Posted on 03/23/2012 9:02:55 AM PDT by Teófilo
PING!
Nice post. Thanks.
“St. Joseph of Nazareth, chaste husband of Mary, and foster father of our Lord Jesus.”
For a moment there I thought it said that St. Joseph was a Tadjik. Wow! The Holy Family has a Central Asian connection?
Anyway, when you describe him as Mary’s chaste husband, you have kicked over a hornets’ nest. The Biblethumpers will soon be posting, “Jesus had brothers and sisters!!” while dropping unsubtle hints about Mariolatry.
Just watch.....
Greetings, el Mío Cid Campeador:
Thank you for the warning. I no longer get into circular arguments. If they want to reject true Catholic belief, that’s their business.
+JMJ,
-Theo
“....while dropping unsubtle hints about Mariolatry.”
.
Mary: “All generations will call me blessed.”
It is good to be among those of us who venerate Mary the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God.
“My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge.”
would the name “Melchizedek” be related?
We have seen their best. Christianity still flourishes in spite of their best.
I think, Apostolic order is one thing, pertaining to degrees of sanctity, but hypostatic union means consubstantiality and so is quite another, and is properly reserved to the Holy Trinity only.
I would like to see if Suarez's "appertaining to the order of the Hypostatic Union" is really the same as St. Joseph -- or Blessed Mary -- being "comprised" into it. The seond quote, from Giovanni di Cartagena supports the sense of degrees of sanctity better than the sense of true hypostatic union.
“We have seen their best. Christianity still flourishes in spite of their best.”
Hmmm... you really mean “their worst”, don’t you?
As a Catholic I have encountered attitudes among certain self-described “evangelicals” (and I do not reject but rather encourage daily Bible study & reflection) that are straight out of the Ku Klux Klan handbook. So much so it’s laughable. Particularily their notion that the only true Christian martyrs are those who were persecuted by the Catholic Church and who have English surnames.
Oh, well.
Not from their perspective.
As a Catholic I have encountered attitudes among certain self-described “evangelicals” (and I do not reject but rather encourage daily Bible study & reflection) that are straight out of the Ku Klux Klan handbook. So much so it’s laughable. Particularily their notion that the only true Christian martyrs are those who were persecuted by the Catholic Church and who have English surnames.
The list of qualifiers can grow to quite a length. :)
Very beautiful! Thanks for this post.
Good article!
All you say is valid. I copied uncritically from a _The Glories of St. Joseph_. I'm sure that you will find some contextual explanation therein that will make sense of this provoking statement.
-Theo
Yes, and also Zedekiah and Zadok.
In fact, “Melchizedek” might not even be a proper name, but a title meaning "my king (is) righteous(ness)") which became a proper name by usage.
-Theo
Interesting word study. Thanks.
Padre Giovanni is less known; in fact I could only find a reference to him that is not taken from Thompson, in Italian. But it is interesting:
The Franciscan John of Cartagena (+1618) highlights that "this trinity of people has brought about our salvation: Jesus, as the author of salvation, Mary, as a mediator, Joseph, as a cooperator." (Google Translate)Il francescano Giovanni di Cartagena (+1618) mette in evidenza come “questa Trinità di persone ha operato la nostra redenzione: Gesù, come autore della salvezza; Maria, come mediatrice; Giuseppe, come cooperatore”.
So to him, there is (I assume) the Holy Trinity and then a "trinity of persons", that only shares one person with the Holy Trinity, Jesus, but is otherwise a group of three people.
I think that Thompson took the term "order of hypostatic union", originally meant to indicate a varying degree of proximity to Jesus, to mean an absolute, not relative, hypostatic union of Jesus Mary and Joseph. To say that Mary and Joseph enjoy a special closeness to Jesus is to speak the truth; to say that this puts the three in a hypostatic union qualitatively different from the beatific vision all the saints share, -- is heresy. Does Thompson actually say the latter is not clear, but at least it would had been incumbent on him to clarify this point.
I believe that the author of the quote was referring to what Eastern Christianity means by “theosis” or “deification,” this “conforming to the divine nature” of soken about in 2 Peter 1: 2-11.
The fault of our author here is not one of malice, but of ignorance, as he reached out to incorrect terminology in describing a very biblical facet of the Christian life in his enthusiasm and hurry in communicating it.
For the message remains urgent: theosis is the common call and norm of life for every Christian and not the exception. Christians are not called to be merely ethical, but HOLY, and holiness and SALVATION are tied to the practice of the Sermon of the Mount and, not to faith alone.
+JMJ,
-Theo
-Theo
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