Catholic Replies
Q. I read your “Catholic Replies” section of The Wanderer every week and it has increased my knowledge of our Catholic faith. Thank you for that. For next Wednesday morning’s prayer group, that week’s leader has assigned us homework. He asked us to answer the question: Does God forgive and forget our sins? But he wants us to document where we got our answers. There are many places in the Old and New Testament that speak of forgiveness, plus I’ve read nn. 1472-1475 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
However, it is the second part of the question (does God “forget” our sins) that I need help with. Any help you can give me would be appreciated. — R.P.M., Illinois.
A. We can think of several places you can go for this information. The first is Isaiah 43:25, where God tells the prophet: “It is I, I, who wipe out,/ for my own sake, your offenses;/ your sins I remember no more.” The second is Heb.10:15-17, which says: “The holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying:/ ‘This is the covenant I will establish with/ them after those days, says the Lord: “I will put my laws in their hearts,/ and I will write them upon their minds’,”/ he also says:/ ‘Their sins and their evildoing/ I will remember no more.’“
The third is Micah 7:18-19: “Who is there like you, the God who/ removes guilt /and pardons sin for the remnant of his/ inheritance;/ Who does not persist in anger forever,/ but delights rather in clemency,/ And will again have compassion on us,/ treading underfoot our guilt?/ You will cast into the depths of the sea all/ our sins.”
The fourth is Psalm 103:9-12: “God does not always rebuke, nurses no lasting anger,/ Has not dealt with us as our sins merit,/ nor requited us as our sins deserve./ As the heavens tower over the earth,/ so God’s love towers over the faithful./ As far as the east is from the west,/ so far have our sins been removed from us.”
Does this mean that God actually forgets our sins? How can that be when God is all-knowing and sees every sin we commit — past, present, and future — all at once? What this probably means is that God overlooks or chooses not to hold against us sins that He has forgiven. Just as in our own relationships with others, we try to put out of our minds some offense against us. We don’t really forget that offense, but since we have forgiven the person, we try not to dwell on it and try to put it as far from our memory as possible.
Q. What does the Church teach about removing holy water from the fonts during Lent? — K.E.R., Connecticut.
A. We had hoped that this fad had gone the way of other liturgical abuses, but apparently not. In any case, here is what the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship said on March 14, 2000:
“1) The liturgical legislation in force does not foresee this innovation, which in addition to being praeter legem, is contrary to a balanced understanding of the season of Lent, which though truly being a season of penance is also a season rich in the symbolism of water and baptism, constantly evoked in liturgical texts.
“2) The encouragement of the Church that the faithful avail themselves frequently of…her sacraments and sacramentals is to be understood to apply also to the season of Lent. The ‘fast’ and ‘abstinence’ which the faithful embrace in this season does not extend to abstaining from the sacraments or sacramentals of the Church. The practice of the Church has been to empty the holy water fonts on the days of the Sacred Triduum in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil, and it corresponds to those days on which the Eucharist is not celebrated (i.e., Good Friday and Holy Saturday).”
Q. Jesus has two natures: human and divine. Could this human nature that God took unto Himself be likened to our ultimate nature of being a bit divine when our souls are in Heaven? I use the word “bit,” meaning always lower than God, like the holy angels, but allowing us a taste or a share in being divine. Is this too far out even to consider? — D.H., Iowa.
A. No, it’s not. St. Peter said that God’s divine power “has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power. Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire” (2 Peter 1:3-4).
The Catechism (n. 460) elaborates on this in these words:
“The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’ [2 Peter 1:4]: ‘For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God’ [St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haeres, 3, 19, 1:PG 7/1, 939]. ‘For the Son of God became man so that we might become God’ [St. Athanasius, De inc., 54, 3:PG 25, 192B]. ‘The only begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods’” [St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57:1-4].
Q. I have copied a few pages of a book (The Life and Religion of Mohammed) by Rev. J.L. Menezes about references to Jesus in the Koran. Do you know if the Koran has been revised to exclude these references to Jesus by Mohammed? — J.H.G., Illinois.
A. No, the Koran has not been revised and, since the book you mentioned was originally published in 1912, we think it would be more helpful to quote from a recent book about Islam and its references to Jesus. The book we would recommend is Christianity, Islam and Atheism by William Kilpatrick, which was published in 2012 by Ignatius Press.
In a chapter entitled “Jesus of Nazareth versus Jesus of Neverland,” Kilpatrick says that Mohammed’s (also Muhammad) account of the life of Jesus in the Koran is not really a life of Jesus “because it’s mostly a handful of disconnected statements that deny Christ’s divinity or claim he was a forerunner to Muhammad. For example, ‘And of you Jesus son of Mary, who said to the Israelites: “I am sent forth to you from God to confirm the Torah already revealed, and to give news of an apostle that will come after me whose name is Ahmad”’ (61:6).”
“Christ said nothing of the kind in the Gospels,” said Kilpatrick, “but the whole point of the Koran’s treatment of Christ is to whittle him down in size — to turn him into a messenger instead of a Messiah. Here’s another example: ‘He was but a mortal whom we [Allah] favored and made an example to the Israelites’ (43:60). Whenever Jesus is mentioned in the Koran, it’s usually a case of special pleading, as in ‘He was but a mortal.’ A few of his miracles are mentioned, but with the qualifier that they were ‘by My [Allah’s] Leave’ and not from any personal power of Jesus.”
Kilpatrick says that “the Jesus of the Koran exists in a neverland. Set against the Gospel story with all its close attention to persons, places, and events, the Koranic account is vague and vapid — and amazingly brief. If you omit the repetitions, the whole of what the Koran has to say about Jesus can fit on about two pages of typical Bible text. And of that, about half is devoted to denying that he was God’s son.”
The net result of this treatment “is a nullity,” says Kilpatrick. “In using Jesus for his own ends, Muhammad neglects to give him any personality. The Jesus of the New Testament is a recognizable human being; the Jesus of the Koran is more like a phantom. When did he carry out his ministry? There is not a hint. Where did he live? Again, there is no indication. Where was he born? Under a palm tree. That’s about as specific as it gets in the Koran. In short, Muhammad’s Jesus is a nebulous figure. He seems to exist neither in time nor in space. In the Gospels, you meet Jesus of Nazareth; in the Koran, you meet someone who can best be described as Jesus of Neverland.”
“Which is more likely the true account of Jesus?” Kilpatrick asks. “The highly detailed narrative with numerous references to historical and geographical facts, or the rudimentary sketch drawn up by a man trying to supersede him? Which is more believable? An account composed in Arabia some six hundred years after the life of Jesus, or one composed within decades of his death by contemporaries and eyewitnesses?”
