Find the word that best completes the following sequence.Did I get this? Pfft! No!NINE EIGHT TEN NINETEEN
a) SEVEN
b) TWENTY
c) NINETY
Saint Augustine (354-430)
Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Commentary on the 1st Letter of John, 8,10
"It is mercy I desire"
In loving your enemy, you want him to be your brother. You do not love in him what he is, but what you want him to be. Let us imagine some oak wood that has not been carved. A capable craftsman sees this wood that has been cut in the forest; he likes the wood. I do not know what he wants to make out of it, but the artist does not love this wood so that it might remain as it is. His art lets him see what the wood can become. He does not love the rough wood; he loves what he will make of it, not the rough wood.
That is how God loved us when we were sinners. For he said: "People who are in good health do not need a doctor; sick people do." Did he love us sinners so that we might remain sinners? The craftsman saw us like a piece of rough wood coming from the forest, and what he had in mind was the work he would draw from there, not the wood from the forest.
It is the same with you: you see your enemy who opposes you, who overwhelms you with scathing words, who is harsh in his insults, who pursues you with his hatred. But you are attentive to the fact that he is a human being. You see everything that this person did against you, and you see in him that he was created by God. What he is as a human being is God's work; the hatred he bears towards you is his own work. And what do you say to yourself? "Lord, be kind to him, forgive his sins, inspire him with fear of you, change him." In this person, you do not love what he is, but what you want him to be. Thus, when you love your enemy, you love a brother.Via DGO
I think of the poor of India every time that I draw a thread on the wheel. For a person suffering from the pangs of hunger, and desiring nothing but to fill his belly, his belly is his God. To him anyone who gives him bread is his master. Through him he many even see God. . . . Therefore I have described my spinning (a daily activity) as a penance or sacrament. And, since I believe that where there is pure and active love for the poor there is God also, I see God in every thread that I draw on the spinning wheel.Heather at CraftLit has a very interesting essay that I found quite thought provoking. She talks about 9/11 and how the only people who seem to be making sacrifices are the soldiers and their families. She is talking about the sort of sacrifices that the average citizen made during WWII and which we all have heard about whether from grandparents, books, or movies. This then segueways into a discussion of Gandhi and how he spun yarn for half an hour every day as a combination of solidarity, service, and penance for impoverished Indians.Mohandas Gandhi, Khadi, pages 110-111
You might ask how it is possible to find God through the spinning wheel. . . . One has to learn to efface self or the ego voluntarily and as a sacrifice in order to find God. The spinning wheel rules out exclusiveness. It stands for all, including the poorest. It, therefore, requires us to be humble and to cast away pride completely. When self is shed the change will be reflected in our outward behavior. . . . Everything we do will be undertaken not for little self but for all.This essay was unusual for several reasons. First, CraftLit basically is a knitting podcast so when a knitter begins ranting I lose interest. It is inevitably about something like the fact that someone has called knitting a hobby or some such other thing that I feel is being way too touchy.Mohandas Gandhi, Khadi, page 115
To find God one need not go out anywhere. He resides in our hearts. But if we install self or ego there we dethrone God. . . . Although He is the King of kings, Most High, Almighty, yet He is at the beck and call of anyone who has reduced himself to zero and turns to Him in uttermost humility of spirit. Let us then become poor in spirit and find Him within ourselves.Third, it actually inspired me to go to the blog and read Heather's 9/11 story (which I strongly encourage y'all to do). She was right in the middle of 9/11, being a teacher at the time in a school that was in the shadow of the World Trade Center. It is a harrowing tale. I also read the piece linked to about Gandhi and spinning which was quite good.Mohandas Gandhi, Khadi, page 115
Our local toy store prices its merchandise according to the owner's whim. A doll costs 70 cents, a train costs 80 cents, a drum costs 70 cents, and a dollhouse costs $1.40. According to this system, how much will a jumping jack cost?Answer:
“My Father Was Holding Me.” A child who is certain of his Father’s love will grow up strong, secure, happy, and free for life. God’s word wants to do this for us. It wants to restore this security to us. Our solitude in this world cannot be overcome except by faith in God the Father’s love.
