Reading through the second letter of S. Paul to S. Timothy

← back to first Timothy
onward to Titus →

Paul comes off brilliantly in this letter to Saint Timothy, the second one to that bishop of Ephesus that we have in the New Testament. This is certainly my favourite of all his surviving letters for its brevity and its completeness as a note of encouragement and instruction to Saint Timothy, his beloved disciple and son, whom he had himself ordained to the priesthood (laying on of hands).

“I keep the memory of thy tears, and long to see thee again, so as to have my fill of joy when I receive fresh proof of thy sincere faith. That faith dwelt in thy grandmother Lois, and in thy mother Eunice, before thee; I am fully persuaded that it dwells in thee too. That is why I would remind thee to fan the flame of that special grace which God kindled in thee, when my hands were laid upon thee.”

II Timothy, 1: 4-6

It is rather nice that Paul has kept in touch with Timothy’s family in Galatia, and remembers his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois by name. But Paul is here, at the end of his life, now being abandoned by people he trusted, especially following his imprisonment in Rome, which he constantly mentions in this letter. It must have been the result of fear of the brutality of the Romans that caused Paul’s supporters to flee. Or perhaps the old Jewish disgust for the Gentiles (non-Jews) Paul was bringing into the Church. But Paul’s faith in God remains strong, and he writes sadly about those he trusted but who had become unfriendly. 

“This is what I have to suffer as the result; but I am not put to the blush. He, to whom I have given my confidence, is no stranger to me, and I am fully persuaded that He has the means to keep my pledge safe, until that day comes. With all the faith and love thou hast in Christ Jesus, keep to the pattern of sound doctrine thou hast learned from my lips. By the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, be true to thy high trust. In Asia, as thou knowest, all have treated me coldly, Phigellus and Hermogenes among them.”

II Timothy, 1: 12-15

These were his first churches, in Asia, and it is sad that they no longer respected him. But his message continued to be a difficult one and the early Church was passing through a painful infancy, as the catholicity of the Church was still being established and there were rival (non-Apostolic) Christian teachers with different messages, busy causing confusion. Paul had mentioned such troubles in the other letter to Timothy that we have and in other letters we have, such as to the Galatians, and the second letter to the Corinthians. Paul warns Timothy to remain true to the Faith and to be prepared to suffer for it.

“Then, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, take thy share of hardship. Thou art God’s soldier, and the soldier on service, if he would please the captain who enlisted him, will refuse to be entangled in the business of daily life; the athlete will win no crown, if he does not observe the rules of the contest; the first share in the harvest goes to the labourer who has toiled for it. Grasp the sense of what I am saying; the Lord will give thee quick insight wherever it is needed. Fix thy mind on Jesus Christ, sprung from the race of David, who has risen from the dead; that is the gospel I preach…”

II Timothy, 2: 3-8

Obviously, these rival teachers (see, for example, the ebionites) were challenging basic Christian teaching. Paul says that he himself has suffered for the Faith, and is prepared to do so until the end. Preach, he says, but don’t argue with many words, certainly without sophism; his message is simple, simply stated, and to be accepted on faith. He mentions another strange teaching that was also current among the Thessalonians: that the final resurrection of the dead has already come about. 

“Bring this back to men’s thoughts, pleading with them earnestly in the Lord’s name; there must be no wordy disputes, such as can only unsettle the minds of those who are listening. Aim first at winning God’s approval, as a workman who does not need to be ashamed of his work, one who knows how to handle the claims of the truth like a master. Keep thy distance from those who are bringing in a fashion of meaningless talk; they will go far to establish neglect of God, and their influence eats in like a cancer. Such are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have missed the true mark, by contending that the resurrection has come about already, to the overthrow of the faith in some minds.”

II Timothy, 2: 14

Timothy is to avoid the disputes and concentrate on a life of virtue and fellowship with Christians worshipping God with pure hearts. Rather than quarrelling, we are to be kindly and tolerant, making corrections gently and allowing God to mend the hearts of those who remain belligerent. Then he gives us a wonderful description of our own times, or rather of dissolute human society of all times. 

“Men will be in love with self, in love with money, boastful, proud, abusive; without reverence for their parents, without gratitude, without scruple, without love, without peace; slanderers, incontinent, strangers to pity and to kindness; treacherous, reckless, full of vain conceit, thinking rather of their pleasures than of God. They will preserve all the outward form of religion, although they have long been strangers to its meaning. From these, too, turn away. They count among their number the men that will make their way into house after house, captivating weak women whose consciences are burdened by sin; women swayed by shifting passions, who are for ever inquiring, yet never attain to recognition of the truth.”

II Timothy, 3: 2-7

Before this ongoing dissolution, how is a bishop to behave? He is to hold firm to the doctrine handed down by the Apostles, the religion he was schooled in from his youth, probably at school and especially with respect to Holy Scripture. 

“It is for thee to hold fast by the doctrine handed on to thee, the charge committed to thee; thou knowest well, from whom that tradition came; thou canst remember the holy learning thou hast been taught from childhood upwards. This will train thee up for salvation, through the faith which rests in Christ Jesus. Everything in the scripture has been divinely inspired, and has its uses; to instruct us, to expose our errors, to correct our faults, to educate us in holy living; so God’s servant will become a master of his craft, and each noble task that comes will find him ready for it.”

II Timothy, 3: 14-17

So, Timothy is to ceaselessly preach the Gospel, whether or not it is welcome to society, patiently drawing people to the Christian life. Meanwhile, society will appoint preachers and teachers that say the things that people want to hear. Paul’s work is now over (he is very near his martyrdom, this probably being his last letter), but Timothy will have to follow his model and suffer for the Gospel, and for the Church.

“It is for thee to be on the watch, to accept every hardship, to employ thyself in preaching the gospel, and perform every duty of thy office, keeping a sober mind. As for me, my blood already flows in sacrifice; the time has nearly come when I can go free. I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have redeemed my pledge; I look forward to the prize that is waiting for me, the prize I have earned.”

II Timothy, 4: 5-8

But Paul is not quite done. He still has to suffer a cold prison and he calls for his warm cloak. He wants to continue to read and he calls for his books. He wants to see his friends one last time, and only Luke visits him continuously; so he calls for Mark. He sends his greetings to Prisca and Aquila, whom he had left in Ephesus. He wants to see Timothy himself again. And he sends greetings from the Roman Christians, mentioning Pudens (whose home in Rome can still be visited, for a church was built over it) and Linus (one of the first popes).

It’s a great letter. May Saint Paul pray for us, who suffer in different ways what he once did.

← back to first Timothy
onward to Titus →

‘Woe to the shepherds!’ (Sunday XVI of Ordered time)

We’ve come past the Sunday readings about prophecy in the last few weeks to a condemnation of false prophets and bad shepherds. There will always be false prophets and bad shepherds. There is a hint in the readings of the last few Sundays of professional prophet yes-men, who were basically secularised and happy to support the reigning political power, giving that power a seemingly divine assent. When this either counters the Law of God plainly, or fails to condemn injustice and idolatry when this is the ordinary experience of the people, then the false shepherds are guilty of leading the sheep astray. And whether or not we like to think of it, most people are like sheep, following various shepherds, be they politicians, thinkers or (in our days) celebrities of various types, even sporting celebrities.

And the true shepherds of the Church in the last sixty or seventy years have let us down severely. The several abuse scandals involving priests and Religious and the thousands of victims who have suffered are the result in only one part of a more general failure of the teaching and judicial authority of the Church, and also (by the way) of the secular government. So all these readings from the depths of Israelite history are very relevant to us. And when we hear the Hebrew prophet cry out, Woe to the shepherds!, don’t let us think that the warning was for a decadent society of the sixth century before Christ, which dared to claim that they were the people of God. The temptation to corruption is always present; the serpent from the garden is always curled around new trees, whispering into our ears that we don’t need God, that we can be gods on our own, that we are who we make ourselves, and so on.

“‘Out upon them,’ the Lord says, ‘the shepherds who ravage and disperse My flock, sheep of My own pasturing!’ This is the Lord’s word to the shepherds that guide His people: ‘You are the men who have dispersed My flock, driven it to and fro, and made no account of it; account you must give it Me,’ says the Lord, Israel’s God, ‘for all you have done amiss. Then will I reassemble all that is left of My flock, scattered over so many lands, and restore them to their old pasture-ground, to increase and grow numerous there; shepherds I mean to give them that will do shepherd’s work; fears and alarms shall be none to daunt them, and none shall be missing from their full count,’ the Lord says. ‘Nay, a time is coming,’ the Lord says, ‘when I will raise up, from the stock of David, a faithful scion at last. The land shall have a king to reign over it, and reign over it wisely, giving just sentence and due award. When that time comes, Juda shall find deliverance, none shall disturb Israel’s rest; and the name given to this king shall be, The Lord vindicates us.'”

Prophecy of Jeremiah, 23: 1-6 [link]

But the good news is that, when human shepherds fail, the Good Shepherd arrives. In the prophecy of Ezekiel (chapter 34) this is precisely what happens, and in this weekend’s first reading (above) the prophet Jeremiah, after condemning the Temple priesthood in the face of the looming destruction of the City and the people, also speaks of the arrival of the Good Shepherd, and in the distant future, Jeremiah sees the Virtuous Branch (‘faithful scion of the stock‘ above) of the line of David. The Hebrew word-root for ‘branch’ or ‘stock’ was ‘n-z-r,’ and in a small town in the Galilee a most pious family of the House of David would in a few hundred years take root. From them would come the Blessed Virgin and Christ the King, practising honesty and integrity. ‘Integrity’ is the opposite of hypocrisy, and involves speaking and acting according to one’s inner life of virtue. Part of that integrity in the shepherd is hard-work and dedication to the life of the sheep, and in the gospel story this weekend we find the seminary for Christian shepherds.

“And now the Apostles came together again in the presence of Jesus, and told Him of all they had done, and all the teaching they had given. And He said to them, ‘Come away into a quiet place by yourselves, and rest a little.’ For there were many coming and going, and they scarcely had leisure even to eat. So they took ship, and went to a lonely place by themselves. But many saw them going, or came to know of it; gathering from all the cities, they hurried to the place by land, and were there before them. So, when He disembarked, Jesus saw a great multitude there, and took pity on them, since they were like sheep that have no shepherd, and began to give them long instruction.”

Gospel of S. Mark, 6: 30-34 [link]

The men are exhausted, and Christ asks them to come away with Him for a bit of a retreat on the non-Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee. But, in a bit of New Testament humour, even as they sailed from west to east, they could see the crowds of people they had left behind running around on the north shore to receive them on the other side. And, exhausted as they were, Christ and His Twelve recognised that where the Jerusalem priesthood had again failed they were to provide guidance according to the Law of God.

Let us pray always for our priests and bishops, because they are caught up continually in the cultures they live within and in the West today, that is a culture of anti-religion, anti-Christianity and secularism. It is inevitable that some priests should fall away in exhaustion and loneliness from the life of virtue they were called to, and bring ruin in their wake. Pray that our priests and bishops may be icons of the Good Shepherd, so that looking through them, we should see Him. And so, in accordance with the psalm we have at Mass this weekend, our bishops and priests may also guide us along the right path, be true to His Name and to their calling, causing us to fear no evil in the most desperate places, for we should be able to find the crook and the staff of the Good Shepherd in every circumstance, and it will be a comfort to us.

“The Lord is my Shepherd; how can I lack anything?
He gives me a resting-place where there is green pasture,
leads me out to the cool water’s brink,
refreshed and content.
As in honour pledged, by sure paths He leads me;
dark be the valley about my path,
hurt I fear none while He is with me;
Thy rod, Thy crook are my comfort.
Envious my foes watch,
while Thou dost spread a banquet for me;
richly Thou dost anoint my head with oil,
well filled my cup.
All my life Thy loving favour pursues me;
through the long years
the Lord’s house shall be my dwelling-place.”

Psalm 22(23) [link]

Reading through the prophecy of Sophonias (aka. Zefaniah)

← back to Habacuc
onward to Haggai →

At the tail-end of the Hebrew Bible, in the collection of the ‘minor’ prophecies, is the rather short prophecy of Sophonias, the prophet of the Remnant, the royal prophet of the family of David. Sophonias was apparently working in the reign of the good King Josias of Juda and ministering to the southern Judaite kingdom. In the midst of the brief prosperity of Juda under Josias, the prophet predicts the coming doom when the king will have gone to his final rest. It’s all, again, rather sad, for the king’s grandfather Manasses and his father Amon had apparently and inevitably brought divine vengeance upon the people. It was now a matter of time before the southern kingdom of Juda would be destroyed for its persisting idolatry.

“‘Fall to I must, and weed yonder plot of ground,’ the Lord says; rid it,’ says He, ‘of man and beast, of bird in air and fish under water; and down shall the godless come too, never a man left alive upon it. All Juda, all the citizens of Jerusalem, shall feel the stroke. Not a trace shall they leave behind, yonder gods of the country-side, acolyte and priest of theirs not a memory; forgotten, all that worship the host of heaven from the roof-tops, all that worship… take they their oaths to the Lord, or swear they by Melchom; forgotten, all that turn their backs on the Lord, and will neither seek nor search for Him.”

Sophonias, 1: 2-6

The doom of the neo-Babylonian empire erupting from Mesopotamia would encompass the whole of the Holy Land, reaching down into the south-west, to the coastal Gaza strip, which will eventually only hold the remnants of the Israelites, the majority of them being carried away into distant exile.

“Gaza and Ascalon to rack and ruin left, Azotus stormed ere the day is out, root and branch destroyed is Accaron! Out upon the forfeited race that holds yonder strip of coast-land; the Lord’s doom is on it, the little Chanaan of the Philistines; wasted it shall be, and never a man to dwell in it. There on the coast-land shepherds shall lie at ease, there shall be folds for flocks; and who shall dwell there? The remnant that is left of Juda’s race; there they shall find pasturage, take their rest, when evening comes, in the ruins of Ascalon, when the Lord their God brings them relief, restores their fortunes again.”

Sophonias, 2: 4-7

The prophet foretells the utter destruction of all the petty kingdoms in the region, and even of mighty Assyria herself, Nineve being left ‘forlorn, a trackless desert’ before the onslaught of this new Babylonian ascendancy. It seems as if the death sentence is already read, and we can probably already see that in the second book of Chronicles, where the sins of King Manasses are given as so manifestly abhorrent that there was no mercy left for Juda. All that is now left for the remnant of the people that will be left is to patiently suffer the destruction to come and await the restoration in the future. And this is where the book starts to sound a little Messianic:

“Hope, then, is none, till the day, long hence, when I will stand revealed; what gathering, then, of the nations, all kingdoms joined in one! And upon these, My doom is, vengeance shall fall, fierce anger of Mine shall fall; the whole earth shall be consumed with the fire of My slighted love. And after that, all the peoples of the world shall have pure lips, invoking one and all the Lord’s name, straining at a single yoke in the Lord’s service. From far away, beyond Ethiop rivers, My suppliants shall come to Me, sons of My exiled people the bloodless offering shall bring. No need, then, to blush for wayward thoughts that defied Me; gone from thy midst the high-sounding boast; no room, in that mountain sanctuary of Mine, for pride henceforward; a poor folk and a friendless I will leave in thy confines, but one that puts its trust in the Lord’s name.”

Sophonias, 3: 8-12

A purification of the people was therefore at hand, and this Remnant that is so often mentioned are those people who had placed their trust in God and not fallen into idolatry; they would survive the great tragedy to come. And thus the book ends on a note of encouragement. ‘Courage,’ says Sophonias, ‘for forgiveness will also come, for Emmanuel (God in our midst) will deliver you.’

“Break into song, fair Sion, all Israel cry aloud; here is joy and triumph, Jerusalem, for thy royal heart. Thy doom the Lord has revoked, thy enemy repulsed; the Lord, there in the midst of thee, Israel’s King! Peril for thee henceforth is none. Such is the message yonder day shall bring to Jerusalem: Courage, Sion! What means it, the unnerved hand? Thou hast one in the midst of thee, the Lord thy God, Whose strength shall deliver thee. Joy and pride of His thou shalt be henceforward; silent till now in His love for thee, He will greet thee with cries of gladness.”

Sophonias, 3: 14-17
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onward to Haggai →

Reading through the first letter of S. Paul to S. Timothy

← back to second Thessalonians
onward to second Timothy →

This most touching letter of Saint Paul to one of his first bishops, after Saint Timothy had been given the care of the See of Ephesus, provides a short series of counsels for an infant church, establishing basic practices and providing counsel to the new bishop and the priests under him. I should begin with Paul’s greeting to Timothy as to his own son, for although Timothy already was a Christian in Galatia when Paul met him, he became a close follower of Paul and his disciple even, and so there developed the father-son relationship of the priest to his people and later the bishop to his priests – a relationship that Paul cherished until his death. 

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the appointment of God our Saviour, and of Jesus Christ who is our hope, to Timothy, my own son in the faith; Grace be thine, and mercy, and peace, from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, as thou fulfillest the charge I gave thee, when I passed on into Macedonia, to stay behind at Ephesus.”

I Timothy, 1: 1-3

Paul had learnt, probably from a preceding letter of Timothy’s, that some gnostic elements had entered the Ephesian church, for he mentions the arrival of strange doctrines, legends and an obsession with genealogy, which seems to have been rivalling Christian doctrine, which was based on charity, sincerity and a purity of heart. 

“There are some who have missed this mark, branching off into vain speculations; who now claim to be expounding the law, without understanding the meaning of their own words, or the subject on which they pronounce so positively.”

I Timothy, 1: 6-7

That suggests to me Christians who thought they could interpret and speculate on the Law of Moses on their own, without any understanding of that Law or the guidance of the Apostles and their appointed elders. And in so far as they found themselves at odds with a Pharisee like Paul, even the Paul who had been given a particular mission to non-Jewish Christians, they were probably mistaken. And Paul had apostolic authority to fight against the corruptions with even corrective punishments, as he seems to have done in two particular instances. Being made over to Satan was likely a reference to what we today call excommunication. 

“This charge, then, I give into thy hands, my son Timothy, remembering how prophecy singled thee out, long ago. Serve, as it bade thee, in this honourable warfare, with faith and a good conscience to aid thee. Some, through refusing this duty, have made shipwreck of the faith; among them, Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have made over to Satan, till they are cured of their blasphemy.”

I Timothy 1, 18-20

Prophecy singled Timothy out? Probably one or more Christian prophets of the early church had indicated that this rather young man would be a potential priest and even bishop. One of his chief duties as bishop would be to organise communal prayer for all mankind, but especially the government, which was the guarantor of peace.

“This, first of all, I ask; that petition, prayer, entreaty and thanksgiving should be offered for all mankind, especially for kings and others in high station, so that we can live a calm and tranquil life, as dutifully and decently as we may. Such prayer is our duty, it is what God, our Saviour, expects of us, since it is his will that all men should be saved, and be led to recognize the truth; there is only one God, and only one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is a man, like them, and gave himself as a ransom for them all. At the appointed time, he bore his witness, and of that witness I am the chosen herald, sent as an apostle (I make no false claims, I am only recalling the truth) to be a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles. It is my wish that prayer should everywhere be offered by the men; they are to lift up hands that are sanctified, free from all anger and dispute.”

I Timothy, 2: 1-8

There follow the now-controversial instructions about women dressing modestly in church, and keeping silence there, of women accepting a continual role of student/learner in the congregation. We might compare that requirement to that of many orthodox synagogues even today; I have seen it observed in one of those. Chapter three is a description of the ideal bishop/priest and the ideal deacon, according to Paul. In those days, there was no great difference between bishops and priests; that developed later. Paul then warns again about what I’m sure are more gnostic ideas. He counters by saying that the gifts of God, given for the enjoyment of mankind, are not to be rejected. 

“We are expressly told by inspiration that, in later days, there will be some who abandon the faith, listening to false inspirations, and doctrines taught by the devils. They will be deceived by the pretensions of impostors, whose conscience is hardened as if by a searing-iron. Such teachers bid them abstain from marriage, and from certain kinds of food, although God has made these for the grateful enjoyment of those whom faith has enabled to recognize the truth. All is good that God has made, nothing is to be rejected; only we must be thankful to Him when we partake of it, then it is hallowed for our use by God’s blessing and the prayer which brings it.”

I Timothy, 4: 1-5

And that is followed by a call to holiness, which is not beyond the reach of any of us, for which we must be prepared to suffer, hoping in God our Saviour. And then, here’s some wonderful personal instruction to the young bishop/priest, now called to be an ‘elder’ – one capable of giving instruction to the community in general:

“Do not let anyone think the less of thee for thy youthfulness; make thyself a model of speech and behaviour for the faithful, all love, all faith, all purity. Reading, preaching, instruction, let these be thy constant care while I am absent. A special grace has been entrusted to thee; prophecy awarded it, and the imposition of the presbyters’ hands went with it; do not let it suffer from neglect. Let this be thy study, these thy employments, so that all may see how well thou doest. Two things claim thy attention, thyself and the teaching of the faith; spend thy care on them; so wilt thou and those who listen to thee achieve salvation.”

I Timothy, 4: 12-16

That first bit sounds a little like, They will all call you Father and don’t let that bother you. And there also is our great ministry after the celebration of Holy Mass: reading, preaching and instruction. Paul even mentions Timothy’s priestly ordination (the imposition of hands), and asks him to look after both himself and the cultivation of the faith of the community. Chapter five contains practical advice about the administration of the goods of the Church, particularly with regard to the ministry of the care of widows and the remuneration of the priests in Timothy’s care, even warning that Timothy not ordain men as priests inordinately, and to be careful with whom he ordained, because there might be faults concealed. For the blame of bad priests is shared with the ordaining bishop, something we are reminded of every day.

“As for the imposition of hands, do not bestow it inconsiderately, and so share the blame for the sins of others. Keep thyself clear of fault. (No, do not confine thyself to water any longer; take a little wine to relieve thy stomach, and thy frequent attacks of illness.) Some men have faults that are plain to view, so that they invite question; with others, discovery follows upon the heels of enquiry; so it is, too, with their merits; some are plain to view, and where they are not, they cannot long remain hidden.”

I Timothy, 5: 22-25

The end of the letter contains a final set of warnings about good behaviour among Christian slaves (treat your masters well), the avoidance of vain preachers teaching their own ideas rather than the Christian Faith (the only result can be jealousy, quarrelling, recriminations and base suspicions), and the management of wealth (’empty-handed we came into the world, and empty-handed, beyond question, we must leave it’). From here we get the famous adage ‘the love of money is the root of all evil.’

“Warn those who are rich in this present world not to think highly of themselves, not to repose their hopes in the riches that may fail us, but in the living God, who bestows on us so richly all that we enjoy. Let them do good, enrich their lives with charitable deeds, always ready to give, and to share the common burden, laying down a sure foundation for themselves in time to come, so as to have life which is true life within their grasp.”

I Timothy, 6: 17-19

And that is where he ends. Wouldn’t it have been great to have the full set of letters sent between him and Timothy – the whole conversation? As it is, the second letter to Timothy that we have in our Bibles is, I believe, much later in its composition, sent at a point where Paul was at the very end of his life. And I shall get around to that in a few days.

← back to second Thessalonians
onward to second Timothy →

Reading through the prophecy of Habacuc

← back to Nahum
onward to Zephanyah →

Today’s post is about the prophecy of Habacuc, another of the twelve minor prophets and a book that can be easily compassed in an hour. Poor Habacuc, being a good man, was spiritually oppressed by the wickedness around him in Judaite society – tyranny and robbery, legalism and contention, he says, and contravention of the venerable Law of Moses, evil men achieving their own ends at the expense of the innocent. This could be a complaint in our times also, for human nature doesn’t change, and corruption and injustice is always around.

“Must I nothing see but wrong and affliction; turn where I will, nothing but robbery and oppression; pleading at law everywhere, everywhere contention raising its head? What marvel if the old teachings are torn up, and redress is never to be found? Innocence by knavery circumvented still, and false award given!”

Habacuc, 1: 3-4

The reference to ‘old teachings’ I take to refer to derivations of the Law of Moses, and that seems to place Habacuc in history between the fall of the Assyrian kingdom that Nahum anticipated, and the growth in power of the neo-Babylonian empire that was centred in Mesopotamia by Chaldeans emerging from the north of Syria. A terrible people these Chaldeans, Habacuc says, but still merely an instrument of almighty God, likely to perish even as they proudly claim victory. And God would use them to humble His own people Israel, just as they had humbled several other nations and peoples in their conquest of the Holy Land.

“A grim nation and a terrible; no right they acknowledge, no title, but what themselves bestow. Not leopard so lithe as horse of theirs, not wolf at evening so fast; wide the sweep of their horsemen, that close in, close in from afar, flying like vultures hungry for their prey. Plunderers all; eager as the sirocco their onset, whirling away, like sand-storm, their captives. Here be men that hold kings in contempt, make princes their sport; no fortress but is a child’s game to such as these; let them but make a heap of dust, it is theirs. Veers wind, and he is gone; see him fall down and ascribe the victory to his god! But Thou, Lord, my God and all my worship, Thou art from eternity! And wilt Thou see us perish? Warrant of Thine they hold, take their strength from Thee, only to make known Thy justice, Thy chastening power!”

Habacuc, 1: 7-11

And now God declares that the just and honest will have built upon rock (sounds like a Gospel parable, this one), whereas those who doubt live in a toxic atmosphere, deceived as a drinker is deceived by strong drink, and as a tyrant (as the Chaldeans) is is deceived by false dreams of glory. These last will inevitably have fallen to the lowest depths, in their crime, rapine and usury, for Israelite or Chaldean, their victims cry out against them:

“Ill-gotten gains thou wouldst amass to deck that house of thine; make it an eyrie, too high for envious hands to reach? Nay, with this undoing of many peoples thou hast done thy own house despite, thy own life is forfeit; stone from ruined wall cries out against thee, and beam from gaping roof echoes the cry. City thou wouldst found, city’s walls build up, with deeds of bloodshed and of wrong? What, has not the Lord of hosts uttered His doom, toil of nations shall feed the fire, and all their labour be spent for nothing? It is the Lord’s glory men must learn to know, that shall cover the earth, flooding over it like the waters of the sea.”

Habacuc, 2: 9-14

Injustices do not bring glory to the one inflicting them, but shame and vengeance from the Just One. From Him they will receive sentence, with no help provided by their idols of wood and stone.

“And thy prayer was, stock and stone should wake up and come to thy aid, senseless things that cannot signify their will; nay, breath in their bodies have none, for all they are tricked out with gold and silver! And all the while, the Lord is in His holy temple. Keep silence, earth, before Him.”

Habacuc 2: 19-20

This last line is a prelude to the wonderfully poetic majesty with which Habacuc describes the advent of the vengeful God, arriving to right wrongs, an arrival that is reminiscent of those described by other prophets, and by David’s psalm 17(18).

“There stood He, and scanned the earth; at His look, the nations were adread; melted were the everlasting mountains, bowed were the ancient hills, His own immemorial pathway, as He journeyed… Earth is torn into ravines; the mountains tremble at the sight. Fierce falls the rain-storm, the depths beneath us roar aloud, the heights beckon from above; sun and moon linger in their dwelling-place; so bright Thy arrows volley, with such sheen of lightning glances Thy spear…

“And all this would be to the end of restoring the fortunes of Israel, duly disciplined and again faithful to God, to the ruin of the wicked and those who oppress the poor. The great vision of God in this little bit of poetry from chapter three ends with a lovely profession of faith – though all resources were to fail and life be at its last ebb, the prophet will continue to sing praises of God. As should we.

“What though the fig-tree never bud, the vine yield no fruit, the olive fail, the fields bear no harvest; what though our folds stand empty of sheep, our byres of cattle? Still will I make my boast in the Lord, triumph in the deliverance God sends me. The Lord, the ruler of all, is my Stronghold; He will bring me safely on my way, safe as the hind whose feet echo already on the hills.”

Habacuc, 3: 6, 9-11; 17-19
← back to Nahum
onward to Zephanyah →

Reading through the second letter of S. Paul to the Thessalonians

← back to first Thessalonians
onward to first Timothy →

Nearing the end of the preserved body of Saint Paul’s letters, we have the second letter to the Corinthians; this one’s again rather short, so let’s get right down to it. This is a follow-up to my little post on the first letter to the Thessalonians, which letter was slightly longer. The heart of this rather short letter is chapter two, which demonstrates two things about the Thessalonian Christians: that they expected the end of the world to be imminent, and that some of them had gone as far in this expectation as to leave off working, so that Paul had to scold them for it. 

I think we would recognise that a people that is terrified of something are easily led by frauds, people promising them deliverance. So, Paul warns his little flock, because the spirit of antichrist is at large. This antichrist constantly challenges the Christian message, in particular that God became incarnate as a particular man, in a particular time, and that that man died and rose from the dead. Here, Paul calls antichrist a rebel, who glorifies himself above the Holy One.

“Do not be terrified out of your senses all at once, and thrown into confusion, by any spiritual utterance, any message or letter purporting to come from us, which suggests that the day of the Lord is close at hand. Do not let anyone find the means of leading you astray. The apostasy must come first; the champion of wickedness must appear first, destined to inherit perdition. This is the rebel who is to lift up his head above every divine name, above all that men hold in reverence, till at last he enthrones himself in God’s temple, and proclaims himself as God.”

II Thessalonians, 2: 2-4

He speaks of apostasy, which seems to suggest that before the end of the world, there would be a Christian who would rebel against the Apostles – or their successors – to place himself above even the name of Christ, and call himself a god. How interesting. Paul goes on to say that this rebel must show himself first, before being destroyed by Christ. Before being destroyed, the rebel would use the power of the devil to produce signs and wonders, and so deceive other Christians. This would be permitted by God Himself, as a test:

“He will come, when he comes, with all Satan’s influence to aid him; there will be no lack of power, of counterfeit signs and wonders; and his wickedness will deceive the souls that are doomed, to punish them for refusing that fellowship in the truth which would have saved them. That is why God is letting loose among them a deceiving influence, so that they give credit to falsehood; he will single out for judgement all those who refused credence to the truth, and took their pleasure in wrong-doing.”

II Thessalonians, 2: 9-11

But Christians should stand firm by the traditions given them by the Apostles, and so weather the storm to come, together, supporting each other. Meanwhile, there was that problem about the people not working, and living as vagabonds:

“Only, brethren, we charge you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to have nothing to do with any brother who lives a vagabond life, contrary to the tradition which we handed on; you do not need to be reminded how, on our visit, we set you an example to be imitated; we were no vagabonds ourselves. We would not even be indebted to you for our daily bread, we earned it in weariness and toil, working with our hands, night and day, so as not to be a burden to any of you; not that we are obliged to do so, but as a model for your own behaviour; you were to follow our example. The charge we gave you on our visit was that the man who refuses to work must be left to starve. And now we are told that there are those among you who live in idleness, neglecting their own business to mind other people’s. We charge all such, we appeal to them in the Lord Jesus Christ, to earn their bread by going on calmly with their work.”

II Thessalonians, 3: 6-12

Vagabonds, please follow the example of Saint Paul, a hard worker, tirelessly running between the churches, supporting himself by the work of his own hands. I don’t think he really meant that anybody should starve. But he had to combat an idleness that seems to have settled upon some people. And he had to be severe.

Anyway, that’s about it.

← back to first Thessalonians
onward to first Timothy →

Reading through the prophecy of Nahum

← back to Micah
onward to Habacuc →

This will not take very long, for this is a short book. As I must have said in previous posts, there are twelve ‘minor’ prophets, contrasted in the length of their work that we have preserved to the major prophets, Isaias, Jeremias and Ezechiel. The language they use, though, is very similar to that of the major prophets, with whom they were often concurrent, such as Isaias and Osee (Hosea). Nahum the Elcesite is a prophet of the Justice of God, perhaps, for he begins with the words of divine vengeance, for God may forgive, but He does not necessarily forget, and punishment for the unrepentant sinner is inevitable, even if delayed. And it’s not here a vengeance directed at the People of God (for the Judaites were in favour with God during the reign of good King Ezechias) but against a foreign nation that had dared to insult the name of Almighty God. This had been done spectacularly by the Assyrian commander Sennacherib, as he approached Jerusalem in his pride (see IV Kings, chapter 18). Most of this book is then about the destruction of the Assyrian capital of Nineve, far to the north of Jerusalem and even Damascus.

“Here is one of thy number devising rebellion against the Lord, folly’s counsellor. But thus the Lord says: ‘Are they in full muster? At least there are over-many of them; they must be shorn of their strength. It will pass; once chastened is chastened enough, and now I mean to shatter that yoke of his that lies on thy back, tear thy chains asunder…'”

Nahum, 1: 11-13

The calamity approaching Nineveh may be seen therefore as retribution and divine justice for the attack on Juda, when Sennacherib (on his way to challenge Egypt) had besieged and taken Lachis, the greatest Judaite fortress town apart from Jerusalem. He would have taken Jerusalem too, if he hadn’t received bad news from Nineve and rushed back home, only to be slain there in a family dispute. Shortly afterwards, this power in the north would end and be replaced in its ascendancy by the neo-Babylonian power emerging from Mesopotamia. 

“Alas, for warriors of Nineve gone into exile, for maids of hers led away, that sigh and moan like ring-doves in the bitterness of their heart! Nineve, welcome sight as pools of water to the fugitive; stay, stay! But never a one looks back. Out with silver, out with gold of hers; store is here of costly stuff beyond price or reckoning! Roof to cellar rifled and ransacked! Sore hearts are here, and knees that knock together, loins that go labouring, and pale cheeks. Lair of lion, and nursery of his whelps, what trace is left of thee, once so secure a retreat, his haunt and theirs?“

Nahum, 2: 7-11

It does seem that this whole book is a letter to King Sennacherib, and it ends with a round condemnation upon him personally, for the destruction he and his predecessors had wrought on so many nations of people.

“Forgotten, the high lords, forgotten, the princelings, as they had been locusts, and brood of locusts, that cling to yonder hedge-row in the chill of morning, and are gone, once the sun is up, who knows whither? Gone to their rest thy marshals, king of Assyria; thy vassals lie silent in the dust; out on the hills the common folk take refuge, with none to muster them. Wound of thine there is no hiding, hurt of thine is grievous; nor any shall hear the tidings of it but shall clap their hands over thee, so long thy tyrannous yoke has rested on so many.“

Nahum, 3: 17-19
← back to Micah
onward to Habacuc →

Where prophets come from (Sunday XV of Ordered time)

We had a sentiment of prophecy in our readings last weekend, when it seemed evident that prophets are always sent, whether or not people listen to them. The directions of the Creator for right human living arrive in every time, whether or not the worlds receives them well. In our readings this weekend, we discover the humble origins of the prophets of Holy Scripture, and then we must think to ourselves where the prophets of today are to come from. In our first reading, we find the prophet Amos, one of the first (chronologically speaking) of the prophets whose records we have in our Old Testaments.

“…a message came to Jeroboam, king of Israel, from Amasias that was priest at Bethel. ‘Here is Amos,’ said he, ‘raising revolt against thee in the realm of Israel; there is no room in all the land for such talk as his; Jeroboam to die at the sword’s point, Israel to be banished from its native country!’ And this was his counsel to Amos, ‘Sir prophet, get thee gone; in Juda take refuge if thou wilt, and there earn thy living by prophecy. Prophesy here in Bethel thou mayst not, where the king’s chapel is, and the king’s court.’ ‘What,’ said Amos, ‘I a prophet? Nay, not that, nor a prophet’s son neither; I am one that minds cattle, one that nips the sycamore-trees; I was but tending sheep when the Lord took me into His service. It was the Lord bade me go and prophesy to His people of Israel. He has a message for thee: Thou wilt have no prophesying against Israel, no word dropped against Bethaven? Here, then, is the divine doom pronounced on thee: Wife of thine, here in the city streets, shall be dishonoured; sons and daughters of thine shall die at the sword’s point; lands of thine shall feel the measuring-rope. And for thyself, on unhallowed soil death awaits thee, when Israel is banished, as banished it needs must be, from the land of its birth.'”

Prophecy of Amos, 7: 10-17 [link]

In Amos’ time, the united kingdom of David and Solomon had been knifed down the middle and the more prosperous half – the northern kingdom, called Israel – had immediately fallen into idolatry and syncretism. Amos was sent by the Holy One from the southern kingdom of Judah, where the Temple still shone like a beacon in Jerusalem, to draw the people of the northern kingdom back to the religion of their ancestors. Or else, death and destruction awaited the people, as above. But in our reading today, the priest Amazyah (Amasias in the Greek) of the new religion in the Bethel attempts to evict Amos and send him home. Amazyah was probably a professional prophet and yes-man, one of those who told the northern king – here Jeroboam – what he wanted to hear. Amos replies, to say that he is himself not a professional, rather he is a shepherd and a sycamore-dresser, and it was through an ordinary worker of the land that the Holy One wished to speak.

There is a similar message in the gospel story we have today. The Twelve were a particular group of men chosen to draw the people to Christ, the Holy One now standing among them in the flesh. We know the professions of many of these Twelve – the leaders were almost all fishermen, and at least one of them was a former tax-collector, and the Lord Himself was a carpenter. Even if the profession of tax-collector was greatly despised, these were all ordinary Jews, and working people. They were not residents of Jerusalem, who had the ear of the Roman procurator, or the regional rulers, or even of the Temple priests. But here, Christ sends them out with the authority of the God of Israel, to the point of their being able to chase out devils that were tormenting poor souls.

“And now He called the Twelve to Him, and began sending them out, two and two, giving them authority over the unclean spirits. And He gave them instructions to take a staff for their journey and nothing more; no wallet, no bread, no money for their purses; to be shod with sandals, and not to wear a second coat. ‘You are to lodge,’ He told them, ‘in the house you first enter, until you leave the place. And wherever they give you no welcome and no hearing, shake off the dust from beneath your feet in witness against them.’ So they went out and preached, bidding men repent; they cast out many devils, and many who were sick they anointed with oil, and healed them.”

Gospel of S. Mark, 6: 7-13 [link]

That staff or walking stick sounds a little like a symbol of authority. Now here’s an interesting detail: He tells them not to take provisions for their preaching journeys: no bread, no haversack, etc. Just as He had once sent Amos out with nothing, He now sends these Twelve out with no product of their own work. How shall we read that?

Consider that at the very beginning, in Adam and Eve, we were properly dependent upon the Holy One. Then came pride, disobedience, and humanity seizing after independence from God. We thought we could be gods, too, and that was the original temptation of the serpent in the garden. In men like Noah and Abraham, God found a humanity that accepted the reality of human existence and was willing to submit to Him again, to live in dependence upon divine providence. ‘Go where I tell you,’ said God to Abraham, and Abraham said, ‘Very well, lead the way, my fate is in Your hands.’ Every prophet in later times also gave his or her life to God, and the prophet of God lives by the providence of God. We know from the stories of the Old Testament that men like Elijah were often destitute and fugitives, but they were brought food by birds and animals, and they found water by striking rocks in the desert by the divine command. The very origin story of Israel is a story of God drawing His chosen people out of prosperity in Egypt and into a wilderness, where their entire existence was entirely dependent upon Him.

The Twelve would also find the means of survival through the hospitality God would find them, or otherwise through divine providence. And if they didn’t receive the hospitality that heaven demanded, and were treated as Amos was, they would give the Jewish ultimatum of shaking the dust off their feet. In our own times, the message of the gospel is not welcome and we are not always received well. Ask a street preacher, and you will learn how many people are willing to even stop. And neither are the priests of Christ always welcome, and there must be a lot of shaking of dust off feet in some places. But, by the grace of God, we are not without support and sustenance, thanks to the generosity of the people of our parishes. Just as the Twelve were not permitted to carry sustenance, we too are forbidden by the Church authority to pursue any trade and support ourselves thereby, although most of us are well capable of doing so, as S. Paul once did in order to not trouble his young churches with donations to his mission.

And, speaking of S. Paul, let’s have a look at our rather long second reading this weekend, in which that early Christian prophet sings about the blessing that Christ has brought upon His Church, about the election of Christians to be holy and spotless and children of God by adoption, about the forgiveness we have received as a gift through the Blood of Christ, which makes us God’s own, stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit…

“Blessed be that God,
that Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who has blessed us, in Christ,
with every spiritual blessing, higher than heaven itself.
He has chosen us out, in Christ,
before the foundation of the world,
to be saints, to be blameless in His sight, for love of Him;
marking us out beforehand (so His will decreed)
to be His adopted children through Jesus Christ.
Thus He would manifest the splendour of that grace
by which He has taken us into His favour
in the person of His beloved Son.
It is in Him and through His blood
that we enjoy redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
So rich is God’s grace, that has overflowed upon us
in a full stream of wisdom and discernment,
to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will.
It was His loving design, centred in Christ,
to give history its fulfilment
by resuming everything in Him,
all that is in heaven, all that is on earth,
summed up in Him.
In Him it was our lot to be called,
singled out beforehand to suit His purpose
(for it is He who is at work everywhere,
carrying out the designs of His will);
we were to manifest His glory,
we who were the first to set our hope in Christ;
in Him you too were called,
when you listened to the preaching of the truth,
that gospel which is your salvation.
In Him you too learned to believe,
and had the seal set on your faith
by the promised gift of the Holy Spirit;
a pledge of the inheritance which is ours,
to redeem it for us and bring us into possession of it,
and so manifest God’s glory.”

Letter of S. Paul to the Ephesians, 1: 3-14 [link]

Reading through the first letter of S. Paul to the Thessalonians

← back to Colossians
onward to second Thessalonians →

On a typical map, we can see the geographical position of Thessalonika or Salonika, a natural port and harbour, and in a central position in the Greek mainland – a crucial city today, as it was in the days of Saint Paul. There was undoubtedly a large Jewish population there, with a synagogue and everything else. Paul was now part of a small missionary group with his tireless helper from Asia Minor, Timothy, who would later become bishop of Ephesus. And the third signatory of the letter is another missionary, Silvanus. The letter begins with Paul’s usual statement of affection for the new church he has built and nurtured through constant correspondence. Paul is gratified that they have been faithful to the teaching he had given them, and they have become co-workers with him in the evangelical mission:

“Our preaching to you did not depend upon mere argument; power was there, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, and an effect of full conviction; you can testify what we were to you and what we did for you. And on your side, you followed our example, the Lord’s example. There was great persecution, and yet you welcomed our message, rejoicing in the Holy Spirit; and now you have become a model to all the believers throughout Macedonia and Achaia.”

I Thessalonians, 1: 5-7

And they had sheltered Paul and his fellow apostles, whom they had thus found to be upright and humble men, who did not abuse the rights they had within the Church as Apostles. They had even conducted their own businesses, so as not to place any financial pressures on the young Thessalonian church; we know that this was Paul’s practice anyway, since he continued to work as a tent-maker during his missionary years.

“We never used the language of flattery, you will bear us out in that; nor was it, God knows, an excuse for enriching ourselves; we have never asked for human praise, yours or another’s, although, as apostles of Christ, we might have made heavy demands on you. No, you found us innocent as babes in your company; no nursing mother ever cherished her children more; in our great longing for you, we desired nothing better than to offer you our own lives, as well as God’s gospel, so greatly had we learned to love you. Brethren, you can remember how we toiled and laboured, all the time we were preaching God’s gospel to you, working day and night so as not to burden you with expense.”

I Thessalonians, 2: 5-9

It seems that Paul had always been torn between the desire to remain with the churches he had built for some prolonged period, or at least visit them frequently, and the desire to forge onwards to the creation of newer churches. But their freedom was frequently impeded by the circumstances, for Paul says at the end of this second chapter that he had planned a journey to Salonika, but ‘more than once Satan has put obstacles in our way.’ When such things happened, Paul would send somebody else out instead, and he mentions here that he sent Timothy instead to them, for pastoral support, bringing a full report back to Father Paul:

“That was my reason for sending him, when I could bear it no longer, to make sure of your faith; it might be that the tempter of souls had been tempting you, and that all our labour would go for nothing. Now that Timothy has come back to us from seeing you, and told us about your faith and love, and the kind remembrance you have of us all the while, longing for our company as we long for yours, your faith has brought us comfort, brethren, amidst all our difficulties and trials. If only you stand firm in the Lord, it brings fresh life to us.”

I Thessalonians, 3: 5-8

The security of the churches brought great comfort to Paul’s mind; he certainly had a fatherly concern for these people and for their personal holiness, although he had only recently met them, for he oftentimes claimed to have begotten them for God and called them his ‘little children.’ Chapter four contains the moral lessons of this letter, which is directed primarily towards adultery and fornication, which may have been a particular concern in Thessalonika.

“What God asks of you is that you should sanctify yourselves, and keep clear of fornication. Each of you must learn to control his own body, as something holy and held in honour, not yielding to the promptings of passion, as the heathen do in their ignorance of God. None of you is to be exorbitant, and take advantage of his brother, in his business dealings. For all such wrong-doing God exacts punishment; we have told you so already, in solemn warning. The life to which God has called us is not one of incontinence, it is a life of holiness, and to despise it is to despise, not man, but God, the God who has implanted his Holy Spirit in us.”

I Thessalonians, 4: 3-8

Even that mention of taking advantage of another in his business dealings is sometimes seen as indicating adultery with another man’s wife. There also seems to have been overmuch concern about the fate of those who had died, with much profuse lamentation, leading to Paul’s celebrated account of the ‘rapture,’ when God will claim His own; this section does not have to be taken literally, word for word, as many seem to do, although it does seem as if those who have died before the final coming of Christ will rise to their reward before those who will be living on that day:

“Make no mistake, brethren, about those who have gone to their rest; you are not to lament over them, as the rest of the world does, with no hope to live by. We believe, after all, that Jesus underwent death and rose again; just so, when Jesus comes back, God will bring back those who have found rest through him. This we can tell you as a message from the Lord himself; those of us who are still left alive to greet the Lord’s coming will not reach the goal before those who have gone to their rest. No, the Lord himself will come down from heaven to summon us, with an archangel crying aloud and the trumpet of God sounding; and first of all the dead will rise up, those who died in Christ. Only after that shall we, who are still left alive, be taken up into the clouds, be swept away to meet Christ in the air, and they will bear us company. And so we shall be with the Lord for ever.”

I Thessalonians, 4: 12-16

And Paul repeats the common Christian warning that would later be carefully placed into the Gospels for us: Christ will return suddenly, without warning, so we’d best be ready! Sleepers awake, etc.

“…the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. It is just when men are saying, ‘All quiet, all safe,’ that doom will fall upon them suddenly, like the pangs that come to a woman in travail, and there will be no escape from it. Whereas you, brethren, are not living in the darkness, for the day to take you by surprise, like a thief; no, you are all born to the light, born to the day; we do not belong to the night and its darkness. We must not sleep on, then, like the rest of the world, we must watch and keep sober; night is the sleeper’s time for sleeping, the drunkard’s time for drinking; we must keep sober, like men of the daylight.”

I Thessalonians, 5: 2-8

Meanwhile, Christians are to esteem in particular the clergy among them, their spiritual directors, and generally support one another in the faith, being singular in patience.

“Go on, then, encouraging one another and building up one another’s faith. Brethren, we would ask you to pay deference to those who work among you, those who have charge of you in the Lord, and give you directions; make it a rule of charity to hold them in special esteem, in honour of the duty they perform, and maintain unity with them. And, brethren, let us make this appeal to you; warn the vagabonds, encourage the faint-hearted, support the waverers, be patient towards all.”

I Thessalonians, 5: 11-14

The rest of the letter consists of one line instructions that we would even today make to one another: do the best for your neighbour, always be joyful, keep praying, thank God always, may He bless and sanctify you, pray for the bishops, etc.

And that, with some things passed over, is the substance of the first letter to the Thessalonians.

← back to Colossians
onward to second Thessalonians →

Reading through the prophecy of Micah (aka. Michaeas)

← back to Jonah
onward to Nahum →

These short books of the ‘minor’ prophets have a common theme: idolatry has wrested the promise of the Holy Land from the tribes of Israel, and God is utterly fed up with them. But the prophets tend to end on a hopeful note: the terror to come is now inevitable, but one day the people will be restored. Michaeas was a Judaite prophet and a contemporary of the greater and more famous Judaite prophet Isaias, and he used some of the same texts that Isaias used, and I’ll put some of that in this post. It’s all beautiful material, mostly statements of faith. And Michaeas has his own character, different from Amos and Hosea, who went before him. Let’s begin with the great accusation against primarily the northern kingdom of Israel, which had introduced Egyptian-style pagan worship under the very first king Jeroboam I. This was inevitably carried down as a contagion into the southern kingdom of Juda, leading to the fall of those people too into idolatry. 

“See, where the Lord comes out from His dwelling-place; and, as He makes His way down, the topmost peaks of earth for His stairway, melt hills at His touch, melt valleys like wax before the fire, like water over the steep rocks flowing away! Alas, what betokens it? What but Jacob’s going astray, what but guilt of Israel’s line? Head and front of Jacob’s sinning Samaria needs must be, sure as Jerusalem is Juda’s place of pilgrimage. In ruin Samaria shall lie, a heap of stones in the open country-side, a terrace for vineyards; all down yonder valley I will drag the stones of her, till her very foundations are laid bare. Shattered all those idols must be, burnt to ashes the gauds she wears; never an image but shall be left forlorn; all shall go the way of a harlot’s wages, that were a harlot’s wages from the first.”

Michaeas, 1: 3-7

The talk of the harlot is meant to say, as with Amos, that God has taken the aspect of a jilted husband, whose wife (Israel) is prostituting herself to the Chanaanite gods – that is, she has joined to her worship of the one God a simultaneous worship of other deities. The people have been hedging their bets in their pursuit of well-being and prosperity, trying to please a variety of gods. And, naturally, with the new theologies of the gentile religions come different moral philosophies, so that the people had fallen away further and further from the righteousness desired by God in the Torah (love God, love your neighbour). In return for this, they will face God’s wrath:

“Out upon you, that lie awake over dreams of mischief, schemes of ill, and are up at dawn of day to execute them, soon as your godless hands find opportunity! Covet they house or lands, house or lands by robbery become theirs; ever their oppression comes between a man and his home, a man and his inheritance. And I, too, the Lord says, am devising mischief, mischief against the whole clan of you; never think to shake it off from your necks and walk proudly as of old; ill days are coming.”

Michaeas, 2: 1-3

And, of course, the court prophets that surround the Israelite king only foretell good things for the kingdom, for the People of God. God is with them, etc. Prophets like Michaeas are troublesome for their foretelling doom to come upon the people. After a round condemnation in chapter two, Michaeas gives a nice slap in the face to such yes-men and false prophets.

“And this message the Lord has for prophets that guide My people amiss, prophets that must have their mouths filled ere they will cry, ‘All’s well;’ sop thou must give them, else thou shalt be their sworn enemy. Visions would you see, all shall be night around you, search you the skies, you shall search in the dark; never a prophet but his sun is set, his day turned into twilight! Seers that see nothing, baffled diviners, acknowledge they, finger on lip, word from God is none. But here stands one that is full of the Lord’s spirit; vigour it lends me, and discernment, and boldness, fault of Jacob to denounce, guilt of Israel to proclaim.”

Michaeas, 3: 5-8

That last sentence is the voice of Michaeas, perhaps as full of the Holy Ghost as the Apostles were on Pentecost day. He proceeds to scold the kings and princes of both Juda and Samaria for their injustice, the judges for their corruption, all the while claiming to be protected by God, on account of His promises to the Patriarchs and to Moses. And the great Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem would fall too, the prophet moaned. And then he uses identical verses to the great prophet Isaias, proclaiming the eventual restoration of the promise to King David and the arrival of the Gentile people into the ancient promise. This portion is comparable – if not identical – to the second chapter of the book of Isaias:

“The Temple hill! One day it shall stand there, highest of all the mountain-heights, overtopping the peaks of them, and the nations will flock there together. A multitude of peoples will make their way to it, crying, ‘Come, let us climb up to the Lord’s mountain-peak, to the house where the God of Jacob dwells; He shall teach us the right way, we will walk in the paths He has chosen.’ The Lord’s command shall go out from Sion, His word from Jerusalem; over thronging peoples He shall sit in judgement, give award to great nations from far away. Sword they will fashion into ploughshare and spear into pruning-hook; no room there shall be for nation to levy war against nation, and train itself in arms. At ease you shall sit, each of you with his own vine, his own fig-tree to give him shade, and none to raise the alarm; such blessing the Lord of hosts pronounces on you. Let other nations go their own way, each with the name of its own god to rally it; ours to march under His divine name, who is our God for ever and for evermore! ‘When that time comes,’ the Lord says, ‘I will gather them in again and take them to Myself, flock of Mine that go limping and straggling, ever since I brought calamity on them; lame shall yet be a stock to breed from, and way-worn shall grow into a sturdy race; here in Sion they shall dwell, and the Lord be King over them, for ever henceforward. And thou, the watch-tower of that flock, cloud-capped fastness where the lady Sion reigns, power shall come back to thee as of old, once more Jerusalem shall be a queen.'”

Michaeas, 4: 1-8

What a beautiful dream! Peace and prosperity, atonement with God and the glory of Jerusalem: food for the Messianic expectations of the future. But alas, great turmoil should precede it, and all on account of the infidelity of princes and people. And then, hidden in chapter five is this little gem used by Saint Matthew in his Gospel (Gospel of Matthew, 2: 6).

“Bethlehem-Ephrata! Least do they reckon thee among all the clans of Juda? Nay, it is from thee I look to find a prince that shall rule over Israel. Whence comes he? From the first beginning, from ages untold! Marvel not, then, if the Lord abandons His people for a time, until she who is in travail has brought forth her child; others there are, brethren of his, that must be restored to the citizenship of Israel. Enabled by the Lord his God, confident in that mighty protection, stands he, our shepherd, and safely folds his flock; fame of him now reaches to the world’s end; who else should be its hope of recovery?”

Michaeas, 5: 2-5

Who indeed will restore the nation but He Who is to come, the Desired of the nations? Here we begin to see the origins of the concepts of the Messiah as Shepherd, Prince, King, etc. These are used later by Christ to describe His own ministry to the people. But again, this is far in the future. Ruin must come first. But first, the people must have their chance to stand trial: what God had wanted was religion accompanied by morality, and what He got was superficial religion (animal sacrifices) and wickedness:

“Listen to this message I have from the Lord: Up, and to the mountains make thy complaint, let the hill-sides echo with thy voice! Listen they must, yonder sturdy bastions of earth, while the Lord impleads His people; Israel stands upon its trial now. Tell me, My people, what have I done, that thou shouldst be a-weary of Me? Answer Me. Was it ill done, to rescue thee from Egypt, set thee free from a slave’s prison, send Moses and Aaron and Mary to guide thee on thy way? Bethink thee, what designs had Balach, king of Moab, and how Balaam the son of Beor answered him … from Setim to Galgala; and canst thou doubt, then, the faithfulness of the Lord’s friendship? How best may I humble myself before the Lord, that is God most high? What offering shall I bring? Calf, think you, of a year old, for my burnt-sacrifice? Fall rams by the thousand, fattened buck-goats by the ten thousand, will the Lord be better pleased? Shall gift of first-born for wrong-doing atone, body’s fruit for soul’s assoiling? Nay, son of Adam, what need to ask? Best of all it is, and this above all the Lord demands of thee, right thou shouldst do, and ruth love, and carry thyself humbly in the presence of thy God.”

Michaeas, 6: 1-8

Again, there are echoes here of Psalms 49(50) and 50(51). God doesn’t desire simply animal sacrifices; what He wants is a humble and a contrite heart, and the sacred rites of religion are tokens of that. Having one without the other leads to hypocrisy. And then the beautiful ending of Micah’s prophecy – the ingathering of the people – when all will be made new again. It makes even me feel hopeful for our own dismal days.

“With that staff of thine gather thy people in, the flock that is thy very own, scattered now in the forest glades, with rich plenty all around them; Basan and Galaad for their pasture-grounds, as in the days of old. Now for such wondrous evidences of power as marked thy rescuing of them from Egypt! Here is a sight to make the Gentiles hold their valour cheap, stand there dumb; ay, and why not deaf too? Let them lick the dust, serpent-fashion, crawl out from their homes, like scared reptiles, in terror of the Lord our God; much cause they shall have to fear Him. Was there ever such a God, so ready to forgive sins, to overlook faults, among the scattered remnant of His chosen race? He will exact vengeance no more; He loves to pardon. He will relent, and have mercy on us, quashing our guilt, burying our sins away sea-deep. Thou wilt keep Thy promise to Jacob, shew mercy to Abraham, Thy promised mercies of long ago.”

Michaeas, 7: 14-20
← back to Jonah
onward to Nahum →

Reading through S. Paul’s letter to the Colossians

← back to Philippians
onward to first Thessalonians →

This is a rather short letter and thankfully without any sign of the politics that had arisen in several of the other churches of the time, such as those of the Galatians and the Corinthians, because of other Christian missionaries presenting a rivalry to Paul’s message with their attempts to initiate the new gentile Christians into Judaism. But the ghost of that problem still haunts even this letter, for Paul in the second chapter reminds the people that physical circumcision is not necessary for those who are spiritually circumcised. Colossae (of Phrygia in Asia Minor) was not a church built by Paul, although he seems to have corresponded with her by letter. He seems to have been familiar with the Christians there, for he mentions a Colossian catechist (and possible priest) called Epaphras who had spoken to Paul about the Colossians.

We could begin with the nice little christological prayer-poem that is inserted in the first chapter, which provides a short catechesis about the Person of Christ:

“Our prayer is, that you may be filled with that closer knowledge of God’s Will which brings all wisdom and all spiritual insight with it. May you live as befits His servants, waiting continually on His pleasure; may the closer knowledge of God bring you fruitfulness and growth in all good. May you be inspired, as His glorious power can inspire you, with full strength to be patient and to endure; to endure joyfully, thanking God our Father for making us fit to share the light which saints inherit, for rescuing us from the power of darkness, and transferring us to the kingdom of His beloved Son. In the Son of God, in His blood, we find the redemption that sets us free from our sins. He is the true likeness of the God we cannot see; His is that first birth which precedes every act of creation. Yes, in Him all created things took their being, heavenly and earthly, visible and invisible; what are thrones and dominions, what are princedoms and powers? They were all created through Him and in Him; He takes precedency of all, and in Him all subsist. He too is that Head whose body is the Church; it begins with Him, since His was the first birth out of death; thus in every way the primacy was to become His. It was God’s good pleasure to let all completeness dwell in Him, and through Him to win back all things, whether on earth or in heaven, into union with Himself, making peace with them through His blood, shed on the cross.“

Colossians, 1: 9-20

All of this means incorporation into Christ and through Christ into God; it implies that we must be thoroughly grounded in the Faith. And Paul mentions the rather Catholic idea of ‘offering up’ our sufferings to God. If Paul can do that, then so can we: 

“Even as I write, I am glad of my sufferings on your behalf, as, in this mortal frame of mine, I help to pay off the debt which the afflictions of Christ still leave to be paid, for the sake of His body, the Church.”

Colossians, 1: 24

And all this in the first chapter is Paul’s statement of faith, and his proclamation of Christ, the prelude to his demand for perfection among the Christians, to the ordering of their lives according to the traditions they had received. The Faith is rather simple, he says, and they shouldn’t allow it to be complicated by the sophisms of human traditions. At this point, Paul plays the poet again, as he describes how the Church has moved beyond the practices of the Law of Moses – physical circumcision, the liturgical festivals of the Hebrews, etc. are all superceded by Christ and so are now meaningless:

“In Christ the whole plenitude of Deity is embodied, and dwells in Him, and it is in Him that you find your completion; He is the fountain head from which all dominion and power proceed. In Him you have been circumcised with a circumcision that was not man’s handiwork. It was effected, not by despoiling the natural body, but by Christ’s circumcision; you, by baptism, have been united with His burial, united, too, with His resurrection, through your faith in that exercise of power by which God raised Him from the dead. And in giving life to Him, He gave life to you too, when you lay dead in your sins, with nature all uncircumcised in you. He condoned all your sins; cancelled the deed which excluded us, the decree made to our prejudice, swept it out of the way, by nailing it to the cross; and the dominions and powers he robbed of their prey, put them to an open shame, led them away in triumph, through Him. So no one must be allowed to take you to task over what you eat or drink, or in the matter of observing feasts, and new moons, and sabbath days; all these were but shadows cast by future events, the reality is found in Christ.“

Colossians, 2: 9-15

God, in Christ, has cancelled out many of the demands of the Hebrew Law, which Law had excluded the non-Jewish gentiles from the promises that He had made to mankind; the overriding of several of the commandments of the Law and allowing the excluded to approach the holiness of God had robbed the dominions and powers (read ‘devils’) of these gentiles souls. Do note that he’s not referring to the moral law of the Hebrews, because the requirement of charity towards God and towards man that is intrinsic to the Christian observance at the heart of the Gospel continues. That means the Ten Commandments and all associated with them and the charity/love that governs them remain, but the exclusivity with traditions like circumcision is done away with.

So, let whoever wants to continue to observe the Jewish feasts and fasts, the various minutiae of the prescriptions of the Law of Moses and so on, but the Colossian Christians are to allow such things to be imposed upon them. The Christian is risen with Christ, above these earthly-minded customs and traditions, and they must also be beyond the sins that were so common to the pagan society surrounding them, instead putting on Christ as a garment, taking on His character, giving birth to a unity that transcends race and kind:

“You must deaden, then, those passions in you which belong to earth, fornication and impurity, lust and evil desire, and that love of money which is an idolatry. These are what bring down God’s vengeance on the unbelievers, and such was your own behaviour, too, while you lived among them. Now it is your turn to have done with it all, resentment, anger, spite, insults, foul-mouthed utterance; and do not tell lies at one another’s expense. You must be quit of the old self, and the habits that went with it; you must be clothed in the new self, that is being refitted all the time for closer knowledge, so that the image of the God who created it is its pattern. Here is no more Gentile and Jew, no more circumcised and uncircumcised; no one is barbarian, or Scythian, no one is slave or free man; there is nothing but Christ in any of us. You are God’s chosen people, holy and well beloved; the livery you wear must be tender compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; you must bear with one another’s faults, be generous to each other, where somebody has given grounds for complaint; the Lord’s generosity to you must be the model of yours. And, to crown all this, charity; that is the bond which makes us perfect.”

Colossians 3: 5-14

Also in chapter three come the instructions to families, to spouses and children, that are so much a part of catechesis even today, but are controversial in current society, because of the language used in the relationship between spouses. But the Church was always far ahead of its time in the mutual affection that she demanded of Christians spouses. Mutual affection. Husbands, love your wives; wives, love your husbands… and then, there is the instruction for slaves and masters. Faced with a slavery-based social situation, such as that of the time, Paul was asking his Christians to be the most virtuous, most diligent that they could be in their secular tasks.

“Wives must be submissive to their husbands, as the service of the Lord demands; and you, husbands, treat your wives lovingly, do not grow harsh with them. Children must be obedient to their parents in every way; it is a gracious sign of serving the Lord; and you, parents, must not rouse your children to resentment, or you will break their spirits. You who are slaves, give your human masters full obedience, not with that show of service which tries to win human favour, but single-mindedly, in fear of the Lord. Work at all your tasks with a will, reminding yourselves that you are doing it for the Lord, not for men; and you may be sure that the Lord will give the portion he has allotted you in return”

Colossians 3: 18-24

Far from approving of slavery then, Paul was simply acknowledging an existing social structure and moving the centre of interest towards Christ, and this is a rather christo-centric letter from the beginning to the end. Paul ends this section by saying that, after everybody has behaved well, he will be rewarded appropriately by God, for God has no human preferences when he deals out judgement for good and evil. Meanwhile, we are to be prayerful, thankful in prayer, awaiting opportunities to spread the Gospel, while being prudent and respectful about it: 

“Be prudent in your behaviour towards those who are not of your company; it is an opportunity you must eagerly grasp. Your manner of speaking must always be gracious, with an edge of liveliness, ready to give each questioner the right answer.”

Colossians 4: 5-6

The last part of the letter draws various influential characters of the Church of that time together in a delightful way. There is Tychicus, who was mentioned also in the letter to the Ephesians; there is Onesimus, who was that slave of Philemon, regarding whom Paul wrote that short letter to Philemon; there is John Mark, cousin of Saint Barnabas, whom we know as Saint Mark, the author of one of our Gospels; and there is Saint Luke, here called the Physician, close friend of Paul’s and known to us through his Gospel and his Acts of the Apostles.

And that’s the end of this review.

← back to Philippians
onward to first Thessalonians →

‘Whether or not they listen…’ (Sunday XIV of Ordered time)

I have switched the word ‘ordinary’ permanently to ‘ordered’ on the website, when referring to the green Sundays of this part of the year. That’s the real intimation of the word, as I see it: the Sundays counting down to the end of the year and the season of Advent.

This weekend, we have very much about the nature of prophecy in the life of the sacred people. Prophecy is nothing but the communication of the mind of God to a people who cannot easily receive it; the prophet consequently becomes a mediator between the Holy One and the people He wishes to communicate with. Prophecy has very much to do with correcting the usual course of human life, by urging people to reconsecrate it repeatedly to the Holy One, by reorienting it towards Him. The essence of the perennial nature of the prophecy contained within Scripture and of its applicability to our lives is that human nature doesn’t change and human society as a whole (rather than progressing according to a common understanding) keeps oscillating between success and failure, and between good behaviour and bad behaviour. This cyclic nature in the life of human society is marvellously demonstrated in the life of the Hebrew nation in the Old Testament, and its extension in the life of the Christian Church in the last two millennia.

“And at His words, a divine force mastered me, raising me to my feet, so that I could listen to Him. ‘Son of man,’ He told me, ‘I am sending thee on an errand to the men of Israel, this heathen brood that has rebelled and forsaken Me; see how My covenant has been violated by the fathers yesterday, the children to-day! To brazen-faced folk and hard-hearted thy errand is, and still from the Lord God a message thou must deliver, hear they or deny thee hearing; rebels all, at least they shall know that they have had a prophet in their midst.”

Prophecy of Ezechiel, 2: 2-5 [link]

The prophet Ezechiel was a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah, about 600 years before Christ, but while Jeremiah lived in Jerusalem, trying hard to convince the king of Juda and the authorities of the Temple to repent and return to the observance of the Law of God, and to trust in His providence, Ezechiel had been carried away with thousands of Hebrews to Mesopotamia and had to deal with the same obstinacy and intransigence there in the Exile. Prophets in both the Old Testament and in our own times have to raise their voice and call the people back to faith and trust in God, but the bottom line of our first reading this weekend remains: the majority of the people will not listen and will continue on down the path to utter destruction, but that will not be for the lack of prophets. They shall know that that man or that woman had stood among them and had been right all along, but had been ignored. Society’s downfall is wrought by its members, after they despised the correction sent them.

So, then, who is a prophet? In our own context, a prophet is not necessarily a cleric, a priest or a bishop. Nor is the role of a prophet a designated place of honour within the community. We are all prophetic souls – this gift was given to us at baptism – and we are meant to carry the mind of God from Scripture and Tradition and bring its to bear on whosoever may benefit from it, enshrining His law in the hearts of our family members, our friends, and in the wider society. This requires a particular nearness to God, which includes a life of intense and dedicated prayer and devotion. And it requires a very strong dose of humility, for the prophet works to glorify God and not himself or herself.

The most well-known prophets in the recent history of the Church have often been cloistered nuns like S. Margaret Marie Alocoque and S. Thérèse of Lisieux, or Religious Sisters like S. Maria Faustyna Kowalska – and their ministries, originating in the quiet of devout souls, have deeply changed and fuelled the general life of devotion of the Latin Church. Great bishops and priests like S. Alphonsus Liguori, Padre Pio and the media priest Monsignor Fulton Sheen have become household names among Catholics and impressed and encouraged us with their lives of holiness and words of wisdom. But during their own lifetimes, they were often ignored, and their message to some degree despised.

It’s even harder when the prophet tries to work among his or her own people and within the community he or she emerged from. It’s a little like the story in the gospel, where the Holy One couldn’t even work miracles in His own town, because nobody could trust their carpenter’s son to perform the works of God, or indeed to be a prophet from God.

“Then He left the place, and withdrew to His own country-side, His disciples following Him. Here, when the sabbath came, He began teaching in the synagogue, and many were astonished when they heard Him; ‘How did He come by all this?’ they asked. ‘What is the meaning of this wisdom that has been given Him, of all these wonderful works that are done by His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? Do not His sisters live here near us?’ And they had no confidence in Him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘It is only in his own country, in his own home, and among his own kindred, that a prophet goes unhonoured.’ Nor could He do any wonderful works there, except that He laid His hands on a few who were sick, and cured them; He was astonished at their unbelief.”

Gospel of S. Mark, 6: 1-6 [link]

This may be the reason why bishops don’t always assign priests to the parishes they were born in, or grew up in, or both. It is easier for those who have known the prophet before the divine call was received to belittle him or her, and to discount the message – our Lord suffered this just as before him Jeremiah and Ezechiel did. But, although the people disregard the prophet, they will know that they didn’t lack that prophet, and the movement that follows the prophet will not let them forget.

But, from the perspective of the prophet, getting the message about is the priority, and not any glory the prophet may receive from the effort made. Pride is to be avoided entirely, and we see this theme in the second reading this weekend, where S. Paul says that he was tempted to pride because of the extraordinary generosity the Holy One had shown him, until he received the mysterious thorn in his flesh (a ‘sting’ in the translation below) to humiliate him. There is always great speculation about what this thorn was (some sort of physical deformity or disability, maybe), but it was certainly something that would have reduced Paul in the eyes of the superificial and of those who expect great Saints never to suffer. ‘Oh, he’s got that wretched deformity, God would never treat his prophets like that, he’s probably nothing.’

But we know that the greatest of the Saints suffered greatly, but that God was glorified in their suffering, and that when they struggled the most to bring His words to the Church they shone like little torches with the light that was His.

“I can only tell you that this man, with his spirit in his body, or with his spirit apart from his body, God knows which, not I, was carried up into Paradise, and heard mysteries which man is not allowed to utter. That is the man about whom I will boast; I will not boast about myself, except to tell you of my humiliations. It would not be vanity, if I had a mind to boast about such a man as that; I should only be telling the truth. But I will spare you the telling of it; I have no mind that anybody should think of me except as he sees me, as he hears me talking to him. And indeed, for fear that these surpassing revelations should make me proud, I was given a sting to distress my outward nature, an angel of Satan sent to rebuff me. Three times it made me entreat the Lord to rid me of it; but He told me, ‘My grace is enough for thee; My strength finds its full scope in thy weakness.’ More than ever, then, I delight to boast of the weaknesses that humiliate me, so that the strength of Christ may enshrine itself in me. I am well content with these humiliations of mine, with the insults, the hardships, the persecutions, the times of difficulty I undergo for Christ; when I am weakest, then I am strongest of all.“

Second letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 12: 3-10 [link]

Reading through the Prophecy of Jonah

← back to Obadiah
onward to Micah →

The book of Jonas tells the famous tale of the successful mission of a Hebrew prophet from Juda to the Assyrians of the city of Nineve. The name ‘Yona’ is literally ‘dove,’ and we can see that, while the prophet sought peace, the Holy One had a significant mission for him: the conversion of a gentile nation centred on one of the greatest cities of the ancient world. This is significant for the Church, which has always been a community of Jews and Gentiles, and the book of Jonas joins the body of Hebrew prophecy that demonstrated that the God of the Hebrews has a general concern for all the tribes of mankind, and not only His preferred nation of Israel.

Jonas runs from the mission at first, fleeing westward by ship. He is promptly arrested by a storm and chucked overboard by the crew of the ship, who have realised that he is the reason for the storm threatening their lives and property. Tossed in the sea, Jonas is swallowed by a large sea-creature. This story was strikingly used by Christ to describe His own three days in the tomb before His Resurrection (Gospel of S. Matthew, 12: 39-41), so that we could call Jonas’ prayer from the belly of the beast to be Christ’s own prayer from His tomb on Holy Saturday. 

“Call I on the Lord in my peril, redress He grants me; from the very womb of the grave call I, Thou art listening to me! Here in the depths of the sea’s heart Thou wouldst cast me away, with the flood all about me, eddy of Thine, wave of Thine, sweeping over me, till it seemed as if I were shut out from Thy regard: yet life Thou grantest me; I shall gaze on Thy holy temple once again. Around me the deadly waters close, the depths engulf me, the weeds are wrapped about my head; mountain caverns I must plumb, the very bars of earth my unrelenting prison; and still, O Lord my God, Thou wilt raise me, living, from the tomb. Daunted this heart, yet still of the Lord I would bethink me; prayer of mine should reach Him, far away in His holy Temple! Let fools that court false worship all hope of pardon forgo; mine to do sacrifice in Thy honour, vows made and paid to the Lord, my Deliverer!“

Jonas, 2: 3-10

Here, all at once, we have a message of faith in the midst of a seemingly complete abandonment and a typically Hebrew condemnation of idolatry. Just for this prayer I would treasure this short book above the other smaller books of prophecy in its vicinity in the Bible. After being spat out by the sea-beast, Jonas completed his word of prophecy to the Ninevites and, surprisingly, they hearkened to the voice of this foreign prophet and took on the ancient forms of penitence. This third chapter is very suitable for the Christian season of Lent:

“With that, the Ninevites shewed faith in God, rich and poor alike, proclaiming a fast and putting on sackcloth; nay, the king of Nineve himself, when word of it reached him, came down from his throne, cast his robe aside, put on sackcloth, and sat down humbly in the dust. And a cry was raised in Nineve, at the bidding of the king and his nobles, ‘A fast for man and beast, for herd and flock; no food is to be eaten, no water drunk; let man and beast go covered with sackcloth; cry out lustily to the Lord, and forsake, each of you, his sinful life, his wrongful deeds! God may yet relent and pardon, forgo His avenging anger and spare our lives.'”

Jonas, 3: 5-9

Naturally, God relents before this public show of repentance and foregoes His plans for the destruction of that city. Meanwhile, Jonas had climbed a hill to watch the destruction of the city, and is not impressed to find that nothing will happen. He had taken refuge under a favoured tree from the hot Assyrian sun, and the tree immediately withered away. Thus did God wish to show Jonas in his chagrin at losing his sunshade, that God’s love for the Ninevites – this gentile people – was far greater than Jonas’ love for his favoured tree.

“‘Why,’ said the Lord, ‘what anger is this over an ivy-plant?’ ‘Deadly angry am I,’ Jonas answered, ‘and no marvel either.’ ‘Great pity thou hast,’ the Lord said, ‘for yonder ivy-plant, that was not of thy growing, and no toil cost thee; a plant that springs in a night, and in a night must wither! And what of Nineve? Here is a great city, with a hundred and twenty thousand folk in it, and none of them can tell right from left, all these cattle, too; and may I not spare Nineve?‘”

Jonas, 4: 9-11

And that is the Book of Jonas, a well-known and beloved story – given Christ’s use of it – but also surprisingly revelatory of God’s care of not one single people and nation, but for a whole world of peoples.

← back to Obadiah
onward to Micah →

Reading through S. Paul’s letter to the Philippians

← back to Ephesians
onward to Colossians →

Philippi was one of the great cities of Roman Macedonia in Saint Paul’s time, sitting, as you can see by zooming in and out of the Google Map above, on the ancient Via Egnatia, the Roman Road joining Greek Kavalla on the Aegian Sea to Albanian Durres on the Adriatic. Philippi was a Roman colony, placed under Italian law and governed by military officers, the Jewish presence there being minimal. Saint Luke describes Paul’s entry into Philippi in the sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, in a first-person account, for Luke was a companion of Paul at that time, alongside Timothy and Silas. How did a wandering Jewish group create a small Christian church (the first in Europe!) in a short time, and in the absence of a pre-existing local Jewish community? They preached to the ladies:

“Thence we reached Philippi, which is a Roman colony and the chief city in that part of Macedonia; in this city we remained for some days, conferring together. On the sabbath day we went out beyond the city gates, by the river side, a meeting-place, we were told, for prayer; and we sat down and preached to the women who had assembled there. One of those who were listening was a woman called Lydia, a purple-seller from the city of Thyatira, and a worshipper of the true God; and the Lord opened her heart, so that she was attentive to Paul’s preaching. She was baptized, with all her household; and she was urgent with us; ‘Now you have decided that I have faith in the Lord,’ she said, ‘come to my house and lodge there; and she would take no denial.'”

Acts of the Apostles, 16: 12-15

And, obviously they created a seed community in the home of the Roman matron Lydia, who seems to have had part in the lucrative Phoenician market in purple dye. We discover later in the chapter that the Apostle couldn’t stay very long in Philippi, for he left almost immediately for Thessalonika. However, he undoubtedly kept in touch with the Philippians with correspondence, only one part of which we have reserved for us in our bibles in the Letter to the Philippians. I’m going to point out a few nice parts of the letter. First, Paul says that he is glad of any way in which Christ is proclaimed, whether as part of a work of charity, or even through Paul himself suffering, such as by being arrested and imprisoned!

“I hasten to assure you, brethren, that my circumstances [of imprisonment] here have only had the effect of spreading the gospel further; so widely has my imprisonment become known, in Christ’s honour, throughout the praetorium and to all the world beyond. And most of the brethren, deriving fresh confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment, are making bold to preach God’s word with more freedom than ever. Some of them, it is true, for no better reason than rivalry or jealousy; but there are others who really proclaim Christ out of good will. Some, I mean, are moved by charity, because they recognise that I am here to defend the gospel, others by party spirit, proclaiming Christ from wrong motives, just because they hope to make my chains gall me worse. What matter, so long as either way, for private ends or in all honesty, Christ is proclaimed?“

Philippians, 1: 12-18

Priorities! ‘For me, life is Christ,’ Paul declares, ‘and death is a prize to be won!’ He wants to reach past death for the joy of eternal life with God, but he dearly loves the people of his churches, and he moans that his heart is torn in two: he wants to die to be united with the Holy One, but he wants to live for the good of the churches. That is once more the heart of the father: a life lived for the sake of his children.

“I am hemmed in on both sides. I long to have done with it, and be with Christ, a better thing, much more than a better thing; and yet, for your sakes, that I should wait in the body is more urgent still. I am certain of that, and I do not doubt that I shall wait, and wait upon you all, to the happy furtherance of your faith.”

Philippians, 1: 23-25

Now, remember when Christ said in the Gospels that we should be like little children in order that we acquire eternal life. Paul says a little bit more here, and it is startlingly relevant to us even today: 

“Beloved, you have always shewn yourselves obedient; and now that I am at a distance, not less but much more than when I am present, you must work to earn your salvation, in anxious fear. Both the will to do it and the accomplishment of that will are something which God accomplishes in you, to carry out his loving purpose. Do all that lies in you, never complaining, never hesitating, to shew yourselves innocent and single-minded, God’s children, bringing no reproach on his name. You live in an age that is twisted out of its true pattern, and among such people you shine out, beacons to the world, upholding the message of life. Thus, when the day of Christ comes, I shall be able to boast of a life not spent in vain, of labours not vainly undergone.”

Philippians, 2: 12-16

Paul has elsewhere (in the letters we have) said that he has begotten these new Christians in Christ. So he calls himself their father, and addresses them commonly as beloved children. He urges them to follow his example, which is a useful idea, since they do not have the spiritual and moral tradition and heritage of the Jews. By copying Paul, they acquire it gradually:

“No, brethren, I do not claim to have the mastery already, but this at least I do; forgetting what I have left behind, intent on what lies before me, I press on with the goal in view, eager for the prize, God’s heavenly summons in Christ Jesus. All of us who are fully grounded must be of this mind, and God will make it known to you, if you are of a different mind at present. Meanwhile, let us all be of the same mind, all follow the same rule, according to the progress we have made. Be content, brethren, to follow my example, and mark well those who live by the pattern we have given them…”

Philippians, 3: 13-17

Humble, dear Paul says that he is not perfect, doesn’t have the mastery, but he’s struggling along like everybody else. We know that this is not the first letter or the only letter Paul wrote to the Philippians, because he ends with a salutation to two ladies other than Lydia, whom we know from the Acts of the Apostles. He names Evodia and Syntyche. He is very affectionate in his recommendations of the Philippian Epaphroditus who had probably brought him a letter from Philippi and would now carry this letter of ours back home with him. Paul is also affectionate about his priest Timothy, whom he has promised to send to visit the Philippian church. Timothy would later become bishop of Ephesus, across the Aegian in Asia Minor. I shall end this post with a characteristic and beautiful Pauline exhortation to virtue:

“And now, brethren, all that rings true, all that commands reverence, and all that makes for right; all that is pure, all that is lovely, all that is gracious in the telling; virtue and merit, wherever virtue and merit are found—let this be the argument of your thoughts. The lessons I taught you, the traditions I handed on to you, all you have heard and seen of my way of living—let this be your rule of conduct. Then the God of peace will be with you.”

Philippians, 4: 8-9
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onward to Colossians →

Reading through Ecclesiasticus (aka. ben Sirach)

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onward to Isaiah →

Today’s summary is on the book of Ecclesiasticus, an important bridge between the Old and the New Testaments that was excluded from by the rabbis from the Hebrew Bible in the centuries after the Resurrection, perhaps because it was considered too Christian. Sadly, protestant rebels did the same in the sixteenth century, probably trying to conform to the post-Christian Hebrew Bible, so that many of our English-language bibles include this in their appendix of ‘apocrypha,’ if they include it at all.

Ecclesiasticus is a rather long Wisdom book, seeking to teach young people the Jewish religion. Therefore, I have often pictured its origins either in the synagogues of the Jewish diaspora, or in the tradition of the elders in Jerusalem, and developed during those mostly quiet centuries between the restoration of the Temple in the fifth century BC and the cruel rule of the Syrian king, Antiochus IV Ephiphanes, whose wickedness prompted the turmoil of the Maccabean rebellion and the change of fortunes that followed that. But, in the quiet period, Judaism was able to flourish and teaching systems were produced that would eventually result in the spread of the synagogue system that was in evidence in the days of Christ in every Jewish community in the Holy Land and beyond.

So, then. This is a type of textbook for the instruction of youngsters. Let’s run through the whole. This book has a preface, providing an introduction and a reason for the book’s existence:

“…my own grandfather, Jesus, who had devoted himself to the careful study of the law, the prophets, and our other ancestral records, had a mind to put something in writing himself that should bear on this philosophical tradition, to claim the attention of eager students who had already mastered it, and to encourage their observance of the Law.“

Ecclesiasticus, prologue

The name ‘Jesus’ is the anglicisation of the Greek ‘Ihsous,’ which is the Hebrew ‘Yehoshua,’ which is also anglicised to ‘Joshua.’ Nowthen, as the first chapter begins properly, the basics of the study of wisdom and philosophy is given:

“All wisdom has one source; it dwelt with the Lord God before ever time began. Sand thou mayst count, or the rain-drops, or the days of the world’s abiding; heaven-height thou mayst measure, or the wide earth, or the depth of the world beneath, ere God’s wisdom thou canst trace to her origin, that was before all. First she is of all created things; time never was when the riddle of thought went unread. (What is wisdom’s fount? God’s word above. What is her course? His eternal commandments.) Buried her roots beyond all search, wise her counsels beyond all knowing; too high her teaching to be plainly revealed, too manifold her movements to be understood. There is but one God, high creator of all things; sitting on His throne to govern us, a great King, worthy of all dread; He it was that created her, through His Holy Spirit. His eye took in the whole range of her being; and He has poured her out upon all His creation, upon all living things, upon all the souls that love Him, in the measure of His gift to each. To fear the Lord is man’s pride and boast, is joy, is a prize proudly worn…“

Ecclesiasticus, 1: 1-11

This is one of the basic elements of the Wisdom tradition of the Jews, which we have inherited – that reverence for God comes before everything else. That’s what the ‘fear of the Lord’ is primarily – reverence and devotion to the Creator. That last bit (which I have highlighted) is an ideal reading for the days of Pentecost – the great festival of the Spirit of God and of Holy Wisdom. The first part of the book is a general introduction to divine Wisdom and an encouragement to the book’s audience to acquire this Wisdom, in humility and submission to God.

“My son, if thy mind is to enter the Lord’s service, wait there in His presence, with honesty of purpose and with awe, and prepare thyself to be put to the test. Submissive be thy heart, and ready to bear all; to wise advice lend a ready ear, and be never hasty when ill times befall thee. Wait for God, cling to God and wait for Him; at the end of it, thy life shall blossom anew. Accept all that comes to thee, patient in sorrow, humiliation long enduring; for gold and silver the crucible, it is in the furnace of humiliation men shew themselves worthy of His acceptance. Trust in Him, and he will lift thee to thy feet again; go straight on thy way, and fix in him thy hope; hold fast thy fear of him, and in that fear to old age come thou. All you that fear the Lord, wait patiently for His mercies; lose sight of Him, and you shall fall by the way.”

Ecclesiasticus, 2: 1-7

One of the reasons I like Ecclesiasticus so very much is that it is practically Christian. Having been written not long before the time of Christ, it (or the Wisdom tradition of which it is an exemplar) obviously influenced the Apostles and other early Christians very strongly and there are echoes of Ecclesiasticus in the letters we have in the New Testament, in particular the so-called Catholic Epistles of the Apostles James, Jude and Peter. So, there is honesty of purpose, extreme trust in God and the willingness to suffer for the sake of God, etc. – characteristics of the peace-loving Church of the Apostolic and patristic times. God/Christ always before us, and a great derision for sinful attitudes, especially dishonesty and maliciousness. The third chapter has a beautiful recommendation for the care of one’s parents, specifically one’s father in his strength and in his old age and dissipation. This is the expansion of the fourth commandment that every Christian requires.

“As thou wouldst have joy of thy own children, as thou wouldst be heard when thou fallest to praying, honour thy father still. A father honoured is long life won; a father well obeyed is a mother’s heart comforted. None that fears the Lord but honours the parents who gave him life, slave to master owes no greater service. Thy father honour, in deed and in word and in all manner of forbearance; so thou shalt have his blessing, a blessing that will endure to thy life’s end. What is the buttress of a man’s house? A father’s blessing. What tears up the foundations of it? A mother’s curse. Never make a boast of thy father’s ill name; what, should his discredit be thy renown? Nay, for a father’s good repute or ill, a son must go proudly, or hang his head. My son, when thy father grows old, take him to thyself; long as he lives, never be thou the cause of his repining. Grow he feeble of wit, make allowance for him, nor in thy manhood’s vigour despise him. The kindness shewn to thy father will not go forgotten; favour it shall bring thee in acquittal of thy mother’s guilt. Faithfully it shall be made good to thee, nor shalt thou be forgotten when the time of affliction comes; like ice in summer the record of thy sins shall melt away. Tarnished his name, that leaves his father forsaken; God’s curse rest on him, that earns a mother’s ill-will.”

Ecclesiasticus, 3: 6-18

Now, again, we have the heart of Jewish philosophy – love of God and love of neighbour (the most vulnerable of whom are widows and orphans) – mixed in with the call to humility.

“To the common sort of men give friendly welcome; before an elder abate thy pride; and to a man of eminence bow meekly thy head. If a poor man would speak to thee, lend him thy ear without grudging; give him his due, and let him have patient and friendly answer. If he is wronged by oppression, redress thou needs must win him, nor be vexed by his importunity. When thou sittest in judgement, be a father to the orphans, a husband to the widow that bore them; so the most High an obedient son shall reckon thee, and shew thee more than a mother’s kindness.“

Ecclesiasticus, 4: 7-11

Almost every chapter in Ecclesiasticus has a new bit of relevant advice buried in a more general soup of Jewish Wisdom. For example, now there is a call to silence and listening that hearkens back to the Book of Proverb’s saying that the fool in keeping silence shows himself to be wise and discerning.

“True answer and wise answer none can give but he who listens patiently, and learns all. If discernment thou hast, give thy neighbour his answer; if none, tongue held is best, or some ill-advised word will shame thee; speech uttered was ever the wise man’s passport to fame, the fool’s undoing. Never win the name of back-biter, by thy own tongue entrapped into shame. A thief must blush and do penance, a hypocrite men will mark and avoid; the back-biter earns indignation and enmity and disgrace all at once.”

Ecclesiasticus, 5: 13-17

So, now, I shall fast-forward a little, or this post could be endless. Chapter six speaks of gentleness and true friendship. Chapter seven deals with human relationships of rich/poor, king/subject, brother/brother, husband/wife, father/children, children/parents. It’s all about duty, and even the duty of the general population to the priests is mentioned. Chapter eight begins a slew of proverbs, not unlike the book of Proverbs itself. Such as the warning to not write biographies until the subject is in the grave:

“Never call a man happy until he is dead; his true epitaph is written in his children.“

Ecclesiasticus, 11: 30

Chapter thirteen is about the rich and the poor and presents the warning to the poor to not mix with the rich, who would only aim to further impoverish them, while growing fat off it. Or anyhow to use them and then chuck them away.

“A heavy burden thou art shouldering, if thou wouldst consort with thy betters; not for thee the company of the rich. Pot and kettle are ill matched; it is the pot breaks when they come together; rich man, that has seized all he can, frets and fumes for more; poor man robbed may not so much as speak.”

Ecclesiasticus, 13: 2-4

Chapter fourteen and fifteen take up again the glories of divine Wisdom and the protection she offers to those who honestly seek her. Wisdom is given as contained in the precepts of God. From chapter sixteen, we return to the subject of the fear of God, the reverence due to God’s majesty, especially as revealed to the Hebrews at the beginning of their history with the faithful patriarch Abraham and his nephew Lot, and then with the Law-giver Moses. 

“Their eyes should see Him in visible majesty, their ears catch the echo of His majestic voice. Keep your hands clear, He told them, of all wrong-doing, and gave each man a duty towards his neighbour. Ever before His eyes their doings are; nothing is hidden from His scrutiny. To every Gentile people He has given a ruler of its own; Israel alone is exempt, marked down as God’s patrimony. Clear as the sun their acts shew under His eye; over their lives, untiring His scrutiny. Sin they as they will, His covenant is still on record; no misdeed of theirs but He is the witness of it.“

Ecclesiasticus, 17: 11-17

As we can see, the writer of the book has gone beyond the short-lived kingships of Israel, returning to the older view of Israel as God’s patrimony, to be ruled over by God Himself. The chapter ends magnificently:

“Think not man is the centre of all things; no son of Adam is immortal, for all the delight men take in their sinful follies. Nought brighter than the sun, and yet its brightness shall fail; nought darker than the secret designs of flesh and blood, yet all shall be brought to light. God, that marshals the armies of high heaven, and man, all dust and ashes!“

Ecclesiasticus, 17: 29-31

Is there not an echo of that in the Gospels, where Christ declares that what is spoken of in secret will be one day shouted from the rooftops, when the secrets of men’s hearts will one day be revealed? Chapter eighteen speaks of the passing of fortunes and how quickly such can take place, urging readers to work well in times of plenty, remembering that times of drought may be around the corner. With chapter nineteen there begins another collection of proverbs. There is a nice little condemnation of the exploitation of the poor in chapter twenty-one. Keep in mind that reserving the justly-earned pay of the workman is still considered by the Church to be one of the sins that cries out to Heaven for vengeance.

“Browbeat and oppress the poor, thy own wealth shall dwindle; riches that are grown too great the proud cannot long enjoy; pride shrivels wealth. Swiftly comes their doom, because the poor man’s plea reached their ears, but never their hearts. Where reproof is unregarded, there goes the sinner; no God-fearing man but will come to a better mind. To the glib speaker, fame comes from far and wide; only the wise man knows the slips of his own heart. Wouldst thou build thy fortunes on earnings that are none of thine? As well mightest thou lay in stones for winter fuel.“

Ecclesiasticus, 21: 5-9

This has echoes of Psalm 9 (or Psalms 9 and 10, if you use the Jewish/protestant numbering), where the wicked lie in wait for the poor, eager to trap and despoil them – but the Holy One will have the last word. But, acquiring Wisdom is knowing one’s imperfections and making amends for them. The proverbs continue into chapter twenty-three, where the writer prays for custody of the lips, not just keeping oneself from oath-taking, but also from lewd language and even rash speech made in anger. Again, this recommendation of silence is taken up in the New Testament, such as in the letter of S. James.

“Oaths a many, sins a many; punishment shall be still at thy doors. Forswear thyself, thou shalt be held to account for it; forget the oath, it is at thy double peril; and though it were lightly taken, thou shalt find no excuse in that; plague shall light on all thou hast, in amends for it. Sin of speech there is, too, that has death for its counterpart; God send it be not found in Jacob’s chosen race; from men of tender conscience every such thought is far away, not theirs to wallow in evil-doing. Beware of habituating thy tongue to lewd talk; therein is matter of offence. Not thine to bring shame on father and mother. There are great ones all around thee; what if thyself God should disregard, when thou art in their company? Then shall this ill custom of thine strike thee dumb and bring thee to great dishonour; thou wilt wish thou hadst never been, and rue the day of thy birth. Let a man grow into a habit of railing speech, all his days there is no amending him.“

Ecclesiasticus, 23: 12-20

Chapter twenty-four takes up the song of divine Wisdom once more in a beautiful passage, comparable with chapter eight of the book of Proverbs. After this comes the description of the plight of the man who suffers the ill-will of his wife, whom this translation calls a ‘scold.’ It is curious that there is never mention of the plight of the long-suffering wife, who has a nasty husband. I could turn both ways the words presented here…

“Better climb sandy cliff with the feet of old age, than be a peace-loving man mated with a scold. Let not thy eye be caught by a woman’s beauty; not for her beauty desire her; think of woman’s rage, her shamelessness, the dishonour she can do thee, how hard it goes with a man if his wife will have the uppermost. Crushed spirits, a clouded brow, a heavy heart, all this is an ill woman’s work; faint hand and flagging knee betoken one unblessed in his marriage.”

Ecclesiasticus, 25: 27-32

But there follows praise for the faithful wife, and this could also go both ways: happy the woman with a faithful husband, etc.

“Happy the man that has a faithful wife; his span of days is doubled. A wife industrious is the joy of her husband, and crowns all his years with peace. He best thrives that best wives; where men fear God, this is the reward of their service, good cheer given to rich and poor alike; day in, day out, never a mournful look.”

Ecclesiasticus, 26: 1-4

There follows now another stream of proverbs, again with the common themes of prudent conversation, false friendships, making return on loans, performing acts of charity towards those who cannot make return (virtue its own reward?), disciplining one’s children for their own good, tempering one’s appetite, the prudent consumption of alcohol, etc. Then, chapter thirty-three returns to the subject of the fear of God, part of the ongoing pattern of the book, which wheels between this and the glory of divine Wisdom, peppering the spaces between with proverbs. Here, we find a meditation on the order of relationships between people, an order seemingly placed there by God:

“To some He would assign high dignity; others should be lost in the common rabble of days. So it is that all men are built of the same clay; son of Adam is son of earth; yet the Lord, in the plenitude of His wisdom, has marked them off from one another, not giving the same destiny to each. For some, His blessing; he will advance them, will set them apart and claim them as His own. For some, His ban; he will bring them low, and single them out no more. Clay we are in the potter’s hands; it is for Him who made us to dispose of us; clay is what potter wills it to be, and we are in our Maker’s hands, to be dealt with at His pleasure. Evil matched with good, life matched with death, sinner matched with man of piety; so everywhere in God’s works thou wilt find pairs matched, one against the other.“

Ecclesiasticus, 33: 10-15

This, we may notice, is the conclusion of Job, who could not understand his afflictions, for he knew himself to be in God’s favour. His friends were convinced that he had sinned and so merited punishment. But Job discovered that God disposes as God pleases, and we may not dare to defend our own innocence before God – this is also a conclusion of Ecclesiasticus. In chapter thirty-five, we find the great honour given to the perfect observance of the Law, as part of the requirement for divine worship, something lost on many self-confessed Christians today. Christ no less than Moses required that his people keep His commandments and so remain in His love. Keeping the Law of God is giving Him due reverence and worship.

“Live true to the Law, and thou hast richly endowed the altar. Let this be thy welcome-offering, to heed God’s word and keep clear of all wickedness; this thy sacrifice of amends for wrong done, of atonement for fault, to shun wrong-doing. Bloodless offering wouldst thou make, give thanks; victim wouldst thou immolate, shew mercy. Wickedness and wrong-doing to shun is to win God’s favour, and pardon for thy faults. Yet do not appear in the Lord’s presence empty-handed; due observance must be paid, because God has commanded it. If thy heart is right, thy offering shall enrich the altar; its fragrance shall reach the presence of the most High; a just man’s sacrifice the Lord accepts, and will not pass over his claim to be remembered.”

Ecclesiasticus, 35: 1-9

Chapter thirty six provides us with the cry of Israel to God to retain the nation in His favour, a passage that has found expression in the liturgy of the Church, which of course inherits the old promises made to Israel. Here there is some hope that the Gentiles may learn to fear God also and acclaim His wonders, especially those who actively persecuted the Jews when they had a chance. But this was always Israel’s hope, although the later Jews rejected Christ and the Church for bringing this hope to fruition on different terms.

“God of all men, have mercy on us; look down, and let us see the smile of Thy favour. Teach them to fear Thee, those other nations that have never looked to find Thee; let them learn to recognize Thee as the only God, and to acclaim Thy wonders. Lift up Thy hand, to shew these aliens Thy power; let us see them, as they have seen us, humbled before Thee; let them learn, as we have learnt, that there is no other God but Thou. Shew new marvels, and portents stranger still; win renown for that strength, that valiant arm of Thine; rouse Thyself to vengeance, give Thy anger free play; away with the oppressors, down with Thy enemies! Hasten on the time, do not forget Thy purpose; make them acclaim Thy wonders. Let none of them escape their doom, the oppressors of Thy people; let there be a raging fire ready to devour them; heavy let the blow fall on the heads of those tyrants, that no other power will recognize but their own. Gather anew all the tribes of Jacob; be it theirs to know that Thou alone art God, to acclaim Thy wonders; make them Thy loved possession as of old. Have compassion on the people that is called by Thy own Name, on Israel, owned Thy first-born; have compassion on Jerusalem, the city Thou hast set apart for Thy resting-place; fill Sion’s walls, fill the hearts of Thy people, with wonders beyond all telling come true, with Thy glory made manifest.”

Ecclesiasticus, 36: 1-16

Coming towards the end of the book, following another handful of proverbs, we find the commendation of medical professionals – physicians – in chapter thirty-eight. It’s nice to see this treatment of a vital human science, which includes a knowledge of natural remedies.

“Deny not a physician his due for thy need’s sake; his task is of divine appointment, since from God all healing comes, and kings themselves must needs bring gifts to him. High rank his skill gives him; of great men he is the honoured guest. Medicines the most High has made for us out of earth’s bounty, and shall prudence shrink from the use of them? Were not the waters of Mara made wholesome by the touch of wood? Well for us men, that the secret virtue of such remedies has been revealed; skill the most High would impart to us, and for His marvels win renown. Thus it is that the physician cures our pain, and the apothecary makes, not only perfumes to charm the sense, but unguents remedial; so inexhaustible is God’s creation, such health comes of His gift, all the world over. Son, when thou fallest sick, do not neglect thy own needs; pray to the Lord, and thou shalt win recovery.”

Ecclesiasticus, 38, 1-9

The chapter goes on to engineers, fabricators and artisans, all of whose professions are superceded by that of the professional sage or wise man (or philosopher), who samples the world and learns through his experience of human behaviour, becoming a master of the traditions of the nation and summoned as an expert even to the councils of princes. All this magnification of the wise man is in chapter thirty-nine. On the contrary, workmen…

“All these look to their own hands for a living, skilful each in his own craft; and without them, there is no building up a commonwealth. For them no travels abroad, no journeyings from home; they will not pass beyond their bounds to swell the assembly, or to sit in the judgement-seat. Not theirs to understand the law’s awards, not theirs to impart learning or to give judgement; they will not be known for uttering wise sayings. Theirs it is to support this unchanging world of God’s creation; they ply their craft and ask for nothing better; … lending themselves freely and making their study in the law of the most High.“

Ecclesiasticus, 38: 35-39

Now, after a few more proverbs, chapter forty-three brings us a meditation upon the sun, the moon and creation in general, all of them held in being by the Creator Himself, Who is within them.

“Say we as much as we will, of what needs to be said our words come short; be this the sum of all our saying, He is in all things. To what end is all our boasting? He, the Almighty, is high above all that He has made; He, the Lord, is terrible, and great beyond compare, and His power is wonderful. Glorify Him as best you may, glory is still lacking, such is the marvel of His greatness; praise Him and extol Him as you will, He is beyond all praising; summon all your strength, the better to exalt His name, untiring still, and you shall not reach your goal.”

Ecclesiasticus, 43: 29-34

Again the call to worship, to do what we can when we cannot do enough. From this panegyric, the writer now comes to a summary of the history of the heroes of Israel. So, chapter forty-four tells us of Enoch and the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Chapter forty-five tells us of Moses and Aaron, and the Aaronic priesthood, and finally of King David. This introduces the twin authorities of the Jewish community in the time of the writer of Ecclesiasticus: the government of the descendants of David and their eventual successors and the ongoing high-priesthood of the family of Aaron. Chapter forty-six tells us of Josue (aka. Joshua) and Caleb, both defenders of Moses against his detractors, and then of Samuel, the last of the Judges of Israel and a great prophet. Chapter forty-seven tells of King David and the prophet Nathan, who had been David’s counsellor, and then of King Solomon, a great king who had fallen into dissipation in later life, and then of the unfortunate Roboam son of Solomon, who oversaw the schism of the kingdom left him by his father, and of the wicked Jeroboam, who introduced an Egyptian religion into the northern kingdom of Israel and doomed that people to centuries of idolatry. Chapter forty-eight tells us of the prophet Elias (aka. Elijah) and his successor, the prophet Eliseus (aka. Elisha), and then of the prophet Isaias, who had acted as counsellor to the good king Ezechias (aka. Hezekiah) of Juda. Chapter forty-nine tells of the good king Josias of Juda and of the prophet Ezechiel, who worked among the exiled Hebrews in Babylonia, and then of the successor of David, Zorobabel, who had led one of several return journeys of exiled Jews back to Juda and Jerusalem. Zorobabel, with the high-priest Josue son of Josedec, had rebuilt Jerusalem and restored the Temple, after decades of utter ruin. Note is also made here of Nehemias, the Jewish governor of Juda who had rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and so restored to her citizens security after many decades. 

Chapter fifty introduces a high-priest of the Temple called Simon son of Onias, who cannot be identified with certainty, but must have been a memorable name in the time of the writing of this book, some two or three hundred years before Christ. This chapter is worth mentioning because of its eulogy of this priest Simon, the words of which have been used by the Church in her liturgies for the feast days of Saints who were confessor bishops and sometimes for the high Masses offered by bishops, in the famous antiphon Ecce sacerdos magnus. This chapter is also the end of the book, the last chapter being separate, and perhaps added later on. So, I shall put in the last lines, which are practically a signature of the author.

“The lessons of discernment and of true knowledge in this book contained were written down by Jesus, the son of Sirach, of Jerusalem; his heart ever a fountain of true wisdom. Blessed is he who lingers in these pleasant haunts, and treasures the memory of them; wisdom he shall never lack; and if by these precepts he live, nothing shall avail to daunt him; God’s beacon-light shews the track he shall tread.”

Ecclesiasticus, 50: 29-31

The last chapter of the book is a prayer composed by this wise man Joshua ben Sirach, who authored the book. It is worth reading in its entirety, but here’s a nice extract to end this post with, for it speaks of the quest for Wisdom, and the prayer would have been that of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, and every honest Christian soul in the history of the Church who has sought union with the Holy One, to Whom be praise and glory now and forever more.

“Further and further yet I travelled, thanks be to the God that all wisdom bestows. Good use to make of her was all my love and longing; never was that hope disappointed. Hardily I strove to win her, put force on myself to keep her rule; I stretched out my hands towards heaven, and grieved for the want of her. Kept I but true to the search for her, I found and recognized her still. Long since trained by her discipline, I shall never be left forsaken. Much heart-burning I had in the quest for her, but a rich dowry she brought me. Never shall this tongue, with utterance divinely rewarded, be negligent of praise.”

Ecclesiasticus, 51: 23-30
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onward to Isaiah →

Reading through the letter of S. Paul to the Ephesians

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onward to Philippians →

The Church in Ephesos (west of Asia Minor, just across the Aegean from Macedonia and Achaia) was always a good egg in the first century, apparently. In the last book of the Bible, she received a good report from Christ Himself for her discernment with regard to the Apostolic authority:

“To the angel of the church at Ephesus write thus: A message to thee from Him who bears the seven stars in his right hand, and walks amidst the seven golden candlesticks: ‘I know of all thy doings, all thy toil and endurance; how little patience thou hast with wickedness, how thou hast made trial of such as usurp the name of Apostle, and found them false. Yes, thou endurest, and all thou hast borne for the love of My name has not made thee despair. Yet there is one charge I make against thee; of losing the charity that was thine at first. Remember the height from which thou hast fallen, and repent, and go back to the old ways; or else I will come to visit thee, and, when I find thee still unrepentant, will remove thy candlestick from its place.”

Apocalypse, 2: 1-5

Yes, there is that one thing about losing charity; but Ephesos did not fall into the trap of disunity when multiple preachers arrived in the new, non-Jewish churches to challenge the Apostolic teaching and attempt to judaise these Christians (as did the Corinthians). Probably as a result, unlike the letters to the churches of the Corinthians and the Galatians, there isn’t a great deal of scolding in this letter. Only lots of… catechism! There is some wonderful material here. The very introduction presents material for a hymn:

“Blessed be that God, that Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, in Christ, with every spiritual blessing, higher than heaven itself. He has chosen us out, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, to be saints, to be blameless in His sight, for love of Him; marking us out beforehand (so His Will decreed) to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ. Thus He would manifest the splendour of that grace by which He has taken us into His favour in the person of His beloved Son. It is in Him and through His Blood that we enjoy redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. So rich is God’s grace, that has overflowed upon us in a full stream of wisdom and discernment, to make known to us the hidden purpose of His Will. It was His loving design, centred in Christ, to give history its fulfilment by resuming everything in Him, all that is in heaven, all that is on earth, summed up in Him.”

Ephesians, 1: 3-10

I couldn’t possibly produce a good sample of this letter for a short article/post. The first two chapters alone are thick with Christian doctrine. Here’s another short Christian catechism: free grace and mercy unmerited!

“How rich God is in mercy, with what an excess of love He loved us! Our sins had made dead men of us, and He, in giving life to Christ, gave life to us too; it is His grace that has saved you; raised us up too, enthroned us too above the heavens, in Christ Jesus. He would have all future ages see, in that clemency which He shewed us in Christ Jesus, the surpassing richness of His grace. Yes, it was grace that saved you, with faith for its instrument; it did not come from yourselves, it was God’s gift, not from any action of yours, or there would be room for pride. No, we are His design; God has created us in Christ Jesus, pledged to such good actions as He has prepared beforehand, to be the employment of our lives.”

Ephesians, 2: 4-10

This is another effort of Saint Paul’s to draw the largely non-Jewish Christians into the Jewish matrix of the Church, trying to demonstrate that the outward signs of belonging to the old religion, such as circumcision, are often merely superficial. What actually matters is that their nature as outlaws (non-Jewish) has been undone by the work of God, so that they are not foreigners in the Church of Jewish Christians, but fellow citizens and members of God’s household!

“So he came, and His message was of peace for you who were far off, peace for those who were near; far off or near, united in the same Spirit, we have access through Him to the Father. You are no longer exiles, then, or aliens; the saints are your fellow citizens, you belong to God’s household. Apostles and prophets are the foundation on which you were built, and the chief corner-stone of it is Jesus Christ Himself. In Him the whole fabric is bound together, as it grows into a temple, dedicated to the Lord; in Him you too are being built in with the rest, so that God may find in you a dwelling-place for His Spirit.”

Ephesians, 2: 17-22

Chapter three is a long prayer of Paul’s, on his knees, asking that the Ephesians grow continually in love. I could picture him actually dropping to his knees as his secretary scribbled all of this down furiously: 

“With this in mind, then, I fall on my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that Father from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its title. May He, out of the rich treasury of His glory, strengthen you through His Spirit with a power that reaches your innermost being. May Christ find a dwelling-place, through faith, in your hearts; may your lives be rooted in love, founded on love. May you and all the saints be enabled to measure, in all its breadth and length and height and depth, the love of Christ, to know what passes knowledge. May you be filled with all the completion God has to give.”

Ephesians, 3: 14-19

Chapter four gives us a corporate picture of the Church that is familiar from other letters of Saint Paul: we are all one, but at the same time we have different functions within that body, and we have to work together to achieve maturity, and so be able to discern truth from falsity, with a spirit of charity.

“But each of us has received his own special grace, dealt out to him by Christ’s gift… Some He has appointed to be apostles, others to be prophets, others to be evangelists, or pastors, or teachers. They are to order the lives of the faithful, minister to their needs, build up the frame of Christ’s body, until we all realize our common unity through faith in the Son of God, and fuller knowledge of Him. So we shall reach perfect manhood, that maturity which is proportioned to the completed growth of Christ; we are no longer to be children, no longer to be like storm-tossed sailors, driven before the wind of each new doctrine that human subtlety, human skill in fabricating lies, may propound. We are to follow the truth, in a spirit of charity, and so grow up, in everything, into a due proportion with Christ, Who is our head.”

Ephesians, 4: 7, 11-15

To achieve this maturity, Christians would have to let go of their old, pre-baptismal habits, and be clothed in Christ.

“If true knowledge is to be found in Jesus, you will have learned in His school that you must be quit, now, of the old self whose way of life you remember, the self that wasted its aim on false dreams. There must be a renewal in the inner life of your minds; you must be clothed in the new self, which is created in God’s image, justified and sanctified through the truth. Away with falsehood, then; let everyone speak out the truth to his neighbour; membership of the body binds us to one another.”

Ephesians, 4: 21-25

That begins a discourse on good behaviour, for our inward conversions should result in an edifying, outward manifestation. This is very similar to other references to faith as being of no use if unaccompanied by good works. A good Christian should be well-behaved, not because he or she is following the dictates of a law, but because he or she has put on Christ and is in harmony with the Will of God, through grace. 

“Once you were all darkness; now, in the Lord, you are all daylight. You must live as men native to the light; where the light has its effect, all is goodness, and holiness, and truth; your lives must be the manifestation of God’s will. As for the thankless deeds men do in the dark, you must not take any part in them; rather, your conduct must be a rebuke to them; their secret actions are too shameful even to bear speaking of. It is the light that rebukes such things and shews them up for what they are; only light shews up. That is the meaning of the words, ‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.'”

Ephesians, 5: 8-14

And that brings us to the most famous part of this letter, where Paul demonstrates the equality of men and women in marriage, a message that would have sounded extremely odd in his time. Husbands, love your wives!

“You who are husbands must shew love to your wives, as Christ shewed love to the Church when He gave Himself up on its behalf. He would hallow it, purify it by bathing it in the water to which His word gave life; He would summon it into His own presence, the Church in all its beauty, no stain, no wrinkle, no such disfigurement; it was to be holy, it was to be spotless. And that is how husband ought to love wife, as if she were his own body; in loving his wife, a man is but loving himself. It is unheard of, that a man should bear ill-will to his own flesh and blood; no, he keeps it fed and warmed; and so it is with Christ and His Church; we are limbs of His body; flesh and bone, we belong to Him.”

Ephesians, 5: 25-30

There is a little bit following about everybody dwelling virtuously in his or her own station: children, honour your parents (be virtuous children), parents, do not rile your children (be virtuous parents), slaves, honour your masters (be virtuous slaves), masters, deal well with your slaves (be virtuous masters). All this, while remembering that all of them, all of us, have a Master up above who doesn’t value these social structures that the Church dwelling in human society has to work with. And that’s quite the end of it. The last picture is a call to arms against the cunning of the enemy of our souls, and I shall end with this:

“You must wear all the weapons in God’s armoury, if you would find strength to resist the cunning of the devil. It is not against flesh and blood that we enter the lists; we have to do with princedoms and powers, with those who have mastery of the world in these dark days, with malign influences in an order higher than ours. Take up all God’s armour, then; so you will be able to stand your ground when the evil time comes, and be found still on your feet, when all the task is over. Stand fast, your loins girt with truth, the breastplate of justice fitted on, and your feet shod in readiness to publish the gospel of peace. With all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fire-tipped arrows of your wicked enemy; make the helmet of salvation your own, and the sword of the spirit, God’s word.”

Ephesians, 6: 11-17
← back to Galatians
onward to Philippians →

Feast day of the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul

It’s always interesting when a feast day comes along that outranks the Sunday and takes its place, and although the calendar date for the feast day of S. Peter and S. Paul was actually this last Saturday, the 29th, it has been moved by the bishops to the Sunday. This must be to save us from attending church on two consecutive days (what horror!), for this great feast day is also a holy day of obligation. Why is this feast day so very important for us, and why are both these great Saints bundled together on a single day?

Well, the answer must be that this great Church of ours very early on was centred in Rome. This was an accident of history, for in the time of our Lord and the Apostles, Rome was the centre of the civilised world, a beating heart with an arterial road network that ran around the Mediterranean, and reaching from the Levant to far in the north of Britain, and waterways that reached even further, across the Indian Ocean. If you and I were apostles and evangelists of the time, rejected by the Temple priesthood in Jerusalem and looking for a likely centre of operations for the growing number of Christians, we would naturally look towards Rome, where there was already a significant Jewish diaspora.

So, S. Peter first moved into north Syria, becoming the first bishop of Antioch, but then inevitably was drawn to Rome. S. Paul was more of a missionary priest than a sedentary bishop, but even he wrote at least one letter to the Roman Church and then, being a citizen of Rome, directed his steps towards his capital city. Both of them died there, and their relics were carefully preserved by the Roman Christians, whose spiritual descendants we are. Over the centuries, no matter how far we have been geographically from the Holy City of Rome, our eyes have wandered over to the tombs of the Apostles, our ears have strained for news of the Successor of Peter, the ground of our unity, whom we have called the Holy Father. It’s not too long ago that Rome ceased to be an economic and political centre of the world, but for the Catholic heart it is ever the religious centre of our existence in this world.

But let’s have a quick look at the personal characters of these two men that we honour today. I am myself partial to S. Paul, rather than S. Peter. Paul was an orthodox Jew and a Pharisee, which as he himself declares he never ceased to be after his life-changing encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus. Rather, Paul became an orthodox Jewish-Christian and a Christian Pharisee. A Pharisee was a Jew who was intent upon ritual purity before God, and the good Pharisee instead of being a hypocrite (as were the bad Pharisees of the gospel stories) practised what he or she preached. And so we see, in the Acts of the Apostles, how the immense intellect and extraordinary stamina of the good Pharisee Paul was turned in an instant from the pursuit and destruction of the Christians to becoming one of their greatest champions, a fatherly figure to them and a prodigious founder of local churches. If we had more such Pauls today, we would change the world very quickly.

S. Peter on the other hand, is more a figure of authority in the same Acts of the Apostles and in the gospels, clearly an authority over the other eleven original Apostles. There is that same air of fatherhood, but of the whole Christian Church, in those two general letters we have of his in the New Testament. From the gospel story, we know Peter to be faithful and pious, but also impulsive in his words and deeds, but in him Christ found reliability. The Lord would have known at once that this man, even if he fell, would rise up again in humility and become a strong foundation for the Church about him, clergy and laity, to become a rock of stability and love in a world of change and cruelty. And so He built the Church on the steadfastness of Peter, and with the energy of Paul. Thus do we have had unity alongside mission, peace together with growth, to communicate throughout the world an infectious love that will endure all things.

Reading through the book of Ruth

← back to Judges
onward to the first Kings →

This is another short post for one of the shortest books in the Hebrew Bible. It’s purpose is to demonstrate the geneology of the great king of Israel, David of Bethlehem, following after the more general adventures of the national tribes in their possession of the Holy Land in the books of Iosue/Joshua and Judges. This is important for us Christians because the genealogy of David is the genealogy of the God-man Christ. We’d last seen that line begin with Iuda, the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob, in the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis. There we discovered a story of incest, which resulted in Iuda having two sons by his daughter-in-law Thamar: Phares and Zara.

The story of the book of Ruth is of a man of Bethlehem living in Ephraim (a little to the north) called Elimelech, who had land in Bethlehem of Juda. In a time of famine, he fled with his wife Noemi over the Jordan to Moab, which today is contained by the modern state of Jordan. While there, Elimelech’s two sons took Moabite wives, and ten years later, died without children. This demonstrates that in the early centuries, there was no strict prohibition on marrying outside the tribes of Israel, and so there would have been a significant foreign inheritance among the Israelites. Much later, King David would rely upon this link to Moab to protect his immediate family from possible attacks of King Saul. However, for the moment… the father, Elimelech, also passed away, and so all the men-folk were gone, at a time when men were the social and economic support for the women-folk.

The question of inheritance now raised its head, as Noemi prepared to return to Bethlehem to dispose of the property of her husband and live the rest of her life alone. She tried to dismiss her Moabite daughters-in-law to return to their parents, but one of the two – Ruth – was very attached to her mother-in-law, and refused to leave her side. Now, Noemi contrived to find a future for Ruth. When Ruth happened to meet a landlord Booz, while looking for food, Noemi revealed to her that Booz was related distantly to her husband Elimelech and that he might be able to give her the children her own husband couldn’t. This was a requirement of the Law of Moses: that kinsfolk take to wife the widows of their dead relations who had not conceived sons to inherit land and property; the kinsman would provide the widow with those children on behalf of her dead husband. The rest of the book is about Booz dealing with the inheritance laws, in order to take Ruth as his wife, and give posterity both to her and through her to her mother-in-law Noemi. This take place through an odd custom involving a shoe:

“So now Booz said to the rival claimant, ‘Untie thy shoe;’ and as soon as he had done so, made appeal to the elders and to all that were present. ‘You are witnesses,’ he said, ‘this day, that I have reclaimed all the possessions of Elimelech, Chelion and Mahalon by purchase from Noemi: and moreover, that I have taken Mahalon’s widow, Ruth the Moabitess, to wife. I mean to hand on the dead man’s property to heirs of his own, so that his name may never be lost to his family, his kindred and his people. Of all this, you are witnesses.’ So the elders made answer, and all that were present made answer, ‘We bear witness of it. Take thy bride home, and may the Lord make her as fruitful as Rachel and Lia, that gave a posterity to Israel. May Ephrata know her worth, and Bethlehem tell her praises…'”

Ruth, 4:8-11

And then we find the continued line from Juda to King David. As I said earlier, it is also part of the line of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here it is: And now we come to the line of Obed: Juda → Phares → Esron → Aram → Aminadab → Nahasson → Salmon → Booz → Obed → Jesse → David. Now we can continue on to the legend of Samuel, the last of the judges of Israel. Judges were vicars of God, Who was the real king of Israel. In the continuation of the story, Samuel is chosen by God to judge the people and eventually to anoint a king for them. The kingdom(s) of Israel were not to last for very long, for God Himself would return one day to be the king of Israel, and he would elect new judges again to rule the people. We would call the judges of that latter day Apostles and bishops.

← back to Judges
onward to the first Kings →

Reading through the Prophecy of Obadyah (aka. Abdias)

← back to Amos
onward to Jonah →

This is a very short one, for it is a single-page prophecy. Already, the prophet Malachias (Malachy) had condemned Edom and the Edomites, descendants of Esau son of Isaac the patriarch, in a most final manner. Edom – the Hebrew colour red – was the name given to the twin brother of the patiarch Jacob, because he was covered with red fur from birth, and after Jacob’s inheritance of the promises made to Abraham, the tribes of Esau departed to live in the south country, east of the Negev desert, called Seir. Their history was one of constant rivalry with the tribes of Jacob, who were called Israel.

