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dragoneyes618 · 26 days ago

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"Islam was the second religion to emanate from Judaism, but as its founder was not a Jew and as it was not originally a Jewish sect, Islam's encounter with Judaism was significantly less bitter than Christianity's. As Salo Baron notes: "It was, therefore, from the beginning, a struggle between strangers, rather than an internecine strife among brethren." Largely because of this factor, Jews in the Islamic world were rarely persecuted as violently as their brethren in the Christian world. S. D. Goitein, perhaps the twentieth century's leading historian of Jewish life in the Arab world, concludes: "when the known facts are weighed, I believe it correct to say that as a whole the position of the non-Muslims [Christians and Jews under medieval Islamic rule] was far better than that of the Jews in medieval Christian Europe."

Goitein's assessment is valid, but it tells us much more about the Jews' condition under Christians than about their treatment by Muslims. For while the Jews of the Muslim world may have rarely experienced the tortures, pogroms, and expulsions that typified Jewish life under medieval Christian rule, their life under Islam was usually a life of degradation and insecurity. At the whim of a Muslim leader, a synagogue would be destroyed, Jewish orphans would be forcibly converted to Islam, or Jews would be forced to pay even more excessive taxes than usual.

Like Christianity's, Islam's anti-Judaism is deeply rooted. Islam too was born from the womb of Judaism; it too was rejected by the Jews whose validation was sought; and it too suffered an identity crisis vis-a-vis Judaism.

When Islam was born in the seventh century, there was a substantial Jewish population in Medina, where the first Muslim community arose. The Jews of pre-Islamic Arabia were active advocates of their religion, to such an extent that several kings of Himyar, now Yemen, converted to Judaism. Contemporary inscriptions described Dhu Nuwas As'ar, the last Jewish king of Himyar, as a believer in one deity whom the king called Rahman, the Merciful One, as called in Judaism and later in Islam.

During his early years, Muhammad related well to the Jews of Arabia, and their religious practices and ideas deeply influenced him. As Goitein noted: "The intrinsic values of the belief in one God, the creator of the world, the God of Justice and mercy, before whom everyone high and low bears responsibility came to Muhammad, as he never ceased to emphasized, from Israel."

The profound influence of the Jews, their Bible, and their laws on Muhammad is clearly expressed in the Koran, the Muslim bible, and in Muhammad's early religious legislation. Indeed, Muhammad saw himself as another Moses. In the Koran, he writes of his message (Sura 46, verse 12), "Before it the book of Moses was revealed....This Book confirms it. It is revealed in the Arabic tongue." Moses is a dominant figure on the Koran, in which he is mentioned over one hundred times.The Jewish doctrine that most deeply influenced Muhammad was monotheism: "There is no God but God." Muhammad's monotheism was so attuned to the uncompromising nature of Judaism's monotheism that though he had also been influenced by Christian teachers, he rejected the Christian trinity and the divinity of Jesus as not monotheistic: "Unbelievers are those that say, 'Allah is one of three.' There is but one God. If they do not desist from so saying, those of them that disbelieve shall be sternly punished" (5:71-73).

Jewish law also deeply influenced Muhammad. In the early days of Islam, Muslims prayed in the direction of the Jews' holy city, Jerusalem, and observed the most solemn Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Only later, when Muhammad reluctantly concluded that the Jews would not embrace him as their prophet and convert to Islam, did he substitute Mecca for Jerusalem, and the fast of Ramadan for Yom Kippur. Similarly, Muhammad based Muslim dietary laws upon Judaism's laws of Kashrut: "You are forbidden carrion, blood, and the flesh of swine; also any flesh...of animals sacrificed to idols." The five daily prayers of Islam are likewise modeled on the three daily services of the Jews.

Second in importance only to his adoption of the Jews' God was Muhammad's adoption of the Jews' founding father, Abraham, as Islam's founder. In Sura 2, verse 125, Muhammad writes how Abraham and his son Ishmael converted the Kaaba, the holy rock of Arabian paganism, into the holy shrine of Islam.

Believing himself to be the final and greatest prophet of Mosaic monotheism, and having adopted so much of Jewish thought and practice, Muhammad appealed to the Jews of Arabia to recognize his role and to adopt Islam as the culmination of Judaism. "Even Luther," the late renowned philosopher Walter Kaufmann wrote, "expected the Jews to be converted by his version of Christianity, although he placed faith in Christ at the center of his teaching and firmly believed in the trinity. If even Luther...could expect that, how much more Muhammad, whose early revelations were so much closer to Judaism?" Muhammad's deep desire for Jewish recognition reflected the similar needs of Jesus and his followers. No group could validate Muhammad's religious claims as could the Jews, nor could any so seriously threaten to undermine them.

The Jews rejected Muhammad's claims as they had Jesus', holding in both cases that what was true in their messages was not new, and that what was new was not true. Islam may have served as a religious advance for Arabian pagans, but for the Jews it was merely another offshoot of Judaism.

One major factor that rendered Muhammad's prophetic claims untenable to Jews was his ignorance of the Bible. In large part because Muhammad never read the Bible, but only heard Bible stories, his references to the Jews' holy text were often erroneous. In Sura 28:38, for instance, he had Pharaoh (from Exodus) ask Haman (of the Book of Esther) to erect the Tower of Babel (which appears at the beginning of Genesis).

Another obstacle to Jewish acceptance of Muhammad was the moral quality of some of his teachings. They did not strike the Jews, or the Arabian Christians, as equaling, let alone superceding, the prophetic teachings of Judaism or Christianity. In 33:50, for example, Muhammad exempts himself from his own law limiting a man to four wives, and in 4:34 he instructs men to beat disobedient wives. Walter Kaufmann notes that "there is much more like this, especially in the 33rd Sura," and that "it must have struck the Jews as being a far cry from Amos and Jeremiah, and the Christians as rendering absurd the prophet's claim that he was superseding Jesus."

Finally, Muhammad's suspension of many Torah Laws invalidated him in the Jews' eyes.

For these and other reasons, the Jews rejected Muhammad's prophetic claims and refused to become Muslims. This alone infuriated Muhammad. But it was even more infuriating that the Jews publicly noted the errors in Muhammad's biblical teachings and may have even ridiculed his claims to prophecy. Goitein concludes, "it is only natural that Muhammad could not tolerate as a neighbor a large monotheistic community which categorically denied his claim as a prophet, and probably also ridiculed his inevitable blunders."

As a result Muhammad turned against the Jews and their religion, and never forgave them for not becoming his followers. And just as early Christian hostility to the Jews was canonized in the New Testament, so Muhammad's angry reactions to the Jews were recorded in the Koran. these writings gave Muslims throughout history a seemingly divinely-sanctioned antipathy to the Jews.

In the Koran, Muhammad attacked the Jews and attempted to invalidate Judaism in several ways. First, and most significantly, he changed Abraham from a Jew to a Muslim: "Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian. [He] surrendered himself to Allah....Surely the men who are nearest to Abraham are those who follow him, this Prophet" (3:67-68).

Second, he condemned the Jews and delegitimized their law by advancing a thesis similar to Paul's, that the many Torah laws had been given to the Jews as punishment for their sins: "Because of their iniquity we forbade the Jews good things which were formerly allowed them" (4:160).

Third, Muhammad charged the Jews with falsifying their Bible by deliberately omitting prophecies of his coming. For example, in the Koran (2:129), Muhammad has Abraham mouth a prophecy of his (Muhammad's) coming. Muhammad charged that the Jews "extinguish the light of Allah" (9:32) by having removed such prophecies from their Bible.

Fourth, Muhammad asserted that Jews, like Christians, were not true monotheists, a charge he substantiated by claiming that the Jews believed the prophet Ezra to be the Son of God. "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah...Allah fights against them. How perverse are they." (9:30).

These anti-Jewish fabrications, articulated by Muhammad as reactions to the Jews' rejection of him, have ever since been regarded by Muslims as God's word. Though originally directed against specific Jews of a specific time, these statements often have been understood by succeeding generations as referring to all Jews at all times, and thus form the basis of Islamic antisemitism.

One common example is 2:61: "And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them and they were visited with wrath from Allah. That was because they disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully.j That was for their disobedience and transgression." This Koranic description of the Jews of seventh-century Arabia has often been cited by Muslims to describe Jews to this day. *

(* In a speech before his army officers on April 25, 1972, the late Egyptian President Anwar as-Sadat cited this Koranic verse, and then added: "The most splendid thing our prophet Muhammad, God's peace and blessing on him, did was to evict them [the Jews] from the entire Arabian peninsula...I pledge to you that we will celebrate on the next anniversary, God willing and on this place with God's help, not only the liberation of our land but also the defeat of the Israeli conceit and arrogance so that they must once again return to the condition decreed in our holy book: 'humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them'...We will not renounce this.")

Muhammad and the Koran thus laid the basis for subsequent antisemitism just as the early Christians had - and for basically the same reason: Jews remaining Jewish constituted a living refutation of Islamic beliefs. Thus, under Islam, just as under Christianity, Jew-hatred was ultimately Judaism-hatred. Any Jew who converted to Islam was accepted as an equal.

Christians under Muslim rule fared little better. Muslims and their laws generally dealt harshly with both Christians and Jews.

As long as Christian communities survived in the Muslim world, discriminatory legislation also applied to them as well. However, whereas Jewish communities often flourished as vibrant Jewish communities, Christian communities for the most part did not survive the intense Muslim hostility. Under the yoke of MUslim laws against Jews and Christians, hundreds of thousands of people in some of the oldest and strongest Christian communities in the world converted to Islam.

