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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 15, Number 3
 March 2004 
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The Eighteen Years We Can Never Know
Q: My friend’s son, a high school sophomore, is doing a research paper and has to explain the missing years between the finding of Jesus in the Temple at age twelve and his ministry beginning at thirty. Do you have any sources you can refer us to on Jesus’ life during that time?
A: We simply don’t know what Jesus did during his youth and young adulthood, besides traveling to Jerusalem yearly with his parents for the pilgrimage feasts (cf. Luke 2:41) and living with his parents in Nazareth (cf. Luke 2:51–52). Given human curiosity, it is natural to want to know more about that hidden time, but transcribing the details was unimportant to the Gospel writers.
Perhaps you could suggest an alternative project: Since one of the points of the hidden years was to live an ordinary human life, thus sanctifying the human family and human work, perhaps this teen could research what life was like for an ordinary working-class first-century Palestinian Jewish family. That would give some idea of what Jesus’ hidden years entailed.
A good place to start research would be with the book Daily Life in the Time of Jesus by Henri Daniel-Rops. The book is currently out of print but can be located through interlibrary loan.
Q: My friend said that Christ died once for all, so we don’t need redemptive suffering souls. How should I respond?
A: A Scripture verse to point your friend to is Colossians 1:24: "Now I [Paul] rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church."
Paul doesn’t mean that Christ’s death is insufficient for universal redemption. He is simply saying that his own incorporation into the mystical body of Christ (the Church) means that his sufferings can be helpful for other members of the body (the Colossian Christians to whom he is writing). They are helpful only because Paul is united to Christ in his Church and is offering his sufferings to Christ for the sake of the Church.
In the same way, suffering souls can similarly offer up their sufferings for the benefit of others.
Q: An Anglican priest told me two reasons for the Anglican schism were that (1) when Henry VIII requested an annulment, he was told by Church officials to have an affair, and (2) Rome was overtaxing Europe and Henry couldn’t pay the taxes demanded.
A: In response to the claim that Church officials ordered Henry to have an affair, it is reasonable to ask that credible documentation be provided to substantiate the claim. Lack of evidence not withstanding, Henry VIII was already having affairs by the time he became involved with Anne Boleyn. It is known, for example, that Henry had already had an affair with Anne’s sister Mary before turning his attention to Anne. Anne refused to have an affair with him. She was not interested in doing the right thing; she simply wanted Henry to marry her. (Had she been inclined to act rightly, she would have refused any involvement with a married man.) Even if it could be proven that Church officials told Henry to have an affair, that would have been a personal failing of theirs. It would not have justified Henry having an affair or going into schism when his request for an annulment was denied.
Although it is also the priest’s responsibility to prove his claim of unjust taxation, the question is also a non sequitur. Unjust taxation is not an excuse for schism from the Church founded by Jesus Christ. (But, as an aside, it is also noteworthy that Henry VIII was as notoriously lavish with money as his father, Henry VII, was frugal. In his lifetime he managed to work through the enormous treasury his father had hoarded.)
What all this boils down to is that the priest is resting his personal defense of the Anglican schism on the personal failings of fallible human beings. He should instead be asking himself which church is the Church that Christ founded. Perhaps he might find insight into that by reading the biography of Sir Thomas More, a contemporary of Henry VIII. Despite the personal failures of contemporary churchmen, More was willing to lay down his life for the Church rather than follow Henry VIII into schism.
Q: My pastor said in a homily that the biblical account of Jesus feeding the five thousand was not a miracle; instead it was a "miracle of sharing." Is this true?
A: The feeding of the five thousand was a genuine, supernatural miracle that could not have been accomplished by any natural means whatsoever. It was not a "miracle of sharing" or anything similar to that. It was a supernatural event. The Gospels tell us that there were five loaves of bread and two fish, but after Jesus blessed the food, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples who in turn gave them to the crowds, more than enough bread had been supernaturally generated (cf. Matt. 14:15–21; 15:32–39).
This miraculous feeding is a foreshadowing of the miraculous feeding of the Eucharist. We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that "the miracles of the multiplication of the loaves, when the Lord says the blessing, breaks and distributes the loaves through his disciples to feed the multitude, prefigure the superabundance of this unique bread of his Eucharist" (CCC 1335). We also see a connection between the miraculous feeding of the five thousand and the Eucharist in John 6, where we read that Jesus gave his first public teaching on the Lord’s Supper immediately after the feeding of the five thousand. This supernatural event prefigured the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist, in which "all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into communion with him and form but one body in him" (CCC 1329).
Q: Can you tell me if the Church teaches that Joseph was a virgin, or was he a widower with children who was quite older than Mary?
A: An early tradition has it that Joseph was a widower who married the Virgin Mary later in life (after already having a family with his first wife). A later tradition says that Joseph was a virgin and that the "brothers" of Jesus were other relatives, perhaps cousins. Because we simply don’t know, Catholics are free to believe either tradition. All that is required of us to believe is that Mary remained a perpetual virgin, including throughout her marriage to Joseph.
Q: I’ve wanted to become Catholic for several years, but my attempts have been hindered because I live in the Netherlands, a non-English-speaking country, and my primary language is English. What can I do?
A: How wonderful that you wish to become Catholic! Here are some suggestions:
You might contact an English-speaking embassy in the Netherlands (e.g., American, British, Australian, Canadian) and ask if it has an English-speaking Catholic chaplain for the employees. That chaplain could help you enter the Church. If not, the embassy should at least be able to put you in contact with Catholics on the staff who can tell you where they go for English-speaking Catholic services.
