#old testament vision of jesus

[inamindfarfaraway]

The Exorcists’ Masks of Virtue

The vast majority of Exorcists in Hazbin Hotel have a notable design element that other angels don’t: their masks are missing an eye. Specifically, the right eye.

I believe this is a reference to the Bible, Matthew 5:29. Jesus says, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

He’s being hyperbolic. Mr Free Healthcare was not pro-mutilation. What he means is that you have to be willing to make sacrifices to prevent sin. The context of the eye metaphor is him condemning adultery and warning that even something as easy, casual and small as a look full of lustful intent can lead to further, worse sin if you don’t notice your sin, hold yourself accountable for it and do the work to not let it influence your decisions. This will probably be hard. It could be very, very painful. Changing your perspective can feel as horrible as plucking out your eye, so many people can’t bring themselves to do it. But although it won’t feel that way in the moment, it’s healthier for our general wellbeing in the long run to abandon traits and behaviours that damage ourselves and/or others.

(You may notice that Jesus’s teaching that you can have sinned, redeem yourself by giving up sin and thus escape damnation is the founding principle of the Hazbin Hotel. You may also notice that it contradicts everything the Exorcists believe.)

The Exorcists seem to follow this idea of painfully excising badness for the sake of the greater good devoutly to the point of placing it above teachings like ‘Thou shalt not kill’, with their job being to remove sin, in the form of sinners, to protect Heaven. Hence the missing right eyes. They’re a declaration of moral righteousness and inability to stumble.

But the truth is that the Exorcists all have their right eyes. Their flawlessness is a facade. Underneath, they are untouched, think themselves morally untouchable and, as shown by their horror and outrage when even one of them is killed, would much rather be physically untouchable too. This perfectly represents their complete unwillingness to acknowledge their own faults, let alone improve. They are never the ones who sacrifice. They force the sinners to sacrifice and don’t compensate it with any salvation. They metaphorically rip out the sinners’ eyes, but still condemn their entire bodies as inherently, permanently sinful. So they’ll just have to do another Extermination to get the other eyes! And another one to cut off their right hands! And so on until there’s nothing left.

The only exception to the rule is Vaggie, both in appearance and character. Her mask has the left eye crossed out instead. Even before her expulsion, she’s set apart to the audience as an Exorcist who has the capacity to, shall we say, see a different side of things. Her mask having its ‘sinful’ right eye reflects her understanding that the Exorcist worldview is wrong.

When she almost kills a demon child, her hateful vision clears. She discards the part of herself that’s an unquestioning, merciless agent of death, terror and grief… and as punishment for what Lute perceives as treacherous weakness, gets her eye plucked out.

Of course Lute leaves her with only the ‘sinful’ eye. It brands Vaggie forever as the inversion, a perversion, of what the Exorcists are meant to be.

You know, all this talk of eye removal in the Bible reminds me of another line - ‘an eye for an eye’. Adam directly quotes it in “Hell is Forever”. He uses it to frame the Exterminations as Old Testament-style punitive justice; the sinners did harm and so they receive it. But putting aside the debate about how ethical the concept of revenge is, the entire point of taking an eye for an eye is that it’s proportional. The punishment fits the crime. If someone cuts your eye out, you shouldn’t murder their whole family in front of them and then slowly disembowel them to death. That would be the sin of wrath. You should just make them pay without excessive pain or collateral damage. This is the fairest form of revenge.

The Exorcists don’t do that! The Exterminations aren’t proportional to the wrongs of all they hurt, nor was Vaggie’s brutal punishment equivalent to her extremely mild insubordination. Lute literally takes Vaggie’s eye, and more, after Vaggie does nothing to her! That’s the opposite of the phrase! Adam and his soldiers are wrathful and cruel, deriving satisfaction from others’ suffering. But they just can’t stop going on and on about how disgustingly evil the sinners are, in total hypocrisy… despite some of the sinners being far better people than the genocidal Exorcists are… it’s like they’re obsessed with specks of dust in the sinners’ eyes when they have massive logs stuck in their own. Oh hey, that’s in the Bible too!

[lady-of-the-puddle]

Good Omens 2 Opening-What are they marching toward?

Hi, there's something about the opening credit sequence that immediately caught my eye upon the first viewing. @metatronhateblog and I have discussed the whole opening credits at length (helps that we're siblings and can sit in the same room to talk about it) and we both will probably make some posts about things we haven't seen addressed yet.

I haven't seen anyone mention this particular thing yet, but forgive me if this has already been pointed out.

This mountain they are marching up? This is Zion.

I'm almost certain. It's a very interesting word that's used several times in the Old and New Testament, most notably for me in the book of Revelation, which I read a lot as a former Christian (I liked it cause it was the least boring thing to read).

It has a few different meanings from what I've gathered (a note: this is not about z*ionism.), which I will try to give brief explanations on.

Originally I believe it was meant to be an actual location in Jerusalem, a hill/mountain that held the City of David. Literally called Mount Zion I think.

In the Old Testament it also is described as being the place where God rests, where they are enthroned.

Now look at this.

Pretty sure that's a throne room? It looks like a Greek temple, so I think that's the vibe it's going for. The place where God is located.

Most interestingly, Zion is symbolic of the city of heaven, which will come to earth and God will dwell with the people upon Jesus' return and judgement (at least that's what I'm getting from the text? It can be difficult for me to decipher sometimes). Revelation 14:1 states

"Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads."

I believe this is the first time Jesus appears during(after maybe?) the great Tribulation (aka, all the torments the earth endures during this time before his return) with those who have been chosen by God. "The Lamb" refers to Jesus, for those who may not know.

I thought it was odd that this possible Zion reference was placed here in season 2 since it's not something that we've seen or heard mentioned thus far, but I think we can safely assume it has to do with season 3 and the Second Coming.

A side note, there's something else I caught while looking at this as well:

I could be wrong, but it looks like these cherubs are tipping bowls. BOWLS!

In John's visions in Revelation 16, we see seven angels with bowls pouring out plagues to the earth. Bowls of God's wrath. I could go into what they are but that's a whole other post. For some reason I always remembered the bowls the most, I have no idea why. There's so much to find in the opening, it's like a scavenger hunt and my little brain loves it! Anyway.

Fascinating that Zion is what the people and our heroes are marching toward. Are they simply moving toward the end times (again)? Are they marching straight to God's house to get some answers (Aziraphale might be)? Are they moving toward that utopian heaven on earth as they begin eternity, forever and ever amen (as Michael mentions in the forbidden heavenly footage)? Maybe all three.

It may not be all that important and just be purely symbolic, but I thought it was neat. There really is so much in the details!

Thanks for coming to my rambling! I'm going to go try finding more references now.

[morsmortish]

beth…you know how i feel about catholic guilt barty, so pretty please, could you spare some little thoughts 🤲🏻

oh goody! (picture me rubbing my hands together with glee in my evil lair) han, i would LOVE to.

there are two main concepts that stick out to me in relation to catholic guilt barty. the first one is the way the religion influences his relationship with his father. i think of the Old Testament God, and the harshness and brutality of His love there: just THINK of abraham and his son (which is also interesting to look at through the lens of bcj- a father having to ‘sacrifice’ his son for a ‘cause’…you can see the vision). anyway. barty grows up seeing this violent and often unforgiving type of love in the Bible, which he’s taught to devote himself to, and then we take a trip down to the crouch manor and we see this same unforgiving ‘love’ from father to son. and yet barty is taught to revere God in this way, and so it’s only natural that he reveres his own father in the same way. and so this ruthless love from senior to junior is so established and accepted between them, and it’s only after he distances himself from religion itself he can start to stop excusing his father’s behaviour.

the second interesting idea for me is the way the Bible reflects on his relationship with his mother. i think of barty, who has always been closer to his mother than his father, who loses her at a young age, who finds solstice in religion. in particular, i think of him finding a sort of comfort in the figure of the Virgin Mary herself. throughout catholicism she is portrayed as this omnibenevolent maternal figure to all, not just jesus, and i just think of barty losing his own mother, who he always related Mary to. and i think of him turning even deeper into religion and perhaps even worship of Mary herself following his own mother’s death. this is hard to phrase right but the gist of it is barty recognising the maternal love he so desperately needs after his mother dies, and recognising it in the figure of the Virgin Mother, which only sends him falling further and further into catholicism

i have plenty more to say, but these are the two ideas that have been nagging me lately!!! i must admit han, reading jaws did act as a massive catalyst for a LOT of my catholic guilt barty thoughts…as did going to mass for the first time in years the other week…is now a bad time to admit i wrote about an “unnamed narrator” with severe religious trauma in one of my creatuve writing assessments?

[nepentheisms]

Volume 13 - Elendira's number, let's gooooo!

So I was pondering the significance of Livio's big throwdown fight being against Elendira, and it hit me once I looked at it in terms of their abilities: Elendira's weapon is nails; Livio's power is regeneration. This is the Crucifixion battling against the Resurrection - a very Christian metaphor being used to illustrate the conflict of ideas between Knives and Vash. Elendira acts to help carry out Knives' condemnation of humanity; she brings death and visions of death in the wake of Knives' crusade to punish those he sees as sinners. Livio, in contrast, is aligned with Vash's mission to save humanity; he's an agent for Vash's message of redemption and life persevering.

To delve into Christian soteriology for a bit, the significance of the crucifixion in the New Testament is that it is the act of Jesus taking on the punishment for all of humanity's sins. "The wages of sin is death," as Romans 6:23 says, so Jesus dies, but then Jesus rises again to complete the path to humanity's reconciliation with God. The idea is that in becoming followers of Christ, Christians spiritually share in the experience of crucifixion, death, and resurrection with Jesus. To love Jesus is to be changed as though one were raised from the dead. The passage below from Paul's letter to the Romans is an example of that perspective.

