I'm preparing to give more time to the parish website and twitter account next week. For this reason, I've placed the twitter feed into the sidebar of this blog. It's already been on the front-page of the website, and it should remain there as well.
If you are on Twitter, you could follow the parish account. You can link to it from the sidebar of this blog.
The most interesting story in my Bible journey thus far, a suspenseful thriller, if I may call it that. The scene is set of a father (let's call him Tobias Senior) who has spent his wealth on giving alms to the poor and his energy on the burial of dead bodies, particular of Jews. He is given as having done this illegally and narrowly escaped death for it. These two corporal works of mercy, which the Church still honours, earned him the affection of the Holy One, Who dispatches the great supporting character, the archangel Raphael, who is sent down to help two people, Tobias Senior and Tobias' future daughter-in-law Sara, who was being afflicted by a malign spirit called Asmodaeus. In the process, the angel befriends and assists the Tobias' son also (let's call him Tobias Junior). With a parting flourish, the angel returns from whence he came and Tobias sings his great song. Let's march through the whole wonderful story.
The story begins by placing Tobias Senior in the dispersion of the northern kingdom of Israel, which had been destroyed by the Assyrians, led by their King Salmanasar, and Tobias is portrayed as the true Hebrew, faithful to the one God and, even as a boy, not led astray by the Egyptian religion introduced by King Jeroboam I of Israel:
"Even when he was a boy, and was of least regard among the men of Nephthali, no boyish levity did his acts display. While the rest had recourse to the golden calves Jeroboam had set up when he reigned in Israel, Tobias shunned their company and went his own way; went up to Jerusalem to the Lord’s temple, and worshipped the Lord that was God of Israel. First-fruit and tithe he duly offered..." - Tobias, 1: 4-6
The ultimate religious Hebrew, Tobias followed up his love of God with the inevitable love of neighbour as he gave alms in abundance and even defied the wicked King Sennacherib of Assyria, who had a hatred for the Hebrews, to carefully bury the dead.
"Time passed; Salmanasar died, and the throne passed to his son Sennacherib, who was no friend to the Jews; and now it was Tobias’ daily task to visit his own clansmen, comforting them and providing for each of them as best he could, out of what store he had; it was for him to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to honour with careful burial men that had died of sickness, and men slain. When Sennacherib came home from Judaea, escaping while he might from the divine vengeance his blasphemies had brought upon him, he killed many an Israelite in his anger; and these too Tobias would bury. When this came to the king’s ears, he gave orders that Tobias should be put to death, and seized all his property..." - Tobias, 1: 18-22
In the course of all his troubles, wearied out by his self-appointment as grave-digger and undertaker, he was blinded. In his increasing desperation of poverty and bearing the curse of the people in their exile in Assyria, Tobias made a heartfelt prayer for justice. Unknown to him, his future daughter-in-law was making her own prayer for justice, having been disgraced by having lost seven husbands before her marriages could be consummated and so acquiring the reputation of a murderer. Far away, beyond time, the archangel Raphael is dispatched to make things right (all this is chapter three). Now, long ago, Tobias Senior had made a loan to another Hebrew called Gabelus, and he now dispatched his son to recover the sum to relieve the family of poverty. He asked Tobias Junior to go and find a travelling companion, and behold! the archangel is at the gate, made up as the trustworthy Azarias and all ready to go.
"Then Tobias asked, 'Wilt thou take my son with thee, and guide him to Media, to Rages, and so to the house of Gabelus? There shall be a reward awaiting thee on thy return.' 'I will take him there,' said the angel, 'and bring him home again besides.' Then Tobias would know of what household or tribe he came. It was indeed no other than the angel Raphael that spoke to him; 'What,' he answered, 'is it my lineage, not myself, thou wouldst have for thy son’s escort? But set thy mind at rest; my name is Azarias, and a man of renown, Ananias, was my father.' 'Forgive me,' Tobias said, 'for doubting thy lineage; thou comest of good stock indeed.'" - Tobias, 5: 14-19
After that momentary doubt, Tobias senior gives them his blessing and the two are on their way. Mid journey, they come upon a monstrous fish in the river Tigris and the angel duly advises Tobias Junior to harvest certain organs of the fish, which would be advantageous later. One would provide a salve that would heal his father's blindness, the other would take care of the demon that harrassed his wife-to-be and killed her husbands. The angel's advice to Tobias concerning the marriage is interesting, for it demonstrates the fundamentals of Catholic marriage, as the Church holds them today: the bearing and rearing of children and the mutual support of the spouses.
"'Heed me well,' answered Raphael, 'and thou shalt hear why the fiend has power to hurt some and not others. The fiend has power over such as go about their marrying with all thought of God shut out of their hearts and minds, wholly intent on their lust, as if they were horse or mule, brutes without reason. Not such be thy mating, when thou hast won thy bride. For three days deny thyself her favours, and the time you spend together, spend all in prayer. The first night, burn the liver of yonder fish, and therewith the fiend shall be driven away. On the second night, union thou shalt have, but with the company of the holy patriarchs. The third night, thy prayer shall win thee a blessing, of children safely born to thee and to her. Then, when the third night is past, take the maid to thyself with the fear of the Lord upon thee, moved rather by the hope of begetting children than by any lust of thine. So, in the true line of Abraham, thou shalt have joy of thy fatherhood." - Tobias, 6: 16-22
That's three days of chastity and continence before God, which is what I suppose is meant by the phrase 'with the company of the holy patriarchs' of the Hebrews, who had faithfully consecrated themselves to God to receive His promises. Tobias Junior and Raphael duly arrive at the house of Raguel, a distant cousin of Tobias Senior, whose daughter Anna happens to be the maid in distress. The marriage covenant is made and the demon is dispatched, and there's a spot of Old Testament humour here as old Raguel digs a tomb for Tobias, expecting him to have died like his other seven sons-in-law, although the married couple is safe and sound in bed. He'd best get it done by sunrise, so nobody would know that an eighth had died, to the further ill-repute of his daughter.
"And now it was cock-crow, and Raguel had all his men out betimes to help him dig the grave; 'Like enough,' thought he, 'this one will have fared no better than the other seven that took her to wife.' Their digging done, he went back to his wife, and bade her send one of her maids to find out if Tobias were dead; it were best to have him in his grave before the sun was up. So the maid went on her errand, and ventured into the bride-chamber, where both lay asleep together, safe and sound. When she returned with that good news, Raguel and Anna fell to praising the Lord; 'God of Israel,' said they, 'we thank Thee that our fears were vain!'" - Tobias, 8: 11-17
After days of feasting and gaining much in dowry from the wedding, and after Raphael had been to Gabelus to recover the loaned money, Tobias Junior made finally to return to his parents, who had begun to mourn his loss in chapter ten. But all is well, for the return is successful and, in a beautiful line for dog-lovers, is heralded by the travelling dog.
"Yet he was not to reach the house first. The dog that had accompanied him on his travels ran on before him, heralding the good news with the caress of his wagging tail. Up sprang the father, blind though he were, and made for the door, running and stumbling as he ran. A servant must take him by the hand before he could go out to meet his son; but meet him he did, embraced and kissed him, and his wife too must embrace the boy and kiss him, and then they both wept over him; but they were tears of joy." - Tobias, 11: 9-11
In their great rejoicing, father and son remember that none of this would have happened at all if it were not for the mysterious youth Azarias. They try to give him money and half of all their newly-found fortune, when he literally knocks them off their feet with his revelation:
"'When thou, Tobias, wert praying, and with tears, when thou wert burying the dead, leaving thy dinner untasted, so as to hide them all day in thy house, and at night give them funeral, I, all the while, was offering that prayer of thine to the Lord. Then, because thou hadst won His favour, needs must that trials should come, and test thy worth. And now, for thy healing, for the deliverance of thy son’s wife Sara from the fiend’s attack, He has chosen me for His messenger. Who am I? I am the angel Raphael, and my place is among those seven who stand in the presence of the Lord.' Upon hearing this, they were both mazed with terror, and fell down trembling, face to earth. Peace be with you, the angel said; do not be afraid." - Tobias, 12: 12-17
When the angel had completed his leap to return beyond the world, Tobias Senior sang his great song of praise of the God Who had never abandoned him after all, but still helped his children in distant exile from the Holy Land but who remained faithful to him.
