Aquinas Quoting Augustine on Scripture Alone

“Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable.  For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors.  Hence Augustine says (Epis. ad Hieron. xix, 1): ‘Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them.  But other authors I so read as not to deem everything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written, whatever may have been their holiness and learning.’”

— St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia,
Part 1, Question 1, Article 8.
Emphasis added.

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Word a Week Challenge: Cloud

The blog A Word in Your Ear has a weekly photographic word challenge.  This week’s word challenge is: cloud.  I couldn’t resist posting something about clouds.

Clouds often make me think of Jesus because He ascended into heaven with the clouds.

After He ascended, His disciples stood looking intently into the sky.  Suddenly “two men dressed in white stood beside them.  ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky?  This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’”  (Acts 1:11, NIV1984).

Cloud watching is a good activity; it is relaxing, and can be very spiritual.  They symbolize heaven and the sacred hidden nature of God.

Jesus is the Word of God made flesh.  (John 1:1, 1:14).  Someday, He will return with the clouds.  (Revelation 1:7).

“Hail the day that sees him rise
To his throne above the skies!
Christ, the Lamb for sinners given,
Reascends his native heaven.

“See, the heaven its Lord receives,
Yet he loves the earth he leaves;
Though returning to his throne,
Still he calls mankind his own.

“Still for us he intercedes;
His prevailing death he pleads.
He, the first of all our race,
Near himself prepares a place.

“There we shall with you remain
Partners in your endless reign,
There your face unclouded view,
Find our heaven of heavens in you.”

— “Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise,”
Christian Worship 175:1, 3, 5, 6.

All the pictures in this post were taken on the same day.

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Photographing Outdoor Christmas Lights

The best time to take pictures of outdoor Christmas lights is in the snow right after sunset.  That way the camera can record a good balance of interesting light.

During the day, the holiday lights will often be overwhelmed.  At night, the lights will stand out, but most everything else will be pitch black.  Christmas lights look best in a twilight setting, preferably next to a warmly illumined church or home.  Especially appreciated are days with a sweet twilight winter blue.

Red, white, and green decorations provide a nice color contrast.

Snow also brightens up a scene by reflecting light from the sky and the decorations.  In the photograph above, notice how the snow on the ground and the tree trunks adds to the interesting light.  Also, the snow on the house is blue, while the snow on the tree trunk is lit up by the red tree.  It adds depth, and makes for an interesting contrast of color and light.  Interesting light is what photography is all about.

The snow also provides a blank slate making the world fresh and new.  Instead of darkness, the world is clean, crisp, new, and white.  It is a clean slate upon which to shine new light.

Putting up holiday lights can be an act of worship.  The Good Book says, “Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”  (Psalm 141:2, NKJV).  Christmas lights are put up in celebration of the birth of the Savior.  May their light rise to heaven as a prayer, and may they illuminate the hearts of men by symbolizing the true Light of the world, Jesus.

Through the wonder of internet photography, the light from these trees can now travel around the world.

Merry twelve days of Christmas!  Happy New Year!

Christmas ends on January 5.  The first day of Epiphany is January 6.  Epiphany is also a festival of revelation and light.

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Candlelight at St. John

The pictures in this post are from the late Christmas Eve service at St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Christmas is a time to ponder and pray.  Ponder the fact that God has noticed us.  Why would He even notice?  We are but tiny specks on the earth which itself is a tiny particle floating in the vast universe of empty space.  Yet He did more than notice, He came here to live with us, and to be one of us, forever.

Late on Christmas Eve after church, I usually watch Christmas specials on television.  The last show I usually watch is midnight mass at the Vatican which I appreciate for its quiet reverence and beauty.  After mass, I enjoy the lights while pondering the divine mystery of salvation.  Late on Christmas Eve, it is quiet.  There is a quiet stillness that descends on the world, and it lasts through the morning of the First Day of Christmas.  It is the beautiful stillness of a shared holiday.

St. John is a small church, but the lens on my G12 still isn’t wide enough to take in the entire view.  That’s okay.  Life isn’t lived through a camera.  A camera can help only to remember the reality: the heat from the candle, the collective glow from many small lights, the wax I later found on my pants, and the fellowship of other Christians.

The real reason we gather together as the Body of Christ, is not for the pretty lights, but rather to be with each other and to receive from our Lord.  He is one of us.  He is with us.  He unites us together in truth.  The lights merely symbolize the spiritual reality.  “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”  (John 1:4).