Romans 6:4-6 (NRSV):

(4) Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. (5) For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (6) We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

It's very appropriate that Paul's words get brought up here, because I think Livio can be seen as something of a Paul figure. He's a powerful member of a religious order that opposes the followers of the Christ figure, he plays a big role in the death of a "disciple," and he undergoes an intense experience that changes him into one of the most devoted followers of the Christ figure. And the stuff Paul wrote about being crucified with Christ? Livio sure went through a crucifixion alright.

With all that said, when we bring Razlo into the equation, things get really interesting and a bit subversive when viewed through the lens of Paul's teachings in the Christian Bible. In stories that are more straightforwardly Christian in their messaging, a character like Razlo - a personality who acts as someone's darker half- would typically be treated as a force of evil to be overcome. This represents how the pre-salvation self is supposed to die so that a more Christ-like nature can take its place.

In Livio's case, however, Razlo is not extinguished after Livio chooses to live by Wolfwood's and Vash's example. Instead of being framed as the more sinful aspect of Livio that needed to be purified out of him, Razlo is portrayed as a powerful asset in preserving Livio's life, and that's something that really resonated with me - the way that Livio didn't need to erase his darker half but instead learned to work in harmony with it. In doing so, he found wholeness.

[damonblack966]

What does it mean when you dream about the Devil

We all engage in the act of dreaming. It may not occur every single night; however, even if it happens as seldom as once a week, each one of us rests our head and delves into the realm of dreams. As many are aware, dreams possess a highly symbolic nature. They are filled with imagery that often serves as preludes or allegories for the circumstances, individuals, or dilemmas currently dominating our waking existence.

Dreams offer a gateway to tap into the depths of our subconscious, provided certain elements of the vision are comprehended. Yet, deciphering them can prove challenging if the symbolism eludes us, leaving us to ponder the significance of encountering the devil in our dreams.

Dreams featuring the devil can be unsettling, but they need not be so. Let us explore the multifaceted symbolism embodied by this infernal entity and its implications for the dreamer. Demon Dreams: Symbolism

For many, dreams about the devil is a horrifying experience usually involving a visit to hell. But not all dream encounters with Satan fit the nightmare mold. There is also a range of interesting and complex ideas about the devil in dreams.

To better understand such a powerful symbol from your subconscious mind, you must first understand its history and varied symbolism in different religions.

History In 1923, Sigmund Freud—a dream psychologist—studied a patient named Frank who claimed to be possessed by the devil. When Frank dreamed about the devil, he only became more convinced that he was possessed.

Freud concluded that Frank’s nightmares were caused by his own feelings of stress and fear.

Psychology The devil is often associated with evil and negativity, but it doesn’t indicate that something terrible will happen in your life.

Carl Jung believed that you manifest the devil in a dream because you’re scared of being caught for your misdeeds. However, it’s essential to understand that dreams about devils don’t necessarily foretell evil tidings. In fact, many psychologists believe that dreams about devils can be beneficial, as they warn against negative energies or past mistakes.

Religious Beliefs Devil mythology has been a part of religion for centuries, and each faith has its own interpretation.

Demons are a common feature of the Bible, appearing in both the Old and New Testaments. Demons are evil spirits that cause temptation in devout Christians to sin or tempt them to worship other gods. Jesus is considered a symbol of hope for Bible’s followers and says they should be careful of the devil’s deceit.

Islam has a similar take on the devil and commands its followers to walk away from the wrong path, or they’ll be ridden with a moral burden for the remainder of their lives.

The devil also made an appearance in Buddha’s life, asking him to abandon his journey towards enlightenment.

Demon Dream Meaning: Interpretations Nightmares about demons may be a bad experience, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that evil spirits possess you or that you’re going to go crazy. The meaning of your demon dream depends on what the demon represents in your life.

In many cultures, demons are thought to be fallen angels. They are not necessarily evil but rather the result of humanity’s free will to choose how we use our powers.

By paying close attention to the details of your dream, you’ll be able to develop a close relationship with your subconsciousness and better your waking life.

Let’s take a look at the various types of devil dreams and the potential meaning they may hold in your everyday life.

Red Devil Seeing a red devil in your dream indicates that you are passionate about something, but this passion has taken control of your life. It has come in the way of your relationships and is now affecting your mental health.

If you’ve been working overtime at your current job or pulling all-nighters to ace the upcoming university exam, it is time you take some days off to focus on what really matters: you and your loved ones.

Black Devil The black devil is a symbol of evil, and if you see one in your dream, it means that your heart is filled with hatred, jealousy, and envy. Aramaic religions say that seeing a black devil in your dream represents your dark side. It’s a reflection of your true desires, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re an evil person.

Old folklore and legends say that those who tend to use their power for evil are paid a visit by the black devil himself from the underworld.

You may have been misusing your power without even knowing that you’re doing so. It’s time you reflect on the decisions you have made so far and think critically if they have caused harm to anyone.

Human Form The Devil is known for its craftiness and may appear in front of you as a beloved person from your life. It doesn’t necessarily mean the devil is trying to trick you, but he may make it harder for you to understand the dream’s true meaning.

These types of dreams signify that you may have hurt someone and are now suffering from a sense of guilt. If you want the devil to stop chasing you, you must seek out the person you hurt and apologize to them.

Child’s Form If the devil pays you a visit in the form of a child in your dream, it signifies that you feel great remorse towards a kid. You may have caused them harm and are now experiencing feelings of guilt. The dream may indicate that you have suffered a great loss if you’re a parent. Maybe you had a miscarriage, stillbirth or your beloved child took their own life.

While it’s hard to move ahead, these dreams are considered a positive sign of good luck.

Woman Form The female devil symbolizes that your personal life is ridden with guilt. It’s not because you caused harm to someone but because you simply believe you do not deserve the life you have built for yourself. These dreams aren’t a bad sign but a message from your subconscious to take your mental health seriously.

Talking To The Devil This dream can be interpreted to mean that you’re trying to control your own destiny. You may feel that you’re in a situation where you have no control over what happens to you, and it could be your subconscious mind’s way of letting you know that even though things seem bad, they will get better.

Dreams, where we are talking to the devil or Satan, can symbolize our inner struggle with our own negative thoughts and feelings. It may also represent our battle with temptation and desire for something we know is wrong. If you have this dream, it could indicate an issue inside yourself that needs to be addressed immediately.

Getting Attacked By The Devil The devil, a negative force in your life, is attacking you in your dreams. This dream might be a warning that something terrible is going to happen. It could also mean that there is some evil influence in your life.

This dream is usually linked to feelings of guilt or shame about something you have done or are doing. You may also feel attacked by someone else’s anger and negativity towards you.

Being Watched By The Devil The devil in dreams is often associated with evil and temptation. When you dream about the devil watching you, perhaps someone is trying to deceive you or mislead you into taking a certain path. It’s also possible that this dream warns against doing something that will lead to your downfall or destruction.

The devil in dreams can take many forms — he can appear as an old man or woman, an animal, or even a monster. He may also appear as an attractive person who tempts you with promises of riches and fame when in reality, they’re working toward your downfall.

Marrying The Devil A dream about marrying the devil could symbolize your fears or worries. This is because, in the dream, you are marrying Satan, who is viewed as the embodiment of evil.

The devil can also represent an aspect of yourself that you feel is evil or immoral. For example, if you have been cheating on your spouse and feel guilty about it, then marrying the devil in your dream represents this aspect of yourself.

In some cases, a dream about marrying the devil is a symbol of someone else’s negative personality traits. This can happen when you are close to someone with these personality problems but don’t want to admit them because they are similar to yours.

In conclusion Dreams of the devil can be interpreted in numerous ways. Some believe that dreams of evil spirits refer to the thoughts and feelings inside our own minds, while others believe that demons are actually attacking us in our sleep.

[teecupangel]

Just binge watched Lucifer on Netflix and now I present to you:

Desmond Miles survives 2012 (Desmond Miles Lives truthers, where ya at?), gets the hell outta dodge from the temple with new POE powers, and gets hired to work at Lux in LA. Meets his new boss and both of them are like, "!"

Lucifer instantly knows this boy is hella special because, damn does his soul reek of Isu Bullfuckery. (Headcanoned God and his Angels are sort of a rival interdimensional species to Isu, and God is the one who supposedly gave humans free will... idk I never paid attention to bible study anyway.)

Does the whole, "what do you desire?" schtick and Desmond, due to POE powers and Isu Bullshittery, wonders 'why the fuck is actual Satan here in LA?'

I imagine a platonic bromance relationship between these two. Y'know? 'Cause on the one hand we have the Reluctant Ruler of Hell and on the other hand the Reluctant Savior/Sacrificial Lamb of Humankind.

Lucifer could offer safety and protection from whoever Desmond is hiding from, while Des can be his bartender/bouncer/very much-needed BFF. And come on, I betcha good ole Lucy boy (and Maze) would absolutely enjoy dragging a couple a lot of Abstergo people Vidic down to Hell for multiple crimes against humanity(i.e. kidnapping and unethical human experimentation which results in mental instability.)

I’m all in for this idea. Desmond and Lucifer being bash brothers, yes please. Just imagine the chaos these two would get to because they're both morally dubious? XD

Also, just imagine how much faster Chloe would be finishing her cases with Desmond’s Eagle Vision? She would have two cheat codes with her this time.

Anyway, I’m going to focus on how we can integrate Lucifer into AC more in this one.

Before anything, just a sorta fun trivia: Lucifer has a little cameo in Crisis on Infinite Earths and he talks to John Constantine, implying they have some sort of history together. John Constantine is played by Matt Ryan who voiced and mocap’ed Edward Kenway XD

We will be keeping this contained to Lucifer though but you can totally add a John Constantine cameo and set it during the time Desmond is working in Lux (and you can totally add Desmond feeling some sort of longing and sorrow because John Constantine sounds and looks familiar to his Bleed of Haytham Kenway)

Alright, with that little trivia out of my system, let’s talk about how we can push Lucifer into AC canon.

