ICEMANforChrist

  Fourth Sunday After Epiphany CROISSANT DAY   Sirach, Chapter 26, Verse 3 A good wife is a generous gift bestowed upon him who FEARS the Lord.   So, does this mean that if you don’t fear the Lord, you are to be cursed with a bad wife?   I don’t think that is the message here though; the point is that if our primary relationship with the Lord is right then as a natural result all our relationships will be improved. If you fear the Lord, that is Love the Lord, then you will love those around you and not see others as objects to be used but as persons of worth and dignity. As a husband seek to love your wife as Christ loved the church giving Himself up for her.   Today we are a community living in the fulfillment of faith in Christ and He asks us to do something unthinkable,   “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my b...

  Sirach, Chapter 25, Verse 10-12 10 How great is the one who finds wisdom, but none is greater than the one who FEARS the Lord. 11 Fear of the Lord surpasses all else. To whom can we compare the one who has it? 12 Fear of the Lord is the beginning of loving him, and fidelity is the beginning of clinging to him.   Saint Thomas Aquinas’ thoughts on fear : [1]   1. Fear is a shrinking back from evil. Hence, we cannot fear God in himself, for God is infinite goodness. But one is said to fear God in the sense of fearing the evil of being separated from God by sin, and in the sense of fearing to incur his punishments for sin. 2. Fear is called servile fear when it is the dread of punishment alone. It is called filial fear or chaste fear when it is primarily the dread of offending God, our loving father. Between these two types of fear is initial fear, which is properly the beginning of filial fear, and differs from it only as imperfect differs from perfe...

  FEAST of Saint  Thomas  Aquinas   Sirach, Chapter 25, Verse 6 The crown of the elderly, wide experience; their glory, the FEAR of the Lord.   We used to say in the military to the younger troops fresh out of high school that joined the military that beyond showing us normal military courtesy they really should listen and follow what we do because “We survived youth.” The fact is experience is the best teacher and experience teaches us that God is real and the older ones have learned that fear of the Lord is more than a crown of glory it is the key to reaching old age.  One of the most curious phenomena of our modern society is that in the year 2020 we had five generations working together: Each with different values and views of life.   The Johnsons report [1] that each generation has been influenced by the major historical events, social trends, and cultural phenomena of its time. ...