Month: January 2016

Sunday School: 31-Jan-2015

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Jan 26 – The Monk Xenophontes, his spouse Maria and their sons Arkadios and John

XenophonThe Monk Xenophontes, his spouse Maria and their sons Arkadios and John, were noted citizens of Constantinople and lived in the 5th Century. Despite riches and position, they distinguished themselves by their simplicity of soul and goodness of heart.

Wishing to give their sons John and Arkadios a more complete education, they sent them off to the Phoenician city of Beirut. Through Divine Providence the ship on which both brothers sailed became ship-wrecked. The brothers were pitched by the waves onto shore at different places. Aggrieved at being separated, the brothers dedicated themselves to God and accepted monasticism.

For a long time the parents received no news about their children and presumed them to have perished. Xenophontes, however, now already quite old, maintained firm hope in the Lord and consoled his wife Maria, telling her not to sorrow but to believe that their children were watched over by the Lord. After several years the spouses made pilgrimage to the Holy places and at Jerusalem they met their sons, pursuing asceticsm at different monasteries. The joyful parents gave thanks to the Lord for providently re-uniting the whole family.

For the remainder of their lives, the monastics Xenophontes and Maria dedicated themselves to God and accepted monasticism. The Monks Arkadios and John, having taken leave of their parents, went out into the wilderness, where after long ascetic toil they were glorified by gifts of wonderworking and perspicacity. The monastic elders Xenophontes and Maria, having pursued asceticism in silence and strict fasting, also received of God the gift of wonderworking.

This post is not for you

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I wanted to write a short follow-up to my post to an article earlier this week: Analysis Paralysis and making the first move. In that post I shared a quotation from the TV show “Person of Interest” about playing the game of chess:

“No one could possibly predict [all the possibilites]… Which means that that first move can be terrifying…there’s a virtually infinite sea of possibilities… But it also means that if you make a mistake, there’s a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should simply relax and play.” – Harold Finch

This post was one of my most popular, so thank you to all of you who shared it on Facebook. It’s always great to know that something I’ve written has been of interest and encouragement 🙂

What has prompted this current post is a discussion I saw about the post Reddit. On one of the threads there were concerns that this quotation could simply be an excuse to avoid making careful decisions. I would like to respond to this concern by telling a story from my time at school…

Headmaster

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Defenders of orthodoxy

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Today is the Feast of the Holy Hierarchs, typically known in the West as the Cappadocian Fathers: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. John Chrysostom. They were each great theologians in their own right and were staunch defenders of the Faith against different heresies:

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St. Ephrem The Syrian

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I’ve seen a lot of posts on Facebook celebrating the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (including some memes I created a few years ago!), but today is also the feast day of St. Ephrem The Syrian, the only Deacon Doctor of the Church:

Ephrem

Here’s the prayer we pray particularly often during Lent (“The Great Fast”) in the Eastern Church:

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.

 

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

 

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.

St. Joseph…virgin?

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Earlier this week I posted an article Critics of Matthew Kelly? where I discussed some of the criticisms of Matthew Kelly I’ve seen recently on the Internet. If you recall, there has been some complaints about a passage in Matthew Kelly’s latest book, “Rediscover Jesus”:

Was this some sort of vision, perhaps prompted by the apostles’ grief over their leader’s execution? This wouldn’t explain the dramatic conversion of Saul, an opponent of Christians, or James, the once-skeptical half-brother of Jesus. – Rediscover Jesus (Page 99)

There was one article in particular that caught my eye which I thought deserved a short post of its own. It was written by a chap called Jeff from Traditional Roman Catholic Thoughts. Jeff’s criticism of the passage from the book was as follows:

“It implies one of two things; either Mary was not a virgin throughout the rest of her life or Joseph had other children…. Mary’s virginity is not even up for debate as the Church declared her perpetual virginity as Dogma. The issue with Joseph having other children is that Catholic tradition holds that he too was a virgin.” – Traditional Roman Catholic Thoughts

I’m not really sure how confidently we can say that “Catholic tradition holds that [Joseph]…was a virgin”. It is true that certain Fathers did assert that St. Joseph was a virgin, beginning, I think, with St. Jerome in the late 4th Century. However, mid-Second Century traditions point to St. Joseph’s having children from an earlier marriage. The earliest surviving account of this is the Protoevangelium of James.

The narrative that St. Joseph was a widower is one which is vigorously upheld in the East, among both Catholic and Orthodox Christians. In fact, you’ll notice that in icons of “The Flight Into Egypt” there are often four people depicted: Christ, the Theotokos, St. Joseph and also St. Joseph’s son, St. James.

Egypt

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