Msg Base:  AREA 3  - ASK FATHER (AMDG)
  Msg No: 14.  Wed  7-29-92 22:11  (NO KILL)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Dan Pacheco
 Subject: Old Testament

DP|Here's another one that's bothered me for a while, Father.
  |        In the Old Testament wars are frequently recorded that were waged by
  |the Israelites.  The conquest of the Holy Land under Moses comes to mind
  |most readily.  I always find myself feeling sorry for those poor pagans
  |who seem to have been mercilessly slaughtered, and yet God commanded that
  |no man, woman, child, or beast be let live lest they be a thorn in
  |Israel's side.  If the Church were to suddenly declare today that all
  |Bhuddists should be killed because they don't believe in the God of
  |Abraham, I would be very disturbed, but that seems to be what God was
  |saying to the Israelites.  I believe in "Just Wars" as the Church teaches
  |us.  However, I'm not so sure those Biblical wars were just.  Are they?
  |        P.S.  Thanks for all you well-thought-out responses!  God Bless!
  |        -Dan
 
 
Dear Dan,
 
Your question about the early Israelites' slaughter of their pagan
neighbors is not an easy one, and this answer will not easily
satisfy many readers.
 
Old Testament revelation of God's plan of salvation was a progressive
revelation.  The early Isrealites did not have the fullness of
revelation--either in doctrine or in morality--that we have in
Jesus Christ.  Neither did they have the infallible teaching of the
Church, which is the "pillar and mainstay of the Truth" (1st Tim
3:15), nor the principal means of grace, which we have in the death
and resurrection of Christ, ministered to us in the seven sacraments.
At that time also, most of our Bible had not been written.  They lived
as they could, with the light that they had.  And so, in fact, do we.
 
The Israelites invading and settling Canaan were at a very primitive
stage of morality.  Their religious faith was also at an early stage
of development.  They were convinced God had bestowed on His chosen
people the ancestral possessions of Abraham.  They were monotheists
threatened by a surround of the polytheism from which they had only
recently been delivered.  In those days, the neighbor was the enemy.
To maintain their identity and their integrity as a people, a very
small people, they made war on their enemies.  If we ask, "Did God
tell them to wipe out their enemies, or didn't He?" the only answer
we have at this remove is, "They believed that He did."
 
Two analogies occur to me here, which may suggest that God deals
with us as He finds us, always gently nudging us along the path of
fuller understanding.  There are visions reported of our blessed
Mother in tears, weeping over our sins, warning us to repent.  Now we
know, because of the infallibly defined dogma of the Assumption, that
Mary is in glory, body and soul, enjoying perfect bliss.  So there is
no way she can really grieve for any reason whatever.  But she has a
mother's concern for us, and she wants us to be saved.  She prays for
us and wants to repent.  So the visions are God's teaching devices to
underline the real gravity of sin and the terrible danger in which an
unrepentant sinner lives.  They are not about Mary's emotions.
 
In the Old Testament, God calls David "a man after My own heart".
Well, David was an adulterer and a murderer.  He was also a man capable
of the deepest repentance and conversion.  Nowadays, we would not
propose him for canonization as a saint.  But in those times and by their
lights, he was (at least at times) a paragon of virtue and a hero-saint.
 
These analogies may not help and my answer may not help.  But we may
reflect: in the year 20,000 A.D., what will people think of us, when
Vatican II will be considered an obscure meeting of early Christian
bishops?  Another and more helpful reflection might be: we cannot
understand "syllable one" of the Bible if we suppose that it was
written and published for the first time last year and in English.
Yet many people read the Bible in pretty much this way!
 
 
                                Sincerely in Christ,
 
 
                                        Father Mateo
 
 
 
.ORIGIN: 043/001 - THE ANGELUS,      -the Word became flesh             
                                and made his dwelling among us -    
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