It is my humble opinion that The Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) is where some information not written in the Bible comes from by tradition and is passed on in the Catholic Church where Jesus Christ explains all the Old Testament references of Him to them, as well as the meaning of other references which are vague and confusing. But why did they not write it down, a letter possibly entitled: the Lords talk on the way to Emmaus? Because the two disciples were probably illiterate and they, over the course of their lives, passed on the information by word of mouth – Tradition.
The Ethiopian with Philip (Acts 8:26-40) is why you need an apostolic church, one that springs from Christ and his apostolic supernatural “descendants” (as priests of the Old Testament were descendants of Aaron) to give the correct explanations of the New and Old Testaments and there can really only be one visible apostolic church otherwise you don’t know who to ask. These things make us part of one coherent body. Since the Ethiopian was a eunuch, it shows that Christ eliminated the capability to reproduce (Deuteronomy 23:2) as a qualification for being a member of the mature religion of Catholicism, and enjoying the benefits of being a citizen of heaven, the Beatific Vision.
The born again quote by Christ means we are born again into the kingdom of God, not as white, black, Asian, Caucasian, Russian, Chinese, Korean, German, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Filipino, Mexican, Columbian, Canadian or American etc. (Galatians 3:28-29) but as Roman Catholics. The tower of Bable (Genesis 11:1-9), the separation of mankind is repaired in the universality (the Greek Katholico meaning universal) of the Roman Catholic Church (event in the Churches name the 2 great ancient civilizations are joined – Greek and Roman) and in the fact that for about 1600 years the common language of the Catholic Church was Latin, and should remain so, so that all priests can have a common language to be able to communicate in emergencies across cultures. This would give them the ability, as in WWII, to help endangered communities, like the Jews, get to safety. God is the king of all the earth and binds Himself to help all humans, even the ones that have not yet joined his Church. The longer a person lives, that is not in His church, the more time that person has to recognize his church and by joining be saved, and reap the benefits of eternal life in heaven with God, enjoying the Beatific Vision for eternity.
Originally, for Gods chosen people, because most of society was patriarchal, the mark of conversion to the “Jewish religion” was mostly marked by a permanent physical change, specifically circumcision, for that part of the male body that produced more people for the Jewish religion. For women marriage to a Jewish man made you part of the Jewish religion if you raised your children as Jewish and accepted Jewish law. With the advent of Jesus and the fulfilment of the Jewish religion in Catholicism, the physical sign was water being pored on the future Catholic while saying “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” both male and female (outwardly indicating both sexes equal as citizens of heaven), and the permanent change being made in the spiritual realm, on the soul of the individual, with the onus being on the individual to realize their need for God and praying and making the reasoned leap of will to follow Gods laws/commandments as clarified by the Messiah, Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament the permanent, visible mark of circumcision. In fact, Deuteronomy 23:2 states damage to a male’s genitals disqualified a person from entering the assembly of the Lord (found in a Microsoft copilot search on “Bible where does it indicate damage to your genitals disqulified”). I think the other reason for this restriction is that God wanted to multiply the Jewish race to the point that it would be a significant enough population (all of chapter 23 of the book of Deuteronomy show ways of keeping genetically healthy, and physically healthy as well as not forming alliances with cultures that offer child sacrifice, the practice of which would decrease the Jewish population – which, to be clear, God strongly disapproved of anyway, but culture is a strong influence) for the world to take notice and catalog its existence, culture and literature (the Old Testament of the Bible) so their would be adequate preparation for His Son, Jesus Christ, and a larger enough and significant enough platform (literary, philosophically and culturally to reflect the character and the desires of God with regard to mankind) to launch the religion of Catholicism to have the ability to save all of mankind.
God used signs that were predominately physical, like circumcision, I think to show visible commitment by fairly primitive people from the time of Abraham. Abraham had inner commitment to God, shown by his willingness to sacrifice his son Issac. The point of that particular exercise was God revealing the commitment, through Abrahams actions, required to God. Being God, He could see Abraham’s heart and commitment but needed it visible to those, in future generations, reading the bible to see the requirement of commitment needed from us. Being the example of the Ultimate Being, God, though he stopped Abraham, allowed His own son, Jesus Christ, to sacrifice himself to make reparations for original sin.
Jesus changed the initiation into the fulfilled Jewish religion of Catholicism to one whose main imprint was spiritual, but whose physical sign was temporary because mankind’s reasoning and philosophical sensitivity had evolved to the point that he or she could understand the leap from permanent physical mark to one of permanent spiritual mark/change from one with original sin to one sinless in the sight of God.
Upon the start of the Catholic Church, the fulfilled Jewish religion, The ability to reproduce became immaterial and so the injunction not to have damaged genitals was no longer an issue. The whole reason around being able to reproduce arose from the fact that God needed a special people to train as an example in the way He wished to be worshiped and to carry the prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ, the world’s Messiah, not just the Jews very own exclusive Messiah. Also to show what was required to be part of God’s people, to follow His commandments closely and not improvise and take literally what God says, not assume and improvise as Moses did in Numbers 20:8-11. God means exactly what He says
In John 6:26 – 73 (copied from https://www.drbo.org/chapter/50006.htm )From, immediately after the multiplication of the loaves Jesus Christ said this, started in the middle of the verses cited at the beginning of this sentence: Jesus answered them, and said: Amen, amen I say to you, you seek me, not because you have seen miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled. 27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you. For him hath God, the Father, sealed. 28 They said therefore unto him: What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? 29 Jesus answered, and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent. 30 They said therefore to him: What sign therefore dost thou shew, that we may see, and may believe thee? What dost thou work?
