Catholic Replies
Editor’s Note: In a recent blog that appeared in LifeSiteNews, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski described the vital contribution of Christianity to the world and suggested that living it to the fullest today could transform our modern world:
“Christianity entered into a world that was drunkenly careening from superstition to esotericism, from world-weary despair to unappeasable hedonism, and introduced a way that was lofty, luminous, and liberating. It was truly experienced as a ‘breath of fresh air,’ as good news that gave a new meaning and purpose to life.
“Christians became known for their kindness and hospitality — and especially, as early documents indicate, for their custom of not exposing infants to death, as the pagans did. Christianity made life worth living again — so much so that it made giving life to others, to offspring, worthwhile too. Unlike the pagans, the Christians did not try to prevent pregnancies or end them, nor did they do away with the ‘unwanted.’ Those who knew that God had looked upon them with love, wanting them for Himself, gained the power to look upon others with love.
“This is the power of love that the religion of Christ brings into the world. No other religion is like it; no other promises what it does; no other confirms its promises with so vast a number of heroic lovers and wonders (that is, saints and miracles). Under the reign of Christianity, life was seen to be inherently valuable; indeed, its value became quasi-infinite, because of the divinization of man offered in the sacraments, and the life eternal to which they lead….
“In the battle over marriage, procreation, and the defense of life, we must realize that we are up against a combination of metaphysical nihilism and spiritual egoism vastly more powerful than any human army or political system — a demonic corruption of mind and heart that cannot be driven out except by prayer, fasting, and martyrdom, as were the errors and crimes faced by the early Christians — and faced down by them.”
Q. Why do we call the Archangel Michael “saint,” when he is not saint in our common understanding of the word, i.e., a deceased human judged as being in God’s Kingdom? When I pray to him, I say “Holy Michael” and always get good results. — Name Withheld, Indiana.
A. According to the dictionary, the word “saint” comes from the Latin sanctus, which means holy or sacred. The word usually refers, as you said, to those persons, now presumed to be in Heaven, whose lives of extraordinary holiness and heroic virtue while on Earth have been recognized by the Church, usually by a process called canonization.
However, another dictionary meaning for saint is “angel,” which makes sense since these purely spiritual beings are also noted for their great holiness. Thus, it is appropriate to call Michael a saint because he remained faithful to God and led the heavenly hosts to victory against the fallen angels (cf. Rev. 12:7-9), as well as Gabriel, who announced to Mary that she was to be the mother of the Savior (cf. Luke 1:26-38), and Raphael, who identified himself to Tobit and Tobiah as “one of the seven angels who enter and serve before the Glory of the Lord” (Tobit 12:15).
But whatever title you give to Michael, keep on praying to him.
Q. You have commented in the past on the Church’s practice of offering a longer and shorter version of the same reading, sometimes to avoid controversial topics. I noticed that this happened today with the reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. Lectors were given the option of omitting the part where Paul said, “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the Church, he himself the savior of the Body. As the Church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.” Isn’t there an understanding of these words that does not imply a denigration of women? — M.M., via e-mail.
A. Yes, there is, and it’s too bad more effort isn’t expended into explaining the real meaning of the passage instead of leaving it out and implying that those who denounce St. Paul as anti-woman are correct. There is no question that men over the centuries have used these verses to put women down and treat them as slaves, but they were wrong and sinful to do so.
In his 1995 Letter to Women, Pope John Paul said that he was “truly sorry” for this mistreatment of women and that the time had come to set “women free from every kind of exploitation and domination” (n. 3).
In his 1988 apostolic letter On the Dignity and Vocation of Women (Mulieris Dignitatem), the Holy Father said that St. Paul knew that his way of speaking, “so proudly rooted in the customs and religious traditions of the time, is to be understood and carried out in a new way: as a ‘mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ’” (cf. Eph. 5:21). He went on to say:
“This is especially true because the husband is called the ‘head’ of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church; he is so in order to give ‘himself up for her’ (Eph. 5:25), and giving himself up for her means giving up even his own life. However, whereas in the relationship between Christ and the Church the subjection is only on the part of the Church, in the relationship between husband and wife the ‘subjection’ is not one-sided but mutual” (n. 24).
St. John Paul also said that “the awareness that in marriage there is mutual ‘subjection of the spouses out of reverence for Christ,’ and not just that of the wife to the husband, must gradually establish itself in hearts, consciences, behavior, and customs. This is a call which from that time onward does not cease to challenge succeeding generations; it is a call which people have to accept anew.”
He said that “all the reasons in favor of this ‘subjection’ of woman to man in marriage must be understood in the sense of a ‘mutual subjection’ of both ‘out of reverence for Christ.’ The measure of true spousal love finds its deepest source in Christ, who is the Bridegroom of the Church, His Bride” (Ibid.).
For additional insights into this controversial passage, see Christopher West’s book Good News About Sex & Marriage. West said that in light of this interpretation, “What woman would not want to receive this kind of love from her husband? What woman would not want to be subject to her husband if he truly took his mission seriously to love her as Christ loved the Church? So often it’s husbands who want their wives to take this Scripture passage to heart. I think it’s we men who need to take it to heart first” (p. 62).
Q. While typing a paper for a Protestant clergyman, I noticed his statement that the Catholic understanding of Matt.16:18 was wrong. He said that Catholics are mistaken when they think Jesus said to Simon Peter, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” He said that Matthew’s Gospel was written in Greek, and that the Greek word for rock is petra, which means a large stone, while the word for Peter is petros, which means a tiny pebble. So Christ was not equating Peter with a large rock on which He would build His Church. How can I answer this? — A.M.D., Massachusetts.
A. You can get the answer from Karl Keating’s book Catholicism and Fundamentalism. On page 210 of the book, Keating wrote:
“Christ did not speak to the disciples in Greek…Christ spoke Aramaic, the common language of Palestine at the time. In that language, the word for rock is kepha. What was said was thus: ‘Thou art Kepha, and upon this kepha I will build my Church.’ When Matthew’s Gospel was translated from the original Aramaic to Greek, there arose a problem that did not confront the evangelist when he first composed his account of Christ’s life in his native tongue.
“In Aramaic the word kepha has the same ending whether it refers to a rock or is used as a man’s name. In Greek, though, the word for rock, petra, is feminine in gender. The translator could use it for the second appearance of kepha in the sentence, but not for the first, because it would be inappropriate to give a man a feminine name, so he put a masculine ending on it, and there was Petros, which happened to be a preexisting word meaning a small stone.”
