Link:
Daily Archives: October 14, 2011
And then the Lions ate him!
I met with and facilitated a prayer meeting with some great Catholic Youth this week. We reflected on the Holy Spirit and then on an Early Church Father/Apostolic Father. “Huh!?” they said. Maybe you are saying the same?! So, here it goes in a nut shell.
First an Apostolic Father is an early Chrisitian and a church father of the first or second century A.D. who was believed to have received personal instruction from the 12 Apostles or from their disciples. Ignatius was one of the earliest of the lot. He passed down the truths of Jesus and very early Christian theology (study of God). The baton was passed so to speak, from Jesus to apostle John to Ignatius. It is amazing to me, that Ignatius knew and was taught by the apostle John. Ignatius lived in Antioch (now Antakya, Turkey), the 3th largest city of the Roman empire in the 1st century. He became Bishop of Antioch which in the bible, the book of Acts, speaks of Antioch (one of the first pagan (non-believing) communities to receive evangelism/teachings about Christ.) Thank you Ignatius.
He was the first man to pen the word “Catholic” to describe our Church in one of his 7 letters/epistles. He also wrote about the order in the Church (ecclesiolgy), mainly Bishop, priests and then Deacons. He spoke about the “real presence” of Jesus in the Eucharist and other Sacraments (a sacred rite recognized as of particular importance). He uses the word Eucharist. Yes, this word is not in the bible. But, as quoted from John 20:25, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” This is such a book/letter. (I could get into Sola Scriptura, a whole other topic…another post)
Some of his letters are addressed to the Romans, the Ephesians. Sound familiar, those of you who read the bible? His letters, and a letter on his Martyrdom can be viewed online for free. Just do a search. They are fascinating and eye opening. He was a brave, brave and devoted man that tried his best to walk the life of Christ. He was fed to the Lion’s for not renouncing his faith in God, thus he is always pictured with Lions biting him. His feast day (Holy day of commemoration) is October 17th. This is why I spoke to the youth about him, as that day is almost here. They really enjoyed the video I presented from Steve Ray on the Apostolic Fathers, and learned a lot. I hope you learned something too.
Pray for us St. Ignatius of Antioch…we need your prayers! Amen.
View this article -
I think, no no, Patsy, I think…
A childhood of
can do stuff to one’s brain.
Anywho,
I think
I might purchase some
. That is if the budget will allow it. Perhaps Christmas gifts?… but I believe there is only a few dollars in the gift category. Eep! This is what happens when the man you marry has umpteen brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and enough godsons to serve a High Mass.
I’ll let you know how all this goes.
Follow this link:
Future Pope on his way!
During the Eucharistic Congress of Quebec in 2008 I wrote a post about a bishop from the Philippines who set the congress on fire with his speech. That was Bishop Luis Tagle. The post was called: Meet the Future Pope. Well today, in what I think is a remarkable move, Pope Benedict has appointed the young bishop as Archbishop of Manila. This is huge! He will now surely become a cardinal and who knows… pope one day. You heard it here first 
View post:
Of wagging fingers and the personality of God
You will know from a couple of months ago that I have been waging a small battle with unnamed forces who would cast our God in the image of the Old Testament angry vengeful figure who wreaks havoc on citizens, on Kings and Queens, and on whole nations for their sinfulness.
To be sure that Old Testament language is powerful and compelling. It occurs over and over. We heard it when we (well, the slightly older generation, anyhow) were growing up, and we saw it in our art. Wow, was he – or she, no, always he – ever mad! Fire in the eyes. Lightning bolts in the hands. Meant to scare the bejabers out of us. And it did. And many people today love that stuff. Anger and fear, what great motivators, I guess.
Except they could not be more wrong when it comes to the God of Israel, the God of Jesus, the God of Peter, the God of the death and Resurrection. Are you ready? God loves Paul Bernardo. God loves Clifford Olsen. God loves, are you ready again? Adolf H.
“God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God.” (1 John 4:16)
There is the point. The one who does NOT abide in love – love for God, love for God’s people – is in for such devastation, self-induced devastation especially in the form of loneliness, isolation, alienation, that we cry out for images to express it. The Old Testament image was of the angry warrior God. Served its purpose in a warrior culture. Needs to be brought into better perspective, a perspective given us by the Good News. Oh yes Jesus talks about people being thrown out into the darkness, imagery his contemporaries would have understood, but he told the parable of the Prodigal Son too. Fr. Eric Jensen says that all the parables of Jesus need to be seen through the lens of that one. And if you read that parable you see that it is the elder son who represents the angry personality, not the father.