Observe a child walking with his father, holding his father’s hand, or being swung around by him, and you will have the best picture of a happy, free child, full of pride. I read somewhere that once an acrobat did a stunt on the top floor of a skyscraper; he leant out as far as he could possibly go, supporting himself on the bare tips of his toes and holding his small child in his arms. When they came down, someone asked the child if he had been afraid, and the child, surprised at the question, answered, “No. My father was holding me!”
God’s word wants us to be like that child. And reminding us that God did not spare his own Son for us, St. Paul cries out joyfully and victoriously, “If God is for us, who is against us? . . . Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:31-37). And Jesus tells us therefore to free ourselves of fear, of all cowardice, of all discouragement. Your Father knows you and your Father loves you, Jesus says. You were not given the spirit of slaves, to fall back into fear, but the spirit of children to cry out: Abba, Father!
Absolute Trust. Before such an incomprehensible love it comes spontaneously to us to turn to Jesus and ask him: “Jesus, you are our elder brother; tell us what we can do to be worthy of so much love and suffering on the Father’s part?” And from the height of his cross, Jesus answers us: “There is,” he says, “something you can do, something I also did, for it pleases the Father: Have confidence in him, trust him against everything, against everyone, against yourselves. When you are in darkness and distress, when difficulties threaten to suffocate you and you are on the point of giving up, pull yourself together and cry aloud, ‘Father, I no longer understand you but I trust you!’ And you will find peace again.”
"They begged him to leave their neighborhood"
The modern world shows itself at once powerful and weak, capable of the noblest deeds or the foulest; before it lies the path to freedom or to slavery, to progress or retreat, to brotherhood or hatred. Moreover, man is becoming aware that it is his responsibility to guide aright the forces which he has unleashed and which can enslave him or minister to him. That is why he is putting questions to himself.
The truth is that the imbalances under which the modern world labors are linked with that more basic imbalance which is rooted in the heart of man. For in man himself many elements wrestle with one another. Thus, on the one hand, as a creature he experiences his limitations in a multitude of ways; on the other he feels himself to be boundless in his desires and summoned to a higher life. Pulled by manifold attractions he is constantly forced to choose among them and renounce some. Indeed, as a weak and sinful being, he often does what he would not, and fails to do what he would (cf. Rom 7:14ff.). Hence, he suffers from internal divisions and from these flow so many and such great discords in society...
Nevertheless, in the face of the modern development of the world, the number constantly swells of the people who raise the most basic questions or recognize them with a new sharpness: What is man? What is this sense of sorrow, of evil, of death, which continues to exist despite so much progress? What purpose have these victories purchased at so high a cost? What can man offer to society; what can he expect from it? What follows this earthly life?
The Church firmly believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for all (cf. 2 Cor 5:15), can through his Spirit offer man the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme destiny. Nor has any other name under the heaven been given to man by which it is fitting for him to be saved (cf. Acts 4:12). She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man as well as of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever (cf. Heb 13:8).
To his most beloved son, the Abbot Mellitus:This comes via Grail Code where the authors go on to point out that this practical advice is also quite tolerant and understanding of human nature.
Gregory, the servant of the servants of God.
We have been much concerned, since the departure of our congregation that is with you, because we have received no account of the success of your journey. When, therefore, almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine, our brother, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, determined upon, vis., that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed.
And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their sustenance; to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God.
For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavors to ascend to the highest place rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps. Thus the Lord made himself known to the people of Israel in Egypt; and yet he allowed them the use of the sacrifices which they were wont to offer to the devil, in his own worship; so as to command them in his sacrifice to kill beasts, to the end that, changing their hearts, they might lay aside one part of the sacrifice, whilst they retained another, that whilst they offered the same beasts which they were wont to offer, they should offer them to God and not to idols; and thus they would no longer be the same sacrifices.
