Prayer in Letter of St James. Fr. Raymond

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Fr. Raymond. Wall hanging of
Madonna image
from family 1950, Rome.

On Monday, 30 June 2014,  Raymond ...wrote:

PRAYER IN THE LETTER OF JAMES

“If any of you lacks wisdom let him ask God who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him ask in Faith, without doubting,  for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, that is driven and tossed  by the wind.  For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord.”

The key to the understanding of these verses lies perhaps in the object proposed for our prayer.  It is: “The Wisdom that that is asked for in Faith”:  the wisdom that knows to call God Father and knows how to live by his life.  It is, in other words, the living grasp of Revelation; the ultimate object of all deprecatory prayer:  Holiness, Union with God.

But first we read in the Latin text: “si quis indiget sapientia” and surely “indigent” expresses more than a mere lack of something.  It means rather the lack of, or want of, something which is vital to us.  And so this phrase sets the perfect atmosphere of prayer.  It not only draws from us the humble  ac-knowledgement of our complete indigence in the supernatural life, but also it shows us the most fitting manner in which to gain the necessities and, even the riches, of this life.  No man is indigent if he can earn his living.  Only a  beggar is indigent!  “Come and buy bread”, Isaiah cries, but “without any money!”.  “Ask, only ask!” says St James.  We all stand before God poor and naked, having nothing we can offer for that for which we ask.  Even the coin of our merit is a token which has its value only from the decree of Him who accepts it.  The saints insist that they do not reach God by their merits.  Merit is a merciful path opened by God to the mediocre; a pious stratagem by which God finds a way to give himself to those who have not learned the nature of love; who have not learned of their own helplessness before the unattainable heights to which they are called.  Love gives itself because it wants to, not because it has been paid for.

Therefore the perfect approach to love is simply to ask for it.  The theology of merit only enhances the gratuity of Grace, and when we learn the secret of our own impotence we will with unspeakable joy learn to fly with Divine swiftness along this truest way to God; the way of the Saints; the way of Asking; the way of Desire.  Not that the saints don’t outshine us all in merits, but the understanding of what merit is only increases in them the confidence that they have found the true way to God.  “Ask, only ask!” says St James.  The Divine Life is so inaccessible that the only approach is humbly to knock and ask.

But when we realise just what it is that we are asking for we do indeed need the assurance James gives us that God “will not upbraid us” for our temerity and presumption, “it will be given us” he says.  So too says Our Lord Himself: “How ready is the Father to give the Good Spirit to those who ask” and St Paul says: “Let us go with confidence to the Throne of grace” and “This is the will of God: your sanctification.”

So, St  James has wonderfully expressed the nature of prayer and indeed of all the life of grace in one short phrase – “to ask and to ask in a Faith that does not waver”.  Herein he holds up to mankind its two greatest crimes – not murder and adultery or war and oppression, but that we do not believe enough in the gift of God and we do not desire enough its consummation in us.  After all what is to ask, but to express desire and what is that but charity, the great fundamental of the spiritual life. The nature of Love is that it is mutual and is not perfected in the self giving of the one till it is fulfilled in the reaching out of the other to embrace that gift.  Love that offers itself and finds no desire to meet it is a tragedy, a deformity of truth that entered creation only with sin.  To ask, to desire is essential to love.  This explains how prayer is not, to persuade God to  give us what we want, but rather, to dispose us to receive what He so wants to give us.  
Here too is explained St James’ insistence on the unwavering nature of faith in the reality of God’s love.  Love that cannot convince its object of its sincerity is likewise a terrible tragedy; a deformity of truth.  It is like a man dying of thirst in the desert and reaching out to the oasis that is only a mirage.  It is frustrated  and unfulfilled.  It can only fall limp and helpless .  Those who respond like that mirage to the thirst of God’s love will not receive anything of Him says St James, and not because God wills it so, but because their lack of faith in his love is the very thing that frustrates it.

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    http://www.tldm.org/bible/new%20testament/james.htm  

THE CATHOLIC EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES THE APOSTLE

This Epistle is called Catholic or Universal, as formerly were also the two Epistles of St. Peter, the first of St. John and that of St. Jude, because they were not written to any peculiar people or particular person, but to the faithful in general. It was written by the apostle St. James, called the Less, who was also called the brother of our Lord, being his kinsman (for cousins german with the Hebrews were called brothers). 

