Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard was born into a family of the highest nobility, the third of seven children, in Burgundy, France in 1090 A.D. He was sent to a renowned school at Chatillion-sur-Seine and excelled in his studies.  He wanted to become proficient in literature so that he could take up the study of Sacred Scripture, which became his life-long love.  From an early age he had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Mary.  He had the temptation of youth, but it was said his virtues triumphed over them.

When his pious mother Aleth died his bonds to the world were broken and he sought a monastic life. His father, sister and five brothers all tried to talk him out of a religious life, but his description of the life of a disciple living for Christ was so moving that four of his brothers, his uncle and many of his friends joined him in entering the Citeaux.
Probably the most famous Cistercian foundation was in the valley of Clairvaux (meaning valley of light), founded by St. Bernard.  He became a monk and three years later so many men had joined him that he was sent by the Abbot, St. Stephen, to found the daughter abbey of Clairvaux, where he remained abbot until his death in 1153. The name Clairvaux became inseparable from his own.  Even his aged father, Teslcelin, came to join the monastery.

Bernard of Clarivaux was a mystic, an eloquent preacher, a gifted writer and he contributed greatly to the life of the Cistercian order.  In a speech he gave to the general chapter of the order in 1119 he spoke of the need for regularity and fervor in the monastery.  This helped the chapter to give form to the constitutions of the order and the regulations of the “Charter of Charity,” which were approved by Pope Callistus II at the end of that year. One of his first works were his Homilies in Praise of Mary, which were published in 1120. His zeal resulted in many conversions and the restoration of discipline in the monasteries.

When at the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130 a schism threatened with the election of two popes, Innocent II and Anacletus II, the much respected Abbot of Clairvaux was called upon by the bishops to decide between them. He chose Innocent II and accompanied him into Italy (Anacletus had forced him to leave Rome) causing the great powers to recognize the true pope after years of peace making on Bernard’s part.  Anacletus died still in schism in 1138. 

Historian Fr. John Laux says that since the days of the early Church there was no greater miracle worker!  The sick were brought to Clairvaux from all over and were healed by his touch and prayers.  One of his early miracles was in healing a suffering child of Clairvaux whose arm was paralyzed and his hand withering. St. Bernard blessed the child with the sign of the cross and prayed over him, then, giving him back to his mother completely restored. In another case a rich man named Humbert, who was suffering from epilepsy falling into fits multiple times each day, was cured by Saint, who held him in particular affection.  Humbert subsequently became a friar himself and eventually, the Abbot of the monastery of Igny.  One of his miracles took place after the dedication of a new church for a monastery in the diocese of Leon.  The holy service was disturbed by the buzzing and harassment of a great number of flies. St. Bernard, perhaps in frustration, cried "Excommunicabe  eas.”  The next day the dead flies blackened the church floor and had to be taken out with shovels. This miracle was so “this miracle was so well known, and so celebrated, that the curse of the flies of Foigny passed into a proverb among the people around, who had come from all parts to assist at the dedication of that church.” 

Still another, occurred after a number of knights on their way to a tournament asked for lodging at Clairvaux. He asked them to concede a truce until after the days of holy Lent, but they refused.  They left for the tournament but ended up returning in shame after hearing St. Bernard's prayers, and ended by taking off their knightly armor and becoming monks.  Henceforth, they resolved their warfare would be spiritual and in the service of the children of God.

In less than 40 years seventy other monasteries all over Europe branched off from it.  Before his death at age 63, he founded 143 monasteries in Europe.  He was also a peace maker (e.g., settled long standing dispute between Pisa and Genoa) in world politics and a preacher of the second crusade.  So he had tremendous influence in many areas.  He was the most influential supporter of Pope Innocent II (1130-1143) in his long struggle against two anti-popes, persuading one to release his claims after the death of the other.

As a monk Bernard had a tremendous Marian devotion and hymns and was noted for his monastic spirituality and type of writing. One of Bernard’s greatest works was his commentary on the Song of Songs which is full of deep spiritual reflections.  It is important though to see that Bernard was a great preacher and spiritual writer, considered by some historians as the last of the Fathers of the Church. Pope Pius VIII gave him the title “Doctor of the Church.”

In His work, On Loving God, he wrote:

Those who admit the truth of what I have said know, I am sure, why we are bound to love God. But if unbelievers will not grant it, their ingratitude is at once confounded by His innumerable benefits, lavished on our race, and plainly discerned by the senses. Who is it that gives food to all flesh, light to every eye, air to all that breathe? It would be foolish to begin a catalogue, since I have just called them innumerable: but I name, as notable instances, food, sunlight and air; not because they are God’s best gifts, but because they are essential to bodily life. Man must seek in his own higher nature for the highest gifts; and these are dignity, wisdom and virtue. By dignity I mean free-will, whereby he not only excels all other earthly creatures, but has dominion over them. Wisdom is the power whereby he recognizes this dignity, and perceives also that it is no accomplishment of his own. And virtue impels man to seek eagerly for Him who is man’s Source, and to lay fast hold on Him when He has been found.

We pray with St. Bernard in his words:

Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts, Thou fount of life, thou Light of men, From the best bliss that earth imparts We turn unfilled to Thee again. We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still: We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead, And thirst our souls from Thee to fill. O Jesus, ever with us stay, Make all our moments calm and bright; Chase the dark night of sin away, Shed o'er the world Thy holy light. -

​St. Bernard of Clairvaux pray for us!
 
 

​1. Human Reason is Demonstrably Insufficient regarding the Divine.
 
Human reason is a wonderful thing.  It has helped us to engineer life-saving medicines and powerful vehicles, but human reason itself—as opposed to true, perfect reason, which includes a total knowledge of God and the universe—has its limitations.  It is magnificent for taking measurements of the stars in the heavens, it is inadequate to teach us about Heaven.  Reason is grounded; it is solid earth upon which to stand, which makes it sound and secure, and it is very good and useful in that way.  Imagine, if you will, that human reason is an earth-bound vehicle.  It is an amazing vehicle that can do great things, and carry us to places we never thought possible.  It can traverse treacherous gorges, and climb to the highest heights, but it cannot fly.  It can come as near to the stars as the tallest mountain, but it can reach no further.  To take flight, reason needs faith.  Faith gives reason wings.  Faith can soar upon the winds, for it is not grounded the way reason is.  That does not, however, make faith irrational, but it does need to be understood within the (rational) context of the faith-reason balance.  To explore both earth and Heaven we need reason and faith working together, for neither one is sufficient on its own.  Robert Sokolowski writes in his book, “The God of Faith and Reason”:
 
“It is natural for human reason… to come up against the world and its necessities as simply there, as the extreme margin of what can be thought.  To think or believe beyond the setting of the world and its necessities should be recognized for the unusual movement that it is… it is not simply one more pace in the march of reason, or one more refinement in human self-understanding.  It is a movement of a very different kind.”
 
Reason answers the questions of “what” and faith answers the “who.”  Human reason alone is insufficient to answer the question of who God is, and therefore what we ought to believe, and how we ought to act.  Even if we had a total understanding of the universe, we could still be in the dark about God, because, while study of creation gives us some clues about the Creator, it is simply insufficient to relate to Him in a substantial way (which is what He calls us to).  We need both reason and faith working hand-in-hand to have a full understanding of God and the universe.   
 
 
2. We need Divine Revelation
 
Thomas Aquinas taught that reason and faith are two ways of knowing.  Stated simply, reason is informed through experience and logic, but faith (through divine revelation) is required to know the things of God.  Every belief system, besides Catholicism, has at its most fundamental level an assumption that logical deductions can be trusted to draw accurate conclusions about the world.  Whether it be “pure reason,” as Kant called it, or trust in “Scripture and plain reason” as Luther insisted, or reliance on deduced truths from any other thought system or holy book, all of them have at their core a faith in the sufficiency of human reason.  But unless we are informed by divine revelation, there is always the possibility of information out there that has the potential to change our understanding of everything.  Catholicism, being the only belief system that recognizes this, is set apart as the only truly rational belief system, because it is the only one that properly balances faith and reason. 
 
3. Scripture Alone is Not Enough
 
God gave us the Bible as divine revelation, isn’t that enough?  No, and here’s why: human reason is prone to error in interpretation of Scripture just as much as it is prone to error in understanding anything else.  Just because something “makes sense” (via human reason) that does not make it true.  Regardless of how holy a book may be, it is still subject to human interpretation, and that is always fallible.
 
Sacred Scripture itself teaches that the Church is “the pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15) and Christ tells His disciples, well before the New Testament was written, “He who listens to you listens to me” (Luke 10: 16). For a more detailed analysis,
 
I recommend Robert Sungenis’ book, Not by Scripture Alone in which he, along with other leading Catholic apologists, expertly makes the case that Luther’s doctrine of “Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone as the sole authority)” is unscriptural and lacks a rational basis. In discussing the difference between material and formal sufficiency, he points out that the Catholic faith “also teaches that since the meaning of Scripture is not always clear and that sometimes a doctrine is implied rather than explicit, other things besides Scripture have been handed on to us from the apostles: things like Sacred Tradition (which is the mortar that holds the bricks together in the right order and position) and the Magisterium (which is the trowel in the hand of the Master Builder). Taken together, these three things--Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium.”
 
 
 
4. We need Infallible Interpretation
 
We not only need divine revelation, we need a source of interpretation of that revelation that we can trust absolutely.  It must be infallible, for we cannot trust our own interpretation of God’s messages to us; without this, we cannot have sufficient understanding about who God is.  Knowing this, the Church was instituted by Christ in Matthew 16, in which Peter made an infallible statement, Jesus appointed him to an office (referencing Isaiah 22:20 and following), and declared this to be the foundation of the Church.  Divine revelation is seriously compromised, and subject to corruption without infallible interpretation. 
                                                                       
5. Only the Catholic Church
 
Not only is the Catholic Church the only institution on earth that delivers God’s truth, uncorrupted, to humankind, it is the only one that even makes the claim.   It is the only Church founded by Jesus Christ.  This is evident in Sacred Scripture, when Christ founds the Church on St. Peter (Matthew 16: 17-19). Only the Catholic Church goes back to the time of our Savior.  It was the natural successor to Judaism and its early history is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. It’s history, documents and traditions all go back to the Apostles whom Christ charged with spreading the Church throughout the world.  All other Christian Churches were in some sense derived from the Catholic Church.
 
6.  It’s either the Catholic Church, Pluralism or Skepticism
 
All religions of the world depend upon human reason alone to interpret holy books, or doctrines, and are therefore ultimately irrational and untrue.  Atheism does the same.  For this reason, there are only two alternatives to Catholicism: pluralism and radical skepticism. Catholicism employs human reason within the Magisterium or teaching authority of the Church, which Christ promised the Holy Spirit would guide (John 14:16, 26). As Jesus promised, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you [the Apostles] into all truth . ..” (John 16: 13) and the “gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16: 18). Jesus went onto assure His disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” (Matthew 16: 19). St. Paul instructed the Church at Ephesus, “Make every effort to preserve the unity which has the Spirit as its origin, just as there is but one hope given all of you by your call. There is but one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all” (Ephesians 4: 2-4).
 
 
7. Pluralism and Radical Skepticism are also Irrational
 
Pluralism is self-defeating, for it violates the law of non-contradiction.  If many conflicting truths can all be true, then how can Pluralism be true above Catholicism?  One cannot make the case.  Also Christ himself prayed that His Church be one in his great priestly prayer in the Gospel of John (see John 17: 11). This leaves us with only Catholicism and skepticism as rational approaches to understanding God (and therefore the world). Nor can radical skepticism—“one cannot know anything of God”—cannot claim any truth, and is therefore indefensible, and belief in it is also irrational. 
 
Conclusion: Catholicism is the only rational system of ascertaining divine truth; any other belief system lacks both a rational basis and Scriptural support. That is, Scripture, which was written by the Church and for the Church, does not argue against itself.  As the Second Vatican Council stated:
 
This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. (Lumen gentium, 8).

Saint Charles Borromeo and the Plague

St. Charles Borromeo was elevated to Cardinal at the age of 22 years old and was not prepared. He was not yet a priest. It was he as papal secretary of state, who did the lion’s share of the work in bringing the final sessions of the Council of Trent into session again in 1562. His older brother Federigo died during the Council and it caused him to devote himself to the religious life.  He resisted all efforts for him to give up his office and marry for the interests of his family and instead was secretly ordained a priest in 1563.

After the Council he devoted himself to three monumental projects, the Catechism that incorporated the teaching of the Council of Trent and the revision of the Missal and the Breviary. He also worked on the commission for the reform of church music. 

