Wednesday, May 18, 2022

- May 17, 2022

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Ezekiel, Chapter 30, Verse 13

Thus says the Lord GOD: I will destroy idols, and put an end to images in Memphis. There will never again be a prince over the land of Egypt. Instead, I will spread FEAR throughout the land of Egypt.

Ancient Egypt was a magnificent civilization, until it suddenly vanished in the sixth century B.C...

A Base Nation[1]

In chapters 29 and 30 of Ezekiel, we read of God sending the Prophet Ezekiel to deliver a crucial message to Egypt. “Set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt,” God instructs Ezekiel, “and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt” (Ezekiel 29:2). The biblical record shows that Ezekiel was dispatched to Egypt and that he delivered his message to Pharaoh Apries (Hophra in Hebrew), the fourth king of the 26th dynasty of Egypt. Egypt was a powerful, influential civilization. In fact, Egypt’s presence was so impressive, Apries, thought himself king of the world, as powerful as God Himself. Pharaoh Apries considered the Nile River, the source of Egypt’s material greatness, to be his own creation, and he declared himself the god of the Nile. Drunk on arrogance, Apries had lost sight of Egypt’s history with God and the Israelites. So God dispatched Ezekiel to warn Apries of where his egotism was leading and to tell him that God would expose and destroy him, and that in Egypt’s devastation the world would learn the ultimate source of Egypt’s power. In verse 3, God tells Ezekiel: “Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.” God was going to show Pharaoh Apries exactly who created the Nile and gave Egypt all its power. In verse 4, God tells the pharaoh, “I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.” God said He would expose Pharaoh Apries as a fraud—much like He had exposed the gods of Egypt during the 10 plagues nearly a thousand years earlier! God continues His warning in verses 8-10: “Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the Lord: because he hath said, The River is mine, and I have made it. Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.” In verse 19, Ezekiel even reveals to Apries that he would be attacked by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. In scripture after scripture of chapters 29 and 30, God warns the pharaoh that Egypt’s destruction at the hands of the Babylonians and Persians would be so disastrous that it would never fully recover! Then, in verse 15, God makes a prophecy that would change Egypt forever. Regarding Egypt’s future after the destruction, He says explicitly: “It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them that they shall no more rule over the nations.” God couldn’t have been clearer: He promised that after the sixth century B.C. Egypt would never again be a major ruling power!

One wonders if we here in America have become the basest of nations due to our nation’s secular media driven leadership.

According to John Maxwell, “It is God who raises up leaders and who removes them from office; our job is to submit to His bidding. Leaders commonly misunderstand this truth. God says that whether leaders are good or evil, He ultimately is the He who puts them there—and He will remove them.”

Armed Forces Day Build

US Navy[1]

John Barry, an Irish Catholic, was the "Father of the American Navy." He has been forgotten by all but a few historians, but he outranks John Paul Jones and was the official father of the Continental and U.S. Naval forces. He went to sea at a young age in Ireland and settled in Philadelphia. In October 1775, John was given command of the Continental Congress vessel, the Leviathan, and his commission, the first issued, was dated Dec. 7, 1775. When the war began, John Barry served in a spectacular manner. If his ship was shot out from under him, he and his crew battled on land. They were with George Washington at Trenton and Princeton. At the end of the war, Congress enacted on March 27, 1794, a law establishing the U.S. Navy. The U. S. Senate issued the appointments of officers made by George Washington, and John Barry's commission reads: "Captain of the U.S. Navy...to take rank from the 4th day of June, 1784...registered No. 1." With victory in hand at the end of the Revolutionary War, Americans in cities, towns and villages chanted a new ditty:

'Irish Commodore'

"There are gallant hearts whose glory

Columbia loves to name,

Whose deeds shall live in story

And everlasting fame.

But never yet one braver

Our starry baner bore,

Then saucy old Jack Barry,

The Irish Commodore."

Please pray for the intentions of my dear friend from my South Pole adventure and the Godfather of my daughter Claire, the eminent Navy Chief James Grace

[1]https://www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/ByIssue/Article/TabId/735/ArtMID/13636/ArticleID/4207/Catholic-Heroes-of-early-America.aspx

Every Wednesday is Dedicated to St. Joseph

The Italian culture has always had a close association with St. Joseph perhaps you could make Wednesdays centered around Jesus’s Papa. Plan an Italian dinner of pizza or spaghetti after attending Mass as most parishes have a Wednesday evening Mass. You could even do carry out to help restaurants. If you are adventurous, you could do the Universal Man Plan: St. Joseph style. Make the evening a family night perhaps it could be a game night. Whatever you do make the day special.

· Devotion to the 7 Joys and Sorrows of St. Joseph

· Do the St. Joseph Universal Man Plan.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

PART ONE: THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

SECTION TWO I. THE CREEDS

CHAPTER TWO-I BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY SON OF GOD

Article 6 "HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN AND IS SEATED AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER"

659 "So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God." Christ's body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys. But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity. Jesus' final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God's right hand. Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul "as to one untimely born", in a last apparition that established him as an apostle.

660 The veiled character of the glory of the Risen One during this time is intimated in his mysterious words to Mary Magdalene: "I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." This indicates a difference in manifestation between the glory of the risen Christ and that of the Christ exalted to the Father's right hand, a transition marked by the historical and transcendent event of the Ascension.

661 This final stage stays closely linked to the first, that is, to his descent from heaven in the Incarnation. Only the one who "came from the Father" can return to the Father: Christ Jesus. "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man." Left to its own natural power’s humanity does not have access to the "Father's house", to God's life and happiness. Only Christ can open to man such access that we, his members, might have confidence that we too shall go where he, our Head and our Source, has preceded us.

662 "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." The lifting up of Jesus on the cross signifies and announces his lifting up by his Ascension into heaven, and indeed begins it. Jesus Christ, the one priest of the new and eternal Covenant, "entered, not into a sanctuary made by human hands. . . but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf." There Christ permanently exercises his priesthood, for he "always lives to make intercession" for "those who draw near to God through him". As "high priest of the good things to come" he is the center and the principal actor of the liturgy that honors the Father in heaven.

663 Henceforth Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father: "By 'the Father's right hand' we understand the glory and honour of divinity, where he who exists as Son of God before all ages, indeed as God, of one being with the Father, is seated bodily after he became incarnate, and his flesh was glorified."

664 Being seated at the Father's right hand signifies the inauguration of the Messiah's kingdom, the fulfilment of the prophet Daniel's vision concerning the Son of man: "To him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed." After this event the apostles became witnesses of the "kingdom [that] will have no end".

Frank Capra Born 1897 Film Director

Like the gospel parables, Capra's films show us how love, a gift freely given, comes to ordinary reality and changes it in extraordinary ways in other words, how the transcendent disrupts the course of human events. In It's a Wonderful Life, a work of theological optimism, a representative of the divine comes to earth to offer salvation to a soul in despair. The hero arrives at his salvation only after undergoing an experience of powerlessness. His prayer of desolation "Lord, I'm at the end of my rope" recalls the loneliness of our Lord's cry in Gethsemane. The pattern is completed with George's resurrection, when he realizes that in spite of its imperfections, life is still wonderful. His love an analogy for Christ's love has created a spiritual community, a tangible manifestation of the kingdom of God. Capra's cinema reminds us that this imperfect world can be redeemed, that the reward is worth the fight, and that life is a gift to be treasured.[2]