tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41599292803965843482024-03-28T00:56:51.966+00:00Itinerant MissionItinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.comBlogger192125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-8429188496913490862024-03-15T13:07:00.000+00:002024-03-15T13:07:11.547+00:00Worldview and its expressions<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv9eQXzoNSl8R0HIlH02qWnLHtEVTY0oTO_gT670IDuxNLEsXy-MZJjChthcTvZowH-tf9K07OmWKeHUCc7w-HGg16Nz6O2xurLnZ8qh1smLx6S_ZjY4tf4pN7S2EEni6hPQxRZLaShybreb2ntrwMoMjVIl1szM1c1Uy2i2eqOYelerHnIso6lASj/s1749/5.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o%20e%20Express%C3%A3o.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1493" data-original-width="1749" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv9eQXzoNSl8R0HIlH02qWnLHtEVTY0oTO_gT670IDuxNLEsXy-MZJjChthcTvZowH-tf9K07OmWKeHUCc7w-HGg16Nz6O2xurLnZ8qh1smLx6S_ZjY4tf4pN7S2EEni6hPQxRZLaShybreb2ntrwMoMjVIl1szM1c1Uy2i2eqOYelerHnIso6lASj/s320/5.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o%20e%20Express%C3%A3o.png" width="320" /></a></div>We reflected that worldview is like the motherboard of a computer to which elements such as myths, legends, folk tales, beliefs, rituals, religions, archetypes, symbols, norms or rules and values are added. All these components are in some way abstract, virtual and need a physical support to make themselves seen.<br /><br />We can study the worldview of ancient peoples who no longer exist, their myths and legends, their symbols and beliefs, through the documents they left behind. We know a lot about the worldview, their way of living and thinking, of peoples like the Vikings of northern Europe, the Mayans and the Aztecs of Central America. <br /><br />To discover the structure of a people's way of thinking, its worldview and the elements that it is made of, such as myths and beliefs, religion, rules and values, we need to study the vehicles where these elements are embodied or expressed. These forms of expression coincide with the seven classical arts. We prefer to divide them into a more anthropomorphic manner, using our five senses: literary, graphic, visual, auditory and audiovisual arts.<br /><br /><b>VISUAL ARTS: architecture, sculpture</b><br />The first things humans made -- stone hammers, axes and chipped stone knives -- were tools that had more to do with science than art. These tools were connected to learning about things and surviving in a hostile world. We are referring to the Stone and Metal Age, therefore thousands of years ago. <br /><br />Immediately after man left Africa, about 150,000 years ago, the first artistic manifestations, that perhaps also had the practical purpose of teaching hunting techniques, were the cave paintings, related to the graphic arts, since they are in some way the precursor of writing. <br /><br />The three oldest buildings of humanity belong to the first human civilization that our planet knew, the Fertile Crescent, known today as the Middle East. They are: Tell Qaramel, built around 11,000 BC in Syria, 25 km north of Aleppo; Göbekli Tepe, built in 9,600 BC in southeastern Turkey, 12 km from the city of Sanliurfa, and the Tower of Jericho, built in 8,000 BC in what is known as the oldest and lowest city in the world.<br /><br />We can study the different worldviews, from the most ancient to the most modern, by the type of buildings that were created. Ancient peoples did not build sumptuous palaces with swimming pools together with all the luxuries to live in. <br /><br />They were more concerned with the afterlife than the here and now; this is evident in the pyramids of the Egyptians, the Mayans and the Aztecs to the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, and from the Gothic cathedrals to the Hindu and Buddhist temples, transcendence and religion are the main reason to build, not politics nor the “good life”. <br /><br />One has to wonder... what does this materialistic, consumeristic, utilitarian, pragmatic, atheistic, agnostic world leave to posterity? Nothing or reflections of its inner emptiness, like the skyscrapers, the so-called modern and contemporary paintings that are no more than four scribbles that even an elementary school child could do. Modern human beings do not create art, so today's tourism lives on the visual arts created by ancient peoples many, many years ago.<br /><br /><b>GRAPHIC ARTS: painting, drawing, writing</b><br />The oldest cave paintings are found in the Iberian Peninsula and France, the oldest being from 62,000 years ago. In the progression from painting to writing, the oldest document in the world comes precisely from the oldest culture as well, the Sumerian of the Fertile Crescent - the cuneiform writing of ancient Mesopotamia, predating the Egyptian hieroglyphics.<br /><br />The cave paintings illustrate the prehistoric man's worldview, his life, his customs and even his feelings. These carvings or artistic manifestations of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods often depict hunting scenes, but also dances and other scenes from daily life, cosmic phenomena, religious myths, customs, and military campaigns. <br /><br />Ever since man began to paint, he has never stopped doing so. Much of what we know of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece were transmitted to us by these carvings, images, drawings, graffiti left behind by these civilizations. <br /><br />The image was the first form of human expression, and it was the evolution of this form of expression through images that led us to the small drawings that translated ideas - the cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia, together with the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which were the predecessors of the Greek and Roman alphabet. <br /><br />Other languages, like the Chinese, have maintained and still maintain to this day a pictorial form of writing, that is, each letter is a small engraving or drawing that represents a concept, an idea; so, they need thousands of drawings to express themselves. If we consider that human beings began using images 40,000 years ago and that writing was only invented 3,500 years ago, images can be considered as the prehistory of writing. <br /><br />From the beginning, image was born from communication and for communication; it was born from our need to communicate and as a form of communication. It reached its peak in the second half of the 20th century when photography was invented, that is, the fixation or recording of the image in photographs. In our visual society, we often hear that "a picture is worth a thousand words".<br /><br /><b>LITERARY ARTS: literature, proverbs, humanities</b><br />If human beings were solitary beings like the tigers, they would never have developed a language. Language was born within society, within community, as a way for humans to communicate with each other. This need happened when humans became bipeds and were able to look at each other in the eye. <br /><br />It probably started by expressing needs, like when we travel to a foreign country whose language we do not speak, and we try to communicate our needs by sounds and gestures. At a later stage, human beings expressed emotions, feelings, and later thoughts. <br /><br />What really makes a people or a nation is its literary work. You cannot think of a nation like the Jewish people without the Torah, without the books of the law and the prophets. What defines and characterizes the Greek people are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey; the ex libris of the Italian people is the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri; what defines the character of the Spanish people is Cervantes’ Don Quixote de la Mancha; the Russian soul is found in Dostoyevsky’s book, The Brothers Karamazov. The Portuguese or Lusitanian soul is in Camões’ Lusíadas. <br /><br />For our first King, Afonso Henriques, Portugal was his land, his domain. It was Camões, however, who created Portugal’s nationality; it was him who gave the Portuguese a prehistory, the deeds of the Lusitanians, and carved the Portuguese character and history in the course of the nation’s great epic, the discovery of the sea route to India. He was faithful to the roots of the Portuguese language, writing in verses in the style of the medieval songs of platonic love, the cradle of the Portuguese language.<br /><br />The proverb is certainly the literary genre that has the highest concentration of culture, idiosyncrasy and worldview in the fewest words. Easy to remember because it rhymes, it often uses a metaphor or comparison, that is, it never uses abstract language, but one that is narrative and metaphorical. The proverb passes from generation to generation more readily than any other form of culture because it is easy to remember; people use it in their daily lives as advice and to justify and encourage specific behaviors. <br /><br /><b>AUDITORY ARTS: music, oratory</b><br />The word music is of Greek origin and it means the "art of the muses". It consists of an association of sounds interspersed with pauses or short periods of silence over a given time. Music is, in fact, the art of combining sounds with silence. The history of music goes hand in hand with the development of human intelligence, language and culture. There are also those who think that music predates humanity, if we consider the melodious singing of some birds. <br /><br />It is likely that in the human species, music appeared 40,000 years ago, judging by the dance scenes that appear in some cave paintings suggesting a probable musical accompaniment. Over time, primitive flutes and other instruments, such as the xylophone, emerged. Musical instruments are divided into three types: percussion, strings and wind. The human voice is the most complex musical instrument, since it is at the same time a string and a wind instrument.<br /><br />Word communicates thought, music communicates feeling, emotion. In this sense, music is the universal language of communication, used to raise awareness for a cause, for religious purposes, to protest, to accompany movies and to intensify a message or emotion. Think of a horror movie without the type of music that usually accompanies it, it would not be so scary. Like language, it is part of the idiosyncrasies of a people and speaks of its culture – for this reason there is the so-called popular music. It translates attitudes, feelings and cultural values of a people. <br /><br />Oratory is the art of speaking in public communicating ideas, ideologies and thoughts with eloquence, articulation and clarity, to teach or persuade listeners and motivate them to a certain action. It is a very important weapon in politics and in religion, for good and for evil. Both great politicians and philosophers as well as prophets were good public speakers, like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandhi, Martin Luther King. However, the great dictators also had the same power to convince, like Hitler and Stalin.<br /><br />Oratory has the gift of uniting different and dispersed wills into one, it turns many heads into one head; it transforms individuals into a community or a mass, a flock, both for good and for evil. <br /><br /><b>AUDIOVISUAL ARTS: theatre, cinema, dance</b><br />Audiovisual arts combine sound and image. That is why they have more power than sound and image separately. Theatre, cinema and dance are some of the most important arts that move crowds and also the economy. <br /><br />In the old days, the great film actors began their careers in the theater, and cinema at that time was much like theater. Skills such as expressiveness, both linguistic and corporal, diction, the tone of voice were favored. Today, cinema is more about action than dialogue, so the skills of the stage actor are reserved more for theater and less for cinema. Theater is in clear decline if we compare it with cinema.<br /><br />Initially, cinema was intended to communicate values, within the hero/villain binomial, where the hero always won. Modern cinema, however, is no longer used for pedagogical purposes, but rather to show reality as it is; therefore, we often see injustice triumph over justice, lies over truth and crime over law and order. This situation is dangerous, because those who watch these films without a critical conscience, especially the younger generations, can develop the conviction that what we are and what we should be are the same thing, have the same value, and that in life anything goes... anything is proper…<br /><br />Dance has always been a very important cultural manifestation. Culturally, very little can be said of ballet or classical dance; but the tango says a lot about the Argentinian culture, the pasodoble says a lot about Spanish culture, and the samba represents well the Brazilian culture. All peoples have their own way of dancing. If whoever sings prays twice, then whoever dances prays three times. <br /><br />"Ars lunga vita brevis", art is eternal, life is brief. By cultivating an art, the individual enters into a symbiotic relationship with it. He gives it his temporality, elevating this art to a new height or record; it in turn gives him its eternity, both in the mind of the human community, humanizing him, and like in the mind of God, making him his child.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: "Ars lunga vita brevis" - “Arts are eternal, life is short”. Therefore, use your lifetime to cultivate arts and human values and you will be eternal, you will live forever in God and in the memory humanity.<p></p><p>Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-50397734394156062482024-03-01T05:36:00.000+00:002024-03-01T05:36:43.904+00:00The Worldview and Its Components<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxnPsXzD0VW0mnOR7k9IZAAzGJjHLnBXIKduwwooYhvtgUSSlBnt4h1njqP2K_sLGsMYcPFjl-8HnnZZZqww3-KAWCDFy_6ljW-GR-NMbG-N_zUduPQmrHUbJiSa0dOq3L3n7pAfWAUFCip_fp5cweSewA0QVuURK4GYXc5aeuW1Dy19tD6sYLyb9j/s626/4.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o%20e%20seus%20componentes.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="626" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxnPsXzD0VW0mnOR7k9IZAAzGJjHLnBXIKduwwooYhvtgUSSlBnt4h1njqP2K_sLGsMYcPFjl-8HnnZZZqww3-KAWCDFy_6ljW-GR-NMbG-N_zUduPQmrHUbJiSa0dOq3L3n7pAfWAUFCip_fp5cweSewA0QVuURK4GYXc5aeuW1Dy19tD6sYLyb9j/s320/4.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o%20e%20seus%20componentes.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div><i>I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me, and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.</i> <b>John 15:5</b><br /><br /><i>“In him we live and move and have our being</i>” … <b>Acts 17:28</b><br /><br />For a Christian, Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life; he is the vine to which all branches are connected in order to receive the sap of life. Disconnected from him, we wither, dry up and die. As branches grafted onto Christ (Romans 11:11-24), it is in him that we live, move and exist; without him we can do nothing, since from him we receive our life, our salvation. Christ is for Christians the motherboard, the foundation, the bedrock on which their lives rest, the cornerstone that keeps them standing (Ephesians 2:20-22). <br /><br /><b>Worldview, the motherboard of our mind</b><br />The motherboard of a computer is a board, usually made of hard green plastic, with an electrical circuit imprinted in copper or aluminum that allows us to connect all the components of a computer - the processor, the memory, the CPU, the video card, the network card, the audio card, the computer’s communication ports to the outside that allow it to be connected to other devices. <br /><br />The motherboard of a computer serves us perfectly as an allegory or metaphor of what a worldview is and how it is composed of elements that are individually different from each other, each with a different function, but which sit on the same board, on the basis of which they interact harmoniously. Let us see what these elements are and what their individual function or contribution to the worldview is. <br /><br />Worldview, as a system or foundation of our thinking and our life, is an ordered collection of many elements. Just as our DNA or genetic code is composed of many genes, so a worldview is composed of many elements. Some of these elements are: <br /><br /><b>Myth</b><br />In today’s language, most of the time when we hear the word "myth", it is in reference to something that is not true. When we say or hear "this is a myth”, it means nowadays, "this is false”. In reality, a myth may or may not be true, that is to say, it is never historical, but it is never false either. Historical and true are not always synonymous. Historical means that it happened; myths are accounts that describe realities and as such never happened; however, what they say of these realities is completely true in the times and societies where they were born.<br /><br />Within the context of cultural anthropology, myth is a pre-scientific explanation of reality, a fantastic and phantasmagorical account of oral tradition, usually involving gods who embody and represent the forces of nature as well as general aspects of the human condition. <br /><br />Within cultural anthropology, myths belong to a discipline called cosmogony, which consists of accounts about the origin, nature and function of everything that exists and that human beings do not understand. As a collection of myths, mythology is a way of making sense of human existence. Its various stories were born to satisfy human curiosity about fundamental questions such as "Where do we come from?", "Where are we going?" or "Why is it raining one day and sunny the next?".<br /><br /><b><i>Examples of Myths</i></b><br /><u>The myth of Cronos</u> – Cronos was the god of time, hence the words chronology, chronometer, to measure time. In ancient Greece, the reality of time was explained by the existence of a god who was the lord of time; this lord bore children and after birthing them, ate them. Of course, this is not historical, but it is true. <br /><br />That is, within a primitive mentality it serves perfectly well to explain the concept of time. Every day that I wake up and get up because I am alive, I have one more day in my existence, one day to live; at the end of it, when I go to bed, I have one day eaten up, consummated, and consumed, one day less in my existence. <br /><u><br />The myth of Androgyny </u>– In the Greek tradition, Zeus, the king of the gods, created a being that possessed both genders; like a man and a woman glued together back-to-back. Later, Zeus became afraid of his creature, just like the human being is afraid of so many things he invents, like the atomic bomb, and used the usual weapon, division: "divide and conquer" and divided the androgynous being into two, thus creating the male and the female. <br /><br />This is how the reality of romantic love was created; since they were initially united, the tendency is to reunite; hence the sexual attraction. The two, man and woman, spend half their lives looking for their significant half or their soulmate, as they still say today. <br /><br /><u>The myth of Adam and Eve</u> – The Bible says in three mythological accounts of the creation of human beings what Greek mythology says in one. <br /><p></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;">In Genesis 1:27 – So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. We are told that the man and the woman, both created in the image and likeness of God, are equal in dignity. <br /><br />In Genesis 2:7 – The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. We are told that the human being is connected to all that exists, almost alluding to the fact that he is the result of a long evolution. <br /><br />In Genesis 2:22 – And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. We are told that the two are flesh of the same flesh and belong to each other.<br /></p><p><u>The myth of the origin of evil</u> – Both the Greek and the Hebrew mythology blame the woman for the origin of evil. Just as they attribute to her the "scientific" curiosity for knowing and comprehending and discovering the reason for things. In Greek mythology, Pandora was the wife of Zeus who out of curiosity opened the box that contained all evils; upon discovering it, Zeus came running to close it, but many evils had already escaped and soon reproduced in many others, in a sequence of cause and effect. In Hebrew mythology, Eve ate and fed Adam the forbidden fruit.</p><p><br /><u>The myth about love and death</u> – Orpheus, a musician and singer to whom his father Apollo had given a lyre, fell madly in love with Eurydice with whom he was going to marry. However, before the wedding, Eurydice was bitten by a snake while fleeing from an admirer and died; inconsolable, Orpheus descended into the world of the dead and asked Hades to return his beloved to him. Hades accepted on the condition that when he left the underworld with her, he would not look back. Distrustful, Orpheus, as always happens with romantic love, looked back and lost Eurydice again. Immersed in a deep sadness, he would not eat or drink or respond to the seduction of other women, so they decided to kill him; through death, he was finally reunited with his beloved. <br /><br /><u>The myth of Narcissus </u>– Narcissus, son of the river god, Cephisus, possessed a stunning beauty that aroused the love of many nymphs, including Echo. However, self-absorbed, Narcissus was arrogant and proud, and in love with his own image, he spent his time gazing into the placid waters of the river at his own reflection. One day, while engrossed in his own reflection, he fell into the river and drowned. <br /><br />In psychology, narcissism is the term given to a concept developed by Sigmund Freud that determines the exacerbated love of an individual for himself; synonymous to selfishness, a self-centered person who denies the social dimension of the human person. <br /><br /><b>Legends and Folk Tales</b><br />The protagonists of mythological narratives are always gods; those of legends are always humans, heroes of antiquity at a certain historical moment who stand out for their contribution to humanity. For this same reason, myth is historically timeless, legend is historical, although it exaggerates the facts, distorting them, giving them a fantastic and excessive air to increase the fame of someone important from the past. <br /><br />They are the characters of human imagination, half historical and half fictional, that captivate the human mind because each of them reflects a facet of our personality, like King Solomon, Pericles, Achilles, Hector, Ulysses, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Spartacus, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bullion, Joan of Arc, Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, Robin Hood, etc...<br /><br />Characters like Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Tarzan; Superman, Spider-Man, Snow White, Cinderella... are fictional characters that belong to another literary genre similar to that of legend: folk tale. The only difference is that a legend starts from a historical character and magnifies him beyond reality, while a folk tale is timeless because it always starts with "once upon the time, in a distant country"; it never places us in time or space, but within the human psyche, revealing aspects of it. <br /><br /><b>Beliefs</b><br />Much of what we said about myth applies to belief. Because every myth is a belief, but not all beliefs are myths. Belief is more generic, that is, many of our beliefs are also myths. Myth belongs to the realm of philosophy, cultural anthropology or cosmogony; belief belongs more to the realm of psychology, religion and spirituality, because it is an inner conviction about an aspect of reality that is beyond the five senses and all empirical verification. <br /><br />Belief is the mental acceptance or conviction of a "truth", idea or theory with or without empirical evidence. It is to hold something as true that cannot be proven or dis-proven by science. In this sense, it enters the field of intuitive knowledge so it does not belong to the logic-deductive knowledge of science. <br /><br />Belief can be irrational, that is, superstitious or it can be reasonable. The First Vatican Council defines Faith as a reasonable belief. Witchcraft, magic, conferring on a material object, like a key, a horseshoe, a horn, spiritual value or power is an irrational belief and therefore a superstition, a return to the time when animals spoke and things had souls: to animism. <br /><br />There are beliefs in modern life demonstrably false, and yet they continue to exist because they fulfill a positive function. Even children know that Santa Claus does not exist; however, in the collective conscious or unconscious imagination, he represents, personifies the love, kindness and generosity of a father, of a mother, of God as our Father. <br /><br /><b>Rituals</b><br />Because myths are narratives that explain the “why” of many human and nature realities, rite or ritual is to put into practice, acting out, expressing, or applying the myth or belief in real life. The purpose of the acting out or expression of the myth through ritual is to reinforce the belief in the myth.<br /><br />A ceremony ritual, sacred or non-sacred, is an act that is always performed in the same way and celebrates a belief or myth that is important in the context of a culture or religion. The performance or celebration of rituals has a very important psychological and spiritual function; it relieves stress and anxiety, increases self-confidence, and reinforces faith or belief. Rituals remind us of what is most important in life and keep us united to the vital source; they give us a sense of stability and continuity in our lives. <br /><br />We perform many rituals, even in our modern lives, and we do not even realize that we are doing them. But the fact that we do so proves their importance and function in our emotional and rational balance. The entry into adulthood, the bachelor parties, the ribbon cutting at an inauguration, tossing of the hat on graduation day, the bride tossing her bouquet to unmarried women during the wedding reception, the birthday celebration, the blowing out of one candle for each year.<br /><br />Our Christian life is full of rites. All the sacraments have a belief and a ceremonial act behind them. The imposition of hands, the blessing, the baptism, are the gateway to the community – in fact, the priest comes to the door of the church to receive the neophyte. The Eucharist is the reconstitution of Christ's life, doctrine, his passion and death, for we do it in memory of him and it keeps us united as a community. Confession is a liberating catharsis from the negative actions of our lives; when we hear "I absolve you" ("ego te absolvo" in Latin) we feel cleansed, willing to start over. The anointing of the sick is a refreshment in our pain. <br /><br /><b>Religion</b><br />As we said before, it is itself a worldview, because it answers the questions "where we come from" and "where are we going", as well as it gives meaning, reason and purpose to everything that exists, structuring not only nature, but also the life of men in relation to themselves, to God and to nature. Among many things, religion encompasses beliefs, myths and rituals.<br /><br /><b>Archetype</b><br />It is an element of Greek philosophy, especially neoplatonic, which designates ideas, models, primigens or prototypes, paradigms of human behavior that reside in the collective unconscious of humanity, as demonstrated by Carl Jung, Freud's disciple. For Plato, archetypes are mental forms, primordial ideas imprinted in the soul before it takes on a body. <br /><br />Jung discovered in our collective unconscious 12 paradigms, models or patterns of behavior that may or may not coincide with the functions of individuals in society or professions, but they also configure a way of being and behaving towards oneself and others. These are: the Sage, the Innocent, the Explorer, the Ruler, the Creator, the Caretaker, the Magician, the Hero, the Villain, the Lover, the Fool, the Orphan. The list could go on and on, even in relation to significant characters who shape standardized models of behavior. <br /><br />In addition to these that are restricted to forms of behavior, there are other paradigms imprinted in our collective unconscious, which refer more to society and the way it operates. For example, I have as a paradigm or archetype of process: Egypt - Desert - Promised Land. Karl Marx, despite being an avowed atheist, consciously or unconsciously followed this archetype in his historical materialism. For him, Egypt was capitalism, the desert was the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Promised Land was communism or a classless society. <br /><br />Recovery from an addiction also follows this archetype. Egypt is the addiction that has taken away your freedom and the control of your life; the desert is the price to erase or the purification of the body and mind from the toxins that enslave you; in the desert you feel the urge to go back, like the Jewish people after they escaped Egypt, or the withdrawal syndrome for the one struggling with an addiction, and finally, the Promised Land when you are completely free from this addiction. <br /><br /><b>Symbols</b><br />Emblems, shapes or signs that contain a powerful meaning within the culture, representing its model of life or its ancestral tradition, or some element considered iconic or totemic and identifying it, such as, for example, the cross for Christianity.<br /><br /><b>Norms, Rules and Laws</b><br />Every worldview also contains a code of laws, norms or rules of conduct to harmonize the coexistence among individuals, to determine the rights and duties in the relationship of individuals with each other and with the community at large. A regulation by which companies choose to govern themselves, either explicitly (legal format), through a protocol or subjectively. <br /><br />Not all laws are spoken or written in stone. There are unwritten laws or norms, and yet everyone observes them. The way we dress often obeys an unwritten norm; similarly, opening the door for someone and letting them pass first, not picking your nose in public, and so many other little things we obey that are not written anywhere or obey any code of conduct. <br /><br /><b>Values</b><br />They are more inherent to human nature in general than to a particular worldview. Values such as freedom, equality, justice, truth, honesty, love, fidelity, are invariable in time and space. Duty, commitment, shape human life and are invariables from culture to culture or from time to time. A given worldview may have a slightly different interpretation of them, without varying the fundamental. </p><p><b>Conclusion </b>– Inserted in the motherboard of a computer are all the components that make it work as a harmonious whole, likewise, a worldview is composed of myths, rites, beliefs, norms, symbols, archetypes, and values that give meaning and shape to our lives.<br />Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-79766141899466186642024-02-01T05:10:00.000+00:002024-02-01T05:10:40.504+00:00Worldview, Culture and Human Nature<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnH2VGYiurjfBb0e3TY2Akb7ifmL2vzkh5VNar87x-XqQ06lBRu2r-qLTaEidNzBez92rKlMYIg-1jwLS_OhnoGHHtT9iLWmxCv0JuKAYVbgClIyL6qnDihXsSaEqGu3U0JWbzlk1SJu85mA13ngFMZ377KcSjM-uKLt-L1NgACN3RB6aO36pygKr/s3500/3.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o%20Cultura%20e%20Natureaza%20Humana.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2379" data-original-width="3500" data-ud-selector="0.9925621349976597" height="218" loading="lazy" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnH2VGYiurjfBb0e3TY2Akb7ifmL2vzkh5VNar87x-XqQ06lBRu2r-qLTaEidNzBez92rKlMYIg-1jwLS_OhnoGHHtT9iLWmxCv0JuKAYVbgClIyL6qnDihXsSaEqGu3U0JWbzlk1SJu85mA13ngFMZ377KcSjM-uKLt-L1NgACN3RB6aO36pygKr/s320/3.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o%20Cultura%20e%20Natureaza%20Humana.png#_uDarkborder=0&data-original-height=2379&data-original-width=3500&height=218&width=320&loading=lazy" width="320" /></a></div>Human nature, culture and worldview are implicitly linked concepts, because each one has to do with the other two. Let us first try to define each of them individually and separately, and then see what makes them interdependent on each other. <br /><br />HUMAN NATURE<br /><i>The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.</i> <b>Genesis 2:7</b><br /><br />Life on our planet has a single origin. As different as plants and animals may seem to us today, every living thing on our planet has common ancestors. Life comes from a common trunk. <br /><br />The human being is one of the 8.7 million living species that inhabit this planet. He belongs to the animal kingdom, to the class of mammals, to the subgroup of primates or hominids, and is a cousin/brother of the monkeys, gorillas and chimpanzees, with which he shares 98% of the DNA. He is the child of a still unknown father, having been born 5 million years ago in East Africa, more precisely in the deepest and longest valley on our planet, the Rift Valley. <br /><br />Unlike other living beings that have evolved little or nothing at all over the past millions of years and have lived and still live today in the same habitat, the human being has evolved to the point of transcending his original habitat. He left Africa a little over 200,000 years ago and colonized the entire planet not only geographically, but also in terms of dominating all other species of living beings. <br /><br />Why did only our species evolve? Since we and we alone are, in Karl Marx's view, the moment when nature gained consciousness of itself. It is a mystery that science has yet to unravel. We know that through evolution, we are descendants of a primate that, in order to satisfy its needs and to survive, instinctively began to adapt to its environment, then seeking to make the best use of the environment’s resources. It first lived like the animals in symbiosis with nature. <br /><br />In his effort to know the environment in order to better adapt to it, the human being developed his cognitive abilities, to the point of taking possession of his environment. This is the way the Homo sapiens came about; now, more than adapting to the environment, they sought to adapt the environment to themselves. <br /><br /><b>What defines us as human beings</b><br />Millions of years of evolution have made us human, without ceasing to be animals. Biologist Konrad Lorenz has found numerous similarities between human and animal behaviours. Many of our reactions and decisions when faced with life-threatening situations are more animal-like than rational. <br /><br />At the end of the day, we have not lost the reptilian brain common to all vertebrates, nor the mammalian one common to all mammals. These brains predate the authentically human one, the neocortex, and are, so to speak, closer to our being, because the reptilian brain that commands all vital and survival functions is always connected; the mammalian one is almost always connected, but sometimes disconnects; the neocortex is almost always partially disconnected. So, for a behaviour to be authentically and genuinely human, the connected neocortex must disconnect the other two, especially the reptilian one. <br /><br />In this sense, there are characteristics that seem to be uniquely ours, but are in fact common to other animals close to us on the evolutionary scale; the only difference is that in us they are more developed. For instance:<br /><br />- Acquiring knowledge and have the ability to transmit it socially through some form of language, other animals, like the orcas, also have it. Adapting to the environment and the changing conditions of life, many animals are also capable of this, like the cockroach that defends itself from all the poisons we invent to kill it;<br /><br />- Living in community, other animals also do this, like the ants, lions, ducks, geese, bees, elephants, chimpanzees. The only difference is that ours is more complex and perhaps more democratic, where, of course, democracy exists;<br /><br />- Loving our children to the point of giving our lives for them, noble as it may seem, this is something we have in common with any mammal, it is pure maternal instinct. What we truly have that is unique is everything that is located in the neocortex, the largest of our three brains. Let us then see what is uniquely human and identifies us as such.<br /><br /><u>Self-consciousness – cogito, ergo sum</u><br />Only the human being gains self-consciousness, around the age of 6 or 7. Self-consciousness is the splitting of our psyche into two, which allows us to be observers and observed, the ones who know and at the same time the topic of our knowledge. "Know thyself," Socrates shouted in the early days of Western philosophy. <br /><br />This self-awareness of ours does not only concern the present. Since human life takes place in three times that are always interactive, this self-consciousness extends to the past as historical memory that gives us feedback of who we are: the knowledge of our talents, values, defects, and limitations such as death. Only human beings are aware of their own finitude, that one day they die and cease to exist, at least in space and time.<br /><br />Knowledge of the past, of who we really are, is then used by our reason to extend into the future and program it, using the imaginative capacity and abstract mind that only humans have to project beyond the immediate. Certain philosophies of the Far East urge us to put both the past and the future aside. They forget that those who live in an eternal present, without a past or future, are animals not humans. <br /><br />Cogito, ergo sum – Descartes’ maxim, “I think, therefore I am”. In the pure present in relating with others, society, the physical and geographical environment, self-consciousness, or reason works like a computer, that analyzes, collects data about a given problem, and projects possible solutions. <br /><br />In addition to self-consciousness and reason, human life is based on two values: freedom and equality. <br /><p></p><p><u>Freedom</u><br />While all animals live in symbiosis with nature, which regulates, governs and guides them by means of their instincts, the human being is the only animal that has emancipated himself from nature. Freedom, autonomy, independence are the values on which the human life of the individual, of the person, is based. As we said, there are other animals that live in society, but in these societies the individual does not exist for itself, it is a slave of the society to which it belongs. <br /><br />Man is free in relation to others, he is not anyone’s slave, nor does he live for anyone else, but for himself; he is free in relation to his animal substratum, because he has the power to control his basic instincts and postpone immediate gratification. <br /><br />The human being is the only one who holds his life in his own hands, who has power to give it a meaning and a direction. He has free choice, free will, which allows him to decide on the totality of his life, as well as on each of its parts. You can make mistakes in the decisions you take, and you may have to pay for the harmful consequences of your choices.