Tag: featured

Peace, but not as the world gives…

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I didn’t want to let another week pass without commenting on a blog entry entitled The Sign of Peace – theory and practice by my favourite Australian monk over at Dominus Mihi Adjutor.

He opens the blog entry describing some of the awkwardness that routinely arises at the“Sign of Peace” in a typical parish.

For those unfamiliar with this moment of the Mass, it is when members of the congregation are encouraged to give “a sign of peace” to one another, usually in the form of a handshake, or sometimes a kiss or hug for family members or close friends.  This takes place shortly before receiving communion, with the priest saying:

Priest: Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: “I leave you peace, my peace I give you”.  Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever.

All: Amen.

Priest: The Peace of the Lord be with you always.

All: And also with you.

Deacon or Priest: Let us offer each other a sign of peace…

[Sign of Peace]

All: Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us…

As Fr. Hugh mentions, the Sign of Peace is actually an optional part of the Mass and I quite often go to a Mass here in San Diego where the priest omits it entirely which some people love and others hate. The Byzantine Rite parish I visit whenever I can has no general Sign of Peace.

Fr. Hugh traces the development of the Sign of Peace from New Testament times through the early centuries and into the modern Church.  He argues that the Sign of Peace which takes place in most parishes today doesn’t really fulfill its intended liturgical purpose and is often more of a disturbance than anything else.

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Waters of Baptism

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John Loncar recently posted a great quotation on Shameless Popery that I found really touching and wanted to share. This is an extract from a letter written by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th-century theologian and a Doctor of the Church, which he wrote to a couple who had suffered the tragedy of a miscarriage:

“Your faith spoke for this child. Baptism for this child was only delayed by time. Your faith suffices. The waters of your womb — were they not the waters of life for this child? Look at your tears. Are they not like the waters of baptism? Do not fear this. God’s ability to love is greater than our fears. Surrender everything to God.” – St. Bernard of Clairvaux

baby-ultrasound

Our Traditional Family Meal

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On Thursday I wrote a little bit about John 6 and the Eucharist in response to a conversation I had with Gerry, a non-Catholic. Today I would to take a very brief tour of the belief in the Eucharist in Early Church.

Fathers

The problem with saying that Jesus is only symbolically present in the Eucharist is that apparently nobody told this to the Early Church. Below are a collection of quotations from Christian documents of the 1st and 2nd Century. These demonstrate without a doubt that Christians have, from the earliest times, understood the Eucharist to be a sacrifice performed by priests in which Jesus Christ is truly present:

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Favourite People: Kahlil Gibran

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I haven’t done one of these in a while so I thought I would share another of my favourite people…

Today’s favourite person is Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese poet, writer and artist who died in 1931. I’ve generally found that most of my friends haven’t heard of him, which is a bit odd considering that the New Yorker says that he’s the third best-selling poet of all time.

I first encountered Gibran shortly before I was to move away from England. Cheltenham had been my home for the previous six years, but I was soon to start working for Cynergy in the United States. One lunch break, shortly before leaving England, I wandered into a second-hand bookstore. I was rifling through a pile of books when I came across Kahlil’s most well-known book, “The Prophet”. I flicked it open and then began to read. I found it was poetry, something I hadn’t read since school. Here is who the book begins:

Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved…. had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth…

He climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld the ship coming with the mist. Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul.

But he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart: How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city… It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.

Yet I cannot tarry longer. The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.

I was moved. Gibran’s words articulated exactly what I had been feeling for the previous few weeks as my time in England drew to a close.

In the book, the inhabitants of Orphalese come to the Prophet and ask him to speak to them on various subjects and many of them put me in mind of something from the Psalms or the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Some of these discourses are wonderful (well, except the one on marriage). Here’s my favourite:

Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.” 

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. 

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight…

Gorgeous.

If you would like to read more of Gibran’s poetry, his works are available online, but next time you’re in a second-hand bookstore I’d encourage you to look in the poetry section as you’ll probably be able to pick up one of his beautiful works.

Mere Christianity – Book IV – Chapter 8 (“Is Christianity Hard Or Easy?”)

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Book-4

Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…

1. Becoming a “son of God” is the entire point of Christianity

What I want to make clear is that this is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort of special exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christianity. Christianity offers nothing else at all.

2. Becoming a “son of God” is not the same thing as “being good”

And I should like to point out how it differs from ordinary ideas of “morality” and “being good.”

(a) A person typically begins by recognizing the demands of the Moral Law upon his desires

We take as starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else call it “morality”… has claims on this self: claims which interfere with its own desires… Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call “wrong”: well, we must give them up. Other things…turn out to be what we call “right”: well, we shall have to do them.

(b) We secretly hope that once we have met these demands, the natural self will be free to do what it wants

But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes.

(c) However, this will not work

…if you are really going to try to meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier.

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