"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Just a quick micro-rant today concerning one of my pet hates…
You may think that “Maybe” is a fairly innocent word…
…but it’s not, not at all.
When someone sends you a Facebook invite, please don’t choose “Maybe”.
Check your calendar.
Make a decision.
Be decisive.
Thank you, that is all.
It is the Catholic practice to give Holy Communion to those who are about to die. This is known in Latin as viaticum, literally “provisions for the journey”.
I recently came across this story concerning viaticum from the third epistle from St. Dionysius The Great written in the early 3rd Century. This simple story gives us a deep look inside the life of Early Church. We see the serious consequences which were associated with apostasy (denying Christ) and we also see the ardent Eucharistic desire of one desiring reconciliation:
To Fabius, Bishop of Antioch.
I shall give an account of one particular case that occurred here. There was with us a certain Sarapion, an aged believer. He had spent his long life blamelessly, but had fallen in the time of trial [the persecution]. Often did he pray [for absolution], and no one listened to him, for he had sacrificed to idols.
He fell sick and, for three successive days, lay mute and senseless. Recovering a little on the fourth day, he called his grandchild, and said, “My son, how long will you detain me? Hurry, I beg you, and absolve me quickly. Summon one of the priests for me.” When he had said this, he became speechless again.
The boy ran for the priest; but it was night, and the man was sick, and was consequently unable to come. But I had issued an injunction, that persons at the point of death, if they requested absolution, and especially if they had earnestly sought it before, should be absolved, so that they might depart this life in cheerful hope. So the priest gave the boy a small portion of the Eucharist, telling him to steep it in water and drop it into the old man’s mouth.
The boy returned bearing the portion. As he came near but before he had yet entered, Sarapion again recovered and said, “You have come, my child, and the priest was unable to come; but do quickly what you were instructed to do, and so let me depart.” The boy steeped the morsel in water and immediately dropped it into the [old man’s] mouth.
After he had swallowed a little of it, he gave up his spirit. Is it not obvious that he was preserved in life just until he could be absolved; and, with the sin wiped away, he could be acknowledge for the many good works he had done?
– St. Dionysius The Great, Epistle 3
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything about icons….
Today I was at the Divine Liturgy with a small contingent from Good Shepherd and it prompted me to write a post explaining the letters which often appear on Christ’s halo:
In iconography, the halos of angels and Saints are typically filled with gold. In icons of Christ, however, there is also a cross superimposed upon the halo. In the icon above, known as the “Pantokrator” (“Almighty”) , you can clearly see this. Only three arms of the cross are visible, each symbolizing a member of the Trinity. Now, at the edge of each arm is a Greek letter:
Ό = The letter “omicron”
ώ = The letter “omega”
Ν = The letter “nu”
So, another day, another meme. A few days ago, this came across my Facebook newsfeed:
So, how might one respond to a meme like this?
The first thing to ask is, does this meme accurately represent what Christians believe? After all, if someone’s religion is wrong, it shouldn’t need to be misrepresented to be shown to be false, right?
So, what do Christians believe about the Trinity? Well, we believe that there is only one God, but that within the Godhead that there are three persons: the Father, the Son and the Spirit. So, when the Son was praying, He wasn’t praying to “Himself”, but to the Father.
This meme already isn’t looking that promising…
The meme appears to suggest that, unless you were present at an event, then you couldn’t possibly know what happened.
However, I’m sure there are many events you know much about, but for which you were not present. These events range from the great events in history to the story of how your parents met. The reader will know about these events because those who were there have either told them directly, or because they have read descriptions found in diaries and letters.
The same is true for the life of Jesus. St. Luke didn’t witness Jesus’ ministry, yet he can tell us what happened by reporting the testimony of those who were present at the time. Luke speaks about his sources in the opening of his Gospel:
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you… that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.
Luke 1:1-4
Okay, so it’s possible for me to know about an even if I was not there to witness it… but what about the situations where, say, Jesus was alone and there was nobody to hear what He said and see what He did?
