Tertullian. "We, with unveiled faces, contemplate the glory of God . . . "

TERTULUAN (c. 160-225), a native of Carthage, was born of pagan parents, He gained a reputation at Rome as an expert in law, but after becoming a Christian in 195 he returned to Carthage and became a priest. After Augustine he is the most important and original early Latin theologian Tertullian has been called the creator of ecclesiastical Latin, because many of the new terms he coined found a permanent place in theological vocabulary. His rigorist views led him to become a Montanist in 207. 

THIRD WEEK OF LENT

Thursday Year 11

First Reading

From the book of Exodus (34:10-29)

Resonsory: Jn1:17, 18, 2 Cor:18  

We, with unveiledSecond Reading

From the treatise On Prayer by Tertullian (De oratione, 28-29: CCL 1, 273-274)

Prayer is the spiritual offering

In this extract from a work addressed to catechumens between 198 and 220 A.D., Tertullian speaks of the interior and exterior discipline of liturgical prayer, which is a spiritual sacrifice of great power and efficacy.

Prayer is the spiritual offering that has replaced the ancient sacrifices. What good do I receive from the multiplicity of your sacrifices? asks God. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats. Who has asked for these from your hands? What God has asked for we learn from the gospel. The hour will come, it says, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is spirit, and so he looks for worshipers who are like himself.

We are the true worshipers and the true priests. Praying in spirit we offer prayer to God as a sacrifice. Prayer is an appropriate and an acceptable sacrifice to God. It is the offering he has asked for and the offering he expects.

We must make this offering with our whole heart. We must fatten it on faith, prepare it by truth, keep it unblemished by innocence, spotless by chastity, and we must crown it with love. We must escort it to the altar of God in a procession of good works to the sound of psalms and hymns. Then it will gain for us all that we ask of God. What can God refuse to prayer offered in

spirit and in truth, when he himself asks for such prayer? How many proofs of its efficacy we read about, hear of, and believe!

Of old prayer brought deliverance from fire and beasts and hunger even before it received its pattern from Christ. How much greater then is the power of Christian prayer! It does not bring an angel of comfort to the heart of a fiery furnace, or shut the mouths of lions, or transport to the hungry food from the fields. The grace it wins does not remove all sense of pain. but it does endow those who suffer with the capacity to endure and the faith to know what the Lord will give those who suffer for the name of God.

In the past prayer caused plagues, routed armies, withheld the blessing of rain. Now the prayer of good people turns aside the anger of God, keeps vigil for their enemies, pleads for their persecutors. If prayer once had the power to call down fire from heaven. is it any wonder that it can call down from heaven the waters of grace? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil: all the power he has given it is for good.

Its only skill is to call people back from the gates of death, give strength to the weak, heal the sick, exorcise the possessed, open prison doors, free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin. drives away temptations, stamps out persecu­tions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travellers safely home, calms the waves, bemuses robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen. supports the faltering, sustains those who stand firm.

All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look up to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be a prayer.

What more need be said about the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed. To him be honour and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Solidarity with Japan in prayer

Message from Mary.

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: mary
Sent: Fri, 1 April, 2011 8:17:02
Subject: Fw: the article for the interfaith prayers for solidarity with Japan

Dear Family,

A few of our Sisters went along to join  in the prayers for Japan and Sister Shoko, our Japanese Directress of Novices and Superior  wrote this atricle in English.  Quite an accomplishment, I think. 

Blessings. 

Love and prayers,

Mary fmm 

Sent: Thu, 31 March, 2011 13:41:42
Subject: the article for the interfaith prayers for solidarity with Japan

