Tumgik
#dom henry Wansbrough
tabernacleheart · 8 months
Text
The Transfiguration was the moment when the disciples were shown the divinity of Jesus on the Holy Mountain. The scene is reminiscent of Moses’ encounter with God on Sinai, when his face, too, shone like the sun. Moses and Elijah are present because they are the two Old Testament figures who experienced the presence of God on the Holy Mountain. With his usual impetuous generosity Peter attempts to ‘freeze’ the moment. ...The Voice from Heaven is an echo of the Voice at Jesus’ Baptism, [and] the public declaration of Jesus as God’s Son at the Baptism is repeated... there, however, it was addressed to Jesus, whereas here it is spoken to the disciples, proclaiming Jesus as authorized [divine] Teacher, the extension of that same divine Voice... Matthew is alert to the implications for the Church of the Presence of Christ as Teacher. The cloud is also a symbol of God’s presence, to which the human response can only be to fall to the ground in fear and reverence. The awesome moment of revelation cannot, however, last, and Jesus brings his disciples back to the dire realities before them with the reminder that His death must precede the revelation of his glory at the Resurrection: Until they have experienced the limitless generosity of his death, and the vindication by God of this love, they are not ready to spread the message of Jesus.
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9
16 notes · View notes
stpaulsuk · 6 months
Text
Find Daily Reading/Meditation Booklets From Our Store
Tumblr media
Reading devotional motivational Christian books can benefit individuals seeking to grow spiritually and deepen their relationship with God. These books are valuable for spiritual growth, positive impact on mental health, renewing the mind, Guidance for Life's Challenges, Increases Connection with God, and more. Now, we can broadly see the points.
Spiritual Growth: Devotional Christian books often offer insights, reflections, and teachings based on biblical principles. Engaging with these materials can lead to a deeper understanding of God's Word and foster spiritual growth. Such books may also guide prayer, meditation, and practical steps to apply faith daily.
Positive Impact on Mental Health: Engaging with uplifting, hope-filled content can positively impact mental health. Devotional books that focus on love, grace, and acceptance can counteract feelings of anxiety or depression, promoting emotional well-being.
Renewing the Mind: Reading devotional books can help individuals continue their minds with godly perspectives. It can challenge worldly thinking and help align thoughts with biblical truths, leading to transformed attitudes and behaviours.
Guidance for Life's Challenges: Christian authors often address common challenges, such as forgiveness, dealing with grief, managing stress, or making life decisions. Reading their insights can provide practical wisdom and spiritual guidance for navigating such situations.
Connection with God: Devotional books often encourage regular times of reflection, prayer, and communion with God. They can guide readers in developing a habit of spending time with Him, fostering a deeper connection and intimacy in their relationship with the divine.
Before buying the best Meditation booklets, you can check online reviews, explore Christian websites and blogs, read publishers' descriptions, examine sample content and more. You can find the Best Daily Readings/Meditation Booklets in Online UK from St. Pauls Online store. Here are some of our collections you can check.
Day by Day with Saint Augustine
"Day by Day with Saint Augustine" comprises daily meditations for every day of the year. Each meditation features a brief excerpt from Augustine's writings and a thoughtful reflection from Fr. Burt. These profound reflections delve into various aspects of our daily lives, encompassing themes like embracing hope, experiencing love, confronting mortality, and navigating challenging interpersonal relationships.
Before becoming a renowned saint, Augustine led a life marked by notoriety as a sinner. He strayed from the path of faith but underwent a remarkable spiritual metamorphosis in his thirties, eventually emerging as a bishop and theologian in the early church. "Day by Day with Saint Augustine" offers succinct and candid meditations, reflecting on the struggles of maintaining a life of faith from the perspective of someone who personally encountered the pitfalls. His wisdom transcends time, his words resonate deeply, and his message remains perpetually pertinent.
Through the Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections
The book is inspired and influenced by Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis; scripture scholar Stephen Binz shows us the indissoluble connection between their call to New Evangelization and its necessary connection to the Word of God.
A Year with the Bible: 365 Daily Reflections
Written by Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB, who has dedicated his life to studying and teaching Scripture, a reading plan is also included for any readers who wish to attempt the challenge of reading the entire Bible in a year. This essential read contains content to help you delve deeper into the Bible.
Daily Prayer 2022
Daily Prayer is the perfect gift for parish volunteers, teachers, catechists, students, the parish community, and all who want to foster a practice of prayer in their daily lives and stay connected to a greater community. With Daily Prayer, you can gift it to your parish community, liturgical ministers, priests, catechists, teachers, and students—all who could use a resource for daily prayer in their homes. Use it at the beginning or end of virtual or in-person parish meetings for personal devotions or leading small groups.
Those mentioned above are some of the books you can purchase and read and are a great source of meditation. Ultimately, the importance of reading meditation booklets lies in their potential to draw individuals closer to God, foster a deeper relationship with Christ, and cultivate a Christ-like character. It is essential to approach these materials with an open heart and a willingness to engage in contemplation and prayer. Visit our website for an extensive collection of Bibles, books, gifts, and more. Uncover a diverse range of inspiring literature and thoughtful presents for your loved ones.
0 notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
Why did Judas betray his Master? Was it simply for thirty pieces of silver, or is his greed a subsequent development? Was Judas a convinced nationalist fighter who abandoned Jesus in frustration when he perceived that Jesus was not a political liberator who would expel the Romans? ["Iscariot" may roughly translate to "man of the city".] Countless conflicting character-studies have been built on the flimsiest of evidence, [but nevertheless, his ultimate motive] is not mentioned by the synoptic Gospels. [It is a mystery that only Christ Himself has known].
Dom Henry Wansbrough
15 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
Nobody likes tax-collectors, [not even the people of Biblical times]. What made it worse in [Jerusalem's] case was that they were working for the hated enemy, the Romans. But Jesus positively chose them as His company. He called Matthew to follow Him, and then went and had dinner with a group of them. He must have known that they were lonely and worried by their isolation, and wanted to heal them, just as He wants to heal us. So He went out of His way to call the sinners, not even asking them to repent first, but just because they needed Him. He wasn’t worried that they were despised or even hated, nor that they were cut off from all the normal practices of religion. What scandalized the ‘people who went to church’ was that Jesus seemed positively to enjoy the company of these dirty sinners. He did the same with Zacchaeus, the chief tax-collector of Jericho, who must have been a rogue. Three times in this gospel Jesus says, ‘What I want is love, not sacrifice’. He didn’t care whether they ‘went to church’ or kept the rules. He must have known that there was good in everyone, if only it is allowed to come to the surface.
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on Matthew 9:9-13
9 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
The description of the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, [is] highly symbolic. The twelve gates (drawn from Ezekiel’s prophecy) face the four quarters of the compass, to show that it embraces the whole universe and is four-square solid. They symbolise the twelve tribes of Israel and so also the twelve apostles. The richness and contentment [thereof] is hinted by the sparkle of precious stones, not only diamonds but many others too. The dimensions of the city are vast: a cube of 1,500 miles in each direction. [For scale, that measures approximately from present-day Jerusalem to Afghanistan and Ethiopia! Yet even across all this space, there is] no need for the light and warmth of the sun, for the Lord God and the Lamb provide a single source of its nourishment and illumination. [And there is] no need for a sacred area, for the presence of the Lord God and the Lamb make the whole city a sacred area. This [description, as a whole,] is the ultimate goal of Creation, when all is absorbed into God, the ultimate fulfilment of ‘Thy Kingdom come’. The Letter to the Ephesians expresses it as the whole universe ‘headed up’ into Christ-- [restoring His rightful position of universal authority as a head to the body, or a groom to a bride-- and thus] making sense of Creation and bringing Creation to its completion.
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on Revelation 21
12 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
[John 12 opens with] the story of [Mary Magdalene's] anointing of Jesus’ feet with costly ointment at Bethany. [Her] act of loving, personal affection and devotion is treasured. The evangelist’s comment that 'the scent filled the house' shows a touching approval too. [Recall] that Mary was [also] the sister who stayed listening at Jesus’ side while Martha busied herself with practical details. This casts her as a figure of prayer and listening [despite all the cares of life]. Her sign of [soothing] affection must have been valuable to Jesus as He rested at Bethany after the threatening controversies in the Temple. His response, [in which He explicitly refers to His impending burial,] shows just how tense Jesus must have been. In the Gospel of Mark, He responds that Mary’s loving tribute will be remembered wherever the gospel is proclaimed. At this tense moment, it makes Judas’ [financially focused] response seem unimaginative and brutal– no matter how practical it might have been on other occasions.
Dom Henry Wansbrough
12 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
This passage from John’s Gospel has all the more significance because it brings the Gospel to a close. The story of the breakfast-party with the Risen Christ on the shore of the Lake of Galilee is a sort of appendix. The story-line of the main Gospel ends with Thomas blurting out ‘My Lord and my God’. The Gospel therefore ends, as it began with the only two unmistakable declarations in the New Testament of the divinity of Jesus. ‘The Word was God’ and ‘My Lord and my God’ bracket the Gospel, showing the purpose and angle of the whole, to show that Jesus is God. It complements the other Gospels: they show a man who is also God, whereas this Gospel shows a God who is also man. It is with the divine authority that Jesus confers on His Church the divine power to forgive. Real forgiveness is indeed Godlike. It is not simply ‘forgive-and-forget’, but forgiveness in the knowledge that a hurt has occurred. Just as a bone, broken and merged together again, can be stronger than it was before it was broken, so forgiveness can create a real link of love on both sides, a treasured secret of divine graciousness between forgiver and forgiven.
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on John 20:19-31
10 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
The [well-loved] story of Jesus’ gift of life to His friend Lazarus [is] not the same as the gift of life to us by Jesus in the resurrection, for Lazarus returns to ordinary human life, and will die again, whereas the Christian resurrection transforms us into a new way of life, giving us a life which is a participation in the divine life. But the resurrection of Lazarus is the last and greatest of Jesus’ signs, His marvellous works which point towards and hint at this final gift of divine life. The first of the signs was the transformation of the water of the Law into the wine of the messianic wedding banquet at Cana. These signs show who Jesus really is. As well as showing the divine power of Jesus– for only God can give life– they also show the real, human love of Jesus for His friends. He is upset by Lazarus’ death and weeps for him, [even though He knew Lazarus would live again-- and by His own Power no less! He still felt the pain of that temporal loss, and mourned together with the heartbroken,] sharing the human sorrow of His family, as He shares our sorrows too. [This tender love of Christ, which motivated all His miraculous works, is, mysteriously, just as much a testament to His divine life as the works themselves].
Dom Henry Wansbrough
10 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
The [Christian] community at Antioch was the first established community of which we hear outside Judaea and Samaria... [and it is in Antioch] that the group received a name, and so became a coherent recognisable entity. [This was an] important step forward in the development of the Church; [after all, even the first] Adam had to name the creatures before their creation could be completed! The Greek name Χριστιανούς ("Christianoi") has the shape and sound which suggests slight contempt, a sort of nickname. It means, of course, ‘Messianists’, those who distinguished themselves from their fellow-Jews by thinking that the Messiah had actually come.
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on Acts 11:26
9 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
As we prepare for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost and prepare for the renewal of our own mission to the world, we begin [to ready our hearts] with a firm demand for faith in Jesus, which is the same as belief in the Father. Faith is not just an intellectual assent but includes trust, a confidence that we can leave everything in the hands of Jesus.
Dom Henry Wansbrough
9 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
Provision of food-- and especially bread-- in the desert is one of the signs associated with prophets, stemming from the manna provided for the people of Israel by Moses in the desert. [We see this beautifully illustrated in the story of the prophet Elijah and the widow of Zarephath.] Jesus [shows] His prophetic quality in the same way in the Feeding of the Five (and Four) Thousand, [miraculously turning what little He received through faith into an abundance for all. But the ultimate sign of Christ's prophetic role, as the Voice of God Himself, is confirmed by the Sacrament of the Eucharist-- His provision of Living Bread to all who hunger in spiritual deserts, both Jews and Gentiles].
Dom Henry Wansbrough
6 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
The Church [notably] puts before us the failure of the disciples, led by Peter. Throughout Jesus’s ministry this has been a theme, especially in Mark. Three times the disciples are rebuked for their failure to understand who Jesus is, each time on the Lake of Galilee, [right] before Peter bursts out with his profession of faith, ‘You are the Christ/Messiah’ (Mark 8.29). After this turning-point of the Gospel, [however,] again three times they fail to grasp the teaching on suffering: that, as Messiah, Jesus can accomplish His mission only by suffering and death, and that His disciples must share this suffering. The theme reaches its climax with [the dramatic contrast of] Peter’s repeated protestation at the Supper that he is ready to die with Jesus, and his panicked denial when he is accosted by the diminutive servant-girl in the High Priest’s house. In John at any rate we hear the story of his repentance and response to the Risen Christ’s threefold challenge at the Lakeside. The prominence given to this theme is surely a reminder that the Twelve are role models for future disciples even in their failure, and [moreso] in their repentance. Did Jesus choose them badly, [we may wonder,] or are they merely forerunners of our own failures? [Christ knew they were weak, but perhaps even because of this, He still chose them, with love, for His glory. So it is with us.] Perfection is less important than repentance.
