Category Archives: Feast Days

On St. Bart 2023 – and more mass-shooting massacre…

candlelight vigil – for one of 947 mass shootings in the last two years and 214 days?

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Thursday, August 24, was the Feast day for St.  Bartholomew. (“Bart,” a.k.a. Bartholomew the Apostle.) The next major Feast Day – not counting Labor Day – is Holy Cross Day, on September 14.* On that next Thursday – coming up some two weeks from now – I’ll be in Lyon, in France, getting ready for a 15-day 150-mile hike on the GR 70. (The Robert Louis Stevenson Trail.)

But before leaving I wanted to say something about Bartholomew, and massacres, in his day and ours. And something about how they haven’t gone away, they’ve just changed form.*

Unfortunately, St. Bartholomew is best known for a massacre on his feast day in 1572:

The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre … in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations and a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots…  Though by no means unique, it “was the worst of the century’s religious massacres.”  Throughout Europe, it “printed on Protestant minds the indelible conviction that Catholicism was a bloody and treacherous religion.”

But of course there’s more to his story than that. For one thing he was also “famous” – if you want to call it that – for being flayed alive. “In artistic depictions, Bartholomew is most commonly depicted holding his flayed skin and the knife with which he was skinned.” Which is why I didn’t include any images of that martyrdom here. We get enough gore just reading the news…

Which brings up Man’s Inhumanity to Man Mean. Neither that nor massacres have gone away. That inhumanity has merely “changed form.” Or as the poet Robert Burns wrote, Man was made to Mourn. (Where the term “man’s inhumanity to man” first came from.)

Which is another way of saying we have problems of our own to deal with these days. Like the fact that such massacres as the one in 1572 haven’t gone away. For example, in my 2019 post On Gun Nuts and bulls goring I addressed a problem still with us, four years later. (And “even more so.”) The post started off talking about St. Bartholomew and “his” massacre, then morphed into the rising tide of mass shootings today. The post also talked about one conservative politician who said we don’t need responsible gun laws because “when Cain killed Abel, God didn’t blame the rock.” That argument didn’t make sense then, and still doesn’t. In response to that claim – “mass shootings are the price of freedom” – I cited Exodus 21:28-29:

If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death…  But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner also is to be put to death.

So it’s true that God didn’t “blame the rock” for killing Abel. But He does blame the owner of a goring bull when that owner doesn’t stop more bull-gorings from happening.

According to Exodus 21:28-29, the owner of a bull who keeps killing can’t just say, “Don’t blame me! Blame the bull!” The Bible says that the owner is responsible if he doesn’t keep a second death from happening. (“Or the third, or the 3,788th.”) And to me that principle applies to America today, as when it knows the danger of repeated, ongoing mass-killing-by-firearm but does nothing to stop it. Or even cut down the number of murders a bit.

And the problem has gotten worse since 2019. See for example United States tops 400 mass shootings in 2023 | CNN Politics. Dated July 24, 2023 – just about a month ago – it said as of that date the U.S. had 400 mass shootings, “setting the stage for a record-breaking year in gun violence without any significant federal firearm legislation on the horizon.”

America reached the grim figure on Saturday, July 22, “the earliest in a year 400 shootings have been recorded since at least 2013… In 2019, it took 356 days – nearly the entire year – to hit 400 mass shootings. This year and in 2021, however, the United States reached that marker in just seven months.”

There’s more on St. Bart in the notes, but as for “his” 1572 massacre, someone finally took responsibility. Here’s what Pope John Paul II said, in 1997 in Paris, site of the massacre:

On the eve of Aug. 24, we cannot forget the sad massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day… Christians did things which the Gospel condemns. I am convinced that only forgiveness, offered and received, leads little by little to a fruitful dialogue… Belonging to different religious traditions must not constitute today a source of opposition and tension. On the contrary, our common love for Christ impels us to seek tirelessly the path of full unity.

On that note, here’s hoping that some day we too in America may begin a “fruitful dialogue.” Like a dialog on how we can stop – or at least cut down – the great number of mass shootings that presently plague our nation. Which brings up the New Testament reading for Sunday, August 27. (Proper 16.) It’s from Romans 12, but the key passage that hit me was Romans 12:2. In the NLT it reads, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”

Which is pretty much the point I tried to make in “Love one another.” (And thereby get Transformed, like Jesus got Transfigured.) Maybe, eventually, with God’s help, we can finally transform ourselves into a new country. A better country where we no longer think that putting up with so many mass-shooting massacres is “the price of freedom.” Maybe, if we can transform enough, we can have both freedom and an end to so many needless killings…

Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait that 425 years* this time…

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The upper image is courtesy of Mass Shooting – Image Results. I borrowed the image from 2019’s On Gun Nuts and bulls goring. (Together with the caption.) Unfortunately it’s still relevant today, if not even more so. The 2019 post also included this:

The photo accompanies an article, “Stop blaming the mentally ill for mass shootings.” With a comment by conservative author Ann Coulter:“Guns don’t kill people, the mentally ill do.” The article noted less than 5 percent of the “120,000 gun-related killings in the U.S. between 2001 and 2010 were committed by people diagnosed with mental illness.”  Instead, people with mental illness were more likely to be victims. “You’re more likely to be attacked by other people, more likely to be shot,” one professor said. “You’re odd. You’re a target.”  Also, mass shootings are most often attributed to things like disgruntled workers or family disputes. “It’s loss of control by people who are extremely angry.”  Finally the article said efforts to link mental illness and violence are “a political strategy to turn attention away from more serious efforts to restrict access to the means of violence – which is guns.”

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Holy Cross Day is preceded in the Daily Office by readings for the Eve of Holy Cross: Psalms 4687, 1 Kings 8:22-30Ephesians 2:11-22. See also On Holy Cross, Matthew, and Michael – “Archangel,” from October 2018. “Holy Cross Day is one of several Feasts of the Cross, all of which ‘commemorate the cross used in the crucifixion of Jesus:’”

In English, it is called The Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the official translation of the Roman Missal, while the 1973 translation called it The Triumph of the Cross.  In some parts of the Anglican Communion the feast is called Holy Cross Day…

 “Just changed form.” A restatement of the First law of thermodynamics, which I first mentioned back in 2014’s On Ascension Day. I said then that Law was “proof positive that the human soul – a definite form of energy – is neither ‘created nor destroyed, but simply changes form.’” 

On God not punishing the rock, see Top NC Republican on Mass Shootings: “Cain Killed Abel.” (To which the writer responded, “It’s so weird how gun violence has nothing to do with guns.”) 

On recent mass shootings, see also List of mass shootings in the United States in 2023 – Wikipedia.

For this post I borrowed from 2017’s On St. Bartholomew – and “his” Massacre, from 2019’s On Gun Nuts and bulls goring. I also borrowed from 2018’s On Jesus “cracking wise,” and from an earlier On Jesus “cracking wise”, from 2015. See also Nathanael (follower of Jesus) – Wikipedia, and also Meet Nathanael – The Apostle Believed to Be Bartholomew. From which came this:

[T]he name “Bartholomaios” means “son of Talmai” (or Tholmai), but that little else is known about him. “Many scholars, however, identify him with Nathaniel…” John 1:45-51: “Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about… And so our August 24 “St. Bart” is generally identified as the famous Nathanael who Jesus saw – in the first chapter of the John’s Gospel – sitting under the fig tree. [Or] see Bartholomew the Apostle – Wikipedia. It noted a number of traditions … including that he went on missionary journeys to India, or in the alternative to “EthiopiaMesopotamiaParthia, and and Lycaonia.”

Re: 425. From 1572 to 1997, the Massacre to the Pope’s apology.

The lower image is courtesy of Mass Shootings 2023 Image – Image Results.

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As to the cause of such “massacres,” see Why number of US mass shootings has risen sharply – BBC News. Among the reasons: 1) Americans have more guns now than they did before. 2) “People are afraid, and they want to quell that fear by buying a gun.” 3) A rise in life stressors, both in general and as a result of the pandemic, especially hardships related to finances, employment or family and relationships. (“93% of assailants had dealt with a personal issue prior to their attack, whether it be divorce, health problems, or issues at school or work.”) 4) “Toxic masculinity” – nearly all mass shooters (around 98%) are male.” And 5) Easy access to firearms.

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“Love one another” – get Transfigured (too)…

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Trying to love all people – as a “Crossfire Christian” – can feel like entering No man’s land

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I started off wanting to make this just another post on the Transfiguration of Jesus. (The Feast – the Celebration – that happened last Sunday, August 6, 2023.) And to explain again how it came to be called The Greatest Miracle in the World. But I also wanted to talk about a new name for Christians like me. (The real ones.) A post I would call “On Crossfire Christians.”

The way I see it, that name can help in those situations – so common these days – where someone demands, “What are your politics?” Are you a Conservative or – heaven forbid – a Liberal? Here’s a good new answer that just occurred to me: “Who Me? I’m just trying to stay out of the crossfire. So I’m a Crossfire Christian.* You know, like Jesus?”

