CHURCH ATTENDANCE IS IMPORTANT

 Church attendance / going to church is important

The Bible tells us we need to attend church so we can worship God with other believers and be taught His Word for our spiritual growth. The early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). We should follow that example of devotion—and to the same things. Back then, they had no designated church building, but “every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:46). Wherever the meeting takes place, believers thrive on fellowship with other believers and the teaching of God’s Word.

Church attendance is not just a “good suggestion”; it is God’s will for believers. Hebrews 10:25 says we should “not [be] giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Even in the early church, some were falling into the bad habit of not meeting with other believers. The author of Hebrews says that’s not the way to go. We need the encouragement that church attendance affords. And the approach of the end times should prompt us to be even more devoted to going to church.

Church is the place where believers can love one another (1 John 4:12), encourage one another (Hebrews 3:13), “spur” one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24), serve one another (Galatians 5:13), instruct one another (Romans 15:14), honor one another (Romans 12:10), and be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32).

When a person trusts Jesus Christ for salvation, he or she is made a member of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). For a church body to function properly, all of its “body parts” need to be present and working (1 Corinthians 12:14–20). It’s not enough to just attend a church; we should be involved in some type of ministry to others, using the spiritual gifts God has given us (Ephesians 4:11–13). A believer will never reach full spiritual maturity without having that outlet for his gifts, and we all need the assistance and encouragement of other believers (1 Corinthians 12:21–26).

For these reasons and more, church attendance, participation, and fellowship should be regular aspects of a believer's life. Weekly church attendance is in no sense “required” for believers, but someone who belongs to Christ should have a desire to worship God, receive His Word, and fellowship with other believers.

Jesus is the Cornerstone of the Church (1 Peter 2:6), and we are “like living stones . . . being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). As the building materials of God’s “spiritual house,” we naturally have a connection with one another, and that connection is evident every time the Church “goes to church.”

WORSHIP IN HINDUISM

IMAGE WORSHIP IN HINDUISM

Preliminary Notions

There are three strata in Hinduism:

a) High Metaphysics that is radically monistic. However, in practice, monism behaves like pantheism, a subtle shade of which pervades the whole of Hinduism. We may call this stratum ‘metaphysical pantheism’.

b) Popular religion based on mythology that, in practice, is polytheistic. However, in principle, all the gods are admitted to be manifestations of the one God. Popular religion also has to deal with demons; these are not the objects of love and devotion but of fear. So the demons have to be kept out of mischief with gifts. We may call this stratum ‘mythological polytheism’.  

c) The above two strata are extremes. Between the two lies the Hindu religion proper, of which the doctrine can be categorised under the three headings of God, the world, and the Soul. It is precisely in the notion of God that we come upon the moral problem of idolatry.

The Notion of God in Hinduism

            There is first the metaphysical notion of the impersonal Absolute. Considered in himself, God is impersonal. Then there is the religious notion of the personal God. In relation to the world, God is personal. The mythological notion contains the explanation of the mode of relationship of God to the world. God assumes three distinct forms corresponding to the respective functions of Creator, Conserver and Consummation. This is Trimurti, the divine Triad or group of three. However, this is essentially different from the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Trimurti is only the outward expression of God, not his inward nature. The Christian Trinity is three persons in one substance; whereas Trimurti is one essence in three substances.

Avatara is one of the central doctrines of Hinduism. The descent of God commonly called “incarnation”. But the real characteristic of Avatara is a theophany or divine manifestation that is essentially different from the Incarnation of the Word. Thus Vishnu descends in visible form to save the world from disaster. The most important avataras were Rama and Krishna, which gave a strong impetus to the religion of love.

Arcavatara is a complement to the doctrine of Avatara, namely, the indwelling of the divinity in the consecrated idol. There is no idea here of transubstantiation but of a type of incarnation, the divinity assuming the idol as its body. All the same, the sentiments of a devout Hindu may be very like that of a Catholic about the Eucharist.

An Appraisal of Hindu worship

            Having a deep sense of the sacred, the Hindu can single out any person or object as the focus of the divinity. Ignorant of the personal and inner life of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, his efforts reach sense reality by means of a thousand signs and symbols and idols – a yearning search for God. But ignorance, weakness and sin have vitiated this search. Jesus Christ prevents us from idolatry. Thus idolatry is a search for God and at the same time a turning away from him, a prayer and refusal, adoration and a sacrilege. Symbols are unworthy since they are man-made. The multiplicity breaks up the divine oneness. Clinging to the idol prevents reaching out to the Transcendent One. On the other hand, the images are at least occasions of genuine and humble prayer in the daily life of many.

