Proverbs That Might Be True, pt. 6

Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

St. Jerome

A Few Words Packed With Meaning

Mark Shea just posted this stirring exposition of the Hail Mary.  It is reasonably brief, and loaded with beautiful reflection based on sound exegesis.  Enjoy!

This Chick's Hilarious - Read All About It!!!

A recent blogquaintance of mine, who goes by the moniker LuceMichael (Luce, is that a Latinism? "By the Light of Michael"?), wrote this piece on her blog. It is an imaginary interview with a bible scholar. My ignorance of the scholar is inexcusable, but even never having heard of the cat, Luce's imaginary interview was both hilarious and instructive. Read it when you get a bit of time.  Especially if you enjoy Peter Kreeft's imagined dialogues between folks like JFK and Karl Marx, you'll love Luce's witty introduction to the scholar's life and works.

Unexpected Gifts

This morning my roommate/marathon-partner, Tom, who is a pilot, took me up on a Cesna for breakfast in York, PA. He's building his flight time and takes these trips regularly. It was a very, very fun time.

After returning home, I drove to visit a friend and his wife for lunch and to help him to prepare to give a lecture at a conference in Peru, speaking Spanish. He doesn't really speak Spanish, but working from his own text translated by the conference organizers, I believe he'll do just fine. It was cool to be able to help him prepare because among the attendees will be a large number of devout families, priests, and a few bishops and cardinals.

When I returned home from lunch and helping my friend prepare for his lecture, I saw an Amazon box sitting on the front step. "Ooooh! Amazon," I thought. I love Amazon deliveries. Even though I am the principal recipient of them at our house, and even though I myself place the orders, deliveries always make me feel special - and I know I am not alone in this, people. But then I grew glum, thinking, "I didn't order anything from Amazon. Shoot, it must be for one of my roommates." I turned it over and read the label, and whaddya know, it was for me, and the return address was that of a friend from my parish. I was too surprised to register. Opening the box, I saw it was a book, Commentary on New Testament Use of the Old Testament. This particular book has been atop my Amazon wishlist since it came out in 2007 and will be a terribly useful reference for biblical scholars for years to come. And this friend bought it for me spontaneously, just because, because he is a kind and generous man - manifested in my mind numerous times long before this, especially with his commitment to the youth of our parish.

I love debts of gratitude. Debts of gratitude are different from debts of account because they are not calculated in dollars and cents and they are not paid back. Rather, they are paid forward, to borrow a nice phrase. They might even be paid forward to the person to whom we feel grateful. But they aren't paid as a matter of obligation, but as a matter of love. A gift freely given inspires in a healthy recipient a free response, in some direction. The repayment or the forward-payment of debts of gratitude is not intended to clear the debt, but to perpetuate it and deepen it, to draw more people into it. There is no tit-for-tat, but rather a response of grace for grace, free gift for free gift, and neither size nor shape are measured against each other. Instead, heart meets heart. Before long, a number of people feel a great desire to give not only their things, but really parts of themselves, as it were, to their neighbors and friends. Instead of lending and repaying money, we invest ourselves and are blessed by others. Gratitude inspires a sort of calculation that is exactly the opposite of either capitalism or socialism. Gratitude builds an economy of love.

There is nothing like gratitude to build those two beautiful forms of charity: piety and friendship. It is really important to do kind and generous things for others. If done selflessly, such deeds are magnanimous and share in the most magnanimous charity ever, that of our Lord for us. It is also really important to let others do kind and generous things for us when they are so moved. The graceful reception of such kindness not only humbles our pride, but may build up the giver's sense of sharing in divine grace, which can only lead to more grace. When we refuse gifts, while there is sometimes a genuine and legitimate desire to avoid unnecessary entanglements, there is also often a refusal to be humbled. What a sad condition!

Lol, all this is to say thanks to those men who blessed me today. I'll put personal notes in the mail. Except to you, Tom. I live with you. That would be dumb. How 'bout I buy you a milkshake after our next run?

A Hero of Mine

Albert Vanhoye, S.J. is a Jesuit priest who was made a cardinal because of his outstanding work as a Biblical scholar. He takes the best of the modern scholarship, contributes extensively to it, and produces results that resonate with the heart and mind of the Church.

His main work is on the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is the book of the Bible that has most captured my imagination. His work is the scholarship on Hebrews that has most captured my imagination. He has used the historical critical methods responsibly, without bringing to bear false assumptions: materialism, naturalism, opposition to the Church's teaching authority or tradition. Instead, he operates from the perspective of faith informed by reason, and reason informed by faith, and rightly sees that there is no incompatibility between the two. So his work shows meaning in the Scriptures compatible with the mind of the ones who wrote them: God and His Church.

Even Demons Confess Him Lord... But Do We?

The readings for today, the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Dt 18:15-20, Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 7-9, 1 Cor 7:32-35, Mk 1:21-28), don't seem closely bound together at first. The riddle, though, is solved thus. The epistle, this one to the Corinthians, doesn't usually have a theme in common with the other readings, but is meant as general moral advice for any occasion. The first reading and the gospel reading are meant to have something to do with each other, and the psalm, usually a prayeful response to the first reading, is often the key. Such is the case today.

Moses, before leaving the Israelites to go to die in peace, tells them that they are right to fear seeing God's glory in person again, and that God will send them more prophets, whom they must obey. They must be careful not to heed (the Hebrew literally means "to hear the voice of") false prophets, though, or disaster can be expected. They emphatically assert that they will obey prophets to come in God's name. Of course, we who know the rest of the story know that God's own Chosen People do not in fact often obey God's own chosen prophets. In fact, they punish the prophets more often than they pay them any mind. Fast forward to the gospel reading from St. Mark's account. Jesus, the one about whom the prophets spoke, has finally come to His people. As they treated the prophets, they just give Him a hard time. But in the synagoge, demons obey Jesus.

