March 10, 2009
Just some simple spiritual/biblical reflections. I hope that they may help you in your lives.
“The Mighty One, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.”
Our God, the only true God (John 17:3), touches everything; absolutely everything! Consequently, our lives, and the way we live our lives, should incarnate this truth.
I do not reprove you for your sacrifices;
your burnt offerings are continually before me.
I will accept no bull from your house,
nor he-goat from your folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
God does not need our sacrifices. He does not need that we “give up” chocolate or any other food. Everything is His! He owns everything. We cannot give Him anything.
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and pay your vows to the Most High . . .
“He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me;
to him who orders his way aright
I will show the salvation of God!
Our God wants us to be thankful to Him! He wants us to fulfill our baptismal vows in our lives. He only wants what’s good for us. We truly honor God not through the things we give up without reference to Him, but through our thanksgiving, through the fulfillment of our baptismal vows; in a word, we truly honor God when our entire being is configured to Him who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Leave a Comment » | 
Baptism, Catholic, General, Growth, Lent, Scripture | Tagged: God, Psalms, Sacrifice, Vows | 
Permalink
Posted by Jorge Flores
March 1, 2009
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him (1 Peter 3:18-22, RSV).
Leave a Comment » | 
Baptism | Tagged: Baptism, baptismal regeneration | 
Permalink
Posted by David Bennett
February 11, 2009
Lent encourages us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and thus to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we come from, where we must go, what road to take in life. And thus, the Season of Lent offers us an ascetic and liturgical route which, while helping us to open our eyes to our weakness, opens our hearts to the merciful love of Christ. BENEDICT XVI, GENERAL AUDIENCE, 1st March 2006.
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
The liturgical season of Lent is fast approaching. The Lord is giving us yet one more opportunity to work on ourselves, on our souls. For this, I thank Him!
As you are well aware we are living in a very tumultuous time; a time of financial distress, war, and a time in which radical politicians –and presidents–boldly undermine the sanctity of life. This time in which we live demands conversion, a radical turning away from sin to God. But unless we ourselves begin this conversion process, the world will continue getting worse and worse by the minute.
I warmly encourage each and everyone reading this post to take advantage of Lent, to make it the best Lent you ever had, the most spiritually fruitful. Let us enter into this holy season with a deep desire “to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,” so that we “may be filled with all the fullnes of God” (Ephesians 3:19).
Please realize that God has given us everything we need to experience the conversion of our own hearts and minds, if we but humbly accept His Divine Grace. Let us ask our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, to plead our cause before the Lord, to teach us how to be good sons and daughters of the Most High, to protect us from all harm. Let us also ask our Brothers and Sisters who dedicated their lives to the fulfilment of the Christian vocation, and who now enjoy the Beatific Vision, to come to our aid in times of temptation so that we may be strengthened and may come off unharmed after the battle. Finally, let us be mindful that, through Baptism, we are members of the Mystical Body of Christ, and so we all have the responsibility to look out for one another, especially for the poor (Philipians 2:4; Matthew 25:40). Let us, then, pray for one another during Lent!
Lenten Resources:
Leave a Comment » | 
Abortion, Baptism, Benedict XVI, Pope, Catholic, General, Confession, Converts and Conversion, Culture Wars, Devotions and Spirituality, Easter, Eucharist, Growth, Holidays, Lent, Liturgical Year, Liturgy and Worship, Mary, Blessed Virgin, Prayers and Requests, Sacraments, Saints and Sainthood, Scripture | 
Permalink
Posted by Jorge Flores
June 10, 2008
When I took a class entitled “Early Christianity” at my state university, a whole new world was opened to me. I was introduced to the Church Fathers for the first time. Being into history (I was close to a history minor and qualified for the History Honors Fraternity), I was unable to dismiss the Church Fathers as being irrelevant to my modern day faith. I began reading them on my own, even buying the 39 volume set of the Fathers put out by Hendrickson Press. My brother and I entered into an independent study course with the professor of the Early Christianity class, and we read quite a few Church Fathers this way. For Jonathan and me, this was not simply an academic exercise; reading the early Fathers changed the way we viewed our own relationships with Christ.
