Lent starts this week beginning on Ash Wednesday. It goes for forty days…give or take three days at either the beginning or end of the season and Sundays…until Easter Sunday. Last year Lent was early and snuck up on everybody, this year it’s almost ridiculously late which means every Catholic in the world has had even more time to dread its approach.
Yes, I said dread. No matter what anybody says about Lent being a penitential season that prepares us for the celebration of our Lord’s Resurrection, everybody knows that Catholics nowadays look upon Lent as a miserable six and a half weeks that everybody can’t wait to be over so they can indulge in whatever thing-they-probably-shouldn’t-be-doing-anyway they gave up for Lent. I mean, Lent is tough, especially in WASP America. People look at you funny when you show up Wednesday morning with a black smudge that vaguely resembles a cross on your forehead. They think you’re strange when you order a fish filet instead of a Big Mac on Friday or insist on only cheese pizza. This is tough not necessarily because of the inherent superior deliciousness of red meat but because people hate standing out for being different.
Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of Lent we should look at as a great positive. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, fasting, before starting His public ministry. He was tempted by Satan but He came out stronger and ready to do the work His Father had for Him. As Catholics, we should look at Lent not as something we have to do, but something we are invited to do, to share in the mission of the Lord by sharing in his wilderness experiences. He should use it as an opportunity to become stronger Catholics.
Now, if are those things have not convinced you to embrace Lent and any of you are thinking about jumping ship from the Bark of Peter so you can have a steak next Friday, I am going to be writing a new series of blogs along the lines of Forty Reasons Why Catholicism is AWESOME. There will be forty entries (one for each day of Lent) highlighting some aspect of the Catholic Faith that is well…amazing and well worth sticking around for.
I am praying that they will be entertaining as well as edifying and hopefully will help get us through Lent. Stay strong, brothers and sisters, together, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can make it through these next forty days!
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, June 6, 2010
5000 Years in 15 minutes: A Short History of Jerusalem
a.k.a How We Got Into the Shit We Are Now In
My mom showed me this video:
This woman shown is stupid and ignorant: no huge revelation.
But this video prompted my mom to ask me about the history of Jewish and Arab relations in the area, mainly who was there first. This turned into me giving her a rundown of the history of Jerusalem and the region in general in about 10 minutes. Here it is reproduced to the best of my recollection:
(Note: I know that this is very terse and simplistic. That’s the point.)
In order to determine who was “there first,” one has to go back all the way to 3000 B.C. It was around this time that a man from the Sumerian city state of Ur named Abram was told by his God to travel to the land of Canaan. (His house can still be seen in modern day Iraq. If it hasn’t been blown up yet.) Abram changed his name to Abraham (Ibrahim). Abraham’s wife Sarah was the mother of his son Isaac. Unfortunately, prior to Isaac’s birth, Sarah was afraid she would never have a son, so she had her husband sleep with her slave woman to conceive a son she could adopt as her own. This son was named Ishmael. Ishmael was the ancestor of the Arabs, Isaac was the ancestor of the Jews. (So technically the ancestor of the Arabs was the eldest son of Abraham- a bastard eldest son, but the eldest son nonetheless.) Eventually, Sarah feared that Ishmael would be a threat to her own son Isaac and banished Ishmael and his mother. And the Arab-Jewish feud began.
One of Abraham’s allies was Melchezidek, priest-king of the city of Salem. Salem was a city-state much like the surrounding cities of Ur and Sumer. As seen in the first reading for today’s Feast of Corpus Christi, Melchezidek worshipped the same God as Abraham. After Abraham had successfully defeated five kings of the surrounding area (who also happened to be rivals of Melchezidek. Convenient.) Melchezidek blessed Abraham and offered a sacrifice of bread and wine to God.
Abraham’s son Isaac had a son named Jacob. After same nasty business involving his twin brother Esau, Jacob wrestled with an angel and as a prize he received a new name: Israel. Israel subsequently had twelve sons (by four different women) and one of these sons, Joseph, was sold into slavery by his brothers. (There seems to be a pattern of brotherly conflict and hatred in this family; talk about dysfunctional.) Joseph wound up in Egypt and his ability to interpret dreams helped to save Egypt from a famine and win the favor of Pharaoh. He became Viceroy. Israel and his sons and their families, after learning that Joseph was alive in Egypt, moved there to escape the famine and settled in the region of Goshen.
A different Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, came to power and was afraid that the descendants of Israel, now known as “the children of Israel” (because they were) would take over his country, enslaved the Israelites. Everyone who has seen The Ten Commandments knows the rest of the story. Moses led the Israelites on the Exodus from Egypt and into the desert where they got lost for 40 years. After Moses’ death, Joshua led the Conquest of the Promised Land. The Israelites took city after city, killing anything that moved. Once the Conquest was over, the Twelve Tribes of Israel, descended from the sons of Israel, divided the land among them.
At some point, someone had added Jeru to the name of the city of Salem, and it was now called Jerusalem. Jerusalem remained under control of a Canaanite tribe known as the Jesubites until about 1,000 B.C. when David was anointed king. Upon the death of Saul, the previous king, David was acclaimed king in Hebron, the capital of the territorial region of Judah, his tribe. After a few years of civil war against the descendants of Saul, David eventually managed to unify all the tribes and set up his capital in Jerusalem which he had conquered. Jerusalem was known thereafter as the “City of David.”
Jerusalem was the capital of the unified Kingdom of Israel for about 80 years under David and his son Solomon, at which time the nation was at its peak. Following the death of Solomon, the ten Northern Tribes seceded and formed the separatist nation of Israel, with its capital at Samaria. The remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin retained their capital of Jerusalem, renaming their kingdom Judah. (This actually where we get the term “Jew”.)
The Assyrians utterly annihilated Israel in 722 B.C. Judah was not far behind. The Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C., razing Solomon’s Temple and dragging thousands of Jews into captivity. After some time, Babylon was conquered by Persia, and the Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to go back to the Promised Land and rebuild the Temple. When Alexander the Great conquered Persepolis, he gained control of the entire Persian Empire. Alexander traveled to Jerusalem where he offered sacrifice to the Hebrew God (as he did with all the gods of areas he conquered) and allowed the Jews to continue their worship unhindered. Then he died. He had no heir, reportedly having answered the question of how should inherit his empire with “the strongest.” The empire was divided among his three leading generals. Seleucus got Syria and Judea. His successors where not as tolerant of Jewish customs and attempted to make the Jews into Greeks. Greeks spend a lot of time naked, which would be weird for the Jews who were circumcised, so circumcision was outlawed, along with the reading of the Torah. The Seleucid ruler Antiochus executed Jews and desecrated the Temple by sacrificing a pig and setting up a statue of Zeus. Judas Maccabeus led a successful revolt and military campaign against Antiochus, reclaiming the Temple and eventually control of Jerusalem. Judah’s brother Simon became the first leader of the Hasmonean dynasty which controlled Jerusalem until 63 B.C. when the Roman general Pompey took advantage of a period of civil war and took control of the city of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem remained under Roman control until 66 A.D. when Zealots and other Jewish freedom fighters started a revolt which escalated into a full out war with Rome. The emperor sent Vespasian and his son Titus to put down the revolt. Vespasian was recalled to Rome in 68 A.D. to become Emperor and his son continued the war, taking and razing the city in 70 A.D. For the next seventy years, Jerusalem was mostly a heap of ruins until 135 A.D. when Simon bar Kochba got delusions of grandeur. Thinking he was the Messiah, Simon bar Kochba started the second Jewish Revolt. It ended about as well as the first. Simon was killed, everybody else got crucified and what was left of Jerusalem was further destroyed. Hadrian had enough of these shenanigans and ordered that a Roman city called Aelia Capitolina be built over the rubble of Jersualem, which Jews were not allowed to enter. He installed a temple of Venus on the Temple Mount and even changed the name of Iudea (Judea-land of the Jews) to Syria Palestina (named after the Philistines- the greatest enemy of the ancient Israelites.) Ouch.
In 314 A.D. Constantine legalized Christianity. Shortly, thereafter his mother, Helena, found the True Cross of Christ. Constantine started knocking over the pagan temples and building Christian churches at the sites of various events in the life of Jesus, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Jerusalem became a city of Christian pilgrimage. Jersualem remained under Roman control until the Empire fell.
And than Mohammed came along. In 610 A.D. he began receiving what he believed were revelations from Allah (Arabic for God), which called him to found a new faith known as Islam, which was basically an amalgamation of Judaism, Christianity and the paganism of the Arabs. Like most religious figures, he was a trouble maker, and was kicked out of his hometown of Mecca. He fled to Medina, but returned to Mecca with an army, conquered the city and cleansed the Kabba (a stone building supposedly built by Ibrahim) of the pagan idols within it. In a short time, Islam swept across the Near East and the Muslim Arabs soon had control of the entire region, including Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam (after Mecca and Medina) because Mohammed supposedly travelled there and was assumed into Heaven on the very spot where the Dome of the Rock now stands. On the Temple Mount. Yeah.
This makes Jerusalem a holy city for three major religions. (Who won’t stop fighting over it.)
In the beginning, the Christians did not have a problem going on pilgrimages to Jerusalem. The Muslims know all about pilgrimages and they revere Jesus (Isa) as a prophet, second only to Mohammed. So it wasn’t really a big deal. That was until the 11th century when the Seljuk Turks converted to Islam. They were not as friendly to Christians and began to persecute Christians and attack pilgrims. Towards the end of the eleventh century, Pope Urban II was getting fed up with the Muslim shenanigans and when the Byzantine Emperor asked for assistance against the Turks, Urban saw his chance. He called for a Crusade to take the Holy Land back from the Muslims.
Thousands of knights who either 1) had nothing better to do 2) were looking for riches or 3) genuinely believed the preachers who said “God wills it” in regard to the Crusade, answered the Pope’s call. After fighting their way across Muslim territory for two years, the Crusaders finally reached Jerusalem. After breaching the wall, they entered the city, killing anything that moved. Their leader, Godfrey de Bouilion stated “I will not wear a crown of gold in a city where my Savior wore a crown of thorns” and accepted the title of Defender of the Holy Sepluchre. Subsequent rulers were not so humble and the Kingdom of Jerusalem was formed, a Christian city-state which lasted until 1187.
For the rest of the story watch Kingdom of Heaven. The short story is that the last king of Jerusalem went to war against Saladin, the Muslim leader but was completely incompetent. He led an army out into the desert to meet Saladin, but they had no water and were soundly defeated at the battle of Hattan. This left the defense of Jerusalem to Balian of Ibelin who fought well but was eventually forced to surrender to Saladin, after negotiating safe passage for the surviving defenders (the alternative was to fight the Muslims to the death, during which time Balian promised Saladin that they would kill 10 Muslims for every Christian who fell). Jerusalem was under Muslim control once more.
Richard the Lionhearted lead a Third Crusade against Saladin but it ended as a stalemate with Jersusalem still under Islamic control. Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control for the next six centuries. The Fourth Crusade didn’t even make it to Jerusalem, they decided to sack Constantinople instead. Saint King Louis IX of France lead a few Crusades, but they failed mostly because they were halfhearted. Europe had more important things to worry about, like the Plague. Jerusalem passed through a succession of caliphates, sultanates and other assortments of Muslim rulers. It was ruled by the Ottoman Empire until they picked the wrong side in World War I.
In 1917, Jerusalem once again came under Christian control as the British entered Jerusalem following the Battle of Jerusalem. The League of Nations approved the British Mandate of Palestine which, among other things, called for two states in Palestine, one Arab and one Jewish. Around this time, with the Muslims no longer in control, the Jewish Diaspora throughout the world saw this as an opportunity to form a Jewish homeland for the first time in over 1800 years. A movement was formed known as Zion, taking its name from Mount Zion, the site of Solomon’s Temple. Zionism was the belief that the only place the Jews could truly have a homeland was in Zion, the city of David and the land of Israel. Zionists began immigrating to Palestine, and started taking a decidedly Old Testament approach to the Arabs living there i.e. we will kill you all and take your land.The age-old sibling rivalry between Isaac and Ishmael reared its head. Zionist forces attacked Arabs. The Arabs attacked the Jews. When the British tried to keep the peace, the Zionists attacked them too. Basically the whole thing went to shit.
Many Jews were wary of the Zionist movements. They had dreamed of returning to the Land of Israel but believed that the Messiah was the one to come and gather all the Jews in Israel. They believed that the secular Zionist movement was jumping the gun. (For reference, read Chaim Potok’s The Chosen) Besides they had good lives in Europe, especially Germany and Poland.
Yeah, about that….
That was when Hitler came along. By the time World War II was over, six million Jews were dead. It could have been worse. Hitler was close allies with the Arab Mufti, a Muslim leader who wanted to drive the Jews into the sea. If he had won the war, Hitler had planned to set up concentration camps in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. (Just thinking about that gives me the chills…brings up echoes of the Abomination of Desolation In 1947, the UN Partition Plan still called for a separate Arab and Jewish but the Western nations still felt guilty about doing absolutely nothing to stop the Shoah. In order to assuage their collective guilt, huge concessions were made to the Jews which made the Plan utterly unacceptable to the Arabs. The point became moot however in 1948 when the British withdraw, and the Israelis simultaneously declared independence and war on the Arabs. The Arabs invaded the new nation of Israel, starting a fight they could not finish, and igniting the Arab-Israeli conflict which has ramifications down to this day.
The next years were almost a replay of the Old Testament. At the end of the 1948 war, Jerusalem was split, with East Jerusalem under Arab control and West Jerusalem until the jurisdiction of Israel. Jordan controlled the holy sites and like during the time of the Crusades, access by Christians and Jews were limited. In 1967, the Israelis took control of East Jerusalem during the Six Day War, unifying the city. Jerusalem was once again the capital of a unified nation of Israel as it had been when David did when he took it 3,000 years before.
In conflict after conflict, the Israelis have stood their ground against superior forces and won. Their attitude toward their neighbors is straight out of the Old Testament. One can not really blame them either. They are driven by the collective memory of the Shoah, and they will not allow something like that to happen to happen again. They are surrounded by enemies and they know that they are fighting for nothing less than their survival. For 5,000 years the story of the Jews has been one of tears and tragedy. Whether they were being enslaved, dragged into captivity, crucified, persecuted or hunting to near extermination; these people can not seem to get a break. They were promised a land which they lost, regained, lost, regained and lost again. Now they have a homeland and a nation, and they’ll be damned if they give an inch of that up.
At the same time, you have the Arabs. They are also children of Abraham. Muslims had this land for over six hundred years. That is a very long time. They believe that their claim is as good as the Jews. They forced out of the land they had known as home for generations. It is ironic that a people who were displaced by invaders is now displacing others. They want the land that was stolen from them. Most of all, the Arabs want Jerusalem back because it is holy to them as well. And they won’t give up either.
Remember this conflict goes back 5,000 years: to Ishmael and Isaac.
Besides the Lord’s messenger said to her: “You are now pregnant and shall bear a son; you shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard you, God has answered you. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him. In opposition to all his kin shall he encamp.” -Genesis 16:11-12
I believe that describes the present Israeli-Arab conflict perfectly. This fight is going to last until the end of time. In fact, it will probably kick the end times party off.
**For more info about the religious implications about Zionism see my previous blog "The Antichrist and the Eucharist" http://youwillmostlikelybeoffended.blogspot.com/2009/08/antichrist-and-eucharist.html
My mom showed me this video:
This woman shown is stupid and ignorant: no huge revelation.