<br /><br />Part of freedom in relation to the environment, to others and to oneself, lies in the ability to transcend oneself; in relation to matter, through scientific and technological progress; in relation to material things, by developing the spiritual self, both in his relationship with God and with things and others, expressing himself symbolically through culture, art, music, religion, habits, customs, clothing, etc. <br /><br /><u>Equality</u><br />The human being is an intrinsically social being, is born from a loving relationship, grows up and becomes an authentic human being only if he or she is loved unconditionally, and always lives as a member of a family, as part of a community, organization or institution. Individually one is either a father or mother, son or daughter, grandfather or grandmother, aunt or uncle, nephew or niece. There is no human existence beyond these categories, and belonging to any one of them, puts you in a relationship with the others. <br /><br />The other person is another ‘I’; not a ‘you’, not an external entity, strange, foreign, distant, but my neighbour, so close that he or she is another ‘I’, an alter-ego, from which the word altruism comes from. Love is the highest value in social life, to live is to love. Empathy, mercy, and compassion are what hold individuals together in groups. <br /><br />What is due to me is due to him, because he is a human being just like me and we all come from the same common trunk born in the Rift Valley 5 million years ago. Equality and coexistence in society are based on the principle that my rights are my neighbour’s duties, and my duties are my neighbour’s rights.<br /><br />Life in society makes individuals citizens with rights and duties. Law is born to govern society, and ethics, which discerns what is best and more appropriate, defines the guidelines of social behaviour. Life in society created written and spoken language for communication between individuals, with the aim of working as a team to foster unity, peace and harmony. <br /><br /><b>Can human nature change?</b><br /><i>Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So, God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.</i> <b>Genesis 1:26-27</b><br /><br />We were created in the image and likeness of God and if God does not change, then human nature does not change either. If human nature changed, then God would have to incarnate again and again throughout history, in each of these hypothetically ever-changing human natures to also be for these generations the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Since human nature does not change, it is God and his Word collected in the Bible that inspires and leads to God, both the men who lived 2,000 years ago and those who will live 10,000 years from now, if we still exist as a species.<br /><br />Human values are proof that human nature does not change, neither in time, from one generation to another, nor in space from one culture and another. The concepts of justice, truth, honesty, fidelity, love, compassion, etc. are invariable over time in all cultures. The feeling of love that Cleopatra and Mark Antony experienced is the same as that of Romeo and Juliet experienced years later, as lovers experience and will experience in every time and place.<br /><br />Separated by time, place and culture, the prophet Amos and Bishop Oscar Romero used exactly the same gauge to discern what is just and what is not. Mahatma Gandhi used the same concept of nonviolence that Jesus used centuries earlier. The peoples of the Fertile Crescent built pyramids and offered human sacrifices to their gods. But just like the Sumerians and the Egyptians in the fertile crescent, the Mayans and the Aztecs in Central America also built pyramids and yet these peoples never knew of each other’s existence.<br /><br />Human nature, what the human being essentially is, does not change. In philosophy, the essence, the being does not change; what changes are the accidents, the variables, the circumstances. Our understanding of human nature may vary and change, just as we may discover in ourselves talents that we thought we did not have; yet they were already there, though unknown to us. We may acquire new ways as we adapt to our environment, for example, losing our tails because we no longer climb trees, but what is essentially human remains unchanged in time and space. <br /><br />CULTURE<br />How is it that human nature does not change if we have diversity of cultures and languages, and language is considered to be the soul of a culture? There are two factors that caused the diversity of cultures and languages throughout human history.<br /><br />The first was the absence of communication between peoples. For this same reason, in an increasingly globalized future, the diversity of languages and cultures will cease to exist or will be greatly attenuated. The second was the geographical factor: different peoples lived in different latitudes and longitudes, with climatic differences. <br /><br />The diversity of cultures and languages would therefore be the adaptation of human beings to different geographical topographies. For example, it is not the same to live on the mountains as by the sea; as for different climates, it is not the same to live in the tropics, with two seasons, as to live in a temperate zone with four seasons, or in the Arctic. <br /><br />The indigenous peoples living in the Arctic have numerous words for "snow", while in Ethiopia, in Africa, the same word is used for snow as for frost, which are two different things. On the other hand, we notice that the languages of the Nordic peoples because of the cold factor are more consonantal, and the mouth barely opens, while the languages of the tropical peoples are more vocal, causing the mouth to open fully. <br /><br />The colour of the skin, eyes and hair, the shape of the eyes, nose, mouth and lips, as we have explained in previous texts, are also an adaptation of human beings to the environment in which they have been living for at least 25,000 years. If a tribe of Pygmies from the Congo were to move to Norway today, 25,000 years from now, they would be indistinguishable from the Norwegians. <br /><br />Barring some minor differences, the adaptation of human beings to their environment is common to other animals. The adaptation of the environment to themselves, creating culture, is proper only to human beings. Only humans create a culture as an “artificial” habitat, in the correct sense of the word "ars facere", making art. In this sense, man is a cultural being, because he is not content with what nature gives him but creates a second nature in which he lives in, that is culture. <br /><br />The human being made in the image of God is a creator like Him. The only difference is that while God creates out of nothing, the human being creates by combining and mixing the elements of creation. Culture is like the house that the human being builds with elements that nature supplies. Nature does not give houses, it is man who builds them; the diversity of houses represents the diversity of cultures, because it points to the place where they are built - sloped roof where it snows, flatter roof where it does not snow. The same can be said of clothing and everything that the human being makes, invents or manufactures with his creative mind, to make life more comfortable. <br /><br />The tree is nature, wood, chair, and table are culture; hair is nature, hairstyle is culture; sound is nature, words and music are culture; fire is nature, anvil and barbecue are culture.<br /><br />The Tarzan myth teaches us that in humans, the cultural factor is more important than nature. If a human baby is raised by chimpanzees, he will be like a chimpanzee. On the other hand, if a baby chimpanzee is raised by humans, with the same education as a human baby, it will never be human. If in a sparrow’s nest, we place a masked weaver's egg, when this masked weaver is an adult it will not make its nest as a sparrow does on top of a branch, but like a masked weaver, suspended from a branch. The human being is born an animal and becomes human through education and acculturation. The animal is born already practically in an adult state, it needs no time for socialization. <br /><br />Culture is at the same time the adaptation of the human being to the environment and the adaptation of the environment to the needs of the human being. Culture is this interaction between the environment and the human being, and the human being and the environment. <br /><br />WORLDVIEW<br /><i>God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day</i>. <b>Genesis 1:31</b><br /><br />We can use the biblical text of the creation of the world as a metaphor for the relationship between worldview and culture. Culture is God's creation, looking at it and seeing it as good is God’s worldview of what he has created. God who is love has a loving view of all that he has created, out of love.<br /><br />God created the world, and man from the world created by God created culture. Worldview is man's view of what he created. Unlike God, not everything he creates is out of love, and since he creates many things out of hatred, like the instruments of war, in the end he cannot say that what he has created is good. <br /><br />To paraphrase the expression "God made the world, the Dutchman made Holland", God made the world, man made culture, man adapted or customized this world, like someone customizing a computer to meet his needs.<br /><br />The worldview is an abstraction of culture, because it makes culture an object of study. Worldview is the knowledge that I have of my culture, the mental image or representation, consciously or unconsciously, that I have of my culture. <br /><br />Every human being has a worldview, because it is what guides him in life. At the same time, the worldview possesses us, because whatever we do or think, we do it within and in the context of a worldview. In this sense, the worldview seems to encompass culture because it is a set of ideas that an individual has about the world, and these ideas are the product of the culture in which he or she is embedded. As our culture goes, so will our worldview or view of the world be. <br /><br />The worldview is the basis of all cultural manifestation that is made up of motivations, assumptions, beliefs, commitments, certainties, and ideas, through which reality is experienced and interpreted, from the subjective-private level to the objective-institutional level shared by society.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: Human nature is what we are, our essence, culture is our existence at a particular time and space. Worldview is the sense we make of our essence and our existence.<br /> </p><p>Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-15891247615789465792024-01-15T05:19:00.000+00:002024-01-15T05:19:32.750+00:00Worldview and Religion<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFw5WT2VdZ5ikxY_XlWdDiqzG2g6dhlyrzuhLjbdKTKys3uQSHd4rSQA_cczeyrI59tgzqVaNskN3vw-GgOlFfFaLabKHijKEQnvBrzzwG5DOHJ5V_4rYFbzVpwAaH3YaIruqpHfxja5X9YJvfhRBBhiEFZseusqLXq0wXXGvHHuQxuZW_AfoCc5xT/s3500/2.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o%20e%20religi%C3%A3o.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2379" data-original-width="3500" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFw5WT2VdZ5ikxY_XlWdDiqzG2g6dhlyrzuhLjbdKTKys3uQSHd4rSQA_cczeyrI59tgzqVaNskN3vw-GgOlFfFaLabKHijKEQnvBrzzwG5DOHJ5V_4rYFbzVpwAaH3YaIruqpHfxja5X9YJvfhRBBhiEFZseusqLXq0wXXGvHHuQxuZW_AfoCc5xT/s320/2.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o%20e%20religi%C3%A3o.png" width="320" /></a></i></div><i>The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.</i> <b>Thomas Payne</b><br /><br />The first impression, or what first comes to mind, is in psychology the most important. In the case of the difference between the concept of worldview and the concept of religion, what first comes to mind is that the worldview seems to encompass religion and not the other way around. That is to say, every worldview includes a religion. <br /><br />However, when we study religion itself, we realize that every religion has a worldview, that is, a way of conceiving and interpreting reality as a whole, and not only the part that refers to the religious feeling or religious nature of the human being. This is why we must conclude that there are no defined boundaries between the two concepts because one encompasses the other; that is, if every worldview has a religion, then every religion has a worldview.<br /><br />Religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam can be considered as worldviews. The same can be said of ideologies or anti-religions that deny and repress the religious nature of human beings, such as Marxism or historical and dialectical materialism, atheism and agnosticism in general. These too can be considered as worldviews. Both faith and the lack of it give a determined shape to human life. <br /><br />A worldview seeks to answer fundamental questions such as: Does God exist, as the Creator of everything and everyone, or has the Universe always existed? What is there beyond the universe? Where do I come from, where am I going, who am I, and what is the meaning of life? Where am I? How should I or should I not live my life? What values should I cultivate and what flaws should I fight against?<br /><br />Both religion and worldview provide answers to these questions. If they answer the same questions, then they have the same field of study, so they could be considered synonyms, or better still, they are one and the same. <br /><br />The words ethics and morals are one and the same, that is, both refer to human behavior; the first of Greek origin and the second of Latin. The word ethics is used more in the civil world, while the word morals is used more in the religious world. Thus, we understand worldview as corresponding to ethics, because it is used more in the civil world, and religion corresponding to morals, because, obviously, it is used more in the religious world. <br /><br /><b>The religious phenomenon: "Mysterium tremendum et fascinans"</b><br /><i>There are no people, however primitive, where religion is not</i>. <b>Bronislaw Malinowski (1884 - 1942)</b><br /><br /><i>There have been and there are societies in the past and present without science, art without philosophy, but there has never been a society without religion</i>. <b>Henri Bergson (1857-1941)</b><br /><br /><u>Religare </u>– This is a Christian concept, that is, it is the Christian way of conceiving the religious phenomenon. It assumes the concept of separation. Sin separates us from God, religion connects us back to God because, through religion, God forgives us. <br /><br />Rudolf Otto's Latin definition of religion is still valid today: Mysterium tremendum et fascinans.... Trembling because it invokes in us feelings of fear, respect and reverence. Fascinating because it provokes in us feelings almost contrary to the former, of attraction, joy and trust. In the Bible, that is, in the biblical religious tradition of Judaism and Christianity, these feelings translate into the often-repeated binomial of fear of God and love of God. <br /><br />When the agricultural society, especially with the cultivation of cereals, allowed a certain social stratification, the figure of the priest was among the first to emerge, because religion in primitive societies encompassed culture in general, that is, all other activities or everything that was not agriculture. <br /><br />The priest was the person who performed religious rituals to the deity, he read and interpreted the sacred texts and maintained the place of worship. He was an intermediary between the deity and the people. In all Jewish religions, of Sumer, Egypt and Rome, and in Buddhism and Hinduism, and in traditional African or Latin American religions, this has always been the function of the priest. <br /><br />Shamans and mediums would be other more sophisticated versions in seeking a relationship and communication between this world and the spiritual and divine world of the spirits and the dead. There is a resurgence of these practices with the New Age religion, which is a sincretism of many religions, including traditional American, Asian and African ones. <br /><br />In primitive societies, the civil and religious leaderships were united in one person and one position. We see in the Bible that Samuel not only performed the functions of a prophet, but also those of a king and leader of the people and those of a priest, interceding for the people before God; the same happened with Moses. Already in Jesus' time, the priest also had the function of a physician, by being able to declare whether someone was cured of leprosy or not, in order to be integrated back into society. (Matthew 8:4)<br /><br /><i>“Religion is what makes the poor not kill the rich.</i>” <b>Napoleon Bonaparte</b><br /><i>"If God did not exist everything would be permitted.</i>"<b> Dostoyevsky</b><br /><br />Atheists would not recognize the truth of this first statement coming from someone as unreligious as Bonaparte, who ironically gives religion the status of a police officer that is more effective than the real ones, because people are more afraid of hell or eternal death than of temporal suffering and dying. <br /><br />Atheists will argue that there is an ethics that needs not be based on religion, but reality, however, seems to point to the fact that if human beings were one day scientifically certain that there is no God or life after death, the boundaries between good and evil would blur. The idea that good leads to Heaven and evil to Hell, is implanted in the collective unconscious of humanity.<br /><br />If this were to disappear, if in the collective unconscious or conscious this idea was not present, surely 1% of humanity could not have more wealth than the remaining 99%, as is the case today. Lucky for the rich that more than 80% of humanity believes in the existence of God and life beyond death. It is their greatest guarantee that the status quo is maintained. If this was not so, there would be no law, no police and no army that could contain the fury of the poor. So, Napoleon was right in his own way…<br /><br />In every age, in all places where human beings have lived, the religious phenomenon was born through spontaneous generation: where there are human beings, there is culture as a way of understanding and living life, and there is religion as a way of answering questions that cannot be answered by science. In this sense, science has conquered ground from religion; but can it completely nullify it?<br /><br />Secularism or the death of God has made us good consumers, but bad citizens, individualists lacking solidarity and empathy with human pain, because it was religion that brought us together in community as children of the same Father God. Without God, nothing unites us as human beings, and everything becomes permissible, as Dostoyevsky says. There is no social ethic that is founded on itself without the foundation in God.<br /><br />Agnostics are not interested in religion because it is not possible to know God; God cannot be known by the scientific method because he is a person, and people are not the object of science either. People are not known by those who do not love them. To know a person without loving him, without getting involved with him, without making oneself known in return, would be to manipulate him, just as the scientific method does to things.<br /><br />On the other hand, mystery involves both religion and science. In each and every science there are known matters and unknown matters; that is why one continues to investigate and research to unravel them. One does not know everything about biology, physics, chemistry. The more one knows, the more there is to know. That is why mystery involves both religion and science.<br /><br />But religion, depending on the answers it gives us to the fundamental questions, also shapes our lives, it tells us how we should or should not live. On this matter, science also has no opinion, nor does it tell us what is the meaning of life or how we should live it.<br /><br /><b>Religion, culture and development</b><br />Every culture has its own way of conceptualizing God; hence the fact that there are various religions. In addition to the cultural factor, the diversity of religions has also to do with the level of development or progress. <br /><br />With a rampant rate of globalization that aims to put all men in contact with each other, what counts most is no longer the diversity of cultures, but the level of development. More than western or eastern culture, we speak of north and south. There is only one model of development, just as there is only one human nature. More than diversity of cultures, there are developed peoples, less developed peoples and primitive peoples.<br /><br />Development has been connotated with the Western world, but I would connote it with human nature. There is no alternative development model to the so-called Western one. The East (China and Japan) does not present an alternative development model to that of the West because there is just no other alternative.<br /><br />There is no development model that does not include the steam engine, electricity, propulsion engines, trains, airplanes, cars, television, radio, telephone, computer, Internet, paper, newspapers, books, schools, universities... The presence or absence of these and many other elements defines the level of development of a people, and this level of development influences people's lives more than cultural nuances.<br /><br />For example, the writings of Chinese and other Asian peoples are not different from the writing of western peoples because of a cultural factor, but because of a development factor. All writings began in a pictorial form, that is, by representing things by drawing a picture of them. The Egyptian hieroglyphics and the cuneiform writing of Sumer and Mesopotamia are pictorial ancestors of the Greek and Roman alphabets that are in use in the Western world today. As far as writing is concerned, the alphabet is more developed than pictorial writing, because it is simpler in the computer age and because it makes speech more fluid among a greater diversity of concepts and words. <br /><br />Just as there is a scientific, technical and human development or progress, there is also a progress or development in the field of religion, that is, the conceptualization of God and the experience of innate religious feeling in human beings. <br /><br /><u>Animism</u><br />It is the first conceptualization of the divine. Our ancestors lived in the belief that everything was animated; both material objects, animals, plants, rivers, rocks, etc., such as natural phenomena, thunder, lightning, wind, rain, etc. and even the universe itself, possessed a soul, that is, spiritual or supernatural qualities, meanings or powers.<br /><br />In Portugal there is a much-repeated phrase that tells of this time period, "In the time when animals could talk". It is not that such a time ever existed, but the belief that animals spoke, had a soul and a personality did exist. <br /><br />The ancient religions belong to this category; animism still exists today, but only in peoples who somehow live separated from global civilization like the aborigines of Australia, the indigenous peoples of North America, as well as the isolated people in the Amazon and certain African tribes. <br /><br />Witchcraft, New Age, magic and so many other superstitions are remnants of animism or new expressions of it in Western society. The granting of spiritual power to certain objects such as the charm, the horseshoe, the rabbit’s foot, etc., are modern remnants of animism that today are nothing more than superstitions. <br /><br /><u>Polytheism</u><br />As we said, as the human being got to know and dominate his environment, the latter materialized. All the realities that the human being knows, controls and dominates, these lose their soul, their power, in some way; this passes to or is absorbed by the inventive spirit of the human being. In this way, the sphere of the material has increased, and the sphere of the spiritual has decreased. What human beings dominate ceases to have power over them, above all, it ceases to have spiritual power, to become a controllable material good. <br /><br />With progress, human beings have managed to dominate many realities, but not all; those that still resisted being mastered acquired the nature of deities. Animism is succeeded by polytheism, the belief that the main realities, powers and forces of nature are dominated by a god. In effect there is a god for each reality, being the lord of that same reality: Venus, the goddess of love, Mars, the god of war, Neptune, the god of the sea, Cronos, the god of time... Polytheism still exists today in certain religions such as Hinduism.<br /><br /><b>Absolute monotheism</b><br />The prehistory of monotheism happens when human beings group all these gods together and give them a leader – Zeus in the Greek mythology and Jupiter in the Roman. From here to monotheism is just one step forward. The first human being to proclaim that there was only one god was an Egyptian pharaoh named Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, who reigned in Egypt in the 14th century BC, long before the Greek and Roman cultures.<br /><br />Sedentary peoples tend to be polytheists; nomadic peoples, on the contrary, are monotheistic. The Turkana, a nomadic people of northern Kenya, have the same word to designate Heaven and God. The Mongols, the Turks and the Tatars all worshipped a common god called Tengri, the god of the blue sky.<br /><br />From here to intuiting that God is a spiritual being was just a short step taken by the Jews, who were also nomads. For them, God was spiritual and was everywhere, inside our minds and especially in our hearts, at all times and all places. He was a personal being because he was a God of people, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. They also sensed that he was a creator God of everything and everyone. Today, absolute monotheists are therefore the Jews and the Muslims. <br /><br /><u>Trinitarian monotheism</u><br />It is the Christian version of monotheism or, in the age of relativity theory, it is the relativization of the absolute monotheism of the Jews and the Muslims. If man was created in the image and likeness of God, and God is love, love implies a relationship of at least two people; the objective of married life or a relationship, is not two people looking at each other, but the two looking in the same direction, that oftentimes takes the shape or modality of a child but could be some other human goal. So, neither Love or God are “mono" nor "stereo", but three-dimensional.<br /><br />This God who is a community of love created man in his own image and likeness, so that human beings too are one and triune, and is called to be a community of love; to the Trinity of God corresponds a human trinity. <br /><br />The human person is free, autonomous, indivisible and independent, and yet he is not self-explanatory, he needs two other persons: his father and his mother, with whom he forms a triangle. Father, mother, child are the only categories of human life; every human being always belongs to two of them. <br /><br />A man is not a father without having a wife and a child; a woman is not a mother without having a husband and a child, every human being is the child of a father and a mother; there are no single mothers. The Trinity consists in that one individual does not exist alone but coexists with two others; the existence of one always implies the existence of two others, with whom he has affective ties, forming a triangle of love. <br /><br /><u>Atheism</u><br />For atheism, there is no God apart from the universe or in the universe. It claims that the physical universe is all that exists. Everything is self-sufficient matter. Karl Marx’s philosophy on Feuerbach’s thoughts – on the part of philosophy as to his dialectical materialism and on the part of economics as to his historical materialism. Another atheist exponent on the part of psychology was Sigmund Freud.<br /><br />Believers cannot scientifically prove the existence of God; non-believers cannot scientifically prove his non-existence either. Hence atheism is the belief in the non-existence of God. A belief that goes against the innate religious feeling in human beings. <br /><br />This religious feeling is somehow referred to by the joke that says: the man is a communist until he becomes rich, a feminist until he gets married and an atheist until the plane starts dropping from the sky. There is also the one who conceives himself as an atheist because it is fashionable and because he has not yet adapted his vocabulary to his new belief, goes so far as to say, "I'm an atheist, thank God”. <br /><br /><u>Nihilism</u><br />Where do I come from, where am I going, and what is the meaning of life, are the three questions that every human being asks himself when, at 6 or 7 years, he reaches self-consciousness, that is, he knows himself as a person. If we come out from nothing and go to nothing, as atheists say, what meaning does life have? Can something that begins in nothing and ends in nothing have any meaning at all? In this sense, nihilism is a natural fruit or product of atheism.<br /><br />Without a future, the present is nauseating, however pleasant it may be. This is what Sartre experienced, Nietzsche before him and Camus after him: "if you come from nothing, there is no Faith, if you go to nothing, there is no Hope, the most certain is that there is no Charity, so life lacks meaning, it is nauseating.” In the face of this, you either commit suicide like Nietzsche, or you overindulge in the pleasures of the material world and die from some kind of overdose, or you become a philanthropist and enjoy the joy that comes from the good you do for others, because there is more joy in giving than in receiving.<br /><br /><u>Agnosticism</u><br />Since it is not possible to know God, or know him fully, the agnostic, as we have said already, is not interested in the subject, he sets it aside. However, as we have also said, it is not only God who is half shrouded in mystery, so is all sciences. Therefore, this attitude of a-gnosis, that is, of denying the knowledge applied to the sciences, would paralyze scientific progress because it would paralyze research. Since I can't know everything about biology, physics and chemistry, I'm not interested, I don't want to know them at all. <br /><br />I suspect, on the other hand, that this attitude, from the most human point of view, is that of avoiding answering the three fundamental questions of the human being: where I come from, where am I going and what is the meaning of life, to avoid falling into nihilism. In other words, the attitude of an ostrich that, seeing danger, hides its head in the sand. <br /><br /><b>Hard evidence of God's existence</b><br /><i>If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.</i> <b>1 Corinthians 15:17-22</b><br /><br />To paraphrase St. Paul, if Christ did not resurrect, if there is no God or life beyond death, we are the most wretched of all living beings inhabiting this planet. The evolution from non-consciousness to consciousness, or as Karl Marx puts it, we are the moment when nature gains consciousness of itself, would be meaningless. What did we gain consciousness for? <br /><br />So that we can be aware of our misery? So that, unlike other living beings, we know that one day we're going to die? To feel sadness whenever we have another birthday and see how our strength is waning, our external beauty is disappearing and diseases gaining ground? At least other living beings are spared this suffering, because they do not know that they are going to die or even that they exist, because they are not conscious of self.<br /><br />What is the point of having a choice? So that we can fall into a thousand and one traps and make our lives a living hell? At least other living beings are always happy, they don't have the ability to ruin their own lives and become unhappy.<br /><br />And what's all the work and effort for if we were all end up the same way? And if the end of human beings is the same as that of a flea or a cockroach, in what way can a human being be superior to these living beings? Unless he is superior in suffering, in sadness and in despair if, in fact, the end for all is nothing.<br /><br />If there is thirst, there must be water; otherwise, there would be no thirst. All the experiences of those who have been between life and death, between here and beyond, speak of a light, of an immense happiness. No one, so far, has spoken of nothingness, of emptiness, of ceasing to exist. <br /><br />According to Pascal's famous argument or wager, let us suppose that two friends - one atheist and one religious - bet a sum of money on whether or not God and life beyond death exist. The atheist bets that God does not exist, the religious bets that he does. At the death of the two men, if the atheist wins the bet, that is, if there is nothing beyond death, he won’t be able to collect the prize, he won’t even know that he has won and that the religious has lost.<br /><br />If, on the other hand, there is life beyond death and God sustains it, the religious has gained this eternal life and the atheist has lost it. We conclude that whoever believes has everything to gain and nothing to lose; whoever does not believe has everything to lose and nothing to gain.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion </b>– The concepts of religion and worldview encompass each other. Every worldview has a religion or an anti-religion, and every religion has a worldview. <br />Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /><br /><p></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-75327083448361537782024-01-01T05:01:00.000+00:002024-01-01T05:01:56.135+00:00Worldview, the Matrix of Our Mind<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrxwRNf-oJAwZCSiiJj24t_qT0jdEMLcAxoeUejkhvWOBDLxyrv1E1M62Z2RmJjMUlWGrNEX5ycLz2pUxsNa0NU5FjVxS75jfQNVsk8sQT_8o4pgISjdt4JSmApVS8QXF4_m-BH6ttXTjhBw4XTVg36CW_dgQOA_5bWPcKrQyf3PBiBJGn_n2OtPEr/s2085/1.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o,%20a%20matriz%20do%20nosso%20pensamento.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1251" data-original-width="2085" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrxwRNf-oJAwZCSiiJj24t_qT0jdEMLcAxoeUejkhvWOBDLxyrv1E1M62Z2RmJjMUlWGrNEX5ycLz2pUxsNa0NU5FjVxS75jfQNVsk8sQT_8o4pgISjdt4JSmApVS8QXF4_m-BH6ttXTjhBw4XTVg36CW_dgQOA_5bWPcKrQyf3PBiBJGn_n2OtPEr/s320/1.%20Cosmovis%C3%A3o,%20a%20matriz%20do%20nosso%20pensamento.png" width="320" /></a></i></div><p><i>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people</i>. <b>John 1:1-4</b><br /><br />Almost all of humanity subscribes to and agrees with these first words of the prologue of John’s Gospel, which affirm the belief of a creator God of everything that exists and everyone who exists.<br /><br />Trying to situate Jesus in the context of time and space, we notice how the horizon and the meaning of his entry into human history is amplified with each gospel written. Mark, the first to be written, in Rome and for the Romans, the shortest and the most incisive and direct, begins with the Baptism of Jesus and seeks to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. <br /><br />Matthew, the second to be written, for the Jews, establishes a genealogy of Jesus in which Jesus is said to be the son of David, the son of Abraham. Luke, the third to be written, by a Greek for the Greeks, also establishes a genealogy, but he goes beyond the ancestors of Israel to the first man and first woman, Adam and Eve. Finally, John, as text quoted above says, begins the story of Jesus of Nazareth long before Adam and Eve, outside of our planet, of the cosmos, of the universe, to the beginning of creation. <br /><br />A worldview seeks to integrate all the elements of a culture or religion in a harmonious way that makes sense. Each of the gospels placed Jesus within an increasingly bigger context, and at the end, John concluded that Jesus not only had to do with the Baptist movement, but that he also is a descendant of David, Abraham, Adam and Eve, and that by being there at the beginning of creation, he is the second person of the Holy Trinity. <br /><br /><b>Looking at the world as God sees it</b><br />The best way to look at the world is certainly to do it with the eyes of its Creator. Whoever is inside a forest cannot see it, he only sees trees. To have an entire view of the forest, it is necessary to go out of it, to situate oneself as an observer outside of it, but at the same time inside of it. There is no one better than God who knows and has an overview of the world, its nature and its meaning. <br /><br />Not only because He is the one who created it, but also because only He can completely transcend the world for being at the same time immanent and transcendent. That is, only He can truly come out of the forest to look at it from the outside; we humans can never fully have that perspective. Therefore, looking at the world from the perspective of its Creator, with the eyes of God, is always the best way. Without God, the world lacks meaning because nothing that exists can explain itself. <br /><br /><b>Abstraction and transcendence</b><br />The human being, made in the image and likeness of God, is also to a lesser degree immanent and transcendent in relation to the world. He is immanent because he lives in it, is subject to its laws, and cannot live without the world. He is transcendent because he has the capacity to abstract himself from it, a capacity that comes from the fact that he is different from other creatures as he alone possesses self-consciousness. <br /><br />Self-consciousness is the split of our psyche that gives us the ability to be immanent and transcendent in relation to ourselves, the world, and all that surrounds us. By being self-aware, we can be in the forest and out of the forest, because we can be observers and observed in relation to ourselves and the world around us. Being able to observe ourselves, we are at the same time the subject and the object of our own observation. <br /><br />Self-consciousness gives us the possibility to look at our inner and outer world, everything around us, with some objectivity. Self-consciousness is a certain objectivity within subjectivity, because it allows us to observe, to judge, and to be objective and fair. Although it is said that “nobody is a fair judge in his own case”, it is also true that if we have a healthy self-criticism and recognize our mistakes, have been honest, sincere, and genuine, we can be fair judges even in our own case.