An Advent Reflection on the Child Who Made His Mother

Of every other child that is born into the world, friends can say that it resembles his mother. This was the first instance in time that anyone could say that the mother resembled the Child. This is the beautiful paradox of the Child Who made His mother; the mother, too was only a child. It was also the first time in the history of this world that anyone could ever think of heaven as being anywhere else than "somewhere up there"; when the Child was in her arms, Mary now looked down to Heaven ...

Life of Christ by Fulton J. Sheen

Part 5 - The Wedding at Cana and The Passion of Christ

Duccio di Buoninsegna. Maestà (back, predella): The Wedding at Cana. 1308-11.

In preparation for holy week, here is the final part of Fulton Sheen's reflections on the wedding at Cana and Christ's Passion, death and resurrection.

The Cross is everywhere. When a man stretches out his arms in relaxation, he unconsciously forms the image of the reason for the Son of Man's coming. So too at Cana, the shadow of the Cross was thrown across a "woman," and the first stroke of the "Hour" was sounded like a bell of execution. In all the other incidents of His life, the Cross came first, then the joy. But at Cana, it was the joy of the nuptials that came first--the nuptials of the Bridegroom and the Bride of redeemed humanity; only after that are we reminded that the Cross is the condition of that ecstasy.

Thus He did at a marriage feast what He would not do in a desert; He worked in the full gaze of men what He had refused to do before Satan. Satan asked Him to turn stones into bread in order that He might become an economic Messiah; His mother asked Him to change water into wine that He might become a Savior. Satan tempted Him from death; Mary "tempted" Him to death and Resurrection. Satan tried to lead Him from the Cross; Mary sent Him toward it. Later on, He would take hold of the bread that Satan had said men needed, and tee wine that His mother had said the wedding guests needed, and He would change them both into the memorial of His Passion and His death. Then He would ask that men renew that memorial, even "unto the consummation of the world." The antiphon of His life continues to ring: Everyone else came into the world to live; He came into the world to die.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

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.

Four Books I Began and Now Must Read ...

I don't have time to read these books now but I got them, read the first chapter of each, and then realized they are so good that I must put them on my "to read" stack. So many books, so little time ...

I list them here so that if your "to read" stack is not as tall as mine then you may find and begin them sooner. They look fantastic, I'm tellin' ya.

The Word Made Fresh: Communicating Church and Faith Today
by Meredith Gould
I'm a fan of Meredith's books. However, the title made this look like something I should pass along to our deacon so he can lend it out to the church's office staff. I should have known better. The first chapter alone had some good, solid spiritual commentary that made me realize, "The deacon can't have this book! I have to read it myself!" Also, practically speaking, any Catholic blogger is also in the business of communications for the Church. So there might be some good tips for us bloggers in here as well.

A Well-Built Faith: A Catholic's Guide to Knowing and Sharing What We Believe
by Joe Paprocki
I'm looking at the cover to this book and thinking, "Another book explaining Catholicism! We've got enough!" Well, no, we don't and it only took the first chapter for me to see that. Joe Paprocki uses plenty of real life examples and the four pillars of the Catechism to write in an engaging way about our faith ... and it got me interested and looking at a couple of things afresh. Good stuff there...

Life of Christ
by Fulton Sheen
This one needs no introduction to me. I have read it halfway through several times! A spiritual classic written by one of America's great communicators, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, this melds the four Gospels and looks at Christ's life as a whole. Brilliant. I am going to take this as a prompt to finally pick it up again and finish it. Highly recommended. (For samples of this book, look for this tag. I see that I have excerpted it extensively.)

Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton Sheen
This one didn't need any selling to me (see Life of Christ commentary above). However, I dutifully read the first chapter and realized that if anyone was a patron saint for bloggers, it might well be Fulton Sheen (yes, I know he isn't a saint yet). His commentary in Life of Christ always seemed very humble and I am looking forward to reading this book which looks as if it is told more from an interior point of view than being events-based.

From My Morning Reading: Why Jesus Was More Than A Good Teacher

At the end of his commentary about Nicodemus' night visit to Christ, Sheen makes a point that I don't recall having seen made in just this way.

