Sunday, June 3, 2018

Bishop Barron's Gospel Reflection June 3, 2018

Your daily Gospel reflection...

Sunday, June 3, 2018

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

Friends, today’s Gospel focuses on the spiritual power of the Eucharist. The central claim of the Catholic Church is that Jesus is substantially present under the forms of bread and wine. His presence is not simply evocative and symbolic, but rather real, true, and substantial.

To verify this scripturally, look at the accounts of the Last Supper in Matthew, Mark, and Luke—and also in Paul. But look especially at the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. Jesus says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” But when they object, Jesus does not soften his language; he intensifies it.

This is the ground for the Church’s defense of the Real Presence. How can we make sense of it? It has everything to do with who Jesus is. If he were simply an ordinary human being, his words would have, at best, a symbolic resonance. But Jesus is God, and what God says, is.

Thus, when Jesus’ words over the bread and wine are spoken, they change into what the words signify. They become really, truly, and substantially the Body and Blood of the Lord.

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Lectionary: 168

Reading 1 Ex 24:3-8

When Moses came to the people
and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD,
they all answered with one voice,
"We will do everything that the LORD has told us."
Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and,
rising early the next day,
he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar
and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelites
to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls
as peace offerings to the LORD,
Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls;
the other half he splashed on the altar.
Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people,
who answered, "All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do."
Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying,
"This is the blood of the covenant
that the LORD has made with you
in accordance with all these words of his."

Reading 2 Heb 9:11-15

Brothers and sisters:
When Christ came as high priest
of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle
not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves
but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls
and the sprinkling of a heifer's ashes
can sanctify those who are defiled
so that their flesh is cleansed,
how much more will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works
to worship the living God.

For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant:
since a death has taken place for deliverance
from transgressions under the first covenant,
those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.

Gospel Mk 14:12-16, 22-26

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
Jesus’ disciples said to him,
"Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?"
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
"Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
'The Teacher says, "Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"'
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there."
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
"Take it; this is my body."
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
"This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/02/psychopaths-trade-war-critics-denounce-trumps-reckless-tariffs-mexico-eu-and-canada?utm_term=%22Psychopath%27s%20Trade%20War%22%3A%20Critics%20Denounce%20Trump%27s%20Reckless%20Tariffs%20on%20Mexico%2C%20EU%2C%20and%20Canada&utm_campaign=%22A%20Psychopath%27s%20Trade%20War%22%20and%20the%20Abuse%20of%20Power%20Presidency%20%20%7C%20Your%20Week%20in%20Review&utm_content=email&utm_source=Weekly%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&cm_mmc=Act-On%20Software-_-email-_-%22A%20Psychopath%27s%20Trade%20War%22%20and%20the%20Abuse%20of%20Power%20Presidency%20%20%7C%20Your%20Week%20in%20Review-_-%22Psychopath%27s%20Trade%20War%22%3A%20Critics%20Denounce%20Trump%27s%20Reckless%20Tariffs%20on%20Mexico%2C%20EU%2C%20and%20Canada

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Saturday, June 2, 2018

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Bishop Barron's Gospel Reflection June 2, 2018

Your daily Gospel reflection...

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Mark 11:27-33

Friends, in today’s Gospel, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approach Jesus and ask him, "By what authority are you doing these things?"

The first witnesses of Jesus were astonished by the authority of his speech and his actions. This wasn’t simply because he spoke and acted with conviction and enthusiasm; it was because he refused to play the game that every other rabbi played, tracing his authority finally back to Moses. He went, as it were, over the head of Moses, as he did at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: "You’ve heard it said...but I say..."

His listeners knew they were dealing with something qualitatively different than anything else in their religious tradition or experience. They were dealing with the prophet greater than Moses.

And Jesus had to be more than a mere prophet. Why? Because we all have been wounded, indeed our entire world compromised, by a battle that took place at a more fundamental level of existence. The result is the devastation of sin, which we all know too well. Who alone could possibly take it on? A merely human figure? Hardly. What is required is the power and authority of the Creator himself, intent on remaking and saving his world, binding up its wounds, and setting it right.

Saturday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 352

Reading 1 Jude 17, 20b-25

Beloved, remember the words spoken beforehand
by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit.
Keep yourselves in the love of God
and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
that leads to eternal life.
On those who waver, have mercy;
save others by snatching them out of the fire;
on others have mercy with fear,
abhorring even the outer garment stained by the flesh.

To the one who is able to keep you from stumbling
and to present you unblemished and exultant,
in the presence of his glory,
to the only God, our savior,
through Jesus Christ our Lord
be glory, majesty, power, and authority
from ages past, now, and for ages to come. Amen.

Gospel Mk 11:27-33

Jesus and his disciples returned once more to Jerusalem.
As he was walking in the temple area,
the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders
approached him and said to him,
"By what authority are you doing these things?
Or who gave you this authority to do them?"
Jesus said to them, "I shall ask you one question.
Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
Was John's baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me."
They discussed this among themselves and said,
"If we say, 'Of heavenly origin,' he will say,
'Then why did you not believe him?'
But shall we say, 'Of human origin'?"–
they feared the crowd,
for they all thought John really was a prophet.
So they said to Jesus in reply, "We do not know."
Then Jesus said to them,
"Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things."

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Friday, June 1, 2018

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"Roseanne's Twitter statement, is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show," declaimed Channing Dungey, the black president of ABC Entertainment.

Targeting Valerie Jarrett, a confidante and aide of President Barack Obama, Roseanne had tweeted: If the "muslim brotherhood & the planet of the apes had a baby=vj.Read more on Buchanan.Org...

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Denmark Approves Burka Ban

by Soeren Kern • June 1, 2018 at 6:00 am

Denmark becomes the sixth European country to enact such a ban, after France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Austria.
"The face is your passport. When you refuse me to see you, I am a victim." — Jacques Myard, a former conservative MP who supported the ban in France.
"[S]ome people do not want to be a part of Danish society and want to create parallel societies with their own norms and rules." — Danish Justice Minister Søren Pape Poulsen.

(Copenhagen photo by Pixabay)

The Danish Parliament has passed a ban on Islamic full-face veils in public spaces. The new law, sponsored by Denmark's center-right government, and backed by the Social Democrats and the Danish People's Party, was passed on May 31 by 75 votes to 30.

As of August 1, anyone found wearing a burka (which covers the entire face) or a niqab (which covers the entire face except for the eyes) in public in Denmark will be subject to a fine of 1,000 Danish kroner (€135; $157); repeat offenders could be fined 10,000 Danish kroner.

In addition, anyone found to be requiring a person through force or threats to wear garments that cover the face could be fined or face up to two years in prison.

Continue Reading Articlehttps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12420/denmark-approves-burka-ban

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Bishop Barron's Gospel Reflection June 1, 2018

Your daily Gospel reflection...

Friday, June 1, 2018

Memorial of Saint Justin

Mark 11:11-26

Friends, at the heart of today’s Gospel is the cleansing of the Temple. Jesus entered the great Temple in Jerusalem—which for a Jew of that time was everything—and began to tear the place apart. Precisely because the Temple was supposed to be so holy, Jesus was flabbergasted at what had happened to it, and how the trading of merchants had come to dominate.

From the earliest days, Christian writers and spiritual teachers saw the Temple as symbolic of the human person. In fact, didn’t Saint Paul himself refer to the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit? Your very self is meant to be a temple where God’s spirit dwells and where prayer, communion with God, is central.

But what happens to us sinners? The money changers and the merchants enter in. What is supposed to be a place of prayer becomes a den of thieves. And so the Lord must do in us now what he did in the Temple then: a little house-cleaning. What shape is the temple of your soul in? Suppose that Jesus has made a whip of cords, knotted with the Ten Commandments. What would he clear out of you?

Memorial of Saint Justin, Martyr
Lectionary: 351

Reading 1 1 Pt 4:7-13

Beloved:
The end of all things is at hand.
Therefore be serious and sober-minded
so that you will be able to pray.
Above all, let your love for one another be intense,
because love covers a multitude of sins.
Be hospitable to one another without complaining.
As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another
as good stewards of God's varied grace.
Whoever preaches, let it be with the words of God;
whoever serves, let it be with the strength that God supplies,
so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ,
to whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Beloved, do not be surprised that a trial by fire is occurring among you,
as if something strange were happening to you.
But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ,
so that when his glory is revealed
you may also rejoice exultantly.

