There are many houses and fathers: the prodigal son returns home to the one of the only true Father who is the source of grace and the center of the mystery of salvation

L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

THERE ARE MANY HOMES AND FATHERS: THE PRODIGAL SON RETURNS TO THE ONLY HOME OF THE ONLY AND TRUE FATHER WHO IS THE SOURCE OF GRACE AND THE CENTER OF THE MYSTERY OF SALVATION

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The prodigal son returns to his father's house where waiting for him there is no sociological fashion, above all, no political correctness. Because God is always beyond any fashion, but above all human political correctness, because God is all without beginning and without end, why not end it is his love, for this eternal is his mercy, for this one is his home, not many; and the only home of the one Father remains in the base centuries, source of grace and the center of the mystery of salvation, culmination and perfect center of unity.

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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PDF print format article

 

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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The Prodigal Son, work of the sculptor Arturo Martini, 1927 [Rest Home Jona Ottolenghi, Acqui Terme]

In this Sunday glad the fourth week of Lent, the liturgy gives us one of the pages of the Holy Gospels of the best known: the Parable of the Prodigal Son [see text of the liturgy, WHO]. To claim to have legitimate paternal inheritance while the father was still alive was a terrible outrage in the Jewish world, but not only in it. It would be like saying: "I have no time to wait for you to pull the bucket, what to give me right away what belongs to me ". Here then it is that the father gives an initial and a final response: Start the answer is the action that fulfills the son's request, confirming him master of his freedom and owner of the goods which he claimed; the final answer is an act of pure love, which in itself contains a lesson based on the maturity and true mercy; the mercy that comes from God, who has no fear to welcome sinners and eating with them, with all due respect to the scribes and Pharisees of yesterday and today.

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The prodigal son of a far country and he squanders all loose living, until it starts to feel the pinch. "He would gladly have fed on the pods that were fed the pigs, "But no one gave him anything". Honestly it is hard to think that the boy did not have a chance to take for themselves the husks; and this should call our attention to the phrase: "No one gave him anything", referring to this young man who had lost everything. That is to say that no one fed him with love. He devoured his substance with many prostitutes, but he had not been devoured by love sincere and passionate about a single woman. So it is the lack of love generates in him a strong crisis, because most of the physical needs he suffers for human needs. The love which until earlier had received, It generates in him a feeling of fear, resulting in tender nostalgia.

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We do not know if the young man begins to understand that you have lived a life devoid of love, or to understand that out of love had lost their freedom to enter into the spiral of fear, hidden anguish and guilt. The man, which itself remains a mystery, He can not live without love; his life is senseless, if he meets the love from which it can come true freedom: "In love there is no fear, but perfect love casts out fear " [GV 4, 18-19].

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At that point the young man begins to question: "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and I perish with hunger! I will wake up, I go to my father ... ". In these words prevails not have a sense of pain for the father abandoned, or for its inability to give and receive love; It seems to prevail rather the situation of hardship and extreme need that push him to go home, Perhaps even more folded on itself. For a selfish need is for a party and selfish need decides to return. All this marks his first start and, albeit moved by discomfort and need, and he moves back to his father. "While still far away his father saw him, he took pity on him, He ran to meet, and he fell on his neck and kissed him ". These five words we open their doors on the essence of true love. Seeing someone still far means that in our hearts we were waiting for him. Try compassion means that you do not think more to injury received, on the contrary it is willing to open their hearts and to think of the suffering, no matter what happened. Christian The eternal challenge is in fact to humanely accommodate those who have hurt us, raising the evil from the ground when it falls, instead of raging at him with that spirit of revenge that has nothing to do with justice, even with the right and sometimes necessary punishment to compete for the best good of the person, but above all for its recovery.

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running meeting to the other equivalent to removing it from any uncomfortable taking the first step that breaks the deadlock, This prerogative typical of the great, certainly not of little men who live by grudges, spite and revenge. Throw to a person's neck, in the Jewish culture of the time was not a gesture of circumstance but of deep warm love and extreme confidence.

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Here is the big brother who "became angry and refused to go», beginning to list their merits and demerits of the brother to his father, complaining they have not received anything from his father. "Son, all that is mine is yours ", He reassures the father for his due. In this way the parable stresses that reasoning so also the elder son, in a different but similar moves away to his left and out of the house as the youngest brother, showing a clear rejection of the action of grace. Therefore the Father, that "emotional" meeting was going on at the prodigal son, Now comes a new meeting to the eldest son, explaining both his love for children is free. No One, it has the right to be loved; from any page of the Gospel you get this kind of law, if anything, it yields a duty: to love. From the various steps and articulate the Gospel we can also derive how often love is tragically one-sided, He donated one side with divine power, not accepted and welcomed other human aridity. God loves us not because we deserve it, but because he is the source of love. God can not help but to love, It is not capable; we are, able to help but be loved.

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Like the prodigal son has lost the love of the Father away from him, the eldest son does not have the Father's right to love because it has not strayed. In this same mistake we fall we children of the Church, we priests first, that much of the People that God has entrusted to us to serve, We acquired no right to salvation, only a duty to respond much more and much better than others for what Christ has given us, through the mystery of his participation in the ministerial priesthood.

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How many times do we suffer the Father who can not help but love, feeling like the eldest son of an injustice parable his love and mercy toward his brother offender? How much it is, especially in these times of serious crisis through the Church, We run integral with heat to embrace all that is not Catholic, But at the same time showing little love, sometimes even open rebellion against our Church, turning his back to the brothers and sons of the living members of Christ, which it is the Church, his mystical body? And on this earth, the Christ, He has established only one Church, worth remembering from time to time, considering that soon we will proclaim in the profession of faith, the unity of the Church, not the multiplicity of churches [the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed]; reminds without the possibility of erroneous theological interpretations one of the main documents of Vatican Council II, the The light.

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This is also a way to meditate on the parable of the prodigal son who returns to the house of his father, where waiting for him there is no sociological fashion, above all, no political correctness. Because God is always beyond any fashion, but above all human political correctness, because God is all without beginning and without end, why not end it is his love, for this eternal is his mercy, for this one is his home, not many; and the only home of the one Father remains in the base centuries, source of grace and the center of the mystery of salvation, culmination and perfect center of unity.

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In the unity the Father created us, and awaits you with open arms, the perfect unity of his body which is the Church, the beloved prodigal son hidden inside each of us, so that his children can be "completely one that the world may know that you sent me and have loved them even as you loved me" [GV 17, 23].

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From the island of Patmos, 30 March 2019

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And available Book of Masses for the dead of The Island of Patmos [see WHO]

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Once upon a time the Eucharist and the Catholic priesthood, Then came Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez founders of the Neocatechumenal Way … and heresy became flesh and dwelt among us

- the essays by Theologica -

THERE WERE ONCE THE EUCHARIST AND THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD, THEN CAME KIKO ARGÜELLO AND CARMEN HERNÁNDEZ FOUNDERS OF THE NEOCATECHUMENAL WAY ... AND HERESY BECAME MEAT AND CAME TO LIVE WITH US

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INDEX: I. Heresy is not an indecent word and giving a heretic to those who fall and remain in substantial and formal heresy is not an insult, but a simple statement of fact - (II). The first misconception to dispel: if the Neocatechumenal Way was developed under the pontificates of two Popes Saints, This makes the case for holy and untouchable dogma of the Catholic faith?III. The Neocatechumenals come to life on the crisis of authority of the Church and develop under the pontificate of John Paul II after presenting him with the family of The White Mill - IV. The Neocatechumenal Way has made the old heresy of the Albigensians current again, without the ecclesiastical authority putting a stop to the fact that the Eucharist is not a private good that they can dispose of at will - V. When the Church finds all the excuses not to listen to victims of various kinds, eventually he ends up being left with the Cardinals to the bars of the criminal courts, but even in this case she continued undeterred not to listen - WE. The Lie of the Neucatecumenale Way leaders: to affirm that the Church has recognized and fully legitimized their liturgical and catechetical antics - VII. The many good people who make it up are enough to make a movement healthy? They are enough testimonies of those who say: "The Way I converted", "The Way I returned to the Church"? VIII. The reigning Pontiff did not take long to launch it too precise references to kikos and the mega-catechists of the Neocatechumenal obtaining the effect obtained by its three predecessors: deaf ears - IX. The Neocatechumenals are the negation of the wise missionary spirit of the Church, ed instead of bringing new people to Catholicism they make new followers to Neocatechumenalism - X. The Neocatechumenal Way is a psycho-sect in which the critical sense is canceled after having invaded the conscience of the followers and changing the crass ignorance and pride into a gift of election of the Holy Spirit - XI. To the serious problem of the wrong perception of the Most Holy Eucharist is added the wrong perception of the Priesthood, especially between the common priesthood of the baptized and the ministerial priesthood of Christ, which involves only the ministers of the sacred equipped with a gift triple: to be taught, governing, to sanctify XII. Conclusion.

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Author:
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

Before you get going in the long speech it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the word heresy. The need for clarification is due to the fact that within the Church itself has been undermined by time Newspeak, And it came to explain how years ago in one of the first items on this our Patmos Island [2014, see WHO], and then follow in my so-called keynote [see video, WHO]. Newspeak is not just create new words, or called neologisms, but perform an operation even worse: giving the words a meaning different from that etymologically have ch'esse. The emptying of the words from their meaning filled with completely different meanings, is a grave danger that the phenomenon takes development before, during and after the French Revolution. An exhaustive example is the concepts of freedom, equality and fraternity, which they are suffixes of the founding of Christianity, not an invention of the French Revolution. Principles, however,, the late eighteenth century, and following the course of the nineteenth century, They will change into principles antithetical to Christianity, what's more used to attack and groped scuttle of Christianity itself […]

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YOU CAN BUY THE BOOK BY CLICKING WHO

 

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The patience and mercy of God are aimed at our salvation, non-clearance of sin as a lifestyle

The angle dell'omiletica of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

PATIENCE AND MERCY OF GOD ARE AIMED TO OUR SALVATION, NOT THE CLEARANCE OF SIN AS A LIFESTYLE

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Let us understand this first: may God be merciful and magnanimous certainly does not exempt the sinner from the effort of leading a path of truth about his own life. If I do not look at the truth in my heart and I do not recognize the garbage that accumulates there, I'm just a hypocrite who hides the dust under a nice carpet.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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PDF print format article

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the sterile fig

The Mercy of God is therapy that transforms sinners into saints e, like all therapies, need patience, of time, Constancy and effort. There is no divine mercy cheap without a healthy acknowledgment of personal guilt and a genuine desire for change.

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Let us understand this first: may God be merciful and magnanimous certainly does not exempt the sinner from the effort of leading a path of truth about his own life. If I do not look at the truth in my heart and I do not recognize the garbage that accumulates there, I'm just a hypocrite who hides the dust under a nice carpet.

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In the Gospel of this Third Sunday of Lent [cf. text of Liturgy of the Word, WHO] Jesus reacts vigorously to the so-called Theology of Retribution which consists in considering the misfortunes as the consequence of faults, more or less known, committed by men. In John returns this type of theological vision in the episode of the man born blind: "Rabbi, who sinned, he or his parents, that he was born blind?». Jesus answered: "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but so might be made manifest in him the works of God " [cf. GV 9,2-3].

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Obviously this theological vision is busted, God likes to punish men, But Jesus has the chance to make some useful considerations. The Lord makes it clear that the conversion is necessary in order to make a true experience of God. The problem is not the disgrace or death - that can affect everyone in every moment - the real problem is that he does not want to convert to God and does not want to return to him with all my heart.

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The conversion, We know it is the Holy Spirit, but it occurs only when man is able to maintain a certain fear of God. If there is no fear but audacity and insolence, our life is a goner! Natural death is the logical consequence of that death to the grace we have experienced with the distance from God.

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Since the conversion involves the fear of God, the Lord gives us time so that our lives can repent as much as possible. God expresses patience so that the sinner may be fertilized by the Word, from the sacraments, by trusting prayer and experience of ecclesial communion. Jesus is the factor that daily application to the Father the time for each of us to be converted. We are irrigated and fertilized by the blood of Christ, waiting to bear fruit for change.

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Inside the Liturgy of the Word this Sunday, there is the proclamation of a proclamation of mercy and patience, but this is put as an objective need for a fruitiness and a conversion. We can not affirm that God in His mercy and patience does not look on sin, He pretends not in front of the sins, He closes his eyes becoming our accomplice and blanketing everything with a thick layer of dull gooders.

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God the Father never tires of welcoming sinners, but repentant sinners! He conosce our weakness, nevertheless asks us to leave Jesus to save you from sin does not become an incurable cancer that leads to death. God does not want any man to be lost, does not want the sinner to die but life in abundance, you must always believe in the good news.

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Scripture assures us that there is sterility and death it can not be strengthened or rehabilitated, Today not dwell on the greatness of our sin, but on the greatness of the Father who only he asks us to fill our distance from him, just as he had the courage to do the prodigal son.

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Cagliari, 23 March 2019

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the personal blog by Father Ivano

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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The transfiguration. the incarnation memorial, passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ the Lord, We should not celebrate with Assyrian-Babylonian dances around the altar reduced to totem

L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

The Transfiguration. MEMORIAL INCARNATION, PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF CHRIST THE LORD, IT SHOULD NOT BE CELEBRATED WITH AXIRO-BABYLON DANCES AROUND THE ALTAR REDUCED TO TOTEM

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Often, in the name of their own exotic and arbitrary "traditions" that hide only the excessive self-centered personalisms of some of their founders, our lay movements risk losing sight of the Catholic tradition of the universal Church; and certain pitfalls you understand from their own way of praying. It is not uncommon that at the center of some liturgical actions end up being placed man and not Christ. Like this, the centrality, It is no longer given dall'Eucarista, but from everything around it it has been put into circulation: by so-called "resonance" - which not infrequently are real emotional rants riddled with doctrinal and theological errors - until the Assyrian-Babylonian dances performed around the altar mutated into a kind of totem.

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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PDF print format article
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Jesus Christ be praised !

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Assyrian-Babylonian dances around the totem [to open the video click on the image]

This IIª Sunday of Lent The Holy Gospel narrates the Transfiguration of Christ the Lord [cf. LC 9, 28-36, text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO]. After the passage of the temptations which Jesus, true God and true man wins the presence of Satan [cf. WHO], the Lord again to the mountain salt. Joining him is Peter, James and John, the columns of the first Church. On Golgotha, Jesus is transfigured, changes in appearance. His face shines like the sun and his clothes became white as light. The Blessed Evangelist Luke, unlike the Blessed Evangelist Matthew, He has it that Lord Christ was praying [cf. LC 9, 29].

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It is precisely in prayer we discover different, if we truly pray to God. If we pray ourselves and praying we love our religious traditions or lay passed for God, confused with God or worse often put above God, This is another matter. Actually it is also a very dangerous business, This insidious and always in the areas of religious life and lay movements that often took their own lives on the rubble of religious life. Often, in the name of their exotic and arbitrary "traditions" that hide inordinate self-centered personalities of certain founders, our lay movements risk losing sight of the Catholic tradition of the universal Church; and certain pitfalls you understand from their own way of praying. It is not uncommon that at the center of some liturgical actions end up being placed man and not Christ. Like this, the centrality, It is no longer given dall'Eucarista, but from everything around it it has been put into circulation: by so-called "resonance" - which are not infrequently rants emotional riddled with doctrinal and theological errors - until the Assyrian-Babylonian dances performed around the altar mutated into a kind of totem.

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The problem is that today a large number of faithful no longer knows what the Holy Mass, reason for which they have been inserted in it so-called quirks and malvezzi better known as liturgical abuses, that are designed precisely to make up for this lack of knowledge, so that all fall and drown nell'emotivo subjective or group. We try then to say it in a few short and precise words: Mass is the sacrifice of grace is at the center of the mystery of redemption. In the First Eucharistic Prayer, O Roman Canon - that in many churches is falling into disuse, replaced almost unique use of the shorter of the Eucharistic Prayers, the second -, after the People of God acclaimed "The mystery of faith", the priest, that is not simply "the president" but a old christ which it acts as such In persona, followed by reciting:

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"And now, Sir, you served us, But also your holy, Son our Lord same Christ Our Lord, and also of His Resurrection from hell, But the ascension into glory: cellent Majesty, of touched given, bestowed upon us, pure sacrifice, this holy, stainless, Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of everlasting ».

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[In this sacrifice, or Father, us your ministers and your holy people celebrate the memorial of the blessed passion, the resurrection from the dead and glorious ascension into heaven of Christ, your Son, our Lord; and we offer to your divine majesty, the many gifts you have given us, pure victim, holy and without blemish, holy Bread of eternal life and the cup of eternal salvation].

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Already from these brief words it should be understood that in the celebration of all sacramental actions, which I am a Trinitarian action taken in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we realize our encounter with the Risen Christ. In the Eucharistic Sacrifice Christ the Lord is present - through the Holy Eucharist - with his whole life: from his incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary until the descent of the Holy Spirit - the Comforter - sent by the Father and the Son in the Upper Room at Pentecost the Apostles.

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With the resurrection, the passion and death of Christ It is far removed, is something proved by the fact that the Risen One showed himself to the apostles with his glorious body in which the signs of the passion were always impressed. And the glorious body of Christ, followed today in bringing impressed upon him the signs of the passion.

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When the celebrant recites "... this holy and living sacrifice", It indicates those words redeeming action of the passion and death of Christ the Lord. One might therefore wonder: to someone who is on Calvary, under the cross, the Blessed Virgin Mary, along with Mary Magdalene and the young John the Apostle, They were dancing in a circle joyfully embraced in a passionate circle around “totem cross“? Faith and tradition they hand down anything, for instance:

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Stabat Mater Dolorosa
by Cross in tears,
While her Son.

[The Sorrowful Mother was
in tears at the Cross
on which hung the Son]

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O is instead that

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He danced the playful mother

under the joyful Cross

on which hung the Son?

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When you pray really, even in the total loneliness and isolation, please always in communion of faith and love with the universal Church; not in communion with a particular group or with his personalistic style of prayer. And when you truly pray, alone or with siblings, after a while’ time you have this exact feeling: it changes in appearance, it is less rigid, the thought flies toward a real infinite and one experiences a feeling I would say mystical. The experience and the dimension of prayer necessary part - and so should be - from a physical dimension through which we will be led into a whole metaphysical dimension of experience.

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This is the predicament in which Christ the Lord communicates with Moses and Elijah according to a faithful chronicle of the Holy Gospel. Moses represents the Law of Sinai, Ten Commandments, the Jewish Torah. Elia, the Prophet ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot of which the Jews await the return at any moment. The law and the prophets, the ancient and first covenant dialogue in communion with Jesus, the Word of God who became incarnate not to abolish the law of the ancient prophets, but to bring it to full fruition [cf. Mt 5, 17-19], and the fulfillment is he: the Word made flesh [cf. GV 1, 14].

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Tender way over the figure of Peter, Mediterranean and fiery as ever, who would like to stop this time putting it in a nice picture frame. Would that life would stop there at Tabor, without going to Calvary.

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The cloud finally envelops the three disciples entering inside. A cloud that is God that envelops the man every time the man decides to become enfolded. And after this winding is heard the voice of the Father: "This is my Son, the beloved. listen to him " [cf. MC 9, 7].

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The Father proclaims Jesus to his disciples his beloved Son, that we are called to listen, acknowledging adoring in him the word of the Incarnate Word.

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In front of these words the disciples fall down with his face to the ground and are afraid. The Gospel does not say that they are afraid, but who fear. That holy fear of God of which we very much needed today. A holy fear that is ineffable gift of the Holy Spirit of God, who does not want our fear, but our free and adoring respect. For as he wrote the equivalent, and almost contemporary Thomas Aquinas Jews, Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides: "The fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom". .

Jesus, It does ultimately awaken the disciples fallen to awe on his face to the ground; and straightens them using precise words: "Arise and be not afraid ' [Mt 17, 7]. They are advised to remain silent.

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Only after Easter will be able to understand what happened. Jesus revealed his future glory in the transfiguration, But that will happen only after the death on the cross. There will only be the Mount Tabor, that of the Transfiguration, the disciples will have to discover another very bitter Mt.: Mount Calvary. Among these mountains there is another even in the experience of Jesus' human life: the mountain on which previously has retired for forty days and where it is attempted by the Demon. Monte, the latter, depicting the terrible reality of the mystery of evil, following us since the beginning of time.

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Life is suffering and joy who will compete in a constant battle in our history. A life that is full of wonderful moments and very sad moments, sometimes intersected with. But just when it seems that everything vanishes, God comes to save us, to support us. When conversely everything looks positive, When is life to live us instead of us to live life, sometimes that negative event occurs that we did not expect.

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Life is basically this: continuous Easter through which Jesus, rising again, It gives new hope to all of us, inviting us to climb the mountain and not to fear God, but to feed free and loving fear of the mystery of God's love, which is realized through the incarnation, the life, passion, the death, the resurrection and ascension into heaven of Christ the Lord, whose glorious body still lives bringing the passion imprinted signs. That's why, The holy Mass, The sacrifices; It is the bloodless sacrifice of the cross that is renewed, not a joyful banquet, a canteen between cheerful diners, more or less dancing, more or less according to the drumming antics dictated by a gypsy Spanish was not hurt by decades of impunity ...

 

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From the island of Patmos, 17 March 2019

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And available Book of Masses for the dead of The Island of Patmos [see WHO]

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
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or you can use the bank account:
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He died the Cardinal Godfried Danneels, a terrible loss. The cat blessed by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini appeared in mystical cat Sardinian Barbagia of making a revelation: "The eminent deceased is already in the glory of the Angels and Saints"

- the cogitatorio of Hypatia -

He DIED CARDINAL GODFRIED DANNEELS, A LOSS unbridgeable. THE BLESSED CAT OF CARDINAL CARLO MARIA MARTINI APPEARED TO THE MYSTICAL CAT OF THE BARBAGIA SARDA MAKING A REVELATION: "The EMINENT DECEASED IS ALREADY IN THE GLORY OF THE ANGELS AND SAINTS"

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… This cardinal loved so much the Holy Church of Christ, which he tried to dissuade a young manager from reporting the sexual abuse for years in his own hurt. Indeed, author and abuser was S.It is. Mons. Roger Vangheluwe, Bishop of Bruges, whose nephew was abused. Animated by a deep spirit of compassion, Gotfried Cardinal Danneels asked the victim to wait to report violence, given that his uncle the bishop he would resign from office the following year due to age limits …

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Author
Roman cat Hypatia

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To enter the bookshop click on the cover


«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
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They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
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The most terrible cancers, and difficult to heal are the diseases that prevent us from being witnesses of Christ [Objection reflection: "The lack of forgiveness"]

visit the personal blog by Father Ivano

- Pastoral care of health -

THE MOST TERRIBLE AND DIFFICULT CANCER TO HEAL ARE THE DISEASES THAT PREVENT US FROM BEING WITNESSES OF CHRIST

[ IIIª REFLECTION: Lack of forgiveness ]

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Let's start with a trivial finding: because we feel resentment and fail to forgive? Simply because we internally relive the evil that has been done to us, mulling it over in our hearts. The memory of the offense caused - in this case - no longer works to reach a resolution but works to reiterate the offense, which over time becomes chronic and remains calcified as an obsession in our soul.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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PDF print format article

 

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the cartoons of Gioba [John Berti, Veronese presbyter] original in gioba.it WHO

The third pathology spiritual which I will discuss is related to the tendency not to grant forgiveness easily, and it is very widespread. It does not spare the lay faithful like consecrated persons. Like this, as a priest dedicated to the ministry of confessor,I often find myself probing this aspect within the life of penitents who approach the precious sacrament of reconciliation.

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I assist like this most of the time to a kind of spiritual schizophrenia, indeed, if on the one hand one wants to obtain God's forgiveness at any cost - given the proliferation of trends merciful - this desire, however, does not correspond to an equally desired grant of forgiveness towards others. The search for forgiveness and the rigidity in granting it certainly constitutes a paradox in the life of many men and women who live the faith..

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As a confessor, I must admit that the most painful reality consists in taking note of how the lack of forgiveness is hardly perceived as a sin to confess, and sometimes it is not even understood as condition not which conforms to the image of Christ [cf. 1PT 2,23]. Every day reciting the prayer of the Our Father, we are faced with a clause of ascetic perfection that asks God to remit our shortcomings, to the extent that we make ourselves bearers of forgiveness towards those who have offended us. So let's try to be careful about what we ask in prayer, in fact, God takes seriously these words which are not of man but of Christ, this is what the version of the Our Father in the Gospel of St. Matthew that says so teaches us: "Forgive us our debts, as we also remit them to our debtors " [cf. Mt 6,12], that of the Gospel of Saint Luke instead: "Forgive us our sins, in fact we too forgive all our debtors " [cf. Lk 11,4]. The differences are minimal, but the substance does not change: the Christian is recognized by how he forgives, that is, by the way in which he exercises his own justice not according to the logic of the world but according to the logic of the Gospel [cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 2838; Compendium n. 594].

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The Our Father has always been a problematic prayer - this was the case for Sant’Agostino - but this problematic nature is not synonymous with the impossibility of achieving what he asks, if anything, of resistance to grace, that is, an indication of a sick human heart.

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There are so many people who say: "I don't forgive" or "I forgive but I don't forget". They are sentences extrapolated from their context and from the emotional charge with which they are pronounced, but which really contain a profound truth. And with this reflection of mine I want to try to answer precisely these two objections.

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I. DIO FORGIVES, NOT ME: A GOAL THAT EXCEEDS L'MAN.

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That man was a disaster in forgiving the Blessed Apostle Peter understood this well [cf. Mt 18,21-22], when turning to Jesus he asks how many times it is lawful to forgive one's offender. Peter questions Jesus about the legitimacy of a moral act foreseen by the law, but the master responds by overturning the figure of Lamec's revenge in the positive [cf. GN 4,23-24]: “I don't tell you up to seven times, but seventy times seven ". With this unsettling answer, Jesus - bearing in mind all the symbolic value of the numbers seven and seventy - wants to make Peter understand that forgiveness is not a moral act that touches on legal obligation but on grace. The next parable of the merciless servant, illustrates very well the overrun problem and the correct hermeneutics of the thought of Jesus expressed to Peter [cf. Mt 18,23-35].

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Forgiveness taught by Christ to the disciples reaches its summit on Calvary and lives on the mystique of the encounter with the Father, author of grace and therefore of pardon [cf. LC 23,34]. Forgiveness means returning to God, allow him to make us new. The holy King David, aware of this need for conversion and renewal in the spirit that directs towards forgiveness, in the Miserere he becomes the bearer of a precise request «Create in me, hate, a pure heart renews a steadfast spirit in me " [cf. Shall 51,12].

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The use of conversion, necessary to be docile to grace and to soften the heart, it allows us to be forgiven and to forgive in turn. He who forgives, indeed, he is pardoned and is aware of having to live in a perennial desire for conversion. A generous will with a Pelagian flavor is not enough to fully implement forgiveness. Daily experience teaches that, in most cases, I can try to isolate the offender and the offender, perhaps even groped to forget, but that still does not mean forgiving.

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I usually say to penitents that to forgive is to have, towards those who have offended us, the same gaze that God the Father has towards us when we kneel before the priest confessor. It means having the authentic experience of Luke's Merciful Father [cf. LC 15,11-32], who grants forgiveness, seen almost as impossible by the younger son, without dwelling on the reasons for the return and without the constraint of a stable return to the paternal home. This is precisely the correct way to exercise Christian forgiveness, so much so as to strengthen the credibility of our faith and of the proposal that Jesus makes to every disciple [cf. (C). Theobald, Christianity as a style. A way of doing theology in postmodernity, I-II, Bologna, EDB, 2009]. I can only share, at this point, the excellent thought of Alessio Rocchi, when it states that:

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“Having a guts of mercy does not mean being spineless, but rather have an extra strength (or of grace, ed). In this sense, forgiveness is redemption, not negation or reduction of evil but his own revision. It is no miracle, no effortless action performed by a mighty magician or an almighty god, but a severe test of earthly existence, through looks that (King)they fit into a relationship, by words that (King)integrate into a story " [cf. A. Rocchi, The time of forgiveness, Aporias of forgiveness between philosophy and theology, p. 97, Just - Studies and research, 2015].

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Precisely because forgiveness is a redemptive moment which leads back to an intimate and new relationship, it is a theological place where it is possible to experience the newness promised by God through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah [cf. Is 43,19]; that is to see the birth of a road in the desert in which it is possible to follow new situations, and in which man can move in full communion with the Father without the fear of feeling vulnerable or naked [cf. GN 3,11].

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Forgiveness means building new ways, therefore the relationship that is created between the offender and the offender has nothing to do with the relationship preceding the wrong, but it is a transfigured relationship in which God reveals himself. By studying the dynamics of forgiveness to which God invites man, we are thus led back to the reflection on the eschatological dynamics of life beyond life.

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In my ministry as a hospital chaplain it is common practice to assist the dying and their families. The most painful knot that the dying patient has to cut before the definitive leave is that of granting forgiveness or accepting forgiveness. A similar test must also be faced by the patient's family. Leaving aside here, the reasons and causes for the debts to be forgiven before death, it is necessary to dwell on the need that the dying person has to die reconciled. Reconciled with God and therefore reconciled with the brothers he has offended or who have been a cause of suffering for him.

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The episode of the Good Thief dictates our in-depth analysis. The Gospels testify how Jesus was crucified between two thieves [cf. MC 15,27]: we know how the Greek term λήστοι [history] identify a political criminal - today we will say a terrorist - rather than a thief or a general criminal. The situation that arises on Calvary in the eyes of the Romans is clear: the execution of two political prisoners together with Jesus seen as a troublemaker and subversion of the people of Israel. But here we are in the midst of agony, one of these enemies of Rome, now nearing the end, he turns to Jesus and - recognizing him as the Lord and at the same time in need of conversion and reconciliation for a life of crime, hatred and grudges - he exclaims: "Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom " [cf. LC 23,42].

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These words that allow us to understand how

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«Forgiveness is - once again - both requested and offered. To read and reread them they sound like three graces. Thank you, of I ask thank you, I ask your forgiveness because my life hasn't been that great. Thank you, of I do thank you, I forgive you for your impotence, for your not coming down from the cross, for your don't let me go down with you. I thank you and accept you for who you are, putting aside my disappointment with you. I grant you the grace not to ask you for a miracle, not to swear - and I would have many reasons - about mine and your fate. This crucified evildoer asks to be forgiven through the question of a memory, it seems forgive through the recognition of one's punishment, decide to to forgive silencing their legitimate curses and silencing the miraculous claims of the condemned comrade " [cf. A. Rocchi, The time of forgiveness, Aporias of forgiveness between philosophy and theology, p. 95, Just - Studies and research, 2015].

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The dialogue of the repentant thief with Jesus it is placed on the horizon of life that never sets, of a very clear eschatological hope, we all need. The desire that this condemned man has to live is very evident, and it is equally evident in him the awareness that dying without asking and granting forgiveness, it affects the future life with the aggravating circumstance of the conclusion of an earthly life in an unnecessary tragedy. The only hope not to die eternally - in oblivion, among the ghosts of a personal story that speaks of violence, destruction and hatred - is the blessing that comes with forgiveness. Although death poses as a lady - as the singer-songwriter Branduardi recalls in one of his famous ballads [cf. video WHO] - forgiveness before farewell wins over death, and it can already be a deposit of eternity, redemption of a ruined existence, guarantee of healing towards oneself and towards others. Moreover, it would be paradoxical for the Christian to begin his new life in Paradise with various slopes following it. A full life [cf. GV 10,10] it is synonymous with a fully reconciled life, a half-life is on the contrary the expression of a slowdown that deprives us of communion with God and with our brothers, a friction that will have to be recomposed or atoned in some other way.

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(II). GOOD MEMORY TO FORGIVE

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We are sincere, after receiving an offense it's hard to put a stone on it. Many would like to put a stone on the offender, but this is not civilly and Christianly acceptable. Then there are people who invite us to forget and pretend nothing has happened. They end up being inopportune comforters like the three friends of wise Job [cf. Gb 3,ss], and they do us no good service. For this reason - as mentioned earlier - we need God's grace along with a constant and explicit prayer request, so that the Lord heals our wound and gives us the time necessary to be converted to forgiveness. But achieving forgiveness includes the ability to have a good memory, in fact, completely forgetting the offense - an unlikely option - would deprive us of the possibility of granting forgiveness and therefore of achieving peace and that blessing which is a guarantee for a new beginning of life.

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Let's start with a trivial finding: because we feel resentment and fail to forgive? Simply because we internally relive the evil that has been done to us, mulling it over in our hearts. The memory of the offense caused - in this case - no longer works to reach a resolution but works to reiterate the offense, which over time becomes chronic and remains calcified as an obsession in our soul.

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One of the symptoms of those who do not experience forgiveness it is the feeling of having a weight in the heart, and that feeling often carries on for years. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur said:

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"Authentic forgiveness does not imply the oblivion of the events themselves, but a different way of signifying a debt […] which paralyzes the memory and consequently the ability to recreate ourselves in a new future " [cf. R. Kearney M. Dooley, Issues of ethics: contemporary debates in philosophers, Armando Publishers, 2005, p. 40; to complete the thought cf. also P. Ricoeur, To remember, forget, to forgive. The enigma of the past, The Mill, Bologna 2004].

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This fixation of memory on the offense it is deleterious, when memory needs to concentrate on the offense it is only to initiate a liberation process that you condone, piece by piece, the wrong suffered.

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Sometimes, to overcome the obsession together with the anxiety of forgiveness not granted, there is a tendency to replace resentment with indifference, but this is a false remedy. The medicine of "the eye does not see, heart doesn't hurt ", not only is it not Christian but it becomes a subtle and terrible way to lead the brother to death by exiling him from his own existence.

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The set of processes just described they help us understand the sentence as a whole: "I can't forgive!». Really the person is unable to forgive, because this offense has hardened, sclerotizzata, traditional medicines are no longer enough but surgery is urgent. The urgent intervention consists in associating memory with the presence of God. A word that recurs a lot in the Old Testament is "remember", the verb that connects directly to people's memory, of things and events. But for the biblical hagiographer, remembering translates into memorial. Simply said, the memorial is remembering together with God.

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Remember those situations and of those events in which God revealed himself - and still reveals himself - in his power, enough to work wonders for the benefit of man. The memorial is therefore more than just a memory, it is remembering through faith, restore a well-defined theological identity, who sees in God the redeemer and in man a creature to be redeemed and redeemed.

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To forgive as a Christian I have to memorialize, that is, remembering together with God, see clearly the offenses and wounds, so that a providential gaze is formed within which the Spirit of God - living memory of the Church [cf. GV 15,26] - work so that every offense and wound is translated into an occasion for praise. As a memorial, I see the person who hurt me, the positives, the good intentions realized, the shipwrecked good intentions, the inevitable contradictions and inconsistencies. I can see in the offender no longer an enemy to fight but a person in need of help because he too is wounded and thirsty for redemption. In the memorial I also perceive my responsibilities well, I take the awareness that perhaps I have facilitated certain behaviors in the other and reduce the tendency to see myself as a scapegoat.

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The memorial is an examination of conscience with which, as for Abraham, God allows me to become an intercessor towards those who have made themselves hostile [cf. GN 18,20-32], without closing one's eyes to the evil inflicted and received and with the tendency to make God's merciful justice triumph.

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[end of IIIª meditation]

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Cagliari, 10 March 2019

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If the demon who dared groped even Christ the Lord is able to take in ambition, We can do what he wants

L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

IF THE DEMON who dared GROPED EVEN CHRIST THE LORD CAN take ambition AND THE VANITY, IT CAN DO WITH US WHAT IT WANTS

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If the devil manages to catch us in the weak point of ambition and vanity, he can do with us what he wants and get what he has wanted since the dawn of time.: to prostrate ourselves before him and worshiping him call him Lord, if anything, after saying, before the evil that sometimes seems almost suffocate the Church itself: "... but who am I doing this to me against the powerful and domineering acolytes of the Devil? What good is getting life bitter, when to live in peace, within the Church today, I just do not see, Not to mention, and above all make your business more rigor and its?».

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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Jericho, Mount of the Quarantine or the Mount of Temptation of Christ

In the Gospel passage This Iª Sunday of Lent [see text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO] we are faced with a paradox: really it happened that the devil has tempted God Incarnate, the Word was made flesh? It may be that the devil attempted to play God in his humanity, pretending to be unaware of what Jesus was divine in his humanity and his divinity in human?

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The blinded by pride and megalomania always start overestimating the most of themselves and underestimating others, why they are doomed to defeat. It may be that they do not fall in the near, but inevitably fall at the first change of season, with the wilting of wildflowers.

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In the Gospel of the temptations, one would think that the Devil overestimate himself and underestimate God. In the early centuries of the Church, with the reason we were able to grasp and define the revealed mystery of the Person of Christ: two natures in one person, the human and the divine. Thanks to the minds and the wisdom of the heart of the great Fathers of the Church in the first eight centuries of the history of Christianity he came to define the mystery of the Person of Christ, which first called for the establishment of appropriate terminology, taken through entries drawn from philosophy and greek lexicon, modulated and applied to our first great theological speculation: before being able to perceive and then to define what was meant primarily, with the words "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God ..." [GV 1,1]. Introduced by the intellect of the mystery of Christ, true God and true man, the reason must give way to faith [CF. S.S. John Paul II, Encyclical Faith and Reason], because the problem is no longer either the lexical or philosophical. When you open the portal of faith that goes beyond the human logic, the reason must give way to other categories, for example the gift of perception laid in every man by the gifts of grace of the Holy Spirit. With human reason we have to read the lines of this Gospel, with faith, fruit of our freedom blessed by the grace of God, we must penetrate, because word after word we first introduced and then taken to feel as real and was the perfect human nature of Jesus.

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Part of this ineffable mystery It is also enclosed in another reality: As in Jesus - true God and true Man - divine perfection could coexist with human frailty; because it is quite clear that the Devil does not attempt the Christ of God, but the Jesus-Man, trying to hit the fragility of his perfect humanity. The devil tries to corrupt the divine perfection of humanity as it used bribed our originally created mankind as perfect by God.

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Then the devil aimed at those tender and human frailties Jesus himself will show one by one during its entire existence, during which weeps [cf. GV 11, 35] and deeply moved [cf. GV 11, 33], It is emotionally troubled [cf. Gv11, 33], She suffers and feels scared to death: "Dad, if you want, away this cup from me. Nevertheless not my, but your will» [LC 22, 41-42]. Jesus chose to remain silent when questioned authority [cf. Mt 27, 12] and while he is accused, instead replicate starts writing with his finger on the ground [cf. GV 8,6], so to say the least provocative. He rebels repeatedly injustice perpetrated in the name of God by the religious rulers of the time and does so even with harsh words, at times deliberately offensive, for example calling "brood of vipers" zealously religious observant [cf. Mt 12, 34], devoted more to the tradition that the Word of God; and the apostrophe repeatedly "hypocrites" [Mt 23, 13-29]. I don't pay for this, place in the language of Jesus called "race" or "tribe" of vipers was offensive not only to the individual concerned but also for her entire family tree, It considers it appropriate to add to the burden dose also calling "snakes" [Mt 23, 33], knowing full well that era in Jewish culture - and not only in the Jewish one - the snake was a symbol of evil. It ignites passion and gravely says, and accuses it on Moses sat hypocrites who are not what they preach [Mt 23, 1-3], equates many church zealous era to "whited sepulchres", take care to point out what these tombs are beautiful outside but full of putrid rot inside [cf. Mt 23, 27]. Do not hesitate to get angry and to lead hands, or accuracy ropes [cf. Mt 21, 12-13. MC: 11, 11-15. LC 19, 45-46]. Jesus is filled with pain and perhaps intimate disappointment when he turns to his apostle with a dramatic question: "Down from, with a kiss you betray the Son of Man?» [LC 22, 48]. Regarding the latter two sentences would be the things to which we should pay attention, first of all the question posed as a question which is also found in the original Greek version, just to say than it is a formulation or a random translation: Jesus addressed a question to the traitor listening for an answer, but never come, because in practice the traitors do not respond, because they are inherently evil nature cowards; because the strength from God, the weakness of the Devil. That's why the man of God is intelligent, while the man of the Demon is just smart. And while today we continue to review the episode and the figure of Judas, We do not always say the true dramatic query: As the man Jesus suffered before the betrayal by Judas? Or maybe, even more than the betrayal, for the failure to reply on his part? there, we try to think only those who today, even in the most senior echelons of the Holy Church, They refuse to respond to Christ the Lord who continues to question them through the voice, often deep pain, of devotees believers of Christ Priests and faithful.

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In these deeds, actions and words is enclosed and manifests the humanity of Jesus, who continues to call all of us when necessary, its modern priests, doctors of the law and religious zealous folded into the idolatry of human forms and traditions, with the titles of our legitimate right: race of vipers … hypocrites … snakes … whitewashed sepulchres … Current words yesterday, but perhaps even more so today. Because of this, when the Liturgy of the Word obliges us to preach some of these evangelical passages, we always do it in the past tense, as if the breed of vipers, the hypocrites, the serpents and the whitewashed sepulchres weren't us, but only the members of some religious currents of Judaism of the Jesuit era, now dead and buried in history.

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These words lit with passion, sometimes even pedagogically aggressive, they sum up the historical mystery of concrete humanity and the virile floor gesuano, which if not collected and penetrated will make it impossible to reach perfect communion with the Christ of faith: the incarnate God, dead and risen.

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The man Jesus cannot be changed into a de-virilized holy hybrid with feet off the ground and eyes rolled up to heaven, because that is offensive, rather: this is a blasphemy against his humanity and his divinity. To read this passage on temptations it is therefore necessary to start from the fact of faith that everything really happened, that it is not a parable or an allegory; then focus on concrete historical humanity, physical and palpable of the Divine Word: the man Jesus.

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The first temptation that the devil addresses is the invitation to change stones into bread, to which Jesus replies with a phrase taken from the book of Deuteronomy: «Man shall not live by bread alone» whose continuation is «... but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God» [Dt 8,3]. We are faced with the temptation of the immediate, completely and immediately in a concrete and superficial way, while instead our concreteness is what comes out of the mouth of God, because that alone is a bread of life that bears fruit and eternal nourishment, it cost even to suffer a whole life, given that before eternal bliss human life is only a breath, and in this breath also salvific pain deserves to live [cf. S.S. John Paul II, Saving pain], to thus pay the price of our redemption.

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The second temptation is perhaps the most terrible: "I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms". It is the temptation that encompasses ambition and the desire to dominate others. It is the desire for command, of government understood not as a service to the brothers and members of the People of God, but as power for power's sake leading to the perfect diabolical reversal: using the Church for evil purposes in the lust of being someone, or to "become an important figure through the priesthood" [Homily of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI for the ordination of 15 deacons, Vatican Basilica IV Sunday of Easter, 7 May 2006], better through the episcopate, even better through the cardinalate; instead of serving the Church with love and always seeing in her the palpitating Body of Christ, our mystical bride towards whom we run towards with the passion of the couple in love on their wedding day, as depicted by the Evangelist John through the poetics of his pages.

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If the devil manages to catch us in the weak spot of ambition and with vanity he can do with us what he wants and get what he has longed for since the dawn of time: to prostrate ourselves before him and worshiping him call him Lord, if anything, after saying, before the evil that sometimes seems almost suffocate the Church itself: "... but who am I doing this to me against the powerful and domineering acolytes of the Devil? What good is getting life bitter, when to live in peace, within the Church today, I just do not see, Not to mention, and above all make your business more rigor and its?».

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To address to man Jesus the last desperate temptation Satan becomes theologian, perhaps even an ecumenist, maybe even politically correct progressive, if anything speaking in German and Dutch rather than in Aramaic. Satan begins to speak with biblical mastery as if he had just graduated from a doctorate in sacred theology from our pontifical universities: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; indeed it is written: “His angels will give order for you, because they keep you”» [LC 4, 9-10].The Devil, as St. Jerome said: «He apes God and wants to create another reality» [The exact phrase then also taken up by St. Augustine is: The devil is the ape of God, the devil is the monkey of God], because he is the master of reversal; also of the reversal of the Word of God used in a deviant way to do evil deeds. The man Jesus, who thank God had never studied in our pontifical universities and who by nature was politically incorrect, he knew the Torah better than the devil, then he replies without hesitation with another Bible quotation: "Thou shalt not test the Lord your God" [Dt 6,16]. And a warning clearly emerges from this sentence: the man Jesus reminds the Devil that he is indeed a true man, but also true God.

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Finally "The devil departed from him..." we read at the end of this page of the Gospel, ending with the sentence: «… to return to the appointed time», that is, to return to us and among us.

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Satan exists today more than yesterday. It is not a symbolic image, it is not — as some theologians of the 1970s defined it, whose theories are sadly still used today to train our future priests — "a mythical and allegorical depiction of man's ancient ancestral fears". Satan exists, it is real and wants to rob us more than ever of our image and likeness to God; he wants to rob us of our amazement and our love in front of God incarnate dead and risen, who in his one person contains the perfect human nature and the perfect divine nature, teaching us to be real men to be real children of God in the way God intended us, created and loved before the beginning of time.

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From the island of Patmos, 10 March 2019

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And available Book of Masses for the dead of The Island of Patmos [see WHO]

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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From Sodom to Spinello up the spiritual exercises to the Roman Curia, while in the world of the unreal no one realizes that the monastic life is dead and what remains is a parody: "You call them if you want, emotions"

- ecclesial news -

FROM THE SODOM SPINELLO UP TO RETREAT TO THE ROMAN CURIA, WHILE NO ONE IN THE WORLD IS unreal MAKES STATEMENT THAT LIFE MONASTIC IS DEAD AND THAT THAT REMAINS IS A PARODY: "You call them IF YOU WANT, EMOTIONS "

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The preacher Abbot will speak to the Roman Curia about the dreamer Giorgio La Pira and the poet Mario Luzi, as if it was a dream spirituality and theology poetry, as if the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, loudly proclaimed a saint had never written the encyclical Faith and Reason, the base of which there is the thought of a great Benedictine Abbot, then Archbishop of Canterbury, Sant'Anselmo d'Aosta, who did not live the relationship with faith in dreams and poetry, but explaining that faith seeking understanding [faith requires reason] and in need: «I believe in order to understand, I understand that you can trust» [I think to understand, I understand to believe]. Unfortunately the famous Italian singer Lucio Battisti has been dead for years, otherwise, for the next retreat, perhaps Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi would have proposed the thoughtful lyrics of his famous song Emotions …

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

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The Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore [click on the picture to enlarge]

Next the Council of Trent who attempted to curb the drifts of the clergy, Many abbeys poured in disastrous moral conditions. Recently he's talked in an essay dedicated to religious life [cf. WHO]. The state of men's abbeys, towards the end of the fifteenth century it was not unlike that of many female monasteries bleak, especially in those with rich heritages.

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One example among many: in the architecture of many historic abbeys we can observe the standing buildings, detached from the monastery at least a hundred meters. If we ask the monks who continue to live in those abbeys and monasteries - because many of these facilities are no longer abbeys and monasteries, others are not inhabited by monks -, the answers that we shall receive will be varied, and equally disparate will not be the real answer, because often the truth burns, especially it can be really unedifying.

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the ancient bachelor pad abbots more or less renaissance

Since we will speak of the frescoes of the cloister Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, erected in the fourteenth century in the countryside of the Crete Senesi, as an example we will take one of these stable detached from the monastery and today referred to as entrance door. Nothing to say that architectural styles change in the course of the centuries, but that function had a detached tower of the abbey and not visible from the abbey, which it is spread over four levels and incorporates a structure that, starting from the ground floor is dominated by two upper levels, all on an area of ​​over one thousand square meters? Do we have to believe that this gift of God architecture was really created only as a gateway to the abbey, or perhaps as a fortress? But a fort that would be if there were solid and high walls, that in that property, however, never existed, so?

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So the structure was the residence of some revelers abbots, become such good offices of powerful families or for questions related to specific political arrangements, that being accustomed to lead monastic lifestyle at all, in those places they had their own small courts, They were devoted to hunting, at parties and so on. Then sometimes down in the monastery, necessary to fulfill their offices.

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the ancient bachelor pad abbots more or less renaissance

The era the late fifteenth century He marked a doctrinal crisis, morality and customs preceded about three centuries earlier by an equally unfortunate epoch, when in the thirteenth century, Pope Eugenius III called for the Fourth Lateran Council that enacted strict rules against the immorality of the clergy and religious. It was in this jolly Renaissance that comes from Vercelli at the rich and powerful Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore a gay character: Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom [1477-1549].

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About Sodom, subsequent historiography penned by religious pious attempt to clarify how mischievous connect the nickname by which the famous artist went to art history with those who would be his homosexual tastes. He even tried to resort to a pathetic sophistry arguing that the nickname Sodom It had nothing to do with the practice of sodomy but was linked to an expression that the artist in his local dialect used to say 'his, 'nduma», meaning "to go". Unlike what later tried to say critics pious to save the honor of not Bazzi, but that of the monastic structures that this bugger if contending with each other, the famous painter and architect Giorgio Vasari from Arezzo [1511-1574], who was his contemporary and connoisseur of his deeds, states that the source of such a nickname derived from his own homosexuality. The precise than that of Vasari Sodom It was also a hidden homosexuality at all, quite the opposite: He was performed in ostentatious and brazen way.

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Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom: Christ bound to the column for the scourging [click on the picture to enlarge]

Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom he married in his youth, but very soon he separated from his wife. Who knows if even in this regard some pious art critic - convinced that no one knows canon law and the discipline of the sacraments -, It can say that this separation was due to pure temperamental incompatibility. As if the end of the fifteenth separation from his wife and cut and run what would be more obvious could happen?

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The Gay search for beauty which in this artist transcends nell'omoerotico, It is a feature of the painting Sodom, suffice to analyze the really striking figure of Christ tied to the column located in a corner of the central cloister Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore before the internal entrance door to the Abbey cathedral. Picture this sufficient to assess whether Christ bound to the column can look so sexy boy by winking. But for divine charity, you look carefully air and shameless position of the Christ at the Column portrait Sodom: there may remember certain images of the famous film Midnight Cowboy, with the then young Jon Voight in the provincial role Texan who arrived in New York full of dreams he ends up leaning against a street pole to hustle?

