Faith

Condemnation not commendation; the issue of women wearing a veil – Monday, 24th week in ordinary time – 1 Corinthians 11:17-26,33 

( Please read the entire chapter)

Chapter 11:2 to chapter 14:40 now focuses on the conduct of the Corinthian Christians at congregational meetings. There were certain disorders at the worship services which are brought to Paul’s attention; practices that Paul found offensive. The first of these deals with the ‘scandal of unveiled women’ (11:3-16) and I want to briefly touch upon it before I take on the text of today.

I am going to approach this text dispassionately at first and then weigh in with my thoughts.

At the time of St Paul, there were some women who were taking part in the worship services with their heads uncovered. Paul’s arguments come from both scriptural considerations and social conventions of that time. From Genesis 2, he and the Jewish world at that time, deduced that women were inferior to men and this conviction underlines the whole discussion. For him, a man’s uncovered head was a symbol of his acceptance of the authority given to him for he was created in God’s image. To cover his head with a symbol of inferiority would be dishonourable. In Paul’s religious world view, a woman was created for subjugation and hence she dishonours ‘her head’, that is (her) man. In uncovering her head she asserts her will to be his equal. For Paul, women are free to pray or prophesy, but only when as they demonstrated that they are under the authority of male leadership in the church.

First, let us not vilify St Paul too quickly, turn one page of your Bible and Paul was emancipating a woman’s conjugal rights in a marriage at a time when women were sexually objectified. Yet, in our day and time, it is difficult to swallow what Paul says. What Paul advocates was more a reflection of the cultural bias of the time rather than the scriptural text he uses to justify his stance. The Greco- Roman world and Jewish social customs mandated that married woman wear a veil as a sign that she was under rule of a man; ironically, they believed a woman received legitimization only if she was relationally linked to a man; if not, the opinions about her were up for the taking.

Where does the Church stand on this issue? The 1917 Code of Canon Law (in No. 1262) said that men in church should be bare-headed while women “shall have a covered head.” That same canon also said, “It is desirable that, consistent with ancient discipline, women be separated from men in church.” But in 1976, an instruction issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith indicated that this 1917 directive was no longer in force. The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said, “It must be noted that these ordinances, probably inspired by the customs of the period, concern scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance, such as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head. … Such requirements no longer have a normative value.”). This was then inked in the new code of canon law of 1983.

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As a catholic, can i take part in a puja and eat the prasad offered? Saturday, 23rd week in ordinary time – 1 Corinthians 10:14-22

When you compare chapter 8 and chapter 10 of St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians you might wrongly arrive at the conclusion that Paul is contradicting himself. Paul clearly states that that he does not recognize the power of any idol; in his words, “no idol in the world exists and there is no God but one.” (8:4) What Paul is simply stating is that no idol has any power before the worship of the one true God. Hence in this context he says, eating food offered to idols (so called gods – verse5) makes no difference. “Food will not bring us close to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat and not better off if we do (8:8) Yet he is emphatic that most Christians may not have the ability to grasp this understanding. Remember, Paul is speaking to the Corinthians, many of who were recent converts from paganism. Hence, so as to not cause scandal and cause other Christians to stumble and think its ok to eat food offered to idols, Paul says it is best not to eat such food.

Today’s text will take this explanation one step ahead. Paul begins in 10: 13 to explain that all of us are tested. We may think our testing is unique and special but temptation is a common human experience. Yet each one is tested according to their spiritual growth and God won’t let you be tested beyond your ability of endurance; if so, Satan would destroy us the minute God would allow us to be tested beyond our capability of endurance. To help us deal with these earthly temptations, God provides a way of escape when faced with such temptations. He provides the way; he does not force us to use the way! Therefore, we have the choice to say no to sin and take the way of escape that God gives us. To be tempted is not sin, but to surrender to temptation is sin.

In this context Paul once again goes back to what he began to teach in chapter 8 and begins with the words, “therefore…”(verse 14). Paul is now talking of how God provides a way for us to resist the temptation to cause scandal to others by eating meat offered to idols.

Clearly, Paul does prohibit the consumption of meat that is sold in the market that may even be offered to idols or eat food from the market that may have had a prayer of thanksgiving said before the food was cooked or sold (10:25). Neither is a Christian prohibited from eating food in the home of an unbeliever (person of another faith). In fact, Paul says in 10:27, if you are “disposed” to go to such a home “eat what is set before you without raising any questions on the grounds of conscience.”(10:27). BUT If you go to a non-believers house, and you are told (or you are aware) that what is set before you or given to you is offered in sacrifice to the idols then you are not to eat it. In short if you participate in a religious ceremony and are offered the same food offered to the idol at the ceremony, you are not to eat that food. (10:28).But if you simply go to the home of a non-believer, you may eat what is set before you. Note there are two elements here that are mandatory; I take part in the religious ceremony and I am offered the same sacrificial food offered in that ceremony, then I am not to consume it.

