Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:05, 12 March 2025

Welcome to "Fast Fridays," weekly gathering by videoconference for reminder that God is in our life -- even on a Friday evening.

We will take thirty minutes Fridays 6:00-6:30 to refresh, enliven and re-dedicate ourselves to God.

It is "fast" because we will spend no more than 30 minutes, and because your host, Michael Bromley, fasts on Fridays.

The discussions are not apologetics -- we're not here to argue or defend one belief or another; we are here to celebrate the faith we bring to one another;
The discussions are not catechism; but they will be led by my experience and point of view as a Catholic, as well as to draw from the Catechism of the Catholic Church;
Here for where the idea came from: Fast Fridays: How it got started;
Fasting serves as a penance for sins, reminder of our dependance upon God, and to "help us acquire mastery over our instincts" (CCC 2043).

Sign up for Fast Fridays Click here to join the Mailing list, which will remind you about the Meetings, give a recap of the prior week's discussion, and provide you with the MS Teams URL to join the Discussion

Go to Exegesis for Bible & Bible study resources

God bless, and I hope you will join us!

- Michael

Friday, March 14: Timeline of Christ

We will review this week a couple timelines of Jesus' life, as well as to touch upon Bishop Fulton Sheen's "Life of Christ."

Before going there, we ought to remember Saint Paul's admonition in 1 Cor:15:12-19 that without the Resurrection "we are the most pitiable people of all":

But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then empty [too] is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then we are also false witnesses to God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.

In other words, no Resurrection, and nobody knows Christ -- maybe a few references to him as in Josephus' "History of the Jews." But all his life, all his teachings, all this impact, gone. It's rather ironic, actually, that non-believers and deists like Thomas Jefferson who hold that "Jesus was a really smart man who said really nice things" only know about Christ because of the Resurrection.

With that in mind, let's remind ourselves about the life and times of Jesus Christ.

Friday, March 7: canceled

Please pray for Terry's speedy recovery.

Friday, February 28: The Temptation of Jesus

Opening prayer: Deus Propicius Esto (God be favorable to me)

The Synoptic Gospels all bring us the story of Satan’s attempt to corrupt Jesus. These are found in:

Matthew 3:1-11
Mark 1:12-13 (no details about the temptations)
Luke 4:1-13

We'll start with the concept of sin itself, as sin is the destination of temptation, so we need to consider where temptation leads us:

See Sin - Rejoice in the Catholic Faith

A couple things to consider here, which we will discuss:

The mystery of the hypostatic union:
- Christ is 100% God and 100% man. Can he, then, suffer temptation?
  - (hint: think of the Agony in the Garden)

Saint Gregory says (Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas),

GREGORY. In these things is shewn the twofold nature in one person; it is the man whom the Devil tempts; the same is God to whom Angels minister.\

Did Satan really think he could get away with it?
- from Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas

PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. The Lord knew the thoughts of the Devil, that he sought to tempt Him; he had heard that Christ had been born into this world with the preaching of Angels, the witness of shepherds, the inquiry of the Magi, and the testimony of John. Thus the Lord proceeded against him, not as God, but as man, or rather both as God and man. For in forty days of fasting not to have been an hungred was not as man; to be ever an hungred was not as God. He was an hungred then that the God might not be certainly manifested, and so the hopes of the Devil in tempting Him be extinguished, and His own victory hindered.

Saint Jerome notes

JEROME. But thou art caught, O Enemy, in a dilemma. If these stones can be made bread at His word, your temptation is vain against one so mighty. If He cannot make them bread, your suspicions that this is the Son of God must be vain

Both Jesus and Satan quote OT Scripture — kinda cool:

Scripture Quoted
Satan	Jesus	Threefold Sins	Notes
If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.”	‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’” (Dt 8:30: "He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna,c a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so you might know that it is not by bread alone* that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD."	appetite ("the belly") lust of the flesh	stones as sin or error ("dash your foot" stones = the tablets of the Ten Commandment s (?) bread is the gratification of desire
and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written ‘He will command his angels concerning you’ and ‘with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” (The source is Ps 91:11-12: "For he commands his angels with regard to you, to guard you wherever you go. With their hands they shall support you, lest you strike your foot against a stone.")	Dt 6:16: "You shall not put the LORD, your God, to the test, as you did at Massah" (see Ex 17:2: "and so they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to a test?”)	pride of life ambition	from atop the Temple = above God Jesus respects the Temple for worship of God and not for temporal power
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”	At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.’” (From Dt 6:13 "The LORD, your God, shall you fear; him shall you serve,* and by his name shall you swear.")	lust of the eyes pride of life idolatry	Gn 11:4: "make a name for ourselves" Israel's worship of false gods

Jesus teaches us something very important about bread.
- in Luke 11:1, the disciples ask

He was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”

see "Lord's Prayer" Mt 6:11 "Give us today our daily bread"

I’m hoping that the discussion will help us to better prepare for Lent.

Friday, February 21: Three crosses on Calvary

My RCIA students went blank when I showed them an image of Calvary with the three crucifixes. Huh? Why three? They had never heard about the thieves.

At the simplest level, one is damned the other is saved, so they offer a blunt reminder of our own possible choices and destinations:

both sinful
both prideful
only one repents
Christ absolves him

But it may be worth further contemplation. They were not there by happenstance: God wanted them there, so let's consider why.

First, let's look at the Gospel accounts, The "thieves" -- a word not used in my translation -- are mentioned in all four Gospels, so the Evangelists all agreed on the importance of their presence. The only detail they all share is the placement of the Crosses, which Jesus crucified in the center. Matthew expands on Mark, Luke expands on Matthew, and John tells us that all three were to have their legs broken by the soldiers, but since Jesus was already dead the centurion stabbed him instead.


Matthew	Mark	Luke	John
Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left. (Mt 27:38) The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way. (Mt 27:44)	With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left (Mk 15:27)	When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left. (Lk 23:33) Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Lk 23:39-43)	There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle. (Jn 19:18) Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and they be taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. (Jn 19:31-34)

Lots to review there, including thoughts on what happened to the bodies of the thieves, and how, since they were still alive, they witnessed the eclipse of the sun, the earthquake and, perhaps, even, the bodies of the saints raised (?).

Bonus points if you can answer this: who was the first person in the Gospels, outside of Mary, to recognize that Jesus is God (Answer Matthew here and Luke here; the answer is suggested by Luke here ).

We might have a look at two unrelated Gospel readings that help us dig deeper into the story of the good and bad thieves.

First is one of the more famous ones, in this year's cycle, from Mark 8:34:

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

Then we'll take a look at the Parable of the Workers (Mt 20:1-16) , which must have so infuriated the scribes, and certainly was part of the resentment of the Early Church "Judaizers," who resented all these new Christians who didn't follow the Law.

Let's see what we can learn!

Great discussion, as always, and always great to be confronted by the Mysteries of the Lord and of our Faith!

We found today that in the context of the "two thieves" (the King James Version uses "thieves"), the salvation of the one came of his humility, while the other kept his pride. As says the poet in the Old Testament, "Pride cometh before the fall" (KJV, Proverbs 16:18).

The Parable of the Workers and Mark 8:34 are all about pride. In Mark 8, when Jesus says,

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

the key word is "deny himself" -- that means to shed pride. It's one thing to pick up one's burdens, and bear it as a cross, but it's altogether another to "deny" oneself. The thieves may or may not have carried their crosses, we don't know, but we do know that one kept his pride, while the other shed it, and received the Lord's welcome in Paradise.

Friday, February 7: Demons in pigs!

In the "Gerasene Demoniac" (Lk 8:26, also in Mt 8:28 and Mk 5:1 ), Jesus allows a "Legion" of demons that possessed a man (two men in Matthew), at their request, to enter a herd of pigs. Why pigs? There are some curious elements to this story that we might consider:


Item	Question	Thoughts
pagan region, pig herders, across the sea from Galilee	Was that the sole reason for Jesus to go there?	The Apostles were on the boat with him, so they had to know he was going there. (Just after the "calming of the seas")
"they" arrived (w/ the Apostles) but "he came ashore"	why was Jesus alone?''	Apostles not ready to deal w/ pagans? Jesus wasn't afraid.
lived in the tombs; was naked		fallen man (Adam & Eve)
bound in chains	but broke free of them? the power of evil/ sin?
"do not torment me"	demons don't want to be tormented by God?
“What is your name?”		names are important
"Legion"	Romans? lots of demons?	foreshadowing conversion of Rome, exercised of demons by Christianity
And they pleaded with him not to order them to depart to the abyss.	hell?
"pleaded with him to allow them to enter those swine"	poor pigs?	ATHANASIUS. (de vita Anton.) But if they have no power over swine, the evil spirits have much less against men who are made after the image of God. We ought then to fear God alone, but despise them.
abyss	did they not know the pigs would take them there, anyway?	the demons aren't purified, the land and people are purified of them (baptism) AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) But by their being sent down violently into the lake, it is meant that the Church has been purified, and now that the Gentiles are delivered from the dominion of evil spirits, those who refuse to believe in Christ, carry on their unholy rites in hidden places with dark and secret watchings.
"sitting at his feet"		like a disciple
the people asked Jesus to leave	lost their pigs! (2000 per Mark)	CHRYSOSTOM. (ubi sup.) But observe the humility of Christ; for when after conferring so great benefits upon them they sent Him away, He offers no obstacle, but departs, leaving those who had proclaimed themselves unworthy of His teaching. It follows, And he went up into the ship, and returned back again.

Let's see what can we make of all this!

Some thoughts on this we shared tonight:

it's the evil within him that was killing him
- when we suffer from evil it within and not without us
- (see Athanasius' comment above)

the man was living w/ evil, was kicked out by his people, but continued to live in desolation, w/ evil
he could free himself of the shackles the people put on him, but even so unbound, he lived w/ the evil within him,
we can think of sin as living among the dead
- slavery to sin

the connections to the Roman empire are strong
- Christianity cured Rome of its pagan beliefs/ practices
- the pigs casting themselves into the sea = baptism for Rome, not just the people of the village
when he was cured of the evil spirits, the man was again clothed, siting at Jesus' feet
- but he wanted Jesus to stay (didn't say he wanted to follow him)
- Jesus told him to go tell everyone, which he doesn't always do when curing people, at least in Israel

Friday, January 31: Is it necessarily so?

You may know the George Gershwin work, Porgy and Bess, and its son, "It Ain't Necessarily So", which follows the modern, rationalist logic:

Oh, I Takes Dat Gospel
Whenever It's Pos'ple -
But Wid A Grain Of Salt!
Methus'lah Lived Nine Hundred Years

Gershwin's brother penned the lyrics, which with the music follow a traditional Hebrew prayer incanted before reading from the Torah, Bar'chu et adonai ham'vorach ("Bless the Lord, who is blessed"). The melody also tracks the tonality of another traditional Jewish prayer. The character who sings the song is a drug dealer, and he is admonished by another character for being a sinner. Most people who know this song probably don't see it within that context, and feel their own Biblical doubts reinforced by it.

