Baldwin of Ford (?-c.1190), Cistercian abbot The Sacrament of the altar

  Friday 13 Oct 2014 of the Thirtieth week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day  

Baldwin of Ford (?-c.1190), Cistercian abbot   

The Sacrament of the altar, 3, 2 ; SC 94

Towards the fulfilment of the sabbath

Moses said : « The rest of the sabbath day shall be sacred to the Lord. » The Lord loves rest; he loves to rest in us that thus we may rest in him. But there is, too, a rest of the times to come, of which it is written: “From now on, says the Spirit, let them find rest from all their labors.” And there is a rest of the present time of which the prophet says: “Cease to do evil.”

We come to the future rest by means of the six works of mercy enumerated in the Gospel in the place where it is said : « I was hungry and you gave me food », etc…. For “there are six days when work should be done”; then comes the night, that is death, “when no one can work”. After those six days comes the Sabbath day when every good work is completed. This is the rest of the soul.

(Biblical references: Ex 31,15; Rv 14,13; Is 1,16; Mt 25,35f; Lk 13,14; Jn 9,4)  

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 14:1-6.

On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully.
In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy.
Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking, "Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?"
But they kept silent; so he took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him.
Then he said to them, "Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?"
But they were unable to answer his question. 

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:30-35.

Posted on May 6, 2014by diizebuno

The crowd said to Jesus: «What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”
So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB

Commentary of the day :

Baldwin of Ford (?-c.1190), Cistercian abbot
The Sacrament of the altar II, 3 ; SC 93

“The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”

Christ is “the bread of life” for those who believe in him: to believe in Christ is to eat the bread of life, to possess Christ within one, to possess eternal life…

“I am the bread of life,” he says; “your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and they are dead” (Jn 6,48f). By this is to be understood spiritual death. Why are they dead? Because they believed in what they saw and did not understand what they could not see… Moses ate manna, Aaron ate it and many others, too, who pleased God and are not dead. Why are they not dead? Because they understood in a spiritual fashion, they were spiritually hungry, they tasted the manna spiritually so that they might be spiritually satisfied. “This is the bread that came down from heaven: whoever eats it will never die” (v.50).

This manna – that is to say, Christ, who himself spoke like this…, was prefigured by the manna but was able to do more than manna could. For manna could not of itself prevent dying spiritually… But the righteous saw Christ in the manna, they believed in his coming, and Christ, of whom manna was the symbol, grants to all who believe in him that they should not spiritually die. Hence he says: “This is the bread come down from heaven; whoever eats it will never see death.” Here on earth, here now, before your eyes, your eyes of flesh: here is to be found the “bread from heaven” (v.51). The “bread of life” we spoke of a moment ago is now called “living bread”. Living bread because it contains within itself the life that abides and can deliver from spiritual death and bestow life. First he said: “Whoever eats it will never die”; now he speaks clearly concerning the life he gives: “Whoever eats this bread will live for ever” (v.58).

@izebuno from WordPress for Android

COMMENT: Even God himself is forced, to yield to the prayers of two or three gathered together.

COMMENT:

After the Homily, the first comment to Fr. Raymond, “It was a riveting Homily”, I said, “Somehow, you were bi-doubling, bi-duplexing from, the manifold development from the words of, 

• “Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone”, to the conclusion. 
• “Even God himself is forced to yield to the prayers of two or three gathered together”.

It seems worth to have the layout of the paragraphs below.

Raymond Homily Sunday, 07 July 2013

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10:1-12.17-20.

At that time the Lord appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. 

"The Lord appointed seventy two others and sent them out ahead of him to all the places he himself was to visit". It's important for us to note that he sent them out ahead of him, not as individuals, but in pairs.

He sent them out two by two.

When the early Fathers of the Church tried to understand this, when they tried to understand why Jesus sent the seventy two out in pairs, they took it to mean that no one is authorised to preach the Gospel in his own name.

Whoever preaches as one among many; he preaches as one who is bound together in charity to the community of the faithful.

Whoever preaches, preaches in the name of and by the authority of the universal Church; it’s not just a private message of his own, a message preached on his own authority.

So the fact that Jesus sent out his disciples two by two is simply another expression of that great fundamental statement of the creation story viz: that it is not good for man to be alone.

As in Genesis, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (v.2:18).