"Great is Thy name, Lord, for ever; Thy kingdom cannot fail. Thine to scourge, Thine to pity; Thou dost bring men to the grave and back from the grave; from Thy power there is no deliverance. Sons of Israel, make His name known, publish it for all the Gentiles to hear; if He has dispersed you among heathen folk who know nothing of Him, it was so that you might tell them the story of His great deeds, convince them that He, and no other, is God all-powerful. He it is that has scourged us for our sins; He it is that will deliver us in His mercy. Look and see how He has dealt with us, and then give thanks to Him, but with trembling awe in your hearts; let your own deeds acclaim Him, King of all the ages. I, at least, in this land of exile, will be the spokesman of His praise, tell the story of His dread dealings with a sinful race. Come back, sinners, and do His will; doubt not that He will shew you mercy." - Tobias, 13: 1-8
Beautifully missionary, and by his acts Tobias has been a splendid missionary for the Hebrew religion. The rest of the book is a bit of a wrap-up. Tobias predicts the return of the people to Jerusalem at the end of chapter thirteen and we then discover his prosperity in old-age, and his final advice to his seven grandsons to return with their families to the Holy Land after the destruction of Nineve, ending with this splendid Messianic statement:
"The Lord’s words must needs come true; it will not be long before Nineve is destroyed. After that, our exiled brethren will be able to return to the land of Israel; the deserted country-side will be populous once again, and its Temple, long since destroyed by fire, will be built anew, and all those who fear God will find their way back to it. Then the Gentiles, too, will forsake their false gods; will betake themselves to Jerusalem, and find a home there; all the kings of the earth will take pride in it, as they pay worship to the King who reigns in Israel!" - Tobias, 14: 6-9
Tobias was buried with his wife at Nineve and Tobias Junior returned to his in-laws and eventually buries them also, enjoying long life and prosperity himself, the ultimate reward for faithfulness to God.
I've been meaning to read through a short history of the Japanese martyrs ever since the feast day earlier this month of Saint Paul Miki and companions, who suffered in 1597. Paul was of a wealthy people and was educated by the Jesuit Fathers, before himself becoming a Jesuit and a well-known preacher. In the persecutions of the emperor Hideyoshi that destroyed the Church in Japan, Paul was arrested with many others and forced to march from Kyoto to Nagasaki, where they were massacred together, by being tied or shackled to crosses and then speared.
The Japanese Catholics and their European fellows had much to suffer in the persecutions of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, as the Church was gradually pushed over a cliff. Today itself (the twenty-second day of February), in the Roman martyrology, we hear of a Portuguese Jesuit Father called Didacus (aka. Diego) Carvalho, who was grievously imprisoned and then placed naked for days on a frozen lake to suffer exposure. Japan had been evangelised first by the present of Portuguese merchants in the mid sixteenth-century, merchants who had been quickly followed by the Jesuit Fathers, led by Saint Francis Xavier himself, a co-founder of the Order. The Fathers discovered a mixture of the Chinese religions and local deities, served by priests called bonzes, who served under a high-priest. Saint Francis' influence was profound, and several of these communities survived without priests and Sacraments until Europeans revisited in the nineteenth century. Japanese nobility and royalty itself had bowed to Christ and to his vicar in Rome until about 1588, when a Japanese emperor called Cambacundono decided that he was a god and expelled the Jesuits. They hung about, disguised. More persecution of the Church arrived in 1592, under the emperor Tagcosama, who suspected European mariners of using Christianity to monopolise trade in the region and eventually extend European rule. Paul Miki and his companions, both Jesuit and Franciscan, died in 1597.
The brief reprieve following the death of Tagcosama in 1599 ended with the arrival in 1602 of emperor Cubosama, who was more vicious and ordered the torture of Christians in various ways, each as barbaric as the others. Cubosama's son Xogun (acceding in 1616) was apparently worse yet, his greatest victim being the Jesuit Father Charles Spinola, who was burnt alive with other Religious of the great Orders and several other priests. In 1639, all Europeans but the Dutch were prohibited from entering Japan. Thus ended the external work of the Jesuit Fathers there for about two centuries.
Getting on with the Bible read, I've reached the end of the book of Baruch. Baruch was an associate of the prophet Jeremias in the last years of the kingdom of Juda. For example, when Jeremias was asked to compose a book of devastating prophecies for the Judaite king, he asked Baruch (who was a scribe) to write it up. The king promptly tore it up and Baruch was dictated a longer one yet.
"In the fourth year of Josias’ son Joachim, the Lord gave Jeremias this command ment: 'Get thyself a scroll, and write down on it all the warnings I have uttered against Israel and Juda, and against the other nations of the world, ever since I first spoke to thee under king Josias. Maybe, when the men of Juda hear of all the mischief I mean to do them, they will leave off their straying in false paths, and so I will overlook the guilt of their wrong-doing.' So Jeremias sent for Baruch the son of Nerias; the Lord’s utterances, every one, Jeremias rehearsed and Baruch wrote down on the scroll." - Jeremias, 36: 1-4
Poor Baruch was asked even to read it out at the Temple, for Jeremias could not. Indeed, Baruch would have received much of the same treatment as Jeremias did. For all his suffering though, he was given a blessing from God:
"When Baruch, son of Nerias, had written down the words dictated to him by Jeremias, in the fourth year of Joachim’s reign in Juda, this comfort Jeremias gave him: 'A message from the Lord, the God of Israel, to thee, Baruch! Woe is thee, heavy is thy heart; sorrow upon sorrow the Lord gives thee, and respite thou canst find none. Yet this message the Lord has for thee: Here am I destroying what My own hands built, uprooting what My own hands planted; and for thee must it be all prizes? For prizes never look thou; enough for thee that, go thou where thou wilt, safe-conduct of thy life I am granting thee." - Jeremias, 45
And that could serve as a bit of an introduction to the book of Baruch, which contains material apparently from the wretched time of the two deportations of the Judaites to Babylon, the second of which was accompanied by the destruction of the City and the Temple. The first chapter contains a book that Baruch read out to King Joachin (aka. Jechonias) and the Judaites clustered around him in Babylon. When Jechonias had been thus removed from his throne into imprisonment, his uncle Sedecias had been put in his place at Jerusalem (Jeremias, chapter thirty-seven). The book of Jeremias speaks of a letter sent in this way to Babylon (chapter twenty-nine), but doesn't describe Baruch as the bearer or as one deputed to read it out. The effect of the Baruch's reading is similar to Jeremias' letter: that the people are to expect a considerable spell of time in exile and that they should cultivate the favour of the Babylonian king and build their families there:
"You shall pray long life for king Nabuchodonosor of Babylon, and his son Baltassar, that their reign on earth may last as long as heaven itself. May the Lord grant courage to all of us, and send us a gleam of hope; long thrive we under the protection of king Nabuchodonosor and his son Baltassar, persevering loyally in their service and winning their favour! And intercede with the Lord our God for us exiles; against His divine will we have rebelled, and to this hour He has not relented." - Baruch 1: 11-13
Moreover, there is a significant sentiment of contrition in the rest of this chapter of Baruch, as the writer acknowledges the guilt of the people in their taking up multiple religions in Juda and so earning the wrath of the God of Israel:
"With king and prince of ours, priest and prophet of ours the fault lies, and with our fathers before us. We have defied the will of the Lord our God; trust and loyalty we had none to give Him, nor ever shewed Him submission, by listening to His divine voice and following the commands He gave us." - Baruch, 1: 16-18
Once more is repeated, now perhaps too late, the wisdom of Jeremias and the other prophets who had advised them to submit to Babylon, to avoid the destruction of their kingdom and nation. In this reading of Baruch, we find remorse for the missed opportunity.
