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pamphletstoinspire · 7 years ago

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Gospel Reading and Commentary for December 12th - Second Wednesday of Advent - Roman Catholic - Luke: 1: 39 - 47 (Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe)

39. And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;

40. And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.

41. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

42. And she spoke out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

43. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

44. For, lo, as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

45. And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.

AMBROSE; The Angel, when he announced the hidden mysteries to the Virgin, that he might build up her faith by an example, related to her the conception of a barren woman. When Mary heard it, it was not that she disbelieved the oracle, or was uncertain about the messenger, or doubtful of the example, but rejoicing in the fulfillment of her wish, and conscientious in the observance of her duty, she gladly went forth into the hill country. For what could Mary now, filled with God, but ascend into the higher parts with haste! ORIGEN; For Jesus who was in her womb hastened to sanctify John, still in the womb of his mother. Whence it follows, with haste. AMBROSE; The grace of the Holy Spirit knows not of slow workings. Learn, you virgins, not to loiter in the streets, nor mix in public talk. THEOPHYL. She went into the mountains, because Zacharias dwelt there. As it follows, To a city of Juda, and entered into the house of Zacharias. Learn, O holy women, the attention which you ought to show for your kinswomen with child. For Mary, who before dwelt alone in the secret of her chamber, neither virgin modesty caused to shrink from the public gaze, nor the rugged mountains from pursuing her purpose, nor the tediousness of the journey from performing her duty. Learn also, O virgins, the lowliness of Mary. She came a kinswoman to her next of kin, the younger to the elder, nor did she merely come to her, but was the first to give her salutations; as it follows, And she saluted, Elisabeth. For the more chaste a virgin is, the more humble she should be, and ready to give way to her elders. Let her then be the mistress of humility, in whom is the profession of chastity. Mary is also a cause of piety, in that the higher went to the lower, that the lower might be assisted, Mary to Elisabeth, Christ to John. CHRYS. Or else the Virgin kept to herself all those things which have been said, not revealing them to any one, for she did not believe that any credit would be given to her wonderful story; nay, she rather thought she would suffer reproach if she told it, as if wishing to screen her own guilt. GREEK EX. But to Elisabeth alone she has recourse, as she was wont to do from their relationship, and other close bonds of union.

AMBROSE; But soon the blessed fruits of Mary’s coming and our Lord’s presence are made evident. For it follows, And it came to pass, that when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. Mark the distinction and propriety of each word. Elisabeth first heard the word, but John first experienced the grace. She heard by the order of nature, he leaped by reason of the mystery. She perceived the coming of Mary, he the coming of the Lord.

GREEK EX. For the Prophet sees and hears more acutely than his mother, and salutes the chief of Prophets; but as he could not do this in words, he leaps in the womb, which was the greatest token of his joy. Who ever heard of leaping at a time previous to birth? Grace introduced things to which nature was a stranger. Shut up in the womb, the soldier acknowledged his Lord and King soon to be born, the womb’s covering being no obstacle to the mystical sight.

ORIGEN; He was not filled with the Spirit, until she stood near him who bore Christ in her womb. Then indeed he was both filled with the Spirit, and leaping imparted the grace to his mother; as it follows, And Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. But we cannot doubt that she who w as then filled with the Holy Spirit, was filled because of her son.

AMBROSE; She who had hid herself because she conceived a son, began to glory that she carried in her womb a prophet, and she who had before blushed, now gives her blessing; as it follows, And she spoke out with a loud voice, Blessed are you among women. With a loud voice she exclaimed when she perceived the Lord’s coming, for she believed it to be a holy birth. But she says, Blessed are you among women. For none was ever partaker of such grace or could be, since of the one Divine seed, there is one only parent. BEDE; Mary is blessed by Elisabeth with the same words as before by Gabriel, to show that she was to be reverenced both by men and angels. THEOPHYL. But because there have been other holy women who yet have borne sons stained with sin, she adds, And blessed is the fruit of your womb. Or another interpretation is, having said, Blessed are you among women, she then, as if some one inquired the cause, answers, And blessed is the fruit of your womb: as it is said, Blessed be he that comes in the name of the Lord. The Lord God, and he has shown us light; for the Holy Scriptures often use and, instead of because.

TITUS BOST. Now she rightly calls the Lord the fruit of the virgin’s womb, because He proceeded not from man, but from Mary alone. For they who are sown by their fathers are the fruits of their fathers. GREEK EX. This fruit alone then is blessed, because it is; produced without man, and without sin. BEDE; This is the fruit which is promised to David, Of the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne. From this place we derive the refutation of Eutyches, in that Christ is stated to be the fruit of the womb. For all fruit is of the same nature with the tree that bears it. It remains then that the virgin was also of the same nature with the second Adam, who takes away the sins of the world. But let those also who invent curious fictions concerning the flesh of Christ, blush when they hear of the real child-bearing of the mother of God. For the fruit itself proceeds from the very substance of the tree. Where too are those who say that Christ passed through the virgin as water through an aqueduct? Let these consider the words of Elisabeth who was filled with the Spirit, that Christ was the fruit of the womb. It follows, And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? AMBROSE; She says it not ignorantly, for she knew it was by the grace and operation of the Holy Spirit that the mother of the prophet should be saluted by the mother of his Lord, to the advancement and growth of her own pledge; but being aware that this was of no human deserving, but a gift of Divine grace, she therefore says, Whence is this to me, that is, By what right of mine, by what that I have done, for what good deeds? ORIGEN; Now in saying this, she coincides with her son. For John also felt that he was unworthy of our Lord’s coming to him. But she gives the name of “the mother of our Lord” to one still a virgin, thus forestalling the event by the words of prophecy. Divine foreknowledge brought Mary to Elisabeth, that the testimony of John might reach the Lord. For from that time Christ ordained John to be a prophet. Hence it follows, For, lo, as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded, &c. AUG. But in order to say this, as the Evangelist has premised, she was filled with the Holy Spirit, by whose revelation undoubtedly she knew what that leaping of the child meant; namely, that the mother of Him had come to her, whose forerunner and herald that child was to be. Such then might be the meaning of so great an event; to be known indeed by grown up persons, but not understood by a little child; for she said not, “The babe leaped in faith in my womb,” but leaped for joy. Now we see not only children leaping for joy, but even the cattle; not surely from any faith or religious feeling, or any rational knowledge. But this joy was strange and unwonted, for it was in the womb; and at the coming of her who was to bring forth the Savior of the world. This joy, therefore, and as it were reciprocal salutation to the mother of the Lord, was caused (as miracles are) by Divine influences in the child, not in any human way by him. For even supposing the exercise of reason and the will had been so far advanced in that child, as that he should be able in the bowels of his mother to know, believe, and assent; yet surely that must be placed among the miracles of Divine power, not referred to human examples.

THEOPHYL. The mother of our Lord had come to see Elisabeth, as also the miraculous conception, from which the Angel had told her should result the belief of a far greater conception, to happen to herself; and to this belief the words of Elisabeth refer, And blessed are you who have believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told you from the Lord. AMBROSE; You see that Mary doubted not but believed, and therefore the fruit of faith followed.

BEDE; Nor is it to be wondered at, that our Lord, about to redeem the world, commenced His mighty works with His mother, that she, through whom the salvation of all men was prepared, should herself be the first to reap the fruit of salvation from her pledge. AMBROSE; But happy are you also who have heard and believed, for whatever soul has believed, both conceives and brings forth the word of God, and knows His works. BEDE; But every soul which has conceived the word of God in the heart, straightway climbs the lofty summits of the virtues by the stairs of love, so as to be able to enter into the city of Juda, (into the citadel of prayer and praise, and abide as it were for three months in it,) to the perfection of faith, hope, and charity. GREG. She was touched with the spirit of prophecy at once, both as to the past, present, and future. She knew that Mary had believed the promises of the Angel; she perceived when she gave her the name of mother, that Mary was carrying in her womb the Redeemer of mankind; and when she foretold that all things would be accomplished, she saw also what was as to follow in the future.

46. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord.

AMBROSE; As evil came into the world by a woman, so also is good introduced by women; and so it seems not without meaning, that both Elisabeth prophesies before John, and Mary before the birth of the Lord. But it follows, that as Mary was the greater person, so she uttered the fuller prophecy. BASIL; For the Virgin, with lofty thoughts and deep penetration, contemplates the boundless mystery, the further she advances, magnifying God; And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord. GREEK EX. As if she said, Marvelous things has the Lord declared that He will accomplish in my body, but neither shall my soul be unfruitful before God. It becomes me to offer Him the fruit also of my will, for inasmuch as I am obedient to a mighty miracle, am I bound to glorify Him who performs His mighty works in me. ORIGEN; Now if the Lord could neither receive increase or decrease, what is this that Mary speaks of, My soul doth magnify the Lord? But if I consider that the Lord our Savior is the image of the invisible God, and that the soul is created according to His image, so as to be an image of an image, then I shall see plainly, that as after the manner of those who are accustomed to paint images, each one of us forming his soul after the image of Christ, makes it great or little, base or noble, after the likeness of the original so when I have made my soul great in thought, word, and deed, the image of God is made great, and the Lord Himself whose image it is, is magnified in my soul.

47. And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

BASIL; The first-fruit of the Spirit is peace and joy. Because then the holy Virgin had drunk in all the graces of the Spirit, she rightly adds, And my spirit has leaped for joy. She means the same thing, soul and spirit. But the frequent mention of leaping for joy in the Scriptures implies a certain bright and cheerful state of mind in those who are worthy. Hence the Virgin exults in the Lord with an unspeakable springing (and bounding) of the heart for joy, and in the breaking forth into utterance of a noble affection It follows, in God my Savior. BEDE; Because the spirit of the Virgin rejoices in the eternal Godhead of the same Jesus (i.e. the Savior,) whose flesh is formed in the womb by a temporal conception.

AMBROSE; The soul of Mary therefore magnifies the Lord, and her spirit rejoiced in God, because with soul and spirit devoted to the Father and the Son, she worships with a pious affection the one God from whom are all things. But let every one have the spirit of Mary, so that he may rejoice in the Lord. If according to the flesh there is one mother of Christ, yet, according to faith, Christ is the fruit of all. For every soul receives the word of God if only he be unspotted and free from sin, and preserves it with unsullied purity. THEOPHYL. But he magnifies God who worthily follows Christ, and now that he is called Christian, lessens not the glory of Christ by acting unworthily, but does great and heavenly things; and then the Spirit (that is, the anointing of the Spirit) shall rejoice, (i.e. make him to prosper,) and shall not be withdrawn, so to say, and put to death. BASIL; But if at any time light shall have crept into his heart, and loving God and despising bodily things he shall have gained the perfect standing of the just, without any difficulty shall he obtain joy in the Lord. ORIGEN; But the soul first magnifies the Lord, that it may afterwards rejoice in God; for unless we have first believed, we can not rejoice.

#gospel of luke

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romancatholicreflections · 8 years ago

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27th December >> Daily Reflection on Today’s Mass Readings for Roman Catholics on the Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist (1 John 1:1-4, Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 11-12 & John 20:1a and 2-8)

Lectionary: 697

Celebrating Christmas home page

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Praying with the Aftermath of Christmas

Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer

How Holy Can My Family Be?

