As part of my master’s in theology classes, I’ve been studying the Old Testament and salvation history, which is God’s plan for our salvation.

Typology

The Sacrifice of Isaac by Domenichino via Wikimedia Commons

One of the things I loved about Catholicism as a new Catholic was its explanation of the New Testament through the lens of the Old Testament. This is a concept called “typology,” which simply means that many things in the Old Testament are “types” or prefigurements of things in the New. And the New is the complete fulfillment of the Old.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that typology…

“…discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.” (CCC, 128)

Another way I like to describe typology is using Jesus as the “key” that unlocks the meaning of the Old Testament. The Old Testament only truly makes sense in light of Jesus. This is how stories like Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac finally made sense to me: as a prefigurement of God’s ACTUAL sacrificing of His only son.

The use of typology dates back to the early Church Fathers, including to Origen of Alexandria, who was really a master of typology, seeing signs and prefigurements throughout almost all of the Old Testament.

Understanding Jewish History, Culture and Customs to Understand God’s Plan of Salvation

As you study the Old Testament, it’s important to learn about the Jewish culture and customs of the time to see how the things these people began before Jesus are fulfilled in Jesus and even in our own day.

Without this knowledge, you miss key portions of what the Old Testament and God’s plan for salvation are all about.

Author Brant Pitre has done an amazing job of outlining these customs and the Jewish culture in very understandable and fascinating books like “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist” and “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary” (please note these are Amazon affiliate links; I appreciate you using my links to support this endeavor :)). You can also find some of Pitre’s lectures on the topic on Formed.org if your parish subscribes to this awesome service.

The Eucharist Prefigured in the Old Testament

I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk by Father Mike Schmitz live here in Indianapolis where he talked about the Eucharist (the Eucharist is what Catholics consume during communion and what we believe to be the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, not a symbol).

He explained how in John Chapter 6, Jesus tells us that this is one of the ways He will give himself to us, and by turning away from this teaching, we are not accepting what Jesus wanted for us and Jesus as He fully revealed Himself. He also talked about how the Eucharist is Jesus’ physical presence with us and how He is giving his body to us in this way.

While reflecting on this afterward, I had a lightbulb moment. Just as nearly everything in the Old Testament is prefigurement of something in the New, so God’s presence in the Old Testament likely has a New Testament fulfillment.

In the Old Testament, God “dwelled” or “pitched His tent” among the people in a variety of ways. (Note: This is the same word John uses in John 1:14 when he says the Word, Jesus, “made his dwelling among us”). The ways God dwelled among the people was first in the Ark of the Covenant, then in the Tabernacle and finally in the Temple.

During the Babylonian exile, God’s presence left the Temple never to return in the Old Testament. We’ll come back to this…

God’s Presence and The Eucharist

Protestants who do not believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist will often say God is always with us anyway. After all, Jesus says…

“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)

And no doubt God IS always with us, as He was always with the Jewish people even when His presence left the temple. But there is a qualitative difference between that spiritual presence and the physical presence of God.

This physical presence manifested itself in the Ark, the tabernacle and the Temple, such that if anyone so much as touched the Ark, they were struck dead. And only the priest could enter the Holy of Holies where God dwelled and even then, only once a year.

While many have found “types” of the Eucharist in things like the manna God provided the Israelites in the desert and the Bread of the Presence, which was also found in the Temple, I think God’s presence dwelling in the Ark, the Tabernacle and the Temple is also an Old Testament prefigurement of the PHYSICAL presence of God in our midst.

First and foremost, Jesus himself is the fulfillment of God’s presence in the Old Testament. God’s presence RETURNS in Mary (who is herself a fulfillment of the Ark of the Covenant, described as the NEW Ark of the Covenant, and which Luke deliberately points to through various words and events to describe her) as Jesus. He literally “made his tent” among us, taking on flesh and walking with us in person.

But Jesus, too, ultimately had to depart from our midst, but He wanted to still remain physically present with us, to “dwell” with us “…until the end of the age” as He promises in Matthew 28:20.

I believe the Eucharist is that physical fulfillment of God’s presence in our time, from the time Jesus ascended into heaven. Not only is He with us spiritually but physically should we go to seek Him out.

To me, this lends further support to Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist. It simply has to be when you follow the line of logic, considering the Old and New Testament connections, not to mention His emphatic statements declaring as much that turned off many followers in John Chapter 6.

Jesus, fully present to us in the Eucharist, pray for us.

As part of the course sequence for my master’s in theology at Catholic International University, I’m taking a course on Scripture and Salvation History, and, of course, we started at the beginning with Genesis and Creation.