<br /><br />Self-consciousness gives us the possibility to observe the world and to interpret it, that is, to put it inside ourselves, to assimilate it and to make a map of it that we keep inside which helps us in our relationship with the world around us, with others, and even with ourselves. This inner map, this interpretation, our way of conceptualizing the world is our worldview.<br /><br /><b>"Against facts there are no arguments"</b><br />This well-known proverb basically means that there is no point discussing what is obvious, what is objective, what is staring at us in the face. It is a waste of time to argue against what is happening right under our nose, there is no point in trying to explain it, because the fact speaks for itself and says it all.<br /><br />Facts belong to the realm of the objective, of what is common to all, so without a minimum of objectivity, known as common sense, public opinion, common denominator, life in society would not be possible. But objectivity is opposed to subjectivity; the same fact can have as many interpretations as the number of people interpreting it. “Each person has his own verdict”, it is also said. <br /><br />It is not enough to only see what we see, but it is necessary to understand what we see as well. The disciples of Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) fled Jerusalem, leaving behind the fact that they were disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, because the facts of his death had disconcerted, demoralized, scandalized, confused, and despaired them. It is one thing to see, it is another to know how to interpret what we see, to find the meaning of what we see. Appearances are deceiving as things are not always what they seem.<br /><br />Jesus helped the disciples interpret the seemingly scandalous fact of his death in light of Salvation History described in the Bible. Often, in order to know the meaning of a specific fact, we have to place it in the context of a larger picture. It is always true that those who are in the forest do not see the forest, they only see trees; to see the forest they must get out of it.<br /><br /><b>Definition and synonyms</b><br />“The whole manner of conceiving the world and humanity’s place in it, the widest possible view which the mind can take of things.” <b>James Orr</b><br /><br />A "life-system" rooted in a fundamental principle from which was derived a whole complex of ruling ideas and conceptions about reality. <b>Abraham Kuyper</b><br /><br />"A perspective on life, a whole system of thought that answers the questions presented by the reality of existence." <b>Francis Schaeffer</b><br /><br />"A set of presuppositions or assumptions held consciously or unconsciously, consistently or inconsistently, about the basic make up of reality.” <b>Sire James</b><br /><br />"A comprehensive framework of one's basic beliefs about things." <b>Albert Wolters</b><br /><br />“It is … an interpretative framework … by which one makes sense … of life and the world.” <b>Norman Geisler</b><br /><br />Worldview, the vision of the cosmos, of the universe, of the world, of our small world, general view, comprehensive view, general perception of the world, perspective, optics – all these terms are synonyms that translate the German concept of "Weltanschauung" which means "way of looking at the world" ("welt" – world, "schauen" – look), point of view, perspective, or conception of the world.<br /><br />There seems to be a consensus that the term worldview derives from Immanuel Kant’s use of the term "Weltanschauung" in his book, <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i>. The concept that Kant sought to define has always existed; human beings, from the most primitive, consciously or unconsciously, have always had a vision of the world that gave meaning to their lives, by which they guided their steps and made their decisions. <br /><br />A worldview is an ordered and structured set of beliefs, ideas, values, concepts, and opinions that shape the image that a person, a collective, a culture, an era, has of the world and from which the person interprets his nature, the meaning of his life and everything that exists.<br /><br />A worldview is a mental representation that a person or culture makes of the world or reality; a way of interpreting and conceptualizing everything that exists and giving it meaning. This conceptualization or mental representation becomes a frame of reference of our being and our presence in the world, that is, it constitutes an abstraction or internal map to which we refer consciously and unconsciously to situate and guide ourselves in the external reality.<br /><br />It is the compass that shows the north so we do not get lost, the east so we can orient ourselves, it is our Global Positioning System (or GPS) that tells us at every moment where we are, the place we occupy in the world, the place we want to get to, that is, our purposes, our goals, our dreams and the road that take us there.<br /><br />Worldview is my concept of the world and the life that exists in it, it is the foundation, the cornerstone of my life. It has to do with my philosophy of life, my optics, or the lenses through which I see and interpret reality. The worldview is the matrix of a culture, similar to the motherboard of a computer, which is that large green board that we find when we dismantle a computer, that has all the circuits printed on it, and to which all the chips, memory, disk and other components of a computer are fixed. <br /><br />The worldview is like the operating system of a computer. It may be Windows, Macintosh, or Linux system that makes the computer work. A computer without an operating system does nothing, it starts up and displays a screen with nothing on it. Today's computers do everything, they are used in every institution and cell of individual and social life. There are programs to handle text, images, music, mathematical calculations, etc. Each program, however, is grounded in the operating system.<br /><br />Using this metaphor, the worldview is the operating system of a particular culture. This culture may be made up of many and varied things, like the programs of a computer, but they all rest on a single common foundation: the operating system of the computer, the worldview of the culture. To paraphrase the book of the Acts of the Apostles (17: 28), it is in Him that we really live, move, exist, and have our being...<br /><br /><b>Conclusion </b>– A mental representation or map of the world, the worldview is our personal and collective way of conceptualizing and interpreting the world, as well as our identity and the meaning of our existence in it.</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /><br /></p><p></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-52083856021718109652023-12-15T16:54:00.000+00:002023-12-15T16:54:02.293+00:00XII Mystery - Coronation of Mary as queen of heaven and earth<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWHf90swGebQoaslBLELC_JhIwSbD_8hk5-B2S4uAL1TQrUqkeKMjEt_a2slYSjFvlVTajXMfavamnXlOKMmpG6bwlRQWE_uC7R4GHcfXnfZ3FCMoNoeU2JhXxmIVgnL9eow8S6q1mHOS0GGvTe7APYew2AQ76xhqfHpcENpxU-0-V5A3SRp8yPBCc/s1238/21.%2012%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Coroa%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20de%20Maria%20como%20Rainha%20do%20C%C3%A9u%20e%20da%20Terra.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1238" data-original-width="930" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWHf90swGebQoaslBLELC_JhIwSbD_8hk5-B2S4uAL1TQrUqkeKMjEt_a2slYSjFvlVTajXMfavamnXlOKMmpG6bwlRQWE_uC7R4GHcfXnfZ3FCMoNoeU2JhXxmIVgnL9eow8S6q1mHOS0GGvTe7APYew2AQ76xhqfHpcENpxU-0-V5A3SRp8yPBCc/s320/21.%2012%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Coroa%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20de%20Maria%20como%20Rainha%20do%20C%C3%A9u%20e%20da%20Terra.jpg" width="240" /></a></i></div><i>A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.</i> <b>Revelation 12:1</b><br /><br />In his Apostolic Exhortation "Marialis Cultus", Pope Paul VI wrote that the Solemnity of the Assumption is joyfully prolonged in the celebration of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which occurs seven days later. A mother of a king is a queen, the queen mother. It was not an inherited kingship as the son of a king is a king, it was a hard-won queenship, a queenship that hurts. <br /><br />It was a crown of glory preceded by a crown of thorns, or the prophetic sword of much suffering referred to by old Simeon that Mary had to go through for the sake of her son. Mary's queenship is therefore a queenship by merit, something akin to a Nobel Prize for her good service to humanity. <br /><br />St. Paul, in one of his letters, talks about athletes who sacrifice themselves with strict diet and exercise only to win a crown that withers. If this happens to them, how much more will it happen to us if we want to win, like Mary, an eternal crown of glory. We must accept and endure the sufferings that come our way. <br /><br /><b>Mary and the Empress St. Helena</b><br />In thinking about what is said in this text, because there is no historical basis for the things we understand to happen in Heaven, I thought of another woman who, like Mary, achieved great heights despite starting very low, and who also like Mary, lived 100% at the service of her son. This is empress St. Helena who lived at the service of her son. <br /><br />Saint Helena was not born to any noble family in Rome, she was born in Asia Minor and, as her name implies, she was not Roman, but Greek. She married the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus who went on a military campaign in Asia Minor. Her son is Constantine I who became Roman emperor in York, England, in 306. He conferred on his mother the title of empress. Later, she converted to Christianity, as did her son because of the great influence she had on him.<br /><br />In her last years of life, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. At that time Jerusalem was still called Aelia Capitolina, after the troops of Emperor Titus destroyed it. In place of the Holy Sepulchre and Golgotha, they had built a temple to the goddess Venus. <br /><br />Helena had this temple destroyed and, in its place, built the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the very site where she found the true Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Helena built many other churches, which were later destroyed by the Muslim occupation. The only two that remain standing, and which were the main ones, are the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. <br /><br />Many images of St. Helena represent her embracing the cross, the same cross at the foot of which Mary wept for the death of her Son. As Mary rejoiced at the Resurrection of her Son and the end of her suffering, Helena represents the end of the suffering of her son's disciples who, until her and her son Constantine made Christianity the state religion, had suffered Roman persecution and the martyrdom of being eaten by beasts in Roman arenas. Helena is the first Christian empress or queen; Mary is the Queen of queens, the Queen of heaven and earth. <br /><br /><b>Queen Mother</b><br /><i>Salve rainha, Salve rainha, Senhora minha mãe de Jesus</i> (Portuguese Marian Canticle)<br /><br />Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita dulcedo et spes nostra salve. Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae.<br />Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes, in hac lacrimarum valle. Eja ergo advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte. Et Jesum benedictum fructum ventris tui nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria. (Hail Holy Queen in Latin)<br /><br />In my student days in England, the Queen Mother of the late Queen Elizabeth II was still living. The Queen Mother was a person much loved by the people. She too was a queen, not because she reigned, but because her husband had been a king. She had the title of queen consort and, at that time, Queen Mother of Elizabeth II. <br /><br />Mary is the Queen Mother because she is the mother of Christ who is the King of the Universe. The Mother of Christ, head of the Church which is his mystical body, is seated at the right of her Son as the queen adorned in gold of Ophir from Psalm 45:9. <br /><br />Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae (Hail Queen, Mother of Mercy) – Mary is queen because she is the mother of Jesus, and our queen because she is our spiritual mother, a merciful mother like God the Father. A mother who because she is the flesh of our flesh, totally human, is a bridge to her Son. A "Pontifex maximus" to access her Son because she, like Empress Helena, knows how to access the heart of her Son and obtain from Him, for us, all the graces we need, just as she already did at Cana apparently with his initial opposition. <br /><br />Queen of angels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, all the saints, and of peace, as the litany says in her praise. Mary is above all the queen of our hearts where she reigns with her beloved Son.<br /><br /><b>The Queen Mother in Israel</b><br /><i>…at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir</i>. <b>Psalms 45:9</b><br /><br />In the biblical episode about King Solomon’s ascension to the throne, we notice the king's reverence for his mother Bathsheba, when she went to visit him as the 1st book of Kings, chapter 2, verse 19, says:<br /><br /><i>So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. The king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right.</i> <b>1 Kings 2:19</b><br /><br />This attitude of Solomon immediately refers to Psalm 45 quoted above. The Hebrews kept this tradition until the Babylonian exile, when they no longer had kings. From that time onward, one begins to expect the coming of David’s new son, the Messiah. According to tradition, Mary is also from the tribe of Judah, like Joseph, that is, she also belongs by birth to the royal family. <br /><br />In fact, Angel Gabriel already greeted Mary with the salutation of ‘Hail’, a greeting used for the emperors of Rome. She was destined to be the queen of heaven and earth, so she was already queen of heaven and earth when she accepted to be the mother of God’s only begotten Son, the King of the Universe. <br /><br />At that very moment, when she conceived the king, she became queen. On the other hand, by being conceived without original sin, Mary was already born predestined to be queen. Mary's immaculate conception makes the blue blood of humanity, created by God without original sin, to flow through her veins. By being conceived without original sin she was already conceived as queen. <br /><br /><i>‘You are the glory of Jerusalem… you are the great pride of our nation!... you have done great good to Israel, and God is well pleased with it. May the Almighty Lord bless you for ever!</i>’ <b>Judith 15:10</b><br /><br /><b>Conclusion </b>– Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth because she is the mother of Christ, King of the Universe. Her coronation is something akin to a Nobel Prize for her services rendered for the salvation of mankind. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-10534298109303164302023-12-01T16:52:00.001+00:002023-12-04T16:16:19.464+00:00XI Mystery: The Dormition and Assumption of Mary<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUVHuAkCW9-UAujtAWusbRZAwC8AP4tvIljveGU9LZkZZFpQ9Y_o1huNPBQZSM77BVINlmmfKJ6UgCnEkil6fDgc53GMEPTLmTyp0wcyE4A7wCCuQj6AEp4t3uVStPJyINT_WlPpPuLzbMDZnq5Zh8jdy9-J3IDaWrNsRXZHgO5z_mVml5dvvd1Pmx/s884/20.%2011%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Dormi%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20e%20Assun%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20de%20Maria.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUVHuAkCW9-UAujtAWusbRZAwC8AP4tvIljveGU9LZkZZFpQ9Y_o1huNPBQZSM77BVINlmmfKJ6UgCnEkil6fDgc53GMEPTLmTyp0wcyE4A7wCCuQj6AEp4t3uVStPJyINT_WlPpPuLzbMDZnq5Zh8jdy9-J3IDaWrNsRXZHgO5z_mVml5dvvd1Pmx/s320/20.%2011%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Dormi%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20e%20Assun%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20de%20Maria.jpg" width="217" /></a></i></div><i>"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generation will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name…</i>’ <b>Luke 1:47-55</b><br /><br />Just as Mary initiated Jesus into this world and took him everywhere when he was small and launched him into public life before his time at the wedding in Cana, so now it is Jesus who takes her to Heaven in a glorious body like His own and introduces her to His world where He is Lord of the Universe. <br /><br /><b>The exaltation of the humble servant of Zion</b><br /><i>All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.</i> <b>Matthew 23:12</b> – The Assumption of Mary is the exaltation of the humble that the gospel speaks of, and in this case, it is of a humble servant of Zion whom the Lord had already set his eyes on before her birth, thus making her conception immaculate. <br /><br />With humility she endured the vexation of finding herself pregnant without being able to explain the origin of her pregnancy; with humility she endured her son's sufferings when he began to encounter opposition from the leaders of Israel; with humility and abasement she endured his death; now, by merit she is exalted and ascends to Heaven to be always with the One she begot, the firstborn Son of God. <br /><br />Assumption and Dormition are the same thing. The East celebrates it more as Dormition, while the West more as Assumption. In my homeland, it is celebrated more as Dormition. Since I was a child, my village has celebrated Dormition with a skiff or coffin where Our Lady is found lying inside. On August 15th, this skiff is placed where the coffin of the dead is usually placed for the funeral Mass. Thus, the Mass of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven is like a funeral Mass with the body present. <br /><br /><b>History of the dogma of the Assumption</b><br /><i>By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.</i> <b>Munificentissimus Deus, Pius XII November 1, 1950</b><br /><br />The declaration of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body, and soul, into Heaven is quite recent. However, this and all other dogmas have a long history of almost 2000 years of theological reflection, popular piety, and spirituality, and in some cases, even heavenly confirmation, as with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the Lourdes apparitions. <br /><br />The first allusion to Mary's passage from this world into Heaven took place in the 4th century; in 377, Epiphanius of Salamis stated that no one knew whether Mary had died. The oldest account is the so-called "The Book of Mary's Rest", of which there is only an Ethiopic Coptic translation, understood to be from the 4th century, although it may well have been from the 3rd century.<br /><br />Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven also appears in the book "De Transitu Virginis", a work attributed to St. Melito of Sardis in late 5th century. This book tells us that the Apostles came carried on white clouds, each from the city where he was at the time, to watch the Dormition of Mary. This story is continued centuries later, with an appendix according to which Thomas, as usual, did not attend this funeral of Our Lady, and when he arrived later, they had the tomb opened, which they found was empty. <br /><br />Where this Assumption or Dormition took place is not known, some say in Jerusalem, others say in Ephesus where, according to tradition, Mary lived the last years of her life with St. John, in the well-known "House of Mary" that is still there today and is open to visitors. <br /><br />With her Assumption into Heaven, Mary fulfills what St. Irenaeus said: God became man so that man might become God. This is how the dream of Eve, who wanted to be God, is fulfilled. Mary became like God by being a mother. Through obedience, being part of God's intimate family is open to all of us: "my mother and my brothers are those who hear my Word and put it into practice".<br /><br /><b>Assumption as union with God</b><br /><i>"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you,</i>" <b>St. Augustine.</b><br /><br />We are in the world, but we are not of the world. This subtle difference in the meaning of the verb to be is expressed in Portuguese by two different verbs. We are (estar) in the world, but we are (ser) from Heaven, we are from God, from where we came and to where we will return. The best way to be in the world then is to live detached, and we only achieve this way of being in the world if we set our priorities right, that is, if God is the one we love the most, both in theory and in practice.<br /><br />I will always remember my experience of crossing the fast-flowing rivers in Ethiopia: one should not look at the water that is flowing very fast, but rather look at the riverbank that is not moving. The first time I had to cross one of these great rivers, I started looking at the water and started becoming nauseous, dazed and in danger of being swept away by the current. Upon seeing this, the young men accompanying me shouted, "Abba, don't look at the water, but look at the riverbank." <br /><br />This can be a metaphor for our life. Let our eyes be fixed not on what moves which is temporal and fleeting, but on what does not move, that is, on God who does not change and is eternal, so that we are not carried away by the current of the present, so that we will not let ourselves be inebriated by current pleasure nor despair by current pain. We will only cross the river of life well if we keep our eyes fixed on God in Heaven. If not, we will be swept away by the current, whatever the trend, fashion, power, wealth, the things of the world.<br /><br /><i>In search of his own identity, a salt doll traveled thousands of kilometers across a desert, until he finally reached the sea. Fascinated by the strange, moving mass, completely different from anything he had ever seen, he asked:</i><br /><i>-Who are you? <br /> With a smile, the sea replied: <br />-I am the sea.<br />-But what is the sea? asked the doll.<br />-Come, touch me and you will find out. <br />The salt doll put his foot in the water and immediately it disappeared. <br />-What did you do? he asked, startled.<br />-To know me, you must give yourself to me, replied to the sea.<br />Then the salt doll went deeper into the sea and, before a wave completely covered him, he said with a sigh:<br />-I finally know who I am. </i><b>Tony De Mello</b><br /><br />If we want to get to know God already here in this life, we must get involved. We cannot know God without getting involved. It cannot be a cold knowledge in which we do not get ourselves involved, as if we were doing that oxygen experiment with algae and sun where we with our knowledge are only observing and recording. <br /><br />In this case, we are not directly involved, but with God, if we are to know Him, we must love Him. The same thing happens when we begin to know a person who is a stranger to us: little by little we begin to like that person not least because knowledge between people and about people is affective; and so, it is with God. Only affective knowledge is effective, that is, it is real and has effect. <br /><br /><b>Assumption as Levitation</b><br />An interesting experience to have in New York, if we visit the NASA museum, is the experience of weightlessness: it is like flying, over there even French fries and water droplets can fly. Flying has always been the dream of every human being; in fact, it seems to be a frequent recurring dream of many of us. I personally dream often that I am flying. <br /><br />The Assumption is a spiritual experience that is felt by those who detach themselves from the things and affections of this world. The saints levitated because their ties to this earth were few. Saint Teresa of Avila said, "I live without living in me, and I expect a life so high, that I die because I do not die..." Assumption is like levitation, when we let go of what binds us to this world, the affections for temporal goods and even for people. <br /><br /><b>The mystery of the Incarnation and the emancipation of women</b><br />If a particular rat poison is potent, that is, if its effect, the death of the rat is too close to the cause, that is, the ingestion of the poison, then other rats easily associate the death of a mate with the poison and the poison is never touched again. Hence the best poison for mice is an anticoagulant, death only happens if the mouse is wounded in an accident or fights another mate; in this way, the cause is far from the effect so the mouse cannot make the association. <br /><br />In the early days of humanity, when our intelligence did not surpass that of a mouse today, men still did not know where babies came from, because the effect, that is, birth was separated from the cause, that is, the sexual act, for too long, nine months. <br /><br />At this time the woman, and only she, was the future and hope of the human species, she brought forth new beings into the world. As the result, the first deity to be worshipped was a goddess: the goddess of earth and female fertility. Earth is still today a feminine term in almost all languages. It was also the woman who invented agriculture. Because the woman was regarded as the origin of life, god was conceived in feminine form at that time.<br /><br />When the connection between coitus and the birth of a baby was established, the woman gradually lost all social prestige. To the principle of the female deity was added the male consort. Over time, the male consort expelled the goddess from heaven, and he was left to rule alone. The woman is now only the ground that the man works on and dominates, God sends the rain like the man sows the semen, the whole new being is contained in the man’s semen, the woman is only the receptacle. <br /><br />In this new concept of God, Yahweh is the king and the lord, and the kings at that time did not have a queen, but a harem of concubines. The woman was then treated like the earth in agriculture, "Be fruitful and multiply, rule the earth...” and the woman disappeared from the social scene and from the heaven inhabited by a king, almighty and loner God. The woman was the last to be created and the first to sin. <br /><br />Christianity is an emancipating factor for women. Let us see, in non-Christian societies women are debased and mistreated. Even today, in Africa, the woman is the one who works, the man does nothing; the woman is sold, forced to marry at the age of 15 to middle-aged men. In Japan, she serves as a dish in restaurants, even today. In Asia, it is in the Philippines that women are most emancipated. Muslims circumcise the woman so that she never has sexual pleasure.<br /><br />The Annunciation was the beginning of this emancipation of women. God, to come into the world, needed a woman, not a man. And it was not only the womb that He used; it was also the ovum. With Mary's life, the woman returned to Heaven in Assumption, as the mother of God’s only begotten Son. <br /><br />No man was born without original sin, only her; God did not need the man's sperm, but the woman's egg. Mary points to the feminine face of God, just as Jesus of Nazareth, her Son, points to the masculine face of God.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion </b>– The Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven is the logical outcome of Mary’s life on earth. Conceived without original sin, she gave birth to the author of life, becoming the mother of God. Mary brings Jesus into the world, and Jesus brings his mother into Heaven. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-88646135260003754702023-11-15T15:40:00.000+00:002023-11-15T15:40:06.957+00:00X Mystery: Mary, Mother of the Church at Pentecost<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAamq_rSYABAh1FbHv46FFvRa9YoE7sOu0H6kgU9A2imvJ9TbXOygXA_23HUPXVeQ0PdXn4INkSVr4gzS4GLmTUtPKuTsaF1gO21dFRVG89eC-U1URmop7-dI1sd1SPnX8zPWl9qDS5vbSecsrD___imqktAUIM9RjwYupXVbK86ZdlMYwd5un2q-/s1260/19.%2010%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Maria%20m%C3%A3e%20da%20Igreja%20em%20Pentecostes.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="869" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAamq_rSYABAh1FbHv46FFvRa9YoE7sOu0H6kgU9A2imvJ9TbXOygXA_23HUPXVeQ0PdXn4INkSVr4gzS4GLmTUtPKuTsaF1gO21dFRVG89eC-U1URmop7-dI1sd1SPnX8zPWl9qDS5vbSecsrD___imqktAUIM9RjwYupXVbK86ZdlMYwd5un2q-/s320/19.%2010%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Maria%20m%C3%A3e%20da%20Igreja%20em%20Pentecostes.jpg" width="221" /></a></i></div><i>When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers</i>. <b>Acts 1:13-14</b><br /><br /><b>The Church or the Kingdom of God?</b><br />"Jesus announced the coming of the Kingdom of God, but what came was the Church." -- <b>Alfred Loisy (1857-1940)</b><br /><br />There is a discontinuity between Jesus of Nazareth and the Church; in fact, whereas the word "Ekklesia" appears only twice in the gospels, and only in the Gospel of St. Matthew, (16:18) and (18:1), in two very debatable texts, the expression Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven as Matthew prefers, appears 127 times. <br /><br />There is, therefore, a striking contrast in the New Testament between the word CHURCH, which appears 112 times and almost only in the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters, and the word KINGDOM which appears 162 times, and of these, only 35 times in the book of Acts and in the Letters while the remaining 127 times are found in the gospels. This demonstrates how important the Kingdom of God was for Jesus and how of little importance this same Kingdom was for the nascent Church founded by Christ.<br /><br />The Church, as the mystical body of Christ, can have no other purpose than to continue the work of Christ. Therefore, the purpose of its existence is not to implant itself in every corner of this earth, but to take the Good News of the Kingdom to every corner of the earth. <br /><br />The main objective is not to produce more and more Christians, to increase the number of its members, but rather to unite all men and women of good will, whether they are from other religions, or atheists or agnostics, so that together they work towards the building of a better world, a more just and fraternal society, where justice, peace, harmony and love reign among all peoples. If this had been the true objective of the Church from the very beginning, as it was of its founder, there would have been no fundamentalism such as the Inquisition, nor holy wars such as the ones driven by the Crusades.<br /><br /><b>The Church, the leaven of the Kingdom of God</b><br />The Church is the way that Christ prepared to be with us in the here and now, in all the "here(s)" and "now(s)" of human history. Christ could have only one human life, but his Word is eternal for all times and all cultures; He himself was not only the Way, the Truth and the Life for the people of his time, but also for the whole human race till the end of time; for this to be so, he had to leave someone to continue his work.<br /><br />It makes no sense for the eternal Word of God to become incarnate, that is, the only begotten son of God to acquire human nature, the creator to become a creature, just to save those who lived during his time on earth. <br /><br />It is true that the word Church, as we have said, appears only twice or even just once in all the gospels, but the fact that Jesus chose, from the very beginning, his own collaborators for the work of the Kingdom shows that Jesus wanted to leave a structure that could and would continue his work. Already in his lifetime, Jesus sent his disciples to cities and towns where He himself thought to go, (Luke 10:1), and then sent them out into the whole world (Mark 16:15-18). <br /><br />The proof that these disciples of his would be his representatives on earth is the fact that he equipped them with the same powers and faculties that he had, (Matthew 21:21; John 14:12). In this last text from John, Jesus also tells the reasons why he passes all his powers and faculties to his disciples: "because I going to the Father".<br /><br />Furthermore, although he was leaving, he also assured his disciples that he would be with them until the end of time (Matthew 28:20). In fact, when Saul was persecuting Christians, Jesus did not ask him "why do you persecute my disciples?", but rather, "why do you persecute me?" (Acts 9:4). Finally, in his priestly prayer, Jesus prays not only for his disciples, but also for those who would believe in his testimony (John 17:20).<br /><br />The Church does not exist for itself nor should it preach itself, because its Master and founder did not preach himself: the Church exists for the Mission, that is, to continue the work of its founder and the purpose of the Mission which is the Kingdom. The Church is what we are, it is our identity, the Kingdom is our mission, what we do. The Church is the yeast that leavens the world until the world becomes the Kingdom of God. <br /><br /><b>Mary and the Kingdom of God</b><br /><i>He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.</i> <b>Luke 1:51-53</b><br /><br />Almost all the images of Mary, represented both in statues and paintings, show a woman reserved in words and actions, humble and even submissive, serene, peaceful and sad... they do not reflect this facet of Mary, the Mary of the Magnificat, or at least the part of the Magnificat that I quoted above. <br /><br />Whenever I read, recite or meditate on this part of the Magnificat, the image of Mary that comes to mind is that of the bare-chested woman waving the flag of the republic in her hand, at the command post, leading the people in the French Revolution. This image does more justice to the content of the prayer of the Magnificat. <br /><br />It does not seem plausible that the woman in the images representing Mary could have said that God is going to overthrow the powerful from their thrones, and that he will take from the rich and give to the poor. But whoever said this seems to be truly the mother of the one who did just that: Jesus of Nazareth. "De tal palo tal astilla" says a Castilian proverb, "Offspring of fish knows how to swim" says its Portuguese counterpart, or in English “Like father like son” which in this case is more appropriate to say “Like mother like son”. Mary seems to announce in these sentences the kingdom that was to come with her son; a kingdom of Justice and Peace. <br /><br /><b>Ecclesiae Mater</b><br /><i>"Mother of the Church, that is to say of all Christian people, the faithful as well as the pastors, who call her the most loving Mother" and established that "the Mother of God should be further honoured and invoked by the entire Christian people by this tenderest of titles"</i>. <b>Paul VI on 21 November 1964 at the end of the Second Vatican Council</b><br /><br />Mary is the mother of the Church because she is the mother of each and every one of her son's disciples (John 19:25-27). Since each of her son's disciples is "ipso facto" a member of the Church as well, therefore Mary is the mother of the Church.<br /><br />Mary is the mother of the Church because she is the mother of its founder, because as a disciple of her son, she followed in his footsteps along with other women, and did not abandon the company of his disciples after the death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven of her son.<br /><br />Christ is the head of his mystical body which is the Church; and the birth of the Head is also the birth of the Body, which indicates that Mary is, at the same time, the mother of Christ, the Son of God, and the mother of all the members of his mystical Body, that is, the Church. Mary's divine motherhood did not end with the birth of Jesus; she was throughout her life on earth, and now in Heaven, intimately united to the redemptive work of her son.<br /><br />Mary is the mother of the Church because as she assisted in the birth of her son, she also assisted in the birth of the Church, for she, like the other female disciples of Jesus, was with her son's male disciples on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the form of tongues of fire. <br /><br />More than mother of the Church, she is "Mater ed Magistral" ("Mother and Teacher", the title of John XXIII’s encyclical) because she was already a teacher in the things of the Holy Spirit, she had already conceived by the work and grace of the third person of the Holy Trinity, so she more than anyone else could instruct the apostles on how to prepare themselves to receive Him. More than mother, she was a catechist, as she prepared the apostles to receive Confirmation. We can say that she was the Godmother at the Confirmation of each of her son's disciples.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: Mary is the mother of the Church because she is the mother of the one who founded it, and by the will of the son expressed from the top of the cross, she is the mother of each of his disciples, members of the Church, who together form the mystical body of Christ. If Mary is the mother of Christ, the head of the mystical body that is the Church, then she is also the mother of the body. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p> </p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-67450022876789567482023-11-01T05:05:00.000+00:002023-11-01T05:05:58.346+00:00IX Mystery: At the Foot of the Cross of Her Son, Mary Becomes our Mother<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbE7vudjtMxqKhjmxPljQ_eUS3kTu_FUkqXHWBcYiUKkKul3zaGS-6e8R3zWRWq1vqxdAERTCF9x8vyZvKyYdhJKjUNn8YL0mOKBwY5AcHFo5_S3jGvlWkNq2a1Pfc1dNg_6MRDU_bVsSByb0YgImvsv8aY1kxTXwrmBAuyZMfK04ecmY_KvozSjYF/s694/18.%209%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Aos%20p%C3%A9s%20da%20cruz%20do%20seu%20filho%20Maria%20torna-se%20nossa%20m%C3%A3e.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="540" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbE7vudjtMxqKhjmxPljQ_eUS3kTu_FUkqXHWBcYiUKkKul3zaGS-6e8R3zWRWq1vqxdAERTCF9x8vyZvKyYdhJKjUNn8YL0mOKBwY5AcHFo5_S3jGvlWkNq2a1Pfc1dNg_6MRDU_bVsSByb0YgImvsv8aY1kxTXwrmBAuyZMfK04ecmY_KvozSjYF/s320/18.