A Parent Reflects Upon Jesus' Parents

I was surprised when I saw that the Gospel reading today is about Easter, since it’s still Christmas. I understand it’s the feast day of St. John the Apostle, but it’s also Christmas season and it felt a little like season jumping. But I went to hear Handel’s Messiah during Advent, and while it’s become a Christmas season standard, Handel envisioned it as an Easter performance and it was first performed at Easter. The action of the oratorio starts before Christmas and goes through Easter. What I mean is that the ideas of Christmas and Easter can and should co-exist. Christmas needs Easter.

If it wasn’t for Easter, there wouldn’t be Christmas. Easter is sort of the reason for the Christmas season. Christmas is special because the baby is the son of God who will grow up to save the world by his death and resurrection. It’s that resurrection that makes this birth special. Without Easter, there’s no Christmas. Of course, without Christmas there’s no Easter. The church calendar encompasses the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega.

Every winter - here in the Northern hemisphere - we celebrate the birth of the baby who will grow up to save us. Every spring we celebrate his death and resurrection – his everlasting life that gives us everlasting life. The carol “What Child Is this?” has an Easter verse, “Nails, spears shall pierce him through, the cross he bore for me, for you.” The carol “Mary did you know?” references the things baby Jesus grows up to do. We need to acknowledge where this story goes. I think it’s good to think about Easter at Christmas. The birth we celebrate now is important because this birth leads to the end of death. Jesus had to be born so he could grow up to die on the cross. And he had to come back from death to give us all everlasting life. In the Gospel today Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved went to the tomb. The tomb was empty and the burial cloths were there. The disciple saw the empty tomb and believed. We have seen the baby in the manger. In the spring we will see his death on the cross, and like the disciples will see the empty tomb. And we believe.

by Tamora Whitney

Creighton University's English Department

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a-path-beyond84 · 8 years ago

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Sola Scriptura and Church Fathers

Continuing on, @obasileus. I apologize already for all the reading you will be doing on account of this, if you decide to go through it all.

The existence of multiple interpretations of Scripture does not undermine Sola Scriptura, and this needs to stop being alleged by every other catholic. Yes, people can produce bad readings of Scripture. No, that does not get in the way of a faithful person’s desire to be saved. Most protestant churches (that haven’t explicitly undermined Scripture altogether) agree on the essentials.

I would agree with you that the existence of mere disagreement does not undermine sola scriptura by itself. People can be idiots, uninformed, or sophists. However, I think the existence of multiple interpretations of scripture by educated people, professed Christians who take their faith seriously, approaching scripture with good faith, is problematic.

Consider all of the controversies that have arisen over the centuries concerning many doctrines: the Trinity, the Incarnation, justification (sola fide), the real presence, contraception, divorce and remarriage, Sunday worship, infant baptism, pacifism, the consistency of scripture with scientific claims, sola scriptura itself, and a host of other issues. Can scripture alone settle these controversies? If it cannot, then sola scriptura has little value as a doctrine, since if it cannot answer such questions it can’t tell you where to be a Lutheran, Calvinist, Mennonite, Arian, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Unitarian, Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, or some other group aside from these that interpreted scripture correctly and got Christianity right.

Most sola scriptura proponents usually insist on holding specific positions on at least some of the above issues as a requirement of small-o orthodoxy, so presumably you think that sola scriptura can settle those issues. But the centuries of quarreling over what scripture has to say on those issues are pretty good sign that this position is false, as opposite positions on all of them have been defended on scriptural grounds.

Some theological views held by Protestants, such as the Trinity, are not in fact based on scripture alone but depend on philosophical considerations as well. Most people aren’t familiar with that as the ancient Church was able to stamp out the Arian heresy and so most of us accept the Trinity without much question. Now a you might say that the relevant philosophical considerations (such as the nature of persons, substance, etc.) helps us to make sense of what scripture tells us about the Holy Trinity, but these philosophical considerations, or the need for them, are not themselves found in scripture. An anti-trinitarian who holds to sola scriptura might as well quote Paul talking about “vain and deceptive” philosophy, quote Jesus as saying “the Father is greater than I” and call it a day.

I digress. But disagreement is actually not my most significant criticism of sola scriptura.

1. Sola Scriptura is not found in the Bible

The closest thing you can find to this claim in scripture is this:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

But that doesn’t teach Sola Scriptura. It teaches that scripture is inspired by God and useful.

Scripture also teaches this:

To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.

I had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

So scripture itself asserts its own incompleteness and recommends following both scripture and traditions handed down verbally and in person by the Apostles, what is called Sacred Tradition by Catholics and Orthodox.

2. The Bible doesn’t define what is to be counted as scripture

There is no list of texts in scripture that authoritatively determine what we should take to be scripture. Moreover, even if this was present, it would be undermined by a circularity problem: what counts as scripture? This list of books. Why should we accept that list? It’s in scripture!

As I’m sure you are aware, Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants don’t even agree on which books should be considered part of scripture.

In other words, something outside of scripture is required to even determine what scripture is.

3. Access to scripture

For most of Christian history, the vast majority of Christians were illiterate and in any case, Bibles were relatively rare as there was no printing press to mass produce them. It’s probably no accident that the doctrine of sola scriptura isn’t developed until the advent of the printing press. Prior to that, the idea that every man and woman could and should read the Bible and interpret it on their own would have seemed absurd.

This is probably the weakest argument against sola scriptura, but a doctrine that was impractical for the majority of the life of the Church counts at least somewhat against it.

4. Scripture alone cannot tell you how to interpret scripture (the belief that it can concerns a more fundamental error with regards to the nature of written text and meaning)

It is in the very nature of material symbols and systems of symbols - of which written texts are a collection - are inherently indeterminate in their meaning. There are always in principle various alternative ways to interpret them, alternatives which the symbols alone cannot determine between. Thus, written text necessarily underdetermines meaning. No text is *intrinsically* meaningful.

Now this doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit didn’t have any particular intention with regards to scripture, or the authors of scripture. Nor does it mean that we can’t have a pretty good idea, most of time, of what the author of a text intended to convey. Otherwise, our conversation would be rather pointless. But there will be multiple interpretations of a text that are mutually inconsistent yet consistent with the text itself.

For example, consider the following sentence:

“The eagle has landed.”

What do I mean?

Am I referring to a large bird of prey, called an Eagle, descending onto its nest? Or perhaps I’m referring to the Apollo landing? Or some third thing? The text itself cannot tell us. Additional context can help us rule various interpretations out, but a set of text cannot with absolute certainty rule out all interpretations but one.

Here is one example from scripture, to use a topic we both agree on.

Certain parts of scripture make it sound like the Sun orbits the Earth.

He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.

And there are plenty of other verses that refer to the rising and setting of the Sun, or the passage in Joshua in which we are told the Sun stood still in the sky.

How should we interpret these passages? Is it saying that the Sun orbits the Earth, or not? Many Christians in the past thought that the sun did in fact orbit the Earth, as even the learned people of the day accepted the Ptolemaic model of the Solar System, and thought such scripture passages were consistent with that view.

And yet, we now know that scripture is speaking metaphorically (or in the case of Joshua, perhaps the Earth stopped rotating, or perhaps the light from the sun and moon were redirected to the site of the battle continuously), having determined through science that the Earth in facts revolves around the Sun, and not the other way around. But without that bit of scientific knowledge, we couldn’t be sure how to interpret these passages. Appealing to something outside the text was necessary to interpret scripture in this case.

Consider one more case, this time outside of scripture. What were Aristotle’s views on the possibility of the immortality of the soul? While those who followed him certainly have believed that Aristotle’s philosophy would support the notion that the human soul survives death, the question remains did Aristotle himself believe it? Apparently, this has been controversial for centuries.

Appealing to Aristotle’s writings doesn’t work, because there is disagreement on how to read and interpret him. Reading passage A in light of passage B won’t solve the problem, as which passages should inform the reading of others is effectively what’s in dispute. Maybe passage B should be read in light of passage A, or perhaps both in light of a passage C. There is one certain method of figuring it out - you just go and ask Aristotle whether or not he believed in the immortality of the soul. Unfortunately, he’s long dead.

I submit that the interpretation of scripture suffers from the same problem, both due to the nature of symbols and their interpretation, and the evidence of centuries of disagreements on important theological topics with opposing views grounded on scripture, even between those communions who assert sola scriptura as doctrine.

The Catholic position on scripture is effectively like a scenario in which Aristotle is still alive, but perhaps rather than answering directly, he answers through intermediaries. There is a living voice which can adjudicate disputes that are raised in the time since the creation of the text. The Pope and bishops in communion with him can settle new disputes - and if there is still controversy, they can further refine their answer so that all doubt is removed.

The sola scriptura position, by contrast, is where Aristotle is still alive but neither answers your question directly or through intermediaries. You’re stuck with the text and readers end up debating the issue interminably. It’s worse, actually, because it would be as if Aristotle allowed this and also believed getting his understanding regarding the immortality of the soul would lead to serious errors from the stand point of a person’s salvation (in scripture terms, this would be like the debate on the doctrine of sola fide).

Scripture doesn’t make sense to me from a catholic perspective at all. When I see the eucharist, I see the eucharist. No catholicism there. When I see the Apostles being granted authority to forgive sin, then that’s what I see. No catholicism. When I see a Christian losing their faith, then I see that too. No catholicism needed. It’s not hard. The reason you see the RCC in Scripture is because you’re *already* RCC.

And the reason you see Protestant doctrine in scripture is because you’re already Protestant. I admit our world views do create bias.

But just as you weren’t always Protestant, I wasn’t always Catholic. I spent most of my life as an agnostic/atheist, and was a non-denominational Protestant from late 2011 until summer 2012, having read the NIV Bible cover to cover from the start of 2012 through Easter. Having finished the Bible, I started learning about Church history and the Church fathers, and realized that they sounded much more like Catholics (and Orthodox, a group of Christians I was hitherto unfamiliar with).

I could no longer believe in sola scriptura, as my own views after reading scripture were quite different from the early Church.

But I propose that you have the opposite problem. When I look at the Roman Catholic Church, or the (slightly more convincing) Eastern Orthodox Churches in which I was reared, I see organisms that want to exist on their own, and read into the Scriptures whatever they need. We want our priests to have the authority to absolve sins. Invent a doctrine whereby they inherit the Apostles’ abilities! Etc.

I would agree with you if there was no evidence of such teachings until, say, the 12th century when they appeared as a novelty, with evidence of some traditionalists fighting tooth and nail against such novelties. But the evidence of priests having the power to forgive sins is found in antiquity, without the slightest hint of any doctrinal quarrel.

How did this happen? The obvious answer is that the priestly power to absolve sins was passed down from the Apostles and is part of Sacred Tradition. It wasn’t invented. It was handed down.

The Church may be its own organism, but that doesn’t mean it was without a divine founder. Jesus teaches us to submit to the authority of the Church. Paul likewise instructs Christians to excommunicate those who are blatantly committing immoral deeds (and thus confirms the authority of the Church over individual Christians).

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

But what is the Church? Did Luther violate this teaching by breaking with Rome? If not, then what about someone who left Luther’s church to found a new Protestant group? How do we determine if someone is guilty of refusing to hear the Church? It can’t be an invisible collection of believers, else such teachings cannot really be followed.

First of all, you insult the fathers by claiming that they relied primarily on apostolic authority to prove doctrines. They relied on the Scriptures.

They didn’t fail to use scripture in support of their point of view, of course. However, to settle many disputes, the early Church relied on ecumenical councils, with the judgment of the Apostles (Jerusalem) and bishops (Niceae and after) settling the manner. Appeals to known centers of Apostolic authority, particularly Rome, were made against heretics, which would be in vain if they accepted the doctrine of sola scriptura.

