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Archive for the ‘14 Book Corner’ Category

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We Had a Very Good Shepherd

In 14 Book Corner on 2013/02/15 at 1:11 AM

From George Weigel’s Foreword to LIGHT OF THE WORLD by Pope Benedict XVI:

“Popes, if they have the wit and the stomach for it, see the whole picture-the entirety of the human drama, in both its nobility and its wickedness.  And they see it through the prism of humanity’s origins and humanity’s ultimate destiny.”

He quotes Morris West (SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN) who said “The man who wore the Fisherman’s ring and the triple tiara carried also the sins of the world like a leaden cope on his shoulders….Only a fool would envy him the power and the glory and the terror of such a principality.”

Of Benedict, Weigel says that he “brought to the papacy more than a half-century of reflection on the truths of biblical faith and a master teacher’s capacity to explicate those truths and bring them to bear on contemporary situations in a luminously clear way…..whose command of the Bible, the Fathers, and the theological traditions of the Christian West and the Christian East is simply unparalleled….a thoroughgoing Christian disciple who believes that friendship with Jesus is the key to human happiness…”   He calls him “a man of exquisite manners and a pastor’s kind heart ” and credits him with now “reforming the papacy by returning it to its evangelical roots as an office of witness to the truth of God in Christ…from the unique vantage point of the papacy, seeing a world yearning for love but attaching itself to false loves.”

Seewald, Peter LIGHT OF THE WORLD. Ignatius Press

http://www.ignatius.com/Products/LIWO-H/light-of-the-world.aspx

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Long Married Couples’ Joy

In 14 Book Corner on 2013/01/11 at 9:20 AM

Christian marriage is constantly renewed by sacrifice…..It is the slow transfiguration of love through the experiences of a common reality. Early love does not yet see this reality, for the pull of the heart and senses bewitch it.  Only gradually does reality establish itself, when eyes have been opened to the shortcomings and failures revealed by everyday life.  She who accepts the other then, as he really is, in spite of all disappointments, who can share the joys and problems of daily life with him, just as she has shared the great experience of early love, who can walk with him before God and with God’s strength, will achieve second love, the real mystery of marriage.  This is far superior to the first love as the mature person is to the child, as the self-conquering heart is to that which simply allows itself to be conquered.  At the cost of much sacrifice and effort something greater has come into being.

Guardini, Msgr. Romano THE LORD.

 

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Thought Provoking Excerpts From Bishop Sheen

In 14 Book Corner on 2012/10/06 at 9:11 AM

I would highly recommend your reading THE WORLD’S FIRST LOVE by Bishop Fulton Sheen.  Hopefully, some of the excerpts below will encourage you to read it.

“The egotist magnifies himself, but Mary magnifies the Lord….As our ego inflated, the need for God seems to be less; as our ego deflates, the need of God appears in its true hunger.”  P. 41

“Obedience to the law of nature produces physical maturity; obedience to the law of parents produces mental maturity; obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father produces spiritual maturity.”  P.104

“Mary’s sorrow was not what she suffered but what He had to suffer.  That was the tragedy.  Love never thinks of itself.” P. 244

“Eden reversed: Three things cooperated in our fall: a disobedient Man, Adam; a proud woman, Eve; and a tree.  God takes the three elements that led to the defeat of man and uses them as instruments of victory: the obedient new Adam, Christ; the humble new Eve, Mary and the tree of the cross.”  P. 256

“Mary’ Fiat was one of the great Fiats of the universe: one made light, another accepted the Father’s will in the Garden, and hers accepted a life of selfless fellowship with the Cross….Our will is the only thing that is absolutely our own; hence it is the perfect offering we can make to God….There is only one thing in the world that can prevent finding each (God and one) and that is the human will.  We must will to find God; otherwise He will always seem to be the hidden God.”  P. 258

“It is not that God has abandoned the world but that the world has abandoned God and cast its lot with nature divorced from nature’s God….The new name for nature is science.  Science rightly understood means reading he wisdom of God in nature.  Science wrongly understood means reading the proofs of the book of nature while denying the book ever had an Author.”  P. 270

“The child, by making himself wiser than his mother, discovers his stupidity.  Man, by making himself a god, discovers the painful agony that he is not God.  When the first man made this discover, Scripture describes him as “naked”.  Naked, because the man who neglects or rejects God has nothing.  He may cover himself for a while with the fig leaves of “success,” “art,” “science,” and “progress” or by rationalizing his conduct, saying that there is not truth.  But he knows that these are but inadequate shred and cannot cover all his wants.  This is modern nudity – to be without God.”

Sheen, Fulton THE WORLD’S FIRST LOVE.  Ignatius Press.  http://www.ignatius.com/Products/CategoryCenter.aspx?SearchTerm=The+world’s+first+love

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He Is Worthy of Adoration

In 14 Book Corner on 2012/01/13 at 9:28 PM

The reason Msgr. Romano Guardini gives for God being deserving of adoration is because He is the Creator and consequently is all good, holy and true; that it is that holiness which makes him worthy and omnipotent. Therefore adoration is an act that makes sense;  one bows one’s body and soul before His omnipotent Creator.

Guardini also stresses the grandeur of spiritual purity with not only the body, heart having purity but also the soul; all of which are essential for the health of the entire person created in the image of God.  He elaborates eloquently: “The purity of the spirit is dependent upon truth.  A spirit is pure when it makes clear-cut distinctions between great and little, good and bad; when it refuses to bend yes into no and no into yes, but keeps them undistorted by a straight either-or.  This does not mean that with the resultant clarity the good is also already accomplished and the bad avoided; it means something much more elementary: that virtue is never called vice, and vice virtue.

Purity of spirit lies at the beginning of things, there where the first stirrings set in, where conceptions of being and doing are formed.  It is that initial authenticity to which the true meaning of words is grounded and their relation to each other is corrected, their edges trimmed.  Spirit becomes impure through essential dishonesty.  When it attempts to call evil good, it becomes essentially corrupt.  A lie is always evil, but worse than its conscious evil is loss of the fundamental sense of truth.  The spirit that errs is not yet impure–for  example when it judges facts falsely, uses words incorrectly or confuses images.  It is impure when it is indifferent to truth; when it no longer desires to think cleanly or to measure by the standards of eternity; when it no longer knows that the dignity and honor of truth are its own dignity and honor; when it besmudges the sense of word  which is the sense of things and of existence itself, robbing them of their austerity and nobility.

Divine worship protects the purity of spirit.  As long as a person bows his head before his Maker as before on “worthy: because he is holy and true, that person will be immune to intrinsic deception.  Health and purity of spirit are man’s greatest forces, but also, as human nature now is, his most vulnerable and seducible.  They need protection.  Some sure means of distinguishing between true and false, pure and impure must exist.  That a person fails to do the right thing after he has recognized it is serious, and he will be called to judgment because of it.  But incomparably worse is a break with truth itself: intrinsic deception readable in the eyes because it has taken hold of the spirit.  That is why something must exist in which the truth of the heart can constantly renew itself, in which the spirit can be cleansed, the eye cleared, the character strengthened.  And there is: adoration.  Nothing is more important for man than to incline his spirit before God, personally to experience the truth that is God; this is great and sacred and salutary for body and soul.”

Guardini, Romano.  THE LORD.  Regnery pp576-578

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-lord-romano-guardini/1002014783?ean=9780895267146&itm=1&usri=guardini%2bthe%2blord

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Daughter of Zion

In 14 Book Corner on 2011/12/23 at 9:11 AM

Some gleanings from Cardinal Ratzinger’s book: Daughter of Zion.  (Ignatius Press)

The portrait of Mary includes the likeness of the great mothers of the Old Testament like Sarah, Hannah.  Into that portrait is woven the whole theology of daughter of Zion, in which the prophets announced the mystery of God’s love for Israel.

 In the Gospel of John: the figure of Eve, the “woman” par excellence is borrowed to interprets Mary.

The figure of Eve as necessarily the opposite pole of man, Adam.  In the Old Testaments’s history of promises: Sarah-Hagar; Rachel-Leah; Hannah-Penina: fertile and infertile stand opposite each other and in the process a remarkable reversal in values is achieved.

St. Paul developed his theology of spiritual birth from this: the true son of Abraham is not the one who traces his physical origin to him, but the one who in a new way beyond mere physical birth, has been conceived through the creative power of God’s word of promise.

Near the end of the Old Testament canon, a new entirely original type of theology of woman is developed. The great salvific figures of Esther and Judith, judge Deborah – both oppressed (embody defeated Israel)- the woman as savior the embodiment of Israel’s hope, thereby takes her place among the unblessed-blessed mothers; not as a priestess, but as a prophetess and judge-savior.

In the theological short-story type of the woman-savior, the covenant relation of Yahweh to Israel is a covenant of marital love.  Israel as a woman, who is in this relationship with God is, at once virgin and mother.  The existence of each individual as Israelite is expressed interpersonally in the fidelity of the marriage covenant.

