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Q u i c k Q u e s t i o n s
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This Rock
Volume 11, Number 5-6
 May/June 2000 
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Does God Promise Us Happiness?
Q: I have a friend that says God does not promise us happiness. But I have read in Psalm 41:1–4 that God makes us happy when we are concerned for the poor. Can we claim this as a promise if we take care of the poor?
A: There are a couple of things to be said here. First, Psalm 41:1–4 expresses in general terms how God deals with those who care for the poor. It does not translate into a specific promise to a specific individual.
For example, verse 4 says that God will sustain them on their sickbed and heal them of their illnesses. This may be how God operates in general, but it does not mean that an individual who has cared for the poor has a specific promise that he in particular will be healed of a particular illness. After all, we all die sometime, and if we had an automatic guarantee of healing in exchange for giving to the poor, medical science and human life spans would be quite different than they are.
Second, broadly speaking, we might speak of two general sorts of happiness—material and spiritual. Material happiness is what we receive from material good fortune—health, prosperity, etc. Spiritual happiness is what we receive from spiritual good fortune—grace and forgiveness, performing works of mercy, and in the next life attaining the beatific vision of God.
When people say that God has not promised us happiness, they usually mean that God has not promised us material happiness in this life. In this life we may have to undergo suffering, even great suffering. But God has promised spiritual happiness, especially in the next life, to all who follow him.
It would seem that when your friend said that God does not promise us happiness, he was referring to the material happiness. And in that regard he is right. God has, however, promised you spiritual happiness for doing this since it is a corporal work of mercy when done out of love for God. While you can’t translate Psalm 41:1–4 into a promise of material happiness to you personally, you can know that in general God does increase the material happiness of those who care for the needs of the poor.
Q: How do I choose a sponsor for confirmation? What kind of person would be a good sponsor, and why?
A: Canon law does not require a sponsor at confirmation, but the 1983 Code of Canon Law, in accord with wholesome tradition, certainly encourages one to be named (see canons 892–893). A sponsor is supposed to help one be a true witness to Christ and to fulfill the responsibilities attached to confirmation. Therefore, one should look for a sponsor who knows and lives the Catholic faith well. The Church states that, as a rule, to be eligible for the role of sponsor, one must be at least 16 years of age, a Catholic already confirmed who partakes of the Eucharist, and in general leading a life in harmony with the Catholic faith. Parents (even adoptive ones) are not eligible to serve as sponsors for their children, nor are those who have been formally penalized by the Church (a rare occurrence, indeed). In a reversal of the discipline observed under 1917 Code, the 1983 Code encourages but does not require the use of one’s baptismal sponsor for the role of confirmation sponsor. This helps to underscore the relatedness of these two sacraments of Christian initiation.
Q: Are Catholics required to believe in the miracles that Jesus performed in the gospels?
A:Yes. While these miracles are recorded according to the conventions of the time concerning historical writing, they were genuinely miraculous, and they did happen.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting the Second Vatican Council’s decree Dei Verbum, states, "The Church holds firmly that the four Gospels, ‘whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up’" (CCC 126, citing DV 19).
The Catechism goes on, "The signs worked by Jesus attest that the Father has sent him. They invite belief in him. To those who turn to him in faith, he grants what they ask. So miracles strengthen faith in the One who does his Father’s works; they bear witness that he is the Son of God. . . . By freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness and death, Jesus performed messianic signs" (CCC 548–549).
Finally, Vatican I infallibly condemned the propositions that "all miracles are impossible, and that therefore all reports of them, even those contained in Sacred Scripture, are to be set aside as fables or myths; or that miracles can never be known with certainty, nor can the divine origin of the Christian religion be proved from them" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, can. 3:4).
Q: May sick persons who are unable to swallow solid food receive Communion under the form of wine alone?
A: Yes, and so may anyone. The U.S. bishops’ document This Holy and Living Sacrifice, which was approved by the Holy See, states, "Sick people who are unable to receive Communion under the form of bread may receive it under the form of wine alone. If the wine is consecrated at a Mass not celebrated in the presence of the sick person, the Blood of the Lord is kept in a properly covered vessel and is placed in the tabernacle after Communion. The Precious Blood should be carried to the sick in a vessel which is closed in such a way as to eliminate all danger of spilling. If some of the Precious Blood remains, it should be consumed by the minister, who should also see to it that the vessel is properly purified" (HLS 37).
It should be noted that the only time the Precious Blood may be reserved is when it is to be taken to the sick. It may not be reserved at other times but must be consumed after Mass. It should also be noted that there is no obligation to receive under the form of bread if one is not sick. So long as Communion under the form of wine is being offered to the faithful, they may receive under the form of wine alone.
Q: I confessed some sins that the Catechism describes as "gravely disordered," and the priest gave me very little for my penance. Afterward, I remembered something I had done years ago that I have never confessed. Am I absolved of that one as well, or, if the sin were mortal, does that need to be addressed specifically?
A: The penance given in confession represents a portion of the temporal consequences that are due on account of the sins. By the power of the keys, the Church can assign either a large or a small share of these temporal consequences to be performed as a penance.
