Catholic Replies
Editor’s Note: Following up on a recent question about how to find out about really Catholic colleges and high schools, we call your attention to the Cardinal Newman Society, which is expanding its evaluation program from colleges to K-12 schools, homeschools, and graduate schools. You can get more information by visiting https://cardinalnewmansociety.org/. You may also write to the Society at P.O. Box 1879, Merrifield, VA 22116 or call them at 703-367-0333.
Q. A passage in Sirach is very troublesome, and I would appreciate your comments. We are told to mourn the dead (38:16-18), but then we read: “Turn not your thoughts to him [the deceased] again; cease to recall him; think of the end. Recall him not, for there is no hope of his return; it will not help him, but will do you harm.” This seems to support those who reject prayers for the dead. — J.H.T., via e-mail.
A. We don’t think that the author of Sirach is rejecting prayers for the dead. After all, doing so is both a corporal and spiritual work of mercy. And we are encouraged, particularly during Lent, to obtain plenary indulgences for the souls in Purgatory. So this passage can’t mean never to think again, or pray again, for a departed loved one. After all, Masses are celebrated every day for those who have gone before us, and each of the Eucharistic Prayers invites our intercession for the deceased. For example, the Roman Canon says:
“Remember also, Lord, your servants N. and N., who have gone before us with the sign of faith and rest in the sleep of peace. Grant them, O Lord, we pray, and all who sleep in Christ, a place of refreshment, light, and peace.”
What we think the passage means is that while grief at the loss of a family member or friend is appropriate, one must not take the grieving period to extremes since, as Sirach says, excessive grief can “destroy one’s health” (38:19). Having properly grieved, we leave the soul in the hands of God but use this time to consider our own end and to prepare for the inevitable day when we will meet the Lord for judgment.
Sirach cautions us to “remember that his fate will also be yours; for him it was yesterday, for you today. With the departed dead, let memory fade; rally your courage, once the soul has left” (38:22-23).
Q. During His public life, Jesus was besieged by three groups of people — the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Scribes — who plotted to kill Him. What can you tell me about each of those groups? — D.J., via e-mail.
A. The Sadducees were the upper class of Jewish society, the priestly elite who controlled the Temple and its treasury and served as high priests. They followed only the first five books of the Bible (the Torah) and they did not believe in angels, resurrection of the body, or life after death. They had confronted Jesus with the question of whose wife a woman would be in Heaven after she had had seven husbands. Jesus responded that there would be no marriage in Heaven (cf. Luke 20:27-35). But perhaps the principal reason the Sadducees hated Jesus was because He chased the money-changers out of the Temple and denounced them for turning His Father’s house into a “den of thieves” (Matt. 21:13).
The Pharisees, the name means “separated,” were the middle class in Palestine, laymen who were determined to protect their people from anything they considered impure or unclean, including Gentiles. They accepted all the books of the Old Testament and added hundreds of precepts to the Mosaic Law governing minute matters of conduct, particularly on the Sabbath. For example, they chastised a man whom Jesus had cured of an ailment that had plagued him for 38 years for carrying a mat after Jesus had told him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk” (John 5:8).
The Pharisees did not deny the miracles of Jesus, but they denounced Him for performing them on the Sabbath. There were some Pharisees, notably Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who were admirers of Jesus.
The Scribes, who were mostly Pharisees, were doctors of the law who studied, analyzed, and proposed interpretations of the law. They were the teachers and moral guides of the people. They were also determined foes of Jesus, especially after He denounced both them and the Pharisees for preaching one thing to the people, while practicing the opposite. One should read chapter 23 of Matthew’s Gospel for Jesus’ jeremiad against both groups. The Lord called them hypocrites, blind guides, blind fools, and “whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth” (23:27).
Another smaller and less well-known group that joined in the conspiracy to kill Jesus was the Herodians. They were not a religious sect, but more a political one that wanted Herod Antipas, who was only tetrarch of Galilee, not king, to receive the kingdom that had once been ruled by his father, Herod the Great.
Despite the many serious differences among these four groups, however, they were all united in the plot to get rid of Jesus.
Q. In Ezek. 47:6, why is the prophet referred to as “son of man”? Were these dreams that he was having that have not yet come to pass? – K.H., via e-mail.
A. Ezekiel went to Babylon in 597 B.C. with the first group of exiles after warning the people of Israel for ten years about the coming destruction of Jerusalem. He was given many visions by God and tried during the exile to strengthen the hopes of his people that someday they would return to their homeland. One of his most famous visions was that of the dry bones coming to life. He quoted the Lord as saying to His people, “I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord….I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord” (37:12-14).
Calling Ezekiel “son of man” did not mean anything special, just that he was a man (the expression appears about 100 times in Ezekiel). The phrase takes on more significance in Daniel 7:13, where the prophet says that in a vision he saw “one like a son of man coming / on the clouds of heaven; When he reached the Ancient One / and was presented before him, / he received dominion, glory, and kingship….His dominion is an everlasting dominion / that shall not be taken away, / his kingship shall not be destroyed’.”
In the New Testament, “Son of Man” is a messianic title referring to Jesus (He used it for Himself some 80 times in the Gospels), and it emphasizes His humanity, as opposed to “Son of God,” which emphasizes His divinity. While on trial before the Sanhedrin in the early morning hours of Good Friday, Jesus was asked by Caiaphas the high priest, “Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?” The Lord answered, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man / seated at the right hand of the Power / and coming with the clouds of heaven’” (Mark 14:62). The Sanhedrin considered this statement “blasphemy” and condemned Jesus to death.
