Monday, March 13, 2023
Monday Night at the Movies
Alain Cavalier, Therese, 1986.
Monday of the Third Week of Lent
LA FALLA
Genesis, Chapter 50, Verse 21
So now, do not FEAR. I will provide for you and for your children.” By thus speaking
kindly to them, he reassured them.
Again,
Joseph is a precursor of Christ is an example of love and forgiveness of God; therefore,
mirroring the message of Paul,
“Consequently, from now on we
regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to
the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer. So, whoever is in Christ is a new
creation: the old things have passed away; behold new things have come. And all
this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us
the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling
the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and
entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
Christ further advises us in
Mathew’s gospel that if we have a brother who sins against us, we should.
1) Go and tell him
about his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won
over your brother.
2) If he does not listen; take one or two others along
with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or
three witnesses’ and
3) If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church and
4) if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. (Mt. 18:14-17)
One wonders what it means to treat someone as a gentile
or tax collector. So,
exactly how did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors? Jesus heals the
daughter of the Canaanite woman. He eats with sinners and tax collectors. He
heals the Centurion’s servant. He calls a tax collector to be his disciple.
Jesus repeatedly invited tax collectors and Gentiles into the kingdom of God.
To “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” doesn’t mean
wash our hands of them. It means we need to continue to reach out to those with
whom we have a conflict. We must continue inviting them into the
fellowship of the kingdom of God.[1]
Monday of the Third
Week of Lent[2]
Prayer.
POUR forth, in Thy mercy, we beseech Thee, O Lord,
Thy grace into our hearts, that, as we abstain from flesh, we may also restrain
our senses from hurtful excesses.
EPISTLE, iv. Kings v. 1 15.
In those days: Naaman, general of the army of the
king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable: for by him the
Lord gave deliverance to Syria: and he was a valiant man and rich, but a leper.
Now there had gone out robbers from Syria and had led away captive out of the
land of Israel a little maid, and she waited upon Naaman’s wife. And she said
to her mistress: I wish my master had been with the prophet, that is in
Samaria: he would certainly have healed him of the leprosy which he hath. Then
Naaman went into his lord, and told him, saying: Thus, and thus said the girl
from the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said to him: Go, and I will send
a letter to the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents
of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment, and
brought the letter to the king of Israel, in these words: When thou shalt
receive this letter, know that I have sent to thee Naaman my servant, that thou
mayest heal him of his leprosy. And when the king of Israel had read the
letter, he rent his garments, and said: Am I God, to be able to kill and give
life, that this man hath sent to me, to heal a man of his leprosy? mark, and
see how he seeketh occasions against me. And when Eliseus the man of God had
heard this, to wit, that the king of Israel had rent his garments, he sent to
him, saying: Why hast thou rent thy garments? let him come to me, and let him
know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and chariots
and stood at the door of the house of Eliseus: and Eliseus sent a messenger to
him saying: Go, and wash seven times in the Jordan, and thy flesh shall recover
health, and thou shalt be clean. Naaman was angry and went away, saying: I
thought he would have come out to me, and standing- would have invoked the name
of the Lord his God, and touched with his hand the place of the leprosy, and
healed me. Are not the Abana and the Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than
all the waters of Israel, that I may wash in them, arid be made clean? So as he
turned, and was going away with indignation, his servants came to him, and said
to him: Father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, surely thou
shouldst have done it : how much rather what he now hath said to thee: Wash,
and thou shalt be clean? Then he went down, and washed in the Jordan seven
times: according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored,
like the flesh of a little child, and he was made clean. And returning to the
man of God with all his train, he came, and stood before him, and said: In
truth, I know there is no other God in all the earth, but only in Israel.
GOSPEL. Luke iv. 23-30.
At that time Jesus said to the Pharisees: Doubtless
you will say to Me this similitude: Physician, heal Thyself: as great things as
we have heard done in Capharnaum, do also here in Thy own country. And He said:
Amen I say to you, that no prophet is accepted in his own country. In truth I
say to you, there were many widows in the days of Elias in Israel, when heaven
was shut up three years and six months, when there was a great famine
throughout all the earth. And to none of them was Elias sent, but to Sarepta of
Sidon, to a widow woman. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of
Eliseus the prophet: and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian. And
all they in the synagogue, hearing these things, were filled with anger. And
they rose up and thrust Him out of the city: and they brought Him to the brow
of the hill, where on their city was built, that they might cast Him down
headlong. But He passes through the midst of them, went His way.
