POPE BENEDICT XVI R.I.P.
“The history of salvation is not a small event, on a poor planet, in the immensity of the universe. It is not a minimal thing which happens by chance on a lost planet. It is the motive for everything, the motive for creation. Everything is created so that this story can exist, the encounter between God and his creature.”
— Pope Benedict XVI
address at the opening of the 12th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, 6 October 2008
We don’t hear much about St. Joseph in the Bible. He is simply described as the “husband of Mary,” a “carpenter,” and a “just man” in the Gospel
accounts. Neither his age nor his death is ever mentioned in Scripture.
However, various traditions help shed some light on the question, and offer possible scenarios to consider.Old Man Joseph Tradition
A very common tradition in the Orthodox Church is that Joseph was an old man when he married the Virgin Mary. Before taking Mary into his home, Joseph’s previous wife (with whom he had had several children) died. This has led some to claim that these children were the “brothers” of Jesus that are mentioned in the Gospels.
A 6th century text called The History of Joseph the Carpenter is at the heart of this tradition and states that Joseph was an old man, but youthful in vigor.
At length, by increasing years, the old man arrived at a very advanced age. He did not, however, labor under any bodily weakness, nor had his sight failed, nor had any tooth perished from his mouth. In mind also, for the whole time of his life, he never wandered; but like a boy he always in his business displayed youthful vigor, and his limbs remained unimpaired, and free from all pain. His life, then, in all, amounted to one hundred and eleven years, his old age being prolonged to the utmost limit.
On the other hand many biblical scholars and historians believe Joseph was a young man, possibly even a teenager. The International Marian Research Institute states, “We believe that Mary and Joseph were both in their teens when Jesus was born, around sixteen and eighteen respectively. This was the norm for Jewish newlyweds at that time.”
Venerable Fulton Sheen shares a similar sentiment in The World’s First Love, “Joseph was probably a young man, strong, virile, athletic, handsome, chaste, and disciplined, the kind of man one sees … working at a carpenter’s bench … He was not in the evening of life, but in its morning, bubbling over with energy, strength, and controlled passion.”
This theory takes into account the long journeys that the Holy Family took around Jesus’ birth. The first from Nazareth to Bethlehem and the second when they fled into Egypt. It is hard to imagine an elderly Joseph taking care of Mary and Jesus as they go into a foreign country.
Whatever the truth is, Joseph was a “just man” who did all he could to protect and provide for Mary and Jesus. He looked upon them with a tender heart and loved them both with a deep and abiding love.
Antoine Mekary | ALETEIA | i.MEDIA
Philip Kosloski - published on 07/24/19
As the leader of the Catholic Church in the entire world, one would assume that Pope Francis receives a generous salary in compensation for his many duties. However, the truth is quite the opposite.
In 2001 there were rumors that St. John Paul II made a decent salary, but the New York Times reported, “Vatican spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, ended speculation about the pope’s salary, saying, ‘The pope does not and has never received a salary.‘”
This would be even more true for Francis, who, as a member of the Society of Jesus, professed a vow of poverty when he first entered his religious community.
However, while Pope Francis does not receive any money in the form of a monthly salary, he does have all travel expenses and living arrangements paid for by the Vatican. He never has to worry about food or shelter, but he doesn’t have any income to spend on Amazon orders.
He does, however, have access to a large fund of charitable money that he freely distributes to those in need as he wishes. For example, according to Crux, Pope Francis gave $500,000 from the “Peter’s Pence” fund to assist nearly 75,000 people in Mexico. This is just one of many donations that he regularly makes, often in the wake of natural disasters or to areas in particular need due to war, drought, or other calamities.
The pope is supposed to live after the example of Jesus, who similarly did not have a salary and depended on the generosity of others to provide for his needs during his three-year ministry, as is mentioned in Scripture.
IT MAKES ONE PROUD TO BE BRITISH...
