Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter
T. Jefferson
8Before the spies lay down, Rahab
went up to them on the roof 9and said:
“I know that the Lord has given you the land, that a dread of you has come upon
us, and that all the inhabitants of the land tremble with FEAR because of you.
Rahab
saved the spies of Israel. Why? She knew
the truth that God was with Israel. Rahab was a survivor and a sinner; she knew
God had given the land to Israel. If you know the truth you do not swerve from
it. Rahab was saved from the fate of Jericho because of her action not just
good will toward Israel. James in his epistle puts it this way:
20Do you want proof, you ignoramus,
that faith without works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father
justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? 22 You
see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the
works. 23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham
believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called
“the friend of God.”24 See how a person is justified by works and
not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot
also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a
different route?
Rahab
was saved by her faith and actions by the God of Israel and as a result she is
not only saved but the Christ the Messiah descends from Boaz her son.
The Devil and Temptations[1]
There are many and varied
ways in which sin and evil are presented to us in an attractive way.
The Kingdom of Darkness
·
This
kingdom offers a false peace and happiness in sin. Man is capable, especially
in heaven, but even here on earth, of experiencing a deep joy and a deep peace
given by God. Many of us have experienced this. The false joy offered, for
example, in the sin of drunkenness or drug abuse. This false joy is also
offered in the sins of sex before marriage, adultery after marriage, or
homosexuality.
·
When
people are deeply involved in these sins, or in murder, violent anger or in
deep hatred, jealousy and unforgiveness, they are really living in the kingdom
of darkness and can open themselves up to the possibility of direct attacks
from the evil spirits.
·
The
danger today is that sin has become very "respectable" in our society.
Sex before marriage, adultery, heavy social drinking, abortion, and
homosexuality have all attained a certain "respectability." They do
not seem so bad. That is because they are not bad in the kingdom of darkness.
Eliminating the Kingdom of Darkness
·
Our
homes should be sacred, peaceful places in which to live. Our homes need to be
clean. We should not let them become dirty or allow disorder by having junk and
filth accumulate in our drawers and closets. The power of evil abhors
cleanliness.
·
Remove
anything in your home that has had something to do with witchcraft, a
spiritualist, a curandero, a medium, an oriental religion or cult or that has
been used in a superstitious way. Destroy it or see to it that it is destroyed.
Do not keep jewelry that is symbolic of witchcraft or is a sign of the Zodiac.
Remove and burn all pornographic pictures and magazines--even those that have
been put away in a drawer, closet or trunk. Get rid of all religious literature
that does not agree with the basic truth of our faith that Jesus Christ is
divine. He is the Son of God, our only Savior who brings us to the Father.
Remove and destroy literature from the Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Christian
Science, Unity, Science of Mind, Scientology, Hare Krishna, Yoga, Transcendental
Meditation, Divine Light Mission, Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, the
Children of God and the Way International. None of this or similar literature
should be around our homes. Do not allow the influence of evil to come into
your home through television. Carefully monitor the programs that are seen. The
values taught by television advertising are not the values preached by Our Lord
Jesus Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapters 5, 6 and 7.
Thomas Jefferson[2] born this day 1743
Thomas
Jefferson (d. 1826) was – besides being a founding father of the United States
and president – one of the most learned figures of his age. His education,
through Episcopalian and Huguenot schoolmasters and then at William and Mary
included a comprehensive classical approach in the Enlightenment tradition and
fostered in him an appreciation for mathematics, philosophy, architecture,
botany, science, music, and law. Philosophically, he was a dedicated Deist,
meaning that he rejected the need for revelation and repudiated all forms of
established or institutional religion beyond the obvious limits of reason. As
such, he declared himself a Christian – chafing against charges that he was an
atheist or infidel – but he had little patience with dogmas, finding especially
unacceptable the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Nevertheless,
he did not oppose organized religion, insisting that all religions be treated
with toleration within the pluralistic society established by the Constitution.
The best source for appreciating Jefferson’s self-identification with Christianity
(again from the standpoint of the Deists) was his work The Life and Morals of
Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin,
French, and English, compiled a few years before his death. Called also the
Jefferson Bible, it contains no personal writings by Jefferson, save for the
Table of Contents. Rather, it is a collection of nearly 1,000 verses from the
Gospels (Matthew and Luke chiefly), offering Jesus’ comprehensive moral
philosophy, as Jefferson saw it. He thus omitted all references to the divinity
of Jesus, the primacy of Peter, the Eucharist, comments by the evangelists, and
miracles; in effect, Jefferson drained the Gospels of any form of mystery. The
selection reveals Jefferson’s belief in God, the Commandments, practicing the
virtues, and an afterlife in which the just are rewarded and the evil punished.
Deism:[3]
The term
used to certain doctrines apparent in a tendency of thought and criticism that
manifested itself principally in England towards the latter end of the
seventeenth century. The doctrines and tendency of deism were, however, by no means entirely confined to England,
nor to the seventy years or so during which most of the deistical productions
were given to the world; for a similar spirit of criticism aimed at the nature and content of traditional religious beliefs, and the
substitution for them of a rationalistic naturalism has frequently appeared in the course of religious
thought. Thus, there have been French and German deists as well as English;
while Pagan, Jewish, or Moslem deists might be found as well as Christian.
Because of
the individualistic standpoint of independent criticism which they adopt, it is
difficult, if not impossible, to class together the representative writers who
contributed to the literature of English deism as forming any one definite school, or to group together
the positive teachings contained in their writings as any one systematic
expression of a concordant philosophy. The deists were what nowadays would be
called freethinkers, a name, indeed, by which they were not infrequently known;
and they can only be classed together wholly in the main attitude that they
adopted, viz. in agreeing to cast off the trammels of authoritative religious
teaching in favor of a free and purely rationalistic speculation. Many of them
were frankly materialistic in their doctrines; while the French thinkers who subsequently
built upon the foundations laid by the English deists were almost exclusively
so. Others rested content with a criticism of ecclesiastical authority in teaching
the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures , or the fact of an external revelation of supernatural truth given by God to man. In this last point, while there is a considerable
divergence of method and procedure observable in the writings of the various deists,
all, at least to a very large extent, seem to concur. Deism, in its every
manifestation was opposed to the current and traditional teaching of revealed
religion.
Is there
any truth to deism?[4]
·
Deism is the belief
that a supernatural entity created the universe, but that this being does not
intervene in its creation. The Church describes it like this: “Some admit that
the world was made by God but as by a watchmaker who, once he has made a watch,
abandons it to itself (CCC 285).”
·
It’s fair to say that
many people today identify with this viewpoint, in that they believe there was
some supernatural cause to the universe, but we have now been left to our own devices.
This idea extends back to the beginning of human thought, but it developed
significantly during the Enlightenment as critiques of religion, and
Christianity in particular, became more prevalent. Many English deists placed
considerable doubt on the supernatural character of miracles and prophecy,
arguing that they were inconsistent with reason.
·
What emerged from this
epoch was the notion that all religions were products of human invention, and
that many Christian beliefs were farcical. God was no longer seen as a divine
entity that interfered in the world but was instead, merely the first cause underlying
the universe, being both unknowable and untouchable. The universe was defined
as self-operating, self-regulating and self-explanatory and comprised of
unvarying and inviolable physical laws.
·
While some deists
believe that the creator of the universe is an abstract force, others hold that
the entity is personal – that it has a mind, but simply has no interest in the
endeavors of human beings. This is radically different from the Christian
conception of God, which holds that God is not only personal, but created us so
that we could know and love him.
·
What distinguishes
deism and theistic religions like Christianity the most is the idea of God’s
intervention in history. While deists hold that the creator is far away,
Catholics believe that God is with us at all times, can hear us, and even
answer our prayers. The Church refers to the creator as a “living God” who
gives life and reveals himself to the world. This is perhaps best conveyed in
the Incarnation, where Jesus became human, walked among us, and died for our
sins.
·
“Creation is the
foundation of ‘all God’s saving plans’, the ‘beginning of the history of
salvation’ that culminates in Christ. Conversely, the mystery of Christ casts
conclusive light on the mystery of creation and reveals the end for which ‘in
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’: from the beginning, God
envisaged the glory of the new creation in Christ.” (CCC 280) While deists hold
that God is apathetic towards his creation, Catholics rejoice in the fact that
God interacts and truly cares about us.
·
Of course, there is
common ground between deists and theists in that both believe in a creator of
the universe. This mutual belief can act as the starting point for a
conversation about who God is, and whether it’s plausible to believe that he
intervenes in the world.
Novena for the Poor
Souls[5]
O Mother most
merciful, pray for the souls in Purgatory!
PRAYER OF ST.
GERTRUDE THE GREAT O Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of
Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world
today, for all the holy souls in Purgatory and for sinners everywhere— for
sinners in the Universal Church, for those in my own home and for those within
my family. Amen.
PRAYER FOR THE
DYING O Most Merciful Jesus, lover of souls, I pray Thee, by the agony of Thy
most Sacred Heart, and by the sorrows of Thine Immaculate Mother, to wash in
Thy Most Precious Blood the sinners of the whole world who are now in their
agony and who will die today. Heart of Jesus, once in agony, have mercy on the
dying! Amen.
ON EVERY DAY OF
THE NOVENA V. O Lord, hear my prayer; R. And let my cry come unto Thee. O God,
the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant unto the souls of Thy
servants and handmaids the remission of all their sins, that through our devout
supplications they may obtain the pardon they have always desired, Who livest
and reignest world without end. Amen.
TUESDAY O Lord
God Almighty, I beseech Thee by the Precious Blood of Thy divine Son Jesus that
was shed in His bitter crowning with thorns, deliver the souls in Purgatory,
and among them all, particularly that soul which is in the greatest need of our
prayers, in order that it may not long be delayed in praising Thee in Thy glory
and blessing Thee forever. Amen. Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
Daily
Devotions/Practices
·
Make
reparations to the Holy Face-Tuesday
Devotion
·
Pray Day 1 of
the Novena for our Pope and Bishops
·
Tuesday:
Litany of St. Michael the Archangel
·
Total Consecration
to St. Joseph Day 15
·
Manhood of
the Master-week 8 day 7
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary.
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