"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
I was back at St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church in Los Angeles this past week. On this visit I was speaking to their Confirmation group about the Sacrament of Confession and more broadly on the subject of mercy.
The group was in quite a wide semi-circle, so I walked around quite a bit so the microphone couldn’t always pick up all the audio perfectly, but here you go…
God’s Mercy: Freely Received, Freely Given (Download)
So, I was looking on Google Maps at a part of San Diego and thought “Huh, cool, a menorah!”:
The article How my brain works… first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net
This morning I completed my Boot Camp Challenge. If you complete ten sessions in two weeks you get to write your name on the wall…
😀
In the introduction to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the author tells us that “By almost every step that led up to Polycarp’s martyrdom, the Lord intended to show us anew the type of martyrdom narrated in the Gospel” (Mart. Pol 2.1).
We’re currently working our way through this martyrdom account in the JP2 Group so I thought I’d put together a post highlighting all the parallels I’ve found between Jesus’ death and Polycarp’s witness (martyrdom) to his Lord.
The full text and audio of the Martyrdom is available here.
Some of these parallels are much stronger than others (I put a star rating next to each one of them). In many ways, the fact that there are many inexact parallels actually adds to the credibility of the martyrdom account. Were it fabricated, one would expect the parallels to be “tidied up” a bit more and closer to that of our account of Jesus’ Passion.
Both foretold their deaths (Rating: *****)
In the Martyrdom of Polycarp, after seeing a vision of his pillow aflame, Polycarp turns to his companions and states “I must be burnt alive” (Mart. Pol 5.2). Jesus, likewise, foretold his own death saying “We are going up to Jerusalem, and [I] will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will…hand [me] over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified” (Matt 20:18-19).
Both were betrayed (Rating: **)
Jesus was betrayed, of course, by Judas (Matt. 26:15). The author of the Martyrdom points out that “those who betrayed [Polycarp] were of his own household” and directly compares the betrayer to Judas (Mart. Pol 6.2). Both betrayers accompany the arresting party. However, I can’t help but think that this comparison is a little unfair. Polycarp’s betrayal was neither malicious nor for profit. The slave didn’t reveal Polycarp’s location until he had suffered abuse at the hands of the policemen. In fact, you might call this a “tortured” parallel… 😉
Both begin in an upper room (Rating: *)
When the police arrive for Polycarp he’s in the “upper room of a certain little house” (Mart. Pol. 7.1). Jesus’ Passion was preceded by the Last Supper held also in an Upper Room (Luke 22:12).
Below is the reflection I gave on 22nd January 2005 during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in response to the follow passage of Scripture:
After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said:
… Consecrate [those you have given me] in the truth; your word is truth….I pray not only for these but for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me.
May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you loved me.
…. I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them – John 17:1, 17-23, 26
This is the week of prayer for Christian unity, so I intend to speak for only a couple of minutes so we can get back to the business of prayer. I wanted to say just a few words about the reading that was chosen for tonight’s service.
I couple of weeks ago I posted my “Virgin Regret” series, my response to the story of a girl who remained a virgin until her wedding night and now regrets her decision. This series was actually a piece I originally wrote for the Goretti Group and I completely forgot to post a link to it when it was published on their website. So, to remedy that, here’s the link:
One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2012 has been to “Make an effort to dress well for Mass”. Some of my friends expressed surprise when I said that this was one of my resolutions, since they assumed that I was the sort of person who would naturally dress smartly for Mass.
I was trying to work out how my laxity came about. Here’s how I think it happened…