• 

  right of Mary
  James of Jerusalem

  He was the first Bishop of Jerusalem. In this Epistle are set forth many precepts appertaining to faith and morals; particularly, that faith without good works will not save a man and that true wisdom is given only from above. In the fifth chapter he publishes the sacrament of anointing the sick. It was written a short time before his martyrdom, about twenty-eight years after our Lord’s Ascension.

 NOTE:

The African Bible, Biblical 

Text of the New American Bible. 

Paulines Publications Africa 1999

The Catholic Letters James (p.2051)

James, Faith as Active Love.

The Letter of James.

Author: ... “It was written in his name and with his authority by a well educated Hellenistic disciple who may have made use of genuine traditions that originated with James."

See previous details of the Apostles below.

Dom Donald's Blog: Pentecost illumination

29 Jun 2014

This miniature from a book of hours illustrates the conclusion of the Hours of the Holy Spirit. Painted on velum in Paris around the year 1500, the manuscript begins with the prologue: "In these present Hours is briefly ...

http://nunraw.blogspot.com/

Advent, Fourth Sunday. St. Paul, 'one of his masterpieces. Paul is writing to the Christians' Rom.1: 1-7

Sunday, 22 December 2013

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Christmas Crib - welcome, Guest House entry

Fr. Aelred's Homily

Today's second reading is taken from the beginning of St Paul's letter to the Romans - one of his masterpieces. Paul is writing to the Christians living in very small communities in the great city of Rome, a world where paganism reigns supreme in its institutions, its cultural heritage, and its morality. Against the grandeur of Rome the small Christian community appears insignificant, even contemptible. But even if a community is reduced to a handful of faithful to celebrate the holy mysteries, it has a timeless message to proclaim.

Today's passage from Romans is most appropriate as we approach Christmas, because it provides us with a profession of faith of the early church in the form of a hymn to Christ: in his double sonship it reads: "The Gospel of God that he promised long ago through the prophets, as scripture record....about his son. A descendant of David according to the flesh, but son of god in power according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord". In a few verses the genius of Paul brings out the Trinitarian character of the confession of faith that names the Father (God), the son and the Spirit, and links them to mystery of the Incarnation.

On the 17^th December, when we are within a week of Christmas, the opening prayer for Mass reads: Father, you decreed, and your Word became man, born of the Virgin Mary. May we come to share the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share our human nature’. This prayer tells us that the Word becomes human so that humans might become divine. By grace even in this life, we become sharers in the divine nature. We don’t have to have to wait until after death before this can take place. An early saint put it like this: ‘The divine word, who once for all was born in the flesh, always in his compassion desires to be born in the spirit in those who desire him. He became an infant and molds himself in them through their practise of the virtues.

St Paul tells us in one of his letters that the mysteries of our faith are very deep. But we don’t have to be very clever in order to be good disciples and friend of Jesus. We can join with Mary and Joseph and the Shepherds in contemplating the infant in the crib. And if we are sincere in offering him our human love and service we will receive in return something far more precious: The beginning of a share in his divine nature.

ST DOMINIC Priest (1170-1221)

ST DOMINIC
Priest
(1170-1221)

        St. Dominic was born in Spain, in 1170. As a student, he sold his books to feed the poor in a famine, and offered himself in ransom for a slave.

        At the age of twenty-five he became superior of the Canons Regular of Osma, and accompanied his Bishop to France. There his heart was well-nigh broken by the ravages of the Albigenian heresy, and his life was henceforth devoted to the conversion of heretics and the defence of the Faith. For this end he established his threefold religious Order.  http://dailygospel.org

St. Dominic Feast.   http://goodnews.ie/news.php?dt=2013-08-08
Today the Dominican Gospel.

