Today we celebrate

A friend of St. John Vianney, whose feast we’ll celebrate this weekend, Saint Peter loved Our Lady and propagated devotion to her and to the Eucharist.  These two loves lead him to become the provincial superior of the Society of Mary and to later found the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament and the lay Servants of the Blessed Sacrament. “His vision of priests, deacons, sisters, and lay people dedicated to the spiritual values celebrated in the Mass and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament anticipated many of the renewals brought about by Vatican Councils I and II.“ (source)

Much of his prolific writing has been translated into English. I pass along this beautiful reflection on the Lord’s Prayer, hoping it blesses you as it does me!

St. Peter Julian Eymund, pray for us!  Anne

The Our Father paraphrased by Saint Peter Julian Eymard

Our Father Who art in Heaven

In the heaven of the Eucharist, to You Who are seated on the throne of grace and love, be benediction, and honor, and power and glory for ever and ever!

Hallowed be Your Name

first in myself, through the spirit of Your humility, obedience, and charity. May I in all humility and zeal make You known, loved and adored by all men in the Holy Eucharist.

Thy Kingdom come

Thy Eucharistic kingdom. Rule forever over us for Your greater glory through the power of Your love, the triumph of Your virtues and the grace of a Eucharistic vocation in my state as a layman. Grant me the grace of Your love so that I may be able to effectively extend Your Eucharistic kingdom everywhere and realize the desire You expressed: ‘I have come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled!’ O that I might be the incendiaries of this heavenly fire!

Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven

Grant me the grace to find all my joy in wanting You alone, in desiring You alone and in thinking of You alone. Grant that by denying myself, I may find light and life in obeying Your good, acceptable and perfect Will. I will what You will. I will it because You will it. I will it as You will it. I will it as long as You will it. Keep my thoughts and desires purely from You, for You and in You.

Give us this day our daily bread

You are our Eucharistic Lord and You alone will be my food and clothing, my riches and glory, my remedy in illness and my protection against all evil. You will be all things to me.

And forgive us our trespasses

Forgive me Jesus, for I am sorry for all my sins just as they stand in Your eyes.

As we forgive those who trespass against us

For anyone who has offended me in any way, with my whole heart I forgive them and desire for them the gifts of Your love.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil

Deliver me Jesus, from the demon of pride, impurity, discord and complacency. Deliver me from the cares and worries of life so that with a pure heart and a free mind I may joyfully spend my life and devote all that I am and all that I have in the service of You my Eucharistic Lord.

Amen

In You, O Lord Jesus, have I hoped; let me not be confounded forever. You alone are good. You alone are powerful. You alone are eternal. To You alone be honor and glory, love and thanksgiving forever and ever.

Ann, Mary, the Child Jesus, Massacio

Someone told me about a recent program on NPR on which a scientist said our hearing is wired to hear the song of birds. Our earliest ancestors learned to listen to the song of birds, I suppose because birds could tell them there was water and food nearby–or perhaps their silence warned of enemies.

I wrote about this awhile ago on this blog.

It may be a good analogy for discussing saints.  Saints are like the song of birds telling us there’s another kind of water and food nearby; they point to the presence of God. And we have different saints, just as we have different kinds of birdsong.

What kind of saint is St. Ann? Like all saints she faced challenges in her life. Her greatest challenge was that she and her husband Joachim were not able to have a child for a long time. This was at the time when children were looked upon as treasures and those who did not have children were sometimes seen as cursed by God. Besides, as descendants of David they had a duty to continue his line.

Ann and her husband had a long, hard wait before she conceived Mary, who became the Mother of Jesus. Once, she’s described as bursting into tears as she looked up and saw some sparrows building a nest in a laurel tree. “Why was I born, Lord?” she said, “The birds build nests for their young and I have no child of my own. The creatures of the earth, the fish of the sea are fruitful, but I have nothing. The land produces fruit, but I have no child to hold in my arms.” (Protoevangelium)

You can see why some pray to St. Ann for help in marriage or to have children. Perhaps grandparents today as they’re called to help out with younger grandchildren can see in her an older person who did that too.

Saints have different lessons to teach, but all saints have this in common: they have a deep faith in God’s will and they’re constant in prayer. They’re faithful in prayer, in good times and in bad. Prayer is their daily song to God. It may be a sorrowful song like Ann’s in the example above. Or it may be joyful. But prayer gives them wisdom and strength and peace, from moment to moment, from day to day.

One of the great early saints from the Egyptian desert, St. Anthony, was asked once what’s the hardest thing you have to do in life? “ The hardest thing you have to do in life is pray,” he said, “Everything else you can stop doing, but you can’t stop praying.”

I’m afraid today daily prayer isn’t high on our priorities. I think it’s going the way of Sunday Mass, becoming “occasional prayer.” We only think about prayer when a tragedy like yesterday’s shootings in Colorado happens.

Daily prayer gets us ready for what God gives us to do each day.  Jesus taught his disciples the Our Father; that’s a daily prayer. It tells us who we are each day: we’re children of God and should act like God’s children. We need to remember God’s kingdom is coming and we’re to work for it day by day. We need daily bread of all kinds. We’re part of a messy, noisy world that’s torn apart by selfishness and smallness and pride. We’re bring our share of sin into the world, so we ask for forgiveness each day and forgive others day by day.

“Deliver us from evil” today. Deliver all of us from evil, today.

Great God, Father of Jesus — savior of the world — and all living creatures, I love You with my whole heart, mind, and soul.

Thank you for __ breathtaking journeys around the sun on the beautiful blue-green water planet. Thank you too for endowing the world with elemental forces that give us the four seasons, the ebb and flow of the tides, and the beauty of nature.

I am awed by the miracle of DNA and the evolutionary sparks that have spurned the great diversity of life on earth — from the bottom of seas to the top of mountains.

Above all, thank you for the genius of man. What greater gift than to be made in your image and likeness. And what better way to separate the wheat from the chaff — as Jesus said — than to give us free will to choose our ultimate destiny.

Anticipating our weaknesses, you did not abandon us. You gave us divine law, a conscience to know right from wrong, and your Son to show us the way.

Father, Abba, help me use my gifts for the good of all: to love my neighbor as myself, to forgive trespasses, and to sow seeds of peace.

Give me strength and good judgment to stay on the straight and narrow path during my earthly pilgrimage to that glorious morning when I stand before you at the gates of heaven.

- Anonymous

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Charles Spurgeon, the great English preacher, reminds us that the Lord’s Prayer is not for everyone. It is reserved only for those who recognize the sovereignty of the One who first revealed it to His disciples. It is reserved for those who are “possessors of grace and are truly converted.” A heart of trust in Christ reveals the power of the Lord’s Prayer to those who seek to pray effective and powerful prayers.

The Lord’s Prayer is a very organic prayer in which every part works together in perfect harmony.

“Our Father” sets the tone for the rest of the prayer, reminding us that prayer is not just reserved as a personal exercise but a corporate relationship with the One who possesses authority, love, responsibility, wisdom and goodness.

As His children, we depend upon Him and submit ourselves to Him. God may or may not grant our request, but He always does well and wisely as a loving Father.

“Who art in Heaven” reminds us that all our earthly needs and desires are best met, not with earthly wisdom, but in Heaven. Why is this? Because the name and reputation of the Father is “hallowed.” God’s reputation and character far exceeds that of the greatest mortal man. His eternal and triune Personhood surpasses that of any created earthly person who soon passes away.

At the same time, when we remember that this holy God is “our Father,” we know that God is approachable, that He is as humble as He is holy.