Which is another way of saying Jesus didn’t get involved in politics. (Not like so many so-called Christians today.) He was more about saving souls. (And you know what they did to him for that.) Along that line I’m also trying to come up with a short snappy comeback. Say you’re at a bar, or trolling on Facebook, and someone says something really stupid. Something really off the wall. The question becomes, “How do I keep from saying, ‘What are you, an idiot?‘”

First off, that response wouldn’t be Christian. Besides, I’m trying to get the real message of Jesus out, to the people who need it most. (Like those who put their politics above their Faith. And that has crippled recruiting.*) The problem is, “How do you deal with that in a short, snappy comeback?” You need that today because way too many people have their minds set in stone. So, to have any chance at spreading the Good News you need to get your point across quickly. Or in ruder terms, “How do I dumb it down enough to get my point across quicker?”

I finally found an answer in last Sunday’s Transfiguration sermon. (August 6.)

In that sermon our Supply Priest – Father Tom – managed to sum up the entire message of the Bible in three simple words. “Love one another.” Of course I’d read of Jesus saying that before, in John 13:34. But for some reason the way Father Tom made that point – at just the time when I needed such clarification the most – finally brought things into focus.

Again, you summarize Jesus’ whole point in three simple words: “Love one another.”

The full passage – in the NIV – has Jesus say, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” For me, last Sunday, that was exactly the right answer to what I’ve been looking for. The solution to, “How do I deal with so much hate and hostility these days?”

You can argue that other Bible passages are more important – and I have. Like Romans 10:9 and John 6:37. But in this day and age of such polarization, you can’t do much better, or simpler, than respond, “Love one another.” For maximum impact in the shortest possible time, just respond, “Love one another.” (And if you’re feeling especially smarmy you might add, “Some guy named Jesus said that. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”)

Politically it’s a simple effective litmus test. It also works for Facebook posts on a controversial new song. (Like “Try That in a Small Town.”) Just ask, “Does he or she preach (or stand for) ‘loving one another?” Which brings up another passage on point, John 6:60. That’s where so many disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Which explains why too many of today’s so-called Christians don’t seem to follow the call to “love one another.”

Of course there’s also Mark 12:31, where Jesus said, of the Second Great Commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment.*” But too many people, their minds already made up, can nitpick that one. “That guy isn’t my neighbor. He lives too far away.” Or, “He’s not my neighbor. He’s from Mexico.” (Or some other “foreign place.”) But with “love one another” there is no such problem. Those three little words are simple, clear and precise.

Which brings up The Transfiguration. Simply put, to be transfigured is to be “transformed.” And if you start responding to such polarization with “love one another,” you too can be transformed – transfigured – like Jesus. Not that it will be easy, but then it wasn’t easy for Jesus either.

In 2015 I posted Transfiguration – The Greatest Miracle in the World. “Unlike the other miracles of Jesus, this one happened to Him. All the others involved Jesus doing things for other people.” That’s why St. Thomas Aquinas considered it the “the greatest miracle.”  (E.A.)

The post also noted that seeing the Transfiguration “transformed” the three disciples, Peter, James and John. They never forgot what happened that day, which was probably what Jesus intended. John wrote in his gospel, “We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only.” (John 1:14)  Peter also wrote of the event, “We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with Him on the sacred mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-18.) Thus:

The disciples, who had only known Him in His human body, now had a greater realization of the deity of Christ… That gave them the reassurance they needed after hearing the shocking news of His coming death… But God’s voice from heaven – “Listen to Him!” – clearly showed that the Law and the Prophets must give way to Jesus.

In plain words, seeing Jesus transfigured “transformed” Peter, James and John. They went from cowards hiding in an upper room after Jesus “died” into witnesses who transformed the Known World. They transformed personally, then went on to Change the World. Of course you may not be able to do all that, but by reciting the simple “love one another” you can start transforming yourself. And maybe even lower the temperature on today’s boiling-over politico-polarization.

Heck, you might even metamorph from a metaphoric caterpillar to a butterfly…

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The upper image is courtesy of No Man’s Land Image – Image Results. See also No man’s land – Wikipedia, referring to a waste or unowned land or an uninhabited or desolate area “that may be under dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied out of fear or uncertainty.” Today the term is “commonly associated with World War I to describe the area of land between two enemy trench systems, not controlled by either side.”

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Re: “Crossfire Christian.” Years ago I tried names like “Contrarian” and “Independent.” So for this post I borrowed from Epiphany ’23, the end of Christmas and “farewell Mi Dulce,” which referred back to ‘Mi Dulce’ – and Donald Trump – made me a Contrarian (or actually an Independent). Also, On Independence Day, 2016, and On Garry Wills and “What Jesus (REALLY) Meant.” (Which also addresses Jesus being above – not interested – in politics.) In 2022 I tried the term “Mystic Christian,” and published a book on that, On Mystic Christians: (You know, the REAL ones?) Before that I wrote the more confrontational No Such Thing as a Conservative Christian, in 2018, with the subtitle, and Other Such Musings on the Faith of the Bible.

On “crippled recruiting.” See articles like U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time, and Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline.

Re: Jason Aldean song. The link is to Why is Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’ so Controversial?” Subtitle: “The country star’s song has people divided over just what his message is.” Or Google “that small town jason aldean controversy.”

Re: Second Great Commandment. The first is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

On Nitpicking. According to Wikipedia, that’s “giving too much attention to unimportant detail.” From the “common act of manually removing nits (the eggs of lice” from another person’s hair:

As nitpicking inherently requires fastidious attention to detail, the term has become appropriated to describe the practice of meticulously searching for minor, even trivial errors… Nitpicking has been used to describe dishonest insurers and bullying employers, or even bullying family members.

On Change the World. The song first recorded by Wynona Judd, then Eric Clapton in 1996. It became a “perfect example of how music has the power to unite musicians of different genres, nations, and looks.” See Wikipedia for more.

Other posts on the subject include On the Transfiguration – 2020, which included the “metamorphosis” image, and noted the mountain setting of the Transfiguration presented “the point where human nature meets God: the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal, with Jesus himself as the connecting point.” See also On Saint James the Pilgrim – and “Transfiguration 2021.”

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On St. James (2023), Pilgrimage, and “Maudlin’s Journey…”

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Last Saturday, July 22, was the Feast Day for “Mary of Magdala.” Three days later, Tuesday July 25, we remembered James, son of Zebedee. He’s one of several “Jameses” in the New Testament, but “St. James the Greater.” And this James is the Patron Saint of Pilgrims

Each year at this time I keep referring to St. James as Patron Saint of Pilgrims, mostly because I usually have a pilgrimage planned for the following September. This year is no different. For 15 days next September I’ll be hiking the GR 70 in France, also known as Robert Louis Stevenson Trail. I wrote of that Trail in the September 2016 post, On St. James, Steinbeck, and sluts.  

The “sluts” in question were mentioned by Stevenson in his ground-breaking 1879 work Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes… [C]onsidered a “pioneering classic of outdoor literature,” [it inspired] John Steinbeck‘s 1962 nonfiction work, Travels with Charley.)

That post ended with a note on Stevenson‘s trailblazing 1879 pilgrimage – with a donkey – in the Cévennes. But I’d written about it earlier, in February 2015’s On donkey travel – and sluts.” And just so you know, his word “sluts” didn’t mean what it does now. (Explained in the notes, the word was grammatically correct in 1879, but raises some eyebrows today.)

For the trip Stevenson invented one of the first-ever modern sleeping bags, and on the hike –  from Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille to Saint-Jean-du-Gard – he often had to use it, camping out in the open. And quite often found himself lost and having to rely on strangers for help.

One night he’d run across some village people – not the Y.M.C.A. kind – who fled at the sight of him. He may have been just a wandering camper, but nobody “camped” back then. Wanderers like him were considered bums, vagrants or worse. So, when Stevenson entered a small village and tried to ask directions, he was not received warmly. One “old devil simply retired into his house, and barricaded the door.” He then tried asking two 12-year-old girls for directions – the “impudent sluts” – but they had “not a thought but mischief.” One stuck out her tongue, “the other bade me follow the cows; and they both giggled and jogged each other’s elbows.”

We probably won’t be treated so rudely in September, or have to ask directions. The trail is well marked, lots of pilgrims hike it each year, and there’s no need to either camp as he did, or hope for lodging in a private home. We have our rooms all booked up, so – like all “Camino hikes” – at the end of each day we can look forward to a warm bed, hot shower and a cold beer.

Getting back to St. James and his “Way,” I first hiked the Camino de Santiago – the “Way of St. James” – in 2017. From Pamplona to Santiago, 450 miles in 30 days. In 2019 I hiked the Portuguese Camino, from Porto – home of port wine – back up to Santiago. In 2021 I hiked the Pyrenees part, from France, over the mountains, back to Pamplona and ending in Burgos. And next year we plan to hike the Pilgrims’ Way to Canterbury, in England, from Winchester.

And why? The chance to take a break from everyday life, to take time out, “time to think, time to get away from life as it is.” Also the challenge, the chance for spiritual development and to get away from “civilization,” to re-connect with nature. Or as we kept saying on the Way of St Francis last September, “It sure beats playing bingo at the Senior Center!”

But we’re getting “off the trail,” so to speak. Here’s what Satucket noted about St. James:

Tradition has it that [James] made a missionary journey to Spain, and that after his death his body was taken to Spain and buried [at] Compostela… His supposed burial place there was a major site of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, and the Spaniards fighting to drive their Moorish conquerors out of Spain took “Santiago de Compostela!” as one of their chief war-cries.