If there is anything that every good teacher wants, it is a long life in which to make his teaching known, and to gain wisdom and experience. Death is always a tragedy to a great teacher. When Socrates was given the hemlock juice, his message was cut off once and for all. Death was a stumbling block to Buddha and his teaching of the eight-fold way. The last breath of Lao-tze rang down the curtain on his doctrine concerning the Tao or "doing nothing," as against aggressive self-determination. Socrates had taught that sin was due to ignorance and that, therefore, knowledge would make a good and perfect world. The Eastern teachers were concerned about man being caught up in some great wheel of fate. Hence the recommendation of Buddha that men be taught to crush their desires and thus find peace. When Buddha died at eighty, he pointed not to himself but to the law he had given. Confucius' death stopped his moralizing s about how to perfect a State by means of kindly reciprocal relations between prince and subject, father and son, brothers, husband and wife, friend and friend.

Our Blessed Lord in His talk with Nicodemus proclaimed Himself the Light of the World. But the most astounding part of His teaching was that He said no one would understand His teaching while He was alive and that His Death and Resurrection would be essential to understanding it. No other teacher in the world ever said that it would take a violent death to clarify his taeachings. Here was a Teacher Who made His teachings so secondary that He could say that the only way that He would ever draw men to Himself would be not by His doctrine, not by what He said, but by His Crucifixion.

When you have lifted up the Son of Man you will know that I am what I am. John 8:28)

He did not say that it would even be His teaching that they would understand; it would be rather His Personality that they would grasp. Only then would they know, after they had put Him to death, that He spoke the Truth. His death, then, instead of being the last of a series of failures, would be a glorious success, the climax of His mission on earth.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

What Does "the Incarnation" Really Mean?

Our church bulletin insert from last Sunday.

Considering the Truth of the Incarnation

“No worldly mind would ever have suspected that He Who could make the sun warm the earth would one day have need of an ox and an ass to warm Him with their breath; that He Who, in the language of Scriptures, could stop the turning about of Arcturus would have His birthplace dictated by an imperial census; that He, Who clothed the fields with grass, would Himself be naked; that He, from Whose hands came planets and worlds, would one day have tiny arms that were not long enough to touch the huge heads of the cattle; that the feet which trod the everlasting hills would one day be too weak to walk; that the Eternal Word would be dumb; that Omnipotence would be wrapped in swaddling clothes; that Salvation would lie in a manger; that the bird which built the nest would be hatched therein—no one would have ever suspected that God coming to this earth would ever be so helpless. And that is precisely why so many miss Him. Divinity is always where one least expects to find it. ...

No man can love anything unless he can get his arms around it, and the cosmos is too big and too bulky. But once God became a Babe and was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, men could say, “This is Emmanuel, this is God with us.” By His reaching down to frail human nature and lifting it up to the incomparable prerogative of union with Himself, human nature became dignified. So real was this union that all of His acts and words, all of His agonies and tears, all of His thoughts and reasonings, resolves and emotions, while being properly human, were at the same time the acts and words, agonies and tears, thought and reasonings, resolves and emotions of the Eternal Son of God.”

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ

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In our meditations upon the Incarnation we encounter many familiar images. This is natural and to be expected. It is automatic to think sentimentally and comfortably about the little babe, the adoring parents, singing angels, startled shepherds, and Magi with gifts, while traditional carols echo in our ears.

However, as Fulton Sheen reminds us, the reality of the Incarnation is not comfortable at all. It is God breaking into human time and nature and history to effect a miracle so outrageous that no one would have thought it up in their wildest dreams. The Second Person of the Trinity willingly takes on our limited human nature, purely for love of us. Shocking? Yes. Amazing? Yes. But comfortable? No.

This also is a good reminder that it is very easy to read into Scripture what we would like to see. Pulling the truth out of Scripture, also called exegesis, is considerably more difficult. That truth may prove quite a bit more surprising than we expect. God does have a habit of showing us truth in surprising ways.

To think of the Christ child at Christmas is natural. Undeniably those are the images of the season. However, the meaning of this baby for us and for all mankind is far from a sentimental picture. Jesus comes to us as a baby so we will learn something of his real nature and of the beginning of the path that he will tread and that we must follow.

Pope Benedict XVI helps us to consider further the layers of meaning in the Incarnation. In a Christmas homily* he said:

“God’s sign is the baby in need of help and in poverty. … God’s sign is simplicity. … God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in need of our help. … He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will – we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. ...”

In our meditations upon the Incarnation we encounter many familiar images. This is natural and to be expected. However, let us not settle for comfort. Let us dig deeper and discover the true nature of the Lord, he who is Love incarnate, who came to show that love for you and for me.

