Easter Thursday
T. JEFFERSON
Numbers, chapter 22, Verse 2-3
2 Now Balak, son of Zippor, saw all that Israel
did to the Amorites, 3 and Moab FEARED
the Israelites greatly because they were numerous. Moab was in dread of the
Israelites.
Fear
is listed by many theologians as the 8th deadly sin. God in making
us a Holy people wants us to be free of fear. Is it any wonder that people
without faith are plagued by fear? Fear Dominates Politics, Media and Human
Existence in America—And It’s Getting Worse according to Don Hazen.
“Fear is the mind-killer” – Frank Herbert, Dune
People cannot think clearly when
they are afraid. As numerous studies have shown, fear is the enemy of
reason. It distorts emotions and perceptions, and often leads to poor
decisions. For people who have suffered trauma, fear messages can sometimes
trigger uncontrollable flight-or-fight responses with dangerous ramifications.
Yet over time, many interlocking
aspects of our society have become increasingly sophisticated at communicating
messages and information that produce fear responses. Advertising, political
ads, news coverage and social media all send the constant message that people
should be afraid—very afraid.
In addition, television and film
are filled with extreme violence and millions of fictional deaths, far out of
proportion to what happens in real life, as researchers have pointed out…All
this, despite statistics indicating that in most parts of the
country, the crime rate is actually on the decline.
Fear is so pervasive that experts
hav
e made the case we live in a generalized “culture of fear,” also the name of a book by Barry Glassner which underscores the fact that we often fear the wrong things, and incredibly out of proportion to reality. Statistics show you have a much higher chance of being killed by lightning than by a terrorist.[1]
Thursday in the Octave of Easter or
Easter Thursday[2] is a day for Commemoration of the
departed which is a Slavic tradition. Thursday of the Dead is described as a
universal day for visiting tombs, engaged in most diligently by townspeople,
followed by fellaheen ("peasants"), and then Bedouins. Women
would go to the cemetery before sunrise to pray for the departed and distribute
bread cakes known as kaʿak
al-asfar
("the yellow roll") and dried fruit to the poor, to children, and to
relatives. Children would also receive painted eggs, generally yellow in color.
The sharing of this tradition between Christians and Muslims is thought to date
back to at least the 12th century when Saladin urged Muslims to adopt Christian
customs in order to promote religious tolerance in the region.
o Have a Mass said for the departed;
offer your daily communion.
§
Easter
Thursday in Slavic
countries, on the other hand, was reserved for remembering departed loved ones.
Mass that day would be offered for the deceased of the parish.
Novena for the Poor
Souls[3]
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.
THURSDAY O Lord
God Almighty, I beseech Thee by the Precious Body and Blood of Thy divine Son
Jesus, which He Himself, on the night before His Passion, gave as meat and
drink to His beloved Apostles and bequeathed to His holy Church to be the
perpetual Sacrifice and life-giving nourishment of His faithful people, deliver
the souls in Purgatory, but most of all, that soul which was most devoted to this
Mystery of infinite love, in order that it may praise Thee therefore, together
with Thy divine Son and the Holy Spirit in Thy glory forever. Amen. Our Father.
Hail Mary. Glory Be.
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.
Faith
and Healing[4]
Shallow minds are easily scandalized
at the thought that, despite Christ Jesus' divine mission and His heroic
earnestness in fulfilling it, despite the limitless possibilities of the
Sacrifice of Calvary glorified in the power of the Resurrection, even now so
many human souls are still sick and diseased, even dead in sin and seemingly
lost in impenitence. But think for a moment of some definite astounding force
in nature, as for instance lightning, or even better, of so simple a force as
the stroke of a hammer or the approach of a lighted match; notice the vast
difference in the effects produced on a block of granite, on a cake of ice, and
on a keg of powder. Even so, the definite effect of the same graces upon
different individual souls depends on the receptivity of each. Yet never doubt,
the doors of the treasury of the merits and fruits of Calvary are wide open;
the fountains of the Savior are pouring out heavenly waters to purify and cure
and refresh souls; the invitation goes out to all:
"Come, eat My bread, and drink the wine which
I have mingled for you. All you that thirst come to the waters, and you that
have no money, make haste, buy, and eat come ye, buy wine and milk without
money! Come! to experience the virtue of the waters, and of the food, and of
the medicine, and of the fire. Come and drink lest you die of thirst! Come and
eat lest your soul hunger and starve! Come, approach the fire of My charity, to
be stirred out of your spiritual coldness and numbness!"
Anointing
of the Sick[5]
The Apostles must have been astonished at their
power to heal the bodies of the faithful while on the road when Christ sent
them out before His death.
Yet, the greatest power was to come after His death
and resurrection. Jesus made it perfectly clear that the power to forgive sins
is far greater than the power to heal. (Mk. 2:9) Jesus healed people of every
disease as a sign of the greater work of forgiveness of sins. For in the gospel
he states, “That you may know that the
Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sin.” (Mk 2:10) The physical
signs were there for the sake of a spiritual reality. “Is
anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of
the church, and they should pray over him and anoint [him] with oil in the name
of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick
person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will
be forgiven.”
(Jas. 5:14-15)
This
is the sacrament we know as the Anointing of the Sick. It must be noted that grave physical
suffering is often accompanied by a great spiritual trial. Sacramental
anointing gives us the grace we need to face our trials. Oils have been used
for millennia to convey the grace and health of God. Anointing helps us
transform physical suffering into something more deeply curative, something
truly releasing. Don’t wait! At the first sign of serious ailment seek the aid
of Christ through this sacrament.
