Hebrews 13: 7-17
Brethren: Remember your prelates who have spoken the word of God to you; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation, Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same for ever. Be not led away with various and strange doctrines. For it is best that the heart be established with grace, not with meats; which have not profited those that walk in them. We have an altar, whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the Holies by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people by His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come. By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise always to God, that is to say, the fruit of lips confessing to His Name. And do not forget to do good, and to impart; for by such sacrifices God’s favour is obtained. Obey your prelates, and be subject to them. For they watch as being to render an account of your souls.
Haydock
Verse 7. Remember your prelates, &c. who have been placed over you to be your guides and directors in what belongs to the service of God; he seems to mean the two SS. James, the apostles, who perhaps had already suffered martyrdom for the gospel. Wi.
Verse 8. Yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever. That is, Christ is the same merciful and powerful advocate and protector, in regard of all that serve him faithfully to the end of the world. Wi.
Verse 9. With various and strange doctrines. Such as the disciples of Simon Magus had begun to teach; nor with the false doctrine of those among you, who would make you subject to the ceremonies and sacrifices of the former law, which never of themselves profit those who walk in them, so as to give true sanctification, and which now are no longer obligatory. Wi. — The grace of Jesus Christ is the true support of our hearts, and this grace is conveyed to us by means of the sacraments, especially the holy Eucharist. Hence S. Ignatius addresses the Ephesians as follows: “Brethren, stand fast in the faith of Jesus Christ; in his passion and resurrection; breaking that one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death, and the means of living in God by Christ Jesus; the medicament that expels all evil.”
Verse 10. We, Christians, have at present an altar, and consequently a sacrifice, whereof they have no power to eat, who serve the tabernacle, confiding in the law and in Moses, not in Christ and the gospel. He does not say, we had an altar. Wi. — S. Paul has often mentioned the high priest and victim; here he tells us we have an altar, and of course a sacrifice. Let us then go out of ourselves to offer to God by, with, and in Jesus Christ, this his beloved Son, in the holy Eucharist, for this is a victim of praise worthy of God, and let us not forget to offer ourselves to our eternal Father daily, in union with our great high priest and victim, Jesus Christ; 1st, on the cross; 2dly, in the Eucharist; and 3dly, in heaven, the immaculate Lamb slain as it were from the beginning before the throne of God.
Verse 11. This is commonly interpreted of the sacrifice of the Eucharist, by which is continued (though in a different manner) Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, of which he speaks in the following words, telling them that the bodies of those beasts, with the blood of which the sanctuary was sprinkled on the feast of expiation, (see Levit. xvi. 29. and xxiii. 27. and Numb. xxix. 8.) were burnt without the camp, not eaten as the other victims. Wherefore Jesus, when he fulfilled this figure, and offered himself on the cross, a sacrifice of expiation for the sins of all mankind, and to obtain for them true sanctification, was pleased to suffer out of the gate of Jerusalem. Wi.
Verse 13. Let us go forth, therefore, to him without the camp. It is an exhortation to them to be willing to suffer with Christ reproaches, persecutions, and death itself, if they desire to partake of the benefit of Christ’s redemption. Wi. — Bearing his reproach. That is, bearing his cross. It is an exhortation to them to be willing to suffer, with Christ, reproaches, persecutions, and even death, if they desire to partake of the benefit of his suffering for man’s redemption. Ch.
Verse 14-15. We have not a permanent city in this world, but are like pilgrims or banished men, seeking for our happy country of heaven; but in the mean time must offer to God a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, which is done chiefly in the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist, also by confessing his name, and praying to him with our lips and hearts; and by a kind of sacrifice of charity, by doing good to every one, and of communication to others; lit. of communion, or union with our neighbours. Wi. — When we read in the psalms, and in the old Scripture, of a sacrifice of praise, we may look upon it as a prophecy of the Christian Eucharist or sacrifice of praise, of which S. Austin says: “What is a more holy sacrifice of praise, than that which consisteth in thanksgiving, which the faithful offer now in the sacrifice of the Church.” l. 1. cont. Advers. leg. and proph. c. xviii. And again c. xx. “The Church from the time of the apostles, by an uninterrupted succession of prelates, offers to God in the body of Christ the sacrifice of praise.”
Verse 16. For by such sacrifices God’s favour is obtained, and a recompense or a reward from him. Wi. — The Protestant version, God is well pleased: If God be well pleased and shew favour for them, then are they meritorious, and faith alone is not the sole cause of God’s favour to man.
Verse 17-18. Obey your prelates, &c. Join the sacrifice of obedience to your bishops and pastors, whom God has placed over you, who must render an account even of your souls, i.e. whether they have discharged their duty towards you, and whether it be not by their neglect that you have remained in your sins. Follow their commands and instructions, with such a ready willingness, that you do not contristate them, but that you may be a subject of comfort and joy to them, in their heavy and dangerous employments. — Fail not to pray for me, who am such a minister of God. Wi.
