Saint Luke, by El Greco (circa 1607)…

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Saturday, October 18, is the Feast Day for Saint Luke the Evangelist.  Isaac Asimov noted that Luke wrote the “third and last of the synoptic gospels,” which like the Gospel of Matthew was based on the first-written Gospel, Mark, with additional matter included.

Mark is said to have been written “as early as the mid 50s” – 50 A.D. – while Matthew seems to have been written somewhere between 61 and 70 A.D., and Luke seems to have been written in the following decade, some time between 71 and 80 A.D.   As to the “synoptics:”

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are considered synoptic gospels on the basis of many similarities between them that are not shared by the Gospel of John.  “Synoptic” means here that they can be “seen” or “read together…”  The synoptic gospels are the source of many popular stories, parables, and sermons, such as Jesus’ humble birth in Bethlehem, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the Last Supper, and the Great Commission…   The fourth gospel [John], presents a very different picture of Jesus and his ministry…

See Gospel – Wikipedia.  Getting back to Asimov’s commentary, while Mark was written for “the ordinary Christian of Jewish background” – and Matthew was written to fit “the ears of those learned in Old Testament lore” – Luke wrote his Gospel “for the ears of Gentiles who are sympathetic to Christianity and are considering conversion.”  Then too Luke treated Roman authorities “more gently than in the first two gospels, and Jesus Himself is portrayed as far more sympathetic to Gentiles” than in Matthew or Mark.

See also Luke the Evangelist – Wikipedia, which said he “is believed by many scholars to be a Greek physician who lived in the Greek city of Antioch in Ancient Syria.”  The article added that – according to the early church fathers – Luke wrote “both the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.  (Originally a single work called Luke-Acts.”  Also:

Based on his accurate description of towns, cities and islands, as well as correctly naming various official titles, archaeologist Sir William Ramsay wrote that “Luke is a historian of the first rank [and] should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”  Professor of Classics at Auckland University, E.M. Blaiklock, wrote: “For accuracy of detail, and for evocation of atmosphere, Luke stands, in fact, with Thucydides.  The Acts of the Apostles is not shoddy product of pious imagining, but a trustworthy record… it was the spadework of archaeology which first revealed the truth.”  New Testament scholar Colin Hemer [also attested to] the historical nature and accuracy of Luke’s writings.  (E.A.)

But Luke wasn’t just a writer and historian, he was also an artist: “Christian tradition states that he was the first icon painter [and] is said to have painted pictures of the Virgin Mary and Child.” Some 600 icons “claiming to have been painted by Luke” include the “Black Madonna of Częstochowa and Our Lady of Vladimir.  He was also said to have painted Saints Peter and Paul, and to have illustrated a gospel book with a full cycle of miniatures.“

See also St. Luke – Saints & Angels – Catholic Online, which noted Luke is the patron saint of physicians and surgeons, that he has “been identified with St. Paul’s ‘Luke, the beloved physician'” in Colossians 4:14, and that he was a loyal comrade who stayed with Paul during his imprisonment in Rome.  Further, Luke added some distinctive accounts in his Gospel:

Only in Luke do we hear the story of the Prodigal Son welcomed back by the overjoyed father. Only in Luke do we hear the story of the forgiven woman disrupting the feast by washing Jesus’ feet with her tears.  Throughout Luke’s gospel, Jesus takes the side of the sinner who wants to return to God’s mercy…   Reading Luke’s gospel gives a good idea of his character as one who loved the poor, who wanted the door to God’s kingdom opened to all, who respected women, and who saw hope in God’s mercy for everyone.

And finally, see the Collect for St. Luke’s Feast Day, Saturday October 18:  “Almighty God, who inspired your servant Luke the physician to set forth in the Gospel the love and healing power of your Son:  Graciously continue in your Church this love and power to heal…“

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Saint Luke painting the Virgin and Child… 

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The upper image is courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: El_Greco_-_St_Luke_-_WGA10577.jpg, which included the note:   “El Greco portrayed the apostles with a powerfully expressive body language. This St Luke is from a cycle for the Toledo Cathedral…  El Greco included St Luke in several of his [paintings of the Apostles] although Luke was not actually one of the twelve apostles.  Here the artist provided the Western version of a subject he depicted in quite different terms during his period as an icon painter.”

The lower image is courtesy of File: Maarten van Heemskerck – St Luke Painting the Virgin, and/or “Wikimedia.”  See also Maarten van Heemskerck – Wikipedia, which noted that the artist (1498-1574) was a “Dutch portrait and religious painter, who spent most of his career in Haarlem,” and did the painting above in or about 1532.

The Asimov quotes are from Asimov’s Guide to the Bible (Two Volumes in One),  Avenel Books (1981), at pages 912-15.

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Note especially Luke 21:5-36, which talks of the “Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times,” what is known as the Little Apocalypse, in turn also known as the Olivet Discourse.  See  Wikipedia and The Son of Man and the Little Apocalypse|Catholic World:

[T]he Olivet Discourse, sometimes called a “little apocalypse” (see Mt 24-25 and Lk 21) because it contains difficult teachings by Jesus about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in A.D. 70 and the final day of judgment.  Like The Apocalypse of John the Revelator, the little apocalypse is filled with strong imagery and a complex web of allusions drawn from the Old Testament, especially from the prophets.  

