Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Like many Catholics of their generation, Daniel Harrington's family wasn't made up of Bible readers. Harrington recalls two Protestants coming to his house when he was a child. "We'd like to discuss the Bible,"they said, to which his mother replied, "We're Catholics. We don't read the Bible."

Harrington, however, has spent his professional life helping Catholics do just that, not only by teaching scripture for decades but by preaching Sunday after Sunday in the same two parishes for many years. "One of the pastors used to stand at the entrance of the church and tell people they got three college credits for the liturgy," Harrington says of his preaching style.

For Harrington, though, reading the Bible is not just intellectual but spiritual as well. "Immersing oneself in scripture won't necessarily make this or that decision easier for you," he says. "But it does help answer big questions such as: Who am I? What is my goal in life? And how do I get there?"

Harrington admits that Catholics have yet to fully embrace the Bible as their own. "I think religious education perhaps hasn't emphasized the Bible enough," he says. "But the Sunday readings are a great tool for people to learn the Bible. People sometimes don't realize how much Bible they're exposed to."

Harrington sees facilitating that encounter as part of his job. "A preacher has to help people get familiar with the scriptures-and not be afraid of them."

Pope Benedict XVI's book Jesus of Nazareth (Ignatius) makes a very strong point that the gospels present Jesus as not simply a human figure but a divine figure as well. And if you read the gospels with sympathy and not fight against them, I think you have to acknowledge that the pope has made a very important theological point.

Can you introduce Jesus through the lens of each one of the four gospels?
They all share a common stock of titles: Son of Man, Son of God, Son of David, Lord, Messiah. Those are foundational. But they each take a distinctive approach to the figure of Jesus.

For Matthew Jesus is a teacher, and so he has Jesus giving five great speeches, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount in Chapters 5 through 7. While Mark wants to show that Jesus is a wise teacher and a powerful healer, in that gospel Jesus is also the suffering Messiah.

For Luke Jesus is the great example. In other words he practices what he preaches. This comes up especially in Luke's narrative of the death of Jesus, in which Luke highlights three things that Jesus taught throughout his career: forgiveness of enemies; giving hope to marginal people, such as the so-called good thief; and trust in God, as in Jesus' last words, "Into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46).

In John, Jesus is the revealer and the revelation of God. He's the Word of God in the sense that he reveals what's on God's mind, but also he's the revelation of God in the sense that if you want to know what God is like, look to the person of Jesus.

What about Paul? How does he present Jesus?
Paul emphasizes almost entirely Jesus' death and Resurrection and their significance. He's interested in the saving effects of Jesus' paschal mystery. Only a few times does he ever quote a teaching of Jesus. And in one case-the teaching about marriage and divorce-Paul seems to give an exception to Jesus' absolute rejection of divorce.

Paul didn't meet Jesus personally. His experience was with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Obviously it was such an overwhelming experience that it changed everything in his life.

What if you only had five passages to introduce Jesus to people - your five favorites from across the gospels?
I'd start with the prologue to John's gospel (1:1-18). It provides the New Testament context for the divinity of Jesus and echoes back to Genesis, which also starts, "In the beginning." I think it's a very important text.

The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7, outlines what the disciple of Jesus should strive for and includes the Beatitudes.

Another would be Mark 8, the confession of Peter. That's a great turning point in Mark's gospel, as it is in all the other gospels.

The prodigal son, only in Luke (15:11-32), would be a representative parable because it emphasizes God's mercy and raises the question of what happened to the older son. We never find out whether he decided to change his mind and go to the party, or whether he just ran away.

And obviously the fifth and final would be the Passion narrative. I like all of the death scenes, but especially the hearing of Jesus before the high priest in Mark 14:62. All through Mark's gospel, when people would give Jesus titles such as Messiah or Son of Man, he would say, "No, no, keep this silent." He only publicly accepts the titles of Messiah, Son of God, and Son of Man at his lowest possible moment-that is, when he's been condemned by his own people. The truth is that he can only be understood on the cross.

If you could have been present for any of the gospel stories, which one would it be?
The first chapter of Mark's gospel beginning with verse 21. Mark presents it as a typical day in the ministry of Jesus with teaching, healing, and all sorts of interesting things. It takes place in Capernaum, one of the most beautiful places on earth, beside the Sea of Galilee, a beautiful setting, unspoiled still. Every time I visit there I read the first chapter of Mark.

WRITTEN by the editors of U.S. Catholic as an interview with Daniel Harrington, S.J. and published on May 26th, 2009. The above is an edited version. For the full version, as always, the title is a link to the original article.

