by SFXparish | Sep 10, 2020 | BLOG
Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. The vengeful will suffer the LORD’s vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail. (Sir 27:30 – 28:1)
Vengeance in the human heart is the angry portion of justice. Vengeance, or the infliction of punishment upon one who has done moral wrong, is not a bad thing in itself as it is certainly a part of justice. The only thing is – vengeance belongs entirely to God (Dt 32:35).
God gives the law to man to temper his desire for vengeance and because he wants man to exercise his power of reason in his relations. Law is always meant to be an “ordinance of reason” so that it will be “blind” to emotion and to ensure that the punishment of the guilty will be based on uprightness and not on anger, pride, envy, etc.
If vengeance belongs to God alone (in the sense that God’s anger is always perfect and justifiable) then we should avoid acting like it falls to us to dispense it. We should avoid seeking revenge, which is the term we use for describing man’s emotional pursuit of personal justice. In the act of revenge, one person (or a group of persons) takes it upon themselves, outside Church and State law, to inflict injury (physical or otherwise) on the offending (or apparently offending) party. Once the vengeful person or group has abandoned the law to act outside it, all kinds of dangerous things can be marshaled up along with injuries that perpetuate on both sides leading to individual and factional feuds. When this occurs there needs be called into play a legitimate authority to restore the law and to remind the individuals or factions involved to respect the rule of law and its enforcement.
In today’s first reading we reflect on revenge as a spiritual matter. We read that God sees wrath and anger in his children as hateful things and he wants to separate his beloved from these vices utterly. Man is also warned that when vengeance becomes an intentional activity which deliberately ignores the counsel and justice of God, it is a very grave sin that God remembers in his divine judgment.
For this 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time we place on our bulletin cover a work by Jacques-Louise David entitled The Pain of Andromache (1783 – From Wikiart). David was a Neoclassical artist and portraiture painter in the decades before the French Revolution after which he was given by Robespierre full control of the arts in the French Republic. As we know from reading about that radical revolution, the “Republic” specialized heinously in the art of revenge.
Our bulletin image captures the sad effect of revenge. Prince Hector lies dead on his bed after being killed in combat by Achilles, vengeful for the death of his friend Patroclus. The gods restored Hector’s corpse which had been dragged over the beach of Troy by Achilles. Hector thus died not in war, but in single combat over revenge. We see Hector’s wife Andromache lamenting and praying over her loss and her son Astyanax lamenting over her lamentation. This succession of suffering is indicated by the interweaving of arms which begins with Hector’s lifeless right arm continuing to his wife’s right arm, through her body to her son’s right arm and finally through the boy’s left arm to his mother’s breast.
Vengeance itself results in a succession of injury and suffering. Thus the need to forgive “seventy-seven times” if one is to truly imitate God (Mt 18:22).
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Sep 3, 2020 | BLOG
Thus says the LORD: You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me. (Ez 33:7)
The Church offers “vigil” Mass because of the many duties and complications the modern world has imposed upon Sunday especially the requirement of work. Still, there was a time when the vigil was not the celebration itself, but the liturgical preparation with accompanying prayers and fasting for the celebration to follow the next day. The vigil was once the expectation; it was not the culmination.
In any case it is vital that the Church recapture the practice of keeping vigil especially in our trying times. The term “vigil” is of course closely related to its first cousin: vigilance. To be vigilant means to be “watchful”. This is why the vigil rite was once only preparative to the main celebration asking us to wait upon the Lord with alert anticipation like an eager child waits for Christmas morn.
Toward our culture we have not been vigilant. Over the long watch of decades or even centuries we have not kept vigil over the increasing secularization of daily life. Perhaps if Christians had peacefully but firmly refused the requirement to work on Sunday, we would not be so reliant now upon the vigil Mass, while certainly we would have shown our state authority that while we respect its administration of the work day, we reject its incursion on the Lord’s Day.
Yet, Catholics and other Christians are a compliant lot. We have been taught to respect authority and not to disobey unless in the case of great moral failing. The problem is that when great moral failing finally arrives it finds us comfortable and sleepy, unable to be roused to address injustices against religious liberty. Christians are not “of-the-world” hence we are the antithesis of the Marxist protestor who in succumbing to be reduced to an economic and political unit claims the world as his own. Yet, while the world may not be our destiny, Christians are still the stewards of the world for the Creator, still defenders of what is rightly God’s.
For this 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, we place on our bulletin cover a work by Swedish painter August Jernberg entitled Night Watch (1885). Jernberg was an academic painter and practitioner of the Dusseldorf School which put forward genre and allegorical works. The Night Watch of Jernberg was itself an allegorical work which incorporated the original Night Watch of Rembrandt as the basis of its symbolic message.
Here we see visitors to Trippenhuis, the Netherlandish academy of arts, which houses the original Night Watch of Rembrandt situated on the large wall in Jernberg’s image. In this painting a militia captain and his civic guardsmen set out into the city to keep civil order. The ladies and gentleman standing near the painting represent society’s attachment to the comfort provided by this order. Only the young boy standing completely still facing the wall is thoroughly engrossed by the painting within the painting. It is as if he sees the inevitable discord that arises when pleasure replaces virtue as the culture’s primary motivation.
We are the Church Militant. We watch against sin and temptation and the injustice it incurs and we warn the world against these. The world may not listen, but this does not mean that we abandon our post. We keep up the watching and the warning for all those who will listen.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Aug 27, 2020 | BLOG
I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it. (Jer 20:9)
Someone I once knew faulted me for being “addicted to religion”. This person was disturbed at how my belief in heaven colored all that I saw on earth. Interestingly, if I had spoken all day in support of liberal progressive subjects and of nothing else, this person would have judged me to be a concerned and vital citizen, but because I spoke often about God, it seemed that I required time in a rehab clinic.
Addictions never turn out well. The inordinate desire and extreme consumption of any apparent good as the one and only good always ends in unhappiness. This goes not only for those substances we consume but also for those social experiments that consume us: feminism, socialism, communism, and our new oligarchic capitalism, to name a few. True, religion too can be addictive if practiced as extremism. However, in my own humble assessment, those of us “religionists” who believe that killing a child in the womb is wrong, that hospice care is far superior to suicide, that marriage is a union of the male and female founded in nature, and that it should be legally permissible (and always advisable) for a man to enter into counseling if he thinks he is a woman, are not practicing extremism, but exercising right reason.
Now the interior suffering that the prophet Jeremiah speaks of in today’s scriptural passage (above) is not the woe of an excessive craving, but the holding back of divine adoration. The soul of Jeremiah is so united with the spirit of his creator that he cannot but speak of him. Even though Jeremiah faces pain and mistreatment when he speaks out the Lord’s word, he sees it as an even greater violence to himself when he keeps it in! This is not an addiction. This is a devotion.
For this 22nd Sunday in Ordinary time, we place on our bulletin cover a painting by the Baroque master Adam Elsheimer entitled St. Paul (Wikiart-1605). Elsheimer was a German painter who made his way to Rome absorbing its methods and adapting these to his German training. He eventually converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism. His style was influential on the Germanic (Dutch) traditions of Rembrandt and Rubens, the latter with whom he became friends.
Even though this image is of St. Paul, it is reminiscent of Jeremiah and of all who feel exiled for speaking their faith. Here Paul stands head bowed leaning on a sword, not for doing battle, unless one means battle for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul is painted here in a lovely pastoral scene and the image is meant to emote in us a sense of peace for having spoken out on behalf of God, his commandments, and his virtues. Paul’s clothing even takes on the color of the landscape which not only makes for a beautiful synchronized image but bespeaks the universality of Paul’s mission, “I have become all things to all, to save at least some” (1 Cor 9:22).