We’ve also been discussing Creation with our parish’s newest candidates/catechumens, who are discerning if they should join the Church by entering RCIA/OCIA, and I have a lot of fascinating things I’ve learned, most of which I bet you’ve never heard, that I want to share with you.

Michelangelo, “Creation of Eve,” Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When Genesis says God made man in his “image and likeness,” our professor taught us that these two words in Hebrew having surprising meanings.

First, the Hebrew word translated as “image” actually means “idol.” It’s the same word used when God tells Moses in the Ten Commandments that we shall not make any “idol” of God. What does this mean? WE are God’s idol. WE are the living embodiment of God. That is why we should not make other idols. God already made one: US!

An “idol” was also the place where the ancients encountered and worshiped their gods, so this also implies that if humans are idols, we, too, are the place where God is to be encountered and worshiped. That explains the importance of loving your neighbor that is emphasized throughout the Bible. Jesus tells us that second only to loving God is to love your neighbor. That’s because you encounter God in your neighbor. Let us remember the example of Mother Teresa in what the love of neighbor can look like.

Second, the Hebrew word translated as “likeness” actually means “shadow.” And doesn’t that make sense? Your shadow is like you — it has the same body, same hair, etc. — but it’s just a two-dimensional, no color rendering of who you are. It lacks the depth of who you are, just as we lack the depth of who God Is. Nevertheless, we maintain some of His qualities. What a privilege!

Man Made From a “Wet Clod” Not Dust!

In Genesis 3, we have the more detailed, “zoomed in” story of the creation of man in Adam and Eve. The word used to describe the material God used to make man, traditionally translated as “dust” (“Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return”), actually means something more like “wet clod”. The “dust” needs have something “wet” with it to make a human, a form of clay.

Remember the story in John Chapter 9 when Jesus spits in the dirt, rubs it together to make clay and rubs it over the eyes of the blind man, so that he can see? This harkens back to Creation. A) It shows Jesus as God, remaking man B) And it indicates Jesus is here to inaugurate a New Creation.

Choice is Key to Freedom and Salvation

I absolutely LOVE this piece! It so beautifully captures the relationship between Mary and Eve and shows Mary’s gracious kindness toward Eve who is ashamed of what she has done. I believe this artwork is created by Sr. Grace Remington of Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in Iowa. You can support the sisters and this artwork by purchasing a print or cards here.

A theme I love to share with our soon-to-be Catholics at my parish is one of choice and free will.

This is something other Christian denominations do not necessarily hold. Many believe that we have no free will. God has already preordained everything and we are just living out the plan. We also have no choice in if we go to heaven or hell. God’s already decided.

Catholics have a different perspective. First of all, God made us out of a free gift of love. He desires that we love Him back. How can we love God, or anyone for that matter, if we don’t have the freedom to choose love? Love is not love if there is no choice.

I believe this is why God gave Adam and Eve the one prohibition in the Garden of Eden. They HAD to have a choice in order to have free will and to choose to love God. Was it really love if they had nothing else to choose but love?

It’s not that God is trying to “test” them. He’s giving them the option to know love – and that comes through choice.

The Bible is ALL about choice. Mary CHOOSES to accept God’s call to bear His son with her “fiat” (her “yes,” her acceptance). She does not have to. Eve chose NOT to trust God; Mary chose TO trust him. And by doing so, she initiates all coming back into right order.

Adam and Eve’s Fall

Why did Adam and Eve choose to eat of the fruit? (Remember, Adam was right next to Eve when the serpent spoke to her, so he is equally as complicit.)

Eve said it was 1) good for food 2) pleasing to the eye 3) desirable for gaining wisdom. The snake told Eve that they “would be like gods” after eating. In my study of this chapter, our professor noted that the Hebrew word used for serpent was closely related to the word for divination, and a type of wisdom that seeks knowledge without or apart from God.

Isn’t that what Adam and Eve do? They reach out to gain wisdom WITHOUT the help of God, on their own initiative, out of their own pride. This is what the Tower of Babel builders will do later. Strive to build WITHOUT the help of God to be LIKE God by trying to reach the heavens on their own.

Isn’t that what we STILL do? I know I struggle with this. Somehow, I’m afraid of what God might ask me to do, so I seek to try to control the situation myself WITHOUT God’s help out of my own pride that somehow I can do it better.

Adam and Eve also sought to be LIKE God and the great irony is they were already LIKE God, made in His image and LIKEness, and by choosing against Him, they become LESS like God.

Genesis 3:15: The First Sign of a Savior, But WHO Will Do the “Crushing”

Peter Paul Rubens “Immaculate Conception”, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, showing Mary standing on the serpent.

