Wise Words on Wednesday: Obedience
Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Tag: Obedience
PWJ: S1E15 – MC B3C3 – “Social Morality”
In today’s episode, Jack asks what a truly Christian society would look like. He’s going to say some things to upset people on the Right and people on the Left…
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Episode 15: “Society Morality” (Download)
Wise Words on Wednesday: Better than 100 sermons
One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Wise Words on Wednesday: Faith and Obedience
How can a man say he believes in Christ if he does not do what Christ commanded him to do?
– St. Cyprian of Carthage
Perfect Obedience
They said that Silvanus had a disciple in Scetis called Mark, who possessed the virtue of obedience in large measure. He was a copyist of old manuscripts: and the hermit loved them for his obedience. He had seven other disciples, and they were sad that he loved Mark more than them.
When the nearby hermits heard that he loved Mark above the others, they took it badly. One day when they visited him, Silvanus took them with him out of his cell, and began to knock on the door of each of his disciples, saying, “Brother, come out, I have work for you.” Not one of them appeared immediately. When he came to Mark’s cell, he knocked, saying, “Mark,” and as soon as Mark heard the voice of the hermit he came out and Silvanus sent him on some errand.
So he said to the other hermits, “Where are the other brothers?” He went into Mark’s cell, and found a book which he had just begun to copy, and he was making the letter O, but when he had heard the hermit’s voice, he had not finished the line of the O. The visitors said, “You are right, abba, and we also love the one whom you love, for God loves him too.”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Sunday Lectionary: A Father who keeps His Promises
Third Sunday of Easter: 22nd April, 2012
Happy Easter! Yes, it’s still Easter! This week we celebrate the third Sunday of the Easter season as we continue on the road towards Pentecost.
For our Gospel Reading we hear another resurrection account, this week from St. Luke. In it, the Lord appears to His disciples and demonstrates to them that He has risen bodily from the dead. He then “opens their minds” to see how all that had come to pass was the will of the Father, His plan and His promise from the beginning.
In our Responsorial Psalm, David speaks of a God who comes to the rescue, bestowing light and peace to those in trouble. God’s rescuing love finds its fullest expression, of course, in the coming of Jesus Christ and in our First Reading we hear St. Peter proclaim this Good News to the crowd. Peter explains that through Christ’s saving sacrifice can be saved and in our Second Reading St. John reflects upon this and upon our call to respond in obedience to this great love of God.
Sunday Lectionary: Holy Anticipation
5th Sunday Of Lent: 23rd March, 2012
As this Lenten season reaches its climax, our Sunday Mass Readings are filled with anticipation.
In the First Reading, the Prophet Jeremiah speaks of a time to come when God would make a new kind of covenant with His people, one dramatically different from the ones made before. Under this new covenant the exiled tribes would be gathered together. It would signal a new era and a new level of intimacy with the Lord. After hearing these words of Jeremiah, God’s people waited in eager anticipation of this promised future.
In our Gospel Reading, Jesus is approached by some Greeks. At their arrival Jesus declares that “The hour has come…”. The “hour” of which Jesus speaks refers to His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension. With the coming of this “hour”, what was promised through the Prophet Jeremiah will finally reach fulfillment through Christ. Not only will the Children of Israel be gathered together, but so too will all people, “wash[ed]…and cleanse[d]” as we sing in today’s psalm.
Jesus says that He must die in order to bring eternal life. If Jesus is the Head of the Church, then His Body must do likewise:
Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. – John 12:25
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead – Philippians 3:10
The new life which Jesus brought to mankind is made present to us at every Mass in the Blessed Sacrament. Sometime this week, in preparation for Easter, why not spend an additional Holy Hour asking for the grace to live a life in imitation of our Lord?