I've just added a page to the website that contains some short essays on various aspects of the Catholic Church. I had composed these a few years ago for the diocesan website, and I thought I'd add them to the parish website also. I've done that on the About us page. And then I added it here, also.
There follows now this lovely piece of line art, which pictures a procession of the Blessed Sacrament surmounted with the offering of Holy Mass at the top.
I loved this film and this beautiful soul. Watch it if you will, and tell me you cannot love this lovely Servant Sister. More about Sister here.
Onward, through the Bible in a year. This fourth book of the Torah is mixed material. It begins with a detailed census of the people who found themselves at the foot of Mount Sinai, being entered into a serious covenant with the God of their forefathers. This was done in the second year after the escape from Egypt, and counts a surprising 603,550 fighting men (not counting women and children). The registry also notes the names of tribal and clan chieftains in that early period and the marching order of the tribes, for the community was still mobile, travelling from place to place in the desert. When they ended that march and set up camp, there was a detailed prescription based on compass points for the building of the tribal camps (all this in the first two chapters of the book).
Aaron, the brother of Moses, now appears as the appointed high-priest. The members of their tribe, the Levites, were to be the servants of Aaron's family, which alone provided priests for the new rites. The major Levitical clans included those of Gerson, Caath and Merari. The Levites were consecrated in a special way, with all their possessions, as God's very own, set apart as the first-borns of the entire community. Moreover, they were not to be fighting men, but entirely given over to the care of the sacred: the bearing of the tabernacle and all its associated equipment. The book sets out the details of the dedication gifts given to the tabernacle, for the hallowing of the altar, etc. Let's put that down here, to provide an idea of what this ancient accounting system looked like. This is only for the tribe of Judah, but chapter seven sees it fit to repeat the lines for every tribe (although the offering was the same in every case):
"The first day, Nahasson son of Aminadab, of Juda, made his offering; a silver dish of a hundred and thirty, and a silver bowl of seventy sicles’ weight, by sanctuary reckoning, both full of flour kneaded with oil for sacrifice; a gold saucer weighing ten sicles, full of incense; a bullock, a ram, and a yearling he-lamb for burnt-sacrifice; a goat to make amends for fault; and for a welcome-offering, two oxen, five rams, five goats, and five yearling he-lambs. Such was the gift of Nahasson son of Aminadab..." - Numbers, 7: 12-17
There is significant ritual material in Numbers. For example, chapter five is a detailed rite of the humiliation of a woman suspected of adultery, and chapter six details the solemn Nazirite vow of consecration that characterised the lives of famous men like Samson and Samuel, and probably Christ Himself. Chapter fifteen produces general ritual detail for sacrifices, and chapter twenty-eight and twenty-nine provide particular ritual detail for daily, monthly and regular sacrifices. Chapter nineteen details the preparation of lustral water, which was intended to purify people and property that had somehow been defiled, such as by contact with dead bodies.
Moses' trouble with government of the people becomes evident, as there were far too many of them seeking interpretations of the Law from him continuously and grumbling endlessly about the monotonous nature of the food in the desert and the discomfort of constant travelling. Each group sedition was accompanied by horrible plagues that caused much death among the community, and finally resulted in their wandering through the wilderness until a whole generation of people had passed away. Moses own brother and sister, Aaron and Myriam, at one point challenged his leadership of the people (chapter twelve). With regard to guiding them through the wilderness, Moses had sought the assistance of his brother-in-law, Hobab son of Raguel (Jethro), a professional desert wanderer. Later, seventy-two elders were chosen to share the government of the people with Moses (chapter eleven). The troubles continued to grow. After Moses sent scouts into the Holy Land to provide an account of what could be expected before the Israelite invasion began; almost every returning scout (apart from Caleb and Iosue/Joshua) discouraged the people, who were once more aching to return to the comforts of Egypt. The result was calamitous:
"Then the Lord said, 'At thy request, I forgive. But as I am the living Lord, whose glory must spread wide as earth, these men who have been witnesses of my greatness, of all the marvellous deeds I did, in Egypt and in the desert, yet must needs challenge My power half a score of times, and disobey My will, these shall never see the land I promised to their fathers; it shall never be enjoyed by those who slighted me. My servant Caleb was of another mind; he took My part, and I will allow him to enter the land which he surveyed, and leave his race an inheritance there. The sons of Amalec and Chanaan may rest secure in their mountain glens; to-morrow you must move camp, and go back to the desert by the Red Sea." - Numbers, 14: 20-25
This was not enough for a small band of Levites, who also resented Moses' leadership of the people. Core/Korah, together with Dathan and Abiron. The whole episode is presented in chapter sixteen, and the dreadful sequel - the seditionists found themselves falling into the depths as the ground opened up beneath their camp - designed to imprint the challenge in the people's minds for generations. Other Levites, who wished to usurp the priesthood of Aaron's family, were incinerated. An unspecified plague followed and the chapter ends with the claim that 14,700 had died in just this altercation. Another rebellion took place when the people had arrived at Cades, and were in great thirst - at this point Moses and Aaron themselves lost faith and were cursed to not enter the Promised Land themselves (chapter twenty) - nevertheless, water famously burst forth from a rock when they found a new spring. The final rebellion mentioned here is in chapter twenty-one, where the people tire of the march and call to return to Egypt again; poisonous serpents and (in a story referenced by Christ in the Gospels) Moses fashions the famous bronze serpent to cure them.
The remainder of the book consists of the attempts to arrive at the Holy Land from the south, attempts that were frustrated by native tribes like the Edomites. Other tribes, like the Aradites and the Amorrhites and the people of Basan, were destroyed. Chapters twenty-two through twenty-four tell the tale of the prophet Balaam, representing the fear of the Moabite king, Balac, in whose lands the Israelites were now arriving in copious numbers, swollen with their conquests. By the end of the book of Numbers, the Madianites had been destroyed and Moabite land had been entirely taken by Israel, to the point where the Israelite tribes of Ruben, Gad and Manasses claimed these territories as their own (chapter thirty-two). Moses began a new census (chapter twenty-six) of the people as they camp in the plains of Moab, across the Jordan from Jericho and the Holy Land. Surprisingly, after all the plagues, and the wandering through the desert, etc. the number compares favourably with that from the beginning of the book: 601,730 fighting men (excluding women and children).
