Catholic lectionary for 8 January 2014

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

1 John, Chapter 4, verses 11-18

⁷ and by many reasons exhorteth to brotherly love

¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

¹²No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

¹³Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

¹⁴And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

¹⁵Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

¹⁶And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

¹⁷Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

¹⁸There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

Read more:1 John, Chapter 4

Comments:

Comments on the current fragment

Comments on the book

Comments on the part

4

4:12 If we love one another, God abideth in us - This is treated of, Jo1 4:13-16. And his love is perfected - Has its full effect. In us - This is treated of, Jo1 4:17-19.

4:14 And in consequence of this we have seen and testify that the Father sent the Son - These are the foundation and the criteria of our abiding in God and God in us, the communion of the Spirit, and the confession of the Son.

4:15 Whosoever shall, from a principle of loving faith, openly confess in the face of all opposition and danger, that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him.

4:16 And we know and believe - By the same Spirit, the love that God hath to us.

4:17 Hereby - That is, by this communion with God. Is our love made perfect; that we may - That is, so that we shall have boldness in the day of judgment - When all the stout - hearted shall tremble. Because as he - Christ. Is - All love. So are we - Who are fathers in Christ, even in this world.

4:18 There is no fear in love - No slavish fear can be where love reigns. But perfect, adult love casteth out slavish fear: because such fear hath torment - And so is inconsistent with the happiness of love. A natural man has neither fear nor love; one that is awakened, fear without love; a babe in Christ, love and fear; a father in Christ, love without fear.

Mark, Chapter 6, verses 45-52

⁴⁵ Christ walketh on the sea

⁴⁵And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people.

⁴⁶And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray.

⁴⁷And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land.

⁴⁸And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.

⁴⁹But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out:

⁵⁰For they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.

⁵¹And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered.

⁵²For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened.

Read more:Mark, Chapter 6

Comments:

Comments on the current fragment

Comments on the book

Comments on the part

6

6:45 He constrained his disciples - Who did not care to go without him. Mat 14:22.

6:46 Mat 14:23; Joh 6:15.

6:48 And he saw them - For the darkness could veil nothing from him.And would have passed by them - That is, walked, as if he was passing by.

6:52 Their heart was hardened - And yet they were not reprobates.It means only, they were slow and dull of apprehension.

NOTES

Today's reading, telling of another miracle performed by Jesus, continues the theme begun by the description of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. The connection between the two accounts is indicated by the evangelist himself, while also noting that...

In today's Gospel reading there is one small but rather difficult point, namely the words: and He wanted to pass them by. They are so hard to understand that in the parallel, later text of Matthew's Gospel they are omitted. Why did He want to pass them by, if...

In today's Gospel reading there is one small but rather difficult point, namely the words: and He wanted to pass them by. They are so hard to understand that in the parallel, later text of Matthew's Gospel they are omitted. Why did He want to pass them by, if it says that He saw them distressed in rowing, because the wind was against them? That is, He saw this and went to help them; why, then, did He want to pass them by?

The simplest thing in such difficult cases is simply not to notice the words that are unclear, as if they were not there. But not everyone will find such an approach acceptable. The author of the new translation "Good News," Valentina Kuznetsova, offers us one way to solve this problem: it looked as though He wanted to pass by them. That is, everything is very simple: it only appeared so to them.

It is hard for people untrained in philology to judge, but they can analyze different translations into modern languages, comparing the work of different translators. And nowhere else were we able to find the word "appeared." But how can it be that many different translators all omitted the same word in the same way?

Yet we are not at all frightened even by the degree of paradox present in the text without the word "appeared." Do we have the right to judge the Lord's intention? No. Therefore let us not try to solve what He actually wanted to do. There was some meaning in His actions, one now unknown to us. Let us look at the disciples' testimony: He wanted to pass by. Let us look, without any mental labor of our own, at the testimony in all its simplicity (especially since this is, after all, the Gospel according to Mark), and turn to our own life: does it not happen with us that we are in extremely harsh conditions, praying to the Lord for help, yet see only how help passes by us? It does not appear so to us; rather, we simply see with our own eyes that help is coming toward us, but we cannot make use of it.

Yet in the end the disciples were saved. As we too will be saved. Adding the word "appeared," however, shifts everything onto the unstable ground of unclear sensations whose relation to reality is unknown; and one gets the impression, precisely an impression, that such an approach is rather dangerous.

How much food does a person need in order to be satisfied? It is hard to answer this question unambiguously. Everything depends on the person: age, sex, height, physical condition. And on spiritual condition too...

How much food does a person need in order to be satisfied? It is hard to answer this question unambiguously. Everything depends on the person: age, sex, height, physical condition. And on spiritual condition too, for a person is, on the one hand, spirit, and on the other, an animal, and his spiritual condition affects the physical, just as the reverse is also true. What, then, is this spiritual condition? What determines it? It is customary to think that a person's spiritual condition is determined by his own inner efforts, but this is only partly true. In reality, a person's spiritual condition is determined by the dynamic of his relationship with God, where human efforts themselves are certainly important, but God's action, His influence on the person and on human life, is still more important. A person's spiritual condition is determined in the process of his continuous dialogue with God; it depends on how deep and conscious this dialogue is.