            Idolatry does not imply the belief that God is a mere statue or finite being, but the quite different assumption that a statue can be made to become God or God’s abode or body, that a finite person or symbol can be an adequate object of adoration. In the holy Eucharist the bread is not the abode of Christ. There is no bread; there is only Jesus Christ, whole and entire, whom we adore as our Transcendent Lord in the order of very existence.

            The idol-image, symbol or finite person, embodies man’s desires and conceptions rather than God’s transcendent claims and divine fullness. Clinging to the idols of his family, culture and nation, the idolater can refuse to surrender in spirit and truth to God’s self-revelation. 

Moral Evaluation of Image Worship

            Image worship is sinful when it degenerates into magic or into attempts to placate finite beings like ghosts, demons, natural forces, and so on. In polytheism, at least on the practical plane, the divine oneness is fragmented into aspects and forms, each form being personified and worshipped as person. Worship can be expressed by invocation, reverence and adoration. The worshipper-worshipped relation is a personal one, and if it implies adoration then the relation is one of complete surrender such as only the absolute transcendent can claim. To establish this relation with any thing or person short of the Absolute is sinful. This is what idolatry does: human individuals are deified or aspects of the divinity are humanised in concrete forms for the devotees to worship.

            Worship is not mere meditation. We need symbols to think of the Absolute. But we do not worship the symbols in order to think of the Absolute. We rather contemplate the symbol to worship the Absolute. (Nobody adores the Shroud of Turin; the shroud is only an occasion of the prayer of adoration of and thanksgiving to Jesus). So we do not worship our symbols or thoughts. Symbols are finite and human. They are man made and are the expressions of our own desires and therefore hold out no challenge to us. Whereas, the Eucharist is instituted by Christ, a God-given symbol, and continues to call us to enter into the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. The idols of the image-makers are at best a sort of “personifications” of the divine.

            Idolatry can be a groping movement towards God. But it can also become a clinging to the self, since idols are things that man makes. For a Christian it would definitely be a running away from the light.

            We adore no image of the divinity, except the subsistent and living image of the Father, the Person of Jesus Christ, since “he is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1, 15), and “in him everything continues in being (vs. 17b). The statues and pictures of Christ, his Cross, Sacred Heart, and Divine Mercy are objects of worship for us by relationship to the Divine Person. They are not “personified” or enlivened embodiments of the Divine. The Eucharist we adore directly. The very Person of God the Son is there, not any image or symbol.

INCARNATION AND SOCIAL MISSION

Incarnation and Social Mission

“For when peaceful stillness compassed everything, and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful word from heaven’s throne bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land” (Wisdom 18, 14 – 15). For the starting point of the Christ-event was a flight into the temporal, into the material, to this world of births and generations, to this world of buying and selling, to this world of housing and education, this world of leisure and of work, in order to transform, elevate, transfigure. Salvation is not a flight, a withdrawal, a retreat from the world. Not a flight of the alone to the Alone, not a rout from men and matter into the unfathomable Prajapati; not a denial of the existence of the world, not an aspiration towards nothingness. But salvation is an incarnation, an advance, an introit into the temporal and material, into the economic and social by the Word of God. Not that man and the Word may merely contain the Word, for Christ’s humanity is not a vessel of rare material in which reposes the Divinity; but that by a transfusion of the divine, man and the world may be redeemed and sublimated. For Christ’s humanity, through that indwelling, is raised to the highest realization possible to man. The social mission of the Incarnation is thus strictly within the movement and grace of the Hypostatic Union.

In the Incarnation the elevation has been wrought such as bewilders the heavenly intelligences. It is an injustice to the Incarnation to confine its effects to merely internal graces. Rather, in every line of progress – spiritual, intellectual, social, material – the advancement of humanity must be achieved. The material and social needs of our fellowmen fall within our Christian mission, within the mission of the Church whose divine Founder had pity on the famished crowd, who proclaimed that his disciples would be known by the love they had for one another, who gave the disciples of John a sign whereby he would understand that the Messiah was abroad: for the lame walked, the blind saw and the lepers were cleansed. And that sign has not changed since.

INCARNATION

The Incarnation

“For when peaceful stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half-spent, your all powerful Word bounded from heaven’s  royal throne, a fierce warrior into the doomed land” Wisdom 18, 14 – 15).

