G.K.Chesterton summed it up. He said he knew the Catholic Church was for him because when he left his umbrella at the back of the Methodist Church it was still there, but when he left it at the back of the Catholic Church it was stolen.”
Many would say that Saint Paul is out of date and only reflecting the mores of his period of time.
They would say that today the Church must be inclusive and non judgemental of those who Saint Paul melodramatically calls out and excludes from the Kingdom of God: Do not be deceived;
neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers
nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves
nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers
will inherit the Kingdom of God.
St. Paul also had the audacity to say that the Holy Ones can judge the behavior of others and call them out on this. We all know that we are not suppose to judge anyone today or else they might be feel bad about their behavior and themselves since most can't separate the two from each other.
Worse yet, in our litigious society, where victims of evil priests and bishops who enabled them, are suing the Church for mega millions of bucks, he makes them feel bad as if the horrors they experienced by Church officials isn't enough: If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters,
do you seat as judges people of no standing in the Church?
I say this to shame you.
Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough
to be able to settle a case between brothers?
But rather brother goes to court against brother,
and that before unbelievers? Why not rather put up with injustice?
When will the Church eradicate this sort of heresy from Saint Paul by today's standards just like the Church excluded the Gnostic Gospels like the Gospel of Saint Paul. The Church can do it; she is infallible.
Of course Saint Paul isn't excluding his readers from being members of the Holy Church of God, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. No, he is warning them that they must cooperate with the mission of Jesus to save souls to include their very own soul. So the dragnet that is the Church and thus makes her a field hospital for the people described at the end of this passage, rather than a country club of the saved, is to threaten those who persist in sin unrepentant to change or be damned. They need to hear that and the only place they can hear that is by being members of the Holy Church of God, included in the Church with all their peccadilloes.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker writes the following about Catholic converts from Protestantism:
We converts from Protestantism find it difficult to shake the idea that
the Church should be what we expect it to be: a congregation of good
people just like us. We have religious utopianism running in our Puritan
veins. We expect the church to be made up of saints who are already
perfect…just like us.
1 Cor 6:1-11
Brothers and sisters:
How can any one of you with a case against another
dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment
instead of to the holy ones?
Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world?
If the world is to be judged by you,
are you unqualified for the lowest law courts?
Do you not know that we will judge angels?
Then why not everyday matters?
If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters,
do you seat as judges people of no standing in the Church?
I say this to shame you.
Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough
to be able to settle a case between brothers?
But rather brother goes to court against brother,
and that before unbelievers?
Now indeed then it is, in any case,
a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another.
Why not rather put up with injustice?
Why not rather let yourselves be cheated?
Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers.
Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived;
neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers
nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves
nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers
will inherit the Kingdom of God.
That is what some of you used to be;
but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and in the Spirit of our God.
How can any one of you with a case against another
dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment
instead of to the holy ones?
Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world?
If the world is to be judged by you,
are you unqualified for the lowest law courts?
Do you not know that we will judge angels?
Then why not everyday matters?
If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters,
do you seat as judges people of no standing in the Church?
I say this to shame you.
Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough
to be able to settle a case between brothers?
But rather brother goes to court against brother,
and that before unbelievers?
Now indeed then it is, in any case,
a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another.
Why not rather put up with injustice?
Why not rather let yourselves be cheated?
Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers.
Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived;
neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers
nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves
nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers
will inherit the Kingdom of God.
That is what some of you used to be;
but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and in the Spirit of our God.
15 comments:
All serious sin is a form of idolatry - worshipping a thing rather than God. So the sexual pervert, the robber, the slanderer all worship their own appetites (lust, anger, envy, pride, etc.) rather than the Lord. How then could someone who worships that which is not God be a citizen of the Kingdom of God?
How could someone who's heart of heart, who's innermost desires, will, intellect all be turned in onto the black hole of mere creatures including itself, be open to the brilliant light of God? It's not some sort of divine pettiness that "damns" them, but their own doing.