Are they wrong to doubt it? Was Jonah really three days in a whale? Did Methuselah really live to 900 years? Was Moses really found in a basket floating in the Nile?

To address those problems, we turn can to Mother Church who has thought a lot for a long time about this problem. From Catechism paragraph 115:

According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

We will review paragraphs 115-117, which is summarized in paragraph 118:

A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:
The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny

We'll have some fun today picking out your favorite "really?" passages from the Bible -- and we'll see just how and why they work in both the literal and the spiritual, and not just in the Old Testament, such as how, exactly did Noah get the giraffes into the ark and why did he bring mosquitos along as well. Jesus also confounds are faith numerously in the New Testament: eat your flesh? drink your blood? (Jn 6:22) or Luke 10:5, given them my spirit, and if they don't like it take it back from them - huh? (Lk 10:5)

So BYOD (Bring Your Own Doubt) and we'll work it out -- and not by "thinking like a child," which isn’t going to get us there. That’s what led to rationalism and modernist doubt about the Scripture in the first place. Instead, we will think like theologians and make perfect “sense” of it!

To discuss

Scripture is the Word of God
Jesus is fulfillment of the Old Testament
- typology


	Literal	Allegorical	Notes
Noah	flood	baptism	cleansing of sin
	rainbow	God's promise of salvation (laying down the sword)	Christ
Jonah	defies God	dies in the ocean	Christ
	hates the Ninevites	Love thy enemy	salvation for the gentiles
tower at Siloam (Lk 13:4)	the wall falls & kills people	n/a	it fell, no larger meaning than to be prepared to meet your maker
Bread of Life	body /blood of Christ	n/a	salvation
parables	n/a

Friday, January 24: High on the Holy Spirit

In one of the most beautiful passages in his Epistles, Paul declares,

The one who plants and the one who waters are equal, and each will receive wages in proportion to his labor. For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building (1 Cor 3:8)

But he had to say it, because it wasn't working out that way, at least not at Corinth. In 1 Corinthians Chapter 12, Saint Paul addresses a problem going on in that rather passionate town that needed some calming. As the USCCB NAB footnote to 1 Cor 12:4 explains,

Ecstatic and charismatic activity were common in early Christian experience, as they were in other ancient religions. But the Corinthians seem to have developed a disproportionate esteem for certain phenomena, especially tongues, to the detriment of order in the liturgy.

It's inexplicable that twelve men (and other witnesses to Christ) were sent forth (from mittere for "send forth" from which we derive the word "Mass") and spread the Good News so thoroughly -- all the way to South America if you believe the Jesuits who arrived to Paraguay in the 1500s and found that the Guarani Indians there venerated three stones that they said were the chair of Pa'í Sumé (reported in Spanish as "Pai Thome") who preached to them and carried a wooden cross on his back. So we can understand that as the first Apostles spread the Gospel, it got mixed up in local thought and ways, as well as to have developed a matter of pride according to which Apostle said what and where. Paul tells the Corinthians,

Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? (1 Cor 3:4)

We can see how heresy spread, as charismatics grabbed attention, their followers were empowered by the audience, while the Word got skewed. It's understandable, as these were new and exciting, exalting ideas. It's how humans work, which is why we have the word "fad".^[1] One "fad" that Paul confronted at Corinth was speaking in tongues:

Some people God has designated in the church to be, first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then, mighty deeds; then, gifts of healing, assistance, administration, and varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. (1 Cor 12:28)

We will track this phenomenon starting with God's anger at the pride of the sons of the world at Babylon, which is re-made, or completed ("fulfilled" is a good word to use in typology) at Pentecost.

While the Old Testament spoke about the "spirit of God" (Nm 24;2, 1 Sam 10:10, 1 Sam 19:20, Job 33:4 and lots more, perhaps even Balaam's donkey was inspired to speak in tongues through the Holy Spirit Nm 22:21 ), but the Jews were not aware of the Trinity, which Jesus alluded to during his Ministry and taught explicitly during the Passion (Jn 17:12) and after the Resurrection (Mt 28:19). Indeed, Stephen rebuked the Jews for not understanding it:

(Acts 7:51)

After Pentecost, and filled with the Holy Spirit, the Apostles set out to convert the world. We'll look at how different people reacted to it, including:

you drunkards! (no, we're not drunk, it's too early in the day! Acts 2:13, 15)
stiff-necked people resist the Holy Spirit! (Acts 7:51)
sell me some of that Spirit (Simon the Magician in Acts 8:18; see also early flight in the apocrypha of Peter and Paul)
here, eat this! (Acts 10:9)
an exorcism gone wrong (Acts 19:13)

And also speaking in tongues, which Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians.

Friday, January 17: What's in a name?

What’s in a name?

When Moses asks God what he should tell the people to call him, God replies,

I am who I am. Then he added: This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you. (Ex 3:14)

God teaches us something therein about names: they mean something, as do all the Biblical names we encounter. For example, “Simon,” Saint Peter’s given name, means “he who has heard” — which fits Peter’s calling as an Apostle. But “one who listens” may not be quite as solid as a “rock,” as Jesus renamed him so as to mark his “foundational” role (like a rock) in the establishment of the new, worldwide Church.

There’s more to it than just the meaning of a name, for if we look into the Hebrew word for “name”, shem, we see that it becomes theologically significant in terms of how “making a shem [name] for oneself” is not a good strategy for meriting God’s favor.

Common use of "name"

in the name of, good name, bad name, namely. name-dropping, all in a name, name of the game...

Old Testament use of "name"

Gen 2:20: Adam names the animals
Gen 4:17: Cain names a city after his son
Gen 4:21-24 (inventions, vengeance of Lamech),
Gen 4:26: Seth's descendants begin to “invoke the LORD by name”,
Gen 6;4: “men of renown” (i.e. well known names)
Gen 12:2: God changes Abram to Abraham
Gen 11:4 “and so make a name for ourselves”
Gen 11:6-8: "all have the same language, they have started to do this, nothing they presume to do will be out of their reach"

Tower of Babel v. Pentecost

Gen 11:9:

So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the speech of all the world. From there the LORD scattered them over all the earth.

Acts 2:4

And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

New Testament use of "name" John 5:43:

I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him.

John 4:14:

If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.

Hebrews 13:15

Through him [then] let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.

Friday, January 10: The Cleansing of a Leper and Us

From Luke 5:12:

Now there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where he was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do will it. Be made clean.”
And the leprosy left him immediately.
Then he ordered him not to tell anyone, but “Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”
The report about him spread all the more, and great crowds assembled to listen to him and to be cured of their ailments, but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.

The passage gives us a wonderful opportunity to apply the Senses of Scripture to understanding the Lord’s message:

The Literal
The Allegorical
The Moral
The Anagogical

With any passage, we can apply the one or the other, or all of them, and sometimes one becomes more meaningful than the other — for example, Genesis 7:6 tells, “Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came upon the earth.”

Literally 600 years old? How do we make sense of that?

The Cleansing of a Leper, on the other hand, makes perfect sense literally: a leper comes, Jesus heals, and everyone wants to be healed, too. But we miss so much if we leave the passage to the literal sense alone.

Let’s discuss us in this story — the Anagogical sense, and maybe we’ll learn a little more.

A common error in Biblical exegesis (interpretation) is to isolate a passage without broader and cross context. If we look at this passage in Luke 5 unto itself, we lose sight of the lesson it provides. However, if we take it in the light of, say, Jesus' parable of the Lamp (Lk 8:16),

No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light.

and then look at a similar passage to Luke 5's of the Leper, such as The Healing of the Two Blind Men (Mt. 9:29) in which also tells the cured not to tell anyone, which, of course they run off and do. It's odd at first, that he tells people he heals not to tell anyone, but when we consider that he wants our faith to be pronounced for all to see and hear -- if they have eyes to see and ears to hear, that is:

Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father (Mt. 5:16)

Oh-- wait, let's take that one back to Luke 5 and Jesus' instructions to the leper,

Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;

What did Moses prescribe? Well, it's in Leviticus 14 for someone who has had a "scaly infection":

bring the leper to a priest who will meet him outside the camp
if it has healed, he will gather two birds and materials for a sacrifice
sacrifice one of the birds, then purify the live bird in clean water and with the blood of the other bird
then let the bird fly away
the cleansed person will then wash his clothes and shave his head, sleep outside his ten for seven days, then wash and shave again
then that person will present two lambs for offerings (sacrifices) of reparation, purification, and atonement
all the above "before the LORD"

The events and the parables taken together help us recognize the "anagogical sense" as to where does it lead us? Jesus' message: believe and act for the glory of God.

Now, let's look at Luke 5 allegorically: with us in place of the Leper. We'll discuss.

Fun discussion! As usual, we strayed off into a few different topics and biblical passages, but got back around to how in taking the Gospel literally alone misses so much.

One of those other passages we looked at was Luke 4:16, Rejection at Nazareth. We reviewed how Jesus declared “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" (verse 21), and how they were all "amazed," yet Jesus knew they didn't fully believe, so he pushes them by quoting from Old Testament passages from Elijah and Elisha about the gentiles, the widow in Zarephath who Elijah fed, and Naaman the Syrian, a leper, whom Elisha cured, and, well, gentiles? that's going too far! As they prepare to hurl Jesus off the cliff, "But he passed through the midst of them and went away."

He also does this in today's passage, Luke 5:15-16:

And great crowds assembled to listen to him and to be cured of their ailments, but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray

Where else did he slip away? Healing of the blind man from birth:

The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. (Jn 5:13)

Jesus' "I am" statement ("before Abraham came to be, I AM")

So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area(Jn 8:59)

At the Temple, telling the people of the Father, "I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me."

So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come. (Jn 7:30)

At Jerusalem in the Feast of the Dedication, Jesus again asserts that he is God,

[Then] they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power. (Jn 10:39)

There are other passages in which Jesus simply goes aways, such as after the feeding of the 5,000, or even when he stays at the Temple while Mary and Joseph return home, and the Road to Emmaus, when he hides his identify (see also Jn 11:54). Might be fun to consider more about in another session.

Friday, January 3: the Trinity and what the heresies got (get?) wrong

The notion of the Trinity confounded many in the times of the early Church, and continues to confound many today. Modern non-believers may accept a “nature’s god” or some benign guiding spirit, or even various gods or spirits, including the yin/yang view of good versus evil. The Christian Trinity, however, defies any such dualism, agnosticism, or polytheism.

The Trinity, or the “Godhead,” is a single nature with three persons. The Catholic view identifies those persons as the Creator, the Savior, and the Sanctifier. And that last gets even more complicated when we think of the Holy Spirit “proceeding” from the Father and the Son — huh?

Are these semantic distinctions, or do they carry fuller import? We will discuss the Arian heresy, a form of “subordination”, and discuss what, exactly, do we understand the Trinity to be.

I first thought seriously about the Trinity while it to Catechism students, which forced me to consider what/ why I'm teaching. It's a great opportunity to engage students in the required combination of Belief and Reason for fuller Faith. Like the hypostatic union of Christ as all God and all man (my students learn, "100% God! 100% Man!"), the Trinity as one nature and three persons is irrational.

The notion of the Trinity confounded many in the Early Church (and continues to confound many believers and non-believers today). We can group their heretical understandings in several general categories:

Movement	Christ as God alone	Christ as Man alone	Christ distinct from the Father	Christ as other
Adoptionism		Y	Y	Christ adopted by God
Arianism			Y	Christ is God and man, but not the same as God
Dosceticism	Y		Y	Christ existed in spirit only
Gnosticism	Y		Y
Modalism	Y		Y	God in the form of Christ
Subordinationism		Y	Y	The Son is "subordinate" to the Father

For the Gnostics, especially, the idea that Christ was human was repulsive. Some went so far as to argue that he didn't go to the bathroom. For them, the material world is evil, and only the spiritual can be divine. So Christ was just God pretending to be a man, or he wasn't a man at all.

There are serious theological problems that arise from this distinction. In 1095, Saint Anslem wrote, Cur Deus Homo? (*Why did God become man?") because, evidently, there was still much misunderstanding about these questions:

I HAVE been often and most earnestly requested by many, both personally and by letter, that I would hand down in writing the proofs of a certain doctrine of our faith, which I am accustomed to give to inquirers ; for they say that these proofs gratify them, and are considered sufficient. This they ask, not for the sake of attaining to faith by means of reason, but that they may be gladdened by understanding and meditating on those things which they believe ; and that, as far as possible, they may be always ready to convince any one who demands of them a reason of that hope which is in us. And this question, both infidels are accustomed to bring up against us, ridiculing Christian simplicity as absurd ; and many believers ponder it in their hearts ; for what cause or necessity, in sooth, God became man, and by his own death, as we believe and affirm, restored life to the world ; when he might have done this, by means of some other being, angelic or human, or merely by his will. Not only the learned, but also many unlearned persons interest themselves in this inquiry and seek for its solution. Therefore, since many desire to consider this subject, and, though it seem very difficult in the investigation, it is yet plain to all in the solution, and attractive for the value and beauty of the reasoning ; although what ought to be sufficient has been said by the holy fathers and their successors, yet I will take pains to disclose to inquirers what God has seen fit to lay open to me.^[2] (emphasis mine)

We can work later on Anselm's formulation, which can be summed up as:

Man sinned.
God did not.
Man cannot atone for sin.
God can.
Therefore, God had to be both man and God in order to atone for our sins.

Theologically, the distinction is huge, for if Christ was God alone, or if he was man alone, then we are not saved.

For now, though, we will focus on Arianism, which held to Christ's duality as God and Man but did not consider him fully the same as God. I heard a priest describe the Arian heresy as a word game that went that Christ is "Son of God, but not God the Son." Arianism is a type of "subordinationism" heresy.

Arius was a cleric or possibly presbyter, which is a bishop of sorts, in North Africa, likely having been educated in Alexandria. He held that while the Son preceded creation, he was not eternal, which means that the Father preceded the son. He doesn't argue against the life of Christ and salvation in him, he just says, heh, the Father came first, then came the son. So what's the problem with that?

Here from Arius

... And so God Himself, as he really is, is inexpressible to all.
He alone has no equal, no one similar, and no one of the same glory.
We call him unbegotten, in contrast to him who by nature is begotten.
We praise him as without beginning in contrast to him who has a beginning.
We worship him as timeless, in contrast to him who in time has come to exist.
He who is without beginning made the Son a beginning of created things
He produced him as a son for himself by begetting him.
He [the son] has none of the distinct characteristics of God's own being
For he is not equal to, nor is he of the same being as him.

Hmm. We'll start with one and then see where else we go:

If the Father preceded the Son, then the Word is not the Son. There goes John 1.

Friday, Dec 13: Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12 is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. One needn’t be Catholic to appreciate this story, as the aftermath of the events regarding Our Lady of Guadalupe are plainly historical. As happened with Saul of Tarsus, the work of Our Lady of Guadalupe was followed by an explosion in baptisms, the former across Greece and Rome, the latter in Mesoamerica, in both cases deeply impacting human history.

It's worth considering what happened, because something happened. If you don't believe that Saint Paul was kicked off his horse and blinded by the Son of God himself, fine, but it is undeniable that the man had an experience that immediately converted him from primary persecutor of Christians to one of its greatest evangelists.

In December of 1531, something happened in Mexico City that led directly to the conversion of upwards 8 million Amerindians. Meanwhile, here for my writeup on the History of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

What I find most fascinating about this history is that it marks the apex of a mass cultural diffusion that historians and our culture today loathe. Jared Diamond in his "Guns, Germs and Steel" poses a fascinating question: why did the Spanish conquer the Americas, whereas the Americas didn't conquer Spain and the rest of Eurasia? (The same question can be asked of (or sub-Sahara Africa or Australia). The answer lies in what Diamond flushes out in the book in the geography of the continents, principally that Eurasia provided a variety of domesticable animals that led to development across Eurasia of the technologies that the Inca and Aztec lacked and that the Spanish used to conquer them: guns, germs, and steel. Diamond's insight helps us dismiss notions of cultural superiority, but his hyper-objectivity trips him up on important value judgments, like, heh, Aztecs, you really shouldn't have killed one out of five children from around your empire as offerings to your demonic gods. It doesn't make the crimes of European colonization any better, but it ought to provide a little light on what's ultimately better for people: the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb over that of hundreds of thousands of humans.

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrates the gentle, loving side of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and its perfection in the

Some Guadalupe extras:

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Extremadura

The Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe in Spain holds a "Black Madonna" statue said to have been carved by Saint Luke himself. The statue was found in the early 1300s buried along the Guadalupe River in Extremadura, in the interior of Spain. A herder told priests that the Virgin Mary appeared to him when he was looking for a missing animal, and the priests built a shrine at the spot where the statue was found. Construction on the monastery commenced soon after.

There, Isabella and Ferdinand signed the authorization for Columbus' first voyage of 1492. The shrine became associated with explorers and voyagers, such as Hernan Cortès, who went on pilgrimages there before their ventures. Columbus' boats, La Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, when put as a phrase mean "Little Girl Painted Saint Mary," which many Catholics see as a premonition of the events at Guadalupe.

Battle of Lepanto, 1571

The Holy League leader, Don Juan of Austria, flew the Virgin of Guadalupe on his master ship. The battle was the largest naval battle ever, and halted Ottoman expansion.

Here for an article on the Battle & its connection to Guadalupe: Guadalupe at Lepanto - Crisis Magazine

How we ended up looking at the US Capitol building and the Washington Monument is a mystery, even to me, but I think I had a purpose: the secularization of religion as expressed in these buildings (Washington's apotheosis, Lincoln's "temple") is the world that Mary of Guadalupe faced down in 1531: the Aztec murder machine was literally being torn down and its temples turned into the building of Mexico City (including the Cathedral) but it was replaced by the rapacious greed of Spanish magistrates who saw the Amerindians, newly freed of Aztec dominion as objects (not subjects) of Spanish dominion. The Marian apparition changed it all. Even if it was all made up, eye-witness accounts were fictional, the tilma itself an artifact not of the miraculous but of Jesuit deceit (they were Franciscans, moh-rons), those 8 million baptisms over the subsequent ten years remain. Something happened, and it can't be explained away.

Friday, Dec 6: the Eucharist

Two things happened this past week that make the topic of the Eucharist relevant:

The first, is a Baptism and a first Communion. Hopefully our friend who just became a Christian and received Communion for the first time can join us and relate the experience and its meaning to and for him. He joined an Orthodox Church.

The second regards a stolen host and misplaced worship. A woman came to our Mass Saturday morning and caused a commotion by asking for two hosts and then not consuming the one she was given. I spent the rest of the morning at a nearby fast food place discussing with her the meaning of the Eucharist. In short, she wanted to take it home and pray to it. She liked my explanations about the Sacrament of the Eucharist, but did not agree to return her uneaten portions. She came back the next day and did the same thing. While not understanding the Sacrament, she understands transubstantiation and treated the host as the Lord. While there's something powerful going on there, her actions constitute the serious sacrilege of "Host desecration."

So it brings us to the topic of the Eucharist itself. We'll look at John 6:22-71, "The Bread of Life Discourse." and why Jesus told his disciples to eat, chew and gnaw his flesh and, if that wasn't enough, to drink his blood. To make sense of it, however, we need to look at the Mosaic sacrifice and make sense of God's instructions in Leviticus Chapters 1-7 and Numbers Ch. 28-30. What's up with all that blood and flesh?

Here for some thoughts on Old Temple Sacrifice.

Friday, Nov 29: the improbable story of Saint Joan of Arc (1412-1431 AD)

Joan the Maiden, as she is known in France, Jeanne la pucelle, was a thirteen year old farm girl from a remote village in eastern France when she saw a vision of the Archangel Michael in a tree. Her visions of the Archangel and other Saints continued periodically until, when she was 16, they instructed her to go save France.

We’ll review her remarkable story, starting with the obvious question, is it true? and then discuss the contingency, if it weren’t for Joan, what would likely have happened?

We’ll look at the historical implications of her episodes as well as a lovely series of paintings of Joan held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Here for images of Saint Joan of the Arc, a set held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington:

La Vision (Vision of the Archangel St. Michael)
Appeal to the Dauphin (The Dauphin had someone else sit on the throne and hid amidst the Court; Joan identified him immediately)
The Maid in Armor on Horseback (Now Commander of the French Armies, Joan marches the army to free Orleans from the English siege)
The Turmoil of Conflict (The Battle of Orleans, which is nearly lost after Joan is hit in the shoulder and neck by a bolt, but she returns to the field and leads the French to victory)
The Crowning at Rheims of the Dauphin (Joan's mission was to have the Dauphin properly crowned King by French custom and in the form of Charlemagne; the leadership thought it was unnecessary, but Joan understood that the people of France needed the ceremony)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (The King and his councilors betray Joan, leaving her to fight the English with small, under-supplied army; she is captured by the French ally of the English and is tried by a French Ecclesiastic court operating under English authority)

And here for the images that the same artist had earlier created for a children's book on Saint Joan: Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel Here for a scan of the book: Joan of Arc : Boutet de Monvel, Louis Maurice, 1850-1913

I’m also fascinated by the secular explanations for Joan’s story. The events are indisputable, so how does Wikipedia explain it all? Same as they explain away Pentecost, delusion and psychoses. Great fun!