8 August Mt 16:13-23

When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." “The Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages.  God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father….”  This is the from the 4th-century Nicene Creed.  By that time there had been many controversies about the identity of Jesus, and there had been time for the Christian mind to mature.  Peter and the other disciples knew Jesus intimately, yet they could not have elaborated the Nicene Creed, or the Athanasian Creed, or any developed theology about him.  There are different kinds of knowing.  They contrast with one another and yet do not exclude one another.  There is factual knowledge; there ticalis intimate knowledge; and the saints speak of a mysterious or mystical knowledge.  Unless you had some training as an archivist or historian you could not write a biography of your mother, yet in another way you know her more intimately than any historian or archivist ever could, whose knowledge was just factual.  This intimate knowledge that you have is not able to give a fluent account of itself, and so to the other kind of knowledge it appears very simple and poor.  No footnotes, no bibliography, no historical background, little or no relationship to contemporary events.  A historian would dismiss it.  But to intimate knowledge, the historian’s knowledge looks cold and impersonal, too general.  Eckhart spoke continually about another still ‘poorer’ kind of knowledge – poorer and yet richer than the others.  “Anyone who would see God must be blind,” he said.  “‘God is a light that shines in the darkness’.  He is a light that blinds us. That means a light of such nature that it is uncomprehended: it is unending; in other words it has no end and knows no end. The blinding of the soul means that she knows nothing and is aware of nothing. The 'darkness' is best of all.” “Some say you are John the Baptist, others Elijah or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”  That was factualknowledge, despite the strangeness of the claims (it was a fact that some people thought this and that).  Deeper than this, Peter knew Jesus as a friend; he had intimate or personal knowledge of him.  But deeper than this again, he had some mysterious inkling of the ultimate identity of Jesus.  Every Christian has this kind of knowledge of Jesus, buried somewhere in them.

Beatitudes Mt. 5:1-12

Blest are you! - Jesus Sermon Mount

Mass Intro: Fr. Raymond

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Raymond - - -
 Sent: Mon, 31 January, 2011 5:58:30
Subject: Beatitudes

BEATITUDES

The Beatitudes cut right across all the values of our modern society.
If we consider just one of them alone: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” for example, there is a whole multitude of advertising forces that shouts at us from morning to night the exact opposite.
“You can’t do without this, you can’t do without that.
You must have this, you must have that, or life isn’t worth living.” Whether it is the latest kitchen gadget or some new electronic device, or a bigger and better car or a holiday in some exotic location, or a new house or better furniture etc. etc. that is being forced upon us.
The list goes on interminably, blared at us by all the means of the media day and night.

But experience teaches us that, in fact, the more we have, the more we need. Riches and possessions beget their own kind, as it were.  We are drawn by them into a kind of vicious whirlpool of desires and needs that never stops its mad whirling.
Certainly, especially for the young setting out on life, there can be a legitimate amount of ambition to better oneself and make one’s way in life.
But there must come a time when we become basically satisfied with what we have and what we are, otherwise life becomes one long process of frustrations.
 

Especially must we always remember that the best things in life are free:  Love, friendship, family, peace of mind, and of course the wonderful sights and sounds of this so beautiful world we live in.
Above all this too is Jesus promise that the following of his commandments is the way to “ Life, pressed down, shaken together and running over.”
He is our creator, he knows our being and its needs and he it is who has drawn up for us this program of life and given us his promise that it works.

