Myth Busters

Flying to heaven with faith and reason

 Hebrews 2:6-7

              What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor, subjecting all things under his feet.

 Mark 1:23-25

               In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”  Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.

             Sometimes, I find the Bible baffling, don’t you?  My Protestant friends would say that’s because I’m Catholic and don’t actually READ the Bible.  As they taught us in grade school: “reading improves comprehension.”  But my struggle with Scripture is a scientific skepticism, where I need everything empirically verified before I believe.  It seems you first have to sift through the chaff of mythology and magic before you get to the golden wheat of truth.  Take, for example, today’s gospel, where Jesus expels demons.  Did that really happen?  Or, what about the first reading from Hebrews talking about angels?  Aren’t those just stories to help children sleep at night?  The great Scripture scholar Rudolf Bultmann said we must first “demythologize” the Bible in order to read it right.  That is, get rid of the myth and magic and you'll understand the Bible better.

             I feel very much like Indian Jones (don’t all guys??) whose friend Marcus Brody warns him about searching for the Holy Grail.  Indy says, “What are you trying to do scare me, you sound like my mother.  I don’t believe in a lot of superstitions and hocus pocus.”  By the way, do you know where the phrase, “hocus pocus” comes from?  It’s making fun of the Latin words of the Consecration at Mass, which are, “Hic est enim Corpus Meum” (This is my Body).  If you say that really fast, it sounds like “hocus pocus.”  To Indiana Jones, the quintessential Americ

an man, taking things on faith feels foolish.  Indy was the original “myth buster.”

             On September 14, 1998, Pope Saint John Paul II wrote arguably one of his key encyclical letters, but which sadly, got little publicity, called “Fides et ratio” (Faith and reason).  Listen to this seminal starting sentence: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of the truth.”  The imagery makes the implication clear: using only science (reason) to know the truth is like a bird trying to fly with only one wing.  Americans who seek the truth aided by science alone won’t get very far of the ground.  Marcus Brody (soundling a lot like JPII) wisely replies to Indy, “The search for the Grail is the search for the divine in all of us.  But if you want facts, Indy, I have none to give you.  At my age, I’m prepared to take a few things on faith.”  And that’s how you fly to the heavens: using two wings: faith and reason, science and spirituality, mythology and mathematics.  Otherwise, you’ll never get off the ground.

            Praised be Jesus Christ!