One of the Fathers who made the biggest impact on me was Justin Martyr (150 AD). This is primarily because Justin wrote about many practices and beliefs that I recognized, but also seemed so foreign to me. The best example is Justin’s view on baptism. Even though I was baptized as an infant, I assumed that one was born again when a person accepted Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior. Now, accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is one very important component of baptism, since baptism is a formal recognition of a commitment to follow Jesus. However, as Justin mentions below, baptism is much more. Emphases mine:
I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, “Unless you be born again, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into their mothers’ wombs, is manifest to all. And how those who have sinned and repent shall escape their sins, is declared by Esaias the prophet, as I wrote above; he thus speaks: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from your souls; learn to do well; judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow: and come and let us reason together, says the Lord. And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white like wool; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as snow. But if you refuse and rebel, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”
And for this [rite] we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the laver the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed.
2 Comments | Baptism, Fathers of the Church | Tagged: Baptism, Church Fathers, Justin Martyr | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett
March 24, 2008
“…I took the simplest and most explicit Christian name: “Cristiano.” Since yesterday evening therefore my name is Magdi Crisitano Allam.
“For me it is the most beautiful day of [my] life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith during the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection by the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable and inestimable privilege. At almost 56 […], it is a historical, exceptional and unforgettable event, which marks a radical and definitive turn with respect to the past. The miracle of Christ’s resurrection reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness in which the preaching of hatred and intolerance in the face of the “different,” uncritically condemned as “enemy,” were privileged over love and respect of “neighbor,” who is always, an in every case, “person”; thus, as my mind was freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimates lies and deception, violent death that leads to murder and suicide, the blind submission to tyranny, I was able to adhere to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom…
I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith. And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.
For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who live their new faith in peace. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us. By one of those “fortuitous events” that evoke the discreet hand of the Lord, the first article that I wrote for the Corriere on Sept. 3, 2003 was entitled “The new Catacombs of Islamic Converts.” It was an investigation of recent Muslim converts to Christianity in Italy who decry their profound spiritual and human solitude in the face of absconding state institutions that do not protect them and the silence of the Church itself. Well, I hope that the Pope’s historical gesture and my testimony will lead to the conviction that the moment has come to leave the darkness of the catacombs and to publicly declare their desire to be fully themselves.”
More from Zenit.
3 Comments | Baptism, Benedict XVI, Pope, Converts and Conversion, Easter, Islam | Tagged: religious freedom | Permalink
Posted by Fr. J.
March 24, 2008
“I realize what I am going up against
but I will confront my fate with my head high,
with my back straight and the interior strength
of one who is certain about his faith.”
— Magdi Christian Allam.
Some voices in Europe and other places are presently criticizing the pope for his high profile baptism of Magdi Allam at the Easter Vigil. They assert that the pope is somehow taunting Islam and unnecessarily putting Mr. Allam’s life in danger, and perhaps the pope’s as well. I cannot know the pope’s mind. But I would like to suggest why he might do something so dramatic and frankly foolish in the eyes of the world:
I think the pope is making all kinds of points.
- He wants to uphold the example of this man who has stood up to Islam already for many years.
- He also wants to make an issue of the Muslim practice of assassination of those who convert out of it. Imagine the shame heaped on Islam if Allam is killed.
- He wants to show Muslims that reasonable and rational people, the very best of Islam are ashamed of what Islam has become.
- He wants to make a point to sleepy Europeans that Christianity is a faith worth dying for.
- He wants to give all the world an example of Christ-like willingness to die for the good, rather than to kill.
- He wants the world to know that it is superior to suffer violence than to commit it.
- He wants to show the world the moral and spiritual superiority of Christ and Christianity.
- He wants to show the world that the willingness to innocently suffer violence for one’s faith is not reserved to the earliest ages, but is a very present reality.
- He wants to highlight that Christians throughout the world willingly suffer violence for their faith every day.
- He wants to bring about religious freedom, a true liberation of personal conscience in the lands of Islam.
- He wants to give the Muslim world an example of Christian virtue that they will notice.
- Should Mr. Allam or Benedict lose their lives, he would want to offer martyrs for the sake of the Muslim world.
Finally, Magdi Allam, now on the world stage, may be safer than if he had not been in the spotlight. Who knows?