(You might not have paid attention to bible study but my religion teacher was so boring he had to implement a rule that there should be no other notebook/books related to other subjects on our table during class because we kept doing other subjects when he’s lecturing us soooooo I was bored enough to read the bible he made us bring every class. I'm sure he'll be proud I'm using what I learned in his class for fic related things XD)

Let’s talk about God in Lucifer’s show. He’s obviously based on the Judeo-Christian God. Now, we have no confirmation if that said God does exist as an Isu in Assassin’s Creed BUT we do have a leeway we can use to make it easier to integrate the characters from Lucifer into Assassin’s Creed.

The Templar Order uses the phrase “May the Father of Understanding guide you”. Now, this is based on the Isu triad that pops up a bit.

The one we’re more familiar with is the Capitoline Triad where Tinia is known as the “Father of Understanding”.

However, there is an earlier iteration of this triad.

The Isus who created humans.

And the one to hold the title of ‘Father of Understanding’ during that time is Yaldabaoth.

From Wikipedia

Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God, and the Demiurge, "creator" of the material universe.

Gnostic Christians considered the Hebrew God of the Old Testament as the evil, false god and creator of the material universe, and the Unknown God of the Gospel, the father of Jesus Christ and creator of the spiritual world, as the true, good God.

If we use the statements above and the fact that Yaldabaoth is considered one of the creators of mankind, we can set up God as another Isu scientist who had an alternate idea of a workforce but his idea was pushed aside and Yaldabaoth’s project with the other two Isu scientists moved forward.

God, in anger, created his ‘children’ together with the Goddess. And, to complete the triad, we’ll add Lilith as an Isu as well instead of Adam’s first wife. The three of them (although Lilith has a more advisory role to this entire thing and is actually working on her own workforce idea) created the ‘Angels’, trying to one-up all the data they could get from Yaldabaoth’s project to make them better than humans.

They are. Unfortunately, that meant they were also… shall we say… ‘freer’ than humans as well. God knew that the Isus would see them as defective and, not only that, many would find what they have done as some form of betrayal and being stripped of their rank and status would be the lightest sentence the Isu would give them. So God and Goddess kept the Angels a secret, and passed them off as human slaves while Lilith went her merry way and continued to work on her personal workforce.

And now we come to the whole ‘gave mankind freewill’.

So many like to point at Lucifer as being the serpent that gave Eve the forbidden fruit. Let’s use it. Lucifer, being one of God’s first children, takes an Apple of Eden and presented it to Eve who used it to start the Human-Isu war. Lucifer takes up arms to join the humans.

Things get super messy when they find out about the impending Solar Flare and God and Goddess decided to add their consciousness to a device called ‘Heaven’. (In this setup, Goddess!Charlotte would be like a more ‘questionable’ setup of an Isu consciousness overwriting a human’s consciousness). Their children (who did have the kind of body that would survive a solar flare and were more or less immortal) were tasked with guarding ‘Heaven’.

Except Lucifer who, as punishment for starting the whole Human-Isu war, was tasked to guard a device called ‘Hell’. He guarded it together with Lilith’s ‘children’, the demons.

What these two devices do will be a mystery but they are connected to the Gray in some way and to the Calculations. Perhaps it’s even the actual database of all the Calculations and, by that very definition, it housed all the knowledge, memories and emotions of every living thing in the world.

What defines them as a person.

What defines their soul.

And, from there, we can just integrate all Celestial things in the show as this entirely more advanced workforce’s ‘code words’. (And the devices are connected and that’s why God could boot the Goddess into hell)

By the time 2013 rolls around, Lucifer already owned Lux for a few years now and Desmond applies as a bartender as he’s had enough of all these Assassin-Templar BS to last him a lifetime. He saved the world, this is his damn retirement plan.

Lucifer sees him and goes ‘how interesting, an actual human-POE hybrid.’ while Desmond sees him and goes ‘why does he feel… familiar?’ because his Isu genes and POE-hybridness is giving him signals that Lucifer is definitely not human BUT he ain’t an Isu too.

He’s… Isu-adjacent.

Like Maze.

So Desmond continues to work there and Lucifer finds the perfect time to do the whole “what do you desire?” and Desmond’s POE-hybridness just kicked in.

We’ll make it in this fic that all the Apples are connected to one another and they have a ‘shared memory space’ so Desmond ‘remembers’ that this is the smug bastard who gave the Apple to Eve.

And, because of his limited knowledge of religion, he goes “Why the fuck is actual Satan here in LA?!”

(side note: some count Satan and Lucifer as two different beings but, in this case, we’ll just make Satan another name for Lucifer)

So now they both showed their hands. Lucifer just blatantly showed he wasn’t human and Desmond just showed he has Isu-related knowledge.

Cue an entire night of trying to get drunk while talking about what the fuck happened to them (with special mention to their daddy issues and the whole reluctant ruler of hell and the ‘more-or-less pushed into it’ savior/sacrifice)

At the end of their heart-to-heart, Desmond becomes Lucifer’s main confidant and slowly becomes his BFF. Lucifer uses his mojos to keep Desmond hidden from both Assassins and Templars.

Also… it’s not just Abstergo’s that in his shitlist. William Miles is there as well, that’s for damn sure.

Another subplot we can add is that Lucifer ‘asking’ Chloe to look into Abstergo just so he can, you know… ask them… what they desire?

Other unorganized notes:

What do we do with Juno? I set it to 2013 so Desmond dealt with Juno before peacing out to be a random bartender. Hey, if Ubisoft can do it in the comics, we can take out Juno with one paragraph… maybe even one sentence.

Desmond could see through Maze’s shapeshifting. Whenever he uses Eagle Vision, he sees Maze’s true form.

Actually, Desmond’s Eagle Vision has been powered up by his POE-hybridness that he sees EVERYONE’s true form. His only description of Lucifer’s form? “Bright as fuck.” (this also means Desmond knows Michael by 'sight')

Also, Amenadiel? He looovvveess Desmond’s Shirley Templars.

Lucifer’s deals? He has a connection to Hell and, because of that connection, he’s connected to the Calculations as well. In this case, any deal he makes impacts the Calculations slightly so the person making the deal would get what they want.

Also, this:

[meandmybigmouth]

The Mormon religion, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, originated in Palmira, New York in the 1820s. Joseph Smith, who became interested in religion during the Second Great Awakening, claimed to have received a vision from an angel named Moroni in 1823. Moroni told Smith about golden plates buried in a nearby hill that contained the writings of ancient American prophets. Smith excavated the plates four years later and translated them into English, producing the Book of Mormon in 1830. The book tells the story of an Israelite family who migrated to America before Jesus Christ and were taught by prophets similar to those in the Old Testament. Smith and his associates also claimed to have been visited by other biblical figures, including John the Baptist and three apostles of Jesus. In 1829, John the Baptist appeared to Smith and gave him the Aaronic Priesthood, and on April 6, 1830, Smith organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette Township, New York. The church began as a missionary church.

AND "HE" TRANSLATED THEM INTO ENGLISH?

[pinkishflowersilverycoin]

Hallowing of Hell - Holy Saturday

We know this story, or at least we think we know about it. When Jesus died on the cross, his soul descends to Hell. He went as a victorious, untouchable and unstoppable force to free all the righteous souls still trapped there from the beginning of times. Mostly all the people we know from the Old Testament. You can imagine such vision, Jesus like God himself, bust open with ease the Gates of Hell and defied the evil forces easily to take with him all the souls worthy of salvation and ascend gloriously to Heaven.

Basically, a visible triumph of Good vs Evil before the resurrection.

But we know I care about the Judas comic, made by both Jeff Loveness and Jakub Rebelka, which shown the Hallowing of Hell in a completely different way:

Jesus descends to Hell and he lost all his Godly powers, leaving in as a vulnerable soul and Lucifer orders the wicked souls to drag him to the deepest pit, trapped. But Judas, realizing that despite everything, Jesus still loves him and still forgives all the wrathful souls, decides to defy Lucifer himself and even all Hell to go and descend deeper to save Jesus.

Unlike the official vision of Jesus as a mighty force who bust open the Gates of Hell, Judas, as a vulnerable and powerless soul, fight tooth and nail to get though the evil forces, risking his own existence to get deeper and deeper.

Unlike Jesus in the known version who can't be defeated, Judas had everything to lose doing that. He isn't God, he's not capable of doing miracles (at least, not in the same scale as Jesus), he's afraid and lost himself. And the evil forces there are relentless and cruel. By sheer luck, he wasn't destroyed on his journey.

Still, he was capable of defying such mighty force on his way, the determination and courage of continuing even if he has nothing to gain. He didn't go to save the souls of the Old Testament, he went to save the man he cares, loves and worries the most. His Lord. His Master. This only Hope.

Judas Iscariot doing the Hallowing of Hell to save the Messiah, with all odds against him and still managed to go through successfully even if he was tortured in the process. He went as a normal soul, but with such love on his heart which gives him all the motives to face against the beasts.

He became the Savior in Hell, the one even the Son of God himself needed the most in his lowest moment. Judas doesn't care anymore if he's trapped there for all eternity, he still cares for Jesus enough to risk himself for him.

In the celebrated Hallowing of Hell, Jesus descends like a holy powerful being to open the gates, not even the demons could stop him and save all the souls.

In this Hallowing of Hell, Judas all vulnerable and normal soul, risked everything to save the one who can save the entire world. Jesus needed Judas like the world needed Jesus to save them all.