Aids in Battle the Power of the Holy Spirit
In the Holy Spirit we have from God a mighty Ally and Protector, a
great Teacher of the Church, a mighty Champion on our behalf. We must not
be afraid of the demons, nor of the Devil himself; for more powerful than those
is the One who fights for us. But we must open our doors to Him, for He goes
about seeking those who are worthy and searching for those on whom He may
bestow His gifts. ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
Tutelage of the Holy Spirit
Being baptized in Christ is the only requirement for receiving the
Holy Spirit, but to grow in the Spirit there are certain things that are
necessary, and these are a few of them.
§ A genuine desire to be holy I always use
the word 'holy' to mean living a life pleasing to God
in every possible way, not just in those matters you consider
expedient; and obeying his commandments to the fullest extent that you are
capable of. Holiness has to be your goal and you must be prepared to do
whatever it takes to attain it, which includes a total, unwavering commitment.
The course is grueling and if you aren't committed, you will crash out in no
time.
§ Heartfelt repentance: You have to be
genuinely sorry for your sins. It doesn't matter that you might be constrained
by sin at this point — part of the Holy Spirit's role is to take away the
constraints and free you of sin, which will happen in time — but what is
important at this stage is that you be truly sorry for the offences that you
have committed against God and be determined never to sin against him anymore.
§ Honesty and courage: Another requirement is honesty, more with ourselves than
with anybody else, and the courage to face up to who we really are. Most of us
put up facades for public display and have been doing it for so long we have
ended up even fooling ourselves. The Holy Spirit is going to rip the masks
apart, albeit gently, and reveal things about you that you will not like to
see. If you aren't willing to face up to the truth of who you are and be ready
to remedy yourself without justification, you aren't going to make much
progress.
§ Love for God: A vital
requirement is a genuine love for God, translatable into action. Love for God
is something that will grow as you grow in him, but what you need is a basic
element of it to begin with, because it is only love for God that will help you
make a lot of the tough decisions that you will be called to make as you
progress through this school. The more love for God that you have, the more you
will be prepared to do for him, which will, consequently, make it that much
easier for you.
Italy is not the only
country that claims great love for Saint Joseph. Here's an explanation of the
festivities in Valencia, Spain.
·
Among
the many folk festivals of Spain which each year attract large numbers of
tourists, Saint Joseph's Day in Valencia takes a unique position. La Falla
de San Chusep, as it is called in the local dialect, has been celebrated
for centuries, and it is perhaps the most spectacular, the most colorful of all
Spanish holidays. It starts on March 13 and attains its gala climax six days
later, after a solid week of fun and festivities.
·
San
Chusep (St. Joseph) is the patron saint of Valencia, and since the sixteenth
century his day has been celebrated by the city's artisans and craftsmen with a
great deal of zest, humor, and originality. In the Valencian dialect, falla
means "pyre." It seems that the term originated in the annual custom
of the carpenters who cleaned their shops of shavings and discarded wood at
this time of the year and burned the debris with a short ceremony. With the
scraps, a comical wooden figure depicting the most inept and backward of the
carpenter's apprentices was thrown into the flames. Eventually this developed
into a local tradition with all the guilds participating in the burning of
humorous and satirical effigies of animals, people, or subjects of local or
national ridicule and scorn. Apparently the falla figures are also a
product of Baroque art, with its emphasis on painting on wood, for which
Valencia's craftsmen became justly famous.
·
Today,
each guild, club, or association builds a falla of wood or papier-mâché.
A queen, la reine del Falla, is chosen, and a band accompanies the
queen, her court, and the falla to the contest on the main plaza of
Valencia. The lavish preparations for the festival attract artists and
musicians from the provinces who help the various groups build and exhibit
their entries to the contest of falla During the week, bullfights are
held every day. The streets are jammed with visitors admiring the fallas.