But this video prompted my mom to ask me about the history of Jewish and Arab relations in the area, mainly who was there first. This turned into me giving her a rundown of the history of Jerusalem and the region in general in about 10 minutes. Here it is reproduced to the best of my recollection:
(Note: I know that this is very terse and simplistic. That’s the point.)
In order to determine who was “there first,” one has to go back all the way to 3000 B.C. It was around this time that a man from the Sumerian city state of Ur named Abram was told by his God to travel to the land of Canaan. (His house can still be seen in modern day Iraq. If it hasn’t been blown up yet.) Abram changed his name to Abraham (Ibrahim). Abraham’s wife Sarah was the mother of his son Isaac. Unfortunately, prior to Isaac’s birth, Sarah was afraid she would never have a son, so she had her husband sleep with her slave woman to conceive a son she could adopt as her own. This son was named Ishmael. Ishmael was the ancestor of the Arabs, Isaac was the ancestor of the Jews. (So technically the ancestor of the Arabs was the eldest son of Abraham- a bastard eldest son, but the eldest son nonetheless.) Eventually, Sarah feared that Ishmael would be a threat to her own son Isaac and banished Ishmael and his mother. And the Arab-Jewish feud began.
One of Abraham’s allies was Melchezidek, priest-king of the city of Salem. Salem was a city-state much like the surrounding cities of Ur and Sumer. As seen in the first reading for today’s Feast of Corpus Christi, Melchezidek worshipped the same God as Abraham. After Abraham had successfully defeated five kings of the surrounding area (who also happened to be rivals of Melchezidek. Convenient.) Melchezidek blessed Abraham and offered a sacrifice of bread and wine to God.
Abraham’s son Isaac had a son named Jacob. After same nasty business involving his twin brother Esau, Jacob wrestled with an angel and as a prize he received a new name: Israel. Israel subsequently had twelve sons (by four different women) and one of these sons, Joseph, was sold into slavery by his brothers. (There seems to be a pattern of brotherly conflict and hatred in this family; talk about dysfunctional.) Joseph wound up in Egypt and his ability to interpret dreams helped to save Egypt from a famine and win the favor of Pharaoh. He became Viceroy. Israel and his sons and their families, after learning that Joseph was alive in Egypt, moved there to escape the famine and settled in the region of Goshen.
A different Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, came to power and was afraid that the descendants of Israel, now known as “the children of Israel” (because they were) would take over his country, enslaved the Israelites. Everyone who has seen The Ten Commandments knows the rest of the story. Moses led the Israelites on the Exodus from Egypt and into the desert where they got lost for 40 years. After Moses’ death, Joshua led the Conquest of the Promised Land. The Israelites took city after city, killing anything that moved. Once the Conquest was over, the Twelve Tribes of Israel, descended from the sons of Israel, divided the land among them.
At some point, someone had added Jeru to the name of the city of Salem, and it was now called Jerusalem. Jerusalem remained under control of a Canaanite tribe known as the Jesubites until about 1,000 B.C. when David was anointed king. Upon the death of Saul, the previous king, David was acclaimed king in Hebron, the capital of the territorial region of Judah, his tribe. After a few years of civil war against the descendants of Saul, David eventually managed to unify all the tribes and set up his capital in Jerusalem which he had conquered. Jerusalem was known thereafter as the “City of David.”
Jerusalem was the capital of the unified Kingdom of Israel for about 80 years under David and his son Solomon, at which time the nation was at its peak. Following the death of Solomon, the ten Northern Tribes seceded and formed the separatist nation of Israel, with its capital at Samaria. The remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin retained their capital of Jerusalem, renaming their kingdom Judah. (This actually where we get the term “Jew”.)
The Assyrians utterly annihilated Israel in 722 B.C. Judah was not far behind. The Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C., razing Solomon’s Temple and dragging thousands of Jews into captivity. After some time, Babylon was conquered by Persia, and the Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to go back to the Promised Land and rebuild the Temple. When Alexander the Great conquered Persepolis, he gained control of the entire Persian Empire. Alexander traveled to Jerusalem where he offered sacrifice to the Hebrew God (as he did with all the gods of areas he conquered) and allowed the Jews to continue their worship unhindered. Then he died. He had no heir, reportedly having answered the question of how should inherit his empire with “the strongest.” The empire was divided among his three leading generals. Seleucus got Syria and Judea. His successors where not as tolerant of Jewish customs and attempted to make the Jews into Greeks. Greeks spend a lot of time naked, which would be weird for the Jews who were circumcised, so circumcision was outlawed, along with the reading of the Torah. The Seleucid ruler Antiochus executed Jews and desecrated the Temple by sacrificing a pig and setting up a statue of Zeus. Judas Maccabeus led a successful revolt and military campaign against Antiochus, reclaiming the Temple and eventually control of Jerusalem. Judah’s brother Simon became the first leader of the Hasmonean dynasty which controlled Jerusalem until 63 B.C. when the Roman general Pompey took advantage of a period of civil war and took control of the city of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem remained under Roman control until 66 A.D. when Zealots and other Jewish freedom fighters started a revolt which escalated into a full out war with Rome. The emperor sent Vespasian and his son Titus to put down the revolt. Vespasian was recalled to Rome in 68 A.D. to become Emperor and his son continued the war, taking and razing the city in 70 A.D. For the next seventy years, Jerusalem was mostly a heap of ruins until 135 A.D. when Simon bar Kochba got delusions of grandeur. Thinking he was the Messiah, Simon bar Kochba started the second Jewish Revolt. It ended about as well as the first. Simon was killed, everybody else got crucified and what was left of Jerusalem was further destroyed. Hadrian had enough of these shenanigans and ordered that a Roman city called Aelia Capitolina be built over the rubble of Jersualem, which Jews were not allowed to enter. He installed a temple of Venus on the Temple Mount and even changed the name of Iudea (Judea-land of the Jews) to Syria Palestina (named after the Philistines- the greatest enemy of the ancient Israelites.) Ouch.
In 314 A.D. Constantine legalized Christianity. Shortly, thereafter his mother, Helena, found the True Cross of Christ. Constantine started knocking over the pagan temples and building Christian churches at the sites of various events in the life of Jesus, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Jerusalem became a city of Christian pilgrimage. Jersualem remained under Roman control until the Empire fell.
And than Mohammed came along. In 610 A.D. he began receiving what he believed were revelations from Allah (Arabic for God), which called him to found a new faith known as Islam, which was basically an amalgamation of Judaism, Christianity and the paganism of the Arabs. Like most religious figures, he was a trouble maker, and was kicked out of his hometown of Mecca. He fled to Medina, but returned to Mecca with an army, conquered the city and cleansed the Kabba (a stone building supposedly built by Ibrahim) of the pagan idols within it. In a short time, Islam swept across the Near East and the Muslim Arabs soon had control of the entire region, including Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam (after Mecca and Medina) because Mohammed supposedly travelled there and was assumed into Heaven on the very spot where the Dome of the Rock now stands. On the Temple Mount. Yeah.
This makes Jerusalem a holy city for three major religions. (Who won’t stop fighting over it.)
In the beginning, the Christians did not have a problem going on pilgrimages to Jerusalem. The Muslims know all about pilgrimages and they revere Jesus (Isa) as a prophet, second only to Mohammed. So it wasn’t really a big deal. That was until the 11th century when the Seljuk Turks converted to Islam. They were not as friendly to Christians and began to persecute Christians and attack pilgrims. Towards the end of the eleventh century, Pope Urban II was getting fed up with the Muslim shenanigans and when the Byzantine Emperor asked for assistance against the Turks, Urban saw his chance. He called for a Crusade to take the Holy Land back from the Muslims.
Thousands of knights who either 1) had nothing better to do 2) were looking for riches or 3) genuinely believed the preachers who said “God wills it” in regard to the Crusade, answered the Pope’s call. After fighting their way across Muslim territory for two years, the Crusaders finally reached Jerusalem. After breaching the wall, they entered the city, killing anything that moved. Their leader, Godfrey de Bouilion stated “I will not wear a crown of gold in a city where my Savior wore a crown of thorns” and accepted the title of Defender of the Holy Sepluchre. Subsequent rulers were not so humble and the Kingdom of Jerusalem was formed, a Christian city-state which lasted until 1187.
For the rest of the story watch Kingdom of Heaven. The short story is that the last king of Jerusalem went to war against Saladin, the Muslim leader but was completely incompetent. He led an army out into the desert to meet Saladin, but they had no water and were soundly defeated at the battle of Hattan. This left the defense of Jerusalem to Balian of Ibelin who fought well but was eventually forced to surrender to Saladin, after negotiating safe passage for the surviving defenders (the alternative was to fight the Muslims to the death, during which time Balian promised Saladin that they would kill 10 Muslims for every Christian who fell). Jerusalem was under Muslim control once more.
Richard the Lionhearted lead a Third Crusade against Saladin but it ended as a stalemate with Jersusalem still under Islamic control. Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control for the next six centuries. The Fourth Crusade didn’t even make it to Jerusalem, they decided to sack Constantinople instead. Saint King Louis IX of France lead a few Crusades, but they failed mostly because they were halfhearted. Europe had more important things to worry about, like the Plague. Jerusalem passed through a succession of caliphates, sultanates and other assortments of Muslim rulers. It was ruled by the Ottoman Empire until they picked the wrong side in World War I.
In 1917, Jerusalem once again came under Christian control as the British entered Jerusalem following the Battle of Jerusalem. The League of Nations approved the British Mandate of Palestine which, among other things, called for two states in Palestine, one Arab and one Jewish. Around this time, with the Muslims no longer in control, the Jewish Diaspora throughout the world saw this as an opportunity to form a Jewish homeland for the first time in over 1800 years. A movement was formed known as Zion, taking its name from Mount Zion, the site of Solomon’s Temple. Zionism was the belief that the only place the Jews could truly have a homeland was in Zion, the city of David and the land of Israel. Zionists began immigrating to Palestine, and started taking a decidedly Old Testament approach to the Arabs living there i.e. we will kill you all and take your land.The age-old sibling rivalry between Isaac and Ishmael reared its head. Zionist forces attacked Arabs. The Arabs attacked the Jews. When the British tried to keep the peace, the Zionists attacked them too. Basically the whole thing went to shit.
Many Jews were wary of the Zionist movements. They had dreamed of returning to the Land of Israel but believed that the Messiah was the one to come and gather all the Jews in Israel. They believed that the secular Zionist movement was jumping the gun. (For reference, read Chaim Potok’s The Chosen) Besides they had good lives in Europe, especially Germany and Poland.
Yeah, about that….
That was when Hitler came along. By the time World War II was over, six million Jews were dead. It could have been worse. Hitler was close allies with the Arab Mufti, a Muslim leader who wanted to drive the Jews into the sea. If he had won the war, Hitler had planned to set up concentration camps in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. (Just thinking about that gives me the chills…brings up echoes of the Abomination of Desolation In 1947, the UN Partition Plan still called for a separate Arab and Jewish but the Western nations still felt guilty about doing absolutely nothing to stop the Shoah. In order to assuage their collective guilt, huge concessions were made to the Jews which made the Plan utterly unacceptable to the Arabs. The point became moot however in 1948 when the British withdraw, and the Israelis simultaneously declared independence and war on the Arabs. The Arabs invaded the new nation of Israel, starting a fight they could not finish, and igniting the Arab-Israeli conflict which has ramifications down to this day.
The next years were almost a replay of the Old Testament. At the end of the 1948 war, Jerusalem was split, with East Jerusalem under Arab control and West Jerusalem until the jurisdiction of Israel. Jordan controlled the holy sites and like during the time of the Crusades, access by Christians and Jews were limited. In 1967, the Israelis took control of East Jerusalem during the Six Day War, unifying the city. Jerusalem was once again the capital of a unified nation of Israel as it had been when David did when he took it 3,000 years before.
In conflict after conflict, the Israelis have stood their ground against superior forces and won. Their attitude toward their neighbors is straight out of the Old Testament. One can not really blame them either. They are driven by the collective memory of the Shoah, and they will not allow something like that to happen to happen again. They are surrounded by enemies and they know that they are fighting for nothing less than their survival. For 5,000 years the story of the Jews has been one of tears and tragedy. Whether they were being enslaved, dragged into captivity, crucified, persecuted or hunting to near extermination; these people can not seem to get a break. They were promised a land which they lost, regained, lost, regained and lost again. Now they have a homeland and a nation, and they’ll be damned if they give an inch of that up.
At the same time, you have the Arabs. They are also children of Abraham. Muslims had this land for over six hundred years. That is a very long time. They believe that their claim is as good as the Jews. They forced out of the land they had known as home for generations. It is ironic that a people who were displaced by invaders is now displacing others. They want the land that was stolen from them. Most of all, the Arabs want Jerusalem back because it is holy to them as well. And they won’t give up either.
Remember this conflict goes back 5,000 years: to Ishmael and Isaac.
Besides the Lord’s messenger said to her: “You are now pregnant and shall bear a son; you shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard you, God has answered you. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him. In opposition to all his kin shall he encamp.” -Genesis 16:11-12
I believe that describes the present Israeli-Arab conflict perfectly. This fight is going to last until the end of time. In fact, it will probably kick the end times party off.
**For more info about the religious implications about Zionism see my previous blog "The Antichrist and the Eucharist" http://youwillmostlikelybeoffended.blogspot.com/2009/08/antichrist-and-eucharist.html
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Love is all you need?
So my friend wrote a note about how important Love is to true and authentic religion, that in fact Love IS the only form of true and authentic relgion. No many would take that concept and scream BLASPHEMY! (Which people are prone to do when they don’t understand something having to with religion) I however, tend to agree, to an extent. After all, the Apostle Paul writes:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. -I Corinthians 13:1-3
So faith, hope and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
-I Corinthians 13:13
These readings are often used at weddings to a ridiculous extent. They are very pretty but many people tend to the miss the point of this whole love thing. They think it means that Christians always have to play nice, beating around the bush and never actually telling anyone what they are doing wrong. They argue to do so what be unloving and uncharitable. God forbid, a Christian might offend someone!
I am afraid that this is a misunderstanding of the idea of love, especially God’s Love. St. John the Evangelist, author of the Gospel and three epistles that bear his name, as well as the Book of Revelation, has been referred to as the Apostle of Love because his writings on full of words about love. By studying these we can understand the meaning of love as understood by the Apostle who was closest to Christ.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love, does not know God
-I John 4:7-8
That is some pretty strong stuff for two sentences. In the ever widening religious debate people tend to forget words like these. We have it from both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John that Love really is all that you need! (John and Paul? Hmm…) But what kind of love are we talking about? Does that mean that as Christians we can not tell people things that they may not want to hear?
Probably the second most quoted (and more often than not, misquoted) Bible verse is:
Judge not, lest you be judged. -Matthew 7:1
People throw that out there with accusations of being “judgmental” in saying that certain actions are sins or when someone actually tries to convert another person to their faith. This charge gets leveled at Catholics a lot for our claim of being “the sole deposit of the fullness of the teachings of Christ” because by implication other faiths are flawed, incomplete or just plain wrong. Are we wrong? Are we missing the point of the Bible’s words about love?
Not unless Jesus was.
Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Incarnate Word of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. (you get the picture) The Nicene Creed states that He is “begotten, not made, one in being with the Father.” Thus if God is Love, than Jesus, who is God Incarnate, is also Love Incarnate.
Love Incarnate did not shy away from “calling it like he saw it.” He told off the Pharisees.
Woe to you, hypocrites, you serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna? -Matthew 23:33
That doesn’t sound very loving! It sounds downright judgmental! (And He said they might be going to Hell! Oh, no)
He got angry and kicked the moneychangers out of the Temple. With a whip!
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the Temple area, with the sheep and the oxen and spilled the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. -John 2:14-15
Later in the same Gospel, Jesus is delivering the Bread of Life and followers are leaving Him because He is telling Him that they must ate His Body and drink His Blood to gain eternal life. But Jesus refused to dilute His message and instead repeated it.
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can we accept it?” Since Jesus knew that His disciples were murmuring against Him, He said to them, “Does this shock you?” -John 6:60-61
(See earlier post “The Antichrist and the Eucharist” for more on this particular passage)
How does this all fit? This doesn’t sound like a touchy-feely loving Jesus. How does this fit with all the passages about love? Jesus sounds downright belligerent!
The problem is a misunderstanding of what God’s Love and Christian charity really mean. Saint John got it (with the world’s most quoted Bible verse…)
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but might have eternal life.
-John 3:16
The way we came to know love was that He lay down His life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
-I John 3:16
This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.
-John 15:12-13
There you have it: the true meaning of Christian love! And it’s a whole lot harder than this lovey-dovey non-judgmental kumbayah clap trap. Christ laid down His life for everyone, and He asks all Christians to be ready and willing to do the same. That is the true meaning of love: to be willing to die for others, even if those others are nailing us to a cross because we offended them by telling them the truth. Jesus did that.
That is the true meaning of love, at least in a Christian sense. That is why I believe that no one truly loves anybody else unless they are willing to die so that other person may live.
I guess love really is all you need. It just has to be the right kind of love.
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. -I Corinthians 13:1-3
So faith, hope and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
-I Corinthians 13:13
These readings are often used at weddings to a ridiculous extent. They are very pretty but many people tend to the miss the point of this whole love thing. They think it means that Christians always have to play nice, beating around the bush and never actually telling anyone what they are doing wrong. They argue to do so what be unloving and uncharitable. God forbid, a Christian might offend someone!
I am afraid that this is a misunderstanding of the idea of love, especially God’s Love. St. John the Evangelist, author of the Gospel and three epistles that bear his name, as well as the Book of Revelation, has been referred to as the Apostle of Love because his writings on full of words about love. By studying these we can understand the meaning of love as understood by the Apostle who was closest to Christ.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love, does not know God
-I John 4:7-8
That is some pretty strong stuff for two sentences. In the ever widening religious debate people tend to forget words like these. We have it from both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John that Love really is all that you need! (John and Paul? Hmm…) But what kind of love are we talking about? Does that mean that as Christians we can not tell people things that they may not want to hear?
Probably the second most quoted (and more often than not, misquoted) Bible verse is:
Judge not, lest you be judged. -Matthew 7:1
People throw that out there with accusations of being “judgmental” in saying that certain actions are sins or when someone actually tries to convert another person to their faith. This charge gets leveled at Catholics a lot for our claim of being “the sole deposit of the fullness of the teachings of Christ” because by implication other faiths are flawed, incomplete or just plain wrong. Are we wrong? Are we missing the point of the Bible’s words about love?
Not unless Jesus was.
Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Incarnate Word of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. (you get the picture) The Nicene Creed states that He is “begotten, not made, one in being with the Father.” Thus if God is Love, than Jesus, who is God Incarnate, is also Love Incarnate.
Love Incarnate did not shy away from “calling it like he saw it.” He told off the Pharisees.
Woe to you, hypocrites, you serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna? -Matthew 23:33
That doesn’t sound very loving! It sounds downright judgmental! (And He said they might be going to Hell! Oh, no)
He got angry and kicked the moneychangers out of the Temple. With a whip!
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the Temple area, with the sheep and the oxen and spilled the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. -John 2:14-15
Later in the same Gospel, Jesus is delivering the Bread of Life and followers are leaving Him because He is telling Him that they must ate His Body and drink His Blood to gain eternal life. But Jesus refused to dilute His message and instead repeated it.
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can we accept it?” Since Jesus knew that His disciples were murmuring against Him, He said to them, “Does this shock you?” -John 6:60-61
(See earlier post “The Antichrist and the Eucharist” for more on this particular passage)
How does this all fit? This doesn’t sound like a touchy-feely loving Jesus. How does this fit with all the passages about love? Jesus sounds downright belligerent!
The problem is a misunderstanding of what God’s Love and Christian charity really mean. Saint John got it (with the world’s most quoted Bible verse…)
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but might have eternal life.
-John 3:16
The way we came to know love was that He lay down His life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
-I John 3:16
This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.
-John 15:12-13
There you have it: the true meaning of Christian love! And it’s a whole lot harder than this lovey-dovey non-judgmental kumbayah clap trap. Christ laid down His life for everyone, and He asks all Christians to be ready and willing to do the same. That is the true meaning of love: to be willing to die for others, even if those others are nailing us to a cross because we offended them by telling them the truth. Jesus did that.
That is the true meaning of love, at least in a Christian sense. That is why I believe that no one truly loves anybody else unless they are willing to die so that other person may live.
I guess love really is all you need. It just has to be the right kind of love.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
So as I was sitting listening to the music at the Taps at Twilight Memorial Day celebration, a thought occurred to me. This was one of those things where you tell people what that thought is and they respond, “Only you would think of that!” It’s probably true.
The thought was this: “Wow, there is a lot of apocalyptic imagery in this song.” The song in question was the Battle Hymn of the Republic by Harriet Beecher Stowe. If you (like me) graduated from Glynn Academy than you are probably not too fond of this school. I however, still like it, and know the words (to all four verses). I knew them long before I had to sing the song at my graduation. Anyway, a brief analysis of the lyrical content of the Battle Hymn will illustrate what I am talking about.
Most of the apocalyptic imagery is concentrated in the first and third verses but there is a good deal of insight to the mindset of the people in the other verses so I will go over them as well.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
He hath loosed the faithful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His Truth is marching on
The first line is fairly simple, the writer believes that the “end is nigh”, so to speak and the return of Christ is imminent. While most people associate the Apocalypse with death, mayhem and destruction on a cataclysmic and catastrophic scale, that is not the main point of the book. The word apocalypse is from the Greek apokolypsis for “unveiling, or a revealing” hence the title which the Apocalypse of St. John is better known as, the Book of Revelation. In 90 A.D. the Apostle John was imprisoned on Patmos and wrote letters to seven churches in Asia, with the goal of strengthening them in their trials and persecution under the Emperor Domitian. The main message was that in spite of all the tribulations, Christ, the Lamb, was in control and that He would return to personally defeat the evil ones and free the Christians from their persecutions. The writer of the Battle Hymn clearly believed that the abolition movement was a righteous crusade and that Christ not only approved their efforts but was actually the driving force behind them.
So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and cut the earth’s vintage. He threw it into the great wine press of God’s fury. The wine press was trodden outside the city and blood poured out of the wine press to the height of a horse’s bridle for two hundred miles -Revelation 14:19-20
This “fury of God” is then poured into seven bowls and given to seven angels, who pour this fury out onto the earth, resulting in violent plagues and other calamities which punish the enemies of God and save His servants. John Steinbeck titled his novel The Grapes of Wrath for a similar reason. It is filled with biblical references, and as the reader shares the tragic exodus of the Joad family, one fills that God’s righteous anger is rising against all those in power who are taking advantage of them and one has the expectation that by the end of the novel, justice will be served. It was the same case with those fighting to end slavery. They saw slavery as an injustice that called out to heaven for vengeance and saw in the escalating conflict on the issue and the civil war that followed the wrath of God being poured out on the nation for allowing slavery to continue.
SPOILER ALERT: at the end of Revelation, after all the judgments, Jesus gloriously returns to earth, to judge the nations and usher in a thousand years of peace.
Out of His mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod and He Himself will tread out in the wine press the wine and the fury of God Almighty -Revelation 19:15-16
I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps
They have built Him an altar in the evening’s dew and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by their dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on
In the writer’s eye, Christ is the true leader of the movement to end slavery. He is with the troops and among them and more importantly, the have built him an altar. They are honoring him by their service and their desire to end slavery. Of course, the writer does not literally see Christ in the midst of the assembled army but she sees the saving power of Christ acting through this force. The third line is most significant in the fact that their lamps, a necessary article of war, are the light that shines on Christ’s words so that they can be seen and understood. Essentially, the writer sees God through the actions of these fighting men.
He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat
Oh, be swift, my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet
While God is marching on
In his second letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul states,
For the Lord Himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.
-II Thessalonians 4:16-17
A trumpet, or more accurately, a bugle, was used to call commands in war giving the signal to either charge or retreat. The writer is stating that she believes that Christ can never be defeated. Furthermore, this final trumpet is the last call for the entire world because it signals the return of Christ and, as Revelation indicates, the final judgment immediately follows His return. She knows that when this return comes, she must be ready to answer Him and prays that she will be swift because that would mean that she “is right with the Lord” and will not hesitate to answer for shame or knowing that her answer will condemn her. Further, if her feet are jubilant, than she is most likely dancing for joy.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!
As God is marching on
I am not sure what “beauty of the lilies” refers to, since they are not native to Judea, “across the sea” where Christ was born, but they probably refer to his purity and sinlessness and that of His Virgin Mother. What is more important is the third line. Christ died to save us from the slavery of sin and this last verse equates that redemptive death with the death of the men fighting to end actual physical slavery. It is great motivation.
Behold, I am with you always, even until the end of the world.
-Matthew 28:20
In conclusion, we do not really know if Harriet Beecher Stowe actually believed that end of the world was upon her and that Christ was personally returning to lead the slaves to emancipation. People in every day and time see the Apocalypse around them, whether it was the Holocaust and World War II, or the violent wars of religion following the Protestant Revolt, or the Muslim conquest of Europe, everyone thought that their time would be the time, “The End Times,” even the Apostles. It is clear that the early church took Christ’s prophecies about the destruction of the Temple to apply to them and believed that Christ would return in their lifetimes. Peter and John say that “now is the end times” in their epistles and Paul says to “wait but a little while.” But it clearly was not the time. Even in this case, however, the lessons of Revelations apply to all times and all places. The people of God, doing his work, will always face trial and tribulation. The Church has said as much. And more importantly, the message of God’s saving power, that one day Christ will return to (literally) save the world from evil and destruction and “wipe away every tear” will always resonate and will both comfort those oppressed and inspire others to end the oppression.
Who said religion never accomplished anything good?
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free
So as I was sitting listening to the music at the Taps at Twilight Memorial Day celebration, a thought occurred to me. This was one of those things where you tell people what that thought is and they respond, “Only you would think of that!” It’s probably true.
The thought was this: “Wow, there is a lot of apocalyptic imagery in this song.” The song in question was the Battle Hymn of the Republic by Harriet Beecher Stowe. If you (like me) graduated from Glynn Academy than you are probably not too fond of this school. I however, still like it, and know the words (to all four verses). I knew them long before I had to sing the song at my graduation. Anyway, a brief analysis of the lyrical content of the Battle Hymn will illustrate what I am talking about.
Most of the apocalyptic imagery is concentrated in the first and third verses but there is a good deal of insight to the mindset of the people in the other verses so I will go over them as well.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
He hath loosed the faithful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His Truth is marching on
The first line is fairly simple, the writer believes that the “end is nigh”, so to speak and the return of Christ is imminent. While most people associate the Apocalypse with death, mayhem and destruction on a cataclysmic and catastrophic scale, that is not the main point of the book. The word apocalypse is from the Greek apokolypsis for “unveiling, or a revealing” hence the title which the Apocalypse of St. John is better known as, the Book of Revelation. In 90 A.D. the Apostle John was imprisoned on Patmos and wrote letters to seven churches in Asia, with the goal of strengthening them in their trials and persecution under the Emperor Domitian. The main message was that in spite of all the tribulations, Christ, the Lamb, was in control and that He would return to personally defeat the evil ones and free the Christians from their persecutions. The writer of the Battle Hymn clearly believed that the abolition movement was a righteous crusade and that Christ not only approved their efforts but was actually the driving force behind them.
So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and cut the earth’s vintage. He threw it into the great wine press of God’s fury. The wine press was trodden outside the city and blood poured out of the wine press to the height of a horse’s bridle for two hundred miles -Revelation 14:19-20
This “fury of God” is then poured into seven bowls and given to seven angels, who pour this fury out onto the earth, resulting in violent plagues and other calamities which punish the enemies of God and save His servants. John Steinbeck titled his novel The Grapes of Wrath for a similar reason. It is filled with biblical references, and as the reader shares the tragic exodus of the Joad family, one fills that God’s righteous anger is rising against all those in power who are taking advantage of them and one has the expectation that by the end of the novel, justice will be served. It was the same case with those fighting to end slavery. They saw slavery as an injustice that called out to heaven for vengeance and saw in the escalating conflict on the issue and the civil war that followed the wrath of God being poured out on the nation for allowing slavery to continue.
SPOILER ALERT: at the end of Revelation, after all the judgments, Jesus gloriously returns to earth, to judge the nations and usher in a thousand years of peace.
Out of His mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod and He Himself will tread out in the wine press the wine and the fury of God Almighty -Revelation 19:15-16
I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps
They have built Him an altar in the evening’s dew and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by their dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on
In the writer’s eye, Christ is the true leader of the movement to end slavery. He is with the troops and among them and more importantly, the have built him an altar. They are honoring him by their service and their desire to end slavery. Of course, the writer does not literally see Christ in the midst of the assembled army but she sees the saving power of Christ acting through this force. The third line is most significant in the fact that their lamps, a necessary article of war, are the light that shines on Christ’s words so that they can be seen and understood. Essentially, the writer sees God through the actions of these fighting men.
He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat
Oh, be swift, my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet
While God is marching on
In his second letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul states,
For the Lord Himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.
-II Thessalonians 4:16-17
A trumpet, or more accurately, a bugle, was used to call commands in war giving the signal to either charge or retreat. The writer is stating that she believes that Christ can never be defeated. Furthermore, this final trumpet is the last call for the entire world because it signals the return of Christ and, as Revelation indicates, the final judgment immediately follows His return. She knows that when this return comes, she must be ready to answer Him and prays that she will be swift because that would mean that she “is right with the Lord” and will not hesitate to answer for shame or knowing that her answer will condemn her. Further, if her feet are jubilant, than she is most likely dancing for joy.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!
As God is marching on
I am not sure what “beauty of the lilies” refers to, since they are not native to Judea, “across the sea” where Christ was born, but they probably refer to his purity and sinlessness and that of His Virgin Mother. What is more important is the third line. Christ died to save us from the slavery of sin and this last verse equates that redemptive death with the death of the men fighting to end actual physical slavery. It is great motivation.
Behold, I am with you always, even until the end of the world.
