{"id":35424,"date":"2013-02-06T08:42:42","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T14:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.austincnm.com\/?p=35424"},"modified":"2013-02-06T21:41:07","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T03:41:07","slug":"catholic-time-travel-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/02\/catholic-time-travel-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Time Travel 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"popewho<\/a><\/p>\n

The call came in at 1:20p.m. on a Tuesday.<\/p>\n

My professional association had run a nice \u201cmember spotlight\u201d on me in its magazine. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t much, just a few pictures of me and my family and a nice questionnaire about my career and personal interests.<\/p>\n

So, when a colleague called and mentioned it, I figured it was little more than a formality, a nice outreach. A few minutes into the conversation, however, I realized that there was more to the call.<\/p>\n

In the article, I mentioned being passionate and actively involved in my faith. \u00a0The colleague asked me some questions about my faith, obviously trying to avoid asking, \u201cso, what are you?\u201d \u00a0For a moment or two, we did a strange verbal dance in which each of us tried to discern where the other was coming from. \u00a0I finally decided to cut to the chase, offering a truncated edition of my faith journey: \u00a0\u201cI grew up in the Catholic church,\u201d I explained, \u201cbut I left the Church and eventually became a Baptist minister. \u00a0After six years there, however, God led me back home to Catholicism.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a long silence on the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d my colleague said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry to hear that you found the truth and turned away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a longer silence on my end. \u00a0How is someone supposed to respond to that?<\/p>\n

For the next twenty minutes, the man on the other end of the phone attempted to explain every theological objection he had to Catholicism. \u00a0He made many of the arguments that, at a certain time in my life, I would have made. \u00a0I did my best to return fire reasonably, respectfully and charitably.<\/p>\n

At one point, we were in a back and forth on the Eucharist, talking about what Jesus said or didn\u2019t really mean to say, according to my colleague. \u00a0\u201cThe blood that Jesus shed on the cross was a one time atonement for all sins,\u201d he finally said, \u201cso why do you Catholics believe that you have to \u2018redo\u2019 the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist every day?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit that, in the moment, I didn\u2019t really know how to respond to the question. \u00a0Honestly, I\u2019d never really thought that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing in the celebration of the Eucharist. \u00a0I dodged the question and, mercifully, wrapped up the conversation shortly thereafter. \u00a0But the question lingered in my mind, \u201care we re-crucifying Jesus every time we participate in the Eucharist?\u201d \u00a0We are, after all, inviting God to miraculously turn bread and wine into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ and then we\u2019re breaking the bread\/body, holding it up for the world to see and echoing the words of John the Baptist, \u201cBehold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

I dug into the Catechism in search of an explanation. \u00a0This is what I found:<\/p>\n

When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ\u2019s Passover, and it is made present: the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present.<\/em>
\n-CCC 1364<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: \u201cThe victim is one and the same…<\/em>
\n-CCC 1367<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe I\u2019m slow and everyone else in the pews is already in on this reality but as I read those words the Mass at once became deeper and more mysterious to me. \u00a0Just as the bread and wine serve as more than symbols of the body and blood, the Mass is not just a representation or reenactment of the sacrifice of Jesus. \u00a0We, as participants, do more than stand in a church thousands of miles away from Jerusalem. \u00a0In the celebration of the Mass, the sacrifice of Christ becomes present to us, we are taken out of time and connected to that day on Calvary\u2019s hill. \u00a0Further, in the \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy,\u201d we are connected with the choruses of the church in heaven, calling out praise to God for all eternity. \u00a0The Mass is more than \u201cchurch.\u201d \u00a0The Mass is, effectively, a portal through time to eternity.<\/p>\n

I thought about calling the guy back and explaining, but figured that it might only lead to more \u201carguments,\u201d for which I wasn\u2019t prepared.<\/p>\n

Plus, my mind was a little bit overwhelmed by what I\u2019d just realized. \u00a0As Catholics, we don\u2019t need Marty McFly\u2019s Delorean or Doctor Who\u2019s phone booth to traverse the span of time. \u00a0We only need the Mass to be time travelers.<\/p>\n

The next time you\u2019re kneeling at the consecration, close your eyes and meditate on that reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The call came in at 1:20p.m. on a Tuesday. My professional association had run a nice \u201cmember spotlight\u201d on me in its magazine. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t much, just a few pictures of me and my family and a nice questionnaire about my career and personal interests. So, when a colleague called and mentioned it, I figured… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,90],"tags":[617,1398,55,806,1396,132,330,131,1397],"class_list":["post-35424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-acnm","category-blog","category-faith-blog","tag-apologetics","tag-back-to-the-future","tag-catholic-2","tag-catholic-apologetics","tag-doctor-who","tag-eucharist","tag-jesus","tag-mass","tag-time-travel","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":101542,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/03\/review-cs-lewis-and-the-crisis-of-a-christian\/","url_meta":{"origin":35424,"position":0},"title":"Biography, Theology, and You (Review: “C.S. Lewis and the Crisis of a Christian”)","author":"Lindsay Wilcox","date":"March 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I like C.S. Lewis a lot. He wasn't a Catholic, but he was a convert to Anglicanism, and more importantly, he was an incredible writer. I read The Chronicles of Narnia first, but when I entered adulthood, I discovered his apologetics works. I love them so much that I have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/faith-blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\"If we find the gospel message to be true, we need to surrender to God and change our lives. For that reason\u2014whether or not the [C.S. Lewis] trilemma or some form of it works\u2014many will still never assent that Jesus is God.\" \u2014Gregory S. 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