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Tuesday 17 February 2015
Lenten Message from Father Dan. - Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM talks about the "Cosmic" Christ
Saturday 14 February 2015
San Damiano cross beside Blessed Scrament
COMMENT Art Essay:
In the rear chapel of our church, on one side of the tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament, is restored the San Damiano cross.
From our camera, the pictures illustrate the details from the helpful Wikepedia. The painting was hand made in Assisi.
San Damiano cross
The next largest figures are five witnesses of the crucifixion.[3] On
the left side are the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist. On the right side are Mary Magdalene,
Mary, Mother of James, and the centurion who in Matthew's Gospel
account asks Christ to heal his servant, who is also depicted on the cross on
the shoulder of the centurion (Matthew 8:5-13). Both Mary and Mary Magdalene
have their hands placed on their cheeks to reflect extreme grief and anguish.
The first four witnesses are saints and are therefore represented with halos.
Their
names are written beneath their pictures.
In the rear chapel of our church, on one side of the tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament, is restored the San Damiano cross.
From our camera, the pictures illustrate the details from the helpful Wikepedia. The painting was hand made in Assisi.
San Damiano cross
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The San Damiano
Cross
Copy now in the
original position inside the Church of San Damiano
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The San Damiano Cross is the large Romanesque rood cross that St. Francis of Assisi was praying before when he is said to
have received the commission from the Lord to rebuild the Church.
The original cross hangs in the Basilica of Saint Clare (Basilica di Santa Chiara) in Assisi,Italy. Franciscans cherish this cross as the symbol of
their mission fromGod. The cross is of a type sometimes called an icon cross because besides the main figure
it contains images of other saints and people related to the incident of
Christ's crucifixion. The tradition of such crosses
began in the Eastern Church and probably reached Italy viaMontenegro and Croatia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Damiano_cross#Description
Description[edit]
Jesus Christ is
represented upright in full stature while the surrounding figures are smaller.
The bright white of his body contrasts with the dark red and black around it
and accentuates the prominence of Jesus. This representation contrasts with the
regal Christ portrayed on the cross in earlier centuries and the suffering,
dying, crucified Christ depicted generally throughout the Churchsince
the beginning of the 14th century. Above the head of Christ is the inscription
in Latin: Jesus of Nazareth,
King of the Jews.[3]
Two smaller figures are located in the corners with the witnesses. On
the lower left is Longinus the traditional name of the Roman
soldier who pierced the side of Jesus with a lance. He is represented here as
holding the lance and looking up at Jesus. The blood running down the right arm
of Jesus begins at the elbow and drips straight down and will land on the
upturned face of Longinus. In the lower right is Stephaton,
the traditional name for the soldier who offered Jesus the sponge soaked in
vinegar wine.[3]
Peering over the left shoulder of the centurion is a small face. A close
look reveals the tops of the heads of three others beside him. This represents
the centurion's son who was healed by Jesus and the rest of his family to show
that "he and his whole household believed" (John 4:45-54).
Six angels are
represented as marvelling over the event of the crucifixion. They are
positioned at both ends of the crossbar. Their hand gestures indicate they are
discussing this wondrous event of the death and calling us to marvel with them.
At the foot of the cross there is a damaged picture of six figures, two
of whom are represented with halos. In accordance with the traditions of the
day, these six are the patrons of Umbria: St. Damian, St. Michael, St. Rufino, St. John the Baptist, St. Peter andSt. Paul.
On the top of the cross, one sees Jesus now fully clothed in his regal
garments and carrying the cross as a triumphant sceptre.
He is climbing out of the tomb and into the heavenly courts. Ten angels are
crowded around, five of whom have their hands extended in a welcoming gesture
to Jesus, who himself has his hand raised in the form of a greeting.
At the very top of the cross is the Hand of God with
two fingers extended. This is to be understood as the blessing of God the Father on
the sacrifice of his Son.
On the right side of the picture next to the left calf of Jesus, there
is a small figure of a fowl. Some art historians have interpreted it to be a rooster,
representing the sign of Jesus' denial by Peter, mentioned in all four Gospel
accounts. Other commentators see it as a peacock,
a frequent symbol of immortality in Early Christian art. Along the lower right side
of the shaft, there is a small animal, possibly a cat.
Monday 9 February 2015
Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Monday Paul Newman Thomas Merton
Night Office and Mass.
Fr. Raymond commented at the Introduction to the community Mass this
morning, Monday 5th Week.
He said;
“In the Reading at Vigils from Bl. John H. Newman we heard that all the
gifts and graces we have are gifts from God, on the other hand we must realize
that all the fault and failings we have
are from ourselves.”
After thought, another alternative Reading is from Thomas Merton. It is quite illuminating, measuring up to Newman on the commentary on 1 Corinthians.
Night Office
First Readng 1 Corinthians 1 1:18-1
Second Reading:
Eusbius of Emesa.
Alternative
Newman: Sermon 10. Righteousness not of us, but in us 
"Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and
redemption; that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord." 1 Cor. i. 30, 31.
[Our bodily powers and limbs also come
from God, but they are in such sense part of our original formation, or (if I
may say so) of our essence, that though we ought ever to lift up our hearts in
gratitude to God while we use them, yet we use them as our instruments, organs and ministers.
