Sunday, 29 July 2012

The multiplication of the loaves. Homily: Fr. Raymond




Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ of Saint John 6:1-15.
 The multiplication of the loaves. 


----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Raymond - - -
Sent: Sunday, 29 July 2012  
Subject: 

Sun 17 b
When Jesus came to reveal himself to his chosen people he knew that he had to do much more than just perform miracles for them.  The Jews were the people of the Word of God, people of the Book, the people who were the guardians of Gods revelation to the world.  He had to prove to them his links with their sacred traditions. He had to prove to them that he was the one who was spoken of so often in their Scriptures;  He had to prove that he was the very one they had been looking for and longing for for so many centuries.  It would take more than miracles to do that.  We can understand this if we recall St Paul's warning that if even an angel of God were to preach a doctrine different to his he must be ignored.  So the Jews knew instinctively that the Messiah would be confirm by searching their holy books.

Jesus himself says this explicitly in his conversation with the two disciples he met on their way to Emmaus after his resurrection. We read that he explained to them all that was written about himself in the Books of Moses and the Prophets.  Today’s Gospel gives us a typical example of this linking between the events of the Old Testament and the words and deeds of Jesus in the New.

In the Old Testament reading we hear of the prophet Elijah multiplying 20 loaves to feed 100 people whereas in the Gospel we read of Jesus working a similar, but much greater miracle by multiplying 5 loaves to feed five thousand people.

Likewise in the Old Testament we read of the same prophet raising the dead by restoring to a widow her dead son whereas in the Gospels we read of Jesus likewise restoring a dead son to his widowed mother.  But again the miracle of Jesus is so much more powerful because it is accomplished by a mere word and in an instant, whereas Elijah has to go through a great performance of laying himself seven times on the boy’s body, face to face, mouth to mouth.

Again we have the story of the innocent Susannah being saved from death by the prophet Daniel because she was so innocent, whereas, in the Gospels we have the woman who really was caught in adultery, being saved by Jesus even though she was so guilty.  “Does no one condemn thee? Then neither do I”.  Go and sin no more.” 

Finally we must note that both today’s old testament reading and the new testament one are both foreshadowings of the new bread of life that would be shared not only by hundreds or even by thousands but by countless millions from then on to the end of time: The Eucharist.

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Poem: Soteriologised and Soteriologising. Fr. Edward OP




Some more lines 
Venus in Crescent  Moon

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: edward ...
To: Donald ....
Sent: Saturday, 28 July 2012, 14:48
Subject: Some more lines
Dear Father Donald, Here are some more lines. Perhaps you could give a copy t o Heather.
 Blessings from
fr Edward O.P.
Soteriologised and Soteriologising
The generalised scope of human life
is glorious and unwavering.
It is resumed in a dynamic godlikeness
in which the model's the human life
of the Incarnated Word,
providing the deifying substance throughout,
ending with an ascension into glory.
So with the bodies of Enoch [v. Gn 5,24, Sirach 44,16, Jude 1,14-15] and Elias,
whose lives like those of Jesus and Mary
ended with their Ascensions.
Of Enoch, little is known, except his justice.
Elias is given a sainted status,
especially by the Carmelites.
Called to view the passage of God at Horeb
he confronted him , after the passage
of storm, earthquake and fire.
So was his full scope of spiritualisation
made present in his being,
a rising theme starting at Carmel,
sharpened at Horeb, where,
from a cave he became aware of God
in the whispering of a gentle breeze.
The life of Elias bridged the gap
between heaven and earth;
Moses  was a designated leader and legislator.
When at Tabor they appeared in converse with the Son
who was Word and son of Mary,
Elias had been assumed
in what seemed a fiery chariot,
but Moses not.
Here Christ was the great disposer
soteriologised and soteriologising in himself.
Mary's Assumption is spread out
in scale and quality by these precedents.
No narrow experience her's but comprehending
all humanity.
How could she be Queen of Heaven without a body
which assures a true transcendence also in depth,
a body never to be lost but used?
How else  could religion be incarnational
not only in its ultimate ending
but in its beginnings as foundational,
as stepwise with great leaps?
Elias's  rise was through great labours
but Mary's easeful rise was from those initial steps
of Immaculate Conceiving and Assumption.
He still displays signs of his origin
in his complaints that he was alone,
the final faithful prophet.
Mary would not complain
of her aloneness:
she would share it at her Visitation;
share it at her wordless Cross vigil;
no comment offered but lasting through
rhe last breath-drawing
of her Son:
his consummation for mankind.
Michelangelo's pietà
with its virginal calmness:
deepest love lasting through physical death;
virginal, god-like compassion which we,
forgetful of the context, expect of her,
as we count on her sustaining prayer
at the death-hour of us each!
The Assumption of Mary passes
from completion to completion,
penetrative and comprehensive,
takes us already to the passing limits
in the death of her Son.
The maximum divine achieving
in the triumph of the
mothering of Zion's daughter,
vigorously penetrative of all human hearts;
our foyer-hearth
empowered by her Son
who is the eternal God !
Stykkishólmur
Iceland
27 July 2012 
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Saturday, 28 July 2012