No fact better underscores the intensity of Muslim persecution of dhimmis (non-Muslim monotheists) than this disappearance of so many Christian communities under Islam. The fact that under similar conditions many Jewish communities flourished bears witness to the Jews' tenacious commitment to Judaism, not to Muslim benevolence toward them. This is often lost sight of when favorably comparing Muslim antisemitism with Christian antisemitism. Yet the conversion to Islam of nearly every pre-Islamic Christian community in the Muslim world (the Copts of Egypt constituting the most notable exception) eloquently testifies to what Jews had to endure in their long sojourn through the Muslim world.

The two guiding principles of Islam's treatment of Jews and Christians are that Islam dominates and is not dominated, and that Jews and Christians are to be subservient and degraded. Nonmonotheists were usually given the choice of conversion to Islam or death.

The Muslim legal code that prescribed the treatment of Jews and Christians, or dhimmis as they are both referred to in Islam, was the Pact of Umar, attributed to Muhammad's second successor, but assumed to date from about 720. Its key characteristic was the requirement that dhimmis always acknowledge their subservient position to Muslims. Jews and Christians had to pledge, for example, "We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it." The subservience that dhimmis were required to show publicly to Muslims is analogous to the behavior once expected of Blacks in the Jim Crow American South: "We shall show respect...and we shall rise from our seats when they [Muslims] wish to sit." They also had to pledge "not to mount saddles," since riding a horse, or, according to some Muslims, any animal, was considered incompatible with the low status of a dhimmi. The dhimmis also had to vow "We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims nor shall we raise our voices when following our dead."

Anti-dhimmi legislation did not end with the Pact of Umar. In the Koran, Muhammad had urged Muslims, "Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture...and follow not the religion of truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low" (9:29). Accordingly, Muslim officials often insisted that when paying tribute, dhimmis must be "brought low," that is, humiliated.

An early Muslim regulation precisely prescribed how to humiliate Jews and Christians when they pay tribute: "The dhimmi, Christian or Jew, goes on a fixed day in person to the emir, appointed to receive the poll tax, who occupies a high throne-like seat. The dhimmi stands before him, offering the poll tax on his open palm. The emir takes it so that his hand is on top and the dhimmi's underneath. Then the emir gives him a blow on the neck, and a guard, standing upright before the emir, drives him roughly away The same procedure is followed with the second, third, and the following taxpayers. The public is admitted to enjoy this show." The public was not merely "admitted" to this humiliating spectacle, but as Baron observes, "Public participation was, indeed, essential for the purpose of demonstrating, according to the Shafi'ite school, the political superiority of Islam."

In the course of time Muslim rulers developed additional ways to humiliate dhimmis. Baron describes one of them: "Equally vexatious was the tax receipt, which in accordance with an old Babylonian custom, was sometimes stamped upon the neck of the 'unbelieving' taxpayer. This ancient mark of slavery...expressly prohibited in the Talmud under the sanction of the slave's forcible emancipation, occasionally reappeared here as a degrading stamp of 'infidelity.'"

These humiliating and painful procedures had a terrible effect on the Jews: "An Arab poet rightly spoke of entering the door with bent heads 'as if we were Jews.'"

Another law designed to humiliate dhimmis required them to wear different clothing. The purposes of this law were to enable Muslims to recognize Jews and Christians at all times, and to make them appear foolish. In 807, the Abbasid Caliph Haroun al-Raschid, legislated that Jews must wear a yellow belt and a tall conical cap. This Muslim decree provided the model for the yellow badge associated with the degradation of Jews in Christian Europe and most recently imposed by the Nazis.

A Jew living in Baghdad in the days of Al-Muqtadir (1075-96) described additional measures passed by the vizier, Abu Shuja, to humiliate Jews: "each Jew had to have a stamp of lead...hang from his neck, on which the word dhimmi was inscribed. On women he likewise imposed two distinguishing marks: the shoes worn by each woman had to be one red and one black. She also had to carry on her neck or attached to her shoe a small brass bell...And the Gentiles used to ridicule Jews, the mob and children often assaulting Jews in all the streets of Baghdad.

During the same century in Egypt, the Fatimid Caliph Hakim ordered Christians to wear a cross with arms two feet long, while Jews were ordered to wear around their necks balls weighing five pounds, to commemorate the calf's head that their ancestors had once worshiped.

These clothing regulations were not only enforced in the Middle Ages. Until their departure from Yemen in 1948, all Jews, men and women alike, were compelled to dress like beggars.

In fact, Yemen offers us a unique opportunity to understand Muslim attitudes toward the Jews. For it was the one Muslim country with a non-Muslim minority (Jews) that was never ruled by a European power. It was therefore able to treat its Jews in the "purest" Muslim manner, uninfluenced by non-Muslim domination.

In 1679, Jews in most of Yemen were expelled from their cities and villages. When allowed to come back a year later, they were not allowed to return to their homes, but were forced to settle in Jewish settlements outside of the cities. During their expulsion the synagogue of San'a, the capital, was converted into a mosque, which still exists under the name Masjid al-Jala (the Mosque of the Expulsion).

Among the many indignities to which the Jews of Yemen were constantly subjected was the throwing of stones at them by Muslim children, a practice that was religiously sanctioned. When Turkish officials (the Turks occupied Yemen in 1872) asked an assembly of Muslim leaders to see that this practice be stopped, an elderly Muslim scholar responded that throwing rocks at Jews was an Ada, an old religious custom, and thus it was unlawful to forbid it.

The greatest recurrent suffering that Yemenite Jews experienced was th e forced conversion to Islam of Jewish children whose fathers had died. This was practiced until the Jews fled Yemen in 1948, and was also based upon Islamic doctrine. Muhammad was believed to have said, "Everyone is born in a state of natural religion [Islam]. It is only his parents who make a Jew or Christian out of him." Accordingly, a person should grow up in the "natural religion" of Islam.

When a Jewish father died, there was often a "race" between Jewish communal leaders who sought to place the man's children with Jewish parents and the Muslim authorities who wanted to convert the children to Islam and place them in Muslim homes (in the Yemenite Islamic culture it would appear that the surviving mother was regarded as irrelevant). The Jews often lost. Goitein reports that "many families arrived in Israel with one or more of their children lost to them, and I have heard of some widows who have been bereaved in this way of all their offspring."

Yet as persecuted as the Yemenite Jews were, they were also denied the right to leave the country.

By the nineteenth century, the Jews' situation under Islam went from degradation to being recurrent victims of violence - as these examples from Jewish life in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine illustrate.

Egypt

In his authoritative book, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyyptisns, Edward Lane wrote that, at the time of his study (1833-35), the Jews were living "under a less oppressive government in Egypt than in any other country of the Turkish Empire." He added, however, that the Jews "are held in the utmost contempt and abhorrence by the Muslims in general." Lane explained: "Not long ago, they used often to be jostled in the streets of Cairo, and sometimes beaten merely for passing on the right hand of a Muslim. At present, they are less oppressed; but still they scarcely ever dare to utter a word of abuse when reviled or beaten unjustly by the meanest Arab or Turk; for many a Jew has been put to death upon a false and malicious accusation of uttering idsrespectful words against the Kuran (sic] or the Prophet. It is common to hear an Arab abuse his jaded ass, and after applying to him various opprobrious epithets, end by calling the beast a Jew.

That this was the Jewish situation in Egypt, "a less oppressive government" than elsewhere in the Muslim Arab world, tells us a great deal about Muslim antisemitism in the nineteenth century - prior to the Zionist movement.

Syria

In 1840, some French Catholics introduced the blood libel into the Arab world. After a Capuchin monk in Damascus vanished, Ratti-Mention, the local French consul, told police authorities that the Jews probably had murdered him to procure his blood for a religious ritual. Several Damascus Jews were then arrested, and under torture, oneo f them "confessed" that leaders of the Jewish community had planned the monk's murder. Many other Jews were then arrested, and under torture more such confessions were obtained. French officials pressured Syria'sruler, Muhammad Ali, to try the arrested men, and it was only after an international protest organized by Jewish communities throughout the world that the Jews who survived their tortures were released.

The blood libel immediately became popular among Muslims, who attacked Jews as drinkers of Muslim blood in Aleppo, Syria, in 1853, Damascus again, in 1848 and 1890, Cairo in 1844 and 1901-2, and Alexandria in 1870 and 1881.

The blood libel played a decisive role in unsettling the lives of nineteenth-century Syrian Jews, and since then it has been repeatedly utilized in Arab anti-Jewish writings.

Palestine

Jews have lived continuously as a community in Palestine since approximately 1200 BCE. The only independent states ever to exist in Palestine have been Jewish. After the destruction of the second Jewish state in 70 CE and the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE, Jews always maintained a presence in Palestine, awaiting the reestablishment of the Jewish state. But these Jews often had to live under degrading conditions.

In nineteenth-century Palestine, which was under Ottoman Muslim rule, Jews had to walk past Muslims on their left, as the left is identified with Satan, and they always had to yield the right of way to a Muslim, by "stepping into the street and letting him pass." Failure to abide by these degrading customs often provoked a violent response.

In Palestine as elsewhere, Jews had to avoid anything that could remind Arabs of Judaism; therefore, synagogues could be located only in hidden, remote areas, and Jews could pray only in muted voices. In addition, despite the widespread poverty among Palestinian Jews, they had to pay a host of special protection taxes (in actuality, a form of extortion). For example, Jews paid one hundred pounds a year to the Muslim villagers of Siloam (just outside Jerusalem) not to disturb the graves at the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and fifty pounds a year to the Ta'amra Arabs not to deface the Tomb of Rachel on the road to Bethlehem. They also had to pay ten pounds annually to Sheik Abu Gosh to to molest Jewish travelers on the road to Jerusalem, even though the Turkish authorities were already paying him to maintain order on that road.