-Matthew 28:20
In conclusion, we do not really know if Harriet Beecher Stowe actually believed that end of the world was upon her and that Christ was personally returning to lead the slaves to emancipation. People in every day and time see the Apocalypse around them, whether it was the Holocaust and World War II, or the violent wars of religion following the Protestant Revolt, or the Muslim conquest of Europe, everyone thought that their time would be the time, “The End Times,” even the Apostles. It is clear that the early church took Christ’s prophecies about the destruction of the Temple to apply to them and believed that Christ would return in their lifetimes. Peter and John say that “now is the end times” in their epistles and Paul says to “wait but a little while.” But it clearly was not the time. Even in this case, however, the lessons of Revelations apply to all times and all places. The people of God, doing his work, will always face trial and tribulation. The Church has said as much. And more importantly, the message of God’s saving power, that one day Christ will return to (literally) save the world from evil and destruction and “wipe away every tear” will always resonate and will both comfort those oppressed and inspire others to end the oppression.
Who said religion never accomplished anything good?
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free
Friday, May 28, 2010
So I have something that I need to admit.
I watch American Idol.
Well, I don’t really watch it. The show does too much looking at the background of the contestants and self-promotion and talking about how great their celebrity “mentors” are that I usually just look at the performances on YouTube the next day. I was not that big into the show at all during its first few seasons but a couple years back I caught an episode my mom was watching. It was about the time I started getting into music, so I figured that I should at least check it out if I was serious about being a music fan since this was supposedly the newest talent in the music biz. I quickly found that “talent” is a term best used loosely and since I am primarily a classic rock fan, most of the time I would finish viewing an episode full of righteous indignation at whatever contestant butchered some classic. (I still remember Sanjayah Malakar’s god awful cover of the Kink’s “You Really Got Me” way back in season 6.) However, once I stopped bitching about how the contestants sucked at doing classic rock (and Motown for that matter) covers and how all the hot chicks got eliminated early (it’s true), and could pay attention I usually found a contestant I could root for.
This year it was Lee Dwyze (who won incidentally). I liked his style, music choices and the fact that he wasn’t a pretentious douche (yes, Casey James, I am talking about you). For his Top 3 performance, he had to do two songs, one of his own choice and one picked by the judges. Lee was assigned Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” by Simon Cowell.
Here is his performance:
It was freaking amazing. I was not surprised that he pulled off the song well.
Simon himself said that “we have seen this song before.” That’s an understatement. Past contestants Tim Urban, Adam Lambert and Jason Castro have all done it. In my humble opinion, Lee did the best version of “Hallelujah” ever on Idol (Jason Castro was pretty good but not as much emotion as Lee had. Adam Lambert sounded like a woman. Seriously, I couldn’t tell he was a dude. Now, Adam, I know that’s your thing but it doesn’t really do it for me. And Tim Urban- don’t even get me started. He changed the lyrics! He sang I know that there’s a God above rather than Maybe there’s a God above. Seriously? That changes the whole meaning! I understand that Tim may be a Christian, and the agnostic lyric might have bothered but than he needed to pick a different song! The only time a lyrical change should be allowed is when singing the original would make the singer appear to be a homosexual. Wait, no, even than no change is authorized! It doesn’t seem to bother Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. If it does bother, than again, PICK A DIFFERENT SONG! Seriously, you suck, Tim Urban. You were that guy I hated in high school who thought he was cool but wasn’t. But I digress.)
Lee Dwyze’s performance of “Hallelujah” might rank up there with some of the best in all of music. In order to be able to say that I listened to as many different versions as possible (i.e. all the ones I could find on YouTube). And there are quite a number of them. Wikipedia reports that at present count there are 200 versions recorded in various languages. As evidenced by its abundant usage (some might say over-usage) on American Idol, “Hallelujah” has seen a boom in usage in recent years. It appeared in movies such as Shrek and Watchmen. I don’t know what it is about the song but it seems that everyone, and I mean everyone, wants to cover it. (Even some that shouldn’t) Bon Jovi (yes, Bon Jovi) did a version of it. Justin Timberlake tried. (seriously, Justin just stay with your crappy music) I think everyone accept the cast of Glee cast has done it. (Note to Glee: fix that) Some of the better versions include one by the Canadian Tenors, k.d. lang (I don’t know who that is either) Jeff Buckley and the most famous cover of all (perhaps even more famous than Leonard Cohen’s original version) by Rufus Wainwright. In my humble personal opinion, Wainwright’s is the best version, with Buckley’s as a close second and the Canadian Tenors a distant third. I might be biased, however, in my analysis since for me, Wainwright’s version is the original as it was the first I heard. It is in my Top 5 favorite songs, up there with Don McLean’s “American Pie,” the Beatles’ “Let It Be” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” Like all this songs, it feature piano riffs and like “Don’t Stop Believing” it’s overplayed. But most importantly, it features allusions like “American Pie.” While “American Pie” has allusions to many different figures in popular music, “Hallelujah” has allusions, as you would expect, to Scripture.
Now let’s get things straight for a quick second. Don’t know exactly what “Hallelujah” is about? Look at the lyrics: There was a time you let me know/ What’s real and going on below/ But now you never show it to me, do you?/ Remember when I moved in you/ The holy dove was moving too/ And every breath we drew was Hallelujah.
Yeah. Still wondering?
Now some may scream “Blasphemy!” at the combination of sexual imagery with Biblical allusions in this song. For some people, those two things are like oil and water. (Thankfully, my very religious mom left it at my explanation of “It’s not exactly a hymn” when I was playing “Hallelujah” on the piano.) My answer to this: Have you read the Song of Songs? (a.k.a. Song of Solomon) That book of the Bible is all about sex. This is the divinely inspired Word of God we’re talking about here! (Granted, it almost didn’t make it in. But that’s not the point) And it’s about sex in a good and holy context.
Now, before we get into ancient fertility rites, Hieros Gamos, and other sorts of holy sex shenanigans, let’s clear a few things up. Many cultures have seen sex as good and sometimes even holy. It is, after all, how new life is brought into the world. The Church teaches, that God made sex, just like He made everything else, and like everything else He made “He saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:31) In fact, Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body teaches that sex allows a married couple to join with God in the act of creation. So this connection with “Hallelujah” makes sense. It is when sex is used outside of God’s plan for it that things go awry.
Which I think is the point of the song. Someone pointed out to me that “Hallelujah,” at least the version I was listening to, is almost a dirge, a funeral song. It is clearly plaintive and mournful. And if you listen to the lyrics, the singer is mourning the loss of a relationship, a loss so profound he has lost all faith in love, God, anything. The song alludes to King David I heard there was a secret chord/ that David played and it pleased the Lord. Almost everyone knows the story of David and Bathsheba which is alluded to in the next verse: You saw her bathing on the roof/ Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you. After he saw her bathing on the roof, David lusted after Bathsheba but she was married to Uriah, one of his generals. He had his way with her, as they say, but she got pregnant. Back in those days, they didn’t have paternity tests, so David ordered Uriah back from the battlefield and told him to go home and sleep with his wife, so he would think the baby was his. Uriah refused, citing that his men were still in the field. They didn’t have Planned Parenthood back than either, so David couldn’t have the baby killed so he had Uriah killed. He than married Bathsheba, so it would look legit. This is considered the low-point of David’s reign. God turned his back on him and although David repented, his unborn child died as a result of his sin. In the song, this allusion to David is mixed with that of Samson She broke your throne/She cut your hair, referring to the infamous tale of how Samson confided in Deliah that the secret of his strength was his long hair and how Deliah than cut his hair and betrayed Samson to his Philistine enemies. In both these stories, great men and leaders are brought to their knees by their sexual attraction to an alluring woman. They do stupid stuff which leads to their downfall because of the controlling power of sex.
The song “Hallelujah” is in the first person but he is obviously singing to someone else. In the second verse he appears to be singing as a Uriah figure, perhaps to another who stole his lover. In a way he could be singing to himself, telling himself how foolish he was to be caught up with her. At any rate, he understands that she has broken him she broke your throne, tying him down and taking away his strength as Deliah did from Samson, that she still has power over him: From your lips she drew the Hallelujah. He says faith was strong/but you needed proof and that proof was when he meet the woman he is singing about. This man, the singer, has put his faith in love, even more specifically, in the physical aspect of love, and now he has nothing, since his lover has left him. She weakened him and controlled him, but than left so that he says Love is not a victory march/It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah. For him, this rejection is almost as if God Himself abandoned him. He doesn’t even care if God exists or not Maybe there’s a God above because when she left he had nothing left to live for. If she was stolen from him by another, the singer has gained revenge, perhaps. All I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. But it still is not enough, since she has not returned to him and he states It’s not a cry you hear at night/It’s not somebody who has seen the Light/ It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah. The man still holds his reverent view towards intimate love, which is why the song is almost liturgical, but he is broken beyond repair. He can never love the same way again, and all he remembers from it All I ever learned from love is hate and anger at how it ended.
At least that’s may interpretation
I watch American Idol.
Well, I don’t really watch it. The show does too much looking at the background of the contestants and self-promotion and talking about how great their celebrity “mentors” are that I usually just look at the performances on YouTube the next day. I was not that big into the show at all during its first few seasons but a couple years back I caught an episode my mom was watching. It was about the time I started getting into music, so I figured that I should at least check it out if I was serious about being a music fan since this was supposedly the newest talent in the music biz. I quickly found that “talent” is a term best used loosely and since I am primarily a classic rock fan, most of the time I would finish viewing an episode full of righteous indignation at whatever contestant butchered some classic. (I still remember Sanjayah Malakar’s god awful cover of the Kink’s “You Really Got Me” way back in season 6.) However, once I stopped bitching about how the contestants sucked at doing classic rock (and Motown for that matter) covers and how all the hot chicks got eliminated early (it’s true), and could pay attention I usually found a contestant I could root for.
This year it was Lee Dwyze (who won incidentally). I liked his style, music choices and the fact that he wasn’t a pretentious douche (yes, Casey James, I am talking about you). For his Top 3 performance, he had to do two songs, one of his own choice and one picked by the judges. Lee was assigned Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” by Simon Cowell.
Here is his performance:
It was freaking amazing. I was not surprised that he pulled off the song well.
Simon himself said that “we have seen this song before.” That’s an understatement. Past contestants Tim Urban, Adam Lambert and Jason Castro have all done it. In my humble opinion, Lee did the best version of “Hallelujah” ever on Idol (Jason Castro was pretty good but not as much emotion as Lee had. Adam Lambert sounded like a woman. Seriously, I couldn’t tell he was a dude. Now, Adam, I know that’s your thing but it doesn’t really do it for me. And Tim Urban- don’t even get me started. He changed the lyrics! He sang I know that there’s a God above rather than Maybe there’s a God above. Seriously? That changes the whole meaning! I understand that Tim may be a Christian, and the agnostic lyric might have bothered but than he needed to pick a different song! The only time a lyrical change should be allowed is when singing the original would make the singer appear to be a homosexual. Wait, no, even than no change is authorized! It doesn’t seem to bother Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. If it does bother, than again, PICK A DIFFERENT SONG! Seriously, you suck, Tim Urban. You were that guy I hated in high school who thought he was cool but wasn’t. But I digress.)
Lee Dwyze’s performance of “Hallelujah” might rank up there with some of the best in all of music. In order to be able to say that I listened to as many different versions as possible (i.e. all the ones I could find on YouTube). And there are quite a number of them. Wikipedia reports that at present count there are 200 versions recorded in various languages. As evidenced by its abundant usage (some might say over-usage) on American Idol, “Hallelujah” has seen a boom in usage in recent years. It appeared in movies such as Shrek and Watchmen. I don’t know what it is about the song but it seems that everyone, and I mean everyone, wants to cover it. (Even some that shouldn’t) Bon Jovi (yes, Bon Jovi) did a version of it. Justin Timberlake tried. (seriously, Justin just stay with your crappy music) I think everyone accept the cast of Glee cast has done it. (Note to Glee: fix that) Some of the better versions include one by the Canadian Tenors, k.d. lang (I don’t know who that is either) Jeff Buckley and the most famous cover of all (perhaps even more famous than Leonard Cohen’s original version) by Rufus Wainwright. In my humble personal opinion, Wainwright’s is the best version, with Buckley’s as a close second and the Canadian Tenors a distant third. I might be biased, however, in my analysis since for me, Wainwright’s version is the original as it was the first I heard. It is in my Top 5 favorite songs, up there with Don McLean’s “American Pie,” the Beatles’ “Let It Be” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” Like all this songs, it feature piano riffs and like “Don’t Stop Believing” it’s overplayed. But most importantly, it features allusions like “American Pie.” While “American Pie” has allusions to many different figures in popular music, “Hallelujah” has allusions, as you would expect, to Scripture.
Now let’s get things straight for a quick second. Don’t know exactly what “Hallelujah” is about? Look at the lyrics: There was a time you let me know/ What’s real and going on below/ But now you never show it to me, do you?/ Remember when I moved in you/ The holy dove was moving too/ And every breath we drew was Hallelujah.
Yeah. Still wondering?
Now some may scream “Blasphemy!” at the combination of sexual imagery with Biblical allusions in this song. For some people, those two things are like oil and water. (Thankfully, my very religious mom left it at my explanation of “It’s not exactly a hymn” when I was playing “Hallelujah” on the piano.) My answer to this: Have you read the Song of Songs? (a.k.a. Song of Solomon) That book of the Bible is all about sex. This is the divinely inspired Word of God we’re talking about here! (Granted, it almost didn’t make it in. But that’s not the point) And it’s about sex in a good and holy context.
Now, before we get into ancient fertility rites, Hieros Gamos, and other sorts of holy sex shenanigans, let’s clear a few things up. Many cultures have seen sex as good and sometimes even holy. It is, after all, how new life is brought into the world. The Church teaches, that God made sex, just like He made everything else, and like everything else He made “He saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:31) In fact, Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body teaches that sex allows a married couple to join with God in the act of creation. So this connection with “Hallelujah” makes sense. It is when sex is used outside of God’s plan for it that things go awry.
Which I think is the point of the song. Someone pointed out to me that “Hallelujah,” at least the version I was listening to, is almost a dirge, a funeral song. It is clearly plaintive and mournful. And if you listen to the lyrics, the singer is mourning the loss of a relationship, a loss so profound he has lost all faith in love, God, anything. The song alludes to King David I heard there was a secret chord/ that David played and it pleased the Lord. Almost everyone knows the story of David and Bathsheba which is alluded to in the next verse: You saw her bathing on the roof/ Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you. After he saw her bathing on the roof, David lusted after Bathsheba but she was married to Uriah, one of his generals. He had his way with her, as they say, but she got pregnant. Back in those days, they didn’t have paternity tests, so David ordered Uriah back from the battlefield and told him to go home and sleep with his wife, so he would think the baby was his. Uriah refused, citing that his men were still in the field. They didn’t have Planned Parenthood back than either, so David couldn’t have the baby killed so he had Uriah killed. He than married Bathsheba, so it would look legit. This is considered the low-point of David’s reign. God turned his back on him and although David repented, his unborn child died as a result of his sin. In the song, this allusion to David is mixed with that of Samson She broke your throne/She cut your hair, referring to the infamous tale of how Samson confided in Deliah that the secret of his strength was his long hair and how Deliah than cut his hair and betrayed Samson to his Philistine enemies. In both these stories, great men and leaders are brought to their knees by their sexual attraction to an alluring woman. They do stupid stuff which leads to their downfall because of the controlling power of sex.
