09Aug: the martyrs, confessors, and innocents of WWII

......or, maybe we can call it, the memorial of the Desecration of the Temples? After all, it does coincide with the mourning day Tisha b'Av often enough, and the temple of the Lord which is each one of us is as truly a holy place as the one built of rocks and mortar in Jerusalem.

No human planned it, but our grandnieces and grandnephews will recall this day especially for the witnesses of the era of the Second World War. For three remembrances coincide this day: the memorial of St. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce, nee Edith Stein; the memorial of the Servant of God Franz Jagerstatter, umlauts over both a's in that last name; and the day when the second of two towns of minimal military significance was destroyed and its people murdered in a single instant.

Edith Stein, Teresia Benedicta a Cruce



Edith Stein was the atheist daughter of non-practicing Jewish parents. Brilliant and eager to learn, she excelled academically, and eventually became a disciple and protege of one of the most brilliant philosophers of her day. She came to Christianity and the Catholic Church by way of her philosophical explorations and her study of the writings of St Teresa of Avila. She eventually gave up her professorship at the university to enter Carmel.

When the National Socialists came to power in Germany, they began to impose their ideas of "racial purity," and life became more and more difficult. Eventually, her superiors judged that things were getting too dangerous and were only likely to get worse, so they sent Edith out of the country to another Carmel in the Netherlands, where it was believed she'd be safe. Edith had already offered up her life for and with her people, but she wasn't courting death. Then the Nazis conquered the Netherlands.

The Catholic Church in the Netherlands was, from the beginning, in active opposition to the National Socialists and all their pomps and works; the bishops ordered their preists to refuse communion to known Nazi sympathizers, and the Church was very heavily involved in the resistance to the occupation. In June of 1942, the bishops preached the absolute condemnation of National Socialism, with emphasis on its racial policies, and had the condemnation read from every pulpit in the country, published in every Catholic periodical.

In retaliation, the Nazi occupiers arrested every "non-Aryan" Catholic priest and religious in the country, including Edith, first imprisoning them in Holland, then deporting them to extermination camps further east. The Catholics were the first to be taken from the Netherlands. Edith Stein, Sister Teresis Benedicta a Cruce, was killed in Auschwitz on this day in 1942.

Franz Jagerstatter



Franz Jagerstatter was a farmer, the child of farmers, in a back-of-beyond part of Austria called St. Radegund, a town too little to have a post office or even appear on a map. He was an extremely rowdy young man, noted in his youth mostly for 1) having gotten a young lady pregnant and not marrying her, for which he was exiled from the village for a few years, and 2) bringing the first motorcycle to the village when he returned. He got married to a seriously Catholic woman, and they went to Rome for their honeymoon, where Franz came to the love of Jesus and the conversion of his life while visiting the holy places.

Franz and his wife returned to St. Radegund, took up the operations of the Jagerstatter family farm, joined the Secular Franciscan Order, and had three daughters. Franz also took the unpaid second job of sexton at the parish church, where he's remembered for turning down the customary gratuities of that job. The other men of the village thought he was "a little too Catholic," but also noticed that his duties to his wife, his children, and the farm were always well fulfilled.

Then came National Socialism. In the supposed vote, he voted "no." His was the only "no" vote in the village; the parish priest deliberately spoiled his ballot, everybody else voted "yes." He wouldn't say "Heil Hitler" to anybody, but maintained the traditional greeting, "Bless God." Although not a teetotaller, he stopped going to the tavern; he was getting in too many fights about Nazism. The only one of the ubiquitous Nazi charitable collections he'd donate to was the police pension fund; he said that he'd made the police work too hard during his wild youth. When he was called up for a few weeks of mandatory reserve training (there's a picture of him in his army reserve uniform), what he saw and heard confirmed in him the need to cooperate no further.

Eventually, the draft came even for married farmers with children. Franz went to the induction station as ordered, but refused to be inducted; he could not join an army fighting an unjust war to establish evil. He was beheaded for this refusal, this day in 1943.

Nagasaki

This is the crucifix of the cathedral in Nagasaki, very near the hypocenter, laying amid the radioactive ruins and the dust of the congregation.



Nagasaki was the second of two cities, chosen for their lack of military significance, to be destroyed by a new kind of weapon, where with a single bomb one could wipe out an entire population. That's why cities with minimal military significance were chosen, such cities would have no previous bombing damage to complicate the analysis of the before-and-after pictures. Tens of thousands of civilians killed instantly, more thousands left to die slowly as involuntary human subjects in this new military experimentation and testing. The very image of God destroyed, dishonored, defaced thousands of times.

Twenty-some years later, there would be an Ecumenical Council. That Council would issue only one anathema:
Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and against man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation. [Gaudium et spes, 80].

St. Edith, holy Franz, holy innocents of the Church in Nagasaki, pray for us, help us to remember, and give us strength to stand.

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Just because someone's excommunicated doesn't mean she's the bad guy

Today is the memorial of Blessed Mary MacKillop, one of that exclusive club of excommunicated saints. Yes, sometimes the Good Guys run afoul of their badly mistaken bishops or a particularly foul glob of church-politics....



Mary was the eldest child of poor Scottish immigrants to Australia, but she was well-educated, mostly by her father who had been a seminarian back in Scotland. To help support her family, she became a schoolteacher, teaching in the local state school and also running a small private school in the family home. She couldn't answer her call to religious life because her family needed her income. But eventually, a scandal caused by a corrupt school board official gave her an excuse to leave her teaching job in the state school without alienating her family.

Mary moved to a town called Penola; there she met a supportive priest and opened a free Catholic school for the poor. This school was the beginnings of the first religious order in Australia, the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, with a community charism to educate poor children in remote areas. Her order grew, and soon had 17 free Catholic schools under her care.

Her independence, her preferential care for the poor, and her insistence on the human rights of the Aborigines aggravated her bishop, who ordered her to turn over the order and the schools to him so he could turn them into proper tuition-paying schools for the deserving well-to-do. She couldn't do that, and was excommunicated in 1871. Mary prayed and patiently put up with the situation, refusing to let it separate her from God or God's beloved poor. About a year and a half later, the bishop repented, apologized, and restored her to communion.

Mary spent the rest of her life travelling from house to house of her growing community, working for the education of the poor and the rights of the Aboriginal people, until her death in 1909.
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Transfigurations

We remember a Transfiguration in glory



when Peter, James, and John saw Jesus as he truly was, glorious with uncreated Light, conversing with Moses and Elijah. Flabbergasted, the threesome said some really silly things about pitching tents for all of them and staying there always, but were told they all had to go back down the mountain, back to "real life" ---- though what was at the top of the mountain was more real than any of the "real life" down below.

And we also remember a transfiguration in horror



when the first of two cities, chosen because they had minimal military significance (therefore they had no previous bomb damage to complicate the analysis of the before-and-after photos), was utterly destroyed by a single bomb, its people transformed in an instant from living embodied ones to etched shadows on the pavements, and others left to slowly die over weeks and months from radiation-related illnesses unknown before. Those two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were not chosen because they were the heart of Japanese Catholicism; that was accidental.

So, we celebrate this feast of our Lord, and remember our brothers and sisters who were doing the same in the Hiroshima Cathedral, and all the people of that city, when they themselves were transformed in a single instant, to see the Lord for eternity as he truly is.

May the perpetual Light, which we celebrate especially on this solemnity of Transfiguration, shine upon them all.
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St. Ephrem's teaching on the Transfiguration

1. From the land comes the joy of harvest, from the vineyard fruits that give food, and from the Scriptures teaching that gives life. The land has one season for the harvest, and the vineyard has one season for the vintage, but the Scripture when read always overflows with teaching that gives life. The land when it has been harvested lies fallow and the vineyard when the grapes have been picked is unproductive, but when Scripture is harvested the grapes of those who expound it are not lacking in it. It is picked every day and the grape clusters of the hope in it are never exhausted. Let us then draw near to this land and enjoy its life-giving furrows; and let us harvest from it grapes of life, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said to his Disciples, ‘There are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of man coming in his glory’.

2. ‘And after six days he took Simon Peter and James and John his brother to a very high mountain and he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white like light’. Men whom he said would not taste death until they saw the image of his coming, are those whom he took and led up the mountain and showed them how he was going to come on the last day in the glory of his divinity and in the body of his humanity.

3. He led them up the mountain to show them who the Son is and whose he is. Because when he asked them, ‘Whom do men say the Son of man is?’ They said to him, some Elias, others Jeremias, or one of the Prophets. This is why he leads them up the mountain and shows them that he is not Elias, but the God of Elias; again, that he is not Jeremias, but the one who sanctified Jeremias in his mother’s womb; not one of the Prophets, but the Lord of the Prophets, who also sent them. And he shows them that he is the maker of heaven and earth, and that he is Lord of living and dead. For he gave orders to heaven and brought down Elias, and made a sign to the earth and raised up Moses.

