Talk about graven images!

The Divine Office is giving me lots of good apologetics this week. Today's Office of Reading contains a selection from the book of Numbers that is the Single Best Verse to give pause to a Protestant  about the Catholic use of statues. I tend to think first about the golden cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus) or the decorations of Solomon's Temple (one of the books of Kings), but this one is so startling that even a Catholic might wonder what God was thinking.

In Numbers 21, we have the story about the Israelites rebelling over  the lack of water in the dessert. God directed Moses to obtain water from the rock, and there's that puzzling verse where God condemns Moses for not being faithful (how? was it wrong to strike the rock? wrong to strike it more than once? or maybe saying "Are we (Moses and Aaron) to bring water for you out of this rock?" rather than crediting God? It just isn't clear. ) 

Anyway, after the miraculous water is provided, God punishes the people by sending poisonous snakes among them. Soon they are all sick and dying. So what is the remedy??

"Make a bronze serpent and mount if on a pole, and if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover."

Whoa. God is telling Moses and the people to 1. make a graven image 2. hoist it high in the air for everyone to see 3. look UP to it (sort of respectful, reverent, even --dare I say--like an attitude of worship), in order to 4. get healed. Furthermore, this is an image of 5. a snake, something we associate with You Know Who.

Wasn't God concerned that the people of Israel, ever prone to worshipping and attributing powers to idols would attribute their healing to the bronze serpent? Apparently not. So we learn from this story that not only are there circumstances that God will use a Graven Image as a visible sign and conduit of his mercy, but that He also expects us (since even  the idolatry prone Israelite could do it) to make the distinction between the image that we honor and the true God that it represents and Who works through the image. Can you say sacramental?

Furthermore, there's that time when Jesus said, "Just as Moses lifted up serpent in the dessert, so shall the Son of Man be lifted up..."

So next time you get the statues=idolatry argument, respond with, "Suppose I can show you where God commanded someone to make a graven image of an animal so that people could be cured of illness by honoring it?"  

Today's prophecy fulfilled, brought to you by Tobit!

Morning prayer today includes the canticle of Tobit (Tobit 13: 8-11, 13-15). I am about to leave the house to hold auditions for our homeschool Midsummer Night's Dream production, so this will be sketchy, but...

I love this canticle!  It is a perfect example of the multiple levels  of  instruction and inspiration we can derive from praying the scriptures of the Divine Office. Here is Tobit, living in exile in Nineveh. Jerusalem is far away, and a ruin of its former self. Yet Tobit has the faith to sing the praises of the holy city, and express the firm hope that the exiles  will return (which they eventually did) and that all nations and people will someday be "drawn to you by the name of the Lord God, bearing in their hands their gifts for the Kind of Heaven." (a beautiful prophecy about the Redeemer of men, and in particular about the magi as well.)

Next level: While appreciating what Jerusalem meant to Tobit and the rest of the Jews, I am also able to apply what is said here to the Church. The lines near the end, "Happy are those who rejoice in your prosperity. Happy are all the men who shall grieve over you, over all your chastisements, for they shall rejoice in you as they behold all your joy forever,"  put me on a roller coaster of joy and sorrow. I'm rejoicing over my memories of John Paul II's pontificate, when the Church came out of the doldrums of  the 70s and seemed to be in a new springtime. I'm grieving over the scandals that have humiliated us all, even as I recognize that the cleansing now taking place will lead to greater holiness in the long run.

Okay. Gotta run.

Don't "Phllip out" over faith vs. works

From today's Evening Prayer, the reading is Phillipians 2:12. It's the single best verse for the faith vs. works issue that comes up between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics who read their Bibles and listen at mass (and especially, pray the Office) have far more scripture memorized than we give ourselves credit for. Thing is, we don't much bother with the little numbers. Or even the part of the Bible that the verses we know by heart came from. So our conversations with our Protestant friends go like this:

Protestant: Why do Catholics have statues when Exodus 20 verse 4 clearly  states, "you shall not make to thyself a graven image, not 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."

Catholic: Yes, but that means if you make them for the purpose of worshipping them. Later on, God actually commands Moses to make golden cherubim to decorate the ark of the covenant.

Protestant: where does it say that?

Catholic: Um....Exodus?  Numbers?  Somewhere around there...  And then there's the decorations that Solomon makes for the temple...grapes and some other stuff....guess that would be one of the books of Kings maybe...

This probably sounds very sloppy and unprofessional to your protestant friend.

So, just this once, memorize  "Phillipian 2:12".Here's a mnemonic device: "Don't "Phllip out" over the faith vs works controversy. There are 2 sides to it" That will at least get you to Phillipians 2. You can then read down to find verse 12)  So next time the conversation will go like this:

Protestant: Catholics seem to think they have to say all kinds of prayers, never miss mass on Sunday, do good deeds and follow the commandments in order to "work their way into heaven".  My works and prayers flow from my faith in Jesus, but I don't think I'll go to hell if I don't do enough of them. Romans 3: 28 says we are justified by grace through redemption in Christ Jesus, independently of works of the law." So you see, Christ has done everything to save me. I don't do anything to save myself.

Catholic: Faith versus works is a bit of a paradox, isn't it? Phillipian 2:12 sums up that both are necessary: "work out your salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who begets in you  both the will and the performance."  There wouldn't be any fear and trembling if we are guaranteed salvation because of having believed in Jesus, would there? Although this same verse also attests that God's work in our salvation is greater, and primary. I think  C.S. Lewis says that the main thing is not to overanlyze it, trying to determine "God did this" and "I did that", since when we are members of His body, the Church, our good actions are in a sense one with His.