New Life in Death for a Moral Compass

"He has now been gathered by the Lord, in whom he trusted." Those are the words of Fr. George Butler, who administered the last rites of the Church on Thursday to one Richard John Neuhaus. At age 72, the former Lutheran clergyman turned Catholic priest died after a short battle against the cancer with which he had been diagnosed in late 2008. If you moved past after having caught a blurb of his passing in the news, or having seen a headline in a newspaper the past couple days, wondering why the big deal about a priest's death from cancer, you moved past too quickly. This was not simply the death of your Average Joe after one of life's most common end games. This was, as Philadelphia's great newspaper The Bulletin called it, the loss of a "moral compass." Fr. Neuhaus was one of the leading voices in the Church and in the country in defense of the millions of innocent children butchered each year in abortion procedures. He was said to be an articulate defender of Catholic orthodoxy, and perhaps the leading conservative Catholic voice in the country. Fr. Neuhaus also had a vision, the dream of many of today's Catholics, to see the Lord's Church whole again. In the 1990's, Fr. Neuhaus joined with leading Protestant voice Chuck Colson in editing the work 'Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission' which was an effort to highlight the common mission and shared values of the two Christian traditions, including their opposition to abortion. It should be one of the fervent prayers of all Christians to again one day see the differences that led to the great schism in the Church set aside, and for Protestants to end their 'protest' and return to the Mother Church. Fr. Neuhaus shared this dream, this vision, this hope. Fr. Neuhaus knew well the traditions of both Protestants and Catholics. He was born into a Lutheran family as one of eight children. He became ordained as a Lutheran minister and served as an activist pastor in New York in the Bedford-Stuyvesant ghettos of Brooklyn. In the 1970's he preached against the Vietnam war, then turned his attention towards the growing genocide created by legalized abortion. Then in 1990, Lutheran minister Richard Neuhaus had his great conversion, becoming a Catholic. A year later he was ordained as a Catholic priest. He became a highly regarded writer, particularly on life issues, and became an unofficial advisor on these to President George W. Bush who called him 'Fr. Richard', helping the President to articulate religious principles. President Bush correctly summed it up by stating that Fr. Neuhaus "devoted his life to the service of the Almighty and to the betterment of our world." Humanity lost a great voice on Thursday, particularly that part of humanity that still lies in the wombs of women the world over and cannot yet speak for itself. It should be all of our goal, as Fr. Neuhaus wished, to see that those voices get the same chance to actually speak one day as we ourselves have received. By moving in the direction set by this great moral compass of a man, by maintaining and spreading his mission to defend unborn children, we assure that his life's mission goes on. And as Christians we understand full well that this is not the end for this great believer. Father Richard Neuhaus may be lost to us here on earth for now, but he now begins a new life in the presence of God.

Embarrassed About Christ?

There are many people in this world, especially right here in the United States, who would describe themselves if pushed into a corner as Christians, but who would have to almost literally be pushed into that corner and have a knife held to their throat to admit it. You might then even get their denomination: Catholic, Protestant, whatever. But many people are simply reluctant to ever bring up the subject in normal discussion, or to ever 'advertise' their faith, their belief in Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Maybe they will wear a crucifix or a cross, but if it's left dangling on the outside of shirts and tops it's many times as much of a fashion statement as anything else. Why is this so? I was reading a great article yesterday by Colonel Oliver North in a recent issue of Townhall magazine. North was lamenting the fact that so many of us seem to know the names of our top athletes such as Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps and Venus Williams, and care about what is going on in the lives of celebrities such as Britney Spears, Madonna or Brad Pitt, but care little about our military heroes. These men and women are fighting and dying for our country, and for the cause of freedom, all over the world. They are often committing tremendously brave and selfless acts that rival and surpass any story that could be told about a sports figure or a Hollywood starlet, and yet you don't know who they are. The vast majority of you reading this article couldn't name a single 'Medal of Honor' winner, a single 'Purple Heart' recipient. The everyday heroes of law enforcement, fire fighting, and other public services only get attention when they are killed while doing their jobs, and even that is usually only a local story, with the exception of an event such as 9/11. Why is that so? Much of the reasoning behind why you so easily speak about sports and entertainment, but so little about Jesus Christ and real American heroes, is that media and academia in this day and age have a political and social agenda. They sell you on what you should and should not believe, what you should not talk about in 'polite' circles or express in any way publicly. They have led the charge to get a basic, founding principle of our great nation, Christianity, out of our schools and public squares. I would argue that this has led directly to the deterioration found in both our schools and in our legal system. They have intentionally distracted you with the sweet taste of games and gossip, and almost completely isolated Christianity and heroism from public discourse. They have been doing it for decades, slowly edging into your grandparents and parents institutions and lives, to the point where many of you just simply picked up the habits and mannerisms taught to you by previously poisoned generations. The only way to break free is to actively recognize what is going on and decide to do something about it. You don't have to do anything grand. Subtle changes in your life and your thinking will make huge differences when spread across the populace. This very website blog is going to begin telling the stories of real American heroes much more frequently. I already devote every Sunday to what I like to call a 'Sunday Sermon' message keying on some component of Christianity. Try thinking about what you really believe in spiritually and morally as much as you think about the coming week's NFL schedule and who is on the cover of 'Us' magazine this week. Try making the tremendous sacrifice and effort of putting your kid into Catholic school rather than leaving them to the indoctrination, 2nd-rate education, and violence found in many public schools. Wear that cross or crucifix on the outside. Pray regularly. Read your Bible. Go to Church. Partake in the Sacraments. One thing is certain, your life will change, and for the better, and the odds are that you will change the lives of others around you as well. You will not be perfect. You will make mistakes. You will sin. But you will also persevere. You will get back up when you fall, dust yourself off, and go right back at life with the same happily determined gusto that you had before falling. God wants you to succeed, and He wants you to believe in His only son, whom He sent to you specifically to heal your life and save your soul. The apostle Saint Paul wrote in his famous letter to the Philippians: "God has highly exalted him, and betowed on him the name which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.." And Catholics, don't be afraid of Evangelism. I make it a point to watch the Reverend Billy Graham preach on a regular basis, and have even read a few of his books. The man is a modern day prophet whom we have been blessed with in our modern day. You shouldn't fear exposing yourself to God's word as presented by someone so obviously inspired to it from above. In fact, you shouldn't be embarrassed to spread it yourself. Contrary to what some would have you believe, the Catholic Church is not afraid of the Bible, and in fact embraces it, as should you. Do you need to stop caring about your favorite team, or your favorite celebrity? No. But you do need to start not only thinking about the truly important things at times, when it is convenient to you, when you are alone, or only on Sundays. You need to start doing what Paul implored, confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord. Embarrassed for some reason to say that you believe in Jesus Christ, and embarrassed to say publicly that you believe he died for your sins? Then you need to ask yourself whether you even truly believe it. If you truly do, then stop being embarrassed about it.