A hallowed Father excludes no one who approaches Him in deep trust with heartfelt needs. A hallowed Father rightly requires obedience to Him, not from fear but in a loving response to His love. A hallowed Father gives us peace, for nothing can shake our relationship with Him. A hallowed Father is committed to His children and gives them privileges that no earthly father possesses.

This hallowed Father possesses a Kingdom that reflects His ways, His character, His will, His plan, His presence, His authority. It is a Kingdom of Heaven.

We can realize this Heavenly Kingdom on earth, not only in some future time when Christ returns, but now. We experience the Kingdom of God on earth as we see Him meet daily needs, bring two people together in marriage, enable us with wisdom and power to conduct our businesses, study for school and engage in creative endeavors that glorify God and bless others as well as ourselves.

“Our Father” reminds us that we have many brothers and sisters who do not yet know their Heavenly Father and feel orphaned from Him. “Our Father” reminds us of the multitudes who feel abandoned by God because of circumstances beyond their control, who are ignorant of Him who has loved them for all eternity.

May His Kingdom come on earth to all of these who have not yet heard!

This past weekend was the feast of Pentecost. This is when we celebrate the gift of the holy spirit to the disciples. It is the last week of Easter, and what we consider the birthday of the Church. I should be careful to say that this is the birthday of the Church and not when the Church of conceived. These are to very different things. Obviously the Church was conceived by God during the life of Christ, but the Church was born on Pentecost because that is when it became “human.”

One of the things that I hear a lot as a criticism of the church is, “What about all the bad and evil things they have done over the years?” I will admit this is something I have struggled with myself. I mean how can reconcile that. The answer is so simple that I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, and it has to do with Pentecost.

There are two parts of the Church, the human part and this is the part that we see every day, and the part that comes from God. A good example of this is the Our Father. The words of the Our Father, were given to us from God, from Christ. We use the words that he taught us that is a from God part of the Church. Now how we pray it, what we do while we are praying it, meaning do we all hold hands or stand an pray individually or kneel, do we bow our heads or look to the heavens with our arms spread wide. Those are all human things.

I want to make it perfectly clear. I do not (let me say that again) I DO NOT condone anything that has been done by the human side of the Church, or by humans who were supposed to represent the Church that was harmful to other people. There have been some terrible things done, those were human, imperfect things.

The important part of the Church, the God part of the Church, what you learn in your Catechism, “Take this bread and eat it, for it is My Body,” this is infallible and has never changed. No matter what anyone says from a Layperson all the way up to the Pope himself, they can not change those parts.

God gave us His Grace in the form of the Holy Spirit. He gave us the ability to understand and spread His teachings, but we are human and imperfect and we do make mistakes. A lot of mistakes! I am not giving those that have made the mistakes a pass. All I am saying is that they are not the core, the God part, of the Church.

For the readings from Pentecost Sunday

So I invite you during this week, with 9 nine days of Lent left- to sit down and read this prayer slowly. Ponder the significance for you on your journey now.  Your personal journey with God, not anyone else’s. You may be surprised, how close to God you really are now.

Here are two versions to see which one feels right for you. If you have trouble with the word sin, remember the original meaning of sin was “mistake”. So you can replace it.

Image via Wikipedia

When asked, “How should we pray?” Jesus gave  us the “Lord’s Prayer.”  First recited in Aramaic,  Christians prayed it in Latin for 2,000 years. Since the the early 1960s though, it has been known it in its English form only.

For those of you nostalgic for the old days of Latin prayers, here it is in Church Latin with English translations.

Pater Noster

  Pater noster, qui es in caelis, (Our father who is in heaven)

Sanctificetur nomen tuum, (hollowed by your name)

Adveniat regnum tuum, (thy kingdom come)

Fiat voluntas tua (thy will be done)

Sicut in caelo et in terra. (on earth as it is in heaven)

Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie. (Give us this day our daily bread)

Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, (Forgive us our sins)

Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. (as we forgive those who sin against us)

Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, (And lead us not into temptation)

Sed libera nos a malo. (But deliver us from evil) Amen.

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If you’re looking for a way to begin your prayer life, this is a great place to start. You can just start off by praying the words, and allow your mind to expand the phrases as you come to understand them.

Here’s the first one.

Our Father, who lives in the heavens,
May Your name be kept holy.
May Your Kingdom come,
May Your will be done,
On earth just like it’s done in Your presence.

Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive our sins
As we forgive those who sin against us.
Don’t bring us to the times of trial,
But deliver us from the evil one.
Amen.

Right off the bat, let’s be clear: Jesus’ use of the word “father” (or even “abba”) in prayer was not unique. There are plenty of ancient examples of folks addressing God in this way. Jesus’ use of the phrase is much more incisive, much deep than this.

In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh, “‘Israel is my firstborn son. I commanded you, ‘Let my son go, so he can worship me’” (4:22). God is about to decisively act to free His people, and begin a new phase of His great rescue operation that began in Genesis 2, and will eventually end in Revelation 21. After God frees “his son,” he declares in Exodus 19 that they are now “my kingdom of priests, my holy nation” (v6).

So one way of understanding these two simple words is that we are identifying ourselves as Israel, God’s redeemed people. In the same way that God claims “his son” as Israel, we are claiming Him as “our Father”, and also saying, “I’m a part of your people; I want to be a part of your redemption in the world.” Along with our participation in that mission comes our forgiveness, the opportunity for transformation, and membership in the family of God.

In some liturgical traditions, the prayer is introduced by reminding the congregation that “we are bold to pray” this prayer.

True enough: It’s bold to walk right up to the Creator of the Universe and just declare, “I’m yours!”

But that’s what we’re invited to do.

Remember that God declares that Israel is His son before they’ve done anything for Him. 

He just pronounces it.

As a gift.

Jesus ultimately is saying, “I’m leading a new Exodus from evil and oppression, and you are welcome to join. Come and be a part of a new freedom movement, an ultimate  defeat of evil and oppression, and the beginning of the era of resurrection.”

So, “Our Father,” is a big declaration of the graciousness of God, of His ultimate victory, and of our role (as priests!) in His world and in His plans.

You can pray it with a sense of awe, but you can pray it boldly.

Last night at the mission I spoke about learning to pray. First of all, we have a gift for prayer. It’s a unique gift, like the face we wear. You can find some of the material I covered at http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/index.html

It’s a good summary of this important part of our lives. Take a look at it, if you have time. There’s a lot there.

Last night, I also spoke about Matthew’s gospel, which presents us with Jesus the Teacher. We’re neglecting the teaching role of Jesus today, I think, as we look on religion as outmoded, outdated, having nothing to say to us. Then too, the church has had its scandals, and they turn people away.

Matthew presented Jesus as a Teacher to counter the pharisees who, at the time he wrote (about 90 AD) were increasingly assuming the leadership of Judaism and claiming teaching aurthority. Matthew says to the church of his time, and to ours too, Jesus is the wise teacher who will always lead us to the mountain as his disciples and sit down with us and teach us.

I spoke of some of Jesus’ teachings in his Sermon on the Mount, especially his words against anger and forgiveness. As our times get worse, we get mad. Anger can be a good response, but it also can kill.

In the same way, we can become unforgiving. We need to have respect. Looking again is God’s way. We have to look again.

Prayer is talking to God.

Talking is a natural form of communication. Think of the number of people you talk to in a day. How many times does the average person work from a prepared text?

None. You don’t write out ahead of time what you’re going to say unless you’re giving a speech at a wedding reception or don’t want to miss anything when you’re telling the boss why you’re giving your two weeks notice.