Arianism was good readings of Scriptures vs bad readings of Scriptures.

It was good reading of scripture was informed by philosophical considerations outside of scripture (hence all the talk about persons and substance which is utterly alien to it). Moreover, the Church did not only appeal to scripture, but it held ecumenical councils which proclaimed the orthodox view which was to be definitely held by all the faithful. This is not the action of a church that believes in sola scriptura, but in which the bishops have some authority over doctrine.

Likewise with Chalcedonianism. Further, the ecclesiology of the RCC is different from what they understood.

Read Tertullian and find evidence that the bishop of Rome was not understood to be the head of the church.

What did he say? Is it corroborated elsewhere? Was it ambiguous? Was it during his catholic period or heretical period?

Ireneaus asserted in his discussions against the heretics that all churches were to agree with Rome on account of its preeminent authority.

While his actions were resisted, Victor felt he could legitimately assert the authority of Rome over the liturgical calendar of eastern Churches, nullifying the timing of the celebration of Easter that these churches claimed was handed down from the Apostle John, and going as far to excommunicate those who disagreed.

Read Clement of Rome and find evidence that Rome was not led by a monarchial bishop at the time, but by a council of elders.

What evidence is that? Why is there nothing in the historical record about a monarchical bishop seizing power? And why do those far closer to his time than us refer to lists of individual successor to the Apostles?

Clement of Rome also instructs the Corinthians that their counsel came through the Lord and that it would not be a small matter for them to disobey. So in the first century, we have direct evidence that the church at Corinth was subordinate to Rome. Note that this letter was likely written while the Apostle John was still alive. Under a Protestant ecclesiology, why would the Corinthians not settle the manner locally, or failing that, appeal to Rome rather than an Apostle?

Accept this our advice, and it will not be repented of by you. For as God liveth, and as the Lord Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit, the confidence and hope of the elect, he who observeth in humility with earnest obedience, and repining not, the ordinances and commands given by God, he shall be reckoned and counted in the number of them that are saved by Jesus Christ, through whom is there to him glory, world without end. Amen. But if some should be disobedient to the things spoken by him [i.e. the Lord] through us, let them know that they will entangle themselves in no small transgression and danger.

Read Clement of Alexandria and see by what lengths he proves the Trinity from Scripture. Did they hold to Sola Scriptura? Were they Protestants? Of course not. But they understood that the Church’s authority had to conform itself with the Scriptures which they so revered, and they understood that the source of doctrines were to be found in the writings that were God-breathed.

Again, I wouldn’t be surprised if he used scripture at length and convincingly. Obviously, I think Trinitarianism is true and that the Bible is infallible. And Christians hold scripture in high regard and cite it in our disputes. But also see how poorly arguments solely from scripture fared initially. The whole world, almost, turned Arian in the 4th century. The Church was compelled to have not one but two ecumenical councils denounce Arianism.

#Catholic #Protestant #Sola Scriptura #Church Fathers

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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20 years after Columbine, former Principal Frank DeAngelis is still learning how to move on

There are letters from President Bill Clinton, another from President Barack Obama and one from Vice President Joe Biden. There’s a photograph of Frank with Clinton, another of him with Hillary Clinton, and one of him beside Celine Dion.

The torch holder he carried for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City is mounted near a matching newspaper clipping. And there’s an autographed photo of baseball great Derek Jeter, wishing Frank well in the run-up to his retirement in 2014 as the principal of Columbine High School.

“It’s a little bit of history,” Frank said.

At first, he was bound by a promise to stay at the helm until every student who’d been at the school that unimaginable morning had graduated. Then, he expanded that vow, remaining until every local child who’d been in class that day, down to preschoolers, had earned a diploma.

Since stepping away from the principal’s office, he has continued his commitment to collective recovery — and expanded his flock far beyond Columbine High School.

Five years after retiring, the 64-year-old is as busy as ever, traveling the country to shepherd principals and communities that have fallen victim to the scourge of school shootings. It’s the latest iteration of an evolving role, however unwelcome, he has pioneered since April 20, 1999.

“Columbine offers hope,” Frank told CNN. “And that’s what I hope, 20 years later, that we’re doing, that we’re reaching out to other people — the Parklands, the Santa Fes, the Sandy Hooks, the Virginia Techs.”

“I feel I was chosen to do that.”

But he’s also given so much of himself to Columbine, several people close to him said. And with the 20th anniversary of the shooting and the publication of a new memoir, “They Call Me ‘Mr. De,'” Frank’s wife, Diane DeAngelis, hopes he soon considers slowing down.

“It always comes to a head right before the anniversary,” she said. “And I just hope that with the 20th, that maybe this is the last anniversary that is as big as it is and that we can move on a bit.”

A devoted educator faces the unthinkable

When Frank was 13, he got a job in a pizzeria. In high school, he delivered newspapers. Frank’s parents taught hard work and dedication, and when he got sick, he hardly ever missed work.

Diane, who dated Frank in high school, said he was nice but very serious. He didn’t have a sense of humor. The couple spent all their time together, and while still in high school, Frank gave her a promise ring and said he wanted to get married. Diane didn’t want that, she said, so they broke up.

“I had no spontaneity … I was so serious,” Frank admitted. “I was 15 or 16 going on 30, and I had to plan my whole life out.”

Even so, Frank was unsure what he wanted to study in college, his brother said. But they had both played sports growing up, so when Frank told his brother he’d become an educator, Anthony DeAngelis assumed it was for the sake of athletics.

“I thought, ‘He’s probably going to be pretty good at this,'” Anthony said.

As with all things, Frank dove in deep. Early in his career, Frank’s principal once forced him to fork over his keys to the school for a weekend. “He said, ‘I do not want to see you around this school. Frank, you need to get away,'” he remembered.

Frank displayed that same commitment to each of his students and the baseball players he coached, said Tom Tonelli, one of Frank’s former pupils and a Columbine High School graduate who went on to teach at the school.

“It was always: Be a good student, be a good athlete, but above all else, be a good person,” said Tonelli of Frank’s expectations.

Still today, when Frank’s brother hands over his credit card at restaurants, servers often ask if he’s related to Frank, Anthony said. A waitress last year told him Frank had been her principal.

“And she goes, ‘You could talk to any of my friends. What we appreciated was how he treated us,'” Anthony recalled.

That sentiment holds whether before or after the shooting, said Tonelli, who was on staff at Columbine the day gunfire erupted.

“Do I think the shooting transformed him? Absolutely,” the teacher said. “But to say somehow he became a totally different type of person, I don’t think so. The character he exhibited in the wake of the tragedy is just a reflection of who he was before it happened.”

When ‘the world didn’t believe in us,’ he did

Columbine High School serves a middle- and upper-middle-class community in Littleton, Colorado, where the mountains in the west rise into a wide open sky. Before the massacre, it was an “ideal” community, Frank said, with a lot of parental support and where he “could count on my two hands the number of fistfights we had in 20 years.”

After the shooting, Frank “felt this enormous burden to go rebuild that community,” he said. That’s when he made the promise to stay at Columbine until the Class of 2002 had graduated. Other staff members made the same commitment, he said.

But in 2001, Frank felt he hadn’t accomplished what he’d set out to do.

“There were so many people deeply impacted, even the kids in elementary school,” he said. “So, I made a promise that I wanted to be there until that last class graduated, which would be 2012.”

Two years after that, he finally left.

Frank’s promise to stay gave him “so much credibility in the community,” Tonelli said. The faculty and staff, along with the students and the whole community, looked to him as a leader, as someone who was “persevering for a cause greater than himself.”

The perception stuck, even in the face of criticism that the school’s administrators and faculty had fostered a student culture “where something like this could happen,” Tonelli said, referring to the shooting and calling the claim “unjust.”

The notion “that there were certain segments of the population we didn’t care about was so untrue,” the teacher said.

Through it all, Frank’s “leadership meant everything,” he said. “He was the biggest believer in our kids and in their teachers and in our community at a time when we felt like the rest of the world didn’t believe in us anymore.”

A leader battles darkness at home

But as he worked to help Columbine recover, Frank was also an ordinary survivor. At home, his heroic veneer vanished, giving way to the reality of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I tried to do everything to protect what I call the Columbine family,” Frank recalled. “But when I would come home, I just wanted to be left alone.”

He didn’t want to talk with his first wife and two stepchildren about what happened; they just didn’t understand the aftermath, he said.

“It cost me my marriage,” he said. “My wife was saying, ‘You’re not the same person I married. You’ve changed.’ And I did. I felt so much guilt.”

His trauma manifested in other ways, too. Months after the shooting, Frank and his brother went to a Colorado Rockies game. When fireworks lit up the sky, Anthony said, “My brother nearly took cover.” Later, Frank told Anthony the celebratory display took him right back to the attack.

More shell shock set in when Frank returned to Columbine the summer after the shooting to prepare for the new academic year. Bangs and rumbles echoed as construction crews repaired damage to the building.

“I would have to go back to my office,” he said, “and I would cry.”

Hope thrives in ‘tough love’

Ahead of the massacre’s third anniversary, as he was pushed by divorce proceedings to the edge of emotional and financial “ruin,” Frank began pecking away at the mountain of unopened letters he’d gotten in its wake. Among the first he picked up was from his high school sweetheart, Diane.

They began talking regularly by phone, often late into the night, but agreed not to see each other until Frank’s marriage was dissolved.

“There was still a spark,” Diane said, and she could tell Frank had grown up. “I could see that he had a sense of humor,” she laughed, but also that his core traits hadn’t changed. “Some of the good things that brought us together were there from the beginning.”

But as their relationship developed, Frank continued to wrestle with his trauma. As with many Columbine survivors, it always got harder in the advent of April, a month in which Frank has gotten into six car wrecks and when his attention always jerks back to the terror.

He leaned on counseling and his Catholic faith, but he was living alone in a nearly vacant house, with only a few pictures and a single bed left after most everything else was sold off.

“Twenty years of my life was in shambles,” he said. “I was struggling,” and he eventually started to drink.

Diane, whose father was a recovered alcoholic, quickly caught on. Frank started hanging up the phone around 4 in the afternoon, she said, and telling her they would talk the next day.

“Immediately, I knew,” she said. “I thought, I don’t know if I’m going to have to end this, because I can’t go down that path again.”

Diane’s father died that April; Frank attended the visitation, and they began seeing each other. Soon, Diane caught him drinking. “I can’t do this,” she told him.

“It was justifiable,” Frank said, looking back. “That was what I needed, that tough love … I was so fortunate she came back into my life. And I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. It was a wake-up call.”

Leading the ‘Club Nobody Wanted to Join’

When he talks to others who have lived through school shootings, Frank mentions the risk of using alcohol or drugs to cope, and he emphasizes the importance of finding positive sources of support.

It’s just one of many pieces of advice he gives to members of what he calls in his book, “A Club Nobody Wanted to Join.”

Columbine wasn’t the first school shooting, and it obviously wasn’t the last. But every time another mass murder happens at a school, Frank said, his phone begins to ring with calls from reporters seeking insight from one of the nation’s most seasoned campus attack veterans.

“Not that I’m an expert,” he said, “but I lived through it.”

He was called on as recently as this week to address the news media when a Florida teenager — who authorities said was “infatuated” with the Columbine massacre — traveled to Colorado and bought a shotgun, prompting the shutdown of Denver-area schools, including Columbine.