So turn away from creatures and embrace the Lord!
As I keep repeating - the Lord sent us to a) heal the sick (in his name) b) cast out evil spirits (in His name), and c) preach the Gospel (in His name). It's in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that we are made CITIZENS of the Kingdom, it's in His name that we're blessed and made holy (*i.e. reserved for his worship).
As for the other issues.... not all sin is mortal. Pecadillos is literally "little" sins. Killing someone or fornicating with someone is not a "little" sin.
No doubt we have all struggled with serious sin in our lives. But the so-called "merciful" "pastoral" approach of pooh poohing serious sin and its consequences, or downplaying the real danger of hell by accepting "soft" idolatry which forms sinful habits and then leads to scandal (defined as giving an example that leads others to conclude that such sins are OK) does no one any favors.
All the saints warn us about the dangers of sin (death to ourselves) and the danger our sin has on OTHERS (bad example to the sins of omission/commission whereby our selfishness directly or indirectly harms others in their walk towards God).
I think a lot has to do with the pre-cognitive cultural presuppositions of post-Christian western society: if the purpose of life is sex, drugs, rock'n'roll (i.e. individual-oriented, ego-centric "self-fulfillment" as deemed by that individual), then there is no sin but that which is declared so by "the state" or "the party". But then so long as something is thus legal (acceptable by the elite and their police) an individual is 'good to go'.
But if instead the purpose of life is to know, love, serve, and discover joy in Jesus Christ and thus enter into eternal life through Him.... it follows that the criteria for good and bad is not my own whim or the state or the party but the revealed truth of God's will for humanity - completely apart from what the 'cool kids' think, want, or hope.
The Church is thus full of people who are steeped in the secular cultural preconceptions of reality who thus regard the Christian presuppositions as foreign or artificial rather than as a birthright. This is how we had Corinthian Christians who continued to visit temple prostitutes - they accepting Christ in word...but not yet in deed. They were not yet fully given over to the Lord.
But the solution then (and now) is not to tell them that they're OK "just the way they are" but to SHAME them by pointing to the higher good than their chosen idols. One is SHAMED only IN LIGHT OF A HIGHER GOOD THAN WHAT ONE CHOOSE.
It's only in light of God that the creature is revealed to be an idol. So it's only in the name of Jesus that healing, exorcism and the Good News can bring supernatural life to mere human life.
Not in watering down Catholicism.
Like many uncomfortable Scriptural passages, it was relegated to the weekday cycle where few would hear it. The same happened with Luke 11:14-28, which in the Roman Rite is the gospel for the third Sunday of Lent.
Yet there are still people out there who think the 1969 Lectionary is the best thing since sliced bread and think it should be an option in the EF.
Sounds like they are both right. The people who need wisdom get to meet the wise.
Isn't that language considered offensive? Just like the language in the CCC that every liberal bishop wants removed. When does Francis and his friends start removing those parts of scripture that they find offensive?
Anonymous
It's already happened. Bugnini's Consilium expurgated three entire psalms from the Divine Office and censored three more.
I'm not sure what a "boy prostitute" is, but sex-educators tell us most adolescents and young adults are fornicators, and we know that Christians who remarry after divorce are adulterers. I don't know any sodomites, but there are plenty on TV. All of these sinners are going to Hell unless they repent and receive God's mercy. Therefore, moved with pity for them, let us all announce the Kingdom and call them to repentance.
The will and the intellect of modern man has become clouded and darkened to sin and it effects. For too many Catholics today, the reality of hell and other sinful consequences are no longer present to them and for far too many, religion and God are just an afterthought, if even that. The same for prayer and fasting.
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote of walls put up by sin which separate the sinner from God and the recognition of personal sin.
