Mind of christ

2 corinthians 2:10-16; Psalm 145 The Lord is just in all his ways; Luke 4:31-37


What a bold statement put forth by St. Paul, "we have the mind of Christ."

How many of us would stand up and face the world and proclaim such a statement? how many of us would have the audacity to let those words echo forth from our larnyx?

Hopefully, many of us would, especially those who are in union with the Catholic church. The church is the one who recieves the deposit of grace, the gift of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus reminds us, "I will send the paraclete to remind you all that I taught and did" and again "I will not leave you orphans" and again, "I will be with you to the end of the age" and again in the upper room to the aposltes, "receieve the Holy SPirit, whose sins you forgive are forgiven whose sins you retain are retained" and finally at the great commission "go forth to baptise, to teach, to make disciples."



St. Paul is not speaking personally in the above statement, rather he is speaking with the voice of the Church, "We have the mind of Christ." The Church has been entrusted with this deposit of grace, this deposit of faith, this treasure of the ages, beyond any price.

"We have the mind of Christ" the collective and universal, one, holy, catholic, apostolic, "we." How glorious, how beautiful, how marvelous is our God to give us such a mother who bears the "mind of Christ" for all.

As we say at mass, "look not on our sins but on the faith of your church."

So we have the mind of Christ...our audacity,our boldness comes from the Church...what relief, what a gift, what great joy, more importantly what a mind to have, to think with the church is to think with the mind of Christ.

st augustine

Today is the feast of St.Augustine. As we read in the second reading for this Sunday, in light of Christ, we have "approached mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and JEsus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel."

In Christ we approach a festival of mercy, a festival of grace, a community that welcomes us. Thus, as the church has pronounced, St. Augustine as a member of that cloud of witness, of the just being made perfect, we look to him for guidance.


Below is an article on Pope Benedict's words on St. Augstine and why he is important for our age: click here

Words from the Doctor himself

"you are great, Lord, and highly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is immeasurable. Man, a little piece of your creation, desires to praise you, a human being 'bearing his mortality with him', carrying with him the witness of his sin and the witness that you 'resist the proud'. Nevertheless, to praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until it rest in you." Opening lines of his Confession

humility

wisdom from our father in regards to humility

St. John Chrysostom
"Bring me a pair of two horse chariots: in the one harness pride with justice, in the other sin with humility: and you will see that sin out running justice wins not by its own strength, but by that of humility: while you will see the other pair beaten, not by weakness of justice, but by the weight and size of pride."

St. Gregory the Great
"The lesson proposed to us in the mystery of our redemption is the humility of our God."

St. Augustine
"Are you thinking abut raising the great fabric of spirituality? Attend first of all to the foundation of humilty!"

St. Thomas Aquinas
"Humility is man's subjection to God; reverence for what belongs to God in others, for God's sake."

St. Frances de Sales
"Alas! do mules cease to be disgusting beast simply because they are laden with precious and perfumed goods of the prince?" We are like the donkey whose master, when he wishes to, loads with treasures of great value.

plenty of time

1 Corinthians 1:1-9; Psalm 145 I will praise your name forever Lord; Matthew24:42-51

Jesus in the gospel tells us to "stay awake! For you do not know on which day the Lord will come."


Story is told of Satan having a conference with his little devil apprentices, those learning the trade of temptation. Satan was interviewing them on what task they would ploy to get souls to abandon God and thus lose their souls.

The first suggested that he would tempt people to think there was no God. Satan smiled and said well that is an old trick that doesn't need to be employed, people already think there is no God without us.

The second little devil said he was going to tempt people to think there was no hell. Again Satan smiled and said that too is an old trick and again people already are convinced their is no hell.

The third little devil spoke up and said his plan was to convinve everybody that there was no hurry. He figured complaceny was his best bet. Satan agreed!


The best defense agianst Christianity is to think there is no hurry, that we have plenty of time, that we always have tomorrow to get things right.

But the words of Jesus come back to awaken us form our complacency: Stay Awake, for you know not the day nor hour.

Today is the 100 year since the birth of Mother Teresa, today is her birthday into the world, and what a birth, quietly she came into the world and quietly she departed but in her wake she left a storm of love for all that continues to be grateful for the gift of her life.

"True love causes pain. Jesus in order to give us proof of his love, died on the cross. a mother, in order to give birth to her baby, has to suffer. If you really love one another, you will not be able to avoid making sacrifices (feeling pain)" Mother Teresa

Today is also the anniversary of the signing of the 19th amendment incorprating it into the constitution, the amendment stated that no citixen could be denied the right to vote on account of sex. Thus, women were given the right to vote. Secretary of state Bainbridge Colby who sign the amendment into the constitution, upon signing he spoke these words, "I now turn to the women of Amercian and say, "you may now fire when you are ready, you have been enfranchised."

shunning

2 Thessolonians 3:6-10,16-18; Psalm 128 Blessed are those who fear the Lord; Matthew 23:27-32

St. Paul says, "We instruct you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to shun any brother who walks in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition they received from us."

Shun those who walk disorderly!

When we here the word shun, our ears prick up. Really! Did St. Paul really say that! It certainly is lot different that this day age where we are told to tolerate everything and all things, that is unless its true Christianity then society says we should shun it.

We are told to be accepting of everyone's choices and decisions. We have to make concessions. What works for them is good for them even if we think otherwise.

This is not what Paul says. He asks us not to tolerate, not to make concessions, to rather take a stand and correct them, to order them properly, this is what the word shun means in the greek; it means to set straight.

Why shun? BEcause a wrong decision is always wrong, and it reflects bad on those who are sekeing to follow more perfectly. Christians who support abortion, gay marriage, sex outside of marriage, artificial contraception are wrong. They are not living in accord to the tradition we have recieved.

We should not turn the other cheek, or turn the blind eye but rather we should stop, look then straight in the eye, and say get your life straight. Somethings are not good choices and if we let someone fall into the pit of destruction then we ourslves are guilty of murder.

Why? Why do we do this.

Becasue we should want what God wants for all peoples. And God wants them to encoutner true greatness, to become what they are made to be. He doesn't want them to settle for less and this is exactly what they are doing. We have a duty to remind them of the greatness the human heart is meant to achieve in cooperating with God's good grace. Because anything less disfigures the image and likeness of God we are created in.

A few words from Pope Benedict spoken this past Sunday
"Man is often tempted to stop at the little things, those that give a 'cheap' satisfaction and pleasure, those things that instantly gratify, things that are as easy to obtain but are ultimately illusory...finite things can give glimmers of satisfaction or joy, but only the infinite can completely fill man's heart...God came into the world to reawaken the thirst for great things in us...learning to pray is learning to desire, and thus learning to live."

God comes into the world to reawaken the human heart to greatness!

Is this not what Jesus does when he cracks the whip or calls the Pharisess and scribes on the mat, "you hypocrites, whitewashed tombs, filled with dead man bones..."

Jesus comes to shun, to put back into order what is disordered in order to reawken us to true greatness and thus we learn to desire what God himself desires, to want what he wants, to love what he loves, to live a life like his, in abundance.

Guard down, hope rises

Revelation 21:9-14; Psalm 145 Your friens make know, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom; John 1:45-51

The words of Bartholomew aka Nathaniel
"Can anything Good come from Nazareth."

Initially it seems that Bartholomew is a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the information given out by his companion and friend Philip about this so called Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

How often is this the case when we are presented or others are presented with that which seems to be to good to be true, we error on the side of skepticism for fear we might be mistaken, or fear we might be let down. So we automaticlly protect ourselves from disappointment and doubt, and skepticism acts as a buffer of sorts so we "don't get our hopes up".

This can be a common reaction to Jesus. How often have people been skeptical about Jesus, about faith, about religion, about the church?

Philip did not get defensive as we have a tendency to do. Rather, he simply invited his friend Bartolomew to "come and see." He invited Bartholomew to check it out, trustung that the drawing power of Christ could be fully understood only in a personal encounter.

Once a genuine conversation occurs between Bartholomew and Jesus new horizons open up, old skepticism fades away, and hope is found, "Rabbi, you are the son of God; you are the king of Israel."

With Chirst we can let our guard down and get our hopes up!

This fervor that came upon Bartholomew never faded. He went on to preach about the drawing power and changing encounter of Christ up until his death, where he was flayed (skined ) alive in Armenia.

Bartholomew, once was skeptical then was a true disciple, chose in the end to give it all for this person, Christ. He refused to save his own skin because in the end it wasn't his to save, but rather it belonged completely to another, Christ the who brings hope.

Let your guard down, Christ in, and your hope rise.

pius x

Ezekiel 43:1-7; Psalm 85 The glory of the Lord will dwell in our land; Matthew 23:1-12

Today we celebrate the Feast of Pius X, Pope at th eturn of last century,

He died at the beginnig of WWI August 20, 1914 and was canonized May 29, 1954. He was the first Pope to be Canonized at the time since the 17th century.

Just Three things to note about Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto...given name)

1)He is the Pope responsible for allowing children at the age of 7 to recieve first communion. He felt that children were very capable at a young age of understanding the gift of the Eucharist. I would say children understand it more readily and deeply than adults.

2) In his will he wrote these words, "I was born poor, I have lived poor, I wish to die poor." Poverty of Spirit certainly took hold of Pius X, who sought to see all things as a gift from God, a gift that was undeserved yet required great diligence and a watchful eye. The greatest men amongst us are those who understand the poverty that resides in their human hearts. It is the man who does not try to hide it, or overcome it, or seek to compensate for it, but simply embraces it and lives fully in it that rises to true greatness. Lady Poverty as St. Francis called her, the great divine guest who seeks to accomapny us home reminding us all of the gift we have recieved, that is, grace upon grace.

3)Each Pope takes a motto for their coat of arms. Pius X chose the following words, "Instaurare omnia in Christo-To Restore all things in Christ."
These words are taken from the letter of Ephesians, words of St. Paul to one of the earliest Christian Communities. This was the task not of a single person but the task of all christians. The purpose of every Christian community was to restore all things in Christ. We are called to renovate the world, restoring it to its original beauty and luster that shines most perfectly in Christ, the glory God seen in the face of Christ.

To restore all things in Christ, is not just a mission statement, it is life itself as we know it.

the above picture is of Pius X as a little child. We forget sometimes that saints had their beginning just like we all have ours. They start small!