Frank also reaches out to school leaders thrust into the role he knows so well. Last year, he said he connected after deadly shootings with administrators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, as well as Santa Fe High School in Texas and Marshall County High School in Kentucky.

Getting that call carries a lot of weight, said Andy Fetchik, the former principal of Chardon High School in Ohio, where three students were killed in a shooting in February 2012.

The first thing Frank said was, “We are now members of the same fraternity that neither one of us pledged,” Fetchik told CNN. “And the second thing he asked me to do was to write down his cell phone number.”

Months later, as Fetchik prepared to start the next school year, he gave Frank a call, he said.

“There was a peace of mind in speaking with someone that went through it,” Fetchik said, noting that Frank validated the steps he’d taken to help his Ohio school community heal.

Several years later, Frank visited Chardon High School to talk with faculty members about the recovery process.

“One of the things I struggled with in the recovery was addressing the needs of staff. We didn’t always know what they needed,” Fetchik said. “Frank was that voice of somebody who’s been there, who said, ‘Where you’re at is OK. Mental health recovery is not something you could control. There’s no calendar.'”

‘Columbine is not going to define me’

Today, Frank and Fetchik are members of the Principal Recovery Network, a new group of 17 current and former school administrators who have lived through school shootings and their aftermath. Unlike activists who have sought to change gun laws following campus attacks, these officials simply aim to offer themselves and their combined experience as a resource.

It falls in line with the work Frank has undertaken since he retired. Last year, he gave about 50 presentations in the United States and Canada about the recovery process. He also serves on the boards of school safety and other organizations, he said, knowing his name and connection to Columbine carry weight.

But he’s tired, Diane said, and she’s made it clear she hopes he slows down after the 20th anniversary of the event that has served as the pivot point for his life’s work.

“He’s doing a lot of good out there, and he has a lot to bring to the table,” she told CNN. “But I worry about his health, because it hasn’t been great. I see it in his face, how exhausted he is.”

For a man who’s been working since he was a kid, “I can’t imagine myself being completely retired,” Frank said. And he knows he’ll always want to help suffering communities. But he admits he needs to lighten his load.

“I’m looking at the 20-year remembrance as, I need to reevaluate,” he said. “I need to be able to give myself permission to relax. I need to give myself permission.”

When he retired, Frank said, Diane told him she worried he would fall into a depression because he would no longer be associated with Columbine. Around that time, he began worrying about his own health and suffered with anxiety. But the doctor told him he was fine.

Then, he visited another expert who pinpointed the problem. “You have been a part of Columbine for 35 years,” Frank’s therapist told him, he recalled. “And you feel that Columbine is Frank DeAngelis.”

That perspective set the stage for a new outlook, Frank said. It’s one he says he wants to embrace, though it may require as much determination as any hurdle he’s conquered yet.

“He made me realize that Columbine is not going to define me. And that helped a lot,” the former principal said. “I’ve just got to get it in my mind that it’s OK.”

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theconservativebrief · 7 years ago

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It might seem unbelievable given that the “Christmas creep” now begins before Halloween, but the true Christmas season actually starts on Christmas Day itself. That’s right: December 25 marks the official start of the 12 days of Christmas, the Christian tradition that shares its name with a relentlessly stick-in-your-head Christmas carol.

Here are a few things you may not know about the song and the season.

The 12 days of Christmas is the period that in Christian theology marks the span between the birth of Christ and the coming of the Magi, the three wise men. It begins on December 25 (Christmas) and runs through January 6 (the Epiphany, sometimes also called Three Kings’ Day). The four weeks preceding Christmas are collectively known as Advent, which begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on December 24.

Some families choose to mark the 12-day period by observing the feast days of various saints (including St. Stephen on December 26) and planning daily Christmas-related activities, but for many, after December 25 things go back to business as usual.

“The 12 Days of Christmas” is also a Christmas carol in which the singer brags about all the cool gifts they received from their “true love” during the 12 days of Christmas. Each verse builds on the previous one, serving as a really effective way to annoy family members on road trips.

The version most people are familiar with today begins with this verse:

On the first day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

A partridge in a pear tree.

The song then adds a gift for each day, building on the verse before it, until you’re reciting all 12 gifts together:

Day 2: two turtle doves

Day 3: three French hens

Day 4: four calling birds

Day 5: five gold rings

Day 6: six geese a-laying

Day 7: seven swans a-swimming

Day 8: eight maids a-milking

Day 9: nine ladies dancing

Day 10: 10 lords a-leaping

Day 11: 11 pipers piping

Day 12: 12 drummers drumming

The history of the carol is somewhat murky. The earliest known version first appeared in a 1780 children’s book called Mirth With-out Mischief. (A first edition of that book sold for $23,750 at a Sotheby’s auction in 2014, but you can also buy a digital copy on Amazon.) Some historians think the song could be French in origin, but most agree it was designed as a “memory and forfeits” game, in which singers tested their recall of the lyrics and had to award their opponents a “forfeit” — a kiss or a favor of some kind — if they made a mistake.

Many variations of the lyrics have existed at different points. Some mention “bears a-baiting” or “ships a-sailing”; some name the singer’s mother as the gift giver instead of their true love. Early versions list four “colly” birds, an archaic term meaning black as coal (blackbirds, in other words). And some people theorize that the five gold rings actually refer to the markings of a ring-necked pheasant, which would align with the bird motif of the early verses.

In any case, the song most of us are familiar with today comes from an English composer named Frederic Austin; in 1909, he set the melody and lyrics (including changing “colly” to “calling”) and added as his own flourish the drawn-out cadence of “five go-old rings.”

A popular theory that’s made the internet rounds is that the lyrics to “The 12 Days of Christmas” are coded references to Christianity; it posits that the song was written to help Christians learn and pass on the tenets of their faith while avoiding persecution. Under that theory, the various gifts break down as follows, as the myth-debunking website Snopes explained:

2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments

3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues

4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists

5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch,” which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.

6 Geese A-laying = the six days of creation

7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments

8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes

9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit

10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments

11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles

12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed

The partridge in the pear tree, naturally, represents Jesus Christ.

This theory seems tailor-made for circulation via chain emails, but it actually makes little sense once you examine it. Snopes has a great explanation of the many, many holes in its logic. The most egregious: First, the song’s gifts have nothing to do with their Christian “equivalents,” so the song is basically useless as a way to remember key pillars of the faith. And second, if Christians were so restricted from practicing their faith that they had to conceal messages in a song, they also wouldn’t be able to celebrate Christmas in the first place — much less sing Christmas carols.

The late historian William Studwell, known for his Christmas carol expertise, also refuted the coded message idea. Via a Northern Illinois University news release:

First, Catholics of that era were not terribly persecuted, so there would have been little need for their teachings to have been secretive. Also, the breezy, bouncy nature of the tune hardly fits with the character of the church at that time. Finally, neither Studwell, nor any other reputable researcher, has ever found a definitive explanation of what each of the 12 gifts in the song would have correlated to in the Catholic catechism.

Sorry to spoil your dinner party fun fact; while I’m at it, I might as well tell you “Ring Around the Rosie” isn’t about the Black Plague, either.

To calculate the cost of all the gifts in “The 12 Days of Christmas,” I’ll turn to the PNC financial services group’s annual Christmas Price Index, which PNC has been putting out since 1984 (and which occasionally makes its way into school lesson plans). The index calculates the cost of all the gifts in the song based on current market rates; 2018’s total comes to a hefty $39,094.93, or $170,609.46 if you count each mention of an item separately (which would amount to 364 gifts in all) — up 1.2 percent from last year.

PNC Financial Services Group

The takeaway: Swans are damn expensive (at $1,875 each/$13,125 for all seven) but at least stayed the same price as last year, while the cost of the five gold rings ($750 total) is down 9.1 percent from last year, due to “less demand and fluctuations in gold prices throughout 2018,” per PNC. No matter the cost, though, actually giving someone all this stuff is probably not a great idea; just think of all the bird poo.

The structure of “The 12 Days of Christmas” lends itself easily to parodies, of which there have been many. There’s Jeff Foxworthy’s redneck version, Twisted Sister’s heavy metal take, and, of course, a Muppets version (featuring John Denver):

[embedded content]

There’s also a 12 days of Christmas diet of sorts, which the Atlantic’s Olga Khazan attempted in 2013. She calculated the calories in a serving of each bird mentioned in the song, and offset them with the calories burned by the various activities (milking, leaping, etc.). Turns out all that poultry is somehow less indulgent than the typical American holiday meal. She sums up:

If you ate all of the birds in one day, including the pheasant pie, but not including all the trimmings for the other dishes, and subtracted the energy you expended milking, dancing, leaping, and drumming, you’d have consumed 2,384 net calories. That’s really not bad, considering the average American Thanksgiving dinner adds up to about 4,500 calories.

It seems even more reasonable, relatively speaking, when you consider that if you wanted to burn off your meal by just singing its namesake tune, you’d have to make it all the way through roughly 300 times — about 17 and a half hours of caroling. And that’s a gift we doubt anyone would welcome.

Original Source -> The 12 Days of Christmas: the story behind the holiday’s most annoying carol

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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mariellemichelle-blog · 8 years ago

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New Collection of Sermons Published by One of America's Greatest Preachers

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New Collection of Sermons Published by One of America's Greatest Preachers

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The Selected Sermons of Dr. Roger Bourland is a compilation of the works of one of America’s best and best-known preachers. In 1976, Dr. Bourland was the recipient of the United Methodist Church Outstanding Preacher Award and he was also a speaker on The Protestant Hour, a popular radio show that made its way into countless American homes each week. Now his son, Joe Bourland, has compiled some of his father’s best and most popular sermons into one volume for readers’ enjoyment and spiritual nourishment.

The sermons are divided into six sections. The first covers sermons Dr. Bourland gave when he was “preacher to the pack.” For several years, Dr. Bourland was a pastor in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and consequently, he had several of the Green Bay Packers’ players and coaches in his congregation, including Bart Starr. I am not a football fan, but it did my heart good to hear about his friendship with these men who are held up as role models to our youth. He often spent time with them, even worked out with them, and best of all, he talks about how no kid in his congregation will ever believe church is for “sissies” when he has the memory of a 250-pound pro football player sitting beside him in church.

The second and third sections of the book are sermons collected while Dr. Bourland preached first in Green Bay and then in Omaha, Nebraska. The fourth section encompasses many of his sermons from his years on The Protestant Hour. The fifth section is very special because it’s for special occasions-entitled “The Seasons,” it includes sermons for national and liturgical holidays-including for confirmations, for Thanksgiving, and for Advent as well as the very special sermon Dr. Bourland preached at his son Joe’s wedding.

The final section is a series of sermons Dr. Bourland preached during advent drawing upon Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. By using each of the three ghosts Ebenezer Scrooge meets as a focus for each week, Dr. Bourland shows us how Christmas is not just about gifts but about being sensitive to the people around us, realizing Christmas is not always easy for others, and being good Christians in our compassion for one another.

Dr. Bourland’s sermons are not heavy on moralizing and there is no sin and damnation focus here. He does talk about sin and even sexuality, but when he does, it’s in a heartfelt and practical way. In fact, we could term this whole collection as being about practical Christianity. Dr. Bourland does not believe in Fundamentalism, and he makes it clear that the Bible was written for people living in biblical times and not directly for us today-by extension, he says there is no point in trying to predict when the world will end based on Scripture. Instead, he urges us to live each day like it’s our last so we are prepared for whatever may happen.