4. He led them up the mountain to show them that he is the Son of God, born from the Father before the ages and in the last times incarnate from the Virgin, as he knows how, born ineffably and without seed, preserving her virginity incorrupt; for wherever God wills it, the order of nature is overcome. For God the Word dwelt in the Virgin’s womb, and the fire of his divinity did not consume the members of the Virgin’s body, but protected them carefully by its nine month presence. He dwelt in the Virgin’s womb, not abhorring the unpleasant smell of nature, and God incarnate came forth from her to save us.

5. He led them up the mountain to show them the glory of the godhead and to make known to them that he is the redeemer of Israel, as he had shown through the Prophets, and they should not be scandalized in him when they saw his voluntary sufferings, which as man he was about to suffer for us. For they knew him as a man, but did not know that he was God. They knew him as son of Mary, going about with them in the world, and he made known to them on the mountain that he was Son of God and God. They saw that he ate and drank, toiled and rested, dozed and slept, things which did not accord with his divine nature, but only with his humanity, and so he took them to the mountain that the Father might call him Son and show that he is truly his Son and that he is God.

6. He led them up the mountain and showed them his kingship before his passion, and his power before his death, and his glory before his disgrace, and his honor before his dishonor, so that, when he was arrested and crucified by the Jews, they might know that he was not crucified through weakness, but willingly by his good pleasure for the salvation of the world.

7. He led them up the mountain and showed the glory of his divinity before the resurrection, so that when he rose from the dead in the glory of his divine nature, they might know that it was not because of his harsh toil that he accepted glory, as if he lacked it, but it was his before the ages with the Father and together with the Father, as he said as he was coming to his voluntary passion, ‘Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world existed’.

8. And so on the mountain he showed his Apostles the glory of his divinity, concealed and hidden by his humanity. For they saw his face bright as lightning and his garments white as light. They saw two suns; one in the sky, as usual, and one unusually; one visible in the firmament and lighting the world, and one, his face, visible to them alone. His garments white as light showed that the glory of his divinity flooded from his whole body, and his light shone from all his members. For his flesh did not shine with splendor from without, like Moses, but the glory of his divinity flooded from him. His light dawned and was drawn together in him. Nor did depart somewhere else and leave him, because it did come from another place and adorn him, nor was it for his use. And he did not display the whole depth of his glory, but only as much as the limits of their eyes could encompass.

9. ‘And there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him’. And the words that they said to him were such as these: they were thanking him that their words and those of all their fellow Prophets had been fulfilled by his coming. They offered him worship for the salvation which he had wrought for the world for the human race; and that he had fulfilled in reality the mystery they had only sketched. There was joy for the Prophets and the Apostles by this ascent of the mountain. The Prophets rejoiced when they saw his humanity, which they had not known. The Apostles also rejoiced when they saw the glory of his divinity, which they had not known, and heard the voice of the Father bearing witness to his Son; and through this they recognized his incarnation, which was concealed from them. And the witness of the three was sealed by the Father’s voice and by Moses and Elias, who stood by him like servants, and they looked to one another: the Prophets to the Apostles and the Apostles to the Prophets. There the authors of the old covenant saw the authors of the new. Holy Moses saw Simon the sanctified; the steward of the Father saw the administrator of the Son. The former divided the sea for the people to walk in the middle of the waves; the latter raised a tent for the building of the Church. The virgin of the old covenant saw the virgin of the new: [Elias and John;] the one who mounted on the chariot of fire and the one who leaned on the breast of the flame. And the mountain became a type of the Church, and on it Jesus united the two covenants, which the Church received, and made known to us that he is the giver of the two. The one received his mysteries; the other revealed the glory of his works.
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A Chinese Transfiguration hymn

attributed to Ching-ching (Adam), Bishop of Chang'an (Xi'an), capital of T'ang China, c. AD 780:

The Ta-ch'in (Syrian) Luminous Religion's Eulogy on the Transfiguration of the Holy One-equal-to-God's Leading People to the Truth.

We all adore Thee! O Saviour! Thou art the Holy One equal to God!
Thou art the Merciful Father, the Aloha (God), Himself!

Thy raiment is like the Precious Gem glorified in the Radiance of the Sun and the brightness of the Moon!
Thy virtues, lofty and majestic, ever excel those of all the Saints and Sages.

The Glad-tidings of Thine! Oh, Thy Teachings of Wonderful Love!
These are sounding throughout the world like the Golden Bell!

The gracious influences of the Merciful Laws of Thine!
These are spread throughout the world, lest all the souls be lost Forever!

Being in the dark, these piteous souls are to be lost,
Were it not for Thy Great Mercy!
For they have already lost their true nature
In consequence of all the poisonous evils they received.

Thou alone art the Holy One who is equal to God Almighty!
Thou art our King and Redeemer!
Dwelling in the Divine Light of peerless effluence, visible only to the Saints.
Thou reignest over us all from on high!

In the form of the sacred streaks of Light, Thy Mercy shines forth far and near,
Rendering all kinds of iniquities to ashes in order to purge all the evil ones from the world!

Thus Thou showest to us clearly and distinctly that Thou art the real Protector of Thy people!
And by many excellent methods and ways Thou governest all the nations,
Keeping Thine own people from going astray!
And thus for them Thou preservest Thy merciful Way of Benevolent life.

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Just a Little Portion Christian Carnival (#133)

Today is one of those minor Christian holidays where the name says it all --- the memorial of the dedication of the Church of Our Lady of the Angels of the Little Portion. "Of the Angels" because some local herdsmen heard the angels sing there back in the 900s. "Of the Little Portion" because this tiny humble chapel, originally not much more than a wayside shrine, was on a tiny piece of land that had been gifted to God and the region's monastery. But the monastery didn't have much interest in the place, being tiny and far from the rest of the land they were responsible for. Eventually, in the 1300s, the monks rented it out to a upstart group of poor wandering preachers who still to this day call it home sweet home: annual rent, two buckets of fish. One little chapel on a tiny plot not really good for much of anything, that became a place for the grace of God to shine forth. The dozen upstarts who rented the place are now thousands of poor wandering preachers and servants of the poor; the chapel on the Little Portion, a place of pilgrimage.

So maybe this little Christian Carnival offering can become a place for the grace of God to shine forth, just as that little piece of land in the Italian mountains that is remembered today.

Ganheim at Ponderings on the Workings of the Universe ponders on why bad things happen to good people.

Chris Alexion at Welcome to the Fallout reviews C.S.Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in Learning from Lewis.

David Ker's Lingamish reminds us of some not-very-comfortable realities in Sleep Well. [and to be aware that here in the USA the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air and the roar of the jet fighters overhead is all just good clean fun....whereas in a dozen lands any of us could name.....]

Professor Steve Bainbridge presents a review of some principles of justly fighting ("jus in bello") in The Aburdity of Proportionality.

At Li'l Duck Duck, Mama Duck ponders the ways of her toddler, Li'l Duck, in Cheerful, friendly, sweet and mostly innocent.

The Bible Archivecontinues its tradition of Bible exposition with A Literary View of John 3:14-16.

Lawyers and Good Books for the Middle Kingdom chronicles some adventures of Charmaine ay the National Religious Broadcasters' trade show, at Jack Yoest.

You know those nasty sins detraction, calumny, rash judgment, gossip? A Man of Understanding Holds His Tongue, insists the author of the Proverbs, and also Dave Lorenzo of the Career Intensity Blog.

Laurie Bluedorn of Trivium Pursuit presentsan essay by Dave Kidd on the dress and comportment of Christian teenagers in Ashes for Beauty.

Here's another fine post about nasty sin; simony, which is the attempt to buy and sell the grace of God by trading in real or fake "holy things". Jesus junk comes in for special attention in Cracking the Whip at Rodney Olsen's Journey.

Tyler Williams of Codex continues his series on the textual criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures with The Practice of Textual Criticism. Please think kindly of and pray for those hard-working professional Scripture scholars who make it possible for us to have all the study bibles with the wonderful footnotes and cross-references.

This week at Light Along the Journey, John takes a look at Psalm 47 and the unexpected reason the Psalmist gave for his shouting for joy.

Monica Brand of Books Are Our Friends has submitted a post called Undressing the Church about the dress of women at church. Unfortunately your hostess hasn't been able to read it due to technical glitches, but I've been told it is there, if you don't use Internet Explorer.....

At Fallible.com, Katy McKenna Raymond insists that the inspiration and influence of a caring teacher can last a lifetime as she reminiscences about her days in Christian elementary school in Teach Your Children Well.

The Renaissance Blogger asks --- do my beloved Desert Christians, and the other people who have strived after holiness in the past, have anything to offer to 21st century Christianity (of course, I believe they do!) in Does the Modern Church Have a Use for the Past.

Veracity of The Way writes in Forced Detention of a current child protection case and what it might bode for the future of the country.

The Golden Hour of the day inspires Karen of Scottsdale as she is reminded of God's presence while taking her evening stroll, she writes at The View from My Chair.

The Thinking Christian expounds on Ecclesiastes and Joy. Yes, joy!

