5th Sunday after Easter, Sunday, May 18, 2014
Deacon Robert Banet
Charlie tells me you’re studying for the priesthood, right?
Yes. I’m Charlie’s nephew on Aunt Jane’s side.
I see. What prompted you to study for the priesthood?
I see it as a way to help the underprivileged, people who have not had the opportunities I have had.
I see. That’s a noble ideal. Let me ask you something about your seminary training.
Shoot.
I hear there’s a lot of new teaching about the gospel and about Jesus. Is that right?
Yes. Scholars have really advanced our thinking about some things. “Re-thinking” might be a better way to put it.
Oh? I’ve heard some strange ideas about, for instance, the Resurrection.
Yes. Scholars now believe that the Resurrection was a faith event, a faith experience.
What do they mean by that?
Well, they say that the first Christians were very strong believers and when they looked at the empty tomb, they just believed in their hearts that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Believed in their hearts? Then they didn’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
That’s putting it too strongly. They believed but it was a faith experience, a faith event.
That sounds pretty strange. Is that what they teach in the seminary?
They say that it’s a possibility. They have scholars to back it up.
I say “baloney!”
I beg your pardon?
It sounds like something the scholars cooked up, something they thought the “cultured despisers,” that is, modern man, would find acceptable. Let me ask you, Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, truly and physically, that He ate and drank with His disciples?
We have no historical proof of that. I believe it was a faith experience.
Well, all I can say is I’m grateful that the Church tell me otherwise. The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives me the truth. Praise God!