Catholic Replies
Q. In a brochure I got from a Jehovah’s Witness, it says that “the Bible also shows that God’s Son, Jesus, healed the sick. Why did he do so? Because he wanted to (Mark 1:40, 41). Jesus perfectly reflected his Father’s personality by his desire to help those in need — John 14:9.” But the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe that Jesus is God, do they? — K.E.R., Connecticut.
A. No, they don’t and that’s why, in the brochure, they only referenced John 14:9 to show that Jesus merely reflects the Father’s personality. Had they quoted that verse and the verses that follow it would have undermined their position. Here is what Jesus said to the Apostle Philip in verses 9-11:
“Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
In another brochure, the JWs say that Jesus isn’t God and that He isn’t equal to the Father because “Jesus himself acknowledged: ‘The Father is greater than I am’ (John 14:28; 8:28).” But in John 10:30, Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.” In the first instance, Jesus is speaking from His humanity; in the other, He is speaking from His divinity. There is no problem with that since He is both God and man at the same time.
In a further effort to disguise the divinity of Jesus, the Jehovahs had to change the words of the Bible. Virtually every translation of John 1:1, except the JW version, says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word, of course, is Jesus, and John said that He is God. But in the JW translation, the last clause reads, “and the Word was a god.” By inserting the word “a” and lower-casing God, the JWs can pretend that Jesus isn’t God.
But to do that, they have to ignore the statement of the Apostle Thomas, who addressed Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28), and they have to ignore the dozens of amazing miracles Jesus performed to prove that He was God, including His bodily Resurrection from the dead.
But the JWs say that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, and they challenge any statement to that effect as “unscriptural.” However, Scripture is very clear that Jesus was seen alive after His death on the cross by the aforementioned Thomas, by Mary Magdalene (cf. John 20:18), by the other apostles (cf. John 20:19-23, John 21:1-14, Matt. 28:16-20, Mark 16:14-20), by two disciples on the road to Emmaus (cf. Luke 24:13-32), and by a crowd of 500 (cf. 1 Cor. 15:6). In fact, St. Paul said that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17).
The JWs have also changed the words of Jesus at the Last Supper because they don’t believe in the Holy Eucharist. Instead of “This is my body” (Matt. 26:26), the words Jesus actually used, the JW version has Him saying, “This means my body.”
They’re very good at distorting Scripture — misquoting it and ignoring verses that contradict their beliefs — and then having the nerve to accuse Catholics of being “unscriptural”! Their stock arguments can be easily refuted if you know your Bible.
Q. What is the morality of smoking tobacco and marijuana? It seems like both are a slow form of destroying one’s health. Has the Church ever pronounced on their use? — J.S., Ohio.
A. If we recognize that we do not own our bodies, but rather are stewards of them, we have an obligation to take proper care of them. Therefore, any action that could seriously harm our health or life violates our duty to be good stewards of the bodies given to us by God. The sinfulness of these actions depends on whether they constitute grave matter and we engage in them with full understanding and consent.
Respected Catholic moral theologians, such as Germain Grisez, have argued that the heavy use of tobacco, as opposed to occasional or light use, is grave matter (cf. Difficult Moral Questions, pp. 601-602). He didn’t mention marijuana, but with what is known of its mind-altering and health-impairing properties, it can also be considered a hazard to one’s mental and physical health.
Q. We believe that when the priest pronounces the words of consecration, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. If that is so, then why do those with Celiac Disease have to worry about the wheat in the Host? Isn’t the wheat gone? — P.K., Massachusetts.
A. St. Thomas Aquinas explained this centuries ago when he used the terms “substance” and “accident.”
When the priest pronounces the words of consecration at Mass, said Pope Paul VI in his Credo of the People of God, “Christ cannot be thus present in this sacrament except by the change into his body of the reality itself of the bread and the change into his blood of the reality itself of the wine, leaving only the properties of the bread and wine which our senses perceive.”
He said that “this mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation. Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, must maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the consecration, so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine, as the Lord willed it, in order to give himself to us as food and to associate us with the unity of his Mystical Body.”
When the Holy Father talked about the properties of bread and wine remaining after the consecration, he was referring to what Aquinas called “accidents” or appearances, that is, color, shape, texture, taste, etc. Even though the substance has changed, the Body of Jesus still has the texture and taste of bread; the Blood of Jesus still has the color and taste of wine.
In his book 101 Questions & Answers on the Eucharist, Giles Dimock, OP, offered these analogies:
“We see accidental change when we see how the infant changes to the child, to the adolescent, to the adult, to the elder, and the person is the same even though the body undergoes many changes. We see substantial and accidental change when we eat some food and that food, for instance an apple, changes into our being, losing both its substance and accidents.
“In this substantial change [in the Eucharist], the accidents of both bread and wine remain the same, but on the deepest level of the being of these elements there is a change so that the substance of bread and wine no longer remains, but only Jesus: body and blood, soul and divinity, according to the teaching of the Church” (p. 51).
So because the accident of wheat remains in the consecrated Host, a person with a gluten allergy cannot receive under the species of bread without becoming very sick. Similarly, a priest who is an alcoholic can have a problem with drinking consecrated Wine. So he can seek permission from his bishop to use mustum instead of wine for the consecration.
Mustum is fresh juice from grapes or juice preserved by suspending its fermentation by means of freezing or other methods which do not alter its nature.
While the priest may use mustum in his chalice, however, he must use normal wine in the chalice consecrated for distribution to the people.
