1st Reading: II John 4-9
1.) "Let us love one another." This is one of those compact and beautiful statements that if you have only a superficial understanding of it, you think you know all about it, but if you really know, you realize that you may have some grasp on what it means but also that you haven't possibly explored all the implications. It's like Newton's Second Law in physics. "F=ma." Three little symbols, but you could write a whole science textbook on that little equation and not exhaust all of what it implies. Likewise, "love" in Christianity is so much of a richer concept than can easily be described.
2.) 'Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God.' The Latin of the Vulgate is "Omnis, qui ultra procedit et non manet in doctrina Christi, Deum non habet." This might be translated literally "Every one who proceeds beyond and does not remain in the teaching..." Whoever was doing the translation of this passage was really on the ball because he realized that what the Beloved Disciple was trying to describe back when this was written has since become a systematized attack on Christianity with its own buzzword, and used that buzzword in an excellent instance of "dynamic equivalence"-style translation properly applied (for once).
Psalm: selection from 119
This is a Psalm of thanksgiving for the Law. This is the longest Psalm; it has to be something like five pages long. As Brian observed once, "They must have been really thankful for the Law." As should we. Perhaps you recall a NT reading not to long ago (or was it an antiphon) that begged the Lord to "deliver us from all lawlessness." If you can understand why this is good, you will greatly help yourself in understanding Christianity.
Gospel: Luke 17:29-36
It is worth commenting on the "caught up" thing. There is confusion about this because there are Protestant groups that are all about "The Rapture" being "Left Behind" etc. I am sure many Catholics are confused because they don't know about what we teach, except that it must be not whatever they teach. Then they see passages like this in the Bible and are confused.
Ok, here's how it works. Q. Do we teach that there is a "Rapture?" ("rapture" - from Latin rapere, to seize, snatch up, carry off) A. Yes. Didn't you read this passage? Jesus will come and some will be "taken up" and others won't. Q. Then how do those dispensationalist Protestant sects differ from what we teach? A. They believe that there will be a SECRET rapture a significant amount of time BEFORE the Last Judgment. The SECRET rapture is the one you always hear about people talking about as "the Rapture" and talk about being "left behind" as in those famous novels of that name. According to their theory, there will be a secret rapture (what they call "the Rapture") where all the righteous people will be taken and the only thing everyone else will notice is that a lot of people have mysteriously vanished. Then will come the tribulations, after which some more may be saved.
What will actually happen is that this "taking up" (Rapture, if you will), will come at the Second Coming, at the end of the world, immediately prior to the Last Judgment. Neither will it be secret. When Jesus comes it will be a triumphal entry, with "trumpets and the voice of an archangel" as Scripture tells us. There. Even if I have made some small errors I think I am substantially accurate, and as usual if there are any errors, please attribute them to ignorance and not to wilful disobedience to the Church.
My inaugural address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions!
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Posted by: Secret Rapture | November 22, 2006 at 04:19 AM