Gospel Mk 11:11-26

Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple area.
He looked around at everything and, since it was already late,
went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

The next day as they were leaving Bethany he was hungry.
Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf,
he went over to see if he could find anything on it.
When he reached it he found nothing but leaves;
it was not the time for figs.
And he said to it in reply, "May no one ever eat of your fruit again!"
And his disciples heard it.

They came to Jerusalem,
and on entering the temple area
he began to drive out those selling and buying there.
He overturned the tables of the money changers
and the seats of those who were selling doves.
He did not permit anyone to carry anything through the temple area.
Then he taught them saying, "Is it not written:

My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples?
But you have made it a den of thieves."

The chief priests and the scribes came to hear of it
and were seeking a way to put him to death,
yet they feared him
because the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching.
When evening came, they went out of the city.

Early in the morning, as they were walking along,
they saw the fig tree withered to its roots.
Peter remembered and said to him, "Rabbi, look!
The fig tree that you cursed has withered."
Jesus said to them in reply, "Have faith in God.
Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain,
'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,'
and does not doubt in his heart
but believes that what he says will happen,
it shall be done for him.
Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer,
believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.
When you stand to pray,
forgive anyone against whom you have a grievance,
so that your heavenly Father may in turn
forgive you your transgressions."

Guest Post by Uri Avnery: Strong as Death

Uri Avnery

June 2, 2018

Strong as Death

OH, GAZA. Strong as death is love.

I loved Gaza. That is a play on words. The Biblical Song of Songs says that love is strong as death. Strong in Hebrew is Aza. Aza is also the Hebrew name of Gaza.

I have spent many happy hours in Gaza. I had many friends there. From the leftist Dr. Haidar Abd al-Shafi to the Islamist Mahmoud al-Zahar, who is now the foreign minister of Hamas.

I was there when Yasser Arafat, the son of a Gazan family, came home. They put me in the first row of the reception at the Rafah border, and that evening he received me at the hotel on the Gaza sea shore, seating me next to him on the stage during a press conference.

I met with a friendly attitude everywhere in the Gaza Strip, in the refugee camps and in the streets of Gaza City. Everywhere we talked about peace and about the place of Gaza in the future State of Palestine.

GOOD, BUT what about Hamas, the terrible arch-terrorist organization?

In the early 1990s, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin exiled 415 prominent Islamists from Gaza to Lebanon. The Lebanese did not let them in, so the exiles vegetated for a year in the open air on the border.

We protested against the expulsion and put up a tent camp opposite the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem. We stayed there for 45 days and nights, including some days in snow. In the camp were Jews and Arabs, including Israeli Arab Islamists. We spent the long days and nights in political discussions. What about? About peace, of course.

The Islamists were nice people, and treated my wife, Rachel, with utmost civility.

When the exiles were finally allowed home, a reception was held for them in the largest hall in Gaza. I was invited, together with a group of companions. I was asked to speak (in Hebrew, of course) and after that I was invited to a banquet.

I am recounting all this in order to describe the atmosphere at that time. In everything I said, I stressed that I was an Israeli patriot. I advocated peace between two states. Before the first Intifada (which started on December 9, 1987) Gaza was not a place of dark hatred. Far from it.

Masses of laborers crossed the checkpoints every morning in order to work in Israel, and so did the merchants who sold their wares in Israel, or crossed Israel on the way to Jordan, or got their merchandise through Israeli harbors.

SO HOW did we succeed – we, the State of Israel – in turning Gaza into what it is today?

In the summer of 2005 the then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, decided to cut all ties with the Gaza Strip. "Arik", a soldier in his heart, decided that the costs of occupying the strip were higher than the benefits. He pulled the army and the settlers out and turned the strip over – to whom? To nobody.