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* Read online Pope Benedict XVI’s entire homily from Midnight Mass, Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord.

The Beatitudes: Happiness on a Higher Level

Those who heard Him preach the Beatitudes were invited to stretch themselves out on a cross, to find happiness on a higher level by death to a lower order, to despise all the world holds sacred, and to venerate as sacred all the world regards as an ideal. Heaven is happiness; but it is too much for man to have two heavens, an ersatz one below, and a real one above. Hence the four "woes" He immediately added to the Beatitudes.

But alas for you who are rich; you have had your time of happiness.
Alas for you who are well-fed now; you shall go hungry.
Alas for you who laugh now; you shall mourn and weep.
Alas for you when all speak well of you; just so did their fathers treat the false prophets.

Luke 6:24-26

Crucifixion cannot be far away when a Teacher says "woe" to the rich, the satiated, the gay and the popular. Truth is not in the Sermon on the Mount alone; it is in the One Who lived our the Sermon on the Mount on Golgotha. The four woes would have been ethical condemnations, if He had not died full of the opposite of the four woes: poor, abandoned, sorrowful, and despised. On the Mount of the Beatitudes, He bade men hurl themselves on the cross of self-denial; on the Mount of Calvary, He embraced that very cross. Though the shadow of the Cross would not fall across the place of the skull until three years later, it was already in His Heart the day He preached on "How to be Happy."

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: Lessons in Self-Crucifixion

The Beatitudes cannot be taken alone: they are not ideals; they are hard facts and realities inseparable from the Cross of Calvary. What He taught was self-crucifixion: to love those who hate us; to pluck out eyes and cut off arms in order to prevent sinning; to be clean on the inside when the passions clamor for satisfaction on the outside; to forgive those who would put us to death; to overcome evil with good; to bless those who curse us; to stop mouthing freedom until we have justice, truth and love of God in our hearts as the condition of freedom; to live in the world and still keep oneself unpolluted from it; to deny ourselves sometimes legitimate pleasures in order the better to crucify our egotism -- all this is to sentence the old man in us to death.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: The Peacemakers and Those Reviled

Let Him come into a world which believes that one must resort to every manner of chicanery and duplicity in order to conquer the world, carrying doves of peace with stomachs full of bombs, say to them, "Blessed are the peacemakers," or "Blessed are they who eradicate sin that there may be peace"; and He will find Himself surrounded by men engaged in the silliest of all wars -- a war against the Son of God; making violence with steel and wood, pinions and gall and then setting a watch over His grave that He who lost the battle might not win the day.

Let Him come into a world that believes that our whole life should be geared to flattering and influencing people for the sake of utility and popularity, and say to them: "Blessed are you when men hate, persecute, and revile you"; and He will find Himself without a friend in the world, an outcast on a hill, with mobs shouting His death, and His flesh hanging from Him like purple rags.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: The Holy, The Merciful, and The Pure

Let Him come into the world which denies Absolute Truth, which says that right and wrong are only questions of point of view, that we must be broadminded about virtue and vice, and let Him say to them, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after holiness," that is, after the Absolute, after the Truth which "I am"; and they will in their broadmindedness give the mob the choice of Him or Barabbas, they will crucify Him with thieves, and try to make the world believe that God is no different from a batch of robbers who are His bedfellows in death.

Let Him come into a world which says that "my neighbor is hell," that all which is opposite me is nothing, that the ego alone matters, that my will is supreme law, that what I decide is good, that I must forget others and think only of myself, and say to them, "Blessed are the merciful." He will find that He will receive no mercy; they will open five streams of blood out of His Body; they will pour vinegar and gall into His thirsting mouth; and, even after His death, be so merciless as to plunge a spear into His Sacred Heart.

Let Him come into a world which tries to interpret man in terms of sex; which regards purity as coldness, chastity as frustrated sex, self-containment as abnormality, and the union of husband and wife until death as boredom; which says that a marriage endures only so long as the glands endure, that one may unbind what God binds and unseal what God seals. Say to them, "Blessed are the pure"; and He will find Himself hanging naked on a Cross, made a spectacle to men and angels in a last wild crazy affirmation that purity is abnormal, that the virgins are neurotics, and that carnality is right.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: The Poor in Spirit, The Patient, and They Who Mourn

The Sermon on the Mount is so much at variance with all that the world holds dear that the world will crucify anyone who tries to live up to its values. Because Christ preached them, He had to die. Calvary was the price He paid for the Sermon on the Mount. Only mediocrity survives. Those who call black black, and white white are sentenced for intolerance. Only the grays live.

