Advent: The Return of the King

Let the trees of the wood shout for joy and the rivers clap their hands for the Lord; for He comes, He comes to rule the earth.

Family: God's Greatest Natural Gift

The Spirit distinctly says that in later times some will turn away from the faith and will heed deceitful spirits and things taught by demons through plausible liars--men with seared consciences who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by believers who know the truth. Everything God created is good; nothing is to be rejected when it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by God's word and by prayer. (I Timothy 4:1-5)

I have decided to put this passage on Humble Heroes; I was very impressed by it, and its message is for all times, especially today. Why? Against the Gnostics, the Docetists, the Manicheans, etc., it affirms the goodness of material creation. Nothing God created is bad; however, we have sin because of bad use of the will by using good things in a way that is forbidden, in a way that goes against their nature--and ours. And part of that creation, which is good, is marriage and children. Marriage and child-bearing was condemned by those heretics of times gone by (mentioned above), but St Paul and the Church through the centuries defended marriage and child-bearing. And today we have the same heresies against the goodness of God's creation only they go by different names. Widespread practice of contraception and abortion, with the approval of civil law, attacks marriage, family, and children. And shame on that movement to do what is impossible because it is against nature: redefine marriage. No wonder Pope Saint John Paul II wrote The Theology of the Body

and taught and did so much in support of the family, which Satan and the Culture of Death have sought to destroy. Dark times are upon us, but in the end Satan and his minions will--in the words of Christ our Lord and Savior--"fall from the sky like lightning." Jesus and Mary will crush the head of Satan and his minions.

Our Holy Brother Francis speaks:

It was through his archangel, Saint Gabriel, that the Father above made known to the holy and glorious Virgin Mary that the worthy, holy, and glorious Word of the Father would come from heaven and take from her womb the real flesh of our human frailty. Though He was wealthy beyond reckoning, he still willingly chose to be poor with His Blessed Mother. ... The Father willed that His blessed and glorious Son, whom He gave to us and who was born for us, should through His own blood offer Himself as a sacrificial victim on the altar of the Cross. This was to be done not for himself through whom all things were made, but for our sins. It was intended to leave us an example of how to follow in His footsteps.

-From a letter written to all the faithful by Saint Francis of Assisi.

More than Martyr: The Queen of Martyrs!

Have you ever thought of the Holy Virgin Mother Mary as a martyr? At least one Doctor of the Church has:"Truly, O Blessed Mother, ... we rightly call you more than martyr, since the effect of compassion in you has gone beyond the endurance of physical suffering" (Saint Bernard, Liturgy of the Hours, Vol. 3, page 1402; Sept 15: Our Lady of Sorrows). And in the Responsory of that same holy day: "Happy is she, who without dying has won the martyrs crown."

That's what it means to be King!

Of his own free will Jesus ran to meet those sufferings that were foretold in the Scriptures concerning him. He had forewarned his disciples about them several times; he had rebuked Peter for being reluctant to accept the announcement of his passion, and he had made it clear that it was by means of his suffering that the world's salvation was to be accomplished. This was why he stepped forward and presented himself to those who came in search of him, saying: I am the one you are looking for. For the same reason he made no reply when he was accused, and refused to hide when he could have done so, although in the past he had slipped away on more than one occasion when they had tried to apprehend him. (From a treatise On the Incarnation of the Lord by Theodoret of Cyr, bishop)

Then Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, came forward and said to them, "Whom do you seek?" They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus said to them, "I am he." ... When Jesus said to them, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground. Again, he asked them, "Whom do you seek?" And they said, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus answered, "I told you that I am he; so, if you seek me, let these men go." (John 18:4-8)

We know also from the Gospel according to St John that the Good Shepherd is the Gate of the Sheep. The Shepherd, as the Gate, stands in front of the sheep in the place of the Gate and guards the sheep with his very life.

Friends of the King

What an amazing friendship between Jonathan and David. (See today's readings--especially the second reading--in today's Liturgy of the Hours.) Jonathan is the prince, the heir to the throne of Saul his father, yet he would rather have God's anointed, that is, David, be king; Jonathan is happy to be second in the kingdom in deference to his friend David, who is in fact the one whom God chose to be king, and the royal ancestor of the Anointed One of God, that is, Jesus the Christ. This reminds me of Boromir promising King Elessar (that is, Aragorn): "I would have followed you my Captain, my Brother, my King!" And St John the Baptist: "Jesus must increase, and I must decrease." May each one of us have this relationship, this friendship, with Jesus the Christ: our God, our true Friend, and our Divine King. Viva Cristo Rey!

The Cornerstone of Civilization

In his book, Bradley J. Birzer quotes Pope Saint John Paul II--I dare call him John Paul the Great--on the inalienable dignity of the human person:

For the Christian humanist, the Incarnation proves the intrinsic worth of each human person, despite the fallenness that each human person has inherited because of Adam's sin. Thus, persons are never to be used as means to a "higher" end. Rather, each life possesses a unique dignity. As Pope John Paul II has explained, "the concept of the person as the unique and unrepeatable center of freedom and responsibility, whose inalienable dignity must be recognized ..., has proven to be the cornerstone of any genuinely human civilization. [Birzer,JRR Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2009)134]

Saint Pope John Paul II is eminently qualified to make this statement. For he faced the two giant tyrannical ideologues of the 20th century, both of which put their particular ideologies before the intrinsic value and unique dignity of each and every human person: National Socialism and Communism, and he defeated them.

What makes a Humble Hero?

The reading from today's Liturgy of the Hours Evening Prayer could be considered as St Paul's version of what makes a Humble Hero, that is, a saint. It's certainly true that God is in charge and we can do nothing good without God's help, that is, without his grace.

God has chosen the weak of this world to shame the strong. He has chosen the world's lowborn and despised, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who were something; so that no flesh may glory in His sight. (I Corinthians 1:27-28)

J.R.R. Tolkien must have read and meditated upon St Paul. For, in Tolkien's legendarium, it is the weak, small, virtually unknown little Hobbits who save Middle-earth from slavery to the evil Sauron. And, in "the real world," it is the Divine Child of Bethlehem and his holy Virgin Mother who save us lowly ones from evil and Hell.