“Preamble to Paraclete” Jn 14:16

Eastertide Sixth Sunday

Gospel: John 14:15-21

“Preamble to Paraclete”

Ascension Thursday is near and Pentecost is coming.

The Gospel passage set the “Preamble to Paraclete”.

Joh 14:16 I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you for ever,

There are four versions of the Holy Spirit, Counselor, Comforter, Helpr, Advocate but I prefer Paraclete.

On this text we heard a fine Commentary of the Night Office, by Chrysostom.

Year A

From the homilies on Saint John's Gospel

by Saint John Chrysostom (Horn. 75, 1 :PG 59, 403-405)

These homilies were preached about the year 391. The theme of this extract is Christ's promise to send the Spirit. The Spirit will encourage Christ's disciples after his own departure and will remain with them until his return.

If you love me, said Christ, keep my commandments. I have commanded you to love one another and to treat one another as I have treated you. To love me is to obey these commands, to submit to me your beloved. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor. This promise shows once again Christ's consideration. Because his disciples did not yet know who he was, it was likely that they would greatly miss his companionship, his teaching, his actual physical presence, and be completely disconsolate when he had gone. Therefore he said: I will ask the Father, and he will give another Counselor, meaning another like himself.

They received the Spirit after Christ had purified them by his sacrifice. The Spirit did not come down on them while Christ was still with them because this sacrifice had not yet been offered. But when sin had been blotted out and the disciples, sent out to face danger, were prepare themselves for the battle, they needed the Holy Spirit's coming to enc age them. If you ask why the Spirit did not come immediately after the resurrection, this was in order to increase their gratitude for receiving hill increasing their desire. They were troubled by nothing as long as Christ with them, but when his departure had left them desolate and very m afraid, they would be most eager to receive the Spirit.

He will remain with you, Christ said, meaning his presence with you' not be ended by death. But since there was a danger that hearing of Counselor might lead them to expect another incarnation and to think they would be able to see the Holy Spirit, he corrected this idea by saying: world cannot receive him because it does not see him. For he will not be with you in the same way as I am, but will dwell in your very souls, He will be in you.

Christ called him the Spirit of truth because the Spirit would help them understand the types of the old law. By He will be with you he meant, He will be with you as I am with you, but he also hinted at the difference between them, namely, that the Spirit would not suffer as he had done, nor would ever depart.

The world cannot receive him because it does not see him. Does this imply t] the Spirit is visible? By no means; Christ is speaking here of knowledge, j he adds: or know him. Sight being the sense by which we perceive thin most distinctly, he habitually used this sense to signify knowledge. By the world he means here the wicked, thus giving his disciples the consolation receiving a special gift. He said that the Spirit was another like himself, the would not leave them, that he would come to them just as he himself hi come, and that he would remain in them. Yet even this did not drive aw, their sadness, for they still wanted Christ himself and his companionship.

So to satisfy them he said: I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you. Do not be afraid, for when I promised to send you another Counselor I did not mean that I was going to abandon you for ever, nor by saying that he would remain with you did I mean that I would not see you again. Of course I also will come to you; I will not leave you orphans.

Saint John Gospel Glasgow Cathedral Reading

Welcome to AGAP

  Weekend of St John at the CathedralAGAP Theatre presents: The Saint John Gospel Experience - 27th and; 28th May at St Andrew’s Cathedral!

Experience the Gospel like never before - read by a large cast with background music and visual images.


Free Admission – retiring collection in aid of AGAP/Cathedral Restoration.  


Archdiocese of Glasgow Art Project

The St John Gospel Experience


Come and experience the Gospel as never before!


On 27th and 28th May at 7.30pm, AGAP Theatre will present a dramatic reading of the entire text of the Gospel According to Saint John, using the beautiful poetic New Jerusalem Bible Translation. The cast will be made up of people from across the Archdiocese of Glasgow and it will be AGAP’s biggest Community Theatre Project yet with the fewest rehearsals before the production takes place in the majestic splendour of the newly restored St Andrew’s Cathedral…

PLEASE HELP US PUBLICISE THIS EVENT – IT IS FREE OF CHARGE AND WE CAN FIT 400 PEOPLE INTO THE CATHEDRAL SO SPREAD THE WORD!