Light reveals truth.  Love brings unity.  Truth with unity is life.  On the night He was betrayed, Jesus prayed for all Christians:

“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

— John 17:20-24, NIV1984.

May you have a blessed Fourth Day of Christmas.

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From Heaven Above

The art of the above photograph is attempting to show the reality of God coming down to us from heaven in the Incarnation, in the Word, and in the Sacrament.  I believe the Latin words mean: “Behold!  The dwelling of God is with men!”

At Christmastime, Martin Luther’s children would dress as angels, and then one of them would sing the first verse of Luther’s hymn:

“From heaven above to earth I come
To bear good news to every home;
Glad tidings of great joy I bring,
Whereof I now will say and sing:

Then all the angel children would join in:

“To you this night is born a child
Of Mary chosen virgin mild;
This little child of lowly birth
Shall be the joy of all the earth.

“This is the Christ, our God Most High,
Who hears your sad and bitter cry;
He will Himself your Savior be
From all your sins to set you free.

“He will on you the gifts bestow
Prepared by God for all below,
That in His kingdom, bright and fair,
You may with us His glory share.”

The angels came announcing gifts from above, but the gift of Christmas cannot be fully understood without the gift of Good Friday and Easter because they are the same gift of flesh and blood.

The gift God gave was Himself.  He is mankind justified.  He is human flesh declared righteous.  He is the forgiveness of sins.  He is God’s grace and favor to all men on earth.  That is why on Christmas, Christians around the world personally receive this gift in Holy Communion: the forgiveness of sins given for you, the body and blood given for you, the word made flesh given for you.

He is the one gift wrapped up by different means: the Word made flesh come in the likeness of sinful man; His Name, death, and resurrection in baptism; and His eternal life in His Body and Blood.  He is the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father but by Him.  (Genesis 5:1-3; Romans 8:3; Matthew 28:18-20, 26:28; & John 14:6).

Because this is real, the angelic children continued singing and telling the good news of where to look.  The shepherds were not left guessing:

“These are the signs that you shall mark:
The swaddling clothes and manger dark.
There you will find the infant laid
By whom the heavens and earth were made.”

The shining path in the photo above symbolically points and leads to the word made flesh given to us in the Sacrament on the altar.  Like the path in the photograph, the word of God is straight and clear.  We are not left guessing.  This is the way.  He is the way.

Then the adults and everyone in Luther’s household would respond:

“How glad we’ll be to find it so!
Then with the shepherds let us go
To see what God for us has done
In sending us His own dear Son.

“Come here, my friends, lift up your eyes,
And see what in the manger lies.
Who is this child, so young and fair?
It is the Christ Child lying there.

“Ah, Lord, though You created all,
How weak You are, so poor and small,
That You should choose to lay Your head
Where lowly cattle lately fed!

“And so it pleases You to see
This simple truth revealed to me:
That worldly honor, wealth, and might
Are weak and worthless in your sight.

“Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child,
Prepare a bed, soft, undefiled,
A quiet chamber set apart
For You to dwell within my heart.”

Now, the whole world and every nation sings:

“Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto us His Son has given!
While angels sing with pious mirth
A glad new year to all the earth.”

— ”From Heaven Above to Earth I Come,”
by Martin Luther, LSB 358:1-7, 9, 12-13, 15.

Notes:

The pictures in this post are from St. Josaphat Basilica during a Christmas concert by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.  Yes, around the world and in many ways, even unbelievers sing His praise.

Merry Christmas!

*

Glory to God in the highest!  Gloria in excelsis Deo!

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Christendom is Built and Preserved by Love

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”  (1 Peter 4:8).  Advent is a season of repentance, and so we should examine ourselves to see whether we truly love our neighbors, brothers, and sisters.  One of Jesus’ last requests was for unity among Christians (John 17:23), but unfortunately that unity is often hard to find.  We do not have that unity because we do not love.  Love “binds everything together in perfect harmony.”  (Colossians 3:14).