So why “read” your talking to God? What exactly is the point of a “prayer book?” Granted, you might use a phrase book if you were in a foreign country. Could it be that when some people leave their normal world and enter a Church building, or into prayer, they feel they are in a foreign country?

And why repeat The Lord’s Prayer (aka The Our Father) over and over and over and over again, when in fact, it’s recorded in scripture directly after a verse that says don’t repeat prayers over and over and over and over again.

Learn a new word today:

This is the word that describes a type of prayer that is open, honest, vulnerable…

God wants people who are in relationship to him. A relationship based on love, which casts out fear. The closer the relationship, the less prepared text. You don’t know all those people who are going hear that wedding speech, so you prepare. You fear the meeting with your boss, so you write out notes.

Is there ever a time for a prepared prayer? If you’re coming to God on behalf of a group of people in a corporate worship setting, perhaps. You don’t want to miss anything and you want to be specific. You’re not just going to mention the requests made by John, Jessica, Nathan and Emily, but you want to remember what it is you’re asking that God might do for them. You want to remember the military serving overseas, the orphans in Haiti, victims of human rights violations in China, etc.

But even this can be done naturally. If you can tell someone afterward what it is you prayed for, you can also construct a prayer on the spot that tells God the same thing, without extensive notes.

^{Matt 6: 7(CEV)}When you pray, don’t talk on and on as people do who don’t know God. They think God likes to hear long prayers.

It’s interesting that no matter how this verse is translated — “pagans” is used most often — ornate prayers are associated with “people who don’t know God.” So by implication, less flowery prayers are often prayed by people who do know God.

Word of the day: Extemporaneous. Short, breath prayers. Prayers from the heart. Talking to God as you would talk to a friend. An agenda, perhaps; but not a script. And definitely not out of a book.

When is the last time you simply poured out your heart to God and told him everything you’re feeling and thinking? Now is a good time to start.

UPDATE: After I wrote this piece, I received what is perhaps a kind of op-ed comment, one of the few times my wife left a comment here:

Written prayers are the church equivalent of greeting cards.

Some people just pick one with the right phrase up front ’cause you’ve got to pick something.

And sometimes how they’re written expresses your heart better than you could yourself and you’re thrilled to find just the right one.

You can read the rest of the comments from a year ago here.

Russian icon of the Beatitudes, likely 19th c.

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:9-15)

The Our Father hinges on an outreach to the Father — it asketh not for understanding of God the Father, it simply is understanding of the Father, given directly to us by Christ our Master during the Sermon on the Mount. The prayer tells us as much about Him as it does about us, about our real needs when praying. “See how He straightway stirred up the hearer, and reminded him of all God’s bounty in the beginning,” writes St. John Chrysostom. “For he who calls God Father, by him both remission of sins, and taking away of punishment, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, and adoption, and inheritance, and brotherhood with the Only-Begotten, and the supply of the Spirit, are acknowledged in this single title. For one cannot call God Father, without having attained to all those blessings. Doubly, therefore, doth He awaken their spirit, both by the dignity of Him who is called on, and by the greatness of the benefits which they have enjoyed.”

I have belonged to religious organizations (back in Protestant-Baptist days) that never once recited the Our Father, claiming instead that it was only used as a “model prayer,” provided in the Bible to show us how to pray but not to use it as a prayer (because that somehow would be disingenuous). If they only knew what they were missing! And for us who do deign to recite this prayer — if we only knew how much we were really saying when we said it (or sang it)! There is an awakening the occurs when we say the Our Father with all attention and devotion. The whole of heaven opens upon us and we are bathed, if only for a few moments,in the grace of God. A quiet revolution happens deep in the recesses of the soul and this is an absolute gift of the Almighty to us. It leads us somewhere. Here is a possible destination:

In Hebrews, St. Paul gives a particular significance about the innate desires stirred up by faith — and I believe is a direct linkage to the Our Father, in discussing our citizenship in the Kingdom. The passport of which is faith, and perhaps the Our Father is the presenting of our passports to the border guard.

“But now they desire a better country, that is, as heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:16)

Taken from the Hebrews chapter extolling the greatness of faith, these verses also tie in the concept of spiritual adoption. And that is precisely what I sense the Our Father to be — a means to spiritual adoption by God.

St. John Cassian relates the Our Father to the adoption of God as Father and we as His children: “When then we confess with our own mouths that the God and Lord of the universe is our Father, we profess forthwith that we have been called from our condition as slaves to the adoption of sons, adding next “Which art in heaven,” that, by shunning with the utmost horror all lingering in this present life, which we pass upon this earth as a pilgrimage, and what separates us by a great distance from our Father, we may the rather hasten with all eagerness to that country where we confess that our Father dwells, and may not allow anything of this kind, which would make us unworthy of this our profession and the dignity of an adoption of this kind, and so deprive us as a disgrace to our Father’s inheritance, and make us incur the wrath of His justice and severity.” Therefore, just like the Patriarchs of old, who sought the heavenly Israel based only the promise of God through His prophet Moses, we, based on the testimony of Christ and His Church, seek citizenship in the heavenly country of God, where we an be a most holy nation.

This is about all I can write about this prayer without going overboard. There is much more to write about several other of the other concepts in the prayer, but I would never be able to add to the already existing fount of wisdom by the Fathers. And I certainly do hope that the above verses don’t get me in trouble from above.

Madonna of Humility, circa 1415–20

Something so familiar and yet so totally transformed in this reading by Simone Weil.  Note the closing reference to paying attention.

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς·
“Our Father which art in Heaven.”

He is our Father. There is nothing real in us which does not come from him. We belong to Him. He loves us, since He loves himself and we are His. Nevertheless He is our Father who is in heaven — not elsewhere. If we think to have a Father here below it is not He, it is a false God. We cannot take a single step toward Him. We do not walk vertically. We can only turn our eyes toward Him. We do not have to search for Him, we only have to change the direction in which we are looking. It is for Him to search for us. We must be happy in the knowledge that He is infinitely beyond our reach. Thus we can be certain that the evil in us, even if it overwhelms our whole being, in no way sullies the divine purity, bliss, and perfection.

ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·
“Hallowed be thy Name.”

God alone has the power to name himself, His name is unpronounceable for human lips. His name is his word. It is the Word of God. The name of any being is an intermediary between the human spirit and that being; it is the only means by which the human spirit can conceive something about a being that is absent. God is absent. He is in heaven. Man’s only possibility of gaining access to him is through His name. It is the Mediator. Man has access to this name, although it also is transcendent. It shines in the beauty and order of the world and it shines in the interior light of the human soul. This name is holiness itself; there is no holiness outside it; it does not therefore have to be hallowed. In asking for its hallowing we are asking for something that exists eternally, with full and complete reality, so that we can neither increase nor diminish it, even by an infinitesimal fraction. To ask for that which exists, that which exists really, infallibly, eternally, quite independently of our prayer, that is the perfect petition. We cannot prevent ourselves from desiring; we are made of desire; but thb desire that nails us down to what is imaginary, temporal, selfish, can, if we make it pass wholly into this petition, become a lever to tear us from the imaginary into the real and from time into eternity, to lift us right out of the prison of self.

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου·
“Thy Kingdom Come.”

This concerns something to be achieved, something not yet here. The Kingdom of God means the complete filling of the entire soul of intelligent creatures with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit bloweth where he listeth? We can only invite him. We must not even try to invite him in a definite and special way to visit us or anyone else in particular, or even everybody in general; we must just invite him purely and simply, so that our thought of him is an invitation, a longing cry. It is as when one is in extreme thirst, ill with thirst; then one no longer thinks of the act of drinking in relation to oneself, or even of the act of drinking in a general way. One merely thinks of water, actual water itself, but the image of water is like a cry from our whole being.

γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου,·
“Thy will be done.”

We are only absolutely, infallibly certain of the will of God concerning the past. Everything that has happened, whatever it may be, is in accordance with the will of the almighty Father. That is implied by the notion of almighty power. The future also, whatever it may contain, once it has come about, will have come about in conformity with the will of God. We can neither add to nor take from this conformity. In this clause, therefore, after an upsurging of our desire toward the possible, we are once again asking for that which is. Here, however, we are not concerned with an eternal reality such as the holiness of the Word, but with what happens in the time order. Nevertheless we are asking for the infallible and eternal conformity of everything in time with the will of God. After having, in our first petition, torn our desire away from time in order to fix it upon eternity, thereby transforming it, we return to this desire which has itself become in some measure eternal, in order to apply it once more to time. Whereupon our desire pierces through time to find eternity behind it. That is what comes about when we know how to make every accomplished fact, whatever it may be, an object of desire. We have here quite a different thing from resignation. Even the word acceptance is too weak. We have to desire that everything that has happened should have happened, and nothing else. We have to do so, not because what has happened is good in our eyes, but because God has permitted it, and because the obedience of the course of events to God is in itself an absolute good. 

ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·
“On earth as it is in heaven.”

The association of our desire with the almighty will of God should be extended to spiritual things. Our own spiritual ascents and falls, and those of the beings we love, have to do with the other world, but they are also events that take place here below, in time. On that account they are details in the immense sea of events and arc tossed about with, the ocean in a way conforming to the will of God. Since our failures of the past have come about, we have to desire that they should have come about.

We have to extend this desire into the future, for the day when it will have become the past. It is a necessary correction of the petition that the kingdom of God should come, We have to cast aside all other desires for the sake of our desire for eternal life, but we should desire eternal life itself with renunciation. We must not even become attached to detachment. Attachment to salvation is even more dangerous than the others. We have to think of eternal life as one thinks of water when dying of thirst, and yet at the same time we have.to desire that we and our loved ones should be eternally deprived of this water rather than receive it in abundance in spite of God’s will, if such a thing were conceivable,

The three foregoing petitions are related to the three Persons of the Trinity, the Son, the Spirit, and the Father, and also to the three divisions of time, the present, the future, and the past. The three petitions that follow have a more direct bearing on the three divisions of time, and take them in a different order—present, past, and future.

τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·
 “Give us this day our daily bread” — the bread which is supernatural

Christ is our bread. We can only ask to have him now. Actually he is always there at the door of our souls, wanting to enter in, though he does not force our consent. If we agree to his entry, he enters; directly we cease to want him, he is gone. We cannot bind our will today for tomorrow; we cannot make a pact with him that tomorrow he will be within us, even in spite of ourselves.

Our consent to his presence is the same as his presence. Consent is an act; it can only be actual, that is to say in the present. We have not been given a will that can be applied to the future. Everything not effective in our will is imaginary. The effective part of the will has its effect at once; its effectiveness cannot be separated from itself. The effective part of the will is not effort, which is directed toward the future. It is consent; it is the “yes” of marriage. A “yes” pronounced within the present moment and for the present moment, but spoken as an eternal word, for it is consent to the union of Christ with the eternal part of our soul.

Bread is a necessity for us. We are beings who continually draw our energy from outside, for as we receive it we use it up in effort. If our energy is not daily renewed, we become feeble and incapable of movement. Besides actual food, in the literal sense of the word, all incentives are sources of energy for us. Money, ambition, consideration, decorations, celebrity, power, our loved ones, everything that puts into us the capacity for action is like bread.

If anyone of these attachments penetrates deeply enough into us to reach the vital roots of our carnal existence, its loss may break us and even cause our death. That is called dying of love. It is like dying of hunger. All these objects of attachment go together with food, in the ordinary sense of the word, to make up the daily bread of this world. It depends entirely on circumstances whether we have it or not. We should ask nothing with regard to circumstances unless it be that they may conform to the will of God. We should not ask for earthly bread.

There is a transcendent energy whose source is in heaven, and this flows into us as soon as we wish for it. It is a real energy; it performs actions through the agency of our souls and of our bodies.

We should ask for this food. At the moment of asking, and by the very fact that we ask for it, we know that God will give it to us. We ought not to be able to bear to go without it for a single day, for when our actions only depend on earthly energies, subject to the necessity of this world, we are incapable of thinking and doing anything but evil. God saw “that the misdeeds of man were multiplied on the earth and that all the thoughts of his heart were continually bent upon evil.” [Genesis 6:5] The necessity that drives us toward evil governs everything in us except the energy from on high at the moment when it comes into us. We cannot store it.

καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν,
ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·
 “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.”

At the moment of saying these words we must have already remitted everything that is owing to us. This not only includes reparation for any wrongs we think we have suffered, but also gratitude for the good we think we have done, and it applies in a quite general way to all we expect from people and things, to all we consider as our due and without which we should feel ourselves to have been frustrated. All these are the rights that we think the past has given us over the future.

First there is the right to a certain permanence. When we have enjoyed something for a long time, we think that it is ours and that we are entitled to expect fate to let us go on enjoying it. Then there is the right to a compensation for every effort whatever its nature, be it work, suffering, or desire. Every time that we put forth some effort and the equivalent of this effort does not come back to us in the form of some visible fruit, we have a sense of false balance and emptiness which makes us think that we have been cheated. The effort of suffering from some offense causes us. to expect the punishment or apologies of the offender, the effort of doing good makes us expect the gratitude of the person we have helped, but these are only particular cases of a universal law of the soul.

Every time we give anything out we have an absolute need that at least the equivalents should come into us, and because we. need this we think we have a right to it. Our debtors comprise all beings and all things; they are the entire universe. We think we have claims everywhere. In every claim we think we possess there is always the idea of an imaginary claim of the past on the future. That is the claim we have to renounce.

To have forgiven our debtors is to have renounced the whole of the past in a lump. It is to accept that the future should still be virgin and intact, strictly united to the past by bonds of which we are ignorant, but quite free from the bonds our imagination thought to impose upon it. It means that we accept the possibility that. this will happen, and that it may happen to us in particular; it means that we are prepared for the future to render all our past life sterile and vain.

In renouncing at one stroke all the fruits of the past without exception, we can ask of God that our past sins may not bear their miserable fruits of evil and error. So long as we cling to the past, God himself cannot stop this horrible fruiting. We cannot hold on to the past without retaining our crimes, for we are unaware of what is most essentially bad in us.

The principal claim we think we have on the universe is that our personality should continue. This claim implies all the others. The instinct of self-preservation makes us feel this continuation to be a necessity, and we believe that a necessity is a right. We are like the beggar who said to Talleyrand: “Sir, I must live,” and to whom Talleyrand replied, “I do not see the necessity for that.”

Our personality is entirely dependent on external circumstances which have unlimited power to crush it. But we would rather die than admit this. From our point of view the equilibrium of the world is a combination of circumstances so ordered that our personality remains intact and seems to belong to us. All the circumstances of the past that have wounded our personality appear to us to be disturbances of balance which should infallibly be made up for one day or another by phenomena having a contrary effect. We live on the expectation of these compensations. The near approach of death is horrible chiefly because it forces the knowledge upon us that these compensations will never come.