Information on the new translation can be found at:

http://www.romanmissalscotland.org.uk/

Saint John Gospel Glasgow Cathedral Reading

Glasgow: weekend of St John at St Andrew's Cathedral
Posted: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 11:37 pm

 

St John the Evangelist by Valentin de Boulogne (17th cent)

  Archbishop Mario Conti and Mgr McElroy, Administrator of St Andrew’s Cathedral, will lead the cast in this weekend's dramatic reading of the Gospel According to St John. The performances will take place on Friday 27 May at 7.30pm and will be repeated on Saturday 28 May at 7.30pm in the newly refurbished St Andrew’s Cathedral, Clyde Street.


The production is AGAP’s most ambitious Community Theatre Project yet, involving a large cast of nearly 25 people who have come from all over the Archdiocese of Glasgow and beyond to take part. With only four rehearsals, the cast have been immersed in the Gospel and find themselves carrying the story and lending their voices to the many characters who feature in the Gospel.


It is directed by AGAP’s Creative Director, Stephen Callaghan. He said: “My first priority was to give the participants a positive, interactive experience of the Gospel, which would stay with them for life.


"Of course, I hope that many will come to hear the reading and support them but first of all, I was keen that this should be an immersive experience, bringing together the realm of theatre and religion in the tradition of scripture-based Medieval drama, which took place in the Church.”


The Archbishop and Mgr McElroy will read the part of St John the Evangelist as he sums up his Gospel in the final chapter. The part will be read by Mgr McElroy at Friday’s performance and the Archbishop will read it on Saturday.


(Admission is FREE. A retiring collection will be in operation for anyone who wishes to contribute to AGAP and the Cathedral Restoration Fund.) 




More information at: http://www.agap.org.uk

Share:
Tags: Archbishop Mario Conti, Clyde Street, Gospel According to St John, Mgr McElroy, St Andrew’s Cathedral

COMMENT

----- Forwarded Message ----  
 From: WILLIAM ...
To: Fr Donald ...
Sent: Tue, 24 May, 2011 19:07:20
Subject: Re: [Blog] Fr Wiki Links

Dear Father Donald,

France certainly shows their love and appreciation of the life and witness of the Atlas community.
It is wonderful to see, and with very interesting links too.
Your Blog has been very active in commemoration!
I am wondering ... who sent those BEAUTIFUL white roses, the gift has the artistic, thoughtful sensitivity ...
What a joy this has all been, thank you Father!
... in Our Risen Lord,
William

Paschaltide and Memory of Algeria Monks d. 21 May 1996

  ___________________________________________________

Wednesday 25 May 20011

Gospel John 15:1. "I am the true vine". ["As we have seen Benedict understands the cross in the light of a panoply of convergent typological prefigurments, including most prominently Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac and the Passover sacrice,"  quotation from The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI(Scott Hahn)].
The Pope writes clearly about the true vine, one of the Principal Johannine Images.

The windows to John are opened widely in context of Benedict's writing.

- see below and 'break jump', POPE BENEDICT XVI — JESUS OF NAZARETH(Part I) – pp 259-263.

_________________________________________

Saint Bede: Feast 25th May. 

Born at Jarrow in Northumberland, England, Bede was entrusted as a young lad to the care of St. Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth. Having himself become a monk, Bede, “the most observant and the happiest of all monks”, was also one of the most learned churchmen of his time. He wrote very full commentaries on Holy Scripture, which are often used in the Breviary. Leo XIII proclaimed him one of the Doctors of the Universal Church. He died in Jarrow on May 25, 735.

(From St. Andrews Daily Missal 1962 ed.)

At the Mass today, the Celebrant quoted but did not know the words, “the most observant and the happiest of all monks”. 

He said that coming through the centuries the presence of Bede impresses us.

