One thing we enjoy within our Faith as Catholics {among many others} is the Deposit of Faith, which was revealed namely through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and completed upon the death of the last Apostle.
Jesus works with his foster father, St. Joseph.
I like to think of the fullness of Truth that we enjoy as Catholics as a toolbox. Because Jesus was a carpenter, this makes sense to me. I also like anything that gives me a visual to work with and if it’s a simple explanation, it’s a triple winner!
So, imagine if you will, a toolbox filled with every kind of tool you could possibly need to help you with any kind of project your heart desires. For Catholics, this can be expressed in the tools of the Faith that we use in our everyday lives. I have heard it explained that Jesus, when He left Peter the keys to the Church as the visible head, He also left with us an outline of how to run the Church. The comparison has been made to the founding fathers of our country who didn’t just leave us the Constitution and Bill of Rights and mail out a copy to all US citizens, they left us a living and breathing government that was to carry out the responsibilities outlined in the founding documents. Why would they do that? It’s not like everyone would take a copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and read it and misinterpret it – sincerely, folks would read those documents with no intention of twisting it, but it does happen. As a result, they instituted a safeguard to protect citizens from wrongly taking on that responsibility. Likewise, this is why Christ gave us the Church with the keys to bind and loose on earth that would be bound and loosed in heaven and the promise that the gates of hell would never prevail over His Bride, our Church. He also ensured Her existence by promising the Holy Spirit would never leave Her.
I often find Evangelicals and other sola scriptura Protestants to take on the immense and self-imposed burden of reading Scripture as though God had intended for us to individually decide what Scripture is telling us. I agree with them everywhere possible, and then part ways when we get to human fallibility. They ask if I believe Scripture to be the inerrant Word of God to which I happily agree. I then come back with my own challenge to them, “If we agree that Scripture is the inerrant Word of God, what do you think about the fallible reader who is trying to interpret that Scripture?” In the past, I have made the mistake of entertaining what I call “Scripture wars.” It’s when a Protestant who is ridiculously knowledgeable about Scripture placement uses it as a sort of power play. They would yank out all different kinds of Scripture and say “See??? {fingers nearly broken from pressing on Scripture in the Bible} God is CLEARLY saying x, y, z here. How can you NOT see that?” to which I reply, “what is your litmus test for interpreting Scripture? How can YOU be sure that your fallible interpretation is right? IF you are correct, then let’s go one further and talk about the countless denominations that could go toe-to-toe with you on this SAME passage and come to several OTHER conclusions on what they think the Holy Spirit is CLEARLY saying to them.” I find the rejection of Sacred Tradition to be somewhat cute while thinking it’s clearly OFF. Because of their need to “save me” lest I go to hell, I tend to turn to humor because I can slip in a one-two punch that way. Most times they are so engrossed in telling me about how bad Sacred Tradition is, that I can come back with the easy “You DO realize that were it not for Sacred Tradition that preserved the canon of the Bible through oral Tradition, you wouldn’t even have that there Bible in your hands. I mean, you DO realize that, right????” {“that there” is when my East Texas charm dials up a notch or four}
Last I checked, the Good Book didn’t fall from the sky.
The 30K+ non-Catholic Christian denominations are the result of the lack of a framework given by Christ, promised by Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit through the Magesterium. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, all Christians belonged to Christ’s Church. Then Martin Luther paved the way for the largest split and his followers defected from the Church. Christ gave us the entire toolbox and they have since remained with the Church. Lutherans took quite a few key tools from the toolbox and left, notably leaving behind the ability to divinely interpret Scripture. When you leave behind the tool that helps you divinely interpret Scripture, it is no wonder that there have been as many breaks from the Church and from Protestant churches. As the years went on, the divisions remained constant; one break from the Protestant tree after another, each break resulting in a loss of more tools from the Luther tools and so on down the line. Some even refuse to use tools at ALL and insist on the Christian label. That’s like a vegetarian eating steak and refusing to be called what they truly are. A carnivore. Weird.
So, what are some of these tools, exactly? They are Sacred Scripture – the Bible, Sacred Tradition – the divine driving force behind the Magesterium of the Church, the Catechism, writings by the Church Fathers, writings by the doctors of the Church, instruments of prayer like the rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet, Liturgy of the Hours, Adoration, Benediction, Baptism, devotion to Mary, Stations of the Cross, Novenas, silence, talking to God off the cuff, rote prayers, Bible study, fellowship, Reconciliation, dying to self, Matrimony, praying in tongues, intercessory prayer, praying for the souls in purgatory, receiving Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, being present at Mass, where heaven and earth meet! And so on and so on.
We have everything Christ gave us at our fingertips. I am thankful for the infinite ways that we can worship Him. And thank God for the ability to be free from the burden of interpreting Scripture ourselves. We have Holy Mother Church who guides us so that we can focus on using all the tools Christ gave us. Praise God!