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the historical poster of the famous film Midnight Cowboy, with the young Jon Voight leaning against the pole in the role of hustler

Sodom, in that place of apparent quiet, as well as even more apparent religiosity, Perhaps the sign left him not only in the frescoes, but also in the air, and through the centuries! Indeed, the beautiful nature that surrounds equally stunning that abbey with all the architectural and artistic works of art, including homoerotic paintings, suppliscono for centuries the poor lack of religiosity; this thing that I do not say, because to prove it is the story. It would be enough just ask yourself this question: from the 1313 to date, how many monks of the Benedictine Congregation Olivetan that in the following seven hundred years of life we ​​have been beatified and canonized? Note that this Congregation, albeit reached between the end of the fifteenth and the end of the seventeenth century to count up to 1200 Monks distributed in several tens of Italian monasteries, seven centuries of existence has given the Church a unique blessed, its founder Maria Bernardo Tolomei [Siena 1272 — †Siena 1348], beatified three centuries after his death. Then, elapsed 661 year old, Blessed Bernardo Tolomei Maria was eventually canonized 20 August 2009.

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Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: self-portrait by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom [click on the picture to enlarge]

Concerning the canonization of Maria Bernardo Tolomei would be interesting to see how the distinguished biographer Belgian Benedictine Dom Réginald Grégoire [1935 — †2013], postulator of the cause, has finally retrieved documents to carry on this historical cause at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, if it considers that for centuries has been complained precisely the impossibility of proceeding with a process of canonization for the lack of necessary historical documentation, which it seems to have finally compensated for the hagiography (!?). However, since this congregation with a rich heritage and being counted among the great Tuscan companies that possess the largest land plots, it may be that he had the means to finally find the historiography which for centuries did not exist?

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particularly large fresco

Di Maria Bernardo Tolomei There were perhaps handed memorable sermons and wonderful spiritual lessons to its monks or as many of his lyrics lofty theological stature? To be honest, the collection of his letters [cf. WHO] more than the spiritual have the flavor of the writings of an administrator who organizes, directs, issuing directives and requires a papal legates and bishops concessions and privileges to their monasteries. As for the texts on his life, from one of the oldest [cf. WHO], they are an obvious jumble of ordinary gold legends with whom they were infiorettate the middle of the seventeenth century the lives of Saints or the candidates for canonization, all through precise and repetitive styles, thanks to writers who often gathered together episodes, visions and tests virtue that emerged as such in the lives of dozens of other saints or candidates for canonization. And even working in hagiography hagiography but apografia in apografia, the distinguished Belgian Benedictine biographer has finally changed over the centuries in a stratified apografie Position on life, virtues and reputation of holiness. So today, narrate the holy deeds of Bernardo Maria Tolomei, of which there are no written and original works but only posthumous biographies, It is like telling the struggle of St George and the dragon, canonizing finally biographers and hagiographers. That said it is good to clarify, to those to whom it was not clear if necessary, that the speeches have just made they do not rely on more or less stringent opinions or even ungenerous, but strictly on scientific data and not easy to disprove.

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Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: self-portrait by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom [click on the picture to enlarge]

By way of historical inquiry, we want to check how many blesseds and saints were instead donated, including also some Doctors of the Church, from other religious congregations, in a life span far below the Congregation of Benedictine monks Olivetani? Can a monastic congregation not donate to the Church and Blessed Saints in seven hundred years? Yup, it's possible, As a gay character like Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom He does not just leave their mark only of ancient frescoes, but also in the air that permeates the walls, from the entrance building that was the bachelor pad connoisseurs of Renaissance abbots until the stable monastic populated by several other monks no less revelers. If the saying is true that "the barrel the wine that ', shortages blessed, santi, mystical and spiritual fathers, however, it was compensated with other talents, from that of Dom Francis Ringhieri [1721-1787], devoted to theatrical works in the Baroque era and defined by critics as "More heretical than any other tragedy friar in that century" [can be consulted WHO, WHO, WHO].

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Speaking on asset plan: no Abbot of Monte Oliveto Maggiore has never had problems accommodating between those rich spiritual walls of an aesthetic but often empty Anima Christi, a large army of children of Sodom roughly similar to the poor sensual and winking Christ tied to the column. But when the abbot Dom Maurizio Maria Outlines [1986-1992], previously already economer general of the congregation, nell'avallo he was involved in financial transactions which led to the loss of several billion old lire, the children of Sodom They did not hesitate to remove him, because you can defer the morale of flickering monks tied to the column, but on the money deposited with Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena can not however compromise. Everything although a Abate remain in office until 75 years of age, though re-elected by the general chapter every six years. A document everything is cronotassi of the abbots of the twentieth century, that until 1970 They remained in office for life, only from the successor of Dom Romualdo Maria Zilianti [1928-1946], with his successor Dom Angelo Maria Sabatini [1970-1986] takes over the practice of giving up the chair at the abbey they are 75 years of age.

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Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: self-portrait by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom, between the sacred, profane and scenes of Bacchanalian … to the right are depicted the family Abbot era

If today we can call ourselves Christians we owe it to the children of St. Benedict of Norcia through monasticism have first saved, then spread Christianity in the West. The same lemma Europe, of which St. Benedict is the patron, It was born as an idea and concept in the great Benedictine abbeys circuit, because they were the sons of St. Benedict in creating Europe. And if today we can read and study Greek philosophy, Latin classical literature or know the works of the great Fathers of the Church, if we have so many secular works from the contents anything but Christians, Gaius Valerius Catullus, including, we owe it to the Benedictine monks, born children of St. Benedict, and then it is reduced centuries after the children of Sodom.

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To those who have always nurtured great veneration historical and theological towards the Benedictine Order, heart-wrenching to see today reduced monasticism in a similar decline. Unfortunately in this world in which even the most scandalous news today are born to die tomorrow and make room for other scandals, I fear that few have realized that to Montecassino, mother of all Western abbeys, gangrenous a homosexual in their unbridled vices has decreed the death of monasticism; and today, what's left, It is an empty shell, fact of historical abbeys - those that today have survived - rich in works of art and beautiful scenery,, but empty of the substance of the faith and of that glorious monasticism from the sixth century faith saved her and then spread. In short: attention to be seduced by the historical frames of the beautiful and the aesthetic that, however, conceals the emptiness of the spirit and of the Christian virtues, because the Devil, in addition to having extraordinary aesthetic sense, wonderfully sung in Gregorian chant and “celebrates pontifical abbey” with great stylish exterior, He is having trained at the monastic life by jumping from a “another particular friendship”. And today, all the “special friends” of yesterday, are abbots in the various abbeys, not to mention the monks that “special friendships” they sealed them with their vow in the monastic chapters and in the general chapter, ie how much it would be enough to pray God's mercy throughout their lives so that it can preserve them from Hellfire.

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Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: self-portrait by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom.

The funeral march on monasticism, after so many scandals in the abbeys and monasteries of Europe has finally played Dom Pietro Vittorelli, 191Th successor of St. Benedict of Norcia, who delighted to lead a life of luxury around Europe, to stay in expensive hotels and pay a high price the company of young gay with Abbey money [cf. WHO, WHO, WHO, etc …]. To this is then also added the use of drugs, for which has had consequent health problems cost the Abbey of Montecassino very high amounts when for a period of time the Abbot took refuge in a Swiss clinic to detox and to try to cure his cocaine addiction. The most tragic thing though is that he was not subjected to canonical penalties and has not been dismissed from the clerical state, so as to be still in the cronotassi Arciabati of Monte Cassino and in the yearbooks of the Italian Episcopal Conference as "Abbot Emeritus Professor ' [cf. WHO] rather than as "destitute".

 

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the homoerotic figures for nothing hidden in painting “sacred” John Bazzi said the Sodom [click on the picture to enlarge]

(C)On the abbot of Montecassino the funeral march of monasticism has only come to an end, because the execution was carried out previously with moral scandals scattered abbeys spread across Europe. Of course, other cases it was able to treat them with confidentiality, from the Abbey of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Finally, the private status territorial prelature, to follow with the Abbey of Grottaferrata, where he was deposed Abbot Dom Emiliano maker, even in that case this happened especially for the nocturnal comings and goings of the inevitable paid young men who went to amuse some vicious monks, so much so that the Holy See - a rare thing indeed - proceeded to declare invalid certain priestly ordinations of young monks. We could follow with the St. Anselm Pontifical Athenaeum, academic structure of the Benedictine Confederation, to which Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski several times, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education [1999-2015], between 2007 and the 2008 intimated that if not cleaned up their internal college from various pleasantries and numerous fact coppiette, the Holy See would have shut him. To limit ourselves only ever scope Roman: what happened to the Cistercian Abbey of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where he was elected abbot a former Milanese designer, also very gay, He rose from the fashion world to monasticism and become in a few years monaco, a priest and then abbot aesthetic? but yet, near the Aventine Hill, It is the General Curia of the Cistercian Monks, where a decade ago, at the time of certain facts, He lays the Abbot General Dom Mauro Esteva i Alsina [1933 — †2014], the concern of which was to impart obsessive etiquette lessons to young monks and verify that the dining hall was set with forks and knives positioned at the right distance to the right and left of the plate, or that the bows were made according to the proper angle, as if they had depended survival and the historic honor of the Cistercian Order. May today this man rest in peace in the crypt of the Abbey of Poblet Catalan and may the mercy of God forgive him with a mild purgatory all serious and irreparable damage to him went the entire Cistercian Order during its general mandate carried out between 1995 and the 2010.

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particular: efebo winking

To retreat at the Roman Curia this year a member of the Congregation of Olivetan Benedictine Monks was chosen by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi and presented to the Pope, Dom Bernardo Gianni, Abbot of the Abbey of San Miniato al Monte in Florence. If nell'Archicenobio of Monte Oliveto Maggiore stands Sodom, San Miniato the most valuable frescoes are those of Spinello Aretino. The substance, however, remains the same, while ranging from the art of Sodom to that of the Spinel. And this - the Joint -, It would be particularly appreciated dall'Arciabate Montecassino Dom Pietro Vittorelli, that the drug was a great expert and consumer.

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The abbot of the Abbey of San Miniato in Florence He is one who can speak to this world. He speaks to the world language that appeals to the world. Indeed, the spiritual exercises, They will be marked on dreams and poetry: the dream of political Giorgio La Pira and the poetry of Mario Luzi, whose poetry, Christian speaking, it is certainly not that of the French writer and poet Father Michel Quoist [cf, WHO].

 

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the FIG omoerotiche for anything hidden in painting “sacred” John Bazzi said the Sodom [click on the picture to enlarge]

The abbot preacher, son of the noble Order of St. Benedict which we owe the survival of Christianity and the preservation of historical heritage, philosophical and literary, He will speak to the Roman Curia of a dreamer and a poet, as if it was a dream spirituality and theology poetry, as if the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, loudly proclaimed saint, had never written the Encyclical Faith and Reason, the base of which there is the thought of a great Benedictine Abbot, then Archbishop of Canterbury, Sant'Anselmo d'Aosta, who did not live the relationship with faith in dreams and poetry, but explaining that faith seeking understanding [faith requires reason] and in need: «I believe in order to understand, I understand that you can trust» [I think to understand, I understand to believe]. Unfortunately the famous Italian singer Lucio Battisti has been dead for years, otherwise, for the next retreat, perhaps Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi would have proposed the thoughtful lyrics of his famous song Emotions :

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particular: ephebus winking that shows the rear

“And close your eyes to stop
something that's inside me
but in your mind it is not
You cannot understand
you call them if you want
emotions " [Mogol-Battisti, 1970]

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We know that after the tragedy comes the increasingly grotesque farce precisely that ranges between Sodom and Spinello. All the more reason to pray and to cleanse us during this Holy Lent, in the course of which, the largest of the mortifications, It remains the awareness of not being credible in the world, but instead of being laughed at by the world, especially when the world to please try to speak the language of the world, after having emptied of Christ and of the mystery of the Cross, to fill us with dreams and poems … "you call them if you want emotions".

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Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: the insistent obsession Sodom to portray the male behind that “if offer” and in which we read the prophecy about the posthumous decadent monasticism …

One thing is certain: art leaves no sign simply on the walls, especially if certain pictorial images are the most realistic representation of who certain walls inhabits. Obviously, the question as to why seven hundred years of life the monks of the Benedictine Congregation Olivetan have given the Church blessed, santi, mystics, theology, doctors and spirituality fathers, It is a purely rhetorical question, the answer is in fact all contained in homoerotic images that stand in the frescoes realized by Sodom in the cloister; and the cloister is reached after entering the abbey territory passing through the building once used as bachelor pad abbots Renaissance revelers. In Paradise, instead, it comes only after converting, repented and cleansed of sins, no one comes or with Giorgio La Pira dreams, nor with poems by Mario Luzi. Lent begins with the imposition of ashes followed by the admonition "converted and believe in the Gospel", it does not begin with an invitation to believe in dreams and live poems

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the Island of Patmos, 08 March 2019

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Dom Bernardo Maria Gianni, OSB.Oliv. Abbot of San Miniato al Monte in Florence

«Pray and labor»Models of the new rigor Benedictine monastic asceticism

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci
Of the Order of Preachers
Presbyter and Theologian

( Click on the name to read all its articles )
Father Gabriele

From the theatrical mask of the Greek hypocrite to the beam and straw in the eye narrated by the Holy Gospel

The angle dell'omiletica of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

THE MASK THEATER hypocrite GREEK TO BEAM AND THE HOLY GOSPEL narrated by splinter in

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Unlike Greece, the hypocrite is not the actor who plays a role in the ancient theater, but becomes one who has no heart and sincerity towards God only has a formal relationship and built on mechanical habits. In Jesus', the Pharisees tended to be hypocrites in this sense: they did not really know God, mnemonic simply performed the precepts of rabbinical law without really understand them and without that they could help them live better the faith.

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Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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PDF print format article
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Dear brothers and sisters.

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aphorisms

This Sunday VIIª Ordinary Time we are given a popularized from the Gospel passage of the beam and the splinter in [cf. text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO]. In ancient Greece many men lent themselves in the role of hypocrite [hypocrisies] ie actors, bringing a mask, and pretended they staged a tragedy or a comedy. For the ancient Greeks it was important to talk and tell stories that would help viewers to experience a deep and intimate relationship with their gods. In today's readings the Lord offers us food to have a deep and sincere relationship, a faith that is true and sincere at the same time.

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First we read in Sirach: "The result shows that the tree has grown, so the word reveals the thoughts of the heart " [27, 5]. In this author's proverb, the jew wise Ben Sirach, We want to draw attention to the consistency of words. They arise primarily from the thoughts of the heart: in the heart of Jewish culture is the intimate place of encounter with God. Therefore, if each of us has this experience and intimate personal encounter with the Lord, through prayer, certainly we will have words of joy and hope. We will help others also to have a fruitful and intense encounter with God.

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aphorisms

In this research a basic coherence between thoughts and words, the Lord always helps. St. Paul writes:

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"My dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, progressing more and more in the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord " [1 Color 5,58].

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The apostle calls every Christian the perseverance, to be patient even in times of difficulty and crisis, and then, when you need more stability. The work of the Lord is the continuous victory over death: In this compound, this should be understood today as replicate all fashions deadly as for example drugs, prostitution, promotion of abortion, dell'eutanasia, the “marriage” between couples of the same sex and the opportunity given to them to adopt children … At the same time we are also called to win with the Lord their dead, that fears, wounds and existential dramas. Indeed, lin consistency and perseverance, They have these beautiful fruits in all of us.

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In this journey, in the footsteps of the Lord it is very strong and clear: Jesus, Luke's Gospel in the thunders: "Hypocritical! First remove the beam from your eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye " [Luca 6,42b]. Who, unlike Greece, the hypocrite is not the actor who plays a role in the ancient theater, but becomes one who has no heart and sincerity towards God only has a formal relationship and built on mechanical habits. In Jesus', the Pharisees tended to be hypocrites in this sense: they did not really know God, mnemonic simply performed the precepts of rabbinical law without really understand them and without that they could help them live better the faith. So, in the journey of faith and fight to the death, God banishes hypocrisy. At the same time, God asks us a continuous exercise of humility, get in more open discussion to stress that he himself presents us, especially in the concrete circumstances in life. When will we know to be humble, we will be a little’ come humus, ready to be fertilized and produce fruit according to the word of God. Only then we will be ready to fraternal correction.

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As she is written by John Donne:

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"No man is an island, complete in itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the whole '.

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aphorisms

Each of us will live that whole like a big brotherhood, ready to be all brothers in baptism. So also able to accept the correction that can annoy. Then it will be the end of the pride and the beginning of the indwelling of the whole Trinity in our hearts, ithe Lord will make us strong and persevering to exit from the island of our selfishness, looking very different islands, including not least the Isle of Patmos, greek archipelago, island also known as The site of the last revelation, in which St. John the Apostle, during his exile, He wrote the great message of hope that is the Apocalypse, which he tells of the woman clothed with the sun and the victory of Christ over evil prince.

Amen.

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Rome, 3 March 2019

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Dear Readers,

on this page you can find the Book of Masses, if it consult Agenda Calendar you can check availability for the celebration of Holy Masses of suffrage for your Dead

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
with your offers through the secure Paypal system:



or you can use the bank account:
They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
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thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

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