Which is another way of saying that the very name itself has had magical powers in the past. But that doesn’t answer the question, “Why go on such a long hike today?” You could find some other answers by Googling Why do People Walk [the] Camino de Santiago? Then too, Stevenson himself provided some good answers in his book.

Early on in his groundbreaking hike – his Travels – Stevenson found himself  groping in the dark for a campsite. (A site described as “black as a pit.”) He ate a crude dinner – a tin of bologna and some cake, washed down with brandy – then settled in for the night. “The wind among the trees was my lullaby.” He woke up in the morning “surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had been,” sleeping out in the open, “even in this tempestuous weather.” He then waxed poetic:

I had been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyagers; and thus to be found by morning in a random nook in Gevaudan – not knowing north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the earth…

As it turns out, that’s the nature of a pilgrimage. A break from “real life,” from the rat race that consumes so many. I noted that in St. James the Greater, and elsewhere described it as “ritual on the move.” As in religious ritual, a “patterned behavior” tied to a religious institution, belief, or custom, often with the intent of “talking to” – or hearing from – God.

Through the raw experience of hunger, cold and lack of sleep, “we can quite often find a sense of our fragility as mere human beings, especially when compared with ‘the majesty and permanence of God.’” In short, such a pilgrimage can be “‘one of the most chastening, but also one of the most liberating’ of personal experiences.”

Which brings us to “Maudlin’s journey.” Maudlin is just a corruption of Magdalene, as in Mary of Magdala, the ancient Jewish city on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. She had her own series of transforming pilgrimages. But one important one – for us today – happened long after she died. That posthumous journey – in its way – led “to a personal transformation,” a transforming of how we see Mary today. For example, Mary of Magdala | FutureChurch noted that for centuries she was “perhaps the most maligned and misunderstood figure in early Christianity:”

Since the fourth century, she has been portrayed as a prostitute and public sinner…   Paintings, some little more than pious pornography, reinforce the mistaken belief that sexuality, especially female sexuality, is shameful, sinful, and worthy of repentance.  Yet the actual biblical account of Mary of Magdala paints a far different portrait than that of the bare-breasted reformed harlot of Renaissance art.

But if you think about it – and read the Gospel accounts – Magdalene showed way more courage than the 11 male disciples, when push came to shove. While those 11 disciples cowered in their room, hiding out lest the Romans punish them as well, Mary went alone to the empty tomb.  John 20:1: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.” Thus the one indisputable fact about Mary is that she was both the first person to visit the empty tomb, and the first person to see the risen Jesus. (John 20:11-16.)

That’s why St. Augustine called her the “Apostle to the Apostles.” And that may have accounted for stories of her “sordid past.” Jealous men – both at the time and later – trying to cover up their own cowardice, or their own bias, by sullying her reputation. So one possible lesson from all this? Keep on “pilgrimaging.” Good results keep coming even after you die!

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Mary of Magdala, arguably a “pilgrim” even after she died…

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The upper image is courtesy of Pilgrimage – Image Results, which led me to Why the Oldest Form of Travel Could Be the Most Popular in a Post=COVID World: “Pilgrimages are the oldest form of travel,” from the start to go to shrines or temples and leave offerings, and/or connect to God or ancestors. Also defined as a “hyper-meaningful journey” or “sacred endeaver,” making it different from regular forms of travel or leisure; “it is the meaning or transformation that occurs.”

One pilgrimage that has exploded is the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes in Europe. There are many pathways, but one of the main pathways is the Camino Frances, which is a trail that goes from France to the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Santiago, Spain. 

In my experience the Camino Frances was already pretty well “exploded” in 2017. So much so that my brother Tom took to taking detours away from the main route, and all those fellow pilgrims repeating over and over, “Hola, Buen Camino!” See the October 2017 “Hola! Buen Camino!”

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

For this post I also borrowed from 2014’s “St. James the Greater,” 2017’s Mary of Magdala and James the Greater, Saints, and Mary of Magdala and James the Pilgrim – 2022.

On “sluts.” The term had a different meaning from 1375 to 1425 – and apparently up to 1879. From the “late Middle English slutte; compare dial. slut mud, Norwegian (dial.) slutr,” which translated to “sleet” or “impure liquid.” See Slut at Dictionary.com:

Slut first appeared in the written language in 1402, according to the Oxford English Dictionary…   At that time, slut meant roughly what one sense of slattern means today: a slovenly, untidy woman or girl.  It also apparently meant “kitchen maid” (”She is a cheerful slut who keeps the pots scrubbed and the fires hot.”).

On sleeping bags, see Sleeping bag – Wikipedia, or A short history of sleeping bags – Wilderness Magazine. Versions of the “new-fangled invention” were first offered for sale in the late 19th century.

On “Compostela” and translating the name “James.” The name of the city is “commonly thought to be derived from the word ‘apostle,’ although a Spanish-speaking list member reports having heard it derived from ‘field of stars,'” which in Latin would be “campus stellarum.” The name James in Spanish is “Diego” or “Iago” – thus “Saint Iago” – and in most languages, “James” and “Jacob” are identical.

For the last part about Stevenson – and why geezers like me keep searching for adventure in their old age – I borrowed from Canoeing 12 miles offshore, a May 2015 post on my companion blog. It addressed the musical question, “Why would two old geezers – 63 and 69 respectively – paddle so far out, into the realm of sharks and drownings?” (Over eight years ago.)

On Maudlin, see Definition in American English | Collins Online Dictionary. The word has come to mean foolishly, tearfully and/or weakly sentimental, or “sad and sentimental in a foolish way.” The site noted that Mary Magdalene “was often represented with eyes red from weeping.”

Also on “Apostle to the Apostles,” see Mary Magdalene, “Apostle to the Apostles,” Given Equal Dignity in Feast, by order of Pope Francis in 2016.

The lower image is courtesy of wikipedia.org/wiki/Penitent_Magdalene_(Titian,_1565):

The Penitent Magdalene is a 1565 oil painting by Titian of saint Mary Magdalene, now in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.  Unlike his 1533 version of the same subject, Titian has covered Mary’s nudity and introduced a vase, an open book and a skull as a memento mori.  Its coloring is more mature than the earlier work, using colors harmoni[z]ing with character.  In the background the sky is bathed in the rays of the setting sun, with a dark rock contrasting with the brightly lit figure of Mary.

Also, Titian did a “racier” version in 1533. See Penitent Magdalene (Titian, 1533) – Wikipedia. For more on this Mary see also MARY MAGDALENE, Bible Woman: first witness to Resurrection, and What Did Mary Magdalene look like?

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On today’s Pharisees – and “Freedom ’23”

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Pharisees have gotten a bad rep since the time of Jesus.

It wasn’t always so. Some Pharisees followed Jesus. They included Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and a man named Saul, who later became Paul. You may have heard of him. He later became second only to Jesus in his contribution to Christianity and its growth.

But people are more familiar with the downside, as in Matthew 23:13. Jesus: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter.” And Mark 7:6, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.'” In time they inherited the reputation, “especially on the pulpits of many churches, of being ‘holier than thou’ and esteeming themselves more highly than others.” 

Or as Dictionary.com said, “a sanctimonious, self-righteous, or hypocritical person.”

And it’s mostly because of today’s Pharisees (I’d say), that church attendance has fallen. In 1999 70% of Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. In 2018 it was 50%, and in 2020 it was 47%. That’s the first time in 80 years of polling the percentage fell below half.

A lot of it has to do with politics. Specifically, “Christians” who use the Faith as a tool of political power. I addressed the problem in Ash Wednesday and Lent – 2023. Speaking of Christian nationalists and the like, I noted that Garry Wills for one said Jesus was above politics. “My Kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36.) And Wills and “What Jesus (REALLY) Meant” said Jesus simply never got involved in politics. He focused instead on healing the divisions so prevalent during His time on earth. (Not making them worse, “as some politicians do today.”)

A big part of solving the problem is finding a suitable name for such people, “Christians” who drive away possible new Christians “in droves.” I’ve tried such as “No Such Thing as a Conservative Christian.” (A book under my nom de plume.) But that’s painting with too broad a brush. Or terms like Fundamentalist or Literalist. But as noted, all Christians should start out with “the fundamentals,” as in Army boot camp. Besides, both terms have too many syllables.

I finally came up with “CMCs.” Close-minded Christians. Christians who don’t follow what Jesus said in Luke 24:45. But what’s that got to do with “Freedom [in] ’23?” Just this, that only last Sunday I found a secret weapon against CMCs. Romans 5:6, “Christ died for the ungodly.”

The fact that they call themselves Christians is what you can say is the Achilles’ heel of CMCs, Christian Nationalists and the like. Their “weakness in spite of overall strength, which can lead to downfall.” (Or that might just lead to a Christian Nationalist becoming more of true Christian. Aside from that, it might do you some good too. See James 5:20.)

The point is that whenever a CMC insults a fellow American citizen – solely because that fellow citizen doesn’t follow the precise CMC party line – you can always ask, “Are [fill in the blank] the Ungodly?” Assuming the CMC answers yes (thus walking right into your trap), you can respond, “That’s funny, Romans 5:6 says that Jesus died for the ungodly.”