We discussed Joan's story - improbable, indeed! -- and Michael's theory that her purpose was not to save France so much as to save a Catholic France, or Catholicism itself. Whatever truth to that, the historical outcome is that Catholicism remained intact in France while but 86 years after Joan's martyrdom in 1431, Martin Luther launched the Protestantism reformation (95 Theses, 1517), which was followed in England in 1534 with established the Church of England. Had England won the Hundred Years War, which St. Joan prevented (objective fact), France, too, might have become Protestant. You may have an opinion as to that possible outcome, one way or the other, but it is historically significant that France remained Catholic.

As we discussed, there's a large question as to France's Catholicity today (starting with the anti-clerical French Revolution), but the two hundred years of Church persistence prior to the Revolution was significant.

Friday, Nov 22: Good News? The Destruction of the Temple & the Tribulations

Mark 13 is more than a bit of a downer: See that great building over there, not a stone will be left upon another! Oh, and famine and war is coming, and that’s just the beginnings of the labor pains you’re gonna suffer! You’re gonna be beaten, betrayed, hated, and lied to, and after all that fun, the sun and moon will be blotted out, the stars will fall, and then some dude called the Son of Man will come surfing down to earth on winds and clouds and to gather his friends, leaving the rest to suffer eternally.

Yikes!

Well, it is good news -- indeed, THE Good News, but must have been freaky to hear about at the time.

What's so cool about the Bible is that there is not a word in it that God didn't want in it, and there's not a single word not in it that God did want in it. We're told, for example, that the "Eschatological Discourse" (end of times talk), or "Olivet Discourse," takes place just outside of Jerusalem in the Mount of Olives, where to, after spanking the Pharisees in Chapter 12, Jesus and the Apostles head.

Mark 13 starts there, on the way out of the city, as one of his disciples looks up in amazement at the Temple:

As he was making his way out of the temple area one of his disciples said to him, “Look, teacher, what stones and what buildings!” Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be one stone left upon another that will not be thrown down.”^[3]

The last thing they any of them expected to hear was that the building is going to be torn down. We don't know how the others respond, but the inner crew of Apostles are shocked enough not to sputter out anything in public, and instead wait until they're alone with Jesus:

As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple area, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what sign will there be when all these things are about to come to an end?”^[4]

Jesus then launches into a series of warnings about the Tribulations and the Coming of the Son of Man, which early English monk and scholar, The Venerable Bede^[5], points to an important detail here: Jesus gave his talk on the end times on the Mount of Olives.

Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.

Here we get a couple clues as to what's going on. Mount Olivet is just outside the Temple, and at its base is the Garden of Gethsemane. It is the object of a few Old Testament references, including to be called "the Mount of Corruption" in 1 Kgs 11:7-8, where,

Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and he did not follow the LORD unreservedly as David his father had done. Solomon then built a high place to Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and to Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain opposite Jerusalem. He did the same for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

Hmm, something about the wrong temple, perhaps, oh, say, maybe you guys are more Solomon than David?^[6] The Venerable Bede doesn't go that far, but he does suggest it's about the proximity to the temple that Jesus chooses this location. From Aquinas' Catena Aurea on Mark Chapter 13,

BEDE. ... The Lord sits upon the mount of Olives, over against the temple, when He discourses upon the ruin and destruction of the temple, so that even His bodily position may be in accordance with the words which He speaks, pointing out mystically that, abiding in peace with the saints, He hates the madness of the proud. For the mount of Olives marks the fruitful sublimity of the Holy Church.

The key to Bede's analysis is the "He hates the madness of the proud," which is why Bede finds meaning in the Lord's "bodily position" -- in apposition to the pride of the Temple. In the "Woes of the Pharisees"^[7], Jesus denounces the inner corruption of the Temple leadership, all of which come down to pride, with a touch of carnality on top, which is consistent with the carnality of the sacrifice.

The destruction of the Temple is at the heart of much criticism of the authenticity of the New Testament, with critics pointing to it as a reverse-engineered prophesy: i.e., Jesus didn't actually predict it, his authors wrote that he did after Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans in 70 AD. These critics miss entirely Jesus' point: he is the new temple, he is the sacrificial lamb, and he is the bridegroom of the new Church. In John 4, Jesus tells it plainly to the Woman at the Well:

Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.

John's narrative relates that Jesus cleansed the Temple twice -- at the beginning and end of his ministry, which in light of his prophecies in John 4 and in the Olivette Discourse that worship of God would no longer revolve around the Temple. Lk 19:40-44 presents the destruction of the temple as part of "The Lament for Jerusalem" (not Luke's title),

As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Jesus weeps not for the temple, but for what makes the Temple irrelevant following the Cross -- "what makes for peace" is he, not the Temple and faith in God, the substance of the Old Covenant which had been replaced by ritual form. Additionally, we see that Lk 19:45, which follows immediately, "The Cleansing of the Temple," which summarizes everything Jesus was telling the Pharisees and about them,

but you have made it a den of thieves.

So the Temple will have to go -- not that Jesus wanted it to nor made it happen. I'm of the view that much Old Testament natural and political destruction is allowed rather than initiated by God; and when he intervenes it is a reward for faith or in keeping a Covenant: Jesus is the new Temple and anyone who leaves himself behind in the old Temple is there without God's protection.

Continuing the Olivette Discourse, Jesus explains to the inner crew, Peter, John, James and Andrew, "The Coming Persecution" of famine, earthquakes and war, and "the beginnings of the labor pains" (Mk 13:7-8) and his warning to get out of Dodge in order not to be caught up in "The Tribulation" (Mk 13:14-23). He then says that more will follow, "after that tribulation" (Mk 13:24), with the sun and the moon darkened and

And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather [his] elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.^[8]

Matthew distinguishes the events more clearly than does Mark, who, perhaps, expected the second coming along with the ruin of the temple. But Jesus is speaking of separate events, three, in fact.

The first is the "beginnings of the labor pains,"^[9] and the "Coming Persecution" (verses 9-13), which is what the Apostles will face. The next is the Great Tribulation (verses 14-23), which is about the destruction of the Temple. The Third is the "Coming of the Son of Man," which event, Jesus tells them,

Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.^[10]

will be during their lifetimes. But only John would survive through the destruction of the Temple. So how is it during "this generation"?

Aquinas quotes the 11th century Byzantine thinker, Theophylact of Ohrid, who understands the "generation" to be the overall "generation of Christians", thus the Tribulations are signs of a distant end of times (at least until the present):

THEOPHYLACT. Or else, This generation shall not pass away, that is, the generation of Christians, until all things be fulfilled, which were spoken concerning Jerusalem and the coming of Antichrist; for He does not mean the generation of the Apostles, for the greater part of the Apostles did not live up to the destruction of Jerusalem. But He says this of the generation of Christians, wishing to console His disciples, lest they should believe that the faith should fail at that time; for the immoveable elements shall first fail, before the words of Christ fail; wherefore it is added, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.^[11]

Our friend the Venerable Bede is less certain,

BEDE. (ubi sup.) By generation He either means the whole race of mankind, or specially the Jews.^[12]

Perhaps there's another way to look at it. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible^[13] suggests a way to harmonize the Coming of the Son of Man and the darkening of the sun and the moon and the falling of the stars, as well as the earthquakes with the First Coming of the Son of Man, not the second. Indeed, all that Jesus describes happened in less than a week from the Discourse. Matthew chronicles it in Chapter 27:45-52, "The Death of Jesus":

From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”* which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “This one is calling for Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge; he soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink. But the rest said, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him.”
But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

The Temple housed the Sanctuary which Psalms 78:69 describes for us,

He built his shrine like the heavens, like the earth which he founded forever.

In this view, Jesus is describing the end of the Old Testament worship, as the sanctuary was a replica of the God's creation the universe, and the sanctuary and Temple worship were to be eclipsed at his death upon the Cross. The Destruction of the Temple fits in better with Tribulations as a connected event. Only John will live to see the Destruction of the Temple (as far as we know), but they all, even Judas, who killed himself after Jesus' death, lived through the Tearing of the Veil, God's sign that the Old Testament, as Jesus said in Jn 19:30,

“It is finished.”

The one missing element is the Son of Man coming down from the clouds, but who knows. Maybe the Centurion, by tradition, Saint Longinus, as part of "all that was happening," saw Jesus on a surfboard, riding the clouds in his glory, when he said,

The centurion and the men with him who were keeping watch over Jesus feared greatly when they saw the earthquake and all that was happening, and they said, “Truly, this was the Son of God!”

That the Tribulation and coming of the Son of Man regarded the first coming makes sense to me, but with all things Biblical, we need to reach further. Jesus is talking about both the First and Second Coming. And he wants us to be prepared for it and for it unexpectedly, for that's the moment we will see, like John in his vision,

Then I looked and there was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man, with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.^[14]

A final thought on Mark 13, from Verse 32, which is at first glance confusing:

“But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Why does the Father but not the son know? (Soon we'll discuss harmonizing contradictions in the Scripture)

First of all, God is not going to tell us when the Second Coming is -- as that would violate free will, so he cannot tell us.

Imagine that God announces the world will end next Thursday -- there'd be a Fat Week celebration through Tuesday, then impossibly long confessional lines through Wednesday night. No, our faith must be in the now, which is why Jesus teaches over and over not to wait. If you ever wondered, or felt a little uncomfortable about Luke 9:57 and the "The Would-be Followers of Jesus" who would love to find the kingdom of God... but not right now, that's what the Lord is talking about. Parables of the lurking thief, the return of the boss, and so on, are all about this same point, which he makes quite literally.

It's no parable or allegory about the Son of Man coming down on a cloud to "gather [his] elect" (sic)^[15], so we must take it literally, and, as Jesus teaches us,

What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’” (Mk 13:37)

Today we focused our discussion upon the limits of our understanding of the words of God and his meaning. He won't just plainly tell us -- because he wants our faith (just so that he won't say when the 2nd coming will be, as that would annul faith). We looked at the descriptions of the darkening of the sun and the moon and the stars falling from the heavens, and decided that we just don't know. We know, for example, that the stars are not stationary, so are they "falling"? But it doesn't matter so much as our faith and our preparedness for God. Great buildings fall -- the Twin Towers -- and God persists. The lesson is to focus on God and not things of this of man.

A couple other points discussed in and out of the topic:

do the faithful have a higher standard of faith than non-believers?
- do priests?
- see Romans 1:20 for how Paul taught that pagans can be held to account for their non-belief, because they had enough evidence to believe in the Creator but ignored what was plain and "became fools" instead, focusing on the vain.
Scripture can seem self-contradictory:
- if Cain and Seth were the first born of the original man and woman, where'd their wives come from?
- how can there be signs of the second coming but no one will know when it will come?
- we will discuss this soon!

Friday, Nov 15: "Get behind me, Satan!"

I love this line from Scripture -- and it's rather useful at times, such as when Terry wants or says something me she knows I don't agree with. "Get behind me, Satan!" and the matter is settled.

We don't know how Peter reacted to it, as it was in no way said in jest. Think about it: the Lord called him Satan!

Nearing the time of the Passover festival, Jesus had prepared the disciples for his coming Passion (Mt 16:21):

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

to which Peter objects:

Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”

Jesus tells Peter,

"Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

We do know that whatever he made of it, Peter didn't understand. Not long after, at the arrest of Jesus in the Garden, Peter again brashly tries to defend Jesus, this time not with braggadocio but true bravery, wielding a sword. He truly didn’t get it, didn't get the logic of God’s plan. (And had he not slept through Jesus’ prayer in the Garden, perhaps he would have finally understood).

Peter kinda missed that "and... on the third day be raised," business. Naturally, he was shocked that Jesus said he would be betrayed and killed, the purpose of which the Peter and the disciples failed to understand. The rebuke, then, is plainly that Paul was thinking this life not the next, thinking like a human and not like God.

We’re worse than Peter though— God's plan has been fully revealed to us and we are still stuck “thinking… as human beings do.”

So how does "God think"?

The passage follows Simon's appointment as head of the Church, the rock, "Peter," which itself follow's Peter's declaration that Jesus is "the Messiah, the son of the living God." John, as usual, gives us some different passages, including the seven "I am" statements of Jesus, with the most direct one in Jesus' challenge to the Pharisees:

So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” (Jn 8:57-8:x)

His listeners react violently to the claim and try to stone him. But the Messiah will be "lifted up" not knocked down, so Jesus miraculously escapes.

Even if they understood him to be the Messiah, as did Peter (albeit by divine inspiration; see Mt 16:17), none of them had any notion of the Messiah's actual mission. Here's where men don't think like God. Instead they understood that the Son of David would free Israel from foreign enslavement, as did Moses for them out of Egypt, and then restore the kingdom. This is why Jesus (and John the Baptist) says, repeatedly, "The Kingdom of God is at hand" -- to clarify that the "kingdom" is not of man (a "son of David") and thereby not of this world.^[16]

Not only do they not comprehend the role of the Messiah, their confirmation bias is so strong that they completely mistake Jesus' miracles for demonstrations of power, not mercy, and his teachings of repentance for expiation of Israel and not for personal salvation. As such, the Pharisees accuse Jesus of acting through Satan (Mt 12:25), and when he slaps that accusation down, they still demand "a sign" (Mt 12:38). Only, the sign they wanted was Caesar's head, not a cured leper. They were simply enraged by it all, and their frustration grows palpable in the constant questioning of Jesus about it: if you're the Messiah, save us already!

Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he said in reply, “The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.”

It's a sublime response that, thinking like humans and not God, they cannot accept, and not accepting it their contempt grows, even to mock him as he is dying on the Cross:

Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him. (Mt 15:32)

It's not in any sense ironic that forty years later the Romans ended up destroying Jerusalem, killing hundreds of thousands of people through starvation, warfare, and, again, no irony, crucifixion of thousands^[17]. It's logical for the Jews to have expected that God would once again save his chosen people: he brought them from Egypt; he saved them from the Babylonians and Assyrians; and he gave them victory over the Seleucids (Greeks) who had profaned the Temple. Along with the element of thanksgiving, the Jewish system of sacrifice was for expiation of the sins of Israel and the ongoing restoration of its kingdom, so for the Israelites, the lesson was always that God punishes infidelity and rewards faith, lessons that backfired horrifically when God wasn't there for them in 70 AD. All good logic, but a complete failure of what's called "normalcy bias" -- expecting things to be the same, just because. Instead, reason failed them when seeing the plain miracles of Christ they saw misdemeanor Sabbath violations instead.

It is ironic, however, that the only person in the Gospel not guided by the Holy Spirit who realizes before Jesus' death what was actually going on was the "good thief," who after mocking Jesus for not saving himself (Mt 27:44), repents, telling Jesus,

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Lk 23:42)

There you go: the kingdom is not here and now, and had Jesus not died, which Peter wanted to stop, there would be no divine coronation. It was at his own death and upon watching Jesus die that the good thief was able to see what the rest could not, and that Jesus had been saying so plainly all along: the Messiah will restore not the temporal throne of Israel, but lead her people -- and the rest, as God had promised Abraham -- to the Kingdom of God. Indeed, one of my favorite lines from Jesus comes after Peter slashes at the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus. After the famous "live by the sword, die by the sword" comment, Jesus tells Peter,

“Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels? (Mt 26:53)

That's what the pharisees and the disciples and all the Jews wanted from their Messiah. Jesus could have at any time ordered down "twelve legions of angels" and thrown the Romans out of Palestine. He could have climbed down from the Cross and cracked open a bottle of champaign, saying "Just kidding! Let's kick some Roman butt now!"

But that's how men think, not God.

Jesus rebuked Peter for trying to be an obstacle to the Cross. Jesus knew he had to die, that were he not to die Satan would prevail. But Jesus would not allow, it, thus he commands that Satan stand aside, get out of the way.

It was a bit of a learning curve, but Peter eventually got it and could thereby preach the Good News that the Messiah had not only arrived but arose to his fullest glory:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, in the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification by the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ: may grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you
who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time. (1Pet 1:1-5)

Before we scoff at the Apostles and disbelieving Jews, It'd all be rather remarkable if people in our own day were so plainly blind to simple truths that don't conform to their world view, their temporal satisfactions, and, most importantly, to their pride.

We humans think temporally. God thinks eternally.

Today's discussion is less on my ramblings about the Kingdom of God (read it though!) and more on Jesus' warning to Peter that he, Jesus, must die, and to deny that death would be the devil's work. Death was introduced to man through Satan, and only the Christ can defeat it and restore eternal life -- by dying. It's unclear that Jesus was speaking to Satan as well as to Peter, for Jesus knew that Satan would instill hatred in Judas (Jn 13:27) and betray him, so why give him this warning? Either way, what matters here is that Jesus was preparing the disciples for his death. As Jesus told the disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Lk 24:26):

Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

The rebuke the Peter was a rebuke to us all: stop thinking like human beings!

Friday, Nov 8: Saint Paul, the perfect choice for Christ

We skipped last week for All Saints Day. The following day was All Souls Day. I love the juxtaposition of the two feasts: those who made it and those who could use a little push!

As I stood in line for Confession, I read from Acts. I got to Chapter 25, in which Paul is still in Caesarea, after the unsuccessful extortion attempt by the Roman governor Felix, who held him for two years hoping for a bribe (Acts 24:27). Felix hands him over to his successor, Porcius Festus, who tries to hand Paul back over to the Jews, but is thwarted by Paul's appeal, as a Roman citizen to Caesar.

The baffled Festus turns Paul over to the local King, Agrippa and his wife, Bernice. Agrippa is curious, and Festus explains the problem,

Instead they had some issues with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who had died but who Paul claimed was alive.^[18]

I find this a remarkable passage that we might normally walk past: Paul testified to the resurrected Christ.

So much to discuss in Paul, and so many directions and diversions.

Instead, let's focus on "why Paul?"

In 1Tim 1:12-16, Paul himself tells us why he was chosen by the Lord:

I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry.
I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief.
Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost.

So he's an example of God's mercy, with the qualification being that he was the "foremost" sinner. But he does not tell us about his other qualifications for the job.

Using the notion of "contingency," which means in this sense "alternatives" or "options", we can see how Paul is the perfect Apostle for the mission Christ embarks him upon, to spread the Good News to the Gentiles:

Paul, the Perfect Choice
Quality	Necessary Contingency:	Purpose
Pharisee, learned under Gamaliel	... to be thoroughly knowledgeable of the OT and Mosaic Law	to demonstrate Christ as fulfillment of the prophets (see Rom 10:4) authenticity in challenging the "Judaizers" (Council of Jerusalem, Acts 15:1) authenticity in converting the Gentiles
Persecuted Christians	... to have experienced a complete and literal conversion (metanoia, Greek for "changing one's mind")	to demonstrate the authenticity of his faith and mission to better convert others
Born outside of Israel	... familiar with the Greek and Roman world outside of Israel	to be sent to Damascus by the Pharisees to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles
Speak Greek and Hebrew (and/or Aramaic)	... speak these languages natively	for authenticity in Jerusalem (see his speech to the people in Acts 21:40) for protection by the Romans ("Do you speak Greek?""Acts 21:37) shift preaching from the Jews to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46) the Holy Spirit gave Paul the ability to "speak in tongues"
Roman citizen	... have legal rights of a Roman citizen	to be protected by the Romans in Jerusalem (Acts 21:39) to be sent to Rome (Acts 25:8)

Thus, Paul was the perfect vehicle for Christ -- all those characteristics of Paul were essential to the mission, it's authenticity, and its timing.

But he needed a few more qualifications, things about his character:

First of all, he was very, very smart.
- see 2 Pt 3:15-16 on how Paul is "hard to understand"
- quick thinker:
  - Acts 23:5 (after being smacked in the mouth at the High Priest's command)
  - Acts 23:6: splitting the Sanhedrin
He was enormously patient:
- Col 3:12 he calls for "patience" from believers
- his letters are full of admonitions, but with patience and encouragement, such as from 2 Cor 2:4:

"For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you might be pained but that you might know the abundant love I have for you."

Had a great memory:
- quoting Isaiah (Acts 28:4, etc.)

in Romans Ch. 10 he uses extensive OT quotes in order to demonstrate Christ as fulfillment of the prophets:

For Christ is the end of the law for the justification of everyone who has faith. (Rom 10:4)

from Acts 13:47, quoting Is 49:6

Both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, that you may be an instrument of salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

Some other necessary qualities of Paul
- Keen political sense
  - splitting the Sanhedrin over resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6)
- Very high pain tolerance:
  - see 2 Cor 11:30-33 for Paul's "boasts" and "labors" (listed here in our page on Saint Paul)
- Unafraid of heights
  - lowered in the basket in 2 Cor 11:33
- Ability to swim (see Acts 12:32, Acts 27:43)
- Unafraid of snakes (Acts 28:3)
- Talk all night & still have the energy to revive a boy from the dead (Acts 20:9)
  - (although he could be a little boring...)