Why to nobody? Why not to the PLO, which was already the recognized Palestinian authority? Why not within the framework of an agreement? Because Arik hated the Palestinians, the PLO and Arafat. He did not want to have anything to do with them. So he just left the strip.

But nature abhors a vacuum. A Palestinian authority came into being in Gaza. Democratic elections were held, and Hamas won in all of Palestine. Hamas is a religious-nationalist party which originally was furthered by the Israeli secret service (Shin Bet) in order to undermine the PLO. When the PLO did not accept the election results, Hamas in Gaza took power by force. Thus the present situation came into being.

DURING ALL this time we still had a positive option.

The Gaza Strip could have turned into a blooming island. Optimists spoke about a "Second Singapore". They spoke about a Gaza harbor, with due inspection of incoming goods either in Gaza or in a neutral port abroad. A Gaza airport, with appropriate security inspection, was built and used and then destroyed by Israel.

And what did the Israeli government do? The very opposite, of course.

The government subjected the Gaza Strip to a stringent blockade. All connections between the strip and the outside world were cut. Provisions could come only through Israel. Israel increased or decreased the import of essential necessities at its whim. The affair of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was bloodily stormed near the Gaza shore, emphasized the total isolation.

The Gaza population has now reached about two million. Most of them are refugees from Israel, who were driven out during the 1948 war. I cannot say that I am innocent – my army unit fought in the south of Palestine. I saw what was happening. I wrote about it.

The blockade created a magic circle. Hamas and the smaller (and more extreme) organizations carried out acts of resistance (or "terror"). As a reaction, the Israeli government intensified the blockade. The Gazans answered with more violence. The blockade became worse. And so on, up to and including this week.

What about the southern border of the strip? Rather bizarrely, Egypt cooperates with the Israeli blockade. And not only because of the mutual sympathy between the Egyptian military dictator, Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi, and the Israeli rulers. There is also a political reason: The Sisi regime hates the Muslim Brothers, Its banned internal opposition, which is considered the parent organization of Hamas.

The PLO regime in the West Bank also cooperates with the Israeli blockade against Hamas, which is its main competitor within the Palestinian political framework.

Thus the Gaza Strip remains almost completely isolated, without friends. Except some idealists around the world, who are much too weak to make a difference. And, of course, Hezbollah and Iran.

NOW THERE prevails a kind of balance. The Gazan organizations carry out violent acts, which do no real damage to the State of Israel. The Israeli army does not have the appetite to occupy the strip again. And then the Palestinians discovered a new weapon: non-violent resistance.

Many years ago an Arab-American activist, a pupil of Martin Luther King, came to Palestine to preach this method. He found no takers and returned to the US. Then, at the beginning of the second Intifada, the Palestinians tried this method. The Israeli army reacted with live fire. The world saw a picture of a little boy shot while in the arms of his father. The army denied responsibility, as it always does. Non-violent resistance died with the boy. The Intifada demanded many victims.

Truth is that the Israeli army has no answer to non-violent resistance. In such a campaign, all the cards are in the hands of the Palestinians. World public opinion condemns Israel and praises the Palestinians. Therefore, the army's reaction is to open fire, in order to induce the Palestinians to start violent actions. With these the army knows how to deal.

Non-violent resistance is a very difficult method. It demands enormous willpower, strict self-control and moral superiority. Such qualities are to be found in Indian culture, which gave birth to a Gandhi, and within the black American community of Martin Luther King. There is no such tradition in the Muslim world.

Therefore it is doubly astonishing that the demonstrators on the Gaza border are now finding this power in their hearts. The events of Black Monday, May 14, surprised the world. Masses of unarmed human beings, men, women and children, braved the Israeli sharpshooters. They did not draw weapons. They did not "storm the fence", a lie spread by the huge Israeli propaganda apparatus. They stood exposed to the sharpshooters and were killed.

The Israeli army is convinced that the inhabitants of Gaza will not stand the test, that they will return to useless violence. Last Tuesday it seemed as if this assessment was right. One of the Gaza organizations carried out a "revenge action", launching more then a hundred mortar shells into Israel without causing any real damage. That was a useless gesture. Violent action has no chance whatsoever to hurt Israel. It only supplies ammunition to Israeli propaganda.

When one thinks about non-violent struggle, one should remember Amritsar. That is the name of an Indian town where in April 1919 soldiers under British command opened murderous fire for 10 consecutive minutes on Indian non-violent protesters, killing at least 379 and wounding about 1200. The name of the commander, Colonel Reginald Dyer, entered history, for eternal shame. British public opinion was shocked. Many historians believe that this was the beginning of the end of British rule in India.

"Black Monday" on the Gaza border reminds one of this episode.

HOW WILL this end?

Hamas has offered a Hudna for 40 years. A Hudna is a sacred armistice, which no Muslim is allowed to break.

I have already mentioned the Crusaders, who stayed in Palestine for almost 200 years (more then us, at this moment). They agreed to or entered into several Hudnas with the hostile Muslim states around them. The Arabs kept them strictly.

The question is: Is the Israeli government able to accept a Hudna? After inciting the masses of their followers and filling them with mortal hatred against the people of Gaza in general and Hamas in particular, would it dare to agree?

When the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are choked, lacking medicines, lacking enough food, lacking pure water, lacking electricity, will our government not fall into the trap of illusion and believe that now Hamas will collapse?

That will not happen, of course. As we sang in our youth: "No people withdraws from the trenches of their life!"

As the Jews themselves proved for centuries, there is no limit to what a people can endure when its very existence is at stake.

That's what history tells us.

MY HEART is with the people of Gaza.

I desire to ask their forgiveness, in my name and in the name of Israel, my country.

I am longing for the day when everything will change, the day when a wiser government will agree to a Hudna, open the border and let the people of Gaza return to the world.

Now, too, I love Gaza, with the love that the Bible says is as strong as death.

Bolton Flunky Fleitz Raises Stakes for Iran – Consortiumnews

Bolton Flunky Fleitz Raises Stakes for Iran – Consortiumnews: From the Archive: Islamophobe & Bolton pal Fred Fleitz has been named chief of staff for the National Security Council. Fleitz was a danger a decade ago in the Bush administration and is even more so now, recalls Ray McGovern.

Ray McGovern reports that with Bolton’s old “enforcer” Fred Fleitz

Saudi Defense and Security Reform

http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/76487?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWVdNNVpERTJaVEJpWVRJdyIsInQiOiJXQ2NjblwvMnVYREhOR3l0alQ5MEx1K09WXC9BcW1BcStPUnV5TXBMTXl3RW9DSWlxWXE4WlBOU1JCZDhxRDZ6UUhMRE8yclVLREp4NWJBYmZDaG5vVVRaZ1I5MVVackJEWmd4RmxEdjRHUE53WTNRYm1EUGh1S1RWVmVpcjNMNVlXIn0%3D

Monitor says Iran to pull out of southern Syria

Monitor says Iran to pull out of southern Syria: Iranian troops and fighters of Lebanons Hezbollah terrorist group have begun preparing to withdraw from Syrian territory adjacent to the countrys border with Syria, a Syrian war monitor says.

Vermont will start giving people up to $10,000 to move there and work remotely

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/06/01/vermont-will-start-giving-people-move-there-and-work-remotely/HqRJOR2iBNIwei4HRzSZ3I/story.html?et_rid=1925983868&s_campaign=globesmostpopular:newsletter&et_rid=1925983868&s_campaign=globesmostpopular:newsletter

https://www.elp.com/articles/2018/05/puerto-rico-power-grid-fragile-despite-3-8-billion-in-repairs.html?cmpid=enl_powergridinternational_energy_news_update_2018-06-01&pwhid=1e90004a8e081f3272fb5f8e0e9a20316c85258cc50faf993491663afd10a38f41b62c13180d825ec81f1c72848099c33ec83965e1b8e8ff4a01aa5c32296aec&eid=288118515&bid=2125047

Never Drink Another Starbucks Coffee Again, It Funds Planned Parenthood | LifeNews.com

Never Drink Another Starbucks Coffee Again, It Funds Planned Parenthood | LifeNews.com: Never Drink Another Starbucks Coffee Again, It Funds Planned Parenthood

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