The song “Hallelujah” is in the first person but he is obviously singing to someone else. In the second verse he appears to be singing as a Uriah figure, perhaps to another who stole his lover. In a way he could be singing to himself, telling himself how foolish he was to be caught up with her. At any rate, he understands that she has broken him she broke your throne, tying him down and taking away his strength as Deliah did from Samson, that she still has power over him: From your lips she drew the Hallelujah. He says faith was strong/but you needed proof and that proof was when he meet the woman he is singing about. This man, the singer, has put his faith in love, even more specifically, in the physical aspect of love, and now he has nothing, since his lover has left him. She weakened him and controlled him, but than left so that he says Love is not a victory march/It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah. For him, this rejection is almost as if God Himself abandoned him. He doesn’t even care if God exists or not Maybe there’s a God above because when she left he had nothing left to live for. If she was stolen from him by another, the singer has gained revenge, perhaps. All I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. But it still is not enough, since she has not returned to him and he states It’s not a cry you hear at night/It’s not somebody who has seen the Light/ It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah. The man still holds his reverent view towards intimate love, which is why the song is almost liturgical, but he is broken beyond repair. He can never love the same way again, and all he remembers from it All I ever learned from love is hate and anger at how it ended.
At least that’s may interpretation
Sunday, November 29, 2009
So I Had This Anthropology Essay
There is a long standing debate among anthropologists on the question of how organized governments came into existence. Many wonder what would cause the early humanity to abandon the egalitarian life style of hunter-gatherer societies in favor of governments which were decidedly non-egalitarian. Two dominant theories have emerged. The first, the Theory of Conflict, holds that the rights of these egalitarian societies were taken away violently, by armed force or the threat of armed force to which resistance was futile. The second, the Theory of Integration, argues that these rights were voluntarily relinquished by the society as a whole. Like much in the field of anthropology, the answer most likely lies somewhere in between the two extremes. Historical evidence suggests that rights were given up voluntarily at the beginning of civilization but these rights were not returned as the leaders of these new societies gained more power.
In his seminal work Leviathan, political philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote about a “state of nature” in which humanity existed before governments were formed. He described this state of nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” and stated that “during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.[i]" He further argued “that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself."[ii] This is a very compelling argument for the integration theory and history supports it. The idea of the strongest in combat leading the nation has roots in many cities. Clear examples can be seen in pre-Homeric Greece, where kings not only lead their armies in battle but many times were the chief combatants, fighting one on one against the royalty of the opposing armies, as seen in the duel between Hector and Achilles in the Illiad[iii]. Other examples exist among the Celtic and Germanic tribes, where a king had to win the loyalty of the chieftains and warlords in order to control a kingdom because the warlords controlled the armed men of the region. Frankish kings like
The people soon found out that it is extremely difficult to convince someone to give up power, especially when that person has armed men at his disposal. The
In light of the historical evidence from many different cultures, it becomes clear that a composite of the conflict theory and the integration theory most accurately describes the process by which egalitarian societies acquired the leaders we now refer to as chieftains and kings. The relinquishment of sovereignty to these men was a necessary evil for survival but once these men had the power securely in the grasp, the instruments of survival became the chains of slavery. This situation is summed up succinctly by the old adage of Winston Churchill, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
[i] Hobbes, Thomas Leviathan. 1651 Edwin Curley (Ed.) 1994. Hackett Publishing.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Professor Thomas Brennan, US Naval Academy, The West in a Global Context, Fall 2008
[iv] Brennan
[v] Sherman , Dennis. "Pride in Family and City:
[vi] Ibid, 127-128
[vii] Ibid, 26
[viii] The New American Bible, 1 Samuel, Chapter 8, verses 11-17
[ix] The New American Bible, 1 Kings, Chapter 12, verse 14
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Antichrist and the Eucharist
"As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him."- John 6:66
Here's a fun fact.
This verse, from the Gospel reading this Sunday, is the only one in the New Testament that corresponds to the infamous Number of the Beast found in the book of Revelations: 666. People have been trying to figure out what the meaning of that number is since Revelations was written. John states:
"Wisdom is needed here; one who understands can calculate the number of the beast for it is a number that stands for a person." -Revelations 13:18
This verse seems very dark and mysterious to us reading it two millenia later. It has lead to a lot of confusion and more than a few crazy theories as to the identity of the man that will be known as Antichrist. Some thought it was Ronald Wilson Reagen because he had three names of six letters each. Some people even created a fictional papal title Vicarius Filli Dei and used to identify the Pope as the Beast because the numerical values of the Roman numerals in the title add up to 666. (Never mind that Pope has never used the title "Vicar of the Son of God". Ever.) In reality the answer is quite simple for a Christian or Jew living in the late first century, which is the intended audience of the Book of Revelations.
Gematria was a wide-spread practice in the classical world, especially among the Jews. (For an example of its continued use among modern Jews, look in Chaim Potok's The Chosen.) In it, a numerical value is assigned to each letter of the alphabet. At the same time, different numbers are given mystical properties. Thus, any word and any name has a numerical value which may or may not be mystically significant. John takes the Greek name of Caesar Nero and replaces the Greek letters with their Hebrew equivalents in a process known as transliteration. The sum of the numerical values of Nero's name is 666. That is why John says that wisdom is needed to calculate the number-it is a code telling the readers the identity of the antagonist without explicitly mentioning the name. Most, if not all, of the imagery in the Apocalypse is attacking the Roman Empire, specifically the Cult of the Divine Emperor. Therefore, the name attached to the number 666 is that of the Roman Emperor Nero. Case closed.
But the Church teaches that the symbolism in the book of Revelations is multi-layered. It may be meant to tell of a past event, or a tribulation yet to come or both. The Church teaches that the Antichrist will come during the final days before Christ's Second Coming in glory. He will be an individual person who will set himself up as a god and persecute the Church as ruthlessly as the Roman Emperors before him and who will ultimately be defeated by Christ Himself when He returns. I will not speculate as to the identity of this final archenemy of Christ and His Church. But the Church also teaches that there are and have been many antichrists (notice the little c) who are the manifestations of the spirit of antichrist in the world.
Interestingly enough, there is no mention of the word Antichrist anywhere in the Book of Revelations. In fact the only place that the word is used in the Bible is in the Epistles of John.
"Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist."- 2 John :7
"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming; so many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the final hour. They went out from us but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us...Who is the liar. Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist."- 1 John 2:18-19, 22
This is very interesting in light of the first verse from the Gospel of John. (Modern Biblical scholars will try to tell you that the authors of the Gospel of John, the Johannine Epistles and the Book of Revelation are three separate people. I don't buy it. I think they were all written by Jochannin bar Zebedee, John the Beloved Disciple.) In the preceding verses, Jesus has stated emphatically that "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true flesh and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." The crowd is shocked by Jesus' words but He does nothing to calm them down, instead He repeats Himself, saying "Amen, amen I say to you" to drive the point home. John even states that Jesus knew that many would reject His teaching on His Body and Blood and that Jesus used it as a test to see who His true followers were. Finally, in the verse that shares the Number of the Beast, Jesus' followers leave because they find His teachings hard to accept.
Could there be a connection?
If, as I believe, the verses examined thus far were penned by the same divinely inspired man, could it be a sign of some deeper meaning?
The only book of the Bible used more often than Revelations when talking about the End Times is the book Daniel. Both are apocalyptic literature, full of terrifying symbolism. Just as John was written for Christians living under the persecution of Domitian, Daniel was written for Jews living under the persecution of the Seluecid king Antiochus Ephianes. The following verses were written because Antiochus banned the sacrifices in the Temple during his persecution, but many believe it also applies to the final Antichrist:
"For one week, he shall make a firm compact with the many; half the week he shall abolish sacrifice and oblation." -Daniel 9:27
"It's power extended to the host of heaven, so that it cast down to earth some of the host and some of the stars and trampled on them. It boasted even against the prince of the host, from whom it removed the daily sacrifice, and whose sanctuary it cast down, as well as the host, while sin replaced the daily sacrifice."
-Daniel 8:10-12
The Protestants have this funny idea. They believe that the future Antichrist will abolish sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem. The only problem with this theory is that the Temple was burned down by the Romans in 70 A.D. and has yet to be rebuilt. Therefore they hold that the Jews will eventually build a Third Temple on the Temple Mount (nevermind that the Dome of the Rock is already there or that Jesus said that "no stone will be left upon another." Julian the Apostate tried to rebuild the Temple to prove Jesus and failed epically.) only to have it absconded and desecrated by the Antichrist, who will than proceed to outlaw all sacrifices within. Again. Than, and only than, will Jesus return to earth and defeat the Antichrist a neat and tidy seven years to the day that the Antichrist signed a peace treaty with Israel, kicking off the whole party in the first place. (This rather flawed interpretation of Daniel is one of the leading causes of our nation's unqualified support for the state of Israel, thanks to all those fundamentalist, evangelical Christians who think if Israel dies as a nation, the Temple will never be rebuilt and if the Temple is never rebuilt, Jesus will never return.)
All this confusion and hoop-lah is a direct result of the Protestant rejection of the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist and a misunderstanding about the sacrificial nature of Jesus' death. No one needs to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem or re-instate animal sacrifices because there already is a Temple in which a sacrifice is offered, not only daily, but perpetually.
All over the world, at all hours of the day, priests are offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Catholics believe that the Mass is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi:
"For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name is great among the nations; and everywhere they bring sacrifice to my name, and a pure offering." -Malachi 1:11
This is echoed in the Eucharistic prayer although unfortunately the Latin occidentis and oreintis was mistranslated as "from to East to West" when it really means "sunrise" and "sunset." The Mass is generally believed to be the "daily sacrifice" referred to in Daniel as well.
Protestants miss this because of a faulty understanding of the words of St. Paul:
"Just as it is appointed that men die once, and after this the judgment, so also Christ, offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time." Hebrews 9:27-28
Protestants argue that the Mass is offering Jesus as a sacrifice again and again, which is impossible since He was offered once. They say that the priest is essentially killing Christ again and again. This is not true. Christ instituted the Mass at the Last Supper, mystically connecting his coming death with the Passover meal of bread and wine. Although we are constrained by time, God is not and the sacrifice of Jesus on Golgotha is timeless. Thus we can unite ourselves in the sacrifice that occurred 2.000 years ago every day at Mass. The Baltimore Catechism explains:
The manner in which the sacrifice is offered is different. On the cross Christ physically shed His blood, and was physically slain., while in the Mass there is no physical shedding of blood nor physical death, because Christ can die no more; on the cross Christ gained merit and satisfaction for us, while in the Mass He applies to us the merits and satisfaction of His death on the cross.
Thus, we can see that the daily sacrifice is the Mass and the Temple which the Antichrist will enter and defile is the Roman Catholic Church. He will outlaw the sacrifice of the Mass and will persecute those who celebrate it. His Mark is the rejection of the basic doctrine of the Eucharist. Just as John wrote, the spirit of antichrist is to deny that Christ come in the flesh, first as a man to save and redeem us; secondly that He comes in the Flesh to us, every day, in the Blessed Sacrament.
The spirit of antichrist is already at work in the world and even in the Church. John saw it in the first century and it has been paving for its final manifestation for some time. John said that many of the number of Christians belong to the Antichrist and in Revelations he shares a vision of the Dragon casting down a third of the stars from the sky. Daniel states that "the little horn" shall cast down to earth some of the heavenly host. St. Paul speaks of a gradual falling away from the faith, also called the Great Apostasy:
"We ask you brothers, with regard to the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling with Him, not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly, or to be alarmed either by a spirit, or an oral statement, or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no one deceive you in this way. For the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition."
-2 Thessalonians 2:1-3
We see this falling away evident as Catholics reject more and more basic teachings of the Church. None is more clear than the rejection of the Real Presence of Christ. 70% of Catholics claim that they do not believe that Jesus is present Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist. Could be this be the beginning of the foretold Great Apostasy. No one knows for sure. But if the spirit of Antichrist so vehemently hates the Eucharist no doubt it will strive to eradicate all traces of belief in the Real Presence in order to make it easier for the Abomination of Desolation to enter the Sanctuary of the Church founded by Christ. John Paul the Great stated that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the spiritual life of the Church. It is what identifies us most as Catholics.
"As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him."- John 6:66
The Number of the Beast is 666.
The Beast is the Antichrist.
The Spirit of Antichrist rejects that Jesus came in the flesh.
The Antichrist shall abolish the "daily sacrifice."
Daily, Jesus comes in the flesh in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
70% of Catholics do not believe in the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The spirit of the Antichrist is to deny the truth of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Let us pray for a return to devotion to the Holy Eucharist
Here's a fun fact.
This verse, from the Gospel reading this Sunday, is the only one in the New Testament that corresponds to the infamous Number of the Beast found in the book of Revelations: 666. People have been trying to figure out what the meaning of that number is since Revelations was written. John states:
"Wisdom is needed here; one who understands can calculate the number of the beast for it is a number that stands for a person." -Revelations 13:18
This verse seems very dark and mysterious to us reading it two millenia later. It has lead to a lot of confusion and more than a few crazy theories as to the identity of the man that will be known as Antichrist. Some thought it was Ronald Wilson Reagen because he had three names of six letters each. Some people even created a fictional papal title Vicarius Filli Dei and used to identify the Pope as the Beast because the numerical values of the Roman numerals in the title add up to 666. (Never mind that Pope has never used the title "Vicar of the Son of God". Ever.) In reality the answer is quite simple for a Christian or Jew living in the late first century, which is the intended audience of the Book of Revelations.
Gematria was a wide-spread practice in the classical world, especially among the Jews. (For an example of its continued use among modern Jews, look in Chaim Potok's The Chosen.) In it, a numerical value is assigned to each letter of the alphabet. At the same time, different numbers are given mystical properties. Thus, any word and any name has a numerical value which may or may not be mystically significant. John takes the Greek name of Caesar Nero and replaces the Greek letters with their Hebrew equivalents in a process known as transliteration. The sum of the numerical values of Nero's name is 666. That is why John says that wisdom is needed to calculate the number-it is a code telling the readers the identity of the antagonist without explicitly mentioning the name. Most, if not all, of the imagery in the Apocalypse is attacking the Roman Empire, specifically the Cult of the Divine Emperor. Therefore, the name attached to the number 666 is that of the Roman Emperor Nero. Case closed.
But the Church teaches that the symbolism in the book of Revelations is multi-layered. It may be meant to tell of a past event, or a tribulation yet to come or both. The Church teaches that the Antichrist will come during the final days before Christ's Second Coming in glory. He will be an individual person who will set himself up as a god and persecute the Church as ruthlessly as the Roman Emperors before him and who will ultimately be defeated by Christ Himself when He returns. I will not speculate as to the identity of this final archenemy of Christ and His Church. But the Church also teaches that there are and have been many antichrists (notice the little c) who are the manifestations of the spirit of antichrist in the world.
Interestingly enough, there is no mention of the word Antichrist anywhere in the Book of Revelations. In fact the only place that the word is used in the Bible is in the Epistles of John.
"Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist."- 2 John :7
"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming; so many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the final hour. They went out from us but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us...Who is the liar. Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist."- 1 John 2:18-19, 22
This is very interesting in light of the first verse from the Gospel of John. (Modern Biblical scholars will try to tell you that the authors of the Gospel of John, the Johannine Epistles and the Book of Revelation are three separate people. I don't buy it. I think they were all written by Jochannin bar Zebedee, John the Beloved Disciple.) In the preceding verses, Jesus has stated emphatically that "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true flesh and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." The crowd is shocked by Jesus' words but He does nothing to calm them down, instead He repeats Himself, saying "Amen, amen I say to you" to drive the point home. John even states that Jesus knew that many would reject His teaching on His Body and Blood and that Jesus used it as a test to see who His true followers were. Finally, in the verse that shares the Number of the Beast, Jesus' followers leave because they find His teachings hard to accept.
