Thinking as human beings do.
Be still and know that I am God.
Yesterday was adoration day at my parish church, and so I was able to spend more time than usual praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Since it was also the feast of the Transfiguration, it seemed an especially gracious time for prayer. It occurred to me that in looking upon the consecrated Host reserved in the monstrance, I was in fact gazing upon the Face of God - face to face - just as surely as Moses did when he entered the cloud on Mount Sinai, and there encountered the Living God.
On Sinai, Moses encountered the same Lord who was transfigured before Peter, James, and John on Mt. Tabor. The same Lord we encounter hidden in the Eucharist. The same Lord seen by Moses and the prophets. These are not just words or some emotionally charged spiritual concept, or some cleverly concocted myth. As the transfiguration reveals - we see with Moses - what Moses saw, we see with Elijah - what Elijah saw, we see with the apostles - what the apostles saw. It is an amazing thing to contemplate, kneeling before the Lord who told the Jews, “Before Abraham came to be, I am.”
Who do you say that I am?
It seems to me we live in a culture of dissent. So many people consider themselves theologians - because of their ongoing studies and degrees, they can come across as either the perennial student or the constant professor - albeit an authority of some type. The theology student revels in his freedom to dissect and question doctrine, dogma, and the nature of God and man’s relationship with him. It is a very powerful aphrodisiac, so to speak. However, quite often not a few ‘pedigreed’ theologians fall into the Peter trap - they dissent from the Lord’s teaching, becoming an obstacle to Christ, “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Although Peter repented.)
Let us make three tents.
Perhaps, transported and trying to express himself by attempting to formulate ideas he could not yet understand, Peter said, “Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Our nature wants to contain God, wants to limit God, to conform him to our own image. Like Peter, we often fail to see the immediacy of the encounter, its unity, indeed, the eternal made present. With God, everything is present, as he told Venerable Conchita:
“‘In the beginning I already was.’ My glance envelops all in a single point in time that contains all eternity. I am God who became man out of love, who wanted to suffer and be an expiatory victim for sin, honoring God, my Father, giving him infinite glory.”- Ven. Conception Cabrera de Armido
Get behind me Satan.
If not an obstacle to full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, continual dissent may indeed be an obstacle to salvation, tempting dissenters to make three tents - outside of the Church, to house their own human interpretation of a false Christ, a certain lawlessness, and to enshrine their cult prophets. Much like the Woman-priest Movement, LGBT Movements, opponents of Humanae Vitae, and other New Age cults are attempting to do these days.
Upon this rock I will build my Church.
Jesus said this to Peter and every subsequent Pope since him. In this gospel (Matthew 16: 13-23) we understand that Christ was establishing the Church upon the rock of Peter. Every Roman Catholic knows this - a hierarchy was established. Yet there are false teachers who have gone out from amongst us and teach another gospel. They have made themselves an obstacle to Christ upon whom they themselves have tripped and fallen into error. They think as human beings do and not as God. As one so-called woman-priest makes clear in this anecdote concerning her misplaced hope:
“Here is one example. One day recently I celebrated Eucharist with a group of people at someone’s family farm. After morning prayer the next day, a community leader invited me to be seated in the center of the circle of people gathered. They’d all heard about the excommunication decree, he said, and found it ridiculous. But they figured it would help me to hear so from them. They surrounded me in the circle, touched me, and many prayed aloud about their gratitude that I had been ordained to serve them as priest. Two spoke of receiving joy and serenity from me. As tears flowed down every face I saw, I remembered that very morning, walking across a field and finding myself standing upon a large flat boulder, hidden among the stalks of waist high grain. The words “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” came to me and I realized it was the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The words are for all of us. We are all the rock upon which Jesus builds – all of us baptized Christians, serving God and each other and our world to the best of our abilities. In this I place my hope! ” - Woman-priest claimant.
Really thinking as God does.
The events on Mt. Tabor are so much more than simply a contemplative prayer encounter in the cloud of unknowing. It was an eschatological encounter with the Living God - something perpetual dissidents appear to be missing in their profiles. As another blogger wrote:
“The crisis of modern civilization is a loss of Christian eschatology, and a loss of the concept of our teleology. Eschatalogy (greek: eschatos) means the final things, and in theology that is Death, Judgment, Purgatory, Heaven and Hell. Scholastic treatment used the Latin title novissimis. People no longer act in accordance with the fact that one day they will die and receive judgment…
“Teleology on the other hand (greek: telos) refers to our immediate, but not final end, as in the end of our actions. Actions are oriented toward a certain end, we do not choose them by chance. Modern man believes however in acting without thought to our end, to “take a chance”, acting in an insane manner without order or discipline or prudence. The loss of any concept of eschatology has a different effect, namely people don’t take going to hell seriously. Yet the loss of teleology, consequentially of all Natural Law based teaching, is the catalyst for relativism. If the ends of our actions are not based on objective natural law principles, they can be based on anything. - Athanasius: Humanae Vitae; 40 Years
“They can be based on anything” - like a rock in a pasture.
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A woman -priest spreads her errors.
O once a brother came to Theodore of Pherme and spent three days with the abba asking him for advice. Theodore did not answer and so the younger monk went away sad. Thereupon Theodore’s disciple inquired, ‘Abba, why did you not speak with the brother? Now he has gone away sad and unconsoled.’