Jesuits help Father Brown get it right - Independent Catholic News

 Christmas Reviewed: Looking behind and ahead

Dear Catholic Culture . .,

In this first Insights message of 2015, the most important thing to note is that we Catholics should be still celebrating Christmas. How quickly we forget!

So let's remember:

Christmas does not end until The Baptism of the Lord on January 11th. Why not do at least three things to keep the spirit of Christmas alive in your family between now and then?

Contemplate the Christmas mysteries. Jennifer Gregory Miller recommends this focus: He Is Light and Peace. Also consider:

Pope Francis to the City and the World (Urbi et Orbi): Jesus Is the Salvation for Every Person and for Every People

Francis to Christians in the Middle East: The Birth of the Son of God Is an Indescribable Mystery of Consolation

Francis on the Feast of the Holy Family: Large Families Are the Hope of Society

Francis on the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God: Jesus Cannot Be Understood Without His Mother.

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Jesuits help Father Brown get it right - Independent Catholic News 

Jesuits help Father Brown get it right

Posted: Tuesday, January 6, 2015 8:02 pm

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A London-based Jesuit has acted as religious adviser in the third series of BBC Drama, Father Brown, which began airing on BBC1 this week. Father Tony Nye SJ of Farm Street Jesuit Church was invited to vet the scripts and attend recordings of the TV series based on the character created by GK Chesterton, to ensure authenticity and accuracy in the portrayal of a Catholic priest in the days before the Second Vatican Council. Father Brown is a fictional character created based on Fr John O’Connor who was born in 1870 and died in 1952. He was a parish priest in Bradford who was involved in the conversion of novelist Chesterton to Catholicism in 1922. Fr Brown went on to feature in 51 detective short stories by GK Chesterton, which have been adapted into productions for television, film and radio. Actors who have played the “short, stumpy Roman Catholic Church priest, with shapeless clothes and a large umbrella”, have included Sir Alec Guinness, Kenneth More and Andrew Sachs. In the current BBC adaptation, the role is taken by Mark Williams. In the second series of Father Brown broadcast in 2014, its audience reach was almost 25% of the afternoon TV viewing audience (1.9m). The show is a co-production between BBC Worldwide and BBC Drama Production and is made by BBC Birmingham Drama Village. Executive producer Will Trotter describes it as “compulsive viewing” for BBC One Daytime. “The success of this second series has proved that viewers have really taken Mark Williams as Father Brown to their hearts,” he says. “We are delighted that we can continue to bring such a well-loved character to life.” Father Nye entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1955 and was ordained as a priest in 1966. "The scripts were set in the 1950s," he says, "and I tried to make sure they were as faithful to pre-Vatican II as I remembered those times, through my comments and requests for changes. Especially important was to make the drama authentically Catholic on theological points, such as use of the confessional, prayers for the dead (there would be a number of corpses lying about!), the use of Latin and of the Douai Bible when Scripture was quoted." Certain Anglican terms such as 'vestry' had to be changed to 'sacristy', Fr Nye noted; and the old village church, which was used as a location, had to have old monuments covered up to make it more authentically a Catholic church. "Having watched the episode on TV, I found Father Brown real and acted by Mark Williams in an engaging and understated way, by no means a caricature," he says. "His cassock and soup plate hat wouldn't be the regular gear of many priests of the time, but I let that pass for its dramatic value of character recognition. And the atmosphere was suitably 1950s, something the BBC does very well. The plots may not have been Chesterton, but they made pleasant afternoon viewing." The Father Brown of GK Chesterton’s short stories not only carries out his normal duties as a Catholic priest: he also gets involved with solving crimes. In ‘The Man in the Shadows’, the first episode of series three (broadcast on 5 January 2015), Father Brown gets involved with MI5, which places fellow villager, Lady Felicia, in a compromising situation. Source: Jesuits in Britain

Dom Donald's Blog: Epiphany - Symphony of synonyms,

Dom Donald's Blog: Epiphany - Symphony of synonyms,: Thursday after Epiphany – Community Mass. We had the Solemnity of the Epiphany on Sunday. But today, 6 th January,   th...

