Category Archives: Christianity

Sunday Devotional: What it means to love another

Posted on January 30, 2022 by | 6 comments

John 15:9-10, 12-14

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me,
so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments,
you will remain in my love….
This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”

So what exactly is love?

In our corrupt times, the word “love” is used to justify any or all deeds, even the most perverse and evil.

Carnal lust is called “love”. Pedophilia is called “man-boy love”. Bestiality is re-named “zoophilia” — love of animals. Incest is given the gloss by faux science as “genetic sexual attraction”.

“Love” has become a synonym of “Do as you will”.

This is what love really means.

1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13

Brothers and sisters:
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.
But I shall show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in human and angelic tongues,
but do not have love,
I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy,
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if I have all faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own,
and if I hand my body over so that I may boast,
but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, it is not pompous,
It is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.
If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing;
if tongues, they will cease;
if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child,
think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.

by Jon McNaughton

If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that we say we love another but often are not patient or kind to the other, or are jealous or pompous or inflated or rude or quick to anger or brood over some injury instead of being forgiving. How many of us say we love but are instead selfish, self-seeking and self-advancing?

I know I fail St. Paul’s definition of love woefully often.

Granted, we are a fallen creation and are sinful by nature. But if we claim to love Jesus, He told us in no uncertain terms that for us to remain in His love, we must keep His commandments, especially the commandment to “love one another”.

So, if we don’t at least try, and try, and try to love in accordance to the true definition of love, then we are in jeopardy of not remaining in God’s love.

What a terrifying thought!

I don’t want that. Do you?

May the love and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,

~E

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Sunday Devotional: Faith, Evidence and Logic

Posted on January 23, 2022 by | 2 comments

Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events
that have been fulfilled among us,
just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning
and ministers of the word have handed them down to us,
I too have decided,
after investigating everything accurately anew,
to write it down in an orderly sequence for you,
most excellent Theophilus, 
so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings
you have received.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,
and news of him spread throughout the whole region.
He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom 
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
            The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
                        because he has anointed me 
                        to bring glad tidings to the poor.
            He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
                        and recovery of sight to the blind,
                        to let the oppressed go free,
                        and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

It is often said that belief in God and Christianity is a matter of faith, which the dictionary defines as “belief that is not based on proof”. By “proof” is meant not the proof of mathematics, but the “proof” of empirical evidence. And so, it is said that, with the grace from God, the believer takes a “leap of faith” across a cavern of lack of empirical evidence, to believe and trust in something intangible that’s incapable of being proved.

Though the existence of God and the assertion that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ cannot be 100-percent proven with empirical evidence –bearing in mind that there are no absolute, 100%-true knowledge in the empirical domain because we have not seen everything in the Universe — that does not mean an absence of evidence. There is also the matter of logic — the employment of reasoning, inference and sound judgment to ascertain truth or falsity.

Today’s Gospel reading from Luke 1 and 4 includes both empirical evidence and logic:

(1) The empirical evidence consists of three pieces:

  • Percipient witnesses: In law, there’s an important concept critical to the determination of truth. The concept is “percipient witness,” defined by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary as “A witness who testifies about things she or he actually perceived. For example, an eyewitness.” The passage from Luke 1:2 makes reference to just that — “those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning” — referring to the apostles and disciples who were eyewitnesses of the person, teachings, behaviors and events of Jesus of Nazareth, including the many miracles He made.
  • Jesus taught in the synagogues: The passage from Luke 4:15 states “He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.” One has to ask how a 30-year-old, unschooled carpenter managed to have a rabbi’s expert knowledge in scriptures as to not just teach in synagogues, but taught so well that he was “praised by all”.
  • Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies: Did you know that the Old Testament had foretold the incarnation, persecution and death-by-crucifixion of Jesus? In Luke 4, Jesus Himself referred to the prophesies when he read “a scroll of the prophet Isaiah,” describing what the coming Messiah would do, including the healing (“recovery of sight”) of the blind. (For other prophetic passages in the Old Testament which were fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth, see my post “Sunday Devotional: Book of Wisdom foretold the killing of Jesus“.)

(2) Logic:

The account in Luke 4 continues that after reading the passage from the prophet Isaiah, Jesus said to “all in the synagogue” who were looking “intently at him”:

“Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

C. S. Lewis, in a series of BBC radio talks later published as the book Mere Christianity (pp. 54-56), perfectly describes the choices available to us when confronted with Jesus’ startling assertion. Lewis said:

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said…would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to…. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

In stark terms, those are our choices. Jesus of Nazareth — whose life, words and deeds, including many miracles, were testified to by countless percipient eyewitnesses — was either (1) insane; (2) a pathological liar or evil; or (3) who he said he was — God.

