Dear Readers,
My name is Fr. Franz Devantier of Saint Titus, Independent Old Catholic Church (IOCC) of Africa, operating in South Africa, and also creator of this blog. My background was that of a liberal Catholic Priest, and a Traditional Catholic Priest in South Africa, and then an independent Priest in the Catholic tradition. I was incardinated into the IOCC by Archbishop-Primate Emeritus Maurice McCormick founder of the IOCC of America.
Primate Archbishop George Le Mesurier, IOCC of America
Primate Emeritus Archbishop Maurice McCormick, IOCC of America
+++
Bishop George Otieno Odhiambo, IOCC of Africa
Primate Emeritus Archbishop Maurice McCormick, IOCC of America
+++
Bishop George Otieno Odhiambo, IOCC of Africa
+++
Father. Franz Devantier, IOCC South Africa
In
nomine Patris, et Filii, + et Spiritus
Sancti. Amen (In the name of the father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. )
Sunday
after the ascension – 12th May 2013 (Colour of Celebration – White)
Traditional
Catholics:
Let us, like the Apostles gathered together, prepare in
prayer for the holy Day of Pentecost; Ley us pray, as the Church prescribes,
for the return of heretics to unity.
Liberal
Catholics: (The Patron Saint of a Church)
We praise thee, O Lord, for the example and assistance
given to us by thy Holy Saint Titus, the patron of our church; and we pray thee
that under his protection this church may continually serve thee in all good
work; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Roman Catholics: (Nineteenth Sunday of the Year)
Lord, be true to your covenant, forget not the life of your
poor ones for ever. Rise up, O God, and
defend your cause; do not ignore the shouts o your enemies.
Commemoration
of the Saints, for the coming week
-> 12th May, SS. Nereus, Achilleus, Domitilla
and Pancras, (Martyrs)
Nereus and Achilleus were servants of Flavia Domitilla, who
was martyred with them A.D. 98. St
Pancras was put to death at the age of fourteen. A.D. 304.
-> 13th May, St Robert Bellarmine, (Bishop,
Confessor, and Doctor of the Church)
-> 14th May, Commemoration of St Boniface,
(Martyr)
-> 15th May, St John Baptist De La sale,
(Confessor)
-> 16th May, St Ubald, (Bishop, Confessor)
-> 17th May, St Paschal Baylon (Confessor)
-> 18th May, St Venantius, (Martyr)
Announcements:
We are collecting names for submission as Marriage
officers, for promotion to lay-Pastors, and for training for the Priesthood, under
Saint Titus. If you are interested, then
please contact Fr. Franz devantierf@gmail.com
News:
…
Sacred References:
Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 3, verses 1 onwards
Matthew, chapter 16, verses 24 onwards
Homily:
Spirituality,
or spiritual life is sometimes a mirror image of physical life or physical
reality. Because of this fact, we find
Jesus Christ saying. “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, whosoever
will lose his life for my sake shall find it”.
Obviously the life that is spoken of here is more than just this
physical life, but the undying life that our souls and spirits have.
You
see in this physical body, if you devote yourself to working for God, and
building up the kingdom of heaven, your rewards are not in this physical plane,
because what you were building up was in the spiritual plane. In fact if you were to start receiving
rewards on earth, it would seem to indicate that at least part of your
spiritual effort, ended up as physical effort, and so your rewards were given
to you. Sometimes all of the rewards may
be given to you here on earth, which may indicate, that none of your efforts
took a permanent spiritual existence.
If
you had devoted yourself to spiritual things while being on earth, it would
seem from a reality perspective that you had in fact lost your life, or the
things that you could have done with your life, because you put all your effort
into the spiritual plane. There is
nothing physical to show for it. However
in the bigger picture you have gained your life, for all eternity. It was only a few short years of sacrifice,
for an eternity of good life. So it
comes down to how real the afterlife is to you.
How real is the reality of your soul and your spirit to you. If it is very real for you, then you may find
yourself, focussing your life effort on things more spiritual than physical.
Of
course don’t be deceived, you don’t have to be poor to be spiritual. So often spiritually advanced people make the
mistake of believing that they must live in absolute poverty, in order to make
progress on a spiritual level. Well let’s
look at two examples of very spiritual people who did not live in poverty. We look at King Solomon, the wisest man in
all the world, a man who was known to God, and served his God very seriously. A man who was very close to God. King Solomon did his prayer to God, his study
of the nature of God, through the available writings, and his praise of God on
a daily basis. Far from it, it was not
required to be poor to be spiritual, in fact God rewarded the spiritual effort
on the physical plane, on this earth.
King Solomon was blessed by God with all sorts of blessings and
riches. He chose to be a spiritual
person, regardless of whether he was very rich or very poor, or somewhere
in-between.
We
look at another example Job. Job was a
servant of God, and a man who together with his family praised God, prayed to
God, studied God, and thought about God.
God had a very important place in his life. God blessed him by making him the richest man
in the world. Then it was all taken away
from him, and Job proved himself. Although
he was reduced to absolute poverty, and had nothing, he sat on a heap of ashes,
and thought about God all the time. He
had friends who gave him the wrong advise.
He continued despite being advised not to, to praise God, to pray to God
to Study the nature of God, and to think about God most of the time. God rewarded him by restoring everything to
him again, plus more than he had in the first place.
So
we see that whether you are rich or poor, or middle class, it really has
nothing to do with being spiritual. You
could be rich, or the King, or poor, or middle-class. Whoever you are, you can be spiritual. If you dedicate everything you do to God,
then everything you do in life becomes a prayer to God. If you dedicate your day job to God, then
performing the activities of your day job, becomes a prayer, and builds towards
your spirituality.
