THE PRISON DESERT IN OCTOBER 2013

THE PRISON DESERT IN OCTOBER 2013

Benedicite! Good news: Bishop David Choby of the Diocese of Nashville has responded to the invitation to visit the Benedictine community on Death Row in Riverbend Prison. He will accompany me on a visit sometime in November.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.—Pope Francis I

When some prisoners throw their feces and urine at guards and visitors, it is very hard to see God in their lives. “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.”—Father Zossima, Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov (one of Pope Francis’s favorite writers).

More good news: A prisoner in an Indiana prison sent DPM a check for $15 from the measly sums he earns in that facility. God bless you, Daniel!

Another Daniel on Death Row in Central Prison in North Carolina is now without family support. His elderly parents cannot aid him any longer and he has no one else. If you wish to earmark a donation for Daniel, DPM will see that he gets it to use for ordinary needs.

Needed in October: Money for gasoline, books, stamps, mailing costs, and computer repair. Thank you for any help you can give!

Desert Prison Ministry
661 S. Edgewood Drive
Sparta, TN 38583-1105
931-316-1796

Hermit Newsletter An Occasional Publication of Desert Prison Ministry

Hermit Newsletter No. 3 Why the Bible is Not Enough September 18, 2013 In which Luthien, the resident philosopher-cat of the hermitage, learns that certain facts must be considered

Hermit: It’s been awhile since I have been able to catch Luthien in a calm and meditative mood. But this gloomy, cloudy afternoon as the season changes into autumn, she caught me out.

Luthien: You’re not here to provoke or anger the men you’re trying to reach, are you?

Hermit: Not at all, but, yes, you know this is dangerous, emotional ground we are treading. The title, “why the Bible is not enough,” is a match box in a rocket factory. I mean it to catch their attention.

Luthien: So reassure them at the outset. There is no desire on our part to question the truth of the Bible or to question in any way that it is the record of God’s revelation to mankind. But standing by itself, in your hands or on your table, it is not enough, right? What does it all mean?

Hermit: Or put in another way, it is enough, certainly, if we rightly understand “enough.”

Luthien: Now you’re getting mystical or something.

Hermit: Don’t mean to be. Okay, just for a moment pretend you are a prisoner, a devout and humble Bible reader, maybe one of those who like to say that you don’t belong to any “denomination,” but “just believe in the Bible,” one who thinks that his Faith in Jesus and reliance on the Word in the Bible is enough. All I want to do is call your attention to some facts, and let the facts stand. Is that flick of your tail assent to my proposal? I assume that it is. Question: how many Gospels are there?

Luthien: Okay, four. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What a dumb question.

Hermit: What if I tell you that there are as many as fifty Gospels?

Luthien: Then I would say you’ve been getting into my catnip.

Hermit: No, that’s the case. In the first centuries after the Resurrection, many gospels were written and circulated. Some of these we know only by report; others, like the Gospel of Thomas, still exist. So why is it that our Bibles have only the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?

Luthien: Is this a trick question, or what?

Hermit: No, it’s a really important question. And I’ll give you the hurry-up factual answer: because the Catholic Church sifted through all the gospels that existed and decided by the year 382 AD that only certain books or Scriptures belonged in the Bible. They decided in the same way that many other Acts and Epistles that were in circulation were also to be excluded from the Holy Scriptures. Some of these writings were declared to be heretical, that is, not true or simply false. These days, there are people who want to go back and accept these other writings just as valid as the New Testament.

Luthien: Something is beginning to dawn on me.

Hermit: And it is?

Luthien: That the Bible did not fall out of the sky, ready-made and shrink-wrapped. That if I accept the Bible, I have already accepted the authority of the Catholic Church and its judgments.

Hermit: That is absolutely correct and absolutely undeniable. So if you say, no authority except the Bible, you have unwittingly contradicted yourself, because to accept the Bible is to accept the authority of the Catholic Church that decided what the books of the Bible are. Furthermore, in accepting the Bible, even if you mean accepting the King James version or any other Protestant version, you are already accepting the decisions of the Catholic Church on what the New Testament is.

Luthien: And accepting that the Bible needs an authoritative interpreter?

Hermit: Yes, and we call that Tradition. The Bible you hold in your hands is the result of men like St. Jerome, who made the first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin, and hundreds of other men, some scholars, some merely poor Benedictine monks making careful copies of the Scriptures.

Hermit: Moreover, the Bible you hold in your hands is not even understandable apart from the teaching authority of the Apostolic Catholic Church. For example, in the early centuries of Christianity, not everyone was agreed on the Trinity or of the dual nature of Jesus Christ. If you existed back then, you might hold the same Bible but be convinced that Jesus was only a man and not divine, that good works alone could merit you salvation, or that Mary was not the Virgin Mother of Jesus. These things—and many more—that Bible-believing Protestants take for granted and dismiss as “creeds”—came about for one reason only: that the Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, defined them and taught them.

Luthien: Ouch. You’re hurting my head. Guess I need a cat-e-chism. END See I Timothy 3:15!