Posted on 07/21/2014 7:47:05 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
One of the most exasperating bits of exegetical trendiness to afflict first-world Catholics for the past 30 years or so has been the endless recirculation, like a bad penny, of the “True Meaning of the Miracles of the Loaves and Fishes” homily. It goes like this:
Jesus found himself in the wilderness with a crowd of 5,000 people who were two millennia less smart than we suburban Americans. When people started getting hungry, Jesus took five loaves and two fishes and gave them to a couple of people around him. Suddenly, inspired by a wave of warm fuzziness emanating from this gesture, everybody remembered the picnic baskets they had tucked away in the folds of their robes and started sharing their lunches. People were so moved by this utterly unprecedented outburst of mutual generosity that they called it the “miracle” of the loaves and fishes. So we should also likewise share our lunches. The end.
It’s a story that only suburban Americans could possibly believe. As a Palestinian friend of mine once said, “My father would sooner see our family starve to death than have a guest go without food.” That’s a sentiment found almost universally in the hospitality of the Near East, and it has roots that go back to remotest antiquity.
The notion that Jesus “inspired” ancient Semites to share their food in the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes is like the notion that he “inspired” them to walk on two legs or breathe air for the first time in their history. It’s balderdash. Hospitality was one of the sacred duties universally recognized by everybody in the crowd that day.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
If the monastic system was still robust the harborless could be cared for by the church.
Wow. The "miracle" of the loaves and fishes is affirmed and the miraculous creation of everything from nothing as described in Genesis is denied . . . all in a single paragraph.
Folks, you can't make stuff like this up.
Good article, but it will be picked apart. Good luck. :)
Yes, it’s an excellent article.
Nothing in that comment you quoted has anything to do with Genesis. Your attempt to suggest that it does tends to discredit you.
So ... yes, YOU can ‘make it up’. In fact, you did.
IMO, your best bet would be to ask the powers that be to delete your post.
Currently reading your second book.
It reads almost like ‘current events’, rather than ‘fiction’.
Uhhh...the RCC makes a lot of stuff up.
It’s such a good article I went ahead and posted it knowing full well the haters would weigh in with vile remarks and nothing constructive. The Catholic CHurch had been helping the poor, the hungry, the misplaced, the sick, for 2,000 years. The reason is contained in the words of Mother Teresa. When asked why she did what she did, she simply said. “When I look at anyone I don’t see them, I see Jesus”.
These are words that all Christians should live by, sadly they don’t. As a Knight of Columbus I take it to heart.
I appreciated the article.
With your thinking you might as well discard the southern border of the U.S. We will have a mass exodus of illegal immigrants from south of the U.S. with your thinking.
“With your thinking”
What in the hell do you think you know of my thinking? Catholics are free to think anything they feel like thinking about how to deal with illegals. MY THINKING is we take care of them, feed them, give them a bath and send them back to where they came from.
What in the hell do you think you know of my thinking? Catholics are free to think anything they feel like thinking about how to deal with illegals. MY THINKING is we take care of them, feed them, give them a bath and send them back to where they came from.
Now, would your phrase, "what in the hell" be a mortal sin? I sense extreme anger and hatred in your post.
1.Its subject must be a grave (or serious) matter.
2.It must be committed with full knowledge, both of the sin and of the gravity of the offense; "Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders [mental illness]. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest." Also, "Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors."
3.It must be committed with deliberate and complete consent, enough for it to have been a personal decision to commit the sin. "Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God's law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin."
Sure sounds like it to me.
However, I don't hold anything against you and forgive you for any ill feelings you may have against me.
“I sense extreme anger and hatred in your post”.
That’s because I despise someone who tries to read my mind over an article I post. No anger at all. I just don’t like stupid comments.
If you’d made your thoughts clear in post 13 it would have eliminated my need to reply to you.
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