Sacred Scripture – Page 2

Gratitude for the things God provides

We are moving to the end of the liturgical year quickly: November 22, in the Ordinary Form of the Mass, is the feast of Christ the King and the last Sunday of the year. The readings are all pointing to a deeper question as to whom do we belong and who is the source of our hope. For this 32nd Sunday of of the year we are reading Mark’s gospel (12:38-44) concerning the poor widow and the Temple and God’s faithfulness to us. Jesus notes not the widow’s generosity (responsibility) but her faithfulness to the promises of God because she knows deep-down that all things in life are sustained by God. Hers is a radical sense of gratitude.

Knowing and caring about the poor is a Christian way. How do we live with an attitude of abundance? Abundance, here, is more than material things. The Decree of Gratian taught: “Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him, you have killed him.”

A reflection from St. Paulinus of Nola might help us to focus: “Remember the poor widow who forgot herself in her concern for the poor and, thinking only of the life to come, gave away all her means of subsistence…So let us give back to the Lord the gifts he has given us. Let us give to him who receives in the person of every poor man or woman. Let us give gladly, I say, and great joy will be ours when we receive his promised reward.”

Jesus heals the blind man

Today’s gospel is pointing the way as we move to the end of the civil year and the end of the liturgical year: Jesus cures the blind man Bartimaeus. With the gradual loss of light we are keen to see, and spiritually speaking, to see in a new way. The blind beggar gives us the direction.

The only other man singled out (named in this way) for such a healing is Lazarus. We know from our study of and prayer with sacred Scripture will help is to recognize that a significant portion of Jesus’ mission was healing and making whole of humanity. This beggar Bartimaeus, a blind man from birth, knows he can find healing only from Jesus alone. The gift of sight given to Bartimaeus is not only physical, but also spiritual. He recognizes the Lord. And the consequence of sight is the act of following. And in this healing and following Bartimaeus becomes a disciple. This is our goal too: follow Christ closely.

Saint Clement of Alexandria speak of the grace of uncreated light: “The commandment of the Lord shines clearly, enlightening the eyes. Receive Christ, receive power to see, receive your light, that you may plainly recognize both God and man. More delightful than gold and precious stones, more desirable than honey and the honeycomb is the Word that has enlightened us…Despite the other stars, without the sun the whole world would be plunged in darkness. So likewise we ourselves, had we not known the Word and been enlightened by him, should have been no better off than plump poultry fattened in the dark, simply reared for death. Let us open ourselves to the light, then, and so to God.”

The grace we ask for today is the grace to recognize the person of Jesus, the Son of David, Son of God, as the One who can give life, peace, and healing. As Clement indicates, from the Lord we are enlightened…the gift of openness to the Light of Faith.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux gives us a hint of how to approach this enlightenment: “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, thereby a kindly word; always doing the smallest good thing and doing it all for love.”

Guardian Angels

The Lord provides for our guidance, protection and connection with Himself. It is true, I believe, that there are few aspects of Catholic piety that can be perceived as comfortable to parents as the belief that a guardian angel protects their child from dangers real and imagined. My parents and grandparents taught me the famous prayer to the Guardian Angel.

The guardian angels aren’t just for children. They are not merely the domesticated spiritual figures that Hallmark perpetrates. By definition an angel does what its name means: it delivers a message. The angel has a role: to represent person before God, to watch over them, to aid their prayer and to present the souls to God at death. A Guardian angel is assigned to guide and nurture each human being is a development of Catholic doctrine and piety based on Scripture. The Guardian Angel is not named.

Recall the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew (18:10) about this doctrine: See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.

Monks and nuns have a tremendous relationship with the angels. In fact, the monastic tradition with angels is based in Scripture and the devotion they had with Divine Presence and God’s promises. Saint Benedict speaks of the angels, e.g. RB 7 & 19, and later the 12th century Cistercian Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, spoke in favor of the guardian angels.

The Church knows a particular feast day, however, in honor of the guardian angels only in the 16th century.

Another look at Matthew 25

He who gives to the poor, gives to Christ. This is the meaning of the Gospel teaching, and it has been confirmed in the experience of the saints. Upon his repentance, Peter the Merciful gave alms to the poor wherever the opportunity presented itself. On one occasion Peter encountered a shipwrecked man who had barely managed to save his naked body from the wreck. The man begged him for some clothing. Peter removed his costly cloak and clothed the naked man with it. Shortly afterward, Peter saw his cloak in the shop of a merchant, who had it displayed for sale. Peter was very saddened that the shipwrecked man had sold his cloak instead of using it for himself. Peter thought: “I am not worthy; the Lord does not accept my alms.” But later, the Lord appeared to him in a dream. He appeared as a handsome man, brighter than the sun, with a cross on His head, wearing Peter’s cloak. “Peter, why art thou sad?” asked the Lord. “My Lord, why would I not be sad, when I see that which I gave to the poor being sold at the market?” Then the Lord asked him: “Dost thou recognize this garment on Me?” Peter replied: “I recognize it, Lord; that is my garment with which I clothed the naked man.” Then the Lord spoke to him again: “Therefore do not be sad; thou gavest it to the poor man, and I received it, and I praise thy deed.”

Prologue from Ochrid

What is Jesus doing?

Gospel of Christ preaching in Nazareth, from a sermon by St. Simeon the New Theologian:

Many people never stop saying – I have heard them myself – “If only we had lived in the days of the apostles, and been counted worthy to gaze upon Christ as they did, we should have become holy like them.” Such people do not realise that the Christ who spoke then and the Christ who speaks now throughout the whole world is one and the same. If he were not the same then and now, God in every respect, in his operations as in the sacraments, how would it be seen that the Father is always in the Son and the Son in the Father, according to the words Christ spoke through the Spirit: My Father is still working and so am I?

