{"id":113526,"date":"2019-10-01T00:58:05","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T07:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=113526"},"modified":"2019-09-10T11:18:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T18:18:12","slug":"one-of-the-reasons-i-love-the-church-is-her-rich-intellectual-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/10\/one-of-the-reasons-i-love-the-church-is-her-rich-intellectual-tradition.html","title":{"rendered":"One of the Reasons I Love the Church is Her Rich Intellectual Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Catholic civilization has a storied tradition of presenting the gospel in local garb, becoming \u201call things to all\u201d\u00a0 (1 Cor 9:22) even as St. Paul did, since (as St. Thomas tells us) \u201cthat which is received is received according to the mode of the receiver\u201d.<\/p>\n

So when God revealed himself to us, he stooped down to our level in order to raise us up to his.\u00a0 Revealing himself to Bronze Age Semites, he used their cultural categories of animal sacrifice, not because he needed the blood of cattle, sheep, and goats, but because they<\/em> thought in those terms. His goal, like every good teacher, was to start where the student is and bring the student to where he is.\u00a0 That is why, as their relationship progressed, God started pointing out to Israel that the point was not really animal sacrifice, but the offering of one\u2019s heart:<\/p>\n

I will accept no bull from your house,
\nnor he-goat from your folds.
\nFor every beast of the forest is mine,
\nthe cattle on a thousand hills.
\nI know all the birds of the air,
\nand all that moves in the field is mine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I were hungry, I would not tell you;
\nfor the world and all that is in it is mine.
\nDo I eat the flesh of bulls,
\nor drink the blood of goats?
\nOffer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
\nand pay your vows to the Most High;
\nand call upon me in the day of trouble;
\nI will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.\u201d (Ps 50:9\u201315)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
or again:<\/p>\n
For you take no delight in sacrifice;
\nwere I to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
\nThe sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
\na broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Ps 51:16\u201317)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is the point Jesus makes as well regarding another form of cultural concession God made in the Old Testament, ritual purity laws:<\/p>\n
Now when the Pharisees gathered together to him, with some of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they purify themselves; and there are many other traditions which they observe, the washing of cups and pots and vessels of bronze.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, \u201cWhy do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands defiled?\u201d\u00a0 And he said to them, \u201cWell did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
\n\u2018This people honors me with their lips,
\nbut their heart is far from me;
\nin vain do they worship me,
\nteaching as doctrines the precepts of men.\u2019
\nYou leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.\u201d
\nAnd he said to them, \u201cYou have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, \u2018Honor your father and your mother\u2019; and, \u2018He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die\u2019; but you say, \u2018If a man tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is Corban\u2019 (that is, given to God)\u2014 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition which you hand on. And many such things you do.\u201d
\nAnd he called the people to him again, and said to them, \u201cHear me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him.\u201d\u00a0 And when he had entered the house, and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable.\u00a0 And he said to them, \u201cThen are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him, since it enters, not his heart but his stomach, and so passes on?\u201d (Thus he declared all foods clean.)\u00a0 And he said, \u201cWhat comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.\u201d (Mark 7:1\u201323)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Church came to understand this very well, recognizing (Acts 15) that the ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant were various forms of images and allegories pointing to the reality of the New Covenant.\u00a0 So physical circumcision pointed to the \u201ccircumcision of the heart\u201d that came through faith in Jesus.\u00a0 Food and cleanliness purity laws were images of the need for purity from sin.\u00a0 The passage through the Red Sea pointed to baptism, manna pointed to the Eucharist, the sacrifice of Isaac pointed to the sacrifice of Jesus and so forth.\u00a0 As Paul put it, \u201cTherefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. (Col 2:16\u201317).<\/p>\n
And indeed, nowhere is the New Testament ever interested in the literal reading of the Old.\u00a0 That\u2019s not because they don\u2019t think the Old Testament stories are historical.\u00a0 It\u2019s because they take their historicity for granted and are more interested in the spiritual meaning of those stories given that the Risen Christ told them that everything written in the law and the prophets was, at its most profound level, really about him (Luke 24:44-47).<\/p>\n
Because of this, the Catholic intellectual tradition developed a rich habit of looking for the inscape of things and was able to easily dress biblical narratives in the cultural garb of the people it served in order to apply the lesson to the present day and to see Christ hidden there for us<\/em>. Since, in Christ Jesus, there was \u201cneither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,\u00a0nor is there male and female,\u00a0for you are all one in Christ Jesus\u201d (Galatians 3:28), Catholic culture was pretty easy-going about\u00a0depicting holy people in the local looks of the people the Church serves. That\u2019s where Euro-Jesus<\/p>\n
$Image result for \"white jesus\"$ <\/p>\n
and Our Lady of Guadalupe<\/p>\n
$Image result for \"guadalupe\"$ <\/p>\n
come from. The former looked like the Europeans the artist lived among and the latter looked like an Aztec princess and (pointedly) not like their Spanish conquerers.\u00a0 Message: He has cast down the might in their arrogance and lifted up the lowly.\u00a0 He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.<\/p>\n
Indeed, this has gone on for a long time with Dutch people crucifying Jesus<\/p>\n
$\"Image$ <\/p>\n
and Chinese Madonnas<\/p>\n
$\"Image$ <\/p>\n
and Aboriginal Madonna and Child:<\/p>\n
$\"Image$ <\/p>\n
(Check out Julie Dowling\u2019s other fine work<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
The purpose of canonizing saints at all is to give us examples and role models to whom we can relate as we try to follow Jesus by imitating them.\u00a0 This too is a tradition dating back to the New Testament when Paul told the Corinthians \u201cImitate me as I imitate Christ\u201d (1 Corinthians 11:1).\u00a0 It has never been a big deal to picture the saints in the clothing\u2013and skin\u2013of a local culture.\u00a0 So I would have thought a tweet like this was unremarkable:<\/p>\n
\n
Happy Feast of St. Augustine: \u201cYou have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.\u201d (\u201cConfessions\u201d). Image: St. Augustine by John Nava. Corpus Christi Church in Toledo, Ohio. pic.twitter.com\/zpp01SV6mu<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) August 28, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n