“…as not Esau brother to Jacob? Yet to Jacob I proved Myself a friend, the Lord says, no friend to Esau; I have made a waste of yonder mountain-side, of all his lands a dragon-haunted desert. ‘Ay, but,’ says Edom, ‘what if we have fallen on evil days? Give us time to repair the ruins!’ Trust me, says the Lord of hosts, as fast as they build, I will pull down; land of rebellion men shall call it, brood the Lord hates, and for ever.“

Prophecy of Malachias, 1: 2-4

Abdias continues with this denunciation of Edom, who are here presented as a proud nation and one that had attacked Israel whenever they had the chance to do so, and had probably rejoiced in the destruction of the Israelite kingdoms and of Jerusalem herself by the Chaldeans. They had not attempted to help Juda when the attack from Babylonia arrived, and may even have collaborated in a general looting of what was left of Jerusalem after the Chaldeans had been and left.

“What wonder if hopes of thine come to nothing, name of thine perish eternally, that didst assail thy own brother, with murderous wrong? Hast thou forgotten the day when thou stoodest aloof, while the enemy disarmed his ranks, while aliens thronged through yonder gates, and parcelled out Jerusalem by lot, thyself making common cause with them? What, look on idly, when fortune turns against that brother of thine; nay, triumph over Juda’s fall, boast of his calamity? He overthrown, and thou wouldst find thy way in at the gates of My own city; he overthrown, and thou wouldst rejoice at his discomfiture; he overthrown, and thou wouldst offer him battle?”

Abdias, 10-13

The rest of this short prophecy foretells a restoration of the tribes of Juda and Benjamin, with Jews returning home from far away, and an utter destruction of nations like Edom and Philistia, who had rejoiced in the destruction of Juda.

← back to Amos
onward to Jonah →

Reading through the letter of S. Paul to the Galatians

← back to second Corinthians
onward to Ephesians →

Dear Saint Paul, travelling miles everywhere to preach the Gospel to everybody who would listen, and there always followed in his wake other preachers who tried to get the new Christians to become judaised, taking on superficial symbols of Jewish belonging. This meant primarily circumcision, which resulted in the full obligation of these men and women to the complex of commandments given to the Hebrews through Moses. For unwitting Christian initiates, this was far more than they had bargained for when they accepted faith in Christ, and the Apostles and their bishop-priests finally declared that this was unnecessary for them, as is clear in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. But that required a significant input from missionary priests like S. Paul and S. Barnabas, and Paul presents his argument in this letter.

The Galatians were residents of the central part of Asia Minor, around the cities of Iconium and Lystra, and were culturally Greek. Paul had visited them multiple times, of course, and Saint Luke makes some narration of his adventures in that region, such as when the inhabitants of Lystra witness a miracle of Paul’s and, in a comic moment, take Saint Barnabas and him to be Zeus/Jupiter and Hermes/Mercury, respectively. That above all tells us that Barnabas was a good-looking bloke with a commanding progress, and that Paul couldn’t stop talking (about Christ).

“There was a lame man sitting at Lystra, crippled from birth, so that he had never walked, who listened to Paul’s preaching; and Paul, looking closely at him, and seeing that there was saving faith in him, said aloud, ‘Stand upright on thy feet;’ whereupon he sprang up, and began to walk. The multitudes, seeing what Paul had done, cried out in the Lycaonian dialect, ‘It is the gods, who have come down to us in human shape.’ They called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercury, because he was the chief speaker; and the priest of Jupiter, Defender of the City, brought out bulls and wreaths to the gates, eager, like the multitude, to do sacrifice. The Apostles tore their garments when they heard of it; and both Barnabas and Paul ran out among the multitude, crying aloud: ‘Sirs, why are you doing all this? We too are mortal men like yourselves; the whole burden of our preaching is that you must turn away from follies like this to the worship of the living God, who made sky and earth and sea and all that is in them.'”

Acts of the Apostles, 14: 7-14

How horrifying for Paul, a Jew and a Pharisee, to find himself being worshipped as a god. But, coming back to the theme of this letter to these recent converts in Galatia, Paul is anxious to tell his new Christians that they don’t have to become Jews, that is, they don’t have to embrace circumcision and so take on the full burden of the Law of Moses. He wished them to know that what he has taught them about the freedom of the Gospel from the slavery to the Law that Jews suffered was not his own teaching or that of another man or men, but had been given him by Christ Himself:

“Let me tell you this, brethren; the Gospel I preached to you is not a thing of man’s dictation; it was not from man that I inherited or learned it, it came to me by a revelation from Jesus Christ. You have been told how I bore myself in my Jewish days, how I persecuted God’s Church beyond measure and tried to destroy it, going further in my zeal as a Jew than many of my own age and race, so fierce a champion was I of the traditions handed down by my forefathers. And then, He who had set me apart from the day of my birth, and called me by His grace, saw fit to make His Son known in me, so that I could preach His Gospel among the Gentiles.”

Galatians, 1: 11-16

Not only was his message from Christ, but he was a Jew and a Jew zealous for the traditions handed down by his forefathers. And, yet he had received the Christian Gospel and acquired the freedom of that Gospel. He had shared that freedom with his new Christians in Gentile lands, and now he had discovered that those same Christians were trying to become Jews, in effect abandoning the freedom he had preached to them and enslaving themselves to the Law of Moses. He had even defended the freedom of the Christian from the Law against Saint Peter, the Prince of the Apostles! It would have been rare for Peter himself to be accused of the superficiality and hypocrisy Christ had condemned in the bad Pharisees of the gospel.

“Afterwards, when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him openly; he stood self-condemned. He had been eating with the Gentiles, until we were visited by certain delegates from James; but when these came, he began to draw back and hold himself aloof, overawed by the supporters of circumcision. The rest of the Jews were no less false to their principles; Barnabas himself was carried away by their insincerity. So, when I found that they were not following the true path of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, Since thou, who art a born Jew, dost follow the Gentile, not the Jewish way of life, by what right dost thou bind the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Galatians, 2: 11-14

So Peter had succumbed to a type of insincerity, in his attempt to put on Jewish customs before the envoys of the extremely orthodox Jewish-Christian bishop of Jerusalem, Saint James, who is said to have been a life-long Nazirite (like Saint John the Baptist). So, were they, the new Christians in Galatia, to challenge Paul in casting doubt on that freedom, by running after circumcision? He continues by demonstrating that the patriarch Abraham was justified by his personal faith, long before the advent of the Law of Moses. Abraham enjoyed a freedom that the Hebrews lost when Moses came down from mount Horeb, and gave them the Law. Paul quotes from Deuteronomy to demonstrate the burden of attempting to observe every single piece of the Law, what the evangelists in the Gospels called ‘every dot and iota of the Law.’ And even that, he says, does not in itself make us acceptable to God:

“Remember how Abraham put his faith in God, and it was reckoned virtue in him. You must recognize, then, that Abraham’s real children are the children of his faith. There is a passage in Scripture which, long beforehand, brings to Abraham the good news, ‘Through thee all the nations shall be blessed;’ and that passage looks forward to God’s justification of the Gentiles by faith. It is those, then, who take their stand on faith that share the blessing Abraham’s faithfulness won. Those who take their stand on observance of the law are all under a curse; ‘Cursed be everyone (we read) who does not persist in carrying out all that this book of the law prescribes.’ And indeed, that the law cannot make a man acceptable to God is clear enough; It is faith, we are told, that brings life to the just man;”

Galatians, 3: 6-11

So, why did the Law arrive at all? Why would God have wished a particular people to be so disciplined? That’s the key. Discipline. The Law was itself not life-giving. But by clearly distinguishing right from wrong, life from death, the Law was taking up the role of a schoolmaster, preparing the people for the Offspring of Abraham, Christ, Who would indeed bring life and the promises (made to Abraham) home to the people. 

“Doubtless, if a law had been given that was capable of imparting life to us, it would have been for the Law to bring us justification. But in fact Scripture represents us as all under the bondage of sin; it was faith in Jesus Christ that was to impart the promised blessing to all those who believe in him. Until faith came, we were all being kept in bondage to the law, waiting for the faith that was one day to be revealed. So that the law was our tutor, bringing us to Christ, to find in faith our justification. When faith comes, then we are no longer under the rule of a tutor; through faith in Christ Jesus you are all now God’s sons.”

Galatians, 3: 21-26

So, would the Galatians like to enter under the tutelage of the Law or be free as the sons of God in Christ? No! For God has sent His very Spirit into our hearts, crying out within us, ‘Abba Father!’ We are not slaves, but sons. Why should we want to take up the superficial observances of the Jews? ‘Oh, my little children…,’ cries Father Paul in distress:

“My little children, I am in travail over you afresh, until I can see Christ’s image formed in you! I wish I were at your side now, and could speak to you in a different tone; I am bewildered at you. Tell me, you who are so eager to have the Law for your master, have you never read the Law?“

Galatians, 4: 19-21

Paul now proceeds to tell his readers that the Law (in the book of Genesis) is represented by Agar, the Egyptian maidservant of Sara Abraham’s wife. Agar and her son Ishma-El were bonded slaves, whereas Sarah’s son Isaac was the free son who was to inherit the promises of Abraham his father. This story speaks more to the Jewish heart than ours, and so to Paul and his Jewish hearers. We are to avoid a spiritual bondage to the Law, and live the freedom of Isaac rather than the servitude of Ishmael.

“The word of Paul is your warrant for this; if you are for being circumcised, Christ is of no value to you at all. Once again I would warn anyone who is accepting circumcision that he thereby engages himself to keep all the precepts of the Law. You who look to the Law for your justification have cancelled your bond with Christ, you have forfeited grace. All our hope of justification lies in the spirit; it rests on our faith; once we are in Christ, circumcision means nothing, and the want of it means nothing; the faith that finds its expression in love is all that matters.”

Galatians, 5: 2-6

At the same time, the freedom of the Christian gospel cannot give Christians a licence for behaving immorally. That’s the last warning. Paul doesn’t mean that the Christian’s freedom from the observances of the Law mean an absolute freedom from the moral demands of the Law. Rather, the Christian Gospel presents the heart of the Law – charity – which rules moral behaviour:

“Only, do not let this freedom give a foothold to corrupt nature; you must be servants still, serving one another in a spirit of charity. After all, the whole of the law is summed up in one phrase, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;’ if you are always backbiting and worrying each other, it is to be feared you will wear each other out in the end. Let me say this; learn to live and move in the spirit; then there is no danger of your giving way to the impulses of corrupt nature. The impulses of nature and the impulses of the spirit are at war with one another; either is clean contrary to the other, and that is why you cannot do all that your will approves. It is by letting the spirit lead you that you free yourselves from the yoke of the Law. It is easy to see what effects proceed from corrupt nature; they are such things as adultery, impurity, incontinence, luxury, idolatry, witchcraft, feuds, quarrels, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, dissensions, factions, spite, murder, drunkenness, and debauchery. I warn you, as I have warned you before, that those who live in such a way will not inherit God’s kingdom.”

Galatians, 5: 13-21

This is why we still have and need catechisms, to demonstrate how the love of Christ and the charitable heart are to exist and be lived out by Christians in every specific era of the Church’s life. As everything in the worlds changes, and technology continues to develop and progress, there remains the corrupt nature of the human heart, which must be schooled and instructed on the morality of the Law and the Will of the Holy One for the men and women that He so loves.

And that’s it! Peace to all, and don’t worry Father Paul so much again…

“Peace and pardon to all those who follow this rule, to God’s true Israel. Spare me, all of you, any further anxieties; already I bear the scars of the Lord Jesus printed on my body. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”

Galatians, 6: 16-18
← back to second Corinthians
onward to Ephesians →

Reading through the Prophecy of Amos

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onward to Obadiah →

Here’s one of the first of the Hebrew prophets whose prophecies have been preserved. Aside from a few condemnations of the unfaithfulness of the people of the southern kingdom of Juda, this book is directed squarely at the northern kingdom of Israel and the syncretist king Jeroboam II of Israel. The united kingdom of David and Solomon was of course fractured soon after the death of Solomon, and the northern kingdom had promptly fallen into serious idolatry and syncretism, which it never recovered from. However, Amos seems to speak of Israel in general, as all the twelve tribes, including Juda, and has a clear idea of who the God of Israel is, the God Who judges all of the children of the patriarch Jacob, and where His chosen seat is: not in Samaria, Beth-El or Shiloh, but…

“Here tells Amos, one of the shepherd folk at Thecue, what visions he had concerning Israel. In Juda, Ozias was then reigning, in Israel, Jeroboam son of Joas, and it was two years before the earthquake. Loud as roaring of lion, said he, the Lord will speak in thunder from His citadel at Jerusalem; forlorn they lie, yonder pastures the shepherds loved once, the heights of Carmel all shrivelled away.”

Amos, 1: 1-2

Carmel was the mountain range to the north-west of the Holy Land, roughly parallel in latitude with the Sea of Galilee, where the prophet Elijah had made his home (which is why the Carmelite Order count him as the first of the Saints of that Order). Like much of the prophecy against the practices of the northern kingdom of Israel, this book is a lengthy condemnation of idolatry and a call to repentance and reconsecration to the one God, and a condemnation of the injustice and immorality that accompanied the fall of the nation from God’s grace:

“Ground in the dust, the poor man’s rights, shouldered aside, the claim of the unbefriended! See where father and son, to My name’s dishonour, bed with one maid! See where they lie feasting beside the altar, at the very shrine of their God, no cloak there but is some borrower’s pledge, no stoup of wine but is some debtor’s forfeit! Was it for such men as these I exterminated the Amorrhites, a race tall as the cedar, hardy as the oak, root and fruit of them doomed to destruction? These are the men I rescued from Egypt, guided them, all those forty years, through the wilderness, to make the domain of the Amorrhites theirs!”

Amos, 2: 7-10

Thus does God repent even of removing the Amorrhite people from the Holy Land, in order that the Israelites would possess it for their own. But the Israelites had fallen into idolatry, using a mixture of Egyptian and Amorrhite religions, together with the religion of the God of Israel (basically, syncretism). The complaints about immorality continue and God promises that such behaviour is begging for social distress to fall upon Israel, and siege by oppressive powers:

“Raise a cry from the house-tops, there in Azotus, there in Egypt’s land: To the hills about Samaria betake you, and look deep into the heart of her, what turbulent doings are there, what wrongs men suffer! In yonder palaces, the Lord says, that are store-houses of oppression and rapine, honest doing is all forgot. This doom, then, the Lord God utters: Distress and siege for such a land as this! All thy fastnesses shall be dismantled, all thy palaces spoiled.“

Amos, 3: 9-11

Amos is foretelling a terrible destruction for Israel, which we know occurred not long after. Within twenty years of the end of the reign of king Jeroboam II of Israel, the northern kingdom was permanently ended, and hundreds of thousands of people were transplanted from their homeland and moved far into Assyria. Why? Because they had fallen away from their only true Protector:

“you would not come back to Me, when ruin threatened, swift as the divine stroke that ruined Sodom and Gomorrha, and you yourselves were like a brand saved from the burning. Now I have worse, Israel, in store for thee; when that worse comes, prepare thou must, Israel, to meet thy God. He is here, that fashioned the hills and made the winds; He is here, that gives man warning of His designs, that turns dawn into darkness, and sets His feet on the highest heights of earth; the Lord God of hosts is the Name of Him.“

Amos, 4: 11-13

And soon comes a rather strong condemnation of the superficiality in religion, which is wonderfully reminiscent of Psalm 49(50)’s similar condemnation: 

“And for you, that day brings darkness, not the light you craved for; no radiance haunts about it, only gloom. Oh, but I am sick and tired of them, your solemn feasts; incense that goes up from your assemblies I can breathe no longer! Burnt-sacrifice still? Bloodless offerings still? Nay, I will have none of them; fat be the victims you slay in welcome, I care not. O to be rid of the singing, the harp’s music, that dins My ear!… And like waters rolling in full tide, like a perennial stream, right and justice shall abound …”

Amos, 5: 20-24

Religious rites are empty and futile, if there is no evidence of God’s grace working within the hearts of men, if there is no sense of justice and righteousness in society. Such was the meaning also of the apostle Saint James and the constant warning of the Catholic Church, that faith without works is dead. It had got to the point where Israel was making military conquests and claiming that they had thus succeeded because of their own personal quality (as the Chosen people of God?). But they continued in immorality, and now destruction was nigh:

“A word from the Lord, and all shall be a gaping ruin, palace and cottage both. Strange, if yonder mountain-crags men should climb on horseback, or plough with oxen! Stranger still, that people of Mine should poison the springs of right and justice, all wormwood now! And still you boast over some conquest of little worth; ‘To what greatness,’ you say, ‘valour of ours has brought us!’ Trust Me, men of Israel, the Lord God of hosts says, I mean to embroil you with such an enemy as shall crush the life out of you, from Emath pass to the brook that bounds the desert.”

Amos, 6: 12-15

A prophet who foretells doom is never welcome, and in chapter seven Amos tells of the opposition he received from the priest Amasias in Beth-El, who tried to have him kicked out of the kingdom and back to Juda. That suggests that the shepherd Amos preached at Bethel, and fell afoul of the professional prophets, especially when they were probably all yes-men to the corrupted kings. But there was no getting rid of the dreadful tidings, when even God’s voice would finally vanish from among the people. The sentence is final:

“‘A time is coming,’ says the Lord God, ‘when there shall be great lack in the land, yet neither dearth nor drought. Hunger? Ay, they shall hunger for some message from the Lord, yet go they from eastern to western sea, go they from north to south, making search for it everywhere, message from the Lord they shall have none. Thirst, ay, they shall thirst, fair maid and brave warrior both. Fools, that by the shame of Samaria take their oaths, pin their faith to Dan’s worship or Bersabee pilgrimage! Here is fall there is no amending.'”

Amos, 8: 11-14

Dan’s worship was the Egyptian religion established at Bethel and Dan by the first king of the northern kingdom, Jeroboam I. It had persisted until the end of that kingdom, in spite of the office of great prophets like Elijah and Elisha. And finally, God declares that the exceptionalism of Israel as His Chosen People was connected to the observance of His Commandments – and that meant justice and righteousness. And the basis of those, as we know, is self-sacrificing love. This voice has sounded throughout the Old Testament so far: God has given every people their own home, but His choice of Israel was always bound by faithfulness to Him, and the guilt of infidelity could not fall away. But the promise remained. Punished they would be and the kingdom of Israel destroyed, but a remnant would be preserved and the house of Jacob would be rebuilt one day.

“‘Ethiop or Israelite, what care I?’ the Lord says. ‘God that brought you here from Egypt was God that brought the Philistines from Caphtor, brought the Syrians from Cir! Divine regard that watches ever this kingdom, marks ever its guilt; I will blot it out, believe me, from the face of the earth. And blot out the name of Jacob altogether? Nay, not that, the Lord says.”

Amos, 9: 7-8

Oh, no, not that… because God is faithful. The book ends with a line of comfort. The punishment would not last forever, and the people would return.

“I will bring back My people of Israel from its exile, to rebuild ruined cities and dwell there, plant vineyards and drink of them, till gardens and eat the fruits of them. Firm root they shall take in their native soil, never again to be torn away from the home I have given them, says the Lord, thy own God.“

Amos, 9: 14-15
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Reading through the second letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians

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onward to Galatians →

I’m on medical rest for the moment, so I’ve decided to put out these little summaries of the books of Scripture on an almost-daily basis, until I’ve done them all. You should find the ones I’ve already done here. Then I’ll start to put on bits of the Catechism and basic prayer.

Today, we have the second letter of Saint Paul that we have to the infant Church in Corinth, the great sea-port of ancient Achaia. The circumstances are a little different from those of the first letter, which dealt with several practical and pastoral problems. But the tension created by Christian preachers rivalling Paul remains, and Paul now seems to be more irritated by the opposition to him of a faction of the Corinthian church, and this shows throughout the letter, which ends in Paul protesting for his authority as an Apostle. Calling himself an Apostle allowed Paul to give himself the episcopal authority that derives from the Twelve, an authority that derives from Paul’s ordination either at Jerusalem or at Antioch, or at both places. But let’s run through some highlights…

Once upon a time, the Lawgiver Moses came down the mountain in Sinai, having received the Word of God, his face so brilliant that the people couldn’t look upon him and he had to veil his face for some time. So, indeed, is the case with the glory of the Christian Gospel:

“We know how that sentence of death, engraved in writing upon stone, was promulgated to men in a dazzling cloud, so that the people of Israel could not look Moses in the face, for the brightness of it, although that brightness soon passed away. How much more dazzling, then, must be the brightness in which the spiritual law is promulgated to them! If there is a splendour in the proclamation of our guilt, there must be more splendour yet in the proclamation of our acquittal; and indeed, what once seemed resplendent seems by comparison resplendent no longer, so much does the greater splendour outshine it.”

II Corinthians, 3: 7-10

Some of the members of the Corinthian church, probably egged on by the rival preachers, seem to have accused Paul of cowardice in his preaching, maybe because he speaks of mysteries and veils. Is he sure of what he’s saying? Does he even know what he’s talking about?

“Always we, alive as we are, are being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the living power of Jesus may be manifested in this mortal nature of ours. So death makes itself felt in us, and life in you. I spoke my mind, says the scripture, with full confidence, and we too speak our minds with full confidence, sharing that same spirit of faith, and knowing that He who raised Jesus from the dead will raise us too, and summon us, like you, before Him. It is all for your sakes, so that grace made manifold in many lives may increase the sum of gratitude which is offered to God’s glory. No, we do not play the coward; though the outward part of our nature is being worn down, our inner life is refreshed from day to day. This light and momentary affliction brings with it a reward multiplied every way, loading us with everlasting glory; if only we will fix our eyes on what is unseen, not on what we can see. What we can see, lasts but for a moment; what is unseen is eternal.”

II Corinthians, 4: 11-18

Here’s an encapsulation of the Christian message: Christ died for us and rose again, we too as dead men have risen to live with His life, not ours. It follows that Christians live with a supernatural life, as new creatures, this transformation and reconciliation with God being effected through Christ and through the ministry of the Apostles. The Christian Apostles are then Christ’s ambassadors, the means by which Christians are drawn from the darkness and made into the Holiness of God.

“…if one Man died on behalf of all, then all thereby became dead men; Christ died for us all, so that being alive should no longer mean living with our own life, but with His life who died for us and has risen again; and therefore, henceforward, we do not think of anybody in a merely human fashion; even if we used to think of Christ in a human fashion, we do so no longer; it follows, in fact, that when a man becomes a new creature in Christ, his old life has disappeared, everything has become new about him. This, as always, is God’s doing; it is He who, through Christ, has reconciled us to Himself, and allowed us to minister this reconciliation of His to others. Yes, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, establishing in our hearts His message of reconciliation, instead of holding men to account for their sins. We are Christ’s ambassadors, then, and God appeals to you through us; we entreat you in Christ’s name, make your peace with God. Christ never knew sin, and God made Him into sin for us, so that in Him we might be turned into the Holiness of God.”

II Corinthians, 5:14-21

Saint Paul continues to wax lyrical about the ministry of the Apostles, the forerunners of the bishops and priests of the Church. It is rather beautiful, and inspirational for the missionaries and clergy of our own time. In some places, like sub-Saharan Africa, this is all still a real experience of the priests in active ministry.

“…as God’s ministers, we must do everything to make ourselves acceptable. We have to shew great patience, in times of affliction, of need, of difficulty; under the lash, in prison, in the midst of tumult; when we are tired out, sleepless, and fasting. We have to be pure-minded, enlightened, forgiving and gracious to others; we have to rely on the Holy Spirit, on unaffected love, on the truth of our message, on the power of God. To right and to left we must be armed with innocence; now honoured, now slighted, now traduced, now flattered. They call us deceivers, and we tell the truth; unknown, and we are fully acknowledged; dying men, and see, we live; punished, yes, but not doomed to die; sad men, that rejoice continually; beggars, that bring riches to many; disinherited, and the world is ours.”

II Corinthians, 6:4-10

I imagine that Paul – being a rather kindly sort, if with a fiery temper – would not have very often pulled rank as an Apostle and as one given a commission directly by God. But he comes very near in this case, and there does seem to be a significant challenge made to his authority by some of the members of this church community that he himself had built. So, we find some rather severe language towards the end of this letter, when he speaks of his next visitation to them. It seems that episcopal right was about to be brought down upon certain persons:

“Wait and see what happens when we meet. There may be someone who takes credit to himself for being the champion of Christ; if so, let him reflect further that we belong to Christ’s cause no less than himself; and indeed, I might boast of the powers I have, powers which the Lord has given me so as to build up your faith, not so as to crush your spirits, and I should not be put in the wrong. It must not be thought that I try to overawe you when I write. ‘His letters,’ some people say, ‘are powerful and carry weight, but his presence in person lacks dignity, he is but a poor orator.’ I warn those who speak thus that, when we visit you, our actions will not belie the impression which our letters make when we are at a distance. It is not for us to intrude, or challenge comparison with others who claim credit for themselves; we are content to go by our own measure, to compare ourselves with our own standard of achievement. Yes, we may boast, but our boasting will not be disproportionate; it will be in proportion to the province which God has assigned to us, one which reaches as far as you.”

II Corinthians, 10: 7-13

Paul, who had done no less than the greatest of the Apostles (and he’s probably thinking of the Twelve themselves here), had claimed no support from the Church in Achaia, although he was entitled to it, according to the Gospel. He had arrived among them without money and had been supported by Greek Christians in Macedonia. Paul’s authority over the Corinthian church does not come from such a thing as return on charitable support; it comes rather from his fatherhood of this community, which he has fashioned into a bride of Christ. However, other Christian preachers (his rivals) have taken money from the Corinthians. Putting on false appearances, they have sought to distance the Corinthians from Paul, whose one boast is this very Corinthian church:

“I was penniless when I visited you, but I would not cripple any of you with expenses; the brethren came from Macedonia to relieve my necessities; I would not, and I will not, put any burden on you. As the truth of Christ lives in me, no one in all the country of Achaia shall silence this boast of mine. Why is that? Because I have no love for you? God knows I have. No, I shall continue to do as I have done, so as to cut away the ground from those who would gladly boast that they are no different from myself. Such men are false apostles, dishonest workmen, that pass for apostles of Christ. And no wonder; Satan himself can pass for an angel of light, and his servants have no difficulty in passing for servants of holiness; but their end will be what their life has deserved. Once more I appeal to you, let none of you think me vain; or, if it must be so, give me a hearing in spite of my vanity, and let me boast a little in my turn. When I boast with such confidence, I am not delivering a message to you from God; it is part of my vanity if you will. If so many others boast of their natural advantages, I must be allowed to boast too. You find it easy to be patient with the vanity of others, you who are so full of good sense. Why, you let other people tyrannize over you, prey upon you, take advantage of you, vaunt their power over you, browbeat you!”

II Corinthians, 11: 9-20

Paul says that he can easily overawe the people with his mystical experiences, but that he would prefer to rejoice in his humiliations than enjoy the glory that attaches to him from God’s special favour. We do get a brief account of those mystical experiences and visions, which demonstrate great favours shown Paul by the Holy One: 

“I can only tell you that this man, with his spirit in his body, or with his spirit apart from his body, God knows which, not I, was carried up into Paradise, and heard mysteries which man is not allowed to utter. That is the man about whom I will boast; I will not boast about myself, except to tell you of my humiliations. It would not be vanity, if I had a mind to boast about such a man as that; I should only be telling the truth. But I will spare you the telling of it; I have no mind that anybody should think of me except as he sees me, as he hears me talking to him. And indeed, for fear that these surpassing revelations should make me proud, I was given a sting to distress my outward nature, an angel of Satan sent to rebuff me. Three times it made me entreat the Lord to rid me of it; but He told me, ‘My grace is enough for thee; My strength finds its full scope in thy weakness.’ More than ever, then, I delight to boast of the weaknesses that humiliate me, so that the strength of Christ may enshrine itself in me. I am well content with these humiliations of mine, with the insults, the hardships, the persecutions, the times of difficulty I undergo for Christ; when I am weakest, then I am strongest of all.”

II Corinthians, 12: 3-10

There is a great deal more besides, such as the discussion on the management of the second collections after Mass (chapter eight and chapter nine). You will agree that all this makes Paul so very human, so very natural, and indeed very relatable to us. His very affection for the people who have begun to accuse him of dishonesty and attack his authority is wonderful to see. When he speaks of all he has undergone for love of the churches in various places – “…in danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from my own people, in danger from the Gentiles; danger in cities; danger in the wilderness, danger in the sea, danger among false brethren… met with toil and weariness, so often been sleepless, hungry and thirsty; so often denied myself food, gone cold and naked…” – you begin to wonder how many others of the Apostles covered as many miles as Paul did to build up the churches he had established all over the Greco-Roman world. And for all that, he fears that when he gets to Corinth, he will be rejected.

“I have the fear that perhaps, when I reach you, I shall find in you unwelcome hosts, and you in me an unwelcome visitor; that there will be dissension, rivalry, ill humour, factiousness, backbiting, gossip, self-conceit, disharmony. I have the fear that on this new visit God has humiliation in store for me when we meet; that I shall have tears to shed over many of you, sinners of old and still unrepentant, with a tale of impure, adulterous, and wanton living.”

II Corinthians, 12: 20-21

No bishop wishes to punish anybody, or to any way wield his apostolic authority over a people that despises him. He prefers rather, that people grow in perfection, becoming what God meant them to be, and that they live in peace:

“The powers we have are used in support of the truth, not against it; and we are best pleased when we have no power against you, and you are powerful yourselves. That is what we pray for, your perfection. I write this in absence, in the hope that, when I come, I may not have to deal severely with you, in the exercise of that authority which the Lord has given me to build up your faith, not to crush your spirits.”

II Corinthians, 13: 8-10

I’m certain, with the appreciation of his kind heart that I have acquired, that Paul did not finally bring crushing ecclesiastical sanctions upon these rebel Christians. I think it unlikely.

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onward to Galatians →

Reading through the Prophecy of Hosea (aka. Osee)

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onward to Joel →

The prophecy of Hosea is about the love of a husband for his adulterous wife. Hosea had a rather long ministry, overlapping with Amos during the reign of King Jeroboam II of Israel and reaching past the reigns of King Achaz and King Ezechias of Juda, reaching almost to the end of the northern kingdom of Israel. His themes are those of Amos – condemnation of the immorality and idolatry of the Israelite clans, and the imminent destruction that is to result from their infidelity to God. Let’s get right on with it…

To demonstrate the attitude of God to Israel, which nation He had married at Mount Sinai and who was now prostituting herself to foreign gods of the Canaanite countryside, Osee makes a parable of himself and marries an unfaithful woman, by whom he has several children with symbolic names.

“When first the divine voice made itself heard through Osee, this was the command given him: ‘Wanton wed thou, wantons breed thou; in a wanton land thou dwellest, that keeps troth with its Lord never.’ So it was he came to marry Gomer, a daughter of Debelaim. When he got her with child, and she bore him a son, ‘This one,’ the Lord told him, ‘thou art to call Jezrahel; at Jezrahel the blood was spilt for which, ere long, Jehu’s line must be punished, and Israel have kings no more; in Jezrahel valley, My doom is, bow of Israel shall be broken.’ And next, she was brought to bed of a daughter; of whom the Lord said, ‘Unbefriended call her, in token that I will befriend Israel no longer, heed them no longer. To Juda I will be a friend yet, not with bow or sword of theirs delivering them, not in battle, with horse or horseman to give aid, but by the power of the Lord their God only.’ Unbefriended, then, was the name of her; and after she was weaned, once more Gomer conceived, and had a son. This time the command was, ‘Call him Strange-folk; no longer shall you be my people, or I be your…'”

Osee, 1: 2-9

And the parable develops further. Infidelity will lose the people the Promised Land. But the forced exile of the people is also an instructive action, for it is meant to draw them away from opulence and the trust in the things of this world, to draw them back into the wilderness, as when they had left Egypt long ago (see also Osee, 12: 9-10, where the people are given to learn their lesson anew in the desert, given by prophets like unto Moses). And there, in the wilderness, they would find themselves once more depending on God alone.

“And now I mean to revoke the gift; no harvest for her, no vintage; I will give wool and flax a holiday, that once laboured to cover her shame; no gallant of hers but shall see and mock at it; such is My Will, and none shall thwart Me. Gone the days of rejoicing, the days of solemnity; gone is new moon, and sabbath, and festival; vine and fig-tree blighted, whose fruit, she told herself, was but the hire those lovers paid; all shall be woodland, for the wild beasts to ravage as they will. Penance she must do for that hey-day of idolatry, when the incense smoked, and out she went, all rings and necklaces, to meet her lovers, the gods of the country-side, and for Me, the Lord says, never a thought! It is but love’s stratagem, thus to lead her out into the wilderness; once there, it shall be all words of comfort.”

Osee, 2: 9-14

Yes, out there, dispossessed and living exiled in a foreign land, comfort would be given the people through the prophets. And chapter four brings a curse upon self-serving priests, just as Michaeas had scolded the false prophets.

“Ruin for thee, sir priest, this day, and, come night, the prophet shall share thy ruin; name of the mother that bore thee shall perish, as, through thy fault, this people of mine perishes for want of knowledge. Knowledge wouldst thou spurn, and shall not I spurn thy priesthood; my law wouldst thou forget, and shall race of thine be spared oblivion? Priests a many, and sins to match their number; shall that title bring glory any longer, and not reproach? Fault if Israel committed, guilt if Israel incurred, it was but the meat and drink such priests craved for. Priest, now, shall fare no better than people; he shall pay for his ill living, reap what his false aims deserve; greed, that remained still unsated, wantonness, that could never have enough. Ah, faithless guardians, that you should play your Lord false! That dalliance, and wine, and revelry, should so steal away your wits!”

Osee, 4: 5-11

The priests had joined in with the collective worship of false gods, and they had profited from it, as false guardians of the people. Chapter five seems to reference the long-term Syrian aggression of Israel, that wasted away the strength of the armies of both Israel and Judah, leaving them practically defenceless against the Assyrian hordes arriving from Nineveh. The prophet wants the kings to acknowledge that they cannot survive through diplomacy with foreign nations. Their help is in the Name of the Lord, their God, and they still have a chance – a brief and momentary chance – to turn back to Him.

“Dead men to-day and to-morrow, on the third day He will raise us up again, to live in His presence anew. Acknowledge we, cease we never to acknowledge the Lord, He will reveal Himself, sure as the dawn, come back to us, sure as the rains of winter and spring come back to the earth. What way will serve with you, men of Ephraim? Juda, what way will serve? Ruth of yours is but momentary, fades like the early mist, like morning dew.”

Osee, 6: 3-4

Chapter seven further mocks the attempts of the people to seek political and military support from other countries, even Egypt, a country which they had left as freed slaves centuries ago. And then they finally turn back when sorely oppressed, looking for God, but alas! it’s too late. And anyway, there’s no indication even then that they had given up the other religions; their devotion was apparently (from other books and from the narrative in Kings; see Osee, 10:2, where they are called half loyal, half false) to multiple gods, one of which was the true God. The sentence has been drawn.

“The trumpet to thy mouth! Eagle’s wings threatening the Lord’s domain! Conscious of faith forsworn, of My law defied, to Me Israel cries out, ‘My God!’ cries out, ‘We acknowledge thee!’ Estranged, poor Israel, from the good that was his, and the enemy pressing hard upon him. Kings a many, and with no warrant from me; princes a many, that were none of My choosing; idols a many, of their own gold and silver minted; here is cause enough for their undoing. Cast calf, Samaria, is yonder calf of thine; for this burning affront, it shall be long ere thou canst find acquittal. Israel gave birth to it, this calf of Samaria, that came of man’s fashioning, and god is none; it shall be beaten fine as filigree. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind; empty stook is empty bin, and here if grain is any, alien folk shall have the eating of it!”

Osee, 8: 1-7

That reference to a cast metal calf in Samaria refers to the Egyptian religion that the king of the northern kingdom of Israel, Ieroboam I, had introduced there centuries before. And here is something we don’t realise about sin and punishment and death: God doesn’t wish to punish, He doesn’t find any joy in punishment and in human suffering. But punishment and suffering are the natural result of sin and infidelity. And God finds Himself helpless before man’s spiral into sin and its wages, death. Even with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, fidelity is still required: we must still believe in the mystery of the Son of God, and follow His commandments. And if we refused to, we couldn’t be dragged kicking and screaming into heaven. Christ Himself would say something similar to what is said here:

“Can My people be reconciled with me? All hangs in doubt, until at last I put a yoke on all alike, never to be taken away from them. What, Ephraim, must I abandon thee? Must I keep Israel under watch and ward? Can I let thee go the way of Adama, share the doom of Seboim? All at once My heart misgives me, and from its embers pity revives. How should I wreak My vengeance, of Ephraim take full toll? God am I, not a man in the midst of you, the Holy One, that may not enter those city walls…”

Osee, 11: 7-9

The lament of the prophet continues until the end, where the voice of hope continues to linger. It’s all rather dismal, and helps us enter into the mind of the prophet, who in his dismay watches an idolatrous nation lolling around in comfort and, with his far-vision, is able to see the dread retribution coming. But God will bring return to His people, when they have found contrition of heart, separated from all the worldly powers they had put their trust in, and when they have put away the idols at last and stood once more naked and weak, but trustful, before the face of the Holy One Who loves them. 

“Come back, men of Israel, with a plea ready on your lips: ‘Pardon all our guilt, and take the best we have in return; the praises we utter shall be our victims now. No longer we will find refuge in Assyrian help, mount our men on horses from Egypt; no longer will we give the name of gods to the things our own hands have made; thou art the friend of the friendless who trust in thee.’ I will bring healing to their crushed spirits; in free mercy I will give them back My love; My vengeance has passed them by. I will be morning dew, to make Israel grow as the lilies grow, strike roots deep as the forest of Lebanon. Those branches shall spread, it shall become fair as the olive, fragrant as Lebanon cedar.“

Osee 14: 3-7
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Trusting divine Providence (Sunday XII of Ordered time)

Our readings this weekend speak of our trust in the providence of God, Who (we might say) always has the bigger picture, and knows therefore what is best at all times. He says so much to the patriarch Job in our first reading today. In the story of Job, this venerable old man had lost his family and his fortune in a series of cataclysmic events, and had finally lost his own health. Sitting in misery, he had called up to heaven that he was innocent of all wrongdoing and had practically put God in the dock, demanding that He, God, defend the attack upon Job. So came the Most High in this tempest in our reading, to put Job in his place and convince him that he should suffer patiently.

“Then, from the midst of a whirlwind, the Lord gave Job his answer: ‘Here is one that must ever be clouding the truth of things with words ill considered! Strip, then, and enter the lists; it is My turn to ask questions now, thine to answer them. From what vantage-point wast thou watching, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, whence comes this sure knowledge of thine? Tell Me, since thou art so wise, was it thou or I designed earth’s plan, measuring it out with the line? How came its base to stand so firm; who laid its corner-stone? To Me, that day, all the morning stars sang together, all the powers of heaven uttered their joyful praise. Was it thou or I shut in the sea behind bars? No sooner had it broken forth from the womb than I dressed it in swaddling-clothes of dark mist, set it within bounds of My own choosing, made fast with bolt and bar; Thus far thou shalt come, said I, and no further; here let thy swelling waves spend their force.'”

Book of Job, 38: 1-11 [link]

That is a poetic narration of the Creation story, with the Holy One calling all things out of nothing, and all of them singing to him with joy. He is in control of all things, and the end of the story is Job being given a new family and new fortune, for the whole of the earlier episode had been a test of his patience in suffering. So God provides, but He expects us to trust at the same time, and even in suffering, that He will bring all things to a good end. In the Gospel story, Christ and the Apostles are sailing west across the sea of Galilee. And He sleeps in the boat.

“That day, when evening came on, He said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ So they let the multitude go, and took Him with them, just as He was, on the boat; there were other boats too with Him. And a great storm of wind arose, and drove the waves into the boat, so that the boat could hold no more. Meanwhile, He was in the stern, asleep on the pillow there; and they roused Him, crying, ‘Master, art Thou unconcerned? We are sinking.’ So He rose up, and checked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ And the wind dropped, and there was deep calm. Then He said to them, ‘Why are you faint-hearted? Have you still no faith?’ And they were overcome with awe; ‘Why, Who is this,’ they said to one another, ‘Who is obeyed even by the winds and the sea?'”

Gospel of S. Mark, 4: 35-40 [link]

Let’s compare this with the Job story: when Job was in the midst of great suffering, it seemed as if God was asleep, or at least unaware of his pain. As Job suffered, here the Apostles struggled to keep the boat on course and above water. Just as Job called up to heaven in despair, the Apostles now call for the Holy One, asleep in the stern. ‘Master! Do you not care that we are going down??’ Christ awakes and God descends to Job in a tempest. As Job’s suffering ended in an instant, now the storm dies away in Galilee. And the rebuke of the Holy One is the same. To Job He had declared that He could see far further than Job; His Apostles He accuses of unfaith and fear even in His presence. Trust in God’s providence is lacking in both places, as so often it is lacking in our own hearts. The story of the Bible and of the history of the Church is of men and women often failing in their trust in God, and then of finding it again. Repeatedly.

All of us mortal beings are subject to suffering and despair. The best of us accept it and carry on with our duties, as best we can. We may even rage against the Holy One, as Job did. We may call out in anguish, as the Apostles in the boat did. But we shall still know that it is He Who sustains all things, is aware of our predicament, and will eventually bring His purposes to fruition. Toil and suffering will one day end, the storm will abate, and we shall look about us in wonder and say, ‘Who can this be, that even the very wind and the sea obey Him? That all that we feared has fallen to its knees before Him?’

How can we maintain this trust in Him? S. Paul tells us in the second reading that the love of the Holy One overwhelms us. In this month of the Sacred Heart, we should keep that constantly in mind. Paul says that since Christ has died of love for us, so we should live our lives not for ourselves, but for His sake. What does that mean in the context of providence and trust? Surely that we must try to live without care, as Christ asked us to do in the Gospel when He said that we must seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and everything else will be added on by Him. We seek the kingdom of God – with its pursuit of virtue – and set aside the cares of this world, for God may be trusted to look after our families, our worldly needs, and our very health. The Christian sees the world in a different way to everybody else, for he or she sees the world in the light of the Resurrection, and therefore knows very well that beyond suffering and death there is new life. So, Paul says that for all who are in Christ, there is a new creation, the old having passed away. And the Christian life is lived continually in trust in the providence of God.

“With us, Christ’s love is a compelling motive, and this is the conviction we have reached; if one Man died on behalf of all, then all thereby became dead men; Christ died for us all, so that being alive should no longer mean living with our own life, but with His life Who died for us and has risen again; and therefore, henceforward, we do not think of anybody in a merely human fashion; even if we used to think of Christ in a human fashion, we do so no longer, it follows, in fact, that when a man becomes a new creature in Christ, his old life has disappeared, everything has become new about him.”

Second letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 5: 14-17 [link]

Reading through the first letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians

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This is one of the most popular of the preserved letters of S. Paul, so let’s try and draw a quick summary. Like most big Greco-Roman towns of the first century, Corinth had a large Jewish community, living among almost any number of other religions and philosophy, for this small city was about as metropolitan as could be at the time. One of the most prosperous cities, because of its canal connecting the Adriatic with the Aegean. So there was the usual mix of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in the young church, living on different social levels. Saint Paul himself formed this local church at Corinth as its Apostle and, in this letter, touchingly calls Corinthian Christians his little children in his famous description of the Christian apostle (succeeded later by bishops and priests, to which it also therefore applies):

“As it is, it seems as if God had destined us, His apostles, to be in the lowest place of all, like men under sentence of death; such a spectacle do we present to the whole creation, men and angels alike. We are fools for Christ’s sake, you are so wise; we are so helpless, you so stout of heart; you are held in honour, while we are despised. Still, as I write, we go hungry and thirsty and naked; we are mishandled, we have no home to settle in, we are hard put to it, working with our own hands. Men revile us, and we answer with a blessing, persecute us, and we make the best of it, speak ill of us, and we fall to entreaty. We are still the world’s refuse; everybody thinks himself well rid of us. I am not writing this to shame you; you are my dearly loved children, and I would bring you to a better mind. Yes, you may have ten thousand schoolmasters in Christ, but not more than one father; it was I that begot you in Jesus Christ, when I preached the Gospel to you. Follow my example, then, I entreat you, as I follow Christ’s.”

I Corinthians, 4: 9-16

The painful reality of the Corinthian Church lay in its division within itself. In a situation reminiscent of today’s post-1970s, highly-politicised Church, the Corinthians had apparently selected their favourite apostles (Apollos was an Alexandrian Christian and Cephas, or Rock, was the Apostle Saint Peter himself) and had developed a party system. Paul is naturally annoyed at them and encourages Unity in a lengthy first part of the letter; this must have been the principle defect he wanted to remedy with his letter: 

“Only I entreat you, brethren, as you love the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, use, all of you, the same language. There must be no divisions among you; you must be restored to unity of mind and purpose. The account I have of you, my brethren, from Chloe’s household, is that there are dissensions among you; each of you, I mean, has a cry of his own, I am for Paul, I am for Apollo, I am for Cephas, I am for Christ. What, has Christ been divided up? Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Was it in Paul’s name that you were baptised? Thank God I did not baptise any of you except Crispus and Gaius; so that no one can say it was in my name you were baptised.”

I Corinthians, 1: 10-15

The solution to disunity is emphasising Christ and the unity of God, so that even Paul’s own teaching is presented in chapter two as having its grounding in revelation given by the Spirit of God. He still sees his dearly beloved children as novices in the Faith, requiring baby food, and this immaturity in faith is evident above all in their disunity:

“And when I preached to you, I had to approach you as men with natural, not with spiritual thoughts. You were little children in Christ’s nursery, and I gave you milk, not meat; you were not strong enough for it. You are not strong enough for it even now; nature still lives in you. Do not these rivalries, these dissensions among you shew that nature is still alive, that you are guided by human standards? When one of you says, ‘I am for Paul,’ and another, ‘I am for Apollo,’ are not these human thoughts? Why, what is Apollo, what is Paul? Only the ministers of the God in whom your faith rests, who have brought that faith to each of you in the measure God granted. It was for me to plant the seed, for Apollo to water it, but it was God who gave the increase.”

I Corinthians, 3: 1-6

Who are the ministers of Christ, that they should be named in this way, and given schools of wisdom? They are merely planting and keeping, working in succession to each other, with a common ministry. As S. John the Baptist had long before said, the priests should decrease as Christ increase. They are to be trustworthy and must not exceed their personal missions. The question of unity has vexed Paul very much and he has sent his young deputy, Timothy, on a visitation and for instruction:

“That is why I have sent Timothy to you, a faithful and dearly loved son of mine in the Lord; he will remind you of the path I tread in Christ Jesus, the lessons I give to all churches alike.”

I Corinthians 4: 17

Now comes a brief theology of the body in which Paul, in the best Hebrew tradition, condemns incest and then fornication, those committing these crimes being punished with excommunication from the body Catholic. This discussion of the integrity of the human body within human relationships develops gradually into a description of the body of the Church as the body of Christ. Following on from his delivery on the unity of the Church, Paul criticises the tendency of the Corinthians to litigate against one another using the secular courts. Why can’t they settle their cases domestically, ecumenically and within the Church?

“You would do better to appoint the most insignificant of your own number as judges, when you have these common quarrels to decide. That I say to humble you. What, have you really not a single man among you wise enough to decide a claim brought by his own brother? Must two brethren go to law over it, and before a profane court? And indeed, it is a defect in you at the best of times, that you should have quarrels among you at all. How is it that you do not prefer to put up with wrong, prefer to suffer loss?”

I Corinthians, 6: 4-7

The condemnation of debauchery that this sits in the midst of is an affront to the Holy Spirit, whose temples our bodies are. Here’s a general theme Paul uses in his letters: that Christ has purchased us with His self-sacrifice, so our bodies are not ours to commit acts of debauchery with. In what feels to me like an interval, Paul now dips into some practical matters with answers to questions they have made to him in the preceding letter. He recommends virginity in strong words, throughout chapter seven, because that enables Christians souls to dedicate and consecrate themselves to God in prayer. This is a position the Church has ever maintained, although it hasn’t been treated adequately in the last sixty or seventy years. This carelessness, together with family planning and increasing secularisation of the Church, has gutted vocations to the priesthood and Religious life in recent decades.

“I would have you free from concern. He who is unmarried is concerned with God’s claim, asking how he is to please God; whereas the married man is concerned with the world’s claim, asking how he is to please his wife; and thus he is at issue with himself. So a woman who is free of wedlock, or a virgin, is concerned with the Lord’s claim, intent on holiness, bodily and spiritual; whereas the married woman is concerned with the world’s claim, asking how she is to please her husband.”

I Corinthians, 7: 32-34

There is the usual treatment of food that has been offered to idols, which caused much trouble among Jewish and Jewish-Christian communities in such environments as Corinth, this food being forbidden by the Law of Moses. Paul is anxious that, although Christianity frees us from the Law, the Law may still be a matter of conscience to some Jewish Christians. His principle is then that we make way, whenever necessary, for those whose consciences bother them in this respect.

“…it is not what we eat that gives us our standing in God’s sight; we gain nothing by eating, lose nothing by abstaining; it is for you to see that the liberty you allow yourselves does not prove a snare to doubtful consciences. If any of them sees one who is better instructed sitting down to eat in the temple of a false god, will not his conscience, all uneasy as it is, be emboldened to approve of eating idolatrously? And thus, through thy enlightenment, the doubting soul will be lost; thy brother, for whose sake Christ died. When you thus sin against your brethren, by injuring their doubtful consciences, you sin against Christ. Why then, if a mouthful of food is an occasion of sin to my brother, I will abstain from flesh meat perpetually, rather than be the occasion of my brother’s sin.“

I Corinthians, 8: 8-13

That said, we are still to avoid idolatry, for there cannot be more than one God, so that the pagan gods represent evil spirits. This is the topic of chapter ten, which also relates to keeping the body from debauchery, for observing pagan cults is incompatible with assisting at the Eucharistic sacrifice:

“I mean that when the heathen offer sacrifice they are really offering it to evil spirits and not to a God at all. I have no mind to see you associating yourselves with evil spirits. To drink the Lord’s cup, and yet to drink the cup of evil spirits, to share the Lord’s feast, and to share the feast of evil spirits, is impossible for you.”

I Corinthians, 10: 20-21

While covering several points of discipline in chapter (covering heads in the solemn assembly, equality among the social classes and parties in the solemn assembly), Paul now provides the first description ever of the eucharistic prayer of the Mass (the Gospels are all still years from being written), and strongly devises that the Sacrament be received in a suitable state of soul:

“The tradition which I received from the Lord, and handed on to you, is that the Lord Jesus, on the night when He was being betrayed, took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My Body, given up for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me.’ And so with the cup, when supper was ended, ‘This cup,’ He said, ‘is the new testament, in My Blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, for a commemoration of me.’ So it is the Lord’s death that you are heralding, whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, until He comes. And therefore, if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, he will be held to account for the Lord’s Body and Blood. A man must examine himself first, and then eat of that bread and drink of that cup; he is eating and drinking damnation to himself if he eats and drinks unworthily, not recognizing the Lord’s Body for what it is.”

I Corinthians, 11: 23-29

Then comes the descriptions of charismatic gifts in the early church, allowing various people to preach, teach, administer, heal, prophesy, interpret, speak in tongues, etc. Each to his own, Paul says; do not vie with each other for the gifts that God gives variously to different people. All of us, with our many gifts, are to work together like cogs in a great machine:

“The body, after all, consists not of one organ but of many; if the foot should say, I am not the hand, and therefore I do not belong to the body, does it belong to the body any the less for that? If the ear should say, I am not the eye, and therefore I do not belong to the body, does it belong to the body any the less for that? Where would the power of hearing be, if the body were all eye? Or the power of smell, if the body were all ear? As it is, God has given each one of them its own position in the body, as he would. If the whole were one single organ, what would become of the body? Instead of that, we have a multitude of organs, and one body.”

I Corinthians, 12: 14-20

If everybody wants to work as healers or speak in tongues, say, the body would be all ear, or all eye… Instead of aching for these extraordinary gifts, Paul counsels that we seek, above all, charity, which he says will outlast every other marvellous gift. 

“Charity is patient, is kind; charity feels no envy; charity is never perverse or proud, never insolent; does not claim its rights, cannot be provoked, does not brood over an injury; takes no pleasure in wrong-doing, but rejoices at the victory of truth, sustains, believes, hopes, endures, to the last. The time will come when we shall outgrow prophecy, when speaking with tongues will come to an end, when knowledge will be swept away; we shall never have finished with charity.”

I Corinthians, 13: 4-8

But while these spiritual gifts, or charisms, persisted in the early church, there was bound to be disorder in their practice, and Paul seeks in chapter 14 to develop a hierarchy of wonderful gifts. To summarise this long discourse, he prefers gifts that build up the faith of Christians, especially the gift of prophecy, and he prefers them to more personal gifts, like the ability to speak in tongues, for if this were to be a ministry in the church, it would need interpretation, which must have been hard to find. Grow up, Paul seems to say, for this desire to demonstrate marvellous abilities is rather childish.

“Since you have set your hearts on spiritual gifts, ask for them in abundant measure, but only so as to strengthen the faith of the church; the man who can speak in a strange tongue should pray for the power to interpret it. If I use a strange tongue when I offer prayer, my spirit is praying, but my mind reaps no advantage from it. What, then, is my drift? Why, I mean to use mind as well as spirit when I offer prayer, use mind as well as spirit when I sing psalms. If thou dost pronounce a blessing in this spiritual fashion, how can one who takes his place among the uninstructed say Amen to thy thanksgiving? He cannot tell what thou art saying. Thou, true enough, art duly giving thanks, but the other’s faith is not strengthened. Thank God, I can speak any of the tongues you use; but in the church, I would rather speak five words which my mind utters, for your instruction, than ten thousand in a strange tongue. Brethren, do not be content to think childish thoughts; keep the innocence of children, with the thoughts of grown men.”

I Corinthians, 14: 12-20

This post is already far too long, so I’ll terminate this summary of the letter with Paul’s act of faith and witness as an apostle, which precedes his long defence of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body, the denial of which is the denial of Christ, Christianity and any chance of salvation. That you can find in the rest of chapter fifteen. But this below is the beginning of it, and may we hold constantly to this apostolic core of the Faith, and hand it on through the generations and as far as we can:

“The chief message I handed on to you, as it was handed on to me, was that Christ, as the scriptures had foretold, died for our sins; that He was buried, and then, as the scriptures had foretold, rose again on the third day. That He was seen by Cephas, then by the eleven apostles, and afterwards by more than five hundred of the brethren at once, most of whom are alive at this day, though some have gone to their rest. Then He was seen by James, then by all the apostles; and last of all, I too saw Him, like the last child, that comes to birth unexpectedly.”

I Corinthians, 15: 3-8
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The King of hearts (Sunday XI of Ordered time)

This last weekend’s readings allow us to reflect on what the Church is. Especially in this month of June, a whole month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of our Lord, I like to say that He is the King of hearts. This was something the Temple priests and the scribes of His day – the religious leaders of the people – could not manage: they could command people from the judgement seat of Moses, and the Jews would obey them religiously, but they could not command the love of the people, nor could they be necessarily loved by them. It was something the Roman authority of His day could not manage either: the procurator Pontius Pilate could command a tax collection and a respect for the emperor in distant Rome, but he had to be protected by the army and supported by the corrupt local kings of the Herod dynasty. And the priests hated Christ for His popularity and contrived the fatal accusations against him for envy. And then the Roman procurator asked Him if He was a king. ‘My kingdom is not as a kingdom of this world,’ He replied, ‘or I would have an army around me to protect me, as you Pontius do.’

No – His kingdom is at least in part living in this world, but not of this world, for He rules the hearts of the men and women whom He calls His children, and they love Him as few human rulers could claim their subjects love them. In our first reading this weekend, the prophet Ezekiel (six hundred years before Christ) uses parables to describe this kingdom of love – the Church – that He sees in vision, in the distant future.

“And here is a message from the Lord God: ‘Pith of the tall cedar I will take and set it firm, young branch from its crest of branches I will snap off, and plant it on a mountain that stands high above the rest. High in the hill-country of Israel I will plant it, and there it shall grow into a great cedar-tree; no bird on the wing but shall find rest under its shade, nestle among its branches; till all the forest learns its lesson, that I, the Lord, bring high tree low, raise low tree high, wither the burgeoning trunk, give life to the barren. What the Lord promises, the Lord fulfils.'”

Prophecy of Ezekiel, 17: 22-24 [link]

The Church is not a human-created society; as the prophet says, she was taken from atop a cedar. This could refer to the Aramaic tribe that Abraham came from, but it could be from everywhere, any tree, for the point is that God sovereignly chooses any tribe He likes. But however it may be, the branch is planted upon the high mountain of Israel – and so is Jewish in its foundation – and becomes a shelter not just for Jewish birds, but for birds from every tribe of mankind. Although her foundations are Jewish, the men and women who crowd around the throne of Christ are of every kind. And, the Holy One adds, every community of men and women will know that it is He who builds some trees and ruins others, chooses some communities for life and others for death, as He pleases. Shall we grumble if He chooses first the Hebrew nation for His own, in order through the Jewish Church He may later permit people every tribe to shelter under her branches?

Now let’s have a look at the other parables, our Lord’s own from the gospel reading. We claim to know the science of vegetable growth in our days – we know how plants grow, we have time-lapse videos to demonstrate how a plant emerges from a seed. But there is still a mystery there, for why should any one seed grow this way rather than that? Why should a plant emerge from a seed at all? Just as 2000 years ago, we still only know by human science that if we establish the right conditions, a seed will produce a shoot, then a ear, and then the full grain, which we need for our sustenance. Why this should be is beside the point, and the farmer simply gets to work at the harvest to bring produce.

“And He said to them, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like this; it is as if a man should sow a crop in his land, and then go to sleep and wake again, night after night, day after day, while the crop sprouts and grows, without any knowledge of his. So, of its own accord, the ground yields increase, first the blade, then the ear, then the perfect grain in the ear; and when the fruit appears, then it is time for him to put in the sickle, because now the harvest is ripe.'”

Gospel of S. Mark, 4: 26-29 [link]

And, similarly, the Church is an absolute mystery, not something to be understood certainly by professors of the social studies who see her as a mere human community, nor even by the most erudite theologian, for our theologians themselves would admit that they can learn only so much about the deepest mysteries. And the life that flows through the Church is not of this world, and her sacramental system (and especially Holy Communion), while either glorified by Catholics or mocked by others, simply works. So, for generations, the priests have thrown seed, and have lost no time when the crop is ready at harvest. How it works is not as significant as the beautiful souls that arrive as a result. The second parable of our Lord speaks of how a large mustard tree comes from a tiny seed.

“And He said, ‘What likeness can we find for the kingdom of God? To what image are we to compare it? To a grain of mustard seed; when this is sown in the earth, no seed on earth is so little; but, once sown, it shoots up and grows taller than any garden herb, putting out great branches, so that all the birds can come and settle under its shade.”

Gospel of S. Mark, 4: 30-32 [link]

Similarly, a whispered story of Christ, or a hastily narrated anecdote from the Life of a Saint, can act as a mustard seed, and before you know it there is a local Catholic community, with a parish hall and perhaps a school. Again, as with Ezekiel’s parable, every kind of bird arrives for shelter. And so, let’s see what S. Paul has to tell us in our second reading today, and relate it to this image of the Church, this community of love. Remember that the Jewish word ‘heart’ refers less to a biological pumping mechanism as to who we are, each one of us, and that the King of hearts calls all truly free hearts irresistibly to Himself. What I mean by ‘truly free hearts’ is hearts that are utterly detached from the things of this world. This detachment Paul calls being ‘at home with the Lord,’ and the attachment to the things of this world he calls ‘at home in the body.’ Paul calls our existence in this world an exile, because it is distant from our true home, which is nearness to the Sacred Heart – what we call ‘heaven.’ But here in exile, or there at home and in glory, the Apostle says that we are intent upon pleasing Him Whom our hearts love, to Whom be glory and praise forever.

“We take heart, then, continually, since we recognise that our spirits are exiled from the Lord’s presence so long as they are at home in the body, with faith, instead of a clear view, to guide our steps. We take heart, I say, and have a mind rather to be exiled from the body, and at home with the Lord; to that end, at home or in exile, our ambition is to win his favour.”

Second letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 5: [link]

Reading through the second book of the Maccabees

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Find my summary of the first book of the Maccabees here.

The second book of the Machabees is more properly a book of the Machabees – the followers of Judas Machabeus (‘the hammer’), the son of the priest Mattathias of Modin. The first book had rushed past Judas in a way, after marking his fall in battle, and given much more time to his brothers Jonathan (who was established as warrior high-priest) and Simon (who was established as prince high-priest). That book wished to demonstrate the history of the princely dynasty that Simon would establish and that would hold its own for about a century until the arrival of the Roman legions. The second book is more of a history of the Jewish warrior Judas, who was able to build up the religiously-observant Jews and defend them against the secular Jews, who had allied themselves to the powerful Greek empire capitalled at Antioch-in-Syria. And there are wonderful mystical elements, where the author describes celestial armies fighting alongside the Jews. 

The second book of the Machabees gives us a better introduction to the tyranny of the Greek king of Syria, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Before this, however, there is an obscure narrative about the prophet Jeremias, given to be a guardian of a ‘sacred fire,’ hiding away the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle on Mount Nebo before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans in 587 BC. 

“You shall also find it set down in the dispositions made by the prophet Jeremias, that he bade the exiles rescue the sacred fire, in the manner aforesaid. Strict charge he gave them, the Lord’s commandments they should keep ever in mind, nor let false gods, all gold and silver and fine array, steal away their hearts; with much else to confirm them in their regard for the law. And here, in this same document, the story was told, how a divine oracle came to Jeremias, and he must needs go out, with tabernacle and ark to bear him company, to the very mountain Moses climbed long ago, when he had sight of God’s domain. A cave Jeremias found there, in which he set down tabernacle and ark and incense-altar, and stopped up the entrance behind him. There were some that followed; no time they lost in coming up to mark the spot, but find it they could not.”

II Machabees, 2: 1-6

This event is important because of its historical link between the old Temple of Solomon and the newer Temple that had been raised seventy years later, and which was about to be profaned by Antiochus and would require a rededication by the Machabees. After the return of the Jews from exile in the fifth century BC, the Persians had established a double rule in Juda, through the leadership of both the appointed governor and the high-priest of the Jerusalem Temple, as Zacharias describes. With time, the high-priest seems to have become very powerful indeed, and his was a highly-coveted position. The book now tells how this situation was the beginning of the troubles under Antiochus IV.

“Yet one citizen there was, Simon the Benjamite, the Temple governor, that had lawless schemes afoot, do the high priest what he would to gainsay him. And at last, when overcome Onias he might not, what did he? To Apollonius he betook himself, the son of Tharseas, that was then in charge of Coelesyria and Phoenice, and gave him great news indeed; here was the treasury at Jerusalem stocked with treasures innumerable, here was vast public wealth, unclaimed by the needs of the altar, and nothing prevented but it should fall into the king’s hands. No sooner did Apollonius find himself in the royal presence than he told the story of the rumoured treasure; and at that, the king sent for Heliodorus, that had charge of his affairs, and despatched him with orders to fetch the said money away.”

II Machabees, 3: 4-7

This Heliodorus soon appeared at Jerusalem in force to collect on this fabled treasure, and it was explained to him by the high-priest Onias that he had been misled by the malicious Simon. But he persisted until he was brutally repulsed by a band of extraordinary and heavenly warriors. 

“What saw they? A horse, royally caparisoned, that charged upon Heliodorus and struck him down with its fore-feet; terrible of aspect its rider was, and his armour seemed all of gold. Two other warriors they saw, how strong of limb, how dazzling of mien, how bravely clad! These stood about Heliodorus and fell to scourging him, this side and that, blow after blow, without respite. With the suddenness of his fall to the ground, darkness had closed about him; hastily they caught him up and carried him out in his litter; a helpless burden now, that entered yonder treasury with such a rabble of tipstaves and halberdiers! Here was proof of God’s power most manifest.”

II Machabees, 3: 25-28

The wretched Simon continued to plot against Onias, and finally the ill-will he generated against Onias bore fruit and he was ousted by a kinsman called Jason, who even purchased the office of high-priest, pledging to be pro-Greek and to guide his people into being more progressive and moving with the times – into becoming Greek, that is.

“And here was a brother Onias had, called Jason, that coveted the office of high priest. This Jason went to the new king, and made him an offer of three hundred and sixty talents of silver out of its revenue, besides eighty from other incomings. Let leave be granted him to set up a game-place for the training of youth, and enrol the men of Jerusalem as citizens of Antioch, he would give his bond for a hundred and fifty more. To this the king assented; high priest he became, and straightway set about perverting his fellow-countrymen to the Gentile way of living.”

II Machabees, 4: 7-10

However, three years later, Jason too was ousted, and by another kinsman from the same wretched family – a man called Menelaus, who outbidded Jason in purchasing the office, although he initially did not fulfil his promise. 

“Three years later, Jason would send to the king certain moneys, together with a report on affairs of moment; and for this errand he chose Menelaus, brother to that Simon we have before mentioned. Access thus gained to the king’s person, Menelaus was careful to flatter his self-conceit; then, outbidding Jason by three hundred talents of silver, diverted the high-priestly succession to himself. Back he came to Jerusalem, with the royal warrant to maintain him, yet all unworthy, with a tyrant’s cruel heart, more wild beast than high priest. Thus was Jason supplanted, that had supplanted his own brother, and was driven to take refuge in the Ammonite country; as for Menelaus, he got the office he coveted, but never a penny paid the king of all he had promised, however urgent Sostratus might be, that was in command of the citadel.”

II Machabees, 4: 23-27

It was this Menelaus that contrived the execution of the rightful high-priest Onias, his own kinsman, and then set about looting the Temple treasury. He persisted in his office through the period of the rise of Judas and of his greatest successes. Chapter five describes the struggle between Jason and Menelaus for the high-priesthood and Jason’s exile and death in Egypt. When Antiochus IV decided to put fear into the hearts of the Jews and prevent any rebellion against him, he was assisted by Menelaus in the desecration and looting of the Temple.

“As for the Jewish folk, he left viceroys of his own to harry them; in Jerusalem Philip, that was a Phrygian born, and outdid his own master in cruelty; at Garizim Andronicus and Menelaus, heaviest burden of all for the folk to bear. But he would do worse by the Jews yet; or why did he send out Apollonius, the arch-enemy, and a force of twenty-two thousand, to cut off manhood in its flower, women and children to sell for slaves? This Apollonius, when he reached Jerusalem, was all professions of friendship, and nothing did until the sabbath came round, when the Jews kept holiday. Then he put his men under arms, and butchered all that went out to keep festival; to and fro he went about the streets, with armed fellows at his heels, and made a great massacre. Meanwhile Judas Machabaeus, and nine others with him, went out into the desert, where they lived like wild beasts on the mountain-side; better lodge there with herbs for food, than be party to the general defilement.“

II Machabees, 5: 22-27

And that is our first introduction to Judas, not mentioning the origin of the rebellion of the Machabees in the revolt of the priest Mattathias, Judas’ father, given in the first book of Machabees. Chapters six and seven further describe the outrages performed on innocent Jewish civilians, such as the attack on the holy man Eleazar, and the horrible murder of a family of seven sons before the eyes of their mother, who was finally herself killed. The last of the seven brothers boldly challenged the king before his torture and death, providing a summary of the teaching of the Old Testament:

“‘To the king’s law I own no allegiance; rule I live by is the law we had through Moses. Arch-enemy of the Jewish race, thinkest thou to escape from God’s hand? Grievously if we suffer, grievously we have sinned; chides He for a little, the Lord our God, He does but school, does but correct us; to us, His worshippers, He will be reconciled again. But thou, miserable wretch, viler on earth is none, wouldst thou vent thy rage on those worshippers of His, and flatter thyself with vain hopes none the less? Trust me, thou shalt yet abide His judgement, who is God almighty and all-seeing. Brief pains, that under His warrant have seised my brethren of eternal life! And shalt not thou, by His sentence, pay the deserved penalty of thy pride? As my brethren, so I for our country’s laws both soul and body forfeit; my prayer is, God will early relent towards this nation, while thou dost learn, under the lash of His torments, that He alone is God. And may the divine anger, that has justly fallen on our race, with me and these others be laid to rest!'”

II Machabees, 7: 30-38

This story, horrible that it is, is extraordinarily like to the stories of Christian martyrs, and for a long time until recently, the Church has honoured these Old Testament Saints and Martyrs with a feast day at the beginning of August. But now the tide was turning, for Judas rose with all his might and cunning and challenged the vast armies of the Syrian Greeks with small numbers of warriors and guerrilla tactics in the Judaean hills, and with great success. While Antiochus IV now fell ill and died in foreign lands, unable to tame the Jews as he wished, Judas and his men were able to recover Jerusalem and the Temple. While the new king Antiochus V placed governors in the territory of Judaea who continued to harrass the Jewish people, Judas and his family expanded their territory by attacking Edomite forts south of Juda, and pushing back against attacks from the old Ammonite territories in the East. When a Greek called Lysias descended upon Juda from Antioch, he discovered a brave and well-equipped army opposing him and decided to offer friendship instead of ill-will. 

“‘King Antiochus, to the elders and people of the Jews, all health! Thrive you as well as ourselves, we are well content. Menelaus has brought us word, you would fain have free intercourse with the men of your race who dwell in these parts; and we hereby grant safe conduct to all of you that would travel here, up to the thirtieth day of Xanthicus … That the Jewish folk may eat what food they will, use what laws they will, according to their ancient custom; and if aught has been done amiss through inadvertence, none of them, for that cause, shall be molested. We are sending Menelaus besides, to give a charge to you.'”

II Machabees, 11: 27-32

Peace having been concluded with the Syrians, Judas managed to establish diplomatic relations with the rising power of Rome, which was pushing against the Greek kingdoms from the west and would soon be a possible source of security for the Jews. Chapter twelve tells of Judas’ fights against the majority-Gentile cities on the Mediterranean coast who had victimised the Jewish people and promised to do more hurt to them – Joppe, Jamnia, Casphin and Ephron are mentioned, all of them humbled to the dust. It is here, as Judas lost men of his company, that we discover the late Jewish practice of not only burying the dead, but praying for the repose of their souls and offering sacrifices for them at the Temple (with the final resurrection in mind!), a tradition that has been preserved in the Church through the witness of the Apostles. 

“Then he would have contribution made; a sum of twelve thousand silver pieces he levied, and sent it to Jerusalem, to have sacrifice made there for the guilt of their dead companions. Was not this well done and piously? Here was a man kept the resurrection ever in mind; he had done fondly and foolishly indeed, to pray for the dead, if these might rise no more, that once were fallen! And these had made a godly end; could he doubt, a rich recompense awaited them? A holy and wholesome thought it is to pray for the dead, for their guilt’s undoing.“

II Machabees, 12: 43-46

Now, chapter thirteen tells of the arrival of Antiochus V with a great army and his manager Lysias and the wretched Menelaus. Here, Menelaus fell out of favour with the king and lost his life and the Jews putting on a stout defence managed to hold the attack away Jerusalem until the Syrian army was forced to return to the north, to the humiliation of Antioch V and to the consternation of the Gentile cities on the coast, like Ptolemais (of which Judas now became governor, albeit for a short time), who had hoped that the Jewish insurgency would finally meet its end.

“Thus did he try conclusions with Judas, and had the worst of it; news came to him besides that Philip, whom he had left in charge at Antioch, was levying revolt against him. So, in great consternation of mind, he must needs throw himself on the mercy of the Jews, submitting under oath to the just terms they imposed on him. In token of this reconciliation, he offered sacrifice, paying the Temple much reverence and offering gifts there; as for Machabaeus, the king made a friend of him, and appointed him both governor and commander of all the territory from Ptolemais to the Gerrenes. When he reached Ptolemais, he found the citizens much incensed over this treaty made, and angrily averring the terms of it would never be kept; until at last Lysias must go up to an open stage, and give his reasons; whereby he calmed the indignation of the people, and so returned to Antioch. Such was the king’s march upon Judaea, and such his homecoming.”

II Machabeus, 13: 23-26

Now comes the end of the book, and a new king Demetrius I Soter, who was encouraged to put down the Machabean rebellion by a man called Alcimus, who again coveted the position of high-priest of the Temple and suggested vast returns to the king if the Machabean obstacle were removed. Demetrius promptly sent his general Nicanor to take care of this. Judas encouraged his men with the stories of God’s assistance of the Hebrews in times past, and told them an interesting dream/vision that he had once had concerning the good high-priest Onias, who had been recently murdered, and the prophet Jeremias, who had been the guardian of the ‘sacred fire’ at the beginning of the book and practically hands Judas the blessing of victory in battle. If this book aggrandises Judas Machabeus, this story is a master-stroke. 

“A dream of his he told them, most worthy of credence, that brought comfort to one and all. And what saw he? Onias, that had once been high priest, appeared to him; an excellent good man this, modest of mien, courteous, well-spoken, and from his boyhood schooled in all the virtues. With hands outstretched, he stood there praying for the Jewish folk. Then he was ware of another, a man of great age and reverence, nothing about him but was most worshipful; who this might be, Onias told him forthwith: ‘Here is one that loves our brethren, the people of Israel, well; one that for Israel and for every stone of the holy city prays much; God’s prophet Jeremias.’ And with that, Jeremias reached forward to Judas, and gave him a golden sword; This holy sword take thou, he said, God’s gift; this wielding, all the enemies of my people Israel thou shalt lay low.“

II Machabees, 15: 11-16

Now we have a very Arthurian sword-in-stone scenario, and with this encouragement, the Machabees made a generous assault upon the assembled companies of the Greeks and were extremely successful, of course. And here the book ends, with a wonderful comparison of good writing mixed with poor to good wine mixed with water for good effect:

“Such was the history of Nicanor; and since that time the city has been in Jewish possession. Here, then, I will make an end of writing; if it has been done workmanly, and in historian’s fashion, none better pleased than I; if it is of little merit, I must be humoured none the less. Nothing but wine to take, nothing but water, thy health forbids; vary thy drinking, and thou shalt find content. So it is with reading; if the book be too nicely polished at every point, it grows wearisome. So here we will have done with it.“

II Machabees, 15: 38-40
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Reading through the first book of the Maccabees

Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay

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I saw a recent post on social media asking if it was worth reading the books of the Maccabees, and I thought I’d put out a short summary of my own reading of them. This post is on the first book of the Maccabees. For some reason, when the rabbis reconfigured Judaism after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in AD 70, they decided to exclude several books from the Hebrew Bible that were well known to Jewish communities beforehand. This included these histories of the Maccabees. Following this lead probably, the protestant rebels in the sixteenth century took up the book list that was established by the rabbinate. The Church, on the other hand, has retained a fuller list from the old Greek Bible called the Septuagint, which is what the Christ and the Apostles would have been familiar with. The Septuagint is the source of the Greek Old Testament used in the Eastern churches, and the Latin Old Testament that, in its vulgate form, was until the profusion of vernacular bibles the Old Testament of the Western church.

Here is my summary of the first book of the Machabees, that wonderful heroic tale of the family of the priest of Modin, Mattathias (a name identical to Mattityah, which anglicises to Matthew in the New Testament), who dared in the face of utter destruction to stand up to the tyranny of the Greek dynastic rule in northern Syria, which was one part of the great empire that had been established by the Macedonian general, Alexander the Great, in roughly 333 BC. As part of his empire-building procedure, Alexander had promoted Greek culture throughout his new possessions, from Egypt to Persia and the Indus valley. After Alexander died at an unexpectedly early age, his territories were divided between three of his generals. Of the various divisions, we are chiefly concerned here with the power in the north-Syrian town of Antioch, where the Seleucid dynasty appeared, and the new power in the old lands of Egypt, where the Ptolemaic dynasty now appeared – it was between these two that the unfortunate Jewish community was pushed and pulled between. The book itself describes the creation of these:

“So reigned Alexander for twelve years, and so died. And what of these courtiers turned princes, each with a province of his own? Be sure they put on royal crowns, they and their sons after them, and so the world went from bad to worse. Burgeoned then from the stock of Antiochus a poisoned growth, another Antiochus, he that was called the Illustrious. He had been formerly a hostage at Rome, but now, in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of the Grecian empire, he came into his kingdom.”

I Machabees, 1: 8-11

These Greek powers continued with Alexander’s promotion of Greek culture, but at least the Seleucids were particularly aggressive, and this aggression came up against the well-defined Hebrew and Jewish nationhood and religion. As with all political movements, the advance of Greek customs in Judaea had created two rivalling factions – the Jews who wished to remain with their ancestral customs and religion and the Jews who wished to ‘move with the world.’ The latter quickly fell into dissipation and began establishing Grecian elements within civic society. 

“In his day there were godless talkers abroad in Israel, that did not want for a hearing; ‘Come,’ said they, ‘let us make terms with the heathen that dwell about us! Ever since we forswore their company, nought but trouble has come our way. What would you?’ Such talk gained credit, and some were at pains to ask for the royal warrant; whereupon leave was given them, Gentile usages they should follow if they would. With that, they must have a game-place at Jerusalem, after the Gentile fashion, ay, and go uncircumcised; forgotten, their loyalty to the holy covenant, they must throw in their lot with the heathen, and become the slaves of impiety.“

I Machabees, 1: 12-16

And so the scene was set for the new culture to be imposed by force of law, and the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes set about promptly to destroy the Jewish religion in his territories. The first part of the book is about the utter desolation of Jerusalem and Judaea that resulted, as the ‘progressive’ party of the Jews took to Greek customs and the Temple and priesthood were devastated. But there was, as there always is, a ‘conservative’ party and these threw in their lot with the priest Mattathias and his sons, who led a revolt against Antioch and fled for protection to the wilderness of Judaea, from where they began guerrilla warfare against the Greeks. The martial work was left to the more warlike of the sons of Mattathias, Judas, who was called Machabeus, ‘the hammer.’ He and his brothers were therefore the Machabees and the book is their story: how they fortified cities and defended the people against the petty tyranny of the Seleucids. These wicked men went so far as to cunningly massacre the Jews on the Sabbath, because they knew that the Jews would not fight on the Sabbath. The Machabees had to work around that:

“Thus, because it was a sabbath day when the attack was made, these men perished, and their wives and children and cattle with them; a thousand human lives lost. Great grief it was to Mattathias and his company when they heard what had befallen them; and now there was high debate raised: ‘Do we as our brethren did, forbear we to give battle for our lives and loyalties, and they will soon make an end of us!’ Then and there it was resolved, if any should attack them on the sabbath day, to engage him, else they should be put to death all of them, like those brethren of theirs in the covert of the hills. Now it was that the Assidaeans rallied to their side, a party that was of great consequence in Israel, lovers of the Law one and all…”

I Machabees, 2: 38-42

In this battle of the cultures, it was necessary for self-preservation to abandon even the Sabbath rule. In the absence of the advice of an actual prophet of the eternal God, the Machabees made several adjustments to create what would seem to be an emergency state of life for the people, when they were under threat. This was apparently acceptable to the ultra-orthodox sect of the Assidaeans (the Chasidim), who joined sides with the Machabees, as above. The entire Machabean enterprise – which consisted of the rule over the Jewish people by this family of priests – was itself an emergency set-up and it seems obvious from the narrative that it was originally meant to persist only until the Will of God was made manifest through a prophet, such as in times past. Chapter three tells of the ascendancy of Judas as the defender of the people and the revenge of Antiochus IV, who sent a vast army against the Jews. Following a rousing speech, Judas managed the impossible – the destruction of a massive army with a few thousand men. 