G.K. Chesterton 'Many notes at Christmas'. Part 2 of "The God in the Cave"

  Night Office Readings,  

Comment: 
"I do not know what Confucius would have done with the Bambino, had it come to life in his arms as it did in the arms of St. Francis." GKC 

Monday, 05 January 2015

Monday after Epiphany

First Reading

Isaiah 61:1-11

Responsory          Is 61:1; In 8:42

The Spirit of God rests upon me, for the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, + to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim that captivity is now ended and prisoners are set free.

V. I have come forth from God and have come into the world. I did not come of myself; the Father has sent me. + To heal the ...

Second Reading

From the writings of G.K. Chesterton
(The Everlasting Man Part II, chapter 1)

Many notes at Christmas

It is still a strange story, though an old one, how the wise men came out of orient lands, crowned with the majesty of kings and clothed with something of the mystery of magicians. That truth that is tradition has wisely remembered them almost as unknown quantities, as mysterious as their mysterious and melodious names: Melchior, Caspar, Balthazar. But there came with them all that world of wisdom that had watched the stars in Chaldea and the sun in Persia; and we shall not be wrong if we see in them the same curiosity that-moves all the sages. They would stand for the same human ideal if their names had really been Confucius or Pythagoras or Plato. They were those who sought not tales but the truth of things; and since their thirst for truth was itself a thirst for God, they also have had their reward. But even in order to understand that reward, we must understand that for philosophy as much as mythology, that reward was the completion of the incomplete.

Such learned men would doubtless have come, as these learned men did come, to find themselves confirmed in much that was true in their own traditions and right in their own reasoning. Confucius would have found a new foundation for the family in the very reversal of the Holy Family; Buddha would have looked upon a new renunciation, of stars rather than jewels and divinity than royalty. These learned men would still have the right to say, or rather a new right to say, that there was truth in their old teaching. But, after all, these learned men would have come to learn. They would have come to complete their conception with something they had not yet conceived; even to balance their imperfect universe with something they might once have contradicted. Buddha would have come from his impersonal paradise to worship a person. Confucius would have come from his temples of ancestor-worship to worship a child.

The magi, who stand for mysticism and philosophy, are truly conceived as seeking something new and even as finding something unexpected. That tense sense of crisis which still tingles in the Christmas story accentuates the idea of a search and a discovery. For the other mystical figures in the miracle play, for the angel and the mother, the shepherds and the soldiers of Herod, there may be aspects both simpler and more supernatural, more elemental and more emotional. But the wise men must be seeking wisdom; and for them there must be a light also in the intellect. For it is the paradox of that group in the cave, that while our emotions about it are of childish simplicity, our thoughts about it can branch with a neverending complexity.

The unique note of Christmas is the simultaneous striking of many notes: of humility, of gaiety, of gratitude, of mystical fear, but also of vigilance and of drama. By the very nature of the story the rejoicings in the cavern were rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaw's den; properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were rejoicings in a dugout. It is not only true that such a subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies, and that the enemies were already scouring the stony plain that lay above it like a sky. It is not only true that the very horse-hoofs of Herod might have passed like thunder over the sunken head of Christ. It is also that there is in that image a true idea of an outpost, of a piercing through the rock and an entrance into enemy territory. There is in this buried divinity an idea of undermining the world, of shaking the towers and palaces from below, even as Herod the great king felt that earth­quake under him and swayed with his swaying palace.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/chesterton_godinthecave2.asp

   

Part 2 of "The God in the Cave"
We all know that the popular presentation of this popular story, in so many miracle plays and carols, has given to the shepherds the costume, the language, and the landscape of the separate English and European countryside. We all know that one shepherd will talk in a Somerset dialect or another talk of driving his sheep from Conway towards the Clyde. Most of us know by this time bow true is that error, how wise, how artistic, how intensely Christian and Catholic is that anachronism. But some who have seen it in these scenes of medieval rusticity have perhaps not seen it in another sort of poetry, which it is sometimes the fashion to call artificial rather than artistic. 