%209%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Aos%20p%C3%A9s%20da%20cruz%20do%20seu%20filho%20Maria%20torna-se%20nossa%20m%C3%A3e.png" width="249" /></a></i></div><i>Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home</i>. <b>John 19:25-27</b><br /><br /><b>Solidarity despite the pain</b><br />There is nothing that makes you more aware of yourself, more self-conscious, than pain. Provoking pain is really one of the best ways to call yourself to attention, even if it is brought on by biting your own lip or digging a fingernail into a nailbed. <br /><br />Jesus suffered in his body from exhaustion on his way to the cross, from the lack of food and sleep, from the feeling of asphyxiation caused by being nailed to a cross, from the loss of much blood caused by the scourging and the crown of thorns driven into his head, and from the nails that were hammered into his wrists and ankles. <br /><br />Jesus suffered in his heart because he had been handed over to the high priests and the Romans by one of his own, one who ate, slept and accompanied him everywhere; he suffered because the rest of the disciples had abandoned him, he suffered because the ungrateful people, the same people who had benefited from his miracles and who had previously acclaimed him as ‘Hosanna, the Son of David!’, are now shouting, "Crucify Him!", putting pressure on Pilate to do their will. <br /><br />He suffered in his soul because God His Father who during his life was so close to Him and to whom he often turned, with whom he communicated before the most important moments and miracles, this omnipresent Father was now distant or Jesus felt this way when he said, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34).<br /><br />Even though he was suffering this triple forms of pain – in his body, heart, and soul – Jesus still thought more of others than of Himself. Pain absorbs us, makes us focus on ourselves, and we easily forget about others. Think about the times when we suffered a strong pain, like a toothache: it seems that everything and everyone disappears around us, only we exist, only we matter. <br /><br />Jesus, despite his personal suffering, was able to empathize with his poor mother who, like the widow of Nain, was going to be left alone in the world. And even on the cross without much he could do, he entrusted her to his beloved disciple. He who had already given us everything, who had given himself, now gives us his beloved mother as an inheritance. We inherit so many things from Jesus, even his own mother. <br /><br />Before Jesus, we were only creatures made in the image and likeness of God; with Jesus we are adopted by God as His children, and as Jesus entrusted his mother to the beloved disciple, to the extent that we too are disciples of Jesus, we are adopted by Mary his mother as her children as well. <br /><br /><b>The only son of his mother who was already a widow</b><br />As we contemplate Mary at the foot of her son's cross, we cannot fail to recall the episode of the widow of Nain who was about to bury her only son, being already a widow and thus alone in the world. This suffering was also destined for Mary and prophesied by Simeon. <br /><br />"In hunting, love and war, for one pleasure comes one hundred sorrows", or "Those whose objective is to love, will meet suffering on the way ". There is no love without suffering, and Mary's love for God's plan and the only begotten Son of God, also her son, brought her more pain than pleasure, more suffering than joy. And this ultimate suffering was the worst of all...<br /><br />"I'm not going to bury my son, my son is going to bury me," said a father who hijacked a hospital operating room and forced the doctor to operate on his son because he did not have the money for the lifesaving surgery. There can be no greater psychological pain than to watch one’s child suffer and die, while unable to do anything... <br /><br />In the natural order of events, first the parents die, then the children. Therefore, to watch a child die goes against the natural order of things disabling the lives of the parents, as they leave this world without being able to leave their inheritance to their child, be it genetic or material. <br /><br /><b>Mary, our mother in heaven</b><br /><i>In Heaven, in Heaven, in Heaven, /One day I will see her, (Mary)/<br />O pure Virgin, thy tenderness /Comes to soothe my pain; /Day and night shall I sing/ Of the beauty of Mary!</i><br /><br />Before the apparitions of Fatima, little Lucia who never missed the rosary with her family or in the church, had as her favourite Marian canticle what is cited above. "To heaven, there shall I see her " referring to Mary; little did she know that she was going to see her here on earth, because to see her in heaven she would still have to wait almost one hundred years. <br /><br /><i>With my mother I will be /in holy glory one day/Together with the Virgin Mary /in heaven I will triumph.<br />In heaven, in heaven, with my mother I will be /In heaven, in heaven, with my mother I will be.</i><br /><br />This other canticle also shows the affection the Portuguese people have for Mary. The songs before and after the apparitions of Fatima demonstrate how much the Portuguese people love their heavenly Mother. <br /><br />The second part of the Hail Mary prayer lacks this detail, this affirmation that she is our mother. It should be like this: Holy Mary mother of God and our mother, pray for us, your sinful children, now and at the hour of our death, Amen. <br /><br />Like Abraham was to the people of Sodom and Moses to God's people, Mary was already our intercessor. Now with much more reason, she intercedes for us because in interceding for us, she is interceding for her children. As Abraham is our father in faith, Mary is our mother in faith; it was her faith, her "fiat", that brought salvation to all of us. <br /><br /><b>Mary, the feminine face of God</b><br />Some Jewish woman once asked another Jewish woman, that happened to be a university professor, who was in her opinion the most famous Jewish woman. And they did not like to hear from the lips of this Jewish professor by ethnicity and religion that, whether they liked it or not, Mary is certainly the most famous Jewess in the world, and I would even say of all humanity, because she is the mother of the incarnate Word, of the only begotten Son of God.<br /><br />Within our vision of God which will always be somewhat anthropomorphic, if Jesus represents the masculine face of God, then Mary represents the feminine face of God. Our love for Mary reminds us of the times of old, when humanity, still in a primitive state of evolution, understood that God was a mother. <br /><br />To do justice to those times, Pope John Paul I said that God, more than a Father, is a Mother. In Rembrandt's painting of the prodigal son, we see in fact that the father of the prodigal son has one feminine hand, the one over his son's heart, and the other a masculine hand. <br /><br /><b>Eve, our progenitor, Mary, our mother</b><br />Eve was not our mother, but our progenitor: she only gave birth to us, but she did not educate and raise us. The mother who educates, raises and feeds is called in Ethiopia "Injera enat", that is, the "bread mother" which often does not coincide with the one who gave birth to the child. <br /><br />During my novitiate, I had as a colleague and student of theology, a young man who called his aunt his mother and his mother his aunt. The one who had given birth to him, he called his aunt, and the one who had raised him as a mother and who was biologically his aunt, he called his mother. <br /><br />They were two sisters: one had my colleague by accident, but later met the man of her life, who did not accept her son, so her sister, who was not thinking of ever getting married, stayed with him so that the sister who gave birth would be free to start a new life with her fiance. <br /><br />My colleague had no filial feelings toward his biological mother whom he called aunt, and yet it was she who had given birth to him; he had filial feelings only for the one who had raised him with much love, educated and guided him through life, dedicating herself exclusively to him, because she had never wanted to get married. And yet, at a biological level, she was only his aunt. <br /><br />In human beings, biology counts for little. We call her Mother Teresa of Calcutta and I suppose no one would dare to deny her the title of mother. However, as we all know, she was never a mother biologically, although she behaved as such to many orphaned children and even adults, who saw in her the mother they never had.<br /> <br />The devotion of the Christian people, at least of the Catholics and the Orthodox, to Mary is part of the closeness we have with our own mother on earth. She is closer to us than our father, and often, we make her the intermediary between us and him, because we share more confidence with our mother than with our father. <br /><br />She is always by our side and accompanies us more than our father. This experience makes the Christian people have a special devotion to Mary and project on her the same experience, the same kind of relationship that they have or had with their mother. <br /><br />Mary is our mother because, like every mother, she is attentive to the needs of her children, as she was at the wedding in Cana, and she is still visiting us today in Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima. Mary is our mother because she educates us with the gospel of her Son when she tells us, “Do whatever he tells you". Eve was our progenitor; Mary is our mother in heaven who accompanies us in our earthly life until we are united with her in Heaven.<br /><br />The picture illustrating this text depicts St. Bernard, a great lover of Marian devotion, receiving the maternal milk of the Virgin Mary. An image that shocks our today’s mentality, but which was very much in line with the medieval Marian piety that exalted the breasts of our heavenly mother as that woman in Luke’s Gospel exalted them.<br /><br />Also known as originated from Saint Bernard is the Marian prayer called the "Memorare" which exalts Mary as mother and, as such, an intercessor for us in Heaven:<br /><br /><i>Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, <br />that never was it known that <br />anyone who fled to your protection, <br />implored your help, or sought your intercession, <br />was left unaided.<br /><br />Inspired with this confidence,<br />I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother.<br />To you do I come.<br />Before you do I stand, <br />Sinful and sorrowful.<br />O Mother of the Word Incarnate,<br />Despise not my petitions, <br />But in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen.</i><br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: Eve is our progenitor, Mary is our Mother, for it is she who educates us, giving birth to the Word of God in human form, the role model of humanity: Jesus of Nazareth. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-13170917650002416722023-10-15T05:15:00.000+01:002023-10-15T05:15:07.692+01:00VIII Mystery: Mary, Disciple and Mother<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyFLama-pQMOs07E6FJhIFPE95GUguLMxVych8BIzlcIWrHceJ1agT7CEdkIm9PezKV6ZozlDnCCJ9ELYUhmL_uBiKZRJsP6FuFYBAf_uHKMiIrj-LoT4W1zb-Vlwd8WvyXgUiOT_4XbzbJchATUFpCPbevOlKkhyphenhyphenUFYNDZqoG8-chuEWDUAfX4jkE/s900/17.%208%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Maria,%20disc%C3%ADpula%20e%20m%C3%A3e%20de%20Jesus.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="900" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyFLama-pQMOs07E6FJhIFPE95GUguLMxVych8BIzlcIWrHceJ1agT7CEdkIm9PezKV6ZozlDnCCJ9ELYUhmL_uBiKZRJsP6FuFYBAf_uHKMiIrj-LoT4W1zb-Vlwd8WvyXgUiOT_4XbzbJchATUFpCPbevOlKkhyphenhyphenUFYNDZqoG8-chuEWDUAfX4jkE/s320/17.%208%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Maria,%20disc%C3%ADpula%20e%20m%C3%A3e%20de%20Jesus.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div><i>While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’</i> <b>Luke 11:27-28</b><br /><br /><i>While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’ But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother</i>.’ <b> Matthew 12:46-50</b><br /><br />These two texts should be read in context of each other. In the first, Mary's motherhood is exalted; in the second, it is not demeaned because the two texts say the same thing, that is, Mary's motherhood is a consequence of her discipleship. Mary, before being a mother, was a disciple because she heard the Word of God through Archangel Gabriel and put it into practice by accepting to be the mother of God's only begotten Son. Mary was a mother because she was a disciple and not a disciple because she was a mother. <br /><br />In a certain sense, Mary is not a mother by any special privilege, but because she was a disciple. "You're blessed because you believed," says her cousin Elizabeth, which means that Mary would not have been blessed if she had not believed. In Mary, as in all of us, it was faith that saved her and the fulfillment of the Word that made her the mother of Jesus. <br /><br />This same path is offered to all of us by Jesus, that of being intimate with him as he and his mother are with each other. All we have to do is to listen to the Word and put it into practice. For whoever loves me, says Jesus, that is, whoever is or wants to be intimate with me, keeps my commandments (John 14:21).<br /><br />Listening to the Word without putting it into practice is like building a house or a life on sand (Matthew 7:21-27), and being at the mercy of the winds and tides, time, fashions and situations, being a person without his or her own personality but guided by external factors, like a reed shaken by the wind (Matthew 11:7). And at the end of an inconsequential life to run the risk of the Lord telling them from inside, when they knock at the door of eternity, that he does not know them (Luke 13:27).<br /><br />Another way of proving that the motherhood, both in Mary and in all of us, is the consequence of discipleship, that is, of hearing the word and putting it into practice, is the fact that Jesus gave his mother into the hands of the beloved disciple, that is, of the preferred disciple, the one who best obeyed his word. This disciple, by being authentic, became also the son of His mother (John 19:25-27).<br /><br /><b>Texts and contexts</b><br />The text that exalts Mary's motherhood is unique in Luke, there is no parallel in either Matthew or Mark. If feminists had to choose a gospel, Luke would certainly be the one chosen, because it places the most attention on the feminine, the one that gives more prominence to women, both in the life of Jesus and in his parables and events. <br /><br />Both of the above texts, Luke (11:27-28) and Matthew (12:46-50), are preceded by the episode of the soul cleansed of demons that, by not being filled with good works, was later assaulted by other worse demons, thus ending up in a state worse than before. <br /><br />From this we can conclude that the episode of the soul and demons serves, both for Luke as well as Matthew, as an illustration and proof that in fact the Word of God is either put into practice or is good for nothing for those who only hear it, and the state of their souls may be worse after hearing the Word and not putting it into practice, like that of the rich young man.<br /><br /><b>Negative spirituality</b><br /><i>‘When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.’ </i> <b>Luke 11:24-26</b><br /><br />The text does not say so, but the woman's words were certainly inspired by the Holy Spirit. To do the woman justice, the text should say "a woman among the people filled with the Holy Spirit exclaimed..." The woman's exclamation took place after Jesus narrates what happens when a person succeeds in eradicating evil from his soul, but does not fill it with good works. The wisdom of Jesus touched the heart of this woman.<br /><br />This text is unusual, but it alludes to a spirituality that I call negative, that is, of spending all our time and energy fighting evil without doing anything good. The people say, when death comes may it catch us confessed, that is, the important thing is not to have sinned. This spirituality is negative, because the focus is not on doing good, but on avoiding evil, on not sinning.<br /><br />A person is not good because he avoids evil, but because he does good. Those who avoid evil overcome negativity and bring themselves up to zero; only those who do good take themselves above zero. The rich young man who went to Jesus was a worthy representative of the Old Testament, for since his childhood days he had observed the ten commandments; but when Jesus asked him for just one positive thing, he backed away; avoiding evil is much easier than getting out of one’s comfort zone and doing good.<br /><br />The priest and the Levite passed by the badly injured man in front of them who had been robbed and beaten by thieves, and who needed help, because their concern was not to do good, but to avoid evil. The evil they were witnessing at that moment had not been caused by them, so it was perfectly moral to pass him by. A life based on avoiding evil leads to a lack of solidarity with one’s neighbour. Since the best defense is the attack, as the proverb says, the best way to fight evil is to do good.<br /><br /><b>Nature has horror of emptiness</b><br />It is a law of physics whose application in the spiritual field we see exemplified in the Gospel text that opens this article. The obsessive compulsion of cleanliness is a psychological illness: there are people who spend their lives washing their hands. Perhaps they can stand before God with clean hands, but God will tell them that their hands are empty... <br /><br />If we want to remove the air from a glass, we can extract it artificially with a machine to create a vacuum, or we can naturally fill it with wine. That is, if we occupy our time and energies every day in doing good, we have no time left to do evil. In this way, we kill two birds with one stone, we do good and avoid evil. This is what Jesus’ unusual text suggests about an empty soul with no evil inside that if not filled with good, is quickly taken over by evil again. <br /><br />At Last Judgment, those who are saved are those who helped the Lord in the poor and marginalized, and gave him food to eat, gave him drink, welcomed him when he was a stranger or pilgrim, clothed him when he was naked, and visited him when he was in prison or hospital. <br /><br />Those who condemned themselves were not the wicked, but those who turned their backs on every opportunity that life gave them to do good, because their concern was to avoid evil (Matthew 25:31-46). They are the bad Samaritans, the ones who passed by when they saw a brother in need, the ones who say that the problem is not of their making. <br /><br />According to the text about the last judgment in Matthew 25, our confession should no longer be to make an examination of conscience to seek the evil we have done, but to seek the good we have not done. We should even forget the evil we have done and do good deeds, look for opportunities to do good and not to lose the ones that life provides us. It is the sins of omission that lead to condemnation, the opportunities we had to do good and yet did nothing. <br /><br /><b>The Commandment of Love and the Golden Rule</b><br />Jesus replaced the ten commandments which practically only tell us what not to do, with a positive commandment: love God above all things and our neighbour as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). Saint Augustine best interprets these two commandments in his famous phrase, "Love, and do what you will". What you do for love will never be wrong. Understanding love, of course, as St. Thomas Aquinas defines it, to love is to will the good of the other. <br /><br /><i>And what you hate, do not do to anyone</i>. <b>Tobit 4:15</b><br /><i>‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.</i>’ <b>Matthew 7:12</b><br /><br />The golden rule itself exists in all religions, and the Bible formulates it in a rule that we all learn in Sunday school: "Do not do to others what you do not want others do to you”. Minimalism is so ingrained in our psyche, the negative spirituality of avoiding evil without doing good, that our catechists did not teach us Jesus’ golden rule that is written in the positive sense, “Do onto others what you want others do onto you”. Instead, they have taught us the negative rule, the one found in the book of Tobit and which is the Jewish rule, included in the Old Testament. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Conclusion </b>– Mary is the mother of Jesus because she was first a disciple, that is, she heard the Word and put it into practice. If we listen to the Word and put it into practice, we too can enjoy the same intimacy that Jesus and His mother had.<br /></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-61536113678494959172023-10-01T05:04:00.000+01:002023-10-01T05:04:35.524+01:00VII Mystery: The Mediation of Mary at the Wedding in Cana of Galilee<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7s50rF9icKZ04XVtyo5Az2eU61t5tFC1yZNED4q2ZWRJm4tPTQcWLr3_FyAVVZVr3qzrSyYpaubbvYAyTQn1R1XUL9Umdclo1Cq-qrCP2r9VnqjHoDZ1Gv3hhMUERjVUe4qtwi9ULcIycPkbNf52n0Qm1T7VqWM2Ui3hOknkOMNgCZvZziLZ8_1z/s750/16.%207%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20media%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20de%20Maria%20nas%20bodas%20de%20Cana%20da%20Galileia.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="750" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7s50rF9icKZ04XVtyo5Az2eU61t5tFC1yZNED4q2ZWRJm4tPTQcWLr3_FyAVVZVr3qzrSyYpaubbvYAyTQn1R1XUL9Umdclo1Cq-qrCP2r9VnqjHoDZ1Gv3hhMUERjVUe4qtwi9ULcIycPkbNf52n0Qm1T7VqWM2Ui3hOknkOMNgCZvZziLZ8_1z/s320/16.%207%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20media%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20de%20Maria%20nas%20bodas%20de%20Cana%20da%20Galileia.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div><i>On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’</i> <b>John 2:1-5</b><br /><br />In St. John’s Gospel, at the end of the previous chapter, Jesus said to Nathaniel, “You will see greater things than this” (John 1:50). The wedding which the following chapter tells us took place in Cana of Galilee, the very town Nathaniel lived. At normal weddings, it was customary to serve the worst wine at the end, when the guests are inebriated, but at this wedding, which is also a symbol of the wedding in which God the Father marries his Son to humanity (Luke 14:15-24), the best wine was served last. <br /><br />Jesus described Nathanael as "an Israelite in whom there is no deceit" (John 1:47). Therefore, we can conclude that, in this text, Nathanael represents the Jewish people at its best. For this people, who is also compared to the Lord's Vineyard (Psalm 79), the best is yet to come; therefore, the last wine is Jesus himself, the new wine for which we must have new wineskins, that is, new and open minds to be able to contain and hold the power of a spirit-filled wine. <br /><br />There were six stone jars filled with water; and at Jesus' command, all the water turned into wine. According to the Jews, seven is the perfect and complete number; while six is the incomplete and imperfect number. So, the six stone water jars represent all the imperfections of the Jewish law. Jesus came to put an end to the imperfection of the law and to put in its place the new wine of the gospel of his grace. Jesus transformed the imperfection of the law into the perfection of grace.<br /><br />The amount of wine was astronomical: 680 liters in total. At no wedding on this planet could such quantity be drunk in full; what John means is that the grace that comes in Jesus and through Jesus is enough to reach everyone in the entire world for all times and still have leftovers, because it is limitless like God himself. ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10).<br /><br />The mother of Jesus and his cousins were invited to this wedding. Jesus probably invited his disciples as well. At this wedding, Jesus goes from being the son of Mary to being the Lord, the master of his disciples. It is a farewell wedding in which Jesus embarks on his public life and cuts the umbilical cord that binds him to his family. Later on, as we know, these two groups, the relatives of the Lord and the Lord’s disciples, are not going to get along until the matter is settled at the Council of Jerusalem, presided over not by Peter but by James the Lesser, a cousin of the Lord. <br /><br /><b>"They have no wine"</b><br />Mary, the mother of the Lord, after she visited her cousin Elizabeth, continues to visit her people in Fatima, Guadalupe and Lourdes, in addition to so many other places, because she is the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). She is a good observer, like God the Father, of the needs of others (Exodus 3:7) and, like God the Father, she sympathizes with the poor and the afflicted. <br /><br /><i>On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear</i>. <b>Isaiah 25:6</b><br /><br />In those days, as in all times, running out of wine at a wedding was a real disaster. Wine has a place at a wedding, just like meat. Good food without wine is not so appetizing. It would be a dishonor to the bride and the groom, and a bad omen, if the wine ran out without the guests being satiated. Mary foresaw all this and turned to her son to take care of the situation. He is the savior, not her; he is the one who can do something, remedy the situation, save the reputation of the bride and the groom, not her. <br /><br />Mary is the mediatrix of the principal Grace which is God’s entry into the world, because through her and incarnated in her, she proved, in this episode of the wedding in Cana, to be the mediatrix of all graces, small or great. Everything Mary asks of her son, he grants. Mary is our intercessor in heaven, she observes what we lack and reports them back to her son. <br /><br />The Vineyard of the Lord which represents the house of Israel (Psalm 79) has already given what it had to give; it no longer produces fruit. God who sends successive prophets in search of fruits on the vine, do not find them, so finally He sends his son, and the vinedressers have the audacity to kill him outside the vineyard (Mark 12:1-12). In the Bible, wine generally means joy. Here are some of the many texts that testify to this: <br /><br /><i>They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again</i>. J<b>eremiah 31:12</b><br /><br /><i>You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart.</i> <b>Psalms 104:14-15</b><br /><br /><i>Then the trees said to the vine, “You come and reign over us.” But the vine said to them, “Shall I stop producing my wine that cheers gods and mortals, and go to sway over the trees?”</i> <b>Judges 9:12-13</b><br /><br /><i>Feasts are made for laughter; wine gladdens life… </i><b><i> </i>Ecclesiastes 10:19</b><br /><br /><i>Gladness and joy have been taken away from the fruitful land of Moab; I have stopped the wine from the wine presses; no one treads them with shouts of joy</i>… <b>Jeremiah 48:33</b><br /><br /><i>I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.</i> <b>Matthew 26:29</b><br /><br />Mary is the humble daughter of Zion, the virgin who gave birth to the new wine, God with us, she is the hope of Israel, a new shoot from a dry vine that no longer produces fruits to make wine. From her will gush a wine that is the salvation and healing of humanity. In her and through her, the vine will produce again and there will be joy not only for Israel, but for the whole world. <br /><br /><b>"Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?"</b><br />Mary is a mother who cuts the umbilical cord with her son, and instead of keeping him to herself, she launches him into life even before the thought that his time has come had taken hold in his mind. This reminds me of swallows that push their young out of the nest because the time has come for them to fly away so they can migrate to warmer lands before the winter comes. <br /><br />Young swallows do not fly off from the ground; hence their first flight out of the nest, if it goes wrong, could also be their last. Mary runs this risk with Jesus, of sending him off too soon. But she too was assisted by the Holy Spirit, so she acted with boldness and determination.<br /><br />Jesus' initial reluctance to perform the miracle is pedagogical, as in the case of the Syrian-Phoenician woman. What this means is that even if Jesus does not want or it is not in his plans to help us, if we make the request through his Blessed Mother, he will not refuse it because now it is not only our request but also hers. She on our behalf puts all her weight, all her value, all her importance and power of influence into this request, so that Jesus cannot refuse it. <br /><br />The excuse that Jesus used that the lack of wine did not concern them is in fact the excuse of every bad Samaritan. Mary makes the problems of others her own, she is empathic. Many people see the needs of others and like the priests in the parable of the Good Samaritan, they just pass by it because they think that the problem is not theirs. Today I am the one with a need, tomorrow it could you; therefore, what you want others do for you, you do for others: this is Jesus’ positive version of the golden rule (Matthew 7:12).<br /><br /><b>“My hour has not yet come”</b><br />Jesus sees his life as a mission: he has no spare time, for him time is short, he has no hobbies nor time to kill. It is in this sense that we should understand this sentence, his mission has not yet begun, he is still in the preparation phase. Luke describes Jesus’ life as being on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and on this pilgrimage, all places and events point to the final hour of his death and redemption of humanity. Jesus always seems to have a full agenda and everything is properly organized, controlled and calculated: <br /><br /><i>‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.</i> <b> Mark 1:38-39</b><br /><br /><i>He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.</i>” <b>Luke 13:32-33</b><br /><br /><b>"Do whatever he tells you"</b><br />Jesus' response to his mother's appeal was doubly negative; the first shaking of the head to indicate that the problem was neither his nor hers, and the second, to say that even if he could and wanted to do something, his time had not yet come.<br /><br />Great is Mary’s faith, like that of the Syrian-Phoenician woman in the Gospel (Matthew 15:21-28) who is not discouraged by Jesus’ rejection and continues to believe that he can and will heal her daughter. Mary also turns a deaf ear to Jesus' negative words and is so sure that he will do something to solve the problem, remedy the situation, that she immediately tells the servants to make themselves available to her son, to immediately do whatever he orders them to do.<br /><br />It is as if Mary is telling us that each thing we ask of her, "consider done whatever you have just asked of me", even before mentioning the matter to her Son, because she knows that a good son never refuses his mother's request. On the other hand, our dear mother in Heaven does not bother her son about everything, but only when it comes to a serious problem; and that problem at the wedding in Cana was serious indeed. <br /><br />We can interpret this Gospel literally – the lack of wine at a wedding – or interpret it metaphorically, that is, humanity without the new wine that is Jesus has no joy in living, it lives depressed and without meaning; and depression, as we know, can lead to suicide. <br /><br />Doing Jesus' will is in fact the attitude of a true disciple; more than that, it is the condition "sine qua non" of whether or not we are disciples of Jesus: Matthew 23:3 – Luke 11:28 – Matthew 6:1 – John 13:17 – Matthew 7:23 - John 3:21 – Matthew 7:21-24 – Matthew 28:18-20 – Luke 11:28.<br /><br />Jesus’ food was to do the Father’s will (John 4:34). A true disciple of Jesus can have no other food but to listen to the Word, digest it (Jeremiah 15:16) and make it come to life, that is, to incarnate it in each and every act, to the point of becoming another Christ on earth and thus continuing his work of salvation. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: As an ambassador, Mary informs her Son of men’s needs: "They have no wine..."; and informs men of what they need to do to have those needs met, that is: "Do whatever he tells you...".<br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-8334905332221448252023-09-15T16:33:00.000+01:002023-09-15T16:33:58.141+01:00VI Mystery: The Sacred Family, a Triangle of Love and Harmony - Part II<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiXjTmAdJ7gWNXLy_Y6IWM3IGnbMIrBiDdRx71Xt4FNEtfxxwueCZJEMU63IDmRoIRDEzHv_80j2KKQZd7wMBIazTSHTBgY8BfEzBmBZpufzCcPJ8wjku7v55x2Io4hLVO6fGRnj_Fd7igVkKoq9y4fdTSnOdyUQIbb_jA-_J8HANuE_oSGfcoZfTp/s2816/15.%206%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20Sagrada%20Fam%C3%ADlia,%20triangulo%20de%20amor%20e%20harmonia%20-%202%C2%AAParte.gif" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2816" data-original-width="2112" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiXjTmAdJ7gWNXLy_Y6IWM3IGnbMIrBiDdRx71Xt4FNEtfxxwueCZJEMU63IDmRoIRDEzHv_80j2KKQZd7wMBIazTSHTBgY8BfEzBmBZpufzCcPJ8wjku7v55x2Io4hLVO6fGRnj_Fd7igVkKoq9y4fdTSnOdyUQIbb_jA-_J8HANuE_oSGfcoZfTp/s320/15.%206%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20Sagrada%20Fam%C3%ADlia,%20triangulo%20de%20amor%20e%20harmonia%20-%202%C2%AAParte.gif" width="240" /></a></i></div><i>After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.</i>’ <b>Luke 2:46-48</b><br /><br /><b>They observe without judging </b><br />It seems that Jesus' parents were already well versed in the norms of the nonviolent communication, because they did not judge, criticize or punish Jesus for his behavior. They simply observed their son’s behavior and passed this observation unto him. In passing their observation to Jesus, they did so assertively, not aggressively, taking care to assume responsibility for their feeling of distress, without accusing Jesus of being the cause of this affliction.<br /><br /><b>They do not intend to have the last word</b><br /><i>He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them.</i> <b> Luke 2:49-50</b><br /><br />During our childhood, it was always our parents who had the last word in the family. The same is not true in the Holy Family of Nazareth. In this episode, it is Jesus who has the last word; the ignorance and the lack of understanding of Jesus' parents about his life and ministry did not make them violent or make them insist that they are always right.<br /><br /><b>As St. Paul says, he did not use his privileges, humbling himself to death, even death on a cross</b><br /><i>Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom ad in years, and in divine and human favour</i>. <b>Luke 2:51-52</b><br /><br />Jesus must have been a child prodigy, like so many in our world. Excelling in many things that certainly caused his parents and neighbours to marvel. However, in addition to all the talents Jesus possessed, an attitude of humility was inherent in his person that made him comply obediently with his parents’ demands. <br /><br /><b>Joseph the Dreamer</b><br /><i>Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet (Hosea 11:1), ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.</i>’ <b>Matthew 2:13- 15</b><br /><br />Joseph transcended his own ego and heard God’s word which he promptly obeyed and set out for Egypt to save his son's life. The Holy Family knows what it is like to be persecuted politically, and they know what it is like to be political refugees and immigrants in a country that was not their own. They were fleeing from genocide which is something that has always happened and still happens in our world. And the worst genocide of our time is abortion. The human being is the only animal that intentionally kills its own offspring.<br /><br />Herod the Great thought it was justifiable in the eyes of his subjects to kill so many innocent children for fear that one of these little innocents would steal his throne. Leaders like this have always filled and still fill the world: people who fall in love with the power they have amassed and have no plan of ever letting it go, capable of anything in order to keep it within their grasp.<br /><br />When each family member sets aside his or her own personal projects, like Joseph did, to obey the common project that is always the one that God inspires in our hearts and souls, then all family members find happiness and self-realization. Herod only loved Herod and his own ambitions; and this led him to even murder his own children.<br /><br />Joseph is always at the service of his family, so the family comes first. Herod puts his projects first and his family last; we have many examples of great politicians who have troubled delinquent children because their families are dysfunctional since the parents who, like Herod, always put their projects first. The children of the famous, unlike their parents, are rarely famous...<br /><br />Many parents, in their jobs, work overtime because their boss makes them think that they are indispensable: the parents gladly accept this, since this means more income for the family. They say that they do not want their children to lack anything, but, in reality, their children lack the most important thing: the parents’ presence and love, for which there is no substitute. The fallacy is that if the worker dies or gets sick, the boss quickly replaces him or her with another. It is in the family, as a father or a mother, that the worker is truly irreplaceable. <br /><br /><b>What Jesus’ relatives think of him</b><br /><i>When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind</i>.’ <b>Mark 3</b>:21<br /><br />A mother who has kept silent all her life and held in her heart all the things that she did not understand with regard to her son’s life and ministry, is not going to have an attitude like that described to us by the evangelist St. Mark. It was the other relatives, the cousins of Jesus, one of them probably James who was later the leader of the first Christian community in Jerusalem, it was these relatives of Jesus, not his own mother, who were antagonistic to his ministry. It was these same relatives who would later enter into conflict with Jesus' disciples.<br /><br />In a monarchy, the person who succeeds the king is a relative of the king, if he does not have any legitimate children. The leader of the Christian community was not Peter, as we might have thought by the order of the Master, but rather Jesus' cousin, James the Lesser. We see this clearly at the Council of Jerusalem, when they debated as to whether or not to force Christians who were not Jews to respect the Jewish laws. Peter inspires the decision, but it is James who decides, for it is he who has the last word. <br /><br />The conflict between Jesus' relatives and Jesus' disciples could have happened in the Church as it did with the Muslims where a great conflict still exists between the Shiites who descended from the prophet through Fatima, his favorite daughter, and the Sunnis who descended from the prophet’s first disciples. <br /><br />Jesus made it very clear that true disciples, that is, the ones who hear his word and put it into practice are his mother, brothers and sisters (Luke 8:21).