Although many of these sermons were preached as many as forty years ago, they remain extremely relevant today. Dr. Bourland preaches about the Cold War and the fear of nuclear war, which remains a major concern today. He tells us not to focus on these things but to become used to waiting for Jesus’ return. He tells us:

“So we must enter into moments of creative waiting. These are times of expectancy and hope and searching. What has gone on before is no longer part of us. It hasn’t yet been revealed what is to come next. God nudges us and we know that it is wrong just to stand there on the mountain, looking up with mouths wide open. We find ourselves in an interim phase. But it is a phase that points beyond itself.

“There is one thing wonderful about that. We come to see that this type of thing has always been a part of God’s eternal plan for his people. We watch and hope as God’s Spirit ebbs and flows about us.”

At times, Dr. Bourland provides us with very close readings of the Bible, especially in several of the sermons that focus on the Psalms. At other times, he draws upon other sources to help illustrate his points and shed fresh light on well-known stories. For example, in his sermon on the parable of the Prodigal Son, he brings in Shakespeare’s King Lear as a reference.

As a Catholic, I found several of Dr. Bourland’s sermons about John Wesley and his preaching to be interesting so I could better understand Methodism. And I was glad to know Dr. Bourland clearly believes in ecumenicalism-even referencing Catholic beliefs that are of value, especially the power of going to confession.

In an age of random shootings and terrorism, we badly need to hear what Dr. Bourland has to say about the importance of nonviolence. He illustrates this point by talking about a wilderness camping trip he took when he considered bringing a gun with him for protection. He decided not to bring the gun, only to come within fifteen feet of a bear on a trail. Fortunately, the bear ran off because of the noise he and his family made, but Dr. Bourland makes an excellent point here:

“What would have happened if I had taken a gun into the Quetico? I would not have shot that bear, but I am sure that the chemistry between us would have been dramatically different. Potential violence changes everything.

“Creative non-violence is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It takes away unfounded fears and builds the love of peace among people of goodwill.

“Real strength simply does not have to assert or prove itself. Real strength is gentle and kind. Such was the strength of the Lamb.”

A final theme I’ll comment on in the sermons that really resonated with me was what Dr. Bourland has to say about patience. I could completely relate to him when he described his own impatience and how he hates meetings, and I loved when he described Jesus as one of the most impatient people of all. Then Dr. Bourland revealed that those of us who battle with our own impatience do not necessarily have to be so worried about it. He states:

“What is patience in the New Testament? The patience that Paul talks about as a mark of God’s people is something so different and so much more important than what I had originally thought that I can kick myself for never having sensed it before. The New Testament word means steadfastness. The New Testament word means forbearance. The New Testament word means perseverance. The New Testament word means to bear up under pain or evil or suffering without showing a long face or needing to get revenge on somebody. Jesus speaks of being able to turn the other cheek when someone slaps you. The secret behind that is that in Christ, there is nothing inside that makes you have to slap back. Patience! The New Testament word means being able to hurt without blazing out in anger. The New Testament word means to be able to take anything life brings without losing heart or courage or poise. The New Testament word means to be able to take such a long view of life that neither the big things nor the little things can destroy you. That is patience and that is a gift.”

Dr. Bourland has far, far more to say that can help us today. In this age of fear, anger, violence, and political fights, we all need to pause and remind ourselves what it means to be a Christian-to get along with each other and to put our focus on our relationship with God. Anyone looking for a little comfort, some good advice, or better knowledge of the Bible and what it means to be a Christian will benefit from the life-giving words in this book.

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pamphletstoinspire · 7 years ago

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Gospel Reading and Commentary for December 21st - Third Friday of Advent - Roman Catholic - Luke: 1: 39 - 45

39. And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;

40. And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.

41. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

42. And she spoke out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

43. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

44. For, lo, as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

45. And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.

#gospel of luke

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pamphletstoinspire · 7 years ago

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Gospel Reading and Commentary for December 4th - First Tuesday of Advent - Roman Catholic - Luke 10: 21 - 24

21. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth that you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in your sight.

22. All things are delivered to me of my Father and no man knows who the Son is, but the Father and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.

THEOPHYL. As a loving father rejoices to see his sons do right, so Christ also rejoices that His Apostles were made worthy of such good things. Hence it follows, In that hour, &c. CYRIL; He saw in truth that through the operation of the Holy Spirit, which He gave to the holy Apostles, the acquisition of many would be made, (or that many would be brought to the faith.) He is said therefore to have rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, that is, in the results which came forth through the Holy Spirit. For as one who to be mankind He considered the conversion of sinners to be a subject for rejoicing, for which He gives thanks. As it follows, I give thanks to you, O Father. BEDE; Confessing does not always signify penitence, but also thanks airing, as is frequently found in the Psalms.

CYRIL; Now here, say they whose hearts are perverted, the Son gives thanks to the Father as being inferior But what should prevent the Son of the same substance with the Father from praising His own Father, who saves the world by Him? But if you think that because of His giving thanks He shows Himself to be inferior, observe, that He calls Him His Father, and the Lord of heaven and earth. TITUS BOST. For all other things have been produced by Christ from nothing, but He alone was incomprehensibly begotten of His Father, Who therefore of the Only-begotten alone, as a true Son, is by nature the Father. Hence He alone says to His Father, I give thanks to you, O Father, Lord, &c. that is, I glorify you. Marvel not that the Son glorifies the Father. For the whole substance of the Only-begotten is the glory of the Father. For both those things which were created, and the Angels, are the glory of the Creator. But since these are placed too low in respect of His dignity, the Son alone, since He is perfect God like His Father, perfectly glorifies His Father. ATHAN. We know also that the Savior often speaks as man. For His divine nature has human nature joined to it, yet you would not, because of His clothing Himself with a body, be ignorant that He was God. But what do they answer to this, who wish to make out a substance of evil, but form to themselves another God, other than the true Father of Christ? And they say that he is unbegotten, the creator of evil and prince of iniquity, as well as the maker of the world’s fabric. Now our Lord, affirming the word of Moses, says, I give thanks to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.

EPIPHAN. But a Gospel composed by Marcion has, “I give thanks to You, O Lord,” being silent as to the words of heaven and earth, and the word Father, lest it should be supposed that He calls the Father the Creator of the heaven and the earth.

AMBROSE; Lastly, he unveils the heavenly mystery by which it pleased God to reveal His grace, rather to the little ones than the wise of the world. Hence it follows, That you have hid these things from the wise and prudent.

THEOPHYL. The distinction may be, that it is said, the wise, meaning, the Pharisees and Scribes who interpret the law, and the prudent, meaning those who were taught by the Scribes, for the wise man is he who teaches, but the prudent man he who is taught; but the Lord calls His disciples babes, whom He chose not from the teachers of the law, but out of the multitude, and by calling, fishermen; babes, that is, as devoid of malice. AMBROSE; Or by a babe we should here understand one who knew nothing of exalting himself, and of boasting in proud words of the excellence of his wisdom, as the Pharisees often do. BEDE; He therefore gives thanks that He had revealed to the Apostles as to babes the sacraments of His coming, of which the Scribes and Pharisees were ignorant, who think themselves wise, and are prudent in their own sight. THEOPHYL. The mysteries then were hid from those who think themselves wise, and are not; for if they had been, these would have been revealed to them. BEDE; To the wise and prudent then He opposed not the dull and foolish, but babes; that is, the humble, to show that He condemned pride, not quickness of mind. ORIGEN; For a feeling of deficiency is the preparation for coming perfection. For whoever by the presence of the apparent good perceives not that he is destitute of the true good, is deprived of the true good.

CHRYS. Now He does not rejoice and give thanks because the mysteries of God were hid from the Scribes and Pharisees (for this were not a subject of rejoicing, but of lament,) but for this cause gives He thanks, that what hat the wise knew not, babes knew. But moreover He gives thanks to the Father together with whom He Himself does this, to show the great love wherewith He loves us. He explains in the next place, that the cause of this thing was first His own will and Father’s, who of His own will did this. As it follows, Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in your sight.

GREG. We receive these words as an example of humility, that we Moral should not rashly presume to scan the heavenly counsel, concerning the calling of some, and the rejection of others; for that cannot be unjust which seemed good to the Just One. In all things therefore, externally disposed, the cause of the visible system is the justice of the hidden will.

CHRYS. But after He had said, I thank you that you have revealed them to babes, lest you should suppose that Christ was destitute of the power to do this, He adds, All things are delivered to me of my Father. ATHAN. The followers of Arius, not rightly understanding this, rave against our Lord, saying, If all things were given to him, that is, the dominion of the creatures, there was as a time when He had them not, and so was not of the substance of the Father. For if He had been, there would be no need for Him to receive. But hereby is their madness the rather detected. For if before He had received them, the creature was independent of the Word, how will that verse stand, In him all things consist? But if as soon as the creatures were made, they were all given to Him, where was the need to give, for by him were all things made? The dominion of the creation is not then, as they think, here meant, but the words signify the dispensation made in the flesh. For after that man sinned, all things were confounded; the Word then was made flesh, that He might restore all things. All things therefore were given Him, not because He was wanting in power, but that as Savior He should repair all things; that as by the Word all things at the beginning were brought into being, so when the Word was made flesh, He should restore all things in Himself. BEDE; Or by the words, All things are delivered to me, He means not the elements of the world, but those babes to whom by the Spirit the Father made known the Sacraments of His Son; and in whose salvation when He here spoke He was rejoicing. AMBROSE; Or, when you read all things, you acknowledge the Almighty, not the Son lower than the Father; when you read delivered, you confess the Son, to whom by the nature of one substance all things rightly belong, not conferred as a gift by grace. CYRIL; Now having said that all things were given Him by His Father, He rises to His own glory and excellence showing that in nothing He is surpassed by His Father. Hence He adds, And no one knows who the Son is but the Father, &c. For the mind of the creatures is not able to comprehend the manner of the Divine substance, which passes all understanding, and His glory transcends our highest contemplations. By Itself only is known what the Divine nature is. Therefore the Father, by that which He is, knows the Son the Son, by that which He is, knows the Father, no difference intervening as regards the Divine nature. And in another place. For that God is, we believe, but what he is by nature, is incomprehensible. But if the Son was created, how could He alone know the Father, or how could He be known only by the Father. For to know the Divine nature is impossible to any creature, but to know each created thing what it is, does not surpass every understanding, though it is far beyond our senses. ATHAN. But though our Lord says this, it is plain that the Arians object to Him, saying that the Father is not seen by the Son. But their folly is manifest, as if the Word did not know Itself which reveals to all men the knowledge of the Father and Itself; for it follows, And to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

TITUS BOST. Now a revelation is the communication of knowledge in proportion to each man’s nature and capacity; and when indeed the nature is congenial, there is knowledge without teaching; but here the instruction is by revelation. ORIGEN; He wishes to reveal as the Word, not without the exercise of reason; and as Justice, who knows rightly both the times for revealing, and the measures of revelation; but He reveals by removing the opposing veil from the heart, and the darkness which He has made His secret place. But since upon this men who are of another opinion think to build up their impious doctrine, that in truth the Father of Jesus was sent down to the ancient saints, we must tell them that the words, To whomsoever the Son will reveal him, not only refer to the future time, after our Savior uttered this, but also to the past time But if they will not take this word reveal for what is past, the must be told, that it is not the same thing to know and to believe. To one is given by the Spirit the word of knowledge; to another faith by the same Spirit. There were then those who believed, but did not know. AMBROSE; But that you may know that as the Son revealed the Father to whom He will, the Father also reveals the Son to whom He will, hear our Lord’s words, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed it to you, but my Father which is in heaven.