I fear that many modem critics Will see only a faded classicism in the fact that men like Crashaw and Herrick conceived the shepherds of Bethlehem under the form of the shepherds of Virgil. Yet they were profoundly right; and in turning their Bethlehem play into a Latin Eclogue they took up one of the most important links in human history. Virgil, as we have already seen, does stand for all that saner heathenism that had overthrown the insane heathenism of human sacrifice; but the very fact that even the Virgilian virtues and the sane heathenism were in incurable decay is the whole problem to which the revelation to the shepherds is the solution.

 

2/4 January 2015, the Epiphany. Fr. Raymond Homily

Mass Homily, by Fr. Raymond  

Our Crib: Nativity figures play their parts.
The Epiphany Star features Scripture and Liturgy

Subject: Epiphany

The Liturgy speaks of three Epiphanies. 

The Adoration of the Magi, when the Gentile Nations recognised the Messiah; 

the first public miracle at the Marriage Feast of Cana,  when the water blushed into wine, as the antiphon so picturesquely says;   

and lastly the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, when the Father's voice proclaimed "This is my beloved Son!

However if we wish to confine the Mystery of the Epiphany to God’s opening up of the gospel to all nations, then we must focus on the first of these three scenes, The Coming of the Magi seeking Him who was born King of the Jews. The Old Testament foreshadowings of this mystery stretch from the enigmatic figure of Melchidezech to the even more enigmatic figure of Balaam and his wonderful blessings and prophecies and through all the gentile figures in the lineage of the Christ Himself. These stretch from the Canaanite wife of Judah to the Moabite woman Ruth and goodness knows how many others. 

It is to the Prophets we must turn however to find the most explicit teaching of the gathering of the Gentiles into the Family of God. Today’s Liturgy is full of it. "Arise and shine Jerusalem ... The Nations shall come to your light, kings to your dawning brightness. Lift up your eyes and look around. All are assembling and coming towards you.”  This aspect of the Christian Mystery is of course a perennial one. The Church IS Epiphany. WE are Epiphany. It is another way of saying that the Church is missionary. WE are missionary.

But Today’s Feast says something more. Let us be careful to note that it was not the Holy Family that went out on a 'mission' seeking the Wise Men. No, it was the Wise Men who came seeking the Child who was born to be King.

In this wonderful event we are invited by the Holy Spirit to realize and to appreciate the searching and seeking that goes on the minds and hearts of all men of good will, whatever their religion. And even more are we invited by today’s mysterious events to ponder how God Himself is with these Gentiles of all time; his loving providence guiding them and providing signs and clues to lead them to the truth. 

          Raymond      

Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan

       

Jerusalem: Latin Patriarch's homily for 1 January - Independent Catholic News

   Patriarch Twal’s homily for the World Day of Peace  

Jerusalem: Latin Patriarch's homily for 1 January - Independent Catholic News 

Jerusalem: Latin Patriarch's homily for 1 January

Posted: Saturday, January 3, 2015 3:22 pm

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Here below is the full text of Patriarch Twal’s homily for the World Day of Peace and the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God on January 1, 2015, at the Co-Cathedral of the Latin Patriarchate. Dear Brothers in the Episcopate, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Fathers and Sisters, And all of you who make up the larger family of the Holy Land, At the dawn of this New Year, we celebrate World Day of Peace, which has as its theme: “No longer slaves, but brothers and sisters.” A day whose importance is all the greater at this time, when our world is subject to unspeakable violence. Today, the Church reminds us that we are all her children, children of the same Father and sons of the same Mother, whom Christ gave to us at the foot of the Cross on Mount Calvary, just a short distance from here. We are now part of one and the same family, a family nourished by the same Blood, the Blood that our Saviour shed for us and filled with the same Spirit received in the Upper Room (Cenacle).Pope Francis today invites us to meditate upon this blood relationship which is ours, reminding us that “We are no longer slaves” but that we are “brothers.” (Philemon 1:16) The Church, today more than ever, exhorts us to live the Message of the Gospel, the Message of Love and Brotherhood that our Lord Jesus left to us on this Land, torn apart by endless conflict. To be the sons of God is what gives all human beings equal dignity. “Slavery deals a murderous blow to this fundamental fraternity, and so to peace as well.

