Christopher’s Corner-Will Roger’s born 1879
Monday Night at the Movies
Robert Bresson, Mouchette, 1967.
o You wake up on a random day, deciding to embrace the unexpected with a touch of creativity. Start by celebrating Use Your Commonsense Day; declutter your space and make practical decisions throughout the day.
§ Whip up a simple recipe to honor National Easy-Bake Oven Day, indulging in a sweet treat without breaking the bank.
· As you savor your snack, ponder Marlborough Anniversary Day by exploring your local history or planning a small outing.
o Don something orange for Color the World Orange Day, adding a pop of color to your surroundings or sharing uplifting messages online.
o Take a break to enjoy the outdoors on Recreation Day Tasmania, engaging in budget-friendly activities like hiking or picnicking.
§ While outdoors, fly a flag in solidarity with Flag Day in Panama, celebrating unity and diversity.
· Reflect on the importance of work and career goals on Job Action Day, setting achievable objectives.
o Wrap up your day by pampering yourself with some chicken dishes in honor of National Chicken Lady Day, trying out new recipes or visiting a local eatery.
o End the night by sharing some candies to mark National Candy Day, spreading sweetness and joy to those around you.
· Today is the Feast of Charles Borromeo[4]
St. Charles used the following strong language to the assembly of bishops during the convocation of the Synod:
Let us fear lest the angered judge say to us:
If you were the enlighteners of My Church, why have you closed your eyes?
If you pretended to be shepherds of the flock, why have you suffered it to stray?
Salt of the earth, you have lost your savor. Light of the world, they that sat in darkness and the shadow of death have never seen you shine.
You were apostles; who, then, put your apostolic firmness to the test, since you have done nothing but seek to please men?
You were the mouth of the Lord, and you have made that mouth dumb.
If you allege in excuse that the burden was beyond your strength, why did you make it the object of your ambitious intrigues?
NOVEMBER 4 Monday-Saint Charles Borromeo
Jonah, Chapter 1,
verse 9-10:
9 “I am a Hebrew,” he replied; “I FEAR the LORD,
the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
10Now the men were seized with great fear
and said to him, “How could you do such a thing!”—They knew that he was fleeing
from the LORD, because he had told them.
Jonah tries to flee the Lord, are we any wiser. We often choose the wrong path. Jonah was motivated but not by love. He wanted justice and not mercy for Nineveh.
According to the Gemini AI: In Jonah 4:11, God asks Jonah,
" And should I not be concerned over the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot know their right hand from their left, not to mention all the animals?”
The mention of animals in this verse may indicate that God cares about all creation, including plants, and humans. Some say that God cares about animals because he created them and cares about their experiences. Others say that the mention of cattle may be more understandable when read alongside Genesis 2, which describes the creation of humans and their task of serving the created order. In the story of Jonah, God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach against it because of its wickedness[1]. The king of Nineveh repents and issues a proclamation that asks people and animals to turn from their evil ways and call out to God. God relents of his plan to destroy Nineveh and does not do it.
God has a deep, longing desire
for a relationship with us, like how a person physically thirsts for water; it
signifies that God actively seeks our love and connection, yearning to be close
to us and fill our spiritual needs.[2]
I
thirst!”[3]
In
the night and the day that followed the Last Supper, Jesus was betrayed by one
of his own. He was delivered over to the authorities in such humiliating
powerlessness that even those who thought they loved him fled. He who came to
reveal to us the God who is Love, fell into the hands of loveless men. Then,
before the eyes of John, the only apostle who was present at the Lord’s
execution, and his mother Mary, he died an appalling death. Here at the center
of the mystery of our redemption, the full measure of the “marvelous exchange”
begins to be unveiled. The Son of God not only became the Son of Man,
fulfilling beyond expectation the great hope contained in the psalms and the
prophets. Jesus came to be the purifying flame of Love in our midst, unsettling
a world that had become comfortable in its estrangement from God. He came to
pour his Spirit on us and reconcile us to the Father. When St. Paul tells us
that the Son of God “emptied himself”, he does not mention only Jesus’ birth.
When the Son of God took on our humanity, his “exchange” with us goes all the
way to the end: “Being found in human form, he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death, even death on a cross”. Elsewhere, St. Paul points to the
same unfathomable mystery of solidarity with sinners that John the Baptist had
glimpsed at the Jordan: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God”. When we gaze with Mary
and John on Christ, who “died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures”,
we come face to face with all the consequences of the Incarnation. In joining
himself to his creation, the Son of God took on all our fate. He took on even
the thirst of a world suffering its self-inflicted estrangement from God. Even
death. For centuries, the faithful people of Israel thirsted for God like the
dry earth. They prayed, “My throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting
for my God”. All of humanity thirsted, for by sinning, we had rejected the
source of our life. We had defended ourselves against the God who is Love. Yet
our suffering in “this time of God’s absence” was as nothing before the
terrible cry Mary and John heard at the foot of the cross. “Jesus, knowing that
all was now finished, said (to fulfill the scripture), ‘I thirst!’. The
tortured, dying man thirsted for water – but also for love. He thirsted for our
love, for he had come to espouse mankind to himself. And although he was “true
God from true God … consubstantial with the Father,” he thirsted even for God.