The greatest things are accomplished in silence – not in the clamour of superficial display, but in the deep clarity of inner vision, in the almost imperceptible start of decision, in hidden sacrifice and quiet conquest. It is in silence that the heart is quickened by love, and the free will stirs to action. The silent forces are the strong forces. The greatest events are accomplished in silence. And the greatest event of all was when the Son of God leaped down from his heavenly throne on to this earth. It was the most silence event because it came from the infinite remoteness beyond the noise of any possible intrusion.

The Son of God became man, - “the Word was made flesh” (John 1) in the womb of a young virgin; and it hardly echoed in the upper circles of the time, ignored by the Roman historians. No one, except the young virgin, knew that Divinity had set up its tent among men. His royal chamber was the animals’ stable, his throne the manger, his canopy the hanging cobwebs, the reek of the dung the incense.

In this Child, God, having spoken at sundry times through the Prophets, chose to reveal to man the mysteries hidden from all eternity. In this Child the Divine made an advance into the world and man, a divine transfusion by which we are transformed, elevated, redeemed; for whereas we were blind, now we see. As St. Irenaeus says, “there is one Father, the Creator of Man; and one Son who fulfils the Father’s will; and one human race in which the mysteries of God are worked out, so that the creatures, conformed and incorporated with his Son, are brought to perfection.” In this Child, God and man have a purchase on each other. For God is so great that he can allow himself to become a child. He is so strong that he can appear weak. So overwhelmingly attractive that he draws everyone to himself without forcing anyone. God is so Almighty that he can bind people to himself without limiting their freedom.

The Incarnation, which was the starting point of Christianity, was a descent into the temporal, into the material, into this world of births and generations, into the world of buying and selling, into this world of housing and education, to this world of leisure and of hard work; this world of unemployment and taxes. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, took upon himself all this in order to transform, to elevate and transfigure.

Therefore, our salvation does not consist in a flight, an escape, a retreat from the world. Not a flight of the alone to the Alone. Not an escape from our fellowmen and our day to day burdens.

It is an injustice to the Incarnation to confine its effectiveness merely to internal graces. Rather, in every line of progress, spiritual, intellectual and material, the Incarnation must be sanctifying leaven. And if that is so, it should be the rule and not the exception to have saintly workers and peasants, saintly statesmen and judges, merchants and soldiers. All stages of life must be elevated, from childhood to adolescence, from marriage up to our last day on earth. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God” (John 1).

Indeed, it s only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word that the mystery of man is manifest. We neglect the mystery of man at our peril. Wherever the Christ Child is adored there is at least some sense of mystery. Ignore that birth, and the road to power runs straight as a ruler to the death camps. Focus on that birth, and the road to true humanity, however it may roll and meander, cannot be missed.

This divine-human Infant touched off a revolution, a quiet prolonged thunder, from the recesses of the cave of his birth, founding a Kingdom, characterized by unconditional love and undiscriminating service. The centre of this dynamic process is the human heart, and its source, the Son of God, born in the heart of each man and woman today. He is not an ideal or abstraction, a gaunt empty figure beyond description, but a Person in whom is the fullness of the Godhead, the most beautiful among men, Victor over death and hell, the great Judge. He has come, not to use us as tools, carrying us along with him, striding on rapidly towards a high abstract goal. Nay, nothing great he put before us to achieve except to love him, to be faithful to him and to give testimony to him when the times comes. Most great men have failed, for their schemes have been their ideals, and their chosen men their tools. And when these great ones died there was no one to weep over them. But Jesus dying lives, and living he dies daily like the grain of wheat or else he takes no root in our hearts. His ideal is that we love him, that we love one another for him and that we believe in his love for us.

He comes into this world, dispossessed Infinity, naked and cold, that each one of us may give him something – the universe for his stable, for his manger our hearts and their warmth.

For too many people Christmas is the time for exchanging gifts, very often gaudy things that no mortal ever bought for himself. It is one annual symptom of the lunatic condition of the world, in which everyone tries persuading everyone else to buy things.

So it’s good to remind ourselves on that GIFT that was wrapped up in circumstances of deepest poverty. And even though each Christmas I try to fathom its mystery, I trust I know enough to realize that life consists maybe in gifts, but certainly not in “gots”. For the truth about Saints like Francis of Assisi is not idyllic things like chatting with the birds and preaching to the fishes; but the real truth about them was their ability of calling nothing their own. The way to the Spirit is the way of dispossession. If the Word of God reached from Heaven to Bethlehem by way of dispossession, we have no right reach him except by the same road. Gethsemane was not possible without Bethlehem; but Bethlehem is meaningless without Gethsemane.

