by Lawrence Fox
Consider the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. The recorded events are a rich foundation for understanding: the mystery into the Blessed Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the Communion of the Saints, the Exodus of the New Testament Church out of the Earthly Jerusalem, and the veracity of the Resurrection events (since the apostles were not anticipating nor did they understand the resurrection of Jesus prior to the Sunday event as evidenced by their confused response to his command to tell no one until after His Resurrection from the Dead. They wondered what he meant by, “Tell no one until after I have risen from the dead.”)
And yet the reading last Sunday, which drew my attention, was the responsorial psalm 115 (116) “What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. O LORD, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD.”
I imagine Jesus reciting these words with his disciples on Holy Thursday. Consider the various messianic statements: Jesus’ sacrifice to the Father in the Holy Spirit is most precious for He is the faithful one, God’s Beloved Son. We heard God the Father say as much when Jesus was baptized and again here on the Mountain of Transfiguration. These word are a comfort to those of us who were baptized into the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ for again “precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
Next we hear that the Messiah is the Son of God’s Handmaiden. Mary (Jesus’ mother) confirmed these prophetic words when she humbly responded to the Angel Gabriel: “Behold the Handmaiden of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your message” (Luke 1:38). Mary’s proclamation as being “the Handmaiden of God” testified that Jesus is the Messiah. And because Mary is the Mother of the Messiah, she is the Handmaiden of the Lord. Since Jesus is the same ‘yesterday, today, and forever,’ Mary, too, remains God’s Handmaiden, ‘yesterday, today, and forever.’ Being God’s eternal Handmaiden, she continues to serve and disciple the Mystical Body of Christ as it journeys into eternal life (the communion of saints).
Then we understand via the Psalm that the Messiah offers a new sacrifice, one of Thanksgiving (Eucharist) to the LORD. It is my understanding that rabbinic tradition states: “the Messiah would bring an end to animal sacrifice and establish a new and eternal sacrifice; a covenant with the Father which is a Eucharistic (todah) Sacrifice of Thanksgiving.”
On the night before Jesus died, he took the bread, gave thanks and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said: “This is my Body which is offered up for you… in the same way he took the cup saying this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.”
St. Ignatius the Martyr and the third bishop of Antioch (110+ AD) in his Letter to the Church in Ephesus identified this Eucharist (one common breaking of bread) as “the medicine of immortality and the sacred remedy by which we escape and live in Jesus Christ for evermore.”
Symbolic bread is not the “medicine of immortality and the means of being eternally united to Christ.”
And so, Jesus who is God’s Eternal Word -- for whom and through whom all things were made and through whom God sustains all things – made a command to nature on Holy Thursday, “This is my Body.” The Apostles witnessed Jesus command nature on many occasions: Jesus said to the wind and the waves, “Stop and be still!” (Mark 4:39) and so they became calm. And again in Mark’s Gospel Jesus takes the loaves and fishes, offers a prayer of thanksgiving, breaks the two loaves of bread (Mark 6: 41) and then gives it to his disciples and through them feeds 5000 men not counting children and women. In Mark 14: 22, the same exact words are recorded as part of the Holy Thursday events. And yet, Jesus’ command to nature “this is my body” still scandalizes many disciples.
The literal reality of Jesus' one eternal sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving and the Eucharist as being "Body and Blood" remains verboten as part of their assent of faith in Christ. Atheists argue, "Jesus’ words are only symbolic" – a natural conclusion since they deny his Divinity. In other words, a person’s faith only needs to be on the same level of an atheist to hold that the Eucharist is a symbol. Is that the core of the matter? Maybe there resides an element of doubt about whether “Jesus is True God and True Man?” Or is it simply a struggle with obedience to the Deposit of Faith (the oral and written tradition of the Church handed down to us by the apostles) and the implications thereof?
Either way, the Mystical Body of Christ never reaches full communion, as St. Paul envisioned would be the case. “Because there is one loaf, we who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” (1 Corinthians 10: 17)
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Merry Christmas from the Foxes
And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." (Luke 2:8-12)
Good News! A Savior is born!
Who knew first? A lowly group of ordinary shepherds. But the news was intended for everybody -- for all mankind for all time because those shepherds were excited. And they checked it out. They went over to Bethlehem to see this thing that happened, and found the Baby lying in a manger. And they told other people!
It must have been very rare to find a new born baby laying in a stable in a place where animals feed. But that is indeed how Our Lord Jesus Christ chose to come into the world. And those are the type of people He invited to His birth -- ordinary people.
When He exited the world, Jesus chose the cross as the means of his leaving. The cross became a stumbling block for the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Muslims teach somebody else took His place on the cross because to them Jesus was a great prophet, and to die on the cross was a shameful death. It's too bad more people didn't pay attention to His birth because being born in a stable is a shameful birth. I mean who do you know who was born in a stable?
But Good News! God doesn't see things the way we do. He picked a lowly virgin to be Jesus' mother. He picked a carpenter to be his foster father. They weren't rich. The didn't have a car. And their status in life was bottom of the barrel. But God was excited because it was His Son -- the Word made flesh -- Who came to dwell among us. And He sent his angels with the Good News.