With the available empirical evidence and employing our intellect and logical faculties, we should ask ourselves:

  • Did Jesus of Nazareth act in a deranged or psychotic manner?
  • Did Jesus of Nazareth tell untruths, much less habitually lie?
  • Was Jesus of Nazareth evil? Did he hurt, harm, or act with malice toward another? On the contrary, he was kind and forgiving, healed the sick and the blind, and even resurrected the dead!

So, the next time someone sneers at your belief in Jesus being the Son of God, calling your belief a blind and irrational “leap of faith,” you can with confidence declare that your faith has the support of both (empirical) proof and logic. The atheist, however, is woefully deficient in both — a subject for a future discussion.

May the peace and love of Jesus Christ, our Lord, be with you,

~E

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Sunday Devotional: The Importance of the Baptism of Our Lord

Posted on January 9, 2022 by | 4 comments

Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

The people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

After all the people had been baptized
and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,
heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
in bodily form like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my beloved Son;
with you I am well pleased.”

The account of Jesus’ baptism is significant for at least two reasons:

(1) The Baptism of our Lord by St. John the Baptist is one of several instances in the Old and New Testaments  (see also Genesis 1:26, John 5:7, and Matthew 28) when the nature of the Triune Godhead is revealed as the confounding mystery of three Persons in one God, which our greatest theologians had sought in vain to plumb.

St. Thomas Aquinas concluded in Summa Theologica:

We cannot come to the knowledge of the Trinity by reason alone, that is, by the natural and unaided efforts of the human mind. By our natural reason, we can know that God exists; that he is the First Cause of all; that he is one, infinite, simple, immutable, etc. But that the one God subsists in three really distinct Persons is a truth that can be known only by supernatural means. That is a truth beyond the reach of human reason to know, to prove, or to disprove. We know this truth by divine revelation, and accept it by supernatural faith; we take it upon the authority of God himself.… By aid of the light of glory the soul in heaven sees God himself clearly and truly.

And so we accept our human limitation and believe, putting our trust in the words of St. Paul that we shall understand fully when we see God face to face:

1 Corinthians 13:11-12

When I was a child, I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;
when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly,
but then face to face.
Now I know in part;
then I shall understand fully,
even as I have been fully understood.

(2) Luke 3’s account also speaks to the importance that Jesus holds for Baptism. Though a sacrament meant for sinful humanity, the sinless Son of God chose to be baptized before He began His public ministry.

These are St. Paul’s words on Baptism:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” -Romans 6:3-4

“But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” -1 Corinthians 6:11

“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” -Galatians 3:27

Baptism purifies and sanctifies (makes holy) the person, making him/her a dwelling of the Holy Spirit. That means that without Baptism, a person is without the Holy Spirit and rendered defenseless against the evil one.

I don’t know what other Christian denominations believe about baptism, but in the Catholic Church — notwithstanding its many flaws, including the terrible sins committed by its clergy — the sacrament of Baptism is an act of exorcism:

Since Baptism signifies liberation from sin and from its instigator the devil, one or more exorcisms are pronounced over the candidate. The celebrant then anoints him with the oil of catechumens, or lays his hands on him, and he explicitly renounces Satan. (#1237 of Catechism of the Catholic Church)

In this manner, through the exorcizing sacrament of Baptism, “all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam’s sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God.”

Moreover, through Baptism we receive the gift of grace from the Holy Trinity — to believe in God, to love Him, and to grow in goodness. In other words, the whole organism of the Christian’s supernatural life has its roots in Baptism.

So if you are a Christian, don’t make the mistake of postponing the baptism of your child(ren) like a friend of mine who, although he is a non-denomination Protestant and thinks of himself as quite devout, married a shallow woman with no religious beliefs. He spoke of the marriage as a mistake. They produced a daughter, now 30 years old with degrees in art and animation, and still living with her parents. My friend neither had his daughter baptized nor brought her to church services. When I asked him why, he said he wanted to leave it up to her to decide for herself when she’s an adult.

But in so doing, my friend rendered his daughter defenseless against the rampant dark forces of popular culture. Evidence of that contamination includes disturbing images she drew and posted to Instagram, including that of a goat’s head (or Baphomet) that she named “Menace of the goat king”, and a drawing for her business card of a demonic girl (herself) with two skulls.

Baptism — clothing your child “with Christ” — is the most important thing you can and will ever do for your child.

May the peace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,

~E

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Sunday Devotional: The Magi and the Christmas Star

Posted on January 2, 2022 by | 5 comments

Matthew 2:1-2, 9-12

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
“Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage.”

And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.

 

The Oxford Dictionaries defines “ephiphany” (with a small “e”) as “a moment of sudden revelation or insight” and “a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being”. The word “Epiphany” (with a capital “E”) refers to “the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi”.

Today is the great feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates the adoration of Jesus by the Magi — an event that had been foretold in Isaiah 60:1-6 some 800 years before the birth of Christ.

Isaiah 60:1-6

Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you….
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you….
Then…the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the Lord.

The Magi were wise men, non-Hebrew pagans from the East. Bearing gifts fit for a king — those of gold, frankincense, and myrrh — their coming to Jerusalem to pay homage to “the king of the Jews” shows that they sought, in the messianic light of the Christmas star, the one who will be king of all nations.

It is noteworthy that the first creatures to see the newborn Jesus were his human parents, Mary and Joseph; angels on high; humble farm animals; lowly shepherds; and Gentiles — the Magi.

The Epiphany, therefore, signifies the manifestation of Jesus as Son of God and Savior of the world, not just the Old Testament‘s oft-prophesied messiah of the Jews. God is not a tribal deity, exclusive to only the so-called “chosen people”. Jesus the Christ came for Jews and Gentiles. He came for all of us, no matter our race, gender, language, country, or creed.

As St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians 3:6:

[T]he Gentiles are coheirs,
members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise
in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Noteworthy also is the fact that the Magi, as the first Gentiles to find Jesus, were also the first Gentiles to receive His salvific grace. As recounted in Matthew 2:12:

And having been warned in a dream
not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country
by another way.

By the way, astronomers, using software programs reproducing the night sky exactly as it was thousands of years ago, have determined there really was a Christmas Star or Star of Bethlehem — another empirical or scientific confirmation of biblical accounts. David Reneke, news editor of Australia’s Sky and Space Magazine, said: “We found out something startling. It looks like the ‘Christmas star’ really did exist.”

It’s generally accepted by most researchers that Christ was born between 3 BC and 1 AD. On 12 August, 3 BC, Jupiter and Venus appeared very close together just before sunrise, appearing as bright morning stars. It would have been visible in the eastern dawn sky of the Middle East from about 3:45 to 5:20 a.m.

But it didn’t stop there. The crowning touch came ten months later, on 17 June 2 BC, Venus and Jupiter joined up again in the constellation Leo. This time the two planets were so close that, without the use of our modern telescopes and other optical aids, they would have looked like one single, brilliant star.

Venus is known as the planet of love, Jupiter the planet of kings, and Leo denotes royalty and power.

How appropriate that these heavenly bodies were pointing to the birth of Jesus the Christ — the King of kings, Lord of lords, the salvific God of love who became human in order to suffer and die for our redemption.

Did you know that last year on December 21, the Christmas star reappeared when the two largest planets in our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, seemed to almost merge in Earth’s night sky, just 0.1 degrees apart or a mere one-fifth the width of the Moon. The two planets were closer than they were in almost 800 years, since 1226 A.D., when Genghis Khan was conquering large swaths of Asia, and Europe was still generations away from the Renaissance. (Astronomy)

The next Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn will occur in 2080, 58 years from now.

Below is a picture of the 2020 Christmas star viewed from Jerusalem looking toward Bethlehem (source: Earl Tucker Dickerson):

For other passages in the Old Testament foretelling the incarnation of the Second Person of the Triune Godhead, see my post “Sunday Devotional: He shall be peace“.

May the joy of the Epiphany and the peace and love of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, be with you!

~E

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Christmas: All things came to be through Him

Posted on December 25, 2021 by | 5 comments

John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.

But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation
nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision
but of God.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.
John testified to him and cried out, saying,
“This was he of whom I said,
‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’”
From his fullness we have all received,
grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side,
has revealed him.

The Parable of the Farmer and the Geese

There once was a farmer who, though a decent man, was an unbeliever because he could not understand why God would become man, only to be crucified to death, abandoned by his friends.

The farmer loved all animals, but especially loved birds.

One morning, news came of the imminent arrival of a terrible snow storm. Anxious to protect his flock of geese from the coming blizzard, the farmer put his heavy coat on and went out to get the geese into the shelter and safety of the barn.

He first tried coaxing the geese, gently shooing them into the barn. But the geese, being geese, refused to be coaxed.

He then tried luring the geese into the barn. He got a bag of grain and left a trail of seed from the outside into the barn. The geese ate the seed but stubbornly refused to enter the barn.

Meanwhile, the wind began to howl, and heavy snow began to fall . . . .

Now desperate, the farmer thought he would try scaring the geese. So he took a hammer and banged on a metal pan, so that the loud noise would frighten the geese into the barn. But the geese again refused to budge.

So the farmer gave up and retreated into his house.

In the warmth of his living room, he stood helplessly at the window, watching the blizzard descend on the geese. He knew they would surely die in the freezing storm.

In despair, a thought came to the farmer: “If only I could become a goose, then maybe the geese might listen to me and follow me into the barn.”

At that, the farmer finally understood.

Falling on his knees, sobbing and choking with tears, he said: “Forgive me, Lord. I know now why You became man.”

Today we celebrate the birth of our Savior, the Light of the world.

Rejoice!

May the joy of CHRISTmas be with you this glorious morning,

~E

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Homeless dog finds shelter next to baby Jesus

Posted on December 24, 2021 by | 6 comments

In Criciúma, Brazil, a homeless dog finds shelter in a nativity scene next to baby Jesus….

~E

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Christians are going extinct in Jerusalem, attacked by radical Jews

Posted on December 19, 2021 by | 5 comments

In an essay in The Telegraph, Dec. 18, 2021, Francesco Patton, the leader of the Franciscan Friars in the Holy Land and throughout the Middle East, dolefully writes that Christians are on the verge of extinction in Jerusalem:

[O]nce we numbered 20 per cent of the population of Jerusalem, today the Christian community counts for less than 2 per cent.

In recent years, the lives of many Christians have been made unbearable by radical local groups with extremist ideologies. It seems that their aim is to free the Old City of Jerusalem from its Christian presence, even the Christian quarter. In the last years we suffered because of the desecration of our holy sites, the vandalization of our churches, offences against our priests, monks and worshippers. The frequency of these hate crimes leaves families and communities who have lived here for generations feeling unwelcome in their own homes.

But Patton does not identify who the “radical local groups with extremist ideologies” are.

The reader immediately thinks of radical Muslims.

But Patton provides a clue when he writes that “These radical groups do not represent the government or the people of Israel.”

A couple of alert Telegraph readers point us to these little-known and -publicized news reports:

  • In 2015, National Geographic reported on increasing “tension between Christians in Israel and a growing movement of Jewish extremists who seek to cleanse their nation of religious minorities.” Attacks against Christians “have become more brutal and more aggressive,” including an arson attack six months ago that left one Catholic monk hospitalized and caused nearly $1.8 million in damage.” The response from the Israeli government had been less than vigorous.
  • More recently, on Dec. 17, 2021, LifeSiteNews reports that “Throughout recent years…, there have been reports of radical Jewish individuals and groups in Jerusalem spitting on Christians, disrupting their prayer and likely firebombing their property, which Church authorities have routinely condemned…. According to a 2017 report, within an eight-year timeframe, 53 churches and mosques were vandalized in Israel and Palestinian territories under Israeli military occupation. Of those incidents there were only nine indictments and seven convictions, with 45 of those cases being closed.”

The Israeli government is not just limpid in its response to the attacks by radical Jewish groups against Christians, the government indirectly encourages the attacks via the 2018 Nation State Law.

The Nation State Law states that although non-Jews (including Christians and Arabs) “are no less citizens of this country than our Jewish brothers and sisters,” “According to this law, the State of Israel has legislated that the people whose ‘welfare and safety’ it is most concerned to promote and protect are limited to the Jewish citizens of the State of Israel.”

Doesn’t this send a message to Jewish extremists that the Israeli government will not promote and protect the welfare and safety of Christians?

Meanwhile, the response from Pope Francis is the sound of crickets.

Pope Francis hides the Crucifix in his waist sash so as not to offend Israeli rabbis.

~E

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Sunday Devotional: He shall be peace

Posted on December 19, 2021 by | 2 comments

Micah 5:1-4a

Thus says the LORD:
You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah
too small to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel;
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient times.
Therefore the Lord will give them up, until the time
when she who is to give birth has borne,
and the rest of his kindred shall return
to the children of Israel.
He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock
by the strength of the LORD,
in the majestic name of the LORD, his God;
and they shall remain, for now his greatness
shall reach to the ends of the earth;
he shall be peace.

