Amen!
Ping to Monsignor Pope’s OSV column.
This has been one of my questions for many years.
Thanks for posting.
O-Pope writes a solid post - even appropriately using Scripture.
Much better than A-Pope!
The dignity, certainly, that God invests in every human being. The measure is that of heaven, which DOES record all of this material meticulously in its books, not that of the world, which requires certain fickle criteria to be met.
Celebrity is a worldly concept. God can use it to focus the world’s attention, but it quickly can turn into a caricature of honor. In fact, celebrity is conducive to lies. The bible doesn’t leave these years of the Son of God unmentioned, but speaks about them only broadly. Growing in “favor” (the divine favor which is better known as grace, not the world’s fickle favor) with men and God. Jews would have known Him as quite a mensch, in that terminology.
But, one of the other disciples made a comment regarding all the events surrounding Jesus walk on the earth .. to say that if they had all been written down, there would be monumental volumes of information.
So, I also believe that the MOST IMPORTANT things GOD wanted us to know .. were written in the Bible as we know it today.
All the other miracles were important; but they did not increase the amount of knowledge that GOD planned for us to know.
It would be 30 years of boring history to read. A boy that never dipped a pigtail of the girl sitting in front of him into the inkwell.
Those who wrote the Gospels only knew Jesus for a few years. He was teaching everlasting life. I don’t think he was concerned about the here and now.
I assume He did tell them how He came to be.
Jesus Christ: One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a home.
He didn't go to college.
He never lived in a big city.
He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.
Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned--put together--have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.
Attributed to James Allen Francis.
May we simple say in polite terms; Gone but not forgotten.
Great explanation
Answer: Part of the answer to this is to understand that the Gospels do not propose to be chronological histories of the Lord’s life. The Gospels do record the things that Jesus actually said and did, but they do so in a selective way. St. John says why near the end of his Gospel: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name†(Jn 20:30-31).
Now, if all catholics could understand this we'd be getting somewhere.
We have everything we need to know about how to have eternal life in the Scriptures. Catholic tradition is not needed.
No, I didn't do any mining.
I once asked a few to explain how THEIR denomination was different than Catholicism, other than the papcy, and how their denomination was different from the others.
Sadly, no one really knew any answers except it ab incunabulis.
Why don't they spent the equal time extolling their own denomination of Protestantism? There have been tens of thousands of them. We would get a glimse of their diversity.
They must be very impressed with the Church to pay SO much attention to it: maior e longinquo reverentia.
“Question: One of my great frustrations with Scripture as an historical source is that it leaves so much out. Almost 30 years of Jesus’ life receive no mention at all. How can this be that the life of the most pivotal figure in history receives such vague biographical treatment?— Name, location withheld,”
What’s really funny is that the Holy Scripture is even more vague about Mary, but the RCC has volumes made up about her. Just make it up your good a fairy tales.
I can agree with that.