Planning the Plan
This morning at our Joe Catholic Workshop, I gave my annual, first-of-the-year-talk on developing a spiritual game plan (aka plan of life). I intend to share the notes and video from this year's talk as soon as I finish the edits. Beginning tomorrow, I plan a more in depth discussion of the details of the suggested plan of life. I will be sharing lots of resources including a suggested reading list. For now, I'd like to share the videos from last year's talk to get you thinking about developing your own daily plan of prayer.
Plan of Life - Part 1
Plan of Life - Part 2
“As iron sharpens iron, so man sharpens his fellow man.” (Proverbs 27:17). The Joe Catholic blog is intended to provide Catholics and non-Catholics with resources to assist them in answering God's call to holiness. Our goal is to help people learn their faith, so they can live their faith and share their faith.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Friday, January 3, 2014
Litany of the Most Holy Name of Jesus
Litany of the Most Holy Name of
Jesus.
LORD, have mercy on us
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Jesus, hear us.
Jesus, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy on us.
Jesus, splendor of the Father, have mercy on us.
Jesus, brightness of eternal light, have mercy on us.
Jesus, king of glory, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the sun of justice, have mercy on us.
Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary, have mercy on us.
Jesus, amiable, have mercy on us.
Jesus, admirable, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the powerful God, have mercy on us.
Jesus, father of the world to come, have mercy on us.
Jesus, angel of the great council, have mercy on us.
Jesus, most powerful, have mercy on us.
Jesus, most patient, have mercy on us.
Jesus, most obedient, have mercy on us.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, have mercy on us.
Jesus, lover of chastity, have mercy on us.
Jesus, lover of us, have mercy on us.
Jesus, God of peace, have mercy on us.
Jesus, author of life, have mercy on us.
Jesus, model of all virtues, have mercy on us.
Jesus, zealous for souls, have mercy on us.
Jesus, our God, have mercy on us.
Jesus, our refuge, have mercy on us.
Jesus, father of the poor, have mercy on us.
Jesus, treasure of the faithful, have mercy on us.
Jesus, good shepherd, have mercy on us.
Jesus, true light, have mercy on us.
Jesus, eternal wisdom, have mercy on us.
Jesus, infinite goodness, have mercy on us.
Jesus, our way and our life, have mercy on us.
Jesus, joy of angels, have mercy on us.
Jesus, king of patriarchs, have mercy on us.
Jesus, master of apostles, have mercy on us.
Jesus, teacher of the evangelists, have mercy on us.
Jesus, strength of martyrs, have mercy on us.
Jesus, light of confessors, have mercy on us.
Jesus, purity of virgins, have mercy on us.
Jesus, crown of all saints, have mercy on us.
Be merciful, Spare us, O Jesus.
Be merciful, Graciously hear us, O Jesus
From all evil, deliver us, O Jesus.
From all sin, deliver us, O Jesus.
From Thy wrath, deliver us, O Jesus.
From the snares of the devil, deliver us, O Jesus.
From the spirit of fornication, deliver us, O Jesus.
From eternal death, deliver us, O Jesus.
From a neglect of Thy inspirations, deliver us, O Jesus.
By the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation, deliver us, O Jesus.
By Thy nativity, deliver us, O Jesus.
By Thy infancy, deliver us, O Jesus.
By Thy most divine life, have mercy on us.
By Thy labors, have mercy on us.
By Thy agony and passion, have mercy on us.
By Thy cross and dereliction, have mercy on us.
By Thy languors, have mercy on us.
By Thy death and burial, have mercy on us.
By Thy resurrection, have mercy on us.
By Thy ascension, have mercy on us.
By Thy institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, deliver us, O Jesus.
By Thy joys, deliver us, O Jesus.
By Thy glory, deliver us, O Jesus.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, Spare us,O Jesus!
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, Hear us, O Jesus!
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us, O Jesus!
Jesus, hear us.
Jesus, graciously hear us.
