#Roman Catechism part 39 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

catenaaurea · 2 years ago

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The Roman Catechism

Part Two: The Sacraments

THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM (cont.)

Matter of Baptism

Now since we said above, when treating of the Sacraments in general, that every Sacrament consists of matter and form, it is therefore necessary that pastors point out what constitutes each of these in Baptism. The matter, then, or element of this Sacrament, is any sort of natural water, which is simply and without qualification commonly called water, be it sea water, river water, water from a pond, well or fountain.

Testimony Of Scripture Concerning The Matter Of Baptism

For the Savior taught that unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. The Apostle also says that the Church was cleansed by the laver of water; and in the Epistle of St. John we read these words: There are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood. Scripture affords other proofs which establish the same truth.

When, however, John the Baptist says that the Lord will come who will baptize in the Holy Ghost, and in fire, that is by no means to be understood of the matter of Baptism; but should be applied either to the interior operation of the Holy Ghost, or at least to the miracle performed on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles in the form of fire, as was foretold by Christ our Lord in these words: John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.

Figures

The same was also signified by the Lord both by figures and by prophecies, as we know from Holy Scripture. According to the Prince of the Apostles in his first Epistle, the deluge which cleansed the world because the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil, was a figure and image of this water. To omit the cleansing of Naaman the Syrian, and the admirable virtue of the pool of Bethsaida, and many similar types, manifestly symbolic of this mystery, the passage through the Red Sea, according to St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians, was typical of this same water.

Prophecies

With regard to the predictions, the waters to which the Prophet Isaias so freely invites all that thirst, and those which Ezekiel in spirit saw issuing from the Temple, and also the fountain which Zachary foresaw, open to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: for the washing of the sinner, and of the unclean woman, were, no doubt, intended to indicate and express the salutary waters of Baptism.

Fitness

The propriety of constituting water the matter of Baptism, of the nature and efficacy of which it is at once expressive, St. Jerome, in his Epistle to Oceanus, proves by many arguments.

Upon this subject pastors can teach in the first place that water, which is always at hand and within the reach of all, was the fittest matter of a Sacrament which is necessary to all for salvation. In the next place water is best adapted to signify the effect of Baptism. It washes away uncleanness, and is, therefore, strikingly illustrative of the virtue and efficacy of Baptism, which washes away the stains of sin. We may also add that, like water which cools the body, Baptism in a great measure extinguishes the fire of concupiscence.

Chrism Added To Water For Solemn Baptism

But it should be noted that while in case of necessity simple water unmixed with any other ingredient is sufficient for the matter of this Sacrament, yet when Baptism is administered in public with solemn ceremonies the Catholic Church, guided by Apostolic tradition, has uniformly observed the practice of adding holy chrism which, as is clear, more fully signifies the effect of Baptism. The people should also be taught that although it may sometimes be doubtful whether this or that water be genuine, such as the perfection of the Sacrament requires, it can never be a subject of doubt that the only matter from which the Sacrament of Baptism can be formed is natural water.

Form of Baptism

Having carefully explained the matter, which is one of the two parts of which Baptism consists, pastors must show equal diligence in explaining the form, which is the other essential part. In the explanation of this Sacrament a necessity of increased care and study arises, as pastors will perceive, from the circumstance that the knowledge of so holy a mystery is not only in itself a source of pleasure to the faithful, as is generally the case with regard to religious knowledge, but also very desirable for almost daily practical use. As we shall explain in its proper place, circumstances often arise where Baptism requires to be administered by the laity, and most frequently by women; and it therefore becomes necessary to make all the faithful, indiscriminately, well acquainted with whatever regards the substance of this Sacrament.

Words Of The Form

Pastors, therefore, should teach, in clear, unambiguous language, intelligible to every capacity, that the true and essential form of Baptism is: I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. For so it was delivered by our Lord and Savior when, as we read in St. Matthew He gave to His Apostles the command: Going, . . . teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

By the word baptizing, the Catholic Church, instructed from above, most justly understood that the form of the Sacrament should express the action of the minister; and this takes place when he pronounces the words, I baptize thee.

Besides the minister of the Sacrament, the person to be baptized and the principal efficient cause of Baptism should be mentioned. The pronoun thee, and the distinctive names of the Divine Persons are therefore added. Thus the complete form of the Sacrament is expressed in the words already mentioned: I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Baptism is the work not of the Son alone, of whom St. John says, He it is that baptizeth, but of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity together. By saying, however, in the name, not in the names, we distinctly declare that in the Trinity there is but one Nature and Godhead. The word name is here referred not to the Persons, but to the Divine Essence, virtue and power, which are one and the same in Three Persons.

Essential And Non-Essential Words Of The Form

It is, however, to be observed that of the words contained in this form, which we have shown to be the complete and perfect one, some are absolutely necessary, so that the omission of them renders the valid administration of the Sacrament impossible; while others on the contrary, are not so essential as to affect its validity.

Of the latter kind is the word ego (I), the force of which is included in the word baptizo (I baptise). Nay more, the Greek Church, adopting a different manner of expressing the form, and being of opinion that it is unnecessary to make mention of the minister, omits the pronoun altogether. The form universally used in the Greek Church is: Let this servant of Christ be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. It appears, however, from the decision and definition of the Council of Florence, that those who use this form administer the Sacraments validly, because the words sufficiently express what is essential to the validity of Baptism, that is, the ablution which then takes place.

Baptism In The Name Of Christ

If at any time the Apostles baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ only, we can be sure they did so by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, in order, in the infancy of the Church, to render their preaching more illustrious by the name of Jesus Christ, and to proclaim more effectually His divine and infinite power. If, however, we examine the matter more closely, we shall find that such a form omits nothing which the Savior Himself commands to be observed; for he who mentions Jesus Christ implies the Person of the Father, by whom, and that of the Holy Ghost, in whom, He was anointed.

#Roman Catechism part 39 #catholic #Christian #that last one doesn't track for me based on relatively recent events i have to look more into it

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alphacenturian4 · 5 years ago

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The Bible is a Catholic Book review

By: Ramon Aguilar IV

This is a book review of the audio version of Jimmy Akins apologetic book the Bible is a Catholic Book. Published by Catholic Answers & purchased through Audible. This book goes through a general and basic history of the bible; both Hebrew Old Testament & Christian New Testament. It seemed to be aimed at someone who has never read the bible before or someone whom is completely unfamiliar with the history around & surrounding the composition and proliferation of Biblical scripture and Judo-Christian texts.

Before I give you my review, I need to acknowledge some basis on by behalf. I am Roman Catholic, I am in good standing with the Church, I am Lay-Religious, I do pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and Jimmy Akin is my favorite apologist. Not just of Catholic apologists, but of all the current youtube and actively working published apologists of all Faiths & Denominations Jimmy Akin is my favorite. Shabir Ali, Darma Speak, David Wood, & James White, being the rest of my top five.

So it pains me to say that this wasn’t a great apologetic work. I have other works by Jimmy Akin that are much more informative and impactful. Now, mind you, I might not be the intended audience as I have been studying the bible using critical, historical, & philosophical methods since I was 15 & I am now 39. The Catechism, bible dictionaries, different bible translations, study bibles, Dead Sea Scroll collections, Gnostic Bibles, The Puedopigripha, & The church fathers are familiar and part of my personal library collection. And understand that most Christians only read parts of bible and few people will ever read the whole bible all the way through themselves even once. And I also understand that disinformation about the Bible is rampant online and on youtube. But that does not dissipate the disappointment I felt listening to this book.

The audiobook is only five hours long and if you are familiar with the bible at all, having read any intro material to a mainstream Study bible; or, If you are reading this to evangelize or for the propose of apologetics you will be severely disappointed until the last 2 hours of the books, and in fact you wont get any interesting ideas to chew over or conversation pieces to debate with your non-catholic friends until the very last hour of this book. The history outlined goes from Pre-Biblical sources, through each major division or grouping of biblical text, through the history surrounding the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books, the new testament in order of composition, the apostolic fathers and then post Biblical textual developments including mentions and brief apologetical dismissals of Gnostic, Pseudepigraphal and other heretical works. And all of that would make you think this is a heavy work, a magnus opus of apologetics. But sadly it is not. Short works, such as the USCCB’s essential guide to the Holy Bible, which is less than 90 pages long covers just as much if not more martial than Jimmy Akin does in 200 pages.

The title of this book is also highly misleading. It implies that this work will contain proofs and arguments for the Catholicity of the Bible yet all it gives are brief passes to claims only the most conspiratorial, radical, and lunatic fringe world make against the Catholic Church’s relationship to the Bible. To paraphrase James White (speaking of other apologetic works by other authors), “this work [by Jimmy Akin] is lacking depth, and has little to no Textual nor Suppositional proofs to support its claims.” There are no premises within this work that relate to the magnitude put forth in by its Title. This book proves nothing. The evidence presented is elementary, the argumentation is nonexistent, by the time I finished the book I wasn’t even sure this book was apologetical. While it was informative, I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who was over 18 years old and had already read the bible all the way through once in their life. On the other hand if you are under the age of 18, and have never read the bible or never been able to finish reading the bible, or are completely unfamiliar with religion, any religion, then this might be the book for you. But I have read encyclopedia entries with more relevant and lively information about the Bible and its history than this book presents.

This book was released in 2019 and it took me one week to get through. I can only assume that it was originally written as an intro to the Bible and then at some point, in its production, its propose and length changed to become an apologetic proof to the claim, which I myself argue for, that the New Testament Bible as it exists today in all good scholarly translations was composed, edited (redacted), transcribed, complied, & interpreted by Catholics. The Bible truly is a Catholic book.

I have heard many apologist on YouTube of the atheist and non-Catholic type to make the opposite claim and to make amazing and astonishing arguments as to why the the Bible is not a Catholic book. I was hoping that this book would help illuminate a better path for refuting such disinformation and propaganda. Unfortunately this book is a pebble of Truth thrown against a rolling boulder of anti-Catholic conspiratorial rhetoric.

I would give this book a 2 out of 5 star rating. Instead of wasting your momey on this book I would recommend; the NRSV New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha 5th Edition, The NAB Catholic Study Bible Third Edition, or St Augustine’s Confessions if you want better arguments for the Catholicity of the Bible and The Catholic Church’s role in forming the Bible. On the other hand, if you are reading this because you like Jimmy Akin, I would recommend two of his other works, Teaching With Authority, or The Father’s Know Best.

Thank you. Peace, like, subscribe. Comment down below. Let’s have a discussion.

#Catholic #Catholicism #Jimmy Akin #The Bible Is A Catholic Book #book review

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years ago

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The Story About The Scourging of Jesus

Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him (John). Mark and Matthew parallels saying, "Having scourged Jesus". John’s reports in his Gospel account that it was the Roman soldiers who were doing the dirty deeds. An indefinite number of soldiers is stated in John’s Gospel, while Mark 15:16 and Matthew 27:27 speak of the whole cohort (600 soldiers).

The Romans used three forms of bodily chastisement with sticks or whips: fustigatio (beating), flagellatio (flogging), and verberatio (scourging)- in ascending gradation. Beatings were used as a corrective punishment in itself, but severe punishments were part of the capital sentence. The scourging took place with a short whip with lead balls and sheep bones tied into the leather thongs. The victim was tied naked to a flogging post. Deep stripe like lacerations were usually associated with considerable blood loss.

Flogging was a legal preliminary to every Roman execution, and only women and Roman senators or soldiers (except in cases of desertion) were exempt. The usual instrument was a short whip with several single or braided leather thongs of variable lengths, in which small iron balls or sharp pieces of sheep bones were tied at intervals. Occasionally, staves also were used. The man’s back, buttock, and legs were flogged either by two soldiers (lictors) or by one who alternated positions. The severity of the scourging depended on the disposition of the lictors and was intended to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death. After the scourging, the soldiers would taunt their victim.

As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victims back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions, and the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and tissues. As the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh. Pain and blood loss generally set the stage for circulatory shock. The extent of blood loss may well have determined how long the victim would survive on the cross. __________

At the Praetorium, Jesus was severely whipped. While the severity is not discussed in the four Gospels, it is implied in one of the epistles (1 Peter 2:24). A detailed word study of the ancient Greek text for this verse indicates that the scourging of Jesus was particularly harsh. It is not known whether the number of lashes was limited to 39, in accordance with Jewish law. The Roman soldiers, amused that this weakened Man had claimed to be a king, began to mock Him by placing a robe on his shoulders, a crown of thorns on His head, and a wooden staff as a scepter in His right hand. Next, they spat on Jesus and struck him on the head with a wooden staff. Moreover, when the soldiers tore the robe from Jesus’ back, they probably reopened the scourging wounds.

The severe scourging, with its intense pain and appreciable blood loss, most probably left Jesus in a pre-shock state. Moreover, hematidrosis (the sweating of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane) had rendered His skin particularly tender. The physical and mental abuse meted out by the Jews (the 15 untold tortures discussed in another pamphlet) and the Romans, as well as the lack of food, water, and sleep, also contributed to His generally weakened state. Therefore, even before the actual crucifixion, Jesus’ physical condition was at least serious and possible critical.

__________

What are the fruits of Jesus' scourging for mankind? In Father John A. Hardon’s Basic Catholic Catechism Course, Lesson 9, "In order to control our desires we need, 1. the grace of God; 2. to use our will power; and 3. to mortify ourselves. Father Hardon underscores the spiritual truth that "without mortification of the senses, or the cooperation of our wills with the will of God, our desires will remain unruly." Mortification is not for a few special souls but is a requirement for anyone who seeks to advance in the life of holiness.

The mortification of our external senses as well as the interior operations of our soul, e.g., imagination, memory and intellect, is necessary to live an authentic Christian life. While the modern world judges mortification to be medieval, it is our Lord Jesus who indicates its necessity for His followers when He states:

"If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow after Me" (Mk. 8:34). Our Lord’s instruction, recorded in the Gospels, was preceded by the practice of mortification among the Chosen People as recorded in the Old Testament (Gen. 37:34; 1 Kg. 21:27- 29; Joel 1:13-14: and Is. 22:12-14). St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, speaks of the mortification of the flesh in definite and specific terms: "Put to death whatever in your nature is rooted in earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and that lust which is idolatry" (Col. 3:5). St. Paul sets forth the fundamental reason why we are in need of mortification. The Christian must continually seek to crucify and put to death that dimension of our self that remains under the influence of the fallen state of the first Adam into which we are conceived and born.

Sacred tradition expressed through the lives of the saints provides innumerable accounts of the necessity and importance of the practice of mortification. The practice of mortification is promoted and defended in the magisterial teaching of the Church. Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter, Salvici Doloris sets forth a profound presentation on the matter of pain and suffering. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 2015 associates progress in spiritual life with the practice of mortification.

Suffering that happens to us and suffering that we allow to happen, when accepted in faith and united with Christ’s redemptive suffering contributes to our own redemption and sanctification as well as that of others. Passive mortifications come in various forms, but they are not the sufferings we experience from having sinned, e.g. suffering a hangover. Active mortifications are encouraged but include certain cautions. Prudence must always be exercised especially active mortifications of a severe nature, e.g. flagellation, scourging, and wearing of hair shirts. These types of mortifications should only be done under the guidance of a spiritual director.

Finally, it needs to be pointed out that to realize the spiritual growth and benefit that results from active and passive mortifications does not require that we carry them out with a conscious intention of uniting each one to Christ’s redemptive suffering at the time that they are done. To do so, would be distracting and make our daily work almost impossible. __________

For a copy of the pamphlet click below:

https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/a84285_6bea893204a1a1f3f5c9f509037a9f10.pdf

From: https://www.pamphletstoinspire.com/

_________

Video on "Were You There When They Crucified my Lord"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqZsT3ufFJA

Video on "Stations of The Cross"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2pzQ-Cpowg

#the scourging of jesus

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romancatholicreflections · 6 years ago

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15th August >> Daily Reflection/Commentary on Today’s Mass Readings for Roman Catholics on the Feast of The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Revelation 11:19a;12:1-6a;10ab; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26; Luke 1:39-56).

1. Today’s feast celebrates the special place that Mary has in the life of the Church. This place is first of all defined by her being chosen to be the mother of Jesus, his only human parent. This alone gives her a uniqueness which is shared by no other person who has ever lived.

As with the case of Jesus’ resurrection, we need to look at the meaning of what the feast is about rather than being too literal in our understanding of how it is described. It is probably not helpful to try to imagine that, as soon as Mary’s dead body was laid in the grave, it immediately as it were escaped from its earthly darkness and floated up “body and soul” into “heaven”.

By using the image “assumed body and soul into heaven” what is really being said is that Mary, because of the dignity of her motherhood and her own personal submission to God’s will at every stage of her life, takes precedence over everyone in the sharing of God’s glory which is the destiny of all of us who die united with Christ her Son.

She remains, of course, fully a human being and infinitely lower in dignity than her Son and much closer to us. With us but leading us, she stands in adoration of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. She cannot even in glory be given in any way the worship that is proper to the Persons of the Trinity. What she can do is to intercede for us in our needs, offering her human prayers on our behalf. This is something our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters do not always understand and perhaps we Catholics have by our words and actions given a distorted idea of the place of Mary in our Christian living.

Mary’s role is well described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “By her complete adherence to the Father’s will, to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity. Thus she is a ‘pre-eminent and… wholly unique member of the Church’; indeed, she is the ‘exemplary realisation’ (typus) of the Church” (CCC 967)

2. Today’s Gospel is the story of Mary’s visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth, when both were expecting their first child. The story contains most of the elements which contribute to the status we give to Mary in our Church.

First, we see Mary setting out with haste from Nazareth to a small town in the hills of Judea, not far from Jerusalem (where Zechariah served as a priest in the Temple), to visit her older cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with the child we know as John the Baptist. Mary herself, of course, is carrying her own child, Jesus. It is highly significant that it is Mary and Jesus who go to visit Elizabeth and John. Already in the womb, Jesus is showing that urge to serve rather than be served. Mary, too, shares that urge. And, at the presence of Jesus and his mother, the child in Elizabeth’s womb jumps for joy.

Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, excitedly bursts out into praise. She recognises the special position of Mary and her Son: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary is indeed unique and blessed in being chosen to be the mother of our saving King and Lord. Elizabeth is deeply moved that it is Jesus and his Mother that come to her and John: “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” And yet that is what is happening to each of us all the time, and especially in every celebration of the Eucharist when the Lord comes to us in the sharing of his Word and in the breaking of the bread and our sharing in the cup.

And there is a special word of praise for Mary also: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” This brings us to the second characteristic of Mary: her faith and total trust in God. That was expressed in her fiat (‘Let it be done to me…’), when, even though not fully understanding what was being asked of her, she unconditionally accepted to submit to God’s plan.

3. It is now Mary’s turn to sing God’s praises in the lovely song we called the Magnificat, which the Church sings at its evening prayer every day. It is full of reflections on what makes Mary great in the eyes of God.

“He has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.” Mary was a simple unmarried girl living in obscurity in a small town in an out of the way Roman province. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathanael asked rather cynically when told where Jesus came from. But in the New Covenant, reflecting God’s own bias, it is the lowly and obscure who are specially favoured. Mary’s greatness does not come from her social status; it has no relevance whatever in God’s eyes, except in so far as those at the bottom of the social ladder tend to be denied a fair share of this world’s goods.

“From now on all generations will call me blessed.” This is not a statement made in arrogance but in humble thanksgiving and, of course, has been true since the day it was uttered. It was indeed an extraordinary grace to be chosen to be the mother of the world’s Saviour. Why Mary? we might ask; and Mary herself would be the first to agree. But she rejoices and is deeply grateful for being chosen for this privilege.

Her being chosen is simply another sign of God’s desire that the poor, the weak, the marginalized, the exploited and discriminated against in this world should be the special recipients of God’s love and care. Mary expresses this in the last part of her song:

“He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.”

The rich and powerful of Mary’s day: where are they now? Who were they? For the most part they have disappeared from sight while the little girl of Nazareth is still celebrated round the world.

4. But Mary’s greatness does not stop at the graces and privileges which were showered on her. These, after all, were purely passive in the sense they were gifts given to her.. In a telling scene in the Gospel, a woman who had been listening to Jesus suddenly cried out in a loud voice: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked!” In our own language today we might say: “May God bless the mother who produced such a wonderful son as you!” And there is a deep truth here, namely, the influence that Mary (and Joseph, too) actually had in the formation of her Son. But Jesus immediately picked up the woman’s words and said: “No, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” In other words, it is not the graces that God gives us which make us great but the manner in which we receive and respond to them.

Mary’s greatness was not just in being chosen to be Jesus’ mother but in her total acceptance of that responsibility in faith and trust, accepting blindly all that it might entail. And, indeed, she had no idea the price she would have to pay to be the mother of Jesus. But, again, like her Son she had emptied herself in total service to him and to day we celebrate her reward, her being raised to the highest place among the human race.

This is indirectly expressed in the Second Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians where Paul is speaking of the resurrection of Christ as crucial to the validity of our Christian faith. And Christ, the Son of God made flesh, who died on the cross is indeed the very first among the risen, seated at the right hand of his Father. He is, in Paul’s words, “the first fruits of those who have died”.

But, further on he says, “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in their own order”. Jesus is first of all but next in order surely comes his Mother.

5. The First Reading from the Book of Revelation has clearly been chosen as a symbolic description of Mary in glory.

There is first a brief vision of God’s temple in the New Jerusalem opening and revealing the ark of the covenant within. The original ark, of course, a chest made of acacia wood, contained the tablets of the Law and was kept in the Holy of Holies as the pledge of God’s promise, his covenant, to be with his people. But this is the ark of the New Covenant, the permanent home of God among his people, the Risen Jesus in his Body, the Church. On today’s feast, the image is applied to Mary, who bore the maker of the New Covenant within herself. And so she is called in the Litany of Our Lady, “Ark of the Covenant”.

Next, there is a much longer description of the vision of a woman appearing from heaven. The woman is Israel from whom was born the Messiah and the community which believed in him. The description of the woman is often applied to Mary in statues and images: “Clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet… on her head a crown of twelve stars”.

The woman is described as being pregnant, crying out in birth pangs and in the agony of giving birth. This recalls the words God to our first parents after the fall of the pain that would accompany childbirth. But the child being born is the Messiah, seen both as an individual and leader of the new Israel. The mother who bears him is suffering from persecution and oppression. As tradition holds that Mary was a virgin before, during and after the birth, the image cannot be applied fully to her.

There follows an apocalyptic description of a dragon threatening to devour the child as soon as it is born. The dragon (with the serpent) was seen in Jewish tradition as representing the power of evil, the enemy both of God and his people. Its tail sweeping a third of the stars from the sky is an allusion to the fall of those angels who sided with Lucifer. Nevertheless, the child is born. He is a son, who will rule all the nations with a rod of iron. He is the promised Messiah. However, he is described as immediately being snatched away and taken up to God. This refers to the ascension and triumph of the Messiah which follows the dragon’s fall.

Meanwhile, the woman, the mother, flees into the wilderness, the traditional refuge for the persecuted. God has prepared a place there for her where she can be nourished for 1,260 days, which corresponds to the time of the persecution.

It must be first of all emphasised that the writer is not directly thinking of Mary here and clearly, not all of this passage can be directly applied to her. But Mary is the mother of Jesus, who in his Body, is the continuation of God’s presence among us. Mary now stands glorious and bejewelled in the presence of her Son and his Father with the Spirit.

Today we join in her happiness. We look forward to the day when we too can share it with her. In the meantime, we ask her to remember us as we continue our journey on earth and to intercede for us with her Son that we may remain faithful to our call as faithful disciples. May we know God’s will for us at all times and, like Mary, say our unconditional Yes to what he wants for us.

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frederickwiddowson · 4 years ago

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Exodus 29:38-46 comments: God will meet with the children of Israel in the tabernacle

Exodus 29:38 ¶ Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually. 39 The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even: 40 And with the one lamb a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of beaten oil; and the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering. 41 And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and shalt do thereto according to the meat offering of the morning, and according to the drink offering thereof, for a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD. 42 This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee. 43 And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. 44 And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest’s office. 45 And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. 46 And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the LORD their God.

Here is an important point to be made in verse 43. The tabernacle is sanctified or set apart for God’s service by God’s glory present within it.

We are sanctified, as the living temple of the Holy Ghost, by God’s presence inside of us. I think it would not hurt to review some facts again that I’ve touched on before.

First, understand that Satan is the god, little ‘g’, of this fallen world.

2Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

The Kingdom of God, our Creator, is not visible to the world like human kingdoms. It is within the believers making all state-churches and so-called Christian nations of history counterfeit works of Satan.

John 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

We have the Spirit of God, which is the Holy Spirit, which is also called the Spirit of Christ, living inside of us.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

10 ¶ And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

We are the temple of God, if we belong to Him.

1Corinthians 3:16 ¶ Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

1Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

2Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

You and I have seen previously that we can neither pray nor worship in a way that is pleasing to God without His involvement, cleansing our prayer and our worship to make it suitable to Him. We do not save ourselves nor do we keep ourselves saved. It is God who makes us presentable to Him. It is Christ, the Son, who makes us acceptable to God the Father by means of the Holy Ghost, all three parts of the Godhead, working in us by the agency of the Holy Spirit.

And so here, it is God’s presence in the tabernacle that sanctifies the tabernacle, with God willing to enter into it when obedience is satisfied by what He has commanded. In the case of the Christian, whether he be Jew or non-Jew, a Gentile this is what is required.

John 6:28 ¶ Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

God did not want to just carve out a people from the mass of humanity through Abraham and his descendants, the Hebrews. He wanted to live among them, to move about in the place where they moved. He wanted to experience them close up and personal, not just in the way He does as He directs every cell function and heartbeat and all reality but also in the reality that they experienced. It is important to God to experience our reality and to live in the space in which we live. He wants to know His people intimately, not just as a distant figure, untouchable and unapproachable.

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

The institutional church of history whether it be Roman Catholic, Anglican, or Baptist has tried to restrict this desire of God to have a relationship with His people. They tried and try to restrict access to God, to the people experiencing the presence of God, to the church organization only whether it be a catechism of the Roman Catholic Church insisting that the Holy Spirit only operates within the church organization not the individual believer or a Baptist saying that God only speaks to his people through the sermon on Sunday morning. God indwells you for a reason and He wants to experience you without the restraint of a go-between which is why He provided Himself as the go-between, the mediator.

With regard to measurements a hin is, according to Strong’s, about 5 quarts to 1.5 gallons or roughly 6 liters. Some authorities say a tenth deal of flour was the equivalent of 6 pints. I’m sure we cannot be certain with these measurements and would expect to find conflicting statements, much as we would in trying to understand what a cubit was.

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pope-francis-quotes · 5 years ago

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18th March >> (@ZenitEnglish By Virginia Forrester) #Pope #PopeFrancis General Audience Catechesis: Full Text. Appeal for Celebration of Next 24 Hours for the Lord

This morning’s General Audience was held at 9:30 am from the Library of the Apostolic Vatican Palace.

Continuing with the series of catecheses on the Beatitudes, in his address in Italian the Pope focused his meditation on the seventh: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).

After summarizing his catechesis in several languages, the Holy Father expressed special greetings to the faithful. Then he made an appeal for the celebration of the next 24 Hours for the Lord (March 20-21, 2020).

The Audience ended with the Apostolic Blessing.

* * *

The Holy Father’s Catechesis

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

Today we pause on the <seventh> Beatitude, which says: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). There is a particularity in this Beatitude: it’s the only one in which the cause and fruit of happiness coincide: mercy; those that exercise mercy will find mercy; they will be “mercied.”

This theme of mutual forgiveness isn’t present only in this Beatitude, but is recurrent in the Gospel. And how could it be otherwise? Mercy is the heart itself of God! Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37) — always the same reciprocity. And James’ Letter affirms that mercy “triumphs over judgment” (2:13).

However, above all, it’s in the Our Father that we pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12); and this question is the only one resumed at the end: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15; Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, (CCC), 2838). There are two things that can’t be separated: the forgiveness given and the forgiveness received. However, so many people are in difficulty, they are unable to forgive. So many times the harm received is so great that to succeed in forgiving seems like climbing a very high mountain: an enormous effort; and one thinks it can’t be done, this can’t be done. On our own, we can’t, we need God’s grace, we must ask for it. In fact, if the seventh Beatitude promises to find mercy and in the Our Father we ask for the remission of debts, it means that we are essentially debtors and we are in need of finding mercy!

We are all debtors — all — to God, who is so generous, and to brothers. Every person knows that they are not the father or the mother that they should be, the husband or the wife, the brother or the sister that they should be. We are all “in deficit” in life. And we are in need of mercy. We know that we also have done wrong; something is always lacking of the good we should have done.

However, precisely this poverty of ours becomes the strength to forgive! We are debtors and if, as we heard at the beginning, we will be measured with the measure with which we measure others (Cf. Luke 6:39), then we should enlarge the measure and remit debts, forgive. Everyone must remember that they are in need of forgiveness, to have need of forgiveness, to have need of patience; this is the secret of mercy: by forgiving one is forgiven. Thus God precedes us and forgives us first (Cf. Romans 5:8). By receiving His forgiveness we become capable in turn to forgive. So our own misery and our own lack of justice become occasions to open oneself to the Kingdom of Heaven, to a greater measure, God’s measure, which is mercy.

From where is our mercy born? Jesus has said to us: “Be merciful, as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). The more the Father’s love is received, the more one loves (Cf. CCC, 2842). Mercy isn’t a dimension among others, but is the center of Christian life: there is no Christianity without mercy.[1] If all our Christianity doesn’t lead us to mercy, we have mistaken the way, because mercy is the only true end of every spiritual journey. It’s one of the most beautiful fruits of charity (Cf. CCC, 1829).

I remember that this theme was chosen for the first Angelus that I said as Pope: mercy. And this has remained very impressed on me, as a message that, as Pope, I must always give, a message that should be for every day: mercy. I remember that that day I also had a somewhat “shameless” attitude to publicize a book on mercy,, just published by Cardinal Kasper. And that day I felt so strongly that this is the message I must give, as Bishop of Rome: mercy, mercy, please, forgiveness.

God’s mercy is our liberation and our happiness. We live of mercy and we can’t permit ourselves to be without mercy: it’s the air to breathe. We are too poor to set conditions; we are in need of forgiving because we are in need of being forgiven. Thank you!

[Original text: Italian] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginias M. Forrester]

In Italian

I warmly greet the Italian-speaking faithful, with a special thought for the young people, the elderly, the sick and the newlyweds.

Tomorrow we will celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Joseph. In life, in work, in the family, in joy and in sorrow, he always sought and loved the Lord, meriting Scripture’s praise as a just and wise man. Invoke him always with trust, especially in difficult moments, and entrust your existence to this great Saint.

I make my own the appeal of the Italian Bishops who in this health emergency have promoted a moment of prayer for the whole country. Every family, every faithful, every Religious Community, all united spiritually tomorrow at 9:00 pm for the recitation of the Rosary, with the Mysteries of Light. I will accompany you from here. Mary, Mother of God, Health of the Sick, leads us to the luminous and transfigured face of Jesus Christ and to His Heart. We turn to Her with the prayer of the Rosary, under the loving gaze of Saint Joseph, Custodian of the Holy Family and of our families. And we ask him to guard our family, our families, in a special way, in particular the sick and the persons taking care of the sick: the doctors, the men and women nurses, the volunteers, who risk their lives in this service.

[Original text: Italian] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester]

The Holy Father’s Appeal

Next Friday and Saturday, March 20-21, the initiative 24 Hours for the Lord will be held. It’s an important appointment of Lent for prayer and for approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Unfortunately, in Rome, in Italy and in other countries, this initiative won’t be able to take place in the usual ways because of the Coronavirus emergency. However, in all the other parts of the world, this beautiful tradition will be continued. I encourage the faithful to approach sincerely God’s mercy in Confession and to pray especially for all those being tested because of the pandemic.

Where the 24 Hours for the Lord can’t be celebrated, I’m certain that this penitential moment will be able to be lived with personal prayer.

[Original text: Italian] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester]

[1] Cf. Saint John Paul II, Encyclical Dives in Misericordia (November 30, 1980); Bull Misericordia Vultus (April 11, 2015); Apostolic Letter Misericordia et Misera (November 20, 2016).

18th MARCH 2020 14:47GENERAL AUDIENCE

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pamphletstoinspire · 7 years ago

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The Scourging of Jesus

With Images:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/scourging-jesus-harold-baines/?published=t

Occasionally, staves also were used. The man’s back, buttock, and legs were flogged either by two soldiers (lictors) or by one who alternated positions. The severity of the scourging depended on the disposition of the lictors and was intended to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death. After the scourging, the soldiers would taunt their victim.

***

#scourging of jesus

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romancatholicreflections · 7 years ago

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15th August >> Daily Reflection on Today's Mass Readings (Revelation 11:19a;12:1-6a;10ab; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26; Luke 1:39-56) for Roman Catholics on the The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Commentary on Revelation 11:19a;12:1-6a;10ab; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26; Luke 1:39-56 1. Today’s feast celebrates the special place that Mary has in the life of the Church. This place is first of all defined by her being chosen to be the mother of Jesus, his only human parent. This alone gives her a uniqueness which is shared by no other person who has ever lived. As with the case of Jesus’ resurrection, we need to look at the meaning of what the feast is about rather than being too literal in our understanding of how it is described. It is probably not helpful to try to imagine that, as soon as Mary’s dead body was laid in the grave, it immediately as it were escaped from its earthly darkness and floated up “body and soul” into “heaven”. By using the image “assumed body and soul into heaven” what is really being said is that Mary, because of the dignity of her motherhood and her own personal submission to God’s will at every stage of her life, takes precedence over everyone in the sharing of God’s glory which is the destiny of all of us who die united with Christ her Son. She remains, of course, fully a human being and infinitely lower in dignity than her Son and much closer to us. With us but leading us, she stands in adoration of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. She cannot even in glory be given in any way the worship that is proper to the Persons of the Trinity. What she can do is to intercede for us in our needs, offering her human prayers on our behalf. This is something our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters do not always understand and perhaps we Catholics have by our words and actions given a distorted idea of the place of Mary in our Christian living. Mary’s role is well described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “By her complete adherence to the Father’s will, to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity. Thus she is a ‘pre-eminent and… wholly unique member of the Church’; indeed, she is the ‘exemplary realisation’ (typus) of the Church” (CCC 967) 2. Today’s Gospel is the story of Mary’s visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth, when both were expecting their first child. The story contains most of the elements which contribute to the status we give to Mary in our Church. First, we see Mary setting out with haste from Nazareth to a small town in the hills of Judea, not far from Jerusalem (where Zechariah served as a priest in the Temple), to visit her older cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with the child we know as John the Baptist. Mary herself, of course, is carrying her own child, Jesus. It is highly significant that it is Mary and Jesus who go to visit Elizabeth and John. Already in the womb, Jesus is showing that urge to serve rather than be served. Mary, too, shares that urge. And, at the presence of Jesus and his mother, the child in Elizabeth’s womb jumps for joy. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, excitedly bursts out into praise. She recognises the special position of Mary and her Son: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary is indeed unique and blessed in being chosen to be the mother of our saving King and Lord. Elizabeth is deeply moved that it is Jesus and his Mother that come to her and John: “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” And yet that is what is happening to each of us all the time, and especially in every celebration of the Eucharist when the Lord comes to us in the sharing of his Word and in the breaking of the bread and our sharing in the cup. And there is a special word of praise for Mary also: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” This brings us to the second characteristic of Mary: her faith and total trust in God. That was expressed in her fiat (‘Let it be done to me…’), when, even though not fully understanding what was being asked of her, she unconditionally accepted to submit to God’s plan. 3. It is now Mary’s turn to sing God’s praises in the lovely song we called the Magnificat, which the Church sings at its evening prayer every day. It is full of reflections on what makes Mary great in the eyes of God. “He has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.” Mary was a simple unmarried girl living in obscurity in a small town in an out of the way Roman province. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathanael asked rather cynically when told where Jesus came from. But in the New Covenant, reflecting God’s own bias, it is the lowly and obscure who are specially favoured. Mary’s greatness does not come from her social status; it has no relevance whatever in God’s eyes, except in so far as those at the bottom of the social ladder tend to be denied a fair share of this world’s goods. “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” This is not a statement made in arrogance but in humble thanksgiving and, of course, has been true since the day it was uttered. It was indeed an extraordinary grace to be chosen to be the mother of the world’s Saviour. Why Mary? we might ask; and Mary herself would be the first to agree. But she rejoices and is deeply grateful for being chosen for this privilege. Her being chosen is simply another sign of God’s desire that the poor, the weak, the marginalized, the exploited and discriminated against in this world should be the special recipients of God’s love and care. Mary expresses this in the last part of her song: “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” The rich and powerful of Mary’s day: where are they now? Who were they? For the most part they have disappeared from sight while the little girl of Nazareth is still celebrated round the world. 4. But Mary’s greatness does not stop at the graces and privileges which were showered on her. These, after all, were purely passive in the sense they were gifts given to her.. In a telling scene in the Gospel, a woman who had been listening to Jesus suddenly cried out in a loud voice: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked!” In our own language today we might say: “May God bless the mother who produced such a wonderful son as you!” And there is a deep truth here, namely, the influence that Mary (and Joseph, too) actually had in the formation of her Son. But Jesus immediately picked up the woman’s words and said: “No, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” In other words, it is not the graces that God gives us which make us great but the manner in which we receive and respond to them. Mary’s greatness was not just in being chosen to be Jesus’ mother but in her total acceptance of that responsibility in faith and trust, accepting blindly all that it might entail. And, indeed, she had no idea the price she would have to pay to be the mother of Jesus. But, again, like her Son she had emptied herself in total service to him and to day we celebrate her reward, her being raised to the highest place among the human race. This is indirectly expressed in the Second Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians where Paul is speaking of the resurrection of Christ as crucial to the validity of our Christian faith. And Christ, the Son of God made flesh, who died on the cross is indeed the very first among the risen, seated at the right hand of his Father. He is, in Paul’s words, “the first fruits of those who have died”. But, further on he says, “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in their own order”. Jesus is first of all but next in order surely comes his Mother. 5. The First Reading from the Book of Revelation has clearly been chosen as a symbolic description of Mary in glory. There is first a brief vision of God’s temple in the New Jerusalem opening and revealing the ark of the covenant within. The original ark, of course, a chest made of acacia wood, contained the tablets of the Law and was kept in the Holy of Holies as the pledge of God’s promise, his covenant, to be with his people. But this is the ark of the New Covenant, the permanent home of God among his people, the Risen Jesus in his Body, the Church. On today’s feast, the image is applied to Mary, who bore the maker of the New Covenant within herself. And so she is called in the Litany of Our Lady, “Ark of the Covenant”. Next, there is a much longer description of the vision of a woman appearing from heaven. The woman is Israel from whom was born the Messiah and the community which believed in him. The description of the woman is often applied to Mary in statues and images: “Clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet… on her head a crown of twelve stars”. The woman is described as being pregnant, crying out in birth pangs and in the agony of giving birth. This recalls the words God to our first parents after the fall of the pain that would accompany childbirth. But the child being born is the Messiah, seen both as an individual and leader of the new Israel. The mother who bears him is suffering from persecution and oppression. As tradition holds that Mary was a virgin before, during and after the birth, the image cannot be applied fully to her. There follows an apocalyptic description of a dragon threatening to devour the child as soon as it is born. The dragon (with the serpent) was seen in Jewish tradition as representing the power of evil, the enemy both of God and his people. Its tail sweeping a third of the stars from the sky is an allusion to the fall of those angels who sided with Lucifer. Nevertheless, the child is born. He is a son, who will rule all the nations with a rod of iron. He is the promised Messiah. However, he is described as immediately being snatched away and taken up to God. This refers to the ascension and triumph of the Messiah which follows the dragon’s fall. Meanwhile, the woman, the mother, flees into the wilderness, the traditional refuge for the persecuted. God has prepared a place there for her where she can be nourished for 1,260 days, which corresponds to the time of the persecution. It must be first of all emphasised that the writer is not directly thinking of Mary here and clearly, not all of this passage can be directly applied to her. But Mary is the mother of Jesus, who in his Body, is the continuation of God’s presence among us. Mary now stands glorious and bejewelled in the presence of her Son and his Father with the Spirit. Today we join in her happiness. We look forward to the day when we too can share it with her. In the meantime, we ask her to remember us as we continue our journey on earth and to intercede for us with her Son that we may remain faithful to our call as faithful disciples. May we know God’s will for us at all times and, like Mary, say our unconditional Yes to what he wants for us.

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steenpaal · 7 years ago

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Christian prayer - Wikipedia

Prayer is an important activity in Christianity, and there are several different forms of Christian prayer.[1]

Christian prayers are diverse: they can be completely spontaneous, or read entirely from a text, like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The most common prayer among Christians is the "Lord's Prayer", which according to the gospel accounts (e.g. Matthew 6:9-13) is how Jesus taught his disciples to pray.[2] "The Lord's Prayer" is a model for prayers of adoration, confession and petition in Christianity.[2]

A broad, three stage characterization of prayer begins with vocal prayer, then moves on to a more structured form in terms of meditation, then reaches the multiple layers of contemplation,[3][4] or intercession.

There are two basic settings for Christian prayer: corporate (or public) and private. Corporate prayer includes prayer shared within the worship setting or other public places. These prayers can be formal written prayers or informal extemporaneous prayers. Private prayer occurs with the individual praying either silently or aloud within a private setting. Prayer exists within multiple different worship contexts and may be structured differently. These types of contexts may include:

Liturgical: Often seen within the Catholic Church. This is a very orthodox service, according to Catholics. Within a Catholic Mass, which is an example of a liturgical form of worship, there are bible readings and a sermon is read.

Often seen within the Holy Orthodox Church. The Holy Bible is read and a sermon is read.

Non- Liturgical: Often seen within Evangelical church, this prayer is often not scripted and would be more informal in structure. Most of these prayers would be extemporaneous.

Charismatic: Often seen within gospel churches. It is the main form of worship in Pentecostal churches. It usually includes song and dance, and may include other artistic expressions. There may be no apparent structure, but the worshippers will be "led by the Holy Spirit".

Background[edit]

Prayer in the New Testament is presented as a positive command (Colossians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:17). The people of God are challenged to include prayer in their everyday life, even in the busy struggles of marriage (1 Corinthians 7:5) as it is thought to bring the faithful closer to God.

Throughout the New Testament, prayer is shown to be God's appointed method by which the faithful obtain what he has to bestow (Matthew 7:7-11; Matthew 9:24-29; Luke 11:13).

Prayer, according to the Book of Acts, can be seen at the first moments of the church (Acts 3:1). The apostles regarded prayer as an essential part of their lives (Acts 6:4; Romans 1:9; Colossians 1:9). As such, the apostles frequently incorporated verses from Psalms into their writings. Romans 3:10-18 for example is borrowed from Psalm 14:1-3 and other psalms.

Thus, due to this emphasis on prayer in the early church. lengthy passages of the New Testament are prayers or canticles (see also the Book of Odes), such as the Prayer for forgiveness (Mark 11:25-26), the Lord's Prayer, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79), Jesus' prayer to the one true God (John 17), exclamations such as, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 1:3-14), the Believers' Prayer (Acts 4:23-31), "may this cup be taken from me" (Matthew 26:36-44), "Pray that you will not fall into temptation" (Luke 22:39-46), Saint Stephen's Prayer (Acts 7:59-60), Simon Magus' Prayer (Acts 8:24), "pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men" (2 Thessalonians 3:1-2), and Maranatha (1 Corinthians 16:22).

Types of prayer[edit]

Woman praying in a church

Catholic prayer doing the Lord's Prayer in Mexico

This section is incomplete. (May 2013)

Liturgical prayers[edit]

Elements of the oldest Christian prayers may be found in liturgies such as the Roman Catholic Tridentine Mass which is based on the Liturgy of St James, the Mass of Paul VI, the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and the Lutheran Book of Worship.

Seasonal prayers[edit]

Many denominations that adhere to a liturgical tradition use specific prayers geared to the season of the Liturgical Year, such as Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. Some of these prayers are found in the Roman Breviary, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Orthodox Book of Needs and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

Prayer to saints[edit]

The ancient church, in both Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity, developed a tradition of asking for the intercession of (deceased) saints, and this remains the practice of most Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and some Anglican churches. Churches of the Protestant Reformation however rejected prayer to the saints, largely on the basis of the sole mediatorship of Christ.[5] The reformer Huldrych Zwingli admitted that he had offered prayers to the saints until his reading of the Bible convinced him that this was idolatrous.[6]

Meditation and contemplative prayer[edit]

Christian meditation is a structured attempt to get in touch with and deliberately reflect upon the revelations of God.[7] The word meditation comes from the Latin word meditārī, which has a range of meanings including to reflect on, to study and to practice. Christian meditation is the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts (such as a bible passage) and reflecting on their meaning in the context of the love of God.[8]

Christian meditation aims to heighten the personal relationship based on the love of God that marks Christian communion.[9][10]

At times there may be no clear-cut boundary between Christian meditation and Christian contemplation, and they overlap. Meditation serves as a foundation on which the contemplative life stands, the practice by which someone begins the state of contemplation.[11] In contemplative prayer, this activity is curtailed, so that contemplation has been described as "a gaze of faith", "a silent love".[12]

Intercessory prayer[edit]

This kind of prayer involves the believer taking the role of an intercessor, praying on behalf of another individual, group or community, or even a nation.

Listening prayer[edit]

Listening prayer is a type of Christian prayer. As compared with the traditional Christian prayer, the listening prayer method demands "hearing and discerning God's voice through prayer and scripture; then obeying the Lord's direction in personal ministry."[this quote needs a citation]

Traditional Christian prayer requested people to thank God, as well as tell God their own request. When their prayers seemed unanswered, some would feel that God did not hear them or did not respond to them. Listening prayer asks: "Was it that God did not respond to you, or was it that you did not hear from God"? Listening prayer requires those praying to calm their minds down and read the Scripture. During the reading, some sentences may pop into mind, as if in answer to their prayers.

Prayer books and tools[edit]

Prayer books as well as tools such as prayer beads such as chaplets are used by Christians. Images and icons are also associated with prayers in some Christian denominations.

There is no one prayerbook containing a set liturgy used by all Christians; however many Christian denominations have their own local prayerbooks, for example:

See also[edit]

References and footnotes[edit]

^ Philip Zaleski, Carol Zaleski (2005). Prayer: A History. Houghton Mifflin Books. ISBN 0-618-15288-1.

^ a b Geldart, Anne (1999). Examining Religions: Christianity Foundation Edition. p. 108. ISBN 0-435-30324-4.

^ Griffin, Emilie (2005). Simple Ways to Pray. p. 134. ISBN 0-7425-5084-2.

^ "The Christian tradition comprises three major expressions of the life of prayer: vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplative prayer. They have in common the recollection of the heart" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2721).

^ Ferguson, S. B.; Packer, J. (1988). "Saints". New Dictionary of Theology. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press.

^ Madeleine Gray, The Protestant Reformation, (Sussex Academic Press, 2003), page 140.

^ Zanzig, Thomas; Kielbasa, Marilyn (2000). Christian Meditation for Beginners. p. 7. ISBN 0-88489-361-8.

^ Antonisamy, F. (2000). An introduction to Christian spirituality. pp. 76–77. ISBN 81-7109-429-5.

^ Christian Meditation by Edmund P. Clowney, 1979 ISBN 1-57383-227-8 pages 12-13

^ Fahlbusch, Erwin; Bromiley, Geoffrey William (2003). The encyclopedia of Christianity. Volume 3. p. 488. ISBN 90-04-12654-6.

^ al-Miskīn,, Mattá (2003). Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. p. 56. ISBN 0-88141-250-3.

^ "Contemplative prayer is the simple expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gaze of faith fixed on Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word of God, a silent love. It achieves real union with the prayer of Christ to the extent that it makes us share in his mystery" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2724).

External links[edit]

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years ago

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The Sacraments In Scripture - Part 1

FOREWORD

The sacraments are what God had in mind for you and me “in the beginning,” when He made the heavens and the earth. The sacraments are what He brought about, little by little, all through the Old and New Testaments.

This may come as a surprise to many readers. Though we Catholics love and revere the sacraments, too often we treat them as something the Church teased out of a smattering of New Testament proof-texts. That notion, however, is precisely backwards. It would be more accurate to say that the Bible is what God’s people teased out of a providential plan in which God’s New Covenant sacraments were already present “in mystery” (to steal a phrase from the Church Fathers) from the first moments of the Old Covenant.

There is a unity to the two Testaments of the Bible; and the whole of the Bible is inseparably united with the small details of the Church’s life today.

Jesus Himself read the Old Testament this way. He referred to Jonah (Mt. 12:39), Solomon (Mt. 12:42), the Temple (Jn. 2:19), and the brazen serpent (Jn. 3:14) as signs pointing to His own life, death, and Resurrection. Toward the end of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus took “Moses and all the prophets” and “interpreted to [His disciples] in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Lk. 24:27). Saint Paul followed His Master in this reading of the Hebrew Scriptures (cf. Rom. 5:14, Gal. 4:24), as did Saint Peter (cf. 1 Pet. 3:20-21). Saint Augustine summed up this interpretive method in a single phrase: The New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New.

What unites the two Testaments is what unites God and mankind. In the Bible, this bond is called the “covenant.” A covenant, in ancient cultures, was a solemn agreement that created a family relation. Marriage was a covenant, as was the adoption of a child. When a family welcomed a new member, both parties would seal the covenant by swearing a sacred oath, sharing a common meal, and offering a sacrifice. Periodically, the two parties might repeat the sacred oath, along with the meal and sacrifice, in order to renew the covenant bond. This is how God made His covenant with Moses, for example, a covenant that was renewed annually in the Passover seder meal.

Nor did this arrangement end with our redemption by Jesus Christ. Indeed, the one and only time Jesus mentioned the New Covenant was in the context of His last Passover meal, as He culminated the sacrifice of His life. The only time He mentioned the New Covenant was when He offered His body and blood at the first Eucharist (Lk. 22:20). Moreover, Jesus commanded His apostles to renew the covenant with God by the same means. “Do this,” He said, “in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25).

From the earliest times, Christians commonly called this action by the Latin word sacramentum. We find that word not only in the works of churchmen such as Tertullian (207 A.D.), but also in the documents of pagan officials who were investigating and persecuting the Church.

Around 112, a Roman governor named Pliny the Younger used the word to describe the ritual worship of the Christians.

And what does sacramentum mean in Latin? It means “oath.” Pliny said that the Christians in His province of Bithynia met before dawn to sing hymns and bind themselves by oath to Christ, as they shared “an ordinary kind of food.”

Thus, in the witness of the early Church — and in the practice of our parishes today — we see the Old Covenant oaths revealed and fulfilled in the New Covenant sacramentum. All history, guided by the Holy Spirit, has led you and me to these specific moments of sacramental grace.

That’s why most Catholics love the sacraments. We experience them as beautiful and dramatic ceremonies marking life’s most emotional moments: a wedding, the birth of a child, the throes of a serious illness. Even the sacraments we receive more often we can associate with peak experiences. We remember the catharsis of a good Confession. Or our eyes well up at the sense of antiquity we get from a Sunday Mass in our old home parish.

All those emotions and associations are good. If we love the sacraments for their ceremonial beauty — if we revere them for their ancient tradition — if we experience them intensely —we’ve begun to see what they are. But we’ve only begun, and we have much more yet to see. Indeed, there’s much more God wants us to see, intends us to see, and all but commands us to see.

To see the sacraments as God wants us to see them, we need to see more than the externals, more than the rituals. It’s not that we should ignore the externals; we must never do that, because it’s by their “outward signs” that we know the rites as sacraments. Still, the outward signs do not come close to revealing the fullness of the inner realities. So we need to see the sacraments “inside,” too, if we’re to see them as they are.

For that, we need in-sight — just the sort of insight Tim Gray gives so generously on every page of this book.

At the heart of his study is a profound intuition: Every time you and I participate in the sacraments, we live out an encounter that God as planned from all eternity. We enter a drama that is far bigger than the momentary ritual — far bigger than our individual lives.

Throughout the book, the author shows us how that sacramental history unfolded. Using the interpretive key of typology, he uncovers the many Old Testament passages that foreshadowed the sacramental signs we know today.

No doubt, you will leave Sacraments in Scripture — as I did — empowered for a richer experience of the liturgy. But, as time goes on, you’ll notice something more. After reading this book, your experience of the sacraments will, in turn, empower you for a richer reading of the Scriptures. For the liturgy, which includes the seven sacraments, is the context for which all the Scriptures were written. In those many centuries before the printing press was invented, God’s people received His Word primarily during the liturgy — in the readings at Mass, and in the liturgical prayers themselves, which were saturated with scriptural quotations and allusions. The primary means of biblical teaching and interpretation in the early Church was the homily of the local bishop.

For a Catholic, there’s a very real sense in which little has changed since the days of the Acts of the Apostles. The Church continues to meet daily for the breaking of the bread and the prayers. Every day, the Church requires readings from both the Old and the New Testaments. And today, just as almost 2,000 years ago, those readings are not arranged arbitrarily; they’re arranged typologically, so that we can hear the New anticipated in the Old, and the Old fulfilled in the New. This is the way we come to see how covenants work, and how we come to know the New Covenant in the breaking of the bread.

Once we can see these matters clearly, we will see the sacraments — inside and out — as they have existed in God’s fatherly plan for us from all eternity.

That plan continues in your life and mine. Salvation history hasn’t ended. It continues, through the sacraments and through the covenant, in everything you do and pray, suffer and celebrate, at home, at work, at leisure, and at worship. — SCOTT HAHN

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PREFACE

The goal of these posts will be to try to impart a deeper understanding and appreciation of the meaning and mystery of the sacraments. This study assumes that those using it have already received a basic catechesis of the sacraments. Our aim is to provide a continuing education on the sacraments from a biblical perspective.

The subject of the sacraments opens up a tremendous vista. As a result, this brief survey of the sacraments is by no means exhaustive. Rather, the objective is to give the reader a vision of the profound depth of the sacraments in light of Scripture and salvation history. In particular, while there are many aspects of the sacraments that could be examined, this study focuses on the biblical understanding of the sacramental signs. And since sacraments are sensible signs of invisible realities, a deeper understanding of the biblical references for these signs should provide a deeper understanding of the invisible realities and mystery of the sacraments. Our hope is that this survey might provide material for continuing biblical reflection on the sacraments.

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CHAPTER 1

SACRAMENTSIN SCRIPTURE

The meaning of the sacraments flows from Scripture like water flows from a spring. What happens when a river is cut off from its source? Cut off the sacraments from Scripture, and the understanding and appreciation of the sacraments dry up. Too often the sacraments are taught without any reference to their relationship with Scripture, and thus many Catholics do not have a solid understanding of what the sacraments mean. For example, most Catholics have witnessed a baptism. But few understand how the water used in Baptism relates to the Old and New Testaments. Without this understanding, the faithful are unable to open themselves up to the meaning and mysteries of the sacraments (cf. Catechism, no. 1095).

The sacraments effect grace by their very operation, which is the meaning of the Latin theological axiom, ex opere operato.1 “Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them” (Catechism, no. 1128). How can one be fully disposed to receive the grace of the sacraments if there is no understanding of what the sacrament signifies? Without an adequate biblical formation, one could view the sacraments simply as Church rituals that somehow give grace—an understanding that leads many outside the Church to view the Catholic teaching on the sacraments as primitive ritualism or even magic.

Before I explain how Scripture sheds a floodlight upon the significance of the sacraments, it will be helpful to give a brief review of what a sacrament is. A simple definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign that gives grace. As Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Sacraments are visible signs of invisible things whereby man is made holy.”2

A sacrament consists of two parts, matter and form. This philosophical terminology, taken up by Saint Thomas Aquinas from the Greek philosopher Aristotle, can seem a bit abstract to us, but is really quite simple. The matter relates to the physical elements of the sacrament, and the form to the words used. Both are essential. For example, Baptism consists of the matter, water, and the form, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.” Both the water and the Trinitarian formula are required for the Sacrament of Baptism. Every sacrament has an outward sign (matter) accompanied by the words (form). Saint Augustine noted how the physical element and the word are the basis of a sacrament: “The word comes to the element and a sacrament results.”3

Sign Language

The meaning of a sacrament is tied up in the sign. To understand what the signs of the sacraments signify is the key to understanding the sacraments. What is a sign? Something that communicates something else. A natural sign is smoke. When we see smoke, we know that there must be a fire. Dark clouds are a sign of a coming storm. Flocks of birds heading south are a sign that winter is coming. We see these natural signs and they communicate something to us.

It is the same with man-made signs. These signs point to something beyond themselves by convention—that is, by people investing these signs with meaning. Traffic signs are a good example of man-made signs. A red octagon standing on an eight-foot post signifies that we must stop. There is nothing about the color or shape of the sign that inherently means stop. The sign communicates to us that we should stop simply by convention; that is, the traffic laws invested the sign with a particular meaning: Red was chosen to get people’s attention, with the octagon shape for those who are color-blind. When people drive up to an intersection, they see a red stop sign but think in their minds that it means stop. The visible sign leads them to think of an invisible meaning. One thing is seen, another understood. A sign has tremendous power to communicate a message that transcends the sign itself.

Like natural and man-made signs, sacramental signs also communicate a message, but they do much more than that. One of the most important characteristics of a sacramental sign is that it is efficacious. This means that the sign effects what it signifies. In contrast, take, for example, a sign that is not efficacious. The stop sign at an intersection symbolizes that cars should stop, but it does not have the power to effect their stopping. Someone in a hurry may decide to ignore the sign and drive through the intersection. For the stop sign to be efficacious, it would not only communicate that cars should stop, but also have the power to physically make that happen. That is what is so unique about the sacraments; they have the God-given power to actually effect what they signify.

God’s Masterpieces

According to the Catechism, the Holy Spirit is the divine artisan of “God’s masterpieces,” which are the seven sacraments of the New Covenant (Catechism, no. 1091). What makes the sacraments the grand “masterpieces” of God’s work is that God has endowed the signs of the sacraments so that they truly effect what they signify. More than just signifying faith, the sacraments cause God’s grace to be made present. This is the defining characteristic of the sacraments in Catholic teaching.

It was common in scholastic language to refer to the signs given by God in both the New and Old Testaments as sacraments. For example, circumcision was a sacrament. It was a sign that expressed faith in the God of Israel. But scholastic theologians, such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, always distinguished between the sacraments of the Old Covenant from those of the New. The Old Testament sacraments were signs, but they were not efficacious. Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers denied this distinction between the Old and New Testament sacraments. Luther argued that “[i]t is wrong to hold that the sacraments of the New Law differ from those of the Old Law in point of their effective significance. Both have the same meaning.”4 For Luther, the signs of the New Covenant are no more effective in giving grace than those of the Old. John Calvin also rejected any notion that the sacraments of the New Covenant had any special efficacy:

The scholastic dogma (to glance at it in passing), by which the difference between the sacraments of the old and the new dispensation is made so great, that the former did nothing but shadow forth the grace of God, while the latter also confer it, must be altogether exploded. . . . The same efficacy which ours possess they experienced in theirs—viz. that they were seals of the divine favour toward them in regard to the hope of eternal salvation.5

Calvin well represents the Protestant reformers’ view in holding that the sacraments are simply signs of faith, signs that do not effect any grace or change in their recipients. The sacraments are celebrated in order to increase and express faith, but in his view they have no supernatural power or effect.

Sign or Sacrament?

In order to illustrate how the Old Testament signs differ from those of the New, let’s look at the example of the Eucharist. At the Last Supper, Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant by saying: “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Lk. 22:20). Jesus’ words echo those of Moses, when the first covenant was made with Israel at Sinai: “Behold the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words” (Ex. 24:8). Many animals were sacrificed the day the Old Covenant was made. Moses took half of the blood and poured it upon the altar, and the other half he put in basins from which he threw blood upon the people as he declared, “Behold the blood of the covenant.” Why did the blood signify a covenant? Because covenants create kinship. Covenants create familial bonds, thus marriage and adoption are covenants, because they take two parties who were not in a familial relationship and make them family. On a natural level, families are constituted by those who share the same blood, so this sign of family becomes the symbol of a covenantal bond. By pouring half of the blood on the altar and half upon the people, Moses was saying in action that the people of Israel and God were now covenanted—they were now family. That is why the prophets compare Israel’s infidelity to that of an adulterous wife: because Israel and God were bound by family ties through the covenant.

The animal blood poured out upon the stone altar at the base of Mount Sinai and thrown upon the people was a sign that they were now God’s family. But this was simply a sign: The blood they shared symbolically was the blood of sheep and goats. The blood in the veins of the Israelites was no different after the covenant ceremony. Thus the Old Covenant had signs, but they were not efficacious. For the sign of the Old Covenant blood to be efficacious, it would not only signify a blood relation, but would actually effect it.

Indeed, this is precisely what the blood of the New Covenant effects. Jesus’ words over the cup at the Last Supper transform the wine into blood. And when the apostles drank from that cup, they actually partook of the blood of the Son of God, Jesus. Thus the New Covenant Sacrament of the Eucharist not only signifies a family bond between God and His people, but actually effects it. Through the Eucharist we share in the body and blood of Christ, true God and true man. The Eucharist is a sign that we are family, and as an efficacious sign it actually makes us family. For this reason, Saint Peter can say that we have “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). This is the source of the apostolic teaching that the Church is the Body of Christ. No wonder the early Christians called themselves brothers and sisters in Christ, because through Christ the Church is the Family of God.

Luther and Calvin fail to make the crucial distinction between the blood of the Old and New Covenants, the distinction between the symbol of the Old and the efficacious power of the New. How can they claim that the New Testament sacraments are no different from those of the Old? Circumcision was a sign of belonging to the People of God, but Baptism actually makes us reborn as God’s children (cf. Gal. 3:26-27). In the Old Testament there were many kinds of ritual washings but, in the New Covenant, Baptism not only signifies a cleansing, it also actually effects a washing away of sin. If the sacraments of the New are no more powerful than those of the Old, what difference did Jesus make?

“But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better” (Heb. 8:6). The New Testament often contrasts the differences between the covenants. “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Heb. 10:1), and again in Colossians, “These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:17). It is clear that there is a tremendous difference between the Old and New Covenants, between the shadow and reality, sign and sacrament.

What makes the sacraments so powerful? Why are they always efficacious? The answer is Jesus Christ. The sacraments are instituted and empowered by Jesus.

Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies (Catechism, no. 1127, original emphasis).

God has established that when the proper matter of the sacrament is present along with the words, then the sign is efficacious, which means that the sign is a sacrament.

Water from a Rock

In order to illustrate the nature and power of an efficacious sign, let’s look at an example from Scripture. As Israel was sojourning in the wilderness, the shortage of water was sometimes acute. The first time Israel ran out of water, the Israelites vehemently blamed Moses and also questioned whether the Lord was with them (cf. Ex. 17:7). When the crisis reached the boiling point, the people were about to stone Moses, but God intervened. God told Moses to strike the rock at Horeb and, when he did, water flowed from the rock. Years later, the people once again ran out of water, and once again they rebelled (cf. Num. 20:2-5). Again God told Moses to take up his rod and go before the rock. But this time Moses was not to strike the rock, instead he was instructed to “tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water” (Num. 20:8).

The Lord’s command to speak to the rock in Numbers 20 teaches us how a sacrament works. The rock had already been struck by Moses once, yielding salvation in a miraculous way for the Israelites. Now the rock did not need be struck again: Moses needed only speak the word, and the rock would once again flow with the life-saving water.

The rock had previously been struck by Moses at Meribah. The salvation wrought at Meribah was to be made present for the people through the matter of the rock and staff in conjunction with the words Moses was to speak. Thus the salvation of the past was made efficaciously present through sign and word. This is exactly how a sacrament works. A sacrament makes present the saving grace wrought by God in the past. For example, the Eucharist makes present the body and blood of Christ. However, the Mass does not re-crucify Jesus. In Mass Jesus is not sacrificed another time. Rather, the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross is made present through the words spoken over the elements of bread and wine by the priest (cf. Catechism, nos. 1366-67).

Past Event Made Present

Rock struck in Exodus 17 Moses to speak to rock in Numbers 20

Water flows Water flows

Past Event Made Present

Jesus dies on the Cross Mass

Water and blood flow Body and blood present in Eucharist

Unfortunately, Moses did not follow the rubrics. He did not speak to the rock but struck it two times with his staff. God reprimanded Moses, saying:

Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them (Num. 20:12).

Moses’ decision to strike the rock again, rather than simply speak to it, was a failure in faith. To trust that God Himself will act through the sign and word takes faith. To believe in the sacraments takes faith in God. Failure to trust the power of God’s signs can keep one from the Promised Land.

The rock at Meribah differs from a sacrament in that its power was to be a one-time event, whereas the seven sacraments of the New Covenant have an abiding power. Both the miraculous flow of water from the rock and the grace that comes forth from the sacraments derive their efficacy from God. The minister of the sacrament, like Moses, is not the source of the sacraments’ power, but simply their instrument and steward.

Ultimate Power Source

The Catechism makes it clear that the effectiveness of the sacraments is absolutely dependent upon Jesus Christ. “Sacraments are ‘powers that come forth’ from the Body of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving” (Catechism, no. 1116). In describing the sacraments as “powers that come forth” from Christ, the Catechism is alluding to the story of Jesus’ healing of the hemorrhaging woman in Luke 8:42-48. As Jesus was traveling with a large crowd, a woman who had a hemorrhage reached out and touched the fringe of His garment (v. 44). She was immediately healed. Jesus then said, “Some one touched me; for I perceive that power has gone forth from me” (v. 46).

Peter observed that many in the crowd must have touched Jesus, since the crowd pressed upon Him. But only one person reached out and touched Jesus in faith, and that allowed “power” to flow from Him. How many Catholics go to Mass or receive Confirmation and nothing changes in their life? They are like the crowd that was very close to Jesus, but did not reach out to Him in faith. That, the Catechism says, is how the sacraments work. Through the sacraments we encounter Jesus Himself, and if we come to Him in faith, then power will flow forth for us just as it did for the woman whose faith allowed her to be touched by grace. The sacraments are channels of God’s powerful grace, but that grace will bear fruit in our lives according to how well we are disposed to receive Jesus in the sacraments with faith.

Christ-Centered Vision of Sacraments

The grace of the sacraments flows forth from the “paschal mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ” (SC 61). The victory of the Cross and Resurrection are made present to the People of God through the sacraments of the Church. The sacraments are the portals of grace, the means God has chosen to abide with His people. The sacraments not only come from Christ, but they also make the life of Christ present in our lives.

The mysteries of Christ’s life are the foundations of what he would henceforth dispense in the sacraments, through the ministers of his Church, for “what was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries” (Catechism, no. 1115).

The Catechism is quoting Saint Leo the Great, a famous fifth-century pope. By Christ’s “mysteries,” Saint Leo literally means sacraments. The Greek-speaking Fathers of the Church called the sacraments “mysteries.” Thus the life of Jesus is given in the sacraments.

Why? Saint John Eudes claimed that the goal of our lives is to continue the life of Christ. Thus the sacraments are the means to living the life of Christ. Saint John Eudes says:

We must continue to accomplish in ourselves the stages of Jesus’ life and his mysteries and often to beg him to perfect and realize them in us and in his whole Church. . . . For it is the plan of the Son of God to make us and the whole Church partake in his mysteries and to extend them to and continue them in us and in his whole Church (as quoted in Catechism, no. 521).

We are powerless to live the life of Christ without God’s grace. That is why the Catechism teaches us about the sacraments and the liturgy (the channels of God’s grace) before teaching us about the moral life. There is wisdom in the ordering of the four pillars of the Catechism. First comes the Creed (Pillar I), for we must start with faith in God. Then comes God’s action in the sacraments and the liturgy (Pillar II), which enables us to live the life of Christ (Pillar III). Then we can pray as God’s children (Pillar IV). Grace must come before action, the sacraments before morality.

It is important to maintain a Christ-centered approach to the sacraments. That means more than just realizing that the power of the sacraments is rooted in Christ. Rather, we must also see how “what was visible in our Savior” has passed over into His sacraments. Each sacrament is rooted in the life and death of Jesus. Baptism, for example, is rooted in the Cross. Thus Saint Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:3). If we simply understand Baptism as a rebirth and cleansing apart from the death of Christ, we do not fully grasp its meaning. Every sacrament must be taught in relation to Jesus.

An example of how sacramental catechesis can tend to drift away from a focus on Jesus Christ is illustrated in the way Confirmation is frequently taught. I often ask my students, “What event in the New Testament does the Sacrament of Confirmation refer to?” Their answer is invariably “Pentecost.” When I inform them that they are wrong, they are genuinely surprised. Confirmation does not find its primary reference in Pentecost. Rather, Confirmation relates, as all the sacraments do, first and foremost to the life of Jesus. So to what part of Jesus’ life does Confirmation relate?

The Baptism of Jesus is the basis of Christian Confirmation. When Jesus was baptized by John, He was also anointed by the power of the Spirit. The dove that descends upon Jesus is His anointing in the Spirit. From then on, Saint Luke tells us that He goes forth in the power of the Spirit (cf. Lk. 4:1, 14, 18). In the first recorded baptismal homily, Peter refers to “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” when He was baptized by John the Baptist (Acts 10:38). Luke shows us that at the beginning of Jesus’ mission He is anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what is happening in Confirmation—we are sharing in the mission of Jesus. Just as priests, prophets, and kings were anointed, so too is Jesus—and so too are His disciples. We need to be anointed with the Spirit to live the mission and life of Jesus. That is what Confirmation is all about.

How is Pentecost relevant to Confirmation? Saint Luke tells us that Jesus begins His mission with an anointing of the Spirit. In his sequel to the Gospel (Acts of the Apostles), Saint Luke also tells us that the Church begins her mission with an anointing of the Spirit. Luke parallels the anointing of Jesus at the Jordan to the Church’s anointing in the Upper Room. To really understand Pentecost, as in the case of Confirmation, we must see how it is an extension—a making present—of Jesus’ anointing in the Spirit. All the sacraments, as the following chapters will highlight, are rooted in the person and mission of Jesus.

Context Is Everything

The General Directory for Catechesis teaches that catechesis “should situate the sacraments within the history of salvation” (GDC 108). When the sacraments are taught, they must be explained in the context of salvation history, which means Scripture. This was the point of the discussion above about Confirmation. To teach Confirmation apart from Jesus’ anointing or the Church’s anointing at Pentecost is to lose sight of its meaning. This is why the Catechism, at the outset of each of its articles on the sacraments, has a section that places that sacrament in the context of salvation history. For example, the first section in the article on the Anointing of the Sick is entitled, “Its Foundations in the Economy of Salvation.” By economy of salvation, the Catechism means salvation history. “Economy” is a biblical term, and in Greek it refers broadly to a family plan or household management. Saint Paul and the Fathers of the Church refer to salvation history as God’s household plan—the plan for how God fathers His people through time.

The signs of the sacraments take their primary meaning from the events of salvation history: those events that were prefigured in the Old Testament and made present in Christ. Thus both the Old and New Testaments are very important in understanding the sacraments. The mystery of Jesus’ anointing is manifest in the New Testament, but prefigured in the Old by the anointing of priests, prophets, and kings. Both shed light on the present meaning of the sacrament.

In order to understand the sign of Confirmation, which is the anointing with oil, one must know how the sign is related to the anointings described in Scripture. “Catechesis helps to make the passage from sign to mystery” (GDC 108), thus when one is anointed with oil in Confirmation, the sign leads them to contemplate the anointing of those chosen by God, most especially His Son. Reading the sign language of the sacraments is crucial to being Catholic. Thus Vatican II teaches: “It is, therefore, of the greatest importance that the faithful should easily understand the sacramental signs, and should eagerly frequent those sacraments which were instituted to nourish the Christian life” (SC 59).

Since “it is from the Scriptures that the . . . signs derive their meaning” (Catechism, no. 1100), it is necessary that the biblical basis of the sacramental signs be taught. This is why this book focuses on placing the sacraments in the context of salvation history. The approach taken here is not an exhaustive study of the sacraments, but rather a first step toward a biblical literacy of the sacramental signs. We simply cannot understand the sacramental signs without Scripture. The Catechism underscores how proper sacramental catechesis must enable people to read the “sign language” of the sacraments:

Liturgical catechesis aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ (It is “mystagogy.”) by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the “sacraments” to the “mysteries” (Catechism, no. 1075).

When we are unable to read the signs of the sacraments, there will be no movement from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the sacrament to Christ. That is because we need the perspective of the history of salvation to clearly understand the nature of the sacraments.6

The Story's Blueprint

Therefore, the method of the following storie is to place each sacrament in the context of salvation history. The chapters on each sacrament have three main parts. The first part places the sacrament in the context of the Old Testament, because “[i]n the sacramental economy the Holy Spirit fulfills what was prefigured in the Old Covenant” (Catechism, no. 1093, original emphasis). As Cardinal Danielou once observed, “[w]e rediscover the true symbolism of the rite by referring to the realities of the Old Testament.”7

For example, the water of Baptism relates to the waters of the flood and the Red Sea. Water in Baptism is not merely a natural sign of cleansing, but also a sign of death, harkening back to the flood. Thus Lactantius (cf. 245-323) wrote, “Water is the figure of death.”8

The second and central part looks at the sacrament in light of Jesus’ life and death. “By this re-reading in the Spirit of Truth, starting from Christ, the figures are unveiled” (Catechism, no. 1094). The Catechism teaches that we should be able to see the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, as Cardinal Danielou remarked:

Knowledge of these correspondences [between the Old and New] is the Christian wisdom as the Fathers understood it, the spiritual understanding of Scripture. And this is where the liturgy is the mistress of exegesis.9

The third part employs Scripture as a lens to see how the mystery of the sacrament is made present in the here and now of our daily lives.

This “Application” section tries to drive home an all-important aspect of the sacraments. The sacraments make present God’s saving deeds of the past. “Christian liturgy [including the sacraments] not only recalls the events that saved us but actualizes them, makes them present” (Catechism, no. 1104). The Holy Spirit enables the past victories of God to be made available to us today. “By his [the Holy Spirit’s] transforming power, he makes the mystery of Christ present here and now” (Catechism, no. 1092).

Past Made Present

When we read the Bible, we easily notice all the great miracles and mighty deeds of the past, and wonder why God does not act in our lives. But that is where the sacraments and the liturgy come in. Christianity is not a “religion of the book,” in that we only read about what God did in the past; no, through the sacraments and liturgy God continues to make present His saving grace.

Thus the sacraments turn past history into present mystery. For example, God’s salvation of Israel from her bondage to Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea and the anointing of Jesus by the Holy Spirit in the Jordan become present for us in the Sacrament of Baptism. In Scripture we hear what God has done for His people before us, but through the sacraments we experience how these deeds are effective for us. The liturgy and sacraments are our doorway into the story of salvation. Thus the covenant drama is not simply the story of Israel, Jesus, the disciples, and others, but through our participation in the sacraments, beginning with Baptism, it is our own story.

This calls for a Catholic worldview, a new vision to see how the sacraments make present the power and life of Christ in our lives. “The catechetical message helps the Christian to locate himself in history and to insert himself into it, by showing that Christ is the ultimate meaning of this history” (GDC 98). We see, then, that salvation history does not end with the death of the apostles, but continues in our day. Our lives are part of the story—our own story is a chapter in the life of Christ through all time. This is the mystery of the economy of salvation, that Jesus is prefigured in the Old Testament, made manifest in the New Testament, and “post-figured” by us living the life of Christ today.

This is a profoundly spiritual vision that the sacraments invite us to live out. “But this also demands that catechesis help the faithful to open themselves to this spiritual understanding of the economy of salvation as the Church’s liturgy reveals it and enable us to live it” (Catechism, no. 1095).

________

1 ^Ex opere operato is a “term in sacramental theology meaning that sacraments are effective by means of the sacramental rite itself and not because of the worthiness of the minister or participant.” Fr. Peter M.J. Stravinskas, ed., Catholic Dictionary (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1993), 205.

2 ^Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae, q. 61, art. 4.

3 ^Augustine, On the Gospel of Saint John, 80.3; cf. Catechism, no. 1228.

4 ^Martin Luther, Babylonian Captivity, chap. 3, part 1, as quoted in E.L. Mascall, The Recovery of Unity (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1958), 97, footnote 2.

5 ^John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, bk. IV, chap. 14, no. 23, as quoted in E.L. Mascall, The Recovery of Unity, 97.

6 ^Jean Danielou, “The Sacraments and the History of Salvation,” as found in his larger work, The Liturgy and the Word of God (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1959), 31.

7 ^Ibid., 32.

8 ^Divine Institutes, bk. II, chap. 10.

9 ^Danielou, The Liturgy and the Word of God, 23.

#the sacraments in scripture

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romancatholicreflections · 7 years ago

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23rd July >> Sunday Homilies and Reflections for Roman Catholics on the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel text: Matthew 13:24-3 vs.24 Jesus put another parable before the crowds: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. vs.25 While everybody was asleep, his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. wheat and darnelvs.26 When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, the darnel appeared as well. vs.27 The owner’s servants went to him and said, ‘Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?’ vs.28 ‘Some enemy has done this’ he answered. And the servants said, ‘Do you want us to go and weed it out?’ vs.29 But he said, ‘No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. vs.30 Let them both grow till the harvest; and at the harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.’” vs.31 He put another parable before them, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. vs.32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest shrub of all and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and shelter in its branches. vs.33 He told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.” vs.34 In all this Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables; indeed he would never speak to them except in parables. vs.35 This was to fulfill the prophecy: “I will speak to you in parables and expound things hidden since the foundation of the world.” vs.36 Then, leaving the crowds, he went to the house; and his disciples came to him and said, “Explain the parable about the darnel in the field to us.” vs.37 He said in reply, “The sower of the good seed is the Son of Man. vs.38 The field is the world; the good seed is the subjects of the kingdom; the darnel, the subjects of the evil one; vs.39 the enemy who sowed them the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels. vs.40 Well then, just as the darnel is gathered and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of time. vs.41 The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that provoke offences and all who do evil, vs.42 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. vs.43 Then the virtuous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Listen, anyone who has ears!” ******************************************************************* We have four sets of homily notes to choose from. Please scroll down the page for the desired one. Michel DeVerteuil : A Trinidadian Holy Ghost Priest, Specialist in Lectio Divina Thomas O’Loughlin: Professor of Historical Theology, University of Wales. Lampeter. John Littleton: Director of the Priory Institute Distant Learning, Tallaght Donal Neary SJ: Editor of The Sacred Heart Messenger **************************************** Michel DeVerteuil Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels- Year A www.columba.ie General Comments We have three more parables this Sunday. The first is the parable about the wheat and the darnel in verses 24 to 30, with an interpretation in verses 36 to 43; this is one possible interpretation – feel free to let the parable lead you in other directions. As always when reading a parable, be conscious of the perspective you are coming from: are you identifying with the wheat that a planter allowed to grow although some enemy had sown darnel alongside it? With the man who had the trust to let both grow together? Or with the servants who wanted to pull up the darnel, even though they might pull images of Mt 13up the wheat with it? Be conscious also of whether the parable is – bringing back memories from your past, – giving you an insight into what is happening to you now, – or inviting you to trust in the future. The parable about the mustard seed in verses 31 and 32, and the one about the yeast in verse 33, are on the same general theme, but don’t try to meditate on both together; rather, choose the one that appeals to you now. Verses 34 and 35 are another summary about parables. Remember with gratitude when you understood one of life’s parables and became aware that what you had learnt was an ancient truth. Prayer reflection Lord, we thank you for those who educated or guided us from youth. They saw that we had bad traits as well as good ones, that darnel was mixed in with the good wheat they sowed in us. There were people who wanted to weed out the darnel but they said no, lest the wheat be pulled up also: – if they did not let us mix freely with others, we might no longer be open and generous; – if we were not allowed to make mistakes, we would never take risks; – if we did not feel free to ask foolish questions, we would never learn. We thank you for those who let wheat and darnel grow till harvest time, and now we have gathered the wheat and can let the darnel be burned. Lord, forgive us that we write off people as if there is nothing to them but – their selfishness; – their insincerity; – their arrogance. We forget that they are good seed that you sowed in the world. The evil in them is only weeds that some enemy sowed while others were asleep. Those sins which colour our judgement about them will be tied up in bundles and burnt, while you gather them like precious wheat into your barn. Lord, we thank you for the church today, our own community and the world-wide church. What a big tree it has become, and so many birds of the air come and shelter in its branches. We remember that it was once a mustard seed, but people of faith took that seed and sowed it: Jesus, the apostles, the first Christians, the founder of our community. mustard seedWe pray today for all those committed to making the world more human: – those who are spreading the spirit of cooperation and community; – human rights organizations; – those who uphold the ideal of chastity. They often feel that the seed they are sowing in the world is the smallest of all seeds, but they do it in trust that it will be a big shrub, and will eventually become a tree and birds of the air will come and shelter in its branches. Lord, we thank you for mothers: – endlessly correcting and reproving, – repeating the old sayings and proverbs, mixing them into the daily lives of the family, so that today we recognize that their teaching has touched every part of our society. ***************************************************** Thomas O’Loughlin Liturgical Resources for the Year of Matthew www.columba.ie Introduction to the Celebration Use the Asperges option, with this introduction: Sisters and brothers, today’s gospel reminds us that we, because we are Christians, have to be like a leaven in our society and our world. So let us begin our assembly as the Body of Christ by re-affirming our identity as those who have died in Christ in baptism, and have risen with him to new life and so stand here today. (If your use a Rite of Penance, then Option c vii (Missal, p 394-5) is appropriate.) Homily Notes 1. During the Year of Matthew we encounter, Sunday by Sunday, a very large range of parables – as commonly defined – as the gospel readings. The repetition of themes can, therefore, be a problem. One solution would be to select topics from the second readings, but this cannot be done on every occasion without provoking the question: ‘How does the gospel fit with this?’ Sadly, most people cannot appreciate that there is no planned link between the two New Testament readings, no matter how often they are told this. Another solution would be to pick significant topics for preaching, irrespective of the gospel readings. However, apart from this being out of. harmony with the logic of the liturgy, and the General Instruction, it also destroys the greatest gift any lectionary confers: it sets a limit to preachers going off on their hobby horses. So preaching, if it is part of the Eucharist and so part of the supreme ecclesial expression of a community of the baptised, must be linked to the readings and, normally, the gospel. So we need a more sophisticated strategy to provide homilies for the Sundays on which there are parables, which acknowledges the content of the reading, but does not reduce the homily to exegetical notes on particular snippets of text which would be found only of antiquarian value by those members of the community who are not interested in the study of the gospels as such. What follows in these notes, and those of other Sundays (i.e. on Sundays 17, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32), is an attempt to have a preaching strategy that can overarch a wide selection of parable, and parable-like, material. 2. There is a fundamental question that we have to ask ourselves: How do we learn to be Christians? 3. Is that a silly question? Note two specific elements of the form of the question. First, it is not a question about Christianity, but about people. Second, it is not a question about an individual engaged in learning, but about a community engage in learning. 4. It is very easy to learning about ‘what we believe’ or about ‘what the church believes’ or ‘what the church teaches.’ There are umpteen books, catechisms, and classes on this topic. You will find little booklets on it at the back of the church and posters in the porch advertising courses. It is also easy to find out about ‘The Church’. Again, there books on its history, structures, its position as a social force in various societies, it art, customs, architecture, and what not. But all this is learning about something. But Jesus calls us to a new lifestyle, a new way of acting, a new way of life. And one learns how to be and how to live through doing it. Its more like an apprenticeship than a course of studies. 5. The question is how do we learn to be Christians. Most learning is an individual activity, we just happen to do it in a group because there are not enough teachers to go round. So we go to a group evening class to learn French after we have been on a holiday in France. But we worry that our children’s class-sizes are too large. We think of learning as my learning. But how could you learn to play football on your own? To learn to play football requires slowly building up skills through practice and more practice. But while one can practice one or two little moves on one’s own, real practice needs to take place with the team: because it is learning to play together as the team that is the key to success. One cannot say, except as a joke, that ‘I won the game; pity that my team lost!’ Jesus+everyone6. We hear about ‘the kingdom’ in almost every reading from the gospels. We hear about ‘the disciples,’ ‘the apostles,’ and about ‘the followers’, and in almost every reading from St Paul we hear about ‘the church in this or that place’ or’the body of Christ’. In every case we are talking about the groups: the kingdom is the group who have united themselves with Jesus Christ, are given life by the Holy Spirit, and have come into the Father’s presence. This is the group we pray for when we say’ thy kingdom come’. The kingdom that is just one individual is a joke! 7. So we have to learn how to be members of this group, the Christians; and we have to learn how to be this new people, how to live this new lifestyle of Jesus. We have to see ourselves as learning by practice, and working with sisters and brothers (that is why we use these terms about one another) to be ‘the kingdom,’ ‘the church,’ ‘the People of God.’ 8. Today’s gospel gives some insights into the tasks facing the group learning to be Christians. First, they have to cope with the fact that the group will not be perfect at this stage of its pilgrimage. It would be nice to be part of a perfect group, but it is the actual community that we must work with, learn to act as a group, learn to act with harmony keeping our minds fixed on the lifestyle of generous, peace-making love. Second, we have to learn to act as a group so that we are like a tiny seed that grows to be a great tree. We must be willing to collaborate to take on the great tasks needed so that the Father’s kingdom grows. Third, we have to work as a community to transform situations of injustice and suffering. As yeast turns an unappetising mass of starch into joy-giving, living bread, so must our community act within the society. The world must be a better place because of our community. 9. Learning about doctrine is easy; Jesus calls his people to learn to be his people. **************************************************************** John Littleton Journeying through the Year of Matthew www.Columba.ie Gospel Reflection During his ministry, Jesus preached that the kingdom of heaven was near. The kingdom of heaven is the reign of God. Jesus used several images when speaking about the kingdom since it is beyond complete description and explanation in human words. Jesus inaugurated God’s kingdom on this earth. We are already living in the kingdom because the Church is the seed and the beginning of the kingdom. But the Church is not itself the kingdom in all its fullness. The kingdom is a more inclusive reality than the Church of Christ and, similarly, the Church of Jesus and The-Kingdom-of-God, c AD30Christ is a more inclusive reality than the Catholic Church. Many characteristics of the Church of Christ are also to be found outside the Catholic Church and various aspects of the kingdom occur outside the Church of Christ in other religions.This is because the Catholic Church is not identical with either the Church of Christ or the kingdom. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) taught that the Church of Christ ‘subsists’ in the Catholic Church. Jesus and The Kingdom of God, c AD30 This means that, although elements of sanctification and truth also occur outside the visible structures of the Catholic Church and beyond the wider boundaries of the Church of Christ, the fullness of grace and truth are entrusted by Christ to the Catholic Church. Thus there is an inextricable relationship between the Catholic Church, the Church of Christ and the kingdom of God. The fullness of the kingdom is expected at the end of time. Meanwhile, the Church on earth is on a pilgrimage towards that end. The Church, the People of God, always has members who are sinners. Therefore, while unfailingly holy because Christ is its Head, the Church is constantly in need of purification and renewal. Only at the end of time will the Church on earth achieve fully the perfection to which it is called when the kingdom of God is fulfilled in heaven. Then the Church will be free from all sin. In that respect, the Church is similar to a field of wheat. The field of wheat ripens slowly, requiring much care and patience from the farmer. Growth may seem undetectable but it occurs as the wheat matures and becomes ready for the harvest. Using the parable of the wheat and the darnel, Jesus teaches two important lessons. First, the Church includes both the good and the bad. Both co-exist. Awareness of God’s reign emerges slowly but surely. Secondly, the good and the bad will be separated at harvest time. Judgement comes at the end. The Church and the kingdom of God are absolutely linked. Active participation in the Church’s life and mission prepares us well for judgement at the end of time. The parables about the kingdom challenge us to remain faithful to the Church’s teaching and guidance, reminding us that the Church is the seed and the beginning of the kingdom here on earth. The Church, when it is faithful to its vocation, is the primary means whereby the kingdom is brought about. For meditation The sower of the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world; the good seed is the subjects of the kingdom; the darnel, the subjects of the evil one; the enemy who sowed them, the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels. (Mt 13:37-39) **************************************************************************************** Fr Donal Neary, S.J Gospel Reflections for the Year of Matthew www.messenger.ie Small beginnings Everything starts small. The mustard seed was a tiny seed that grew into a flowering bush; it was not mustard as we know it, but only a bush to give beauty and shelter. It can remind us of the beauty of creation, and of the caring shelter we can give to others. It is also a reminder that each of us began as a seed in the mother’s body, and grew with the plan of God. The love of God grows like that – it begins small with birth and with baptism, and then grows wide so that we share our love of God. It is the same with marriage – love begins and then grows so that children and grandchildren and others may shelter in love. Love grows when love is given, in our immediate circle, and in our care for the wider world. Good friendship and love spreads out to many. We want the kingdom of God on earth and God is saying that it grows slowly. It grows as we try to grow love, peace, justice and compassion. The shelter of the mustard bush is the mercy of God, encouraging our parish to be ‘an oasis of mercy‘ (Pope Francis). It is not easy, as love and care for the really needy often meets with opposition. The kingdom of God grows with the help of God, and without this help, our efforts are in vain. Recall something in your life that began small and has now grown; give thanks Lord, may your kingdom come among us. ***********************

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romancatholicreflections · 7 years ago

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31st May >> Daily Reflection on Today's Gospel Reading (Luke 1:39-56) for Roman Catholics on The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Commentary on Revelation 11:19a;12:1-6a;10ab; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26; Luke 1:39-56 Today’s feast celebrates the special place that Mary has in the life of the Church. This place is first of all defined by her being chosen to be the mother of Jesus, his only human parent. This alone gives her a uniqueness which is shared by no other person who has ever lived. As with the case of Jesus’ resurrection, we need to look at the meaning of what the feast is about rather than being too literal in our understanding of how it is described. It is probably not helpful to try to imagine that, as soon as Mary’s dead body was laid in the grave, it immediately as it were escaped from its earthly darkness and floated up “body and soul” into “heaven”. By using the image “assumed body and soul into heaven” what is really being said is that Mary, because of the dignity of her motherhood and her own personal submission to God’s will at every stage of her life, takes precedence over everyone in the sharing of God’s glory which is the destiny of all of us who die united with Christ her Son. She remains, of course, fully a human being and infinitely lower in dignity than her Son and much closer to us. With us but leading us, she stands in adoration of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. She cannot even in glory be given in any way the worship that is proper to the Persons of the Trinity. What she can do is to intercede for us in our needs, offering her human prayers on our behalf. This is something our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters do not always understand and perhaps we Catholics have by our words and actions given a distorted idea of the place of Mary in our Christian living. Mary’s role is well described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “By her complete adherence to the Father’s will, to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity. Thus she is a ‘pre-eminent and… wholly unique member of the Church’; indeed, she is the ‘exemplary realisation’ (typus) of the Church” (CCC 967) Today’s Gospel is the story of Mary’s visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth, when both were expecting their first child. The story contains most of the elements which contribute to the status we give to Mary in our Church. First, we see Mary setting out with haste from Nazareth to a small town in the hills of Judea, not far from Jerusalem (where Zechariah served as a priest in the Temple), to visit her older cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with the child we know as John the Baptist. Mary herself, of course, is carrying her own child, Jesus. It is highly significant that it is Mary and Jesus who go to visit Elizabeth and John. Already in the womb, Jesus is showing that urge to serve rather than be served. Mary, too, shares that urge. And, at the presence of Jesus and his mother, the child in Elizabeth’s womb jumps for joy. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, excitedly bursts out into praise. She recognises the special position of Mary and her Son: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary is indeed unique and blessed in being chosen to be the mother of our saving King and Lord. Elizabeth is deeply moved that it is Jesus and his Mother that come to her and John: “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” And yet that is what is happening to each of us all the time, and especially in every celebration of the Eucharist when the Lord comes to us in the sharing of his Word and in the breaking of the bread and our sharing in the cup. And there is a special word of praise for Mary also: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” This brings us to the second characteristic of Mary: her faith and total trust in God. That was expressed in her fiat (‘Let it be done to me…’), when, even though not fully understanding what was being asked of her, she unconditionally accepted to submit to God’s plan. It is now Mary’s turn to sing God’s praises in the lovely song we called the Magnificat, which the Church sings at its evening prayer every day. It is full of reflections on what makes Mary great in the eyes of God. “He has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.” Mary was a simple unmarried girl living in obscurity in a small town in an out of the way Roman province. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathanael asked rather cynically when told where Jesus came from. But in the New Covenant, reflecting God’s own bias, it is the lowly and obscure who are specially favoured. Mary’s greatness does not come from her social status; it has no relevance whatever in God’s eyes, except in so far as those at the bottom of the social ladder tend to be denied a fair share of this world’s goods. “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” This is not a statement made in arrogance but in humble thanksgiving and, of course, has been true since the day it was uttered. It was indeed an extraordinary grace to be chosen to be the mother of the world’s Saviour. Why Mary? we might ask; and Mary herself would be the first to agree. But she rejoices and is deeply grateful for being chosen for this privilege. Her being chosen is simply another sign of God’s desire that the poor, the weak, the marginalized, the exploited and discriminated against in this world should be the special recipients of God’s love and care. Mary expresses this in the last part of her song: “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” The rich and powerful of Mary’s day: where are they now? Who were they? For the most part they have disappeared from sight while the little girl of Nazareth is still celebrated round the world. 4. But Mary’s greatness does not stop at the graces and privileges which were showered on her. These, after all, were purely passive in the sense they were gifts given to her.. In a telling scene in the Gospel, a woman who had been listening to Jesus suddenly cried out in a loud voice: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked!” In our own language today we might say: “May God bless the mother who produced such a wonderful son as you!” And there is a deep truth here, namely, the influence that Mary (and Joseph, too) actually had in the formation of her Son. But Jesus immediately picked up the woman’s words and said: “No, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” In other words, it is not the graces that God gives us which make us great but the manner in which we receive and respond to them. Mary’s greatness was not just in being chosen to be Jesus’ mother but in her total acceptance of that responsibility in faith and trust, accepting blindly all that it might entail. And, indeed, she had no idea the price she would have to pay to be the mother of Jesus. But, again, like her Son she had emptied herself in total service to him and to day we celebrate her reward, her being raised to the highest place among the human race. This is indirectly expressed in the Second Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians where Paul is speaking of the resurrection of Christ as crucial to the validity of our Christian faith. And Christ, the Son of God made flesh, who died on the cross is indeed the very first among the risen, seated at the right hand of his Father. He is, in Paul’s words, “the first fruits of those who have died”. But, further on he says, “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in their own order”. Jesus is first of all but next in order surely comes his Mother. The First Reading from the Book of Revelation has clearly been chosen as a symbolic description of Mary in glory. There is first a brief vision of God’s temple in the New Jerusalem opening and revealing the ark of the covenant within. The original ark, of course, a chest made of acacia wood, contained the tablets of the Law and was kept in the Holy of Holies as the pledge of God’s promise, his covenant, to be with his people. But this is the ark of the New Covenant, the permanent home of God among his people, the Risen Jesus in his Body, the Church. On today’s feast, the image is applied to Mary, who bore the maker of the New Covenant within herself. And so she is called in the Litany of Our Lady, “Ark of the Covenant”. Next, there is a much longer description of the vision of a woman appearing from heaven. The woman is Israel from whom was born the Messiah and the community which believed in him. The description of the woman is often applied to Mary in statues and images: “Clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet… on her head a crown of twelve stars”. The woman is described as being pregnant, crying out in birth pangs and in the agony of giving birth. This recalls the words God to our first parents after the fall of the pain that would accompany childbirth. But the child being born is the Messiah, seen both as an individual and leader of the new Israel. The mother who bears him is suffering from persecution and oppression. As tradition holds that Mary was a virgin before, during and after the birth, the image cannot be applied fully to her. There follows an apocalyptic description of a dragon threatening to devour the child as soon as it is born. The dragon (with the serpent) was seen in Jewish tradition as representing the power of evil, the enemy both of God and his people. Its tail sweeping a third of the stars from the sky is an allusion to the fall of those angels who sided with Lucifer. Nevertheless, the child is born. He is a son, who will rule all the nations with a rod of iron. He is the promised Messiah. However, he is described as immediately being snatched away and taken up to God. This refers to the ascension and triumph of the Messiah which follows the dragon’s fall. Meanwhile, the woman, the mother, flees into the wilderness, the traditional refuge for the persecuted. God has prepared a place there for her where she can be nourished for 1,260 days, which corresponds to the time of the persecution. It must be first of all emphasised that the writer is not directly thinking of Mary here and clearly, not all of this passage can be directly applied to her. But Mary is the mother of Jesus, who in his Body, is the continuation of God’s presence among us. Mary now stands glorious and bejewelled in the presence of her Son and his Father with the Spirit. Today we join in her happiness. We look forward to the day when we too can share it with her. In the meantime, we ask her to remember us as we continue our journey on earth and to intercede for us with her Son that we may remain faithful to our call as faithful disciples. May we know God’s will for us at all times and, like Mary, say our unconditional Yes to what he wants for us.

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