He then undertook the monumental task of reforming the Archdiocese of Milan in accordance with the decrees of Trent. He did not return to his Archdiocese in Milan until 1565 and was met with great rejoicing as the first resident archbishop in eighty years. 

He gave up much of his property to the poor and lived with great mortification, all the while reforming the clergy, founding schools and the Confraternity of Christian doctrine for the children (Sunday school).  He showed himself to be dedicated to a profound reformation in the interior life of the Church. He encouraged priests and religious to believe in the power of prayer and penance as a means of becoming holy.  He preached to them that “souls are won on one’s knees.
In 1569 he survived an assassination attempt by member of the Order of Humilati (“a doctrinally suspect religious order”), some of whom decided they could not live with the reforms he imposed on them.  It was considered a miracle that the bullet, from an arquebus, did not penetrate his vestments.    

He helped to bring about a great re-conversion to the Church in Switzerland, risking his life at a time when Calvin’s version of Christianity was strong, visiting all of the Catholic cantons. When famine followed by plague struck Milan in 1576, he risked his life continually visiting the sick and the dying and his example finally led others of his clergy to follow his example.
He visited hospitals, organized penitential processions in the streets because he believed the plague was a “scourge sent by heaven” to bring the people to a spiritual reckoning so that more souls might be saved.  He was convinced that the great mercy of God was evident in this crisis in which 6000 people died in two months.

In periods of plague or famine, processions, usually carrying the relics of the Blessed Virgin or a Saint, have been held and praying for relief from the calamity. One example was that of Pope Gregory the Great in 590, who organized a procession from all seven areas of Rome to come together at the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying for forgiveness of sins and an end to the plague. At the tomb of the former Emperor Hadrian, Pope Gregory saw a vision of St. Michael the Archangel sheathing his sword, which indicated the plague was over. 

When the magistrates in Milan tried to get the Cardinal Archbishop, St. Charles, to end the processions, he was able to remind them of the effectiveness of a similar procession by Pope St. Gregory the Great.  He even got the governor of the province, who had fled, to return to the city.
Later, when the people were too afraid to come out on the streets, St. Charles closed all the Churches and built altars outside them so that the faithful would have the opportunity to attend Mass even from the windows of their homes. He also initiated the practice of the forty hours devotion, displaying the Blessed Sacrament outside the Church for a period of forty hours. He asked for volunteers to help the people in the most need and donated Church tapestries to their relief.  Led by St. Charles the Church he tried to feed 60,000 to 70,000 people each day, going into debt after expending his own funds to do so.

He died November 3, 1884 at the age of 46, after a lifetime of courageous good works. During his lifetime popes and sovereigns all over Europe sought his advice. Cardinal Baronius called him “a second [Saint] Ambrose, whose early death, lamented by all men, inflicted great loss on the Church.”
​
St. Charles pray for us, especially now during this crisis of the coronavirus.
 

Saint Faustina Kowalska
 
Maria Faustina Kowalska was born on August 25, 1905 in Glogowiez, Poland.  She grew up in a poor, but religious family.  Her father was a carpenter.  She mserved as housekeeper in several cities before joining the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925, where she was assigned duties as a cook, gardener and porter. 
 
Despite her humble background it was soon evident that she had a rich interior life as a mystic.  She regularly saw and received messages from Jesus himself.  Although she confided these to her confessor Father Michał Sopoćko, who supported her, she struggled at times to know if God was really calling her to establish the new devotion of divine mercy.  This was because of her profound humility and to be sure she was not being deceived by Satan. In time Jesus helped her to understand her mission and carry it out. 
 
She recorded in her diary: “Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God.”
 
For more on St. Faustina go to: 
 
https://www.thedivinemercy.org/message/stfaustina/bio
 
Saint Faustina followed the instructions she received from Jesus to have a picture of Jesus painted that reflected what she saw of him in her visions. This is the Divine Mercy image shown below:
 

​St. Thérèse of Lisieux was born in 1873 at Alençon, France to Louis and Zelie Martin, who lived a model Christian life that led to five of their daughters, including Thérèse, joining religious orders.  

Thérèse wanted to join two older sisters and join the convent at Lisieux so badly that she actually approached Pope Leo XIII by herself on a family trip to Rome and asked his permission to join when she was only fifteen years old.  He deferred to the superior of the convent, however, who had told her she was not yet old enough.

She experienced what she called her “complete conversion” after nine years of childhood grieving over the loss of her mother which was compounded when her older sisters entered the Carmelite monastery (Pauline had been like a second mother to her). She finally halted her grieving and self-pity for the sake of her father and others. Writing about this ten years later she said: 
 
In an instant Jesus, content with my good will, accomplished the work I had not been able to do in ten years." After nine sad years she had "recovered the strength of soul she had  lost when her mother died and, she said, she was to retain it forever". 

Her little way underscores the truth that we can rely upon the mercy of Jesus if we place our trust wholeheartedly in Him. In the face of her littleness she trusted in God to be her sanctity.  Not having “the facility to perform great ones” she performed little virtues. Thérèse admitted that she was not attracted to the great acts of mortification of the Saints and never made acts of penance because of her “cowardliness.”  

St. Thérèse returned over and over to the theme of littleness, referring to herself as a grain of sand, an image she borrowed from Pauline...'Always littler, lighter, in order to be lifted more easily by the breeze of love.'  She wanted to go to heaven by an entirely new little way. "I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus". The elevator, she wrote, would be the arms of Jesus lifting her in all her littleness.  

St. Thérèse’s little sacrifices included spending time with another religious sister who annoyed her in almost everything and being kind to her. She wrote:

“Not wishing to give in to the natural antipathy I was experiencing I told myself to doing for this Sister what I would do for the person I loved the most.”

Once when someone took her lamp at night by mistake after night prayers, she remained in the dark without complaining, observing that by virtue of the exterior darkness, “I was interiorly illumined!” 

When unjustly blamed for something that was not her fault, she decided not to defend herself and accept the verbal correction without making any excuses consoling herself that everything would be revealed at the Last Judgment. 

She thought her assignment of kitchen duty was a good way of “putting my self-love in its proper place, i.e., under my feet.”  She gives countless examples of this sort from refraining from chatting to not complaining when dirty laundry water was splashed on her and not asking questions she was curious about novices while training them.  All of these and many more she offered to the Lord.  These humble submissions and small sacrifices were the stuff of the “Little Way.”

