Monthly Archives: May 2018

“Believe in Order to Understand”

The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is a mystery, and therefore something we can never fully understand. A mystery is not something which is totally unknown, but it is something which is only partially revealed by God, and yet much of it is beyond our understanding. As the diagram above explains, the Trinity is three Persons in one God – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There are not three Gods and neither do they share the one divinity among themselves. Rather, each of them is God whole and entire. The Father is God; He’s not one-third of God. Jesus, the Son is God; He’s not one-third of God. And the Holy Spirit is God, He’s not one-third of God. So each of the three Persons possesses fully the one Divine nature.

We might think, “Well, what does it matter?” It matters because as Catholics we believe our Faith is not something we make up as we go along. Christianity is revealed by God. It is not the word of mere human beings. God has revealed to us Who He is, and so we are in error if we think we can believe whatever we like. Notice how in today’s Gospel Our Lord says, “Teach them to observe ALL the commands I gave you.” This means we can never water down the Faith or change it to suit the mood of the day.  We might not be able to fully understand the profound depths of the Church’s doctrines, but every Catholic is called to firmly believe them, even when our understanding is lacking.  As St Augustine of Hippo (354-430) famously said, “I believe in order to understand.” So it is faith seeking understanding.

This is our Catholic Faith.  Though we can never fully understand it, we are proud to profess it, because God Who is the absolute Truth, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, has revealed it to us. 

Fr Paul Gillham IC

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“I Shall Take on a New Body”

When Our Lord came to this earth, He took to Himself a human body, and it was by means of this human body that He taught, governed and sanctified. Then He founded a Church to continue this work after He had ascended into Heaven. He founded this Church on Peter the Apostle. “You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church” (Matt 16: 18). We could say at this stage that the Church had its raw material, but it consisted of many separate individuals. What it needed was a soul to unify it and make it one. This is what happened at Pentecost when Our Lord, ten days after His Ascension sent the Holy Spirit, as He had promised, on the Apostles with Peter as the Head, which unified them and made them into His Body. The Church was now created in the strict sense – it had its Head – Christ; its soul – the Holy Spirit; and us – its body.

It is through this Body that Our Lord continues to teach, govern and sanctify today, and this Body was doing so years before a single line of the New Testament was written. This Body is the Catholic Church, the Church He founded on Peter the rock, to which He gave the authority to preach and baptise in His Name. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

And Our Lord also promised that when the Holy Spirit came, He would teach them all truth. “But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you (John 14:26). This is how we know today what the truth is. We have to look for that Body to whom Christ made that astounding promise, and historically, that is the Catholic Church, which has the Successor of Peter, the Pope, as the visible Head on earth. Christ lives now, He teaches now, He governs now, He sanctifies now through His Mystical Body the Church, by the power of the Holy Spirit preaching and teaching the same doctrines He gave to the Apostles. Let us always listen to what Our Lord is telling us through the authentic teaching and voice of the Church. “He who hears you hears Me” (Luke 10:16).

Fr Paul Gillham IC

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Christ Now Reigns in Heaven as Man

On Thursday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Ascension which finishes Our Lord’s mission of reconciling fallen humanity with God, and it guarantees that Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross was completely accepted by the Father. When He ascended to Heaven, Our Lord took with Him something He didn’t have when He came to this earth. Yes, He brought with Him His divinity, and He took that back with Him too. But He also took back His human nature. This means that a human nature like ours is now in Heaven. Being in Heaven in His humanity, JESUS is there as our representative and as an everlasting bridge of reconciliation between God and mankind.

By ascending into Heaven with His human body, He is also showing us that our humanity is not a bar to an intimate relationship with God. He also shows us that by the trials and sufferings of our lives, we can still have our bodies glorified if we live our lives in Him.

Pope Francis once commented that by His Ascension,“…our humanity has been brought to God. He has opened the way. He is like a roped guide climbing a mountain Who, on reaching the summit, pulls us up to Him and leads us to God. If we entrust our lives to Him, if we let ourselves be guided by Him, we are certain of being in safe hands” (17^th April 2013).

When JESUS ascended to Heaven, He also entrusted His mission of saving souls to His disciples saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19). This is the mission we have been given too, but we will each do it in a different way according to our state of life.  But by doing so, we will have a share in the joy that the disciples experienced after Christ ascended: “They… returned to Jerusalem with great joy“ (Luke 24:52).  Go, therefore, and joyfully win souls for Christ!

Fr Paul Gillham IC

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The Sacredness of All Human Life

With the case of Alfie Evans being so prominent in last week’s news, and the many issues involved in it, I want to set out Catholic teaching on some of them because it is important we understand them.

At times doctors have to make very difficult decisions about what we call ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’ care when a person is dying. ‘Ordinary means’, such as food and water when they are of benefit to the patient are obligatory, whereas ‘extraordinary means’ such as machines which enable the heart and lungs to function are optional. But according to Catholic teaching, it is never permissible to withdraw the ‘ordinary’ means, since this would mean enforcing an unnatural death as opposed to allowing a natural one, and this is euthanasia. Now in the case of Alfie, he continued to live for several days after breathing assistance had been removed. If news reports are to be believed, food and hydration were also withdrawn, and if this is the case, Catholic teaching was violated.

The other issue here is the parent’s right to choose life for their child. An offer from Italy was made to take Alfie to a hospital in Rome to receive further treatment in the hope that new possibilities might be opened up, but a High Court ruling prevented this from happening. But a child has the fundamental human right to life and to be nurtured in such a way that he/she can develop him/herself as fully as possible, physically, intellectually, spiritually. When parents fight to uphold this fundamental right of their child, they have the right to be fully supported by society, doctors and judges. But in this case, the right of Alfie’s parents to do what they thought was right for him was taken away from them, and this is the real issue here. Pope Francis supported the parents’ wish to seek further treatment for their son but even his voice went unheard. Charles Camosy at ‘First Things’ wrote terrifyingly that, “The UK has now established the clear and frightening precedent that parents who have a different understanding of what kinds of lives are worth living may have their children taken from them and left to die—in the children’s own best interests.” Care for the terminally ill can be expensive, so one cannot help wonder how long it might be before the euthanasia campaigners will want to broaden the categories to include the disabled and the elderly.

However, we can be certain that Alfie, having been baptised without a spot on his soul, is now in Heaven. Perhaps we should pray to him for the defence of all human life.

Fr Paul Gillham IC

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