Could there be a connection?
If, as I believe, the verses examined thus far were penned by the same divinely inspired man, could it be a sign of some deeper meaning?
The only book of the Bible used more often than Revelations when talking about the End Times is the book Daniel. Both are apocalyptic literature, full of terrifying symbolism. Just as John was written for Christians living under the persecution of Domitian, Daniel was written for Jews living under the persecution of the Seluecid king Antiochus Ephianes. The following verses were written because Antiochus banned the sacrifices in the Temple during his persecution, but many believe it also applies to the final Antichrist:
"For one week, he shall make a firm compact with the many; half the week he shall abolish sacrifice and oblation." -Daniel 9:27
"It's power extended to the host of heaven, so that it cast down to earth some of the host and some of the stars and trampled on them. It boasted even against the prince of the host, from whom it removed the daily sacrifice, and whose sanctuary it cast down, as well as the host, while sin replaced the daily sacrifice."
-Daniel 8:10-12
The Protestants have this funny idea. They believe that the future Antichrist will abolish sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem. The only problem with this theory is that the Temple was burned down by the Romans in 70 A.D. and has yet to be rebuilt. Therefore they hold that the Jews will eventually build a Third Temple on the Temple Mount (nevermind that the Dome of the Rock is already there or that Jesus said that "no stone will be left upon another." Julian the Apostate tried to rebuild the Temple to prove Jesus and failed epically.) only to have it absconded and desecrated by the Antichrist, who will than proceed to outlaw all sacrifices within. Again. Than, and only than, will Jesus return to earth and defeat the Antichrist a neat and tidy seven years to the day that the Antichrist signed a peace treaty with Israel, kicking off the whole party in the first place. (This rather flawed interpretation of Daniel is one of the leading causes of our nation's unqualified support for the state of Israel, thanks to all those fundamentalist, evangelical Christians who think if Israel dies as a nation, the Temple will never be rebuilt and if the Temple is never rebuilt, Jesus will never return.)
All this confusion and hoop-lah is a direct result of the Protestant rejection of the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist and a misunderstanding about the sacrificial nature of Jesus' death. No one needs to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem or re-instate animal sacrifices because there already is a Temple in which a sacrifice is offered, not only daily, but perpetually.
All over the world, at all hours of the day, priests are offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Catholics believe that the Mass is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi:
"For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name is great among the nations; and everywhere they bring sacrifice to my name, and a pure offering." -Malachi 1:11
This is echoed in the Eucharistic prayer although unfortunately the Latin occidentis and oreintis was mistranslated as "from to East to West" when it really means "sunrise" and "sunset." The Mass is generally believed to be the "daily sacrifice" referred to in Daniel as well.
Protestants miss this because of a faulty understanding of the words of St. Paul:
"Just as it is appointed that men die once, and after this the judgment, so also Christ, offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time." Hebrews 9:27-28
Protestants argue that the Mass is offering Jesus as a sacrifice again and again, which is impossible since He was offered once. They say that the priest is essentially killing Christ again and again. This is not true. Christ instituted the Mass at the Last Supper, mystically connecting his coming death with the Passover meal of bread and wine. Although we are constrained by time, God is not and the sacrifice of Jesus on Golgotha is timeless. Thus we can unite ourselves in the sacrifice that occurred 2.000 years ago every day at Mass. The Baltimore Catechism explains:
The manner in which the sacrifice is offered is different. On the cross Christ physically shed His blood, and was physically slain., while in the Mass there is no physical shedding of blood nor physical death, because Christ can die no more; on the cross Christ gained merit and satisfaction for us, while in the Mass He applies to us the merits and satisfaction of His death on the cross.
Thus, we can see that the daily sacrifice is the Mass and the Temple which the Antichrist will enter and defile is the Roman Catholic Church. He will outlaw the sacrifice of the Mass and will persecute those who celebrate it. His Mark is the rejection of the basic doctrine of the Eucharist. Just as John wrote, the spirit of antichrist is to deny that Christ come in the flesh, first as a man to save and redeem us; secondly that He comes in the Flesh to us, every day, in the Blessed Sacrament.
The spirit of antichrist is already at work in the world and even in the Church. John saw it in the first century and it has been paving for its final manifestation for some time. John said that many of the number of Christians belong to the Antichrist and in Revelations he shares a vision of the Dragon casting down a third of the stars from the sky. Daniel states that "the little horn" shall cast down to earth some of the heavenly host. St. Paul speaks of a gradual falling away from the faith, also called the Great Apostasy:
"We ask you brothers, with regard to the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling with Him, not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly, or to be alarmed either by a spirit, or an oral statement, or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no one deceive you in this way. For the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition."
-2 Thessalonians 2:1-3
We see this falling away evident as Catholics reject more and more basic teachings of the Church. None is more clear than the rejection of the Real Presence of Christ. 70% of Catholics claim that they do not believe that Jesus is present Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist. Could be this be the beginning of the foretold Great Apostasy. No one knows for sure. But if the spirit of Antichrist so vehemently hates the Eucharist no doubt it will strive to eradicate all traces of belief in the Real Presence in order to make it easier for the Abomination of Desolation to enter the Sanctuary of the Church founded by Christ. John Paul the Great stated that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the spiritual life of the Church. It is what identifies us most as Catholics.
"As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him."- John 6:66
The Number of the Beast is 666.
The Beast is the Antichrist.
The Spirit of Antichrist rejects that Jesus came in the flesh.
The Antichrist shall abolish the "daily sacrifice."
Daily, Jesus comes in the flesh in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
70% of Catholics do not believe in the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The spirit of the Antichrist is to deny the truth of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Let us pray for a return to devotion to the Holy Eucharist
Friday, June 26, 2009
Optimus Prime is a Chrisr figure
So I saw the new Transformers movie the other day.
It is amazing.
It has everything.
Good looking girls, explosions, humor, plot continuity and most importantly ***SPOILER*** (but not a huge one) a battle between two enemies one of whom is an ancient Cybertronian referred to only as The Fallen who rebelled and abandoned his brothers because he hated humanity, the first Primes and serves as Darth Sidious to Megatron's Darth Vader. The other is Optimus Prime, a hero with two names but who is usually referred to by the last (which turns out to be a title), a leader who dies to save Earth, and than is resurrected to defeat the Fallen. (See where I'm going with this?)***SPOILER END*** And the U.S.S. John C. Stennis C.V.N. 74 was in the movie, the ship that I had my Youngster cruise on!
But I noticed something very interesting. It has to do with the way that the government handles the Decepticon threat. In the first movie you had the character of the Secretary of Defense played by the awesome Jon Voight (one of my favorite actors) who is extremely proactive, doesn't take any shit from anyone, lest of all a talking robot and even wields a shotgun when the time comes. He is an example of the kind of reaction one would expect from a member of the Bush administration.
Incidentally, while Bush is never named in the first movie, the President, seen briefly when Air Force One is attacked, is clearly meant to resemble W. Obama is, in fact, named in the second movie in a news report after the Decepticons sink an aircraft carrier (not the Stennis).
In the second movie, Sam Witwicky has all the knowledge from the AllSpark downloaded into his brain when he touches a shard of the AllSpark. After utterly pwning most of the planet, including the US Navy, the Fallen hi-jacks most of Earth's communication system in order to broadcast a demand to surrender Sam to them. (Sounds like the terrorists) They want the information in Sam's head, so the can find the Matrix of Leadership, which will activate a Sun Harvester, which has the capability to wipe out life on Earth (this entire plan if the reason the Fallen fell in the first place).
A government agent, who is a liason to the Autobots, actually suggests that they might hand Sam over to prevent another Decepticon attack. This is after he suggests that the Autobots go home, alleging that their presence is the reason that the Decepticons did not leave Earth after the AllSpark was destroyed.
This is exactly what the Obama administration would do in a situation like this! In order to prevent conflict they would negotiate with the people who JUST SANK A FUCKING AIRCRAFT CARRIER! They would be naive enough to believe that the Decepticons would go away if their enemies the Autobots went away too. Wrong! They would just finish the job and destroy the planet. The Obama administration would dialogue with these evil, destroying robots from outer space.
In its characterizations of both of the last two Presidencies, the Transformers movies have been spot on.
Like I said, this new Transformers is awesome! It might be better than the original. Unfortunately, however the same was said about X-Men 2, Dead Man's Chest, and Spider-Man 2 and we all saw how well that turned out. (One alright, another okay and one absolutely awful)
See well just have to wait and see and hope that the Transformers movies turn out like the Lord of the Rings movies.
It is amazing.
It has everything.
Good looking girls, explosions, humor, plot continuity and most importantly ***SPOILER*** (but not a huge one) a battle between two enemies one of whom is an ancient Cybertronian referred to only as The Fallen who rebelled and abandoned his brothers because he hated humanity, the first Primes and serves as Darth Sidious to Megatron's Darth Vader. The other is Optimus Prime, a hero with two names but who is usually referred to by the last (which turns out to be a title), a leader who dies to save Earth, and than is resurrected to defeat the Fallen. (See where I'm going with this?)***SPOILER END*** And the U.S.S. John C. Stennis C.V.N. 74 was in the movie, the ship that I had my Youngster cruise on!
But I noticed something very interesting. It has to do with the way that the government handles the Decepticon threat. In the first movie you had the character of the Secretary of Defense played by the awesome Jon Voight (one of my favorite actors) who is extremely proactive, doesn't take any shit from anyone, lest of all a talking robot and even wields a shotgun when the time comes. He is an example of the kind of reaction one would expect from a member of the Bush administration.
Incidentally, while Bush is never named in the first movie, the President, seen briefly when Air Force One is attacked, is clearly meant to resemble W. Obama is, in fact, named in the second movie in a news report after the Decepticons sink an aircraft carrier (not the Stennis).
In the second movie, Sam Witwicky has all the knowledge from the AllSpark downloaded into his brain when he touches a shard of the AllSpark. After utterly pwning most of the planet, including the US Navy, the Fallen hi-jacks most of Earth's communication system in order to broadcast a demand to surrender Sam to them. (Sounds like the terrorists) They want the information in Sam's head, so the can find the Matrix of Leadership, which will activate a Sun Harvester, which has the capability to wipe out life on Earth (this entire plan if the reason the Fallen fell in the first place).
A government agent, who is a liason to the Autobots, actually suggests that they might hand Sam over to prevent another Decepticon attack. This is after he suggests that the Autobots go home, alleging that their presence is the reason that the Decepticons did not leave Earth after the AllSpark was destroyed.
This is exactly what the Obama administration would do in a situation like this! In order to prevent conflict they would negotiate with the people who JUST SANK A FUCKING AIRCRAFT CARRIER! They would be naive enough to believe that the Decepticons would go away if their enemies the Autobots went away too. Wrong! They would just finish the job and destroy the planet. The Obama administration would dialogue with these evil, destroying robots from outer space.
In its characterizations of both of the last two Presidencies, the Transformers movies have been spot on.
Like I said, this new Transformers is awesome! It might be better than the original. Unfortunately, however the same was said about X-Men 2, Dead Man's Chest, and Spider-Man 2 and we all saw how well that turned out. (One alright, another okay and one absolutely awful)
See well just have to wait and see and hope that the Transformers movies turn out like the Lord of the Rings movies.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
A Father's Day Message from the (Catholic) Bible
Many people, especially Catholics, hold up Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, as the role model for all fathers. I find the inherent comparison to be unfair. Saint Joseph was married to the Immaculate Conception and, one episode of adolescent rebellion in the Jerusalem Temple notwithstanding, Yeshua bar Joseph was, by all accounts, the perfect Child.
Aside from Joseph, most fathers in the Bible were abject failures at fatherhood. Noah's son laughed at him when he passed drunk and naked. Abraham banished his first son into the desert and than almost sacrificed his remaining heir. Jacob's favoritism toward his youngest children led his other sons to sell their brother into slavery. David's firstborn son and heir apparent raped his half-sister while another son, Absalom, plotted a coup against his father. Most Biblical fathers are an example of what NOT to do.
That is why Catholics are lucky. We have a positive example of fatherhood in the book of Tobit, a book which the Protestants reject as apocryphal. It is the story of a righteous Jew whose family was carried off to Nineveh when the Assyrian armies conquered the kingdom of Israel. While still in Israel, Tobit traveled to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple, while most of his fellow Israelites worshipped in Samaria or in high places which were not dedicated to God. While in Nineveh, Tobit follows the dietary laws, which most of his countrymen ignore. He also makes sure that the Israelites who were executed by Sennacherib in revenge for his defeat at the hands of King Hezekiah of Judah. are given proper burials. He leaves a feast in order to bury a corpse of his country man. In short, Tobit follows the laws of God scrupulously and always does the right thing.
But bad things still happen to him. He had to go into hiding when the king finds out that Tobit is the one who is burying his victims. His neighbors, including fellow Israelites, ridicule him. To top it all off, he is blinded when a bird poops in his eyes while he is sleeping outside because he is unclean due to contact with a corpse. Even his marriage becomes strained. Life is so bad that he prays for death.
In anticipation of the fulfillment of his prayer, Tobit sends his only son Tobiah off to Rages in Media to collect a very large sum of money from Tobit's cousin. After a chapter's worth of paternal advice, Tobit sends Tobiah on his journey, along with a guide named Azariah, who just happened to be hanging out at the city gate, looking for a job, when Tobiah came by. The author of Tobit (who isn't Tobit) quickly informs the readers that Azariah is really the archangel Raphael in disguise, sent by God to heal Tobit as well as a relative of his, Sarah, who lives in Media.
Sarah is a beautiful young woman who has been married seven times. In each case, the husband died mysteriously before consummating the marriage. The author states that the demon Asmodeus strangled the men. That sounded almost as ludicrous as it would today and Sarah's servant accused her of murdering her husbands. Sarah is in such despair that she, like Tobit, prays for death.
While on the road, Tobiah goes to swim and bath in a river. In the water, he is attacked by a large fish. Azariah instructs him to kill the fish by grasping its gills and than gut it and remove the gall, liver and heart, which apparently are useful as medicines. The pair arrives in Media and need a place to stay. Azariah insists they stay at the home of Raguel, Sarah’s father, who greets the duo excitedly when he learns that Tobiah is Tobit’s son.
When they enter the house, Tobiah notices Sarah and falls in love. She is his kinswoman, a member of the same tribe and he is her closest living relative, which according to the Levirate law, gives him the undisputable right to marry her. Tobit had instructed his son earlier to only marry a woman from their tribe of Naphtali. Tobiah’s only hesitation in the matter arises from the fact that a demon has killed the last seven men she married. Fortunately, Tobiah is friends with an archangel which comes in handy when dispatching a demon.
