's Theology on Tap 

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Enjoy a brew as Shane Kapler shares:

• How Our Lady of Guadalupe is tied to the Book of Revelation
• How not only Jesus, but His Mother Mary, was prophesied in the Old Testament
• Mary's relationship to the Ark of the Covenant (as in "Indiana Jones and Raiders of the ...")
• Where the Bible teaches that Mary was free of all sin, is our Mother as well as Jesus', and intercedes for us in Heaven
• The story of Mary's appearance in Mexico, in 1531
• The significance of Our Lady of Guadalupe for North America today

St. Boniface Catholic Church
110 North Buchanan St.
Edwardsville, IL 62025
             

My Friend, the DOOMSDAY PREPPER

I went to Mass with a good friend this past Sunday.  In the middle of the Gospel reading he leaned over to me and and whispered, "DOOMSDAY PREPPERS."  My buddy has talked about this National Geographic Channel show for months and never misses a new episode.  What reminded him of it in Mass?  Jesus' words:  

"Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." (Lk 12:39-40)

Now I'm always on the lookout for new ways to relate the Faith to pop culture, so after Mass I asked him point-blank, "So if Doomsday was looming, what would a 'prepper' tell me I had to do to survive it?"  And without batting an eye he answered, "You need to stock up on water, find a sustainable food source, shelter (hopefully bomb proof), and then you need to stock up on weapons and ammo."  Sounded pretty thorough to me!

As I listened, I was like, "Yeah - that's exactly what we need to do to survive Judgment Day."  Everything he listed has a corollary in the spiritual life; and if we prepare ourselves in this way, then we will be ready to meet the Lord when He comes - cosmically or individually.

• Stock up on water?  In Scripture the Holy Spirit is frequently spoken of as Living Water.  The Spirit flows from Jesus' Heart as from a spring (Jn.7:37-39), "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (Jn 4:14).
• A sustainable food source?  The Eucharist is always available to us.  And it just isn't any food.  It is, in the words of the Our Father, epi-ousios, “super-substantial” bread (CCC 2837).  It is Christ Jesus Himself! 
• Shelter?  A bomb-proof shelter?  The Church.  Not only is she the "household of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15), but Jesus has guaranteed that nothing can destroy her - "I tell you, you are Peter (Rock), and on this Rock I will build My Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:17)!
• Weapons and ammo?  God's Word is the sword with which we confront the deceptions and temptations of the Enemy (Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12); and Prayer calls forth the power of Almighty God to both strengthen us for the fight and to tear down enemy strongholds (2 Cor 10:4).  And to quote Sts. Padre Pio and Josemaria Escriva, "The Rosary is the 'weapon' for these times;" "The holy Rosary is a powerful weapon. Use it with confidence and you'll be amazed at the results."

You can argue the merits of being a Doomsday Prepper, but only a fool will argue the merits of being a Judgment Day Prepper.  "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (2 Cor 5:10).

Why I'm Not Down with "the Rapture"

In a nutshell, the rapture is a belief that says Jesus will instantaneously transport (rapture) believers from earth to Heaven just prior to the final antichrist’s rise to power.  Christians will not have to endure the horrible suffering of the final days (known as the Great Tribulation).  That is reserved for those left on earth, some of whom will finally recognize the signs of the times and come to a belief in Jesus prior to His return in glory.

Although proponents of the rapture appeal to Scripture (and I admit, I use to count myself among them), no one – and I mean no one - in the first eighteen hundred years of Christianity saw it there. The two key verses appealed to by its proponents are 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 and Matthew 24:37-41. Allow me to address them each in turn.

I will start my quotation from 1 Thessalonians before, and end it after, the verses alleged to concern a rapture prior to the time of tribulation:

For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Thess.4:15-5:2).

Note the words I have italicized. Paul is talking about the great Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgment. He is talking about the glorious, triumphant manifestation of Jesus and His Body when He returns in glory. Paul says nothing about the Church being raptured away so as to escape persecution. Instead, those translated directly from earthly existence to glory are those who are “alive,” who are “left.”

Read within its historical context, Paul is probably likening the Lord’s return to that of a victorious general. As the conqueror returned to Rome, he would stop outside the city, and wait for his family to be brought to him. Once his entourage was fully assembled they would enter the city together, amidst fanfare and celebration.[1]

Lets turn now to Matthew’s Gospel. After just employing apocalyptic imagery to describe the fall of Jerusalem, Jesus tells the Apostles:

But of the day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man. Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect (Matt.24:36-44).

Like Thessalonians, we have that image of the Lord coming like a thief in the night. It was a common motif for talking about the Second Coming; that is what both of these passages are dealing with. In Thessalonians we saw the Lord sweeping up His beloved. Not so in this passage. Who is taken? In this passage it is the unrighteous! “As [in] the days of Noah,…the flood came and swept them all away.” Much to the chagrin of Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins, in Jesus’ example it is the righteous who are “left behind.” Jesus gave a similar description earlier in Matthew:

The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire, there men will weep and gnash their teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear…

So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth (Matt.13:41-43,49-50).

This idea that the Church will not suffer the great tribulation is completely unbiblical, and at odds with historic Christianity. Jesus, the Master, suffered. Eleven of the twelve Apostles died as martyrs; there have been martyrs throughout Jewish and Christian history. To believe in a rapture of the Church, so as to save it from suffering, flies in the face of this.

So how did belief in the rapture begin? With a man named John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), a former Anglican priest and founder of the Plymouth Brethren.[2] The teaching made its way to the United States and was disseminated through the study notes of the incredibly popular Scofield Refernce Bible. Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody Bible Institute, and Talbot Seminary then incorporated it into the training of future pastors. Hal Lindsey, whom I have read for example, was a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary. His first blockbuster, the 1970 The Late Great Planet Earth brought the idea to the masses.[1] As we have seen, however; this belief has no ground in Scripture and runs counter to almost two thousand years of Christian belief.

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[1] Thigpen, Paul, The Rapture Trap (West Chester, Pennsylvania: Ascension Press, 2001).

[2] There is conjecture that the rapture was seen in a vision by a fifteen year-old Scottish girl, Margaret McDonald, and that this private revelation then found its way into the teaching of Darby.

[3] See Currie, David,. The Rapture (Manchester New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2003), p.14-17.

Why The World Will Not End on Dec. 21st (without dissing on the Mayan calendar)

For we Christians the "end of the world" coincides with Jesus' return.  The New Testament speaks of certain events that we can expect to see prior to Jesus' second advent.  As interesting as a N.T. "End Times" Scavenger Hunt would be, I realize that you are pressed for time, so I'll point you toward the great summary in the Catechism (click here for paragraphs 673-677, complete with Scriptural citations in the footnotes), and list two things we should expect to see:

1) a large number of Jewish people will recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and

2) a tremendous, final persecution of the Church will break out at the instigation of the antichrist.

We have had a number of Jewish converts over the past several decades, but I don't think it qualifies as the recognition by "all Israel."  And although the Church is persecuted around the world, I don't see how the present state of affairs could be identified as the antichrist's final assault upon the Church. Things may be bad, but I envision the Church's final passion as something much more grueling.  Even if we had witnessed these two events, Jesus still assures us that the exact "day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven" (Mt. 24:36).

None of this is to say that we shouldn't live December 21st as if it was our last day.  As individuals, it might very well be.  The Lord may come tomorrow to take your or me to Himself through death; He may come before this day ends.  How should a Christian spend his or her last day?  I don't think it has to be anything over the top; our usual daily tasks are sufficient in the Lord's eyes. "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Col. 3:17).  We should simply focus upon what the Lord has called us to be - sons or daughters, sisters or brothers, husbands or wives, parents, neighbors, workers - and with His grace, live those vocations to the best of our ability.  As Jesus said, "It will be good for that servant whose Master finds him doing so when he returns" (Mt. 24:46).

Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Rights of the Unborn

Very honored to be asked to pen the Life Group Devotion for this morning on this feast of Our Lady.  They are an awesome organization.  Hope you click the link above to check them out.  (You can receive Pro-Life reflections on the daily Scripture readings sent to your inbox every morning.)  Here is my reflection:

Since the Roe v. Wade decision over 50 million unborn children in the United States alone have been sacrificed to maintain, or in the hope of achieving, a certain material lifestyle.  It is not the first time human sacrifice has been practiced on our continent, and today the Church celebrates the manner God chose some 500 years ago to convert the hearts of millions of native people to the Gospel of Life.  In December, 1531, Jesus sent his mother to Juan Diego, and through him millions of adherents to the Aztec religion, a religion that portrayed many of its gods as serpents and was focused upon human sacrifice.  Mary was sent to our continent as the Woman of Revelation 12 – pregnant, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, at war with “the ancient serpent, Satan” (Rev.12:9).  Within ten years of her appearance in Mexico, 9 million Native Americans embraced Jesus Christ and in doing so, renounced the culture of death.  To aid us in our current fight against the Serpent and the revival of human sacrifice on our shores, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Our Lady of Guadalupe as Patroness of the Americas and Protectress of the Unborn.
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Faith Challenge: Invoke Our Lady of Guadalupe’s intercession on behalf of the unborn today, that she petition her beloved Son to release the grace of God on our country and the world.

How Does Prayer Work? A Thought

When Jesus prophesied the seige and destruction of Jerusalem, a microcosm of the Final Judgment, he made a couple of very intriguing statements regarding intercessory prayer and God's care of His children:

And alas for those who are with child and those who are nursing in those days!  Pray that it may not happen in winter. (Mk.13:17-18)
If the Lord had not shortened those days, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. (Mk.13:20)

Reading these passages in isolation, one may come to the mistaken conclusion that God changes His mind.  He means to do one thing, but then the prayers of His people cause Him to change course.  But these verses from Mark do not exist in a vacuum.  They are understood in the light of the larger corpus of Scripture, the Tradition that has come down from the Apostles, and the sense of the faithful throughout time; and all of these tell us of a God Who stands outside of and above space and time.  He is perfect, not subject to change.

So what good do our prayers do?  Why did Jesus tell the Apostles to pray and say that God would intervene in the tribulation for the sake of His elect?  Let me hazard a partial answer:  It's not that are prayers change God.  Rather, He has already willed them.  From eternity He has already woven them into His plan for the world, freely decided that some graces are released only in response to them.  And this is preeminently true for regarding the prayer and intercession of Jesus!  His human prayers for us, and His offering upon the Cross, and the torrent of grace they released have been woven into all of God's dealings with humanity.  After all, even though Jesus' sacrificial death took place c.30 A.D., Scripture refers to Him as " the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world" (Rev.13:8).

Keep those prayers coming my friends.  God has woven your petitions into His plan for the unfolding of history - both your personal history and that of our world!