Life is Love

"What then may life be more fittingly called than love? For that which alone survives and does not allow the living to die when all things have been taken away is life--and such is love. When all things have passed away in the age to come as Paul says (1 Cor 13:8,10), love remains, and it alone suffices for life in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom is due all glory for ever. Amen."

--Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, Book VII, §15

The Forgotten Church

The title is harsh, yes, and the spur may be merely reactionary, and I do not really think anyone will read this (nor do I think anyone will read most if any of my posts), yet it is an attempt at least, and it may possibly reach someone.

The Eastern Church exists.

This is the first point to know.  I've written about it before, many times, and it may be too much of a pet case of mine, but I think it is something important: Latin is not the Church's only language.  The Pope is the head of the Church, but not all of those he serves have Latin as their original liturgical language.  Not all Catholics follow the Code of Canon Law, and that is perfectly allowed by the Church.  Not all Catholics have to go to Mass on Sunday.  Not all Catholics pray the rosary to honor Our Lady.  There are some who have Greek or Arabic or Aramaic or Syriac or Slavonic as their liturgical language: there are some who follow the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches: there are some who go to the Divine Liturgy or Qurbana or even Vespers for their Sunday obligation: there are some who pray the Akathist Hymn to the Theotokos.  There are some who have icons instead of statues, who fast forty days before the Nativity of Our Lord, who would be utterly lost in a Low Mass for its lack of chant.  There are Eastern Christians, there are Eastern Catholics, there is an Eastern Church.  They are not second-rate Catholics, they should not suffer in dhimmitude.  They are heirs to the apostolic faith, defenders of it against heretics throughout the ages.  They are true Catholics, and yet few seem to know they exist.  I have had many people be confused when I mention that I am planning to become an Eastern Catholic: they think I am rejecting the Pope.  I most certainly am not, and there are many, many others as well.  There are the Orthodox Churches, of course, yet sometimes Catholics barely know they exist either.  We know all about the countless Protestant denominations, we know how to lead a Passover seder, we know the tenets of Islam, we are even up to date on the teachings of Scientology, yet we do not know our brothers and sisters of the same apostolic faith.  This should not be so.

Take Up Your Pallet: The Sunday of the Paralytic Man

Acts 9:32-42

Jn 5:1-15

Christ is risen!  Christ, the Risen One, is the One we should imitate as St. Peter did.  The other Prime Apostle wrote, "Imitate me, as I imitate Christ," yet the same words could be placed in the mouth of Peter.  For he very much did imitate the Lord: as the Lord healed the paralytic, so did Peter, and as the Lord commanded him to take up his pallet and walk, so did the Prime Apostle.  All miracles occur through the power of Jesus Christ, for "Jesus Christ heals you," but He may heal through His disciples, through those inflamed with His Spirit, inflamed with Him.  Have we not heard stories of countless saints, the testimony of the Spirit's working in the past, saints who healed many through their prayers and their blessings?  Have we not heard of many icons and spots of grace that have healed?  The chapel in Czestochowa has walls gilded with crutches, and the pools at Lourdes bestow healing on many.  Yet all of this is only through Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity Incarnate.  It is through the indwelling of the Trinity in the saints and in the Theotokos that these healings occur, that indwelling that sanctifies even their relics, their images, the spots where they appear.  All those who follow Christ in His healing work do so through imitation of Him and even more so through divinization by Him.

"These Words Which I Command You This Day Shall Be Upon Your Heart..."

"These words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

--Dt 6:6-9

"It would indeed be strange that the Jews should have the law written in a book hanging from their hands so that they might always remember the commandments, and we did not impress indelibly in our memory the words of a faith which is so much higher. Owing to the fact that immediately after having received the Divine order Adam met the Demon and was easily overcome by him because of his lack of meditation and contemplation of that order, it is imperative that in all this time you should continually meditate on the words of the Creed so that it may be strengthened in you and deeply fixed in your mind, and so that you may love your religion without which you cannot receive the Divine gift, or if you receive it, you cannot keep it and hold fast to it."

--Theodore of Mopsuestia, Liber ad Baptizandos II.II