The final notes cover the people's itinerary through the wilderness, from Egypt to the plains of Moab (chapter thirty-three), the divinely-provided boundaries of the land of Israel, once the invasions have taken place and a list of men who would one day divide up this conquered land among the tribes (chapter thirty-four). The last chapters of the book deal with the care of the Levites, who alone among all the tribes would not inherit land, their existence being entirely tied up with the care of the sacred, (chapter thirty-five) and marriage being confined to persons within the same tribe, to preserved tribal inheritance of property (chapter thirty-six).
And this is where I'll stop. It's a long post, but it's an eventful book and central to the identity of the Hebrews and the Jews. On to Deuteronomy...
Every month of the year, there is an Apostle day. Last month was Saint Matthew's, next month is Saint Andrew's. And today we honour two rather quiet figures (their voices do not sound in Holy Scripture): Simon and Jude. Simon was called the Zealot, and was perhaps an actual member of the religio-political movement in the first century that aimed to free the Holy Land from Roman control by military means and guerrilla tactics. Needless to say, Simon is not known to have associated with that movement after his calling and the name could simply signify his personal zeal for the Law of God, and so for the glory of God.
Saint Jude, aka. Thaddaeus, is better known to us today, because he is often called the patron Saint of hopeless causes. One of Jude's letters - a rather short one - sits in our collection in the New Testament. This letter has a common theme that it shares with other early letters, that of the spirit of anti-Christ, which ever threatens belief in Christ, and seeks to draw believers back to the world. In this case though, anti-Christ may have infiltrated the Christian community itself:
"Godless men, long since destined thus to incur condemnation, have found their way secretly into your company, and are perverting the life of grace our God has bestowed on us into a life of wantonness; they even deny Jesus Christ, our one Lord and Master... they pollute nature, they defy authority, they insult august names.... Such men sneer at the things they cannot understand; like the brute beasts they derive knowledge only from their senses, and it serves to corrupt them...Godless and sinners, with how many ungodly acts they have defied God, with how many rebellious words have they blasphemed him! Such men go about whispering and complaining, and live by the rule of their own appetites; meanwhile, their mouths are ready with fine phrases, to flatter the great when it serves their ends. But as for you, beloved, keep in mind the warnings given you long since by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how they told you, that mocking spirits must needs appear in the last age, who would make their own ungodly appetites into a rule of life." - Epistle of S. Jude, 4, 8, 10, 15-18
It sounds a little like our present anti-Christian culture, doesn't it? I think this has always been so. It has been at rare moments in history that the Church has had any sort of moral claim on society in general, without the heavy arm of the secular law on her side. But, even then, there will always be those who mock the moral life of the Christians and our beliefs, and do so openly. The solution to living in such a situation is first to build up the spiritual life of the Christian community...
"It is for you, beloved, to make your most holy faith the foundation of your lives, and to go on praying in the power of the Holy Spirit; to maintain yourselves in the love of God, and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with eternal life for your goal." - Epistle of S. Jude, 20-21
...and then challenge the rival philosophies and even go so far as to avoid the company of those who refuse to be corrected.
"To some you must give a hearing, and confute them; others you must pluck out of the fire, and rescue them; others again you can only pity, while you shun them; even the outward fringe of what the flesh has defiled must be hateful to you." - Epistle of S. Jude, 22-23
Right, then, it's time to see if we remember all the Apostles by name. Let's set them all out with a memory assist:
B - Bartholomew
A - Andrew
P - Philip
T - Thomas
I - Iohanna (John), Iacob (James the Greater), Iacob (James the Lesser), Iuda (Jude Thaddaeus), Iuda (Judas)
S - Simon called Peter, Simon the Zealot
M - Matthew
"This, too, was the Lord’s word to Moses, 'Bid the Israelites pass blue cords through the corners of their cloaks, and hang tassels on them; reminding themselves, as they look on these, of all the commandments the Lord has given them. They must not let their thoughts and eyes wander free, into all manner of unfaithfulness, but rather bethink them of the Lord’s decrees and carry them out, a people set apart for their God; and that God the Lord, who brought them out of the land of Egypt to make them his own people." - Numbers, 15: 37-41
More information here. It's all wonderful.
The sixth chapter of the book of Numbers has caught my eye several times because of its theme of self-dedication to God. The Nazirite dedicated himself to God for a prescribed period, during which he abstained from strong drink, and let his hair grow, this last being a sign of dedication. He or she also kept away from dead bodies, which polluted the worshipper of God, according to the old Law. After the period of consecration was completed, the dedicated person presented victims for a burnt offering, together with a bloodless offering (token offering), and a final victim for a welcome-offering, then shaved his hair off and threw this into the fire along with the third victim. All this is in Numbers 6. After making the final offering, the Nazirite was able to drink wine again. Why does all this interest me so much? Well, Our Lord Jesus Christ was dedicated to God for a specific purpose - the redemption of His people - and this was solemnised soon after his birth at the Presentation in the Temple (fourth mystery of the Holy Rosary). There is no sign in the Gospels of any of the other conditions of the vow mentioned above, but interestingly the figure of the Crucified Man in the so-called Turin Shroud has a very long braid of hair visible in the image left behind:
Therefore, despite any pictures we may have seen of Christ with shoulder length hair, He may never have had his hair cut, He may have worn it in a braid down his back. We do know, however, from Gospels accounts, that (at least for that period of his ministry) Christ was no stranger to drink, nor did He keep away from the dead. In fact, He seems to have been very good at bring life back to them. So, Christ was not keeping the Nazirite vow strictly. Nevertheless, we also know that he didn't keep strictly other items of the Law, such as the Sabbath observance, when it came to helping people and drawing them towards salvation. He scolded the orthodox Jews of his time for the superficiality of their observance of the Law (Gospel of Saint Mark, 7). Nowadays, it is fashionable for the Fathers to talk about pastoral exigency - of breaking the rules in order to help people. It's not a new principle, if its precedent is apostolic, based on something the Apostles saw themselves. Maybe, just maybe, Christ could be a Nazirite - dedicated to God - while occasionally permitting Himself drink, when seeking the salvation of souls. Also, He seems to have thought that the dead He was about to revive were not dead, but sleeping (Gospel of Saint Mark, 5: 39-40). And it need not be said that, among all men, He alone could release people from a vow that He had given to Moses and Aaron for the people, centuries ago.