Bede the Venerable

“And I pray thee, loving Jesús, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thy knowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee, the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face.” - St. Bede the Venerable
+ + + + + + + + + + + +  

POPE BENEDICT XVI — JESUS OF NAZARETH(Part I) – pp 259-263

• The parable of the vine in Jesus' Farewell Discourses continues the whole history of biblical thought and language on the subject of the vine and discloses its ultimate depth. "I am the true vine;" the Lord says (Jn. 15:1). The word true is the first important thing to notice about this saying. Barrett makes the excellent observation that "fragments of meaning, obscurely hinted at by other vines, are gathered up and made explicit by him. He is the true vine" (Gospel, p. 473). But the really important thing about this saying is the opening: "I am." The Son identifies himself with the vine; he himself has become the vine. He has let himself be planted in the earth. He has entered into the vine: The mystery of the Incarnation, which John spoke of in the prologue to his Gospel, is taken up again here in a surprising new way. The vine is no longer merely a creature that God looks upon with love, but that he can still uproot and reject. In the Son, he himself has become the vine; he has forever identified himself, his very being, with the vine.

• This vine can never again be uprooted or handed over to be plundered. It belongs once and for all to God; through the Son God himself lives in it. The promise has become irrevocable, the unity indestructible. God has taken this great new step within history, and this constitutes the deepest content of the parable. Incarnation, death, and Resurrection come to be seen in their fUll breadth: "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you ... was not Yes and No; but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him" (2 Cor 1:19f.), as Saint Paul puts it.
•  
  

Wiki Links of Abbaye Notre-Dame l'Atlas May 10, 2011

Digital translation of FRENCH original to English 

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbaye_Notre-Dame_de_l%27Atlas 

Abbaye Notre-Dame de l'Atlas

The above is fr.wiki, France Wikipedia.

It is proved to have TRANSLATION from French to English.

Very helpful.

And proves to be UPTDATE:

This page was last modified on May 10, 2011 at 22:05.

May be possible but asking for much to reproduce the translation of the Wikipedia Website.

We greatly appreciate the access through the LINKS.

 Monasticism portal

 Christianity portal

 Algeria portal

Categories : Cistercians | Cistercian Abbey | Christianity in Algeria | Algeria Abbey | Wilaya de Medea | Christianity in Morocco |Dialogue between Christians and Muslims | [+]

Create an account or login

Article

Discussion

Read

Edit

Show History

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Home

Thematic portals

Alphabetical Index

Random article

Contact Wikipedia

Contribute

Help

Community

Recent changes

Welcome Newcomers

Donate

Print / Export

Toolbox

Other languages

Deutsch

This page was last modified on May 10, 2011 at 22:05.

Copyright Text is available under Creative Commons attribution share alike , other conditions may apply. See terms of use for details, and credit graphics . If reused texts of this page, see how to cite authors and include the license .
Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. charitable organization governed by section 501 (c) (3) of the Tax Code of the United States.

COMMENTS re Atlas Monks

Four Forwarded Messages

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Donald Nunraw
To: William ...
Sent: Tue, 24 May, 2011 11:08:33
Subject: Fw: PS - [Blog] Atlas Monks Christian-Muslim Love Gift of PEACE 

Something of a symposium.
 

Sancta Maria Abbey, NUNRAW

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Donald
Sent: Tue, 24 May, 2011 10:59:36
Subject: Fw: PS - [Blog]
Atlas Monks Christian-Muslim Love Gift of PEACE

Dear, William,

Early bird you are (8:42am, now  9:30 am).

Thank you for most apt Mass preliminary. 

Last evening Compline we had a power breakdown and could not print an Introduction. 

So for the community Mass, the thought came out of the visual. In front of the Paschal Candle is a glorious floral bouquet, received yesterday from unknown donor  - a beautiful GIFT!

Jesus in the Gospel, Jn. 14:27, "...this is the my gift to you". 

Flowers are gift of a message.

Jesus' gift is his word, "... my PEACE I give you". 

His gift is more than word, the gift is Himself.

Offering the Mass we too offer the gift of our selves, being at one in Christ. ...
 

Donald

 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: William .......
To:  Donald ...
Sent: Tue, 24 May, 2011 8:42:49
Subject: PS - [Blog] Atlas Monks Christian-Muslim Love

Dear Father Donald,

Still reflecting upon the Seven Martrys and the divisions and separations between faiths, I find that DGO today has a beautiful prayer as commentary:

John 14:27-31. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. 