COMMENT Meister Eckhart 'paradox style'

Chesterton is full of puzzlement of the paradoxes of Christianity.
This Reading raises up the glorious encounter with Eckhart's paradoxes. It is an immense pasture waiting for harvesting.
There are several translations but fortunately the editing of this Reading seems the clearest.

Biographical Sketch 

Meister Eckhart ‘Divine Comfort’


    
A Word in Season, Readings for the Liturgy of the Hours,
Augustine Press 1999


Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1327), the Dominican master of theology, used daring paradox to make people aware of the limitations of the human mind, and thus receptive to a higher kind of knowledge without sense impressions, images, or ideas. Though misunderstanding resulted in his dying under a cloud, Eckhart's reputation was saved by Tauler and Suso. Scholarly opinion now vindicates his orthodoxy, and Pope John Paul II has quoted him approvingly. His mystical insights appeal to members of other faiths. Eckhart acquired his mystical knowledge while living a busy, practical life during a period of unrest and violence: he can speak to our age.


Google; paradoxes of Meister About 34.200.000 results.

The Eckhart Society: Meister Eckhart and Prayer - Setting the Scene ...
www.eckhartsociety.org/.../meister-eckhart-and-prayer-setting-scene
In one of his German sermons we hear Meister Eckhart telling his listeners: If .....heretical, not always realising that they were abstracting halves of paradoxes.
Excerpt (from Attachment)
The Meister Eckhart portal of the Erfurt Church OP

    Now, this will not be the last time today that we will be coming across this feature of Eckhart’s thinking, the fact that it is full of paradox, but I’m mentioning it now because it’s woven through his thought, woven through his language. His language is full of paradox, it is (to use the jargon) ‘dialectical’. It is this that bewildered the inquisitors who tried him at the end of his life. They abstracted statements from his writings, statements which on their own sounded heretical, not always realising that they were abstracting halves of paradoxes. And, for precisely the same reason, modem readers get bewildered by some of the things they read in Eckhart’s sermons. All the time we read Eckhart we have to be on the watch for what he’s really setting out to convey – for the meaning behind the seemingly conflicting meanings, for the meaning generated through the tension between what is said and what is unsaid (Ibid., p. 12).
    I said that I would try to clarify one thing which can on first acquaintance seem very strange to us – ‘Eckhart’s own special way of putting over ideas to people’. You may feel that my clarification has only deepened your bewilderment, but as the day goes on I hope the bewilderment will steadily dwindle.
 


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Friday, 27 July 2012

Abbot Malachy Brasil Memorial



 MEMORIAL

July 28
Dom Malachy Brasil - born 2 February 1883, entered 15 August 1905, professed 28 December 1910, ordained 23 June 1911, Abbot Mount Saint Bernard 1933 –1959, died, Nunraw, 28 July 1965.