After Raquel agrees to allow Tobiah to marry his daughter, Raphael instructs Tobiah to burn the heart and liver on the brazier so that the smoke will ward off Asmodeus. Tobiah does so and prays along with Sarah in the bridal chamber on their wedding night. He asks for God’s protection and blessing on his marriage. At the same time Raphael chases Asmodeus into Upper Egypt and chains him there in the desert. (I wonder of anyone noticed that Azariah was missing?) Raquel and his servants secretly dig a grave for Tobiah but joyfully find him alive after which Raquel has his servants fill the grave back in (sucks to be those servants).
Sarah’s family was so happy that they gave the couple a fourteen day wedding feast. Azariah went to Tobit’s cousin to collect the money and bring him back for the feast. When Tobiah left to return to Nineveh, Raquel gave him half of his property as a wedding gift.
Meanwhile, Tobit and Anna are terrified that their only son had died. As they approached Nineveh, Azariah told Tobiah to smear the gall of the fish on Tobit’s eyes. Tobiah does so and the cataracts fall off his eyes him to see. Tobiah tells everything that happened to him to his father and both men praise God. (And have another wedding feast. These guys knew how to party!) When Tobiah attempts to give half of what he brought back from Media to Azariah as payment, Azariah outs himself as an archangel. “I am Raphael, one of seven who serve before the Glory of God,” he says, before ascending back into Heaven.
The moral of the story goes like this: bad things happen to good people but God uses these bad things to accomplish even better things for His people. If Tobit had never been blinded, Tobiah would never gone to Media, never would have met Sarah, never collected the money and gotten rich and most importantly Tobit would have never had a visit from an archangel to affirm his heroic faith. Sarah probably would have hung herself and Tobit would have died without grandchildren because Tobiah would have never married. Tobit’s glorification came about through his son, but it is called the book of Tobit because it is about him. He trusted in God no matter what. He never spoke against Him or questioned His ways. At least three times is praised as an outstanding and noble father. Tobit should be a model for all fathers on Father’s Day.
Aside from Joseph, most fathers in the Bible were abject failures at fatherhood. Noah's son laughed at him when he passed drunk and naked. Abraham banished his first son into the desert and than almost sacrificed his remaining heir. Jacob's favoritism toward his youngest children led his other sons to sell their brother into slavery. David's firstborn son and heir apparent raped his half-sister while another son, Absalom, plotted a coup against his father. Most Biblical fathers are an example of what NOT to do.
That is why Catholics are lucky. We have a positive example of fatherhood in the book of Tobit, a book which the Protestants reject as apocryphal. It is the story of a righteous Jew whose family was carried off to Nineveh when the Assyrian armies conquered the kingdom of Israel. While still in Israel, Tobit traveled to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple, while most of his fellow Israelites worshipped in Samaria or in high places which were not dedicated to God. While in Nineveh, Tobit follows the dietary laws, which most of his countrymen ignore. He also makes sure that the Israelites who were executed by Sennacherib in revenge for his defeat at the hands of King Hezekiah of Judah. are given proper burials. He leaves a feast in order to bury a corpse of his country man. In short, Tobit follows the laws of God scrupulously and always does the right thing.
But bad things still happen to him. He had to go into hiding when the king finds out that Tobit is the one who is burying his victims. His neighbors, including fellow Israelites, ridicule him. To top it all off, he is blinded when a bird poops in his eyes while he is sleeping outside because he is unclean due to contact with a corpse. Even his marriage becomes strained. Life is so bad that he prays for death.
In anticipation of the fulfillment of his prayer, Tobit sends his only son Tobiah off to Rages in Media to collect a very large sum of money from Tobit's cousin. After a chapter's worth of paternal advice, Tobit sends Tobiah on his journey, along with a guide named Azariah, who just happened to be hanging out at the city gate, looking for a job, when Tobiah came by. The author of Tobit (who isn't Tobit) quickly informs the readers that Azariah is really the archangel Raphael in disguise, sent by God to heal Tobit as well as a relative of his, Sarah, who lives in Media.
Sarah is a beautiful young woman who has been married seven times. In each case, the husband died mysteriously before consummating the marriage. The author states that the demon Asmodeus strangled the men. That sounded almost as ludicrous as it would today and Sarah's servant accused her of murdering her husbands. Sarah is in such despair that she, like Tobit, prays for death.
While on the road, Tobiah goes to swim and bath in a river. In the water, he is attacked by a large fish. Azariah instructs him to kill the fish by grasping its gills and than gut it and remove the gall, liver and heart, which apparently are useful as medicines. The pair arrives in Media and need a place to stay. Azariah insists they stay at the home of Raguel, Sarah’s father, who greets the duo excitedly when he learns that Tobiah is Tobit’s son.
When they enter the house, Tobiah notices Sarah and falls in love. She is his kinswoman, a member of the same tribe and he is her closest living relative, which according to the Levirate law, gives him the undisputable right to marry her. Tobit had instructed his son earlier to only marry a woman from their tribe of Naphtali. Tobiah’s only hesitation in the matter arises from the fact that a demon has killed the last seven men she married. Fortunately, Tobiah is friends with an archangel which comes in handy when dispatching a demon.
After Raquel agrees to allow Tobiah to marry his daughter, Raphael instructs Tobiah to burn the heart and liver on the brazier so that the smoke will ward off Asmodeus. Tobiah does so and prays along with Sarah in the bridal chamber on their wedding night. He asks for God’s protection and blessing on his marriage. At the same time Raphael chases Asmodeus into Upper Egypt and chains him there in the desert. (I wonder of anyone noticed that Azariah was missing?) Raquel and his servants secretly dig a grave for Tobiah but joyfully find him alive after which Raquel has his servants fill the grave back in (sucks to be those servants).
Sarah’s family was so happy that they gave the couple a fourteen day wedding feast. Azariah went to Tobit’s cousin to collect the money and bring him back for the feast. When Tobiah left to return to Nineveh, Raquel gave him half of his property as a wedding gift.
Meanwhile, Tobit and Anna are terrified that their only son had died. As they approached Nineveh, Azariah told Tobiah to smear the gall of the fish on Tobit’s eyes. Tobiah does so and the cataracts fall off his eyes him to see. Tobiah tells everything that happened to him to his father and both men praise God. (And have another wedding feast. These guys knew how to party!) When Tobiah attempts to give half of what he brought back from Media to Azariah as payment, Azariah outs himself as an archangel. “I am Raphael, one of seven who serve before the Glory of God,” he says, before ascending back into Heaven.
The moral of the story goes like this: bad things happen to good people but God uses these bad things to accomplish even better things for His people. If Tobit had never been blinded, Tobiah would never gone to Media, never would have met Sarah, never collected the money and gotten rich and most importantly Tobit would have never had a visit from an archangel to affirm his heroic faith. Sarah probably would have hung herself and Tobit would have died without grandchildren because Tobiah would have never married. Tobit’s glorification came about through his son, but it is called the book of Tobit because it is about him. He trusted in God no matter what. He never spoke against Him or questioned His ways. At least three times is praised as an outstanding and noble father. Tobit should be a model for all fathers on Father’s Day.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Why Christianity is awesome
First of all lets get one thing straight-I am not a big fan of the Gathering Place. I find rampantly militant Fundamentalist Christianity offputting and frankly-somewhat disturbing-probably has something to do with the fact that I am a practicing Roman Catholic. But this battle isn't being fought over the Gathering Place. This battle is about the Christian faith (not religion) and its unique claim to the truth. 1) Many people and religions have claimed their founder was a divinely inspired prophet or even a god. But very few have made the claim that their founder rose from the dead. Fewer still can back up that claim. Halie Saliese, the Messiah of the Rastafarians is dead-that is an undisputed fact. Mohammed is buried in his tomb in Medina. Buddha attained Nirvana, but he's still dead (reincarnation does not count as resurrection). Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans and buried in a stone tomb. Three days later his body was missing. His followers claimed He had risen from the dead. The Jewish authorities maintained that someone had stolen the body. Put the body was never found! Christianity could have been brought to a rather abrupt end if someone came forward with the body of Jesus. No one did. The best the Jewish priests could do was to bribe the guards at the tomb to say that someone stole the body. And in two thousand years, no archaeologist has uncovered the bones of Jesus. The closest anyone can claim is an ossuary with scratches on it that could be the (very common Jewish) name Yeshua bar Joseph. Therefore the claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead holds itself up to scrutiny. Relics like the Shroud of Turin lend credence. 2)People have died, are dying and will continue to die for believing in the resurrection of Christ. From prison, the Apostle Paul stated that the Christian faith was worthless without the truth of the resurrection. As far as founders of religions go a Jewish carpenter turned itinerant preacher who got Himself crucified by the Romans after only three years of spreading His Message is not very impressive. Yet from the beginning, people were willing to die for Him. This makes absolutely no sense if Jesus had not risen from the dead. The Apostles were thrown in jail and flogged only 50 days after Jesus' death and yet they rejoiced that they "could suffer for His name." Surely if anyone would know the circumstances of Christ's death and his Resurrection it would be his twelve closest friends. If it had been faked, they would know, they probably would have perpetrated the fraud. Yet all but one wound up suffering deaths of varying brutality for refusing to deny their Lord. It is a miracle that Christianity survived three hundred of systematic albeit off and on persecution at the hands of the most powerful force in the known world at the time: the Roman Empire. The witness of these martyrs was so great that their own tormentors were converted many times and the plans of their persecutors backfired as the martyrdoms led to more Christians rather than less. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" Iraneus said and even today martyrs in Iran, China, India and Africa bear testament to the veracity of Christ's resurrection. 3)Furthermore, Christianity-in particular the Catholic Church-has survived for 2,000 years against every single storm imaginable. Christianity stared defiant in the face of Nero, Diocletian, Atilla the Hun, Robespierre, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and Obama and have not blinked-and have won. That is a claim that Muslims, Rastafarians, Wiccans, Buddhists, Hindus, Raelians and Zorastrians can not and never will be able to mak
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Which St. Thomas are you named after?
Funny question right?
A lot of people read that and they're like, "What, the only St. Thomas I know of is an island in the Caribbean."
I actually have had this question asked of me multiple times especially in my late elementary school-early middle school years when all my friends were home schooled Catholics like I was at the time.
You see, non-Catholics are probably only aware of one religious figure named Thomas, the Apostle Thomas a.k.a. "Doubting Thomas." But we Catholics have this annoying habit of naming our offspring after the saints. So, naturally over the course of 2,000 years as Catholics make their way through the Pearly Gates, the number of saints sharing the same name is going to increase exponentially. (It got to the point where the Catholic Church at one point actually lost count of its saints-I shit you not-and went on a spree, unceremoniously removing any saint that they couldn't find authentic proof of existence from the official list.) For this reason they are no less than five saints who share the name Thomas. In order to distinguish these servants of God from one another, the Church slaps descriptive monikers on the end of their names. (Some come ready made, Thomas Aquinas and Thomas More use their last names. Others are identified by their place of origin: Thomas of Canterbury and Thomas of Villanova. Others just describe in what capacity they served-Thomas the Apostle.)
I used to always identify with Thomas the Apostle but as I studied the Lives of the Saints I had a lot in common with all of them. Well not necessarily "in common"-more like attributes which I could relate to or virtues to emulate. Some of their patronages coincided with aspects of my own personality or something I wanted to be involved with later in life. So I now claim all the Saints (does anyone know the plural form of my name) Thomas (except Villanova) as my own. Here's why:
Thomas the Apostle
Feast: July 3
Nicknames: "Doubting Thomas"
Thomas wasn't even his real name! Thomas is the English translation of the Hebrew word for "Twin." (Didymus in Greek) His name was most likely "Judah" making him the third apostle named thus. (Jude Thaddeus and Judas Iscariot the others-both Jude and Judas are variants of the very common Jewish name of "Judah.) Second names such as "Thomas" were used frequently in Jewish culture because of the small number of first names available-someone had to be able to distinguish one Judah from the other 5,000 (rough estimate) running around Jerusalem in 30 A.D. In this way "Thomas" would be similar to "Kephas" or "Peter": the name Jesus gives to Simon bar Jonah, making him "Simon Peter."
Anyway, Thomas makes a small number of appearances in the Bible. He is virtually non-existent in the Synoptic Gospels-his only mention is the obligatory listing in the listing of the Twelve Apostles. He has a greater role in the Gospel of John. He is most famous for his appearance in Chapter 22. Thomas was away from the upper room on Easter Sunday, the reason is not given. Other passages in the Gospel give hints. Thomas is listed among the disciples who were fishing on the Lake of Tiberius when Jesus appeared to them after the Resurrection. As these men had been fishermen before meeting Jesus, perhaps Thomas was attempting to return his old life before Jesus as well. In any case, Thomas returned at some point and the other Apostles told him that "they had seen the Master." In what was to become his most enduring quotation, he says skeptically "Only if I touch the holes left by the nails in His hands, or place my hand in the wound in His side will I believe." The next Sunday, Jesus appears in the upper room and instructs Thomas to do just that. Thomas believes and falls to his knees saying "My Lord and My God."
Thomas is always remembered for being the "Doubter" in this situation but I think he gets a bad rap. The guy fell to his knees and worshipped Christ, right there. The Gospels say that at least some of the other Apostles "still doubted" (Matthew 28:18, Mark 16: 14) even up to the Ascension. But Thomas was willing right then and there, to put it on the line. This kind of faith should come as no surprise to readers of John's Gospel. In Chapter 11, Jesus is telling his disciples that Lazarus is ill and that they must go to Bethany to visit him. Now, that was a problem because Bethany was in Judea and about a days walk from Jerusalem. The Jewish authorities there at this point had decided that they had to "deal with" the carpenter from Nazareth…and by "deal with" they meant 'kill." The Apostles are a little perplexed that their Master would just walk back into the lion's den and point out that the number of times that Jews almost stoned Jesus. (John 11:7-8.) Thomas gets up and says to everyone, "Let us also go to die with him." (John 11:16) That statement sounds a bit pessimistic I know but it shows the depth of faith Thomas had in his Master. He was willing to follow the Lord anywhere, even if it seemed to point toward certain death. No wonder he felt lost after Christ died.
The final appearance of Thomas in Holy Writ is no where as dramatic but gives insight into his character. Jesus and His Apostles are at the Last Supper and Jesus has just said that He is going to prepare a place for them in His Father's house. He says "where I am going, you know the way." Thomas says, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?' which launches Jesus into His famous "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" dissertation. (John 14:4-6)
Here is "Doubting Thomas" again. Jesus has just said that He is going somewhere and that the Apostles are to follow. But this makes no sense to Thomas. He points that Jesus never mentioned where He was going so how are they supposed to follow Him there? This is why I identify with Thomas a lot. He does not take any statement on face value. He analyzes everything and must have proof for it. Things confuse him and he's not too proud or stubborn to say so and ask for clarification. (I need a lot of help in this area, so I've been praying to Thomas a lot for help in that area.) And he's courageous. He was probably 98% sure that the Jesus would be killed by a Jewish mob when He returned to Judea, but He was so loyal to his Master that he was willing to go with Him, instead of trying to convince Him to change course. When all the other Apostles were cowering in fear in a locked room, Thomas wasn't there. His faith may have faltered from time to time (nothing worse than Peter did) but in the end; he was more faithful than ever. He was like an ordinary skeptical man with doubts, but he did not let these get in the way of his faith in the Risen Christ. That is why I admire "Doubting Thomas."