Inmani Peterson at AmericanInventorSpot writes of the hazards and dark side of the internet and presents a new free version of Parental Control Software.

In Time and Omnipotent Designers, the Parableman probes the various arguments for the creation of the world and the length of time for the creation to be complete.

Rev Bill relates how he is discovering that the times in his life that are not so easy are making him more Christlike!, in Becoming Like Christ.

Humilis Penitens knows that no matter what, our faith and our worship must be Real, in a meditation upon the assigned Scripture of the day, at A Penitent Blogger.

At Attention Span, Reverend Ed realizes that no matter how well he covers up his Farmer Tan, Someone knows what lies beneath.

Leslie Carbone lambastes rash judgment toward a Christian radical-adoptionist couple who feared that too many trees on their house-lot would be hazardous to their four blind adoptive children, in Enviro-Judges.

Mark Olson at Pseudo-Polymath offers us On Emergent Life: Considered Yet Again, part three of a series in which he attempts to present (at a request) some arguments why we might want to place a high value on the unborn life. In this part, he does not restrict himself to the secular arguments.

The blogger at Brain Cramps for God has posted a three part series starting with "SHEEP! WE ARE ALL SHEEP!", which all center around our need, as humans, to find a source of Truth and Authority in our lives, and, of course, what he thinks that source is.

The Alabama Brands encourage us with Scripture with God Thinks about Me.

Michele from Life Under the Sun completes her ongoing study of Samson and Delilah.

Nehring presents 30 Movies That Matter, that inform and support the Christian worldview, along with some thoughts on how Christians can approach watching film, at Nehring The Edge.

The Evangelical Ecologist is live-blogging "Let's Tend the Garden", a Christian environmental conference in Boise, Idaho, this week.

And, it was really hard to decide. but your humble hostess offers the story of a very recent martyr for Christ and His people in A Shepherd Cannot Run.

Sorry about those of you who requested "trackbacks" and "pings", but I do not know how to do either of those. Thanks to Dory for letting my host the Carnival again (I hosted it twice in 2004), and I pray you all enjoy and are enlightened by it.

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Why we dedicate cathedrals

Today is also the feast of the (first) dedication of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist --- my parish.

In honor of today's little local feast, two wonderful links to a homily on how and why we dedicate churches ----- given at the third dedication of the Cathedral we celebrate the first dedication of today.

Adobe Acrobat text file (4 pages)
and
Real Audio file (19:00 minutes)

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Conversion by way of a poorly stocked library

Today is the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus and author of the most difficult hymn in the hymnal.

And it all began with a lack of books!

Ignatius was a child of a notoriously hot-tempered noble family, who became a courtier and warrior with all the standard virtues and vices thereof. Then, he was fighting in a battle at Pamplona, caught a cannonball in the leg, and was discharged to home in a stretcher. The leg didn't heal right, had to have repeated suurgeries, poor Ignatius was confined to bed and utterly bored.

He begged his family for some good rip-roaring chivalric romances to pass the time and improve his spirits, but in all the family castle there were only two books --- a life of Christ, and a book of saint stories called the Golden Readings. Well, something to read, anything to read, was better than staring at the ceiling. And so he read.

And, to his shock, he discovered that the saints lived lives more interesting, challenging, and honorable than any hero of chivalry, and, as soon as he could manage to get out of bed, he would put aside court life and warfare and set his sights to become a saint himself. And so he did.

Take, Lord, receive
all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
my entire will.

Take. Lord, receive
all I have and possess.
You have given all to me;
now I return it.

Give me only Your love and Your grace;
that's enough for me.
Your love and Your grace
are enough for me.

Take, Lord, receive;
all is Yours now.
Dispose of it
wholly according to Your will.

Give me only Your love and Your grace;
that's enough for me.
Your love and Your grace
are enough for me.

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Father Stanley Rother: A Shepherd Cannot Run

If I have to die, I will die there. I want to be there with my people. -----Father Stanley Rother, martyr, holy helper of the poor.



Father Stanley Rother was a priest in Oklahoma. He'd barely made it through seminary, academics wasn't his strong point, but he was a wise, loving, and very competent pastor. When his diocese in Oklahoma began a mission in Guatemala, he volunteered to go there. So in 1968 he arrived in the parish of Santiago Atitlan. His new parishioners didn't recognise "Stanley" as a proper name, so his Spanish-speaking parishioners called him Francisco, and his Mayan parishioners Apla's.

He was doing the ordinary work of a missionary priest. He was not at all politically active, in either United States or Guatemalan politics, and the other priests of that district considered him the most conservative of them all. He just did what a priest does.

He offered Mass and preached the Gospel. He set out to master T'zutuhil, the native language of his Mayan parishioners, and at the time of his death was translating the New Testament into T'zutuhil. He taught his people to study the Scriptures. He expelled "Maximon," the local trickster spirit, from the parish church .....

He built a health clinic in the town and recruited a community of dedicated volunteers to run it, helping to reduce the child mortality rate from over 50 percent to 20 percent, and he worked with the community on public health awareness, like boiling drinking water and wearing shoes to avoid parasites. He was a skilled handyman and practical carpenter, and he tended his own garden plot, growing his own corn and vegetables. This last especially impressed the men of the Mayan community, for, among the Maya, growing corn is a sacred task.

He loved his people, and his people came to love him.

And then, in 1980, the army came to Santiago Atitlan.

The Catholic Church had become a target of the Guatemalan military. Because the Church upheld the dignity and human rights of all people, including laborers, the poor, and Mayans, the government accused her of supporting communism. The Bible was considered a subversive work, and villagers hid their Bibles out in the fields or buried under their houses, to keep the soldiers from finding them.

The death lists began, and the "disappearances." One of the first to be killed was the head of the local radio station, which broadcast Fr. Rother's Sunday Mass, and health and hygiene programs, and news. One evening on the news commentary show, the subject was U.S. president Jimmy Carter and the human rights policies of the United States. The radio station was ransacked, and its head kidnapped, tortured, and killed.

The terror, kidnappings, and murders continued. Dozens were killed. Diego Quic' Apuchan, Fr. Rother's lead catechist, appeared on a death list in late 1980, apparently because he had publicly called upon the police to protect people from the kidnappers. For a little protection, he moved into Fr. Rother's rectory. On the evening of January 5, 1981, as Diego approached the rectory door, he was accosted by 4 soldiers; he clung to the bannister and yelled for help. Fr. Rother and the other rectory staff arrived only in time to witness Diego's abduction.

It was only days after that Fr. Rother's own name appeared on the death lists. At the urging of his parish staff, he fled the country and returned to Oklahoma, but he was troubled in spirit. He felt like he had deserted his people under fire. For three months he struggled. He missed his parish dreadfully, and was pulled to return, to be with his people. With his bishop's blessing, he returned to Santiago Atitlan in April, in time for Holy Week.

Twenty-five years ago today, on the night of July 28, three masked soldiers broke into the rectory and forced the doorkeeper to take them to Fr. Rother's room. Defying orders to keep quiet, the doorkeeper shouted, "Father, they are here for you!" The soldiers burst into Fr. Rother's room. The doorkeeper heard Father cry out, "No, I will not go with you. You will have to kill me here." He was badly beaten, but continued to resist being taken away, and they finally did kill him right there, with two gunshots and a stab wound in the back.

Fr. Rother's family wanted the body returned to Oklahoma for burial. However, understanding that his people in Santiago Atitlan also wanted their martyred pastor to rest among them, the family allowed his heart and a vial of his blood to be removed from the body to remain in his parish; to the Mayans, the spirit of a person resides in the blood. So the heart of this courageous priest of God is enshrined in his parish church, forever with the people he served even to his own death.

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"He who wants to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come in conflict with it."

Today is the memorial of Blessed Titus Brandsma, a Carmelite priest and martyr.



Titus, whose birthname was Anno, was born to a Friesian family in the late 1800's. After secondary school, he entered the Carmelite community, became a priest. and earned a doctorate on philosophy in Rome. He then became a university professor, and was the president ("rector magnificus") of his university for a time. He also was very active in Catholic journalism, becoming, eventually, the head of Holland's Catholic journalists' guild. This is an image of his international press pass:



When the Nazis took over Holland, the Catholic Church was blatently and loudly in opposition to them. The bishops forbade communion to any Catholics known to support the National Socialists, and regularly denounced the Nazi perversions from their pulpits. In fact, in Holland, the Catholics were sent to the concentration camps first, before anybody else; St. Edith Stein was also martyred in this time. Fr. Brandsma was deeply involved in the resistance to the National Socialists, and was already feeling the heat, but the final straw that got him arrested was that the Nazis has issued a law that all newspapers must print the officially-issued Nazi propaganda. The bishops forbade any Catholic periodical from publishing any of that material, and Fr. Brandsma, as their messenger, was to personally deliver the ban to the Catholic press; he had visited fourteen journalists when the powers caught up with him and arrested him.

