Various pics

 

Patristic Quote of the Day

While it is people’s duty to examine themselves and to order their conduct according to God’s will, they leave this alone to busy themselves with the affairs of others. He that judges the brother, as the disciple of Christ says, speaks against the law and judges the law…. Whoever therefore is guided by good sense does not look at the sins of others, does not busy himself about the faults of his neighbor, but closely reviews his own misdoings.—St. Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 29 on St. Luke

Catechesis: Intro to LC

It must be true that whoever knows the Ten Commandments perfectly must know all the Scriptures. So in all matters and cases, he can advise, help, comfort, judge, and decide both spiritual and temporal matters.—LC Intro 17

Luther

A Christian ought to live as he would be found on the last day before all men.—CP VI:20 (Advent I Epistle) 

This morning, getting ready for Church…

…it suddenly occurred to me that I am still using THIS:

Which happens to have belonged to my father; his handkerchief. And he’s been dead for going on 43 years this January. The little hanky that could, I guess. It’s a little yellowed with age, but it still serves. 

Dear Mom,

Well, it’s been 28 years since your earthly sufferings came to an end. I still miss you more than words can say. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the details of that Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that year as it is this year. After I heard that they’d taken you to the hospital, I called and spoke to the doctor. He said that you were trying very hard to die, your poor heart just giving out. I remember telling him to please let you go. But I’m so thankful John and Tammy were there to see you that day!

I wonder if you remember how it was a Thanksgiving years before that we realized something was very wrong. You were staying with us, and Cindi and I had decided to teach you a new card game: sevens. After we explained the rules of the game, it became apparent to us that you didn’t remember numerical order any more. It took a while for that to sink in. How can someone forget the order of numbers? And then we thought back and realized that a year or two before you had given up doing your beloved crossword puzzles and your jigsaw puzzles. We should have known then, or at least gently asked what was up. 

Most of the family joined us that Thanksgiving down in North Carolina and we talked about what on earth we were going to do as we gathered on the porch, while Dawn, I believe, occupied you inside the house. We decided to let things alone and just watch for a while longer. Sissy, you remember, was still working at the FBI, as was Jimmy. But it wasn’t long, mom, before we realized that you being alone during the day wasn’t going to work. You called 911 about things that were very real to you, but that just weren’t there. Uncle Edgar came over to help out more than once, as did Doug. Finally, Sis got a sitter to stay with you during the day. That helped for a little bit, but nothing was stopping the change in you.

Cindi and I tried to take you to our home in North Carolina. Do you remember your time there that last time? I think we started with a hospital trip and getting your gall bladder out, of all things! Then the terrible allergic reaction to the medicine (Cindi is a saint!). I remember when I finally had to put a lock on your bedroom door so you wouldn’t wander about at night. I hated doing it, mom. It felt like a betrayal, but it was the only way we could think of to keep you safe. And then when Cindi ended up on bedrest before Rebekah was born, I had to call Sis to come and get you. And she did in an instant. She was such a help! She came and took care of some laundry and other household things before she packed you up to head back to Virginia. I remember telling her that it was getting worse. Mom, your hallucinations were so sad and so persistent. You seemed to be living in a nightmare that never got any better. And you’d reached the point you couldn’t really be left alone.

Still, mom, my heart breaks when I remember that one day. You were crying there in your bedroom at our house. I asked what was making you so sad. You said: “You’d be sad to if you were losing your mind.” It was a moment of lucidity, but what a horrid thing to be clear about! You knew something was seriously wrong. We’d long since ceased trying to argue with you about the things you saw. I just tried to distract you with memories from the past (which were always somewhat clearer, at least for a time). And that moment of weeping and sadness for what you were losing, is the sole instance I ever recall of you ever complaining.

I just commented to Butch and Sis the other day, that the thing that always amazed me about you was that despite your physical ailments, the constant pain from the shortened leg,  your headaches and whatnot, you just never complained. You never one time before that instance even referred to your suffering at all. And you certainly did not let it quench your spirit. You were always such a delightful tease! 

The last time I saw you, sadly,  you were pretty far gone in the loss of your memories. I am certain you had no idea who I was. I tried to feed you, mom, but you looked at me with nothing but suspicion and distrust. I remember I left that day in a very black mood; I stopped in Culpeper at Clore’s on the way home to Maryland and ordered a tombstone for Joe. I think Butch and Sissy helped me with the cost of that; it grieved me that his grave had never been marked; and now poor Maupin doesn’t even have a grave to mark! That was the summer before you died. I think Joe’s death probably did more to hasten your aging than even daddy’s. But a month or so before you breathed your last, do you remember who came to see you?

Yup, your beloved Tommy. He came with Aunt Emma. Emma told you: “Mibby (her special name for mom), Tommy’s come a long way to see you.“ (Tommy lived out in Cheyenne Wyoming.) Without missing a beat, you said: “Well, aren’t I worth coming a long way to see?” 

I had taken the call to Illinois by then, the year after Bekah was born. Leaving you wasn’t easy, mom. I remember the fall before you passed away, I read the children “I’ll Love You Forever” and I just lost it. I couldn’t keep the sobs in. I just wanted to go home to see you. But when I stopped the tears, there was still work to do and I had used up my vacation that summer. So I stayed here. I prayed for you. And to this day I feel terrible that I didn’t just pick up and head home right then for a visit with you. I hope you’ve forgiven me for it. I would dearly loved to have hugged you and kissed you one last time.

The day after Thanksgiving 28 years ago, we were expecting our friends, the Whaleys, to drop in for a visit. You remember, Linda, mom? That day Cindi had to go to the hospital for bedrest, it was Linda who came and sat with you. I will always be grateful to her for that. Well, she came through again that day. After her long drive, Linda arrived and set to work packing our car with distractions so that the kids (they were little back then) would have games to play and books to read on the long ride to Virginia. Yes, Linda to the rescue yet again! And so we headed off. 

I talked Sissy and Maup into getting you a cedar coffin. We all know how much you loved Cedar. And we did Christmas greenery for your funeral too. Do you remember how each year we’d go out into the woods  behind Granddaddy’s and gather the running pine and running cedar and slice some of the holly off of the tree that Ann Field planted by the old house? I can still see you hobbling to the woods, determined to gather the greens to take home to Maryland, cheerful as can be. It seemed fitting your coffin should be decked with them too. 

Mom, I remember too the horrible Christmas when you got shingles and you couldn’t wrap your packages the way you used to, always making your own beautiful bows. It was the start of a number of awful Christmases, wasn’t it? Then the year when Peggy almost died of that horrid virus, I think 1970. Then the Christmas daddy was dying, 1979. But you were always our rock. We knew we could count on you. You would laugh and swing your sweat towel and we knew the world was okay. Until it wasn’t. Until you began to be taken from us, memory by memory. 

Well, this has gotten a bit out of hand, but I wanted to write to you. 28 years is a very long time to live without seeing you, and I just wanted to tell you how very, very much I have missed you. But your words of wisdom have been and continue to be my constant companions, especially your words from Aunt Annie.

Love you, mom. Can’t wait to see you again.

Following our longstanding tradition…

…we put up the Christmas decor on the day after Thanksgiving. 

When the power is out in town (but not in St. Louis…)

Patristic Quote of the Day

If you propose a choice between these two things, which is better, to laugh or to cry? Is there anybody who wouldn’t prefer to laugh? Because repentance involves a beneficial sorrow, the Lord presented tears as a requirement and laughter as the resulting benefit. How? When He says in the Gospel, “Blessed are those who cry, because they shall laugh.” So crying is a requirement, laughter the reward, of wisdom. He wrote laughter to mean joy.—St. Augustine, Sermon 175.2

Luther

That (Matthew XXV:41) ought to be a strong and earnest warning that we as Christians should so study and live that we shall be able to stand with honour and unafraid at the right hand of this Lord of Majesty, where there will be no fear or terror, but only pure eternal comfort and joy.—Sermon on 26 Trinity, 1544. 

Catechesis: Monastic Vows

Paul speaks of faith differently than the philosophers. He does not assign faith to those who have mortal sin. So he says that people cast off faith who do not care for their relatives. In the same way he also says that unchaste women cast off faith.—Ap XXVII:68

Patristic Quote of the Day

The nature of an envious person is such that he makes the praises of others the food for his disease and is wickedly maddened by their reputation.—St. Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 23 on St. Luke

Catechesis: Monastic Vows

The Gospel does not advise about distinguishing clothing and meats and giving up property. These are human traditions, about which it has been said: “Food will not commend us to God” (1 Cor. 8:8). Therefore, they are neither justifying services nor perfection. Indeed, when they are presented covered with these titles, they are mere “teaching of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1).—Ap XXVII:26

Luther

The Prophet Isaiah speaks the truth about Him, for He hides His omnipotence, His wisdom, power, and strength, and makes it appear as though He could do nothing, know nothing, understand nothing, or does not wish to. Now He lets our enemies do as they like with His Word, Sacraments, and Christians; He lets us call and cry, and keeps silence.—Sermons, 1531

Patristic Quote of the Day

For if grace comes from penitence, surely the one who scorns penitence renounces grace. Those who make themselves out to be holy will be wounded. The Bridegroom is taken from them.—St. Ambrose, Exposition of Luke 5:20-22

Catechesis: Monastic Vows

Therefore, this blasphemy, which appears in Thomas, also cannot be tolerated, “The monastic profession is equal to Baptism.” It is insane to make a human tradition, which has neither God’s command nor promise, equal to Christ’s ordinance. Baptism has both God’s command and promise, which contains the covenant of grace and of eternal life.—Ap XXVII:20

Luther

Thus it is written in Psalm cxlix: ‘Let the saints hold a two-edged sword in their hands.’ Those are not material swords, but spiritual swords of the mouth of Christ. With these swords and with their wisdom Christians must rush into battle and smite down heathen nations and kings, with all their visions of holiness, and take them prisoner and subject them to Christ. Such is the honour of God’s warriors and saints.—Day by Day, p. 389.

Patristic Quote of the Day

So the Lord prays, not to entreat for himself but to intercede for me. Although the Father placed all things in the power of his Son, yet the Son, in order to fulfill the form of a man, thinks that the Father must be entreated for us, because he is our Advocate… If he is an Advocate, he must intercede on account of my sins.—St. Ambrose, Commentary on Luke, Homily 23

Catechesis: Monastic Vows

“Another one,” he [the monk, John Hilton] said, “will come in 1516. He will destroy you and you will be unable to resist him.” Later, his friends found this very prediction about the declining influence of the monastic orders and the very date written in his surviving commentaries dealing with certain passages of Daniel.—Ap XXVII:3

Luther

For where God through His Word and faith has gathered together a Church, the devil cannot be at peace, and where he cannot achieve her destruction through sectarianism he strikes at her with persecution and violence, so that we must risk body and life in the fight, and all we have.—Sermon for Trinity 3, 1544

Patristic Quotes of the Day

He has not called those who, wishing to establish their own justice, have not been made subject to the justice of God. He calls those who, being conscious of their weakness, are not ashamed to confess that we have all offended in many things. In them too is fulfilled his saying that he had not come to call the just but sinners. That is, he does not call the exalted but the humble. He does not call those puffed up about their own justice but those showing themselves devotedly subject to the one who justifies the wicked. Such people, when they are converted, bear witness with a sincere heart that they must not be regarded as just, but sinners.—The Venerable Bede, Homilies on the Gospels

Catechesis: Prayer for the Dead

Epiphanius declares that Aerius maintained that prayers for the dead are useless. He finds fault with this. We do not favor Aerius either, but we do argue with you because you defend a heresy that clearly conflicts with the prophets, apostles, and Holy Fathers. This is heresy is that Mass justifies by the outward act (ex opere operato), that when applied it merits the pardon of guilt and punishment even for the unjust if they do not present an obstacle. We object to these deadly errors…—Ap XXIV:96

Luther

Yet each Christian should be so armed that he himself is sure of his belief and of the doctrine and is so equipped with sayings from the Word of God that he can stand up against the devil and defend himself, when men seek to lead him astray, and so can help to fight the battle for maintaining the true doctrine.—Sermon, 1531

The sunrise yesterday vs. today…

Very glad to be home and all, but we will miss the Caribbean big time. 

Patristic Quote of the Day

When the Savior says to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you,” he addresses this to humankind in general. For those who believe in him, being healed of the diseases of the soul, will receive forgiveness of the sins which they formerly committed.—St. Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 12 on St. Luke

Luther

The Word and doctrine will create Christian unity and fellowship. Where they reign all else will follow. Where they are not no concord will ever abide. Therefore, do not talk to me about love and friendship, if that means breaking with the Word, or the faith, for the Gospel does not say that love brings eternal life, God’s grace, and all heavenly treasures, but the Word.—Sermon, 1531

Catechesis: Prayer for the Dead

Regarding the adversaries quoting the Fathers about offering for the dead, we know that the ancients speak of prayer for the dead, which we do not ban.—Ap XXIV:94