Mark’s version of the Little Apocalypse is in his Chapter 13, and especially at verse 14-37.  But unlike Mark-and-Matthew’s version, Luke had to assume his Gentile audience didn’t know of the “desolating sacrilege” that Jesus spoke of in those two Gospels, where He alluded to the Book of Daniel (9:27, 11:31, and 12:11).   So Luke changed Jesus’ reference to Daniel  and said instead, in Luke 24: “They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations.  Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”  

Jesus then warned the disciples about the Abomination of Desolation “standing where it does not belong.”    The Gospels of Matthew and Mark add “—let the reader understand—.”  This is generally considered to be a reference to two passages from the Book of Daniel.^{[Dan. 9:27] [11:31]}

See also Luke 21:20, “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.”   These other indicia date Luke’s Gospel as coming after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Diaspora.   See The Romans Destroy the Temple at Jerusalem, 70 AD, Diaspora – Wikipedia – especially regarding  expulsion of Jews from Judea – and also The Diaspora | Jewish Virtual Library, which noted:  “After 73 AD, Hebrew history would only be the history of the Diaspora as the Jews and their world view spread over Africa, Asia, and Europe.”

Hasidic Jews performing tashlikh on Rosh Hashanah…

Rosh Hashanah – popularly known as the “Jewish New Year” – began at sundown on Wednesday, September 24, and ended at sundown on Thursday, September 25.

It’s different from the traditional American New Year in that it’s not about a “midnight drinking bash and daytime football game.”  But it is alike in that it too is a time “to plan a better life” and to make resolutions.  In other words, it too is “a time to begin introspection, looking back at the mistakes of the past year and planning the changes to make in the new year.”

Another popular practice of the holiday is Tashlikh (“casting off”) [as shown in the painting above].  We walk to flowing water, such as a creek or river, on the afternoon of the first day and empty our pockets into the river, symbolically casting off our sins…

See Judaism 101: Rosh Hashanah.  Or as Wikipedia put it, “Prayers are recited near natural flowing water, and one’s sins are symbolically cast into the water.”

The article – Rosh Hashanah – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – added that the Torah defines Rosh Hashanah “as a one-day celebration, and since days in the Hebrew calendar begin at sundown, the beginning of Rosh Hashanah is at sundown,” in this case sundown, September 24.  (The Torah is known to us as the first five books of the Bible, written by Moses, although the term in Hebrew “has a range of meanings.”  See Torah – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

Here’s another note distinguishing this New Year celebration from the “other three:”

Rosh Hashanah marks the start of a new year in the Hebrew calendar…   It is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts.  The Mishnah also sets this day aside as the new year for calculating calendar years, shmita and yovel years.  Jews are confident that Rosh Hashanah represents either figuratively or literally God’s creation ex nihilo.

As an aside, ex nihilo is a Latin phrase meaning “out of nothing,” and usually appears together with the idea “of creation.”  A shmita year, also known as a sabbath year, is the seventh year in the agricultural (farming) cycle, during which the land is allowed to lie fallow (or “rest”).   A “yovel year” is the year at the end of seven cycles or shmita years, and is also known as the “Year of the Jubilee.”  (See also  For a book version… above, and no that wasn’t planned.)

Now, about those four different Jewish New-Year celebrations:

Judaism has several different “new years,” a concept which may seem strange at first, but think of it this way:  the American “new year” starts in January, but the new “school year” starts in September, and many businesses have “fiscal years” that start at various times of the year.

Judaism 101: Rosh Hashanah.  As to the meaning in the original Hebrew, “rosh” translates as head, “ha” translates to our English word the, and “shanah” translates as year.  So “Rosh HaShanah” translates literally as “head of the year,” meaning the Jewish day of the new year.

And why should we as Christians – or prospective Christians – care about this strange, one-of-four-Jewish-New-Year feast days?  For the same reason that people who love modern country music should listen to and fully appreciate the music of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs:

It’s all about Roots!

(Which – incidentally – is why we read and study the Bible in the first place…)

The upper image is courtesy of Rosh Hashanah – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, with the caption, “Hasidic Jews performing tashlikh on Rosh Hashanah, painting by Aleksander Gierymski, 1884.”

The lower image is courtesy of Roots (TV miniseries) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Roots is a television miniseries [which] first aired, on ABC-TV, in 1977…   It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings for the finale, which still holds a record as the third-highest-rated US television program [and] introduced LeVar Burton in the role of Kunta Kinte.

See also Roots: The Saga of an American Family – Wikipedia, the free ….  Levar Burton was later known to TV viewers as “Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation.”   For more on this topic Google the term “search for roots,” or in the alternative “why are people interested in geneology?”   That should lead to sites including Why We Care About Our Ancestry – LiveScience, which said genealogy is “America’s second-most popular hobby;” a hobby that goes back to “the hunter-gathers of the Neolithic Period about 11,500 years ago.”

Among other things, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs founded and led The Foggy Mountain Boys, “one of the landmark bands in bluegrass music.” See Foggy Mountain Boys – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  They also composed the “Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the theme song for the TV series, The Beverly Hillbillies.  See The Ballad of Jed Clampett – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

And the image below shows a Jewish-American New Year card, circa 1900, courtesy of the Wikipedia article, and/or “upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Happynewyearcard.jpg:”

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“St. Matthew by Frans Hals…”

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September 22 is the Feast Day for “St Matthew, Evangelist (transferred),” as in “transferred from September 21, which this year fell on a Sunday.”   According to the Bible, he was “one of the twelve apostles of Jesus and, according to Christian tradition, one of the four Evangelists.”  See Matthew the Apostle – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, which added:

Matthew was a 1st-century Galilean (presumably born in Galilee[,] the son of Alpheus.   As a tax collector he would have been literate in Aramaic and Greek.  After his call, Matthew invited Jesus home for a feast.  On seeing this, the Scribes and the Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners.  This prompted Jesus to answer, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

The Old Testament reading for the day is Proverbs 3:1-6, which begins, “My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments.”  (As aptly illustrated by the Frans Hals painting above.)   The psalm for the Feast Day is Psalm 119:33-40, which begins in like manner, “Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end.”   And as author of the first of four Gospels, Matthew “fit the bill” as a preeminent teacher.