"But no; Thou hadst given them due warning, through those prophets that were servants of Thine, before letting Thy angry vengeance have its way, and the warning went unheeded. 'Bow shoulder and bow neck,' said the divine voice, 'and be vassals to the king of Babylon; and the land I gave to your fathers shall still be your home. Refuse to serve the king of Babylon at My divine bidding, and Jerusalem with her daughter cities shall mourn their loss; no more the cry of joy and mirth, no more the voice of bridegroom and of bride; untrodden the whole land shall be, and uninhabited.' But all Thy threats could not persuade them to be the king of Babylon’s vassals; Thy servants prophesied in vain. And so Thy threats were performed; kings of ours and fathers of ours might not rest quiet in their graves;" - Baruch, 2: 20-24
Chapter three is a prolonged prayer for forgiveness for the sins that were committed in an older generation that were now being brought upon the children and grandchildren of those generation. This must be a reference to the reign of the wicked King Manasses of Juda, grandfather of King Josias, who had gone so far as to pollute the Temple mount with idolatry and with the shedding of innocent blood. The latter histories of the kingdom of Juda paint the reign of this king as the reason for all the later woes of the destruction of the kingdom and the exile of the people. Here is now a promise of a renewed reform of the ancient religion:
"Lord Almighty, God of Israel, listen to the prayer Israel makes to Thee from the grave! Our fathers it was that defied the Lord their God, and gave no heed to Him; and to us, their sons, the punishment clings. Forget the wrong they did, those fathers of ours; remember Thy ancient power, Thy own honour, this day; only to Thee, the Lord our God, shall praise of ours be given. Why else hast Thou inspired us with such dread of Thee? Thou wouldst have us learn to invoke Thy name, to utter Thy praise, here as exiles, in proof that we disown the wrong our fathers did, when their sins defied Thee. Exiles we are this day, dispersed by Thee to suffer scorn and reviling, until we have made amends for all the wrong our fathers did when they abandoned Thee, abandoned the Lord our God." - Baruch, 3: 4-8
After the praise of God and the futility of man's search for Wisdom, the third chapter settles on the pride of Israel: that they alone were given the key to divine Wisdom, even if they have neglected it. Chapter four suggests that they have carried a book of the Law of Moses with them into exile, and with the help of this book, they would now reform in exile.
"Here is the book in which you may read God’s commandments, that law of His which stands for ever; holding fast by it or forsaking it, a man makes life or death his goal. Jacob, thy steps retrace, and this path follow, guiding thy steps by glow of the light that beckons thee; this is thy pride, wouldst thou yield it up to another? Thy prize, shall an alien race enjoy it? Israel, a blessed race is ours, that has knowledge of God’s will." - Baruch, 4: 1-4
The following verses personify the Holy City as a mother who is now bereft of her children, far away in exile and chapter four ends with (and chapter five entirely consists of) a word of comfort to Jerusalem, who would be peopled once more in the future with the Jewish nation. One of the torments for the orthodox Jew living in the multicultural soup that was Babylon in that time was the rampant idolatry, and this is a subject of several books of the Bible that deal with the exiled people, such as Esther and Daniel. The book of Baruch ends with a prolonged critique and mockery of idolatry and idols, which it repeatedly says cannot protect themselves from natural wear or from destruction of any sort. Idols cannot sense anything, they are utterly dead matter, and they must be carried around for religious rites by attendants. And could such things, says Baruch, be called gods? And thus we may end this post.
"Fair, golden faces! Yet will they not shine on the worshipper, till he rub off the stains on them; cast once for all in a mould, without feeling. Cost what they will, there is never a breath of life in them; never a pace they walk, but must still be carried on men’s shoulders, putting their own worshippers to shame by the betrayal of their impotence. Fall they to earth, they cannot rise from it, and though they be set up again, it is in no power of their own that they stand. As well bring gifts to dead men as to these; the victim thou offerest yonder priest will sell, or put to his own use, nor ever a slice his wife cuts shall find its way to the sick and the needy. Those offerings every woman may touch if she will, child-birth and monthly times notwithstanding. And are these gods? Are these to be feared?" - Baruch, 6: 23-28
I remember seeing this video many years ago. Fifteen years ago, I think. It's effect is wonderful. Have a look. The Catholics Come Home network is a good-looking American initiative, designed to bring lapsed Catholics back to observance of religion. Anyhow, enjoy the video:
Continuing on from the prophecies of Jeremias, and part of the ongoing journey through the Bible, I have arrived at the end of the far shorter book containing his long moan over the destruction of his nation and its great capital city. There's not too much to add to this post apart from what I put into the post on Jeremias linked above. For the sin of idolatry and partial apostasy, the prophets had read out a sentence of doom on the people and the City from God on high, and Jeremias among others had been properly ignored. Now all was desolation, the people almost entirely removed (except for the poor workers on the land) and the City properly levelled. We may imagine the prophet sitting in the ruins, with his long lament, which speaks of punishment imposed on account of sin and wretched regret.
"Look well, you that pass by, and say if there was ever grief like this grief of mine; never a grape on the vineyard left to glean, when the Lord’s threat of vengeance is fulfilled.
Must fire from heaven waste my whole being, ere I can learn my lesson? Must he catch me in a net, to drag me back from my course? Desolate he leaves me, to pine away all the day long with grief.
No respite it gives me, the yoke of guilt I bear, by his hand fastened down upon my neck; see, I faint under it! The Lord has given me up a prisoner to duress there is no escaping.
Right the Lord has in his quarrel; I have set his commands at defiance. O world, take warning; see what pangs I suffer, all my folk gone into exile, both man and maid."
- Lamentations, 1: 12-14
Indeed, the sinner knows that God's Justice cannot be questioned, for the punishment has been earned by him. Worst of all for one who knew the glory of the City in her prime, looted often but still resplendent in the days of King Josias of Juda, Jeremias and others had to suffer the hideous sight of the ruins left behind by the Chaldeans.
"All dim, now, and discoloured, the gold that once shone so fair! Heaped up at every street-corner lie hallowed stones.
Bright they shone once in all their renown, the men of Sion, and now what are they? Little regarded as common earthenware, of the potter’s fashioning.
Cub of jackal is fed at its dam’s breast; and has my people grown unnatural towards its own children, like some ostrich in the desert?
Dry throat and parching tongue for babe at the breast; children asking for bread, and never a crust to share with them!
Ever they fared daintily, that now lie starved in the streets; ever went richly arrayed, and now their fingers clutch at the dung-hill." - Lamentations, 4: 1-5
The very Temple lay all around the streets in hallowed stones, stripped bare of her gold, silver and bronze. The warriors of the people who survived now sent into slave labour. The narratives in the prophecy of Jeremias tell of a remnant of the people left behind by the invaders, who had carried most to Babylon. It must be this remnant that the prophet sees in the streets of the City, still starved after the two-year-long siege, women and children. The last chapter is a piteous call for help from a dispossessed people, once themselves invaders there, and ends with a beautiful confession of faith:
"Bethink thee, Lord, of our ill case; see where we lie humiliated, and seeing take pity! New tenants our lands have, our homes foreign masters; orphaned sons of widowed mothers were not more defenceless. Ours to buy the very water we drink, pay a price for every stick of fire-wood; led hither and thither under the yoke, with no respite given, we must make our peace with men of Egypt or Assyria, for a belly-full of bread. So must we bear the guilt of our fathers, that sinned and are gone! Slaves for our masters now, and none to ransom us; bread won out in the desert, and at peril of our lives from the sword’s point! What wonder if our skins are burnt dry as an oven, seared by long famine...?
