BIBLE HITS NEW HIGH

BIBLE HITS NEW HIGH

                                                   Yi, Lipo and Wa – spoken by more than a million people in China – are just three of the 61 languages that gained their first partial Bible translations during 2016, along with Tatar and Udmurt for use in Russia, and Cree and Inupiaq for Canada, according to the latest Global Scripture Access Report from the Swindon-based United Bible Societies (UBS).

Last year’s 61 new translations brought all or parts of the Bible to an estimated 428 million people for the first time, including tribes in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Uganda and Zambia, as well as six separate ethnic groups in India and seven in Myanmar.

The UBS report said that complete Bibles are now available in 648 languages. However, with an estimated 6,880 “living languages” worldwide, much work remains before “everyone can access the full Bible in the language of their choice”.

Although 285 million people globally are visually impaired, including 40 million who are blind, only 44 languages have a full Bible in Braille to date, usually running to 40 bulky volumes.

Founded in 1946, UBS has 146 member societies, working in more than 200 countries and territories.

-          From THE TABLET

London 6^th. May 2017

HOLY TRINITY, FAITH AND BELIEF IN

Faith, Belief, and the Trinity

SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 2017

Oblate Father Ronald Rolheiser is among the most respected and prolific writers on Christian spirituality. Though I have never met him, I have profited from his keen insights and captivating stories. In particular, I am indebted to two of his books: The Holy Longing (which I used with undergraduates) and Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity.

However, a recent article of his, “When Does Faith Disappear?,” left me uneasy. It appears to reflect a trend in theology and spirituality (the two, of course, are inseparable) that is well meaning, but ultimately misleading.

It begins with alarming statistics. Not only has there been a precipitous decline in recent decades in the number of people who go to church regularly. There has been “an equally unprecedented spike in the number of people who claim to have lost their faith completely.” The latter add to the swelling ranks of so-called “Nones,” people without any religious affiliation. In the United States and Canada, “Nones” now comprise over 30 percent of the population!

But have many of them really lost their faith? Rolheiser offers a distinction that has become widespread in contemporary Catholic theology: he distinguishes “faith” and “beliefs.” He asks provocatively: “is ceasing to believe in something the same thing as losing one’s faith?” And responds, equally provocatively, “not necessarily.”

To unpack this assertion, Rolheiser turns to what is traditionally called the “apophatic” dimension of Christian theology and spirituality. He rightly declares: “God is beyond all conceptualization, beyond all imaginings, beyond being pictured and beyond being captured in any adequate way by language.”

In many ways, this recovery of the “apophatic” recalls what the Fathers of the Church and Thomas Aquinas affirmed. Recall Saint Augustine’s si comprehendis, non est Deus – “if you [presume to] grasp, it is not God.” A salutary rebuke to a too rationalistic appeal to propositions, as though they adequately circumscribed the content of faith. Karl Rahner’s insistence on the “mystagogic” nature of dogmatic statements was, therefore, a welcome counter to neo-scholastic overreaching (whatever else may be said of his work).

Santa Trinità by Masaccio, 1425 [Santa Maria Novella, Florence]

But I suggest the pendulum has now swung far in the opposite direction. We risk an equally unsatisfactory spurning of propositions. The danger is what I term “an empty apophaticism.” “Faith” with no distinctive and discernible content. This, unfortunately, abets the “I’m spiritual, but not religious” posture. Propositions can never fully articulate the Mystery, but they can point us in the direction where true Mystery lies and provide insight into its character.

Saint Paul insists that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor 2:9). That’s “apophatic.” But he immediately adds “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” (1Cor 2:10)

Revelation is the rub! Christian faith is the loving response to God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ. Revelation perforce comes to expression in propositions, articles of belief: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” (1 Cor 15:3-5)

Statements of belief articulate the “cataphatic” dimension of revelation, its positive content. Without this dimension, Christian faith is empty and void. As Louis Dupré writes: “If we can assert nothing about God, then we can say nothing to God – and that marks the end of religion.”

I agree with Father Rolheiser that “many articles within our Christian creed. . .are images and words that point us towards something we cannot imagine because it is beyond imagination.” They are “mystagogic.” But pastors are called to be “mystagogues:” to probe wisely and reverently the Mystery of the faith. They are commissioned, according to their ability, to rekindle the religious imagination, to embrace the via pulchritudinis – the way of beauty – extolled by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium. They ponder, with their people, the great truths of the faith, calling upon poets and artists for assistance.