Now that doesn’t mean that we must run off and get ourselves measured for sackcloth and sandals. That is too simplistic a way of solving the world’s problems. There is another way for which good Biblical evidence can be found – that we may have things but not be possessed by them, for we hold them as stewards, as disposable for the good of others. So it’s a good idea, especially at a time like this to keep checking on what we can do without, to detach ourselves from created things, and to help bring about the day when words like property owning, comfortably established, and power will not mean more to us than ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. The devastating simplicity of the Christmas story reveals this. And as for the rest, we have no right to expect a status higher than that of the carpenter’s son.

EDITH STEIN

Jesus heals a lame man, by James Tissot . The Prayer of the Ever-Living Christ . By Edith Stein (1891-1942) The prayer of the church is the prayer of the ever-living Christ. Its prototype is Christ's prayer during his human life.  Jesus' public prayer life The Gospels tell us that Christ prayed the way a devout Jew faithful to the law prayed. Just as he made pilgrimages to Jerusalem at the prescribed times with his parents as a child, so he later journeyed to the temple there with his disciples to celebrate the high feasts. Surely he sang with holy enthusiasm along with his people the exultant hymns in which the pilgrim's joyous anticipation streamed forth: "I rejoiced when I heard them say: Let us go to God's house" (Psalm 122:1).  From his last supper with his disciples, we know that Jesus said the old blessings over bread, wine, and the fruits of the earth, as they are prayed to this day. So he fulfilled one of the most sacred religious duties: the ceremonial passover seder to commemorate deliverance from slavery in Egypt. And perhaps this very gathering gives us the profoundest glimpse into Christ's prayer and the key to understanding the prayer of the church.  While they were at supper, he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you."  In the same way, he took the cup, filled with wine. He gave you thanks, and giving the cup to his disciples, said, "Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven."  Blessing and distributing bread and wine were part of the passover rite. But here both receive an entirely new meaning. This is where the life of the church begins. Only at Pentecost will it appear publicly as a Spirit-filled and visible community. But here at the passover meal the seeds of the vineyard are planted that make the outpouring of the Spirit possible.  In the mouth of Christ, the old blessings become life-giving words. The fruits of the earth become his body and blood, filled with his life. Visible creation, which he entered when he became a human being, is now united with him in a new, mysterious way. The things that serve to sustain human life are fundamentally transformed, and the people who partake of them in faith are transformed too, drawn into the unity of life with Christ and filled with his divine life.  The Word's life-giving power is bound to the sacrifice. The Word became flesh in order to surrender the life he assumed, to offer himself and a creation redeemed by his sacrifice in praise to the Creator.  Through the Lord's last supper, the passover meal of the Old Covenant is converted into the Easter meal of the New Covenant: into the sacrifice on the cross at Golgotha and those joyous meals between Easter and Ascension when the disciples recognized the Lord in the breaking of bread... Jesus' solitary prayer life We saw that Christ took part in the public and prescribed worship services of his people, i.e., in what one usually calls "liturgy." He brought the liturgy into the most intimate relationship with his sacrificial offering and so for the first time gave it its full and true meaning that of thankful homage of creation to its Creator. This is precisely how he transformed the liturgy of the Old Covenant into that of the New. But Jesus did not merely participate in public and prescribed worship services. Perhaps even more often the Gospels tell of solitary prayer in the still of the night, on open mountain tops, in the wilderness far from people.  Jesus' public ministry was preceded by forty days and forty nights of prayer. Before he chose and commissioned his twelve apostles, he withdrew into the isolation of the mountains. By his hour on the Mount of Olives, he prepared himself for his road to Golgotha. A few short words tell us what he implored of his Father during this most difficult hour of his life, words that are given to us as guiding stars for our own hours on the Mount of Olives. "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine." Like lightning, these words for an instant illumine for us the innermost spiritual life of Jesus, the unfathomable mystery of his God-man existence and his dialogue with the Father. Surely, this dialogue was life-long and uninterrupted.  Christ prayed interiorly not only when he had withdrawn from the crowd, but also when he was among people. And once he allowed us to look extensively and deeply at this secret dialogue. It was not long before the hour of the Mount of Olives; in fact, it was immediately before they set out to go there at the end of the last supper, which we recognize as the actual hour of the birth "Having loved his own..., he loved them to the end." He knew that this was their last time together, and he wanted to give them as much as he in any way could. He had to restrain himself from saying more. But he surely knew that they could not bear any more, in fact, that they could not even grasp this little bit. The Spirit of Truth had to come first to open their eyes for it. And after he had said and done everything that he could say and do, he lifted his eyes to heaven and spoke to the Father in their presence. We call these words Jesus' great high priestly prayer, for this talking alone with God also had its antecedent in the Old Covenant. Once a year on the greatest and most holy day of the year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest stepped into the Holy of Holies before the face of the Lord "to pray for himself and his household and the whole congregation of Israel." He sprinkled the throne of grace with the blood of a young bull and a goat, which he had previously to slaughter, and in this way absolved himself and his house "of the impurities of the sons of Israel and of their transgressions and for all their sins." No person was to be in the tent (i.e., in the holy place that lay in front of the Holy of Holies) when the high priest stepped into God's presence in this awesomely sacred place, this place where no one but he entered and he himself only at this hour. And even now he had to burn incense "so that a cloud of smoke...would veil the judgment throne...and he not die." This solitary dialogue took place in deepest mystery. Day of Atonement - Most Solemn Day of Prayer The Day of Atonement is the Old Testament antecedent of Good Friday. The ram that is slaughtered for the sins of the people represents the spotless Lamb of God (so did, no doubt, that other chosen by lot and burdened with the sins of the people that was driven into the wilderness). And the high priest descended from Aaron foreshadows the eternal high priest.  