"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
I was over at Not For Itching Ears and was reminded of a quotation by the early Christian writer Tertullian:
“The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ,
so that the soul too may fatten on God”
– Tertullian (Resurrection of the Dead 8:3)
To celebrate Chesterton’s birthday there’ll be celebratory drinks at Theology On Tap tonight!
“A room without books is like a body without a soul”
– G. K. Chesterton
If you are leading a Bible Study of these Readings, I would suggest reading them in the following order: Gospel, First Reading, Second Reading, Psalm.
This week is probably my favourite feast in the Church’s liturgical year: Pentecost. On the day the Holy Spirit came, three thousand people entered the Church. Let us pray to the Holy Spirit that we might see this again in our days…
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.
In addition to being the Seventh Sunday in Easter, this Sunday is also Ascension Sunday. This has been an insanely busy week – sorry I didn’t get this posted earlier.
This Sunday we hear a glorious mystery! The Second Glorious Mystery to be precise! Yes, this Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven.
In recent weeks, life among the Apostles had been, to put it mildly, a bit rocky (and not “rocky” in the good, “Peter” kind of way). In fact, things had been pretty awful. The Master had been betrayed, beaten and then killed on a cross. Dark times.
But then, something happened… He rose from the dead! For several weeks He had been appearing to His disciples! Life was good again! But then…what?…He left?
Huh? Things were finally starting to look up! Why did He leave? Did the Lord abandon His Church?
Yesterday I published a blog entry which contained the text which we are going to study tonight at the JP2 Group. We’re going to read this document as part of our three-week series looking at worship in the Early Church.
The text I posted yesterday was a substantial extract from a work by Justin Martyr. St. Justin was a Christian in the 2nd Century and he wrote an apologetic work addressed to the Emperor known as his First Apology. In this ancient document he provides a defense of the Christian faith, but he also describes in some detail the Christian worship of his era.
Justin wrote his First Apology in around AD 150 and, despite the nascent state of the Church at this time, the liturgy has a clear structure. Catholics and all those who attend “liturgical” churches should be able to recognize many things in Justin’s description which are present in their own worship:
1. Sunday Worship
Groups such as the Seventh Day Adventists say that Christians should worship on the Sabbath (Saturday), but it’s clear from St. Justin that in the Second Century Christian worship was on Sunday:
“And on the day called ‘Sunday’, all who live in cities or in the countryside gather… We hold our assembly on Sunday because it is the first day, on which God brought forth the world from darkness and matter. On the same day, Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead”
I wrote this post over a year ago but I never felt quite comfortable in publishing it. I now think it’s time…
I have my friends in Washington DC on speed dial. I am only a few clicks away from video chatting with my family in England. I regularly send emails and texts which could wait until we meet in person, but I choose not to delay because of the ease of communication. We live in a world in which we are increasingly connected to one another…
This idea of a deep connection between people in far-flung locations is nothing new. Catholicism has clearly understood this concept for two thousand years. I mean, think of all the things that Catholics “share”. Regardless of where we are in the world, we are all washed in Baptism. We share in the same Spirit. This connection through the Spirit is indeed profound; we are all bound together, even with those who have already died and are in Heaven. We pray common prayers such as the Our Father and Hail Mary. We share a common Sunday liturgy. We proclaim the same creed. And finally, of course, we share the same Eucharist meal.