Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 2:
Both, according to the sense intended in each case. St. John the Baptist was not Elias in person, and knowing that his questioners wanted to know whether he was Elias in person, he answered no. On the other hand, Jesus did not intend to say that John was Elias in person. Therefore He said: "If you will receive it, he is Elias that is to come." Matt. XI, 14. In modern English He meant, "If you care to believe it, you may regard him as a sign of Elias whom God, according to the prophet Malachy, has promised to send before the day of the Lord." For our Lord knew that, just as He will come at the end of the world to judge mankind, being then preceded by Elias in person, so now He was ushering in the end of the Jewish dispensation, being preceded by John the Baptist. St. John the Baptist was, therefore, a sign that the end was coming for the Jews as God's chosen people just as Elias will be a sign that the end is coming for the human race. There is, therefore, no contradiction between the two statements. John denied that he was Elias in person. Christ asserted that the future mission of Elias was exemplified before their eyes by the present mission of St. John the Baptist.
It is quite certain that no human being, whilst still subject to the conditions of this earthly life, has ever seen God immediately and as He is in His own proper nature. The reference in Exodus is a purely metaphorical way of saying that God communicated knowledge to Moses without any other intermediary. Moses did not have any vision of God as God really is in Himself; and the attributing of a voice to God is but a human way of describing the impressions caused by God and experienced by Moses.
St. Matthew does not say that. He says that "they brought the ass and the colt, and laid their garments upon them, and made Him sit thereon." Matt. XXI, 7. St. Matthew means simply that Jesus sat on the garments which they had placed on one of the animals, namely, the colt.
No.
Yes. Zachary, therefore, merely predicts that Jesus will enter Jerusalem seated on a colt, the foal of an ass, as a symbol of meekness and humility. He does not predict the presence of two animals. But you will notice that St. Matthew (XXI, 5) quotes Zachary, and then, in verse 7, deliberately changes the wording of his own text. If he introduces the mother of the colt, it is not because of the prophecy of Zachary who did not foresee her presence, but because as a matter of fact the mother was brought along with the colt. St. Matthew merely mentioned the mother as being present. And it is quite natural that she should have been brought along to ensure the docility of the colt. Nor did her presence in any way conflict with the prophecy that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem on a colt, the foal of an ass.
Rather than suspect yourself of being wrong, you would accuse St. Matthew of falling into error, and the authors of the other Gospels you would charge with a wariness which amounts to conscious fraud. But there are a few things to be noticed. The authors of the other Gospels would not have been wary if, knowing what St. Matthew had recorded, they deliberately contradicted him. After all, he was an Evangelist out for the good of the same religion as themselves. Were they thinking of being wary, they would have stood to him at all costs. Again, if the authors of the other Gospels were shrewd tricksters, warily bent on trimming their story to suit their purpose, they may as well have done it right through their accounts, eliminating every awkward, humiliating, and unattractive feature of their description of themselves and of Christ. But no. They were patently honest throughout. The charge of trickery is absurd. You will say that, if they were not stepping warily, they were mistaken, for they contradict one another and St. Matthew. But here it is you yourself who would be mistaken. They do not contradict one another. For whilst St. John speaks of a colt, as you say, St. Mark and St. Luke merely use an alternative Greek word for the same thing. Do they, then, contradict St. Matthew by mentioning one animal only where he mentions two? No. Omission is not denial. They give the essential fact that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt. St. Matthew states the same thing, giving the additional detail that the mother of the colt was brought along with it. There is no contradiction in that.