You might also check with English departments of local universities (particularly Catholic universities, if there are any) to see if there are any Catholics on staff or if there is an English-speaking Catholic chaplain for the Catholic students.
If there are any religious orders with houses nearby, they may have English-speaking members in residence or can put you in touch with other English-speaking members in the country.
If you continue to have trouble finding an English-speaking priest or Catholic community in the Netherlands, please write back and we will try to find other avenues of assistance for you. God bless.
Q: How can you people look at yourselves in the mirror knowing that you have basically destroyed an entire continent by spreading your message that condoms don’t protect against AIDS. What would God think of that?
A: First of all, sexual activity outside of marriage is nothing more than usury—people using each others’ bodies for selfish sexual gratification. Only within a permanent and exclusive commitment can sex be the total and unconditional self-giving that it is meant to be. Second, there is a growing body of evidence that condoms in fact have a significant failure rate in the prevention of venereal diseases (including AIDS). Our chastity speakers recently spoke in Michigan to 10,000 students. During each talk, they asked the students what the most common sexually transmitted disease was. Not one of the students knew the answer. It is human papillomavirus (HPV), which is now responsible for the deaths of more women every year than AIDS, because it causes 99 percent of all diagnosed cervical cancer. The media won’t talk about this because the condom is useless in preventing HPV. So much for "safe sex."
But even if they did succeed in the prevention of disease, we prefer to teach people that the best prevention against such horrific diseases is to be chaste—that is, to act appropriately according to one’s state in life regarding sexual behavior. The promulgation of the idea that condom use protects us is not only deceptive; it encourages a lifestyle that leads to sorrow and perhaps even death.
Had everyone reserved sex until marriage, and if spouses remained faithful, then we would not have an AIDS epidemic. Only a return to a chaste life can stop these diseases or, in the case of those already infected, contain them. Such chastity is within God’s plan for the human race. He designed us. He knows what is best for us in regard to our relationships and our health in mind and body. So we choose to tell the truth: One cannot commit sexual sin and not expect negative consequences. Chastity is the answer.
Q: Why was it necessary for Jesus to have been born of a woman?
A: Vatican II responds: "The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined Mother, so that just as a woman had a share in bringing about death, so also a woman should contribute to life. This is preeminently true of the Mother of Jesus, who gave to the world the Life that renews all things, and who was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role" (Lumen Gentium 56).
She is the virgin woman whom the prophet Isaiah said would conceive and bear a son (cf. Is. 7:14; Matt. 1:23). And she is Mary, who, being immaculately conceived, remained sinless. It was through her consent—and her humility as handmaid of the Lord—that she gave Jesus his body, and his body is what saved us.
Pope John Paul II wrote in Mulieris Dignitatem:
"‘When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son, born of woman.’ With these words of his Letter to the Galatians (4:4), the apostle Paul links together the principal moments that essentially determine the fulfillment of the mystery ‘pre-determined in God’ (cf. Eph. 1:9). The Son, the Word, one in substance with the Father, becomes man, born of a woman, at ‘the fullness of time.’ This event leads to the turning point of man’s history on earth, understood as salvation history. It is significant that St. Paul does not call the Mother of Christ by her own name ‘Mary,’ but calls her ‘woman’: This coincides with the words of the Protoevangelium in the book of Genesis (cf. 3:15). She is that ‘woman’ who is present in the central salvific event, which marks the ‘fullness of time’: this event is realized in her and through her" (MD 3).
Q: How can I convince my friend that contraception is forbidden not only within marriage but outside it? She says Humanae Vitae is against birth control only in marriage.
A: Humanae Vitae is explicit in its teaching against artificial birth control, and yes, the context is marriage. But Humanae Vitae itself answers the question: "Hence, one who reflects well must also recognize that a reciprocal act of love that jeopardizes the responsibility to transmit life that God the Creator, according to particular laws, inserted therein, is in contradiction with the design constitutive of marriage, and the will of the Author or life. To use this divine gift destroying, even if only partially, its meaning and its purpose is to contradict the nature both of man and of woman and of their intimate relationship, and therefore it is to contradict also the plan of God" (HV 13). These two sentences teach that anything that destroys the meaning of the "reciprocal act of love"—in this case contraception—is contrary to God. The Catechism calls these actions "intrinsically evil" (CCC 2370), meaning that it is evil in and of itself: It is always objectively evil, regardless of the context (within marriage or outside of it) in which it is carried out.
The Church also teaches that sex outside of marriage is contrary to the will of God and destroys the true purpose of the act (cf. CCC 2353). Therefore, if one uses birth control while engaging in sex outside of marriage, he is compounding one sin with another.
Q: My friend says that Catholics believe that on special days such as Christmas we receive graces that are different from other days of the year. He states that there is only one type of grace and it doesn’t matter what day of the year it is. I know that there is sanctifying and actual graces. What are the differences between these two, and what graces do we receive on holy days?
A: The Church teaches that there is a difference between actual grace and sanctifying grace. An easy way to understand actual grace is to remember that it enables us to act. It is the strength that God gives us to act according to his will. Sanctifying grace is a state in which God allows us to share in his life and love. When we speak of being in the state of grace, we mean the state of sanctifying grace. There is no mortal sin in us. This grace comes to us first in baptism and then in the other sacraments.
The graces we receive at Christmas are actual graces that enable us to celebrate the birth of Jesus in a way that is pleasing to God.
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