Issue 12. July 2006
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ÑContra MundumÑ Volume VIII, Issue 12 July 2006 The Congregation of St. Athanasius A Congregation of the Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul II for the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite http://www.locutor.net the observance of proper forms. It NOTES is a character trait of fallen human nature for those who deny the power FROM THE and presence of godliness to insist upon their own form, and to cast CHAPLAIN aspersions at anyone who does not follow these forms. This works in OME of you have heard me political ideology, and it also works Ssay that St. Mark’s Gospel was in religion. written in a hurry and expects to be So the business about the Sab- read in a hurry. The evangelist had bath in Mark, Chapter Two is a case his fi rst readers very much in mind The Raising of Jairus’ in point. The basic commandment when he was gathering and prepar- about the Sabbath had a positive ing his narrative. The Church was daughter (Mark 5:21-43) and a negative component. On the being persecuted, and St. Mark was is the gospel for Sunday, July positive side were all the rules and in a hurry to tell Christians about 2nd. "It would have been easy regulations to assist the people in the passion and death of God’s Own for Jairus to say to Jesus: 'sorry, keeping a holy day pleasing to the Son for the sins of the world and the Lord, but it’s too late. I know you Lord. On the negative side was the promise of eternal life. When those have other things to do. I guess I fact that the observance meant giving early Christians were facing the bru- had better go bury my daughter.' up “all manner of work” on that day. tality of prison and a barbaric death, But that’s not what happened!" And in the course of ancient Israel’s their immediate requirement was to from a sermon by Fr. Bradford long history it had always been easier know that their religion was true and to enforce the negative than promote that God loved them. So St. Mark’s Lord question the disciples about the positive. But did the negative gospel was written at a fast pace in not fasting. Earlier they questioned approach help souls become holy? order to get to the good news that the Lord’s right to forgive sins. And The by-product of all this negativism would be a comfort and strength to in this gospel passage they are at was an unworthy conception of the the suffering Church. it again: observing the twelve dis- nature of God Who appeared to be We don’t get very far into Mark’s ciples in violation of the Sabbath more interested in how far you could Gospel before the gauntlet is thrown law against reaping, threshing, and walk to synagogue than in what you down and the Cross looms on the grinding corn. And on the next Sab- did when you got there. bath, or at least a subsequent one, horizon. By Chapter Three we are The true meaning of the Sabbath, the Pharisees are seen questioning told the Pharisees left the synagogue after all those centuries of misappli- the Lord when He is about to heal a with murder in their hearts. And all of cation, came to a head in the confron- man with a withered hand. Chapter Two documents this grow- tation between the Pharisees and the ing challenge to Christ’s authority We can note that those oppos- Son of God in Mark, Chapter Two. and teaching. Those opposing the ing Christ had an obsession with Our Lord Jesus gave an astonishing Page 86 Contra Mundum reply. “The Son of Man is Lord of There are many possibilities. And the supremely lovable life. the Sabbath.” most of them are not bad or evil but No matter how scarred and Now you and I might wish that good and healthy in and of them- bloody His body got at Calvary, you the Lord had stopped the whole world selves. But the One Who created us could never separate Him from His and said something like, “Look, I warns us that if we neglect the Sab- body until His death. That deathlike made the Ten Commandments, I bath as He gave it to us we do so to separation was the essence of the made the Sabbath, and I made you, our own eternal peril. Gnostic heresy, the most destructive so don’t you tell me!” Instead, He The question Jesus put to the heresy in history, the heresy that still reminded His hearers that man was Pharisees was the one that con- fuels liberalism, modernism, and not made for the Sabbath because he demned their twisted thinking about postmodernism, as well as books like was created a day before the Sabbath the Sabbath. It came down to this, The Da Vinci Code, which incorpo- was instituted. By His teaching and “Which is more acceptable to God, to rate all three of those isms. healings, Our Lord was reminding help someone or destroy him?" And And no matter how scarred and people that the Sabbath is a privilege when the Pharisees could not answer, wicked His Body the Church be- and a benefi t, not a task and an im- Jesus, with supreme self-confi dence, comes, you still cannot separate the position. After all, in another place said to the man “now stretch out your Head from the Body. That visible God’s Son assured us that He had hand” and it was made whole. What Body, the Church, “the extension come that we might have life, and a wonderful Master we have in Our of the Incarnation,” often appears have it more abundantly. Lord Jesus Christ! All His institu- wicked, sometimes spectacularly So the truth is that man was made tions and provisions are for our own and scandalously wicked. In fact, for God, and the Sabbath was made benefi t. And in His service there is until Heaven, its members are always to be an advantage to us in living for nothing but gain for you and me. more or less wicked. (Its best, the God’s honor and service. It was made FATHER BRADFORD saints, are the fi rst to confess this.) for our benefi t, not our misery. It was It appeared as quite spectacularly made for our life, for our sustenance wicked in the time of Joan of Arc, and wholeness. Almighty God has a Why I Attend an in different ways than the ways it regard for you and me, body and soul, Anglican Use Liturgy appears wicked in our time. (Our and He had that in mind in instituting priests and bishops are pederasts, the Sabbath. As our creator He knows not inquisitors. We do not destroy that it was good for our bodies to HERE are three reasons to be a adults’ bodies by burning them, we have physical rest and a respite from TCatholic: because of “the good, destroy children’s souls by scandal the week’s work. He also knew that the true, and the beautiful”; because and their bodies by abortion.) But one day a week it was good for our there is on earth nothing truer, noth- when Saint Joan was confused about souls to especially apply ourselves ing better, and nothing more beauti- the relation between Christ and the to the holy work of our relationship ful than the Catholic Church. Church by the wicked bishops who with God, to have an appointed time And the reason why that is true were trying to get her burnt at the of praise and thanksgiving, and that is simple: because the Church is the stake for heresy and witchcraft, she we come to this holy work both in Body of Christ, and Christ is the su- replied, with saintly simplicity, “All public and in private as a necessary preme goodness, truth, and beauty; I know is that Christ and the Church part of equipping ourselves body “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” are just one thing, that’s all.” and soul for God’s service. Our late He is the Way to love, to will, to Beauty is as much a part of the Holy Father Pope John Paul II once choose, and to act, the Way that is Church’s life as goodness and truth. wrote about the Sabbath and how divine goodness, divine agape incar- This beauty is not mere ornament, its observance is being eclipsed by nate. He is the very Word of God, the attached to her life as clothing, but it the encroachments of a lifestyle that eternal Logos, Truth incarnate. And inheres in the very life of Christ that “lives for the weekend.” It is easy His is the most beautiful face, and the the Church proclaims in her creeds, to have lots of fun on the weekend. most beautiful life, the abundant life, lives in her saints, and celebrates in Contra Mundum Page 87 The illustration shows a parish church on a Sunday hear Mass, abstain from servile work, and devote morning. The people are hastening to church, to the day to pious works. Wholesome recreation and obey the precept of hearing Mass. It is a mortal sin innocent amusements which do not interfere with to fail to sanctify Sundays and holydays through our religious obligations are allowed; too often, our own fault. To keep these days holy, we must however, “fun” appears to be the main feature.