Our Lady of the Annunciation receives her parishioners as they enter the church.
Yesterday afternoon - after the celebration of First Reconciliation but before the evening Mass - I sat outside on the swing underneath the magnolia tree.
I am very happy to say that around one hundred people participated in the festivities this evening.You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:31-33).Hearing these blessed words of so worthy a messenger should lift our hearts to heaven with great joy because in these words we know that “God is with us!” (Isaiah 8:10).
The annunciation, narrated at the beginning of the Gospel of St. Luke, is a humble human event, hidden – no one saw it, no one knew about it but Mary – but at the same time decisive for the history of humanity.”[1]The profound humility of this event is made abundantly clear when we consider the one who brought this announcement to the Blessed Virgin of Nazareth.
The annunciation, narrated at the beginning of the Gospel of St. Luke, is a humble human event, hidden -- no one saw it, no one knew about it, but Mary -- but at the same time decisive for the history of humanity. When the Virgin pronounced her "yes" to the angel's announcement, Jesus was conceived and with him the era of history began which would be ratified at Easter as the "new and eternal covenant."
In reality, Mary's "yes" is the reflection of Christ's own "yes" when he entered the world, as is noted in the Letter to the Hebrews in an interpretation of Psalm 39: "As is written of me in the scroll, Behold, I come to do your will, O God" (Hebrews 10:7). The Son's obedience is reflected in the Mother's and thus, by the meeting of these two "yeses," God was able to take on a human face. This is why the annunciation is also a Christological feast, because it celebrates a central mystery of Christ: his incarnation.
"Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your Word." Mary's reply to the angel is extended in the Church, which is called to make Christ present in history, offering its own availability so that God might continue to visit humanity with his mercy. The "yes" of Jesus and Mary is in this way renewed in the "yes" of the saints, especially the martyrs, who are killed because of the Gospel.
Annunciation Parish in Shumway attached to my parish and, given that today is their patronal feast, we will celebrate this day in a special way.Three of the state's most meaningful structures are found in Quincy, reports the Illinois Council of the American Institute of Architects.
The AIA released its "150 Most Significant Structures in the State of Illinois" this week. St. Boniface Church, the John Wood Mansion and the East Maine Street area were the three honored.
The 150 "great places" were chosen to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the AIA. The list, which includes historic and modern structures in cities and towns across the state, was compiled through nominations from architects and the general public.
"This puts us on the map again with our architecture," said Holly Cain, director of tourism for the Quincy Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. "This is really something great, something we can promote. Quincy is very unique because of all its different styles of architecture, and such an abundance of it ... and people here take great pride in that architecture."
Included among the selections were schools, churches, offices, courthouses and museums. Site choices were based on a number of criteria, including public accessibility, design and whether they are pedestrian friendly.
The sites designated will receive a plaque commemorating their impact on the community and will be featured on the organization's Web site at http://www.aiail.org/. A complete list of the 150 sites, including photographs and historical information, can be found at www.illinoisgreatplaces.com.
Nationally, the top five sites are the Empire State Building in New York City, the White House, Washington National Cathedral, Jefferson Memorial and Golden Gate Bridge.
…so many people are living in the desert. And there are so many kinds of desert. There is the desert of poverty … of hunger and thirst … of abandonment … of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God’ darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast (Homily, Inaugural Mass, April 2005).If we are honest, each of us will admit that we, too, like the Israelites, wander through a desert and we no longer know where we are going. “We [have] all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way” (Isaiah 53:6).
the Son of God will not let this happen; he cannot abandon humanity in so wretched a condition. He leaps to his feet and abandons the glory of heaven, in order to go in search of the sheep and pursue it, all the way to the Cross. He takes it upon his shoulders and carries our humanity; he carries us all – he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep (Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, Inaugural Mass, April 2005).In Christ Jesus, God himself has come to his people, lost and wandering in the desert.