An example: Rolheiser asks, “How can God, who is one, be three? This isn’t mathematics, it’s mystery, something that cannot be imaginatively circumscribed.” Yes, certainly. But ought it not be imaginatively evoked? As John Donne put it:

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I might rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break blow, burn, and make me new.

We might then suggest, conceptually now, but still imaginatively, that the “three-personed God” bespeaks the fullness of personhood, the fullness of life-giving relations. That we, made in the image of this God, are not yet fully what God intends us to be. That we are called to grow, through grace, more and more into God’s likeness, to become sharers in the very life of the three-personed God.

The completed created likeness of the Trinity is the communion of saints: relationships redeemed and transfigured.

Dante is the supreme poet of the Catholic Tradition, the paladin of the Catholic imagination. The terza rima of the Divine Comedy attunes our every movement to the rhythm of Trinitarian life. And the deifying vision to which he and we are destined is the vision of the Triune God.

But such vision is never individualistic; it is fully personal and transpires only in communion. As Dante, draws close to his journey’s culmination, he sees more and more clearly that relationships, founded and transformed in Love, truly mirror the blessed Trinity. Not celestial mathematics; but wondrous mystery.

Because Christian faith is, of its essence, Trinitarian, there can be no dichotomy between faith and belief. Christian faith is not formless; its “logic” is Trinitarian. Indeed, the primacy of the cataphatic dimension in Christian theology and spirituality is on full display each time we begin our prayer by signing ourselves: “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

© 2017 

CHRISTIAN PRAYER SUMMARY

There was something fascinating about Jesus’ prayer ...CHRISTIAN PRAYER SUMMARY

VATICAN CITY — “The whole mystery of Christian prayer can be summed up in one word: Father,” Pope Francis said today at his general audience.

Speaking to faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Wednesday audience, the pope continued his catechesis series on Christian hope by reflecting today on the Fatherhood of God as the source of all our hope.

The boldness of Christianity

Here we see the great religious revolution introduced by Christianity, Pope Francis said, that taught by the Savior’s command, we dare to speak to the transcendent and all-holy God as children speak, with complete trust, to a loving father.

“The whole mystery of Christian prayer is summed up here, in this word: to have the courage to call God ‘Father,’” Pope Francis explained. “The liturgy affirms this when, inviting us to pray the prayer that Jesus taught us, it uses the expression “we dare to say.”

He added that calling on God as ‘Father’ “puts us in a relationship of trust with Him, like a child that turns to his papa, knowing he is loved and cared for by him.”

“This is the great revolution that Christianity imparts to the religious psychology of man,” the pope continued. “The mystery of God, which always fascinates us and makes us feel small, no longer makes us afraid. It does not crush us or make us anxious.”

This is a difficult revolution to welcome the human soul, the pope acknowledged. “So much so that even in the accounts of the Resurrection it is said that the women, after seeing the empty tomb and the angel, “fled … for trembling and astonishment had come upon them” (Mk 16: 8). But Jesus reveals to us that God is good Father, and He tells us, “Do not be afraid!”

Francis said Jesus speaks to us of the Father’s unconditional love especially in the parable of the merciful father, who welcomes his prodigal son with supreme forgiveness. “What an unfathomable mystery it is that God nourishes this kind of love towards his children!” he said.

The fascinating mystery of Jesus’ prayer

“Perhaps this is why,” Pope Francis suggested, “in calling to mind the heart of the Christian mystery, St. Paul did not translate into Greek the Aramaic word that Jesus used to address God the Father: ‘Abba’.”

Twice in his epistles (cf Roman 8:15; Gal 4:6) St. Paul touches on this theme, the pope explained, and twice he leaves the Aramaic word untranslated, just as it would have come from the lips of Jesus — “Abbà” — a word more intimate than “Father,” and that we might translate as “papa or daddy.”

“There was something fascinating about Jesus’ prayer,” the pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “The disciples were struck especially by the fact that, in the morning and in the evening, he would retire in solitude and ‘immerse’ himself in prayer.”

Therefore, one day they asked him to teach them to pray (cf. Lk 11:1). And then it was that Jesus handed on what has become the Christian prayer par excellence: the ‘Our Father.’

The pope stressed “we are never alone,” and even though we can be “distant and hostile” and even profess ourselves “to be ‘without God,’” the Gospel “reveals that God cannot be ‘without us’,” Francis continued. “He can never be a God ‘without man’,” and this certainty “is the source of our hope.”