23. And he turned him to his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that you see:

24. For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which you see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which you hear, and have not heard them.

THEOPHYL. Having said above, No one knows who the Father is but the Son, and to whomsoever the Son will reveal him; He pronounces a blessing upon His disciples, to whom the Father was revealed through Him. Hence it is said, And he turned him to his disciples, and said, Blessed &c. CYRIL; He turns to them indeed, since He rejected the Jews, who were deaf, with their understandings blinded, and not wishing to see, and gives Himself wholly to those who love Him; and He pronounces those eyes blessed which see the things no others had seen before. We must however know this, that seeing does not signify the action of the eyes, but the pleasure which the mind receives from benefits conferred. For instance, if any one should say, He has seen good times, that is, he has rejoiced in good times, according to the Psalm, You shall see the good of Jerusalem. For many Jews have seen Christ performing, divine works, that is to say, with their bodily sight, yet all were not fitted to rereceive the blessing, for they believed not; but these saw not His glory with their mental sight. Blessed then are our eyes, since we see by faith the Word who is made man for us, shedding upon us the glory of His Godhead, that He may make us like to Him by sanctification and righteousness.

THEOPHYL. Now He blesses them, and all truly who look with faith, because the ancient prophets and kings desired to see and hear God in the flesh, as it follows; For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired, &c. BEDE; Matthew more clearly calls them prophets, and righteous men. For those are great kings, who have known how, not by yielding to escape from the assaults of temptations, but by mastering to gain the rule over them. CHRYS. Now from this saying many imagine that the prophets were without the knowledge of Christ. But if they desired to see what the Apostles saw, they knew that He would come to men, and dispense those things which He did. For no one desires what he has no conception of; they therefore knew the Son of God. Hence He does not merely say, They desired to see me, but those things which you see, nor to hear me, but those things which you hear. For they saw Him, but not yet Incarnate, nor thus conversing with men, nor speaking with such authority to them. BEDE; For those looking afar off saw Him in a glass and darkly, but the Apostles having our Lord present with them, whatever things they wished to learn had no need to be taught by angels or any other kind of vision. ORIGEN; But why does he say that many prophets desired, and not all? Because it is said of Abraham, That he saw the day of Christ and was glad, which sight not many, but few attained to; but there were other prophets and just men not so great as to reach to Abraham’s vision, and the experience of the Apostles, who, He says, saw not, but desired to see.

#gospel of luke

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pamphletstoinspire · 8 years ago

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Saint John Berchmans - Feast Day: November 26th - Latin Calendar

Born: March 13, 1599, Diest, Belgium

Joined the Jesuit Order: September 24, 1616 (aged 17)

Died: August 31, 1621 (aged 22)

Beatified: 1865 (244 years later)

Canonized: 1888 (23 years after that)

Patron Saint: Altar Servers

Feast Day: November 26

John Berchmans (note, the final “s” is part of the name) was born and grew up in a Flemish-speaking area of present-day Belgium. His short life (he was only 22 when he died of a sudden fever) was marked by extraordinary piety, even by the standards of the day, which were much higher than our own.

Pray and Work

At the age of 7, John would get up at 5 am and serve 2 or 3 Masses, carefully listening to the sermons (in those days every priest had to say his own Mass every day - it was not enough to concelebrate the Mass of another priest.) For this reason, perhaps, John was later made the patron saint of altar servers. At the age of 9, he would spend hours every day with his mother, who was bedridden with a long illness. His parish priest, Fr. Emmerick noticed all this and remarked that Our Lord would “work wonders in the soul of the child.” John was always especially devoted to Mary, our Blessed Lady, and loved the Rosary, which he would often pray whilst walking along.

Not only did John throw himself into religious devotions with great enthusiasm, he would also try to do more than his share of the chores, or try to take the most arduous and difficult ones. Later, in the Jesuit order, he was the novice who tried hardest to fulfill all the rules. After studying for two years in Belgium, taking his first vows and starting philosophy studies in Antwerp, he set out for Rome to continue his Jesuit philosophy training there. Today this is a comfortable 90 minute flight or an arduous 15 hour drive; John did the journey (due to the Alps a road distance of around 1000 miles) on foot! He had a burning ambition to give his all for Christ, and even to become a saint: “If I do not become a saint when I am young," he said, "I shall never become one.” Perhaps he had a premonition of his early death, or perhaps he realized how creature comforts can paralyse spiritual life in adulthood. Portraits usually depict him holding a crucifix, a rosary and his Shell road atlas Jesuit rule-book.

What his life means to us today

The fierce, passionate “muscular” Christianity of John Berchmans seems unreal, even horrifying to many of today's Catholics brought up on soft-focus posters, self-affirming books and the belief that Christian love means primarily kindness - but let us not be deceived. Jackie Pullinger, who as a young woman preached and lived the gospel in the deadly slums of Hong Kong, famously said that Christians need “soft hearts” but “hard feet.” The seventeenth century was a cruel time all round, with no punches pulled and no anaesthetics. But Catholics like John had the hardest feet imaginable, and besides fortitude (“guts”) and self-sacrifice, they excelled in virtues that the 21st century West ignores or treats almost as a joke, such as humble obedience, temperance, diligence and chastity. Hence St John’s value to us as a guide today lies in his youthful, clear vision in areas where our own times have gaping blind spots.

***

Another Story:

St. John Berchmans was born the eldest son of a shoemaker in 1599 at Diest, Belgium. At a very young age he wanted to be a priest, and when thirteen he became a servant in the household of one of the cathedral canons at Malines. After his mother's death, his father and two brothers followed suit and entered religious life. In 1615 he entered the Jesuit college there, becoming a novice a year later. In 1618 he was sent to Rome for more study and was known for his diligence and piety, and his stress on perfection even in small things. That year his father was ordained and died six months later. John was so poor and humble that he walked from Antwerp to Rome. He died at the age of 22 on August 13. Many miracles were attributed to him after his death; he was canonized in 1888 and is the patron saint of altar boys.

Although he longed to work in the mission fields of China, he did not live long enough to permit it. After completing his course work, he was asked to defend the "entire field of philosophy" in a public disputation in July, just after his exit examinations. The following month he was asked to represent the Roman College in a debate with the Greek College. Although he distinguished himself in this disputation, he had studied so assiduously that he caught a cold in mid-summer, became very ill with with an undetermined illness accompanied by a fever, although some think it now to have been dysentery, and died a week later. He was buried in the church of Saint Ignatius at Rome, but his heart was later translated to the Jesuit church at Louvain.

So many miracles were attributed to him after his death at the age of 22, that his cultus soon spread to his native Belgium, where 24,000 copies of his portrait were published within a few years of his death. He was known for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady, to whom he composed a Chaplet in honor of her Immaculate Conception.

Our true worth does not consist in what human beings think of us.

What we really are consists in what God knows us to be.

To merit the protection of Mary, the smallest act of veneration would be enough, provided that it is performed with constancy.

If I do not become a Saint when I am young, I shall never become one.

[In fact, he died at the early age of twenty-two and he had, without any doubt, reached his goal of sanctity.]

As he was dying, he pressed to his heart his Crucifix, his Rosary, and the Book of Rules, saying: These are my three treasures; with these I shall gladly die.

***

Another Story:

Saint John Berchmans - Jesuit Saint - by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

John Berchmans, I thought I would cover all the young Jesuit saints to make sure that I didn't slight any of them. St. John Berchmans was born in 1599 in Berbont, Belgium and died in Rome in 1621 at the ripe age of twenty-two. Unlike Saints Stanislaus and Aloysius who were members of the nobility, aristocratic, wealthy – John was from a very ordinary family. His father was a shoemaker, which I think is quite ordinary. His mother was never well, which mainly explains why he was brought up by a Premonstratensian priest by the name of Father Peter Emerick who taught him his religion, other subjects, and was in the habit of visiting shrines of which there are quite a few in northern Europe. At thirteen, as the younger children were coming along, the father told John to leave school, stop his education, and work in the shoemaking shop. John protested that he wanted to become a priest and shoemaking is not the usual apprenticeship to the priesthood. In any case the father compromised by getting John a job working in a rectory, cleaning, waiting on table, washing dishes and being paid for his education at a local seminary. The priest in charge of the rectory was quite different from Father Emerick. This one didn't take him to shrine; he took him out hunting. In any case, John, in 1615 – that would be the age of sixteen – entered the Jesuit college at Maleen in Belgium. In reading, however, the seminary where he was, there was a risk between the officials of the seminary and the Jesuits for having taken this bright, young, promising seminarian from their hands. A year later he applied for the Jesuits – his father objected, but, let him go. By now you are used to Jesuit's writing. John Berchmans wrote many letters. We have a copy of the letter he wrote to his mother and father asking them to visit him which was quite a distance, even though Belgium is a small country by modern standards. "I humbly ask you" he says "dear father and mother to be so good as to come here on Wednesday evening" – he told them when to come, even suggested how to travel, certain coach or a certain wagon – "so that I may say welcome and goodbye to you and you to me, so you can give your son back to the good Lord, who gave me to you." This reminds me that when I entered the Jesuits after finishing my university education, with a widowed mother, I thought to myself – this would be cruel, leaving her all alone. When I told her, she gave me a piece of her mind, 'you go.' "Okay, mother, I'll go, I just figured maybe you wanted me to be around." I came back to visit her in our home in Cleveland seven years later. John Berchmans never saw his parents again. His model from the novitiate days on, really became the standard of his life and in one short sentence summarizes his whole outlook on Christianity, 'set great store on little things', 'set great store on little things.' He was in the habit from his novitiate days having been encouraged to do so, to write. He wrote, for example, a long analysis (I think I saw a copy of Alphonosus Rodriquez’ “Principles of Christian Perfection.” I think they're on your shelf there – there are three big volumes.) Anyhow, among other things John Berchmans wrote a nice synthesis analysis of those three volumes for his future reference. His mother died shortly after he entered the novitiate. His father then went on to study for the priesthood and was ordained and proceeded to die shortly after his ordination. By this time he had taken his first vows which is – you know in the Society of Jesus we never speak of temporary vows because we don't take them; our first vows after two years in the novitiate are perpetual. We are the only order in the Catholic Church that have been given the rare privilege of never taking temporary vows. I have the draft of the proposed forthcoming Code of Canon Law to be published, most likely, so the latest word is, first Sunday of Advent. In any case, John Berchmans took his first vows which were perpetual and because he was to start his philosophy studies after taking his first vows and the studies were to be made in Rome – how do you get to Rome from Antwerp in Belgium. He was told, 'you walk.' It took him ten weeks. He made it which partially explains his short life. He did his studies under a famous Father Chipovy in Rome, his first letter, John Berchmans first biographer.

The report on his talent or ability shortly after his death by those who were his teachers was that he had extraordinary ability, intellectual ability, capable of taking and mastering several subjects at once that his enthusiasm for studies was unequaled. Now, my friends, having spent so many years in studies, having taught so many Jesuits for so many years, anyone who has enthusiasm about his studies deserves to be canonized.

