Thursday, October 25, 2018
1 Corinthians,
Chapter 2, Verse 9-10
9 But as it is
written: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not
entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,” 10 this God has revealed to us
through the Spirit.
The world can never recognize the wisdom of the cross.
The other day while sitting in my church for mass it was revealed to me the
wisdom of the cross. As the Eucharistic celebration was being conducted I was
admiring our church and as I gazed on the altar I notice we had the cross which
represented Christ dead for our sins. Behind the cross lit up with the sun
waning was the stained glass of Christ ascending to the Father. I asked
interiorly where the representation of Christ resurrected is? Then almost
immediately an interior voice stated, “You are the representation of Christ
resurrected.” At first, I withdrew from the idea, sinner that I am. Then I knew
that this was the divine wisdom that we physically and spiritually become the
resurrected Christ to our families, neighbors, our friends and even dare I say
our enemies. May God’s will and wisdom be done!
Pope Benedict XVI summed up joy of the church which families
conformed in love should mirror “Doesn’t the Church, with all her commandments
and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life? Doesn’t
she blow the whistle just when the joy which is the Creator’s gift offers us a
happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the Divine?” He responded that, although there have been
exaggerations and deviant forms of asceticism in Christianity, the Church’s
official teaching, in fidelity to the Scriptures, did not reject “eros as
such, but rather declared war on a warped and destructive form of it, because
this counterfeit divinization
of eros… actually strips it of divine dignity and dehumanizes it.”
Training in the areas of emotion and instinct is necessary, and at
times this requires setting limits. Excess, lack of control or obsession with a
single form of pleasure can end up weakening and tainting that very pleasure and damaging family life. A person can certainly
channel his passions in a beautiful and healthy way, increasingly pointing them
towards altruism and an integrated self-fulfillment that can only enrich
interpersonal relationships in the heart of the family. This does not mean
renouncing moments of intense enjoyment, but rather integrating them with other moments of
generous commitment, patient hope, inevitable weariness and struggle to achieve
an ideal. Family life is all this and it deserves to be lived to the fullest. Some
currents of spirituality teach that desire has to be eliminated as a path to
liberation from pain. Yet we believe that God loves the enjoyment felt by human beings: he created us and “richly
furnishes us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim 6:17). Let us be glad when
with great love he
tells us: “My son, treat yourself well…Do not deprive yourself of a happy day”
(Sir 14:11-14). Married couples likewise respond to God’s will when they
take up the biblical injunction: “Be joyful in the day of prosperity” (Ec 7:14).
What is important is to have the
freedom to realize that pleasure can find different expressions at different
times of life, in accordance with the needs of mutual love. In this sense, we
can appreciate the teachings of some Eastern masters who urge us to expand our
consciousness, lest we be imprisoned by one limited experience that can blind
us. This expansion of consciousness is not the denial or destruction of desire
so much as it’s broadening and perfection.
Growing up in the 50’s
and 60’s Vincent was a staple of the Holloween season. Trained on the London stage, Price started out as an actor for
mainstream films in the 1940s, and worked for prestigious directors like Joseph
L. Mankiewicz, Otto Preminger and Cecil B. DeMille. But he never really made
his mark in the film business until he segued into the horror genre. Despite
being immensely talented, at 6’4”, Vinnie was just too tall to make it as a
Hollywood leading man, where the ideal male height was around 6’, give or take
an inch or two on either side. (Price’s great friend and fellow horror icon,
Sir Christopher Lee, faced the same problem: at 6’5” he was even taller than
Vinnie.) In addition to the height issue, as the 50s marched on, Vinnie’s
classic, stage-trained acting style would eventually be considered
“old-fashioned,” and pushed aside in favor of the more “naturalistic” acting
styles of younger actors such as Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Paul Newman.
In classic horror, however, a stage-trained acting style and
perfect diction—which Price had in spades—were considered assets, because so
many plots featured evil aristocrats, sinister industrialists, or cultivated
mad scientists. He made so many horror films that by the time he passed on in
1993 at the age of 82, Price had become world-famous, beloved by millions.
But see, the eyes
of the LORD are upon those who fear him, upon those who hope for his kindness, to
deliver them from death
"Read
these counsels slowly. Pause to meditate on these thoughts. They are things
that I whisper in your ear-confiding them-as a friend, as a brother, as a
father. And they are being heard by God. I won't tell you anything new. I will
only stir your memory, so that some thought will arise and strike you; and so
you will better your life and set out along ways of prayer and of Love. And in
the end you will be a more worthy soul."
111. How beautiful is holy purity I but it is not holy, nor pleasing to
God, if we separate it from charity. Charity is the seed that will grow and
yield rich fruit under the fertile rain of purity. Without charity, purity is
barren, and its sterile waters turn the soul into a swamp, into a cesspool from
which rises the stench of pride.
Daily Devotions
·
Day FIVE spiritual
warfare
[1] Pope Francis, Encyclical on Love.
[2]https://horrornews.net/136668/essential-vincent-price-10-best-films/
[3]http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/the_way-point-1.htm
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