“When we need help,” the pope said, “Jesus does not tell us to give up and close in on ourselves, but to turn to the Father and ask him with trust. All of our needs, from the most obvious and everyday — like food, health, and work — to being forgiven and sustained in temptation, are not a mirror of our solitude: instead there is a Father who is always watching us with love and who surely will not abandon us.”

The Holy Father concluded his catechesis, inviting everyone to think about all their needs, and about the Father’s love, and in this awareness to pray the ‘Our Father.’

Look to the Sacred Heart

At the end of the audience, during his greetings to young people, newlyweds and the sick, the Pope also recalled that June is the month traditionally dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

He particularly encouraged newlyweds to look to this Heart “to learn unconditional love.”

WHAT IS RELIGION

What is Religion?

The world has changed. Those who follow the news are surrounded by signs of a great “religious” resurgence – involving 30,770 attacks around the world since 9/11, including 21,242 murders just in 2016. These incidents are often muted, however, by news media that don’t want to give the impression that these changes have something to do with Islam, which is, after all, a religion.

Mosques are being built everywhere. Saudi Arabia has funded the building of thousands of mosques throughout the world and has supplied massive funding for the more than 2000 mosques in America. Christian churches are forbidden in Saudi Arabia – and are being destroyed in Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Nigeria and elsewhere, where their existence was previously allowed.              And we learn of the unusual “cultural” proclivities of Islam – execution of apostates and homosexuals, ideological and legal relegation of females to inferior status, female genital mutilation, divorce without appeal, rape without defense, honor killings, stoning for adultery, etc.

But it is a religion, isn’t it? Maybe the only religion with violence approved throughout its scriptures over a hundred times, but nevertheless a religion subject to all the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution, right?

We need to pause to consider what is meant by a “religion.”A religion is not merely an ethical system, although it’s expected to conform to the basic tenets of natural law – e.g. recognition of others’ rights to life and property, parental obligations to progeny, right to seek the truth and engage in rational pursuits. A religion goes beyond moral requirements to seek personal spiritual perfection and to create a more harmonious and peaceful moral order, as is exemplified in Christianity emphasizing perfect love of God and even love of enemies. We find these characteristics also in pre-Christian “natural religions.” Buddhism, even though partly agnostic about God, advocates striving for Satori (Enlightenment), and is oriented towards social peace and compassion, sometimes through meditation centers. Hinduism grants it highest honors to saints who strive for unity with the highest god, or Brahman, attaining Samahi, Yoga (“Union”). In Islam, we see some elements of these aspects in the Sufis and the Baha’is. Most Muslims, however, consider these heretical sects definitely outside the mainstream. But even if a religion does not go much beyond ethical tenets, may we not expect and demand that it not advocate actions clearly contrary to the natural law – murder, lying, adultery, stealing? The natural law is natural. We might presume that most Muslims adhere to the natural law, and if pushed to serious infractions, would resist. But there are special problems encountered by Muslims. For the Qur’an contradicts common moral standards, and the “prophet” Muhammad is revered by Muslims as the “perfect man” to be imitated and loved. (We are talking here about a warlord with a harem, including a child bride and slave girls, and involved in multiple massacres, deceits, fierce hatreds, and revengeful actions.) A “religion”? Islam would be more accurately classified as a political/religious cult – “political” because there is no distinction between “church and state,” no possibility of voluntary subjection to any non-Islamic political power, and in fact an eschatological goal of extinguishing all other states and religions.

PRIESTHOOD OF JESUS: a whole new way

A WHOLE NEW WAY

Hebrews 7:11-12

If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood – and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood – why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. (NIVUK)

Read the verses around this Bible passage from the Internet Bible: in English, and many other languages