But she did not get overconfident and expected daily to discover other imperfections in herself to work on.  She saw her own weakness not something to be depressed about, but rather as an opportunity to receive more of the treasury of God’s mercy. This she believed would be a sign that He wanted to “live more deeply in her” (Martin, The Fulfillment of all Desires, p. 149). 

She was also a realist and knew she was not perfect. If a situation arose which she thought exceeded her level of virtue, she tried to avoid the situation so as not to fail in charity.  She wrote, “My last means of being defeated in combats is desertion.”  

One of the weaknesses she considered most embarrassing, was falling asleep during prayer times, but she was confident that the Lord was mindful of our littleness and that she was forgiven.

During the course of her novitiate, contemplation of the Holy Face had nourished her inner life. This is an image representing the disfigured face of Jesus during His Passion. And she meditated on certain passages from the prophet Isaiah (Chapter 53). Six weeks before her death she remarked to Pauline, "The words in Isaiah: 'no stateliness here, no majesty, no beauty,...one despised, left out of all human reckoning; How should we take any account of him, a man so despised (Is 53:2-3) --these words were the basis of my whole worship of the Holy Face. I, too, wanted to be without comeliness and beauty...unknown to all creatures."[75] 

St. Thérèse admitted that she had spoken of dryness as her daily bread, yet she was a very happy creature confident in God’s love. For Thérèse sanctity was “a disposition of the heart which makes us humble and small in the arms of God, conscious of our weakness, and confident to the point of audacity in the goodness of our Father” (Fr. Jean C.J. D’Elbee, I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Therese de Lisieux).

She worked at abandoning herself to Jesus by submitting to everything within the limits of the possible and reasonable, in order to obey God, to humbly live in conformity with the will of God, which gradually becomes our will.  

St. Thérèse’s confidence in God’s mercy even in the midst of her suffering from the tuberculosis that would take her life is extraordinary.  She wrote to Sr. Marie of the Sacred Heart on her littleness:
 
Oh, Jesus, how much I could say to all little souls about how ineffable Your  condescension is . . . I feel that if (though this would be impossible) [If] You were to find a soul more weak and little than mine, You would be pleased to shower upon it even greater favors, if it abandoned itself to You with complete confidence in Your infinite mercy.”

When St. Thérèse was dying and too sick to receive the Eucharist, it was she who consoled the other sisters saying, “No doubt, it is a great grace to receive the sacraments.  When God does not permit it, it is good too! Everything is a grace!” She, of course, still had the consolation of her spiritual communions.  

She was convinced she too was dying of love, as our Lord did on the Cross in anguish.  She was dying of suffocation from tuberculosis in her lungs, only one of which was functioning at that point. In the Infirmary where she was staying she pinned to her curtains pictures of the Holy Face of Christ, the Blessed Virgin and Blessed Théophane Vénard, a young Fr. priest martyred in Vietnam.  She expressed her desire to spend her heaven in God’s service to others and indeed, she has been one of the most popular saints of the modern era.

Just before she died with all of her sisters present, she gazed at the crucifix and exclaimed, “Oh!  I love Him!” and finally, “My God, I love you!”  Just before she died she seemed to be in ecstasy with a mysterious smile upon her face.  She is beautiful and her “little way” is something to be emulated by us all.  

St. Therese pray for us!

The writings of the first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who was employed by the Romans to write The Jewish War and was also the author of the work entitled, The Antiquities of the Jews, support the account of the life of Christ on a number of important points.  All the extant manuscripts of the Josephus work on the Antiquities of the Jews contain a passage which discusses the life, miracles, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Though Josephus was not a Christian he shows Jesus to be something more than a man.  For example in this passage translated by the noted scholar of Josephus, H. St. John Thackeray, he writes:

     Now about this time arises Jesus, a wise man.  If indeed he should be called a man. For he was a doer of marvellous deeds, a teacher of men who receives the truth with pleasure: and won over to himself many Jews and many of the Greeks (nation).  He was the Christ.  And when, on the indictment of the principal men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to the cross, those who had loved (or perhaps rather 'been content with') him at the first did not cease:  for he appeared to them on the third day alive again, the divine prophets having (fore)told these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.  And even now the tribe of Christians, named after him, is not extinct.

This passage is found only in the Slavonic  or Old Russian translation that was first edited and published in 1906.  Jewish scholar Robert Eisler presents a strong case, despite his anti-Christian animus and uncalled for theorizing that the Slavonic version was translated from an early version of the work, The Jewish War.  

There are other important passage referring to Jesus in The Jewish War, including this one:

It was at this time that a man appeared--if "man" is the right word--who had all the attributes of a man but seemed to be something greater.  His actions, certainly, were superhuman, for he worked such wonderful and amazing miracles that I for one cannot regard him as a man; yet in view of his likeness to ourselves I cannot regard him as an angel either.  Everything that some hidden power enabled him to do he did by an authoritative word. Some people said that their first Lawgiver had risen from the dead and had effected many miraculous cures; others thought he was a messenger from heaven. However, in many ways he broke the Law--for instance, he did not observe the Sabbath in the traditional manner.  At the same time his conduct was above reproach.  He did not need to use his hands:  a word sufficed to fulfill his every purpose.

Josephus continues:

Many of the common people flocked after him and followed his teaching. There was a wave of excited expectation that he would enable the Jewish tribes to throw off the Roman yoke. As a rule he was to be found opposite the City [Jerusalem] on the Mount of Olives, where also he healed the sick.  He gathered around him 150 assistants and masses of followers.  When they saw his ability to do whatever he wished by a word, they told him they wanted him to enter the City, destroy the Roman troops, and make himself king, but he took no notice . . . . When the crowds grew bigger than ever, he earned by his actions an incomparable reputation. The exponents of the Law were mad with jealousy, and gave Pilate 30 talents to have him executed [sic].  Accepting the bribe, he gave them permission to carry out their wishes themselves.  So they seized him and crucified him in defiance of all Jewish tradition . . . .

In the days of our pious fathers this curtain [of the Temple] was intact, but in our own generation it was a sorry sight, for it had been suddenly rent from top to bottom at the time when by bribery  they had secured the execution of the benefactor of men--the one who by his actions proved that he was no mere man. Many other inspiring "signs" happened at the same moment.  It is also stated that after his execution and entombment he disappeared entirely.  Some people actually assert that he had risen; others retort that his friends stole him away.  I for one cannot decide where the truth lies.  A dead man cannot arise by his own power; but he might rise if aided by the prayer of another righteous man. Again, if an angel or other heavenly being, or God himself, takes human form to fulfill his purpose, and after living among men dies and is buried, he can rise again at will. Moreover, it is stated that he could not have been stolen away, as guards were posted around his tomb, 30 Romans and 1000 Jews. 

​While Josephus obviously got some of the details wrong, this historical testimony is a valuable addition to the Gospels themselves and the writings of the Early Church Fathers.  These quotations can be found in Thackeray's book Josephus on pages 129-131, 141-142 and 144-146.  A good discussion of these passages and their significance may be found in Warren H. Carrol's A History of Christendom, volume 1, The Founding of Christendom, pp. 296-297.  Carrol concludes, "In light of these considerations, the Christian need not hesitate to proclaim the Incarnation a fact of history, as well attested as any other historic fact in ancient times, indeed better documented than most. 

Carrol adds, "Some may doubt or deny the historical reality of the Incarnation, just as all human testimony, no matter how truthful or well substantiated, may be doubted or denied by members of a fallen [sinful] race.  But by all normal standards of historical judgment on sources and evidence the Incarnation is a fact, and would unquestionably be almost universally recognized as such if existing testimony and evidence referred o any morally and spiritually neutral even reported for this period." 

​St. Antony of the Desert and African and Eastern Monasticism
 
            The Ascetic movement produced a new icon of ideal Christian life, the monk or ascetic.  This movement began earlier as various Christians lived ascetical lives in a severe way, with much self-denial and mortification.  The founder of Western monasticism is St. Anthony (Antony) of Egypt (250-356), the first Christian hermit.  As a young man he was converted to a radical following of Christ.  He gave up his family wealth and eventually (age 35 yrs.) went to live in an old fort in the desert.  He is often referred to as St. Antony of the Desert as a result.
 
He felt he had to escape the sin of the city.  He had already led an ascetical life and studied other ascetics.  By 305 A.D. curiosity seekers went out to find him and found he was aglow with spiritual joy, leading many to follow his way (but he only agreed to be their spiritual guide after years of this).  He is the father of eremitical monasticism. He was 54 years old at the time he founded his monastery with scattered cells.  
 
His Life by St. Athanasius says that Satan tortured him with temptations including boredom, laziness and the phantoms of women, but he overcame these with intense prayer.  The devil harassed him with images of demons in the form of wild beasts who inflicted blows on him.  He lived for 20 years in an old Roman fort in the desert and kind people fed him by throwing food over the wall.  He refused to see anyone, but a colony of ascetics formed around him on the mountain, who wanted him to be their spiritual guide. He spent 5 or 6 years instructing them and organizing them before withdrawing to the solitary desert again.
 
On only two occasions he went to Alexandria, once to strengthen Christian martyrs in the persecution of 311 at the age of 60 years old (expecting to be martyred himself) and once to preach against the Arians near the end of his life when he was 88 years old (d. 356).  He died at the age of 105 years old in 356 or 357 according to St. Jerome.  In his humility after living 45 years in the desert, he requested his grave be kept secret so that people would not come out to it and reverence him.  To this day, his rule for monks, which may have been written up by one of his monks, is followed in Syria and Armenia. 
 
The word monk comes from the Gr. monos, which means literally, one or alone.  Later another Egyptian, St. Pachomius, founded communal monasticism (substituting the cenobitical or communal life for the eremitical one).  He was born in 286 and had an ascetic master, Palemon, and about 320 A.D., he founded a community of ascetics near Tabenna (Tabennisi) and attracted many followers (eventually 7000 who spend time alone in prayer but gathered in community for meals, liturgy, and sometimes for special celebrations).  He refused the priesthood when St. Athanasius offered it to him. He died about 348 having brought together 7000 monks.
 
Monasticism became so popular that the population of the monasteries rivaled that of secular towns.  One book was the Desert of Cities. The title reflects the exodus of people wanting to live in the desert. People wanted to live a radical expression of their faith (white martyrdom vs. former red martyrdom of blood).  They devoted themselves to prayer and penance, spawning the religious life models that followed. These ascetics were celibates and they made celibacy an ideal in the religious mind—following the example of Christ.  Later this became the norm for priests in the West and for bishops in the East. In his book, The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, Fr. Christian Cochini argues that this emphasis on celibacy was not a new departure but rather a harkening back to the apostolic example. He cites, for example, canons of the Councils of Elvira (Spain) and Arles (314), which specifically prohibit marital relations of married clergy after ordination on penalty of being “deposed from the honor of the clergy” (p. 161).
The ascetic movement was also a great new source of evangelization and spirituality for the Church.  It spawned a witness to Christ and heightened spirituality

Saint Stephen of Hungary
Hungary’s conversion was largely the work of St. Stephen, who became king after putting down a pagan rebellion.  Born a pagan, probably at Esztergom in 975 A.D., his father was the chief of the Magyars, who came to Hungary in the ninth century.  Although he and his parents were baptized in 985 A.D., he was actually the first member of his family to actually become a Christian. 

​At age 20 he married Blessed Gisela of Hungary, who was the sister of future emperor, St. Henry. 
In order to gain the throne, which was contested, he had to defeat his cousin Koppany, who was supported by a large number of pagan warriors. He subsequently fought a series of wars in order to unify the country.

When he succeeded to the crown, he brought Christianity (i.e., Catholicism) to his people. Crowned by Pope Sylvester II, probably at Christmas in 1001 A.D., he subsequently asked the Holy Father to assist in the organization of Hungary as a Catholic nation.  He established one archbishopric, six bishoprics and three Benedictine monasteries.

He founded a monastery in Jerusalem and hospices for pilgrims at Rome, Constantinople and Ravenna (Italy). He established a system of tithes to support the Church and for the relief of the poor. He provided that one of every ten towns had to build a Catholic Church and provide for the support of the priest. He ended most pagan customs, but not without a struggle that was sometimes violent and commanded marriage, except for the clergy.

He gave some important advice to his son in a letter:

“Be humble in this life, that God may raise you up in the next. Be truly moderate and do not punish or condemn anyone immoderately. Be gentle so that you may never oppose justice. Be honorable so that you may never voluntarily bring disgrace upon anyone. Be chaste so that you may avoid all the foulness of lust like the pangs of death.”
 