PRESS NOTICE found at back of an old table drawer.
Leicestershire Local Newspaper, 1959
Dom Malachi Brasil
Abbot of Mount St. Bernard Resigns

The RIGHT REVEREND DOM MALACHI BRASIL, Abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Mount St. Bernard, Charn­wood Forest, has resigned his charge after more than 25 years in office.

   Owing to his age - he is 76 - he feels this step is called for.  
Born in County Limerick, in 1883, and educated at Mount Melleray. He joined the Cistercians at Mount St. Joseph Abbey, Roscrea, in 1907.
   After teaching in the College, there he was made father master of novices. , then Sub-Prior and Prior.
   In 1933, the monks of Mount St. Bernard Abbey chose him as their abbot.
   Dom Malachi brought to completion the magnificent abbey church in the heart of Charnwood Forest.
   In August 1945, the church was consecrated.
   The community now number 83, including 43 priests.
                   Election Procedure
   For the past three weeks' Dom Malachi has been in St. Francis "Nursing Home, London Road, Leicester, suffering from bron­chial trouble and although his
condition is now somewhat improved, he is still far from. Well.
   The, abbey is now considered to be "widowed", following the resignation' of the abbot. Crosiers, in the church and in the chapter house have been removed and will not be put back until a new abbot is 'Blessed’.
   During the next six or seven weeks the professed monks will elect a new abbot and the procedure, will be similar to that carried out in the election of a pope.
   A member of the Mount St. Bernard community at the abbey will be chosen as the next abbot, although any member of the Cistercian Order could be elected.



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Meister Eckhart ‘Divine Comfort’



 
Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
FRIDAY Year II

Night Office
Meister Eckhart Second Reading has riveting words of ‘Divine Comfort’:
1. “The eye is free of all colour, it perceives all colours”...
2. “Poor in spirit means: as the eye is "poor" and bare of colour yet receptive of all colours, so is he poor in spirit who is receptive of all spirit, and the spirit of all spirits is God. 
3. “When nothing can comfort you but God, then God will comfort you, and with him and in him all that is bliss,..

First Reading  Job 22:1-30
Responsory          1 Cor 1:30-31; Jn 1:16
God has given us Christ Jesus to be our wisdom, our strength, our holiness and our redemption; + this is why Scripture tells us: Let him who would boast, boast in the Lord.
V. Of his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. + This is why ....
Second Reading
From the writings of Meister Eckhart
(Book of Divine Comfort Part II)
Learn not to love that you may learn to love
No vessel can hold two separate kinds of drink. If it is to contain wine, we must pour out the water; the vessel must be bare and empty. And so, if you would receive divine joy and God, you must pour away creatures. Saint Augustine says: "Pour out, that you may be filled. Learn not to love that you may learn to love. Turn away that you may be turned toward." In short, to take in, to be receptive, a thing must be empty. The masters say that if the eye had any colour in it in perceiving, it would perceive neither the colour it had nor those it had not. But since it is free of all colour, it perceives all colours. The wall has colour in it, and so perceives neither its own colour nor any other; it cares naught for colour, no more for gold and azure than for coal-black. The eye has no colour, and yet truly has it, for it rejoices in colour with pleasure and delight. And the more perfect and pure the powers of the soul are, the more perfectly and extensively they take in what they perceive, and receive the more widely and have the greater delight in, and become the more one with what they receive, so much so that the highest power of the soul, which is bare of all things and has nothing in common with things, receives nothing less than God himself in the extent and fullness of his being. And the masters show that nothing can equal this union, this fusion and bliss for joy and delight. Therefore our Lord says in striking words: Blessed are the poor in spirit. He is poor who has nothing. Poor in spirit means: as the eye is "poor" and bare of colour yet receptive of all colours, so is he poor in spirit who is receptive of all spirit, and the spirit of all spirits is God. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy and peace. Bareness, and poverty, having nothing and being empty transforms nature; emptiness makes water run upwards and performs many other miracles of which it is not the place to speak now.