To remit debts is to renounce our own personality. It means renouncing everything that goes to make up our ego, without any exception. It means knowing that• in the ego there is nothing whatever, no psychological element, that external circumstances could not do away with. It means accepting that truth. It means being happy that things should be so.

The words “Thy will be done” imply this acceptance, if we say them with all our soul, That is why we can say a few moments later: “We forgive our debtors.”

The forgiveness of debts is spiritual poverty, spiritual nakedness, death. If we accept death completely, we can ask God to make us live again, purified from the evil in us. For to ask him to forgive us our debts is to ask him to wipe out the evil in us. Pardon is purification. God himself has not the power to forgive the evil in us while it remains there. God will have forgiven our debts when he has brought us to the state of perfection.

Until then God forgives our debts partially in the same measure as we forgive our debtors.

καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν,
ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.
 “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

The only temptation for man is to be abandoned to his own resources in the presence of evil. His nothingness is then proved experimentally. Although the soul has received supernatural bread at the moment when it asked for it, its joy is mixed with fear because it could only ask for it for the present. The future is still to be feared. The soul has not, the right to ask for bread for the morrow, but it expresses its fear in the form of a supplication. It finishes with that. The prayer began with the word’ “Father,” it ends with the word “evil.”

We must go from confidence to fear. Confidence alone can give us strength enough not to fall as a result of fear. After having contemplated the name, the kingdom, and the will of God, after having received the supernatural bread and having been purified from evil, the soul is ready for that true humility which crowns all virtues. Humility consists of knowing that in this world the whole soul, not only what we term the ego in its totality, but also the supernatural part of the soul, which is God present in it, is subject to time and to the vicissitudes of change.

There must be absolute acceptance of the possibility that everything natural in us should be destroyed. But we must simultaneously accept and repudiate the possibility that the supernatural part of the soul should disappear. It must be accepted as an event that would come about only in conformity with the will of God. It must be repudiated as being something utterly horrible. We must be afraid of it, but our fear must be as it were the completion of confidence.

The six petitions correspond with each other in pairs. The bread which is transcendent is the same thing as the divine name. It is what brings about the contact of man with God. The kingdom of God is the same thing as his protection stretched over us against temptation; to protect is the function of royalty. Forgiving our debtors their debts is the same thing as the total acceptance of the will of God. The difference is that in the first three petitions the attention is fixed solely on God. In the three last, we turn our attention back to ourselves in order to compel ourselves to make these petitions a real and not an imaginary act.

In the first half of the prayer, we begin with acceptance. Then we allow ourselves a desire. Then we correct it by coming back to acceptance. In the second half, the order is changed; we finish by expressing desire. Only desire has now become negative; it is expressed as a fear; therefore it corresponds. to the highest degree of humility and that is a fitting way to end.

The Our Father contains all possible petitions; we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it. It is to prayer what Christ is to humanity. It is impossible to say it once through, giving the fullest possible attention to each word, without a change, infinitesimal perhaps but real, taking place in the soul.

Madonna with Rosary by Murillo 1650

One reviewer had it right when he said that this book would please neither the traditional nor cafeteria style modern Catholic. Mr. Wills follows his own conscience on Church matters. While that would be enough now for me to pass on reading what he writes, I didn’t know that as a recent convert and enjoyed this particular book. I also liked his writings on G.K. Chesterton. So the kind of caveat one finds with Luke Timothy Johnson applies here. Most of what I found that helped me in the book were a number of references to scripture and other Catholic thinkers, so I feel confident in recommending those passages to you. The others I just liked so if he hoodwinked me, let me know so I can drop it off the Book Rec here.

John Paul II: An Exquisitely Contemplative Prayer
The Rosary, precisely because it starts with Mary’s own experience, is an exquisitely contemplative prayer. Without this contemplative dimension, it would lose its meaning, as Pope Paul VI clearly pointed out: “Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas, in violation of the admonition of Christ: ‘In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words’ (Matthew 6:7). By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are disclosed”.

John Paul II: The Rosary: A Method Of Contemplation
The West is now experiencing a renewed demand for meditation, which at times leads to a keen interest in aspects of other religions. Some Christians, limited in their knowledge of the Christian contemplative tradition, are attracted by those forms of prayer. While the latter contain many elements which are positive and at times compatible with Christian experience, they are often based on ultimately unacceptable premises. Much in vogue among these approaches are methods aimed at attaining a high level of spiritual concentration by using techniques of a psychophysical, repetitive and symbolic nature. The Rosary is situated within this broad gamut of religious phenomena, but it is distinguished by characteristics of its own which correspond to specifically Christian requirements. In effect, the Rosary is simply a method of contemplation. As a method, it serves as a means to an end and cannot become an end in itself. All the same, as the fruit of centuries of experience, this method should not be undervalued. In its favor one could cite the experience of countless Saints. This is not to say, however, that the method cannot be improved. Such is the intent of the addition of the new series of mysteria lucis to the overall cycle of mysteries and of the few suggestions which I am proposing in this Letter regarding its manner of recitation. These suggestions, while respecting the well-established structure of this prayer, are intended to help the faithful to understand it in the richness of its symbolism and in harmony with the demands of daily life. Otherwise there is a risk that the Rosary would not only fail to produce the intended spiritual effects, but even that the beads, with which it is usually said, could come to be regarded as some kind of amulet or magic object, thereby radically distorting their meaning and function.

Silence Is Difficult To Achieve
A discovery of the importance of silence is one of the secrets of practicing contemplation and meditation. One drawback of a society dominated by technology and the mass media is the fact that silence becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. Just at the moments of silence are recommended in the liturgy, so too in the recitation of the rosary it is fitting to pause briefly after listening to the word of God, while the mind focuses on the content of a particular mystery.

Our Meditations: An Entry Into The Life Of Christ
Our meditations are meant to be not merely an escape from self, but an entry into the life of Christ. We Christians believe that we are incorporated into the risen life of Jesus, as members of his mystical body. The spirit prays in us , through Christ, to the Father. Saint Paul says I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” [Galatians 2:20] and “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”[ Colossians 3:2-4] The rosary invites us to retire into that secret of our deeper life in Christ, to reflect on his actions and their private meaning for us, and to do this at our own pace, seeking our own peace.

Mary, The Perfect Model
“Although the repeated Hail Mary is addressed directly to Mary, it is to Jesus that the act of love is ultimately directed, with her and through her.” [John Paul II]. Mary is a perfect model for this, since the gospel presents her as mystified by her own son, trying patiently to probe the meaning of his actions

• When the angel Gabriel greets her as “Highly Favored,” she is stunned (dietaracththē) and tries to puzzle out (dielogizeto) what it can mean – “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” (Luke 1:29)
• After the wondrous events surrounding Christ’s birth, it is said ” But Mary treasured up (synetērei: kept these things for inner scrutiny, sifting them in her heart)–all these things and pondered them in her heart.” [Luke 2:19]
• At the presentation of Jesus in the temple, when Simeon prophesies the mission of Jesus, Mary and Joseph “were astounded [thaumazontes] at what was being said about him. “The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.”[Luke 2:33]
• Mary is not only surprised but hurt when the boy Jesus goes off for five days without telling here. She and Joseph are “dumbfounded” (exeplagēsan) and she expresses her disappointment. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” [Luke 2:48] When Jesus says he has a duty to a higher Father, “Mary and Joseph did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.” Father Raymond Brown notes that the word for “observe” (terēin) used in 2:19 and 2:48 means to “keep a close watch or wary watch on.”
• At the wedding in Cana, Jesus apparently rejects Mary’s request that he help the people who have run out of wine: “Woman why is your worry mine? My time is not yet come.” She does not know what he means. All she can say to the servants is: “Whatever he tells you, do that” [John 2:5]
• When Jesus refuses to receive Mary when she is asking access to him – “Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.  A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’  ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’ [Mark 3:31-35]
•  As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

Chesterton said that Christ moved about as in some higher weather system, breaking out in wraths and mercies contrary to the lower atmospherics. It could not have been easy being the mother of a spiritual thunderstorm. Mary had to maker her way through the layers of this divine conundrum to its inmost meaning by the deepest kind of faith. We pray with her for the understanding she achieved by strenuous effort. She went before us in this quest. To ask her aid as we make the same journey is not to succumb to “Mariolatry.”