He was imprisoned in two penitentiaries in Holland that had been taken over by the Nazis, before being deported to Dachau. His chronically ill health forced him to the "hospital" of Dachau in mid-June of 1942, where he was subjected to medical experimentation before being killed by lethal injection on July 26.

A poem written by Fr. Brandsma during his imprisonment:

A new awareness of Thy love
Encompasses my heart:
Sweet Jesus, I in Thee and Thou
In me shall never part.

No grief shall fall my way but I
Shall see Thy grief-filled eyes;
The lonely way that Thou once walked
Has made me sorrow-wise.

All trouble is a white-lit joy
That lights my darkest day;
Thy love has turned to brightest light
This night-like way.

If I have Thee alone,
The hours will bless
With still, cold hands of love
My utter loneliness.

Stay with me, Jesus, only stay;
I shall not fear
If, reaching out my hand,
I feel Thee near.

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Mary Magdalen, Icon of Ministry

another meditation on the life of St. Mary Magdalen, which has been forwarded into my inbox five times in the last four days. One of the forwards credits it to "BenetVision", a Benedictine apostolate in Pennsylvania, which means that the author may be Sister Joan of Erie......

For want of a better word, it is at least interesting that one of the strongest women in the Christian Scripture is caught in an aura of confusion. What people think they know about her has for centuries overshadowed who she really is. What people expect to see when they look at her, in other words, is what keeps her from being fully seen for what she was in herself then, and what she means to us today.

To clear up the situation at the outset: Mary Magdalene is not "the repentant woman" of Scripture. She was not "the woman of the city who was a sinner." The evidence is clear: The same evangelist, Luke, introduces both figures, one in chapter 7 of his gospel, the other one immediately afterwards in chapter 8. For the first woman, the one "who was a sinner," he gives no name and no identification at all. She is simply a woman of the streets, a prostitute probably, who breaks into a male enclave to show them that she is not interested in them at all. She is intent only on the One among them who allows her to be a person rather than a thing.

In the chapter that follows the description of this incident though, in chapter 8, Luke is very specific. In this chapter, Luke is talking about the women disciples of Jesus. The woman introduced in these verses is Mary from the town of Magdala in the Galilee, or Mejdel as it is known today, and she is anything but a woman of the streets. She is important enough to be identified --- an uncommon thing for women in male documents to begin with --- and she is mentioned fourteen times. She is mentioned more times, in other words, than any other woman in the New Testament except Mary the mother of Jesus. The woman with the issue of blood, the Syrophoenician woman, the woman of the town, the woman who was bent over, the woman taken in adultery, not even the woman at the well is named. But Mary of Magdala is. And with good reason.

The confusion between the two women, the sinner and the disciple, is an early medieval one attributed to Gregory the Great but repudiated, at least in part, even then. Only in the Latin church was the misidentification widespread. The Greek church, on the other hand, following Origen in his treatment of the two figures in Scripture, never collapsed their identity. In the West, however, the teaching of Gregory was buttressed by the renditions of artists who repeatedly put Mary Magdalene into the role of the repentant sinner and the error was seldom, if ever, officially corrected.

In the popular mind, then, Mary Magdalene became the New Testament Eve whose sin had been forgiven but whose character was forever cast in question. As a result of the error, her strength and special calling have been regularly eclipsed. We are inclined to miss, therefore, the prominence given her by Jesus and so the prominence given to women in general, perhaps, in the New Dispensation.

But Scripture is very clear. Mary Magdalene is a new kind of woman completely. Mary Magdalene is the woman who becomes the first woman minister. Mary Magdalene is the woman who risks her status in both synagogue and society for the sake of her faith in a Jesus who had confounded both of them. Mary Magdalene is the witness who recognizes Jesus in his earliest moments and stays with him to the end. Mary Magdalene is a leader among the women and a person to be reckoned with by the men. Mary Magdalene is the woman who becomes companion and friend to Jesus and who stands beside him all the way to the cross, next to his mother and next to John, the other one "whom Jesus loved." Mary Magdalene is the woman who is sent to be the disciple of the Resurrection to the disciples who had missed it. Mary Magdalene is, indeed, "the apostle to the apostles."

Most tragic of all, perhaps, is that Mary Magdalene, even in the face of such data, is yet the icon of all women clearly called by Jesus to proclaim his resurrection but whose message is ignored. She stands abject in the midst of those who will not listen to the experiences of a woman and recognize in them a challenge to their own spiritual life. Indeed, Mary Magdalene is the woman who sees the Lord and summons others to see him, too. She is a strong woman who did what she had to do to become what she knew she was called to be, in the face of culture, in the face of tradition, in the face of downright scorn.

The situation was not an easy one. It took courage; it took faith; it took a sense of call.

Orthodox Judaism was very clear about the role of women in society. They were to confine themselves to the home or the synagogue except for the sake of domestic duty; they were to be invisible in the public presence of men; they were never to give testimony in a court of law. In public matters, in social relationships and in the professional world they were usually absent, at most ancillary. Mary of Magdala was a sign of contradiction in all three situations.

Scripture says that Mary Magdalene was cured by Jesus of "seven demons," a nervous ailment, perhaps, or epilepsy, diseases that were commonly attributed by ancient societies to demonic possession. She was healed by Jesus, in other words, of an inner weakness, of a kind of personal debility, of an inability to function in a balanced and credible way. Thanks to her faith in Jesus Mary Magdalene becomes strong.

The problem is that when the demons go, they all go. The demon of female fragility goes and the demon of invisibility goes and demon of low self-esteem goes and the demon of fear goes, too. The transformation is a total one. Not only does she become physically hale but she becomes spiritually strong and socially secure at the same time. Mary Magdalene comes face to face with the vision of Jesus and, thanks to him, becomes a new person.

The point is not that Mary Magdalene became a social misfit; the point is that Jesus himself called her to an entirely new role.

Her presentation in Scripture is a compelling one: She is called by name, identified by place, and described as a leader of a number of women who supported the work of Jesus "out of their own resources." (Luke, chapter 8) She not only "followed Jesus," in public, despite the public prescriptions against it; she made the ministry possible. She saw the truth and determined to set it free. She was not simply a passive listener, a hanger-on. She was a philanthropist of vision, an advocate of godly revolution, a creator of social change. She was part and parcel of the public life of Jesus.

Then, after drawing her profile with broad, bold lines, Scripture focuses in on the central reality of Mary Magdalene's ministry: she stayed with him to the end, she witnessed to him in public and she became the messenger of the resurrection, when his great, brave, bold male disciples, those who called themselves the apostles, were hiding someplace in the city in a locked up room.

It is a woman, it is Mary Magdalene, who contends with every system and prevails.

When the others run away from the crucifixion, when the crowds who had welcomed him to Jerusalem within the week had trickled away from the site of the cross, afraid of the authority of the Romans and the disapproval of the high priests as well, it is Mary Magdalene and John who stay with Mary the Mother of Jesus at the foot of the cross while the death of this rebel brings a brilliant three years to a slow and inglorious end.

It is Mary Magdalene who goes with other women to the tomb to do the customary anointing of the corpse when all the others around him had disassociated themselves from his life, his work, his vision.

She serves to the very end. She witnesses to the last moment. She stands up to face the system when there is no applause and there is no strong support for the movement and there is no protection from its enemies.

Finally, it is Mary Magdalene, the evangelist John details, to whom Jesus appears first after the resurrection. It is Mary Magdalene who is instructed to proclaim the Easter message to the others. It is Mary Magdalene whom Jesus commissions to "tell Peter and the others that I have gone before them into Galilee." It is Mary Magdalene who sees the Risen Christ.

And then, the Scripture says pathetically, "But Peter and John and the others did not believe her and they went to the tomb to see for themselves."

It is 2000 years later and little or nothing has changed. The voice of women proclaiming the presence of Christ goes largely unconfirmed. The call of women to minister goes largely unnoted. The commission of women to the church goes largely disdained.

Mary Magdalene is, no doubt about it, an important icon for the twenty-first century.

She calls women to listen for the call of the Christ over the call of the church.

She calls men to listen for the call of the Christ in the messages of women.

She calls women to courage and men to humility.

She calls all of us to faith and fortitude, to unity and universalism, to a Christianity that rises above sexism, a religion that transcends the idolatry of maleness and a commitment to the things of God that surmounts every obstacle and surpasses every system.

Mary Magdalene is a shining light of hope, a disciple of Christ, a model of the wholeness of life, in a world whose name is despair and in a church whose vision is yet, still, even now, partial.

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Chosen Apostle to the Eleven, First Witness to the Rusurrection

Mary Magdalen was one of those people who has an "interesting" life. She was one of Jesus' closest disciples, first named among those who travelled with Him and ministered to His needs, and also named as having been delivered from seven demons [Luke 8:2-3]. She has also been traditionally (mis)identified with "the woman who was a sinner" who crashed the party at the home of Simon the Pharasee [Luke 7:36 ff.]. [How could she be this utter stranger, and then only two sentences later be first-named among Jesus' well-to-do benefactors?] She was present with Mary the mother of Jesus and with John the Beloved at the crucifixion, assisted in Jesus' burial, and at dawn following the Sabbath day, was the first witness to Jesus resurrected, becoming the chosen apostle to the Eleven. She was at the Ascension, the Scripture states that she traveled back to Jerusalem after that event with Jesus' mother and the Eleven and others. She can be safely presumed to have been present at Pentecost.

