SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER
Genesis, Chapter 26,
Verse 24
The same night the
LORD appeared to him (Isaac) and said: I am the God of Abraham, your father. Do
not fear, for I am with you. I will
bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of Abraham, my servant.
Often times when are lives are full of trouble it is
hard to think of God’s presence and to realize we are His children and we
should be about His business. Isaac is involved in a dispute over water rights.
In a sparsely watered land, wells were precious and claims on water could
function as a kind of claim on the land. God helps Abimelech, the King, to
realize that Isaac has brought blessing to his people and thus to desire to
make a covenant with him the day following Isaac’s dream. When I was in the military,
we had a witty maxim for this;
“It
is hard to remember your mission was to drain the swamp when you are up to your
arse in alligators.”
When our lives are so busy fighting off the alligators
that we do not take time to listen or pray to God; that is when God may
approach us in our dreams. Isaac was reassured by God not to fear for He is with Him.
In
this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer
through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith,
more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may
prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
(1 Peter: 6-7)
Francis Xavier[1], surnamed the apostle of India, was born of noble parents april 7, 1506,
at xavier, a castle near pampeluna, in spain. In his eighteenth year he became
one of the first members of the society of jesus, at paris, and from that
moment gave himself up so earnestly and perseveringly to meditation,
self-denial, and the practice of christian virtues that by no desire was he so
much animated as by that of laboring and suffering for the glory of god and the
salvation of men, wherever and however it might please god. In the year 1541 he
was sent as missionary to india. Of his labors and sufferings there his works
bear witness. He preached the gospel in fifty-two kingdoms, great and small, of
India and japan, and baptized about a hundred thousand pagans and muslims.
Wherever he came, the idols temples were thrown down, and churches built to the
true god. He died in 1552, poor and destitute of all bodily comforts, but
rejoicing in the lord, with these words, lord, in thee have I hoped; let me
never be confounded. Let us learn from St. Francis Xavier to labor, according
to our ability, for the glory of God and the salvation of our neighbor.
-although we cannot become missionaries, we yet can pray, and we can join the
association for the Propagation of The Faith[2].
Christ's
fourth beatitude, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness," cuts to the rotten flesh at the heart of the modern world.
It shows a striking difference between our culture and all others, especially
our own cultures past. As Solzhenitsyn said in his great and shocking 1978
Harvard commencement address, nothing more conspicuously distinguishes us than
our lack of courage, our lack of passion. You see this strikingly when you live
in another culture, or even when you read the writings of another culture, like
the Middle Ages or ancient Israel. Kierkegaard says in Either/Or, let
others complain that our age is wicked; my complaint is that it is wretched,
for it lacks passion. Men's thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace; they are
themselves are pitiable like lace makers. The thoughts of their hearts are too
paltry to be sinful. For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbor such
thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God. Even their lusts are
dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy. They do their duty, these
shop-keeping souls, but they clip the coin a trifle. ... They think that even
if the Lord keeps a careful set of books, they may still cheat Him a little.
Out upon them! This is the reason my soul always turns back to the Old
Testament and Shakespeare. Those who speak there are at least human beings:
they hate; they love; they murder their enemies and curse their descendants
throughout all generations; they sin. The greatest good, according to our
culture's primary prophets, is self-esteem, self-satisfaction. Christ shocks us
by blessing dissatisfaction, not the dissatisfaction with our place in the
world, not worldly ambition, the profit motive, the American Dream, hunger for
glory, honor, fame, power, wealth or success, but hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for sanctity — dissatisfaction with our sins, passionate thirst
for a sanctity we know we do not have and know we must have. There is one thing in the lives of all the saints that
turns us off, and cuts of off, from perhaps the single most effective
evangelistic weapon in the Church's arsenal — using the lives of the saints —
and that is the saints' passionate insistence that they are great sinners, and
their insistent passion for holiness. It's not that we do not admire holiness;
it's that we do not admire the passion for holiness, the hunger and thirst for
righteousness. What Christ blesses, we curse as fanaticism, our soft, sophisticated
culture's worst insult. But this is Christ's blessing. More than a blessing, it
is a requirement. It is what our Lord requires us to be in order to be his,
that is, to be a saint, that is, a fanatic, to love one thing infinitely, to
put all our eggs in his basket. It contains only one pearl of great price. He
uses a shocking word for our Laodicean niceness: "Because you are neither
hot nor cold I will spit you out of my mouth." He is content with us only
if we are discontent with ourselves. Freud wrote that our civilization's
success in seeking contentment has produced instead greater discontent — a
profound question, but he did not know the answer why. I think that was the
profoundest thing he ever wrote, only one step from Augustine's great answer,
that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Pascal, on the other hand,
knew why, for his patient, unlike Freud's, was himself, and his psychoanalyst,
unlike Freud's, was not himself, but Christ. And therefore, he knew why we
multiply our passions for little things, and decrease our passion for great
thing, why we multiply diversions, and cultivate indifference, especially to
death and our eternal destiny. He knew where this disease came from. He wrote,
Jesus said it even more succinctly than Pascal (Jesus spoke more succinctly
than anyone ever): "Seek and you shall find," implying that
non-seekers do not find.The f act that
there exist men who are indifferent to the loss of their whole being and the
peril of an eternity of wretchedness is against nature. With everything else
they are quite different: they fear the most trifling things. They foresee them
and feel them. The same man who spends many days and nights in fury and despair
at losing some office, or some imaginary affront to his honor, is the very one
who knows that he is going to lose everything through death but feels neither
anxiety nor emotion. It is a monstrous thing to see one and the same heart at
once so sensitive to minor things and so strangely insensitive to the greatest.
