| | Matty's first Ecclesiological Rant of the year.....
clearing up some confusion (especially at the end)
Who remembers those crazy bracelets from the early to mid 90s that boasted the phrase, "What Would Jesus Do"? Well, I have never owned one myself, but I remember them well. There was always a play on words with these as well.... for instance, my good friend Jody from Topeka... when we were in college, he met the woman he later married and he sort of started calming down. We were still acting stupid and like college guys, but Jody just tried to make sure we didn't get into too much trouble. We started to say, "What Would Jody Do"? Lately, the phrase has returned. I think this photo below is pretty disgraceful, personally... I hesitated to even put it up here because I have been barraged and beaten up in the past for certain things I have put on here (i shrunk it down a bit)... I will continue in a moment:
I'm not going to talk about the picture, but I thought it would be a good reality-check into the world of slogans that we live in. we live by them. we love them. they run everything we do.
Basically, I see WWJD as another way of saying, "what do you feel / think Jesus would do? I mean.... i have this agenda, and i now i think that Jesus would do what i want to do... this way i can justify the way i am acting..." - like the guy in the picture. give me a break! Have you ever heard anyone say something like, "If Jesus were alive today (already there is a flaw here), he would protect the rainforests!!!" or "...He would save the whales".... or "He would say Mass in Latin"... or "He would be a vegetarian". This is all redunkulous. I'm fine with protecting the rainforests - we need to.... i'm a fan of the whales.... i enjoy Latin Mass and see it as a valid answer to many people's spiritual needs... and i have often thrown around the idea of becoming a vegetarian (although, I am from Kansas, so this wouldn't work so well).
I think the proper question here is, "WHAT DID JESUS DO"... these things we can figure out. His life was a witness, and the Church today is the mission. Remember people, the Church doesn't have a mission..... the mission has a Church. This is dogmatic Theology, my friends. Jesus's words and His works are within the confines of Salvation History. We read it within Christological Faith. He IS alive today, and the mission continues. There is a basic 'foundation' of the Church that we sort of go off of. This is totally biblical, and incredibly Catholic. We read Scripture as a "whole"... not in parts. none of it works as well without the rest of itself. That is improper English, but it makes the point for me.... There's this dood I'm a big fan of - - - his name is Johann Auer - - - we don't read him here at Mundelein (YET), but I think we should. His name popped up in class, though, so that's where I got a lot of these ideas.... Auer was a stud, and incedentily, he is from Bavaria  where Fr Emery De Gaal is from, and also our new Pope Benedict XVI.
I am going to lay out for you 8 basic Biblical foundations of the Church. Johann Auer was the first to articulate this. He came up with a 3 volume 'seminary textbook' thing, and only one was translated into English. Maybe someday I'll start a cause for the continuation of translation and when some crazy Kansas nut starts the first "home schooled seminary" they can use these for sound Theological Formation... 
The Jesus event
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Baptism of Jesus
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Announcement of the reign of God
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Surpassing of John the Baptist (fulfillment)
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The Kingdom is Jesus and Jesus is the Kingdom
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Jesus is the Messiah
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Jesus calls God "Abba..."
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Jesus is the new Moses
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Jesus is the Son of God
it's important for us to remember some things here --- as I mentioned before, one can never take these passages out of context. For instance, we unpack each one slowly and carefully... they are packed pretty tight. Maybe sometime, I'll unpack one or two of them typologically or maybe even using Liturgical history or something. whatever.
It's just all very exciting to see the mission of the Church continue, and when we look back into history, we can see that Christ has really paved the way for us all to be able to continue His work. It all started with the FATHER and then to the SON and the SON sent the HOLY SPIRIT and the HOLY SPIRIT gave birth to the CHURCH.... which is the same indwelling of the SPIRIT that Jesus was. The Church is NOT an institutional construct created by humans.... without Christology - especially found biblically as I mentioned above - we cannot understand the Church. The Church is a community who knows WHO their God is. "Who is your God (exodus)"?? We know God through the divine personhood of Jesus Christ - just as the Jewish people knew who God is through the lawgiving prophets of old.
My last little rant is about Peter. yeah - that's right - the "rock". Just to clear up some confusions here in the language. As we know, on an apologetical level at least, when we speak of the Church being rested upon and started with Peter as "first Pope (which is problemetic in itself)", we always say, "well Jesus said - "You are Peter and upon this rock I build my church"... or "You are PETROS and upon this PETRA I build my church". Petros is rock.... what is petra? Many non-Catholic fundamentalists will say, "Petra is like 'little rock' or 'pebble'. Not true at all. Don't buy it folks! Petra is the word for rock.... but it's a feminine word. duh. the Church is feminine. but Peter was a dood. We can't call him a feminine noun!!!! So to change the gender of the noun, it becomes "petros". That's all. It's the same darn word. different ending. that's all.
So anyway, now you know my thoughts on WWJD...... I simply change my thinking..... "WDJD". What did Jesus do???? We know what He did. We must continue the mission. no - the mission continues, and we stay in the Church and she continues the mission with us. Thank God for the Sacraments and the Holy Spirit!!!!! -Matty Molnar |
Gina Camarata 
