I had an out of this world, awesome Friday night. No, Ididn't go to a concert, or a bar (ick!), or even a movie. I went to a localparish to see Catholic apologetics speaker, Patrick Coffin. If you listen toCatholic Answers on the radio or the podcasts of the show on Catholic.com, youknow who he is.
He discussed how to evangelize to friends and family whohave left the church, a topic that I dearly need to study. I tooknotes, which I'm attempting to decipher. I'll give you some tidbits that he brought up and my thoughts on them:
Joan of Arc is quoted in the Catechism of the CatholicChurch.
"About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simplyknow they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter." (That's pretty cool. Even while I was awayfrom the Church, I loved this saint very much.)
Acts 15 shows how the early Church discussed the questionof whether or not Gentile converts need to be circumcised. They couldn't go tothe written word, because the Old Testament was the old covenant and Jesusbrought in the new covenant. They couldn't go to the New Testament. Not onlywas it not compiled yet, there wasn't anything written down that addressed thisquestion. What did they do? They held acouncil in around 50A.D. to figure out the will of God. "It seemed good tothe Holy Spirit and to us..." (You can look up the whole quote. Probablygood to read all of Acts 15.)
Today, the Church Magisterium still meets to figure outthe will of God. For the Church isthe Body of Christ. (See 1 Corinthians12:27).
Christ didn't address many issues that our salvationhinges on. For instance, he didn't discuss human cloning or in vitrofertilization. Fortunately, Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to help the Churchwith such questions. He will be with us until the end of time.
The Greek word paradosis(tradition) pops up a lot in the Bible. For Jesus didn't write out the books ofthe Bible and hand them to Peter before ascending into Heaven. He taught wordof mouth and by example. His followers did too. The Bible, the inspired Word ofGod, flowed out from this sacred tradition. We shouldn't separate The Biblefrom the Church, or the Church from Christ.
We are God's coworkers. (Wow, that's a big responsibilityand makes me want to work hard at the job.)
Thomas Aquinas said "Whatever is received isreceived according to the mode of the receiver." (Now I want to jump backinto my Aquinas, which I'd sadly abandoned.)
Patrick Coffin seems to admire Archbishop Fulton Sheenvery much. One quote he mentioned stands out for me. "You can win the argument but lose the soul." (I might beslightly paraphrasing. Some of my notes are sketchy.)
Much of what Patrick Coffin said addressed discussingissues with Christians outside of the Catholic Church. Many of my friends andfamily are atheist or leaning toward neo-paganism. However the "You canwin the argument but lose the soul" quote is something I should burn intomy wee little mind. I can get emotional discussing this stuff, which makesmy brain freeze up. Patrick reminded us that, while discussing Jesus is veryimportant, sometimes you must hold back a little in order to win over a soul.Let's circle back to Aquinas's quote about the mode of the receiver. It'sprobably not helpful go to into details about Transubstantiation with anatheist. They won't even acknowledge God's existence, let alone that God wouldoffer Himself to us. You must meet her where she is with regards to discussionabout God.
I hope you get a chance to attend a talk from one of the speakers from Catholic.com.
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