Catholic Replies
Editor’s Note: We are in the process of reducing our supply of books and are offering them to interested readers at a substantial discount. The books available, all in mint condition, are Catholic Replies, Catholic Replies 2, All Generations Will Call Me Blessed, Who Do You Say That I Am, Catholicism & Reason (Apologetics), Catholicism & Scripture (Salvation History), and Catholicism & Life (Commandments and Sacraments). The books retail from $10.95 to $17.95 but can be had for 50 percent off for 1 to 25 books, 60 percent off for 26 to 50 books, and 70 percent off for over 50 books. You can learn more about each of these books by visiting www.crpublications.com.
Don’t order from the website, however, since it automatically charges full price. If you know pastors, schools, home schools, or parish religious education programs who would benefit from these books, please have them get in touch with us at the address below. All orders must be paid by check.
Q. During Lent, we pray the Stations of the Cross often. I have always been puzzled at what Jesus says at the eighth station: “Weep not for me, but for your children.” Why this gentle admonition? Why should the women of Jerusalem weep for their children? — D.R.H., Indiana.
A. Here is Jesus’ full statement: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’ At that time people will say to the mountains, ‘Fall upon us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:28-31).
Jesus was looking ahead forty years to the terrible fate that was to befall Jerusalem when in AD 70 the Romans would level the city and kill all of its inhabitants either by crucifixion or starvation. He was telling the women that the calamities to come would make His Way of the Cross seem like a walk in the park. And He was warning that if an innocent man like Himself (the green wood) had to undergo such suffering, those truly guilty of sin (the dry wood) would be even more severely punished.
How bad was it in AD 70? The Jewish historian Josephus, who was an eyewitness to the six-month siege, reported the incredible atrocities that occurred during that time. He tells of thousands of dead bodies stacked in the cellars and houses of the city, and the thousands more that were hurled over the walls by the inhabitants themselves.
He says that five hundred deserters and captives were crucified each day until the hills around Jerusalem were literally covered with crosses and wood became scarce.
Josephus even relates the grisly incident of a woman maddened by hunger who killed her infant son, roasted him and ate half of him, saving the other half for another meal. That is why Jesus told the women weeping over Him to save their tears for the catastrophe that awaited them and their children forty years in the future.
Q. Can you explain why the Sunday Mass readings in Lent are frequently shortened, with bracketed sections suggested for omission? For example, there are extensive sections omitted in the Gospel stories about the Samaritan woman at the well, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. Some of St. Paul’s letters have also been edited. It seems like censorship. Who authorized these changes and why? Is the congregation in that big of a hurry to get out of Mass? — G.H., via e-mail.
A. Some time ago, one of our readers brought this matter up with the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat of Divine Worship and was told by Associate Director Fr. Dan Merz that the omissions in certain Gospel readings were the work of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome. Fr. Merz said that the revised introduction to the Lectionary published in 1981 included the following paragraph:
“77. The omission of verses in readings from Scripture has at times been the tradition of many liturgies, including the Roman liturgy. Admittedly such omissions may not be made lightly for fear of distorting the meaning of the text or the intent and style of Scripture. Yet on pastoral grounds it was decided to continue the traditional practice in the present Order of Readings, but at the same time to ensure that the essential meaning of the text remained intact. One reason for the decision is that otherwise some texts would have been unduly long. It would also have been necessary to omit completely certain readings of high spiritual value for the faithful because those readings include some verse that is pastorally less useful or that involves truly difficult questions.”
The general principle sounds okay on the surface, but what was the reason for the specific decision to omit verses 26 and 27 of the first chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Leaving out these verses saves about ten seconds, but it keeps the faithful from hearing one of the clearest condemnations of homosexual behavior in the Bible. Is it unreasonable to wonder if pressure from the homosexual network in the Church led to the omission of these important verses?
As for the Gospel readings you mentioned, the passages eliminated would certainly save some time at Mass, but only a few minutes, and they leave out some significant verses. For example, in the Gospel about the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-42), we miss the part about Jesus telling the woman that she has had five husbands and that the man she is living with now is not her husband — a commentary on the sin of adultery. And we miss the part where Jesus declined the apostles’ offer of food, saying that “my food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.”
In the Gospel about the cure of the blind man (John 9:1-41), we miss an opportunity to hear about the blindness not being caused either by the sin of the man or the sin of his parents, but rather as a chance for Jesus “to do the works of the one who sent me” and to state that “I am the light of the world.”
We also miss the interesting dialogue between the man and the Pharisees, and Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees for their spiritual blindness, which was worse than the man’s physical blindness.
We don’t see the justification for omitting these sections because they are deemed “pastorally less useful.” On the contrary, the passages eliminated would lend themselves to interesting homilies. Furthermore, the faithful in the pews hear little enough Scripture passages as it is; why bowdlerize the few readings that they do hear?
Q. Could you please put to rest who Mary Magdalene was? Some call her a prostitute, some a woman possessed by demons that Jesus healed. I thought only the latter was true. What do you say? — K.G., via e-mail.
A. There is the perception that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute before she met Jesus, but there is nothing in Scripture to support that characterization. The perception apparently stems from the fact that the first mention of her name occurs in Luke 8:2, just two verses after the story of the sinful woman who bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and then anointed them with an ointment that she carried in an alabaster jar. That woman was publicly known in the city as a sinner, and presumably her sin was prostitution, but there is nothing in Scripture that would equate her with Magdalene.
Luke 8:2 says that Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary, but we’re not sure what that means. Some commentators have seen it as a reference to the seven deadly sins of pride, envy, anger, lust, avarice, gluttony, and sloth. What we do know is that she and many other Galilean women journeyed with Jesus and provided for Him and the apostles out of their own resources, that she was a witness of the crucifixion and the burial of the Savior, and that she was the first person to whom Jesus appeared publicly after His Resurrection from the dead.
The Catholic Church has long recognized Mary Magdalene as a great saint, naming many churches after her and celebrating a feast day in her honor on July 22.
