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romancatholicreflections · 6 years ago

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9th August >> Daily Reflection/ Commenyary on Today’s Gospel Reading for Roman Catholics on Thursday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Matthew 16:13-23).

We now reach a high point in Matthew’s narrative. More than any of the other gospels, his is a Gospel of the Church. (Mark emphasises discipleship; Luke the communication of God’s love and compassion; John unity with God through Jesus.)

We find Jesus and his disciples in the district of Caesarea Philippi. This is not the fine city of Caesarea built by Herod the Great on the shore of the Mediterranean. It was a town, rebuilt by Herod’s son Philip, who called it after the emperor Tiberius Caesar and himself. It lay just to the north of the Sea of Galilee and near the slopes of Mount Hermon. It had originally been called Paneas, after the Greek god Pan and is known today as Banias.

The area was predominantly pagan, dominated by Rome. In a sense, therefore, it was both an unexpected yet fitting place for Jesus’ identity to be proclaimed. He was, after all, not just for his own people but for the whole world.

Jesus begins by asking his disciples who people think he really is. They respond with some of the speculations that were going round: he was John the Baptist resurrected from the dead (Herod’s view, for instance) or Elijah (whose return was expected to herald the imminent coming of the Messiah) or Jeremiah or some other of the great prophets.

The Jews at this time expected a revival of the prophetic spirit which had been extinct since Malachi. John was regarded by many of the people as a prophet, although he denied that he was the expected prophet, often thought to be Elijah returned. The early Christians saw Jesus as a prophet but with the appearance of prophecy as a charism in their communities the term was dropped in his case.

Interestingly, the people did not seem to think that Jesus himself was on a par with these ‘greats’ of their history. We do tend to undervalue the leaders of our own time when compared with those of the past.

“And you,” Jesus goes on, “who do you say I am?” It was a moment of truth, a very special moment in his disciples’ relationship with their Master. Simon speaks up: “You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It is a huge step forward for Peter and his companions. As we shall see, it is not yet a total recognition of his identity or mission. But Jesus is no mere rabbi, no mere prophet, but the long-awaited Messiah and Saviour King who would deliver Israel. It is an exciting moment in their relationship with him. And it is only in Matthew that Peter calls him “Son of God”.

The focus now shifts immediately to Simon. He is praised for his insight but Jesus makes clear that it comes from divine inspiration and is not a mere deduction. A ‘mystery’, in the Scripture sense, is being uncovered.

And now comes the great promise. Simon from now on is to be called ‘Peter’, a play on the word for ‘rock’ (kepha in Aramaic, petra/petros in Greek), for he will become the rock on which the “church” will be built, a rock which will stand firm against all attacks on it. A promise which must have sounded very daring at the time it was written but which 2,000 years have again and again vindicated. ‘Peter’ in either its Aramaic or Hebrew was not a previously known personal name.

The term ‘church’ only appears twice in Matthew and not at all in the other three gospels. The Hebrew word qahal which in Greek is rendered as ekklesia (‘ekklhsia), means ‘an assembly called together’. It was used often in the Old Testament to indicate the community of the Chosen People.

“By using this term ekklesia side by side with ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, Jesus shows that this eschatological community (community of the ‘end-times’) is to have its beginnings here on earth in the form of an organised society whose leader he now appoints.” (Jerusalem Bible, loc. cit.)

And Simon is given power and authority, the “keys of the Kingdom”, all that he will need to make the Kingdom a reality. His authority and that of the ‘church’ is the authority of Jesus himself. Whatever Peter and the church formally decide is immediately ratified by God; they are his appointed agents.

Lastly, they are strictly ordered not to tell anyone else that Jesus is the Messiah. The people are not ready to hear it; they have their own expectations which are very different from the Messiah that Jesus is going to be. The disciples themselves have a totally wrong idea as becomes immediately clear in what follows.

From the moment that they recognise Jesus as Messiah, he begins to prepare them for what is going to happen. “[The Son of Man] must go to Jerusalem to suffer greatly at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and to be put to death, and raised up on the third day.” This is the first of three ominous predictions.

After the euphoria of knowing their Master was the Messiah, all their dreams and hopes are shattered by these terrible revelations. It is hard for us to imagine the impact these words must have had. Peter, who had just covered himself in glory and been appointed leader, almost patronisingly takes Jesus aside, “God forbid that any such thing ever happen to you!”