These anti-Jewish laws, taxes, and practices had a rather intimidating effect on the Jews. The British consul James Finn, who lived in Jerusalem in the 1850s, described in his book Stirring Times how "Arab merchants would dump their unsold wares on their Jewish neighbors and bill them, safe in the knowledge that the Jews so feared them that they would not dare return the items or deny their purchase."

Muslim antisemitism continued to be brutally expressed through the twentieth century. Albert Memmi, the noted French-Jewish novelist, who grew up in North Africa, cites a few examples:

"In Morocco in 1907, a huge massacre of Jews took place in Casablanca, along with the usual embellishments - rape, women carried away into the mountains, hundreds of homes and shops burned, etc....In 1912 a big massacre in Fez...In Algeria in 1934, massacre in Constantine, twenty-four people killed, dozens and dozens of others seriously wounded....In Aden in 1946...over one hundred people dead and seventy-six wounded, and two-thirds of the stores sacked and burned....In June, 1941, in Iraq, six hundred people killed, one thousand seriously wounded, looting, rapes, arson, one thousand houses destroyed, six hundred stores looted....[In Libya]: November 4th and 5th, 1945, massacre in Tripoli; November 6th and 7th in Zanzour, Zaouia, Foussaber, Ziltain, etc: girls and women raped in front of their families, the stomachs of pregnant women slashed open, the infants ripped out of them, children smashed with crowbars....All this can be found in the newspapers of the time, including the local Arab papers."

Memmi summarizes the Jewish status under Islam in the twentieth century: "Roughly speaking and in the best of cases, the Jew is protected like a dog which is part of man's property, but if he raises his head or acts like a man, then he must be beaten so that he will always remember his status."

It is the Jews' refusal to accept an unequal, inferior status that lies at the heart of the Arab-Muslim hatred for Israel. (It is this, not the Palestinian refugee issue, that has been the basis of Muslim antisemitism. Without minimizing the personal difficulties of the Palestinians, as Memmi notes [on page 35 of his book Jews and Arabs]: "The Palestinian Arabs' misfortune is having been moved about thirty miles within one vast Arab nation.") As Yehoshafat Harkabi, a leading scholar of the Arab world's attitude toward Israel, put it: "The existence of the Jews was not a provocation to Islam...as long as Jews were subordinate or degraded. But a Jewish state is incompatible with the view of Jews as humiliated or wretched." The call for a Palestinian Arab state in place of Israel is for a state in which once again 'Islam dominates and is not dominated."

This hatred of Jewish nationalism was so intense that during World War II, most Arab leaders were pro-Nazi. Among them was the head of the Muslims in Palestine, the mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini (who in 1929 had helped organize the large-scale murders of the ultra-Orthodox, non-Zionist Jews of Hebron).

An ardent supporter of Hitler, the mufti spent much of the war in Nazi Germany; on November 2, 1943, at a time when the Nazis were murdering thousands of Jews daily, the mufti declared in a speech: "The overwhelming egoism which lies in the character of Jews, their unworthy belief that they are God's chosen nation and their assertion that all was created for them and that other peoples are animals...[makes them] in capable of being trusted. They cannot mix with any other nation but live as parasites among the nations, suck out their blood, embezzle their property, corrupt their morals....The divine anger and curse that the Holy Koran mentions with reference to the Jews is because of this unique character of the Jews."

Though many Arab nations formally declared war against Germany in 1945, when German defeat was imminent, in order to be eligible for entry into the United Nations, extensive Arab sympathy with the Nazis continued even after Germany's surrender. The Egyptians and Syrians long welcomed Nazis to their countries, offering them the opportunity to further implement the "Final Solution," by assisting in their efforts to destroy Israel and wipe out the Jewish community living there.

Among many Arabs the Holocaust has come to be regarded with nostalgia. On August 17, 1956, the French newspaper Le Mongde quoted the government-controlled Damascus daily Al-Manar as observing, "One should not forget that, in contrast to Europe, Hitler occupied an honored place in the Arab world....[Journalists} are mistaken if they think that by calling Nasser Hitler, they are hurting us. On the contrary, his name makes us proud. Long live Hitler, the Nazi who struck at the heart of our enemies. Long live the Hitler [i.e., Nasser] of the Arab world."

On June 9, 1960, after Israeli agents captured Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official who had supervised the murder of six million Jews, the Beirut daily Al-Anwar carried a cartoon depicting Eichmann speaking with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Said Ben-Gurion: "You deserve the death penalty because you killed six million Jews." Responded Eichmann: "There are many who say I deserve the death penalty because I didn't manage to kill the rest."

On April 24, 1961, the Jordanian English-language daily Jerusalem Times published an "Open Letter to Eichmann," which concluded, "But be brave, Eichmann, find solace in the fact that this trial will one day culminate in the liquidation of the remaining six million to avenge your blood." At the UN sponsored "Conference Against Racism" in September 2001, an Arab pamphlet displayed at the Durban Exhibition Center featured a picture of Adolf Hitler with the caption, "If I had won the war there would be no...Palestinian blood lost."

Arab Jew-hatred also has brought about the resurrection of the blood libel. In 1962, the Egyptian Ministry of Education reissued Talmudic Sacrifices by Habib Faris, a book originally published in Cairo in 1890. The editor notes in his introduction that the book constitutes "an explicit documentation of indictment, based upon clear-cut evidence that the Jewish people permitted the shedding of blood as a religious duty enjoined in the Talmud."

On April 24, 1970, Fatah radio, under the leadership of Yasir Arafat, broadcast, "Reports from the captured homeland tell that the Zionist enemy has begun to kidnap small children from the streets. Afterwards the occupying forces take the blood of the children and throw away their empty bodies. The inhabitants of Gaza have seen this with their own eyes."

Even more disturbing, the blood libel accusations have been made by the most prominent figures within the Arab world. In November 1973, the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia said that it was necessary to understand the Jewish religious obligation to obtain non-Jewish blood in order to comprehend the crimes of Zionism. A decade later, in 1984, the Saudi Arabian delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission Conference on religious tolerance, Marouf al-Dawalibi, told the commission, "The Talmud says that if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, he will be damned for eternity." In The Matzah of Zion, a book that has remained in print since its publication in 1983, Mustafa Tlas, the Syrian Defense Minister since 1972, wrote, "The Jew can kill you and take your blood in order to make his Zionist bread." A 2000 article about Tlas's book in Al-Ahram, Egypt's largest, and government-controlled, newspaper, reported, "The Bestial drive to knead Passover matzahs with the blood of non-Jews is [confirmed] in the records of the Palestinian police where there are many recorded cases of the bodies of Arab children who had disappeared without being found, torn to pieces, without a single drop of blood. The most reasonable explanation is that the blood was taken to be used in matzahs to be devoured during Passover." As one American journalist commented: "If this is 'the most reasonable explanation," can you imagine an unreasonable one?" The Al-Ahram article went on to report that an Egyptian movie company is planning to shoot a multimillion dollar film version of The Matzah of Zion, which will retell, as truth, the story of the Damascus blood libel.

And still the blood libel goes on. A 2001 cartoon in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustour depicts an Israeli soldier presenting his mother with a Mother's Day gift of a bottle containing the blood of a Palestinian child. At about the same time (November 2001), Abu Dhabi Television depicted a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon preparing to drink a cup of blood taken from a Palestinian. A March 10, 2002, article in Saudi Arabia's Al-Riyadh, the government-controlled newspaper, by Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma of King Faisal University, creates a new twist to this ancient libel, claiming that Jews use blood for Purim pastry and not just for Passover matzo: "Let us now examine how the victims' blood is spilled. For this, a needle-studded barrel is used; this is a kind of barrel, about the size of the human body, with extremely sharp needles set in it on all sides. [These needles] pierce the victim's body, from the moment he is placed in the barrel. These needles do the job, and the victim's blood drips from him very slowly. Thus, the victim suffers dreadful torment - torment that affords the Jewish vampires great delight as they carefully monitor every detail of the blood-shedding with pleasure and love that are difficult to comprehend."

Arab Muslims have also reached back to classical themes of Islamic antisemitism to attack the Jews and Israel. Many Arab speakers and publications echo Muhammad's charge in the Koran (5:82) that the Jews are the greatest enemies of humankind. For example, an Egyptian textbook, published in 1966 for use in teachers' seminars, taught that Jews (not only Israelis) are the "monsters of mankind [and] a nation of beasts."

Perhaps the favorite antisemitic publication in the Arab world for over fifty years has been The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.. In an interview with the editor of the Indian magazine Blitz, on October 4, 1958, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt praised the Protocols: "I wonder if you have read a book called 'Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.' It is very important that you should read it. I will give you an English copy. It proves clearly, to quote from the Protocols, that 'three hundred Zionists, each of whom knows all the others, govern the fate of the European continents and they elect their successors from their entourage."

The late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia gave copies of the Protocols to the guests of his regime. When he presented the Protocols, along with an anthology of antisemitic writings, to French journalists who accompanied French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert on his visit to Saudi Arabia in January 1974, "Saudi officials noted that these were the king's favorite books."

Article 32 of the 1988 Palestinian Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) Covenant claims that the Zionist "scheme" foe takeover of the Arab world "has been laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there." Hamas literature repeatedly accuses Jews of controlling the world's wealth and its most important media, and using them to promote Jewish and Zionist interests, even of having established the League of Nations in the 1920s "in order to rule the world."

Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority (and therefore supposedly less extreme than Hamas), regularly contains references to the Protocols. Thus, even during the height of the Oslo peace process the paper published the following: "It is important to conduct the conflict according to the foundations which both are leaning on...particularly the Jews...such as the Torah, the Talmud, and the Protocols...This conflict resembles the conflict between men and Satan." At about the same time in Egypt, Al-Ahram, the country's largest newspaper, reported, "A compilation of the investigative' work of four reporters on Jewish control of the world states that Jews have become the political decision-makers and control the media in most capitals of the world (Washington, Paris, London, Berlin, Athens, Ankara)." As the journalist Andrew Sullivan comments, "It is worth noting that every word Al Ahram prints is vetted and approved by the Egyptian government, a regime to which the United States - i.e., you and I - contributed $2 billion a year."

It is perhaps no surprise that, as of 2002, over sixty editions of the Protocols are being sold throughout the Arab world, and this libelous "warrant for genocide" is probably more widely distributed today than at any other time in its history. In 2002, the New York Times, in a front-page story, reported that a major Egyptian television station was about to launch a forty-one-episode TV series based on the Protocols (complete with Jewish villains dressed in black hats, side curls, and beards) to run before and during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The Islamic world today has combined antisemitic motifs from Nazism and medieval Christendom, as well as from its own tradition. This potent combination has made the Arabs the major source of antisemitic publications in the world today. And as in other forms of antisemitism, in the words of Yehoshafat Harkabi, "the evil in the Jews is ascribed not to race or blood, but to their spiritual character and religion." Thus, when Pakistani Islamic terrorists kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in January 2002, they forced Pearl to say, "I am a Jew," (and videotaped him doing so) before slitting his throat.

Only through an understanding of the deep theological roots of Muslim antisemitism and an awareness of its continuous history can present-day Muslim hatred of Israel be understood. Only then does one recognize how false are the claims of Israel's enemies that prior to Zionism, Jews and Muslims lived in harmony and that neither Islam nor Muslims have ever harbored Jew-hatred. The creation of the Jewish state in no way created Muslim Jew-hatred; it merely intensified it and gave it a new focus.

So long as the Jews acknowledged their inferior status among Muslims, they were humiliated but allowed to exist. But once the Jews decided to reject their inferior status, to become sovereign after centuries of servitude, and worst of all, to now govern some Muslims in a land where the Jews had so long been governed, their existence was no longer tolerable. Hence the passionate Arab Muslim hatred of Israel and Zionism, a hatred that entirely transcends political antagonisms. Hence the widespread Muslim call not merely for a military defeat of Israel, but for its annihilation.

As so often in Jewish history, it is the Jewish nation's existence that arouses hatred and needs to be ended. Despite peace treaties between Israel and Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), for most Muslims the source of their hatred remains the Jewish sate's existence, not its policies, nor even its borders.

The Muslim and Arab claim that the issue is anti-Zionism rather than antisemitism really means that so long as the Jews adhere to their dhimmi status in Arab Muslim nations, their existence as individuals is acceptable. But for a Jew to aspire to equality among Muslims, for a Jew to aspire to a status higher than "humiliation and wretchedness," is to aspire too high."

- Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, chapter nine

#joseph telushkin #rabbit joseph telushkin #dennis prager #antisemitism #history #jewish history #jumblr #why the jews the reason for antisemitism

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todaysdocument · 1 year ago

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The Treaty of Paris, between the American colonies and Great Britain, ended the American Revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation. (Page 1 and signature page shown.) September 3, 1783.

Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government

Series: Perfected Treaties

Transcription:

Duplicate. Original Definitive Treaty

3 Sept. 1783

In the Name of the most Holy & undivided Trinity.

It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the Hearts of the most Serene and most Potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, Arch- Treasurer and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc.. and of the United States of America, to forget all past Misunderstandings and Differences that have unhappily interrupted the good Correspondence and Friendship which they mutually wish to restore; and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory Intercourse between the two countries upon the ground of reciprocal Advantages and mutual Convenience as may promote and secure to both perpetual Peace and Harmony;

[page 2]

without Difficulty and without requiring any Compensation.

Article 10th:

The solemn Ratifications of the present Treaty expedited in good & due Form shall be exchanged between the contracting Parties in the Space of Six Months or sooner if possible to be computed from the Day of the Signature of the present Treaty. In witness whereof we the undersigned their Ministers Plenipotentiary have in their Name and in Virtue of our Full Powers, signed with our Hands the present Definitive Treaty, and caused the Seals of our Arms to be affixed thereto.

Done at Paris, this third day of September in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three.

D HARTLEY (SEAL)

JOHN ADAMS (SEAL)

B FRANKLIN (SEAL)

JOHN JAY (SEAL)

#archivesgov #September 3 #1783 #1700s #American Revolution #Treaty of Paris #treaties #foreign policy #Great Britain

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myremnantarmy · 6 months ago

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𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟔, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Mt 28:16-20

The eleven disciples went to Galilee,

to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.

When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.

Then Jesus approached and said to them,

"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

#jesus #catholic #my remnant army #jesus christ #virgin mary #faithoverfear #saints #jesusisgod #endtimes #artwork #Jesus is coming #come holy spirit #Gospel #word of God #Bible #bible visuals #bible verse of the day #bible verse

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anastpaul · 5 months ago

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The Solemnity of Corpus Christi, The Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Dedication of the Church of MonteVergine, near Naples, Italy (1126) and the Saints for 30 May

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi, The Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ:Corpus ChristiThe Feast is liturgically celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sundayhttps://anastpaul.com/2022/06/16/the-festival-of-corpus-christi/ Dedication of the Church of MonteVergine, near Naples, Italy (1126) – 30…

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#bl elisabeth stagel #catholic #corpus christi #romancatholic

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scotianostra · 2 years ago

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On March 17th 458, Mo Padraigh (Saint Patrick), Patron Saint of Ireland died.

There is a theory that St Patrick was born around the Dumbarton area in about the year 372, other sources put him further south in what is now Cumbria, the truth is nobody knows for certain. What is known that The Islands as we know them now were in the main occupied by The Romans.

It is said his father, whose name was Calpurnius, was in a respectable station in life, being municipal magistrate in the town in which he lived. What town this was, however, is not certainly known, whether Kilpatrick, a small village on the Clyde, five miles east of Dumbarton, Duntochar, another small village about a mile north of Kilpatrick, or Dumbarton itself. But as I said these are only the ares quoted in what is now Scotland I wont go into the ones saying England.

His father is supposed, (for nearly all that is recorded of the holy man is conjectural, or at best but inferential,) to have come to Scotland in a civil capacity with the Roman troops, under Theodosius. His mother, whose name was Cenevessa, was sister or niece of St Martin, bishop of Tours; and from this circumstance, it is presumed that his family were Christians.

He was captured as a teenager by Niall of the Nine Hostages who was to become a King of all Ireland.

He was sold into slavery in Ireland and put to work as a shepherd. He worked in terrible conditions for six years drawing comfort in the Christian faith that so many of his people had abandoned under Roman rule.

Patrick had a dream that encouraged him to flee his captivity and to head South where a ship was to be waiting for him. He travelled over 200 miles from his Northern captivity to Wexford town where, sure enough, a ship was waiting to enable his escape.

Patrick's devotion to Ireland started with a dream which he wrote about as.....

"I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: 'The Voice of the Irish.' As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea-and they cried out, as with one voice: 'We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.'"

The vision prompted his studies for the priesthood. He was ordained by St. Germanus, the Bishop of Auxerre, whom he had studied under for years, and was later ordained a bishop and sent to take the Gospel to Ireland.

Patrick arrived in Slane, Ireland on March 25, 433. There are several legends about what happened next, with the most prominent claiming he met the chieftan of one of the druid tribes, who tried to kill him. After an intervention from God, Patrick was able to convert the chieftain and preach the Gospel throughout Ireland. There, he converted many people -eventually thousands - and he began building churches across the country.

He often used shamrocks to explain the Holy Trinity and entire kingdoms were eventually converted to Christianity after hearing Patrick's message.

Patrick preached and converted all of Ireland for 40 years. He worked many miracles and wrote of his love for God in Confessions. After years of living in poverty, travelling and enduring much suffering he died March 17, 461.

He died at Saul, where he had built the first Irish church. He is believed to be buried in Down Cathedral, Downpatrick. His grave was marked in 1990 with a granite stone.

Saint Patrick's Day is observed on 17th March, the supposed date of his death. It is celebrated inside and outside Ireland as a religious and cultural holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation; it is also a celebration of Ireland itself, although recent events have meant it will be more subdued than normal. I once read many years ago that there is more alcohol in the world sold on St Patrick's Day than any other day of the year, and I quite believe that, but again am not getting into an argument.

A wee but more about the Scottish thing here...https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/saint-patrick-born-scotland

#ireland #patron saint #irish #scottish?#religious history #religious figure #history

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orthodoxadventure · 1 year ago

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The Proclamation of the Holy Synod of Bishops on the Glorification of the Righteous Matushka Olga

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

To the beloved Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America

God is wondrous in His Saints

November 8, 2023 Chicago, IL

The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America has heard the petition of The Right Reverend ALEXEI, Bishop of Sitka and Alaska, expressed in his November 2, 2023 letter to His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, concerning the glorification of the Servant of God, the Righteous Matushka Olga.

In this letter, His Grace Bishop ALEXEI states: “I am writing to Your Beatitude with respect to the departed handmaiden of God and faithful Orthodox Christian, Matushka Olga Nicholai of Kwethluk, known by the pious peoples of the Kuskokwim as Arrsamquq. Her humility, her generosity, her piety, her patience, and her selfless love for God and neighbor were well-known in the Kuskokwim villages during her earthly life. Her care for comforting the suffering and the grieving has also been revealed after her life by grace-filled manifestations to the faithful throughout not only Alaska, but all of North America. The first peoples of Alaska are convinced of her sanctity and the great efficacy of her prayers. For this reason, after prayerful consideration, I, Alexei, Bishop of Sitka and Alaska, am hereby making the formal request to Your Beatitude as the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America to begin the process that, if it be in accord with God’s will, would lead to her glorification.”