Let us pray.
O, LORD Jesus Christ, Who has said, 'Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock
and it shall be opened unto you!' mercifully attend to our supplications and grant us the gift of
your divine charity, that we may ever love you with our whole heart and never desist from Thy
praise.
Give us, O Lord, a perpetual respect and love of Thy holy name; for you never cease to govern
those whom you instruct in the solidity of Thy love. Who lives and reigns, one God, world
without end. Amen.
[Indulgence granted by Pope Leo XIII, Jan. 16, 1886. Quoted from F.X.Lasance, My Prayer
Book, Denziger Brothers (1908) pp. 460-63. Imprimatur +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York, 1908.]
Navarre Bible Commentary:
Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus
 |
| Source: Cruz Blanca |
John 1:29-34
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
The Lamb of God
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world![a] 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.’31 I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.”32 And John bore witness, “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
Footnotes:
- 1.29 John applies to Jesus the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 53.6-7, perhaps worded more explicitly by the evangelist in later years.
Cited in the Catechism: In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 408, 438, 486, 523, 536, 608, 613, 713, 719, 1137, 1286, and 1505.
Commentary
1:29. For the first time in the Gospel Christ is called the “Lamb of God”. Isaiah had compared the sufferings of the Servant of Yahweh, the Messiah, with the sacrifice of a lamb (cf. Is 53:7); and the blood of the paschal lamb smeared on the doors of houses had served to protect the firstborn of the Israelites in Egypt (cf. Ex 12:6–7): all this was a promise and prefiguring of the true Lamb, Christ, the victim in the sacrifice of Calvary on behalf of all mankind. This is why St Paul will say that “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). The expression “Lamb of God” also suggests the spotless innocence of the Redeemer (cf. 1 Pet 1:18–20; 1 Jn 3:5).
The sacred text says “the sin of the world”, in the singular, to make it absolutely clear that every kind of sin is taken away: Christ came to free us from original sin, which in Adam affected all men, and from all personal sins.
The book of Revelation reveals to us that Jesus is victorious and glorious in heaven as the slain lamb (cf. Rev 5:6–14), surrounded by saints, martyrs and virgins (Rev 7:9, 14; 14:1–5), who render him the praise and glory due him as God (Rev 7:10). Since Holy Communion is a sharing in the sacrifice of Christ, priests say these words of the Baptist before administering it, to encourage the faithful to be grateful to our Lord for giving himself up to death to save us and for giving himself to us as nourishment for our souls.
1:30–31. John the Baptist here asserts Jesus’ superiority by saying that he existed before him, even though he was born after him. Thereby he shows us the divinity of Christ, who was generated by the Father from all eternity and born of the Virgin Mary in time. It is as if the Baptist were saying: “Although I was born before him, he is not limited by the ties of his birth; for although he is born of his mother in time, he was generated by his Father outside of time” (St Gregory the Great, In Evangelia homiliae, 7).
By saying what he says in v. 31, the Precursor does not mean to deny his personal knowledge of Jesus (cf. Lk 1:36 and Mt 3:14), but to make it plain that God revealed to him the moment when he should publicly proclaim Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, and that he also understood that his own mission as precursor had no other purpose than to bear witness to Jesus Christ.
1:32–34. To emphasize the divinity of Jesus Christ, the evangelist includes here the Precursor’s testimony regarding Jesus’ Baptism (cf. the other Gospels, which describe in more detail what happened on this occasion: Mt 3:13–17 and par.). It is one of the key points in our Lord’s life, in which the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is revealed (cf. the note on Mt 3:16).
The dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, of whom it is said in Genesis 1:2 that he was moving over the face of the waters. Through this sign of the dove, the Isaiah prophecies (11:2–5; 42:1–2) are fulfilled which say that the Messiah will be full of the power of the Holy Spirit. The Baptist points to the great difference between the baptism he confers and Christ’s Baptism; in John 3, Jesus will speak about this new Baptism in water and in the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:5; Tit 3:5).
