Does John 6:63 Refute the Real Presence?

Early Christian depiction of the Eucharist from the C

A couple of my Evangelical friends were recently talking with me about John 6 and the Eucharist. If you haven’t read it recently, you should. In it, Jesus states repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms, that He is the Bread of Life, that our eternal salvation is tied to eating His Body and drinking His Blood, that His Flesh really is true Food and His Blood really is true Drink. The question that I asked when we were going through the passage was, “If Jesus was trying to say that the Eucharist is really His Body and Blood, what more could He have said?”

Even more striking, the Jewish audience listening to Him doesn’t initially take Him literally. Their initial reaction to His claim, “I am the Bread come down from Heaven” is to be shocked that He claimed to come from Heaven (John 6:41-42). At this point, Jesus clarifies how literally He means the “Bread” part: “I am the living Bread that came down out of Heaven; if anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever; and the Bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My Flesh.” (John 6:51). It’s only at this point that the crowd becomes shocked by the Bread imagery (Jn. 6:52).

In other words, it’s not as if we have Jesus using a metaphor, and the crowd naively assuming that He means it to be literal.  It's something nearer the opposite: we have the crowd initially assuming Jesus is speaking metaphorically, and Jesus going out of His way to make sure that they don’t think that. And after the crowd protests, “how can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” Jesus answers (Jn. 6:53-58), by explaining six different times that He means this literally in the span of six verses:

1. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in yourselves.” (Jn. 6:53)
2. “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day.” (Jn. 6:54)
3. “For My Flesh is True Food, and My Blood is True Drink.” (Jn. 6:55)
4. “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in Him.” (Jn. 6:56)
5. “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.” (Jn. 6:57)
6. “This is the Bread which came down out of Heaven; not as the fathers and died; he who eats this Bread will live forever.” (Jn. 6:58).

And to top all of this off, this discourse occurs at Passover time (John 6:4), one year prior to the Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper (Mt. 26:20-29).

My friends acknowledged how Eucharistic the passage appears to be, but wanted to know what to make of John 6:63. Because after Jesus says all of this, and the crowd is outraged (Jn. 6:60), He says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” One of my friends said, “I agree that if you read the prior verses 53-58 literally, it seems to support the idea of Real Presence. But doesn't verse 63 prove that He's speaking figuratively?”

Anton Raphael Mengs, Christ on the Cross (1768)

It’s a very good question. But the typical Protestant understanding of the passage is dangerously wrong: taking John 6:63 literally like that would discredit not only (a) the Eucharist, but (b) everything Christ just said about the necessity of eating His Flesh, (c) the Incarnation, and (d) the Passion of Christ. Because if Christ's Flesh is worthless, then His taking on Flesh is worthless, and His sacrificing His Flesh on the Cross is worthless.

But these conclusions can't be right (as any Christian would recognize). Instead, Christ means that the flesh profits nothing in isolation, that it needs to be quickened by the Spirit. Here are Augustine's own words:

What is it, then, that He adds? It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing. Let us say to Him (for He permits us, not contradicting Him, but desiring to know), O Lord, good Master, in what way does the flesh profit nothing, while You have said, Except a man eat my flesh, and drink my blood, he shall not have life in him? Or does life profit nothing? And why are we what we are, but that we may have eternal life, which Thou dost promise by Your flesh? Then what means the flesh profits nothing? It profits nothing, but only in the manner in which they understood it. They indeed understood the flesh, just as when cut to pieces in a carcass, or sold in the shambles; not as when it is quickened by the Spirit.

