tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28086838095397867142024-03-13T00:28:33.228-07:00MONKS AND MERMAIDS (A Benedictine Blog)This blog is written by a monk and is about monasteries and the spiritual life, both Catholic and Orthodox.Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.comBlogger1789125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-18873834682432109592018-07-04T12:14:00.002-07:002018-07-04T12:28:56.436-07:00MONASTIC LIFE IN EAST AND WEST:: LEARNING TO PUT GOD FIRST<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The origins and motivations of monasticism</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Written by Newman Nahas, M.Phil.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="http://www.monachos.net/content/monasticism/monastic-studies/92">http://www.monachos.net/content/monasticism/monastic-studies/92</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From its inception, Christianity produced many who, while remaining fully part of their local parish, were inspired to pursue rigorous ascetic lifestyles. Indeed, even the most primitive expressions of Christianity, such as St. Paul's letters, contain strongA ascetic emphases. However, the emergence of monasticism as a distinct ascetic movement, separated from the larger Christian community, does not appear straightaway. Rather, it emerges, in diverse forms and various regions, only around the fourth century AD. In this paper, I will trace the origins and depict the motivations of this movement, primarily as it appeared in the Christian East, and I will argue that monasticism should be understood as an organic outgrowth of the Christiankerygma -- that in the development of the monastic practice the Christian community changed its outer structure precisely to preserve its inner essence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Understanding Asceticism and Monasticism: Preliminary Observations</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I shall be using monasticism to refer to that ascetic movement characterized by anachoresis, or withdrawal from the Christian community and the rest of society. Monasticism does not have a monopoly on asceticism, as asceticism is a characteristic of many non- and pre-monastic Christians (as well as non-Christians). All monasticism is ascetic, but all asceticism is not monastic. What distinguishes monasticism from the broader category of Christian asceticism -- at least as I propose to use the terms -- is monasticism's emphasis on withdrawal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Before continuing, however, I would like qualify what I have said in two ways. First, I would like to emphasize that the withdrawal which characterizes monasticism need not be seen as signaling a complete disconnection from society. The monk may still be strongly connected with the rest of the Church (and society) through his prayers. Some of us might think prayer a negligible connection, but in characterizing the motivations of the monks we must realize that they certainly did not share this assumption. And we must also realize that the personal success of the monk possessed communal consequences. When Anthony defeats the devils in the Desert, it is not only his own victory, but ours as well. There exists a profound solidarity, then, among all humans and especially among all Christians.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Moreover, in some cases the physical withdrawal is not permanent. After time apart, some anchoritic monastics resume contact with the rest of the community. St. Anthony is a prime example of this pattern: fortified by the freedom and insight which his withdrawal helped him obtain, he was enabled to help countless others find their own freedom. Indeed, many continue to find his life, words and prayers profoundly helpful even today, sixteen centuries after his death. Yet, what enabled him to be so helpful to society was precisely his withdrawal from society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Second, I would like to emphasize that asceticism need not denote dualist motivations or a hatred of the body or the world. While no doubt certain ascetics, Christian as well as non-Christian, may have had a pessimistic estimate of the human body and of the physical world -- the monk Dorotheus's explanation of why he taxes his body being a fine Christian example: "It kills me, so I kill it" -- the dominant view that we find among orthodox Christian monastics is more in line with Poemen's remark: "We were taught not to kill the body, but to kill the passions." The great battle is against spirits and principalities, not flesh and blood; and the battle line is drawn not between the physical and the immaterial, but between godliness and ungodliness. The passions can be as much spiritual as physical. As Peter Brown observes,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the desert tradition, vigilant attention to the body enjoyed an almost oppressive prominence. Yet to describe ascetic thought as "dualist" and as motivated by hatred of the body, is to miss its most novel and its most poignant aspect. Seldom, in ancient thought, had the body been seen as more deeply implicated in the transformation of the soul; and never was it made to bear so heavy a burden.1</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Indeed, the great burden the monks placed upon the body was evidence of the great expectations they had for it. The body along with the soul was to be saved, and this is why not only the soul but the body, too, must be brought under a strict discipline. "Against all types of Dualism, pagan or pre-Christian, Antony's perfection is shown reflected in his bodily condition, retained right up to his death fifty years later, when he was still sound in all his senses and vigorous in his limbs, with even his teeth complete in number, though worn down to the gums".2</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the case of Syrian monasticism, however, some scholars have assessed the motivations of the monks to be extremely dualist.3 While a more thorough analysis of the Syrian monastic tradition must be deferred for now, at this point it is sufficient to note that this is not the only possible interpretation of the motivations of Syrian monasticism; and it is certainly not descriptive of the great sage of Syria, St. Ephrem, who, although not a monk in the more Egyptian sense of the word, was nevertheless an ascetic and had much to say on this question. "They greatly afflict their bodies," he wrote, "not because they do not love their bodies; rather, they want to bring their bodies to Eden in glory".4</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Struggle for Freedom</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If the austere fasts, the minimal amounts of sleep and the austere lifestyle of the monk are not to be taken as a rejection of the body as such, how then are they to be taken? They should be taken, I would argue, as having a more positive aim: the acquisition of freedom. One who is addicted to wine does not enjoy wine. It is only when one can say "no" to wine that one can truly enjoy it. Christian asceticism is in a sense concerned with producing precisely this sort of freedom. Asceticism enables us to say no, without which ability we can never truly say yes. In the end, asceticism is therefore the true hedonism; without asceticism, pleasures are lost in the sea of necessity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Asceticism is also able to cultivate our uniqueness and creativity. Slavery to the passions is an assault on one's unique identity and creativity. What is more boring and predictable than the behavior of a chap addicted to the affirmation of his ego? You can almost always anticipate what he is going to say, because it is usually.5 Unlike the one who is enslaved to a passion and who is thus in a category along with countless other similarly enslaved victims, the ascetic is one of a kind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thus freedom from the tyranny of the passions, or apatheia, is a fundamental aim of Christian asceticism and monasticism. Freedom from a tyrant can be brought about in two ways. One can either alter the character of the relationship with the tyrant, or simply get rid of him. Similarly, ascetic and monastic theology tends to approach freedom from "the passions" in two ways. One can see the passions in Aristotelian terms, as neutral capacities capable of being put either to evil or to good use, in which case the aim would be to transform or to educate them so that they may work for our benefit. Or one may see the passions in Stoic terms, as fundamentally diseased qualities, intrinsically evil, in which case the aim is simply to get rid of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Either way, however, both approaches agree that the common aim of the ascetic struggle is freedom from the passions, called apatheia, whether this 'freedom' implies reform or complete eradication. It should be noted that this state is not merely "apathy" or indifference,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">still less a condition in which sinning is impossible, but it is on the contrary a state of inner freedom and integration, in which we are no longer under the dominion of sinful impulses, and so are capable of genuine love . . . It is no mere mortification of the passions, but a state of soul in which a burning love for God and for our fellow humans leaves no room for sensual and selfish impulses."6</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Finally, it should be emphasized that Christian asceticism and monasticism are to be distinguished from other forms of ascetic practice by their strong conviction that the ascetic struggles, while free, are effected not merely by one's own labor, but by God's grace. We must always bear in mind the monk's conviction that it is Christ who is at work in him, and that without him he can do nothing. But with him, there is nothing worth doing which he cannot do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Different Kinds of Monasticism and the Different Regions in which they Emerged</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We shall consider four major categories of monasticism: the hermitic, the coenobitic, the semi-hermetic and the native Syrian proto-monasticism. We shall also look briefly at the way in which these different forms of monasticism existed in the following four regions in the Christian East: Egypt, Asia Minor, Palestine and Syria.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Hermit</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">First, there is the unmitigated life of withdrawal and seclusion: the eremitic life. This is found in particular in Lower Egypt, as well Syria, but there only after the fifth century. The great father of this form of life is St. Anthony. At about twenty years of age (c. 269), he heard Christ's words, "Go, sell all you have and give to the poor and come and follow me" read aloud in Church. He thus freed himself of the confines of his possessions -- although not without first securing a stable existence for his sister, for whose care he was responsible at the time (he entrusted her to a Parthenon, showing that community life for women already existed) -- and followed Christ into the Desert. His withdrawal was a gradual one: he moved further and further away from human society until, c. 285, he reached the deep desert, the outer mountain at Pispir, where he struggled day and night to liberate his true self from the 'zombiefying' delusions of the passions and the demons. Around 305, having attracted a number of followers who were inspired by his discipline and holiness, he came out of his seclusion to advise others in their own struggles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In what sense is it characteristic of following Christ to flee to the desert? The answer to this may be found in considering Christ's own departure to the desert prior to his ministry, as well as his departure to the desert after the death of St. John the Baptist. Our Lord's decision to withdraw into the desert -- in the mind of the hermit -- is certainly not a meaningless accident, an arbitrary selection of a place without significance. St. Anthony is thus following Christ's model; indeed, he is following Christ himself. For, as Fr. Georges Florovsky brilliantly explains, while Christ, as the Second Person of the Trinity, is everywhere present, filling all things, there is something unique about the desert and the solitude which it symbolizes (and effects) that makes Christ's presence more easily realized:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">By following out Lord into the desert, St. Anthony was entering a terrain already targeted and stamped out by our Lord as a specific place for spiritual warfare. There is both specificity and type in the desert. In those geographical regions where are no deserts, there are places which are similar to or approach that type of place symbolized by the desert. It is that type of place which allows the human heart solace, isolation. It is a type of place which puts the human heart in a state of aloneness, a state in which to meditate, to pray, to fast, to reflect upon one's inner existence and one's relationship to ultimate reality -- God. And simultaneously where the opposing forces to spiritual life can become more dominant. It is the terrain of a battlefield but a spiritual one. And it is our Lord, not St. Antony, who has set the precedent. Our Lord says that "as for what is sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceit of riches choke the world, and it becomes unfruitful." The desert, or a place similar, precisely cuts off the cares or anxieties of the world and the deception, the deceit of earthly riches. It cuts one off precisely from "this worldliness" and precisely as such it contains within itself a powerful spiritual reason for existing within the spiritual paths of the Church. Not as the only path, not as the path for everyone, but as one, full authentic path of Christian life.7</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Coenobitic Life</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In many ways, the anchoritic life is the most potent. Yet, precisely for this reason, it is the most dangerous, with great spiritual risks. As Fr. Florovsky indicates at the end of the above quotation, it is not for everyone. For others, a more moderated form of withdrawal and seclusion is more suitable. One such alternative form of monasticism, possessing great inherent safeguards against delusion, is the communal life. Here a group of monks live together, under a common rule and in a common monastery, mutually supporting and encouraging one another. There are two great fathers of this form of monastic life: St. Pachomius of Egypt (286-346) and St. Basil the Great (c. 330-379).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This form of monasticism became common primarily in Egypt and Asia Minor. Within the former, it was popular in Upper Egypt, a part of the country less remote than St. Anthony's area. Pachomius's communities were found around Tabbennisi in Thebaid, near the Nile. Pachomius himself attracted a number of followers; at his death he was ruling over a nine monasteries for men and two for women.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In Asia Minor, Basil also strongly encouraged this form of monasticism as being more suitable for most people than the hermetic style. However, it is unlikely that Basil's inspiration came from Pachomius; it seems to have come instead from Syria. At any rate, Basil feared that the hermetic life, among other pitfalls, could lead to a neglect of the evangelical call to charity and philanthropy, and so his monasteries were also concerned directly with issues of social justice. "Basil adds to the mystical and inner emphases of monasticism, a strong emphasis on external acts of charity and philanthropy".8 He also insists on monastic obedience as a check on the "excess, the competitiveness, and the ostentation of histrionic individuals who were bringing the monastic movement into disrepute." Basil was also careful to insist that monks remain mindful of the normal worshipping life of the Church and they remained connected and obedient to the local bishop.9</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Skete and the Lavra</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Third, there is the semi-hermetic form of monasticism, which is intermediate between the two already mentioned. In this situation, the monks did not live in complete separation, like the hermits; nor did they live in complete community, like coenobitic monks. Rather, there existed a number of independent groups of monks, each of which varied greatly in size, but which would all come together for a common liturgy or meal, especially on Sunday. "The great centres of the semi-eremitic life in Egypt were Nitria and Scetis, which by the end of the fourth century had produced many outstanding monks -- Ammon the founder of Nitria, Macarius of Egypt and Macarius of Alexandria, Evagrius of Pontus, and Arsenius the Great".10 Nitria was nearer to Alexandria and formed a natural gateway to Scetis. It was meeting place between the world and the desert where visitors, like John Cassian, could first make contact with the traditions of the desert. Here, we may suspect that the monasticism was more of a more learned sort, and that a more Greek-influenced type of monasticism evolved around an educated minority, of whom Evagrius Ponticus is an outstanding example.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This "semi-hermetic" model can also be found in Jerusalem, which became a great monastic center later in the fifth century. In the Judean wilderness, and especially around the desert of Gaza, there were great spiritual fathers of the Egyptian tradition. Indeed, in the fifth and sixth centuries, leadership in the monastic movement shifted to Palestine through the influence of such figures as St. Euthymius the Great (died 473) and his disciple St. Sabas (died 532). Judea became the home of the "Lavra".11 Here, a number of individual monks would have their own cells in proximity to a main leader and would meet on special occasions, just as in Nitria and Scetis. This sort of model preserved a greater level of solitude than was common in a coenobium. Another difference between the semi-hermetic and the coenobitic models is that the semi-hermetic arrangement often functioned as a preparatory phase for the anchoritic life, and seemed to tacitly presume that the anchoritic life was the superior. "This is in marked contrast with the ideal of Pachomius, or of Basil, for whom the coenobium is a lifelong vocation".12</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Finally, there is the complicated situation of Syria. In order to understand the history of monasticism in Syria, we must realize that there were two phases in Syrian monasticism. The first phase we may call "proto-monasticism," and it is the phase dominant prior to the fifth century differing considerably from the Egyptian monastic traditions. The second phase is the one that receives the most attention among historians no doubt in part because it is also the one in which all the remarkable accounts of stunning acts of self-mortification are found. This second phase reflects a fundamental shift toward the Egyptian model, which had gained an irresistible prestige and momentum throughout Christendom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There is very little direct information concerning the first phase of Syrian monasticism. The primary sources for this period are Aphrahat and Ephrem. To understand the distinctive characteristics of Syrian "proto-monasticism," two phrases need to be understood: ihidaya (literally: solitary, monk) andBnay Qyama (literally: sons of the covenant). These phases are used almost interchangeably, especially by Aphrahat; but they do seem to convey different nuances. The ways in which they are used, primarily by Aphrahat, give us a glimpse of the character of Syrian "proto-monasticism," and so it is worthwhile to pursue this matter in detail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Let us begin with the ihidaya (plural, ihidaye). This term refers to single persons who were committed to serving God. Griffith parallels them to the biblical widows and virgins. We know that the ihidaye occupied a special status in the church. But while they could occasionally be found among the clerical orders (particularly the lower ones), this was rare. They were primarily lay persons, whether male or female. The term ihidaye, more specifically, seems to have been used with three major senses in mind, and accordingly tells us three main things about the monastic movement: The first sense is that of "monochos", conveying the sense of unmarried or continent; second, "monozonos" or "monotropos", conveying the sense of single-mindedness; third, "monogenes", conveying the sense of union with the Monogenes (the Only-begotten Son), the Ihidaya. Griffith thinks that this last sense, with its connection between the individual ihidaya and the Ihidaya(the Only-begotten), was the most prominent in the minds of the Syrians. As Aphrahat explains:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"For those who do not take wives will be served by the Watchers of heaven: the observers of consecrated holiness will come to rest at the sanctuary of the Exalted One. The Ihidaya who is from the bosom of the Father will gladden the ihidaye. There will be neither male nor female, neither slave nor free, but all are sons of the Most High. These things are befitting the ihidaye, those who take on the heavenly yoke, to become disciples to Christ. For so it is fitting for Christ's disciples to emulate Christ their Lord."13</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Another important term that helps us understand native Syrian monasticism is Bnay Qyama. Qyama refers primarily to the sense of covenant, though it also connotes "station" and possibly "resurrection"; it was even used by Aphrahat to denote the whole Church. Accordingly, the Bnay Qyama (Sons of the Covenant) refers to a group of celibates who took upon themselves a special "station" in the life of the community. They assumed this station by covenant, or solemn pledge, at baptism, at which time they put on theIhidaya and became ihidaye. They also accepted to follow Christ's lifestyle in a uniquely uncompromising way, and in so doing they were revealing the life that would be lived in the age to come (and that which was lived in the pre-fallen state) -- the life to which all the baptized are called. Through their celibacy and uncompromising pursuit of holiness, they stood among their community as anticipatory images of the Resurrection to come. "Their status in the community served as a type for the expectations of all the baptized." Thus, they represented for the Church, what the Church was called to be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is difficult to say very much more about this movement. We can surmise that it was carried out neither in a strictly hermetic form, nor in a coenobitic form, although there may have been a proto-rule that the Bnay Qyamafollowed. Thus, it is difficult to pinpoint the differentia of this movement and to fit into the taxonomic system I have been employing thus far. Indeed, I wonder if perhaps it may not be better to call this movement simply a Syrian expression of pre-monastic asceticism. Why do we want to call it 'monasticism', if we define the differentia of monasticism as the emphasis on withdrawal, and we do not find such an emphasis among the Syrians? This phase of Syrian monasticism seems rather similar to the accounts of pre-monastic asceticism in other regions chronicled in Susana Elms's Virgins of God. On the whole, this first phase of native Syrian monasticism is still understudied, with many scholars disagreeing over its character and motivations; and perhaps, owing to the dearth of evidence, it is likely to remain in this state of enigma.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But by the fifth century, this ascetic tradition --whatever its characteristics-- quickly becomes displaced by the Egyptian variety. There is a greater emphasis now placed on many of the monastic themes, such as martyrdom, that were prevalent in Egyptian thought; and withdrawal is certainly more emphatically pursued. In the case of the Ihidaye and the Bnay Qyama, while some might have pursued withdrawal, most did not. After the fifth century, however, the opposite is true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">By this time, "in the Syriac speaking world the term ihidaya came to have the same range of meanings as did the Greek term monachos, the very Greek term that, if some modern scholars are correct in their surmises, writers of the early fourth century had first used in a Christian context to render the Syriac term ihidaya!".14 And it is during this period</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">that one begins to find the appearance in inner Syria of institutions typical of the "Great Church," including one that would uniquely mark Christian life for centuries to come, the institution of monasticism. This institution was easily as powerful and significant at the time as the institution of the hierarchical episcopacy, which also appeared in Syria in the fourth century."15</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nevertheless, the Syrians did not simply import Egyptian monasticism; they incorporated it into their region in a creative way that reflected their own idiosyncrasies. We find that these idiosyncrasies were expressed in a range of behaviour that might strike the modern reader as deeply disturbing, even deeply un-human. Chadwick describes the situation:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"In Syria and Mesopotamia asceticism occasionally took bizarre forms. The majority of the monks were simple Syriac speaking people, ignorant of Greek. Their recorded mortifications make alarming reading. A heavy iron chain as a belt was a frequent austerity. A few adopted the life of animals and fed on grass, living in the open air without shade from the sun and with the minimum of clothing, and justifying their method of defying society by claiming to be 'fools for Christ's sake.'16</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">However, I think Chadwick and many historians who similarly characterize the Syrian monks, fail to keep in mind that their austerities were not simply motivated by their simple-mindedness or personal imbalances. Peter Brown captures well their view of the fall, which I believe possesses the key to understanding their unique behaviour:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">According to the author of the Book of Degrees, Adam had fallen because he had looked around him in Paradise with a hot lust for the land. He had wished to possess its rich soil. He had wished, through property, to replace God as Creator. He had set about creating economic wealth by labour, and had wished to pile up the physical wealth of progeny by intercourse. He had turned from the contemplation of God to build the society that we now know, a society ruled by the iron constraints of the "law of Adam."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The righteous might live decently in this society by the simple code of fallen Adam -- tilling their fields, doing good to their co-religionists, caring for the local Christian poor. God, who had shown mercy on Adam by allowing him to live by that law, would not deny the righteous their reward. But for those who had regained the first, Spirit-filled eyes of Adam, the present social world, the social structures of town, village, and the family, must seem, forever, unaccountably strange. The power of the "present age," made manifest in the care-worn state of organized society, and, only tangentially, the present state of human sexuality.17</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thus, many of the structures and customs of human society are understood as fundamentally the result of the fall. Such a conviction may indeed shed light on the curious behaviour of a Symeon of Emesa, who "would enter the women's section of the public baths, stark naked, with his robe on his head as a turban; and he would dance the jig with the townsfolk in the local tavern".18</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We may disagree with the premises of the Syrian monks. But we should realize that if one starts with their premises and assumes that majority of the present structures of society are purely the product of the fall, then it makes good sense to flout the present structures of human society so conspicuously. Doing so would be the truly human thing to do, since the present state of affairs is supremely subhuman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Syrian monasticism should therefore not be seen simply as a more extreme form of monasticism stemming from either a greater degree of dualism or intellectual simplicity, but rather as a form of monasticism stemming from a different theological emphasis. We may not accept their paradigm, but we should see its internal integrity and conceptual sophistication.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From Pre-Monastic Asceticism to Monasticism: Changing in Order to Stay the Same</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Prior to the emergence of monasticism in the fourth century, the practice of asceticism was widespread, and a number of church fathers, East and West, had already developed an ascetical theology. Indeed, asceticism goes back to the New Testament, and less dramatically to the Old Testament. On the level of practice, many celibates or consecrated virgins could be found, be they widows choosing to remain in their bereaved state, young virgins choosing to consecrate their lives to God, clergyman choosing to pursue their ministry in a state of celibacy (or, if already married, choosing to live with their wives in continence), married couples among the laity similarly choosing to live together in continence, or even in some cases unmarried men and women choosing to live together as brother and sister (although this particular practice would quickly fall into disfavor).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Anthony and the monks of the fourth century inherited a revolution; they did not initiate one. In the century that had elapsed between the youth of Origen and the conversion of Constantine, the horizons of the possible had already been determined, silently and decisively, in a slow folding of the moral landscape of the Christian world. Total sexual renunciation had become a widely acclaimed feature of the Christian life."19</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">No doubt Peter Brown is correct in emphasizing the continuity between pre-monastic asceticism and monastic asceticism. Asceticism was certainly no revolutionary idea; but Anthony's emphasis on withdrawal was, in some sense, revolutionary. Prior to Anthony, all examples of pre-monastic asceticism were undertaken within the milieu of the larger Church community and human society. We do not yet hear of specific cases of formal, systematic withdrawal. This is precisely, I think, the differentia of monasticism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On the level of theology, however, there is not much in the way of innovation to be found. There is rather a profound continuity between the monastic and pre-monastic ascetic theology. "In the Writings of Clement of Alexandria and especially of Origen all the essential elements of an ascetical theology may already be found".20 Clement, for instance, emphasizes that "the aim of the Christian life is not to trouble ourselves with what lies outside, but to purify the eye of the soul and to sanctify the flesh," and that "Jesus heals the whole human person, body and soul." Clearly, for Clement, salvation is not merely the extrinsic imputation of righteousness; salvation is far more than merely a juridical declaration of righteousness. It is ontological: the Christian is to bemade righteous. In addition, we see a very holistic emphasis present in monastic theology: the whole person, body and soul is to be healed. Indeed, here we already find a framework that can happily support Chitty's observation: "One thing can be certain. This making a City of the Wilderness was no mere flight, nor a rejection of matter as evil (else why did they show such aesthetic sense in placing their retreats, and such love for all of God's animal creation?)".21 In Origen, too, there is a strong emphasis on the importance of martyrdom, and a very well developed understanding of the "senses of the soul" and the injunction to personal sanctification. Both Origen and Clement speak of mystical union with God. Such emphases would certainly figure prominently in subsequent monastic theology.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In understanding the motivations of the various monks, I should like to highlight two fundamental themes. First, there is the ideal of martyrdom, the recognition that nothing -- family, possessions, even our own life -- is more important than union with the Lord. From this point of view, ascetic life is indeed a renunciation of the present world, a sober recognition of its secondary status. Secondly, the monastic life is centered on another ideal: that of returning to (if not surpassing) the state prior to the fall. By returning to the pre-fallen state, the monk seeks not only his own redemption but also that of the created world around him. Since through man that the created world fell, through man the created world can be restored. While full restoration will occur only at the Parousia, the monks partially anticipate this restoration here and now. From this point of view, asceticism is indeed an affirmation of the created world; while the monks renounce the world, they are renouncing only the fallen state of the world. Their willingness to die to the world reflects their conviction that the world is not as it should be, a recognition with which the created world, itself, would certainly agree as it groans in anticipation of its redemption. Thus, the created world rejoices in the monk's striving for salvation, for it knows that its own salvation is tied to the monk's success. The monks are carrying out a supreme act of love for the world, striving to restore it to its true vocation and state. And so the monk's partial anticipation of the final redemption of all things is prophetic: it provides a glimpse of the world as it should be and will be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"The denigration of marriage and sexuality may be the negative expression of the desire to return to the original blessings of paradise and the original, blessed condition of humanity and body. (And of course early Christian ascetic theorists understood both the similarities and differences between these two notions, and went to great lengths to distinguish the orthodox affirmation of the value of chastity, fasting, and other ascetic disciplines from the heretical -- namely, Manichean, Encratite -- condemnation of marriage and meat eating.)22</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The themes of monastic theology were not innovations. They had their roots in the earliest expressions of Christianity and were articulated by many, well before the emergence of monasticism itself. Why, then, does monasticism emerge only in the fourth century and not before? If we cannot point to a new shift in theological understanding that could account for this new lifestyle, might we point to a shift in external circumstances?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After Constantine's conversion, the Christian situation became ripe for monasticism. Persecutions had ceased, and Christianity had become rather more socially acceptable. It was becoming possible, in a sense, to convince yourself that you were serving God when you were really serving Mammon. The Church was becoming increasingly influential in high society. Bishops had become increasingly important figures in the secular sphere. Many local churches had obtained considerable wealth, becoming substantial landowners. Although there is nothing inherently contradictory between the Christian gospel and such developments, these developments nevertheless changed the character of the challenge facing the Church.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From its beginning, Christianity was a call to self-denial, to a life of the cross. Without such willingness to part with one's old self, the new, true self could not arise. During the persecutions this call was often put before the Christian unambiguously: Do you have the discipline to accept the pain of parting with the familiarity of your fallen life for the sake of your true life in Christ? Christians could seldom hide behind a nominal acceptance of the faith. There were no secular advantages that might provide ulterior motives for becoming a Christian. Persecution kept sharp the line between being for Christ or against him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After Constantine's peace, however, this line was no longer so sharp. With peace between the City of God and the City of Man, there was a danger of forgetting Christ's injunction that "My Kingdom is not of this world." The call to self-denial for Christ's sake was no longer being put before the Christian with such unmistakable directness. The invitation was becoming quieter, and had to come from within. "The monks with their austerities were martyrs in an age when martyrdom of blood no longer existed; they formed the counterbalance to an established Christendom".23 Monasticism, a formal life of internally imposed self-renunciation, emerges in response to the diminishing presence of externally imposed self-renunciation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>1. Brown, The Body and Society, 235. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>2. Chitty, The Desert A City, 4. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>3. Voobus's History of Syrian Asceticism is the primary proponent of this view. However, there is no consensus on the validity of his analysis, and others, like Dr. Sebastian Brock, would question the universal applicability of his assessment. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>4. St. Ephrem, On Hermits and Desert Dwellers in the Fathers of the Churchseries, by Catholic University of America. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>5. Evdokimov, The Sacrament of Love, 55. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>6. Asceticism, 12. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>7. Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, vol. X: The Byzantine Ascetics and Spiritual Fathers. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>8. Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Penguin), 178-9. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>9. ibid., 178-9. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>10. Kallistos (Timothy) Ware, The Orthodox Church, 37-38. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>11. Chitty, The Desert A City, 15: "The word lavra does not occur in the fourth-century Egyptian records, and its monastic use seems to originate in Palestine. Perhaps the sense of market that comes instantly to mind when we connect it with the Arabic suq is not inappropriate. Here the ascetics brought together their produce on Saturday mornings, worshipped and fed together, and transacted any necessary business, taking back with them to their cells on Sunday evenings bread, water, and raw material for their handiwork for the coming week." [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>12. Chadwick, The Early Church, 178-9. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>13. Wimbush and Valantasis, Asceticism. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>14. ibid., 238. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>15. ibid., 221. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>16. Chadwick, The Early Church, 180. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>17. Brown, The Body and Society, 336. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>18. ibid., 335. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>19. ibid.., 208-209. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>20. Chadwick, The Early Church, 177. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>21. Chitty, The Desert A City, xvi. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>22. Wimbush and Valantasis, Asceticism, 78. [back]</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>23. Ware, The Orthodox Church, 37.[back]</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Bandits and Camel Drivers</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Desert Fathers:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Session One (42 mins)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Session Two</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b> Monasticism: The Heart of Celtic Christianity</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Celtic Monasticism</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Prayer of St. Columban of Iona</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Kindle in our hearts, O God,</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The flame of that love which never ceases,</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>That it may burn in us, giving light to others.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>May we shine forever in Thy holy temple,</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Set on fire with Thy eternal light,</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Even Thy son, Jesus Christ,</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Our Savior and Redeemer.</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Source:<u><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/Celtic%20Monasticism%20Source:%20www.asna.ca/angloceltic/index.html%20%20%20by%20Hieromonk%20Ambrose%20(fr.%20Aleksey%20Young)"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span>www.asna.ca/angloceltic/index.html</a></u><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>by Hieromonk Ambrose </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>(fr. Aleksey Young)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">With the imagery of fire and light contained in this wonderful prayer I want to move immediately to a recorded incident in the life of St. Columban, a description which shows how he himself personally experienced this "light" - which of course Orthodox Christians recognize as a vision of the Uncreated Light spoken of in Scripture and in the Holy Fathers. Here is the account:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"One winter's night a monk named Virgnous, burning with the love of God, entered the church alone to pray. The others were asleep. He prayed fervently in a little side chamber attached to the walls of the oratory. After about an hour, the venerable Columban entered the same sacred house. Along with him, at the same time, a golden light came down from the highest heavens and filled that part of the church. Even the separate alcove, where Virgnous was attempting to hide himself as much as he could, was also filled, to his great alarm, with some of the brilliance of that heavenly light. As no one can look directly at or gaze with steady eye on the summer sun in its midday splendor, so Virgnous could not at all bear the heavenly brightness he saw because the brilliant and unspeakable radiance overpowered his sight. This brother, in fact, was so terrified by the splendor, almost as dreadful as lightning, that no strength remained in him. Finally, after a short prayer, St. Columban left the church. The next day he sent for Virgnous, who was very much alarmed, and spoke to him these consoling words: 'You are crying to good purpose, my child, for last night you were very pleasing in the sight of God by keeping your eyes fixed on the ground when you were overwhelmed with fear at the brightness. If you had not done that, son, the bright light would have blinded your eyes. You must never, however, disclose this great manifestation of light while I live.'" It's no wonder, then, that ancient writers said that, on the faces of Celtic monks who had advanced in spiritual life, there rested the glow of caeleste lumen, heavenly light."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">With the imagery of fire and light contained in this wonderful prayer I want to move immediately to a recorded incident in the life of St. Columban, a description which shows how he himself personally experienced this "light" - which of course Orthodox Christians recognize as a vision of the Uncreated Light spoken of in Scripture and in the Holy Fathers. Here is the account:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"One winter's night a monk named Virgnous, burning with the love of God, entered the church alone to pray. The others were asleep. He prayed fervently in a little side chamber attached to the walls of the oratory. After about an hour, the venerable Columban entered the same sacred house. Along with him, at the same time, a golden light came down from the highest heavens and filled that part of the church. Even the separate alcove, where Virgnous was attempting to hide himself as much as he could, was also filled, to his great alarm, with some of the brilliance of that heavenly light. As no one can look directly at or gaze with steady eye on the summer sun in its midday splendor, so Virgnous could not at all bear the heavenly brightness he saw because the brilliant and unspeakable radiance overpowered his sight. This brother, in fact, was so terrified by the splendor, almost as dreadful as lightning, that no strength remained in him. Finally, after a short prayer, St. Columban left the church. The next day he sent for Virgnous, who was very much alarmed, and spoke to him these consoling words: 'You are crying to good purpose, my child, for last night you were very pleasing in the sight of God by keeping your eyes fixed on the ground when you were overwhelmed with fear at the brightness. If you had not done that, son, the bright light would have blinded your eyes. You must never, however, disclose this great manifestation of light while I live.'" It's no wonder, then, that ancient writers said that, on the faces of Celtic monks who had advanced in spiritual life, there rested the glow of caeleste lumen, heavenly light."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the life of St. Adomnan we read about the following incident:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"At another time when the holy man was living in the island of Hinba, the Grace of the Holy Spirit was poured out upon him abundantly and in an incomparable manner, and continued marvelously for the space of three days, so that for three days and as many nights, remaining with a house barred, and filled with heavenly light, he allowed no one to go to him, and he neither ate nor drank. From that house streams of immeasurable brightness were visible in the night, escaping through chinks of the door leaves, and through the key-holes. And spiritual songs, unheard before, were heard being sung by him. Moreover, as he afterwards admitted in the presence of a very few men, he saw, openly revealed, many of the secret things that have been hidden since before the world began. Also everything that in the Sacred Scriptures is dark and most difficult became plain, and was shown more clearly than the day to the eyes of his purest heart. And he lamented that his foster-son Baithene was not there, who if he had chance to be present during those three days, would have written down from the mouth of the blessed man very many mysteries, both of past ages and of ages still to come, mysteries unknown to other men..."</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(Fr. Gorazd Vorpatrny, "Celts and Orthodoxy," </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="http://www.orthodoxireland.com/history/celtsandorthodoxy/view">http://www.orthodoxireland.com/history/celtsandorthodoxy/view</a></u></b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> )</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the Introduction to his translation of the Vita Patrum: The Life of the Fathers, the Righteous Fr. Seraphim of Platina wrote appreciatively about the Orthodox saints of the pre-schism West in Gaul, but of course he could have been writing about the Celtic saints of the British Isles from exactly the same period of time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"A touchstone of true Orthodoxy," Fr. Seraphim wrote, "is the love for Christ's saints. From the earliest Christian centuries the Church has celebrated her saints-first the Apostles and martyrs who died for Christ, then the desert-dwellers who crucified themselves for the love of Christ, and the hierarchs and shepherds who gave their lives for the salvation of their flocks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From the beginning the Church has treasured the written Lives of these her saints and has celebrated their memory in her Divine services. These two sources -the Lives and services- are extremely important to us today for the preservation of the authentic Orthodox tradition of faith and piety. The false 'enlightenment' of our modern age is so all-pervasive that it draws many Orthodox Christians into its puffed up 'wisdom,' and without their even knowing it they are taken away from the true spirit of Orthodox and left only with the shell of Orthodox rites, formulas, and customs....To have a seminary education, even to have the 'right views' about Orthodox history and theology-is not enough. A typical modern 'Orthodox' education produces, more often than not, merely Orthodox rationalists capable of debating intellectual positions with Catholic and Protestant rationalists, but lacking the true spirit and feeling of Orthodoxy. This spirit and feeling are communicated most effectively in the Lives of saints and in similar sources which speak less of the outward side of correct dogma and rite than of the essential inward side of proper Orthodox attitude, spirit, piety."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">With this principle in mind-that the lives of the saints are of critical importance if we are to understand and pass on true Orthodox Christianity to the next generation-I want to continue by defining two important terms: "Celtic" (or "Celt") and "spirituality."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It may come as a surprise to learn that the Celts actually never called themselves "Celts." This word comes from the Greek Keltos, and means something like "the other" or "a stranger." The Greeks also called these people Keltoi, which was a word the Celts did adopt because it means "the hidden ones" or the "hidden people." In fact, the Old Irish word ceilid means "to hide or conceal." So these people were called "Celts" by those who came into contact with them and saw them as being quite different than other tribes and peoples. And they were. In their long, preChristian period they were a ferocious war-loving lot who fought just for the sheer joy of fighting. "One Roman writer described Celtic men as 'terrible from the sternness of their eyes, very quarrelsome, and of great pride and insolence'. Nor, to his dismay, did these qualities stop with the men. 'A whole troop of foreigners [he wrote] would not be able to withstand a single one if he called to his assistance his wife, who is usually very strong.' The Greek historian Strabo was more blunt in his assessment. 'The whole race,' he concluded, 'is war mad.'"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(No author given; Heroes of the Dawn: Celtic Myth)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Christianity softened all of this, but Celtic Christians did not lose their fierceness which, under the influence of Christ, no longer expressed itself in a lust for war, but now was channelled into Christianity as a way of life - and this they pursued with a singlemindedness rarely seen elsewhere. "Monasticism appeared attractive to a warrior people who were drawn to an ascetic lifestyle. It appealed to a marginalized people who saw the monk as one who lived on the edge of things, on the very margins of life." (Timothy Joyce, Celtic Christianity) We see this in the lives of monks like St. Cuthbert and St. Guthlac, who "were uncompromising solitaries and their ascetic practices aroused wonder...To go all-out for something" is a distinctive mark of Celtic Christians. (Benedicta Ward, High King of Heaven) Another example is in the life of St. Columban who, we are told, "leaped over his mother's grieving body, which was draped across her threshold, in order to head for a monastery.” (Lisa M. Bitel, "Ascetic Superstars,"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/60h/60h022.html">www.christianitytoday.com/ch/60h/60h022.html</a><span style="font-size: x-large;">).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is perhaps not surprising then, to learn that the brave stories of the valiant and heroic King Arthur (who was an actual person) originated among the Celts and were only later picked up and modified and expanded by medieval troubadours and scribes elsewhere in Europe. These included tales of the Round Table and the noble Quest for the Holy Grail, as well as accounts of Arthur's spiritual father, Merlin (who, by the way, was most probably a Celtic bishop named Ambrosius Merlinus, after St. Ambrose of Milan, and not a Druid priest, as used to be thought).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As an aside, may I say that Celtic hermit life "was no walk through a nature reserve or stay at a holiday camp. The hermit had deliberately chosen to live at the limits of existence, a human person containing both heaven and earth." (Ward, op.cit.) Speaking of his own hermit days, St. Cuthbert testified that the demons constantly "cast me down headlong from my high rock; how many times have they hurled stones at me as if to kill me. But though they sought to frighten me away by one phantasmal temptation or another, and attempted to drive me from this place of combat, nevertheless they were unable in any way to mar my body by injury or my mind by fear." (Quoted in Ward, Ibid.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This account is amazingly close to the temptations suffered by St. Antony the Great in the Egyptian desert. But this is not surprising, because their Christianity - which is to say, their monastic life - was primarily influenced by and formed by the Christian monasticism of the Egyptian desert, and only incidentally from the continent of Europe. This means that Celtic Christians were more like the Byzantine or Slavic Orthodox Christians than Latin or Northern European Christians.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Early this last summer I had an appointment with a new diabetic specialist. Dr. Jennings was very intrigued and pleased to meet "a real live monk", "But," he said, "you don't look like a monk." I said, "What do you mean, I don't 'look like a monk'? I have a beard and wear a black habit." He replied, "Well, you have to realize, Father, that my only images of monks have been formed by television commercials-where the monks are all wearing brown robes, are clean-shaven, have a bald spot in the center of their heads, and are advertising either 'Beano' or computers." I'm afraid this really is the popular image of monks in our culture, today. Most of these images are based upon stereotypical ideas drawn from medieval Western monasticism and applied to both Celtic and Orthodox Christian monastics: it's assumed that we all look like Francis of Assisi, and live in great stone monasteries with cloisters. But this is not an accurate image of Celtic. Rather, Celtic monastic communities were more a relatively modest 'monastic village' than a huge complex of buildings. The village had a stone wall around it to keep animals in and thieves out. Within the walls were many small huts, whether wooden buildings or crude structures of mud and wattle. Later, especially in the west of Ireland, stone buildings were erected. Remains of many "stone clochans, called 'beehive huts' in English, are scattered over the countryside....There is no indication that any large church buildings were ever built...." (Timothy Joyce, Celtic Christianity)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Stone clochan, Ireland</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Other monks and nuns lived out their days alone....in small wood-and-mud huts; they kept a cow or two, and accepted gladly the gifts of an occasional loaf or basket of vegetables from local farmers. The desire for a solitary life and time to spend simply yearning for God...must have drifted through the hearts of even the busiest abbot in the most bustling monastery." (Bitel, op.cit.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Monastic life was seen as an absolutely essential part of Christian life-the norm for all Christian life, not the exception-, and monks and nuns, hermits and hermitesses were the great heroes of the common people, who saw them, as St. Guthlac put it, as "tried warriors who serve a king who never withholds the reward from those who persist in loving Him." (Quoted in Bitel, Ibid.) Indeed, it is this quality of persistent, even stubborn heroism that particularly stamps the character of Celtic Christianity and, particularly, monastic life - for these were a people whose heroes were monks and nuns, not political leaders or other cultural figures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">St. John Cassian, who is still carefully read and studied by Eastern Orthodox monastics today, was well known to Celtic monks. St. John had spent years as a monk in Bethlehem and Egypt-and recorded his conversations with the Egyptian Fathers--later establishing a monastery near present-day Marseilles, France. The Life of the Egyptian Father, St. Anthony the Great was translated into Latin around the year 380, and we know that this was studied by Celtic monks, who depicted St. Anthony and St. Paul of Thebes on some of the great Irish "High Crosses" (about which I'll say more, shortly).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There was phenomenal literacy and very high culture among these monks. In addition, they also learned from the monks of the Egyptian desert how to practice daily "Confession of Thoughts." Their monastic clothing was primarily made from animal skins, so that in appearance they actually resembled St. John the Baptist out in the wilderness - a far cry from the monastics of Europe in their sometimes rather elaborate woven cloth habits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Now we come to the interesting part: There are records of any number of Christians traveling to the Desert Fathers from the British Isles, and an old Celtic litany of the saints mentions seven Egyptian monks who came to Ireland and died and were buried there. Scholars believe that most of the contact between Ireland and Egypt occurred before the year 640. On an ancient stone near a church in County Cork, Ireland, there is the following inscription: "Pray for Olan, the Egyptian. Also interesting is the fact that even though there are no deserts in the British Isles, the Celts called their monastic communities diserts or "deserts." This was particularly true of island monasteries or hermitages -those spiritual fortresses-- , where the sea itself was like a desert, as an ancient poet said of St. Columban's island hermitage:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Delightful I think it to be in the bosom of an isle on the peak of a rock, that I might often see there the calm of the sea...That I might see its heavy waves over the glittering ocean as they chant a melody to their Father on their eternal course."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We have a wonderful description of a visit to the monks of Egypt near the close of the fourth century, written by Rufinus of Aquileia. He wrote: "When we came near, they realized that foreign monks were approaching, and at once they swarmed out of their cells like bees. They joyfully hurried to meet us." Rufinus was particularly struck by the solitude and stillness of life among these monks. "This is the utter desert," he observed, "where each monk lives alone in his cell....There is a huge silence and a great peace there." (Quoted in Celtic Saints, Passionate Wanderers, by Elizabeth Rees)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">St. David of Wales lived in the 6th century. He came from a monastery which had been founded by a disciple of St. John Cassian. So great is St. David that he deserves a whole lecture to himself, but today I'll just mention him in connection with the wisdom of the Egyptian desert: he possessed the gift of tears, spoke alone with angels, subdued his flesh by plunging himself into ice cold water while reciting all of the Psalms by heart, and spent the day making prostrations and praying. "He also fed a multitude of orphans, wards, widows, needy, sick, feeble, and pilgrims." (Edward C. Sellner, Wisdom of the Celtic Saints) The Roman Catholic scholar, Edward Sellner, adds: " Thus he began; thus he continued; thus he ended his day. He imitated the monks of Egypt and lived a life like theirs." (Ibid.) The same writer assures us that "because of its [the Celtic Church's] love of the desert fathers and mothers, it has a great affinity with the spirituality of the Eastern Orthodox [today]."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There are many other evidences of Eastern and Egyptian contact and influence, too numerous to list now. But in his interesting study, The Egyptian Desert in the Irish Bogs, Fr. Gregory Telepneff mentions also the fascinating interlacing knots and complex designs found on the famous standing High Crosses, which show Egyptian or Coptic influence. "Celtic manuscripts show similarities to the Egyptian use of birds, eagles, lions, and calves....In the Celtic Book of Durrow, one can find not only a utilization of the colors green, yellow, and red, similar to Egyptian usage, but also 'gems with a double cross outline against tightly knotted interlacings,' which recall the 'beginnings of Coptic books.' [Henry, Irish Art]. There is at least one instance of the leather satchel of an Irish missal and the leather satchel of an Ethiopian manuscript of about the same period which "resemble each other so closely that they might be thought to have come from the same workshop' [Warren, Liturgy]." (Telpneff)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Culturally, then, I suggest that Celtic culture was a unique and intriguing blend of Egyptian and other Middle Eastern influences with native or indigenous cultural elements.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Before going further I want to say a few words about the term "spirituality." In our time this has become a wastebasket word into which we put whatever we want the word to mean. Our English word, "spirituality", comes from the French, and originally described someone who was clever, witty, or perhaps even mad! But our ancient Christian ancestors, whether from Russia, Europe, the Middle East, or the lands of the Celts, did not have such a concept. Certainly they did not see spiritual life as something separate from the rest of life. For them, spirituality was how they lived, how they prayed, how they worshiped God-and it was all bound up together, not separated out. Today, however, we have managed to artificially compartmentalize ourselves and our lives, making "spirituality" something that we do in addition to or separate from regular life. This has made possible a very artificial approach to the Celts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thomas O"Loughlin, one of the best of our present-day writers on the subject of Celtic Christianity, makes the following sage observation in his book, Journeys on the Edges:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"In the last decade interest in the attitudes and beliefs of the Christians of the Celtic lands in the first millennium has swollen from being a specialist pursuit among medievalists and historians of theology into what is virtually a popular movement. In the process more than a few books have appeared claiming to uncover the soul of this Celtic Christianity in all its beauty....[Many writers] operate by offering their own definitions of 'Christianity' past and present, and then setting these against their definition of 'Celt' or 'Celtic'. In this way they can reach the conclusion they want."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Typical of our modern arrogance and intellectual-spiritual poverty, we project our own feeble ideas back onto a more robust and spiritually rich time, treating the world of Celtic Christianity like a smorgasbord, where we take those things we happen to already "like," and put them together to form our own very distorted and sometimes even perverted "version" of the Celts. An example: It is a fact that in the early Christian centuries, Ireland, Scotland and parts of Wales were never subject to Roman rule-neither the old Roman Empire nor the Church of Rome held sway over "Celts." But some modern writers interpret this to mean that Celtic Christians, since they were "non-Roman," were therefore anti-Roman or even anti-authority and against the idea of an organized, patriarchal Church. There is absolutely no evidence for such a conclusion, although in fact Celtic Christians did have a quite different way of organizing communities than did Christians on the continent-but this was not out of rebellion, but because their own models were from Egypt and the East, not from Europe! The simple fact is that "the Irish church had always been at the edges of Roman Christianity, [and considered to be a] a barbarian church of limited interest to the Popes." (Paul Cavill, Anglo-Saxon Christianity: Exploring the Earliest Roots of Christian Spirituality in England) "Although the climate and situation of Britain were very different from the hot deserts of Egypt, there were principles-simplicity, prayer, fasting, spiritual warfare, wisdom, and evangelism-that were easy to translate to the communities of these isles." (Michael Mitton, The Soul of Celtic Spirituality in the Lives of Its Saints) But this means that entering into the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical world of a Celtic Christian monk is difficult-not impossible, but difficult.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">First we must realize that the Celts had no concept of privacy or individuality such as we have today. Families did not live in separate rooms, but all together; no one thought about the idea of "compartmentalizing space" and only hermits and anchorites felt a calling to be alone in spiritual solitude with God, although monks had separate cells, just as monastics did in the Egyptian Thebaid. The idea that people are separate individuals from the group was not only unheard-of, but would have been considered dangerous, even heretical. Self-absorption, "moods," and being temperamental-all of these things would have been considered abnormal and sinful. It wasn't until the 13th and 14th centuries that people in the West started keeping journals or diaries, and there were no memoirs-also signs of individuality and privacy, of singling oneself out from the family, group, or community-nor were there actual real-life portraits of individuals, until the 14th century. (The art of realistic portraiture developed in response to the medieval idea of romance-for an accurate portrait was a substitute for an absent husband or wife.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Furthermore, "'the dominant institution of Celtic Christianity was neither the parish church nor the cathedral, but the monastery, which sometimes began as a solitary hermit's cell and often grew to become a combination of commune, retreat house, mission station...school [and, in general] a source not just of spiritual energy but also of hospitality, learning, and cultural enlightenment." (Ian Bradley, quoted in Mitten, Ibid.) It was only much later that people began to be gathered into separate parishes, and even later before bishops had dioceses that were based on geographical lines rather than just being the shepherd of a given tribe or group, "being bishops of a community, rather than ruling areas of land. The idea of 'ruling a diocese' was quite foreign to the Celtic way of thinking." (Ibid.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If you think about what all of this means in terms of how we today view ourselves, the world in which we live, and the values that we have today, you can see how difficult it's going to be for us to enter into the world of the Celts. Today we are quite obsessive about such things as privacy and individuality, of "being our own selves" and "getting in touch with the inner man" and other such self-centered nonsense. But the Celtic Christian understood, just as did and do Eastern Christians, that man is saved in community; if he goes to hell, he goes alone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">So the orientation of those Christian Celts to God and the other world was very different than the orientation of our modern world, no matter how devout or pious we may be, and this makes the distance between us and the world of Celtic monasticism far greater than just the span of the centuries. A renowned scholar, Sir Samuel Dill, writing generally about Christians in the West at this same period of time, said: "The dim religious life of the early Middle Ages is severed from the modern mind by so wide a gulf, by such a revolution of beliefs that the most cultivated sympathy can only hope to revive in faint imagination ....[for it was] a world of...fervent belief which no modern man can ever fully enter into....It is intensely interesting, even fascinating...[but] between us and the early Middle Ages there is a gulf which the most supple and agile imagination can hardly hope to pass. He who has pondered most deeply over the popular faith of that time will feel most deeply how impossible it is to pierce its secret." (Quoted in "Vita Patrum", Fr. Seraphim Rose)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But is it really "impossible"? To enter their world-the world of Celtic Christianity, which is the same as Celtic monasticism--we must find a way to see things as they did-not as we do today-; to hear, taste, touch, pray, and think as they did. And this is what I mean by the word "spirituality"-a whole world-view. We must examine them in the full context of their actual world-which was a world of Faith, and not just any Faith, but the Christian Faith of Christians in both the Eastern and Western halves of Christendom in the first thousand years after Christ. Spirituality is living, dogmatic, theology. This is the only way we can begin to understand how Celtic Monasticism can be a model of sanctity for us living today, more than a millennium after their world ceased to be. Remember, I said it would be difficult to enter their world; difficult, but not impossible... When we speak of someone or something being a "model," what do we mean? In this instance-speaking about Celtic monasticism as a "model"-we mean something that is a standard of excellence to be imitated. But here I'm not speaking of copying external things about Celtic monasteries-such as architecture, style of chant, monastic habit, etc., which are, after all cultural "accidents." I'm speaking of something inward, of an inner state of being and awareness. It's only in this sense that Celtic monasticism can be, for those who wish it, a "model of sanctity."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But what do I mean by "sanctity"? We must be careful not to slip into some kind of vague, New Age warm "fuzzies" which are more gnostic than Christian and have more to do with being a "nice" person than encountering the Living God in this life. By sanctity I mean what the Church herself means: holiness—which is nothing more or less than imitation of Christ in the virtues, and striving to die to oneself through humility, so as to be more and more alive to Christ, successfully cutting off one's own will in order to have, only the will of Christ, as St. Paul says in his epistle to the Galatians (2:20): "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me... " So, holiness means dying to oneself and especially to one's passions, more and more, so as draw closer and closer to the Lord God Himself, through Jesus Christ, and Him crucified and risen. In addition, Celtic Christians had the concept of "hallowing" or "hallowed"-an old fashioned term that today has survived only in the unfortunate pagan holiday called "Halloween" (from "All Hallows Eve"-which began as the vigil for the Western Feast of All Souls Day and later took on vile pagan overtones). To early British Christians, something or someone that was "hallowed" was "set apart" from others and sanctified for service to God. Thus, a priest's ordination or a monastic's tonsuring was his "hallowing."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And so, thus it was that those blessed and hallowed monastics of Celtic lands modeled forth certain principles that we can still see, study, understand, and imitate today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Celts were masters of Christian simplicity. Nowadays there is a movement in our culture to recover some simple basics, but the model is often that of the Quakers or the Shakers or the Amish. Perhaps that's because those groups are easier and more attractive to imitate; I don't know. For the Celts, however, simplicity wasn't so much a question of externals-like furniture, architecture, and so forth. It was something internal, and it was founded upon the Lord's Prayer-in particular the phrase, "Thy will be done", as we find in the later commentaries of the Venerable Bede of Jarrow and Alcuin of the court of Charlemagne. This was crucial to living a simple Christian life: "Thy will be done" meant God's will, not our own--placing absolute trust in the Providence of God for everything-one's health, one's finances, the size of one's family or the size of a monastic community-everything. It meant dying to oneself, not having opinions and not judging others. This was where simplicity began, and from there it easily expressed itself in outward forms, such as not owning five tunics when just two or even one would be sufficient.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Simplicity did not necessarily mean "plainness," as we'll see shortly when we look at the intricate sacred art of the High Crosses. Celtic Christians were not "Plain People," like Quakers or the Amish. But they were "Simple People," in that they were single-minded and intensely focused on the other world and the journey through this life to God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In common with all Christians at that time, the Celts had no concept of "private prayer" in the sense of spontaneously thinking of words or phrases to say to God. This practice belongs to a much later period in Christian history, when ideas of privacy and individualism had become more important than traditional ways of seeking God through prayer. This didn't mean that a Celtic Christian didn't pray outside the divine services, but for them, prayer was primarily liturgical, and this meant the Psalms. Most monks and nuns memorized the complete Psalter. Occasionally a particularly gifted monk would compose a prayer, such as the one I read by St. Columban at the beginning of this lecture. But in moments of need one remembered verses and phrases from the Psalms -such as "In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me," from Psalm 120, and "Hide not Thy face from me, O Lord, in the day of my trouble" (Psalm 10, or"In the Lord I put my trust" (Psalm 11).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Central to Celtic Christian culture was the Cross.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Even in the 7th and 8th centuries there were so-called Christians who were uncomfortable with the Cross of Christ and chose to ignore it, just as there are today. The Celts, however, had a particularly clear-headed understanding of the Cross. To quote Sister Benedicta Ward, a renowned scholar on the subject of the Desert Fathers as well as monasticism in the British Isles in the early Christian centuries: "The Cross was not something that made them feel better, nicer, more comfortable, more victorious, more reconciled to tragedy, better able to cope with life and death; it was rather the center of the fire in which they were to be changed." (op.cit.) It reminded them that they must pick up and carry their own crosses in this life and follow Christ, for dying to oneself has always been the great secret of holiness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thus, these monks and nuns saw themselves as warriors of the spirit, for to die to oneself was considered a greater act of heroism than dying on a battlefield in defense of one's tribe. "The Celtic Church was a Church of heroes...of strong and fiercely dedicated men and women." "The old Celtic warrior spirit was alive in them, [but now] put to the service of the Gospel and the following of Christ, the High King. Today [we might] find it hard to identify many [such] warrior Christians...[with] the active virtues of courage, strength, outspokenness, decisiveness, and the ability to stand up for something." (Joyce, op.cit.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nowhere was the Cross more loved and cherished than in the monasteries, where highly-carved and richly symbolic great "High Crosses"-some of them 15 feet and taller-- were set up-many of them still standing today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">These were not the suffering and bloody crucifixions found later in the West, particularly in Spain and Italy. Nor were these the serene and peaceful crosses of the Eastern Church. No, Celtic crosses were a genuine Christian expression all their own. Sometimes Christ is depicted, but often not; however, when He is shown, He is always erect, wide-eyed, and fully vested like a bishop, a great High Priest. In this form He is a symbol of victory over sin and death; He radiates invincibility.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"The way of the cross for [Celtic Christians] was the way of heroic loyalty, obedience, and suffering. It involved study and thought, doctrine and orthodoxy, art and imagination. It was a complete, unified way of life, lived intimately with God....[Our] fragmented modern world, both secular and religious, has a lot to learn from it." (Cavill, op.cit.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A common ascetic practice, even for the laity, was called crosfhigheall or "cross-vigil", and it consisted of praying for hours with outstretched arms. St. Coemgen sometimes prayed in this position for days. Once he was so still, for so long, that birds came and began to build a nest in his outstretched hands.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Scholars believe that the Celtic High Cross patterns probably came from Egypt. There are no loose ends in these patterns; this symbolizes the continuity of the Holy Spirit throughout existence-for God has no beginning and no end.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">An example of the love and respect they had for the Cross may be seen in an Anglo-Saxon poem, "The Dream of the Rood" ("rood" being an Old English word for "rod" or "pole", sometimes it also meant "gallows"). In the "The Dream of the Rood," Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is shone as a "serene and confident young hero...[who] prepares for battle. He strips...and climbs up on the gallows [the Tree of the Cross], intent on saving His people. He is in control, self-determining, expressing His lordship [And] the Cross trembles at the fearful embrace of its Lord." (Cavill, op.cit.) Listen, now, as the Cross, personified, speaks of how it raised up Christ:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Unclothed Himself God Almighty when He would mount the Cross,</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">courageous in the sight of all men. I bore the powerful King, the Lord of heaven;</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I durst not bend. Men mocked us both together. I was bedewed with blood.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Christ was on the Cross. Then I leaned down to the hands of men and</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">they took God Almighty."</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(Ward, Ibid.)</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The interlacing, knot-work, plaiting, weaving patterns and spiral designs, with animals and plants and saints, and scenes from Scripture, which decorate almost every surface of a Celtic High Cross, are so distinctive and profound in their symbolism that they are a study all to themselves. Today I can only point out a couple of things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Scholars believe that these incredibly complex patterns probably came from Egypt, but also may have some Byzantine influences. It's important to note that there are no loose ends in these patterns; this symbolizes the continuity of the Holy Spirit throughout existence - for God has no beginning and no end; only Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. The same is true of knot-work patterns, which are endless and cannot be untied. Spiral designs symbolized the Most High God Himself, the "motionless mover," around whom all things move. Some of these are what are called "Crosses of the Scriptures" because they are decorated with panels illustrating scenes from the Bible. High Crosses possess an almost dream-like quality in their complex geometric patterns, dignified and strong, heroic and towering over men, and yet also reminding those Christians of the Christian doctrine of kenosis, the self-emptying of Christ.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One of main factors contributing to the eventual decline and dissolution of a Celtic monastery was when the Cross began to no longer be a focus. "If monastic life...did not have at its center the reality of the Cross, it became a source of corruption....[for] 'Once a religious house or order cease[d] to direct its sons to the abandonment of all that is not God and cease[d] to show them the narrow way...it [sank] to the level of a purely human institution and whatever its works may be they are the works of time and not of eternity.'" (Dom David Knowles, quoted in Ward, Ibid.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">An essential dimension was asceticism (askesis) which, for the Celtic monk consisted of a kind of martyrdom. "A homily in archaic Irish, probably dating from the last quarter of the seventh century...speaks of [this]: 'Now there are three kinds of martyrdom, which are accounted as a cross to a man, to wit: white martyrdom, green and red martyrdom. White martyrdom consists in a man's abandoning everything he loves for God's sake, though he suffer fasting or labor therat. Green martyrdom consists in this, this, that by means of fasting and labor [a Christian] frees himself from his evil desires, or suffers toil in penance and repentance. Red martyrdom consists in the endurance of a cross or death for Christ's sake, as happened to the Apostles...'...For this reason, the Celtic tradition regarded monasticism as the Army of Christ (Militia Christi) and the monk as a soldier of Christ (miles Christi). Young men, in their effort to emulate the heroism of their ancestors, entered monasteries-the "Green Martyrdom." Instead of fighting in the Fianna (the Celtic army), they joined the Militia Christi to wage war against the evil spirits and sin." (Fr. Gorazd Vorpatrny, op.cit.) Not surprisingly, one writer calls these Celts "Ascetic Superstars." (Bitel, op.cit.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"I should like a great lake of ale for the King of Kings;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I should like the angels of heaven to be drinking it through time eternal!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And yet, with all of this sober asceticism, the Celts never lost their native enthusiasm, exuberance, and just plain cheer, as we see in a prayer written by the wonderful 5th century Abbess, Brigit, when she exclaims: "I should like a great lake of ale for the King of Kings; I should like the angels of heaven to be drinking it through time eternal!" How could anyone fail to be charmed by such a character - a woman who was a great leader of monastics, both men and women, who was baptized by angels, got out of an arranged marriage by plucking out one of her eyeballs, and fell asleep during a sermon given by the incomparable Equal-to-the-Apostles, St. Patrick!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Finally, the Celts were Trinitarian Christians par excellence. This is partly because even before they were Christian they already thought in terms of threes. And for them-unlike most Christians today-the Trinity was very real, very alive, not something vague and theoretical. What one scholar calls a "Trinitarian consciousness" (Joyce, op.cit.) completely shaped everything about them. As another has said: "'We are here at a central insight of Celtic theology....Christ comes not to show up or illuminate the deformity of a fallen world but rather to release a beautiful and holy world from bondage an affirmation, difficult but possible, of [that] which is the created image of the eternal Father and the all-holy Trinity.'" (Noel Dermot O'Donoghue, quoted in Joyce, op.cit.) "To follow the spiritual world-view of the Celtic Christians is to embrace a way of life that is a real commitment to the belief that the Trinitarian God is alive in this world." In the Celtic world, "Jesus Christ is our hero, our sweet friend....The Father is High King of heaven, a gentle and beneficent father, a wise and just ruler. The Spirit is a tangible comforter and protector ....This God is never to be reduced to the 'man upstairs' or anyone we can capture and box in. And yet this wonderful, mysterious God is close to us....[This] God is extremely good." (Ibid.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Brothers and sisters: the sanctity of Celtic monastics is a model for us in that it combines heroism and joy in perfect and beautiful balance. For them, the heroic life was one completely dedicated to living intimately with the God-Man whom they described as "victorious," "mighty and successful," "the lord of victories," a great warrior to whom they pledged undying, fearless, creative and exuberant loyalty. And yet, for all of their heroism, their monastic world-view, could be 'summed up as the 'Christian ideal in a sweetness which has never been surpassed.'" (Nora Chadwick, quoted by Joyce in op.cit.) To slip into their world, even for just a few moments, as we've done here this afternoon, is, I believe, is not just inspiring; it's almost breathtaking.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Just as I began my talk today with a prayer of St. Columban of Iona, I would like to conclude with another prayer from this great Celtic monastic saint:</span><br />
