CIN - Ask Father Mateo, KHARITOO Revisited

Ask Father Mateo

Msg Base:  AREA 5  - ASK FATHER            CIN ECHO   AMDG
  Msg No: 259.  Mon  3-09-92 22:33  (NO KILL)  (MAILED)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: James White
 Subject: KHARITOO Revisited

Dear James,

You have written: "All Greek verbs exist in a context.  Ephesians 1:6
tells us that we were 'graced' 1) in the past, and  2) in the Beloved,
that is, in Christ Jesus."

Now you suppose you are providing the "context" when you assert:
"Given the fact that this grace comes to us in Christ Jesus, it is
obviously 'fullness' of grace."  This is not context, it is a deduction
from the words of St. Paul, and it is an invalid deduction because it
ignores the rest of the New Testament witness.  In Jesus' explanation
of his parable of the sower (Matt. 13:18-23, Mark 4:14-20), he says that
the seed of the Word falling upon rich soil ("those who hear the word
and accept it and bear fruit") will produce different yields: thirty-
or sixty- or a hundredfold.  Not everyone who is graced in the Beloved
corresponds in the same degree.  The fact that in the Giver of grace
there is fullness of grace does not guarantee fullness of grace in
every recipient.

2 Cor. 3:18 describes our sanctification as a process, not a single
grace-filled event: "All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory
of the Lord, ARE BEING TRANSFORMED into the same image FROM GLORY TO
GLORY, as from the Lord who is the Spirit." Process is not yet
fullness.

1st Peter 2:2 also speaks of GROWING in the grace of salvation: "Long
for pure spiritual milk so that through it you may grow into
salvation."  What is growing and increasing has not yet reached
fulness. 2nd Peter 3:18 says: "Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ."

In Revelation 2:4-5 and 3:2-3, Jesus rebukes Christians who have lost
their early fervor.  They have not entirely fallen away, but now they
must repent and regain what they have lost.  God is faithful, but we
are not always as faithful as we are called to be.

Your message is too long for me to discuss in one message.  So I will
close now and continue this in the next message.