<br /><br />And so that not a shadow of doubt remains, on the cross Jesus called John, the beloved disciple, the son of his own mother, and he called his own mother the mother of his favorite disciple (John 19:26).<br /><br /><b>The Mother of Jesus and our mother</b><br /><i>When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.</i> <b>John 19:26-27</b><br /><br />The Gospels present a Jesus who is sometimes distant and showing little regard for his mother. However, the proof that this is not true is here. Even at the height of his suffering on the cross, Jesus does not forget his mother, he does not forget that, like the widow of Nain to whom he gave back the life of her son, his mother was a widow, and was witnessing the death of her only son and preparing to be alone in the world.<br /><br /><i>The grandmother, with her trembling hands, one day accidentally dropped a fine porcelain China plate belonging to her daughter, at whose home she lived. The daughter became furious with her own mother and ordered her son to go and buy a plastic plate from which she was to eat from then on. The boy looked at his mother with an air of disapproval and refused to do her bidding. However, he eventually had to obey her and off he went. Upon returning home, he set two plastic plates on the table. The irritated mother asked him why did he buy two plastic plates when she had told him to buy only one. "The other," said the young man, "is for you when you're old like grandma."</i><br /><br />Parents provide for their children in their childhood and children should provide for their parents in their old age. But this is not always the case in this world where what counts is being a consumer and a producer. When you cannot be one or the other, you are made to think that you have no place in this society.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion </b>– Just as Jesus is for us, as individuals, the Way, the Truth and the Life, his family, the Holy Family, is also for us, as members of a family, a model of family life to imitate.<br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-41336760796189145632023-09-01T13:19:00.000+01:002023-09-01T13:19:00.434+01:00VI Mystery: The Sacred Family, a Triangle of Love and Harmony<div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPuAgVpofJSZP49B9jPkLej6Rlfl_-1Ul3VA7jGsRuQWIwCvRlvdhCBZlGat1rjMxH61_Md1YDzLY-wSTIMpi5cNYA8uesklSM4HdcgxwWhNHGy_hzKSrtlUJJLfZWOC49FezhdUZVDsiy0JrdfCkCk5sa-t-7M5IpEx0SQ8WwhBlPhOj3Gn82zgoQ/s1800/14.%206%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20Sagrada%20Fam%C3%ADlia,%20triangulo%20de%20amor%20e%20harmonia%20-%201%C2%AAParte.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1192" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPuAgVpofJSZP49B9jPkLej6Rlfl_-1Ul3VA7jGsRuQWIwCvRlvdhCBZlGat1rjMxH61_Md1YDzLY-wSTIMpi5cNYA8uesklSM4HdcgxwWhNHGy_hzKSrtlUJJLfZWOC49FezhdUZVDsiy0JrdfCkCk5sa-t-7M5IpEx0SQ8WwhBlPhOj3Gn82zgoQ/s320/14.%206%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20Sagrada%20Fam%C3%ADlia,%20triangulo%20de%20amor%20e%20harmonia%20-%201%C2%AAParte.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>God is one and triune, yet no mystery of the Holy Rosary contemplates this reality that Jesus of Nazareth, who came from a heavenly family consisting of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the only begotten Son of God the Father, was born into an earthly family, had human parents with whom he lived in perfect love and harmony, growing in wisdom and grace as the Scripture tells us, like any boy of his time. <br /><br />Normative for Christians is not only Jesus as an individual person, the Way, the Truth and the Life, but since the human person has a social dimension, Jesus’ social and family life, his family consisting of his mother and adoptive human father, is also normative for us, for there is no human life outside the family.<br /><br />God is one and triune, the human being created in the image and likeness of God is also, naturally, one and triune. Father-Mother-Child, there is no human life beyond this triangle. Every human being is a father or a mother or a child. We are, at the same time, an individual and a social being, because we are each a whole, as an individual being, and a part as a member of a human family. <br /><br />Each of the three human categories, father-mother-son/daughter, implies the existence of the other two. That is, no man is a father without a wife and a child, just as no woman is a mother without a husband and a child; lastly, a child of a single mother must have a father. The existence of one implies the existence of the other two. Jesus says of marriage, "The two will become one flesh", precisely when the two are one and are engaged in the conjugal or sexual act, they become three. That's why the human being is at the same time one and triune.<br /><br /><b>Mother without umbilical cord</b><br /><i>Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travellers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him</i>. <b>Luke 2:41-45</b><br /><br /><u>Mother hen, a terrible future mother-in-law</u><br />A father, even if he is the child’s biological father, is always an adoptive father because it is the mother who conceives in her body and nurtures the child for 9 months, and then for two years at her breast. At birth, the child only recognizes the mother and even recognizes her by her smell; the father is introduced to him later. And when this happens, the child and father look at each other like two strangers and, if the child is male, even as two rivals later on. <br /><br />Unlike motherhood, fatherhood lacks the physical experience, as it only occurs at the microscopic cellular level and outside the man’s body. Therefore, St. Joseph, who was the adoptive father to Jesus, can perfectly be the model of fatherhood and the patron saint of all fathers, biological or otherwise. At the end of the day, God the Father in Heaven is also our adoptive Father, for He has only one Son who is begotten while we are creatures adopted by God the Father, by the merits of Jesus Christ who became our older brother.<br /><br />Being a father or being a mother has its advantages and drawbacks. The fact that the father is adoptive, there is always a distance between him and the child, because fatherhood does not take place at the physical level. Motherhood, on the other hand, takes place at this level, so that a mother always finds it difficult to see her child as a separate entity from herself, and many never manage to cut the umbilical cord, always seeing the child not as a distinct person, but as an extension of herself. <br /><br />I like jokes a lot, and yet I have never heard a joke against fathers-in-law; all the jokes of this nature target mothers-in-law. A mother hen has the tendency to be a terrible mother-in-law, always trying to interfere in her son's life even when he is already married and has formed a family. <br /><br />The verse quoted above denotes that Mary and Joseph gave their son a lot of freedom, to the point that they went days without seeing him. We can conclude that Mary was not a mother hen, but a mother who knew her place and saw her son as a distinct person and not as an extension of herself. <br /><br />The goal of a child's education is to make him free, independent and autonomous. In other words, a father and a mother should aim to make themselves obsolete and unnecessary when their children reach adulthood, maturity and autonomy. To love as St. Thomas Aquinas said is to want the good of the other as the other sees it, and not as we see it. <br /><br />It is true that a father wants his child to succeed where he himself could not, but that should not prevent the child from choosing his life because he is the one who will live it. I have known many parents who did all kinds of blackmail to prevent their children from following their vocation, especially their religious vocation, despite being deeply religious themselves. <br /><br /><b>The family and the values of liberty - equality - fraternity</b><br /><u>Liberty</u> – is the value on which the life of the human person is based, as an independent and autonomous being. Without liberty there is no human life; in order to realize as a human person, an individual must be free, not dependent on anything or anyone. Free from external constraints, but also free from internal constraints such as addictions.... Therefore, there are two types of freedom: external and internal. <br /><br /><u>Equality</u> – is the value on which the life of the individual who lives in society is based. No individual is an island, because every individual is born from a relationship of two individuals, a father and a mother. Therefore, every individual is and always will be part of a family, a clan, a tribe, a country...<br /><br /><u>Fraternity</u> – a quark is the union of several gluons; several quarks form a proton which is one of the three elements of an atom. Gluten is a protein that makes a cereal like wheat look like glue after it is kneaded. I fear that gluten intolerance will start to be equally proportional to individualism in society and as a consequence, the love that makes all humans brothers and sisters will disappear. <br /><br /><u>Family, the only school of life</u><br />Like a human being, family is the result of millions of years of evolution. In evolution, reptiles generally do not need a family, they are born from eggs; while birds and mammals need a family for a few months. In the evolution of species, the closer an animal is to human, the more time coexisting in a family it will need before it can be free, independent and autonomous. <br /><br />A human being is the living being that needs the most time coexisting in a family; so, the family is the only place where human life can exist. The family is the "habitat" of human life, as the sea is for whales and sharks, the South Pole is for penguins, the North Pole is for polar bears and the savannah is for lions. Since a human being is not born in the adult state, like some living beings, without the family there is no human life.<br /><br />Human beings are not born, they are made. A child at birth has all the potentials to become a human person. However, these potentials must be cultivated within a family, by the parents and older siblings. Everything in a human being is learned, like walking upright, speaking, loving, most of the things in human life are learned, there is very little that is innate. <br /><br />A child without contact with people would never learn to walk or talk, as the myth of Tarzan suggests; if a child were raised by chimpanzees, he would be a hairless chimpanzee; if he were raised by a she-wolf, he would be a wolf for all intents and purposes, with a human appearance only. <br /><br />It takes many years of study to train a doctor, an engineer or an architect; and since the world needs more good parents than these professions, How come there is not even a weekend course to learn how to be a parent?<br /><br /><b>Education is "aerial" and continuous</b><br /><i>"Son you are, father you shall be, as you do so you shall find.</i>"<br /><br />Unlike other schools, where there are lesson periods and break periods, in the school of life, of the family, there are no vacations. All family moments and situations are educational, for better or for worse. Education is "aerial" and continuous; in the school of life, the child is always in the classroom.<br /><br />Because education is "aerial", the family is a school where children learn not from what they are told, but from what they see; it is the seedbed where growth can be controlled and guided. Making a baby is easy, the difficulty is to turn a child into an authentic human being. It's one thing to be a biological parent, it is another to be a father or a mother. <br /><br />In the family we learn the main attitudes by which we will live; therefore, parents should keep in mind that a child imitates more readily than learns. A child who sees his drunken father beating his mother, swearing obscenities, engaging in immature, immoral and illegal behaviors, will most likely reproduce these same behaviors in his adult life. <br /><br />We all remember phrases from our parents that have shaped our lives, some positive, some negative. "He who sows winds reaps storms”, "sow love, and you shall reap love; sow hatred and hatred will be what you will reap", "a child is like a field, he will only produce what is sown in him", or "the son of a fish knows how to swim". No one gives what he does not have; a father cannot pass on to his child what he does not have. The son of a scoundrel will be a scoundrel, just as the son of a thief will be a thief.<br /><br />Educating a child is an immense responsibility in itself, towards the child and the society. The world improves not so much by revolutions, but by conversions, when men become better; it is our contribution to the world. How many parents take their task lightly? A father should seek to pass on to his child his virtues and not his flaws. If your sons and daughters are like you or worse than you, what is the meaning of your life? <br /><br /><b>"As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined " </b><br />For children, the family is like a greenhouse, since children are not yet ready to live in the open world; in the greenhouse, we can control their growth, the temperature, the humidity, the pest control, etc.<br /><br />The world outside the family is an inhospitable place, for which the family prepares us, strengthens or weakens us. The school and the street, good or bad, are the same for everyone: there are bullies, there are drugs, there are potential crimes, and those who succumb to them are those who do not have a strong and meaningful family where love, harmony and peace rule.<br /><br />In addition to being a greenhouse, the family is also a hospital where adolescents, young people and even adult children recover from the wounds that society inflicts on them. They spend their convalescence within the family, until they can return to society, strengthened and with lessons learned. <br /><br />"An Englishman's home is his castle". This is a very interesting expression about the dedication that parents should have to the sacred space that is the family. Today, there are many enemies of the family, even the government itself can be an enemy of the family. Parents should not only beware of the enemies from outside: TV, internet, mobile phone or computer can be today like a real Trojan horse that boycotts education and the values that parents want to transmit.<br /><br /><b>Unconditional love</b><br />As the habitat and school of human life, the attitude, the most important value to learn is unconditional love. Only in the family we are loved unconditionally, therefore only in the family can we learn to love unconditionally. Only those who are loved unconditionally by their parents and siblings learn to love unconditionally.<br /><br />Love is unconditional or it is not love. Family is the only place where you are loved without conditions, whether you are good or bad, beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid. God loves unconditionally, but anyone who is not loved unconditionally by his parents will hardly discover the unconditionality of God's love. Many Christians think that they must be good to be loved by God. Whoever does not learn to love unconditionally can never live fully and be authentically and genuinely human. <br /><br />I knew a young woman who, as a child, received hugs and kisses from her parents only when she excelled in school. She learned to confuse love with success in school that later turned into professional success. Today, as an adult, she is very successful professionally, but not so successful in her love life, in which she is unhappy. There is nothing more important than love. Those who do not love have never lived, because to live is to love.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion </b>– The myth of Tarzan reveals to us that, in human life, very little is innate, almost everything is learned within the family which is an irreplaceable school of life. <br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></div><div><br /><p></p></div>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-71130949406473579472023-08-01T17:16:00.000+01:002023-08-01T17:16:42.914+01:00V Mystery: The Prophecy of Simeon about Mary and Her Son - Part II<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiANBCVDNPDA4_UQ2cRsjAZCbj20gZ3vp_ubNKKh261DVyiZGm-5JTAq11-9GruODsyhKm7GeZQz9OrdiaL2GHHG93vF47A3o_rL-5yBlYMcD3jzedDr-SONxqn4vvuignPIUUU_SaBscAQ_3cPgII82pWijK8ZeFgWYRIQtZ1miSKrbB48Xpbb_GFZ/s780/13.%205%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20Profecia%20de%20Sime%C3%A3o%20sobre%20Maria%20e%20o%20seu%20filho%20-%202%C2%AA%20Parte.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="663" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiANBCVDNPDA4_UQ2cRsjAZCbj20gZ3vp_ubNKKh261DVyiZGm-5JTAq11-9GruODsyhKm7GeZQz9OrdiaL2GHHG93vF47A3o_rL-5yBlYMcD3jzedDr-SONxqn4vvuignPIUUU_SaBscAQ_3cPgII82pWijK8ZeFgWYRIQtZ1miSKrbB48Xpbb_GFZ/s320/13.%205%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20Profecia%20de%20Sime%C3%A3o%20sobre%20Maria%20e%20o%20seu%20filho%20-%202%C2%AA%20Parte.png" width="272" /></a></div><i>Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – <u>and a sword will pierce your own soul too</u></i>. <b>Luke 2:34-35</b><br /><br />There are many interpretations of this sword, some too spiritual or theological. I prefer to see in this prophecy the pure human suffering of Mary. "In war, hunting and love, you suffer a thousand pains for one pleasure". So it was for Mary: Jesus gave her more pain than joy, from conception to his death and resurrection. <br /><br />The birth, life and death of Jesus were for Mary a continuous passion of pain and suffering. It all started on the day when it was no longer possible for her to hide and explain her pregnancy. <br /><br /><b>Jesus’ Christmas, Mary’s Passion</b><br />On her return from the visit to her cousin Elizabeth, which lasted several months, Mary appeared pregnant. What could she say? How could she explain what really happened? Becoming pregnant by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit was unprecedented, it was a unique event in the history of mankind; it had never happened before and would never happen again. The Messiah, whom the people of Israel awaited and are still waiting, was expected to come in the usual natural way from the house of David. <br /><br />Jesus' Christmas was Mary’s Passover or Passion. The Passion of the Lord was also Mary's Passion. Even today, in a society that is not puritanical or sexist, a sex scandal delights the mouths of many people. It seems that our self-esteem grows when we see other people’s sink. There is nothing more degrading and stigmatizing than a sex scandal: everyone points the finger at you, and you live without honour or a good name, it is like dying in life.<br /><br />"If you throw enough mud, some will stick" says a Spanish proverb; cast doubt on someone in areas of sexual behaviour and that person's bad reputation will accompany him or her to the grave. It may even turn out to be a lie, it doesn’t matter, the public will always be in doubt, they will cling to the first report as being true and any denial as being a lie. These scandals open television news and make the front page of newspapers, while the denials appear as a lost square inside the newspaper that no one reads.<br /><br />Physical death by stoning also came very close... Mary was considered an adulteress because she was betrothed to Joseph, and although they did not yet live together, for the purposes of the law they were considered married. Such a relationship was no longer separable except through a divorce. We know well what was the punishment for adulteresses... (John 8: 1-11) they were stoned to death. <br /><br />What used to happen in Israel on a regular basis is still happening in some Muslim countries today, where Sharia law applies; there are videos on certain Internet sites that document these sad facts even in the 21st century.<br /><br />Already many, thirsty for blood, had stones ready in their hands, waiting for Joseph, the one offended, to cast the first one. Throwing the first stone was a right of the offended party. Throwing the first stone was, at the same time, a declaration of the verdict by the injured person and the first act of execution of the sentence that the bloodthirsty hypocrites gladly carried out. <br /><br />For Jesus, in the episode of the woman caught in adultery (John 8: 1-11), the right to cast the first stone, that is, to judge and pass the death sentence, is not the right of the injured nor of the one who has the authority by delegation or election, but of the one who has the moral authority, that is, the one without sin. <br /><br />Jesus does not believe in retributive justice, because it is just a legalized revenge, it is the old “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" justice. Jesus believes in restorative justice, the kind that God practices, because he does not want the death of the sinner, but that he converts and lives. (Ezekiel 18:23-32)<br /><br /><b>Jesus, the Son of Mary</b><br />Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19), suffering in silence, not being able to defend herself from the slander... The suffering lasted her entire life, as is natural in this type of cases. <br /><br />Here and elsewhere in the gospel, this stigma comes through; for example, in one of the arguments that Jesus has with the Pharisees in John’s Gospel. At one point they say, "We are not illegitimate children" (John 8:41) with the unspoken "like you are" implied. <br /><br /><i>‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?</i>’ <b>Mark 6:3</b><br /><br />In a patriarchal society, no one is known as his mother's son, that is, no one is known by reference to his mother, but by reference to his father. Let us remember that Jesus, when he addressed Peter in a personal way to ask him if he loves Him, he calls Peter by his family name, by reference to Peter's father and not his mother: "Simon (Peter), son of John... (John 21:15-19).<br /><br />The evangelist Mark, despite being a Hebrew from Jerusalem, writes his Gospel in Rome for the Romans and he does not go about it half-heartedly: he relates the truth as it is. Jesus is called by reference to his mother, not his father. Even if the father is already dead, a Hebrew would never be called by reference to his mother; if people did that then it was because Jesus was, for those of his time, the son of an unknown father, to the shame of his mother and Himself. <br /><br />Matthew, in his Gospel written for the Jews, corrects and says, <i>"Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?” </i>(Matthew 13:55-56). Luke, in his Gospel, also mentions the episode of the Lord's visit to his hometown, but out of respect for the Lord he does not copy Mark, but he also does not tell a lie like Matthew, as he omits what Jesus’ countrymen called him. <br /><br /><b>Mary and the widow of Nain</b><br /><i>Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her. ‘Do not weep.’ Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!</i>’ <b>Luke 7:11-14</b><br /><br />It is one of the few miracles that Jesus did without being asked, and without inquiring about the faith of the person who will be graced with the miracle. Jesus' great capacity for empathy makes him understand that the suffering of this poor widow was so great that she could not bear to speak to anyone. We see in this Gospel Luke's empathy in the way he describes the scene. He concentrates the maximum suffering with the minimum words:<br /><br /><i>“…a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow…” </i>There is no greater suffering than that of a mother who loses one of her children, for it goes against the nature of life. Children are expected to bury their parents and not the other way around. A mother who is willing to die for her child, to have to watch the child die without being able to do anything, is the worse type of psychological suffering. <br /><br />Within this context, this woman's suffering is further aggravated by the fact that she is already a widow and that he was her only child. He was her only surety to stay alive in that society, because women in those days could not live alone since they could not own property. Therefore, her only son was also her guarantee of life. <br /><br />Jesus gives the boy his life back... I have always seen in this episode a personal projection of Jesus; Jesus saw in the widow of Nain his own mother, who would soon also bury her only son, since she, Mary, was already widowed.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: For the sake of her son, Mary's entire life was a continuous passion and death. It all started on the day she could no longer hide or explain her pregnancy. There is no slander in the world worse than the one Mary suffered her entire life. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-54502859501294298822023-07-01T12:09:00.000+01:002023-07-01T12:09:45.242+01:00V Mystery: The Prophecy of Simeon about Mary and her Son - Part I<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdn63cqeIo7hTv_-k5tZq2B6j07vGAPwByjZSA9yk2XUmuj-m_FMxR-69BY9DuBooHmUvhFhJZZ5PE8Wd3e2YF1POnpeqUjz6gTnV4jY90nC9JLxvyP8a7is8NtS2CKoXTO9OfV3RzggPvVrTKDPrTmlzDuxu000e6-_75gnPOi5B8i4rTdwWQeKuo/s1115/12.%205%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20Profecia%20de%20Sime%C3%A3o%20sobre%20Maria%20e%20o%20seu%20filho%20-%201%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="1115" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdn63cqeIo7hTv_-k5tZq2B6j07vGAPwByjZSA9yk2XUmuj-m_FMxR-69BY9DuBooHmUvhFhJZZ5PE8Wd3e2YF1POnpeqUjz6gTnV4jY90nC9JLxvyP8a7is8NtS2CKoXTO9OfV3RzggPvVrTKDPrTmlzDuxu000e6-_75gnPOi5B8i4rTdwWQeKuo/s320/12.%205%C2%BAMist%C3%A9rio%20-%20A%20Profecia%20de%20Sime%C3%A3o%20sobre%20Maria%20e%20o%20seu%20filho%20-%201%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div><i>And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.</i> <b> Luke 2:33<br /></b><br />Great surprises awaited Mary at the presentation of her son in the temple. Several times the gospel says that Mary kept everything in her heart. When it came to her son, Mary did not understand many things. She walked her entire life in the faith that everything would turn out well, even when she saw that everyone was turning against him and against her. Her son never ceased to amaze and astonish her, from his conception to his death and resurrection. Mary did not understand all of it, but she accepted it all silently, and faithfully followed her son, near or far. <br /><br />The presentation of her son in the Temple must have left both a bitter and a sweet taste in Mary’s mouth. The joy of Simeon and Anna, who had so patiently waited for this moment to see the liberator with their own eyes, must have brought joy to Mary's heart as well. The ambiguity of Simeon's prophecy, who presented himself as someone who had good and bad news, must have caused much perplexity and pain in Mary’s heart which, according to Simeon, would be pierced by a sword. <br /><br /><b>Jesus of Nazareth shook Israel and the world</b><br /><i>Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.</i>’ <b> Luke 2:34-35</b><br /><br />Jesus of Nazareth entered human history like a meteorite striking the ocean, making concentric circles that are felt first where it impacts and then far to the ends of the earth. The strongest impact was felt in Israel two thousand years ago, but his influence spread in time and space in such a way that it is still felt today and will be felt until the end of time, for he himself has said: ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age’. (Matthew 28:20)<br /><br />Such was the impact of Jesus on the world that he divided the history of mankind into two eras. Before Christ (AC) and After Christ (AD), the Year of Grace of the Lord... Christ is therefore the center of human history, because everything that happens in this world is referenced as happening before Christ or after Christ. Annoyed with this, the agnostics and atheists in the Western world have replaced AC with "before the common era" and AD with "common era". <br /><br />However, if someone in the spirit of wanting to know, like children in the days when they question everything and bombard adults with questions, the people of the "common era" will have to explain what this "common era" is and why it is common, and when it began. If they are honest, which is not always the case these days, they will have to mention Christ’s name. The "common era" has Christ’s birth as its starting point. It is therefore not arbitrary or unconventional like the Fahrenheit scale for measuring temperature. <br /><br /><b>Jesus: cause of downfall or a stumbling block for many in Israel</b><br /><i>‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.</i>’ <b> Matthew 11:4-6</b><br /><br />The Greek word "scandal" means stumbling block. Jesus' words are harsh against the scandalous, but He himself admitted that he scandalized many people in a good way. Many were unable to digest and absorb many of his ideas; even when they were backed by many wondrous deeds. Against facts there are no arguments, the people say. However, the Jews in Jesus' time found arguments even against facts, like when they said that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of Satan. Indeed, "there are none more blind than the one who doesn’t want to see”. <br /><br /><i>He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.</i>.. <b> John 1:11-12</b><br /> <br />It is not God who judges man, but it is man who judges himself. His judgment is his reaction to Jesus Christ. If when confronted with Jesus his response is positive, he has faith and accepts His love, then he is saved and enters the kingdom of heaven. If, however, he remains still and coldly indifferent, or even actively hostile, then he is condemned, because he has condemned himself. <br /><br />With regard to Jesus of Nazareth, one cannot assume a neutral position. Either we have faith in Him and surrender to Him or we are at war with Him. For many, pride will prevent them from choosing the surrender that will lead them to victory. <br /><br /><i>Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God</i>. <b>John 3:18</b><br /><br />In Jesus' time, the Pharisees, the high priests, the rich, the abusers of power, the exploiters of the poor, stumbled upon the stone that is Jesus and thought that by removing the stone from the path, as they did by killing Jesus, they would be freed of Him. But this did not happen, for the same Jesus, in the person of his followers, became a pebble in their shoes to bother them eternally. Once he came into the world, he came to stay.<br /><br /><b>Jesus: cause of emergence, stepping stone and cornerstone for many in Israel</b><br /><i>This Jesus is “the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.</i>” <b> Acts 4:11</b><br /><br />Christ, true God and true man, is the way from God to men and from men to God. In the Bible, Jericho represents sin, so the man who fell into the hands of robbers came down from Jerusalem to Jericho, he fell from grace into sin. Jesus visits Jericho and heals Zacchaeus as he enters the city, and as he leaves, he heals the blind man Bartimaeus who joined the great multitude that was going up with Him to salvation and grace toward heavenly Jerusalem. <br /><br />The Way, the Truth and the Life, Christ is the role model, the paradigm of human life. Christ, in his words, deeds and personal behavior, is normative, for he embodies 100% humanity. Whoever wants to be authentically and genuinely human, he is to compare himself to Christ and to no other. What is human is Christian, what is Christian is human, because a human ethics that is different from Christian morality does not exist.<br /><br /><b>Whoever is not with me, is against me</b><br /><i>‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.</i>’ <b>Luke 9: 49-50</b><br /><br /><i>Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters.</i> <b>Matthew 12: 30</b><br /><br />These two texts seem to be at odds with each other; however, if we look from the context in which Jesus says these two opposing sentences, we will be able understand. Jesus says elsewhere that he has other sheep that are not of this fold, so it is possible that people outside the Church also do good, the so-called Anonymous Christians. Those who, by other ways and without being of our group, contribute to the building of the kingdom of God are Christians even without knowing why their attitudes are Christian or human.<br /><br />The second statement is made in the context that no one goes to the Father except through me (John 14:6-14). That is, since Christ is the measure of the human and the divine, only those who resemble Him are saved, because, as he says next, whoever does not gather with me scatters, disperses, for there is no other with whom to gather. There is no equally valid alternative to Christ. <br /><br /><b>Not peace, but the sword</b><br /><i>‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me…</i>’ <b>Matthew 10:34-37</b><br /><br />Love divides what was united and unites what was divided. We take as an example the classic love story of Romeo and Juliet. The families of these two lovers were visceral enemies, at war with each other. Before they met, each of the lovers lived in peace, harmony and love with their respective families. <br /><br />When the spark of love arose between the two, division and discord also arose in their respective families because of the union of what was once divided. The same happens in families where some of their members decide to follow Jesus and others do not. It is in this sense that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, unwittingly, instead of bringing peace brings war and discord into the very families where before Him, love and harmony once reigned. <br /><br /><b>God's curse?</b><br /><i>‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you</i>.’ <b>Matthew 11:21-24</b><br /><br />The curse of God is an anthropomorphism, that is, a way of understanding God in human terms. God is incapable of cursing; God only knows how to bless. To curse is to turn one’s back on God's blessing. Jesus did many miracles in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, for they were great cities in Jesus' time. Today only archaeological remains of these cities exist. In contrast, Nazareth and Bethlehem were small and tiny cities then, but today they are great cities.<br /><br />"He who does not remember God, misses out". In his address to the people after leaving Egypt, Moses placed before the people the blessing and the curse. The blessing for those who accept God and follow his commandments, and the curse ipso facto for those who do not follow God's designs. The blessing comes from God, the curse results from the rejection of the blessing, not from God’s punishment because God does not punish. <br /><br /><i>‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate</i>.’ <b>Matthew 23:37-38</b><br /><br />Jesus weeps in anger, pity, and helplessness over the ruin that was about to fall upon Jerusalem. A ruin caused by the city's own residents who could not recognize in Jesus the Messiah expected by the nations. The political and military messianism of the Jews brought them ruin, from the invasion of the Roman hosts, the destruction of the city and the temple, and the dispersion throughout the rest of the world for centuries, until the emergence of the state of Israel in 1948, by the pity and mercy of the Christian powers that won the war. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: Christ being the measure of what is authentically and genuinely human, one cannot be neutral and indifferent to Him; indifference is already, in itself, a rejection. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-82719610023494679122023-06-15T14:44:00.001+01:002023-06-15T23:17:22.435+01:00IV Mystery: Mary Gives Birth to Jesus, God With Us - Part II<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-sambT7ZJZ1t-no6FQafq51jv_U_woZ5FEuggO6KPgBcPHpzLECJhkomgVcFIPpklo4Z71Gidjif-ByIn2r8ymqICBLaHPr6QmkqQ-rBoUP1u9oJClHJC99YHMEO3d8G89nMRBwLgNiZmLfg1Ro7ZjlBDqUod9kojUqTSRVBKJzp-Z5VRemyzQ/s1983/11.%204%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Maria%20d%C3%A1%20%C3%A0%20Luz%20a%20Jesus%20Deus%20connosco-%202%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1983" data-original-width="1640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-sambT7ZJZ1t-no6FQafq51jv_U_woZ5FEuggO6KPgBcPHpzLECJhkomgVcFIPpklo4Z71Gidjif-ByIn2r8ymqICBLaHPr6QmkqQ-rBoUP1u9oJClHJC99YHMEO3d8G89nMRBwLgNiZmLfg1Ro7ZjlBDqUod9kojUqTSRVBKJzp-Z5VRemyzQ/s320/11.%204%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Maria%20d%C3%A1%20%C3%A0%20Luz%20a%20Jesus%20Deus%20connosco-%202%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" width="265" /></a></i></div><i>Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? </i> <b>John 14:8-9</b><br /><br /><b>Begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father</b><br />God has only one Son who, as the Creed says, is begotten not made. If the Creed were to speak about us, it would say that we are made, not begotten.<i> (God) destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will…</i> <b>Ephesians 1:5</b><br /><br />All men and women are creatures of God and through Jesus Christ, redeemed at the price of his blood, we are made adopted children of God. United by the same human nature, dignity is due to all human beings, without distinction of ethnicity, without exception period.