The following 3 questions were asked as part on
the ND comprehensive exam for the Master of Arts Degree in Theology.
The three answers address my views on these theological
Issues:
1. Theology
of St. Paul’s - “Receive” over “Do”.
2. The
Eucharist and Mass as the Center of Catholic Worship.
3. Were
we kicked out or did we walk from the Garden of Eden?
4. Buddhism
taught us to “Let Go” – St. Paul taught us to “Let Jesus”.
Compare and contrast Paul with John Paul II on
the theology of the body, emphasizing their idea of grace and nature and how
their Christian understanding differs from Hindu anthropology.
John Paul II’s theology of the body (TOB)
lectures quote the Apostle Paul in many places, particularly Paul’s letter to
the Romans and Chapter 7 of that letter.
The key difference I see is their emphasis on “do” verses
“receive”.
John Paul II takes us “back to the beginning” as Christ suggested we do in Mt 19, by understanding why divorce is never permitted. John Paul II’s TOB is rooted in the two Genesis creation stories of Chap 1 and Chapter 2. God created man as male and female, in the image and likeness of God, to be reciprocal love, reciprocal gift to each other. The two were made to be one flesh, like ying and yang if you will. Paul describes man in the same way, but puts more emphasis on the interrelatedness of all humans as a collective whole, one body in Christ. Our goal, our theology of the body, is to become again the “body of Christ” - a community of humans with different gifts that depend on each other while rooted in the mind of Christ. John Paul II focuses more on the interrelatedness of the original marriage.
For both Paul and John Paul II, we lost our
original innocence in the Garden of Eden when we choose to disobey God. Paul describes the effects of the fall as
“law of sin” whereas John Paul II uses the concept of concupiscence of the
heart. Both cause us to do what we
don’t want to do and don’t do what we want to do (Rom 7). Paul describes the condition as slavery to
the “law of sin” whereas John Paul II sees it as a loss of self-mastery. The degree of inclination to disobey is
greater for Paul. Once we lost original
innocence, Paul describes sin in personal terms as that which kills and wages
war or our desire to follow God. John
Paul II suggests, with the correct understanding of concupiscence, we can
develop programs and activities that will help overcome the effects of original
sin.
Both say that the law is not the problem. The problem is a loss of relationship with
God. It may appear that Paul blames the
law, Torah, because of his experience as a persecuting Pharisee of those that
failed to follow the law. Paul believed
he had totally mastered the law and that was all that mattered (Phil
3.16). Paul says his slavery to this
“law” seemed to exacerbate the situation. The more he tried to follow the law
the less he did. The solution was getting free of the slavery the “law of sin”
created for him. It meant turning to
the root of the problem, his broken relationship to God.
Both knew, as Augustine taught, that the law
only helps us count sin. It does not
create or remove sin. Both Paul and
John Paul II know the only way to escape the slavery of sin, the effects of
concupiscence, is to rely on the Grace of God, the Grace given to us in Jesus
Christ.
Paul’s failure to “do” the law stemmed totally
from his lack of receiving Grace. For
Paul, the effort to “do,” or any effort to obtain Grace, was fruitless unless
he completely turned himself over to the free gift of God’s Grace. John Paul II tells us we can gain Grace
through the sacraments, mediated by the Church, a concept Paul might not have
understood. For Paul, Grace came to the
degree he abandoned himself and his effort to “do” Torah.
Luke Timothy Johnson describes Paul’s dependence
on the “faith of Jesus Christ” as opposed to “faith in Jesus Christ.” The difference is subtle but significant in
Paul’s radical understanding of Grace.