They spring from us, and (as I may say) hold of us, and we use them for our own
purposes. Well, this seems to have been the way in which the Corinthians used
their supernatural gifts, viz. as if they {130} were parts of themselves,—as
natural faculties, instead of influences in them, but not of them, from the Giver of all good,—not with awe,
not with reverence, not with worship. They considered themselves, not members
of the Kingdom of saints, and dependent on an unseen Lord, but mere members of
an earthly community, still rich men, still scribes, still philosophers, still
disputants, who had the addition of certain gifts, who had aggrandized
their existing position by the reception of Christianity. They became proud,
when they should have been thankful. They had forgotten that to be members of
the Church they must become as little children; that they must give up all,
that they might win Christ; that they must become poor in spirit to gain the
true riches; that they must put off philosophy, if they would speak wisdom
among the perfect.] Edit – missing.
And, therefore, St. Paul reminds them that "not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble arc called;" and that all true
power, all true wisdom flows from Christ, who is "the power of God, and
the wisdom of God;" and that all who are Christians indeed, renounce their
own power and their own wisdom, and come to Him that He may be the Source and
Principle of their power, and of their wisdom; that they may depend on Him, and
hold of Him, not of themselves; that they may exist in Him, or have Him in
them; that they may be (as it were) His members; that they may glory simply in
Him, not in themselves. For, whereas the wisdom of the world is but
foolishness in God's sight, and the power of the world but weakness, God had
set forth His Only-begotten Son to be the First-born of creation, and the
standard and {131} original of true life; to be a wisdom of God and a power of
God, and a "righteousness, sanctification, and redemption" of God, to
all those who are found in Him. "Of
Him," says he, "are ye in Christ Jesus, who is made unto us a wisdom
from God, namely, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that
according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."
In every age of the Church, not in the
primitive age only, Christians have been tempted to pride themselves on their
gifts, or at least to forget that they were gifts, and to take them for
granted. Ever have they been tempted to forget their own responsibilities,
their having received what they are bound to improve, and the duty of fear and
trembling, while improving it. On the other hand, how they ought to behave
under a sense of their own privileges, St. Paul points out when he says to the
Philippians, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to
will and to do of His good pleasure." [Phil. ii. 13.] God is in you for
righteousness, for sanctification, for redemption, through the Spirit of His
Son, and you must use His influences, His operations, not as your own (God
forbid!), not as you would use your own mind or your own limbs, irreverently,
but as His presence in you. All your knowledge is from Him; all good thoughts
are from Him; all power to pray is from Him; your Baptism is from Him; the
consecrated elements are from Him; your growth in holiness is from Him. You are
not your own, you have been bought with a price, and a mysterious power is
working {132} in you. Oh that we felt all this as well as were convinced of it!
This then is one of the first elements of
Christian knowledge and a Christian spirit, to refer all that is good in us,
all that we have of spiritual life and righteousness, to Christ our Saviour;
[to believe that He works in us, or, to put the same thing more
pointedly, to believe that saving truth, life, light, and holiness are not of us, though they must be in us. I shall now enlarge on each of
these two points.
1. Whatever we have, is not of us, but of
God. This surely it will not take many words to prove. Our unassisted nature is
represented in Scripture as the source of ]
Alternative Reading
From A Christian
Looks at Zen by Thomas Merton. pp. 112-114.
In the first two chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians Saint Paul distinguishes between two kinds of wisdom: one which
consists in the knowledge of words and statements, a rational, dialectical wisdom, and another which is at once a matter of paradox and of experience, and goes beyond the reach of reason. To attain to this spiritual wisdom, one must first be liberated from servile dependence on the wisdom of speech. This liberation is effected by the word of the cross which
makes no sense to those who cling to their own familiar views and habits of thought and is a means by which God destroys the
wisdom of the
wise. The word of the cross
is in fact completely baffling and disconcerting both to the Greeks with their philosophy and to the Jews with their well interpreted
law. But when one has
been freed from dependence on verbal formulas and conceptual
structures, the cross becomes a source of power. This
power emanates from the foolishness of God and
it also makes use of foolish instruments (the apostles).
On the other hand, he who can accept this paradoxical "foolishness" experiences
in himself a secret and mysterious power, which is the power of Christ living in him as the ground of a totally new life and a new being.
Here it is essential to remember that for a Christian the word of the cross is nothing theoretical, but
a stark and existential experience of union with Christ in
his death in order to share in his resurrection. To fully "hear" and "receive"
the word of the cross means much more than simple assent to the dogmatic proposition that Christ died for our sins. It means to be nailed to the cross with Christ, so that
the ego-self is no longer the principle of our deepest actions, which now proceed from Christ living in us. I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me. To
receive the word of the cross means the acceptance of a complete self-emptying, a "kenosis,"
in union with the self-emptying of Christ obedient unto death. It
is essential to true Christianity that this experience of the cross and of self-emptying should be central in the life of the Christian so that he or she may fully receive the Holy Spirit and know (again by experience) all the riches of God in and through Christ.
Responsory 1 Cor 1:18; Gal 6:14
The message of the cross is folly to those on the way to ruin, but
+ to us
who are being saved it is the power of God.
V. Far be it from me to boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. + To us
who ...
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| Old Nunraw - refurbishing |
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