Wherefore it is said that the flesh profits nothing, in the same manner as it is said that knowledge puffs up. Then, ought we at once to hate knowledge? Far from it! And what means Knowledge puffs up? Knowledge alone, without charity. Therefore he added, but charity edifies. [1 Corinthians 8:1] Therefore add to knowledge charity, and knowledge will be profitable, not by itself, but through charity. So also here, the flesh profits nothing, only when alone. Let the Spirit be added to the flesh, as charity is added to knowledge, and it profits very much. For if the flesh profited nothing, the Word would not be made flesh to dwell among us. If through the flesh Christ has greatly profited us, does the flesh profit nothing? But it is by the flesh that the Spirit has done somewhat for our salvation. Flesh was a vessel; consider what it held, not what it was. The apostles were sent forth; did their flesh profit us nothing? If the apostles' flesh profited us, could it be that the Lord's flesh should have profited us nothing? For how should the sound of the Word come to us except by the voice of the flesh? Whence should writing come to us? All these are operations of the flesh, but only when the spirit moves it, as if it were its organ. Therefore it is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing, as they understood the flesh, but not so do I give my flesh to be eaten.

If enemies of Christ had overwhelmed Him against His will, killing Him and cutting His Body to pieces, would that have saved anyone? No. The Passion works only because Christ voluntarily lays down His Life (John 10:11). That is, for the Passion (and the Eucharist) to work, Jesus must be both the High Priest (Heb. 4:14) and the Sacrifice (1 Cor. 5:7). Or put another way, the Spirit and Flesh must be operating in union.

This distinction is an incredibly important one. It's both what separates the Eucharist from cannibalism, and what separately Christianity from something like human-sacrificing pagan cults.

So in summary, I'd say a few things:

1. “Spirit” doesn't mean “metaphor.”
2. If Christ wanted to describe His words as metaphoric in John 6, He could easily have done so. He seems to have gone to great lengths to do the opposite (see esp. John 6:55). I'd be incredibly cautious of (a) overlooking all of John 6:25-60, for the sake of v. 63; or (b) reading v. 63 as somehow negating the rest of this Chapter.
3. If Jesus literally means that His Flesh is worthless, this would destroy all of Christianity, not just Catholicism.
4. Compare this passage with Romans 8, talking about living according to the Spirit, not the Flesh. That's not a denial of the Incarnation, or a condemnation of the flesh, but of our sinful natures, or living like animals. (I think most Protestants agree with this point, since the alternative is dualism).
5. Catholics don't think that the Eucharist works apart from the operation of the Spirit (which is why we call upon the Spirit at every Mass, and consider this a necessary part of the Eucharistic Rite).

(By the way, sorry for the sporadic posting this week - I've been travelling; I'm actually posting this from a rest stop in Ottawa).  

Is the Church Simply the Set of All the Saved?

One of the major differences Catholics and Protestants have is on the nature of the Church. Is the Church a visible entity founded by Jesus Christ, or simply the invisible collection of all of the saved?  Bible.ca, for example, includes a series of lessons from Ron Boatwright, who argues that “Only The Saved Are In The Lord’s Church”:

Benjamin West, St. Peter Preaching at Pentecost (19th c.)

In order to be in the one church the Lord established, those added to it by the Lord must be saved according to His requirements. In Acts 2:47 we read, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” The Lord only adds the saved to His church. There are no unsaved people in His church. The Lord makes no mistakes. We are not saved just because we think or say we are. We are saved only when we have done what God has said we must do. Jesus says in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father which is in heaven.” We must do God’s will, not man’s will, to go to heaven.

But, of course, Acts 2:47 doesn't actually say that only the saved entered the Church.  It says that the saved entered the Church, but doesn't say, “these and only these!”  In context, the passage is talking about the earliest believers, who respond to Peter's message on Pentecost by getting Baptized (Acts 2:41), and are thereby joined to the Church: “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”  But the idea that Baptism is the doorway to the Church is the Catholic position.

In any case, nothing in Acts 2 (or elsewhere) proves Boatwright's claims that the “Lord only adds the saved to His church” or that there “are no unsaved people in His church.”  In fact, Jesus explicitly teaches the opposite of this.  In Matthew 13, Jesus lays out a series of parables describing the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, the Church.  One of the clearest is the parable of the nets, Mt. 13:47-50:

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.  This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Rogier van der Weyden,
Last Judgment (detail) (1452)

That's awfully clear, isn't it? Right now, the Church consists of both the saved and the damned. At the end of time, at the Last Judgment, the damned will be weeded out of the Church, and thrown into Hell.  This is why Boatwright can't use Matthew 7:21 as a proof-text: it's dealing with the Kingdom of Heaven in Heaven, after the Last Judgment.  But Matthew 13 shows that this isn't what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like on Earth, which is the dispute at hand.

