A fascinating question... Yes, there is nothing more opposed to faith than subjectivity. If I'm the one "deciding" what's true about the world and the universe and God, then that's not faith at all. If religion isn't true and if our faith isn't based exclusively on some unimpeachable Truth that comes from outside ourselves, then maybe it can make us feel good, but it's not what we seek.

So our faith is really about being taught. We are obedient to what we hear about things that we can't see for ourselves.

Hence the challenge, because none of us are particularly good at being taught or at obeying. All of us struggle with some aspect of the faith, and none of us can ever hope to understand -- in this life and with these brains -- mysteries like the Holy Trinity or the hypostatic union.

So the solution lies in putting our trust in God as teacher... submitting our little brains to infinite intellect and acknowledging that we can be (and are very regularly) wrong about the most trivial things, and that getting the Big Things right is mostly completely beyond us.

But how did God speak to us? At the risk of major oversimplification, it's the big divide between Catholics and Protestants. Can he speak through his Church, or does he just speak through Scripture and personal inspiration? Because if he speaks through his Church, the obedience that we are called to give to truth is due to what the Church teaches.

Things get complicated there, of course. The Church very wisely doesn't (and can't) ask for the same type of obedience about applications of doctrine to momentary political circumstances as it does about the elements of the Creed. But at all times, we will find more perfection in obedience than in figuring things out for ourselves.

Translations of the Bible aren't ever presented as definitive by the Church, so don't worry too much about that. You won't find an "official Catholic Bible," though of course there are standard Bible translations we use at Mass simply for the sake of uniformity. Those translations can be and have been changed on occasion, and the US (and a couple other countries) uses the second-last edition of the NAB whereas the UK (and many more countries) use the Jerusalem Bible. For example.

Regarding Mary, have you done lots of reading on it? It's a complicated issue, but the Catholic Church will never force you to treat Mary in a particular way; there are lots of styles of devotions that have grown up over the centuries, and the reverence Mary was given in the ancient Church is a different style from what she receives nowadays... but at all times her own prophecy is being fulfilled: "All generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1:48).

So the key is trusting obedience, which of course is harder than it sounds, for each and every one of us. God bless you!!!

- Father Shane

Good question!

In the liturgy, we only say "And with your spirit" to an ordained minister (bishop, priest, or deacon). "And also with you," though, is something that can be said to anybody. That's one of the reasons why the Latin "et cum spiritu tuo" was rendered more literally in the new translation.

In the liturgy, we only respond to the presiding minister with these words when we're about to receive a grace. Check it out the next time you're at Mass... what comes shortly after each one of the "And with your spirits"?

So given that context, it really isn't a phrase we would toss around too freely. We have plenty of other phrases for that. :-) Make sense?

God bless you!

- Father Shane

Good question! Ready for a surprising answer? There were a bunch of different translations into Syriac as early as the 2nd century. It's neat to read the history... they were far more exacting about their translations than historians sometimes give them credit for.

God bless you!

- Father Shane

P.S. Hey everybody, I have 48 unanswered questions right now, so please be patient about getting responses!