In the current age, it is common for only a small portion of the temporal consequences to be assigned—enough to provide the penitent with the ability to perform an outward act in a token of his sorrow for his sins—but the attempt is not often made to keep the penance strictly proportional with the sins being remitted.
The priest was within his authority to assign you a comparatively small penance. Therefore, I wouldn’t worry about the fact that the penance seemed light to you. Take the penance for what it is—a chance to do an outward act displaying your sorrow for your sins and your desire to make amends.
Regarding the mortal sin you have not confessed, so long as you intended to confess all your mortal sins and otherwise made a good confession, then the sacrament was valid and you were forgiven of all of your mortal sins. The fact that you have now remembered another one does not mean that you are in a state of mortal sin.
The Code of Canon Law states, "A member of the Christian faithful is obliged to confess in kind and in number all grave sins committed after baptism and not yet directly remitted through the keys of the Church nor acknowledged in individual confession, of which one is conscious after diligent examination of conscience" (CIC 988 §1). Since you have now remembered this grave sin, but it has not yet been acknowledge in individual confession, you should mention it in your next confession.
Q: A Baptist told me that Jesus never drank wine and neither should any Christian. He said that Jesus actually drank unfermented grape juice, or new wine. What does the Bible say?
A: Jesus had no qualms about drinking wine, and even miraculously produced 150 gallons of it at the wedding feast of Cana. This was clearly alcoholic wine, since it was described by the major domo of the event as the "best wine," which he explained was normally brought out at the beginning of wedding feasts until the guests had lost their taste. Non-alcoholic wine does not cause one to lose one’s taste; thus the "best wine"—the kind that Jesus produced—was alcoholic (John 2:10).
The Greek word for wine is oinos, and this is the wine shared at the Last Supper. During the Passover meal, Jesus and his apostles would have consumed several cups of wine, and any Jew today can verify that it is not grape juice that one consumes during a Passover meal.
Though your Baptist friend may object that Jesus only drank new wine, Acts 2:13 indicates that new wine can cause drunkenness—whereas grape juice cannot.
Scripture never condemns the moderate use of alcohol, though drunkenness and addiction is forbidden (1 Tim. 3:8; Tit. 2:3; 1 Pet. 4:3). In fact, Scripture even recommends that alcohol be consumed on occasion: "No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments" (1 Tim. 5:23). In an age in which modern water purification methods and food storage techniques were unknown, the antiseptic effect of alcoholic wine could play a significant role in preventing gastroenteritis (non-alcoholic wine would not have this effect). Paul thus counseled Timothy to take advantage of its medicinal benefits.
In the Old Testament, the evidence is even more explicit: "Give strong drink to him who is perishing and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more" (Prov. 31:6).
In discussing the disposition of tithes, the book of Deuteronomy tells us that if one lives too far from Jerusalem then one should convert the tithe to money and the "go to the place which the Lord your God chooses, and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep, or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves; and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice" (Deut. 14:25–26). Again, even if "wine" were somehow non-alcoholic, "strong drink" is unambiguously not.
Q: Why do Catholics think that people can be saved without Christ? Romans 10:9 is clear that you must confess with your lips that he is Lord in order to be saved.
A: To begin with, the Church affirms that there is no salvation outside of Christ. There is no other way to heaven but by Jesus.
Further, in Romans 10:9 Paul was not suggesting that merely an external confession of faith in Christ would suffice to save one. Jesus affirmed that "not every one who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matt 7:21). For this reason Paul speaks in his letter to the Romans about the "obedience of faith" (1:5, 16:26).
Similarly, it is not necessary that one confess faith in Jesus literally with one’s lips to be saved. If it were, then infants, the severely retarded, and every mute person would be damned. One must guard against interpreting this passage as a technical statement of the requirements for salvation. Paul is not trying to tell us everything we need to know about salvation, and the Bible has much more to say on the matter.
Lastly, and most in need of explanation, salvation may not always involve an explicit belief in Jesus. Infants can be saved without knowledge of the gospel. Ditto for the severely retarded. If these can be saved without believing in Jesus, we must ask why. They are invincibly ignorant and incapable of faith, and we trust that God will not punish without a just cause. These people lack belief in the saving gospel, but they may be saved through an application of the graces that Christ merited for us on the cross.
It is a general theological principle that God gives all men an opportunity for salvation, since he is a just God who wills all men to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4). Peter announced, "God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:35).
Paul adds that the law of God has been written on all hearts, and so men know God (Rom. 1:21), even if no Mosaic Law has been given to them. They will be judged for what they did know. Some Jews could be damned and some Gentiles saved if they observed the prescriptions of the law by nature in their conscience (Rom. 2:14). "There is no partiality with God. All who sin outside the law will also perish without reference to it" (Rom. 2:12).
If Paul was offering a principle of God’s judgment that applied only under the Old Covenant, then some grave difficulties arise. This assumes that following the natural law suffices for salvation only for the invincibly ignorant people who lived before the time of Christ, but not for the unfortunate souls who have lived since.
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