Why change things? In the fast-moving world of today we need to harness technology and adapt to shifting market forces. But for some new managers, change is simply an opportunity to make their mark – and not always for the best. So why did God change the system of priesthood from what He prescribed to Moses in the Law (Numbers 3:5-10)? It was an important question for the Hebrew-background believers to whom this letter was written. Their whole upbringing had been centred on the temple, tithes, sacrifices and worship which were all controlled by the priests. Why had God apparently changed His mind about the law He gave to Moses? That old priesthood was set up under the old covenant law to do four things: to announce and enforce God's law, to intercede with God on behalf of the people through prayers and sacrifices, to discern the will of God, and to encourage the people to worship the Lord. But the law and those priests could never make people perfect or create a perfect community, or indeed be perfect themselves. However, their role did point forward to a Priest-King who would be perfect in every way, and have the power to transform sinners into saints and bring in a new covenant of grace (Hebrews 2:17). Jesus did not come from the tribe of Levi, but from Judah, but He perfectly fulfilled the priestly function of Melchizedek. He announced the gospel of grace, sealed by His broken body and shed blood, and remembered in bread and wine (Genesis 14:18). He offered the all-time sacrifice for sins and also became the sacrificial lamb (John 1:29). Jesus taught what pleases God and later sent His Holy Spirit to remind the apostles so that they could write it down for us. And Jesus still intercedes for us and draws us into His grace (Hebrews 7:25). While many people find comfort in the routines of religious systems with their rules, rituals and priestly figures, Jesus has called us to a personal relationship with Himself. In Christ alone our sins are paid for and removed from us (1 Peter 3:18). In Christ alone we have access to Father God and the right to be His children. In Christ alone we have the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us. In Christ alone we are confident of heaven. That is why the old system was replaced; it was as inadequate as an engineer's model – although achieving its purpose in foreshadowing the fulfilment of God's perfect design. Do not be satisfied with anything less than Jesus: have full confidence in Him alone (Hebrews 10:19-23).

Perfect God. Thank You that You have replaced the law we cannot keep, by a convenant of grace in which we are kept by Jesus Christ. Forgive me for the times I have gone back into religious mode, trying to please You by my good works, and not by relying on Your grace. Please give me a fresh confidence and joy in my relationship with Jesus, and the courage to tell my friends and colleagues about Him. In His Name. Amen.

WHAT MAKES US CATHOLIC

What Makes Us Catholic?

Setting us apart from all other religions, the Eucharist is what makes us Catholic. It’s no secret that the major dispute during the Protestant Reformation in the 16^thcentury revolved around the Eucharist. Was it a sacrifice? Was it truly and substantially the Body and Blood of Christ? The Catholic Church responded with a resounding “Yes.” The Eucharist makes the Church (Lumen Gentium), informs the way Scripture is interpreted (Dei Verbum), and shapes the way Catholics live in the world (Gaudium et Spes). The Eucharist accounts for a fundamental difference that makes us Catholic.

St. John’s Gospel offers an example of this difference. Though John provides no institution narratives for the Eucharist during the Last Supper, there is a regal, even magisterial teaching on the Eucharist in the well-known “Bread of Life Discourse.” It opens with an event familiar to the Synoptic Gospels, namely, the multiplication of the loaves and fish. Jesus turned to Philip and asked: “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” (Jn. 6:5) He asked this question to test Philip, as he does each one of us when faced with today’s overwhelming challenges. All four Gospels describe the inability of the disciples to meet so great a need and how Jesus miraculously multiplied a meager number of barley loaves and fish to feed 5,000 men (Jn. 6:10) – more when women and children are factored in.

All of those present that day were sated and filled from eating the loaves and fish. Jesus, therefore, said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over.” (Jn. 6:12) So, “they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.” (Jn. 6:13)

It’s worth pausing here and reflecting on what exactly was gathered up into the baskets. These were leftovers of bread and fish, pieces of food with bites taken out of them and then strewn about upon the ground. The food was bitten by people knowing little hygiene; handled by people, young and old, who did not wash their hands before dinner; food peppered with grass and dirt after laying on the ground for some time. Why would Jesus instruct his disciples to gather up such food? Wouldn’t it have been better to just leave it for animals and beasts to consume at night?

There is a clue to answering these questions in the reasons Jesus gives for the gathering, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” (Jn. 6:12) Jesus did not wish to waste food, to be sure, but there is yet another reason for the gathering. In his polemic with the Jewish leaders, Jesus declared himself to be “the bread of life.” (Jn. 6:35)

The Father has given us “true bread” (Jn. 6:32), Jesus Christ, come down from heaven to give life to the world: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” (Jn. 6:37-38)

What is the will of the one who sent Jesus? “And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.” (Jn. 6:39) Here a parallel is drawn between the fragments of bread and fish left over from the meal and we ourselves who are leftovers from the original dispensation of creation “in the beginning” before the Fall. We are not the first serving of creation. We are all leftovers.

So, what is our attitude toward leftovers? A common practice is to throw them away. In some ways, it is easier to make a meal from fresh ingredients than from a variety of leftovers in the refrigerator. How does Jesus view leftovers? He wants none of them to be lost.

In the economy of food stuffs the Father gave Jesus abundant bread and fish in the miracle of the loaves and in the economy of salvation the Father has given him: Us! Jesus instructs his disciples, therefore, to gather up the left over fragments so that nothing of what the Father has given him will be wasted.

