An Analogy

nyone who has seriously studied any musical instrument (including the human voice) knows the value of a metronome. It is human nature to slow down for more difficult pieces of music even if the music does not say ritard, slow down. Because sometimes the music is difficult enough that it is next to impossible for a musician of ordinary skill to get it right the first time. Instead, we practice it over and over again with the artificial spots where we slow down in order to get the notes right, but in the process we lose the timing. If left uncorrected, this can cause the entire piece to sound disjointed, slowing down and speeding up at inappropriate times.


I would argue that we can draw two analogies. The first analogy is that living our lives without using scripture as a guide is like practicing a difficult piece of music without a metronome. The second analogy is that interpreting scripture without considering the reflection and inspiration of the Catholic Church on the text is like practicing a difficult piece of music without a metronome.

The metronome can be as annoying as all get out. I have literally yelled out at my metronome (which looks similar to the one pictured above: I can't stand those ugly digital things.) when I've been trying to get a either a complicated rhythm down or get it up to tempo. It sometimes even feels like I am correct, and it is the metronome that is losing or gaining time.

Martin Luther at his trial in Worms, Germany:

Unless I am convicted [convinced] of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning, I stand convicted [convinced] by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God's word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.

One might as well say, unless I am convinced by the notes on the page of music I am studying, or by my internal sense of rhythm that I am out of tempo,  since I put no trust in metronomes or audiences, since it is well known that mechanical devices have failed before and audiences have had poor taste, I will not alter the way I am playing the music.

Just as the metronome is unnatural in its mechanical adherence to pendulum motion independent of the stresses and anxieties of the moment, so the reflection of the Church is unnaturally protected by God, even as Jesus Christ said to his Apostles while he lived and was personally present on this Earth:

But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

12“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. -John 16:7-13

But was Jesus speaking to the Apostles only? Not at all, for speaking of the same Spirit that would come to them, earlier in the fourteenth chapter of John He says to them:

“If you love me, keep my commands. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. 

Forever. Absolute. Independent of time and its ravages and strains. The true Church of Jesus guides the people of God into all the truth, for all time after Jesus. Only the Catholic Church can lay claim to having been there, teaching the same message without subtraction, but only with further explanation, answering the people's questions as they arise, from the time of Jesus Christ to the present.

The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament. As the Doctors of the Chruch debate the true nature of the Eucharist, true Body and Blood of Our Lord, in the background, to the Left, we observe a Church under construction. The Church of God is being guided to the correct interpretation regarding each new question about what Jesus' Gospel and will for Christians is.

This guiding, like the metronome's guiding, is unnatural. Unlike the metronome, it is  not only unnatural, it is supernatural. Indeed, my metronome may break if I drop it enough times, and fail to keep time, but as the Holy Spirit guides the Church, he is independent of all shocks and destruction. Kingdoms may fall, and individual parishes and Christian communities may fall into heresy. But God has promised to guide Christians with one teaching, forever. Therefore, I believe in one, holy, catholic and Apostolic Church. I believe in the crystallization of the Church's teaching, as it has been recorded in Scripture. And I accept my dependence on that which is outside myself.





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