Monday, March 18, 2024

Part 1 - The Wedding At Cana and the Passion of Christ


Jan Steen. The Marriage Feast at Cana. c. 1665/70.

Fulton Sheen makes some wonderful connections between the wedding at Cana and Christ's Passion, death, and resurrection in his excellent Life of Christ. Next week is holy week so I'm posting these for our contemplation ahead of time.
There were, in His life, two occasions when His human nature seemed to show an unwillingness to take on His burden of suffering. In the Garden, He asked His Father if it be possible to take away His chalice of woe. But He immediately afterward acquiesced in His Father's will: "Not My will, but Thine be done." The same apparent reluctance was also manifested in the face of the will of His mother. Cana was a rehearsal for Golgotha. He was not questioning the wisdom of beginning His Public Life and going to death at this particular point in time; it was rather a question of submitting His reluctant human nature to obedience to the Cross. There is a striking parallel between His Father's bidding Him to His public death and His mother's bidding Him to His public life. Obedience triumphed in both cases; at Cana, the water was changed into wine; at Calvary, the wine was changed into blood.

He was telling His mother that she was virtually pronouncing a sentence of death over Him. Few are the mothers who send their sons to battlefields; but here was one who was actually hastening the hour of her Son's mortal conflict with the forces of evil. If He agreed to her request, He would be beginning His hour of death and glorification. To the Cross He would go with double commission, one from His Father in heaven, the other from His mother on earth.
Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen
Part 2 will be tomorrow.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

7th Sunday of St. Joseph

Reflecting on St. Joseph on the seven Sundays leading up to his solemnity is an old tradition.

Coronation of Joseph, Valdés Leal, c, 1670

The Fatherly Intercession of St. Joseph

The fatherly intercession of Saint Joseph in the Church is a prolongation of the authority he exercised over Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, and Mary, Mother of the Church. This is the reason why Saint Joseph has been declared Patron of the Universal Church. That home in Nazareth contained all the elements of the nascent Church. It is fitting that Joseph care for the Church in the same holy manner in which he watched over the Holy Family  in Nazareth. (Pope Leo XIII) ...

Saint Joseph's mission extends to the end of time. His fatherhood applies to each one of us. Saint Teresa of Avila has written: Would that I could persuade all men to have devotion to this glorious Saint; for I know by long experience what blessings he can obtain for us from God. I have never known any one who was really devoted to him, and who honored him by particular services, who did not visibly grow more and more in virtue; for he helps in a special way those souls who commend themselves to him. It is now some years since I have always on his feast asked him for something and I have always received it. If the petition be in any way amiss, he directs it aright for my greater good.
In Conversation with God: Volume Six: Special Feasts: January - June

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Top o' the Mornin' to Ya: Happy St. Patrick's Day

This and that for St. Patrick's optional memorial — which would really be tomorrow but that's Sunday which is reserved for celebrating Jesus. 

Note - optional memorials are not celebrated during Lent, so technically St. Patrick's Day is never celebrated in the Church. Except wherever it isn't optional, such as in Ireland where it is a solemnity and national holiday.

Just a little something to keep in mind. But be of good cheer! The Solemnity of St. Joseph is coming in a few days and that calls for a big celebration!

St. Patrick is more a saint for our modern times than you might think. He dealt with pagans and arguing Christians — sound familiar?
Time and again Patrick's life was in danger from various quarters, principally from his mortal enemies the Druids; that he managed to survive them all was due to his own shrewdness and, on more than one occasion, to the special intervention of divine Providence. However, Patrick always regarded his greatest trial to be the opposition to his mission which originated within the circle of his fellow Christians in Britain and Gaul, who circulated so many scurrilous stories about him that he felt called upon to defend himself in writing; thanks to this we are fortunate enough to have his Confession, which is the main source of the details about his life.
Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God: Special Feasts January - June

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We think of green beer for St. Patrick's Day so this linking of beer and the saints is fun.
"It is my design to die in the brew-house; let ale be placed to my mouth when I am expiring so that when the choir of angels come they may say: 'Be God propitious to this drinker.'"So said St. Columbanus.

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A bit of St. Patrick's Confession which you may read it its entirety here.

1. I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

2. And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance. And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.

3. Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity. For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven. ...

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St. Patrick's Breastplate ... the confession above is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to have led to the glory that is this prayer.