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Lord, Thou art my island; in Thy bosom I rest.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thou art the calm of the sea; in that peace I stay.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thou art the deep waves of the shining ocean. With their eternal sound I sing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thou art the song of the birds; in that tune is my joy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thou art the smooth white strand of the shore; in Thee is no gloom.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thou art the breaking of the waves on the rock;</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thy praise is echoed in the swell.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thou art the Lord of my life;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE BENEDICTINE WAY</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A Benedictine community prays together six or seven times a day, consecrating the whole day to God. Our life is shaped by the liturgy and the liturgical seasons – none more so than Lent, Holy Week and Eastertide. St Benedict says “a monk’s life ought to be a continuous Lent” but only so that we are properly prepared to receive the joy of the Resurrection. Flowing from the liturgy, we spend much time in personal prayer. Withdrawing to a private place, we spend privileged time in personal prayer with God. Here we learn to experience silence, and hear God’s will for us. Prayer is not always easy or comfortable, but fidelity promises spiritual freedom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“We shall run in the path of God’s commands, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love” (Pro.49)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Ways of Prayer</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">‘Your Word is a Lamp </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">for my feet, and a light </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">for my path.’ (Ps.119:105)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">St Jerome said that ‘ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’ Monks and nuns are lovers of the Word. By spending time pondering scripture we grow into a relationship with Christ, the living Word. This is a characteristically Benedictine way of praying.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In our daily lectio divina we listen, meditate and respond to Christ speaking to us. Lectio is primarily an exercise in listening; we read slowly and attentively, waiting for Lord to speak to us through a word or phrase. Learning how to do Lectio can be tricky at the beginning, but our monks and nuns are always happy to help the “beginner”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“With Christ’s help, keep this little Rule that we have written for beginners”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">‘Do this in memory of me…’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Eucharist makes the Church, the Body of Christ. It also “makes” the monastic community. Mass is a privileged time when we offer ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord along with the gifts of bread and wine, and, by receiving him in Holy Communion, allow him to transform us too into the Body of Christ, just as surely as the gifts are transformed. St Benedict wanted all goods of the monastery to be treated as sacred vessels of the altar. The dignity in the way we behave and pray in church is echoed in the way we live out the rest of the day. Our daily celebration and reception of the Lord’s gift of himself sustains and shapes our monastic day and indeed our whole lives, both as individuals and as a community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Mass</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">‘Do this in memory of me…’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Eucharist makes the Church, the Body of Christ. It also “makes” the monastic community. Mass is a privileged time when we offer ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord along with the gifts of bread and wine, and, by receiving him in Holy Communion, allow him to transform us too into the Body of Christ, just as surely as the gifts are transformed. St Benedict wanted all goods of the monastery to be treated as sacred vessels of the altar. The dignity in the way we behave and pray in church is echoed in the way we live out the rest of the day. Our daily celebration and reception of the Lord’s gift of himself sustains and shapes our monastic day and indeed our whole lives, both as individuals and as a community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Communion</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The school of the Lord’s service is where monks and nuns learn and practise communion. Life according to the Rule gives a daily experience of it, and provides for its support and nourishment. This is how monks and nuns are able to grow in communion to the wholeness of monastic integrity that is traditionally called purity of heart."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(To Prefer Nothing to Christ para 52)</span></div>
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<b>Divine Office</b></div>
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The principal work of a monk or nun is prayer and especially that of the Liturgy of the Hours (also known as the Divine Office). A community comes together six or seven times a day to pray the prayer of the Church, and consecrate the whole day to God. Liturgical prayer calls us to open our hearts to the Word of God as it is addressed to us in the Psalms and other inspired books of Scripture, and in the writings of the Fathers of the Church.</div>
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‘O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.’ (Ps 50:17)</div>
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<b>A retreat at Belmont Abbey, Hereford</b></div>
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<span style="color: #82abca; font-size: 1.25rem;">(Ps 50:17)</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-63423671339932308272018-06-28T11:22:00.000-07:002018-06-30T09:54:29.954-07:00JUNE 29TH 2018: ST PETER AND PAUL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>SOLEMNITY OF STS PETER AND PAUL</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Wednesday, 29 June 2005</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Dear Brothers and Sisters,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul is at the same time a grateful memorial of the great witnesses of Jesus Christ and a solemn confession for the Church: one, holy, catholic and apostolic. It is first and foremost a feast of catholicity. The sign of Pentecost - the new community that speaks all languages and unites all peoples into one people, in one family of God -, this sign has become a reality. Our liturgical assembly, at which Bishops are gathered from all parts of the world, people of many cultures and nations, is an image of the family of the Church distributed throughout the earth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Strangers have become friends; crossing every border, we recognize one another as brothers and sisters. This brings to fulfilment the mission of St Paul, who knew that he was the "minister of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles, with the priestly duty of preaching the Gospel of God so that the Gentiles [might] be offered up as a pleasing sacrifice, consecrated by the Holy Spirit" (Rom 15: 16). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The purpose of the mission is that humanity itself becomes a living glorification of God, the true worship that God expects: this is the deepest meaning of catholicity - a catholicity that has already been given to us, towards which we must constantly start out again. Catholicity does not only express a horizontal dimension, the gathering of many people in unity, but also a vertical dimension: it is only by raising our eyes to God, by opening ourselves to him, that we can truly become one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Like Paul, Peter also came to Rome, to the city that was a centre where all the nations converged and, for this very reason, could become, before any other, the expression of the universal outreach of the Gospel. As he started out on his journey from Jerusalem to Rome, he must certainly have felt guided by the voices of the prophets, by faith and by the prayer of Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The mission to the whole world is also part of the proclamation of the Old Covenant: the people of Israel were destined to be a light for the Gentiles. The great Psalm of the Passion, Psalm 22[21], whose first verse Jesus cried out on the Cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", ends with the vision: "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; all the families of the nations shall bow down before him" (Ps 22[21]: 28). When Peter and Paul came to Rome, the Lord on the Cross who had uttered the first line of that Psalm was risen; God's victory now had to be proclaimed to all the nations, thereby fulfilling the promise with which the Psalm concludes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Catholicity means universality - a multiplicity that becomes unity; a unity that nevertheless remains multiplicity. From Paul's words on the Church's universality we have already seen that the ability of nations to get the better of themselves in order to look towards the one God, is part of this unity. In the second century, the founder of Catholic theology, St Irenaeus of Lyons, described very beautifully this bond between catholicity and unity and I quote him. He says: "The Church spread across the world diligently safeguards this doctrine and this faith, forming as it were one family: the same faith, with one mind and one heart, the same preaching, teaching and tradition as if she had but one mouth. Languages abound according to the region but the power of our tradition is one and the same. The Churches in Germany do not differ in faith or tradition, neither do those in Spain, Gaul, Egypt, Libya, the Orient, the centre of the earth; just as the sun, God's creature, is one alone and identical throughout the world, so the light of true preaching shines everywhere and illuminates all who desire to attain knowledge of the truth" (Adv. Haer. I 10, 2). The unity of men and women in their multiplicity has become possible because God, this one God of heaven and earth, has shown himself to us; because the essential truth about our lives, our "where from?" and "where to?" became visible when he revealed himself to us and enabled us to see his face, himself, in Jesus Christ. This truth about the essence of our being, living and dying, a truth that God made visible, unites us and makes us brothers and sisters. Catholicity and unity go hand in hand. And unity has a content: the faith that the Apostles passed on to us in Christ's name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I am pleased that yesterday, the Feast of St Irenaeus and the eve of the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul, I was able to give the Church a new guide for the transmission of the faith that will help us to become better acquainted with and to live better the faith that unites us: the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The essential content of what is presented in detail in the complete Catechism, through the witness of the saints of all the ages and with reflections that have matured in theology, is summed up here in this book and must then be translated into everyday language and constantly put into practice. The book is in the form of a dialogue with questions and answers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The 14 images associated with the various areas of faith are an invitation to contemplation and meditation. In other words, a visible summary of what the written text develops in full detail. At the beginning there is a reproduction of a 6th-century icon of Christ, kept at Mount Athos, that portrays Christ in his dignity as Lord of the earth but at the same time also as a herald of the Gospel which he holds in his hand. "I am who am", this mysterious name of God presented in the Old Testament, is copied here as his own name: all that exists comes from him; he is the original source of all being. And since he is one, he is also ever present, ever close to us and at the same time, ever in the lead: an "indicator" on our way through life, especially since he himself is the Way. This book cannot be read as if it were a novel. Its individual sections must be calmly meditated upon and, through the images, its content must be allowed to penetrate the soul. I hope that it will be received as such and become a reliable guide in the transmission of the faith.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We have said that the catholicity of the Church and the unity of the Church go together. The fact that both dimensions become visible to us in the figures of the holy Apostles already shows us the consequent characteristic of the Church: she is apostolic. What does this mean?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Lord established Twelve Apostles just as the sons of Jacob were 12. By so doing he was presenting them as leaders of the People of God which, henceforth universal, from that time has included all the peoples. St Mark tells us that Jesus called the Apostles so "to be with him, and to be sent out" (Mk 3: 14). This seems almost a contradiction in terms. We would say: "Either they stayed with him or they were sent forth and set out on their travels". Pope St Gregory the Great says a word about angels that helps us resolve this contradiction. He says that angels are always sent out and at the same time are always in God's presence, and continues, "Wherever they are sent, wherever they go, they always journey on in God's heart" (Homily, 34, 13). The Book of Revelation described Bishops as "angels" in their Church, so we can state: the Apostles and their successors must always be with the Lord and precisely in this way - wherever they may go - they must always be in communion with him and live by this communion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Church is apostolic, because she professes the faith of the Apostles and attempts to live it. There is a unity that marks the Twelve called by the Lord, but there is also continuity in the apostolic mission. St Peter, in his First Letter, described himself as "a fellow elder" of the presbyters to whom he writes (5: 1). And with this he expressed the principle of apostolic succession: the same ministry which he had received from the Lord now continues in the Church through priestly ordination. The Word of God is not only written but, thanks to the testimonies that the Lord in the sacrament has inscribed in the apostolic ministry, it remains a living word. Thus, I now address you, dear Brother Bishops. I greet you with affection, together with your relatives and the pilgrims from your respective Dioceses. You are about to receive the Pallium from the hands of the Successor of Peter. We had it blessed, as though by Peter himself, by placing it beside his tomb. It is now an expression of our common responsibility to the "chief Shepherd" Jesus Christ, of whom Peter speaks (I Pt 5: 4). The Pallium is an expression of our apostolic mission. It is an expression of our communion whose visible guarantee is the Petrine ministry. Unity as well as apostolicity are bound to the Petrine service that visibly unites the Church of all places and all times, thereby preventing each one of us from slipping into the kind of false autonomy that all too easily becomes particularization of the Church and might consequently jeopardize her independence. So, let us not forget that the purpose of all offices and ministries is basically that "we [all] become one in faith and in the knowledge of God's son, and form that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature", so that the Body of Christ may grow and build "itself up in love" (Eph 4: 13, 16).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this perspective, I warmly and gratefully greet the Delegation of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, sent by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to whom I address a cordial thought, and led by Metropolitan Ioannis, who has come for our feast day and is taking part in our celebration. Even though we may not yet agree on the issue of the interpretation and importance of the Petrine Ministry, we are nonetheless together in the apostolic succession, we are deeply united with one another through episcopal ministry and through the sacrament of priesthood, and together profess the faith of the Apostles as it is given to us in Scripture and as it was interpreted at the great Councils. At this time in a world full of scepticism and doubt but also rich in the desire for God, let us recognize anew our common mission to witness to Christ the Lord together, and on the basis of that unity which has already been given to us, to help the world in order that it may believe. And let us implore the Lord with all our hearts to guide us to full unity so that the splendour of the truth, which alone can create unity, may once again become visible in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Today's Gospel tells of the profession of faith of St Peter, on whom the Church was founded: "You are the Messiah... the Son of the living God" (Mt 16: 16). Having spoken today of the Church as one, catholic and apostolic but not yet of the Church as holy, let us now recall another profession of Peter, his response on behalf of the Twelve at the moment when so many abandoned Christ: "We have come to believe; we are convinced that you are God's holy one" (Jn 6: 69). What does this mean?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Jesus, in his great priestly prayer, says that he is consecrating himself for his disciples, an allusion to the sacrifice of his death (cf. Jn 17: 19). By saying this, Jesus implicitly expresses his role as the true High Priest who brings about the mystery of the "Day of Reconciliation", no longer only in substitutive rites but in the concrete substance of his own Body and Blood. The Old Testament term "the Holy One of the Lord" identified Aaron as the High Priest who had the task of bringing about Israel's sanctification (Ps 106[105]: 16; Vulgate: Sir 45: 6). Peter's profession of Christ, whom he declares to be the Holy One of God, fits into the context of the Eucharistic Discourse in which Jesus announces the Day of Reconciliation through the sacrificial offering of himself: "the bread I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (Jn 6: 51). So this profession is the background of the priestly mystery of Jesus, his sacrifice for us all. The Church is not holy by herself; in fact, she is made up of sinners - we all know this and it is plain for all to see. Rather, she is made holy ever anew by the Holy One of God, by the purifying love of Christ. God did not only speak, but loved us very realistically; he loved us to the point of the death of his own Son. It is precisely here that we are shown the full grandeur of revelation that has, as it were, inflicted the wounds in the heart of God himself. Then each one of us can say personally, together with St Paul, I live "a life of faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal 2: 20).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Let us pray to the Lord that the truth of these words may be deeply impressed in our hearts, together with his joy and with his responsibility; let us pray that shining out from the Eucharistic Celebration it will become increasingly the force that shapes our lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20050629_sts-peter-paul.html">https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20050629_sts-peter-paul.html</a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Gospel Cycle Cycle B</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Matthew 16:13-19</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://christdesert.org/2003/06/homily-for-solemnity-of-saints-peter-and-paul-cycle-b/">my source: Monastery of Christ in the Desert</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Two of the readings today, the first one and the Gospel, are about Saint Peter. The first reading tells us about his miraculous escape from prison because an angel came and freed him. The Gospel tells us why Saint Peter is so important in our Christian history: Saint Peter proclaims clearly about Jesus that he is the Christ and the Son of the living God. Jesus in His turn says that he will establish His Church on Peter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Anyone who reads the New Testament cannot help but understand Peter. Peter is always presented as a fully human person who makes lots of mistakes, but who is so loyal to Jesus that it can take our breath away. With all of his human defects, Peter believes so strongly and is willing to give His life for Jesus—which eventually he does.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Saint Paul seems a much more complex character! He is so strong in his opposition to the early Christians! He is a religious zealot! When he is converted to Christianity, he is just as strong now in favor as he used to be opposed. He always tends to preach first to the Jewish population. Slowly he comes to understand Christ more and more and begins to preach to the non-Jewish peoples, where he has great success.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">He begins a series of what we now call “missionary” journeys. In this second letter to Timothy, which is the second reading today, we have Paul’ own testimony to God’s work within him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As we think about these two great apostles in the early Church, we can wonder about our own energies to proclaim Jesus as our Lord and as the Christ. Each of us who follow Jesus has a responsibility to make Him known. Each of us can do that in our own way, whether that way is public and well-know or more private and quiet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Always this proclamation of Jesus must begin with our own faith: <i>You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>"Tu es Petrus" in Rome 2016 (3.30mins)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Liturgy on this feastday. (4.5 mins)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b> Homily by Dom Paul Stonham, Abbot of Belmont </b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> 2018</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I have kept the faith.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At Caesarea Philippi Jesus asked his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter replied in the name of the Twelve, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” On the road to Damascus Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?” It was the Christ, the Son of the living God, who replied, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Both Peter and Paul came to realise, not through human inspiration but divine revelation, that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God. This belief bought with it the realization that they had also been chosen and called by him to be his apostles despite their many weaknesses and failures. “My grace is enough for you.” That sense of mission motivated the rest of their lives. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Beside the Sea of Galilee, after the Resurrection, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” He replied, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” That declaration of love led Peter to over thirty years’ fruitful ministry and service, above all in the Jewish community. Paul, whose mission of over thirty years was to the Gentiles, wrote to the Corinthians, “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Love separated from faith can become a dangerous emotion, while faith separated from love can become sterile and sectarian. Faith has to be lived in love, while love can only be truly experienced in a life of faith. We live in difficult times to be men and women of faith, to be Christian and Catholic. The forces of evil, often camouflaged as good, are ranged on every side against us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The example and teaching of Peter and Paul encourage us never to give in but to persevere, and to do so with joy and confidence. Always remember Peter’s miraculous escape from prison: he thought he was seeing a vision. “Now I know it is all true. The Lord really did send his angel and has freed me.” Just as there is no faith without love, so there is no faith without martyrdom or love without suffering. Paul wrote to Timothy, “The Lord stood by me and gave me power. The Lord will rescue me from evil and bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This then is what it means to keep the faith: to live a life firmly rooted in Christ and grounded in the love of God. At the last supper Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Just as in Jesus we see God and know him, so in Peter and Paul we see Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God, and know him. Today may others see Jesus in us so that we can say with the apostles, “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come now is the crown of righteousness.” I have kept the faith.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Q & A on the Mass (Bishop Barron)</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Sister Vassa "SS. Peter and Paul</b></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-4504239462800282352018-06-26T12:17:00.000-07:002018-06-26T12:17:12.062-07:00CHURCHES, ANCIENT AND MODERN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Pope Benedict XVI consecrating the altar of La Sagrada Familia</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"The liturgy is the time of God and space of God, and we must put ourselves there in the time of God, in the space of God, and not look at our watches. The liturgy is nothing less
than entering into the mystery of God, allowing ourselves to be carried to the mystery and to be in the mystery. It is the cloud of God that envelops us all."</span></span><span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(Pope Francis)</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The church is holy because it houses the gathered Church; and the altar is holy because it is on this table that Mass is celebrated. The real church is the Christian community: the
building is only a "church" by association. Realising this has led many to conclude that the value of the church building lies only in its function, and that it is not a holy place as the Temple in Jerusalem was
holy. They believe that only the community is holy, the building an optional extra. This has been reflected in the architecture of churches which often look like secular buildings; and movements like the Neo-catechumenists have been known
to prefer to celebrate the Eucharist outside church buildings. After all, the earliest christians had no church buildings. </span></span></div>
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<span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> If Le Corbusier defined a house as a "machine for living in", many modern churches look very much like "machines for praying in", sheltering the real Church
from the elements and nothing more, without being holy themselves.</span></span></div>
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<span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this post I am going to argue that this is contrary to Catholic Tradition, that a Catholic church is superior in its level of holiness to anything in the Jerusalem Temple, including
the Holy of Holies. If reverence and awe were appropriate in the Temple, as the Old Testament shows us they were, even more are they appropriate wherever the Catholic liturgy is celebrated, even if this holiness is only a reflected glory, its
source in the liturgical celebration of the Christian community. </span></span></div>
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<span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Genesis gives a cosmic role to Adam and Eve, naming all the animals, giving meaning to Creation. They were made in his image, and so became the means by which God's holiness is poured
out on Creation, giving it meaning, as well as being Creation's voice by which it praises and gives thanks to the Lord. That is why Adam's fall was of cosmic importance, messing up everything. Christ’s salvation would restore us as human beings to this central role in the world’s sanctification.</span></span></div>
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<span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Salvation, putting things right, is not just about souls: it is about restoring God's proper relationship to Creation as a whole, making it transparent to his divine Presence - making
it holy - through the activity of Christians who share by the Incarnation in the very life of God. In New Testament times, the Temple is replaced by Christ´s body and by Christians who are members of his body and share in the Spirit. </span></span></div>
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<span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This does not mean that the there are no sacred places or things. The very contrary is true; and they are all over the place. Wherever the Christian life is lived becomes holy by association, far holier than any pre-Christian
site. It is the effect of the Incarnation.</span></span></div>
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<span class="tm7"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Places are always holy to the degree that God is active in them; and things are holy to the degree that God uses them. God works in and through the Church and its members. Thus prisons
and places of torture become holy because in them Christian martyrs have suffered and died; hospitals become holy because Gods loves the patients through the sisters that run them; the streets of Calcutta became holy through
the activity of Mother Teresa's sisters; Christian homes become holy because of the Christian life that is nurtured there; music becomes holy to the extent that its beauty reflects the divine Glory. Most obvious of all,
churches are holy because, within them, heaven and earth unite in the Eucharist and God acts at every level of church life. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> It is the function of Christian architecture and art to reflect this reality and mediate it to those who take part in the liturgy. Salvation in Christ restores to the Church and its members the means to sanctify places and things we use in the Lord's service, because we become Christ's instruments. Only at the Second Coming will the whole cosmos be holy in that way; but we Christians have a foretaste. Because of it, God's revelation, which comes to us as a Word, directed at our hearing, but then takes a myriad of shapes which are directed to all our senses. Thus we say with St John:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - this life was revealed, and we have seen it.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nowhere is this illustrated more than in a proper Christian church, whether from East or West. </span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is the function of Church art to manifest the reality that it reflects. Hence, whatever the style, a church that does not look like a church is a failure from the very start. It must proclaim by its design the Gospel that is preached within it and aid the disciples to respond. A church is a place where heaven and earth join together in Christ to gratefully receive and praise the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. A church must speak to us of God, the angels and the saints and thus help us to participate in a unity that transcends the local congregation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It was Pope Benedict’s love of baroque art and architecture that is such a revelation. He explains that</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> “in line with the tradition of the West, the Council [of Trent] again emphasised the didactic and pedagogical character of art, but, as a fresh start toward interior renewal, it led once more to a new kind of seeing that comes from and returns within. <i>The altarpiece is like a window through which the world of God comes out to us. The curtain of temperately is raised, and we are allowed a glimpse into the inner life of the world of God. This art is intended to insert us into the liturgy of heaven</i>. Again and again, we experience a Baroque church as a unique kind of fortissimo of joy, an Alleluia in visual form.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Pope Benedict looks at the Baroque church through the eyes that have been opened by an in-depth dialogue with Orthodoxy, a dialogue that is an essential ingredient of the authentic "spirit of Vatican II" and a characteristic of all the popes from Pope Paul VI to our present Pope Francis, and is absolutely pivotal in the theology of Pope Benedict who is, perhaps, one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the last hundred years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We belong to the New Covenant in which all religious institutions of the Old Testament have been replaced by people. Christ is the temple, the priesthood, the only victim and the altar, and has also replaced the Law of Moses as the Way (). The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant; and, when she was by Christ’s side while he was dying on the cross, she embraced both her Son and the whole human race in her love, and thus she came to represent all those down the ages whose synergy with the Holy Spirit would make them one with Christ on the cross: At the foot of the cross she was personally the Church in its relationship to Christ, the New Eve, and Mother of all the living.. As our icon depicts, she is personally what the Church is collectively: she is the Bride of the Lamb.. No longer is God’s dwelling place among the people on earth a building. Since Christ’s Ascension, the temple has been replaced by us who are participants in Christ; we are his body, the Church, in whom God dwells bodily, reconciling the world to himself. By participating in the Eucharistic fellowship we become “the one temple of his Spirit”. In the Old Testament, the covenanted presence of God depended on the temple and the fulfilment of the purification ritual on the Day of the Atonement; and the altar sanctified the offering so that it could be offered on no other altar; and hence the crisis when the temple was destroyed. In New Testament times, in contrast, it is the presence of God’s People that sanctifies the church; and it is the offering by Christ of himself that sanctifies our offering and the altar on which it is placed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Consecration of a Church</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Pope Benedict consecrating La Sacrada Familia in Barcelona (2 mins) </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When Russians drink a toast, they smash the glass afterwards to indicate that who or what they have toasted is of such importance that the glass should not be used for any inferior purpose. Where God speaks through his word, where the Holy Spirit transforms mere human beings into sons and daughters of God at baptism, where the Father responds to the prayer of the priest and sends the Holy Spirit to transform bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood and the praying congregation into the body of Christ and temple of the Holy Spirit, the Church thinks it appropriate that such a place, together with the chalice and pattern, are so holy that they should not be used for any inferior purpose. Changing uranium into nuclear fuel leaves behind material that remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years. The rite of dedication teaches us that a single Mass can make a building or an altar holy for as long as it exists. Of course, it is often necessary to celebrate the Mass and sacraments in places that cannot be reserved for worship and to use ordinary tables as altars; but it is so easy to underestimate the holiness of the Mass and sacraments if we do not give to those material things most associated with their celebration the kind of respect that human beings have naturally given to holy things throughout history. For this reason, it is better to consecrate the building that is used for Mass and to use it only for liturgical functions. I have a gut feeling that something is wrong when we use a room or a table that has been used for Mass over a period of time for some other purpose. In saying this we recognize that, in practical terms, while the holiness of any Mass can consecrate a building, not every Mass does. There needs to be the intention of the bishop to dedicate the building exclusively for the liturgy for a dedication to take place, and the Mass needs to be celebrated for that purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On entering the church and after greeting the people, the bishop solemnly blesses water which shall be used, he says, to remind the people of their baptism and a “symbol of the cleansing of these walls and this altar”. There we have the parallel between baptism and the sprinkling of holy water on the altar and walls. These are ‘purified’, cleansed of any harmful influences due to sin and dedicated to an unspecified Christian use. Sprinkling them with holy water is a way to lay claim to them on behalf of the Church. From now on they are to be used in the continual passing through death to life that is the very pulse beat and rythm of the body of Christ. After sprinkling, the meaning of this act is summed up as follows:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">May God, the Father of mercies, dwell in this house of prayer. May the grace of the Holy Spirit cleanse us, for we are the temple of his presence. Amen</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After the readings, the homily, and the Creed, the Litany of the Saints is said in place of the General Intercession. The next main part is the Prayer of Dedication which contains the epiclesis. This is a place in the liturgy where, normally, the purpose of the rite is expressed succinctly. In the epiclesis, what is the Church asking the Father in Jesus’ name? In the solemn prayer of dedication, the bishop first states the purpose of the occasion:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Father in heaven, source of holiness and true purpose (…) today we come before you, to dedicate to your lasting service this house of prayer, this temple of worship, this home in which we are nourished by your word and your sacraments.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It then says that this house reflects the mystery which is the Church. The Church is fruitful and holy by the blood of Christ. It is the Bride made radiant by his glory, a Virgin splendid in the wholeness of her faith, and Mother blessed by the power of the Holy Spirit. We have seen that these are titles given to Mary as a person in her relationship with Jesus. The Church too has thee titles The prayer continues to use metaphor to describe the Church. It is a vineyard with branches all over the world and reaching up to heaven. The Church is a temple, God’s dwelling place on earth, made up of living stones, with Jesus Christ as the corner stone. The Church is a city set on a mountain, a beacon to the whole world, bright with the glory of the Lamb.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Now we come to the invocation (epiclesis) proper:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Lord, send our Spirit from heaven to make this church an ever-holy place, and this altar a ready table for the sacrifice of Christ.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It continues by asking that the sacraments celebrated here will be efficacious, that baptism will overwhelm sin and that the people will truly die to sin, that the people gathered round the altar may celebrate the memorial of the Paschal Lamb and be fed at the table of Christ’s word and Christ’s body. Then the perspective changes; and the prayer goes on to ask that what happens here will have a world-wide effect. It asks that the Eucharist, which is the prayer of the Church, “resound through heaven and earth as a plea for the world’s salvation”. It asks that through it the poor may find justice and the oppressed liberation. It then goes on to ask:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From here may the whole world clothed in the dignity of children of God, enter with gladness your city of peace.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is a dimension of the Christian life little taught at an ordinary parish level. It asks that as we approach the heavenly Jerusalem with the blood of Christ and pass through the veil which is the body of Christ into the presence of the Father, we may take the whole human race with us. We are Catholics, not just for ourselves but for the salvation of the world, and the unity of the Church is an effective sign of the unity of the human race in the eyes of God The prayer ends with a doxology and the people answer, “Amen”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Orthodox anointing/dedication of an altar (5 mins</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">)</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Next comes the anointing of the altar and the walls of the church with chrism. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the Eastern churches, the altar is often called the “throne” which recalls God’s presence in the Holy of Holies on the “throne of mercy” or “mercy seat”. Here is an ancient prayer at the altar, originally in Aramaic, the language of Our Lord:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“Before the glorious throne of Thy majesty, my Lord, and the high and exalted seat of Thy honour and the awesome judgement seat of the power of Thy love, and the absolving altar which Thy will has established and the place where Thy honour dwells, we, Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture, with thousands of Cherubim which sing halleluiahs to Thee, ten thousand Seraphim and Archangels which hallow Thee, do kneel and worship and confess and glorify Thee at all times, O Lord of all, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for ever. Amen.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Symeon of Thessalonica wrote of the anointing of the altar:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Altar is perfected through Holy Chrism. A prophetic hymn is chanted, signifying the incoming presence and praise of God. “The Lord comes,” says the Bishop, referring to Christ’s First and Second Coming, and the continuous presence of the Spirit with us. …Since the Chrism is poured out in the name of Christ our God, and the Table represents Him Who was buried therein, it is anointed with Chrism; and it becomes Holy Chrism for it receives the Grace of the Spirit. And for this reason, as we have said, the “Alleluia” is chanted, for God dwells in there; and the Altar becomes the workshop of the Gifts of the Spirit. For on it the Awesome and Mystical Sacraments are celebrated: the ordination of priests, the most Holy Chrism, and the Gospel is placed thereon, and beneath it the Holy Relics of the Martyrs are deposited. Thus this table becomes an Altar of Christ, and a Throne of Glory, and the dwelling-place of God, and the Tomb and Grave of Christ and a place of Rest.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Prayer of Dedication</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">21. The celebration of the eucharist is the most important and the one necessary rite for </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">the dedication of an altar. Nevertheless, in accordance with the universal tradition of the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Church in both East and West, a special prayer of dedication is also said. This prayer is a</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">sign of the intention to dedicate the altar to the Lord for all times and a petition for his </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">blessing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Rites of Anointing, Incensing, Covering, and Lighting the Altar</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">22. The rites of anointing, incensing, covering, and lighting the altar express in visible signs </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">several aspects of the invisible work that the Lord accomplishes through the Church in its</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">celebration of the divine mysteries, especially the eucharist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">a) Anointing of the altar: The anointing with chrism makes the altar a symbol of Christ, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">who, before all others, is and is called ‘The Anointed One’; for the Father anointed </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">him with the Holy Spirit and constituted him the High Priest so that on the altar of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">his body he might offer the sacrifice of his life for the salvation of all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">b) Incense is burned on the altar to signify that Christ’s sacrifice, there perpetuated in </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">mystery, ascends to God as an odour of sweetness, and also to signify that the people’s </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">prayers rise up pleasing and acceptable, reaching the throne of God.20</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">c) The covering of the altar indicates that the Christian altar is the altar of the eucharistic </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">sacrifice and the table of the Lord; around it priests and people, by one and the same </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">rite but with a difference of function, celebrate the memorial of Christ’s death and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">resurrection and partake of his supper. For this reason the altar is prepared as the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">table of the sacrificial banquet and adorned as for a feast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Thus the dressing of the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">altar clearly signifies that it is the Lord’s table at which all God’s people joyously meet </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">to be refreshed with divine food, namely, the body and blood of Christ sacrificed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">d) The lighting of the altar teaches us that Christ is ‘a light to enlighten the nations’;21 his </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">brightness shines out in the Church and through it in the whole human family.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>D. Celebration of the Eucharist</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">23. After the altar has been prepared, the bishop celebrates the eucharist, the principal and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">the most ancient part of the whole rite,22 because the celebration of the eucharist is in the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">closest harmony with the rite of the dedication of an altar:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">For the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice achieves the end for which the altar </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">was erected and expresses this end by particularly clear signs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The altar is the place where what is depicted in icons is present for real. A crucifix depicts Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, while on the altar is the sacrifice itself. The Blessed Virgin, angels and saints are depicted in icons, but they are present at every Mass, joining with us in crying “Holy, holy, holy.”. Everything that has a visual dimension can be depicted in icons, but the altar is the throne of Him who cannot be depicted. For this reason our attention is not directed towards the structure of the altar, but to its surface and the empty space above it. For this reason the empty space should not be cluttered up with unnecessary books or furniture - it is not a bench to put things on - so that priest and people will have a clear, uninterrupted view of the paten and chalice which are central to the whole action of the Mass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This cannot happen without the Holy Spirit. As the anointing with chrism is done in silence, we must go to the <i>epiclesis</i> of the consecration of chrism on Maundy Thursday to look further into the significance of the anointing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Only in the second consecratory prayer over the chrism is there any mention of the intended effect of anointing places and things. It asks:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">May the splendour of holiness shine on the world from every place and thing signed with this oil.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The “splendour of holiness” is nothing less than the effect on people and things when God makes his presence felt. When the walls and altar are anointed, the bishop in the name of Christ and the Church is asking the Father to send the Spirit on them so that the church may become a place of contact between God and the world. The “splendour of holiness” may shine from the church building as a reflection of the “glory of the Lamb” which shines from the Church made up of living stones, so that the building will become a true symbol of the living Church.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“The nations will walk by its light. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” This can only happen if God takes the initiative; but the bishop anoints them with the confidence that the Father will answer this prayer positively. The church and the altar have become a place of meeting with Christ where we contact him, because he takes the initiative, using this sacred space as his instrument through the power of the Spirit. We enter into the splendour of holiness when we enter a church, and the altar becomes the central point of focus when we celebrate. It is a challenge to the architect and to those who are responsible for the lay-out of the church building, as well as those who organise and celebrate the liturgy, to help people realise the holiness of this place of meeting between God and his people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Other Parts of the Church</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The General Instructions from the Roman Missal have more to say about a church.. There are other focal points in a church, though they all direct our attention eventually to the altar. The first is the ambo which is the desk from which the word of God is proclaimed. The sacredness of this proclamation recalls God’s proclamation of the Law on Mount Sinai and God speaking to Isaiah from his throne in heaven. When the reader says, at the end of the reading, “The word of God”, he is making an enormous claim, the impact of which is normally lost, because it is dismissed as mere ritual. He is saying that GOD is speaking,, as really and as immediately as in any theophany of the Old Testament. When reading the word of God, the reader has lent his voice to Christ who is speaking “whenever the word of God is read in church”. To underline this fact, in the General Instructions for the Roman Missal (272) it lays down that the ambo like the altar, should be permanent and fixed to the ground; it must not be used for any other purpose, except for responsorial psalms and the Prayers of the Faithful who are praying in Christ’s name. The priest is not to read the notices, the monitor is not to makes his admonition, nor the choirmaster direct the choir from the same ambo that is used for the word of God. This ambo must be where everybody can see and hear. Evidently, everything must be done not to give the impression those who read are only fulfilling a ritual, or only reading a not very interesting text, simply because it is written down. Reading the word of God is a ministry and should be reserved to those who have been designated and who know what they are doing and why they are doing it and are prepared spiritually for the task.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Let us now summarize what the liturgy tells about the church building. Firstly, the true temple, altar, priest and sacrifice is Christ, and, by extension, his body the Church. The true Church is the community which we enter by baptism and which is formed into the body of Christ by the Eucharist. The church building is an icon of the Church. It gets its name for this reason. It gets its sacred character from the fact that the word of God is heard there and the sacraments celebrated there, and, most especially, because it is the place where the Church gathers for the Eucharist. By using it we participate in the mystery it represents. However, this dignity does not belong to the building permanently until it is consecrated by the bishop who blesses it with water and anoints it with oil, an analogy with baptism and confirmation. When something is blessed with holy water, it is the Church and Christ through the Church laying claim to whatever is blessed, without necessarily determining its use. The blessing with water is an invitation to those taking part to renew their baptism and is used to purify the building from any contamination by sin. This blessing is also used when the church is merely blest. It is the anointing that gives the church its permanent function. Consecration of a church is not a sacrament because it is of ecclesiastical origin, but it is sacramental, in that the gesture of anointing expresses both the Church’s petition and God’s response. The bishop consecrates, but it is the Holy Spirit who makes the church holy, claiming it on behalf of the risen Jesus who is Lord of heaven and earth. Anyone who enters it with the right dispositions shares in the mystery of the Church. Moreover, the building speaks to the world of God by its very presence in the world. Of course, if it looks like a factory or a space ship, it probably won’t be able to fulfil that function, but that is its function.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Within the church, the altar is the only piece of furniture blessed with water and anointed with oil. It should be fixed and in a prominent place, so that all eyes are drawn to it. In a church of the Latin Rite, it is the only object that is so blessed and anointed. On its surface, the Holy Trinity is manifested in the consecration of the bread and wine, the Church is identified with Christ in his sacrifice to the Father, and is taken up through Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension into the presence of the Father, passing through the veil of the Holy of Holies by communion in Christ’s body. It is from the altar that the people are sent forth to be witnesses to “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands." </span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-28553330552911168522018-06-19T13:34:00.001-07:002018-06-20T02:44:03.281-07:00 MYTHS, MONKS AND MONASTERIES<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>INTRODUCTION by G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis & Fr Roger Peck</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales--because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.''</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large; text-align: justify;">― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story…by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality : we rediscover it.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">― C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'.” </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“Myth in general is not merely misunderstood history… nor diabolical illusion… not priestly lying… but at its best, a real unfocused gleam of divine truth on human imagination” (Miracles, 138).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens - at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Orsis, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle." </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">C.S. Lewis's essay <i>Myth Became Fact</i> concludes:</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"This is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Recognising the Creator</b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A universe that is the result of random forces of nature is not purposed; and meaning requires a mind in which to inhere. When God called Abraham, a people were given a future; and somewhere along the way those people would inevitably look back to discover that they also had a past. Looking back they could see God's hand at work in the events of history. God places us in the cleft of the rock and covers us with his hand until his glory has passed by. Only then can we see Him (cf. Ex 33:22). The mythological character of this passage is clear. We live life forwards but understand life backwards. Day unto day takes up the story but night unto night makes known the message, (cf. Ps 19:2-3) We cannot see God face to face but we can see His back (cf. Ex 33:23). The wheel of life has beenstraightened out and become a story. Choices matter, things serve a purpose and life has meaning; and it is the logos, the mind of God, the creator of all that is and the author of history, who provides the necessary context.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But to understand (to stand under) the logos requires imagination. Instead of feeling things psychically or observing them scientifically we need to appreciate them poetically.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"<i>CS Lewis and Tolkien on Myth and Knowledge</i>" by Fr Roger Peck in <b><u><a href="http://www.faith.org.uk/article/march-april-2011-cs-lewis-and-tolkien-on-myth-and-knowledge">Faith Magazine 2011</a></u></b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What can G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis teach us on the New Evangelisation? What do we have to do and what do monks and monasteries have to do with it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">For C.S. Lewis and, perhaps for the Inklings in general, there is concrete experience and abstract thought with imagination that connects the two. Both concrete experience and abstract thought must be analysed by reason in order to discover truth, but this cannot be done until they are made meaningful by being expressed in a coherent story. Nonsense is neither true nor false and it is imagination that makes sense of things. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Our imagination allows us to have many ways of reacting to the world around us, and w</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">ith our imagination we can go beyond the commonplace into other dimensions. Darwin went beyond the strange animals he could see and came up with his theory of evolution to account for them though, at the time, he did not know whether it was fact or fiction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But imagination does much more than spur us on to scientific discovery. It moves us to surprise, fear, loneliness, excitement, suspense, wonder, admiration and the sense of the holy. Sometimes, the reactions are suggested by the place or situation, while others are the product of our own minds or fabrication of our own designs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As Christians, we believe that everything, everybody and every situation, the whole of created reality has a relationship to the Holy Spirit as a story is related to its author. Tolkien tells us that the "Secret Fire", otherwise known as the "Flame Imperishable", is present in all existing things:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Therefore Ilúvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World; and it was called Eä."</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">― Valaquenta</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>, Gandalf the Grey referred to both the Secret Fire and the Flame of Anor at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"You cannot pass, I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">C.S. Lewis argued that our natural desires are evidence for the actual existence of what we naturally desire, and he points out that the desire for something beyond matter is as ancient as humankind itself. He writes:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. (Mere Christianity, 120).</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> As very small children, we look upon the world with wonder; but, as time goes on and all around us becomes ordinary and humdrum, so we seek wonder in stories of magic and great deeds. Actually, it is the beginning of our road to God. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As all human knowledge arises from the use of the senses, knowledge of what is beyond the senses must be inferred in some way from our seeing, touching, tasting, hearing or smelling. This means that the world around us must point beyond itself; but this can only happen if our response to it is fully human and that we can fully see what is truly there. We must develop what has been called the "third eye", learning to see, not only sensible things (first eye), not just what the mind understands by what we see (second eye), but the wonder of it all, a wonder that leads to gratitude and even adoration (third eye of the heart).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If we are of a contemplative disposition, we may recognise that there are "thin places" - to use a traditional Irish phrase - where it is relatively easy to pierce that veil because of its atmosphere, or a place (like a church, for instance)may be made "thin" by design, by icons, music or ritual performance); while another traditional means to help us see beyond is "myth".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is the conviction of Chesterton, Lewis and Tolkien that creative fantasy, by placing the over-familiar in an unfamiliar setting, in an alternative world of magic, of elves and fairies, can allow us to see the true wonder of the world around us. It helps us by presenting us with an invented world to appreciate that there is no logical reason why the world we live in should exist as it is, or even exist at all. It is only one further step to see the world around us with wonder and gratitude: then we are only one step away from the numinous.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Once able to respond to the world around us in a fully human way, not deadened by over-familiarity, we are ready to be encountered by what Rudolf Otto calls the <i>numinous. He </i>says that this lies at the very heart of all religion. [<i>The central experience Otto refers to is the numinous (Latin numen, “spirit”) in which the Other (i.e., the transcendent) appears as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans—that is, a mystery before which man both trembles and is fascinated, is both repelled and attracted. Thus, God can appear both as wrathful or awe inspiring, on the one hand, and as gracious and lovable, on the other. The sense of the numinous, according to Otto, is sui generis, though it may have psychological analogies, and it gives an access to reality, which is categorized as holy.</i> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/study-of-religion/Basic-aims-and-methods#ref420409">Britannica</a></u></b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">C.S. Lewis describes it thus:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Suppose you were told there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told "There is a ghost in the next room," and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is "uncanny" rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply "There is a mighty spirit in the room," and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking—a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of prostration before it—an emotion which might be expressed in Shakespeare's words "Under it my genius is rebuked." This feeling may be described as awe, and the object which excites it as the Numinous.[12]</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Before his conversion, C.S.Lewis was an atheist, but also a great lover of mythology, especially that of Northern Europe. As an atheist, he did not allow his imagination to have anything to do with questions of truth. Truth is the product of the use of reason which can only be distracted by imagination. Myths were the product of the imagination and were, therefore, false, enjoyable but false. It had been pointed out to him that the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ are examples of themes found in other religions and mythologies: they are myths and, therefore, are untrue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It was Tolkien who convinced him that this was mistaken. (In the first video above, there is a re-construction of that conversation.) Anyway, for my purpose in writing this article, it is possible to see the pre-Christian C.S.Lewis as a personification of much that is wrong in secular society where a sharp distinction is made between public and private knowledge and where there are attempts to exclude from the public sphere any reminder of and all reference to Christian belief. This leads to the impoverishment of both imagination and reason. Chesterton, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have set us the task to re-unite the two dimensions of reason and imagination which too often have become divorced. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Of course, all sides recognise the need for rational analysis to find out whether something is true or false, but the rationalists believe that all truth is literal truth, while Chesterton and company were convinced that truth can also be conveyed by symbol and by myth. This is not simply fancy but is due to the very structure of our minds and by the relationship that created reality has with God. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Reason, Imagination and Vatican II</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The "progressive" party in Vatican II was made up of two groups who could not have been more different or more opposed. Both wanted to modernise the Church, one by finding answers to new questions by looking into Tradition in a fresh way and using modern tools of enquiry while accepting the validity of all Catholic Tradition down the ages, the other by adapting the Church's teaching and practice to that of the modern secular world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nowhere was the difference so sharp than what to do with the numinous. We have seen that, for Rudolf Otto and Chesterton and Company, the <i>mysterium tremendum sed fascinans</i> is at the very heart of religious experience. The young Henri de Lubac, around the year 1941, wrote an article in which he noted that the working class in France's industrial cities had largely lost the faith, and he put this down to the absence of any opportunity to experience the numinous. He called for their re-evangelisation and, at the very centre of the Church's requirement was, he said, a reform of the liturgy so that ordinary people could encounter and experience the holy in their lives. This would be absolutely essential is any evangelisation were to be successful, and it became one of the main motives of this group like Ratzinger and others in the Council for liturgical reform. You can imagine their disappointment and horror when the other group rejected the numinous for horizontal human relationships!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The other group that had major influence towards the end of the liturgical revision, wishing to adapt the Church to modern life and realising that openness to the numinous is not a major characteristic of modern man, attempted to replace it by human solidarity "in Christ". Modern humanity does not need a dependence on any numinous figure, they said, because it had "come of age" and has learnt to look after itself with its knowledge of the world that science has given. Of course, the All Powerful God had enabled human beings to stand on their own feet as His images. Hence, away with all this grovelling and, in its place, let us put where human strangth lies, the unity among humans for whom Christ died. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The main texts of the "new Mass" were generally very good, and the new Eucharistic prayers were based on the sound Tradition which had been gleaned from the worldwide Church. However, the ceremony and the changes in the setting of the Mass "in the spirit of Vatican II" often favoured the second group. Horizontal relationships received most of the emphasis. The importance of the sacred was underplayed or even taken out of the ceremony all together. Ratzinger had to watch what he and most of his companions saw as the inevitable result as people voted with their feet. Churches emptied, vocations plummeted. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The problem was not change in itself, nor even in the texts of the New Mass which had been largely written by the first group. Pope Benedict, whatever he said in his pain, kept the texts as the ones in principal use and he normally celebrated the New Mass himself both publicly and privately. The problem was the <i>way</i> it was too often celebrated, and the way modern churches became purely functional, eliminating all depiction of the transcendental, all sense of the liturgy being where heaven and earth are united, where the people become one with the angels and the saints. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">An atheist's world is purely functional, and anything else is the product of the artist's own feelings and attitudes and tells us nothing about the world we live in. On the other hand, a believer's world symbolises, indicates and sometimes manifests the divine presence, and it is sacramental by its very essence as created being, and we celebrate the Mass in the company of the angels and saints. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I do not know why so many post-Vatican II churches, as well as "modernised" interiors of old churches do the atheists' work for them by emphasising the functions of priest and people but failing to put adequate emphasis on the transcendent dimensions, those that cannot be seen but are present and active in the liturgy of priest and people and are the very reason for the celebration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This was in no way universal. There are wonderful celebrations of the <i>Missa Normativa </i>and they are becoming more and more common. Moreover, churches are being renovated in ways that are in keeping with the Catholic view of the world, especially in America.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What can C.S. Lewis and company teach us about evangelisation?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I believe the first thing is that we must base everything on prayer because we cannot give what we haven't got. Secondly, our campaign must embrace the whole person, his imaginative life as well as his intellectual life because they cannot be separated. Our liturgy must address all the senses and we must be clear what we are telling people in the liturgy which will be so celebrated that we become aware that we are celebrating in the presence of God, that we are encountering Christ and that we find our unity in Christ. Also we are only instruments of Christ, servants of "the Secret Fire", content to do as much or as little in this mission according to his will. We are only successfully evangelising if we are concentrating on allowing him to evangelise through us, in his way, not ours. The strongest actor in <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> is, without doubt, Divine Providence that chooses unlikely people to do improbable things. We will only succeed if we permit this to happen and remain alert when it happens. I am conscious that God chose an anti-Catholic, small town, Assembly of God preacher, David Wilkerson, to inspire the beginnings of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal which successive popes have recognised as a major work of the Holy Spirit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Origins of Monastic Life</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is clear from Scripture and Tradition that there is only one Christian life that makes absolute demands on all Christians. We must meet Christ and find in him the means to love God with our whole being, with everything we've got and are, and we must love one another as Christ loves us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Belmont Abbey</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We are all, without exception made in his image, and he is united to all human beings without exception by his Incarnation, so that he died for all and rose for all.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Moreover, whatever God's will is for each of us, we must do it from sacramental moment to sacramental moment as his Providence demands. In this way we become more and more like him because we share in his love for the Father and the Father's love for him in the unity of the Holy Spirit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Valaam (Orthodox)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the early Church, in the time of persecution, all knew that they could be asked to give all and die for Christ. They knew that, becoming one with him in the Eucharist, they could be called to be one host with him in martyrdom, to drink the same cup of martyrdom as he drank. Possible martyrdom was implied by the Eucharist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hence there was a crisis when Constantine was converted and martyrdom stopped. Monasticism was adopted by some as a substitute for martyrdom and was adopted by others because they found it too difficult to live an authentic Christian life and a comfortable worldly life at the same time. Nevertheless, Abbot Antony, after much suffering from the devil and years of solitary prayer, was told by God that a married man in Alexandria had reached a higher sanctity than Antony. This married man's openness to God was greater than Antony's, and it is God who makes saints.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>Why do I believe that monastic communities are so important in the New Evangelisation?</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Taize Community</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A monastic community would be of no direct use in evangelisation if a monastic vocation were of a different kind from the people who come in contact with them. Missionary orders are probably more geared to helping missionaries, teaching orders help teachers, medical orders have a special affinity with doctors and nurses etc, but a monastic community specialises in what all other vocations have in common, in what makes them Christian. Whether you are celibate or married, priest, religious or lay person, you will find at the very core of your particular vocation what you have in common with monks and nuns. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Moreover, you will find the whole environment of a monastery is an expression of reality as it is seen and understood by those with a Christian vision: it is a Christian world in miniature. The most common reaction of visitors is, "How peaceful it is here!" Jesus said that where two or more are gathered together in his name, he is present among them; and he prayed that we should be one as he is with the Father and the Father with him, "that the world might know" that he had been sent by the Father. In a monastery, the visible world speaks of God, concrete fact and imagination combine to give us a sense of God's presence; and all this happens before any explanation has been given. Monastic life presents people with a question which, when they ask it, the answer is the Gospel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The modern world has made itself largely opaque to God. Concrete reality has been turned into a brick wall between God and us. A monastery serves as a window through which you can come to see what everything is about, a window to God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Monasteries, like myths,takes what all Christians have in common and "</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’" It does this by placing them in what for most people is an unfamiliar setting. Being a guest in a monastery is like enjoying a really good myth </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> in that he comes to see </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">with new eyes</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">what is common and humdrum. The Gospel message has tended to lose its punch. its power to astonish, under the 'veil of familiarity', and monasteries are just what are needed in the mission to re-evangelise the lapsed, which is what the New Evangelisation is all about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Carmelite Convent</b></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-90346225201899232872018-06-15T07:08:00.001-07:002018-06-15T11:37:40.642-07:00THE CONVERSION STORY OF C.S. LEWIS by Andrea Monda<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The most dejected, reluctant convert in all England</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="https://www.ewtn.com/library/SPIRIT/cslewconv.htm">my source: EWTN</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England" (Surprised By Joy, ch. 14, p. 266).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Speaking these words is Clive Staples Lewis, known to his friends simply as "Jack", a Professor of English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. Lewis was born in 1898 into an Anglo-Irish family at Belfast. After what he calls a blandly Christian childhood he threw himself heart and soul into a rationalist and idealist atheism that he professed and lived.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Young Jack's intelligence was subtle, his curiosity boundless, his acumen amazing, his dialectic power exceptional; yet something came into play that shattered his seemingly firm belief in the inexistence of God, for in life there is always something else, something unforeseen, unnoticed or surprising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Surprised by Joy is perhaps one of the most beautiful titles that can be given to a book that is to tell the story of a conversion and it is this title that C.S. Lewis chose for his autobiography, which he wrote at the age of 56. However, it concerns only his first 30 years, because, as he wrote in the preface, "I never read an autobiography in which the parts devoted to the earlier years were not far the most interesting".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In 1955, C.S. Lewis' passionate interest in the first years of human life was a natural, as it were, "obligatory" choice. In those very years the publication of the seven episodes of the Chronicles of Narnia was nearing completion. This was the literary work which, together, with the Screwtape Letters, was to place him among the most read authors, famous throughout the world (it overshadowed, however, his excellent philological research in mediaeval Anglo-Saxon literature).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Even his well-known novels of pure fantasy focus on the theme of youth and conversion. In a passage from Mere Christianity, Lewis speaks of an "emblematic" boy whom he calls Dick, and writes several words that could be taken as summing up the Narnia saga: "It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost him crucifixion....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"As long as Dick does not turn to God, he thinks his niceness is his own, and just as long as he thinks that, it is not his own. It is only when Dick realizes that his niceness is not his own but a gift from God, and when he offers it back to God — it is just then that it begins to be really his own. For now Dick is beginning to take a share in his own creation. The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Dick is not only Edmund, the small boy for whom the lion Aslan gives his life, letting himself be killed in the second episode of Narnia; Dick is obviously Jack.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">To borrow Bonhoeffer's words, the story of Lewis' conversion recounted in Surprised by Joy is a story of resistance and surrender. From this viewpoint the book can be seen as a diary in which the writer notes the movements of his soul, shaken, enthralled and at last overcome by God's assault, a diary of Joy (God's Name, according to Lewis), to be followed six years later by the very short and intense A Grief Observed, written after the death of his wife (who, as chance would have it, was called Joy).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the middle of his autobiography Lewis writes: "Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about 'man's search for God'", but Lewis is no longer an "amiable agnostic" and no longer speaks "cheerfully", because he has experienced God's "compelling embrace" and how awe-inspiring his beauty and joy can be. These were the two poles on which Jack staked his entire life, Beauty and its fruit, Joy, "an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense), has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the light of this idea of joy, so intermingled with pain, one glimpses the depth of the image of Aslan, the divine lion who plays the lead role in the Chronicles of Narnia, one of the most surprising Christological figures of 20th-century literature. Aslan, a symbol at the same time of God the Creator and Christ the Redeemer and who sacrifices himself for love, is a lion, at the same time good and majestic, gentle and terrible, because for Lewis God is a lion who goes in search of man, hunts him down and embraces him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully", he confides in Surprised by Joy. "Dangers lie in wait for him on every side".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A permanent state of siege, this is what life was for C.S. Lewis, an assault that, paradoxically exalted the humility of God who, like the father of the Prodigal Son, goes in search of all, even the one who endeavours to flee from his embrace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?... The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The world is a dangerous place, especially for those who desire to keep their incredulity intact and prevent God from starting this process of liberation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And Lewis lists all the perils that attacked and then undermined the foundations of his atheism: the beauty of nature and art, the gift of joy with which life regales us in an ever sudden and unexpected manner and then the encounter with others, real people, physically known and those met through the mediation of reading.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Among these numerous "dangerous encounters", it is worth citing three which played a crucial role in the process of the conversion of the English writer: Chesterton, MacDonald and Tolkien.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for", he writes in Surprised by Joy. "A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere — 'Bibles laid open, millions of surprises', as Herbert say, 'fine nets and stratagems'. God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It was to be precisely Chesterton's books, (namely The Eternal Man), and those of MacDonald, (in particular The Shadows), that "would prepare" young Jack for the "capitulation" which, however, would only happen with the final blow, dealt by his meeting with Tolkien.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They met towards the end of the 1920s in Oxford, both enamoured of the ancient sagas and legends, and a more than 40-year-long friendship was to develop between them which led to the birth of the novels that are famous today: Narnia and The Lord of the Rings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Although in 1929 Jack was already on his knees and had prayed to God desperately and reluctantly, it was Tolkien's friendship that brought him to the encounter with Christ. On 19 September 1931, Jack and "Toilers" (as Tolkien was called by his closest friends), together with their common friend Hugo Dyson, were taking their usual after-dinner stroll in the grounds of Magdalen College and began discussing ancient myths and the Truth "hidden" in these legends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They talked until after three o'clock in the morning and a few days later Lewis wrote to his old friend Arthur Greeves, saying: "I have just passed on from believing in God to definitely believing in Christ, in Christianity.... My long night talk with Dyson and Tolkien had a great deal to do with it", and that he would explain it at some other time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Like Nicodemus, Lewis the intellectual had his night filled with light and his life changed radically. From that moment he became an ardent defender of faith regained and a refined popularizer of Christian truth: still today his essays on faith, grief and love are among the most effective works of 20th century Christian apologetics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this regard his parable is reminiscent of Chesterton's; although Lewis never succeeded in taking the formal steps to enter the Catholic Church (although he did so substantially, which is borne out by the numerous signs of his crypto-Catholicism, and not the least his splendid correspondence with Don Giovanni Calabria, his story, like that of the inventor of Father Brown, was that of a heart and a mind that surrendered to the joy which flows from the Good News and sweeps away all the fantasies and lucubrations of human rationalism (quite different from reason, which is a marvellous gift of God).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Chesterton converted to Catholicism in 1922, a few years before Lewis, and was thus able to pass on to us two affirmations to which Jack would have fully subscribed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The first is found in his essay: The Catholic Church and Conversion, in which he declares: "The mark of faith is not tradition; it is conversion. It is the miracle by which men find truth in spite of tradition and often with the rending of all the roots of humanity.... A century or two hence Spiritualism may be a tradition and Socialism may be a tradition and Christian Science may be a tradition. But Catholicism will not be a tradition. It will still be a nuisance and a new and dangerous thing...".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The second is found in a poem, written precisely on the occasion of his conversion to the Catholic faith:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"...The sages have a hundred maps to give</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They rattle reason out through many a sieve</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">That stores the sand and lets the gold go free;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And all these things are less than dust to me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Because my name is Lazarus and I live"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(The Convert).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Taken from:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">L'Osservatore Romano</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Weekly Edition in English</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">16 July 2008, page 4</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">L'Osservatore Romano is the newspaper of the Holy See.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Zj9M6_LTyWY/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zj9M6_LTyWY?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-91946187794344264502018-06-07T13:39:00.001-07:002018-06-07T13:39:56.020-07:00LOOKING AT "PENTECOST IS NOT THE CHURCH'S BIRTHDAY" BY FATHER STEPHEN FREEMAN, AN ORTHODOX PRIEST<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Like so much Orthodox writing, there is nothing more profoundly true, more beautiful, more necessary for balancing East and West and as a corrective to popular misconception, more enlightening but also more frustrating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Before we go further, please read the article <b><u><a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2018/05/28/pentecost-is-not-the-churchs-birthday/">here</a></u></b>. It is well worth reading and may advance your appreciation of the Church as communion in the Christian Mystery. As a Catholic, I found myself agreeing with every line as I was led, sentence by sentence, into the very centre of what it means to belong to the Church. And then came the frustrating bit: "It [the Church] can have no birthday." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This rules out any context in which it would be legitimate and true to call Pentecost the "birthday of the Church", even though it is often spoken about in this way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I have found that there is a frustrating tendency among Orthodox that, in their anxiety to distinguish Orthodoxy from heterodoxy, they are too ready to distinguish and contrast their particular "doxy" from everybody else's, as though they have forgotten the inadequacy of human language and the apophatic nature of theology in relation to the Christian Mystery that should lead to caution and make us slow to rule out what does not fit in with our own vocabulary.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Apophatic Theology by Andrew Louth (19 mins)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Another example of this enthusiasm for unjustifiably discovering error in differences was the great Russian theologian Nicolas Afanassieff. No one had dug so deeply into the Catholic truth on the nature of the Church as he did. His "eucharistic ecclesiology" was accepted by theologians across the division and became common ground in the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. It was adopted by Vatican II and by subsequent popes and has always been a central pillar in the theology of Pope Benedict XVI Thus, for the first time in centuries, we have our Catholic-Orthodox discussions based on a common theological principle: where the eucharistic community is there is the Catholic Church and thus all the Church's powers have their source in its liturgical life where the Holy Spirit and the Church work in synergy. This view of the Church hasn't automatically abolished our differences, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Afannassiev contrasts the understanding of the Church in the writings of St Ignatius of Antioch with those of St Cyprian of Carthage. In the first, the Catholic Church is identified with the local church under its bishop. It is the body of Christ because its members eat the same bread and drink of the same cup. As "body", the local church is not <i>part</i> of the Church but the whole. Just as in a ciborium of consecrated hosts each host is Christ and all together are the same Christ, so each local church is Christ and all together are the same Christ. True Christian unity is nothing less than the unity of identity. There is only one episcopal throne in which the same Christ presides as head of his body in each local church and; as there is no authority higher than Christ, there is no higher authority than the local bishop. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">According to Afannassiev, St Cyprian of Carthage has a very different vision of the Catholic Church. If for St Ignatius the word "catholic" meant "fullness" in the sense that the fullness and wholeness of truth and revelation is present in every local church and is thus fully "catholic" for this reason, for St Cyprian, "catholic" meant "universal", "worldwide", and each Catholic local church is part of the universal whole, the worldwide Catholic Church and is fully Catholic only in so far as it is part. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">How is the Church one throughout the world if it is divided into a multitude of local churches? St Cyprian applied St Paul's teaching on the make-up of the local church to solve the problem of the worldwide Church: <i>ecclesia per totum mundum in multa membra divisa</i> (the worldwide Church is divided into many members. The Church is one because there is one God alone, one Christ, one Church, one Throne of Peter whom the word of God has made its foundation stone. Every bishop is a successor of St Peter only in so far as he is part of the episcopate. There is discussion on to what extent the Bishop of Rome where St Peter was buried had any role in the concord between bishops that St Cyprian considered so important.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thus Afannassieff contrasted two ecclesiologies, one, eucharistic ecclesiology which is based on St Paul's teaching to the local church of Corinth and found in the letters of St Ignatius; the other based on more empirical concerns, modelled, he says, on the Roman Empire. The first is sacramental, and the second must inevitably be seen to be legalistic. The first is basically Orthodox, even though in practice, it often uses the universalist approach; while the second is expressed in the papal dogmas of Vatican I, even if the first can be found in Catholic theological circles when dealing with the liturgy and other subjects.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Those who think and act according to the eucharistic model place ecclesial charity as the sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit and as the force behind doctrinal agreement and Christian unity: Ubi caritas, Deus ibi est. Those who think and act according to the universalist model place Canon Law at the very centre and only recognise ecclesial charity as it is active within the boundaries set by law. Hence, Catholics divide the Christian world into two parts, Catholic and non-Catholic, according to whether they accept papal jurisdiction or not. There are Orthodox who only accept the validity of sacraments celebrated within the context of "canonical communion". They re-baptise anyone who was baptised within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev patriarchate) because their patriarchate is not recognised by the other patriarchates. Canonicity is supreme!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">For those who think according to the eucharistic model, ecclesial authority is principally an authority of witness as St Irenaeus interpreted the authority of the Roman Church. Other churches, looking at their own faith which is the product of Tradition that springs from their own liturgical life, recognise the principal church as a shining example of what they themselves believe in, so that they are enlightened when they are in doubt, receive help when they are in need, and are guided when they do not know the way forward. This principle church helps the other churches to be themselves, to be true to Tradition which is fundamentally the same in each identical church. Their obedience to this central see is an exercise in ecclesial love. Obedience to a central see is not only a recognition of Christ in that see, but is evidence of the presence of Christ in their own church because he was "Obedient unto death." In Christian life, humble obedience is a mark of authenticity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In fact, both Catholic and Orthodox theologians have questioned Afannassiev's thesis that St Ignatius and St Cyprian were in disagreement:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">a) St Cyprian's statement that the church is in the bishop and the bishop in the Church is very much like St Ignatius</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">b) Nowhere does Afannassiev offer proof that the two disagreed: it is simply taken for granted by him</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">c) The Church of East and West revere both saints and look at the Church, local and worldwide, as Catholic both in its local and worldwide dimensions and use the word "Catholic Church" as being proper to both.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is sometimes a weakness of Orthodox argument that an Orthodox ideal, in all its simplicity and depth, is set in contrast against a theory based on empirical evidence that remains besmirched by human sinfulness. The empirical evidence is ignored, condemned or forgotten as irrelevant or even heterodox. It is forgotten that the two arguments do not oppose each other because the problem is being looked at from two different angles or is being solved in two different dimensions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In a religion of the Incarnation, a problem cannot be wholly solved if the empirical dimension in which it is embedded is ignored. A local church is the <b>whole </b>church<b> </b>in so far as it is a complete expression of the Christian Mystery as celebrated in the liturgy: Christ is completely present within it. It is also a <b>part</b> of the Church in so far as it is a local or regional community that has to manifest universal salvation in Christ together to the world with all who are in Christ throughout the world. The universal Catholic Church is such that each part contains and manifests the whole, and the whole is nothing less than heaven and the cosmos together participating in the life of the Trinity in and through Christ. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Let us now look at the thesis of Father Stephen Freeman who, I believe, falls into the same error as Father Afannassiev. His positive contribution to our understanding and appreciation of the Church is excellent, but he does not do enough justice to the Incarnation because he seems to forget the Church in the world, as it has been embedded in history, as it lives its life in this world, as it looks forward to the Second Coming, also deserves theological treatment as an embedded reality. How would his understanding be seen by St Maria Skobtsova? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As Father Stephen truly says, being Church is to share in the divine life, and this means sharing in the life of the Holy Trinity. " The three persons of the Holy Trinity constitute the eternal Church." We all know that God is eternal and that eternal life is sharing in the life of God. We also know that the Holy Trinity has no birthday.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">However, the second person of the Holy Trinity has! We celebrate the Annunciation when God became man in the womb of the Virgin so that we can share the tri-une divine life, "become God". Thus, the Holy Spirit worked in synergy with the humble obedience of the Virgin Mary, and Jesus was born. There is nothing wrong to say that the Church was born when God became man, because, without the Incarnation, the Holy Trinity would never have constituted the eternal Church. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">However, when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles is the traditional birthday of the Church. The Holy Spirit and the Christian community working in synergy brings about the Church. Without the Holy Spirit there would be no baptism, no Eucharist, no Church; so it could be said that Pentecost brought about the Church.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As Father Stephen tells us, eternal life is not merely the restoration or renewal of this world: it is a new reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Cor. 5:17)</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This “new” does not mean “getting a fresh start.” It means something that did not exist before. It is not a repair of the old, but the creation of a new – and this new is “according to the image of Him who created him. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Notice St Paul's present tense. All things are new now and we are a new creation. Jesus is Lord of the world by means of his death and resurrection.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> What was new in Paris during the Nazi occupation? Well, Mother Maria Skobtsova was new. The divine Love of the holy Trinity in which she shared, that completely eternal, completely new love of God that she poured out to the people, that became embedded in their history, that is new. There were many more who suffered and died under Hitler or under Stalin. It wasn't that they were heroes, heroism is as old as humanity, but that the love that they were imparting was that of God himself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Let us explore as deeply as possible our faith, but never let us go so deeply below the surface that we ignore what is going on in plain light of day</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>June 8th: Feast of the Sacred Heart</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b><br /></b><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I know that many will look on the title of this article and will exclaim, "How preposterous!" It is well known that this is a purely western devotion: it oozes Roman Catholicism! How can a devotion so western, so post-schism, be where East and West meet? I am not suggesting that, one day, some time in the future, this devotion may become a meeting place. Nor am I saying that, for it to to become an expression of unity, the Orthodox have to adopt the devotion. I am saying that East and West unite in this devotion, without either side having to do anything: it manifests a unity that already exists. It is a unity at a very profound level; though, unfortunately, its discovery is not enough to provide answers to all our differences, nor does it herald an immediate union between East and West.</span></i><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-large;"> please click on:</b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> <b><u><a href="https://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com/search?q=the+sacred+heart+and+the+orthodox">WHERE EAST AND WEST UNITE: IN THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS </a></u></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.mountangelabbey.org/files/library/sacred-heart-icon_gm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="551" height="640" src="https://www.mountangelabbey.org/files/library/sacred-heart-icon_gm.jpg" width="440" /></a></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-20185863467386135712018-05-31T06:40:00.001-07:002018-05-31T06:48:03.923-07:00MAY 31st: THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY: MARY AS THE ARK OF THE COVENANT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrdUsyfhDcBSt28aslY2gwBjCip6PI-WA-G7shkzGpV50UaATMqHWLAtsbchI6rUAFTYq7fT1-0hKwlXOhXEabf0Lcvvgle9N0Dfcoshd6IYHdFYORc2093Xo5ohaqO867xmGAPNFtaS8/s1600/Visitation+from+Altarpiece+of+the+Virgin+by+Jacques+Daret,+1434.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrdUsyfhDcBSt28aslY2gwBjCip6PI-WA-G7shkzGpV50UaATMqHWLAtsbchI6rUAFTYq7fT1-0hKwlXOhXEabf0Lcvvgle9N0Dfcoshd6IYHdFYORc2093Xo5ohaqO867xmGAPNFtaS8/s1600/Visitation+from+Altarpiece+of+the+Virgin+by+Jacques+Daret,+1434.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2013-05-31">my source: Catholic Culture</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Old Calendar: Corpus Christi; Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary; St. Petronilla, virgin</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The feast of the Visitation recalls to us the following great truths and events: The visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth shortly after the Annunciation; the cleansing of John the Baptist from original sin in the womb of his mother at the words of Our Lady's greeting; Elizabeth's proclaiming of Mary—under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost—as Mother of God and "blessed among women"; Mary's singing of the sublime hymn, Magnificat ("My soul doth magnify the Lord") which has become a part of the daily official prayer of the Church. The Visitation is frequently depicted in art, and was the central mystery of St. Francis de Sales' devotions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Mass of today salutes her who in her womb bore the King of heaven and earth, the Creator of the world, the Son of the Eternal Father, the Sun of Justice. It narrates the cleansing of John from original sin in his mother's womb. Hearing herself addressed by the most lofty title of "Mother of the Lord" and realizing what grace her visit had conferred on John, Mary broke out in that sublime canticle of praise proclaiming prophetically that henceforth she would be venerated down through the centuries:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me, and holy is His name" (Lk. 1:46).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">—Excerpted from the <i>Cathedral Daily Missal</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This feast is of medieval origin, it was kept by the Franciscan Order before 1263, and soon its observance spread throughout the entire Church. Previously it was celebrated on July 2. Now it is celebrated between the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord and the birth of St. John the Baptist, in conformity with the Gospel accounts. Some places appropriately observe a celebration of the reality and sanctity of human life in the womb. The liturgical color is white.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Petronilla. The feast of the Queenship of Mary is now celebrated in the Ordinary Rite on August 22.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Aurelia Petronilla was guided in the Faith by St. Peter, the first pope. She died three days after refusing to marry a pagan nobleman, Flaccus. There is no historic proof that she was martyred, but an early fresco clearly represents her as a martyr. Her feast is no longer on the calendar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Visitation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And Mary rising up in those days went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda. [Lk. 1:39]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">How lyrical that is, the opening sentence of St. Luke's description of the Visitation. We can feel the rush of warmth and kindness, the sudden urgency of love that sent that girl hurrying over the hills. "Those days" in which she rose on that impulse were the days in which Christ was being formed in her, the impulse was his impulse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Many women, if they were expecting a child, would refuse to hurry over the hills on a visit of pure kindness. They would say they had a duty to themselves and to their unborn child which came before anything or anyone else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Mother of God considered no such thing. Elizabeth was going to have a child, too, and although Mary's own child was God, she could not forget Elizabeth's need—almost incredible to us, but characteristic of her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">She greeted her cousin Elizabeth, and at the sound of her voice, John quickened in his mother's womb and leapt for joy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I am come, said Christ, that they may have life and may have it more abundantly. [Jn. 10, 10] Even before He was born His presence gave life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">With what piercing shoots of joy does this story of Christ unfold! First the conception of a child in a child's heart, and then this first salutation, an infant leaping for joy in his mother's womb, knowing the hidden Christ and leaping into life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">How did Elizabeth herself know what had happened to Our Lady? What made her realize that this little cousin who was so familiar to her was the mother of her God?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">She knew it by the child within herself, by the quickening into life which was a leap of joy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If we practice this contemplation taught and shown to us by Our Lady, we will find that our experience is like hers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If Christ is growing in us, if we are at peace, recollected, because we know that however insignificant our life seems to be, from it He is forming Himself; if we go with eager wills, "in haste," to wherever our circumstances compel us, because we believe that He desires to be in that place, we shall find that we are driven more and more to act on the impulse of His love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And the answer we shall get from others to those impulses will be an awakening into life, or the leap into joy of the already wakened life within them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Excerpted from <i>The Reed of God</i>, Caryll Houselander</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>COMMENTARY</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What we call the "Old Testament" and what the first Christians called the "Scriptures" was regarded in the first Christian centuries as God's own commentary on the Gospel. Its primary function, its truest meaning is revealed when it illuminates our understanding of the Christian Mystery. Hence, we cannot really understand the Annunciation without the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, nor can we understand the Visitation without the Visit of the Ark of the Covenant</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Fall</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a9b33bc8f45d3315f7ff2863b775b589-c" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="250" src="https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a9b33bc8f45d3315f7ff2863b775b589-c" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the Fall, there were two acts of disobedience, firstly, that of Eve and, secondly, that of Adam. Adam's sin was facilitated by Eve's sin and, perhaps, would not have happened if Eve had not tempted him. However, according to primitive beliefs, it was Adam as the male that had all his human descendants stored up in seed form in his loins, so that it was his sin, rather than that of Eve that radically changed the relationship between the human race and God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Looking at our salvation through spectacles provided by the Adam and Eve story, we must look for two acts of humble obedience that correspond to the acts of disobedience in the story of the Fall. These are the act of obedience of the Blessed Virgin Mary expressed in the words, "Behold the Slave of the Lord! May it be done to me according to your Word", and the act of obedience of Jesus expressed in the words, "Not my will but yours be done."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Both sentences expressed a life of total commitment which led Jesus to be obedient unto death and which led Mary to the foot of the Cross and beyond to her faithful presence in the Apostolic community until death and her Assumption. Jesus is the New Adam and Mary is the New Eve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Annunciation</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this story, Mary is a young girl, married to Joseph but not yet old enough to be living with him. He announces to her the Good News that she is about to become Mother of the Messiah, and she recognises that it is a vocation she simply cannot accomplish, something way beyond her powers: "How can this be since I am a virgin?" The angel's answer, while giving her the solution, tells her that she cannot do it by herself because the child will be Son</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">of the Most High: she is to become the Theotokos, the "Godbearer" and can only do so by working in "sinergia" with the Holy Soirit. The Incarnation reqiires TWO causes, the presence within her of the Holy Spirit to <i>enable</i> her to become Mother of God, and her own humble obedience to <i>allow</i> the Holy Spirit to do his work. His power and her obedience working as one will bring about the Incarnation and will thus make possible that obedience unto death of Christ by which we have been saved. As Eve's disobedience created the context for the disobedience of Adam by which all were alienated from God, so Mary's obedience created the context for Christ's obedience by which we are saved.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her!”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The early fathers found the real significance of the Visitation in the parallel between the Ark of the Covenant and the Blessed Virgin Mary who, after the Annunciation, bore the divine Presence through the presence of Christ in her womb. As Maximos of Turin says, "What can one say that the Ark was if not Holy Mary, because the Ark bore the tables of the Law while Mary bore the Master of those tables."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">St Luke, having shown that Mary's vocation is only possible if the Holy Spirit and Mary's humble obedience act completely together in unison, now wishes to show us how this works. Through her obedience, Mary has become Christ-bearer. She is the Ark of the Covenant, not just for herself, but for others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Having heard her cousin Elizabeth is in need she hurriedly "<i>rose and went</i>" to a town in the hill country of Judea, just as<b> David</b> "<i>rose and went</i>" to the same area to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After Uzzah was struck dead for inadvertently touching the Ark, <b>David</b> exclaimed, "<i>How can the Ark of God come to me?</i>", just as <b>Elizabeth</b> exclaimed on meeting <b>Mary</b>, "</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?</i>"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Just as the <b>Ark</b> remained in the property of Obededom <i>for three months</i>, so <b>Mary</b> remained with Elizabeth <i>for three months</i>, and God blessed Obededom and his household.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As <b>David</b> <i>danced for joy</i> in the presence of the Ark, so the infant<b> John the Baptist</b> <i>jumped for joy</i> in his mother's womb as his mother praised Mary and both were conscious of being in the presence of Jesus in whom God was united to his creation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thus the immediate result of the coming of the Holy Spirit on Mary, working through her humble obedience which we remembered on her feast of the Annunciation, was for Mary to become the new Ark of the Covenant. In icons this is often symbolised by the presence of two cherubim above her head. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> On the feast of the Visitation, we see this Presence of Christ in Mary at work. Her obedience to God is shown as she makes herself disposed to help Elizabeth. However ordinary this visit may seem, beneath the surface of ordinary events he Holy Spirit is at work. Her humble obedience allows the Spirit to transform an ordinary event into an event of salvation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If Mary is the Ark of the Covenant, so is the Church that she personifies because, at its very heart is the Eucharist. Each one of us, as we receive the eucharistic Lord into ourselves, also become Church and Ark of the Covenant; "He who eats my body and drinks my blood, I live in him and he in me." Christians are "Christ-bearers."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As we are humbly obedience to God, let us ask the prayers of Our Lady that we may make Christ's presence in the world who is present in us. May the world see Christ's presence in us as it shines through the quality of our love, just as it did through the love that Mary had for Elizabeth.</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-6952921576356031912018-05-25T03:14:00.001-07:002018-05-26T12:19:57.038-07:00RUSSIA'S TRAGEDY: Letter #30 20018 by Dr ROBERT MOYNIHAN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2a/7d/e6/2a7de6431b00cbbbcb713a8130a96642.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="557" height="640" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2a/7d/e6/2a7de6431b00cbbbcb713a8130a96642.jpg" width="444" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://insidethevatican.com/about-us/dr-robert-moynihan/">Dr Robert Moynihan</a></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"But the priority of God, we have forgotten, concerns us all." —Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, in the Russian-language preface to a new translation of his book <i>The Spirit of the Liturgy</i>, presented yesterday, May 23, in Moscow</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"If God is not the most important, then the whole scale of values is changed. By rejecting God, man condemns himself to necessity, which then subjects him to all material forces, contrary to his dignity." —Emeritus Pope Benedict, in the same preface. The subjection of man to necessity is the essential consequence of a materialistic pragmatism which denies the reality of the spiritual, the transcendent, therefore, the reality of God. It is, in essence, atheism — and this subjection to necessity is not worthy of man, Ratzinger is saying. However, during the 20th century, Russia passed through 70 years of official, government-imposed atheism, an experience which deeply marked the Russian soul</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>(Below, a photo of the Romanov family from 1913)</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhAONlGjiFZpkx1sKByafuYhfUIp7cIxOVZdWVCWdqs641ZtgsfKdYBP1yAnUKDT9JqAWpiPO0ewtFx29l4a_CgNEYqOc6UeQkYE2AYSRF69xsHiR85SWPdXgpMBPSN2sYpveSNyfEZztj9eX01NqOMNrdnEHlUWckxU9UXK1qCWqOOLsnx2416S6exHLvny44yKOXXyrgIOtUULGFJuLw41wbiHCCw=s0-d-e1-ft" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="299" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhAONlGjiFZpkx1sKByafuYhfUIp7cIxOVZdWVCWdqs641ZtgsfKdYBP1yAnUKDT9JqAWpiPO0ewtFx29l4a_CgNEYqOc6UeQkYE2AYSRF69xsHiR85SWPdXgpMBPSN2sYpveSNyfEZztj9eX01NqOMNrdnEHlUWckxU9UXK1qCWqOOLsnx2416S6exHLvny44yKOXXyrgIOtUULGFJuLw41wbiHCCw=s0-d-e1-ft" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"I am writing to invite you to join with me on a pilgrimage to the heart of Russia on one of the most solemn and historic of occasions. I propose to travel to the Ural mountains, the border between Europe and Asia, to the city of Ekaterinburg, on the 100th anniversary of a tragic event in that city: the execution of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei. That execution occurred on July 17, 1918. On July 17, 2018, exactly 100 years later, the Russian Orthodox Church will celebrate a solemn liturgy of remembrance in Ekaterinburg, which will remember the death of the Romanovs. I invite you to join me." —<b>Invitation</b> to join a pilgrimage this July to Russia (see below)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"There will be one purpose only: to stand as witnesses, to give testimony to our solidarity with all who are caught up in the violence of civil wars and revolutions, in a place — where the executions occurred — and at a time — exactly 100 years after the executions — which seem fitting... We do not wish to make any sort of political statement at all, in any form. We wish only to bear witness to our solidarity with all who suffer in the convulsions of civil war, especially children, but also the parents of children, who suffer great pangs of sorrow at the brutality that man is capable of visiting on other men, especially on the most innocent." —From the invitation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Eleven Russians meet Pope Francis in Rome....</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There was a little-noted event on Wednesday, May 23, in Rome -- a small group of young Russian Orthodox men met briefly with Pope Francis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At a time when Orthodoxy and Catholicism remain divided, at a time when the media in the West report ceaselessly on the evidently deepening political and military tensions between Russia and the West, this meeting was a sign of something different.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A sign of opening, or dialogue, of possible friendship, or possible collaboration... of possible peace between brother traditions and brother Churches. After all, the Orthodox trace their spiritual patrimony back to St. Andrew, the brother of... St. Peter...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The meeting was sponsored, in part, by the Foundation which we created in 2012 to try to bring the "two lungs" of Christianity into greater harmony -- the "Urbi et Orbi" Foundation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Here is a brief Osservatore Romano report on the meeting (<a href="https://ilsismografo.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/vaticano-11-giovani-ortodossi-salutano.html">link</a>):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>WEDNESDAY 23 MAY 2018</b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Vatican City</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">11 young Orthodox greet Pope Francis</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The </span>Osservatore<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Romano</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This morning's general audience was also an occasion to relaunch ecumenical dialogue: for the third consecutive year, in the framework of cultural exchanges between the Holy See and the Patriarchate of Moscow, eleven Orthodox youths led by Bishop Arsenij of Juriev greeted personally the Pope.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They are in Rome, from May 19 to 26, for a study visit that will allow them to get to know the Catholic Church closely.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"This initiative has a fraternal character of reciprocity and exchange, because the same type of visit is also carried out by Catholic priests who are welcomed in Moscow by Patriarch Kirill," explains Fr. Hyacinthe Destivelle, official of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the unity of Christians.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(L'Osservatore Romano, 23-24 May 2018)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>(Below, Metropolitan Hilarion presents Emeritus Pope Benedict with a Russia translation of his book on the liturgy in Rome one year ago, in April 2017; the book was presented in Moscow yesterday)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At the same time, also on Wednesday, May 23, in Moscow, there was a presentation of a book by Emeritus Pope Benedict on the liturgy by the "foreign minister" of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, 51, known also for his musical compositions, including his moving The Passion According to St. Matthew.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Presentation in Moscow of the Russian edition of Joseph Ratzinger's book: "The Spirit of the Liturgy"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The book opens with a prefatory note signed by Metropolitan Hilarion: "I hope this book will not only contribute to open the minds of our contemporaries toward Catholicism, but will also help our own authors to solve some of the problems of Orthodox theology such as the anthropological aspects of the liturgy or the theological foundations of religious music.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"This book can nourish reflection on the questions concerning the life of the Church in the contemporary world, in a simple dialogue with the civil society and the culture."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On 23 May, at the Library of Foreign Literature Mr. I. Rudimino (Moscow - 1 Nikolayamskaya Street) will be presented the Russian edition of The Spirit of the Liturgy by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Russian version of the book was published by the charitable fund St. Gregory the Theologian in 2017. This publication celebrates the 90th anniversary of the author [April 16, 2017].</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The book will be presented by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, President of the Department of External Ecclesiastical Relations, and Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Apostolic Nuncio to the Russian Federation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The book considers all aspects of liturgical life. In the German edition, the author writes: "The liturgy of the Church has been the focus of my life from my earliest years and, at the Faculty of Theology, the center of my research."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The author writes in the new preface to the Russian edition: "In the consciousness of the man of today, the subject of God, and therefore the liturgy, is not considered primordial. We run after anything whatsoever, as if the question of God can always be postponed. We can say that the monastic life is totally different from the life in the world, and we are absolutely right. But the priority of God, we have forgotten, concerns us all. If God is not the most important, then the whole scale of values is changed. By rejecting God, man condemns himself to necessity, which then subjects him to all material forces, contrary to his dignity."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>A Pilgrimage to Ekaterinburg</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Friday, May 18, 2018</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Dear Friend,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I am writing to invite you to join with me on a pilgrimage to the heart of Russia on one of the most solemn and historic of occasions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I propose to travel to the Ural mountains, the border between Europe and Asia, to the city of Ekaterinburg, on the 100th anniversary of a tragic event in that city: the execution of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">That execution occurred on July 17, 1918.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On July 17, 2018, exactly 100 years later, the Russian Orthodox Church will celebrate a solemn liturgy of remembrance in Ekaterinburg, which will remember the death of the Romanovs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There will be one purpose only: to stand as witnesses, to give testimony to our solidarity with all who are caught up in the violence of civil wars and revolutions, in a place — where the executions occurred — and at a time — exactly 100 years after the executions — which seem fitting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We do not intend to support monarchy as a form of government, or to support any claim of any branch of the Romanov family to rule Russia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We do not wish to make any sort of political statement at all, in any form. We wish only to bear witness to our solidarity with all who suffer in the convulsions of civil war, especially children, but also the parents of children, who suffer great pangs of sorrow at the brutality that man is capable of visiting on other men, especially on the most innocent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It will be a long journey, perhaps a tiring journey. But we have been assured that the journey will be safe, that there will be old friends who will meet us and guide us when we arrive in Ekaterinburg, that we will be welcomed as respected guests, and that we will be received with honor as representatives of the Urbi et Orbi Foundation, as Roman Catholics, as friends of the Russian people and of the Russian Orthodox Church.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After Ekaterinburg we will spend four full days in Moscow, where we will have special meetings, and then fly to Rome, where we will stay near or inside Vatican City, for four more nights. (This final portion of the trip is optional, but we strongly encourage our pilgrims to make this journey with us to the Eternal City, where we will report back to Vatican officials on what we have seen and heard in Russia.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This pilgrimage will be “historic” in the highest sense of the term: a pilgrimage to a place of great historical tragedy, on the 17th of July, 2018, on the 100th anniversary of the execution. Each of us will be able afterwards to say “I was present, to remember and to commemorate, on that anniversary.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And, in the current American-Russian impasse, it might help that some Americans show their concern for Russia’s past, and Russia’s suffering, in this way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One important note: to travel to Russia, you must receive a Visa to enter the country. We will help you obtain the Visa, but it must be done during the month of June, and it will take about one week’s time, so we must have your decision about the trip by June 15, no later — and much better if considerably earlier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">So the deadline for a decision on this trip is June 15, just four weeks away. If you are interested, please write to me by return email.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Below is a proposed schedule for this trip. We do not yet know the price, but air fare, lodging and meals will amount to several thousand dollars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We will of course help with all details, from obtaining the visa to reserving all airplane tickets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We look forward to having you join with us on this extraordinary, very special journey to Russia and Rome.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">My very best wishes,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">—Dr. Robert Moynihan</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">P.S. Here is the schedule we propose:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 14 (Saturday) and July 15 (Sunday) — fly from America via Moscow to Ekaterinburg (overnight flight)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 16 — rest and orientation (overnight July 16 in Ekaterinburg)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 17 — Divine Liturgy in the Orthodox Byzantine Rite for the Commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra and their five children (overnight July 17 in Ekaterinburg)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 18 — meeting and visits in Ekaterinburg; commemoration of the execution of Grand Duchess Elzabeth, sister of Alexandra, killed on July 18, 1918 (overnight July 18 in Ekaterinburg)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 19 — fly to Moscow; meetings in Moscow (overnight, July 19 in Moscow)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 20-23 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday) — 2nd, 3rd and 4th days in Moscow, special meetings, visits with Russian believers, both Catholic and Orthodox</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 23 — fly from Moscow to Rome (overnight in Rome, near or inside Vatican City)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 24-26 — meetings inside the Vatican (overnight in Rome)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">July 27 — end of pilgrimage, depart Rome for home</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Addendum</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Here is an account of those 100-year-past events:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Execution of the Romanov family</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (link)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) and all those who chose to accompany them into imprisonment—notably Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp and Ivan Kharitonov — were shot, bayoneted and clubbed to death in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16-17 July 1918.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Tsar and his family were killed by Bolshevik troops led by Yakov Yurovsky under the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet and according to instructions by Lenin, Yakov Sverdlov and Felix Dzerzhinsky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Their bodies were then stripped, mutilated, burned and disposed of in a field called Porosenkov Log in the Koptyaki forest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The House of Special Purpose</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The imperial family was kept in strict isolation at the Ipatiev House. They were strictly forbidden to speak any language other than Russian. They were not permitted access to their luggage, which was stored in an outhouse in the interior courtyard. Their brownie cameras and photographic equipment were confiscated. The servants were ordered to address the Romanovs only by their names and patronymics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The windows in all the family's rooms were sealed shut and covered with newspapers (later painted with whitewash on 15 May). The family's only source of ventilation was a fortochka in the grand duchesses' bedroom, but peeking out of it was strictly forbidden; in May a sentry fired a shot at Anastasia when she peeked out. After repeated requests, one of the two windows in the tsar and tsarina's corner bedroom was unsealed on 23 June 1918. However, the guards were ordered to increase their surveillance accordingly and the prisoners were warned not to look out the window or attempt to signal anyone outside, on pain of being shot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From this window, they could only see the spire of the Voznesensky Cathedral located across the road from the house. An iron grille was installed on 11 July after Alexandra ignored repeated warnings from Yurovsky not to stand too close to the open window.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">To maintain a sense of normality...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">To maintain a sense of normality, the Bolsheviks assured the Romanovs on 13 July 1918 that two of their loyal servants, Klementy Nagorny (Alexei's sailor nanny) and Ivan Sednev (OTMA's footman; Leonid Sednev's uncle), "had been sent out of this government" (i.e. out of the jurisdiction of Ekaterinburg and Perm province). However, both men were already dead. After the Bolsheviks removed them from the Ipatiev House in May, they were shot by the Cheka with a group of other hostages on 6 July in reprisal for the death of a local Bolshevik hero who was killed by the Whites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On 14 July, a priest and deacon conducted a liturgy for the Romanovs. The following morning, four housemaids were hired to wash the floors of the Popov House and Ipatiev House; they were the last civilians to see the family alive. On both occasions they were under strict instructions not to engage in conversation of any kind to the family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yurovsky always kept watch during the liturgy and while the housemaids were cleaning the bedrooms with the family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Romanovs were being held by the Red Army in Yekaterinburg, since Bolsheviks initially wanted to put them on trial. As the civil war continued and the White Army (a loose alliance of anti-Communist forces) was threatening to capture the city, the fear was that the Romanovs would fall into White hands.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This was unacceptable to the Bolsheviks for two reasons: first, the tsar or any of his family members could provide a beacon to rally support to the White cause; second, the tsar, or any of his family members if the tsar were dead, would be considered the legitimate ruler of Russia by the other European nations. This would have meant the ability to negotiate for greater foreign intervention on behalf of the Whites. Soon after the family was executed, the city fell to the White Army.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In mid-July 1918, forces of the Czechoslovak Legion were closing on Yekaterinburg, to protect the Trans-Siberian Railway, of which they had control. According to historian David Bullock, the Bolsheviks falsely believed that the Czechoslovaks were on a mission to rescue the family, panicked and executed their wards.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Legions arrived less than a week later and on 25 July captured the city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Planning for the execution</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Ural Regional Soviet agreed in a meeting on 29 June that the Romanov family should be executed. Filipp Goloshchyokin arrived in Moscow on 3 July with a message insisting on the Tsar's execution. Only seven of the 23 members of the Central Executive Committee were in attendance, three of whom were Lenin, Sverdlov and Felix Dzerzhinsky. It was agreed that the presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet should organize the practical details for the family's execution and decide the precise day on which it would take place when the military situation dictated it, contacting Moscow for final approval.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On 14 July, Yurovsky was finalizing the disposal site and how to destroy as much evidence as possible at the same time. He was frequently in consultation with Peter Ermakov, who was in charge of the disposal squad and claimed to know the outlying countryside, to which Yurovsky placed his trust in him. Yurovsky wanted to gather the family and servants in a closely confined space from which they could not escape. The basement room chosen for this purpose had a barred window which was nailed shut to muffle the sound of shooting and in case of any screaming. Shooting and stabbing them at night while they slept or killing them in the forest and then dumping them into the Iset pond with lumps of metal weighted to their bodies were ruled out. Yurovsky's plan was to perform an efficient execution of all 11 prisoners simultaneously, though he also took into account that he would have to prevent those involved from raping the women or searching the bodies for jewels. Having previously seized some jewellery, he suspected more were hidden in their clothes; the bodies were stripped naked in order to obtain the rest (this, along with the mutilations were aimed at preventing investigators from identifying them).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On 16 July, Yurovsky was informed by the Ural Soviets that Red Army contingents were retreating in all directions and the executions could not be delayed any longer. A coded telegram seeking final approval was sent by Goloshchyokin and Georgy Safarov at around 6:00pm to Lenin in Moscow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There is no documentary record of an answer from Moscow, although Yurovsky insisted that an order from the CEC to go ahead had been passed on to him by Goloshchyokin at around 7:00pm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yurovsky and Pavel Medvedev collected 14 handguns to use that night, comprising two Browning pistols, two American Colts, two 7.65 Mausers, one Smith & Wesson and seven Belgian-made Nagants. The Nagant operated on old black gunpowder which produced a good deal of smoke and fumes; smokeless powder was only just being phased in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the commandant's office, Yurovsky assigned victims to each killer before distributing the handguns. He took a Mauser and Colt while Ermakov armed himself with three Nagants, one Mauser and a bayonet; he was the only one assigned to kill two prisoners, Alexandra and Botkin. He instructed his men to "shoot straight at the heart to avoid an excessive quantity of blood and get it over quickly."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">While the Romanovs were having dinner on 16 July, Yurovsky entered the sitting room and informed them that the kitchen boy Leonid Sednev was leaving to meet his uncle Ivan Sednev, who had returned to the city asking to see him; Ivan had already been shot by the Cheka. The family was very upset as Leonid was Alexei's only playmate and he was the fifth member of the imperial entourage to be taken from them, but they were assured by Yurovsky that he would be back soon. Alexandra did not trust him, writing in her final diary entry just hours before her death, "whether its [sic] true & we shall see the boy back again!" Leonid was in fact kept in the Popov House that night. Yurovsky saw no reason to kill him and wanted him removed before the execution took place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Around midnight 17 July 1918, Yakov Yurovsky, the commandant of The House of Special Purpose, ordered the Romanovs' physician, Dr. Eugene Botkin, to awaken the sleeping family and ask them to put on their clothes, under the pretext that the family would be moved to a safe location due to impending chaos in Yekaterinburg.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Romanovs were then ordered into a 6 m × 5 m (20 ft × 16 ft) semi-basement room. Nicholas asked if Yurovsky could bring two chairs, on which Tsarevich Alexei and Alexandra sat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yurovsky's assistant Grigory Nikulin remarked to him that the "heir wanted to die in a chair. Very well then, let him have one."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The prisoners were told to wait in the cellar room while the truck that would transport them was being brought to the House. A few minutes later, an execution squad of secret police was brought in and Yurovsky read aloud the order given to him by the Ural Executive Committee: "Nikolai Alexandrovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nicholas, facing his family, turned and said "What? What?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yurovsky quickly repeated the order and the weapons were raised. The Empress and Grand Duchess Olga, according to a guard's reminiscence, had tried to bless themselves, but failed amid the shooting. Yurovsky reportedly raised his Colt gun at Nicholas's torso and fired; Nicholas was the target of all of the assembled shooters, and he quickly fell dead, pierced by many bullets. The intoxicated Peter Ermakov, the military commissar for Verkh-Isetsk, shot and killed Alexandra with a bullet wound to the head. He then shot at Maria, who ran for the double doors, hitting her in the thigh.[95] The remaining executioners shot chaotically and over each other's shoulders until the room was so filled with smoke and dust that no one could see anything at all in the darkness nor hear any commands amid the noise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Alexey Kabanov, who ran out onto the street to check the noise levels, heard dogs barking from the Romanovs' quarters and the sound of gunshots loud and clear despite the noise from the Fiat's engine. Kabanov then hurried downstairs and told the men to stop firing and kill the family and their dogs with their gun butts and bayonets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Within minutes, Yurovsky was forced to stop the shooting because of the caustic smoke of burned gunpowder, dust from the plaster ceiling caused by the reverberation of bullets, and the deafening gunshots. When they stopped, the doors were then opened to scatter the smoke.