St. Polycarp of Smyrna, Bishop/Martyr - d. c. 156

 

The testimony of St. Irenaeus: 

"...Polycarp, besides being instructed by the Apostles and acquainted with many who had seen the Lord, was also appointed by the Apostles for Asia as bishop of the church in Smyrna. Even I saw him in my early youth; for he remained with us a long time, and at a great age suffered martyrdom full of glory and renown and departed this life, having taught always the things which he had learned from the Apostles, which the Church hands down, which alone are true. There testify to these things all the churches throughout Asia, and the successors of Polycarp down to this day, testimonies to the truth far more trustworthy and reliable than Valentinus and Marcion and the other misguided persons..."

The Running Missionary

Remember the opening scene from the 1981 movie, Chariots of Fire? the winded track stars going for the finish line? the haunting musical theme by Vangelis? That movie was based on the story of Eric Liddell [rhymes with fiddle] (1902-1945), a Scotsman and second son of missionary parents, born in China. Liddell was schooled in England, then entered Edinburgh University where he excelled in athletics throughout his stay there.

Liddell won a spot on the British track and field team for the Paris Olympic games, Olympiad VIII, in 1924. He took a gold medal in the 400 meter, setting a world record, and won a bronze medal in the 200 meter. He was favored to win the gold in the 100 meter, his best event as a university athlete. The race, however, was scheduled for Sunday, and rather than break his commitment to keeping a weekly sabbath, even if it meant not participating, he opted out of the race.

Most people don't know that after he graduated from Edinburgh, Eric returned to North China to serve as a missionary himself, associated with the London Missionary Society, from 1925-1943. In 1932 he was ordained a minister, and two years later he married Florence Mackenzie, daughter of Canadian missionaries to China, with whom he had three daughters.

Because of the ongoing conflict between China and Japan, missionaries had to endure many hardships. When the British government advised expatriates to leave China in 1941, after Japan's invasion, Liddell's wife and children fled to Canada, but Eric and his brother, Rob, remained to continue the missionary work. Two years later Eric was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned in the Weihsien concentration camp. Many of those who survived the camp had fond memories of Liddell and spoke very highly of him.

One of these people was The Rev. Dr. Norman Cliff, who reflected on Liddell's last days in the camp, in a talk he gave in 1999: "As the months in Weihsien Camp went by, life became increasingly difficult. Inadequate nutrition month after month, kept within the confines of electrified wires: all these things began to take a toll on our lives. There were mental breakdowns; cases where workers collapsed at work, typhoid, malaria, and dysentery were prevalent among the prisoners. And with the war dragging on like this we wondered when it would end and if it does end who is going to win.


Morale began to go downhill and sports activities began to fizzle out and this general deterioration in health and morale also came to Eric Liddell. He was as human as the rest of us. He started getting severe headaches, he found glare and noise tiresome and he began to feel the separation from his family.


He tried to continue to be of service to fellow internees. Though the will was there, the energy was not. He began to confide in fellow missionaries of the London Missionary Society of his own struggles and fears, his loneliness, and his family. In January 1945 he was taken to the camp hospital...

...The singing and playing of...hymns gave us a tremendous boost. They reminded us that God had not forgotten us...One Sunday in mid-February 1945 we were playing at one of our usual spots just outside the camp hospital and while we were playing, a nurse sent out a note through the window, ‘Eric Liddell has asked if you would play Finlandia’. Of course our leader led us and we played for him...


...A few days after that Eric Liddell sat up in bed and wrote on a piece of paper to his wife, Florence, in Canada '… was carrying too much responsibility… had slight nervous breakdown… much better after a month in hospital. Special love to you and the children, Eric. After writing this over-optimistic note he said to his friend and colleague, Annie Buchan, 'It’s full surrender,' and he went into a coma from which he did not recover. Within an hour he had gone.


The funeral, a few days later, was crowded and the church could not hold all the people and many were standing outside. All kinds of people came who did not normally come to our Sunday services. There was, for example, a prostitute for whom Eric had done some chores without asking anything in return. Many internees were crowded inside and outside the church. And I was part of that cortège of those who carried the coffin down the road to a small cemetery in Japanese quarters..."

Aliens set to invade in June

Spielberg's epic alien invasion series Falling Skies is headed for TV screens in the US this summer and is previewed here. Or check out the official website here.

Spielberg's obsession with UFOs, of course, dates back to his childhood and has over the years resulted in the production of numerous UFO-themed films and TV series bearing his name. For an in-depth expolration of Spielberg's intriguing UFO connections, see my co-authored article on the subject over at The Presidents UFO Website.

Welcome!

Welcome to Silver Screen Saucers, a new blog providing news and commentary on Hollywood's UFO movies, old and new.

John Henry Newman (1801-1890): "Anglo/Catholic", Cardinal, Theologian

John Henry Cardinal Newman, C.O., was an important figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century, becoming nationally known by the mid-1830s.

Originally an evangelical Oxford academic, he was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1826. He served as Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford, for two years. As an avid student of the writings of the early Church, he was eventually led, along with others, to question the position of Scripture as the unchecked rule and standard of faith. Newman became one of the founders and leaders in the Oxford Movement within the Anglican Church, and a prolific tractarian. The Movement included noted Anglicans who wished to return the Church of England to many Catholic beliefs and forms of worship. Newman's most notable, and controversial, work was Tract 90, an attempt to reconcile the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church with the Anglican Church's 39 Articles. In 1845 Newman left the Church of England and was received into the Roman Catholic Church. He was ordained as a Roman priest in 1847, became a member of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri [C.O.], and, despite a sometimes problematic relationship with the English Catholic Church, eventually was elevated to the rank of Cardinal in 1877 by Pope Leo XIII.

Pope Benedict XVI officially proclaimed Cardinal Newman "Blessed"on 19 September 2010, at Birmingham, during the Pope's visit to the United Kingdom.

Also a noted literary figure, Cardinal Newman's major writings include his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865–66), the Grammar of Assent (1870), and the poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865), set to music in 1900 by Edward Elgar as an oratorio. He also wrote the popular hymns Lead, Kindly Light and Praise to the Holiest in the Height (taken from Gerontius).

+  +  +

LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home—

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene—one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou

Shouldst lead me on.

I loved to choose and see my path, but now

Lead Thou me on!

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,

Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still

Will lead me on,

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone;

And with the morn those angel faces smile

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

At Sea.

June 16, 1833.

God's Completeness & Ours

 

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing; 

send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift...

without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Amen.

Spoon River Anthology, written in 1915 by Edgar Lee Masters, is a collection of short free-form poems, describing the life of a fictional small town. 212 separate characters in the poems provide accounts of their lives and losses. Each subsequent poem is an epitaph of a dead citizen, delivered by the dead themselves. Many characters in the Anthology were based on real people whom Masters knew or had heard of in the two towns in which he grew up in Illinois. In 1963, Charles Aidman adapted Spoon River Anthology into a theater production that’s still widely performed today. In July, 1981, I was privileged to be part of the cast in Albatross Theater’s production of the play in Sacramento. One very touching monologue usually brought me to tears as I stood back in the wings. It depicted a young Chinese girl, named Yee Bow, speaking from the grave:

“They got me into Sunday school

In Spoon River

And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus

I could have been no worse off

If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.

For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,

And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,

The minister’s son, caved my ribs into my lungs,

With a blow of his fist.

Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,

And no children shall worship at my grave.”

What a painful, sad example of what a “Christian” should not be. Surely Harry Wiley, as many of us, would’ve repeatedly listened to these passages of Scripture which we’ve just heard in the three readings:
“You shall be holy…”
“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin…”
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself…”
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?…”
“I say to you, Love your enemies…”
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Obviously, this minister’s son didn’t have a clue as to the connection those words had with his relationship to others in his Sunday school class. He missed the power of the ways of the Holy and of the love which fills us with thanksgiving if we’re receptive.

Today’s first reading from Leviticus (19:1-2; 9-18) is part of Chapters 17-26, commonly called The Holiness Code, because of the unifying theme of God’s holiness. The Hebrew word which speaks of God as holy means separate, set aside as clean, dedicated. The “Holy One of Israel”, Isaiah tells us, is wholly Other. “...for I...am holy...I am the Lord.” God alone is Holy and all other holiness comes from God. It’s God’s gift to us. “You shall be holy…” What God says of Godself, what God is, is what God graciously lets us be. God’s holiness is the basis and sufficient reason for our being just, honest, generous, and loving to one another. God never proclaims God’s holiness in total isolation, but always in a context where God separates, sets aside, consecrates, someone out of the everyday world to serve the Almighty’s purpose. Not one of us has the right to claim that holiness is beyond our ability. God has let us exist, be, and by the very fact that you are and I am, we can know for certain that we’ve been set apart and have received from the Holy One all that it takes to be holy.

Think about that! That’s so awesome a fact that it should make us, like Moses, want to “take off our shoes”, for we’re indeed standing on holy ground. In the presence of the holiness of the God of Hosts, we can only realize how separate we are, in the opposite direction from God, because of our selfishness. When we stand before the Holy God what’s uppermost in our minds is our utter need for forgiveness and mercy. Holiness isn’t something we work up: it’s rather the gracious, undeserved gift of the One who is Holy. When God touches us, it evokes our awe and worship. Perhaps only the language of worship can adequately express what it is we try to stammer: “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might; heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.”

In the first reading God says to Moses: “Say to all the congregation of the people of Israel...You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy…” The gift of the Holy One lets us be holy individually, and also lets us be a holy people. Last week’s second reading from 1 Corinthians ended with the words: “...you are...God’s building…”, the immovable and only foundation of which is Jesus the Christ. But St. Paul isn’t just talking about an anonymous building. “Do you not know,” he asks in today’s second reading (1 Corinthians 2:10-11; 16-23), “that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” The you here is plural in Greek. The temple, this holy people, is where the Holy God lives and is present through the Holy Spirit of Love. “...God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple…”

In light of the first two readings, perhaps, what many of us have likely seen as one of Jesus’ most difficult sayings in Matthew’s Gospel (5:38-48) will begin to make some sense: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” What bothers us, I think, is the word perfect, and the implication that somehow you and I, mere humans, should or can measure up to God’s perfection. We know that that’s impossible. To expect otherwise is, at best, arrogantly presumptuous, at worst, blasphemous. Unfortunately, many folks have driven themselves crazy trying to be as perfect as God.

 The Greek adjective for perfect means complete, full-grown, thorough, whole-hearted. The root verb, to perfect, means to set out for a definite point/goal, and the noun, perfection, refers to completeness, the point aimed at, the terminus, the result or end-product, the purpose achieved. The 1st Epistle of John translates today’s message into amazingly simple terms: “God is Love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” The Holy God lets us be holy and we are holy, as individuals and corporately as the congregation and as the wider Church, when we offer to any and every person who comes into our lives the love of God’s Holy Spirit in Jesus. That’s completeness. That’s the point aimed at. That’s God’s purpose, the end-product. That’s what it means for you and me to be complete as our heavenly Father is complete.

Matthew’s passage starts with Jesus saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’” referring to Lv 19:18, which actually reads: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself…” Nowhere in the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures does God or Jesus direct us to hate any person: quite the contrary. Both the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus repeatedly stress that the Holy One of Israel is a God whose Love for every human being is both just and compassionate. Jesus further challenges us, in the Gospel, to let our actions display this kind of holy love. When you’re insulted, he says, challenge the insulter with an act of graciousness, turning the other cheek, and not retaliating. In American society, that’s almost unthinkable for us who are so imperfect in contrast to our heavenly Father. It isn’t, to our mind, the “normal” human reaction. He goes on to urge that when someone sues you for your essential garment, i.e., the “coat”, a long, ankle-length basic garment at that time, offer him/her your “cloak” as well, i.e., the outer, heavier, more expensive protective covering. Or suppose that governmental or military authorities force you to assist them. (It was common in the Persian Empire for an official to require someone to walk a mile carrying the mail, in order to keep up a good system. And in Roman-occupied Palestine any soldier had the right to draft a civilian to carry his pack.) Jesus says, “Don’t just assist: do even double what’s demanded.” Can you imagine how dangerous it was at that time for a Jew to even suggest what sounded like collaboration with the Romans?! But Jesus’ point was not about political collaboration. It was about his followers operating on God’s terms, stepping out of the “normal” human pattern, and shocking the enemy with a surprising act of grace.

The rabbis had a saying: “The one sent out by a man is like the man himself.” Jesus directs you and me to love all people, friend or foe, and to pray for them “that you may be son/daughters of your Father in heaven.” To be a son/daughter of God is to be like God. But it means much more than simply declaring ourselves to be supernaturally reborn. It means accepting God’s holiness as the norm of our life, being centered in love, living by the Holy Spirit’s power into a maturity, a whole-heartedness, a completeness patterned after God’s own Holy Being itself.

That simply means that you and I consciously commit ourselves to genuinely accept every person who comes into our lives, as they are: regardless of their inner or outer appearances, and regardless of how they perceive or receive us. This doesn’t mean that we will, or must, like or go along with others’ evil or hurtful actions. Jesus doesn’t recommend non-resistance. He was anything but a wimp. What he means to say is that, like his Father, one will respond to those actions with unexpected acts of grace. You and I will look beyond to the person who, because s/he is worthy of our Father’s love and compassion, is worthy of ours also. Even Gentiles and tax-collectors, Jesus says, two groups despised and outcast in his time, observe the civility of treating their friends graciously. Our Father goes far beyond that kind of “antiseptic” love, and Jesus challenges you and me not to do anything less.

The Father, Jesus says, lavishes essential gifts, such as sunshine and rain, upon all: the good, the bad, the ugly -- unstintingly, without measure. That’s really the whole point of today’s message: you and I are to be perfect, complete, even as our Father, precisely by freely giving the gift of holy, uncalculating love, the kind which we ourselves receive from God’s hands over and over, to all: friend, enemy, family member, the poor, the sojourner, the stranger.

When I was in seminary many years ago, I bought a book by José Luis Martin Descalzo, called God’s Frontier. It was never a best-seller, but it profoundly affected me then and later. In the book, an old priest, Don Macario, who is dying of cancer, shares with a young priest his reflections on life and the human condition:

“‘This is not what your spiritual adviser told you in the seminary. But if we were all sincere, we would confess that we could not stand Christ as a neighbor’...Don Macario stirred in his bed. ‘I have come to the conclusion’, he went on, ‘that God is constantly changing frontiers. He comes down, sets up his tents beside one city, and then another, and another, and another. There may even be a moment when God is on the frontier of each soul, that decisive moment in life when a person knows that everything is at stake. It is that moment of absolute aloneness when a man stands naked before God, without one human handhold. When that moment comes to the soul, there are few paths to choose from. Before, when I was young, I thought there were only two: either to give oneself up to God or to kill Him; I mean kill the idea of Him, the one we men hold. Later I saw that there was another: to become indifferent and go on living. If this moment has not yet come to you, I may tell you that this third path is the worst, but it is also the most comfortable...and the most frequented.'”

Blessed Martin Luther (c. 1483-1546)

 

"...The number of books attributed to Martin Luther is quite impressive. However, some Luther scholars contend that many of the works were at least drafted by some of his good friends like Philipp Melanchthon. Luther’s books explain the settings of the epistles and show the conformity of the books of the Bible to each other. Of special note would be his writings about the Epistle to the Galatians in which Luther compares himself to the Apostle Paul in his defense of the Gospel. Luther also wrote about church administration and wrote much about the Christian home.

Luther's work contains a number of statements that modern readers would consider rather crude. For example, Luther was know to advise people that they should literally 'Tell the Devil he may kiss my ass.' It should be remembered that Luther received many communications from throughout Europe from people who could write anonymously, that is, without the specter of mass media making their communications known. No public figure today could write in the manner of the correspondences Luther received or in the way Luther responded to them. Luther was certainly a theologian of the middle-ages. He was an earthy man who enjoyed his beer, and was bold and often totally without tact in the blunt truth he vehemently preached. While this offended many, it endeared him all the more to others.

He was open with his frustrations and emotions, as well. Once, when asked if he truly loved God, Luther replied 'Love God? Sometimes I hate Him!' Luther was also frustrated by the works-emphasis of the book of James, calling it 'the Epistle of Straw', and questioning its canonicity. Also irritated with the complex symbolism of the Book of Revelation, he once said that it too, was not canon, and that it should be thrown into the river! He later retracted these statements, of course. Luther was a man who was easily misquoted or taken out of context. While a brilliant theologian, and a bold reformer, he would not have made a good politician. But then, he never aspired to any career in politics...

...Martin Luther escaped martyrdom, and died of natural causes. His last written words were, 'Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles... We are beggars: this is true.'" (From Greatsite.com)