“The Son of God”: it should be pointed out that in the original text this expression carries the definite article, which means that John the Baptist confesses before his listeners the supernatural and transcendent character of Christ’s messiahship—very far removed from the politico-religious notion which Jewish leaders had forged.
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Last Year's Talk on Mary, Mother of God
Last year, we kicked off the New Year at Joe Catholic with one of our monthly workshops. I was perusing our videos and remembered that I had given a brief talk on the subject of Mary's Divine Motherhood. Within the context of that talk, I briefly explained the Church's notion of a "hierarchy of truths." [Note: The link explaining the hierarchy of truths is an article written by Douglas Bushmann, who was one of my theology professors at Ave Maria University]
Since we just celebrated this feast yesterday, I thought I would include the video on the site.
Since we just celebrated this feast yesterday, I thought I would include the video on the site.
Navarre Bible Commentary:
Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen,
Bishops and Doctors of the Church
_-_James_Tissot_-_overall.jpg) |
| St. John the Baptist and the Pharisees by James Tissot |
John 1:19-28
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
The Testimony of John the Baptist
19 And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”20 He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Eli′jah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.” 22 They said to him then, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Eli′jah, nor the prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know, 27 even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” 28 This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Cited in the Catechism: In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraph 575 and 719.
Commentary
1:19–24. In this setting of intense expectation of the imminent coming of the Messiah, the Baptist is a personality with enormous prestige, as is shown by the fact that the Jewish authorities send qualified people (priests and Levites from Jerusalem) to ask him if he is the Messiah.
John’s great humility should be noted: he is quick to tell his questioners: “I am not the Christ”. He sees himself as someone insignificant compared with our Lord: “I am not worthy to untie [the thong of his sandal]” (v. 27). He places all his prestige at the service of his mission as precursor of the Messiah, and, leaving himself completely to one side, he asserts that “he must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30).
1:25–26. “Baptize”: this originally meant to submerge in water, to bathe. For the Jews the rite of immersion meant legal purification of those who had contracted some impurity under the Law. Baptism was also used as a rite for the incorporation of Gentile proselytes into the Jewish people. In the Dead Sea scrolls there is mention of a baptism as a rite of initiation and purification into the Jewish Qumran community, which existed in our Lord’s time.
John’s baptism laid marked stress on interior conversion. His words of exhortation and the person’s humble recognition of his sins prepared people to receive Christ’s grace: it was a very efficacious rite of penance, preparing the people for the coming of the Messiah, and it fulfilled the prophecies that spoke precisely of a cleansing by water prior to the coming of the Kingdom of God in the messianic times (cf. Zech 13:1; Ezek 36:25; 37:23; Jer 4:14). John’s baptism, however, had no power to cleanse the soul of sins, as Christian Baptism does (cf. Mt 3:11; Mk 1:4)
“One whom you do not know”: Jesus had not yet publicly revealed himself as Messiah and Son of God; although some people did know him as a man, St John the Baptist could assert that really they did not know him.
1:27. The Baptist declares Christ’s importance by comparing himself to a slave undoing the laces of his master’s sandals. If we want to approach Christ, whom St John heralds, we need to imitate the Baptist. As St Augustine says: “He who imitates the humility of the Precursor will understand these words. […] John’s greatest merit, my brethren, is this act of humility” (In Ioann. Evang., 4, 7).
1:28. This is a reference to the town of Bethany which was situated on the eastern bank of the Jordan, across from Jericho—different from the Bethany where Lazarus and his family lived, near Jerusalem (cf. Jn 11:18).