Of course, they haven't any choice because they are completely under His power, whereas He very graciously leaves us our freedom to continue screwing things up almost indefinitely. But that's just my point. God, whom neither the Israelites (nor we) voluntarily obey very often is obeyed by demons. We are put to shame by the lowest creatures in the universe, who have sunk the furthest. Every sin we commit is an implicit denial of the lordship of Jesus Christ; contrast this with the demon who confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord (Mark 1:24). Of course the demon hated the fact of Jesus' lordship. We merely slyly avoid thinking about the question when we have a lust, passion, or greed to satisfy.

Now, I am not trying to make it like demons are better Christians than we Christians are. Far from it. But I am trying to keep us from being cocky. We Catholics, especially, who have fullness of Christian revelation, ought to be ashamed to call ourselves Christian when in morals and manner of living we are outdone by separated Christians, by non-Christians, even by pagans. Too often, we are triumphalistic instead. Many young Catholics, in our newfound zeal and (good) desire to reclaim and live anew the ancient Catholic faith that has so long fallen on deaf ears and hard hearts, use words like 'Protestant' as if they were cuss-words. That is not only uncharitable, but self-convicting. If Protestants are bad for having less truth, what are we who behave less charitably? If we would convince others of the goodness of the Christian faith as held by the Catholic Church, we might think about listening more closely to the heart of Christ.

Reading in Chapel

At the advice (not in person, but in a lecture) of N. T. Wright, an Anglican bishop and pretty darn good biblical scholar, I have decided to try to use the same biblical text for study as for prayer. I sense that doing otherwise would be the beginning of a split between my brain and my heart, my reason and faith. That's not good. Since I have to use the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition of the Greek New Testament for study, and I want to improve my Greek anyway, that is what I am bringing with me into chapel. For the New Testament, at least for now, it is Greek for me. I am not suicidal, so for the Old Testament I am sticking with English, since my Hebrew is still very rudimentary.

Anyway, I am working through the gospels, slowly but surely, and am at Matthew 9:9.

(OK, so the bit above was pure bragging. Bear with me; I hope to be less childishly self-centered before I die.)

Next I noted that the Greek text closes with an interesting, albeit common, construction. Literally the last sentence reads, "And getting up, he followed him." Honestly, the best translation is "And he got up and followed him," or something like that. The writers liked to say things like, "And blanking..., he did such and such." The first verb, in the -ing form, we would usually take to be a sort of background action, but in the Greek text and can't always be that way. Getting up isn't the background action for following him, but the first step to following him. The Greek construction has a certain sense, at least partially, of equating the two verbs, or using the two verbs to describe the same action. Getting up IS, you might say, following Jesus.

The preceding story was of the healing of the paralytic whose friends brought him to Jesus. Jesus tells him to get up, too, but a different verb is used. It just means, "get up." When Matthew "gets up," though, the verb is the same used to describe Jesus "getting up" after three days in the tomb. I know, exegetically, I am on thin ice, but please indulge me to skate for a bit. The use of the same word for Jesus' resurrection at least calls it to mind when we read of Matthew's "getting up," even if Matthew is clearly not being resurrected. There is still a sense of a new life.


Think about it. St. Matthew had been sitting there. Just sitting there, collecting taxes, being hated by his countrymen for a traitor, and probably bored with life, trying to figure out what he was doing with himself. At least on a deep level he must have been very dissatisfied, very ready for something new. And then Jesus, this famous peasant preacher that a lot of people are saying is "the One," comes by and says, "Come, follow me." And he does. St. Matthew just got up and went, leaving behind everything - including all the money and receipts that the Romans were expecting. Imagine the surprise of whoever was onlooking. But the dissatisfaction with his current life, the deep wondering, "Is there anything better than this?" laying in Matthew's soul is what made it all make sense. So in that terse sentence, Matthew gets up and goes for a new sort of life - following Jesus.

I am not sure what the whole thing means, but I envy St. Matthew his abruptness, his suddenness.

St. Matthew, pray that we, like you, may abandon everything, turn our life around on a dime, to follow Jesus when we see him come by. Amen.

Syriac is Hard, Real Hard

Some of my friends have heard my woes of Syriac. Really, it's all three languages I am studying right now in school, plus the knowledge that I need to, as my advisor put it, "Pick up German and French along the way, sometime on my own." I LOVE languages, and dead languages the most. Don't get me wrong. It's just that it seems that - and this isn't a complaint, mind you, I know I asked for this and want it - but it seems as if my professors are tag-teaming me. As one recuperates from beating me (and probably my classmates too) senseless, another one gets psyched up for the next round by watching the current heavy-weight champion do his/her worst. This time our Syriac professor gave me a pounding. See below. If you cannot see the red ink, click on the picture for a zoom in. Make sure you see the red ink. It should be hard to miss.
Yeah, it really is that bad. Now admittedly, this paper is one of the worst, but it is not too far from the average spillage of red ink. Our profs own stock, rumor has it. You judge for yourself. I'll keep plugging away.

In the Beginning

Last night, I sat down with my newly-arrived Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensis (BHS, for short) - the standard critical edition of the Hebrew Bible. Armed only with the Bible and five weeks of Hebrew crammed into my brain, I read the words:

The words came haltingly out of my lips at first, and then repeated they came faster: "Bere'shith bara' 'elohim eth hash-shamayim weth ha-arets." I was elated not only to be able to read the words, but to know what those particular words mean.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

Not a bad way to start. I could sound out, but didn't know the meaning of a single word for six more verses, so I guess it's time to get back to my Hebrew notes.