This it behooves your affection to communicate to our aforesaid brother, that he, being there present, may consider how he is to order all things.
God preserve you in safety, most beloved son.
The people are used to coming to certain places for worship so let them continue -- but to worship the true God, not pagan idols. The people love their traditional feasts, so keep the feasts -- and use them as opportunities to celebrate the new faith. The very things the people enjoy most about their pagan traditions can be the means of leading them to Christ.Not only does that give us good information to use when people bring up the fact that Christian holidays are often held at the same time as previous pagan ones, but it gives us a wonderful insight of practical application of that old saw "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar."
Well, here in the 21st century we really are witnessing the birth of a new mythology. A popular, media-based mythology just as elaborate as that of the Greeks and the Romans -- and for many people (not just kids) it serves the same semi-religious function in life. I'm talking, of course, about the rise--to an almost central role in the lives of our young people--of fantasy films, video games, and literature in our culture.That excerpt is just the tip of the iceburg in a wonderful series of posts that touches on modern icons like Superman and Spiderman, modern mythologists like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and ... wait for it ... the Holy Spirit crying to modern hearts from the splinters of light contained in pop culture.
Most of you spend time with children or teenagers on a regular basis. So I'm sure you know by now, that large continuing fantasy sagas like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pokemon and so forth are a major part of cultural discourse these days. Each of these sagas has its own elaborate backstory, it's own body of arcane knowledge, and our kids have made mastering the minutiae of their chosen discipline into something like a private devotion. Anthropologically speaking, it's an amazing thing to watch--and certainly something those of us involved in raising children today ought to be talking about.
Secondly, we need not despise nor fear "the Jedi religion"--any more than St. Justin despised Platonism. As Justin did, we can respect it, even enjoy it--without actually believing in it. We need constantly to remember that our students, our friends, our neighbors are not turning to things like "the Jedi religion--out of perversity or sheer cussedness...they struggle along on these thin hopes because they have, for whatever reason, despaired of any rational religious hope. Possibly they've never heard the Christian Gospel at all. Also: the multiplicity of competing, contradictory sects in America is enough to make anyone conclude that it's all just human opinion...nonsense. And the Church's own shortcomings contribute to this. We ourselves make the Faith hard to believe--every time we leave a scandal uncorrected, an abuse unreformed. These modern myths are not so much rivals to the true Faith as very imperfect substitutes for it. Stop-gap measures. And if no Christian ever comes to shepherd these longings to a happier conclusion--whose fault is that? Certainly not the poor pagan's...struggling along with his "conflicting thoughts." Our attitude should be that of Chesterton: "[The mythmaker does not speak] with the voice of a priest or a prophet saying 'These things are.' It is the voice of a dreamer and an idealist crying, 'Why cannot these things be?'Please do go read all five of these posts. The New Gods, Romance Is Religion, Good Dreams, The God-Shaped Vacuum, and Conclusion. I think you will find it well worth your time. (Via Way of the Fathers.)
Thomas is known for his disbelief in Christ's Resurrection prior to the apparition of Jesus to the Apostles. The stunning encounter provides us with an occasion for strengthening our own confidence in the historical fact of God's definitive conquest over death.I am quite fond of St. Thomas, the famous "doubting Thomas" who wants absolute proof before he'll believe his fellow apostles' stories of Jesus' resurrection. For one thing, who among us has not felt the same at some time? You know, "God, why can't I just see this clearly? C'mon already!"
