Pages Menu
RssFacebook
Categories Menu

Posted by on Dec 14, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

st-john-of-the-cross.jpg

December 14 is the feast day of St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), a mystic, reformer, and one of the greatest poets of Spanish literature’s Golden Age. He was born Juan de Yepes y Alvarez into a “converso” or converted Jewish family. His father died when he was young and he and his two older brothers, along with their mother, moved from village to village in Castilla, suffering from poverty and rejection by both Jews and Christians. At Medina del Campo, from 1559 to 1563, he studied humanities at the Jesuit school. In 1563, he entered the Carmelite Order and in 1564, he studied philosophy at the Colegio San Andres at the University of Salamanca. In 1567, he was ordained a priest and wanted to join the Carthusians, since he felt called to a life of silent contemplation. St. Theresa of Avila convinced him to help her reform the Carmelites instead.

In 1568, he co-founded the Discalced Carmelites ,with St. Teresa of Avila. (The were called discalced because they returned to the custom of walking bare foot.) St. Teresa had a vision for restoring the Carmelite order to its original austerity and seclusion from the world. St. John founded the first Discalced Carmelite monastery at Duruelo in 1569. There was great opposition to the reform within the Carmelite Order. He was imprisoned in Toledo by his superiors for 9 months, from December 1577 to August 1578, when he managed to escape after brutal treatment and privation. His tormentors tried to sway him from his leadership of the reform movement, which had been legitimately authorized. Nevertheless, St. John of the Cross went on with the reform and produced wonderful poetry and treatises on the spiritual life.

It may seem incomprehensible to us today that there could be opposition to such a reform that would return an order to its original vision. However, many of the men and women in convents and monasteries at the time were placed there by their families, especially if they were younger sons and daughters. A position in the Church strengthened the family’s position and avoided the costs and alliances that came with marriages. Making the best of a bad situation, many of these men and women with “enforced” vocations tried to live as comfortable a life as possible. They weren’t called to live lives of austere, silent contemplation and fought the reform.

Just as he had suffered from those opposed to the reform, St. John’s latter years would be marked by suffering from those who embraced the reform but went too far in their austerity. When he opposed and corrected their excesses, they did their best to neutralize his influence. St. John of the Cross died in 1591 after he had been denied adequate medical attention and endured isolation. It seems that much of his maltreatment by both sides was not due entirely to his authorized reform activities. He was a “converso” and considered a renegade and certainly beneath the standing of so-called “pure bloods,” who resented and were shamed by his holiness and learning.

el-greco-toledo.jpg El Greco’s “View of Toledo”

St. John of the Cross was a man of great courage, without bitterness, because his suffering never conquered him. Thomas Merton reflects on the imprisonment of St. John of the Cross in Toledo as an example of the holiness of a saint coming from grappling with the problem of evil. Why do good people suffer? Why do I suffer? His response during his inhuman imprisonment was to write a major part of one of his greatest poems on union with Christ, The Spiritual Canticle. Out of great darkness and suffering came great light and peace.

Stanzas Of The Soul

One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
—ah, the sheer grace!—
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
—ah, the sheer grace!—
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
—him I knew so well—
there in a place where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Read More

Posted by on Dec 13, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

Saint of the Day – St. Lucy of Syracuse: Hope for an End to Religious Violence

st-lucy-of-syracuse.jpg

December 13 is the feast day of the early Christian martyr, St. Lucy of Syracuse (283-304). There is really very little that is known about her, except that she was killed under the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian. She was revered by the early church and her name has been included in the Eucharistic prayer of the Mass in Rome from the early centuries.

This lack of information did not prevent subsequent generations of Christians from creating an elaborate legend. In it a beautiful young woman decides to dedicate herself to God as a virgin, gives her dowry to the poor, and her rejected suitor denounces her as a Christian. Her beautiful eyes are gouged out, but God miraculously gives her an even more beautiful pair of eyes. This led to Medieval and later depictions of St. Lucy carrying her gouged out eyes on a plate.