<br /><br /><i>And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him</i>. <b>Romans 8: 17</b> – According to the Roman law which is fundamentally the law used throughout the world, the adopted child has the same rights to inheritance as the biological child. <br /><br />Jesus calls God Father, but only within the inner circle of the apostles and never outside of it. What this means is that the divine fatherhood is available only to those who accept Jesus as son of God and as brother, our elder brother, for it is only through Christ, the only begotten son of God, that we are adopted children. <br /><br /><b>The Messianic Feast</b><br />Christmas is the feast that unites mankind with God; it is the feast that unites earth with heaven. The incarnation is a marriage between the Only Begotten Son of God and humanity, and Christmas is a wedding feast that celebrates this indivisible and everlasting union. A marriage is a union of two destinies into one destiny. At Christmas, God the Father marries his Son to Humanity, that is, he unites the nature of the second person of the Holy Trinity to Human Nature. <br /><br />The union of two natures into one person took place in Mary’s womb. She is, with every right, the Mother of the child to be born, because she not only lent her womb but also contributed her genetic material. God, by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, is the Father of both the second person of the Holy Trinity and the one incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth. <br /><br />Jesus of Nazareth who was born in Bethlehem is the result of this union, this inseparable and indivisible union of the two natures: human and divine. God became the son of Man, the only title that Jesus gives himself, so that Man, who is a creature of God, might also become a child of God.<br /><br />Jesus' time among us corresponds to the messianic banquet prophesied many centuries before by Isaiah 25, and declared by Jesus in one of his parables in Matthew 22:1-14. Because it is the time of the messianic banquet, it is a fact that Jesus' public life began with a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee and ended at the Eucharistic banquet on Holy Thursday in Jerusalem, in which He was the food. Between these two banquets, Jesus participated in many others with his disciples and many of his sayings were delivered in the context of a meal. <br /><br /><i>Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.’</i> <b>Matthew 9:14-15</b><br /><br />Because it is the time of Jesus among us, the time of the messianic banquet, his disciples, that is, the bridegroom's friends, should not fast, but should celebrate. It is a time for feasting, a time of celebration, not a time for penitence or sadness. <br /><br /><i>In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also</i>.<b> John 14:2-3</b><br /><br />The days of fasting will come when the Bridegroom returns to the Father’s house, taking with Him our human nature redeemed in his person and by his person, sitting at the right hand of the Father. <br /><br /><b>And the Word became man and dwelt among us</b><br /><i>After leaving his family at the Church for the Rooster Mass, a Canadian farmer returned home, fleeing from the incoming snowstorm. His wife’s insistence that he attend the Mass with the family had fallen on deaf ears. For him, the incarnation of God made no sense. As he slept in the warmth of the fireplace, he was startled by the clash of geese at the door and windows. Driven by the storm from their migratory trajectory to the South, they were completely disoriented and bewildered.</i><p></p><p><i>Moved with compassion, he opened the gates of the large barn and began to run, squawking, whistling, shouting and hooting for them to take shelter in the barn until the storm has passed. However, the geese flew in circles, without understanding the meaning of the open barn and the dramatic gestures of the desperate farmer (who had not even convinced them with the breadcrumbs scattered in the direction of the barn). </i></p><p><i>Defeated in his attempt to save the poor creatures, he sighed, "Ah, if only I were a goose! If only I could speak their language!" Upon hearing his own lament, he recalled the question he had asked his wife: "Why would God want to become a man?" And, unintentionally, he muttered the answer: "To save him!" ... And it was Christmas.</i></p><p>There have always been people with special sensitivity to communicate with God. In biblical tradition, prophets were the catalysts of God's designs for the people and of the people's petitions to God. Communication, however, was not without difficulties: just as in the field of telecommunications, there were many "interference". The prophet's personality and character, defects and prejudices, filtered the message, which did not reach the recipient as it had left the sender. On the other hand, these prophets often understood that Heaven was closed and God was shrouded in silence. <br /><br />These prophets never truly managed to establish a bridge of communication between the divine and the human. This is because the Word of God, being transmitted by them (men with their personal characteristics and inserted in a certain sociocultural context), ended up being influenced by many mediating variables (personality, prejudices, stereotypes, social patterns), thus losing the meaning of the original message. </p><p>There is gold in the river sand, but not all river sand is gold. Hence, we need to sift through the sand to find the gold nuggets. The Word of God is also in the Bible, but not everything in the Bible is God's word. Since the Bible is the encounter of God as He is with Man, there is in the Bible much that is human, many anthropomorphisms, that is, examples of how to understand God in the way of man, even though in this same Bible it says, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, says the Lord" ... </p><p>In sifting through the Bible to find the word of God, we have to identify the personality of the author of the book in question, his beliefs, prejudices, stereotypes, social patterns, etc. to find the Ipsissima Dei Verbum. </p><p>Because of all this, it was necessary that God incarnates to speak directly to man without interference and, more than speaking, to demonstrate with his life and works how human beings should live in order to regain the likeness of God that was lost with Adam and Eve. </p><p><b>Opportunity to regain the likeness of God</b><br /><i>It was for this reason that the Word of God became Man so that Man might become Son of God. </i><b>Saint Irenaeus of Lyon</b><br /><br />Since Christianity is the religion with the most followers, and Christmas is the most popular public holiday in the Christian world, we can easily conclude that Christmas is the most celebrated holiday of all the holidays celebrated on this planet. It is undoubtedly the one that brings together more people worldwide, not just in the Western society. <br /><br />Jesus of Nazareth is the way by which God comes to us to speak in our ears, to speak to our hearts on an equal footing, not from above to below, but from brother to brother, from man to man. The creator makes himself a creature to speak from within the human nature; to speak with authority, as the men of Jesus' time have noticed, because he spoke and he did, because he spoke and he fulfilled, because he spoke and things happened. <br /><br />As truly man, Christ is our opportunity to regain the likeness we had with God before the sin of Adam and Eve. Whoever wants to be authentically and genuinely human measures himself to Christ, because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, He is the model, the prototype, the paradigm of humanity. No one in the entire history of mankind has more humanity concentrated within himself than Jesus. </p><p><b>John 15:16 </b>– You did not choose me – As they say in theology, ours is not a religion, because it is not the effort that man makes to reach God, but rather it is a revelation, because it is God who first comes to us, and reveals himself to us. This is why Jesus can say to the apostle Philip, "<i>Whoever has seen me has seen the Father</i>". </p><p><b>1 John 4:10 </b>– In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Love is repaid with love, says the people; our love for God is a response to divine love, the only answer, for there is no other. Therefore, because the initiative comes from God, ours is not a religion but a revelation.<br /><br /><b>Jesus: the way by which men go to God</b><br /><i>No one comes to the Father except through me.</i> <b>John 14:6</b><br /><br />If Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of God, He is the only way by which God has come to us. For this reason, there can be no other way by which man can go to God. It would make no sense for one to be the way by which God comes to us, and another to be the way by which man goes to God. All paths are round trips, so if God came to us through Christ, then through the same Christ we will go to God. <br /><br />The purpose of God’s incarnation can be read in Jesus’ entrance into and exit from the city of Jericho. Jericho is the oldest city in the world, at 8 000 years old, and is also curiously the lowest city on earth, at 500 meters below sea level. Because of these two characteristics, in the Bible Jericho represents the world in sin. This is even suggested in the parable of the Good Samaritan; the man who was assaulted by thieves and evildoers, came down from Jerusalem to Jericho, that is, he went from grace down to sin. <br /><br />Jesus enters Jericho, that is, he enters the sinful world and goes to stay in the house of Zacchaeus, that is, of a sinner. Jesus stayed in the sinful world, called sinners to himself, lived with them, ate with them, and treated them with the dignity of children of God (Luke 19:1-2). When he left Jericho, a great crowd followed him on the way up from sin to grace in Jerusalem (Mark 10:46-52). Thus the reason of the incarnation was fulfilled: God, through Christ, came into the world so that the world, by the same Christ, might come to God. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: Through Christ God came to men, through Christ men go to God. Whoever lives in Christ, is authentically human like Christ, because He is the only reference and paradigm of humanity. <br /></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-86137142551286840892023-06-01T18:43:00.000+01:002023-06-01T18:43:12.558+01:00IV Mystery: Mary gives birth to Jesus, God with us - Part 1<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcUbfUzjzmvaXe5VlnjiBIgXPgGk2IbPkqpqpb3s4jOIaIEzKZDRJqdno2omPzpNF8XC4AANkgNXcGxiH9TIsk0K3GrjZ34hLf7n3HtNxk9Z9XUW2Ae2rKZfIiEIzj0SmSqLloRc4Z0NfxJHfWyxEu9q5GAHeh7oYhdnYiXr6QQnhu0Ng6R6l1_g/s1126/10.%204%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Maria%20d%C3%A1%20%C3%A0%20Luz%20a%20Jesus%20Deus%20connosco-%201%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1126" data-original-width="910" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcUbfUzjzmvaXe5VlnjiBIgXPgGk2IbPkqpqpb3s4jOIaIEzKZDRJqdno2omPzpNF8XC4AANkgNXcGxiH9TIsk0K3GrjZ34hLf7n3HtNxk9Z9XUW2Ae2rKZfIiEIzj0SmSqLloRc4Z0NfxJHfWyxEu9q5GAHeh7oYhdnYiXr6QQnhu0Ng6R6l1_g/s320/10.%204%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Maria%20d%C3%A1%20%C3%A0%20Luz%20a%20Jesus%20Deus%20connosco-%201%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><i>O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. (...) ‘Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, do I seek.</i> <b>Psalm 22:2; 27:8</b><br /><br /><b>Religion and Revelation</b><br />The people of Israel were never satisfied with this communication, so deficient, and lived in a continuous restlessness. Religion, from the Latin "religare", means relationship with God and with one’s neighbour. Ever since the human being gained self-awareness, he believed in the possible existence of a superior being, transcendent to everything and everyone, because He is the Creator of everything and everyone. At all times and in all places, man has sought to communicate with this superior being, God, in order to obtain his blessing. <br /><br />Cell phone, television and radio waves cross our space and we don't hear or see them, but we know they exist because when we have the right instruments, we can capture these waves. In a similar way, God also sought to communicate with man, and man with God. But this communication is also not accessible to everyone, one needs to have a special sensitivity to enter into this communication.<br /><br /><i>‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.’</i> <b>John 3:17-18</b><br /><br />Christianity is not a religion, because it does not represent only man's effort or attempt to reach God. On the contrary, Christianity is a revelation because it is God who seeks man and reveals Himself to him. As Jesus says in the Gospel, <i>you did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name</i>. (John 15:16)<br /><br />At Christmas, we celebrate the great truth, that God is not wrapped in silence, but in cloths and laid in a manger. With the birth of Jesus, God breaks the silence, eliminates the distance, and undoes the inaccessibility. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, at our side, a travelling companion throughout our lives, as he was with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.<br /><br /><b>Son of God versus last prophet</b><br /><i>Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.</i> <b>Hebrews 1:1-2</b><br /><br />Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways, summarizes all religions; however, in relation to Christianity, this occupies only the Old Testament of the Bible. Unlike all other religions that talk about prophets sent by God, Christianity no longer presents a prophet, but God himself who comes to us, Emmanuel.<br /><br />Islam accepts as valid the Jewish religious tradition described in the Old Testament which they also consider their own. Therefore, to the Muslims, Mohammed is the last of the prophets that God sent into the world, Jesus being the second last.<br /><br />If mankind survives another 10,000 or 20,000 years, what sense does it make that the last prophet came in the year 524? The world and humanity have changed more since the year 524 than in all the millions of years before; why were the prophets sent with frequent succession prior to 524, and then after 524, they suddenly stopped coming and were no longer needed? <br /><br />In the case of Christianity, even if humanity survives until the year 20,000, it still makes sense that the revelation took place in year zero. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews explains, "the one sent" is no longer a prophet, but God himself who came to live among us. <br /><br />There is a qualitative leap here; prophets bring messages for a time, while the word of God is eternal for all times and all places, because God does not need to speak twice. On the other hand, Christ is not only a spoken word, he is a lived word and one lives only once.<br /><br />What is the meaning of the last prophet then? Is it because Islam has a more refined doctrine and an ascending path where we have already reached the summit? But the peak shows a closer association to Christianity rather than Islam, with a much more humane and humanizing narrative, such as love of enemies. Islam in its practice and doctrine even resembles the Old Testament more than the New, when we think that Muslim women are still being stoned today when Christ was already against it in his day.<br /><br />Islam is in itself violent by nature, because it is not about loving God who loved us first, it is not "love is repaid with love"; God in Islam is the Lord of the Old Testament who commands submission. As a matter of fact, Islam means submission, one submits to God, one does not love God who no longer calls us servants, but friends. In fact, the historical way Islam expanded was not through missionary work or catechesis, but by armed force and submission or by trade.<br /><b><br />Christmas, feast of the Father</b><br /><i>‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.</i>’ <b>John 3:16</b><br /><br />Since the Church has reserved the Sunday after Pentecost to celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the union and communion of the three divine persons, it is fitting that she should have a solemnity for each of the three divine persons. Seeing that Pentecost is clearly the celebration of God the Holy Spirit, I wanted to see in the other two, Easter and Christmas, the celebrations of the Father and the Son, but I ran into the problem that both Christmas and Easter seem to be celebrations of the Son, leaving the Father without His own feast day.<br /><br />It doesn’t seem right that two feast days were allocated to the Son and none to the Father, so I thought which one to give to the Father and by what criteria; it could be Easter, because Jesus dies doing the will of the Father (Luke 22:42) or it could be Christmas, by the fact that Jesus himself says in his dialogue with Nicodemus: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…’ (John 3:16-21). <br /><br />To solve this dilemma, I turned to grammar and what it tells me about active and passive voice. At Easter, it seems that Jesus is the one who directs the action when he says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). At Easter, Jesus is the main actor, no one has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). There is no doubt then that Easter is the feast of the Son, because He is the protagonist.<br /><br />The same is no longer the case for Christmas, Jesus is not the protagonist of Christmas, because grammatically he is a passive person, Jesus is not giving birth, he is born. Because of this, I have never liked the formulation of the third Joyful mystery which in all languages says "we contemplate the birth of Jesus". As if Jesus had fallen from heaven by parachute or as if He himself had caused his own birth. This mystery should say: "In the third Joyful mystery, we contemplate Mary giving birth to Jesus". <br /><br />Christmas has two great protagonists, one divine and the other human. God the Father is the divine protagonist and Mary is the human protagonist. The action begins in God the Father who sends his only begotten Son into the world. Although there is no order of importance between the Father and the Son, from a grammatical and human point of view, it is more important the one who sends than the one who is sent; the one who sends causes the action, the one who is sent suffers the action. <br /><br />Mary, the human protagonist, is not passive, she is also active; she represents all mankind that says "Yes" to God's plan. A free "Yes" because it was said with much thought and without any coercion from God who proposed it; a "Yes" that, being freely given, could have been a "No". Just as important is the one who sends as the one who receives. If a King sends a messenger to another King, the latter is free to receive or not receive the sent messenger. <br /><br /><u>The Character of Santa Claus</u><br />"Jesus is the reason for the season" (Protestant churches' Christmas slogan)<br />Jesus is not the reason for the Christmas season, the Father is. On this feast, Jesus is born: the verbs that refer to Jesus in this season come in the passive voice. Christmas, as an encounter between God and humanity, has a human protagonist, a mother, Mary, who received Jesus in her womb and contributed for it with her genetic material; and it has a divine Father, God. <br /><br />In another time, I too used to criticize the importance that the civil society gives to the mythical figure of Santa Claus. Today, I understand that it is one of those cases of the "voice of the people, the voice of God". Santa Claus represents God the Father who sent his Son into the world. He is a venerable old man who does not hide his age or tries to look younger, and overflows with kindness by giving gifts to children, caressing them and sitting them on his lap. In everyone’s imagination, God the Father is always represented as an old man with white hair and beard. Santa Claus coincides with this collective imagery. <br /><br />His suit is red like that of a bishop because, historically, Santa Claus is associated with Bishop Saint Nicholas, which is why he is called Santa Claus in English or just Santa. He lives in the North Pole, a place away from everything and everyone, in a white region, in a pure world that appeals to the collective imagery of how Heaven is conceptualized, God’s home. <br /><br />He visits us during the night, because it is said that nighttime is a time of salvation. He is never seen, but speaks through his works which are translated into the graces and gifts that we, as children and his children, ask of him. Being able to enter through windows or doors, he always enters through the chimney because he flies from place to place, he comes from above and enters through the only part of the house that is always open and on watch, signalling that we must always be in prayer, open to the Most High, looking upwards from where help comes to us.<br /><br /><i>And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’ (…) The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them</i>. <b>Luke 2:13-14, 20</b><br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: Christmas, because it is the feast of God the Father, was celebrated in Heaven by the angels saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest’, and on earth by the shepherds who returned from Bethlehem glorifying and praising God. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;"> Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-53586115688149661002023-05-15T13:46:00.000+01:002023-05-15T13:46:26.435+01:00III Mystery visitatiom of Mary to her cousin Elisabeth - Part II<p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtNeMQrd0QI_3_NutAsRlVpVBW1pLTZi-aUYoramDSMffW2wspqVz5QyWrFkuA_EEHDPquB00yLnpraKd_ST0s9XXb5qKhMgNb6FaR9PVm5Qjn_SVojtFZHAR7dwL477ZHdAFe7MmMGC3NnVvy4hwqkHZYOpnpzphF1rNnAUDw3s3eA6biaMs0bw/s453/09.%203%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Visita%20de%20Maria%20%C3%A0%20sua%20prima%20Sta.%20Isabel-%202%C2%AA%20Parte.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="358" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtNeMQrd0QI_3_NutAsRlVpVBW1pLTZi-aUYoramDSMffW2wspqVz5QyWrFkuA_EEHDPquB00yLnpraKd_ST0s9XXb5qKhMgNb6FaR9PVm5Qjn_SVojtFZHAR7dwL477ZHdAFe7MmMGC3NnVvy4hwqkHZYOpnpzphF1rNnAUDw3s3eA6biaMs0bw/s320/09.%203%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Visita%20de%20Maria%20%C3%A0%20sua%20prima%20Sta.%20Isabel-%202%C2%AA%20Parte.png" width="253" /></a></b></div><b>The Annunciation evokes listening to the Word of God – The Visitation evokes incarnating that Word</b> <br />At the Annunciation, Mary is attentive to listening to the Word of God transmitted to her through Angel Gabriel. This is the attitude of the true disciple, like Mary of Bethany at the feet of the Lord, choosing, according to the Master, the better part. At the Annunciation, Mary has the same experience as the prophet Jeremiah, for whom the word of God is sweet to the palate, as sweet as honey. <br /><br />The Visitation is the attempt to incarnate the Word, of putting it into practice, so that we are not only disciples of the Master, but also close relatives of his and of his mother’s, who went through the same process, as well as his brothers and sisters. Whoever hears the Word and does not make it a daily behaviour, does not incarnate it, or does not put it into practice, will be like the person who built his house on the sand. (Matthew 7: 24-27)<br /><br />The Word reveals to us God's will for us; to put it into practice is to do God’s will, which was already for Jesus his lifeblood, and so it must also be for us. The Word, as the Bible says, is life-giving and effective; it is in its practice that it becomes life and effectiveness. <br /><br /><i>‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”</i>’ <b>Matthew 7: 21-23</b><br /><i><br />“Lord, open to us”, then in reply he will say to you, “I do not know where you come from.” Then you will begin to say, “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” But he will say, “I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!</i>”<b> Luke 13: 25-27</b><br /><br />Commenting and paraphrasing the above texts, “Lord, Lord” is the equivalent to listening to the Word of God. Whether the Lord knows us or not depends on the practice of the Word of God. God does not know us from our religious practice in the church, but from the way we behave in the streets. The above text of Matthew is followed by the metaphor of building a house either on sand or on rock. The one that puts the word into practice built it on rock, and the one who does not practice what he says he believes built his house on sand. <br /><br />It is not when we say "Lord, Lord" that Jesus knows us, but it is when we visit him in our neighbour, in the needy, in the weakest, where He is hidden. Paraphrasing St. John, in listening to the Word we love God whom we do not see, in visiting our neighbour we see God whom we love. <br /><br /><b>If the Annunciation evokes the seed and the sowing of the Word – The Visitation evokes the ground where the Word falls and bears fruit</b><br />In the parable of the Sower, the Word of God is compared to a seed of quality which has within itself the potential to bear good fruit; a seed that may even be as small as a mustard seed, but which can grow into a tree large enough for the birds of the air to nest and mate, thus generating more life.<br /><br />The seed is the Word of God and the Sower is Christ; it depends on the ground whether this seed will bear fruit or not. It is not the fault of the seed nor the sower, but of the ground on which the seed falls. The wheat that God sowed in Mary's womb became for us the bread of eternal life. <br /><br /><b>If the Annunciation evokes faith and hope – The Visitation evokes charity</b><br />What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.<br /><br /><i>But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe – and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith without works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’, and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. <b>James 2:14- 24</b></i><br /><br />This is an issue that divides Protestants and Catholics and which I believe is a great equivocation. Saint Paul in his writings overlooks many parts of the gospel, especially Matthew 25 regarding the final judgment which is about works and not about faith. All the questions that were asked in this judgment are concerning love of neighbour, not love of God. <br /><br />In my understanding, when St. Paul speaks of the works that by themselves do not save us, he is referring to the works inspired or done by formal obedience to the law of Moses, that same law which the Council of Jerusalem decided not to impose on Christians coming from paganism. The Pharisees thought that they were saved by formal obedience to the law of Moses; whereas what saves a Christian is being like Jesus, practicing works of mercy, even if he does not believe in Him. <br /><br />Based on this passage of the scripture, if we had to choose between loving our neighbour and loving God, we should choose loving our neighbour, for by loving our neighbor we are loving God indirectly; by loving God alone we are certainly much deceived, for the God we think we love is the Father of our neighbour whom we ignore. The surer way to salvation then, is by loving God not directly but indirectly through our neighbour. <br /><br />Loving God without loving our neighbour is the sort of religion that Karl Marx calls the opium of the people. It is a faith without verification or confirmation, because we see our neighbour and we do not see God. In this way, we have a false image of God since it does not lead us to love our neighbour. If faith is the account, charity or love of neighbour is the litmus test or confirmation that this account is accurate; therefore, only by works can we verify that the faith is real. <br /><br />Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end, as for tongues, they will cease, as for knowledge, it will come to an end. (…) And now faith, hope and love abide, these three and the greatest of these is love. <b>1 Corinthians 13:8, 13</b><br /><br /><b>If the Annunciation evokes freedom – The Visitation evokes fraternity and equality</b><br />At the Annunciation, Mary was praying, in contact with God and exercising her love for God above all things. She was, therefore, exercising the human value of freedom on which rests the individual life of every human. <br /><br />We are only truly free when we love God above all things and all people. When we worship Him, that is, when we submit ourselves only to Him, when He alone is the Lord to whom we pay homage and servitude, when this happens, we are truly free from everything and everyone.<br /><br />The idea that comes to our minds when freedom is mentioned is that of living independently and autonomously, without constraints. Freedom, in the sense of autonomy, is inherent to all types of life or organic matter; it is doing things for oneself, being autonomous and self-contained like a cell, or like a tree that produces its own food through the process of photosynthesis.<br /><br />Much more than for animals, freedom is a "condictio sine qua non" of human life. Animals or plants do what nature has predestined for them, they do not go outside of these molds, so they have no power over life itself, they have no power of choice. <br /><br />Human beings, by contrast, are not predestined by Nature, nor does Nature exercise power over them. Human beings do not have strictly a "habitat", an environment conducive to human life, that is, a single place where human life is possible. Instead of adapting to Nature, human beings have the ability to adapt Nature to their needs. <br /><br />Today the word "artificial" has a negative connotation, it connotes not natural, fake, man-made, harmful to health... However, the word at its origin has a good meaning, it comes from the Latin "ars facere” which means to make art. For humans, the artificial is natural, the natural is artificial. What is natural in human beings is the creativity to use Nature to their advantage. <br /><br />Animals are alive; the human being is not only alive, but he also lives because he can make of his life and with his life whatever he wants, direct it as he wants and even end it if he so decides. The human being has his life in his own hands, not because he possesses it but because he has the ability to manage it as he wishes, to direct it, to spend it all on a project, a fundamental option to which he has talent and feels called. This is what Beethoven did when he dedicated his life to music, Picasso to painting, Gandhi to gaining India’s independence without violence. <br /><br />In the Visitation, Mary is in contact with her neighbour, exercising her love of neighbour in the person of her cousin Elizabeth. She was being the good Samaritan because she was helping her cousin even without being asked, as she did at the wedding feast in Cana later on. Without anyone asking her, she solved the problem of the wine running out: she probably realized before the bridegroom that such a problem existed, and in an act of great empathy with the bridegroom and his family, she solved the problem by involving her Son and his power to make all things new.<br /><br />Freedom as the first value of the French Revolution concerned the relationship between individual and society; as its second, it concerned the relationship between individuals within society. The human being is a personal, individual being, but he is not an island: he is always part of a family, a clan, a tribe, a nation. <br /><br />As we have already reflected in a previous text, the human being is one and triune, just like God and his creation. It takes two human beings to give birth to one, so one does not exist, but coexists with two others. If the basic value of a human being as a personal and individual being is freedom, the value on which the human being as a social being is based is equality.<br /><br /><i>You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord. <b>Leviticus 19:18</b><br /></i><br />There is no better definition of equality in the world than this verse. The other person is an alter ego, that is, he is another ‘I’; not a ‘you’, an external entity, strange, foreign, distant, but my neighbour, so close that he is another ‘I’, an alter-ego, from where the word altruism comes from. <br /><br />What is due to me is due to him, because he is a human being like me and we all come from the same common root, born in the Rift Valley 5 million years ago. Equality and coexistence in society are based on the principle that my rights are my neighbour’s duties and my duties are my neighbour’s rights.<br /><br /><i>‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For, with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get</i>.’ <b>Matthew 7:1</b><br /><br />* It is a divine exhortation to equality not to put ourselves above others, judging them, because we are all equal. No one made us judges, and we would only be judges, we could only throw that first stone, if we had not sinned. But we have all sinned, and we often judge others for the same sins and defects that we ourselves have, so our judgment is hypocritical.<br /><br /><i>There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus</i>. <b>Galatians 3:28</b><br /><br />*Jesus healed foreigners and often exalted their faith. He treated men and women as equals, he was the only Rabbi who had female disciples. In the parables he told, he sought a balance between men and women as protagonists. He fought the cliché that women should dedicate themselves exclusively to domestic work, having as their sole vocation to be mothers. In this way, 2000 years ago, Jesus was already in favor of integrating women into the world of work, alongside men. (Cf. Luke 10:38-42, Luke 11:17)<br /><br /><b>Mary's visits</b><br />We explain and justify that Mary is a mediatrix and intercessor in Heaven with the episode of the wedding feast of Cana (John 2:1-11), in which she presents the needs of the guests to her Son, while exhorting them to do whatever He says. Then why not explain and justify Mary's visits with the episode of the visitation to her cousin Elizabeth? (Luke 1:39-45)<br /><br />In her visits, Mary does not bring a new gospel, a new message, but like the Holy Spirit whose Spouse she is, she recalls the forgotten parts of the message (cf. John 14:26) of her Son and reinterprets them in the "here and now" of human history. In fact, one of the important factors in the genuineness of these messages is their agreement with the gospel.<br /><br />Mary continues to visit those of whom she is a mother at pivotal moments in her children’s history, to help embody in these moments and places the eternal Word of her Son. <br /><br /><u>Guadalupe – Support for evangelization</u><br />How were the indigenous people in 1531 Mexico going to willingly accept the religion of the Spanish conquistadors, explorers and murderers, if Mary had not appeared to an indigenous person. In fact, the natives until that time were reticent to Christianity, converted en masse after the Marian apparitions.<br /><br /><u>Lourdes – Confirmation from Heaven</u><br />An important part of the Lourdes' message is the confirmation from Heaven in 1858 of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception instituted by Pope Pius IX four years earlier in 1854.<br /><br /><u>Fatima - "Penance and Prayer" are the solution</u><br />Between two world wars, Mary proposed in Fatima, among other things, “Penance and Prayer" as a means to face militant atheism, then and now. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: After the total giving of herself to God at the Annunciation, Mary gave herself in equal measure to her neighbour when she visited her cousin Elizabeth. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-28319724315886673942023-05-01T14:50:00.001+01:002023-05-14T20:22:30.530+01:00III Mystery: Visitation of Mary to Her Cousin Elizabeth - Part 1<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeSmpnMGn8Z27hjpCYY24IWn6k3XsEHEr7znadU27EbUaR7r9Grm0r_C34c3pIo6hdjcQZgXDhVD6odyht6jXZz2OmdZkVxPLuUGjX-saGZ1ELIv2kocMLqa4YVcEt7Vp0nkeQRoSHSWwLKC4so3FIX_mGCIP3VSB4QuTX4PJc2eiO18gjoHPkZA/s735/08.%203%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Visita%20de%20Maria%20%C3%A0%20sua%20prima%20Sta.%20Isabel-%201%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="735" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeSmpnMGn8Z27hjpCYY24IWn6k3XsEHEr7znadU27EbUaR7r9Grm0r_C34c3pIo6hdjcQZgXDhVD6odyht6jXZz2OmdZkVxPLuUGjX-saGZ1ELIv2kocMLqa4YVcEt7Vp0nkeQRoSHSWwLKC4so3FIX_mGCIP3VSB4QuTX4PJc2eiO18gjoHPkZA/s320/08.%203%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Visita%20de%20Maria%20%C3%A0%20sua%20prima%20Sta.%20Isabel-%201%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" width="261" /></a></i></div><i>In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry:<br /><br />‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believes that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.</i>’ <b>Luke: 1:39-45</b><br /><br />The news that her cousin Elizabeth was already in her sixth month of pregnancy was announced by the angel as proof that to God nothing is impossible. Upon hearing it, however, Mary made no further comment but kept it in her heart, and as soon as her encounter with God’s messenger was over, she left for Ein Karen, a village about 145 km from Nazareth where her cousin lived. The trip was made by caravan, in the company of other travelers, which must have taken between 7 to 10 days.<br /><br />From the encounter with the angel and the words of Elizabeth to Mary, the first half of the prayer much loved and recited by Catholics is formulated – the Hail Mary prayer. This first part is composed of the words of the angel, followed by the words of Elizabeth and ends with Jesus who is the center of this prayer, as he has always been the center of Mary's life. <br /><br />The second part of the prayer reflects what Mary is to each of us individually and her role in the Salvation History of the human race as a whole. That is why we ask her to pray to God for us "now", in the every "now(s)" of our lives and especially in that ultimate "now" of our passage from this world to the Father. As she stood at the foot of her son's cross in his passion, so she accompanies us in ours.<br /><br /><b>Annunciation/Visitation</b><br />There is a dialectic between the angel’s annunciation to Our Lady and Our Lady’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, which makes these two mysteries both joyful and Marian, inseparable from each other, that is, they cannot and should not be understood individually, but always in relation to each other. <br /><br />In these two mysteries and in what they can mean and evoke, the entire life of a Christian is reflected, that is, they synthesize in themselves the life of a Christian. That is why Mary is for us a model of Christian life; in fact, she was not only the mother of the Lord, but she was also his disciple -- mother because she was a disciple, disciple because she was the mother (Luke 8:21). So, therefore:<br /><br /><b>If the Annunciation evokes the "Ora", the prayer, then the Visitation evokes the "Labora", the practice of good works</b><br /><br /><i>One day, a great king visited his spiritual master and asked him, "How can I attain Union with God? I want you to answer me in one sentence, because I'm a very busy man." The master said to him, “I can answer you with just one word." "What is the word?" asked the king. "Silence, " replied the spiritual master. "And how can I achieve silence"? "Through prayer." "And what is prayer?" "It's silence, " replied the master.