Beings of time and space and flesh, our faith must be lived with faithful endurance and constancy

By his divine power, he has given us all the things that we need for life and for true devotion, bringing us to know God himself, who has called us by his own glory and goodness. In making these gifts, he has given us the guarantee of something very great and wonderful to come: through them you will be able to share the divine nature and to escape corruption in a world that is sunk in vice. But to attain this, you will have to do your utmost yourselves, adding goodness to the faith that you have, understanding to your goodness, self-control to your understanding, patience to your self-control, true devotion to your patience, kindness towards your fellow men to your devotion, and, to this kindness, love. If you have a generous supply of these, they will not leave you ineffectual or unproductive: they will bring you to a real knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But without them a man is blind or else short-sighted; he has forgotten how his past sins were washed away. Brothers, you have been called and chosen: work all the harder to justify it. If you do all these things there is no danger that you will ever fall away. In this way you will be granted admittance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

(2 Peter 1:1-11)

Christian without the Eucharist?

Why?

Jesus is not soft, but he is merciful

'I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.'" After he had said this, he proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem.

On today's Gospel reading (Luke 19:11-28), Jesus relates a parable that is jarring, as it was likely intended to be. But up front I would say that this is not intended to convey a cruel, bloodthirsty Messiah. I will quickly point out that Jesus proceeds to Jerusalem, to his most merciful act of sacrifice for any who are open to his mercy. As all parables do, this one sticks to particular points and no more. First, the demands of the kingdom are high because the stakes are high. If we who receive gifts as capital did nothing to earn them, then it is only fair to do something with that capital as three fiber expected. Even a modest gain is better than nothing, although the invitation is there to dare more, strive more, and merit more rewards. Nothing unreasonable there. Second, I think the arrogance of the citizens, heading off the king-to-be with a delegation behind his back, is foolish and futile. The reality is that the man is to be made king. It is not a popular election; it is not up to them. Balanced with Jesus heading to Calvary, the brutal disposal of the dissidents is not the self-serving execution that we might think it to be. God takes no pleasure in the death of the sinful man, but prefers his conversion and fidelity. The reality is that they have no place in the kingdom if they want nothing of its eternal king. They made that choice. It seems fitting that the parable is so brutal in the seeming reprisal in contrast to the Cross. There is an otherwise easy tendency to undervalue the grace and mercy of God - to our everlasting detriment. How long should we sit on the fence? It becomes too easy to postpone making a stand if we think that we can get away with it.

The stakes are high. God is merciful but he will not violate our free will. If we reject him, what can he do?

Continued rumblings after the synod

Sometimes I think that the seeming to-and-fro, not only of Pope Francis' mind, as reported here and there, but the synod proceedings as a whole, reflects a discernment process. It seems like it anyway. It is like some form of annealing, like a boggle game shaken vigorously. and no one knows what it will say when the pieces come to rest.

Apart from that, it is an interesting spectacle to watch how the different characters and groups react and reveal their minds and their cards. Some, God bless them, are simply orthodox. Others are unapologetically less interested in orthodoxy, despite the fact that it is Christ at the giving end of the doxos. Some are close to panic, others are calm but vigilant, and others yet, smug, indifferent, or both. It's interesting to consider that they - we - are all being tested on this. Christ, as always, is a stumbling block and a cause to reveal the secrets of our intentions. Our intentions are on the scales. Is our position chosen out of charity or selfishness, fidelity or worldliness, conviction or comfort, faith or despair?

Peace, not Affliction

The Lord said: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You will call upon me, and I will answer you, and I will lead back your captives from every place.

From the Mass entrance antiphon today, Jeremiah 29.

Divorce is a big deal to the Christian faith, because it is breaking faith and unity

From Malachi 1:1-14,2:13-16 in the Office of Readings today:

And here is something else you do: you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and wailing, because he now refuses to consider the offering or to accept it from your hands. And you ask, ‘Why?’ It is because the Lord stands as witness between you and the wife of your youth, the wife with whom you have broken faith, even though she was your partner and your wife by covenant. Did he not create a single being that has flesh and the breath of life? And what is this single being destined for? God-given offspring. Be careful for your own life, therefore, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord the God of Israel, and I hate people to parade their sins on their cloaks, says the Lord of Hosts. Respect your own life, therefore, and do not break faith like this.

Sharing in the body and blood of the Lord sanctifies us

St Fulgentius of Ruspe's Tract against Fabian

When we offer the sacrifice the words of our Saviour are fulfilled just as the blessed Apostle Paul reported them: On the same night he was betrayed the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and said: ‘This is my body, which is for you: do this as a memorial of me.’ In the same way he took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.’ Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death.