It is an incomprehensible spell, a supernatural torpor that points to a
supernatural power as its cause. Many thinkers have written sentences that
begin like this: "There are only two kinds of people" or "There
are only three kinds of people". In fact, one version goes like this:
"There are only two kinds of people, those who believe there are only two
kinds of people, and those who don't." But Pascal's version is the best I
have ever heard. He writes, "There are only three kinds of people: those
who seek God and have found Him — these are wise and happy; those who seek God
and have not yet found Him — these are wise and unhappy; and those who live
without either seeking God or finding Him — and these are both unwise and
unhappy." You see, it is the seeking, the hungering and thirsting, that
makes all the difference, in fact, the eternal difference. Jesus said it even
more succinctly than Pascal (Jesus spoke more succinctly than anyone ever):
"Seek and you shall find," implying that non-seekers do not find. The
Pharisees were non-seekers, like the pop psychologists, full of self-esteem. Therefore,
he said to them that he had come on earth to save everyone but them. He said,
"Those who are sick need a physician, not those who are well. I came to
call not the righteous, but sinners." Socrates said the same thing: on the
intellectual level, there are only two kinds of people, fools who believe they
are wise, and the wise who believe they are fools. Pascal says: "There are
two kinds of people: sinners, who believe they are saints, and saints, who
believe they are sinners." Jesus says that the wise "fools" and
the saints are right, and the clear empirical test for the difference between
them is the hunger and thirst, the passion, the discontent. When Christ says
that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, that is, for sanctity,
shall be satisfied, does he mean they shall be satisfied only in the next life?
I think he means they will begin to be satisfied even in this one. Already in
this life the saints have a peace and a joy that the world cannot give. They
are at the same time dissatisfied and satisfied, like Romeo with Juliet, like
you listening to a great symphony, or watching a great storm at sea. By a
wonderful paradox, the refusal to accept self-esteem turns out to be the
highest self-esteem. To accept the title "sinner" means you are the
King's kid acting like an ape. To refuse that title and accept yourself as you
are means that you are only a clever, successfully evolved ape, even when you
act like a prince. What a privilege to sing, "Amazing grace! How sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me!" No ape, however evolved, can rise to
the dignity of being a wretch. Only one destined for infinite, unending, and
unimaginable ecstasy in spiritual marriage to God can bear the dignity of being
a wretch. Only the betrothed is wretched until united with the Spouse.
Walt Disney Day[4]
Animation can
explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most
versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass
appreciation.
The name
Disney is known all over the world and is the brand name of characters and
stories that are cherished and beloved the world over. Behind all of this
wonder, the voices of Mickey Mouse and the seemingly endless parade of
characters that the company put out was the vision of one man, Walter Elias
Disney. Known to his friends, which he would consider all of us, as Walt. Walt
Disney Day celebrates this incredible man and the joy and laughter he brought
to the world. It is perhaps no mistake that Walt Disney was born in 1901, right
at the turning of the century. He would go on to turn the entire world around,
changing the face of cinema and entertainment through the introduction of his
incredible cast of animated characters. Born in Chicago, Walt would move
multiple times throughout his life, first in 1906 to a family farm in Missouri,
again in 1911 to Kansas City where he would attend grammar school. His career
as an artist and illustrator would get its start in 1919 when he returned from
World War I during which he served as part of the Red Cross. It would be 1928
before Mickey Mouse came into the world, the result of a sketch being done
while he was on a bus. It quickly became the centrepiece of the Disney Empire,
which would grow rapidly to become one of the most important names in family
entertainment in the world. 90 years later Disney is a name known around the
world for its beloved characters, exciting theme parks, and most recently it’s
ownership of Star Wars.