The Holy Synod, having prayerfully reflected upon this petition and having observed and acknowledged the sincere devotion among the faithful of Alaska and beyond, has unanimously determined that the time for the glorification of Matushka Olga has arrived, fulfilling the hopes and prayers of pious Orthodox Christians throughout Alaska and the entire world.

THEREFORE, meeting in Solemn Assembly in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Chicago, Illinois, under the Presidency of The Most Blessed TIKHON, Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada, We, the Members of The Holy Synod of The Orthodox Church in America, do hereby decide and decree that the ever-memorable Servant of God MATUSHKA OLGA be numbered among the saints. With one mind and one heart, we also resolve that her honorable remains be considered as holy relics; that a special service be composed in her honor; that her feast be celebrated on November 10 (October 28, old style) on the Feast of All Saints of North America, the Second Sunday after Pentecost; that holy icons be prepared to honor the newly-glorified saint in accordance with the Canons of the Sacred Ecumenical and Regional Councils; that her life be published for the edification of the Faithful, that the name of the new saint be communicated to the Primates of all Sister Churches for inclusion in their calendars; and that the date and location of the Rite of Glorification be communicated to the Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of our Church in due time.

FURTHER, we entrust to the Canonization Commission of The Orthodox Church in America, under the Chairmanship of The Most Reverend DANIEL, Archbishop of Chicago and the Midwest, with the honorable task of assisting The Right Reverend ALEXEI, Bishop of Sitka and Alaska, in preparing for the celebration of the glorification by providing an authorized Life of Matushka Olga for the education and edification of the Faithful, with overseeing the painting of holy icons of her, in keeping with the canonical iconographical tradition of the Church, with the composition of liturgical texts to be sung at the Divine Services in which she will be commemorated, and with assisting in the uncovering and recognition of her holy relics, and in promoting her veneration among all the Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of our Church.

We call upon the faithful to remember Matushka Olga at Memorial Services or Litanies for the Departed when appropriate until the day of her glorification.

Through the prayers of Matushka Olga and of all the Saints who have shone forth in North America, may the Lord grant His mercies and blessings to all who seek her heavenly intercession with faith and love. Amen.

Holy Mother Olga, pray to God for us!

Given at Holy Trinity Cathedral, this 8th day of November, in the Year of Our Lord, 2023.

[source]

#Christianity #Orthodox Christianity #Blessed Mother Olga of Alaska #Saints #Canonisation

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inspiredbyjesuslove · 6 months ago

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#christianity #catholicism #catholic #faith #scripture #solemnity of the most holy trinity

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little-catholic-diva · 6 months ago

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#christianity #catholicism #catholic #faith #solemnity of the most holy trinity

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bylagunabay · 2 months ago

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Prophecy for the End Time

ANGELIC TRISAGION

The Angelic Trisagion is one of the most beautiful prayers in honor of the Most Holy Trinity and is one of the most ancient hymns in the Christian church. It is a garland of invocations and of praise taken from Holy Scripture and from the Liturgy, which opens the heart to adoration, thanksgiving and love for the Three Divine Persons. It is a solemn echo of the “Holy, Holy, Holy” which the angels and saints sing in heaven. It fills the universe and finds a joyful resonance in the heart of man: “one unceasing hymn of praise to the Holy Trinity.”

Prophecy:

Our Lord Jesus Christ and our Blessed Mother recommended the Holy Trisagion in many of their revelations to Luz de Maria de Bonilla so that humanity may find protection against the infernal powers, from unexpected death, lightning, earthquakes, plague, pestilence and tribulation.

Luz de María: “Jesus told me that humanity, when it has tribulations, may turn to the prayer of the Holy Rosary and to the prayer of the Holy Trisagion" (18 March 2018).

Mary to Luz de María: "The earth will tremble! I call you not to forget that where a soul devout to the most Holy Trinity prays the Holy Trisagion, lessening of the scourges will be granted" (29 September 2010).

Jesus to Luz de María: “The water continues to lash the whole Earth unexpectedly, the winds are stronger, volcanoes are activated, and the earth shakes strongly. The signs overhead do not stop and still you do not believe. The moon looks slightly darkened, a harbinger of darkness coming to human creatures. In October you will see the ring of fire and earth trembles. (16 September 2024)

Note: You have the option to pray the English or Latin version of the Trisagion.

#catholic church #catholic #orthodox #christianity #prophecy #end times #prayers #trisagion

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presentingavamaria · 5 months ago

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Helpful Prayers <3

***REMEMBER TO SIGN OF THE CROSS*** IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, OF THE SON & OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. AMEN. ****touch forehead (FATHER), center of chest (SON), left side of chest, then right side of chest (HOLY SPIRIT).

To cast out demons: (3) Recite "I command every evil spirit in my presence, to leave & enter into perdition at once, in JESUS' NAME. Amen." (Espionage, Hated, jezebel, mystery, devils …are common demonic entities, which you can decide to name.) (3) Prayers to St. Joseph, Terror of Demons. "Saint Joseph, Terror of Demons, cast your solemn gaze upon the devil and all his minions, and protect us with your mighty staff. You fled through the night to avoid the devil’s wicked designs; now with the power of God, smite the demons as they flee from you! Grant special protection, we pray, for children, fathers, families, and the dying. By God’s grace, no demon dares approach while you are near, so we beg of you, always be near to us! [In JESUS' NAME,] Amen." (3) OUR FATHER "Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, On earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen." (3) HAIL MARYS "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen." (3) GLORY BE (optional)"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." (3) ANGEL OF GOD (optional) "Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen." (3) ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL "St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."

Against Attacks on Breathing & other vexations: (10) OUR FATHER, (then mention intention). "Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, On earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen."

For the Unsaved People: (10) Fatima's Prayers (per person, daily, then mention intention). "O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy. Amen."

Armor of GOD, for preparedness in spiritual warfare: (1)Recite: "I offer this prayer to equip us with The Armor of GOD. That we may stand fast with The Truth girded about our loins, That we are equipped with the Breastplate of righteousness, That our feet be shod in readiness for THE GOSPEL OF PEACE, That we bear our Shield of Faith, to quench the flaming arrows of the devil, That we take The Helmet of Salvation, & wield THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT, that is, THE WORD OF GOD.

So we may all, with prayer & supplication, pray at every opportunity in THE SPIRIT, & be watchful for The Holy Ones, as taught unto us by St. Paul. IN JESUS' NAME, Amen."

(1) ST. PATRICK'S BREASTPLATE (optional) "I bind unto myself today The strong name of the Trinity: By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three. I bind this day to me for ever By power of faith, Christ's incarnation: His baptism in the Jordan river, His death on the Cross for my salvation; His bursting from the spiced tomb, His riding up the heavenly way, His coming at the day of doom I bind unto myself today! I bind unto myself today The power of God to hold and lead: His eye to watch, his might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need; The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, his shield to ward; The Word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard! I bind unto myself today The power of the great cherubim, The sweet "well done" in judgment hour, The service of the seraphim; Confessors' faith, apostles' word, Patriarchs' prayers, the prophets' scrolls; All good deeds done unto the Lord, And purity of virgin souls. I bind unto myself today The virtues of the starlit heaven, The glorious sun's life-giving ray; The whiteness of the moon at even, The flashing of the lightning free, The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks, The stable earth, the deep salt sea around the old eternal rocks. Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. I bind unto myself today, The strong name of the Trinity: By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three, Of Whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word: Praise to the Lord of my salvation -- Salvation is of Christ the Lord! [In JESUS NAME,] Amen. (1) LITANY OF HUMILITY (optional) O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, O Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be praised and I go unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

For Emergencies: (10) Memorare Prayers (then mention intention) "Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother. To thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen."

OR (10) ANGEL OF GOD Prayers (then mention intention). "Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen."

Novena to OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP: Oh Mother of Perpetual Help, grant that I may ever invoke your powerful name, the protection of the living and the salvation of the dying. Purest Mary, let your name henceforth be ever on my lips. Delay not, Blessed Lady, to rescue me whenever I call on you. In my temptations, in my needs, I will never cease to call on you, ever repeating your sacred name, Mary, Mary. What a consolation, what sweetness, what confidence fills my soul when I utter your sacred name or even only think of you! I thank the Lord for having given you so sweet, so powerful, so lovely a name. But I will not be content with merely uttering your name. Let my love for you prompt me ever to hail you Mother of Perpetual Help. Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for me and grant me the favor I confidently ask of you. (mention intention). (3) HAIL MARY "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Against distractions & loss of focus: Read two chapters of THE BIBLE everyday! :) Look to the things of HEAVEN.

Hope it helps! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 6 months ago

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26th May >> Fr. Martin's Homilies / Reflections on Today's Mass Readings (Inc. Matthew 28:16-20) for The Solemnity of The Most Holy Trinity: ‘Go, make disciples of all nations’.

The Solemnity of The Most Holy Trinity

Gospel (Except USA)

Matthew 28:16-20

Go and make disciples of all nations.

The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.’

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 28:16–20

Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

Reflections (7)

(i) Most Holy Trinity

When the children among us began their instruction in the faith, one of the first things they learnt is how to bless themselves. At this early stage, they often make the sign of the cross very carefully and deliberately. Without their realizing it, they are expressing their faith in the Trinity. It is good that we learn to make the sign of the cross so early in life, because we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The mission the risen Lord gives to his disciples in today’s gospel reading, is, ‘Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you’. Whenever we make the sign of the cross, we are being reminded of our baptism. It can be a moment when we renew our baptism, our commitment to being the Lord’s disciples in the world today.

