#verbum domini

[thecolossalennui]

HE IS RISEN // HE IS RISEN // HE IS RISEN

BEHOLD!

FOR I AM MAKING ALL THINGS NEW

[spiritualdirections]

Pope Benedict XVI on Prayer, Scripture, and the Mysteries of God

In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI wrote Verbum Domini, “On the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church” after a meeting of many bishops from around the world that discussed the role of Scripture ought to play our spiritual lives. Here is an excerpt from the  section on how to pray with the Scriptures.

The prayerful reading of sacred Scripture and “lectio divina” [divine reading]

86. The word of God is at the basis of all authentic Christian spirituality. The [Second Vatican Council’s] Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum says: “Let the faithful go gladly to the sacred text itself, whether in the sacred liturgy, which is full of the divine words, or in devout reading, or in such suitable exercises and various other helps which, with the approval and guidance of the pastors of the Church, are happily spreading everywhere in our day. Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of sacred Scripture”. The Church Fathers always recommended approaching the Scripture in dialogue with God. As Saint Augustine puts it: “Your prayer is the word you speak to God. When you read the Bible, God speaks to you; when you pray, you speak to God”. Origen, one of the great masters of this way of reading the Bible, maintains that understanding Scripture demands, even more than study, closeness to Christ and prayer. Origen was convinced, in fact, that the best way to know God is through love, and that there can be no authentic scientia Christi [knowledge of Christ] apart from growth in his love. In his Letter to Gregory, the great Alexandrian theologian gave this advice: “Devote yourself to the lectio of the divine Scriptures; apply yourself to this with perseverance. Do your reading with the intent of believing in and pleasing God. If during the lectio you encounter a closed door, knock and it will be opened to you by that guardian of whom Jesus said, ‘The gatekeeper will open it for him’. By applying yourself in this way to lectio divina, search diligently and with unshakable trust in God for the meaning of the divine Scriptures, which is hidden in great fullness within. You ought not, however, to be satisfied merely with knocking and seeking: to understand the things of God, what is absolutely necessary is oratio [prayer]...” Prayerful reading, personal and communal, prepares for, accompanies and deepens what the Church celebrates when she proclaims the word at Mass...

  87. Lectio divina [as a traditional method of reading Scripture] is truly capable of opening up to the faithful the treasures of God’s word, but also of bringing about an encounter with Christ, the living word of God. I would like here to review the basic steps of this procedure. It opens with the reading (lectio) of a text, which leads to a desire to understand its true content: what does the biblical text say in itself? Without this, there is always a risk that the text will become a pretext for never moving beyond our own ideas. Next comes meditation (meditatio), which asks: what does the biblical text say to us? Here, each person, individually but also as a member of the community, must let himself or herself be moved and challenged. Following this comes prayer (oratio), which asks the question: what do we say to the Lord in response to his word? Prayer, as petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise, is the primary way by which the word transforms us. Finally, lectio divina concludes with contemplation (contemplatio), during which we take up, as a gift from God, his own way of seeing and judging reality, and ask ourselves what conversion of mind, heart and life is the Lord asking of us? In the Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul tells us: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:2). Contemplation aims at creating within us a truly wise and discerning vision of reality, as God sees it, and at forming within us “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). The word of God appears here as a criterion for discernment... We do well also to remember that the process of lectio divina is not concluded until it arrives at action (actio), which moves the believer to make his or her life a gift for others in charity.

    We find the supreme synthesis and fulfilment of this process in the Mother of God, for she “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19; cf. 2:51...The  reading of the word of God sustains us on our journey of penance and conversion, enables us to deepen our sense of belonging to the Church, and helps us to grow in familiarity with God. As Saint Ambrose puts it, “When we take up the sacred Scriptures in faith and read them with the Church, we walk once more with God in the Garden”.

[lawrenceop]

Healed by the God who Speaks

HOMILY for the 15th Sunday per annum (A)

Isaiah 55:10-11; Ps 64; Rom 18:18-23; Matt 12:1-23

Today’s readings invite us to pause and marvel at something that perhaps we take for granted: God speaks to us! So, in Verbum Domini, Pope Benedict XVI observed that “The novelty of biblical revelation consists in the fact that God becomes known through the dialogue which he desires to have with us.” For God’s word has been sent into the world, and indeed, even into our hearts as today’s Gospel tells us. And God’s word, precisely because it is God’s is creative and causes things to be. The Hebrew word dabar encompasses this Scriptural idea that God’s word is always both word and deed. “The word of God always accomplishes something”, Herbert McCabe would say, and so it is never futile, never mere words like some kind of divine filibuster nor merely sentimental words meant to bring comfort. Rather, the Word of God acts and speaks divine truth and thus imparts divine life into our world, into our personal human situations. Our reading of Scripture and the cultivation of a life of prayer in silence helps us to hear that life-giving Word, so that it will be fruitful.

