The Apostles Creed - Part 5

On this Holy Saturday, we continue our reflections on the Apostles Creed by reflecting briefly on the following words:

He descended into hell.

Jesus did not come for you alone. He was sent for all people of all time. After he died, the person of Jesus went to the abode of the dead to search out and find all the people who ever lived before him and to bring them too back to their heavenly Father. (At the time of his descent, hell was not what it is now. At that time, it was a temporary state, and not punitive. Now, it is different – it is permanent and punitive).

May almighty God bless you all as you celebrate Christ's Resurrection from the dead!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

Pope Francis!

Que Viva el Papa!  I know you won't mind that I interrupt our little series on the Apostles Creed this week to speak about our new Pope!  Brothers, all I can say is wow!  The Holy Spirit loves to surprise us and He’s done it again by choosing the first Jesuit pope; the first pope from the Western Hemisphere; and, dare I say most importantly, the first pope named after St. Francis of Assisi!  In a sense, all Catholics are Franciscan now and are invited to join Pope Francis in rebuilding the Church through the radical living of the gospel!

Continuing where Pope Benedict XVI left off, the Pope wasted no time in showing us where true and lasting renewal comes from:  Our Savior Jesus Christ!  Renewal is not a fruit of our own effort, but is a fruit of proclaiming Christ crucified and allowing Him to live in us!

The day after his election he proclaimed:  “…We can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail.  We will become a pitiful NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of Christ… When one does not build on solid rocks, what happens?  What happens is what happens to children on the beach when they make sandcastles:  everything collapses, it is without consistency…. When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil…. When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord.  We are worldly; we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not disciples of the Lord.  I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord:  to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified!”

Brothers, now is a great time to be a Franciscan—to be a witness to the individual, communal and Church-wide renewal that living the gospel brings!  Whether we are called to don the Franciscan habit or not, all of us can heed Pope Francis’ call to rebuild the Church by embracing Christ crucified and allowing Him to rebuild us!  What a blessed time to be a Franciscan!  What a blessed time to be a Catholic!  God bless you all!

Pax et bonum!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY 

The Apostles Creed - Part 4

Here is the fourth installment of our series on the Apostles Creed:

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

Jesus was sent to suffer and die on a cross for you. Although Jesus was sent on a mission from God to do this, he had to choose as a human being to accept the mission he had been given. And he did. Jesus chose to endure death by crucifixion for you. He chose to go to the cross for you. He endured the pain and suffering in order to show you how precious you are to God. In the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth, you are precious enough to die for. In the eyes of your heavenly Father, you are precious enough to lose a Son for. The death of Jesus was a real death. For the love of Jesus is real love. His death reveals what love really is. His death shows you God’s love for you.

To be continued...

Hopefully by the time of next week's posting, we will have a new Holy Father!  Come Holy Spirit!

God bless you all,

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

The Apostles Creed - Part 3

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary.

Your eternal Father has a special sort of Son – an eternal Son. Your eternal Father and his eternal Son live together for all eternity in perfect, infinite love. The perfect infinite, eternal, love between them is called the Holy Spirit. Your heavenly Father, his eternal Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one God somehow. We call this one God “the Holy Trinity.” God the Holy Trinity made you in order to adopt you. The Holy Trinity wants you to take part in its awesome life. Therefore, your heavenly Father has not abandoned you to your wounds, but has sent his eternal Son into the world to come and bring you back to your Father. The Son came to give you the Holy Spirit so that you can take part in the perfect, infinite, eternal love between your heavenly Father and His eternal Son. About two thousand years ago, in the land of Israel, the eternal Son was conceived in the womb of Mary of Nazareth while she was still a virgin. The Holy Spirit worked this conception in her womb. Nine months later, the eternal Son was born of the virgin Mary in the town of Bethlehem as a human being with a human face and a human name – Jesus. Jesus grew up as a carpenter in the town of Nazareth, a Jew among Jews. Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son. He is looking for you. He sees you, he knows you through and through, and he loves you. He reveals his love to you in a special way....

God bless you all,

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

The Apostles Creed - Part 2

This is the second part in our series on the Apostles Creed. This week we continue to reflect on the creed's first statement:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth.

 

...You and all human beings are wounded. You are wounded in many ways that you are probably not aware of as wounds. For example, not realizing how much your heavenly Father loves you, and going through life without a lively sense of His care and concern for you is a wound that you have. To give another example, you are morally weak – you often find it very difficult to do what you yourself really want to do. This weakness is one of your wounds (and all human beings share this wound). You often fail to consider what the right thing to do is, and even when you do consider it, your passions and emotions blow your thinking one way and another. So knowledge of what is right and wrong often eludes you. This is another sort of wound (and all human beings share this wound as well). Furthermore, there are the wounds that you in particular received from growing up in this society, and from the moral failures of yourself and others. Everyone has their particular wounds as well. Your wounds have the power to ruin your life, and your life will end in tragedy if the wounds are not addressed. No politician, no psychologist, and no professor can adequately address the wounds. Your heavenly Father has not abandoned you to live with your wounds without hope. He has not left you as an orphan in the world to struggle for yourself. No longer do you have to live without hope and without God in the world

God bless you all,

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

The Apostles Creed - Part 1

All of us experienced a shock this past week, “like a lightning bolt in a clear blue sky” as Cardinal Angelo Scola put it, when Pope Benedict humbly announced his resignation.  I don’t have anything profound to say.  However, I wish to express my personal gratitude for Pope Benedict XVI and my ongoing prayers for him and the Church at this time, confident that the Holy Spirit is mightily working.

Moreover, as a way of honoring Pope Benedict and his legacy, I would like to offer you a brief series of reflections on the Apostles Creed.  This series serves two purposes.  First, it is an opportunity, during this year of faith, to reflect more deeply on the fundamental content of our faith.  Second, I would like these reflections to serve as an introduction to a future series on Human Formation.  Human formation is a hot topic for religious orders, seminaries and lay communities of all sorts these days.  The Church clearly teaches that grace builds on nature, and, therefore, if grace is to be effective in the lives of disciples, their human nature needs to be understood so that it can heal, develop and become more open to grace.  Yet, to understand our human nature, we need to begin with God, who gifted us with it in the first place.  Therefore, we begin with the Creed.

These reflections are not my own.  They were developed by a priest I know as part of a dialogue with a young woman returning to the faith.  They speak powerfully of the steadfast and personal love of God for each one of us, something Pope Benedict proclaimed time and time again.

At the beginning of each reflection I will place the particular article of the Creed at the top, followed by the reflection.  Let us begin!  Enjoy and be edified!

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth.

You have a Father in heaven, God, who created you. Even before the world began to exist, God your eternal Father thought of you, knew you, loved you, wanted you, and brought you into being. Your life is from Him. Although you need not have existed, He wanted you to exist, and therefore you do exist. Your life was given to you so that you might come to know how much He loves you and to love him in return. You are precious in His eyes. You are priceless to Him. For you are made in his image and likeness. When your eternal Father looks upon you He loves what He sees. He rejoices at the sight of you. Although you do not comprehend how much he loves you and adores you, He has provided a way for you to come to know His incredible love for you. What you are reading is a step on that way.

To be continued…

God bless you all,

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

Religious Life and the Presentation

On February 2nd, the Feast of the Presentation, almost twenty of our brothers in temporary vows renewed their profession of poverty, chastity and obedience for another year.  The profession and renewal of religious vows on that feast is a long-standing tradition in the Church because of the light that mystery sheds on the meaning of religious life.

Pope Benedict XVI, in the recent volume of his Jesus of Nazareth Trilogy points out that the Greek word used to describe Mary and Joseph “presenting” Jesus in the temple actually means “offering”, as in priestly offering.  The pope remarks that a deliberate connection is being made between the Presentation and the Crucifixion where Jesus offers himself to the Father as priest and victim “for us men and for our salvation.”    It is His self-gift that saves us and gives us new life.

And it is in response to His self-gift that men and women religious throughout the world make a gift of themselves to God and the Church through the living out of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.  This too is a priestly offering.  As a fruit of baptism, all the baptized now share in the priesthood of the faithful.  While not the same as the ministerial priesthood, it is still a participation in the one priesthood of Jesus Christ.  This means that all that we are, have and do can be united to the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, particularly in the Eucharist, and contribute to our own sanctification and that of the whole world.

This reality is especially true for men and women religious because “in the Church's tradition religious profession is considered to be a special and fruitful deepening of the consecration received in Baptism” (Vita Consecrata, 30).  Thus, through the profession of poverty, chastity and obedience, men and women religious join Jesus, priest and victim, in His one “offering” to the Father.  That’s good news!

God bless you all!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR
St. Joseph Friary
Harlem, NY


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