Dom Henry Wansbrough
7 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
From the very beginning of Christianity the followers of Christ lived under threat [from both religious and secular powers], as the Acts of the Apostles makes clear. The martyrdom of Stephen and the floggings of Paul show the danger from the [misguidedly zealous] Jews. The refusal of Christians to proclaim that ‘Caesar is Lord’, [yet] their obstinacy at proclaiming, ‘Christ is Lord’ soon brought whippings to Paul and martyrdom to the Apostles [at the hands of the Roman Empire]. In many lands [even today,] Christianophobia-- the hatred of Christians-- is rife to the point of death or flight. In more sophisticated lands, [where blatant violence is largely disdained], there is a muted derision for those 'soft enough in the head' to believe the story of Christianity, building on a deserved contempt for the real failures of Christians to live out our ideals. [We tragically fail to truly imitate our Master, Who meekly endured far more persecution than we ever will, and Who was completely innocent of their charges. Nevertheless,] yes, 'they will persecute you too;' [and so we should humbly accept our rightful crosses in return. This has been, and shall remain, our paradoxically blessed lot from the beginning].
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on John 15:20
5 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
A modern attitude to [Biblical accounts of miracles] views [them] against the ‘laws’ of nature: "it simply cannot happen". The ancient attitude is quite different. The whole scientific concept of experimentation to establish laws of nature, what can and what cannot happen, what is the inevitable consequence of an action, was absent. Such an attitude involves testing, storing and examining evidence, a process which simply did not occur. Something could be amazing, but no one would say that "it could not happen": [in the absence of scientific law,] there was [also] no concept of the miraculous. [Nothing was deemed impossible.] The raising of the lifeless child [in this story] would be viewed as one more wonderful action of God’s love for this couple, and that God was working through His prophet Elisha.
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on 2 Kings 4:18-37
5 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
[Acts 11:1-18] is not the actual [or 'real-time'] narration in Acts of the conversion of Cornelius-- [that is recorded in 10:1-29--] but Peter’s rendering of it to the community [of Jewish converts to Christianity] when he is justifying his action [of not only visiting but also eating with the Gentiles]. Like the story of Paul’s conversion, this story therefore occurs three times in Acts-- [first as narrative, then twice again as speech--] showing the importance of this moment when the first gentile is received into the Church, [and the need to continually proclaim this universal heart of the Good News]. Nevertheless, Peter is humble and witty enough to include his little tiff with the Voice from heaven, whose liberalism so scandalised him, and which [therefore] ended up by roundly ticking him off for his criticism of God’s creation [as 'unclean']! Peter also amusingly stresses that the Holy Spirit, and not himself, was responsible for the acceptance of the first gentile: in the original account the Spirit merely 'interrupted' Peter (10:44), whereas now Peter [himself] says, [in effect, that his speech was neither a requirement nor a cause for grace-- emphasizing that] he hardly had time to begin speaking when the Spirit poured down!
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on Acts 11:1-18
4 notes · View notes
tabernacleheart · 2 years
Text
The word ‘commandment’ often implies coercion and regimentation, and ‘obedience’ implies an unwilling or even a sulky child. In the case of God’s commands, however, a commandment is a gift, indicating the way in which love can be expressed; and obedience is a way of seeking to draw closer to God by imitation. The lover seeks to act like the beloved, to be modelled on the qualities which are loved and admired. The commands of God are not random or domineering, but are indications of the ways in which we can draw just a little nearer to the infinite qualities which are seen in the creating and redeeming God. The generosity seen in the beauties of nature and humanity, in the beauty of tolerance and forgiveness, are reflections of the divine qualities. This [humble, constant, compassionate "reflecting"] is how Jesus kept His Father’s commandments and remained in His love, and how we too may do the same.
It might even be said that Jesus needed to suffer so that we might see that God too can endure suffering. Suffering and the supreme suffering of death are human experiences which cannot [derive from] God, [nor can they be said to reflect any quality of divine perfection, for sin and death only entered the human experience through sin]. And so Jesus Himself took them on to share and ennoble these also, [transmuting death itself into a door to life-- a paradox only God Himself could accomplish]. Jesus showed His love of the Father and His love of humanity by adopting and enduring the experiences which cannot touch an impassive God-- [by being so touched, He proved His tender heart forever.] Such is the full meaning of the love expressed by ‘as the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you.’
Dom Henry Wansbrough; Commentary on John 15:9-17
3 notes · View notes