  So the sacrifice is offered to proclaim the death of the Lord and to be a commemoration of him who laid down his life for us. He himself has said: A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. So, since Christ died for us, out of love, it follows that when we offer the sacrifice in commemoration of his death, we are asking for love to be given us by the coming of the Holy Spirit. We beg and we pray that just as through love Christ deigned to be crucified for us, so we may receive the grace of the Holy Spirit; and that by that grace the world should be a dead thing in our eyes and we should be dead to the world, crucified and dead. We pray that we should imitate the death of our Lord. Christ, when he died, died, once for all, to sin, so his life now is life with God. We pray, therefore, that in imitating the death of our Lord we should walk in newness of life, dead to sin and living for God.

  The love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been sent to us. When we share in the Lord’s body and blood, when we eat his bread and drink his cup, this truly means that we die to the world and have our hidden life with Christ in God, crucifying our flesh and its weaknesses and its desires.

  Thus it is that all the faithful who love God and their neighbour drink the cup of the Lord’s love even if they do not drink the cup of bodily suffering. Soaked through with that drink, they mortify the flesh in which they walk this earth. Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ like a cloak, their desires are no longer those of the body. They do not contemplate what can be seen but what is invisible to the eyes. This is how the cup of the Lord is drunk when divine love is present; but without that love, you may even give your body to be burned and still it will do you no good. What the gift of love gives us is the chance to become in truth what we celebrate as a mystery in the sacrifice.

From the Office of Readings today, via Universalis.com

The Image of God in the family, the laity

Bishop Robert Baron's dynamite keynote at the World Meeting of Families: a call to relive and march out to share the image of God that we are in the laity.

Full text of Pope Francis' homily at Family Synod opening Mass

.. And the perfect day (and readings) for it.

St. Augustine to pastors today

Well then, shepherds, hear the words of the Lord. As I live, says the Lord God... See how he starts. It is like an oath sworn by God, calling his very life to witness. As I live, says the Lord God. The shepherds are dead but the sheep are safe. As I live, says the Lord God. What shepherds are dead? Those who have sought their own interests rather than Christ’s. So what of the shepherds who seek Christ’s interests and not their own? Of course there will be such shepherds, of course they will be found: there is no lack of them and there never will be.

(From the Office of Readings, 22 September)

It is not Christ's will to forgive without the Church

From a sermon by Blessed Isaac of Stella, abbot -

There are two things that are God’s and God’s alone: the honour of receiving confession and the power of granting forgiveness. Confession is what we must make to him, and forgiveness is what we must hope to receive from him. The power to forgive sins belongs only to God, and this is why we must confess them to him. But God has taken a bride. The Almighty has taken the feeble one, the Most High has taken the lowly one – out of a servant he has made a queen. She was behind and beneath him and he raised her to be at his side. From out of his wounded side she came, and he took her to be his bride. Just as all that the Father has is the Son’s, so too what the Son has is the Father’s, since they share the same undivided nature. In just the same way the bridegroom gave all that was his to the bride and shared all that she had, making her one with himself and the Father. Hear the Son making his plea to the Father for his bride: I desire that just as you and I are one, so these should be one with us. The bridegroom is one with the Father and one with his bride. Whatever in her was foreign to her nature he took away from her and nailed to the cross. He carried her sins with him onto the tree and by the tree he took them away from her. Whatever was natural and proper to her he took on and clothed himself in it. Whatever was divine and proper to him, he bestowed on her. He took away what was diabolical, took on what was human, conferred what was divine, so that all that the bride possessed should be the bridegroom’s also. Thus it is that he who has committed no sin, on whose lips is no deceit, can say Take pity on me, Lord, for I am weak – for he who shares in his bride’s weakness must share in her lament, and thus all that is the bridegroom’s is the bride’s also. Here is where the honour of confession comes from, and the power of forgiveness, so that it can truly be said: Go and show yourself to the priest! The Church can forgive nothing without Christ, and it is Christ’s will to forgive nothing except with the Church. The Church can forgive no-one except the penitent – that is, one who has been touched by Christ – and Christ does not wish to forgive anyone who does not value the Church. What God has united, man must not divide, says Christ, and Paul adds, I am saying that this great mystery applies to Christ and the Church. Do not sever the head from the body so that Christ is whole no longer. For Christ is not whole without the Church, nor is the Church whole without Christ. This is why he says No-one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man who is in heaven. He is the only man who can forgive sins.

(From the Office of Readings, 11 September)

From Lamentations to Hope

Brooding on my anguish and affliction is gall and wormwood. My spirit ponders it continually and sinks within me. This is what I shall tell my heart, and so recover hope: Heth the favours of the Lord are not all past, his kindnesses are not exhausted; every morning they are renewed; great is his faithfulness. ‘My portion is the Lord’ says my soul ‘and so I will hope in him.’ Teth The Lord is good to those who trust him, to the soul that searches for him. It is good to wait in silence for the Lord to save. It is good for a man to bear the yoke from youth onwards, Yod to sit in solitude and silence when the Lord fastens it on him, to put his lips to the dust – perhaps there still is hope – to offer his cheek to the striker, to be overwhelmed with insults. Kaph For the Lord does not reject mankind for ever and ever. If he has punished, he has compassion so great is his kindness; since he takes no pleasure in abasing and afflicting the human race. (Lamentations 3:1-33)

Hope flares the brightest in the midst of darkest despair.

