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Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Community Volume 15, No. 4 May 16, 1999 Question BoxThe following questions were answered by Deacon Bernie Yeatts and Cathy Fix. Q. Why is divorce not permitted by the church? What are the grounds for annulment? A. The State of California, in fact, all civil authorities consider marriage as a contract. A contract can be terminated by the agreement of both parties or for the failure of one of the parties to meet all or some of the obligations of the contract. When the State of California declares that the contractual privileges and obligations of a marriage is ended, it is called a "divorce." The Catholic Church considers marriage to be a covenant between the spouses. The preeminent example of a covenant is that which existed between God and ancient Israel: "You will be my people; I will be your God." The story of ancient Israel, told in the Old Testament, is one of the fidelity of God despite the failures of Israel. It tells of how God continually called Israel back from infidelity, how God patiently waited for Israel. So a covenant is not like a contract. In a contract, each party says, "I will be faithful to the terms of our contract as long as you are faithful to your terms. Otherwise, the contract is ended." In a covenant, each party says, "I will be true to you despite any eventuality, even if you are unable to fulfill your promises and even if you are unfaithful to our relationship." In the words of the marriage covenant, "I take you to be my spouse. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health; I will love you and honor you all the days of my life." For a Baptized Catholic, the exchange of vows must be witnessed by a Church-designated authority, usually a priest or deacon. Also, since marriage is a Sacrament, it must be performed in a church. Either of these requirements can be dispensed by the bishop for a serious reason. In the case of a marriage in which neither party is Catholic but at least one is a non-Catholic Christian, the marriage is considered a covenant even though the exchange of vows is not witnessed by a priest or deacon and the marriage does not take place in a Catholic church. The church, in its pastoral wisdom, recognizes that sometimes the physical and/or spiritual welfare of one or both of the parties will be seriously damaged if they continue to live together. So, albeit reluctantly, the church acknowledges that sometimes it is best for spouses not to continue living as husband and wife. Since there are some legitimate legal issues involved, due to the state's recognition of marriage as a contract, there will be a divorce. Divorce does not mean that the spouses are no longer members of the church. They have all the rights and privileges as do all the Baptized, including the right to receive Eucharist and the other sacraments except Marriage and Holy Orders as a priest. They are still married in view of the covenant relationship, and one who is married cannot enter another marriage and a married man cannot be ordained a priest, although a married man can be ordained a deacon. The Catholic Church does, indeed, recognize the right of the state to declare a marriage over in the sense of a contract so, in this sense, the Church does permit a divorce. However, a civil divorce does not have any effect on the covenant relationship. Because a marriage covenant exists, the Church cannot recognize a subsequent marriage until the first marriage is annulled. If a divorced person whose marriage was not annulled enters into a civil marriage, that person is not permitted to receive the sacraments of Eucharist or Confirmation. Entering a covenant relationship with another person is a very serious matter requiring adequate preparation and reflection. A person must be making the commitment to the covenant "freely and without reservation" and have the intent to remain married until the death of either spouse. If a person is not able to make this commitment due to some impairment or psychological or physical force, that person is not properly entering a covenant relationship. Sometimes, after a marriage has broken up, a person will examine the circumstances that existed at the time of the marriage and realize that the necessary freedom, understanding and/or intent were not there. The person may then decide to request an annulment. Upon presentation of the facts of the case to a Diocesan Marriage Tribunal, after getting the testimony of witnesses and considering all the facts involved, the Church can declare that, in point of fact, a Covenant (a Sacramental Marriage) never did exist and the Marriage Tribunal, acting in the name of the Bishop, will issue a decree of nullity (usually called an annulment). Note that this declaration has no bearing on the legitimacy of children nor does it have any effect on the civil contract which would have previously been canceled by the decree of divorce. When a Baptized Catholic was married in a ceremony that did not meet the requirements of the Church (witnessed by a Church-designated authority and in a church) and these were not dispensed by a bishop before the ceremony, there is no Sacramental Marriage. When the facts are presented to the Diocesan Marriage Tribunal, a declaration stating that the person is free to marry will be issued. Divorced persons who think they may have a case for having their marriages annulled or having them declared non-Sacramental should contact a priest of deacon to have the case evaluated. ----B.Y. Q. Mark 17:11-13 -- Then the disciples asked Jesus, "Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?" He told them, "Elijah will indeed come first and restore all things, yet how is it written regarding the Son of Man that he must suffer greatly and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him." Since, in the context of Mark's Gospel, it seems that Jesus' reference to the fact that "Elijah has come" is a reference to John the Baptist's ministry, how is the expression, "Elijah (read John the Baptist) will ...restore all things" to be understood? What did John the Baptist restore? A. The expectation of Elijah comes from the Book of Sirach and from the Prophecy of Malachi. Sirach 48:4