I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today, through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism, through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial, through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension, through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today, through the strength of the love of the Cherubim, in obedience of angels, in the service of archangels, in the hope of the resurrection to meet with reward, in the prayers of patriarchs, in prediction of prophets, in preaching of apostles, in faith of confessors, in innocence of holy virgins, in deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through the strength of heaven; light of sun, radiance of moon, splendor of fire, speed of lightning, swiftness of wind, depth of sea, stability of earth, firmness of rock.

I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me: God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me, God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak to me, God's hand to guard me, God's way to lie before me, God's shield to protect me, God's host to save me, from the snares of devils, from temptations of vices, from every one who shall wish me ill, afar and anear, alone and in a multitude.

I summon today, all these powers between me and those evils, against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, against incantations of false prophets, against black laws of pagandom, against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry, against spells of women and smiths and wizards, against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today, against poisoning, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, so there come to me abundance of reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me, Christ in the eye of every one that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of Creation.

(The full text of what has come to be known as St. Patrick's Breast Plate. While it's not known for sure, ancient tradition has ascribed the prayer to Patrick himself. This is an older translation.)
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For Celebrating:
  • Make some Irish Soda Bread. (For other Irish recipes, check here ... I'm not into corned beef at all, but lamb? Oh yeah ...)
  • If you can't go dancing or to the pub  then watch The Quiet Man.
  • I love the idea of  Irish dancing. See, that's how you use up all that alcohol in the Guiness (you are drinking Guiness today aren't you?) ... leaping and twirling?

    We foot it all the night,
    Weaving olden dances,
    Mingling hands and mingling glances
    Till the moon has taken flight;
    To and fro we leap
    And chase the frothy bubbles,
    While the world is full of troubles

    WB Yeats, The Stolen Child

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Irish Heritage: 

I have been asked if I am Irish and yes I am. I believe it was my great-great-grandfather who was named Reeves. That then lead to some thought that the surname was actually an occupation as well, which I hadn't thought of. And so it was, according to Wikipedia at any rate.

Reeve may refer to:
  • High-reeve, a title taken by some English magnates during the 10th and 11th centuries
  • Reeve (England), an official elected annually by the serfs to supervise lands for a lord
  • Reeve (Canada), an elected chief executive in counties
  • Shire reeve, an office position that originated the term Sheriff

So I come from a proud line of middle managers. Ah, tradition ...

Friday, March 15, 2024

Why fasting, almsgiving, and prayer go all the way back to the beginning

Temptations of Christ, 12th-century mosaic in St Mark's Basilica, Venice
(click through to see a bigger image)

This is for anyone who ever felt as if the Church's prescription of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are picked out of a hat simply as hard things to do. Au contraire, the combination of John Bergsma' commentary with Joe Heschmeyer's observations show how fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are completely logical prescription from the Church during this time.

First, let's look at the nature of temptation.

The classic scriptural formulation of the nature of temptation is found in 1 John 2:15-16 (RSV2CE):

Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world.

In the Christian tradition, this threefold love of the world—lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life—is known as the three-fold concupiscence and lines up roughly with the sins of (physical) lust, avarice (greed), and pride.

We see this threefold pattern at work when Eve gives in to temptation: The woman saw that the tree was (1) good for food, (2) pleasing to the eyes, and (3) desirable for gaining wisdom.

"Good for food"—this is physical lust. "Pleasing to the eyes"—this is avarice, the desire to have more, to possess things for their beauty or value. "Desirable for gaining wisdom"—this is pride because her purpose for gaining wisdom is to make herself equal because her purpose for gaining wisdom is to make herself equal to god. As the serpent says, "You will be like God" (v. 5, RSV2CE).

John Bergsma, The Word of the Lord Year A,
First Sunday of Lent, commentary on Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7

Bergsma goes on to draw the connection between Eve giving into the three temptations and Jesus rejecting all three in turn. He rejects lust of the flesh when he will not turn stones into bread to break his 40-day fast. He rejects the pride of life when he rejects the temptation to throw himself from the temple and let the angels save him. (It never occurred to me that this would have been quite a publicity stunt until reading this commentary.) Finally, Jesus rejects lust of the eyes when he is shown all the kingdoms of the world and rejects the act of worship that would make them his.

The Lenten disciplines are intended to help us overcome the temptation to the same sins. Fasting combats lust of the flesh. Almsgiving combats lust of the eyes. Prayer combats pride because we must acknowledge our dependence on God.