31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat. 32 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world. 34 They said therefore unto him: Lord, give us always this bread. 35 And Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.
36 But I said unto you, that you also have seen me, and you believe not. 37 All that the Father giveth to me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will not cast out. 38 Because I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. 39 Now this is the will of the Father who sent me: that of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again in the last day. 40 And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that every one who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day.
41 The Jews therefore murmured at him, because he had said: I am the living bread which came down from heaven. 42 And they said: Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then saith he, I came down from heaven? 43 Jesus therefore answered, and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves. 44 No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me.
[44] “Draw him”: Not by compulsion, nor by laying the free will under any necessity, but by the strong and sweet motions of his heavenly grace.
46 Not that any man hath seen the Father; but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father. 47 Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. 52 If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. 53 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. 55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
[54] “Eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood”: To receive the body and blood of Christ, is a divine precept, insinuated in this text; which the faithful fulfil, though they receive but in one kind; because in one kind they receive both body and blood, which cannot be separated from each other. Hence, life eternal is here promised to the worthy receiving, though but in one kind. Ver. 52. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world. Ver. 58. He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. Ver. 59. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.
56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. 57 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. 58 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. 59 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever. 60 These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.
61 Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it? 62 But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you? 63 If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? 64 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life. 65 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that would betray him.
[63] “If then you shall see”: Christ by mentioning his ascension, by this instance of his power and divinity, would confirm the truth of what he had before asserted; and at the same time correct their gross apprehension of eating his flesh, and drinking his blood, in a vulgar and carnal manner, by letting them know he should take his whole body living with him to heaven; and consequently not suffer it to be as they supposed, divided, mangled, and consumed upon earth.
[64] “The flesh profiteth nothing”: Dead flesh separated from the spirit, in the gross manner they supposed they were to eat his flesh, would profit nothing. Neither doth man’s flesh, that is to say, man’s natural and carnal apprehension, (which refuses to be subject to the spirit, and words of Christ,) profit any thing. But it would be the height of blasphemy, to say the living flesh of Christ (which we receive in the blessed sacrament, with his spirit, that is, with his soul and divinity) profiteth nothing. For if Christ’s flesh had profited us nothing, he would never have taken flesh for us, nor died in the flesh for us.
[64] “Are spirit and life”: By proposing to you a heavenly sacrament, in which you shall receive, in a wonderful manner, spirit, grace, and life, in its very fountain.
66 And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father. 67 After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. 68 Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? 69 And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 70 And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.
71 Jesus answered them: Have not I chosen you twelve; and one of you is a devil? 72 Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was about to betray him, whereas he was one of the twelve.
Here Jesus Christ did not say that He – Almighty God, would feed us the symbol of his flesh, He (Truth itself) said He would feed us his flesh. Just as an animal we eat becomes part of us. By eating the body and Blood of Jesus Christ, He, the uncreated Son of God becomes part of us and as part of the uncreated God (not any of the stuff God created from nothing) our sacrifices, as Christ, can have merit. This I think is what many Protestants miss that the Catholic religion, through priests sent through an apostolic succession that started with Jesus Christ and his first 12 apostle all of whom, except one, stuck with him after this incident. This is how and why the Mystical Body of Christ is built, through the Eucharist, Holy Communion, the Bread of Life. If Protestants truly believe man is saved by faith alone they must believe that almighty God can actually make himself bread through the consecrating power of priest/bishop.
The death on the cross is the consummation of Christs wedding with His bride, part of the mystical body of Christ since He and His bride are one flesh (Genesis 2:24) because His death gives us the privilege of being born again (John 3:1-21), through baptism, into the Kingdom of Heaven as adopted sons and daughters of God. Just as the marital act, an act produce by the will of at least one of two parties, can, but won’t necessarily produce children, between a man and a woman, Jesus Christs death won’t necessarily produce a citizen of heaven in any particular human being, but just as the marital act, it might, bearing on the acts as parents (if the child is baptized as an infant, like all human infants would have to be trained by parents to be a good citizen of heaven just as a child in the United States is trained to be a good United States citizens, trained in its laws and culture. It is sometimes argued that a parent should give a child a chance to choose on his or her own, but should that child die before reaching adulthood, the salvation of his or her soul would be in question, and by the opinion of most theologians, lost to heaven itself, but destined to reside in an environment natural happiness of limbo – deprived of the Beatific Vision, and it is the parent’s responsibility, having brought that child into existence to try and ensure their existence is the infinitely happy one of heaven) or the individual if baptized as an adult. Just as with Adam and Eve and as with the whole of salvation history, every one is the result of the cooperation of at least 2 people but their ultimate destiny is in their own hands in the case of a reasoning person. As natural life is a gift of our parents to us, supernatural life CAN be a gift to a child that is baptized but dies before reaching the age of reason. As many great saints show us, men have been given the ability to help save souls, and it is a travesty to possibly let your own son or daughter lose heaven simply because they were not baptized!
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 