He was a good friend with St. Bruno of Querfurt and corresponded with St. Odilo, Abbot of the great Cluny monastery. He groomed his son Emeric to succeed him as a Christian prince, but when he died on a hunt in 1031, there was a struggle for the succession and the king’s nephews attempted to kill him.  He died in 1038 A.D.  His incorrupt hand is the most sacred relic in the nation of Hungary.
 

​When Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at the Milvan Bridge in the battle for Roman and its Empire in the West, Constantine was indeed the victor. Maxentius, a brutal and ambitious general, drown in the Tiber River during the chaos of the battle. It was the beginning of Constantine's identification of himself as a Christian.  In January, 313, he agreed with Licinius the new Emperor in the East, to issue an edict, the Edict of Milan, to legally recognize Christianity as a religion. This marks a turning point in the history of the Church and of Europe.  Constantine’s letters from 313 on leave no doubt that he considered himself a Christian who believed his imperial duty was to maintain the unity of the Church.

His writings show that he genuinely believes it was the true religion as does his legislation favoring Christianity (though he did not outlaw paganism).  Shortly after his great victory he said that he owed the Christian “God my whole soul, every breath and every stirring of my mind, wholly and completely.”  He said that Christianity was the divine law and he consecrated himself for fighting for the causes of the Christian God. But this presented a challenge because he chose to remain an unbaptized cateuchmen until shortly before his death and all too often allowed his political dominance to take steps that should have been those of the Church to handle.

Constantine wanted to promote Christianity and protect its unity, but was misguided.  This has led some critics of the Catholic Church to allege that Catholicism emerged with the Emperor Constantine, because some people equate Catholicism (which they distinguish from “Christianity”) with the Church in the Middle Ages, where you have unity of Church and state.  So they say claim that before Constantine there was zealous biblical Christianity (the persecuted Church), but after Constantine it became the state religion, cultural Christianity (not because of true belief in Christ).  This equating of Constantine with Catholicism is an error because the basic structure of the Church and the initial creeds were already being formulated before Constantine and the faith that was embraced was decided upon without the emperors, even though they did their best to try to manipulate and maneuver the debate.  Ultimately it was God who triumphed because it was the bishops and not the emperors who determined the shape of the Church.  

For example, let's look at the Nicene Council which created an orthodox creed for the Church at a time when the divinity of Christ was being undermined by the Alexandrian priest, Arius, after whom the heresy of Arianism is named. Arius may have good motives in wanting to protect the unity of God, but unfortunately believing that the Son of God could not be fully equal to the Father, but must be the highest, most perfect creature of God.  He believed that there was once a time when the Son was not (i.e., he was a created creature of God).  He denied the divinity of Christ (and also of the Holy Spirit). As early as 320 or 321 St. Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, convoked a council at Alexandria at which more than one hundred bishops from Egypt and Libya anathematized Arius.

Constantine called the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. (after defeating Licinius and unifying the empire) which condemned Arius’ position and adopted the term homoousis or homoousion (of the same substance).  [Pope Dionysius (260-268) had used the term homoousios (or consubstantial) to correct Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, who had gone too far in combating Trinitiarian heresies and was presenting Christ as a lesser divinity.]  The Nicene Creed passed almost unanimously, but for the opposition led by Euseubius of Nicomedia, who was later deposed.  For the next 60 years the arguments persist.  The idea of an ecumenical council being the last word was not yet understood.  The word homoousis was not a biblical term, but the main reason for the arguments were the political influence exerted by followers of Arius.  Constantine himself, was swayed by one of his advisors, Bishop Valens, and changed his position though he never changed the doctrine of the Church.

On the contrary, the battle continued into the reigns of his son Constantius and later Valens, both avowed Arians.  Arianism was a great apostasy, but the common people never embraced it, and the Catholic Church prevailed in the long struggle, led by St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria and St. Basil the Great, key bishops who maintained the integrity of the Church's Trinitarian theology as annunciated at the Council of Nicaea despite the overt threats and intimidation of the Arian emperors just mentioned.

As Rod Bennett concludes in his 2015 book, The Apostasy that Wasn't: The Extraordinary Story of the Unbreakable Early Church:

"The Nicene party, on the other hand, was the party of the common herd, the hoi polloi, both the Christian laity and their democratically minded well-wishers.  And their creed, laid out at the very start of the crisis, before any tampering had ever begun, expressed the faith of these common folk--which is why it succeeded.  The Nicene Creed, in other words, was actually the great roadblock to the paganization of Christianity in the age of Constantine--and the Great Apostasy is exactly what its champions were struggling (and suffering) to prevent" (p.287).

Paganism really did make an assault on Christianity (Catholicism) during the fourth century and caesaropapism (Caesar trying to be the pope or vicar of Christ) was  a real challenge but the Church and not the Arians prevailed. As Bennett wrote, "The Church was Catholic because it was intended by its divine founder [Jesus Christ] to be universal--found everywhere, united wherever it was found, meant for everyone, the new spiritual home of humanity."

Bennett continues, "The same Church was Orthodox because it was "right-thinking" in matters of the Faith--because it believed and proclaimed the unspoiled doctrine of its divine founder as he taught it to the apostles [orally] and that was  passed down by them to future generations."

There was no great apostasy of true Christianity.  Reading the thousands of pages of the Early Church Fathers, including among them Athanasius and Basil the Great, makes it abundantly clear that the Church Christ established lived both before and after the time of Constantine as it does today. It relies on the words of Christ, who promised to Peter and to all of us, "And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys to kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16: 18-19). 

Jesus also said, "I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you always; the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot accept, since it neither sees nor recognizes him, but you can recognize him because he remains with you and will be within you" (John 14:16).