Lord, Thou abidest ever; age after age Thy throne endures; and wilt Thou still be forgetful of us, through the long years leave us forsaken? Bring us back to Thee, Lord, and let us find our home; bring back to us the days of our youth; wouldst Thou altogether abandon us, shall Thy indignation know no measure?" - Lamentations, 5: 1-10, 19-22
It's taken some time to get through this wonderfully long set of writings, the Book of Jeremias (aka. Jeremiah), but plough through it I must, as part of the journey through the Bible, now six months in and sailing along fine. The longest prophecies belong to Isaias, Jeremias and Ezechiel, and each comes from a different era after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, and surrounding the time of the catastrophic destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. Isaias is the prophet of the time of King Ezechias of Juda (715-687 BC), Jeremias of the time of King Josias (640-610 BC) and on past the destruction of the Holy City and the exile of the people in Babylon (587 BC), and Ezechiel among the people exiled in Babylon.
Jeremias was a priest, and so of the family of Aaron brother of Moses, and he came from a town called Anathoth in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin, a levitical city as given by Josue, 21: 18. And he was called very early on to his work as a prophet of the eternal God, as given from this famous extract from the first chapter of the book, that is often read out at priestly ordinations today:
"The word of the Lord came to me, and His message was: 'I claimed thee for My own before ever I fashioned thee in thy mother’s womb; before ever thou camest to the birth, I set thee apart for Myself; I have a prophet’s errand for thee among the nations.' 'Alas, alas, Lord God (said I), I am but a child that has never learned to speak.' 'A child, sayest thou?' the Lord answered. 'Nay, I have a mission for thee to undertake, a message to entrust to thee. Have no human fears; am I not at thy side, to protect thee from harm?' the Lord says. And with that, the Lord put out his hand, and touched me on the mouth; 'See,' he told me, 'I have inspired thy lips with utterance. Here and now I give thee authority over nations and kingdoms everywhere; with a word thou shalt root them up and pull them down, overthrow and lay them in ruins; with a word thou shalt build them up and plant them anew." - Jeremias, 1: 4-10
The men God chooses are not always the most eloquent, as we know from the whole history of the Bible, and they make the same protest, Lord, I am not worthy. And that is probably the response that the Holy One is looking for, because these men are eventually able to part seas, bring water from rocks, slay thousands of villains with the jawbone of an ass, and stand fearlessly before immoral princes and wicked men. Jeremias was destined to do the second, delivering unwanted messages from heaven to the several of the kings and the nobles in the last decades of the kingdom of Juda, before that kingdom was utterly ruined and its people dispersed among the vast territories of the neo-Babylonian empire. Jeremias' message was not unlike that of the other prophets: return to the whole-hearted worship of the Lord God, end all other religious cults around the country (of which there seem to have been many), and follow the instructions of the prophets, not seeking diplomatic support from other world powers. Basically, prophets like Jeremias could see that it would be better for the survival of the nation if the king of Juda accepted the overlordship of the Babylonians; when he was ignored and the king sought to defy Babylon, hoping in the ancient support of God, he learnt to his ruin that that ancient support had fled him. The great problem, as had been recorded in the Torah, was that the Chosen people occupying the Holy Land would be corrupted by the native religious cults, there. And so they were.
"Then the Lord’s word came to me: 'Go and cry out so that all Jerusalem may hear, with this message from the Lord: What memories I have of thee, gracious memories of thy youth, of the love that plighted troth between us, when I led thee through the desert; alone in the barren wastes, thou and I! Israel was set apart for the Lord, first-fruits vowed to be his revenue; he lay under a ban that plucked them, and must rue his rashness, the Lord says. Listen, then, to the Lord’s word, men of Jacob; listen, every clan that bears the name of Israel, to the Lord’s message: What fault did they find in Me, those fathers of yours, that they should keep their distance from Me, and court false gods, false as themselves? And never a thought to ask where I, the Lord, was, that rescued them from Egypt, and led them on their way through the desert, wild and solitary, parched and dead, far from haunt of traveller and the homes of men! Into a land of plenty I brought you, to enjoy the fruits and the blessings of it; and you had no sooner entered it than you must needs defile it, My own land, turn my chosen home into a place abominable." - Jeremias, 2: 1-7
Here we see the marital language ('that plighted troth between us') of the covenant between God and the people in the desert, a covenant of fidelity which God had kept and the people had by now so repeatedly broken ('and court false gods') that they were about to suffer the fury of a jilted Husband. Jeremias' ministry had begun in the reign of the good King Josias, who had begun a religious reform, but had been cut down in his prime when he challenged an Egyptian army passing through the Holy Land to challenge the Chaldeans. Despite his attempt at reforming the people therefore, the wickedness of Josias' grandfather, King Manasses, would result in a quick return to the former behaviour of the people, and prophets like Jeremias would be summarily ignored. If Jeremias said that God was about to bring ruin on Juda, an army of yes-man prophets (see chapter twenty-three) and Temple priests would challenge him and pronounce prosperity and health for the king and people. Apparently, they continued with multiple religions ('stock of wood and block of stone they hailed'), but when trouble came rushed back to the Temple of God to ask for His help.
"'Thief caught in the act has less cause to blush than the men of Israel, king and prince, priest and prophet, with the rest. Stock of wood and block of stone they hailed as the father that had begotten them; on Me they turned their backs, and gave Me never a glance. And now, in their distress, it is Up, Lord, and bring us rescue! Where are those other gods thou madest for thyself? Bid them rise up and aid thee in the hour of peril; gods thou hadst a many; no city of thine, Juda, but must have its own! And would you still implead Me? Nay, says the Lord, you have forsaken Me, one and all.'" - Jeremias, 2: 26-29
Chapter three continues with the marriage-and-infidelity imagery, and God declares His famous mercy as He says that the people need only acknowledge their fault in deserting Him for other religions and gods. And then there are echoes of the Messianic age:
"Wandering hearts, the Lord bids you come back to Him, and renew your troth; by ones and twos, from this city or that, from this clan or that, He will claim you for His own and bring you back to Sion; and you shall have shepherds of His own choice to guide you well and prudently. After that, the Lord says, when all is growth and fertility, no longer shall you have the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant for your rallying-cry; from thought and memory it will have passed away, nor any care shall be bestowed on the fashioning of it. It is Jerusalem men will speak of as the Lord’s throne; there at Jerusalem all the nations of the world will meet in the Lord’s Name, the false aims of their perverse hearts forgotten. When that time comes, Juda and Israel will be united; together they will come back from the north country to the land I gave your fathers for their home." - Jeremias, 3: 14-18
That the Ark of the Covenant is to be removed speaks of the time when the law of God will be written on the hearts of the people, rather than stored up in a particular place. And all the nations will meet in God's name, in total dedication to Him. But first, the people are to be rededicated to God (circumcised afresh, as in chapter four, verse 4) and, as we shall eventually discover, punishment by exile and banishment must first be endured. And much of the book is doom and gloom, as the growing threat of the pitiless Chaldean army becomes evident, news coming of a vast army descending from north Syria. But we find the strange self-confidence of the people: the God Who saved their ancestors from Egypt would surely save them now, also?
