Introduction to 1 Timothy[1]
The three letters, First and Second Timothy and Titus, form a distinct group within the Pauline body of work. In the collection of letters by the Apostle to the Gentiles, they differ from the others in form and contents. All three suggest they were written late in Paul’s career. The opponents are not “Judaizers” as in Galatians but false teachers stressing “knowledge”. Attention is given specially to correct doctrine and church organization. Jesus’ second coming. The three letters are addressed not to congregations but to those who shepherd congregations. These letters were first named “Pastoral Epistles” in the eighteenth century because they all are concerned with the work of a pastor in caring for the community or communities under his charge. 1 Timothy is presented as having been written from Macedonia. Timothy, whom Paul converted, was of mixed Jewish and Gentile parentage. He was the apostle’s companion on both the second and the third missionary journeys and was often sent by him on special missions. In 1 Timothy, he is described as the administrator of the entire Ephesian community. The letter instructs Timothy on his duty to restrain false and useless teaching and proposes principles pertaining to his relationship with the older members of the community and with the presbyters. It gives rules for aid to widows and their selection for charitable ministrations and also deals with liturgical celebrations, selections for the offices of bishop and deacon, relation of slaves with their masters, and obligations of the wealthier members of the community. This letter also reminds Timothy of the prophetic character of his office and encourages him in his exercise of it. The central passage of the letter expresses the principal motive that should guide the conduct of Timothy—preservation of the purity of the church’s doctrine against false teaching. On this same note the letter concludes.
SEPTEMBER 27 Tuesday
ST. VINCENT DE PAUL
1 Timothy, Chapter 5, Verse 20
Reprimand publicly those who do
sin, so that the rest also will be AFRAID.
It
is better to scorn a child than to let them walk into real danger. If we follow
the advice of Timothy, we may wound someone’s pride in order to save their
soul. The priest scandal that has so wounded our church is because we failed to
follow this advice. Nothing ever gets better if it is ignored and left to
fester. If we see someone who we know is trapped in sin out of love, we must
help them.
From
a personal standpoint I remember I used to have a young soldier who worked for
me whose breath smelled bad and I ignored it for months. Finally, my boss came
to me and told me that he smelled it and told me to advise the soldier to see
the dentist as it could indicate a serious dental problem. I did, and the young
soldier lost 4 teeth from infection that I failed to correct out of a lack of
courage.
If you correct someone, they may hate you, but they will still have their teeth or soul as the case may be.
Feast of St. Vincent de Paul[2]
Having lived and worked in Belgium
it is interesting to note the little “d” from “de Paul” normally denotes that
Vincent was of a royal blood line.
St. Vincent de Paul was a
great apostle of charity and brought a great revival of the priesthood in the
17th century. He was born near Dax in the Landes (France) in 1581. As a young
priest he was captured by Moorish pirates who carried him to Africa. He was
sold into slavery but freed in 1607 when he converted his owner. Having
returned to France, he became successively a parish priest and chaplain to the
galley-slaves. He founded a religious Congregation under the title of Priests
of the Mission or Lazarists (now known as Vincentians), and he bound them by a
special way to undertake the apostolic work of charity; he sent them to preach
missions, especially to the ignorant peasants of that time, and to establish
seminaries. In order to help poor girls, invalids, and the insane, sick and
unemployed, he and St. Louise de Marillac founded the Congregation of the
Daughters of Charity, now better known as the Sisters of St. Vincent. St.
Vincent worked tirelessly to help those in need: the impoverished, the sick,
the enslaved, the abandoned, the ignored. He died in 1660 at St. Lazarus's
house, Paris. His motto: "Let us love God; but at the price of our hands
and sweat of our face."
Things to Do:[3]
- Find
out more about the Vincent de Paul Society near you, see if you can
participate.
- Find
out more about the two orders founded by St. Vincent.
- Other
people to find out more about: St.
Louise de Marillac, Bl. Frederic Ozanam and St.
Francis de Sales.
- Learn
what France was like during St. Vincent's life. At that war-torn time, the
lives of peasants were far removed from those of the nobility.
- Make
a banner or poster with St. Vincent's motto to remind us of God's
presence.
Remembering that, "God sees you"
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION TWO-THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER FOUR OTHER LITURGICAL CELEBRATIONS
Article 2 CHRISTIAN FUNERALS
II.
The Celebration of Funerals
1684 The Christian funeral confers on the deceased neither a
sacrament nor a sacramental since he has "passed" beyond the
sacramental economy. It is nonetheless a liturgical celebration of the
Church. The ministry of the Church aims at expressing efficacious communion
with the deceased, at the participation in that communion of the community
gathered for the funeral and at the proclamation of eternal life to the
community.
1685 The different funeral rites express the Paschal character
of Christian death and are in keeping with the situations and traditions of
each region, even as to the color of the liturgical vestments worn.
1686 The Order of Christian Funerals (Ordo exsequiarum) of the
Roman liturgy gives three types of funeral celebrations, corresponding to the
three places in which they are conducted (the home, the church, and the
cemetery), and according to the importance attached to them by the family,
local customs, the culture, and popular piety. This order of celebration is
common to all the liturgical traditions and comprises four principal elements:
1687 The greeting of the community. A greeting of faith begins
the celebration. Relatives and friends of the deceased are welcomed with a word
of "consolation" (in the New Testament sense of the Holy Spirit's
power in hope). The community assembling in prayer also awaits the
"words of eternal life." the death of a member of the community (or
the anniversary of a death, or the seventh or fortieth day after death) is an
event that should lead beyond the perspectives of "this world" and
should draw the faithful into the true perspective of faith in the risen
Christ.
1688 The liturgy of the Word during funerals demands very
careful preparation because the assembly present for the funeral may include
some faithful who rarely attend the liturgy, and friends of the deceased who
are not Christians. the homily in particular must "avoid the literary
genre of funeral eulogy" and illumine the mystery of Christian death
in the light of the risen Christ.
1689 The Eucharistic Sacrifice. When the celebration takes
place in church the Eucharist is the heart of the Paschal reality of Christian
death. In the Eucharist, the Church expresses her efficacious communion
with the departed: offering to the Father in the Holy Spirit the sacrifice of
the death and resurrection of Christ, she asks to purify his child of his sins
and their consequences, and to admit him to the Paschal fullness of the table
of the Kingdom. It is by the Eucharist thus celebrated that the community
of the faithful, especially the family of the deceased, learn to live in
communion with the one who "has fallen asleep in the Lord," by
communicating in the Body of Christ of which he is a living member and, then,
by praying for him and with him.
1690 A farewell to the deceased is his final "commendation
to God" by the Church. It is "the last farewell by which the
Christian community greets one of its members before his body is brought to its
tomb." The Byzantine tradition expresses this by the kiss of farewell
to the deceased:
By this final greeting "we sing for his departure from
this life and separation from us, but also because there is a communion and a
reunion. For even dead, we are not at all separated from one another, because
we all run the same course and we will find one another again in the same
place. We shall never be separated, for we live for Christ, and now we are
united with Christ as we go toward him . . . we shall all be together in
Christ."
Daily
Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: Reparations
for offenses and blasphemies against God and the Blessed Virgin Mary
·
Make
reparations to the Holy Face-Tuesday
Devotion
·
Religion
in the Home for Preschool: September
·
Pray Day 2 of
the Novena for our Pope and Bishops
·
Tuesday:
Litany of St. Michael the Archangel
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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