The Lord Who says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," comes into the world that believes in the primacy of the economic; let Him stand in the market place where some men live for collective profit, or where others say men live for individual profit, and see what happens. He will be so poor that during life He will have nowhere to lay His head; a day will come when He will die without anything of economic worth. In His last hour He will be so impoverished that they will strip Him of His garments and even give Him a stranger's grave for His burial, as He had a stranger's stable for His birth.

Let Him come into the world which proclaims the gospel of the strong, which advocates hating our enemies, which condemns Christian virtues as the "soft" virtues, and say to that world, "Blessed are the patient," and He will one day feel the scourges of the strong barbarians laid across His back; He will be struck on the cheek by a mocking fist during one of His trials; He will see men take a sickle and cut the grass from a hill on Calvary, and then use a hammer to pinion Him to a Cross to test the patience of One Who endures the worst that evil has to offer, that having exhausted itself it might eventually turn to Love.

Let Him come into our world which ridicules the idea of sin as morbidity, considers reparation for past guilt as a guilt complex and preach to that world, "Blessed are they who mourn" for their sins, and He will be blindfolded and mocked as a fool. They will take His Body and scourge it, until His bones can be numbered; they will crown His head with thorns, until He begins to weep not salt tears but crimson beads of blood, as they laugh at the weakness of Him Who will not come down from the Cross.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: The Key

The key to the Sermon on the Mount is the way He used two expressions: one was, "You have heard"; the other was the short, emphatic word, "But." When He said, "You have heard," He reached back to what human ears had heard for centuries and still hear from ethical reformers -- all those rules and codes and precepts which are half measures between instinct and reason, between local customs and the highest ideals. When He said, "You have heard," He included the Mosaic Law, Buddha with his eightfold way, Confucius with his rules for being a gentleman, Aristotle with his natural happiness, the broadness of the Hindus, and all the humanitarian groups of our day, who would translate some of the old codes into their own language and call them a new way of life. Of all these compromises, He said, "You have heard."

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: Taking On the World

The fascinating thing about this passage and the ones I will post over the next few days is that Sheen wrote this in 1958. 1958! I think of that as being an innocent, happy time where these problems had nothing like the emphasis they have in our modern lives. However, we can easily see from what Sheen says that was not case. His words could have been written today.

In the Beatitudes, Our Divine Lord takes those eight flimsy catch-words of the world -- "Security," "Revenge," "Laughter," "Popularity," "Getting Even," "Sex," "Armed Might," and "Comfort" -- and turns them upside down. To those who say, "You cannot be happy unless you are rich," He says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." To those who say, "Don't let him get away with it," He says, "Blessed are the patient." To those who say, "Laugh and the world laughs with you," He says, "Blessed are those who mourn." To those who say: "If nature gave you sex instincts you ought to give them free expression, otherwise you will become frustrated," He says, "Blessed are the clean of heart." To those who say, "Seek to be popular and well known," He says, "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely because of Me." To those who say, "In time of peace prepare for war," He says, "Blessed are the peacemakers."

The cheap clichés around which movies are written and novels composed, He scorns. He proposes to burn what they worship; to conquer errant sex instincts instead of allowing them to make slaves of man; to tame economic conquests instead of making happiness consist in an abundance of things external to the soul. All false beatitudes which make happiness depend on self-expression, license, having a good time, or "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die," He scorns because they bring mental disorders, unhappiness, false hopes, fears, and anxieties.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

Why Twelve Apostles?

The number twelve is symbolic. The Book of the Apocalypse speaks of the twelve foundations of the Church. There were twelve patriarchs in the Old Testament, and also twelve tribes in Israel; there were twelve spies who explored the promised land; there were twelve stones on the breast of the High Priest; when Judas failed, a twelfth Apostle had to be named. The Apostles are most often referred to in the Gospels as "the twelve," that title being attributed to them thirty-two times. In choosing these twelve, it was evident that Our Lord was preparing them for a work after His Ascension; that the Kingdom He came to found was not only invisible but visible; not only Divine but human. But they had so much to learn before they could be the twelve gates of the Kingdom of God. Their first lesson would be the Beatitudes.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

I will be following up this with several excerpts about the Beatitudes also as Sheen presents them in a way that I really never had thought of and y'all may like it also.

