Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God: Difference between revisions

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- Michael

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== 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/15?12 1 Cor:15:12-19] that without the Resurrection "we are the most pitiable people of all":<blockquote>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.</blockquote>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: [[Prayers#Deus Propicius Esto ("God be favorable to me")|''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:

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/4 Matthew 3:1-11]

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/1?12 Mark 1:12-13] (no details about the temptations)

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/4?1 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|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 ([https://www.ecatholic2000.com/catena/untitled-11.shtml Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas]),

<blockquote>'''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.\ </blockquote>

* '''Did Satan really think he could get away with it?'''

** from [https://www.ecatholic2000.com/catena/untitled-11.shtml Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas]

<blockquote>'''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.</blockquote>

* Saint Jerome notes

<blockquote>'''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</blockquote>

* '''Both Jesus and Satan quote OT Scripture — kinda cool:'''

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:small;"

|+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.’” ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/8?3 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/91?11 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.")

|[https://bible.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/6:16 Dt 6:16]: "You shall not put the LORD, your God, to the test, as you did at Massah" (see [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/exodus/17?2 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/6?13 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

<blockquote>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.”</blockquote>

* see "Lord's Prayer" [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/6?11 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.

{| class="wikitable"

|+

!Matthew

!Mark

!Luke

!John

|-

|Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/27:38 Mt 27:38])

The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/27:44 Mt 27:44])

|With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left

([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/15:27 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. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/23:33 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.”

([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/23:39 Lk 23:39-43])

|There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/19:18 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.

([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/19:31 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/27:54 Matthew here] and [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/15:39 Luke here]; the answer is suggested by Luke [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/23:47 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/8?34 Mark 8:34]:<blockquote>Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.</blockquote>Then we'll take a look at the [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/20:1 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, <blockquote>Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.</blockquote>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.[[File:Mosaic_of_the_exorcism_of_the_Gerasene_demoniac_from_the_Basilica_of_Sant'Apollinare_Nuovo.jpg|thumb|Mosaic of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac from the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, dating to the sixth century AD]]

== Friday, February 7: Demons in pigs! ==

[[File:Mosaic_of_the_exorcism_of_the_Gerasene_demoniac_from_the_Basilica_of_Sant'Apollinare_Nuovo.jpg|thumb|Mosaic of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac from the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, dating to the sixth century AD]]

In the "Gerasene Demoniac" ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/8?26 Lk 8:26], also in [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/8?28 Mt 8:28] and [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/5?1 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:

{| class="wikitable"

|+

!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?<nowiki>''</nowiki>

|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:

<poem>

''Oh, I Takes Dat Gospel

''Whenever It's Pos'ple -

''But Wid A Grain Of Salt!

''Methus'lah Lived Nine Hundred Years

</poem>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 [https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/34/ Catechism paragraph 115]: <blockquote>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.</blockquote>We will review paragraphs 115-117, which is summarized in paragraph 118:

<blockquote>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''

</blockquote>

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?'' ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/6:22 Jn 6:22]) or Luke 10:5, ''given them my spirit, and if they don't like it take it back from them - huh?'' ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/10?5 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

{| class="wikitable"

|+

!

!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 ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/13:4 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,<blockquote>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 ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/3:8 1 Cor 3:8])</blockquote>But he had to say it, because it wasn't working out that way, at least not at Corinth.

In [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/12 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/12?4 1 Cor 12:4] explains, <blockquote>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. </blockquote>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,<blockquote>Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/3:4 1 Cor 3:4])</blockquote>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".<ref>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.'" ([https://www.etymonline.com/word/fad fad | Etymology] </ref>

One "fad" that Paul confronted at Corinth was speaking in tongues:<blockquote>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. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/12?28 1 Cor 12:28])</blockquote>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" ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/numbers/24?2 Nm 24;2], [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1samuel/10:10 1 Sam 10:10], [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1samuel/19?20 1 Sam 19:20], [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/job/33:4 Job 33:4] and lots more, perhaps even Balaam's donkey was inspired to speak in tongues through the Holy Spirit [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/numbers/22?21 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 ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/16:12 Jn 17:12]) and after the Resurrection ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/28:19 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! [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/2:13 Acts 2:13, 15])

* stiff-necked people resist the Holy Spirit! ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/7:51 Acts 7:51])

* sell me some of that Spirit (Simon the Magician in [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/8?18 Acts 8:18]; see also early flight in the apocrypha of Peter and Paul)

* here, eat this! ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/10:9 Acts 10:9])

* an exorcism gone wrong ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/19:13 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" ===

<blockquote>''in the name of, good name, bad name, namely. name-dropping, all in a name, name of the game...''</blockquote>

=== Old Testament use of "name" ===

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4:20 Gen 2:20]: Adam names the animals

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4:17 Gen 4:17]: Cain names a city after his son

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4:21 Gen 4:21-24] (inventions, vengeance of Lamech),

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4:26 Gen 4:26]: Seth's descendants begin to “invoke the LORD by name”,

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/6:4 Gen 6;4]: “men of renown” (i.e. well known names)

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/12:2 Gen 12:2]: God changes Abram to Abraham

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/11:4 Gen 11:4] “and so make a name for ourselves”

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/11:6 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 ===

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/11?9 Gen 11:9]:

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/2:4 Acts 2:4]

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

=== New Testament use of "name" [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/5?43 John 5:43]: ===

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>[https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/14:14 John 4:14]: <blockquote>If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.</blockquote>[https://bible.usccb.org/bible/hebrews/13:15 Hebrews 13:15]<blockquote>Through him [then] let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.</blockquote>

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

From [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/5?12 Luke 5:12]:<blockquote>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.</blockquote>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 ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/8?14 Lk 8:16]),<blockquote>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.</blockquote>and then look at a similar passage to Luke 5's of the Leper, such as The Healing of the Two Blind Men ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/9?29 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:<blockquote>Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5?16 Mt. 5:16])</blockquote>Oh-- wait, let's take that one back to Luke 5 and Jesus' instructions to the leper,<blockquote>Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;</blockquote>What did Moses prescribe? Well, it's in [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/leviticus/14?1 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/4?16 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, [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/5?15 Luke 5:15-16]:<blockquote>And great crowds assembled to listen to him and to be cured of their ailments, but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray</blockquote>Where else did he slip away?

Healing of the blind man from birth:<blockquote>The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/5:13 Jn 5:13])</blockquote>Jesus' "I am" statement ("before Abraham came to be, I AM")<blockquote>So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/8?59 Jn 8:59])</blockquote>At the Temple, telling the people of the Father, "I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me."<blockquote>So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/7?30 Jn 7:30])</blockquote>At Jerusalem in the Feast of the Dedication, Jesus again asserts that he is God,<blockquote>[Then] they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/10?39 Jn 10:39])</blockquote>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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/11:54 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:

{| class="wikitable"

!Movement

!Christ as God alone

!Christ as Man alone

!Christ distinct

from the Father

!Christ as other

|-

|Adoptionism

|

|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

|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:<blockquote>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.<ref>St. Anselme: Proslogium; [https://archive.org/details/stanselmeproslog00anseuoft/page/178/mode/2up?view=theater 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</ref> (emphasis mine)</blockquote>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<blockquote><poem>... 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.</poem></blockquote>

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 ==

[[File:Statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego at Juan Diego Catholic School in Draper Utah.jpg|thumb|Statue depicting Juan Diego's encounter with Mary 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.

Line 33:

Line 517:

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 [https://rejoiceinmary.org/what-is-guadalupe-the-story-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe-the-perfect-virgin/ 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: [https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/guadalupe-at-lepanto 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 ==

@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 - 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/15?12 1 Cor:15:12-19] that without the Resurrection "we are the most pitiable people of all":<blockquote>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.</blockquote>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: [[Prayers#Deus Propicius Esto ("God be favorable to me")|''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:
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/4 Matthew 3:1-11]
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/1?12 Mark 1:12-13] (no details about the temptations)
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/4?1 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|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 ([https://www.ecatholic2000.com/catena/untitled-11.shtml Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas]),
+<blockquote>'''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.\ </blockquote>
+* '''Did Satan really think he could get away with it?'''
+** from [https://www.ecatholic2000.com/catena/untitled-11.shtml Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas]
+<blockquote>'''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.</blockquote>
+* Saint Jerome notes
+<blockquote>'''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</blockquote>
+* '''Both Jesus and Satan quote OT Scripture — kinda cool:'''
+{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:small;"
+|+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.’” ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/8?3 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 L<small>ORD</small>."
+|
+* 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/91?11 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.")
+|[https://bible.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/6:16 Dt 6:16]: "You shall not put the L<small>ORD</small>, your God, to the test, as you did at Massah" (see [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/exodus/17?2 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 L<small>ORD</small> 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/6?13 6:13] "The L<small>ORD</small>, 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
+<blockquote>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.”</blockquote>
+* see "Lord's Prayer" [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/6?11 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.
+{| class="wikitable"
+|+
+!Matthew
+!Mark
+!Luke
+!John
+|-
+|Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/27:38 Mt 27:38])
+The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/27:44 Mt 27:44])
+|With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left
+([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/15:27 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. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/23:33 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.”
+([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/23:39 Lk 23:39-43])
+|There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/19:18 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.
+([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/19:31 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/27:54 Matthew here] and [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/15:39 Luke here]; the answer is suggested by Luke [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/23:47 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/8?34 Mark 8:34]:<blockquote>Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.</blockquote>Then we'll take a look at the [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/20:1 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, <blockquote>Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.</blockquote>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.[[File:Mosaic_of_the_exorcism_of_the_Gerasene_demoniac_from_the_Basilica_of_Sant'Apollinare_Nuovo.jpg|thumb|Mosaic of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac from the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, dating to the sixth century AD]]
+== Friday, February 7: Demons in pigs! ==
+[[File:Mosaic_of_the_exorcism_of_the_Gerasene_demoniac_from_the_Basilica_of_Sant'Apollinare_Nuovo.jpg|thumb|Mosaic of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac from the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, dating to the sixth century AD]]
+In the "Gerasene Demoniac" ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/8?26 Lk 8:26], also in [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/8?28 Mt 8:28] and [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/5?1 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:
+{| class="wikitable"
+|+
+!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?<nowiki>''</nowiki>
+|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:
+<poem>
+''Oh, I Takes Dat Gospel
+''Whenever It's Pos'ple -
+''But Wid A Grain Of Salt!
+''Methus'lah Lived Nine Hundred Years
+</poem>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 [https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/34/ Catechism paragraph 115]: <blockquote>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.</blockquote>We will review paragraphs 115-117, which is summarized in paragraph 118:
+<blockquote>A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:
+''The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;''<br>
+''The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny''
+</blockquote>
+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?'' ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/6:22 Jn 6:22]) or Luke 10:5, ''given them my spirit, and if they don't like it take it back from them - huh?'' ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/10?5 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
+{| class="wikitable"
+|+
+!
+!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 ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/13:4 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,<blockquote>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 ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/3:8 1 Cor 3:8])</blockquote>But he had to say it, because it wasn't working out that way, at least not at Corinth.
+In [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/12 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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/12?4 1 Cor 12:4] explains, <blockquote>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. </blockquote>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,<blockquote>Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/3:4 1 Cor 3:4])</blockquote>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".<ref>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.'" ([https://www.etymonline.com/word/fad fad | Etymology] </ref>
+One "fad" that Paul confronted at Corinth was speaking in tongues:<blockquote>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. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/12?28 1 Cor 12:28])</blockquote>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" ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/numbers/24?2 Nm 24;2], [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1samuel/10:10 1 Sam 10:10], [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1samuel/19?20 1 Sam 19:20], [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/job/33:4 Job 33:4] and lots more, perhaps even Balaam's donkey was inspired to speak in tongues through the Holy Spirit [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/numbers/22?21 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 ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/16:12 Jn 17:12]) and after the Resurrection ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/28:19 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!  [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/2:13 Acts 2:13, 15])
+* stiff-necked people resist the Holy Spirit! ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/7:51 Acts 7:51])
+* sell me some of that Spirit (Simon the Magician in [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/8?18 Acts 8:18]; see also early flight in the apocrypha of Peter and Paul)
+* here, eat this! ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/10:9 Acts 10:9])
+* an exorcism gone wrong ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/19:13 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" ===
+<blockquote>''in the name of, good name, bad name, namely. name-dropping, all in a name, name of the game...''</blockquote>
+=== Old Testament use of "name" ===
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4:20 Gen 2:20]: Adam names the animals
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4:17 Gen 4:17]: Cain names a city after his son
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4:21 Gen 4:21-24] (inventions, vengeance of Lamech),
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4:26 Gen 4:26]: Seth's descendants begin to “invoke the LORD by name”,
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/6:4 Gen 6;4]:  “men of renown” (i.e. well known names)
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/12:2 Gen 12:2]: God changes Abram to Abraham
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/11:4 Gen 11:4] “and so make a name for ourselves”
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/11:6 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 ===
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/11?9 Gen 11:9]:
+<blockquote>So the L<small>ORD</small> scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the L<small>ORD</small> confused the speech of all the world. From there the L<small>ORD</small> scattered them over all the earth.</blockquote>
+* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/2:4 Acts 2:4]
+<blockquote>And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.</blockquote>
+=== New Testament use of "name" [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/5?43 John 5:43]: ===
+<blockquote>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.</blockquote>[https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/14:14 John 4:14]: <blockquote>If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.</blockquote>[https://bible.usccb.org/bible/hebrews/13:15 Hebrews 13:15]<blockquote>Through him [then] let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.</blockquote>
+== Friday, January 10: The Cleansing of a Leper and Us ==
+From [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/5?12 Luke 5:12]:<blockquote>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.</blockquote>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 ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/8?14 Lk 8:16]),<blockquote>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.</blockquote>and then look at a similar passage to Luke 5's of the Leper, such as The Healing of the Two Blind Men ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/9?29 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:<blockquote>Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5?16 Mt. 5:16])</blockquote>Oh-- wait, let's take that one back to Luke 5 and Jesus' instructions to the leper,<blockquote>Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;</blockquote>What did Moses prescribe? Well, it's in [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/leviticus/14?1 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 L<small>ORD"</small>
+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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/4?16 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, [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/5?15 Luke 5:15-16]:<blockquote>And great crowds assembled to listen to him and to be cured of their ailments, but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray</blockquote>Where else did he slip away?
+Healing of the blind man from birth:<blockquote>The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/5:13 Jn 5:13])</blockquote>Jesus' "I am" statement ("before Abraham came to be, I AM")<blockquote>So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/8?59 Jn 8:59])</blockquote>At the Temple, telling the people of the Father, "I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me."<blockquote>So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/7?30 Jn 7:30])</blockquote>At Jerusalem in the Feast of the Dedication, Jesus again asserts that he is God,<blockquote>[Then] they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/10?39 Jn 10:39])</blockquote>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 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/11:54 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:
+{| class="wikitable"
+!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:<blockquote>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.<ref>St. Anselme: Proslogium; [https://archive.org/details/stanselmeproslog00anseuoft/page/178/mode/2up?view=theater 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</ref> (emphasis mine)</blockquote>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<blockquote><poem>... 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.</poem></blockquote>
+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 ==
+[[File:Statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego at Juan Diego Catholic School in Draper Utah.jpg|thumb|Statue depicting Juan Diego's encounter with Mary 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.
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 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 [https://rejoiceinmary.org/what-is-guadalupe-the-story-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe-the-perfect-virgin/ 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: [https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/guadalupe-at-lepanto 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 ==