I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him (Philippians 3:8-9).God has indeed put in our midst “water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for [his] chosen people to drink” (Isaiah 43:20). When the soldier thrust his lance into the side of the Crucified Savior, blood and water flowed forth, symbolizing the Church and her Sacraments. These waters still gush forth from the side of Christ for his people to drink, to be nourished on their pilgrim journey fraught with difficulties.
I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14).The task for us during these remaining days of Lent is to cease our aimless wandering through the desert and turn to Christ. He will put us on the path to heaven, if only we let him. True freedom consists in this: in the choice of in uniting my will with God’s.
Confession is also called ‘the gate of heaven’… Through it, as through a gate, the penitent is led in to kiss the feet of divine mercy; to be raised up to kiss the hands of heavenly grace; and to be accepted with the kiss … of fatherly reconciliation… My beloved brothers, be humbled and enter by the gate of confession. As you have been taught, confess your sins and their circumstances, because now is the acceptable time for confession, now is the day of salvation for making amends (II Corinthians 6:2). [First Sunday of Lent 2.19]Let each of us then approach the Lord in the Sacrament of Mercy and hear him say to us: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more” (John 8:11).
10:08 a.m. - Class with my sophomores, the topic of which is yet to be determined.
12:00 p.m. - Lunch
1:00 p.m. - Meeting with a man to discuss the possibility of electrifying our bells (we have three real bells in the tower named Mary, Gabriel and Aloysius)
2:00 p.m. - Meeting with a parishioner
4:00 p.m. - Meeting with a couple for a wedding
5:30 p.m. - Music boosters association fish fry
7:00 p.m. - Stations of the Cross followed by Benediction
8:30 p.m. - Confessions for a De Colores retreat twenty minutes away from the parish
You are a Church history expert. You know more than the average Catholic. You probably even have a love of Latin. Which your knowledge, you should consider teaching religious education classes, if you don't already.
How well do you know the history of the Catholic Church
Create a Quiz
Hat tip to the Roving Medievalist for this one.
The Holy Father dedicated his 14 March 2007 General Audience to Saint Ignatius of Antioch, one of my personal favorites.Christ chooses those who stand. Rise and run to the church… He who hears you pondering in the secret places of the mind runs to you. When you are still far away, he sees you and runs to you. He sees in your heart. He runs, perhaps someone may hinder, and he embraces you. His foreknowledge is in the running, his mercy in the embrace and the disposition of fatherly love. He falls on your neck to raise one prostrate and burdened with sins and bring back one turned aside to the early toward heaven. Christ falls on your neck to free your neck from the yoke of slavery and hang his sweet yoke upon your shoulders.[1]When Christ comes running toward you as your thoughts slowly begin to turn to him, what will you do? Will run toward him and so embrace him as he embraces you? Will you stand utterly still, frightened of his mercy? Will you turn and walk away, refusing to be humbled by the tremendous gift of his love, though you deserve it not? How will you respond to his love?
neither takes him in like a hired servant nor treats him like a stranger. Oh no, he kisses him as a son. He accepts him as a dead man come to life again. He counts him worthy of the divine feast and gives him the precious garment he once wore… Not only does he bring his son back from death, but also through the Spirit he clearly shows his grace. To replace corruption, he clothes him with an incorruptible robe. To satisfy hunger, he kills the fatted calf. The Father provides shoes so that he will not travel far away again. Most wonderful of all, he puts a divine signet ring on his hand. By all these things, he begets him anew in the image of the glory of Christ.[2]This is why Holy Mother Church today invites us to “Laetare, Jerusalem! Rejoice, Jerusalem!”[3]
Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. the St. Anthony of Padua chapter of the Dead Theologians Society will sponsor an Ignatius Night at the Movies by showing the movie Padre Pio: Miracle Man in the St. Anthony of Padua parish center.What's the most important aspect of the Pope's new apostolic exhortation? A quick Google search brought up 8 different newspaper headlines that gave top billing to the Pope's insistence that Catholic politicians must oppose same-sex marriage.
That topic is not mentioned once in the text of the Sacramentum Caritatis.
Somebody is obsessed with issues of sexuality, and it isn't the Pope.