In decorated booths and pavilions food and drinks are being served. And in the
streets and on the city squares people dance to the music of the innumerable
bands which accompany the fallas.
·
The
best productions in art and music are judged for subject-matter and
presentation and awarded prizes. The most outstanding falla is
transferred to a special museum which harbors the prize winners of previous
years. On March 19, at midnight, all the other fallas, some towering
three stories in height, are burned in huge bonfires. Strings of firecrackers
explode around the plaza, and elaborate fireworks illuminate the scene with
brilliant flashes of color. As each falla crumbles into ashes, the
crowds shout with glee amidst the furiously burning pyres. As the fires slowly
burn down to the last embers, the merrymakers leave the scene, exhausted and
jubilant, already dreaming of next year, of the next falla.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION TWO-THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Chapter 2 “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.
Article 10-THE TENTH COMMANDMENT
I. The Disorder of Covetous Desires
2535 The sensitive appetite leads us to desire
pleasant things we do not have, e.g., the desire to eat when we are hungry or
to warm ourselves when we are cold. These desires are good in themselves; but
often they exceed the limits of reason and drive us to covet unjustly what is
not ours and belongs to another or is owed to him.
2536 The tenth commandment forbids greed and the
desire to amass earthly goods without limit. It forbids avarice arising from a
passion for riches and their attendant power. It also forbids the desire to
commit injustice by harming our neighbor in his temporal goods:
When the Law says, "You shall
not covet," these words mean that we should banish our desires for
whatever does not belong to us. Our thirst for another's goods is immense,
infinite, never quenched. Thus it is written: "He who loves money never
has money enough."
2537 It is not a violation of this commandment
to desire to obtain things that belong to one's neighbor, provided this is done
by just means. Traditional catechesis realistically mentions "those who
have a harder struggle against their criminal desires" and so who
"must be urged the more to keep this commandment":
. . . merchants who desire scarcity
and rising prices, who cannot bear not to be the only ones buying and selling
so that they themselves can sell more dearly and buy more cheaply; those who
hope that their peers will be impoverished, in order to realize a profit either
by selling to them or buying from them . . . physicians who wish disease to
spread; lawyers who are eager for many important cases and trials.
2538 The tenth commandment requires that envy be
banished from the human heart. When the prophet Nathan wanted to spur King
David to repentance, he told him the story about the poor man who had only one
ewe lamb that he treated like his own daughter and the rich man who, despite
the great number of his flocks, envied the poor man and ended by stealing his
lamb. Envy can lead to the worst crimes. "Through the devil's
envy death entered the world":
We fight one another, and envy arms
us against one another.... If everyone strives to unsettle the Body of Christ,
where shall we end up? We are engaged in making Christ's Body a corpse.... We
declare ourselves members of one and the same organism, yet we devour one
another like beasts.
2539 Envy is a capital sin. It refers to the
sadness at the sight of another's goods and the immoderate desire to acquire
them for oneself, even unjustly. When it wishes grave harm to a neighbor it is
a mortal sin:
St. Augustine saw envy as "the
diabolical sin." "From envy are born hatred, detraction,
calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by
his prosperity."
2540 Envy represents a form of sadness and
therefore a refusal of charity; the baptized person should struggle against it
by exercising good will. Envy often comes from pride; the baptized person
should train himself to live in humility:
Would you like to see God glorified
by you? Then rejoice in your brother's progress and you will immediately give
glory to God. Because his servant could conquer envy by rejoicing in the merits
of others, God will be praised.
Plan ahead for:
· Bird Watching- With about 10,000 species of birds and only a handful of people who can claim having seen over 7000 of them, bird watching is become a popular recreation activity. It’s believed that bird watching is an expression of the male hunting instinct while others links it with the male tendency for “systemizing”. Either way, bird watching is a great, safe way to enjoy nature.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: Victims
of clergy sexual abuse
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Total Consecration
to St. Joseph Day 27
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
· Make reparations to the Holy Face
· Nine Choirs
of Angels Devotion
· Monday: Litany of
Humility
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