Teresa of Avila:
"We must not voluntarily nourish a desire to continue in venial sin of any kind. No matter how small it is, a venial sin offends God." "As for venial sins, I paid little attention and that is what almost destroyed me"
Many things are done which offend God, even if those who do these things are not aware of this. If they are not aware, then it is up to those who can, and are in the position to do so, to make them aware. We can at least pray for them, if nothing else. If there are those who dispose of toxic substances on the ground, despite not having the intention of polluting the enviroment, by their action they have done so anyway. Even if It was not their objective or intention to do so, objectively they have done so. Damage has been done. So likewise by objectively sinful action, something which goes against what God desires has been done and this has consequences.
Teresa of Avila on some of her confessors:
"What was venial sin they said was no sin at all and what was serious mortal sin they said was venial. This did me much harm...I went on in this blindness for I believe more than seventeen years until a Dominican Father, a very learned man, enlightened me about many things."
If I were to state that passage (Do not be deceived, neither fornicators....)as a personal belief at my workplace, I would likely be brought up on discrimination charges and most likely be punished with a disciplinary action that could lead to unemployment.
"It's already happened. Bugnini's Consilium expurgated three entire psalms from the Divine Office and censored three more."
Actually, in addition to deleting Psalms 57/58, 82/83, and 108/109 in their entirety, the Consilium deleted scattered "hard" verses from about twenty additional psalms. So whereas all 150 psalms were prayed weekly for over 15 centuries, in the new "Liturgy of the Hours"--which I am otherwise fond of (in Latin, if not in its yet to be revised 1970s English translation)--less than 130 are prayed monthly in their entirety.
Anonymous,
Yes, Christianity is effectively illegal now, though tolerated.
It s sort of funny that people who claim to not believe in God, Heaven, nor Hell would get upset if you tell them that their favourite genital passtime could damn them for eternity. If a fundamentalist Christian tells me that I, as a Catholic, am going to burn in Hell I sincerely don't believe it so my biggest challenge is to act like a polite cinder and not laugh out loud. Likewise, if the homo-evangelist accuses me of wanting to physically attack him/her I just tell them they have the wrong person and that, in fact, I am inclined to act to protect them if someone else attacked them for *any* reason. I think it was Chesterton who said that it was impossible to blaspheme Thor. If the modern society really, truly believe that what they profess is true the statements of a bunch of Catholics can't have any effect on it. What they are pants-wetting afraid of is that some people might have a Thought they can't control and actually act on it. And the act does not have to be a positive action but could be, even worse, an abstention from joining some particular clatch of workers united in solidarity for some momentary mobilisation. Voting rights, spotted owls, snail darters, gay suffrage are transient purposes that mean less than a sports contest to the keepers of the flame. The purpose of the march, protest, or demonstration is to reenforce the training that causes the people to stop whatever they are doing, leave their mother and father, and give all they have to the god that gives them liberty, equality, and condoms.
Dialogue: "I'm not sure what a "boy prostitute" is".
This is a politically correct understanding of the Greek "malakos", while "sodomite" avoids the use of the term "homosexual" for the Greek term "arsenokoites". The former refers to passive homosexual while the latter the active. St. Paul is making abundantly clear that practising homosexuals, whether malakos or arsenokoites, will not inherit the kingdom, as will not the others in this pericope.
This not the only place where the official USCSB English translation of the Scriptures seems to flirt with heresy on this matter, and it raises for me the issue of whether one is subjected to heresy when going to an English Mass in USA while listening to this kind of gibberrish. Clearly, this translation is highly influenced by the thoughts of John Boswell, a homosexual scholar who has interpreted homosexuality in the Bible in very favourable terms (in contrast with the traditional understanding), and whose (mistaken) thoughts have been accepted by many "progressive" mainline Christian denominations such as the Episcopalians. For these, the sin of Sodom is not homosexual practice, but inhospitality.
"arsenokoites". Well, I just learned a new word that when one sounds it out phonetically will make your sister angry and, while apparently Greek, has an almost pig latin quality.
rcg:
"Arsenokoites" is a word that St Paul apparently invented, as there are no instances found in Greek literature before his usage. It is composed of two Greek words which, even for an English speaker, are fairly manifest in meaning.
As was 'consubstantial'? And yes, I laughed out loud and embarrased my sister who thought *I* was making it up.
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