Nor is this passage in isolation: shortly before this, Jesus used the parable of the weeds and the wheat, describing the Kingdom as a field with both wheat (the saved) and the weeds, and explaining (Mt. 13:40-41):

“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

According to Boatwright, the Kingdom consists of only the saved, and works don't matter at all towards salvation.  Jesus contradicts both of these claims.  He clearly describes the Kingdom as needing to be weeded, and says that this won't happen until the harvest (Mt. 13:30), which represents the end of time (Mt. 13:39).  And some members of the Kingdom are thrown into the fiery furnace at the end of time.  That doesn't sound like salvation to me.

So I agree with Boatwright when he says that “The Lord makes no mistakes.”  But the same cannot be said for those claiming the Church consists solely of the saved.  What Scripture clearly describes in Matthew 13 and numerous other places is a visible Church consisting of both the saved and the damned, and entered into through Baptism.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux's Parents and Vocational Discernment

Louis Martin, Thérèse's father

I've finally gotten around to reading St. Thérèse of Lisieux's autobiography, The Story of a Soul. It's a great read, but one of the things that fascinated me was actually from the introduction, which gave some background on Thérèse's family.

Thérèse's parents were holy, and wanted to give their entire lives to God.  When they were younger, each of them had pursued the religious life, going so far as to apply to particular orders. Thérèse's mother, Zélie Guérin, applied to the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, while Thérèse's father, Louis Martin, applied to the Augustinian Monastery of the Great St Bernard.  Both of them were rejected.

Zélie ended up becoming a lacemaker, while Louis became a watchmaker.  Externally, this would seem to be something of a failure -- making lace and watches seems to have little to do with bringing glory to God, particularly in comparison with being a monk or a nun.  Eventually, in 1858, Zélie and Louis met, fell in love, and three months later, married.  At first, the two did not consummate the marriage - they wanted a spiritual marriage, living as brother and sister in a non-sexual relationship.  After nine months, at the insistence of their confessor, the marriage was finally consummated.

In all, Louis and Zélie gave birth to nine children.  Three of them died in infancy, and a fourth at the age of five.  This left five children, all daughters: Marie, Pauline, Léonie, Céline, and the baby of the family, Thérèse.  Prior to Thérèse's fourth birthday, her mother, Zélie, died of breast cancer, leaving Louis to raise the four girls.  Each of them would go on to become nuns, and Thérèse, of course, went on to become the 33rd Doctor of the Church.

I think that the lives of Zélie and Louis help illustrate the mysterious way in which marriage and family are intertwined with celibacy and the religious life. The Catechism remarks on this in CCC 1620, which says:

St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Both the sacrament of Matrimony and virginity for the Kingdom of God come from the Lord himself. It is he who gives them meaning and grants them the grace which is indispensable for living them out in conformity with his will. (Cf. Mt 19:3-12.) Esteem of virginity for the sake of the kingdom (Cf. LG 42; PC 12; OT 10.) and the Christian understanding of marriage are inseparable, and they reinforce each other:

“Whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity. Whoever praises it makes virginity more admirable and resplendent. What appears good only in comparison with evil would not be truly good. The most excellent good is something even better than what is admitted to be good.” (St. John Chrysostom, De virg. 10,1:PG 48,540; Cf. John Paul II, FC 16.)

Marriage is an amazing good, for the benefit of man, and for the glory of God. Celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God is an even superior good. But the greatest good is to do the will of God. For Louis and Zélie, this meant the married life.  And through marriage and family, they accomplished much more than they likely would have as a simple nun and monk: together, they gave the world one of the greatest Saints of all time.