I had the email below today from Mary Winterbourne:
Dear Gene,
I would like to congratulate you for publishing Detterling's description of Christmas 2018 at Chez Detterling on Tyneside -
Saturday, a warm and hilarious family gathering with mother in law, brother in law and partner.....Sunday, daughters, husbands and grand-daughters convene at our house for a loud and happy afternoon culminating in a capella carol singing round the piano which brought the neighbours round with requests for Silent Night and The Angel Gabriel, then all the family to Nine Lessons and Carols at our local church, where my son read a lesson with aplomb, understanding and relish.....yesterday, final preparations for the festival and in the evening, playing the organ at a carol service for an old friend whom I have known since she was six weeks old and who is now a vicar in the next parish but two.....and today, an early start with our son opening his presents, an afternoon with in laws and nieces, and tonight Christmas dinner with the family, cooked by me and enjoyed by everyone.....
This is such a heartwarming depiction of the joys of Yuletide. As Mrs Thatcher once said about another matter: "It makes one proud to be British."
Wishing you every Yuletide felicitation.
Mary Winterbourne
A TYNESIDE CHRISTMAS ... I just love this!
CHRISTMAS 2018
Detterling writes:
Saturday,
a warm and hilarious family gathering with mother in law, brother in law and
partner.....Sunday, daughters, husbands and grand-daughters convene at our
house for a loud and happy afternoon culminating in a capella carol singing
round the piano which brought the neighbours round with requests for Silent
Night and The Angel Gabriel, then all the family to Nine Lessons and Carols at
our local church, where my son read a lesson with aplomb, understanding and
relish.....yesterday, final preparations for the festival and in the evening,
playing the organ at a carol service for an old friend whom I have known since
she was six weeks old and who is now a vicar in the next parish but two.....and
today, an early start with our son opening his presents, an afternoon with in
laws and nieces, and tonight Christmas dinner with the family, cooked by me and
enjoyed by everyone.....
The Journey of the Magi (1927)
T. S. Eliot
“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Last week we ran an article exploring who the three “wise men,” “kings,” or “magi” were. They go by all three titles. The article was here.
Now: what about the shepherds? Who were they? What were they about?
“If we want to get a picture of a Bethlehem shepherd, it is not an Englishman dressed in tweeds with his sheepdog on a mountainside in Yorkshire,” writes Father Dwight Longenecker — who’s from England (now South Carolina). “It is a Bedouin herdsman living in a tent or a cave house in the unforgiving climate and countryside of Palestine, Jordan, Syria, or Western Arabia.
“The vision and message of the angels would have been passed down from generation to generation of shepherds, and the combination of genealogies, narrative poems, and storytelling in the infancy narratives show that they were initially part of the folklore of the local herdsmen,” Adds Father Longenecker, in a new book, The Secret of the Bethlehem Shepherds.
It was something, in other words, that actually happened.
Here’s what current Bedouin herdsmen [immediately below, Jordan] look like.
Yes, there were sheep, but there are also goats.
And camels.
The countryside?
The angel’s message, to those shepherds, notes the priest, and their song of praise, fit neatly with time-honored descriptions of God’s interaction with Hebrews — a message that was accompanied by a mysterious sign.
Note how the angel sings praise at the very mention of the Lord. “Glory to God in the highest Heaven,” it says. And note: “Peace to men who enjoy His favor.” Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and earth are full of Your glory!
Powerful is how the angel described God as being “in the Highest Heaven.” Meditate on that. Highest Heaven. And wouldn’t it be something: to be granted a glimpse, a vision, of the actual Nativity?
What a sighting, what a place to glimpse — along with Highest Heaven — that would be!
Eric Vanden Eykel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Conversation UK receives funding from these organisations
Christmas Nativity scenes around the world feature a familiar cast of characters: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, an angel or two, some barnyard animals, shepherds and, of course, the three wise men led by a star.
