Let me begin with a massive understatement: the Bible is not an easy book, and few, too few, are the Catholics who make the study of it a regular part of their spiritual lives. Before we even delve into it, …
Category: Sacred Scripture
Messianic Prophecies and Their Utility in Evangelization
Our Lord Himself, His apostles, and the first evangelists frequently make use of the prophetic witnesses in the O.T. Scriptures in their arguments and their preaching. Thus, Our Lord taught the Pharisees — who considered the Messiah to be only …
Understanding the Literal and Allegorical Senses of Scripture
The traditional liturgy of the Church is filled with allusions to figures and types in the Old Testament that are taken in an allegorical sense. For example, in the traditional Roman Rite, the story of Daniel in the lion’s den …
Christ Could Not Have Been More Clear: ‘Eat My Flesh’
Chapter 6 in the Gospel of John is usually the main source cited for the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist: that in the sacrifice of the Mass, bread and wine are transubstantiated into the actual body, blood, soul, and divinity …
St. Paul Tells the Corinthians — and Us — How to Fix Liturgical Problems
It could perhaps have been predicted that the mandatory global shutdown of the Church’s liturgical life and the slow reawakening of it here and there as policies loosen up would bring with it a bumper crop of new problems mingled …
Matthew Wrote First: Calculating the Dates for the Gospels
Oxford-educated archaeologist Sir William Ramsay, embarking on a journey to investigate the historicity of the Gospel records and Acts, was skeptical. Taught by liberals and having adopted prevalent errors on the alleged late origin and supposed non-historicity of the Gospels …
Spiritual Porneia and the “Lump” Destroyed
In the article “Porneia and Communion in the Hand” that was recently posted on 1P5, I explored the connections among porneia, the abuse crisis in the modern Church, and the immodesty toward our Lord’s Eucharistic body. Scripture speaks just as …
How to Dismantle Scripture: ‘Did God Really Say…?’
The words of Satan, “Did God really say…?,” to Eve are perfectly tempting. They do not directly challenge the commands of God or appear to contain any malice. These innocent-sounding words, however, contain an obvious counter to the wisdom of …
Porneia and Communion in the Hand
There are many instances of Eucharistic typology in Scripture that can give us insight into the question of whether God favors receiving Communion in the hand or on the tongue. This question is profoundly connected with questions of modesty, chastity, …
The First ‘Sunday of the Word of God’: Tradition Enthroned!
At the end of last September in his apostolic letter Aperuit illis, Pope Francis declared that the third Sunday per annum in the Novus Ordo would be the “Sunday of the Word of God.” In his letter, the pope left …