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">While waiting for the smoke to abate, the killers could hear moans and whimpers inside the room. As it cleared, it became evident that although several of the family's retainers had been killed, all of the Imperial children were alive and furthermore, only Maria was even injured.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The noise of the guns had been heard by households all around, and had awakened many people. The executioners were ordered to proceed with their bayonets, a technique which proved ineffective and meant that the children had to be dispatched by still more gunshots, this time aimed more precisely at their heads. The Tsarevich was the first of the children to be executed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yurovsky watched in disbelief as Nikulin spent an entire magazine from his Browning gun on Alexei, who was still seated transfixed in his chair; he also had jewels sewn into his undergarment and forage cap.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Ermakov shot and stabbed him, and when he failed, Yurovsky shoved him aside and killed the boy with a gunshot to the head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The last to die were Tatiana, Anastasia, and Maria, who were carrying a few pounds (over 1.3 kilograms) of diamonds sewn into their clothing, which had given them a degree of protection from the firing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">However, they were speared with bayonets as well. Olga sustained a gunshot wound to the head. Maria and Anastasia were said to have crouched up against a wall covering their heads in terror until they were shot down. Yurovsky himself killed Tatiana and Alexei. Tatiana died from a single bullet through the back of her head. Alexei received two bullets to the head, right behind the ear. Anna Demidova, Alexandra's maid, survived the initial onslaught but was quickly stabbed to death against the back wall while trying to defend herself with a small pillow which she had carried that was filled with precious gems and jewels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">While the bodies were being placed on stretchers, one of the girls cried out and covered her face with her arm. Ermakov grabbed Alexander Strekotin's rifle and bayoneted her in the chest, but when it failed to penetrate he pulled out his revolver and shot her in the head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">While Yurovsky was checking the victims for pulses, Ermakov went back and forth in the room, flailing the bodies with his bayonet. The execution lasted about 20 minutes, Yurovsky later admitting to Nikulin's "poor mastery of his weapon and inevitable nerves."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Future investigations calculated that a possible 70 bullets were fired, roughly seven bullets per shooter, of which 57 were found in the basement and at all three subsequent gravesites. Some of Pavel Medvedev's stretcher bearers began frisking the bodies for valuables. Yurovsky saw this and demanded that they surrender any looted items or be shot. The attempted looting, coupled with Ermakov's incompetence and drunken state, convinced Yurovsky to oversee the disposal of the bodies himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Only Alexei's spaniel, Joy, survived to be rescued by a British officer of the Allied Intervention Force, living out his final days in Windsor, Berkshire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Alexandre Beloborodov sent a coded telegram to Lenin's secretary, Nikolai Gorbunov. It was found by White investigator Nikolai Sokolov and reads:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"Inform Sverdlov the whole family have shared the same fate as the head. Officially the family will die at the evacuation."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After Ekaterinburg fell to the anti-communist White Army on 25 July, Admiral Alexander Kolchak established the Sokolov Commission at the end of that month to investigate the murders.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(...)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Soviet historiography portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects, while Lenin's reputation was protected at all costs, thus ensuring that no discredit was brought on him; responsibility for the 'liquidation' of the Romanov family was directed at the Ural Soviets and Ekaterinburg Cheka.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Incredible Holy Lives of The Last Russian Tsar's Family: Eyewitnesses Reminisce</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The Imperial Family depicted in traditional Russian costume as New-Martyrs and Saints of the Orthodox Church</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Just read their own words. It's enough.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">by</span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Ryan Hunter</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="http://orthochristian.com/87477.html">Originally appeared at: Orthodox Christianity</a></u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In 1905, twelve years before Emperor Nicholas II’s abdication and three years from his own repose, St. John of Kronstadt, who had served as confessor to Nicholas II’s father Emperor Alexander III (r. 1881-94, d. 1894), spoke these prophetic words:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>We have a Tsar of righteous and pious life. God has sent a heavy cross of sufferings to him as to His chosen one and beloved child, as the seer of the destinies of God said: ‘Whom I love, those I reproach and punish’ (Rev. 3.19).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>If there is no repentance in the Russian people, the end of the world is near. God will remove from it the pious Tsar and send a whip in the person of impure, cruel, self-called rulers, who will drench the whole land in blood and tears.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nicholas himself made a similar observation about his fate when speaking to his Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. In his diary, Stolypin noted with some degree of incredulity that Nicholas spoke these words without any hint of alarm or distress.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This must have taken place sometime before the latter’s 1911 assassination at the Kiev Opera House in the presence of the Emperor and his eldest daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Immediately after the assassin, Dmitri Bogrov, shot him twice, causing panic to erupt among those around him, Stolypin calmly rose from his chair, removed his gloves and unbuttoned his jacket, exposing a blood-soaked waistcoat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">He sank into his chair and loudly exclaimed, “I am happy to die for the Tsar,” before motioning to Nicholas in his imperial box to withdraw to safety.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nicholas remained in his position, and in one final gesture Stolypin bowed to his sovereign, blessing him with a sign of the cross and saying “May God save him!”. Bogrov then attempted to stab Stolypin, but tripped and was subsequently caught and hanged.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEh-mktpNulH6MZLXek3lZeZZieMSWDpWozUm1Dex2yExkHrI878A2zYdAx9RsoGBZDkWJAownbxQ-W1QDKO2wPyZkZajEsEDB6CmbXkrw3O-EJkBK6TdKd0t1pdmriaT4N4IamItGmibXJufObfWfHzeCaAekJ5xaLm67cPh4Phi-sq-ZYMfvdn=" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEh-mktpNulH6MZLXek3lZeZZieMSWDpWozUm1Dex2yExkHrI878A2zYdAx9RsoGBZDkWJAownbxQ-W1QDKO2wPyZkZajEsEDB6CmbXkrw3O-EJkBK6TdKd0t1pdmriaT4N4IamItGmibXJufObfWfHzeCaAekJ5xaLm67cPh4Phi-sq-ZYMfvdn=" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; text-align: center;">Nicholas II smiling in a signed photo taken in 1898</b> <b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; text-align: center;">his fourth year on the throne.</b></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>I have a premonition. I have the certainty that I am destined for terrible trials, but I will not receive a reward for them in this world… Perhaps there must be a victim in expiation in order to save Russia. I will be this victim. May God’s will be done!</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><b>A signed portrait of the Empress from 1899, five years into her reign with Nicholas II.</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">According to Anna A. Vyrubova, the Empress’ closest confidante, best friend and lady-in-waiting, in Her Majesty’s Lady-in-Waiting, p. 171 (reprinted in Orthodox Word, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, Ca., Vol. 34, No.5 (202) Sept-Oct, 1998,p. 215), a Russian holy woman by the name of Maria blessed the Empress in December 1916 when she visited her cell and foretold her eventual martyrdom:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>In December of 1916, Her Majesty traveled from an emotional rest to Novgorod for a day, with two Grand Duchesses and a small suite. She visited field hospitals and monasteries and attended the Liturgy at the St. Sophia Cathedral. Before her departure the Tsaritsa visited the Yurievsky and Desyatina Monasteries.</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>In the latter she visited Eldress Maria Mikhailovna in her tiny cell, where the aged woman had lain for many years in heavy chains (this was self inflicted – Editor’s notes) on an iron bed.</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>When the Tsaritsa entered, the Eldress held her withered hand out to her and said, “Here comes the martyr, Tsaritsa Alexandra!” She embraced her and blessed her. In a few days the Eldress reposed.</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> In 1917, the venerable St. Metropolitan Makary Nevsky of Moscow beheld the Savior speaking to the Tsar in a vision:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>“You see,” said the Lord, “two cups in my hands: one is bitter for your people, and the other is sweet for you.”</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>In the vision the Tsar begged for the bitter cup.</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>The Savior then took a large glowing coal from the cup and put it in the Tsar’s hands. The Tsar’s whole body then began to grow light, until he was shining like a radiant spirit.</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Then the vision changed to a field of flowers, in the middle of which Nicholas was distributing manna to a multitude of people.</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>A voice spoke: “The Tsar has taken the guilt of the Russian people upon himself and the Russian people are forgiven.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> As the First World War dragged on with mounting casualties and no conclusive end, causing a decline in morale and furthering discontent among those disposed toward revolutionary sentiment in the armed forces and urban factories, the Empress and her older daughters continued to serve actively as hospital nurses.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Numerous historical accounts of the Empress’ life during the war years, especially the memoirs of the women who perhaps knew her best, her dear confidantes the Countess Anna A. Vryubova and Baroness Sophie von Buxhoeveden, recall her dedicated service in the blood and disease-filled hospitals of wartime Moscow and St. Petersburg.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Despite that Nicholas and Alexandra disliked her cousin, the blustering Kaiser Wilhelm II, and had decidedly English cultural sensibilities (Nicholas II and Britain’s King George V were first cousins, as their Danish mothers were sisters, while the Empress Alexandra and her older sister Ella, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, had grown up at the court of their grandmother Queen Victoria), as the war dragged on, communist and anarchist groups working to subvert the monarchy and undermine the war effort at the same time began to circulate pamphlets and scrawl graffiti attacking the Empress as a German “imposter”, “traitor”, “spy”, and worse. According to this Pravmir article from May 2006 on “Tsar Nicholas and His Family”,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As soon as the war broke out, the Empress and the four Grand Duchesses (Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia) became nurses; and hospitals were opened at Tsarskoye Selo, near the family’s residence, where wounded soldiers were brought.</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They worked long hours, diligently and tirelessly following the commandment of Christ to visit the sick, since inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me (Matthew 25.30).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Anna A. Vyrubova, the Empress’ closest friend, wrote:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>“I have personally seen the Empress of Russia in the operating room, assisting in the most difficult operations, taking from the hands of the busy surgeon amputated legs and arms, removing bloody and even vermin-ridden field dressings.” Vyrubova says that she was a “born nurse”, who “from her earliest accession took an interest in hospitals, in nursing, quite foreign to native Russian ideas.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>She not only visited the sick herself, in hospitals, in homes, but she enormously increased the efficiency of the hospital system in Russia. Out of her own private funds the Empress founded and supported two excellent schools for training nurses, especially in the care of children.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Unsurprisingly, this is the same Empress who wrote in her diary at some point during that fateful year of 1917, “In order to climb the great heavenly staircase of love, we must ourselves become a stone, a stair which others will climb.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this deeply moving poem to Empress Alexandra, “To My Beloved Mama”, which she composed at Tsarskoye Selo on April 23, 1917, just over a month following her father’s abdication, the 22-year old Grand Duchess Olga wrote:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>“You are filled with anguish.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>For the suffering of others.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And no one’s grief</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Has ever passed you by.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>You are relentless</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Only toward yourself,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Forever cold and pitiless.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>But if only you could look upon</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Your own sadness from a distance,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Just once with a loving soul-</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Oh, how you would pity yourself.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>How sadly you would weep.”</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna as a young girl.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">These are the qualities of a saint, ones which the young Princess discerned in her own mother.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Grand Duchess Olga, clearly a beautifully gifted writer possessed of praiseworthy talent as a poet, evidently perceived the devastating combined impact that her father’s abdication and the Tsarevich Alexei’s incurable hemophilia continuously wrought on her mother’s emotional, physical and spiritual health.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As the following letter from the Princess indicated, Grand Duchess Olga, as the oldest of the children in the Imperial Family, consciously served as a kind of envoy for her beleaguered parents to the outside world beyond their prison walls:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Father asks the following message to be given to all those who have remained faithful to him, and to those on whom they may have an influence, that they should not take revenge for him, since he has forgiven everyone and prays for everyone, that they should not take revenge for themselves, and should remember that the evil which is now in the world shall grow even stronger, but that it is not evil that will conquer evil, but only love. . .</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, writing from Tobolsk in the Urals during the Royal family’s exile there in summer 1917, about a year before their brutal execution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Emperor Nicholas II sawing wood with Alexei during the Imperial Family’s winter at Tobolsk.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The change in the Grand Duchess’ tone is remarkable: from an already highly perceptive young woman, it is evident that the several harrying months spent under house arrest confined to a few small rooms at the old Governor’s House in Tobolsk had caused the close-knit Imperial Family to keep a more eternal perspective.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We read of a young woman both clearly aware that her words would eventually be read by many people who heartily supported the Romanov monarchy and the cause of their liberation from the Bolsheviks, and acutely aware that her father abhorred the continued bloodshed of the civil war between Whites and Reds.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nicholas’ exhortation for his supporters to refrain from further bloodshed in the cause of his liberation is at first glance surprising (though not when we take into consideration the Emperor’s profound concern for his people, whom he loved as much as he did his own children), and indeed, extraordinary, all the more so given the successes so many White army forces were having against the Bolsheviks at the time the Grand Duchess wrote this letter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One can only infer that the Imperial Family were permitted to receive little to no news of ongoing political developments outside the walls of their prison. Nonetheless, for the former Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias to write that “he has forgiven everyone and prays for everyone, that they should not take revenge for themselves”, one comes away with a clear sense that the Imperial Family anticipated their eventual martyrdom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Reading the following poem, another one beautifully composed by the Grand Duchess Olga, its meaning is unmistakable: by the time that she wrote these words, it is certain that the Imperial Family expected to be martyred.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Princess’ poem here is both hymn and dirge, a psalm of praise and one of sorrow and fear, but above all, a canticle of deep faith and a discernment of God’s will in all things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">True of saints’ writings, we see that the centrality of the Princess’ poem is not her dwelling on her own anguish or horror at the thought of a potentially agonizing death, or lamentation at the thought of her earthly life cut short so abruptly, but a profound trust in God’s providence that His purpose guides all things and that, ultimately, He would work good out of evil.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I do not know how many months or weeks before her death the Grand Duchess wrote this haunting poem, but I come away thinking that it is truly astonishing—and almost unheard of today—for a young woman my age to be so accepting of a possibly imminent death or any manner of torture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">So long as the Imperial Family, with God’s aid, continued to endure and persevere in faith, withstanding all evil and, above all, forgiving “our neighbors’ persecution”, the Grand Duchess prays, above all, to receive strength to “pass the last dread gate” into eternal life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Grant us Thy patience, Lord,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>In these our woeful days,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>The mob’s wrath to endure,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>The torturer’s ire;</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Thy unction to forgive</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Our neighbors’ persecution</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And mild, like Thee, to bear</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>A bloodstained Cross.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And when the mob prevails</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And foes come to despoil us,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>To suffer humbly shame,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>O Savior aid us!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And when the hour comes</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>To pass the last dread gate,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Breathe strength in us to pray,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Father forgive them!</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Here is a beautiful quote from Saint John the Wonderworker (1896-1966) on the Emperor, which the younger saint said in July 1963, the 45th anniversary of the martyrdoms:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Why was Tsar Nicholas II persecuted, slandered and killed?</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Because he was Tsar, Tsar by the Grace of God. He was the bearer and incarnation of the Orthodox world view that the Tsar is the servant of God, the Anointed of God, and that to Him he must give an account for the people entrusted to him by destiny, for all his deeds and actions, not only those done personally, but also as Tsar. . .</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thus did the Orthodox Russian people believe, thus has the Orthodox Church taught, and this did Tsar Nicholas acknowledge and sense. He was thoroughly penetrated by this awareness; he viewed his bearing of the Imperial crown as a service to God. He kept this in mind during all his important decisions, during all the responsible questions that arose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is why he was so firm and unwavering in those questions about which he was convinced that such was the will of God; he stood firmly for that which seemed to him necessary for the good of the realm of which he was head.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Holy Royal Martyrs, pray to God for us that He may save our souls!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Romanov Burial</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>the remains of Princess Alexei &</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Princess Anastasia authenticated</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.wondersofsicily.com/images/1000x700-Cefalu-duomo-Pantocrator-20150317-Cefalu-Duomo_1127.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.wondersofsicily.com/images/1000x700-Cefalu-duomo-Pantocrator-20150317-Cefalu-Duomo_1127.jpg" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="800" height="280" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>“The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact.” C.S. Lewis</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>J.R.R. Tolkien</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“… we make things by the law in which we were made. We create because we are created. Creativity, imagination, is God’s imageness in us. We tell stories because God is a storyteller. In fact he is THE storyteller. We tell our stories with words. He tells his-story with history. The facts of history are his words and his providence is his storyline.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This being the case, no historical account is fully true, whether it is the history of a nation, a family, or an individual, if it is not seen from the point of view of divine Providence, from God's point of view, not as a mere participant, as one person among many to be included among the rest, but as Author, and Creator of the whole story. This is even true in each and every event, at each and every moment in the life of each and every one of us, and of all of us as organically united in the Mind of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Every individual event and the whole of history are related to the Mystery of Christ which is the major theme of God's story of Creation and Redemption, a story in which all human beings are included in a special way by the incarnation. Of course, this does not means we can recognise all the connections. Only God can do that. Nevertheless, we can, at least, recognise how full of God each moment, each circumstance, each event is, because God is its ultimate author as it takes its place in the wonderful story that is God's Creation and Redemption. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We shall continue our theme with the help of the great Jesuit spiritual director much followed by traditional English Benedictines, Jean-Pierre de Caussade.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“The duties of each moment are the shadows beneath which hides the divine operation.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“There is not a moment in which God does not present Himself under the cover of some pain to be endured, of some consolation to be enjoyed, or of some duty to be performed. All that takes place within us, around us, or through us, contains and conceals His divine action.”</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“The books the Holy Spirit is writing are living, and every soul a volume in which the divine author makes a true revelation of his word, explaining it to every heart, unfolding it in every moment.” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“To escape the distress caused by regret for the past or fear about the future, this is the rule to follow: leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to His good Providence, give the present wholly to His love by being faithful to His grace.” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“In the state of abandonment the only rule is the duty of the present moment. In this the soul is light as a feather, liquid as water, simple as a child, active as a ball in receiving and following all the inspirations of grace. Such souls have no more consistence and rigidity than molten metal. As this takes any form according to the mould into which it is poured, so these souls are pliant and easily receptive of any form that God chooses to give them. In a word, their disposition resembles the atmosphere, which is affected by every breeze; or water, which flows into any shaped vessel exactly filling every crevice. They are before God like a perfectly woven fabric with a clear surface; and neither think, nor seek to know what God will be pleased to trace thereon, because they have confidence in Him, they abandon themselves to Him, and, entirely absorbed by their duty, they think not of themselves, nor of what may be necessary for them, nor of how to obtain it.” </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Of course, we all have a different role to play in God's story at whatever level we are asked to play it, but only those with faith will be conscious that they have a part to play. Just as the Incarnation involves all humanity in the Story, so faith in the Incarnation challenges all who receive this gift to step out into the road and play our part along the way that leads to global salvation.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> To be a Christian is a vocation to walk with Christ, to where and to what, only God knows because only God is the Author.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Roads go ever ever on,</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Over rock and under tree,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>By caves where never sun has shone,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>By streams that never find the sea;</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Over snow by winter sown,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And through the merry flowers of June,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Over grass and over stone,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And under mountains in the moon.</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Roads go ever ever on,</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Under cloud and under star.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Yet feet that wandering have gone</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Turn at last to home afar.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Eyes that fire and sword have seen,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And horror in the halls of stone</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Look at last on meadows green,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And trees and hills they long have known.</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Road goes ever on and on</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Down from the door where it began.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Now far ahead the Road has gone,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And I must follow, if I can,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Pursuing it with eager feet,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Until it joins some larger way,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Where many paths and errands meet.</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Road goes ever on and on</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Down from the door where it began.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Now far ahead the Road has gone,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And I must follow, if I can,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Pursuing it with weary feet,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Until it joins some larger way,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Where many paths and errands meet.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And whither then? I cannot say.</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Road goes ever on and on</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Out from the door where it began.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Now far ahead the Road has gone.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Let others follow, if they can!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Let them a journey new begin.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>But I at last with weary feet</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Will turn towards the lighted inn,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>My evening-rest and sleep to meet.</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Still ’round the corner there may wait</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>A new road or secret gate;</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>And though I oft have passed them by,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>A day will come at last when I</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Shall take the hidden paths that run</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>West of the Moon, East of the Sun.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Around March and my eighty-first birthday, I made my move from Peru to Herefordshire, from mid-summer to mid-winter, from a community I had watched grow up and over which I had been superior for nine years, a communiity that was obviously terribly sad to see me go, to a community, most of whom I scarcely knew and who were, at the most, only moderately glad to see me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yet there is no doubt in my mind that this is God's will. Although I was re-called by the abbot so that I would not be a burden in my old age on the young peruvian community and because healthcare is free in England, this is not the most profound reason why it is God's will. The Father's power of love can work through us only in proportion to our humble obedience to his will, only in so far as we permit him. As I near the end of life, so God will take from me - if I permit it - all that stands between me and my participation in his Trinitarian life of Love. When all has been stripped away, then all that will be left will be Christ who descended into the place of death for me; and I shall rejoice because "Christ is Risen!".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Meanwhile, I will make Bilbo's song my own</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>The Road goes ever on and on </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Out from the door where it began.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Now far ahead the Road has gone,</i></span></div>
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<i>Let others follow it who can!</i></div>
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<i>Let them a journey new begin,</i></div>
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<i>But I at last with weary feet</i></div>
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<i>Will turn towards the lighted inn,</i></div>
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<i>My evening-rest and sleep to meet.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">this is just included because it is</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>to find the relevance.</b></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-50559182925329963462018-05-09T03:56:00.000-07:002018-05-09T03:56:10.891-07:00FEAST OF THE ASCENSION<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Reflections on the Feast of the Ascension</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Author: Damian Howard SJ</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Category: Saints and seasons, Theology, philosophy and ethics</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tags: Ascension, Easter</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20120516_1.htm">my source: Thinking Catholic</a></u></b></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.thinkingfaith.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_full_687/public/field/image/20120516_2reflections.jpg?itok=fXakdUBG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="600" src="https://www.thinkingfaith.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_full_687/public/field/image/20120516_2reflections.jpg?itok=fXakdUBG" /></a></div>
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<u><b><a href="https://www.wga.hu/">From 'Scenes from the Life of Christ: Ascension' by Mariotto di Nardo (c.1395)</a></b></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Feast of the Ascension strikes many Christians as the poor relative of the two rather bigger celebrations which top and tail the long and joyful season of Eastertide: Easter itself, and Pentecost. But Damian Howard SJ ascribes to this feast the utmost significance. What are we to make of the story of Jesus being taken up into a cloud, an episode that not only sounds like mythology but also violates our modern sense of space?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In between our celebrations of the Lord’s Resurrection at Easter and of the gift of the Spirit to His disciples, the ‘birthday of the Church’ at Pentecost, we observe another feast: the Feast of the Ascension. For all the memorable imagery that the story of Jesus’s ascension into heaven evokes, it still strikes many Christians as a rather curious episode. To put it crudely, had Jesus simply ascended vertically into space we would by now expect him to be somewhere in the outer reaches of the solar system, a thought that is hardly an aid to Christian devotion. Yet the event of the Ascension, which appears in both the New Testament books authored by Luke (his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles), serves as the narrative lynchpin of the grand story told by scripture. It is, as one scholar argues, the culmination of every biblical event leading up to it and the condition of the drama that follows it.[1] To understand why this is so will take a little explaining.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A good way to begin would be to ask yourself a question: what, in a nutshell, is the core of the New Testament message? There are doubtless as many answers to that question as there are Christians, but most of them would probably involve one or more of a bundle of ideas: resurrection–reconciliation–new life–triumph over sin and death, all very good, very Eastery answers – and all, incidentally, very much about us human creatures. The centrality of these notions to most Christians explains both why Easter and Pentecost are so important to us and why the Ascension is not. Easter and Pentecost can be quickly established to be all about us: the promise of forgiveness and new life for us, the gift of the Spirit to us. It is not quite so clear what the Ascension has to offer us? The best answer I have been able to come up with is that Christ’s withdrawal brings about a new mode by which Christ can be present to us, intimate, yet universal and ‘interceding for us at the right hand of the Father’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If you were to ask the same question to the New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, you would be given a subtly different response, one that puts centre stage someone other than us. For Tom Wright, the core truth of Christianity is that Jesus, and hence God, has become King. The crucified Nazarene has been raised by God to be the universal Lord. Christ’s rising from the dead is not in itself the end of the story but a vitally important part of the trajectory that takes him to his heavenly throne. Wright’s interpretation hardly denies the importance of resurrection; it just sees it as part of a bigger picture. Jesus is raised to be King.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">All of which has serious implications for Christian belief and practice. If we were to think very schematically, we might say we have two styles of Christian living here: let’s call them Resurrection-Christianity and Kingdom-Christianity. (I am sketching here ‘ideal types’ for the sake of reflection and these should not be taken as applying to any individual or group in particular, still less as criteria for some kind of orthodoxy.) Resurrection-Christianity would focus, obviously, on the Resurrection, on the fact that Christ has overcome death and won eternal life for those who believe in Him. Kingdom-Christianity is more attentive to the arrival of the Kingdom of God, in other words a state of affairs abroad in the world, such that a new source of power and of ultimate authority is enabling and challenging human beings to allow themselves to be transformed, to receive ‘eternal life’ in the here and now. The two styles are hardly opposed to each other but their focus is appreciably different.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What makes Kingdom-Christianity so convincing an interpretation is the way it makes sense of the whole narrative of the Bible by offering a ‘crowning moment’ in the shape of the final resolution of an expectation spelt out in a spectacular apocalyptic scene by the prophet Daniel (7:13-14):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I saw one like a human being</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And he came to the Ancient One</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> and was presented before him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">To him was given dominion</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> and glory and kingship,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">that all peoples, nations, and languages</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">His dominion is an everlasting dominion</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> that shall not pass away,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">and his kingship is one</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Here, the coronation of the ‘one like a human being’ (the original expression is translated literally as ‘one like a Son of Man’, from which you can deduce whence Jesus derives His favourite way of referring to Himself) is presented exactly as an onlooker in heaven would enjoy the scene. It is a dream-vision, an imaginative rendition of the deep, hope-filled aspiration of faithful Jews, suffering persecution at the hands of an enemy so powerful they could scarcely envisage ever overcoming it. The Ascension, Douglas Farrow points out, is quite simply the very same event as viewed from the earth, the Son of Man setting out on His journey to take up His throne alongside the ‘Ancient One’.[3]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hence, in the Ascension we see the mystery alluded to in the Hebrew Bible acted out in full view of the disciples. You can see now that the Ascension is no quirky interlude between Resurrection and Pentecost but a dramatic consummation that makes sense of them: the Resurrection is the beginning of Christ’s heavenly journey, Pentecost the echo on earth of heaven’s jubilation at his coronation. The Ascension is crucial, not decorative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Farrow defends this view of the centrality of the Ascension from the understandable and legitimate anxiety that it downplays resurrection hope as an end in itself:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the Bible, the doctrine of the resurrection slowly emerges as a central feature of the Judeo-Christian hope. But if, synechdochically, it can stand for that hope, the hope itself is obviously something more. Resurrection may be a necessary ingredient, since death cuts short our individual journeys, but it is not too bold to say that the greater corporate journey documented by the scriptures continually presses, from its very outset and at every turn, towards the impossible feat of the ascension.[4]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">So Kingdom-Christianity in no way cancels out or negates Resurrection-Christianity: it includes it but situates it in a bigger picture and it is a picture that does not have us at the centre, with our desires and hopes, but the person of, if you like to think of it like this, King Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In his book Surprised by Hope,[5] Tom Wright works out some of the consequences of what is for many a surprising angle on the Biblical story. The problem is not that Resurrection-Christianity (he does not use the term) is false. Rather, it is that if it becomes detached from its original moorings in the proclamation of Jesus as King, then it can drift into something lesser. An example is the way many modern Christians have come to think that the point of Christianity is about ‘getting to heaven when you die’. A Christianity rooted in its original proclamation of the Kingdom of God is not in the first place about life after death, but very much about life in the here and now under the new conditions of God’s reign (which is also not in any way to deny life after death!). If it totally loses its anchor in the Kingdom proclamation, an exclusive concern with resurrection has been known to see this world as a decadent and evil place without hope; salvation begins to look like escape. This is a Gnostic tendency to which Christianity has long been vulnerable. For Wright, the time has come to get back to the original Kingdom-Christianity of the Bible with its confidence in the resurrection of the body, its utter Christ-centredness and its concern for the mission of Christians to help transform the world in accordance with the in-breaking Kingdom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I must confess both to excitement about Wright’s work and also to a certain perplexity. The excitement springs from the plausibility of his biblical interpretation, from the stress he puts on the Gospel as a God-event rather than the transmission of some new information, and on the implications of all this for the way we think about Christian action and witness in the world. But my perplexity is twofold. First, Wright is suspicious about a great deal of the Christian tradition as it has come down to us over the years. He regrets the medieval corruptions that set in, entailing the loss of the ‘real narrative’ of the Kingdom, until, that is, modern exegesis came into existence. An evangelical Protestant like Wright is entitled to think like that, of course, even if it puts a Catholic on the back foot. But is Christian tradition so badly in need of correction or has it, perhaps, managed to hang on to the Kingdom-story rather more than Wright allows? After all, leaf through any hymn book, Protestant or Catholic, and dozens of images of kingship will jump out at you. But still, Wright might say, these may not correspond to the way people actually think and act in their religious lives. Maybe there is a case to answer here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The second difficulty is that my modern imagination rather baulks at the thought of Jesus sitting on a throne as King in heaven. It’s a fine metaphor but in what sense does it represent a state of affairs? My mind is uneasy with what sounds like mythology and I find myself restlessly wanting to ‘demythologise’ it, to translate it into categories more related to my way of seeing the world. The problem is that the Ascension is essentially an ‘is’ statement whereas demythologising usually ends up with ‘ought’ statements like saying that ‘living in the Kingdom of God’ really just boils down to living by ‘Kingdom values’ or, ‘building the Kingdom’ by being good citizens, speaking up for the victims of injustice and behaving in an ecologically responsible manner. If that is the ‘cash-value’ of the doctrine of the Ascension, then it seems to have made no real difference. Yet the only alternative would seem to mean fixating on a rather literalist interpretation of the doctrine itself; if my (or your) imagination cannot cope, that’s just too bad, because that’s how it is…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">An answer to both perplexities comes in the shape of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. What I see in his famous itinerary for a 30 day transformative retreat experience is a playing out of precisely the kind of spirituality that flows naturally from the Kingdom narrative: not one of resurrection as an end in itself (though resurrection is very present) but a vivid engagement with Christ, the Eternal King, and a focused and prolonged imaginative effort to contemplate the world under the aspect of the Kingdom of Christ and to discern in depth the difference that this truth makes: i.e. that it calls me to become a servant of Christ’s mission.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There is some irony in making this point. Everyone who has ever made the Exercises knows full well Ignatius’s fondness for regal and military metaphors. People often assume that behind it is Ignatius the (minor) nobleman harking back nostalgically to his time in the Spanish court or soldiering against the French. Yet Ignatius was no sentimentalist. If he used kingly language to speak of Jesus it was quite simply because he knew Jesus as a King.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this he was helped by the standard, even ubiquitous iconography of the Middle Ages. One of the most common depictions of Jesus throughout the period was the eschatological Christ seated on a throne, surrounded by an oval aura called a mandorla and the four apocalyptic beasts. This figure, known as the maiestas domini, adorns many a Cathedral tympanum, reminding those entering below that Christ is indeed their King here and now. This Christ was majestic and powerful, not entirely dissimilar to the eastern Christian icon of Christ pantokrator, Lord of all. The mandorla was significant too, an unmistakeable reference to the birth canal. The figure of the King in the mandorla, the Kingdom in the very process of being born, echoes the Lord’s prayer: ‘thy Kingdom come!’ It is a dynamic image of God’s Kingdom coming to us as we look on, a reminder that if the Kingdom is indeed already a reality, nevertheless it has not yet fully arrived. It still has something of the subjunctive about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Ignatius, judging by the language he uses to speak of Christ in the Exercises, took this icon as his preferred depiction of the Lord. Whenever he imagines himself standing before God, offering himself for service in whatever way God will decide, he speaks of God/Christ as ‘the Divine Majesty’:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Then I shall reflect within myself and consider what, in all reason and justice, I ought for my part to offer and give his Divine Majesty, that is to say, all I possess and myself as well… (Sp Exx 234)[6]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The most important and transformative exercises are preceded by an invitation to imagine Christ as King and to allow oneself to enter into the scene of that image, adopting the behaviour appropriate to it:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">how much more is it worthy of consideration to see Christ our Lord, the eternal king, as to all and to each one in particular his call goes out: ‘It is my will to conquer the whole world and every enemy and so enter into the glory of my Father… (Sp Exx 95)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Here will be to see myself in the presence of God our Lord and of all his saints that I might desire and know what is more pleasing to His Divine Goodness. … here it will be to ask for the grace to choose what is more for the glory of his Divine Majesty and the salvation of my soul. (Sp Exx151-2)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Two vital clues suggest that the link with the Ascension was one Ignatius would have made himself. In the ‘Fourth Week’ of the Exercises, which deals with the Resurrection of Christ, Ignatius offers for meditation no less than 13 appearances of the Lord, including one to Paul which would have taken place after the Ascension. But he insists that it is the Ascension that should be the final mystery of the whole retreat to be contemplated. For Ignatius this is no mere detail, no pious addition to the list of biblical incidents but the highpoint, the climax of the whole movement of Christ that brings him to the divine throne before which he stood repeatedly seeking God’s will for his life. The other detail comes from an autobiographical incident that took place when Ignatius was on pilgrimage in Jerusalem. He was about to be expelled from the Holy Land by the Franciscan authorities but before heading for the coast he was desperate to do one last thing: to revisit a particular site from the pilgrim’s itinerary, the place where, tradition has it, Jesus ascended into heaven. Bribing the guards with a pair of scissors, of all things, Ignatius managed to get up to the Mount of Olives where he could check the exact position of Christ’s footprints before He was taken off into the cloud.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">So, with regard to my first perplexity, it is clear that Ignatius at least, one of the Catholic tradition’s most brilliant and influential spiritual masters, is an unabashed exponent of Kingdom-Christianity. If you know anything about his life that observation will ring true; he was above all a man who desired to let God’s glory shine out here in the world by living his life as a divine mission. Knowing this, one could never say blandly that the tradition of the Church simply lost sight of the central significance of Jesus Christ as universal King. Indeed, it seems to have maintained it with clarity and vigour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Ignatius has also relieved my second perplexity considerably, the anxiety that simply proclaiming the kingship of Christ as a literal state of affairs does not seem to get us very far. Appropriating this deep truth, as Ignatius’s life shows, requires a very special human faculty, one that Ignatius was forced to deploy by the very forces which were undermining the ‘Kingdom’ in his day. For at the time he is writing, the image of the Divine Majesty was facing a major crisis. This was thanks to the impending demise of that ancient, traditional cosmology in which the image of Christ as King in heaven made some sense. By the end of the 15th Century the new sciences and the successful circumnavigation of the globe had put that picture under severe pressure. Politically things were changing too. A united Christendom had been evidential warrant to the notion of a civilisation united under the rule of Christ. But now, under the impact of the Reformation, Christendom was breaking up, making it all but impossible to conceive of Christ as King of the universe. This is the decidedly inauspicious climate in which our young Basque finds himself not only drawn to the maiestas domini but also sensing its urgent appeal. I imagine him gazing longingly at some cathedral portal after Mass, on fire with the love of God and aware that, despite all the contradictory desires that filled his heart, it was only in the service of Christ’s mission that inner unity and purpose in life could be achieved. He must have seen depicted in this image a process, a dynamic by which human beings could allow order to be drawn out of the chaos of their lives. He understood that the only way to unleash the transformative power of the Kingdom was not merely by assent to a purported state of affairs but by the deepest possible imaginative exploration of what it means to live in the world where Jesus is King. For the key to engaging with the mystery of the Kingdom is, for Ignatius, as for the Spinner of parables Himself, the human imagination.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Damian Howard SJ lectures in theology at Heythrop College, University of London and sits on the Editorial Board of Thinking Faith.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[1] Douglas Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), p. 26.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[2] New Revised Standard Version.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[3] Ascension and Ecclesia pp. 23f.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[4] Ascension and Ecclesia pp. 26-7.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[5] London: SPCK, 2007.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[6] This and all passages from the Exercises are taken from the translation of Michael Ivens, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises (Leominster: Gracewing, 1998) p. 174.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 2010</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>WHAT IS THE ASCENSION AND WHAT IS HEAVEN?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Ascension of Christ</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">by</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>+ Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“The feast of the Ascension is the celebration of heaven now opened to human beings, heaven as the new and eternal home, heaven as our true homeland. Sin severed earth from heaven and made us earthly and coarse, it fixed our gaze solidly on the ground and made our life exclusively earthbound. Sin is the betrayal of heaven in the soul. It is precisely on this day, on the feast of the Ascension, that we cannot fail to be horrified by this renunciation that fills the whole world. With self-importance and pride, man announces that he is strictly material, that the whole world is material, and that there is nothing beyond the material. And for some reason he is even glad about this, and speaks with pity and condescension, as he would of buffoons and boors, of those who still believe in some sort of “heaven.” Come on brothers, heaven is the sky, it’s just as material as everything else; there is nothing else, there never was and never will be. We die, we disappear; so in the meantime, let’s build an earthly paradise and forget about the fantasies of priests. This in brief, but absolutely accurately, is the end result and high-point of our culture, our science, our ideology. Progress ends in the cemetery, with the progress of worms feeding on corpses. But what do you propose, they ask us, what is this heaven you talk about, into which Christ ascended? After all, up in the sky nothing of what you are speaking exists. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“Let the answer to this question come from John Chrysostom, a Christian preacher who lived sixteen centuries ago. Speaking about heaven, he exclaims: “What need do I have for heaven, when I myself will become heaven…” Let the answer come from our ancestors, who called the church “heaven on earth.” The essential point of both these answers is this: heaven is the name of our authentic vocation as human beings, heaven is the final truth about the earth. No, heaven is not somewhere in outer space beyond the planets, or in some unknown galaxy. Heaven is what Christ gives back to us, what we lost through our sin and pride, through our earthly, exclusively earthly sciences and ideologies, and now it is opened, offered, and returned to us by Christ. Heaven is the kingdom of eternal life, the kingdom of truth, goodness and beauty. Heaven is the total spiritual transformation of human life; heaven is the kingdom of God, victory over death, the triumph of love and care; heaven is the fulfillment of that ultimate desire, about which it was said: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). All of this is revealed to us, all of this is given to us by Christ. And therefore, heaven permeates our life here and now, the earth itself becomes a reflection, a mirror image of heavenly beauty. Who descended from heaven to earth to return heaven to us? God. Who ascended from earth to heaven? The man Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“St. Athanasius the Great says that, “God became man so that man could become God.” God came down to earth so that we might ascend to heaven! This is what the Ascension celebrates! This is the source of its brightness and unspeakable joy. If Christ is in heaven, if we believe in him and love him, then we also are there with him, at his banquet, in his Kingdom. If humanity ascends through him, and does not fall, then through him I also have access to ascension and am called to him. And in him, the goal, meaning and ultimate joy of my life is revealed to me. Everything, everything around us pulls us down. But I look at the divine flesh ascending to heaven, at Christ going up, “with the sound of a trumpet,” and I say to myself and to the world: here is the truth about the world and humanity, here is the life to which God calls us from all eternity.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Celebration of Faith, Volume 2, St. Vladimir Seminary Press, pp. 148-150, H/T to my parish website)</span><br />
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<br /><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CYnFR4oe2F0/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CYnFR4oe2F0?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xnFApETDHGw/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xnFApETDHGw?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-38519915386128223012018-05-04T04:59:00.002-07:002018-05-08T10:48:08.274-07:00ENCOUNTERING GOD IN STORIES<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Not all stories are myths but they become so if they are generally accepted and told in a particular culture because they help people to understand that environment and their role in it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The classical cowboy stories followed a common theme. White Hat, who is a hero that rides alone, comes into a town that is at the mercy of Black Hat, an unscrupulous and sadistic villain who also wants to marry the beautiful girl, daughter of the man who founded the town. After enduring much adversity, anxiety and pain and against huge odds, White Hat wins because of his superior skill with a gun and marries the daughter, while Black Hat bites the dust. Enoch Powell, hardly a representative of Soviet said it was a version of the "St George and the Dragon" story and has been used by Anglo-Saxons since time began. The trouble is, if Americans are St George, in order to fulfil that role, they need a dragon; so they look around for a dragon. Poor old Russia or Islam!! Nazi Germany revelled in Teutonic mythology and used it to support their own brand of idealism. The historicity of the American cowboy and Germanic mythology didn't matter much, only their ability to interpret the kind of people Americans or Germans are. Myths have helped people form their world view and have influenced their actions. That is not to say that they are the most important factor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Before you read my blog post today, I want you to listen to this video because I take it for granted in what I have to say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">J.R.R.T: "We tell stories because God is a story teller. He is <i>the </i>story teller...</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We tell stories with words: he tells stories with history. The facts of history are his words and Providence is his storyline."</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">C.S.L. "Are you suggesting that all of history, that everything around us is all part of some divine myth?"</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">J.R.R.T.: "We are all part of his story. This very conversation is part of this story."</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">C.S.L.: Perhaps it isn't his story. Perhaps it is only your story. How do you know that your story, the one you believe, the Christian story, is any more real than all the other stories?"</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">J.R.R.T.: "Don't you see, it is not <i>my </i>story: it is <i>his</i> story. It is not just one myth among many. It is the <i>true</i> myth. Christianity really happened. Jesus really existed, and so did Pilate; and it is this true story that makes sense of all the other stories. It is the archetype in which all the other stories have their source, and is the story towards which all the other stories point. It has everything. It has catastrophe and its very opposite, what we may call "eucatastrophe" [<i>A sudden and favourable resolution of events in a story; a happy ending.</i>] the happy ending, the sudden joyous turn in the story that is essential to all myths. It has to a sublime degree this joy of deliverance, this "evangelium", this fleeting glimpse of the real joy towards which all other joys are but a distant echo."</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">C.S.L.: "What do you mean when you say it has the catastrophe and the eucatastrophe?"</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">J.R.R.T.: For example, it has the catastrophe of the fall and the eucatastrophe of the redemption, the catastrophe of the crucifixion and the eucatastrophe of resurrection. It has everything man's heart desires because it is being told by the One who is the fufilment of desire itself. It is a story that begins and ends in joy.....In my own life, it has led me from darkness to light."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This conversation began when C.S. Lewis said that the stories about Jesus in the gospels follow themes that can be found in pagan myths all over the world. There is nothing original about them and should be lumped together with all the other myths as fiction supplied by the human imagination to fill the gap that can only be really filled by scientific exploration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">J.R.R. Tolkien acknowledged that there is a limited set of story lines in myths that are the same throughout the world, whatever the culture, and that the stories of Jesus fit into the mythical pattern very well. However, myths cannot be considered mere fiction: they are, at the deepest level, insights into the reality of things and of human nature. All things have a meaning (<i>logoi</i>) which reflect the Meaning (<i>Logos</i>) in the Mind of Him who created them; everything fits into a story that is being told by God. It fits into its own story told within its own context and also into the transcendent story which is God's Providence. Myths are about the meaning of life as interpreted by human beings' God-given desire. But then, "the Logos became flesh and pitched his tent among us," and God embodied his Truth among human beings, and thus his story is the Myth that is true, God's own Myth reflected in all other myths. The fact that the Jesus stories fit into the same pattern as other myths is not an argument in favour of the Gospel being fiction, but, because the life, death and resurrection actually happened to a historical person it is an argument in favour of seeing all myths as a reflection of the Truth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The answer, Lewis’s colleagues told him, was to recognize that the gospel story was mythic and should be appreciated as such, “but with this tremendous difference that it really happened. . . . The dying god really appears—as a historical person, living in a definite time and place.” As Lewis later wrote, “By becoming fact [the dying god story] does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.” But “it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call “real things.” “The Christian story of the dying god, in other words, lay at the exact intersection of myth and history."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The early Christians saw the Old Testament as full of stories, all of which can help us how to live, and all of which can teach us about Christ and his Church. To that extent they are true and the Word of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The story of Creation is especially true, choc-a-bloc with Christian understanding. As an example, let us take Adam and Eve.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Jesus is using the two commandments to love God with everything we have and are and to love our neighbour as ourselves as the interpreter of the Law and shows us the story of Adam and Eve supports us going beyond law in our observance of the Law. Law takes into account our hardness of heart, but Christian commitment is to the absolute demand of self-giving love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Paul uses the Adam and Eve story in many ways to help us to understand Christ. After all, revealing Christ is the main role of the Adam and Eve story as well as that of the whole of the Old Testament. Jesus is the "first born" through his resurrection in the "new heaven and the new earth" and we are on our way; just as Adam is the first born in the old creation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Paul the Apostle contrasted Adam and Christ as two corporate personalities or representatives (Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–3, 45–9) and saw human beings as bearing the image of both Adam and Christ (1 Cor. 15:49). Where Adam's disobedience meant sin and death for all, Christ's obedience more than made good the harm due to Adam by bringing righteousness and abundance of grace (Rom 5:12–21).[4] As a "life-giving spirit", the last Adam is risen from the dead and will transform us through resurrection into a heavenly, spiritual existence (1 Cor. 15:22, 45, 48–9). Thus Paul's Adam Christology involved both the earthly Jesus' obedience (Rom. 5) and the risen Christ's role as giver of the Spirit (1 Cor. 15)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b> The Early Church:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The early Church continued and developed this line of thinking. Here is an example, St Irenaeus who was martyred around 170AD:</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">EVE & MARY – DISOBEDIENCE VS. OBEDIENCE</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the word of an angel, and bore God in obedience to his word. As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God; thus the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>St. Irenaeus of Lyons</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This excerpt from St. Irenaeus shows that the Blessed Virgin Mary is truly a new Eve, just as her son Jesus Christ is a new Adam. He contrasts Eve’s disobedience with Mary’s obedience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Lord, coming into his own creation in visible form, was sustained by his own creation which he himself sustains in being. His obedience on the tree of the cross reversed the disobedience at the tree in Eden; the good news of the truth announced by an angel to Mary, a virgin subject to a husband, undid the evil lie that seduced</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">EVE & MARY Eve, a virgin espoused to a husband.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">– DISOBEDIENCE VS. OBEDIENCE</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the word of an angel, and bore God in obedience to his word. As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God; thus the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Christ gathered all things into one, by gathering them into himself. He declared war against our enemy, crushed him who at the beginning had taken us captive in Adam, and trampled on his head, in accordance with God’s words to the serpent in Genesis: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall lie in wait for your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel [Genesis 3:15].</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The one lying in wait for the serpent’s head is the one who was born in the likeness of Adam from the woman, the Virgin. This is the seed spoken of by Paul in the letter to the Galatians: The law of works was in force until the seed should come to whom the- promise was made. [Gal. 3:19]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>HIS SON, BORN OF A WOMAN</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">He shows this even more clearly in the same letter when he says: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. The enemy would not have been defeated fairly if his vanquisher had not been born of a woman, because it was through a woman that he had gained mastery over man in the beginning, and set himself up as man’s adversary.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">That is why the Lord proclaims himself the Son of Man, the one who renews in himself that first man from whom the race born of woman was formed; as by a man’s defeat our race fell into the bondage of death, so by a man’s victory we were to rise again to life.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Just as the Protestant Reformation stressed the literal truth of the Bible as substitute for the authority of the Church, in the New Testament and in the Church Fathers, it is the symbolic truth of the Bible, a truth no less real, that is stressed. This is not a denial of history but a revelation of its meaning through the biblical stories.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Please listen to this:</b></span><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0VIRA6T33o4/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0VIRA6T33o4?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The rest of what I have to say will be written after Ascension Day (in the western Church), the post for which will be written tomorrow. I shall complete the theme of this post in a separate one that should appear two or three days after Thursday.</span></div>
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Notes<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">dyscatastrophe</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">evangelium</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.</i><div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-29285179325912323232018-05-01T08:18:00.000-07:002018-05-01T08:18:20.030-07:00OUR NEW HOME (THANKS TO THE CISTERCIAN NUNS OF LAS HUELGAS by Abbot Paul<div style="text-align: center;">
<img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c1e09c330213&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ_nOWXcNTiYPgwZqCbFQsf8C2xVDAarc2btYE71Jc0aW6x3Jb4gjK-N7JNx81Iye5L_ITZhNJwTon-gtUi7blwQSFnJMf6z3qyynRXeIUA9JcXhwQS9k1T3Dow&sz=w3740-h2806&ats=1525187262444&rm=1631c1e09c330213&zw&atsh=1" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Report on my recent visit to Peru and the move to Lurín</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>by Abbot Paul</b></span></div>
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<img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c1a3edd19ad7&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ_pbF-o4sWczqKKeDCslq8JeKuph4w18wsDz--4QIHP1E4vw6lOzPf9zC1YnvYYDcVjLwahJ1pVpIUoPcKGr6uKw8mSlstF_-_EYshIi6ZwPuEb35rATHjwkxM&sz=w3740-h2806&ats=1525186117152&rm=1631c1a3edd19ad7&zw&atsh=1" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Abbess of Las Huelgas, Mother Mercedes Amutio Lacalle, and the last Superior of Lurín, Mother Trinidad Ruiz Ruiz, arrived in Lima 3 days before I did and left 4 days after my departure. Prior to my arrival they concluded the arrangement with the Poor Clares, who had lived at Lurín for a year before returning to their monastery in Lima, so that all would be ready to negotiate a new agreement with us. </span></div>
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<img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c1b23c313f74&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ8V2PoLOUtse4KAO4Y4Ji-wbXKC-O3yU4v4dPLn4rGizIBDvfYw_4CdKRSDWMf9ET3YPS_olso_79UabENg2Zsa8lkh-JVgfC4U6mPjq7rf2somJts4WCeeZso&sz=w3740-h2806&ats=1525186117146&rm=1631c1b23c313f74&zw&atsh=1" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Since my previous visit, the Siervos de la Divina Misericordia (Servants of Divine Mercy), a relatively new Peruvian group comprising 13 members, 5 of them priests, had confirmed their desire to rent our property at Pachacamac, possibly from May onwards. The Bishop of Lurín, Mgr. Carlos Garcia Camader, has given the necessary permission for them to move into the diocese and work there. The initial contract will be for a year and can be renewed if both parties are agreeable. . The contract is being drawn up and will be signed shortly. All such contracts in Peru are drawn up by a notary, signed in their presence and then registered with the State.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c204d0890589&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ93IpS8iDc6yxo38TMO-rJOo98WpD2_v0dqKed_CxAfugaZBeZ24cit3z1gR325PPFLkiPDAgjxYjORI92-Ri1uYyXh9sZr8-FDUnGmXDIrW_9MMHHmnGGYSwk&sz=w2048-h1536&ats=1525185440232&rm=1631c204d0890589&zw&atsh=1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the Cisterican graveside</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As the two elderly nuns were left alone in the monastery at Lurín, they asked that two of the brethren might stay there from the night of 17th. Fr Alex and Br Wilmer did that, while the rest of us remained at Pachacmac. On 18th, 19th and 20th Fr Richard Yeo, Br Mario and I met twice a day with the nuns to work out the details of the contact we would have with them. The bishop spent a day with us, while the Rector of the Seminary, Fr José Manuel Alonso Ampuero, and the Srta. Jenny Huamán Sulca of Sembrando Esperanza spent an afternoon with us. The notary Dr Maria del Carmen Chuquiure Varenzuela, was in attendance on two afternoons. Gradually, as by the hand of God, all the difficulties and obstacles were ironed out and disappeared.</span></div>
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<img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c20026f2c4e0&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ9t6hskdyVQQJQ2gz31arOVRYDuak7LNFl4Sv0l0Q_2C8M-zu_MpZ7AHI9ovHycVf8a9bKK5fSUoxhhVVw2-HgOxULNyfVeA9aYSBVS8Wz5qOpB5eyb-SdeEbc&sz=w2048-h1536&ats=1525186116643&rm=1631c20026f2c4e0&zw&atsh=1" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> As the two elderly nuns were left alone in the monastery at Lurín, they asked that two of the brethren might stay there from the night of 17th. Fr Alex and Br Wilmer did that, while the rest of us remained at Pachacmac. On 18th, 19th and 20th Fr Richard Yeo, Br Mario and I met twice a day with the nuns to work out the details of the contact we would have with them. The bishop spent a day with us, while the Rector of the Seminary, Fr José Manuel Alonso Ampuero, spent an afternoon with us. The notary Dr Maria del Carmen Chuquiure Varenzuela, was in attendance on two afternoons. Gradually, as by the hand of God, all the difficulties and obstacles were ironed out and disappeared. </span></div>