For similar reasons, Jesus entrusted us to Peter, saying three times: “Feed my lambs” (Jn. 21:15-17), i.e., tend to the left-overs for whom I gave up my life! Jesus invites Peter, the other apostles, and all other members of the Church according to the grace and Sacraments received to do likewise.

This entire truth regarding the mission of Christ is played out again and again in the Eucharist. During Mass, the Gathering-Father sends his Son, Jesus Christ the “true bread” come down from heaven, to accomplish his will. Jesus, who was obedient to the Father even unto death on the cross (Phil. 2:8), comes to gather up the fragments of our lives back to the Father.

What makes us Catholic? The Catholic Church, like the whole human community of men and women conceived into this world, is composed of leftovers from the Fall. Yet members of the Church differ from the broader human community in that they are a communion in the Holy Spirit of men and women striving to love leftovers instead of succumbing to the temptation of throwing them away.

Human life has become an expendable commodity today, whether in the womb through abortion or among the weak and “deplorable ones” who fall victim to the cultural pressures of eugenic logic in euthanasia. Our Founder in the way of salvation, Jesus Christ, did not, nor does he now in the Eucharist, throw us away but rather bids us: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (Jn. 13:34)

And that is what makes us Catholic: heeding the Word given for many in the Eucharist.

© 2017 

PENTECOST AND HOPE: POPE FRANCIS

Pentecost and Hope: Pope Francis

On Wednesday 31^st. May 2017, Pope Francis said the Holy Spirit has the power to fill us with the hope of Christ, in turn making us Christians vessels that bring hope to others, rather than bitterness or desperation. 

“The Holy Spirit makes us not only able to hope, but also to be sowers of hope, that we too are, like him and thanks to him – the “paraclete” – consolers and defenders of our brothers, sowers of hope,” Pope Francis said May 31.

“A Christian can sow bitterness, can sow perplexity, and this is not Christian,” he said, adding: “whoever does this is not a good Christian. Sow hope: sow the oil of hope, sow the fragrance of hope, and not the vinegar of bitterness and hopelessness.”

Francis continued his reflections on the virtue of hope during the weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, this time centering on the role of the Holy Spirit in anticipation of the Feast of Pentecost.

Hope is simultaneously, as St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Hebrews, like an anchor and a sail, the Pope said. “If the anchor is what gives the boat safety and keeps it ‘anchored’ between the waves of the sea, the sail, instead, is what makes it proceed and advance on the waters.”

“Hope is really like a sail; it collects the wind of the Holy Spirit and transforms it into a driving force pushing the boat, depending on the case, offshore or to shore,” he explained.

“The Spirit is the wind that drives us forward, that keeps us on the road, makes us hear pilgrims and strangers, and does not allow us to sit and become a ‘sedentary’ people.”

This is why hope does not disappoint: “because there is the Holy Spirit within us that pushes us forward, always!” he said.

It’s also because of the Holy Spirit that we have the ability to rest in hope, and have hope even “against all hope,” as St. Paul says in Romans, the Pope continued.  

To illustrate his point, Francis pointed to Abraham’s obedience when God asked him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and to the Virgin Mary as she stood at the foot of the cross of her son, Jesus, as examples of this supernatural hope.

It is possible to have this kind of “invincible” hope, he said, because the Holy Spirit helps us to recognize that we are children and heirs of God. 

Again pointing to St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, Francis noted that “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

“The expression ‘God of hope’ does not just mean that God is the object of our hope, that is, the one we hope to reach one day in eternal life; it also means that God is the one who already makes us hope, indeed, makes us ‘happy in hope,’” he said.

According to a popular saying, “as long as there is life, there is hope.” While this is true, the Pope said that the converse is also true: “As long as there is hope, there is life. Men need hope to live.”  

Quoting from a speech of Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman, Francis said: “Educated by our own suffering, by our own sorrow, indeed by our own sins, we will have a mind and heart practiced in every work of love towards those that have need.”

“We will be, in measure of our capacity, consolers in the image of the Paraclete,” the Pope said. “That is, the Holy Spirit, and in all the senses that this word implies: advocates, helpers, comforters. Our words and our counsel, our way of acting, our voice, our gaze, will be gentle and peaceful.”

“Brothers and sisters, the coming feast of Pentecost – which is the birthday of the Church, eh? –  we find ourselves together in prayer, with Mary, the Mother of Jesus and of us,” he said in conclusion.

“And the gift of the Holy Spirit makes us abound in hope,” he said, but explained that there is more: the Holy Spirit “makes us ‘waste’ hope with all those who are most needy, the most discarded and with all those who need it.”