Genesis 3:15 is referred to as the “protoevangelium.” That’s a fancy word that means the first “gospel,” or the first sign of hope that Adam and Eve’s choice of “no” can be undone.

The verse, which is God speaking to the serpent (Satan) and which comes after Adam and Eve choose to eat of the prohibited fruit, reads…

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed/offspring and hers; they/he/she will strike at your head, while you strike at their/his/her heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

Another translation changes “strike at your head” to “crush your head” and “strike at their heel” to “lie in wait for their heel.”

I’d like to briefly dive into the various translations of “they,” “he” and “she.”

This verse is thought to refer to Jesus as the first mention of the savior that God would send and in fact, was interpreted by the Jewish people this way prior to Jesus.

Jesus is “the seed” or “the offspring” of “the woman.” Eve’s name means “woman,” and she is indeed the mother of all the living. But Jesus also calls Mary “woman” several times in the New Testament, making a deliberate connection between Mary and Eve, as we have already discussed in Mary’s “yes” to Eve’s “no.” Mary is seen in the Church as the New Eve, just as St. Paul calls Jesus the New Adam. So this passage also references Mary, through Eve.

Now, we get to “they/he/she” strike at your heel. In most modern translations, you will see “he,” obviously referring to Jesus. But St. Jerome, who translated the Bible from its original Hebrew and Greek into Latin, which was the common language at the time, in the 300s translated it to “she,” referring directly to Mary.

Mary is often depicted as standing over a snake (see above Peter Paul Rubens painting), including on the Miraculous Medal, which Mary appeared to St. Catherine Labouré and asked her to create, in a clear reference to her role of “striking the head of the snake.”

Why did St. Jerome translate it as “she”? I’m not sure we’ll know for sure. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible completed 100 years or so before Christ, uses “he” here. But Jerome went back to original Hebrew documents and did not translate his Bible directly from the Greek Septuagint.

When I asked my friend, Father Christopher Roberts, a brilliant man who passed away several years ago about this, he told me that Jerome had access to better Hebrew texts of the Bible via Jewish rabbis he had befriended, that the Septuagint translators did not. Jerome learned ancient Hebrew from these rabbis. What did Jerome see in those texts that we no longer have access to?

Lastly, some translations have “they,” including my New American Revised Edition Bible from 2011. “They” could mean both Jesus AND Mary or it could also mean all Christians. As a friend of mine pointed out that both are likely true, as we know the Bible has many, many layers of meaning.

A “Woman’s Seed”?

Another interesting facet to this passage is the reference to the woman’s “seed.” According to my professor, “seed” was only used in reference to the male “seed,” the literal way men are able to procreate with women. It takes the male’s “seed” for that to happen. So to say a woman’s “seed” makes NO sense. It’s a complete contradiction. And nowhere else in the Bible is such a phrase used.

What could this mean? It DOES make sense if you think about Mary’s virginal conception. There was no physical father providing a “seed,” so Jesus must be Mary’s physical “seed” alone. So the only way a woman could have a “seed” is if there is not a physical father, which happened once in history to Mary. Note: “Seed” is also sometimes translated as “offspring” here, but the Hebrew word referred to “seed.”

The Serpent’s Curse

One final note on this passage: When God curses Satan He says, “…dust shall thy eat all the days of thy life.” Remember “dust” was that from which Adam was created, which in Hebrew is afar.

So God is saying essentially, the serpent will eat/bite at the stuff from which man was made, basically man himself. Thus the devil will be at war with humanity.

There is SO much in Genesis and this barely scratched the surface, but it’s a look at some of the more interesting things I’ve come across in my studies, most of which I was not familiar with.

I hope you find them as fascinating as I do and realize if we can find this much in Genesis, in just the first 3 chapters, imagine how many lifetimes we could spend unpacking the many layers of meaning of the entire Bible!

Do you ever stop to notice the birds in the busyness of your day? Do you notice how they seemingly happily hop from branch to branch, sounding loudly in a near constant song? We are so busy in our day-to-day life and so used to the singing of the birds that we hardly even notice them.

For most of my life I paid no attention to birds. They were simply in the background of my world like all the other things that are there that you never notice…

But while at a recent silent retreat, the abundance of birds throughout the abbey grounds captivated me.

These birds started their day by singing the “dawn chorus,” awakening me with windows wide all singing in concert to announce the start of the day. As I heard their singing, the bells of the abbey sounded to call us to prayer. I will forever associate birdsong with those bells and quiet prayer in the early morning hours.