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“Holy, Holy, Holy” by Fr. Brandon Jones

In 14 Book Corner on 2011/12/16 at 9:50 AM

“Holy, Holy, Holy”

Fr. Brandon H. Jones

“In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they hovered.One cried out to the other: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!” (Isaiah 6:1-3).

This vision of the prophet Isaiah is a glimpse of the heavenly liturgy, a window into the supernatural realities that occurred in the temple worship of the old covenant and even now continue in the Christian liturgy whenever the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered.

We know that before the death of Pope St. Clement in 96 AD, Christians were singing this hymn in the liturgy. In fact, if one looks at the Latin text, “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth,” we see that it transliterates a word from Hebrew, “Sabaoth,” which translates as “armies” or “hosts.” The same treatment is given to the word “Amen,” a Hebrew word, which essentially means, “so be it.” If one compares the Latin liturgical text to the Vulgate of St. Jerome from around 382 AD, we find that he translated this passage “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus exercituum,” or “Lord of armies.” The point is that the Latin liturgical text that the Church prays in the Roman Missal is older even than the Vulgate Bible of St. Jerome!

The 1973 English Translation, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might,” has now been replaced with “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts.” “Hosts” are spiritual armies, myriads upon myriads of angels who protect us and adore the Lord truly present on the altar. Our Holy Father, Benedict XVI wrote, “In the celebration of Holy Mass, we insert ourselves into this liturgy that always goes before us. All our singing is a singing and praying with the great liturgy that spans the whole of creation.” (Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 152).

Added to this text from Isaiah are words spoken on the occasion of our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, found in Matthew 21 and Mark 11: “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” “Hosanna” means something like: “Come to our aid,” or “bring salvation.” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” comes from Psalm 118, which “originally formed part of Israel’s pilgrim liturgy used for greeting pilgrims as they entered the city or the Temple.” (Pope Benedict XVI,  Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two, 7).

The Holy Father explains that, “The Benedictus also entered the liturgy at a very early stage. For the infant Church, “Palm Sunday” was not a thing of the past. Just as the Lord entered the Holy City that day on a donkey, so too the Church saw him coming again and again in the humble form of bread and wine. The Church greets the Lord in the Holy Eucharist as the one who is coming now, the one who has entered into her midst. At the same time, she greets him as the one who continues to come, the one who leads us toward his coming, As pilgrims, we go up to him; as a pilgrim he comes to us and takes us up with him in his “ascent” to the Cross and Resurrection, to the definitive Jerusalem that is already growing in the midst of this world in the communion that unites us with his body.” (Ibid., 10-11).

In the Sanctus we once again see how a small alteration in the wording of the revised Missal brings us closer to the way Christians were praying almost 2000 years ago.

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Spiritual Icons

In 14 Book Corner on 2011/12/16 at 9:46 AM

The early Christians understood and demonstrated what Pope Benedict speaks of…. The Holy Spirit and the Church.

“God did not create the person so that he might be dissolved but so that he might open himself in his entire height and in his innermost depth-therefore, where the Holy Spirit embraces him and is the unity of divided persons.

“The Church is the icon of the Father, the image of God, and at the same time the image of man, so the Church is the image of the Holy Spirit. From here we can understand what the Church actually is in the deepest part of her nature: namely, the overcoming of the boundary between I and Thou, the union of men among themselves through the radical transcendence of self into eternal love. Church is mankind being brought into a way of life of the Trinitarian God.  For this reason she is not something that belongs to a group or a circle of friends.  For this reason she cannot become a national Church or be identifies with a race or a class.  She must, if this is true, be catholic in order ‘to gather into one the children of God, who are scattered abroad.  (John 11:52)

The Church does not being, therefore, as a club; rather, she begins catholic….The universal Church is not a federation of local churches but rather their mother.”

Pope Benedict XVI, IMAGES OF HOPE.  Ignatius pp.68-69.

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Rubrics by Fr. Brandon Jones

In 14 Book Corner on 2011/11/25 at 9:11 AM

“Rubrics” are directions given by the Church to the celebrant and the assembly for the proper celebration of the Liturgy. The word “rubric” derives from the Latin word, “ruber,” or “red” because in any liturgical book the rubrics are printed in red, while the actual liturgical texts are printed in black. Hence the wise maxim that, in the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, we are to “say the black and do the red.”

One of the most often ignored rubrics occurs during the Creed:

All bow during these two lines:

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

Why are we to bow at this point in the Creed? The answers comes into clearer focus when we look at the new English translation:

and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,

and became man.

The Lord Jesus was not simply born but incarnatus est, he “was incarnate” of the Virgin Mary. Nowadays many people understand what it means when speaking of “reincarnation,” but how many of those people could speak of the Incarnation?

The beautiful Prologue of St. John’s Gospel proclaims: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory…” (John 1:14). “Incarnate” means taking on flesh: “Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 463). The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that the Word became flesh in order to save us by reconciling us with God, so that thus we might know God’s love, to be our model of holiness, and to make us partakers of the divine nature. (Cf. CCC 457-460). Indeed, “The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.” (CCC 464).

Each time we sing or recite the Creed we call to mind the event in which, to quote Father Robert Barron, “the Word of God — the mind by which the whole universe came to be — did not remain sequestered in heaven but rather entered into this ordinary world of bodies, this grubby arena of history, this compromised and tear-stained human condition of ours.” Such love, such mercy on God’s part deserves our gratitude, indeed, our adoration expressed bodily. This is why the General Instruction of the Roman Missal directs that “At the words…and by the Holy Spirit…all make a profound bow; but on the Solemnities of the Annunciation and of the Nativity of the Lord, all genuflect.” (GIRM, 137). “No one, whether shepherd or wise man, can approach God here below except by kneeling before the manger at Bethlehem and adoring him hidden in the weakness of a new-born child.” (CCC 563).

I’m Father Brandon Jones and this has been a Missal Moment.

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Development of Doctrine

In 14 Book Corner on 2011/11/05 at 1:11 AM

This is Revelation: God’s mysteries opening up gradually . . . whereby little by little God makes Himself known.

St. Augustine wrote  that God in His mercy reveals his mysteries to man gradually in order that the whole world should experience “this saving proclamation, on hearing it should believe, on believing it hope, on hoping in it love.”

In his essay on THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE,  John Henry Newman demonstrated that the theology of the Church is no random combination of various opinions, but a diligent and patient working out of one doctrine from many materials.  He explained the slow, painful, anxious taking up of a new perspective into an existing body of belief.

“The integrity of the Catholic development is still more evident when they are viewed in contrast with the history of other doctrinal systems.  Philosophies and religions of the world have each its day, and are part of a succession.  They supplant and are in turn supplanted.  But the Catholic religion alone has had no limits; it alone has ever been greater than the emergence, and can do what others cannot do.

Truth is ever consolidating itself, and, as time goes on, shining into broader day.  For while the devises of adversaries were extinguished at once, undone by their very  impetuosity-on heresy after another presenting its own novelty, the former specimens ever dissolving and wasting variously in manifold and  multiform shapes-the  brightness of the Catholic and only true Church went forward increasing and enlarging, yet ever in the same things, and in the same way, beaming on the whole race of Greeks and barbarians with the awfulness, and simplicity, and nobleness, and sobriety, and purity of its divine polity and philosophy.

Exclusivity, bigotry and intolerance are some of the ordinary charges hurled at the Church by those who hold: that truth and falsehood in religion are but a matter of opinion; that one doctrine is as good as another; that the God does not intend we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of necessity or accident; that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we profess; that our merit lies in seeking not possessing; that it is a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should not be true; that it maybe a gain to succeed, and can be no harm or fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief belongs to the mere intellect,not to the heart also; that we may safely trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and need no other guide.”

Newman, John Henry ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE.  http://www.amazon.com/Essay-Development-Christian-Doctrine/dp/1616402520/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310080803&sr=1-2

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Real Hope

In 14 Book Corner on 2011/11/04 at 1:11 AM
 Excerpt from ‘The Forty Days’ Teaching by Cardinal John Henry Newman in PRAYERS, VERSES AND DEVOTIONS. Ignatius Press.

God has determined, unless I interfere with His plan, that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness.  He looks upon me individually, He calls me by my name, He knows what I can do, what I can do best, be what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it to me.

God knows what is my greatest happiness, but I do not . . . God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our happiness. . . . We are blind; left to ourselves we should take the wrong way; we must leave it to Him.

I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created.

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. . . . I am necessary for His purpose. . . . I am a link in a chain . . . of connections between persons.

I will trust Him. Whatever, whenever I am, I can never be thrown away. . . . He knows what He is about.

How constant is He in His affection! “I will never leave thee or forsake thee.”  He did not forsake me in my sin. . . . He found me and regained me. . . . He resolved to restore me, in spite of myself. . . . What does He ask of me, but that, as He has loved me with an everlasting love, so I should love Him in such poor measures as I can show.