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

That’s from Second Timothy 3:14-17, the New Testament reading for the day, which gives a pithy summary of the benefits of reading “all scripture,” and especially the four Gospels, and more especially the first of the four Gospels, the one by Matthew.  And not surprisingly, the Gospel reading for the day is Matthew 9:9-13, which gave the following account:

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.”  And he got up and followed him.  And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.

It was at this point that the Pharisees got all bent out of shape – metaphorically speaking – mostly because in the Bible times of Jesus, tax collectors worked for the Roman forces of occupation and so were viewed as collaborators, “Quislings,” and/or traitors to their country:

Tax collectors, also known as publicans, are mentioned many times in the Bible (mainly in the New Testament).  They were reviled by the Jews of Jesus’ day because of their greed and collaboration with the Roman occupiers.  Tax collectors amassed personal wealth by demanding tax payments in excess of what Rome levied and keeping the difference.   They worked for tax farmers.  In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus sympathizes with the tax collector Zacchaeus, causing outrage from the crowds that Jesus would rather be the guest of a sinner than of a more respectable or “righteous” person.  Saint Matthew in the New Testament was a tax collector.

See Tax collector – Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia article on tax farmers. And Isaac Asimov offered another view of why they were held in low esteem:

No tax collector … is actually going to be loved, but a “publican” of the Roman sort was sure to be hated above all men as a merciless leech who would take the shirt off a dying child.  It is not to be wondered at, then, that the word “publican” is used as representing an extreme of wickedness in the Sermon on the Mount.

(Asimov, 829-31)  The “Beatitude” referred to is Matthew 5:46, in the Complete Jewish Bible:  “What reward do you get if you love only those who love you?   Why, even tax-collectors do that!”  As Asimov noted, “The publicans here are held up as an extreme.  If even the publicans can do this, anyone can,” the point being that according to the Gospel of Jesus, “those who wish ethical perfection must do more.”

The other point being, that by the grace of God, Matthew the hated tax-collecting collaborator was “magically” transformed into a Gospel writer of the first magnitude, and that “if he can be so greatly transformed, so can we!”    Or as a biographer wrote of another prophet, he was an ordinary man with more than a fair share of human faults, but it was just such “base metal which, in the marvelous alchemy of the spiritual journey, became transmuted into gold.”

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The upper and lower images are courtesy of Matthew the Apostle – Wikipedia. As to the lower image, Wikipedia added the caption, “St. Matthew and the Angel by Rembrandt.” An alternate title is “The Evangelist Matthew Inspired by an Angel.” 

The Isaac Asimov quotes are from  Asimov’s Guide to the Bible (Two Volumes in One),  Avenel Books (1981), at pages 829-31.

A quisling is one “who collaborates with an enemy occupying force.  The word originates from the Norwegian war-time leader Vidkun Quisling who was the head of a domestic Nazi collaborationist regime during the Second World War.”  See Quisling – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, which added, “in a 1966 Peanuts comic strip, Linus tries to hide in Snoopy‘s doghouse only to have the beagle rat him out.  ‘Traitor! Quisling! Squealer!‘  Linus shouts at Snoopy as his sister Lucy drags him away.”

The “transmuted into gold” quote is from Monica Furlong’s Merton  A Biography, Harper and Row (1980), at page xx.  See also On Thomas Merton.

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“Maria Grotto at Santa Maria Tak Bercela Catholic Church, Surabaya, Indonesia“

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August 15 is the Feast Day for St. Mary, the Virgin, as celebrated in the Episcopal Church.  See also Mary (mother of Jesus) – Wikipedia:

She is identified . . . as the mother of Jesus through divine intervention.  Christians hold her son Jesus to be Christ (i.e., the messiah) and God the Son Incarnate.  Mary (Maryam) also has a revered position in Islam, where a whole chapter of the Qur’an is devoted to her, also describing the birth of Jesus. . .    Traditionally, Christians believe that she conceived her son miraculously by the agency of the Holy Spirit.  Muslims believe that she conceived her son miraculously by the command of God. . .   [She] is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the Church. Christians of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, as Mother of Jesus, is the Mother of God and the Theotokos, literally “Bearer of God.”

Another note:  In Renaissance paintings especially, Mary is portrayed wearing blue, a tradition going back to Byzantine Empire, to about 500 A.D., “where blue was ‘the colour of an empress.'” Another explanation is that in in Medieval and Renaissance Europe:

[T]he blue pigment was derived from the rock lapis lazuli, a stone imported from Afghanistan of greater value than gold.  Beyond a painter’s retainer, patrons were expected to purchase any gold or lapis lazuli to be used in the painting.  Hence, it was an expression of devotion and glorification to swathe the Virgin in gowns of blue.

The Bible readings for this feast day include Isaiah 61:10-11, Psalm 34, Galatians 4:4-7, and  Luke 1:46-55.  For the full readings see The Lectionary Page, but here are some highlights. 

Isaiah 61:10-11 begins with the passage, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God;  for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness. . .”   Psalm 34 begins in the same vein:  “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall ever be in my mouth.”

Galatians 4:4-7 includes the passage that because we are children – of God – “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!'”  (A reminder that as Christians our duty is to act at all times as “children of God,” certainly easier said than done.)

But the highlight of the readings is Mary’s Magnificat, also known as “the song of Mary:”

The article noted that Mary’s song echoes several Old Testament biblical passages, including allusions to “the Song of Hannah” and from the Books of Samuel (1Samuel 2:1-10).  Another note, “the Magnificat is included in the Book of Odes, an ancient liturgical collection found in some manuscripts of the Septuagint,” one of the earliest versions of the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament as we call it.  (The word septuagent comes from the Greek word for 70, and refers to “the legendary seventy Jewish scholars who completed the translation as early as the late 2nd century BCE,” or two centuries before Jesus was born.

As to what happened to Mary, according to tradition she was taken “bodily” up to heaven at the end of her earthly life, as shown in the painting below.

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The upper image is courtesy of Mary (mother of Jesus) – Wikipedia.   The lower image is courtesy of Assumption of Mary – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, with the caption: “Possibly the most famous rendition of the subject in Western art, Titian‘s Assunta (1516–18).”

That is, the “Catholic Church teaches as dogma that the Virgin Mary ‘having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.'”  In turn, while the Assumption “is not an Anglican doctrine, 15 August is observed by some within Anglicanism as a holy day.”

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“Archangel Michael reaching to save souls in purgatory . . .”

There’s a church in Stone Mountain –  St. Michael & All Angels’ Episcopal –  that Yours Truly and his Dulce passed the other day while leaving Stone Mountain Park.   That led to the question, “Who the heck is this St. Michael guy?”   That led us to Revelation 12:7-10:

[T]here was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.  And prevailed not…   [T]he great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.   And I heard a loud voice saying … the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

Note that both the Hebrew and Greek words “Satan” (“Satanas” in Greek) translate as “an adversary,” while the root word for devil is “diabolos,” which is Greek for “slanderer.”    So you could say that like any good prosecutor, Satan the Accuser – as Ultimate Prosecutor – will try first and most to “convict” you, if and as necessary by slandering your character to God.

But we digress. . .

For more see Michael (archangel) – Wikipedia, which included this:

Michael ([translated] “who is like God?” … ) is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans refer to him as “Saint Michael the Archangel” and also as “Saint Michael. . .”  In the New Testament Michael leads God’s armies against Satan‘s forces in the Book of Revelation, where during the war in heaven he defeats Satan.

St. Michael has a Feast Day – also called Michaelmas Day – on September 29, which means I’ll be doing another post on him around that time.  Note also that an archangel is an “angel of high rank.”  And Wikipedia noted Michael wasn’t just mentioned in the Book of Revelation:

Michael is mentioned three times in the Book of Daniel, once as a “great prince who stands up for the children of your people.”  The idea that Michael was the advocate of the Jews became so prevalent that in spite of the rabbinical prohibition against appealing to angels as intermediaries . . . Michael came to occupy a certain place in the Jewish liturgy.

I’ve included two images of St. Michael, with the one below showing him “trampling Satan.”  But the upper image shows him in another of his jobs – “reaching out to souls in purgatory” – which means that he might end up being the archangel who saves my own spiritual butt.

On the other hand, there is that part of the Book of Common Prayer which calls the idea a Romish doctrine, but for myself I say, “Hey, I’ll take all the help I can get!”

The upper image is courtesy of the Wikipedia article on St. Michael, with the full caption, “Archangel Michael reaching to save souls in purgatory, by Jacopo Vignali, 17th century.”

Dulce is Spanish for “Sweet,” or in the alternative Mi Dulce or “My Sweet.”   (See also the posts On “St. James the Greater”, and On the “Infinite Frog”, which referred to the time a nice-lady “who happens to be Catholic lit a votive candle ‘on behalf of the poor benighted Protestant soul of Yours Truly.'”  Like I said, “I’ll take all the help I can get.”)

As to the definitions of Satan and/or the “Slanderer,” see the New International Dictionary of the Bible, Regency Reference Library, 1987, Page 899.

The lower image is also courtesy of the Wikipedia article, with the full caption: “Guido Reni‘s painting in Santa Maria della Concezione, Rome, 1636 is also reproduced in mosaic at the St. Michael Altar in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the Vatican.”

As to the idea of Purgatory being a “Romish doctrine,” see the Book of Common Prayer at page 872, number XXII of the 1801 Articles of Religion, under Historical Documents of the Church:

The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.

For further information on the post-mortem pardons and Indulgences that led to the “splitting of the one true church,” see  Indulgence – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Indulgences – New Advent, and/or indulgence (Roman Catholicism) — Encyclopedia Britannica.  See also the second section of The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam: Barbara W. Tuchman.

Purgatory itself is describe as an “intermediate state” between heaven and hell:

. . .an intermediate state after physical death in which those destined for heaven “undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”   Only those who die in the state of grace but have not in life reached a sufficient level of holiness can be in Purgatory, and therefore no one in Purgatory will remain forever in that state. . .

See Purgatory – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  In other words, it’s not quite the “pass-fail” system of reward-and-punishment proclaimed by some Protestant denominations.  For another interesting treatment see Heaven and Hell in Christian Thought (Stanford Encyclopedia).

Saint James the Elder (and/or “Greater”), by Rembrandt. . . 

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July 25 is the Feast Day for James, son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve Apostles.  According to tradition was the first apostle to be martyred, which happened somewhere around 44 A.D.

He was a son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of John the Apostle.  He is also called James the Greater or James the Great to distinguish him from James, son of Alphaeus.