But he also invited kings from the East. They were led by a star. And they brought gifts, and so the tradition of Christmas giving began. For it is Jesus Who said, "It is better to give than to give than receive."
Whether you are led by a star or led by an angel, we are hoping you also find yourself in a stable this Christmas standing next to an Infant lying in a manger. For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Son. . .
-- Susan Fox
Good News! A Savior is born!
Who knew first? A lowly group of ordinary shepherds. But the news was intended for everybody -- for all mankind for all time because those shepherds were excited. And they checked it out. They went over to Bethlehem to see this thing that happened, and found the Baby lying in a manger. And they told other people!
It must have been very rare to find a new born baby laying in a stable in a place where animals feed. But that is indeed how Our Lord Jesus Christ chose to come into the world. And those are the type of people He invited to His birth -- ordinary people.
When He exited the world, Jesus chose the cross as the means of his leaving. The cross became a stumbling block for the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Muslims teach somebody else took His place on the cross because to them Jesus was a great prophet, and to die on the cross was a shameful death. It's too bad more people didn't pay attention to His birth because being born in a stable is a shameful birth. I mean who do you know who was born in a stable?
But Good News! God doesn't see things the way we do. He picked a lowly virgin to be Jesus' mother. He picked a carpenter to be his foster father. They weren't rich. The didn't have a car. And their status in life was bottom of the barrel. But God was excited because it was His Son -- the Word made flesh -- Who came to dwell among us. And He sent his angels with the Good News.
But he also invited kings from the East. They were led by a star. And they brought gifts, and so the tradition of Christmas giving began. For it is Jesus Who said, "It is better to give than to give than receive."
Whether you are led by a star or led by an angel, we are hoping you also find yourself in a stable this Christmas standing next to an Infant lying in a manger. For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Son. . .
-- Susan Fox
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
HATRED MAKES YOU STUPID: A Family Conversation
by Susan Fox
Imagine a super-intelligent creature, whose whole desire is bent on evil.
But every time he thinks of some terrible tragedy to inflict on mankind, the loving God brings great good out of his evil actions. He does evil, but good triumphs.
“Curses, foiled again.” That is the refrain of Satan.
Case in point: Roughly 2,000 years ago, he plotted against what he thought was a man named Jesus. He organized Jesus’ Jewish detractors to ask him tricky questions. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” Satan probably thought, “Yeah, answer that one.” But Jesus answered with a question, “Whose image is on that coin?” The answer being “Caesar’s” So He answered, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.".(Mark 12:17) And Mark goes on to say, “they were amazed at him.”
Jesus had an answer for everything they threw at him. The Sadducees, who said there was no resurrection, came to Him with another trick question. A woman was married consecutively to seven brothers and had no children with any of them. So at the resurrection whose wife would she be as she was married to all seven? He told them they were in error. “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead -- have you not read what God said to you, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living." (Matt. 22:30-33) And again the crowds were amazed at this.
Finally, Satan stirred up so much hatred against Jesus Christ that the Jews spurred Pilate to condemn Jesus to death on the cross. There is a striking literary image of this in the movie, “The Passion of the Christ.” During the scourging at the pillar, a twisted ugly figure with a monstrous baby circles the crowd as Jesus willingly submits to horrible torture by the obviously brutal Roman soldiers. Satan gloats.
But what a short time he has to rejoice! In three days, he finds out that Jesus has risen from the dead! He is again teaching and preparing His apostles for Pentecost when the Church will be born and thousands converted. The apostles will reach the whole world with Christ's message, going first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles and finally to the ends of the earth -- to peoples never even known in that time.
“Curses, foiled again!”
Christ’s death was Satan’s biggest blunder.
But he keeps making the same mistake over and over again. “Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” (John 15:20) And so the saints and martyrs in all centuries since have suffered through hatred and persecution.
This led to my family conversation. A very holy man died violently Thursday morning in a car accident in India on his way home for Christmas. The blows to his head apparently were quite awful according to eye witnesses. This priest was a dear friend of my family and friends, and he had started an organization that led many onto the path of holiness. His life was incredibly fruitful.
Father used to tell us that Satan often threatened to destroy him -- even when he was a little boy. But Father knew that if God ever allowed Satan to kill him, God would use his death and suffering to save many other souls. It’s called the communion of saints: united with the sufferings of Christ in love, our peril is helpful to others, redemptive in nature.
Given the sudden violence of this priest’s death at a fairly young age, my family and I reflected that it was like Satan finally got his chance to viciously end the priest's life. He must have thought, "I will put an end to that organization by killing the priest. The good they are doing will stop."
So Satan must have also thought when he agitated for the death of Christ. He thought, "His apostles will be demoralized. The work of Jesus will be at an end." If he had but known the good that would come from the tragedy of Christ’s death, Satan would have been stirring up the Romans and the Pharisees to save His life -- not destroy it.