Another of his fellow Jesuits who knew him observed that 'after Saint Aloysius, I never knew a young man of more exemplary life, purer conscience or greater perfection than John Berchmans. In other words, he had a reputation for being a very holy person already at a young age. Number twenty in my notes, it just keeps me from mixing things up. Here's a quotation from St. John Berchmans that every Jesuit has memorized. Let me give you the Latin first. It sounds so nice—“meus maxime mortificatsio est vita communis.” --my greatest mortification is community life. I repeat there is no statement of any saints that a Jesuit will not agree with more heartily than that one, that his heaviest mortification, his worst penance, is community life. That doesn't mean you don't like your brethren, but, being human, being oneself and living with other human beings, community life is indeed a great mortification.

Again, John Berchmans wanted to make sure that he never exercised his own will contrary to the directives of superiors. So I memorized and jotted down this little vignette: I wish to let myself be ruled like a baby, one day old. I'm not sure what difference it makes, whether a baby is one day or one year old, in any case, John Berchmans figures, let's make the child one day old. In other words, complete childlike submission to those who are in charge of him. John Berchmans was a very zealous student. What he came from, what we would call the low countries, which for our purpose would be Belgium – the climate in Belgium is somewhat like the more temperate climate in say, northern United States, Maine, Vermont, northern Michigan, Minnesota. In any case, Berchmans was not used to the stifling summer weather in Rome. Yet he took his final examinations in May, 1621 and the heat that summer, and the Roman summer starts early, the heat was intense. He prolonged his studies for his exams, did brilliantly, but took sick. He had just worked too hard. So he was laid up in bed, became deathly sick. As he was dying his confessor asked him, “do you have anything on your conscience that you think deserves to be confessed before you die.” He spoke in Latin, as young Jesuits are to always talk in Latin except in recreation. He said, "Mehil omeno" – absolutely nothing on my conscience, a moment before he died. He died on August the 13th of that year 1621. After his death and even before his burial, miracles were reported throughout Rome. Print of course was already discovered and engravings were made of John Berchmans shortly after his death and copies were printed. In a few days, twenty- four thousand of these engravings were sold in his native country in Belgium.

When he was canonized, the Holy Father who canonized him declared regarding the Jesuit rules, 'if you can prove to me that someone had faithfully lived up to this rule, I'll canonize him.' Berchmans was canonized for being an obedient religious. He was buried with his rosary and rule book in his hands.

Now something about his spirit. I would say the first prominent feature of his spirituality was his simplicity of life. There are no reports of ecstasies or raptures. There was not even a report of anything extraordinary that he ever did. You might say he was a 'little flower' before his time; she a Carmelite, he a Jesuit. The implication for us, if we think about them, are breath taking. The secret is to see God's will in everything. Now that everything in Berchmans vocabulary meant not just, well, the things that occur in a given day, I somehow say 'yes, of course, God must be behind it' but, watch this, and he wrote enough and over the years I've read enough of Berchmans to be able to talk for a couple of hours about his spirituality. For him, seeing God's will in the circumstances in everyday life went down to the smallest, even trifling details. We at table don't have set persons across from whom or with whom we sit, say at table, so the fact that it should be so and so and not such and such. It is God's will known and planned from all eternity. For example, what I am saying, that of all places I should be – what is today, August the 24th – a thousand miles from New York in a place called, is it Lake Villa? and that you should be here – thanks for being in Chapel, too – and that of all the yokels that should be saying whatever I might be saying, it would be me, at least to try your patience, in His name, everything. I stubbed my toe, that's God's providence. I lose something, that's God's providence. While I was putting the finishing touches on my notes, when I got a phone call that was an important call, so I was late, four minutes. That is God's will. That you should have had some charitable thought on why I was late or good for my humility in not being exactly on time; that everything is down to the time of the day, the temperature outside, how 'my body feels, what's crossing my mind. Berchmans saw God in everything. In other words, simplicity which must have twenty meanings for him meant; 'I have only one role in life – God's will.' And where is God's will; how do I know God's will; what books do I read; what speeches do I listen to; what novenas do I have to make. You can spare yourself. What is God saying to you, here and now at this moment? How does He want you to act and react, to His will?

Second feature of Berchmans' spirituality. The rule of St. Ignatius, we don't usually call it a rule because of our constitution, but that rule what's composed over a period of years, much prayer, frequent revelations, especially from Our Lady, much study, analyzing different rules of life written before Ignatius' time. It is a very precise and detailed rule. We have, for example, the rules of modesty; we're told, exactly told, how to use our eyes. Ignatius prescribed how we are to use our hands. I'm sure it's one of the least known rules of St. Ignatius. We are forbidden by rule to touch another person's body unless, either necessity or charity required it. This rule, Berchmans kept. We don't want to say to the letter, because that would cheapen it, but he kept it with perfection, so much so that the Vicar of Christ on his own testimony canonized him because of his fidelity to that minute rule of life and mind you, this is a rule for men, do you know what I'm saying, well, the last thing that man, masculine gender, paid that much attention to his detail, the self discipline and the sacrifice that it takes from a man to be faithful to Ignatius rule only one who tries to live that rule can appreciate. Ignatius was a soldier and he knew battles of won or lost by attention to detail.

John Berchmans' spirituality reflects something that I think we very seldom advert to each other … sort of take it for granted. We say correctly that God's grace builds on human nature. Not that God's grace is different in the sense that it's a different grace – no, for different people, but, God is justice, Himself, as far as we can use the verb, adjust for God. For example, the graces that He gives to women I know are different that he gives to men, I know. God just talks a different language. And so with different people of different temperaments. The robust man of steel, the Andrew Bobola, remember? they just couldn't put him to death. God's grace to sanctify him was of one kind, the gentle but firm and faithful Berchmans, another kind of a grace. This is very important in properly appraising God's will in our lives or how we deal so differently with different people. With some, God seems, to coin an expression, to love and to get away with – pardon the expression – you finish the sentence, you know what. Lord! well, God knows what He's dealing with – with others He is severe.

Berchmans came from northern Europe; Berchmans was not from Italy or Spain. I tried to carry on a conversation with four Spaniards this noon in Kenosha, Wisconsin; a priest, a brother, (oh, three people) a priest, a brother and a sister. Well, some English they knew, not much, some Italian that I know, not much, a bit of Latin and Spanish and we managed. I was inquiring about their rule of life. They are called the Lumen Dei, isn't that beautiful? the light of God, a new community just coming into existence, two hundred members – God's grace adjusting itself to the Spanish mentality – different. There is something about the teutonic, because we are talking about the teutonic temperament here, that it's precise, proper, just so. All right, God's grace will be just so. Am I making sense? And that we don't either expect God – what a mistake – to deal with even two of us in the same way. Never compare yourself – or better, never compare the way God deals with others with the way he seems to be dealing with you. Berchmans knew, he was here. There is an individuality about each saint which is completely different from everyone else.

Then, community life. I quote of a famous passage, we learned this in the novitiate and we quote it to our dying day, because it is so, so painfully true: my greatest mortification is community life. That doesn't mean, of course, not that we make other members of the community conscious of the fact that they are a source of penance to make – no. Nor does it mean, it cannot mean, that we somehow regret or wish it were different. Community life is meant, for most people, to be a great source of sanctification. I know what I'm talking about because being the only child of a widowed mother – my father died when I was a year old, he was 26. I never had any brothers or sisters and of the things I knew that drew me to the Society of Jesus before I heard John Berchmans phrase, I thought to myself, "what a break, what a gift, I will inherit a hall full of brothers, people that I can live with and, well, they'll be brothers to me and I hope I'll be a brother to them." I may somewhere along the line, I may have told you, after my first week in the novitiate I went to complain to the novice master – I'd heard about people snoring, but I'd never heard anybody snoring – Mother had her bedroom, I had mine. Though we were living in a dormitory and the noise was deafening, I couldn't sleep. So I told the novice master, "father, could I have a different room?" He said, 'sit down, what's wrong?' I told him. All I remember is two words, "get out." And because I was so dead tired, I finally fell asleep, snoring or no snoring.

God made us different from the moment of conception. Each one of us, the moment we are conceived in our mother's womb, God has to create a soul – our parents don't give us our souls – they must be individually created by God and God creates each soul different. We are different nine months before we're born, put together. One reason, no doubt, is to give us some idea of His own infinite, you might say, bewildering variety of attributes. It gives us, and this is what Berchmans meant: it gives us the glorious opportunity for the practice of charity. I'm not speaking of people being offensive or hurting our feelings or being difficult to live with. I don't mean anything that is morally wrong, just because he is he or she is she and I am me, living with other people places demands on our mutual love which God in His infinite wisdom planned, that's why He made us so different. The word that Berchmans used was mortification, meaning that it's a precious way of not only practicing charity, but of expiating our sins, of making reparation for the sins of others, especially in doing penance for the crimes against love often committed in the name of love in our modern mad world. The 1981 figures of the United Nations for the world were fifty million abortions. Someone, someone, must propitiate a just God for these crimes of hatred, masking – what a mockery – under the name of love. Well, we don't have to go far to search out opportunities for the expiatory love, being gentle, understanding, thoughtful. Being as ready to excuse the actions of others as we are so prone to excuse our own. All of this is locked up in what we so casually call, community life.

Let us ask St. John Berchmans to give us some of his great attention to the little things in life being so important in the eyes of God. St. John Berchmans, pray for us.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

#st. john berchmans

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romancatholicreflections · 7 years ago

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16th December >> Daily Reflection/Commentary on Today’s Mass Readings for Roman Catholics on Third Sunday of Advent (C) (Zephaniah 3:14-18; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18).

THE ADVENT SEASON is basically a penitential period. And therefore the colour of the vestments, as in Lent, is purple or violet. It is a time when we are invited through fasting or some other form of self-denial to prepare ourselves to celebrate Christmas by a genuine experience of repentance and renewal. However, in Advent as in Lent, the Church cannot refrain from “jumping the gun”, so to speak, by anticipating, if only briefly, the coming mood of celebration.

So this Sunday is often referred to as “Gaudete Sunday” from the first word of the Entrance Antiphon in the Latin original, Gaudete (“Rejoice!”). And indeed today’s Mass text is suffused with expressions of joy and jubilation. Even the colour of the vestments can be modified from penitential purple to a pinkish colour (officially termed “rose”).

“Rejoice in the Lord always,” says the Entrance Antiphon. (If we sing our opening hymn, it should reflect the same mood.) “Shout for joy… Rejoice, exult with all your heart” is the invitation of the First Reading from the prophet Zephaniah. “[The Lord] will exult with joy over you, he will renew you by his love; he will dance with shouts of joy for you as on a day of festival…”

“Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel” is the response to the Psalm and, in the Second Reading, Paul invites the Christians of Philippi: “I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord; I repeat, what I want is your happiness…”

The Gospel is more low-key but there also it tells us that “a feeling of expectancy had grown among the people…”

A basic mood

Joy should, in fact, be the basic mood of the Christian. It should not be something artificial or forced but something that bubbles up naturally from our sharing Christ’s vision of life. Joy should be the normal experience of the Christian but there are quite a few who unfortunately do not have that experience or conviction.

At times one gets the impression that it is not the experience of many Christians, who somehow have come to believe that religion is a serious business, that one is not living a good Christian life unless it is full of sacrifices, that Christianity means giving up many of the pleasure that are available to non-Christians. They seem to think that being a Christian means living a half life as the price for a better one to come.

Karl Marx saw religion as the “opium of the people”, meaning the poorer classes. Religion, he believed, worked as a kind of anaesthetic or opiate, devised by the rich and privileged, which helped the poor accept the miseries and injustices of the present life on the understanding that there was something much better on the far side of the grave.