Blessed John XXIII (1881-1963), pope 

"My peace I give to you"

This is our prayer, O Jesus: Banish from men's hearts everything that could compromise their peace; confirm them in truth, justice, love for each other. Enlighten all leaders: may their efforts on behalf of peoples' well-being be united in the task with a view to ensuring them peace. Stir up the wills of all to overthrow the barriers that divide us and to strengthen the bonds of charity. Stir up the wills of all to be ready to understand, to sympathize, to forgive;that all may be united in your name, and that in hearts, in families, in the whole world, peace, your peace, may triumph.
United in prayer for the world,

William

---

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: WILLIAM ...
To: Fr Donald ...
Sent: Monday, 23 May, 2011 20:52:31
Subject: Re: [Blog] Atlas Monks Christian-Muslim Love

Dear Father Donald,

Your 'detective' work has provided fascinating insights on all sides in the political upheavals in Algeria at that time that in turn throw light upon the distrust and intolerance that fester today: throughout, it is the constancy of the Seven Brothers that shines as a beacon of the love of God and our neighbour.

The spirit of witness of the Brothers is truly with us. It is as Br. Paul wrote:"I believe that the Good News is sown, the grain is germinating. The Spirit is at work, he works in the depths of the heart of people"  - and, may the words he added be heard by everyone today - "Let’s be available so that he can act in us”.

Their lives were, as Fr. Christian wrote, "GIVEN to God" and to unity in love.

Thank you for giving us so much to cherish in their memory.

... in Our Risen Lord,

William

---

---

From: Fr Donald ...
To: william ...
Sent: Monday, 23 May, 2011 16:48:06
Subject: [Dom Donald's Blog] Atlas Monks Christian-Muslim Love  

+ + +

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: WILLIAM ...
To: Donald ...
Sent: Sat, 21 May, 2011 19:22:13
Subject: Re: [Blog] Monks of Algeria

Dear Father Donald,

It is so good to remember the Seven Brothers with you, and it is so wonderful that there is your Blog to share your commemoration far and wide. When I googled for a good photograph of the icon for the card, so many of the references came up with 'domdonald's' blog! The Seven Martyrs witness is seen across the Atlas of The World.

The texts on the card came right into my hand! I often turn up your booklets and other literature that I have collected over the years, and when I was pondering after watching the DVD of the film, these text selections 'jumped out' at me from a little publication "The Blood of Love - The martyrs of Algeria". Google kindly supplies details http://www.africamission-mafr.org/sang_martyrgb.htm (although whoever uploaded it missed Fr. Celestin's text, putting Br. Paul's in its place - and then repeating it for Br. Paul in French).

The Wiki article represents a significant editorial challenge - better if the linkhttp://liamdevlin.tripod.com/nunraw/atlas.htm to your on-line script could be hyper-linked in the text summary! for the summary might be all that an enquirer might read. I have never 'dared' to attempt a contribution to a Wiki article... I usually hunt to gain understanding! Having said that, if I were to spot any possible need for corrections, I would send you an e-mail! I am enjoying following the other links also.

The book "The Monks of Tibhirine" by John W Kiser almost sent me into 'order mode' but I read one review that caused me to delay to first speak with you when I come on retreat. The reviewer quotes a sentence from the book that troubles him: "The author writes: "The monks were not martyrs to their faith. They did not die because they wre Christians. The died because they wouldn't leave their Muslim friends." Uh? If they had been Muslims would they have died? They lived a Christian ideal, which is why they stayed. They died for it. He admits to be contrarian. He'd do better to be fair." 

I loved your photograph of the Roses - Erica's very best of kindness supplying! Fr. Stephen has (often) thanked me for the annual reminder!

So much joy you have given me this day as I commemorated their memory with you, thank you Father.