You can take it from there. The endless variations include Matthew 5:44, where Jesus said to love not just your neighbor, but your enemy as well. Which brings up Independence Day, just past, and how Romans 5:6 can help Americans keep free and independent. (Free from harassment, name-calling and worse for all Americans, not just those you agree with.)

 This idea of independence – national, secular or religious – can be messy. For one thing, freedom means the ability to make stupid choices. Also Living Stingy: “You can’t have freedom, unless you have the freedom to make bad choices.” Or choices that not every American agrees with. Which brings up early Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom, written in large part by Thomas Jefferson, who went on to shape the Declaration of Independence. (Speaking of Independence.) In that statute the Virginia Burgesses gave up a monopoly on religion.  

They wrote that when a majority tries to influence the beliefs of others, they “beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness.” (“Like it was written yesterday!”) The Burgesses also noted the  “impious presumption of legislators and rulers,” to establish “their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible.” Thus when “fallible and uninspired men” try and establish their own view of religion as “the only true and infallible,” we’re headed for trouble.

In other words, that religion is best that proves itself in the “free market place of ideas.” (See Marketplace of ideas – Wikipedia.) In further words, if your faith is true and sound, you won’t be afraid of a little competition.

The statute concluded by noting, “Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself… [It] has nothing to fear from the conflict.” So on this just-past July 4th, here’s to freedom, healthy competition in religion, and America’s Adversary system as the best way to find The Truth.

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A true Christian will never be afraid of a little healthy competition…

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The upper image is courtesy of Modern Day Pharisees – Image Results. Mark 7:6 has Jesus saying, You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.'” In answer to the Scribes and Pharisees asking why His disciples did not “walk according to the tradition of the elders? “Note also the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, saying the four sources of spiritual development are the Bible, tradition, reason and experience. Of these four, “Apart from scripture, experience is the strongest proof of Christianity.”

See also Pharisees – Wikipedia, noting they believed in an afterlife, but the Sadducees did not:

Pharisees are notable by the numerous references to them in the New Testament. While the writers record hostilities between the Pharisees and Jesus, they also reference Pharisees who believed in him, including Nicodemus, who said it is known that Jesus is a teacher sent from God, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple, and an unknown number of “those of the party of the Pharisees who believed,” among them the Apostle Paul – a student of Gamaliel, who warned the Sanhedrin that opposing the disciples of Jesus could prove to be tantamount to opposing God – even after becoming an apostle of Jesus.

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Pharisees as “Holier than thou.” See Who are the Pharisees Today? Meet the Pharisees and Sadducees. See also, as noted, my post On Ash Wednesday and Lent – 2023.

Church membership falling: Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline, or Why Is Church Membership in America on the Decline?

“Only last Sunday.” The readings for July 9, 2023: “AM Psalm 146, 147; PM Psalm 111, 112, 113 [-] 1 Samuel 14:36-45Rom. 5:1-11Matt. 22:1-14.”

A note: I found some interesting reading Googling “liberal insult conservative.”

“Independence Day.” The link is to On Independence Day, 2018. See also On Independence Day, 2016, and – earlier – On the Bible readings for July 4, 2014.

The lower image is courtesy of Lady With Scales Of Justice – Image Results.

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On John “T. Baptist” – 2023 (et alia)

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Salome beguiled her dad – Herod II – into beheading John the Baptist…

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For starters, today, a change of pace question: “Is God is man or woman?” Should we address Himanthropomorphism – as Father (Abba) or Mother? In my view, “He” is both. God is the Ultimate Married Couple. (No autocratic Pater familias.) We humans – men and women, alone – are only “half” of what we could and should be. That explains the “we” in passages like and Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 11:7, and why men and women spend so much time and effort trying to get together. (Illustrated in part by Salome‘s ability to beguile her father.) 

Well, that and the hormones…

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Back to a main theme of the blog. We have two major feast days at the end of June. Saturday, June 24, was the feast remembering the Birth of St. John, the Baptist. Next Thursday, June 29, is the day for remembering St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles. Thus the “et alia” in the title, meaning “and others,” and those others are Saints Peter and Paul.

The 2015 post Nativity of John the Baptist noted that John was the prophet who “foretold the coming of the Messiah in the person of Jesus, whom he later baptised.” Luke 1:57-80 tells of Elizabeth – cousin of Mary (mother of Jesus) – becoming a mother, late in life, and how her husband got  struck dumb. (Elizabeth had been barren, and she and her husband were old).

The time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.  Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced…  [T]hey were going to name him Zechariah after his father.  But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.”  They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.”  Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him.  He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John…”

John grew up to serve as forerunner or advance man for Jesus. (As in, “News Flash:  Jesus is on the way!“) As it says in the Collect: “your servant John the Baptist … sent to prepare the way of your Son our Savior.” But there was a downside to the job. That’s where Salome came in:

[T]hat “advance work for Jesus” included a gruesome death by beheading, as told in Mark 6:14–29:  “the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to [Salome]… When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.”

There’s more detail in the “Nativity 2015” post, but you get the idea.

The post John the Baptist, Peter and Paul – 2016 noted each year on January 18 we celebrate the Confession of Peter:  “Thou art the Christ, Son of the Living God.” A week later on January 25 we celebrate the Conversion of St. Paul. Then comes June 29, when we celebrate both saints, together. And mostly to remember the “translation of their relics:”

On 29 June we commemorate the martyrdoms of both apostles. The date is the anniversary of a day around 258, under the Valerian Persecution, when what were believed to be the remains of the two apostles were both moved temporarily to prevent them from falling into the hands of the persecutors.

Here the term relic means the body parts of people considered holy. (Like Peter and Paul.) Translating relics means moving those holy objects from one locale to another. (Usually to a “better neighborhood,” metaphorically or otherwise.) As for their deaths, the Bible gives no detail. But early tradition said they were martyred at Rome, at the command of the Emperor:

As a Roman citizen, Paul would probably have been beheaded with a sword. It is said of Peter that he was crucified head downward[. And thus as St. Augustine wrote,] “even though they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. And so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles’ blood…”

Another point to remember: It’s okay for Christians to have different opinions. (No human being is infallible.) Even saints like Peter and Paul disputed, including the Incident at Antioch. Of the dispute Wikipedia said the outcome remains uncertain, “resulting in several Christian views of the Old Covenant to this day.” (That dispute involved how much of the Old Testament law was binding on new, non-Jewish Christians. Like whether new, non-Jewish male Christians had to get circumcised.) That process of dispute resolution – called dialectics – is how we make spiritual progress, working together. That’s called the adversary system in our country.

Since the Fourth of July is coming right up, how much more American can you get?

So go ahead. Argue and dispute away. Just try not to tell anyone who dares disagree with you that “you’re going to hell.” (Remembering Deuteronomy 19:16, “et sequitur.”)

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“Scholars Disputing” – but Peter and Paul still worked together for Jesus…

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The upper image is courtesy of Salome – Wikipedia. The caption: “‘Salomé,’ by Henri Regnault (1870).The article added that this Salome (III) was…

…a Jewish princess, the daughter of Herod II, who was the son of Herod the Great, with princess Herodias. She was granddaughter of Herod the Great, and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas. She is known from the New Testament, where she is not named, and from an account by Flavius Josephus. In the New Testament, the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas demands and receives the head of John the Baptist.

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Re: God as man or woman. Google “is god man or woman,” or see Is God a Man, Woman or Neither? – Bible Study: “Since God is composed of spirit (John 4:24), he is not male or female, masculine or feminine… Yet, in scripture, the Eternal constantly refers to Himself as a ‘He, not as an ‘it’ or as a ‘she.’ This truth makes some feminists not happy.” That’s an Old School answer, but my take on the question solves that problem. Or see Gender of God – Wikipedia, “Classical western philosophy believes that God lacks a literal sex as it would be impossible for God to have a body:”

In the Hebrew and Christian Bible, God is usually described in male terms in biblical sources, with female analogy in Genesis 1:26-27, Psalm 123:2-3, and Luke 15:8-10; a mother in Deuteronomy 32:18, Isaiah 66:13, Isaiah 49:15, Isaiah 42:14, Psalm 131:2; and a mother hen in Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34, although never directly referred to as being female.

Also, “In Mormonism, God the Father is male and is married to the female Heavenly Mother.”

On these two feast days see also On “John T. Baptist,” Peter and Paul – 2021.

The lower image is courtesy of Two Scholars Disputing by REMBRANDT Harmenszoon … (web gallery of art.)  The explanatory section added that the most likely explanation of the painting is that it “represents St Peter and St Paul in conversation,” or even Argument:

Rembrandt omits the attributes by which the two apostles were traditionally identified, he relies only on their physical characteristics … and on what they are seen to be doing, that is earnestly discussing a text which the one (St Peter) is explaining to the other.

For other interpretations and/or images, see also www.canvasreplicas.com/Rembrandt.htm.  See also Two Scholars Disputing by REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn.