All this is a great pity because the whole purpose of Jesus’ coming was to bring freedom, joy and peace to people not only in the future but here and now. No one is meant to be more free than the Christian who follows Christ not in pain but in joy and enthusiasm. I am not a Catholic because I have to be; I am a Catholic because I could not imagine myself being anything else. We share the words of Peter to Jesus: “Where can we go? You have the words that give life.”

There used to be a saying, “A sad saint is a sad kind of saint.” A sad Christian is a contradiction in terms. That is not to say that there are not in any Christian life – as in any normal person’s life – times of pain, of sickness, of failure, of great loss. Grieving and letting go is an important part of life but these experiences will only bring temporary setbacks.

Every experience, if we can only realise it, is touched by God and has its meaning. Once that meaning is found and accepted, inner joy and peace can return. And the joy we are talking about is not something external. It has little to do with the high jinks we see during a socialising party or after our team wins a big match. Much of that can be a kind of temporary escape from lives that are experienced as boring, oppressive and unfree.

Christian joy or happiness is deep down in the heart and is not incompatible with physical and emotional pain or difficult external circumstances. It is, as Jesus says, something that no one can take away from us. And as Fr Tony de Mello says in his book “Awareness”: We have everything we need here and now to be happy. The problem is that we identify our happiness with people or things we don’t have and often can’t have.

What are we to do?

Today’s Gospel speaks of the expected coming of Jesus. This coming is being proclaimed by John the Baptist as he preaches by the waters of the River Jordan. After having heard what John had to say, his hearers asked a very sensible question: “What must we do, then?” It is a question we might well ask ourselves as we prepare for the coming of Jesus this Christmas. Repentance calls for a change in behaviour and not just regret for the past.

Luke describes three kinds of people who are listening to John the Baptist: the crowd in general; tax collectors; and soldiers. John answers each of them according to their way of life. To the ordinary people, he tells them to share what they have – their clothes and food – with those who are in need. If they are really sorry for their sins, that is, if they really want to change their lives, they will become brothers and sisters to others – even total strangers. We might consider what we could share with others this Christmas.

Tax collectors had a rather bad reputation in Jesus’ time. The Romans used to farm out the right to collect taxes to private individuals. These would pay a lump sum to the government and were then left to their own devices to get back that money – and make a profit besides. Needless to say, such a system led to a good deal of extortion. There were no anti-corruption agencies in those days! John tells them to be just in what they collected.

Soldiers, too, were not very popular. The advice John gives sounds just as relevant today as it did then: “No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your official pay!”

Was John the Messiah?

After hearing such wise and sensible teaching, the people were beginning to wonder if John was not actually the Messiah himself. As mentioned earlier, there was a great mood of expectation that the Messiah’s appearance was imminent.

John, however, immediately disabuses them. He is certainly not the Messiah, the Saviour King that is to come. The real Messiah will be much greater. John will not even be worthy to untie the laces of his sandals – the work of a slave for his master.

John only baptises with water but the Messiah will baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire. That fire purifies what is good and destroys what is evil. It is a sign of God’s power and God’s loving presence (remember the pillar of fire that accompanied the Jews at night in the desert? Or the fire of the Spirit coming down on the disciples after the resurrection?).

And our role is not unlike that of John the Baptist. For it is also our task as Christians – whether lay persons, religious or priests – to bring people to genuine conversion, a conversion that brings them face to face with Jesus and God and also a conversion that brings a real joy and happiness into their lives.

Our role as ‘precursors’

Parents, especially Christian parents, have this role. They gradually form their children to have the Christian spirit and outlook on life. A Christian family will be one of real joy. A place to which each member returns with joyful anticipation and expectancy, in other words, a real home.

Teachers, too, are like John the Baptist. A Christian teacher is always aware of being Christian in the presence of students, irrespective of the subject being taught. After the student has long graduated, he may not remember a word from those lessons, he may never in his later career have used the knowledge he was given but he will remember the personality of his teacher. Some teachers are remembered with affection forever; others are best forgotten.

Whatever we are – parents, teachers, civil servants, employers, doing business, self-employed – we need to remember that we are God’s instruments. We are not making people do what we say, forcing them to behave in a certain way, still less to be just like us. Our aim is, like John the Baptist, to lead people to the feet of Jesus that they may know him personally as Saviour, Lord, Brother and Friend. Our role is, like John the Baptist, to step aside once the introductions are over and leave Jesus to do his work.

At the same time, Jesus does need our co-operation. Jesus works through every parent and every teacher and everyone who has a call to form people. Peter and Andrew began as John the Baptist’s disciples until they met Jesus. Then they left John and walked with Jesus. In turn, they brought other people to know and experience Jesus. That is the pattern and meaning of evangelisation, of bringing the Gospel to others.

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pamphletstoinspire · 7 years ago

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Gospel Reading and Commentary for December 11th - Second Tuesday of Advent - Roman Catholic - Matthew: 18: 10 - 14

10. “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

11. For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

12. How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

13. And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.

14. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.”

Jerome: The Lord had said, under the type of hand, foot, and eye, that all kin and connection which could afford scandal must be cut off. The harshness of this declaration He accordingly tempers with the following precept, saying, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones;” i. e. As far as you may avoid despising them, but next to your own salvation seek also to heal them. But if ye see that they hold to their sins, it is better that ye be saved, than that ye perish in much company.

Chrys.: Or otherwise; As to shun the evil, so to honour the good, has great recompense. Above then He had bid them to cut off the friendships of those that gave offence, here He teaches them to shew honour and service to the saints.

Gloss., ap. Anselm: Or otherwise; [p. 629] Because so great evils come of brethren being scandalized, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.”

Origen: The little ones are those that are but lately born in Christ, or those who abide without advance, as though lately born. But Christ judged it needless to give command concerning not despising the more perfect believers, but concerning the little ones, as He had said above, “If any man shall offend one of these little ones.” A man may perhaps say that a little one here means a perfect Christian, according to that He says elsewhere, “Whoso is least among you, he shall be great.” [Luke 9:48]

Chrys.: Or because the perfect are esteemed of many as little ones, as poor, namely, and despicable.

Origen: But this exposition does not seem to agree with that which was said, “If any one scandalizes one of these little ones;” for the perfect man is not scandalized, nor does he perish. But he who thinks this the true exposition, says, that the mind of a righteous man is variable, and is sometimes offended, but not easily.

Gloss., ap. Anselm: Therefore are they not to be despised for that they are so dear to God, that Angels are deputed to be their guardians; “For I say unto you, that in heaven their Angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”

Origen: Some will have it that an Angel is given as an attendant minister from the time when in the laver of regeneration the infant is born in Christ; for, say they, it is incredible that a holy Angel watches over those who are unbelieving and in error, but in his time of unbelief and sin man is under the Angels of Satan.

Others will have it, that those who are foreknown of God, have straightway from their very birth a guardian Angel.

Jerome: High dignity of souls, that each from its birth has an Angel set in charge over it!

Chrys.: Here He is speaking not of any Angels, but of the higher sort; for when He says, “Behold the face of my Father,” He shews that their presence before God is free and open, and their honour great.

Greg., Hom. in Ev., 34, 12: But Dionysius says, that it is from the ranks of the lesser Angels that these are sent to perform this ministry, either visibly or invisibly, for that those higher ranks have not the employment of an outward ministry.

Greg., Mor., ii, 3: And therefore the Angels always behold the face of the Father, and yet they come to us; for by a spiritual presence they come forth to us, and yet by internal contemplation [p. 630] keep themselves there whence they come forth; for they come not so forth from the divine vision, as to hinder the joys of inward contemplation.

Hilary: The Angels offer daily to God the prayers of those that are to be saved by Christ; it is therefore perilous to despise him whose desires and requests are conveyed to the eternal and invisible God, by the service and ministry of Angels.

Aug., City of God, book xxii, ch. 29: They are called our Angels who are indeed the Angels of God; they are Gods because they have not forsaken Him; they are ours because they have begun to have us for their fellow citizens. As they now behold God, so shall we also behold Him face to face, of which vision John speaks, “We shall see Him as he is.” [1 John 3:2]

For by the face of God is to be understood the manifestation of Himself, not a member or feature of the body, such as we call by that name.

Chrys.: He gives yet another reason weightier than the foregoing, why the little ones are not to be despised, “For the Son of Man is come to save that which was lost.”

Remig.: As much as to say, Despise not little ones, for I also for men condescended to become man. By “that which was lost,” understand the human race; for all the elements have kept their place, but man was lost, because he has broken his ordained place.

Chrys.: And to this reasoning He adds a parable, in which He sets forth the Father as seeking the salvation of men, and saying, “What think you, If a man have a hundred sheep.”

Greg., Hom. in Ev., xxxiv, 3: This refers to the Creator of man Himself; for a hundred is a perfect number, and He had a hundred sheep when He created the substance of Angels and men.

Hilary: But by the one sheep is to be understood one man, and under this one man is comprehended the whole human race. He that seeks man is Christ, and the ninety and nine are the host of the heavenly glory which He left.

Greg.: The Evangelist says they were left “on the mountains,” to signify that the sheep, which were not lost, abode on high.

Bede, ap. Anselm: The Lord found the sheep when He restored man, and over that sheep that is found there is more joy in heaven than over the ninety and nine, because there is a greater matter for thanksgiving to God in the restoration of man than in the creation of the Angels. Wonderfully are the Angels made, but more wonderfully man restored.

Raban.: [p. 631] Note, that nine wants only one to make it ten, and ninety and nine the same to be a hundred. Thus members which want one only to be perfect, may be larger or smaller, but yet the unit remaining invariable, when it is added makes the rest perfect. And that the number of sheep might be made up perfect in heaven, lost man was sought on earth.

Jerome: Others think that by the ninety and nine sheep are understood the number of the righteous, and by the one sheep the sinners according to that said in another place, “I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” [Matt 9:13]

Greg.: We must consider whence it is that the Lord declares that He has joy rather over the converted sinners, than over the righteous that stand. Because these last are often slothful and slack to practise the greater good works, as being very secure within themselves, for that they have committed none of the heavier sins. While on the other hand those who have their wicked deeds to remember, do often through the compunction of sorrow glow with the more heat in their love of God, and when they think how they have strayed from Him, they replace their former losses by gains following.

So the general in a battle loves best that soldier who turns in his flight and courageously presses the enemy, than him who never turned his back, yet never did any valorous deed. Yet there be some righteous over whom is joy so great, that no penitent can be preferred before them, those, who though not conscious to themselves of sins, yet reject things lawful, and humble themselves in all things. How great is the joy when the righteous mourns, and humbles himself, if there be joy when the unrighteous condemns himself wherein he has done amiss?

Bede: [ed. note: These two passages, to which the name of Bede is prefixed in all the editions, have been sought for in Bede without success. They occur in Anselm’s ‘Enarrationes,’ and the latter may perhaps be originally derived from Aug., Quaest. Ev., ii, 32.]

Or; By the ninety-nine sheep, which He left on the mountains, are signified the proud to whom a unit is still wanting for perfection. When then He has found the sinner, He rejoices over him, that is, He makes his own to rejoice over him, rather than over the false righteous.

Jerome: What follows, “Even so it is not the will, &c.” is to be referred to what was said above, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones;: and so He shews that this parable was set forth to enforce that same saying. Also in [p. 632] saying, “It is not the will of my Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish,” He shews that so oft as one of these little ones does perish, it is not by the Father’s will that it perishes.

#gospel of matthew

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