Our notion of the Word of God can be problematic if we think of it merely as a one-sided communication, as if God merely gives his commands and instructions that come to us from on high, and we simply have to discern and obey. But that isn’t how God works, and certainly not how we Christians understand divine revelation and the gift of grace. As McCabe says, God’s word is “not merely something that is listened to and understood, it is creative and life-giving… [it] is compared to the bread by which a man lives.” Indeed,  as the Gospel reveals, God’s Word has been planted in the soil of our human hearts precisely so as to give us life, and not just natural life but divine life. I like how McCabe explains this: “This share in divinity is first of all expressed by the fact that we are not merely things created, we are creatures who are on speaking terms with God. Because of the divine life in us, the Spirit of God in us, we are able to listen to what God says–this is what we call faith. Because of the divine life in us we are able to speak back to God.” The life of grace, the authentic life of the Christian, is thus marked by our dialogue with God, with the One who speaks, who is the eternal Word. 

In fact our Christian life is to be caught up in the eternal dialogue of love that is the Blessed Trinity. As Pope Benedict said: “the Word, who from the beginning is with God and is God, reveals God himself in the dialogue of love between the divine persons, and invites us to share in that love.” To share in that divine love is a work of a lifetime, and it involves all the pain and labour of being freed from our slavery to sin, of learning to suffer for the sake of the good and the true, of becoming able to sacrifice, for there is no love without the sorrow of sacrifice, which is a share in Christ’s Cross. For the seed that is sown in the ground must die if it is to have life (cf John 12:24). Hence the central image of the parable today is one of sacrificial love, like seed sown in our hearts. If our hearts are open to being ploughed, it will open up to this divine word that is imparted to us from within by an act of grace, teaching us the costliness of love, the sacrifice needed for fruitful and life-giving Christian discipleship.  

Christ himself explains the things that hinder this growth: superficial understanding, trials and persecutions, worldly attachments and the cares of this life. But his word invites us to dig deeper and reach higher. As McCabe says, “grace does not make man a better kind of creature, it raises him beyond creaturehood, it makes him share in divinity.” Christ’s word, therefore, invites us to have faith, to receive his Word with joy, with trust, with openness to heaven’s possibilities. And the one Word that is spoken into our world, into our hearts and lives is both word and deed, which means it not only reveals God’s truth but also elicits the act of belief within us. McCabe thus says: “The response to the Word is a part of the coming of the Word, it is the Word in us.” Thus, in faith, we become part of the divine dialogue of love, the dialogue of the Son and the Father, in the Holy Spirit. 

This is why, in order for God’s Word to germinate and flourish in us, we help our hearts to become good soil through humble and faithful prayer. Prayer is nourished by silence, fertilised by an intelligent understanding of the Scriptures, and moistened by our the sweat and tears of our lives. Indeed, McCabe calls this theology, which is (like St Dominic’s own example) speaking to God or about God; living the Christian life authentically. As McCabe says: “In this sense faith refers to a particular aspect of our response to Christ, our reliance on the Word of God for insight into God’s plan. In this aspect our abandonment to Christ means that we do not reply on our own intellectually powers, but, confronted by God’s plan, we (literally) take his Word for it.” We learn, in humility, to trust in God’s goodness and the assurance of Isaiah, for example, that God’s word does not return empty without accomplishing God’s will. Or as St Paul says, even in suffering and sorrow, we hope and wait “for our bodies to be set free.” 

Ultimately, then, to ponder God’s word is to turn our gaze on the person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Hence Benedict XVI said: “Here the word finds expression not primarily in discourse, concepts or rules. Here we are set before the very person of Jesus. His unique and singular history is the definitive word which God speaks to humanity. We can see, then, why ‘being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a definitive direction’.” 

For united with Christ the Word, who is sown in our very hearts, we shall now “understand with [our] heart, and be converted and be healed” by the God who is speaking to us today. 

[caelo-caducere]

happy 4/20 to people with intox kinks specifically. i hope yall have fun taking too many hits and getting fucked while you do

[caelo-caducere]

been doing hot dyke shit lately (wearing my strap on harness under my clothes most days)

[laus-deo]

En DIRECTO:Misa del Gallo desde la Basílica de San Pedro

En DIRECTO:Misa del Gallo desde la Basílica de San Pedro

PARA SEGUIR EN DIRECTO LA SANTA MISA PINCHE EN  https://www.ewtn.com/es/tv/en-vivo  

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[laus-deo]

SOLEMNIDAD DE LA ASUNCIÓN DE NUESTRA SEÑORA

SOLEMNIDAD DE LA ASUNCIÓN DE NUESTRA SEÑORA

Solemnidad de la Asunción de la Virgen María Lectura del santo Evangelio según san Lucas: 1, 39-56 En aquellos días, María se encaminó presurosa a un pueblo de las montañas de Judea, y entrando en la casa de Zacarías, saludó a Isabel. En cuanto ésta oyó el saludo de María, la criatura saltó en su seno. Entonces Isabel quedó llena del Espíritu Santo y levantando la voz, exclamó: “¡Bendita tú…

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[laus-deo]

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Solemnidad del Corpus Christi

      Evangelio

En aquel tiempo dijo Jesús a los judíos:

«Yo soy el pan vivo que ha bajado del cielo: el que come de este pan vivirá para siempre. Y el pan que yo daré es mi carne para la vida del mundo».

Disputaban entonces los judíos entre sí:

«¿Cómo puede éste darnos a comer su carne?»

Entonces Jesús les dijo:

«Os aseguro que, si no coméis la carne del Hijo del hombre y no bebéis su sangre,…

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