A Christmas Gift

This gift is a reminder of what Christmas really means. It will only take

you 2 minutes to open it and obtain the benefits. (we’re actually re-gifting, because

we were given this gift by the religious education students at St. Ambrose.) 

But

I warn you, you will be so filled with the true spirit of Christmas I can’t predict

your reaction. I expect that your heart will swell beyond its current size

and under those conditions, well … the Holy Spirit has its way.

Enjoy!

Video courtesy of Mark S. 

A Love Supreme

As Dr Esolen remarks, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives is a short volume but for that very reason may be the ideal introduction to Pope Benedict XVI's writings. In this Monday's Wall Street Journal, Esolen writes:

 Imagine touring the Sistine Chapel with someone who has done more than merely read some learned commentary on the paintings of Michelangelo. He has looked at them, pondered them, loved them, even waited upon them to reveal their inner harmony, and now he seeks to hand on to you what he has found. Imagine listening to a master organist, not playing the whole St. Matthew Passion but showing you, as he touches a chord here and makes a progression there, some hint of the grandeur of Bach's composition that you might miss in the overwhelming storm of its performance. Then you have an idea of what Pope Benedict XVI has attempted in his three-volume work on the life of Jesus, but most humbly and sweetly in the "Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives."

Modern men too often see things only by the guttering firelight of politics. Pope Benedict, who wrote many works of deep scholarship while simple Joseph Ratzinger, also served as the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, earning him a reputation among the ignorant as combative—"God's Rottweiler." It may surprise some, then, to read that Pope Benedict has written about one topic all his life long. Love is the key to his work, as it is the theme and lesson of this work. Indeed, the Pope has written that in Jesus, the man and the mission are one, and the mission is the holiness of love—of being entirely for and with God, and for and with mankind, without reserve. Now Benedict shows how this understanding of Jesus is manifest from the beginning, in his conception, his birth and his childhood.

 (Go to Dr Esolen's article for the rest of the review.)

Annual St. Ambrose Christmas Pageant 2012

Each year the children of the St. Ambrose religious education classes delight us with their production of the true Christmas story. They WOW friends and family with their cheery faces, giggling deliveries, and amazing performances. Here are this year’s actors and actresses.

St. Ambrose Christmas Pageant 2012
(photo highlights)

Merry Christmas

In Christ, God has spoken

	from The Ascent of Mount Carmel, by St John of the Cross

In Christ, God has spoken to us

The principal reason why the Old Law permitted us to ask questions of God, and why prophets and priests had to seek visions and revelations of God, was because at that time faith had no firm foundation and the law of the Gospel was not yet established; and thus it was necessary that men should enquire of God and that he should speak, whether by words or by visions and revelations or whether by figures and images or by many other ways of expressing His meaning. For all that he answered and revealed belonged to the mysteries of our faith and things touching it or leading to it.

  But now that the faith is founded in Christ, now that in this era of grace the law of the Gospel has been made manifest, there is no reason to enquire of God in that manner nor for him to speak to us or answer us as he did then. For, in giving us, as he did, his Son, who is his one and only Word, he spoke to us once and for all, in this single Word, and he has no occasion to speak further.

  And this is the meaning of that passage with which the Letter to the Hebrews begins, trying to persuade the Hebrews that they should abandon those first ways of dealing and communicating with God which are in the law of Moses, and should set their eyes on Christ alone: At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, in the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son. That is, God has said so much about so many things through his Word that nothing more is needed, since that which he revealed partially in the past through the prophets, he has now revealed completely by giving us the All, which is his Son.

  Therefore if someone were now to ask questions of God or seek any vision or revelation, he would not only be acting foolishly but would be committing an offence against God – for he should set his eyes altogether upon Christ and seek nothing beyond Christ.

  God might answer him after this manner, saying: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him. I have spoken all things to you in my Word. Set your eyes on him alone, for in him I have spoken and revealed to thee all things, and in him you shall find more than you ask for, even more than you want.