....  in Our Risen Lord,

William

Paschal Flowers - 7 roses for Atlas Monks

Atlas Monks Christian-Muslim Love

Our Lady of Atlas Algeria

  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/by-topic/john-w-kiser-christian-muslim-love/8476/

April 8th, 2011

John W. Kiser: Christian-Muslim Love

The recent opening across the United States of the much praised French film “Of Gods and Men” is an important event. As a fraternal love story wrapped in a horror story, it offers much reason for hope, as well as room for despair, depending on the lens of the viewer.

My lens is one of hope, based on six years of research and writing “The Monks of Tibhirine,” the book French director Xavier Beauvois called his “bible” for making his movie about Christian-Muslim friendship. My hope is also based on knowing the back story that goes untold in an otherwise excellent film focusing on the monks’ struggle to be true to their Trappist vows of poverty, charity, and stability when faced with their fear of a brutal death.

Some people today might say that Christian-Muslim love is an oxymoron. Yes, there are Muslims who preach hatred of the Christian West, even though fewer and fewer in the West (outside the US) are practicing or even professing Christians. There are no Muslims I have heard of who preach hatred or even disrespect for Jesus Christ, who is a much revered and sinless prophet in Islam.

There is, however, an active Christian minority that preaches hatred of Islam and regularly insults the Prophet Muhammad. Elements with political agendas on both sides benefit from blackening the other, and the media have been willing accomplices to this downward phobic spiral. “Of Gods and Men” is film that could help right perceptions.

Despite pleas in 1996 from both French and Algerian authorities to leave for a safer place when threatened by Islamic extremists, the monks remained at their remote monastery in Algeria’s Atlas Mountains out of deep sense of commitment to their extended family of villagers who depended on them for moral, medical, and material support. Like their neighbors, the monks trembled with fear at night. They argued among themselves: does the Good Shepherd abandon his flock when the wolves come? Does a mother abandon a sick, infectious child? Does their vow of poverty allow for them to flee to safer ground when their friends cannot?

When seven of the monks were kidnapped, it was not their neighbors who did it. Instead, it was a contract job that employed a group from outside the area to take the monks away from their dangerous situation—to be traded, in effect. But something went wrong along the way. Of one thing I am certain: killing them was not the plan. If that had been the case, they would not have been schlepped around the country for two months nor would negotiations for their release have taken place. Yet for some viewers, I suspect this will be seen as simply another “bad-Muslims-kill–good-Christians” story—exactly what the abbot of the monastery feared when he wrote his last testament, read at the end of the film.

The film works very well dramatically as a struggle between faith and fear. By necessity it leaves out important and broader story components. The tenacious commitment of Abbot Christian de Chergé (played by Lambert Wilson) to serve God in Algeria had been formed in him as a soldier serving in the French army during the Algerian war for independence from 1954 to 1962, when his life was saved by a Muslim friend, an Algerian policeman named Mohammed who faced down local rebels who wanted to shoot Christian one day when they were taking a walk—a time when they would discuss their faith.

That friendship cost the Algerian his life the next day. For Christian, Mohammed’s sacrifice was a gift of love reinforcing his belief that the spirit of Jesus Christ resides in all his children. For the rebels, the friend of my enemy is my enemy.

The film doesn’t have room to tell about the seventy-plus imams who, based on the same logic, were assassinated in the 1990s for denouncing what the terrorists were doing in the name of Islam. The terrorists themselves could show respect for the monks. In a dramatic scene in the film, Saya Attia, head of the terrorist group that intruded upon the monastery on Christmas Eve 1993 with demands for medical help, apologizes to Christian for disturbing their celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Left out are the leader’s final words to Christian when he extends a hand in friendship: “We don’t consider you foreigners…you are religious.”

Nor does the viewer know that the tiny hamlet of Tibhirine was inhabited by families whose homes in the mountains had been bombed by the French during the war for independence. They had fled to the protection of the monastery, a holy place where the Christian “marabouts” (Arabic for religious teachers) sheltered them until they could build their own homes.

I have one regret about the film. It might have ended on a more positive note for Christian-Muslim relations by showing the genuine remorse of much of the Algerian population. Archbishop Henri Teissier of Algiers received sacks of letters from ordinary Algerians after the monks’ deaths were confirmed. The letters expressed a deep sense of solidarity with the monks as well as a sense of shame that was captured by this one: “No matter what has happened, we truly love you. You are part of us. We have failed in our duty—to protect you, to love you. Forgive us…You must accomplish your divine mission with us. I believe it is God’s plan.”

