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(The following is excerpted from Dom Prosper Guéranger's entry in The Liturgical Year for 26 July in Volume XIII of the 1983 Marian House edition of the English translation by the Benedictines of Stanbrook.) "While the Church on earth inaugurates these days by adorning herself with Peter's chains [August 1 is also the Feast of St. Peter's Chains] as with a precious jewel, a constellation of seven stars appears for the third time in the heavens. The seven brothers Machabees preceded the sons of [St.] Symphorosa and Felicitas in the bloodstained arena; they followed divine Wisdom even before she...

Published: 12/02/07, 11:48 PM Globalization and the Maccabees by Benny Katz Hellenism - the globalization of the ancient world It was a few days before Chanukah when the World Trade Organization convened in Seattle for their 1999 Ministerial Conference. The aim of this conference was to launch a new millennial round of trade negotiations that would expand their global monopolies and further exploit laborers around the world. An organization I headed at the time traveled to Seattle to hook up with other groups in order to take a stand and shut down the conference. Anti-globalization activists from all across America...

The time period between the Old and New Testaments is a blank in our scriptures, yet those 400 years were a very significant period in the Holy Land. In many respects the Holy Land in that era resembled a military chessboard on which two important Greek dynasties, the Seleucids of Syria and the Ptolemies of Egypt, fought for control after the death of Alexander the Great. When the dust settled around 200 B.C., the Seleucids, under the leadership of Antiochus III, were the victors. The fundamental cultural and religious differences between these Greeks and their Jewish subjects eventually led to...

2 Maccabees 10 1 When Maccabeus and his companions, under the Lord's leadership, had recovered the temple and the city, 2 they destroyed the altars erected by the Gentiles in the marketplace and the sacred enclosures. 3 After purifying the temple, they made a new altar. Then, with fire struck from flint, they offered sacrifice for the first time in two years, burned incense, and lighted lamps. They also set out the showbread. 4 When they had done this, they prostrated themselves and begged the Lord that they might never again fall into such misfortunes, and that if they...

THE SEVEN MACCABEES, THEIR MOTHER SOLOMONIA AND ELEAZAR THE PRIEST They all suffered for the purity of the faith of Israel under King Antiochus, called by some "Epiphanos," the "enlightened one" and by others "Epimanis" the "insane one." Because of the great sins in Jerusalem and especially the vying over priestly authority and crimes committed during the occasion of this struggle, God permitted a great calamity on the Holy City. After that, Antiochus wanted by any means to impose upon the Jews the idolatry of the Hellenes in place of their faith in the one living God and he did...

Perhaps you, like so many across the planet, are more than a bit baffled by the runaway success of "The Passion of the Christ." Perhaps you, furthermore, are more than slightly disturbed that millions have flocked to this bizarre ultraviolent blood-drenched revisionist flick and that so many actually believe its story to be absolutely true, and that it just surpassed "The Return of the King" in total box office and is the No. 8 most successful film of all time and it was No. 1 again across BushCo's flyover states during Easter weekend and has sold 650,000 books and 125,000...

THE controversial Mel Gibson film 'The Passion of the Christ' has been dismissed by the Evangelical Protestant Society as a 'Catholic' interpretation of events which "does not present the Gospel". Wallace Thompson, secretary of the Evangelical Protestant Society, said the film displayed "an un-Biblical fixation on Mary, the mother of Jesus. None of this should surprise us, for both Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel, who plays the part of Christ, are enthusiastic devotees of the traditional teachings of the Church of Rome." He further claims that Mel Gibson "belongs to an ultra-conservative Catholic group which does not recognise the reforms...

He has portrayed the Crucifixion - now Mel Gibson has his sights set on the tale that led to Chanukah. "The Passion of the Christ" director told WABC's Sean Hannity yesterday that he's planning a movie based on a Jewish rebellion nearly 200 years before the birth of Christ. "The story that's always fired my imagination ... is the Book of Maccabees," Gibson said in the radio interview. "It's about Antiochus, the king who set up his religion in the Temple, and forced them all to deny the true God and worship at his feet and worship false gods. "The...