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Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

The End of the Earth

December 16, 2018
Year 3, Day 350 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

Increasingly nations are taking interest in concepts related to the end of the earth, earth as we know it. Survival or extinction is being taken seriously.  From ancient times biblical literature has addressed the earth and mankind – their meaning and durability, blessings and threats, and purposes for existence.  We now have a variety of prognostications based on science, faith, and assumptions both plausible and implausible.  There is a general agreement that the life world, as we know it, will end.  Some believe it will end with a whimper, some believe a cataclysm, some believe a dead planet, but all indicate the end of mankind unless some other locale is found for mankind to emigrate, and begin another phase of… Read more

Heroics

December 15, 2018
Year 3, Day 349 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

In the changing mood of general society, modern stories of bravery, heroism, cowardice, and decline are increasing in numbers.  In the rash of shootings taking many lives in schools, restaurants, business and churches, public places there is emerging the ordinary person doing the extraordinary thing in what may be a positive or a negative context.  Persons are looking for fresh definitions of some honored words like hero.  Is a person losing his or her life in an attack on New York that collapses two great skyscraper buildings, and takes 3,000 lives a recognized hero in another country than mine?  That may be heroic for some but may be criminal for someone else – and vice versa.  Are heroes only found… Read more

Animal Life

December 14, 2018
Year 3, Day 348 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

Animals appear to be part of a great parable of earth.  They belong even more to earth than mankind. They live close to the land with modest nests, dens and adaptations to their environments.  They have rather simple diets, often living off the lives of other animals with a natural nutrition they seem to discover. They usually care for their young, appear to make choices in mating for the most developed species of vertebrates, even creating families among some, especially with mothers and offspring relating in the first year or so of a newborn.  They manage well in the matter of giving birth and finding ways of survival. Without the care and protection of human beings the animals are in… Read more

Distractions

December 13, 2018
Year 3, Day 347 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

One of the most effective tools for weakening the human meaning of the individual or the masses of individuals is distraction, a theme of a recent Page.  As we approach Christmas I am impressed at the distractions of the holiday from the meaning of Christ born in Bethlehem..  Some historians accent Gibbon’s point related to the fall of Rome – the Circuses.  By distracting the populace with dramatic entertainments, like feeding Christians to lions or gladiators, the leaders of the empire could hold the attention of the populace who were thereby distracted from the excesses of the rich and powerful.  Leaders succeeded, for a time, to distract the public from the taxes, the long periods of warfare that swallowed their… Read more

Good and Evil

December 12, 2018
Year 3, Day 346 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

I look for treatment of theological issues in sources not identified directly with theology, even if some of those sources are close neighbors to theology.  Biblical Archaeology Review reports on studies in the field as related to verification or modification of the biblical record of persons and events appearing in the book of history known as the Bible.  Often the magazine reviews books about the themes of the Bible in the belief that theology is a factor to be included in understanding and interpreting artifacts of archaeology.  In an article entitled, The Evil Inclination, Brian E. Dailey, SJ, there were reviewed two books dealing with the topic of sin.  The first was a sweep through classical sources in identifying sin,… Read more

Moderation

December 11, 2018
Year 3, Day 345 | No Comments

Given enough time to learn and absorb the large factors making up the flow of life as those factors are addressed in Scripture, we discover a main one we call moderation.  It is a principle that marks a center of gravity for our thoughts and conduct.  Do I have enough (not too much, not too little) of this or that?  The principle applies across the range of our lives.  Do I give sufficient time to my spiritual life (not too much, not too little)?  – work?  – play?  – family?  – rest?  – habits?  – education?  The list grows long included on the tally of needs, obligations and desires relating to the benefit of self and others.  I want to… Read more

Distractions

December 10, 2018
Year 3, Day 344 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Like most factors in natural life, distraction may be beneficial or it may be damning.  It may be large or small, so large it becomes sin, so small that it is undetectable.  Where it is an important option the disciplines of self-control, choice, and purpose must be invoked.  Jesus and the disciples were intensely involved in ministry, so demanding there was no time for respite, even to eat, so to maintain energy for further ministry.  He halted the service, withdrew with the disciples for R and R. (Mark 6:31-33)  They were soon at work again when pressed by the crowd.  The world is ministered to by weary persons.  But the servant of the people must sometimes be served.  Correctly the… Read more

Risk and Reason

December 9, 2018
Year 3, Day 343 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

About the issues of mortal risk and death we seem to know little about them, and talk of them even less. We understand that the general population looks rightly upon safety from risk and death to be a sign of human responsibility and maturity.  In the story about Le Mans, the wife raises the question to her race driver husband that the constant death threat of high speed racing seems bizarre.  She asks that if one is going to risk life it ought to be something worthwhile.  She does not see that racing to win over another driver is worth the risk.  The driver reveals himself to be an addict when he answers that the race is the thing and… Read more

Secularism

December 8, 2018
Year 3, Day 342 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

That specificity in religious faith has been fading over recent decades since the two world wars appears to be obvious.  That there has been growth in evangelical accented movements, especially in Pentecostal fellowships there is ample evidence, but the growth has been modest when compared to the expansion of secular populations and the erosion of religious ones in this third millennium since Jesus Christ’s earthly sojourn.  During this past week, the most eminent Christian evangelist of the world, Billy Graham, made a statement at age 95 to express the need for spiritual renewal.  They are his dying words to the world. Losses in Christian oriented denominations, even those constructed on a firm evangelism of born again preaching in evangelical appeal… Read more

Reckoning

December 7, 2018
Year 3, Day 341 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Through the centuries theologians and preachers have wrestled with the tendency of mankind to believe that a person’s good works (human effort on earth to be acceptable to God for admission to his heaven) will suffice to find safety to affirmation after death.  The memorials of persons following their demise continue a type of human deification in records, busts/statues and speakers, especially from those who were close to heroism and self-risk for family or country, or have made contribution to life and society that deserves honor and appreciation.  All that dedication and effort deserves our honor of them, but they did what life was meant to accomplish. They have fulfilled the objective of their human creation and existence.  Did we… Read more

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