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<img height="400" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c20d652ca333&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ-px-gu5mFIIKp19vHKiRHEGVXknPwtYrpOzxZI-C7jfGV7oz5nr58LLp30d1L1r0QLGD0htWym0_h7Xt6MzjJKsEhPv_vc9lExmsflu0nV6_pmBLIr0PoUbak&sz=w2048-h2048&ats=1525186116631&rm=1631c20d652ca333&zw&atsh=1" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">By Monday morning, 23rd April, with the help of Fr Richard and Br Mario, an agreement was reached and the details of the contract agreed by both parties. It was actually signed by Mother Trinidad and Br Mario, the legal representatives of the two religious institutions, on 26th. Basically, the contract gives our Benedictine community the usufruct of the land and buildings for 7 years, after which the property will pass into the ownership of the “Orden Religiosa de los Padres Benedictinos,” which is the legal name and juridical identity of the community and has been since we arrived in Peru in 1981. Our obligations, in addition to living the monastic life and consolidating the community, are to take care of monastery buildings, especially the church and cemetery, and to continue running the orchard, including the employment of the two workmen. We are asked to take particular care of the patrimony of colonial art inherited from the original Lima monastery of the same name. The bones of the two foundresses and of all the sisters of that monastery are now buried under the altar of the church. We also promised to renew our work with the poor, though this is no longer a stipulation.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c1d83e0b6518&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ87_27YGz0XxrSMv4kjGg86Ff1qt7sPivgAD22UPSlZqar1L1TkFTEgtrGioEuikT9zqxm09uZl6UBdfR_tBWiQ_SRPyEKQ5S4K5apflaW0hKOoORztmiOSiw0&sz=w3740-h2806&ats=1525186116668&rm=1631c1d83e0b6518&zw&atsh=1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Bros. Wilmer and Jose Luis</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Mother Mercedes and Mother Trinidad were overjoyed at the presence of the monks at Lurín and to see a group of lively, devout and energetic young men taking over. It was a moving experience to sing the Divine Office with them and to celebrate the Conventual Mass each day. They have now cleared the place of what they needed to take back to Spain or simply get rid of. It is interesting to know that the complete archive of the colonial monastery is kept at Lurín. It was founded on 2nd February 1584 and suppressed in 1966, when the last four remaining nuns, including the last abbess, were forcibly united to the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. Two of the four are buried in the cemetery together with one of the Las Huelgas nuns, whilst the bishop, who supported the nuns when they made their foundation in 1995, in buried in the church. By a decree of the Holy See, the new foundation was declared to be the continuation of the original Lima monastery, hence the name, Santa Maria de la Santísima Trinidad. The church was consecrated on 9th February 2000. </span></div>
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<img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c1cddec6a878&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ_jdf96M-eCQ47CV5ntBpv-kSTaR1Ns0epXJ1z7L_RU8KHXHJyHKk_DxOrbTs6FXXMGQFZvwbjasnXs-VW-S6ZjndYmg3Ri6jR6WccqvKoRLAmW0VoC-wAcq8Q&sz=w3740-h2806&ats=1525186117125&rm=1631c1cddec6a878&zw&atsh=1" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In order not to lose our own history and identity in Peru, the brethren will be known as Monjes Benedictinos de la Encarnación. The new address is Monasterio Santa María de la Santísima Trinidad, Lurín, Lima 16. Email addresses will remain as they are at present, as will the postal address (Apartado 16-061, Lurín, Lima 16). The number of the landline is +51 1 4301057.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I should imagine that very soon the monks will be known locally as the Benedictines of Lurín and the monastery Monastery of Lurín just as Belmont is known as Belmont Abbey without mention of St Michael and All Angels.</span></div>
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<img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c1d31999b187&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ8m5o9ebybL6PhEkrpG5ArzlNVnhAaqt9yx--wX_IjR3SoKeBL-7q3GnL4e4b3gB5qK6zzFimu4eUgkdc1HXaV6gqF0Ar9au21GAF3q-MrC_QKXNH-31Zl-BLM&sz=w3740-h2806&ats=1525187262528&rm=1631c1d31999b187&zw&atsh=1" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The brethren are all living at Lurín, while two of Fr Alex’s uncles are doing some maintenance work at Pachacamac and living there. There is still a lot of “stuff” to be moved from there to Lurín. All will be ready for the other religious to move sometime in May, though there might be a slight delay until the beginning of June. The move to Lurín was somewhat hasty as the Cistercian nuns were so keen to hand everything over to us. They have no intention of returning. Mother Mercedes said that she felt they had fulfilled their duty in building the monastery that the Benedictines would live in and develop for the future and in this she saw the will and the hand of God. She kept quoting Psalm 117, “This is the work of the Lord, a marvel in our eyes.” In fact, it is quite a challenge that our Peruvian brethren have taken on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Fr Paul</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">30th April 2018</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="300" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=bf511b7bd4&view=fimg&th=1631c1e9e73a58be&attid=0.1&disp=emb&attbid=ANGjdJ-FMvscav9DJ17rwI3d_aX8Pe7CRC-jpFvRLi_tazCH8EBEiZjJ1NuHej6abX07mstNd0y4EIOVyNe4qo3qwFsrYPFKJeDpA8gGCv5w0UD6OE8W5cmY9zeBMk4&sz=w3740-h2806&ats=1525187262436&rm=1631c1e9e73a58be&zw&atsh=1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Joyful Conclusion</b></span></td></tr>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-7976605375413344162018-04-30T07:54:00.002-07:002018-04-30T08:03:58.296-07:00LIVING EUCHARISTICALLY: THE KAVASILAS OPTION and DOROTHY DAY<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Kavasilas Option</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">by </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Fr. Micah Hirschy</b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b> </b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>St. Nicholas Kavasilas</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://publicorthodoxy.org/2018/04/27/the-kavasilas-option/">my source: Public Orthodoxy</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Much has been written in the last couple of years concerning the “Benedict Option.” People have found inspiration in it as well as a great deal to criticize about both the movement and Rod Dreher’s book. The historicity and theology of the book are questionable. The dire picture painted is difficult not to dismiss when every Orthodox Church echoes with Christ is Risen from the dead, by death trampling down death. However, what is perhaps needed is not another criticism or debate about the “Benedict Option.” Instead, the time has come to explore another “Option.” This Option is rooted in the Gospel and found in the 2nd-century letter to Diognetus as well as the novels of Dostoyevsky. In contemporary times, it has been incarnated by a diversity of people that include Mother Maria Skobtsova and St. Porphyrios. This is the Kavasilas Option.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">St. Nicholas Kavasilas lived during the 14th century in the twilight of what has become known as the Byzantine Empire. The empire was besieged on the outside by the Muslims to the East and the Latins to the West. Within the empire were turmoil, civil wars, and uprisings. Religious controversies touched nearly every aspect of society. Nicholas was in the middle of it all. He was a scientist and theologian. He was a close friend to St. Gregory Palamas and was an advisor to emperors. He counted among his friends both Hesychasts and humanists. St. Nicholas wrote about the Liturgy and the Mysteries while contemporary scholarship is all but certain he remained a layman his entire life. Far from removing himself from society, there does not seem to be any area of society and culture with which he was not fully engaged.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Kavasilas Option begins with the Liturgy. St. Nicholas was quite clear in saying that everything needed is given in the Liturgy; a person can add nothing to what Christ has given in the sacred Mysteries. At the same time, it is necessary and depends on the person to preserve what has been given. St. Nicholas believed that this was done by reflecting on Christ and meditating upon the Law of the Spirit which is love. Olivier Clement puts it quite succinctly when he writes that Kavasilas </span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“recommends brief meditations to those living in his day, reminders in a way to remember, within the time it takes to put one foot in front of the other, that God exists and that He loves us” (Three Prayers, 32). </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Here there is no self-exile or removal from society. St. Nicholas teaches that these meditations can be done by all and in every place: </span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“The general may remain in command, the farmer may till the soil… one need not betake oneself to a remote spot, nor eat unaccustomed food, nor even dress differently... It is possible for one who stays at home and loses none of his possessions to constantly be engaged in the Law of the Spirit [Love]" (Life in Christ, 173-174).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At first glance this might seem a bit simple if not naïve. Go to Liturgy and throughout the week reflect on Christ’s love? St. Nicholas distilling a thousand years of ascetic praxis explained that every action comes from desire and that desire begins with reflection. Christ’s love is reflected on and this turns into desire to be with Christ which leads to actions pleasing to Him. People will act not out of fear of punishment or desire for reward but out of love for Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is important to remember that these reflections and meditations on Christ throughout the days and weeks can never be independent from the Eucharistic gathering. It is the Ecclesial experience of Christ in the shared meal that is remembered in the midst of the world and daily life and in a very real sense is brought into the world through this remembrance. The Eucharist is never independent of the world because it is carried into the world, relationships, politics, and encounters with culture. In fact St. Nicholas writes that the bread and wine offered in the Liturgy are themselves the fruit of human labor, culture, and are products of daily life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Kavasilas option is the “<i>Eucharisteite</i> in all circumstances” of St. Paul’s 1st letter to the Thessalonians (5:18). From this remembering and reflecting, born of these meditations on Christ’s manic love and the experience of the liturgy a eucharisticizing of the world takes place. This is spoken of beautifully by Olivier Clement: </span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“There is a particular way of washing, a way of dressing, of being nourished—whether through food or beauty—a way of welcoming one’s neighbor that is Eucharistic. It seems to me that there is also a Eucharistic way of fulfilling our dull, tiresome and repetitive daily tasks" (Three Prayers, 29).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What is the Kavasilas Option in the end? It is to be truly human. </span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“It was for the new man [Christ] that human nature was created at the beginning…Our reason we have received in order that we may know Christ, our desire in order that we might hasten to Him. We have memory in order that we may carry Him in us" (Life in Christ, 190).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The great wonder of Kavasilas’ teaching is that when people live as they were created to live they become, “as a people of gods surrounding God" (Life in Christ, 166). Because Christ:</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Gives them birth, growth, and nourishment; he is life and breath. By means of Himself He forms an eye for them and, in addition, gives them light and enables them to see Himself. He is the one who feeds and is Himself the food… Indeed, He is the One who enables us to walk, He Himself is the way, and in addition He is the lodging on the way and its destination… (Life in Christ, 47).</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fr. Micah Hirschy is priest at Holy Trinity Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Birmingham, Alabama.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Public Orthodoxy | April 27, 2018 at 1:44 pm | Tags: Benedict Option, Fr. Micah Hirshy, Nicholas Kavasilas, Rod Dreher | Categories: Church and Public Life | URL: <a href="https://wp.me/p6DEZQ-17I">https://wp.me/p6DEZQ-17I</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>THEY KNEW HIM IN THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD: DOROTHY DAY AND THE EUCHARIST </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Jessica Keating</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">M.Div. Candidate, University of Notre Dame</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><u><a href="http://sites.nd.edu/oblation/2011/11/09/they-knew-him-in-the-breaking-of-the-bread-dorothy-day-and-the-eucharist-part-ii/"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>my source:</b> </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: center;">THEY KNEW HIM IN THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD: DOROTHY DAY AND THE EUCHARIST</b><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> </b><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: center;">(Part II)</b></a></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The liturgy is not merely something one “does” or “performs,” but something one lives and embodies in the concrete circumstances of the world. Pope Benedict XVI, in <i>God Among Us</i>, argues that the reality of the Eucharist makes pressing corporeal demands.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Lord gives himself to us in bodily form. That is why we must likewise respond to him bodily. That means above all that the Eucharist must reach out beyond the limits of the church itself in the manifold forms of service to men and women and to the world. But it also means that our religion, our prayer, demands bodily expression. Because the Lord, the Risen One, gives us himself in the Body, we have to respond in soul and body. (Benedict XVI)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is this eucharistic reality which Day strove to embody, convicted of the fact that one cannot go to church, sing with the children, hear the homily of the day, partake of the bread of life, the Word made flesh, hear the Gospel, the Word of God, without allowing what one has received to overflow in loving service for one’s fellows (Day, CW 1949, 5.8). One’s entire corporeal existence is involved in worship and one is likewise obligated, through the grace poured out in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross at Calvary and made real and present in the “Holy Sacrifice of the Mass” through the “unbloodied repetition of the Sacrifice of the Cross” to inhabit the mystery of divine charity which is kenosis (Peter Maurin in Zwick 63; Corbon 241). To say that God’s grace merely invites one to action is limpid, and lacks the bite of the Gospel. Grace demands, shocks, and disorients. Articulating these concrete demands, Day writes:</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Every house should have a Christ’s room. The coat which hangs in your closet belongs to the poor. If your brother comes to you hungry and you say, Go be thou filled, what kind of hospitality is that? It is no use turning people away to an agency, to the city or the state or the Catholic Charities. It is you yourself who must perform the works of mercy. … Often you can literally take off a garment if it only be a scarf and warm some shivering brother. But personally, at a personal sacrifice, these were the ways Peter used to insist, to combat the growing tendency on the part of the State to take over. The great danger was the State taking over the job which our Lord Himself gave us to do, “Inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me. (Day, CW 1947, 1.3)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">God’s grace pressed upon her compelling a personal response, one in which the “mystery of divine love” expressed and actualized in the liturgy became “coextensive” with her life (Corbon 241). This love, which God extends to humanity, permeates “the depths of the heart […with] the power of the crucified and risen Lord,” and is fully realized “when it inspires us to enter into the depths of the world of sin, where love is not yet the conqueror of death” (241).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In The Wellspring of Worship, Jean Corbon remarks,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> <span style="color: yellow;">“The kenosis of love is revealed to us in the Bible as a mystery of poverty…In his person as the Son Jesus reveals to us that God is poor; for Jesus ‘has’ nothing; he receives everything ‘from’ the Father” (241-42). The Eucharist, therefore, quite literally “commits us to the poor” (CCC §1397). </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and being in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love. (CW, 1956, 2)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">She distinguished, however, supernaturally efficacious poverty from “pagan poverty.” The former involves “putting on Christ” while the latter undertaken out of selfishness. </span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Poverty is no good supernaturally if it is a pagan poverty for the sake of the freedom involved, though that is good, naturally speaking. Poverty is good, because we share the poverty of others, we know them and so love them more. Also, by embracing poverty we can give away to others. If we eat less, others can have more. If we pay less rent, we can pay the rent of a dispossessed family. If we go with old clothes, we can clothe others. We can perform the corporal works of mercy by embracing poverty. If we embrace poverty we put on Christ. If we put off the world, if we put the world out of our hearts, there is room for Christ within. (Day, CW 1944, 1, 2, 7)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Day lived out the mystery of Christ in the poor, practicing the works of mercy. During the 1971 interview on Christopher Closeup, when asked how the soup lines got started, Day matter-of-factly explained:</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Our Lord left himself to us as food: bread and wine. The disciples at Emmaus knew him in the breaking of bread and so it’s far easier to see Christ in your brother when you are sitting down and sharing soup with him. You don’t any longer see the destitute, or the drunk, or the disorderly, or the unworthy poor. (Christopher Closeup, 1971)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Furthermore, <span style="color: yellow;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: yellow;"> “[w]hen you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them. God sees Christ in His Son, in us and loves us. And so we should see Christ in others, and nothing else, and love them” (Day, Pilgrimage 124). </span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">She considered all her life as a meeting with Christ. “In performing the works of mercy […] she met Christ in human guise. In the Eucharist […] she met Christ disguised in word and human symbol [and] received him sacramentally, and was intimately transformed by him (Merriman 98). Her imagination, so radically reoriented and shaped by the Eucharistic sacrifice, allowed her to see in the daily life of the homeless the laborious and lonely journey to Calvary: </span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“Here starts their long weary trek to as to Calvary. They meet no Veronica on their way to relieve their tiredness nor is there a Simon of Cyrene to relieve the burden of the cross (Day, Loaves 37).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The liturgical movement, which profoundly affected Day’s understanding of the unity of the life of worship and the life of work, advanced the idea that there was no bifurcation between the activities in which relate Christians to God, sacred actions on the one hand and secular actions on the other (Corbon 204). Unlike the Old Covenant, in which “worship did not contain the saving events within it but simply remembered them [and] its morality aimed at conformity with the events but did not flow from them as from a present source,” the New Covenant celebrated in the liturgy “does not offer us a model that is then to be imitated in the rest of life”; rather the “Christ whom we celebrate is the identical Christ by whom we live” (203-04). There are not two radically heterogeneous realities; rather there is but one reality with two distinctive aspects, in which the mystery of Christ “permeates both celebration and life” (204). The liturgical movement expressed the continuity between moral and cultic life, and Day adopted Fr. Virgil Michel’s attitude that “our responsibility for the poor, believer or not, flows from the fact that we are connected to one another in the mystical Body of Christ and the Eucharist (Day, Pilgrimage 36). In other words, Day believed that one ought to live in conformity to the mystery of Christ’s kenosis and love expressed in the Eucharist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is the one whose body we eat and whose blood we drink; the one who, when we commune in the Eucharist takes us out of ourselves and assimilates us into him, so “that we become one with him and, through him, with the fellowship of our brethren” (Benedict XVI 78). Pope Benedict explains that the Eucharist reverses what normally occurs when we take in nourishment. “In the normal process of eating,” he remarks, “the human being is the stronger being. He takes things in, and they are assimilated into him, so that they become part of his own substance. They are transformed within him and go to build up his bodily life” (Benedict XVI). But by taking in the Eucharist, Christ subsumes us into his Body, so that we might not merely imitate, but participate in his poverty, his self-emptying love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">For Day one did not live the liturgy individually in isolation from others. In her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, she recalls:</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I had heard many say that they wanted to worship God in their way and did not need a Church in which to praise Him, nor a body of people with whom to associate themselves. But I did not agree to this. My very experience as a radical, my whole make-up, led me to want to associate myself with others, with the masses, in loving and praise God. Without even looking into the claims of the Catholic Church, I was willing to admit that for me she was the one true Church. (139)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Like all human persons, Day had a deep and abiding desire for communion with God, which as the very nature of God reveals, is necessarily relational. Her involvement with the radical movement and the “sense of solidarity” she experience therein enabled Day to “gradually understand the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ whereby we are members of one another” (149). Partaking in the liturgy imbued her with the sense of “Eucharistic communion,” which she then extended to the entire human community (Corbon 205). Thus, Day asserts that</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> “[w]e cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know him in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore” (Day, Long 285).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>An Interview with Dorothy Day's Granddaughter </b></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-24485388647009543242018-04-28T09:03:00.000-07:002018-04-28T09:27:59.583-07:005th SUNDAY AFTER EASTER<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>GOSPEL John 15:1-8</b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”</span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">HOMILY FOR THE 5th SUNDAY OF EASTER</span> </b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When I was a child in the pew at Sunday Mass, my mother would often warn us to “catch the blessing” when the priest was about to conclude the Mass. One Sunday, after I had become a server, I carried the missal to the priest for the solemn blessing, and as he extended his hands to bless the people, I caught the backside of one hand on my cheek. My mother exclaimed after Mass, “You really caught the blessing today!”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I often think of this humorous incident when a particular theme in the prayers and readings of a Sunday is as obvious as a smack in the face. This happens to be one of those Sundays. In the Collect we pray that the baptized may “bear much fruit.” Then, in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Luke tells us that great fruit was being born in the infant Church which “grew in numbers” through the Holy Spirit. Then, in the Gospel from Saint John, five times our Lord talks about “bearing much fruit.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Ultimately the fruit that Christ spoke about was spiritual fruit – souls for God’s Kingdom. This presupposes Christian spouses being generous in welcoming new life into the world. One of the Prefaces in the Rite of Marriage prays, “By your providence and grace, O Lord, you accomplish the wonder of this twofold design: that, while the birth of children brings beauty to the world, their rebirth in Baptism gives increase to the Church.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But spiritual fruit also depends upon men and women who embrace continence for the Kingdom of Heaven – men and women who forego earthly marriage and procreation in order to become spiritually fruitful. The ministry, prayers, works, and sacrifices of those called to virginity bears great fruit in the members of the Body of Christ – fruit that we will see clearly only on the Last Day. “We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end” (CCC 1040).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is demonstrated most perfectly in the Blessed Virgin Mary. The fruit of her virginal womb – the Son of God made flesh – teaches us that virginity, like marriage, has an important place in God’s plan for His people. She was joined in virginal fruitfulness by Saint Joseph. Together they welcomed the Son of God into their midst. As St. John Paul II teaches, “Only Mary and Joseph, who lived the mystery of [Christ’s] birth, became the first witnesses of a fruitfulness different from that of flesh, that is, the fruitfulness of the Spirit” (TOB 75:2).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I remember being struck by this lesson about the spiritual fruitfulness of celibacy just a few years into my priesthood. I was traveling to a conference for priests in Dallas. Along the way, I visited former parishioners who had moved to Texarkana for a few days. Then I stayed with the relatives of another parish family in Dallas, before joining a number of other priests at the seminary for the conference. Lastly, I drove to Alabama to preach a retreat hosted by an order of religious sisters I had come to know on my first retreat after ordination. I would have known none of these people – nor been welcomed into their homes – had I not promised celibacy for the Kingdom on the day of my ordination. Already, after just a few years of priesthood, I already experienced the “hundredfold” that Our Lord promised to those who give up everything to follow Him (cf. Mt 19:28-29).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Marriage and virginity seem to rise and fall together. At the same time as the sexual revolution bore its ugly fruit in fornication, adultery, abortion, and divorce, numbers of priests and religious plummeted in our country. The good fruit of saints for the Kingdom of Heaven depends upon generous spouses and generous virgins. Let us pray for new, holy, persevering vocations to Christian marriage, priesthood, and religious life, for “by this is my Father glorified” (Jn 15:8).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Father David Skillman is a Roman Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. He serves as the pastor of St. Gerard Majella Catholic Church in Kirwood, Missouri. Father Skillman is a Certification student with TOBI and has attended numerous courses. You can access audios of Father Skillman’s homilies through: <a href="http://frskillman.podbean.com/">http://frskillman.podbean.com/</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>I AM THE VINE, YE ARE THE BRANCHES. FROM A SERMON ON HOLY AND GREAT THURSDAY</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Hieromonk Pavel (Scherbachev)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="http://orthochristian.com/78563.html">my source: Orthodox Christianity</a></u></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Today, brothers and sisters, on Great and Holy Thursday we remember the Last Supper, when our Lord Jesus Christ established the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and served the first Divine Eucharist, giving his disciples and apostles His Most Pure Body and Blood in the image of bread and wine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The services of Great Lent are filled with Old Testament images and symbolic stories, many of which prophetically point to the great gift of Christ’s Holy Mysteries, through which mortal man, easily inclined toward sin, enters into communion, into the closest union with his Creator and Redeemer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At the Vespers we have just served, we heard the story of God’s Prophet Moses’s ascent on Mt. Sinai. There God appeared to him in the sound of thunder and the flash of lightening. But the prophet and God-seer could not converse with God face to face, for the veil of the Old Testament had not been removed from his eyes. Nevertheless, as the prefiguring of the future Sacrament of Communion, to Moses and the people of Israel was sent manna—heavenly bread, which filled them in the desert.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">According to the words of the Psalmist David, the Lord rained upon them manna to eat, and gave them the bread of heaven. Man ate the bread of angels (Ps. 78 23-25). And Christ speaks of old Israel: Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. And he continues about the new grace: This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die (Jn. 6:49-50).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Exegetists of Holy Scripture see in the bread and wine with which the mysterious priest of the Most High God Melchisedek, who was a sign of Christ, met Abraham, as the prefiguring of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There are many other indications and prophecies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Also the righteous Job, the chosen of God, about whom we heard in another Old Testament reading, prefigured Christ the Savior, so that his loving servants said, Oh that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied (Job 31:31). But, as St. John Chrysostom theologizes, this longing “was given to us by Christ, leading us to exceedingly great love, and He showed His love to us, allowing those who desire it not only to see Him, but also to touch Him, and take Him as food and be united with Him, fulfilling every desire.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Today’s services call us as we come to the divine Sacrament to lift up our minds on high to God: “Come ye faithful and with minds uplifted, delight in the Master’s hospitality and the immortal table in the upper room.”[1]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Truly in coming, albeit not to the high mountain of Sinai but to the Christian church to the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we depart from our usual spiritual rails and onto a certain paradoxical dimension. As mortal men, subject to the laws of space and time, we are as if transported into the next life, becoming communicants of the eternal trapeza in the never-waning day of the Kingdom of God. Although we are sinners, we enter into the highest degree of communion with the All-Holy Lord, uniting with Him as closely and inseparably as the body is united with the head. As sons of Adam according to flesh and blood, from our new progenitor, Christ, already here on earth we receive a supernatural image—in place of the corruptible flesh and blood inherited through the fall, we receive the Body and Blood that is divine and incorruptible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Even the Sacrament itself does not fit into the ordinary logic of human comprehension. For, the Priest, the Great Hierarch Jesus Christ, in serving the Holy Eucharist brings Himself as a sacrifice—as the clergy read the secret prayer: He Who is both Sacrificed and Sacrificer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The bishop or priest serves the Sacrament through God’s grace; he himself is praying as Jesus Christ Himself, the true Server of the Liturgy, and Christ works through him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In approaching Christ’s holy Mysteries, let us remember that the exceedingly great gift given to mankind, the gift of union with God in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, is not acquired by human labors, it is not the fruit of ascetical labors, but a gift from on high, coming down from the Father of lights. And this gift is given freely through God’s ineffable love for the human race.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Of course, we must thank the Lord for His mercy to us sinners. Even the word itself, Eucharist, means in the Greek, “thanksgiving.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, in which we are participating now, the priests read certain prayers. In these prayers, the entire history of the world takes places before us. We thank God that He has created this world and man, that He has brought each one of us to life, that for the sake of each of us He became man, suffered and died on the cross. We thank God that He descended into hell, so that the Gospel would be preached there, in order to bring out those who were kept there. We thank God that He rose from the dead, so that together with Himself He would resurrect all of us, and that He served this Mystical Supper, in which in the form of bread and wine He has given us His Body and Blood for Communion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We can preserve this divine flame that we have received in the Sacrament of Communion, by preserving this prayerful thanksgiving in our everyday lives. This will help us in our struggle with passions and sinful habits. Even when we are assailed by sorrows, sicknesses, and all kinds of unpleasantness in life, let us not forget to thank the Lord.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We remember Christ’s words, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned (Jn. 15:1-6).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If we are the branches of Christ’s Vine, it means that we are fed with the juices of this Vine, just as ordinary grapevines are fed by the juices they receive from their roots. We cannot live, we cannot exist without this mystical nourishment from the Vine of Christ, the branches of which Christ has vouchsafed us to be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What are these juices of Christ’s Vine? They are His Blood, His Body, which He has commanded us to eat and drink. If we will not be nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ, then, as the Lord said, we will have no life in us, and He will not abide in us and us in Him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Hieromonk Pavel (Scherbachev)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">4/10/2015</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Vine and Branches</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://www.stpeterschurchchicago.org/cm/articles/vine-and-branches">my source: St Peter's Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, Perth, Australia</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What is the job description of a vinedresser? The definition of vinedresser is “an agriculturalist who cultivates and prunes grapevines”. Pruning is one of the most important job of a vinedresser. A vinedresser is involved in daily pruning of grapevines, to help ensure that vineyard has a successful crop. Pruning is critical in the grape production system. The reasons for pruning include deadwood removal, controlling and directing the growth by pinching off the tip, reducing risk of falling branches by topping the larger branches etc – all resulting in increasing the yield or quality of fruits and flowers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the Scripture, there are some interesting references to vine, vineyard, vinedresser and pruning. John 15:1-2 says</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Here Jesus is making the last of the seven ‘I AM’ declarations recorded in John, the prior ones being</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I AM the bread of life (John 6:35)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I AM the light of world (John 8:12)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I AM the door (John 10:9)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I AM the good shepherd (John 10:11)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I AM the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I AM the way, truth and the life (John 14:6)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I AM the true vine (John 15:1)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The last declaration is recorded as an extended metaphor where Jesus is symbolizing the true vine to Himself, branches to believers, and fruits to Spiritual fruits and Father to gardener or vinedresser. Let us examine these symbolisms as applied to our daily life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Vine and branches not bearing fruits</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What does God expect from us as ‘branches’ in the vine? We are expected to bear Fruits of Spirit - love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5: 22-23). The branches which do not bear fruits are cut-off from the vine by the gardener. Those who are called to be Christians are given a stern warning here to check our lives and review our association with the vine - Jesus. The association with Jesus needs to be real and fruit bearing, by carrying Him in our hearts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Vine and branches bearing good fruits</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What about the branches that bear fruits? After talking about branches that bear no fruits, Jesus moves on to talk about the branches that do bear fruits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Spiritual pruning will be done by the Father on the fruitful branches. This pruning might hurt, because it can come in the form of sickness, hardships, or loss of material assets. It could be persecution from non-believers. It can come in the form of losing loved ones or losing jobs or a combination of difficulties. If we look upon trials and problems as pruning done by our loving Vinedresser, then our approach to problems will be very different. We will not lapse into fear, disappointment, complaining or brooding if we consider the difficulties as techniques implemented on us to bear more spiritual fruits. In fact, hardships are the right of a Christian.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Vines producing bad fruits</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What would a vinedresser do to a vine that does not produce the best fruits? It will be removed to give space for a better vine to grow. In the Song of the Vineyard (Isaiah 5: 1-7), Isaiah explains this situation of bad fruits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">1 I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. 3 "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? 5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it." 7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the Old Testament, Vine is referred for the entire Israel and God is the vinedresser. Vines bearing bad fruits would face destruction was the warning given to Israel. Today, as followers of Christ, we are already protected from that destruction. The vine for Christians is already there, established by God by sending his only son Jesus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We – as branches – should just abide to Jesus, accept the continuous pruning techniques applied on us by Father and keep producing the best Spiritual fruits. During this, we will be subjected to variety of trials and hardships where Satan will use discouragement or disappointment or depression as the tools to turn us away from God. Joseph, Moses, Naomi, Job, David, Jonah, Elijah, Jeremiah are great examples of lives who came out of such tests successfully. Let us trust in the grace of God, go to Him in prayer, read His Word and choose to see hand of God in everything that takes place in our life.</span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-50600726777344681182018-04-26T07:44:00.001-07:002018-04-26T09:02:33.442-07:00A VISIT FROM THREE SISTERS OF MERCY FROM MINSK and SUBSEQUENT THOUGHTS AND MEMORIES<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg89ygrZvtxgVdRXvzOH_jye065AtbQZyzz4sRri13bS00PbO82nqYv0XKr3aennsMbGeA_8KP5OlgBjuSEIddXWWOQAn3WlEXvu5WFk7FFRGl6m4-I-o6XO2Gl69Fp8_4O55JYko888TU/s1600/st+elizabeth+convent+at+belmont.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="849" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg89ygrZvtxgVdRXvzOH_jye065AtbQZyzz4sRri13bS00PbO82nqYv0XKr3aennsMbGeA_8KP5OlgBjuSEIddXWWOQAn3WlEXvu5WFk7FFRGl6m4-I-o6XO2Gl69Fp8_4O55JYko888TU/s400/st+elizabeth+convent+at+belmont.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Sisters Anna, Veronica and Helen with me</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Last night and today we had the great privilege of a visit from three "Sisters of Mercy" from the Russian Orthodox Convent of St Elizabeth the Royal Martyr in Minsk, Belarus. They were on a tour to sell products of St Elizabeth's Convent to support their work among physically and mentally handicapped children, handicapped adults, those who have come out of mental hospital, those out of prison and alcoholics. I had been looking forward to their visit ever since my abbot, Fr Paul, gave me the news after I had returned from Peru. I am still in a happy mood after their visit and am looking forward to the next time I visit Belarus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Because God is Love and the Christian life is a sharing in his divine life, God manifests his life in the world where Christian love is exercised. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” (Jn 13, 35)</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"That they may be one, as thou Father in me and I in thee, may they be one in us <i>that the world may know that thou hast sent me</i>. (Jn 17,)" </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Church is visible to the world only in so far as Christian love is visible: without Christian love, the Church plays power games like any other institution and is seen by the world as nothing special and so it renders God's presence opaque to the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is the function of Christ's body on earth to make God's presence in Christ visible but, i</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">n every generation, there are people for whom this is their special vocation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> In the 19th Century, Father Damian did this by sharing his life with lepers in the leper colony of Molokai. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Robert Louis Stevenson visited Molokai in 1889 shortly after Saint Father Damien’s death (April 1889). He spent eight days there assisting Sister Marianne Cope (also canonized) with the lepers (much to her chagrin, for the author himself then had TB and could have easily contracted the disease in that weakened state). Not long afterwards (actually four years before his own death in 1894), Stevenson came to the defense of Father Damien in a scathing letter (well worth his literary skills and flair for righteous sarcasm), an Open Letter it turned out to be, to a Presbyterian Rev. Mr. Hyde of Honolulu. Hyde had viciously calumniated Father Damien, soon after the saint’s death, in a letter to an inquiring fellow Presbyterian minister, a Rev. Gage, that was subsequently published that October, 1889, in an Australian newspaper, the Sydney Presbyterian. The reason that Gage had inquired of Hyde for information about Father Damien was that the whole world was then praising the deceased priest’s charity and heroism. Stevenson (himself a Presbyterian) had read that letter while staying in Australia. That same paper refused to carry the famous writer’s rebuttal. That is why Stevenson published it as an Open Letter which, on account of his prestige, was read everywhere in the English speaking world. He affirmed that he had an obligation in justice to defend the good name of the priest of Molokai. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="http://catholicism.org/robert-louis-stevenson-father-damien-of-molokai-and-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde.html">(Catholicism.org)</a></u></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Father Damien challenged the anti-Catholicism of Mr Hyde by the quality of his love because it is the kind of love that manifests the presence of the Holy Spirit, and, as St Irenaeus tells us, "Where the Holy Spirit is, there is the Church."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Sisters of Mercy also impressed the world and manifested the true nature of Catholicism by their incredible work in educating the poor, in and nursing the sick among the most disadvantaged and suffering. In the 19th century no situation was too difficult nor job too dangerous for them. In fact, Florence Nightingale invited them to nurse the troops in the Crimean War. Their reputation as nurses under fire, as people of incredible strength of character, self-forgetfulness, courage and practical love, both at the front in the war and in the United States under the most adverse conditions, was an inspiration to others. Soon there were Anglican Sisters of Mercy, Lutheran Sisters of Mercy and, later on, even Russian Orthodox Sisters of Mercy. Like Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters in the 20th Century, they demonstrated to the world that the Gospel is not just words but a lived reality in which people on earth become a window into heaven.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, later Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>(Russian: Елизавета Фëдоровна Романова, Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova; canonized as Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna; 1 November 1864 – 18 July 1918</i>)</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> was a German princess of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt, and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">She was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and hence a maternal great-aunt of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the consort of Queen Elizabeth II.</span><u style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Elisabeth_of_Hesse_and_by_Rhine_(1864%E2%80%931918)">(Wikipedia)</a></b></u><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The young princess grew up to be very beautiful, and at the age of nineteen, married a Grand-Duke of Russia, Sergei Alexandrovich. Through Elizabeths marriage, her sister Alexandra was to meet and marry another Russian, the future Tsar Nicholas II. On moving to Russia to live with her husband, Elizabeth, who had always loved God, was soon drawn to Orthodox Christianity, intuitively perceiving the deep spirituality of the Russian Orthodox Church. Sorrowfully accepting the disapproval of her Lutheran relations, she converted in 1891.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In 1905, as civil unrest grew in Russia, Elizabeths husband was blown to pieces in an explosion by an anarchist assassin. Amazingly, the day after the murder, Elizabeth went to the prison and forgave the murderer, fervently urging him to repent of his crime. To the complete incomprehension of those around her she even tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to secure him a reprieve from execution. The tragedy was a turning point in Elizabeths life. Her husbands death was a solemn reminder of the fragility of all human life, and she abandoned completely the luxurious life of a royal dignitary.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After much prayer and soul-searching, she decided to found a monastic community, the convent of Sts Martha and Mary at her estate in Moscow. The convent, which opened in 1909, was funded by the sale of all her precious jewels. It was a place of prayer and practical service, with two churches, a hospital and dispensary, lodging house, orphanage, library and soup kitchen. The sisters also worked with the poor and sick in the slums of Moscow. Elizabeth lived a very self-denying lifestyle, eating only bread and vegetables, and always rising in the middle of the night to pray, and to check her patients, so that she never had much of a chance to rest herself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Russian Revolution in 1917 led to a terrible persecution of Christians. Churches and monasteries were destroyed and priests, monks and nuns tortured and killed. Against the advice she was given, Elizabeth chose to stay in Russia, and to face the inevitable fate of an abbess and member of the royal family- martyrdom. This came the following year, when she was imprisoned at Alapayevsk with other members of the aristocracy. One of the novices, Sister Barbara, would not leave her spiritual mother and stayed with the abbess despite being warned of the consequences. Thus Barbara chose death rather than desertion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After four months on 5 July 1918, the night after the murder of the Tsar and his family, the prisoners were thrown into a shaft at a disused iron mine. None of them were killed by the fall, but were preserved by God to audibly sing hymns. Even the attempts of the soldiers to finally end their lives using hand grenades were unsuccessful, and the singing continued for some time, despite burning brushwood being thrown down the shaft.</span><br />
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© Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem. 05 August, 2013</div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When the bodies were recovered a few days later by the White Army, Elizabeths was found to be incorrupt, the fingers placed together in the traditional position for making the Sign of the Cross. One of the other prisoners, John, was found beside her with her monastic veil wrapped around his injured head as a bandage. By this, the former grand duchess expressed her love and care for others, even in the last moments of her earthly life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We now jump to the time when Communism collapsed and grace rushed in to fill the vacuum. Reference to a fuller account of that story can be found here.</span><br />
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<a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d6/1e/a8/d61ea861b55914080b4a24e45c38efa0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="738" height="238" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d6/1e/a8/d61ea861b55914080b4a24e45c38efa0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I suppose it all began in 1994 with a group of four pious ladies who decided to do something about a mental hospital in Minsk. The Soviet Atheistic Empire had come apart, and the newly independent state of Belarus was enjoying religious freedom and believers were trying to express their commitment to Christ in the quality of their love. Perhaps because of an atheistic philosophy which sees no value in the mentally sick, there were few institutions more inhuman in the Russian Communist territory than their mental hospitals. Even when they were well run, they were places where people abandoned their mentally handicapped relatives to a purposeless and boring existence, unloved and forgotten. This brings us to the pious ladies and their mental hospital in Minsk. This group of deeply Christian women decided to bring Christian love into the local mental institution. Some became constant visitors, some went to work there. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They combined their commitment to the mentally sick with assistance at the Divine Liturgy and devotion to the Jesus Prayer. They called themselves "the Sisterhood of The Glorious New Martyr, the Grand Duchess St Elizabeth" or just "Sisters of Mercy" in remembrance of St Elizabeth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> As their numbers swelled, so did their works. They widened their service to include other hospitals, care of ex-prisoners, children's orphanages, drug addicts etc. Quite obviously, they were being blessed by God. There are now over 300 Sisters of Mercy, not bad for a community that only began in 1994!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What is more: two sisters of mercy adopted the monastic habit in 1999 and they are now an abbey of around a hundred nuns with four impressive churches and the same number of liturgical and professional choirs that have made records and won prizes. Very early on, the community opened a workshop for iconography and attracted painters of icons from all over Belarus, as well as from foreign countries. Soon, some of the male artists put on the monastic habit, so there is now a small but growing community of monks. If that were not enough, many lay people, men and women, married, single and celibate, have been attracted into the various activities of the convent and work and pray there permanently. Some have gone on to the seminary and some have become deacons and priests attached to St Elizabeth's Convent, but many are content to remain ordinary lay people who, in their various ways and in different degrees are "brothers" and "sisters" of the convent. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLeyYSlu59aVyteOCB3_mvVUe7sGNDFkksxeGyzDMUyzYq-_3ngpJn-XlQz4qe9Ivqr2Sz3T4xD8u59_mcqrnn4iygiKRr8CGa7UjalxwwfTXEwTGwIdyj3PlfXkH7OiFAWkQdB2DPEjo/s1600/Minsk+042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLeyYSlu59aVyteOCB3_mvVUe7sGNDFkksxeGyzDMUyzYq-_3ngpJn-XlQz4qe9Ivqr2Sz3T4xD8u59_mcqrnn4iygiKRr8CGa7UjalxwwfTXEwTGwIdyj3PlfXkH7OiFAWkQdB2DPEjo/s1600/Minsk+042.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As if this variety were not enough, there is a home for ex-prisoners, ex-mental patients, alcoholics and vulnerable adults. One inmate was in prison for twenty eight years for multiple murders. On my visit I met a layman who lives as an inmate even though he belongs to none of the categories for whom the home exists: he just likes the simple life they lead. This community has its own beautiful church, and the Divine Liturgy is celebrated every Sunday with the opportunity for confession. In the last two years, another home has started, this time for females who need such a place. Its church is still under construction. All these are "brothers" and "sisters" of the wider community that is St Elizabeth' Convent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this video, filmed at the 15th anniversary of the nuns' convent, already with a hundred nuns (called locally "black nuns" because of the colour of their veil) and a few monks - the "sisters of mercy" are called "white nuns" and are 300 in number and six years older. They live at home with their families. Some are married but most are not. Wearing the habit obliges them to live a strict Christian life, and they work full time in the work of the convent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>15th anniversary of St Elizabeth's Convent</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Path of Love </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>(An Introduction to the life)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The White Angel of Minsk</b></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">(Feast of St Elizabeth the New and Royal Martyr)</b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I did not know</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Other Land: A Conversation with Fr. Andrei Lemeshonok</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">DMITRY ARTIUKH | 06 JULY 2013</span><br />
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On this land, in this transient world, we often look for something, we want something – but we ourselves do not know what. We grow confused, we get scared, we condemn others, we act out… Our soul goes through many such states. It’s good if these states pass quickly, without finding a place in our hearts. But something else can also happen: we begin to be led by sin, which cuts us off from the light. If we do not ask for God’s help in time, we can lose our minds. But just what is a “mind”? Who in this world is intelligent and who is bereft of reason? When do we act rightly: when we laugh or when we cry? These are difficult questions, and finding answers for them is also difficult, but we will try to do just that with the help of Archpriest Andrei Lemeshonok, spiritual father of the St. Elizabeth Convent in Minsk.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Fr. Andrei, what is the “other land”?</b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Archpriest Andres Lemeshonok</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The other land is Paradise, which man lost when he lost God. The church building is Heaven on earth. We might say that a church is that other land. If someone becomes a church himself, the land of his body changes. Look at the saints: their bodies are saturated with God’s grace, the source of life; we venerate their holy relics because they possess God’s love, which doesn’t die. The other land is one in which there is neither death nor sin, but where God is present and where God’s blessing is on everything.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Who lives according to the laws of the “other land” in this world?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At some moment, or at some period in his life, everyone probably comes into contact with this land. People who seek God also seek this land, this foundation upon which eternal life can already be built – life in which there is neither pain, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but where God will be in all things. For the time being, we’re battling with ourselves, with the world, and with this temporal land, which is constantly drawing us in and closing us off from Heaven and from one another as we wander in the shadow of sin. Unfortunately, that’s the way people live. Not many people can imagine that there’s anything else: another land, another life, different criteria and goals of life. Most likely, a Christian will find it: God will find him and reveal it to him. But later one has to fight for it, to work hard, and not turn aside or go with the crowd, which might be following the broad paths.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">You have a great deal of experience providing spiritual care for people living in homes for the mentally disabled. Where do you see the “other land” in their lives?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When I first visited such a home, I felt that something was off. One breathes differently, hears differently, sees differently… there is some other dimension. And then I understood that there’s no evil in these people. There’s sin – but, you know, like the sin of children. Sin might manifest itself in a child and he might act up – but there is no cunning or deceit, no inner buildup of sin. He right away, forgets, forgives, and goes on playing. He doesn’t live with this sin. But with an adult, the heart grows callous and becomes filled with sin. One can’t overcome the passions one one’s own. One needs help, one needs the Holy Church, one needs the love that allows one to take a deep breath, to break free from one’s ego for at last a moment, and to visit that other land. That’s probably the most important thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>How do people from that “other land” commune with God?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Like children – simply. In terms of development, many of them resemble children of the ages of five to seven. They aren’t bothered by the problems that cause stress for adults. Their behavior can be crude and one shouldn’t idealize these homes – these people are ill – but their illness has in a way preserved and shut them off from this world, while the walls of the homes give them shelter. They lead a different life, which is probably what keeps their souls from being damaged by sin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They seem crazy to people, these unfortunate people, but for God they come first. If they believe, they believe sincerely, without analyzing or twisting things around, without thinking things up in the way that so-called “normal” people do, who are always getting confused and who torture themselves with doubts, conjectures, and a constant psychic tension that isn’t from God. This kind of life is temporal and human, but not real. For us to be like people who are ill, we need holiness. We need to evolve back into children, but not through primitivism or artificial simplicity, but through the labor of soul and mind. We think, struggle, and seek God; and, through knowledge of this world, we arrive at what we’ve lost by becoming adults, having gone off to a far country where this land is always trying to bury us, to close us off from God’s world and from one another. Therefore, of course, when God is present in someone, he becomes very simple.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>How can one learn to do this?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I think that one needs to spend one’s entire life learning this. We have God as a physician, helper, and teacher; we have His love, which makes us capable of overcoming the attractions of this world and resolving all its problems, because in God is the fullness of life. One can’t claim that the first-created people before the Fall were philosophers or sages. They simply lived in God, and in this was the fullness of life they later lost. Unfortunately, they weren’t ready for simplicity, purity, and a right life. In order to arrive at it, humanity probably had to go through many generations in which people suffered and died in hopelessness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Residents of a Home for the Mentally Disabled in Minsk.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One person says: “I want a car, I want to go to some resort, I want glory and health, I want…” But another person understands that this is all nonsense, and says: “I want there to be peace in my soul and light in my eyes. I want to live eternally. I want to become a human being!” Everything that is sinful and inauthentic is transient, artificial, and deadly. We’re not idealizing these homes. The illness is real. But this illness, this suffering, cleanses their souls and makes them different; it changes them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>But some people say: “Living is easier for people who are abnormal.” What can you say to this?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But here it’s hard to tell who’s normal and who’s abnormal. I think that a believer might have the experience of one minute when he was truly alive. If there was no such moment, then it means there was no life – no real life. It means we’re still clinging to illusions. There are people who spend their entire lives like that, not because God treats them differently than others, but simply because they don’t need it. At some point, their soul couldn’t respond, it couldn’t see the beauty; it became frightened, it hid and lost heart, because drawing nigh to God condemns one to suffering. There are few people who live in this world – who live on those “swine husks” on which the world feeds – that want to taste the life of the holy God-pleasers who suffered, struggled, and were always battling for another land. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">‘Would you like to pray day and night, to suffer for Christ, and to die for Christ?’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">‘No. I do believe, but I don’t want to become a fanatic; that’s already too much, it’s not for me. My level of Christian life means lighting a candle, writing a commemoration sheet, perhaps fasting and receiving Communion occasionally. I’m a simple person…’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There used to be a Soviet person; now there’s some other unknown kind of person, but still someone of this world. But when God touches someone, he can no longer be like everyone else. He understands that there’s another life and another land, but you’re digging around in your earthly affairs and problems like a mole. These, too, are necessary, but what does the Lord say? But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33). What does the Church do? It says: “Let us lift up our hearts!” The Church tries to lift us out of this garbage dump in which we’re trying to find something. We’re like bums rummaging around, trying to find something in this trash, some piece of metal. People think of themselves as being strong, rich, noble – but this entire life is a garbage dump. The emperor has no clothes! But everyone’s applauding and saying: “Everything is find and good!” Isn’t this some kind of show? Isn’t this a crazy house in which we’re living? But this is acceptable; everyone lives like this. This is what people are taught from generation to generation, so breaking out from this world is very difficult, if not impossible. But God gives man grace, by which he moves and breaks out. There’s no other way we can break out. Sin lives in me, in my every cell; I’ve been taught by sin, I’ve been taught by this world. How can I live?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One needs to repent… </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Real repentance is a revolution, an inner revolution; it’s a change of life, when one becomes different.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is probably at such moments that the soul wants to give thanks to God. But how? How can one give back to God? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Create in me a clean heart, O God… Everything that God gives him, he can give back. One can’t give back anything of one’s own. One doesn’t own anything, not a stitch. Not everyone understands that to love someone is a gift of God; that to believe is a gift of God; that humility and patience are also gifts of God. One can only give one’s ego, which nobody needs. What can we give back? Our heart. What condition is it in? God gives so much to us, but we lose it and do not give thanks. We’re at war with God; we argue with Him, we want to prove our point to Him. But God humbles Himself, because He loves us. If we want to love someone, we need to look at how God treats us, and then treat our neighbors likewise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Can we actually do this? Of course not, so long as we’re egotistical and self-absorbed. We want people to feel sorry for us, to love us, to value us; we want God to give us presents. “Lord, help me! I want this, and this, and this…” But we rarely hear these words: “Lord, take my life and do with me as Thou wilt; only do not leave me!” One almost never hears of people who say: “I am so grateful to God for everything; I’m so happy that I found Him!” Hundreds of people come and grumble: “Everything’s wrong; nothing’s the way it’s supposed to be; everything’s awful.” In this world, in this land, everything’s become so twisted and distorted by sin! But we don’t see this, because we’re part of this sinful life. Breaking away from this part and opening our eyes is difficult, because we’ll turn into idiots. After all Dostoevsky’s “Idiot” was a good character! This person seemed to be saying normal things, but everyone thought he was an idiot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is not unlike our life. One can view Christianity as a kind of tradition, or one can view it as something entirely different: as a new life, a new land. But then you’ll be superfluous in this world; the world won’t accept you; it will fight you. Is it worth the fight? “Perhaps I’ll just put up with it. Why should I bother more than anybody else? Everyone’s being rude – why shouldn’t I? Just think, no one can see what I’m thinking.” But a believing person suffers for every thought because he sees how dark he’s become. He sees how a thought has entered him – now how will he get rid of it? He feels pressure, and the further one goes the more pressure there is. Is this easy? No. But one doesn’t want to live any other way. The Lord gives us everything: His love and beauty. The Church gives us everything that is beautiful. Everything that’s inspired has a timeless quality. We need to inspire our life; but we are tired and faint-hearted; we feel sorry for ourselves and therefore we’re all standing in place – but let’s hope for Pascha!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Interview conducted by Dmitry Artiukh.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Father Andrew Lemeshonok celebrating with adults in need at their hostal</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>A "selfie" of Anton, a lay associate, white sister Olga, and myself </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>during my visit in September, 2012</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anton is preparing to go to Canada in May to spread the taste of Orthodoxy by singing in a Minsk choir and selling products from St Elizabeth's Convent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>White Sister Tatania (left) organised my wonderful visit</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b> with another sister</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(On the left) Ivan Nichoporuk, a lay associate, who helped me a lot on my visit, has since married and entered a seminary and has about a year to go. Very bright indeed, one of his favourite authors is G.K. Chesterton. We keep in touch. (He is in the vestments of an altar server)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I believe that the most significant component of the "New Evangelisation" is not what we do but what we allow Christ to do through us by our humble obedience. One of the chief means is to allow Him to build Christian community with us as his instruments because, where we gather in His Name, there He is in our midst. What He does then is up to Him and, once more, we obey. St Elizabeth's Convent is a stunning example of the "New Evangelisation" at work. Like the Sisters of Mercy and Fr Damien building community among the lepers in the 19th Century, like Mother Teresa and Taize in modern times, the hand of God is visible to the eyes of faith in this Belarusan convent.</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-30950144297654846422018-04-20T09:43:00.001-07:002018-04-22T03:03:20.665-07:00INEXHAUSTIBLE JOY: THE GOOD NEWS AS PROCLAIMED AT TAIZE<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>il n'est pas de plus grand amour</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>MY FIRST VISIT TO TAIZE</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>by Father David Bird O.S.B.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">monk of Belmont Abbey (U.K.)</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I first visited Taize sometime after my ordination, early in 1962. I was twenty five and had just started to study at Fribourg in Switzerland, but I was already very keen on Christian unity and eager to know what was happening at Taize. I did not realise how privileged I was in being a guest in those early years. While Taize was famous, it did not draw young people in great numbers, and the community welcomed me with open arms.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Taize was a farming village whose population had emigrated to the big towns. I think there were about sixty monks, but they were divided into households with around ten monks in each. Each household cooked for itself. I was placed in the noviciate house and lived with them for the week I was there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They were all Protestants from different churches. As yet, no Orthodox or Catholics had joined them. Nor were there many Anglicans because, as it was explained to me, the Anglican Church had its own monastic communities. Moreover, their parent churches had no tradition of monasticism, nor was there much of a "high church" tradition in the christian communities from which they came. Thus, they had to face so much prejudice from their families and churches before they joined Taize, that most novices remained in the community. However, although their understanding of the Church permitted Brother Roger to ordain ministers to serve the community, he did not want to turn the monastery into just another sect, and he insisted that monks should be ordained in their church of origin. Because they retained membership of their own church, the Taize community became a "parable of unity" in a divided Christianity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The community had borrowed the parish church from the Catholic diocese, and they sang their divine office morning, noon and evening, conscious of the fact that it once belonged to the monks of Cluny. It was a beautifully composed office, and the psalms were sung to the music of Gelineau. Each morning, I celebrated Mass and was served by a young monk who was a Lutheran pastor. I think his name was Brother Rudolf and I seem to remember that he was an ordained pastor of the "landeskirche" in Hamburg, but I may be making it up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One of the intriguing things about Taize for a young monk was how they were re-thinking their obligations as monks. Just as John Henry Newman had thought and prayed his way into the Catholic Church for himself and thus helped to renew Catholicism, so Taize was thinking and praying its way along the monastic road and, I thought, could very well help to be a source of renewal within monasticism.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One of the areas for which they had come across a novel solution to a problem was monastic poverty. I was told that when they bought up the Taize village and farmland, they became aware that the local peasants had a kind of folk memory of a time when the life of their ancestors was completely controlled by the monastery of Cluny, only ten kilometres away. It didn't matter how gifted they were, how able they were as managers, there was always a monk of Cluny who was their boss. Thus they welcomed the French Revolution as a liberation. Taize came to realise that where people were serfs on monastery lands before the revolution, those areas have the least numbers of practising Christians even now. Many local people did not welcome the arrival of the monastic community of Taize. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The community hit upon an original solution. Among the monks there was an agricultural expert. They held a meeting with the local farmers and presented them with a proposition. Since the revolution, the farmers divided up their farms among their children, and this process continued until none of the farmers had sufficient lands to make farming economically viable. The monks offered to hand over all their farming land to a cooperative if the surrounding farmers would to the same. In this way, they could use modern machinery and modern methods. The whole scheme would be run jointly by the present owner, including the monks. Thus everybody was helped, and the monks had learnt a new way of helping people in the third world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As their visitors grew in numbers and as they became more famous, so they became richer. They knew from history that this could be their downfall, so they decided that poverty means making themselves fully dependent on God's Providence. Every six months they would empty their bank balance and give the money to the poor. However, they did not want simply to dish out money. I think they began in Chile, but it might have been somewhere else. They bought up land and formed a peasants' cooperative as they had done in Taize. The few monks they sent to set this up formed a mini-Taize, a small, temporary monastery which became a centre of hospitality and prayer. They called this mini-community a "fraternity". A few years later, when the cooperative became an economic success, the problem arose of how they could leave and allow the local land owners to take over from the vulnerable peasants what they had built up. They visited the local bishop and handed over to the Church the ownership of the cooperative. This was the first time they had worked hand-in-glove with the Catholic Church. Since then, there have been many cooperatives and schemes to empower the poor, and small communities of Taize monks have lived for a time in many parts to the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I did not attend a Eucharist in my first visit and cannot remember why. However, I conversed with some of the monks about the Eucharist and had the privilege of talking with Brother Max Thurian, subprior of the monastery, an excellent ecumenical theologian from the Protestant Tradition about the Mass as sacrifice and communion. I cannot remember exactly what he said except for the fact that we were in agreement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I remember that some of them said that their way back to an agreement with the Catholic Church on the Eucharist was to return to Luther and Calvin as a basis for their quest. Luther and Calvin had more in common with the Catholic Church's position than they had with the Protestant understanding that has been filtred through the Enlightenment. Both held that the contact with Jesus in communion is real and objective, mad real and objective through the power of the Holy Spirit. If we start there, they said, they are already talking about the same reality and are thus nearer a solution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I did not meet Brother Roger in my first visit. He was probably already in Rome for the first session of the Council. I have been to Taize several times since, my last time in the 1970's. At 81 and being rather doddery, I don't suppose I will be going again; but I have carried it with me, and Taize became a little bit of what I am, having been one of the factors that has explained why I made some life-changing decisions rather than others. Looking at Pope Francis, I suggest that an "orthodoxy of communion" as explained by Brother Alois lies at the heart of his pontificate and could clarify some of his more controversial teachings. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>INEXHAUSTIBLE JOY</b></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">by Brother Alois</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Prior of Taize</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://www.taize.fr/en_article23186.html">my source: Taize website</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A young woman who was very ill said to me last year, “I love life.” I remain deeply moved by the inner joy that filled her, in spite of the narrow limits imposed by her illness. I was touched not only by her words, but by the beautiful expression on her face.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And what can we say about the joy of children? Recently I saw some children in Africa whose presence, even in refugee camps where so many tragic stories are concentrated, makes life burst forth. Their energy transforms a mass of broken lives into a nursery full of promise. If they knew how much they help us to remain hopeful! Their happiness at being alive is a ray of light.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We would like to be enlightened by such examples as we undertake, throughout the year 2018, a reflection on joy, one of the three realities—with simplicity and mercy—that Brother Roger set at the heart of the life of our community at Taizé.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">With one of my brothers I went to Juba and Rumbek, in SOUTH SUDAN, then to Khartoum, the capital of SUDAN, to better understand the situation of those two countries and to pray alongside women and men who are among the most afflicted people of our time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We visited various churches and saw their work of teaching, of solidarity, of caring for the ill and the excluded. We were received in a camp for displaced persons, where many children stay who were lost by their parents in the course of tragic events.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I was particularly impressed by the women. The mothers, often very young, bear a large part of the suffering caused by violence. Many had to flee their homes in haste. And yet they remain at the service of life. Their courage and their hope are exceptional.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">That visit has brought us still closer to the young refugees from Sudan whom we have been welcoming in Taizé over the last two years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Before this, two other brothers and I were in EGYPT for a five-day young adult gathering at the Anafora Community, founded in 1999 by a Coptic Orthodox bishop. We spent time praying, getting to know one another and discovering the long and rich tradition of the Egyptian Church. One hundred young adults came from Europe, North America, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Algeria and Iraq; they were welcomed by a hundred young Copts from Cairo, Alexandria and Upper Egypt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Our attention was drawn in particular to the heritage of the martyrs of the Coptic Church as well as to its monastic roots, which are a constant call to simplicity of life. My brothers and I were warmly welcomed by Pope Tawadros II, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On our return from Africa, we said to ourselves: people pay so little attention to the voice of those undergoing such grievous trials—whether they are far from us or nearby. It is as if their cry gets lost in the void. Hearing it through the media is not enough. How can we respond to it by our lives?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The following proposals, for the year 2018, are inspired in part by this question.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Frère Alois</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Four proposals for the year 2018</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">First proposal: Dig deeper into the wellsprings of joy</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is what the Lord says: I have loved you with an everlasting love, and so I have continued to show you my affection. (Jeremiah 31:3)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Lord your God is with you. He takes great delight in you; he will renew you with his love; he will sing with joy because of you. (Zephaniah 3:17)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Rejoice in the Lord always; I will say it again: rejoice! (Philippians 4:4)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Why is it that, every Saturday evening, the church at Taizé, illuminated by the small candles that everyone holds in their hand, takes on a festive air? It is because the resurrection of Christ is like a light at the heart of the Christian faith. It is a mysterious source of joy that our minds will never be able to comprehend fully. Drinking from this wellspring, we can <i>“bear joy within us because we know that ultimately the resurrection will have the last word” </i>(Olivier Clement, Orthodox theologian).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A joy which is not an inflated feeling, nor an individualistic happiness which would cut us off from others, but the serene assurance that life has meaning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The joy of the Gospel comes from the confident trust that we are loved by God. Far from being a state of exaltation leading us to run away from the challenges of our day, it makes us more sensitive to the distress of others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Let us find our joy first of all in the certainty that we belong to God. A prayer left by a witness to Christ from the fifteenth century can support us in this:<i> “My Lord and my God, take from me all that keeps me far from you. My Lord and my God, give me all that brings me closer to you. My Lord and my God, take me out of myself and give me completely to you”</i> (Saint Nicholas of Flue).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Our joy is nourished when we pray together in song. <i>“Sing to Christ until you are joyful and serene,”</i> Brother Roger proposed. Singing with others creates both a personal relationship with God and a communion among those who are gathered together. The beauty of the prayer space, of the liturgy and of the songs is a sign of resurrection. Praying together can awaken what the Christians of the East call <i>“the joy of heaven on earth.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We can also discover reflections of God’s love in human joys awakened in us by poetry, music, artistic treasures, the beauty of God’s creation, the depth of a love, of a friendship….</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Second proposal: Hear the cry of the most vulnerable</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hear my prayer, Lord; let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. (Psalm 102:2-3)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Jesus, filled with joy through the Holy Spirit, said: I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, this was your heart’s desire. (Luke 10:21)</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for, in so doing, some have welcomed angels without realizing it. Remember those in prison as though you yourself were in prison with them. And remember those who are treated badly, as if you yourself were suffering. (Hebrews 13:2-3)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Why are so many people undergoing so many trials—exclusion, violence, hunger, sickness, natural disasters—and yet their voices hardly get a hearing?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">They need support—with shelter, food, education, work, and medical care—but what is just as vital for them is friendship. Having to accept help can be humiliating. A relation of friendship touches hearts, the hearts of those in need as well as those who show solidarity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hearing the cry of someone who has been wounded, looking into their eyes, listening to or touching those who are suffering, an elderly person, someone who is ill, a prisoner, a homeless person, a migrant.... This personal encounter allows us to discover the dignity of the other and enables us to receive something from them, for even the most destitute have something to offer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Do not the most vulnerable people make an irreplaceable contribution to the building up of a more fraternal society? They reveal our own vulnerability, and in this way help us become more human.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We should never forget that, in becoming human, Christ Jesus was united to every human being. He is present in every person, especially those most forsaken (see Matthew 25:40). When we go towards those wounded by life, we come closer to Jesus, poor among the poor; they bring us into greater intimacy with him. “Do not be afraid to share in the trials of others, do not be afraid of suffering, for it is often in the depths of the abyss that a perfection of joy is given to us in communion with Jesus Christ” (Rule of Taizé).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Through personal contacts we are led to find ways of helping the destitute, not expecting anything in return, but nonetheless attentive to receive from them whatever they wish to share with us. In this way we allow our hearts to widen and become more open.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Our earth is also vulnerable. It is wounded more and more deeply by the ill-use that human beings make of it. We need to listen to the cry of the earth. We need to take care of it. We should seek, particularly by changing our way of life, to struggle against its progressive destruction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Third proposal: Share trials and joys</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Rejoice with those who are rejoicing ; weep with those who are weeping. (Romans 12:15)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Happy those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemias 8:10)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After his resurrection, Jesus still bore the marks of the nails of his crucifixion (see John 20:24-29). The resurrection encompasses the suffering of the cross. For us who follow in his footsteps, joys and trials can coexist; they merge and become compassion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Inner joy does not weaken solidarity with others; it nourishes it. It even impels us to cross borders to join those going through difficulties. It keeps alive in us the perseverance to remain faithful in committing our lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In privileged circles, where people are well fed, well educated, and well taken care of, joy is sometimes absent, as if some people were worn out and discouraged by the banality of their lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At times, paradoxically, the encounter with a destitute person communicates joy, perhaps only a spark of joy, but an authentic joy nonetheless.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We always need to rekindle our desire for joy, which is so deeply rooted in us. Human beings are made for joy, not for gloom. And joy is not meant to be kept for oneself alone, but to be shared, to radiate outwards. After she received the message of the angel, Mary set out to visit her cousin Elizabeth and to sing with her (Luke 1:39-56).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Like Jesus, who wept at the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35), let us dare to weep in the face of human distress. We can carry in our hearts those who are afflicted. By placing them in God’s hands, we do not abandon them to the fatality of a blind and merciless fate; we entrust them to the compassion of God, who loves every human being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Remaining alongside those who suffer, and weeping with them, can give us the courage, in an attitude of healthy revolt, to denounce injustice, to reject what threatens or destroys life, or to try to transform an impasse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Fourth proposal: Among Christians, rejoice in the gifts of others</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">God made known to us the mystery of his will. It was what he had planned through Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfillment: to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">How good and how pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to live together in unity! (Psalm 133:1)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">God sent Christ into the world to gather into one the whole universe, all creation, to recapitulate all things in him. God sent him to bring humankind together into a single family: men and women, children and the elderly, people from all backgrounds, languages and cultures, and even opposing nations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Many people long for Christians to be united so they no longer veil, by their divisions, the message of universal fellowship brought by Christ. Could not our unity as brothers and sisters be a kind of sign, a foretaste, of unity and peace among human beings?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As Christians of different Churches, we should have the audacity to turn together towards Christ and, without waiting for our theologies to be completely in tune, to “put ourselves under the same roof.” Let us listen to the call of a Coptic Orthodox monk who wrote: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>“The very essence of the faith is Christ, whom no formulation can circumscribe. So it is necessary to begin our dialogue by welcoming Christ, who is one…. We must begin by living together the essence of the one faith, without waiting to reach agreement about the expression of its content. The essence of faith, which is Christ himself, is founded on love, on the gift of self.” (Father Matta el-Makine, 1919–2006.)</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">To enter at once into this process, we can begin by thanking God for the gifts of others. During his visit to Lund (Sweden) on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Pope Francis prayed, <i>“Holy Spirit, enable us to recognize with joy the gifts that have come to the Church through the Reformation.”</i> Inspired by this example, let us be attentive to recognize in others the values which God has placed in them and which we may be lacking. Can we try to receive their difference as an enrichment for us, even if it includes aspects that initially put us off? Can we find the freshness of a joy in the gifts of others?</span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-24395397398308457622018-04-17T08:30:00.002-07:002018-04-17T08:30:37.723-07:00INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF JOB by G. K. Chesterton<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The book of Job is among the other Old Testament books both a philosophical riddle and a historical riddle. It is the philosophical riddle that concerns us in such an introduction as this; so we may dismiss first the few words of general explanation or warning which should be said about the historical aspect. Controversy has long raged about which parts of this epic belong to its original scheme and which are interpolations of considerably later date. The doctors disagree, as it is the business of doctors to do; but upon the whole the trend of investigation has always been in the direction of maintaining that the parts interpolated, if any, were the prose prologue and epilogue, and possibly the speech of the young man who comes in with an apology at the end. I do not profess to be competent to decide such questions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But whatever decision the reader may come to concerning them, there is a general truth to be remembered in this connection. When you deal with any ancient artistic creation, do not suppose that it is anything against it that it grew gradually. The book of Job may have grown gradually just as Westminster Abbey grew gradually. But the people who made the old folk poetry, like the people who made Westminster Abbey, did not attach that importance to the actual date and the actual author, that importance which is entirely the creation of the almost insane individualism of modern times. We may put aside the case of Job, as one complicated with religious difficulties, and take any other, say the case of the Iliad. Many people have maintained the characteristic formula of modern skepticism, that Homer was not written by Homer, but by another person of the same name. Just in the same way many have maintained that Moses was not Moses but another person called Moses. But the thing really to be remembered in the matter of the Iliad is that if other people did interpolate the passages, the thing did not create the same sense of shock as would be created by such proceedings in these individualistic times. The creation of the tribal epic was to some extent regarded as a tribal work, like the building of the tribal temple. Believe then, if you will, that the prologue of Job and the epilogue and the speech of Elihu are things inserted after the original work was composed. But do not suppose that such insertions have that obvious and spurious character which would belong to any insertions in a modern, individualistic book . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Without going into questions of unity as understood by the scholars, we may say of the scholarly riddle that the book has unity in the sense that all great traditional creations have unity; in the sense that Canterbury Cathedral has unity. And the same is broadly true of what I have called the philosophical riddle. There is a real sense in which the book of Job stands apart from most of the books included in the canon of the Old Testament. But here again those are wrong who insist on the entire absence of unity. Those are wrong who maintain that the Old Testament is a mere loose library; that it has no consistency or aim. Whether the result was achieved by some supernal sprirtual truth, or by a steady national tradition, or merely by an ingenious selection in aftertimes, the books of the Old Testament have a quite perceptible unity. . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The central idea of the great part of the Old Testament may be called the idea of the loneliness of God. God is not the only chief character of the Old Testament; God is properly the only character in the Old Testament. Compared with His clearness of purpose, all the other wills are heavy and automatic, like those of animals; compared with His actuality, all the sons of flesh are shadows. Again and again the note is struck, “With whom hath He taken counsel?” (Isa. 40:14). “I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the peoples there was no man with me” (Isa. 63:3). All the patriarchs and prophets are merely His tools or weapons; for the Lord is a man of war. He uses Joshua like an axe or Moses like a measuring rod. For Him, Samson, is only a sword and Isaiah a trumpet. The saints of Christianity are supposed to be like God, to be, as it were, little statuettes of Him. The Old Testament hero is no more supposed to be of the same nature as God than a saw or a hammer is supposed to be of the same shape as the carpenter. This is the main key and characteristic of Hebrew scriptures as a whole. There are, indeed, in those scriptures innumerable instances of the sort of rugged humor, keen emotion, and powerful individuality which is never wanting in great primitive prose and poetry. Nevertheless the main characteristic remains: the sense not merely that God is stronger than man, not merely that God is more secret than man, but that He means more, that He knows better what He is doing, that compared with Him we have something of the vagueness, the unreason, and the vagrancy of the beasts that perish. “It is He that sitteth above the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers” (Isa.40:22). We might almost put it thus. The book is so intent upon asserting the personality of God that it almost asserts the impersonality of man. Unless this gigantic cosmic brain has conceived a thing, that thing is insecure and void; man has not enough tenacity to ensure its continuance. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Ps. 127:1).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Everywhere else, then, the Old Testament positively rejoices in the obliteration of man in comparison with the divine purpose. The book of Job stands definitely alone because the book of Job definitely asks, “But what is the purpose of God? Is it worth the sacrifice even of our miserable humanity? Of course, it is easy enough to wipe out our own paltry wills for the sake of a will that is grander and kinder. But is it grander and kinder? Let God use His tools; let God break His tools. But what is He doing, and what are they being broken for?” It is because of this question that we have to attack as a philosophical riddle the riddle of the book of Job.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The present importance of the book of Job cannot be expressed adequately even by saying that it is the most interesting of ancient books. We may almost say of the book of Job that it is the most interesting of modern books. In truth, of course, neither of the two phrases covers the matter, because fundamental human religion and fundamental human irreligion are both at once old and new; philosophy is either eternal or it is not philosophy. The modern habit of saying”This is my opinion, but I may be wrong” is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying “Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me” – the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The first of the intellectual beauties of the book of Job is that it is all concerned with this desire to know the actuality; the desire to know what is, and not merely what seems. If moderns were writing the book, we should probably find that Job and his comforters got on quite well together by the simple operation of referring their differences to what is called the temperament, saying that the comforters were by nature “optimists” and Job by nature a “pessimist.” And they would be quite comfortable, as people can often be, for some time at least, by agreeing to say what is obviously untrue. For if the word “pessimist” means anything at all, then emphatically Job is not a pessimist. His case alone is sufficient to refute the modern absurdity of referring everything to physical temperament. Job does not in any sense look at life in a gloomy way. If wishing to be happy and being quite ready to be happy constitutes an optimist, Job is an optimist. He is a perplexed optimist; he is an exasperated optimist; he is an outraged and insulted optimist. He wishes the universe to justify itself, not because he wishes it be caught out, but because he really wishes it be justified. He demands an explanation from God, but he does not do it at all in the spirit in which [John] Hampden might demand an explanation from Charles I. He does it in the spirit in which a wife might demand an explanation from her husband whom she really respected. He remonstrates with his Maker because he is proud of his Maker. He even speaks of the Almighty as his enemy, but he never doubts, at the back of his mind, that his enemy has some kind of a case which he does not understand. In a fine and famous blasphemy he says, “Oh, that mine adversary had written a book!” (31:35). It never really occurs to him that it could possibly be a bad book. He is anxious to be convinced, that is, he thinks that God could convince him. In short, we may say again that if the word optimist means anything (which I doubt), Job is an optimist. He shakes the pillars of the world and strikes insanely at the heavens; he lashes the stars, but it is not to silence them; it is to make them speak.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the same way we may speak of the official optimists, the comforters of Job. Again, if the word pessimist means anything (which I doubt), the comforters of Job may be called pessimists rather than optimists. All that they really believe is not that God is good but that God is so strong that it is much more judicious to call Him good. It would be the exaggeration of censure to call them evolutionists; but they have something of the vital error of the evolutionary optimist. They will keep on saying that everything in the universe fits into everything else; as if there were anything comforting about a number of nasty things all fitting into each other. We shall see later how God in the great climax of the poem turns this particular argument altogether upside down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When, at the end of the poem, God enters (somewhat abruptly), is struck the sudden and splendid note which makes the thing as great as it is. All the human beings through the story, and Job especially, have been asking questions of God. A more trivial poet would have made God enter in some sense or other in order to answer the questions. By a touch truly to be called inspired, when God enters, it is to ask a number of questions on His own account. In this drama of skepticism God Himself takes up the role of skeptic. He does what all the great voices defending religion have always done. He does, for instance, what Socrates did. He turns rationalism against itself. He seems to say that if it comes to asking questions, He can ask some question which will fling down and flatten out all conceivable human questioners. The poet by an exquisite intuition has made God ironically accept a kind of controversial equality with His accusers. He is willing to regard it as if it were a fair intellectual duel: “Gird up now thy loins like man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me” (38:3). The everlasting adopts an enormous and sardonic humility. He is quite willing to be prosecuted. He only asks for the right which every prosecuted person possesses; he asks to be allowed to cross-examine the witness for the prosecution. And He carries yet further the corrections of the legal parallel. For the first question, essentially speaking, which He asks of Job is the question that any criminal accused by Job would be most entitled to ask. He asks Job who he is. And Job, being a man of candid intellect, takes a little time to consider, and comes to the conclusion that he does not know.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is the first great fact to notice about the speech of God, which is the culmination of the inquiry. It represents all human skeptics routed by a higher skepticism. It is this method, used sometimes by supreme and sometimes by mediocre minds, that has ever since been the logical weapon of the true mystic. Socrates, as I have said, used it when he showed that if you only allowed him enough sophistry he could destroy all sophists. Jesus Christ used it when he reminded the Sadducees, who could not imagine the nature of marriage in heaven, that if it came to that they had not really imagined the nature of marriage at all. In the break up of Christian theology in the eighteenth century, [Joseph] Butler used it, when he pointed out that rationalistic arguments could be used as much against vague religions as against doctrinal religion, as much against rationalist ethics as against Christian ethics. It is the root and reason of the fact that men who have religious faith have also philosophic doubt. These are the small streams of the delta; the book of Job is the first great cataract that creates the river. In dealing with the arrogant asserter of doubt, it is not the right method to tell him to stop doubting. It is rather the right method to tell him to go on doubting , to doubt a little more, to doubt every day newer and wilder things in the universe, until at last, by some strange enlightenment, he may begin to doubt himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This, I say, is the first fact touching the speech; the fine inspiration by which God comes in at the end, not to answer riddles, but to propound them. The other great fact which, taken together with this one, makes the whole work religious instead of merely philosophical is that other great surprise which makes Job suddenly satisfied with the mere presentation of something impenetrable. Verbally speaking the enigmas of Jehovah seem darker and more desolate than the enigmas of Job; yet Job was comfortless before the speech of Jehovah and is comforted after it. He has been told nothing, but he feels the terrible and tingling atmosphere of something which is too good to be told. The refusal of God to explain His design is itself a burning hint of His design. The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thirdly, of course, it is one of the splendid strokes that God rebukes alike the man who accused and the men who defended Him; that He knocks down pessimists and optimists with the same hammer. And it is in connection with the mechanical and supercilious comforters of Job that there occurs the still deeper and finer inversion of which I have spoken. The mechanical optimist endeavors to justify the universe avowedly upon the ground that it is a rational and consecutive pattern. He points out that the fine thing about the world is that it can all be explained. That is the one point, if I may put it so, on which God, in return, is explicit to the point of violence. God says, in effect, that if there is one fine thing about the world, as far as men are concerned, it is that it cannot be explained. He insists on the inexplicableness of everything. “Hath the rain a father?. . .Out of whose womb came the ice?” (38:28f). He goes farther, and insists on the positive and palpable unreason of things; “Hast thou sent the rain upon the desert where no man is, and upon the wilderness wherein there is no man?” (38:26). God will make man see things, if it is only against the black background of nonentity. God will make Job see a startling universe if He can only do it by making Job see an idiotic universe. To startle man, God becomes for an instant a blasphemer; one might almost say that God becomes for an instant an atheist. He unrolls before Job a long panorama of created things, the horse, the eagle, the raven, the wild ass, the peacock, the ostrich, the crocodile. He so describes each of them that it sounds like a monster walking in the sun. The whole is a sort of psalm or rhapsody of the sense of wonder. The maker of all things is astonished at the things he has Himself made.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This we may call the third point. Job puts forward a note of interrogation; God answers with a note of exclamation. Instead of proving to Job that it is an explicable world, He insists that it is a much stranger world than Job ever thought it was. Lastly, the poet has achieved in this speech, with that unconscious artistic accuracy found in so many of the simpler epics, another and much more delicate thing. Without once relaxing the rigid impenetrability of Jehovah in His deliberate declaration, he has contrived to let fall here and there in the metaphors, in the parenthetical imagery, sudden and splendid suggestions that the secret of God is a bright and not a sad one – semi-accidental suggestions, like light seen for an instant through the crack of a closed door.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It would be difficult to praise too highly, in a purely poetical sense, the instinctive exactitude and ease with which these more optimistic insinuations are let fall in other connections, as if the Almighty Himself were scarcely aware that He was letting them out. For instance, there is that famous passage where Jehovah, with devastating sarcasm, asks Job where he was when the foundations of the world were laid, and then (as if merely fixing a date) mentions the time when the sons of God shouted for joy (38:4-7). One cannot help feeling, even upon this meager information, that they must have had something to shout about. Or again, when God is speaking of snow and hail in the mere catalogue of the physical cosmos, he speaks of them as a treasury that He has laid up against the day of battle – a hint of some huge Armageddon in which evil shall be at last overthrown.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nothing could be better, artistically speaking, than this optimism breaking though agnosticism like fiery gold round the edges of a black cloud. Those who look superficially at the barbaric origin of the epic may think it fanciful to read so much artistic significance into its casual similes or accidental phrases. But no one who is well acquainted with great examples of semi-barbaric poetry, as in The Song of Roland or the old ballads, will fall into this mistake. No one who knows what primitive poetry is can fail to realize that while its conscious form is simple some of its finer effects are subtle. The Iliad contrives to express the idea that Hector and Sarpedon have a certain tone or tint of sad and chivalrous resignation, not bitter enough to be called pessimism and not jovial enough to be called optimism; Homer could never have said this in elaborate words. But somehow he contrives to say it in simple words. The Song of Roland contrives to express the idea that Christianity imposes upon its heroes a paradox; a paradox of great humility in the matter of their sins combined with great ferocity in the matter of their ideas. Of course The Song of Roland could not say this; but it conveys this. In the same way, the book of Job must be credited with many subtle effects which were in the author’s soul without being, perhaps, in the author’s mind. And of these by far the most important remains to be stated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I do not know, and I doubt whether even scholars know, if the book of Job had a great effect or had any effect upon the after development of Jewish thought. But if it did have any effect it may have saved them from an enormous collapse and decay. Here in this book the question is really asked whether God invariably punishes vice with terrestrial punishment and rewards virtue with terrestrial prosperity. If the Jews had answered that question wrongly they might have lost all their after influence in human history. They might have sunk even down to the level of modern well-educated society. For when once people have begun to believe that prosperity is the reward of virtue, their next calamity is obvious. If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue. Men will leave off the heavy task of making good men successful. He will adopt the easier task of making out successful men good. This, which has happened throughout modern commerce and journalism, is the ultimate Nemesis of the wicked optimism of the comforters of Job. If the Jews could be saved from it, the book of Job saved them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The book of Job is chiefly remarkable, as I have insisted throughout, for the fact that it does not end in a way that is conventionally satisfactory. Job is not told that his misfortunes were due to his sins or a part of any plan for his improvement. But in the prologue we see Job tormented not because he was the worst of men, but because he was the best. It is the lesson of the whole work that man is most comforted by paradoxes. Here is the very darkest and strangest of the paradoxes; and it is by all human testimony the most reassuring. I need not suggest what high and strange history awaited this paradox of the best man in the worst fortune. I need not say that in the freest and most philosophical sense there is one Old Testament figure who is truly a type; or say what is prefigured in the wounds of Job.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"G.K. Chesterton on Humour" A Lecture by Ian Ker April 4th, 2012</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Lewis and Tolkien: G.K. Chesterton, Myth, and the Imagination</b></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-65921929368029543082018-04-16T02:38:00.000-07:002018-04-16T02:38:32.509-07:00RESSOURCEMENT THEOLOGY, AGGIONAMENTO AND THE HERMANEUTICS OF TRADITION. by Marcellino d'Ambrosio (Dr. Italy)<b><u><a href="https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/ressourcement-theology-aggiornamentoand-the-hermeneutics-of-tradition/"><br /></a></u></b>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/ressourcement-theology-aggiornamentoand-the-hermeneutics-of-tradition/">my source: Crossroads Initiative</a></u></b></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This article, “Ressourcement theology, aggiornamento, and the hermeneutics of tradition” by Marcellino D’Ambrosio is reprinted from Communio 18 (Winter 1991). The theological movement the set the stage for the Second Vatican Council shows that the Christian tradition is a vital and dynamic force that is not retrograde, but progressive. If you would like to open the footnotes for this article in a separate window so you can more easily look at them as you read the text, you can find them <b><u><a href="https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/footnotes-ressourcement-theology-aggiornamento-and-the-hermeneutics-of-tradtion/">here</a></u></b>.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The years 1930-1950 marked a time of crisis and change affecting every aspect of European society.{1} During this tumultuous period of transition, a broad intellectual and spiritual movement arose within the European Catholic community in response to the challenge presented by a newly secularized society, a challenge that the reigning neo-Scholasticism seemed sorely ill-equipped to meet. Though this movement drew some of its inspiration from earlier theologians and philosophers such as Möhler, Newman, Gardeil, Rousselot, and Blondel, it also owed a great deal to the French Catholic poets Charles Péguy and Paul Claudel.{2}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>I. A SINGULAR EPOCH IN FRENCH THEOLOGY</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Academic theologians involved in this movement included such Belgian and German thinkers as Emile Mersch, Dom Odo Casel, Romano Guardini, Karl Adam, and Dom Anselm Stolz, to name a few. Yet it was France that was the undisputed center of theological activity during this fertile epoch{3} and so it will be to French theology during this period that we will limit our attention here. Led principally by the Jesuits of the Lyons province and the Dominicans of Le Saulchoir, the French theological revival of these years boasted some of the greatest names in twentieth-century Catholic scholarship such as Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Marie-Dominique Chenu, and Louis Bouyer.{4}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The participants in this movement, derisively labeled “la nouvelle théologie” by its opponents,{5} were far from the tightly organized cadre they were often thought to be.{6} On the contrary, they were men from various universities and religious congregations who, though friends and colleagues,{7} nevertheless differed in many respects.{8} What united this diverse group were the convictions that 1) theology had to speak to the Church’s present situation and that 2) the key to theology’s relevance to the present lay in the creative recovery of its past. In other, words, they all saw clearly that the first step to what later came to be known as aggiornamento had to be ressourcementóa rediscovery of the riches of the Church’s two-thousand-year treasury, a return to the very headwaters of the Christian tradition.{9}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">For these thinkers, doing theology meant doing history. Yet the distinctive approach to historical theology which they shared was neither mere detached, scholarly reconstruction nor a futile attempt at what Congar calls “repristination.”{10} It was rather a creative hermeneutical exercise in which the “sources” of Christian faith were “reinterrogated”{11} with new questions, the burning questions of a century in travail. With such twentieth-century questions serving as hermeneutical keys, these theologians of ressourcement were able to unlock new rooms in the treasure house of tradition and discover there, surprisingly enough, many of the twentieth-century ideas which neo-Scholasticism neglected or even resisted.{12}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this essay, I will take a close look at the French theological revival of 1930-1950 with an eye towards 1) capturing the theological ethos of this pivotal epoch which had such enormous impact on the Second Vatican Council and 2) inquiring into what relevance it may have for theology today. I hope to establish that the twin impulses of ressourcement and aggiornamento, which are sometimes erroneously set over and against one another, are, at least in the authors under discussion, inextricably intertwined.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>II. THEOLOGICAL DISCONTENT</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In 1943, a book appeared which broke like a bombshell upon the French Church. Written by Henri Godin, a priest who had been intimately involved with the Young Christian Workers movement (J.O.C.) in France for many years, France, pays de mission?{13} exposed the tremendous religious indifference that existed in France and the Church’s loss of large segments of the working class. Yves Congar saw the publication of this book as nothing short of a historical event: “The man and the book were truly providential and prophetic. . . . Very quickly, this work led to a new awareness of the situation of the world and of the relation of the Church to this world.”{14}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Suddenly, it seemed, the whole French Church became aware of the magnitude of France’s dechristianization and scrambled to do something about it. Incarnation, présence, engagement, and adaptation became the new pastoral buzzwords. A call to missionary activity resounded throughout the Church and gave rise to bold new pastoral initiatives such as the worker-priests. The exciting revival of Catholic life and pastoral practice sparked by Godin’s book seemed to peak in the years immediately following the war. Yves Congar remarks that “anyone who did not live through the years 1946 and 1947 in the history of French Catholicism has missed one of the finest moments in the life of the Church.”{15}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In a provocative article written in 1946, Jean Daniélou, a Lyons Jesuit who taught at l’Institut Catholique of Paris, set out to describe the kind of theology necessary to meet the challenges of the post-war situation.{16} In the course of the article, regarded by some as a sort of “manifesto” of “la nouvelle théologie,” Daniélou indicts theology for being absent from, not present to, the thought world of his day. Indeed, he asserts, Scholasticism is “a stranger to these [contemporary] categories . . . mired” as it is “in the immobile world of Greek thought.” Though history is a central category for every philosophy from Hegel to Bergson, notes Daniélou, neo-Scholasticism has virtually no historical sense. In an existentialist world, it remains resolutely essentialist and objectivist, oblivious to human subjectivity. In fact this theology, he charges, is cut off not only from the contemporary thought world, but from the daily life of the people of God. Hardened in its Scholastic categories, neo-Thomism remains basically incomprehensible to most people and is thus incapable of offering them spiritual and doctrinal nourishment.{17}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Such a “rupture between theology and life,” maintains Daniélou, flies in the face of one of the chief insights of the century, i.e., that thought is not meant merely to contemplate the world, but to transform it. “Theoretical speculation, separated from action and uninvolved in life, has seen its day.” In contrast, what the Church of postwar France needs is a theology “entirely engaged in the building up of the body of Christ.”{18}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Marie-Dominique Chenu and Congar</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Dominican theologians of Le Saulchoir had a similar commitment to what Yves Congar called “the primacy of the pastoral.”{19} In the words of Marie-Dominique Chenu, regent of studies at Le Saulchoir from 1932 to 1942, “before all else, to be a theologian really means not to be cut off from the daily, concrete life of the Church.”{20} In an article published in 1935, Chenu denounced the fragmentation of theology into various compartments and “account books.”{21} For example, he notes that the speculative theology of the day was not only cut off from pastoral practice, but also from spirituality. Other theologians of this period join him in stressing the intimate bond between theology and spirituality{22} In the words of Daniélou,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is no longer possible to disassociate, as was done too much in times past, theology and spirituality. The first was placed upon a speculative and timeless plane; the second too often consisted only of practical counsels separated from the vision of man which justified it.{23}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Dogmatic theology was also cut off, as Chenu saw it, from the sources of positive theology. Echoing his confrere Louis Charlier and the latter’s teacher R. Draguet, Chenu asserts that revealed data must be given primacy over rational constructs and that theology once again must be centered in the history of salvation. In Chenu’s view, theologians since the seventeenth century had been overly fascinated with closed, clear systems. This excessive preoccupation with clarity and systematization had impoverished Western theology and had seriously diminished its sense of mystery.{24}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The loss of a sense of God’s transcendent mystery by a rationalistic theology was the very thing, noted Daniélou, that Kierkegaard had reacted against. Theology in his day had made God an object, so he affirmed the mystery of a personal God, accessible only through love. In so doing, he recalled to the theologian the attitude of reverence with which the mystery ought to be approached. “We find here one of the characteristic traits of theological renewal, this sense of the mystery of God which gives negative theology its place.”{25} This zeal for the transcendence and unfathomable mystery of God will prove to be one of the hallmarks of the theology of ressourcement. For Daniélou, de Lubac, and others, the existential ethos of the mid-twentieth century helps spark a rediscovery of the Church’s traditional teaching that God is the Supreme Subject, the Person par excellence, whose self-revelation in Scripture is intelligible but never fully comprehensible.{26}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>III. AD FONTES!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>A. RESSOURCEMENT AS REVITALIZATION</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The main question for the theologians under discussion was how to break out of the neo-Scholastic quagmire and begin developing a theology that would truly meet the challenges of the age. Their common instinct was a paradox: in order to go forward in theology, one first has to go backward. Étienne Gilson says it succinctly: “if theological progress is sometimes necessary, it is never possible unless you go back to the beginning and start over.”{27} What was necessary, then, was a “return to the sources”{28} of tradition. The theological revolution which the Church so desperately needed had to begin with, in the words of Péguy, “a new and deeper sounding of ancient, inexhaustible, and common resources.”{29} Hence the term “ressourcement.” In Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’église, Congar notes that it is not certain who coined this noun.{30} However, it seems to him that the essential concept derives from the following passage from Péguy:</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">a [true] revolution is a call from a less perfect tradition to a more perfect tradition, a call from a shallower tradition to a deeper tradition, a backing up of tradition, an overtaking of depth, an investigation into deeper sources; in the literal sense of the word, a “re-source.”{31}</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is important to note that the ressourcement advocated by these thinkers was not ultimately a work of scholarship but rather a work of religious revitalization. Indeed, in their writings the word “source” only secondarily refers to a historical document; the primary meaning they assign to the term is a fountain-head of dynamic spiritual life which never runs dry.{32} The events and words of Scripture, the rites of the liturgy, the creeds and decrees of the councils, the teaching of the Fathers, Doctors, and great spiritual masters , all of these organs of tradition are, for them, sources inasmuch as they are channels of the one, incomparable Source that is the Mystery of Christ. The ultimate goal of the renewal is not, then, a more accurate historical understanding of Christian origins, but rather, in Congar’s words, “a recentering in the person of Christ and in his paschal mystery.”{33}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">By immersing themselves in the forms and categories of ancient Christianity in all their diversity and concrete specificity, these theologians hoped to discover and imbibe that Spirit which was their common inspiration and source. Hans Urs von Balthasar, referring to the Greek Fathers, says: “We would rather hope to penetrate to the vital source of their spirit, to the fundamental and secret intuition which directs the entire expression of their thought.”{34} What the ressourcement theologians sought, then, was a spiritual and intellectual communion with Christianity in its most vital moments as transmitted to us in its classic texts, a communion which would nourish, invigorate, and rejuvenate twentieth-century Catholicism.{35}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In a movement whose goal was a recentering in Christ and his paschal mystery, it stands to reason that liturgical revival should come first both historically{36} and in order of priority. Following upon its heels came the Catholic biblical movement, inaugurated by the establishment of Jerusalem’s École biblique by M.-J. Lagrange, O.P. (1890) and Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus (1893).{37} Surveying the progress of these movements from the vantage point of 1946, Daniélou saw them both as having developed along the lines of a two-phase process. At first the accent was upon archaeology, i.e., critical historical scholarship aiming at situating ancient rites and texts in their original context. Then came more of a focus upon the spirit of the biblical and liturgical sources, with an eye towards identifying their meaning for us today.{38} Furthering this second and more hermeneutical process is clearly what Daniélou believed to be the task at hand in 1946.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One of the great contributions of the Lyons Jesuits{39} on this score was to point out the hermeneutical character and ongoing value of patristic thought. First of all, they underscored the extent to which the entire patristic legacy can be interpreted as one vast commentary upon Scripture, the sacramental mysteries, and the correspondences between them.{40} Secondly, they established the contemporary relevance of the Fathers by demonstrating the remarkable correspondence between patristic theology and several distinctively modern issues. “From certain perspectives,” they write, “the Fathers of the Church seem sometimes closer to us than some later theologians.”{41} Indeed they showed how such pivotal modern categories as history, human solidarity, and personal subjectivity form the warp and woof of patristic thought.{42} Even the patristic proclivity for expressing truth by means of images and symbols, they note, corresponds to a modern preference for the concrete over the abstract and the intuitive over the conceptual.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In their “Réponse” to the criticisms of Labourdette, the Fourvière theologians assert that the importance of the Fathers cannot be reduced to their historical role of preparing the way for the truly scientific theology of the thirteenth century. The fact that St. Thomas assimilated the major patristic insights into his higher scientific synthesis does not mean we can now dispense with the Fathers, relegating them to the archives of historical theology:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Fathers clearly do not have the same authority [as Scripture]; they are sources which are secondary, derived, never sufficient of themselves; yet this does not prevent them from playing a capital role. And they play this role not only in the past, but they continue to play it in the present. They are sources, not in the restricted sense in which literary history understands the term, but in the sense of wellsprings which are always springing up to overflowing.{43}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As the Fourvière Jesuits see it, the Fathers’ writings provide “intellectual nourishment which is directly assimilable”{44} by the ordinary believer of the twentieth century. The task at hand, then, is to reconnect the individual Christian directly with the patristic tradition, to mediate the past to the present in a nourishing, life-giving way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is the significance of the great series Sources Chrétiennes.{45} In explaining the reason for undertaking this project, Daniélou contrasts its goals with those of a patristic collection compiled earlier in the century by Hemmer and Lehay. For these, “it was a question above all of publishing historical documents, witness of the faith of the ancients.” Sources Chrétiennes is different because:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">it thinks that there is more to ask the Fathers. They are not only the truthful witnesses of a bygone era; they are also the most contemporary nourishment of men and women today, because we find there a certain number of categories which are those of contemporary thought and which Scholastic theology had lost.{46}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Each volume of Sources Chrétiennes contained a classic patristic text which was carefully translated into French. The Greek Fathers, who had suffered from centuries of neglect in the Western Church, were given special attention. An able use of the critical historical method enabled the editors to situate each work in its historical context by means of introductions that were sometimes quite provocative.{47} Yet, from first to last, the meticulous historical scholarship for which the series became known was motivated by and subordinated to the editors’ self-admitted goal: “to provide a number of readers a direct access to these ‘sources,’ always overflowing with spiritual life and theological doctrine, which are the Fathers of the Church.”{48}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>C. THE CRITICAL REINTERPRETATION OF ST. THOMAS</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Fourvière theologians’ love of the Fathers did not, however, induce them to despise or even neglect the medievals, especially St. Thomas.{49} On the contrary, several of them were in fact themselves dedicated Thomists who had a sense that the Thomism of the manuals was not the Thomism of St. Thomas{50} To quote the epigraph of de Lubac’s controversial Surnaturel: “Buried under five centuries of deposits, ignorance of itself is the most serious ill from which Scholasticism is suffering. To cure it, let us listen to the counsel of history.”{51}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Committed to a critical re-investigation of the Scholastic tradition, several of the Lyons Jesuits joined a movement that had been anticipated by Péguy{52} pioneered by Rousselot,{53} and brought to the forefront of theological debate in the 1930s by men such as J. F. Bonnefoy, R. Draguet, and L. Charlier. What gradually became clear was that St. Thomas had not introduced a new method of ‘conclusion theology’ radically different from that of the Fathers. The new methodology had been introduced later by the commentators, especially John of St. Thomas, who can be regarded as the true father of modern Scholastic theology.{54} This is the stream of thought, modified around the beginning of the twentieth century by “heavy doses of Suarezianism and Bañezianism (not to mention [Christian] Wolff and Descartes),”{55} which was known as “neo-Thomism.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hence the rigidly non-historical and rationalistic way of thinking characteristic of certain neo-Scholastics was not to be identified with St. Thomas at all! Aquinas, instead, emerges as a much more traditional figure in substantial continuity with the positive theology of the Fathers. As such, he has much more relevance for today than had been commonly thought. In relationship to the thought of St. Thomas, then, the cry “Ad fontes!” took on a bit more militant and critical character. Here the Angelic Doctor’s tradition history was scrutinized in the light of his original texts and found wanting. Gilson expressed well the sentiment of many ressourcement theologians:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Our only salvation lies in a return to Saint Thomas himself, before the Thomism of John of Saint Thomas, before that of Cajetan as wellóCajetan, whose famous commentary is in every respect the consummate example of a corruptorium Thomae. . . . Salvation lies in returning to the real Saint Thomas, rightly called the Universal Doctor of the Church; accept no substitutes!{56}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is in this light that we should view several of the works of the Théologie series,{57} notably Bouillard’s Conversion et grace chez S. Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Aubier, 1941) and de Lubac’s Surnaturel (Paris: Aubier, 1946).{58} To quote de Lubac: “‘Returning to the real Saint Thomas’: this was also, as Gilson accurately perceived, my clearly expressed (and I believe always well-founded) intention, whether in Sur les chemins de Dieu or in Surnaturel.”{59}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>IV. RESSOURCEMENT AND ‘AGGIORNAMENTO'{60}</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A. RENAISSANCE VS. REPRISTINATION</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">However passionately the Fourvière and Le Saulchoir theologians pursued the historical recovery of the Fathers and “the real St. Thomas,” it must be clearly understood that they do not advocate any slavish restoration of either one or the other as the solution to the Church’s present problems. In fact, virtually all ressourcement theologians emphatically repudiate all manner of “archaeologism” and “repristination” after the manner of Jansenism or the Protestant Reformation.{61} In this passage, Balthasar makes it clear that, for him, returning to the sources was not all the same thing as returning to the past:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We turn towards a more distant past, but without believing that exhuming the “Greek Fathers” and adapting them, for better or for worse, to the needs of the modern soul will be enough to bring a languishing thought back to life. We are not so naive as to prefer “neo-patristic” theology to a “neo-Scholastic” one! No historical situation is ever absolutely similar to any other preceding period; none can therefore furnish its own solutions as so many master keys capable of resolving our contemporary problems.{62}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As respectful as they are of the great theological syntheses of the past, the ressourcement theologians have no trouble admitting that many aspects of these great achievements are now hopelessly outdated. In fact they contend that we have not only the freedom but the duty to dispense with outmoded conceptual frameworks when translating the Christian message to our own generation. For example, we should not hesitate to jettison much of the Aristotelianism of the medieval doctors which, as Henri Bouillard points out, contains </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">many an obsolete explanation, aged schema, dead notion. They have served in their time to transmit the mystery and, for this reason, are venerable. But, like an obsolete vestment or aged tool, they now obstruct the progress of theological reflection. They prevent those who no longer understand them from grasping the exact meaning of the Christian message. . . . For theology to continue to offer meaning to our mind, to enrich it and to progress with it, it too must renounce these Aristotelian notions{63}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It must be remembered that in their study of Christian origins, it was the “spirit” or “principle” of the tradition that the ressourcement theologians were ultimately after. They were confident that, once fortified with the nourishment provided by this vital “sap,” twentieth-century Christians would be energized and enlightened to solve their problems in a fully contemporary yet entirely traditional way. It was as if the spirit of the tradition, made present again by the Church’s fruitful communion with its origins via ressourcement, was expected to serve as a catalyst that would stimulate new ideas and fresh pastoral initiatives. As Congar aptly put it, “to go back to the beginnings, to ‘re-source,’ as is said today, is to think through the situation in which we are presently engaged in the light and in the spirit of all that an integral tradition can impart to us of the sense of the Church.”{64}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The concept which sheds perhaps the most light on ressourcement’s impact upon the present is supplied by Péguy. In a 1912 letter to his friend Joseph Lotte, the poet speaks of his perception that a Catholic “renaissance” was beginning to break forth in France{65} For Péguy, each new historical period finds the Church once more at the beginning. In every age the Church needs to let the principle of the tradition flower anew and bear fruit in new intellectual and pastoral forms.{66} Tradition, for him, is an exceedingly fertile principle. Whenever it is allowed the proper room to grow and develop, renaissance inevitably results. By restrictively equating tradition with one particular theological synthesis, neo-Scholasticism had actually petrified it. In so doing, it cut itself off from the spiritual vitality upon which true renaissance and adaptation depend. The goal of the ressourcement theologians was to prune away the dead canes and bring the Church back to tradition’s living root so that the vitality inherent in it might give rise to a fresh pastoral and theological renaissance.{67}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>B. PARADIGMS FOR CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In their study of St. Thomas and the Fathers, the ressourcement theologians were struck by the contrast between the traditional theological methodology on the one hand and that of neo-Scholasticism on the other. Whereas the latter had isolated itself from positive theology, spirituality, and the secular intellectual milieu, Aquinas and the Fathers had held theology, spirituality, and pastoral practice in a dynamic and vital unity while at the same time maintaining a fruitful contact with the great cultural forces of their respective periods. These doctors of the Church had, in fact, each allowed the spirit of the tradition to flower anew in their day. The many theological renaissances which resulted from their efforts thus employed different philosophical categories but nevertheless possessed the same spirit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What Thomas and the Fathers had done was to distill the essence of the tradition for their respective generations. In their organic conception of the unity of theology and life as well as in their hermeneutical effort to re-articulate traditional doctrine in the language of their contemporaries, these classical theologians offer today’s Church a paradigm of authentic theological method. It would, then, be entirely unfaithful to the character of their thought merely to parrot their material categories. Instead, it is necessary to emulate their great achievements in the hermeneutics of tradition. In the words of Balthasar:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In order to remain faithful to herself and to her mission, the latter [the Church] must continually make the effort of creative invention. Before the Gentiles who came to enter a Church which was an heir to the Synagogue, Paul was obliged to invent. The Greek Fathers had to do the same in the face of Hellenistic culture and Saint Thomas in the face of arabic science and philosophy. We must do nothing less before the problems of our own day.{68}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>C. RESSOURCEMENT AS PREREQUISITE OF AGGIORNAMENTO</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In his pastoral letter of 1947, Cardinal Suhard exhorted the Catholic intellectuals of France in words similar to Balthasar’s: “Your task therefore, Christian thinkers, is not to follow, but to lead. It is not enough to be disciples, you must become masters; it is not enough to imitate, you must invent.”{69} Yet it was an axiom ofressourcement theology that before becoming creative masters, theologians had first to become attentive disciples. In other words, theology can only hope to be “original” if it has first drunk deeply at the “origins” of Christian life and thought. Congar, citing Werner Förster, asserts that “only a profound understanding of the tradition can guide one to discern the useful elements in modernity, to select them with certainty, to adapt them with tact.”{70} He underlines the fact that it is not just a superficial familiarity with historical theology but rather a thorough-going ressourcement, having as its goal the appropriation of the very spirit of the tradition, that is the necessary prelude to a hermeneutically successful aggiornamento. “It is the Catholic principle thus having become the master of the conscience and the mind that makes possible the double task of discernment and assimilation.{71}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Here again. St. Thomas, in his “adaptation” of Aristotelian categories, serves as a model. Congar notes that if Aquinas was able to introduce Aristotle into theology “without doing violence either to Catholic dogma or to the most delicate evangelical spirit, it was without any doubt due to the profound understanding which he had of the tradition, fruit of a docility and an equally intense meditation.”{72} Yet this paradigm of authentic aggiornamento, certain ressourcement thinkers point out, has not always been successfully emulated. Congar, for instance, notes that Church history is unfortunately replete with examples of an “adaptation” that is mechanical and innovating in character.{73} Indeed, both before and after the Council, Bouyer, de Lubac, and others warned that certain programs of “adaptation” or aggiornamento were afoot which, having cut all moorings to tradition, were rapidly drifting towards “servile adaptation to the world and to its changing idols.”{74}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is true that one of the initial impulses of ressourcement theology was the re-establishment of contact between Catholic theology and contemporary thought. Yet representatives of the movement are careful to clarify their motivation for this. They tell us that they felt no compulsion to search far and wide for remedies to the Church’s problems as if they had lost confidence in the resources of the Christian tradition. Neither were they driven by any desire to “adapt” theology to contemporary thought and values. Rather their goal was to break the “fortress mentality” and compel Catholic theology to engage in a critical dialogue{75} with twentieth-century thinkers, a dialogue that would send theologians back to the sources with new questions, provoking the rediscovery of forgotten or neglected dimensions of the tradition.{76}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Indeed, what the Church needs to update herself and to meet the challenge of the brave, new world is not, according to these theologians, to go farther but to go deeper. The task at hand is not to change Christianity and make it something more, but to make it more itself. In the words of de Lubac:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the last analysis, what is needed is not a Christianity that is more virile, or more efficacious, or more heroic, or stronger; it is that we should live our Christianity with more virility, more efficacy, more strength, and if necessary, more heroism but we must live it as it is. There is nothing that should be changed in it, nothing that should be corrected, nothing that should be added (which does not mean, however, that there is not a continual need to keep its channels from silting up); it is not a case of adapting it to the fashion of the day. It must come into its own again in our souls. We must give our souls back to it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The question, be it repeated, is a spiritual one and the solution is always the same: in so far as we have allowed it to be lost, we must rediscover the spirit of Christianity. In order to do so we must be plunged once more into its well-springs, and above all in the Gospel. The Gospel which the Church unvaryingly offers us is enough for us. Only, always new, it always needs to be rediscovered.{77}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hence, for the ressourcement theologians, the abiding norm governing the adaptation of Catholic theology to a new historical and cultural context is neither modern thought on the one hand, nor the letter of past theological syntheses on the other. It is rather the spirit of the tradition, the Catholic principle, which is intellectually and spiritually appropriated under the pastoral care of the Magisterium through a continual immersion in the classic sources of Christian faith.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>D. “NEW” THEOLOGY</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is in the light of their teaching on adaptation that we can see the fundamental ambiguity of the label “la nouvelle théologie”{78} which was attached to many ressourcement theologians by their opponents{79} By and large, the theologians of Le Saulchoir and Fourvière had a horror of any theology that was “new” in the sense of rejecting the legacy of the past in favor of the intellectual fads of the present. Even as Congar criticized “adaptation/innovation” as noted above, so de Lubac years later will criticize those who, not satisfied with theressourcement and aggiornamento stipulated by the Second Vatican Council, want a “whole ‘new theology,’ the foundation of a ‘new Church.'”{80} Thus, when Labourdette accused these men of an “open disparagement of Scholastic theology”{81} and Garrigou-Lagrange charged them with rejecting Thomism, these critics demonstrated an inability to distinguish between St. Thomas and the subsequent Scholastic tradition.{82}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yet there is a sense in which the theology of the ressourcement theologians was truly a “new theology.” Inasmuch as revolution is new precisely to the extent that it is traditional, as Péguy here so astutely observes,ressourcement was not only new, but even revolutionary:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">a revolution is not a full revolution unless it is a full tradition, a fuller conservation, an anterior tradition, deeper, truer, more ancient and thus more eternal. . . It is necessary that, by the depth of its new and deeper “re-source,” it prove that the preceding revolutions were insufficiently revolutionary, and that their corresponding traditions were insufficiently traditional and full; it is necessary that, by a more profound mental, moral and emotional intuition, it conquer the tradition itself by being traditional, by tradition, that it pass under it; far from being a superaugmentation, as is believed much too generally, a revolution is an excavation, a deepening, an overtaking of depth.{83}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Ressourcement theology, then, is actually more authentically traditional than the neo-Scholasticism of many twentieth-century thinkers. In contrast to the latter’s timid staleness, the freshness and newness of ressourcement theology flow from its “more victorious confidence in the eternal youth of the Church.”{84}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>V. RESSOURCEMENT AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF TRADITION</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Several definite conclusions can be drawn from this brief examination of the French theological revival of the thirties and forties. First of all, we have seen that during this period an unorganized yet clearly identifiable movement arose in order to meet the challenges of the times by means of a recovery of the Church’s tradition. Significantly, no particular time period in the Church’s history was idealized as the “golden age.” Instead, the entire tradition was combed for spiritual and theological “classics”{85} that might serve as “sources” of life for Christians in the twentieth century. “Ressourcement theology” thus seems the most adequate way to refer to this program of renewal because it describes the distinctive theological method and spiritual goal which united its diverse participants into a recognizable movement. The polemical epithet “la nouvelle théologie,” on the other hand, however well established it may be in the theological literature, is an equivocal label which should be abandoned. Not only was this phrase never used by the writers in question, but it was passionately disavowed by several of them as misleading and contrary to the spirit and aim of their work.{86}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Secondly, the ressourcement in which these scholars engaged went considerably beyond detached historical reconstruction. Though the ressourcement thinkers succeeded in making considerable strides forward in understanding the Church’s past,{87} their interest in the past was inseparable from their concern for the present. Dissatisfied with the overly-cerebral aloofness of a neo-Scholastic theology cut off from history, pastoral practice, and prayer, the ressourcement scholars aimed to restore the dynamic links between dogmatics, historical theology, spirituality, and everyday life. Viewing theology’s role as one of service to the Church’s spiritual and pastoral mission, the ultimate goal of their historical research was to nourish and inspire the faithful as well as to enlighten fellow scholars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Thirdly, the ressourcement impulse was fundamentally a critical one. In order to break through the crust of misinterpretation and get at, for example, “the real” St. Thomas, i.e., St. Thomas’ subtle thought understood in its own historical context, thinkers of this tendency employed a method of historical investigation that was rigorously critical. And once understood critically, the rich thought of the past was then reappropriated critically as well. The kind of appropriation of the past in the present practiced by ressourcement thinkers was very similar to what Gadamer and others describe as a “fusion of horizons.” Such a hermeneutical process of application is, in the words of Richard Palmer, “not a literal bringing of the past into externalities of the present; it is bringing what is essential in the past into our personal present.”{88} This essential element of the past is what Gadamer and others call the “classical,” i.e., “something enduring, of significance that cannot be lost and is independent of all the circumstances of time . . . a kind of timeless present that is contemporaneous with every other age.”{89} In other words, ressourcement thought was in no way congenial to a naïve and anachronistic restoration of outmoded categories or practices, as Wolfhart Pannenberg seems to allege in a recent interview.{90} Confident that the essential or classical dimensions of the ancient tradition, once assimilated, would stimulate the growth of new expressions of Christian life suitable to the present age, the ressourcement championed by these thinkers contains within itself the very notion of aggiornamento and is inseparable from it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Perhaps the greatest lesson we can draw from the ressourcement theologians is that there is no contradiction between fidelity to tradition and creative freedom. Quite to the contrary, they show us that the latter is actually a product of the former. This is because, as they learned from Péguy and Blondel, the Christian tradition is a vital and dynamic force that is not retrograde, but progressive. In recent years Jaroslav Pelikan has confirmed the most basic insight of ressourcement theology: throughout two thousand years of Christian history, the most creative thinkers have been at the same time the most traditional.{91}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the wake of such seminal hermeneutical thinkers as Gadamer and Ricoeur, we are in a better position today than we were thirty years ago to appreciate the uncommon hermeneutical acumen of the ressourcement theologians. Their work perfectly illustrates the dialectic between past and present described by Gadamer: contemporary problems and questions enabled them better to understand the past, and this deeper understanding of the past in turn equipped them better to understand and respond to the present. What resulted from their work, then, was a true mediation between past and present.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Ressourcement theology was, in essence, a deft exercise in the hermeneutics of tradition that successfully navigated between the Scylla of archaism and the Charybdis of modernism. Thanks to its acute sense of the inexhaustible fullness of the Christian Mystery, it steadfastly refused to identify that Mystery with any of its past expressions or embodiments. Yet similarly, its confidence in the utter uniqueness and perpetual relevance of Christianity caused it to resist the temptation to accommodate the gospel to modernity in such a way as to deform it. We do well to ask ourselves whether theology today, be it conservative or avant-garde, is as spiritually fruitful, hermeneutically sophisticated, and free from the spirit of conformity as was the theology of ressourcement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">For the footnotes for this article, click <b><u><a href="https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/footnotes-ressourcement-theology-aggiornamento-and-the-hermeneutics-of-tradtion/">here</a></u></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Originally posted on Apr 01 2017</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>RESSOURCEMENT THEOLOGY & ORTHODOXY</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">by Dom David Bird</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This excellent article and the passage quoted at the end have one great omission, the mutual relationship between the ressourcement theologians and the Russian Orthodox theologians who lived in France as refugees and who established the Institut Saint Serge in Paris. It must be remembered that most of the ressourcement theologians were out of grace with the Vatican and subject to restrictions, while the Orthodox theologians were under suspicion from their Orthodox colleagues simply because they lived in the West. Neither side represented their churches nor considered they were doing anything other than sharing with each other as theologians. Neither side wanted others to know, because they were in enough trouble already; but these meetings should go down in history as the most fruitful discussions since the Middle Ages, and they had a huge influence on Vatican II and its aftermath.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.orthodoxwiki.org/images/thumb/b/bd/Afanasiev.jpg/180px-Afanasiev.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://commons.orthodoxwiki.org/images/thumb/b/bd/Afanasiev.jpg/180px-Afanasiev.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Fr Nicholas Afanassieff who is<br />the original theologian of<br />"eucharistic ecclesiology"</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Andrew Louth, an English convert to Orthodoxy and a Russian Orthodox priest, has written a paper called "French Ressourcement Theology and Orthodoxy: A living mutual relationship?" In a review it says:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"This paper discusses the resssourcement movement that manifested itself in Orthodox theology in the twentieth century, and in particular explores links with Catholic ressourcement. It argues that there was a two‐way influence: Some of the participants in the Catholic movement were inspired by their encounter with members of the Russian émigré population in Paris, while some of those involved in the Orthodox movement were facilitated in their recourse to the Fathers by the fruits of the Catholic movement."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I hope to get hold of that paper one day. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2007/04/florovsky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2007/04/florovsky.jpg" height="400" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Fr Georges Florovsky<br />a giant among theologians with<br />a theology of Tradition that contributed<br />much to the development of<br />ressourcement theology.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is important to realise that the Catholic theologians didn't see themselves as a a distinct group called "ressourcement theologians", and neither group saw their relationship as an important step in the history of Catholic - Orthodox relations that would leave a permanent mark on Catholic teaching. That is how the Holy Spirit works. It was simply that two groups of theologians, from very distinct backgrounds and formation, discovered that both sides were troubled by the rise of secularism and the inadequacy of contemporary theology to make an adequate response to it; both sides had identified the "enemy" to a sound response in neo-scholasticism; and both sides found their solution in a creative appeal to Tradition, especially in the Greek Fathers; and that was before they even met!! There were differences. The Orthodox tended to look exclusively to Orthodox, Eastern Tradition because they were writing to a mainly Orthodox public, while the Catholics appealed to the whole of Tradition in its different forms, including St Augustine, St Ambrose, a re-interpreted St Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure and Duns Scotus , as well as the Greek and Oriental fathers of the Church; but they agreed that Tradition, born of the synergy between the Holy Spirit and the Church, a product of apostolic preaching and way of life and celebrated in the Liturgy, is the context in which all else must be interpreted and the true measure of all things Christian. Eucharistic ecclesiology, which is now commonplace in western theology after Vatican II and forms the basis of Catholic - Orthodox dialogue on the Church, words like theosis and synergy, became part of the vocabulary of the Catholic theologians taking part in this rich, mutual relationship. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Of course, the Catholic theologians were under a Vatican cloud, and all this could have been lost if Divine Providence hadn't sent Archbishop Angelo Roncalli to Paris in 1944 as papal nuncio. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When, as Pope John XXIII, he announced the new Council, he invited these theologians out of the cold, and the Council bears their stamp, as does Catholicism to the present day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Orthodox influence on the ressourcement theologians, perhaps, would not have made the impact it did on Vatican II if it were not for the Melkites. The interaction between ressourcement theologians and Melkites in Vatican II gave the Eastern Tradition an importance way beyond the number of its representatives at the Council.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Melkite patriarch and his bishops left the first Vatican Council a day early so that they wouldn't have to sign the dogmatic decrees on the universal jursidiction of the pope and his infallibility. When Pope Pius IX insisted they should sign, they only did so by adding their own clause to the decrees, that they agreed only in so far as they were accepted by the Greek fathers. This earned for them the enmity of Pius IX and a privileged place in Vatican II. They are, very definitely, Orthodox in communion with Rome. They consider communion with Rome as communion with St Peter, as the Orthodox once did, but they find the dogmas of Vatican I alien to their tradition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After Easter, I shall do an article on the Melkites. They are extremely important in our relations with the Orthodox because they basically agree with the Orthodox while acknowledging Rome as a necessary dimension of catholicity. They have shown that the "uniate" churches, under the Providence of God, are not so much a means of outreach by the Catholic Church to the Orthodox to convert them, but they are really a means by which the eastern interpretation of our Faith can reach the understanding of the predominantly western mind of the Catholic Church. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> They are being used by the Spirit as a means of bending the western understanding of the Catholic Faith to understand the Eastern expression of the same faith. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Let us, both Catholics and Orthodox, put our confidence, not in ourselves, but in Christ who reveals himself to us in our understanding of the faith in the power of the Spirit. It is only in our obedience to the the Spirit that we can call out for Christ's help; and it is only with the help of the Holy Spirit that we can defeat the evil of our own extreme self-sufficiency, whether individually or - even more contradictory- as members of the one, true Church. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There is something radically wrong when we flaunt the rightness of our church, look across the divide at the others wallowing in error, and make the prayer of the publican our own, thanking God that we are not like those over there. It seems to me that, paradoxically, we manifest Catholic truth by forgetting ourselves and by embracing our brothers across the divide, letting them see the authenticity of our faith by the depth of our love, identifying ourselves with them and not rejecting them when they do the same, and relying on the Holy Spirit to do the rest. Christian love is better than argument because it is the sign of the presence of the Spirit.</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-1813508691125046732018-04-14T04:28:00.000-07:002018-04-14T04:28:14.892-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST AS THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING EVERYTHING ELSE</b></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Iubilate Deo omnis terra (Introit)</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In St Luke's Gospel, this resurrection appearance takes place on Sunday, just after Christ's appearance to the two disciples on the way to Emmaeus and the day before the Ascension. The disciples have just told the apostles about Christ's appearance to them and how he manifested his presence in the breaking of bread. Christ then appears to the apostles who are frightened and believe him to be a ghost. He says, "Peace be with you." They are frightened but he offers them peace, not any old peace, but the peace that arises from the harmony between God and creation that the Resurrection has brought about. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Then Christ puts great emphasis on the material nature of the Resurrection. He shows them his hands and his feet, and he tells them to touch him, and he eats some baked fish in front of them. He is stressing that resurrection is about this world, the whole of creation and is not just a spiritual event. The Orthodox Father Ted writes: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;">Salvation is cosmic in its dimensions. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;">Our soteriology needs to be holistic. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is the total human person that saved: </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">a human being is not a soul dwelling temporarily in a body </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">but an integral unity of body and soul, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">and so the two are sanctified and divinized together. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As Christians we do not simply believe in the immortality of the soul, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">but we await also the resurrection of the body.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Nor is this all. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Through our bodies we relate to the material environment around us, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">and so our sanctification implies the sanctification of that environment as well. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We are not saved from but with the world.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Looking to the age to come, therefore, we await not merely the resurrection of the body but also the transfiguration of the entire cosmos; there is to be a “new earth” as well as a “new heaven” (Rev. 21:1).</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Then Jesus announced that this is what he taught them during his public ministry, that what the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms taught would be fulfilled in him. He then "Opened their minds to understand the Scriptures." Understanding the Scriptures, the teaching of the Old Testament, is not something we can do on our own account. In the Book of Revelation, it asks who is worthy to open the scroll, and only the Lamb that was slain can do it. Here we see the same doctrine: Jesus opens their minds to understand the Scriptures. Only he who has died and has risen again can discern the key to the whole of revelation, and both recognising him in his resurrection and understanding the Scriptures are a gift from God the giving of which belongs to his initiative. However, once given to them, they become his witnesses to all the nations, beginning with Jerusalem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Once the apostles recognise Christ and he has opened up their understanding of Scripture, then they are filled with the peace of Christ's kingdom and can bear witness to him. We too share with him in an intimate table fellowship which becomes the basis of our witness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Offertory: Laudate Dominum</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Passion of Jesus as the key for understanding Scripture</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Pope Francis’s ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Devil vs. the Middle Class of Holiness</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">By Massimo Faggioli</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/pope-franciss-gaudete-et-exsultate">source: Commonweal</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">April 9, 2018</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Pope Francis speaks during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican April 4. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The call to holiness is universal, and it is incompatible with individualism, dogmatism, and sectarianism. This is the heart of the exhortation<i> Gaudete et exsultate</i>, the fourth major pontifical document to appear since Francis became pope (not counting the encyclical Lumen fidei of June 2013, largely written by Benedict XVI before his resignation). The new exhortation is also the most important magisterial text of the Catholic Church on holiness since Vatican II’s Lumen gentium, which insisted on the “universal call to holiness.” Gaudete et exsultate encourages the faithful to live in everyday holiness, in terms that express Francis’s mystical and non-ascetic Christianity (the word “asceticism” is absent from the document). The exhortation consists of 177 paragraphs divided into five chapters: one on the call to holiness, one on Gnosticism and Pelagianism, one on holiness and the Beatitudes, one on signs of holiness in today’s world, and a last chapter on spiritual combat, vigilance, and discernment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Gaudete et exsultate is a meditation on ordinary, next-door holiness. Francis borrows the phrase “middle class of sainthood” from the French novelist Joseph Malegue (1876–1940), who’s been described as “the Catholic Proust.” The pope means “middle class” not in the sense of mediocre—“[God] wants us to be saints and not to settle for a bland and mediocre existence” (§ 1)—but in the sense of available to everyone: “Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbors, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them ‘the middle class of holiness’” (§ 7). Gaudete et exsultategives a realistic, unromanticized view of the life of the saints: “Not everything a saint says is completely faithful to the Gospel; not everything he or she does is authentic or perfect. What we need to contemplate is the totality of their life, their entire journey of growth in holiness, the reflection of Jesus Christ that emerges when we grasp their overall meaning as a person” (§ 22).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The second chapter is about two enemies of holiness, Gnosticism and Pelagianism. Most Catholics have probably never heard of these two ancient heresies, but they will be able to recognize them in their experience of the church. This chapter draws from a letter issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in February, Placuit deo. It also draws from an important speech Francis gave at the fifth congress of the Italian Church in Florence in November 2015. According to the pope, Gnosticism is an enemy of holiness because it presumes “a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings” (§ 37). Francis sets intellectualism against holiness: “Gnostics…judge others based on their ability to understand the complexity of certain doctrines” (§ 37). Pelagianism creates another obstacle for holiness: “The same power that the gnostics attributed to the intellect, others now began to attribute to the human will, to personal effort. This was the case with the pelagians and semi-pelagians. Now it was not intelligence that took the place of mystery and grace, but our human will” (§ 48). This chapter is important because it clarifies Francis’s relentless criticism of rigidity, legalism, clericalism, elitism, conservatism, and traditionalism: “The result is a self-centered and elitist complacency, bereft of true love. This finds expression in a variety of apparently unconnected ways of thinking and acting: an obsession with the law, an absorption with social and political advantages, a punctilious concern for the Church’s liturgy, doctrine and prestige, a vanity about the ability to manage practical matters, and an excessive concern with programs of self-help and personal fulfillment…. Not infrequently, contrary to the promptings of the Spirit, the life of the Church can become a museum piece or the possession of a select few. This can occur when some groups of Christians give excessive importance to certain rules, customs or ways of acting” (§ 57–58). Gnosticism and Pelagianism are enemies of holiness because each of them undermines the health of the ecclesial community by focusing on private experience or individual effort.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Chapter three on the Beatitudes explores the balance between the mystical and active dimensions of Christianity. On the one side there is “the error of those Christians who separate these Gospel demands from their personal relationship with the Lord, from their interior union with him, from openness to his grace. Christianity thus becomes a sort of NGO” (§ 100). On the other side there is “the other harmful ideological error [that] is found in those who find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist, or populist” (§ 101). This is relevant to the church’s engagement with the “life” issues, as Francis makes clear: “Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable in infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection…. We often hear it said that, with respect to relativism and the flaws of our present world, the situation of migrants, for example, is a lesser issue. Some Catholics consider it a secondary issue compared to the ‘grave’ bioethical questions. That a politician looking for votes might say such a thing is understandable, but not a Christian.” (§ 101–102). Francis does not use the term, but he clearly favors a “seamless garment of life” approach to these issues.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Chapter four on the signs of holiness in today’s world lists expressions of love for God and neighbor: perseverance, patience, and meekness; joy and a sense of humor; boldness and passion; involvement in community; and constant prayer. Francis insists on the need for holiness in all parts of our lives, including online: “Christians too can be caught up in networks of verbal violence through the internet and the various forums of digital communication. Even in Catholic media, limits can be overstepped, defamation and slander can become commonplace, and all ethical standards and respect for the good name of others can be abandoned. The result is a dangerous dichotomy, since things can be said there that would be unacceptable in public discourse, and people look to compensate for their own discontent by lashing out at others. It is striking that at times, in claiming to uphold the other commandments, they completely ignore the eighth, which forbids bearing false witness or lying, and ruthlessly vilify others. Here we see how the unguarded tongue, set on fire by hell, sets all things ablaze (cf. James 3:6)” (§ 115).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Francis insists on the need for holiness in all parts of our lives, including online</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The most striking chapter is the last one, which is about spiritual combat, vigilance, and discernment. The devil, who is mentioned fifteen times in Gaudete et exsultate, gets special attention in this chapter. Francis writes that the devil is “more than a myth”: “We will not admit the existence of the devil if we insist on regarding life by empirical standards alone, without a supernatural understanding” (§ 160). To fight the devil we need discernment: “The Christian life is a constant battle. We need strength and courage to withstand the temptations of the devil and to proclaim the Gospel. This battle is sweet, for it allows us to rejoice each time the Lord triumphs in our lives.… It is also a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil” (§158–159). Francis contrasts discernment with legalism: “Certainly, spiritual discernment does not exclude existential, psychological, sociological or moral insights drawn from the human sciences. At the same time, it transcends them. Nor are the Church’s sound norms sufficient” (§ 170). Discernment saves us from complacency, and it keeps us from reducing the Gospel to a long list of rules: “The discernment of spirits liberates us from rigidity, which has no place before the perennial ‘today’ of the risen Lord. The Spirit alone can penetrate what is obscure and hidden in every situation, and grasp its every nuance, so that the newness of the Gospel can emerge in another light” (§ 173).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From the exhortation’s very subtitle—“Call to holiness in today’s world”—we see that Francis is developing the themes of the conciliar constitutions Lumen gentium and Gaudium et spes, but he quotes from only one of these documents (Lumen gentium), and only three times. In other words, Gaudete et exsultate does not use a proof-text approach to the conciliar magisterium. The most important sources of Gaudete et exsultate are Evangelii gaudium and the CDF’s Placuit deo. Notably, Francis frequently quotes from recent documents of non-European bishops’ conferences (New Zealand, West Africa, Canada, India, and the Episcopal Conference of Latin America). By contrast, most of the non-magisterial sources are European (Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Carlo Maria Martini, SJ, the Spanish philosopher Xavier Zubiri, St. Faustina Kowalska, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Calcutta, Charles de Foucauld). In a document on everyday holiness one might have expected more examples from the lives of lay saints who lived their lives in the secular world. The short paragraph on holiness and the “feminine genius” shows Francis’s weakness on the issue of women in the church, even though it acknowledges “all those unknown or forgotten women who, each in her own way, sustained and transformed families and communities by the power of their witness” (§ 12).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As an exhortation to the faithful Gaudete et Exsultate is not explicitly ecumenical in the way Laudato si’ was, for example, but it will nevertheless have a broad appeal for all believers. Its conception of holiness is not about heroic asceticism but about a wise and sometimes difficult balance between mysticism and everyday fidelity; between following norms and discernment; between personal devotion and social engagement. At a moment when some are telling Christians to detach themselves from the secular world (e.g. the so-called Benedict Option), Gaudete et exsultate insists that holiness is possible in our ordinary circumstances; it does not require the creation of special habitats. Francis calls us to a life that rejects hedonism and consumerism, but without yielding to apocalypticism or retreating into new catacombs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Catholics who have a problem with Amoris laetitia will likely have a problem with Gaudete et exsultate too. The church is not presented here as an island of grace for the conspicuously holy surrounded by a sea of sinfulness. Here holiness is understood in terms of community: “We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual” (§ 6). Francis reminds us that holiness is a concern for every member of the church, and that it calls us to reach out, not to hide. Universalisms of all kinds are in crisis—in the church as in the world—and Francis’s articulation of the universal call to holiness is in part an attempt to address this crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pope Francis celebrates Holy Mass</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">see:<b><u><a href="http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=GOD+OFFERS+MERCY+TO+ALL+SO+THAT+ALL+CAN+BECOME+SAINTS%3A+POPE+FRANCIS+AND+HIS+CRITICS"> GOD OFFERS MERCY TO ALL SO THAT ALL CAN BECOME SAINTS: POPE FRANCIS AND HIS CRITICS</a></u></b></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-49855581824789990022018-04-07T11:16:00.000-07:002018-04-11T12:42:42.303-07:00HAPPY EASTER TO ALL EASTERN CHRISTIANS!! CHRIST IS RISEN!! HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!<div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ecclesialpeace/_/rsrc/1378309958614/heavengate-icons-are-points-of-contact-between-heaven-and-earth/-image-and-icon-session-two-annunciation-nativity/-image-and-icon-session-three-baptism-eucharist/-image-and-icon-session-four-a-the-crucifixion-b-epitaphios-c-the-bridegroom/the-harrowing-of-hell-the-resurrection/icons-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="509" data-original-width="700" height="290" src="https://sites.google.com/site/ecclesialpeace/_/rsrc/1378309958614/heavengate-icons-are-points-of-contact-between-heaven-and-earth/-image-and-icon-session-two-annunciation-nativity/-image-and-icon-session-three-baptism-eucharist/-image-and-icon-session-four-a-the-crucifixion-b-epitaphios-c-the-bridegroom/the-harrowing-of-hell-the-resurrection/icons-10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">IN THE PAST, during the “golden age” of Christian liturgy, the sacrament of Baptism was performed on the paschal night as an organic part of the great annual celebration of Easter. Even today, long after the link between the two solemnities has been broken, the baptismal rites and the paschal liturgy still keep an indelible mark of their initial connection and interdependence. Not many Christians, however, are aware of this. Not many know that the liturgy of Easter is primarily a baptismal liturgy; that when on Easter eve they hear the biblical readings about the crossing of the Red Sea, or the three children in the furnace, or Jonah in the whale’s womb, they listen to the most ancient “paradigms” of Baptism and attend the great baptismal vigil. They do not know that the joy which illumines the holy night, when the glorious announcement “Christ is Risen!” resounds, is the joy of those who were “baptized into Christ and have put on Christ,” who were “buried with Him by baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,” even so they also should walk in the “newness of life” (Rom. 6.4). Not many Christians have been taught that Easter as a liturgical feast, and Lent as a liturgical preparation for Easter, developed originally from the celebration of Baptism; that Pascha, the “Feast of Feasts,” is thus truly the fulfillment of Baptism, and Baptism is truly a paschal sacrament.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Knowing all this, however, is more than just learning an interesting chapter in liturgical archeology. It is indeed the only way to a fuller understanding of Baptism, of its meaning in the life of the Church and in our individual lives as Christians. And it is this fuller understanding of the fundamental mystery of the Christian faith and Christian life that, more than anything else, we badly need today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Why? Because, to put it very simply, Baptism is absent from our life. It is, to be sure, still accepted by all as a self-evident necessity. It is not opposed, not even questioned. It is performed all the time in our churches. It is, in other terms, “taken for granted.” Yet, in spite of all this, I dare to affirm that in a very real sense it is absent, and this “absence” is at the root of many tragedies of the Church today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>—Fr Alexander Schmemann, Of Water & the Spirit</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>miracle of the Easter fire in Jerusalem</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Fr Schmemann on Easter and the Resurrection</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Fr Schmemann on Easter and the Resurrection</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The celebration of Pascha at St Seraphim Cathedral, Dallas, Texas</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Father Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983) was educated in France before moving to the United States in 1951, where he quickly gained recognition as a dynamic and articulate spokesman for Orthodoxy. He was for many years Dean and Professor of Liturgical Theology at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in New York. Through his lectures on college campuses, his regular radio broadcasts to Eastern Europe, and his books, now translated into eleven languages, he brought the Faith to an ever-growing audience. The following paragraphs are from his book Great Lent - Journey to Pascha, published in 1969: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is necessary to explain that Easter is much more than one of the feasts, more than a yearly commemoration of a past event? Anyone who has, be it only once, taken part in that night which is “brighter than the day,” who has tasted of that unique joy knows it. But what is that joy about? Why we can sing, as we do, during the Paschal liturgy: “today are all things filled with light, heaven and earth and places under the earth”? In what sense do we celebrate, as we claim we do, “the death of Death, the annihilation of Hell, the beginning of a new life and everlasting . . .”? To all these questions, the answer is: the new life which almost two thousand years ago shone forth from the grave, has been given to us, to all those who believe in Christ. And it was given to us on the day of our Baptism, in which, as St. Paul says, we “were buried with Christ...unto death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead we also may walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Thus, on Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us . . . That is why, at the end of the Paschal Matins, we say: “Christ is risen and not one dead remains in the grave!” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">. . . It is not our daily experience, however, that this faith is very seldom ours, that all the time we lose and betray the “new life” which we received as a gift, and that, in fact, we live as if Christ did not rise from the dead, as if that unique event had no meaning whatsoever for us? . . . We manage to forget even the death and them, all of a sudden, in the midst of our “enjoying life” it comes to us: horrible, inescapable, senseless. We may from time to time acknowledge and confess our various “sins”, yet we cease to refer our life to that new life which Christ revealed and gave to us; Indeed, we live as if he never came. This is the only sin, the sin of all sins, the bottomless sadness and tragedy of our nominal Christianity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If we realize this, then we may undrestand what Easter is . . . and understand that the liturgical traditions of the Church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent and return to it . . . It is the worship of the Church that was from the very beginning and still is our entrance into, our communion with, the new life of the Kingdom. It is through her liturgical life that the Church reveals to us something of that which “the ear has not heard, the eye has not seen and what has not yet entered the heart of man but what God has prepared for those who love Him.” And in the center of that liturgical life, as its heart and climax, as the sun whose rays penetrate everywhere, stands Pascha. It is the door opened every year into the splendour of Christ’s Kingdom, the foretaste of the eternal joy that awaits us, the glory of the victory which already, although invisibly, fills the whole creation: “death is no more!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Love Without Limits</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://oca.org/reflections/archimandrite-lev-gillet/love-without-limits">my source: Orthodox Church of America</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Archimandrite Lev Gillet, who signed many of his books “A Monk of the Eastern Church,” was one of the great Orthodox spiritual guides of the last century. His biography, written by his longtime friend Mme. Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, has been translated into English and offers invaluable insight into the life of Fr Lev, as well as of the circumstances surrounding the growth of Orthodox Christianity in Western Europe, especially following the Russian Revolution.</i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>In 1990, St. Vladimir’s Seminary published two essays of Fr Lev in a volume titled Serve the Lord With Gladness. The first, “Our Life in the Liturgy,” is a simple and highly accessible introduction to the Orthodox Divine Liturgy or Eucharistic service. The second, “Be My Priest,” is a profound meditation on the significance of the priesthood, which appeals to both ordained clergy and others who make up the “universal priesthood” of baptized believers.</i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this series of webpage columns dedicated to “Life in Christ,” we will be offering occasional translations of chapters from another of Fr Lev’s books, Amour Sans Limites (Love Without Limits), published in 1971 by “Éditions de Chevetogne,” a Roman Catholic monastery in Belgium (where the monks celebrate both Western and Byzantine rites). It is difficult to render Fr Lev’s lyrical French into English, but we hope that these efforts will provide readers with something of the spiritual richness and profound theological insight that characterized this humble monk, who was truly a modern Father of the Church.</i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“To You, Whoever You May Be”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Whoever you are, whatever you may be, says the Lord of Love, my hand is resting upon you at this very moment. By this gesture, I am letting you know that I love you and that I call you for my own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I have never ceased loving you, speaking to you, or calling you. Sometimes it was in silence and solitude. Sometimes it was there, where others were gathered in my name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Often you did not hear this call, because you were not listening. At other times you perceived it, but in a way that was vague and confused. Occasionally you were at the point of responding with acceptance. And sometimes you gave me that response without any lasting commitment. You were deeply moved to hear me. You recoiled from the decision to follow me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Never thereafter did you finally submit, totally and exclusively, to the calling of Love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yet now, once again, I come to you. I want to speak to you once more. I want you wholly for myself. Let me repeat: Love desires you, totally and exclusively.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I will speak to you in secret, confidentially, intimately. I will place my mouth close to your ear. Hear, then, what my lips want to speak to you in hushed tones—what they want to murmur to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I am your Lord, the Lord of Love. Do you want to enter into the life of Love?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This is not an invitation to some realm of tepid tenderness. It is a calling to enter into the burning flame of Love. There alone is true conversion: conversion to incandescent Love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Do you wish to become someone other than you have been, someone other than you are? Do you wish to be someone who lives for others, and first of all for that Other and with that Other who calls all things into being? Do you wish to be a brother to all, a brother to the entire world?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Then hear what my Love speaks to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">My child, you have never known who you really are. You do not yet know yourself. I mean, you have never really known yourself to be the object of my Love. As a result, you have never known who you are in me, or all the potential within yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Awake from this sleep and its bad dreams! In certain moments of truth, you see nothing in yourself but failures and defeats, set-backs, corruption, and perhaps even crimes. But none of that is really of you. It is not your true “me,” the most profound expression of your true self.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Beneath and behind all that, deeper than all your sin, transgressions and lacks, my eyes are upon you. I see you, and I love you. It is you that I love. It’s not the evil you do—the evil that we can neither ignore nor deny nor lessen (is black actually white?). But underneath it all, at a greater depth, I see something else that is still very much alive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The masks you wear, the disguises you adopt might well hide you from the eyes of others—and even from your own eyes. But they cannot hide you from me. I pursue you even there where no one has ever pursued you before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Your deceptive expression, your feverish quest for excitement, your hard and avaricious heart—all of that I separate from you. I cut it away and cast it far off from you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hear me. No one truly understands you. But I understand you. I can speak about you such wonderful, marvelous things! I can say these things about you. Not about the “you” that the powers of darkness have so often led astray, but about the “you” who is as I desire you to be, the “you” who dwells in my thoughts as the object of my love. I can say these things about the “you” who can still be what I want you to be, and to be so visibly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Become visibly, then, what you already are in my mind. Be the ultimate reality of yourself. Realize all the potential I have placed within you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">No man or woman is capable of realizing any inner beauty that is not equally present within you. There is no divine gift toward which you cannot aspire. Indeed, you will receive all those gifts together, if you truly love, with me and in me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Whatever you may have done in the past, I will set you free, I will loose your bonds. And if I loose your bonds, who can prevent you from rising up and walking?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Copyright © Éditions de Chevetogne, Namur, Belgium, 1971;</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The Patriarch of Moscow serves </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The Lord's Funeral, Good Friday</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Sister Vassa (Orthodox) on Holy Saturday </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>(and about Pope Francis and Hell)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Sister Vassa on Easter</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Sorry about my coverage of this week, but I have been both ill with an allergy and deeply depressed, without energy. Then, today, the depression was lifted, and I have been working hard to catch up. Depression is a strange thing. All the reasons for being depressed are still there, but I don't have to bear them alone. Christ has risen!! Alleluia!!</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The Easter Fire arrives from Jerusalem to Moscow 2018</b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Patriarch Kirill leads Orthodox Easter service at Christ the Saviour Cathedral</span></b></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-78947302137859025842018-04-04T02:24:00.000-07:002018-04-04T02:24:18.417-07:00MONASTIC PEACEMAKERS Collatio-dialogue in St Willibrord abbey<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Roman Catholic Perspectives on Peace</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Excerpt from: Called Together to be Peacemakers: Report of the International Dialogue between the Catholic Church and Mennonite World Conference: 1998-2003</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God” (Mt 5:8).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Through our dialogue, we have come to understand that Catholics and Mennonites share a common commitment to peacemaking. That commitment is rooted in our communion with “the God of Peace” (Rom 15:33) and in the church’s response to Jesus’ proclamation of “the gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15). Christ has entrusted to us the ministry of reconciliation. As “ambassadors of Christ” (2 Cor 5:20) we are called to be reconciled to God and to one another. Moved by the Spirit, we want to share with our brothers and sisters in faith, and with a wider world, our call to be instruments of God’s peace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We present the results of our dialogue on the question of commitment to peace in four parts: (1) a survey of distinctive aspects of our respective views of peacemaking and related Christian doctrines; (2) points of convergence; (3) points of divergence; and (4) issues requiring further exploration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Catholic perspectives on peace</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Christ rising from the dead together with Adam and Eve who represent the whole of humanity.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Church’s Social Vision.</b> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The primary way in which the Church contributes to the reconciliation of the human family is the Church’s own universality. Understanding itself as “a sacrament of intimate union with God and of the unity of mankind,”1 the Catholic Church takes the promotion of unity, and accordingly peace, “as belonging to the innermost nature of the Church.” For this reason it fosters solidarity among peoples, and calls peoples and nations to sacrifices of advantages of power and wealth for the sake of solidarity of the human family. The Eucharist, which strengthens the bonds of charity, nourishes such solidarity. The Eucharist, in turn, is an expression of the charity which binds members of the community in Christ (1 Cor 11:17-34).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Church views the human vocation as essentially communitarian, that is, all human relations are ordered to unity and love, an order of love confirmed by the life and teaching of Jesus and the Spirit-filled life of the Church (cf. Lk 22:14-27; Jn 13:1-20; 15:1-17; 17:20-24). This order of love is manifest in the lives of the faithful and in the community of the Church, but is not restricted to them. In fact, by virtue of creation and redemption, it is found at all levels of human society.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">God created the human family for unity, and in Christ confirmed the law of love (Acts 17:26; Rom 13:10). Accordingly, the Church sees the growth of interdependence across the world, though not without problems due to sin, a force that can contribute to peace. Thus, Pope John Paul II has written: “The goal of peace, so desired by everyone, will certainly be achieved through the putting into effect of social and international justice, but also through the practice of virtues which favour togetherness, and which teach us to live in unity.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Call to Holiness.</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">All Christians share in God’s call to holiness (1 Thess 4:3; Eph 1:4). This is a sanctity “cultivated by all who under God’s spirit and, obeying the Father’s voice …, follow Christ, poor, humble and cross bearing.” As God’s own people, living in the inauguration of the kingdom, we are to be “peacemakers” who “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Mt 5:6) and “are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (Mt 5:11). We are to love one another, forgive one another, and live humbly in imitation of Jesus, who though he was “in the form of God…humbled himself becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (cf. Phil 2:6, 8). We are to be generous and forgiving with everyone, as God is generous with us (Lk 6:37f.). In a word, as disciples of Jesus, we are instructed to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">All the commandments, as Saint Paul teaches, are summed up in the saying, “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Rom 13:9; cf. Jas 2:8; 1 Jn 4:11f.). For Catholics, love of neighbour takes special form in love and service of the poor and marginalized; indeed, in “a preferential option for the poor.” The ministry of love to the neighbour is promoted through personal and corporate works of mercy, in organized charities, as well as in advocacy on behalf of justice, human rights and peace. Lay people, bishops and Church agencies engage in such initiatives. The love command likewise entails reverence and love for enemies (Mt 5:43; 1 Jn 3:16). Like our heavenly Father, who “makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt 5:45), we are to love our enemies, bless them, pray for them, not retaliate, and share our possessions with those who would take things from us (Lk 6:27-35). Furthermore, we must be prepared to establish just relations with them, for true peace is the fruit of justice, and “because justice is always fragile and imperfect, it must include and, as it were be completed by the forgiveness which heals and rebuilds troubled human relations from their foundations.” Finally, in the midst of conflict, the Lord gives us his peace that we may have courage under persecution (Jn 1</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>only peace is holy:not war</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>pope francis and peace</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Nonviolence, in Catholic eyes, is both a Christian and a human virtue.</i> For Christians, nonviolence takes on special meaning in the suffering of Christ who was “led as a sheep to the slaughter” (Is 53:7; Acts 8:32). “Making up the sufferings lacking in Christ” (Col 1:34), the nonviolent witness of Christians contributes to the building up of peace in a way that force cannot, discerning the difference “between the cowardice which gives into evil and the violence which under the illusion of fighting evil, only makes it worse.” In the Catholic view, nonviolence ought to be implemented in public policies and through public institutions as well as in personal and church practice. Both in pastoral practice and through Vatican diplomacy, the Church insists, in the face of conflict, that “peace is possible. The Church also attempts to nourish a culture of peace in civil society, and encourages the establishment of institutions for the practice of nonviolence in public life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>PEACEMAKING</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On the pastoral level, the Catholic theology of peace takes a positive stance. It focuses on resolving the causes of conflict and building the conditions for lasting peace. It entails four primary components: (1) promotion and protection of human rights, (2) advancing integral human development, (3) supporting international law and international organizations, and (4) building solidarity between peoples and nations. This vision of peace is articulated in the whole body of contemporary Catholic social teaching beginning with Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in terris (“Peace on Earth”) 40 years ago and continuing through Pope John Paul II’s Tertio millennio ineunte (“The Third Millennium”) in 2000.2</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Catholic Church’s work for peace is carried out in many ways. Since the Second Vatican Council, it has largely been carried out through a network of national and diocesan justice and peace commissions and through the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Their work has been especially influential in the struggle for human rights in Asia, Latin America, and some parts of Africa. Catholic human rights offices, like the Vicarate for Solidarity in Chile, Tutela Legal in El Salvador, Batolomeo Casas in Mexico, the Archdiocesan Office in Guatemala City, and the Society of Saint Yves in Jerusalem have been models for active defence of the rights of the poor, of indigenous people, and of those under occupation. Catholic relief and development agencies, especially Caritas Internationalis and the Caritas network, provide relief, development, refugee assistance and post-conflict reconstruction for divided societies. In many places, individual bishops have also played an important role in national conciliation efforts; and one, Bishop Felipe Ximenes Belo of E. Timor, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Holy See exercises “a diplomacy of conscience” through the Vatican diplomatic corps and other special representatives. This diplomatic activity consists of advocacy on behalf of peace, human rights, development and humanitarian issues. It also contributes to international peacemaking indirectly through initiatives of Catholic groups, like the <i>Community of Sant’Egidio</i>, and various bishops’ conferences. Above all, the pope exercises a unique ministry for peace through his teaching and public statements, in his meetings with world figures, through his pilgrimages across the world, and through special events like the Assisi Days of Prayer and the Great Jubilee Year 2000.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has sought to view war “with a whole new attitude. In the encyclical letter, Evangelium vitae (“The Gospel of Life”), Pope John Paul II identified war as part of the culture of death, and he found a positive sign of the times in “a new sensitivity ever more opposed to war as an instrument of the resolution of conflict between people, and increasingly oriented to finding effective but ‘nonviolent’ means to counter the armed aggressor.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Catholic tradition today upholds both a strong presumption against the use of force and an obligation to resist the denial of rights and other grave public evils by active nonviolence, if at all possible (cf. Rom 12:14-21; 1 Thess 5:14f.). All Catholics bear a general obligation to actively resist grave public evil. Catholic teaching has increasingly endorsed the superiority of non-violent means and is suspect of the use of force in a culture of death. Nonetheless, the Catholic tradition also continues to maintain the possibility of a limited use of force as a last resort (the Just War), particularly when whole populations are at risk as in cases of genocide or ethnic cleansing. As in the days before the U.S. war against Iraq (2003), Pope John Paul II as well as Vatican officials and bishops’ conferences around the world have urged the international community to employ nonviolent alternatives to the use of force. At the same time, they have employed just-war criteria to prevent war and to promote the limitation of force and to criticize both potential and actual uses of force by governments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Just-war reasoning, however, is not a simple moral calculus. Following the notion of ‘right reason’, valid application of the just-war criteria depends on possessing a virtuous character. Such virtues as moderation, restraint, and respect for life are intrinsic to sound application of just-war criteria, as are Christian virtues such as humility, gentleness, forgiveness and love of enemy. Accordingly, Church teaching and application of the Just War criteria have grown more stringent in recent years, insisting that the function of the Just War Tradition is to prevent and limit war, not just legitimate it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Just War today should be understood as part of a broad Catholic theology of peace applicable only to exceptional cases. War, as Pope John Paul II has said, “is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations.” The Pope’s overall assessment of the evils of war made at the end of the 1991 Gulf War remains valid today:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing, and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems which provoked the war.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Religious Freedom.</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Jesus proclaimed the time “when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him” (Jn 4:26). Meek and humble of heart, Jesus “did not wish to be a political Messiah who would dominate by force but preferred to call himself the Son of Man who came to serve, and to give his life as ‘a ransom for many.’” Today the Catholic Church repudiates the use of force in the name of the Gospel and upholds freedom of conscience in matters of religion. In accord with Vatican II’s “Declaration on Religious Liberty” (Dignitatis humanae), Catholics affirm freedom of religion for all and repudiate the use of coercion in the spread of the Gospel. The Catholic Church also repents of offenses committed “in the name of Truth” in past centuries by officials’ use of the civil arm to suppress religious dissent, and she begs God’s forgiveness for these violations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">History, Eschatology and Human Achievement. Catholics believe that human achievement of every sort, particularly the achievements of a political society that contributes to a greater measure of justice and peace in the world, prepares humanity “to share in the fullness which ‘dwells in the Lord.’”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">For after we have obeyed the Lord, and in his Spirit have nurtured on earth the values of human dignity, brotherhood and freedom…we will find them again, but free of stain, burnished and transfigured. This will be so when Christ hands over to the Father a kingdom eternal and universal: “a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At the same time sin, which is always attempting to trap us and which jeopardizes our human achievements, is conquered and redeemed by the reconciliation accomplished by Christ (cf. Col 1:20).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>1. The source of quotes can be found by going to the source document indicated at the beginning of this section.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>2. This constructive approach to peace (that is, Pope Paul VI: “If you want peace, work for justice”) is a complement to the contemporary practice of Mennonites in conflict resolution, conflict transformation, and technical peacebuilding. It also is supportive of broader conceptions of peacebuilding now being promoted in both Mennonite and Catholic circles.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>3. The Holy See is the title the Catholic Church employs in international affairs</i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Brother Thomas posted the following on his Facebook page:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>MONASTIC PEACEMAKERS</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Collatio-dialogue in St Willibrord abbey</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Monasteries are laboratories of peace, spaces where brothers and sisters live together in search of “Pax”. Together with Jim Forest, a well-known writer, peacemaker and companion of Thomas Merton, and Alfons Brüning, a colleague from Radboud University on Eastern Christianity, I had a very inspiring dialogue about contemplative pacifism during the last days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What is the benefit of a contemplative life for peacemaking? This was one of the questions we shared our voices about. In the various forms of monastic life, monks and nuns always search for a synthesis between personal spiritual growth and closeness to your neighbor. The two presuppose each other. One of the texts we talked about, came from the Rule of Saint Benedict: “Let the monks bear most patiently one’s infirmities, whether of body or of character” (RB 72, 5). This will lead “us all alike to life everlasting” (RB 72, 12). Every person who is engaged in pacifism needs a contemplative basis to be encouraged not to give up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At the same time, every contemplative person needs to be a peacemaker, like we learned from the writings of Thomas Merton: “The doctrine of the Incarnation makes the Christian be obligated to God and to man”. There can be no Christian who is not working for peace. Not being heroic, sometimes being invisible. Like Merton wrote in one of the letters to Jim: “Let your engagement not depend on the result”. Contemplative pacifism is not spectacular but lived. It is real in the sense of a stability that only a spiritual inspiration can grant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Forgiveness Sunday</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">One word touched us especially: forgiveness. In the Orthodox liturgy, there is a separate vesper service of forgiveness. In the monastery, we ask for forgiveness every night in Compline. We not only ask one another, but we lay the conflicts in God’s hands, we let our emotions go. It was a touching moment during our dialogue when we recognized the liturgical moments of reconciliation in our own traditions and that of the other. A true moment of contemplative pacifism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What does that mean for concrete conflicts in the world? We shared our feelings about Ukraine and other areas of crisis. It is very often not easy to talk about forgiveness of reconciliation when situations are complicated. Peacemaking starts small, in families, groups, networks. The monastic inspiration of our abbey contributed a little bit to our intention to further engage in the relation of spirituality and peacemaking. It was really a gift how the three very different voices taking part in our dialogue, enriched each other. A challenging start for an ongoing cooperation, hopefully with many others – also with you, dear reader?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Thanks to Jim Forest and Alfons Brüning for the dialogue, abbot Henry Vesseur for the support, and Stijn Krooshof for the help and making it visible in the pictures.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The Eucharistic Liturgy</b></span></div>
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<b>THE WORD ON FIRE MINISTRY</b></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-45724744642734977472018-04-02T06:39:00.001-07:002018-04-02T06:39:50.777-07:00ORTHODOX PALM SUNDAY and LAZARUS SATURDAY<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Entry Into Jerusalem</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>In the Orthodox Church, yesterday was Palm Sunday</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A ruler of the ancient world would make his triumphal entrance into a city on a war horse. Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. This mild creature, whose meek character is made more emphatic in the icon by its lowered head, was a perfect symbol for a ruler without weapons, without armor, without an army. The Savior’s manner of sitting astride the donkey also contrasts with an emperor riding his mount. It is the Prince of Peace, not Caesar, who is entering into the Holy City.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Christ’s entrance fulfills a prophecy made by of Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Proclaim it aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you, triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The icon is very simple — the Lord and his disciples to the left, the people welcoming him to the right, the wilderness behind the first group, the walled city behind the other, and a single tree between them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The tree in the center has a double meaning. While its primary purpose is to be a sources of branches for the crowd to wave at the Messiah, it also suggests the “tree” outside the city walls to which the rejected Messiah will be nailed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The joy of the city’s welcome is suggested by the upraised palm branches the people carry, the children spreading garments (a sign of royal welcome) on the path and the additional detail often found in the icon of several children cutting branches in the tree over Christ’s head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> In no other icon do children play so important a role. Their presence reminds us of the words of Jesus: “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 19:14) Elsewhere Christ says, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18:3)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Children have a special place in the Gospel, reflected in the practice of the Orthodox Church where infants and children are first in line among of those receiving communion. Christ never explains his special appreciation of children, but perhaps it has to do with their unaffected joy, their single mindedness, their intense curiosity, their having no illusions about being independent, their fearlessness. In this icon, their white garments suggest purity of heart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The immediate cause of the crowd’s welcome, the Evangelist John relates, was the miracle at Bethany. News that Jesus’s had raised Lazarus from the dead had swept the city. Who but the long-awaited Messiah could bring a corpse back to life? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Even so, we know from the same Gospel the state of dread the disciples were in as they approached Jerusalem. “Let us also go [to Jerusalem],” Thomas had said to the other disciples after failing to dissuade Jesus from his journey, “that we may die with him.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The icon often draws attention to the apostles’ fear and hesitancy by showing Christ directing his attention, not toward Jerusalem and those who await his entry with such excitement, but toward his disciples. We see them huddled together and notice that one of them — often it is Peter — is in dialogue with the Lord, his hand extended as if making a final cautionary plea to his master.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Jesus’s right hand is extended toward the city with a gesture of blessing while in his left a scroll represents his authority, and also his awareness of what will happen and of prophecies that will be fulfilled. The crowd now shouting, “Welcome to the son of David,” will soon be the crowd screaming, “Crucify him.”</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">m</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(from "Praying With Icons" by Jim Forest, Orbis Books)</span><br />
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--<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">new book:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At Play in the Lions' Den: a biography and memoir of Daniel Berrigan</span><br />
