Each weekday, you'll find a new question and answer. Check back for the new question and scroll down to see previous day's entries! Let us know what you think - - or question! -- by emailing us at tcanswer@osv.com.

TCA Questions of the Day for the Week of January 7-11, 2008

Question of the Day for Friday, January 11, 2008

The Unforgivable Sin?

Q. I worry when I read Jesus’ words about the unforgivable sin (see Mk 3:29). What was He talking about?
 R. A., Monterey, Calif.

A. One of our TCA contributors, Jim Manney, once dealt with this issue in an article we published. Here’s his reply:

“Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven,” Jesus says in Mark’s Gospel (3:29). The Gospels of Matthew and Luke contain similar sayings, where Jesus seems to say that we can commit a sin that God cannot — or will not — forgive.

What is this sin? Christians throughout the centuries have worried that they have committed it.

Take a close look at the setting of these words in Mark’s Gospel, starting with 3:20. Some hostile scribes had observed Jesus casting out evil spirits. They said — incredibly — that Jesus was possessed by evil spirits himself and was using demonic powers to drive out demons.

Jesus patiently explained the absurdity of this conclusion. Why would Satan act against himself this way? A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand (v. 23-27). Then Jesus added the warning that those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven (v. 29).

The scribes were posing as religious people curious about the doings of the new teacher. Yet their hearts were obviously closed to Jesus. Their ridiculous accusation that Jesus was possessed by demons proved it.

God will forgive all our sins. But we must receive this forgiveness. If our hearts are closed, as the scribes’ hearts were closed, we won’t be forgiven. That’s the sin against the Holy Spirit. No one who is concerned about committing it needs to worry about it.

Question of the Day for Thursday, January 10, 2008

“Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam”?

Q. Some of my friends sign their correspondence “Ad maiorem dei gloriam” or with the letters “AMDG.” What does this mean?  -- I.B., Columbus, Ohio

A. This Latin phrase (and the four letters abbreviating it) means “for the greater glory of God.” It’s the motto of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and was probably coined by its founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola. Consequently, it’s the motto of many Jesuit colleges and high schools; students are sometimes encouraged to write “AMDG” across the top of their coursework as a reminder that all their efforts should be for God’s glory.

 These letters were often included in the signatures of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) and Pope John Paul II.

Question of the Day for Wednesday, January 9, 2008

How Did the Infant John Escape?

Q. Scripture says that St. Joseph was alerted in a dream to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt before Herod murdered the Holy Innocents (boys under the age of two). Wouldn’t John the Baptist have fallen into the “under two” category? Were his parents alerted to get him out of the country as well? If not, why wasn’t he killed? Also, at what age did John the Baptist begin preaching? Why didn’t Jesus and John grow up as childhood friends since Mary and Elizabeth were related? -- M.A., via email

A. St. John was indeed Our Lord’s kinsman and would have been only a few months older than He was. We have no record of his childhood, but it’s a reasonable speculation that he and the young Jesus would have known each other and perhaps spent time together, given their kinship. A number of artists have in fact depicted the two children together, as in Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks. Click here for more information»

 As for his escape from Herod’s slaughter of the Holy Innocents: St. Peter of Alexandria (d. 311) speculated that, to be spared the wicked king’s wrath, the young John was taken into the desert, where he lived until many years later, when he came preaching repentance (see Mk 1:2–4). But St. Jerome, one of the first great biblical scholars, considered this an unlikely conjecture.

We must keep in mind that Scripture tells us Herod “ordered the massacre of all boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under” (Mt 2:16, emphasis added). The massacre didn’t extend to all the king’s realm. John was born when his parents lived in an unnamed “town of Judah” that was “in the hill country” (Lk 1:39). We need not assume that this town was in the vicinity of Bethlehem, or that John’s life was in danger.

Question of the Day for Tuesday, January 8, 2008

“Literal” Interpretation?

Q.  My Protestant friends sometimes accuse the Catholic Church of not interpreting the Bible “literally.” How should I respond? -- B.J., via e-mail

A. Here’s a reply from our TCA columnist Father Ray Ryland:

Perhaps you should begin by asking for specific reasons why your Protestant friends make this claim. You can turn this charge back on them by asking them, for example, if they literally interpret John 6 (“eat my flesh, drink my blood”), and if not, why not.

It would be far more important, however, for you to explain to them how the Catholic Church does interpret Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the Church has always concentrated both on the literal and on the spiritual senses of Scripture (CCC nos. 109-119).

There are three facets, or dimensions, to the spiritual sense of Scripture. One the Church calls the allegorical sense, in which we see events of the Old Testament, for example, prefiguring Jesus Christ and His mission of salvation. The common example given in the Catechism is that the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea points to, is a sign of, Christian baptism.

Another is the moral (or tropological) sense, which leads us to act virtuously.

The third is the anagogical sense (from the Greek word for “leading”). This third sense involves seeing the eternal dimension of events recorded in Scripture, and letting that vision impel us on our way to heaven. The Catechism example is Scripture’s pointing to the Church as a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

A very helpful explanation of all this is Mark Shea’s book Making Senses Out of Scripture (Basilica Press).
Always remember: Both the literal sense and these three spiritual senses can be properly understood only under the guidance of the Church, who is the divinely appointed custodian of revelation.

In his Essay on the Development of Doctrine (chapter 7), Cardinal John Henry Newman shows that in the early Church those persons who insisted on the literal interpretation alone invariably wound up in heresy. He reminds us that the school of Antioch, the foremost training center for literal interpretation in the early centuries, was “the very metropolis of heresy.” Drawing on his vast knowledge of Church history, Cardinal Newman wrote, “It may be almost laid down as an historical fact, that the mystical [what we call the spiritual] interpretation and orthodoxy will stand or fall together.”

Question of the Day for Monday, January 7, 2008

Star of the Magi?

Q. On Epiphany some of us were discussing the “star in the East” that led the Magi to the Christ Child. Do we know exactly what kind of heavenly body it was? --  G. B., via email

A. That question has been debated by Christians for centuries. Some have speculated that the extraordinary light in the sky was a comet. Others have wondered whether it was a supernova, which is an extremely luminous object created by the explosion of a star.

Still others have suggested that the Magi saw a rare conjunction of planets — that is, an alignment of planets whose orbits have positioned them up in such a way that from earth they appear to merge into a single bright “star.” The famous German astronomer Johannes Kepler, for example, proposed 400 years ago that the star was a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in 7 B.C. 

 Dr. Grant Mathews, a theoretical astrophysicist at Notre Dame University, has researched the possibilities. He discovered historical records referring to several comets, supernovae and conjunctions that might fit the profile and the approximate date. Dr. Mathews believes that the most likely candidate is a conjunction of the sun, the moon, Jupiter and Saturn, which were aligned in the constellation Aries on April 17, 6 B.C., while Venus and Mars were in neighboring constellations.

Since the Magi were astrologers, they would have interpreted the conjunction as a sign that a powerful leader was born and was destined to die at an appointed time. That would also explain why one of the gifts they brought was myrrh, which was used to embalm the dead.

Of course, we don’t really know for sure what the heavenly phenomenon was. It simply remains part of the great mystery that we recall every year at this time. For more information on Dr. Mathew’s research, click here»