St. Paul said we could eat food offered to idols because the idols are nothing unless it would harm the faith of weaker brethren. For heaven's sake, it's a cracker.
It's interesting how Scripture addresses this question, because, basically,
it DOESN'T!This is why protestants are so confused about it, because they deny Sacred Tradition, when in fact, Tradition is where we get Scripture. If it were not for Tradition, we would not
have any Scripture! And it was according to Tradition, even at the time of St. Paul and the other Apostles, that we always bless our food. It was a continuous tradition among all the children of Judea and of Abraham at the time, to bless their food. It was of longstanding tradition. And it was a really big deal to them, to the point where eating food that had been sacrificed to idols was commonly refused, since such foods were offered at pagan temples and shrines for free to visitors, and Jєωs visiting the area were in the habit, by the practice of their faith, not to participate in such activities, any more than we today would join hands with protestants and engage in the "prayer circle," because we do not pray with heretics! Nor did they, in those days!
This is the principle of how we were scandalized with the Assisi I, II, and III meetings. To observers, it was obvious that JP II (whose Newcanonization is slated for later this Paschal Season) had intended to BREAK DOWN this longstanding tradition by way of conducting these meetings that were
ambiguous at least and
heretical at worst. But
they were Nothing Traditional. The Church had never once in her history done anything like that.
It was such a totally traditional practice of all the faithful at the time, both unconverted Jєωs and the new Christians, to bless their food, that St. Paul didn't have to bother talking about it. Everyone knew it, so why preach about what everyone already knew and everyone already practiced? It would be a little bit like today, why would a priest preach about our duty to assist at Mass on Sunday? Everyone knows it and everyone does it. My Fr. F.X. Lasance New Roman Missal has various places where it notes that when saying this prayer, or that litany, a Hail Mary is prayed at this point, for example, for the Leonine prayers after Low Mass, it begins with "3 times, Hail Mary." But try as you may, in all the 1800-plus pages, there is no place where the words of the Hail Mary are found! An archaeologist looking at this text alone would possibly conclude that a "Hail Mary" consisted of those two words alone, "hail Mary." It would only be by OTHER references that he could support the theory that there had been
more than that, to a "Hail Mary." But what do WE need to convince US that there is? My old Stations of the Cross booklet (printed in the 50's) by St. Alphonsus de Liguori has
"Pater Noster. Ave Maria. Gloria Patri." written after each Station, but nowhere in the booklet does it contain the full text of these 3 prayers. Later editions have
"Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be." But they still have no complete text of these 3 prayers between the covers.
The reason is, obviously, that these 3 prayers are so very commonplace, that the authors AND the later editors (who changed the words from Latin to English after the Newmass had been around for 20 years or so), figured they don't need to be repeated
in toto, because these prayers don't need to be in a small booklet like this, since they are so commonplace.
Well, perhaps they DO! Perhaps the obvious needs to be occasionally re-stated, because there may come a time when the obvious will be
DENIED, because it
wasn't restated!
When the priest prays the Introit of the Mass every day of the year, he gets to the end of what is written in the propers for the day, and he goes back and repeats the first Scripture quote, up to the Psalm in the mid-point. But the Missal doesn't have a word about this (usually). You just have to know it, because THAT'S THE WAY IT IS. We do it every day, and we don't have to be told to do it. An arcaeologist looking just at the Missal would have no way of knowing that this is the common practice.
I have some friends, who are very well educated (one has a Master's degree in linguistics), and they recently were practicing an innovation by which they changed the words of the Our Father. When they got to the point where we commonly pray, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," they would say, "And
let us not
be led into temptation, but deliver us from evil." It took about 4 months, but eventually, our Pastor stepped in and told them to
"KNOCK IT OFF," and they dropped their bad habit, like the bad habit that it was, and got in line. Even where literal words are on record as being one thing in black and white, there are revisionists who would attempt to say that "what was really intended by that would have been something else."
St. Paul had no reason to write in his Epistle that it was common practice to bless our food before we ate it because it would have been
UNTHINKABLE at the time to not bless our food before we ate it.
Why mention what is unthinkable? He would have sounded like an idiot. His power was in preaching what was NOT obvious, not in preaching what WAS obvious.
At Vat.II a lot was thrown right out the window, because of how obvious it was. They actually used the excuse that the three times repetition of the Kyrie Eleison was "USELESS REPETITION," so it was reduced to three times two instead of three times three. Now all the 'NEW' recordings of Gregorian Chant are missing one of the reps,
and now, they sound absolutely RIDICULOUS, and lose all the continuity and beauty they once had when they were 3 times 3. Fortunately, those of us who preserve the Canonized Latin Mass still use the traditional 3 times 3 format, and we alone thereby preserve its beauty. But anyone can join us, just by practicing the Faith of our Fathers the way it was handed down to us.
TRADIDI QUOD ET ACCEPI.What St. Paul DID mention is our need to be confident that we have power over the pagan blessings. What he DID mention is that we should not scandalize weaker brethren by our behavior, and one of the ways that would happen is if we were to take the food that is offered for free at pagan temples, BLESS IT to remove the curse it has because it had been sacrificed to pagan idols, and then eat it. One of the ways that could scandalize the weaker brethren is because they might only notice us EATING the food, and maybe they had not noticed that we had BLESSED the food. Also, it was known to happen in those days that anyone caught making the sign of the cross over such pagan foods was ARRESTED and brought to trial, under the accusation of cursing the shrine or bringing a curse upon the place or the food or whatever. Many Christians were killed, martyred, only because they refused to offer a few grains of incense to a pagan deity.
St. Paul didn't need to preach about that either, because MILLIONS of Roman Catholics were martyred for this very reason. IT WAS AN OBVIOUS PROBLEM.
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