There is another famous Nazirite from the Old Testament that many school-children know all about, because his dedication to God produced an extraordinary blessing in his mortal body (Judges, 13-16). Samson, great among the Judges of ancient Israel, was super-humanly strong, according to the record. But his strength left him when one of the conditions of the Nazirite vow was broken - his hair had been treacherously cut away. That story never ever mentions drink (perhaps taking it for granted?), or contact with the dead (although Samson was a great warrior and slew crowds of Philistines). But the moment his hair was shorn, his strength left him.
I do mean read, because learning to actually speak it at my age would be rather difficult. Anyhow, I got this book, because the cover says 'a comprehensive guide.' One of the attractions of the study of language is its analytical nature, which appeals in particular to the systems of thinking I was taught by mathematics and engineering when I was younger. Polish is a rather difficult language, compared to the various Romanic languages I have developed some limited fluency with (Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, French), and it will take some work. So I'll give this a year; not just this progressive grammar book, but - later on - the careful reading of a familiar novel translated into the Polish language. That, I've found, is an excellent way to build vocabulary. How about this one?
If you've ever wondered why the book of Numbers, fourth book of the Torah, is called that, you need only run quickly through the first few chapters. Here is a sample of the great census of the fighting men of Israel from the beginning of the book:
I remember reading books in seminary that cast doubt on the fact that more than 600,000 people (and Numbers is here actually counting only fighting men, and exempting the Levites) could have made their way through the sea in the great Exodus story, and then across the desert to the holy mountain. One of the priests teaching at seminary had this theory that as the people made their way through the wilderness, they met and recruited other tribes they found along the way (see Numbers 11:4). I find that idea interesting; it would mean that the young Israelite nation was not composed solely of the actual descendants of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (not that all the escapees from Egypt were actual descendants), but that the Israelite identity (if we may use that modern term, and compare the situation to the Roman identity while the Empire still lived, and the present-day national identities) was an umbrella for a growing confederation of Semitic tribes that must have found something compelling about the new religion that was being instituted by God at Mount Sinai. This idea also explains the apparent disappearance of the native Canaanite people in the Holy Land, once the Israelites arrived and began to take possession of the land: these people to different degrees may simply have adhered to the new religion and become part of the covenant people.
Still reading through the Bible in a year, I have come to the end of the first letter to the Corinthians of the two we have stacked up in the New Testament. Let's try and draw a quick summary.
Like most big Greco-Roman towns of the first century, Corinth had a large Jewish community, living among almost any number of other religions and philosophy, for this small city was about as metropolitan as could be a the time. One of the most prosperous, because of its canal connecting the Adriatic with the Aegean (see Google Map above). So there was the usual mix of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in the young church, living on different social levels. Saint Paul himself formed the church as its Apostle and touchingly calls Corinthian Christians his little children in his famous description of the Christian apostle (succeeded later by bishops and priests):
"As it is, it seems as if God had destined us, His apostles, to be in the lowest place of all, like men under sentence of death; such a spectacle do we present to the whole creation, men and angels alike. We are fools for Christ’s sake, you are so wise; we are so helpless, you so stout of heart; you are held in honour, while we are despised. Still, as I write, we go hungry and thirsty and naked; we are mishandled, we have no home to settle in, we are hard put to it, working with our own hands. Men revile us, and we answer with a blessing, persecute us, and we make the best of it, speak ill of us, and we fall to entreaty. We are still the world’s refuse; everybody thinks himself well rid of us. I am not writing this to shame you; you are my dearly loved children, and I would bring you to a better mind. Yes, you may have ten thousand schoolmasters in Christ, but not more than one father; it was I that begot you in Jesus Christ, when I preached the Gospel to you. Follow my example, then, I entreat you, as I follow Christ’s." - I Corinthians, 4: 9-16
The painful reality of the Corinthian Church lay in its division within itself. In a situation reminiscent of today's highly-politicised Church, the Corinthians had apparently selected their favourite apostles (Apollo was an Alexandrian Christian and Cephas was the Apostle Saint Peter himself) and had developed a party system. Paul is naturally annoyed at them and encourages Unity in a lengthy first part of the letter; this must have been the principle defect he wanted to remedy with his letter:
"Only I entreat you, brethren, as you love the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, use, all of you, the same language. There must be no divisions among you; you must be restored to unity of mind and purpose. The account I have of you, my brethren, from Chloe’s household, is that there are dissensions among you; each of you, I mean, has a cry of his own, I am for Paul, I am for Apollo, I am for Cephas, I am for Christ. What, has Christ been divided up? Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Was it in Paul’s name that you were baptised? Thank God I did not baptise any of you except Crispus and Gaius; so that no one can say it was in my name you were baptised." - I Corinthians, 1: 10-15
The solution to disunity is emphasising Christ and the unity of God, so that even Paul's own teaching is presented in chapter two as having its grounding in revelation given by the Spirit of God. He still sees his dearly loved children as novices in the Faith, requiring baby food, and this is evident above all in their disunity:
"And when I preached to you, I had to approach you as men with natural, not with spiritual thoughts. You were little children in Christ’s nursery, and I gave you milk, not meat; you were not strong enough for it. You are not strong enough for it even now; nature still lives in you. Do not these rivalries, these dissensions among you shew that nature is still alive, that you are guided by human standards? When one of you says, 'I am for Paul,' and another, 'I am for Apollo,' are not these human thoughts? Why, what is Apollo, what is Paul? Only the ministers of the God in whom your faith rests, who have brought that faith to each of you in the measure God granted. It was for me to plant the seed, for Apollo to water it, but it was God who gave the increase." - I Corinthians, 3: 1-6
Who are the ministers of Christ, that they should be named and given schools of wisdom? They are merely planting and keeping in succession, with a common ministry. They themselves are to be trustworthy and must not exceed their personal missions. The question of unity has vexed Paul very much and he has sent his deputy, Timothy, on a visitation and for instruction:
"That is why I have sent Timothy to you, a faithful and dearly loved son of mine in the Lord; he will remind you of the path I tread in Christ Jesus, the lessons I give to all churches alike." - I Corinthians 4: 17
Now comes a brief theology of the body in which Paul, in the best Hebrew tradition, condemns incest and then fornication, those committing these crimes being sentenced to excommunication from the body Catholic. This discussion of the integrity of the human body within human relationships develops gradually into a description of the body of the Church as the body of Christ. Following on from his delivery on the unity of the Church, Paul criticises the tendency of the Corinthians to litigate against one another using the secular courts. Why can't they settle their cases within the Church?
