Saints and Scripture Sunday St Mary

Yes, this one is titled for St Mary... St Mary of Egypt. More on that after the Scripture verses.

Do not say, “His mercy is great;

my many sins he will forgive.”

For mercy and anger alike are with him;

his wrath comes to rest on the wicked.

Do not delay turning back to the LORD,

do not put it off day after day.

For suddenly his wrath will come forth;

at the time of vengeance, you will perish.

Sirach 5:6,7

 I can't do justice to the story of St Mary so I'll link to it. However, the long and the short of it is that she led a very sinful life, she set out on an anti-pilgrimage to the Holy Land, an invisible force kept her out of church, she realized her many sins and repented. She then spent the rest of her life in the desert in penance.
 During the homily, Deacon Kent encouraged us to use her example of repentance and penance.
I think the best thing though that can be said about this is summed up neatly by Pope Francis:
"The Lord never tires of forgiving. It is we who tire of asking for forgiveness."

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Saints and Scripture Christ the King

"But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord.  The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.  Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this
day—in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also.<sup>"
1Samuel 8:6-8

Today is the feast of Christ the King. Jesus Christ is king not only due to His divinity but He chose to become the stepson of Joseph a descendant of David, the ancient King of Israel.</sup>

As Zacharias so eloquently put it:
"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people,
And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of David His servant—" Luke 1:68-69 (emphasis mine)

He chose to become a descendant of David and in so doing God again became King of Israel. Jesus Christ is our Heavenly King and the King of His Chosen People again.

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Saints and Scripture Peter's Boat

Immediately He made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. ²³ After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone. ²⁴ But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was  contrary. ²⁵ And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. ²⁶ When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. ²⁷ But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “ Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” ²⁸ Peter said to Him, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” ²⁹ And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” ³¹ Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, “ You of little faith, why did you doubt?” ³² When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. ³³ And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!” 
Matthew 14:22-33 NASB

This was the reading today in our Melkite parish. This is one of my favorite passages! Unfortunately, I missed most of the homily because Princess had to go potty. Here's a picture of the icon on the wall of our parish, notice the mast.

I always think of Peter's boat as a type of the Church. I first came across this as I meditated on the image of St Peter's Barque on a frosted glass window in a chapel at Mount Angel Seminary. Jesus and His followers journeyed together to the other side of the sea carrying Jesus and His salvific message. Also it is shown by Peter's sinking that the only safe and sure place is in the boat (Church). Also, note that it is Peter's boat as in Peter the man whom all Popes have succeeded. I always think of Chef from Apocalypse Now after he was attacked by a tiger while looking for mangoes: "Don't get out of the f@#$*!g boat!"
I think of Christ walking on the water as opposed to parting the sea. I'm not sure where there thought will eventually go.
I think of St Peter in desperate need of physical salvation crying out to Jesus to save him. I like the parallel with spiritual salvation and Jesus carrying him back to the boat which is a type of the Church.
I think about the last sentence. They worshiped Him. There are some miracles where the Apostles are clearly more impressed than at other times. Even still, after the Resurrection some of them still doubted.
The lack of faith isn't just with Peter for being afraid and thus sinking, the other Apostles were clearly worried the boat would sink and them with it.
I also think of the story when Jesus was sleeping through the storm and they woke him to save the boat from sinking. Did He go back to sleep? For that matter what would the Savior of the World dream about?
I've published poems on 50 Days After about St Peter's barque here and here. In both poems I emphasized Peter's barque as a type of the Church and Christ's guarantee that the Church would never fail is portrayed by the unsinkable nature of St Peter's Barque, after all the "gates of hell shall never prevail against" the Church aka Peter's Barque.

Click on the picture to see the other submissions for Saints and Scripture Sunday.

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Saints and Scripture Great Commission II

I had a Saints and Scripture post about the Great Commission before, but I wanted to zero in on a part of it that I had never thought about before.
I was driving along one day listening to Saint Paul Radio and I heard someone talk about Immanuel as a name for Jesus. He made the point that Immanuel means "God is with us" and this Name is right after the Great Commission.
"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." Mathew 28:20 (Douay-Rheims)
"I am" is a Hebrew Name for God and so in that italicized fragment He reiterated the Name Immanuel. Jesus, true God and true Man, was very certainly with St Peter and the other 10 faithful apostles, but He is also still with us until the end.
Please check out the other Saints and Scriptures at The Kennedy Adventures

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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!
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Saints and Scripture Theophany

The sea saw and fled;

the Jordan turned back.

The mountains skipped like rams;

the hills, like lambs.

Why was it, sea, that you fled?

Jordan, that you turned back?

Mountains, that you skipped like rams?

You hills, like lambs?

Tremble, earth, before the Lord,

before the God of Jacob,

Who turned the rock into pools of water,

flint into a flowing spring.

Psalm 114:3-8

This past Friday was the Feast of the Epiphany in the Roman Catholic Church and the Theophany in Eastern Catholic Churches. I'm not sure how many Eastern Orthodox celebrated Theophany on Friday, because so many still use the Julian Calendar (Its 19JAN in the Julian Calendar). Both Epiphany and Theophany are from Greek words meaning that God is revealed. The Roman Church celebrates this with readings about the Magi emphasizing the revelation of His divinity to the Gentiles. In the Eastern Churches though, the readings are from the Baptism of Christ when God the Father is heard to say "This is my beloved Son" and the Holy Spirit descends as a dove.
One of the songs sung during the Divine Liturgy was Psalm 114. It emphasizes the wonder and amazement of all creation that the Creator humbled Himself. During the homily Father Damien mentioned that when He was baptized it wasn't so much that He was cleansed by the water so much as the water was sanctified by His presence.

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Saints and Scripture Jesus' Divinity

"Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, 'Jesus is accursed'”; and no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit." --1 Corinthians 12:3

I've met many people who refuse to believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ (Mormons, Muslims, Atheists). I've also met people who profess the Christian faith, but refuse to believe that Jesus Christ is the Second Person in the Holy Trinity.
St Athanasius struggled against the Arian Heresy, which denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ. He was exiled a few times and his life was threatened, but yet he persisted in the orthodox faith. Today he is a saint and a hero of the faith. Some quotes from St Athanasius on Jesus' Divinity:
“Even on the cross He did not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness to the presence of its Maker.”
“He became what we are so that he might make us what he is.”(When you receive the Eucharist, you become one with the Lord Jesus)
“God became man so that man might become a god."
“He, the Life of all, our Lord and Saviour, did not arrange the manner of his own death lest He should seem to be afraid of some other kind. No. He accepted and bore upon the cross a death inflicted by others, and those other His special enemies, a death which to them was supremely terrible and by no means to be faced; and He did this in order that, by destroying even this death, He might Himself be believed to be the Life, and the power of death be recognised as finally annulled. A marvellous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonour and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death's defeat.”


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Saints and Scripture Ora et Labora

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve." --Colossians 3:23,24

Ora et Labora in today's world.

St Benedict in the rule he wrote for his monks over 1,000 years ago, (It is still used by religious orders to this day) emphasize "ora et labora"; in English "prayer and work". He understood that work can be prayer and he exhorted his monks, as do many abbots today, to make their work into prayer. Its often joked amongst Benedictines and Trappists that the motto of St Benedict is "Ora et labora and some mora labora". The daily prayers of the monks are even described as "opus Dei" or the work of God.
Talents were originally a coin. We have taken that word and used it as a metaphor for those abilities and other blessings from the Lord. Clearly from the Parable of the Talents and the passage above we are to invest these talents in such a way to glorify the Lord God.

Please stop in to the host of Saints and Scripture, The Kennedy Adventure
h/t to Andrew Cusack for the photo

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Saints and Scripture St Raphael the Archangel

"For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord." --Tobit 12:15

St Raphael is one of the seven archangels. The others we have from the Canon of Scripture are Sts Michael and Gabriel. Apocryphal sources, to include Enoch which some Christians consider part of the Canon, name the others as Uriel, Saltiel, Jeadriel and Barachiel.
Notice how each of these names ends with El. This is one of the Biblical names of God. The inclusion of a deity in a proper name is called theophory. Raphael means God is healing or Healing one of God.
If you are familiar with the book of Tobit, you know that Raphael came to release Tobits future wife from the demon Asmodeus and heal Tobias, Tobit's father, of his blindness.