The Search For God Within Us
St. Augustine maintained that the search for God must take place inside one. God, he says in the Confessions, is “deeper in me than I am in me.” Since we are made in God’s image, our own diversity-in-unity reflects God’s tri-unity. The rosary is one way of entering into oneself where he awaits us.

Why The Full Course Of Mysteries
The point of having a full course of mysteries to contemplate is simply to provide a framework within which to structure one’s reflection. The uses to which one puts that framework can and should differ from person to person.

The Our Father: Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
The Jesus who teaches the Our Father in Matthew 6:9-13 is praying with us and the church. The first half of the prayer glorifies the Father, as Christ regularly did. The second half is a communal plea, with emphasis on the believers’ solidarity with one another:

Give us this day
                Our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts,
                As we forgive our debtors,
And lead us not into temptation,
            But deliver us from evil.

Scholars are now agreed that this is an apocalyptic prayer, one that looks to the end-time of history, in keeping with early Christian expectations. In that setting, the clauses mean something more than, or different from, their ordinary sense now. The first clause of this prayer section has an unexampled adjective (epiousios) applied to bread. It is translated “daily” bread, since ousios, which follows the preposition epi, “upon,” can come form the verb for “to be,” and so epiousios would mean “on-being” (actual, present, daily). But ousios could with equal etymological validity, come from the verb for “to come” – “the on-coming bread.” In an apocalyptic context, where the messianic meal at the end of time comes first to mind, this suggests the feast God will have with his saved ones. This accounts for the emphatic “this day” (sēmeron). We are asking to anticipate our homecoming, to sample even now the final blissful meal. Jesus had prompted such an anticipation at he Last Supper, when he drank some wine but then no more (Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. “I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.” ) The Lord’s Prayer refers, then, to our participation in the Eucharist as a prefiguration of the feast at the end-time.

The Our Father: Forgive Us Our Debts As We Forgive Our Debtors
The second clause of the Our Father, “Forgive Us Our Debts,” also has an end-time meaning. It refers to the great day of reckoning (Jeremiah 27), modeled on the Jew’s jubilee years, when all debts were canceled. This is not a kind of divine bribery – if we forgive others, will you forgive us? The great final accounting, to which this looks forward, will be once-and-for-all omnidirectional forgiveness of outstanding grievances, to effect the great reconciliation that concludes history.

The Our Father: And Lead Us Not Into Temptation
The last clause has always mystified people: Why would god lead us into temptation (peirasmos) Scholarly modern versions rightly translate peirasmos as “The Trial.” This is a technical term in the New Testament. It refers to the tribulation that will mark the final showdown with the Prince Of This World. Jesus sanctions this prayer at Mark 14:38: “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation (enter into the Trial peirasmos). The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” In Revelation 3:10: “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial (peirasmos) that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.” …The last part should read “Deliver us from the evil one”…the genitive ponerou can be either neuter “evil”or masculine “Evil One”; but the eschatological context makes it clear that the prayer is to escape the Prince of this World, who is defeated only at the end of time.

John Henry Newman: The Attitude Expressed In The Our Father
Up to Christ’s coming in the flesh, the course of things ran straight towards that end, nearing it by every step; but now, under the gospel, that course has (if I may so speak) altered its directions as regards his second coming and runs not towards the end, but along it and on the brink of it; and is at all times equally near that great event, which, did it turn towards it, it would at once run into. Christ, then, is as ever at our door; as near eighteen hundred years ago as now, and not nearer now than them; and not nearer when comes than now…”This present state of things “the present distress” as St. Paul calls it, is ever close upon the next world, and resolves itself into it. As when a man is given over, he may die any moment, yet lingers; as an implement of war may any moment explode, and must at some time; as we listen for a clock to strike, and at length it surprises us; as a crumbling arch hangs, we know not how, and is not safe to pass under; so creeps on this feeble weary world, and one day, before we know where we are, it will end. That is the attitude expressed in the Our Father.

The Doxology
It is called a doxology because it gives glory (doxa in Greek) to God…The doxology used in the rosary (and in other places, like the liturgical hours) is called the Lesser Doxology, to distinguish it from the Greater Doxology, an ancient hymn recited as art of the Ordinary of the Mass….The Greater Doxology is based on the angels’ proclamation at the birth of Christ [Luke2:14]. The lesser is based on the baptism formula at Matthew 28:19.

Annunciation [Luke 1:26-38]
The Birth of Jesus Foretold
“In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

 ”How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”

 ”I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.

John Donne’s Poem The Annunciation

Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;
Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now
Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.

Mary’s Acceptance
Mary’s acceptance of this mystery (of the divine conception) is a model for us in staying open to the incursions of the divine into our live. Christ will even make it possible for this in his mystical body to have their own kind of virgin birth, a participations in his:

“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” [John1: 12-13]

St. Augustine On The Annunciation
“You who are astonished at what is wrought in Mary’s body, imitate it in your soul’s innermost chamber. Sincerely believe in God’s justice, and you conceive Christ. Bring forth words of salvation, and you have given birth to Christ”  (Sermon 191)

Gerald Manley Hopkins On Mary And The Christ Within Us

Of her flesh he took flesh –
He does take fresh and fresh
(Though much the mystery how)
Not flesh but spirit now,
And makes (O marvelous!)
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon and eve,
New Bethlehems, and he born
There, evening, noon and morn.
Bethlehem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death

Visitation (Luke 1:39-45)
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

Nativity (Luke 2:6-7)
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

St. Paul On the Incarnation (Philippians 2:5-11)

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
 Who, being in very nature God,
      did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
 but made himself nothing,
      taking the very nature of a servant,
      being made in human likeness.
 And being found in appearance as a man,
      he humbled himself
      and became obedient to death—
         even death on a cross!
 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
      and gave him the name that is above every name,
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
      in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
      to the glory of God the Father.

Chesterton On The Impossibility of The Incarnation
He (a critic) laboriously explains the difficulty which we have always defiantly and almost derisively exaggerate; and mildly condemns as improbable something that we have almost madly exalted as incredible; as something that would be much too good to be true, except that it is true. When that contrast between the cosmic creation and the little local infancy has been repeated, reiterated, underlined, emphasized, exulted in, sung, shouted, roared, not to say howled, in a hundred thousand hymns, carols, rhymes, rituals, pictures, poems, and popular sermons, it may be suggested that we hardly need a higher critic to draw our attention to something a little odd about it.

Mary’s Role With Heresy
From the early struggle with heresy it was Mary’s role to stand between some who thought Christ not fully human and some who thought him not fully divine. These opposite errors were confounded in the person of Mary. The concept of God-in-the-flesh can never get far from the flesh of Mary, as St. Augustine keeps reminding us:  ”The newborn, to ready for adult food, has it mediated to him through his mother’s flesh, in the form of milk – so the Lord, to transmit to us the mild of his wisdom, clothes it in his own flesh.”