According to today’s first reading, ‘The Lord is God indeed… he and no other’. In other words, there is one God, not many gods. God is one. This was a core belief of the Jewish religion, a belief that Jesus, a Jew, shared. Yet, Jesus went on to reveal to us that if God is one, God is one community. God is not solitary. Jesus has shown us that within God there are loving relationships. The Father and the Son love one another with an infinite love and the fruit of their love is the Holy Spirit. Those loving relationships within God are so perfect that God remains one, not many. There is one communal life of love at the heart of God. The simplest statement about God in the New Testament is to be found in the first letter of Saint John, ‘God is love’. When we speak of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are spelling out that simple statement, ‘God is love’.

When you think of some truly loving people that you know, they always reach out towards others; they give of themselves to others; they help to draw people together. There is nothing closed about genuine human love. This is supremely true of God who is Love. If God is a community of love, it is not a closed community. God is always at work to draw us all into this community of the Father, Son and Spirit. We are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words, we are baptized into the community of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One writer spoke about the dance of love within God and of how God invites us all to be part of this dance.

God the Father created us in love and awaits us with the heart of a loving Father at the end of our life journey. It was out of love for us that God sent his Son into the world. In the words of John’s gospel, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’. Jesus is God the Father’s greatest gift of love to us. It was a costly gift, because the world put his Son to death. Jesus showed us what God the Father is like; he is like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, who loved his rebellious son unconditionally, whose love brought his son from death to life. Jesus showed us that God is Love not only by what he said but above all by all that he did. His act of bending down to wash the feet of his disciples at the last supper summed up his whole life, which was a life of self-emptying service of all, especially the broken in body, mind and spirit. The love within God burst forth upon the world through Jesus, through his life, death and resurrection.

Just as God sent his Son out of love for the world, God the Father and God the Son sent the Holy Spirit out of love for the world. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of their love. It is through the Holy Spirit that the love within God enters into the depths of our hearts. In that sense, the Holy Spirit draws us up into the life of the Trinity, the life of love within God. This is what Paul is saying to us in today’s second reading. He declares there that the Spirit we have received makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ inspiring us to address God the Father in the same intimate way that Jesus addressed him. In other words, through the Holy Spirit we come to share in Jesus’ own relationship with God, becoming sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus. We don’t always appreciate this wonderful privilege; we doubt it could include us. It is said in the gospel reading that when the disciples saw the risen Lord, ‘they fell down before him, though some hesitated’. We hesitate before all that God wants to give us. Yet, if we can fall down before all God’s love is offering us, God will work through us to make disciples of others, in the words of today’s gospel reading,

And/Or

(ii) The Most Holy Trinity

The French philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, once wrote, ‘Hell is other people’. There are times in our lives when we might find it easy to sympathize with that sentiment. If we have had a very negative experience of other people over a period of time, we can long to be on our own, away from the troubles that others seem to bring us. We can begin to think of heaven as a state of glorious isolation. Yet, even the greatest loners among us long for human company and human companionship, from time to time. At some deep level we sense that we are only complete when we are in relationship with others. In the context of a prison, solitary confinement is a very cruel form of punishment. It is the frustration of a very deep need in all of us to be present to others and to have others present to us. We all long for some form of communion with others. If we were to call to mind the happiest moments of our lives, we would probably discover that they involved some element of communion or community, some experience of relationship. Even in our age of great individualism, we know instinctively that no one is an island.

Today’s feast of the Trinity reminds us that what is true of ourselves is even truer of God. At the very heart of God’s own life is a community, what we call a communion of persons, a set of relationships. In the gospel reading this morning, the risen Jesus makes reference to the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Within God there is a relationship of profound love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Those relationships of love within God became visible to us all with the coming of Jesus into the world. In particular, the death of Jesus on the cross reveals the love that the Son has for the Father. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead reveals the love that the Father has for the Son. The fruit of that love of the Son for the Father and of the Father for the Son was Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the church, upon each of us. The love that is within God could not be contained within God, but was poured out upon us through the sending of the Holy Spirit, so as to draw us into that life of love that is God. In that sense, the community that is within God is not a closed community. Rather, it is a community to which we are all invited to belong. We are not only invited to belong there, we are drawn there by God. Jesus draws us to the Father. The Holy Spirit draws us, leads us, to the Son, reminding us of all that Jesus said to us. St. Paul, in today’s second reading, tells us that the Holy Spirit, in leading us to Jesus, thereby enables us to have the same relationship with God the Father that Jesus has, moving us to cry out ‘Abba, Father’, as Jesus himself does.

If God is a communion of love, a community of love, and we are made in the image of God, then our task, our calling, is to create communities of love, communities that somehow reflect the community of love that is God. The first community of love that we experience is our family. We are born into a family. None of us have perfect families. We will always struggle with our families in one way or another. Yet, the family has the potential to be a communion of love that reflects and gives expression to something of that love that is within God. Beyond the family, the church is called to be a community of love. Jesus, on the night before he died, said to his disciples, ‘As the Father has loved me, I have loved you… Love one another as I have loved you’. Jesus wanted the church to be a loving community that was a reflection of the loving community that is God. We know that the church, the gathering of Jesus’ disciples, has frequently fallen short of this vision of Jesus. Yet, the Holy Spirit reminds us of what Jesus said to us, keeps on reminding us of what we are called to be as church. With the Spirit’s help we need to keep on trying to live that calling. The parish is the local church, and every parish is called to be a reflection of the loving communion that is God, that is within God.

If we look around us we will find examples of communities of love that are not specifically church related. We will soon host the Special Olympics. It is a great privilege for our country to do so. They would not be happening without the presence over time of various communities of love that sustained the vision of the Special Olympics and that have helped to make that vision a concrete reality in our land today. Many other similar life-giving communities could be identified in our midst. There are a whole range of support groups for various categories of people. Whenever we act to make such communities possible we are acting in a Trinitarian way, even if we have no awareness of the Trinity when we are doing it. Every time we bring people together in ways that affirm them and build them up, we are living in the spirit of the Trinity. That is the call and the challenge of today’s feast. Although the feast of the Trinity might initially seem remote from us, it is, in reality, a very down to earth feast, because it reminds us of what we need to be about in our day to day lives.

And/Or

(iii) Most Holy Trinity

It is probably true to say that most of us know only a few people really well. A husband and wife may know more or less all that there is to know about each other; the same could be said of two people who have been very close friends for many years. Yet, even those who spend a lot of time in each other’s company do not necessarily know each other deeply. Parents do not always know their children in this deep sense and vice versa. In particular, I suspect there are many sons who feel that they never really got to know their father and many fathers who never really manage to understand their sons. We are complex and mysterious beings, all of us. Not only are we complex but most of us do not find it easy to reveal ourselves to someone. It is not surprising that it is difficult to really understand each other.

If we struggle to grasp each other, what chance do we have of grasping God? God is infinitely more mysterious than any human being. The earliest and, perhaps, the greatest theologian of the church writes in his most profound letter, his letter to the Romans, ‘O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!’ Paul was acknowledging there that God is different to us; God is, in a sense, beyond us. When it comes to speaking about God, human language is totally inadequate. Yet, although in one sense we cannot talk about God, in another sense we have to talk about God, while acknowledging that our talking about God never does justice to God. There is more to God that we can ever hope to put into words. At the same time, words are all we have.

Today’s feast is the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. Those words, ‘Most Holy Trinity’ are an effort to express an important truth about who God is. As Christians we believe that, although God is mysterious, Jesus is the fullest revelation of God possible in human form. In so far as God can be revealed at all in human form, Jesus is that self-revelation of God. If Jesus had not lived we would never come to think of God as Trinity. Those who do not recognize Jesus as the fullest revelation of God possible in human form do not believe that God is Trinity – Muslims for example.

The Jews had a very strong conviction about the oneness of God; there is one God and no other. We find that expressed in today’s first reading, ‘The Lord is God indeed, he and no other’. The first Christians, who were Jews, shared that conviction. However, because of all that Jesus said and did, they came to recognize that within this oneness of God, there was a wonderful diversity. In other words, they understood that if God is one, he is one community. God’s life is a communal life; within God there is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who relate to each other in love. The church eventually came to speak of God as a Trinity of persons.

This is a very rich understanding of God and it is one that distinguishes Christianity from all other world religions. It has important implications for what human life is about. If in some way we are made in the image of God and if the life of God is a relational life of profound love, then our calling as human beings is to form loving relationships with others, to build community wherever we happen to find ourselves. We are most God-like when we are in loving relationships with others, when we love others as God the Father loves Jesus and as Jesus has loved us, when our love for each other is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Such loving and life-giving relationships are, therefore, a wonderful blessing; we are at our best when we are in them; they bring the best out in us.

Our calling is not only to build communities that reflect the community that is God. There is another dimension to our calling which is even more fundamental. We are invited into the communal life that is God; God draws us into God’s own life. At the very beginning of our Christian life, we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; we are baptized into the life of the Trinity. St. Paul makes that clear in today’s second reading. Through baptism we receive the Holy Spirit who makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father’. Through the Holy Spirit, God the Father unites us to God the Son, enables us to relate to God the Father as Jesus does, inspiring us to cry out ‘Abba, Father’, as Jesus does. It is extraordinary to think that we are invited to have the same relationship with God the Father that Jesus has and that the Holy Spirit makes this possible. Even though God is very different from us, we are called into a very intimate relationship with God, Father, Son and Spirit.