The preaching mission of the Church is carried out in the spirit of the great theological reality of the Communion of Saints.

When one man speaks with utter sincerity and when he speaks enthusiastically from his heart, there is a very powerful witness given. Others will be moved by his sincerity and his enthusiasm.

But when he is joined by another who is equally sincere and equally enthusiastic then the power of their witness is more than just doubled.

Even God himself is forced, as it were, and as he himself confesses, to yield to the prayers of two or three gathered together.

So there is great significance in this fact that Jesus chooses to send his disciples out two by two.

We can also presume that the fact that they were to prepare the way for his own personal visit to each of these places after them means that the Gospel can't really be preached effectively by human preaching alone, Jesus himself must come into the picture' in some way. There has to be an inner encounter with Christ himself. The Gospel has to be heard with the heart as well as by the ear.

The initial human preaching to the ear has to be followed up by the inner voice of the Spirit speaking to the heart.

It is heart that speaks to the heart as Scripture says; The heart of Jesus speaks directly to each of us in the depths of our heart.

COMMENT: St. Joseph

Saint Joseph Day 2013 Pope Inauguration

   COMMENT:     

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: William ...
To: Dom Raymond. ...Sent: Tuesday, 19 March 2013, 19:44
Subject: [Blog] St Joseph

Dear Father Raymond,

 

Your insight into the wording surrounding the appearances of the angel are fascinating; Mary the channel of grace, 'visited' by the angel, a visible tangible form of presence leaving her to treasure all these things in her heart, followed by the 'appearances' to Joseph the father of the church, the whole family of God, whoever they are and wherever they are. All of a sudden the vastness of the enterprise opens to me! And how wonderfully appropriate are such thoughts at this time of the inauguration of Pope Francis! These thoughts will always come to my mind whenever I reflect on the Incarnation.

 

Remarkable insights that you share with us, thank you!

 

With my love in Our Lord,

William

Blosius, Ven. A book of spiritual instruction = Institutio spiritualis"

The horizon at six o'clock tonight.
Jupiter and full Moon
National Schools Observatory
http://www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk

COMMENT:   The Commentary, on the Gospel, by St. Augustine was most encouraging. 

The Commentary, Meditation of MAGNIFICAT, is very different. 'Redemption Near at Hand'
It is from Ludovic Blosius. 
The Text is from Archive.org.  http://www.archive.org/stream/bookofspirituali00bloi/bookofspirituali00bloi_djvu.txt
It makes an interesting study of the publishing dates.
The Apocalypse and the Gospel balance things, "No earth overwhelms that we are "invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb."

Thursday, 29 November 2012  

Thursday of the Thirty-fourth week in Ordinary Time   

Saint Luke 21:20-28V. 27-28. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand

Commentary of the day : 

Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church 

Discourses on the Psalms, Ps 95[96], §14  

 

"Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand"

“Then all the trees of the forest shall leap for joy before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to rule the earth” (Ps 96[95],12-13).    

of "A book of spiritual instruction = Institutio spiritualis"

DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

  http://www.archive.org/stream/bookofspirituali00bloi/bookofspirituali00bloi_djvu.txt  

A BOOK OF SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION 

(INSTITUTIO SPIRITUALIS

By

Ludovicus Blosius (1506-1565), Benedictine monk and writer
National Portrait Gallery www.npg.org.u

LUDOVICUS BLOSIUS    

Translated from the Latin 

by Bertrand A. Wilberforce

of tlie Order of Saint Dominic

Nihil Obstat

F. VINCENTIUS M. McNABB, O.P., S.T.L.

F. HUGO POPE, O.P., S.T.L.

Imprimatur

HERBERTUS CARDINALIS YAUGHAN,

Archiepiscopus Westmonast.

Die Junii 20, 1899

CHAPTER III

Preparation for a holy Death, to be followed by eternal

Happiness

1. Mortification of concupiscence and resignation of our  own will form the best preparation for death.

 . . .