Epiphany: 4 Sun. 2nd Sunday arter Christmas

Christ has been born for us: come, let us adore him.

Year: B(I). Psalm week: 2.

Liturgy Offices Booklet (Nunraw ocso).

COMMENTS from William. [Thank you]. . .

 

Sancta Maria Abbey: http://www.nunraw.com.uk (Website)  
Blogspot :http://www.nunraw.blogspot.co.uk |

domdonald.org.uk 

Fw: The Nativity story - William Hole's paintings (1-8)

  

On Saturday, 3 January 2015, 9:45, William J . . .  wrote:

Dear Father Donald,     

 

Truly a delight, I have the book of the paintings by William Hole on a bookrest in my room, turning the pages as the Nativity story unfolds!  

I have found (variable quality) internet copies of the main events so far (contd next email)  

    Just for the pleasure of sharing this delight with you!

With my love in the Child Jesus,

William

 

The Epiphany Revealed!

Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio   

This commentary on the Feast of the Epiphany uncovers the meaning of the term epiphany and explains why the Magi -- Caspar, Balthasar, Melchior, the three kings of Orient -- are found, complete with crowns and camels, in every nativity scene.

Caspar, Balthasar, Melchior.  These “three kings of Orient are” found, complete with crowns and camels, in every nativity scene.

Yet if you look closely at the gospel account of the Magi (Mat 2:1-12), you won’t find these names. Actually there is no mention of how many Magi there were or that they were kings riding camel-back.

This is a testimony to something some Bible Christians would like to deny: that all who read a text of Scripture do so in the light of some tradition, through some lens.  If it is the right lens, it magnifies the text and allows us to get at its true meaning.  If it is the wrong lens, we get a distorted image.

It just so happens that the lens the Catholic tradition uses to read the story flows from Scripture itself–to be precise, it flows from the connection between holy words written hundreds of years apart.  But despite the many years and different human authors, the texts were inspired by the same Divine Author, the Holy Spirit.  In chapter 60 of Isaiah (Is 60:1-6), it is predicted that at a time of darkness, the glory of the Lord will shine overJerusalem.  The heavenly light will be a beacon to the pagan nations and even to their kings.  Here we find mention of camels whose job it will be to bring the wealth of these nations, including frankincense and gold, to the city of the Lord.  Psalm 72 agrees that far off kings will bring gifts to the Son of David.

The tradition of the Church has always seen the story of the Magi as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy and Psalm 72.  Hence the crowns and camels.

But hold on.  Isaiah 60 mentions only two of the gifts mentioned by Matthew: gold, fit for a king, and frankincense, for the worship of God.  So what about the myrrh–where does that come from and what does it mean?

Myrrh, an aromatic resin, was used in preparing the dead for burial.  Gold reveals that the babe in the manger is actually a king; frankincense tells us that is he God incarnate; myrrh tells us that he has come to die.  That someone would redeem God’s people through suffering and death was foretold by Isaiah a few chapters earlier (Is 53).  This was the really hard thing for those living in Jesus’ time to comprehend–that the same person who fulfilled all those prophecies about a glorious new king also fulfilled the prophecies about a suffering servant.

All three gifts of the Magi are necessary to convey the true revelation, the true epiphany of who this child is and what he is destined to do.  That’s why for hundred’s of years we’ve sung of three kings, not two or four.

OK, so where did the names of the three come from?

The ancient feast of the Epiphany actually celebrates three events, tied together by the meaning of the word epiphany as “appearance” or “manifestation.”   Jesus suddenly appears as who He really is–messiah and God–to the Magi, at Cana when he works his first miracle, and when he is baptized in theJordan.  In the early Church, Epiphany was therefore second only to Easter vigil as the time to celebrate the sacrament of baptism.  Blessed water from those baptisms were used to bless the dwellings of the faithful, and it became customary to write over the doorposts of blessed homes “C+B+M” meaning “Christ blesses this house (Christus bendicat mansionem).”  Since the three kings were also remembered at the same time, someone decided to give them names, and to use CBM as their initials–Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior.  The names stuck.