“God is love…..” The thing is, God holds us to our word if we turn away from him. No need for lightning bolts. We bring the devastation on ourselves. It is built in. But the love is not, repeat not, withdrawn. It is waiting in exactly the same way it was waiting for the prodigal son. But it will never be imposed.
So here is where I find an article in the Toronto Star on October 3, 2011, interesting. Rabbi Dow Marmur quotes writer David Brooks as saying that today’s people are “more than ever led to believe that the free-floating individual is the essential moral unit.” Great observation. Rabbi Marmur goes on to say ” “We find it very difficult to see reality other than through the lens of our personal needs and aspirations. We want clergy to applaud, not castigate us. We distance ourselves from traditional religion when we perceive it to wag accusing fingers at us……… Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart. ”
Beautifully put. What catches my imagination here is that this is today’s ‘violence’ if you will, at the hands of God. Nobody will listen – nor should they – if you tell them that God burned down their house as punishment for their sins. But they should take notice of the wagging finger. It is the finger of the parent punching the air to make a point. It is the finger of the teacher raising the voice to get our attention. It is the wagging finger of – no, not punishment, anger or retribution. It is the wagging finger of someone who loves you so much that they want to get your attention and say, hey it’s over here! I have Good News for you!
Read article here:
The Mystery of the Open Door
For the last several days, it seems like every time I’ve come home from work, I’ve had a door open that wasn’t supposed to be open. Or perhaps a makeshift “baby gate” that has been tipped over by a very guilty-looking German Shepherd.
I’m used to her antics in trying to access some baby-gated areas and usually, no harm done so it’s not a huge deal (as long as it’s not the kitchen!). Open doors, though, are a different matter entirely!
I had actually been attributing the recent open rooms to my own failure to properly close the doors, and again, neither the bedroom or bathroom had any damage or obvious disturbance, so I didn’t worry. After all, my dog isn’t a puppy anymore although she DOES on occasion get into things and make a mess simply because (GSD owners say it with me!) …she’s a GERMAN SHEPHERD!
Until last night, anyway, I’d been attributing open doors to my own failure to close them, and this is the cue that I need to give you a little back story…..
Once upon a time…
Once upon a time, little new homeowner Adoro adopted a German Shepherd, age 1.5 years, from the local Humane Society. The paperwork and the staffer there told Adoro that her new pet was very very smart and had a long history of an uncanny ability to open doors she was not supposed to open.
Adoro learned this very quickly the first time she tried to kennel her dear GSD, only to come home 45 minutes later to find the kennel door ajar and the dog standing outside of it with a happy waggy tail and a big happy doggie grin.
The next time Adoro left, she reinforced the kennel with flex ties at all points, even the door, thinking that as she would be gone for only about a half hour, this would be a good test of the new “security” system.
When Adoro came home, the kennel was completely intact! Yay! The door was still closed and tightly tied shut!
Unfortunately, the German Shepherd was AGAIN outside of the kennel, staring at her, doggie-grinning and happy-wagging.
Hmmm…..
Well, Adoro gave up on the kennel, at that point realizing that to continue might actually cause her dog to be strangled if she was trapped in an escape attempt and Adoro did not arrive home in time to stop the tragedy. So it was that she invested in a baby gate for the kitchen to prevent counter surfing (for some reason the dog did not desire to jump over the gate), and pseudo-gate the steps at the bottom to prevent the dog from going upstairs.
Over the years this worked, until the German Shepherd did begin leaping the stair gate. In place of that, Adoro closed upstairs doors, especially after an incident in which her dog had injured herself during the day and cost Adoro hundreds in veterinary bills to prevent her dog from bleeding to death when the clotting factors were thrown off by the injury.
That system worked very very well unless Adoro forgot to close the door or simply didn’t latch it properly.
Until….now…
And that’s where the story continues to the nearly present day.
Keep in mind that the doorknobs in my house are the round sort that tend to need to be GRIPPED in order to turn and unlatch.