"You would do better to appoint the most insignificant of your own number as judges, when you have these common quarrels to decide. That I say to humble you. What, have you really not a single man among you wise enough to decide a claim brought by his own brother? Must two brethren go to law over it, and before a profane court? And indeed, it is a defect in you at the best of times, that you should have quarrels among you at all. How is it that you do not prefer to put up with wrong, prefer to suffer loss?" - I Corinthians, 6: 4-7
The condemnation of debauchery that this sits in the midst of is an affront to the Holy Spirit, whose temples our bodies are. Here's a general theme Paul uses in his letters: that Christ has purchased us with His self-sacrifice, so our bodies are not ours to commit acts of debauchery with. In what feels to me like an interval, Paul now dips into some practical matters with answers to questions they have made to him in the preceding letter. He recommends virginity in strong words, throughout chapter seven, because that enables Christians souls to dedicate, to consecrate themselves to God in prayer.
"I would have you free from concern. He who is unmarried is concerned with God’s claim, asking how he is to please God; whereas the married man is concerned with the world’s claim, asking how he is to please his wife; and thus he is at issue with himself. So a woman who is free of wedlock, or a virgin, is concerned with the Lord’s claim, intent on holiness, bodily and spiritual; whereas the married woman is concerned with the world’s claim, asking how she is to please her husband." - I Corinthians, 7: 32-34
There is the usual treatment of food that has been offered to idols, which caused much trouble among Jewish and Jewish-Christian communities in such environments as Corinth, this food being forbidden by the Law of Moses. Paul is anxious that, although Christianity frees us from the Law, the Law may still be a matter of conscience to some Christians. His principle is then that we make way, whenever necessary, for those whose consciences bother them in this respect.
"...it is not what we eat that gives us our standing in God’s sight; we gain nothing by eating, lose nothing by abstaining; it is for you to see that the liberty you allow yourselves does not prove a snare to doubtful consciences. If any of them sees one who is better instructed sitting down to eat in the temple of a false god, will not his conscience, all uneasy as it is, be emboldened to approve of eating idolatrously? And thus, through thy enlightenment, the doubting soul will be lost; thy brother, for whose sake Christ died. When you thus sin against your brethren, by injuring their doubtful consciences, you sin against Christ. Why then, if a mouthful of food is an occasion of sin to my brother, I will abstain from flesh meat perpetually, rather than be the occasion of my brother’s sin." - I Corinthians, 8: 8-13
That said, we are still to avoid idolatry, for there cannot be more than one God, so that the pagan gods represent evil spirits. This is the topic of chapter ten, which also relates to keeping the body from debauchery, for observing pagan cults is incompatible with assisting at the Eucharistic sacrifice:
"I mean that when the heathen offer sacrifice they are really offering it to evil spirits and not to a God at all. I have no mind to see you associating yourselves with evil spirits. To drink the Lord’s cup, and yet to drink the cup of evil spirits, to share the Lord’s feast, and to share the feast of evil spirits, is impossible for you." - I Corinthians, 10: 20-21
While covering several points of discipline in chapter (covering heads in the solemn assembly, equality among the social classes and parties in the solemn assembly), Paul now provides the first description ever of the eucharistic prayer of the Mass (the Gospels are all still years from being written), and strongly devises that the Sacrament be received in a suitable state of soul:
"The tradition which I received from the Lord, and handed on to you, is that the Lord Jesus, on the night when He was being betrayed, took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and said, 'Take, eat; this is My Body, given up for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me.' And so with the cup, when supper was ended, 'This cup,' He said, 'is the new testament, in My Blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, for a commemoration of me.' So it is the Lord’s death that you are heralding, whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, until He comes. And therefore, if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, he will be held to account for the Lord’s Body and Blood. A man must examine himself first, and then eat of that bread and drink of that cup; he is eating and drinking damnation to himself if he eats and drinks unworthily, not recognizing the Lord’s Body for what it is." - I Corinthians, 11: 23-29
Then comes the descriptions of charismatic gifts in the early church, allowing various people to preach, teach, administer, heal, prophesy, interpret, speak in tongues, etc. Each to his own, Paul says, do not vie with each other for the gifts that God gives various to people. All of us, with our many gifts, are to work together like cogs in a great machine:
"The body, after all, consists not of one organ but of many; if the foot should say, I am not the hand, and therefore I do not belong to the body, does it belong to the body any the less for that? If the ear should say, I am not the eye, and therefore I do not belong to the body, does it belong to the body any the less for that? Where would the power of hearing be, if the body were all eye? Or the power of smell, if the body were all ear? As it is, God has given each one of them its own position in the body, as he would. If the whole were one single organ, what would become of the body? Instead of that, we have a multitude of organs, and one body." - I Corinthians, 12: 14-20
If everybody wants to be healers, say, the body would be all ear, or all eye... Instead of aching for these extraordinary gifts, Paul counsels that we seek, above all, charity, which he says will outlast every other marvellous gift.