For Paul, “faith of Jesus Christ” means that he can obey, escape the law
of disobedience, because Jesus defeated original sin. Adam disobeyed while surrounded by obedience. Jesus obeyed while surrounded by
disobedience. Jesus’ example, the
“faith of Jesus” to completely give himself up in love for God and others, is
the power (Grace) we attach ourselves to overcome the slavery to sin. As it were, we become slaves to Christ. I like to describe this in scientific terms. If you dissolve a crystal chemical with
heat, the chaos of the system becomes permanent. Even with cooling, the solution will not re crystallize unless a
seed crystal is inserted. Jesus is that
seed crystal by which we attach ourselves to reunite and again become a single
large crystal- the body of Christ. The
solution is hopeless to reform without the seed crystal, Jesus, no matter how
much effort is “done” by the chaos. The
solution must “receive” the example of Christ.
John Paul II would push for a more balanced
approach between “do” and “receive.”
For John Paul II, once we receive Grace, say with sacrament, we must
then exercise self-control to reestablish the self-mastery of original
innocence.
The biggest anthropological difference between
Paul/JPII’s theology and Hindu theology is the nature of the “flesh.” For Paul and John Paul II, concupiscence was
rooted in the heart integrally connected to the body. We sin using the body, like adultery, and with the
heart/spirit/desire, like lust. The
Hindus believe the body and spirit (soul) are separate with the spirit being
the entity that recycles with new reincarnated bodies. For Christians, the soul is not recycled
apart from the body. When we attach
ourselves to Christ, we live resurrected as Jesus did, in a Glorious body. We return to the original innocence of the
Garden as it was before the fall.
Compare and contrast the Hindu and Christian
concepts of sacrifice, through time, through development from outer sacrifice
to inner sacrifice to meditation. I will then describe how this history of
sacrifice in both Hindu and Christian thought evolved to what the Eucharist is
today.
Hindu sacrifice in the beginning (2000 BCE) was
object based. An animal or offering was
burned in a fire to obtain favors from the Divine Reality. It was very personal
and designed to enhance ones karma.
Around 500 BCE, Hindu sacrifice became less self oriented and done now
also for the good of others. It became
less for physical self-gain and more for spiritual gain, self-control, and good
heartedness. With the appearance of the
“Gita” around 500BC, we see the change in focus in Hindu sacrifice from one of
obtaining things, to one that focused more on inner spiritual goals…like
meditation. In fact, Buddhism arose in
India at the same time as the Gita spread.
Buddhism was a negative response to the selfishness of previous Vedic
Hindu sacrifice. The goal of Buddhism
was the sacrifice of all desires.
Belief in Gods was abandoned along with any other form of physical or
inner self-sacrifice. The object was
the sacrifice of all ego, all desires, all needs, all beliefs so as to
transcend the physical world to Nirvana.
The Christian concept of sacrifice came from
Jewish concepts going back to the time of Genesis. Unlike Hindu sacrifice, Jewish sacrifice was more thanksgiving
and praise for creation. Starting with
Adam’s sons, Abel, who sacrificed sheep, and Cain, who sacrificed the first
fruits of the field, the basis of the sacrifice was giving thanks and praise to
God for continued love and support.
Early Jews and Hindus both used sacrifice to mend a perceived broken
relationship with the Divine. However,
unlike the Hindu religion, the Jews believed in a personal God.
After Adam’s sacrifice as a couple, Noah
sacrificed as a family, Abraham sacrificed as a tribe, Moses sacrificed a lamb
at Passover to free his nation from Egypt, and David sacrificed as a kingdom.
With Moses and David, sacrifice was formalized into festivals. Instead of
agriculture-oriented sacrifice, sacrifice was made now to thank and praise God
for deliverance, redemption to the Promised Land.
In 70 AD, Jewish sacrifice radically changed
with the destruction of the second temple.
The whole concept of sacrifice changed from one of offering sheep at the
altar in Jerusalem, as Moses specified, to one of prayer. The Jewish religion no longer believed God
wanted animal sacrifice but mercy as Jesus taught.
The era of Christian sacrifice began with the
once and for all sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. The Jewish Passover customs and Todah became Eucharist. Todah was a mini Passover where something
was sacrificed to heal illness or counter a great threat. In a Todah, bread and wine were offered up
with prayers, like those coming from Psalm 116 (what return can I make, the cup
of salvation I shall take up) and 118 (blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord, he has given us light).