In northern Europe and Scandinavia, celebration of the feast of St. Lucy adopted pre-Christian elements of worship of the goddess Freya and observances of the winter solstice. Freya’s chariot is pulled by cats across the winter sky. Distributing cat shaped rolls on St. Lucy’s day is still a popular custom. Lucy means light, so the association with the winter solstice is not surprising. Candles were lit on St. Lucy’s day and girls would sometimes wear wreaths with lighted candles in their hair. (Please do not do this at home, or anywhere else for that matter!)

While the legends associated with St. Lucy elaborate the sufferings of a martyr, what is overlooked when we separate historical fact from fantasy is the reality of violent religious persecution and the witness of Christians in the most dire of circumstances. We might have the impression from our notions of ancient history that the wholesale murder of Christians occurred only under certain Roman emperors. However, persecutions and the witness of Christians have continued to the present day. There are some estimates that 65% of Christian martyrs actually gave their lives in the 20th century and the trend is continuing in the current century.

From Palestine to India to China and North Korea, through Africa and Latin America, Christians are being oppressed and killed for their faith. The conflicts are with Moslems, Hindus, Communists, right wing dictatorships, and leftist guerillas. Certainly, Christians have oppressed and killed members of other Christian and non-Christian groups. Clearly, religious, ethnic, tribal, and political conflicts will continue to lead to oppression and death. Many times the veneration of martyrs of any group is used to move a community to violence.

Nevertheless, as Christians, when we commemorate martyrs such as St. Lucy, we should re-commit ourselves to the beatitudes, especially “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Our witness – the Greek word is marturia – should be to remove the social and political causes of violence and oppression for all groups. This is a naive and foolishly unrealistic goal, but so is the Kingdom of Heaven, as testified to by martyrs like St. Lucy.

Read More

Posted by on Dec 11, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

Saint of the Day – Our Lady of Guadalupe

guadalupe-roses.jpg

On December 12, 1531, a middle aged Indian convert, St. Juan Diego opened his “tilma” where he had placed the roses that the Lady on the Hill had told him to take to the bishop, Fray Juan de Zumarraga. His earlier attempts to tell the bishop of the Lady’s request to build a shrine on the hill of Tepeyac in her honor had met with polite skepticism. The bishop had wanted a sign, and roses in December in the high altitude and cold temperature of Mexico City would have been enough of a sign. However, when St. Juan Diego let down the poncho-like cold weather garment, made of century plant cactus fiber, maguey, the roses tumbled down on the floor and the reluctant messenger followed the eyes of the astonished bishop as he gazed on the Indian’s tilma and fell to his knees. Unique among all of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary, this one produced a physical artifact. On the tilma was the image of the Lady who would come to symbolize a new mixed-race people, a nation, and the aspirations of Catholics throughout the Americas.

Like most Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, my earliest memories are of this miraculous image. Our Lady of Guadalupe is so much a part of the culture, and so pervasive, that the miraculous image is a symbol with multiple layers of meaning. The words of Psalm 147 in Latin “Non Fecit Taliter Omni Nationi” – “He has not done so with any other nation” – are often associated with the image. More idiomatically, they are taken to mean, “He hasn’t done this for anyone else.” While the Psalmist originally applied these words to God’s unique relationship with his chosen people, the meaning has been appropriated by Mexicans and the Latin peoples of the Americas.

From the first days of the apparition to the present, the miraculous image has symbolized a heavenly acceptance of the indigenous and mixed native and European inhabitants. The Virgin does not have blond hair and blue eyes like the Virgen de las Mercedes ( Our Lady of Mercy) of the Spanish conquerors. She is dark complected, with brown eyes and black hair, this Lady of Tepeyac. However, she does not have the pronounced Moorish features of the black Madonna of Guadalupe found in Extremadura in southern Spain.