But the fact that Matthew gives them no names is telling.  They may be kings, but in this story they are merely supporting actors.  They follow the true Star, the King of Kings.  Only His name is important.  Epiphany is not about the Magi–it’s all about Jesus.

For Spanish, click here!

This article on the Feast of the Epiphany originally appeared in OSV and is reproduced here by permission of the author.

For other resources on The Feast of Epiphany be sure to check out:

The Feast of Epiphany by Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio

Epiphany of the Heart by Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio

Epiphany - Star Invites All Nations by St. Leo the Great

Epiphany - Magi, Cana and Jordon by St. Peter Chrysologus

 

Three_Kings_Bearing_Gifts

Published on 19 Dec 2014

We are called to be Stars of Bethlehem, leading men and women to Christ. The chief vocation of the Church is to proclaim the Good News to all nations. How do I share in that great vocation?

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Maximus of Turin. Christmas Weekday before Epiphany

Altar of the Holy Name of Jesus,
with the IHS monogram
at the top, Lublin, Poland.

Christmas Weekday before Epiphany

TUESDAY

Year I

    

Optional: Memorial: The Most Holy Name of Jesus

Patristic Reading, Night Office, 

First Reading

Colossians 3:5-16

          Responsory See Gal 3:27-28

All of us who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

+ We are all one in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Y. There are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. + We are all . . . .

From a sermon by Saint Maximus of Turin
(Sermo 6, 1-3: CCL 23, 257-258)

The Christmas mystery

Brothers and sisters, our hearts still echo with the joy of the Lord's birth, and our continuing gladness creates in us a sense of heavenly festivity. For, though the joyous day itself has passed, the sanctification that joy brought is still with us. As the newborn Saviour grows with each day that passes since his birth, so our faith in him grows stronger. Time brings the Lord an increase in age, and us an increase in salvation. It is for his own sake that the Lord grows in age; it is for our sake, not his own that he grows in holiness - since the holiness of Christ is eternal and perfect. He is said to grow in holiness because he causes our faith to deepen. For though Christ after his birth is small in body, his sovereignty is nonetheless divine.

Still then does the joy of the Lord's feast thrill our being. It bids us cry out for very gladness and say what the angels said at Christ's birth: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.

Note carefully what the angels said. They did not say "peace to men," that is, to all men without restriction, but peace to men of good will, so that we might understand Christ's peace to depend not on the simple fact of being human but on man's will; not human wickedness but Christian goodness. Peace is not bestowed on all, but on those who have been tested and found true. It is not given to be scattered abroad, but proposed as a good to be chosen. The peace of Christ, then, belongs to those who believe Christ to be the author of peace. It belongs to those who do not experience within themselves the conflict of sin. It is found in those w hose wills are not defiled by the blood offered to idols.

It is fitting that only an incorrupt will should possess the Saviour whom an immaculate virgin bore. Indeed, just as Mary carried him in her womb while remaining stainless, so our souls must be pure if they are to retain him. Mary was a type of our souls. As Christ looked for virginity in his mother, so he looks for integrity in our affections. A soul that is virginal with regard to sin conceives and bears the Saviour when it preaches him; it keeps him present when it observes his commandments. Faith retains him once he has been conceived in us; the confession of faith sends him forth once he is born; concern for him keeps him ours once he is grown.

Let us therefore rejoice at the feast of him whose birth the singing angels proclaim, and the simple shepherds seek out, and the pious magi adore! The grace-filled angels honour Christ as God, the innocent shepherds seek him as Lamb, and the adoring magi worship him as Priest. The veneration offered by the magi plainly shows Christ to be a priest; indeed, their gifts manifest the whole mystery of Christ. For they offered, as best they could, what they knew would be beautiful in Christ's eyes: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The gold is for kingship, the myrrh for his resurrection, and the frankincense for his propitiatory sacrifice. Gold symbolizes power, myrrh incorruptibility. and frankincense priesthood.

