The front window of the tiny rectory is progressing, provoking compliments from pious souls and condemnation from across the spectrum.
Firstly, a word about manure:
- Et a verbis viri peccatoris ne timueritis, quia gloria ejus stercus et vermis est: (1Ma 2:62) Don’t be afraid of the words of sinful men, for their glory is manure and worms.
- There’s plenty of such manure and worms, because that’s what we all turn into: dust to dust and all that. Without God’s grace, we’re nothing but s#|+. Truth!
- When the Jewish Messiah (and therefore ours) was born, it was in a cave loaded up, of course, with the manure of bulls and donkeys and sheep.
- When the Immaculate Conception appeared to snarky Saint Bernadette, it was in the cave, the grotto, of Lourdes, which, even worse, was filled with the manure of pigs. Ever smell that, even from miles away?
- In the picture above, the statues of Mary and Saint Anthony of Padua with baby Jesus are overseeing two flower boxes which, right now, are simply full of manure. Too much. The flowers didn’t take. My bad.
Secondly, about the haters:
- At the furthest edge of the spectrum on the left are those who say that all that which is Jewish has absolutely nothing to do with anything Catholic, so that Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah. That would invalidate Jesus being the Son of David, thus invalidating the presentation in the rectory window. They say this to be politically correct with our Jewish brethren but lock them out in their own minds from the redemption wrought by Jesus.
- At the furthest edge of the spectrum on the right are those who say that all that which is Jewish has absolutely nothing to do with anything Catholic, so that Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah. That would invalidate Jesus being the Son of David, thus invalidating the presentation in the rectory window. They say this to be politically correct with anti-Jewish idiots, happy to lock them out in their own minds from the redemption wrought by Jesus.
Opposites attract. Idiots attract. The two extremes are merely in reaction to each other, having nothing to do with the Living Truth. The two extremes are like the poles of a broken gyroscope wildly flipping spinning out of control, not with the Truth being the mean between the two, but flying apart from the Truth, only concerned about each other. But Crux stat dum volvitur orbis. The Cross remains steadfast while the world hopelessly spins itself into a vertigoed vortex.
Meanwhile, there is le père Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange OP, commenting in his tome on Faith, summarizing the entirety of the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas regarding the Common Doctor’s struggle in understanding the oneness, the univocality of the Judeo-Catholic Religion, with Thomas landing finally on the presentation that all that which is Jewish is all that which is Catholic, though, of course, with the chosen people looking forward to receiving Jesus, the Messiah, the Suffering Servant, and the Catholics being those who have received Jesus, whether being of Jewish lineage or from among the Gentiles.
This refers to the radical univocality of Sacred Tradition, that supernatural faith received by any individual always in the same way with the same content of that supernatural faith. There is a down to earth pedagogy for human brains to be led to assent to that which is supernatural, i.e., through the conscience. Thomas himself comments on this at great length, distinguishing between that which is supernatural faith and that which has been touched by a necessary exercise in theology on our part.
Jesus, the ever proclaimed Son of David, said it best: “Salvation is from the Jews.”
I’ll just keep my window up and let the extremists otherwise ignore Jesus and attack each other, throwing manure at each other.
After all, Crux stat dum volvitur orbis. I’ll stick with the Cross, a tiny depiction of which you can just make out in the center of the Star of David up top of the window.
Hanukkah 2020 will begin the evening of Thursday, December 10 and will end the evening of Friday, December 18. A Menorah of sorts is ready to go in the window, with a small servant candle at the ready. Some might say that Jewish feasts are forbidden to be celebrated. But is God’s honoring the sacred liturgy in the temple not to itself be honored? Sure, Jesus, and we with Him, are the new Temple built of living stones, as the Holy Spirit indicates. Yes. But I think it is just fine to rejoice with God’s rejoicing with the miracle of lights. Yes. Jesus, the Temple Himself, ferociously objected to the abuse of the temple built of mere physical stones.
You don’t have to light a Menorah, but don’t condemn me lighting one up either. You wouldn’t want Jesus to take the whip of cords to your back end, would you? No, really, you wouldn’t. :-)
But I can already hear the spluttering about how I’m a heretic saying that I’m saying that the former covenants are themselves salvific apart from Jesus. No. I didn’t say that. I insist that all former covenants looked forward to the new and eternal covenant in the Blood of the Lamb. There is not one former covenant which was stuck on itself apart from the Messiah to come. Get it? We honor the Jews with great love by inviting them to learn more about Jesus, Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception, that great Woman of Genesis 3:15 in her battle over against the Serpent, the Dragon of old, Satan. Yes. Let’s help introduce our Jewish friends to Mary’s Son, Jesus, for Salvation is aleady from the Jews.
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 