After that, the Scriptures are silent, and the tradition diverges. Some, older, sources say she went to Ephesus with John the Beloved and Mary the mother of Jesus, had an adventure concerning the Emperor and a miraculous blood-red egg, and lived with Jesus' mother in contemplation to a quite old age. Other sources have her traveling with St. Lazarus of Bethany, his sisters, [with one of whom she's also been misidentified!] and others to France, where they evangelized Provence.

Whether she spent the rest of her life in Ephesus with Mary and John or in Provence with Lazarus and his sisters, her glory forever will be her faithfulness and her bold proclamation, "I have seen the Lord! He is not dead, but lives!"

Here's what Pope St. Gregory the Great had to say about her, as given in today's Office of Readings:

When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and did not find the Lord’s body, she thought it had been taken away and so informed the disciples. After they came and saw the tomb, they too believed what Mary had told them. The text then says: The disciples went back home, and it adds: but Mary wept and remained standing outside the tomb.

We should reflect on Mary’s attitude and the great love she felt for Christ; for though the disciples had left the tomb, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found, and while she sought she wept; burning with the fire of love, she longed for him who she thought had been taken away. And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us: Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.

At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: I was wounded by love; and again: My soul is melted with love.

Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.

Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognised when he calls her “woman”; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognise me as I recognise you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognises who is speaking. She immediately calls him rabboni, that is to say, teacher, because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching.
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A touch of doggerel today

I wrote back in 2003; the tune is "Aurelia" 7.6.7.6.D , aka "Church's one Foundation":

On English-language Church Music

The music of our people
was captive to Ray Repp.
Permitted four chords only
and sticky syrupy words.
Whom would God send to help us
lift up our stucken feet?
Who would expand our rhythms
and help us sing God's praise?

The Lord sent fine deliv'rance
throughout the Catholic world;
the Word of God Commun'ty
and Jebbies in Saint L.
And also many others
who sensed that self-same draw
to open up their Bibles
and sing the words they saw.

So now the Catholic People
do sing the Lord's own Word;
they hear His testimony
emit from their own lips.
They contemplate in wonder
the great gift God has giv'n,
to have more verses mem'rized
than all their Prot'stant friends.
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the weak and frail one in the desert

Today is also the memorial of Abba Arsenius, one of my favorite desert Christians. Arsenius was a wealthy, brilliant, and highly-placed man in the Roman Emperor's court, the chief tutor to the children of two different emperors. He came to conversion of life, abandoned his former life as a courtier, and went out to the desert to follow Jesus. He was faithful for many years, and was granted great wisdom and gifts of counsel. Here is one of the stories of Arsenius.

There was a monk from Rome called Arsenius who lived at Scetis near the church. He had a slave to serve him. The priest, knowing his bad health and the comfort in which he used to live, sent him what he needed of whatever anyone brought to the church. Having lived twenty-five years at Scetis, he had acquired the gift of insight and became famous.

One of the great Egyptians heard about him and came to see him, thinking he would find him leading a life of great corporal austerity. He entered and greeted him. They said the prayer and sat down. Now the Egyptian saw he was wearing fine clothing, and that he possessed a bed with a coverlet and a small pillow. He saw that his feet were clean and shod in sandals. Noticing all this, he was shocked, because such a way of life was not usual in that district; much greater austerity was required.

Now the old man had the gift of insight, and he understood that his visitor was shocked, and so he said to him who served him, "We will celebrate a feast today for the abba's sake." There were a few vegetables, and he cooked them and at the appointed hour, they rose and ate. The old man had a little wine also, because of his illness; so they drank some. When evening came, they recited the twelve psalms and went to sleep. They did the same during the night. On rising at dawn, the Egyptian said to him, "Pray for me," and he went away without being edified.

When he had gone a short distance, the old man, wishing to edify him, sent someone to bring him back. On his arrival he received him once again with joy and asked him, "Of what country are you?" He said, "Egypt." "And of what city?" "I am not a city-dweller at all." "And what was your work in the village?" "I was a herdsman." "Where did you sleep?" He replied, "In the field." "Did you have anything to lie upon?" He said, "Would I go and put a bed under myself in a field?" "But how did you sleep?" He said, "On the bare ground." The old man said next, "What was your food in the fields, and what wine did you drink?" He replied, "Is there food and drink in the the fields?" "But how did you live?" "I ate dry bread, and, if I found any, green herbs and water." The old man replied, "Great hardship! Was there a bath-house for washing in the village?" He replied, "No, only the river, when we wanted it."

After the old man had learnt all this and knew of the hardness of his former life, he told him his own former way of life when he was in the world, with the intention of helping him. "I, the poor man whom you see, am of the great city of Rome and I was a great man in the palace of the emperor." When the Egyptian heard the beginning of these words, he was filled with compunction and listened attentively to what the other was saying. He continued, "Then I left the city and came to this desert. I whom you see had great houses and many riches and having despised them I have come to this little cell. I whom you see had beds all of gold with coverings of silk, and in exchange for that, God has given me this little bed and this skin. Moreover, my clothes were the most expensive kind and in their stead I wear these garments of no value. Again, at my table there was much gold and abundance, and instead of that, God has given me this little dish of vegetables and a cup of wine. There were many slaves to serve me, and see how in exchange for that, God troubles this old man to serve me. Instead of the bath-house, I throw a little water over my feet and wear sandals because of my weakness. Instead of music and lyres, I say the twelve psalms and the same at night. Instead of the sins I used to commit, I now say my little rule prayer. So then, I beg you abba, do not be shocked at my weakness."

Hearing this, the Egyptian came to his senses and said, "Woe to me, for after so much hardship in the world, I have found ease; and what I did not have before, that I now possess. While after so great ease, you have come to humility and poverty." Greatly edified, he withdrew, and he became his friend and often went to him for help. For he was a man full of discernment and the good odour of the Holy Spirit.
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May families be filled with saints!

Today is the memorial of St. Macrina the younger. She's called the younger to distinguish her from her holy paternal grandmother, St. Macrina the elder.

But, they were not the only heroically virtuous ones in their family.

Both of the younger Macrina's parents are saints: St. Basil the Elder and St. Emmelia.

All three of her younger brothers are also saints: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Peter of Sebastea. Some sources also say that St. Gregory Nazianzen was her cousin and foster-brother. Gregory may have been a popular name in the family because the elder Macrina was a disciple of St. Gregory the Wonderworker.

But back to today's member of the family, the younger Macrina. Born in about 327, she had as normal of a childhood as was possible when Mom, Dad, and Grandma are all certifiable Saints, growing up pretty, pious, and learned under the tutulege of her Mom and Grandma, both of whom beside being holy were also scholars. At age twelve, the standard age in those days, she was betrothed to a Christian lawyer, but the young gentleman died before the wedding, and she then refused all other suitors.

About this time, her Dad and then her Mom died, and she, with her Grandma's help, dedicated herself to the upbringing and education of her younger brothers and cousin, seeing them all safely launched into holy and learned adulthoods. Once this duty was done, she entered a cenobium for women (we'd say "monastery" these days, but monasteries hadn't been invented yet.....) that her Mom had founded after Dad died, where she lived a life of intense prayer as its amma until her death in 379. Her kid brother St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote her biography.
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Two saints for this day

Today is the memorial of two one-of-a-kind saints:

St. Camillus de Lellis --- lover of Christ, lover of the sick



Camillus was the son of a military officer, born in 1550. His mother died when he was still a toddler. Following his father's trade, Camillus became a soldier while still very young, fighting first for Venice and then for Naples.

Camillus also has an addiction to gambling, and lost so much that he had to take a second job working construction to repay his gambling debts. He was working on a building belonging to the Capuchin Franciscans when they brought him to conversion.

He left the military and entered the Capuchin novitiate three separate times, but injuries from his fighting days forced him to leave each time. He went to Rome seeking medical treatment, and there became a protege of St. Philip Neri (that God-bitten character!). Camillus moved into San Giacomo hospital for incurables to live, and, eventually, became its administrator.

Aware of his total lack of education, he began elementary school at the age of 32, studying with the local children, and after long study was ordianed a priest. He formed the Congregation of the Servants of the Sick, now commonly called the Camillans, dedicated entirely to the care of the sick. Camillus honored the sick as living images of Christ.

As it says in today's Office of Readings passage, a citation from a biography written by one of his companions:

.....The mere sight of the sick was enough to soften and melt his heart and make him utterly forget all the pleasures, enticements, and interests of this world. When he was taking care of his patients, he seemed to spend and exhaust himself completely, so great was his devotion and compassion. He would have loved to take upon himself all their illness, their every affliction, could he but ease their pain and relieve their weakness.

