Monday Of Holy Week

"During his entry into Jerusalem, the people paid homage to Jesus as the Son of David with the words of the pilgrims of Psalm 118[117]: "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" (Mt 21: 9). He then arrived at the temple. There, however, in the place that should have been taken up by the encounter between God and man, he found livestock merchants and money-changers who occupied this place of prayer with their commerce. Certainly, the animals on sale were destined to be burned as sacrifices in the temple, and since in the temple it was impossible to use coins that bore the likeness of the Roman emperors, who were in opposition to the true God, they had to be exchanged for coins that did not show the idolatrous image. All this, however, could have taken place elsewhere: the place where this was now occurring should have been, in accordance with its destined purpose, the atrium of pagans. Indeed, the God of Israel was precisely the one God of all peoples. And although pagans did not enter, so to speak, into the Revelation, they could however, in the atrium of faith, join in the prayer to the one God. The God of Israel, the God of all people, had always been awaiting their prayers too, their seeking, their invocations. Instead, commerce was prevailing - dealings legalized by the competent authority which, in its turn, profited from the merchants' earnings. The merchants acted correctly, complying with the law in force, but the law itself was corrupt. "Covetousness... is idolatry", the Letter to the Colossians says (3: 5). This was the idolatry Jesus came up against in the face of which he cites Isaiah: "My house shall be called a house of prayer" (Mt 21: 13; cf. Is 56: 7), and Jeremiah: "But you make it a den of robbers" (Mt 21: 13; cf. Jer 7: 11). Against the wrongly interpreted order, Jesus with his prophetic gesture defends the true order which is found in the Law and the Prophets.

Today, all this must give us, as Christians, food for thought. Is our faith sufficiently pure and open so that starting from it "pagans", the people today who are seeking and who have their questions, can intuit the light of the one God, associate themselves in the atriums of faith with our prayers and, with their questions, perhaps also become worshippers? Does the awareness that greed is idolatry enter our heart too and the praxis of our life? Do we not perhaps in various ways let idols enter even the world of our faith? Are we disposed to let ourselves be ceaselessly purified by the Lord, letting him expel from us and the Church all that is contrary to him?

In the temple's purification, however, it was a matter of more than fighting abuses. A new time in history was foretold. What Jesus had announced to the Samaritan woman concerning her question about true worship is now beginning: "The hour is coming, and now is, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him" (Jn 4: 23). The time when animals were sacrificed to God was over. Animal sacrifices were only a substitute, a nostalgic gesture for the true way to worship God. The Letter to the Hebrews on the life and work of Jesus uses a sentence from Psalm 40[39]: "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me" (Heb 10: 5). Christ's body, Christ himself, enters to take the place of bloody sacrifices and food offerings. Only "love to the end", only love for human beings given totally to God is true worship, true sacrifice. Worshipping in spirit and truth means adoring in communion with the One who is Truth; adoring in communion with his Body, in which the Holy Spirit reunites us."

-Pope Benedict XVI

Palm Sunday

“Is this the crowd who would applaud his crucifixion? How was their hatred earned from his grace? Even the words of their commendation pointed to the power of redemption. ‘Hosanna’ in Hebrew signifies the redemption of the house of David. They are calling upon the Son of David. They are celebrating the inheritance of the eternal kingdom. They are proclaiming blessing in the name of the Lord. Soon their shouting of ‘Crucify him!’ would be blasphemy. But at present, the deeds he was doing were exhibiting the form of the future. It is granted that the crowd was doing these things with very confused emotions. The thing that would follow would be different. Nevertheless they were, inadvertently and without willing it, pointing to heavenly things unfolding. In this way the whole city of Jerusalem was stirred.”

-St. Hilary of Poitiers, On Matthew 21.3

Love Prevailed, Death Vanquished

"Since, in the crucified Christ, love prevailed and death fled vanquished, human hope can truly 'spring eternal.'"

-Pope Benedict XVI

The Reason Behind The Matthaean Usage Of 'Kingdom Of Heaven" Over "Kingdom of God"

Joseph Ratzinger gives us the reason behind Matthew's usage of "Kingdom of Heaven" in his Gospel, which makes perfect sense considering that Matthew is a Jew who wrote his Gospel in Hebrew to a Jewish audience:

“Matthew speaks of the ‘Kingdom of heaven’ where Mark and Luke have ‘Kingdom of God’. The meaning is the same in each case. Behind the Matthaean usage lies the Jewish linguistic rule of not using the Name of God, nor even the conceptual denomination ‘God,’ out of reverence for the greatness of this word. One spoke of him only by circumlocution. ‘Heaven,’ then, is simply a periphrasis for ‘God.’ This is an important point, because it shows that Matthew is not concerned, any more than are Mark and Luke, with something which is primarily in the world beyond. What is at stake is not the beyond, but God, in his personal activity. This observation gains in force if we add that in Jewish usage, the term basileia, normally translated ‘kingdom,’ does not signify a sphere of governance, but an active reality like our words ‘reign’ or ‘command.’ Thus the phrase ‘the Kingdom of God ’ points to God’s rule, his living power over the world. Following Joachim Jeremias, the affirmation that ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand’ can be paraphrased “God is close.’ First and foremost Jesus is speaking not of a heavenly reality but of something God is doing and will do in the future here on earth.”

-Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) in Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life

Eucharistic Eschatology

"The Eucharist is at once the joyful proclamation of the Lord's presence and a supplication to the already present Lord that he may come, since, paradoxically, even as the One who is present he remains the One who is to come."

-Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) in Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life

What God Says, Happens.

“If the Word of God is living and active and if whatever the Lord willed he made; if God said Let there be light, and there was light, and Let there be a firmament, and it was so; if by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the breath of his mouth; if the heaven and earth, water, fire and air and all the order of them, as well as man who is the most famous of living creatures, were accomplished by the Word of the Lord; and if God the Word himself willed to become man and assumed flesh from the pure and spotless blood of the holy and ever-virgin Mary, without human seed: can he not make the bread his body and the wine and water his blood? He said in the beginning: Let the earth put forth vegetation, and even till now, thanks to the rain, it continues to put forth its produce, impelled and empowered by the divine command. God said: This is my body and This is my blood and do this is memory of me ,and by virtue of his own all-powerful command, it is so until he come (for Paul says: until he come); and rain falls upon this new culture through the epiclesis, the over-shadowing power of the Holy Spirit. For as whatever God made He made by the energy of the Holy Spirit, so now it is the energy of the Spirit which performs the things that are supernatural which cannot be discerned except by faith.”

-St. John Damascene

Solemnity Of St. Joseph, Spouse Of The Blessed Virgin Mary

B: Why is St. Joseph often depicted with flowers?

A: Because he is the perfect husband!

At Last!

Matthias Scheeben's The Mysteries of Christianity has been republished!

Noah Predicts Increase In Rain!

Noah Diffenbaugh, that is.

I would be worried, if global warming wasn't false.

The Parents Of This Child Should Be Extremely Proud!