With Authority

When I first started learning about the Catholic faith, I ventured out onto some message boards and forums to ask some anonymous questions of Catholics.  One thing that struck me immediately was how they spoke of the Catholic Church as though she had authority over all mankind.  They were clear that if a person wanted to have a relationship with God, they needed to come through the Catholic Church and be in right relationship to the Catholic Church.  Coming from a protestant background, that was a foreign concept.  You followed this preacher or that preacher.  You read so and so's books and agreed with them or you went to this guys seminars and you agreed with him.  You picked your own camp and you could change camps any time you felt "lead" to do so. You were free to choose because there was no absolute authority.

It was a lot like the days of Christ when all of Israel followed this rabbi or that one.  When a person talked about their beliefs they would quote this rabbi or that rabbi and would choose whose beliefs they cared to align their own to.  There was room for debate.  There was no authority.

So when Jesus came along, as we read this morning in Mark chapter one, and spoke about God with authority as though he knew what he was talking about first hand, they were startled.  Who is this guy who speaks with authority as though we need to fall in line behind him in order to know God.  Who does he think he is?  He doesn't quote the rabbis, he wasn't formally educated by any rabbi.  He just shows up to synagogue and reads the scriptures as though he wrote them himself!

They must have felt as uncomfortable about Jesus' voice of authority as I felt about the Catholic Church's voice of authority.  Who do they think they are telling me that in order to know what God wants of my life I have to become a Catholic and follow the teachings of the Catholic Church?

Well, the Catholic Church looks and sounds like her founder.  Jesus left her his authority just before his ascension.  He handed Peter the keys and breathed on his first Bishops and gave them the authority to bind and loose and forgive sins.  So when the Catholic Church speaks, we need to listen because she speaks with the authority of Christ.  And if you want to know Jesus intimately, you must be Catholic and you must eat his flesh and drink his blood and follow the teachings he left for us in his Church.