For him and the others this was an unthinkable scenario for the Messiah they were all waiting for. How much more shocked Peter must have been at Jesus’ reaction. “Get out of my sight, you Satan! You are trying to make me trip and fall. You are not judging by God’s standards but by man’s.” The man who was just now called a Rock is accused of being Satan’s advocate! Instead of being a rock of stability, he is seen as a stumbling block in the way of Jesus.

Peter is seen as doing the very work of the devil in trying to divert Jesus from the way he was called to go, the way in which God’s love would be revealed to us, the way in which we would be liberated for the life of the Kingdom.

It will take time before Peter and the others both understand and accept the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah. It will not happen until after the resurrection. Before that the Rock will be guilty of a shameful betrayal of the Man who put such trust in him.

We too can ask ourselves to what extent we accept Jesus the rejected, suffering, dying and rising Messiah.

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abbyjcho · 4 years ago

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They Say, I Say - Written for UC Berkeley ENG 190 (Fall 2019)

KING CLAUDIUS

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:

But, you must know, your father lost a father;

That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound (90)

In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever

In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, (95)

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,

An understanding simple and unschool'd:

For what we know must be and is as common

As any the most vulgar thing to sense,

Why should we in our peevish opposition (100)

Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,

A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,

To reason most absurd: whose common theme

Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,

From the first corse till he that died to-day, (105)

'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth

This unprevailing woe, and think of us

As of a father: for let the world take note,

You are the most immediate to our throne;

And with no less nobility of love (110)

Than that which dearest father bears his son,

Do I impart toward you. For your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire:

And we beseech you, bend you to remain (115)

Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

(1.2.87-117)

Heaven appears 40 times in Hamlet. In the first instance of the word “heaven” in line 95, the more appropriate meaning from the OED is: “the abode of God and of the angels and persons who enjoy God's presence, traditionally regarded as being beyond the sky; the final abode of the redeemed after their life on earth; a state or condition of being or living with God after death; everlasting life. Opposed to hell.” The quote,“Teache the people to gett heuen with fastynge” from R. Tracy’s Supplycacion to Kynge Henry VIII written in 1544 most closely corresponds to the first instance of “heaven” in Claudius’ speech. In the second instance, the more appropriate meaning from the OED is: “Instrumental and locative”. The quote “Words of the Heau'n-prompted stile” from written in 1606 byJ. Sylvester and G. de S. Du Bartas.

The most relevant special dictionaries that would contain “heaven” are Shakespeare's Religious Language : A Dictionary which defines concepts like "soul," "pray," “absolve" and Shakespeare's Demonology which defines the ideas of ghosts, fairies, spirits, superstitions, and magic. Shakespeare’s Religious Language contained an entry for heaven which defined it as “Another name for God and God’s omnipotence, his providential agency, or his dispensing of eternal justice and mercy”. This is the most accurate description of heaven that lends its relevancy to its use in Hamlet. The idea that heaven is locative and instrumental, as described by the OED is implied through this definition in the described omnipotence of God as well as his providential agency. Although Shakespeare’s Religious Language gave a helpful definition for “heaven” and its uses in Shakespeare’s works, the Demonology did not include an entry for “heaven”. However, it did contain a definition for Hell. This is interesting because the existences of both Heaven and Hell are intertwined with one another; there is no Hell without a Heaven. It is described in Milton’s Paradise Lost as Satan falls from Heaven and descends into Hell. The Demonology describes Hell as:

“Where there are devils, demons or fiends in Shakespeare’s works, there is also often the notion of hell, along with hellish artifacts and related demonic creatures. The Christian hell was conceived to be an underworld, like the classical underworld which was also an afterlife, but in this case flamingly hot and a site of torture for damned souls after death. Ghosts might return from hell to plague the living – several of Shakespeare’s, such as the ghost of King Hamlet, refer to tortures endured after death in either hell or purgatory.”

This definition does not imply the existence of a heaven, but its appearance in the Demonology without the appearance of “Heaven” shows the heightened importance of Hell over Heaven.