“But Judas cried to his fellows, ‘What, would you be daunted by the numbers of them? Would you give ground before their attack? Bethink you, what a host it was Pharao sent in pursuit of our fathers, there by the Red Sea, and they escaped none the less. Now, as then, besiege we heaven with our cries; will not the Lord have mercy? Will He not remember the covenant He had with our fathers, and rout, this day, yonder army at our coming? No doubt shall the world have thenceforward, but there is One claims Israel for His own, and grants her deliverance.’ And now the heathen folk caught sight of them as they advanced to the attack, and left their lines to give battle. Thereupon Judas’ men sounded with the trumpet, and the two armies met. Routed the Gentiles were, sure enough, and took to their heels across the open country, sword of the pursuer ever catching the hindmost. All the way to Gezeron they were chased, and on into the plains by Idumaea, Azotus and Jamnia, with a loss of three thousand men.”

I Machabees, 4: 8-15

And thus, they were able to retake Jerusalem and to restore the sacramental rites of the Temple, after a full rededication ceremony. This is the origin of the Jewish festival of Chanukah, which is celebrated in about mid-December.

“On the twenty-fifth of Casleu, the ninth month, in the hundred and forty-eighth year, they rose before daybreak, and offered sacrifice, as the law bade, on the new altar they had set up. This was the very month, the very day, when it had been polluted by the Gentiles; now, on the same day of the same month, it was dedicated anew, with singing of hymns, and music of harp, zither and cymbals. Thereupon all the people fell down face to earth, to adore and praise, high as heaven, the author of their felicity; and for eight days together they celebrated the altar’s renewal, burned victim and brought welcome-offering with glad and grateful hearts. They decked the front wall of the temple, at this time, with gold crowns and escutcheons, consecrated the gates and the priest’s lodging anew, and furnished it with doors; and all the while there was great rejoicing among the people; as for the taunts of the heathen, they were heard no more. No wonder if Judas and his brethren, with the whole assembly of Israel, made a decree that this feast should be kept year by year for eight days together, the feast-day of the altar’s dedication. Came that season, from the twenty-fifth day of Casleu onwards, all was to be rejoicing and holiday.“

I Machabees, 4: 52-59

I don’t mean to run through every detail of the book. Just to demonstrate the power of this heroic narrative, which would have been told and retold and would have been a part of the formation of Christ at Nazareth, less than two hundred years later. The generals Apollonius and Gorgias having failed to quell the rebellion, what should the Greeks do but pile on with armies, men, horses and elephants? It was inevitable that, despite his extraordinary success and military prowess, Judas would fall. Chapter five tells of how the three Machabean brothers, Judas, Jonathan and Simon, joined forces to chase out the Jews who were of the party of the pro-Hellenisation from the territory of Judaea. They were opposed by pro-Greek cities to the north – Ptolemais, Tyre and Sidon – and from across the Jordan to the east – the old enemy Ammon – and from the south-west, Philistia. Even as they worked to restore Judaea, Antiochus IV died far away in Babylonia. His son Antiochus V Eupator attempted another retaking of Jerusalem, but had to give up the siege to return to Antioch to quell another rebellion. It was the next king, Demetrius I Soter (all these were Seleucid kings of the Greek dynasty, capitalled at Antioch in northern Syria), who having usurped the throne from Antiochus V began the offensive against Jerusalem anew, intending to establish a pro-Greek high-priest at the Temple, after ending the Machabean revolt. Judas knew of the danger and chapter eight tells us about the first diplomatic covenant of the Jews with the rising power of Rome, which was beginning to challenge the Greek kingdoms in the Levant. Notwithstanding this, Demetrius I piled armies upon the Jews and Judas was beaten and died in battle. The rule of the people now passed to his brother Jonathan, who proved to be a mighty warrior too.

“And now all that had loved Judas rallied to Jonathan instead; ‘Since thy brother’s death,’ they told him, ‘none is left to take the field against our enemies as he did, this Bacchides and all else that bear a grudge against our race. There is but one way of it; this day we have chosen thee to be our ruler, our chieftain, to fight our battles for us.’ So, from that day forward, Jonathan took command, in succession to his brother Judas.“

I Machabees, 9: 28-31

The Seleucid general Bacchides now turned his sights upon Jonathan. The rest of the chapter is about Jonathan’s struggle against Bacchides, as the pro-Greek high-priest set up by Bacchides began to have his way with Jerusalem. Bacchides repulsed, Jonathan was able to establish his position as the leader and general of the Jews, from his seat not at Jerusalem, but at Machmas, slightly to the north. The next political hiccup was the arrival of a new rival to Demetrius at the port of Ptolemais in about 150 BC, Alexander Balas, who claimed the loyalty of the Syrian armies and was able for a few years to take up the Seleucid throne. Both he and Demetrius had tried to acquire the loyalty of Jonathan, who had become a significant power in Judaea. Also into the fray had come the Greek king of Egypt, Ptolemy, who pretended to ally with Alexander and then with Demetrius II Nicator after him, intending himself to have both the Syrian territories and his own Egyptian territories. Within a short time, both Alexander and Ptolemy were dead, and Demetrius II was still at Antioch. Jonathan, as given by chapter twelve, now restablished relations with the Romans, who were quickly advancing eastwards, and also with the Spartans, the independent and martial Greek nation that claimed descent from the patriarch Abraham. Unfortunately, Jonathan now fell into a trap set for him by the Greek general Tryphon at Ptolemais; Tryphon wished to acquire the throne at Antioch and thought Jonathan a significant challenge to his enterprise. Simon, the least war-like of the Maccabean brothers, now reluctantly took up the mantle of leadership, for the sake of the people. 

“And what did Simon, when he heard that Tryphon had levied a strong force, for Juda’s invasion and overthrow? Here was all the people in a great taking of fear; so he made his way to Jerusalem and there gathered them to meet him. And thus, to put heart into them, he spoke: ‘Need is none to tell you what battles we have fought, what dangers endured, I and my brethren and all my father’s kin, law and sanctuary to defend. In that cause, and for the love of Israel, my brothers have died, one and all, till I only am left; never be it said of me, in the hour of peril I held life dear, more precious than theirs! Nay, come the whole world against us, to glut its malice with our ruin, race and sanctuary, wives and children of ours shall find me their champion yet.’ At these words, the spirit of the whole people revived; loud came their answer, ‘Brother of Judas and Jonathan, thine to lead us now! Thine to sustain our cause; and never word of thine shall go unheeded!'”

I Machabees, 13: 1-9

The book doesn’t tell us of the end of the wicked Tryphon, who eventually escaped by ship from the Seleucid empire, but it is at this point that Simon became the head of a dynasty of priest-rulers, the Hashmonean dynasty (called after Simon, Shmona), establishing Jewish sovereignty for the first time since the destruction of the Davidic dynasty centuries before, albeit by the permission of the over-king in Antioch. The Hasmonean dynasty survived the Roman conquest of the land, and was only extinguished properly by the Idumaean King Herod the Great – that killer of the innocents in Christ’s infancy.

“When king Demetrius answered the request, he wrote in these terms following. ‘King Demetrius to the high priest Simon, the friend of kings, and to all the elders and people of the Jews, greeting. Crown of gold and robe of scarlet you sent us were faithfully delivered. Great favour we mean to shew you, by sending word to the king’s officers to respect the remissions granted you. The decrees we made concerning you are yet in force; and, for the strongholds you have built, they shall be yours. Fault of yours in the past, witting or unwitting, is condoned; coronation tax you owed, and all other tribute that was due from Jerusalem, is due no longer. Fit be they for such enrolment, Jews shall be enrolled in our armies, and ever between us and you let there be peace!’ Thus, in the hundred and seventieth year, Israel was free of the Gentile yoke at last; and this style the people began to use, were it private bond or public instrument they indited, In the first year of Simon’s high priesthood, chief paramount and governor of the Jews.“

I Machabees, 13: 35-42

Demetrius himself was shortly arrested and imprisoned by the king of the Medes and the Persians, and we hear no more of him. Simultaneously, Simon grew from strength to strength, a ruler in his own right of Judaea, with claims on cities on the Mediterranean coast, such as Joppe (near today’s Tel-Aviv). He reestablished the diplomatic relations with Rome and Sparta, who both gave him assurances of their protection, which must have helped the Jews to no end, until the Romans themselves arrived finally in the Levant in 65 BC, with the general Pompey at their head. For the security and prosperity that followed the initial acts of diplomacy however, Simon was honoured by his nation. 

“Here were the Jews, priests and people both, agreed that he should rule them, granting him the high priesthood by right inalienable, until true prophet they should have once more. Their ruler he should be, and guardian of their temple; appoint officer and magistrate, master of ordnance and captain of garrison, and have charge of the sanctuary besides. Him all must obey, in his name deeds be drawn up, all the country through; of purple and gold should be his vesture. Of the rest, both priests and people, none should retrench these privileges, nor gainsay Simon’s will, nor convoke assembly in the country without him; garment of purple, buckle of gold none should wear; nor any man defy or void this edict, but at his peril. The people’s pleasure it was to ennoble Simon after this sort; and Simon, he would not say them nay; high priest, and of priests and people leader, governor and champion, he would be henceforward. So they had the decree inscribed on tablets of bronze, and set up plain to view in the temple precincts; and a copy of it they put by in the treasury, in the safe keeping of Simon and his heirs.”

I Machabees, 14: 41-49

Here we notice the temporary nature of the Machabean situation. Every good Jew knew that the people should be ruled by a Messianic king of the family of King David, and that the high-priesthood was to be separated from this political rule. But until the advent of the Messiah, it seems that they wished to entrench the Hashmonean dynasty. This would end finally with the arrival of the Idumean king Herod on the scene. Unfortunately, we are not permitted to end on a happy note, for Demetrius’ son Antioch soon arrived with his own claims and challenged Simon and the Jews’ claim to the land of Judaea, to which Simon made quick reply:

“…to which Simon made this answer: ‘Other men’s fief seized we never, nor other men’s rights detain; here be lands that were our fathers’ once, by enemies of ours for some while wrongfully held; opportunity given us, should we not claim the patrimony we had lost? As for thy talk of Joppe and Gazara, these were cities did much mischief to people and land of ours; for the worth of them, thou shalt have a hundred talents if thou wilt.’ Never a word said Athenobius, but went back to the king very ill pleased, and told him what answer was given; of Simon’s court, too, and of all else he had seen. Antiochus was in a great taking of anger…”

I Machabees, 15: 33-36

Simon was by this time an old man, and he prepared his sons for their role in protecting the rights of the Jews. He could see that the challenges from the Greeks would continue to come, despite the promised protection from the Romans. Inevitably, Simon also was betrayed, and by a certain Ptolemy son of Abobus, possibly a successor of that pro-Greek high-priest Alcimus, who had been propped up briefly in Jerusalem and wished to wrest the position of the Hashmonean family from them. The book ends with this great betrayal and murder of a hero of the people and two of his sons, Judas and Mattathias. The remaining son, John Hyrcanus I, took up the role of priest-ruler, himself a great hero of the people.

“…a messenger had reached John at Gazara, telling him his father and brothers were dead, and himself too marked down for slaughter; whereupon he took alarm in good earnest; their murderous errand known, he seized his executioners and made an end of them. What else John did, and how fought he, brave deeds done, and strong walls built, and all his history, you may read in the annals of his time, that were kept faithfully since the day when he succeeded his father as high priest.“

I Machabees, 16: 21-24
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onward to second Maccabees →

Making all things new again (Sunday X of Ordinary time)

We have slipped back into ‘ordinary’ time, after the great festivals of our holy religion. The word ‘ordinary’ used here is something of a misuse of the Latin in the books; a better word is ‘ordered,’ to more accurately describe the sequenced Sundays that begin at Sunday X today and end just before Advent with Sunday XXXIV, when the liturgical colour used is green. 

Our first reading today is from the story of the fall of mankind in the third chapter of Genesis. Notice how the deception of the serpent works out… The serpent had said to Eve our mother that if she were to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of right and wrong, she would become like God, have His own ability to judge. But, as our reading tells us, man and woman lost their innocence and became aware at once of lust and concupiscence.

“And now they heard the voice of the Lord God, as He walked in the garden in the cool of the evening; whereupon Adam and his wife hid themselves in the garden, among the trees. And the Lord God called to Adam; ‘Where art thou?’ He asked. ‘I heard Thy voice,’ Adam said, ‘in the garden, and I was afraid, because of my nakedness, so I hid myself.’ And the answer came, ‘Why, who told thee of thy nakedness? Or hadst thou eaten of the tree, whose fruit I forbade thee to eat?’ ‘The woman,’ said Adam, ‘whom Thou gavest me to be my companion, she it was who offered me fruit from the tree, and so I came to eat it.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What made thee do this?’ ‘The serpent,’ she said, ‘beguiled me, and so I came to eat.’ And the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘For this work of thine, thou, alone among all the cattle and all the wild beasts, shalt bear a curse; thou shalt crawl on thy belly and eat dust all thy life long. And I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in ambush at her heels.”

Book of Genesis, 3: 8-15 [link]

This ending is marvellous in its prediction that salvation would come from a woman, and that it is her child that would finally end the domination of the serpent over the hearts of mankind – the domination that had been established here. The innocence and purity Adam and Eve had had was a gift that preserved peace and harmony with the will of God, without distractions. It was no use really for Adam or Eve to play a blame game in their sin of pride and disobedience – there are now consequences for everybody involved. Now they had been torn away from the will of God and, their peace destroyed, they sought to hide from Him. And we have hidden from him more-or-less, ever since.

Do you remember those pictures we sometimes see of Christ at the door, sometimes carrying a lamp, knocking at the door? There’s the famous Holman Hunt called the Light of the World in Oxford, for example. That’s a picture of God, now made visible in Christ, still calling from the Garden, ‘Where are you?’ When we, a sinful humanity, call back in desperation, ‘We are afraid because we are naked, so we are hiding,’ then as He clothed Adam and Eve with skins, so will He cover us by offering us the rituals of purity, which He gave to the Hebrews in the form of a complex of laws, and which He has given to us through the Church as a system of Sacraments. When we repent of our sins and seek in all sincerity the salvation promised to us by Christ, He clothes us over again and prepares us to traverse the wickedness of this world we still inhabit, which is a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve. And He promises us that He will one day make all things new again, when we arrive at the fulness of redemption which we spoke about in the psalm today. S. Paul talks about this happy future also in the second reading, when He says that we shall be raised back to life from the sickness and death which were a result of the sin of Adam and Eve.

“I spoke my mind, says the scripture, with full confidence, and we too speak our minds with full confidence, sharing that same spirit of faith, and knowing that He Who raised Jesus from the dead will raise us too, and summon us, like you, before Him. It is all for your sakes, so that grace made manifold in many lives may increase the sum of gratitude which is offered to God’s glory. No, we do not play the coward; though the outward part of our nature is being worn down, our inner life is refreshed from day to day. This light and momentary affliction brings with it a reward multiplied every way, loading us with everlasting glory; if only we will fix our eyes on what is unseen, not on what we can see. What we can see, lasts but for a moment; what is unseen is eternal.”

The second letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 4: 13-18 [link]

Paul’s ‘inner man’ or ‘inner life’ is the heart we turn back towards God, who renews it daily, even as we renew our commitment to God and to our baptisms daily. Meanwhile, the ‘outer man’ – our mortal forms – falls into decay, through sickness and physical distress. Paul wishes us to keep our eyes fixed upon the glorious future – our eternal lives – when the consequences of human sin are ended and all is made new once more.

The gospel message takes us back to the villain of the whole story – the serpent in the garden – who seeks to end our good resolutions and to keep us mired in sin rather than soaring towards union with God. The serpent in the gospel story is master of Jewish authorities who refuse to acknowledge the work of Christ as divine acts. Remember that sickness and death are the result of sin. Well, here is Christ walking around bringing repentance from sin and actually ending sickness and death. This is an early phase of the work of regeneration that Paul talks about in the second reading. But the enemies of our Lord declare that He is on the side of the serpent, and healing by the power of the serpent. Christ is very restrained as He responds to this blasphemy, which calls the Holy Spirit of God an evil spirit.

“…now they came into a house, and once more the multitude gathered so that they had no room even to sit and eat. When word came to those who were nearest Him, they went out to restrain Him; they said, ‘He must be mad.’ And the scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebub; it is through the prince of the devils that He casts the devils out.’ So He called them to Him, and spoke to them in parables; ‘How can it be Satan who casts Satan out? Why, if a kingdom is at war with itself, that kingdom cannot stand firm, and if a household is at war with itself, that household cannot stand firm; if Satan, then, has risen up in arms against Satan, he is at war with himself; he cannot stand firm; his end has come. No one can enter into a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, without first making the strong man his prisoner; then he can plunder his house at will. Believe me, there is pardon for all the other sins of mankind and the blasphemies they utter; but if a man blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, there is no pardon for him in all eternity; he is guilty of a sin which is eternal.’ This was because they were saying, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’“

Gospel of S. Mark, 3: 20-30 [link]

An interesting feature of this story from S. Mark is that even those nearest to our Lord, perhaps even His near relations – his mother and cousins, who are mentioned later on – are attempting to restrain Him, perhaps thinking that He is carrying things too far in His opposition to the Jewish order. They have yet to see the greater picture: the Creator of all things was standing at the door knocking, not as a serpent attempting to destroy the destiny of mankind, but the very God Who first established that destiny and aims to restore it by His holy will. And with no distractions of this world, not even from family! His hearers try to derail His message even here, reminding Him of His humanity; for His Mother and His cousins are standing outside asking for Him. But there is something greater than a mere man here. 

And everybody who responds in love and unites himself and herself to His will is His brother, and sister, and mother – part of His family. His body. His Church.

The Sacrament of Love (Corpus Christi Sunday)

It was not too long ago that this last Thursday was everywhere the feast day of the body of Christ (in Latin, Corpus Christi) and the first day of July was the feast day of the blood of Christ. But these days, the two have been lumped together into one feast day on the Thursday, and often enough local conferences of bishops delay the observance of the feast day until the following Sunday. It can be rather annoying in our media age to watch Rome and Jerusalem celebrating the feast day on Thursday, but here we are now on the Sunday.

Today’s celebration is of the greatest gift given us by our Lord. Remember how many times during the Last Supper discourses He promised to not leave His children as orphans after His Passion, Resurrection and Ascension.

“I will not leave you friendless; I am coming to you. It is only a little while now, before the world is to see Me no more; but you can see Me, because I live on, and you too will have life. When that day comes, you will learn for yourselves that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. The man who loves Me is the man who keeps the commandments he has from Me; and he who loves Me will win My Father’s love, and I too will love him, and will reveal Myself to him.”

Gospel of S. John, 14: 18-21 [link]

And then just before His Ascension, He promised to be with us always, yes (He said), to the end of time. How did He propose to do that? Well, we’re looking at it, or rather at Him, every Mass that we attend. That is the first thing I wanted to say about Corpus Christi: it is about the actual, physical presence before us of the Lord, daily, in so far as we are able to either attend daily Mass or visit the parish church and remain for however long before the tabernacle. The Church therefore recommends to us that we spend some time every week in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament – a sort of visitor to a beloved Friend.

The second thing I wanted to mention about Corpus Christi is its celebration of eternal life. Memorably, while our Lord was preaching in the Galilee, He once said to a crowd of His Jewish followers that they would have to eat Him, in order to live eternally. The life of the Father flows through Me, He said, and it will flow through you too, if you eat My flesh and drink My blood.

“‘I Myself am the living Bread that has come down from heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he shall live for ever. And now, what is this bread which I am to give? It is My flesh, given for the life of the world.’ Then the Jews fell to disputing with one another, ‘How can this man give us His flesh to eat?’ Whereupon Jesus said to them, ‘Believe Me when I tell you this; you can have no life in yourselves, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood. The man who eats My flesh and drinks My blood enjoys eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. My flesh is real food, My blood is real drink. He who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, lives continually in Me, and I in him. As I live because of the Father, the living Father who has sent Me, so he who eats Me will live, in his turn, because of Me.'”

Gospel of S. John, 6: 51-58 [link]

Do you see how this reception of Holy Communion becomes the condition of eternal rest and heaven, and union with the Holy One at the end of our lives. This condition itself has a condition, and we hear of this in our first reading, from Exodus. The condition of the condition is obedience to the commandments of God. If we show our love for Christ by doing our best to follow the commandments He gave us, then He will come to us in Holy Communion and we shall have that eternal life He promised us. This He said to the Apostles at the Last Supper (see the first quote, above).

“After this Moses took half of the blood, and set it aside in bowls; the other half he poured out on the altar. Then he took up the book in which the covenant was inscribed, and read it aloud to the people. ‘We will do all the Lord has bidden us,’ said they; ‘we promise obedience;’ and Moses took the blood and sprinkled it over the people, crying out, Here is the blood of the covenant which the Lord makes with you, in accordance with all these words of his.”

Book of Exodus, 24: 6-8 [link]

This union with God and eternal life is our end, the highest blessing we can hope for. As the second reading says this weekend, Christ as High-priest is the mediator of all blessings to come, flooding them upon us through the medium of His humanity, His Body and Blood. This was the whole point of the Incarnation of Christ – His taking on our humanity and becoming one of us. As the Fathers of the Church used to say, God became man in order than man may become divine. This humanity of His is the means by which we are divinised and so returned to the state of our first parents, Adam and Eve, before their great sin. If only the serpent who accomplished their ruin back then were not still around, surrounding us with temptations.

But despite that, we should be as the Saints we know and love: we should be in a constant state of repentance and seeking the grace of God through the Sacraments of the Church, and especially Holy Communion – following every occasional fall into sin with a greater soaring towards the heavenly places. This is the Christian life: a sequence of falling over and getting up again, but always (if it please God) making progress in virtue, always edging closer to eternal life. And all this became possible when the Lord at His Last Supper, with His priests around Him, took the bread and the wine up and said, This is My Body, this is My Blood, the Blood of the covenant, by which heaven is now open to the children of Adam, by which the eternal life that Adam and Even once forfeited is now available once more to their children, My children, Whom I love, and for Whom I now give My life. 

“Meanwhile, Christ has taken His place as our high priest, to win us blessings that still lie in the future. He makes use of a greater, a more complete tabernacle, which human hands never fashioned; it does not belong to this order of creation at all. It is His own blood, not the blood of goats and calves, that has enabled him to enter, once for all, into the sanctuary; the ransom He has won lasts for ever. The blood of bulls and goats, the ashes of a heifer sprinkled over men defiled, have power to hallow them for every purpose of outward purification; and shall not the Blood of Christ, Who offered Himself, through the Holy Spirit, as a victim unblemished in God’s sight, purify our consciences, and set them free from lifeless observances, to serve the living God? Thus, through His intervention, a new covenant has been bequeathed to us; a death must follow, to atone for all our transgressions under the old covenant, and then the destined heirs were to obtain, for ever, their promised inheritance.”

Letter of S. Paul to the Hebrews, 9: 11-15 [link]

Reading through the book of Judith

← back to Tobias
onward to Esther →

This is another folk-story (like the book of Tobit) with so many names of people and places changed that the historical situation cannot be matched to historical documentation and stands apart from any historical situation. If you happen to be using a protestant Bible, you may not have this book in (unless you have an appendix of what they call ‘apocrypha’); it was taken out from common use first by the Jewish rabbinate when they established their arrangement of books of the Hebrew Bible, and then by the protestants in the sixteenth century. The Catholics and Orthodox retain it from the ancient lists, and it was a book well known to Jews in the first century.

The Book speaks of an Assyrian king called Nabuchodonosor – the historical character of that name who destroyed the kingdom of Juda is long in the past when this story opens, and the Assyrian empire itself is long dead – attacking the second-Temple period of the restored Juda. This second Nabuchodonosor, who has no basis in the historical record, and puffed up by his success in war, sends a general called Holofernes to subdue resisting nations. And the Jews in the hills of Juda have dared to arm themselves and fortify their cities against these ‘Assyrians.’ The threat is great, as even the guerrilla tactics of the Jews in their hill country could be overwhelmed by the hordes that Holofernes has brought. As Holofernes plans how to subdue the Jews, he is advised by the Ammonite premier Achior that the eternal God protects the Jews and that any attack must first weaken the Jewish religion or is doomed to fail. He is promptly scorned by the Assyrians, who worship their king Nabuchodonosor:

“At these words of Achior’s, Holofernes’ lords were full of indignation, and thought to make an end of him. ‘What talk is this?’ they said to one another. ‘Can the men of Israel, without arms, without valour, without skill in war, hold out against king Nabuchodonosor and his troops? Scale we yonder heights, to prove Achior a liar, and when we have mastered the defenders, let Achior be put to the sword with the rest. Let us prove to the whole world that Nabuchodonosor rules it, and other god there is none.'”

Judith, 5: 26-29

And so these besieged the unhistorical Jewish city of Bethulia and cut off the water supply to the town (chapter seven), succeeding in destroying the courage of its citizens. Then a young widow called Judith, who first made walking around with a large scimitar and a severed head look heroic, stood up to the fearful leaders of the city and made a long act of faith.

“You, brethren, are among the elders of the people; their lives are in your charge. Yours to hearten them, by reminding them what trials our fathers underwent, to shew whether they were God’s worshippers indeed; how Abraham was put to the proof, tested by long endurance, before he became God’s friend; how Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all who won God’s favour, must be loyal to Him under great affliction first. And what of those others, who could not hold out, submitting to the divine will, under these trials; who bore themselves impatiently, and did the Lord despite by complaining against Him? These were the men the destroying angel slew, the men who fell a prey to serpents. It is our turn to suffer now, and never a word said in remonstrance; think we the Lord’s rod too light a punishment for our sins, believe we that He is punishing us as His servants, to chasten, not to destroy.“

Judith, 8: 21-27

Interesting indeed. Here is both a theology of suffering well and remaining faithful to God and a theology of suffering and punishment for sin as instructive to the people rather than intended to destroy them. Both of these play well into Church teaching. Judith proceeded to dress herself up and use her striking beauty to beguile the Assyrian soldiery and the general Holofernes himself. The next few chapters demonstrates how Judith cleverly planned her escape from the enemy camp by establishing a routine of daily prayer, so nobody would stop her from leaving the camp. Having beheaded the Assyrian general, she brought the head back to Bethulia, to massive acclaim and became a heroine. The high-priest visited from Jerusalem to acclaim her along with the people, using words that the Church today uses for the Blessed Virgin. 

“And now the high priest Joacim came to Bethulia, with all that were his fellow elders at Jerusalem, asking to see Judith; and when she answered his summons, all with one voice began to extol her; ‘Thou art the boast of Jerusalem, the joy of Israel, the pride of our people; thou hast played a man’s part, and kept thy courage high. Not unrewarded thy love of chastity, that wouldst never take a second husband in thy widowhood; the Lord gave thee firmness of resolve, and thy name shall be ever blessed.’ And to that all the people said Amen.”

Judith, 15: 9-12

And that’s about all I want to say about Judith. She lived to a ripe old age, always known as a heroine, and was greatly mourned at her death. There’s her wonderful final hymn, which is very like the song of Moses after the passage through the Red Sea. And this post may end on that high-note.

“Strike up, tambour, and cymbals beat in the Lord’s honour, sound a fresh song of praise; high enthrone Him, call aloud upon His Name! What power divine crushes the enemy, but the Lord’s great Name? Here in the midst of His people He lies encamped; come what enemy may, He grants deliverance. Came the Assyrian from the northern hills in his great strength, the valleys choked with his marching columns, the mountain glens black with his horses; to send fire through our country-side, put our warriors to the sword, mark down our children for slavery, our maidens for spoil. Great despite the Lord Almighty did him, that he should fall into a woman’s power for his death-blow. Not by warriors’ hands the tyrant fell; not giants smote him, not heroes of the old time barred his path; it was Judith, Merari’s daughter, Judith’s fair face that was his undoing. Laid aside, now, her widow’s weeds; festal her array must be; a feast waits for the sons of Israel. Ointment, there, for her cheeks, a band for her straying locks, a robe new-wrought to ensnare him! Her very sandals thralled his eyes; he lay there, his heart beauty’s prisoner, while the sharp steel pierced his neck through.”

Judith, 16: 2-11
← back to Tobias
onward to Esther →

Love is three, and Love is one (Trinity Sunday)

I shouldn’t try to explain in ten minutes the greatest mystery that is present to us in our religious tradition. Ever since the Holy One revealed Himself to us as somehow three while being one, those who hate the Church have ridiculed our embrace of this mystery of the Trinity. Of old, great masters of theology such as S. Hilary of Poitiers, S. Augustine of Hippo and S. Thomas Aquinas have written long essays on the nature of God, but I’m going to mention instead a basic description of the Trinity which I have copied at the bottom of this post, and bring up some of the points it makes. I refer to what we call the Athanasian Creed, which most Catholics have now forgotten, but those of us who may have an Anglican or similar protestant tradition may remember. It is also called the Quicumque, which is its first word in the Latin. ‘Quicumque’ means whosoever, and the author of this creed declares that whosoever professes this ancient statement of belief may alone be saved. The summary is this: that the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are individual Persons, not in anyway mixed with each other, one in Their divine and eternal Essence, uncreated and beyond understanding, even on the part of the angels who live in Their presence. One God, one almighty God. But there is the Father, the Son Who is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. Only one Father, only one Son, only one Holy Spirit, each of them coequal in dignity to the other two.

The Athanasian Creed then continues in the manner of the other creeds we use regularly in describing the entry into time and history of the second Person of the Trinity as a human being, our eternal High-priest and LJC. So, we have a picture of the Ancient of Days, one in three and three in one, and we may look through our readings this weekend. In our first reading, from the book of Deuteronomy, Moses declares before the Israelites the astonishing fact that the Creator of all things has made Himself known personally to this assembled people, and adopted them as His own.

“‘Search the history of the days that went before thee, far back as the time when God made man on the earth, wide as earth’s end from earth’s end; is there any other record of such happenings? That a people should hear the voice of God speaking out of the heart of the flames, as thou didst, and live to tell of it? That God should intervene, and single out for Himself one nation above all the rest; that He should try men’s hearts with portent and with marvel, fight against them with constraining force, with open display of His strength, with plagues terrible to see? All this the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, and your own eyes have witnessed it; proof to you that this Lord is God, that no other can compare with Him.'”

Book of Deuteronomy, 4: 32-35

In fact, God had chosen for Himself that mixture of tribes and extracted it from the clutches of the Egyptians and so of the world, and contrived to marry Himself to this people in some extraordinary way. On the condition of their observing the commandments of God, they would belong to Him as no other people, and He would belong to them. And that election and marriage is the subject of our psalm response at Mass this weekend: happy the people God has chosen as His own. How much does God love that people? That question takes us to the second half of the Athanasian Creed. He loved them so much that He became one of them, He became a Jew, and obeying all the commandments that He Himself had given to them, He established His holy Church from them, and made it the principle of salvation, by which He would draw into His embrace all the tribes of the earth. The gospel reading tells us how that is accomplished: through baptism in the names of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity, and through instruction about God and about the commandments He had given first through Moses and then through Christ.

“Jesus came near and spoke to them; ‘All authority in heaven and on earth,’ He said, ‘has been given to Me; you, therefore, must go out, making disciples of all nations, and baptising them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all the commandments which I have given you. And behold I am with you all through the days that are coming, until the consummation of the world.'”

Gospel of S. Matthew, 28: 18-20

So, then, are we to observe these commandments by means of our own strength and determination? Perhaps, we could try to do that, but the rebellion in our hearts will always present obstacles. We feel this every time we are faced with temptations to say and do things we know can harm ourselves and other people somehow. And so, Christ promised us and delivered to us the gift of the Holy Spirit, as given in our second reading today. In the heart of the sinner (that is, you and me) the Holy Spirit of God cries Abba. Father, He calls from within us, hallowed be Your Name, may You be forever blessed, Your Will accomplished, give us the sustenance we need and forgive us our sins, for You are ours, and we are Yours, now and forever.

“Those who follow the leading of God’s Spirit are all God’s sons; the Spirit you have now received is not, as of old, a spirit of slavery, to govern you by fear; it is the Spirit of adoption, which makes us cry out, Abba, Father.”

Letter of S. Paul to the Romans, 8: 14-15

Athanasian Creed

Whosoever will be saved,
before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith; 
which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled,
without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. 

And the catholic faith is this:
That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
For there is one person of the Father,
another of the Son,
and another of the Holy Spirit. 
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
is all one,
the glory equal,
the majesty coeternal. 

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. 
The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. 
The Father incomprehensible,
the Son incomprehensible,
and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. 
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. 
And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal. 
As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible,
but one uncreated and one incomprehensible. 

So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty. 
And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty. 
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; 
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. 
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord; 
And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord. 
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity
to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord; 
So are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say,
There are three Gods or three Lords. 

The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. 
The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten. 
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son;
neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. 
So there is one Father, not three Fathers;
one Son, not three Sons;
one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. 

And in this Trinity none is afore or after another;
none is greater or less than another. 
But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal. 
So that in all things, as aforesaid,
the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped. 
He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. 

Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation
that he also believe rightly
the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
For the right faith is that we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. 
God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds;
and man of substance of His mother, born in the world. 
Perfect God and perfect man,
of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. 
Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead,
and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood. 
Who, although He is God and man,
yet He is not two, but one Christ. 
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh,
but by taking of that manhood into God. 
One altogether, not by confusion of substance,
but by unity of person. 
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man,
so God and man is one Christ;
Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell,
rose again the third day from the dead; 
He ascended into heaven,
He sits on the right hand of the Father, God, Almighty; 
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 

At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies; 
and shall give account of their own works. 
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting
and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholic faith,
which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.
[text source]

Reading through the prophecy of Joel

← back to Hosea
onward to Amos →

It’s Pentecost Sunday, and the prophet of Pentecost is Joel; so let’s have a run through this short book of prophecy…

Joel begins with a great calamity upon the nation of Israel: either some terrible invading army that is figured as swarms of locusts has destroyed the countryside, or else some terrible natural calamity (like several swarms of locusts) has devastated the fields and destroyed the crop and is likened to an terrible invading army. Either way, the prophet call for a general lamentation, a religious fast and a general penitential effort. Naturally, this call is familiar to us as the reading for Ash Wednesday, that brings on the fast of Lent.

“Mourn, priests, and lament; in mourners’ garb go about your work at the altar; ministers of God, to His presence betake you, and there, in sackcloth, keep vigil; your God’s house, that offering of bread and wine has none! Then proclaim a fast, assemble the folk together, ruler and commoner alike summon to the temple, and there for the Lord’s help cry lustily. Woe betide us this day! The day of the Lord is coming; His the dominion, His the doom.”

Joel, 1: 13-15

The Day of the Lord, that awful day, that haunts the minds of Jew and Christian alike. In the midst of distress and turmoil, we await that day of judgement, when all injustice will be removed and mankind will be weighed in the scales of divine Justice. The second chapter goes on poetically to announce the Day of the Lord, again colourfully describing the attack of locust swarms. But in the midst of this, comes a call from God to contrition, for He alone is the Salvation of the people. This is again a Lent-type discourse for Ash Wednesday.

“Time now, the Lord says, to turn the whole bent of your hearts back to Me, with fasting and with mourners’ tears. It is your hearts, not the garments you wear, that must be torn asunder. Come back to the Lord your God; He is ever gracious and merciful, ever patient and rich in pardon; threatens He calamity, even now He is ready to forgive. Who knows but He will relent, and be appeased; cast one glance behind Him, and, enough for His own due of bread and wine-offering, spare us largesse yet?”

Joel, 2: 12-14

And after a new promise of restoration after the devastation that the prophet has been lamenting comes a wonderful prediction of the first Christian Pentecost and the spirit of prophecy falling upon the people. There are words of apocalypse in this, with the sun being darkened, the earth being bloodied, etc. which are used by Christ in the Gospels, when He speaks of the end of all things.

“Afterwards I will pour out My Spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and daughters will be prophets. Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men see visions; everywhere servants of Mine, handmaids of Mine, inspired to prophesy! I will shew wonders in heaven, and on earth blood, and fire, and whirling smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great, the terrible day. And never a soul shall call on the Lord’s Name but shall find deliverance; here on mount Sion, here in Jerusalem there shall be refuge; for a remnant, a remnant of the Lord’s own summoning, there shall be deliverance at last.”

Joel, 2: 28-32

But where is this Jerusalem, that will give refuge to a remnant? It seems to be a messianic Jerusalem, far beyond history. The last chapter of Joel speaks of retribution for the loss of the Israelite families that were hauled away into distant slavery through the agency of their neighbours, who struck when they had the chance. These Gentile nations would now suffer in like manner. 

“Into the valley of Josaphat I will herd the heathen folk, one and all, and there hold assize over them for the wrong they did to My people, to Israel, My own domain. People of Mine they scattered through the world, land of Mine they parcelled out between them. Must they be awarded by lot, such captives, and then sold cheap, boy-slave for a harlot’s hire, girl-slave for the draining of a wine-stoup? What, would you chaffer with Me, men of Tyre and Sidon, men from the pale of Philistia? Must there be barter and exchange between us? Nay, if you will have exchanges with Me, look to it that the reward does not fall on your own heads, swift and sudden! Would you carry off silver of mine and gold, lay up the choicest of My treasures in yonder temples? Citizens of Jerusalem, men of Juda’s breed, would you sell them to Grecian masters, far away from their home?“

Joel, 3: 2-6

There is a final vision of the graces that flow forth from the Temple in Jerusalem, turning the wilderness into greenery, as in the vision of Ezechiel. And that is a good point to end this post.

“Loud as roaring of lion speaks the Lord in thunder from His citadel at Jerusalem, till heaven and earth quake at the sound. To His own people, the sons of Israel, refuge He is and stronghold; doubt you shall have none thenceforward that I, the Lord your God, have My dwelling-place at Jerusalem; a holy city Jerusalem shall be, never again shall alien foe breach the walls of her. Drip now with sweet wine the mountain-slopes, bathed in milk the upland pastures; never a stream in all Juda but flows full and strong. What fountain is this that comes out from the Lord’s temple, and waters the dry valley of Setim?“

Joel, 3: 16-18

That fountain of living water is the Holy Spirit of God, and the Lord’s Temple is the Body of Christ, broken upon the Cross and restored marvellously in the Resurrection.

← back to Hosea
onward to Amos →

Engraved upon our hearts (Pentecost Sunday)

We suitably terminate our seven weeks of Easter with today’s festival of Pentecost. This is not necessarily a Christian system; it is a Jewish one. Long before our Lord walked this earth as a man, the Hebrew nation celebrated their liberation from slavery in Egypt with the festivals of Passover and of unleavened bread. Immediately following this was the harvest festival of first fruits. Now, Christians have celebrated Good Friday as our own Passover (with Christ as Passover Lamb), not of liberation from slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt, but indeed as liberation from sin and death of mankind from this world of darkness. And on Easter Sunday, we celebrate our own festival of first fruits; as S. Paul states clearly in his letters to the Corinthians, Christ Risen from the dead is the first-fruits of all those who have died.

“If the dead, I say, do not rise, then Christ has not risen either; and if Christ has not risen, all your faith is a delusion; you are back in your sins. It follows, too, that those who have gone to their rest in Christ have been lost. If the hope we have learned to repose in Christ belongs to this world only, then we are unhappy beyond all other men. But no, Christ has risen from the dead, the first-fruits of all those who have fallen asleep; a man had brought us death, and a man should bring us resurrection from the dead; just as all have died with Adam, so with Christ all will be brought to life.”

First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 15: 16-22 [link]

Now, seven weeks after the festival of first fruits, the Hebrews marked another harvest festival, which they called Weeks: seven weeks of seven days. Hebrews in Greek countries used the Greek word Pentecost for this. Seven is a meaningful number in Hebrew writings, and Weeks celebrated also the giving of the Law of Moses (the Ten Commandments) to Moses on the mountain. For centuries after that immortalised moment on Mount Sinai, prophets like Ezekiel spoke of the Law of God one day being written upon the hearts of the men and women who loved Him, in such a way that we should know almost automatically what it is we should say and do, without having to consult Scriptures and catechisms, etc. We should know it because the Holy One lives within us.

“I mean to set you free from the power of the Gentiles, bring you home again from every part of the earth. And then I will pour cleansing streams over you, to purge you from every stain you bear, purge you from the taint of your idolatry. I will give you a new heart, and breathe a new spirit into you; I will take away from your breasts those hearts that are hard as stone, and give you human hearts instead. I will make My Spirit penetrate you, so that you will follow in the path of My Law, remember and carry out My decrees. So shall you make your home in the land I promised to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.”