Responsory

The true God, begotten of the Father, came down from heaven and entered the Virgin's womb, so that we could see him in visible form, clothed in the flesh and blood that came to us from our first parents. t And from that virgin womb he came forth, God and man, light and life, creator of the world.

V. The Lord came forth like a bridegroom emerging from his bridal chamber. t And from that ..

St. Maximus of Turin

Saint Maximus of Turin Virtually nothing is known about the life of St. Maximus, except that he was the bishop of Turin, in Northern Italy, and died sometime during the first two decades of the fifth century, AD, as the Roman armies were losing ground against the barbarian hordes.  Over 100 of Maximus' homilies survive.  The mostly short, moving sermons of this Early Church Father were so moving that they were copied and passed down through the Middle Ages as models for medieval homilists to follow.   Mystery of the Lord's Baptism | Saint Maximus of Turin | Epiphany ... www.crossroadsinitiative.com344 × 480Search by image This excerpt from a sermon by St. Maximus of Turin for the Feast of the Epiphany (Sermo 100, de sancta Epiphania 1, 3: CCL 23, 398-400) is used in the Roman ...

Sts Basil and Gregory 1-2 | Daily Mass

Example and teaching of your saints Basil and Gregory

Saints Basil and Gregory

SECOND READING

From a sermon by Saint Gregory Nazianzen
(Oratio 43, in laudem Basilii Magni, 15, 16-17, 19-21; PG 36, 514-423)

Two bodies, but a single spirit

Basil and I were both in Athens. We had come, like streams of a river, from the same source in our native land, had separated from each other in pursuit of learning, and were now united again as if by plan, for God so arranged it.

I was not alone at that time in my regard for my friend, the great Basil. I knew his irreproachable conduct, and the maturity and wisdom of his conversation. I sought to persuade others, to whom he was less well known, to have the same regard for him. Many fell immediately under his spell, for they had already heard of him by reputation and hearsay.

What was the outcome? Almost alone of those who had come to Athens to study he was exempted from the customary ceremonies of initiation for he was held in higher honor than his status as a first-year student seemed to warrant.

Such was the prelude to our friendship, the kindling of that flame that was to bind us together. In this way we began to feel affection for each other. When, in the course of time, we acknowledged our friendship and recognized that our ambition was a life of true wisdom, we became everything to each other: we shared the same lodging, the same table, the same desires the same goal. Our love for each other grew daily warmer and deeper.

The same hope inspired us: the pursuit of learning. This is an ambition especially subject to envy. Yet between us there was no envy. On the contrary, we made capital out of our rivalry. Our rivalry consisted, not in seeking the first place for oneself but in yielding it to the other, for we each looked on the other’s success as his own.

We seemed to be two bodies with a single spirit. Though we cannot believe those who claim that everything is contained in everything, yet you must believe that in our case each of us was in the other and with the other.

Our single object and ambition was virtue, and a life of hope in the blessings that are to come; we wanted to withdraw from this world before we departed from it. With this end in view we ordered our lives and all our actions. We followed the guidance of God’s law and spurred each other on to virtue. If it is not too boastful to say, we found in each other a standard and rule for discerning right from wrong. Different men have different names, which they owe to their parents or to themselves, that is, to their own pursuits and achievements. But our great pursuit, the great name we wanted, was to be Christians, to be called Christians.

RESPONSORY
Daniel 2:21-22; 1 Corinthians 12:11

The Lord gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding.
– He reveals what is deep and hidden;
all light has its source in him.

One and the same Spirit is at work in all,
and he gives to each as he wills.
– He reveals what is deep and hidden;
all light has its source in him.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

God our Father,
you inspired the Church
with the example and teaching of your saints Basil and Gregory.
In humility may we come to know your truth
and put it into action with faith and love.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen. 

 + + + 

Published on 2 Jan 2014

Father Gerard Souza celebrates Catholic Mass on the feast of Saints Basil and Gregory Nazienzen.

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