Showing all posts by Elija

Today, we begin the season of Advent to prepare for the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord. This year, I would like to share a series of updated meditations that I wrote during Advent 2020 as a kind of “spiritual retreat” for this liturgical season.

At that time, the Coronavirus crisis had erupted. It was said that all of humanity was in danger and that everyone had to be vaccinated multiple times to avoid catastrophe. The pharmaceutical industry, politics, the media, and even the Church were all rowing in the same direction. The latter insisted that vaccination was an act of charity toward one’s neighbor. Read More

A great tribulation befell the faithful of England and Wales when King Henry VIII broke away from the authority of Rome in 1531 and founded the so called “Church of England.” The situation worsened under the reign of Elizabeth I. Catholics were treated and persecuted as enemies of the state. With no Catholic bishops left, it was no longer possible to ordain Catholic priests. The Catholic Church, which had held a prominent position in England, seemed on the verge of extinction. However, God did not allow this to happen.

William Allen, a priest who had fled England, managed to found a seminary in Douai, France, to train priests who would be ordained and sent as missionaries to England. Their vocations had to be strong, as persecution and death awaited them in their homeland. William Allen himself wrote several books defending the true faith.

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Before we delve into the story of today’s saint, we should first ask: what is iconoclasm?

Following the Council of Chalcedon, a controversy arose in the Eastern Church over whether it was permissible to depict Christ in icons. Influenced by the Islamic doctrine of God’s inaccessibility, those who opposed images argued that Christ could not be represented because He was true God, and they considered that icons placed too much emphasis on His humanity. Conversely, defenders of images claimed that the Spirit of God permeated visible representations of the invisible God. In 726, Emperor Leo III banned images and ordered their destruction in all churches and monasteries.

The ‘iconoclasts’, or detractors of images, based their argument on the Old Testament prohibition against making representations of God. This dispute, which raged fiercely for nearly a century, ended when the Church bindingly defined that icons of Christ and the saints could be venerated.

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As we approach the end of the liturgical year, I would like to tell you about two saints who are likely unfamiliar to us today, but whose story was so popular in the Middle Ages that it was said some knew it better than the Holy Scriptures.

They are the hermit Saint Barlaam and the Indian prince Josaphat. Saint John Damascene, a Church Father born around 650, is considered the author of their story.

Ancient Indian chronicles recount that some hermits from the desert of Thebaid traveled to the land of the Hindus, where they converted people of all castes to Christianity. Many of them imitated the example of the apostles of Egypt and devoted themselves to contemplation in solitude. Their numbers were considerable, so the “new religion” attracted the attention of kings. Then Abener, a powerful king of India whose kingdom bordered Persia, rose up and began to persecute Christians. He worshiped the god Brahma and indulged in every sensual pleasure. But no matter how rich the treasure of his palace was, and no matter how much his clothes were adorned with gold and precious stones, his soul was poor in wisdom.

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