</i><br /><br />In the silence I find myself within me and I find God within the depth of my being. In the clatter I lose myself and I lose to God. The prodigal son did what he did because he went about divorced from himself but when he came to his senses, he went back to God; therefore, being with God implies being with oneself and vice versa. Whoever is outside of himself is outside of God. Because, as St. Augustine said, "Deus interior intimo meo". God is deeper than my innermost self, He is beyond my inmost self, that is, I cannot reach God without going pass myself. <br /><br />The "know yourself" philosophy of Socrates is not possible without prayer. Without a time dedicated to prayer, as Mary and her son did, we do not get to know our talents, our virtues, and our flaws and limitations. A life that is not self-reflective, as Socrates also said, is not worth living. For it is in self-awareness that we can exercise control over our impulses and bad instincts. Without self-awareness, there is no self-control. <br /><br />The Gospels often present Jesus, especially in the decisive moments, withdrawing alone to a place far from the crowds and his own disciples, in order to pray in silence and to live out his filial relationship with God. Silence is able to carve out an inner space within ourselves, as Pope Benedict XVI said, for God to live in it so that his Word may remain in us, and our love for him may take root in our minds and hearts so to animate our lives. <br /><br />Therefore, the first step is to relearn silence, the openness to listening, which opens us to the above, to the Word of God. As Karl Rahner, the great 20th century Jesuit theologian, pointed out: the Christians of the future are either mystics or they are not Christians.<br /><br />People used to say that the life of a Christian takes place between the Church as the temple and the square or marketplace. In the temple, the Christian is in prayer and contemplation of God and of himself; in the marketplace, the Christian is living out his faith in charity and love of neighbour. Even contemplative monks who devote much time in prayer "Orat", also devote much work to God, "Laborat". <br /><br /><i>Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labour we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you.<br /><br />This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right</i>. <b>2Thessalonians 3: 6-13</b><br /><br />For St. Paul, there are no professionals of prayer or of proclaiming the Gospel. This must be the job of everyone. He himself, as the text states, worked and earned his living as a tent maker; he lived neither at the expense of prayer nor of evangelization. He lived therefore contrary to the traditional division of social classes in the Middle Ages, in which the clergy prayed, the nobles protected the people, and the people worked to support the clergy and the nobles. Even during the Middle Ages, those who were very dedicated to prayer like the Benedictine and Cistercian monks, were already working not only for their own sustenance, but also for the sustenance of the neighbouring villagers, to which they taught agricultural practices. <br /><br /><b>If the Annunciation evokes "loving God above all things" then the Visitation evokes "loving one's neighbour as oneself"</b><br /><i>Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when your rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. </i><b>Deuteronomy 6:4-9</b><br /><br />Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the time was coming when God will be worshipped neither on Mount Gerizim where Jacob had built a Bethel shrine, nor in Jerusalem where Solomon had built the temple. God is to be worshipped in spirit and truth. And elsewhere in scripture, Jesus even says that anyone who wants to pray, is to go to his room. In prayer we exercise our love for God. It is true that we love him at all times, but prayer is the manifestation of this love that we feel at all times. <br /><br />To all intents and purposes, the Creator always knows more about the creature than the creature knows about himself. Also, the Creator loves the creature more than the creature loves himself. The Creator knows everything about the creature, his past, present and future, therefore better than the creature, God can defend the creature’s interests. <br /><br /><i>Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.</i> <b>Matthew 10:37</b><br /><br />All the creature can and must do is to surrender himself into the hands of the Creator, just as a toddler without any hesitation throws himself into arms of his father. Thus, we can understand this classic text of love of God, which is the creed, that every Jew recites when he wakes up in the morning. Love of God is above all things, above all people, total and absolutely exclusive, and above the love we have for ourselves. <br /><br /><b>God only loves those who love him</b><br /><i>When you enter the home, give it your blessing. If it turns out to be a worthy home, let your blessing stand; if it is not, take back the blessing</i>. <b>Matthew 10: 12-13</b><br /><br />Often in sermons, to get the attention of those who are half asleep, I throw a grenade in the middle of the audience by saying, "God loves only those who love Him." Then those in the audience who consider themselves theologians object and say no, that God loves everyone equally, and even quote the Bible to me, that He makes the rain fall on the just as well as the unjust. <br /><br />And it is true that in theory God loved Hitler as well as Francis of Assisi. However, the lives of these two men could not have been more different; if the two had the same quantity and quality of God's love, why were they so distinct? That is because Francis accepted God's love, he echoed it by loving God back; Hitler did not. The sun, before reaching our planet and warming and illuminating it, passes through the outer space where the temperature is minus 300 degrees Celsius. Why? Because it is empty, there is nothing in it that echoes and touches that light and that heat. The only way to echo God's love is to love him back.<br /><br />"Love is paid with love" – As scripture says, God loved us first and he always loves us, but if I do not echo His love in me, it is as if He does not love me. Only with love can we echo God's love in us. To love, either we respond with love or we are indifferent to love. Therefore, although in theory God loves everyone equally, only the ones who accept this love, only those who are open to God's love, feel the effects of this love. The act of accepting God's love, of being open to God's love, is loving God. <br /><br />As the scripture reading quoted above (Matthew 10: 12-13) suggest, the blessing bounces back to you when it is not well received. So it is with the love of God that does not encounter a heart to receive and acknowledge Hi s love. <br /><br /><b>To Love and to be Loved</b><br />To love and to be loved is the first human need, after physical ones. There is no human life without love; to live is to love. All our life we will have this need. Therefore, because it is a human need and because there is no authentic human life without love, to love is both a duty and a right. <br /><br />As a need, it is inherent in human nature and in the dignity of the human person; all human beings have the right to be loved and the duty to love. As children, the priority is to be loved, for it is by being loved unconditionally that we learn to love unconditionally. As adults, the priority is to love; if an adult has as priority to be loved more than to love, he is not a mature adult. He is one of those types of adults that we see in soap operas, who use a thousand and one tricks to gain someone's esteem and do little or nothing to love someone.<br /><br />At the educational level, love is a duty of adults toward children, an inherent and innate right of children in relation to adults. Outside the educational sphere, the need to love and be loved remains for the rest of one’s life, so it is always both a right, even if we do not claim it, and a duty, even if we do not exercise it. <br /><br />But God will continue to ask us "where is your brother?" (Genesis 4:9). To answer that we are not our brother's keeper is not an answer that satisfies God or our conscience. It is also worth remembering that what matters at the Last Judgment is the same as what matters in life: love. If you have loved then you have lived; If you did not love then you did not live, you were a living dead, that is, the body was alive, but the soul was already dead. With the death of the body, you return to the nothing from which God created you to make something out of you; but you did not collaborate with His grace. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: If in the Annunciation Mary manifests her love for God, then in the Visitation to her cousin she manifests her love of neighbour. In these two Joyful and Marian mysteries, the life of a Christian is summarized. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-70304071235259543892023-04-15T14:24:00.000+01:002023-04-15T14:24:04.778+01:00II Mystery: The Angel's annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOV5cs4AYCG17SFj8L311xpKXKk_LCez_L9Qm1ulVYJx7asIgOw57FrOE5rgHV3ClAprmtsBKQEWQBGcmcdZLHJTN9edgeRNucOTJzSw3RrRMi5Q_rUcnOtZVVuNE-rcCy5m_ndGCDv1bdiBp4u39YAIGQsKIG1tCyhrbxNVVBphA1qYWV0Hc0Nw/s533/07.%202%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Anuncia%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20do%20anjo%20%C3%A0%20Virgem%20Maria.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="530" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOV5cs4AYCG17SFj8L311xpKXKk_LCez_L9Qm1ulVYJx7asIgOw57FrOE5rgHV3ClAprmtsBKQEWQBGcmcdZLHJTN9edgeRNucOTJzSw3RrRMi5Q_rUcnOtZVVuNE-rcCy5m_ndGCDv1bdiBp4u39YAIGQsKIG1tCyhrbxNVVBphA1qYWV0Hc0Nw/s320/07.%202%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Anuncia%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20do%20anjo%20%C3%A0%20Virgem%20Maria.jpg" width="318" /></a></i></div><i>In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.<br /><br />The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’<br /><br />Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her</i>. <b>Luke 1:26-38</b><br /><br />This second mystery is known as the first Joyful Mystery. However, we are in the context of the prehistory of Jesus of Nazareth, so it is a mystery that is profoundly Marian. The angel Gabriel is the herald of the New Age that is about to begin. God will visit his people again as he did in Egypt, but this time the deliverance is more spiritual than physical and more encompassing, that is, not only for his people, but for all peoples. The dream and prophecy of Isaiah (25:6) of a banquet for all peoples in Jerusalem is coming true. <br /><br /><b>Gabriel and the nature of angels</b><br />In the beginning, Hashem made three types of creatures, the angels, the beasts, and the human beings. The angels, He made from His pure word. The angels have no will to do evil. They cannot deviate for one moment from His purpose. The beasts have only their instincts to guide them. They, too, follow the commands of their maker. The Torah states that Hashem spent almost six whole days of creation fashioning these creatures. <br /><br /><i>Then, just before sunset, He took a small quantity of earth and from it He fashioned man and woman. An afterthought? Or His crowning achievement? So, what is this thing? Man? Woman? It is a being with the power to disobey. Alone among all the creatures we have free will. We hang suspended between the clarity of the angels and the desires of the beasts. Hashem gave us choice, which is both a privilege and a burden. We must then accept the tangled life we live.</i> <b>Anton Lesser: Rav Krushka in the movie: Disobedience (2017)</b><br /><br />The words cited above are put in the mouth of an old rabbi. Hebrew theology does not grant angels freedom, or freewill, they are not free to choose good or evil. They live like animals, beyond good and evil. The difference is that unlike animals, angels have no desires because they do not have a physical body like the animals. Being purely spiritual beings, they only possess a form of thought from which freewill has been removed, that is, the difference between good and evil. They are a pure extension of God's thought, and cannot deviate from these thoughts. <br /><br />They have some of God’s attributes, they are God’s companions in Heaven, they relate to God and God to them as a master to his beloved dog or cat, or any other pet, not like, as we have said, beings with a physical body, but beings with a spiritual body. <br /><br />Angels by not having freewill, then the extra-biblical story of the genesis of the devil or demon makes no sense. There has never been an angel who disobeyed God's plans, because angels, an extension of God's thought, live happily subjugated to their creator, like a pet to its owner, without the ability to diverge, discern, choose or say no. Therefore, Gabriel, God’s messenger, presents himself with a message addressed to Mary, that he cannot change, a human being, who has power to say yes or no to God's plans.<br /><br /><b>A virgin will give birth...</b><br /><i>Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. Then Isaiah said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.</i> <b>Isaiah 7:11-14</b><br /><br /><u>Context of the original prophecy</u><br />In the 8th century B.C., the kingdom of Judah was about to be invaded by the northern kingdom (Israel) and Syria in order to force King Ahaz of Judah into an alliance with these two kingdoms against the powerful Assyria. <br /><br />In Isaiah 7:10-12, God, through the prophet, exhorts King Ahaz to ask Him for a sign. King Ahaz, fearing that God's will was different from his own, since he had already thought of forging an alliance with the mighty Assyria, refuses to ask God for a sign, citing Deuteronomy 6:16 as an excuse.<br /><br />God, on his own initiative, gives the sign anyway, but the recipient is no longer the individual person of King Ahaz, but the dynasty to which he belongs, the house of David. Proof of this is that this dynasty is mentioned in verse 13, which means that the "you" in the following verse 14 does not refer to the king as a person, but to the dynasty to which he belongs, the house of David. The Hebrew term, "lakem", translated as "to you" is in the plural form and it means that the sign is "given to you, but not you as a singular person, that is, it will not be fulfilled during your reign, but much later".<br /><br />Trying to interpret "you" as referring to the person of King Ahaz, some rabbis stated that this character, Immanuel, was Hezekiah, the son of King Ahaz himself. However, done properly using the reigns of the contemporary neighboring kingdoms, when the prophecy was announced Hezekiah was already between 12 to 14 years old so the “you” cannot be him. <br /><br />Prophecies have no date of fulfillment, nor do they have a label where the expiration date is stipulated. They are the Word of God which is eternal and they can be announced long before they are fulfilled. This is implied in the enigmatic and unusual characteristic of this prophecy, as well as in the ambiguity of the term "virgin". <br /><br /><u>The term "Virgin"</u><br />The Greek language translated "almah" which in Hebrew means maiden (a young girl) as "párthenos" which means "Virgin". In Hebrew culture, virginity is not generally a value, and if it is, it is at the service of motherhood. However, it is correct to use the term "virgin" as best fitting this message the prophet wants to convey.<br /><br />That is, if it is a divine sign, it must necessarily be extraordinary; in the case of a maiden giving birth, there is nothing extraordinary about it; it has always been and always will be normal and routine. On the other hand, the one to be born is not just any human person, but Emmanuel, that is, a person through whom God is with us. Finally, the text speaks and only mentions Emmanuel’s mother, not the father, so it is assumed to be God himself. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: The angel of the Lord announced to Mary that she was the custodian and the fulfillment of the promise that God made to King Ahaz eight centuries earlier, through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah (7:14). A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, whose name shall be Emmanuel, God with us. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;"> Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-66616328380999947722023-04-01T05:29:00.001+01:002023-04-14T15:28:59.096+01:00I Mystery: The Immaculate Conception and Birth of the Virgin Mary - Part 2<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6KfDgQV6CWR58HNbiHEmj2j_Jkq-gLpvoZmXINyaZ2rB_unU05pyGZyE_fgKbsu9qW99UrxpxmzhydffoFF_SgOTEWKgctu68Si95patYBWrV7RtQD2sPvhdnuEL6pt6jBGb6CwXkXlniURxdEV4P02Il0NJQc3xl14MYPeIf5smk3QQbqwY-yg/s2449/06.%201%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Imaculada%20concei%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20e%20nascimento%20de%20Maria%202%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2449" data-original-width="2212" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6KfDgQV6CWR58HNbiHEmj2j_Jkq-gLpvoZmXINyaZ2rB_unU05pyGZyE_fgKbsu9qW99UrxpxmzhydffoFF_SgOTEWKgctu68Si95patYBWrV7RtQD2sPvhdnuEL6pt6jBGb6CwXkXlniURxdEV4P02Il0NJQc3xl14MYPeIf5smk3QQbqwY-yg/s320/06.%201%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Imaculada%20concei%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20e%20nascimento%20de%20Maria%202%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" width="289" /></a></div>In the eleventh century in England and Normandy, a feast day was set aside to laud the conception of Mary, for on this day the miraculous fact that Anne who was barren conceived. It has been said by Saint Anselm that Mary was preserved from sin. In 1439, at the Council of Basel, this mystery was considered a truth of the faith and Pope Pius IX proclaimed it a dogma in 1854.<br /><br /><b>Origin of sin and the original sin</b><br />God created man in his own image and likeness; with sin we lost our likeness to God, while still maintaining his image. We are no longer as God created us; the sin of our parents spread through space and time, profoundly altering human nature. Man has built his own hell, typified by the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The flood – destroying everything and starting over – with Noah's family, was the first plan to save the human species. But Noah’s descendants soon went back to the sin of their ancestors. <br /><br />The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge, (Jeremiah 31: 29). Without knowing Mendel's laws of inheritance, the Hebrews were already aware that certain evils are passed down from parents to offspring. In fact, the sin of Adam and Eve corrupted them, not only at an existential level as individuals, but also at a genetic level, so the consequences would be suffered by the entire human species.<br /><br /><i>Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man (Adam), and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned…</i> <b>Romans 5:12</b><br /><br />The original sin caused a genetic mutation in our genes and turned into a cancer, a dominant hereditary disease, that is, it is impossible that anyone born of a man and a woman not to have it. Evil has thus become a second nature that is already present from the moment of our conception.<br /><br />Most parents do not teach children to lie or steal, and yet even with some years of good and superb education, both in example and in word, parents catch their dear children stealing a few coins from their wallets or lying blatantly. Evil does not need to be learned; we are naturally inclined towards it. Christ himself recognized this fallen nature of the human being when he said: <br /><br /><i>There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. (…) And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person</i>. <b>Mark 7:15, 20-23</b><br /><br /><b>Usurpation of the criterion of good and evil</b><br />The pseudo-emancipation of man, in wanting to be like God and having usurped from God the prerogative of good and evil, was the origin of sin or the original sin that has been passing down from generation to generation, because it had altered the DNA of the human species. Evil has established its roots within the human species in such a way that, as Jesus said in Matthew 15:11, "It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." It is not, therefore, bad education that leads man to do evil; the evil is already inside of him. <br /><br />While the criterion of good and evil remained at the center of the Garden of Eden, and belonged exclusively to God, the earth was the Kingdom of God; there was peace, unity, consensus, because everyone submitted to a single criterion. When man, in wanting to be like God, put himself at the center by stealing the prerogative of good and evil, then division, war, subjectivity, arbitrariness, relativism, discord came into the world. Every individual wants to be the center. Since there can't be two centers, so if I have the criteria of good and evil, you don't have it or I don't acknowledge that you have it. <br /><br />No one does evil thinking they are doing evil; by killing 5 million Jews, Hitler thought he was doing humanity a favor; suicide bombers who carry out massive murder of innocent people say that they are sacrificing themselves for the greater good; Muslim extremists kill in the name of God....<br /><br /><b>We are apples with bugs</b><br />Parents who take great care in their children's education are caught off guard when they start lying, stealing, and doing other mischiefs they were never taught. Evil is within us and does not need to be learned. As the psychologist Jung would say, evil belongs to the collective unconscious of humanity. Every evil act that an individual carries out, settles in this collective coefficient in such a way that individuals born afterwards, are born with the ability to perform it again without needing any learning.<br /><br />Many people seeing an apple with a small hole think that the hole was made by a bug that went into the apple, but what actually happens is the opposite: it was made by a bug coming out of the apple. The bug was born from an egg that an insect deposited inside the apple during flowering. We are all apples with bugs: evil is inside all of us and it only needs a certain circumstance to reveal itself. <br /><br />It is not, therefore, as the proverb says "The situation makes the thief". Everyone, sooner or later, is faced with situations in which he or she can steal; from the outset, we are all capable of stealing. To steal or not to steal will depend on the degree of education, on human values, that we have at the moment of temptation. Only this degree of education on human values can counteract the innate tendency in all of us.<br /><br /><b>From Eva to Ave</b><br />There are two reasons why God came to us in human form: the first is to tell us, in a definitive way, what God is like, and the second is to tell us what human beings are like and how they should be like. Christ is in fact the measure of the human being, the benchmark of humanity, the one to whom all individuals must measure themselves, for He is the norm, He is the model, the paradigm. Christ is the man God created in Adam before the latter disobeyed. In fact, Jesus shows, by word and deed, that he remains, all his life, obedient to God.<br /><br />As Christ is the second Adam, so Mary is the second Eve. Ave is, in fact, Eve in reverse. Christ, the son of the Most High God, could not have Eve after sin as his mother; therefore, at the moment of her conception, the moment when Joachim’s half-cell of united with Anne’s half-cell, God acted, preventing the genes that, from the sin of Adam and Eve had passed down from generation to generation, from also passing down to Mary. Mary was conceived without original sin because she was destined to be the mother of the Son of God. It makes no sense that God would incarnate with the human nature that Adam and Eve had stained with sin. Therefore, Mary who was going to be the mother of the Lord was preserved from this negative inherited trait, common to all mortals. <br /><br />In Ethiopia, there is no negative connotation attached to the figure of stepmother. Often, one is the biological mother and the other is the mother who raises and educates the child. She is called the “Ingera enat", or the bread mother. When I was studying theology, I had a classmate who called his biological aunt mother and his biological mother aunt. My classmate had been rejected by his biological mother and was taken in by her sister who raised him. Their love for each other was so great that when she was already sick, terminally ill with cancer, she did not die until she saw her son (biologically her nephew) ordained a priest.<br /><br />Eve is the biological mother of all human beings; Mary is our bread mother, of this Eucharistic bread that is her son born in a town called Bethlehem, which literally means house of bread and whom she laid in a manger, a container where one eats, so that we could feed on him. <br /><br />Eve is our progenitor, but she has abandoned us to our fate; Mary is the one who provides for our needs, just as in Cana when she said, "They have no wine" (John 2:2).<br /><br />Eve is the one who taught us to do evil; Ave or Mary is the one who educates and teaches us to do good by pointing us to her son and saying, "Do whatever he tells you" (John 2:5). <br /><br /><b>Nativity of Mary</b><br /><i>We cannot recognize the blessings that Jesus brought us, without recognizing at the same time how immensely God honored and enriched Mary by choosing her for the Mother of God.</i> <b>(John Calvin," Comm. Sur l'Harm. Evang.",20)</b><br /><br />Nine months after the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, the Church celebrates the nativity of Our Lady on 8 September. In a biblical context of so many births of same circumstances, from Isaac, Samuel, Samson, etc., according to tradition, Mary was born to elderly and barren parents, named Joachim and Anne. In response to their perseverance and constancy in prayer, these parents were blessed by God with the gift of a baby girl. <br /><br />Some people place them as residents of Nazareth, but the most reliable tradition places them in Jerusalem, living next to the pool of Bethesda, where pilgrims purified themselves before entering the temple and where today stands the Basilica of St. Anne, very close to one of the main entrances to the Temple and the present-day Lions’ Gate in the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem, leading into the Muslim Quarter.<br /><br />The girl was given the name Miriam which means seer, sovereign lady. It was most likely an Egyptian name because, as we know, Miriam was the name of Moses' sister. There are those who think that it derives from the Sanskrit name Maryá which literally means purity, virtue, virginity; the Latin translation is Mary. Like Samuel, she was also offered to the Temple of Jerusalem at the age of three, and remained there until she was twelve years old, when she was given in marriage to Joseph. <br /><br />As we know, the canonical gospels tell us nothing about Mary's birth. The basis of tradition, however, is quite ancient, as it comes from an apocryphal writing of the second century, the Protoevangelium of James, written around the year 150.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b><br />Eve is our progenitor, because she is the one who gave birth to us; Mary is our mother, because she is the one who provides for our needs as at the wedding feast of Cana, and she educates us when at the same wedding she tells us, "Do whatever He tells you". Finally, it is she who prays for us at every moment of our life and at the hour of our death. Amen. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-92144497714430297692023-03-15T04:02:00.002+00:002023-04-14T15:30:17.636+01:00I Mystery: The Immaculate Conception and Birth of the Virgin Mary - Part 1<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUjf1xFWS0bYy5vhrUMo8NaGYLmq8XeZ5iV4SoIp9G7ynoNiG7qBFkIk8-B_BMnIALA5NABsfCyxiiyJ5X7SEtGgZLvZAYU52bZapZCXZ8eDbiPRhNUpqyAqml6Pcr_s83aSASGXo08Opp3GMk7K0rC_CpL6XPK8GRSvgpjZDwmo8ciRwxbie6dg/s704/05.%201%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Imaculada%20concei%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20e%20nascimento%20de%20Maria%201%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="502" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUjf1xFWS0bYy5vhrUMo8NaGYLmq8XeZ5iV4SoIp9G7ynoNiG7qBFkIk8-B_BMnIALA5NABsfCyxiiyJ5X7SEtGgZLvZAYU52bZapZCXZ8eDbiPRhNUpqyAqml6Pcr_s83aSASGXo08Opp3GMk7K0rC_CpL6XPK8GRSvgpjZDwmo8ciRwxbie6dg/s320/05.%201%C2%BA%20Mist%C3%A9rio%20-%20Imaculada%20concei%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20e%20nascimento%20de%20Maria%201%C2%AA%20Parte.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>Mary is the new Eve, as Christ is the new Adam, that is, man and woman as God conceived them before the Fall. Sin is not part of the original nature of the human being. Therefore, when God the Father thought of sending His Son into the world, He could not be born from man's sinfully modified nature, but from the original nature in which He created it. The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary is also the beginning of Mary's redemption, as it is of ours. <br /><br /><b>"Solus Christus Sola Fide Sola Scriptura"</b><br />This is one of Luther's lapidary phrases, whose intention was to deny the value of tradition, valuing only the faith of the individual without the community, and the Bible as the word of God. This statement is a misconception and is totally false: first, it is hypocritical, because Luther himself, in his writings, accepted all the dogmas that tradition had defined, the identity of Christ as true man and true God, the Trinity in which God is one and triune, as well as all the Marian dogmas. The dogmas or definitions of faith are the result of centuries of reflection by the Church, that is, they have their origin in tradition. <br /> <br />But even the Bible is a child of tradition. First there was the Church, and only later the Bible, as far as the New Testament is concerned. Christ wrote nothing apart from what he wrote in the sand when a woman caught in the act of adultery was brought to him; about him during his lifetime, only Pilate wrote the cause of his condemnation on the sign placed on top of his cross. The 12 apostles, none of them wrote anything, they dedicated themselves solely to preaching after Christ’s Resurrection. It was the Church, when it was already well established, in the second generation after the apostolic one, that gave birth to the scriptures. <br /><br />First, there were Paul’s letters, which were truly letters because on the envelope, so to speak, they had Paul as the sender and, in fact, he began each letter by introducing himself. In the place of the address was the Christian community of a particular city, the one of Rome in the letter to the Romans, the one of Philippi in the letter to the Philippians, the one of Thessalonica in the letter to the Thessalonians, the one of Ephesus in the letters to the Ephesians, or specific individuals like Titus and Timothy, or even other communities, like the anonymous letter to the Hebrews, etc. <br /><br />The Gospels appeared later, each written by a different author in order to present the facts about Jesus of Nazareth to a different group of people. Mark, the first author, wrote his Gospel in Rome for the Romans; to this end, he was inspired by Peter's preaching. Matthew, a Jew who used the name of the apostle Matthew, perhaps because he was inspired by his preaching, wrote for the Jews. Luke, a Greek medical doctor and a disciple of Paul, was inspired by his preaching to write for the Greeks. John’s Gospel is more of a historical reflection than a narration of facts, and he had no particular group of people in mind. <br /><br />Even the expression "Solus Christus" is a fallacy because we do not have a pure Christ without tradition. We have a Christ of John, another of Mark, another of Luke and still another of Matthew. The true Christ is the sum of all of them, but even on the figure of Christ we cannot set aside the tradition of the Church. Tradition and Bible in the Catholic Church intertwine like the two spirals of DNA. Tradition gives birth to the Bible, but the Bible then inspires the subsequent tradition throughout history, because tradition is modifiable, the Bible is not. <br /><br />The Bible, once the canon was closed, is the essence; the tradition is the accidents. The Bible is fixed, the tradition is changeable. Tradition is an updating of the Bible over time. <br /><br /><u>Similarity to the amendments of US Constitution </u>– Many countries, in finding that their Constitution has become outdated, revise it or write a new one. This does not happen in the United States, a country with an unchanging Constitution, as if it were a Gospel, which cannot be rewritten or modified, causing serious problems, such as the authorization to carry firearms.<br /><br />But even in the United States the reality is changing, there are amendments to the Constitution that, in order to be valid, must be drafted in light of the Constitution, but are an interpretation or update of it, or an adaptation of the Constitution to modern times.<br /><br /><u>Similarity to the dinosaur </u>– No one has ever seen a live dinosaur, for while they walked on earth, the human race did not yet exist. However, we know of their existence because here and there bones of these huge reptiles have been found. We started putting these bones together to tentatively reconstruct these extinct animals and, like a puzzle, we arrived at the final result; then it was a matter of covering the bones with flesh and skin to obtain an almost exact image of how they looked alive. <br /><br />Never have all the bones that make up the body of one of these animals been found in one place. In the spaces that were left empty in the puzzle, artificial bones were fabricated to complete the puzzle. Granted that the added bones are not real, just as tradition is not scripture, but tradition follows in the sequence of the scriptures, and it agrees and harmonizes with it. The dogmas of the identity of Christ, of Mary, of the one and triune God are like the missing bones in the skeleton of the dinosaur, but which can be logically deduced from the real bones present.<br /><br /><b>Immaculate Conception of Mary</b><br /><i>“It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus, from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin.</i>” <b>(Martin Luther, Sermon on the Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, 1527)</b><br /><br />All the great Protestant reformers like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, accepted all of the Marian dogmas. The indifference, contempt and almost hatred of Mary that certain Protestants manifest today do not come from these reformers but from fanatics after them. <br /><br />The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, a solemnity that the Church celebrates on December 8th, close to the Lord's Christmas, is another way of beginning anew. It is the replacement of the flood that destroyed the sins of the old to begin anew. In Mary, God relinquishes the destruction of the world. That is why Mary is a "non-destructive flood" because, little by little, with the Kingdom of her son, she will flood the world with the divine Grace that kills sin. Mary is, therefore, the new ark of Noah that saves humanity from sin because she contains the Saviour who is Christ, her son. <br /><i><br />Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.</i> <b>Hebrews 1:1-2</b><br /><br /><i>But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman... </i><b> Galatians 4:4</b><br /><br />Mary is not the beginning of the salvation history: this began with Abraham and was continued from generation to generation by the prophets, judges, kings, and other leaders of the chosen people. Mary is the culmination of this history, she is, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews points out above, the last days or, as St. Paul says, the fullness of time.<br /><br />The history of salvation deals with people who pass from generation to generation the germ of Good, in the midst of a world that lives the history of Evil. However, this germ of Good coexists in the same person with Evil. Those who carried the germ of Good or the testimony of Good in this relay race, were not perfect people, as we know from the Bible, where their flaws and sins are well documented, from Abraham, Moses, David to so many others who were, as St. Augustine would later say in defining man, "simul justus et peccator”, at the same time righteous and sinful.<br /><br />Mary is the last link in this chain of Good. Through Mary, God put the final touches to eliminate every trace of evil in preparation for the Incarnation of His Son. It stands to reason that if God was going to take on human nature to speak to men, he was not going to take on a fallen human nature, he was not going to take on the decaying sinful human nature of our fathers, but rather the human nature that He had created in the beginning. That is, he was going to take on the nature of Adam and Eve before the Fall. This is why it is said that Mary is the new Eve and Christ the new Adam. <br /><br />The moment the genetic material from the half-cell of Joaquim joined the genetic material from the half-cell of Anne to form a new genetic code, Mary's DNA, God intervened in genetic engineering and replaced the genes spoiled or corrupted by sin that had been passed down from generation to generation since Adam and Eve, with the new genes, the ones that Adam and Eve themselves possessed before they ruined human nature by sinning. In other words, He replaced the damaged pieces with the original pieces. <br /><br />When the Angel Gabriel visited Mary, he recognized in her the new Eve by pronouncing this very name backwards as a greeting (Eva/Ave), Mary is the work of God's genetic engineering; Mary is God’s re-creation by virtue of his direct and intentional intervention in human history. Because Mary, in communion with the same God, will generate, produce the vaccine against sin, that is Christ His Son. Mary is not only the beginning of salvation for the world but in her Immaculate Conception, as a preparation for the coming of Jesus, she is also the first to be saved.