I have an additional question, though: did Paul see or even meet Jesus before the Crucifixion? We know he knew about him, as the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus tell the stranger they meet,

“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”(Lk 24:18)

This site says he did: I like to think that Paul not only saw Jesus, but was one of the "scribes and Pharisees" who brought the adulteress to Jesus for stoning (Jn 8:1) -- of course there's no evidence for it, but it'd be consistent with Paul's attitude. Imagine were he the last of the group to walk away!" If so, it might also give us a clue as to what Jesus wrote on the ground (Jn 8:8) I always thought he was playing tic-tac-toe, with the final "scratch" as they walked away in shame, but maybe it was a note to Paul, "See you on the road to Damascus!" :) Paul was there, and he tells us so. He tells King Agrippa (Acts 26;4-5),

My manner of living from my youth, a life spent from the beginning among my people and in Jerusalem, all [the] Jews know. They have known about me from the start, if they are willing to testify, that I have lived, my life as a Pharisee, the strictest party of our religion.

We can conjecture that he was there for the challenges to Jesus, and the scalding, perfect replies received from him (Mt Ch 23, Mk Ch 12), but from what he told King Agrippa, he was there and he knew of these things. Did he participate? He was smart enough to have come up with the logical tricks they tired upon Jesus, and angry enough, indeed, were he there himself as Jesus threw "woes" and "hypocrites" at them (Mt. 23:13-29) to be "so enraged against them" (Acts 24:11) to persecute, imprison, vote to put them to death. And if so, we can see the depths of his metanoia on the way to Damascus and considering all these things for three years in the desert.

Here for websites on this question:

Here for a page on this site Saint Paul

Dali sends this site: https://www.theologyfortherestofus.com/pauls-four-missionary-journeys-the-complete-guide/

Here for another good timeline: Chronological Table of the Apostle Paul's Life (note that there is much uncertainty about the dates)

Friday, Oct 25: The Limits of sins of omission

The good Samaritan did right by God and took care of the mugging victim (Lk 10:29). The sheep sent to the right of the king took care of him when he was hungry, naked, and in jail (Mt 25:35). The rich man “suffered torment” for having ignored the sick man lying at his door (Lk 16:25). The lesson is clear: don’t ignore your suffering neighbor.

Are there limits to the rule? Am I off the hook because I only have a twenty and, honestly, if I gave the guy the twenty rather than a five like last time, won’t he start expecting more — or the Lord?

Worse, do the suffering have a responsibility to us? When does our charity exceed its benefits? How do we discern the sheep from the goat?

I need your help on this one.

This week Michael presented a dilemma as to the extent of charity. So happens that a former student's family is being kicked out of an apartment, as policies have changed and they can't stay in the place with their cat; they don't need help paying for another place but do need a co-signer. I am out of the co-signer game, having played that to ill effect in a prior life back when I had money. But, I want to help, so I am wondering if I am mistreating Jesus by not cosigning for a needing family?

Dave points out the obvious: which is more important, their family security in a home they already have, or a cat?

Which brings us to so much more: did I hurt the bum I gave a small tequila bottle that the store gave me at checkout? (He was sooo happy!) Should I give out five bucks instead of the twenty? To we measure our generosity by what we think is best for the recipient. Do we hold them to a degree of self-responsibility for their own actions? (We discussed a woman Dave knows who is broke and needing help because she is taking care of a sick dog she can't afford.) Dave quotes a friend on giving bums money: "That ten bucks isn't going to make him rich, and it won't make you poor."

From there we got into Michael's dangerous territory of calling out people on virtue signaling by helping at soup kitchens. Bothers me that at the Catholic school I taught there was a lot of guilting into "doing good". Not a good thing to judge people on, Michael is correctly advised here.

Nevertheless, we fell upon the idea that little things can make a huge difference, be it eliciting a smile with a quick joke, or just being kindly. I am reminded, however, that, as Saint Teresa of Avila advised (I think it's her): whatever you do, do it for God. Give, help, provide... but not for you, not for them, but for the glory of God.

Update 10/30: DJ says that it was sinful to give the bum the little bottle. Indeed, an act that contributes to sin is inherently sinful -- or worse, as it is a cause of sin (see Lk 17:1). DJ says the commandment to love others as one loves oneself covers the notion of not causing harm to another, as we do not want to harm ourselves. Hmm -- looks like an ongoing discussion!

Friday, Oct 18: what is our allegiance?

The Demand for a Sign (Mt 12:38)
The Return of the Unclean Spirit (Mt 12:43 and Lk 11:24)

As news of the works and wonders of Jesus spread, the pharisees and scribes felt threatened, and challenged and tried to discredit him. They demanded “a sign,” to which Jesus replied with a brutal reference to Jonah and the judgement of Nineveh (gentiles!) and the parable of “The Return of the Unclean Spirit.”

Do we build our faith on visible signs, then, with or without them, clear our consciences and move on? And even for those of us who believe without seeing (Jn 20:24), do we really complete our “clean houses” with God, or do we let demons fill any empty spaces?

It strikes me that Matthew put "Return of the Unclean Spirit" just after the "Demand for a sign" in order to emphasize that rote and literal obedience to Mosaic Law misses the point. We might today call it, following the "letter" of the law, but not its "spirit."

We looked over Matthew 12 and realized that the second passage, Jesus is likely still talking to the pharisees, although we really don't know, and he's talking to us, anyway. But what strikes me if we take these these passages together is that Jesus uses the "Return of the Unclean Spirit" to let the pharisees know what is going on with them and their souls.

They sweep themselves clean, set everything in order, thinking that by following the Law they are with God and in God's favor. Jesus warns them, though, first with the "Demand for a Sign" that the signs are all around them, he doesn't need, and, indeed, will not, show them signs, because they've been given those signs all along, which is why he tells them that "An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign" that has already been given, pointing to the prophet Jonah who saved Assyrians (! a most pagan and violent empire) after three days and nights in a whale. But, Jesus tells them, you haven't listened to Jonah, and now you have "something greater than Jonah here... something greater than Solomon here."

Moving into the "Return of the Unclean Spirit," Jesus warns them -- and us -- that if you don't fill the space you have cleaned of an evil spirit, it will be filled by "seven other spirits more evil" and "the last condition of that person is worse than the first." It's scary to think about, because he's saying that they would have been better off without the Law than with it but not filled with and by God.

From there we discussed how our society today thinks itself clean and pure, you know, "I'm a good person,"yet, in not seeking God, we are filled by worser spirits than those we supposedly fought off by "being a good person."

Friday, Oct 11: "none greater than John the Baptist"

"Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (Mt 11:11)^[19]

Not sure why, but over the past two weeks I’ve been thinking over the John the Baptist and why we spend so little time thinking about him in our worship. After all, Jesus said there were “none greater than John the Baptist”, so might we pay a little more attention to him?

This week's Fast Friday happens to coincide with Thursday's third anniversary of my baptism, so I thought it'd be a great moment to discuss John the Baptist.

I had posted here extensive notes on scriptural sources and ideas about the Baptizer, but to keep these entries short, I have turned those notes into a work-in-progress blog post: Blog: "none greater than John the Baptist"

We reviewed those notes and tried to flush out popular Christian and our own perceptions of John the Baptist. Dali pointed out that his homeland of Serbia, where Saint John the Baptist is simply called Sveti Jovan -- already showing a great reverence for him -- there are multiple churches named for the Baptizer, including the "Church of St John the Baptist" in Samodreža (in today's Kosovo) and the "Church of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist" in Ostrovo (in modern Croatia). Whereas the "Baptists" are so-named for baptism and not for John the Baptist, these Serbian Orthodox churches represent a strong affiliation with John the Baptist. Dali says that his mother had a strong connection to St. John.

The Samodreža church is dedicated to the beheading of St. John the Baptist, and, as Dali points out, it is the location where Prince Lazar, recognized as Saint Lazar in the Orthodox Church, gathered his forces in 1389 in order to challenge the Ottoman invasion. Prince Lazar was killed at the Battle of Kosovo, as was the the Ottoman sultan (the only time an Ottoman sultan was ever killed in battle).

Friday, Sept 27: "Religion is the opium of the people" (or nothing new under the sun?)

Marx was an idiot. He was also troubled, drunk, ambitious, and fearful.

Humans don't like change, and like the infamous Luddites, who wrote threatening letters to factory owners signed "Ned Ludd" for a mythical weaver, Marx couldn't stand for the rapid, albeit bewildering changes in English society of the early- mid-19th century. Either that, or he saw personal advantage in them. Likely both.

Unlike the Luddites, however, Marx left the street protests and raids to others, who only went on to kill upwards 100 million people in his name. Unlike the real Ned Ludd, who as kid went into a fit of anger at being accused of idleness and smashed his knitting frames -- or, another story had it, smashed his needles to bits after his father told him to "square his needles" (Ned Ludd - Wikipedia), Marx wrote radical tracts, underwritten by a mill owner, Fredrich Engels, who didn't suffer from the Luddite movement, which had been crushed before the German Engels, a whoremonger, btw, who inherited all his money, took over a mill in Manchester.

Engels and Marx correctly worried, as did Dickens, who also profited from it, the conditions of the working class in industrial England. Dickens, though, sold his books to the growing middle class -- growing from rising incomes, not the other way around-- and who turned the industrial revolution into cottages, professions, education, and improved living conditions. The short of it is such: Marx, Engels and their later followers all thought -- hoped -- the communist revolution would occur in industrialized Britain or France, which of course, would have none of it, as factory workers were making money and the rising middle class (the dreaded "bourgeoisie") was having a time of it all. Those revolutions did occur, but only in nations that, instead, lacked a vibrant, healthy middle class: namely, Russia and China and their client states, in whom they destroyed the middle class.

The impatient and frustrated seek to blame obstacles for impeding their will. Marx blamed the bourgeoisie for externally obstructing the great proletariat uprising and religion for sedating proletariat anger, thus his infamous "opium of the masses" rant, which went as follows:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Well, then. Marx: 1, God: 0 -- ?

Maybe not. We will discuss how our faith does not intoxicate, but uplifts; does not replace our pain, but refocuses it upon the Cross; does not excuse or justify suffering, but admits of it; and how our faith does not reflect our lives, but instead makes our lives.

We will start today with one of the best-known passages from Scripture, Eccl 3:1-15, "There is a time for..." The passage has been used in popular songs, just about every funeral, and as a lame excuse for murder (yes, there is a time for that, too). The quick read is that God not we are in control and whatever we have, good or bad, is a "gift of God" (verse 14). The first section of the poem ends,

Thus has God done that he may be revered. What now is has already been; what is to be, already is: God retrieves what has gone by.

Whatever popular culture assumes of the poem, Christ teaches (he always extends the OT!) to "glorify your heavenly father" (Mt. 5:16). As the paralytic picked up his mat and walked off "glorifying God" (Lk 5:25): so must we -- no matter in joy or sadnes

Today our good friends let Michael run his Marx rant -- joined, God bless, by Teddy's own rant in which he taught us about Andrei Platonov and his dystopian critique of Marx's crazed (and sadly implemented) vision of heaven on earth. In Platanov's novel, Chevengur, every Marxist tenet was fulfilled, but with all the physical satisfactions Marx could dream of the people were miserable, empty.

Here we have the answer to Michael's question: is human suffering any different with or without God? No! Pain is pain. It is no more or less if God is present. What God does, however, is give it context and meaning. Besides, even the wealthiest and most comfortable among us still suffer -- there is no heaven on earth; as Justin and Teddy explained we live in a fallen world, and it is our job to reconcile ourselves with God through our savior the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as Liz explained, join God in heaven.

Two more things:

I was looking for the word "subsidiarity" to describe social organization as per the Fourth Commandment: starting with family (honor your father and mother), and hierarchically rising from there to larger authorities, to all of whom we owe "honor" (obedience) but all of whom owe us, down to the father and mother, respect, love, and good stewardship
Raymond Aaron wrote a critique of Marxism (I have not read it) called, "The Opium of the Intellectuals" - LOL!

Friday, Sept 20: Typology and Salvation History

Carrying on from last week, we will review the concept of "typology" and apply it more directly to the "History of Salvation" -- aka God's plan for salvation.

The omniscient, omnipotent God created all things from love. His greatest act of love was to give us (and the angels) free will, for there is no love if it is not willed. But what is not willed as love is its opposite, thus while not creating evil, God necessarily allows it.

Since the exercise of free will necessitates the possibility of poor choice, God knows we will make poor choices. He thereby established a way towards redemption from those poor choices, which fallen mankind cannot recover from by himself. We call this "God's plan for salvation."

The plan includes Covenant blessings and curses, designed to guide us, inform us, and correct us back to him. After the false starts of Adam and Eve, and of Noah, in choosing Abram, God imprinted his chosen people with the rules and paths for redemption. They screw it up, of course. Constantly. But God never gives up, and sending prophets for guidance and to set anticipation for the only possible act of redemption, the sacrifice of God's only son, the only unblemished lamb.

The "types" of the Old Testament mark this path towards Jesus, who completes God's plan for salvation. We will review the History of Salvation and see how the Old Testament Types lead us to greater appreciation of Jesus Christ.

This week we worked mostly on the notions of the Trinity and how in Creation the Father sent for ("proceeds from") the Son to accomplish the Plan of Salvation. So much here to discuss! We wrapped it back into Salvation History and how the

For a quick run through Salvation History see Isaiah 53 and Wisdom 2:13-24. Prepare the mind for a blowout...

Friday, Sept 13: Typology

What do we Christians make of the Old Testament? There are various approaches to it across denominations, but there can be only one basic understanding, which comes from the Lord himself in Matthew 5:17:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill."

Much to discuss there, especially given the larger context of the verse in the Beatitudes. However we can take directly from it the notion of "typology" -- that the Old Testament "prefigures" Christ who "fulfills" it. Saint Augustine has been quoted or paraphrased with the brilliant observation,

The New is hidden in the Old, and the Old is revealed by the New.

That is to say, when we read the Old Testament, we are reading a preview of the Gospel, which reveals the true meaning of the Old Testament. Here we run into a huge issue for those who lived through the Old Covenant: what did they really experience? What were they supposed to believe?

God's "Plan of Salvation" answers this question. He chose Abraham to establish the people by whom that plan would play out. He didn't choose them because they were special; they were special because he chose them. And, of course, like Adam and as Adam's descendants, the screwed it up constantly, all the while revealing through God's agents, the way he wants us to live, and how to get there, which is fully and finally revealed in Christ.

We will review a few examples of New Testament ("New Covenant") fulfillment, starting, as we touched upon briefly on Sept 6, with Christ as the New Adam.

Something to consider is why does God need to "reveal" himself at all? Why not just tell it straight? Therein we have the problems of free will, the Fall, the limits of reason, and our inherent concupiscence. When God chose Abraham, he gave him only that information Abraham could process, because God needs not our fullest comprehension but our fullest faith.

Besides, we're dumb, full of ourselves, and slow to change - - stiff of neck and hard of heart. God reveals out of our necessity not his.

Friday, Sept 6: Intercession

Does God listen to us only if we ask him directly? Can we ask him to help someone else? Can we ask someone else to ask God to help us? Can we ask someone else to ask him to help someone else?

"Intercession" may be a topic of dispute among Christian sects, but we know from Scripture that asking the Lord for help for ourselves and others is not only possible, but desirable.

We will explore the Scriptural sources for the various types of intercessions available to us, as well as our personal stories of intercession and fulfillment of it.

Our principal focus of discussion was this page, Intercession. We started off reviewing the exchange between Jesus and Mary at Cana, the occasion of Jesus' first public miracle. Points on this are on the "Intercession" page, but the most important for us is that someone took the problem of running out of wine to Mary who took it to Jesus. Jesus would have known already that they were running out of wine, but he waited until someone asked someone else who asked him -- and then that someone else (his mother...) tells the others what to do ("Do whatever he says" Jn 2:5).

We discussed briefly that there's much here in Catholic theology about Mary as the "Mediatrix" -- literally the medium by which the Lord became man, intercession at Cana, at the foot of the Cross and at Pentecost, etc. (and so much more), but for our discussion about intercession the Wedding at Cana is a perfect example.

We also reviewed Gospel examples of direct intercession to Jesus (Simon's mother in law, instructions in Pauls' Epistles, especially Heb 7:25). We did not discuss, but I will add here that there is another magnificent example of the Son's intercession to the Father on our behalf in "The Prayer of Jesus" in John 17 -- in fact, all of John 17 is a prayer of intercession to the Father by the Son on behalf of the Apostles and believers in Christ.

We then reviewed personal stories of intercession and prayer to God on behalf of others. It is real, and it is powerful.

Finally, we discussed Justin's document (not posted here) on “Travaileth Prayer”. I shared the document with participants and these observations on "travail":

A first question is, what is a “Travaileth Prayer”? From the word “travail,” which is French for “work,” but in English carries the connotation of suffering in work.
We find the word “travail” in Scripture frequently in the KJV translation, especially in the Old Testament. It appears only once in the Gospels, in John 16:21:
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.
My NABRE uses “labor” as in Jn 16:21:
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world
Revelation also mentions the pains, or travails, of birth (Rev 12:2):
She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
As does Job 39:1:
Do you know when mountain goats are born, or watch for the birth pangs of deer
In the OT, the coming of the Messiah is illustrated frequently through birth pains. So God wants us to associate travail with birth, both literally and figuratively, and, as always, towards the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. This is why in John 16:21, Jesus refers to the “hour” of birth which brings pain and subsequent joy.
What Justin has wonderfully done here is to bring up this notion of travail and the pains and joys of birth as we pray, with St. Paul’s teachings, for our friends and family to open their hearts and minds to the Lord.

We also discussed briefly something that David had emailed after the prior week about how one's struggles with the devil is not external but an internal fight. And so it has been from the beginning of the fallen world, when Adam, priest, prophet and king, fails his duty as king by allowing the serpent into the garden in the first place.

Friday, Aug 30: Staying faithful in a sinful world

While struggling to avoid sin in ourselves, here we are living in a world that not only denies God but forces its godless ways upon us. How do we navigate our faith when sin is at every corner?

See this homily on the Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist (Mk 6:17-29, reading starts min. 16:00) by Fr. Kevin Dansereau from Mary of the Immaculate Conception Catholic church in Fredericksburg, VA. Some notes:

Herod cared more about saving face in front of the court than doing the right thing
Herodius leads others to temptation and sin, the reverse of John the Baptist, who led others to Christ
John was martyred for defending marriage
- like the Diocese patron Saint Thomas More, he stood up for the truth
sin wants us to compromise our faith
- asked Thomas More just to sign a piece of paper, not a big deal
people love the Church as long as we stay quiet
it is our time now to stand up for the truth, marriage, life
- to have courage
- to care more about truth than the crowds
- Herod got acclaim and applause, but handed over his soul
we need to be strong witnesses and not just buddies
- try to get them to heaven
- they will get mad
- but they will be grateful from heaven
- true freedom as children of God, free from sin.

We discussed the world around us, which threw us each into a reflective moment of where we are, who is around us, and how do we get past its temptations, diversions, and deviations from the Lord.

Justin, the youngest among us, recommended prayer.

And this leads to our next topic: intercession.

Friday, Aug 23: Avoiding Sin

Last Friday we defined sin as "separation from God." Given so, then avoidance of sin requires proximity with God.

Jesus teaches us how to avoid sin:

The "occasion of sin"

In the Beatitudes, Jesus advises that we avoid sin by distancing ourselves from it. In what seems harsh advice, in Mt 5:29-30, he says,

"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.”

The "occasion of sin" is that moment, location, situation, or disposition

Prayer

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tells the sleeping Peter, John and James, Mk 14:38:

"Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

We may also discuss the different types and terminologies of sin (venial, grave, mortal, etc.)

We didn't get into the types of sin, and instead focused on the context of Jesus' Garden prayer, and how he repeated it to the Apostles three times. He knows our concupiscence and reminds us always to return to him.

We also discussed how our world removes standards in order to avoid judgment, and in doing so separates itself more and more from God. Dave brought up the interesting concept of "cultural training," through which sin is embed in society, and which he had to endure in his comparny. Therein is a next topic: how do we live faithfully in a sinful world?

Liz reminded us of the Our Father prayer's ending petition to God to "lead us not into temptation but preserve us from evil."

Friday, Aug 16: Sin

We discussed the Father and the implications of both a living God and a God who is "Our Father." It's stunning to even think about.

Yet, very little do we think about our relationship with the Father -- if we did, we wouldn't sin, now would we?

Would you, for example, do that in front of God? Uhh, yes already are doing that in front of the Father, we're just pretending he's not there.

When I was little, I had a strange notion that I was being watched every minute of the day. I never recall being comforted by the thought, but I do distinctly recall growing into the notion that it'd be really embarrassing if someone were actually watching me all day. From there, I just forgot about it. Much easier that way.

To ask people what is “sin” is to enter the fascinating world of self-justification and rationalization. Have you ever defined “sin” yourself, or for yourself?

Let's discuss!

