"We Dare to Say"

Daring To Say, “Our Father In Heaven”
Dare. Why is it a daring thing to say the Lord’s Prayer? Why is it daring to call God “Our Father in heaven”?https://t.co/c1WBJRLsvr pic.twitter.com/RNpNDaKBIQ

— Pravmir.com (@Pravmir_English) August 27, 2021

Into the Heart of the Father by Leonard DeLorenzo

Yesterday, @timothypomalley gave me this book.

As you might be able to see, I wrote this book, and yet Tim received the first copy of the book.

Why? Because the world is a funny place. pic.twitter.com/Nzk8hSvAYJ

— Leonard J. DeLorenzo (@leodelo2) March 17, 2021

But Very Western in Its Theology?

And "derivative" or scholastic, rather than being scriptural in language? Our armour of light is Christ, given to us through the Holy Spirit.

I contend that there is no finer piece of religious prose in the English language. pic.twitter.com/Dx4SYpJZST

— Marcus Walker (@WalkerMarcus) November 29, 2020

A possible contrast...

🇬🇧 "We are the sons of light and love, the sons of God, His children."
- Elder Thaddeus

📷 https://t.co/HLn1NnGJae / Raluca Ene#light #love #God pic.twitter.com/GBMeZKVbeh

— Basilica.ro Photos (@BasilicaPhotos) November 28, 2020

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

Lord, thank You for Your many blessings in my life. Fill my heart with gratitude. Lead my heart to thanksgiving. Inspire my thanksgiving to offer acts of service to others this day. Amen.
Show your gratitude towards God by doing something self-less today. https://t.co/WyVYyzIeBp

— OCN (@MyOCN) November 10, 2020

My OCN

An Abuse of the Term "Child of God"

We are made children of God through Christian initiation, and we have no grounds for using that term of anyone who has not been initiated into Christ. To use it to refer to any human being regardless of whether they have been incorporated into Christ is to deviate from the normative usage set by the apostles and Scripture.

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus commands us to love our enemies. It is a Christian conviction that all of that evil is not telling the deepest truth about the enemy.

The deepest truth is that he or she is a child of God, and thus worthy of our love.https://t.co/gl9pSxVWfT pic.twitter.com/JoA3jpXsh9

— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) September 10, 2020

πνευματικὰς

I was thinking about πνευματικὰς in 1 Peter 2:5, translated as "spiritual" in the RSV CE.

According to Strong's Concordance:

4152 pneumatikós (an adjective, derived from 4151 /pneúma, "spirit") – spiritual; relating to the realm of spirit, i.e. the invisible sphere in which the Holy Spirit imparts faith, reveals Christ, etc.

In how many instances in the Greek text might the translation "of the Spirit" or "pertaining to the Spirit" or "Spiritual" be warranted? Is it warranted here?

50+ Years of the Pauline Reform

Translation of the liturgy into the vernacular, etc. and we still have devotions like this that are gaining to popularity, which have replaced a proper understanding of our adoption by the Father as sons in Christ. The Holy Family has supplanted the Trinity.

CNA/CWR: Why a new consecration to St. Joseph is spreading like wildfire

Christ as First-Born

Divine Adoption

Catholic Herald

παῖς or τέκνον or υἱός

In John 1:12 it's tekna.

1 Cor. 13:11 has nēpios.

CWR: The Solemnity of All Saints and the pursuit of holiness by Peter M.J. Stravinskas

How does one get to Heaven? By being a saint on earth. And how does one become a saint? By living a life of holiness. And in what does holiness consist? Here are seven elements.

Holiness consists in being childlike
Our Lord Himself asserted – unequivocally – “unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven” [Mt 18:3]. But, as you have undoubtedly heard many times, being childlike is quite different from being childish. Saint Thérèse, for example, was devoted to the Holy Child Jesus because she found in Him all the qualities to become a saint herself. What is spiritual childhood, you ask? Her “last words” tell us:

It is to recognize one’s own nothingness, to expect everything from the good God as a child expects everything from its father. It is to be concerned about nothing, not even about making one’s living. . . . I remain a child with no other occupation than gathering flowers, the flowers of love and sacrifice, and offering them to the good God for His pleasure. Being a child means not attributing to yourself the virtues you practice or believing yourself capable of anything at all. It means recognizing that the good God places the treasure of virtue in the hands of His children to be used when there is need of it. . . . but it is still God’s treasure. Finally, it means never being discouraged by your faults, because children fall frequently, but are too small to hurt themselves much.

The pseudo-sophisticates of the two last centuries of blood and violence need to acknowledge that their programs have failed abysmally and that the human capacity for God can only be satisfied when one approaches that God as a child accepts the overtures of a loving father.

Curious if the "last words" are 100% authentic Theresian, or if they were modified by her sister. Unfortunately, in English "children" can have a negative connotation that would not appeal to a man like the word "son" would.

The True Vine and Its Branches by Rev. Edward Leen, S.J.

Abba

ἀμήν

Latins Need to Bring Back Divine Adoption

Rorate Caeli: Guest Op-Ed: Fighting for the soul of Europe

For Francis however, these considerations are no more than semantics. “All of us together: Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Copts, Evangelical. But [we are] brothers, children of the same God” he said on Holy Thursday.[4] There were reports that “[a] number of the migrants whose feet were washed by the pope had tears streaming down their faces.”[5] One wonders if such an emotional moment has led any of the non-Catholics who have had their feet washed in the past three years to convert. Probably not. Even if it had, based on past statements by the pope, one wonders if this is something that he would even have approved of.[6]

Arguably, Catholics, Copts, and Evangelical Christians are brothers, children of the same God because of baptism. But the claim that we are all "children" in so far as we are created by the same God? While "children of God" has been used in that sense in the West, is the same true of the East? And even if it is the case that that usage has some legitimacy because of the past, is it a good idea to continue it, since the first meaning is more important, and one does not want to create the misunderstanding that Christianity is superfluous or foster indifferentism?

This way of speaking of all of humanity as being sons or children of God is practically equivalent to statements about human dignity, which must be correctly understood as referring to human nature not just in itself but in its being ordered to friendship with God. Otherwise the affirmation of human dignity can be problematic if it is intellectually separated from God and His will for us.

This year, Pope Francis chose to celebrate Our Lord’s Supper with the traditional washing of the feet at a temporary...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Friday, March 25, 2016

Pope Francis celebrated the Missa in coena Domini on Holy Thursday evening, at the CARA Welcome and Hospitality Centre...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Friday, March 25, 2016