Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

He's also absolutely destroying my wine import business. So unfair!

 

I'm sure he rose ... around Mary Magdalene.

 

I believe it was both -- Jesus, the man/God rose from the dead, leaving an empty tomb.

On the first Easter Sunday, when Mary discovered the empty tomb and was the first to see the risen Jesus, he told her not to touch him, because he hadn't yet ascended to the Father, and she needed to let him go, not "cling to him." From then, and over the next 40 days, Jesus appeared, similarly to the way he did to Mary, to hundreds of people before his ascension. During that time, I believe he and his physical body were resurrected and still could be seen, felt and experienced, because, while Jesus told Mary not to touch him, he told doubting disciple Thomas to touch him, which he did, gaining faith in the process. The general belief is that Jesus treated Mary, and Thomas, as they needed to be handled in order to best build their faith.

Pentecost -- the arrival of the Holy Spirit -- occurred 50 days after the resurrection, officially turning any relationship between Jesus and any disciples still here on Earth from a physical one to a truly spiritual one in which the soul is the focus.

 

Isn't it a story about someone who gave mankind a roadmap for how to treat one another? Or does that roadmap even matter?
If none of that matters, then the Gospels are nothing more than Joe Jackson's second studio album.

 

Jesus don’t lose that number?

 

Lots of famous art surrounding the Ascension, from Giotto to Rembrandt to Dali.

https://aleteia.org/2018/05/15/analyzing-art-the-iconography-of-the-ascension-through-the-ages/

 

Agreed that questions of belief and practice within religions is contentious.

Plenty of Hasidim don't think Orthodox Jews are Jewish enough. Opus Dei thinks the Jesuits are soft-boiled eggheads. So there's always some further boundary or barrier or distinction to draw.

To say nothing of the big philosophical schisms like Protestantism or the Shia / Sunni divide.

No such thing anywhere as the One True Church, no matter what people argue.

Interesting question about your friend. What defines Catholicism? What defines a Catholic? Is it a matter of belief? Philosophy? A matter of practice?

Can you be a Catholic without confession? Without taking communion?

 

No, he’s not. Because he doesn’t believe in a Christ.

 

Yes.

 

To some degree. But to any degree that it is, the roadmap runs straight through the story of Jesus.

 

Of course it runs through the story of Jesus. Christianity isn’t the story of Jimbo the Concealed Carrying Auto Mechanic from Big Spring, Texas.
And why does the story of Jesus matter? Is it simply because he suffered a grisly death? A lot of people have bravely faced execution. Why was his execution a big deal? Is it because he dared to advocate for the poor and refugees and others who are collectively known as “the least of these”? Or is that too inconvenient to contemplate?

 

To Christians, it matters because Jesus' death paid for the past, current and future sins of humankind - Jesus takes God's wrath.

Jesus did indeed advocate for the poor. (He also advocated for a tax collector.) But he sets his own importance apart in this passage:

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”