For more see James, son of Zebedee – Wikipedia.

James was one of the first disciples to join Jesus (Matthew 4:21-22, and/or Mark 1:19-20), and one of only three apostles selected by Jesus to witness His Transfiguration.  One author suggested James was the first martyred apostle mostly because of his “fiery temper, for which he and his brother earned the nickname Boanerges or ‘Sons of Thunder.'” (See Mark 3:17.)

On that note the second reading for this Feast Day is Acts 11:27-12:3:

At that time prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.  One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine over all the world; and this took place during the reign of Claudius.  The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea; this they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabas and Saul. . .   About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church.  He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.)

As always, you can see the full set of readings – and more – at The Lectionary Page.

Tradition says that James traveled to Spain, to spread the Gospel there.  (He’s the patron saint of Spain and Portugal.)  Specifically, the tradition is that on January 2, in the year 40 A.D.:

[T]he Virgin Mary appeared to James on the bank of the Ebro River at Caesaraugusta, while he was preaching the Gospel in Iberia.  She appeared upon a pillar, Nuestra Señora del Pilar, and that pillar is conserved and venerated within the present Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, in Zaragoza, Spain.  Following that apparition, St. James returned to Judea, where he was beheaded by King Herod Agrippa I in the year 44.

Note also that in the painting above, St. James is pictured as a pilgrim, complete with a pilgrim’s hat and walking stick in the background.  Which brings up the topic of Bible-reading on a daily basis as part of your own personal spiritual pilgrimage.   As Wikipedia noted:

A pilgrim (from the Latin peregrinus) is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place.  Typically, this is a physical journeying (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system.  In the spiritual literature of Christianity, the concept of pilgrim and pilgrimage may refer to the experience of life in the world (considered as a period of exile) or to the inner path of the spiritual aspirant from a state of wretchedness to a state of beatitude.

So your path – once you decide to “commit to Christ” or start reading the Bible on a regular basis – could also be considered a spiritual pilgrimage, not unlike the one illustrated in the painting above (complete with hat and walking stick).

As yours truly once wrote, starting your spiritual pilgrimage by reading the Bible on a regular basis “is a bit like water-skiing,” or more precisely, “a bit like grabbing the handle of the rope” attached to a metaphoric “Big Motorboat in the Sky.  (As shown below.)  Once you grab on, your main job is simply to hang on for dear life.”  To extend the metaphor further:  “What kind of ride can we expect once we grab the handle of this commitment to Christ?”  And also, “What do we do if our ‘hands’ get so tired that we let go of the handle?”

That’s pretty much what this blog is all about.

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The upper image is courtesy of the Wikipedia article, with the full caption, “Saint James the Elder by Rembrandt[.]  He is depicted clothed as a pilgrim; note the scallop shell on his shoulder and his staff and pilgrim’s hat beside him.”  As to “the real Good News.”  The term Gospel is from “the Old English gōd-spell . . . meaning ‘good news’ or ‘glad tidings.’   The word comes from the Greek euangelion.”  See Gospel – Wikipedia.

The lower image is courtesy of Surfing and Waterskiing Vintage Postcards & Images, and/or CG-20 The Big Jump Water Skiing at Florida Cypress Gardens  Lakeland Florida (FL), Linen unused.

The “pilgrim” link is in the Wikipedia article on St. James.   (On a related note, see More Than A Building: St. James Church – Lakewood, Ohio, and also St James, Lakewood, vis-a-vis St. James Catholic Parish, 17400 Northwood Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio.  This church was recently visited by the nice-lady inspiration for the July 15 post, On the “Infinite Frog.”  More to the point, while there the nice-lady inspiration “lit a candle” on behalf of the poor benighted Protestant soul of Yours Truly.  See also A Catholic Life: Why do Catholics Light Prayer Candles?  That link included this:  “Lighting a candle is a way of extending one’s prayer and showing solidarity with the person on whose behalf the prayer is offered.”  To which Yours Truly responds, “Thank you, I need all the help I can get!”)

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As to pilgrims and pilgrimages, see also Passages of the Soul[:] Ritual Today, by James Roose-Evans (Element Books Ltd. 1994), at pages 23-25, which noted that a healthy sense of ritual “should pervade a healthy society, and that a big problem now is that we’ve abandoned many rituals that used to help us deal with big change and major trauma.  The book said all true ritual “calls for discipline, patience, perseverance, leading to the discovery of the self within.”

More to the point, the book noted that a pilgrimage – like a week-long canoe trip in the wild or a long hike on the Appalachian Trail – “may be described as a ritual on the move,”  and that in doing so – that is through “the raw experience of hunger, cold, 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” and His creation.   Finally, the book noted that such a pilgrimage can be  “one of the most chastening, but also one of the most liberating” of personal experiences.

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“So, punk, do you feel like getting chastened and liberated?”

(Image courtesy of Dirty Harry – Wikipedia.)

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Happy July 4th!!

July 4, 2014 – As I write this I’m sitting in a McDonald’s on Concord Pike northeast of Wilmington Delaware.  (They have free Wifi.)  That means I’m taking a vacation from God’s Country – down south – on a trip that will include but not be limited to a family reunion.

But back to Independence Day. . .

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Google “Freedom Day” – instead of the usual Independence Day.  If you do that you’ll probably get a host of sites, including National Religious Freedom Day.  That day is celebrated on January 16, and it’ designed to remember the adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s landmark statute.  That would be the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, noted in the photo below.  (Read more about it at Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom – Wikipedia.)

That article – and this post – make compelling reading on this July 4th:

The statute disestablished the Church of England … and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including Catholics and Jews [and] was a notable precursor of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his epitaph.

(Emphasis added.) By that statute legislators (“burgesses”) of Virginia “disestablished” the official religion of the state. That state religion was Anglican – Church of England – and most if not all Burgesses back then were members of that official church. In other words the Established Church of Virginia voluntarily gave up its power, including the power to impose taxes for its own support. It did that to guarantee freedom of religion to people of all faiths.  To the members of all other religious faiths – and those who had no faith at all. For starters, the statute said “Almighty God hath created the mind free.”  It also said when any government or majority tries to influence the religious beliefs of others, they only “beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness.”

That sounds like it was written yesterday!

The statute further noted the “impious presumption of legislators and rulers” to establish “their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible,” even though they were “but fallible and uninspired men.” The statute said it was wrong for “fallible and uninspired men” to try and establish their own view of religious truth as “the only true and infallible.”

Finally, the statute said noted “Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself . . . and has nothing to fear from the conflict.” I.e., 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. What that means is that under the Constitution and the ideals of Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom,  our government isn’t a teacher of religion. Instead that government should be an impartial referee, to insure a level playing field.

So if your Faith is true and sound, you don’t want help from the government.  As by having officially-sponsored prayer at public events.) That in turn also means you have the confidence to say in the open marketplace of ideas, “My views of religion can beat yours with one hand tied behind its back – on a level playing field without any outside help.” 

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So Independence Day is a Feast Day of the American Episcopal Church. That church is a direct descendant of the Church of England that voluntarily “disenfranchised itself” to help gain that precious freedom of religion for people of all faiths (or no faith. And the Bible readings for this day are – according to the Revised Common Lectionary – are:  Deuteronomy 10:17-2, Psalm 145, Hebrews 11:8-16, and Matthew 5:43-48. The Collect for this Feast Day is as follows:

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn:  Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Note that a Collect is a “form of prayer unique to the  Western Church;” in the Scribe’s church, it is said at the beginning of each Sunday service.  It is a form of collective prayer, often followed by a period of silence “collect all their thoughts and prayers and, in essence, give them to the celebrant, who prays on behalf of all.” (Emphasis added.)

Note too that there are a number of definitions of grace, but the one that seems most fitting here seems to be a “disposition to be generous or helpful; goodwill.” See Definition of grace by the Free Online Dictionary. So the prayer above could be tweaked to read that God grants “all the people of this land” the goodwill and disposition to be generous and/or helpful, in order to “maintain [all] our liberties in righteousness and peace .”  (Say what?  See also More honoured in the breach than in the observance.)

Turning to the Bible readings for July 4th, one point to be noted from Deuteronomy 10:17-21 is that God “is not partial and takes no bribe,” He executes justice for orphans and widows, and “loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Emphasis added.   Various translations substitute “sojourner,” “foreigner,” or “immigrant” for the word “stranger” in the King James Version.)

Psalm 145 verse 9 reads:  “The LORD is loving to everyone [maybe even moderates and/or liberals] and his compassion is over all his works.”  Psalm 145 verse 4 says of God, “One generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your power.”  (Emphases added, and all of which is one reason why we have holidays like July 4th and the commemoration of D-Day.  See On D-Day and confession.)

Hebrews 11:8-16 talks about Abraham having the faith to heed the call of God to “set out for a place . . . not knowing where he was going,” which is pretty much what all of our ancestors did.

And finally, in Matthew 5:43-48 Jesus told His disciples and followers to love everyone, even their most obnoxious neighbors, because God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”  Besides, they might be right and you might be wrong, or you might both be partly right, but working together you might both find the truth.   (See also Adversarial system – Wikipedia.)

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To some guy named Jefferson, and his Statute for Religious Freedom. . . 

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The picture just above is courtesy of Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom – Wikipedia. The full caption reads, “Jefferson’s tombstone. The inscription, as he stipulated, reads Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.” (Emphasis added.)

As to Collects, see What is a collect? | Trinity Episcopal Church in Cranford, NJ, and What is a Collect? | Reformed Liturgical Institute. As to the adversarial system, see also Adversarial system, to wit: a “system of law that relies on the contest between each advocate representing his or her party’s positions . . . trying to determine the truth of the case.”

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Barnabas curing the sick by Paolo Veronese, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen.

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Wednesday, June 11, was the Feast Day for Saint Barnabas:

The apostle and missionary was among Christ’s earliest followers and was responsible for welcoming St. Paul into the Church.  Though not one of the 12 apostles . . . he is traditionally regarded as one of the 72 disciples of Christ and [the] most respected man in the first century Church after the Apostles themselves.

See ST. BARNABAS, APOSTLE :: Catholic News Agency (CNA).  The first mention of Barnabas came in Acts 4, beginning at verse 36:  “Joseph, a Levite, born in Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (son of encouragement), sold a field he owned, brought the money, and turned it over to the apostles.”  The site Barnabas the Apostle – Justus added that even after Paul had his Damascus Road experience, “most of the Christians [in Jersusalem] wanted nothing to do with him. They had known him as a persecutor and an enemy of the Church.  But Barnabas was willing to give him a second chance.”  (Which is pretty much what Jesus is all about. . .)