<a href="http://jimandnancyforest.com/2017/06/daniel-berrigan-bio/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>http://jimandnancyforest.com/2017/06/daniel-berrigan-bio/</b></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">recipient of the International Thomas Merton Society’s “Louie” award:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton's Advice to Peacemakers </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://jimandnancyforest.com/2016/06/root-of-war-is-fea">http://jimandnancyforest.com/2016/06/root-of-war-is-fea</a>r</b>/ </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">books in print: <a href="http://jimandnancyforest.com/books/"><b>http://jimandnancyforest.com/books/</b></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">web site: <b>https://<a href="http://www.jimandnancyforest.com/">www.jimandnancyforest.com</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">photos:<b> https://<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/albums">www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/albums</a>/</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Amazon author page:<b> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/jimforest">https://www.amazon.com/author/jimforest</a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Palm Sunday: Victory of the Heart</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Source: <b><u><a href="https://svotssynaxis.com/2012/04/09/palm-sunday-victory-of-the-heart/">Synaxis: A Blog St. Vladimir’s</a></u></b></span><b><u><a href="https://svotssynaxis.com/2012/04/09/palm-sunday-victory-of-the-heart/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Orthodox Theological Seminary</span></a></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>And today Jesus Christ enters into the Jerusalem of our hearts to lead us to victory. Today, Christ fills us with his power, his strength, and his resolve to overcome the temptation to worldly power.</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.pravmir.com/author/user_1428219183/">PRIEST J. SERGIUS HALVORSEN | 05 APRIL 2015</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="http://www.pravmir.com/palm-sunday-victory-of-the-heart/">my source: Pravmir.com</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hosanna in the highest! [Mark 11:9–10]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Today Jesus enters into Jerusalem, and the cheering crowds greet him like a king entering the city after a military victory—the first-century equivalent of a “ticker tape parade.” The crowds have heard about Jesus, about his powerful teaching and his miracles, specifically raising Lazarus from the dead. They cry out “Hosanna in the highest,” a shout of praise and a plea for salvation. “Save us, Lord!” For years, for generations, these people have languished under the heavy boot of Roman occupation and oppression. They are weary of high taxes, soldiers in their streets, and the constant threat of violence. The people are tired and weary and hungry, and they want freedom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Do you ever feel this way?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Today, in some parts of the world, Christians struggle under the heavy yoke of political oppression and military occupation. In some places, Christians are in the middle of military conflict and civil war. But, even people who enjoy great political freedom can feel this sense of soul crushing oppression. We can be oppressed by strained relationships among family and friends. We can be oppressed by the anxiety and stress of economic uncertainty. We can be oppressed by the agony of addiction. We can be oppressed by the pain and grief of illness and death. And wherever there is oppression, there is a powerful desire for freedom. We may not face oppression from the Roman Empire, but standing with our palm branches today, singing “Hosanna in the highest,” we stand shoulder to shoulder with our first-century brothers and sisters, longing for freedom. But how do we get that freedom? How do we find liberation from our physical, emotional, and spiritual oppression?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The obvious answer is to go out and fight for it. This was what the crowds in Jerusalem wanted from Jesus as he traveled on that “red carpet” of palm branches and the clothes off their backs (Mark 11:8). In their eyes, Jesus was the perfect leader for a righteous rebellion. Surely God’s Anointed One could raise up an army and restore the Kingdom of Israel. After all, if Jesus had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead, he would be invincible in the face of Roman legions. If Jesus was truly God’s anointed one, then he would be invincible in battle. The crowds wanted the kind of freedom that you win with the spear, the chariot, and the sword.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But to win this kind of freedom you need wealth, strength, and power. They sound awfully good, don’t they? With money, a strong body, and political influence, freedom is yours for the taking. Or is it? Ancient Israel had great power, but fell to the Babylonians. In Jesus’ time the Roman Empire had great power, but over the centuries that empire fell to other nations. As one nation rises, other nations fight to gain supremacy. The same is true for people. Today one person might be wealthy, strong, and have all the power in the world. But one who gains worldly power quickly becomes a target for everyone who wants a place at the top of the food chain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And so, strength, wealth, and power come with a terrible price. They come with a price of fear, isolation, and anxiety. The more you possess of this world, the more this world will try to take away. So we prepare for battle, we harden our defenses and sharpen our attacks. Whether we attack others with swords or words, with bullets or in business, we strike others where they are weakest, where we can do the greatest amount of damage and gain the greatest advantage. The crowd was hungry for power, and they hoped that Jesus would lead them to victory in an epic battle that would change their world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On a certain level, the crowd was right. They were at the threshold of a great battle that would change everything—a battle that would grant freedom to the oppressed, and vanquish the foe. However, the army that Jesus came to fight was not flesh and blood; it was, as St. Paul says, a battle against the “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12) However, this battle had begun long before Jesus entered into Jerusalem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">After Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, he went out into the wilderness and fasted for forty days. After that long fast, the tempter comes and tempts Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“You are hungry? If you are the Son of God, command those stones to become loaves of bread,” says the evil one. This is not merely a temptation about food. Satan is tempting Jesus with wealth. If Jesus were to turn stones into bread, he would never go hungry. And if one were to possess an unlimited supply of bread, he could have virtually unlimited wealth. But Jesus launches a counterattack and replies, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Matt 4:4)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Then the tempter takes Jesus to the holy city, sets him on the top of the Temple, and says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matt 4:6) Satan tempts Jesus with strength, with physical invincibility. “If you are really the Son of God, then you can do anything you like, even jump off a cliff, and you’ll be fine.” According to this demonic logic, not only could Jesus perform superhuman feats, but he also would be physically invulnerable. He could literally live forever, doing anything he pleased in this world. The spiritual battle becomes more intense, and Christ replies, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” (Matt 4:7)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Finally, Satan takes Jesus up to the top of a high mountain, shows him all of the kingdoms of the world, points out all the glory of all those kingdoms, and he says, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” (Matt 4:9) It is the ultimate offer of power. What would it be like to rule over the entire world, over all its kingdoms and all its peoples, and have access to all its wealth and all its pleasures? At some level, Jesus must have known that all of this could be his: perfect strength, infinite wealth, and limitless power. Yet, he strikes a powerful blow against the powers of wickedness in his reply: “Begone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” (Matt 4:10)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Today, on Palm Sunday, we have fasted forty days, we are hungry, and if ever we face temptation from Satan, it is now. We face the temptation to gratify ourselves with worldly delights. We face the temptation to demand our liberty from everything and everyone that oppresses us. We face the temptation to fight for strength, and wealth, and power. This is the spiritual warfare that constantly rages on all sides, and today on Palm Sunday the battle is particularly violent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As Jesus enters Jerusalem, he faces these temptations as never before—all of those people cheering, crying out “Hosanna!,” just begging him to be their worldly general, their commander, their emperor. Yet, Christ refuses to be the earthly king that the people demand. Instead he will be revealed as a kind of king that the world has never seen, a perfect king, a heavenly king, a humble king, crowned with thorns, robed in the purple of mockery, and enthroned on the Cross. Though Christ enters Jerusalem and is enveloped in a firestorm of temptation, he keeps his eyes on the Cross. This is the victory of Palm Sunday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And today Jesus Christ enters into the Jerusalem of our hearts to lead us to victory. Today, Christ fills us with his power, his strength, and his resolve to overcome the temptation to worldly power. For “the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matt 20:28)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Today we cry out “Hosanna in the highest!,” for Christ vanquishes the powers of evil, and through his perfect sacrifice on the Cross we are liberated from the oppressive desire for worldly power. Christ leads us to the unexpected victory in which the King lays down his own life for the salvation of all. In dying, the true majesty and power of the Lord is perfectly revealed and the powers of hell are vanquished. Following Christ, we lay down our lives as he did: for our brothers and sisters, our neighbor, and even our enemy. Today we cry out “Hosanna in the highest!” as we follow our Lord to his voluntary passion and death on the Cross.</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Fr. J. Sergius Halvorsen (SVOTS ’96) is Associate Professor of Homiletics and Rhetoric at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. He completed his doctoral dissertation at Drew University in 2002. From 2000 to 2011 he taught at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell Connecticut, where he also served as Director of Distance Learning. He was ordained to the priesthood in February 2004 and is attached at Christ the Savior Church in Southbury, Connecticut. He and his wife, Dina, reside in Connecticut with their children Thomas, Timothy, and Mary.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>LAZARUS SATURDAY</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>the day before Palm Sunday</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Saturday">my source: Wikipedia</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>History</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Lazarus%2C_Russian_icon.jpg/300px-Lazarus%2C_Russian_icon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Lazarus%2C_Russian_icon.jpg/300px-Lazarus%2C_Russian_icon.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The antiquity of this commemoration is demonstrated by the homilies of St. John Chrysostom (349 - 407), St Augustine of Hippo Regia (354 - 430), and others. In the 7th and 8th centuries, special hymns and canons for the feast were written by St. Andrew of Crete, St. Cosmas of Maium and St. John Damascene, which are still sung to this day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">.The scripture readings and hymns for this day focus on the raising of Lazarus as a foreshadowing of the Resurrection of Christ and a prefiguring of the General Resurrection. The Gospel narrative is interpreted in the hymns as illustrating the two natures of Christ: his humanity in asking, "Where have ye laid him?" (John 11:34), and his divinity by commanding Lazarus to come forth from the dead (John 11:43). A number of the hymns, written in the first or second person, relate Lazarus' death, entombment and burial bonds symbolically to the individual's sinful state. Many of the resurrectional hymns of the normal Sunday service are sung while prayers for the departed, prescribed on Sundays, are permitted. During the divine liturgy, the baptismal hymn, "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Romans 6:3) replaces the Trisagion indicating that this had been a day on which baptisms were performed [2] and in some churches nowadays adult converts are still baptized on this day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Customs</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Hermits</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A lazarakia.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.pravmir.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/lazarus3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.pravmir.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/lazarus3.jpg" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="260" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Lazarus Saturday is the day when, traditionally, hermits would leave their retreats in the wilderness to return to the monastery for the Holy Week services.[2] In many places in the Russian Church, the vestments and church hangings on this day and on Palm Sunday are green, denoting the renewal of life. In the Greek Church, it is customary on Lazarus Saturday to plait elaborate crosses out of palm leaves which will be used on Palm Sunday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Greece and Cyprus</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Baking lazarakia to eat on Lazarus Saturday is a tradition practiced in Greece and Cyprus. It is said to have originated in Cyprus, and it is significant that St. Lazarus was their first bishop. The bread is a mildly sweet Lenten bread made with sweet-smelling spices that looks like Lazarus bound up in grave clothes.[3]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Serbia and Bulgaria</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8F.jpg/200px-%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8F.jpg/200px-%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8F.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Lazarus Saturday in Gara Bov (Bulgaria)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The feast of Vrbica (Врбица) or Lazareva Subota (Лазарева Субота), Bulgarian: Lazarovden (Лазаровден) is commemorated by Serbian Orthodox and Bulgarian Orthodox tradition. Due to a general lack of palm trees, pussy willow branches are blessed, and distributed to the faithful. Small bells are often tied to the branches. Other features include:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Burning a fire against vermin and snakes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Picking flowers and herbs which are put in water to either drink or swim in</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Lazarice ritual, a procession, parade of six maids.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b> What Happened to Lazarus After His Resurrection?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2013/04/what-happened-to-lazarus-after-he-rose.html">Source: Mystagogy Resource Center</a></u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>JOHN SANIDOPOULOS | 02 APRIL 2018</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.pravmir.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/0001-YIE-Lazarus-600x338.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.pravmir.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/0001-YIE-Lazarus-600x338.jpg" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="600" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Lazarus was a close friend of Christ, from Bethany, about three kilometers east of Jerusalem. He lived there with his sisters Mary and Martha, and they often gave hospitality to Jesus (Luke 10:38-40; John 12:1-3).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">John the Evangelist informs us (John 11) how one day Jesus was notified of the death of Lazarus. Four days later He arrived in Bethany, not only to bring comfort to Lazarus’ grieving sisters, but to show the power of God and perform His greatest miracle by raising him from the dead, in anticipation of His own resurrection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The resurrection of Lazarus brought short-lived great admiration and fame to Jesus, as evidenced by his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, but it also provoked great anger among the teachers of the Law. Now they wanted both Jesus and Lazarus dead. Lazarus escaped, but Jesus did not. But what happened to Lazarus?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">According to St. Epiphanios of Cyprus (367-403), Lazarus was thirty years old when he rose from the dead, and then went on to live another 30 years following his resurrection. Another tradition says that Lazarus fled the anger of the Jews and took refuge at Kition in Cyprus around 33 A.D.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">While in Cyprus, Lazarus met the apostles Paul and Barnabas, as they were traveling from Salamis to Paphos, and they ordained him the first Bishop of Kition. He shepherded the Church of Kition with great care and love for eighteen years until the end of his life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">There are traditions which say he was sullen and never smiled after his resurrection, and this was due to what he saw while his soul was in Hades for four days. Some say he never once laughed, except one time when he saw a man steal a clay vessel, and he uttered the following saying: “One earth steals another”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Other Traditions About Lazarus</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Another tradition connects him with Aliki in Larnaca (today’s Kition). In Aliki at that time was a large vineyard. As the Saint was walking by he saw an old woman filling her basket with grapes. Tired and thirsty, the Saint asked the old woman for a few grapes. However, she looked at him with disdain and said:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“Go to hell, man. Can you not see that the vine is dried up like salt, and you are asking me for grapes?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“If you see it dried up like salt, then let it become salt,” responded Lazarus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this way the entire vineyard became a salt marsh.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Workers who collect salt in this area today confirm this tradition. They claim to find when they dig there roots and trunks of vines. It is said that in the middle of the salt lake today there is a well of fresh water, known as “the well of the old woman”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Synaxarion of Constantinople, speaking of this tradition, says that the lake was claimed by two brothers, who broke ties for its possession. To end the dispute, the Saint by his prayers dried up the lake and it remained salty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Another tradition says that the Theotokos came to Kition with John the Evangelist in order to meet Lazarus. St. John gave him clerical vestments and cuffs, and then they went to Mount Athos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Second Death of Lazarus</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">St. Lazarus ended his second earthly life at Cyprus in 63 A.D. The faithful wept and buried him with honors in a sarcophagus made of Cypriot marble, on which they wrote in Hebrew:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“Lazarus of the four days and the friend of Christ.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Above the sarcophagus there was built a beautiful church, which was renovated in 1750.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">His memory is celebrated by the Church every Saturday before Palm Sunday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The transfer of the relic of St. Lazarus from Kition to Constantinople, which took place in 890 by order of Emperor Leo VI the Wise is celebrated on October 17th. Emperor Leo wrote the idiomelon for the Vespers of St. Lazarus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Relic of St. Lazarus in Constantinople</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The transfer of the relic of St. Lazarus is detailed for us in two panegyric homilies delivered by Bishop Arethas of Ceasarea (850-after 932). After extolling the arrival of this great treasure to Constantinople in his first homily, he describes in the second the procession formed with the presence of the Emperor when the relic arrived from Chrysoupolis to Hagia Sophia. In exchange for this transfer, Leo VI sent money and artisans to Cyprus, where he built a magnificent church to honor St. Lazarus, which is maintained until today in Larnaca. Furthermore, he built a monastery in Constantinople dedicated to St. Lazarus, in which he placed the sacred relic. To this same monastery was later transferred the relic of St. Mary Magdalene from Ephesus. It later became a custom for the Emperor of New Rome to worship at the monastery on the Saturday of Lazarus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Not too many years ago (specifically November 23, 1972) the superintendent of the Department of Antiquities, who worked towards the restoration of the church in Larnaca, found a sarcophagus with bones beneath the pillar supporting the plate of the Holy Altar. The bones were in a wooden box, placed in the sarcophagus, which in turn had carved on it the word “friend”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This finding seems to confirm the tradition that Leo VI did not take the entire relic of St. Lazarus to Constantinople, but left a portion behind. Authentic testimony and evidence for this fact is the location where the bones were found: under the Holy Altar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Moreover, Arethas does not mention an incorrupt relic, but “bones” and “powder”. Also, a Russian source at the library of Oxford reports that a Russian monk came from Pskov Monastery in the 16th century to Larnaca, and he venerated the bones of St. Lazarus, taking a small piece for himself as well. This piece is preserved till this day in the Chapel of Saint Lazarus at Pskov Monastery. Based on this account, we can affirm that the relic of St. Lazarus was venerated in Larnaca in the 16th century. A later account is not known, so for some reason, probably for protection, the Kitians hid the relic beneath the Holy Altar until it was discovered in 1972.</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-89997577235951747072018-03-31T17:13:00.003-07:002018-04-01T14:40:37.666-07:00CHRIST IS RISEN!! A HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!! 2018<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Exultet in the Vatican 2013</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Holy Saturday 2018</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” For some unknown reason the compilers of the Lectionary omitted that final verse of St Mark’s account of the Resurrection from tonight’s Gospel reading, ending as it does with those extraordinary and unexpected words, “for they were afraid.” How strange that the three women, who had been so brave until now and had even entered the tomb on seeing that the stone, which was very big, had been rolled away, should be filled with amazement and fear at hearing the message of the Easter angel, “There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He is risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Although the women eventually did tell the disciples and Peter what “the young man in the white robe seated on the right-hand side” had said, their initial reaction was one of terror and amazement and, in fear, they fled from the tomb. What would you or I have done? Jesus had often said to his disciples, “Do not be afraid,” yet they were still afraid and confused, especially after the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Now it looked as though the Resurrection would add to their fear and confusion. But the women weren’t simply afraid, they were amazed, for they realised that there was something more than a miracle here. Now, unlike the apostles, they had been faithful to Jesus even when he was taken prisoner, condemned to death and crucified. They had stood by at a distance as he died on the cross and was buried in the tomb. It had been a rushed affair, that burial, so “when the Sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, brought spices with which to anoint him.” So it was that, “very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising.” There they became the very first to learn of the Resurrection. Once their fears has subsided, they became the first to tell the apostles and the whole world that Jesus was risen from the dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Church, this community of believers, is still here 2000 years on, because of what happened that first Easter sometime after sunset on the Sabbath and before sunrise of the first day of the week. From that moment, nothing could ever be the same again. The Angel of the Resurrection tells us tonight, “He is risen; he is not here.” Jesus, the source of all life, lies no longer in the tomb, but lives in our hearts through faith. In baptism we died with Christ in order to live with him. Do we recognise the living Christ within us? Do we see the living Christ in our neighbour? And is it possible for us to say with St Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”? St Gregory of Nazianzus expressed it like this: “Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I am glorified with him. Yesterday I was dead with Christ; today I am sharing in his Resurrection. Yesterday I was buried with Christ; today I am waking with him from the sleep of death.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">On behalf of Fr Prior and the Monastic Community, I wish you all a very happy and holy Easter. Christ is risen, alleluia, alleluia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Orthodox Patriarch of Belgrade celebrates tye Saturday of Lazarus</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> “<i>Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in; he saw and he believed.</i>” What did the other disciple see and believe? He saw nothing but an empty tomb with the linen cloths lying on the ground. At the end of the gospel we are told what he believed, “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” and that we have life in his Name. On that first Easter Day, the Beloved Disciple comes to faith in the risen Lord on the evidence of an empty tomb alone. The Letter to the Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The joy and beauty of our Easter celebrations cannot alter the fact that the true significance of this day is far harder for us to appreciate than the meaning of Christmas or Holy Week. We believe that God stepped into our world at Bethlehem to become part of human history and this causes a ray of light to fall even on those who do not share our faith. Passion and death are also easy to understand. They reflect the world in which we live and our own experience of suffering. Much as we might avoid the thought, we know that death awaits us all and that one day we will succumb to a force far greater than ourselves. So we celebrate Holy Week, especially Good Friday, without difficulty, grateful that God has shared with us the anguish and pain of suffering and death. But Easter is different. In his resurrection, Jesus has not entered into the ordinary life of human beings; rather he has broken through its limitations and entered a new realm beyond our understanding. This is unknown territory. God leads us into a vast, uncharted expanse and encourages us to follow him. Since we are only acquainted with things on this side of the grave, there is nothing in our experience that connects us with the news that Jesus is risen from the dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Easter centres on something unimaginable and, in human thought and language, inexplicable. The disciples’ doubts and confusion cry out to us from every page of the gospels, culminating in the words of Thomas, “Unless I see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.” Then, like Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, there is their inability to recognise Jesus. Only when he is at table with them, are their eyes opened as they recognise him in the breaking of bread. One of the strangest features of the resurrection narratives is his unrecognisability. For the disciples, an encounter with the risen Christ begins as a meeting with a stranger and Jesus often condemns the inadequacy of their earlier understanding. Mary Magdalene thinks he was the gardener and asks where he has put Jesus. Rowan Williams writes, “Jesus is not what they have thought him to be, and thus they must ‘learn’ him afresh, as if from the beginning. Once again, John crystallises this most powerfully by presenting the disciples in their fishing boats, as if they had never known Jesus: they must begin again.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Neither the disciples nor the evangelists, nor has the Church ever tried to iron out the differences between the various accounts of the Resurrection. The risen Christ was not a projection of the hopes of the first Christian community. The Resurrection of Jesus remains the greatest of all mysteries and yet it lies at the very heart of the Christian faith. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” The Church has always translated the Easter message into symbols, which point to things that words cannot express. The Paschal fire and the Paschal candle, for wherever light conquers darkness, something of the Resurrection takes place. Water, which can be both life-giving and life-threatening, is blessed for baptism that we might die to sin and rise to new life in Christ. We bless people and things with holy water in order to establish oases of life and hope in the desert places of our world. With the constant singing of Alleluia, we join in the song of the angels in heaven, “where every tear shall be wiped away and every sorrow and lament be ended.“</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Like the beloved disciple, we have seen and have believed. We do not ask to see more than an empty tomb and we must be content to recognise Jesus in the breaking of bread and hear his voice as he explains the Scriptures to us. Every day, encouraged by the celebration of the Easter mystery, we learn anew what it means to be a disciple of the Risen Saviour as we walk in faith. Faith is the greatest adventure there is, an invitation to go much further than we had anticipated or foreseen. It is a window that opens out onto eternal life. Jesus asks us not to be afraid, but to trust in him and follow him through darkness into light and from death to life. To Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, be glory and praise for ever. Alleluia. Amen.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NEs3es9WyIg/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NEs3es9WyIg?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">(more to come)</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-32138462423349423712018-03-29T13:28:00.001-07:002018-03-30T11:42:05.989-07:00GOOD FRIDAY 2018: THE CROSS, GATE TO JOY.<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Cross – the One True </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">by Joseph Ratzinger </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(Pope Benedict XVI) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="http://www.swordofthespirit.net/bulwark/april2011p1.htm">my source: Living Bulwark</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://uploads4.wikiart.org/images/el-greco/christ-on-the-cross-with-two-maries-and-st-john-1588.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="514" height="640" src="https://uploads4.wikiart.org/images/el-greco/christ-on-the-cross-with-two-maries-and-st-john-1588.jpg" width="411" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">According to the account of the evangelists, Jesus died, praying, at the ninth hour, that is to say, around 3:00 P.M. Luke gives his final prayer as a line from Psalm 31: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46; Ps 31:5). In John’s account, Jesus’ last words are: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). In the Greek text, this word (tetélestai) points back to the very beginning of the Passion narrative, to the episode of the washing of the feet, which the evangelist introduces by observing that Jesus loved his own “to the end (télos)” (John 13:1). This “end,” this ne plus ultra of loving, is now attained in the moment of death. He has truly gone right to the end, to the very limit and even beyond that limit. He has accomplished the utter fullness of love – he has given himself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In our reflection on Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives in chapter 6, we encountered a further meaning of this same word (teleioun) in connection with Hebrews 5:9: in the Torah it means consecration, bestowal of priestly dignity, in other words, total dedication to God. I think we may detect this same meaning here, on the basis of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer. Jesus has accomplished the act of consecration – the priestly handing-over of himself and the world to God – right to the end (cf. John 17:19). So in this final word, the great mystery of the Cross shines forth. The new cosmic liturgy is accomplished. The Cross of Jesus replaces all other acts of worship as the one true glorification of God, in which God glorifies himself through him in whom he grants us his love, thereby drawing us to himself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Synoptic Gospels explicitly portray Jesus’ death on the Cross as a cosmic and liturgical event: the sun is darkened, the veil of the Temple is torn in two, the earth quakes, the dead rise again. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Even more important than the cosmic sign is an act of faith: the Roman centurion – the commander of the execution squad – in his consternation over all that he sees taking place, acknowledges Jesus as God’s Son: “Truly, this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). At the foot of the Cross, the Church of the Gentiles comes into being. Through the Cross, the Lord gathers people together to form the new community of the worldwide Church. Through the suffering Son, they recognize the true God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">While the Romans, as a deterrent, deliberately left victims of crucifixion hanging on the cross after they had died, Jewish law required them to be taken down on the same day (cf. Deuteronomy 21:22-23). Hence the execution squad had to hasten the victims’ death by breaking their legs. This applied also in the case of the crucifixion on Golgotha. The legs of the two “thieves” are broken. But then the soldiers see that Jesus is already dead. So they do not break his legs. Instead, one of them pierces Jesus’ right side – his heart– and “at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). It is the hour when the paschal lambs are being slaughtered. It was laid down that no bone of these lambs was to be broken (cf. Exodus 12:46). Jesus appears here as the true Paschal Lamb, pure and whole. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">So in this passage we may detect a tacit reference to the very beginning of Jesus’ story – to the hour when John the Baptist said: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Those words, which were inevitably obscure at the time as a mysterious prophecy of things to come, are now a reality. Jesus is the Lamb chosen by God himself. On the Cross he takes upon himself the sins of the world, and he wipes them away. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Yet at the same time, there are echoes of Psalm 34, which says: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken” (Psalm 34:19-20). The Lord, the just man, has suffered much, he has suffered everything, and yet God has kept guard over him: no bone of his has been broken. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Blood and water flowed from the pierced heart of Jesus. True to Zechariah’s prophecy, the Church in every century has looked upon this pierced heart and recognized therein the source of the blessings that are symbolized in blood and water. The prophecy prompts a search for a deeper understanding of what really happened there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">An initial step toward this understanding can be found in the First Letter of Saint John, which emphatically takes up the theme of the blood and water flowing from Jesus’ side: “This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth. There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree” (1 John 5:6-8). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">What does the author mean by this insistence that Jesus came not with water only but also with blood? We may assume that he is alluding to a tendency to place all the emphasis on Jesus’ baptism while setting the Cross aside. And this probably also meant that only the word, the doctrine, the message was held to be important, but not “the flesh”, the living body of Christ that bled on the Cross; it probably meant an attempt to create a Christianity of thoughts and ideas, divorced from the reality of the flesh – sacrifice and sacrament. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In this double outpouring of blood and water, the Fathers saw an image of the two fundamental sacraments – Eucharist and Baptism – which spring forth from the Lord’s pierced side, from his heart. This is the new outpouring that creates the Church and renews mankind. Moreover, the opened side of the Lord asleep on the Cross prompted the Fathers to point to the creation of Eve from the side of the sleeping Adam, and so in this outpouring of the sacraments they also recognized the birth of the Church: the creation of the new woman from the side of the new Adam.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>ABBOT PAUL'S HOMILY</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Good Friday 2018</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> “What I have written, I have written.” It was Pilate’s last word. He had written the notice himself and fixed it to the cross; “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.” For St Paul, the Cross was the answer to all his questions. Nothing else was needed: he could glory in the Cross of his Lord and Saviour, accepting all manner of suffering and hardship in the joy and confidence of being reconciled to God in Christ Jesus. The Cross is the work of the Father, who so loved the world that he gave his only Son. It is the work of the Son, who did not cling to equality with God but humbled himself, accepting death on a cross. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, in whom the Son offers himself to the Father and who is poured out by the Son, when “bowing his head, he gave up the spirit.” In the Cross, we come to know the love of God, which surpasses all understanding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Adam fell at a tree, yet by a tree he was saved. Eve was seduced at a tree, yet through a tree the bride was restored to her spouse. At a tree Satan defeated Adam: on a tree Jesus destroyed the works of the devil. At a tree God cursed man and through a tree that curse gave way to blessing. God exiled Adam from the tree of life: on a tree the New Adam endured exile that we might inherit the earth and know the joys of heaven. The Cross is the tree of knowledge, the tree of judgement and the tree of life. The Cross is the staff of Moses that divides the waters and leads us dry-shod through the sea of life. The Cross is the wood thrown into the bitter waters of Marah to make them sweet and life-giving. The Cross is the standard on which Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and on which Jesus is now lifted up to draw all people to himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The Cross is planted on Calvary, and Golgotha is the new Eden. It is greater than Sinai, for the new Covenant is sealed in the Blood of Christ. On Calvary God reveals his Glory and speaks his final Word. It is greater than Mount Zion, the mountain of the Great King. It is the true Tabor, for the Transfiguration prefigured this moment when Christ is glorified and in him God is glorified. Calvary is the new Carmel, where the fire of God falls from heaven to consume with its living flame the altar of the new Israel of God, the Church, the Body of Christ made up of living stones. The Cross is the new ladder of Jacob, by which we climb to heaven, while Jesus is the new Bethel, the house of God, in which there are many mansions, where we shall live forever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> The Cross lies at the heart, at the crossroads of history, “the twisted knot at the centre of reality”, to which all previous history leads and from which all subsequent history flows. The Cross reveals the ultimate meaning of life, where the love of God embraces the whole universe and redeems it in the sacrifice of Christ, our High Priest, who takes into his very being our sufferings and our sins, the tragedy of our fallen nature. The Letter to the Hebrews says, “Although he was Son, he learnt to obey through suffering, but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation.” The Bible contained in a single verse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Pilate was a weak but stubborn man. “What I have written, I have written.” St Paul was a stubborn man, calling all things rubbish when compared to knowing Christ crucified, for the Jews a stumbling block, for the Gentiles madness, but for those who believe the very wisdom and salvation of God. Let us be stubborn in our faith. We worship you, Christ, and we bless you, by your Cross you have redeemed the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Great and Holy Friday:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Cross</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">By Fr. Alexander Schmemann</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="http://holycrossoca.org/newslet/0703.html"><br /></a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u><a href="http://holycrossoca.org/newslet/0703.html">my source: Holy Cross Orthodox Church</a></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">From the light of Holy Thursday we enter into the darkness of Friday, the day of Christ's Passion, Death and Burial. In the early Church this day was called "Pascha of the Cross," for it is indeed the beginning of that Passover or Passage whose whole meaning will be gradually revealed to us, first, in the wonderful quiet of the Great and Blessed Sabbath, and, then, in the joy of the Resurrection day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But, first, the Darkness. If only we could realize that on Good Friday darkness is not merely symbolical and commemorative. So often we watch the beautiful and solemn sadness of these services in the spirit of self-righteousness and self-justification. Two thousand years ago bad men killed Christ, but today we -- the good Christian people -- erect sumptuous Tombs in our Churches -- is this not the sign of our goodness? Yet, Good Friday deals not with past alone. It is the day of Sin, the day of Evil, the day on which the Church invites us to realize their awful reality and power in "this world." For Sin and Evil have not disappeared, but, on the contrary, still constitute the basic law of the world and of our life. And we who call ourselves Christians, do we not so often make ours that logic of evil which led the Jewish Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate, the Roman soldiers and the whole crowd to hate, torture and kill Christ? On what side, with whom would we have been, had we lived in Jerusalem under Pilate? This is the question addressed to us in every word of Holy Friday services. It is, indeed, the day of this world, its real and not symbolical, condemnation and the real and not ritual, judgment on our life... It is the revelation of the true nature of the world which preferred then, and still prefers, darkness to light, evil to good, death to life. Having condemned Christ to death, "this world" has condemned itself to death and inasmuch as we accept its spirit, its sin, its betrayal of God -- we are also condemned... Such is the first and dreadfully realistic meaning of Good Friday -- a condemnation to death...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But this day of Evil, of its ultimate manifestation and triumph, is also the day of Redemption. The death of Christ is revealed to us as the saving death for us and for our salvation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">It is a saving Death because it is the full, perfect and supreme Sacrifice. Christ gives His Death to His Father and He gives His Death to us. To His Father because, as we shall see, there is no other way to destroy death, to save men from it and it is the will of the Father that men be saved from death. To us because in very truth Christ dies instead of us. Death is the natural fruit of sin, an immanent punishment. Man chose to be alienated from God, but having no life in himself and by himself, he dies. Yet there is no sin and, therefore, no death in Christ. He accepts to die only by love for us. He wants to assume and to share our human condition to the end. He accepts the punishment of our nature, as He assumed the whole burden of human predicament. He dies because He has truly identified Himself with us, has indeed taken upon Himself the tragedy of man's life. His death is the ultimate revelation of His compassion and love. And because His dying is love, compassion and cosuffering, in His death the very nature of death is changed. From punishment it becomes the radiant act of love and forgiveness, the end of alienation and solitude. Condemnation is transformed into forgiveness...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And, finally, His death is a saving death because it destroys the very source of death: evil. By accepting it in love, by giving Himself to His murderers and permitting their apparent victory, Christ reveals that, in reality, this victory is the total and decisive defeat of Evil. To be victorious Evil must annihilate the Good, must prove itself to be the ultimate truth about life, discredit the Good and, in one word, show its own superiority. But throughout the whole Passion it is Christ and He alone who triumphs. The Evil can do nothing against Him, for it cannot make Christ accept Evil as truth. Hypocrisy is revealed as Hypocrisy, Murder as Murder, Fear as Fear, and as Christ silently moves towards the Cross and the End, as the human tragedy reaches its climax, His triumph, His victory over the Evil, His glorification become more and more obvious. And at each step this victory is acknowledged, confessed, proclaimed -- by the wife of Pilate, by Joseph, by the crucified thief, by the centurion. And as He dies on the Cross having accepted the ultimate horror of death: absolute solitude (My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me!?), nothing remains but to confess that "truly this was the Son of God!..." And, thus, it is this Death, this Love, this obedience, this fulness of Life that destroy what made Death the universal destiny. "And the graves were opened..." (Matthew 27:52) Already the rays of resurrection appear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Such is the double mystery of Holy Friday, and its services reveal it and make us participate in it. On the one hand, there is the constant emphasis on the Passion of Christ as the sin of all sins, the crime of all crimes. Throughout Matins during which the twelve Passion readings make us follow step by step the sufferings of Christ, at the Hours (which replace the Divine Liturgy: for the interdiction to celebrate Eucharist on this day means that the sacrament of Christ's Presence does not belong to "this world" of sin and darkness, but is the sacrament of the "world to come") and finally, at Vespers, the service of Christ's burial the hymns and readings are full of solemn accusations of those, who willingly and freely decided to kill Christ, justifying this murder by their religion, their political loyalty, their practical considerations and their professional obedience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But, on the other hand, the sacrifice of love which prepares the final victory is also present from the very beginning. From the first Gospel reading (John 13:31) which begins with the solemn announcement of Christ: "Now is the Son of Man glorified and in Him God is glorified" to the stichera at the end of Vespers -- there is the increase of light, the slow growth of hope and certitude that "death will trample down death..."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When Thou, the Redeemer of all,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Hades, the respecter of none, saw Thee and crouched in fear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The bars broke, the gates were shattered,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">the graves were opened, the dead arose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Then Adam, thankfully rejoicing, cried out to Thee:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Glory to Thy condescension, O Merciful Master.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">And when, at the end of Vespers, we place in the center of the Church the image of Christ in the tomb, when this long day comes to its end, we know that we are at the end of the long history of salvation and redemption. The Seventh Day, the day of rest, the blessed Sabbath comes and with it -- the revelation of the Life-giving Tomb.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>This is taken from the DRE publication Holy Week: A Liturgical Explanation from the Orthodox Church in America.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Orthodox Good Friday (Moscow) 8 mins.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Orthodox Good Friday in the Middle East</b></span></div>
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Armenian Burial Service on Good Friday (an excerpt)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Reconsidering Christ's Crucifixion</b></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cwM8gOYPseM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cwM8gOYPseM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808683809539786714.post-29050728973706508682018-03-28T04:45:00.000-07:002018-03-29T23:06:24.881-07:00MAUNDY THURSDAY (more to come)<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">We celebrate Maundy Thursday together: first all the priests together with their bishop, then all the people together with their priest. Here are two sermons preached by Pope Benedict on the priesthood and on the Christian Mystery as celebrated by the whole Church. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">How is this as a short, profound statement on the meaning of the Cross?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>"Through his love, the Cross becomes "metabasis," the transformation of the human being into a participant in the glory of God. In this transformation, He involves all of us, drawing us into the transformative power of his love to such an extent that, in our being with Him, our lives become a "passage," a transformation. Thus we receive redemption – becoming participants in eternal love, a condition toward which all of our existence strives."</i> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">I don't think I have ever heard a better explanation of why Christ died.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b> Holy Thursday. Chrismal Mass</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>March 20, 2008</b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Pope Benedict on the Priesthood</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Dear brothers and sisters, each year the Chrism Mass exhorts us to return to that "yes" to the call of God which we pronounced on the day of our priestly ordination. "Adsum – here I am!", we said like Isaiah, when he heard the voice of God, who asked him: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" "Here I am, send me!", Isaiah replied (Isaiah 6:8). Then the Lord himself, through the hands of the bishop, laid his hands upon us and we gave ourselves to his mission. Since then, we have traveled down various roads in following his call. Can we always claim what Paul, after years of a service of the Gospel that was often laborious and marked by sufferings of all kinds, wrote to the Corinthians: "Therefore, since we have this ministry through the mercy shown us, we are not discouraged" (2 Cor. 4:1)? "We are not discouraged." Let us pray today that our zeal may always be rekindled, so that it is constantly fed by the living flame of the Gospel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">At the same time, Holy Thursday is for us an opportunity to ask ourselves again: To what did we say "yes"? What is this "being a priest of Jesus Christ"? Canon II of our missal, which was probably composed in Rome before the end of the second century, describes the essence of the priestly ministry with the words that, in the book of Deuteronomy (18:5,7), described the essence of the Old Testament priesthood: astare coram te et tibi ministrare. Two functions, therefore, define the essence of the ministerial priesthood: in the first place, "standing before the Lord." In the book of Deuteronomy, this should be interpreted in the context of the previous dispensation, according to which the priests did not receive any portion of the Holy Land – they lived by God, and for God. They did not attend to the usual work necessary for sustaining daily life. Their profession was "to stand before the Lord" – looking to Him, living for Him. Thus, all told, the word indicated a life lived in the presence of God, and thus also a ministry in representation of others. Just as the others cultivated the land, from which the priest also lived, so he kept the world open to God, he had to live with his gaze turned to Him. If these words are now found in the Canon of the Mass immediately after the consecration of the gifts, after the entry of the Lord among the assembly gathered in prayer, then they indicate for us the standing before the Lord who is present; it indicates, that is, the Eucharist as the center of the priestly life. But even here its impact goes further. In the hymn of the liturgy of the hours that, during Lent, introduces the office of readings – the office that the monks used to pray during the hour of the nocturnal vigil before God, and for the sake of men – one of the tasks of Lent is described in the imperative: arctius perstemus in custodia – let us be watchful with greater intensity. In the tradition of Syriac monasticism, the monks were described as "those who stand on their feet"; standing on one's feet was an expression of vigilance. What was here considered as the task of the monks, we can reasonably view as being also an expression of the priestly mission, and as a correct interpretation of the words of Deuteronomy: the priest must be one who watches. He must stand guard before the relentless powers of evil. He must keep the world awake to God. He must be one who stands on his feet: upright in the face of the currents of the time. Upright in the truth. Upright in his commitment to goodness. Standing before the Lord must always be, in its inmost depths, also a lifting up of men to the Lord, who, in turn, lifts all of us up to the Father. And it must be a lifting up of Him, of Christ, of his word, of his truth, of his love. The priest must be upright, unwavering and ready even to suffer outrage for the sake of the Lord, as shown in the Acts of the Apostles: they "[rejoiced] that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name" (5:41). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Let's continue now to the second expression, which Canon II takes from the Old Testament – "to stand in your presence and serve you." The priest must be an upright, vigilant person, a person who stands straight. Then, to all of this, service is added. In the text of the Old Testament, this word has an essentially ritual meaning: the priest was responsible for all of the acts of worship stipulated by the Law. But this acting according to ritual was then classified as service, as a task of service, and this explains in what spirit these activities had to be carried out. With the inclusion of the expression "to serve" in the Canon, this liturgical meaning of the term is in a certain way adopted – in keeping with the newness of Christian worship. What the priest does at that moment, and in the celebration of the Eucharist, is to serve, and to carry out a service of God and a service of men. The worship that Christ rendered to the Father was that of giving of himself to the end, for the sake of men. The priest must insert himself into this worship, into this service. Thus the expression "to serve" involves many dimensions. Certainly first among these is the proper celebration of the Liturgy and of the Sacraments in general, carried out with interior participation. We must learn to understand more and more the sacred liturgy in all of its essence, to develop a lively familiarity with it, so that it becomes the soul of our daily life. It is then that we celebrate properly, it is then that there emerges on its own account the ars celebrandi, the art of celebrating. There must be nothing artificial in this art. If the Liturgy is a central task of the priest, this also means that priority must be given to learning continually anew and more profoundly how to pray, in the school of Christ and of the saints of all ages. Because the Christian Liturgy, by its nature, is also always a proclamation, we must be persons who are familiar with the Word of God, who love it and live it: only then will we be able to explain it in an adequate way. "To serve the Lord" – priestly service also means learning to know the Lord in his word, and to make Him known to all those He entrusts to us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Two other aspects, finally, are part of service. No one is as close to his master as the servant, who has access to the most private dimension of his life. In this sense, "serving" means closeness, it requires familiarity. This familiarity also brings a danger: that our constant contact with the sacred might make it become routine for us. Thus reverential fear is extinguished. Under the influence of all of our habits, we no longer perceive the great, new, surprising fact, the He himself is present, that He speaks to us, He gives himself to us. We must fight without rest against this habituation to the extraordinary reality, against the indifference of the heart, recognizing always anew our insufficiency and the grace that is present in the fact that he delivers himself into our hands in this way. Serving means closeness, but above all it means obedience. The servant is under orders: "Not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). With these words on the Mount of Olives, Jesus resolved the decisive battle against sin, against the rebellion of the fallen heart. Adam's sin consisted precisely in the fact that he wanted to do his own will, and not that of God. The temptation of humanity is always that of being totally autonomous, of following only its own will and of maintaining that only in this way will we be free; that it is only through such limitless freedom that man can be fully himself. But in this very way, we pit ourselves against the truth. Because the truth is that we must share our freedom with others, and can be free only in communion with them. This shared freedom can be true freedom only if through this we enter into what constitutes the measure of freedom, if we enter into the will of God. This fundamental obedience that is part of the human being, a being that is not solely of and for itself, becomes even more concrete in the priest: we do not proclaim ourselves, but rather Him and his Word, which we could not have imagined on our own. We proclaim the word of Christ correctly only in the communion of his Body. Our obedience is believing together with the Church, thinking and speaking together with the Church, serving together with it. This always involves what Jesus predicted to Peter: 'someone else will . . . lead you where you do not want to go'. This being led where we do not want to go is an essential dimension of our service, and it is precisely this that makes us free. By being led in this way, which can be contrary to our own ideas and plans, we experience something new – the riches of the love of God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">"To stand before Him and serve Him": Jesus Christ, as the true High Priest of the world, has conferred upon these words a profundity that was unimaginable before. He, who as Son was and is Lord, wanted to become that servant of God whom the vision of the book of the prophet Isaiah had foreseen. He wanted to be the servant of all. He depicted the entirety of his high priesthood in the gesture of the washing of the feet. With the gesture of love until the very end, He washes our dirty feet, with the humility of his service He purifies us from the sickness of our arrogance. Thus he makes us capable of becoming God's companions. He descended, and the true ascension of man is now realized in our ascending with Him and to Him. His elevation is the Cross. This is the most profound descent, and, as love pushed to the very limit, it is at the same time the culmination of the ascent, the "elevation" of man. "To stand before Him and serve Him" – this now means entering into his call as servant of God. The Eucharist as the presence of the descent and ascent of Christ thus refers, beyond itself, to the many ways of the service of love of neighbor. Let us ask the Lord, on this day, for the gift of being able to say once more in this sense our "yes" to his call: "Here I am. Send me, Lord" (cf. Isaiah 6:8). Amen</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b> Holy Thursday. Mass of the Lord's Supper </b></span><br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">March 20, 2008</b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Dear brothers and sisters, Saint John begins his account of how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples with especially solemn, almost liturgical language: "Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end" (13:1). The "hour" of Jesus has arrived, toward which all of his activity was directed from the beginning. John describes what makes up the content of this hour with two terms: "to pass" (metabainein, metabasis) and "agape" – love. These two words explain each other; both describe together the Passover of Jesus: cross and resurrection, crucifixion as elevation, as "passage" to the glory of God, as a "passing" from the world to the Father. It is not as if Jesus, after a brief visit to the world, were now simply departing and returning to the Father. This passage is a transformation. He carries with him his flesh, his being man. On the Cross, in giving himself, He is fused and transformed, as it were, into a new mode of being, in which He is now forever with the Father, and at the same time with men. He transforms the Cross, the act of killing, into an act of self-donation, of love to the end. With this expression, "to the end," John refers in advance to the last words of Jesus on the Cross: all has been brought to conclusion, "it is finished" (19:30). Through his love, the Cross becomes "metabasis," the transformation of the human being into a participant in the glory of God. In this transformation, He involves all of us, drawing us into the transformative power of his love to such an extent that, in our being with Him, our lives become a "passage," a transformation. Thus we receive redemption – becoming participants in eternal love, a condition toward which all of our existence strives. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">This essential process of the hour of Jesus is represented in the washing of the feet, in a sort of symbolic prophetic action. In it, Jesus displays through a concrete action precisely what the great Christological hymn of the letter to the Philippians describes as the content of the mystery of Christ. Jesus removes the garments of his glory, he girds himself with the "towel" of humanity, and becomes a slave. He washes the dirty feet of the disciples and thus makes them capable of participating in the divine meal to which He invites them. Exterior purifications for worship, which purify man ritually while nevertheless leaving him as he is, are replaced by the new bath: He makes us pure through his word and his love, through the gift of himself. "You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you," He will say to the disciples in his discourse on the vine (John 15:3). He continually washes us again with his word. Yes, if we welcome the words of Jesus in an attitude of meditation, of prayer and of faith, they develop their purifying power within us. Day after day, we are as it were covered with various forms of uncleanness, empty words, prejudice, partial and altered wisdom; a multifarious half-falsity or open falsity constantly infiltrates our depths. All of this obfuscates and contaminates our soul, it threatens to make us incapable of truth and goodness. If we welcome the words of Jesus with an attentive heart, these reveal themselves as genuine washings, purifications of the soul, of the inner man. This is what the Gospel of the washing of the feet invites us to: to allow ourselves continually to be washed again by this pure water, to allow ourselves to be made capable of convivial communion with God and with our brothers. Yet from the side of Jesus, after the blow of the lance from the soldier, there emerged not only water, but also blood (John 19:34; cf. 1 John 5:6,8). Jesus did not only speak, He did not leave us only words. He gives himself. He washes us with the sacred power of his blood, meaning his self-donation "to the end," to the Cross. His word is more than simple speech; it is flesh and blood "for the life of the world" (John 6:51). In the holy Sacraments, the Lord kneels down again and again before our feet, and washes us. Let us pray to Him that the sacred bath of his love may penetrate us more and more deeply, so that we may be truly purified! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">If we listen attentively to the Gospel, we can discover two different aspects in the episode of the washing of the feet. The washing that Jesus performs for his disciples is above all simply his own action – the gift of purity, of the "capacity for God" offered to them. But the gift then becomes a model, the task of doing the same thing for each other. The Fathers described this twofold aspect of the washing of the feet with the words "sacramentum" and "exemplum." In this context, "sacramentum" does not refer to one of the seven sacraments, but to the mystery of Christ in its totality, from the incarnation to the cross and resurrection: this totality becomes the healing and sanctifying power, the transformative power for men, it becomes our "metabasis," our transformation into a new form of being, in openness toward God and in communion with Him. But this new being that He, without our merit, simply gives to us must then be transformed in us into the dynamic of a new life. The totality of gift and example that we find in the pericope of the washing of the feet is characteristic of the nature of Christianity in general. In comparison with moralism, Christianity is something more and something different. Our activity, our moral capacity is not placed at the beginning. Christianity is above all a gift: God gives himself to us – He does not give some thing, but himself. And this takes place not only at the beginning, at the moment of our conversion. He continually remains the One who gives. He always offers us his gifts anew. He always precedes us. For this reason, the central action of being Christians is the Eucharist: gratitude for having been gratified, the joy for the new life that He gives us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In spite of all this, we do not remain passive recipients of the divine goodness. God gratifies us as personal and living partners. The love that is given is the dynamic of "loving together," it is intended to be a new life within us, beginning from God. We thus understand the words that, at the end of the account of the washing of the feet, Jesus speaks to his disciples and to all of us: "I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another" (John 13:34). The "new commandment" does not consist in a new and difficult norm, one that did not exist before. The new commandment consists in a loving together with Him who loved us first. This is also how we must understand the Sermon on the Mount. This does not mean that Jesus gave us new precepts at that time, which represented the demands of a more sublime humanism than the previous one. The Sermon on the Mount is a journey of training in conforming ourselves to the sentiments of Christ (cf. Philippians 2:5), a journey of interior purification that leads us to living together with Him. The new reality is the gift that introduces us into the mentality of Christ. If we consider this, we perceive how far we often are in our lives from this new reality of the New Testament; how slight an example we give to humanity of loving in communion with his love. We thus owe humanity a proof of the credibility of Christian truth, which is demonstrated in love. Precisely for this reason, we desire all the more to pray to the Lord to make us, through his purification, ripe for the new commandment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the Gospel of the washing of the feet, the conversation between Jesus and Peter presents yet another detail of the praxis of Christian life, to which we finally want to turn our attention. At an earlier point, Peter had not wanted to allow the Lord to wash his feet: this reversal of order, that the master – Jesus – should wash feet, that the master should perform the service of a slave, is completely in contrast with his reverential fear of Jesus, with his concept of the relationship between teacher and disciple. "You will never wash my feet," he tells Jesus in his usual passionate manner (John 13:8). This is the same mentality that, after the profession of faith in Jesus as Son of God, in Caesarea Philippi, had urged Peter to oppose Jesus when he had predicted his affliction and cross: "No such thing shall ever happen to you," Peter had declared categorically (Mt. 16:22). His concept of the Messiah involved an image of majesty, of divine greatness. He had to learn over and over again that the greatness of God is different from our idea of greatness; that it consists precisely in descending, in the humility of service, in the radicalness of love to the point of total self-abandonment. And we, too, must learn this over and over again, because we systematically desire a God of success, and not of the Passion; because we are not capable of realizing that the Shepherd comes as a Lamb who gives himself, and in this way leads us to the right pasture. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">When the Lord tells Peter that without the washing of his feet he would never be able to have any part in Him, Peter immediately and impetuously asks to have his head and hands washed as well. This is followed by the mysterious words of Jesus: "Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed" (John 13:10). Jesus alludes to a bath that the disciples, according to ritual prescriptions, had already taken; in order to participate in the meal, they now needed only to have their feet washed. But naturally, a deeper meaning is hidden in this. To what does it allude? We do not know for sure. In any case, we should keep in mind that the washing of the feet, according to the meaning of the entire chapter, does not indicate a single specific Sacrament, but the "sacramentum Christi" in its entirety – his service of salvation, his descent even to the cross, his love to the end, which purifies us and makes us capable of God. Here, with the distinction between the bath and the washing of feet, nevertheless, there also appears an allusion to life in the community of the disciples, to life in the community of the Church – an allusion that John may have intentionally transmitted to the community of his time. It then seems clear that the bath that purifies us definitively and does not need to be repeated is Baptism – immersion in the death and resurrection of Christ, a fact that changes our lives profoundly, giving us something like a new a identity that endures, if we do not throw it away as Judas did. But even in the endurance of this new identity, for convivial communion with Jesus we need the "washing of the feet." What does this mean? It seems to me that the first letter of Saint John gives us the key for understanding this. There we read: "If we say, 'We are without sin,' we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing" (1:8ff.). We need the "washing of the feet," the washing of our everyday sins, and for this we need the confession of sins. We do not know exactly how this was carried out in the Johannine community. But the direction indicated by the words of Jesus to Peter is obvious: in order to be capable of participating in the convivial community with Jesus Christ, we must be sincere. One must recognize that even in our own identity as baptized persons, we sin. We need confession as this has taken form in the Sacrament of reconciliation. In it, the Lord continually rewashes our dirty feet, and we are able to sit at table with Him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">But in this way, the word takes on yet another meaning, in which the Lord extends the "sacramentum" by making it the "exemplum," a gift, a service for our brother: "If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). We must wash each other's feet in the daily mutual service of love. But we must also wash our feet in the sense of constantly forgiving one another. The debt that the Lord has forgiven us is always infinitely greater than all of the debts that others could owe to us (cf. Mt. 18:21-35). It is to this that Holy Thursday exhorts us: not to allow rancor toward others to become, in its depths, a poisoning of the soul. It exhorts us to constantly purify our memory, forgiving one another from the heart, washing each other's feet, thus being able to join together in the banquet of God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Holy Thursday is a day of gratitude and of joy for the great gift of love to the end that the Lord has given to us. We want to pray to the Lord at this time, so that gratitude and joy may become in us the power of loving together with his love. Amen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Pope Francis in the Chrism Mass & washing feet in the Regina Caeli Prison</b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>HOMILY OF ABBOT PAUL</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Maundy Thursday 2018</b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">“At the moment you do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Simon Peter had questioned Jesus, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” The Bible is full of people who ask God why and how: Mary at the Annunciation, “How can this be?” or Moses before the burning bush, “What shall I say?” Throughout the Exodus, the Israelites kept on complaining against Moses and Aaron, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to this place, where there is neither food nor water?” At the time they did not know what God was doing, but later, in the Promised Land, they could to look back and begin to understand. They celebrated the Passover to show that they understood God’s plan and this understanding brought with it repentance and thanksgiving.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> At the Last Supper, the disciples couldn’t follow what Jesus was doing. What did he mean when he said, “This is my body; this cup is the new covenant in my blood,” when all they could taste and see was bread and wine? And all this talk of a Paraclete, who would lead them to the whole truth and give them power from on high? Now, at the end of the meal, here he was, washing their feet and telling them to follow his example. What could this mean?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Caiaphas and Pilate, the High Priests and the Pharisees, the Roman authorities, the soldiers and the crowds, even Simon Peter and Judas and the other disciples, all those involved in the Passion, Crucifixion and Death of Jesus, what could they have understood at the time? Jesus alone knew that his hour had come. Only later did they understand, beginning surprisingly enough with the good thief, who said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” and the soldier, a Gentile, who was first to declare, “Truly, this was the Son of God”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> After the Resurrection the disciples did begin to understand, but they weren’t easily convinced. Only at Pentecost were their eyes opened at last. Finally, they understood that he was Lord and Christ, the Saviour of the world and this understanding led them to repentance and thanksgiving and the urge to preach the Gospel. That is why we still celebrate Holy Week and Easter, why we celebrate the sacraments and come to church. Christians have come to understand, as far as we are able, the mystery of the Incarnation and of God’s ineffable love for Man.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Tonight’s celebration reminds us that Christ wants us to follow his example. He wants us to show how perfect our love is. He wants us to serve others with humility and charity. He wants us to sacrifice our lives for others and not count the cost. We, of course, understand all this, but do we have the faith to do what Jesus asks of us? Have you ever thought what the world would be like if Christians were simply to follow the example of Jesus? Mind you, if you take up your cross every day and follow him, don’t be surprised if in the end you are crucified. “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">In the Ambrosian Rite there is a beautiful chant that is sung after the proclamation of the Gospel this evening. It says, “Today, Son of the Eternal God, you receive me as a friend at your wondrous banquet. I will not hand over your mystery to the unworthy nor will I kiss and betray you like Judas, but I implore you, like the thief on the cross, to receive me, Lord, into your kingdom.” Let us make this our prayer tonight.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 44.2px;">Holy Thursday: The Restoration of Life as Communion with God</span></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><u><a href="https://frted.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/holy-thursday-the-restoration-of-life-as-communion-with-god/">ON APRIL 16, 2009 BY FR. TED</a></u></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">St. Vladimir’s Seminary sent out those on their mailing list an excerpt from Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s book on HOLY WEEK. The entire passage is beautiful, but I will quote her part extremely relevant to Holy Thursday and the commemoration of the Last Supper – the institution of the Holy Eucharist. </span></span> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"> Unfortunately in Orthodox piety the Vespers-Liturgy which celebrates Christ’s instituting the Eucharist is often made a less important liturgical service than doing the Matins of Holy Friday with its 12 Gospel readings. But it is in the Upper Room, in the washing of the disciple’s feet and in Christ saying the words of consecration that we are given to understand the sacrificial nature of His voluntary death on the cross. Perhaps one day there will be the liturgical revival that will restore the services to their proper times and which will make the Vespers-Liturgy of Holy Thursday as central to Orthodox piety as it is to our theology.</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">God is Love (1 John 4:8). And the first gift of Love was life. The meaning, the content of life was communion. To be alive man was to eat and drink, to partake of the world. The world was thus Divine Love made food, made Body of man. And being alive, that is, partaking of the world, man was to be in communion with God, to have God as the meaning, the content, and the end of his life. Communion with the God-given world was indeed communion with God. Man received his food from God and making it his body and his life, he offered the whole world to God; transformed it into life in God and with God. The love of God gave life to man; the love of man for God transformed this life into communion with God. This was paradise. Life in it was, indeed, Eucharistic. Through man and his love for God the whole creation was to be sanctified and transformed into one all-embracing sacrament of Divine Presence, and man was the priest of the sacrament. </span></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">But in sin man lost this Eucharistic life. He lost it because he ceased to see the world as means of communion with God and his life as eucharist, as adoration and thanksgiving. He loved himself and the world for their sake; he made himself the content and the end of his life. He thought that his hunger and thirst – that is, the dependence of his life on the world – could be satisfied by the world as such, by food as such. But world and food, once they are deprived of their initial sacramental meaning as means of communion with God; once they are not received for God’s sake, and filled with hunger and thirst for God; once, in other words, God is no longer their real ‘content,’ can give no life, satisfy no hunger, for they have no life in themselves. And thus by putting his love in them, man deviated his love from the only object of all love, of all hunger, of all desires. And he died. For death is the only inescapable ‘decomposition’ of life cut from its only source and content. Man thought to find life in the world and in food, but he found death. His life became communion with death, for instead of transforming the world by faith, love, and adoration into communion with God, he submitted himself entirely to the world; he ceased to be its priest and became its slave. And by his sin the whole world was made a cemetery, where people condemned to death partook of death and ‘sat in the region and shadow of death’ (Matthew 4:16). </span></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">But if man betrayed God, God remained faithful to man. He did not ‘turn Himself away forever from His creature whom H had made, neither did He forget the works of His hands, but He visited him in diverse manners, through the tender compassion of His mercy ‘ (from the Liturgy of St. Basil). A new Divine work began, that of redemption and salvation. And it was fulfilled in Christ, the Son of God, who, in order to restore man to his pristine beauty and to restore life as communion with God, became Man, took upon Himself our nature, with its thirst and hunger, with its desire for and love of life. And in Him life was revealed, given, accepted, and fulfilled as total and perfect Eucharist, as total and perfect communion with God. He rejected the basic human temptation: to live ‘by bread alone’; He revealed that God and His kingdom are the real food, the real life of man. And this perfect Eucharistic Life, filled with God, and therefore Divine and immortal, He gave to all those who believe in Him, that is, find Him the meaning and content of their lives. Such is the wonderful meaning of the Last Supper. He offered Himself as true food of man, because the Life revealed in Him is the truth Life. And thus the movement of Divine Love which began in paradise with a Divine ‘take, eat…’ (for eating is life for man) comes now ‘unto the end’ with the Divine ‘take, eat, this is My Body…’ (for God is life for man). The Last Supper is the restoration of the paradise of bliss, of life as Eucharist and Communion.</span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">For the rest, please read</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><u><a href="http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/maundy-thursday.html">Maundy Thursday 2013</a></u></b></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><iframe id="dm_uploader_iframe" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; overflow: hidden; width: 450px; height: 310px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/widget/upload/?web=1&webcam=1&skin=default" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="310" width="450"></iframe></div>Father David Bird O.S.B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02805483959222856800noreply@blogger.com0