How awesome are you, ELIJAH! Whose glory is equal to yours? ... Malachi 3.23
Lo, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, Before the day of the LORD comes,
the great and terrible day, Elijah and John the Baptist anticipated the message and ministry of Jesus by identifying the proper way for humans to be righteous -- as not simply in observance of the Law but rather in interior conversion. And interior conversion means the healing of relationships, letting go of anger. This was the message of John and certainly the message of Jesus. Creation is "out of balance," so to speak, with people emphasizing the wrong things. John the Baptist, like Elijah before him, called the people to look into their hearts to begin the healing process. The restoration which John brought about is a return to the sense of sin as a violation of relationships with God, each other and nature ----B.Y. Q. Mark 9:2 describes the transfiguration. However, the Little Rock Study Guide questions and the Commentary seem to confuse the words "transfiguration" and "transformation." A. In common usage, these words are synonymous. However, the words "conversion" and "change" are also synonyms for "transformation" and they seem closer to the meaning of that word. The word "transformation" does not carry the depth of meaning that "transfiguration" does. The event which each of the Synoptic Gospels describes is generally thought, by Scripture scholars, to be an anticipation of the way Jesus' body would appeared after resurrection. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each use the event to underscore a teaching by fitting it in the context of the Gospel in a different place. Perhaps the best attempt at explaining what happens at resurrection was given by St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians 15:35-58. The essence of this explanation is that, while we are living life this side of death we have a natural (or physical) body. After death and resurrection, we have a spiritual body. The "body" remains, but its characteristics are changed. So, after his resurrection, Jesus could be recognized because he had a familiar "body." But this "body" was no longer constrained by physical limits, such as walls and door. The word "transfigured" is a very good word to use in describing this phenomenon. The "figure" of Jesus remained but was "trans-figured." ("Trans" is a Latin word that is used in English; it means "across"). Jesus' body crossed over death from this life to resurrected life. ----B.Y. Q. In Mark 11:24, Jesus says without any qualification that when we have faith, whatever we ask for in prayer we will receive. How is this verse to be understood? A. The complex nature of this verse is underscored by the difficulty that translators have in understanding the Greek. As an example, the New American Bible, 1986 Revised Translation, renders it: "Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours." The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, renders it: "So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." A11 readers of the Bible Study Digest are invited to reflect on the implications of those two translations. Certainly prayer of petition is not easy to understand. The form of the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples (the Lord's Prayer) is the model for all forms of prayer. In the case of prayer of petition, after giving praise: "Hallowed by thy name," we then acknowledge that God is creator and we are creatures, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We then ask for needs: "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." The familiar translation of the prayer is from the King James Version of the Gospel of Matthew. This prayer does not appear, per se, in the Gospel of Mark, but portions of it appear in several places. For example, in the verse immediately following the one in question (Mark 11:25) we read something very similar to a portion of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew: "When you stand to pray, forgive anyone against whom you have a grievance, so that your heavenly Father may in turn forgive you your transgressions." God certainly answers prayer. We, however, are not always in the best position to write the prescription, so to speak. "I will know God is answering my prayer if thus-and-such happens." Sometimes we mis-identify wants as needs. Usually it is only in looking back on life that we begin to see how God has had a hand in "giving us our daily bread." God also has a marvelous way of working with and through us when we get ourselves into the messes which characterize some of life. Reflecting on our past prayers and the way God has responded can help us simplify our lives and help us separate what is really need from want. ----B.Y. Q. When did the scenario of the Last Supper of Jesus become the core of the Mass? When did the Mass take the form it has in the Church today? A. Although we have only limited knowledge of specific practices of Christian worship in the first decades after Jesus' death and Resurrection, we do know that the earliest Christians were Jews who continued to attend synagogue services. They participated in Temple sacrifices, but they also gathered in their homes to celebrate Eucharist. Synagogue worship, which consisted of a combination of scripture reading, psalms, preaching, and prayers, became the model for the part of the Mass termed Liturgy of the Word. The