Just as Christ anticipated his sacrificial death during the last supper, so he also anticipated the high priestly prayer. He did not have to bring for himself an offering for sin because he was without sin. He did not have to await the hour prescribed by the Law and nor to seek out the Holy of Holies in the temple.  He stands, always and everywhere, before the face of God; his own soul is the Holy of Holies. It is not only God's dwelling, but is also essentially and indissolubly united to God.  He does not have to conceal himself from God by a protective cloud of incense. He gazes upon the uncovered face of the Eternal One and has nothing to fear. Looking at the Father will not kill him. And he unlocks the mystery of the high priest's realm.  All who belong to him may hear how, in the Holy of Holies of his heart, he speaks to his Father; they are to experience what is going on and are to learn to speak to the Father in their own hearts.(24) [Excerpt from The Collected Works of Edith Stein, translated by Waltraut Stein, © 1992 ICS Publications. See online collection at Kolbe Foundation] Article, Blessed by the Cross, by Jeanne Kun is excerpted from the book, Even Unto Death: Wisdom from Modern Martyrs, edited by Jeanne Kun, The Word Among Us Press, © 2002. All rights reserved. Used with permission.  Jeanne Kun is President of Bethany Association and a senior woman leader in the Word of Life Community, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.  Blessed by the Cross The Heroic Life of Edith Stein in Nazi Germany   A Biographical reflection by Jeanne Kun A young woman in search of the truth “I keep having to think of Queen Esther who was taken from among her people precisely that she might represent them before the king,” Sister Teresa Benedicta wrote to an Ursuline religious sister late in 1938. “I am a very poor and powerless little Esther, but the King who chose me is infinitely great and merciful. That is such a great comfort.”  Edith Stein was born into a prominent Jewish family in Breslau, Germany (present-day Wroclaw, Poland), on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, in 1891. As a teenager she abandoned Judaism and became a self-proclaimed atheist.  She attended the university in Breslau and, later, in Göttingen, where she sought intellectual truth in the study of philosophy and became a protégé of the famed philosopher Edmund Husserl. She earned her doctorate of philosophy in 1916, but her search for truth remained unfulfilled.  The following year Edith was impressed by the calm faith that sustained a Christian friend at the death of her husband. “It was my first encounter with the cross and the divine power that it bestows on those who carry it,”  Edith later wrote. “For the first time, I was seeing with my very eyes the church, born from its Redeemer’s sufferings, triumphant over the sting of death. That was the moment my unbelief collapsed and Christ shone forth—in the mystery of the cross.”  Taking up the cross of Christ Edith chose her religious name, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, anticipating that she would share in the Lord’s sufferings. “By the cross I understood the destiny of God’s people which, even at that time, began to announce itself,” she later explained to a friend. “I thought that those who recognized it as the cross of Christ had to take it upon themselves in the name of all.” As the situation worsened for Jews in Germany, Sister Teresa Benedicta knew she was not safe in the Cologne monastery and also believed that her presence there put all the nuns in danger. On the night of December 31, 1938, she crossed into the Netherlands where she was received at the Carmel monastery in Echt. Her sister Rosa, who had also become a Catholic, later followed her and served as a lay portress at the monastery. However, the Nazis occupied the Netherlands in 1940 and Jews, even those who were converts to Christianity, were no longer safe there either. A martyr through the silent working of divine grace Sister Teresa Benedicta and Rosa were arrested on August 2, 1942, as part of Hitler’s orders to deport and liquidate all non-Aryan Catholics. This was in retaliation for a pastoral letter issued by the Dutch bishops that protested Nazi policies. As the two were taken from the convent, Sr. Teresa was heard to say to her sister: “Come, Rosa, let us go for our people.” Their lives ended a week later in the gas chamber at Auschwitz.  Like Queen Esther, Edith Stein identified with her fellow Jews in their grave danger and interceded for them. When she was formally declared blessed in 1987 by the Catholic Church, a selection from the Old Testament’s Book of Esther was read at her beatification ceremony.  When she was formally declared a saint on October 11, 1998, Pope John Paul II noted: “A young woman in the search of the truth has become a saint and martyr through the silent working of divine grace: Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who from heaven repeats to us today all the words that marked her life: ‘Far be it from me to glory except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’. . .  Now alongside Teresa of Avila and Thérèse of Lisieux, another Teresa takes her place among the hosts of saints who do honor to the Carmelite Order.” Life in a Jewish Family From the writings of Edith Stein The highest of all the Jewish festivals is the Day of Atonement, the day on which the High Priest used to enter the Holy of Holies to offer the sacrifice of atonement for himself and for the people; afterwards, the “scapegoat” upon whose head, symbolically, the sins of all the people had been laid was driven out into the desert.  All of this ritual has come to an end. But even at present the day is observed with prayer and fasting, and whoever preserves but a trace of Judaism goes to the “Temple” on this day.  Although I did not in any way scorn the delicacies served on the other holidays, I was especially attracted to the ritual of this particular holy day when one refrained from taking any food or drink for twenty-four hours or more, and I loved it more than any of the others. . .  For me the day had an additional significance: I was born on the Day of Atonement, and my mother always considered it my real birthday, although celebrations and gifts were always forthcoming on October 12. (She herself celebrated her birthday according to the Jewish calendar, on the Feast of Tabernacles; but she no longer insisted on this custom for her children.) She laid great stress on my being born on the Day of Atonement, and I believe this contributed more than anything else to her youngest’s being especially dear to her. [Excerpt from Edith Stein’s autobiography, Life in a Jewish Family, written in 1933, translated by Josephine Koeppel, 1986]	.
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MEDITATION IS HEARING GOD