The “Justus” site above added this, about those “second chances;”

Later, Paul and Barnabas went on a missionary journey together, taking Mark with them.  Part way, Mark turned back and went home.  When Paul and Barnabas were about to set out on another such journey, Barnabas proposed to take Mark along, and Paul was against it, saying that Mark had shown himself undependable.  Barnabas wanted to give Mark a second chance [again] and so he and Mark went off on one journey, while Paul took Silas and went on another. Apparently Mark responded well to the trust given him by the “son of encouragement,” since we find that Paul later speaks of him as a valuable assistant (2 Tim 4:11; see also Col 4:10 and Phil 24) .

So we might just call Barnabas “the Apostle of Second Chances.”

The Collect for his Feast Day asks God to teach us also to “follow the example of your faithful servant Barnabas, who, seeking not his own renown but the well-­being of your Church, gave generously of his life and substance for the relief of the poor and the spread of the Gospel.”

The Gospel for the Day is Matthew 10:7-16, which ends with Jesus saying to His disciples, “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”  And since “serpent” is just another name – or metaphor – for Satan, what Jesus seemed to say was that a good Christian needs to be “wise as the Devil,” or perhaps “wise as hell.”

But that’s just common sense.   If you’re to resist something – like “the wiles of the world” – you definitely need to know what you’re trying to resist.  If not, you’re much weaker, to the extent you don’t “know your enemy.”  So even if you’re a Fundamentalist Christian and think those “exotic Eastern meditations” were simply tools of the devil – those exotic Eastern practices that were all the rage back in the 1970s – you still need to know those exotic disciplines, if you plan to fight them.  Which is of course another very good reason to study the Bible.

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The ” Archangel Michael slaying Satan. . .”

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The upper image is courtesy of the Wikipedia article.

See also What is the Damascus road experience – Wiki Answers.

For the full readings for this Feast Day, see The Lectionary Page.

The Wikipedia article added this about Barnabas:  “Tertullian [one of the early Church Fathers] named him as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, but this and other attributions are conjecture.”  Tertullian in turn was famous for saying words to the effect that he believed in the resurrection “because it is absurd.”   See Credo quia absurdum – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, referring to “a Latin phrase that means ‘I believe because it is absurd.’  It is a paraphrase of a statement in Tertullian‘s work De Carne Christi, ‘prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est,’ which can be translated: ‘it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd…’    The Catholic Tradition, from the outset, rejected the so-called ‘fideism,’ which is the desire to believe against reason.  Credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd) is not a formula that interprets the Catholic faith.'”

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The lower image is courtesy of the Wikipedia article on “Chaos,” included in the article Serpent (Bible) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, which noted:  “The symbol of a serpent or snake played important roles in religious and cultural life of ancient Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia and Greece.  The serpent was a symbol of evil power and chaos from the underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life and healing.”  (Fertility?)   The image caption in Wikipedia reads: “Depiction of the Christianized Chaoskampf: statue of Archangel Michael slaying Satan, represented as a dragon. Quis ut Deus? is inscribed on his shield.”

“The motif of Chaoskampf (German for “struggle against chaos”) is ubiquitous in myth and legend, depicting a battle of a culture hero deity with a chaos monster, often in the shape of a serpent or dragon.”  Quis ut Deus is translated as “who is like God,” a literal translation of the name “Michael.”

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And speaking of June 6th and D-Day…

In World War II – up to and beyond D-Day – some of our fathers, uncles and other relatives flew in bombers (B-17s and the like), from bases in England, with targets in Germany and other European countries.

The flight over the English Channel, then to their target and back was usually pretty harrowing; flak, enemy fighters, seeing fellow fliers shot down or killed before their eyes.  But when they got back home, their ordeal was far from over.

The first thing they did was de-brief.   They’d been “briefed” before the flight, where they learned their objectives and what they’d be up against.  So  de-briefings were just interviews after the fact – very probing interviews – at which the fliers got questioned to see how close they came to their objectives. How many and how effective were the enemy fighters?  How close to the targets did they come?  What did they do wrong?  How could they have done better?

At the start of the war the de-briefings were “abysmal.”  Fliers were wildly optimistic about how well they’d done, how close to the targets their bombs fell, and how many enemy fighters they’d shot down.  And because they believed in the righteousness of their cause,  at the start of the bomber offensive these fliers tended to downplay anything negative about their missions.

Part of the problem was that at the start the people who conducted the de-briefings weren’t all that experienced. They didn’t know how to ask the kind of skeptical, probing questions that got accurate feedback.  (And at the beginning, such probing questions were no doubt greatly annoying to some fliers).  The interviewers didn’t know how to ask, or felt uncomfortable asking, the kind of questions by which the fliers could learn what they did wrong.

But eventually, “Bomber Command” started using aerial-reconnaissance photos and other sophisticated tools of “feedback.”  Then the fliers started seeing how wildly optimistic, and wildly inaccurate, those first de-briefings were.  So in time. the de-briefings got better, more probing, and so more accurate.  Then the missions themselves got more and more efficient.

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Maybe that’s what the Bible and/or the church concepts of sin and confession are all about.  (Or should be about.)  When we “sin” we simply fall short of our goals; we “miss the target.” When we “confess,” we simply admit to ourselves how far short of the target we were.  And maybe the purpose of all this is not to make people feel guilty all the time, as some seem to imply.

So maybe the concepts of sin, repentance and confession are tools to help us get closer to the target “next time out,” even if we know we can never become “perfect.”

The upper image is courtesy of the Denver Post “Plog,”D–Day in Color, Photographs from the Normandy Invasion.   The caption reads:  “Planes from the 344th Bomb Group, which led the IX Bomber Command formations on D-Day on June 6, 2014. Operations started in March 1944 with attacks on targets in German-occupied France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. After the beginning of the Normandy invasion, the Group was active at Cotentin Peninsula, Caen, Saint-Lo and the Falaise Gap. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images) #.”