The point is that, in terms of communicating the hard teachings, you don't need to have everyone on board. You don't even need a majority. As long as one Catholic bishop remains to point a finger at the immemorial doctrine of the Church and say, "God taught this," the outraged indignation will sprout as fast as the costume miters. Look at it this way: anyone determined to ignore Christian sexual morality in the contemporary West would have to search long and hard before he bumped against a real inconvenience to his lifestyle; he's already gained all the civil liberties worth gaining. What drives him to fury, and chasubles, is the existence of persons who still have the temerity to say: you won, but you're wrong.
Anti-Catholicism in general, like anti-popery in particular, is protean, and changes form according to changing fears of what stands to be lost by the intrusion of Church teaching: in fact, it's a kind of projection of social acrimony onto a recognizable human enemy. Bushido Japan was alarmed by Christian rules of combat, Brahmin India by emancipation of the untouchables, and the contemporary élites ... by what contemporary élites consider indispensable and shudder at the thought of forsaking. As Phil Lawler has said, if you meet some stranger on the street-corner, and he says he's got problems with Church teaching, you know he's not telling you he's a monophysite.
I thank Mr. [sic] Daren J. Zehnle (Feb. 14) for his response to my Feb. 3 article. These are subjects that need to be addressed.
First, I did not say "the Law was given to the Jews in English" as Mr. [sic] indicated. I did say the "10 Commandments were given only to the House of Israel - to the Jews" and I did say "as for their being a difference between the Catholic and Protestant 10 Commandments, the commandments are listed in Exodus 20:1-17 in plain English." These statements were in two different paragraphs. The EDN is published in English. I believe its readers can also read English translations of the Bible.
Second, Mr. [sic] Zehnle missed the entire point of my letter. I did not write to argue the differences between the two passages (Ex. 20:1-17 and Deut. 5:6-21). I wrote because neither list is labeled "Catholic version" or "Protestant version" in the scriptures. To choose between one list and the other [sic] is a petty argument at best. Are not both lists given by God? Mr. [sic] Zehnle's listings of the Commandments are paraphrased versions of the actual text given to Moses. No wonder people get confused. Does Mr. [sic] Augustine, Mr. Luther, Mr. Calvin or any other man have the right to pick and choose which scriptures to "formulate"? Where do you group those who accept the whole counsel of God? Hence the use of the category "Christian."
The church that Christ died for still exists. It is neither Catholic nor Protestant. It is only Christian. Therefore, those who divide and separate (contrary to God's will - I Cor. 1:10-13) are free to call themselves whatever they wish. They have their reward in full. As for listing Christian as a division "beside" Catholic or Protestant as Mr. [sic] Zehnle suggested, I disagree. The church (the body of Christ) is not a division. Those who divide are either in error or not of the church.
Mr. [sic] Zehnle quoted Christ's words in Matthew 5:17-18 [sic]"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." I question the use of this passage to justify a position that the 10 Commandments are still in effect for Christians today - but I am glad he did.
First of all, in this passage Christ uses the term "law or the prophets." Jesus and others use the same terms in many instances in the scriptures. Here are just a few of the references:
- The 10 Commandments (Matt. 22:36-40, 2 Cor. 3:5-16)
- The Laws given to Moses - Ex. 20 through Deut. 31
- The prophecies of the Prophets i.e. [sic] Jeremiah 31:31-34 (Matt. 22:40, 26:54-56)
Second, the people Jesus addressed here were under the "old" law. The rich young man in (Matthew 19:16-17) [sic] also lived under the "old" law. Jesus himself was born (Gal. 4:4), lived and died under the old covenant. Jesus did not instruct the people to break the "old" law given to them as the "new" covenant did not yet exist. Jesus himself kept the law and kept it perfectly. The new covenant would not come into effect until after "after all things have taken place." Heb. 9:16-17 [sic] "For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. ... it is never in force while the one who made it lives."