How to celebrate Walt Disney Day
The
best way to celebrate Walt Disney Day is to get in and watch as many Disney
films as you can cram into a single day, especially if you’ve never seen them
before. If you’re one of those who grew up with Walt Disney as the heart of
your childhood experience, then this is a perfect opportunity to take a walk
down memory lane. Get together a bunch of themed food and sweets and enjoy your
day with a group of friends, because Disney has always been about family.
5 Disney movies with religious
messages[5]
Disney movies are
a well-known and well-loved part of most people's childhood. These stories talk
and teach us things, like believing in ourselves and follow our dreams.
Recently, the stories inspire courage and kindness, as well as forms of
"true love." But viewers may have missed something; these popular
Disney stories have religious messages.
1. Snow White is a
Christian princess.
Released
in 1937, the first animated story Disney made is actually about a Christian
princess. It may not be explicit, but Snow White was shown briefly, praying
with her head bowed down and hands clasped, asking for God's blessing to the
seven dwarfs that had shown kindness to her.
2. Simba is The
Prodigal Son.
The
youngest son in the parable is just like Simba, King Mufasa's son who just
enjoys the life of a prince. But once he realizes the part he played in his
father's death, he runs away and lives with animals eating grubs. Discarding
the "Hakuna Matata" lifestyle, he goes back home to face the
responsibilities waiting for him.
3. Rapunzel, in Tangled, symbolizes our humanity.
3. Rapunzel, in Tangled, symbolizes our humanity.
Like
many of the characters in the Bible, the trapped princess was able to live
through the darkness in her life and find the light that sets her free. Every
year following her kidnapping by the witch, who represents the devil, her parents
lit up the sky through lanterns helping her find her way back home. And like
God, they never got tired of doing it.
4. God's grace in Cinderella.
4. God's grace in Cinderella.
We
might think of this heroin as not exactly the type to look up to: most the time
she just lets everyone tell her what to do. She may not have deserved the happy
ending she got, because she relied solely on her fairy godmother. However, the
point of God's grace is it's undeserved, as depicted in the Bible stories.
5.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame involves God the most.
This
could be a bit of an exaggeration, as described in crosswalk.com. But remember,
the beginning of the story tells of the villain wanting to kill a baby but
stopped by the Church, one way the Holy Spirit works. The heroine later sings
to God, how prayer should really be. Believing he's better than others, the
villain constantly clashes with his faith. Whether it is intentional or not,
aren't we glad Disney incorporates God and Christianity in its stories? These
scenes are rarely seen in movies, so you might want to do a re-watch. You'll
never see your favorite movies the same again.
As
we begin the Advent season let us take up the nature of God by reflecting on
these traits that make us a model for our children and our sisters and brothers
in Christ. Today reflect on:
Compassion
vs. Indifference
Investing
whatever is necessary to heal the hurts of others (I John 3:17)
1503
Christ's compassion toward the sick
and his many healings of every kind of infirmity are a resplendent sign that
"God has visited his people" and that the Kingdom of God is close at
hand. Jesus has the power not only to heal, but also to forgive sins; he has
come to heal the whole man, soul and body; he is the physician the sick have
need of. His compassion toward all who suffer goes so far that he identifies
himself with them: "I was sick and you visited me." His preferential
love for the sick has not ceased through the centuries to draw the very special
attention of Christians toward all those who suffer in body and soul. It is the
source of tireless efforts to comfort them.
"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."
Surely there must be something wrong somewhere! If God gives
himself to you, why are you so attached to creatures?
Daily Devotions
[1]Goffine’s
Divine Instructions, 1896
[4]https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/walt-disney-day/
[5]https://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=59303
[6]http://graceonlinelibrary.org/home-family/christian-parenting/49-godly-character-qualities/
[7]http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/the_way-point-1.htm
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