3. A certain friend of God was once asked what he  would do if he had lived for a long time in grievous sins.  He replied : "If I had done all prescribed to me by  a prudent and wise confessor, and had given up my sins  as I ought, I should wish never again to think of them,  nor to stain my heart with the remembrance of them;  but I would strive from that time to live so piously that  God might forget all my sins. For when we neither  desire nor commit sin, but turn clean away from it, then  God also forgets it. *

[Instruction 137 ]

" Yea, even if I had lived for the space of forty years  in sins, and now the hour of my death had come, if I had  sincerely confessed my sins, if I could, with perfect love, from the depth of my heart, even for the space of  one 'Hail Mary,' turn myself to God and betake myself  to Him, in order that I might turn utterly away from sin  and entirely to God, then I might go from this world as  a pure and innocent man. But if, on the other hand,  I had committed only one sin, and I went hence in  sorrow, contrition and grief of heart, then, indeed, I  should die as a penitent sinner."

On the other hand, many people who have not the  true fear of God are miserably deceived by flattering  themselves with the idea of God's immense mercy, while  at the same time they do not correct their evil life. Such  men think little of daily venial offences; yea, even  grievous sins do not much trouble them. They say to  themselves : " Directly we have sighed a little and  groaned over our iniquities, the inexhaustible mercy of  God will forgive them all, and we shall go hence by  a happy death."

 * This advice is meant to guide the timid and scrupulous,  who after confession, ought to abstain from an anxious remembrance of particular sins, especially of blasphemy, impurity  and such like, which, once confessed, are far better forgotten,  on account of the danger of despair and of relapse, and also to  avoid trouble of mind and depression. But this does not  exclude the penitent disposition of mind and humility for past  sin in general. *' My sin is ever before me " (Ps. 1, 5).

Manna (Hebrew MANHU) Saint Theophylact (c.1050-1109) said: "Our Lord refers to himself as the true bread not because the manna...but

Atlas Martyrs Grove
Rock, from river bed gift.
View Traprain Law 'treasure',
Christian items included.

Sunday, 05 August 2012

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:24-35.

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

Night Office gave us the Reading from:
A Commentary on Saint John's gospel by Saint Theophylact (PG 123, 1297-1301)  

From a commentary on Saint John's gospel

by Saint Theophylact (PG 123, 1297-1301)

Bodily life is sustained by ordinary bread; spiritual life is sustained by Christ through the sacrament of his body and blood He gives believers immortality of both body and soul; and satisfies our hunger and thirst for ever.

Our ancestors ate manna in the desert; as it is written, "He gave them bread from heaven to eat." Wishing to persuade Christ to perform the kind of miracle that would provide them with bodily nourishment, the people in their insatiable greed called to mind the manna. What was the reply of our Lord Jesus, the infinite wisdom of God? It was not Moses who gave you bread. In other words, "Moses did not give you the true bread. On the contrary, everything that happened in his time was a prefiguration of what is happening now. Moses represented God, the real leader of the spiritual Israelites, while that bread typified myself, who have come down from heaven and who am the true bread which gives genuine nourishment."
Our Lord refers to himself as the true. bread not because the manna was something illusory, but because it was only a type and a shadow, and not the reality it signified.

This bread, being the Son of the living Father, is life by its very nature, and accordingly gives life to all Just as earthly bread sustains the fragile substance of the flesh and prevents it from falling into decay, so Christ quickens the soul through the power of the Spirit, and also preserves even the body for immortality. Through Christ resurrection from the dead and bodily immortality have been gratuitously bestowed upon the human race.

Jesus said to the people: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall never hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." He did not say "the bread of bodily nourishment," but "the bread of life." For when everything had been reduced to a condition of spiritual death, the Lord gave us life through himself, who is bread because, as we believe, the leaven in the dough of our humanity was baked through and through by the fire of his divinity. He is the bread not of this ordinary life, but of a very different kind of life which death will never cut short

Whoever believes in this bread will never hunger, will never be famished for want of hearing the word of God; nor will such a person be parched by spiritual thirst through lack of the waters of baptism and the consecration imparted by the Spirit The unbaptized, deprived of the refreshment afforded by the sacred water, suffer thirst and great aridity. The baptized, on the other hand, being possessed of the Spirit, enjoy its continual consolation

Memorial Grove - Names of Atlas Martyrs inscribed
on stone seat, rock and walk pavements,
Catmint flower border,
place of prayer.