Sharing of the interfaith prayers for solidarity with Japan On March 28th evening, different kinds of prayers were offered in front of the Japanese embassy at Metro Manila .About 70 people of different nationalities and religions were invited by the JPIC team of Catholic Religious in the Philippines to show their solidarity for Japan which was terribly damaged by the big earthquake and Tsunami on March 11th. The prayer of this assembly was very simple and short but touched our hearts. About 10 groups offered prayers in turn, according to their way. Between prayers, the sound of a small Chinese gong was echoed as if it tied all our hearts together. Although we could not understand all of these prayers – the language and its meaning, however, we had a strong sense of unity and felt a deep solidarity with those who are suffering from this disaster. As one of the Japanese present, I was very grateful to these good and loving people, and united with one heart, I offered my prayer in silence. After sharing prayers, with the accompaniment of beautiful music, we, one by one, put small candles around the picture which was prepared on the ground by one religion before the assembly . At the end, a representative from the Japanese embassy came to us and spoke of their gratitude to us in a very humble manner. I hope he truly received the power of solidarity and deep peace from us.    Through this disaster, our Japanese spirit with its calmness ,dignity, consideration for others and team- work etc. was much appreciated. However, I must add that most Japanese people have not encountered the One , the Creator, to whom they could have cried out their despair, sorrow and anger. So often we are accustomed to repress our feelings. Therefore we really need the big support of prayers although they don’t understand its importance. For the Japanese people, this earth quake was surely the worst happening since the World War II. Whole country was shaken terribly and the people were terrified even including those who are living outside of Japan ! Perhaps many people in the world are experiencing of this fear. I remember the head line of one newspaper: Is this a warning or the beginning of the Last Day?? My present response is: we just humbly and unceasingly pray and it is the time for solidarity as brothers and sisters beyond nations and religions. This prayer assembly showed me the orientation of what I should do. Lord of life, as we remember the situations in different parts of the world. We offer to your care, Japan and all those who suffered from the recent tragedy there. We pray that they recover quickly and find better solutions for the worsening conditions of their nuclear plant.                                                             Prayer from catholic paticipant                                                                    Shoko fmm

Nyssa Continual Prayer

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The 2nd Reading of Night Office was electric as the Holy Spirit illuminated the word.

Through the usual fog of the words that jumble and the sentences fragment light shines.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa on Continual Prayer has a paradigmatic clarity and mystical continuity. The Reading may also gain from the translation from the Friends of Henry Ashworth.

Gospel Luke 18:1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. . . .(Lessons on Prayer).

From a homily on the Lord's Prayer by Saint Gregory of Nyssa
(PG 44, 1119. 1123-1126)

Continual prayer and thanksgiving would be natural for us if we realized how many blessings we have received from God, and how many future blessings are dependent upon our perseverance in prayer.

The divine Word teaches us how to pray, explaining to disciples worthy of him, and eagerly longing for knowledge of prayer, what words to use to gain a hearing from God.

Those who fail to unite themselves to God through prayer cut themselves off from God, so the first thing we have to learn from the Word is that we need to pray continually and not lose heart. Prayer brings us close to God, and when we are close to God we are far from the Enemy. Prayer safeguards chastity, controls anger, and restrains arrogance. It is the seal of virginity, the assurance of marital fidelity, the shield of travelers, the protection of sleepers, the encouragement of those who keep vigil, the cause of the

farmer's good harvest and of the sailor's safety. Therefore I think that even if we spent the whole of our lives in communion with God through thanksgiving and prayer, we should still be as far from adequately repaying our benefactor as we should have been had we not even desired to repay him.

Time has three divisions: past, present, and future. In all three we experience the Lord's kindly dealings with us. If you consider the present, you live in him; if you consider the future, your hope of obtaining what you look forward to is in him; if you consider the past, you would not have existed had you not been created by him. Your birth is his kindly gift to you, and after birth his kindness toward you continued, since as the Apostle says you live and move in him. On this same kindness depend all your hopes for the future. Only over the present have you any control Therefore, even if you give thanks to God unceasingly throughout your life you will hardly meet the measure of your debt for present blessings, and as for those of the past and future, you will never find a way of repaying what you owe.

And yet we, who are so far from being capable of showing due gratitude, do not even give thanks to the best of our ability. We fail to set aside, I say not the whole day, but even the smallest portion of the day, to be spent with God.

Who restored to its original beauty that divine image in me that was blurred by sin? Who draws me back to the blessedness I knew before I was driven out of paradise, deprived of the tree of life, and submerged in the abyss of worldliness? As Scripture says, There is no one who understands. If we realized these things we would give thanks continually, endlessly, throughout the whole of our lives.