The Gospels offer us the clearest insights into the life of St. Thomas. We know through tradition that he evangelized India. The mortal remains of the once incredulous Apostle were moved to Edessus on July 3 in the sixth century and ever since then his feast day has been celebrated on this day.
| You Are 83% American |
 You're as American as red meat and shooting ranges. Tough and independent, you think big. You love everything about the US, wrong or right. And anyone who criticizes your home better not do it in front of you! |
| You Should Spend Your Summer at the Beach |
 You're a free spirit who is always thinking of new ways to have fun. And you don't just love summer... you live for it. So, you really should blow off your responsibilities and head to the beach! |
"Lord have mercy on me and bless that person."When I say it (quite often through righteously clenched teeth) I am forced to remember all the times that I have annoyed people just as greatly as I am now being annoyed. I remember that in asking God to bless that person that it is also an invitation to me to love and forgive them as St. Augustine mentions here.
That your enemies have been created is God's doing; that they hate you and wish to ruin you is their own doing. What should you say about them in your mind? "Lord be merciful to them, forgive them their sins, put the fear of God in them, change them!" You are loving in them not what they are, but what you would have them to become.That prayer works. By the time that I have repeated it several times not only have I calmed down but I am able to practice a much truer form of charity than I would have by merely mouthing nice words while being madder than a wet hen.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.Maybe this is why I have such a fondness for Scripture and quotes that remind me to have a more charitable outlook. I know my need for help in this area. Here are some that have resonated with me and perhaps y'all will find them useful as well if you suffer from a similar weakness.John 15:12
Since you have forsaken the world and turned wholly to God, you are symbolically dead in the eyes of men; therefore, let your heart be dead to all earthly affections and concerns, and wholly devoted to our Lord Jesus Christ. For you must be well aware that if we make an outward show of conversion to God without giving Him our hearts, it is only a shadow and pretence of virtue, and no true conversion.
Any man or woman who neglects to maintain inward vigilance, and only makes an outward show of holiness in dress, speech, and behavior, is a wretched creature. For they watch the doings of other people and criticize their faults, imagining themselves to be something when in reality they are nothing. In this way they deceive themselves. Be careful to avoid this, and devote yourself inwardly to His likeness by humility, charity, and other spiritual virtues. In this way you will be truly converted to God.Walter Hilton
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, New American Bible
Human beings are very much like icebergs -- we only see a small portion of them, and nothing of the hidden currents which drag them this way and that.
I fancy that we would not sit and judge our neighbor so frequently as we do, did we but ponder well over the small amount of data we possess. We perceive only the external act, but nothing of the motive activating it.Father David McAstocker
Some people change every food they absorb into a bad mood, even if the food is healthy. The fault does not lie in the food but in their temperament, which changes the food. Even so, if our soul has a bad disposition, everything harms it; it transforms even useful things into things that are harmful to it. If you throw a little bit of bitter herbs into a pot of honey, won't they change the whole pot by making all the honey bitter? That is what we do: we spread a little of our bitterness and we destroy our neighbor's good by looking at him according to our bad disposition.
Other people have a temperament that transforms everything into a good mood, even bad food. Pigs have a very good constitution. They eat pods, date seeds and garbage. But they transform that food into succulent meat. In the same way, if we have good habits and a good state of the soul, we can benefit from everything, even from what is not beneficial. The Book of Proverbs says it very well: "The one who sees with gentleness will obtain mercy." And in another place: "For the foolish person, everything is contrary."
I heard it said of a brother that if, when he went to see someone else, he found his cell in a state of neglect and in disorder, he told himself: "How happy is this brother to be completely detached from earthly things and to carry his spirit on high so well that he doesn't even have the time to tidy his cell!" If he then went to another brother and found his cell tidy, clean, and in good order, he told himself: "This brother's cell is as clean as his soul. As is the state of his soul, so is the state of his cell!" He never said of anyone: "This one is untidy," or: "That one is frivolous." Because of his excellent state, he benefited from everything. May God in his goodness also give us a good state so that we might benefit from everything and never think badly of our neighbor. If our malice inspires us to pass judgment or to be suspicious, let us quickly transform that into a good thought. For with God's help, not seeing what is bad in our neighbor brings forth kindness.Dorotheus of Gaza (around 500 - ?),
Monk in Palestine, via The Daily Gospel