The Twelve: Simon

Simon the Zealot is one of the twelve Apostles about whom we know the least. His Aramaic name meaning "Zealot" suggests that he was a partisan to a sect which would use violence to overthrow the foreign yoke. This name had been given to him before his conversion. He belonged to a band of patriots who were so zealous for the overthrow of Roman rule that they revolted against Caesar. Perhaps the Lord chose him because of his wholehearted enthusiasm for a cause; but a Niagara of purification would be needed before he would understand the Kingdom in terms of a Cross instead of a sword. Imagine Simon the Zealot, an Apostle with Matthew the publican! One was an extreme nationalist, while the other was by profession virtually a traitor to his own people. And yet both were made one by Christ, and later on they would both be martyrs for His Kindgom. The twelfth Apostle was Judas, "the son of perdition," who will be treated later.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Jude and James

Two of the Apostles were relatives of Our Lord, namely James and Jude. They are called "brethren" of Our Lord, but in Aramaic and Hebrew this word often means cousins or distant relatives ... These two Apostles, James the Less and Jude, were probably the sons of Cleophas, who was married to Our Lady's sister.

Jude had three names. Having the same name as Judas the traitor, he is always described negatively as "not the Iscariot." The night of the Last Supper, he questioned Our Lord about the Holy Spirit, or how He would be invisible and yet manifest Himself after His Resurrection. There had always been lurking in the minds of many of the Apostles a desire to see some great flashing Messianic glory that would open blind eyes and capture every intelligence.

Judas asked him -- the other Judas, not Iscariot -- Lord, what can have happened, that you mean to disclose yourself to us alone and not to the world? John 14:22

The answer of Our Lord to Jude was that when our responsive love melts into obedience, then God makes His dwelling within us. Late on, Jude, sometimes called Thaddeus, wrote an Epistle beginning with words which reflected the answer he received on Holy Thursday night.

From Jude, servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those whom God has called, who live in the love of God the Father and in the safe keeping of Jesus Christ.
Mercy, peace, and love be yours in fullest measure. Jude 1:1-3

Another Apostle was James the Just, also called James the Less, to distinguish him from the son of Zebedee. We know he had a good mother for she was one of the women who stood at the foot of the Cross. Like his brother Jude he wrote an Epistle which was addressed to the twelve tribes of the dispersion, that is, to the Jewish Christians who were scattered throughout the Roman world. It began:

From James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Greetings to the Twelve Tribes dispersed throughout the world. James 1:1

James, who like all the other Apostles failed to understand the Cross when Our Lord foretold it, afterward came like the others to make the Cross the condition of glory.

My brothers, whenever you have to face trials of many kinds, count yourselves supremely happy ... Happy the man who remains steadfast under trial, for having passed that test he will receive for his prize the gift of life promised to those who love God. James 1:2, 12

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Thomas

Thomas was the pessimist of the Apostles, and probably his pessimism had something to do with his scepticism. When Our Lord tried to console His Apostles, on the night of the Last Supper by assuring them that He would prepare the way for them in heaven, Thomas responded by saying that he wanted to believe but could not. Later on, when the news was brought to Our Lord that Lazarus was dead:

Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. John 11:16

Thomas was called Didymus, which is merely the Greek translation of a Hebrew name and means "twin"; Thomas was a twin in another sense, for in him lived side-by-side the twins of unbelief and faith, each contending for mastery. There was faith, because he believed it was better to die with the Lord than to forsake Him; there was unbelief, for he could not help believing that death would be the end of whatever work the Lord had a mind to accomplish.

Chrysostom says of him that while he would hardly venture to go with Jesus as far as the neighboring town of Bethany, Thomas would travel without Him after Pentecost, to farthest India to implant the Faith; even to this day, the faithful in India still call themselves "St. Thomas Christians."