Papal Visit London

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO THE UNITED KINGDOM (SEPTEMBER 16-19, 2010) EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ City of Westminster Saturday, 18 September 2010 HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI Dear Friends in Christ, I greet all of you with joy in the Lord and I thank you for your warm reception. I am grateful to Archbishop Nichols for his words of welcome on your behalf. Truly, in this meeting of the Successor of Peter and the faithful of Britain, “heart speaks unto heart” as we rejoice in the love of Christ and in our common profession of the Catholic faith which comes to us from the Apostles. I am especially happy that our meeting takes place in this Cathedral dedicated to the Most Precious Blood, which is the sign of God’s redemptive mercy poured out upon the world through the passion, death and resurrection of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In a particular way I greet the Archbishop of Canterbury, who honours us by his presence. The visitor to this Cathedral cannot fail to be struck by the great crucifix dominating the nave, which portrays Christ’s body, crushed by suffering, overwhelmed by sorrow, the innocent victim whose death has reconciled us with the Father and given us a share in the very life of God. The Lord’s outstretched arms seem to embrace this entire church, lifting up to the Father all the ranks of the faithful who gather around the altar of the Eucharistic sacrifice and share in its fruits. The crucified Lord stands above and before us as the source of our life and salvation, “the high priest of the good things to come”, as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews calls him in today’s first reading (Heb9:11). It is in the shadow, so to speak, of this striking image, that I would like to consider the word of God which has been proclaimed in our midst and reflect on the mystery of the Precious Blood. For that mystery leads us to see the unity between Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, the Eucharistic sacrifice which he has given to his Church, and his eternal priesthood, whereby, seated at the right hand of the Father, he makes unceasing intercession for us, the members of his mystical body. Let us begin with the sacrifice of the Cross. The outpouring of Christ’s blood is the source of the Church’s life. Saint John, as we know, sees in the water and blood which flowed from our Lord’s body the wellspring of that divine life which is bestowed by the Holy Spirit and communicated to us in the sacraments (Jn 19:34; cf. 1 Jn 1:7; 5:6-7). The Letter to the Hebrews draws out, we might say, the liturgical implications of this mystery. Jesus, by his suffering and death, his self-oblation in the eternal Spirit, has become our high priest and “the mediator of a new covenant” (Heb 9:15). These words echo our Lord’s own words at the Last Supper, when he instituted the Eucharist as the sacrament of his body, given up for us, and his blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant shed for the forgiveness of sins (cf. Mk 14:24; Mt 26:28; Lk 22:20). Faithful to Christ’s command to “do this in memory of me” (Lk 22:19), the Church in every time and place celebrates the Eucharist until the Lord returns in glory, rejoicing in his sacramental presence and drawing upon the power of his saving sacrifice for the redemption of the world. The reality of the Eucharistic sacrifice has always been at the heart of Catholic faith; called into question in the sixteenth century, it was solemnly reaffirmed at the Council of Trent against the backdrop of our justification in Christ. Here in England, as we know, there were many who staunchly defended the Mass, often at great cost, giving rise to that devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist which has been a hallmark of Catholicism in these lands. The Eucharistic sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ embraces in turn the mystery of our Lord’s continuing passion in the members of his Mystical Body, the Church in every age. Here the great crucifix which towers above us serves as a reminder that Christ, our eternal high priest, daily unites our own sacrifices, our own sufferings, our own needs, hopes and aspirations, to the infinite merits of his sacrifice. Through him, with him, and in him, we lift up our own bodies as a sacrifice holy and acceptable to God (cf. Rom 12:1). In this sense we are caught up in his eternal oblation, completing, as Saint Paul says, in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, the Church (cf. Col 1:24). In the life of the Church, in her trials and tribulations, Christ continues, in the stark phrase of Pascal, to be in agony until the end of the world (Pensées, 553, éd. Brunschvicg). We see this aspect of the mystery of Christ’s precious blood represented, most eloquently, by the martyrs of every age, who drank from the cup which Christ himself drank, and whose own blood, shed in union with his sacrifice, gives new life to the Church. It is also reflected in our brothers and sisters throughout the world who even now are suffering discrimination and persecution for their Christian faith. Yet it is also present, often hidden in the suffering of all those individual Christians who daily unite their sacrifices to those of the Lord for the sanctification of the Church and the redemption of the world. My thoughts go in a special way to all those who are spiritually united with this Eucharistic celebration, and in particular the sick, the elderly, the handicapped and those who suffer mentally and spiritually. Here too I think of the immense suffering caused by the abuse of children, especially within the Church and by her ministers. Above all, I express my deep sorrow to the innocent victims of these unspeakable crimes, along with my hope that the power of Christ’s grace, his sacrifice of reconciliation, will bring deep healing and peace to their lives. I also acknowledge, with you, the shame and humiliation which all of us have suffered because of these sins; and I invite you to offer it to the Lord with trust that this chastisement will contribute to the healing of the victims, the purification of the Church and the renewal of her age-old commitment to the education and care of young people. I express my gratitude for the efforts being made to address this problem responsibly, and I ask all of you to show your concern for the victims and solidarity with your priests. Dear friends, let us return to the contemplation of the great crucifix which rises above us. Our Lord’s hands, extended on the Cross, also invite us to contemplate our participation in his eternal priesthood and thus our responsibility, as members of his body, to bring the reconciling power of his sacrifice to the world in which we live. The Second Vatican Council spoke eloquently of the indispensable role of the laity in carrying forward the Church’s mission through their efforts to serve as a leaven of the Gospel in society and to work for the advancement of God’s Kingdom in the world (cf. Lumen Gentium, 31; Apostolicam Actuositatem, 7). The Council’s appeal to the lay faithful to take up their baptismal sharing in Christ’s mission echoed the insights and teachings of John Henry Newman. May the profound ideas of this great Englishman continue to inspire all Christ’s followers in this land to conform their every thought, word and action to Christ, and to work strenuously to defend those unchanging moral truths which, taken up, illuminated and confirmed by the Gospel, stand at the foundation of a truly humane, just and free society. How much contemporary society needs this witness! How much we need, in the Church and in society, witnesses of the beauty of holiness, witnesses of the splendour of truth, witnesses of the joy and freedom born of a living relationship with Christ! One of the greatest challenges facing us today is how to speak convincingly of the wisdom and liberating power of God’s word to a world which all too often sees the Gospel as a constriction of human freedom, instead of the truth which liberates our minds and enlightens our efforts to live wisely and well, both as individuals and as members of society.  Let us pray, then, that the Catholics of this land will become ever more conscious of their dignity as a priestly people, called to consecrate the world to God through lives of faith and holiness. And may this increase of apostolic zeal be accompanied by an outpouring of prayer for vocations to the ordained priesthood. For the more the lay apostolate grows, the more urgently the need for priests is felt; and the more the laity’s own sense of vocation is deepened, the more what is proper to the priest stands out. May many young men in this land find the strength to answer the Master’s call to the ministerial priesthood, devoting their lives, their energy and their talents to God, thus building up his people in unity and fidelity to the Gospel, especially through the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice.    Dear friends, in this Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood, I invite you once more to look to Christ, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection (cf. Heb 12:2). I ask you to unite yourselves ever more fully to the Lord, sharing in his sacrifice on the Cross and offering him that “spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1) which embraces every aspect of our lives and finds expression in our efforts to contribute to the coming of his Kingdom. I pray that, in doing so, you may join the ranks of faithful believers throughout the long Christian history of this land in building a society truly worthy of man, worthy of your nation’s highest traditions.