"Charity is patient, is kind; charity feels no envy; charity is never perverse or proud, never insolent; does not claim its rights, cannot be provoked, does not brood over an injury; takes no pleasure in wrong-doing, but rejoices at the victory of truth, sustains, believes, hopes, endures, to the last. The time will come when we shall outgrow prophecy, when speaking with tongues will come to an end, when knowledge will be swept away; we shall never have finished with charity." - I Corinthians, 13: 4-8
But while these spiritual gifts, or charisms, persisted in the early church, there was bound to be disorder, and Paul seeks in chapter 14 to develop a hierarchy of wonderful gifts. To summarise this long discourse, he prefers gifts that build up the faith of Christians, especially the gift of prophecy, and he prefers them to more personal gifts, like the ability to speak in tongues, for if this were to be a ministry in the church, it would need interpretation, which must have been hard to find. Grow up, Paul seems to say, this desire to demonstrate marvellous abilities is rather childish.
"Since you have set your hearts on spiritual gifts, ask for them in abundant measure, but only so as to strengthen the faith of the church; the man who can speak in a strange tongue should pray for the power to interpret it. If I use a strange tongue when I offer prayer, my spirit is praying, but my mind reaps no advantage from it. What, then, is my drift? Why, I mean to use mind as well as spirit when I offer prayer, use mind as well as spirit when I sing psalms. If thou dost pronounce a blessing in this spiritual fashion, how can one who takes his place among the uninstructed say Amen to thy thanksgiving? He cannot tell what thou art saying. Thou, true enough, art duly giving thanks, but the other’s faith is not strengthened. Thank God, I can speak any of the tongues you use; but in the church, I would rather speak five words which my mind utters, for your instruction, than ten thousand in a strange tongue. Brethren, do not be content to think childish thoughts; keep the innocence of children, with the thoughts of grown men." - I Corinthians, 14: 12-20
This post is already far too long, so I'll terminate this 'summary' of the letter with Paul's act of faith and witness as an apostle, which precedes his long defence of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body, the denial of which is the denial of Christ, Christianity and any chance of salvation. That you can find in the rest of chapter fifteen. But this is the beginning, and may we hold constantly to this apostolic core of the Faith:
"The chief message I handed on to you, as it was handed on to me, was that Christ, as the scriptures had foretold, died for our sins; that He was buried, and then, as the scriptures had foretold, rose again on the third day. That He was seen by Cephas, then by the eleven apostles, and afterwards by more than five hundred of the brethren at once, most of whom are alive at this day, though some have gone to their rest. Then He was seen by James, then by all the apostles; and last of all, I too saw Him, like the last child, that comes to birth unexpectedly." - I Corinthians, 15: 3-8
This short film is beautifully narrated. Saint Philip's memorial day is today. My love for England began when I learnt of the English martyrs, those beautiful souls who watched the eclipse of Catholic England and challenged it quietly with their lives. We shall never forget them.
A quick recap of the Mass intentions during the week. Mass on Thursday was said for the intentions of J. H. and may be be blessed. Mass was said on Tuesday for our deceased Parishioners, on Wednesday for the Holy Souls, and on Friday for the deceased members of the Lloyd and Murphy families; may they be granted eternal rest in the embrace of the Holy One. Mass was said this today for all our Parishioners, which is at least a weekly event.
To all our sick, be well. I know some of you, but not all of you. To all of our dying, my good wishes and please pray for all the rest of us from your crosses, for we shall gain much from your prayers. You are all part of the daily prayer routine here at the parish church. This is the tail end of the great prayer of thanksgiving of the Church that I recite at least once a week on Sundays:
"...we therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants,
whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood.
Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints, in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save Thy people and bless Thine heritage.
Govern them and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnify Thee;
And we worship Thy Name ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in Thee.
O Lord, in Thee have I trusted;
let me never be confounded."
It's that time of year and I'm missing my mother more than usual. So here's the best scene from the famous Passion of the Christ film. It should help you say your Rosary more often.
One of the great heroes of the sixteenth-century reformation of the Church (the actual reformation, not that protestant movement) was the Spanish Carmelite Saint Teresa of Jesus, a prolific writer and an eminent Doctor of the Church. She was born at Ávila in 1515 and inspired at an early age by the Lives of the martyr Saints and even tried to run away from home to get to Africa. In her desire to see God, she realised as a child that all things will pass away, while only God remains always; she would only need to be patient. She was later taught by Augustinian nuns and, together with her love for reading, this led her to the life of prayer and recollection. At twenty, she joined the Carmelites at Ávila and, after 1554, began to have mystical experiences, almost simultaneously proceeding to reform her Order. In 1562, she achieved the foundation of the first reformed Carmel at Ávila, and began to work together with the Carmelite friar, Saint John of the Cross, and together they founded the Order of Carmelites Discalced (OCD), with the first house at Duruelo. Her own reformed houses were joined to this one and in 1580, the independent province of the Discalced Order was established by Rome. Teresa died in 1580, on her way back to Ávila, after founding a new convent at Burgos. She was canonised in 1622 by the Holy Father Gregory XV, alongside Francis Xavier, Ignatius of Loyola and Philip Neri - a most blessed company.
With no formal academic training, Teresa was an avid reader, reading the Fathers, and general theology and spirituality. She left us principally a work called the Book of the Lord's Mercies (aka. the Book of Life, 1565), a biography of her direction under Saint John of Ávila. Other popular works are the Way of Perfection (1566), which provided spiritual direction to novices of the Order, and the Interior Castle (1577), a map of the human soul and its progress towards God under the action of the Holy Ghost. In her Book of the Foundations, she documents the life of the new Order. Teresa's main themes include the evangelical virtues as the basis of Christian life, detachment from earthly possessions, humility in the love for truth, and the school of virtues in general. Prayer, she said, was the entrance into the Interior Castle of the human soul; prayer, she said, is being on terms of friendship with God and speaking with Him in private. Prayer progresses from merely vocal prayer and develops into meditation/recollection and arrives at spiritual union with God. She counselled the imitation of Christ through meditation on his life and on the mystery of the Eucharist.