Hearing God in Meditation
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by Sam Williamson

“God speaks time and again—in various ways—but nobody notices” (Job 33:14).
 Most people I know have an innate desire to hear God; actually, more than a desire, an intense longing. We want to connect with the divine, to somehow see the face of God, to touch and be touched. It’s inborn, an inherent ingredient of our humanity.
Scripture says God is always speaking, but we miss it. We don’t notice his voice because we don’t recognize it. Oh, sometimes he breaks in through writing on the wall or through a speaking beast of burden, but mostly he speaks in a still, small voice.
We miss his voice because it is drowned out in the sea of other voices. The cacophony of sounds, like an orchestra tuning, obscures that still small voice. Stomachs growl their hunger, bosses bark their orders, and that insult from twenty years ago still shouts its condemnation.
How do we learn to discern God’s voice? In meditation. Christian meditation trains our ears to distinguish God’s voice—that one instrument—amidst the orchestra of others. And once we learn to recognize God’s voice, we begin to hear it “time and again, in various ways.”
To hear God’s voice, we need to learn to meditate. Unless, like Balaam, you have a talking ass.
Christian meditation
You and I are already meditation experts. We practice it all the time in everyday matters. With our first child still fresh in the womb, our mind imagines the new bedroom. We picture fresh paint, where the crib fits best, the changing table and rocker.
We envision our future life—nursing, teaching soccer, and Christmas mornings—and it changes us today. We take a truth—our wife’s bulging belly—and consider with our mind and heart. We let the thoughts of our mind mix with the meditations of our heart. And something inside is stirred.
Christian meditation is like that. Unlike eastern meditation—which empties its mind—we fill our mind with a truth, examine it, let it examine us, and in that meditative mix, God speaks.

