Talk:Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God

Upcoming topics

Deus Propicius Esto: the battle for our souls

Deus Propicius Esto a medieval prayer for God's protection in the "the dreadful judgment" perhaps originating from St. Augustine was common in Medieval "psalters," or books of prayer popular music / popular culture how do we Christians approach music and lyrics that celebrate sin? Bromley has a story about asking his Confessor for permission to see the Rolling Stones -- why ask the question in the first place? Why did the priest find it okay to attend the concert?

There is a much larger topic here about how to live in a fallen world

When we sin, Jesus suffers; When we suffer, Jesus suffers

The Cross.

St. Jean Vianney said, "When you confess your sins, you take the nails out of Jesus.” (https://www.ncregister.com/blog/st-john-vianney-confession)

> Jesus died for every sin ever committed and that will ever be committed. > he also suffers with us >> not like a mother suffering when a child suffers >> not like Mary at the Cross, "a sword piercing her heart" > no, he actually suffers what we suffer.

Imaging that God is experiencing your life in real time.

Book of Revelation

Revelation = singular

authorship context > historical > Church history > theological > anagogically

numbers:

• 7 = no. of covenants, and completeness
• 8 = infinity
• 12 = tribes/ disciples
• 1000 = perfection

Senses of Scripture

Literal Allegorical Moral Anagogical

Sin

definition nature effect concupiscence

Dating the scriptures

Skeptics and academics who wish to prove the Gospels are fiction will point to the dating of the Gospel writings and say, "See! Gotchya! They wrote it after the destruction of the Temple in order to claim that Jesus prophesized it!"

timeline > Peter/ Paul> epistles written before their death historical context logic of oral history inspired writings

Adam' s choice: martyr or God

Satan threatened Adam's life:

You certainly will not die!

"The Way"

Why was it called that? What can we learn from it? TJ: Road to Emmaus

Observation, Judgment and forgiveness

God does not ask us to relinquish the intellect and free will he blessed us with. No! We must exercise judgment!

The question is what do we do with that judgment.

> mlb and trash, Wuerl, etc.

Modernism: the Parable of the Tenants

Mt 21:33 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/21?23 they kill the landowners' phrophets, then his son.

The Return of the Unclean Spirit: Lk 11:24

explains so much of the world today!

Maslow >> ppl need spiritual fulfllment or get Wolsam

what isn't filled will be filled by demons

"Who can forgive sins except God?" < Jesus didn't say that!

The message wasn't so much he is God (he is) but that the Son of Man is authorized by God to forgive sins

> tied in to priestly forgiveness of sins ... Great Commission etc.

God likes intercessors!

Why is the Old Testament God so mean? (revelation and salvation history)

common objection to our faith is the the OT God is mean.

There are various approaches to answering this question, including

• OT is not literal (Sodom/ the Flood, exaggerations, esp. regarding war)
  • so those events in the OT are either allegorical, moral, or not the whole truth
  • ex. God tells the Isrealites to kill all the Caananites, yet, the Israelites end up marrying Canaanite women... which is it?
• God was only killing people who themselves were really mean

Seems to me that Jesus answered it best in Luke 13:4: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/13?4

Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them*—do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

Let's step back: The Israelites were not special, they were special because God chose them as his vehicle for salvation of all mankind.

A couple conclusions must be drawn from that: 1. The Israelites, as a people, were no better or worse than any other peoples at the time; indeed, we see this over and over again when they violate God's word 2. God necessarily sustained them as a people through to the Incarnation of Christ.

The OT shows us just how brutal and beautiful ancient life could be. Sodom (), the rape of the slave girl (Judges 19:25), the Rape of Tamar (2 Sm 13:1)

Concubines were everywhere. In defense of Jerusalem, God struck dead 185,000 Assyrians (Is 37:36) and after invoking the same against 80,000 Greeks, to show God's power, Judas Macabeaus hangs Ncanor's head and arm on the wall of the city (2 Mac 15:35). (Btw, Henry VIII did the same to Saint John Fisher, but Fisher's head retained an eerie liveliness that freaked out people, so his head was flung into the Thames.)

God gave us free will. There is no sin if committed unwillfully (when raped by her brother, Tamar did not sin). By extension, we must choose not to sin, choose to return to God (sin is separation, so we must un-separate ourselves) freely, consciously, and willfully.

Tell a 12th century B.S. exile from Egypt that a stone some crazed dude who brought you into the desert and caused you much suffering carries the word of God. We see the easy fall back upon idolatry: build a statue of a calf like the Egyptians did and we'll have milk and honey like we did back in Egypt. These people weren't just uneasily persuaded, they were hard to change, for their reality was not with the Living God.

They lived in a violent world, and the idea of God the Father was alien, weird. We recite "Our Father" so much without really considering what it means to have a father in our God, to have a Living and present God.

To the extent that God revealed himself directly to the Israelites, they still had a hard time with it. Did Jacob wrestle God himself? Did Moses see God's face? God came at them, as they like to say these days when excusing dumbing-down Christian doctrine, "where they're at."

If that's the case, then the people of 30 AD were ready for God. In fact, we see a remarkable progression of Old Testament violence from divine to human agency. Whereas, around 600 BC, God dispatched 180,000 Assyrians, in 180 BC the Maccabees had to take down the 80,000 Greeks themselves. Both events were manifestations of God's greatness, but the latter event was in faith in support of man's actions, whereas the earlier event was a show of God's power unto itself.

Three crosses on Calvary

My RE students went blank when I showed them an image of Calvary with the three crucifixes. Never heard about the thieves.

But it causes contemplation. They were just there by happenstance: God wanted them there, so let's consider why.

• both sinful
• both prideful
• only one repents
• Christ absolves him

Christian and pro-Abortion?

We are all sinners. At some point, we regularly compromise our Christian principles out of pride, lust, fear, or some form of hypocrisy.

Abortion, however challenges a Christian believer in it far more profoundly.

Take the death penalty: scripture neither condemns it nor hides it: it's all over the Bible, especially that little part about the Crucifix. Think about it: Christ does not condemn the execution itself (a grotesque and cruel punishment), and neither do the Apostles. Peter condemns the Jews killing God, not the two thieves. The Catholic Church burned heretics starting in 1022 and various principalities adopted it as matter of law in the 13th century. (Joan of Arc, of course, was burned at the stake; the remains of proto-Protestants John Wycliff were exhumed and burned in 1428 and Jan Hus was burned at the stake for heresy in 1415; others were burned for crimes other than heresy, such as treason, sodomy, bestiality, witchcraft, with that last conducted mostly under protestant regimes; England outlawed burning in 1676 under Charles II.)

Yet, one gets a sincere hatred of putting a fellow man to death. However, to love you neighbor is not incompatible with the consequences of sin. Sin is, after all, death.

With abortion, there is no ambiguity: the infant committed no crime; the Bible condemns child sacrifice; and Scripture is clear that the life of the soul starts at conception. Look no further than the Annunciation.

Out of Pride or Fear?

I'm looking at the corrupt world around me, and I ponder its cause. Indeed, it is a sinful world, built upon the threefold sins of Adam and Eve, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and pride.

I wonder though, how much of our world is built on fear?

Humans loathe uncertainty > corruption: getting along for fear of job? > self-defense >

Ultimately, God condemns fear, for it denies him. As head usher at our church, I am responsible for the safety of attendees at Mass, the priests, the choir and the faithful. Now and then we receive security warnings for DC area Christian institutions, of which the Catholic Church is the most visible. We practice vigilance. The thought creeps in of what I would do were there an attack. All hesitation disperses with a simple glance upon the Cross. (Yes, my protestant friends, Christ was crucified.)

Fear itself is not sinful. Like the pain signals in our nervous system, our minds and bodies are hard-wired with fear, as it is a necessary trigger and motivation behind self-preservation. To be sinful, and act must be willful.

"when, caught in a violent thunderstorm on July 2, 1505, he made a vow to God, through the intercession of Saint Ann, that he would become a monk if saved from death." https://catholicinsight.com/luthers-re-formation/

Are politics downstream from culture?

I'm not so sure.

In the Stripping of the Altars, we see how English elites forced protestantism upon existing practices.

OTOH, did Constantine's endorsement reflect or create Roman Christianity?

It cang go either way. What's important to learn here is that culture and faith are symbiotic and not usually synchronos.

The Parable of the Dishonest Steward

Friday, Nov 15: The Parable of the Deceitful Steward

Luke 16 1-9 was the Gospel reading on Nov. 8. Constable calls it "the most diffikcult passage in Luke <<

Here from St. Thomas’ Catena, a couple explanations for why the boss praised the lying, thieving steward in Luke 16:1-8.

First, though, what’s most confusing about this parable when we read it in Church it ends at verse 9, whereas Jesus connects the parable in verses 10-13 to his more famous line, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” (!) And it continues with the Pharisees scoffing at him and Jesus’ rebuke in verse 15.

Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas

Here, AUgustine sees a contrary lesson:

AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) On the other hand this parable is spoken, that we should understand that if the steward who acted deceitfully, could be praised by his lord, how much more they please God who do their works according to His commandment.

Here, though,

PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. ... But he whose wishes are on earth is troubled at his departing. Hence it is added of this steward, Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do, for my Lord taketh away from me the stewardship? I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed. Weakness in action is the fault of a slothful life. For no one would shrink who had been accustomed to apply himself to labour. But if we take the parable allegorically, after our departure hence there is no more time for working; the present life contains the practice of what is commanded, the future, consolation. If thou hast done nothing here, in vain then art thou careful for the future, nor wilt thou gain any thing by begging. The foolish virgins are an instance of this, who unwisely begged of the wise, but returned empty. (Matt 25:8.) For every one puts on his daily life as his inner garment; it is not possible for him to put it off or exchange it with another. But the wicked steward aptly contrived the remission of debts, to provide for himself an escape from his misfortunes among his fellow-servants; for it follows, I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. For as often as a man, perceiving his end approaching, lightens by a kind deed the load of his sins, (either by forgiving a debtor his debts, or by giving abundance to the poor,) dispensing those things which are his Lord’s, he conciliates to himself many friends, who will afford him before the judge a real testimony, not by words, but by the demonstration of good works, nay moreover will provide for him by their testimony a resting-place of consolation. But nothing is our own, all things are in the power of God. Hence it follows, So he called every one of his Lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my Lord? And he said, A hundred casks of oil.

Bede focuses on the debts of the others -- so the steward is actually helping them out!

BEDE. A cadus in Greek is a vessel containing three urns. It follows, And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty, forgiving him the half. It follows, Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. A corus is made up of thirty bushels. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore, forgiving him a fifth part. It may be then simply taken as follows: whosoever relieves the want of a poor man, either by supplying half or a fifth part, will be blessed with the reward of his mercy.

AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) The steward whom his Lord cast out of his stewardship is nevertheless commended because he provided himself against the future. As it follows, And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely; we ought not however to take the whole for our imitation. For we should never act deceitfully against our Lord in order that from the fraud itself we may give alms.