And that's quite enough. I shall now update the Doctors page.
Today's readings were all about a banquet arranged by God (Isaiah), and a wedding banquet with a list of invited guests (Christ). The prophecy of Isaiah foretells, in the times of the coming of the Messiah, the coming together of the nations, the assembly of many peoples at Jerusalem, at God's holy mountain:
"A time is coming when the Lord of hosts will prepare a banquet on this mountain of ours; no meat so tender, no wine so mellow, meat that drips with fat, wine well strained. Gone the chains in which he has bound the peoples, the veil that covered the nations hitherto; on the mountain-side, all these will be engulfed; death, too, shall be engulfed for ever. No furrowed cheek but the Lord God will wipe away its tears; gone the contempt his people endured in a whole world’s eyes; the Lord has promised it." - Isaiah 25: 6-8
God's relationship with his covenant people has always had the character of a marriage, and this is demonstrated in so many ways in the Hebrew Bible. By making a covenant, God had married his people. This image is not a Christian invention, but is drawn into Christian imagery by the Apostles, and is evident in the New Testament as well, not least in the gospel story we have today. Christ is almost finished with his mission and this is among the last of the parables in the Gospel of Saint Matthew. The parable, like the one before it about the workers in the vineyard, is a thinly-veiled attack on the Jewish authorities of the time and their inability to look beyond the superficial observance of the Law. Isaiah's banquet has now become a wedding banquet, which we could say is the pre-arranged banquet for the wedding of God to the People, or Christ to the Church - this was prepared in the Incarnation of Christ. The Jewish people, as inheritors of the promises God made to the Hebrew people are invited to it, and decline to come (in the parable) for one reason or the other, and drive the king who has invited them into a rage, in particular when they kill the messengers he has sent to fetch them - read: the prophets before and including Saint John the Baptist. The king now sends out the invitations to anyone and everyone who is willing to come, from the highways and the byways. And then comes the interesting situation of the man without the wedding garment:
"'And his servants went out into the streets, where they mustered all they could find, rogues and honest men together; and so the wedding had its full tale of guests. But when the king came in to look at the company, he saw a man there who had no wedding-garment on; "My friend, he said, how didst thou come to be here without a wedding-garment?" And he made no reply. Whereupon the king said to his servants, "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the darkness, where there shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth." Many are called, but few are chosen.'" - Gospel of S. Matthew, 22: 10-14
So, then, what is this wedding garment? If the banquet/feast is the Church, the garment is not a baptismal garment, for the man will already have had that. It's something else. There's a grave warning in this for us Christians, for it demonstrates that our salvation is not a given. There are conditions that ensure that we have a wedding garment on. We are in anticipation at the wedding feast of the Lamb, but we could be chucked out into the darkness if we don't have that wedding garment on. The wedding garment is an interior disposition of the soul, towards mercy, charity, kindness - the heart of the Gospel. In short, thinking with the mind of God. The ancient Christian philosopher Origen put it like this:
"But when He was come in, He found there one who had not put off his old behaviour; 'He saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment.' He speaks of one only, because all, who after faith continue to serve that wickedness which they had before the faith, are but of one kind."
The New Testament warns us repeatedly that, as Christians, we cannot take anything for granted - we must be born anew and put away our old lives of sin. Saint Paul, in one of his letters (Philippians, 2:12), says that we must prepare our own salvation in fear and trembling, and this must mean nothing else but trying our best to be clothed for the wedding at all times. Here's a quote on his death-bed from that young gentleman who was only recently beatified by the Holy Father in Rome:
"I am happy to die because I lived my life without wasting even a minute of it on anything unpleasing to God." - Blessed Carlo Acutis
Another tiny little letter, this time from Saint John to a new Christian called Gaius, and it's interesting to discover that, like Saint Paul, John calls his converts his children. It would seem to have been an early tradition for the Apostles and their successors, the bishops and the priests, to have a parent-children relationship with the young churches. This tradition has continued today, when we call our bishops and priests Father.
"I have no greater cause for thankfulness, than when I hear that my children are following the way of truth." - III John 4
The first part of the letter is an eulogy to Gaius, who has been very charitable to the church he was at that time serving and other correspondents seem to have informed John about it. The rest of the letter seems to be parish politics: John is sending the letter privately to avoid an obnoxious member of the church called Diotrephes, who seems to have the power to exclude both John and Gaius. I wonder who he was: bishop or priest? Anyway, we get a flash of the first letter of Saint John before the end: choose good and God is with you, choose evil and you're taking your character from the devil:
"Beloved, choose the right pattern, not the wrong, to imitate. He who does right is a child of God; the wrong-doer has caught no glimpse of him." - III John 11
"I, the presbyter, send greeting to that sovereign lady whom God has chosen; and to those children of hers who are my friends in the truth, loved, not by me only, but by all those who have recognized the truth." - II John 1
"Many false teachers have appeared in the world, who will not acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in human flesh; here is the deceiver you were warned against, here is Antichrist. Be on your guard, or you will lose all you have earned, instead of receiving your wages in full. The man who goes back, who is not true to Christ’s teaching, loses hold of God; the man who is true to that teaching, keeps hold both of the Father and of the Son. - II John 7-9
"Stand firm, then, brethren, and hold by the traditions you have learned, in word or in writing, from us." - II Thessalonians 2: 14
When I was a boy, the Saint offered as a model to us was Saint Domenico Sávio, one of the students of the great Torinese priest Saint John Bosco. But today, the Saint all the young people are talking about is the young London-born Italian, Carlo Acutis, who has just been beatified. A few days ago, his body was exhumed and found to be in a remarkable state of preservation, although he passed away more than ten years ago. Good heavens, these things still happen: the bodies of the Saints still defying nature, as if it still were the early centuries. The Roman martyrs could not be burned with fire, because the fire refused to touch them. Wild animals, ravenous with hunger, could not approach them. Soldiers had to be sent to stab them to death.
So, who was Carlo Acutis? If you've watched the little video above, I'll still say a few things. First of all: the Church is young, and Carlo is proof of that. The old stories of the Saints live again in his life. As an infant, he had an extraordinary devotion to Christ and the Blessed Virgin. He prayed the daily rosary from the age of seven and soon began to keep a journal for a regular examination of conscience. He became involved in the charitable works of his parish church. He had a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and one of his last acts was building a website to collect and compile accounts of Eucharistic miracles. He died of leukemia at age fifteen, but he has been building the Church ever since. I find this story inspirational.
Carrying on with the Bible in a year programme, I have changed gear every now and then, so I've already found my way through eight books, and completed roughly 16% of the whole. In spite of the detailed ritual elements in Leviticus - the various complicated animal sacrifices - I'm still ploughing through it. It seems to me that the old priests were accomplished butchers. There is an inner logic to the ritual and I'll get it eventually, after I've gone over the book a few times. Meanwhile, I've found my way through Saint Matthew's gospel.
It's still safe to consider Saint Matthew's Gospel as being written the first, which is the traditional story, although a large portion of modern scholarship has succumbed to the idea that Saint Mark's Gospel is prior, because of its smaller size. The idea seems to be that the shortest comes first, like a skeleton, which is later fleshed out into newer versions. There's also this reasonable if entirely un-evidenced idea that there was a common body of 'Jesus sayings' that the scholars call Q, from which the evangelists (except Saint John) drew upon to construct their several essays. It's all way up there: clever ideas thought up by clever people, you see. I've always thought, in my own reading, that these modern scholars picture the Apostles and Evangelists as scholars sitting in writing rooms to write, with bookshelves of reference books behind them. When you consider that these same scholars think that the Gospels were all written decades after the Ascension of Christ, and not by the Apostles and their disciples, but later Christians, you can see why this whole idea of assembling by reference to other traditions fits in. I may refer to this theory of the priority of Saint Mark's Gospel
But, the older idea, as I said, may still be held. The Apostles had a mission and needed to leave the Holy Land at some point, possibly at some time in the late 50s. They required a working text of the Gospel to carry on to the countries they would visit. They must have generally used Matthew's Gospel, the only one written at the time. He was one of the Apostles, of course. I know that at least the Apostle Bartholomew's copy was left behind in India and found later (according to Eusebius' history); and, of course, the Apostle Barnabas was buried with his copy. The mission of the Apostles, as also of Christ, was to the Jewish people, and the Gospel of Saint Matthew is full of references to the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament. Mark's Gospel, written later, when the Apostle Saint Peter had arrived in Rome and Mark had joined Peter's disciples there, is shorter and has some particular reference to Saint Peter, as it naturally would. It's similarity to Saint Matthew's Gospel may simply be explained by the fact that that was available in Rome and regularly heard, alongside the Holy Father Saint Peter's own reminiscences. Saint Luke's Gospel contains new information, such as in the infancy stories, and must have required further input from local Christians in the Holy Land (such as the Blessed Virgin) and is certainly from later on. Saint John's Gospel is generally considered to be the last of the four, although it contains some very early, first-hand-witness information.
Flipping through it right now, it's surprising how short it feels, how abbreviated. The Gospels were not meant to be biographies of Christ, although they provide biographical information. They were concerned rather with presenting Christ as the fulfilment of the promise. Matthew therefore provides an adjusted genealogy at the very beginning, to demonstrate that Christ's arrival was carefully planned. Saint John the Baptist is introduced and surpassed. The Apostles are appointed, the inner circle first - Peter (along with his brother Andrew), James and John - and then the rest. There is the great sermon on the mount, between chapters five and seven, a first catechism, we might say. Then come the long stream of miraculous works, interspersed with confused Jewish leaders - pharisees, mostly, but increasing numbers of scribes and Sadducees (Jerusalem priests) - asking why such an orthodox Jew doesn't observe all the various purity laws of the people. The disciples are then sent on the mission. John the Baptist is soon killed by Herod, the ethnarch of Galilee, and Christ takes himself away from Galilee. In the midst of new attention from the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Christ prepares for his sacrifice with the Transfiguration on the mountain and the procession to Jerusalem. The controversies with the Jerusalem authorities climax with the terrible parables of the vineyard owner whose servants and son are killed by the vineyard keepers and of the king whose son's wedding feast is not attended by those invited. The implied abandonment of Jerusalem by God brings a new fury into the hearts of the Jerusalem authorities, who arrange for Christ's arrest. He establishes the new covenant, is tried, tortured, killed and returns. The Church then receives the command to go forth on the mission.
Compelling, from start to finish. I shall now go on to the abbreviated Gospel of Saint Mark.
One of my favourites ever. It was playing on the car stereo system this weekend, when I went out for a drive. If you put me on a desert island with a record player and one record only, make sure this is on it.
Looks rather stern, doesn't he?
But, apart from our blessed Lord, he was the greatest heart in the writings of the New Testament, able to create several local churches with or without the existence of a local Jewish synagogue, to a great extent by his own personal influence. Probably because of his ability to foster deep friendships with his converts and to carry these on across vast distances, through the use of letter-writing. Letters became a primary means of uniting the churches in various parts of the Roman empire, which seems to have had an excellent and reliable postal system for the times.