  I descended upon him with my Spirit on Mount Tabor and said This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him. You have no reason to ask for new teaching or new answers from me because if I spoke to you in the past then it was to promise Christ. If people asked questions of me in the past then their questions were really a desire of Christ and a hope for his coming. For in him they were to find all good things, as has now been revealed in the teaching of the Evangelists and the Apostles.

One Unique Book

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

This is elaborated in the Vatican II document Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constituition on Divine Revelation:

11. Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles (see John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:15-16), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation. Therefore "all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text).

The inspiration of the Scriptures is not, however, a matter of some sort of mechanical dictation. Rather, as the Catechism explains:

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."

Nevertheless, the 'Word of God' is first and foremost not a book but Christ Jesus himself. As the Catechism says:

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a "religion of the book". Christianity is the religion of the "Word" of God, "not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living". If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open (our) minds to understand the Scriptures." (Luke 24:45)

Book Reviews

In this upcoming year, a year of faith, I hope to write weekly book reviews on the two dozen books in the booklist below.  Most books will get multiple reviews and I intend the reviews to revolve around the booklist’s mission statement: To educate our children, we ourselves must be learning and so we strive to have well formed consciences. 

Booklist

• Bible, Revised Standard Version
• Liturgy of the Hours, 4 volumes
• Peloponnesian War; Thucydides
• Vergil’s Aeneid; tr. Sarah Ruden
• The Confessions; Saint Augustine
• Holy Teaching; F. C. Bauerschmidt
• Dante’s Paradise; Anthony Esolen
• 11 Plays (two volumes); Shakespeare
• Wesley Hymns; Lillenas Publishing
• Three Classic Novels; Jane Austen
• Reading Law; A. Scalia & B.A. Garner
• The Golden Bowl; by Henry James
• Collected Works; Flannery O’Connor
• North of Boston Poems; Robert Frost
• Stages on the Road; Sigrid Undset
• Quotable Newman; David Armstrong
• Jesus of Nazareth; Pope Benedict XVI
• The Concise Oxford English Dictionary
• Lumen Christi Missal; Adam Bartlett
• Compendium of the Catholic Catechism

Canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha

Canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, in Rome this Sunday.

 And here in Utah, a celebration out in the Uintas — Sunday, Oct. 21, 11 a.m. at Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Mission, #1, 14 Duchesne County Road, Ft. Duchesne. Reception to follow at Saint Helen Catholic Church, 433 East 2nd North, Roosevelt. Blessed Kateri was born in 1656 in an Mohawk tribe.

She was the daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Tagaskouita, a Roman Catholic Algonquin who had been adopted into the tribe after capture. Ten years before, three Jesuit missionaries had been murdered in the Mohawk Valley (they were canonized in 1930). Nevertheless, a Catholic mission to the Mohawk Indians was started.

 When Kateri turned 18, Father Jacques de Lamberville arrived to take charge of the mission in her village. Despite his misgivings, her uncle allowed her to be baptized as long as she remained in the village. Following her Baptism, Kateri lived a pious and faith-filled life, spending hours in prayer and fashioning crosses out of twigs. She also refused to marry, believing that she was married to God and that no man could take God’s place in her heart. Her beliefs were met with ridicule, hostility and threats. Thus, two years after her Baptism, she fled to St. Francis Xavier Mission, a Christian Mohawk village in Kahnawake, Quebec. There, she received her first Communion on Christmas Day 1677. She also made a vow of perpetual virginity on the Feast of the Annunciation in 1679. In Kahnawake, Kateri was known for her faith and holiness. She taught prayers to children, cared for the elderly and the sick, and would often attend mass at sunrise and sunset. Kateri’s health deteriorated in the last years of her life. She died of tuberculosis on April 17, 1680, shortly before her 24th birthday, and was buried at St. Francis Xavier Mission. Her final words were: “Jesos Konoronkwa” (“Jesus, I love you”).