Today is the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. Read below for Father Steve's very important reflection on this depiction of Mary.
The poet Wendell Berry reflects that for parents, the only way is hard. We who give life give pain. There is no help. Yet we who give pain give love; by pain we learn the extremity of love… In other words, it may be different in another world, but in this world, all love requires a sacrifice, and with that sacrifice there is inevitable pain. To reject sacrifice as the condition for the possibility of love is to live an essentially loveless existence.
Berry continues his reflection with this insight: I read of Christ crucified, the only begotten Son sacrificed to flesh and time and all our woe. He died and rose, but who does not tremble for his pain and loneliness, and the darkness of the sixth hour? Unless we grieve like Mary at his grave, giving him up as lost, no Easter morning comes…
Thank you to all the Bloggers, Facebook and Twitter users, and website administrators who featured Father Barron's response to Stephen Hawking and a number of his other commentaries last week. Check out the links here, and read the post for more Word on Fire news.
Also, be sure to read the
earlier post from today in honor of the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross...
Today is the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. Take a look at Father Barron's video commentaries on the Cross, as well as a short reflection from The Priority of Christ here.
The reversal of values and meaning represented by the cross of Jesus is reflected symbolically in certain upheavals in the cosmic rhythms. In Matthew’s account, the death of Jesus is accompanied by earthquakes and the rising of the dead, while Luke tells us, “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed” (Luke 23:44-45). What we take to be light is in fact the darkness, and what we take to be life is really death. The sinful universe is upside down; the warrior came to right it. Also, our sense of rightly ordered religion is revolutionized: “and the curtain in the temple was torn in two” (23:34). The curtain in question is that which guarded the holy of holies in the Jerusalem temple, that which protected—and hence defined—the sacred. The tearing of the curtain thus calls to mind Jesus’s promise that he would tear down the temple, putting an end to the old cultic practices and the inadequate theology associated with it. (“The day is coming when you will worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… [but] in spirit and truth,” John 4:21-23) It also indicates, relatedly, that the authentic holy of holies—the love unto death of the Son of God-- is now, on the cross, visible to all, publicly available to Jew and Gentile alike….
It has just been announced that Father Barron will launch a nationwide television program in October, becoming the only Catholic priest in the country with a national mainstream television platform.
Word on Fire with Father Barron will appear on WGN America Sundays at 8:30 am Central.
Read the full press release
here, and make sure to tune in on Sunday mornings to witness this historic event and hear more of Father Barron's insightful explanations.
Find your local WGN America channel here.
Today, Father Steve expounds upon his recent experiences in Tucson at the mission church of San Xavier del Bac and the Vatican Observatory, incorporating a reflection on John Henry Newman's process of "real assent" as it applies to these two important locations.
I returned this past Friday from Tucson Arizona where our crew filmed at sites that will be featured in the
CATHOLICISM series. The production of the series is now nearing its completion with only sites in the Chicago area remaining to be filmed. After all the grand places and international locales that have previously been the focus of our crew's attention, the Tucson trip might be seen as somewhat anti-climatic. Of course this perception is mistaken. We experienced some rare gems of the Church's cultural treasury in Tucson...