So, if you would seek and find perfect joy and comfort in God, see to it that you are free of all creatures and of all comfort from creatures; for assuredly, as long as you are or can be comforted by creatures, you will never find true comfort. But when nothing can comfort you but God, then God will comfort you, and with him and in him all that is bliss, while what is not God comforts you, you will have no comfort here or hereafter, but when creatures give you no comfort and you have no taste for them, then you will find comfort both here and hereafter. 
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Tuesday, 24 July 2012

Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father - Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron



---- Forwarded Message -----
From: William W. . .
To: Donald. . . .
Sent: Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 8:04
Subject: Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father - Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron 

Dear Father Donald,
 
There is a beautiful reflection for today's commentary on DGO from the Spiritual writings 10/04/1938 of Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron (1911-1938), a Spanish Trappist monk:
 
"Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother"
To love what God loves is the logical thing for the one who is truly his lover; outside that wish there are no desires of our own – or if there should be one, this is in conformity with his will; if this should not be so, then our will would not be united with his. But if our will is really at one with his love, we shall want nothing that he does not want, we shall love nothing that he does not love, and having given ourselves up completely to his will, we shall not mind whatever he may send us, wherever he may place us. And about everything that he may want of us, we shall not only feel unconcerned, we shall feel pleased.

I don't know whether there's any error in what I am saying. I submit myself to the one who understands about this. I only say what I feel, and that is, that I truly have no other wish than to love him, and everything else I commend to him. May his will be done! Every day I become happier in my complete abandonment into his hands.
 
These words one can tell come from the heart.
 
With my love in Our Lord,
William



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Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Island Parish priest Father Calum MacLellan dies


SWTS.lifestyle.image.e


Father Calum MacLellan. Picture: BBC
Father Calum MacLellan. Picture: BBC

Island Parish priest
Father Calum MacLellan dies

By Natalie Walker
Published on Monday 16 July 2012 
THE island priest who starred in a popular reality TV show and who also saw the looting of a ship that inspired the novel Whisky Galore has died.
Father Calum MacLellan rose to stardom when he appeared on the BBC’s An Island Parish series, which followed the lives of three Hebridean island priests.
The 86-year-old had been ill for some time and passed away at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness early on Saturday morning.
He was one of three priests to appear on the popular show dubbed a real-life version of the Channel 4 comedy Father Ted.
The programme, which also starred Father John Paul MacKinnon and Father Roddy Macaulay, was a huge hit with viewers and a second series was commissioned.
It followed a year in the life of the three Roman Catholic priests, while they looked after the picturesque parishes.
When he was just 15 Father MacLellan witnessed the looting of a cargo of whisky from the Jamaica-bound SS Politician, which wrecked off his home island of Eriskay in February 1941 with 250,000 bottles onboard.
Despite the best efforts of UK customs officers, more than a tenth of the cargo was requisitioned by islanders who rowed a nightly flotilla of small boats between reefs to get to the wreck.
In 1947, the Scottish author 
Sir Compton MacKenzie, who lived on neighbouring Barra, wrote the novel Whisky Galore, which is based on the incident.
In 1949, it became a film of the same name, starring Basil Radford and Gordon Jackson.
The priest was a Gaelic-speaker and became the first vice-convenor of Western Isles Council when the Hebridean archipelago was unified under a single local government authority in 1975. He was later given the Freedom of the Western Isles for his contribution to the islands.

Eriskay and Scotland are the poorer for Father Calum MacLellan’s passing

By Peter MacMahon 
Published on Monday 16 July 2012 01:25
It was a day which had been a long time coming. Eriskay, situated at the tip of South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, was formally no longer an island.....

Comments

There are 4 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
4

Half Scot

Monday, July 16, 2012 at 07:11 PM
May he and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Benedicamus Domino.
    3

    Sally Longlegs

    Monday, July 16, 2012 at 10:50 AM
    A great shame he was a lovely man.
      2

      Curious Yellow

      Monday, July 16, 2012 at 10:25 AM
      I met Father MacLellan in the Seventies and a nicer man you'd be hard pushed to find. RIP.
        1

        benaryeah

        Monday, July 16, 2012 at 09:13 AM
        Rest in peace you lovely, lovely man...always quiet, modest and reticent - you served God in so so many ways over the years...the Isles will always remember and honour you with fond love.



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