Moreover, the same can be said not only of a person's spiritual condition, but also of the reality in which he lives. Today, even in science, one of the key problems is the problem of the observer, and scientists are becoming more and more convinced that any reality is real only insofar as it is observed. The universe can exist only insofar as it has an Observer who created it; this is another aspect of the so-called cosmological proof of the existence of God.

Yet the human being is also an observer, and as such he too creates his reality. It is, of course, real to the extent that the human being himself is real, and the human being is real to the extent that God determines his existence. Here lies the mystery of the Kingdom as a divine-human reality, which is revealed to us from the beginning in the Person of the God-Man. Here too lies the mystery of all the Gospel miracles: they are all divine-human miracles, not only in the sense that the God-Man performs them, but also in the sense that ordinary people participate in these miracles, entering into divine-human reality, entering its space.

In the space of divine-human reality, food is created not only by God, as in our fallen world, which is fallen because fallen humanity does not so much create it together with God as destroy it apart from Him, but also by the human being for whom the food is intended. The person's spiritual condition and the food's physical condition correspond perfectly to each other in the divine-human space of the Kingdom, and then any number of people can be satisfied with any amount of food, just as the evangelist describes.

FAQ

Some believe that Jehovah God is the only Person who claims worship and trust, and that Jesus is the Son of God, also a Person, but does not claim worship, because Jesus is a creation of Jehovah; moreover, Jesus is not God, since He Himself often prayed to His Heavenly Father (He could not, after all, pray to Himself). The Holy Spirit is impersonal, an expression of the will of Jehovah God; the impersonality of the Holy Spirit is confirmed by the fact that during Pentecost, He descended upon those present, dividing into many flames. The point is that the Holy Spirit divided into many... but can a person divide and be considered the same person? Personally, I believe that judging the nature of God, considering that He is a Trinity or considering that the situation is as described above, is generally wrong. Who can comprehend the nature of God?

Who can comprehend the nature of God? Of course, only God Himself...

Who can comprehend the nature of God? Of course, only God Himself. But what is essentially important for our salvation, He reveals to us. Therefore, the Church has always tried to be precise in comprehending this Revelation, so it is necessary to clearly envision what is important for our coming to God.

The idea of the created nature of Jesus Christ was first expressed by the Alexandrian priest Arius at the beginning of the 4th century AD. The Church quite unanimously rejected this opinion as erroneous, because if it was not God who shared our life and our death with us, then there is no salvation from sin and death for us. Likewise, if the Holy Spirit is a faceless force (a sort of semolina porridge, God forgive me), then communion with a Personal God is impossible for us. In this case, again, there is no salvation, because the entire biblical faith collapses. After all, the Holy Spirit is precisely the One Who pours life into our hearts, and not in some Hellenistic "afterlife existence" (which is a non-biblical idea), but here and now. Thus, the Church believes that Jesus is the God-Man, consubstantial with the Father in His Divinity and consubstantial with us in His humanity, and the Holy Spirit is a Person, God, whom we worship together with the Father and the Son.

The arguments you write about do not seem convincing. Of course, Jesus prays—how else can a man (and God incarnate in a man as well) communicate with the Father? The manner of communion between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in the Trinity is incomprehensible to us; but the God-Man Jesus Christ is humbled for our sake to such an extent that He also shares our manner of communion with the Father. As for the worship of Jesus Christ, the Holy Scripture says that it is precisely the belief that He is Lord that gives a person salvation. The Apostle Paul in his Epistles to the Romans ( 10:9), to the Philippians ( 2:6-11), and to the Colossians says that the will of God regarding our salvation is that we worship God in Jesus Christ, since "in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" ( 2:9). Obviously, the opinion of Arius regarding the created nature of the Son of God radically contradicts these last words of the apostle.

The Holy Spirit, of course, can act in every person, and in many people at once, for He is Almighty! And the "divided tongues, as of fire" are only visible signs of His coming, not He Himself. Ultimately, I reply to letters from many people—does my personality thereby divide into separate pieces of paper?

It is truly important for us to know and accept what is expressed in the dogmatic teaching of the seven Ecumenical Councils, including the concept of the Trinity, first explicitly formulated by St. Theophilus of Antioch in the second half of the 2nd century. The Triunity of God means for us that He a) is not like us; b) transcends us and our understanding; c) has life in Himself; d) gives us the opportunity to share with Him the fullness of His life. This is in brief, of course. The Church's teaching on the Triune God is profound and significant enough to become acquainted with it through the Bible itself and specialized sources.

Everyone, of course, is free to choose their own confession. But it is important for Christians to remember that every dogmatic assertion has consequences in practical spiritual life, and these consequences must be seen and evaluated by their fruits.

${currentDateString}