Chesterton On Mary, Star of His Morning

Star of His Morning, that unfallen Star,
In the strange starry overturn of space
When earth and sky changed places for an hour,
And heaven looked upwards in a human face.

Nativity
 “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
 ”Glory to God in the highest,
      and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” [Luke 2: 8-20]

God sneaks quietly into the world, welcomed by the obscure the forgotten. We are told that he will return at the end-time “like a thief in the night” (1Thessalonians 5:2). In his first coming, too, the secret is hidden way from the reat ones of the world, but “revealed to simple people” [Luke 10.21] One must become a child to see how God became a child.

Presentation in The Temple [Luke 2:22-33, 39]
When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord” and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 

 ”Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
      you now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
    which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
      and for glory to your people Israel.”

 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.

When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth

St. Augustine: That Life Might Die
There is a bittersweet aspect to the joyous mysteries, just as there will be a sweet-bitter aspect to the sorrowful mysteries. The former look ahead to the mission of the Incarnation – to the death of Jesus for mankind – as the latter look forward to the resurrection. …The Incarnation implies all the fatalities of being human – the joys in sorrow and sorrows in joy, the reciprocal dynamics of life and death. No one could put this better than St. Augustine: “Man’s maker was made man – that he who guides the Milky Way might take milk at his mother’s breast , that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused by false witness, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood, that Strength might grow weak, that the Healer might be wounded, that Life might die.

Finding In The Temple
Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

 ”Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. [Luke 2:41-52]

Baptism of Jesus in Matthew
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.

 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” [Matthew 3:13-17]

Baptism of Jesus
From early times Christ’s baptism has been taken as a symbol of his death. Christ will speak of his later passion as a baptism none can share with him: “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”[ Mark 10:38] Until that later death-baptism (which is foreshadowed by his descent into the water) took place, a full forgiveness of sin could not be given to the faithful. We are told that “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified,” from which the theologian Oscar Cullman concludes that “Christian baptism become possible only from the moment when these salvation events are completed.”

John’s baptism was unlike the ritual cleansings repeated on specific occasions by the Jews. It as an act of repentance and reform that looked to the imminent approach of the end-time (the final baptism by fire). Jesus endorses the validity of this as general preparation for the coming of the kingdom in his own preaching career. The early fathers said that Christ, so far from being cleansed himself, “cleansed the waters” by his baptism (Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians18.1, circa 100). That is, he prepared the natural means for he ablution to be won by his passion. There is also an element of the exorcism that foretells the renunciation of the devil and all his works in later baptism. That this is a preparatory baptism is signaled by Jesus words “Bear with this for now,” and also by John’s statement “I baptize with water, but he who comes after me will baptize with the Holy Spirit with fire” (Matthew 3:11)

Baptism For Paul[Romans 6:3-4]
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

The descent into the waters and death is something Saint Paul would emphasize in his teaching on baptism…Baptism for Paul was a dying into Christ.

The Wedding At Cana
And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:

And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.

And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.

And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.

Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.

And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.

When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,

And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.

This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

Raymond Brown says that Jesus refuses to to act in accord with Mary’s (implied) request: “The suggestion must be rejected that the hour of miracles was advanced by Jesus at Mary’s request, for in Johannine thought the hour is not in Jesus’ control but in that of  the Father…before he does perform this sing, Jesus must make clear his refusal of Mary’s intervention; she cannot have any role in his ministry; his signs must reflect his Father’s sovereignty, and not any human or family agency.

Why Is The Miracle At Cana A Sign?
The gratuitous nature of the act points to some higher meaning than the satisfaction of the bridal party. After all, Jesus turns six huge vessels of water into wine…These were not jars meant for wine. They are specifically water vessels, meant to store the vast amounts of water used for ritual purifications. Jesus not only turns that vast quantity of water into wine, but into over a hundred gallons of the highest quality wine, finer than what was first served…Such abundance is apocalyptic, like the promises of good to come in the New Jerusalem, like a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3: 8), like trees bearing fruit every month (Ezekiel:47:12), like the overflowing cup of Psalm 23, like the good returned to those who do good —  “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” [Luke6: 38]. There is a similarity, since this is a Eucharistic sign, to the surplus of loaves and fishes at Matthew 14:20 – where over twelve great baskets of food are left over after five thousand have eaten their full.

Augustine On The Eucharist Bread
This bread makes clear how you should love your union with one another. Could the bead have been made from one grain, or were many grains of wheat required? Yet before they cohered as bread, each grain was isolated. They were fused in water, after being ground together. Unless wheat is pounded, and then moistened with water, it can hardly take on the new identity we call bread. In the same way, you had to be ground by the ordeal of fasting and exorcism in preparation of baptism’s waters, and in this way you were watered inorder to take on the new identify of brad. But bread must be finished by baking in fire. In this way you were being ground and pounded , as it were, by the humiliation of fasting na the mystery of exorcism,. After that, the water of baptism moistened you into bread. But the dough does not become bread until it is baked in fire. And what does fire represent for you? It is anointing with oil. Oil, which feeds fire, is the symbol of the Holy Spirit …the Holy Spirit comes to you, fire after water, and you are baked into the bread which is Christ’s body. That is how your unity is symbolized.

St. Augustine On the Mystery Of The Word 
The words I am uttering penetrate your senses, so that every hearer holds them, yet withholds them from no other. Not held, the words could not inform. Withheld, no other could share them. Though my talk is, admittedly, broken up into words and syllables, yet you do not take in this portion or that, as when picking at your food. All of you hear all of it, though each takes all individually. I have no worry that, by giving all to one, the others are deprived. I hope, instead, that everyone will consume everything; so that denying no other ear or mind, you take all to yourselves, yet leave all to all others. Nor is this done temporally, by turns – my words first going to one who must pass it one to another. But for individual failures of memory, everyone who came to hare what I say can take it all off, each on one’s separate way.

Agony In The Garden: Jesus Cautions His Followers To Be Watchful
As at the Sermon of the Mount or the Transfiguration, Jesus goes up a mountain for this spiritual experience – in this case the steep rise of the Mount of Olives, over against what we know as the old city. As at the Transfiguration, he takes his chosen three followers halfway up the mountain. And once again they fall asleep as he wrestles with his destiny – and theirs – above their heads. This is an apocalyptic episode, a forecast of the final struggle between good and evil. It has many overtones of the apocalyptic prayer that introduces this (and every) decade of beads, the Our Father. As in the prayer, Jesus asks that God’s will be done. He asks, as well, that his followers escape the wrenching final Trial (Peiramos) that we pray to avoid in the Our Father. He warns his followers to be on the watch – which is a warning about expectation of the end-time, which will also come upon sleeping humans like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2; Matthew 24:43)

John Henry Newman on The Agony
It is the long history of the World, and God alone can bear the load of it. Hopes blighted, vows broken, lights quenched, warnings scorned, opportunities lost, the innocent betrayed, the young hardened, the penitent relapsing, the just overcome, the aged failing, the sophistry of misbelief, the willfulness of passion, the obduracy of pride, the tyranny of habit, the canker of remorse, the wasting fever of care, the anguish of shame, the pining of disappointment, the sickness of despair; such cruel pitiable spectacles, such heart-rendering, revolting, detestable, maddening scenes; nay, the haggard faces, the convulsed lips , the flushed cheek, the dark brow of he willing victims of rebellion, they are all before him now; they are upon him and in him.