It is in allowing ourselves to be drawn into the communal life of God in this way that we in turn will be enabled to build communities that reflect the life of God. In that sense, there is a two fold movement in our lives as Christians which is ongoing throughout our lives. We are continually drawn into the life of God and continually sent forth to form relationships that give expression to the relational life of God.

And/Or

(iv) Feast of the Most Holy Trinity

As you probably know, All Hallows College in Drumcondra was founded at the end of the 19th century for the training of Diocesan priests to work on the missions. Over the door of the original building, what is called the Mansion House, you will still find engraved a quotation from this morning’s gospel reading, ‘Go, make disciples of all nations’. Those words of Jesus at the end of Matthew’s gospel have been the inspiration for much of the church’s missionary work throughout the centuries. They express the Lord’s desire that peoples of all nations would be given the opportunity of hearing the gospel and of becoming his disciples.

The sequence of the risen Lord’s parting words to his disciples in this morning’s gospel reading is significant: make disciples, baptize them and teach them. The first activity is to make disciples by preaching the good news of God’s great love for us in Christ. The second activity is baptizing those who receive the good news and want to live by it. The third activity is teaching. Those who are baptized will need further instruction, beyond the basic presentation of the gospel. For most members of the church, in this part of the world, those three activities tend to come in a slightly different order. The activity of baptism comes first, because most people are baptized as infants. Hopefully, the activity of making disciples comes second. The children who are baptized have to be helped to hear the gospel, so that they can respond to it with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. They need to hear the good news that God so loved us that he sent his only Son to us as our way, our truth and our life, and that God and his Son so loved us that together they sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Hopefully they will be hearing and responding to this good news in their early years, at home and in primary school. Having heard the gospel and been touched by it, there comes a time when more in-depth teaching is called for, as the children get older and enter into adolescence and young adulthood. At that point they will have all kinds of questions about the gospel which need answering. Those who teach in secondary school will be very aware of that. Such questioning is often a sign of wanting to explore more fully the depths of the great mystery of God’s dealings with us and our dealings with God. When some of those questions begin to get answered, new questions can emerge. In fact, the questioning phase of our faith journey lasts until we see God face to face beyond this life. What the first reading calls ‘the living God’ is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be explored; such exploration is a life-time’s work. God is always greater than our feeble attempts to understand God. In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul exclaims, ‘O the depths of the riches and wisdom and understanding of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable are his ways!’

Yet, although God’s judgements may be unsearchable and God’s ways may be inscrutable, we have to search and to scrutinize. It is in our nature – our God-given nature – to do so. The term ‘Most Holy Trinity’, which Christians have given go God since the early centuries of the church, is one attempt to name the inscrutable, to grasp the unsearchable. Christianity emerged from Judaism, and the core belief of Judaism is ‘God is one’. We find that core belief expressed clearly in today’s first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, ‘The Lord is God indeed… he and no other’. That remained the core belief of the early church, and remains the core belief of the church today, ‘God is one and there is no other’. Yet, from the very beginning, those who recognized Jesus as the unique revelation of God began to realize that more needed to be said about God than ‘God is one’. They began to appreciate that the inner life of this one God was much richer than they had ever imagined. The inner life of God was a relational life, a communal life, a life of love, embracing Father, Son and Spirit. The classical formulation of that insight came in the fourth century: God is one, but within that unity there is a trinity of persons. Jesus by his life, death and resurrection, has shown us that God’s inner life is richer than anyone could have suspected, which means that our relationship with God can be richer than anyone might have thought. We are baptized in the name of the Trinity, and baptism calls on us to relate to God as Trinity - as Creator, as Saviour, as Sanctifier. Much of the public prayer of the Church is addressed to God the Father, through God the Son, in the Holy Spirit. The shape of such prayer is also the shape of our Christian lives. We are journeying towards God the Father, through Christ, who is our way, and in the Spirit, whose power at work within us leads us to Christ and, through him, to the Father. The teaching of the Trinity not only makes a statement about how God relates to us but also about how we relate to God.

And/Or

(v) Feast of the Most Holy Trinity

I once received a gift of a small ikon of the Trinity by the Russian iconographer Rublev. The original is dated to around the year 1410. It is currently in a gallery in Moscow. It is inspired by chapter 18 of the Book of Genesis where Abraham and Sarah show hospitality to three strangers who turn out to be three heavenly visitors. If an artist was asked to depict an image of the Trinity I think he or she would be hard pressed to do so. How do you depict something as mysterious as the Trinity? Every image will stumble when it comes to such a mysterious reality. Yet the church has recognized in this icon a very powerful image that communicates something of the meaning of the feast which we celebrate today.

There are three figures at a table, one at either side and one in the centre. The faces of the three figures are identical; the figures seem to be of indeterminate gender; each of the figures has some blue clothing, blue being the colour of the heavens, the symbol of divinity. Yet, each also wears something that speaks of that figure’s own identity. The figure on the right is the Spirit, the outer green garment suggesting new life. The incline of his head draws us towards the figure in the centre representing the Son. The inner brown garment of this figure speaks of the earth, his humanity; the outer blue garment suggests his divinity. The incline of this figure’s head draws us towards the figure on the left. This represents the Father. This figure seems at rest within itself. Its blue garment is almost hidden by a shimmering ethereal robe. At the centre of the table is a cup, suggesting the Eucharist. The figures can be enclosed within a circle, but it is not a close circle. It is an open circle. The place opposite the Son in the centre is empty. That is where the viewer sits or stands. We find ourselves drawn into this circle of love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is a wonderful hospitality about the image; these three serene figures seem to call us to be part of their life of love. It is as if the symbolism of the icon is designed to take the viewer into the mystery of the Trinity. The icon is about hospitality, welcoming, and drawing all into sharing at the table. It is about the company much more than about what is eaten.

It is said that a picture can convey a 1,000 words. When it comes to God, especially the mystery of God we call Trinity, words fail us. We can sense the poverty of our language when we are trying to express the inexpressible. The image, the icon, can speak to us at a level that words do not reach. In a sense, the most appropriate response to this icon of the Trinity is not so much analysis, but contemplation, a silent gazing on the image, a kind of surrender to all that it seems to be communicating. Yet, even though words are inadequate when it comes to God, and in particular to the Trinity, we need to use words in our struggle to understand God, before whom we have to exclaim with Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans, ‘O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!’ What the teaching of the Trinity seeks to convey, and what Rublev’s icon expresses so powerfully, is that the life of God is essentially a communal life. God is one and there is no other, as the Jewish tradition has always insisted upon, which is the message of our first reading. God is also community, a communion of love between three persons, which is the distinctive Christian revelation about God. One of the simplest and yet most profound statements about God in the New Testament is to be found in the first letter of Saint John, ‘God is love’. To say that God is Trinity is to develop that understanding of God as Love. The Trinity is a celebration of the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for each other; they are so closely bonded to each other that they are perfectly one, while remaining distinct persons.

God relates to us as Father, Son and Spirit and we are drawn into a relationship with God the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. The Son leads us to the Father; the Son is the way to the Father. The Spirit leads us to the Son; the Spirit reminds us of all Jesus said to us. We need the Holy Spirit if we are to come to Jesus and we need Jesus if we are to come to the Father. As Paul says in our second reading, the Spirit makes us coheirs with Christ, brothers and sisters of Christ and empowers us to cry out with Christ, ‘Abba Father’. There is a great richness in that understanding of how God relates to us and we relate to God. This feast also reminds us that we are drawn into the life of the Trinity, into their communion of love, so that we can be empowered to recreate that life, that community of love, in our world, in our parishes, in our families.

And/Or

(vi) The Most Holy Trinity

I never studied mathematics beyond secondary school and, so, I am only familiar with what would probably be considered basic mathematics. I have always associated certainty with mathematics. It is absolutely certain that twelve and twelve are twenty-four. We often use the term ‘mathematical certainty’. That level of certainty has never been associated with the life of faith. All genuine faith has an element of doubt in it, because the God in whom we believe is too mysterious to be fully grasped by faith. When the church came to speak of God as Trinity in the early centuries of its existence, it was an attempt to unveil something of the mystery of God. In keeping with its Jewish roots, the early church affirmed that God was one and there was no other, but they also came to understand that the life of this one God was a communion of love between three persons, Father, Son and Spirit. Yet, the early church recognized that even this insight into God as a Trinity of persons, as a loving communion, was only a partial insight. Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians declared, ‘now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known’. He affirms that in this earthly life our insight into the mystery of God will always be partial. We are always on a journey towards knowing God more fully; only in eternity will we know God as God knows us. It has been said that doubt is essential to adult faith because it keeps us open to truth. It keeps us seeking after God who is Truth and who is always beyond us.

I have often been struck by the description of the disciples in today’s gospel reading, which is the concluding scene of Matthew’s gospel. It is said there that when the disciples saw the risen Lord on a mountain in Galilee, ‘they fell down before him, though some hesitated’. Another translation puts it, ‘they worshipped him, but some doubted’. Here we have this group of the original disciples characterized by a mixture of worship and hesitation, reverence and indecision, faith and doubt. They are, in a way, the beginnings of the church. The evangelist may be suggesting to us that it is in the nature of the church to have this mixture of faith and doubt, of adoration and hesitation. The presence of hesitation, indecision, doubt, in our faith does not invalidate it in any way. This is one of the differences between a church and a cult. Members of a cult can have a terrifying certainty about them. That can even be true of some expressions of the mainstream religions. In the gospel reading, it is to that group of disciples characterized by a mixture of faith and doubt that the risen Lord entrusts a most extraordinary mission. This group were to go out and to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that Jesus had commanded. They weren’t just to go to the neighbouring Galilean villages; they were to go to all the nations. Their mission had three essential and distinct elements to it. They were to make disciples of others, by preaching the gospel to them, the good news of God’s love for us in Jesus. Secondly, those who responded to their preaching of the gospel they were to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; they were to baptized them into the very life of God as Father, Son and Spirit. Thirdly, those whom they baptized, they were to teach, instructing them in all that Jesus had taught during his ministry. It is quite a commission that the risen Lord gives to his faithful yet hesitant followers.