Third, Jesus promised that "heaven and earth" would not pass away until after "all things have taken place." Now as to what "all things have taken place" means - I cannot say it better than the [sic] Peter did in Acts 2:14-36 and again in Acts 3:12-26. Paul also tells about it in Acts 13:16-41. We now live in the days after "all things have taken place."
The prophets told of it: Acts 3 :18 [sic] "But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled."
The Law of Moses and the prophets told of it: Luke 24:44 [sic] "...all things which we written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."
John 1:45 [sic] "...We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote - Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
Christ is the fulfillment and accomplished [sic] what He came for - to establish His Kingdom and Covenant. A simple and thorough reading of Hebrews chapters 8 through 10 will reveal how the New Covenant is now in effect. Mr. [sic] Zehnle's assessment that his chosen verses of scripture can be taken out of context and used to refute the Old Testament is no longer in effect is incorrect [sic somewhere but I'm very confused as to where]. 2 Tim. 3 :16, [sic] "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness."
Gal. 5:4 [sic] "You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law [sic], you have fallen from grace."
It's very kind of Mr. Antrim to judge the state of my soul without either knowing me or really understanding anything of what I have written.
My reply to his letter is as follows:
I wish to offer a few points of clarification in reply to the letter of Mr. Michael Antrim published 13 March 2007.First: the listings of the Ten Commandments are not my own but are those which have been used as a summary of the Decalogue, one for at least fifteen centuries, the other for four. These summaries are not meant to discount the full listings provided in the Scriptures, but are meant to be short and easy ways to memorize the Ten Commandments, given further importance by Christ himself (see Matthew 5). Never did I claim that the Bible records either of the lists as “Catholic” or “Protestant”, nor – to my knowledge – has anyone else who has knowledge in the matter; this claim is Mr. Antrim’s own. I, and others, have simply said that the Catholic Church has used one summary while the Protestant churches, both past and present, have used the other.
Mr. Antrim seems to believe that when I say that the Ten Commandments are still valid for Christians I am also including the levitical laws. I am not. The Catholic Church – following the teachings of Judaism - has always seen a division within the commandments of those laws that are moral and those that are ritual. The ritual laws have ceased, but the moral laws have not, for they are also the natural law that is written in men’s hearts.
Second: Mr. Antrim claims that I listed “Christian as a division ‘beside’ Catholic or Protestant.” A cursory reading of my letter will prove this claim false for I said, “the category of Christian … cannot stand beside that of ‘Catholic’ or Protestant.’” The grouping of “Christian” is today an umbrella term that encompasses Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant. In this Mr. Antrim should see that I agree with him that “the church that Christ died for still exists.” From an historical analysis alone, however, I cannot agree that “It is neither Catholic nor Protestant. It is only Christian.” Mr. Antrim lacks an accurate knowledge of the history of Christianity and of Christian theology.
Despite Mr. Antrim’s claims, there is no group of Christians who can trace themselves back to the Apostles, with the sole exception of the Catholic Church. History itself bears this out. As the brilliant convert to Catholicism, John Henry Cardinal Newman, observed, “To be versed in history is to cease to be Protestant.” Prior to the reformation the only group of Christians faithful to the Old and New Testament were those members of the Catholic Church, even if it was not – at that time - officially titled “Catholic” per se. Mr. Antrim can claim the opposite if he wishes, but history will not support him.
J.M. Carroll, who once strongly supported the notion of Baptist succession of the Apostles, (see his Trail of Blood [Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, 1973]) has since disavowed himself of this claim. In his Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History ([1994], pp. 1-2) Carroll states:
“Extensive graduate study and independent investigation of church history has, however, convinced [the author] that the view he once held so dear has not been, and cannot be, verified. On the contrary, surviving primary documents render the successionist view untenable…. Although free church groups in ancient and medieval times sometimes promoted doctrines and practices agreeable to modern Baptists, when judged by the standards now acknowledged as baptistic, not one of them merits recognition as a Baptist church. Baptists arose in the seventeenth century in Holland and England. They are Protestants, heirs of the reformers.”While Mr. Antrim may not be Baptist (he has not stated and I have not asked) what Carroll concludes is equally applicable to his claims.Third: Mr. Antrim intimates that I do not accept the New Covenant sealed in the Blood of Christ, a ridiculous claim, to be sure. Mr. Antrim should know that at every Mass the priest says, in the person of Christ, “Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me” (emphasis mine). This does not mean, however, that we are now free to disregard completely the Ten Commandments and go about murdering, committing adultery and stealing from each other as Mr. Antrim’s arguments, logically carried through, would indicate.
Fourth: Mr. Antrim claims (at least I think he does; his grammar is a bit confused) that I take Scripture “out of context.” The same claim can be made against him – and this time justifiably so – in his letter to the editor of 3 February 2007, a point that I charitably left out in my earlier reply.
Fifth: Mr. Antrim wonders about my interpretation of Hebrews 8-10. I suggest he take a careful read of Albert VanHoye’s The Old Testament Priest and the New Priest According to the New Testament (St. Bede’s Publications, 1986) and Our Priest is Christ: The Doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Loyola Press, 1977). There he will find the answers he seeks.Sixth: I did not respond to Mr. Antrim’s original letter to enter into a debate with him, as he seems keen to have. I responded only to correct blatant historical errors and inaccuracies. The Letters to the Editor section of the local newspaper is neither the proper forum for such a debate, nor to attack liturgical and organized religions, as seems to be Mr. Antrim’s true aim, though he will not say it forthright.
As for there being a difference between the Catholic and Protestant Ten Commandments, it might be pointed out there are Christians who are not Catholics nor [sic] Protestants. This groups [sic] is [sic] to as Anabaptist who go straight back to the Apostles. We are not part of Constantine’s religious government.Rev. Wilber then gives a lengthy passage from page 61 of the book The Sacred Book of Jews, the author and publication details of which he does not provide. If you want to read the quotation, see his original letter.
In his letter to the editor published under the title “A history of the Ten Commandments” in the 12 March 2007 issue of the Effingham Daily News, the Reverend Stanley E. Wilbur claims, “…it might be pointed out there are Christians who are not Catholics nor Protestants. This groups [sic] is referred to as Anabaptist who go straight back to the Apostles.” This statement is false and lacks authentic historical credibility and verification.I regret that misspelled his name throughout the letter, an error that I only now noticed. To Rev. Wilber I offer my apologies.
The Anabaptists – the forerunners not of the contemporary Baptists but of the Mennonites [named after Menno Simons (1496-1591)] – were founded as those who rejected infant baptism; their name means “re-baptizers.” They are – quite clearly – a group belonging under the “umbrella term” Protestant, those who protested against the Church of Rome, the Catholic Church. In point of fact, the Anabaptists first appeared in 1521 at Zwickau (modern day Saxony).
The term “Catholic” – catholicos in Greek – means “universal,” as opposed to the many early groups of heretics (the Gnostics, Arians, Donatists, and Montanists, to name a few) who held beliefs incompatible with both the Old and New Testaments. Saint Ireneus (130-202) most appropriately first applied this term to describe the Christian Church. As the late and celebrated historian Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006) has noted,…the primitive church was not characterized by an explicit unity of doctrine; therefore heresy could sometimes claim greater antiquity than orthodoxy. But what did characterize primitive Christianity was a unity of life, of fidelity to the Old Testament, of devotion, and of loyalty to its Lord, as he was witnessed to in the Old and New Testament. Heresy was a deviation from that unity… (The Christian Tradition: A History and Development of Doctrine, Vol. I: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971], 70.)It was not until the time of the Reformation that the Church officially took upon itself the title “the Catholic Church,” and only then it was done to distinguish itself from the many Protestant groups who where breaking away in protest from the universal Church.