In discussing vocations, it's helpful to speak of the primary vocation and secondary vocation.  The primary vocation is simple.  You're called to be a Saint.  Doesn't matter who you are, what your strengths or weaknesses are, or what your state of life is.  God designed you to know, love, and serve Him, and to enjoy eternity with Him.  That's what sanctity is.  The secondary vocation, whether you're called to be a priest, monk, nun, father, mother, or a single man or woman, flows out of the first: it's the way that you're called to live out your primary vocation.  Louis and Zélie didn't end up with the secondary vocations that either of them anticipated for themselves.  But by staying loyal to God throughout, they lived out inspiring and holy lives, and raised a saintly family.  The Church recognized this, not only in canonizing their daughter, and declaring her a Doctor of the Church, but in beatifying Louis and Zélie themselves.

Answering Common Objections About Mary

In response to this post on what the Magnificat tells us about Marian veneration, a Protestant reader raised a number of objections that I think other readers may be struggling with:

Lorenzo Costa, The Holy Family (c. 1500)

“My soul magnifies (exaults) the Lord. And my spirit has rejoiced in God my savior (saved her from what?) For He has regarded the lowly state of his handmaiden; for behold, all generations will call me blessed.”

Mary doesn't day that all people will call her blessed but "all generations." And I think we can say with confidence, all generations have called her blessed and will continue to do so. I've never met a Protestant who would say that Mary was not blessed.

What Mary did not say, and neither did the apostles nor the Protestants, was she would be called the Mother of God or the queen of heaven or the queen of the apostles. She also did not say people would worship her or pray to her or ask her to intercede for them. She also did not say she would perpetually be a virgin or she was born without sin or she would be bodily assumed to heaven.

The last time we read about Mary in the New Testament is Acts 1: 14. She was in the upper room with the disciples and the brothers of the Lord. There's not another mention of her after this. In Revelation we read of the consumation of all things and a new heaven and a new earth, but there's no mention of Mary.

Since neither the apostles nor the apostolic fathers, as far as I know, said a word about Mary, is it your position that they had a  “Mary problem.”

There's a lot to address here, but let me address the basics:

Sixth Century Icon of Mary and Jesus

1. God saved Mary from sin. In the same way, if I catch a vase before it breaks, I'm saving it from being broken.  Or in the same way that God saves us from all of those sins that we would commit without His grace.  So, yes, Mary is saved.
   
   
2. I agree, Mary says “all generations,” not “all people.” My point is that the only people honoring Mary for countless generations prior to the Reformation were indisputably Catholic or Orthodox, and took a view of Mary that many Protestants (including this reader) would apparently consider idolatrous. If these generations are to be condemned for their treatment of Mary, why are they praised in Scripture for their treatment of Mary?
   
   
3. True, Scripture doesn't say “Mother of God,” just as it doesn't say “Trinity.”  But both doctrines are still true.  That Mary is the Mother of God is obvious, in that (a) Jesus is God [John 20:26-28], and (b) Mary is His Mother [Luke 2:51]. She was declared Theotokos, meaning Mother of God (or literally, "God-bearer") at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, which all generations of Christians between 431 and the Reformation accepted.
   
   
4. Catholics don't worship Mary.  I understand that it can seem that way to people who don't understand Catholicism and/or worship, but trust me. We don't... and we would know if we did, presumably?
   
   
5. Contrary to the reader's claim, I'd argue that Mary is mentioned in Revelation. See Revelation 12, where the Mother of Jesus is depicted as battling against Satan, and being supernaturally preserved from evil.
   
   
6. Mary did claim to be a perpetual Virgin, in response to the angel Gabriel's Annunciation [Luke 1:34]. This is why she's baffled at how she can become the Mother of God. The phrase that she knows not man only makes sense in the context of perpetual virginity, since she was already married.  Again, Mary's perpetual Virginity was affirmed for numerous generations amongst the pre-Reformation Church, and even re-affirmed by Martin Luther and Zwingli, as did the early Anglicans and John Wesley (and Calvin wasn't opposed to the idea).
   
