Mysteries
MYSTERIES
A term used to denote the secret rites of the Pagan superstition, which were carefully concealed from the knowledge of the vulgar. The learned bishop Warburton supposed that the mysteries of the Pagan religion were the invention of legislators and other great personages, whom fortune or their own merit had placed at the head of those civil societies which were formed in the earliest ages in different parts of the world. Mosheim was of opinion that the mysteries were entirely commemorative; that they were instituted with a view to preserve the remembrance of heroes and great men who had been deified in consideration of their martial exploits, useful inventions, public virtues, and especially in consequence of the benefits by them conferred on their contemporaries. Others, however, suppose that the mysteries were the offspring of bigotry and priestcraft, and that they originated in Egypt, the native land of idolatry. In that country the priesthood ruled predominant.
The kings were engrafted into their body before they could ascend the throne. They were possessed of a third part of all the land of Egypt. The sacerdotal function was confined to one tribe, and was transmitted unalienable from father to son. All the orientals, but more especially the Egyptians, delighted in mysterious and allegorical doctrines. Every maxim of morality, every tenet of theology, every dogma of philosophy, was wrapt up in a veil of allegory and mysticism. This propensity, no doubt, conspired with avarice and ambition to dispose them to a dark and mysterious system of religion. Besides the Egyptians were a gloomy race of men; they delighted in darkness and solitude. Their sacred rites were generally celebrated with melancholy airs, weeping, and lamentation. This gloomy and unsocial bias of mind must have stimulated them to a congenial mode of worship.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
mysteries
Revealed truths which are above human understanding, but not contrary to reason. There are mysteries of a kind all around us. We do not understand how life originates, nor how the food we eat becomes part of ourselves. The chemist can not change milk into flesh and blood. No, man, however wise, can make a blade of grass. If there are mysteries in nature it is not surprising that there are mysteries in the Author of nature. There are three great and fundamental mysteries in the Catholic religion:
1) the Trinity
2) the Incarnation
3) the Eucharist
to which Monsignor Kolbe adds that of the Mystical Body of Christ. We believe these mysteries, not because we understand them nor because we can discover them by unaided reason, but solely on the word of God Who has declared them. God is incomprehensible to finite intelligence. By revelation He tells us something of His nature or His works which otherwise we should never know. How there are three persons in God, how God became man in the Incarnation, how the Eucharist is Jesus Christ, we do not know; but on God’s word we know that these mysteries are true. The Christian religion alone has mysteries in its teaching. Every other religion proclaims only such things as man can originate and understand. Saint Augustine declared that he could not believe the Christian religion was divine, if it taught only that which man could devise and comprehend. Any religion that is from God, and tells us about the nature of God, must proclaim truths that are above human comprehension: “hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth. But the things that are in heaven, who shall search out?” (Wisdom 9) We are a mystery to ourselves; much more should the Creator be a mystery to us. If faith required us to believe only what was demonstrated it would not be faith at all, but evidence. The merit of faith consists in the fact that we sacrifice our intellect on the altar of God’s word. We believe because God, Who is truth itself, is our authority. Mysteries serve the two-fold purpose of giving us knowledge of God, otherwise unattainable, and affording us the means of making an act of sublime faith in God. The greatest theologian does not understand the mysteries of faith any more than a child of six. To believe on the word of God is not to renounce reason, but to make good use of it. God does not ask us to understand Him but to trust and to love Him.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Mysteries
Of redemption
Deu 29:29; Job 15:8; Psa 25:14; Pro 3:32; Amo 3:7; Mat 11:25; Mat 13:11; Mat 13:35; Mar 4:11; Luk 8:10; Joh 3:8-12; Rom 16:25-26; 1Co 2:7-10; 2Co 3:12-18; Eph 1:9-10; Eph 3:3-5; Eph 3:9; Eph 3:18-19; Eph 6:19; Col 1:25-27; Col 2:2; Col 4:3-4; 2Th 2:7; 1Ti 3:9; 1Ti 3:16; Heb 5:11; 1Pe 1:10-12; Rev 10:7 Salvation, Plan of