guadalupe-extremadura.jpg

The devotion to the Spanish Madonna of Guadalupe reached its height in Spain in the 1400s and 1500s, since she was the patroness of the global explorers who set sail from Extremadura and also the patroness of all the Spanish lands of the New World. Many years before the apparition in Mexico City, Columbus named an island in the Caribbean Guadalupe (now Guadaloupe) in her honor. Historians can probably fill us in on the details of how the Lady of Tepeyac became identified with Guadalupe. Perhaps the Spanish preferred to believe that their explorer patroness had made an appearance in the Americas. Nevertheless, the secret password of identity for Mexicans and those of Mexican descent is Tepeyac. For those who have been conquered, scorned, and rejected and yet have built a vibrant and dynamic civilization, what greater recognition could there be? Non Fecit Taliter Omni Nationi.

Read More

Posted by on Dec 10, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

The Evangelical Prophets of Advent: Preparing the Way

isaiah.jpg

We often think of prophets as people in robes holding a staff rebuking a king or trying to point out the error of our ways. In this season of Advent, the prophets are taking a different tack.

Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, comments in his interview with Krista Tippett, that Evangelicals are returning to an emphasis on personal AND social morality. He recounted how the Catholic Church had continued to emphasize both at a time in the mid-20th century when Evangelicals focused on personal salvation and morality, while Protestants focused on social morality issues such as racism, poverty, and human rights.

Kay Warren responded to a series of questions about their Saddleback, CA church’s mission to combat HIV / AIDS in Africa. Krista Tippett asked her how she could reconcile issues of sexual promiscuity and the use of condoms. Her answer was telling. Kay Warren made an important distinction between ideal positions on morality and their pastoral application. She said that in an ideal world, abstinence before marriage and fidelity in marriage were ideal solutions to the prevention of HIV /AIDS. However, condoms can’t be disregarded because they save lives in many situations in which women and men have no real control over the behavior of their spouses.

The Warren’s HIV / AIDS initiative has enlisted the help of prominent people on both sides of the political spectrum. People from the left and the right have groused about the other side being included. However, the Warrens, insist that their mission is not about politics, but faith and compassion for all people.

In a previous interview with Jim Wallis, the author of God’s Politics: How the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, and founder of “Covenant for a New America,” Krista Tippett focused on Wallace’s campaign to combat poverty and the dehumanization it brings.

Previous Evangelical leaders, such as Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson, have had the ear of the rich and powerful, in addition to the ear of millions of people. Their influence on key political figures from Richard Nixon to the current President Bush has been noted.

According to Krista Tippett, new leaders like Jim Wallace and Rick and Kay Warren now have this same influence, but with a broader message. Wallis not only has the ear of Presidential candidates, but he is close to the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, and the newly elected Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd. Rick and Kay Warren are also sought out by the powerful. The difference between this new group of Evangelical leaders and the older group is an emphasis on salvation – personal, economic, and spiritual – as brought about by the activity of God in the assembly – the church. Salvation in Christ comes through the community that is church.

These leaders reflect a broader movement among younger Evangelicals, who are emphasizing the transcendent and the immediate dimensions of faith in ministering to people in need as ministering to Christ. According to Krista Tippett, these young Evangelicals are called the “New Monastics” and live in communities emphasizing simplicity and service to the disenfranchised.

People familiar with the history of Evangelicals and other branches of Christianity will realize that there is nothing “new” in these developments. Yet they are wonderful to behold.

Read More

Posted by on Dec 8, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

Saint of the Day – St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin

st-juan-diego.jpg

December 9 is the feast day of St. Juan Diego (1474-1548), who was born Cuauhtlatoatzin (kwah-oot-laht-oh-ahtzin) – Talking Eagle. St. Juan Diego was declared a saint – on July 31, 2002, – by Pope John Paul II on his visit to Mexico City. The Pope declared him protector of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and reminded the thousands who gathered of their responsibility to promote social justice and equality for their oppressed and marginalized brothers and sisters.

Juan Diego was a member of the Chichimeca nation, in the Anahuac Valley, near Tenochitlán – present day Mexico City. He was a landowner, farmer and weaver of mats, and a married man. He was 47 when he witnessed the conquest of Tenochitlán by Hernán Cortez in 1521. He and his wife were baptized in 1524 or 1525 by the first missionaries, who were Franciscans. He took the baptismal name of Juan Diego and his wife’s baptismal name was María Lucía. A few years later, María Lucía became ill and died.

On Sunday, December 9, 1531, while he was walking to Mass, he saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary on the hill of Tepeyac. Our Lady of Tepeyac would become known more widely as Our Lady of Guadalupe, because of the similarity of the dark complexioned Virgins in both Tepeyac and Guadalupe in Spain.

St. Juan Diego spent the rest of his life as a hermit and caretaker of the chapel which had been built on the hill of Tepeyac after the apparition, at the request of the Lady. The Virgin Mary appeared as a Native American to a Native American Christian. The impact on the vast indigenous population and the Spanish conquerors was stunning. Not only did this apparition mark the beginning of massive conversions, it was also the beginning of the Great Mixing – El Gran Mestizaje – the creation of a new uniquely Mexican ethnic group, blending Europeans and the indigenous peoples.

While it would be nice to give this post a Hollywood ending by enlarging the camera angle from the Indian kneeling before the Virgin Mary and panning to a sweeping vista of sunrise over the great volcanoes surrounding Mexico City, we really should not. St. Juan Diego’s life was a very gritty reality. The death of his wife and millions of other native people from European conquest and disease was another layer of bitter sadness laid on top of the hardships of being subject to the Aztecs. St. Juan Diego saw everything he knew and understood swept away before his eyes – something that later generations of Mexicans would also experience more than once.

He appears to be one of the few saints who tried to avoid The Lady he knew was waiting for him, because his uncle was very ill and he needed to get a priest for his uncle before he died. Instead, she met him as he tried to get around the hill of Tepeyac. The Lady reassured him that his uncle would be okay and that he should just trust in her. He did, and as they say, the rest is history – the history of a new day for a vanquished people.

Read More

Posted by on Dec 8, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

Feast of the Day: The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

immaculate-conception.jpg

December 8 is the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, a solemnity celebrating the conception of the Virgin Mary. According to apocryphal writings, Mary’s parents were Joachim and Anna. Mary’s conception, which occurred in the natural way, was special in that Mary was spared the “stain” of original sin.

There has been a long tradition of celebrating the feast of the Virgin’s conception by her mother. There has also been a long tradition that Mary was redeemed in anticipation of the redemption of all humanity by her son Jesus. St. Thomas Aquinas and others taught that Mary’s redemption occurred sometime after her conception, to conform with the scripture that all men and women have sinned except Christ. The issue has to do with the fact that God’s becoming fully human in the mystery of the Incarnation, when Mary conceived Jesus, could only have occurred in one who was sinless and not subject to the pain and weakness of a fallen human nature. When the angel Gabriel saluted Mary, he addressed her as Full of Grace. This greeting would not have made sense – according to the long tradition of theology – if Mary were tainted by the fallen state that afflicts every other human until Baptism.

Devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus, was recorded in early feasts emphasizing her role in salvation history. Mary’s “yes” to the angel Gabriel set everything in motion when she was overshadowed by the power of the Most High. During the controversies about the nature of Christ in the early centuries, titles given to Mary became very important. If Jesus was truly human and divine, Mary became Theotokos – Mother of God. If Jesus was not truly God, Mary was called Christotokos – Mother of Christ.

Exactly how and when Mary was delivered from the sinful state all humans share was not formally defined by the Catholic Church until 1854 by Pius IX. Contrary to the theology of several prominent saints, Mary, from the first moment of her existence, was spared the blockage of grace we call original sin.

An Episcopalian priest, Fr. Matthew Moret, has produced a very short You-Tube video, “Making Sense of Sin,” which succinctly reviews previous conceptions of sin and what these conceptions say about our conception of God. The common concept of sin as a transgression sets God up as the cosmic Judge. Our relationship is not personal but juridical. God’s love becomes conditional on our surrendering our will to His. This concept can be one of a vindictive or manipulative God. Our concept of sin can alienate us from God, contrary to His Divine mercy, love, and grace, which never leave us. Fr. Moret’s short but excellent video presents Kathryn Tanner’s concept of sin as blockage. God continues to heal us, to provide for us in all ways, but we have a diminished capacity to accept or even recognize God’s continual outflowing of good and love to us. Sin is far from trivial, as demonstrated by the brief slide of an entrance to a Nazi death camp.

Mary, Full of Grace and Mother of God. There must have been no blockage. How did that happen?

Read More

Posted by on Dec 7, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

St. Ambrose of Milan

st-ambrose-of-milan.jpg

December 7 is the feast day of St. Ambrose of Milan c. 338-397, who was one of the most prominent bishops in the fourth century.

Pope Benedict XVI aptly summarized the life of St. Ambrose.

On that Good Friday of 397, the open arms of the dying Ambrose expressed his mystical participation in the death and resurrection of Our Lord. This was his last catechesis: Without speaking a word, he spoke with the testimony of life.

Ambrose was not old when he died. He was not even 60, for he was born around 340 in Trier, where his father was prefect of the Gauls. The family was Christian. When his father died, and he was still a boy, his mother brought him to Rome to prepare him for a civil career, giving him a solid rhetorical and juridical education. Around 370, he was sent to govern the provinces of Emilia and Liguria, with headquarters in Milan. It was precisely there where the struggle between orthodox Christians and Arians was seething, especially after the death of Auxentius, the Arian bishop. Ambrose intervened to pacify those of both factions, and his authority was such that, despite the fact that he was nothing more than a simple catechumen, he was acclaimed by the people as bishop of Milan.

St. Ambrose had a rare combination of talents. He was a man of deep holiness, a very competent administrator, a diplomat and politician of great skill, a great theologian, and an extraordinary preacher. While his preaching garnered the the respect of his most famous convert when St. Augustine was still a pagan, it was his life that spoke most eloquently.

St. Ambrose used his many talents to combat Arianism, a heresy which taught that Christ was not eternal – that there was a time “when He was not“. It may sound like a minor point but Arianism undermined the core doctrine of Holy Trinity and converted the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into a loose triad. Arianism not only struck at the core of the Nicene Creed, but it was widely supported by the higher clergy and the ruling class of the Empire.

St. Ambrose played a great role in the development of the Christianity we profess today. He also set a very high standard of personal and professional integrity for bishops and all Christians. His selected writings can be found online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Read More

Posted by on Dec 5, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

Polarization in the Church – The Kingdom Rent Assunder?

brontosaurus-apatosaurus.jpg

“A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” (Mt 12:25) Many of the sayings of Jesus are hard to understand or accept. This one seems only obvious.

It is often said that the lack of Christian unity is a major hazard or stumbling block – scandolos or “scandal” in Greek – for those trying to enter the Kingdom or the Reign of God. The good news is that various groups have begun to treat each other as Christians and not as minions of the anti-Christ. The bad news is that major denominations are split over the existence of the brontosaurus in the sanctuary.

Some people say the beast is an elephant because people experience it differently – like the blind men in the fable. For some it is a rope, for others tree stumps, for a few it feels like a snake. The “elephant” school says that issues like same sex marriage, women’s issues, and diversity are actually the result of a single problem – the need to update Christian ethics and not to take the Bible literally. Christian behavioral norms, according to this school, should be influenced by more enlightened cultural norms and follow the primary mandate of compassionate love.

Others say that the beast is the “Beast” of the Book of Revelation and these challenges to traditional Christian behavioral norms are the beginning of the test of the faithful. According to the “Armageddon” school, the Beast will consume the compromisers like so much buttered popcorn. Those who have not “compromised” will be caught up in the rapture and spared the thousand year reign of the anti-Christ.