<br /><br /><i>Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life</i>. <b>John 3:14-15</b><br /><br />The son of Mary is the one who will replace the serpent raised up in the desert by Moses, the saviour of the Jewish people, to heal everyone from the bite of the ancient serpent that poisoned Eve, Adam, and their descendants from generation to generation. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b><br />If Christ is like us in everything except sin, he must be the son of a woman who, by special privilege, was also like us in everything except sin, that is, she must be created in the image and likeness of God. Mary is the second Eve, the Eve who did not sin and who never lost her resemblance to God. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-443430191880261632023-03-01T12:42:00.000+00:002023-03-01T12:42:12.917+00:00The Marian mysteries of the Rosary<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPLfNVQdoQ-4avQxDg4l2U6aud6muz5Ra39U8osWZedY5HtZavSGTiiYgT23akPQlPp9PtF9VaSDYoGs8biGc8QxWkk3MfEJmycsghjJN2ZUSJDRNvcIz7E6W-Oovz0s_h5qa3FS1pB3Olbl5sj6JX6pkHxAI0Z9dI8QoGAncB0AyWM9g7PXEkog/s636/04.%20Mist%C3%A9rios%20marianos%20do%20ros%C3%A1rio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="636" data-original-width="590" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPLfNVQdoQ-4avQxDg4l2U6aud6muz5Ra39U8osWZedY5HtZavSGTiiYgT23akPQlPp9PtF9VaSDYoGs8biGc8QxWkk3MfEJmycsghjJN2ZUSJDRNvcIz7E6W-Oovz0s_h5qa3FS1pB3Olbl5sj6JX6pkHxAI0Z9dI8QoGAncB0AyWM9g7PXEkog/s320/04.%20Mist%C3%A9rios%20marianos%20do%20ros%C3%A1rio.jpg" width="297" /></a></div>Why Marian mysteries? Because the Marian mysteries are as much a part of Jesus' life as the Joyful, the Luminous, the Sorrowful and the Glorious. Mary's life is intimately linked to the life of Jesus, one cannot explain or write a biographical history of Jesus without mentioning Mary, as the Protestants would have it. She was at the origin of Jesus, during his public life, at his death and resurrection, and at the coming of the Holy Spirit and the beginning of the Church. She existed before and after the incarnate Word.<br /><br />The Marian mysteries are about Mary in her relationship with Jesus. They follow Jesus closely; they are about Mary's role in the salvation history of her Son. They are about Jesus from Mary's point of view or perspective. I have a sister who kept a diary for years of her experiences with her son, from conception to adulthood. The Marian mysteries are Mary's diary, they are what Mary silently and secretly kept in her heart. (Luke 2:16-21)<br /><br />I do not pretend to say indirectly that Mary is a co-redeemer, a dogma that the Pope John Paul II thought of instituting. Mary is at the service of salvation history although her role is more important than any of the 12 apostles, for she was and is a mediator of all graces and therefore of the main grace which is the coming of Christ into the world. This, however, does not make her a co-redeemer next to her son. She herself was redeemed, only that her redemption began earlier at her Immaculate Conception. If she was redeemed, then she cannot be a redeemer. <br /><br />Despite her very important role in the salvation history, Mary was not indispensable, not then and not now. If she had answered ‘no’ to the angel, God would have thought of another person or another way of incarnating into humanity, for nothing is impossible for Him, as the same angel said to Mary. Only one person was and is indispensable in the history of humanity: Jesus of Nazareth. <br /><br />To those who laugh at me or question who am I to create these mysteries, "you are not the pope or even a bishop", I answer that the Holy Spirit is democratic, He does not respect ecclesiastical hierarchies, He blows where and on whom He wants (John 3:8). The copyright of the Holy Spirit belongs to no one. After all, there has been times when He has come very well into the Church through lay people, and not so well through popes and clerics.<br /><br />T<b>he 12 Marian Mysteries</b><br /><i>A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. <br /><br />His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne… <b>Revelation 12:1-5</b><br /></i><br />We already have mysteries in the holy Rosary that are purely and technically Marian, the first three Joyful and the last two Glorious. In fact, the first time the Marian mysteries came to my mind, it was precisely these five, recited on Saturdays, the day especially consecrated to our heavenly Mother. Later, seven others came to my mind, seven being a perfect number in the Bible and then finally 12 in total, inspired by the woman in the book of Revelation. <br /><br />The twelve stars on Mary’ crown represent the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 apostles, the new Israel, the Church, the 12 contributions to the history of redemption of Jesus Christ, her son according to the flesh. Mary is crowned with these twelve stars, twelve attributes, twelve jewels of the redemption of mankind. <br /><br />What are these twelve mysteries? <br /><br /><b>1. We contemplate the Immaculate Conception and the Birth of the Virgin Mary.</b><br />Mary is the new Eve, as Christ is the new Adam, that is, man and woman as God conceived them before sin. Sin is not part of the original nature of the human being. Therefore, when God the Father thought of sending his Son into the world, He could not be born from man’s altered sinful nature, but from the original nature in which He created him. The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary is also the beginning of Mary's redemption, as it is for us at our baptism.<br /><br /><b>2. We contemplate the Angel's Annunciation to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.</b><br />Common with the first Joyful mystery, but which, as we said, is purely Marian. The Angel Gabriel is the herald of the New Age that is about to begin. God is going to visit his people again, as he did in Egypt, but this time the deliverance is more spiritual than physical and more encompassing, that is, not only for his people, but for all peoples. The dream and prophecy of Isaiah become a reality. <br /><br /><b>3. We contemplate the Visitation of the Virgin Mary.</b><br />From being with God and with oneself, to being with one’s neighbour, this is the life of the Christian that Mary exemplifies very well throughout her life. As soon as she heard that her cousin needed her help, she got up and left her pleasant contemplation of the divine, her peace and quietude, to go and take care of the needs of others. From the time Mary visited her cousin, she has not stopped visiting us whenever we are in need: Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima and so many others, are all proofs that Mary knows about our lives and what we need in due time. <br /><br /><b>4. We contemplate Mary giving birth to Jesus.</b><br />The Joyful Mystery speaks of the birth of Jesus, forgetting who gave birth to him. Contemplating the birth of Jesus without contemplating the one who gave birth to him is, to me, a somewhat Protestant formulation of this mystery. Not least because the protagonist of Christmas is Mary, not Jesus, from a grammatical point of view: Jesus is given birth to, Mary gives birth. <br /><br /><b>5. We contemplate Simeon's Prophecy about Mary.</b><br />Except for "A virgin shall conceive and bear a son" (Isaiah 7:14), all the prophecies are about Jesus. The prophet Simeon prophesies about Jesus, but also about his mother. Jesus' coming into the world came at a price and part of that price was paid by his mother who suffered for Him, from the conception of her son until his death. <br /><br /><b>6. We consider the life of the Holy Family.</b><br />The second person of the Most Holy Trinity was already part of a family in Heaven; on earth he is also part of a family: Mary, Jesus himself and his adoptive father Joseph. The human being is a social being because he is a familiar being; outside the family, there is no human life. The divine family of the Holy Trinity is certainly a model for humanity, but it is far from us. In Jesus, the Most Holy Trinity establishes in the world a family to be a model of love and harmony for our families. <br /><br /><b>7. We contemplate Mary’s Mediation at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.</b><br />Mary launches her son into life, not holding him back for herself, as many mothers selfishly do. She initiates him into his public life when Jesus was thinking of starting later. Jesus gives in to his mother's request as he always gives in to any of her requests. In this mystery, Mary becomes the mediator of all the graces given by her son, she who was already the mediator of salvation, because the saviour of the world came to us through her.<br /><br /><b>8. We contemplate the Motherhood and Discipleship of Mary.</b><br />Mary is a mother because she is a disciple, she heard the word and put it into practice. According to the gospel, we too can be part of Jesus’ intimate family, his brothers and sisters, if like her when we hear the word and put it into practice.<br /><br /><b>9. We contemplate Mary who becomes our mother at the foot of the cross of her son.</b><br />Jesus always took care of his mother, and at the end of his life he made sure that she would not be like the widow of Nain, for not even the widow of Nain was left alone without her son. On the other hand, Christ who had already given us everything, also gave us his mother, so that she would also be ours forever on earth as well as in heaven.<br /><br /><b>10. We contemplate Mary who becomes the mother of the Church at Pentecost.</b><br />Already our mother, Mary as an expert in things of the Holy Spirit, for through him she conceived, she becomes the mother of the Church, mother of Jesus’ disciples, the instructor in things of the Holy Spirit, a catechist of the Holy Spirit, and prepares the Church for Pentecost and the disciples for their Confirmation. <br /><br /><b>11. We contemplate the Dormition and Assumption of Mary.</b> <br />This is the second last glorious mystery that in itself is already Marian, because it is exclusively about Mary, even though it is through Jesus that she ascends to Heaven in body and soul, not by her own merits in any way.<br /><br /><b>12. We contemplate the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth.</b><br />The Queen Mother is a beloved figure in all monarchies; Saint Helena was the queen mother who greatly influenced her son, Constantine. If Jesus is King of the Universe, then Mary is the Queen of Heaven and Earth. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b><br />As the Mysteries -- Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful and Glorious -- are not only about Jesus, so the Marian Mysteries are not only about Mary. The lives of Jesus and Mary are interwoven together like the two backbone strands of DNA. The Marian Mysteries tell how the life of Jesus spills into the life of Mary. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-84499352620513608052023-02-01T13:58:00.000+00:002023-02-01T13:58:26.489+00:00The Mysteries of the Rosary<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNYTX7H-yimznNay4r3UGWrYOIqnpsP_5B2CRN7C6WJfcU5Brel3yJ9Rf_PpO4bSLnKwfMrihfpDQ_WfC24T8BOHETXgGIPaJvU8tKc14YxS3BE-Wvqjo43TgEb56OWR9MXoJ4tSTcZr8ZfNQO_S3yIyNNVy80qmOoaegn3vKHn4Pa2dd0Avh6dw/s640/03.%20Os%20mist%C3%A9rios%20do%20Ros%C3%A1rio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="640" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNYTX7H-yimznNay4r3UGWrYOIqnpsP_5B2CRN7C6WJfcU5Brel3yJ9Rf_PpO4bSLnKwfMrihfpDQ_WfC24T8BOHETXgGIPaJvU8tKc14YxS3BE-Wvqjo43TgEb56OWR9MXoJ4tSTcZr8ZfNQO_S3yIyNNVy80qmOoaegn3vKHn4Pa2dd0Avh6dw/s320/03.%20Os%20mist%C3%A9rios%20do%20Ros%C3%A1rio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It is called the "Rosary" because the 150 (now 200) Hail Marys, intertwined in groups of 10 with the Our Father, the Glory Be and the meditations on the mysteries of the life of Jesus and our redemption, form a "crown of roses" that is offered to Mary, Mother of the Lord and our mother. The twenty mysteries of the Lord's life are divided into four series of five mysteries each. In each Rosary, we pray only the five mysteries of one of these series:<br /><br /><b>The Joyful Mysteries</b><br />In the Joyful Mysteries, we meditate on the beginning of the redemption of humanity, from the annunciation to Mary and the incarnation of the Son of God in her womb until the end of Jesus’ childhood.<br /><br />FIRST – <u>In the first Joyful Mystery we contemplate the Annunciation of the angel to the Blessed Virgin Ma</u>ry – Through Archangel Gabriel, the messenger of the Good News, God decides to intervene in the history of humanity, as he has done so many times throughout the history of Israel.<br /><br /><i>Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son</i>… <b> Hebrews 1:1-10</b><br /><br />The communications of the prophets of ancient times were always imprecise, imperfect, and incomplete. Through His Son, God decides to come Himself, to show us step by step, as in a video, how human life should be lived. <br /><br />SECOND – <u>In the second Joyful Mystery we contemplate the Visitation of Mary Most Holy to her cousin Saint Elizabeth</u> – If at the Annunciation Mary is in prayer, then in the Visitation Mary is in action; if at the Annunciation Mary is listening to the word of God, then in the Visitation Mary is putting that same word into practice, as her son so often exhorts; if at the Annunciation Mary is loving God above all things, then in the Visitation she is loving her neighbor as herself. If at the Annunciation Mary has an experience of God as a disciple, then at the Visitation by singing her Magnificat, bearing witness to her experience of God, Mary is being a missionary by witnessing to her cousin to that same experience and of all that God has worked in her.<br /><br />In these two Joyful Mysteries, the whole Christian life unfolds; for this reason, Mary is for us a model of discipleship, of missionary and Christian life; all the virtues that a Christian must cultivate in his life are concentrated in her. Mary is therefore for us not only the mother of Jesus and Our Mother, but she is also our model for following Christ. <br /><br />THIRD – <u>In the third Joyful Mystery we contemplate the Birth of Jesus</u> – “And the Word became flesh and lived among us…” <b>John 1:14 </b>– God the Creator incarnated in a creature. For many religions it seems impossible that God would incarnate in a human being, that the sea could enter into a puddle of water. If we only think of God’s transcendence then yes, it will seem impossible, illogical, improbable, even though nothing is impossible to God.<br /><br />But God is not only transcendent, he is also immanent, he already exists in the here and now, in the heart of everything and every person. Deus intimior intimo meo applies to all things; God is the heart of matter of material entities and of spiritual beings. Therefore, God is already here, and thinking of his immanence, it becomes easier to understand the fact that He acquired a human form. <br /><br />God encamped among us, set up his tent among us as he once did when he journeyed for 40 years in the desert with the people he delivered from slavery. This tent, where Moses, representing God's people, met God in dialogue, was called the tent of meeting. Jesus of Nazareth, the Emmanuel, God with us, is the new Tent of Meeting, for in Him God meets Man and Man meets God. Through Jesus, God comes to man, and also through Jesus, man goes to God.<br /><br /><i>As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him (Jesus).</i> <b>Matthew 20:29</b><br /><i>God became man so that man might become God.</i> <b>Saint Irenaeus</b><br /><br />Jericho is both the oldest city, with 8,000 years of existence, and the lowest city on our planet, at about 500 meters below sea level. Jericho in the Bible signifies sin; in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jerusalem represents grace while Jericho represents sin. <br /><br />The man who fell into the hands of robbers fell into disgrace because he was going down from Jerusalem, 800 meters above sea level, to Jericho. He journeyed from grace to sin; as the people say, he who does not remember God lacks all good. To save Man from sin, Jesus also goes down to Jericho, but he does not stay there; he leaves Jericho and a great crowd follows him, going up from the sin of Jericho to the grace of Jerusalem. <br /><br />FOURTH – <u>In the fourth Joyful Mystery we contemplate the Presentation of the child Jesus in the temple and the ritual purification of Our Lady</u> – Jesus does not break with the traditions of the past but submits himself to the laws of the land where he lived and of the people where he incarnated as man. However, in obeying or satisfying these laws, he makes them pass through his moral conscience, because the law was made for man and not man for the law. <br /><br />Mary, being after Jesus the purest among all living beings, also submits herself to the tradition, of the ritual purification. Those who refer to this second part of the mystery must include the word "ritual", because Mary was always pure: before, during and after childbirth. <br /><br />FIFTH – <u>In the fifth Joyful Mystery we contemplate the loss and the encounter of the child Jesus in the temple among the doctors of the law</u> – Many exegetes consider it an exaggeration that Jesus was in dialogue with the doctors of the law, as an equal. I don't understand why this couldn’t have happened; Jesus was probably a child prodigy like so many that have existed and exist in all times and places. If Mozart, Beethoven and others were child prodigies, why couldn't Jesus have been one?<br /><br /><b>The Luminous Mysteries</b><br />In the Luminous Mysteries, we meditate on the most important moments of Jesus' public life, from his baptismal investiture to the institution of the Eucharist as a memorial of his passion. It is in the years of his public life that Jesus truly reveals himself as the Light of the World (Jn 8:12), by his attitudes in the most diverse life situations in which he found himself, by the doctrine he taught and by his actions. <br /><br />FIRST – <u>In the first Luminous Mystery we contemplate the Baptism of Jesus</u> – “Libris ex libris fiunt" or books come from books. Jesus consecrated himself to a movement that probably began with the monks of Qumran, located very close to the place where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, a monk who offered forgiveness of sins, as was done in Qumran through an ablution of water. Jesus continues this movement and takes the forgiveness of sins beyond the Jordan River and beyond the symbol of water. <br /><br />SECOND – <u>In the second Luminous Mystery we contemplate the Wedding at Cana</u> – In Cana of Galilee, Mary sees a need and tries to solve the problem by pushing Jesus into his public life, when He had not yet planned to begin. Jesus, obedient to the Father in Heaven, also obeys his Mother, even as an adult. This obedience is important to us because it institutionalizes Mary, his mother, as the intercessor of all graces. <br /><br />THIRD – <u>In the third Luminous Mystery we contemplate the miracles worked by Jesus as proof of the presence of the Kingdom of God among us</u> – This is how I write this mystery dedicated to the thaumaturgical activity of Jesus, as proof that the Kingdom is already among us, although not yet in its fullness. <br /><br />FOURTH – <u>In the fourth Luminous Mystery we contemplate the Sermon on the Mount as the magna carta of the Kingdom of God</u> – If in the previous mystery I mentioned the works of the Kingdom, in this one I mention the doctrine that inspires them, the Sermon on the Mount, as the fine print of all that Jesus told us and taught us. I think this is more important than the Transfiguration. <br /><br />FIFTH – <u>In the fifth Luminous Mystery we contemplate the Institution of the Eucharis</u>t – Without the Eucharist there is no Church, without the Church there is no Eucharist. The Eucharist is first and foremost the gathering of Christians or this association founded by Jesus and called the Church, as members of the Body of Christ to celebrate the life, death and resurrection of Christ, just as he has commanded us.<br /><br /><b>The Sorrowful Mysteries</b><br />In the Sorrowful Mysteries, we meditate on the process, the passion and the death of Jesus, from his agony in the Garden of Olives to his last breath on top of the cross. When we say that Jesus died for our sins, it means that he paid in full the debt we were unable to pay; but it also means that the sins of those who intervened in his death are still being committed today, so we can conclude that it was the sin of all humanity that killed Jesus.<br /><br />FIRST – <u>In the first Sorrowful Mystery we contemplate the Agony of Jesus in the Garden of Olives</u> – Jesus was tempted all his life, not only at the beginning; one of the last temptations took place here, when he considered the possibility of not drinking from the chalice that was in front of him, his passion and death. All he had to do was to climb a short way up the hill and go down into the Judean desert, hide in one of the deep valleys and no one would ever find him again. But Jesus chose to pay the price for his ideals against a corrupt and degenerate world. If he had saved his own skin, he would have been lost as the savior of the whole world. <br /><br />SECOND – <u>In the second Sorrowful Mystery we contemplate the Scourging of Jesus tied to a pilla</u>r – If Pilate had condemned Jesus to death directly, Jesus would not have been scourged. Flogging was the punishment given to those whose lives were spared. Pilate thought that after seeing Jesus badly scourged, the people would pity him and let him go, but this did not happen; the hatred of the scribes, the elders, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees for Jesus was so great that they were not stricken with compassion even after seeing Him so terribly scourged.<br /><br />THIRD – <u>In the third Sorrowful Mystery we contemplate the Coronation of Jesus with a crown of thorns</u> – It was when he was already in a very difficult situation that Jesus recognized and accepted the title of King, though not of this world, for the kings of this world do not ride on donkeys as he did nor are crucified as he was, and wear a crown of gold and not one of thorns as he did. <br /><br />FOURTH –<u> In the fourth Sorrowful Mystery we contemplate the Condemnation of Jesus to death and the walk to Calvary with the cross on his back</u> – By consenting to put Jesus to death, Pilate also cancelled his previous transgressions. There already had been so many in the past that now, despite being convinced that Jesus was innocent and seeking a ploy to save Him, Pilate failed to save him: the charges against him were already many in Rome, that he could not afford one more added to the list.<br /><br />FIFTH – <u>In the fifth Sorrowful Mystery we contemplate the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus</u> – Abandoned by his people in general, by his fellow disciples and apostles, crucified in the midst of two criminals, he felt in the end that even God had abandoned him, perhaps because the sin of humanity weighed so heavily on his shoulders. Even so, he hoped in God and did not despair, since to the same God who had abandoned him, he surrendered his spirit. <br /><br /><b>The Glorious Mysteries</b><br />In the Glorious Mysteries, we meditate on Jesus' triumph over death with his Resurrection. Death has been conquered, as has the sin that caused it. After Jesus’ Resurrection, death is no longer the final destiny of mankind, but a passage to eternal life. The life of Jesus, which begins with Mary's "Yes" to God's plan, now ends with the glorification of the One who is, for us all, a model of Christian life.<br /><br />FIRST – <u>In the first Glorious Mystery we contemplate the Resurrection of Jesus</u> – The Resurrection of Jesus is God having the last laugh, the Resurrection of Jesus proves that evil does not have the last word, as seen in almost every movie in which good ultimately wins over evil. Not even death has eternal power over life. After the Resurrection of Jesus, death is no longer the end of life, but a passage to a life in God for those who lived with God and for God.<br /><br />SECOND – <u>In the second Glorious Mystery we contemplate Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven</u> – Jesus in his glorious body did not ascend immediately to his Father, as he himself told Mary Magdalene, but stayed for some time with his disciples, appearing to comfort them from the scandal of the cross and to give them the final instructions before ascending definitively to the Father.<br /><br />THIRD – <u>In the third Glorious Mystery we contemplate the Coming of the Holy Spiri</u>t – As he had promised, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit soon after he went to heaven, so that we would not be left orphans, to be the Soul of the Church and the center of our being, to be with us, to be God within us who inspires, comforts, guides and gives us strength and courage to face an adverse world.<br /><br />FOURTH - <u>In the fourth Glorious Mystery we contemplate the Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into Heaven </u>– In the Dormition or Assumption, Mary goes to heaven to be by her son’s side just as she has always been by his side on earth. We too like her will be received into heaven, where Jesus, her son, has gone to prepare a place for us.<br /><br />FIFTH – <u>In the fifth Glorious Mystery we contemplate the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth</u> – Mary's earthly life as Mother of the Saviour began before Jesus and ended after Jesus. After becoming the mother of the Church because she was the mother of the Church’s founder, she now reigns in heaven and on earth as the Queen Mother alongside her son who is the King of the Universe. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: <br />The mysteries of the Rosary are about the salvific acts of Christ on earth, the path he walked with us, as he did with the disciples at Emmaus, to explain the scriptures to us, and to plant in the world the seeds of the Kingdom of God. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159929280396584348.post-13653614118278027302023-01-15T05:18:00.000+00:002023-01-15T05:18:31.070+00:00The Rosary, a Contemplative prayer<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEoFciY6IB6RbCrTTh9st-bBOJQAPJ_4DnLukh6pvUDFA3-E7zav4Lso5vVw9K9_kBDR4k5WBmkmEfHXd2LCTR-fs_MeVxHlzzQaWcfg9nBJp0PkIq3QbTkE1Jir-upkcPcc4kc1oCJ_H_ssRmAiuE7uu3mQcJtPbWCnD9MPq49wnWaM-bqlAF6A/s900/02.%20O%20Ros%C3%A1rio%20uma%20ora%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20contemplativa.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="599" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEoFciY6IB6RbCrTTh9st-bBOJQAPJ_4DnLukh6pvUDFA3-E7zav4Lso5vVw9K9_kBDR4k5WBmkmEfHXd2LCTR-fs_MeVxHlzzQaWcfg9nBJp0PkIq3QbTkE1Jir-upkcPcc4kc1oCJ_H_ssRmAiuE7uu3mQcJtPbWCnD9MPq49wnWaM-bqlAF6A/s320/02.%20O%20Ros%C3%A1rio%20uma%20ora%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20contemplativa.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><p>The Rosary is at the same time a Marian prayer and a prayer centered on Christ – Christ-Centric – because we repeatedly invoke Mary as Mother of God and our mother and ask her to join us in our prayer to the Father as we recite the Our Father, and to the Most Holy Trinity as we recite the Glory Be. We ask her to help us to meditate and contemplate the mysteries of the life of her Son, our older brother and Savior, of which she is also a part.<br /><br />In Fatima, as in the other Marian apparitions, Mary does not draw attention to herself, but exclusively to her Son. Her contentment comes not from us praising her, but from us praising her Son. As the proverb says, "Whoever my son kisses, my mouth sweetens." <br /><br /><i>While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!</i>’ <b>Luke 11:27</b><br /><br />You can’t love the son without loving the mother, so all the love directed to the child is indirectly directed to the mother. Just as all the praises given to the mother is directed to the son, as happened to that woman who, among the crowd, raised her voice to say to Jesus, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!" <br /><br />The Rosary is not a prayer of thanksgiving, nor a prayer of petition, it is not even a prayer of lamentation like some psalms in the Bible. The Rosary is basically a prayer of meditation and contemplation. In fact, we proclaim and enunciate each Mystery by saying "in this Mystery, we contemplate..."<br /><br />The story goes that one day someone confessed to Pope John XXIII his difficulty in praying the Rosary because he often gets distracted by the mechanical and repetitive recitation of the Hail Marys, to which the Pope replied, "What good is the Rosary if it is not to distract us?" (Distraction in neo-Latin languages has also the meaning as amusement). <br /><br />Being a contemplative prayer, the repetitive recitation of the Hail Marys in the Rosary has the same purpose as the mantras in Buddhist spirituality: they occupy the mind, preventing it from jumping from one thought to another, thus allowing and facilitating contemplation of the Mysteries of the Lord's life. </p><p><br /><b>Hail Mary as a mantra</b><br />Contemplative prayers were fashionable in the sixties, just as Lectio Divina is today. Well-known figures of monastic life, such as Thomas Merton, traveled to the Far East, while others, like the Indian Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello, tried to bridge the gap between Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, and Christianity. <br /><br />To attain contemplation at the technical level, we can certainly learn from Buddhism. However, contemplation has always existed in the Church from the desert fathers, the Benedictine monks, the Carmelites, Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, and even at the level of diocesan clergy at all times, like the Holy Curé of Ars exemplifies so well. <br /><br />After exchanging beautiful words and poetry with each other, the lovers remain silent for hours on end, holding each other, saying nothing, doing nothing. In silence, contemplating a beautiful ecstatic landscape, both are examples of contemplation. <br /><br />In a contemplative prayer there are no words and no thoughts. There is a feeling of emptiness of mind, a realization of self, a heightened sense of being present in oneself, centered in one's own body, without ramblings of the mind. This mind, which St. Teresa of Avila calls the madwoman of the house, is like a monkey that jumps from branch to branch. <br /><br />To prayer through silence, to silence through prayer. It takes time and a lot of practice to be able to silence the mind. It is achieved by not consenting to thoughts the moment we are aware of them; in this way, little by little, we reach the emptiness of mind that reaches a high degree of self-awareness. It is at this moment that we open ourselves to the divine and experience His presence. Deus intimior intimo meo. God is nearer to me than my innermost being. In fact, in contemplation we seek union with God, the beatific vision, Heaven on Earth. <br /><br />In the initial states of contemplation, to silence the discursive, imaginative and fanciful mind, the mantras are used, which are short phrases that are repeated continuously to entertain the mind with something and prevent it from wandering from thought to thought. The Russian pilgrim even repeated his mantra hundreds of times a day to achieve continuous prayer, the dream of all hermits. <br /><br />In the Most Holy Rosary, the Hail Mary prayer repeated 50 times, 10 times for each mystery, is intended to keep the mind from being distracted from contemplation of the mystery. The purpose, therefore, is not to put our attention on each Hail Mary and Our Father that we pray, but to occupy the mind with these prayers as if they were mantras and thus jump into the contemplation of the divine.<br /><br /><b>How to pray the Rosary</b><br />Because it is a contemplative prayer, we must enunciate each mystery by inviting the faithful who pray it with us to contemplate that Mystery; for example, in the first Joyful Mystery we contemplate the Annunciation of the angel to the Blessed Virgin. The phrase "we contemplate" in the proclamation of each Mystery is important and should always be said, never omitted or implied precisely because the Rosary is a contemplative prayer; it is the contemplation on the mysteries of our salvation from the hands of Mary, praying with Mary as her son's disciples prayed with her on the night before Pentecost. (Acts 1:12-14)<br /><br />For each day of the week, we meditate on different mysteries. Thus, on Mondays and Saturdays we meditate on the Joyful Mysteries, on Tuesdays and Fridays the Sorrowful Mysteries, on Wednesdays and Sundays the Glorious Mysteries, reserving the Luminous Mysteries for Thursdays.<br /><br />There are several ways of praying the Rosary, but most people begin with the sign of the cross, followed by the Creed, one Our Father, three Hail Marys and one Glory Be. After these introductory prayers, the first mystery is announced accompanied or not with a short meditation, and followed by one Our Father and one decade of Hail Marys. <br /><br />After the tenth Hail Mary of each decade, the Glory Be is prayed, followed by several interjectory prayers, depending on the place and the people praying, ending with the prayer that Our Lady of Fatima recommended to the little shepherds to pray after each mystery: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need (of Thy mercy).”<br /><br />In the original Fatima prayer, this final statement (of Thy mercy) is missing, therefore grammatically it is understood that all souls need heaven. All countries have added this final expression in the sense that those who are furthest from God are the ones who are in most need of his mercy. <br /><br />Hell is eternal death not eternal fire, which means eternal torture. God created us out of nothing so that we could do something with the life He gave us; those who do nothing with it, those who do not use the talents received from God for the benefit of their brothers and sisters for the greater glory of God, return to nothingness from which they were taken, for their lives were nothing and many, in fact, do actually believe that they came from nothing and will return to nothing. <br /><br />Why does hell appear in the Bible as eternal torture? Because we are naturally more afraid of suffering than of death itself. The one who dies no longer suffers, we say, and the one who is being tortured begs for death as mercy. So often the badly injured friend asks the other friend for death as mercy. The fear of God does not mean to be afraid of God, and we should not choose God for fear of hell. This was a childish pedagogy in which children were educated. But today not even children should be educated in this way; reason should be the basis of all education, not irrational fear. <br /><br />It is for the simple reason that the little shepherds could not imagine hell in any other way that this prayer of Fatima and the vision of hell did indeed involve fire. Our Lady showed them see hell as they understood it, as they conceived it, not least because nothingness has no graphic representation. <br /><i><br />Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur</i> – This maxim from scholastic philosophy can explain this point: whatever is received, is received in the manner of the receiver. The sea has plenty of water to give, but my bucket is limited in its capacity to receive; the same goes for our mind. The little shepherds saw hell as the Bible represents it and according to their capacity to understand it. <br /><br />Finally, three Hail Marys are prayed for the intentions of the Holy Father, so that we may be united to all Christendom represented by him, and it ends with the Salve Regina preceded or not, according to the time available, by the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.<br /><br /><u>The Our Father </u>— The Our Father, which intersperses each Mystery, is much more than a simple prayer the Lord has taught us to recite occasionally. It contains what is the most important of the Gospel in a summarized form; it is, in this sense, a complete pocket Gospel because it contains what we should know and practice.<br /><br />Since it is made up of several statements, unrelated to each other, it can be viewed as a list, like the shopping lists we make so not to forget the most important things. This list concerns the protocol of our relationship with God, that is, how our prayer should be structured; how we should address God, how to praise Him, what we should ask for, in what order, when and how. Therefore, more than a prayer, it is fundamentally a practical guide to prayer and life.<br /><br /><u>The Hail Mary</u> – It is divided into two parts: the first is biblical and is composed of the greetings from the Angel Gabriel and Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, and the second originates from the faith of the Church, it is not known how or when or where it began to be used. Consequently, the Hail Mary prayer represents the perfect union between the Bible as the Word of God and the Church as a community of believers.<br /><br />In an ascending movement, the first part, taken from the Bible, consists of 5 stairs that go up to Jesus. In a descending movement, the second part also consists of 5 stairs but this time going down to human reality, our death. <br /><br />It cannot be understood by the advocates of the "sola fide sola scriptura solus christus", because there is a harmonious union between the Scripture, the Word of God, described in the first part, and the Tradition, that is, the history of the faith of the Christian community down through the ages, shaped in the second part. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end and the center of history, is the core that unites the two parts. <br /><br /><u>The Glory Be</u> – This is the invocation of God as One and Triune. One divinity in three different persons united in a triangle of love. It is the solution in the light of the dialectic of Greek philosophy between the one and the multiple. This prayer also reminds us that, made in the image and likeness of God, the human person is also one and triune: he does not exist or subsist outside the family. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b>: As the apostles prayed with Mary before Pentecost, the Rosary today, reunites us with Her in prayer and contemplation of the Mysteries of her Son's life.<br /></p><p></p><p style="text-align: right;">Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC<br /></p><p><br /></p>Itinerant Missionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01506918013950984265noreply@blogger.com0