Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 06/01/25 Pillar and Foundation: Canon of Scripture

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

Homily from the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. Jesus didn't give us the Bible. He gave us the Church. And the Church gave us the Bible. All Christians believe in the 27 books of the New Testament. We all believe these books are the inspired Word of God based on the authority of the Church to recognize this truth and teach it. The same Church has the authority to declare the 46 books of the Old Testament as well. June 1, 2025: Acts 7:55-60 Psalm 97:1-2, 6-7, 9Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20 John 17:20-26

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. Chapter 24, verses 46 through 53. Jesus said to his disciples, Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things. Behold, I am sending the promise of my father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed, with power from on high. Then he led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands and blessed them. As he blessed them, he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they were continually in the temple praising God. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. So you could have a seat. So last week we started a kind of a summer

I was thinking about this too. It's not just a summer series. It's kind of like a more of a teaching series in some ways because it's trying to answer this question, trying to resolve this tension that we have. And the tension I mentioned last week was that sometimes people will say things like they'll say, well, where is that in the Bible? Or is that just the church teaching? Or like, you know, does the Bible teach that or is that just the church? Or is that just the church? And there's this kind of this false dichotomy that is like, well, if it's in the Bible, then it's real. But if it's just the church, and it's simply just, the church is optional. And that's the big question is, is the church optional?

Is the church that Jesus founded merely optional for us? Or do we need both? Do we need both the Bible and the church? Do we need both scripture and tradition? We talked about this last week, but one of the rallying cries of the Protestant Reformation was Scripture alone. And then we talked about this, how nowhere in Scripture does it. I mean, if this is a fundamental principle,

for the Reformation, a fundamental principle for people saying, like, no, I'm leaving the Catholic Church. Where is that found in the Bible? And we realize that nowhere in the Bible is Scripture alone found in the Bible. In fact, in Second Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 15, what we have is we have St. Paul saying, hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by writing. So that recognition is scripture events, scripture itself teaches that we hold on to traditions, both written down, scripture, and word of mouth, oral traditions. So we have to ask the question, okay, what are some of the traditions that every, what are some of those traditions of the church that every Christian accepts?

And I would say this, here's one of the traditions of the church. I always like to ask this question because I think it's fascinating question. Like, here's the Bible, Word of God. Yeah, and I would say this, I would say, I believe the Bible is the Word of God, the infallible Word of God absolutely, completely. So good. It's indispensable, right? We know that.

but where do you get this page? This is the table of contents. Where do we get, I mean, I believe that all 73 of these books are inspired by the Holy Spirit. But where do we get this page that says these 73 books and no others? Well, the answer is we get that from the traditions of the church. We actually get that table of contents from the church. And I just, I think it's worth pausing on this. We're worth pausing on the, reflecting on the reality that

Christianity existed for hundreds of years before this official list of books was compiled. I mean, obviously, all of the books, the Old Testament, they already existed. The books of the New Testament, they already existed. But they were not compiled. Which books was still debated even after the time of Jesus. In fact, I think this is really interesting. I think that we have the documents of the New Testament. They were written.

But even what, I don't know if you know why we call this the New Testament, these 27 books in the New Testament, what I call it the New Testament. I used to think that the word Testament just meant like testify. So this is the Old Testament is the old testimony, right? Testimony to God. And the New Testament is the new testimony to God. That's not the case. I was completely wrong. We have used the word testament because it's the same as the Greek word covenant.

And the reason why they called the New Testament, the New Testament is because at the Mass, which was called the New Covenant, right? Because at Mass at the altar, the priest says, what? He says, this is the blood of the new and eternal covenant. So they called the Mass the New Covenant. The books they read, the documents they read at the Mass were called. Oh, those are the readings of the New Covenant, aka that's the New Testament, which is remarkable. I remember Scott Hahn said this once. He said, you have to realize the New Testament was a sacrament before it was a document. And so we had the New Testament, the Mass, long before. we had these books of the Bible compiled.

Now, again, the books of the Old Testament, they already existed. The books of the New Testament, yes, they're written by the apostles or by people really, really closely connected to the apostles. But the canon, right, C-A-N-O-N, like the list of books, that was still greatly debated. So you have to ask the question.

For those first centuries of Christianity, those first 300-plus years where they didn't have the Bible, all these 73 books, they had, again, the documents, existed, but they didn't have all 73 books compiled. Question, were they Christians? And the answer is yes.

So what did they do? They just do whatever they wanted? And the answer is no. What did they listen to? Of course, they listen to those documents during the sacrament, but they listened to the church. And this is so important for us. I mean, there's such a desire in the hearts of so many Christians, like, let's go back to the early church. And that's not bad. It's pretty wonderful.