At meals, we sat silently looking out the window at a garden filled with flowers and bird feeders where it seemed like the birds put on a show with constant fluttering about. I was amazed to watch the female cardinal feed the male (so much so I exclaimed aloud at a silent retreat ;-)) and marvel in the varieties and colors of the birds here in the hills of Kentucky – all coming to have a bite to eat in the lovely garden.

As I reflected on the birds, God reminded me of the verse in Matthew 6:25-33…

“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?

Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?

Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin.

But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.

If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’

All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.

Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

What a beautiful passage to meditate upon! Let’s consider it piece by piece…

Anxiety & Choice

The first thing that appears to me in this verse is the human tendency toward anxiety. I was watching a show recently where the priest commented that Adam became anxious before the fall. He became anxious as soon as he realized he had a choice.

We are filled with countless choices in our day – some small, some seemingly monumental. Should we eat here or there? Should we go on a diet? Should we switch career paths? What to wear today?

Many of us are filled with anxiety at all of these choices. Adam had one; we have too many to count.

Perhaps this is why in the Bible, we hear the phrase “Do not fear,” or here “Do not worry,” over and over and over again. And this passage addresses exactly that: fear and anxiety and the remedy.

To start with, perhaps God is telling us to let the little things go. Jesus says that life is more than food and drink and clothes. While some people legitimately do not have these basic needs met, those of us who do can drop the worry about these little things.

God Will Provide

There have been many times in my life where I’ve struggled financially and was filled with worry. But really, I had food, I had water, I had clothes. And I had a LOT more than that. It’s more the fear of a loss of a particular lifestyle – and that’s not the end of the world if you have to downgrade your lifestyle. No matter what, I would have food and clothes and water. And beyond that, I was adding unnecessary worry.

Next, Jesus says to look at the birds. They DO NOT WORRY. They just do their thing.

They are flying, building nests, eating and singing. They don’t have reasoning, as we do, so they are incapable of worry, but are they any the worse for it? No, we can learn a thing or two from the birds.

It’s important to note that He also says that they gather nothing into barns, meaning they are not saving up for a rainy day. They are trusting God to provide. Sometimes, I think God strips us of our physical and monetary goods to help us learn how to trust Him. We aren’t trusting in the bank account where we’ve saved up hundreds of thousands of dollars that if we die tonight will not help us, but in God to provide only what we need.

That’s not to say it’s a bad thing to be financially prudent, yet look at St. Francis and his brothers who begged for all they had. And God provided.

Worry Is Fruitless

This next portion is the real zinger in my opinion: Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?

Uh, no.

Can we emblazon that on our hearts, repeat it to ourselves every day? What good is worry?

While going through many trials and tribulations with my mother as we began to discover she had dementia, I learned a valuable lesson. Stop worrying.

I reminded myself that worrying about her, or whatever the problem was at the given moment, did not help her at all. Whatever the situation, it would either work out well or poorly and me worrying about it would not change that outcome. It would only create more suffering for me in the process. So as best I could, I tried to let go of worry and just deal with the outcome. Again and again, God provided in miraculous ways and in angels sent to help us on our path.

God Wants Us in THIS Moment and THIS Circumstance

Fr. Mike Schmitz led a great series of homilies during Lent in 2024 about a man named Walter Csizek, a priest who suffered terrible persecution at the hands of the Russians in the 20th century.

Csizek wrote several books about his experience and how he learned to trust God’s will no matter what was happening to him. He realized that God wanted him in EVERY circumstance that was happening, no matter how bad, and all he could do was his best to fulfill God’s will in that moment.

God does not ever will evil, but He does permit it insofar as he can bring good out of it, according to St. Thomas Aquinas.

So if I find myself in a stressful circumstance these days, I say to myself as much as needed, “God desires me to be in THIS circumstance in THIS moment.” It is His will whatever is happening and instead of trying to change it or fight it or argue against it, I need to just do the best I can with it. He WILL bring good from it – whether I see that good or not.

What’s the Remedy?

“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given you besides.”

Pursue God. Go to mass. Pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Go to confession and receive absolution. Receive the Eucharist. Talk to God. Sit in adoration. Desire His will above all things. Give God control of your life.

Do the things that you know will keep you connected to the true vine, that will grow your relationship with God, that will feed you with the divine life. And then… trust.

To remind myself of the incredible lesson that the birds can teach us, I came home after the retreat and bought 2 bird feeders for our yard. Now, I enjoy watching the birds and have a constant reminder that they do not reap or sow, but God takes care of them. How much more will He do that for us?

I wanted to share something that has helped me in stressful moments of life that I’ve learned in the last couple of years…

Give God a minute :).