Agenda:

sin definition
a fallen world
sinful by default ("you have to opt-in to Jesus")
types of sin
the Cross'

Discussion Aug 16:

Sin is:

breaking away from God = going opposite direction from God

following natural impulses,

it's easier

fixing it?

bring yourself to God

something to expect on the other side

so don't have to expect

"if you don't expect much from this world, then you'll be pleasantly pleased when you get to the next"

discussed:

eye of the needle = not a needle but a passage/threshold for animals for sale in ancient Israel

sell everything and follow me
- D: can't just stay at home and pray
- God wants us to do things
- in the things we do we

Joan of Arc: if God wills it

Friday, Aug 9: Confirmation bias

We have been thinking over what it means to be "childlike" in terms of being believing in a -- the Father, which as we encountered over the last two weeks is the essence of childhood.

We will briefly review the last two weeks' thoughts, with this addition about "the Father" and "Our Father"

Note: the Old Testament speaks of the 'living God" (as we discussed about the "Jesus prayer", "son of the living God") but not of "the Father," to whom the Son introduces us. God's revelation is incremental and must accommodate our biases and sinful nature (which we will discuss today). However, there is a hint in Exodus, as God calls Israel his "first born son" (Ex 4:22: "So you will say to Pharaoh, Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my firstborn.")

This week we will encounter the things that get our intellect in the way of our childlike faith, including

concupiscence
limits of reason
Three-fold sins, sins of
- the flesh
- the eyes
- pride

How we separate ourselves from childhood when we sin, as if we are the Father.

casuistry

= self-deception through insincere reasoning or sophistry
from CCC 579:

This principle of integral observance of the Law not only in letter but in spirit was dear to the Pharisees. By giving Israel this principle they had led many Jews of Jesus' time to an extreme religious zeal. This zeal, were it not to lapse into "hypocritical" casuistry, could only prepare the People for the unprecedented intervention of God through the perfect fulfillment of the Law by the only Righteous One in place of all sinners.

scripture to consider

We have been discussing Matthew 11:25 and the confirmation bias of the pharisees that led them, even though "wise and learned" to hide God from themselves. God does not hide things from us: instead, what we don't see is hidden, hidden by our concupiscence and biases

- The easiest example in scripture is when the pharisees see a plain miracle by Jesus and then complain he did it on the sabbath, as in
  - Matthew 11:6, Matthew 12:2, Mark 3:2,
- or when Jesus goes home and was rejected by the people he grew up with: Luke 4:15
- the Apostles, too, are blind to the Lord before them (many examples)
But the Lord himself warns us directly about not seeing him. In the quasi-parable of the "Judgment of the Nations" (Mt 25:31-46), Jesus tells of the Son of Man "upon his glorious throne," sorting out the goats from the sheep, and tells the goats, Jesus tells "those on the right" (the sheep),

Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 'For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.'

Then "the righteous" sent to the left (the goats) will protest

‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

The limits of their reason, they biases and sinful state kept them from seeing God in every brother and sister.

Session recap

We did a little catching up for a new member, and so reviewed the ideas of the last couple weeks regarding "the Living God", "the Father," "Childlike," and "Wings of Faith", all of which were the foundation of our discussion tonight.

Childlike = having a father, thus when we are arrogant and "independent" we are actually orphaning ourselves from God.

Another big idea was that God is everywhere, and puts no limits upon us -- we place those limits upon ourselves. So when God "hides" knowledge from the wise and the learned, he is not hiding it from them, they are unable to see it due to their arrogance and pride. The "childlike," instead, are open and curious and so can see what Jesus was showing them. This brings up a question: can someone be only childlike in faith and have no reason? No!! That's called my dog. The Lord wants us to reason, he just wants us to reason

We discussed how, as the sense of pain signals danger, God's "curses" are not imposed by him but upon ourselves. God didn't punish Adam and Eve -- by disobeying God they punished themselves.

We wrapped up discussing how our "concupiscence" and pride get in the way of seeing one another as brothers and sisters, all of us as children of God.

Friday, Aug 2: "Childlike" (Matthew 11:25)

Continuing with the idea of "Our Father" as well as Matthew 11 and Luke 10, we will discuss the what it means to be "childlike" -- i.e. to have a father. Here for my blog post on Matthew 11:25: Blog:Salvation is for the "childlike"? Matthew 11:25

When approaching Scripture, we quickly encounter the limits of reason. For example, Matthew 11:25 has confounded me:

At that time Jesus said in reply, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike." (Mt 11:25)

Without trying to be ironic, it makes no sense to me that only the "childlike" can see God. Well, if it says it, it says it, and we just have to go with it -- we can call these the "mysteries". However, we mustn't surrender reason. Stay at it, try to understand, for the more powerful our reason, the stronger our faith.

Using the Two Wings of Truth: Reason and Faith

See Two Wings of Truth: gifts of faith and reason

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves - Saint Pope John Paul II

DNA / Reproduction

DNA teaches us the nature and purpose of reproduction: maintaining the health of the species; self-correction of mutation; encoding inherent knowledge and/or behaviors
- Socrates on reincarnation: The Slave Boy Experiment in Plato's 'Meno' (thoughtco.com)
  - he understood innate knowledge ("all learning is recollection")
  - but could not explain it other than through reincarnation
- DNA carries knowledge across generations

"childlike"

What "childlike" faith is: trusting, loving, in awe of, obedient
What "childlike" faith is not: unthinking, simplistic, unlearned, unwise

The way to understand Matthew 11:25 is that "childlike" doesn't mean simplistic, unthinking, it means having a father. The implications of accepting a father are huge! See my post on Salvation is for the "childlike"? Matthew 11:25 for some views of what it means to accept the Father.

Note: Christ is Son of God; we are God's adopted children

does that make sense?
let your Wing of Faith fly on that one!

Prodigal children


Childlike
believing
trusting
adoring
faithful

Tempted by the snake, Adam and Eve gave up our inheritance as children of God, so, like the Prodigal Son, we must come back groveling to the Father.

Prodigal son:
- he wanted the inheritance now
- he looked at the now and not at the eternal
- he partied it up: me, me, me
- destitution broke his pride and he returned in humility

Friday, July 26: the Living God

Friday, July 26, we discussed the idea of a "Living God" -- we take it for granted today that our God is "living" and "personal" -- these are not obvious concepts to the ancient world, for whom the notion of "Our Father" was unthinkable. (Even some modern religions find the idea of a "living" and "personal" God abhorrent.)

The "living God" is expressed in the "Jesus prayer," which was used similarly to today's Rosary prayers as a meditative prayer. In fact, beads were used to count recitations of the Jesus prayer, which might be recited 100 times or more at a time.

The "Jesus prayer"

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

"The living God"

what a "living God" is not:
- an object or statue
- ritualism and superstition
  - those are forms of idolatry, which means placement of anything above God.
what a "living God" is:
- present
- personal

When we kneel before an altar, or pray with a Cross, it is not idolatrous, as we are praying to a representation of the living God and not an object which is seen as a god unto itself. (The Eucharist and transubstantiation is different, but we did not discuss that.)

Our Father

contemplating "Our Father"

We discussed how, when Jesus gave us the "Our Father" prayer he was changing our relationship to God, instructing us that we, collectively, have a Father in Heaven, and we are his children if we so choose.

To the ancient world, the notion that God was "the Father" was shocking. The "Desert Fathers and Mothers" were early Christians who escaped worldly attentions to live in isolated prayer in the lands outside of Alexandria, Egypt, and in the Holy Lands. One Desert Mother was so firmly moved by the notion of "Our Father," that should would spend three days sobbing in gratitude and wonder over those two words -- and she could never make it through the Our Father prayer!

Btw, here for the "Seven petitions" in the Our Father prayer. (Protestants refer to it as "Lord's Prayer": it is the same.)

Christ reveals the Father

Matthew 11:25-27

At that time Jesus said in reply, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.

Luke 10:21-22

At that very moment he rejoiced [in] the holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."

We had a wonderful first Fast Fridays! discussion. Thank you so much for attending, and for thoughtful, inspirational discussion. Michael blew it on one thing: we didn't open or close with prayer! That will happen going forward.

↑ The entry for which at Etymoline reads, "Perhaps shortened from fiddle-faddle. Or perhaps from French fadaise 'trifle, nonsense,' which is ultimately from Latin fatuus 'stupid.' From 1881 as 'fashion, craze,' or as Century Dictionary has it, 'trivial fancy adopted and pursued for a time with irrational zeal.'" (fad | Etymology
↑ St. Anselme: Proslogium; Monologium; an appendix In behalf of the fool by Gaunilon; and Cur Deus homo : Anselm, Saint, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1033-1109 : (Archive.org); p. 178-79
↑ Mk 13:1-2
↑ Mk 3:3-4
↑ He's a saint, but is commonly referred to as "The Venerable Bede. Although he is a canonized Doctor of the Church (1899 by Leo XII), thus Saint Bede, I think "The Venerable Bede" sounds cooler!
↑ See Lk 11:31: "and there is something greater than Solomon here"
↑ In the NAB entitled: "Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees" (Mt 23:1)
↑ Mk 13:26-27
↑ Mk 13:8
↑ Mk 13:30
↑ Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas
↑ Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas
↑ Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Ignatius Press, p. 52
↑ Rev 14:14
↑ Mk 13:27
↑ The phrase "Kingdom of God" appears but once in the Old Testament, coming in WI 10:10 in reference to staying faithful to God.
↑ Stopped only when the Romans ran out of wood.
↑ Acts 25:19
↑ "among those born of women" implicitly affirms of Jesus' divinity, as well as the existence of angels.

[1] The entry for which at Etymoline reads, "Perhaps shortened from fiddle-faddle. Or perhaps from French fadaise 'trifle, nonsense,' which is ultimately from Latin fatuus 'stupid.' From 1881 as 'fashion, craze,' or as Century Dictionary has it, 'trivial fancy adopted and pursued for a time with irrational zeal.'" (fad | Etymology

[2] St. Anselme: Proslogium; Monologium; an appendix In behalf of the fool by Gaunilon; and Cur Deus homo : Anselm, Saint, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1033-1109 : (Archive.org); p. 178-79

[3] Mk 13:1-2

[4] Mk 3:3-4

[5] He's a saint, but is commonly referred to as "The Venerable Bede. Although he is a canonized Doctor of the Church (1899 by Leo XII), thus Saint Bede, I think "The Venerable Bede" sounds cooler!

[6] See Lk 11:31: "and there is something greater than Solomon here"

[7] In the NAB entitled: "Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees" (Mt 23:1)

[8] Mk 13:26-27

[9] Mk 13:8

[10] Mk 13:30

[11] Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas

[12] Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas

[13] Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Ignatius Press, p. 52

[14] Rev 14:14

[15] Mk 13:27

[16] The phrase "Kingdom of God" appears but once in the Old Testament, coming in WI 10:10 in reference to staying faithful to God.

[17] Stopped only when the Romans ran out of wood.

[18] Acts 25:19

[19] "among those born of women" implicitly affirms of Jesus' divinity, as well as the existence of angels.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]