Hilaire Belloc On The Agony
The agony in the garden is the core and height of the Passion. The near anticipation of a dreadful thing is the acme of its effect: when the falling of a dreadful thing is the acme of its effect: when the falling of a blow is morally certain, the last awaiting of it is the master trial. The sequel is more exhausted; and that is why all those who know the significance of Christendom should revere – even beyond the rock of the Cross of the Holy Sepulcher itself , or the Altar of the Assumption in Nazareth or the Grotto of Bethlehem – Olivet. “Dieu même acraint la Mort.” (Fear of death even God experienced.) That is great poetry and therefore, justly interpreted, sound truth: sound theology. Not that God himself can suffer, but that God was so intensely, so intimately man in the Incarnation that the memories and experience of divinity and humanity are united therein: and through it, the  worst pain of the creature is known, by actual experience o four own kind, by the Creator [Death] is a curtain of iron, a gulf impassable, an impenetrable darkness, and a distance as it were limitless, infinite. The miracle whereby such an enormity coming upon immortal soulds does not breed despair, si the chief miracle of the Incarnation – and to work that mirale, the Incarnate – with what supreme energy – accepted our pain, almost refused it, but accepted it, and it was greater tan any pain of ours, physically beyond endurance and in the spirit a descent into hell.

Giving Mary Into The Care Of John
Raymond Brown points out that in giving her (Mary) into the care of John, Jesus makes John the custodian of the whole tradition of his life, giving authority to the gospel issued in John’s name [And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.John 19:35]. At Cana, Mary was treated only as a member o fJesus’ physical family. Now she is part of the family of the disciples, the new spiritual entity, the Church: “Christ’s saying] brings the natural family (Jesus’ mother) into the relationship of discipleship by making her the mother of the beloved disciple who takes her into his own realm of discipleship. The woman whose intervention at Cana on behalf of earthly needs was rejected because the hour had not yet come is now given a role in the realm engendered from above after the hour has come.” [Raymond Brown]

Jesus’ Cry Of Abandonment
About Jesus’ cry of abandonment, which is a quotation of Psalm 22.1, there is an ultimate mystery. Raymond Brown takes it in conjunction with the apocalyptic signs – the rent temple curtain, the darkness and earthquake – as a voice spoken from the cosmic struggle foreshadowed here, the dread Peirasmos that Jesus has prayed for his followers to be spared. It is the rending of the whole cosmos finding expression. It should be remembered that Jesus is quoting the opening words of a psalm that works itself toward hope in the following verses.

Psalm 22
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

 He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.

 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly.

 Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.

 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.

 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

 But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.

 Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.

 Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

 I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

 Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.

 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.

 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

 The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

 For the kingdom is the LORD’s: and he is the governor among the nations.

 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

 They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

The very fact that he is praying to God is an expression of hope in the midst of anguish, and comfort to those who resist despair. Nonetheless, these are words of such awful import that Chesterton could say (in The Everlasting Man) that they go beyond our powers to comprehend:

We may surely be silent about the end and the extremity; when a cry was driven out of that darkness in words dreadfully distinct and dreadfully unintelligible, which man shall never understand in all the eternity they have purchased for him; and for an annihilating instant an abyss that is not for our thoughts had opened even in the unity of the absolute; and God had been forsaken by God.

Raymond Brown: The Tomb Had To Come Before The Kerygma
How did the preaching that Jesus was victorious over death ever gain credence if his corpse or skeleton lay in a tomb known to all? His enemies would certainly have brought this forward as an objection; yet in all the anti-Resurrection argumentation reflected indirectly in the gospels or in the second century Christian apologists we never find an affirmation that the body was in the tomb. There are Christian arguments to show that that the body was not stolen or confused in a common burial; but the opponents seem to accept the basic fact that the body can no longer be found. Even in the Jewish legend that a gardener named Judas took the body only to bring it back, there is recognition that the tomb was empty. Moreover, the Christian memory of Joseph of Arimathea, which can only with great difficulty be explained as a fabrication, would be rather pointless unless the tomb he supplied had special significance.

The Role of Women In Witnessing The Risen Second Adam
Saint Augustine noted that the first people to proclaim the risen Lord were women, making up for the false statements of Eve that led to the fall of Adam. They announce the risen second Adam.

“Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.  When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.” [Luke23:56-24:12]

The Risen Body Of Jesus
Raymond Brown notes that Jesus is often not recognized at first by those who see him. There is something different about his appearance, something numinous or elusive. The risen body is a mystery.

“The time and place that characterize earthly existence o longer apply to him in his eschatological state; and so we cannot imagine his dwelling someplace on earth for forty days while he is making appearances and before he departs for heaven. From the moment that God raises Jesus up, he is in heaven or with God. If he makes appearances, he appears from heaven.

Paul On The Resurrection
But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. [1Corinthians 15:12-21]

Paul On The Incarnation

Who, being in very nature God,
      did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
      taking the very nature of a servant,
      being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
      he humbled himself
      and became obedient to death—
         even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
      and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
      in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
      to the glory of God the Father.

The Message Of The Ascension
The message of the ascension is not that Jesus is gone from us, but that he acts now in a different way. He went only to send the Spirit, who expresses the Trinity’s incorporation of us into the inner councils of God himself.

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost  [Acts 2:1-17] When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.

 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine “

Peter Addresses the Crowd
 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
 ” ‘In the last days, God says,  I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” …Babel divides men when they try to impose a single human program. Pentecost unites men across differences. A universal language of love and salvation is attained by the miracle of the Spirit’s actions in Christians, themselves the articulated separate members of Christ’s mystical body.

Mary’s Assumption And The Resurrection Of The Body [1 Corinthians 15: 35-49]
But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

Does Paul’s letter to Corinth allow us to think of the risen body as physically spatial in a nonphysical heaven? We say in the creed that we believe in the “resurrection of the body.” But we are fools, Paul says, if we think we know what the risen body will be. We might as well, not knowing what an oak tree is, think the acorn was the same as what it would become. The body that rises is the one that gave identity to the whole person. Those effects of identity are not equitable with the passing fortunes of the body that did the individuating. …Mary’s assumption is a symbol and sample of what we all hope for who die in Christ. She, our sister, precedes and comforts us through the deathly portal leading to life.

Photo by buicongthanh2009 on Flickr

I’ve been away from this blog for a while – family stuff, work and other events have conspired to distract and prevent me from devoting any time to it. I’ve also had a lack of motivation for writing something of this nature. Still, I’m back now, and though this post may be short, it’s a start.

My husband and I say a prayer each night when we lay ourselves down to sleep-before we close our eyes. Sometimes we randomly pull passages from a missal, or an actual prayer book, but more often than not, we say The Our Father.

The other night, before we turned out the lights, we decided to say it and my husband remarked, “We should really be saying this in the morning.” I said, “We’ll have to find a prayer for night-time that we can put to memory, for those times when we’re tired, and we still want to say a prayer.” He said, “Why don’t you write one?”

This got me thinking. I mean, I’m a poet/writer by day, so why not write a prayer? Why not?

So, this is going to be a prayer for the end of the day. If you like it, feel free to use it.

Here goes:

Prayer Before Bed

Dear Heavenly Father,

We come to you this night

in thanks.

Thank you for keeping us safe

and for looking out for us.

Thank you for putting plentiful food

on our table,

And giving us love to share.

Thank you for our families,

our friends and our pets.

Lord, continue to bless us,

Watch over our souls.

Keep our eyes and minds ever on you

And your Kingdom.

Give us peaceful sleep and let us wake

Refreshed and ready to greet the new day.

Amen