"Obstinately they have defied Me, the Lord says, Israel and Juda both; they disown Me; Nay, they tell one another, this is none of His doing, harm shall never befall us, we shall have neither slaughter nor famine here; the prophets did but waste breath, no word of revelation made to them; on their own heads be it! Vain words; but not vainly the Lord, the God of hosts, has spoken; flaming words of His He has entrusted to my lips, and fuel this people shall be for their devouring." - Jeremias, 5: 11-14
Christians may find that language familiar, for Christ denounced the religious authorities of His own time for slaying the prophets He had sent in the past. Jeremias had to challenge this false confidence, this false security in the sacredness of the Holy City and of the great Temple of Solomon, which the people had apparently defiled to the extent of installing pagan items in the courts of the Temple itself:
"A message came from the Lord to Jeremias, bidding him take his stand at the Temple gate, and there proclaim aloud: Listen to this word of the Lord, men of Juda, that make your way in through these gates to worship Him. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Amend your lives and your likings, if you would have me dwell here among you. Trust never in the false assurances that proclaim this place The Lord’s temple, The Lord’s temple, The Lord’s temple. Will you but amend your lives and your likings, giving one man redress against another, not oppressing the alien, the orphan, the widow, nor in these precincts putting innocent men to death, nor courting, to your ruin, the gods of other nations, then indeed I will make my dwelling here among you, in the land which was my gift to your fathers from the beginning to the end of time. You put your trust in flattering hopes, which can nothing avail you; theft, murder, adultery, the false oath, libations to Baal, the courting of alien gods that are no gods of yours, nothing comes amiss, if only you can come and stand in my presence, here in this house, the shrine of my name, and tell yourselves you have made amends for all these your detestable doings! What, does this house, the shrine of such a name, count for no more than a den of thieves, in eyes like yours? Think you, the Lord says, that eternal God has no eyes to see it?" - Jeremias, 7: 1-11
It does seem as if the abandonment of the Law of God leads automatically to the destruction in morals (see also chapter twenty-two), as we know from our times also. Please amend your lives, cries the Most High, and I will continue to dwell among you. And that, of course, means that the indwelling of God in the Jerusalem Temple was never meant to be permanent, rather (like the possession of the Holy Land) it hinged upon the faithfulness of the people. And notice that those last few lines point directly at Christ's famous cleansing of the Temple - not only was Christ condemning the merchant-work in the Temple court but, referring back to Jeremias, we can see that he was once more accusing the Pharisees and generally the people of a superficial religion - they come to the Temple to offer sacrifice or sin and hope to make amends, but do not reform their lives, thus making the Temple a den of thieves! Those were also the words used by Christ. Offering money for grace, a mockery of religion, and God may not be mocked. The chapter begins the final sentence on Jerusalem of banishment and rejection. And, then, there was the treatment of the prophets, which is the treatment given to the Saints even in our own time: the people of Anathoth, Jeremias' own fellows, came after him.
"Thou, Lord, didst make it all known to me past doubt, warning me beforehand of their devices. Hitherto, I had been unsuspecting as a cade lamb that is led off to the slaughter-house; I knew nothing of the plots they were hatching against me, as they whispered, Let us give him a taste of the gallows-tree; let us rid the world of him, so that his very name will be forgotten! But thou, Lord of hosts, true Judge that canst read the inmost thoughts of man’s heart, let me live to see thee punish them; to thee I have made my plea known. And now the Lord has a word for yonder men of Anathoth, who conspired to kill me, and would have stopped me prophesying in the Lord’s name, on pain of my life." - Jeremias, 11: 18-21
I needn't go through the whole of the rest of the book in detail. The themes are now common and we only find Jeremias' adventures around Jerusalem and between Jerusalem and his home country, around Anathoth in Benjamin. There are the tales of the rotted girdle (chapter thirteen) and the breaking and refashioning of clay (chapter eighteen and chapter nineteen) which demonstrate the fate of the nation and how the people will be refashioned and remade after their punishment. There is also the tale of the scroll of prophecies that Jeremias twice made out with the assistance of the prophet Baruch son of Nerias, who was also a scribe (chapter thirty-six); twice because the king himself burnt the first one. These proclamations of doom once more brought upon Jeremias' the wrath of the people, similar to the later hatred that brought Christ to the Cross. There is more serious matter in chapter twenty-six, and we should wonder at the courage of the prophet.
"Hereupon they summoned a conclave to plot against me, Jeremias; 'What,' they said, 'would he have us believe we need no more priests to expound the law, no more wise men to counsel us, no more prophets to say their word?' They thought to compass my death by their clamour; to all my warnings would pay heed no longer. Lord, give me audience; listen to these pratings of my enemies. Must they make such a return for my good will, laying a snare to take my life? Bethink Thee, how I ever stood up before Thee to plead for them, to avert Thy anger from them." - Jeremias, 18: 18-20
Jeremias was a priest, of course, and his intercession for the people, like the intercession of Abraham and Moses of old, was powerful before God. But here, he had received only evil for his good intentions. Jeremias survived the first deportation of the people from Jerusalem in 598 BC and the second deportation and the destruction of the City in 587 BC. After the first deportation, King Jechonias (aka. Joachin) of Juda had been carried away into imprisonment in Babylon and his uncle Sedecias held the City for the next ten to eleven years. Much of Jeremias' work is addressed to Joachim father of Jechonias and to Sedecias (who was reasonably friendly to him) before the final destruction, but in chapter twenty-nine, we find that he addressed a letter to the exiles of the first deportation, to tell them to remain calm and build their families in exile, awaiting a certain return.
"A message from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to the men of Jerusalem he has sent into exile at Babylon! I would have you build yourselves houses of your own to dwell in, plant yourselves gardens of your own to support you, wive and gender, and of your sons and daughters wed man with maid, maid with man, to breed sons and daughters in their turn; grow numerous, that are now so few, there in your land of exile. A new home I have given you; for the welfare of that realm be ever concerned, ever solicit the divine favour; its welfare is yours." - Jeremias, 29: 4-7
He warned them to not try to return to Jerusalem or to listen to false prophets who predicted a quick return, for he knew that the City would soon be destroyed and a further deportation made and at least seventy years were to pass before the City could be rebuilt (see chapter thirty), and he wished to protect them. In describing that second deportation and the following destruction, Jeremias uses the famous words that Saint Matthew (Gospel of S. Matthew, 2: 18) uses to describe the killing of the innocent children by King Herod, in his attempt to kill the Christ Child:
"Now, the Lord says, a voice is heard in Rama, of lamentation and bitter mourning; it is Rachel weeping for her children, and she will not be comforted, because none is left. But thus he reassures thee: Sad voice, lament, sad eyes, weep no more; I, the Lord, give thee promise of a reward for thy working-days, a return from the enemy’s country." - Jeremias, 31: 15-16
Chapters thirty-seven onwards descend into a historic narration, as we discover the plight of the kingdom of Juda under King Sedecias son of Josias, with Babylonians threatening from the east, Chaldeans from the north, Egyptians from the west. Jeremias, on a chance visit to his home at Anathoth, was arrested as a deserter to the Chaldeans and imprisoned. He remained imprisoned at Jerusalem until the City was destroyed in AD 587, continuing to counsel the people to surrender to the Babylonians/Chaldeans to avoid the destruction of the City and the collossal loss of life and the death of the nation. The invaders then established a regional governor called Godolias to rule the remnants of the people (who had not been carried away to Babylon), and Jeremias remained with this group at Maspha (chapter forty). Strife continued as a prince of the royal house of Judah contrived to assassinate this foreign-appointed governor and massacre the Judaites who had rallied to Godolias (chapter forty-one). Ignoring the counsel of Jeremias, who knew that Egypt herself would fall under the advancing Babylonians, the remaining captains of the people decided to carry the remaining Judaites into flight and exile in Egypt (chapters forty-two and forty-three). Sadly, finding new safety in Egypt, the Judaites returned to their old ways, to the chagrin of the prophet, who had been forced into Egypt with them.