You
see to lose your life, is to focus on developing yourself spiritually. Now if you make the mistake like most people
do and confuse poverty with spirituality, then you have still become spiritual,
although you may have truly lost your life.
If however you focus on spiritual life through normal day to day
activities, by devoting those activities to God, then although you have still
lost your life, you may still be a middle class person, or still someone who
does not live in poverty. Both ways you
would have lost your life, and built your rewards in heaven. You would have gained your spiritual powers
for eternity.
There
are perhaps different ways that you can develop yourself spiritually, all with
fairly good results, if you devote yourself seriously to your chosen spiritual
practice. The Muslims, and certainly the
more devote ones, pray five times a day.
This constant communication with God, keeps you in the right frame of
mind, and it becomes easier to develop spiritually. Saint Francis also adopted a practice of
praying five times a day. In the monasteries
there was a practice of keeping the hours, every hour you would read from the
bible and pray. If you missed a few
hours, you could catch up, when things were a bit quieter again. In some monasteries, they recited all of the
psalms every day, in order to grow spiritually.
Eventually people who were not in a monastery also wanted to gain the
same spiritual advantage, and so they prayed the Lord’s prayer 150 times every
day. There was a practice of having a
bag of stones, and for every stone you would say a prayer. Eventually the practice of having a prayer
bead was adopted. You could say a prayer
on each of the 150 beads. This was
reduced to closer to 50 beads, because if you did it every day or went through
the beads a few times a day, then every third time, you would have done the
equivalent of all the psalms. Eventually
the prayers were changed, and the prayer beads; become known as the Holy Rosary. Saying the Rosary is also a spiritual
practice that will build you spiritually if you devout yourself to its
practice.
Also
important is the attitude that we do these things in. If we pray with an attitude of let’s get this
pray or devotion finished, that we can continue with something else, then we
will likewise not get the benefit, we will not develop spiritually. However if we really focus, and put in the
extra effort, and approach the spiritual subject with love in our hearts, then we
will have a much better chance of developing spiritually.
Jesus
made a promise that was also very specific, and carries even bigger spiritual
rewards, than the usual practices. “whosoever
will lose his life for my sake shall find it”.
Let’s just say that if you truly do this with absolute love and
devotion, and not for the show, or the glory that you can glean from other
human beings, then this will be of tremendous benefit. If you were to go around confessing the
Gospel of Jesus to people, you could potentially grow very fast on a spiritual
level. This also has to be done in the
right context, and using the right words or semantics. You will find in this age of reason that we
are living in, that other people, can be very quick to condemn us. In fact a few well chosen words from a
malicious individual can do untold harm to our spiritual well-being if we allow
it to. So you will find that there are sacrifices
and dangers along any spiritual path that you choose to follow. We follow the path, because of the eternal
benefit, and not for the immediate gratification which we can have by focussing
on the purely physical side of things.
Remember being rich or poor has nothing to do with spirituality, it is
only your attitude and the degree of love that you put into your devotions that
are of any lasting spiritual value.
Church History – Article 2:
A Resilient Faith
One
of the most noticeable features of Christian growth has been and still is, its
ability to periodically reform and renew itself. History has demonstrated the resilience of
Christianity and its seemingly inexhaustible capacity to revive after periods
of stagnation or decay.
Related
to its capacity for renewal and reform is Christianity’s powerful impulse to
evangelize; to share with others the good news or the gospel, of forgiveness of
sins through Jesus Christ. This
evangelistic effort has been responsible for literally thousands of monastic
enterprises, millions of sermons. Many,
many missionary societies both foreign and national, and copious attempts at
social service.
Christian
growth through the many centuries has demonstrated its ability to respond to
different pressures and various threats to its existence. Christianity has been able to adjust to
changing historical and cultural situations, without altering the essential
parts of its message. The way Christianity
responds is for example:
->
Fierce persecution => has led to the purifying of the faithful.
->
Heresy and aberrations => have led to the clarifying of beliefs.
->
Intellectual attacks => have led to a refinement of practices and emphases.
Each
period of Christian history comes with its own share of special events and
challenges, and difficulties.
Christianity has developed down the centuries with a common focus, which
seems to be able to transcend the differences of period, geography and
political dispensations. Because of this
focus that goes right through the history of Christianity, divisions into
periods are superimposed onto the central focus.
However
there are definite periods in History where the emphasis was on a theme, such
as reform, or renewal, evangelism and the establishment of missions. Periods where the church got more involved in
social reforms. Through all of this we
see Christians in whatever setting, worshipping God and praying to God.
An Anglican Catechism
– Article 2:
God the Father
1.)
What do we learn about God as creator from the revelation to Israel?
We
learn that there is one God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
2.)
What does this mean?
This
means that the universe is good, that it is the work of a single loving God who
creates, sustains, and directs it.
3.)
What does this mean about our place in the Universe?
It
means that the world belongs to the creator; and that we are called to enjoy it
and care for it in accordance with God’s purposes.
4.)
What does this mean about human life?
It
means that all people are worthy of respect and honour, because all are created
in the image of God, and all can respond to the love of God.
5.)
How was this revelation handed down to us?
This
revelation was handed down to us through a community created by a covenant with
God.
Prayer:
Our
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name: Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread. And forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil.
[Protestants
can optionally add: For Thine is the
kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.]
Amen.
Benediction:
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep
your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his Son, Christ
our Lord; and the Blessing of God almighty, the Father, + the Son and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you
always. Amen.
Love,
Rev. Fr. Franz Devantier of Saint Titus, IOCC, South Africa,
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