Wisdom from Father Jose 15

Adam and Eve did not resist one temptation, Our Lord resisted three and still came out victorious. Resist temptation and the devil will flee. -- Father Jose

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Sunday Snippets 25FEB12

Posting was light this week. I contributed to Saints and Scripture Sunday, posted the latest Wisdom from Father Jose and had a quote for Ash Wednesday.

Check out the other Sunday Snippets at This That and the Other Thing

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Thought for Ash Wednesday and Lent

"It is absolutely impossible at the same time to be a man of understanding and not to be ashamed to gratify the body."
St. Clement of Alexandria

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Wisdom from Father Jose 14

The devil wil take many forms, and many opportunities to tempt you... resist him solid in your faith. What´s a good way to resist him?? through prayer, fasting, and alsmgiving. -- Father Jose

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Saints and Scripture Armor

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Ephesians 6:11
I was reminded of this verse this morning when I heard this sung:  "Taking up the armor of the cross, let us fight the enemy, having faith as an invincible wall, and prayer as a breastplate, and alms as a helmet, and fasting as a sword, which cuts away all evil from our heart" I loved hearing this sung right as we begin Great Lent. Its such a great reminder that the war against evil is internal to our own souls more than it is against anything outside of ourselves. After all, without the peace that comes from prayer and Christian practices such as alms giving and fasting we are struck and assailed by the demands and challenges of the world.
I don't have anything especially insightful to say about it so I'll quote what St John Chrysostom had to say about the verse:

He says not, against the fightings, nor against the hostilities, but against the wiles. For this enemy is at war with us, not simply, nor openly, but by wiles. What is meant by wiles? To use wiles, is to deceive and to take by artifice or contrivance; a thing which takes place both in the case of the arts, and by words, and actions, and stratagems, in the case of those who seduce us. I mean something like this. The Devil never proposes to us sins in their proper colors; he does not speak of idolatry, but he sets it off in another dress, using wiles, that is, making his discourse plausible, employing disguises. Now therefore the Apostle is by this means both rousing the soldiers, and making them vigilant, by persuading and instructing them, that our conflict is with one skilled in the arts of war, and with one who wars not simply, nor directly, but with much wiliness. And first then he arouses the disciples from the consideration of the Devil's skill; but in the second place, from his nature, and the number of his forces. It is not from any desire to dispirit the soldiers that stand under him, but to arouse, and to awaken them, that he mentions these stratagems, and prepares them to be vigilant; for had he merely detailed their power, and there stopped his discourse, he must have dispirited them. But now, whereas both before and after this, he shows that it is possible to overcome such an enemy, he rather raises their courage; for the more clearly the strength of our adversaries is stated on our part to our own people, so much the more earnest will it render our soldiers.  source is New Advent

Be sure to check out Saints and Scripture at The Kennedy Adventure
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7 Quick Takes 17FEB12

1. Less than two weeks now until my discharge.
2. I finally watched There Be Dragons last night. I've got to say, that was an amazing movie! The plot alone made it the best movie I have seen in years, but the subtle visual cues put it over the top. And the juxtaposition of the main characters was outstanding! I recommend it to anyone.
3. I'm thinking about taking my daughter to the zoo tomorrow, but I'm not sure because its an hour away and gas is getting ridiculously expensive.
4. Akathist in English
   
5. So of my great to do list of about 60 items that I made on New Years, I have completed about 20 or so. To be fair to myself, many of them are very time consuming such as removing all the stumps from the backyard (I've gotten four so far).
6. Does anyone actually read my rantings beyond the first one or two lines?
7. "Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good." Romans 12:21

Check out the other 7 Quick Takes at Betty Beguiles

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Wisdom from Father Jose 13

If only the devil would appear as he is, no one would listen to him. He takes many other forms, exploiting your weaknesses. -- Father Jose

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Bishop of Newton's Statement RE: HHS Mandate

My two favorite parts are the reference to Muslim repression in the third paragraph and the quote from Psalm 68 at the very end of the letter: "Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered; and let those who hate Him flee before His presence!".
You can also read the statement as a PDF here. This link is easier to read than my pictures.

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Saints and Scripture High Priest

"So Christ also did not glorify himself, that he might be made a high priest: but he that said unto him: 'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.' As he saith also in another place: 'Thou art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech.'" Hebrews 5:5,6
Jesus Christ is our High Priest continually offering of His  one sacrifice of Self at Cavalry on altars around the world. Melchizedek was the king/high priest of Salem and offered a sacrifice of bread and wine. Abraham offered to him 10% of everything he had. I can't do justice to this passage so I'll leave it to the saints:
"Formerly a lamb was offered, a calf was offered. Christ is offered today...and he offers himself as priest in order that he may remit our sins: here in image, there in truth where, as our advocate, he intercedes for us before the Father."--St Ambrose
I'm also leaving a link to a talk by Dr Scott Hahn called The Eucharist as the Meal of Melchizedek.

Check out the Saints and Scripture main page.

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Sunday Snippets 11FEB12

This week I had my usual weekly posts: Saints and Scripture Sunday, Wisdom From Father Jose and 7 Quick Takes.

I also had a post called Why I Won't Let my Daughter Watch Peppa Pig, a response to the President's so called compromise,  a quote from Saint Nilus, a quote from St Isaac the Syrian, some wise words from St John Climacus and a quote from Pope John Paul I.

Please visit This That and the Other Thing to see the other blogs participating.

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St Nilus of Sinai quote

"Even if you already appear to be with God, beware the demon of fornication; for it has great fascination and is full of cunning, constantly trying to overcome the transport of your sober mind and to draw it away from God, even as you stand before God with reverence and fear." 
St. Nilus of Sinai

h/t From the Fathers

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Notre Dame Statement on So-Called Compromise

I saw a link on FB to Statement by Religious Scholars on Contraceptive Policy Change and I don't have a way to show PDFs here so I did  screen captures. If you click on the individual pics they should come up big enough to read.

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7 Quick Takes 10FEB2011

1. I really think that the recent HHS mandate to provide contraceptives and abortifacients is only symptomatic of a larger more menacing power grab by the feds.
2. I honestly think the only way to preserve and reestablish the balance of powers is to aggressively assert the power of the 10th amendment. After all, it was added for a reason.
3. President Kennedy's embargo on Cuba is 50 years old this week. Its a shame that in those 50 years none of our presidents has done anything to end the reign of godless Communism only 90 miles off of our shores.
4. "Receiving the Eucharist means adoring Him whom we receive. Only in this way do we become one with Him, and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy. The act of adoration outside Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself." Pope Benedict XVI
5. I've certainly seem to many of us who take the reception of our Lord in the Eucharist far too lightly.   "Let us return from that Table like lions breathing out fire, terrifying to the devil!" St John Chrysostom
6. I'm so sick of St Valentine's Day ads. The only good thing about the day is cheap candy afterwards.
7. TGIF!

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"Yesterday, a funny thing happened to me on my way to the Conclave."John Paul I 27AUG1978 (the day after his election)
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Prayer and Scripture

"Do not approach the mysterious words in the scriptures without prayer and without asking help from God, saying: Lord, grant me to perceive the power that is in them. Deem prayer as the key to the insight of truth in scripture." St Isaac the Syrian


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Why I won't let my daughter watch Peppa Pig

Judge me if you want, but I let my daughter watch Nick Jr. The shows teach her shapes, colors, letters and numbers. But I won't let her watch just any show on Nick Jr.
While I enjoy watching Blue's Clues and Dora with her, I refuse to let her watch Peppa Pig. What's the difference?
In Blue's Clues the main male character is either Steve or Joe. Joe replaces Steve when he goes off to college. In this show you have a positive adult male character who uses his critical thinking to solve Blue's riddles. I also like that Steve goes off to college.
In Dora the Explorer you have the two main characters of Boots and Dora. I think they could and should do more with Dora's dad plotwise, but: 1. He coaches her baseball team which certainly a positive trait and 2. He is otherwise just there, which sadly compared with most other TV dads almost puts him into the dad hall of fame. Boots's dad from what I remember is an engineer of some sort, which is refreshing to see a dad with a technical degree where in reality fewer  men are growing up to get any kind of degree. Both of their dads show up to special events like plays, games, etc.
Then there's Peppa Pig. The father in that family of four is shown as completely incapable of doing anything right. I cringed the few times I watched it as I saw him messed up one thing after another and his children and wife inevitably laughed at him and often times made mocking comments.
I know that these are just shows, but my daughter is young and impressionable. Television has always had characters that we laughed at because they said or did things that were incredibly moronic. Barney Fife is the perfect example. However, it is becoming more and more standard its seems with shows about families that the father is the idiot.
I'm sure that my example outweighs those of television in my daughter's eyes, but that doesn't mean that I have to let my daughter see shows on TV that denigrate fatherhood and dismiss its importance. How many times have athletes and other celebrities been chided because children look up to them? For impressionable young viewers what the difference between at TV character they will never meet in life and a celebrity they will most likely never meet. We already live in a hit-it-and-forget-it/deadbeat dad world where fewer and fewer children grow up with their fathers in a vicious cycle that has led to our present situation where almost half of the pregnancies in the US are out of wedlock and more and more children grow up in single mother households. Children look for father figures where they can find them.
Don't get me wrong! Motherhood is essential for children too and I admire women raising children on their own who are doing the best they can, but having a father around significantly increased the odds of the children staying out of poverty and out of trouble. The problem usually isn't the mother; its usually a father who can't be bothered to love and protect his children. I found this list of statistics on fatherless children. You can read them for yourself, but I want to point out these three: 85% of youths in prison came from fatherless homes. 63% of teens who commit suicide lived in fatherless homes. 90% of runaways and homeless children come from fatherless homes.
I don't let her watch Peppa Pig because I refuse to have anything to do with shows that treats fathers and fatherhood as something to be mocked and derided. It is important that we should not watch these sorts of shows to have the sacred institution of fatherhood exalted and lauded. Furthermore though we should remember that God has described himself as our Father. The metaphor works because everyone had a father. That's not always the case anymore. If we lose touch with who a father really is, how much harder will it be to understand who our Father is?


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Wisdom from Father Jose 12

Whatever you do, don´t do it so that people may praise you, do it to give glory to God. -- Father Jose

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Saints and Scripture Iron Furnace

"But the Lord hath taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace of Egypt, to make you his people of inheritance, as it is this present day." Deuteronomy 4:20

I was on a retreat at a monastery about a year ago and when I went to the Liturgy of the Hours one morning, this was part of the OT reading. It is now one of my favorite verses and it still blows me away every time I read it.
Egypt is referred to as the "Iron Furnace". The emphasis is not on the misery and back breaking toil of their time as slaves, but rather the emphasis is that it removed impurities and made them into a people that are stronger than before. After all the iron is stronger and more desirable than the raw product that goes into the furnace. Elohim has used their suffering and hardship for a higher purpose, to mold the people for Himself.
Similar to the Israelites, the Christian Church has endured much. Internal strife and external persecution have tried us many times, but whenever this happens we always emerge stronger with new martyrs and other saints. As Tertullian once famously put it. "The blood of the martyrs is the seeds of the Church."
Amidst the corruption of the Medieval Church came St Francis and St Catherine of Siena. The division of the Protestant Movement brought us St Ignatius of Loyola, St Edmund Campeon and St Francis de Sales. I could on and on, but I'll leave it to you to think of times the Church has been in crisis and saints arose to meet the challenge and to strengthen the faith of Christians.
I added a video of someone singing Faith of Our Fathers acapella:


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Praise and Worries

"The man who wishes to offer a pure mind to God but who is troubled by cares is like a man who expects to walk quickly even though his legs are tied together."
St John Climacus

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Sunday Snippets 030212

Its been a busy blogging week for me. I started the week off with Saints and Scripture Burning Bush, an icon picture, and a linking to a petition against the HHS mandate. Then there was Wisdom from Father Jose 11, a quote on humility and grace, a posting about the new Patriarch of Venice and other Latin Patriarchs, a quote from Venerable Bede about healing Simon Peter's mother-in-law, seven quick takes about the healing of his mother-in-law, and I had a post at LOLSaints about the Hospitality of Abraham.



Remember to visit This That and the Other Thing to follow the links to other Sunday Snippets.


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LOLSaints Contribution

LOLSaints has published my posting on the Hospitality of Abraham. Check it out!

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7 Quick Takes 03FEB

Last night at the Young Adult Ministry we had group discussion on Mark 1:29-39 and my Quick Takes this week will be about that. From Bible Gateway, which is a site I really because you can easily switch between translations:

²⁹ And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with ^[a]James and John. ³⁰ Now Simon’s mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever; and immediately they *spoke to ^[b]Jesus about her. ³¹ And He came to her and raised her up, taking her by the hand, and the fever left her, and she ^[c]waited on them.
 ³² When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed. ³³ And the whole city had gathered at the door. ³⁴ And He healed many who were ill with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and He was not permitting the demons to speak, because they knew who He was.
 ³⁵ In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there. ³⁶ Simon and his companions searched for Him; ³⁷ they found Him, and *said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.” ³⁸ He *said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may ^[d]preach there also; for that is what I came for.” ³⁹ And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, ^[e]preaching and casting out the demons.

1. The Greek word "diakonos" is used in verse 31 right after it says that the fever left her . In New American Standard and most other translations it is translated into English as "she waited on them." or "she served them". In the Douay Rheims translation it translated as "she ministered unto them". I thought was an interesting difference considering that while the word diakonos means one who serves its also the source of the words deacon and diaconate.
2. I thought the difference in translation was especially interesting when I found this website with this quote from the Venerable Bede: "Figuratively, Peter’s house is the Law, or the circumcision, his mother-in-law the synagogue, which is at it were the mother of the Church committed to Peter. She is in a fever, that is, she is sick of zealous hate, and persecutes the Church. The Lord touches her hand, when He turns her carnal works to spiritual uses."I know that site was a commentary from Matthew but its a commentary on the same miracle.
3. On a humorous note, all things in the Bible are interwoven together and I once heard a priest joke that the reason Peter denied Jesus three times was because He healed his mother-in-law.
4. I was reading an article in Catholic Exchange about the healing of Peter's mother-in-law which points out that in both Mark and Luke, Jesus teaches in the synagogues, heals Peter's mother-in-law and then goes back out to the synagogues. It seems to me that especially in light of the Venerable Bede's comment that this miracle is a sign of Christ healing and fulfilling the OT, establishing Peter as his vicar and then sending Peter and the other eleven out to minister and preach to the people.
5. The simple fact that this miracle was recorded in all of the Synoptic Gospels suggests that despite it has an importance that its brevity does not fully portray.
6. The fact that the mother-in-law served Jesus and the Apostles suggests that Peter's wife was perhaps already dead since it would have been her place to serve them.
7. I wonder what Peter's house would have looked like. He was doing well enough as a fisherman to have his own boat, maybe he had a nice house.

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Venerable Bede on the Healing of Simon Peter's MIL

"Figuratively, Peter’s house is the Law, or the circumcision, his mother-in-law the synagogue, which is at it were the mother of the Church committed to Peter. She is in a fever, that is, she is sick of zealous hate, and persecutes the Church. The Lord touches her hand, when He turns her carnal works to spiritual uses." Venerable Bede

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New Patriarch of Venice

I was going through my RSS feed of EWTN News and I saw an article about the new Patriarch of Venice (Axios! Axios! Axios!).
From the article:

Bishop Francesco Moraglia was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to the important post of Patriarch of Venice on Jan. 31. Despite the enormity of the job, he trusts God will help him succeed...During the 20th century, three former Patriarchs of Venice have gone on to occupy the papacy - Pope Pius X, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul I.

As far as the Latin Church, I knew there was a Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, there used to be a Latin Patriarch of Antioch, and the Papacy stopped using the title Patriarch of the West, but I didn't realize there was a Patriarch of Venice. It piqued my curiosity and I then did what anyone else would do... I looked on Wikipedia. There is currently also a Patriarch of the East Indies (Archbishop of Goa) and a Patriarch of Lisbon. There are also a few historical Latin Patriarchies that have no one holding those titles any longer.

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Humility and God's Grace

Humility consists, not in condemning our conscience, but in recognizing God's grace and compassion.
St. Mark the Ascetic
h/t to Word from the Desert
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