"This, too, Jeremias said to the crowd about him, and to their women-folk besides: 'Jews of Egypt, listen to the message He sends you, He, the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. So you will be as good as your word; sacrifice and libation you have vowed to the queen of heaven, and must pay it; all is accomplished, will has turned into act! Then listen, Jews of Egypt, to the doom which the Lord pronounces: By the honour of My own Name I have sworn it, the Lord says, never Jew shall be heard more taking his oath by the living God, in all this land of Egypt! For woe, not for weal, these eyes of Mine shall watch over them, till sword and famine have done their work, and Jew in Egypt is none." - Jeremias, 44: 24-27
Without knowing anything about it, I would suppose that the queen of heaven here was some Egyptian deity, for the people had an old habit of picking up the religion of the lands they lived in. We shouldn't mock them for it; we often do the same thing. There now follow messages of doom and gloom for all the neighbouring nations to Juda in the Holy Land, who would in turn fall into the clutches of the Chaldeans, the Philistines, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Ammonites. And last of all, in chapter fifty and chapter fifty-one, we hear that the cause of all this woe, the mighty empire of Babylon itself, newly established by the Chaldean power coming from the north, would itself be destroyed and suffer the plight it had inflicted upon so many others. The end of the book of Jeremias is practically a copy-and-paste of the end of the fourth book of Kings, with the looting and destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, the second deportation of the people, and the final liberation (forty or so years after his imprisonment) of King Jechonias (aka. Joachin) of Juda by a new Babylonian king. One day, one of his successors would return to Jerusalem to rebuild.
...and you may find it here. For the longest time, the Roman Canon was the only anaphora or eucharistic prayer of the Roman Rite. However, from the end of the 1960s, new eucharistic prayers were written for the new order of Mass in the Roman Rite. The venerable Roman Canon was designated as Eucharistic Prayer I in what has been a growing number of other Eucharistic prayers that are built around the most important part of Holy Mass. The Roman Canon has two lists of Saints, either Apostles, early popes, or martyrs associated in some way with the Roman Church. Some of them are known to most Catholics, but they're all described summarily in this page. So, click the link above.
I'm working my way through the prophecy of Isaias and have just arrived at the point where the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, had left off the siege of Jerusalem and returned to his doom at Nineve. Shortly afterwards, King Ezechias (aka. Hezekiah) of Juda fell into a mortal illness - some type of stomach ulcer - until he made humble prayer to the eternal God, and the prophet Isaias arrived to cure him. The king lived another fifteen years. This is his narration/prayer, made after the miraculous cure, and it is very much a part of the Roman liturgy, in the Divine Office of prayer, where it is included in the Morning Prayer for Tuesdays of Week II. There, although, it's a cut-and-paste job, as so much of our new lectionary and readings are. Here is the whole:
"These are the words Ezechias king of Juda wrote, upon falling sick and recovering of his illness: 'It seemed as if I must go down to the gates of the world beneath, in the noontide of my years; the remnant of life that I hoped for, hoped for in vain. No more (thought I) to lift up my eyes to the Lord God in this land of the living, to see men’s faces, and quiet homes, no more! This familiar world taken away from me, folded up like a shepherd’s tent, my life cut short like the weaver’s thread! And He had cut me off while the web was still in the making; before the day reached its evening, He would make an end of me. All night long I lay still, as if He had been a lion that had broken all my bones; before the day reached its evening He would make an end of me. My voice was as feeble as the voice of a nestling swallow or murmuring dove; my eyes wearied out with ever straining upwards. Lord, I am in hard straits; win my release for me! And yet, what words can I use, what answer can I expect, when it is He Himself that has brought this upon me? With bitter heart I pass all my years in review. Lord, so frail a thing is life; on so little does my mortal breath depend! Thou canst chastise me, thou canst make me live. Bitter, bitter the discipline that brings me peace! And now Thou hast saved the life that was in peril, thrusting away all my sins out of Thy sight. Thou hast no praise in the world beneath, death cannot honour Thee; those who go down into the grave have no promise of Thine to hope for; it is living men, as I am a living man to-day, that give Thee thanks, pass on from father to son the story of Thy faithfulness. Lord, be my Saviour still; so, all day long, the Lord’s house shall ring with the music of our psalms.'" - Isaias, 38: 9-20
The highlighted lines were removed from use in the Divine Office books, so let's have a quick look at them. God Himself, these lines say, brings calamity upon us, and He usually does it for a reason. As the king notes later on, it's a father's discipline - the Father's discipline. 'Bitterly do I recount the course of my life,' says the king, 'life is so frail, hanging upon the Will of God. This short set of verses is something of a summary of the whole book of Job, which tells of a good and just man suffering great loss and remaining faithful to God in the midst of it all; and he recovers his fortunes again at the end, just as King Ezechias did.
It's a slow grind, since my Greek has never been anything special, and I'm almost finished with Saint Matthew's. But I know the stories reasonably well and enough vocabulary to know what everything means. I suspect that getting to know the Gospels really well in any language is the work of a life-time. But here's an interesting bit that keeps recurring after the Transfiguration: Christ keeps telling the Apostles that he's going to be viciously tortured and killed in a few days, and they just can't accept this upcoming humiliation. It must have been even harder to accept after the more spectacular miracles, such as the Raising of Lazarus.
'Ἰδοὺ ἀναβαίνομεν εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα, καὶ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδοθήσεται τοῖς ἀρχιερεῦσιν καὶ γραμματεῦσιν, καὶ κατακρινοῦσιν αὐτὸν θανάτῳ, καὶ παραδώσουσιν αὐτὸν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν εἰς τὸ ἐμπαῖξαι καὶ μαστιγῶσαι καὶ σταυρῶσαι, καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἐγερθήσεται.'
This is chapter twenty of the Gospel of S. Matthew, verses eighteen and nineteen. Christ and his Apostles are finally approaching Jerusalem for the last stage of His ministry and inevitably into the clutches of his greatest enemies: the Temple priests, whom He sought to replace with His new priesthood, and the scribes, whose authority He had continually challenged in His teaching the people. Let's go quickly through it and pull out useful phrases:
And this is what I've been up to. First, there are now daily Masses in the church but, because I cannot guarantee (at the moment) the presence of the required number of volunteer stewards, I have not been able to put Mass timings into the newsletter. I expect however, that starting next week, we shall have a Wednesday morning Mass at 10.30. At the moment, all daily Masses, like the Sunday Mass, begin at 10.30.
Second, I'm preparing for Lent. Aside from the liturgical build-up, that means that I've been obtaining the ashes for the Wednesday coming, and that by burning up the palm crosses that had been blessed on Palm Sunday but not taken away, since the church was all closed in April. We have been permitted to use ashes on Wednesday, but with due precaution, as prescribed by the bishop. More detail will be given in the newsletter this weekend.
Third, the sacramental preparation is now underway, for first Holy Communion, and eventually Confirmation. Baptisms have been taking place already, since the church was opened again in the autumn.
With respect to Lenten preparation for Easter, the Diocese has recently purchased truckloads of the Walk With Me booklets that we are already familiar with, but this year sealed in little plastic bags. These are available from the church, if anybody wants them.
To end this post, here's Father Schmitz telling us what happens when we cannot understand something in the Bible:
The great first bishop of Jerusalem, Saint James the Just, was greatly honoured during his lifetime, by Christian and Jew alike. The tradition of the Church speaks through S. Jerome who quotes an older description of him thus:
"After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh, never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies, since indeed he did not use woolen vestments but linen and went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels' knees." [text source]
It certainly seems as if James was a life-long Nazirite, like Saint John the Baptist, and so was greatly respected in Jewish society. From this great figure comes this excellent letter addressed to 'the twelve tribes scattered throughout the world,' and to my mind that indicates a general message to Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews alike from someone who may have been a figure of authority for both, although the letter is manifestly Christian. Or perhaps the Church did understand herself as being the spiritual heir of the twelve tribes of old Israel. His understanding of suffering as valuable in itself (enabling spiritual growth and maturation) is both Jewish and Christian. Suffering and martyrdom as providing a crown is an idea we may know from the letters of Saint Paul.