Because the salvation of all humanity, starts with the salvation of a dearest single person for the other. Judas saved everyone by saving Jesus, without needing external power to do so. His heart lead him to his Lord, his Love saved Hope.

The True Salvation. Judas opened the Gates of Hell for Jesus to pass though.

[rogerharkness]

Christians of Pakistan

Some will say I am a Christian and some will say I am not. I don't know, I don't care. Where I differ is that I believe there was a false god in the old testament and I believe some of the scriptures of Paul were made up. If you study Rome - its sounds just like the Apostle Paul. Rome persecuted the Christians and then it's Caesar became Christian, after seeing a vision, decreed that everyone else should be and became the first pope of the new Roman Catholic Church. The church of the gentiles who also gave us the bible, I don't know, sounds just like the story of Paul - you decide. The other thing that differs me from Christians is the belief that Jesus died as a final sin sacrifice so that we could be forgiven. I do however understand now why he had to die. I made a video about that, but the sin sacrifice, still can't buy that. Anyways, here I am, someone who may not even be a Christian supporting the Christians of Pakistan because this is what Jesus taught us to do, this is what the early church was all about. They are very poor and it hurts me, they need so much more help then I could ever provide, overwhelmed, hoping that I win the lotto or something so that I could help them all. Where are all the Christians who might judge me and my salvation, don't they follow Jesus?

[barlupiins]

The Lamb of God: Fyodor vs Jesus parallelism analysis

With the new anime episode that has ran ahead of the official manga release, every BSD fan's timbers have been shivered upon Dazai's feign in the face of death once again, Chuuya's year-long vampirism turning out to be also an act (go theatre kid go), Fukuchi's death, and Fyodor's supposed "death." While the manga readers have been fed these cliffhangers every month and endured them through crazy twitter threads and coping mechanisms, anime watchers received this within a week…

Anyway. Everyone is talking about Fyodor's "death" scene, and I'm certain that 90% of people are convinced he is not dead yet, amplified furthermore through his recital of Jesus's final words before his death on the cross:

“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”

This translates to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—God, why have you abandoned me?, this being said in the middle of the darkest hour of Jesus’ suffering when he had died on the cross (this will be elaborated even more later).

It's evident that with this knowledge that our favourite rat man is not dead as he harbours many parallels to Jesus Christ; the crux of the Christian religion, who ultimately on the third day, Jesus rose again and "conquered" death by spilling his blood which is necessary for salvation. Death in Catholicism is the ultimate punishment of sin. If we were to link the context of sin from Christianity to Fyodor's perception of sin, this sin that Fyodor came to believe to be found within ability users.

In this analysis, I won’t draw any theories, as I am not a theory person, but through analysis and examination of the current sources in theology, I aim to perhaps solidify our current understanding of Fyodor’s character and his motivations. I also aim with this little analysis that Fyodor's death is indicative of something much larger than we have; a transcendence of body, mind, and soul, something similar to the Holy Trinity, which is the sole pillar of the Catholic faith. To do this, we would need to further inspect Jesus’ function within the Christian religion. 

Jesus Christ: The Religious Figure

Jesus died on the cross as a consequence of sin that he had not caused, but sin that was imposed upon him due to the external world riddled by sin. In the bible’s fashion, this is again also another fulfilment of the Old Testament, via Psalm 22, here, Jesus becoming the new King David—his crown being the crown of thorns, the cross being his throne (I love religious imagery so much ugh). Jesus' crucifixion is the enthronement of Jesus Christ to the "upside down" kingdom of God.

In this way, Fyodor ‘died’ because of the success in the execution of Dazai’s plan. I don’t believe that Dazai is a parallel of Judas, as Judas was a follower of Jesus prior to his betrayal. Dazai was evidently never a follower of Fyodor—this more suiting Nikolai’s character. This however is perfect, as Nikolai was the catalyst for Fyodor’s death as he had initiated the escape game, which thus triggered Dazai to enact his plan of small things that converged into the death of Fyodor. 

Fyodor’s motivations and ideals are still very mysterious to the fandom, but we can gauge the best we can by observing the function of Jesus within Christianity. Jesus is dubbed by many titles—"The New Moses", "The Son of God", "The Son of Man", and "The King of The Jews." All of these names highlight a specific nuance in Jesus' role, and why he is so praised and worshipped upon in the Christian faith and its sub-branches. Jesus fulfils old scripture, in Christianity, the Old Testament. Jesus is a medium of God that had been delivered to earth to example the definite Word—which essentially is the ultimate desire of God and his vision of what he deems as the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. In short, before I go on a whole tangent, Jesus’ name, Emmanuel, translates to “God among us”—therefore, is the fulfilment of God’s promise to save the world from sin that had been threaded throughout the abundance of prophecies in the Old Testament (I can elaborate on this if anyone is interested as there are a few biblical technicalities as to what God is restoring the world to [which is the Garden of Eden, but what is the Garden of Eden, if that makes sense, you know?]!). Because again, as a consequence of original sin (note: ‘sin’ is a divergence from God–the lack of ‘good’) sin became virulent. 

With this brief religious education segment of Jesus’ role as a Messiah, we can thus gain perhaps a little context on Fyodor’s ideals and his motivations. 

Fyodor Dostoevsky and Jesus Christ

Fyodor’s ideals have been established earlier in the manga that his goal is to utilise the book in order to make a world without the sin of ability users. This ideal carries far too many religious context, and aligns with the mention of New Jerusalem in his ability’s namesake novel, Crime and Punishment.  

Now, of course, Fyodor is not actually Jesus. While this conclusion may be non-sequitur, there are various justifications which make this apparent, thus eradicating some crazy theory of Fyodor being the legitimate Jesus in BSD as…he’s Fyodor. But I will lay the bones out here anyway: Fyodor didn’t die on a cross lmao, the fact he is completely dressed up in contrast to Jesus who had been stripped off his humanity via clothes (which were donned upon humans in Genesis by Adam and Eve as a consequence of sin)...this can also be indicative of the fact that Fyodor himself is riddled with sin—this sin in his eyes being the fact he is an ability user. That is out of the way now. 

However, this also raises and further supports the links that people have been grappling with in terms of Fyodor's parallels with the themes discussed in the novel Crime and Punishment (C&P). To preface: Fyodor does not completely embody Raskolnikov, nor the entire narrative of C&P, but it does retain a few features within it. I don't claim to be the most intelligent about this novel, and I am still trying to arrive at my own conclusions and understand it. That will take time. This is what I know: putting Raskolnikov’s obsession over the story of Lazarus aside, it’s revealed that Raskolnikov believes in the new Jerusalem, which is a world that has been completely and ultimately fulfilled of God’s promises—which is to eradicate the world from sin. With the book, we can conclude that Fyodor is trying to reach this “New Jerusalem” due to his ideal to create a world without the sin of ability users. 

Within this as well, we can gain some insight into Fyodor’s character and the possibility of his resurrection through Psalm 22. As aforementioned, I mentioned the link between Fyodor’s ‘final words’ and Jesus’ final word, with Jesus’ quotation of Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? being a direct reference to the first line of Psalm 22 in the darkest hour of his suffering. Therefore, Psalm 22 is exemplifies the entire experience of Jesus’ passion during the crucifixion as he died for his people whom he bore the sins of, the most profound expression of suffering and eventual declaration of faith within that suffering and grief. 

(Psalm 22:19)

It wouldn’t be too divergent if we were to consider the possibility of Fyodor’s suffering through this lens. “My God, My God” exemplified Jesus’ relationship with God as his Son, thus making Fyodor’s recital of these lines serve as an amplification of Fyodor’s perspective and devout intimacy in his relationship with God. While I doubt Fyodor is feeling every visceral human emotion during his death—with the possibility that he is alive and made it out with a plan, this is a suffering he has experienced before, and currently—just not as saturated as he would in his ‘darkest moments’ which is in his mysterious/unrevealed past. Here, Fyodor, as Jesus had felt, is experiencing the withdrawal of God’s fellowship as well as God’s wrath towards humanity by utilising Jesus as a substitute—being impaled in the stomach, and crashing into the tower. 

This raises the inquiry of why ability users are considered as a sin. With the biblical context of sin, we can draw the conclusion that it’s the mere existence of ability users that Fyodor is referring to—this however also raises the inquiry of where do abilities come from. I have a processing meta-theory regarding the metaphysical nature of Bungou Stray Dogs, but I doubt that’s something that I can completely develop here, as it’s just a thought that I’d like to develop more by re-dabbling into the franchise once I have the time.

By examining the biblical undertones referenced through Fyodor's character, and examining said source material, we can perhaps gain some more insight into his motivations and perspective. I wouldn't say that it would reveal everything about his backstory, the true core of his ideals, but by beginning here, it's perhaps a solid first step towards understanding his character. If anyone wants an elaboration for anything I mentioned within this little analysis ramble, please let me know and I'd be happy to provide !!

[alightingdove]

Christianity is not a dualist religion. God created Satan, and Satan works for him. There is no opposition. God uses Satan to test Job, and he sends Jesus to meet Satan in the desert. Zechariah 3 describes Satan as an accuser before God.

Fallen angels appear only twice arguably in the Bible - once in Genesis 6 (also referenced in the apocryphal 1 Enoch) and once in Isaiah 14. The fallen angels in Genesis and their offspring were apprehended or destroyed before and during the Great Flood. The reference in Isaiah 14 likely refers to the king of Babylon and not Lucifer as some interpret it. It would follow that Lucifer and Satan are not the same, as Lucifer isn't even in the Bible.

There is no demonic undercurrent or resistance in the Bible. The only antagonizing forces that appear are the serpent of Eden and the various beasts and celestial beings that appear in visions. However, their appearances in visions parallel how God repeatedly sends His people into and delivers them from adversity in the Old Testament, so even this is according to a plan.