Today is the last Sunday of Advent before Christmas.

How fitting it is that our reading is the passage from the the Old Testament’s “Book of Micah” — one of many passages in the Old Testament foretelling the incarnation of the Second Person of the Triune Godhead.

Those prophetic passages include the following:

  • Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
  • Jeremiah 23:5: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.”
  • Numbers 24:17: “there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.”
  • Psalm 22:1: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?”
  • Psalm 22:16: “they pierced my hands and my feet.”
  • Psalm 22:18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.”
  • Wisdom 2:12, 17-20: “The wicked say: Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training. Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him. For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes. With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”
  • Zechariah 9:9: “behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”
  • Zechariah 11:12: “So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.”

And yet so many Jews at the time and after simply refuse to believe that Jesus Christ indeed is the foretold Messiah, such is the obdurate hardness of the human heart.

May the peace and love of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior be with you,

~E

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Sunday Devotional: Be joyful!

Posted on December 12, 2021 by | 4 comments

Isaiah 12:3

With joy you will draw water
from the fountains of salvation

Zephaniah 3:14, 17

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem! […]
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior,
Who will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
Who will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.

Philippians 4:4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

The Bible is replete with injunctions that we be joyful; the above three passages are examples.

What is joy?

The dictionary defines “joy” as “a state of happiness or felicity.”

Joy is different from happiness in that happiness is a fleeting emotion, but joy is a”state” — the condition of a person — of happiness. As someone once said, “Joy is not a season, it’s a way of living.”

Joy is not based upon whether things are going well or not. Joy is an emotion that comes from the anticipation, acquisition or expectation of something great or wonderful.

Joy consists of at least two components, gratitude and optimism, both of which are beneficial to our health (see my post of October 24, 2021, here).

Have you noticed how what God instructs us to do always turns out to be good for us?

St. Paul tells us joy is one of the fruits or results of having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:6; Romans 14:17), which is why we can be joyful even in the midst of great trials and suffering.

I recently was subjected to malicious rumor-mongering from three nieces-in-law, which reminded me of two aphorisms: (1) No good deed goes unpunished; and (2) Never underestimate the human potential for evil.

Instead of getting angry, I thought of what our Lord Jesus had endured — betrayal by a beloved disciple, abandonment by His friends when He needed them the most, followed by torture and death by crucifixion, the most extreme form of execution that the Romans reserved for the worst criminals.

How can any of our trials and tribulations ever compare to His?

At that thought, I became joyful.

Joy even helped our Lord Jesus Christ endure the cross: “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

So be joyful!

Praise the Lord, and let your heart burst with joy!

May the joy and peace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you!

~E

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Newsmax White House correspondent: Pope Francis is dying

Posted on December 8, 2021 by | 4 comments

John Gizzi, formerly a writer for Human Events, is currently the chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.

Yesterday, Dec. 7, Gizzi reported for Newsmax, “Vatican Preps for Conclave as ‘Pope Is Dying“.

The brief article is behind a paywall, which you can access for $1.

According to Novus Ordo Watch:

Gizzi writes that a “secretary of one of the most powerful Vatican Cardinals” told him straightfowardly: “Pope Francis is dying.” Furthermore, Gizzi asserts that sources inside the Vatican do not expect Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) to see the end of next year, 2022, and are in “pre-Conclave mode”.

Without more details, one can only speculate as to what exactly the situation is, but apparently Francis is said to be terminally ill and not expected to live another 13 months for that reason. A diagnosis has not been revealed or rumored, but colon cancer would be a possibility, considering Bergoglio’s colon surgery back in early July. At the time, some Vaticanists expressed concern that this surgery had not been announced days or weeks in advance, as would have been customary….

The question at issue, then, is whether it is Francis and the Vatican public relations machine that are downplaying the reality, or whether certain officials in the Vatican are exaggerating it, perhaps due to wishful thinking. Time will surely tell.

Last July 7, Luis Badilla Morales of the Francis-friendly and well-connected Italian Novus Ordo blog Il Sismografo reported that Francis’ condition was more serious than the Vatican was letting on: “the disease that has struck Pope Francis is severe and degenerative. It could also be chronic.”

~E

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Posted in Christianity, The Left

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