In the Church, which is the Body of Christ, we must love each other earnestly because it

“is inevitable that one member occasionally jostles the other, just as a foot or a toe of our body bumps the others, or as a person injures himself.  Such bumps and trials do not fail to come, especially because we are sojourning here in the realm of the devil, who tempts us uninterruptedly, and also because the flesh is still weak and full of flaws.  This explains why even dear and faithful friends fall out or become irritable with one another.  At times the devil injects poison and suspicion into a heart because of a single word or glance and thereby stirs up mutual animosity.  He is a master in this art and devotes himself to it most diligently.  He employs his craftiness before one is really aware of it.  As we read in Acts 15, this is what he did in the case of St. Paul and Barnabas, who had a sharp dissension and parted company.  Or take the two men Jerome and Rufinus, who had been the best of friends and like brothers.  They quarreled over a preface and were unable to re-establish their former friendship.  The same thing would have happened between St. Augustine and Jerome if Augustine had not been so shrewd.  Trifles can lead to such quarreling and enmity that great harm results to many.  The blood soon begins to boil; then the devil shoots his venomous darts into the heart by means of evil tongues, and finally no one says or thinks anything good about the other person.  The devil keeps on fanning the flames and is eager to set people against one another, to spread misery, and to incite them to murder…

“Therefore it behooves us Christians to be on our guard against the devil’s craft and cunning, to exercise prudence, and to beware of letting such poison develop in our hearts.  We must repel any suspicion and antipathy that may be stirred up in us and remind ourselves not to let love depart and die out for this reason but to hold to it with a strong hand.  And if aversion and discord have arisen anywhere, we must restore and improve the love and friendship.

“It does not require such great skill to begin to love; but, as Christ says here, remaining in love takes real skill and virtue.  In matrimony many people are initially filled with such ardent affection and passion that they would fairly eat each other; later they become bitter foes.  The same thing happens among Christian brethren.  A trivial cause may dispel love and separate those who should really be bound with the firmest ties; it turns them into the worst and bitterest enemies.  That is what happened in Christendom after the days of the apostles, when the devil raised up his schismatic spirits and heretics, so that bishops and pastors became inflamed with hatred against one another and then also divided the people into many kinds of sects and schisms from which Christendom suffered terrible harm.  That is the devil’s joy and delight.  He strives for nothing else than to destroy love among Christians and to create utter hatred and envy.  For he knows very well that Christendom is built and preserved by love.  In Colossians 3:14 Paul speaks of love as “binding everything together in perfect harmony.”  And in 1 Corinthians 13:13 he calls love the greatest virtue, which accomplishes and achieves most in the Christian realm.  For in the absence of love doctrine cannot remain pure; nor can hearts be held together in unity.”

— Luther’s Works, vol. 24:
“Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 14-16″
(J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.) (Jn 15:9).
Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

What do we have if we have not love?  Therefore, we must show deep and intentional love for one another.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

“Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“Love never fails.  But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.  Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; NIV1984.

If we have not love, we should ask the Lord who is kind and generous.  He said: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  (Matthew 7:7).  “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Abide in my love.”  (John 15:9).

Blessed Advent.

HT:  Brothers of John the Steadfast.

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Veni, Veni, Emmanuel

there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress.  In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan—

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.

— Isaiah 9:1-2 NIV-1984.

As they once waited in darkness for Christ, so we too wait.

Oh come, Oh God with us.

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Feeling Small

One of the benefits of getting outdoors is the experience of feeling small.  It is humbling to experience things that are larger than we are.

For this is what the high and lofty One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:

“I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

— Isaiah 57:15 NIV1984.

The grand places make us feel small because we are small.  In the picture above, one can see large birds circling over the rock formation.

All the pictures in this post are from Devils Tower, Wyoming.

If you look at the topmost picture in this post, you should see a climber on Devils Tower just under center in the picture.  (Click on any picture to find higher resolutions).

May God bless you with a humble heart and an awareness of His greatness.

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Blessings for Autumn

This picture is of quaking aspen in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Seasons come.  Seasons go.  Leaves fall, then grow green and fresh, turn color, and fall again.  There is a time to plant and a time to harvest, there is a time for war and a time for peace.  There is a time for everything, and may this Autumn be a time of peace and blessing for you.

There was war between God and Man, but through Christ God reconciled “to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”  (Colossians 1:20, NIV1984).  Because of Christ, today is the season of God’s peace.

“[God] has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live…  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.  God does it so that men will revere him.”

— Ecclesiastes 3:11-12, 14, NIV1984.

May His peace be with you always.  (John 14:27).

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A Bird in the Mountains

While hiking through the mountains, I came across this bird.

According to my research, this is a “Steller’s Jay.”

“Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air.  He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.”

— Genesis 2:19, NIV1984.

I don’t really know this Steller’s Jay; he stopped for a picture, but that was the extent of it.  However, God knows every creature.  He says, “every animal of the forest is mine … I know every bird in the mountains.”  (Psalm 50:10-11, NIV1984).

God knows every bird in the mountains.  Not one is forgotten by God.  And Jesus says we are worth more than many birds.  (Luke 12:6-7).

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