The Eucharist became a Christian Todah. Christ, the light of the world, had been
given to us and his perfect sacrifice of himself has redeemed us in an even
more dramatic way than redemption from Egypt.
The Eucharist has developed continuously from
the first century. Christians argued whether we should call the Eucharist a
sacrifice since Christ did “The Sacrifice” once and for all, on the Cross. Catholics maintain today the Eucharist is
sacrifice by Christ as both victim and priest.
Hindus and Jews used priests to offer sacrifice, on altars. Today, Protestants and Jews no longer use
priests or altars.
Hindus continue to use priests and altars in
their Puja sacrifice. A Hindu Puja
sacrifice is very much like a Catholic Eucharistic sacrifice. One can see
clearly the influence of this form of Hindu sacrifice in Catholic traditions.
Both are rituals of chant and scripture reading, both involve the idea of
self-giving, both require a male priest, and both are preceded by purification
rituals. In the Catholic Eucharist, the
deity becomes present in the bread and wine offered. In Hindu Prasada, the items consumed represent the power of the
deities.
In the Catholic liturgy, the idea of self-sacrificing
with Christ is very important. The
Catholic Eucharist is not just a memorial of Christ’s last supper, as many
Protestant services are. Catholics, in
union with the Church, offer back to God the perfect sacrifice of Christ. As Catholics participate in this offering,
they receive the body and blood of Christ to the degree they offer their own
egos, their own selfishness. Christ sacrificed himself on the Cross, opening
the faith of Jesus Christ to everyone who would receive him. Again, we come to the concept of
receive. No longer is sacrifice
something we do to obtain Grace from God, it is something we receive from
God. Unfortunately, for many, the
sacraments are something Catholics do to remain in favor with God, much like
both the Jewish and Hindu origins of sacrifice.
This is where the role of Buddhism comes
in. Meditation for a Buddhist is
letting go of all desires. For
Catholics, meditation is letting go and letting God. It is not sufficient that we empty ourselves out. We let go so that we can let God in. As Saint Paul realized, to the degree that
we turn toward God in open acceptance of Christ’s perfect gift of self, do we
receive God’s grace. The right thinking
is receiving first, the doing will automatically come as it did in the Garden
of Eden. When we receive Jesus’ body
and blood into our concupiscent heart at Eucharist, we die to the slavery of
sin to the extent we allow God to fill our heart the way He did “in the
beginning.” It is not just good enough
to let go of all desires, we must now let God fill our hearts with his will for
us. His will for us is the “do” we are
called to. If we do not empty ourselves
thru meditation and Eucharist, if we do not receive the faith of Jesus Christ
by becoming part of his “Body of Christ”, we can never know what to “do”.
The Eucharist today is now the highest form of
self sacrifice made possible by Christ.
Thomas Keating, a great mentor of Contemplative prayer (meditation),
gives us the 5 P’s of the Catholic Mass. P1- when two or more are gathered in
my name (the community Paul urges), Jesus is present. P2 - when we read God’s word, Scripture-Torah, Jesus becomes more
present. P3- when we offer bread and wine on our altars today, Jesus becomes
even more present. When we “receive”
the bread and wine, Jesus becomes present in us, P4, to the degree we open our
minds and hearts to His presence. P5 -
Leaving the Church as a community of believers, we go into the world, we give
birth (do) to Jesus. With us present as Jesus to the world, we bring Christ’s
presence to our entire community, doing as Paul teaches and as Jesus and all
the prophets before him taught. If we
receive the sacrifice of Christ as Mary did, we give birth to Jesus in a cosmic
sense. A cosmic sense Hindus still
celebrate today.
Describe the idea of God as Israel’s Bridegroom
from its roots in Hebrew Scriptures, to its expression in the Gospel of John,
to its realization today where the Church is God’s Bride, through its
relationship to God’s new Bridegroom, new Covenant, Jesus. First describe the importance of the
Bridegroom theme in John’s Gospel as it was pointed to in Hebrew Scripture.