In the sick he saw the person of Christ. His imagination was so vivid that, while feeding them, he perceived his patients as other Christs. He would even beg of them the grace of forgiveness for his sins. His reverence in their presence was as great as if he were really and truly in the presence of his Lord. In his conversations he talked of nothing more often or with greater feeling than of holy charity. He would have liked to plant this virtue in every human heart. .....

After many years of selfless service, he died on this day in 1614.


"She pushes all before her" --- Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha

I am not my own; I have given myself to Jesus. He must be my only love. The state of helpless poverty that may befall me if I do not marry does not frighten me. All I need is a little food and a few pieces of clothing. With the work of my hands I shall always earn what is necessary and what is left over I’ll give to my relatives and to the poor. If I should become sick and unable to work, then I shall be like the Lord on the cross. He will have mercy on me and help me, I am sure. ---- Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha



Tekakwitha was born in 1656, the daughter of a Mohawk chief, the head of the Turtle clan, and his wife, a captive Algonquian woman who was a Christian. When Tekakwitha was four, she lost mother, father, and her brother in a smallpox epidemic, and she was left badly scarred and nearly blind. Her name means "she pushes all before her," and most likely refers to her habit of feeling in front of herself so she wouldn't run into stuff, but that name was also appropriate because she seemed to have a gift from childhood for domestic management, for imposing order on chaos. This talent kept her tolerated by her surviving relatives, who otherwise considered her a burden and who were upset that she would not allow herself to be married off.

When the Jesuit missioners arrived in her village, she was one of the first converts, in 1676 when she was twenty, and was baptised with the name Kateri, Mohawk for Catherine. This was to the extreme displeasure of her relatives. When their treatment of her degraded from grudging neglect to outright abuse, she left, and moved to a settlement about 200 miles away that was entirely Christian, living a life of deep prayer and strict austerity. When on a visit to Montreal she met some religious sisters, she was drawn to their life, and set out to form a community of sisters in her village, but was discouraged from that by the pastor; however, she herself made the vow to the counsels in 1679, becoming the first consecrated person among the Mohawks, in fact among any of the original nations of North America.

Never strong or healthy, and weakened by her austerities, she died at the age of 24 in 1680.

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Getting back in gear

I'm getting my blogging back in gear again after some days of blogging temptation.

For some unknown reason, it seems all the ideas that have been popping up for posts the last week or so have been "Controversies R Us", and I've always tried to keep this blog oriented to those things that do not change, a quiet back cove of the parish. So, I haven't been posting. But, just for your entertainment, a topic list of the half-written passed-up posts:

1)"Let them drive automobiles"; coping with clueless socially isolated politicians
2)Wealth and poverty are relative terms
. . 2a)Just because they are relative does not make them insignificant or less a problem
. . 2b)Speaking honestly about these problems is not class warfare
3)What is up with St. Blog's Parish and disrespect for elders?
4)the Catechism and offenses against truth (and there isn't even a current blogstorm....)
5)the Second Vatican Council's only anathema (and it's not August sixth.....)
6)Sacramental Church without Sacraments --- curcuit riders, "viri probati", and the return of the "simplex priest"?

and there were some others I didn't start to write. Aren't you glad I've got some resistance [grin]
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Faction fighting, still!!

Well, humans have been doing it forever. Only one generation into Christianity, St. Clement of Rome, who was the third or fourth pope (I don't have my chart in front of me) had to send an apostolic letter to the Church in Corinth, because they had tied their church up in a tangle of faction fighting again.

The same thing that it was so important for Pope Clement to teach the fractious Church in Corinth is equally important for us to learn in the fractious Church in the United States of America.

from the Epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians:

Why are there strife and passion, schisms and even war among you? Do we not possess the same Spirit of grace which was given to us and the same calling in Christ? Why do we tear apart and divide the body of Christ? Why do we revolt against our own body? Why do we reach such a degree of insanity that we forget that we are members of one another? Do not forget the words of Jesus our Lord: Woe to that man; it would be better for him if he had not been born rather than scandalise one of my chosen ones. Indeed it would be better for him to have a great millstone round his neck and to be drowned in the sea than that he lead astray one of my chosen ones. Your division has led many astray, has made many doubt, has made many despair, and has brought grief upon us all. And still your rebellion continues.

Pick up the letter of blessed Paul the apostle. What did he write to you at the beginning of his ministry? Even then you had developed factions. So Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote to you concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos. But that division involved you in less sin because you were supporting apostles of high reputation and a person approved by them.

We should put an end to this division immediately. Let us fall down before our master and implore his mercy with our tears. Then he will be reconciled to us and restore us to the practice of brotherly love that befits us. For this is the gate of justice that leads to life, as it is written: Open to me the gates of justice. When I have entered there, I shall praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the just shall enter through it. There are many gates which stand open, but the gate of justice is the gateway of Christ. All who enter through this gate are blessed, pursuing their way in holiness and justice, performing all their tasks without discord. A person may be faithful; he may have the power to utter hidden mysteries; he may be discriminating in the evaluation of what is said and pure in his actions. But the greater he seems to be, the more humbly he ought to act, and the more zealous he should be for the common good rather than his own interest.

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Life, Justice, and Going to War

by Father Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, an excellent exposition on Catholic morality and "just war" theory and its applicibility to the our country's current armed conflict(s), heavily footnoted. [beware, Adobe Reader required]

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What I've been up to......

my sisters decided that I needed a memorable 50th birthday party1

The four of them, all together, drove up from our old stomping grounds in NE Ohio on Friday. After they came by my place for a little plotting, they went to their hotel, and we reassenbled early on Saturday morning.

After some driving around making decisions, we had breakfast at Ma Fischers, a notorious 24-hour-breakfast restaurant, then pilgrimaged to several stores looking for a piece of medical hardware they wanted to make a present of without going to the internet --- but we didn't find it. So we shrugged shoulders and went to the Penzey's Spices store; I'd heard their fine reputation but never been there. All five of us indulged in spice purchases --- I got bellpepper flakes, orange peel, salt-free Italian herb blend, and salt-free California seasoned pepper.

Next stop was the [temporary] West Allis Farmer's market, where I did all kinds of ogling and bought some snap peas and pattypan squash. and my sisters decided that the Anchor Hold needed just a little something. A few purchases at the Market and a quick K-Mart stop, and back to my place. A big hanging plant with purple flowers now graces the old clothesline rack, and



here's two of my sisters planting my new herb garden with basil, thyme, rosemary, and tarragon. After a late lunch and talk at the Grand Avenue food court, I went home for an evening's rest, and they went to Summerfest with Julie of West Allis, who has been Susan's penpal for 30 years or so.

7:15 am, we are back out and running, to Mass at the Cathedral, then a stop in the Cathedral Treasury [the parish museum] and a few introductions, then breakfast at Mykono's Cafe, just two blocks from the cathedral. To the hotel for change of clothes and assorted phone calls to my brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews, then off to Summerfest for the day!



And this is us, the Five Sister Musketeers, enjoying the fine Lake Michigan shore. We wandered around the stages, then spent most of the afternoon at the gospel choir competition. One of the choirs was All Saints CATHOLIC Church --- the emphasis was theirs --- and they were so good that one of the sisters says that next time they do this we have to assist at Mass there, instead of Cathedral [raised eyebrow?]

For the evening, we went to the Big Backyard stage, where there was a young, quite handsome country singer who was quite good (but I don't recall his name). Only one sis was allowed to be with me on the access platform, but we could see the other three at a picnic table and they must have been enjoying themselves because they were dancing......

They went back to Ohio bright and early this morning, in order to have the holiday with husbands and children before work begins again on Wednesday. Wild and wonderful. And it's right that we really ought to see each othr more often than two or three times per decade!
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to encourage Ehren Watada, and others so situated

Great bunches of the holy Church's earliest martyrs were girls who wouldn't marry whatever papa picked, and young men who wouldn't join the military or wouldn't kill on command once they were in.

So, from the year 295, the story of St. Maximilian of Tebessa, also called St. Maximilian the Great Martyr, who, heavens no, he couldn't go.

On the 12th day of March during the consulship of Tuscus and Anolinus [295], when Fabius Victor had been brought into the forum at Tebessa, together with Maximilianus, and their advocate Pompeianus had been granted an audience, the last declared, "The temonarius Fabius Victor is present, together with Valerianus Quintianus, the praepositus Caesariensis, and the fine recruit Maximilianus, Victor's son. Since he is acceptable, I ask that he be measured." The proconsul Dion said, "What are you called ?" Maximilianus replied, "Why do you want to know my name? It is not permitted to me to serve in the military since I am a Christian". The proconsul Dion said, "Ready him". When he was being got ready, Maximilianus replied, "I cannot serve in the military; I cannot do wrong; I am a Christian." The proconsul Dion said, "Let him be measured". When he had been measured, an official reported, "He is five feet ten inches tall." Dion said to the official, "Let him be marked." And as Maximilianus resisted, he replied, "I will not do it; I cannot serve in the military."