Universal fraternal love is the essence of Christianity and all true religion. Otherwise, religion degenerates into celestial nationalism. Christian himself frequently said that if religion doesn’t help us to live together, it is worthless.

The idea may seem laughably naïve in a post-9/11 world. Love, however, has nothing to do with sentiment and everything to do with good will, justice, empathy, and respect for others. Like their Savior, the monks’ lives were not taken. They were gifts of love.

John W. Kiser is the author of “The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria” (St. Martins Press, 2002).

5 Responses to “John W. Kiser: Christian-Muslim Love”

1. Brett says:

   March 30, 2011 at 1:57 am

   “There are no Muslims I have heard of who preach hatred or even disrespect for Jesus Christ, who is a much revered and sinless prophet in Islam.”

   While this maybe true in some respects, the Koran teaches that Christ was a prophet among many rather than the Son of God. But beyond this theological dispute, the author is presenting the “tolerance” of Islam in speech while thousands of Christians are being slaughtered in their places of worship in Iraq, Egypt, Ethiopia…and on and on.

   http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/thousands-christians-displaced-ethiopia-muslim-extremists-torch-churches-homes-2057387870/

   This is not even regarding the oppression of Christian minorities in dozens of Muslim countries from the Kingdom of Saud to Pakistan to Iran.

   I agree with you about the movie; however, your insights on the tolerance of Islam on the ground with their Christian neighbors and countrymen, rather than in mere words in the Koran, is severely lacking critical context of the harsh reality.
2. Henry Quinson says:

   March 30, 2011 at 3:39 am

   Thanks for your comments John ! More on the movie in my latest book (in French) : ‘Secret des hommes, secret des dieux’, Presses de la Renaissance, prefaced by Xavier Beauvois, already Prix Spriritualités d’aujourd’hui 2011.
3. F.CHESSEL says:

   March 30, 2011 at 3:46 pm

   Anyhow, this film is an amazing and huge gift to honor our seven brothers and moreover succeed to stir people here!!
   Choices were made, so repectfully!
   Thanks again to all the team!
4. Faruq 'Abd al Haqq says:

   April 2, 2011 at 7:06 pm

   One of the points that should have emerged in the book, The Monks of Tibhirine, is the difference between Islam as a religion and Muslims as they do or do not practice their religion. Marshall Hodgson distinguished Christianity from Christendom, just as he distinguished Islam from Islamdom.

   The underlying question is whether there is a transcendent essence in either Christianity or Islam. Hans Kung wrote tomes on this question examining Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He concluded that no religion exists as an essence and that every religion is the accumulation of contextual adaptation to the here and now. According to this theory, Islam is what Muslims do, including all that is universally recognized as violating global or any other kind of ethics, and regardless of the political, economic, and sociological factors as extenuating circumstances. Therefore Islam changes from one century to the next and from one country to another.

   Unfortunately, extremist Muslims, as well as extremist Christians and Jews, often have adopted a victim mentality, which can lead to arrogance, even though the scriptures of all world religions condemn arrogance as the worst of all sins, because it is incurable (only a humble person can admit one’s own arrogance).

   The monks of Tibhirine tried to follow a life of humility before God, as do most of the Sufi Muslims (though not all). Are they part of the essence of anything? This is addressed in my book, The Natural Law of Compassionate Justice, available on Amazon.
5. Gerald Shenk says:

   April 5, 2011 at 12:17 pm

   John, congratulations for the way this story now plays out on big screens and with wide audiences. You sleuthed it long before the cameras came rolling through. It is a righteous parable of the better paths in interfaith relations, tragic griefs notwithstanding. We are finding the spirit of Jesus echoing and resonating in many new orbits, some far afield from the traditional paths of religious communities. Yet the classic appeal to human dignity amid differences is irresistibly attractive. Let us all take heart!

  Thanks for Web Log Post pbs org