Chapters 1b thru 4a of John begin the opening
inclusio (A) of the Gospel’s chiasm – the idea Jesus replaces Moses as God’s
new Bridegroom. The end of the
inclusio, Chapters 12-19 (A’), speak to the folly of seeing Christ as King, a
King Israel demanded of Samuel, rather than The Prophet, the one greater than
Moses, the one spoken of in Deut 18:15.
Chap 1b of John has Nathanael tell Jesus he is The King of Israel only
to be corrected by Jesus that he is the Son of Man. Nathaneal spoke part correctly when he said Jesus was the Son of
God. The word king is not mentioned
again in John until 6:15 when the people try to make Jesus king. In Chapter 2, we have the Cana story where
Jesus is the real Bridegroom, the one who feeds the wedding by turning 6 jars
of water into wine.
In
another ‘bridegroom” reference, in the second half of Chap 2, Jesus cleans out
the temple telling everyone “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise
it up.” The temple in Jesus’ time was
the marriage tent of Israel with their Bridegroom God. It was the place you came to have spiritual
sex with God. God and Israel were
considered married. During the Passover
festival, which was the occasion of Jesus’ cleansing display, the Jews
celebrated God’s honeymoon with His people, His Bride, Israel, a honeymoon in
the Sinai desert of Exodus (Hosea).
Defilement of the temple was like adultery committed by one’s wife. It was a cause for divorce. Infidelity by the bride would result is loss
of temple (Hosea, Jeremiah). Ezekiel
also connected adultery with temple defilement and loss of marriage with God,
the Bridegroom. The temple was woman,
was womb, and was the bride’s bedchamber.
Jesus tells Israel in John that they are defiling God, the Bridegroom,
with their infidelity and disrespect.
He goes on to tell them they will defile him, the New Bridegroom, in the
days to come by killing him, destroying His body on the Cross.
In Chapter 3, John the Baptist points to Jesus
as the New Bridegroom during the baptism scene in the Jordan River. John the Baptist says to follow Jesus as the
one Moses spoke of. Moses is mentioned
more times in John than any other Gospel.
In John, Jesus is clearly replacing Moses as Jerome Neyrey points out in
his exegesis of John.
Chapter 4 is all about Jesus as Bridegroom as
Sandra Schnieders points out in her exegesis of John. The Samaritan woman identifies Jesus as the Prophet Moses spoke
of. The woman meets Jesus at a well
like Abraham found Isaac’s wife at a well, like Jacob found Rachel at this same
well, and like Moses met his wife’s family at a well in Median. In Jewish history, the well is a source of
water, a source of fertility - a theme found throughout Hebrew Scriptures. The
well is like a womb, a temple, a place where bridegrooms and brides meet.
Jesus goes on to tell the woman that the 5
previous husbands and the one she is with now is not her real Bridegroom. As she places down the 7th water
jar, 6 water jars were mentioned at Cana, she recognizes Jesus as the 7th
and completing Bridegroom. The temple,
the place of meeting and having spiritual sex with God, was no longer in
Jerusalem or Mt Gezerim, it was with him, the New Bridegroom, as Moses
promised.
In the next part of the main chiasm of John’s
Gospel, Chapter 4b (B), Jesus brings to life a stranger, by remote control,
contrasted with Chap 11 where Jesus brings to life a close friend, by close
contact (B’). Continuing the chiasm, in
Chap 5, Jesus heals a man of weak faith, by a pool, on the Sabbath, in
Jerusalem (C). In Chapter 9, by way of
the next matching, but contrasting, chiastic narrative, Jesus heals a man of
great faith, by a pool, on the Sabbath, in Jerusalem (C’).
The center of the chiasm (D), the middle of the
A and A’ inclusio is chapters 6, 7 and 8.