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Matthew

Of Matthew or Levi, the publican, there is a record of his vocation and how he responded to it. The great and imperishable glory of Matthew is his Gospel. Matthew was a publican under the government of Herod, a vassal of Rome. A publican was one who sold out his own people and collected taxes for the invader, retaining for himself a fairly large percentage. Very understandably, because a publican was a kind of Quisling, he was held in contempt by his fellow men; yet he knew at the same time that he had the power and legal authority of the Roman government behind him. The particular place where we first meet Matthew is at the head of the lake, near Capharnaum where he was gathering in the taxes. His calling demanded that he should be a careful recorder of the accounts. His submission to the Savior was immediate. The Gospel relates:

As he passed on from there Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom-house, and said to him, Follow me; and Matthew rose and followed him.

Matthew 9:9

He who had been wealthy would now have nothing to look forward to but poverty and persecution; and yet, he accepted this condition at the first summons. "Come," says the Savior to a despised man, and he follows immediately. His response was all the more remarkable because he had been immersed in a trade which attracted mostly the unscrupulous and the unethical. It was bad enough that the tribute of homage from Israel should be collected by a Roman, but for it to be collected by a Jew was to make him one of the most despised of men. And yet, this Quisling who had forfeited all love of country, and who had completely suffocated the virtue of patriotism in his lust for gain, ended by becoming one of the most patriotic of his own people. The Gospel he wrote might be described as the gospel of patriotism. A hundred times in his Gospel, he goes back into the history of the past, quoting from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micheas, David, Daniel and all the prophets; after piling them one upon the other in a great cumulative argument, he says to his people in effect: "This is the glory of Israel, this is our hope, we have begotten the Son of the Living God; we have given to the world the Messiah." His country, which had yesterday meant nothing at all to him, became in his Gospel of the highest importance. He was declaring himself a son of Israel, ready to lavish on her all his praise. As men love God, they will also love their country.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Bartholomew (Nathanael)

Philip brought Bartholomew, or Nathanael as he was also called, to Our Blessed Lord. As soon as He saw him, Our Divine Savior read his soul and described him as follows:

Here is an Israelite worthy of the name; there is nothing false in him. Nathanael asked him, How do you come to know me? Jesus replied, I saw you under the fig-tree before Philip spoke to you.

John 1:47, 48

Then Nathanael answered Him:

Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are king of Israel. Jesus answered, Is this the ground of your faith, that I told you I saw you under the fig-tree? You shall see greater things than that. Then he added, In truth, in very truth I tell you all, you shall see heaven wide open, and God's angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

John 1:49-51

When Our Lord told him that He had seen him under a fig tree, Bartholomew was willing immediately to make the affirmation that Christ was the Son of God. His first contact with Our Lord had already lighted the lamp of faith within him, but Our Lord quickly assured him that there would be greater experiences in store; in particular, the great vision which had come to Jacob would be realized in Him.

Our Lord said that Nathanael belonged to the true Israel. Israel was the name given to Jacob. He, however, was very shrewd, and full of guile. Nathanael is characterized as a true Israelite, or one without guile. A sudden transition from the plural to the singular happens when Our Lord says: "You will see heaven opening"; Jacob had seen the heavens opened and angels ascending and descending on the ladder, bringing the things of man to God and the things of God to men. Jesus was now telling Nathanael that he would see even greater things. The implication was that He Himself would henceforth be the Mediator between heaven and earth, God and man; in Him, all the traffic between time and eternity would meet as at a crossroad.

The prophecy of Our Lord to Bartholomew shows that the incarnation of the Son of God would be the basis of communion between man and God. Nathanael had called Him the "Son of God"; Our Lord called Himself the "Son of Man"; "Son of God" because He is eternally Divine; "Son of Man" because He is related humbly to all humanity. This title, used in close relationship with another title that had been given to Our Lord, namely, the "King of Israel," still carried with it a Messianic meaning; but it took it out of the limited context of one people and one race, into the sphere of universal humanity.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Philip

The Apostle Philip came from Bethsaida and was a fellow townsman of Andrew and Peter. Philip was the curious enquirer; and his enquiry was crowned by the joy of discovery when he found Christ.

Philip went to find Nathanael and told him, We have met the man spoken of by Moses in the Law, and by the prophets: It is Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth. Nazareth! Nathanael exclaimed; can anything good come from Nazareth? Philip said, Come and see.

John 1, 45, 46

Philip declined all controversy with a man who was so prejudiced as to believe that a prophet could not come out of a despised village. Philip is not met again until the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, and again he was enquiring:

Twenty pounds would not buy enough bread for every one of them to have a little. John 6:7

Philip made a last enquiry on the night of the Last Supper, when he asked Our Lord to show him the Father.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen