Undusted Texts

Ven. Solanus Casey (1870-1957)  "I chose to be cast down in the house of my God rather than to live myself in the tents of sinners."--Ps 83:11b The great temptation against us is this: will we choose to enjoy the delights of the wicked or the reproach of the righteous?  "You cannot serve both God and mammon," as Christ declared.  We must serve the Lord despite all obstacles, despite all pains, rather than delight in the riches of the wicked.  For the riches of the wicked are not true riches: they are rather fool's gold that will not outlast death; they are the treasures which moth will eat, rust will corrupt, thief will steal.  In the end, all such riches will be stripped from us, and we will stand before God with only His riches.  What are His riches?  The riches of righteousness, the riches of holiness, the riches of the Truth. "Lord, God of powers, blessed the man who hopes in You!"  Blessed the man whose riches are in You!  F...

  The Parable of the Precious Pearl or the Pearl of Great Price by Domenico Fetti (1589-1623) We are never as great as we often think ourselves to be: this is the message of humility, the message of the Publican who we remember so often throughout Lent.  We are to strive for what is greater than ourselves, Christ, that He may lead us to be greater than ourselves.  By seeing how little we are in ourselves, we see how much we have to gain in the Lord.  For this we pray, "O Lord and King, grant me the grace to see my own sins."  Whenever we call out to the Lord for help, we are recognizing that we need help, that we are not enough in ourselves, and that He can help us.  We must remember always that He is the greater one; He is the summit of what we search for, the pearl of great price, and knowledge of Him is the greatest knowledge, and fear of Him is the beginning of wisdom.  Thus the following poem, "Christ and Our Selves" by Francis Quarles, c...

"I am Gabriel the one who stands before God: and I have been sent to speak to you, and to evangelize to you these things." Gabriel, the head messenger (as Archangel means), we celebrate today as we take leave of the great Feast of the Annunciation and resume our walk towards Golgotha.  He is the greatest messenger of all the archangels, for he bore glad tidings of two great births, the Forerunner and the Savior.  His mission is stated simply in his opening words to Zacharias: "I have been sent...to evangelize to you."  For this is what Gabriel truly does: he comes to announce the Good News, the Gospel.  He comes to evangelize (εὐαγγελίσασθαί).  Such a description fits even more with his message to she who would become the Theotokos: "Then in the month the sixth was sent the angel Gabriel by God to a town of Galilee, of the name Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man, of the name Joseph, out of the house of David: and the name of the virgin was...

  Coptic Icon of the Annunciation (1995) by Bedour Latif and Yousef Nassief "Today is the prelude of joy for the whole world.  Let us then anticipate the feast and celebrate with glee: for behold, Gabriel is on his way with glad tidings for the Virgin." --Troparion of the Forefeast of the Annunciation Tomorrow is the day when God becomes flesh.  While He will still be hidden except from a few, such as the Forerunner and his mother, He will be in our world, having fully emptied Himself to take on our nature, the nature we have soiled by our sins.  He becomes a high priest like us in all things but sin, and to be like us in all things, He must be in the womb.  So, through the sacrificial assent of the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, the Son of God will dwell in the womb of a woman tomorrow.  How great a message is Gabriel tasked to bear! Tomorrow, then, is the day of the Ἐνσάρκωση, the Incarnation, the "Enfleshing," to translate literally, of t...

"And there will be the remnant of Jacob before God the Mighty.  And even if the people of Israel became like the sand of the sea, the remnant of them will be saved."--Is 10:21-22 The man of faith will not be afraid of the remnant, for he trusts in the Lord, God the Mighty, Who can bring forth fountains from waterless land.  The remnant is a sign of hope from the Lord, for He could have destroyed all of mankind in the Flood, but He chose to save the righteous Noah and his family.  He could have let all of Israel be destroyed by the hands of mighty strangers, but He kept two tribes alive in exile.  With the power of the Lord, the remnant is a sign of hope, not of sorrow. From a single small seed sprouts the mustard tree,  and so from a handful of men can God reclaim the world for the Truth.  God does not leave us orphans, alone; He keeps a family of those who love Truth alive, and He guides them as their Father.  When Elijah lamented that he a...

"The Holy Name has been revealed. His authority conferred; throughout the world in this human realm the sound of the teaching supreme!" --"Singing of the Source and Course of Holy Church" by Wu Li 吳歷 (1632-1718), Chinese painter, poet, and Jesuit In my research for a paper on the Chinese Rites Controversy, I have come in contact with the Chinese Christian art of the time.  This post is merely a collection of images from the time (16th and 17th centuries) that depict the eternal Truth of Christ in the style of the Middle Kingdom. From Edición y traducción china de las Evangelicae historiae imagines de Jerónimo Nadal (Chinese Edition and Translation of the Images of the History of the Gospel of Jerónimo Nadal) (1639) by Giulio Aleni, S.J. (1582-1649), based on the work of Jerónimo Nadal, S.J. (1507-1580) From Tienzhu jiang-sheng chuxiang jingjie 天主降生引義 (Incarnation of the Lord of Heaven through Illustrations and Commentary) (1637) by...