God is in control, as he should be if he is all-powerful. There is no enemy, so do not invent one.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

A common argument against Christianity by many atheists is the idea that Christians don't follow the dietary laws of the Old Testament. I recently heard one ask, "Why are you not firebombing Red Lobster restaurants for serving shellfish?" and "Why are you not calling for the dissolution of clothing companies that produce garments of mixed fabrics?"

The question being asked is a good one, but it shows a common misunderstanding about the role and purpose of Jesus, known as the Messiah.

Before we specifically address the question of shellfish, I would ask as easier question: why do you think Christians no longer participate in the Old Testament sacrifice of animals in the Temple?

The transition from the sacrificial system of the Old Testament to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ provides a solid foundation for understanding why Christians no longer adhere to certain Old Testament practices.

The Old Testament Levitical sacrifices were a significant aspect of God's law for the Israelites. These sacrifices were given by God as a means for His people to atone for their sins and maintain their covenant relationship with Him. However, these sacrifices were insufficient and always intended to point towards something—or rather, Someone—greater.

In the book of Hebrews, the author spends significant time exploring this shift. In Hebrews 10:1, we read, "For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near." The repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament were, in a way, a reminder of sin and an anticipation of the coming redemption.

That redemption arrived in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is described as the ultimate high priest and the perfect sacrifice in one. Hebrews 10:10 says, "And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Christ's death on the cross was the fulfillment of the sacrificial system. His sacrifice was sufficient to atone for all the sins of those united to Him, rendering the repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament no longer necessary.

This critical shift extends beyond the sacrifices and encapsulates other elements of the law, including dietary regulations and rules about clothing. Like the sacrifices, these laws were also pointers, ways of setting the Israelites apart from other nations and reminding them of their unique relationship with God. With the coming of Christ, these laws found their fulfillment as the Gentiles are now ingrafted into the covenant community. God's people are now defined not by external observance of the law, but by faith in Christ. Therefore, just as we understand that the Old Testament sacrifices are no longer necessary due to their fulfillment in Christ, so too can we understand that the laws regarding diet and clothing have found their completion in Him. They served their purpose under the old covenant, but under the new covenant, we are no longer bound by their specific requirements.

The apparent critique of Christians' non-adherence to certain Old Testament laws, such as dietary restrictions or textile regulations, is one to be further addressed with careful consideration of some Biblical texts.

Let's take a look at Acts 10, wherein we find the apostle Peter's vision from God after the resurrection of Jesus. In this vision, a sheet descends from heaven containing all manner of creatures - many of which are explicitly labelled "unclean" in the Mosaic law. Yet, the voice of God commands Peter to rise, kill, and eat these creatures. Peter, an observant Jew, objects, noting that he has never consumed anything unclean. In response, God declares, "What God has made clean, do not call common."

The declaration signifies not just a change in dietary rules, but a profound theological shift. It anticipates the meeting between Peter and Cornelius, a Gentile - the inclusion of Gentiles among God's chosen people is a theme that reverberates throughout the New Testament, and is in fact symbolized in the dismissal of the dietary laws.

God clearly and vividly illustrated that the legal distinction between what is clean and unclean has been done away with, suggesting that the barrier that once separated Jews and Gentiles has been demolished. This metaphorical barrier is symbolically represented by the dietary laws among other Old Testament laws.

The Apostle Paul echoed this sentiment by declaring a once hidden mystery: Gentiles, who were once considered outside the covenant, can now partake in the same salvation offered to the Jewish people. They are no longer excluded or separate, but are now grafted into the same body of believers, a unified church that transcends ethnic and cultural divisions.

These biblical truths are reflected in his letters to the Ephesians (2:16; 3:6), where he writes of how both Jews and Gentiles are reconciled into one body through the cross, abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. And in the mystery of Christ, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, the shift from Old Testament dietary and fabric laws to the teachings of the New Testament isn't a contradiction, but rather a manifestation of a greater plan. A plan in which the gospel is for all people, regardless of their ethnicity or cultural heritage, unified in Christ. So, the New Testament believers' practices, including the consumption of shellfish and wearing of mixed fabrics, are a testament to this newfound liberty and unity in Christ. They are visible signs of a heart transformed by the grace of the gospel and a life marked by the Spirit's work, rather than the outward adherence to the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament.

Romans 7:1-6 provides a vivid metaphor to illustrate the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant in Christ. The Apostle Paul compares the Old Testament law to a marriage covenant, where we were bound to our spouse (the law) as long as we lived. However, when that spouse dies, we are released from the law of the marriage. In the same vein, through Christ's death and resurrection, we have metaphorically 'died' to the law. This death has released us from the binding demands and penalties of the law, akin to a widow being released from her marriage obligations. But the analogy doesn't stop there. Paul goes on to say that we now 'belong to another'. This is a reference to our new union with Christ. We're not left as widows, but remarried—to Him who was raised from the dead. Our relationship to the law has fundamentally changed; we are no longer under its condemnation but live under the grace and liberty of our new 'marriage' to Christ.

Moreover, Jesus Himself in Mark 7:18-19 declared all foods clean. He challenges the Pharisees' preoccupation with external cleanliness, implying that what defiles a person comes from the heart, not from what they eat.

In regards to wearing garments of mixed fabric, it's essential to understand the historical and symbolic significance of this command. The law found in Leviticus 19:19 was given to the Israelites to set them apart from surrounding nations, as a physical reminder of their unique covenant relationship with God. However, under the New Covenant in Christ, this external symbol of separation is no longer necessary. As Galatians 3:28 states, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Thus, the Christian is not bound by these Old Testament restrictions because they have been superseded by the New Covenant in Christ. His work has not dismissed the law, but rather fulfilled it, rendering the literal observance of these laws obsolete while preserving their spiritual essence. In Christ, we are all made clean, and the external symbols that once set God's people apart are no longer needed. It is a heart turned toward God, not diet or dress, that now signifies belonging to His covenant people.

[godslittleprincess]

I've already asked this of @katelyn-marie323, but I'm asking you as well because I'm always curious as to answers to this:

What denomination are you and why?

Favourite book of the Old Testament and why?

Favourite book of the New Testament and why?

Favourite Bible character, excluding God/Jesus, and why?

Favourite Psalm(s) and why?

Favourite hymn or worship song and why?

Favourite names of Jesus and why?

Bonus question if you're Catholic, Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran or Orthodox - favourite saint(s) and why?

Hiye, sorrey for the late reply. I'm on vacation and i’m only now getting this, but thank you, i love questions like this :)

1) I'm currently a born and raised Baptist wanting to convert to Orthodoxy because it's more in tune with my beliefs. I believe that all the practices and teachings of the early Christian church (including veiling and prostration) are not to be abandoned and I'm more of a faith + works type believer as Jesus said to go out and sin no more as well as repent.

2) My favorite book of the Old Testament is a tie between Exodus and Esther, because I love both the story of Queen Esther and all the history of the Hebrews in Egypt especially God saving them. I think both books are very beautiful, and to be honest, in the middle of church I sometimes get lost reading them and forget to pay attention to the sermon.

3) My favorite book of the New Testament is Revelation, as it's always been so incredibly compelling for me. It's so amazing and faith affirming watching the prophesies of Revelation coming true, but at the same time it sends a chill down my spine reading the the judgment that is to come and the extent of the battle of good and evil.

4) I don’t have a favorite Biblical figure in particular, but i have an extensive fascination with the angels and with biblical angelology. I doodle the different types of angels sometimes, and I’ve done lots of research on them.

5) I’m afraid I haven’t yet read much of Psalms but one of the verses I quote the most often, especially when I’m fearful or need comfort happens to come from it. It’s Psalms 23:4, Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me... It gives me a huge amount of peace.

6) My favorite Hymn is “It is well with my soul” I remember when I was little, I listened to a story about the writer of that song, he experienced many horrific tragedies in life including the Chicago fire burning his assets, and the passing of his young daughters on a sinking ship, and still he was able to have peace in the Lord and be able to say that whatever happens, it is well with his soul. I always found that so incredibly inspiring and knowing the story makes the song sound so much heavier and emotional.

7) Honestly I think my favored name for Christ would simply be Jesus 😅. I say Jesus whenever I’m feeling uneased and it gives me a rush of calm and peace like no other.

8) I don’t yet know much about the concept of saints, but my favorite disciple would be John, I hope he counts. I admire that he didn’t hide and was bold enough to be the only apostle to stand by Jesus during his crucifixion, and I think it’s amazing that he was given the vision of Revelation and documented it so that we could read it today.

I apologize, I realize I’ve wrote so much, but I truly enjoyed this, thank you 😊

[redladypaige]

@shonpota asks what I learned in Israeli school

What I learned in Israeli school is..

WHAT I LEARNED IN ISRAELI SCHOOL IS

honestly you're going to be disappointed

tl;dr it's not explicitly hateful, it's much more about emphasizing certain facts and ignoring others to create a narrative and lie by omission.

I don't think it's very different than other western education, but you'll be the judge of that.

I'll try to explain if it makes sense.

First of all, I studied in public school almost a decade ago (jesus), so things might have changed.

So this is the least religious education you can get. More religious schools have been caught with more explicitly hateful material, but that I can't tell you first hand.

Arabic class

From seventh to ninth grade you have mandatory Arabic in school.

Since it's such a short time you really only learn the basics.

The class doesn't really count towards your diploma grade, so you just have to pass it, so most people don't really take it seriously.

There are optional advanced classes to take later on, which in my case were took by Arab Israelis, people with interest in languages and people who wanted to be translators in the IDF.

Civics class

Mostly dry stuff about the system of government, how democracy works, elections, rigjts, stuff like that.

There is big talk about equal rights, mostly mentioning that women had equal rights by law since the founding and that Arab Israelis are regular citizens with equal rights.

Gaza and the west bank weren't mentioned at all, at least when I learned. This is stuff you learn from the news or from your parents.

And of course nothing about systemic racism or anything like that.

You can say that the class shows the ideal clean version of the vision of democracy without actually diving down to what's happening.

Putting "politics in school" is a very controversial subject over here, which I found similar to what's going on with the critical race theory thing in the USA.

Right wingers are in power for a while (and it's getting worse), and for them anything that puts Israel in not a great like is political and should be removed, though it is sometimes used against them too.

It constantly changes and stuff gets added and removed.

Tanach class

It might surprise you that even in secular schools you learn the Tanach (the old testament for you Christians) from first to twelfth grade.

It might surprise you more that we learn it not as a religious text, but much more of an historical one.

It was one of my favorite classes because it actually felt like it encourages skepticism and analysis.

There is talk about how the Torah was probably written by different authors because of contradictions which is literally sacreligous

We talked about which stories are or aren't corroborated by history, how to know about the author by the perspective of the text, events written on from different points of view, etc.

History class

You learn history from first to twelfth grade.

It's very very western.

Starting from Greek to Rome to the middle ages, enlightenment, the French and american revolutions and world wars.

Colonialism is displayed as neutral I guess - just an event that happened. Remember that they don't want opinionated teachers.

We gloss over stuff like slavery and native American genocide when learning about the us, its mostly the revolution and stuff.

Sometimes history from a specific place rotates in, but the rest of the world is mostly reserved for the optional advanced classes.

Of course, there is a big emphasis to ties to Judaism throughout.

Within those periods you learn about what the Jews were up to, usually under the lens of how the current ruler abused them.

World war 2 and the Holocaust obviously is a huge chunk of the material.

You don't get to modern history until like the 10th grade.

And then it's mostly the narrative of the creation of Israel, again viewed neutrally.

It starts from the Dreyfus trial, which had a Jewish officer been accused for a crime he didn't commit.

That caused a reporter named Herzel to think Jews will always be persecuted and to start the Zionist movement with the idea to find a homeland for the Jewish people.

We learn about different proposals for where it could be, raising money, the first Alyot (people who came to Israel to live there).

The Alyot are presented as good things generally, saying that the lands were legally bought and that the people wanted to live side by side with the Palestinians.

Of course the reality is more complicated than that.

We get the Balfour statement, explaining how it's the first time Jews got international recognition for a country but also how it's really non committal.

We learn the efforts to get a country against the British, both the diplomatic and the terrorist actions the early Israeli organizations did.

We learn about the UN division plan, with saying that the Jewish people were happy to share but Palestinians won't come to the negotiations table.

We talk about the declaration of independence when the British left, and how we were immediately attacked by the casus belli of killing all jews by all surrounding countries and still won at the end.

The atrocities of the war aren't mentioned at all.

The Nacba is mentioned, with the word it self constantly getting in and out from the books every year, but it's mentioned subjectively.

As in, "the Palestinians see the events of this war, when Israel took territory in a defensive war and people had to leave their houses as a day of tragedy with the intention to one day return" or something like this.

We learn about immigration after the Holocaust and Mizrahis from Arab countries (like me),surprisingly not shying away from the racism.

The narrative is "there might have been racism then, but now we are all a melting pot of a single culture" or something.

It gets as far as the Six Day War and Yom Kippur war at 1973, anything beyond that is not covered in school.

The main narrative we see about Palestinians is that most of them do want peace and are happy to live side by side with the Israelis, but every time their radical leadership hated their own people, and won't take any compromise.

They want to kill all Israelis and take everything, and Israel is only defending itself.

You can say that's the most radical narrative we learn.

There is little exploration of why, the assumption is anti semetism.

Every war is presented as justified and as part for Israels quest for peace, while being the constant victim.

Inner Palestinian politics aren't discussed, we don't learn their history, their views etc.

That's it I guess?

Feel free to ask anything and I'll try to remember

[steveezekiel]

TEN TIMES BETTER

8 BUT DANIEL PURPOSED IN HIS HEART THAT HE WOULD NOT DEFILE HIMSELF WITH THE PORTION OF THE KING'S DELICACIES, nor with the wine which he drank; THEREFORE HE REQUESTED OF THE CHIEF OF THE EUNUCHS THAT HE MIGHT NOT DEFILE HIMSELF.

20 AND in all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them, HE FOUND THEM TEN TIMES BETTER THAN ALL THE MAGICIANS AND ASTROLOGERS WHO WERE IN ALL HIS REALM."

Daniel 1:8,20 (NKJV)

• God will cause you to excel, If you keep yourself, you defile not your body. God will also favour you If you honour Him by consecrating your body.

- Daniel and his friends purposed not to defile himself with King's delicacies. Food can contaminate you spiritually. If fact, one of the major ways through which they initiate people into witchcraft is through the eating of food. Many had been initiated through food eating, thus, you had to be watchful on what you eat.

• If a Believer abstains from Sin, and honours God with his or her life, such would Excel in whatever they do:

"GOD GAVE THESE FOUR YOUNG MEN AN UNUSUAL APTITUDE FOR UNDERSTANDING every aspect of literature and wisdom: "AND GOD GAVE DANIEL THE SPECIAL ABILITY TO INTERPRET THE MEANINGS OF VISIONS AND DREAMS" (Daniel 1:17 NLT).

- There are a number of things that can defile a Believer. Unlike Old Testament under which Daniel and his friends operated that God gave them dietary laws; what to eat and what not to.

- In Jesus' teaching in the new testament, what actually defiled a Believer is what comes out of him or her:

17 “ANYTHING you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. 18 BUT THE WORDS YOU SPEAK COME FROM THE HEART—THAT'S WHAT DEFILES YOU. 19 FOR FROM THE HEART COME EVIL THOUGHTS, MURDER, ADULTERY, ALL SEXUAL IMMORALITY, THEFT, LYING, AND SLANDER. 20 THESE ARE WHAT DEFILE YOU. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you” (Matthew 15:17-20 NLT).

- And what determines the quality of the word that proceeds from your mouth is, the quality of what you feed your mind with.

- If you feed your mind with dirty things online, or on the televisions, or through the people you hang out with; you cannot but speak defiling words.

- You guard your mind and sieve whatever goes in there: "BE VERY CAREFUL TO KEEP YOUR MIND SAFE. THE THOUGHTS THAT YOU THINK MAKE YOU THE PERSON THAT YOU ARE" (Proverbs 4:23 (EasyEnglish Bible).

"GUARD YOUR HEART ABOVE ALL ELSE, FOR IT DETERMINES THE COURSE OF YOUR LIFE."

Proverbs 4:23 (NLT)

• Open your mind to the Word of God. Let it purge and cleanse you. It is the Word of God that would sanctify or save your mind, soul: "SO GET RID OF ALL THE FILTH AND EVIL IN YOUR LIVES, AND HUMBLY ACCEPT THE WORD GOD HAS PLANTED IN YOUR HEARTS, FOR IT HAS THE POWER TO SAVE YOUR SOULS" (James 1:21 NLT).

- If you allowed the Word of God to preoccupy your mind, with Time, you become a vessel of Blessing to others (Daniel 1:17).

• Ability to excel is given by God. The gift or ability to interpret the meanings of visions and dreams which was given to Daniel had to do with his submission to God (Daniel 1:17).

- His unwavering commitment and submission led to it. The room you give to God in your life, He would fill or occupy. God would not go beyond what you allow or permit Him to do in your life.

- A bachelorette or a bachelor who engages in sexual immortality, defiling herself or himself, had embarked or started on a journey to failures.

- Daniel and his friends counsel to the king; their answers to the king's questions when he tested them, were excellent. They were ten times better than all the astrologers and soothsayers in the whole Babylonian kingdom (Daniel 1:20).

- If you keep yourself for God, you defile yourself not, He would put what people would celebrate in you. Cause you to be ten times better than your mates, contemporaries in whatever you are assigned to do.

• Christian life.

- Strive to grow in your walk with God.

Live right. That is, live a holy life (1 Peter 1:15,16).

- Let the Word of God be your standard in whatever you may want to do, and wherever you find yourself.

- Daniel and his friends were in a strange land but they did not throw away the things they were taught about the God of Israel. Some believe If you are in Rome, you behave like the Romans. Or If you cannot beat them, you join them.

- Daniel and his friends did not behave like the Romans, that is, the Babylonians; because they were in a strange Land, but they held on to the doctrine of faith in the God of Isreal.

• What some Christians portrayed to the people in the church is different from who they are at their places of work and the neighborhood they live.

- Some who claimed to be Believers could be seen or considered a disgrace to God and His Kingdom:

a. Can God be proud or boastful of you? b. Can He vouch for you?

- If you were privileged to find yourself in government, like Daniel and his friends were, or in any public office; Would you not defile yourself with corruptions? Would you not compromise your stand or faith when you are offered a bribe?

- You may think it does not matter, God also understands; you would be surprised to know that those things which you counted not, matter to God.

- Things you did which you think not to be mattered to God, are the things He watches and uses to determine whether a bigger responsibility should be given to you or not.

- He, God, got to know your faithfulness and Integrity and reliability, through those minor things which you counted not.

a. Are you faithful where you are?

b. Are you part or among those Believers who cheat, get involved in the examination malpractices; buying of results, to proceed to tertiary institutions?

c. Or you are part of some females who Use their body to receive marks from lecturers?

- Doing such a thing, yet claiming to be a born-again Believer, you have already sealed your doom. Because, God would not allow a person of such to be given an opportunity in great places, even with fake examination results.

- He would not allow you to represent Him and His Kingdom, because you would be a disgrace to Him, God, and His Kingdom.

• You will not go down in Jesus' name. And your place will not be given to another person in Jesus' name.

- Should there be any ailment in your body, I declare your healing now in Jesus' name.

- I have the mandate to bless, and I declare you blessed in Jesus' name. You will live in health in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.

Peace!

STEPS TO SALVATION

• Take notice of this:

IF you are yet to take the step of salvation, that is, yet to be born-again, do it now, tomorrow might be too late (2 Corinthians 6:1,2; Hebrews 3:7,8,15).

a. Acknowledge that you are a sinner and confess your Sins (1 John 1:9); And ask Jesus Christ to come into your life (Revelation 3:20).

b. Confess that you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that you confess it with your mouth, Thus, you accept Him As your Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:9,10).

c. Ask that He will write your name in the Book of Life (Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:8).

- If you took the steps As highlighted above, It means you are saved—born-again. Join a Word based church in your area and Town or city, and be part of whatever they are doing there. Peace!

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

15th October >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 22:1-14 for the Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle A: ‘The wedding is ready’.

Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Gospel (Except USA) Matthew 22:1-14 Invite everyone you can to the wedding.

Jesus began to speak to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a feast for his son’s wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited, but they would not come. Next he sent some more servants. “Tell those who have been invited” he said “that I have my banquet all prepared, my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding.” But they were not interested: one went off to his farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his servants, maltreated them and killed them. The king was furious. He despatched his troops, destroyed those murderers and burnt their town. Then he said to his servants, “The wedding is ready; but as those who were invited proved to be unworthy, go to the crossroads in the town and invite everyone you can find to the wedding.” So these servants went out on to the roads and collected together everyone they could find, bad and good alike; and the wedding hall was filled with guests. When the king came in to look at the guests he noticed one man who was not wearing a wedding garment, and said to him, “How did you get in here, my friend, without a wedding garment?” And the man was silent. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot and throw him out into the dark, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.’

Gospel (USA) Matthew 22:1–14 Invite to the wedding feast whomever you find.

Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”’ Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Reflections (5)

(i) Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

When I sit down with the family of a loved one who has died to plan the funeral Mass, together we try to find appropriate readings. One of the Old Testament readings that is often chosen is this Sunday’s first reading. There the prophet Isaiah has a wonderful vision of God preparing a rich banquet on Mount Zion in the city of Jerusalem. This is no ordinary human banquet. It is a banquet to which all people are invited, where death is destroyed forever and where the Lord finally wipes away the tears associated with death. It is a banquet at which the deepest hungers and thirsts of the human heart are finally satisfied, especially the hunger and thirst for God. Those present will say, ‘This is our God, in whom we hoped for salvation’. It is easy to see why it might speak to those grieving the loss of a loved one. That image of the Lord hosting a wonderful banquet is also there in today’s responsorial psalm, which is often chosen for a funeral Mass, ‘The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want… You have prepared a banquet for me in the sight of my foes. My head you have anointed with oil, my cup is overflowing… In the Lord’s own house shall I dwell for ever and ever’. There is an image here of God as a wonderful host, inviting people to dwell in his house and putting on a lavish banquet for them.

This is an image of God as a generous host, who wants us at his table, so that he can shower his hospitable love upon us, a love that destroys death and brings lasting and full life. This was one of the images that Jesus had of God. He often spoke of God as the host at the great banquet of eternal life to which all peoples are invited. On one occasion he said that ‘people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God’. That image of a banquet is there again in the parable in today’s gospel reading. Jesus declares that the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a banquet, and not just any banquet but a royal banquet, a feast given by a king for his son’s wedding. Jesus was the son of the heavenly king, and he often understood his whole ministry as like a wedding banquet, with himself as the bridegroom. On one occasion when people complained to Jesus that his disciples weren’t fasting, Jesus replied, ‘The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they?’ Jesus’ whole ministry was a celebration of God’s merciful, life-giving love for all humanity. It was a joyful time, like the wedding celebrations that often went on for days in the villages of Galilee. He wanted everyone to enter into the joy of his ministry. However, many refused to do so. On one occasion, comparing himself to children playing in the market place, Jesus said, ‘we played the flute for you and you wouldn’t dance’.

Jesus is now among us as risen Lord and he continues to invite us all to celebrate God’s hospitable love, to join in the heavenly dance. God is someone to be enjoyed. Our faith in the Lord brings us joy. It doesn’t mean we will be spared life’s troubles, but we face them with the strength that the Lord gives us. The second reading is from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Even though he wrote this letter from prison, it is full of Paul’s joy. His joy flows from his relationship with the risen Lord. As he says in that reading, ‘There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the one who gives me strength’. Paul had responded to the Lord’s invitation to come to his banquet of life. Paul had allowed himself to be touched by God’s hospitable love flowing through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. However, in the parable Jesus speaks in the gospel reading, people refuse God’s invitation to the wedding feast of his Son. ‘They were not interested: one went off to his farm, another to his business’, and even worse, many ‘seized the king’s servants, maltreated them and killed them’. God is always calling out to us through his Son, inviting us to taste and see that the Lord is good. God desperately wants to gather people around his Son. Even when we ignore his call, God keeps pursuing us in the hope that we will respond to his call. Like the king in the parable he wants the wedding hall of his son to be filled with guests.

When we do respond to God’s invitation, when, like Paul, we allow ourselves to be touched by God’s hospitable love flowing through Jesus, God then sends us out to share the love we have received with others. In one of his letters, Paul calls on us to clothe ourselves with love, with Christ’s love, which is our spiritual garment. In the parable, one of the guests who did respond to the king’s invitation didn’t go on to wear the right garment. God’s love wants to grace us abundantly through his Son but then he asks us to live graced and loving lives in response to all he has given us.

And/Or

(ii) Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We sometimes refer light heartedly to the person who makes someone an offer they cannot refuse. We are aware of the paradox in that statement. To make an offer implies leaving people free to take up the offer or not, to accept the invitation or not. An offer or an invitation that cannot be refused is not an offer or an invitation in any true sense of the word.

The parable in today’s gospel reading tells the story of a king who offered an invitation to his son’s wedding feast that was refused by many. In that culture people normally received two invitations to a feast, an initial invitation some time before the event, and a second invitation just as the meal was ready. To refuse the second invitation at the point when the meal was all prepared, having already said yes to the first invitation, would have been a great insult to the host. It is this second invitation that people decline in the parable that we have just heard. Those who had been invited and had accepted the invitation were called to the table just as the food was about to be served and they said ‘no thanks’, some of them in a very violent fashion. The equivalent experience today might be someone who had accepted an invitation to a meal in a friend’s house and then, just ten minutes before the meal is due to start, rings up and says he or she will not be able to come after all. The host might have second thoughts about asking that person around again.

In the parable, the king who invites people to the wedding feast of his son is an image of God who invites people to gather around his Son, Jesus. John the Baptist once referred to himself as the friend of the bridegroom. God invites all of us to become friends of Jesus, the bridegroom, to enter into communion with him, and then to live out our communion with him. This is the great Christian calling, the great invitation that God extends to all men and women. The fact that this calling is expressed in the terms of an invitation to a wedding feast suggests that there is a real celebratory element to this calling. It is a call to joy, the deep-seated joy that comes from knowing that God values us so much that he desperately wants us to be present at his Son’s great feast.

There is joy at the heart of the Christian life. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus give us something to celebrate, even when life is going against us. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection proclaim the good news that God’s mercy is stronger than our sin, that God’s life is stronger than our various experiences of death, that God’s power is stronger than our weakness. We can each say with St. Paul in today’s second reading from his letter to the Philippians, ‘there is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength’. Paul wrote that letter from his prison cell. He had been through great hardship, and he suspected that worse was to come, and, yet, that little letter is full of joy. Even though it was written out of a real Calvary experience, it radiates the light of Easter. We always live and walk in the light of Easter, even in our darkest moments. The Christian calling is always a calling to joyful and hopeful living.

That joyful, hopeful living that God calls us to is not a way of life that leaves us self-satisfied or smug. An authentically joyful and hopeful life will always overflow into service of others. In carrying the joy and hope of the gospel in our hearts, we are moved to bring joy where there is sadness, to bring hope where there is despair, to bring courage to the fearful, companionship to the lonely, acceptance to those who have experienced rejection. This is the significance of the wedding garment that is referred to in the parable of today’s gospel reading. Those who have accepted the king’s invitation to his Son’s wedding feast must dress accordingly, must live accordingly. The king who invites people to his Son’s wedding feast in today’s parable from Matthew’s gospel says to those same people in another parable a little later in Matthew’s gospel: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food… thirsty and you gave me something to drink… a stranger and you welcomed me…sick and you took care of me’. Paul in his prison could say to his beloved Philippians in today’s second reading: ‘It was good of you to share with me in my hardship’. The Philippians supported Paul in his imprisonment, stood by him in his weakness. They knew how to wear their wedding garment.

Each day we are invited to taste the joy and the hope of the gospel for ourselves, and to become messengers of that joy and hope to others. The Eucharist is a foretaste of the great wedding banquet of Christ in the kingdom of heaven to which God invites us. At the Eucharist, we renew our joyful hope, and we commit ourselves afresh to the joyful and hopeful service of others.

And/Or

(iii) Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

As many of you know, my own roots are here in Clontarf. My grandparents lived since the 1930s in a small house attached to a bigger house called Beechfield House off Oulton Road. After they died, their two daughters, my two aunts, who never married, lived on there up until 1998. My parents moved into that house in the 1940s after they were married and I was eventually born from that house. Even though I was only two years of age when we moved to a house in Cabra, I came back and forth regularly to visit my grandparents, and then my aunts. I remember playing in a field in front of Beechfield house where Sommerville now stands. I was put in mind of one of those aunts, whose name was Eve, by this morning’s second reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. That reading contained what was probably her favourite verse in Scripture, ‘There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength’. The version of that verse she was familiar with was, ‘I can do all things in him who strengthens me’. Eve used to fall back on that verse when life was a struggle. Paul wrote his letter to the church in Philippi out of his own situation of struggle. He was in prison at the time, and was unsure whether he would ever leave prison alive. The Philippians did their best to support him in prison, even though he was at a distance from them. Paul expresses his appreciation for their support in this morning’s reading, ‘It was good of you to share with me in my hardship’. Yet, he wanted them to know that he had another means of support, the Lord himself. Because the Lord is his support, he can say in that reading, ‘I am ready for anything anywhere: full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty’.