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Mary’s Visitation and Jefferson’s Monster – 2023

Artist He Qi‘s interpretation of The Holy Spirit Coming down OR: “Jefferson’s Monster…”

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Welcome to “read the Bible – expand your mind:”

The Book of Common Prayer says that by sharing Holy Communion, Christians become “very members incorporate in the mystical body” of Jesus. The words “corporate” and “mystical” are the key. They show that a healthy church has two sides. The often-overlooked “mystical” side asks, “How do I experience God?” This blog will try to answer that.

It has four main themes. The first is that God will accept anyone. (See John 6:37.) The second is that God wants us to live lives of abundance. (John 10:10.) The third is that Jesus wants us to read the Bible with an open mind. As it says in Luke 24:45: “Then He [Jesus] opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” The fourth theme – and most often overlooked – is that Jesus wants us to do even greater miracles than He did. (John 14:12.) 

And this thought ties them together:

The best way to live abundantly and do greater miracles than Jesus is: Read, study and apply the Bible with an open mind. For more see the notes or – to expand your mind – see the Intro.

In the meantime:

May 28, 2023, was Pentecost Sunday. (The Day of Pentecost, not the Season of Pentecost.) Three days later, May 31, 2023, celebrated the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin. A week later, Sunday, June 4, came the First Sunday after Pentecost, also called Trinity Sunday.

The weekend of Trinity Sunday, I visited West Springfield, Massachussetts. My brother and his family live there, and they insisted I come up to see the 2023 NEPM Asparagus Festival. The “family-focused event offers more than 100 local vendors providing food, beer, wine and cider as well as agricultural crafts and exhibits.” Including a lot of attention to Asparagus.

I may update all that later,* but in “the other meantime,” back to the the Feast of the Visitation. And Trinity Sunday. Past posts include The Visitation – 2016, Mary’s Visitation – and Pentecost – 2017, and – from May 2018 – The Trinity – Jefferson’s “3-headed monster.”

Taking the last one first, the 2018 post noted first that Pentecost Sunday is the birthday of what was one church. (Now many denominations, hopefully united in Faith.) It marked a big change in Ministry. Before Pentecost One, “the Spirit was poured out almost exclusively on prophets, priests, and kings.” But now God recruited “all different sorts of people for ministry… All would be empowered to minister regardless of their gender, age, or social position.” Thus the First Pentecost was a “momentous, watershed event.”

Which brings up the Trinity – as in Trinity Sunday. Many find “God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit” hard to understand. Even one as smart as Thomas Jefferson. He called the idea a “Three-headed Monster.” (A side note: I like better the metaphor, “an ocean in which to swim.”) I said Jefferson was too much like Nicodemus, taking the Bible “way too literally.” Or you could say:

The Trinity is one of the most fascinating – and controversial – Christian dogmas.  The Trinity is a mystery.  By mystery the Church does not mean a riddle, but rather the Trinity is a reality above our human comprehension that we may begin to grasp, but ultimately must know through worship, symbol, and faith.  It has been said that [this] mystery is not a wall to run up against, but an ocean in which to swim.

From which we can glean: 1) Reading the Bible too literally only takes your spiritual journey so far. 2) Jesus said – to people who didn’t understand His earthly sayings – “Then how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” 3) John 21:25 noted many things Jesus did, “which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” And finally, 4) “The Lord has not empowered even his holy ones to recount all his marvelous works.” (Ecclesiasticus 42:17.)

Which is another way of saying there’s more to the Bible than meets the eye.

That’s why the Wesleyan Quadrilateral says that apart from Scripture, “experience is the strongest proof of Christianity.” (See also Job 42:5.) In other words, “we cannot have reasonable assurance of something unless we have experienced it personally.” (Apparently Jefferson didn’t have that experience.) In sum, the Trinity is a “reality above our human comprehension.” A reality that we can only begin to grasp. The same is true of much of the Bible, especially the “mystical” parts. (Which may be why some choose literalism. It’s ever so much easier…)

Back to the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (The formal name.) As Wikipedia noted:

The Visitation is the visit of Mary with Elizabeth as recorded [in] Luke 1:39–56.  It is also the name of a Christian feast day[,] celebrated on 31 May…  Mary is pregnant with Jesus and Elizabeth is pregnant with John the Baptist.  Mary left Nazareth immediately after the Annunciation and went “into the hill country” [of Judah] to attend to her cousin.

Wikipedia added, “In the Gospel of Luke, the author’s accounts of the Annunciation and Visitation are constructed using eight points of literary parallelism to compare Mary to the Ark of the Covenant.” (Which I didn’t know.) Also, Mary’s Magnificat echoes Old Testament passages including the Song of Hannah, in 1st Samuel 2:1-10. There’s more background in Visitation – 2016, but here’s the main point: On May 31 we celebrate the early meeting of Mary and cousin Elizabeth. “Their meeting sets the stage for all that will come later, and it is women who recognize it first.” (See also Mary Magdalene, “Apostle to the Apostles.”)

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The Virgin Mary in prayer – Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato

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The upper image is courtesy of The Good Heart: Holy Spirit Coming (Painting by He Qi):  

“A genuinely good heart is a heart that is open and alight with understanding.  It listens to the sorrows of the world.  Our society is wrong to think that happiness depends on fulfilling one’s own wants and desires.  That is why our society is so miserable…”

See also He Qi « Artist:  “One could say that among other things his paintings are a celebration of colour.  The style of his work is iconic, and [his] images are strong but gentle.”

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

For more on the Asparagus Festival, see Ninth annual Asparagus Festival held on Hadley town common – MSN. Or Google “asparagus festival western massachusetts.” Then on Sunday June 4, we visited the “Little Poland” festival. See 10th annual Little Poland Festival takes place in New Britain (CT), and PHOTOS: New Britain celebrated Little Poland Festival. My verdict, the Asparagus Festival featured draft beer, the Polish Festival only canned. Plus the Polish Festival was livelier, with more music and lots of people celebrating and “dancing in the streets.”

See also Pentecost – “Happy Birthday, Church!”

Re: Trinity. According to What is the origin of the doctrine of the Trinity, “The Trinity is Christianity’s most unique, defining, incomprehensible, and awesome mystery.” And that while some “unbelievers mistakenly call this a contradiction,” it is rather “a mystery revealed by God in His Word.”

Re: Jefferson’s “Three-headed Monster.” In his letter of December 1822, he used phrases like “hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus,” and that with Christian believers, “gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.”

“Heavenly things.” John 3:12, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?”

Re: Job 42:5. The Bible Hub site has different translations. The CE Version reads, “I heard about you from others; now I have seen you with my own eyes.” The NLT reads, “I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.” See also Barnes’ Notes on the Bible:

We are not to suppose that Job means to say that he actually “saw” God, but that his apprehensions of him were clear and bright “as if” he did. There is no evidence that God appeared to Job in any visible form. He is said, indeed, to have spoken from the whirlwind, but no visible manifestation of Yahweh is mentioned.

The lower image is courtesy of the Marian perspectives link at Mary, mother of Jesus – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The caption:  “The Virgin in Prayer, by Sassoferrato, c. 1650.”  (Or in the alternative:  “Jungfrun i bön (1640-1650). National GalleryLondon.”)

My 2016 post included a cite to The Visitation Painting by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, and this:

Although not a big part of the Christmas story today, in the past, the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth was considered very important.  The two women were cousins.  Elizabeth, an old woman, is the wife of the priest Zechariah, who is told by an angel that his elderly wife will become pregnant.  Unknown to the couple, their child will grow up to become John the Baptist.  Mary was pregnant with Jesus.  When they meet, Elizabeth’s baby leaps for joy inside her womb.  Elizabeth and Mary both realize that Mary’s child is very special.  Their meeting sets the stage for all that will come later, and it is women who recognize it first.

The site added that all paintings of the Visitation “are based on the Gospel of Luke, 1:40-45, the only place where this story appears.”

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As noted in the opening blurb, this blog has four main themes. The first is that God will accept anyone. (John 6:37, with the added, “Anyone who comes to Him.”) The second is that God wants us to live abundantly.  (John 10:10.) The third is that we should do greater miracles than Jesus. (John 14:12). A fourth theme: The only way to do all that is read the Bible with an open mind:

…closed-mindedness, or an unwillingness to consider new ideas, can result from the brain’s natural dislike for ambiguity. According to this view, the brain has a “search and destroy” relationship with ambiguity and evidence contradictory to people’s current beliefs tends to make them uncomfortable… Research confirms that belief-discrepant-closed-minded persons have less tolerance for cognitive inconsistency

So in plain words, this blog takes issue with boot-camp Christians. They’re the Biblical literalists who never go “beyond the fundamentals.” But the Bible can offer so much more than their narrow reading can offer…  (Unless you want to stay a Bible buck private all your life…) Now, about “Boot-camp Christians.” See for example, Conservative Christian – “Career buck private?”  The gist of that post is that starting the Bible is like Army Basic Training. You begin by“learning the fundamentals.” But after boot camp, you move on to Advanced Individual Training.” 

http://www.toywonders.com/productcart/pc/catalog/aw30.jpg

However, after boot camp, you move on to Advanced Individual Training. And as noted in “Buck private,” one of this blog’s themes is that if you want to be all that you can be, you need to go on and explore the “mystical side of Bible reading.*” In other words, exploring the mystical side of the Bible helps you “be all that you can be.” See Slogans of the U.S. Army – Wikipedia, re: the recruiting slogan from 1980 to 2001. The related image at left is courtesy of: “toywonders.com/productcart/pc/catalog/aw30.jpg.” 

