A Short Sunday Sermon

 

There it is, you've no sooner recovered from the admirable Uganda Police Band than you're in church conjuring with the Saints, the innumerable multitude of the holy who stand before God's throne in the exultant liturgy of heaven. As through a door or window opened up into paradise, we see them in the book of Revelation:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!"

 

Behold the glory of the beatific vision, and with it we're reminded that sanctity is our common vocation, we're all called to be saints, but how? By imitating Christ, patterning our lives after the pattern of Christ's life, and our Savior reveals his character to us in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the humble. This is Jesus who "humbled himself taking the form of a servant and became obedient even unto death." Blessed are those who mourn, and Christ does precisely that, he grieves for the sin of the world and its deadly effect. Think on the two awful and piercing words at the death of Lazarus, "Jesus wept." Blessed are the meek or gentle? Such is Jesus, a gentle man as opposed to an arrogant, aggressive, boastful man, "Come to me for I am gentle and lowly in heart."

Again, "Zeal for your house has consumed me." Our Lord hungers and thirsts for righteousness as he drives the moneylenders out of the Temple. And mercy? "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," and he doesn't, though qualified to do so. Instead, the sinless man, in utter purity, brings peace to the world, uniting fallen humanity to the Father on the cross where he dies for the forgiveness of our sins. 

Humility, compassion, gentleness, righteousness, mercy, purity and peace, the character of Christ and the path of holiness which Jesus invites us to walk. Those who do become saints, indwelt, purified and redeemed by the Holy One of Israel.

Can it be done? Yes. The Saints, from righteous Abel through the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, up to the holy men and women of today show us that sanctity, by the grace of God, is very real. Christ invites us to follow him so that we may attain it and the crown of glory which fadeth not away.

God bless,

LSP

153 Fish And The Mystic Lamb

Did any of you get to Mass yesterday? If you did, you may have noticed that the disciples caught a miraculous catch of 153 fish under the direction of the Risen Lord. Why 153? Apparently the ancients believed there were 153 different species of fish, and so the catch represents all of humanity. The Gospel is of universal application to all men, everywhere; to put it another way, it's catholic. But here's the detail, from Rebirth of Images:

"Sir Edwyn shews that the number of the miraculous catch, 153, is what the ancients called the triangular power of 17... Here Sir Edwyn stops, because 17 considered in itself is a meaningless number. But we do not need to consider it in itself; we may consider it as the diagonal of the square twelve, as the measure of that river which, issuing out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, cuts Paradise from top to bottom. It is then obviously good sense to see the fishes as the ‘fullness’ or the ‘complement’ of the River of Life, just as the citizens are the fullness or complement of the square city.

"But why, we may still ask, does St. John take the triangular power of 17 as its ‘fulness’, rather than the square? The answer is that the square (289) is a meaningless number, whereas the triangular (153) receives an appropriate sense from that very treatise of numbers which St. John found in Solomon’s temple-building. The labour of the building was done by the non-Israelites of Solomon’s dominions; 153 thousand and some odd hundreds were set to work (II Chron. II, 17-18: VIII, 7-8). What could be more appropriate to St. John’s purpose? The miraculous catch, as has long been recognized, signifies Gentile converts: it is these, rather than the Jews, who build up the temple of God, the church."

Some people think that the New Testament is two dimensional, or less. That would be an error. Others think that St. John the Divine had too much time on his hands while in exile on Patmos. Perhaps, but I prefer inspired, holy, brilliance.

God bless,

LSP

Horsing About

Got to the barn this morning to find horses getting a good brush down, which they needed,

then rode about for bit in the fresh air - windy, but sunny with it. Practiced riding without stirrups, good for balance and seat, evidently, and generally carried on in the equine way. Fun.

Barndom over, I took a picture of bucolic utopia and stopped at the oddly named "Karen's Authentic Mexican Food".

Well, I don't know if it is or not, but I like their Bean & Brisket tacos, which always seem to go down well after a bout with the quadrupeds.

So that was the morning - "ride more" objective lived up to - shooting? Not today, sadly, but tomorrow will be a different story, probably involving pistols and AR, along with scouting out set-ups for a night time coyote call.

More on the Book of Revelation later.

God bless,

LSP