Good morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Tuesday ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators, and Bemused Curmudgeons. Hello again Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers over at the Rubin Report! Hey there Awakening Wonders & Curious Questioners at Russell Brand and finally all of you fine souls at Phetasy who always bring a smile to my face and a chuckle to my heart, dearest Pham, Misfits and dumpster fire loving fools. Some stuff I wrote for our parishioners this coming weekend, enjoy!
Dear parishioners,
Over these next few weeks, I would like to examine with you the precepts of the church. Most older Catholics will remember these from our childhood catechesis. These precepts are invitations and expectations of the community faith for its member to live a more abundantly life in Jesus. From the Catechism 2041: The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the indispensable minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor.
The indispensable minimum—let that truth tumble around in your thoughts and feelings. The previous sentence and preceding paragraph were part of this column last week. Any of us serious about knowing and loving God and neighbor want more than an indispensable minimum, we want to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength and our neighbor as ourself. Those are the two great commandments given to us by the Master. His bride, the Church, imparts to us these precepts to help us embrace those commandments and put them into practice.
The second precept (“You shall confess your sins at least once a year." ) ensures preparation for the Eucharist by the reception of the sacrament of reconciliation, which continues Baptism's work of conversion and forgiveness.
The foundation stones of discipleship are Eucharist and Reconciliation. Disciples of Jesus celebrate the meal and sacrifice He offered and entrusted to us in the Eucharist. Eucharist celebrates God’s victory over sin and death and is the foretaste of the great eternal celebration that will be the Kingdom. Mass is essential in our pilgrimage of faith because we remember, we celebrate, we believe. Our pilgrim journey to the Kingdom is completed through Jesus as our way, truth and life. However, our pilgrimage is imperfect, and we are prone to sin.
When Reconciliation is celebrated well, we begin to understand how the truth will set us free. We come to face the truth about ourselves as sinners in need of God mercy who are called to be His sons and daughters. The spiritual dynamic of a good confession is to both know ourselves better and to become immersed in God’s mercy. The more we seek His mercy, the more it washes us clean and heals the wounds of sin. Facing our sins, naming our sins, confessing our sins opens the doors of grace to help us overcome them. No one wants to free us from sin more than God. Sin is an afront to God because He wants the best for His children. St. John tells us in his first letter: For the love of God is this, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. Because sin is a matter of the will, we humbly acknowledge that we have willfully ignored God’s commandments. We have placed our will above His will. When we pray, “Thy will be done one earth, as it is in Heaven” we are asking God to fully convert us to the Gospel and help follow His Son without reservation.
Peace,
Fr. Tom
Oh, and a photo to give you something beautiful to remember.
Country Soul Photography - Aaron Altenthal
Puxico, MO Taken 8/9/24
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
