St. Laurence Youth Ministry

The LORD was pleased that Solomon made this request. So God said to him: “Because you have asked for this— not for a long life for yourself, nor for riches, nor for the life of your enemies, but for understanding so that you may know what is right— I do as you requested. I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you.”

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Originally Recorded: Feb. 8, 2011

Description: I get to interview Brian Kelsch, a New Evangelizer, on how he has been living out the call of the Second Vatican Council in Dei Verbum #25, as well as Pope Benedict XVI's exhortation in 2005, to reengage Catholics in the ancient spiritual practice of Lectio Divina.

Jonathan Alexander's last day is July 22. That means his final Life Night is already behind him as of this post. Getting together our crack team of youth ministers, we decided to continue the Summer Life Nights and keep the glory coming. I will be hosting the Life Night on Sunday, July 24. We are going to have some fun, but also really dive into the topic of the night, Jesus Christ, the Word Made Flesh.

The Incarnation is the most important doctrine of the Church, second only to the Trinity. It is absolutely crucial to understand the full meaning of the Word made flesh to live out our faith. The doctrine of the Incarnation was best summed up in the phrase by St. Cyril of Alexandria: the hypostatic union.

Fancy, huh?

The hypostatic union means that the two natures of Jesus Christ- his eternal and unchanging Divine nature and his finite, created human nature, born of the Virgin Mary- are not united to one another, but to the Divine Person (hypostasis, in Greek) of the Son. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is fully human and fully divine.

So we need to hold on to this definition for Christianity to make any sense and for us to be truly redeemed by God. Remember this ancient Catholic principle: He did not redeem what He did not assume.

If they were united to each other, the human nature would be utterly annihilated by the divine nature, like a drop of water in a cask of wine. If each nature was united to its own personhood, then there would be Jesuses, not one Jesus.

Some think the Son of God, already having a divine intellect and will, simply united that to a human body and, boom, you got yourself the Incarnation. But that would violate the ancient Catholic principle, because sin is not merely in the body, but starts and ends with the human soul. Thus, to be redeemed, Jesus needed to assume our full human nature: body and soul.

Also, and this goes along with the last misunderstanding, he was not Hercules or some kind of halfsy: 50% divine and 50% human. He was 100% divine and 100% human, joining both natures to his divine person.

Heretics have the truth, though partially. They grab hold of one thing, and make of it everything. In that sense, they are not catholic, or universal.

Here's the heretics' thoughts:

The Docetists said he only appeared to be human, but was really God the whole time. After all, no man could do what he did, and no god would lower himself to be really tortured, killed, and buried.

The Arians said he was only like God but was not the same as God, denying his divinity. Jesus was just the greatest of all creatures, but is not the Creator.

The Nestorians proclaimed Mary as the Christokos, the Christ-bearer, and not the Theotokos, the God-bearer. How could a creature, a woman, give birth to the divine? Don't call her the Mother of God, just the mother of Christ, the mommy of his human nature.

The monophysites said he only had one nature, the divine, when the two combined. How could merely created and finite things be joined to the eternal, infinite godhead as endure?

The monothelites said, sure he has two natures, but only one will, the divine. Jesus' will was always in union with God's will because that is all he had, the one divine will.

What Catholics Have Always Thought

Contrary to what Dan Brown may think, the Church did not invent the doctrine of the Incarnation for greater position and power politics . Nope, what the Church's geniuses invented was the philosophical and theological language to describe in human, rational terminology what is reality.

The Incarnation means that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and thus is fully God. He shares the divine nature just as much as the Father and the Holy Spirit share in it. He is "God from God, light from light...begotten, not made." He is no creature. The Son of God is eternal and infinite. He is the eternal Logos, the Word of God (see John 1: 1-18).

The Incarnation means that the Son of God chose to enter into history around 2,000 years ago, through the consent of a Jewish teenager named Mary. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." The Incarnation means the enfleshment of God the Son. The Son of God born of the Virgin Mary is who we mean when we say Jesus.

We are in for some changes, and to be perfectly honest with you, I cannot be more excited. The English translation of the Roman Missal, which is the 10,000+ pages of text that forms our liturgical celebrations as Roman Catholics, is being revised.This means that some of the familiar responses that we say are going to change, so we will need to unlearn some of those habits the last 50 years of the Novus Ordo has given us.

Now this is not a new Mass, like the Novus Ordo was after Vatican II. This is the same Roman Missal used in the same Mass we have been celebrating for the last 50 years, only this is a newer and much better translation in the English. Here's what Archbishop Aymond says:

"The only changes are in words, not in ritual. And secondly, it gives us an opportunity as we do change words to look more deeply at the words that we are saying and to come to a deeper appreciation of the Eucharist and what it means for us as Catholics as the very center of our Faith."

That's it.

The changes, while they may be somewhat odd and confusing at first, are not really all that big of a deal in terms of the celebration of the Mass. It is simply a correction of the old thing, not a new thing altogether.

And let me tell you, there were some huge problems with our current translation that lost a lot of the poetry, the drama, and the beauty of the rituals as they made their trip from Latin into English. There are even some errors that need to be addressed, which I will talk about one in a follow up post. Why am I talking about all this in a youth ministry post? The Mass is every Catholic's contact with what it means to be Catholic. We need to fully understand what the Mass is in order to participate in it fully, consciously, and actively. But we cannot participate in that which we are ignorant.

In fact, some people are angry that there is a new translation of the Roman Missal, citing the new words and phrases as being inopportune, rude, or too rigid. With all due respect, their problem is not with the new translation, as if it is a new order of the Mass, but with the Roman Missal itself, which is a shame. All we are offering is a better, closer, and more faithful translation. This revision is allowing us to re-examine our Eucharistic love and our Liturgical catechesis. We get to dive back into the meaning of the Mass, back into even the technical details, in order to see the unfolding love of the Father. In short, this revision is an opportunity for a new vision, not just some silly squabbles over petty academic issues. This is why we in the EDGE program are going full speed ahead with the new translation, incorporating it into an entire EDGE semester, forming an amazing tapestry of liturgical catechesis and evangelization.