11 Comments | Baptism, Benedict XVI, Pope, Catholic, General, Converts and Conversion, Ecumenism, Islam | Tagged: Baptism, Catholic, General, culture war, Islam, Magdi Allam, Martyrdom, Muslim | Permalink
Posted by Fr. J.
March 23, 2008
Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, St. Louis, MO
I was born on Holy Saturday, April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn. the fact that my day of birth was the last day of Holy Week and the eve of Easter has always been noted in our family history. This was connected with the fact that I was baptized immediately on the morning of the day I was born with the water that had just been blessed. (At that time the solemn Easter Vigil was celebrated on the morning of Holy Saturday.) To be the first person baptized with the new water was seen as a significant act of Providence. I have always been filled with thanksgiving for having had my life immersed in this way in the Easter mystery, since this could only be a sign of blessing. To be sure, it was not Easter Sunday but Holy Saturday, but, the more I reflect on it, the more this seems to be fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing in th full light but walking toward it full of trust.
(Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones: Memories, 1927-1977, p. 8 )
The courage of this pope throughout his life is a reflection of his baptism. And last night’s baptism was an act of religious courage and fortitude virtually unknown in the Western World in the modern age. But, such acts of religious conviction as a matter of life and death are almost a commonplace for Christians throughout much of the world.
May the boldness of Magdi Christian Allam and countless Christians in Africa, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Iraq and China now embolden the rest of the Church is announcing the Good News of Jesus Christ, crucified for us and Risen!
The story of the pope’s baptism was completely new to me when I just read it over at Ad Te Levavi Animam Meam.
1 Comment | Baptism, Benedict XVI, Pope, Sacraments | Tagged: Baptism, Benedict XVI, Easter, Easter Vigil, Holy Saturday, Pope | Permalink
Posted by Fr. J.
January 16, 2008
I regularly read and enjoy Stand Firm, a conservative Anglican blog. However, it is becoming apparent to me (from some Stand Firm contributors and the commenters who frequent the blog) that many “orthodox” Anglicans are more evangelical than catholic, and are willing to dismiss classic Anglican beliefs and practices in light of modern evangelicalism. Thus it seems like “orthodox” Anglicanism is shaping up to be an evangelical and/or reformed version of Anglicanism, which, I understand, is the form of Anglicanism growing in the global south.
Two recent articles/discussions on Stand Firm have illustrated this. First, there is a sermon Fr. Matt Kennedy gave about Infant Baptism, in which he defends the practice based on Scripture. Nonetheless, scroll down and read the comments and see the general suspicion towards infant baptism, even among “orthodox” Anglican commenters. I can understand Baptists and Pentecostals denying infant baptism, but I never thought Anglicans would question the practice.
Next, David Ould, a contributor to Stand Firm, has written about John 3, and unlike virtually every Christian writer prior and up to the 16th century (including Luther), argues that the water Jesus speaks of in John 3 is not baptism (see Are Catholics Born Again? by Per Christum contributor Jonathan for an explanation of Catholic Teaching about John 3). It seems like many commenters are arguing against Ould’s thesis, but I think these two examples illustrate the difficult road ahead for “orthodox” Anglicans, who can’t even agree on issues like baptismal regeneration, infant baptism, women’s ordination, divorce and remarriage, etc.
I know that conservative Anglicans are united in their opposition to the sexual permissiveness that is common in the Episcopal church, but opposing TEC’s sexual innovations is certainly not a basis to form a strong union or new group of churches, especially with such strong disagreement on other major issues remaining unresolved. Plus, I suspect that catholic-minded Anglicans will point out that from a Catholic and Patristic perspective, denying baptismal regeneration is just as heretical as same-sex marriage.
I am afraid that if “orthodox” Anglicanism is going to look a lot like dressed up evangelicalism, there isn’t going to be room for those who see Anglicanism as a branch of the church catholic. “Orthodox” Anglicanism may well turn out to be as innovative as progressive Episcopalianism.
UPDATE 1: Anglican priest Fr. Jeffrey Steele has responded to David Ould over at De Cura Animarum.
9 Comments | Anglican and Episcopal, Baptism | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett
