POPE FRANCIS ON THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE LORD

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS Vatican Basilica Friday, 25 March 2022 ___________________________ In the Gospel reading for today’s Solemnity, the angel Gabriel speaks three times in addressing the Virgin Mary. The first is when he greets her and says, “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). The reason to rejoice, the reason for joy, is revealed in those few words: the Lord is with you. Dear brother, dear sister, today you can hear those words addressed to you. You can make them your own each time you approach God’s forgiveness, for there the Lord tells you, “I am with you”. All too often, we think that Confession is about going to God with dejected looks. Yet it is not so much that we go to the Lord, but that he comes to us, to fill us with his grace, to fill us with his joy. Our confession gives the Father the joy of raising us up once more. It is not so much about our sins as about his forgiveness. Our sins are present but the forgiveness of God is always at the heart of our confession. Think about it: if our sins were at the heart of the sacrament, almost everything would depend on us, on our repentance, our efforts, our resolves. Far from it. The sacrament is about God, who liberates us and puts us back on our feet. Let us recognize once more the primacy of grace and ask for the gift to realize that Reconciliation is not primarily our drawing near to God, but his embrace that enfolds, astonishes and overwhelms us. The Lord enters our home, as he did that of Mary in Nazareth, and brings us unexpected amazement and joy – the joy of forgiveness. Let us first look at things from God’s perspective: then we will rediscover our love for Confession. We need this, for every interior rebirth, every spiritual renewal, starts there, from God’s forgiveness. May we not neglect Reconciliation, but rediscover it as the sacrament of joy. Yes, the sacrament of joy, for our shame for our sins becomes the occasion for an experience of the warm embrace of the Father, the gentle strength of Jesus who heals us, and the “maternal tenderness” of the Holy Spirit. That is the heart of Confession. Dear brothers and sisters, let us go forth and receive forgiveness. And you, dear brother priests who are ministers of God’s forgiveness, offer to those who approach you the joy of this proclamation: Rejoice, the Lord is with you. Please set aside rigidity, obstacles and harshness; may you be doors wide open to mercy! Especially in Confession, we are called to act in the person of the Good Shepherd who takes his sheep into his arms and cradles them. We are called to be channels of grace that pour forth the living water of the Father’s mercy on hearts grown arid. If a priest does not approach Confession with this attitude, it would be better for him to refrain from celebrating the sacrament. A second time the angel speaks to Mary. She was troubled by his greeting, and so he tells her, “Do not be afraid” (v. 30). The first time he says, “The Lord is with you”. Now, the second time, he says “Do not be afraid”. In the Scriptures, whenever God appears to those who receive him, he loves to utter those words: Do not be afraid! He says them to Abraham (cf. Gen 15:1), repeats them to Isaac (cf. Gen 26:24), to Jacob (cf. Gen 46:3) and so on, up to Joseph (cf. Mt 1:20) and Mary. Do not be afraid! In this way, he sends us a clear and comforting message: once our lives are open to God, fear can no longer hold us in thrall. For fear can truly hold us in thrall. You, dear sister, dear brother, if your sins frighten you, if your past worries you, if your wounds do not heal, if your constant failings dishearten you and you seem to have lost hope, please, do not be afraid. God knows your weaknesses and is greater than your mistakes. God is greater than our sins. He asks of you only one thing: that you not hold your frailties and sufferings inside. Bring them to him, lay them before him and, from being reasons for despair, they will become opportunities for resurrection. Do not be afraid! The Lords asks us for our sins. This brings to mind the story of a monk in the desert. He had given everything to God and lived a life of fasting, penance and prayer. The Lord asked for more. “Lord, I gave you everything”, said the monk, “what more is there?” The Lord replied, “Give me yours sins”. Do not be afraid! The Blessed Virgin Mary accompanies us: she cast her own anxiety upon God. The angel’s proclamation gave her good reason to be afraid. He proposed to her something unimaginable and beyond her abilities, something that she could not handle alone: there would be too many difficulties, problems with the Mosaic law, with Joseph, with the citizens of her town and with her people. Yet Mary did not object. Those words – do not be afraid – were sufficient for her; God’s reassurance was enough for her. She clung to him, as we want to do tonight. Yet so often we do the exact opposite. We start from our own certainties and, when we lose them, we turn to God. Our Lady, on the other hand, teaches us to start from God, trusting that in this way everything else will be given to us (cf. Mt 6:33). She invites us to go to the source, to the Lord, who is the ultimate remedy against fear and emptiness in life. There is a lovely phrase written above a confessional here in the Vatican that reminds us of this. It addresses God with these words, “To turn away from you is to fall, to turn back to you is to rise, to abide in you is to have life” (cf. SAINT AUGUSTINE, Soliloquies I, 3). In these days, news reports and scenes of death continue to enter our homes, even as bombs are destroying the homes of many of our defenceless Ukrainian brothers and sisters. The vicious war that has overtaken so many people, and caused suffering to all, has made each of us fearful and anxious. We sense our helplessness and our inadequacy. We need to be told, “Do not be afraid”. Yet human reassurance is not enough. We need the closeness of God and the certainty of his forgiveness, which alone eliminates evil, disarms resentment and restores peace to our hearts. Let us return to God and to his forgiveness. A third time the angel speaks to Mary and says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you” (Lk 1:35). Again, the first time he says, “The Lord is with you”. The second time his words are, “Do not be afraid”. Now, he says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you”. That is how God intervenes in history: by giving his very Spirit. For in the things that matter, our own strength is not enough. By ourselves, we cannot succeed in resolving the contradictions of history or even those of our own hearts. We need the wisdom and gentle power of God that is the Holy Spirit. We need the Spirit of love who dispels hatred, soothes bitterness, extinguishes greed and rouses us from indifference. The Spirit gives us concord because he is concord. We need God’s love, for our love is fragile and insufficient. We ask the Lord for many things, but how often we forget to ask him for what is most important and what he desires most to give us: the Holy Spirit, the power to love. Indeed, without love, what can we offer to the world? It has been said that a Christian without love is like a needle that does not sew: it stings, it wounds, and if it fails to sew, weave or patch, then it is useless. I would dare to say that this person is not a Christian. This is why we need to find in God’s forgiveness the power of love: the same Spirit who descended upon Mary. If we want the world to change, then first our hearts must change. For this to happen, let us allow Our Lady to take us by the hand. Let us gaze upon her Immaculate Heart in which God dwelt, “our tainted nature’s solitary boast”. Mary is “full of grace” (v. 28), and thus free from sin. In her, there is no trace of evil and hence, with her, God was able to begin a new story of salvation and peace. There, in her, history took a turn. God changed history by knocking at the door of Mary’s heart. Today, renewed by forgiveness, may we too knock at the door of her immaculate heart. In union with the Bishops and faithful of the world, I desire in a solemn way to bring all that we are presently experiencing to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I wish to renew to her the consecration of the Church and the whole of humanity, and to consecrate to her in a particular way the Ukrainian people and the Russian people who, with filial affection, venerate her as a Mother. This is no magic formula but a spiritual act. It is an act of complete trust on the part of children who, amid the tribulation of this cruel and senseless war that threatens our world, turn to their Mother. It is like what young children do when they are scared; they turn to their mother for protection. We turn to our Mother, reposing all our fears and pain in her heart and abandoning ourselves to her. It means placing in that pure and undefiled heart, where God is mirrored, the inestimable goods of fraternity and peace, all that we have and are, so that she, the Mother whom the Lord has given us, may protect us and watch over us. Mary then uttered the most beautiful words that the angel could bring back to God: “Let it be to me according to your word” (v. 38). Hers was no passive or resigned acceptance, but a lively desire to obey God, who has “plans for welfare and not for evil” (Jer 29:11). Hers was the most intimate sharing in God’s plan of peace for the world. We consecrate ourselves to Mary in order to enter into this plan, to place ourselves fully at the disposal of God’s plans. After having uttered her “Fiat”, the Mother of God set out on a long journey to the hill country, to visit a relative who was with child (cf. Lk 1:39). She went with haste. I like to think of this image of Our Lady going with haste. She comes with haste to help and take care of us. May she now take our own journey into her hands: may she guide our steps through the steep and arduous paths of fraternity and dialogue, along the way of peace. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2022/documents/20220325_omelia-penitenza.html

Angelic salutation: Hail Mary

One day Saint Gertrude had a vision of Our Lord counting gold coins. She summoned the courage to ask Him what He was doing. He answered: ‘I am counting the Hail Marys that you have said; this is the money with which you can pay your way to Heaven’. https://www.motherofallpeoples.com/post/heaven-s-greatest-invitation Saint Louis de Montfort - Heaven’s Greatest Invitation Updated: May 30, 2020 The Angelic Salutation is so heavenly and so beyond us in its depth of meaning that Blessed Alan de la Roche held that no mere creature could ever possibly understand it, and that only Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Who was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary can really explain it. Its enormous value is due first of all to Our Lady to whom it was addressed, to the purpose of the Incarnation of the Word for which reason this prayer was brought from heaven, and also to the Archangel Gabriel who was the first ever to say it. The Angelic Salutation is a most concise summary of all that Catholic theology teaches about the Blessed Virgin. It is divided into two parts, that of praise and petition: the first shows all that goes to make up Mary’s greatness and the second all that we need to ask her for and all that we may expect to receive through her goodness. The Most Blessed Trinity revealed the first part of it to us and the latter part was added by Saint Elizabeth who was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Holy Mother Church gave us the conclusion in the year 430 when she condemned the Nestorian heresy at the council of Ephesus and defined that the Blessed Virgin is truly the Mother of God. At this time she ordered us to pray to Our Lady under this glorious title by saying: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.” The greatest event in the whole history of the world was the Incarnation of the Eternal Word by Whom the world was redeemed and peace was restored between God and men. Our Lady was chosen as His instrument for this tremendous event and it was put into effect when she was greeted with the Angelic Salutation. The Archangel Gabriel, one of the leading princes of the heavenly court, was chosen as ambassador to bear these glad tidings. In the Angelic Salutation can be seen the faith and hope of the patriarchs, the prophets and the apostles. Furthermore it gives to martyrs their unswerving constancy and strength, it is the wisdom of the doctors of the Church, the perseverance of holy confessors and the life of all religious (Blessed Alan de la Roche). It is also the new hymn of the law of grace, the joy of angels and men, and the hymn which terrifies devils and puts them to shame. By the Angelic Salutation God became man, a virgin became the Mother of God, the souls of the just were delivered from Limbo, the empty thrones in heaven filled. In addition sin was forgiven, grace was given to us, sick people were made well, the dead were brought back to life, exiles were brought home, and the anger of the Most Blessed Trinity was appeased and men obtained eternal life. Finally, the Angelic Salutation is a rainbow in the heavens, a sign of the mercy and grace which God has given to the world (Blessed Alan da la Roche). The Hail Mary—Beauty Even though there is nothing so great as the majesty of God and nothing so low as man insofar as he is a sinner, Almighty God does not despise our poor prayers. On the contrary, He is pleased when we sing His praises. Saint Gabriel’s greeting to Our Lady is one of the most beautiful hymns which we can possibly sing to the glory of the Most High. “I will sing a new song to you” (Ps. 143:9). This new hymn which David foretold was to be sung at the coming of the Messiah is none other than the Angelic Salutation. There is an old hymn and a new hymn: the first is that which the Jews sang out of gratitude to God for creating them and maintaining them in existence—for delivering them from captivity and leading them safely through the Red Sea—for giving them manna to eat and for all His other blessings. The new hymn is that which Christians sing in thanksgiving for the graces of the Incarnation and the Redemption. As these marvels were brought about by the Angelic Salutation, so also do we repeat the same salutation to thank the Most Blessed Trinity for His immeasurable goodness to us. We praise God the Father because He so loved the world that He gave us His only Son as our Savior. We bless the Son because He deigned to leave heaven and come down upon earth—because he was made man and redeemed us. We glorify the Holy Spirit because He formed Our Lord’s pure Body in Our Lady’s Womb—this Body which was the Victim of our sins. In this spirit of deep thankfulness should we, then, always say the Hail Mary, making acts of faith, hope, love and thanksgiving for the priceless gift of salvation. …. Although this new hymn is in praise of the Mother of God and is sung directly to her, nevertheless it greatly glorifies the Most Blessed Trinity because any homage that we pay Our Lady returns inevitably to God Who is the cause of all her virtues and perfections. When we honor Our Lady: God the Father is glorified because we are honoring the most perfect of His creatures; God the Son is glorified because we are praising His most pure Mother, and God the Holy Spirit is glorified because we are lost in admiration at the graces with which He has filled His Spouse. When we praise and bless Our Lady by saying the Angelic Salutation she always passes on these praises to Almighty God in the same way as she did when she was praised by Saint Elizabeth. The latter blessed her in her most elevated dignity as Mother of God and Our Lady immediately returned these praises to God by her beautiful Magnificat. Just as the Angelic Salutation gives glory to the Blessed Trinity, it is also the very highest praise that we can give Our Lady. One day when Saint Mechtilde was praying and was trying to think of some way in which she could express her love of the Blessed Mother better than she had done before, she fell into ecstasy. Our Lady appeared to her with the Angelic Salutation in flaming letters of gold upon her bosom and said to her: My daughter, I want you to know that no one can please me more than by saying the salutation which the Most Adorable Trinity sent to me and by which He raised me to the dignity of Mother of God. By the word Ave (which is the name Eve, Eva), I learned that in His infinite power God had preserved me from all sin and its attendant misery which the first woman had been subject to. The name Mary which means “lady of light” shows that God has filled me with wisdom and light, like a shining star, to light up heaven and earth. The words full of grace remind me that the Holy Spirit has showered so many graces upon me that I am able to give these graces in abundance to those who ask for them through me as Mediatrix. When people say The Lord is with thee they renew the indescribable joy that was mine when the Eternal Word became incarnate in my womb. When you say to me blessed art thou among women I praise Almighty God’s divine mercy which lifted me to this exalted plane of happiness. And at the words blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, the whole of heaven rejoices with me to see my Son Jesus Christ adored and glorified for having saved mankind. The Hail Mary—Fruits …. The Hail Mary is a blessed dew that falls from heaven upon the souls of the predestinate. It gives them a marvelous spiritual fertility so that they can grow in all virtues. The more the garden of the soul is watered by this prayer the more enlightened one’s intellect becomes, the more zealous his heart, and the stronger his armor against his spiritual enemies. The Hail Mary is a sharp and flaming shaft which, joined to the Word of God, gives the preacher the strength to pierce, move and convert the most hardened hearts even if he has little or no natural gift for preaching. The Hail Mary—Blessings This heavenly salutation draws down upon us the blessings of Jesus and Mary in abundance, for it is an infallible truth that Jesus and Mary reward in a marvelous way those who glorify them. They repay us a hundredfold for the praises that we give them. “I love them that love me … that I may enrich them that love me and fill their treasures” (Prov. 8:17, 21). Jesus and Mary have always said: “We love those who love us; we enrich them and fill their treasuries to overflowing.” “He who soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (Cor. 9:6). Now, if we say the Hail Mary properly, is not this a way to love, bless and glorify Jesus and Mary? In each Hail Mary we bless both Jesus and Mary: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” By each Hail Mary we give Our Lady the same honor that God gave her when He sent the Archangel Gabriel to greet her for Him. How could anyone possibly think that Jesus and Mary, who often do good to those that curse them, could ever curse those that bless and honor them by the Hail Mary? ….

Puzzling why those very prolific writing Essenes are not ever mentioned in Bible

Part One: Who exactly were the mysterious Essenes? by Damien F. Mackey “[Marvin] Vining contends that the Essenes were the scribes in the Gospels, the ones whom Jesus said sat in Moses’ seat in Matthew 23”. James Bradford Pate Why are not the Essenes, a most prominent religious group in Palestine, ever referred to in the Bible, at least under the name of ‘Essenes’? This is a burning question repeatedly asked by Marvin Vining, an Anabaptist-Methodist, in his book, Jesus the Wicked Priest: How Christianity Was Born of an Essene Schism (Rochester, Vermont: Bear and Company, 2008). Who were these Essenes? And what were their origins? Some have argued that the Essenes were the strict warrior-group, the Hasidaeans, in the Maccabean times. “Dr. J. L. Teicher, himself a Jew and a distinguished Cambridge scholar”, on the other hand, “went so far as to argue that the Dead Sea manuscripts “are quite simply Christian documents”.” (Ahmed Osman, Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion). Likewise, Osman himself attempted to connect Jesus and his followers to the Essenes (ibid.): “The very name “Essenes” indicates that they were followers of Jesus”. Whilst Marvin Vining will clearly show that a lot of Jesus’s teaching, and anger, were directed against the extreme doctrines of the Essenes - who could not therefore have been Jesus’s early followers - a Hasidaean origin does not seem to me to be too far-fetched at all, especially given my view that the Maccabean times overlap with the life of Jesus Christ - that Gamaliel’s Judas the Galilean, at the time of the census (Acts 5:37), was none other than Judas Maccabeus. Marvin Vining, however, not only asks the most relevant question, but he also seeks to answer it. We read for instance in this post about Vining’s conclusion: Book Write-Up: Jesus the Wicked Priest Posted on November 4, 2013by jamesbradfordpate https://jamesbradfordpate.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/book-write-up-jesus-the-wicked-priest/ Vining argues that the Essenes had the power to contribute to Jesus’ death because they had clout with Herod, according to Josephus, plus they had influence on Jewish halakah, for Vining contends that the Essenes were the scribes in the Gospels, the ones whom Jesus said sat in Moses’ seat in Matthew 23. (After all, Vining argues, did not the Essenes engage in a lot of scribal activity, since they produced the Dead Sea Scrolls?) Vining also notes that, while the Mishnah does not prescribe crucifixion, the Dead Sea Scrolls did, and so Jesus’ crucifixion was probably due to Essene influence. [End of quote] "... the Essenes were the scribes in the Gospels ...", a hugely significant group. I must admit that I did not have great confidence that Marvin Vining would arrive at the correct answer, given some of his other identifications. He, for instance, thinks that the angel Gabriel, who announced the birth of John the Baptist to his father, Zechariah (Luke 1:11-13), was actually the Jewish High Priest. I also would not be able to accept Vining’s thesis, his book’s title, of Jesus as the Wicked Priest. Firstly, it is unlikely that a strict Jewish sect would have recognised Jesus as a priest at all. However, Marvin Vining has, to my satisfaction at least, worked out what so many others before him have been unable to do. To identify precisely who were the Essenes, a group un-mentioned in the Bible under that name. I do not think that I would ever have been able to reach this conclusion, which seems so obvious once it has been properly explained, as Vining manages to do. This does not mean that I can agree with various other of the book's major conclusions - though finding it all highly informative. Unfortunately, there are some wild conclusions (so I think) also reached in the book. For example, that Gabriel who announced the birth of John the Baptist to his father, Zechariah, was the High Priest. I also very much reject one of his main lines of arguments, that Jesus was originally an Essene, but split and caused a schism. I was happily surprised to find the author so convincingly identify the group that has been such a conundrum to scholars for so long: the Essenes. Part Two: Menelaus could well have been the ‘Wicked Priest’ Steven A. Fisdel’s book, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Understanding Their Spiritual Message, locates the origins of Essenism firmly within the context of the Maccabean struggles. In Part One, I fully embraced Marvin Vining’s well argued and convincing thesis that the biblico-historically elusive Essenes were the scribes (also known as the “Herodians”). That does not mean that I accept Vining's book in its entirety, as already pointed out. I have explained there, for instance, why I must reject his notion that the “Wicked Priest” of the Qumran scrolls was Jesus himself (see also below). George J. Brooke, when writing his review of Rabbi Steven A. Fisdel’s book, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Understanding Their Spiritual Message, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4193190?seq=1 says of the author that: “He locates the origins of Essenism firmly within the context of the Maccabean struggles ...”. With this biblico-historical location I would completely agree. But I would add to it my own chronological twist that the Maccabean period overlaps with the Infancy of Jesus Christ. On this, see e.g. my article: Judas the Galilean vitally links Maccabean era to Daniel 2’s “rock cut out of a mountain” (7) Judas the Galilean vitally links Maccabean era to Daniel 2's "rock cut out of a mountain" Thus the Essenes, well identified by Marvin Vining with the biblical scribes, fit nicely into this revised scenario, this thereby answering the burning question as to why the Essenes, as such, are never mentioned in the Bible? With that in mind, I can also accept George J. Brooke’s view (whether attributable to the Rabbi or not) that “… for [the Rabbi] the Teacher of Righteousness is probably to be identified as Onias III and the Wicked Priest as Menelaus”. {Though I would not number Onias as III, which I believe is a fault due to an over-extended chronology}. David Pardo has come to the same conclusion as to the identities of these two major characters of the Dead Sea Scrolls (“A STATISTICAL IDENTITY FOR THE TEACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS”).

