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Tag Archives: Cross

A Prayer against Discouragement

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by Fr. Moore in Thought for the Day

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Becoming like Christ, Confession, Cross

I went to confession yesterday. The priest is a friend of mine but it is the first time I have been to confession with him so I found his penance interesting (and that is why I am posting it). As my penance he instructed me to compose a prayer against discouragement and to pray it. Below is the result of my effort, although I wish I could say it like Aquinas or Newman.

O God our times are in your hands. Ever mindful that we can do nothing without your help, we ask that you grant us the grace to not lose heart amidst the constant storms of this mortal life. You have given us your Son as our guide, and even though He stumbled and fell on the way to the Cross, He did not turn back and did not give up. It is your grace that we need to do the same. We ask this you this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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…and the Word became Flesh

25 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Eternal Life, Salvation, Sermons

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Becoming like Christ, Christmas, Cross, Word of God

 

Sermon for the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

December 25, 2014

What is a word? This is not a question we would normally ask ourselves because we take words for granted. When we use words to communicate with someone we assume that they will understand what we mean. But with today’s Gospel reading we must come to an understanding of what a word really is if we are to understand what St. John means when he tells us, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

So, what is a word? To answer this question let us begin by saying what it is not. A word is not just letters on a page. And it is not merely a sound coming from someone’s mouth. The written and spoken words that we use can only be understood if the person we are trying to communicate with speaks the same language. For instance, if English is your language then you know what I mean when I say the word ‘dog’. But if your language is Chinese, then the same word would be only a meaningless sound. The word ‘dog’ still means the same thing but without knowledge of the language it is unintelligible. From this we can see that a word is a sign that means something specific. Or as St. John of Damascus describes it: a word is “the messenger of intelligence.” Therefore we can say that words are interior concepts which come from our mind to convey knowledge to another person.

But what does this tell us about the Word of God? First of all, take notice of what we heard from the letter to the Hebrews, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets.” After sin entered the world and man lost his original connection to God, which was really his ability to communicate directly with God, God did not leave mankind without hope. The letter to the Hebrews tells us that God was always trying to communicate to us through various prophets in order to bring mankind back to a correct knowledge of Himself. He did this because He originally created us to know and love Him. And out of God’s infinite love for us, He desired to bring us back to a proper knowledge and love of Him. But there was a problem because the messages of the prophets He sent could only bring us so far in our understanding of God; and why, because there was an infinite gap between the language of man and a complete knowledge of God. There is, however, one Word that can close that gap: the Infinite Word of God.

But there is a language barrier between God and ourselves. How could we, who are finite, possibly understand a direct message from the One who is Infinite? Because of the infinite gap between man’s word and the knowledge of God only the Infinite Word could bring God’s message to us. But, in order for the message to be intelligible, He first had to become Man. And that is the very reason that the Word became Flesh and dwelt amongst us. And if, as I said earlier, words are concepts which come from our mind to convey knowledge to another, then the Word that comes to us from God brings us true knowledge of God and bridges that infinite gap that came about through the sin of Adam.

But even when the Infinite Word became Flesh, He had to speak to us through our own limited and finite language. And that was simply insufficient for us to truly understand the message of salvation that He came to deliver. Therefore, He spoke to us not only in word, but in deed. And the culmination of all that He said and did among us is found in His ultimate action, which speaks louder than any human word: His Eternal Word spoken to us from the Cross.

God has spoken His saving Word to us and if we want to understand the message it contains then we must learn the language of the Cross. Because if we don’t learn this language, then this day, the day of the birth of our Lord, and every other festival of the Church becomes just meaningless noise. On this day, and every day, God is trying to communicate salvation to us through His eternal Word. But if we do not understand what it is that He is saying then the message will not be effective. If you want to receive this message and come to fully know and love God and receive that salvation He is offering then learn the language that He is speaking.

How, then, do we learn this language of the Cross? There are only three simple things we need to know to learn this language, although it does take a lifetime to master it: they are dying to self, loving God above all things, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. This is the language of the Cross; this is the language of the Word made Flesh who was born for us on Christmas Day.

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Through us, He died; through Him, we Live

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Liturgy of the Hours, Salvation, Thought for the Day

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Cross, Glory, Heaven, Hell, Joy

Something to think about as we move closer Easter.

In other words, he performed the most wonderful exchange with us. Through us, he died; through him, we shall live.

The death of the Lord our God should not be a cause of shame for us; rather, it should be our greatest hope, our greatest glory. In taking upon himself the death that he found in us, he has most faithfully promised to give us life in him, such as we cannot have of ourselves.

He loved us so much that, sinless himself, he suffered for us sinners the punishment we deserved for our sins. How then can he fail to give us the reward we deserve for our righteousness, for he is the source of righteousness? How can he, whose promises are true, fail to reward the saints when he bore the punishment of sinners, though without sin himself?

Brethren, let us then fearlessly acknowledge, and even openly proclaim, that Christ was crucified for us; let us confess it, not in fear but in joy, not in shame but in glory.

From a sermon by Saint Augustine

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Shield with Motto

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Symbols, Update

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Auspice Maria, Chi Rho, Cross, Lindisfarne, Mary, Mother of God, St. Cuthbert

Shield with MottoThis is my shield, crest, seal, emblem…actually I am not sure what to call it. I don't want to call it a logo because that is usually associated with businesses and is commercial in nature. This, on the other hand, is intended to represent (to a certain degree) who I am and what I believe. I am writing this because I will be putting it in a prominent place on my blog and I wanted everyone to understand the meaning behind each of the parts. Continue reading →

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…you were bought with a price.

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in C.S. Lewis, Repentance, Salvation, The Screwtape Letters, Thought for the Day, Transformation in Christ

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Becoming like Christ, Cross, Dying to Self

Today I have for you a selection from The Screwtape Letters. I have used bold to draw your attention to certain parts. Throughout the day, especially since it is the day of week that our Lord purchased your soul with His own Blood, try to reflect upon the fact that you are not your own. And, in addition, that you owe everything to Him.

The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell and we must keep them doing so. Much of the modem resistance to chastity comes from men’s belief that they ‘own’ their bodies—those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another! It is as if a royal child whom his father has placed, for love’s sake, in titular command of some great province, under the real rule of wise counsellors, should come to fancy he really owns the cities, the forests, and the corn, in the same way as he owns the bricks on the nursery floor.

We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion. We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun—the finely graded differences that run from ‘my boots’ through ‘my dog’, ‘my servant’, ‘my wife’, ‘my father’, ‘my master’ and ‘my country’, to ‘my God’. They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of ‘my boots’, the ‘my’ of ownership.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19b-20

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To forgive as we have been forgiven

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in C.S. Lewis, Repentance, Salvation

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Cross, forgiveness of enemies, Lord's Prayer

In the Gospel reading for Mass today our Lord teaches us the following,

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 6:14-15, RSV-CE

This He said immediately after He taught His followers the Pater Noster in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount. I want to focus on these verses from 6:14-15 because they should not be overlooked. With these words Jesus is reiterating what He said just a few verses previous in the Pater Noster. In the twelfth verse Jesus said, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” And, of course, in our praying of the Pater Noster we change ‘debt’ to ‘trespass’. Even though we change debt to trepass for reciting the Pater Noster the words for debts/debtors in the Greek text of verse 12 are not the same as words used for trepasses in the Greek text of verses 14-15. Nevertheless, in the context of the passage it does seem that Jesus is speaking of the same thing in both verse 12 and verses 14-15: trepasses or sins.

Continue reading →

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Fr. Moore

Fr. Moore

Parochial Vicar Our Lady of the Atonement San Antonio, Texas FrMoore@truthwithboldness.com

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