“Heaven” is word that appears over 450 times in all of Shakespeare’s work. It is an interesting word because heaven as a term can be used as both a noun and a verb. The noun form refers either to a place either above the Earth or the location of God and the angels that signifies that opposite of Hell. The verb form refers to a transitive state: “To transport into heaven; to make supremely happy, enrapture; to beatify; (also) to make heavenly in character or appearance” (OED). These two definitions both refer to transcending one’s current state and becoming something higher than they already were. This transition into a higher calling is seemingly out of place in Claudius’ speech to Hamlet at the end of Act I, Scene II. Claudius is a hypocritical character who, in this speech, is instructing Hamlet to stop his excessive mourning. Hamlet’s trappings of woe are nowhere in comparison to that of his mother, who Hamlet accuses of over-playing her part. Claudius genders sorrow, by calling it “unmanly grief” (1.2.94), and then goes on to further shame Hamlet by telling him that his mourning is “show[ing] a will most incorrect to heaven” (1.2.95). Heaven, in this context, is not a location but rather is an extension of God and a higher power that will hold judgment.

The next instance of the word “heaven” occurs again in Claudius’s speech to Hamlet about ceasing his mourning over the death of his father. In this use however, the word “heaven” is used to imply that heaven is a concept akin to the natural cycle. “Why should we in our peevish opposition/Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,/A fault against the dead, a fault to nature” (1.2.100-102). Claudius equates heaven to both the dead and nature. Death and nature are concepts that are intertwined with one another; death is a natural occurrence and all natural things will die. Heaven is not natural because it is a created and imagined holy place. In this way, Claudius faults not only nature but also the created. Claudius implies that Hamlet’s sorrow is for something imagined and goes against the natural cycle of life and death. This speech leads off with an example of a cycle, where “…your father lost a father; /That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound/In filial obligation for some term/To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever/In obstinate condolement…” (1.2.89-93). This cycle is implied to be inescapable and natural, but it is the job of the sons to “persever” (1.2.92) and continue the cycle. By persisting in never-ending sorrow would disrupt the cycle of nature, thus going against heaven, which is the land of God, who set human nature.

The differences between heaven in line 95 and heaven in line 101 is subtle and nuanced, but becomes incredibly important. In the context of line 95, heaven is used to hold Hamlet to a higher power that will judge his actions as wrong. This use of heaven makes the word more commanding than its use in line 101. In line 101, heaven is implied to be a created aspect of the natural. It is cyclical in nature but is inevitable. Both uses of heaven imply that it is a highly powerful entity and is something that should be revered, but they touch on different aspects of heaven that are not explicitly apparent in the many different definitions of heaven that are brought up by both the OED as well as Shakespeare’s Religious Dictionary. Heaven can be both the location of God and the angels, but it can also be an extension of God and his judgement. The different uses of heaven can seem to change its meaning very slightly, but the differences between location and entity are extremely distinct, as one can be used to directed to whilst the other will do the directing. In Hamlet, Claudius uses both to dictate that Hamlet stop his mourning of his murdered father.

#Abby Cho

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battybat-boss · 7 years ago

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Investment Report Reveals Medical Cures not Profitable for Big Pharma – Sick People Needed to Sustain Drug Sales

by Brian Shilhavy Editor, Health Impact News

For many years now those of us in the alternative health media have been exposing how Big Pharma depends upon sick people to maintain their profitable medical system. To develop pharmaceutical products that actually cure diseases would be to simply put them out of business.

The pharmaceutical industry also needs the U.S. government to protect their economic interest, and they rely on federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to outlaw natural cures that cannot be patented, in order to protect their monopoly on healthcare.

So for those who think “capitalism” is the problem, and that socialized medicine in the solution, they are greatly mistaken. Pure capitalism (which we do NOT have in the United States) would allow the market to dictate which products are successful in curing disease, but that is not allowed in the United States.

I learned this myself first hand in the early 2000s when I imported the first “Virgin Coconut Oil” from the Philippines into the U.S. market, daring to publish the truth about fats and oils, and contradicting government nutritional advice that states saturated fats and coconut oil are harmful to one's health.

The results were far greater than we could have ever predicted. Testimonials started coming in about how people's lives were changed from switching to virgin coconut oil as their main dietary oil, and the coconut oil revolution had begun.

People were claiming that virgin coconut oil was healing many of their diseases, from diabetes, to antibiotic resistant pathogens, to heart disease, to thyroid diseases, to digestive diseases, to fungal infections like Candida, to neurological diseases like Alzheimer's: people were reporting tremendous health improvement and even cures to these diseases.

And these claims were not completely without the lack of published research, as we published not only the testimonials, but also the peer-reviewed research as well.