This is something I repeat to myself quite often when I’ve prayed for something and am waiting for the answer.

My Experience

As I walked the journey of dementia with my mom, I found myself in seemingly emergency situations, one after another.

• She lost the ability to take her medications properly and I didn’t live nearby. Who would give her her medications?
• She suddenly was unsteady walking and falling down and we needed a walker. How would we get one ASAP through Medicaid?
• We had to move her out of her apartment with tons of heavy furniture that I wanted to donate. Who would help me move it?
• She needed to move to an assisted living facility ASAP, moving from one state to another. What facility to move her to and how could we do it as quickly as possible?

It was stressful to say the least.

But God really used this time in my life to teach me to better trust Him. I wish I could say I’ve got that down pat, but I don’t. I still have to constantly remind myself that God is in control, not me, and to give it over to Him.

I learned in each of these situations that if I presented my prayer to God, He did take care of it — just not immediately :).

At the beginning of this journey, she was in the hospital for about a week after almost overdosing on her mediations, as we didn’t realize she wasn’t taking them properly. I spent a lot of time in that hospital’s chapel, begging God for help for what to do.

I am an only child, having to make all the decisions, and had never been through anything like that before. I literally had no idea what I was doing but wanted to do everything I could for her.

I learned to “give God a minute.” I would pray to God, asking him for a solution or someone to help and I would leave it for a few days. Inevitably, a solution presented itself.

Today, I have to remind myself when I make a petition in a stressful moment, that the solution is not always there immediately.

Remember, God is outside of time (that one always blows my mind ;-)), and His ways are not our ways, so God’s time is different than our time. And very often, the solution comes in a way that we didn’t expect. It’s often BETTER than what we were envisioning.

Key Steps to “Giving God a Minute”

For me, there are some key steps to take in a stressful situation.

1. Give everything over to God as best you can. 

This is incredibly difficult. The best thing I’ve found to help with this is the Surrender Novena by Father Dolindo, who knew Padre Pio. There is the written version here, but I’ve found this musical, spoken version below to be the balm that I need. It’s had more than 2 million plays, so I’m not the only one it’s helped.

I highly encourage you to play it in the car, in headphones while you’re walking/cleaning, etc. It’s so beautiful. Fr. Dolindo, who has been named a Servant of God, says it was given to him by Jesus.

If you find yourself in despair and don’t know what to do, give this a listen. It will help – I promise.

2. Pray to God for your needs

Before making your petition, it’s always a good idea to start your prayer in praise and thanksgiving. Then, make your prayer to God, and as the Surrender Novena says, say “Jesus, you take care of it” and do your best to give it to Him to solve, letting go of your worry and desire to control the outcome.

I find that, for me, this often comes with a lot of tears. There’s some level of making peace with any outcome that I think you have to go through and that can be painful. But if you can push through that pain and make peace, that’s when God really starts to act and move.

Another go-to prayer for me is Mother Teresa’s “flying” novena of the Memorare to the Virgin Mary. It is said she prayed it 9 times in a row when she had an urgent need and inevitably the need would be met. It’s a great prayer to use in an emergency when you need quick assistance.

3. Give God a minute 🙂

Recognize that your prayer is not likely to be answered immediately, though sometimes it might be! But I’ve found it helps to have patience and start looking for an answer to your prayer to show up. For me, I always found strangely that it took a couple of days and then suddenly, the solution appeared.

Sometimes, I receive a consolation through a sign like the double rainbow above that appeared literally right over my neighborhood after taking a walk and mulling over a difficult situation. That was one of the most stunning signs from God I’ve ever received. It reminded me that God is with me, He is working in the situation and to trust and have patience.

4. Realize the solution might be different than you expected

God knows all and designs all. He knows the best way to bring good from this situation and how it needs to come about. Very often, a solution you never thought of will be the answer. I’ve found in my life that God comes up with things I never could have imagined that are WAY better than what I envisioned as the perfect answer.

5. If you don’t get an answer…

A wise friend recently told me “When you don’t hear, or don’t know, do nothing. Wait until you know that you know!”

And I’ve found that when I don’t get a solution, say, for example, a financial solution, very often God is turning me in a different direction. He is forcing me to stop an action, a business, a job, a way of life, so that He can redirect me a different way. These are things I would not stop doing on my own unless I no longer could.

So if He makes it so you, or someone in your life, can no longer do something or something just isn’t working, maybe it’s because He’s calling you to something different, a different solution – and that thing is usually going to be WAY better than what you’re doing now or what you thought was the answer. You just have to have the trust and patience to keep going and see what’s on the other side.

How do you find God works in your life in stressful situations?