1:29. For the first time in the Gospel Christ is called the “Lamb of God”. Isaiah had compared the sufferings of the Servant of Yahweh, the Messiah, with the sacrifice of a lamb (cf. Is 53:7); and the blood of the paschal lamb smeared on the doors of houses had served to protect the firstborn of the Israelites in Egypt (cf. Ex 12:6–7): all this was a promise and prefiguring of the true Lamb, Christ, the victim in the sacrifice of Calvary on behalf of all mankind. This is why St Paul will say that “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). The expression “Lamb of God” also suggests the spotless innocence of the Redeemer (cf. 1 Pet 1:18–20; 1 Jn 3:5).
The sacred text says “the sin of the world”, in the singular, to make it absolutely clear that every kind of sin is taken away: Christ came to free us from original sin, which in Adam affected all men, and from all personal sins.
The book of Revelation reveals to us that Jesus is victorious and glorious in heaven as the slain lamb (cf. Rev 5:6–14), surrounded by saints, martyrs and virgins (Rev 7:9, 14; 14:1–5), who render him the praise and glory due him as God (Rev 7:10). Since Holy Communion is a sharing in the sacrifice of Christ, priests say these words of the Baptist before administering it, to encourage the faithful to be grateful to our Lord for giving himself up to death to save us and for giving himself to us as nourishment for our souls.
1:30–31. John the Baptist here asserts Jesus’ superiority by saying that he existed before him, even though he was born after him. Thereby he shows us the divinity of Christ, who was generated by the Father from all eternity and born of the Virgin Mary in time. It is as if the Baptist were saying: “Although I was born before him, he is not limited by the ties of his birth; for although he is born of his mother in time, he was generated by his Father outside of time” (St Gregory the Great, In Evangelia homiliae, 7).
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Mary, The Mother of God:
The Doctrine Explained
Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. This teaching is one of the four Marian Doctrines of the Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church confirms the teaching by instructing, "that Mary is truly 'Mother of God' (Theotokos)." (CCC 495)
Doctrine Declared in 431
In 431, the Council of Ephesus confirmed Mary as Mother of God, Theotokos. This was proclaimed to answer a heresy denying Jesus’ dual nature as both human and divine. The Council declared:
"We confess, then, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his Godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, one and the same consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be the Mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her" (Formula of Union [A.D. 431]).Source of All Mary's Perfection
St. Josemaria Escriva examined the Mary's motherhood as the source of all her perfection, privileges and standing:
The Blessed Trinity, in choosing Mary as the Mother of Christ, a Man like us, has brought each one of us under the shelter of her maternal cloak. She is the Mother of God and our Mother.
The divine Motherhood of Mary is the source of all the perfections and privileges with which she is endowed. Because of it, she was conceived immaculate and is full of grace; because of it, she is ever virgin, she was taken up body and soul to heaven and has been crowned Queen of all creation, above the angels and saints. Greater than she, none but God. ‘The Blessed Virgin from the fact that she is the Mother of God has a certain infinite dignity which comes from the infinite good, which is God.’ There is no danger of exaggerating. We can never hope to fathom this inexpressible mystery; nor will we ever be able to give sufficient thanks to our Mother for bringing us into such intimacy with the Blessed Trinity.
We were sinners and enemies of God. Redemption has not only freed us from sin and reconciled us with Our Lord. It has also made us into children of God and has given us a Mother, the very Mother who gave birth to the Word when he took human nature. Could there ever be a greater, more generous, outpouring of love? (Friends of God, 276)Understanding of the Doctrine Expanded
Pope John Paul II explained the doctrine within the context of Vatican II and then expanded the Church's understanding of the doctrine in his 1987 encyclical, Redemptoris Mater:
4. The Second Vatican Council prepares us for this by presenting in its teaching the Mother of God in the mystery of Christ and of the Church. If it is true, as the Council itself proclaims,8 that "only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light," then this principle must be applied in a very particular way to that exceptional "daughter of the human race," that extraordinary "woman" who became the Mother of Christ. Only in the mystery of Christ is her mystery fully made clear. Thus has the Church sought to interpret it from the very beginning: the mystery of the Incarnation has enabled her to penetrate and to make ever clearer the mystery of the Mother of the Incarnate Word. The Council of Ephesus (431) was of decisive importance in clarifying this, for during that Council, to the great joy of Christians, the truth of the divine motherhood of Mary was solemnly confirmed as a truth of the Church's faith. Mary is the Mother of God (= Theotókos), since by the power of the Holy Spirit she conceived in her virginal womb and brought into the world Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is of one being with the Father.9 "The Son of God...born of the Virgin Mary...has truly been made one of us,"10has been made man. Thus, through the mystery of Christ, on the horizon of the Church's faith there shines in its fullness the mystery of his Mother. In turn, the dogma of the divine motherhood of Mary was for the Council of Ephesus and is for the Church like a seal upon the dogma of the Incarnation, in which the Word truly assumes human nature into the unity of his person, without canceling out that nature.