Ash Wednesday provides an ideal opportunity to repent

“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’. This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him’”.” Matthew 3:1-3 Today (5th March, 2025) is Ash Wednesday. What is Ash Wednesday? That question is asked, and answered at: https://www.dynamiccatholic.com/lent/ash-wednesday.html?srsltid=AfmBOopjUijbPKBfV2-941XYjz2QeJqG_2PqluhcTVKeS6HnSmb3DnwD What is Ash Wednesday? Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent—and a wonderful opportunity to make yourself 100% available to God! How available to God are you? 50%? 75%? 96.4%? No matter what your answer, Ash Wednesday is the perfect time to decide that you will spend this Lent increasing that number. On Ash Wednesday, you can get your forehead blessed with ashes at Mass or a prayer service. These ashes are a reminder that we need to repent. Repentance is a powerful invitation. When John the Baptist first appeared in the desert of Judea, this was his message: “Repent, prepare the way of the Lord” (Matthew 3:2). Later, when Jesus began his ministry, he led with this message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). But what does it mean for us to repent, here and now, more than two thousand years later? It means the same as it did to the people walking around the dusty pathways in their sandals, trying to inch closer to Jesus as he passed through their town or village. Repent means “to turn back to God.” We all find ourselves needing to turn back to God many times a day, in ways small and large. It is not a matter of guilt and it is not a shameful thing. It is simply that we are a better version of ourselves when we return to his side! When is Ash Wednesday 2025? This year Ash Wednesday is on March 5, 2025. The History of Ashes on Ash Wednesday You might be wondering why we get ashes on our foreheads for Ash Wednesday. Throughout history, ashes have been a powerful outward symbol of interior repentance and spiritual awareness. Here are some examples of ashes in the Bible: • "Therefore I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:6) • "Daughter of my people, dress in sackcloth, roll in the ashes." (Jeremiah 6:26) • "I turned to the Lord God, to seek help, in prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes." (Daniel 9:3) • "When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh: “By decree of the king and his nobles, no man or beast, no cattle or sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. Man and beast alike must be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; they all must turn from their evil way and from the violence of their hands." (Jonah 3: 6-8) The Early Christians used ashes to show repentance as well, but not just on Ash Wednesday! After going to confession, it was common for the priest to give the person ashes on their forehead. Catholics have been receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday since the time of St. Gregory the Great. In 1091, Pope Urban II encouraged the entire Church to use ashes on Ash Wednesday. If you want to get blessed with ashes this Ash Wednesday, be sure to check with your local parish. Most churches celebrate Mass or have a prayer service on Ash Wednesday, and all are welcome to attend and be blessed with ashes. Sign up for this year’s Is Ash Wednesday a Holy Day of Obligation? Contrary to popular belief, Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation. Even though you’re not required to attend Mass, Ash Wednesday is a wonderful opportunity to rearrange your priorities and feed your soul before one of the most important seasons of the entire year! Can you eat meat on Ash Wednesday? No. Unless you have a medical exemption, Ash Wednesday is a day of Abstinence for Catholics. Avoiding meat can be difficult, but it’s a powerful way to be disciplined about your priorities. When you make little sacrifices a part of your everyday spirituality, amazing things happen! For example, suppose you have a craving for a Coke, but you have a glass of water instead. It is the smallest thing. Nobody notices. And yet, by this simple action you strengthen your willpower and become an even better-version-of-yourself. Or, say your soup tastes a little dull. You could add salt and pepper, but you don’t. It’s a little thing. It’s nothing. But by saying no to yourself in small ways, it makes you even freer to say yes to the things that truly matter. If you want to grow in strength this Lent, there’s one simple thing you can do: Try to never leave a meal table without practicing some form of sacrifice. It is these tiny acts that will strengthen your will for the great moments of decision that are a part of each of our lives! What are the fasting rules for Ash Wednesday? The Church requires all Catholics from ages 14-59 to fast on Ash Wednesday. As long as you are in good health, this means that you should only eat one full meal, plus two smaller meals that do not equal a full meal. Ash Wednesday is also a day where Catholics avoid eating meat. There is great wisdom in the Christian practice of fasting—even though its benefits are largely forgotten! Fasting is a spiritual exercise, and as such is primarily an action of the inner life. Authentic fasting draws us nearer to God and opens our hearts to receive his many gifts. Fasting is also a sharp reminder that there are more important things in life than food. Authentic Christian fasting helps to release us from our attachments to the things of this world. It is often these worldly attachments that prevent us from becoming the-best-version-of-ourselves. Fasting also serves as a reminder that everything in this world is passing and thus encourages us to consider life beyond death. Go without food for several hours and you quickly realize how truly weak, fragile, and dependent we are. This knowledge of self strips away arrogance and fosters a loving acknowledgment of our utter dependence on God. Ash Wednesday is a powerful day to rediscover the power of fasting in your life! Make It Personal Ash Wednesday is the perfect time to decide if you want to have the kind of Lent that’s easy to forget…or the kind that changes your life. Do you want a renewed commitment to prayer? More discipline in a specific area of your life? A stronger marriage? More peace? This Ash Wednesday, set aside 15 minutes to set your intentions for the season of Lent!

Pope Francis uses Good Samaritan to expose J. D. Vance’s Ordo Amoris

Colourful is a word that well describes many aspects of Vice-President J. D. Vance’s Appalachian Kentucky background and his later upbringing in Middletown Ohio. Particularly his forceful grandmother, “Mamaw”, Bonnie, who cursed incessantly and unapologetically: “She was not your typical grandmother. She had a foul mouth. Because of this, my little sister and I once tried to make Mamaw adhere to a curse jar. Twenty-five cents for every bad word. It sat on the windowsill in our kitchen. One afternoon while she was babysitting the two of us, she pulled out her checkbook and wrote a blank check”. Mamaw then looked at her grandchildren and said, “Now I can say whatever the (expletive) I want. I’ll fill out the amount later.” On July 17, Sen. Vance spoke about his grandmother during a speech at the Republican National Convention, noting that at the time of her death, the 72-year-old had an ample supply of firearms. “My Mamaw died shortly before I left for Iraq in 2005,” he said per PBS News. “And when we went through her things, we found 19 loaded handguns. Now, the thing is, they were stashed all over her house. Under her bed, in her closet, in the silverware drawer. We wondered what was going on, and it occurred to us that, towards the end of her life, Mamaw couldn’t get around so well. And so, this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arm’s length of whatever she needed to protect her family.” J.D. Vance wrote a book about those times, Hillbilly Elegy, which has become a movie. As far as J. D. Vance is concerned the American Civil War is still ongoing and he is on the side of the South. "American history is a constant war between Northern Yankees and Southern Bourbons, where whichever side the hillbillies are on, wins," Vance said." J. R. R. Tolkien has also had a huge impact upon Vance’s personal Weltanschauung: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/19/lord-of-the-rings-jd-vance-00169372 “Vance himself has pointed to Tolkien’s high fantasy epics as a window into understanding his worldview. In an archived episode of the defunct “Grounded” podcast from 2021 that no longer shows up in podcast feeds, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, who sat next to Vance in Trump’s friends and family box at the convention Tuesday evening, asked Vance to name his favorite author. “I would have to say Tolkien,” Vance said. “I’m a big Lord of the Rings guy, and I think, not realizing it at the time, but a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.” He added of Tolkien’s colleague: “Big fan of C.S. Lewis — really sort of like that era of English writers. I think they were really interesting. They were grappling, in part because of World War II, with just very big problems”.” Recently Pope Francis has been highly critical of J.D. Vance’s localised view of charity, especially in relation to the US’s mass deportations. https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-0news/pope-decries-major-crisis-trumps-mass-deportation-plans-rejects-vances?utm_source=NCR+List&utm_campaign=26f53cf579- Pope Francis has written a sweeping letter to the U.S. bishops decrying the "major crisis" triggered by President Donald Trump's mass deportation plans and explicitly rejecting Vice President JD Vance's attempts to use Catholic theology to justify the administration's immigration crackdown. "The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness," reads the pope's Feb. 11 letter. Since taking office on Jan. 20, the Republican president has taken more than 20 executive actions aimed at overhauling the U.S. immigration system, including plans to ratchet up the deportations of undocumented migrants and halt the processing of asylum seekers. The pope's letter, published by the Vatican in both English and Spanish, offered his solidarity with U.S. bishops who are engaged in migration advocacy and draws a parallel between Jesus' own experience as a migrant and the current geopolitical situation. "Jesus Christ … did not live apart from the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land because of an imminent risk to his life, and from the experience of having to take refuge in a society and a culture foreign to his own," writes Francis. While the letter acknowledges the right of every country to enact necessary policies to defend itself and promote public safety, the pope said that all laws must be enacted "in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa." The pontiff also goes on to clearly reject efforts to characterize the migrants as criminals, a frequent rhetorical device used by Trump administration officials. "The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality," the pope writes. Soon after Trump took office, Vice President JD Vance — a recent convert to Roman Catholicism — attempted to defend the administration's migration crackdown by appealing to St. Thomas Aquinas' concept of ordo amoris. "Just google 'ordo amoris,' " Vance posted on social media on Jan. 30 in response to criticism he received following a Fox News interview. During that interview, Vance said: "You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world." "The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality." — Pope Francis Lettera del Santo Padre ai Vescovi degli Stati Uniti d’America.pdf While not mentioning Vance directly by name, Francis used his Feb. 11 letter to directly reject that interpretation of Catholic theology. "The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the 'Good Samaritan,' that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception," wrote the pope. Since his election in 2013, Francis has become one of the world's most vocal champions of migrants. His latest letter, however, marks a rare moment when the pontiff has directly waded into a country's policy debates. In the letter, however, he states that this is a "decisive moment in history" that requires reaffirming "not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person." "What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly," the pope warned. In a brief post on social media, the U.S. bishops' conference shared the pope's letter with its online followers. "We are grateful for the support, moral encouragement, and prayers of the Holy Father, to the Bishops in affirmation of their work upholding the God-given dignity of the human person," read the statement.

Pope says definite No to mass deportations

“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly”. Pope Francis Naomi LaChance writes: 'God bless this Pope': Critics cheer Vatican's new admonishment of Trump and Vance 'God bless this Pope': Critics cheer Vatican's new admonishment of Trump and Vance Pope Francis harshly criticized the Trump administration for its mass deportation of migrants in a public letter to U.S. bishops published Tuesday. In it he argues that the administration's treatment of migrants goes against church social doctrine and says that a policy built on force “will end badly.” “The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” the Pope writes. The letter comes after Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, called on theology to legitimize a crackdown on migrants. “You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country,” Vance said on Fox News. “Then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” the first Latin American Pope writes. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” “God bless this Pope,” Mehdi Hasan, editor in chief of Zeteo, posted on X. “When you get your Catholic teaching so wrong the Pope himself has to issue a correction,” Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, editor at large for Commonweal Magazine, posted on Bluesky. She added: “I'm being glib, but this is truly beautiful,and clarifying.” “The Pope's letter today takes aim at every single absurd theological claim by JD Vance and his allies in conservative Catholicism (and the Catholic electorate) but he also defends the chief target of Trumpism -- the rule of law -- in a way few seem able to articulate,” David Gibson, director of the center for religion and culture at Fordham University, posted on X. Gibson pointed to a portion of the letter: “This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized,” the Pope writes. “The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly” he adds. The Pope also references Pope Pius XII, who wrote what Pope Francis calls the “Magna Carta” of how the Church thinks of immigration. “The family of Nazareth in exile, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, emigrants in Egypt and refugees there to escape the wrath of an ungodly king, are the model, the example and the consolation of emigrants and pilgrims of every age and country, of all refugees of every condition who, beset by persecution or necessity, are forced to leave their homeland, beloved family and dear friends for foreign lands,” Pope Pius XII writes. “This is the Pope also directly countering misinformation about the Catholic faith that is being expounded by the Catholic vice president,” Gibson told The Associated Press. “And it is the Pope supporting the Bishops as well."

Zechariah and Socrates

by Damien F. Mackey Was Socrates a prophet? The question may not be as silly as it might at first appear. Socrates as a Prophet The Evolution of Socrates The prototypal ‘Socrates’, and indeed ‘Mohammed’, are (my own view) non-historical composite entities, fictitious persons, as according to what I wrote as well of Apollonius of Tyana and Philo in my article: Apollonius of Tyana, like Philo, a fiction (2) Apollonius of Tyana, like Philo, a fiction | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu These all, however, were based on real biblico-historical people. From this basis, ‘they’ underwent a considerable literary-historical evolution, thereby picking up aspects of other characters and eras not truly belonging to ‘them’. Striking Christian aspects, for instance, such as the Prophet Mohammed’s supposed ascension from Jerusalem into the seventh heaven. Such borrowings from Christianity must have occurred during the long evolution of the system known today as ‘Islam’. Likenesses to Hebrew Holy Men Socrates and the biblical prophet Jeremiah were alike in many ways. Both, called to special work by oracular or divine power, reacted with great humility and self-distrust. And, whenever Socrates or Jeremiah encountered any who would smugly claim to have been well instructed, and who would boast of their own sufficiency, they never failed to chastise the vanity of such persons. Again, the Book of Jeremiah can at times employ a method of teaching known as Socratic: “Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?” - Jeremiah 32:26, 27. THIS method of questioning the person to be instructed is known to teachers as the Socratic method. Socrates was wont, not so much to state a fact, as to ask a question and draw out thoughts from those whom he taught: http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/scr_index.php?act=bookSermons&book=Jeremiah&page=6 Similarly in the case of the prophet Zechariah, as we read in another place, “God used what we today call the Socratic method to teach Zechariah and the readers of this book”: http://www.muslimhope.com/BibleAnswers/zech.htm But perhaps to none of the Old Testament prophets more than Jeremiah would apply the description ‘gadfly’, for which ‘Socrates’ the truth-loving philosopher is so famous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_gadfly The term "gadfly" (Ancient Greek: μύωψ, mýops[1]) was used by Plato in the Apology[2] to describe Socrates's relationship of uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse. The Book of Jeremiah uses a similar analogy as a political metaphor. "Egypt is a very fair heifer; the gad-fly cometh, it cometh from the north." (46:20, Darby Bible) Could this last be the actual prompt for the Socratic gadfly concept? The Hebrew prophet Malachi has been called “the Hebrew Socrates”. Thus we read at: http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/component/option,com_devotion/qid,3/task,show/resource_no,34/ .... Although little or nothing is known of the personal life of Malachi the prophet, nonetheless he has given us one of the most interesting books in the Bible. Not only is this the last book of the Old Testament, it is also the last stern rebuke of the people of God, the last call for them to repent, and the last promise of future blessing for Israel. In Malachi's day the people had become increasingly indifferent to spiritual matters. Religion had lost its glow and many of the people had become skeptical, even cynical. The priests were unscrupulous, corrupt, and immoral. The people refused to pay their tithes and offerings to the Lord and their worship degenerated into empty formalism. While the people had strong male lambs in their flocks, they were bringing blind and lame animals to be offered on the altars of Jehovah. Malachi was commissioned by God to lash out against the laxity of the people of God. This prophecy is unique for it is a continuous discourse. In fact, Malachi has been called "the Hebrew Socrates" because he uses a style which later rhetoricians call dialectic. The whole of this prophecy is a dialogue between God and the people in which the faithfulness of God is seen in contrast to the unfaithfulness of God's people. Thus Malachi is argumentative in style and unusually bold in his attacks on the priesthood, which had become corrupt. …. [End of quote] Socrates and Jeremiah were very humane individuals - Jeremiah’s constant concern for the widow and orphan - men of profound righteousness, always trying to do all that was good for the people. Both Socrates and Jeremiah were hated for having challenged the gods of the society; Jeremiah, of course, being a loyal Yahwist. Socrates, like Jeremiah, had followers or disciples who also were inspired by him and were willing to go into exile and defy the government for him. The name “Socrates”, which, I believe, does actually occur in the New Testament (I cannot just now find the appropriate reference), is thought to indicate the following: https://www.behindthename.com/name/socrates “From the Greek name Σωκράτης (Sokrates), which was derived from σῶς (sos) meaning "whole, unwounded, safe" and κράτος (kratos) meaning "power".” Might not the name perhaps, instead, have originated with the phonetically like Hebrew name ‘Zechariah’ (זְכַרְיָה) - of which ‘Sokrates’ is a most adequate transliteration (allowing, of course, for a typically Greek ending, -tes, to have replaced the Hebrew one)? Martyrdom But can the prophet Jeremiah also have been a martyr, as the philosopher Socrates is so famously considered to have been? There appears to be much uncertainty about how and when Jeremiah actually died. According to one tradition, the great prophet was martyred by stoning whilst an exile in Egypt: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8586-jeremiah The Christian legend (pseudo-Epiphanius, "De Vitis Prophetarum"; Basset, "Apocryphen Ethiopiens," i. 25-29), according to which Jeremiah was stoned by his compatriots in Egypt because he reproached them with their evil deeds, became known to the Jews through Ibn Yaḥya ("Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah," ed. princeps, p. 99b); this account of Jeremiah's martyrdom, however, may have come originally from Jewish sources. Jeremiah’s life was so full of suffering and persecution, however, that one will discover in, for example, The Jerome Biblical Commentary (19:98), the designation of the substantial block of Jeremiah 36:1-45:5, as the “Martyrdom of Jeremiah”. And, whilst Jeremiah is not recorded in the OT as having suffered a life-ending martyrdom, there was an earlier prophet Zechariah who assuredly did. And his end was brought about most interestingly, in light of the above, by stoning (2 Chronicles 24:20-21 (NRSV): Then the spirit of God took possession of Zechariah son of the priest Jehoiada; he stood above the people and said to them, ‘Thus says God: Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has also forsaken you.’ But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of the house of the Lord. Perhaps, though, the death by martyrdom in the Old Testament (Catholic) Scriptures that most resembles that of ‘Socrates’, is that of the venerable and aged Eleazer about which we read in 2 Maccabees 6:18-31: The Martyrdom of Eleazar Eleazar, one of the scribes in high position, a man now advanced in age and of noble presence, was being forced to open his mouth to eat swine’s flesh. But he, welcoming death with honour rather than life with pollution, went up to the rack of his own accord, spitting out the flesh, as all ought to go who have the courage to refuse things that it is not right to taste, even for the natural love of life. Those who were in charge of that unlawful sacrifice took the man aside because of their long acquaintance with him, and privately urged him to bring meat of his own providing, proper for him to use, and to pretend that he was eating the flesh of the sacrificial meal that had been commanded by the king, so that by doing this he might be saved from death, and be treated kindly on account of his old friendship with them. But making a high resolve, worthy of his years and the dignity of his old age and the grey hairs that he had reached with distinction and his excellent life even from childhood, and moreover according to the holy God-given law, he declared himself quickly, telling them to send him to Hades. ‘Such pretence is not worthy of our time of life,’ he said, ‘for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, and through my pretence, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. Even if for the present I would avoid the punishment of mortals, yet whether I live or die I will not escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore, by bravely giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.’ When he had said this, he went at once to the rack. Those who a little before had acted towards him with goodwill now changed to ill will, because the words he had uttered were in their opinion sheer madness. When he was about to die under the blows, he groaned aloud and said: ‘It is clear to the Lord in his holy knowledge that, though I might have been saved from death, I am enduring terrible sufferings in my body under this beating, but in my soul I am glad to suffer these things because I fear him.’ So in this way he died, leaving in his death an example of nobility and a memorial of courage, not only to the young but to the great body of his nation. And this may be where it becomes necessary once again to invoke our composite theory. The two accounts of martyrdom have sufficient similarities between them for the author of the apocryphal 4 Maccabees to consider: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=4rP118zc8e4C&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq Eleazer as a “New Socrates” … the archetype of the semi-voluntary intellectual martyr: he is a νομικός in the royal Court (4 Macc 5:5) … he is implicitly compared with Socrates by the metaphor of the pilot (4 Macc 7:6) … young people regard him as their “teacher” (4 Macc 9:7)”. For Eleazer (a “New Socrates”) as the second martyred Zechariah, to whose death Jesus Christ refers in e.g. Luke 11:50-51, see my article: Jesus Christ gives meaning to ancient history and geography (2) Jesus Christ gives meaning to ancient history and geography