Prophecy of Ezechiel, 36: 24-28 [link]

How would this happen? How would God effect this engraving of His upon our hearts. Isn’t it natural that it was on the feast of Weeks or Pentecost that the rush of wind we hear about in our readings today came down upon the Apostles of Christ and imprinted within their hearts far more than the prophet Ezekiel could ever have imagined? In the last hours of the Jewish festival of Pentecost then, the heavens burst forth and the fire of Love, seen burning upon the cross of Christ on Good Friday, descended upon the men He had appointed as His priests and evangelists.

“When the day of Pentecost came round, while they were all gathered together in unity of purpose, all at once a sound came from heaven like that of a strong wind blowing, and filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then appeared to them what seemed to be tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in strange languages, as the Spirit gave utterance to each.”

Acts of the Apostles, 2: 1-4 [link]

The outstanding effect was thus the reversal of the ancient curse imposed upon mankind when we had begun to build a tower at Babel in Mesopotamia, in a direct challenge to the Holy One – we would have climbed up to heaven uninvited and seized upon the Tree of Life that had been forbidden us after the sin of Adam and Eve, if we could manage it. And He divided us in speech until such a time should come as mankind should learn humility and submission to His will for us. And mankind demonstrated that very humility and submission upon a Cross outside Jerusalem, on Good Friday. Learn from me, our Lord had once said, for I am meek and humble of heart, and (if you too are meek and humble of heart) you will find rest for your souls. Humanity is thus redeemed in Christ from its ancient rebellion against the Holy One, and those united to Christ thus receive the grace of holy abandon to His will, and the ability to be united not only in mind and heart, but in understanding and language.

“Let me say this; learn to live and move in the spirit; then there is no danger of your giving way to the impulses of corrupt nature. The impulses of nature and the impulses of the spirit are at war with one another; either is clean contrary to the other, and that is why you cannot do all that your will approves. It is by letting the spirit lead you that you free yourselves from the yoke of the law. It is easy to see what effects proceed from corrupt nature; they are such things as adultery, impurity, incontinence, luxury, idolatry, witchcraft, feuds, quarrels, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, dissensions, factions, spite, murder, drunkenness, and debauchery. I warn you, as I have warned you before, that those who live in such a way will not inherit God’s kingdom.”

Letter of S. Paul to the Galatians, 5: 16-21 [link]

Yes, we have all received the Holy Spirit in the manner of the rush of wind upon the Apostles and our Lady at our Confirmations, but are we truly guided by this Spirit of God, or do we still try to have our own way? S. Paul says in our second reading (above, to the Galatians) that if we are truly guided by the Holy Spirit, we should avoid self-indulgence, especially with regard to serious sins, of which he provides quite the catalogue. Looking about us at the world we live in, we can see a humanity lost to self-indulgence, and in growing enmity towards Christ and His Church. Even Catholics quarrel with the eternal Law, as expressed principally in our time by both Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

But if we are honest, we will all of us note that spirit of rebellion in our hearts. We shall therefore never cease to call ourselves sinners and, as Paul concludes, seek to be directed by the Holy Spirit rather than by our own wills. For, in the words of the gospel reading, it is through this submission of our wills to the Holy One that we shall receive thereby the things that are of Christ, we shall commune with the Truth Who is Christ, and we shall be witnesses to glorify the Name of Jesus before all men.

“‘I have still much to say to you, but it is beyond your reach as yet. It will be for Him, the truth-giving Spirit, when He comes, to guide you into all truth. He will not utter a message of His own; He will utter the message that has been given to Him; and He will make plain to you what is still to come. And He will bring honour to Me, because it is from Me that He will derive what He makes plain to you. I say that He will derive from Me what He makes plain to you, because all that belongs to the Father belongs to Me.'”

Gospel of S. John, 16: 12-15

Elected out of this world (Sunday after the Ascension)

Following Thursday’s feast of the Ascension (forty days after Easter Sunday), we are now on the approach towards Pentecost Sunday (fifty days after Passover/Easter). That’s what Pentecost means : fifty days in weeks. And our readings now relate to the promise of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Who will animate the Church while Christ remains in the beyond, representing humanity to His heavenly Father. Here’s an image of Christ is His Ascension, from the letter of S. Paul to the Hebrews:

“Christ has taken His place as our high priest, to win us blessings that still lie in the future. He makes use of a greater, a more complete tabernacle, which human hands never fashioned; it does not belong to this order of creation at all. It is His own blood, not the blood of goats and calves, that has enabled Him to enter, once for all, into the sanctuary; the ransom He has won lasts for ever. The blood of bulls and goats, the ashes of a heifer sprinkled over men defiled, have power to hallow them for every purpose of outward purification; and shall not the blood of Christ, who offered Himself, through the Holy Spirit, as a victim unblemished in God’s sight, purify our consciences, and set them free from lifeless observances, to serve the living God?”

The letter to the Hebrews, 9: 11-14 [link]

What does this guidance of the Holy Spirit imply? Let’s have a look through the readings. First, the gospel reading. Here we have a fragment of what scripture scholars call the ‘high-priestly prayer’ which Christ the High-priest makes on behalf of primarily the Apostles, but then on behalf of us all. The theme is unity. He wants us to be united, to be one in our profession of faith, but also one in our love for one another.

“‘Holy Father, keep them true to Thy Name, Thy gift to Me, that they may be one, as We are one. As long as I was with them, it was for Me to keep them true to Thy Name, Thy gift to Me; and I have watched over them, so that only one has been lost, he whom perdition claims for its own, in fulfilment of the scripture. But now I am coming to Thee; and while I am still in the world I am telling them this, so that My joy may be theirs, and reach its full measure in them. I have given them Thy message, and the world has nothing but hatred for them, because they do not belong to the world, as I, too, do not belong to the world.'”

Gospel of S. John, 17: 11-14 [link]

Remember that, in the gospel fragment last weekend, He had said that we should love each other as He loves us, with an intimate self-sacrificial love of the type of married friendship. This unites us, just as married love unites husband and wife. And if we can love each other like this, we are true to His Name. Let’s go on through the gospel reading: the Christian carries in his or her heart this word of God the Father – this seed of the Gospel – which makes them hated by ‘the world’ – that is to say, the spirit of disunity and hatred. And, very significantly, it separates us out of the world, so that in the words of Christ, we are living in the world, but do not belong to it. We belong rather to Him.

The whole idea about ‘staying true’ to Christ, if I haven’t yet mentioned the Holy Spirit yet, concerns this third Person of the Godhead, the power that enables this indwelling of the word of God within Christians, thus uniting us to Christ and separating us out of the world, ‘consecrated in the truth,’ as the Lord says. The Holy Spirit is love, that very sacrificial love of God living within us. And so, we must live in love, and S. John continues to tell us about love in our second reading this weekend.

“Beloved, if God has shewn such love to us, we too must love one another. No man has ever seen God; but if we love one another, then we have God dwelling in us, and the love of God has reached its full growth in our lives. This is our proof that we are dwelling in Him, and He in us; He has given us a share of His own Spirit. We Apostles have seen for ourselves, and can testify, that the Father sent out His Son to be the Redeemer of the world, and where a man acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in Him, and He in God; we have learned to recognise the love God has in our regard, to recognise it, and to make it our belief. God is love; he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.”

First letter of S. John, 4: 11-16 [link]

Consider how the mercy we ask for ourselves from God is joined to the mercy we show to others at the end of the Lord’s Prayer? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… That show of mercy is a result of the love/charity that we have for others. So John says, if we love one another, then God will complete His love in us. Pray for the fullness of charity in your hearts, and see if He doesn’t honour His promise to us, sending us the Holy Spirit in all His fullness, that we may thus have God dwelling within us.

Does any of this sound rather abstract? It should be very practical. We should be able to look about us and see in the faces of the men and women around us a humanity in need – people we can in some way help or assist, if not in physical need, then in spiritual and psychological need. This is not the easiest demand of Christ, but it is essential: reaching out to others is not very easy and full of risk, for all types of love involve taking risks. The Lord Himself takes risks with us, knowing that not all of us will accept Him in love, and the great majority of men and women will reject Him, deeply wounding the Sacred Heart.

The last note I want to make about the weekend’s readings concerns the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church with respect to governance. We should constantly pray for good and holy priests, and good and holy bishops, to carry on the sacramental work of the Church through the ages, here in our localities and everywhere else. In the first reading, we hear of how the Apostles after the Ascension of OL moved to reestablish the full number of the Twelve Apostles, after the suicide of Judas the traitor. In the absence of the Lord Himself, the college of Apostles appoints this man S. Matthias to fill the gap, and to stand with them around the BVM as, a few days later, at the end of the Pentecost festival, the heavens burst forth and the Spirit of God confirmed the election of Matthias and sent the Twelve out to convert the world. Now consider that the gospel reading has the prayer of Christ for primarily the Twelve Apostles before He mentions the rest of us as those given the gospel by the Twelve:

“‘Thou hast sent Me into the world on Thy errand, and I have sent them into the world on My errand; and I dedicate Myself for their sakes, that they too may be dedicated through the truth. It is not only for them that I pray; I pray for those who are to find faith in Me through their word; that they may all be one; that they too may be one in Us, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee; so that the world may come to believe that it is Thou who hast sent Me.'”

Gospel of S. John, 17: 18-21 [link]

The unifying love that is friendship (Sunday VI of Easter)

Cornelius, a leading character of our first reading this weekend, was a Roman, and so not Jewish, although not necessarily a pagan, for he was sufficiently devoted to the God of Israel to received the angelic vision that led him to call for the Apostle S. Peter. The Romans looked down upon the Jews as little more than slaves, so this Roman soldier falling before the Apostle S. Peter (pictured above) is beyond extraordinary. Our Lord had said in the Gospel that His mission was to the Jewish community (He is primarily their Messiah), but He had begun to receive non-Jewish believers, such as the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Samaritan woman and a handful of unnamed Greeks. The prophets had long spoken of non-Jewish believers entering the Church of God, or the Assembly of God’s people, in the days of the Messiah. It was inevitable that the Apostolic Church would take up this mission, and Cornelius and his family (as given by our reading today) were the first non-Jews to be formally be admitted to Catholic communion.

“And as soon as Peter had entered, he was met by Cornelius, who fell at his feet and did reverence to him; but Peter raised him; ‘Stand up,’ he said, ‘I am a man like thyself.’ So he went in, still conversing with him, and found a great company assembled. ‘You know well enough,’ he told them, ‘that a Jew is contaminated if he consorts with one of another race, or visits him; but God has been shewing me that we ought not to speak of any man as profane or unclean; and so, when I was sent for, I came without demur. Tell me then, why you have sent for me.’ And Cornelius said, ‘Three days ago, at this very time, I was making my afternoon prayer in my house, when suddenly I saw a man standing before me, in white clothes, who said to me, “Cornelius, thy prayer has been heard, thy alms-deeds have won remembrance in God’s sight. Thou art to send to Joppa, and summon thence that Simon who is also called Peter; he is lodging with a tanner called Simon, close to the sea.” I lost no time, therefore, in sending for thee, and thou hast done me a favour in coming. Now thou seest us assembled in thy presence, ready to listen to whatever charge the Lord has given thee.’ Thereupon Peter began speaking; ‘I see clearly enough,’ he said, ‘that God makes no distinction between man and man; He welcomes anybody, whatever his race, who fears Him and does what piety demands….'”

Acts of the Apostles, 10: 25-35 [link]

This is a great story for us today, for most of us do not have Jewish roots and it is in this story that the promises made by the Holy One to the nation of the Hebrews (and later Jews) were first formally extended to us non-Jews. Let’s go to the Last Supper for an understanding of what I have just called ‘Catholic communion.’ Christ says to His Apostles in this gospel reading that if we love Him and demonstrate our love for him by obeying His commandments and thereby building fraternal charity, then we are His friends. The word ‘servant’ best describes the adherents of ancient religions: they were usually servants of their gods. The very Jews would have called themselves servants of the Most High, for, although the nation of Israel was called God’s first-born, the sons of God in the times of the Old Testament were divine figures, angelic beings. But the Christian message was about the adoption of servants as children of God, Children of Light. This extraordinary relationship of belonging that Christ extends to His own is described again in our gospel reading this weekend. Here is what the Lord says:

“‘I have bestowed My love upon you, just as My Father has bestowed His love upon Me; live on, then, in My love. You will live on in My love, if you keep My commandments, just as it is by keeping My Father’s commandments that I live on in His love. All this I have told you, so that My joy may be yours, and the measure of your joy may be filled up. This is My commandment, that you should love one another, as I have loved you. This is the greatest love a man can shew, that he should lay down his life for his friends; and you, if you do all that I command you, are My friends. I do not speak of you any more as My servants; a servant is one who does not understand what his master is about, whereas I have made known to you all that My Father has told Me; and so I have called you My friends.'”

Gospel of S. John, 15: 9-15 [link]

The last few Sundays, we have heard Him call us the sheep of His sheepfold who know Him intimately, and the branches of Him as the Vine, by which we are part of Him. Now, he says clearly that we are not His servants, for He is on the point of adopting us as the sons and daughters of His heavenly Father. As you can see very clearly, our Lord’s concept of friendship is far more intimate than the common idea of acquaintance that we have today, thanks to the Americanisation of our society. We should certainly not find many we call friends, for example, prepared to lay down their lives for us. Rather, Christ’s idea of friendship is more akin to the friendship in married life of husband and wife in its level of intimacy, and it calls to my mind at once the promises that are made in marriage: unity in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, until death doth separate. If we can achieve this intimacy with Christ, Who has called us to it, then His desires and intentions will coincide with ours, and our Thy-will-be-done prayers will be powerful.

“Beloved, let us love one another; love springs from God; no one can love without being born of God, and knowing God. How can the man who has no love have any knowledge of God, since God is love? What has revealed the love of God, where we are concerned, is that He has sent His only-begotten Son into the world, so that we might have life through Him. That love resides, not in our shewing any love for God, but in His shewing love for us first, when He sent out His Son to be an atonement for our sins.”

First letter of S. John, 4: 7-10 [link]

In this second reading this weekend, the Apostle S. John sets forth about love, and that love is associated with sacrifice, for the atonement for sin comes from a blood sacrifice. Let us make no mistake: this ‘love’ the Apostles kept talking about is not the vacuous or ambiguous type that is constantly before us in our culture, because that often ends in separation and divorce, and the corresponding dissolution and fracturing of families. The ‘love’ the Apostles taught us about is the undying love of the Holy One, that is willing (as He said in the gospel reading) to die for the sake of the beloved. This entirely self-giving and marital love, as S. John says, comes from God, and makes the lover powerfully related to the Holy One.

Anyone who cannot love like this cannot have known God, John says. That may sound like an exaggeration, but its establishes a Christian anthropology: mankind has been built like God to love like this, to die for love – it’s part of what it means to be human and to be made in the ‘image’ of God. Christ teaches us to do it perfectly, and in so far as we open our hearts to Him and become His friends we should not find this type of love a great challenge.

In fact, we should find it easy.

The Bishop’s letter for Safeguarding Sunday

Download the letter

for parish newsletters and / or parish noticeboards
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th May 2024

“This is my commandment, love one another as I have loved you.”
(John 15:12)

“Today is Safeguarding Sunday. It’s an opportunity to reflect a little on our ongoing journey as a diocese to build a safer environment for every person. You will recall that the Elliott review in 2020 recommended that the Catholic Church in England and Wales put in place a national safeguarding body. In July 2021 the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency was formed. Its task is to ensure that all dioceses are regulated to meet the national standards recommended in the Elliott Report.

“As a diocese, our priority is to ensure that we are providing a safe environment for all those who come in contact with our parishes, chaplaincies, and the Catholic organisations at work throughout the diocese. So I do want to assure you that the diocese is very much committed to embedding robust safeguarding standards. The professional support of our Diocesan Safeguarding Department now enables the safer recruitment and training of all clergy, employees and volunteers. It also ensures that we are transparent and accountable in the way that all allegations and concerns are managed.

“I wish to thank the Diocesan Safeguarding Department of Rachael Campion, Alan Booth and Jane Black for all their good work. I would also like to express my gratitude to the priests and parish safeguarding representatives for their generous commitment to improving safeguarding practices in their parishes. Additional training for clergy and parish safeguarding representatives is now in place. There is also safeguarding information available on the diocesan website, and an easy to read and comprehensive guide to safeguarding has been produced in the form of a very helpful Parish Safeguarding Handbook. Please do take a look at this material because it is the responsibility of each of us to help ensure that our churches and chaplaincies are both safe and welcoming. This is something that cannot just be left to the Diocesan Safeguarding Department, the clergy and the parish safeguarding representatives.

“From meeting with and listening to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse I have come to understand, ever more deeply, that sexual abuse not only heinously violates a child at the time of their abuse, but it all too often cruelly robs a child of their future. Victims and survivors of sexual abuse continue to carry throughout their lives the painful and debilitating consequences of the grave crime of sexual abuse. I do not underestimate the traumatic and life-long consequences of sexual abuse upon their lives and how it also affects their families and parish communities. Please know that my door, and that of our Diocesan Safeguarding Department, is always open to anyone affected by abuse.

“Like you, I continue to love Christ’s Church, but I acknowledge that sexual abuse has stained the face of the Church and it has undermined her mission. I feel a deep sense of shame for this abuse. So, as Bishop, I am committed to ensuring that we do everything that we each can to learn from the past and to protect and keep safe the most vulnerable in our communities. There can be no room in our diocese for complacency or for not taking seriously the need for vigilance on the part of all of us. Thank you for doing all you can to support your parish priest and parish safeguarding representative* in fostering a deeper and more evident culture of safeguarding, care and protection for everyone in your parish or chaplaincy.

“With my prayers and gratitude,
The Right Reverend Patrick McKinney,
Bishop of Nottingham.”

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Reading through the letter of S. James

← back to Hebrews
onward to first Peter →

The first bishop of Jerusalem, Saint James the Just, was greatly honoured during his lifetime, by Christian and Jew alike. The tradition of the Church speaks through S. Jerome who quotes an older description of him thus:

“After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy from his mother’s womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh, never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies, since indeed he did not use woolen vestments but linen and went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels’ knees.“

[text source]

It certainly seems as if James was a life-long Nazirite, like Saint John the Baptist, and so was greatly respected in Jewish society. From this figure comes this excellent letter in our New Testament, addressed to ‘the twelve tribes scattered throughout the world,’ and to my mind that indicates a general message to Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews alike from someone who may have been a figure of authority for both, although the letter is manifestly Christian. Or perhaps the Church did understand herself in those early years as being the spiritual heir of the twelve tribes of old Israel. His understanding of suffering as valuable in itself (enabling spiritual growth and maturation) is both Jewish and Christian. Suffering and martyrdom as providing a crown is an idea we may know from the letters of Saint Paul. 

“Blessed is he who endures under trials. When he has proved his worth, he will win that crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him. Nobody, when he finds himself tempted, should say, I am being tempted by God. God may threaten us with evil, but He does not Himself tempt anyone. No, when a man is tempted, it is always because he is being drawn away by the lure of his own passions. When that has come about, passion conceives and gives birth to sin; and when sin has reached its full growth, it breeds death.”

James, 1: 12-15

God may lead us to the place of temptation (as in the Lord’s prayer), but he doesn’t himself draw us into evil; we are often our own worst enemies, when it comes to temptation and sin. In line with the old Hebrew prophets, James recommends honesty and faithful living, and prudence in speech, and in works of charity.

“Only you must be honest with yourselves; you are to live by the word, not content merely to listen to it. One who listens to the word without living by it is like a man who sees, in a mirror, the face he was born with; he looks at himself, and away he goes, never giving another thought to the man he saw there. Whereas one who gazes into that perfect law, which is the law of freedom, and dwells on the sight of it, does not forget its message; he finds something to do, and does it, and his doing of it wins him a blessing. If anyone deludes himself by thinking he is serving God, when he has not learned to control his tongue, the service he gives is vain. If he is to offer service pure and unblemished in the sight of God, who is our Father, he must take care of orphans and widows in their need, and keep himself untainted by the world.”

James, 1: 22-27

James witnesses the absolute equality of the members of the Church at the time in their synagogue or place of meeting:

“Suppose that a man comes into your place of meeting in fine clothes, wearing a gold ring; suppose that a poor man comes in at the same time, ill clad. Will you pay attention to the well-dressed man, and bid him take some place of honour; will you tell the poor man, ‘Stand where thou art,’ or ‘Sit on the ground at my footstool?’ If so, are you not introducing divisions into your company? Have you not shewn partiality in your judgement? Listen to me, my dear brethren; has not God chosen the men who are poor in the world’s eyes to be rich in faith, to be heirs of that kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?“

James, 2: 2-5

This is followed by a fine discourse on the integrity of the Law of God, so that even the smallest transgression or sin is still an offence against the Law worthy of judgement and sentence. And our faith is demonstrated not by fine words, but by our actions. This is thoroughly worthy of Christ Himself, who scolded the Pharisees of His time for observing the letter of the Law while neglecting charity:

“Of what use is it, my brethren, if a man claims to have faith, and has no deeds to shew for it? Can faith save him then? Here is a brother, here is a sister, going naked, left without the means to secure their daily food; if one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, warm yourselves and take your fill,’ without providing for their bodily needs, of what use is it? Thus faith, if it has no deeds to shew for itself, has lost its own principle of life.“

James, 2: 14-17

The third chapter of the letter is a colourful description of the damage that can be done by bad speech, the cause of strife, the enemy of peace, the instrument of pride. It think he means to say that self-control and prudence, especially with respect to things spoken, helps establish and maintain peace, within which holiness may grow.

“Among the organs of our nature, the tongue has its place as the proper element in which all that is harmful lives. It infects the whole body, and sets fire to this mortal sphere of ours, catching fire itself from hell. Mankind can tame, and has long since learned to tame, every kind of beast and bird, of creeping things and all else; but no human being has ever found out how to tame the tongue; a pest that is never allayed, all deadly poison… Where there is jealousy, where there is rivalry, there you will find disorder and every kind of defect. Whereas the wisdom which does come from above is marked chiefly indeed by its purity, but also by its peacefulness; it is courteous and ready to be convinced, always taking the better part; it carries mercy with it, and a harvest of all that is good; it is uncensorious, and without affectation. Peace is the seed-ground of holiness, and those who make peace will win its harvest.”

James, 3: 6-8, 16-18

James says that it is desire and concupiscence – wishing to possess what is not one’s to possess – that leads eventually to quarrelling and murder. And the basis of those desires is an unhealthy intention, not of appreciation for the object of desire, but merely the satisfying of those desires. The work of the believer is then to draw nearer to God in humility and to purify the intentions of his or her heart. 

“Be God’s true subjects, then; stand firm against the devil, and he will run away from you, come close to God, and He will come close to you. You that are sinners must wash your hands clean, you that are in two minds must purify the intention of your hearts. Bring yourselves low with mourning and weeping, turn your laughter into sadness, your joy into downcast looks; humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.“

James, 4: 7-10

The last chapter begins with a condemnation of those who set their hearts on riches and abuse the poor, such as by neglecting the wages of their servants and workmen. This is an echo of the voice of the Hebrew prophets, and James’ follow-up is not very different from Isaiah’s, or Hosea’s, or Habacuc’s: wait patiently for the Lord, as farmers wait for the right seasons for returns on their work. And James does refer directly to the patience of the old prophets and of such men as Job. There are some nice bits of advice, such as to prayer, hymning, sacramental confession and that bit that sounds like it came out of a Gospel:

“But above all, my brethren, do not bind yourselves by any oath, by heaven, by earth, or by any oath at all. Let your word be Yes for Yes, and No for No; if not, you will be judged for it.“

James, 5: 12

That is the advice we remember from Christ’s sermon on the mount (Gospel of S. Matthew, 5: 37), which is the basis for James’ commitment to prudence in speech, mentioned earlier. And there are those lines that everybody who has attended the service of the Anointing of the Sick will remember well (and there this post could end): 

“Is one of you sick? Let him send for the presbyters of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord’s name. Prayer offered in faith will restore the sick man, and the Lord will give him relief; if he is guilty of sins, they will be pardoned.“

James 5: 14-15
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onward to first Peter →

One in Christ, Jew and Gentile (Sunday V of Easter)

One of the books I have been reading this week was written by a Jewish rabbi  from Rochester in the US, who a few decades ago came to a understanding of Our Lord Jesus Christ that his fellowmen mostly abhor. He realised that Christ was the Hebrew Messiah long awaited by the Jews. This man’s name is Bernis, and his journey into the Christian faith began with friendship with evangelical Christians, although he spearheaded the creation worldwide of a type of Jewish synagogue called ‘messianic’ – that is Jews who believe in Christ and are somehow baptised, but not obviously attached to any of the various branches of protestantism, much less the Catholic Church.

Rabbi Yonathan Bernis and his testimony

The language Bernis uses in his books is the born-again type of protestant language, but there have been other Jews like him who have taken the further step and joined one of the Apostolic Churches, of which ours is one.  I have read several of their stories, because I love to hear of Jews who break through the walls the rabbis have built for centuries and see with wonder the glory of the Holy One manifested in the God-man. The usual theme I find is this: a Jew who accepts Christ and somehow becomes a Christian doesn’t feel that he or she has ceased to be a Jew; rather, they find that their Jewishness is deepened and that they stand at the end of a long story that began with the election of the patriarch Abraham. The reason I mention all this is that it forms a good introduction to the two principal readings today. In the first reading, we find that S. Paul, called here by his Hebrew name Sa’ul (Luke calls him by his Greek name Paulos when he is in the Greek countries), some time after having his extraordinary conversion of heart on the road to Damascus, is now looking for the Apostles of the Lord. He has seen Christ in vision on the road, and now he is looking for those who saw Christ with their own eyes, heard them with their own ears.

“So [Paul] reached Jerusalem, where he tried to attach himself to the disciples; but they could not believe he was a true disciple, and all avoided his company. Whereupon Barnabas took him by the hand and brought him in to the Apostles, telling them how, on his journey, he had seen the Lord and had speech with Him, and how at Damascus he had spoken boldly in the Name of Jesus. So he came and went in their company at Jerusalem, and spoke boldly in the Name of the Lord. He preached, besides, to the Jews who talked Greek, and disputed with them, till they set about trying to take his life. As soon as they heard of this, the brethren took him down to Caesarea, and put him on his way to Tarsus.”

Acts of the Apostles, 9: 26-30 [link]

He, Paul, had also been given a task by Christ – he was to be the missionary to carry the Christian religion beyond the bounds of Judaea, to the Greek countries and beyond. Throughout the history of the Church, men who have had similar missions have sought first the apostolic authority of the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter. So, Paul goes with the support of S. Barnabas to Jerusalem. He needs that support also for, not very long before, he had been persecuting the Christians wherever he could find them. Now this proud Pharisee kneels before Christ’s regents in humility and, with their authority, creates such a stir in the Holy City that the Church is forced to send him off to Roman Caesarea for safety. Let us consider the plight of all converts, with that fire within their hearts, like S. Paul and also like the rabbi I mentioned earlier, and also converts to Catholicism from other Christian communities. They don’t necessarily suffer violence anymore, but they quickly become pariahs among their former communities, cut off and abandoned. They should not be abandoned by us. Let us pray first of all for the conversion of the hearts of our Jewish brothers and sisters, through the intercession of OL and the Apostles, and the Saints of the early Church – Jews all of them.

Our gospel message establishes the picture of the vine of the Church – a Jewish vine – as Christ explains to His Jewish audience that they are branches on that vine.

“I AM the true Vine, and it is My Father Who tends it. The branch that yields no fruit in Me, He cuts away; the branch that does yield fruit, He trims clean, so that it may yield more fruit. You, through the message I have preached to you, are clean already; you have only to live on in Me, and I will live on in you. The branch that does not live on in the vine can yield no fruit of itself; no more can you, if you do not live on in Me. I AM the Vine, you are its branches; if a man lives on in Me, and I in him, then he will yield abundant fruit; separated from Me, you have no power to do anything. If a man does not live on in Me, he can only be like the branch that is cast off and withers away; such a branch is picked up and thrown into the fire, to burn there. As long as you live on in Me, and my words live on in you, you will be able to make what request you will, and have it granted. My Father’s Name has been glorified, if you yield abundant fruit, and prove yourselves My disciples.”

The Gospel of S. John, 15: 1-8 [link]

Paul would later explain in his letters that non-Jewish people such as ourselves are grafted onto that Jewish vine through baptism. And the life that flows through us – the sap of the vine – is the grace of God, through which we are meant to bear fruit, or else we are pruned off and destroyed. This is a strong theme in the Gospel of S. John: that if any of the sons and daughters of men are to have life, they must have it through Christ, and that they must have His life within them. And it should be demonstrable, not just some vague and abstract faith, but a life of charity and devotion – by real and active lives of faith, as S. John also says in the second reading. Misunderstanding and ridicule we will undoubtedly have, but so did He Who went to the Cross for us. But we are bound to evangelise, anyhow, in word and act, and draw as many people as we can to the promises of Christ.

 “My little children, let us shew our love by the true test of action, not by taking phrases on our lips. That proves to us that we take our character from the truth, and we shall be able to satisfy our consciences before God; if our consciences condemn us, it is because God is above conscience, and nothing is hidden from Him. Beloved, if conscience does not condemn us, we can appear boldly before God, and He will grant all our requests, since we are keeping His commandments, and living as He would see us live. What He commands is, that we should have faith in the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, and at His command should love one another. When a man keeps his commandments, it means that he is dwelling in God, and God in him. This is our proof that he is really dwelling in us, through the gift of his Spirit.”

First letter of the Apostle S. John, 3: 18-24 [link]

The Shepherd-king as Father (Sunday IV of Easter)

We must always marvel at the benevolent love of the Holy One for the men and women that He calls His own. And we know that He calls the Church His own, because He actually calls it the sheepfold of which He is the Good Shepherd. And this is the theme of the readings today, which we have dubbed Good Shepherd Sunday: the love of God. What is the easiest way of describing the love of God? Paternity. We do, after all, call Him Father in our most well-known prayer. What is the love of a father? If we are not human fathers, we may have the experience of a human father. My own experience is of the man who picked me up when I fell over (and still does, even if he now has to drive halfway across the country for it), who corrected me (and still does), who is constantly concerned for my physical and spiritual welfare and for my ability to reach a happy end. Now, multiply this love infinitely, and you will find the Sacred Heart, a fire that burns for the sons and the daughters of men. And the Sacred Heart says to us in our reading today, ‘I AM the Good Shepherd.’

“I AM the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, whereas the hireling, who is no shepherd, and does not claim the sheep as his own, abandons the sheep and takes to flight as soon as he sees the wolf coming, and so the wolf harries the sheep and scatters them. The hireling, then, takes to flight because he is only a hireling, because he has no concern over the sheep. I AM the Good Shepherd; My sheep are known to Me and know Me; just as I am known to My Father, and know Him. And for these sheep I am laying down My life.”

Gospel of S. John, 10: 11-15 [link]

Some 600 years before OLJC walked this earth in human form, the prophet Ezechiel memorably spoke of God as the Good Shepherd. It’s not in our readings this weekend (sadly), but it is the Good Shepherd chapter of the Old Testament of our bibles:

“A word, shepherds, for your hearing, a message from the Lord God: ‘Out upon yonder shepherds! I will hold them answerable for the flock entrusted to them, and they shall have charge of it no more, feed themselves out of its revenues no more. From their greedy power I will rescue it; no longer shall it be their prey.’ This is what the Lord God says: ‘I mean to go looking for this flock of Mine, search it out for Myself. As a shepherd, when he finds his flock scattered all about him, goes looking for his sheep, so will I go looking for these sheep of Mine, rescue them from all the nooks into which they have strayed when the dark mist fell upon them. Rescued from every kingdom, recovered from every land, I will bring them back to their own country; they shall have pasture on the hill-sides of Israel, by its watercourses, in the resting-places of their home.'”

Prophecy of Ezechiel, 34: 9-13 [link]

The summary of this chapter of Ezechiel is this: God had appointed men to work as the shepherds of his people, priests (especially the High Priest of the Temple) and the Jewish king and his council, but these men had instead led the people into serious error – God declared through Ezekiel that He had had enough of this destruction of souls and that He would arrive Himself as their Shepherd, working together with a descendant of King David, a true king – so, the divine Shepherd colluding with a human shepherd-king. Does that sounds marvellously familiar? In the fullness of time, a strange being appeared in Bethlehem of Judaea, a Child Who (an angel had told His mother) would rule for His ancestor David and at the same time would be called God. The Holy One Who loved His people had arrived to shepherd them as their Father, but in the human form of the Davidic king that would make Him also their Brother. And He would rule their hearts, their wills voluntarily united to His. Listen to Him speak in our gospel reading above: hirelings flee their responsibility, human shepherds are not always reliable, but the Good Shepherd never leaves the sheep, and gives His life for them. And they love Him with a love that will draw them to the cross and to death for Him.

This is the true love of a father, inspiring a similar love in his children; even if some of us have had no experience of human fatherhood, or perhaps abusive or otherwise deficient fathers, we can yet understand an ideal if not from humanity then in the animal world, of parents that do everything to protect their young from danger and death. And you and I, all of us, are forever young before the Ancient of Days, and we shall always require His fatherly love, His assurance in the midst of our suffering and at the moment of our death that we are accompanied and loved, by a fire of fatherly devotion that burns forever. ‘Think of the love lavished upon us,’ S. John tells us in our second reading, that we can call the Creator of all things by the most familiar names given to earthly fathers; which other community but the Christian ones can do this?

“See how the Father has shewn His love towards us; that we should be counted as God’s sons, should be His sons. If the world does not recognize us, that is because it never recognized Him. Beloved, we are sons of God even now, and what we shall be hereafter, has not been made known as yet. But we know that when He comes we shall be like Him; we shall see Him, then, as He is. Now, a man who rests these hopes in Him lives a life of holiness; he, too, is holy. The man who commits sin, violates order; sin of its nature is disorder. You know well enough that when He was revealed to us, it was to take away our sins; there is no sinfulness in Him, and no one can dwell in Him and be a sinner. The sinner must be one who has failed to see Him, failed to recognise Him.”

First letter of the Apostle S. John, 3: 1-6 [link]

S. John like the other Apostles is insistent that our lives reflect our election as the Children of God; the Children of Light cannot associate with the darkness of sin. But why is it even possible that the children of men can be adopted by God. Because of the Sacred Heart, which is both human and divine, and through which we are therefore adopted by the Holy One. This is the substance of the first reading, where S. Peter declares that the most important stone in the edifice of the People of God (of both old and new testaments) – the God-man, both human and divine, Who brings communion between God and mankind, Who makes them His children – this most important stone was cast aside by the men who should have received Him with joy. These priests and their associates of the first century were not unlike those unworthy shepherds of the prophet Ezechiel, who were to be replaced by the Good Shepherd – he would replace them, too. For their attempt at opposing the Will of God was foiled by the Resurrection of Christ, by which the most important cornerstone of Israel was replaced, upon which the Church was built and will ever stand.

“Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, and said to them, ‘Rulers of the people, elders of Israel, listen to me. If it is over kindness done to a cripple, and the means by which he has been restored, that we are called in question, here is news for you and for the whole people of Israel. You crucified Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, and God raised Him from the dead; it is through His Name that this man stands before you restored. He is that stone, rejected by you, the builders, that has become the chief stone at the corner. Salvation is not to be found elsewhere; this alone of all the names under heaven has been appointed to men as the one by which we must needs be saved.”

The Acts of the Apostles, 4: 8-12 [link]

The Old Testament and the New (Sunday III of Easter)

Let’s try to find a common thread for all of our readings at Mass this weekend. There is first of all the sermon of Saint Peter on the occasion of a miracle of healing performed upon a cripple in Christ’s Name.

“Peter, when he saw it, addressed himself to the people; ‘Men of Israel,’ he said, ‘why does this astonish you? Why do you fasten your eyes on us, as if we had enabled him to walk through some power or virtue of our own? It is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, who has thus brought honour to His Son Jesus. You gave Him up, and disowned Him in the presence of Pilate, when Pilate’s voice was for setting Him free. You disowned the Holy, the Just, and asked for the pardon of a murderer, while you killed the Author of life. But God has raised Him up again from the dead, and we are here to bear witness of it. Here is a man you all know by sight, who has put his faith in that Name, and that Name has brought him strength; it is the faith which comes through Jesus that has restored him to full health in the sight of you all. Come then, brethren, I know that you, like your rulers, acted in ignorance; but God has fulfilled in this way what was foretold by all the prophets about the sufferings of His Christ. Repent, then, and turn back to Him, to have your sins effaced, against the day when the Lord sees fit to refresh our hearts. Then He will send out Jesus Christ, Who has now been made known to you, but must have His dwelling-place in heaven until the time when all is restored anew, the time which God has spoken of by His holy prophets from the beginning.”

The Acts of the Apostles, 3: 12-21

Peter declares that those same people gathered to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem – that is, the liberation of the Hebrew people from Egypt – had unthinkingly handed over the God (Who had liberated their ancestors) over to the Romans for execution, collaborating with the Temple priests and their party of the Sadducees to do so. They were guilty of this great sin, said Peter, but they had also unwittingly fallen in with God’s plan, by which the dead Christ had been raised to life and had thereby drawn not only the Hebrews but all humanity united with Him out of the darkness and death of this world and into the light of God’s presence. Repent, cried Peter, and join yourselves to Christ, through Whom alone true freedom is to be had.

Then, in our second reading, another Apostle, this time S. John, is keeping on about repenting and avoiding sin. But, he says, if we should sin, Christ the Just One advocates for us before God the Father, taking our sins upon Himself. But not without conditions: we are to unite ourselves to Christ in love, through our observance of His commandments, by which we can claim to know Him. If we ignore the commandments and claim to know Christ and God, we are either extremely foolish or liars. Hopefully, only foolish…

“Little children, the purpose of this letter is to keep you clear of sin. Meanwhile, if any of us does fall into sin, we have an Advocate to plead our cause before the Father in the Just One, Jesus Christ. He, in His own person, is the atonement made for our sins, and not only for ours, but for the sins of the whole world. Have we attained the knowledge of Him? The test is, whether we keep His commandments; the man who claims knowledge of Him without keeping His commandments is a liar; truth does not dwell in such a man as that. No, if a man keeps true to His word, then it is certain that the love of God has reached its full stature in Him; that is what tells us that we are dwelling in Him.”

First letter of the Apostle S. John, 2: 1-5

So, here’s our thread so far: the necessity of allegiance to Christ, Who comes not as a judge but as an advocate for those who love Him. For those who do not love Him, who even reject Him, judgement is already made by their own words and deeds, and condemnation follows. I am convinced this means that our words and deeds should be deliberately intended to derail the work of Christ and His Church to condemn us, and this implies a real malevolence, even if this is sometimes hidden behind a façade of humanism and equity.

And that takes us down to the gospel reading. The two men on the road to Emmaus had returned in a hurry to Jerusalem to tell the disciples there that they had seen the risen Christ, and that He had been revealed to them in the breaking of the bread. In Luke’s narratives, the ‘breaking of the bread’ is a direct reference to the holy Eucharist, which we of the Latin West call ‘the Mass.’ While the community was excitedly discussing this implication of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, suddenly the Holy One is standing right there among them. How they must have jumped! Alarm and fright, says Luke. The two men from Emmaus had said that He had vanished from their sight when they had recognised Him. He must be a ghost! So, He holds out His arms so they can feel muscle and sinew, bones and joints, and know that He is standing before them, body and soul, and even ready afterwards for a bit of grilled fish. In what follows, we may draw a connection to the other readings this weekend.

“‘This is what I told you,’ He said, ‘while I still walked in your company; how all that was written of Me in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, must be fulfilled.’ Then He enlightened their minds, to make them understand the scriptures; ‘So it was written,’ He told them, ‘and so it was fitting that Christ should suffer, and should rise again from the dead on the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Of this, you are the witnesses.'”