2. Dion said, "Serve so that you do not perish." Maximilianus replied, "I will not serve; cut off my head; I do not serve the world, but I do serve my God." Dion the proconsul said, "Who has persuaded you of this?" Maximilianus replied, "My soul and he who has called me." Dion said to his father Victor, "Advise your son." Victor replied, "He himself knows --- he has his purpose --- what is best for him." Dion said to Maximilianus, "Serve and accept the seal." He replied, "I will not accept the seal: I already have the seal of my Christ." Dion the proconsul said, "I will send you to your Christ right now." He replied, "I wish that you would do so. That is even my title to glory." Dion said to his staff, "Let him be marked." And when he was resisting, he replied, "I do not accept the world's seal, and if you give it to me, I will break it, since I value it at nought. I am a Christian. It is not permitted to me to bear the lead upon my neck after [having received] the saving seal of my Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, he whom you do not know, who suffered for the life of the world, whom God surrendered for our sins. All of us Christians serve Him. Him we follow as the source of life and author of salvation." Dion said, "Serve, and accept the seal, so that you do not suffer a terrible death." Maximilianus replied, "I will not die. My name is already with my Lord; I cannot serve in the military." Dion said, "Have regard to your youth and serve; for this befits a young man." Maximilianus replied, "My service is for my Lord; I cannot serve the world. I have already said: I am a Christian." Dion the proconsul said, "There are Christian soldiers in the sacred retinue of our lords Diocletian, Maximianus, Constantius, and Maximus, and they serve." Maximilianus replied, "They themselves know what is best for them. But I am a Christian, and I cannot do wrong." Dio said, "What wrong do they who serve do ?" Maximilianus replied, "You know well what they do." Dion replied, "Serve, lest, having scorned military service, you begin upon a terrible death." Maximilianus replied, "I will will not die; even if I do depart the world, my spirit will live with my Lord Christ."

3. Dion said, "Strike out his name." And when it had been struck out, Dion said, "Because you have disloyally refused military service, you will receive the appropriate sentence in order to serve as an example to others." And he read his decision from his tablet, "Maximilianus, since you have disloyally refused the military oath, it has been decided for you to be punished by the sword." Maximilianus replied, "Thanks be to God." He was 21 years, 3 months, and 18 days old. And when he was being led to the place [of execution], he spoke as follows, "Dearest brothers, with an eager desire, hurry with as much courage as you can so that it may befall you to see the Lord and that he may reward you also with a similar crown." And with a joyous face, he addressed his father as follows, "Give that guard the new clothing which you had got ready for me during my military service, so that I may welcome you with a hundredfold reward and we may glory with the Lord together." And so he suffered death shortly afterwards. And the matron Pompeiana obtained his body from the judge and, having placed it in her carriage, she brought it to Carthage, and buried it beneath a little hill near the martyr Cyprian and the palace. And so, after the 13th day, the same woman died, and was buried there. But his father Victor returned to his home with great joy, thanking God that he had sent on ahead such a gift to the Lord, he who was about to follow shortly afterwards.

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A life of struggles, a life of forgiveness

The most remarkable thing about James Cameron was that he never held a grudge.

A commentary about James Cameron, one of the more well-known saints of this fair city. The funeral will be at the Cathedral on Monday morning, Juneteenth Day, the feast of liberation, which is also the 18th anniversary of the opening of the museum he founded, dedicated to forgiving and never forgetting. (For, those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.)

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Eternal rest and perpetual Light, O Lord!

Deacon John Wargin, the master of ceremonies for +Richard our auxiliary bishop, died yesterday in a traffic accident while he and +Richard were going to a remote part of the diocese on the chrism trail. Deacon Wargin was driving, missed a stop sign. Two people in the other car and +Richard were also injured but were treated and released the same day.

and James Cameron, founder of America's Black Holocaust Museum, also died yesterday. He was a survivor of a lynching in 1930, and devoted his life to forgiving and not forgetting.

Funeral arrangements pending for each.....

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Two great saints today

"Lord, grant me to see my own sins, and not to judge my brother"

Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings, you have power over life and death. You know even things that are uncertain and obscure, and our very thoughts and feelings are not hidden from you. Cleanse me from my secret faults, and I have done wrong and you saw it. You know how weak I am, both in soul and in body. Give me strength, O Lord, in my frailty and sustain me in my sufferings. Grant me a prudent judgment, dear Lord, and let me always be mindful of your blessings. Let me retain until the end your grace that has protected me till now. ---- St Ephrem's prayer for strength in weakness



Today the Church celebrates the deacon and doctor, the desert Christian Ephrem the Syrian. He wrote great volumes of prayers, devotional poetry, and works of theology. He was one of the periti at the Council of Nicea, having accompanied his bishop, +James of Nisibis, there. Post-conciliarly, he dedicated much of his writings to the defense and propagation of the rulings of the Council. He also worked against the Gnostics; they were propagating their heresy by writing popular music, Ephrem countered by writing orthodox pop tunes of his own, becoming known as "the harp of the Holy Spirit."

He retired to a cave hermitage in the vicinity of Edessa, continuing to write, and occasionally going to the city to preach. During a famine in 372-3 he coordinated the food distribution, operated a string of soup kitchens, and also opened and ran several hospitals for the ill, until he fell ill, probably a result of overwork, and died in 373.

St. Ephrem's most well-known work, known as his "Great Prayer", isa treasure in my life and I believe it will be fruitful in the lives of all of us.

St. Ephrem's Great Prayer

[Making a prostration]

O LORD, Master of my life, grant that I may not be infected with the spirit of slothfulness and inquisitiveness, with the spirit of ambition and vain talking.

[Making a prostration]

Grant instead to me, your servant, the spirit of purity and of humility, the spirit of patience and neighborly love.

[Making a prostration]

O Lord and King, grant me the grace of being aware of my sins and of not thinking evil of those of my brethren.

For you are blessed, now and ever, and forever. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings, You have power over life and death. You know what is secret and hidden, and neither our thoughts nor our feelings are concealed from You. Cure me of duplicity; I have done evil before You.

Now my life declines from day to day and my sins increase. O Lord, God of souls and bodies, You know the extreme frailty of my soul and my flesh. Grant me strength in my weakness, O Lord, and sustain me in my misery.

Give me a grateful soul that I may never cease to recall Your benefits, O Lord most bountiful. Be not mindful of my many sins, but forgive me all my misdeeds.

O Lord, disdain not my prayer - the prayer of a wretched sinner; sustain me with Your grace until the end, that it may protect me as in the paSaint It is Your grace which has taught me wisdom; blessed are they who follow her ways, for they shall receive the crown of glory.

In spite of my unworthiness, I praise You and I glorify You, O Lord, for Your mercy to me is without limit. You have been my help and my protection. May the name of Your majesty be praised forever. To you, our God, be glory. Amen.

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Great sinner, greater saint: Columba, the one who loved books

O Lord, grant us that love which can never die, which will enkindle our lamps but not extinguish them, so that they may shine in us and bring light to others. Most dear Savior, enkindle our lamps that they may shine forever in your temple. May we receive unquenchable light from you so that our darkness will be illuminated and the darkness of the world will be made less. Amen. --- a prayer of St. Columba



Today the Church also remembers Columba, bard, monk, missioner, and penitent, and just plain interesting character.

He was born in Ireland, at about the same time that the young Patrick was a slave there, to a noble family, direct descendants of the great Niall. He had a great love for all kinds of learning from childhood. The legendary version of his life attributes this to the toddler Columba having eaten a cake with the alphabet letters baked inside it. He studied the bardic arts, and then, after he became a Christian, apprenticed in the monastic life under two hermits who also became saints, both of them named Finian. Then, he took up the life of a wandering bard, monastic variety, going all over Ireland wherever there were souls to be saved and new books to be read, priorities not necessarily in that order.

Now word came to Columba that a new book had arrived at the hermitage of Finian (who may have been one of the two he apprenticed under --- but Finian was a extremely common name at that time). So he went to the place where Finian, and his new book, dwelled; publicly preaching and praying and reading the new book during the day, and secretly copying the book at night, against the command of Finian, who was very attached to having an only copy. On the night Columba finished copying the last page of the book, he was discovered, and Finian claimed the copy for himself, since there was no permission to copy. After much arguing, the case was appealed to the High King of all Ireland, who ruled in favor of Finian in this very first copyright case --- "To every cow its calf, and to every book its child book."

Columba lost his temper entirely, and called down the wrath of the O'Neills (his ancestral clan) against the High King and his armies. There was a great battle, which was won by the O'Neill forces, but at the cost of a thousand dead. Every soul of whom was a millstone on the soul of Columba. One thousand souls killed, for the sake of a book and bruised pride. In penitence, he vowed to never look upon his beloved land again.



With a few companions, he sailed away; and kept sailing until they came to an island where, even at the top of the highest hill on the clearest day, there was no sight of Ireland --- Iona. There, he did penance, and he established a monastic community. From there, he sent missionaries to spread the Christian faith among the Picts and the Angles in the place now called Scotland.