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Saints and Scripture Forgiveness

If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.
Matthew 6:14, 15
In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus reminds us that when we pray "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" that we get from the Father what we put into it. I don't have anything to add to the plain language of this passage.
The saints who come to mind for me when I think of forgiveness are St Peter and St Bakhita.
St Peter denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed and begged forgiveness from the Lord.
St Josephine Bakhita was originally from Sudan. As a little girl, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery. She had several masters, including one who used scarification to mark her as his property. Eventually one of her masters took her to Italy.
While in Italy she took her master's children to catechism classes. She heard the Gospel, believed and was baptized. However, when her master tried to take her back to Italy the Canossian Sisters took the case to court and she was freed.
She became a Canossian Sister and forgave the many people who had treated her as property and hurt her in so many ways. She realized that her suffering and their evil brought her to Italy where she found out about Jesus and became a Christian.
Bakhita means "fortunate one".


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Saints and Scripture Martyrs

"For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it."
--Matthew 16:25

The Church has been persecuted from the beginning. I've blogged before about St Ignatios of Antioch, the disciple of St John the Apostle who was thrown to the lions because of his Christian faith.
We all know about the persecution during by the Roman Empire, but how many us have given any thought to the persecutions suffered under the English, Vietnamese, Japanese and Koreans? How many of us knew that St Thomas was martyred in India?
How many of us have sat down and realized that persecution has been continuous since they crucified Jesus and stoned Stephen? As Christians we've even persecuted other parts of our Church.
In the 20th Century the leading cause of persecution and thus martyrdom was Communism. Today the leading source of persecution is Islamic governments and extremists, followed by Communists, and the third source is Hindu fundamentalists.
Keep the persecuted Church in your prayers. If you want to know what else to do, look here or here.
"Remember them that are in bonds, as if you were bound with them; and them that labour, as being yourselves also in the body."
--Hebrews 13:3

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Saints and Scripture 14Aug

And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory.

Isaiah 6:3

And the four living creatures had each of them six wings; and round about and within they are full of eyes. And they rested not day and night, saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.

Revelation 4:8

Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.

Luke 2:14

One of the most beautiful aspects of the Ancient Churches (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican) is also one of the least taught/talked about, at least in the Western Churches. What I am talking about is the union of Heaven and Earth during the celebration of the Mass/Divine Liturgy.
This union is most evident when we sing praise to Lord of the Heavenly Host just the same way as the angels in Heaven (see above). For those of us who have been Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican for any amount of time those passages are familiar as part of the liturgy. "Holy, holy, holy" is from prophetic visions of how the angels worship in Heaven and the third is from the Lucan account of the Nativity and the angelic worship around the Baby Jesus.
Certainly here I would like to mention Sts Michael, Raphael and of course our Guardian Angels.
Heavenly Host pray for us to the Lord, Our God.

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Saints and Scripture Unity

That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Gospel of St John 17:21 (Douay-Rheims)

All Christians certainly share in the New Covenant and as such we all have a spiritual communion with one another, but we are called to a much closer unity. Christ prayed at the Mount of Olives that we may be one as He and the Father are one. Christ and the Father don't say two different things about contraception, Eucharist or anything else. They are of One Voice.
St Josaphat the Bishop of Polotsk was martyred for his attempts to reconcile the Eastern Orthodox is his eparchy with the Catholic Church and reestablish unity.
Sts Athanasius and Maximus the Confessor suffered much during their lives because they preached the truth about the nature of Christ and refused to lead others into separate Churches. Much of their suffering could have been eased if they had led some kind of "Reformation", but like the prophets of the Old Testament they remained steadfast through the Holy Spirit and corrected their brothers and maintained the unity of God's people by converting and convincing others away from false ideas about our God.

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Saints and Scripture 144

Of David. Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war;

My safe guard and my fortress, my stronghold, my deliverer, My shield, in whom I trust, who subdues peoples under me

Psalm 144:1-2

We all have our own internal battles and the spiritual war rages within and all around us. Fortunately, the Lord of Hosts provides grace, especially through the Sacraments and Mass or the Divine Liturgy (for Eastern Catholics/Orthodox).
St Michael the Archangel is the poster angel for spiritual warfare. After all, in Revelation we see that he was the leader of those angels loyal to the Almighty. He is the one depicted with Satan underfoot about to stab him. His name means "Who is like God?", a stern rebuke to the pride of Satan and his followers.

This week's Saints and Scripture over at The Kennedy Adventure

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Saints and Scripture Welcome

‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;--Matthew 25:35 (emphasis mine)

The above quote is from the parable of the sheep and rams in Matthew 25. Everyone remembers that Christ calls on all of us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty and visit the imprisoned, but how many of us remember that He also calls on us to welcome strangers?
Yet, welcoming others, especially strangers, is an important Christian trait. If not because Jesus said so in Matthew, then because the theme of hospitality and welcoming strangers occurs again and again. In Genesis there is the example of the Hospitality of Abraham. Later, in Hebrews, there is teaching:
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:2

St Benedict of Nursia understood this when he wrote his Rule which is still used today by the Benedictines and Cistercians. In it he wrote:
"All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, who said: 'I was a stranger and you welcomed me'."
-- Rule of St Benedict 53

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Saints and Scripture Great Commission

"Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Matthew 28:19
This passage at the end of St Matthew's Gospel is well known as the Great Commission. In it we are called to share and spread the light of Christ and the Good News of His Salvation to all peoples. When we think of missionaries we normally think of the Colonial Age of Europe when Europe conquered the world and they sent missionaries to the Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa. We don't normally think of the 1st Century mission work to Ethiopia, Armenia, Georgia, Persia, India, or Rome.During the Age of Exploration when Europeans finally sailed around the continent of Africa and began sailing to India, they discovered there was already a vibrant Christian community there. St Thomas, better known for his disbelief at towards the end of the Gospel of St John, had gone there a few short years after the Resurrection. He had preached there and baptized there and the Church survived his martyrdom. The Indian Church received its priests and instruction from the Syrian Christians. Even after the Muslim conquest they still kept in contact and the St Thomas Christian communities thrived and evangelized for well over a millennium before European missionaries came bearing Latin Rite Christianity. Some of the Indian Christians joined the Latin Rite, many others became Catholic as groups (Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankar Church Sui Uirisi), but many others still remain unreconciled with the Catholic Church.

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Saints and Scripture Lions

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8
It goes without saying that the Christian life is one lived on guard and alert. We wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ and we live sober and alert against the Devil, described above as a prowling lion waiting for an unaware, unsuspecting soul to carry off into the darkness.
Peter and his successors have warned the faithful against many sins and temptations over the years and continue to do so today through preaching, encyclicals and other means. Before Peter became the bishop of Rome he was the bishop of Antioch. One of his successors to the Patriarchate of Antioch was Saint Ignatios of Antioch.
St Igantios was not caught unaware by the devil, but was granted a martyrs death mauled and eaten by lions in Rome. Shortly before his martyrdom he wrote this:
"I am God's wheat, ground fine by the lion's teeth to be made purest bread for Christ. No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire. The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God."
He is also the namesake of the parish I belong to. Almost every Sunday (depending upon season it might be switched out), we sing a prayer that starts off "O Ignatios you received the prize of Victory..." He stay alert against the temptation to renounce his Lord and received the Victory of a Martyr's death.
See The Kennedy Adventures! Not Struggling Alone: Saints and Scripture

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Saints and Scripture Five Wise Virgins

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish, and five wise. But the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept.And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise: Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. The wise answered, saying: Lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you, go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. Now whilst they went to buy, the bridegroom came: and they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. But at last come also the other virgins, saying: Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answering said: Amen I say to you, I know you not. Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour. --Matthew 25:1-13

The parable of the ten virgins reminds us that we must always be ready for Christ's return and warns us that if we are not ready we can miss out.
When I decided on this passage and I looked in Haydock's Commentary I found this:
"Under this parable, we have the state of all Christians in their mortal pilgrimage justly delineated. The wise took oil in their lamps, the necessary qualifications of grace and charity, joined with divine faith, and an additional supply of oil in their vessels; i.e. they laid up in store for themselves a solid foundation of good works. S. Gregory teaches, that by the lamps, faith is meant; and by the light, good works. Hence he concludes that the bad, although they have lamps, i.e. faith, no less than the good, shall be excluded; because their lamps are out, i.e. their faith is dead, without charity and good works to enlighten them"
Like it says in James, "faith without works is dead". We are not living properly as Christians if our faith does not shine into the darkness of the world through our faith and good works. Of course, good works can be something as little and simple as welcoming a stranger (Matthew 25:35). St Benedict is his Rule wrote that monks should welcome all strangers the same as they should welcome Christ.
Parable of the ten virgins reminds me of the many saints who died as virgins, consecrated or otherwise. Among these saints are St Lucy and St Agnes.

From EWTN:

According to tradition, Agnes was a Christian girl of Rome, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, when Diocletian began his persecutions. Like St. Lucy, she was sentenced by a judge to a house of ill fame, but a young man who looked upon her lustfully was stricken blind. Thereafter she was taken out to be burned, but whether she met her death by fire or sword we cannot know with any certainty. Although we have no contemporary sources for the facts of her life and martyrdom, there is little reason to doubt the main outline of the story. References to this young saint appear in many Church writings of later date. St. Ambrose, St. Damasus, and Prudentius all praise her purity and heroism. Her name occurs in the Canon of the Mass. Agnes' crypt was in the Via Nomentana, and the stone covering her remains was carven with the words, "Agna sanctissima" (most holy lamb). A church in her honor is presumed to have been built at Rome in the time of Constantine the Great. In the apse of this basilica, which was rebuilt in the seventh century by Pope Honorius, there is still to be seen the large and beautiful mosaic depicting the saint. St. Agnes is the patroness of young girls and her symbol is, naturally, a lamb. On the anniversary of her martyrdom, the Pope, after high pontifical Mass in her church at Rome, blesses two lambs, and their wool is later woven into the pallia worn by archbishops.

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Saints and Scripture Keys to the Kingdom

Today, in the Eastern Churches, is the Feast of the Honorable Chains of the Holy and Illustrious Apostle, St Peter. In this case, the chains referred to are from the first time he was imprisoned, not the chains from his Roman prison(see here for more). With this in mind, my mind wandered on things to post about for Saints and Scripture Sunday. I decided to have a post on Jesus giving Peter the Keys to His Father's Kingdom.
First I want to draw your attention to a passage from Isaiah about God setting up a new Prime Minister in ancient Israel:

"And I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand: and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda. And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, divers kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups even to every instrument of music. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the peg be removed, that was fastened in the sure place: and it shall be broken and shall fall: and that which hung thereon, shall perish, because the Lord hath spoken it."

--Isaiah 22:21-25

Now we see the famous passage from the Gospel of St Matthew which every Catholic should know, establishing St. Peter as the first Pope:

And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

--Gospel of St Matthew 16:18,19

Jesus, clearly was referring back to Isaiah and was not just establishing authority in Peter, but also setting him in an appointed position. As a King in the Davidic line, Jesus set Peter as His "Prime Minister", a position which was clearly intended to have successors.

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Saint and Scripture St John Climacus

As I was watching EWTN on Wednesday morning I saw a quote: "Run from places of sin as from the plague."--St John Climacus
I found the saying to be really profound, since sin is just as dangerous to souls as plagues are to bodies. It is a reminder to actively resist that which draws us away from God.
St John Climacus was born in the 6th Century in Palestine. At 16 he joined St Catherine's Monastery (it still exists) on Mt Sinai. After a time he withdrew to a hermitage at the base of the mountain. Two of his written works still exist today, Ladder of Divine Ascent and To the Pastor. The Ladder of Divine Ascent also has an icon named for it.
St John Climacus's quote also reminded of Christ's warnings to cut off anything which leads us into sin.

"You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell." Matthew 5:28-30

"And if thy hand, or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to go into life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee having one eye to enter into life, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." Matthew 18:8

"And if thy hand scandalize thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life, maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into unquenchable fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished. And if thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter lame into life everlasting, than having two feet, to be cast into the hell of unquenchable fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished. And if thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out. It is better for thee with one eye to enter into the kingdom of God, than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished." Mark 9:42-47

May God bless all who read my ramblings,


Source for the pic of St John Climacus
Source for the ladder icon