5. The Second Vatican Council, by presenting Mary in the mystery of Christ, also finds the path to a deeper understanding of the mystery of the Church. Mary, as the Mother of Christ, is in a particular way united with the Church, "which the Lord established as his own body."11 It is significant that the conciliar text places this truth about the Church as the Body of Christ (according to the teaching of the Pauline Letters) in close proximity to the truth that the Son of God "through the power of the Holy Spirit was born of the Virgin Mary." The reality of the Incarnation finds a sort of extension in the mystery of the Church-the Body of Christ. And one cannot think of the reality of the Incarnation without referring to Mary, the Mother of the Incarnate Word.Behold Your Mother
Mary is our Holy Mother too. Although He was on the verge of death, Christ called out to John from the cross, "Behold your mother!" (John 19:27). Furthermore, since Mary is the mother of Christ, who is head of the Church, she is also Mother of the Church.
Simple Explanation
I will conclude with this simple, logical syllogism: Jesus is God. Mary is the mother of Jesus. Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.
The Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord
Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God
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| Light to the Gentiles by Greg Olsen |
Luke 2:16-21
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
16 And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child; 18 and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Jesus Is Named
21 And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Cited in the Catechism: In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraph 94, 486, 525, 527 and 2599.
Commentary
2:16. The shepherds hasten because they are full of joy and eager to see the Saviour. St Ambrose comments: “No one seeks Christ half-heartedly” (Expositio Evangelii sec. Lucam, in loc.). Earlier on, the evangelist observed that our Lady, after the Annunciation, “went in haste” to see St Elizabeth (Lk 1:39). A soul who has given God entry rejoices that God has visited him and his life acquires new energy.
2:19. In very few words this verse tells us a great deal about our Lady. We see the serenity with which she contemplates the wonderful things that are coming true with the birth of her divine Son. She studies them, ponders them and stores them in the silence of her heart. She is a true teacher of prayer. If we imitate her, if we guard and ponder in our hearts what Jesus says to us and what he does in us, we are well on the way to Christian holiness and we shall never lack his doctrine and his grace. Also, by meditating in this way on the teaching Jesus has given us, we shall obtain a deeper understanding of the mystery of Christ, which is how “the Tradition that comes from the apostles makes progress in the Church, with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth” (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 8).
The circumcision of Jesus
2:21. On the meaning and rite of circumcision, see the note on Lk 1:59. “Jesus” means “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is salvation,” that is, Saviour. This name was given the Child not as the result of any human decision but in keeping with the commandment of God which the angel communicated to the Blessed Virgin and to St Joseph (cf. Lk 1:31; Mt 1:21).
The Son of God became incarnate in order to redeem and save all men; so it is very fitting that he be called Jesus, Saviour. We confess this in the Creed: “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.” “There were indeed many who were called by this name […]. But how much more appropriate it is to call by this name our Saviour, who brought light, liberty and salvation, not to one people only, but to all men, of all ages—to men oppressed, not by famine, or Egyptian or Babylonian bondage, but sitting in the shadow of death and fettered by the galling chains of sin and of the devil” (St Pius V, Catechism, 1, 36).
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
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