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Why do Catholics Say/Repeat Prayers? – The second in our series of Catechesis 

Why do Catholics say prayers or repeat set prayers? After all, in yesterdays article, I said that prayer is  our personal relationship with God. Relationships don’t work by learning things by heart and using scripts for conversations, but Catholics have so many prayers they keep repeating, like the Rosary, or the prayers during the Mass!

Well, it’s true that relationships and conversations don’t work with scripts, but after all is said and done, we are creatures of habit. We repeat things we say several times in  our conversations with people as well. For instance, phone calls usually begin with a ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’. When a husband says “I love you” to his wife of 20 years, she doesn’t say, “That’s so boring. Say something new!”

It is true that in our personal prayer, we don’t need to stick to set prayers; we can express ourselves to God however we feel, even without words. However, we also have to keep in mind that God Himself has given us a set prayer. Jesus taught us the Our Father, the prayer that not just Catholics, but practically every Christian knows and prays!

So why the need for these set prayers? Prayer is not just about us expressing ourselves to God; it’s also about opening ourselves to God and directing our hearts towards the Truth, and set prayers help with this. For example, when we ‘hail Mary’, we are acknowledging Her dignity as Queen and as the Mother of God.

The family that prays together stays together and we, as the (Catholic) Church, are the Family of God. Our relationship with God also binds us in relationships with one another which is why community worship and prayer is important. It would be complete chaos if everyone were praying their own prayers individually during the Mass. To pray together, we need set prayers so that we can all pray as one.

Vain repetition is a problem, but repetition isn’t. The next time you pray a set prayer, try paying attention to the words.
 

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Can I eat food offered to idols?  Friday, 23rd week in ordinary time – 1 Corinthians 9:16-19  

Even though our text at the Eucharist of today covers a couple of verses in chapter nine, I recommend you read chapters 8 and 9 several times and then approach today’s teaching or else you might catch the proverbial bull by its tail. The teachings in this text are relevant and important for us in India,

Chapters 7 to chapters 16 is really a question-and-answer session. There are questions to certain doubts streaming in from Corinth and Paul has decided to answer them. The questions range from celibacy and marriage to separation and divorce, from food offered to idols to conduct at congregational meetings. Before I tackle the text of today let us also look at chapter 8 which has an issue that may not directly have consequences on Western Christianity but certainly have an impact on us in the East and in particular India; namely the question of food offered to idols.

In Corinth, as in other cities of Paul’s day, the public and private worship of the many deities of the Greco-Roman world included animal sacrifices. Slaughterhouses were often located next to temples. Parts of these slain animals would be consumed by the altar fire but the leftovers might either be given to priests or other worshipers or be sold in the market places. Some persons used portions of this consecrated food to give banquets at home or in the temples in honour of a god, and persons were invited to the feast or to eat in communion with the deity.

The question that arose among the Corinthian Christians was, as a believer in Christ, living in Corinth could one buy and eat this meat?

Corinth was known in the first century as the quintessential pagan town, and it would have been difficult for believers in Christ to live in Corinth in a manner completely separate from the world around them. Some Christians at Corinth had a simple solution. They held that the whole range of questions relating to should we eat such meat or not was of no consequence. If one ate or did not eat it he was none the better or the worse (vs. 8). Keep in mind that when Paul deals with the community, he always tries to establish a behaviour that takes into account both, the fact that the believers in Christ live inside the world, but are also clearly separate from it.

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Why do Catholics Go for Mass on Sunday?

There are two parts to this question. One is why Catholics go for Mass, and the other is why we go for Mass on Sunday rather than on Saturday or any other day. I’ll deal with why we go for Mass in another text, but for now I’ll address the significance of Sunday.

When you read the story of Creation in Genesis, you see that God actually blessed and hallowed the seventh day, which is Saturday. Throughout the Old Testament, the Israelites observed the Sabbath on Saturday. Even Jesus and the Apostles did the same and even Jews today continue that tradition.

What changed is when Jesus entered the picture. The Christian Faith rests on the Resurrection of Christ, which happened on the third day from Good Friday, which is Sunday, the first day of the week. Some people get confused with how  the ‘third day’ numbers up to Easter Sunday, the day the Lord rose. In order to understand that, we need to put on a Jewish mindset; how did Jesus and the ancient Jews count ‘the third day’ as Easter Sunday?

For the Jews, the day of His Passion and Death was actually the “first day”, followed by the Sabbath which was the second day, and our Lord rose from the dead on the day after that, the third day. That being said, the Apostles weren’t just thinking, ‘Okay, because He rose from the dead on Sunday, and he always appeared to us after that on a Sunday, so that’s going to be our day of worship from now onwards.’ It’s much deeper than that!

In Genesis chapter 1, God separated the light from the darkness on the first day. The first Christians realised that in the Resurrection, Jesus who is the Light of the World, has triumphed over the darkness of evil, sin and death. Sunday is not just about that one time when one man happened to come back to life. It marks the beginning of a whole new Creation and the coming of the Kingdom of God, which was ushered in by the Resurrection of our Blessed Lord.

That is why the first Christians came together to celebrate the Eucharist and worship God on the first day of the week, and that is why Catholics today continue to do the same, by going for the Mass on Sunday.

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