But hatred actually makes you stupid. Think of Satan, probably the most intelligent creature God ever made, certainly one of the most beautiful. He should have realized that great and infinite good that would come out of the death of Jesus Christ, true God and true man. But hatred blinded him. Hatred confused him in his innermost thoughts.
How funny that a creature so bent on causing evil, succeeds and then finds his best efforts have unintended good results because God is in control and God is love.
We -- his family and friends -- will miss Father. Jesus' disciples were terribly demoralized for three days after his death. But on Pentecost they were up and at them -- busy preaching the word of God to the multitudes; exultant when they were allowed to suffer abuse and death for the sake of Christ.
Father used to say that dying was just a change of address. You go to sleep and you wake up somewhere else, and God says, “You are going to live here now.” It's the company you keep that is important. Father used to urge us to become PIGs (Planted In God). "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Matt 24:35) Anchor your heart in the Word. Father did. He always kept company with Jesus.
And now Satan must have realized it. “Curses, foiled again.”
“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” (Ps 116:15)
Imagine a super-intelligent creature, whose whole desire is bent on evil.
But every time he thinks of some terrible tragedy to inflict on mankind, the loving God brings great good out of his evil actions. He does evil, but good triumphs.
“Curses, foiled again.” That is the refrain of Satan.
Case in point: Roughly 2,000 years ago, he plotted against what he thought was a man named Jesus. He organized Jesus’ Jewish detractors to ask him tricky questions. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” Satan probably thought, “Yeah, answer that one.” But Jesus answered with a question, “Whose image is on that coin?” The answer being “Caesar’s” So He answered, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.".(Mark 12:17) And Mark goes on to say, “they were amazed at him.”
Jesus had an answer for everything they threw at him. The Sadducees, who said there was no resurrection, came to Him with another trick question. A woman was married consecutively to seven brothers and had no children with any of them. So at the resurrection whose wife would she be as she was married to all seven? He told them they were in error. “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead -- have you not read what God said to you, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living." (Matt. 22:30-33) And again the crowds were amazed at this.
Finally, Satan stirred up so much hatred against Jesus Christ that the Jews spurred Pilate to condemn Jesus to death on the cross. There is a striking literary image of this in the movie, “The Passion of the Christ.” During the scourging at the pillar, a twisted ugly figure with a monstrous baby circles the crowd as Jesus willingly submits to horrible torture by the obviously brutal Roman soldiers. Satan gloats.
But what a short time he has to rejoice! In three days, he finds out that Jesus has risen from the dead! He is again teaching and preparing His apostles for Pentecost when the Church will be born and thousands converted. The apostles will reach the whole world with Christ's message, going first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles and finally to the ends of the earth -- to peoples never even known in that time.
“Curses, foiled again!”
Christ’s death was Satan’s biggest blunder.
But he keeps making the same mistake over and over again. “Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” (John 15:20) And so the saints and martyrs in all centuries since have suffered through hatred and persecution.
This led to my family conversation. A very holy man died violently Thursday morning in a car accident in India on his way home for Christmas. The blows to his head apparently were quite awful according to eye witnesses. This priest was a dear friend of my family and friends, and he had started an organization that led many onto the path of holiness. His life was incredibly fruitful.
Father used to tell us that Satan often threatened to destroy him -- even when he was a little boy. But Father knew that if God ever allowed Satan to kill him, God would use his death and suffering to save many other souls. It’s called the communion of saints: united with the sufferings of Christ in love, our peril is helpful to others, redemptive in nature.
Given the sudden violence of this priest’s death at a fairly young age, my family and I reflected that it was like Satan finally got his chance to viciously end the priest's life. He must have thought, "I will put an end to that organization by killing the priest. The good they are doing will stop."
So Satan must have also thought when he agitated for the death of Christ. He thought, "His apostles will be demoralized. The work of Jesus will be at an end." If he had but known the good that would come from the tragedy of Christ’s death, Satan would have been stirring up the Romans and the Pharisees to save His life -- not destroy it.
But hatred actually makes you stupid. Think of Satan, probably the most intelligent creature God ever made, certainly one of the most beautiful. He should have realized that great and infinite good that would come out of the death of Jesus Christ, true God and true man. But hatred blinded him. Hatred confused him in his innermost thoughts.
How funny that a creature so bent on causing evil, succeeds and then finds his best efforts have unintended good results because God is in control and God is love.
We -- his family and friends -- will miss Father. Jesus' disciples were terribly demoralized for three days after his death. But on Pentecost they were up and at them -- busy preaching the word of God to the multitudes; exultant when they were allowed to suffer abuse and death for the sake of Christ.
Father used to say that dying was just a change of address. You go to sleep and you wake up somewhere else, and God says, “You are going to live here now.” It's the company you keep that is important. Father used to urge us to become PIGs (Planted In God). "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Matt 24:35) Anchor your heart in the Word. Father did. He always kept company with Jesus.
And now Satan must have realized it. “Curses, foiled again.”
“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” (Ps 116:15)
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