Monsignor Labib Kobti commendatory by Saint Theophylact   

Al-Bushra walks the streets of the world seeking truth and justice for all. Since 1997 Al-Bushra has helped people explore the heritage, history, traditions, theology, and current events of the people in the Middle East. Al-Bushra continues to provide information about the stands take by the Vatican, heads of Christian communities, and leaders of religious and human rights movements regarding issues in the Holy Land.

Eighteen Sunday (B)
Manhu This title is not a Japanese of Chinese word. This is what the Israelites will say in today first reading when they will see "In the morning a dew lay all about the camp, and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground. On seeing it, the Israelites asked one another, "what is this" (in Hebrew manhu and from it came the word manna).
This "manhu" is also called "bread from heaven" "God rained manna upon them for food; bread from heaven he gave them". Psalm 77, 78:24
St. John 6: 30-59 will mention the manna when he will speak about the bread of life, which is the body of Christ. "What sing can you do, that we may see and believe in you? ... Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat." So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world...I am the bread of life ... because I came down from heaven ... The Jews murmured about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven," ...Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop murmuring among yourselves ...I am the living of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died ... I am bread that came down from heaven, whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world ..."
This "manhu" will be then the symbol of our communion of the body of Christ at mass. In fact Theophylact (c.1050-1109) a theologian and archbishop of Ochrida in Bulgaria and who was using the Slavonic language, said: "Our Lord refers to himself as the true bread not because the manna was something illusory, but because it was only a type and shadow, and not the reality it signified".

7 Trees in Memorial Grove
Holm Oaks in rear.
Roundels - field over village of Garvald

And he continues "Jesus said to the people: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall never hunger ... He did not say "the bread of bodily nourishement," but " the bread of life. "For when everything had been reduced to a condition of spiritual death, the Lord gave us life through himself, who is bread because, as we beleive, the leaven in the dough of our humanity was baked through and through by the fire of his divitiy. He is the bread not of this ordinary life, but of a very different kind of life which death will never cut short" (Theophylcat, Commentary on John's Gospel: PG 123, 1297-1301)
You will be tempted to see in the Holy Communion just a kind of practice. You come to mass, then you share with all people the body and blood of Christ, without just thinking of what this communion impact.
In the life of the Israelite this "manhu" was a sign that they are loved, cared and chosen by God. As long as they had this bread they will feel, despite some grumble from time to time, as the people of God. This same "manhu" made from them one body with the God of the Old Testament.
Does the communion make from you the same?
One body with the God of the New Testament, Jesus!
One body with the people that share the same bread of heaven!
One world, one community, one church, one family!
Remember these words of St. Paul: "A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying. If we discern ourselves, we would not be under judgment." 1cor. 11: 28-32
 

Hilton, Walter - Perfection and 'The Cenacle'

Homework, William,
Apparently, as Raymond homilized, the Disciples did not have their Knox Gospel Harmony."This would surely make a time scale of the apparitions impossible. Any attempt to set a chronological order to these events would be doomed to failure. It isn’t surprising then to read, in today’s Gospel, about the bewilderment of the Apostles."  
IT SEEMS that it was 'The Cenacle Sunday Evening 9 April'. Knox Gospel Story p.416.
At this point I have not yet checked the other exegeses.
Enuf for today - with draft.
Donald
PS.Blogger has memerized me into a BLOGGER-HAS A NEW LOOK

Sunday, 22 April 2012

Third Sunday of Easter - Year B

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 24:35-48. (Mk 16:14*, Jn:20:19-230.
Jesus comes to the Apostolic Cenacle.

The disciples of Jesus recounted what had taken place along the way, and how they had come to recognize him in the breaking of bread.
While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you."   
.... Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. 

. . .

Hilton, Walter - Perfection

Hilton, Walter (Father)  From The Scale of Perfection, Dom Gerard Sitwell, O.S.B . Tr. 1953, The Newman Press, 'Westminster, MD.

The Enlightenment of Emmaus

The soul of one who loves and desires God sees him in proportion to the degree in which it is made humble by the infusion of grace and the opening of the spiritual eyes, and insofar as it understands that it is nothing of itself but is entirely dependent on the mercy and goodness of God, and that it is upheld only by his favour. It sees the truth of the Scriptures wonderfully revealed to it in a way that it could not do by study and its own natural intelligence, and this is a kind of experience or perception of God, for God is the source of wisdom, and by imparting a little of his wisdom to a pure soul he can enable it to understand the whole of Scripture. He does not impart this knowledge all at once in a single act of enlightenment, but through his grace the soul receives a new habitual ability to understand the texts which come to its mind.