Theophan the Recluse (a household name to be sure) said, “To [meditate] is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever present all seeing, within you.”
How does this work in day-to-day life?
A common Christian prayer time involves scripture study and worship (sprinkled liberally with confession, thanksgiving, intercession, and a Christian book or two).
Our study tends to be information gathering (which is good) while our worship is an expression of our spirit and heart (which is also good). Sometimes the move from study to worship feels like shifting from first to fourth gear. We need to link scripture study with worship.
Meditation is that bridge.
Here is what I do. I usually read an Old Testament passage, a Gospel, and a New Testament letter. (Right now I’m reading 2 Kings, Mark, and 1 Corinthians.) As I read the passage (and slow is better than fast), I wait—I remain alert—for a quickening in my heart.
I’m not sure how else to describe it, maybe a stirring in my spirit or just a sense of God. The two on the road to Emmaus said, “Were not our hearts burning within us.” That works.
When stirring begins, I stop reading and meditate on the verses. I ask myself questions like,

What does this truth say about God? Why would God even say it?
What would my life look like if I believed it were true?
Why did this passage make me curious? What
stirred that curiosity?
How does my culture twist, distort, or reject this? How has culture affected me?
Why don’t I really believe this; or, to what degree do I doubt it?
How does this truth—if it’s really true—make me love God more?
What do I need to change in my thinking or actions to align myself with its truth?

I begin by analyzing the idea presented; but after a time, I move from analyzing the text to gazing at God. I move from word-ful thinking to word-less admiration. Jordan Aumann wrote, “Contemplation signifies knowledge accompanied by delight that arouses admiration and captivates the soul” (slightly edited).What next?
It doesn’t happen the same way every day, and certainly not with the same intensity. Some days I’m stirred by verses in the first passage, and I skip the other passages. Other days I finish all the passages, I ask myself which stirred me the most, and I return to that. And gaze.
The safest—and smartest—place to learn to discern God’s voice is in scriptural meditation. But once we begin to recognize his voice, we hear it all over the place, in a movie, on a billboard, through a friend, from a stranger on a bus. And we meditate with similar questions.
But we don’t stop there. Once we hear God speak, we share it. The best way to know something is to express it; with your spouse, friend, colleague, or with that stranger on the bus. We began with our mind, we descend into our hearts, and with our mind again we articulate with words the wordless vision of God.

