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By John Houk

If the first two parts of this series did not succeed in getting you (the reader) interested in reading the documents of Vatican II, then beware that I intend to try one final time. First, I tried to appeal to your intellectual curiosity and one’s desire to live a reflective faith. My second appeal was an attempt to draw you in with the Council’s own spirit of promoting everyone’s participation. If those approaches didn’t get you to open the book or web site on these documents, then I want to tell you that there are powerful people who want to take it all away.

Reflections on Jesus’ post resurrection appearances

by Don Rampolla

“Shock and awe” is now a well recognized term for U.S. military strategy. (70 years ago the equivalent term was “blitzkrieg”) Thinking about the disciples despair after Jesus’ crucifixion I would suppose that these terms might apply to their reaction to Jesus post resurrection appearances.

However to me one of the most amazing features of the eleven post resurrection gospel stories in which Jesus appears suddenly is the lack of amazement with which they are recounted. When Jesus does appear the disciples reactions are seldom mentioned. Even when Jesus appears out of nowhere despite closed doors, the disciples reactions are described in the fewest words possible as being afraid, but then reassured by touching Jesus and by eating with him. I don’t know how reassuring it would be for me to find that someone who becomes present in this way actually has a body that I can touch and feel like an ordinary body, or that this someone can actually consume food.

By John Houk

It may strike some as rather dry and uninteresting to plow through documents
written forty years ago. I can only add that they, along with the people
who have read them, are why I can still find a home in the Catholic Church.
At the age of 67 my formal education in Catholic teaching was pre-Vatican
II. It was a satisfying experience because at that time in my life I wanted
a closed system of thought. These are the questions and these are the answers
was the way Catholic thought was presented to me, and it gave me a sense
of completeness and intellectual security. That must have been what I needed,
and perhaps the Church understood that.

The Second Vatican Council swept away hard-core Catholic positions that had
been blessed by previous Councils and numerous popes. Catholics responded to
this newness in several ways. As my father enjoyed saying, there were those
who made things happen, those who watched things happen, and those who said, “What
happened?” It was my experience that most of us watched, and a lot of
wondered. If it had not been for my own questioning children and faith-filled
wife I probably would never have gotten past the wondering phase which would
inevitably have resulted in my drifting away.

The Council, as I now understand it, was an invitation to discipleship, and
the key to discipleship is that you will never understand your faith until
you try it out yourself. It is a do-to-learn system. How different from my
previous expectations of pre-determined questions and answers. Yes, there is
top-down teaching in the Council documents, but now I, and you, are included
in vastly new and important ways. At its most basic level the Council was an
invitation to participation.

By John Houk

Forty years ago in December the final document of the Second Vatican Council was published concluding the two-year process of publication. The whole Council was, and remains, unprecedented in its scope and tone with the final document having its own unique history.

The agenda for the Council was established prior to its first session. The documents to be developed were laid before the world’s bishops to discuss and refine. This is the way of things in large organizations that flow from the top down. But the tone of this Council set up a new counter dynamic. This dynamic spoke to the action of the Spirit at all levels of the Church, and there is no better example of this new dynamic than the final document called, “Gaudium et Spes” (joy and hope) with its full title, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”. This document was not on the official top down agenda, but instead rose from within the gathering of bishops who essentially said, “We need this,” and indeed we did, and do.