Undusted Texts

"By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish with the disobedient, receiving the spies with peace."--Heb 11:31 "And in the same way was Rahab the harlot not by works justified, receiving the angels, and by a different way sending them out?"--Jas 2:25 Of the many men and women whose lives we read of in the Old Testament, we account many as models of righteous and early types of Christians.  The Letter to the Hebrews has a long list of them: "By faith a better sacrifice Abel rather than Cain brought to God...," and so it continues through so many figures.  It is easy to see the faith of Abel and Enoch, of Noah and Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, of Moses and Joshua, of the Judges, of David and Samuel, and so many others.  Yet many, I think, miss the harlot listed among the righteous: Rahab of Jericho. Though we may miss her, the early Church did not.  The author of the Letter to the Hebrews included her among the faithful, and St. James praised her f...

The Holy Prophet Jeremiah  "'Is not My Word like...a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?' (Jer 23:29).  As the hammer splits the rock into many splinters, so will a scriptural verse yield many meanings."--Sanhedrin 34A These words of the Jewish Midrash reveal an essential truth: the Light within the Scriptures is unfathomable.  Yet how much more incomprehensible is the fullness of the Lord! So many throughout the Church's life have reiterated the fact that Scripture bears a multitude of meanings.  Origen described three ways of interpreting Scripture: the way of the body, the way of the soul, and the way of the spirit.  In the West, the concept of four senses arose, as a medieval couplet summarizes it: "The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith; / The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny."  Some came to speak of the "sensus plenior," the fuller meaning that lay deeper than the literal meaning of the words themselves.  All t...

Icon found in Benaki Museum in Athens "The last enemy to be rendered powerless is death."--1 Cor 15:26 On Great and Good Friday, the mother of our parish's founder fell asleep in the Lord, and her funeral was today.  Yet a funeral during Bright Week is less a time of mourning than a triumphal celebration.  It is a common saying that a Christian who falls asleep or else his funeral during Bright Week is taken immediately to Heaven, for it is during that week that all of creation is aglow, radiating the triumphal light of the Resurrection.  Thus the typical hymns of sorrow are replaced with those of victory: "Christ is risen from the dead! Shine in splendor, O New Jerusalem, for the glory of the Lord is risen upon you!"  Indeed, the entire Paschal Canon prayed on the Paschal morn is again prayed at a funeral.  Death is barely acknowledged, for all know that Christ has made him powerless.  He has been crushed and trampled and conquered, with his own...

My girlfriend's grandmother died last night, and I have been praying for her soul.  We are called to pray for the dead in general, for they cannot pray for themselves once they have passed, and we usually especially pray for those who are close to us. One way I pray for the souls of the faithful departed is by listening to a musical setting of a Requiem Mass, the beautiful prayers of the Church for all her departed children.  While listening, I pray for the recently deceased (I often do this whenever someone I know dies).  While I have a soft spot in my heart for the works of the famous Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, the setting I usually pray with is the setting by the famous Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi.  Though Verdi was an atheist, he felt inspired by the sacred prayers of the Church found in the Requiem Mass, and his recently-deceased friend Alessandro Manzoni (a poet and novelist famous for The Betrothed ) was Catholic, so he felt inspired to compos...