Mary Immaculate,

Merely a woman, yet

Whose presence, power is

Great as no goddess's

Was deemed, dreamed.

One of Gerard Manley Hopkins' most striking poems compares Our Lady 'to the air we breathe.' The image provokes Hopkins into some wonderfully evocative, creative writing, and rather diverts our attention from what he is saying doctrinally. Mary 'mother each new grace / That does now reach our race'; she continues to conceive Christ in us; she herself is not merely our almoner, but is identified with God's 'sweet alms.'

Through her we may see him

Made sweeter, not made dim,

And her hand leaves his light

Sifted to suit our sight.

In these beautifully paced lines, Hopkins is seducing us into an account of the Blessed Virgin Mary's role in the life of all believers that many would instinctively qualify or reject were it put in a more prosaic form: everything we know of the light of God comes to us refracted through Mary. Blessed Virgin Mary's presence is greater than had ever been attributed to any of the pantheon of goddesses, because the life of the one true God is a life of self-giving, a self-giving into which Mary is mysteriously and uniquely incorporated, a self-giving of which she becomes in some way a part.

Hopkins was, of course, an imaginative genius; he was also given to original theological speculation. But the instinct to assign a special role to Mary was one that he shared with the ordinary Roman Catholic piety of his day. Mary was Mother of God, not simply 'Saint Mary the Virgin': 

The saints are high in glory

With golden crowns so bright;

But brighter far is Mary

Upon her throne of light.

The invocations of the Litany of Loreto were common coin - 'tower of David, house of gold, ark of the covenant.' Catholics were proud of their devotion to Mary, and prepared to defend it against hostile Protestant criticism:

When wicked men blaspheme thee

I'll love and bless thy name.

In the 1960, following Vatican II, this exuberance began to feel awkward, and therefore to vanish. The downplaying of devotion to Mary was one of the most obvious effects of the council on mainstream Catholic life, rivaled perhaps only by the disappearance of the Latin liturgy. The council's decision - one which was quite controverted on the council floor - not to write a decree specifically about Mary, but to deal with her in a chapter of its Constitution on the Church, was taken only very narrowly: a large number of the council Fathers wanted indeed to make a dogmatic proclamation of Mary as mediating all graces.

What prevailed, however, was a more ecumenically sensitive presentation, avoiding new titles, and setting Mary within the perspective of salvation history. It became fashionable to base any account of what we might want to say about Mary on what Christianity must say about human beings in general. In such a light, the dogma of the assumption appears simply as an affirmation that Mary models (perhaps by anticipation) what will ultimately be true of all of us. Similarly, the immaculate conception appears as an affirmation that grace prevails over original sin even at the origins of the human race. Influentially, Raymond E. Brown, the noted Roman Catholic biblical scholar, often centered his account of Mary in the Bible on the concept of the 'perfect disciple.'

This tendency influenced even official teaching. Paul VI's  1974 Apostolic Exhortation on Mary, Marialis cultus, acknowledged the difficulties which many - especially Christians of the other Churches - had with devotion to Blessed Virgin Mary. Paul was aware of 'the discrepancy existing between some aspects of this devotion and modern anthropological discoveries and the profound changes which have occurred in the psycho-sociological field in which modern man lives and works.' In authentic Roman Catholic devotion to Mary, 'every care should be taken to avoid any exaggeration which could mislead other Christian sisters and brothers about the true doctrine of the Catholic Church.' When Paul describes an authentic devotion to Mary for his time, he stresses how she can serve as a model for Christian humanity: She is worthy of imitation because she was the first and the most perfect of Christ's disciples. All of this has a permanent and universal exemplary value.

The excesses complained about by Christians of the Reformation 'are not connected with the Gospel image of Mary nor with the doctrinal data which have been made explicit through a slow and conscientious process of drawing from Revelation':

The reading of the divine Scriptures, carried out under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and with the discoveries of the human sciences and the different situations in the world today being taken into account, will help us to see how Mary can be considered a mirror of the expectations of the men and women of our time. (nn. 35-7)

A contemporary theologian sees a theology of Mary as indicating ... that God's redemption in Jesus Christ has taken root and has started in the rest of humanity which is not Jesus Christ, so that affirmations about Mary are actually also affirmations about the nature of human salvation. - Johnson 1984: 155-82 (181) -

This approach to Mary - Mary as the preeminent hearer and keeper of the Word - may have served a useful, even necessary purpose in the period immediately following the council. Many were helped by the encouragement to think of Mary in less obviously exalted terms, to imagine her as a human being, faced with the normal challenges of the human condition. Preconciliar accounts of original sin certainly needed to be complemented by a doctrine of an even more original grace, and it may be that the traditions of Mary's Immaculate Conception were indeed a useful pointer. Similarly, heaven was all too easily spoken of in terms of an unreal and inhumane beatific vision; perhaps the doctrine of the assumption, dogmatic as it was in 1950, had some effect in encouraging us to take seriously the communion of saints and the resurrection of the body, and to recognize that our glorified life must still - whatever we want to say about divinity - be a human life.

Some, like the German theologian Wolfgang Beinert, lamented how 'the choral praise of the mother of God in the days of Pius XII' had been 'succeeded by a deep silence'; certainly the relative eclipse of Marian devotion in the period was not the intention of the council, of Paul VI, or the theologians most influential over the council's Marian statements. Others, however, saw this eclipse of Marian rhetoric as salutary, an ecumenically sensitive corrective to earlier exaggeration. It was high time we learned to focus on the woman of Nazareth; we needed to divest her of a greatness associated with goddesses, and see her instead as a human being under God. If the rhetoric of Marian privilege - of immaculate conception and assumption into heaven body and soul - helped us understand better what it was to be human under God, well and good; if not, then it was ripe for demythologization.

The changes in the Church's Marian devotion and rhetoric can never, of course, be understood in isolation. As we have already noted, ecumenical considerations played a part; perhaps feminism too, and more generally the profound changes in gender relations in the twentieth century, had some influence. Here, however, I want to concentrate on how these changes in Mariology connect with broader trends in the history of theological ideas. Vatican II was concerned to situate the distinctive elements in Christian revelation - Jesus, Scripture, Church - within the whole sweep of salvation history, presenting the Church as the Sacrament of Salvation. Theologians might then tease out what this must imply for our understanding of Christian uniqueness: the Church is not the ark in which alone God's grace can be found, but something at once more richly generous and more unassuming: the definitive presence of a grace diffused over the whole creation.

Such an approach leads some to hesitate and others to criticize. Precisely because it tries to understand the central elements of Christianity in terms of what we must say about human beings at large, it can never - so it is claimed - do justice to a Jesus who claims to be not simply the 'real and proper man' of the 1970s liturgical ditty, but rather, uniquely and singularly, 'the Way, the Truth, the Life.' The Church is surely instituted 'from above'; it is not simply a matter of devout human beings organizing themselves.  And Mary is Mother of God: Catholic tradition requires that we not simply understand her as the model of human response to God. The Church's liturgy - particularly the Marian solemnities - seem to imply something stronger than a Mariology of perfect discipleship.

There are different possible responses to such criticisms. One is simply to accept them. and hence conclude that much post-conciliar theology is misguided, a sell-out of Christianity to the spirit of the 1960s. Another denies their validity: religious maturity consists precisely in our abandoning any sense of Christian pre-eminence, precisely in our replacing the language of special divine initiative in Jesus with that of an ever more authentic commitment to serve the world in humane partnership. Both of these approaches, however, violate a fundamental principle of Christian theology. Both proceed as if you resolve the tensions in the Christian message by option either for an approach 'from above' prioritizing the 'divine' or from below, prioritizing the 'merely human.' Central to Christianity's witness is that such ways of thinking miss the point. Claims about the divinity of Jesus are not made at the expense of claims about his humanity; claims about Scripture's divine inspiration must not imply a denial of the human agencies through which it came to be.

We must therefore not understand 'Mary woman of Nazareth' and 'Mary Mother of God' as somehow on competition, as though one of these descriptions is true only to the extent that the other is false. We have to find ways of understanding them together, as complementary truths. This suggests, then, the need for a third and rather different response. This understands the divine and human life of Jesus (and therefore also of Mary) within the context of the divine life given to all human beings in grace. But it also attempts to do justice to rooted intuitions about their special role within this universal grace, to a sense that they represent the presence of God among us in a particular and distinctive way.

At this point, I introduce the figure of Karl Rahner SJ and in particular one idea from an essay which he wrote in 1954 in honor of its being a Marian year, marking the centenary of Pius IX's proclaiming Mary's Immaculate Conception to be a dogma, declares that 'from the first moment of her conception' Mary was 'preserved from all stain of original sin.' This occurred through a 'singular grace and privilege of Almighty God'; by implication, the rest of us are conceived and born in sin, and grace is given to us only later, when we are baptized. (as least by desire) Politely, Rahner points out that there are problems with such a way of thinking because it seems unduly pessimistic about the unbaptized infant:

This child... is already, as unbaptized an object of God's infinite mercy, in spite of original sin; it is included in God's vision of God's only-begotten Son, and thus it has, if not yet realized, at least a 'remote' claim to inheritance with the Son.

Simply by virtue of its existence, its creation, the child is 'already comprehended within God grace and love.' It is only because this love of God is already there that the child's salvation 'takes a sacramentally visible form.' It follows that nothing of decisive significance turns on just when baptism takes place - as Rahner asks ironically, '[H]as anyone ever seriously regretted having been baptized after a fortnight instead of as a two-day-old?' And hence,

... the whole mystery of Mary's Immaculate Conception cannot simply consist in the fact that she was graced a little earlier, temporarily speaking, than we were. The distinction must lie deeper, and this deeper distinction must condition the temporal difference.

Karl Rahner SJ is writing diplomatically here, but the force of his argument is that the idea of a temporal difference between when grace begins in Mary and when it begins in the rest of us must be merely a figure of speech pointing to something much more significant. If the doctrine of the immaculate conception is to mean anything significant, it must point to some stronger sense in which Mary's relationship to sin and grace differs from that of human beings at large.

Rahner, good Thomist that he is, can simply assume that divine grace and human freedom are compatible: to say that God wills Algernon to perform an action is not to deny that Algeron freely performs that action. Thus Mary's free response to God's call, expressed in the Gospel of Luke's Annunciation story, is nevertheless - for Rahner - something which is predestined in the designs of God, just as is Jesus' free acceptance of his mission even unto death. It is in this context, of freedom and predestination, that Rahner makes what he sees as the necessary distinction. God's predetermining will to become incarnate in Christ entails that 'an earthly Mother of the Son was likewise predestined' - an earthly Mother who gives free consent; and for her, 'the divine purpose of salvation' is 'the predestination of Christ himself:

That is to say, if she had not been willed as the Holy one and the perfectly Redeemed, then Christ himself would not have been willed by God in just the way he stands before us.

Had Mary said `No' to the invitation represented by Luke's angelic message to her, had God's saving will not included Mary's consent, Jesus Christ quite literally would not have existed. This cannot be said of any other creature. Peter and Judas, to say nothing of countless later Christians, may reject Christ, be ambivalent about him, and in an extended sense, therefore, affect whose Christ is. But their rejection would not bring about the withdrawal of the promise which Christ, crucified and risen, represents for us: 'in every other case Christ could exist and be predestined by God without its being necessary for the individual concerned to be one of the redeemed.' Mary, by contrast, 'stands within the circle of Christ's own predestination':

and thus she is different from us not merely through her having become the graced one at a temporally earlier point in her existence. The mystery that really gives the temporal difference between her and us in the mystery of her immaculate conception its proper meaning is, rather, the mystery of her predestination.

Christ incarnate, crucified and risen represents to us a promise that a life without sin is possible. Christ embodies the promise; the rest of us receive it and hand it on. We are not talking here about a divine reality being communicated to human beings. We are talking, rather about a God who exists in self-giving to the creation, about all humanity (not just that of Jesus) caught up in the very life of Christ - 'I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am', as Hopkins reminds us. What makes Jesus distinctive is not that God is somehow `more' present in him than in the rest of creation, but rather that he alone reveals that presence definitively. He assures us that sin will be overcome. Rahner's rather abstract argument about Mary's predestination in connection with Christ's then amounts to claim that Mary is not simply a recipient of this message: her saying `Yes' is, rather, a constitutive - if duly subordinate - element within the message.

The ideas in Rahner's 1954 essay on the immaculate conception need to be linked with what Rahner wrote elsewhere about salvation. In the 1954 essay, Rahner talks about redemption in rather conventional terms that he elsewhere challenged. There are powerful reasons for asserting that the primary agent in our salvation is the love of God, which is eternal and changeless. Christ's death and resurrection must not be understood as if they made any difference to that - as if, for example, they could somehow convert the anger of God into graciousness. Christians have all too easily used religious language as a vehicle for expressing their own hostilities, and forgotten that - as Julian of Norwich so memorably put it - 'it is the greatest impossibility conceivable that God should be angry, for anger and friendship are two contraries.' Christ causes God's will to be salvific only in a very carefully qualified, transferred sense of the term `cause.' `Cause' here simply means that in Christ's death and resurrection, God's salvific will is expressed as an irrevocable promise to us who must accept it and work it through in faith; his uniqueness consists in his embodying the promise, whereas we must receive it.

If we combine this idea with what Rahner wrote in 1954, the conclusion is clear: within this properly Christian (more so than most conventional ones) understanding of redemption, Mary is Co-Redemptrix. The promise of sin's being overcome that God made in Christ involved her too in a subordinate way that was quite unique to her. It would obviously be crassly offensive were Roman Catholic authority to make a dogma out of this title. But that does not mean that there is no truth in the idea. Christ transforms us by giving us in his person, his message, his death and his resurrection, God's assurance that what we call sin is overcome. In so far he is essentially dependent for his very existence on Mary, she too is not merely the most perfect recipient of redemption, but rather part and parcel of its proclamation. Feminist theology has, happily, begun to reform our conceptions of God, and to deconstruct the use of Mary in Catholic Christianity as a safety-valve within an inhumanly patriarchal system. But the abuses are rooted in something positive, something which it would be a pity to lose completely.

Too easily Christians are trapped in ways of thinking that will not allow them to express Christian truth. Too easily, we think we need to choose between Christ as divine and Christ as human, Mary as Mother of God or Mary of Nazareth, the perfect disciple. One of the reasons why standard Mariologies appear either too extravagant or too reductive is that we imagine revelation as a divine message to a godless humanity. We need, instead, to think of the world as bathed in grace from the start; revelation in one sense changes nothing, although by giving us assurance of God's irrevocable love it also changes everything. As Christina Rosetti's hymn reminds us, the effect of Christ's coming is to shatter conventional cosmology:

Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign.

Mary is `great as no goddess' because she is one factor defining a world in which powers and domination are overcome and being a god or a goddess has ceased to have meaning, a world in which the only God there is lives in irrevocable solidarity with creatures, even the lowest and most despised. Christ's manifestation of this mysterious truth inevitably involves his mother, and that is why she will always have a special place in any healthy Christian theology. As Hopkins put it, Mary's `presence, power' has `this one work' to do:

Let all God's glory through
God's glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

BY REV. FR. PHILIP ENDEAN, S.J.

                                                                       Page 1
Faith . Hope . Love - Welcome donation. Thank You. God bless. 

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

From the beginning of recorded history, the calender has been used to keep records and predict the time for the changing of the seasons. It is a system of reckoning time, usually based on a recurrent natural cycle, or tabular register, of days according to a system usually covering one year and referring the days of each month to the days of the week. The calender provided a framework in which human beings could plan his/her work. It was an effective timetable for marking various festivals that were to be celebrated at regular intervals.

In calender terms, the day is the smallest and most consistent unit of time. In the ancient world, the term day was used in two senses. It described a 24 hour period, as well as daylight in contrast to the night. - Gen. 1:5 - The beginning point of the 24 hour day varied. In fact, the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible contains references to the day beginning in the morning as well as in the evening. - Gen. 19:34; Neh. 13:19; Acts 23:32 -

The dawn was the twilight before sunrise. - 1Sam. 30:17; Matt. 28:1 - The evening was the late afternoon between the day and the night or it could mean literally 'late' in the day just before the stars came out. Noon was the end of the morning which marked mealtime. Noon was also referred to as 'midday' or 'broad daylight' and 'heat of the day.' - Gen. 43:16; Deut. 16:6; 2Sam. 4:5; 1Kings 18:26; Neh. 4:21; Pro. 7:9; Jer. 6:4; Amos 8:9; Mark 11:19 -

In the time of the Roman Empire, the day may have begun at midnight, as indicated by the Gospel of John 4:6, 19:14 -

The day was divided into three parts: evening, morning and noon. Midnight was the midpoint of the night. - Ps. 55:17; Matt. 25:6; Acts 20:7 - In the Old Testament the night was divided into three watches - Ex. 14:24; Judges 7: 19 - while it was divided into four watches in the New Testament. - Matt. 14:25; Mark 13:35 - The term hour was used to mean 'immediately' or it could express the idea one-twelfth of the daylight. - John 11:9 -

The week was a seven day unit begun at the time of creation. - Gen. 1:31-2:2 - The word week means 'seven'. - Gen. 29:27; Luke 18:12 - In the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible the days of the week were called the 'first day', 'third day' and so forth. - Gen.1:8-31; Matt. 28:1 - although the seventh day was known as "Sabbath". - Ex. 16:23; Matt. 12:1 - The day before the Sabbath was called "the Preparation Day" - Mark 15;42 - and Christians referred to the first day of the week as "the Lord Day" - Rev. 1:10 -

The month was a unit of time closely tied to the moon. The Hebrew word for 'month' also meant 'moon'.  The reason for the connection between the month and the moon is that the beginning of a month was marked by a new moon. The moon was carefully observed by the people of the ancient times. When it appeared as a thin crescent, it marked the beginning of a new moon.

The lunar month was about 29 days long. Therefore, the first crescent of the new moon would appear 29 or 30 days after the previous new moon. At times the crescent was not visible because of clouds. But this was allowed for with a rule that the new moon would never be reckoned as more than much variation in the calender.

The Hebrew word for year comes from the idea of change or repeated action. Thus, the year expresses the concept of a 'complete cycle of change.' Due to the repeated seasons, man set up a calender to account for yearly events and to alert him of the coming seasons. The calender revolved around the agricultural cycles. Man observed the climatic changes and the length of days in him planting and harvesting. Religious festivals were also established to parallel the agricultural year. No major festival, for example, was celebrated during the busy harvest season. Man observed that there were four seasons and that the year was about 365 days long. Although the calenders were not always precise, adjustments were made periodically to account for the lack of precision.

The marking of time in Old Testament days revolved primarily around the months, seasonal religious festivals, and the year. The month was marked by the first appearance of the crescent of the new moon at sunset. The first day of each month was considered a holy day marked by special sacrifices, and it was to be announced with the blowing of trumpets. - Num. 10:10, 28:11-15; Ps. 81:3 -

Normally the months were designated numerically: first, - Ex.12:12 - second, - Ex. 16:1 - third, - Ex. 19:1 - fourth, - 2Kings 25:3 - fifth, - Jer. 28:1 - sixth, - 1Chr. 27:9 - seventh, - Gen. 8:4 - eighth, - Zech. 1;1 - ninth, - Ezra 10:9 - tenth, - Gen. 8:5 - eleventh, - Deut. 1:3 - and twelfth. - Esther 3:7 -

The first month of the Hebrew calender was in the spring, around March/April. In their early history the Israelites adopted Canaanites names for the months which were connected with agriculture and climate. Only four of these names are mentioned in the Old Testament. The month Abib was the first month (around March/April) which was at the time of barley harvest. The word Abib means 'ripening of grain'. - Ex. 13:4; Lev. 2:14 - The month Ziv - 1Kin. 6:1 - was the second month (April/May) This word means 'splendor' and it refers to the beauty of flowers blooming at that time. Ethanim - 1Kin. 8:2 - was the seventh month (September/October) which occurred during the rainy season. Bul - 2Kin. 6:38 - was the eighth month (October/November) Its name may have reference to 'rain' since the eighth month was between the early and latter rains. These four names for the months were associated with the most important agriculture times of the year.

In its later history the nation of Israel adopted all 12 months of the Babylonian calender as their civil calender. But not all of the 12 months are listed in the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. The seven that occur are: Nisan, the first month - Neh. 2:1 - Sivan, the third month - Esther 8:9 - Elul, the sixth month - Neh 6:15 - Chislev, the ninth month - Zech. 7:1 - Tebeth, the tenth month - Esther 2:16 - Shebat, the eleventh month - Zech 1:7 - and Adar, the twelfth month. - Ezra 6:15 - The first month of this calender also fell during the springtime.

Since Israel was an agricultural society, its calender worked well for the people and their religious festivals. In the first month (coinciding with our March/April) the fourteenth day was Passover. - Ex. 12:18 - the fifteenth day through the twenty-first day was Unleavened Bread - Lev. 23:6 - the sixteenth day was First-fruits - Lev. 23:10-14 - dedicating the first ripe barely sprigs. The second month (April/May) marked the celebration of a later Passover, in case some had missed the first celebration. - Num. 9:10-11 -

On the sixth day of the third month (May/June) the people celebrated Pentecost, which was also called the Feast of Weeks - Lev. 23:15-22 - in commemoration of the completion of the barely and wheat harvest. In the seventh month (September/October) the first day was the Feast of Trumpets - Lev. 23:23-25; Num. 29:1 - celebrating the New Year; the tenth day was the Day of Atonement - Lev. 16:29-34, 23:26-32 - the fifteenth to the twenty-second days were the Feast of Tabernacles - Lev. 23:33-43 - in commemoration of all the harvests of the year. Thus, the feasts revolved around the harvests.

With regard to the year, the Jewish historian Josephus stated that Israel had two New Years - the commercial New Year, which began in the fall (seventh month) and the religious new Year, which began in the spring (first month) Since the months were based on the lunar system and since each month averaged 29.5 days, the year would be 354 days, or 11 days short of the solar year. In just three years the calender would be off more than a month.

To reconcile the lunar month with the solar year, Babylon had a sophisticated system where seven months would be added to the calender over a 19 year cycle, resulting in an error of only two hours and four minutes by the end of the cycle. This is remarkable accuracy for that day. Israel must have adjusted her calender in a similar fashion by adding a "Second Adar" month whenever necessary.

During the period when the Greeks ruled the ancient world, the Seleucid calender system was most widely used. Two basic systems were used for reckoning time in the Seleucid era - the Macedonian calender and the Babylonian calender. It is difficult to be dogmatic as to which system was used, but the Jewish people seem to have used the Macedonian calender. This means the Seleucid era in Jewish history began on the first day of their seventh month, Tishri, about 312/311 B.C.

The New Testament contains no references to the Roman or Gentile calender or to the Jewish calender, except in speaking of the days of the week. But there is one reference to the "new moon". - Col. 2:16 - The Sabbath, Saturday, is mentioned many times. The New Testament also mentions the "first day", Sunday "the Lord's Day", Sunday and the "Day of Preparation" or "Preparation Day", Friday. However, these are references to the cult aspects of the Jewish calender. - Matt. 12:1-12, 27:62; Mark 15:42, 16:2; Luke 23:54, 24:1; John 19:14, 31, 42; Acts 20:7; 1Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10 -

Frequent mention is made, especially in the Gospel of John, of the Passover. - John 2:13, 23, 6:4, 11:55, 12:1, 13:1, 18:39 - Other mentioned in the New Testament are Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Dedication. - Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:1, 12; John 10:22; Acts 2:1, 20:16; 1Cor. 16:18 -

Although the New Testament makes no references to the Roman or Gentile calender, it does refer to the reigns of rulers. The most specific example is Luke 13:1, which speaks of "the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar." This refers to the time of the rulers then in office in Judea and the surrounding territories and to the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist. This must have been in A.D. 28-29, assuming that Saint Luke used either the Julian calender, which began in January or the regional calender, which began in August. The most general references speak not of the year but of the reigns of emperors Caesar Augustus - Luke 2:1 - and Claudius Caesar - Acts 11:28 - of provincial governors Quirinius - Luke 2:2 - and Gallio - Acts 18:12 - of king Herod - Matt. 2:1; Luke 1:5 - and of the ethnarch of Aretas. - 2Cor. 11:32 -

One New Testament calender problem is that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke portray Jesus as having celebrated the "Passover" with His disciples on the eve of His betrayal - Matt. 26:19-20; Mark 24: 16-17; Luke 22:13-15 - whereas the Gospel of John pictures the Jews as not having celebrated the "Passover" at this time - John 18:28 - Many attempts have been made to reconcile this problem. Possibly, the solution is that the first three Gospels reckoned their timetable of the crucifixion events according to the Galilean method (beginning the day at sunrise) which was used by Jesus, the disciples, and the Pharisees. But John may have reckoned according to the Judean method (beginning the day at sunset) a system used by the Sadducees. If this is true, different calender systems may have been in use at the same time within the nation of Israel.