Saint Paul, according to the later part of the letter, doesn't seem to have visited Rome before, for he says that he had made it a point to not visit areas that had already received Christian missionaries. And, of course, by the time of this letter, the Apostle Saint Peter had already set up his chair as bishop somewhere in the city of Rome. I remember once reading that a possible origin story for this letter to the Romans was an invitation from Peter to Paul to write it. Why? Because, whilst Peter had exerted himself with the mission to the Jewish communities, Paul had specialised in missions to the non-Jewish, or Gentile, believers. And Peter was in a particular quandry: at some point we are not certain of, the Emperor Claudius had expelled all the Jews from Rome. We know this from the Acts of the Apostles:
"Here he met a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who, with his wife Priscilla, had lately come from Italy, when Claudius decreed that all Jews should leave Rome." - Acts of the Apostles, 18: 2
Before this point, the Roman church had been mostly Jewish. With the expulsion of the Jews, it naturally became almost entirely non-Jewish, but continued to grow. When the expulsion ended, the Roman Jewish Christians who returned found themselves in a new situation: a majority Gentile church. And poor, dear Peter had to handle the consequent tensions between the Jewish Christians, who still felt bound to the Law of Moses (especially the dietary rules), and the Gentile Christians, who revelled in the freedom granted them by Christ. We see a little of this towards the end of the letter, when Paul tells the feuding Christians to exercise charity:
"And if thy brother’s peace of mind is disturbed over food, it is because thou art neglecting to follow the rule of charity. Here is a soul for which Christ died; it is not for thee to bring it to perdition with the food thou eatest. We must not allow that which is a good thing for us to be brought into disrepute. The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking this or that; it means rightness of heart, finding our peace and our joy in the Holy Spirit." - Romans, 14: 15-17
Therefore, if your Jewish Christian wants to observe the dietary rules, don't give him or her any grief over it. Just co-exist, for the sake of the kingdom of God... The whole letter is a prolonged defence of the Jewish people who have largely rejected the Catholic gospel, leaving only a remnant (the Jewish Christians):
"So it is in our time; a remnant has remained true; grace has chosen it. And if it is due to grace, then it is not due to observance of the law; if it were, grace would be no grace at all. What does it mean, then? Why, that Israel has missed its mark; only this chosen remnant has attained it, while the rest were blinded; so we read in scripture, God has numbed their senses, given them unseeing eyes and deaf ears, to this day." - Romans, 11: 5-8
Paul is himself a Jew, one of this remnant, and he feels deeply for the others. In those days, there was no very sharp distinction between the Jews who didn't believe in Christ and those who did - Jewish Christians still lived according to the Law of Moses. We know from the Acts of the Apostles that the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem continued with the Temple observances, and that would mean the synagogue observances also. This would naturally have set them apart from the non-Jewish Christians. Paul demands that the Jewish Christians (those who are circumcised) remember that Christ came to 'relieve their needs' as Jews, and the Gentiles Christians remember that they are indebted to the mercy of God for their own being Christians.
"You must befriend one another, as Christ has befriended you, for God’s honour. I would remind those who are circumcised, that Christ came to relieve their needs; God’s fidelity demanded it; He must make good His promises to our fathers. And I would remind the Gentiles to praise God for His mercy. So we read in scripture, 'I will give thanks to Thee for this, and sing of Thy praise, in the midst of the Gentiles;' and again it says, 'You too, Gentiles, rejoice with His own people;' and again, 'Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles; let all the nations of the world do Him honour;'" - Romans, 15: 7-11
Get along, please, you're all Christians, he seems to say. It's impossible to walk through all the contents of this letter in a short blog-post, but it's worth noting once more, Paul's solicitude for his own people, who he expects to eventually be reconciled with the Christian message, although at the moment they have denied it, and so have forfeited their right to Christian believers, Jews and Gentiles:
"Tell me, then, have [God's people, the Jews] stumbled so as to fall altogether? God forbid; the result of their false step has been to bring the Gentiles salvation, and the result of that must be to rouse the Jews to emulate them. Why then, if their false step has enriched the world, if the Gentiles have been enriched by their default, what must we expect, when it is made good? (I am speaking now to you Gentiles.) As long as my apostolate is to the Gentiles, I mean to make much of my office, in the hope of stirring up my own flesh and blood to emulation, and saving some of them. If the losing of them has meant a world reconciled to God, what can the winning of them mean, but life risen from the dead?" - Romans, 11: 11-15
And there is the kind heart I meant earlier, and the personal influence surely follows from that. Throughout the letter, he not only counsels Christians to bear with each other in their differences, but he refuses to exclude the Jewish people from the final reward of 'life risen from the dead.' Anyway, I shall end here, by mentioning the absolute crowd of Christians in Rome Paul seems to know already, probably because he had met them on his travels through Asia, Macedonia and Greece. It must have been a small world, the Roman world, that could sustain this type of pan-European-and-Asian network of churches and Christians. Paul tells the Romans of his desire to both visit them finally (in spite of the presence of an Apostle in Rome) and continue on to Spain. Some people think he may have made it to Spain, although the New Testament only informs us of one imprisonment of Paul in Rome. Whether there was only one, or two, it is striking that, by the end of the first century, Peter and Paul were seen as joint founders of the Roman church.
Onward in my journey through the Bible in a year.
Here's one of those wonderful, modern Saints, smiling at us out of black and white photographs: the young, French Carmelite, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. She died at only twenty-four at the very end of the nineteenth century, in 1897, having led the cloistered life of the discalced Carmelites since she was fifteen. She is immensely popular, and in England is only a little less frequently represented in churches than the Franciscan wonder-worker, Saint Anthony. The Holy Father John Paul II named Thérèse a Doctor of the Church in 1997, long after her writings had been published and become well-known. The Holy Father Pius XI had already named her Patroness of the Missions in 1939, because of her ongoing service of prayer for the Catholic Missions around the world. Thérèse was born at Alençon, in Normandy, and the family moved to Lisieux after the death of her mother. From the moment of her first Holy Communion, she dedicated her life to Christ. The Holy Father spoke of her 'spiritual motherhood,' by which, even at age fourteen, she found herself interceding in prayer for an impenitent criminal on death row. At fifteen, she went with her father and sister to Rome, and requested the Holy Father Leo XIII personally to allow her to enter the Carmel at Lisieux at once, long before the age permitted by the order. This was granted a year later. Thérèse was professed in the community in September, 1890, and asked Christ at once for the gift of his infinite Love, that she could be the smallest and that all who died on that day be saved. That profound love is the story of the rest of her life, her constant intercession for sinners, her devotion to the Gospel and the Blessed Sacrament and the Divine Mercy. Thérèse leaves behind for us her autobiography, the Story of a soul, which was published soon after she died - a story of the complete gift of self to the Love of God, for service to all others.