PRAYER, THE LANGUAGE OF HOPE

Prayer Is the Language of Hope  by Christoph Schonborn Just before her conversion, Blessed Edith Stein went into the cathedral in Frankfurt and saw a simple woman come in from the market, kneel down, and pray. By Edith Stein's own testimony, the sight of this woman made a decisive impression upon her on her journey toward the faith: a simple woman, kneeling and praying in the cathedral. Something inexpressible, very simple, so ordinary, and yet so full of mystery: this intimate contact with the invisible God. Not a self-absorbed meditation, but quiet relaxation in the presence of a mysterious Other. What Edith Stein sensed in this humble praying woman would soon become a certainty for her: God exists, and in prayer we turn toward him.  Longing to pray Think of the impression the silent prayer of Jesus made on his disciples, prayer that often went on for hours, all night long, in fact! What was it about this secret place, this long turning in silence to him whom our Lord calls "Abba"? "He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples'" (Luke 11: 1).  Teach us to pray. The disciple yearns to enter this place of silent intimacy, this vigilant prostration before the presence of the Invisible One. He feels such a great reverence for the mystery of the prayer of Jesus that he does not dare to interrupt, to "burst in" on our Lord with his question. He waits till Jesus himself comes out of his prayer. Only then does the disciple make bold to ask, to implore: "Teach us to pray!"  Does it not move us when we come into church and find someone silently praying there? Does this sight awaken in us the longing to pray? Do we hear at this moment the murmuring of the spring that summons us to the living water? As the martyr Ignatius of Antioch writes: “Living water murmurs within me, saying inwardly: ‘Come to the Father!’” (1) The longing for prayer is the lure within us of the Holy Spirit, who draws us to the Father, Yes, this longing is already prayer, is already the prayer of the Spirit within us, “with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26).  Is the ground of prayer dried up today? There is, of course, a question we have to consider carefully: Is the ground of prayer dried up today? Isn't the hidden "murmuring" of the wellspring of the Holy Spirit drowned out by the noise of our times? Can prayer prosper when, as Neil Postman writes in his disturbing book,Amusing Ourselves to Death, the average American spends fifteen years of his life in front of the television? …There is no doubt that there is much in today's society that is detrimental to prayer. And yet we are permitted to hope that no secularization can entirely drown out the call of God in the hearts of men. …For prayer is the expression of a longing, which has not been “produced” byus but has been placed in the hearts of men by God. It is an expression of the “fecisti nos ad Te” of Saint Augustine (Thou madest us for thyself). …He who prays hopes. For someone who cannot hope to be heard cannot ask. After all we only ask other human beings for something when we have the hope that our petition has a chance of being granted. "Prayer," says Saint Thomas, “is the spokesman of hope”(2)  For what do we pray and hope? By our prayer we can gauge the state of our prayer. For what do we pray? For what do we hope? The reason why prayer and hope are so closely related is that both realize that what we pray and hope for does not lie within our own powers but can only be given to us. But what are we permitted to hope for? And what should we pray for? In his long quaestio on prayer (the longest in the whole Summa), Saint Thomas says:  Since prayer is a kind of spokesman for our desires with God, we only ask for something in prayer rightly if we desire it rightly. In the Lord’s Prayer not only do we ask for all that we may rightly desire, we also ask for them in the order in which we are supposed to desire them. This prayer, then, not only teaches us to ask, it also shapes all our affections (sit informative totius nostri affectus). (3) A wonderful statement: The Our Father shapes our whole affective life into its right proportions; it places in us desires and yearnings and therefore the right priorities in our praying.  Is it really reasonable for our primary hope, and therefore our greatest longing, to be: “ThyKingdom come, Thy will be done”? We have a concern for our “daily bread” (think how many of our people are worrying about their jobs or have already lost them!). We want to get on well with one another (“Forgive us our trespasses ...”). Above all, we beg for protection from evil and temptation, from anguish and despair (“Lead us not into temptation,” “Deliver us from evil”). All of these petitions develop out of the problems of our life. They force their way to the front of our attention and harass our hearts. They are usual1y, therefore, our first and most pressing petitions. Prayer is the language of hope The fact that we turn to God with these petitions shows that we expect, that we hope for, help from him in all these needs. As Cardinal Ratzinger has said, prayer is “hope in action,” for “prayer is the language of hope.”(4) “The despairing man no longer prays, because he no longer hopes. The man who is sure of himself and his own strength does not pray, because he relies only on himself.  The man who prays hopes for a good and for a strength that go beyond his own powers.”(5) If we really pray for what we ask for in the four petitions of the second part of the Our Father, then we are already hoping, and that hope goes beyond the thing we ask for, it is directed toward thePerson of whom we ask it: “Hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done....” These petitions become the articulation of an ever greater trust, which dares to call God “Our Father”.  Saint Thomas [Aquinas] says that the Our Father is "informativa totius nostri affectus": it shapes all our desires and feelings. And indeed, time and again, we hear of people being healed in the very roots of their lives through the Our Father. I am thinking, for example, of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's friend Dimitri Panin,(6) or of Tatiana Gorischeva, who received the grace of conversion through reciting the Our Father.  When our affectus is shaped by the Our Father, our desires and yearnings are sound and in conformity to the action of God, and then our prayer will be more and more efficacious, because it really will be in harmony with God's plan, really will be cooperating with God's providence. Then our praying will be in harmony with the "sighs" of the Spirit, who "intercedes for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8:27). In the Compendium theologiae, Saint Thomas says: "The Our Father is the prayer through which our hope in God is raised up to the highest degree."(7) Just as faith is certain, because it believes God, so hope does not disappoint (cf. Romans 5:5), because, full of trust, it expects from God what he promises. It is from God alone that hope derives its triumphant certainty: "In te, Domine speravi, non confundar in aeternum" (In thee, O Lord, have I trusted, let me never be confounded).  [Excerpted from Loving the Church, by Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna, Austria; translated by John Saward, © 1998, Ignatius Press, San Francisco. Used with permission.].  Notes:  (1) Epistula ad Romanus 7, 2. (2) STh 2a2ae 17, 4, obj. 3. (3) STh 2a2ae 83, 9. 3. (4) Auf Christus schauen: Einubung un Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1989), 68f. (5) ibid., 69. (6) See The Notebooks of Sologdin  (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976). (7) Compendium theologiae 2, 3.	.
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