Helping Our Relationships in the World

Joe Heschmeyer in his Shameless Popery podcast points out that these three forms of sin not only hurt us but others. He begins with the Catechism, paragraph 1434:

The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others. "

He then points out that the pattern of the three temptations hurts our relationships - with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with God. Lust of flesh hurts us and  fasting is a form of self mastery to help combat it. Lust of the eyes damages our relationship to others (our neighbors) because we desire their goods so almsgiving (giving to our own goods away) is an appropriate correction. Pride of life means we put ourselves in the place of God and obviously prayer is a way to correct our relationship with him.

This was a brand new connection for me and one that has added a deeper meaning to my fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. It is a way to help fix the damage that our sin has done in the world. Simply amazing.

Heschmeyer's commentary is best listened to, however I pulled this from the episode transcript for those who want a quick excerpt.

Now, there’s a cool connection that [the Catechism] just made there because the point is this, in sin, we hurt our relationship to ourself, we hurt our relationship with God, we hurt our relationship with our neighbor.

So if you are struggling with lust of the flesh, you have a disordered relationship with yourself. Okay, well, what’s the tool that combats that, the relationship with ourself? Well, fasting, it’s a form of self mastery.

Or I’ve got pride of life. I am putting myself in the place of God and I’m desiring these worldly things and I’m getting puffed up. Well, what’s the cure for that? Prayer.

Or I’ve damaged my relationship to others, I’m being greedy. I’m dominating those around me. I’m trying to get my neighbors goods, covetousness, all of that stuff. Well, what’s the cure for that? Almsgiving. That these worldly goods that maybe I really want will give that money away. And so rather than damaging your relationship to your neighbor by getting richer and richer while your poor neighbor languishes, you give to your neighbor.

So you can see this is hopefully very clear that the damaged relationship to myself is related to lust of the flesh. The damaged relationship to my neighbor is related to lust of the eyes. My damaged relationship to God is related to pride of life.

... Therefore fasting, which works on myself, prayer which works on my relationship with God, almsgiving works on my relationship with my neighbor, are especially kind of calibrated.

Joe Heschmeyer, Shameless Popery,
The 3 Spiritual Traps (and 6 Spiritual Weapons) of Lent

Brittany Boats

Edgar Alwyn Payne, Brittany Boats

Thursday, March 14, 2024

The Lion of the tribe of Judah

The author here is using the fifth chapter of the book of Revelation as a commentary on the Passion read during Good Friday. 
He has conquered! This is the news the sage was charged to make re-echo in the Church, just as the Church must make it re-echo throughout the world for all time: the Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered! (The "Lion of the tribe of Judah" is the Messiah, so-called by Jacob in the book of Genesis 49:9, when he was blessing his son Judah). The Long-awaited event that gives meaning to everything has taken place. History can never go back. ...

That simple verb enikesen—"he has conquered"—contains the very principle that gives history a kind of absoluteness. It gives eternal and universal value to an event that took place at a given point in time and space. ... It represents for history what the principle of noncontradiction represents for metaphysics. It is impossible to go back to the previous state of things. Nothing and no one in the world, no matter how hard they might try, can change what happened—that is, that Jesus Christ died and rose again, that we are redeemed, that the Church was founded, the sacraments instituted, the kingdom of God established.
Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, The Power of the Cross

Desert Sky

Desert Sky by Edgar Alwyn Payne

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Lent: Who Do You Say I Am?

From a long ago insert I wrote for our church bulletin. 
Who Do You Say I Am?
Filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. ...
Luke, chapter 4

The common practice today is to measure the Bible against the so-called modern worldview, whose fundamental dogma is that God cannot act in history—that everything to do with God is to be relegated to the domain of subjectivity. And so the Bible no longer speaks of God, the living God; no, now we alone speak and decide what God can do and what we will and should do. And the Antichrist, with an air of scholarly excellence, tells us that any exegesis1 that reads the Bible from the perspective of faith in the living God, in order to listen to what God has to say, is fundamentalism; he wants to convince us that only his kind of exegesis, the supposedly purely scientific kind, in which God says nothing and has nothing to say, is able to keep abreast of the times.

The theological debate between Jesus and the devil is a dispute over the correct interpretation of Scripture, and it is relevant to every period of history. The hermeneutical2 question lying at the basis of proper scriptural exegesis is this: What picture of God are we working with? The dispute about interpretation is ultimately a dispute about who God is. Yet in practice, the struggle over the image of God, which underlies the debate about valid biblical interpretation, is decided by the picture we form of Christ: Is he, who remained without worldly power, really the son of the living God? ...