                                Sincerely in Christ,

                                Father Mateo

Msg Base: AREA 5 - ASK FATHER CIN ECHO AMDG Msg No: 260. Mon 3-09-92 22:35 (NO KILL) (MAILED) From: Father Mateo To: James White Subject: KHARITOO Revisited (cont.) Dear James, The perfect participle KEKHARITOMENE, used in Luke 1:28 of our Blessed Mother, means "graced" or "endowed with grace" as the result of an action of God brought to completeness with an enduring result. I paraphrased this meaning with the words "utterly, perfectly, totally favored or graced". You object to my paraphrase with the statement that the reference sources do not make such exaggerated claims for the simple use of the perfect tense. Zerwick in "Biblical Greek" says: "When the Jews say (Jo. 9:29): 'We know that God spoke (perfect tense) to Moses, but we know not whence this man is,' the perfect is used instead of the aorist because the sense is . . . not that of the simple historical fact 'God spoke to Moses' but that of the RESULTANT DIGNITY of Moses as commissioned by God. . . It must be noted that the same perfect has (for the Jews) a further meaning, namely that what God said to Moses was said ONCE FOR ALL and IMMUTABLY: 'God has spoken. . . . What Christ's resurrection was for Paul, namely the beginning, once and for all, of the new age, which is ours, is well illustrated by his use of a perfect along with three aorists in 1 Cor. 15:3: 'Christ died (aorist, one past act) for our sins . . . and was buried (aorist) and is risen (perfect, action completed with enduring result) . . . and he appeared (aorist) to Cephas. . . .'" (The emphases are mine.) Here are some more examples of New Testament usage of the perfect: Ephesians 1:16: " . . . for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the BELOVED (perfect)" - Christ is perfectly, endlessly loved by his Father. John 19:30: "IT IS FINISHED (perfect)" - no comment necessary, I think. 1 Cor. 15:4: "HE ROSE (perfect) on the third day" - Christ never again will die. Col. 1:16: "All things HAVE BEEN CREATED (perfect) through him and for him" - and they are still in every fiber of themselves living, moving and being in him and for him. Luke 1:42: "BLESSED (perfect) is the fruit of your womb" - Christ is utterly, perfectly, endlessly blessed by God. The same perfect participle is used in this verse of Mary, but in the feminine gender. In all of these examples, we see the perfect tense in its meaning of completed action with enduring result. The observation that there are no verbs in Luke 1:28 is erroneous. The word commonly translated "hail" is a verb in the present tense. There could be the Greek equivalent of "is" ("the Lord is with you"), but Luke omits it. This omission of "is" is very common in Greek. Because of constraints of time and space on this board, James, you must do your reference research yourself for my next assertion: KEKHARITOMENE in Luke 1:28 is a vocative substantive, and as such it receives no temporal aspect from the main verb of the sentence. Its force is pure perfect: completed action with enduring result. Perhaps you might begin with Smyth's "Greek Grammar" and Goodwin's "Greek Moods and Tenses". More in the next message. Sincerely in Christ, Father Mateo ##MMR 2.38(beta). Msg Base: AREA 5 - ASK FATHER CIN ECHO AMDG Msg No: 261. Mon 3-09-92 22:37 (NO KILL) (MAILED) From: Father Mateo To: James White Subject: KHARITOO Revisited (concl.) Dear James, In Benny Diaz's message #417 of 2-4-92, he quoted these words from an earlier message of mine: "Luke 1:28 by itself does not 'prove' the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. It shows only that the doctrine is in accord with Scripture: if Mary is truly KEKHARITOMENE, then God so filled her with his grace that never in her whole existence did he leave any room in her for the slightest sin (any sin is the ultimate 'ungrace')." We do not "leap from the lexical sources to the traditional teaching". We use every help at hand - archeology, linguistics, grammar, you name it - to improve our understanding of Scripture and Divine Tradition. You rightly say, KHARITOO does not mean "sinless", nor did I say that it does. But the perfect participle of that verb means "perfectly endowed with grace". This meaning is in harmony with our doctrine of Mary's perfect sinlessness. You know that St. Jerome translated KEKHARITOMENE into Latin as "gratia plena", "full of grace". He was forced to use this circumlocution because Latin lacks a verb exactly equivalent to KHARITOO. "Full of grace" is a happy phrase, as close as Latin can get to the meaning of the original. We believe that God so filled Mary with his grace that she in fact never sinned nor did sin in any way come near to her. Catholics are not alone in their appreciation of her fulness of grace. Max Thurian, now a Catholic, was still a Calvinist when he wrote: "From her very conception and birth Mary was predestined to receive this vocation as Mother of Messiah, and to be the Daughter of Zion, 'full-of grace.' She was prepared myster- iously for this event of the Annunciation, and that is in- dicated by the title which the angel gives her 'Hail thou, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!' Everything here gives glory to the pure grace and complete liberty of God who chose whom He wished according to the 'good pleasure of his will for the praise and glory of his grace.' This conception of Mary's predestination, according to the free grace of God, and her long preparation for her vocation is one of the constant factors of tradition, and we do not see in what way this can be said to contradict the Gospel. . . . Thus the title of 'full-of-grace' distinguishes Mary as the object of God's predestined plan so far as her messianic motherhood is concerned. It is in a peculiar sense 'in the Beloved,' in Christ and in communion with the Son of God her Saviour and her Son, as well as in anticipation of her unique vocation and task, that Mary is thus predestined to be the one 'full-of-grace.' and is prepared by God for this unique event of the miraculous birth of the Lord amongst men." In his Personal Prayer Book (A.D. 1522), Martin Luther wrote: "She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin. . . God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil . . . all she did or left undone is divine and the action of God in her." Thurian writes: "In regard to the Marian doctrine of the Reformers, we have already seen how unanimous they are in all that concerns Mary's holiness and perpetual virginity. Whatever the theological position which we may hold to-day, in regard to the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary it is right to know, perhaps to our great surprise, that these two Catholic dogmas were accept- ed by certain Reformers, not of course in their present form but certainly in the form that was current in their day." You note that we appeal to Tradition in proof of certain doctrines. We consider oral tradition and Sacred Scripture as twin sources of revelation. Together they comprise God's Word, of which John 17:17 says that God's word is true. The two sources are mentioned together in 2nd Thes., 2:15. When we say with St. Paul that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth, we mean that she cannot err, she cannot teach "manmade doctrines". Forgive me, James, but other work makes it necessary for me to finish here, and to hope that you will have other questions. It helps everyone if there is only one question in each message, and if everyone remembers that this conference is for asking and giving INFORMATION about Catholic doctrine. It is not for protracted debate. My sysop is not slow to remind me of this. Sincerely in Christ, Father Mateo ##MMR 2.38(beta).