This light and clearness in the intelligence is produced by the presence of God. The Gospel tells us that as two of the disciples were going to Emmaus, speaking of Jesus and on fire with love, he appeared to them in the likeness of a pilgrim and instructed them in the prophecies concerning himself. He gave them intelli­gence to understand Holy Scripture. In the same way the indwelling of God illumines the intelligence of those who love and ardently desire him, and brings to their minds by the ministry of angels the words and the texts of Scripture without their searching for them or thinking about them, and it makes their meaning clear, however difficult or obscure they may be in themselves. The more difficult they are and the less able to be understood by the ordinary light of reason, the more delightful is their exposition when it comes from God ... The lover of God is his friend, not because he has deserved to be, but because God in his merciful goodness has made him so by a very real pact. And so it is that he shows him his secrets as to a true friend who serves him through love and not through fear.

FATHER WALTER HILTON
Father Hilton (+ 1396) was a Canon of the Augustinian Priory of Thurgarton, England

COMMENT Matthew 18:21-35 Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

COMMENT: Ronald Knox & Ronald Cox quotation

Memorial Grove, 7 Trees.
Seven Monks of Our Lady of Atlas
_______________________________________________________

Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (The Gospel Story, Knox-Cox p.185).

Our Lord's reply does away with all counting and book-keeping; if a man is sorry, always forgive him, no matter how many times he offends. ('Seventy times seven' is a scriptural expression for a great number, Genesis 4, 24.)

And the parable explains the reason why: we are all bankrupts, all beggars, all sinners; we have merited the torments of hell. Since God has remitted so much, the least we can do is to be easy creditors ourselves. Un-forgiveness is especially heinous in the forgiven.

The parable is based on oriental monarchies and their laws.

The punishment of wife and family was an accepted principle (Joshua 7, 24); torture was used often to force the prisoner to reveal hidden wealth. The contrast between the two debts is about a million to one; like a drop of water compared to the boundless ocean, says St. John Chrysostom. The first debtor must have been an official of the king, to have the use of so much money; an apt allusion to Peter, the vicar of Christ. Possibly 'ten thousand' is a reference to the ten commandments, which sinful man has broken; they represent the long list of debts in­curred with God. 

Fire on the Eart 2

P.S.

Saint Luke 12:49-53. 
Letter to the Ephesians 3:14-21.

Catechism of the Catholic Church 

§ 696. 728-730 

"I have come to set the earth on fire"

       Symbols of the Holy Spirit: Fire. While water signifies birth and the fruitfulness of life given in the Holy Spirit, fire symbolizes the transforming energy of the Holy Spirit's actions. The prayer of the prophet Elijah, who "arose like fire" and whose "word burned like a torch" (Sir 48,1), brought down fire from heaven on the sacrifice on Mount Carmel. This event was a "figure" of the fire of the Holy Spirit, who transforms what he touches. John the Baptist, who goes "before [the Lord] in the spirit and power of Elijah," proclaims Christ as the one who "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire"(Lk 1,17). Jesus will say of the Spirit: "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" In the form of tongues "as of fire," the Holy Spirit rests on the disciples on the morning of Pentecost and fills them with himself (Ac 2,3-4). The spiritual tradition has retained this symbolism of fire as one of the most expressive images of the Holy Spirit's actions: "Do not quench the Spirit." (1Th 5,19)...

       Jesus does not reveal the Holy Spirit fully, until he himself has been glorified through his Death and Resurrection... Only when the hour has arrived for his glorification does Jesus promise the coming of the Holy Spirit, since his Death and Resurrection will fulfill the promise made to the fathers. The Spirit of truth, the other Paraclete, will be given by the Father in answer to Jesus' prayer; he will be sent by the Father in Jesus' name; and Jesus will send him from the Father's side, since he comes from the Father...

       At last Jesus' hour arrives: he commends his spirit into the Father's hands at the very moment when by his death he conquers death, so that, "raised from the dead by the glory of the Father" (Rm 6,4), he might immediately give the Holy Spirit by "breathing" on his disciples(Jn 20,22).