My friends, this is my second letter to you, and in both of them I have tried to awaken a true understanding in you by giving you a reminder: recalling to you what was said in the past by the holy prophets and the commandments of the Lord and saviour which you were given by the apostles.

We must be careful to remember that during the last days there are bound to be people who will be scornful, the kind who always please themselves what they do, and they will make fun of the promise and ask, 'Well, where is this coming? Everything goes on as it has since the Fathers died, as it has since it began at the creation.' They are choosing to forget that there were heavens at the beginning, and that the earth was formed by the word of God out of water and between the waters, so that the world of that time was destroyed by being flooded by water. But by the same word, the present sky and earth are destined for fire, and are only being reserved until Judgment Day so that all sinners may be destroyed.

But there is one thing, my friends, that you must never forget: that with the Lord, 'a day' can mean a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord is not being slow to carry out his promises, as anybody else might be called slow; but he is being patient with you all, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to change his ways. The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then with a roar the sky will vanish, the elements will catch fire and fall apart, the earth and all that it contains will be burnt up.

Since everything is coming to an end like this, you should be living holy and saintly lives while you wait and long for the Day of God to come, when the sky will dissolve in flames and the elements melt in the heat. What we are waiting for is what he promised: the new heavens and the new earth, the place where righteousness will be at home. So then, my friends, while you are waiting, do your best to lives without spot or stain so that he will find you at peace. Think of the Lord patience as your opportunity to be saved: our brother Paul, who is so dear to us, told you this when he wrote to you with the wisdom that is his special gift. He always writes like this when he deals with this sort of subject, and this makes some points in his letter hard to understand; these are the points that uneducated and unbalanced people distort, in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture - a fatal thing for them to do. You have been warned about this, my friends; be careful not to get carried away by the errors of unprincipled people, from the firm ground that you are standing on. Instead, go on growing in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory, in time and in eternity. Amen. - 2Peter 3:1-18 -

Meanwhile let the sinner go on sinning, and the unclean continue to be unclean; let those who do good go on doing good, and those who are holy continue to be holy. Very soon now, I shall be with you again, bringing the reward to be given to every man according to what he deserves. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. - Rev. 22: 11-13 -


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Faith . Hope . Love - Welcome donation. Thank You. God bless. 

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

Abraham ( father of a multitude ) originally Abram ( exalted father ) is the first great Patriarch of ancient Israel and a primary model of faithfulness for Christianity. The accounts about Abraham are found in the Book of Genesis 11:26 to 25:23.

The aspects of Abraham's life begins with his migration with the rest of his family from Ur of the Chaldeans in ancient southern Babylonia - Gen. 11:31 - He and his family moved north along the trade routes of the ancient world and settled in the flourishing trade center of Haran, several hundred miles to the northeast.

While living in Haran, at the age of 75 Abraham received a call from God to go to a strange, unknown land that God would show him, and promised him that He would make him and his descendants a great nation. The promise must have seemed unbelievable to Abraham because his wife Sarah (called Sarai) was childless. But Abraham obeyed God with no hint of doubt or disbelief. He took his wife and his nephew, Lot, and went to the land that God would show him.

Abraham moved south along the trade routes from Haran, through Shechem's holy place, the Oak of Moreh, and arrived at Canaan. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. God appeared to Abram and said, 'It is to your descendants that I will give this land.' The circumstances seemed quite difficult, but Abraham's faith in God's promises allowed him to trust in the Lord. So Abram built there an altar for God's who had appeared to him. - Gen. 12:1-9 - 

When famine came to the land of Canaan, Abraham moved to Egypt for a short time. During this trip, Abraham introduced Sarah to the Egyptians as his sister rather than as his wife, thinking that it can help him to avoid trouble, because his wife is very beautiful. When he arrived in Egypt the Egyptians did indeed see that the woman was very beautiful. Pharaoh, the Egyptian ruler, then took Sarah as his wife. It was only because God plagued Pharaoh, and his house with great plagues that Sarah was returned to Abraham. - Gen. 12:10-20 -

Upon his return from Egypt, Abraham and his nephew, Lot, quarreled over pasture lands and went separate ways. Lot settled in the Jordan River Valley, while Abraham moved into Canaan. After the split, God reaffirmed His promise to Abraham.

Yahweh said to Abram after Lot had parted company with him. 'Look all round from where you are towards the north and the south, towards the east and the west. All the land within sight I will give to you and your descendants for ever. I will make your descendants like the dust on the ground: when men succeed in counting the specks of dust on the ground, then they will be able to count your descendants! Come, travel through the length and breadth of the land, for I mean to give it to you.' - Gen. 13:14-17 -

Apparently Abraham headed a strong military force by this time as he is called "Abram the Hebrew." - Gen. 13:16 - He succeeded in rescuing his nephew Lot from the tribal chieftains who had captured him while raiding the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, Abraham became anxious about the promise of a nation being found in his descendants because of his advanced age. It is a common practice at that time among heirless families was to adopt a slave who would inherit the master's goods.