Re: “mystical.” Originally, mysticism “referred to the Biblical liturgical, spiritual, and contemplative dimensions of early and medieval Christianity.” See Mysticism – Wikipedia, and the post On originalism.  (“That’s what the Bible was originally about!”) See also Christian mysticism – Wikipedia, “In early Christianity the term ‘mystikos’ referred to three dimensions, which soon became intertwined, namely the biblical, the liturgical and the spiritual or contemplative… The third dimension is the contemplative or experiential knowledge of God.” As to that “experiential” aspect, see also Wesleyan Quadrilateral – Wikipedia, on the method of theological reflection with four sources of spiritual development: scripturetradition, reason, and “Christian experience.”

For an explanation of the Daily Office – where “Dorscribe” came from – see What’s a DOR

On “her spirit returned” – and Ascension Day

When Jesus spoke to the daughter of Jairus, “her spirit returned” – she came back to life…

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Saturday, May 20, 2023 – The Daily Office Readings for Friday, May 12, included Luke 8. Starting at verse 40, Luke 8:40-56 tells of Jesus raising a dead girl and healing a sick woman.

That Friday morning, Luke 8:55 caught my eye.

It all started when Jairus, a “ruler of the synagogue,” asked Jesus to come to his house. His only daughter, 12 years old, was dying. But by the time Jesus healed the sick woman, a man came from Jairus’ house and said, “Your daughter is dead… Don’t bother the teacher anymore.”

Jesus assured Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”

When Jesus got to the house and told mourners the daughter wasn’t dead, but sleeping, “They laughed at Him.” (A strange reaction?) Then came Luke 8:55. Jesus went into the room where the body lay, with the parents and three disciples. He spoke to her, and, “Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up.” (Other translations read, “And her spirit returned.”)

Which made me wonder, “Where did her spirit go?” (Between the time she died and when Jesus brought her back to life.) Put another way, “Where did her soul go?” (And is there a difference, between soul and spirit?) The Bible tells of at least 10 People Raised From the Dead, including Jairus’ daughter, Lazarus, and Tabitha. (Dorcas.) They all raise the question, “Where did their souls – or spirits – go, between the time they died and they were brought back to life?”

Those are deep questions, but somehow they seem related to the idea of Ensoulment:

[T]he moment at which a human or other being gains a soul. Some belief systems maintain that a soul is newly created within a developing child and others, especially in religions that believe in reincarnation, [or] that the soul is pre-existing and added at a particular stage of development. [Emphasis added.]

Wikipedia added Aristotle‘s saying the human soul enters the forming body some time after conception. (40 days later for male embryos or 90 days for female embryos, though he didn’t say how to tell the difference.) He added that quickening –  when a pregnant woman first starts to feel the fetus move – “was an indication of the presence of a soul.” That in turn raises the question: “Where do these souls – entering into the fetus – come from? Are they created ex nihilo at the moment of conception? Are they ‘created’ at all, as we understand the term?”

We might answer those questions by asking another question. “Is the human soul a form of energy?” If the human soul is a form of energy, we have our answer. The First law of thermodynamics says that “energy is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes form.” Which means that if a human soul is a form of energy – and I’d say it is – then it is neither created at the moment of conception, nor destroyed at the moment of death.

Then there’s Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”

I could say “The Bible Says It, I Believe It, That Settles It,” but that would only raise a host of new questions to debate.* For now let’s just say that at least this once, the First law of thermodynamics and Jeremiah 1:5 support each other. (Even if they don’t agree exactly.) God knew Jeremiah’s soul – or spirit – at some time before He formed Jeremiah “in the womb.”

Which again makes me wonder, “Where exactly was Jeremiah’s soul, or spirit, before God formed him in the womb?” That too is a deep question, but this and the other deep questions all seem somehow related to the most recent Feast Day, to wit: The Feast of the Ascension. (“Related” to me at least. INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW!)

This Feast – coming this year on May 18 – commemorates the “bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven.” (And it’s “ecumenical,” meaning “universally celebrated.”) In terms of importance it ranks right up there “with the feasts of the Passion, of Easter, and Pentecost.” It’s always celebrated on a Thursday, the 40th day of Easter. (More precisely, the 40th day of Eastertide, the 50-day church season running from Easter Day to Pentecost Sunday.)

That’s the part of the Gospel account that began when Jesus led the disciples out of the room where He first appeared, and on out of Jerusalem. (“To the vicinity of Bethany,” right after Luke 24:45, where He “opened their minds,” as noted above.) Then came Luke 24:50-51:

When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.

And speaking of the First law of thermodynamics, I first mentioned that concept back in 2014’s On Ascension Day. I argued then that that Law was “proof positive that the human soul – a definite form of energy – is neither ‘created nor destroyed, but simply changes form.’” Which to me raised the question, “Where was my soul before I was born?” I included a Note:

That brings to mind a meditation from the Kaballah (basically, “Jewish mysticism”). See e.g. Kabbalah – Wikipedia. In the meditation, you imagine your soul, before you were born, in the situational-equivalent of sitting around a kitchen table. You are sitting around this hypothetical table with other souls yet to be born. With these other souls, you talk about your future life, looking ahead to what you might accomplish in your upcoming “incarnation.” 

And if that’s an accurate representation, it could explain how God “knew Jeremiah’s soul” at some time before He formed the prophet “in the womb.” But of course there are plenty of people who don’t believe in the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven, or the whole idea of life after life for that matter. That’s where we Christians turn to Hebrews 12:2, which calls Jesus “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” And a pioneer is “a person who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area.” So just as Jesus ascended to heaven – body and soul – we have the hope of following Him there at the end of our earthly pilgrimage.

But of course the best proof for all this comes from personal experience, and I can say from personal experience* that there’s definitely something to this “Jesus stuff.”

You can take my word for it, or you can work to interact with God yourself. Either way:

Here’s wishing you a happy (belated) Ascension Day!

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 “Jesus’ ascension to heaven,” by John Singleton Copley

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The upper image is courtesy of The Raising of the Daughter of Jairus, 1881 – Gabriel von Max.

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

The full Daily Office readings for Friday, May 12, 2023: “AM Psalm 106:1-18; PM Psalm 106:19-48, Wisdom 16:15-17:1Rom[ans] 14:13-23Luke 8:40-56.

Re Luke 8:55. See also, Raising of Jairus’ daughter – Wikipedia. The daughter’s age “represents the age at which girls come of age in Judaism,” and thus:

Mark and Luke mention the girl’s age to emphasi[z]e the tragedy of her dying before her father could marry her off, receive a dowry and expect grandchildren to continue his lineage. Mary Ann Getty-Sullivan (2001): ‘Thus the father may have faced financial loss as well as social disgrace, in addition to the personal sorrow of his daughter’s illness and death.

Re: The subtle difference between spirit and soul. See What Is the Difference Between a Soul and a Spirit, or What Is the Difference between the Soul and the Spirit?

Re: Ensoulment and quickening: “Other religious views are that ensoulment happens at the moment of conception; or when the child takes the first breath after being born; at the formation of the nervous system and brain; at the first detectable sign of brain activity; or when the fetus is able to survive independently of the uterus (viability).”

Re: First law of thermodynamics and the idea that energy is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes form. I found that thought comforting, somehow, years ago when my nephew (Kenny) died tragically, too young and for no apparent purpose. That was an example of “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” (Nietzsche.) My Faith was shaken to the core, but came out stronger.

Re: “Creatio ex nihilo.” According to Wikipedia, the term – Latin for “creation out of nothing” – is the doctrine that matter – including souls and energy itself – “is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe comes to exist. It is in contrast to ‘Ex nihilo nihil fit’ or ‘nothing comes from nothing.'” 

Re: “The Bible Says It, I Believe It, That Settles It.” That article notes the “oversimplification of scripture [which] ignores a host of historical and cultural considerations we must take into account when we study scripture because there were historical and cultural circumstances that directly influenced the writing of the Bible.” It cites Bible passages that support killing “witches,” and children who curse their parents, for example. See also Just because you believe the Bible ‘says it’ doesn’t ‘settle it:'”

To use the Bible in this way is an oversimplification at best and a lazy or arrogant generalization at worst. The author of Hebrews challenges us to see the word of God (logos) as a breathing life-force that is actively effective to penetrate into the depths of each of us, bringing conviction and discernment to our lives as we engage in relational interaction with the Spirit of God… [Further,] squabbles over inerrancy lose substantive value and overlook the contamination of the Scriptures by frail and sinful humans. Humans transmitted, wrote, transcribed, translated and interpreted the Bible.

Note also the definition of INTERACTION, according to the Cambridge Dictionary: “an occasion when two or more people or things communicate with or react to each other.See also Wesleyan Quadrilateral – Wikipedia, on the four sources of theological and doctrinal development, of which personal experience – personal interaction with God – “is the strongest proof of Christianity.”

Re: INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, the term is “used when asking someone to give you information that was previously secret or unknown.” But see also National Enquirer – Wikipedia, “During the 1980s, the tabloid’s slogan in radio and TV ads was ‘Enquiring minds want to know.'” 

On the May 18 feast day see also Ascension Day 2017 – “Then He opened their minds.

Re: Hebrews 12:2. The full passage reads: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

The lower image is courtesy of the Wikipedia article, Ascension of Jesus. To the caption above I added, after He – Jesus – “opened their minds…”

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On Saints Mark, Philip and James – 2023

St. Mark, second from the right. His symbol is a lion, seen sleeping in the right foreground…) 

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Saturday, April 29, 2023 – Last Tuesday, April 25, was the Feast Day for Saint Mark, also known as Mark the Evangelist. Next Monday, May 1, is the Feast Day for St. Philip and St. James.

Turning to St. Mark first, his Gospel is a Cinderella story. For centuries the Early Church Fathers neglected his Gospel. St. Augustine called it “the drudge and condenser” of Matthew. His written Greek was clumsy and more awkward than the more-polished Greek of Matthew, Luke and John. Result? Mark’s was the “least cited Gospel in the early Christian period:”

But “this Cinderella got her glass slipper,” beginning in the 19th century…  That’s when Bible scholars finally noticed the other three Gospels all cited material from Mark, but “he does not do the same for them…” As a result of that, since the 19th century Mark’s “has become the most studied and influential Gospel.”

In other words, later scholars concluded that Mark “started the process and set the pattern of and for the other three Gospels.” That late recognition – of Mark as the real trend-setter of the four Gospels – is where the Cinderella metaphor comes in. On the other hand, there’s some debate whether the Great Commission at the end of his Gospel is authentic.

That end, Mark 16:14–18, leads to a question: Did Mark write it, or was it added later?

According to some critics … Jesus never speaks with his disciples after his resurrection. They argue that the original Gospel of Mark ends at [16:8] with the women leaving the tomb.

Mark 16:8 says the women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome – “fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” That could be a bad place to end a Gospel of hope, so some scholars think a later redactor added more to the part after Mark 16:8.

That add-on included the Great Commission, maybe to cheer things up.

I explored this idea in 2015’s St. Mark’s “Cinderella story.” One scholar said that if the Gospel ended at 16:8, Mark had painted a “bleak and frightening picture.” But he did so – the scholar said – because that was what Mark’s main audience was going through at the time. His Gospel – ending at 16:8 – merely reflected that great persecution. In other words, Mark didn’t candy coat the trials and tribulations that all followers of Jesus can go through.

But is that Mark 16:8 ending so bad? Here’s what leads up to verse 8:

As they entered the tomb, [the women] saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

Even without the Great Commission, this ending offers hope. As one author said, there’s “a mystery in it, a divine mystery of God’s revelation that will happen yet. And I think it’s that sense of hope that is deeply appealing.” In other words, that “terrible anguished” original ending – even without the Great Commission – is nevertheless “not the ending.”

One view is that the shorter ending means the Resurrection continues “even to this day.” By and through the way we live our lives even 2,000 years after Jesus. Another view is that an ending at Mark 16:8 simply reflects the reality that life isn’t a bowl of cherries. A third view is that a good Christian is not called to a life of ease: “It is to vigor, not comfort that you are called.“

The longer ending presents a neat and tidy happy ending, all wrapped up in ribbons and bows. The shorter ending gives us a picture of life as it really is. Including Christians , and that can be confusing to some of them. (But only to those who haven’t developed a strong Faith.)

And speaking of confusion, that leads to Saints Philip and James. The problem is, we’re not sure who they are. “James” was popular and widespread name in Jesus’ time. It was associated with Jacob, who became “Israel” by wresting with the angel in Genesis 32:24-32. The English name “James” is a variant of “Jacob,” or in Hebrew, “Ya’akov.” And the New Testament lists at least three “James” who could fit the bill, and possibly as many as eight.

Our best guess is the James remembered on May 1 is James the Lesser, also called James the Son of Alphaeus. (Not to be confused with James the Greater, also called “James the Elder.”) This lesser James “appears only four times in the New Testament, each time in a list of the twelve apostles.” But he gets his own feast day, as does St. Philip.

The best guess here is that this Philip is Philip the Apostle, but there was also a Philip the Deacon. “One of the seven men chosen by the Apostles to perform certain administrative tasks for the poor in the early Christian community at Jerusalem (Acts 6:5-7). Because of his zeal in preaching the gospel he became known as Philip the Evangelist (Acts 21:8).”

But again, our best guess is the May 1 Feast Day remembers Philip the Apostle. Wikipedia had this Philip as a disciple from Bethsaida, and that Andrew and Peter were from the same town. Jesus tested him in John 6:6, and he and Andrew told Jesus about some Greeks who wanted to see Him in John 12:20-22. Wikipedia also noted that this Philip is not to be confused the “the Deacon,” in Acts 8:26-40, “Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.” In past posts I’ve made that mistake myself. As to why these two saints are celebrated together:

The two apostles Philip and James the Lesser are remembered with a single liturgical feast because their relics, transferred respectively from Hierapolis and Jerusalem, were placed together in the Basilica of the Twelve Holy Apostles [“Santi Apostoli“] in Rome.

So as I ended my 2022 post, Here’s to Saints Philip and James – “Whoever you are.

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Saints Philip and James the Lesser – in the “Basilica of the 12 Holy Apostles…*” 

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The upper image is courtesy of Peter Paul Rubens: The Four Evangelists:  “Rubens portrayed the four evangelists while working together on their texts.  An angel helps them…   Each gospel author can be identified by an attribute. The attributes were derived from the opening verses of the gospels.  From left to right: Luke (bull), Matthew (man [angel]), Mark (lion), and John (eagle).” See also Four Evangelists – Wikipedia.

I borrowed from past posts including 2015’s On St. Mark’s “Cinderella story,” 2016’s More on “arguing with God” – and St. Mark as Cinderella, On St. Mark, 2020 – and today’s “plague,” On St. Philip and St. James – May, 2020, and 2022’s Here’s to Saints Philip and James – “Whoever you are.”

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

“Vigor not comfort.” I last noted that phrase from Evelyn Underhill in Thanksgiving 2022 – and an Unknown American Icon. The quote is from Practical Mysticism, by Evelyn Underhill, as edited:

Hearing now and again the mysterious piping of the Shepherd, you realize your own perpetual forward movement . . . and so are able to handle life with a surer hand.  Do not suppose from this that your new career is to be perpetually supported by agreeable spiritual contacts, or occupy itself in the mild contemplation of the great world through which you move.  True, it is said of the Shepherd that he carries the lambs in his bosom; but the sheep are expected to walk, and to put up with the bunts and blunders of the flock.  It is to vigor rather than comfort that you are called.  (E.A.)

Ariel Press (1914), at page 177. See also Evelyn Underhill – Wikipedia.

On developing a strong Faith. See Arguing with God.

Philip the Evangelist is identified as the man in Acts 8:26-40, “Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch,” not Philip the Apostle. Earlier posts to the contrary are mistaken. See also CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Philip the Apostle – New Advent: “The second-century tradition concerning him is uncertain, inasmuch as a similar tradition is recorded concerning Philip the Deacon and Evangelist — a phenomenon which must be the result of confusion caused by the existence of the two Philips.”

Re: Santi Apostoli. A “6th-century Roman Catholic parish and titular church and minor basilica in RomeItaly, dedicated originally to St. James and St. Philip, whose remains are kept here.”

The lower image is courtesy of Saints Philip and James – Franciscan Media. Caption: “Image: Detail of reredos | Polytych by Maestà | Wikimedia.”

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On Doubting Thomas Sunday – 2023

A stained glass version of the Apostle Thomas proving to himself that Jesus had risen…

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Back in 2014, I posted First musings – Readings for Doubting Thomas Sunday. Looking back – nine years later – the post seems primitive. But it was only the second blog post I ever did. My first post was The Bible – Lectionary Musings and Color Commentary. It was about Quasimodo Sunday, also known as Second Sunday of Easter. (Because Easter isn’t one day, it’s a whole season. It lasts 50 days, from Easter Sunday to the day of Pentecost or “Whitsunday.”)

As if all that isn’t confusing enough, this April 16, 2023 – the Second Sunday of Easter – could also be called “the Sunday of Many Names.” Aside from the two mentioned above, it’s called “Doubting Thomas Sunday.” That’s because the Gospel reading is always John 20:19-31, the story of disciple Thomas and the doubts he had about Jesus being risen from the dead after being crucified. It’s also called Low Sunday and the Octave of Easter, but I’ll get to those later.

Getting back to Doubting Thomas, Wikipedia defines the term generically as a “skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience.” The term refers to the Apostle Thomas, “who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross.” On the other hand, you could say that experiencing – in person – the Force that Created the Universe is or should be what church-going is all about. (See for example, Wesleyan Quadrilateral.)

Wikipedia went on to explain that Thomas the Apostle – also called Didymus, meaning “The Twin” – was best known from the account in John 20:19-31. He questioned Jesus’ resurrection at first, but after his direct experience – seeing and touching Jesus’ wounded body – he proclaimed, “My Lord and my God.” Of course we can’t have that direct experience – not in this life anyway – but there’s something to be said for having doubts and then overcoming them.

You could say there are two kinds of faith. The first is blindly believing, without asking any questions, having any doubts or asking how other people have interpreted the Bible. The second type does ask questions, does dig deeper and as a result often comes across doubt. You could think of that second type of faith as a form of resistance training. The Blind Faith Christian doesn’t like “resistance.” He does the same old boring exercise, over and over again, and stays at the same low level of spiritual fitness. The Healthy Doubt Christian welcomes resistance, and asks the probing questions that often lead to doubt. But in the process, he ultimately grows spiritually stronger by overcoming that resistance, by overcoming those doubts.

That 2014 post had a link, If you doubt and question … answers.yahoo.com. It asked, “If you doubt and question your faith will it become stronger?” Unfortunately the current link won’t take you there, but back then the “Best Answer” to the Yahoo question included this:

Remember Thomas, the disciple, who wouldn’t believe in Christ’s resurrection until he put his hand into Jesus’s wounds. He went on to die spreading the gospel in Persia and India. God gave us free choice, He doesn’t want us to be robots, He could have made us like that, but wanted us to choose for ourselves. You learn and grow by questioning. 

In other words, there seem to be Christians who see The Faith of the Bible as a spiritual strait-jacket, a pre-shaped form into which “we” have to mold ourselves. This type of Christian also seems to believe that St. Peter will have some kind of checklist at the Pearly Gates, so that if you don’t answer every litmus test question exactly right you won’t get in.

Other Christians see The Faith as a set of Spiritual Wings, like it says in Isaiah 40:31:

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

I.e., a set of spiritual wings that can take you to wonderful places and experiences you couldn’t imagine. The choice is yours, but as for me an my house, I’ll pick the spiritual wings.

And now back to those other names for the Second Sunday of Easter. One is Low Sunday, because church attendance falls off so drastically that first Sunday “after.” (Compared with the high attendance of Easter Day itself.) Another name is the Octave of Easter. That’s the eight-day period, “or octave, that begins on Easter Sunday and ends with the following Sunday.”

Then there’s that Quasimodo Sunday. But that’s not because of Quasimodo – the guy shown in the image below – better known as the “Hunchback of Notre Dame:”

Instead, the name comes from a Latin translation of the beginning of First Peter 2:2 , a traditional “introit” used in churches on this day. First Peter 2:2 begins – in English and depending on the translation – “As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile…” [Or, “pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up” in salvation.] In Latin the verse reads: “Quasi modo geniti infantes…” Literally, “quasi modo means ‘as if in [this] manner.’”

Since “geniti” translates as “newborn” and the translation of “infantes” seems self-evident, the “quasi modo” in question roughly translates, “As if in the manner” (of newborn babes)

And incidentally, that character in Hunchback of Notre-Dame was named after the opening words of First Peter 2:2. In the New International Version it reads, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.” 

Which brings us back those “Blind Faith” Christians. They like staying “newborn babes,” spiritually. They don’t want to grow up in their salvation. Or as noted below, they stay in the security of Christian boot camp, where they learned the fundamentals. They don’t want to venture out and use the skills they’ve learned. Or have the spiritual adventures of a “spiritual wings” Christian.

The bottom line? Don’t be a Quasimodo!

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The upper image is courtesy of Doubting Thomas – Image Results. See also Crossroads Initiative, which featured the image.

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Season of Easter. See Eastertide – Wikipedia. Also ponder this: The second Sunday after Easter – Easter Sunday – would not be until next Sunday, April 23. On that note see also 2021’s Happy “Sunday of Many Names!”

“As for me and my house.” Joshua 24:15, “if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

Quasimodo Sunday. The link from the Catholic News Agency shows yet another name: The “Sunday following Easter is typically remembered as ‘Divine Mercy Sunday,’ a feast day established by Pope John Paul II which honors the divine mercy of Jesus.”

The lower image is courtesy of Quasimodo – Wikipedia. Caption: “‘A tear for a drop of water’ Esmeralda gives a drink to Quasimodo in one of Gustave Brion‘s illustrations.”

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On the Annunciation and the end of Lent – 2023

“Surprise!” Gabriel makes his announcement to Mary  and she shrinks back in terror…

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Saturday, April 1, 2023 – Last Saturday, March 25, was the Feast day set aside for the Annunciation. The full and formal title is the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, when the Angel Gabriel gave Mary a big surprise. It offers a good metaphor, of how the early Church Fathers sometimes “figured it backwards.” And it all started with the birth of Jesus. 

First, those early Church Fathers decided they’d celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25. (For reasons explained later.) Then figured back nine months. Since they said Jesus was born on December 25, He had to be “conceived” the previous March 25. That’s where the Annunciation comes in. It celebrates “the announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus,” Son of God, “marking his Incarnation.” From there it’s not much of a leap to conclude that Conception and Annunciation had to happen the same day.  “She would conceive” became “she did conceive.”

Which brings up how Mary probably reacted, as shown in the painting above by Rossetti:

…look at Mary’s expression… This is not one of acquiescence or pleasure. This is a look almost of horror at what she has just been told… She is painfully thin and her hesitance and sad look tinged with fear endears her to us. 

Or consider what Garry Wills said: “For me, the most convincing pictures or sculptures of the Annunciation to Mary show her in a state of panic … shrinking off from the angel, looking cornered by him.” He noted especially some 14th century paintings, “where Mary is made so faint by the angel’s words that she sways back and must grab a pillar to keep herself upright.”

Which is one way of saying that being God’s Chosen isn’t always a bowl of cherries. That’s pretty much what Simeon told Mary in Luke 2:35, that “a sword will pierce even your own soul.” (When she presented the eight-day old Jesus in the Temple.) No wonder she shrunk back in terror.

Something to ponder during this Lenten period of “prayer, penance and self-denial.”

As for early Church Fathers choosing December 25 as when Jesus was born, there is one familiar old wives’ tale. That the day was a pagan holiday, Saturnalia, which the Fathers chose “to make Christianity chime with a polytheistic society already attuned to December 25 revelry.” But an article from the Biblical Archaeology Society says that couldn’t be true:

Hippolytus was a Christian author who wrote in the early third century AD, and Saturnalia and the feast of Sol were not celebrated on December 25 that early in Roman history; Saturnalia never was, and the feast of Sol only came to be later. So Hippolytus clearly could not have chosen the date to please pagan sentiments.

Hippolytus calculated December 25 as Jesus’ birthday before 235 A.D., before those “pagan sentiments” even existed. (He died in 235 A.D., and the Feast of Sol didn’t start until 274 A.D.)

Then there’s Why December 25? | Christian History | Christianity Today. It said the “eventual choice” of December 25 was made “perhaps as early as 273,” well after Hyppolytus died, and that early Fathers “decided to commandeer the date,” introducing a new festival, because “pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels to the true deity.”

Of more interest is the idea that some leaders opposed celebrating Jesus’ birthday at all: “Origen (c.185-c.254) preached that it would be wrong to honor Christ in the same way Pharaoh and Herod were honored. Birthdays were for pagan gods.” But these are called Rabbit Trails. More to the point, note that the day coincides with the “northern vernal equinox:”

An equinox occurs twice a year, around 20 March and 22 September.  The word itself has several related definitions.  The oldest meaning is the day when daytime and night are of approximately equal duration.  The word equinox comes from this definition, derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night).

So the Annunciation is celebrated about the time of the vernal equinox. (Vernal from the Latin word for “spring.”) In turn the birth of Jesus is celebrated about the time of the winter solstice. (The summer solstice is the year’s longest day, the winter solstice the shortest.)

Which just goes to show that the Christian history hasn’t been a smooth, painless road, even with Jesus pointing the way. Or as Job 5:7 put it, “Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Which brings up the matter of the Incarnation. As Wikipedia put it:

The Incarnation … is the belief that [Jesus], “became flesh” by being conceived in the womb of Mary…  [The Son of God] took on a human body and nature and became both man and God… [I]ts clearest teaching is in John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us…” The Incarnation is commemorated and celebrated each year at Christmas, and also reference can be made to the Feast of the Annunciation; “different aspects of the mystery of the Incarnation” are celebrated at Christmas and the Annunciation.

Which brings up tomorrow, Palm Sunday. It starts Holy Week, which in turn marks Lent’s “beginning of the end.*” That week ends in the triumph of Easter, and begins with “Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.” But in between comes the seeming tragedy of Good Friday. Which just goes to show how God can transform our lives as well, even from seeming tragedy.

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 “Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem,” marking the beginning of Holy Week… 

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The upper image is courtesy of Rossetti Annunciation – Image Results. See indented quotation is from The Annunciation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti – my daily art display.

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

I borrowed from past posts, including 2015’s The Annunciation “gets the ball rolling,” and The Annunciation (2022) – and Mary “shrinking back.”

Re: Luke 2:35, and “a sword will pierce even your own soul.” From the NASB 1995 translation, the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).

The full “Biblical Archaeology” citation is December 25th and Christmas – Biblical Archaeology Society. Also, aside from Hippolytus of Rome, there was also a Hippolytus of Athens, a figure in Greek mythology, and the Hippolytus, the subject of the play by Euripides.

Re: “Beginning of the end.” A feeble attempt at a clever allusion to a Quote by Winston S. Churchill: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” (After England’s victory at El Alamein, North Africa.)

The lower image is courtesy of Palm Sunday Paintings – Image Results.

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