We don't hear this from the Gospel very often

‘But alas for you who are rich: you are having your consolation now.

Alas for you who have your fill now: you shall go hungry.

Alas for you who laugh now: you shall mourn and weep.

‘Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets.’

Luke 6:20-26

Is it the case that we Christians tend to get to comfortable in the West? We probably did, while the gospel does not go out to the nations where it must be preached, where now they are in dire need of God's healing and peacemaking mercy. They must have looked at the Christian West as no more than rich, spoiled and not good for much.

The Lord is Faithful

This is a rebellious people, they are lying sons, sons who will not listen to the Lord’s orders. To the seers they say, ‘See no visions’; to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy the truth to us, ‘tell us flattering things; have illusory visions; turn aside from the way, leave the path, take the Holy One out of our sight.’
.. thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel: Your salvation lay in conversion and tranquillity, your strength, in complete trust; and you would have none of it. ..
But the Lord is waiting to be gracious to you, to rise and take pity on you, for the Lord is a just God; happy are all who hope in him.

Isaiah 30:1-18

The new eMANgelization

Catholic Report says Catholic men are keen for priests to lead and challenge them.

Definitely resonates with this man.

Who will proclaim the Good News to the rich?

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you solemnly, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Yes, I tell you again, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ When the disciples heard this they were astonished. ‘Who can be saved, then?’ they said. Jesus gazed at them. ‘For men’ he told them ‘this is impossible; for God everything is possible.’ (Matthew 19:23-30 )

For rich men, without the grace of God, the kingdom of heaven is unattainable, apparently. Why? Having everything they need and more, what need have they of God? What make them think about the hereafter? Unfortunately, their riches will not give them eternal life, not even a supernatural life now, where the treasures are charity and sacrifice. In a rich, materialistic life, there is no call for charity, the heroic sort that hurts, and has little to do with warm and fuzzy feelings. In a luxurious life of toys and leisure, there is no need for virtue. One is in control, so who has need for faith, or God?

So who will introduce charity and virtue to the rich of this world, whose attention us so riveted on the material world and it's pleasures? Will they tear their senses from material possessions long enough to pay any attention? Only by the grace of God.

Love and Marriage

So they defiled themselves by their deeds and broke their marriage bond with the Lord till his anger blazed against his people; he was filled with horror at his chosen ones.

Part of today's Psalms at Mass (Ps 105), is a common theme in the writings of the prophets as well, associating the relationship between Man and God with marriage, and so infidelity is the abomination of worshipping other gods. One of the questions that come to mind when many bishops suggest that divorced and remarried Christians can be worthy of Holy Communion while remaining in the same state of adultery, is this: is there still such a thing as fidelity? Where, too, is justice, given the price of redemption and given the aggrieved other half of the abandoned marriage? If fidelity is impossible for some people, is it claimed that the grace of God is insufficient?

Communion for persons who have divorced and remarried civilly

about the “challenge” of “Christians who are in a marital situation theologically called ‘irregular’… ”: “We must help them, certainly, but not in a reductive way. It’s important to get close to them, to create contact and maintain it because they are members of the Church as everyone else, they are not expelled and even less so excommunicated. They are supported, but there are problems in regard to the sacramental life…. The question of access to the sacramental life must be addressed sincerely on the basis of Catholic teaching …. twenty years ago, after a long and laborious negotiation, John Paul II didn’t accept that remarried Christians could accede to the Eucharist. Now, we can’t ignore his teaching and change things.”

- Archbishop Georg Gänswein

What are the priorities of Amnesty International these days?

"Christians are being beheaded in Syria, and here is AI campaigning in Ireland and El Salvador to bring in abortion on demand while claiming to protect women," she added. "They've already spent more than a million dollars on a media campaign. They've bought advertising and gathered signatures and are outspending everyone else."

There's the rub, identified by life campaigners in Ireland protesting AI lobbying aggressively with so much money that should go to promoting freedom and saving innocent lives in many parts of the world, but instead go into campaigning for abortions in countries that don't want them. Priorities?

Ekkles-illogical musings

Stumbled into this questionable bit of scholarship about the alleged mistranslation of the Greek ekkelsias that is claimed to cause the supposedly mistaken notion of a universal church. I have to question the investigation when there is no mention of the translations centuries prior to the English language even being recognized as such. What did St. Jerome translate it into in Latin, which was the prevailing international language at that time? What did the local churches teach at that time about a universal church? What were the thoughts from Greek communities prior to the English translation? What about the Chaldean and other translations on the region? What did the writers of the first few centuries write about ecclesiology, and what of the bishops and other leaders whose writings still exist today?