But no doubt someone will say that merely to hear his words now and to be taught about him and his kingdom is not the same thing as to have seen him then in the body. And I answer that indeed the position now is not the same as it was then, but our situation now, in the present day, is very much better. It leads us more easily to a deeper faith and conviction than seeing and hearing him in the flesh would have done.

Eden’s recovery

This week we are reading from the Book of Genesis. I am convinced of what Saint John Paul taught: we need to work –with God’s grace– to work on the restoration of of the initial experience of what Adam and Eve experienced. Consider a study of his Theology of the Body. After Eden we fell from grace pretty hard. The pre-Fall is what God desires for all of us. AND, this is what has been granted to us through the Paschal Mystery of Christ. What Jesus did on the cross and at the resurrection our ears and mouth were opened so that the goodness of creation is made known. Our bodies were once again the center of salvation.

The Biblical narrative is familiar: the Garden of the fruit, of which we were not to eat by divine command. But, is it so much that Adam and Eve ate the “forbidden fruit” at the “forbidden picnic” (a term coined by Bishop Richard Sklba) as much as it is accepting the great lie “that the divine origin of human nakedness is no longer good. Hence, they become at odds with their Creator.” The fruit at the center of Garden represents the respect and promise of God as Father of all creation. Life in God is no small and insignificant experience: it is true, good, and beautiful.

Virtue and love are interconnected

Saint Catherine of Siena: “You know that every virtue receives life from love, that is, by raising the eye of our intellect to consider how much we are loved by God. Seeing that we are loved, we cannot do anything except love. Loving God we embrace virtue out of love, and we despise vice out of hatred. So you see that it is in God that we conceive virtues, and in our neighbors that we bring them to birth. You know indeed that you give birth to the child charity that is in your soul in order to answer your neighbor’s need; and that you give birth to patience when your neighbor does you harm. You offer prayer for all your neighbors, and particularly for the one who has wronged you. That is the way we ought to behave; if others are unfaithful to us, we ought to be faithful to them, faithfully seeking their salvation and loving them gratuitously and not as a debt. In other words, take care not to love your neighbor for your own profit, for that would not be responding to the love which God has for you.”

Saint Catherine of Siena offers us a readjustment to our way of proceeding for the 30th Sunday of the Church Year (Mt 22:34-40). As we move closer and closer to the end of the liturgical year and the end of the civil calendar, our thinking, prayer and relationships take on a new intensity but only if we are aware of our humanity the holy desires of our heart.

Are you wearing the wedding garment of Charity?

A thought for today’s Scripture proclaimed at Sunday Mass today –St. Augustine taught:

“‘The goal of this command is charity,’ says the apostle, ‘which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.’ This is the wedding garment. Not charity of any kind whatever, for very often they who are partakers together of an evil conscience seem to love one another… But in these is no charity from a pure heart, a good conscience and a faith unfeigned. The wedding garment is charity such as this: ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I have become like a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.’ Suppose someone who speaks in tongues comes in and is asked, ‘How did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ Suppose he answers, ‘But I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains.’ But if he has no charity, he has nothing. Such may be the clothing of those who in fact lack the wedding garment.”

A Reflection for the 28th Sunday through the Year on Matthew 22:1-14

Guardian Angels’ feast

He has given his angels charge over you
to keep you in all your ways.
In their hand they will bear you up,
that you may not dash your foot against a stone.

Ps. 90 (91):11
The offertory antiphon, First Sunday in Lent

The belief that the guardian angels exist and help humanity has a long genealogy coming from the Jewish tradition and the witness of the saints.

“Hence the perfection of the universe requires that there should be intellectual creatures. Now intelligence cannot be the action of a body, nor of any corporeal faculty; for every body is limited to “here” and “now.” Hence the perfection of the universe requires the existence of an incorporeal creature [angels]” — St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I.50.1

I recommend being friendly with your guardian angel.

Sacred Scripture as historical texts reveals Christ Jesus

The 20th and 21st centuries have seen Catholics draw closer to the Bible, the revealed Word of God. During the pontificate of Benedict XVI there was almost an explosion of emphasis on Scripture study, a resurgence of biblical preaching, a serious consideration of what it means to be an evangelical Catholic and lectio divina. In my opinion, it was Benedict XVI who gave critical attention to the sacred Scriptures in the calling of the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God coupled with the concretizing the Church’s programatic direction with the publication of Verbum Domini (2010).

Rome Reports gives a spotlight on a recent initiative of the American Bible Society‘s “The Bible and the World.”

This initiative of the ABS is yet another great example of the place we Catholics need to have for the daily praying with God’s word, and the study of the historical text. As the preparatory commission for the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God stated about the complexity and beauty of the sacred text viz. our salvation in Christ Jesus,

Pastorally speaking, this truth requires an understanding on how to gather, in an analogous way, the various meanings of the Word of God in the faith of the Church, as seen in the Bible. In the Scriptures, Jesus Christ is shown to be the Eternal Word of God, which shines forth in creation, is given a historical character in the message of the prophets, is fully manifested in the Person of Jesus, is echoed in the voice of the apostles and is proclaimed in the Church today. In a general sense, the Word of God is Christ-the-Word, who, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is the key to all interpretation. “The Word of God, who was in the beginning with God, is not, in his fullness, much talk or a multiplicity of words; but a single Word, which embraces a great number of ideas (theoremata), each of which is a part of the Word in its entirety… and if Christ refers us to the Scriptures in testifying to himself, it is not to one book that he sends us to the exclusion of another, but to all, because all speak of him.”Thus, continuity can be seen in diversity.