Well, I had begun to wonder about the open doors, wondering if in fact, there was a “mechanical” problem with the mechanism – was it not latching properly even though I had pulled and heard the “click”?
Then last night, I came home to find that my bedroom door was open and a child-size scapular I bought at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City in 1994 was lying on the ground, the string in shreds and the miraculous medal lying neatly among the mess.
When I stopped to stare at it in confusion, my German Shepherd circled my feet, ears back, tail tucked with the tip wagging as she “apologized”.
I picked up the pieces. None were wet so it happened hours ago. The string appeared to have broken through stress. There was no damage to the door or the knob. The dog was playing “guilty” all over the place, especially when I had the evidence in my hand.
Thankfully, only the string was damaged – the two main pieces seemed fine and perhaps can be used again.
You see, this scapular is one that maybe I had worn (I don’t remember) but as it is so beautiful and comes from such a place, I put it on my doorknob as an act of devotion – both to preserve it and to remind myself of Our Lady’s protection, her intercession, and of course, what it means to be devoted to Christ.
I guess my dog isn’t really into sacramentals even though I’ve done my best to raise her as a Catholic and she seems to enjoy it when I pray the Liturgy of the Hours with her.
But still.- I couldn’t figure out what the broken scapular had to do with the open door! And of course, WHY the scapular was broken!
Yesterday a storm had passed through, and as the years have gone on, I’ve noticed that my dog reacts more and strongly seeks my company when the thunder cracks. I wondered if perhaps she’d nudged the doorknob in hopes of finding me, or maybe to get as close to me (via my scent in my room) as possible during the storm, and the door just happened to be forced open at her insistence, the knob turned just enough.
Today changed that theory, but first a little more to the story:
You see, a couple years ago my dog wandered into the upstairs bathroom one evening and apparently closed the door on herself. She didn’t make a peep, but because she was often in my room staring out the window doing her GSD-thing, it wasn’t uncommon for her not to be with me in the main part of the house.
Well, having not seen her for a few hours and wanting to feed her, I called and she did not come. I knew she was not outside (no fenced yard so she was never outside alone). I went upstairs, saw the door to my room closed and recalled doing that. But I knew she wasn’t in my room because I’d ushered her out before closing the door. But why was the bathroom door closed?
I opened it and she exited somewhat sheepishly as I greeted her. I remember being confused; the doggie Houdini-extraordinaire hadn’t made a peep up there and hadn’t torn the door apart in an attempt to get out!
I thought that perhaps she’d forgotten about her door-opening skill after nudging the door closed during routine sniffing and decided to just wait it out.
Well…no. I was wrong.
She just hadn’t had the proper motivation at the time as she was quite content that evening, apparently, to lay down on the rug and take a nap until I’d opened the door.
Today when I came home, once again I found the bedroom door standing ajar and the dog acting guilty in her rush to pass me in hopes I wouldn’t notice that, in fact, I didn’t actually have to open the door myself.
I stopped, horrified, staring from the floor to the doorknob. Was my only other scapular from that shrine destroyed, too?
No, no…the ground was bare. I looked at the knob. No, there it hung, although it was a bit more tightly wound. I reached out to grasp the “tag” with the embroidered picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe, feeling the gold threads under my fingers. I tugged gently…and saw the knob turn. The string was just taught enough to rub and pull the knob to the side, releasing the latch!
As the door opened, I rose my eyes to my dog, perched at the window, staring outward, ears forward and twitching according to the sounds reverberating against those huge radars. She stood at the window I always left slightly open in fair weather to let the fresh air waft in, and there she could percept, as well, all the sounds of the neighborhood including the dog the neighbors always allow to roam off leash all day long….
Mystery Solved!
CASE CLOSED!
RESOLUTION:
* close window even while gone
* remove scapular from door and leave nothing to act as “doggie pull-chain”
* more interesting toys if actually affordable? (donations accepted!)
* get a different breed NEVER! GET BEHIND ME SATAN! German Shepherds are as close as a canine can get to being human – must continue to nurture in accordance with St. Thomas Aquinas’s hierarchy of Creation as this is clearly an animal present with Adam in the Garden! Must learn to be more like the dog whose thought process is very logical!
OK then!
See the original post:
