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greymare

greymare

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as I was raised a catholic, but not particularly intersted when I was young. I thought I would raise a few questions here, now that I dont have the nuns to glare at me when I ask stupid questions.:D

one version i was told was that, jesus knew judas betrayed him when judas kissed him on the cheek (hte garden scene) another was that he whispered.,(sorry, or something like it?) which if any is true? and

why do we do the "Stations of the Cross" , why? we already pray the rosary
every lunch hour?(well, this is what we use to?) how can we prove the miracles (wedding feast/wine. or the loaves and fishes)????

I told you they would be stupid questions.
dont worry, there will be more. :D
 
Boy did you ask these questions in just the right place.... *eyes thin, he stares over the horizion where the sun is rising*

Heres...... Thomas!

My opinion on the first part, Catholics believe the in a trinity, so Jesus (Peace be upon him!) is apart of God.... So, God would know what Judas was planning right? Just something to think aboot anyway Thomas will see you right on the questions ;)
 
Alex P said:
... *eyes thin, he stares over the horizion where the sun is rising*

Heres...... Thomas!
Click to expand...

And as a distant pall of smoke curls into a cobalt sky, there's a glimmer of silver in the shimmering haze, and there, in a smoke-blackened high-altitude flightsuit, emerges Thomas, slightly singed, 'windswept and interesting' ...

Alex, thou hast unmasked a shameless ham, sirrah!

One of my fave movie images! And if you think it's from "Independence Day", then shame on you! Cos they shamelessly nicked it from the end of "The Right Stuff" when Chuck Yeager emerges from the desert after crashing the X-15 ... stirring stuff!

Or maybe it's me, on a camel, a la "Lawrence of Arabia"?

C'mon ... it was my birthday last week ... "throw me a frickin' bone, here!" Dr Evil (Mike Myres, in "Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery", I think).

Thomas
 
Hi greymare – Part I of II

greymare said:
now that I dont have the nuns to glare at me when I ask stupid questions.:D
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As a catholic, and one who's aunt was a nun ... yes, they were quite a breed, weren't they?

Hopefully the image is changing now (just how many daughters, I wonder, were bundled off into convents to ease the burden on the family?)

greymare said:
one version I was told was that, Jesus knew Judas betrayed him when Judas kissed him on the cheek (the garden scene) ...
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Mark records that Jesus announces 'one of you will betray me' at the Last Supper, and it seems unlilkely that the apostles would have allowed Judas out of the door without a fight, if they knew what he was up to ...

But John's Gospel bears the traits of a first-hand witness, and his version is much more illuminating. What follows now is my speculation, not Doctrine (as far as I know) — but there's nothing there that contradicts the teaching of the Church (as far as I know):

13:21 — "When Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit; and he testified, and said: Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you shall betray me."
I think this was for Jesus an 'unfolding moment' and part of the gradual realisation of His destiny. He always knew where this path would take Him, but the details were occluded. Bit by bit, as the hour appraoches, His destiny is revealed to Him, by the Father, through the Spirit. I think He knew He faced arrest (He'd given them the slip before) this time He knew he had to 'face the music' ... but it was in this moment that he foresaw that he would be betrayed.

13:25-30 — "He (John) therefore, leaning on the breast of Jesus, saith to him: Lord, who is it? Jesus answered: He it is to whom I shall reach bread dipped. And when he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the morsel, Satan entered into him. And Jesus said to him: That which thou dost, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew to what purpose he said this unto him. For some thought, because Judas had the purse, that Jesus had said to him: Buy those things which we have need of for the festival day: or that he should give something to the poor. He therefore, having received the morsel, went out immediately. And it was night."
The disciples are thrown into confusion — which I think was probably a common state for them — who was going to do what? what did he mean? They looked to Peter for an answer, and Peter looked to John, who was 'the one whom Christ loved' ... "go on, you ask Him!"

The disciples didn't get it ... but Jesus realised what was unfolding ... if I were to speculate, when Our Lord said "He it is to whom I shall reach bread dipped" He still didn't know who it was (my speculation) ... only after, as He looked for whom to pass the bread, did He see it.

The others, of course, had no idea what he meant by 'betrayal' ... He was a teacher, they the students, and as a psychodynamic teaching, let alone a spiritual opening, the experience must have been pretty intense at times, this was the guy who worked miracles, walked on water, raised the dead ... who the hell knew just what He was going to say or do next???

In the Synoptics, moments later, it's Peter in deep water, when Jesus tells him he will disown Christ three times ... I bet there were times the disciples wished they'd been looking the other way when Jesus called them.

greymare said:
another was that he whispered, 'sorry,' or something like it?) which if any is true?
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I doubt that. Certainly, Scripture records nothing of the sort.

Tradition holds that Judas hoped, by his actions, to force Jesus' hand, and bring about a popular revolt, some kind of religious rising, before the Jews managed to arrest and execute Him. The 30 pieces of silver was a nominal sum, the value of a slave — so if you reversed your Merc into someone's slave, and killed it, you paid them 30 pieces of silver ... nor did Judas supply any material evidence against Jesus, nor was he called as a witness against Him, I think in Jewish Law you needed two to give a testimony against someone(?) — but Judas must have known things that could make it difficult for Jesus.

I don't think Judas intended to bring Him down, rather He hoped to give Him a nudge 'in the right direction'. When that didn't happen, it dawned that perhaps he'd made a mistake ...

The 'sorry' sounds all a bit sentimental to me.
 
I agree that Judas was looking for not the sacrificial king/messiah but the warrior king/messiah to lead them from the oppression. He is purported to be a member of that curved knife zealot types that was ready to roll with the army at a moments notice (after all Jesus told them all if they didn't have a sword to sell their garments and get one)

Peter was obviously ready to go as well (that ear lopping knife under his tunic at the ready), who knows how many others were also ready and waiting. Jesus said he could call his army if need be, and the powers that be brought a cabal (600+ men to arrest him)

Now the part I like is that at this Passover, this Shabbot service where bread and wine is regularly broken by Jews to indicate their communion with each other...so in my non-Catholic mind the bread represents the material earthly existence, and the wine represents the spiritual heavenly existence.

In the version Thomas provided Judas gets the (understands the) bread (material) but not the wine (spiritual)

Back to your regular programming, Thomas, no fading into the sunset, you've still got the stations of the cross, the rosary and the miracles to address.
 
Part II of II

greymare said:
... and why do we do the "Stations of the Cross", why?
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The Stations of the Cross ... or the Way of the Cross, or Via Crucis or Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, is a Christian devotion or contemplative practice that was founded by, I think, St. Francis of Assisi.

It also forms the basis of a spiritual pilgrimage. Remembering that Jesus said "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me," then the Stations of the Cross present us with the inescapable fact of Jesus' own road of self-denial to fulfill the Father's will — "Take this cup from my lips" (Matthew 22:42) ... His vivid demonstration of man's total and utter dependence on God for his salvation.

The stark nature of the Passion, in which Jesus Christ is the innocent victim and holocaust who experiences the ultimate end of sin — of privation in every dimension and every degree, to and including death, the total extinction of the being — not only in its end but in its privative journey by which man is stripped of every human value — is tempered by the words: "Come to me all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: And you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light."
Matthew 11:28-30

These words make the Via Dolorosa for us, a bearable witness. without them, the Via Crucis would be intolerable, unthinkable ... that and the fact that by taking on a corrupted nature and reconstituting it from within as it were, as only the Logos of All can do, He opens a road for us, the narrow gate, that transcends the capacity of a fully-realised human being. In this way man reconstituted in Christ actually surpasses the constitution of man in Adam, something that St Paul realised: "The first man Adam was made into a living soul; the last Adam into a quickening spirit." 1 Corinthians 15:45.

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greymare said:
we already pray the rosary every lunch hour? (well, this is what we use to?)
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You can never have too much of a good thing ...

The Rosary is another meditation, another and different pilgrimage, through the 'milestone mysteries' of the life of Christ.

In and throughout the Middle Ages, the Psalter (a book of the 150 psalms) formed the basis of prayer, as it still does in the Monastic Office — the Office of the Hours. Not everybody could afford a psalter, and not everybody could read ... so St Dominic referred to the Rosary as 'the poor man's psalter' with its 150 aves.

greymare said:
how can we prove the miracles (wedding feast/wine. or the loaves and fishes)????
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We can't, any more than they can be disproved. You either choose to accept them, or you choose not to.

greymare said:
I told you they would be stupid questions.
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But they ain't!

greymare said:
dont worry, there will be more. :D
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Whenever you're ready ...

Thomas
 
thanks Thomas for the indepthandeasy to understand reply. but wait ...................................there is more....................
Who saidd priests haveto be celibate and why the garment they wear and what does the symbol mean , i cant cut and paste but its the P one with a mark through it. Ill try to paste one here later, I have to go to work now. its 3am.
 
greymare said:
Who said priests have to be celibate ...
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"Ah, good evening, Mr Thomas, and how are we today? Excellent. This way, if you please? Here is your blindfold ... there, comfy? Good. How many fingers? A-ha-ha, my little joke, you understand. Now, if I may move you to the right a bit ... a bit more? There. Splendid! Well, the minefield is right in front of you now ... (from a distance) any time you're ready?"

A contentious question.

Priestly celibacy is not a doctrine, nor an article of faith, but the rule of the Church. It was the preferred state for those intent on the religious life from the Apostolic era, Jesus alluded to it, St Paul favoured it, and the Fathers followed suit. Whilst married men may become priests, it was expected that married priests lead a continent lifestyle, and so an unmarried man was better suited to the calling.

The Council of Elvira (300-306) ruled that "marriage be altogether prohibited to bishops, priests, and deacons, or to all clerics placed in the ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not beget children" and later the Council of Carthage (390) ruled that "It is fitting that ... those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God; what the Apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavour to keep... It pleases us all that bishop, priest and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from conjugal intercourse with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity."

In time the rule became binding in that Latin West. In the Orthodox Churches married men may become priests, but like the West, priests may not marry (and in the East, not divorce). Again in the orthodox, a married priest is debarred from higher office, thus the bishops etc., tend to be drawn from the monastic orders.

+++

greymare said:
and why the garment they wear and what does the symbol mean...
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Not sure what garments? D'you mean the black dress of the priesthood, or the vestments worn in the celebration of the Liturgy?

Generally, priestly attire has followed tradition, so follow the same style as was practiced in their foundation. Again, post-Vatican II attempts to 'modernise' the Church saw many monastic orders abandoning the 'habit' of generations to pursue the fads and fancies of the fashion industry ... hardly a profession on which to model oneself, I would have thought ...

The symbol you refer to is the Chi-Rho, or the Labarum, being formed of the first two letters (in Greek) of the name of Christ, a Chi - X and a Rho - P, written one atop the other.

First used, it is believed, by the Emperor Constantine on his standard.

Thomas
 
well there you go..........thanks so much for that. you are indeed a fountain of knowledge. thank you Tomtom. Do priests still have to learn latin and are they required to say mass in latin still. they didnt when I used to go, so I was wondering if it was a modernization thing or a different thing altogether?
 
greymare said:
Do priests still have to learn latin and are they required to say mass in latin still.
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No ... but watch this space.

The vernacular Mass was a decision of Vatican II, gibing the local bishops and priests the option of Latin or the local language, but somehow the 'modernists' removed the option and managed to turn it into a non-negotiable doctrine!

Many priests today don't know Latin well enough to celebrate the Mass — it depends on their education. If you want to do an MA or higher in theology, then some Greek or Latin is required — but priests aren't required to be theologians. Many priests, old enough remember the Latin Mass, say they can't remember all the actions.

I personally prefer the Latin, not because of the language, but because symbolically it's more complete as a Rite.

Pope Benedict XVI has asked for the re-introduction of the Latin Mass, and has met with feint enthusiasm ... we're waiting to see if he'll let the matter rest, or not.

Thomas
 
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