part termed Liturgy of the Eucharist likewise was based on Jewish patterns. The three locations for Jewish worship that were particularly important (temple, synagogue, and family meals) were all themes that are woven into the structure of the eucharistic celebration. Early Christians were keenly aware of the parallels with the Passover meal; they celebrated Jesus as Messiah, the new Passover sacrifice. At both meals special food is eaten, bread is broken, and cups of wine are shared. Jesus also called his supper a sacrifice of the new covenant, joining these themes as well. Eventually the tensions between Jews who followed Jesus and those who rejected him reached the point that Christian Jews were formally expelled from synagogues and forbidden to worship as Jews (circa AD 80). We do not have specific information on how and when the fusion of the two types of worship (i.e., word and Eucharist) took place, but written evidence from the middle of the second century (roughly AD 150) shows that by this time they had been combined into one service. Even this early the service of the Word had a basic structure consisting of greeting, Epistle, responsorial psalm, Gospel, and homily. At about the end of the sixth century an introductory rite was added, which included the introit, Kyrie, Gloria, and collect. Later additions made during the Middle Ages consisted of the penitential rite, gradual, and Nicene Creed. These elements continued until the time of the Reformation in the 16th century. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) was responsible for the first "rigid" structure of the Mass. Before that, Masses varied, sometimes quite extensively, from country to country. Changes in structure and emphasis in the worship service were made by the Protestant reformers, but even so in many churches today the Sunday service follows the same general pattern as the Catholic Mass. Some denominations, however, give preeminence to the service of the Word over that of the Eucharist and hold Communion services only monthly or even less frequently. A recent change is the acceptance throughout the Western Christian church of a general calendar proposed by Vatican II, such that today most churches, Catholic and Protestant, read the same Scripture passages each week at their services. This new calendar went into effect on November 30, 1969. Other elements from synagogue worship also were models for parts of the service of the Eucharist. The great eucharistic prayers have their roots in the prayers of praise and thanks that also celebrate God's role in the history of His people. One of the earliest accounts of this central prayer is from Hippolytus (ca. AD 170- 236). Minor additions in later centuries included the preface, Sanctus, words of institution, doxology, mixing of a particle of bread with the wine, and Amen. This structure continued stable throughout the Middle Ages. Vatican II brought about many liturgical revisions in an attempt to simplify the liturgy and restore some aspects that had been lost. These are too numerous to mention in detail but include renewed emphasis on the service of the Word as of equal importance as the service of the Eucharist, dropping of unneeded accretions (such as the "Last Gospel"), and expanded use of music, especially hymns in the vernacular. The result is the Mass we celebrate today. ---C.F. Q. What do the terms "canonical" and "apocryphal" mean as they are applied to the Scriptures? A. The Old Testament was written and collected over a period of more than 1000 years; it was handed down through the process of being hand-written by scribes who copied texts word for word. Because of the need to copy by hand, mistakes did occur, such as misspellings, accidental duplication of material, and passages being left out. Some copies of the same texts have slightly different phrasing. In addition, over the centuries various groups of Jews disagreed over which books were inspired by God and which were merely human efforts. Scholars believe there was no fixed collection of the books of the Old Testament until close to the time of Jesus. A canon refers to the final, fixed, and authoritative version of a major work and is used for both the Old and the New Testaments. Because in the first century after Jesus the Jewish and Christian religions diverged and used different versions of the Bible in forming their Scriptures (Catholics used the Septuagint, a Greek translation), in some cases books that were not part of the Jewish canon were accepted in the Christian Bible. At the time of the Reformation the Protestants accepted the Jewish version of canonical works, which is why Catholic and Protestant Bibles have differing numbers of books. The Christians in the first and later centuries also had manuscripts besides the four canonical Gospels and the remaining works that now make up the New Testament (the letters, Acts of the Apostles, etc.). Various writings such as the Gospel of Thomas and Gnostic writings were rejected because they did not seem "authentic" or inspired. The Catholic canon was established circa AD 400. St. Jerome, who lived roughly from AD 340 to 420, is considered the "Father of the Vulgate" (translation of the Bible). However, Origen (ca. 185-254) had pretty well defined the Old and New Testament canons long before Jerome. The Apocrypha refers all the works that were left out of the canons of the Old and New Testaments. It consists of 14 books of the Septuagint that were part of the Vulgate Bible but are not part of the Jewish canon or Protestant Old Testament; 11 of these books are part of the Catholic canon. Some of these are Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and parts of the books of Esther and Daniel. The term also includes those writings of the New Testament that were rejected, as mentioned above. ---C.F. Last Updated on 5/25/03 |