 

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen says that our Lord has a “divine sense of humor” because he revealed the universe was sacramental, in that it possesses both a visible and an invisible aspect. The visible can be seen, tasted or touched but the invisible can only be perceived with eyes of faith (2 Cor 5: 7).  The universe is full of signs that point to God, full of what might be termed “poetry,” and it is a sin to turn it into prose, refusing to recognize the deity in his words and works.  Just as Christ used his human nature as the instrument of divinity and used material things as signs and symbols of the reconciliation he offered, so he now employs other human natures and material things for the communication of the same divine life through the sacraments.[1]

Christ gave us three beautiful sacraments of initiation into himself, namely, Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. The early Church Fathers were well aware of the relationship between Baptism and Eucharist, seeing in the latter a more complete incorporation into the death and resurrection of Christ.  As Pope John Paul II has written, “The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord's passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation.”[2]  The pierced side of Christ was a reminder of these two sacraments of initiation, with the water being a symbol of Baptism and the blood, a sign of our redemption in Christ.  Baptism raises us “to the dignity of the royal priesthood,” Confirmation configures us more closely to Christ, and the Eucharist gives us the great privilege of participating in the “Lord’s own sacrifice.”[3]
 
 
I. The Eucharist: Source and Summit of Ecclesial Life
The Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood at the Last Supper:
in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.”[4]
 
The Eucharist is the Body, Blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and an anticipation of eternal glory.[5] The sacrifice of the cross is eternal and applies to all men until the Second Coming of the Lord.

The Eucharist is a pure offering, a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise. It is a gift from the Father for he handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself and it is the free love offering of his life by the Son through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience.[1]  The bread became Christ’s Body, when at the Last Supper he said, “This is my body which is given up for you.  Do this in memory of me” (Lk 22: 19).  By consuming the Eucharist in the divine liturgy, the once for all sacrifice of Christ, symbolized by the broken bread, we enter into communion and form one body in him.  “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10: 17).  The Holy Eucharist is as St. Augustine wrote, sacramentum unitatis ecclesiae and when we receive his Body, we are nourished and strengthened “by a divine, ineffable bond are united with each other and with the Divine Head of the whole Body.”[2]  St. John Chrysostom explains:
​
For what is the bread? It is the body of Christ. And what do those who receive it become? The Body of Christ – not many bodies but one body. For as bread is completely one, though made of up many grains of wheat, and these, albeit unseen, remain nonetheless present, in such a way that their difference is not apparent since they have been made a perfect whole, so too are we mutually joined to one another and together united with Christ.[3]
 
When the words of Christ are spoken by the priest during the Holy Mass along with the epiclesis, the bread and wine become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.  The whole Christ is truly, really and substantially contained therein.  “This presence is called ‘real’ not to exclude the idea that the others (e.g., Christ’s presence in the bishops) are ‘real’ too, but rather to indicate presence par excellence, because it is substantial and through it Christ becomes present whole and entire, God and man.”[4]  The mode of Christ’s presence is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.”[5] The Holy Eucharist is the “Sacrament of sacraments’ to which all the others are ordered “as to their end.”[6]


[1] CCC, 2643 and 614.

[2] Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, 19. St. Cyprian also referred to the Eucharist as “the sacrament of unity” in his great work ecclesiae catholicae unitate, 6-7 according to Enrico Mazza, The Celebration of the Eucharist: The Origin of the Rite and the Development of its Interpretation (Collegeville: Liturgical press, 1999), p. 131.

[3] In Epistolam I ad Corinthios Homiliae, 24, 2: PG 61, 200 quoted in EE, 23.

[4] Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, 39.  Hereafter cited as MF.

[5] CCC, 1374.

[6] CCC, 1211.



[1] Fulton J. Sheen, These are the Sacraments, New York: Hawthorn Books, 1962, online version at http://www.ewtn.com/library/DOCTRINE/SACRAMEN.TXT.

[2] Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia Eucharista, 11. Hereafter cited as EE.

[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church (Rome: Vatican, 2nd Edition, 1997), 1322.  Hereafter cited as CCC.

[4] Sacrosanctum Concilium, 47. Hereafter cited as SC.

[5] CCC, 1402.

The Mighty Augustine and the Bible:
from Pope Leo XII in Providentissimus Deus
 
 
“. . . the rule so wisely laid down by St. Augustine-not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires;(40) a rule to which it is the more necessary to adhere strictly in these times, when the thirst for novelty and unrestrained freedom of thought make the danger of error most real and proximate.  Neither should those passages be neglected which the Fathers have understood in an allegorical or figurative sense, more especially when such interpretation is justified by the literal, and when it rests on the authority of many. For this method of interpretation has been received by the Church from the Apostles, and has been approved by her own practice, as the holy Liturgy attests; (PD 15)
 
"On my part I confess to your charity that it is only to those Books of Scripture which are now called canonical that I have learned to pay such honor and reverence as to believe most firmly that none of their writers has fallen into any error. And if in these Books I meet anything which seems contrary to truth, I shall not hesitate to conclude either that the text is faulty, or that the translator has not expressed the meaning of the passage, or that I myself do not understand."( Ep. lxxxii., i. et crebrius alibi.)
 
Wherefore, as no one should be so presumptuous as to think that he understands the whole of the Scripture, in which St. Augustine himself confessed that there was more that he did not know, than that he knew,( ad lanuar. ep. lv., 21) so, if he should come upon anything that seems incapable of solution, he must take to heart the cautious rule of the same holy Doctor: "It is better even to be oppressed by unknown but useful signs, than to interpret them uselessly and thus to throw off the yoke only to be caught in the trap of error. "( De door. chr. iii., 9, 18.)
 
….as St. Augustine warns us, "not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known."(51) If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St. Augustine, for the theologian: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so."(52) To understand how just is the rule here formulated we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation."(53) Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us - `went by what sensibly appeared,"(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.
 
"Those," he says, "who are zealous in the work of preaching must never cease the study of the written word of God."(20) St. Augustine, however, warns us that "vainly does the preacher utter the Word of God exteriorly unless he listens to it interiorly;"
 
the "examination of older tongues,"(30) to quote St. Augustine, will be useful and advantageous. But in this matter we need hardly say that the greatest prudence is required, for the "office of a commentator," as St. Jerome says, "is to set forth not what he himself would prefer, but what his author says."
 
This is inculcated by St. Jerome, and still more frequently by St. Augustine, who thus justly complains: "If there is no branch of teaching, however humble and easy to learn, which does not require a master, what can be a greater sign of rashness and pride than to refuse to study the Books of the divine mysteries by the help of those who have interpreted them?"
 
But he must not on that account consider that it is forbidden, when just cause exists, to push inquiry and exposition beyond what the Fathers have done; provided he carefully observes the rule so wisely laid down by St. Augustine-not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires;(40) a rule to which it is the more necessary to adhere strictly in these times, when the thirst for novelty and unrestrained freedom of thought make the danger of error most real and proximate
 

St. Clement of Alexandria (150-216 A.D.) 

Titus Flavius Clemens, St. Clement of Alexandria was probably born a pagan in Athens about 150 A.D. He was one of the first great leaders in Christian Africa. After his conversion, he traveled to Italy, Syria and Palestine seeking Christian teachers. He met a most impressive one by the name of Pantaenus in Alexandria, became his pupil, associate and succeeded him as the head of a school for catechumens (converts) by 200 A.D.

He speaks of the apostolic tradition he received his teachers. He had no doubt, known some who recalled Ignatius and Polycarp or perhaps, even some who as children had heard St. John speak of our Lord's commands. He could claim to be in the next succession after the apostles.
Principal works comprise a trilogy focused upon Christ and this threefold relationship with the believer. He converts the heart/mind, disciplines and then imparts wisdom. His focus is upon Christ the Incarnate Word, whom he sees at work in the depths of our souls, leading us toward the moment of encounter in His divinizing presence.

He sees all the values the Greeks held dear, in mythology, philosophy and their mystery cults, fulfilled in Christ, who is the true mystagogue and the dispenser of wisdom.  He see Christ as the ministrel who gives harmony to the universe and makes music to God.  He sees the divine Word as the Sun of Righteousness enlightening the whole world. He urges converts to resist the siren call of pleasure and cling instead to the wood of the Cross in order to be freed from corruption.  Cardinal Dulles in his book, A History of Apologetics, says, “he is above all a Christian humanist, who moves easily amid the arts and letters of classical civilization combining Christian piety with the highest values of ancient culture” (p. 41).

He has two quotations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

• “Just as God’s will is creation and is called ‘the world,’ so his intention is the salvation of men, and is called ‘the Church.’” (CCC 760)
• Speaking of the principle of the Church’s unity: “What an astonishing mystery!  There is one Father of the universe, one Logos of the universe, and also one Holy Spirit, everywhere one and the same; there is also one virgin become mother, and I should like to call her ‘Church.” (CCC 813)
• The Blood of our Lord, indeed is twofold. There is His corporeal Blood, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and His spiritual Blood, that with which we are anointed. That is to say, to drink the Blood of Jesus is to share in His immortality . The strength of the Word is the Spirit, just as the blood is the strength of the body.  Similarly, as wine is blended with water, so the Spirit with man. The one, the Watered Wine, nourishes in faith, while the other, the Spirit, leads us on to immortality. The union of both, however,--of the drink and of the Word,--is called the Eucharist, a praiseworthy and excellent gift. Those who partake of it in faith are sanctified in body and in soul. By the will of the Father, the divine mixture, man, is mystically united to the Spirit and the Word.

​A persecution by Roman Emperor Septimius Severus in about 203 forced him to close the school and flee to Egypt. His writings are the first to discuss the relationship between faith and reason. His great treatises constitute a moral and dogmatic theology as well as an apologetic (defense) of the faith. He died in Cappadocia between 211-215 A.D.

This post is a homily on the Gospel for September 25, 2016, which is the parable concerning the treatment of the beggar St. Lazarus and the rich man, who died and went to his just punishment as a result of failing to show compassion and help Lazarus while he lived (Luke 16: 19-31).  The homily is by Fr. Joseph Cisetti.

                 
                                                                                                         
                                                  THE COCOON
 
                                               
          One of the many wonders of nature is a cocoon.  A caterpillar, a worm like creature that crawls upon the ground encloses itself in a type of tomb and then emerges transformed and flies through the air.  We rightly see that as a type of death and resurrection. 
 
          An image for the Gospel today is that of a cocoon but it is a different type of a cocoon.  Rather than a transformation into beauty, there is a deformation into misery that takes place.  The Gospel never says that this rich man committed an atrocity or killed anyone, but it is as if he is closed in on himself.  Perhaps without being fully aware of it, he is lulled into a self-absorbing stupor that does not seem to go beyond his clothes, his meals and his own doorstep.  His wealth is something that he spends on himself and not something he shares with others, not something that he uses to bless others.  He is drawn himself so tightly into his cocoon that he cannot seem to see beyond himself. 
 
          In the end, our possessions are not owned by us, but loaned to us.  They are entrusted to us; obviously so that we can meet our basic needs, but also so that we can help and even bless others.
 
          In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, early on in story, Ebenezer Scrooge says to the ghost of Jacob Marley, “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”  And the ghost exclaims, “Business!  Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business.” 
 
          This disturbing parable tells us to pay attention, to wake up and to not be absorbed by ourselves.  St. Augustine described sin as being caved in on oneself.  Sin closes us in on ourselves and charity draws us out of ourselves and that is where we find joy.  The word “ecstasy” literally means to stand outside of oneself.
 
          We are called to live lives of intentional faith that include actions of intentional faith at times perhaps in big ways but also in every little way because mankind is our business.  The common welfare is our business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, are all our business.
 
          This parable tells to pay attention to Moses and the prophets, that is, to pay attention to God’s word given to us in the Scriptures and to God’s word made flesh in the person of Jesus, who did return from the dead and who calls us to new life with Him.  Compared to the rest of the world, most of us, even those of modest means, can seem to be the rich man. 
 
          The five brothers represent us.  We are not to expect some sort of special personalized message, but rather we listen to what we have been told and an also act on it loving God and our neighbor.   
 
          Growing up, parents and teachers may have reminded us that our actions have consequences but today the Gospel reminds us that our inactions also have consequences.  There is more to being good than not being bad.  We can sin by what we do but we can also sin by what we fail to do. 
 
          Mother [now Saint] Teresa remarked that you can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have eyes to see.  So too, we can find Lazarus all over the world if we have eyes to see.  Lazarus can be all around us in those physically suffering, but also in those spiritually suffering and to help serve Him we have the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
 
          The corporal works of mercy, based largely on Matthew 25, are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, to visit the sick and imprisoned, to clothe naked and welcome the stranger and to bury the dead.  The spiritual works of mercy are to counsel the doubtful and comfort the afflicted, to instruct the ignorant and to admonish sinners, to bear wrongs patiently and forgive offenses willingly and to pray for the living and the death.  May we have eyes to see Lazarus, hearts to love him and arms to serve using that with which we have been blessed to bless him.  
 
          Informed by the word, sustained by prayer, encouraged by one another and nourished by the Eucharist, let us ask for the grace to not be imprisoned in the cocoon of self-absorption but rather live generous and joyful lives aware of the consequences of selfishness and inaction.
 
          Mankind is our business.  The common welfare is our business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, are all our business.