Jeremiah 1:5
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Second Reading
From a sermon by Saint Augustine (Nov. 13, 384 - Aug. 28, 430 A.D.)
The voice of one crying in the wilderness
The Church observes the birth of John as in some way sacred; and you will not find any other of the great men of old whose birth we celebrate officially. We celebrate John’s, as we celebrate Christ’s. This point cannot be passed over in silence, and if I may not perhaps be able to explain it in the way that such an important matter deserves, it is still worth thinking about it a little more deeply and fruitfully than usual.
John is born of an old woman who is barren; Christ is born of a young woman who is a virgin. That John will be born is not believed, and his father is struck dumb; that Christ will be born is believed, and he is conceived by faith.
I have proposed some matters for inquiry, and listed in advance some things that need to be discussed. I have introduced these points even if we are not up to examining all the twists and turns of such a great mystery, either for lack of capacity or for lack of time. You will be taught much better by the one who speaks in you even when I am not here; the one about whom you think loving thoughts, the one whom you have taken into your hearts and whose temple you have become.
John, it seems, has been inserted as a kind of boundary between the two Testaments, the Old and the New. That he is somehow or other a boundary is something that the Lord himself indicates when he says, The Law and the prophets were until John. So he represents the old and heralds the new. Because he represents the old, he is born of an elderly couple; because he represents the new, he is revealed as a prophet in his mother’s womb. You will remember that, before he was born, at Mary’s arrival he leapt in his mother’s womb. Already he had been marked out there, designated before he was born; it was already shown whose forerunner he would be, even before he saw him. These are divine matters, and exceed the measure of human frailty. Finally, he is born, he receives a name, and his father’s tongue is loosed.
Zachary is struck dumb and loses his voice, until John, the Lord’s forerunner, is born and releases his voice for him. What does Zachary’s silence mean, but that prophecy was obscure and, before the proclamation of Christ, somehow concealed and shut up? It is released and opened up by his arrival, it becomes clear when the one who was being prophesied is about to come. The releasing of Zachary’s voice at the birth of John has the same significance as the tearing of the veil of the Temple at the crucifixion of Christ. If John were meant to proclaim himself, he would not be opening Zachary’s mouth. The tongue is released because a voice is being born – for when John was already heralding the Lord, he was asked, Who are you and he replied I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
John is the voice, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word. John is a voice for a time, but Christ is the eternal Word from the beginning.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
St. Aloyius Gonzaga
Today is Saint Aloyius Gonzaga Day! He was born in 1568 and died in 1591 at the age of 23.
A little U.S. history....Gonzaga University was named after him. The university was established by a Jesuit Priest who purchased a plot of land with 936 Silver Dollars.
Here is a letter from St. Gonzaga to his mother at the time of his death. He speaks of the land of the living and how powerful his prayers will be for her when he is in God's presence.
Second Reading
A letter from St Aloysius Gonzaga to his mother
God's mercies shall be my song for ever
May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours for ever, most honoured lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad, then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose him.
The divine goodness, most honoured lady, is a fathomless and shoreless ocean, and I confess that when I plunge my mind into thought of this it is carried away by the immensity and feels quite lost and bewildered there. In return for my short and feeble labours, God is calling me to eternal rest; his voice from heaven invites me to the infinite bliss I have sought so languidly, and promises me this reward for the tears I have so seldom shed.
Take care above all things, most honoured lady, not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Saviour; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies for ever, and enjoy eternal happiness. When he takes away what he once lent us, his purpose is to store our treasure elsewhere more safely and bestow on us those very blessings that we ourselves would most choose to have.
I write all this with the one desire that you and all my family may consider my departure a joy and favour and that you especially may speed with a mother’s blessing my passage across the waters till I reach the shore to which all hopes belong. I write the more willingly because I have no clearer way of expressing the love and respect I owe you as your son.
A little U.S. history....Gonzaga University was named after him. The university was established by a Jesuit Priest who purchased a plot of land with 936 Silver Dollars.
Here is a letter from St. Gonzaga to his mother at the time of his death. He speaks of the land of the living and how powerful his prayers will be for her when he is in God's presence.
Second Reading
A letter from St Aloysius Gonzaga to his mother
God's mercies shall be my song for ever
May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours for ever, most honoured lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad, then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose him.
The divine goodness, most honoured lady, is a fathomless and shoreless ocean, and I confess that when I plunge my mind into thought of this it is carried away by the immensity and feels quite lost and bewildered there. In return for my short and feeble labours, God is calling me to eternal rest; his voice from heaven invites me to the infinite bliss I have sought so languidly, and promises me this reward for the tears I have so seldom shed.
Take care above all things, most honoured lady, not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Saviour; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies for ever, and enjoy eternal happiness. When he takes away what he once lent us, his purpose is to store our treasure elsewhere more safely and bestow on us those very blessings that we ourselves would most choose to have.
I write all this with the one desire that you and all my family may consider my departure a joy and favour and that you especially may speed with a mother’s blessing my passage across the waters till I reach the shore to which all hopes belong. I write the more willingly because I have no clearer way of expressing the love and respect I owe you as your son.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Mark 4:10-12
Mark 4:10 And when he was alone, those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables. 11 And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; 12 so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand....
What we believe.....A summary of the history of the church and the Eucharist.
What We Believe (link to teachings of Catholic Church)
When I started listening to the Cathecism three years ago I was in disbelief because what I thought the Church believed was much much different than what I had been told the Church believed. I believed for forty years a false truth about the Catholic Church. To my amazement the Catholic Church believed more in the way of Christ than I had even known. I always wanted these things for my life that the bible teaches but they seemed out of reach. Like actually an impossiblity in today's society to grasp for all the things that we written in God's word.
Now that it has been three years since I first started discovering the truth of God's word I am relieved. There is true peace in Christ in the Eucharist. When Jesus came he taught THE WAY. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "No one comes to the Father, but through me." So he taught THE WAY to the disciples and they have passed in on. Peter was the first Pope, "and on this rock I will build my church...." Jesus called Peter "Rock". {The wiseman built his house upon the Rock. The wiseman here was probably Solomon because he built is temple on the Holy Mountain of God.}
So Jesus created this WAY and there were instructions given to the Apostles and those that followed them. This is called Apostolic Succession http://www.catholic.com/tracts/apostolic-succession and it is a line stemming from the apostles to the present day. The Church still teaches the same way. And when you discover it for yourself you will know without a doubt that this is the truth.
The second part of the passage that I quoted was "No one comes to the Father, but through me." The apostles and their students or disciples of the apostles believed all that Christ said. The apostles had seen the risen Lord and all the miracles that he performed and ultimately died for Christ and his Church. Coming to the Father through Christ consisted then of fulling believing all the Christ said and did. In the gospel of John chapter 6:48-51 Christ says: 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” THE Bread THAT I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. This is literal! Not in a way that means we are to become cannibals but in an unfamiliar way. A way that is heavenly or spiritual. Christ becomes literally present when the ordained priest says the words of consecration over the bread or wafers. And Christ's literal presence here is spiritual. It is not that we see him standing there with us. It becomes a faith like a child. Christ says that anything you ask for in my name it shall be given when speaking to the apostles. Jesus ordained the apostles to do his work on earth and to pass it on.
HISTORY OF THE EUCHARIST
The Eucharist is the communion table that Christ implemented in the Last Supper. But it all started in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were right with God in communion with him in the garden. You could say that Adam was the first priest. He tilled that garden, named the animals, and God gave him authority over everything on earth. They feasted together in the garden (The Sacred Banquet) and it was all good until the fall. Eve grasped for the forbidden fruit. God had told them that they could not eat of it, of this tree of knowledge of good and evil. Ultimately this created a chasm between them and God and they were no longer in a state of grace. It interrupted the flow of grace. And instead of living forever and being fed, the sacred banquet was disrupted and death was now a part of the human condition.
Eventually God raises up Isreal to be the light for all the nations that will draw the world to them and to God. God frees them through the way of the Passover. In the passover they are to spread the blood of the lamb on the door post and eat all of the sacrifical lamb. Hence, another meal and this one includes unblemished lambs. So if they do all that is required of them they will escape God's wrath as the Angel of Death passover. These lambs represent the Bread of Life.
In the desert, Isreal is fed the Bread from heaven, the bread from heaven that Jesus talks about in John chapter 6. But he states that He is the bread that comes down from heaven. Let's read it again: John 6:48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
I am believing Christ and his statement.
MORE HISTORY OF THE EUCHARIST. THE SACRED MEAL.THE WAY OF THE LORD.
Isaiah 2:1 The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, 3 and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”
This is the same mountain in which Jesus speaks from and feeds the 5000, teaching the beatitudes, speaking with Moses and Elijah and giving the Great Commission. Speaking on feeding the 5000....there were 12 loaves remaining which are said to represent the 12 tribes of Judah and symbolize Jesus feeding the world. Other symbols of this is the fact that Jesus was born in a manger in the town of Bethlehem. Bethlehem means "House of Bread". And what was a manger but a feeding trough for sheep.
When I started listening to the Cathecism three years ago I was in disbelief because what I thought the Church believed was much much different than what I had been told the Church believed. I believed for forty years a false truth about the Catholic Church. To my amazement the Catholic Church believed more in the way of Christ than I had even known. I always wanted these things for my life that the bible teaches but they seemed out of reach. Like actually an impossiblity in today's society to grasp for all the things that we written in God's word.
Now that it has been three years since I first started discovering the truth of God's word I am relieved. There is true peace in Christ in the Eucharist. When Jesus came he taught THE WAY. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "No one comes to the Father, but through me." So he taught THE WAY to the disciples and they have passed in on. Peter was the first Pope, "and on this rock I will build my church...." Jesus called Peter "Rock". {The wiseman built his house upon the Rock. The wiseman here was probably Solomon because he built is temple on the Holy Mountain of God.}
So Jesus created this WAY and there were instructions given to the Apostles and those that followed them. This is called Apostolic Succession http://www.catholic.com/tracts/apostolic-succession and it is a line stemming from the apostles to the present day. The Church still teaches the same way. And when you discover it for yourself you will know without a doubt that this is the truth.
The second part of the passage that I quoted was "No one comes to the Father, but through me." The apostles and their students or disciples of the apostles believed all that Christ said. The apostles had seen the risen Lord and all the miracles that he performed and ultimately died for Christ and his Church. Coming to the Father through Christ consisted then of fulling believing all the Christ said and did. In the gospel of John chapter 6:48-51 Christ says: 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” THE Bread THAT I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. This is literal! Not in a way that means we are to become cannibals but in an unfamiliar way. A way that is heavenly or spiritual. Christ becomes literally present when the ordained priest says the words of consecration over the bread or wafers. And Christ's literal presence here is spiritual. It is not that we see him standing there with us. It becomes a faith like a child. Christ says that anything you ask for in my name it shall be given when speaking to the apostles. Jesus ordained the apostles to do his work on earth and to pass it on.
HISTORY OF THE EUCHARIST
The Eucharist is the communion table that Christ implemented in the Last Supper. But it all started in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were right with God in communion with him in the garden. You could say that Adam was the first priest. He tilled that garden, named the animals, and God gave him authority over everything on earth. They feasted together in the garden (The Sacred Banquet) and it was all good until the fall. Eve grasped for the forbidden fruit. God had told them that they could not eat of it, of this tree of knowledge of good and evil. Ultimately this created a chasm between them and God and they were no longer in a state of grace. It interrupted the flow of grace. And instead of living forever and being fed, the sacred banquet was disrupted and death was now a part of the human condition.
Eventually God raises up Isreal to be the light for all the nations that will draw the world to them and to God. God frees them through the way of the Passover. In the passover they are to spread the blood of the lamb on the door post and eat all of the sacrifical lamb. Hence, another meal and this one includes unblemished lambs. So if they do all that is required of them they will escape God's wrath as the Angel of Death passover. These lambs represent the Bread of Life.
In the desert, Isreal is fed the Bread from heaven, the bread from heaven that Jesus talks about in John chapter 6. But he states that He is the bread that comes down from heaven. Let's read it again: John 6:48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
I am believing Christ and his statement.
MORE HISTORY OF THE EUCHARIST. THE SACRED MEAL.THE WAY OF THE LORD.
Isaiah 2:1 The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, 3 and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”
This is the same mountain in which Jesus speaks from and feeds the 5000, teaching the beatitudes, speaking with Moses and Elijah and giving the Great Commission. Speaking on feeding the 5000....there were 12 loaves remaining which are said to represent the 12 tribes of Judah and symbolize Jesus feeding the world. Other symbols of this is the fact that Jesus was born in a manger in the town of Bethlehem. Bethlehem means "House of Bread". And what was a manger but a feeding trough for sheep.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Unworthy
I step into Your Church.
A new sense of something.
My senses are aroused.
What is this that draws me?
Unknowingly I visit You again.I recognize You.
I am awe struck.
So unworthy!
You come to me Lord in the Eucharist.
My mind is overwhelmed by Your holiness.
I reverently bow before you.
I am drawn to my knees.
I consume you.
I receive discernment.
You begin to reveal my unholiness.
Confession reluctantly follows.
I kneel before you.
I receive graces.
I pray reverently and sorrowfully.
You tenderly console me.
Grace abounds.
I am stronger.
I am receiving the Sacraments.
You consume me from the inside out.
I am being made new.
I am One with Christ and his Body.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Confession....Ughhh, a convert's view.
Sometimes I think that this might have been a lot easier had I always known about confession. As I stand in line for confession I begin to sweat. I see little kids going in. They come out kneel before Christ and pray. What a witness! I am so impressed. My stomach has butterflies, see because I confessed this same sin before. Get out of me! I think to myself as I wish there was something else I had to confess. But as a great apologist said when he went for confession and told the priest that it was the same old list of sins, the priest replied, "You want new ones?"
So of course we don't want new sins, but it seems like Christ is working to get the world out of me by reminding me of my sins and I keep slipping. Then finally I get rid of one and another one comes! I think, "Where did that come from?" "I hadn't cursed like that in twenty years!" Then I'm reminded that even though I hadn't done that in a while it was still there and needs to be purged. So Jesus is making me aware of things that are still in me.
I reflect on this for a while and realize that in this process of reconcilation and regeneration that I AM becoming new. Christ is coming in, as I consume him in the Eucharist and then He is pushing these sins out of me to make more room for Himself and make me clean from the inside out. It is a process. I am very thankful for this process. Discernment is a gift and grace of the Holy Spirit. When I start to recognize Christ within me my attitude is adjusted. I am unworthy of His presence within me, but he calls me as I am.
My spouse has said that our mouth is the alter when we accept this gift of Christ in the Eucharist. I want this alter to be clean. I must come to Him as a pure spotless bride. This involves contrition and then confession, because I do not want to profane Christ's Holy body. [ 1 Corinthians 11:27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.] Christ's body is received by many others that are also becoming part of His body. I should not receive it if it in any way might affect the other parts. [1 Corinthians 1:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.]
So of course we don't want new sins, but it seems like Christ is working to get the world out of me by reminding me of my sins and I keep slipping. Then finally I get rid of one and another one comes! I think, "Where did that come from?" "I hadn't cursed like that in twenty years!" Then I'm reminded that even though I hadn't done that in a while it was still there and needs to be purged. So Jesus is making me aware of things that are still in me.
I reflect on this for a while and realize that in this process of reconcilation and regeneration that I AM becoming new. Christ is coming in, as I consume him in the Eucharist and then He is pushing these sins out of me to make more room for Himself and make me clean from the inside out. It is a process. I am very thankful for this process. Discernment is a gift and grace of the Holy Spirit. When I start to recognize Christ within me my attitude is adjusted. I am unworthy of His presence within me, but he calls me as I am.
My spouse has said that our mouth is the alter when we accept this gift of Christ in the Eucharist. I want this alter to be clean. I must come to Him as a pure spotless bride. This involves contrition and then confession, because I do not want to profane Christ's Holy body. [ 1 Corinthians 11:27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.] Christ's body is received by many others that are also becoming part of His body. I should not receive it if it in any way might affect the other parts. [1 Corinthians 1:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.]
I want to be Holy as He is Holy.
I made it through confession but to my suprise, I was called out by Christ (or rather his servant being used by Christ ie. the priest) on some things that I left out of my confession, things that I considered not as important but Christ thought otherwise. With my head hanging low I said a final prayer or act of contrition in the presence of the priest and added in general terms the things that Jesus and I knew that I should have confessed in the first place. I was glad I made it through with only a little bit of perspiration and shame. And maybe some leg cramps but that could have been due to the gardening I had done the day before. I'm not sure.
The priest pronounced the words of absolution in Persona Christi (in the person of Christ) and told me to go say an "Our Father" and that was it. It had been a month since my last confession and I was relieved and so thankful that I can now once again take of the Eucharist, of course the only ones that knew I was not taking it was my husband, me, and God, but just to be able to have the sacrament of confession is a real gift. There is grace that flows from humbly coming before our Lord and speaking of the wrong I have done. This sacrament makes me want to work on my forgiveness towards others. Am I so easy to forgive others and to forgive them of less than maybe what I have just confessed? That's a real examination right there! Can I do that? I must do that for I am called to that! Otherwise I cannot even sincerely say the "Our Father". Which states "forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." I am still a work in progress.
Thank you Christ Jesus for not turning me away and for being patient with me.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
A new pair of eyes.
This has been on my mind all day. I thought how I used to spend time on Sunday's singing, talking, and hearing about Jesus, but now I get to spend actual time with Jesus. I get to be in his presence any time I choose to go to the church and kneel before him in the blessed sacrament. If you love someone you don't just talk about them and never go be with them. If you love them you want to be with them all the time. I can do that any day of the week. Christ's presence is real in the Eucharist. Once I received this holy and divine presence of Christ's resurrected body in the form of the bread (Bread of the Presence in the Old Testament or Bread of the Face) I received a supernatural substance, an awareness of something greater was happening within me and outside of me, it was all around me, they were all around me. There was an awareness of the presence of the Saints that have gone before us. Revelation 5:8 says that they lift up our prayers to God. So fascinating. Reading the Bible for the first time with a new pair of eyes, no Baptist glasses or Methodist glasses or Non-Denominational glasses (which is a denomination by-the-way) and things that were once unexplainable or seemed confusing that no one would give me a straight answer about are now understandable and making sense. How does that happen? Only by the Grace of God! I once was blind but now I see.
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