Homily Raymond

----- Forwarded Message ----- - -

From: Raymond . .
To: - - -
Sent: Tue, 22 June, 2010 18:43:13
Subject: WHO DO MEN SAY I AM?

WHO DO MEN SAY I AM?

Jesus could not, of course, just have blurted out from the start that he was Almighty God, come down in the flesh into this world. He had to take time to prepare the minds and hearts of his hearers for such an awesome message. He did so in many different occasions, gradually building up a picture of himself in the minds of his disciples. One of these occasions was when his disciples had been contemplating him praying alone in their presence.

St Luke tells us that on that occasion Jesus asked this question of them: “Who do men say I am?” In order to understand the connection between the disciples observing Jesus at prayer and his asking them: “Who do men say I am?” I think we must compare this scene to the scene where the sick woman touched the hem of Jesus garment and was instantly cured. Jesus, on that occasion, immediately turned round and asked the question “Who touched me?” The disciples were astonished that he should ask “Who touched me?” because the crowd was pressing so close around them that they could hardly move. But Jesus insisted: “I felt power go out of me”, he said. Then the poor woman came forward trembling and confessed that it was she who had touched him. St Luke tells us that not only did Jesus feel the power go forth from himself but also the woman felt the power come into her own body and heal her instantly. So there was a two way traffic, as it were: Jesus felt the power go out of him and the woman felt the power come into her.

Now to get back the scene where Jesus asks his disciples “Who do men say I am?” Let us remember that they have just been watching him communing privately with his heavenly Father and the occasion must have made a very deep impression on them. The scene has echoes of the ‘Transfiguration’ when Peter was so moved that he blurted out “Lord it is good for us to be here”. Perhaps Jesus felt that the tremendous communion between him and his heavenly Father was such that, in some way, it came across to the disciples and they were being given a glimpse of the wonder of his identity. Perhaps they could not spell it out precisely but they knew they had witnessed something altogether otherworldly about him and so Peter could only blurt out the words without fully understanding their meaning. But that was enough for Jesus. He knew that this was another step towards the fullness of the truth about himself.