Denzinger
1972: Americanism
LEO XIII 1878-1903 From the Letter "Testem benevolentiae," to Cardinal Gibbons, January 22, 1899
With this opinion about the natural virtues another is closely connected, according to which all Christian virtues are divided into two kinds, as it were, passive as they say, and active; and they add that the former were better suited for times past, that the latter are more in keeping with the present.… Moreover, he who would wish that the Christian virtues be accommodated some to one time and some to another, has not retained the words of the Apostle: “Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be made conformable to the image of His Son” [Rom. 8: 29]. The master and exemplar of all sanctity is Christ, to whose rule all, as many as wish to be admitted to the seats of the blessed, must conform. Surely, Christ by no means changes as the ages go on, but is “yesterday, and today; and the same forever” [Heb. 13:8]. Therefore, to the men of all ages does the following apply: “Learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart” [Matt. 11:23]; and at all times Christ shows himself to us “becoming obedient unto death” [Phil. 2:8]; and in every age the judgment of the Apostle holds: “And they that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences” [Gal. 5:24].
442: The Necessity of Preserving Theological Terminology and Tradition
GREGORY IX 1227-1241 From the letter "Ab Aegyptiis" to the theologians of Paris, July 7, 1228
“Touched inwardly with sorrow of heart” [Gen. 6:6], “we are filled with the bitterness of wormwood” [cf. Lam. 3:15], because as it has been brought to our attention, certain ones among you, distended like a skin by the spirit of vanity, are working with profane novelty to pass beyond the boundaries which thy fathers have set [cf. Prov. 22:28], the understanding of the heavenly page limited by the fixed boundaries of expositions in the studies of the Holy Fathers by inclining toward the philosophical doctrine of natural things, which it is not only rash but even profane to transgress; (they are doing this) for a show of knowledge, not for any profit to their hearers; so that they seem to be not taught of God or speakers of God, but rather revealed as God. For, although they ought to explain theology according to the approved traditions of the saints and not with carnal weapons, “yet with (weapons) powerful for God to destroy every height exalting itself against the knowledge of God and to lead back into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ” [cf. 2 Cor. 10:4 f.], they themselves “led away by various and strange doctrines” [cf.Heb. 13:9] reduce the “head to the tail” [cf. Deut. 28:13, 44] and they force the queen to be servant to the handmaid, that is, by earthly documents attributing the heavenly, which is of grace, to nature. Indeed relying on the knowledge of natural things more than they ought, returning “to the weak and needy elements” of the world, which they served while they were “little” and “serving them again” [Gal. 4:9] as foolish in Christ they feed on “milk and not solid food” [Heb. 5:12 f.], and they seem by no means to have established “the heart in grace” [cf. Heb. 13:9]; and so despoiled of their rewards “plundered and wounded by their natural possessions * they do not reduce to memory that (saying) of the Apostle which we believe they have already frequently read: “Avoiding the profane novelties of words, and the oppositions of knowledge falsely so called, which some seeking have erred concerning the faith” [cf.1 Tim. 6:20 f.]. “O foolish and slow of heart in all things” which the protectors of divine grace, namely “the prophets” the evangelists and the apostles “have spoken” [cf.Luke 24:25], since nature in itself cannot (work) anything for salvation unless it is helped by grace [see n. 105, 138]. Let presumers of this kind speak, who embracing the doctrine of natural things offer the leaves and not the fruit of words to their hearers, whose minds as if fed with husks remain empty and vacant; and their soul cannot be “delighted in fatness” [Is. 55:2], because thirsty and dry it cannot drink “from the waters of Siloe running with silence” [cf.Is. 8:6] but rather from those which are drawn from the philosophical torrents, of which it is said: “The more they are drunk, the more the waters are thirsted for, because they do not bring satiety, but rather anxiety and labor. And while by extorted, nay rather distorted, expositions they turn the sacred words divinely inspired to the sense of the doctrine of philosophers who are ignorant of God, “do they not place the ark of the covenant by Dagon” [1 Samuel 5:2], and set up the image of Antiochus to be adored in the temple of the Lord? And while they try to add to faith by natural reason more than they ought, do they not render it in a certain way useless and empty since “faith does not have merit for one to whom human reason furnishes proof?” * Finally, nature believes what is understood, but faith by its freely given power comprehends what is believed by the intelligence, and bold and daring it penetrates where natural intellect is not able to reach. Will such followers of the things of nature, in whose eyes grace seems to be proscribed, say that “the Word which was in the beginning with God, was made flesh, and dwelt in us” [John 1] is of grace or of nature? As for the rest, God forbid that a “most beautiful woman” [Song. 5:9], with “eyes painted with stiblic” [2 Kings 9:30] by presumers, be adorned with false colors, and that she who “girded with clothes” [Ps. 44:10] and “adorned with jewels” [Is. 61:10 ] proceeds splendid as a queen, be clothed with stitched semi-girdles of philosophers, sordid apparel. God forbid that “cows ill favored” and consumed with leanness, which “give no mark of being full would devour the beautiful” [Gen. 41:18 ff.] and consume the fat.