Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Something I need to review.

CWR: Genesis, Covenant, and Salvation History by Peter M.J. Stravinskas

One of the unique aspects of the Genesis narratives is that the sacred author(s) have such a profound consciousness of divine election that they see the beginning of the Hebrew people as flowing very naturally [...]

Bishop Steven J Lopes: "Beauty in the Spoken Word and Ministerial Action"

Cupich's Proposal

Some info here and America Magazine. Where is the accountability of the metropolitan to his "suffragan" bishops? If bishops are unfamiliar to one another, then maybe the election of bishops should be reformed, so that the bishops are accountable first to the local synod of presbyters, who are not just co-laborers (co-workers) or co-operators in the harvest - if the canonical and theological distinction in orders between presbyter and bishop is one made through subsequent positive law (and the development of the monoepiscopate) and not by the Apostles, perhaps a return to the Apostolic practice is even more warranted now.

What we need perhaps is less pushing of responsibility "up" but "out."

Beauty of the Liturgy...



When the young Church recognized the cross of Christ as the moment of salvation, Christ himself as the sacrifice of atonement and the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, then it was clear for her that all the bloody cult of sacrifice had been abrogated once and for all. Christianity was a cult-revolution in antiquity. The bloodletting of Golgotha makes all man-made victims obsolete. There is now just the “leiturgia logike,” the spiritual, rational liturgy. It is telling that the Epistle to the Hebrews signifies the Christian religious service as “the sacrifice of praise” and “fruit of the lips.” And in the fact, inexplicable in itself, that early Christians refused to express their civic loyalty by sacrificing before images of the emperor, we can see a clear result of this spiritualization. There is no longer any other sacrifice efficacious before God, save the one of Golgotha. There are also no longer any priests in the plural, but only the one Jesus Christ.