But the FDA came after us with warning letters, accusing us of selling an “unapproved drug” because of all the positive health claims our customers were reporting. We were threatened with being put out of business and having all of our inventory seized if we did not remove the published research and testimonials from our website where we were selling coconut oil.

Rather than go out of business and lose everything, we hired a Washington D.C. regulatory attorney to help us comply with the FDA, by removing all health claims from our website. Our sales tumbled, as a result.

We had to put up the information on a different website where no coconut products were sold, and that research is now cataloged at CoconutOil.com. My desire to publish uncensored health information not published in the corporate “mainstream” media, where some have said 70% of the advertisers are from the pharmaceutical industry, later led to the beginning of Health Impact News.

While this obviously hurt our sales, the American public benefited, as the years of published research along with millions of dollar we spent in getting the information about coconut oil out to the public since the corporate media would not touch it, now benefited anyone who chose to sell coconut oil, with the result that today one can walk into any store selling groceries and purchase some form of dietary coconut oil.

Even so, coconut oil is still under attack today due to the FDA and USDA positions on saturated fats and coconut oil, which prohibit anyone selling it to label it as “healthy.” (See: War on Coconut Oil: California Companies Attacked to try and Prevent the Sale of Coconut Oil.)

Goldman Sachs Tells Drug Companies that Cures are Not Profitable

A report that made its way through the corporate sponsored “mainstream” media last week, therefore, was not news to those of us in the alternative health media.

Not only are natural cures that cannot be patented censored from the public, pharmaceutical products that actually cure people are not invested in, simply because it is not a sustainable market when people are cured and no longer need pharmaceutical products. Investors cannot afford to invest in such products.

Originally reported on CNBC.com, an April 10 report by Goldman Sachs analysts entitled “The Genome Revolution” addressed the question: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”

From CNBC.com:

“The potential to deliver 'one shot cures' is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically-engineered cell therapy and gene editing.

However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies,” analyst Salveen Richter wrote in the note to clients Tuesday. “While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.”

Richter cited Gilead Sciences' treatments for hepatitis C, which achieved cure rates of more than 90 percent. The company's U.S. sales for these hepatitis C treatments peaked at $12.5 billion in 2015, but have been falling ever since. Goldman estimates the U.S. sales for these treatments will be less than $4 billion this year, according to a table in the report.

“GILD is a case in point, where the success of its hepatitis C franchise has gradually exhausted the available pool of treatable patients,” the analyst wrote. “In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines … Where an incident pool remains stable (eg, in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise.”

Gizmodo.com reported a couple of days later that pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline was dumping some of its gene therapy products that had become too successful and would provide little in the way of profits:

The MIT Tech Review points out that that this may have been the impetus behind GlaxoSmithKline's announcement today that it will sell off its pipeline of gene therapies for rare disease to London gene-therapy upstart Orchard Therapeutics for a 20 percent stake in the company. One of those therapies is Strimvelis, a cure for a rare immune deficiency often called “bubble boy” disease. But even with the hefty price of $665,000, the small patient population means that the cure didn't look like it would amount to much of a business.

It's a callous calculation, and it shows that bringing to fruition the promises of the gene-editing revolution will take a lot more than mere scientific breakthroughs. (Source.)

Again, it would be unfair to blame “capitalism” here for pharmaceutical companies' lack of desire to develop products that actually cure, and call for socialized medicine in its place.

It is the revolving door policy between government and Big Pharma that causes this, and their squashing out the products that a truly free market would choose based on the ability to cure disease. Many of these natural products, such as foods like coconut oil, have an ongoing market to not only cure disease, but prevent disease from happening in the first place.

Investment firm Goldman Sachs, it may be recalled, would not even exist today in a truly free market. They were bailed out by the U.S. government with tax payers' funds in 2008 as a financial institution deemed “too big to fail.”

Henry M. Paulson Jr. left Goldman Sachs as the chairman and chief executive officer in 2006 to become President George W. Bush's Treasury secretary, so there was no way the government was going to allow Goldman Sachs to fail in 2008.

Government is the problem, not capitalism, in allowing the public to have access to freedom of information about REAL cures. Turning all “healthcare” over the government would solve nothing, since it would effectively put the “fox in charge of the henhouse.”

So the next time someone comes around soliciting donations from you to “develop a cure” for some specific disease, like cancer, just remember that your money will go to the pharmaceutical industry which simply cannot afford to produce cures. So consider putting your charitable contributions elsewhere.