And, he did once visit Ireland again, blindfolded. Many years after his exile, messengers came to him, informing him that the High King was attempting to outlaw the bardic arts, upset at certain bards' misbehavior and also peeved at the bards' parodies of his exalted self. After much pleading, Columba agreed to be taken back to his land, to defend its stories and songs and the people who created and preserved them before the throne of the High King. Having successfully defended the bards, and having read the riot act to those individual bards who had triggered the trouble, never having looked upon the land he still loved, he returned to his exile, and lived in holiness and penitence to a revered old age.

For a beautiful book on this, go to your local public library, to the children's section, and borrow The Man Who Loved Books, by Jean Fritz. And remember that great sinners can be redeemed and restored, and become even greater saints.

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On the Ember Days --- 7, 9, 10 June 2006

Our daily bread does not come from Cargill or from Archer Daniels Midland.
It doesn't come from General Foods, Kraft, or Nabisco,
or even from Brownberry or Natural Ovens of Manitowoc.

Our daily bread is given us by the Lord,
the creator of the heavens and the earth.
It comes from the fertility of the good earth;
it is nourished by the sunlight
and by the snows and the rains in the proper seasons;
it is nurtured and gathered and prepared
by our sisters and our brothers
who work very hard for very little
on our farms and ranches and in our gardens,
in our canneries and bakeries and dairies and slaughterhouses.

This we must remember:
Our food does not come from Pick 'n Save or from Sentry Foods or from Jewel-Osco.
Costco and Sam's Club cannot create a single green bean or tomato.
Only God can.

God created the earth, and He created the earthworms, and the soil microbes.
God created the plants, and also the trees that bear nuts and fruits.
God created the bees, the hummingbirds, and all the other little pollinating creatures.
God created us, and commanded us to nurture the plants and the animals, to care for His garden.
He told us to have dominion and to subdue them, shaping them to our needs.

We can plant seeds. We can tend animals.
Yet, only God can make a plant grow.
Only God can create calves, chicks, lambs, ducklings, and piglets.
Only God has power over the often-chaotic patterns of the weather.

So, four times each year,
at the turning of the seasons,
Mother Church, being very wise,
gives us some days to fast and pray
that the earth may be fruitful,
that our plants and our livestock will stay healthy,
that the rains and the dry times and the snow cover come at the proper times,
that the cyclones and the floods and the insect swarms stay far away from us,
that our sisters and our brothers who do the work
that takes our food from a seed planted to a can on the grocery store shelf
will always be treated with respect and with justice.

These days, the Ember Days, are this week.
Let us not forget.

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Sometimes one has to die.

What do you do when you are a eager shining new Christian, you are an obedient member of the court of an absolute monarch, and your absolute monarch is an absolute mess?

Sometimes you have to die.

Mwanga II came to the throne following the unexpected death of his father, Mutesa I. He had an older brother, but that brother was determined unfit to be king. Mutesa was a wise and tolerant ruler. He had welcomed the newly-arrived Muslim and Catholic and Anglican missionaries and had declared religious liberty in Buganda, but had himself remained a traditionalist --- he refused to be circumcised, a requirement to become a Muslim, and he would not abandon his wives, required by both varieties of Christian.

Mwanga II was not nearly so tolerant, however. Not that he had any real beliefs at all, except in the superiority of his royal self. He'd study Islam with the Arabs, or Anglican Christianity with the British, or Catholic Christianity with the French, or consult the shamen, whatever looked to be most advantageous economically and politically to his royal self. And, he considered it his right to be pampered in every imaginable way by the pages of his court --- including their service as his boy-toys.

When pages became Christians, they became extremely resistant to immediate blind obedience, and would hide, run away, or outright refuse to relieve the king's sexual tensions. Higher-ranking court Christians would actually tell the king that he was wrong!

There were sporadic executions --- such as three Anglican pages killed for going to catechism class after Anglican lessons had been forbidden. But the persecution began in earnest when James Hannington, first Anglican bishop of Uganda, was approaching the kingdom, from a direction that the local traditionalist shamen considered inauspicious, and Mwanga sent soldiers to massacre Bishop Hannington and his entire party. Mwanga's majordomo, Yosefu Mukasa Balikuddembe, a Catholic, told him that the killing of Bishop Hannington was evil and wrong, and Mwanga had him executed.

So, in mid-May, 1886, Denis Ssebuggwawo snuck out to Catholic catechism class, and took one of the traditionalist pages withn him, who had shown an interest in Christianity. Unfortunately, this page was Mwanga's current favorite boy-toy, and Mwanga wanted him, now!, and was furious to find out that he'd gone to catechism class --- and was likely to tell the king to buzz off, like all those miserable Christians did sooner or later.

So the king gathered all his pages. The head pages, who were both Christians, gathered their believers around them, and gave them strength. Karoli Lwanga, a Catholic and in charge of pages of the inner court, baptised those who had not yet been baptised. Moses Mukasa, an Anglican and in charge of the outer court, had not received permission to baptise, so the newest Anglican converts went to their trial still catechumens.

In the assembly hall, after a long harrangue about the duties of pages to obey their rightful king, Mwanga called out of the assembly "all of you who pray." And all of the Christians, Anglicans and Catholics alike, stepped out, as did a few of the Muslim pages. Another member of the court weeded out the Muslims, and the Christians were condemned to death, marched, with a few casualties along the way, to the traditional royal site of Namugongo, and burned alive on this day in 1886. The persecutions continued at a lower level for a few years more, until the death of Mwanga and the enthronement of his successor, who was an Anglican Christian.

The entire list of those martyrs whose names are documented can be found at this link.

The Catholic martyrs were canonized in the early 1960's, and to the best of my knowledge this was the first time the Catholic Church had dealt with a mixed group of martyr-companions. Though it will not be the last --- just two examples: Sophie Scholl and companions, known as the "White Rose" martyrs, are a mixed group, Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran; and the martyrs of the Guatemalan persecutions, though mostly Catholics, include also Lutherans and Mennonites.

Yosefu, Karoli, and companions, and all holy martyrs, pray for us.

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Refusing to fear

In this essay, Seeking unity: Overcoming discord in the church, Father Timothy Radcliffe op, formerly Master General of the Dominicans, seeks to reconcile that internecine warfare that currently mars the holy Church.

Here's an excerpt:

First of all we have to stop being afraid of each other. Our home in the church seems threatened. It is neither the people of God on pilgrimage to the Kingdom, of which some Catholics dream, nor is it anymore the solid institution for which others hope. And we see other Catholics as menacing our home. For some Catholics any mention of Opus Dei, or Mother Angelica or the Legionaries of Christ produces a frisson of horror. The sight of a deep clerical collar and a biretta can make one panic. (I had thought of wearing a biretta for these lectures, just to see the reactions!) These are just the sort of people who are seen as turning the church around, undermining our dreams of renewal. To those of you who feel that I say: Do not be afraid. God has promised the Kingdom. We are on the way there. We do not know how or when it will come, but one day all injustice and oppression will be ended and we shall rejoice in the perfect freedom of Christ. We will reach the home for which we long, even though every bishop in the world belonged to Opus Dei.

Communion Catholics can also be free of all fear. They may see menace in every liberated feminist nun, in every bearded and sandaled priest. A copy of the National Catholic Reporter brings on the trembles. When I was a young and longhaired priest in my late 20s, I remember being scornfully told by a grand woman: “You do not look like a priest.” To which I could only reply, “Which particular priest don’t I look like?” But to those Catholics, we too can say: Do not be afraid. The church is not about to crumble. Even though every bishop in the world was a hippie, the church will survive. Forty years after the Council of Nicea in the fourth century most of the bishops were Arian, but the church did not collapse. Jesus said to Peter, “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” To see one’s fellow Catholics, whether of the so-called left or right, as an ultimate threat to one’s home is a failure of faith.

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Christian Carnival's finally up

Stop waiting, and sure as little green apples it arrives!

The 124th Christian Carnival is now ready for customers at the Parableman.

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Catholic Carnival

I was waiting until the other Carnival was posted to post both together, but it looks like this week's Christian Carnival has been weather-delayed. However, this week's Catholic Carnival is open for business as usual. I contributed the essay on offering up to the Carnivals this week.

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St. Justin and the Six Movements of the Eucharist

Today is the memorial of St. Justin, a philosopher of the second century and martyr. A noted philosopher even before his conversion to Christianity, he continued to teach in the schools after his conversion, and also was famous for his public defense of the Christian faith.

St. Justin, in chapters 65-67 of his First Apology (which he wrote to the emperor to defend the Christians from accusations of atheism, promiscuity, and cannabalism), writes about the six movements through which the Christian people have celebrated the holy Eucharistic Liturgy from the beginning to this very day --- the earliest explanation we have of the movements of the Eucharist.

From St. Justin:

But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person, and for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen. This word Amen answers in the Hebrew language to "so be it". And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.

And this food is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.

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