One cannot but wonder at this beautiful peace of art...
Courtesy:
http://www.facebook.com/ponvinnarasi.navarathinam
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Jesus Teaching with Authority
4th week in ordinary time.
Gospel Mk 1: 21-28
This is
Jesus’ first miracle in the Gospel of Mark. In this gospel story Jesus rebukes
the evil spirit that possesses a man and restores his dignity. While witnessing to the power of Jesus that
reduces evil to impotency, people, in astonishment say: “Here is a teaching
that is new, and with authority behind it: he gives orders even to unclean
spirits and they obey him.” This story invites us to reflect on the power of God’s
love that is given to humanity in the person of Jesus.
The power
of God’s love is revealed first and foremost in the healing ministry of Jesus. In
Jesus’ time people believed that sickness and every misfortune that occurs in their
life was brought about by evil spirits. People believed that the evil spirits
possesses much power and kept them in slavery. They felt helpless in the face of
the onslaught of evil powers. Is liberation possible from the bonds of slavery?
Is there a new dawn from the night of affliction?
All who
suffered from the yoke of evil cry out to Jesus for a new life; a life free
from the chains that binds them down. The gravity of the pain of the sufferers
is expressed in their defiant cries. The man the gospel of today depicts too is
afflicted by ungodly power. He is powerless to speak as he is struck down so
hard by the evil one that enslaved him. His brokenness is so acute he is no
more a human but called as a demoniac. What a fall for a person who is created
in the image and likeness of God?
Jesus comes
along and rebukes and decimates the possessor and liberates the man from the
oppressive clutches. In the presence of Jesus the power of evil is reduced to impotency.
Jesus has the power over the cosmic
forces. His words carry within them the power to heal, restore the lost dignity.
God’s Word creates life. God’s Word restores life. The evangelist John tells us
that this Word was with God and Word was God. In time the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us. The enfleshed Word of God renews humanity and whole creation.
Yes, God’s
power is manifested in the person of Christ. The man who was called demoniac is
restored to his wholeness. Jesus restores what this person has lost under the power
of evil. It is a foretaste of what has to happen in the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
He is to restore humanity the dignity of human person and open up a new way to be
with God. It is interesting that people present there could not make out this
truth whereas the evil one recognizes Jesus twice, saying ‘Jesus of Nazareth’
and ‘God’s holy one’. The gospel writer thus shows the crowds that followed
Jesus did not know the true identity of Jesus whereas Christian reader knows
this truth and that is attested by the demons.
Though the
world is charged with the grandeur of God, to use the words of Gerald Manley
Hopkins, it is a fact that it is also afflicted by selfishness and many other
ills that plague humanity. Many people are victims of their own sinfulness or
the evil designs of others. We know that we are not exceptions. All need the
healing touch of our Lord. His healing touch not only restores our wholeness
and dignity but also points towards the gift of new life that brings us to take
part in his life. This new life is the mystery given in grace through the
boundless love of God. The power of love is given to each one of us in our
living relationship with Christ.
The power of
God’s love also opens to us a new way of dealing with every member of our human
family. The many walls that we have erected should go. WE need to build more bridges
that connect us with one another. The narrowness of our vision has to change. Our
vision should be such that it brings all in communion with one another. Pettiness
of our hearts and minds should give way to magnanimity. In this way we cooperate
with God and bring about God’s healing touch to one and all.
By
Victor Edwin, SJ, Delhi, India.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
St. Thomas Aquinas
January 28
St. Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274)
By
universal consent, Thomas Aquinas is the preeminent spokesman of the
Catholic tradition of reason and of divine revelation. He is one of the
great teachers of the medieval Catholic Church, honored with the titles
Doctor of the Church and Angelic Doctor.
At five he was given to the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino in
his parents’ hopes that he would choose that way of life and eventually
became abbot. In 1239 he was sent to Naples to complete his studies. It
was here that he was first attracted to Aristotle’s philosophy.
By 1243, Thomas abandoned his family’s plans for him and joined the Dominicans, much to his mother’s dismay. On her order, Thomas was captured by his brother and kept at home for over a year.
Once free, he went to Paris and then to Cologne, where he finished his studies with Albert the Great. He held two professorships at Paris, lived at the court of Pope Urban IV, directed the Dominican schools at Rome and Viterbo, combated adversaries of the mendicants, as well as the Averroists, and argued with some Franciscans about Aristotelianism.
His greatest contribution to the Catholic Church is his writings. The unity, harmony and continuity of faith and reason, of revealed and natural human knowledge, pervades his writings. One might expect Thomas, as a man of the gospel, to be an ardent defender of revealed truth. But he was broad enough, deep enough, to see the whole natural order as coming from God the Creator, and to see reason as a divine gift to be highly cherished.
The Summa Theologiae, his last and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, deals with the whole of Catholic theology. He stopped work on it after celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. When asked why he stopped writing, he replied, “I cannot go on.... All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.” He died March 7, 1274.
By 1243, Thomas abandoned his family’s plans for him and joined the Dominicans, much to his mother’s dismay. On her order, Thomas was captured by his brother and kept at home for over a year.
Once free, he went to Paris and then to Cologne, where he finished his studies with Albert the Great. He held two professorships at Paris, lived at the court of Pope Urban IV, directed the Dominican schools at Rome and Viterbo, combated adversaries of the mendicants, as well as the Averroists, and argued with some Franciscans about Aristotelianism.
His greatest contribution to the Catholic Church is his writings. The unity, harmony and continuity of faith and reason, of revealed and natural human knowledge, pervades his writings. One might expect Thomas, as a man of the gospel, to be an ardent defender of revealed truth. But he was broad enough, deep enough, to see the whole natural order as coming from God the Creator, and to see reason as a divine gift to be highly cherished.
The Summa Theologiae, his last and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, deals with the whole of Catholic theology. He stopped work on it after celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. When asked why he stopped writing, he replied, “I cannot go on.... All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.” He died March 7, 1274.
Comment:
We can look to Thomas Aquinas as a towering example of Catholicism in the sense of broadness, universality and inclusiveness. We should be determined anew to exercise the divine gift of reason in us, our power to know, learn and understand. At the same time we should thank God for the gift of his revelation, especially in Jesus Christ.
We can look to Thomas Aquinas as a towering example of Catholicism in the sense of broadness, universality and inclusiveness. We should be determined anew to exercise the divine gift of reason in us, our power to know, learn and understand. At the same time we should thank God for the gift of his revelation, especially in Jesus Christ.
Quote:
“Hence
we must say that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs
divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act. But he
does not need a new light added to his natural light, in order to know
the truth in all things, but only in some that surpasses his natural
knowledge” (Summa Theologiae, I-II, 109, 1).
Courtesy:
www.americancatholic.org
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