   



Damián Forment, Our Lady of the Chorus (1515)

7. The Marian doctrines are described very early on. For example, St. Justin Martyr (c. 160 A.D),  Irenaeus (180 A.D.) and Tertullian (160-220 A.D.) each describe  Jesus and Mary as the parallel to Adam and Eve. Irenaeus captures this succinctly, in referring to “the back-reference from Mary to Eve,” that “the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.”  By way of comparison, the first known use of the word  “Trinity” was by Theophilus of Antioch in 181 A.D... after Justin and Irenaeus wrote on Mary as the New Eve.  So it won't do to pretend that this is some late innovation.
   
   
8. Finally, what to make of the claim that the apostles never said a word about “Mary”?  Read the Gospel of Matthew or the Gospel of John. Mary is repeatedly mentioned.  For starters, read Matthew 1-2, John 2:1-11, and John 19:26-27. She also gets an in-depth treatment in the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke, which appear to describe the Nativity and Childhood of Christ through her eyes.  I recognize that some Protestant communities emphasize Acts and the Pauline Epistles over the actual Gospels (for whatever reason), but if you read the Gospels, she's definitely in there.

So given all of this, I don't think it's Catholics who have a Mary problem.  We're consistent with the faith of the Apostles and the faith of historic Christianity.  And given that the Magnificat points to historic Christianity's treatment of Mary in a positive way, that's exactly where we need to be.

Worshiping with Our Whole Bodies

One of the most beautiful things about Catholic worship, particularly when it's done well, is that it's a full-body experience.  We smell the incense, we sing Psalms and hymns (and hear these being sung), we listen to the Scriptures and the homily, we see the Sacrifice of the Mass (and the priest's liturgical gestures are loaded with meaning), we kneel, sit, stand, we taste the Blessed Sacrament, we embrace at the sign of peace.  The Liturgy reflects the Catholic view of the body, and of matter, and our deep-seated belief that Creation should give glory to God.  It's also consistent with the worship of the Old Testament, of the early Christians, and of the apparent Heavenly Liturgy described in the Book of Revelation.

I. Old Testament Worship

Limbourg brothers, The Ark of God
Carried into the Temple (1416)

Worship in the Old Testament engaged each of the five senses: hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste.  Hearing was engaged, along with the gift of speech, in the proclamation of the word, in the singing of hymns, and in vocal prayer.  The Shema Yisrael, perhaps the most famous Jewish prayer, begins, “Hear, O Israel…” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Old Testament worship was no less tied to the sense of sight.  The Mosaic Law contains incredibly precise instructions for the materials to use in worship, and both Temples were built according to plans intricately detailed by God (see, e.g., 1 Chronicles 28).  In worship, religious images and statues were used, such as the golden cherubim in front of the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18), and the depictions of the cherubim on the Temple Veil (Ex. 26:31).  Full chapters deal with specific details like what priestly vestments should look like, and the materials to be used in designing them (see, e.g., Ex. 28).

Smell was engaged, in the use of incense. In fact, the Mosaic Law prescribed special incense to be used that was only permitted to be used in worship, creating a holy scent tied to worship (Exodus 30:34-38):

And the LORD said to Moses, “Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense (of each shall there be an equal part), and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy; and you shall beat some of it very small, and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you; it shall be for you most holy.

And the incense which you shall make according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves; it shall be for you holy to the LORD. Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people.”

Just as there were sacred scents, there were also objects sacred to the touch, like the altar (Ex. 29:37) and the various sacred objects associated with the altar (Ex. 30:29).  And when priests were consecrated, they had an ephod fastened on them, a turban placed on their head, and anointing oil poured upon them (Ex. 29:6-7)

Even the sense of taste was tied to worship, through the sacrificial system.  Certain sacrifices required you to eat them.  For example, in Deuteronomy 27:6-7, we hear:

Build the altar of the Lord your God with fieldstones and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. Sacrifice fellowship offerings there, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the Lord your God.

So Old Testament worship really did use all five senses for the glory of God.