Gospel of S. Luke, 24: 44-48

What does Christ say? The Law of Moses spoke of Him, the Prophets spoke of Him, the Psalms spoke of Him. What is the Law of Moses? The guidance of God, embodied by the Ten Commandments and the associated rituals of the people, the observance of which S. John in the second reading connected with the love of God and knowledge of Him. What were the prophecies? The condemnation of sin and the recalling of the people to the observance of the Commandments of the Law. Repent, S. Peter had cried out in our first reading, and turn back to God and His guidance – His commandments. What are the psalms of the Hebrew liturgy? A joyful singing of the glory of God and His guidance and protection for the people He loved.

All of these spoke of Christ, of His Passion and death, and how this would bring repentance and the forgiveness of sins. ‘I gave Moses the Old Testament,’ Christ says, ‘and behold I have written the New Testament in My blood. And you, My Apostles and My Church, are witnesses to this.’

The Church in effect (Sunday II of Easter)

This Sunday is the octave day of Easter Sunday, and just as a musical octave at its end pitches the same note higher, the Resurrection of our Lord raises in pitch on the eighth day in a way, to the flourishing of the Church. For the grand theme of all our readings this weekend is the rapid growth and progress of the Church in the wake of the Passion and the Resurrection of the Lord – that one event that rocked Jerusalem and opened the floodgates of God’s blessings upon all the men and women who flocked to the Holy City in spirit, to the threshold and gates of the Successor of David, Son of Man and Son of God, now gloriously risen from the dead. Let’s have the prophet Isaiah introduce this nicely…

“In later days, the mountain where the Lord dwells will be lifted high above the mountain-tops, looking down over the hills, and all nations will flock there together. A multitude of peoples will make their way to it, crying, ‘Come, let us climb up to the Lord’s mountain-peak, to the house where the God of Jacob dwells; He shall teach us the right way, we will walk in the paths He has chosen.’ The Lord’s commands shall go out from Sion, His word from Jerusalem, and He will sit in judgement on the nations, giving His award to a multitude of peoples. They will melt down their swords into plough-shares, their spears into pruning-hooks, nation levying war against nation and training itself for battle no longer.”

Prophecy of Isaias, 2: 2-4 [link]

In our gospel reading from S. John, we find the Christ crossing boundaries in an extraordinary manner, walking carefree into sealed rooms. Already at the foot of the Cross, S. John had noted with horror the opening of Christ’s side with a spear, and the bursting forth of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist in the water and blood. Now, he notes on the evening of Easter Sunday with astonishment the birth of the Sacrament of Confession and Reconciliation, as the risen Christ gives authority to His Apostles to forgive sins in His name, a gift they would hand down to their successors, the priests of the Church.

“And now it was evening on the same day, the first day of the week; for fear of the Jews, the disciples had locked the doors of the room in which they had assembled; and Jesus came, and stood there in their midst; ‘Peace be upon you,’ He said. And with that, He shewed them His hands and His side. Thus the disciples saw the Lord, and were glad. Once more Jesus said to them, ‘Peace be upon you; I came upon an errand from My Father, and now I am sending you out in My turn.’ With that, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit; when you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven, when you hold them bound, they are held bound.'”

Gospel of S. John, 20: 19-23 [link]

The blessing of the Sacraments of the Church is given to those who believe in Christ and trust in His promises. As He Himself says at the end of the reading, visiting on the octave day, the gift of faith extends down the generations, and we have dear S. Thomas to thank for that. You believe because you can see and hear, says the Holy One to Thomas, but blessed are they who cannot see and hear and yet believe. It is the very scientistic doubting of the Apostles that confirms us in our faith in the reality of the Resurrection.

“So, eight days afterwards, once more the disciples were within, and Thomas was with them; and the doors were locked. Jesus came and stood there in their midst; ‘Peace be upon you,’ He said. Then He said to Thomas, ‘Let Me have thy finger; see, here are My hands. Let me have thy hand; put it into My side. Cease thy doubting, and believe.’ Thomas answered, ‘Thou art my Lord and my God.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Thou hast learned to believe, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have learned to believe.'”

Gospel of S. John, 20: 26-29 [link]

He is talking about you and me, and it is our faith and the faith of our parents and godparents that brought us baptism, and every other Sacrament. And from these streams of grace, as S. John says in the second reading – from these Sacraments is the Church built.

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and to love the parent is to love his child. If we love God, and keep His commandments, we can be sure of loving God’s children. Loving God means keeping His commandments, and these commandments of His are not a burden to us. Whatever takes its origin from God must needs triumph over the world; our faith, that is the triumphant principle which triumphs over the world. He alone triumphs over the world, who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

First letter of the Apostle S. John, 5: 1-5 [link]

Through baptism, we are adopted sons and daughters of the Holy One and begotten by Him. Begotten of Him, we should love Him and demonstrate that love by following His commandments, as handed down to us in every generation by the teaching authority of His Church. By this love we have for the Holy One, we shall conquer and overcome the spirit of this world – this world of domination and possession and desire and power. Christ upon His cross renounced all of these things, seeking instead humility and abnegation and the Will of God. Having thus overcome the world, His name is magnified over every other name, and He extends this reward to us also – this ability to overcome and to live the freedom of the children of God, no longer enslaved by attachment to the things of this world. And we see this freedom of the children of God described powerfully by S. Luke in his Acts of the Apostles, which provides our first reading today.

“There was one heart and soul in all the company of believers; none of them called any of his possessions his own, everything was shared in common. Great was the power with which the Apostles testified to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and great was the grace that rested on them all. None of them was destitute; all those who owned farms or houses used to sell them, and bring the price of what they had sold to lay it at the Apostles’ feet, so that each could have what share of it he needed.”

The Acts of the Apostles, 4: 32-35 [link]

The first Christians were able to give up most things also to live united in mind and heart, holding all things in common, their priests and teachers still being the Apostles of Christ, highly respected by the Church. They supplied each others wants, the goods of the community administered by the priests (and eventually by the new order of deacons).

Is this an ideal of Christian living? It most certainly is. Granted, we don’t generally live this ideal today, for we are (in the words of Christ) living in the world, if not belonging to the world, and historically this made the communal living model impractical almost immediately in every early Christian community. But we have many Religious communities established as soon as this became possible and which still exist today in one form or another – such as the Benedictines of the West and the Basilian monks of the East – that replicate to a great extent the communal living of the earliest community in Judaea. Nevertheless, we shall emulate these early Christians in so far as we can, within our families, and within the family of the Church.

Let us establish the formula again, (i) from the first reading: humility, brotherly charity, respect for the hierarchical priesthood; (ii) from the second reading: seeking after faith and understanding; and (iii) from the gospel reading: desiring forgiveness and the holiness only Christ can bring us.

Reading through the prophecy of Baruch

← back to Lamentations
onward to Ezechiel →

Running through the liturgy of the Easter vigil, some of us must have noticed the extract from Baruch about idolatry, that great sin of mankind. Baruch was an associate of the prophet Jeremias in the last years of the kingdom of Juda, and he was a scribe. When Jeremias was asked to compose a book of his devastating prophecies for the Judaite king, he asked Baruch to write it up. A common picture (as above) of Baruch is as secretary to the greater prophet. The king promptly tore the missive up and Baruch was dictated a longer one yet. 

“In the fourth year of Josias’ son Joachim, the Lord gave Jeremias this command ment: ‘Get thyself a scroll, and write down on it all the warnings I have uttered against Israel and Juda, and against the other nations of the world, ever since I first spoke to thee under king Josias. Maybe, when the men of Juda hear of all the mischief I mean to do them, they will leave off their straying in false paths, and so I will overlook the guilt of their wrong-doing.’ So Jeremias sent for Baruch the son of Nerias; the Lord’s utterances, every one, Jeremias rehearsed and Baruch wrote down on the scroll.“

Jeremias, 36: 1-4

Poor Baruch was asked even to read it out at the Temple, for the persecuted Jeremias could not. Indeed, Baruch would have received much of the same treatment as Jeremias did. For all his suffering though, he was given a blessing from God:

“When Baruch, son of Nerias, had written down the words dictated to him by Jeremias, in the fourth year of Joachim’s reign in Juda, this comfort Jeremias gave him: ‘A message from the Lord, the God of Israel, to thee, Baruch! Woe is thee, heavy is thy heart; sorrow upon sorrow the Lord gives thee, and respite thou canst find none. Yet this message the Lord has for thee: Here am I destroying what My own hands built, uprooting what My own hands planted; and for thee must it be all prizes? For prizes never look thou; enough for thee that, go thou where thou wilt, safe-conduct of thy life I am granting thee.“

Jeremias, 45

And that could serve as a bit of an introduction to the book of the prophecy of Baruch, which contains material apparently from the wretched time of the two deportations of the Judaites to Babylon, the second of which was accompanied by the destruction of the City and the Temple. The first chapter contains a message that Baruch read out to King Joachin (aka. Jechonias) and the Judaites clustered around him in exile, in Babylon. When Jechonias had been thus removed from his throne into imprisonment and exile, his uncle Sedecias had been put in his place at Jerusalem (Jeremias, chapter thirty-seven). The book of Jeremias speaks of a letter sent in this way to Babylon (chapter twenty-nine), but doesn’t describe Baruch as the bearer or as one deputed to read it out. The effect of Baruch’s reading is similar to Jeremias’ letter: that the people are to expect a considerable spell of time in exile and that they should cultivate the favour of the Babylonian king and build their families there:

“You shall pray long life for king Nabuchodonosor of Babylon, and his son Baltassar, that their reign on earth may last as long as heaven itself. May the Lord grant courage to all of us, and send us a gleam of hope; long thrive we under the protection of king Nabuchodonosor and his son Baltassar, persevering loyally in their service and winning their favour! And intercede with the Lord our God for us exiles; against His divine will we have rebelled, and to this hour He has not relented.”

Baruch 1: 11-13

Moreover, there is a significant sentiment of contrition in the rest of this chapter of Baruch, as the writer acknowledges the guilt of the people in their taking up multiple religions in Juda and so earning the wrath of the God of Israel:

“With king and prince of ours, priest and prophet of ours the fault lies, and with our fathers before us. We have defied the will of the Lord our God; trust and loyalty we had none to give Him, nor ever shewed Him submission, by listening to His divine voice and following the commands He gave us.“

Baruch, 1: 16-18

Once more is repeated, now perhaps too late, the wisdom of Jeremias and the other prophets who had advised king and nobility to submit to Babylon before Jerusalem was levelled, to avoid the destruction of their kingdom and nation. In this reading of Baruch, we find remorse for that missed opportunity. 

“But no; Thou hadst given them due warning, through those prophets that were servants of Thine, before letting Thy angry vengeance have its way, and the warning went unheeded. ‘Bow shoulder and bow neck,’ said the divine voice, ‘and be vassals to the king of Babylon; and the land I gave to your fathers shall still be your home. Refuse to serve the king of Babylon at My divine bidding, and Jerusalem with her daughter cities shall mourn their loss; no more the cry of joy and mirth, no more the voice of bridegroom and of bride; untrodden the whole land shall be, and uninhabited.’ But all Thy threats could not persuade them to be the king of Babylon’s vassals; Thy servants prophesied in vain. And so Thy threats were performed; kings of ours and fathers of ours might not rest quiet in their graves;”

Baruch, 2: 20-24

Chapter three is a prolonged prayer for forgiveness for the sins that were committed in an older generation, the punishment for which was now being brought upon the children and grandchildren of that generation. This must be a reference to the reign of the wicked king Manasses of Juda, grandfather of King Josias, who had gone so far as to pollute the Temple mount with idolatry and with the shedding of innocent blood. The latter histories of the kingdom of Juda paint the reign of this king as the reason for all the later woes of the destruction of the kingdom and the exile of the people. Here is now a promise of a renewal and reform of the ancient religion:

“Lord Almighty, God of Israel, listen to the prayer Israel makes to Thee from the grave! Our fathers it was that defied the Lord their God, and gave no heed to Him; and to us, their sons, the punishment clings. Forget the wrong they did, those fathers of ours; remember Thy ancient power, Thy own honour, this day; only to Thee, the Lord our God, shall praise of ours be given. Why else hast Thou inspired us with such dread of Thee? Thou wouldst have us learn to invoke Thy name, to utter Thy praise, here as exiles, in proof that we disown the wrong our fathers did, when their sins defied Thee. Exiles we are this day, dispersed by Thee to suffer scorn and reviling, until we have made amends for all the wrong our fathers did when they abandoned Thee, abandoned the Lord our God.”

Baruch, 3: 4-8

After the praise of God and the futility of man’s search for Wisdom, the third chapter settles on the pride of Israel: that they alone were given the key to divine Wisdom, even if they have neglected it. Chapter four suggests that they have carried a book of the Law of Moses with them into exile, and with the help of this book, they would now reform in exile. 

“Here is the book in which you may read God’s commandments, that law of His which stands for ever; holding fast by it or forsaking it, a man makes life or death his goal. Jacob, thy steps retrace, and this path follow, guiding thy steps by glow of the light that beckons thee; this is thy pride, wouldst thou yield it up to another? Thy prize, shall an alien race enjoy it? Israel, a blessed race is ours, that has knowledge of God’s will.”

Baruch, 4: 1-4

The following verses personify the Holy City as a mother who is now bereft of her children, far away in exile and chapter four ends with (and chapter five entirely consists of) a word of comfort to Jerusalem, who would be peopled once more in the future with the Jewish nation. One of the torments for the orthodox Jew living in the multicultural soup that was Babylon in that time was the rampant idolatry, and this is a subject of several books of the Bible that deal with the exiled people, such as Esther and Daniel. The book of Baruch ends with a prolonged critique and mockery of idolatry and idols, which it repeatedly says cannot protect themselves from natural wear or from destruction of any sort. Idols cannot sense anything, they are utterly dead matter, and they must be carried around for religious rites by attendants. And could such things, says Baruch, be called gods? And thus, with the eternal condemnation of idolatry by old Israel and by Holy Church, we may end this post.

“Fair, golden faces! Yet will they not shine on the worshipper, till he rub off the stains on them; cast once for all in a mould, without feeling. Cost what they will, there is never a breath of life in them; never a pace they walk, but must still be carried on men’s shoulders, putting their own worshippers to shame by the betrayal of their impotence. Fall they to earth, they cannot rise from it, and though they be set up again, it is in no power of their own that they stand. As well bring gifts to dead men as to these; the victim thou offerest yonder priest will sell, or put to his own use, nor ever a slice his wife cuts shall find its way to the sick and the needy. Those offerings every woman may touch if she will, child-birth and monthly times notwithstanding. And are these gods? Are these to be feared?“

Baruch, 6: 23-28
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Faithfulness rewarded (Easter Sunday)

The readings of the Easter vigil in particular take us on a run through the Old Testament, and tell us progressively of the sin of our first parents, which created the seemingly irreparable rift with the Will of the Holy One, and then of the first mending of the rift through Father Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his beloved son for the Will of God.

The Holy One having thus tested the waters, orders that it be within the promises to Abraham and his family that the final rebuilding of the bridge between God and man would appear. That bridge would be the God-man Christ, in Whom God would sacrifice His beloved Son, this wonderful Lord of ours conforming His own human will perfectly with the Will of God His Father. So, the Holy One would draw the people of Israel out of the sinfulness of Egypt into the desert of atonement with God and into His own Presence.

But the people fell back into sin, and prophets like Isaiah, Baruch and Ezekiel called them back to obedience. In the midst of a nation of sinners, there was always a faithful remnant, carefully following the Divine Will and praying for the others. And within the fullness of time, descended of King David arose the family of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of whom we have received the perfect man, wholly God and wholly man, Who as man officiates as priest for men and in Himself finally joins mankind back to God.

On this day, that renewed Mankind walked alive from the dead, and He bids us enter into His perfection and so into His peace and His life. Salvation came from the Jews, but is now made available everywhere. For the Risen One meets the Church not in Jerusalem, but beyond, in Galilee.

“And when the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome had bought spices, to come and anoint Jesus. So they came to the tomb very early on the day after the sabbath, at sunrise. And they began to question among themselves, ‘Who is to roll the stone away for us from the door of the tomb?’ Then they looked up, and saw that the stone, great as it was, had been rolled away already. And they went into the tomb, and saw there, on the right, a young man seated, wearing a white robe; and they were dismayed. But he said to them, ‘No need to be dismayed; you have come to look for Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified; He has risen again, He is not here. Here is the place where they laid Him. Go and tell Peter and the rest of His disciples that He is going before you into Galilee. There you shall have sight of Him, as He promised you.‘”

Gospel of S. Mark, 16: 1-7 [link]

Humility rewarded (Palm Sunday)

The point of our palm-waving festival this weekend is to honour the King, Who entered His own capital of Jerusalem as the Successor of David, to claim not political power but His eternal priesthood. Indeed He went not to the palace of the tetrarch Herod on that day, nor even the residence of the Roman procurator Pilate, but straight to the Temple of His presence.

“The disciples went and did as Jesus told them; they brought the she-ass and its colt, and saddled them with their garments, and bade Jesus mount. Most of the multitude spread their garments along the way, while others strewed the way with branches cut down from the trees. And the multitudes that went before Him and that followed after Him cried aloud, ‘Hosanna for the son of David, blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord, Hosanna in heaven above.’ When He reached Jerusalem, the whole city was in a stir; ‘Who is this?’ they asked. And the multitude answered, ‘This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth, in Galilee.’ Then Jesus went into the Temple of God, and drove out from it all those who sold and bought there, and overthrew the tables of the bankers, and the chairs of the pigeon-sellers; ‘It is written,’ He told them, ‘My house shall be known for a house of prayer, and you have made it into a den of thieves.'”

Gospel of S. Matthew, 21: 6-13 [link]

Thus as the prophet Zechariah once said, the Shepherd-king arrived on a makeshift throne, made from two animals: an ass and a colt. The King arrived in His capital not to be triumphantly crowned as secular prince, but to establish a new priestly ritual: He Himself would be the victim to be sacrificed, Himself the altar of sacrifice, Himself the priest offering the sacrifice upon the altar. This later theological understanding of the Church is built upon the vision of a good and honourable Heart that gave of Itself for the men and women It so loved. A very human heart. In distress and pain, It called out the lines of Psalm 22 (below): My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? This is the matter of our first reading and psalm.

“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
Loudly I call, but my prayer cannot reach Thee.
Thou dost not answer, my God,
when I cry out to Thee day and night, Thou dost not heed.
Thou art there none the less, dwelling in the holy place;
Israel’s ancient boast.
It was in Thee that our fathers trusted,
and Thou didst reward their trust by delivering them;
they cried to Thee, and rescue came;
no need to be ashamed of such trust as theirs.
But I, poor worm, have no manhood left;
I am a by-word to all, the laughing-stock of the rabble.
All those who catch sight of me fall to mocking;
mouthing out insults, while they toss their heads in scorn,
‘He committed himself to the Lord,
why does not the Lord come to his rescue,
and set His favourite free?'”

Book of Psalms, 21(22): 2-9 [link]

In utter humiliation, this Sacred Heart then offered upon the Cross the sacrifice that Adam, Eve and every other human being before Him had failed to offer: complete subjection to the Divine will. This is described wonderfully in our second reading from S. Paul. Humility is rewarded, as S. Paul tells us, because it is when we put ourselves in the lowest place that the Holy One beckons us higher.

“Yours is to be the same mind which Christ Jesus shewed. His nature is, from the first, divine, and yet He did not see, in the rank of Godhead, a prize to be coveted; He dispossessed Himself, and took the nature of a slave, fashioned in the likeness of men, and presenting Himself to us in human form; and then He lowered His own dignity, accepted an obedience which brought Him to death, death on a cross. That is why God has raised Him to such a height, given Him that Name which is greater than any other name; so that everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth must bend the knee before the Name of Jesus, and every tongue must confess Jesus Christ as the Lord, dwelling in the glory of God the Father.”

Letter of S. Paul to the Philippians, 2: 5-11 [link]

Glorified in suffering (Sunday V of Lent)

This Sunday is called Passion Sunday. Not Palm Sunday – that comes next weekend. The reason we begin already to speak of the Passion this Sunday is because the liturgy features today the moment when our Lord set His face towards Jerusalem and to His great ordeal. As He says in the gospel reading today, the hour had finally arrived.

“And there were certain Gentiles, among those that had come up to worship at the feast, who approached Philip, the man from Bethsaida in Galilee, and made a request of him; ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘we desire to see Jesus.’ Philip came and told Andrew, and together Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them thus, ‘The time has come now for the Son of Man to achieve His glory.'”

Gospel of S. John, 12: 20-23 [link]

What hour is that? If we read through the latter part of the Old Testament, we hear prophets repeatedly speaking, shouting, singing about the Day of the Lord, that awesome Day, when He will bring about His justice and His salvation. The God Who lives beyond time ordered that we human beings live within time. The reason for this is that time permits us to change, to mend our way, to repent and return to Him. By our dispositions at the end of our time will we be judged, and pray God we shall all die a good and holy death, in union with Him, so bringing a good state of soul with us into eternity, into timelessness. But, because we live within time, to bring about our change of heart and our conversion to Him, God entered into time Himself in the being of Christ. And God thus living within time carefully planned the moment when He would accomplish His end, and sacrifice His life for the salvation of mankind.

At the end of thirty years of dedication to this mission, Christ had arranged that He should ascend the mountain to Jerusalem and be sacrificed at the very moment that the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Holy City. The sacrifice of those lambs commemorated the original passover lambs of the book of Exodus that enabled the passing of death over the Hebrews in Egypt under Moses. The sacrifice of this Lamb of God would enable the passing of death over all men and women who embraced Him. This is not an easy thing – to sacrifice one’s life even for his friends – and we must always remember that this Son of God was also a Son of Man – a human being. What a terror for Him, especially knowing by His divine foresight the manner of His torture and death.

“Christ, during His earthly life, offered prayer and entreaty to the God who could save Him from death, not without a piercing cry, not without tears; yet with such piety as won Him a hearing. Son of God though He was, He learned obedience in the school of suffering, and now, His full achievement reached, He wins eternal salvation for all those who render obedience to Him.”

Letter to the Hebrews, 5: 7-9 [link]

What does this second reading say? He offered up entreaty and prayer, even with tears, that He may be saved out of death, and He was given authority by God the Father to return to life once more. But note that it says that He had to submit Himself in obedience to the command of God the Father, and perfectly unite His human will to the divine Will that also was His. And it all began as He first turned His face towards the Holy City, the God Who was honoured in the Temple there now looking forward to dying there. And the signal was given, as in the gospel reading, by the arrival of some Greeks to see Christ. Greeks who were obviously not Jewish. Here is another premonition of the coming birth of the Church – a community of both Jews and Gentiles, united together, as the prophets had long predicted. If we want a good idea of what was in the minds of Christ’s hearers as He now solemnly declared His coming death, we could pull out the prophecy of Isaiah and read through the last two chapters of it.

“Hark, a stir of tumult in the city, a stir in the temple! It is the stir the Lord makes, as He brings retribution on his enemies! Without travail, the mother has given birth; before her time a mother of men. Never till now was such a tale heard, such a sight witnessed; should a nation’s pangs come upon it in a day, a whole people be born at once? Such are the pangs of Sion, such is the birth of her children. ‘What,’ says the Lord thy God, ‘shall I, that bring children to the birth, want power to bring them forth? Shall I, that give life to the womb, want strength to open it?’ Lovers of Jerusalem, rejoice with her, be glad for her sake; make holiday with her, you that mourned for her till now. So shall you be her foster-children, suckled plentifully with her consolations, drinking in, to your hearts’ content, the abundant glory that is hers. Thus says the Lord, Peace shall flow through her like a river, the wealth of the nations shall pour into her like a torrent in flood; this shall be the milk you drain, like children carried at the breast, fondled on a mother’s lap. I will console you then, like a mother caressing her son, and all your consolation shall be in Jerusalem; your eyes feasted with it, your hearts content, vigorous as the fresh grass your whole frame. Thus to His servants the Lord makes known His power; His enemies shall have no quarter given them.”

Prophecy of Isaias, 66: 6-14 [link]

New foster-children, then, for mother Jerusalem – or rather, for Mother Church. If her children are the Hebrew people, her foster-children will be Gentiles and Greeks. The hour has come for the birth of the Church. Our first reading today speaks of the new covenant of Christ, to be established when those days arrive, when the Law of God will no longer be merely in books to be read out but written into the hearts of all who love God, through the action of the Holy Spirit. But all this glory – the Christian Pentecost and the union of all mankind, Jew and non-Jew alike – required first the evil of the Passion to fall upon Christ, by Whose devotion to His Father and perseverance through suffering the God Who saw mankind leave Him in the persons of Adam and Eve would now be glorified in mankind returning to Him through the person of Christ. When they have returned to Him, they will no longer need to have the Law taught to them by priests and scribes; they will live according to the mind of God.

“A time is coming, the Lord says, when I mean to ratify a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Juda. It will not be like the covenant which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand, to rescue them from Egypt; that they should break My covenant, and I, all the while, their master, the Lord says. No, this is the covenant I will grant the people of Israel, the Lord says, when that time comes. I will implant My law in their innermost thoughts, engrave it in their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Prophecy of Jeremias, 31: 31-33 [link]

And the Voice descended from on high in the gospel reading, and some of them thought it was thunder on a cloudy day. The Voice declared, I have glorified My Name in My beloved Son, and I shall glorify it again in His Church through all ages. Sentence is thus declared upon a sinful world that rejects Christ, but from this world, when He is raised up upon the cross in great suffering, He will draw forth His Church in glory.

Surviving remnants (Sunday IV of Lent)

Our religion is one of resurrection, and if we look down the history of the people of God, first in Scripture and then in Church history, we find that with every great destruction of the people a small remnant survives in faith and devotion and becomes prosperous again. We’ve heard of the proverb that history repeats itself, and the initial devotion of the remnant survives generally for a time, before being increasingly watered down and dying. I say generally, because as the general devotion of a community dies a new small remnant remains faithful and continues to hold up the torch.

“All the chief priests, too, and the common folk did heinous wrong by following the detestable ways of the heathen; desecrated that sanctuary the Lord had set apart for Himself at Jerusalem. He, the God of their fathers, sent messengers to warn them; never a day dawned but He was already pleading with them, so well He loved His people and His dwelling-place. And they? They mocked the Lord’s own messengers, made light of His warnings, derided His prophets, until at last the Lord’s anger was roused against His people, past all assuaging. Then it was that He embroiled them with the king of Babylon, who came and put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary itself, pitying neither young man nor maid, old man nor cripple; none might escape His attack. All the furniture of the Lord’s house, great and small, all the treasures of temple and king and princes, must be carried off to Babylon. Enemy hands set fire to the Lord’s house, pulled down Jerusalem’s walls, burnt its towers to the ground, destroyed all that was of price. Those who escaped massacre were carried off to Babylon, where they must live as slaves to the king and his heirs until their empire should pass to the king of Persia…”

Second book of the Paralipomena (Chronicles), 36: 14-20 [link]

In this first reading this weekend, we hear of the calamitous destruction of Jerusalem and her Temple in 587BC. This was Solomon’s Temple; the great tragedy of its destruction is mirrored by the psalm sandwiched between the readings – that Boney M classic (psalm 136(137)). This second book of the chronicles of the kings began with the construction of this wonderful building and the establishment of its liturgical ritual according to the plan of the shepherd-king David. The priestly chronicler gives a theological justification for God’s permitting the destruction of His Temple: infidelity upon infidelity on the part of the people. Infidelity to God, because they had ignored His commandments, they had ignored the Law of charity. Failing in their charity to God, they had fallen into idolatry and syncretism, which is the worship of multiple gods, the Holy One becoming one of this pantheon. From idolatry, they had naturally fallen into moral depravity, abusing each other in various ways. God had sent them prophets to guide them, but this had had no effect. Thus came the scourge of the Babylonian king, who razed Jerusalem to the ground and carried away most of the people into exile.

After a great snip-snip, the reading tells us about a remnant of this people in Babylon who were permitted by the Persian king Cyrus to return to Jerusalem and rebuild. We should look at this story as similar to the story of the flood and Noah in the book of Genesis, who knows how long before this event in the Chronicles. In the Noah story, a sinful humanity was washed away, and a remnant of it – Noah and his family, with some animals – survived to rebuild. Within a few decades, Jerusalem would be remade, the walls built by the governor Nehemiah, the liturgical rites of a restored temple being offered by priests like Ezra. And within a few centuries, Christ would be on the streets of Jerusalem calling for the people to repent and return to Him, their ancient God, or calamity would strike again. And they crucified Him, as before they had rejected and mistreated the prophets. And within a few decades, in AD70 the Romans would raze Jerusalem to the ground. And a remnant of the people would remain in the surviving Jews and especially in the Church of Christ. O let my tongue cleave to my mouth, if I remember you not, o Jerusalem… Jerusalem stands for the earthly glory of the Chosen People. In so far as we rest upon that earthly glory and ignore the glory of the Holy One Who lives within the Temple, we have built our houses on sand and can be blown away by the turbulence of this world. The Church too has an earthly glory, but our gaze must be set upon the glory of the Holy One Who lives within our hearts as He did within His Temple of old, in Jerusalem. Our sinful behaviour attaches us to this earth and forces Him out of the temples that are our hearts.

“How rich God is in mercy, with what an excess of love He loved us! Our sins had made dead men of us, and hHe, in giving life to Christ, gave life to us too; it is His grace that has saved you; raised us up too, enthroned us too above the heavens, in Christ Jesus. He would have all future ages see, in that clemency which He shewed us in Christ Jesus, the surpassing richness of His grace. Yes, it was grace that saved you, with faith for its instrument; it did not come from yourselves, it was God’s gift, not from any action of yours, or there would be room for pride.”

Letter of S. Paul to the Ephesians, 2: 4-9 [link]

That grace S. Paul speaks of in the second reading, that divine gift which comes to us principally through the sacraments of the Church, will lift our gaze from this earth and fix them upon the God Who redeems us. It is the argument of the Church that even in the great tragedies of our history, such as the destruction of the Jerusalem Temples, there is a great mercy. For with such protracted physical and mental suffering comes a purification of the heart of the people: as they are stripped of the externals of religion and the securities of walls and armies, they rediscover the heart of their ancient faith and are drawn back to the God Who awaits them.

“And this Son of Man must be lifted up, as the serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness; so that those who believe in Him may not perish, but have eternal life. God so loved the world, that He gave up His only-begotten Son, so that those who believe in Him may not perish, but have eternal life. When God sent His Son into the world, it was not to reject the world, but so that the world might find salvation through Him. For the man who believes in Him, there is no rejection; the man who does not believe is already rejected; He has not found faith in the name of God’s only-begotten Son. Rejection lies in this, that when the light came into the world men preferred darkness to light; preferred it, because their doings were evil. Anyone who acts shamefully hates the light, will not come into the light, for fear that His doings will be found out. Whereas the man whose life is true comes to the light, so that His deeds may be seen for what they are, deeds done in God.”

Gospel of S. John, 3: 14-21 [link]

Our gospel reading from the Gospel of S. John is a discourse between Christ and the pharisee S. Nicodemus on baptism – one of the seven sacraments. Baptism is tied inextricably with faith, either the faith of the adult convert or the faith of the parents of the infant catechumen. This faith and belief, the gospel reading associates with light – a theme that is distinctively one of S. John’s, seen in both his Gospel and in his first letter. So Christ declares that they who do not believe – that is, they who prefer the darkness to the light – are condemned by their very choice.

There will come a time, at the end of all things, when, just as with Noah and with the destruction of Jerusalem, everything will pass away. But there will be a remnant, as there always is, to populate a new heaven and a new earth. That remnant is associated with belief in Christ, as He has said multiple times, and so is associated with baptism, by which men and women have embraced the light of Christ, Who called Himself the Way, the Truth and the Life, the only gate of access to the union with God which is the true fulfilment of human existence. 

Commandments of love (Sunday III of Lent)

I would like to look at the readings this weekend very broadly. I shall give the usual introduction I give at our scripture-study hours. The problem mankind has had, from its very beginning, is its determination to ignore the direction or guidance of the God Who made it – the Shepherd King of hearts – and its determination to live life on its own terms. In the words of our Lord the Gospel, to be a flock of ‘sheep without a shepherd.’ Christ was referring to the Jews who were listening carefully to His words as being without a true spiritual leadership (being deserted for a large part in Galilee by the Temple authorities, specifically the learned scribes and Pharisees). But we can speak broadly of humanity as being without a true spiritual leadership, having rejected the direction of the Creator God.

Our first parents Adam and Eve tried to become gods by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge – this was the temptation of the serpent in the garden, that by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they would be like God. From being residents of paradise (paradise = communion with God), they were thrust out into a world of suffering, distress and confusion. The serpent had told Eve a lie – they had been nearer divinity before their trespass against God’s command concerning the tree, than they now were.

Every step that God then took, from the moment He was finished cursing the serpent, was intended to instruct wayward humanity in living a life in communion with God – and then a washing clean or purification of an elect people, so that mankind could enter little by little again into paradise (and paradise = communion with God). So, God mends the breach that our human wills creates with His will by (i) instruction and preparation, and (ii) means of purification.

“And now God spoke all these words which follow. ‘I, the Lord, AM thy God (He said); I, who rescued thee from the land of Egypt, where thou didst dwell in slavery. Thou shalt not defy Me by making other gods thy own. Thou shalt not carve images, or fashion the likeness of anything in heaven above, or on earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, to bow down and worship it. I, thy God, the Lord Almighty, am jealous in My love; be My enemy, and thy children, to the third and fourth generation, for thy guilt shall make amends; love Me, keep My commandments, and mercy shall be thine a thousandfold. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God lightly on thy lips; if a man uses that name lightly, the Lord will not acquit him of sin. Remember to keep the sabbath day holy. Six days for drudgery, for doing all the work thou hast to do; when the seventh day comes, it is a day of rest, consecrated to the Lord thy God. That day, all work shall be at an end, for thee and every son and daughter of thine, thy servants and serving-women, thy beasts, too, and the aliens that live within thy gates. It was six days the Lord spent in making heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them; on the seventh day He rested, and that is why the Lord has blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

Book of Exodus, 20: 1-11 [link]

In the first reading at Mass this weekend, we discover the first part, instruction, in the form of the ten commandments. Above is only the first half of the reading, featuring the three commandments that concern the love of God – it all begins there, with the caution against idolatry and the establishment of the Sabbath observance, and then continues with the love of neighbour. There soon follows in the book of Exodus the means of purification, which in those days meant the sacrifices of animals – animals who would take the place in substitution of men and women who had merited death by their sins. For, you see, all sin merits punishment. Somebody or some thing has to suffer. In the Old Testament, a catalogue of animals suffered for the sins of the people. In the New Testament, God Himself took on a human form so that He Who could not physically suffer in Himself, made Himself capable of suffering. As the Apostles taught us before and after the New Testament was written, Christ made Himself into sin, and suffered the punishment which is our due.

What is the substance of these ten commandments? Christ Himself told us: love of God first, and then love of the men and women we are obliged to call our neighbours. He obliges us, Who gave His life not only for us, but for all of them also. The ten commandments concern love. Do we claim to love God? Then we owe Him worship and praise for He is our Maker, and we are bound to His direction for our lives: His commandments. ‘If you keep My commandments,’ He has said time and again through prophets and priests and finally through Christ, ‘you show that you love Me.’ And then, do we really love our neighbour? Not just our family and friends, but those who annoy us and confuse us, who hate us and work to hurt us. We are asked to love even our enemies. Can we be like Christ, and die praying for our enemies? As S. Paul says in our second reading this weekend, this radical demand of love makes no sense in a world of men, human beings who cannot think with the mind of God – this level of charity, of love, is a grave obstacle for even the Jews who received the commandments from Moses, and certainly it is foolishness for every other race of men.

“So we read in scripture, ‘I will confound the wisdom of wise men, disappoint the calculations of the prudent.’ What has become of the wise men, the scribes, the philosophers of this age we live in? Must we not say that God has turned our worldly wisdom to folly? When God shewed us His wisdom, the world, with all its wisdom, could not find its way to God; and now God would use a foolish thing, our preaching, to save those who will believe in it. Here are the Jews asking for signs and wonders, here are the Greeks intent on their philosophy; but what we preach is Christ crucified; to the Jews, a discouragement, to the Gentiles, mere folly; but to us who have been called, Jew and Gentile alike, Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God. So much wiser than men is God’s foolishness; so much stronger than men is God’s weakness.”

First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 1: 19-25 [link]

But that strength of love – that weakness of God – is what the great English author and philosopher C. S. Lewis would call a ‘deeper magic,’ which appears futile and feeble, but ends up breaking the bonds of slavery and freeing souls to process through to God. The Ten Commandments teach us very much about human relations, but the whole structure of the Law of Moses was not meant to last forever, for the Messiah was meant (as the prophets had declared) to engrave the very logic of those commandments on the hearts of the men and women who loved Him. So, in our gospel story today, He sets about ending those animal sacrifices, by chasing the birds and animals intended for sacrifice out of the Temple, along with the animal sellers and merchants. Within fifty years, as He Himself later foretold, Jerusalem would be in ruins, the Temple razed to the ground by the Romans, who were exasperated with the constant tensions and rebellions fomented by militant Jews.

“So, in Cana of Galilee, Jesus began His miracles, and made known the glory that was His, so that His disciples learned to believe in Him. After this He went down to Capharnaum with His mother, His brethren, and His disciples, not staying there many days. And now the paschal feast which the Jews keep was drawing near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And in the temple there He found the merchants selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting at their trade. So He made a kind of whip out of cords, and drove them all, with their sheep and oxen, out of the temple, spilling the bankers’ coins and overthrowing their tables; and He said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take these away, do not turn My Father’s house into a place of barter.’ And His disciples remembered how it is written, ‘I am consumed with jealousy for the honour of Thy house.’ Then the Jews answered Him, ‘What sign canst Thou shew us as Thy warrant for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.’ At which the Jews said, ‘This temple took forty-six years to build; wilt Thou raise it up in three days?’ But the Temple He was speaking of was His own body; and when He had risen from the dead His disciples remembered His saying this, and learned to believe in the scriptures, and in the words Jesus had spoken. At this paschal season, while He was in Jerusalem for the feast, there were many who came to believe in His Name, upon seeing the miracles which He did.”

Gospel of S. John, 2: 11-23 [link]

Certainly, many will have begun to believe in His Name; this was just after Cana in Galilee, and the transformation of water into wine. That extraordinary miracle would have been told everywhere, and its marital context (it took place at a wedding) would have led thoughtful minds to remember the marital relationship of God with the nation of Israel. The principal locus of that relationship of love was the Temple, so Christ proceeded there. And now comes the beginning of His revolution of the religion of the nation, which ended on Maundy Thursday, with the establishment of the priesthood of the New Testament, and on Good Friday, with the one and final Sacrifice. The sacrificial system of the people would in this way be ‘rebooted,’ because the animal sacrifice had appeared – God in the flesh. ‘I shall be the sacrifice,’ Christ means to say with this rather violent interruption to the Temple processes. ‘I shall be the Temple and I shall be the Priest. You will destroy this Temple of My Body, and in three days I shall raise it up again.’

There have been three Temples in the history of the people, after the Tabernacle that Moses had established in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. The first King Solomon built upon the Temple Mount some three thousand years ago. The second was finished not long before the ministry of our Lord, with modifications by Herod the Great. Both were destroyed and have vanished into the mists of history. But the third Temple remains today, raised on the third day, the Body of Christ – a building of living stones – which we call the Church.

“Draw near to [Christ]; He is the living antitype of that stone which men rejected, which God has chosen and prized; you too must be built up on Him, stones that live and breathe, into a spiritual fabric; you must be a holy priesthood, to offer up that spiritual sacrifice which God accepts through Jesus Christ. So you will find in scripture the words, ‘Behold, I am setting down in Sion a corner-stone, chosen out and precious; those who believe in Him will not be disappointed.’ Prized, then, by you, the believers, He is something other to those who refuse belief; the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief stone at the corner, a stone to trip men’s feet, a boulder they stumble against. They stumble over God’s word, and refuse it belief; it is their destiny. Not so you; you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people God means to have for Himself; it is yours to proclaim the exploits of the God Who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.”

First letter of the Apostle S. Peter, 2: 4-9 [link]