Within the New Testament, the story of the wise men is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. It spans 12 short verses, and is simpler than most readers likely remember. The wise men arrive in Jerusalem from an unnamed location “in the East,” led by a star and in search of a new king. They make their way to Bethlehem, where they bow before Jesus and offer gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Then, they return home by a different route.
The details in this story are slim, and so it raises more questions than it answers. Where were the wise men actually from? Why were they interested in Jesus? And, above all, who were they?
I am a scholar of early Christian literature who has spent years researching and writing about the wise men. I maintain that their identity in Matthew’s Gospel is ultimately more mysterious and more complex than what traditional Christmas stories suggest. One of the keys to understanding them lies in what Matthew calls them: “magi.”
“Magi” is a Greek word that is difficult to translate. Some versions of the New Testament render it as “wise men” and others say “astrologers.” But neither of these captures the full sense of the term.
“Magi” is where the English word “magic” derives from, and just as magic can have both positive and negative connotations today, so too did magi have a range of meanings and uses in the ancient world. Some ancient authors speak positively of individuals they describe as magi, while others consider the label to be more of an insult.
Take, for example, the New Testament Book of Acts, which mentions two magi: one is named Simon, and the other is named Elymas.
Simon is a performer who amazes crowds with his ability to do magic, and he angers Jesus’ apostles by offering them money in exchange for some of their powers. Elymas is an adviser to a government official on the island of Cyprus, and he is referred to as a “false prophet.” He is struck blind for trying to interfere with the apostle Paul’s attempts to convert the official to Christianity.
When it comes to both of these characters, the label “magi” is meant negatively. It was intended to suggest to readers that they are sinister charlatans, and not to be trusted.
In other ancient literature, however, magi are sought-after specialists who possess valuable skills like divination. In the Greek translation of the Book of Daniel, the king of Babylon summons magi to his court and asks them to decipher the details of a strange dream.
The Greek historian Herodotus tells a similar story in which the Median king Astyages asks magi about a dream featuring his daughter, and they foretell the birth of the Persian king Cyrus the Great. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria likewise speaks of magi as people with the special ability to understand mysterious visions.
Many ancient authors who speak of people as magi also frequently do so in the context of religion and ritual. One of the more well-known instances of this is a teacher named Zoroaster, from whom Zoroastrianism takes its name.
The Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius says that Zoroaster was actually the first of all the magi. He also writes that magi lived simple, ascetic lives characterized by limited comforts, and that they had a reputation for worshiping their gods through sacrifice.
The Greek biographer Plutarch speaks similarly of Zoroaster as a magi who taught a form of spiritual dualism, good versus evil.
Who, then, are the magi who visit Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew? The answer, it turns out, is complicated. Matthew doesn’t tell his readers exactly what he means when he refers to his visitors in this way, and so it is up to them to figure it out.
Biblical scholars often argue that Matthew intended for the magi in his Gospel to be understood as gentiles or non-Jews who come to Bethlehem to worship Jesus. They surmise that this story is meant to foreshadow the fact that Christianity would eventually become a gentile religious movement instead of a Jewish one.
The argument that the magi are meant to be understood as gentiles is based in part on the fact that they come to Jerusalem and Bethlehem “from the East,” which could suggest that they are “outsiders.” But in light of how magi are spoken of in other ancient literature, this understanding is too simple. Had Matthew intended to say that gentiles came to Bethlehem, he would have done so without using a loaded word like magi.
Because Matthew doesn’t bother to say exactly who these visitors were supposed to be, the magi have fascinated readers and kept them guessing for nearly 2,000 years.
They have been imagined as Zoroastrian priests, astrologers and, of course, as kings. They have appeared in various forms in paintings, in film, in literature and in song.
Given the complex nature of the word magi in the ancient world, one has to wonder if Matthew chose this word precisely to inspire a sense of mystery in his readers, and to keep them wondering about who the magi actually were.
If this is the case, then I would argue that he certainly accomplished that goal many times over.