Paul certainly believed that the strength he experienced in his hour of weakness is available to all who believe in the Lord. The same Lord whose presence to Paul in prison gave him great strength, is present is all of us to strengthen us in our own times of struggle. As you are probably aware, Pope Benedict has declared this year to be the year of Paul, running from the feast of Saint Peter and Paul last June, to the feast of Saint Peter and Paul next June. More than any other letter, it is his letter to the Philippians that gives us an insight into Paul’s inner life, his own personal relationship with the Lord. His letter from prison to the Philippians can speak to our own experiences of weakness, to our own particular versions of imprisonment. Paul knew from experience that what he could not do on his own, he could do with the Lord’s help. For him, Jesus was not someone who belonged to the past, but someone who was powerfully alive, here and now. In fact, Paul never met the Jesus who belonged to the past, the historical Jesus. His only meeting with Jesus was with him as risen Lord. That is our only meeting with Jesus too. I should not say ‘only’, because to meet the risen Lord is to meet Jesus in all his power and glory, in all his fullness of life. The risen Lord is as present to us today as he was to Paul in his prison. Paul was just somewhat more aware of the Lord’s presence that we tend to be. Paul wanted the members of the Philippian church to be as aware of the Lord’s presence as he was. That is why, just before this morning’s second reading, he says to them, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always… the Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God’. The Lord is near; I can do all things through him who gives me strength. If we only had Paul’s awareness, what a difference it could make to our lives.

In a way, the gospel reading this morning is about people’s lack of awareness of the Lord’s presence. A king gave a banquet for his son and invited a number of guests. It is not everyday you get an invitation to the wedding of a king’s son! Yet, at the very last minute, when the meal was ready to be served, the guests who had been invited and had agreed to come suddenly made excuses and said they would not be coming after all – they had a farm to go to, business to attend to. Some of them beat up the king’s servants just for good measure. It is hard to imagine a greater lack of awareness. The Lord came knocking on their door and they said, ‘get lost. I said I was coming but I have changed my mind’. Even among the second lot of guests who were invited at the last minute, and who accepted the unexpected invitation, there was at least one who showed a lack of awareness by dressing down in a major way. He didn’t take seriously where he was or whose presence he was in. There is a real contrast between the lack of awareness of the Lord that people display in the gospel reading, and that wonderful awareness of the Lord that Paul gives expression to in the first reading. This morning we look to Paul as the one who shows us what it really means to live in and from the Lord’s presence to us.

And/Or

(iv) Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We have a lot of weddings in this church. The majority of couples who marry here are not from the parish. They obviously like the church; it does have a certain atmosphere that lends itself to a wedding. One of the most challenging chores for any couple getting married is the invitation list. Who do you invite and who do you not invite? Having decided on the invitation list and having sent out the invitations, firming up on the numbers coming can be a challenge as well. Not every one that is invited replies to the invitation, and not everyone who replies in the positive turns up.

The story Jesus speaks in this morning’s gospel reading is about a wedding, and not just any ordinary wedding, but a royal wedding. It is a king’s son who is getting married. An invitation to a royal wedding is a serious matter. In the culture of the time of Jesus two invitations would normally have been sent out to such a wedding banquet, one when the wedding was still a long way off and the other on the day of the wedding banquet just as the meal was about to be served. In the story it was at the point of the second invitation, when the meal was ready, that those who said ‘yes’ to the first invitation began to make excuses. To say you were not coming to the royal banquet at that late stage when all was ready was, indeed, a great insult to the host. Some of those who said ‘no’ when all was ready not only made lame excuses but maltreated and killed the king’s servants. The king had every right to be furious. Yet, so determined was he to ensure that his banqueting hall would be full, even at this late stage, that he sent out more servants to bring in total strangers from the crossroads, what the parable refers to as ‘bad and good alike’. These people couldn’t believe their luck.

Things happen in the story world that Jesus creates that do not happen in real life. The story depicts a king who refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer, who keeps searching until he finds people who will say ‘yes’. Jesus is saying something to us about God’s persistence. God is determined that his Son, Jesus, who is often spoken of as bridegroom in the gospels, should have a wedding banquet where there are no empty seats. God is constantly drawing people to his Son; we are constantly being drawn by God to his Son. Even when we seem to show little interest because we have a farm to go to or business to attend or whatever God will keep searching until he finds people who are interested or until we have a change of mind or heart. God does not like empty seats and God’s banqueting hall for his Son is huge; in fact it is limitless; its height and length and depth are beyond calculation. God wants all people to share the table of his Son, to be special guests of his Son, to be in close communion with him. There is nothing selective about God’s guest list. The first reading describes a great banquet which embraces all people and all nations. As we gather around Jesus in response to God’s invitation, we will find ourselves surrounded by all sorts. The church is a funny mix; it is not a gathering of the pure and perfect. It is a gathering of what the parable this morning calls ‘bad and good alike’, and we should be very slow to decide who are among the good and who are among the bad because there is good and bad in all of us. I am reminded of another parable that Jesus spoke, the parable of the wheat and the weeds. They were both growing together in the one field and the farmer did not allow his servants to start separating them before harvest time for fear they should mistake the wheat for the weed. We are all good and we are all sinners in need of repentance; that is why we begin each Mass by acknowledging our need of God’s mercy.

That is where the last part of the parable comes in, concerning the wedding guest who was not wearing a wedding garment. At the baptism of a child the mother or the godmother is invited to cloth the newly baptized child with the wedding garment as the celebrant says, ‘You have been clothed with Christ. See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. With family and friends to help you, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven’. We have been clothed with Christ at baptism; there is an onus on us to retain that clothing as we go through life. Even though, through baptism, we have been invited to the wedding feast of God’s Son, even though we remain on God’s guest list as we go through life, that realization should never leave us complacent. We have to keep dressing appropriately to our honoured status; we have to keep putting on Christ. We are called to keep growing into the person of Christ.

And/Or

(v) Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We have all had the experience of receiving an invitation to something. Someone might invite us to join them for coffee some morning. We receive more formal invitations to some happy occasion, like a wedding. Parents know that their children are often invited to parties of other children. Nowadays with the ease of social communication, various invitations can come into our inbox to a variety of talks or events. We often have to sift through the invitations and decide which ones to respond to. If a family member or a close friend has a really significant celebration to which we are invited, we would want to respond.

That ordinary, human experience of receiving invitations is very much at the heart of our faith. When you look at the gospels, Jesus’ primary way of relating to people was to invite them to become his disciples. We often speak of Jesus calling people. We can just as easily speak of him as inviting people. He said to a group of fishermen, ‘Follow me’, or ‘Come and see’. Jesus did not compel people to follow him. He kept inviting. Even as he hung from the cross, he was inviting. When he rose from the dead and went out into the world through the Holy Spirit, he continued to invite. When Jesus’ invitation was rejected, it brought him great sadness. Once he turned to the city of Jerusalem, and lamented, ‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing’. ‘You were not willing’. The Lord needs our willingness. There can be no compulsion. He awaits our free and loving response.

That theme of the Lord’s invitation is central to this morning’s readings. In the first reading and the gospel reading there is an invitation to a great feast. There is a wonderful description of a banquet in that first reading, with its rich and juicy food and its fine strained wines, a banquet of life where death has no place. The wedding banquet in the gospel reading sounds just as good. ‘My oxen are fattened, cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding’. This image of the banquet is saying something about the nature of the Lord’s invitation to us. Sitting around a table is more than just sharing food, isn’t it? When we share table with people, at its best at least, it is an experience of intimacy, of friendship, of trust, even on occasion, of reconciliation. The Lord’s daily invitation to us is always an invitation to communion. He invites us into communion with himself and with all those who have received the same invitation from him as we have. His invitation is always a call to grow in our communion both with himself and with the church, other followers of the Lord.

That call to communion with the Lord and with others is there in all three readings this morning, more obviously in the first reading and gospel reading, but also in the second reading. In that letter to the Philippians, Paul is writing from prison. We would normally think of prison as a very isolating experience, and, of course, it is that for very many people today. Yet, it is clear from that very short reading that Paul had a wonderful experience of communion while in prison. He had a very strong sense of his communion with the Lord, which he expresses in that very powerful statement, ‘There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength’. He clearly also had a very strong sense of his communion with the church while he was in prison. He expresses his gratitude to the church in Philippi for the support they have given him in prison, ‘it was good of you to share with me in my hardships’.

It is that experience of communion with the Lord and with each other that we are all invited into. Yet, as we know, invitations can be refused. In the parable Jesus spoke, people started making excuses at the last minute, just as the meal was ready. ‘I have a farm to go to; I have a business to go to’. The host wasn’t put off! He just went out and invited others who were delighted to come along. The parable suggests that the Lord is not easily put off by human refusal. We can all fail to hear the Lord’s invitation. We get over absorbed by what is very important but is not of ultimate importance and, so, we miss something even more important. This is why, every so often, we just need to step back a little from everything, and allow ourselves to hear again the Lord’s invitation into that great communion with himself and his people. We are about to celebrate the baptism of Luke. It is a special day for him, his family and all of us, because it is the moment when he is formally invited into that special communion with the Lord and with his family, the church.

Fr. Martin Hogan.