He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.
To those who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God!
Christmas is sweet and wonderful, but it also powerfully calls us to conversion. A change of mind. Self-examination. A decision. Today people often speak of a stolen Christmas. Who stole Christmas? And the theft of Christmas is indeed always really happening. However, it is not stolen by pomp and empty-headed managers, but by the closing of our eyes and ears to the drama of Christmas. The dramatic character of Christmas reaches its peak in John's sentence (which we read on Christmas Day itself): He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. To those who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God!
The "O Antiphons", or Great Antiphons, is the name given to the seven antiphons that are sung or recited with the Gospel canticle, the Magnificat, at Vespers during Advent, in the eight days before Christmas, from 17 to 23 December, in the time of immediate preparation for Christmas. They express the dynamic of wonder, on the part of whoever sings them, before the mystery of the Incarnation.
The antiphon for 20 December, "O wondrous Key of David", depicts Christ's works, His power to open and to close, to free captives from the darkness. The antiphon calls upon the coming of the Messiah as the key that opens, as the Servant of the Lord in His absolute power - to open or to close - and in His role as the Liberator of those held captive by darkness.
The fear of pain weighs on us more than the pain itself. We know, however, that fear also removes pain. We rid ourselves of one pain with another, greater pain. Epicurus dispelled fear – above all that fundamental, greatest fear, the fear of all fears, the fear of death – through a mental operation by which we and our death never meet. While we exist, Epicurus said, there is no death, and when death comes, we no longer exist.
Nothing steals our attention so powerfully as pain. Pain deepens, sharpens, changes our relationship with the world. When we fall ill, our world is no longer the same. The space in which we live narrows and changes its meaning. Pain takes from us the space of life’s movement. The people with whom we shared work and life are no longer there. There is no longer the practised rhythm of work, rest, socialising, sport, sleep. The experience of pain is an entirely new experience of the world, a different view of the world. With the appearance of pain, the world appears in a different way. Pain changes and intensifies our experience of the world and of reality. The fundamental common feature of very different experiences of suffering is the compulsion to take on something unpleasant, painful, destructive.
We present an article by Fr Ante Vučković published in the theological journal Crkva u svijetu and parts of an interview in Glas koncila on pain, its meaning and significance for our lives.
The phrase brave new world, from Shakespeare's play The Tempest, was taken by Huxley as the title of his futuristic novel, in which he portrayed a "perfect" humanity that has no need of mercy or love. Perfect technology and successful genetics are enough.
Everything is sterile, utilitarian and hurried; life is pleasant, there is no illness, emotion, pain, suffering or coercion. Entertainment and a consumerist mentality flourish, all activities are collective, and sexual promiscuity is desirable. Sexuality is separated from emotion and intimacy, in keeping with the slogan everyone belongs to everyone else. Everyone is constantly together, yet individuals are unfeeling and atomised, so that true community does not exist.
"In my youth I came to know the "God of hope". Now, in old age, I know the "God of patience". Hope brings us excitement, while patience is arduous. But if in hope we approach something new, it is only in patience that we hold on to it. In steadfast patience, hope becomes lasting." Jürgen Moltmann
The Greeks use the terms hypomonè (waiting) and paskein (patience), which refer to a person's capacity to pause because something important is happening, meanwhile reflecting and perceiving how it will come about before it actually does. This means a vital kind of pausing, because something is happening, and it matters to wait for it to happen before acting. Finally, here is another expression rich in meaning – makrothymìa (length of spirit), which allows us to look toward the future. The patient person is the one whose gaze is turned forward, looking toward the future. Ciceroin his workPartitionesoratoriaewrote to his son: "What suits the troubles that lie ahead is called fortitude; what endures and sees things through to the end, that is called patience."
O gentleness of the Father, pour yourself into the son's soul…
There is always great meaning hidden in small differences. Sometimes that small difference is so imperceptible that only the Holy Spirit can reveal its meaning to us. Let us pause on the difference between gentleness and permissiveness. Being permissive with oneself leads, little by little, to catastrophe. On the other hand, being merciful and gentle with oneself leads to spiritual maturity. Whoever is cruel to himself is inevitably crueller still to others. Interestingly, whoever is permissive with himself is also harsh with others. With gentleness and mercy it is entirely the opposite. Whoever is gentle with himself is gentler still with others.
It is sixty years since Pope John XXIII's encyclical "Pacem in Terris - Peace on Earth". The encyclical remains highly topical, for in a world waging numerous wars, such as the one in Ukraine, marked by terrorism, the emergence of viruses, problems of food and water, an arms race and the renewed threat of nuclear war, together with various other negative social phenomena, it is peace itself, at every level, that is endangered – peace on earth in general. It had been expected that after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the symbol of the division between East and West, a new period of peace would follow, marked by general security and free of the danger of nuclear war. Yet these very days show something quite the opposite. The threat is growing to the point of unpredictability, since nuclear weapons, and the real danger of their use, have once again become part of our everyday life. Carl Gustav Jung outlined this well long ago: "Only let sufficient corresponding material (weapons) pile up, and the diabolical element in man will infallibly be strengthened, and set out on the march with him."
"It is almost impossible to think that in the atomic age war could still be used as an instrument of justice," wrote John XXIII, using the Latin phrase "alienum est a ratione" – to think of war as a solution to conflict is "unreasonable". He advocates dialogue between people who differ ideologically or in other ways, and cooperation in mutually beneficial undertakings "among all men of good will".
Learn to feel compassion and to find, if not justification, then an explanation for the actions of those who have hurt you.
And always put yourself in the place of those people.
Hatred only eats away at you.
Do not seek justice from God, but seek mercy.
Anthony Bloom of Sourozh was born in Lausanne in 1914. He spent his early childhood in Russia and Persia, where his father was a member of the Russian imperial diplomatic corps. During the Russian Revolution his family had to leave Persia and, in 1923, settled in Paris, where he graduated in physics, chemistry and biology from the University of Paris, and later took a doctorate in medicine. In 1939, before going to the front as a surgeon in the French army, he secretly took monastic vows. In 1943 he received the tonsure and was given the name Anthony. During the German occupation of France he worked as a doctor and took part in the French Resistance.
When we speak of reconciliation, we mean a new relationship, an entirely new relationship between the parties in conflict, or between a person who has been deeply wronged and the one who wronged them. On the part of the wrongdoer this means acknowledging responsibility; on the part of the wronged it calls for breadth of heart, a readiness to accept the humble confession of another's sin, and an open conversation that does not seek to restore what went before, but to create a new relationship. The Lord says: "Behold, I make all things new!" (Rev 21:5).
We are called to build peace by choosing a vocation great enough to embrace the whole of humanity, to build the Kingdom of God, which includes peacemaking: peace between one person and another, peace within small groups, peace within ever larger wholes, but first of all peace with what God has created and in which we live. Then we shall have a common goal, and in the fellowship of that goal we shall make the world as God wanted it to be, and so we shall be reconciled with one another too.
It is a question for all of us how to position ourselves in relation to the coronavirus, the problems of isolation and the other difficulties that arise from such a situation. And, more importantly still, how we will talk to those close to us, especially children, to colleagues, and finally in public, about this problem, which creates numerous restrictions and causes numerous problems and fears concerning the nearer and more distant future.
The first and most important thing is never to be afraid. Fear spoils our mood, which predisposes us to fall ill more easily. For the body to overcome infection, the spirit must be strong.
Albert Camus wrote the famous novel "The Plague". What is less well known is that he also wrote two shorter works, Lessons and Speeches, on the outbreak of plague, intended for medical staff and all those confronted with the problem of plague.
Fervently I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where no water is. Your steadfast love is better than life.
Sometimes we think like this: grab some money, sex and success, pour them into the vessel of our heart, and in the end make a cocktail called happiness. It seems simple, and entirely possible. Why not? It's logical, after all. Everything is within reach. Everyone strives for it. There are so many ready-made recipes. Surely it must turn out good and sweet!
They say that Mozart would often put a question to those who pressed him to play something for them: Lieben Sie mich? (Do you love me?). If he received an affirmative answer, he would sit down at the piano and display his virtuosity. He could not bear that someone should love his music and his playing without loving him. Love inspired him. It instilled in him security and wholeness, a higher mathematics.
Interestingly, Christ too asked Peter: Do you love me? He wanted Peter to set aside everything that was not His own Person, and to love Him personally. Only this has full meaning. Everything else creates confusion. A person seeks a person!
"Let not yours be the outward adorning with braiding of hair, decoration of gold, or wearing of fine clothing. But let it be: the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit. This is precious in God's sight." 1 Pet 3, 3-4
"Appropriate clothing makes us human."
William C. Breda
"A clear-headed and sensible man moves through his world in decent and suitable clothing."
G.K. Chesterton
Outward appearance and clothing have always been essential markers of personality. Besides its functionality, clothing has, in a certain way, expressed a person's nature. The questions surrounding how we dress reach back to ancient times, where one must look for the origins of certain rules concerning dress that have remained established down to the present day. Clothing is a symbol rich in nuance: it represents dignity - royal, priestly or prophetic; the garment a believer wears is woven from evangelical attitudes: mercy, goodness, humility.
Sound, in its many forms, is part of our life. It is not only about music. It is a broader notion, denoting the many invisible waves that stream through the air and reach our ear. What enters us through the ear changes us, transforms us, penetrates deep within us.
One of the words we often hear through the media, and which is slowly working its way into our ears and our hearts, is: threat. An interesting word. We hear it from military circles, when talk turns to national security and the strengthening of defence forces. In summer we hear about the threat of wildfires; we have heard about the threat of earthquakes. Many are under threat of losing their jobs, or already find themselves amid the threat of unemployment. We feel the threat of one small virus, which at one point brought half of humanity to a standstill and affected our lives… Many endure the threats of violence, injustice, loneliness …
Threat is unavoidable, but comfort is stronger.Good is always stronger than evil.Even though at first glance it may not seem so.Where do we find "comfort"?
"Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." ~ G. K. Chesterton.
To begin this piece, I want to tell you a children's story that seems fitting for what I want to say.
The story is called: "There's No Such Thing as a Dragon," by Jack Kent.
…a certain special ingredient comes into my bread…
Wherever life may take you, you always fondly recall the scents, images and people of your childhood. Those memories stay with you your whole life long. They are part of you, however your life looks today and wherever you find yourself, they remain a part of you. Even today you can feel them just as strongly. This story bears that out too.
These days, often despite a situation that can change very quickly, we hear or read in the media an interesting phrase: the new normal. This slogan is meant to express, and to call us to, a new way of living in the special circumstances we have been experiencing these past months.
"Watch every day and every hour, and be ready to do perfectly what is pleasing to God,
knowing that the Lord comes at the hour we do not expect"
Basil of Caesarea.
We might say that our existence unfolds in expectation – from one event to the next. Waiting to be born, I wait to grow up and mature, I wait to die, and finally I wait for the "fulfilment" of life, which stands above all expectations. The season of Christmas, which is preceded, as its preparation, by the season of Advent, already offers us a pledge of that fullness of divine, eternal and blessed life which has been communicated to us in the Spirit of the Risen One. Advent reminds us that we are all truly in a state of expectation. For this reason, we cannot afford to live as in the days of Noah, in the superficiality that is "the supreme vice of our age", as Raimon Panikkar puts it.
It remains of exceptional importance to us that we have finally learned to view the great events of human history from below, from the perspective of those who suffer. The point is that, within this view from below, we should not place ourselves on the side of the eternally dissatisfied, but rather respond to the needs of life in all its dimensions.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Humility is recommended to you, that you may not become an unfeeling person: He, God, became man; you, O man, acknowledge that you are man: all your humility consists in recognising that you are man. Now, since God teaches you humility, he says: "I have not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." The proud do their own will. The humble, however, do the will of God.
St Augustine
In these days we have turned our gaze towards heaven, towards the communion of all the saints, and prayed for the souls of the departed. Let us hold our gaze upward for one more moment, that we might pause before the figure of an extraordinary saint of the Church's renewal after the Council of Trent - St Charles Borromeo.
Human nature, with its needs and desires, has three weak points, relating to three tendencies which we might call cracks or open wounds. They have existed in man from the beginning.
The first crack weakens man's healthy and natural desire for life, for being, for creating, for begetting. It is called greed. It is the perverted tendency to gather for oneself, to possess for oneself, to beget for oneself.
The second crack relates to man's healthy and natural need to be recognised and loved. The perverted tendency that lives within us consists in this: instead of rising above the need for recognition and love, instead of turning it into a true and personal relationship with another person, we use it only for our own benefit.
The third crack, which makes us fragile, vulnerable and susceptible to temptation, relates to the healthy human need to create, to organise, to have mastery over time and things. The perverted tendency consists in this: we want to rule over everything for our own benefit, by means of power, wealth or knowledge.
"Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom" Ps 90:12
The topic of all topics at this time is the coronavirus. Indeed, it is mentioned in this text too. But is that entirely so? Is the virus really the top topic in the media, in conversation …? One topic rivals, in the frequency with which it is mentioned, the viral topic of the virus. That topic is time. Time!
