Bible word of the day: Ignoramus

Other than my work with the Knights of Columbus, the ministry of my parish St. Patrick in Morristown that I am blessed most involved in is to be a part of the RCIA team. (For those of you reading who aren't Catholic, that's the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults-the program for people who aren't Catholic but are showing an interest in the Catholic faith and they come to the Church inquiring about the teachings of our faith-those who feel called by the Holy Spirit to do so may be baptized, or of they are already baptized properly-in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-may be received into full communion with the Catholic Church, usually at Easter). RCIA is a special ministry to me because I went through the process myself, and so did Nicole, so we love to help others who are on that journey themselves.

At St. Pat's, we begin RCIA very informally, giving several weeks for inquirers to ask almost any question you could possibly imagine about the Catholic faith. People are coming to the Church from all kinds of backgrounds and every conceivable walk of life, so we get all kinds of questions-and they aren't always what you might expect. However, we have begun to move out of the phase of general inquiry, and into a phase of more grounded teaching and explanation of the dogmas and doctrines of the Faith. This week's discussion was about Catholic teaching in regards to faith and works.

Deacon Jim Fage, who is also the Youth Director for the Five Rivers' Deanery, is the leader of our RCIA team. There are several of us on the team from the parish, and a few who've been ministering through RCIA a lot longer than Nicole or myself. At some point, members of the team often get a chance to lead the teaching on a particular topic on a given night (I wasn't able to give my class on the Eucharist last year because-wouldn't you know it-I took terribly ill with a stomach virus the night I was supposed to teach-bummer!). However, yesterday was Deacon Jim's time at the helm, teaching on a topic that is among those which are central to the doctrinal differences between Catholics and most Protestant churches-and in this part of the country most inquirers come from some kind of Protestant background, sometimes a fundamentalist one. As a result, faith and works is a critical topic that is addressed early on when discussing core teachings of the Catholic Church. While I enjoyed Deacon Jim's teaching last night, what stuck with me the most was the scripture he read at the outset-specifically one word of the scripture reading.

I should preface this scripture citation by pointing out that there is a reason that I hadn't heard this before last night. The New American Bible has become the preferred text in many Catholic dioceses, and it is the text the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops recommends for catechesis and uses on the website for the bishops' conference. In our home, however, we have seven Bible translations, of which the New American is but one. My preference for personal study has been the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) for many years. (In fact, my Brother Aspirants should know that those shiny new Ignatius RSV Bibles we recently received...mine doesn't look quite as new anymore...some of the pages are already frayed from my fingers and thumbs turning them and devouring the excellent footnotes Ignatius Press is known for-this is the first time I've ever owned an RSV from Ignatius). As a result of my personal taste for the RSV, deaconate formation has also forced me to become reacquanted with with the New American Bible since we use it for readings during class.

For our opening scripture reading for yesterday's class, Deacon Jim read from the NAB, and the reading was James 2:14-24:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Indeed someone might say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.

You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble. Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called “the friend of God.” See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

I had to ask Deacon Jim if that came from the New American Bible-which he confirmed that it did. I compared it to other translations, none of which used nearly that strong a word. It left me wondering if previous translators had "dumbed down" this passage in order to avoid calling people an ignoramus (or something of the like) in the pages of the Bible.

Then Nicole and I got a huge laugh out of the picture of St. James dictating to some scribe a sentence which essentially called people who believe that faith is independent of works rather stupid. In fact, the more we thought about it, the bigger a laugh we got. The whole idea became a running joke the rest of the evening-in the best possible sense.

Ignoramus-it is a perfectly good Bible word!

Well, we know what James thought about Sola fide, don't we? Obviously, he wasn't terribly big on that theological idea. I doubt St. James and Martin Luther would have gotten on terribly well.