Pope Francis performs an exorcism?

There is some discussion going on about Pope Francis' encounter with a young man, captured in the video below. Articles on this are appearing everywhere from the Associated Press and ABC News to the Huffington Post and Salon. Everyone, it seems, is talking about this clip. 

Does it record the pope performing an exorcism? Some sort of deliverance prayer?

While there is no evidence Benedict XVI engaged in such activities, it is known that Blessed John Paul II performed exorcisms.

The statement from Rev. Federico Lombardi that the pope did not "intend" to perform an exorcism isn't putting the matter to rest. Why didn't he just say, "The pope did not perform an exorcism"?

Notably, there are reports that Francis was known to perform exorcisms prior to becoming pope and many (e.g., see the links here) have noted that he repeatedly refers to the reality of Satan.

I suspect this won't be the last time we hear of Francis doing such things.

Why "Tongues of Fire"?

Happy Pentecost!

Today in the liturgy we hear the story of how the Spirit descended upon the disciples in the form of tongues of fire. 

Why does the Spirit appear in this way?

John has written a great post on the readings for today. However, since he didn't touch upon this aspect of the story, I thought I'd deal with it in a separate post.

In short, I think the "tongues of fire" imagery is more consequential than many have realized. 

I should note that the Letter & Spirit journal will soon publish an article of mine in which I explain the "tongues of fire" imagery with greater attention to the context of Luke-Acts. Consider this an "introduction" to the imagery.

Catholic Nuns Going for the Championship of Bible Game Show

And they say Catholics don't know the Bible.

Readings for Pentecost Sunday

Let's take a look at the Readings for Pentecost Sunday Mass during the Day.

The First Reading is, finally, the account of Pentecost itself, from Acts 2:1-11:

Reading 1 Acts 2:1-11

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Readings for the Vigil of Pentecost

The Lectionary provides a wealth of Scriptural inspiration for this weekend’s celebration of the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost.

As usual, there is too much beauty and richness for us to deal with it all in depth.  Here below I've augmented commentaries I've made in previous years:

The First Reading Options for the Vigil:

1. Genesis 11:1-9:
   Reading 1 Gn 11:1-9
   The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.
   While the people were migrating in the east,
   they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.
   

Ascension Day Readings

 

In the Northeast and Nebraska, today is Ascension Day.  In the Diocese of Steubenville, as well as in most of the USA, Ascension Day is observed this Sunday.  I wish the traditional observance on Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter was retained, but reality is what it is.

  

This is an unusual Solemnity in which the “action” of the Feast Day actually takes place in the First Reading.  We typically think of all the narratives of Jesus’ life as recorded in the Gospels, overlooking that Acts records at least two important narratives about the activity of the Resurrected Lord (Acts 1:1-11; also 9:1-8).

In the first book, Theophilus,
I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught
until the day he was taken up,
after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit
to the apostles whom he had chosen.

Pope Francis on the Historicity of the Resurrection

"Transmitting this requires us to be courageous: the courage of transmitting the faith. A sometimes simple courage. I remember—excuse me—a personal story: as a child every Good Friday my grandmother took us to the Procession of Candles and at the end of the procession came the recumbent Christ and my grandmother made us kneel down and told us children, 'Look he is dead, but tomorrow he will be Risen! '. That is how the faith entered: faith in Christ Crucified and Risen. In the history of the Church there have been many, many people who have wanted to blur this strong certainty and speak of a spiritual resurrection. No, Christ is alive”.

Text from page http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/05/03/pope:_lukewarm_christians_hurt_the_church/en1-688586
of the Vatican Radio website

Kingdom of Peace: 6th Sunday of Easter

We have arrived at the Sixth Week of Easter, and continue to bask in the glow of the story of the growth of the early Church in Acts, the vision of heaven from the Book of Revelation, and the consolation of Jesus’ words to the Apostles in the Upper Room from John.  It’s a trifecta of glory in these Readings.

If last Sunday we noted a “kingdom of love” theme, this week we notice an emphasis on the idea of the “kingdom of peace.”  In Acts (1^st Reading) we see the measures that were necessary to keep peace in the early Church.  In Revelation (2^nd Reading) we see the peace of Eden restored in the heavenly New Jerusalem.  In the Gospel we see Jesus bestowing his supernatural peace on the disciples.

Thomas Aquinas on Turning the Other Cheek

"Holy Scripture must be understood in the light of what Christ and the saints have actually practiced.  Christ did not offer His other cheek, nor Paul either.  Thus to interpret the injunction of the Sermon on the Mount literally is to misunderstand it.  This injunction signifies rather the readiness of the soul to bear, if it be necessary, such things and worse, without bitterness against the attacker.  This readiness our Lord showed, when He gave up His body to be crucified.  That response of the Lord was useful, therefore, for our instruction." (In John 18, lect. 4, 2)

Joseph Pieper comments: "The readiness to meet the supreme test by dying in patient endurance so that the good may be realized does not exclude the willingness to fight and to attack.  Indeed, it is from this readiness that the springs of action in the Christian receive that detachment and freedom which, in the last analysis, are denied to every sort of tense and strained activism." —The Four Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame Press, 1966), 133.

Kingdom of Love: The 5th Sunday of Easter

 

The Easter Season is passing quickly.  Already it is more than half over, as we progress toward the great Feasts of Ascension and Pentecost.  We want the Season to slow down, so that we may savor the joy and consolation of these readings from Acts and John that dominate the Easter Cycle, but tempus fugit.

The Readings for this Fifth Sunday of Easter describe the growth of the Kingdom of God, which is manifested on earth as the Church.  The first two readings and the psalm are tied together with Kingdom images, and the Gospel reminds us that this Kingdom is characterized by God’s love.

1. The First Reading is Acts 14:21-27:

After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news
to that city
and made a considerable number of disciples,
they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.

Gregory of Nyssa on why God is said to "repent" in the Old Testament

Commenting on 1 Samuel 15, where the Lord is "angry" with Saul and "repents" of making him king, Gregory of Nyssa explains:

“The Lord was angry, and he was grieved because of their sins”; and again, “He repented that he had anointed Saul king”… and besides this, it makes mention of his [God's] sitting, and standing, and moving, and the like, which are not as a fact connected with God but are not without their use as an accommodation to those who are under teaching. For in the case of the too unbridled, a show of anger restrains them by fear. And to those who need the medicine of repentance, it says that the Lord repents along with them of the evil, and those who grow insolent through prosperity it warns, by God’s repentance in respect to Saul, that their good fortune is no certain possession, though it seems to come from God (Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book; ACCS OT, IV, 259-60).

Both "Lamb" and "Shepherd"?: The Fourth Sunday of Easter

This upcoming Lord’s Day is often known as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” since each year the Gospel reading is taken from John 10, the “Good Shepherd Discourse.”  It’s also often observed as a day of prayer for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, since priests and religious are visible manifestations to us of Christ in his role as the Good Shepherd.

Most of the Readings are tied together by a shepherding theme.

1.  The First Reading continues the traditional Christian practice of reading Acts during the season of Easter.  We are up to Acts 13, the point in Acts where St. Luke begins to follow the career of St. Paul in a particular way.

There is a basic division of Acts into two parts: Acts 1-12 follows Peter's ministry and Acts 13-28 follows Paul's.

The Primacy of Peter and the Primacy of Love: 3rd Sunday of Easter

This week is the Third Sunday of Easter, and our readings highlight the primacy of Peter among the Apostles, and the primacy of love in following Jesus.

 

Just a few comments on the preliminary readings before we concentrate on the Gospel.  During the seven weeks of the Easter Season, the Lectionary reads semi-continuously through Acts in the First Reading (showing the birth of the Church on earth) and through Revelation in the Second (showing the final state of the Church in heaven). 

Divine Mercy Sunday: The Readings

This coming Sunday is the Second Sunday of the Octave of Easter, also known as “Divine Mercy

Sunday.”  The theme of God’s mercy runs through the readings.

1. In the First Reading, we see an outpouring of God’s mercy through the hands of the Apostles, who are given a gift of God’s power for the healing of physical illnesses and those plagued by evil spirits:

Reading 1 Acts 5:12-16

Many signs and wonders were done among the people
at the hands of the apostles.
They were all together in Solomon’s portico.
None of the others dared to join them, but the people esteemed them.
Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord,
great numbers of men and women, were added to them.
Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets
and laid them on cots and mats
so that when Peter came by,
at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.
A large number of people from the towns
in the vicinity of Jerusalem also gathered,
bringing the sick and those disturbed by unclean spirits,
and they were all cured.

Historical Questions about the Resurrection of Jesus: Special Easter Post and Podcast

Scroll down below to listen to the special TSP Easter podcast recorded last year. Of course, you can also listen on iTunes. Have you subscribed to the podcast yet? : ) 


Historical Questions About the Resurrection (Special TSP Podcast for Easter)(Right click to download)


St. Paul makes it clear that Resurrection is an essential aspect of Christian faith. He states,

“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1 Cor 15:16–19).

The importance of this feast is also reiterated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: 

Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance. Gradually, on either side of this source, the year is transfigured by the liturgy. It really is a “year of the Lord’s favor.” ... Therefore Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the “Feast of feasts,” the “Solemnity of solemnities,” just as the Eucharist is the “Sacrament of sacraments” (the Great Sacrament). St. Athanasius calls Easter “the Great Sunday” and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week “the Great Week.” The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subjected to him. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1168-1169) 

Yet many dispute the historicity of the Resurrection. For example,

“The tiny fraction of New Testament Easter traditions that comprises our bona fide historical evidence—the core empty tomb tradition (Mark 1:1–6, 8) and the appearance list given by Paul (1 Cor 15:3–8)—is woefully inadequate to establish a proposition as bold as the resurrection hypothesis.”—Robert Cavin1

Here I want to look at some of the reasons for such skepticism.

Thoughts on the Seven OT Readings for the Vigil

I've posted this in previous years, but thought I'd post it again for our newer readers:

Brant, Michael and I belong to a school of thought that sees covenant as a central concept in biblical theology, particularly Catholic biblical theology.  Such an approach has strong support in the text of Scripture and in the tradition and liturgy of the Church, and would seem to be a "no-brainer," yet there are those who oppose it and de-emphasize the significance of covenant for interpreting the Scriptures in the Church.  For that reason, it's necessary periodically to justify this approach.

Some Thoughts on the Good Friday Gospel Reading

Every year on Good Friday, we read St. John’s account of the Passion from John 18-19.

One of the themes that runs through this reading is the Priesthood of Christ.  In this post, I would like to trace that theme.

There is priestly language already in the First Reading, from Isaiah 52 & 53, the famous “Suffering Servant” Song.  It speaks of the servant “making himself an offering for sin,” “justifying many,” and “bearing their guilt.”  These were priestly roles in the Old Testament, not the duties of prophets or kings. 

Turning to the Gospel Reading in context, we note that priestly themes precede the passage we read in Mass (Jn 18-19), beginning already in the Last Supper complex (Jn 13-17).  For example, the discourse on the Holy Spirit in John 16:4-15 contains priestly concepts.  Holy Spirit is sent to empower judgment of guilt vs. innocence, which reminds us of the tribunal of confession (cf. Jn 16:7 with Jn 20:22-23).  The Holy Spirit is upon Jesus, and will be given to the apostles, for the purpose of forgiving sin and making moral judgment, which in the Old Testament was the prerogative of the priests (see Lev 4:20; Deut 17:9).

Leroy Huizenga on the Last Supper and Priesthood Imagery

Leroy Huizenga has an excellent piece on John 13 in which, among other things, he looks at the priestly imagery associated with the washing of the disciples feet.

Read it here.