Željko Mardešić was born in Milna on Brač, but spent his childhood in the beautiful town of Komiža on Vis, where he is also buried. He was one of the most respected sociologists of religion, although he trained in law and worked as a lawyer. He was well versed in theology and greatly enthused by the Second Vatican Council. He wrote about matters of great interest and spoke with all kinds of people. He followed everything happening in Croatia and the world, on the social level and especially the ecclesial one. He wrote a few pages about himself in the Introduction to his book "The Faces and Masks of the Sacred". He tells us of three humiliations he experienced, which stirred rebellion within him, and how he managed to overcome them. They were the humiliation of reason, of personal moral inconsistency, and the humiliation of goodness. In the end he also experienced the humiliation of poverty, caused partly by the hardship of the Homeland War and partly by his own choice of a self-effacing life.
On several occasions now, a short, very moving and inspiring video has been circulating on social media about a boy who was judged at school to be unable to be educated, and about a mother who supports him... we soon learn that this is about one of the most important scientists in modern history,Thomas Alva Edison. And we ask ourselves, what actually happened...
I remembered what it was like for me when I had no one of my own.
I never boasted about helping people.
I am convinced that goodness is like wheat in a field, which multiplies by being sown.
I was born on the island of Žirje before the First World War. In 1916 I was four years old. As a result of the harsh winter and the war, famine took hold on Žirje. There was a danger that we children would begin to die of illnesses caused by exhaustion.
but a discerning heart tastes delicacies as a lie"
"A person must acquire a companion with whom to eat, drink, read, study and sleep; to whom he can reveal his secrets, the secrets of the Torah, and the secrets of everyday life." Rabbi Nathan
A person without a friend is like a left hand without a right P.C. Beentjes
The pericope on friendship in Manuscript C is in fact a combination of Sir 6:5-17 and 37:1-6. Friendship is one of the themes Ben Sira treats in his work, and this text is his best-known passage on friendship. The first part of the text reminds the reader that one must be cautious in friendships. Ben Sira then goes on to mention three kinds of danger to friendship. Finally, he closes his pericope with a description of the faithful friend.
He kept it all in his head, and paired people together by some inner instinct of his own
I sensed that he saw further than I did, and I decided to listen to him
We bring you a story by Jere Bilan about a man who, perhaps just as in your own life, stands there beside you, often quietly and unnoticed, through good times and bad - and simply makes himself available to you...
"Those who fear God will also find a faithful friend."
In Heraclea, in Pontus, there is a poisonous honey. Those who eat it lose their wits, for the bees gather it from the aconite that abounds there. Just so is false and wicked friendship, which is founded on the sharing of false and wicked goods.
Among the passions of the soul, love holds the first place. It reigns over all the movements of the heart, draws everything into itself, and makes us like unto that which we love.
Love is divided into two kinds. One is called the love of benevolence, the other the love of desire. The love of benevolence is that love by which we love a person for the sake of the good we wish for them. For what else is the love of benevolence toward a person, but to wish them well?
When the love of benevolence flows in mutual return, then it takes the name of friendship.
I recently read the book Pod krilima anđeoskim(published by Stella Maris). It tells of a religious sister from Brazil who, from the age of four, became aware of the presence of her guardian angel. At the time she did not even know what a guardian angel was; she called him "my new friend". Only later, at the school run by the sisters, did she hear that we all have a guardian angel. In her simplicity she thought that everyone communicated with their angel just as she did. It reminded me of the saints who were also given this grace, such as Padre Pio or Gemma Galgani (we have her biography published by Sion), who thought that others too spoke with their guardian angel as she did, but that it was kept quiet as something intimate. These souls were very humble and simple, and suffered a great deal for the salvation of others. They were victim souls, and so they received that special comfort which our Lord himself received in Gethsemane, so that they should not lose heart: "And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him" (Lk 22:43).
In a concentration camp, in that darkness of blackness, scorched human flesh, rats grown fat from a constant feast on dead human bodies, mice gnawing at ears, fingers and nails, a person is powerless to defend herself. Her body is exhausted from starvation and exposure to filth and various diseases. In such an earthly hell there are angels.There are always angels in human form - people whose gaze brings calm and comfort, people you can rely on. One of them is, without doubt, Stanislawa Leszcynska, who was deported to Auschwitz in 1943 and remained there until its liberation in 1945. The prisoners called her "mother" and "the angel of goodness".
"We owe our testimony to St Anastasia. This is also an encouragement for all those women who cannot have children of their own", said Željka, adding that when she learned she was pregnant, she entrusted everything to the Lord, trusting in his holy will.
"I can honestly testify that, deep in my heart, I always believed the Lord would grant us offspring" – adds her husband, Mate.
"It's a special feeling to bear her name, because she marks our whole lives", concludes Stošija.
