Sunday Snippets 26May2013

Its been a slow week for me, but at least this week I am back to blogging. On Thursday there was Theotokos Thursday XI and 5 Lesssons from "The Gods Must Be Crazy". On Friday I did 7 Quick Takes.

Check out the other Sunday Snippets this week at This That and the Other Thing
May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Sunday Snippets 02DEC2012

I only had two posts this week:
Saints and Scripture Christ the King
7 Quick Takes

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

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Saints and Scripture Rider and Two Youths

"But the spirit of the almighty God gave a great evidence of his presence, so that all that had presumed to obey him, falling down by the power of God, were struck with fainting and dread.

For there appeared to them a horse with a terrible rider upon him, adorned with a very rich covering: and he ran fiercely and struck Heliodorus with his fore feet, and he that sat upon him seemed to have armour of gold. Moreover there appeared two other young men beautiful and strong, bright and glorious, and in comely apparel: who stood by him, on either side, and scourged him without ceasing with many stripes.

Arid Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter they carried him out."

^{--2 Maccabees 3:23-25}

I have nothing insightful this week, just that this passage from 2 Maccabees is an OT revelation of the Holy Trinity and a fascinating story. Heliodorus had come to take away the treasures of the temple and for his trouble the Rider and Two Young Men appeared and beat him to within an inch of his life. The only thing that saved him was the prayers of the Jewish high priest.

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

7 Quick Takes 25MAY12

 

1. My Mom just confirmed that she will come down to visit my daughter and I on Father's Day weekend. Its going to be great!
2. I've put off my daughter's Chrismation until my Mom could be here and now I know she's going to definitely be here in June!
3. I'd be interested in having someone guest post on my blog. If you're interested hit me up at athanasius c mundo at gmail dot com.
4. I've been thinking about the HHS contraception mandate and the conclusion I've come to is that this is only the beginning. I fully expect that if Mr. Obama is elected again that it will only be the tip of the iceberg.
5. No one has solved the latest Saint Quiz. 
6. The era of private space flight is now upon us. I'm curious to see how much quicker the private sector will transform the field. Government is subject to funding cuts and the voting public's attention span. The private sector sees a new field with unlimited potential ready for investment and R&D.
7. Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man!

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

7 Quick Takes 4/20/12

1. Set up a new tab for browsing through the saint quizzes. I posted XV this week and no one's gotten it yet.
2. One month and roughly 50 applications and resumes later, still unemployed. Thank God for my old commander who drilled into me the importance of an emergency fund.
3. Random trivia: Today is the day that stoners throughout the country look forward to. Its also Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the Columbine shootings.
4. I'm refusing this year to turn on my AC until it reaches at least 95. I'm determined to pinch those pennies, but there have been a few days where the temperature got close to 90 and I almost gave in. I'm glad for some cloudy whether yesterday and today.
5. With all my unexpected spare time of late, I checked out a book from the library and I've been trying to teach myself Biblical Greek. I've got the alphabet down, but I'm having trouble slogging through the conjugations and such.
6. I've also been writing short stories and self-publishing them on the Amazon Kindle store, because its free, I like being a "published" author and maybe someone might actually buy them.  (Yes, that was a shameless plug.)
7. Glory to Jesus Christ, True God and True Man.

Please check out the other Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Saints and Scripture Thomas' Declaration of Faith

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and says to them, "Peace be to you." And when He had so said, He showed to them His hands and His side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, "Peace be to you: as my Father has sent Me, even so send I you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and says to them, Receive you the Holy Ghost: "Whose soever sins you remit, they are remitted to them; and whose soever sins you retain, they are retained." But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be to you. Then says He to Thomas, "Reach hither your finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither your hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing." And Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and My God."

John 20:19-28

 This is one of my favorite stories of the Apostles and Thomas is tied with Peter for my favorite Apostle. There's so much to this story, for instance its mentioned that he is called Didymus which means "twin". Who's his twin?! (More importantly does he have an evil twin like some kind of Ancient Soap Opera plot device?) Why does Thomas get the bad rap as the disbeliever? The others didn't believe until Jesus was in front of them pointing out His wounds. Thomas and Peter are the only two Apostles I know of that plainly declared Jesus to be God. Also, the distinction is shown here that Thomas calls Him "My Lord and My God." He not only acknowledges Jesus as God, but also as the one he declares loyalty (My Lord). How many times have we and others we know acknowledged Jesus as God, but not as Lord? Saint Theophylact had this to say:

He who had been before unbelieving, after touching the body showed himself the best divine; for he asserted the twofold nature and one Person of Christ; by saying, My Lord, the human nature by saying, My God, the divine, and by joining them both, confessed that one and the same Person was Lord and God.

When Deacon Kent gave his sermon this morning, he pointed out similarities between Jesus and Adam. Adam had his rib removed to create Eve and thus all of mankind by extension. When Jesus had his side opened water and blood flowed out signifying Baptism and Eucharist. As the New Adam, Jesus makes us a new creation through the New Covenant entered into by Baptism and renewed in the Eucharist.
Jesus said also said in this story, "Peace be to you: as My Father sent Me, so I send you." Thomas arrived in India about 55 AD and evangelized there. The communities established there became the Syro-Malabar,  Syro-Malankara Churches and later groups from these Churches reunited with the Catholic Church.

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Sunday Snippets 15APR2012

Christ is risen!
I hope everyone is having a blessed Easter season.
On Monday there was more Wisdom from Father Jose and on Tuesday it was revealed which Springfield the Simpsons is set in. Thursday was a meme on Christian persecution. I joined in the Seven Quick Takes on Friday and Saturday I had a short post about the annual miracle of the Holy Fire.

Please check out the other Sunday Snippets at This That and the Other Thing.

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Seven Quick Takes Pope stuff

I've always just thrown stuff in here to fill the seven, so this week I'm trying a theme. I already don't like it, but its done. Back to chaos and disorder next week.

1. I found a game where the object is to name (for me after the few 5 or 6 I guessed) all 40 countries that John Paul II visited more than once.
2. Random trivia on Papal Travels: Pope Paul VI was the only Pope to visit Iran.
3. I looked around on the site from #1 and found a game where you guess the most common papal names.
4. If you're looking for more of a challenge you can try to guess all the names used by Popes. Not each number, just the 80 different names before those numbers.
5. Pope Constantine traveled to Constantinople. He's also the only one of the Byzantine Popes who chose a distinctively Greek name.
6. A lot of people don't realize that the Popes at one time were the rulers of the Papal States across central Italy.
7. When Italy was united under Garibaldi, the Popes found themselves without any temporal power until Mussolini granted sovereignty over Vatican City to the Pope.

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Sunday Snippets 24MAR2012

This has been a relatively busy week of posting here at 50 Days After.

Monday:
Wisdom from Father Jose 18, 
St Ephrem on Eucharist
Death of Saint Joseph

Tuesday:
Thomas a Beckett on Religious Freedom


Wednesday:
Ever Virgin Mary

Thursday:
Latin Inscription on Sacred Heart Altar

Friday:
7 Quick Takes

Please check out the other Sunday Snippets at This That and the Other Thing

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Seven Quick Takes 23MAR2012

1. Nobody seems to have figured out Saint Quiz XIV yet. Hint: The spiked wheel next to her.
2. I'm taking a test for teacher certification tomorrow. I'm confident that it will go well, but prayers are appreciated.
3. I'm trying to read the entire Bible. I'm reading one book at a time. I started reading Job this week. I started to read it before, but for whatever reasons never made it all the way through. Now that I have set times when I read the Scriptures I think it will be easier to get past my short attention span.
4. Adopt a Catholic Blog in Prayer
5. The first Catholic radio station in Georgia started broadcasting last week. My house is on the very fringe of their coverage area, but its nice to listen to Saint Paul Radio in other parts of town.
6. Is there anyone else out there who thinks its inappropriate to sing/play Protestant praise & worship music during Eucharistic adoration? I like listening to it in the car, but music during adoration should lure and welcome souls into awareness and contemplation of the awesome and majestic mystery before them.
Our God is near to us!
7. Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man!
Please check out Seven Quick Takes at Conversion Diary

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

7 Quick Takes 09MAR2012

1. I have been reading Joshua and the commentary in the Bible mentions that Rahab is a prefiguring of the Church. This is the best article I've read explaining it. I've been thinking about it all week.
2. I think I found a job. Next week, God willing, I'll be employed again.
3. I'll go to drill for the first time this weekend with my new reserve unit.
4. I've read that St Joseph is the archetype of the Christian bishop. I'm not sure of the reasoning or theology, but it sounds neat.
5. I've now lived in my house for a whole year. Only 29 more and I'll have it paid off, although I hope I can get it paid off before that.
6. What does it say about me that I like having lots of trees in my yard so I can burn the leaves?
7. "The forceful practice of self-control and love, patience and stillness, will destroy the passions hidden within us"--St Thalassios the Libyan

Please check out the other 7 Quick Takes at Conversion Diary

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Saints and Scripture Matthew 10:16

"Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves." Matthew 10:16

While Christians and the Church, even in the best of times, is surrounded by enemies who hate our Lord and His Church for 2,000 years we have overcome. The Roman Empire which once persecuted the Church converted and became transformed in Christian love. And so it has continued through the years. Even in the recent past, the first revolutions without violence ever known in history were brought about by Christians who overcame the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Even on a personal level, conversions are constantly brought about by the love shown to others by Christians and their persistence in faith. From the person-to-person level all the way to the national and international level Christians have in the past and still do use gentleness and wisdom to change the world in Christ.
I don't personally have anything more insightful to say about this. The saints have had much to say about this passage:

If you love the good disciples, no thanks are due to you on that account; but rather seek by meekness to subdue the more troublesome. Every kind of wound is not healed with the same plaster. Mitigate violent attacks [of disease] by gentle applications. Be in all things wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove.  For this purpose you are composed of both flesh and spirit, that you may deal tenderly with those [evils] that present themselves visibly before you.