Lastly, Elsheimer places Paul upon the heights as one who has risen above the world through the knowledge of God. Paul must descend into the world, and we who know what Paul knows must follow him, burning interiorly and helplessly to speak the Good News.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Aug 26, 2020 | NEWS
As we mentioned in last Sunday’s bulletin we will be adding a third Sunday morning Mass and will also be adjusting the Mass times accordingly. Below is the new Mass Schedule to begin on Sunday, September 13th:
7:00 am
9:00 am
11:00 am
Many parishioners have already emailed or called the parish office to indicate which Mass they would like to attend. In order to see that every household that regularly attends the 8:00 am and the 10:30 Mass will be given a chance to select the new Sunday Mass time they will want to attend, our ushers will have forms for recording your full name, the Mass you are now attending, and the Mass you wish to attend. While we will not have these forms at the 4 pm Mass; any Saturday vigil Mass goers may call or email the parish office if they would like to move to one of the Sunday Mass times.
The primary reason for adding the extra Sunday Mass is to make room for more individuals and families that are returning to the Holy Liturgy. We also anticipate that as the students return to religious education we will have more families in attendance (thus especially the need for the 9:00 and 11:00 am Masses). We thank you for your patience, understanding and flexibility in this most challenging process.
Please note that at this time we are only taking calls or emails for seating for the new Mass times from registered parishioners so that we can get all SFX households situated for the new schedule to begin on Sunday 13 September. Thank you.
by SFXparish | Aug 20, 2020 | BLOG
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. (Mt 16:18)
Gates generally don’t prevail; at least they don’t in any kind of military offensive. Armies don’t move about in great mobile enclosures with gates that open and close gobbling up their enemies like a giant Pac Man. It is true that a strong and protected gate can add to a sturdy defense and hence may “prevail” against those trying to enter. However, it is difficult to see how “the gates of the netherworld” could think of prevailing against the Church of Christ in this way, since the Church is never eager to enter into hell.
If this be the case, then why does Jesus tell Peter that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church? A gate’s primary duty is to maintain the coming-and-going in and out of the enclosure of which it is a part. Gates are generally kept closed to discourage entrance, yet opened as a sign of welcome. Gates are only as large as they need to be to let in only those things, the sizes of which are not too large for keeping out. Otherwise they are stationary devices that don’t make it their business to go about prevailing over other things.
However, considering our quote above from Sacred Scripture it is what stands behind the gate that most wants to prevail over the Church. The netherworld, the spiritual domain of the devil and his minions, ever desires to widen its enclosure with fallen souls. It expands through temptation and sin and broadens its reach and territory attempting to park its gate as close as it can to the Church. Yet, while evil may enter the Church through sinful priests, religious, and laity, the netherworld itself can never prevail against the Church because it cannot prevail against Jesus who has already vanquished its greatest weapon – eternal death.
On this 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time we place on our bulletin cover a detail of a Mannerist painting by the great Venetian master Tintoretto entitled, The Descent into Hell (1568). Tintoretto “broke through the gates” of the High Renaissance freeing Italian art from its classical restraint allowing for a more active and dramatic representation of the actions of Jesus Christ.
Here we see Christ on Easter Saturday descending into Hades to free souls from an enduring death. Below the hovering Christ is the gate of the dark netherworld broken asunder so as to release all those who died since Adam. Each will receive divine judgement and hopefully the freedom of God. An angel below Jesus carries a chain he has taken off of one of the dead, perhaps even from Adam who had been desperately awaiting this day. Unseen in our painting fragment are many more people in shadowy form and one nude female of bright appearance who must certainly be Eve, now redeemed by Christ the new Adam (1 Cor 15:22).
Natural death still reigns today over man on earth as a healthy reminder of his mortality and need for God. Everlasting death in the netherworld is also still a likelihood for those who deliberately disregard God’s truth and his command of mercy. But the risen Jesus, the Easter Christ, is the great sign (Mt 16:4) that each and every human person may skirt the gates of hell if only he repents and believes in the Gospel (Mk 1:15) thence proceeding through the gates of heaven.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
