Wednesday, June 03, 2015

What is the "world" in Scripture? What is our rationationship to it, and that of our shepherds?


Boniface, "Shepherds for the Whole World" (Unam Sanctam Catholicsm, May 29, 2015) - a sampling:
"And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John 5:19).

"Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, makes himself an enemy of God" (Jas. 4:4).

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world" (Jas. 1:27).

"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Eph. 6:12).

And a bit more:
You may surprised to learn that this phrase "in the world but not of the world" never appears in the New Testament. It seems to be based loosely on John 17:14-15, where Jesus prays,"I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil." Here Jesus specifically teaches that we are "not of the world", and that though we must remain physically present in it, He prays that God would keep us from its evil. In other words, Jesus never says by way of command that we are to be engaged in the world; He merely says that since we must be physically present in the world by necessity, God should keep us from the world's evil, which is quite a different shade of meaning than that conveyed by "in but not of."

The goal of the Christian life if holiness. Yet what is holiness? What does it meant to be holy? We understand that we are called to be loving, forgiving, etc. But what does it mean to be "holy"? Is holiness a mere sum of all other natural and supernatural virtues? And what about God? God is love, power, forgiveness, justice and so on. But what does it mean when the angels cry that God is "holy, holy, holy?"

The fundamental definition of holiness is separation. The Latin word for holiness is sanctitas, from whence sanctity. Holiness denotes separation or consecration unto God. When the angels cry "holy, holy, holy" it is because God is so far separate and distinct from all created things that awe is the only appropriate response in his presence.  
This, and a whole lot more.  This is a long and substantial post, as we've often come to expect from Boniface.  There is more, for example, about Vatican II's adopted posture of "openness" to the world and what it might mean.  Read more >>

2 comments:

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Modernism (New Theology) was constrained to slay the Real Mass and the traditional prayers accompanying it if Modernism was to successfully intrude an anthropocentric ideology into the intellects of the obedient.

Here is just one example of what Raider Fan (he is the same age as Israel) was introduced to in the Piemonte Region of Vermont lo those man years ago:

Invocatio Post Communionem

O Lord God almighty, thy blessed Son! who graciously hearest them that call upon thee in uprightness, who knowest the prayers of those even who are silent; we thank thee for thou hast deemed us worthy to partake of thy sacred mysteries thou hast given to us, for fully strengthening our faith in those things which we so well know, for the preservation of piety, and for the forgiveness of our sins; for the name of thy Christ has been invoked upon us, and we have been joined to thee.

O thou who has separated us from communion with the ungodly, unite us with them that are consecrated to thee, strengthen us in the truth, by the coming of the Holy Ghost, teach us the things we know not, supply our deficiencies, confirm us in the truths we already know.

Preserve thy priests blameless in thy service. Keep kings in peace, magistrates in justice, the air salubrious, thy fruits in abundance, the world in thy almighty providence. Pacify nations that are waging war. Convert them that are astray.

Sanctify thy people; preserve thy virgins; keep in fidelity them that are in wedlock; strengthen the chaste; lead little ones to mature age; confirm the newly initiated; teach the catechumens and make them worthy of initiation; and gather us all together into the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To whom, together with thee, and the Holy Ghost, be glory, honor, and adoration for ever. Amen


Raider Fan has prayed this after Holy Communion so many times that he has all of it - especially the bolded part - etched in his brain.

repetitio est mater studiorum Modernists favor a permanent revolution and endless options in the Lil' Licit Liturgy so that consequences of adhering to this great latin phrase is rendered nugatory.

Now, just imagine some Pope, Prelate, Priest, of female Chancellor of Dead Diocese America Inc. even being aware of this prayer, to say nothing about teaching it to youth.

No, the Real Mass and all that organically developed alongside with it has been cast into the shitter only to be replaced with guitars and bullshit anthropological sentimentalism anchored in the execrable errors of the enlightenment.

R.F. hopes this was not too churlish.

Pertinacious Papist said...

Well, R.F., I suppose we could say this: that our Catholic "diet" today compared to the "diet" of our Catholic ancestors a couple of generations ago is like a diet of kool aid and pop tarts compared to a diet of red meat and potatoes.