This is an anonymous English poem from the 15th century, which details a dialogue between Christ and the soul, inspired by the Song of Songs, for it is filled with spousal language.  The repeated refrain Quia amore langueo (for love I languish) is taken from the Vulgate (Sgs 5:8).  The stanzas that focus on Christ's sufferings for men make the poem apt for the time of Lent, as we focus even more on Christ's Passion.  The below is a modernization of the original poem ( found here ), which tries to stick as close to possible to the original; sadly, however, some words are not found in modern English and thus had to be completely changed, sometimes to the detriment of the poetry.  I hope this poem helps lead you deeper into your relationship with our Lord Who loves us and suffered for us "the Cross, the nails, the spear, and death" (St. Simeon Metaphrastes). In the vale of restless mind,     I sought in mountain & in meadow, trusting a truelove ...

This is an anonymous English poem from the 15th century, which details a dialogue between Christ and the soul, inspired by the Song of Songs, for it is filled with spousal language.  The repeated refrain Quia amore langueo (for love I languish) is taken from the Vulgate (Sgs 5:8).  The stanzas that focus on Christ's sufferings for men make the poem apt for the time of Lent, as we focus even more on Christ's Passion.  Below is the original text of the poem; a modernized English version can be found here .  I hope this poem helps lead you deeper into your relationship with our Lord Who loves us and suffered for us "the Cross, the nails, the spear, and death" (St. Simeon Metaphrastes). In the vaile of restless mynd     I sowght in mownteyn & in mede, trustyng a treulofe for to fynd:     vpon an hyll than toke I hede;     a voise I herd (and nere I yede)         in gret d...

 "And saw the woman, that beautiful was the tree for eating..."--Gen 3:6 Just a few days ago we heard of the beautiful goodness of creation (for καλον means both "beautiful" and "good"), and now we hear of evil coming from something good.  How can this be, that what was made good can to evil?  When we are allured by that good beauty into turning away from the Lord and His designs. The Lord designed creation beautifully, beautiful exceedingly, and He gave us wide freedom to use it.  "From every tree which is in paradise for food, do yotu eat."  Out of every tree, every plant bearing fruit with its seed in it, from every plant on earth man could eat: to this freedom God gave but one restriction.  "From the tree of the knowing of good [καλὸν] and evil, do not eat from it.  In the day you eat from it, by death you shall die."  To this one restriction did God place a mightily terrifying punishment: the punishment of double death. ...

  Fr. Wissam Akiki greets his wife, Manal, following his ordination on February 27, 2014. "The Lord confirmed that marriage is something of value…because he attended a wedding," as St. Augustine remarked, yet St. Paul declares, "It is well for a man not to touch a woman," and he comments, "I wish that all were as I myself am," that is, without a wife. The value of both marriage and celibacy has always been a part of Christian teaching, since Jesus Himself, who both announced the indissolubility of marriage and proclaimed that marriage will not be in Heaven. The way these two vocations interact with the separate vocation to priesthood has changed over the centuries and is dependent on circumstances.  First, a basic teaching of the Church must be repeated: "Perfect and perpetual continence...is not demanded of the priesthood by its nature" (Second Vatican Council, Presbyterorum Ordinis §16). Just as the old priesthood of the order ...

"And God saw everything, which He made, and behold! it was beautiful exceedingly."--Gen 1:31 Tradition lends a new dimension to the Faith which can easily be missed.  Think, for example, of the account of creation in Genesis, in which each day it is repeated: "And God saw, that it was good."  A quick comparison of English Bible translations shows how ubiquitous the use of the word "good" is in these passages, with only one rebel saying "He was pleased" instead.  Even the Vulgate speaks of how God's creation is "bona."  These all translate well the Hebrew טוב, "pleasing, good, agreeable."  Yet Tradition gives us a rich nuance which should not be avoided. The first line of this post is a translation from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Scriptures, according to tradition a miraculous translation, of which St. Augustine said, "the same Spirit that was in the prophets when they spoke was present al...

"Oh, how I love Thy Law! It is my meditation all the day." So sung King David, and so should we sing at all times in our fervor for the Lord's Word. Many ways are there for us to be soaked in Scripture in order to "swim in the Law of the Lord" (in the beauteous phrase of St. Seraphim), and one of these is the way known as lectio divina, the divine reading. A great guide of this practice is Guigo II, a Carthusian prior. Let us learn from him how the Law of the Lord can always be our delight. Guigo shows us for degrees for entering into the inner chamber of the Word: reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. We can even see these in the Psalms: "Make me understand the way of Thy precepts, and I will meditate on Thy wondrous works...I long for Thy salvation, O Lord, and Thy Law is my delight." Guigo's words show us how these verses are a lamp for our path into the Scriptures: "Reading is the careful study of the Scriptures, conce...

Most Catholics are only familiar with the Latin, or Roman, rite of the Church, either as practiced in the Extraordinary Form or the Ordinary Form; however, liturgical uniformity is not a hallmark of the Church. The Church has always had unity within diversity, in many ways: "there are many gifts, but the same Spirit"; "though we are many members, we are yet one Body." The basics of the Eucharistic liturgy have always been the same: prayers to the Lord, Scriptural readings, the consecration of the Eucharist, and the distribution. These essentials combine aspects of the liturgy of the synagogues with the Last Supper, where Christ instituted the Eucharist. We see many early examples of these essentials, such as accounts by St. Justin Martyr, St. Hippolytus of Rome, and St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Yet the way these essentials became expanded in larger Eucharistic liturgies in different areas and traditions widely varied. Both the East and the West saw many forms of t...