Therefore, because Abraham was childless, he proposed to make a slave, his heir. But God rejected this action and instructed Abraham that his heir shall be of his own flesh and blood. Then taking him outside, God said, 'Look up to heaven and count the stars if you can. Such will be your descendants.' Abraham put his faith in God, who counted this as making him justified. That day God's made a Covenant with Abraham and the Divine promises reaffirmed. - Gen. 15:1-21 -

Sarah provided Abraham with a hand-maiden, because she had not borne a child. This also appears to be a familiar custom of the ancient world. According to this custom, if the wife had not had a child (preferably a male) by a certain time in marriage, she was obliged to provide a substitute (usually a slave woman) to bear a child to her husband and thereby insure the leadership of the clan. Thus, Hagar, the Egyptian maidservant, had a son by Abraham. He was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

Abraham said to God, 'Oh let Ishmael live in your presence!' But God replied, 'No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son whom you are to name Isaac. With him I will establish my Covenant, a Covenant in perpetuity, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him. For Ishmael too I grant you your request: I bless him and I will make him fruitful and greatly increased in numbers. He shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But my Covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear you at this time next year. - Gen. 17:18-21 -

After Abraham's death God blessed his son Isaac. - Gen. 25:11 - His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah opposite Mamre, in the field of Ephron the Hittite, son of Zohar. - Gen. 25:9 -

The most substantial account of the Covenant between Abraham and God is given and told in Genesis 17 - a covenant that extended the promise of the land and descendants to further generations. This covenant required Abraham and the male members of his household to be circumcised. In this chapter Abraham and Sarah receive their new names, [Their old names were Abram and Sarai] The name of the son whom God promises that will bear is designated as Isaac. The practice of Circumcision instituted at this time is not unique to the ancient Hebrews, but its embodies as a religious requirement is a unique feature of God's Covenant People. It became a visible sign and symbol of the covenant between Abraham and his descendants and their redeemer God.

Yahweh appeared to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre while he was sitting by the entrance of the tent during the hottest part of the day. He looked up and there he saw three men standing near him. 'Where is your wife Sarah?' they asked him. 'She is in the tent' he replied. Then his guest said, 'I shall visit you again next year without fail, and your wife will then have a son.' Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well on in years, and Sarah had ceased to have her monthly periods. So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, 'Now that I am past the age of child bearing and my husband is an old man, is pleasure to come my way again!' But Yahweh said to Abraham, 'Why did Sarah laugh and say, "Am I really going to have a child now that I am old?" Is anything too wonderful for Yahweh? At the same time next year I shall visit you again and Sarah will have a son. I did not laugh Sarah said, lying because she was afraid. But he replied, 'Oh yes, you did laugh.' - Gen. 18:1, 9-15 -

Abraham named the son born to him Isaac, the son to whom Sarah had given birth. Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Then Sarah said, 'God has given me cause to laugh; all those who hear of it will laugh with me.' She added: "Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children! Yet I have borne him a child in his old age.' - Gen. 21:3-6 -

The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham gave a great banquet on the day Isaac was weaned. Now Sarah watched the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 'Drive away the slave girl and her son,' she said to Abraham; 'this slave-girl's son is not to share the inheritance with my son Isaac.' This greatly distressed Abraham because of his son, but God said to Abraham, 'Do not distress yourself on account of the boy and your slave girl. Grant Sarah all she asks of you, for it is through Isaac that your name will be carried on. But the slave-girl's son I will also make into a nation for he is your child too.' -Gen. 21:8-13 -

God was with the boy. He grew up and made his home in the wilderness, and became a bowman. He made his home in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother chose him a wife from the land of Egypt. Gen. 21:20-21 -

These are the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar, Sarah's Egyptian maidservant. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael in the order of their birth: Ishmael's first born was Nebaioth; then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, according to their settlements and encampments, twelve chiefs of as many tribes. The numbers of year Ishmael lived was one hundred and thirty-seven. Then he breathed his last, died, and was gathered to his people. He lived in the territory stretching from havilah to Shur, which is to the east of Egypt, on the way to Assyria. He set himself to defy his brothers. - Gen. 25:12-18 -

God's commands for Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac was the supreme test of his faith. He was willing to give up his son in obedience to God, although at the last moment God intervened to save Isaac. God's promise of descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens was once again reaffirmed as a result of Abraham's unquestioning obedience.