But in the early church, what did they have? What in the early church they had, the church? And it wasn't until actually, I think it was 376, possibly, or 382, the Council of Rome, where the church said, okay, in 382 it said, okay, these are the 73 books, these books, and no others. Think of that. In the year 382 was when the church said officially declared these 73, books are divinely inspired. Now, it's not the authority of the church that just picked books and said, by our authority, we declare that they're inspired. No, the church recognized that God

had divinely inspired all 73 of these books. Now, there were other debated books that were not included in the scriptures. There were other books that the people wanted in that weren't included. There's some that were debated and they did include them. But in 382, Council of Rome, I was ratified again in 393 in Council of Hippo. In 397, the council of of Carthage, that was it. That was it. And so you have these 73 books that are essentially after that point, essentially undisputed, all 73 books. Now, why am I bringing this up? Well, I'm bringing this up because if you're not Catholic, you might be listening to this saying, wait, you keep saying 73. But I know my Bible one has 66 books. There's only 66 books that are

in the Bible. And I'd say, yeah, it's really interesting. The story behind that whole thing is, well, in like 15, 17, 15, 17, 15, 20. somewhere in there, Martin Luther is doing his thing. And, you know, I think it's fascinating that from 1517 to 1520, Martin Luther was quoting those seven books, we call them the Deuteroconical books, those seven books that Martin Luther took out of the Bible, or he moved them in the Bible.

He was still quoting them as scripture. It wasn't until the year 1520 that Martin Luther was in a debate with a German theologian, a priest named Johann Eck, where they're debating on the efficacy of the mass, that Johann Eck was saying, no, the mass does something, Mass, actually, it's not just a memorial.

It actually is a sacrifice we're offering to the Father, and it gives us grace. It's incredible. And Martin Luther says, no, I don't believe that it does anything. He says, well, are you kidding me, Johanek? I'm paraphrasing. Also, they were speaking German, and I don't know this. But he said, but we offer mass for those who are dead. And Martin Luther says, I don't believe in offering mass for those who are dead.

He said, what about purgatory? And Martin Luther says, I don't believe in purgatory. And Johanek says, what about Second Maccabees Chapter 12, where it says it's a good and holy thing to pray for the dead? And in that moment, Martin Luther removed, or at least merely moved those seven books from the Bible. And it's interesting because why? Because it didn't fit with his theology.

And he appealed to this. He appealed to the Jewish canon, the Jewish list of scriptures that wasn't developed until a couple hundred years after Jesus, well, 200 to 200 years after the time of Jesus. And he appealed to the Jewish canon. that doesn't have those seven books has considered divinely inspired. But here's an interesting thing. At the time of Jesus, there wasn't actually an established Jewish canon. At the time of Jesus, there were different groups that believe that different books, yeah,

should be in the Bible, some shouldn't be. I mean, you even know the story of the Sadducees, right? The Sadducees, they only believe the first five books of Moses should be in the Bible. They didn't take the others as divinely inspired. The Aesine, the people who lived in the Dead Sea area, they believed that they had a whole bunch of books that they might have considered divinely inspired. what books were divinely inspired at the time of Jesus was still a debated topic. And actually, the Jewish rabbis did not settle upon and established canon until 100, 200 years after the time of Christ.

And that's the list to which Martin Luther appealed. But you think about this, that canon was established by who? It was established by Jews who had rejected Jesus as the Messiah. So they don't have no authority. It wasn't until the Catholic Church, in the year 382 in the Council of Rome, and then again, 397, Council of Carthage. And then later on, because Martin Luther had taken those seven books out,

in the Council of Trent, had said, no, these are the 73 books. And this is one of the saddest things. One of the saddest things is, when I've done, when I did the Bible in the year, we had a bunch of people who are not Catholic. Maybe you're part of that group. That they lived their whole lives, not realizing

that God had given them seven extra books that one guy in Germany years ago took out that actually to realize that all 73 books are part of your inheritance. but God has wanted you to have your entire life are all 73 books. You might say, well, yeah, but I don't know if those are real, how do I know that they're official?

How do I know that I can trust them? I would say this. I would say that the same church that said these 27 New Testament books and no others also said these 46 Old Testament books and no others. And the reality of that every Christian

accepts the 27 New Testament books based on the authority of what? Based on the authority of the Catholic Church. In fact, you realize there's no other real reason to believe in the Bible.

It's not like the book of Mormon. Sometimes Mormons will say this. Mormons will say, I'm not making fun, I'm just saying this what they say. The Mormons will say, hey, read the book of Mormon and you'll just know

that it's God's word. Listen, you can pick up some of these books and like, I don't know. In fact, St. Augustine once said this. He said, I would not believe in the authority of the Gospels

were it not for the Catholic Church. I would not believe in the authority of the Gospels except that the Catholic Church had told me I could. Why? Because Jesus founded the church. He established the church and he promised what? He promised that he would send his Holy Spirit. Here we are on Ascension Sunday. He promised he would send his Holy Spirit

to guide you into all truth. And we realize we only trust the church. because Jesus promised to send His Holy Spirit to the church to guide her into all truth. To guide her into all truth. This is the last thing. The truth. And we kind of started this today by noting that the Bible itself

doesn't teach Bible alone, although we still need the Bible. What does the Bible, though? What does the Bible teach is the pillar and foundation of truth? I think that's an important thing. To ask this question, that we need truth and Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth.

So what does the Bible teach is the pillar and foundation of truth? Well, in 1st Timothy chapter 3, verse 15, St. Paul is writing to Timothy and he says this, he says, I'm writing you about these matters, although I hope to see visit you soon. He says, but if I should be delayed,

you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of God. truth. We have to realize that the church is not optional. The church is essential. It's not Bible alone. It is scripture and tradition. It is the Bible and the church because the Bible itself teaches us that the church is the pillar and foundation of truth. And if you and I want to walk in the truth, if we want to walk in the way, if we want to walk in the life of Jesus Christ, then we are honored, we are privileged to not only have the Bible, but to also have the church,

which is the pillar and foundation of truth.