In chapter 6, Jesus feeds his family (bride) bread and fish like Moses
fed his flock in the Exodus desert with manna and meat (quail). In Chapter 7, Jesus is the water that leads
to eternal life, a reference to how Moses fed his family with water from a
rock. In chapter 8, Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus is not like King David, but is greater than Moses or
Abraham. He is God’s Son, the New
Bridegroom, come to claim His family, a family lost since Adam’s family
wandered out of the Garden. Chapters 6,
7 and 8 are the meat of the sandwich formed by A and A’ - it is the Eucharist.
The end of the inclusio A’, the final part of
the Great Chiasm that is John’s Gospel, the contrast to the Bridegroom theme of
A is the ironic death of Jesus as King of the Jews in Chapters 12-19 (A’). Jesus’ feet are anointed like a King at the
beginning of Chapter 12 and then Jesus rides into Jerusalem, to the words of
Psalm 118, on a donkey, just like King Solomon. At the festival of Tabernacles,
it was customary for the King to process into Jerusalem to the words of Psalm
118.
In Chapter 13, Peter refuses to wash the feet of
his King. He did not consider Jesus a
Bridegroom the way the “beloved” disciple did.
The word beloved is used 2 dozens times in the Song of Songs, an
allegory of how a bride and bridegroom are to love each other passionately,
with reciprocal self gift, as from the beginning, and before the spousal love
between Adam and Eve was lost; Before man’s spousal relationship with God was
disconnected by man’s (the bride’s) act of disobedience.
In Chapters 14-17 of John, Jesus gives speeches
(discourses) to his disciples, like Moses did to his family, like a shepherd to
his lost sheep, like a husband to his children, but not like a King addressing
his servants. In Chapters 18 and 19, Jesus is ironically killed as King of the
Jews. King is mentioned 16 times in
this incluscio (A’). The people opposed to Jesus say the unthinkable; we have
no King but Caesar. But they are right,
he is not the King-messiah of David, He is the New Bridegroom promised by
Moses. Finally, Chapter 19 closes with
Jesus being buried with the same huge amount of spices King Herod was buried
with. The irony of Jesus death as King,
I believe, is a disguised satire on Israel’s insistence for a King. John is cryptic in this sense. The insiders, the Johannine community, know
what John is saying. The outsiders
don’t get it. They misunderstand Jesus,
as they do so often in this Gospel. I
think John is cryptic for a reason.
Many of Jesus’ followers still believed Jesus was their New King,
perhaps those that followed Peter.
The Bridegroom theme is found throughout the
Hebrew Scripture. As already mentioned,
Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel all make constant reference to Israel ‘s
marriage to God, the Bridegroom. But
the crowning reference is the Song of Songs, particularly the Targum (Aramaic
translation of the Hebrew) of Song of Songs.
Up until recently, the “Song of Songs” book of the Bible was discouraged
reading for Catholics because of its sexual content. But the Song of Songs was a clear allegory of God and Israel as bridegroom
and bride. In fact, we can look to the
Song of Songs to see what Adam and Eve were like in their spousal love, their
reciprocal relationship of self-gift that John Paul II would describe as
unashamed theology of the body. Shame
came with the fall, but as Jesus tells us in Mathew 19, it was not like that at
the beginning.
As Larry Lyke says in his book, “I will Espouse
You Forever,” the Song of Songs is like the theology of the body, but is more a
theology of love. Jesus wants to love
us the way described in Song of Songs, the way God loved us from the beginning,
however we must receive him, the way the bride in Song of Songs does, the way
the first couple in the Garden did before Sin corrupted the spousal love
relationship we had with God – A theology of spousal love.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 5, tells
us “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved us by giving himself up… so that
he might sanctify her.” For Paul,
Jesus’ death on the cross was the ultimate act of spousal love for His
bride. The cross consummated our
marriage with Jesus who gave himself in a complete enactment of the flesh. Jesus poured out his life, his love, as
total gift. When this gift is
“received” by his bride, the Church, the New Israel, in complete openness, and
then returned as reciprocal gift, we achieve union with Jesus and the
Father. We become one flesh in the
“Body of Christ”…The Church.
Hugh O’Donnell, MA in Theology Comprehensive
Written Exam
University of Notre Dame, July 27, 2009