The Rev. Wilbur continues, saying, “We are not part of Constantine’s religious government.” Neither is the Catholic Church. This statement betrays a further lack of historical clarity and assumes that the Catholic Church is Constantine’s church, which simply is not true. What is true is that the Emperor Constantine (ca. 280-337) called the Bishops of the Church together in Council at Nicea in A.D. 325 to condemn the teaching of Arius who claimed that Jesus was not divine. The convocation of the Council of Nicea by the emperor marked a new turn in the relationship between the Church and the emperor, a change that went far deeper in the Byzantine (Orthodox) Church than in the Catholic. Constantine called the Bishops together to establish peace within his Empire, not to dominate and control the Church. As Saint Ambrose (340-397) magnificently put it: “The emperor is in the Church, not over the Church.”
ROME, March 11 (CNA) - The Diocese of Rome has concluded its examination of the life and virtues of the Servant of God, Pope John Paul II. Cardinal Camillo Ruini, Vicar General for the diocese, announced on Saturday that the important investigation had been concluded and will be marked by a ceremony at Rome’s Cathedral, the Basilica of St. John Lateran on April 2nd, the AP reports.Pope John Paul II, pray for us!
The study of those who are candidates for being declared “Blesseds” and Saints usually begins at a diocesan level before being passed on to a Vatican congregation which conducts its own study.
Whereas all Popes serve as the Bishop of Rome, the study of John Paul II’s life began both there and in Poland, where the young Karol Wojtyla grew up and served as a priest and bishop before being elected Pope. In January, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the late Pope’s longtime secretary and current Archbishop of Krakow announced that the Polish investigation was nearly complete.
Cardinal Ruini emphasized that diocesan officials investigated “the life, virtues and reputation for holiness” of the late Pope. During the diocesan inquiry, church officials interviewed those who knew the Pope and examined documentation.
Although the conclusions of diocesan investigations are only one step, they are an important one on the way to the beloved Pope’s eventual Beatification and Canonization as a Saint. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints must now conduct a similar investigation and verify miracles attributed to the intercession of Pope John Paul II.
Shortly after John Paul's death, with scores of faithful clamoring for quick canonization, Pope Benedict XVI, the Pontiff's successor, waived the customary five-year waiting period to open the case for possible sainthood.
According to the AP, in addition to the presentation of the Rome Diocese’s study at St. John Lateran, Pope Benedict will preside at a Mass in memory of John Paul in the late afternoon of April 2nd in St. Peter's Basilica. The date marks the 2nd anniversary of Pope John Paul’s death.
Be sure to check the battery strength before using said microphone.Personally, I hate these things with a great passion. They are, perhaps, the most irritating thing with which I deal on a semi-frequent basis. They are clumsy, bothersome and not altogether helpful. Aside from that, the constant reaching-into-the-pocket-to-turn-the-microphone-on-and-off is neither noble nor beautiful. I have not yet found a way to make them non-distracting. I, for one, would much rather have a standing microphone any day.
I cannot explain in the way I cannot explain a Mozart aria, a Beethoven quartet or a Raphael Madonna. I cannot explain the lift and surge of liturgy as I cannot explain the heft of a poem or the fullness of the silence in the rest of music. I cannot explain the transcendence of beauty,the knowledge of eternity electric in the frail physical things. I cannot explain the connection with the infinite in the interstices of the psalms, the intimacy of goodness in the rapt face of a child in worship, the contact with reality in the smoke of incense, the deep rumble of the organ, the delicate dance of light or the poignant harmony of plainsong. I cannot explain the certainty of sanctity known in the wrinkled hands of an old woman in prayer, or the certainty of grace in a teenaged boy kneeling in silence--a smile of joy impressed upon his face as if by an unseen power.
"There's a lot of America that's Christian. I would not describe us, though, on the whole, as a Christian nation," he told the Web site Beliefnet. "I guess the word 'Christian' is what bothers me, even though I'm a Christian. I think that America is a nation of faith." [more]
Of all things by which to be bothered...