II. Early Christian Worship

Christ's Trial before Pilate, from the
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (359 A.D.)

In the worship from the first five centuries of Christianity, we see worship that engages all five of the senses.  Sometimes, it's through sight, as early Christian art, like the funerary art found in the Catacombs (including the beautiful sarcophagus of Junius Bassus depicted on the right), attests.  Other times, it's in the sacred smells.  A fascinating example of this comes from the second-century Martyrdom of Polycarp, which tells us that when the Romans attempted to burn Polycarp alive, he was preserved from harm, and “we perceived such a sweet odour [coming from the pile], as if frankincense or some such precious spices had been smoking there.”

The sense of hearing, of course, is engaged in listening to the Scripture read aloud in church.  Revelation 1:3 makes clear that this is the normal way that people were exposed to the Scriptures in the early Church.  Hearing also was engaged through sacred music.  Touch is also involved.  Look at the use of oils in confirmation (which the East calls chrismation, in recognition of the use of holy chrism), and in the anointing of the sick.  James 5:14 says, “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.”  In the Liturgy, we see the sense of touch being used for the glory of God at what the early Christians called the Kiss of Peace, in which, as St. Justin Martyr tells us, “we salute one another with a kiss.”  Finally, the Eucharist draws the sense of taste into the worship of God (Mt. 26:26-29; 1 Cor. 11:23-29).  So all five senses were engaged in early Christian worship.  In a similar way, Catholics and Orthodox today use all five senses in worship.

III. Heavenly Worship

Worship Before the Throne of God,
The Bamberg Apocalypse (11th c.)

The Book of Revelation is rich in metaphor, and is liturgically rich.  It draws vivid images of the end of days, juxtaposed against what appears to be a Mass in Heaven attended by the angels and the Saints.  The liturgical worship depicted in the Book of Revelation engages each of the senses as well.  For example, read the sights described in the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:9-21, as the angel has John precisely measure the contours of the city, and shows him the various precious materials used in making it.  Or read Rev. 7:9's description of the praising masses in their white robes.  And Rev. 5:8-10 depicts heavenly worship as involving singing, harps, and incense, glorifying speech, as well as engaging the sense of hearing and smell:

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints; and they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.”

There's even a sacred song known only to the 144,000 (Rev. 14:3).  The Heavenly Banquet is also described in very Eucharistic terms, as “the wedding supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9).  The image is very suggestive of the fact that taste and touch are also engaged in worship.  So here again, we see all five senses at work for the glory of God.

Conclusion

Old Testament, early Christian, and heavenly worship are remarkably similar: all five senses are engaged.  This worship avoids two extremes.  On the one hand, the senses aren't violated or overwhelmed, like eating Limburger cheese at a rock concert.  But on the other hand, the sense aren't shunned or ignored, as if we were beings of pure spirit, or as if the body were inherently evil.  Instead, the senses are exalted, in that they are drawn up into the worship of God.  And they're engaged in very similar ways: through sacred art and architecture, religious vestments, anointing oil, incense, sacred music, and partaking of the sacrifice through eating.  I would suggest that these things are not merely incidental, but are important elements of drawing our whole being, body and soul, into the worship of God.

Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, and the Religion in the Public Square

Carl A. Anderson gave the Address at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast last month, and spoke eloquently on the place of religion in the public square. He cited to President Kennedy's 1961 Inaugural Address, in which the president spoke of the rights for which “our forebears fought,” namely “the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.” Anderson added:

“Stone of Hope,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

No one here needs to be reminded that this belief was the driving force behind the life’s work of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

In his historic letter from the Birmingham jail, Rev. King said that he and his followers “were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which,” he said, “were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

But perhaps we do need to be reminded that King’s letter relied upon our own Catholic natural law tradition.

He cited Saint Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

And he asked, “How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.”

He then went on to say, “To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.”

There you have the ancient teaching of the Catholic Church, summed up by a Baptist preacher under arrest for living by it.
When you visit the new memorial to Dr. King on our national mall, read carefully the 14 quotations inscribed there. You will not find a single reference to God. Not one.