Between these two extremes there is a complete spectrum of different intellectual and emotional responses to these issues. Many people are inclined to think that all of this started in the 1960s, when the world got turned upside down. For many Catholics, the secular cultural upheaval of the 1960s was nothing compared to the tsunami of the Second Vatican Council. A few think that Pope Paul VI, in ratifying the declaration on religious liberty and changes to the liturgy, committed apostasy and left the Chair of Peter vacant – Sede Vacante. According to the sedevacantists, the bishops appointed by Paul VI and the popes elected by those bishops have no legitimate authority.

At the other end of the Catholic spectrum, there are those who see Vatican II as limiting and redefining the centrality of rule from Rome. Local churches, governed by lay people, with lay presiders at the Eucharist, are seen as an authentic restoration of the Church. In response, Restorationists – including many young people – think that all these problems will go away if we return to the Golden Age of the Catholic Mass in Latin, with everyone praying their rosaries while the sacred mysteries are performed.

The beast in question is actually a “brontosaurus”(or Apatosaurus), because it is a much older and more intractable species than the elephant. It is not the Beast of the Book of Revelation because it is all too confused and political – and it doesn’t have the gaping maw. The “brontosaurus” is the challenge of living the Christian life and being church in a rapidly changing and unstable world. This challenge actually dates back to the Enlightenment in the 1700’s. However, the major denominations could contain it until the industrial revolution. The urbanization of rural agrarian populations, the revolution in transportation and communication, as well as the emergence of history and the social sciences as academic fields of study, raised major questions that divided church thinkers – the theologians and philosophers. One of the most unsettling discoveries was that Christian philosophy and theology – like all human endeavors – have changed over the centuries.

The Catholic church responded by not only condemning the modern world, but also by rehabilitating the logical approach of Aquinas and Aristotle (See Arraj Chapter 2) as a means of presenting and logically defending the faith against any thought or political action that challenged it. Instead of the medieval spirit of inquiry, students got summaries of pre-digested questions and answers. Not all thinkers went along with this, but they were marginalized or condemned. This gave the appearance of well-being, but like a person with emphysema, the overuse of steroids provides comfort while it destroys the bones. On the positive side, Pope Leo XIII and other Christian leaders, led a social gospel movement to protect the interests of industrial workers. This movement continues today, with the “preferential option for the poor.”

When Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council, the Curia had prepared draft agendas and documents for the bishops. No one foresaw that the octogenerian pope, who had been elected as a caretaker, would encourage the bishops to take matters into their own hands in his opening address, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia.

Having chafed under the control of the Curia, the bishops set their own course. Theologians and philosophers who had been silenced or put to the side were chosen to fill the intellectual vacuum. One of the young superstars was Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. The major problem was that this new school of thinking had never been tested in the open forum of discussion and debate. Conservatives did what they could to stem the tide, but the winds of Aggiornamento (updating) filled the sails of the bishops, the clergy, and more importantly, the people in the pews who now became the “laity.”

In the United States today there are approximately 3,300 men in seminary programs studying for the priesthood. There are also 33,000 men and women in graduate ministry and theological programs who are not studying for the priesthood. The vast majority of them share the same classrooms with the students for the priesthood. However, the newly ordained priests tend be in their 30’s and 50’s and are already formed as people. Many of them are more conservative and many bring with them an entrenched clericalism from their Philippine and Vietnamese cultures.

The growth of the Anglican Communion, the Catholic Church, and other denominations in Africa and Asia – the global south – has already created substantial tensions due to the immense cultural and economic differences which support more traditional behavioral codes and religious perspectives.

So the brontosaurus is alive and well – or at least it will be until we deal with these tensions so that others once again can come to know us as Jesus’ disciples by our love (Jn 13:34-35).

Read More

Posted by on Nov 30, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

Saint of the Day – St. Andrew

st-andrew-apostle.jpg

November 30 is the feast day of St. Andrew, the first apostle called by Jesus. He was the brother of St. Peter and introduced Peter to Jesus. There is very little we know about his life. The Gospels show him present in the ministry of Jesus but in the background, while Peter, James, and John are out front.

The Gospel of Mark (1:16-17) tells of his call by Jesus.

As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen.
17
Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

The first chapter of the Gospel of John presents the call differently:

The next day John (the Baptist) was there again with two of his disciples,
36
and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.”
37
The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus.
38
Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?”
39
He said to them,”Come, and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.
40
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.
41
He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed).
42
Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).
43
The next day he decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip. And Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”
44
Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter.

There is a tradition that St. Andrew was crucified on an X shaped cross at Patras in Greece. We don’t really know where he went to spread the Gospel. Many countries from Greece to Russia claim him. He is the patron saint of Scotland.

These few lines from the Gospels show us a working man who heard the call of John the Baptist with his brother Peter and then followed after the Man John had called the Lamb of God. There is always a human desire to know more about such a person, but what we do know is that St. Andrew challenges us to leave our nets behind and follow too.

Read More

Posted by on Nov 28, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. John of the Cross

The Kingdom of Heaven – Then and Now

siege-of-jerusalem.jpg

As Advent and the beginning of the new liturgical year approach, the readings are replete with messages of apocalypse, end times, and the reign of God.

The central theme of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels is the approaching Kingdom of Heaven. To enter the Kingdom we must be like children, we must leave everything behind, we must have faith even as small as that of a mustard seed. The reign of heaven, the dominion of heaven, the regime of heaven, are all ways of emphasizing the transformative nature of the rule of God on earth. Jesus before Pilate says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” In His prayer teaching us to pray, Jesus says, “Your kingdom come – Your will be done on earth as it in heaven.”

The history of Christianity is replete with efforts to make society conform to Christian teachings in order to bring about a kingdom quite different from what Jesus announced. The movie, The Kingdom of Heaven, is a modern take on crusades and comes at a pivotal time in relations between Christians and Moslems. The movie is a contemporary fable about how we all should live together in peace and religious tolerance. Certainly it is a good message, but the movie defies history to make its point. The movie presents the major protagonists – Christian and Moslem – as moderate enlightened people who might have made a go of it if religious hotheads on both sides had not inflamed the situation. The truth is that the protagonists were – like people of their time – religious. There would be no real motivation for the crusaders to leave Europe without their religious conviction. Nor would the Moslems have allowed the Christians to ransom themselves when Jerusalem was under seige if they hadn’t believed that the Christians would follow through on their threat to destroy The Dome of the Rock and other Islamic holy places. Of course, the conflict was not entirely about religion. There were issues of political and economic power. Yet, ultimately, both sides declared that it was God’s will.

While it might be fashionable to condemn the Christian response to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, it obscures the fact that freedom of religion and religious tolerance were radical 18th century concepts. Benjamin Franklin and other key leaders of the American Revolution were not “Christians” as we understand the term. They were deists and Freemasons who saw religion as an impediment to social reform and progress. For the deist, God created a clockwork universe, set it in motion, and had nothing more to do with it. Jesus was a good teacher of morality and only that. The state should not establish or endorse a religion to the exclusion of others. While this approach provided a fertile ground for faith in the new republic, its implementation in the French Revolution led to wholesale slaughter and the destruction of France’s religious culture.

Even now, we struggle with the concept of religious freedom. There is a fear that tolerance leads to cultural and religious relativism. One is as good as another. Christians believe that the full revelation of God is in Christ Jesus. Moslems believe that Muhammed is the Seal of the Prophets. Many Christians believe that law and social policy should reflect Christian moral norms. With the legalization of divorce, birth control, and homosexuality, the current hold out positions are abortion and fetal stem cell research. Other Christians emphasize the social gospel and the need to inform the human conscience while leaving it free.

So what happened to the Kingdom of Heaven in all of this permissiveness and relativism? The challenge remains. Radical compassion is not compatible with the power politics of the state or our need to control others. There will always be this struggle between the Kingdom which is already here and the Kingdom to come, which we would rather put off indefinitely.

“When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8

Read More