The Trivia Night at the parish last night was a great success. Twenty-one teams of eight members turned out for the event; a huge success and something like $4,000 was raised to support the music program at the grade and high schools and the newly formed Fellowship Committee.Academic Antonians
Antonian Answers
Paduan Learners
Annunciations
was a risky undertaking because it expressed an obligation which was final and irrevocable, bringing a kind of curse on oneself in the case of breaking the pact, and consequently a binding of one’s life and fortune by giving one’s word.[1]By sealing the covenant in this way, the two parties make it abundantly clear that if either of them breaks the covenant and does not keep faith, they, like the animals, will be cut in two.
By doing this Abraham believes. He entrusts his life to the words of this contract, entrusts his life, irrevocably, to the promise of the covenant. The promise becomes the span of his life, and with his readiness to give his life for his promise.[2]Abraham does not simply believe; he lives out his faith and allows his faith to influence every sphere of his existence. We, too, are called to give our lives – in all of their totality – to the Lord because faith is not only worthy of glory,
faith is worthy also of suffering. Faith is worthy of a commitment of life until death. To believe means to stake one’s life on the word of God, to unite one’s life and fate to that word, to be prepared to sacrifice one’s standing, to deny oneself any right over oneself and one’s time for the word of God.[3]We see this clearly in the Gospel today when Jesus talks with Moses and Elijah about “his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem” (Luke 9). Jesus does not stay atop Mount Tabor in all of his glory; he descends the glorious mountain to climb Mount Calvary to the Cross where his glory will be fully realized.
The text says that, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abraham. The word used here for a deep sleep is the same word employed in the creation story, when God created the woman from Adam’s rib while he was asleep. This word tardema gives the meaning of a sleep out of the ordinary, a becoming deaf to all surrounding, everyday things, a dropping down through the levels of being, and reaching that depth where one arrives at the ground of being, touches the ultimate center of reality – God.[4]The singer and songwriter Chris Rice sings about this level of “sleep” which is, really, the heart of true contemplation. He says that he sleeps in prayer:
Deep enough to dream in brilliant colorsWithin this sleep of prayer he loses himself and finds himself contemplating the unfathomable mystery of God.
I have never seen
Deep enough to join a billion people
For a wedding feast
Deep enough to reach out and touch
The face of the One who made me
And oh, the love I feel, and oh the peace
Do I ever have to wake up?[5]
At this mysterious depth Abraham sees something strange and stirring, something like a furnace and a blazing torch passing between the halves of the animals. Furnace and fire are representatives of the mystery of the invisible God. The furnace and the torch are in reality fire subdued and at the same time dangerous. Thus is expressed the inexpressible mystery of God which is at the same time order, discipline, and supreme power.[6]At this point the covenant is sealed between Abraham and the Lord, and with the children of Abraham.
This says to us, God too follows the rite of promise, he too stakes his life and his fullness on this covenant; he too will claim to be prepared to give his life for this covenant. He too engages himself and his life to cement irrevocable loyalty to the covenant. At first sight, from a philosophical standpoint, this fact seems simply absurd. How could God suffer, die, bind his fate to the covenant with man, with Abraham? The bleeding head, crowned with a wreath of thorns, the crucified Lord, is the answer. The Son of God has borne the curse of the broken promise of the children of Abraham.[7]
Thus the unthinkable and the unimaginable is realized. For God, man is so important as to be worthy of his own passion. God offers the price of his fidelity in the incarnate Son, who gives his own life. He accepts to be cut to pieces, to be slain like those animals, when in the final Passion of Good Friday the body of the Son will be snatched away from the hand of God and given into the hands of death. God takes man seriously – he joins himself in a covenant with us, and in the Holy Eucharist, fruit of the Cross, gives his life into our hands, day after day. . . .
God’s faithfulness unto death is in search of our faithfulness… God’s message, which stakes his life on the covenant with us, is a message for everyday life: in the little things, in the patience of faith every day, is realized the way of faithfulness. And so, fixing our eyes on the blood of Christ, we convert ourselves always more and more to his love (see the First Letter of Clement 7:4).[8][1] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, Second Sunday of Lent, in Journey to Easter: Spiritual Reflections for the Lenten Season (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1987), 67.