All of us here can be thought of as the fruit of that commission of the risen Lord to these disciples. We have all been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Hopefully, we have had the gospel of God’s love preached to us and responded to it in faith. Hopefully also, we have received some teaching regarding what we believe, because our faith has a content. The core of that content is to be found in the Creed we recite every Sunday, the shape of which is Trinitarian. We believe in God our Father, the origin and the goal of our lives, who has created us all out of love and who awaits us all with the loving heart of a Father. We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s greatest gift to humanity, who has shown us who God is like and who has also revealed to us God’s vision for our lives. We believe in the Holy Spirit, who comes from God the Father and from Jesus his Son, and who is God’s presence in the depths of each one of us, working to bring to pass God’s vision for our lives. What is God’s vision for our lives? It is that we reflect in the way we treat each other something of that communion of love which is God. We are to relate to all human life with the same life-giving love which is at the heart of God.

And/Or

(vii) Most Holy Trinity

Long before we were taught the traditional prayers of the Our Father and the Holy Mary, we were probably taught to bless ourselves in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We were introduced to God as Trinity at a very young age. When I go into the junior classes in the local primary school, they may not have been taught the Our Father or the Hail Mary yet, but they all know how to bless themselves. There is something appropriate about learning to bless ourselves so early in life, because as babies we were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in response to the instruction of Jesus to his disciples in today’s gospel reading. Making the sign of the cross over ourselves while expressing our faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a very ancient custom in the church. It was a form of mutual recognition among Christians in the early centuries when Christians had to keep a low profile or risk persecution and death. It remains a form of mutual recognition among Christians today. When you see someone bless themselves, you recognize them as people of Christian faith. It is a very public act and it can be a very powerful and courageous, statement of faith in these days when the public expression of faith is often frowned upon.

Whenever we bless ourselves, we are expressing our faith in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is a Trinitarian shape to our faith. Jesus was a Jew, and at the core of the Jewish faith is the conviction that there is only one God. There aren’t many gods, as other nations believed. That fundamental conviction of the Jewish faith is expressed in our first reading, ‘the Lord is God indeed, in heaven above as on earth beneath, he and no other’. As a Jew, Jesus shared this fundamental conviction. Yet, Jesus revealed that within the life of this one God was a set of loving relationships. Jesus revealed the life of God to be a life of love, and there is always a relational or communal dimension to love. God is a community of love. Jesus spoke of God as Abba, Father. He had a uniquely intimate relationship with God, as Son to Father. Jesus also spoke a great deal about the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit belonged to God in a unique way, but Jesus showed that he himself also had a unique relationship with the Holy Spirit. He was full of the Holy Spirit in a way that no one else was. Jesus showed us that the life of the one God had a wonderful relational quality. The church came to express this communal quality of the life of God by expressing its faith in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God as Father is the origin of our lives, our Creator and also the goal of our lives, towards whom we are journeying. Jesus, the unique Son of God, is the greatest gift that God has given to the world. When we look upon Jesus, we are looking upon God, such is the intimacy of their relationship. He is God-with-us and he is the way to God the Father. The Holy Spirit is the shared gift of God the Father and his Son to us. It is through the Holy Spirit that God the Father and Jesus come to live in the depths of each one of us. The Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son, and it is through the Holy Spirit that the love of the Father and the Son enters our lives and makes us loving persons. Just twenty five years or so after the death and resurrection of Jesus Paul could conclude his second letter to the church in Corinth with the blessing, ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all’. The love of God the Father was expressed in the grace or the gift of Jesus to us; that love is poured into our lives through the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Holy Spirit is communion, loving relationships between us all. The role of the Holy Spirit is to enable us to live lives that reflect the community of love that is God.

People often ask, ��Who am I to pray to? God the Father, God the Son or the Holy Spirit?’ We can pray to all three and how we pray depends on our needs and circumstances of the time. If we find ourselves experiencing a deep sense of gratitude for the wonders of creation, we might give thanks and praise to God the Father and Creator. If we find ourselves struggling with suffering or sin in our lives, we might find ourselves turning to Jesus who heals our wounds and pours out God’s merciful love upon us. If we need encouragement or enlightenment in our day to day lives we might pray to the Holy Spirit. The understanding of God as Trinity not only speaks of the richness of God’s way of relating to us but also of the rich diversity in how we can relate to God.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

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ongolecharles · 6 months ago

Text

DAILY SCRIPTURE READINGS (DSR) 📚 Group, Sun May 26th, 2024 ... The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Year B

Reading 1

____________

Dt 4:32-34, 39-40

Moses said to the people:

"Ask now of the days of old, before your time,

ever since God created man upon the earth;

ask from one end of the sky to the other:

Did anything so great ever happen before?

Was it ever heard of?

Did a people ever hear the voice of God

speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?

Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself

from the midst of another nation,

by testings, by signs and wonders, by war,

with strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors,

all of which the LORD, your God,

did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

This is why you must now know,

and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God

in the heavens above and on earth below,

and that there is no other.

You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today,

that you and your children after you may prosper,

and that you may have long life on the land

which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever."

Responsorial Psalm

______________

Ps 33:4-5, 6, 9, 18-19, 20, 22

R. (12b) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

Upright is the word of the LORD,

and all his works are trustworthy.

He loves justice and right;

of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made;

by the breath of his mouth all their host.

For he spoke, and it was made;

he commanded, and it stood forth.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,

upon those who hope for his kindness,

To deliver them from death

and preserve them in spite of famine.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

Our soul waits for the LORD,

who is our help and our shield.

May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us

who have put our hope in you.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

Reading 2

_________

Rom 8:14-17

Brothers and sisters:

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,

but you received a Spirit of adoption,

through whom we cry, "Abba, Father!"

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit

that we are children of God,

and if children, then heirs,

heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,

if only we suffer with him

so that we may also be glorified with him.

Alleluia

______

Rv 1:8

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;

to God who is, who was, and who is to come.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

________

Mt 28:16-20

The eleven disciples went to Galilee,

to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.

When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.

Then Jesus approached and said to them,

"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

***

FOCUS AND LITURGY OF THE WORD

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God ….

A well-written biography fascinates. The narrative of a subject’s life—the events surrounding the person, as well as the choices which the person makes amidst those events—captures the imagination. The individual person’s choices are windows into the person’s inner life: the person’s mind, heart and soul.

Something similar is true regarding the Most Blessed Trinity. Theologians describe the Trinity by means of two different terms. One is called the “economic Trinity”. The word “economic” refers in this case not to money, but to works performed, as in the phrase “home economics”. So the “economic Trinity” is the Blessed Trinity described in terms of works performed “outside” the Trinity.

In other words, the “economy” of the Trinity is those works that the Trinity never had to carry out, but nevertheless freely chose to carry out. The Trinity carried out these works simply out of love. These works chiefly fall into two groups: creation and salvation. The work of creation concerns every created thing in the universe, visible and invisible. The work of salvation solely concerns mankind, and includes man’s redemption and sanctification.

The Trinity’s works of creation and salvation serve as windows into the inner life of the Trinity. This inner life is called the “immanent Trinity”. This inner life of God is the very essence of the Trinity. While the works of the “economic Trinity” are “exterior” to God, and therefore never had to be carried out, the “immanent Trinity” is God’s essential Being throughout eternity: as He was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

On this Sunday’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we can reflect on God’s works of creation and salvation as a way of peering into His inner life. It’s fitting that the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity on the Sunday after Pentecost. The two solemnities stand in a certain contrast to other. Pentecost celebrates the culmination of the Trinity’s “economy of salvation”, while the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity peers into the inner life of the “immanent Trinity”. Consider further the connection between the “economic Trinity” and the “immanent Trinity”, and how the former illuminates the latter.

The beauty of creation inspires poets and mountain climbers, biologists and physicists to see the works of creation in a transcendent way. In other words, the beauty of the works of creation points our attention to “where” they came from. For believers, this reflective act of transcendence leads beyond those particular works, and also beyond the “how” of creation, all the way back to God Himself.

Chief among the visible works of God’s creation is the human being. It’s little wonder that first-time parents draw closer to God as they stand in awe of the innocence, beauty, and dignity of a single, tiny human life. Throughout the Church’s history, the greatest teachers of the Catholic Faith have reflected on how man—male and female—is created in the image of God. This image is seen especially in how man’s intellect and will operate. Although every animal has an intellect and a will, allowing it to reason and make choices, the human intellect and will are different because they are capable of self-transcendence. The human intellect can map the cosmos and the human will can construct an edifice to last a millennium.

Yet while the works of creation reveal God’s inner life in a myriad of ways, the Trinity’s work of salvation does so even more powerfully. In the order of salvation history, this work includes both redemption and sanctification.

In the fullness of time God revealed Himself as a Trinity of Persons when He established His new and everlasting Covenant through the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. In this singular act of self-sacrifice—which Jesus offered fully through His human intellect and will, which is to say, knowingly and freely—Jesus gave up His divine and human life for the sake of His Bride, the Church. Nonetheless, the Sacrifice of the Cross is not only the work of God the Son. It is is a Trinitarian sacrifice, made at the initiative of God the Father and through the Power of God the Holy Spirit, who is the love of the Father and the Son for each other.

***

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