ABVM PARISH COMMUNITY

  LOVE IN MARRIAGE AS A MODEL FOR ALL In the Gospels Jesus is asked which is the greatest of the Commandments.   The answer, of course, is that one must love the Lord thy God with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength, and one’s neighbor as oneself.   Jesus tells the disciples at the Last Supper that if they love him, they must keep his commandments, especially his new commandment, which is to love one another as he has loved them.   These are inspiring words, but when we speak of love it needs to be specified.   Love of the Father, love of Jesus, and love of neighbor must be expressed in concrete acts.   Feelings and emotions are involved in all love, but true love goes beyond them.   Feelings and emotions are fickle, but love is steadfast and unending.   Such love is expressed not in how I feel but in what I do.   Jesus taught his disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.   Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his li

  ABRAHAM, OUR FATHER IN FAITH The Old Testament reading for Mass today relates part of the mysterious encounter of Abraham with three “visitors” as he sat at the entrance of his tent in Mamre on a hot afternoon.   Abraham shows them hospitality and prepares a meal for them.   After they eat, one of them says to Abraham that his wife Sarah will bear a son, although she is beyond child-bearing years.   God keeps the promise he made to Abraham when he called him to leave his own country and kindred to wander in a land he did not know.   And I will make of you a great nation…and by you all the families of the earth will bless themselves (Gen 12:2-3). Who were these three men?   Christian iconography sees in them the Persons of the Holy Trinity.   This encounter is a theophany, an appearance of God in the Old Testament.   Interestingly, in the original Hebrew language the three men are sometimes addressed in the singular form by Abraham, and sometimes in the plural form, as if they wer

  MARTYRS OF CONSCIENCE On June 22 the Church’s Calendar of Saints commemorates the sixteenth century martyrdom of two prominent Englishmen who refused to accept the validity of the king’s divorce and remarriage, as well as his claim to be the temporal head of the Church in England (and thus his power to declare his marriage to Catherine of Aragon as null and void).   They did not openly oppose the king or foment rebellion against him, but they would not obey the order to sign the oath of supremacy since their Catholic conscience would not permit it.   King Henry VIII had them arrested.   Saint John Fisher was a leading intellectual in his day, the first administrator of the University of Cambridge, and the longtime bishop of the humble diocese of Rochester.   He had a reputation as an excellent preacher and wrote works in defense of the Catholic faith against the errors of Martin Luther.   Many of his sermons can be read today with great spiritual profit.   St. John showed more co

  WISDOM FROM THE FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY Carved on memorial blocks in the walls of the Washington Monument are some Bible verses, including “Search the Scriptures” (John 5:39), “The memory of the just is blessed” (Proverbs 10:7), and “Holiness to the Lord” (Exodus 28:26).  There is also a prayer: “May heaven to this Union continue its beneficence” and a statement of national faith which is found on many federal and state buildings across the country, including in the chambers of both houses of Congress: “In God We Trust.”  The very capstone of the Washington Monument is inscribed with the Latin inscription Laus Deo , meani ng “Praise God.” It is fitting that religious sentiments are inscribed in the structure that honors George Washington since he, along with the other Founding Fathers of the United States, believed that a vibrant belief in God was essential to the well-being of the nation.  This was one of the points he made in his 1796 letter to the people of the United States on the