St Ignatios of Antioch

He sends them unprovided, bidding them look to those who should receive them for support; but rests not in that, but shews his power still further, “Lo, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.” Where observe that He does not say merely ‘to wolves,’ but “in the midst of wolves,” to shew His [p. 380] excellent might therein, that the sheep would overcome the wolves though they were in the midst of them; and though they received many bites from them, yet were they not destroyed, but rather convert them. And it is a much greater and a more wonderful power that can change their hearts than that can kill them. Among wolves He teaches them to shew the meekness of sheep.

St John Chrysostom

The harmlessness of doves is shewn by the assumption of that form by the Holy Spirit; as the Apostle speaks, “In malice be ye children.”

“Wise,” that they might escape [p. 381] snares; “simple,” that they might not do evil to others. The craft of the serpent is set before them as an example, for he hides his head with all the rest of his body, that he may protect the part in which life is. So ought we to expose our whole body, that we may guard our head which is Christ; that is, that we study to keep the faith whole and uncorrupt.

St Jerome

Please check out the other Saints and Scripture entries at The Kennedy Adventures!
May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Sunday Snippets 03MAR2012

Quiet week of blogging:
Wisdom from Father Jose
And now for something else Byzantine
Eastern Christian New Media Awards

Please check out the other Sunday Snippets at This That and the Other Thing

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

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

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

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:


May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

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.


May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Saints and Scripture Burning Bush

The picture above has a woman's face in the middle of the burning bush that Moses saw. The woman is Mary, the Theotokos. Many of the Church Fathers compared Mary to the burning bush because, even though she was pregnant with the Incarnate Word, she was never consumed and her nature remained unchanged.St Gregory of Nyssa said “What was prefigured at that time in the flame of the bush was openly manifested in the mystery of the Virgin … As on the mountain the bush burned but was not consumed, so the Virgin gave birth to the light and was not corrupted.”

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Sunday Snippets 28JAN

I've been relatively busy with posting this week. Of course on Sunday I posted with Saints and Scripture Sunday, this time about Zaccheus, then on Monday was my Wisdom from Father Jose posting and I joined in with Seven Quick Takes on Friday. Outside of my normal weekly postings is a caption contest of two Orthodox priests in Kudos for the Best Caption, a rambling about Jonah as an example of a vocations story in Jonah and Vocations, Father Pontifex Responds to "Why I Love Jesus, but Hate Religion", and a thought for the day in Handfuls of Sand. I almost forgot. I also took a picture of Princess's icon written by our parish priest, Father Damien.


May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Saints and Scripture Zaccheus

Today was Zaccheus Sunday in the Byzantine Churches. As such, the Gospel reading was the story of Zaccheus:

And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.
And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who He was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way.
And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, "Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house."
And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, "That He was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner."
And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold."
And Jesus said unto him, "This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."-- Luke 19:1-10

I read somewhere (I forgot save the link) that Zaccheus climbing into the sycamore was symbolic of Zaccheus taking up his cross (Paul mentions Jesus dying on the cross as bearing the sin of hanging from a tree) and dying to himself and his greedy desires in order to see who is Jesus.
When I did a Google Image search for pictures of Zaccheus, some of the pictures displayed were from the Garden of Eden. It does occur to me that it is almost the reverse of Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit. As Adam and Eve picked the forbidden fruit from the tree and mankind fell, Jesus called Zaccheus from the tree and brought salvation to his house in order "to save that which was lost".
According to some traditions, he followed St Peter after the Ascension of our Lord and became bishop of Caesarea.
May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog

Saints and Scripture 15JAN

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up" John 3:14
I like this quote not just because of the imagery and that I could meditate on this forever, but it almost seems to me that its like John 3:16's lesser known brother. Anyways, enough rambling...

I took this picture this morning (before Orthros and the Divine Liturgy) at my parish, St Ignatios. I like how it takes the quote and gives a visual representation linking the Old Testament story with the verse from the Gospel of St John.Of course the Son of Man lifted on the cross heals primarily our souls while the snake on the staff was solely a physical healing from the scourge the LORD had sent upon them.
I wish to point out that there are many parallels drawn between Jesus and Moses. The Exodus is very often cited as a parallel to the Christian experience. Slavery in Egypt is akin to our slavery to sin before baptism. The parting of the waters and washing away of Pharaoh's army is symbolic of our baptism and the washing away what held in slavery to sin. On our journey to the promised land, a.k.a. Heaven, we are afflicted because of our sins/grumbling/doubting. Just as the Israelites were healed by the snake on the staff.

Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.” 
The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.  So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. Numbers 21:4-9

The part about Moses interceding on their behalf reminds me of Jesus' parable about the fig tree:

And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any.  And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer;  and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’” Luke 13:6-9

I think that what I mean is self-evident. On that note, I'll quit rambling and leave you to think on this if you will it.

Trying out a new button for this

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Adopt A Catholic Blog