"Blessed is he who endures under trials. When he has proved his worth, he will win that crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him. Nobody, when he finds himself tempted, should say, I am being tempted by God. God may threaten us with evil, but He does not Himself tempt anyone. No, when a man is tempted, it is always because he is being drawn away by the lure of his own passions. When that has come about, passion conceives and gives birth to sin; and when sin has reached its full growth, it breeds death." - James, 1: 12-15
God may lead us to the place of temptation (as in the Lord's prayer), but he doesn't himself draw us into evil; we are often our own worst enemies, when it comes to temptation and sin. In line with the old Hebrew prophets, James recommends honesty and faithful living, and prudence in speech, and in works of charity.
"Only you must be honest with yourselves; you are to live by the word, not content merely to listen to it. One who listens to the word without living by it is like a man who sees, in a mirror, the face he was born with; he looks at himself, and away he goes, never giving another thought to the man he saw there. Whereas one who gazes into that perfect law, which is the law of freedom, and dwells on the sight of it, does not forget its message; he finds something to do, and does it, and his doing of it wins him a blessing. If anyone deludes himself by thinking he is serving God, when he has not learned to control his tongue, the service he gives is vain. If he is to offer service pure and unblemished in the sight of God, who is our Father, he must take care of orphans and widows in their need, and keep himself untainted by the world." - James, 1: 22-27
James witnesses the absolute equality of the members of the Church at the time in their synagogue or place of meeting:
"Suppose that a man comes into your place of meeting in fine clothes, wearing a gold ring; suppose that a poor man comes in at the same time, ill clad. Will you pay attention to the well-dressed man, and bid him take some place of honour; will you tell the poor man, 'Stand where thou art,' or 'Sit on the ground at my footstool?' If so, are you not introducing divisions into your company? Have you not shewn partiality in your judgement? Listen to me, my dear brethren; has not God chosen the men who are poor in the world’s eyes to be rich in faith, to be heirs of that kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?" - James, 2: 2-5
This is followed by a fine discourse on the integrity of the Law of God, so that even the smallest transgression or sin is still an offence against the Law worthy of judgement and sentence. And our faith is demonstrated not by fine words, but by our actions. This is thoroughly worthy of Christ Himself, who scolded the Pharisees of his time for observing the Law while neglecting charity:
"Of what use is it, my brethren, if a man claims to have faith, and has no deeds to shew for it? Can faith save him then? Here is a brother, here is a sister, going naked, left without the means to secure their daily food; if one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, warm yourselves and take your fill,' without providing for their bodily needs, of what use is it? Thus faith, if it has no deeds to shew for itself, has lost its own principle of life." - James, 2: 14-17
The third chapter of the letter is a colourful description of the damage that can be done by bad speech, the cause of strife, the enemy of peace, the instrument of pride. It think he means to say that self-control and prudence, especially with respect to things spoken, helps establish and maintain peace, within which holiness may grow.
"Among the organs of our nature, the tongue has its place as the proper element in which all that is harmful lives. It infects the whole body, and sets fire to this mortal sphere of ours, catching fire itself from hell. Mankind can tame, and has long since learned to tame, every kind of beast and bird, of creeping things and all else; but no human being has ever found out how to tame the tongue; a pest that is never allayed, all deadly poison... Where there is jealousy, where there is rivalry, there you will find disorder and every kind of defect. Whereas the wisdom which does come from above is marked chiefly indeed by its purity, but also by its peacefulness; it is courteous and ready to be convinced, always taking the better part; it carries mercy with it, and a harvest of all that is good; it is uncensorious, and without affectation. Peace is the seed-ground of holiness, and those who make peace will win its harvest." - James, 3: 6-8, 16-18
James says that it is desire and concupiscence - wishing to possess what is not one's to possess - that leads eventually to quarrelling and murder. And the basis of those desires is an unhealthy intention, not of appreciation for the object of desire, but merely the satisfying of those desires. The work of the believer is then to draw nearer to God in humility and to purify the intentions of his or her heart.
"Be God’s true subjects, then; stand firm against the devil, and he will run away from you, come close to God, and He will come close to you. You that are sinners must wash your hands clean, you that are in two minds must purify the intention of your hearts. Bring yourselves low with mourning and weeping, turn your laughter into sadness, your joy into downcast looks; humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." - James, 4: 7-10
The last chapter begins with a condemnation of those who set their hearts on riches and abuse the poor, such as by neglecting the wages of their servants and workmen. This is an echo of the voice of the Hebrew prophets, and James' follow-up is not very different from Isaiah's, or Hosea's, or Habacuc's: wait patiently for the Lord, as farmers wait for the right seasons for returns on their work. And James does refer directly to the patience of the old prophets and of such men as Job. There are some nice bits of advice, such as to prayer, hymning, sacramental confession and that bit that sounds like it came out of a Gospel:
"But above all, my brethren, do not bind yourselves by any oath, by heaven, by earth, or by any oath at all. Let your word be Yes for Yes, and No for No; if not, you will be judged for it." - James, 5: 12
That is the advice we remember from Christ's sermon on the mount (Gospel of S. Matthew, 5: 37), which is the basis for James' commitment to prudence in speech, mentioned earlier. And there are those lines that everybody who has attended the service of the Anointing of the Sick will remember well (and there this post could end):
"Is one of you sick? Let him send for the presbyters of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord’s name. Prayer offered in faith will restore the sick man, and the Lord will give him relief; if he is guilty of sins, they will be pardoned." - James 5: 14-15
The next two posts on my Bible-in-a-year project will be the last for a few weeks, as I find my way through the lengthy prophecies of Isaias and Jeremias, which look quite endless from this side of them. Today's post is about the prophecy of Habacuc, another of the twelve minor prophets and a book that can be easily compassed in an hour. Poor Habacuc, being a good man, was spiritually oppressed by the wickedness around him in Judaite society - tyranny and robbery, legalism and contention, he says, and contravention of the venerable Law of Moses, evil men achieving their own ends at the expense of the innocent. This could be a complaint in our times also, for human nature doesn't change.
"Must I nothing see but wrong and affliction; turn where I will, nothing but robbery and oppression; pleading at law everywhere, everywhere contention raising its head? What marvel if the old teachings are torn up, and redress is never to be found? Innocence by knavery circumvented still, and false award given!" - Habacuc, 1: 3-4
The reference to 'old teachings' I take to refer to derivations of the Law of Moses, and that seems to place Habacuc in history between the fall of the Assyrian kingdom that Nahum anticipated, and the growth in power of the neo-Babylonian empire that was centred in Mesopotamia by Chaldeans emerging from the north of Syria. A terrible people these Chaldeans, Habacuc says, but still merely an instrument of almighty God, likely to perish even as they proudly claim victory. And God would use them to humble His own people, Israel, just as they had humbled several other nations and peoples.