The point at issue is revealed in Jesus’ answer, which is also taken from Deuteronomy: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Deut 6:16). ... The issue, then, is the one we have already encountered: God has to submit to experiment. He is “tested,” just as products are tested. He must submit to the conditions that we say are necessary if we are to reach certainty. If he doesn’t grant us now the protection he promises in Psalm 91,3 then he is simply not God. He will have shown his own word, and himself, too to be false.

We are dealing with the vast question as to how we can and cannot know God, how we are related to God and how we can lose him. The arrogance that would make God an object and impose our laboratory conditions upon him is incapable of finding him. For it already implies that we deny God as God by placing ourselves above him, by discarding the whole dimension of love, of interior listening; by no longer acknowledging as real anything but what we can experimentally test and grasp. To think like that is to make oneself God. And to do that is to abase not only God, but the world and oneself, too.

Joseph Ratzinger4,­ Jesus of Nazareth


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We are quite used to thinking of Jesus’ struggle with temptation as a scenario of the devil offering worldly methods which Jesus spurns while worshiping God. This often leads to us considering what we must struggle with or deny in order to follow Jesus.This is valid, however, we have seen this piece of scripture presented so many times that it can be easy to miss levels of meaning aside from struggle with physical desires and denial.

Therefore, it is startling to see Joseph Ratzinger boldly state that Jesus’ verbal battle with the devil is one of Biblical interpretation. It brings us down to earth with a thump. Moving to this different level of understanding scripture offers challenges to our easy doubts of God’s presence in our lives and in our world.

It is easy to doubt and to fall back on the well worn phrase “trust but verify.” Indeed, we have been taught this lesson by the world, where business and politics, to name merely two influences, have given us much reason to be wary, cynical and doubtful of claims we cannot see, touch, or prove scientifically.

However, we cannot use these criteria when it comes to friends, loves, children, spouses, or, most importantly, God. With these cherished relationships, we must learn in a way that cannot be quantified. We must release our need to control. We must listen. We must remain open. We must learn. We must trust.

We may not know what questions to ask in order to learn to love God better. Jesus came to bring us the answers before the questions were spoken. We can find them by being open to God’s living word and listening.

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1 Critical explanation or analysis, especially of a text.


2 The theory and methodology of interpretation, especially of scriptural text.

3 Psalm 91 is a prayer of someone who has taken refuge in the security of the temple. Verses 11-12 state, “For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways. With their hands they shall support you, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” Read the entire psalm to see the statement of God’s promises therein.

4 Pope Benedict XVI wrote Jesus of Nazareth under his own name, Joseph Ratzinger.

Feeding Time

Feeding Time by Hans Andersen Brendekilde

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

A Movie You Might Have Missed #94 — A Tale of Two Cities (1935)


THE IMMORTAL STORY OF LOVE AND INTRIGUE DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION!

The exciting story of Dr. Manette, who escapes the horrors of the infamous Bastille prison in Paris. The action switches between London and Paris on the eve of the revolution where we witness ‘the best of times and the worst of times’ - love, hope, the uncaring French Aristocrats and the terror of a revolutionary citizen’s army intent on exacting revenge.

This was the final movie in our 1937 Oscar winner/nominees viewing

We saved the best for last, without realizing it. What a fantastic movie! I have to admit that my reaction is colored by the fact that I love the book. They did such an excellent job of telling the story that I am going to have to reread the book very soon.

However, my mother didn't know the story and couldn't quit talking about it, saying the next morning, "That movie simply blew me away." So it isn't just Dickens fans who liked it.

Wikipedia says: The film is generally regarded as the best cinematic version of Dickens' novel and one of the best performances of Colman's career. I believe it. I've never seen Ronald Colman in anything but he was simply terrific. With his somewhat disheveled look and his subtle acting style, he seemed very modern. They say that he was so determined to play this role that he agreed to shave off his mustache. Wise choice. 

The movie that won in 1937 was The Great Ziegfeld. Until now we were ready to call that a good choice. No longer.

This is the movie that should have won the Oscar.

At a Book

At a Book by Marie Bashkirtseff
I mean, my hair isn't that elegant, but otherwise this is how I spend a lot of my time. Obviously!