John could not have imagined such a use – or fulfillment – of the words of the
psalms as when the Son of God cried out his thirst to his Father:
“My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
When John heard this, he somehow understood. Those
words were written for this day. They were prayed through the centuries so that
Jesus might sum up all human thirst for God, all suffering and forsakenness, in
himself. These words were handed down from generation to generation so that
when the Son used them to express his own thirst, suffering, and forsakenness
to his Father, our words would become divine words of unbreakable,
unsurpassable love. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” Jesus cried.
Finally, “he bowed his head” and handed over the Spirit that bound Father and
Son. He made even his death a revelation of the unbreakable communion of Love
that is God. When a Roman centurion pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, John,
Mary, and the centurion himself saw blood and water – a sign of Christ’s
divinity and humanity – gush forth over the parched earth. The covenant was
established. It would never be broken. The divine bridegroom had truly loved us
“to the end”. Even the centurion, an unbeliever who knew neither the psalms nor
the prophets, recognized this radiant humility and saw the glory of this love:
“When the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last,
he said,
‘Truly, this man was the Son of
God!’”
Catechism of the Catholic
Church
PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
Day 144
Day 145
Why the liturgy?
1066 In the Symbol of
the faith the Church confesses the mystery of the Holy Trinity and of the plan
of God's "good pleasure" for all creation: the Father accomplishes
the "mystery of his will" by giving his beloved Son and his Holy Spirit
for the salvation of the world and for the glory of his name.
Such is the mystery of Christ,
revealed and fulfilled in history according to the wisely ordered plan that St.
Paul calls the "plan of the mystery" and the patristic tradition
will call the "economy of the Word incarnate" or the "economy of
salvation."
1067 "The
wonderful works of God among the people of the Old Testament were but a prelude
to the work of Christ the Lord in redeeming mankind and giving perfect glory to
God. He accomplished this work principally by the Paschal mystery of his blessed
Passion, Resurrection from the dead, and glorious Ascension, whereby 'dying he
destroyed our death, rising he restored our life.' For it was from the side of
Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth 'the
wondrous sacrament of the whole Church."'
For this reason, the Church celebrates
in the liturgy above all the Paschal mystery by which Christ accomplished the
work of our salvation.
1068 It is this
mystery of Christ that the Church proclaims and celebrates in her liturgy so
that the faithful may live from it and bear witness to it in the world:
For it is in the
liturgy, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, that "the
work of our redemption is accomplished," and it is through the liturgy
especially that the faithful are enabled to express in their lives and manifest
to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church.
What does the word liturgy mean?
1069 The word
"liturgy" originally meant a "public work" or a
"service in the name of/on behalf of the people."
In Christian tradition it means the participation of the People of God in
"the work of God."
Through the liturgy Christ, our redeemer and high priest, continues the work of
our redemption in, with, and through his Church.
1070 In the New
Testament the word "liturgy" refers not only to the celebration of divine
worship but also to the proclamation of the Gospel and to active
charity. In all of these situations it is a question of the service of God
and neighbor.
In a liturgical celebration the Church is servant in the image of her Lord, the
one "leitourgos"; she shares in Christ's priesthood (worship),
which is both prophetic (proclamation) and kingly (service of charity):
The liturgy then is
rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ.
It involves the presentation of man's sanctification under the guise of signs
perceptible by the senses and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each of
these signs.
In it full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ,
that is, by the Head and his members.
From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action
of Christ the priest and of his Body which is the Church, is a sacred action
surpassing all others.
No other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to
the same degree.
Liturgy as source of life
1071 As the work of
Christ liturgy is also an action of his Church. It makes the Church present and
manifests her as the visible sign of the communion in Christ between God and
men. It engages the faithful in the new life of the community and involves the
"conscious, active, and fruitful participation" of everyone.
1072 "The sacred
liturgy does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church": it must
be preceded by evangelization, faith, and conversion. It can then produce its
fruits in the lives of the faithful: new life in the Spirit, involvement in the
mission of the Church, and service to her unity.
Prayer and liturgy
1073 The liturgy is
also a participation in Christ's own prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy
Spirit. In the liturgy, all Christian prayer finds its source and goal. Through
the liturgy the inner man is rooted and grounded in "the great love with
which [the Father] loved us" in his beloved Son. It is the same
"marvelous work of God" that is lived and internalized by all prayer,
"at all times in the Spirit."
Catechesis and liturgy
1074 "The
liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it
is also the font from which all her power flows."
It is therefore the privileged place for catechizing the People of God.
"Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and
sacramental activity, for it is in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist,
that Christ Jesus works in fullness for the transformation of men."
1075 Liturgical
catechesis aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ (It is
"mystagogy." ) by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from
the sign to the thing signified, from the "sacraments" to the
"mysteries."
Such catechesis is to be presented by local and regional catechisms.
This Catechism, which aims to serve the whole Church in all the diversity of
her rites and cultures, will present what is fundamental and common to the
whole Church in the liturgy as mystery and as celebration, and then the seven
sacraments and the sacramentals.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: An
increase of the Faithful.
·
Eat waffles and Pray for the assistance of the Angels
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Monday: Litany of
Humility
·
Rosary
[1] Thus, we are told that the greatest
sin Nineveh was that of violence, which in turn, is most often a by-product of
godlessness, idolatry and perverted, illicit sex as exemplified in Sodom (Gen
19:4, 5). Violence was not unique to Nineveh, it was (and still is) a very
common sin.
[2] Gemini
Comments
Post a Comment