Imagine how those in authority must have searched to come up with 14 quotes of Dr. King without one mention of the Almighty.
There is no much shocking symbol of the ongoing campaign to drive religion out of our public life.

Jefferson Memorial - The “God Who Gave Us Life” Inscription

King’s statue looks across the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson Memorial dedicated to the president who is now championed by secularists for inventing a “wall of separation” between Church and State.

Ironically, while the King Memorial was scrubbed of any reference to our Creator, in Mr. Jefferson’s memorial, the walls tell us that “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty.”

And they ask us, “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?”

A great deal hinges on how we answer that question.

In case you're curious, here are the inscriptions on the King Memorial:

• “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” (16 August 1967, Atlanta, GA)
  
  
• “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” (1963, Strength to Love)
  
  
• “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” (10 December 1964, Oslo, Norway)
  
  



Martin Luther King, Jr.

• “Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.” (18 April 1959, Washington, DC)
  
  
• “I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.” (25 February 1967, Los Angeles, CA)
  
  
• “If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.” (24 December 1967, Atlanta, GA)
  
  
• “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)
  
  
• “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” (10 December 1964, Oslo, Norway)
  
  
• “It is not enough to say ‘We must not wage war.’ It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace.” (24 December 1967, Atlanta, GA)
  
  
• “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” (25 February 1967, Los Angeles, CA)
  
  
• “Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.” (4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York, NY)
  
  
• “We are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs ‘down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.’” (5 December 1955, Montgomery, AL)
  
  
• “We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.” (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)
  
  
• “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)

So you've got quotes that are infused with religion, a possible allusion to John 1:5, an unsourced quotation from Amos 5:24, and at least one quote taken from a sermon delivered in a church... yet no references to God. This should be a wake-up call.

Rembrandt Peale, Thomas Jefferson (1800)

Secularists, like the none-too-modest folks at “RationalWiki” frequently work themselves into a panic over false threats like an American theocracy, or Dominionism, and the Fundamentalists they claim are the American Taliban. This fear-mongering is absurd: if you want to see what America would look like with a greater infusion of Judeo-Christian values, just look to our own history.  We've never been a Taliban-style theocracy, and there's no serious threat of us ever becoming one.

Quite the opposite is true, in fact.  The Judeo-Christian belief that some rights come directly from God, rather than the State, is the best check against tyranny. America was founded on the idea that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Cut out the Creator, and the rights are no longer inalienable. So the true threat is the one that President Kennedy identified: that we'll forget that “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

One of the most pernicious effects of the purging of God from the public square isn't even about religion, per se, but about our rights.  If our rights come from Nobody higher than the State, then the State has the power and authority to remove those rights, should they wish.  This is a prospect that everyone, religious or not, should be troubled by.

Prayer Request: Little Girl with a Brain Tumor

My second cousin, Rose Heschmeyer, is only seven years old, and is battling a brain tumor. She can greatly use your prayers. Here are the details from Audio Sancto, where her dad works:

In your Charity, please pray for the 7 year old daughter of the gentleman (and audio engineer) who records a lot of the sermons for Audio Sancto. She has been diagnosed as having a brain tumor and in the initial surgery the doctors were able to remove most but not all of the tumor. It is not yet known (as of Sunday April 29, 2012) if the tumor is malignant or what further treatment can be given as the location of the tumor makes further surgery questionable.

UPDATE (6:30pm, Monday April 30): "Rose is doing SUPER today -- no pain meds since 1:00 am and she's been able to get some much needed sleep. This afternoon she was able to go for a walk down the hall of the hospital." Rose's dad and mom wanted everyone to know they are extremely grateful for the prayers that have been offered for her.

We will be taking down the link on the home page but this page --www.AudioSancto.org/Rose -- along with the Audio Sancto Facebook page, will continue to be updated as more info is received from Rose's family.

From what I've heard, she's doing very well right now, and our prayers seem to be praying off.  Please, feel free to join me in offering up prayers for her well-being!