"A grim nation and a terrible; no right they acknowledge, no title, but what themselves bestow. Not leopard so lithe as horse of theirs, not wolf at evening so fast; wide the sweep of their horsemen, that close in, close in from afar, flying like vultures hungry for their prey. Plunderers all; eager as the sirocco their onset, whirling away, like sand-storm, their captives. Here be men that hold kings in contempt, make princes their sport; no fortress but is a child’s game to such as these; let them but make a heap of dust, it is theirs. Veers wind, and he is gone; see him fall down and ascribe the victory to his god! But Thou, Lord, my God and all my worship, Thou art from eternity! And wilt Thou see us perish? Warrant of Thine they hold, take their strength from Thee, only to make known Thy justice, Thy chastening power!" - Habacuc, 1: 7-11
And now God declares that the just and honest will have built upon rock, whereas those who doubt live in a toxic atmosphere, deceived as a drinker is deceived by strong drink, and as a tyrant (as the Chaldeans) is is deceived by false dreams of glory. These last will inevitably have fallen to the lowest depths, in their crime, rapine and usury, for Israelite or Chaldean, their victims cry out against them:
"Ill-gotten gains thou wouldst amass to deck that house of thine; make it an eyrie, too high for envious hands to reach? Nay, with this undoing of many peoples thou hast done thy own house despite, thy own life is forfeit; stone from ruined wall cries out against thee, and beam from gaping roof echoes the cry. City thou wouldst found, city’s walls build up, with deeds of bloodshed and of wrong? What, has not the Lord of hosts uttered His doom, toil of nations shall feed the fire, and all their labour be spent for nothing? It is the Lord’s glory men must learn to know, that shall cover the earth, flooding over it like the waters of the sea." - Habacuc, 2: 9-14
Injustices do not bring glory to the one inflicting them, but shame and vengeance from the Just One. From Him they will receive sentence, with no help provided by their idols of wood and stone.
"And thy prayer was, stock and stone should wake up and come to thy aid, senseless things that cannot signify their will; nay, breath in their bodies have none, for all they are tricked out with gold and silver! And all the while, the Lord is in His holy temple. Keep silence, earth, before Him." - Habacuc 2: 19-20
This last line is a prelude to the wonderfully poetic majesty with which Habacuc describes the advent of the vengeful God, arriving to right wrongs, an arrival that is reminiscent of those described by other prophets.
"There stood He, and scanned the earth; at His look, the nations were adread; melted were the everlasting mountains, bowed were the ancient hills, His own immemorial pathway, as He journeyed... Earth is torn into ravines; the mountains tremble at the sight. Fierce falls the rain-storm, the depths beneath us roar aloud, the heights beckon from above; sun and moon linger in their dwelling-place; so bright Thy arrows volley, with such sheen of lightning glances Thy spear." - Habacuc, 3: 6, 9-11
And all this would be to the end of restoring the fortunes of Israel, duly disciplined and again faithful to God, to the ruin of the wicked and those who oppress the poor. The great vision of God in this little bit of poetry from chapter three ends with a lovely profession of faith - though all resources were to fail and life be at its last ebb, the prophet will continue to sing praises of God. As should we.
"What though the fig-tree never bud, the vine yield no fruit, the olive fail, the fields bear no harvest; what though our folds stand empty of sheep, our byres of cattle? Still will I make my boast in the Lord, triumph in the deliverance God sends me. The Lord, the ruler of all, is my Stronghold; He will bring me safely on my way, safe as the hind whose feet echo already on the hills." - Habacuc, 3: 17-19
I'm now getting to the end of the Pauline corpus, the set of letters that we have in the New Testament that are traditionally attributed to Saint Paul. The second to last (or the last if, as scholars tend to do today, you discount the letter to the Hebrews) is the rather short letter to Philemon. I shall jump right into it, and then return to the prophets of the Old Testament. The main characters here are Philemon, a Christian householder, and Onesimus, a servant of Philemon's who seems to have displeased his master and fled away from him, and found his way to the side of Paul, who he may have expected would send just this type of message back to Philemon. Paul begins by commending Philemon for his charitable work, and then makes this charity the basis of his request: that Onesimus be pardoned. Paul calls Onesimus 'the child of my imprisonment,' for he has probably received the slave into the Christian religion while himself suffering one of his frequent periods of imprisonment.
"I prefer to appeal to this charity of thine. Who is it that writes to thee? Paul, an old man now, and in these days the prisoner, too, of Jesus Christ; and I am appealing to thee on behalf of Onesimus, the child of my imprisonment. He did thee an ill service once; now, both to thee and to myself, he can be serviceable, and I am sending him back to thee; make him welcome, for my heart goes with him." - Philemon, 9-12
So Philemon is requested that he accept back his servant, and to forgive all, for Onesimus is now more than a slave/servant, he is also a Christian and so a brother in Christ.
"Do not think of him any longer as a slave; he is something more than a slave, a well loved brother, to me in a special way; much more, then, to thee, now that both nature and Christ make him thy own." - Philemon 16
Paul promises to settle any debts that Onesimus may have with Philemon on his own account. I anything, this short letter demonstrates the Christian fellowship of those of different social strata, something that we may recognise from other letters that deal with good Christian behaviour in the milieu of the ancient world, where the relationship of slave to salve-owner was very much taken as a given and was yet beyond reform. Churchmen like Paul would have had to beg in this fashion for the welfare of slaves. And the letter demonstrates the heart of the Apostle Saint Paul, trying his best to obtain a good result for one of his dear sons.
Carrying on through the Bible, I have reached the end of another short book of another one of the twelve minor prophets. There are twelve minor prophets, contrasted in the length of their work that we have preserved to the major prophets, Isaias, Jeremias and Ezechiel. The language they use, though, is very similar to that of the major prophets, with whom they were often concurrent, such as Isaias and Osee (Hosea). Nahum the Elcesite is a prophet of the Justice of God, perhaps, for he begins with the words of divine vengeance, for God may forgive, but he does not forget, and punishment for the unrepentant sinner is inevitable, even if delayed. And it's not here a vengeance directed at the People of God (for the Judaites were in favour with God during the reign of good King Ezechias) but against a foreign nation that had dared to insult the name of Almighty God. This had been done spectacularly by the Assyrian commander Sennacherib, as he approached Jerusalem in his pride (see IV Kings, chapter 18). Most of this book is then about the destruction of the Assyrian capital of Nineve, far to the north of Jerusalem and even Damascus.
"Here is one of thy number devising rebellion against the Lord, folly’s counsellor. But thus the Lord says: 'Are they in full muster? At least there are over-many of them; they must be shorn of their strength. It will pass; once chastened is chastened enough, and now I mean to shatter that yoke of his that lies on thy back, tear thy chains asunder...'" - Nahum, 1: 11-13
The calamity approaching Nineveh may be seen therefore as retribution and divine justice for the great attack on Juda, when Sennacherib (on his way to challenge Egypt) had besieged and taken Lachis, the greatest Judaite fortress town aside from Jerusalem. He would have taken Jerusalem too, if he hadn't received bad news from Nineve and rushed back home, only to be slain there by his family. Shortly afterwards, this power in the north would end and be replaced in its ascendancy by the neo-Babylonian power emerging from Mesopotamia.
"Alas, for warriors of Nineve gone into exile, for maids of hers led away, that sigh and moan like ring-doves in the bitterness of their heart! Nineve, welcome sight as pools of water to the fugitive; stay, stay! But never a one looks back. Out with silver, out with gold of hers; store is here of costly stuff beyond price or reckoning! Roof to cellar rifled and ransacked! Sore hearts are here, and knees that knock together, loins that go labouring, and pale cheeks. Lair of lion, and nursery of his whelps, what trace is left of thee, once so secure a retreat, his haunt and theirs?" - Nahum, 2: 7-11
It does seem that this whole book is a letter to King Sennacherib, and it ends with a round condemnation to him personally, for the destruction he and his predecessors had wrought on so many nations of people.
"Forgotten, the high lords, forgotten, the princelings, as they had been locusts, and brood of locusts, that cling to yonder hedge-row in the chill of morning, and are gone, once the sun is up, who knows whither? Gone to their rest thy marshals, king of Assyria; thy vassals lie silent in the dust; out on the hills the common folk take refuge, with none to muster them. Wound of thine there is no hiding, hurt of thine is grievous; nor any shall hear the tidings of it but shall clap their hands over thee, so long thy tyrannous yoke has rested on so many." - Nahum, 3: 17-19
