Knowing Islam

Islam is a real big topic these days on all fronts: theology, politics, social, economic. One might add a question of reasonableness of the communication of and with the Divine Being through the Prophet. Christians will call Islam an form for Christian heresy. Whatever the case may be there is a worldwide crisis of identity and truth. Egyptian Copts just faced an attack that killed 50 people and terrorized many others. This is on top of prior attacks of terror by the Islamists.

A recent interview, in advance of Pope Francis’ visit to Egypt, was published by the National Catholic Register. Jesuit Father Samir Khalil Samir’s interview commands our attention. Father Samir is an expert. He is Egyptian and professor of Islamic studies at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.

At Benedict XVI’s 90th

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI today celebrated his 90th birthday though the actual b’day was yesterday. Here is a photo taken by L’Osservatore Romano at the monastery where he lives – to the Pope’s left is his brother, Mons. Georg Ratzinger. Others are family and friends from Bavaria.

Thanks to JL.

Blessed Easter

Dear friends in Christ: today, right now, we realize that our lives are filled with Divine meaning. Our personal stories are a part of a much bigger narrative. Your life, my life — our lives are all a part of the story of the family of God and the history of salvation. Jesus Christ is the point of unity and completeness in God.

In the First Ode of the Canon of Pascha, we read (sing):

It is the day of Resurrection! O people, let us be enlightened by it.
The Passover is the Lord’s Passover,
snce Chrits our God has brought us from death to life,
and from earth to heaven,
Therefore we sing the hymn of victory!
CHRIST IS RISEN FRM THE DEAD!
Let us cleanse our sense that we may see the risen Christ,
in the glory of the Resurrection and clearly hear Him greetinbg us:
Rejoice! as we sing the hymn of victory!
CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD!
Let the heaves properly rejoice and let the earth be glad;
and let the whole visible and invisble world celebrate,
for Christ, our everlastng joy, is rosen!
CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD!
It is the day of Resurrection! O people, let us be enlightened by it.
The Passover is the Lord’s Passover,
snce Chrits our God has brought us from death to life,
and from earth to heaven,
Therefore we sing the hymn of victory!

Happy Easter!

Sorrowful Mother

 

“Do not lament me, O Mother, seeing me in the tomb, the Son conceived in the womb without seed, for I shall arise and be glorified with eternal glory as God. I shall exalt all who magnify thee in faith and in love.”

~Ode IX, Holy Saturday Matins/Paschal Nocturns
(Icon of the Mater Dolorosa by the hand of Cheryl Pituch, Robert, LA)

Good Friday

 

“What is it to believe?” asked the Welsh poet, Waldo Williams. He answers, “Giving solace / Until deliverance arrives.”

Today, Good Friday, we come to a deeper aware that “This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

By your passion and cross we are, indeed, brought to communion.

Entering the Sacred Triduum

“This is a warning to all Catholics & Orthodox. Holy Week is Serious Business for serious disciples of Jesus Christ. The Sacred Rites (aka “ceremonies”) are not incidentally or accidentally lengthly. They are deliberately lush with the symbols of Worship at the heart of which is the Lord Jesus the Christ Himself. Entering into the Mysteries of the Triduum (Holy Thursday/Good Friday/Holy Saturday) sweeps us from lenten preparation and plunges us into the waters of Baptism where we drown to worldly allurements and arise to Easter Joy. These are deep waters, still waters where the testimony of the apostles and disciples churn among the testimonies of evangelists, martyrs, monks, nuns, and Households in Christ made holy through wives and husbands dedicated to Christian Living among truly heathen tribes and cultures. Here we join this communion of saints to refresh our souls, rededicate our bodily existence to the announcement of the Gospel — In Christ, God and Man are reconciled. May the Blessings of this Holy Week drive from us whatever is insipid and feeble. May it revest us with such Grace that will make us “strong, loving, wise” witnesses to Christ in this place and age.”

Courtesy of Fr. William Seifert

Christians should NOT do a Seder

Lazar Berman’s essay published today on The Times of Israel, “‘Trying to undo history”: A Catholic scholar reflects on Christian Seders“.

Berman and Fr. Murray Watson discuss the reality of the Seder and illustrate why it is inappropriate for Christians to do something so out of context from the their religious experience.

I have long been opposed to Christians performing the Jewish Passover Seder. In fact, I have used the words “outrageous” to express my dismay. Christians who do so, in my considered opinion, are very presumptuous and not too educated in the theology undergirding the Seder and the difference Baptism and belief in Jesus makes for the Christian. Recall that Jesus is the NEW Passover, something rejected by Jews.

In faith, we share some important beliefs with Jews; we should respect their developed theology as they should respect ours. Theological and cultural barbarisms avoided.

If a Christian wants to experience a Seder then that person ought to do the study required to understand AND swing an invitation from a Jewish household to participate in a Passover Seder. Set time aside to sit back and thoughtfully consider educative value of the experience and see know your theology! I appreciate what Berman and Watson are saying. We ought to attend.

Bl. Margaret Castello

I am always very aware of today’s Blessed of the Order of Preachers, Margaret Castello. The liturgical memorial is today. Her holiness is attractive. One biography reads:

Bl. Margaret Castello (1287–1320) was born to noble Italian parents who were awaiting the birth of the child of their dreams. Instead, they bore a daughter who was blind, dwarfed, lame, and hunchbacked. Margaret’s parents were horrified by the physical appearance of their newborn child, so they hid her and kept her existence secret. A servant had her baptized and named her Margaret, meaning, “Pearl.” When she was six years of age she was nearly discovered, so that her father confined her to a cell inside the wall of a church with her necessities given through a window. The parish priest took it upon himself to educate Margaret. She lived in this way until age sixteen, when her parents took her on pilgrimage to a shrine famous for miraculous healings. There they prayed earnestly for their daughter to be cured of her deformities, which they loathed. When no cure came, her parents abandoned her in the streets and returned home, never to see her again. Margaret begged for food and was helped by the town’s poor who took turns sheltering her in their homes. She became a Dominican Tertiary and took up the work of serving the sick, dying, and imprisoned. Margaret was known for her great joy, sanctity, and profound mystical experiences. She died at the age of 33, and hundreds of miracles were credited to her intercession both before and after her death. Her body is incorrupt. She is the patron against poverty, and of the disabled, handicapped, and unwanted.

St Gemma Galgani

For years I have been intrigued by today’s saint, Gemma Galgani. Several of my friends have a devotion to Galgani, yet she has basically remained a name for me until now. It is an interesting event that her feast day this is not on Holy Saturday as when she died, but it is during the week we call great and holy. One striking thing is that St. Gemma was not a professed member of the Passionist Order yet she intimately linked to its spiritual patrimony.

A biographer writes, “St. Gemma Galgani (1878-1903) was born in Italy, the fifth of eight children of a prosperous pharmacist. Her mother and three siblings died of tuberculous when she was young, and when she was 18 her father died as well, leaving Gemma to help care for her younger siblings. She rejected two marriage proposals and became a housekeeper while trying to enter the religious life as a Passionist. She was rejected due to her poor heath, and later became a Tertiary member of the Order. Gemma developed spinal meningitis but was miraculously healed, which she attributed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the intercession of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. Throughout her life she united herself with the Passion of Christ and experienced great suffering as a result, but not without receiving many remarkable graces as well. She experienced many visions and was often visited by her guardian angel, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. For this she was known as a great mystic, and, according to her spiritual director, developed the stigmata at age 21. After a selfless life of love given to God for the conversion of sinners, she died on the Vigil of Easter at the age of 25.

She is the patron saint of pharmacists, loss of parents, back illnesses, temptations, and those seeking purity of heart.

Gemma Galgani was beatified in 1933, and canonized in 1940.

The week we call great and holy

We call the week great, not because it has a greater number of hours – other weeks having many more hours, after all – not because it has more days, there being the same number of days in this and the other weeks, of course. So why do we call this week great? Because in it many ineffable good things come our way: in it protracted war is concluded, death is eliminated, curses are lifted, the devil’s tyranny is relaxed, his pomps are despoiled, the reconciliation of God and man is achieved, heaven is made accessible, human beings are brought to resemble angels, those things which were at odds are united, the wall is laid low, the bar is removed, the God of peace having brought peace to things on high and things on earth. This, then, is the reason we call the week great, because in it the Lord lavished on us such a plethora of gifts. This is the reason many people intensify their fasting as well as their sacred watching and vigils, and practice almsgiving, thus showing by their behavior the regard they have for the week. After all, since the Lord in this week has regaled us with such great goods, how are we not obliged to demonstrate our reverence and regard as far as we can?”

St. John Chrysostome