***Whew…sorry that particular impassioned defense of my patron took so long-I just hate it that all he's remembered for is his doubting episode. All of the following has absolutely no basis in Scripture. Just a forewarning for all you "Scripture Alone" folks. If you are one of those, feel free to read one about three more amazing Servants of God. Just remember, I warned you. I don't want of those annoying idolatry accusations or necromancy attacks…***
Sir Thomas More and Thomas Becket (of Canterbury)
Feast: June 22 and December 28
These two saints from England have more in common than just their Christian names.
Both were friends with a young prince named Henry, who went on to be King of England. (More was close friends with Henry VIII and Becket had been the drinking buddy of Henry II.)
Both were appointed to be Lord Chancellor by their buddy.
Both were forced to choose between his friend; the King and his loyalty to his Church and her temporal ruler: the Pope. In both cases the king was attempting to build up his own power by wrangling it away from the Church. (Henry VIII was attempting to name himself "Head of the Church in England" while Henry II was attempting to take control of land that belonged to the Church.)
In each case, both kings expected the Lord Chancellor to support him against the Church and in each case the king felt extremely betrayed when the Chancellor opposed his plans
Both resigned their Chancellorship in order to remove themselves from the conflict of interest.
Finally, in each case, Thomas was killed by the dubious orders of the king and under false pretenses.
Now the details differed. Thomas More was never a cleric, although he considered becoming a monk upon his wife's death. Thomas Becket was a bishop of Canterbury before he became Chancellor, he had most likely been placed there so Henry would have a close ally in the church. More was legally executed after a long and protracted treason trial where he brilliantly defended himself against all charges and (like his Lord Jesus) convicted only on the basis of a pre-arranged perjured testimony. Becket's death on the other hand was a classic case of vigilante justice. Henry II was rumored to have said "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" in a moment of frustration. Whether or not he meant for someone to "deal with" the bishop is beside the point-four of Henry's knights galloped to the Cathedral of Canterbury and murdered Thomas at the altar.
Perhaps these parallels were fated to take place. Although the martyrdoms of the two men were separated by four centuries, there is no question that Chancellor More was carrying on the legacy of Chancellor Becket. Thomas More was most likely named after Thomas Becket. Almost immediately following his death, Thomas Becket was acclaimed as a hero. Everyone in England was still a Catholic and many were appalled at the acts of Henry's knights. He went on to become quite possibly the most famous English saint. His tomb became the greatest pilgrimage site in England, a sort of Mecca for English Christians. (Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are told by a group of pilgrims traveling along the road to Canterbury to visit Becket's tomb.) When More was born, Becket was the only English saint with the name of Thomas. More was one of many young English boys who were given the great archbishop to be his patron.
Thomas More is considered the patron saint of lawyers. I plan to become a lawyer so I pray to Saint Thomas mainly in order to help me along the path to law school. Thomas did what most politicians are astoundingly unwilling to do: he did not attempt to separate his religious beliefs from his political decisions. This is a pet peeve that really annoys me. I have promised to myself and to God that if I do become involved in politics, I will do my best to make all my decisions in line with my Faith and I pray to St. Thomas to help me with that and to stay strong.
However the greatest reason I admire both Thomas Becket and Thomas More is the same reason I admire Thomas the Apostle. All of them were courageous and all of them stood up to the powers of their day (the King of England, the Romans, and the Sanhedrin) in the face of certain death. I have this knack for being a bit of a rebel against the establishment and like all the saints named Thomas, I say what I mean most of the time, not afraid to cause a little conflict. Both Becket and More had cahones to openly defy the king.
Thomas Aquinas
Feast: January 28
Nickname: "Dumb Ox"
Unlike the other saints named Thomas, Thomas Aquinas is not a martyr. He did not make a courageous last stand against the enemies of his faith. He was a monk in the Dominican monastery in Italy. He is most famous for writing the Summa Theologica, which is considered the greatest work of Catholic Theology. Thomas is considered one of the greatest preachers of all time. He was named a Doctor of the Church and is considered the greatest of all thirty-three.
Thomas' genius was not evident at first during his studies. Thomas was a rather large and heavyset young man. He was also very quiet, shy and withdrawn. Many of his classmates took this as evidence that he was unintelligent or perhaps even unable to speak. (The original meaning of the word dumb is: "unable to speak.") As it turned out Thomas was quite possibly the smartest student in the class. He quickly began to impress his teacher Saint Albert the Great and he even grew to surpass his teacher. He loved the Lord in the Eucharist with every beat of his heart and wrote the songs Tantum Ergo, O Salutaris Hostia, and Pange Linqua to celebrate his devotion to the Eucharist. These songs are still used in the ceremonies of Adoration and Benediction.
I identify with Aquinas the most. The reason for this is the fact that Thomas demonstrated his faith through learning and writing about it. This is my favorite aspect of living my Faith, studying it and learning as much as possible from it. I know that God gave me a gift of knowledge and intelligence and I want to use it for His Glory as Thomas Aquinas did. Thomas also had difficulty in his studies in the beginning of his time at university as I have during my first year at the Naval Academy so I continue to pray to him in order to help me do better in my coming time here.
A lot of people read that and they're like, "What, the only St. Thomas I know of is an island in the Caribbean."
I actually have had this question asked of me multiple times especially in my late elementary school-early middle school years when all my friends were home schooled Catholics like I was at the time.
You see, non-Catholics are probably only aware of one religious figure named Thomas, the Apostle Thomas a.k.a. "Doubting Thomas." But we Catholics have this annoying habit of naming our offspring after the saints. So, naturally over the course of 2,000 years as Catholics make their way through the Pearly Gates, the number of saints sharing the same name is going to increase exponentially. (It got to the point where the Catholic Church at one point actually lost count of its saints-I shit you not-and went on a spree, unceremoniously removing any saint that they couldn't find authentic proof of existence from the official list.) For this reason they are no less than five saints who share the name Thomas. In order to distinguish these servants of God from one another, the Church slaps descriptive monikers on the end of their names. (Some come ready made, Thomas Aquinas and Thomas More use their last names. Others are identified by their place of origin: Thomas of Canterbury and Thomas of Villanova. Others just describe in what capacity they served-Thomas the Apostle.)
I used to always identify with Thomas the Apostle but as I studied the Lives of the Saints I had a lot in common with all of them. Well not necessarily "in common"-more like attributes which I could relate to or virtues to emulate. Some of their patronages coincided with aspects of my own personality or something I wanted to be involved with later in life. So I now claim all the Saints (does anyone know the plural form of my name) Thomas (except Villanova) as my own. Here's why:
Thomas the Apostle
Feast: July 3
Nicknames: "Doubting Thomas"
Thomas wasn't even his real name! Thomas is the English translation of the Hebrew word for "Twin." (Didymus in Greek) His name was most likely "Judah" making him the third apostle named thus. (Jude Thaddeus and Judas Iscariot the others-both Jude and Judas are variants of the very common Jewish name of "Judah.) Second names such as "Thomas" were used frequently in Jewish culture because of the small number of first names available-someone had to be able to distinguish one Judah from the other 5,000 (rough estimate) running around Jerusalem in 30 A.D. In this way "Thomas" would be similar to "Kephas" or "Peter": the name Jesus gives to Simon bar Jonah, making him "Simon Peter."
Anyway, Thomas makes a small number of appearances in the Bible. He is virtually non-existent in the Synoptic Gospels-his only mention is the obligatory listing in the listing of the Twelve Apostles. He has a greater role in the Gospel of John. He is most famous for his appearance in Chapter 22. Thomas was away from the upper room on Easter Sunday, the reason is not given. Other passages in the Gospel give hints. Thomas is listed among the disciples who were fishing on the Lake of Tiberius when Jesus appeared to them after the Resurrection. As these men had been fishermen before meeting Jesus, perhaps Thomas was attempting to return his old life before Jesus as well. In any case, Thomas returned at some point and the other Apostles told him that "they had seen the Master." In what was to become his most enduring quotation, he says skeptically "Only if I touch the holes left by the nails in His hands, or place my hand in the wound in His side will I believe." The next Sunday, Jesus appears in the upper room and instructs Thomas to do just that. Thomas believes and falls to his knees saying "My Lord and My God."
Thomas is always remembered for being the "Doubter" in this situation but I think he gets a bad rap. The guy fell to his knees and worshipped Christ, right there. The Gospels say that at least some of the other Apostles "still doubted" (Matthew 28:18, Mark 16: 14) even up to the Ascension. But Thomas was willing right then and there, to put it on the line. This kind of faith should come as no surprise to readers of John's Gospel. In Chapter 11, Jesus is telling his disciples that Lazarus is ill and that they must go to Bethany to visit him. Now, that was a problem because Bethany was in Judea and about a days walk from Jerusalem. The Jewish authorities there at this point had decided that they had to "deal with" the carpenter from Nazareth…and by "deal with" they meant 'kill." The Apostles are a little perplexed that their Master would just walk back into the lion's den and point out that the number of times that Jews almost stoned Jesus. (John 11:7-8.) Thomas gets up and says to everyone, "Let us also go to die with him." (John 11:16) That statement sounds a bit pessimistic I know but it shows the depth of faith Thomas had in his Master. He was willing to follow the Lord anywhere, even if it seemed to point toward certain death. No wonder he felt lost after Christ died.
The final appearance of Thomas in Holy Writ is no where as dramatic but gives insight into his character. Jesus and His Apostles are at the Last Supper and Jesus has just said that He is going to prepare a place for them in His Father's house. He says "where I am going, you know the way." Thomas says, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?' which launches Jesus into His famous "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" dissertation. (John 14:4-6)
Here is "Doubting Thomas" again. Jesus has just said that He is going somewhere and that the Apostles are to follow. But this makes no sense to Thomas. He points that Jesus never mentioned where He was going so how are they supposed to follow Him there? This is why I identify with Thomas a lot. He does not take any statement on face value. He analyzes everything and must have proof for it. Things confuse him and he's not too proud or stubborn to say so and ask for clarification. (I need a lot of help in this area, so I've been praying to Thomas a lot for help in that area.) And he's courageous. He was probably 98% sure that the Jesus would be killed by a Jewish mob when He returned to Judea, but He was so loyal to his Master that he was willing to go with Him, instead of trying to convince Him to change course. When all the other Apostles were cowering in fear in a locked room, Thomas wasn't there. His faith may have faltered from time to time (nothing worse than Peter did) but in the end; he was more faithful than ever. He was like an ordinary skeptical man with doubts, but he did not let these get in the way of his faith in the Risen Christ. That is why I admire "Doubting Thomas."
***Whew…sorry that particular impassioned defense of my patron took so long-I just hate it that all he's remembered for is his doubting episode. All of the following has absolutely no basis in Scripture. Just a forewarning for all you "Scripture Alone" folks. If you are one of those, feel free to read one about three more amazing Servants of God. Just remember, I warned you. I don't want of those annoying idolatry accusations or necromancy attacks…***
Sir Thomas More and Thomas Becket (of Canterbury)
Feast: June 22 and December 28
These two saints from England have more in common than just their Christian names.
Both were friends with a young prince named Henry, who went on to be King of England. (More was close friends with Henry VIII and Becket had been the drinking buddy of Henry II.)
Both were appointed to be Lord Chancellor by their buddy.
Both were forced to choose between his friend; the King and his loyalty to his Church and her temporal ruler: the Pope. In both cases the king was attempting to build up his own power by wrangling it away from the Church. (Henry VIII was attempting to name himself "Head of the Church in England" while Henry II was attempting to take control of land that belonged to the Church.)
In each case, both kings expected the Lord Chancellor to support him against the Church and in each case the king felt extremely betrayed when the Chancellor opposed his plans
Both resigned their Chancellorship in order to remove themselves from the conflict of interest.
Finally, in each case, Thomas was killed by the dubious orders of the king and under false pretenses.
Now the details differed. Thomas More was never a cleric, although he considered becoming a monk upon his wife's death. Thomas Becket was a bishop of Canterbury before he became Chancellor, he had most likely been placed there so Henry would have a close ally in the church. More was legally executed after a long and protracted treason trial where he brilliantly defended himself against all charges and (like his Lord Jesus) convicted only on the basis of a pre-arranged perjured testimony. Becket's death on the other hand was a classic case of vigilante justice. Henry II was rumored to have said "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" in a moment of frustration. Whether or not he meant for someone to "deal with" the bishop is beside the point-four of Henry's knights galloped to the Cathedral of Canterbury and murdered Thomas at the altar.
Perhaps these parallels were fated to take place. Although the martyrdoms of the two men were separated by four centuries, there is no question that Chancellor More was carrying on the legacy of Chancellor Becket. Thomas More was most likely named after Thomas Becket. Almost immediately following his death, Thomas Becket was acclaimed as a hero. Everyone in England was still a Catholic and many were appalled at the acts of Henry's knights. He went on to become quite possibly the most famous English saint. His tomb became the greatest pilgrimage site in England, a sort of Mecca for English Christians. (Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are told by a group of pilgrims traveling along the road to Canterbury to visit Becket's tomb.) When More was born, Becket was the only English saint with the name of Thomas. More was one of many young English boys who were given the great archbishop to be his patron.
Thomas More is considered the patron saint of lawyers. I plan to become a lawyer so I pray to Saint Thomas mainly in order to help me along the path to law school. Thomas did what most politicians are astoundingly unwilling to do: he did not attempt to separate his religious beliefs from his political decisions. This is a pet peeve that really annoys me. I have promised to myself and to God that if I do become involved in politics, I will do my best to make all my decisions in line with my Faith and I pray to St. Thomas to help me with that and to stay strong.
However the greatest reason I admire both Thomas Becket and Thomas More is the same reason I admire Thomas the Apostle. All of them were courageous and all of them stood up to the powers of their day (the King of England, the Romans, and the Sanhedrin) in the face of certain death. I have this knack for being a bit of a rebel against the establishment and like all the saints named Thomas, I say what I mean most of the time, not afraid to cause a little conflict. Both Becket and More had cahones to openly defy the king.
Thomas Aquinas
Feast: January 28
Nickname: "Dumb Ox"
Unlike the other saints named Thomas, Thomas Aquinas is not a martyr. He did not make a courageous last stand against the enemies of his faith. He was a monk in the Dominican monastery in Italy. He is most famous for writing the Summa Theologica, which is considered the greatest work of Catholic Theology. Thomas is considered one of the greatest preachers of all time. He was named a Doctor of the Church and is considered the greatest of all thirty-three.
Thomas' genius was not evident at first during his studies. Thomas was a rather large and heavyset young man. He was also very quiet, shy and withdrawn. Many of his classmates took this as evidence that he was unintelligent or perhaps even unable to speak. (The original meaning of the word dumb is: "unable to speak.") As it turned out Thomas was quite possibly the smartest student in the class. He quickly began to impress his teacher Saint Albert the Great and he even grew to surpass his teacher. He loved the Lord in the Eucharist with every beat of his heart and wrote the songs Tantum Ergo, O Salutaris Hostia, and Pange Linqua to celebrate his devotion to the Eucharist. These songs are still used in the ceremonies of Adoration and Benediction.
I identify with Aquinas the most. The reason for this is the fact that Thomas demonstrated his faith through learning and writing about it. This is my favorite aspect of living my Faith, studying it and learning as much as possible from it. I know that God gave me a gift of knowledge and intelligence and I want to use it for His Glory as Thomas Aquinas did. Thomas also had difficulty in his studies in the beginning of his time at university as I have during my first year at the Naval Academy so I continue to pray to him in order to help me do better in my coming time here.
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