It happened some time later that God put Abraham to the test. 'Abraham, Abraham' God called, 'Here I am' he replied. 'Take your son,' God said 'your only child Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him as a burnt offering, on a mountain I will point out to you.' ....... 'Do not harm him, for now I know you fear God. You have not refused me your son, your only son.' - Gen. 22:1-19 -

Sarah had died some time earlier. Abraham eventually remarried and fathered several children by Keturah, but Abraham gave all his possessions to Isaac. To the sons of his concubines Abraham gave presents, and during his lifetime he sent them away from his son Isaac eastward, to the east country. - Gen. 25:1-6 -

Abraham was the father of the Hebrews and the prime figure and example of a righteous person. In spite of impossible odds. Abraham had faith in the promises of God. Therefore, he is presented as a model of human behavior. He was a God fearing man and hospitable to strangers, and who was obedient to God's laws. The promises originally given to Abraham were passed on to his son Isaac, and to his grandson Jacob. [also called Israel] In the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible references, the God of Israel/Jacob is frequently identified as the God of Abraham and Israel is often called the people 'of the God of Abraham.' - Psalms 47:9, 105:6; Is. 41:8 - Abraham was such an important figure in the history of God's people that when they were in trouble, Israel appealed to God to remember the covenant made with Abraham. - Ex. 32:13; Deut. 9:27; Ps. 105:9 -

Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible foretold that God's will make Abraham a great nation; God's will bless Abraham and make his name so famous that it will be used as a blessing. "You are heirs of the prophets, the heirs of the covenant God made with our ancestors when He told Abraham: in your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed." - Acts 3:25 - In the New Testament, Abraham is presented as the prime example of the faith required for the Christian believer. He is viewed as the spiritual father for all who share a similar faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 3:9 John the Baptist reminded and warned those especially, the Pharisees and Sadducees  who abuse God's blessing, for He is the Almighty. "But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham for our father' because I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones."

Does this mean that God has failed to keep his promise? Of course not. Not all those who descend from Israel are Israel; not all the descendants of Abraham are his true children. Remember: It is through Isaac that your name will be carried on, which means that it is not physical descend that decides who are the children of God; it is only the children of the promise who will count as the true descendants. The actual words in which the promise was made were: I shall visit you at such and such a time, and Sarah will have a son. - Rom.9:6-9 -

Sacred Scripture foresaw that God was going to use faith to justify the pagans, and proclaimed the Good News long ago when Abraham was told: In you all pagans will be blessed. Those therefore who rely on faith receive the same blessing as Abraham, the man of faith. - Gal. 3:8-9 - 4:21-31 -

You believe in the one God - that is credible enough, but the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear. Do realize you senseless people, that faith without good deeds is useless. You surely know that Abraham our father was justified by his deed, because he offered his son Isaac on the altar? There you see it: faith and deeds were working together; his faith became perfect by what he did. - James 2:19-22 -

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said:

'If you make my word your home
you will indeed be my disciples,
you will learn the truth
and the truth will make you free.'

They answered, 'We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean, "You will be made free"?' Jesus replied:

'I tell you most solemnly,
everyone who commits sin is a slave.
Now the slave's place in the house is not assured,
but the son's placed is assured.
So if the Son makes you free,
you will be free indeed.
I know that you are descended from Abraham;
but in spite of that you want to kill me
because nothing I say has penetrated into you.
What I, for my part, speak of
is what I have seen with my Father;
but you, you put into action
the lessons learnt from your father.'

They repeated, 'Our father is Abraham.' Jesus said to them:

'If you were Abraham's children,
you would do as Abraham did.
As it is, you want to kill me
when I tell you the truth
as I have learnt it from God;
that is not what Abraham did.
What you are doing is what your father does.'

'We were not born of prostitution' they went on 'we have one father: God.' Jesus answered:

'If God were your father, you would love me,
since I have come here from God; yes, I have come from him;
not that I came because I chose,
no, I was sent, and by him.
Do you know why you cannot take in what I say?
It is because you are unable to understand my language.
The devil is your father,
and you prefer to do
what your father wants.

He was a murderer from the start;
he was never grounded in the truth;
there is no truth in him at all:
when he lies
he is drawing on his on store,
because he is a liar, and the father of lies,
But as for me, I speak the truth
and for that very reason,
you do not believe me.
Can one of you convict me of sin?
If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me?
A child of God
listens to the words of God;
if you refuse to listen,
it is because you are not God's children.

The Jews replied, 'Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and possessed by a devil?' Jesus answered:

No, I am not possessed;
no, I honor my Father,
but you want to dishonor me.
Not that I care for my own glory,
there is someone who takes care of that and is the judge of it.
I tell you most solemnly,
whoever keeps my word
will never see death.'

The Jews said, 'Now we know for certain that you are possessed. Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead, and yet you say, "Whoever keeps my word will never know the taste of death." Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? The prophets are dead too. Who are you claiming to be?'  Jesus answered:

'If I were to seek my own glory
that would be no glory at all;
my glory is conferred by the Father,
by the one of whom you say, "He is our God"
although you do not know him.
But I know him,
and if you were to say: I do not know him,
I should be a liar, as you are liars yourselves.
But I do know him, and I faithfully keep his word.
Your father Abraham rejoiced
to think that he would see my Day;
he saw it and was glad.'

The Jews then said, 'You are not fifty yet, and you have seen Abraham!' Jesus replied:

'I tell you most solemnly,
before Abraham ever was,
I Am.'

At this they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself and left the Temple. - John 8:31-59 -

                                                                     Page 1
Faith . Hope . Love - Welcome donation. Thank You. God bless. 

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -