Dear brothers and sisters,
More often than not the best way to uncover the truth is to ask questions. The best way to do this is to ask one question after another after another as you keep drilling down. Not everyone likes this approach, though, because doing so either reminds people of the method of Socrates or of a four-year-old. This was my approach early last week when I read what Saint Paul says of himself today: “I was once a blasphemer…” (I Timothy 1:13).
His words about himself caught me off guard because the day before I read this admonition from Saint Francis of Assisi: “…whoever envies his brother the good that the Lord says or does in him commits a sin of blasphemy, because he envies the Most High Who says and does every good.”[1] Saint Paul did not strike me as being envious of what God was doing through others, so I had to ask myself if I understood all of what blasphemy entails, which caused me to ask what blasphemy means in its etymology, in the origin of the word.
It comes from the Greek word blasphemia, which, to my surprise, carries a great many meanings. Blasphemia encompasses any or all of the following:
- abusive or contemptuous language directed toward God or sacred things;
- disbelief in God’s promises;
- unbelief which thinks God is powerless; and,
- infidelity to God’s covenant.[2]
None of these aspects of blasphemy may be a surprise to us, but they demonstrate that a sinful act rarely falls squarely into only one category of sin. For example, abusive language directed towards God may stem from pride; disbelief in God’s promises may stem from jealousy; thinking God is powerless may stem from impurity; and infidelity to God’s covenant may stem from unrighteous anger. Whatever the case, blasphemy may well also involve other sins, just as any other sin may also involve another.
This possibility
of the multiplicity of sin is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church
teaches that
Blasphemy is directly opposed to the second commandment. It consists in uttering against God - inwardly or outwardly - words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one's speech; in misusing God's name. St. James condemns those "who blaspheme that honorable name [of Jesus] by which you are called." The prohibition of blasphemy extends to language against Christ's Church, the saints, and sacred things. It is also blasphemous to make use of God's name to cover up criminal practices, to reduce peoples to servitude, to torture persons or put them to death. The misuse of God's name to commit a crime can provoke others to repudiate religion.
Blasphemy is contrary to the respect due God and his holy name. It is in itself a grave sin.[3]
Blasphemy is one of those “acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances or intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object,” by reason of the acts themselves. Other such gravely illicit acts include “perjury, murder and adultery.” We must remember that we cannot “do evil so that good may result from it.”[4]
Why is it, then,
that Saint Paul describes himself as having been a blasphemer and admits to
Saint Timothy, his spiritual son, that he blasphemed against God (cf. I Timothy1:2; II Timothy 1:2)?
How can he say that, if indeed he had thought he was acting in God’s behalf in rounding up and imprisoning Christians and even approving the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1)? In retrospect, and in the light of his conversion, he now sees how mistaken and blind he was. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the just but thought it would happen only at the end of the age, whereas Christians were proclaiming that it had already begun in Jesus. The Holy Spirit too, according to Pharisaic expectations, would be given at the end but not now; for now for the law was sufficient. But the disciples of Jesus were claiming that they – all of them – had already received the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, they were actually worshiping Jesus as mara (“Lord”), and to Paul’s monotheism this was blasphemous. They even claimed to be eating his flesh and drinking his blood! So from a human point of view it is understandable that he had persecuted the Church with “zeal” (Philippians 3:6) “beyond measure and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13). But his conversion had turned his understanding of blasphemy on its head – it was blasphemous of him to deny that Jesus is Lord, risen from the dead and giver of the Holy Spirit. Even to persecute the disciples of Jesus was now blasphemy, for that meant persecuting Jesus himself…[5]
Saint Augustine tells us that Saint Paul makes mention of his former blasphemy to tell us that he “had been a sinner of such proportions that no sinners need despair of themselves, precisely because even Paul had found remission.”[6]
Saint Paul asked for the Lord’s mercy (cf. Psalm 51:3). This is why Saint Paul was one of those entrusted with “the message of reconciliation” (II Corinthians 5:19); he would now invite sinners to draw near and listen to Jesus so that they, too, might be converted (cf. Luke 15:1). When we find that have sinned against the Lord – in whatever way – will we acknowledge what we have done? Will we ask for his mercy? Will we allow him to embrace us with his fatherly love (cf. Luke 15:20)? Or will we keep out distance, not trusting in his merciful love, thereby compounding out sin?
A Christian can never forget that “God alone is the medicine that cures the soul” and those who are sick “must apply the doctor’s services to their health. . . . And so it goes with the soul.”[7] The mercy God wishes to bestow upon us, the medicine he wishes to give us, through sacramental confession “suffices to offset any human sin, whatever its nature, gravity, or frequency. That is why Christ, in his supreme mercy, receives and pardons sinners, not only once or twice, but as often as they prayerfully beg for God’s mercy” in the confessional.[8]
Let each of us, then, never shy away from God’s mercy, question it, nor despair of receiving it; let us instead entrust ourselves to it. If we humble beseech his mercy in sincerity of heart we, with Saint Paul, will faithfully offer “to the king of kings, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, honor and glory forever and ever” (I Timothy 1:17). Amen.
[1] Saint Francis of Assisi, The Admonitions, 8.3.
[2] John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1965), 97.
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2148.
[4] Ibid., 1756.
[5] George T. Montague, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: First and Second Timothy, Titus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008), 42-43.
[6] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 170.1.
[7] Ibid., Sermon 271.1-2.
[8] Saint Bonaventure, Breviloquium, 6.10.3.
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