For example, all the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13) record Jesus going out into the desert alone for forty days. Despite Jesus doing this alone, Mark tells us that He was tempted by the devil, and Matthew and Luke go into detail about these temptations, even going so far as to narrate the exchanges between Jesus and Satan. How did they know what was said?
The answer to this is, I think, rather obvious. Many of my friends know how I felt when I watched the sunrise each morning as I was walking across Spain. They know this because I told them. Likewise, the events in the desert could easily have been passed onto the Apostles by Jesus Himself. Perhaps one night around the fire, after casting out an unclean spirit in a Synagogue earlier in the day, Jesus told them what had taken place during His time in the wilderness.
I just had a very strange interaction on Facebook… A friend of mine posted the following video of the Protestant evangelist Todd Friel:
One of his friends, a man called Simon, responded with the following curious assertions:
His response struck me as a strange for several reasons, but first and foremost because it demonstrated very clearly that Simon was rather unfamiliar with the New Testament! I responded by pointing out that Jesus would absolutely call other people wrong. In fact, at times He could be quite mean, even to the point of calling people names:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites… You fools and blind men… For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness… you brood of vipers”
Matthew 23:15, 17, 27-28, 33
He was even known on occasion to flip tables!
And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables – John 2:15
John 2:15
Naturally, there are many other Scripture passages which I could have quoted, not least Jesus’ exclusive claims about Himself:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6
With wearying predictability, rather than adjusting his statement, Simon immediately accused me of “judging” him. Some folks really love to jump to play the victim card even at the mildest of challenges. I wonder if he would have said exactly the same thing if I had pointed out an error in his arithmetic…
Amusingly, he then tried to quote Romans 2 to me:
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?
Romans 2:1-3
At this point I suggested to him that, while I’d be happy to discuss that passage with him, it probably isn’t a good idea to quote the Bible at a Christian right on the heels of making a demonstrably false statement about Jesus. He then said that he didn’t want to discuss his beliefs with me any more, so I closed by saying that hopefully I had at least disabused you of the notion that “Jesus would never call other people wrong”. I concluded with a passage which denies this explicitly:
“[Jesus said] ‘You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God'”
Matthew 22:29
…and, for good measure, I also included a passage where Jesus teaches His followers about judgement:
“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly”
John 7:24
Needless to say, he wrote with the following:
…and then thirty seconds later deleted the thread.
A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk at Santa Sophia entitled “Blood & Ink: How the Early Church Conquered the World”. Unfortunately, soon after given the talk, my laptop decided to die, so I couldn’t upload the audio. My laptop is finally fixed, so here you go…
Blood & Ink: How the Early Church Conquered the World (Download)
One of my friends commented that there’s not a whole lot of “me” on this blog, so today I’m cheating and rehashing something which I posted on Facebook two years ago…
It was a craze that went around Facebook where you wrote twenty-five random facts about yourself in a Note and then tagged a load of friends who then had to do the same. Rinse and repeat.
The content of my Facebook Note was as follows:
Man, this was difficult! It was particularly hard coming up with things that people may not know about me but that I’m also comfortable with putting into the public domain!
I think this “25 Random Facts” thing has been the best thing in Facebook to date – I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone else’s, so here goes…
1. I was a bit of a handful in Primary School – I became very familiar with the Headmaster’s office, having usually been sent there for getting into fights. I wasn’t at all academic then either.
2. I hated school up until the age of 16. After that, it just got better and better…
3. I was a very arty child (drawing, poetry etc) until about the age of twelve when I swapped my soul for an Amiga 600 with 1MB of RAM…
4. I have a scar by my right elbow from a moped accident in France when I was fifteen. I’m really proud of it. Chicks dig scars.
5. I’ve been a Christian all my life, but at the age of twenty I had a major renewal in my faith. I couldn’t imagine life otherwise.
6. I love chick-flicks. There, I said it.
UPDATE: If you know me, this really isn’t news… 😉