Preparation
for Death[6]
All
Christian life is a preparation for death. We cannot predict the moment of our
passing, but we should be prepared for it both remotely and near term when our
death is imminent. It is best to prepare far in advance by making a lifetime
habit of confession and reception of the Holy Eucharist. However, if seriously
ill do not wait to take action. Confession must be made while we are still
thinking clearly and have the energy for the task, and we should make arrangements
to receive sacramental anointing. Do not rely on others to do this for you. It
is important for you, if you are able, to contact the hospital chaplain or
priest. Remember there is more after our death for the church teaches us that
after our death there is judgment, heaven and hell.
·
Do
not be a nilly willy and avoid thinking about death and we should remind
ourselves that death is a normal part of life and we should have a sense of
humor and it is not a license to make others miserable.
·
We
should try to get our affairs in order so to make it easier on others.
·
We
should choose a Catholic cemetery for the burial of our mortal remains, as a
sign of our belief in the resurrection of the body. Our flesh has been
divinized in baptism, made one the flesh of Jesus in Holy Communion, and so its
repose is a matter of some consequence.
·
We
should keep in mind that at our death as said by Cardinal Newman, “Life is
changed, not ended” and “All who ever lived still live.”
Divine Mercy Novena[7]
Seventh Day - Today Bring Me the Souls Who
Especially Venerate and Glorify My Mercy.
Most
Merciful Jesus, whose Heart is Love Itself, receive into the abode of Your Most
Compassionate Heart the souls of those who particularly extol and venerate the
greatness of Your Mercy. These souls are mighty with the very power of God
Himself. In the midst of all afflictions and adversities they go forward,
confident in Your Mercy. These souls are united to Jesus and carry all mankind
on their shoulders. These souls will not be judged severely, but Your mercy
will embrace them as they depart from this life.
Eternal
Father turn Your merciful gaze upon the souls who glorify and venerate Your
greatest attribute, that of Your fathomless mercy, and who are enclosed in the
Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. These souls are a living Gospel; their hands
are full of deeds of mercy and their spirit, overflowing with joy, sings a
canticle of mercy to You, O Most High! I beg You O God: Show them Your mercy
according to the hope and trust they have placed in You. Let there be
accomplished in them the promise of Jesus, who said to them, "I Myself
will defend as My own glory, during their lifetime, and especially at the hour
of their death, those souls who will venerate My fathomless mercy."
Thomas Jefferson[8] 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:[9]
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?[10]
·
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.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART FOUR: CHRISTIAN PRAYER
SECTION ONE-PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
CHAPTER THREE-THE LIFE OF PRAYER
Article 2-THE BATTLE OF PRAYER
I. Objections to Prayer
2726 In
the battle of prayer, we must face in ourselves and around us erroneous notions
of prayer. Some people view prayer as a simple psychological activity, others
as an effort of concentration to reach a mental void. Still others reduce
prayer to ritual words and postures. Many Christians unconsciously regard
prayer as an occupation that is incompatible with all the other things they
have to do: they "don't have the time." Those who seek God by prayer
are quickly discouraged because they do not know that prayer comes also from
the Holy Spirit and not from themselves alone.
2727 We
must also face the fact that certain attitudes deriving from the mentality of
"this present world" can penetrate our lives if we are not vigilant.
For example, some would have it that only that is true which can be verified by
reason and science; yet prayer is a mystery that overflows both our conscious
and unconscious lives. Others overly prize production and profit; thus prayer,
being unproductive, is useless. Still others exalt sensuality and comfort as
the criteria of the true, the good, and the beautiful; whereas prayer, the
"love of beauty" (philokalia), is caught up in the glory of the
living and true God. Finally, some see prayer as a flight from the world in reaction
against activism; but in fact, Christian prayer is neither an escape from
reality nor a divorce from life.
2728
Finally, our battle has to confront what we experience as failure in prayer:
discouragement during periods of dryness; sadness that, because we have
"great possessions," we have not given all to the Lord;
disappointment over not being heard according to our own will; wounded pride,
stiffened by the indignity that is ours as sinners; our resistance to the idea
that prayer is a free and unmerited gift; and so forth. the conclusion is
always the same: what good does it do to pray? To overcome these obstacles, we
must battle to gain humility, trust, and perseverance.
PRAYERS AND TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Prayer to Jesus Christ Crucified[11]
Here I am, good and gentle Jesus, kneeling before you. With great fervor I pray and ask you to instill in me genuine convictions of faith, hope and love, with true sorrow for my sins and a firm resolve to amend them. While I contemplate your five wounds with great love and compassion, I remember the words which the prophet David long ago put on your lips: "They have pierced my hands and my feet, I can count all my bones." (Psalm 22/17-18).
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
·
do
a personal eucharistic stations of the cross.
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
· Make reparations to the Holy Face
·
30
Days with St. Joseph Day 26
[1]http://www.alternet.org/fear-america/fear-dominates-politics-media-and-human-existence-america-and-its-getting-worse
[3]Schouppe S.J., Rev. Fr. F. X..
Purgatory Explained
[4]https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2018-04-05
[5] Hahn, Scott, Signs of Life; 40
Catholic Customs and their biblical roots. Chap. 22. Anointing of the Sick.
[6] Hahn, Scott, Signs of Life; 40
Catholic Customs and their biblical roots. Chap. 39. Preparation for Death.
[7]https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/holy-week/prayers-for-easter-sunday/nine-day-divine-mercy-novena
[8]http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=370234
[10] https://www.irishcatholic.com/is-there-any-truth-to-deism/
No comments:
Post a Comment