The Churchill quote is courtesy of The Bombing Offensive | History.co.uk.

Sources include The Air War in Europe, by Ronald Bailey, Time-Life Books (1979), at pages 35-36, and Max Hastings’ Bomber Command, Dial Press/James Wade (1979), at pages 102-103. 

As a side-bar, there was a similar bomber offensive against Japan, but not as many books or movies about it.  And there were also air bases in Italy, from which the 15^th Air Force bombed Germany and its satellites, but that didn’t get much “ink” either.  One exception was the book The Wild Blue, by Stephen Ambrose, about the 15^th Air Force and pilots including 22-year-old George McGovern.  He flew 35 missions and won the Distinguished Flying Cross, but was later accused by conservatives, in the 1972 presidential election, of being not patriotic or “manly” enough.  (On that note, there was the story of McGovern giving a speech in the 1972 campaign, and being heckled by a Nixon fan.  McGovern called him over and whispered, “Listen, you son-of-a-bitch, why don’t you kiss my ass?”  The remark was widely reported and next night “KMA” buttons appeared at McGovern rallies. Years later, McGovern saw Senator James Eastland (Mississippi) looking across the Senate floor and chuckling. Eastland subsequently approached McGovern and asked, “Did you really tell that guy in ’72 to kiss your ass?”  McGovern smiled and nodded, and Eastland said, “That was the best line in the campaign…”  See George McGovern presidential campaign, 1972 – Wikipedia, the …)

So anyway, pages 35-36 of The Air War in Europe described the beginning of what came to be the “bomber offensive,” to December 1940.   Before then, based on nothing but “rosy reports” from fliers themselves, after-action reports were wildly optimistic.   With the advent of photo-reconnaissance (for example), fliers were “shocked” by negative feedback which showed how short of the mark they were falling.  Early in the war it was discovered that for every ten air crews who claimed to drop their bombs on target, only one (10%) actually dropped the bomb load within five miles of the target.

And finally, pages 102-103 of Bomber Command described how, at the start of the war, the level and accuracy of de-briefings was “abysmal,” conducted by staff members with no idea how to ask the kind of questions that could evoke accurate answers, and who “invariably overstated crews’ claims.”  The passage also noted that with time, both the level of de-briefings and the efficiency of the individual missions improved.

The lower image is courtesy of Combined Bomber Offensive – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The caption reads:  “8th Air Force B-17 during raid of October 9, 1943 on the Focke-Wulf aircraft factory at Marienburg.”

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May 26, 2014 – Ascension Day is always celebrated on a Thursday, 40 days after Easter.  (In 2014 it falls on May 29).  This major Feast Day – ranking with Easter and Pentecost – commemorates “the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven.”

The Gospel of Luke ends with the “Great Commission,” followed by the Ascension, like the end of Mark (16:15-20).  Luke’s version – at 24:44-53 – goes like this:

Jesus said to his disciples, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you…  Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day…”   Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven…

According to tradition, Luke also wrote the book, Acts of the Apostles, that follows the Gospel of John.  Acts begins like this:  “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven…”

Incidentally, there’s debate whether this Theophilus referred to a real person or was a generic title. See Theophilus – Wikipedia.  The name – in the original “refined Koine Greek” – can mean either “beloved of God” or  “Friend of God,” and thus some authorities feel that “both Luke and Acts were addressed to anyone who fits that description.”

In that sense Theophilus can be seen as like the name Israel, as in the name-change from Jacob to Israel, with Israel meaning – literally – “He who struggles with God.”  In the metaphoric sense, the name Israel could refer to anyone and everyone who “struggles with the idea of God.”

(See the post Arguing with God, which noted in part that maybe Christians are “supposed to ‘argue with God…’   Maybe, just maybe, that’s how we get spiritually stronger, by ‘resistance training’ rather than passively accepting anything and everything in the Bible, without question or questioning.”)

Which brings up the “bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven.”

Some people might have a problem with that, or with the underlying idea that there is indeed “life after life,” for each and every one of us.  (In that sense – the sense of a “life” or incarnation for us after this one – Jesus as “pioneer and perfecter of our faith” – Hebrews 12:2 – may have been merely showing us the way by and through His own “Ascension,” in front of witnesses.)

As to those who may have a problem grasping the idea that our souls may continue on after we leave this life and “move on to the next level,” consider the First Law of Thermodynamics.  That law of physics states that “energy can be transformed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed.”  Or put another way, energy is neither created nor destroyed, but simply changes form. See First law of thermodynamics – Wikipedia.

So if the human soul is a form of energy – an idea that seems self-evident – then it too can neither be created nor destroyed, but simply changes form.  Which brings up the question: “Where was my soul before I was born?”  Then there’s the question raised by this May 29 Feast Day:  “And what about the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven?”

Sounds like it’s time for a bit more “arm-wrestling with God…”

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The original post had an upper image captioned “The Ascension of Christ,” by Gebhard Fugel, courtesy of the Wikipedia article, Feast of the Ascension. See also Ascension of Jesus – Wikipedia.

The full Bible readings for Ascension Day can be found at The Lectionary Page.

As to the question, “Where was my soul before I was born?”  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.”  But of course, all of this discussion occurs against the backdrop of knowing anything and everything you talk about will be erased from memory at birth.  (“Arm-wrestling,” anyone?)

The “arm-wrestling” image, originally at the bottom of the page, was courtesy of www.armpullers.com/images/Arm-Wrestling-World-Wide.gif.