By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 29, 2015 One of the most interesting stories in the Old Testament is found in Genesis 32. There we hear the story of Jacob wrestling with God. Or is it the story of Jacob wrestling with an angel? Jacob had to face his brother Esau the next day. His anxiety comes through even in that ancient account. The text says that Jacob wrestled “with a Man.” But this is not
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 29, 2015 One of the most interesting stories in the Old Testament is found in Genesis 32. There we hear the story of Jacob wrestling with God. Or is it the story of Jacob wrestling with an angel? Jacob had to face his brother Esau the next day. His anxiety comes through even in that ancient account. The text says that Jacob wrestled “with a Man.” But this is not
What makes a person holy is love, the adoration of Christ When Christ enters our soul, everything within us will be altered Man is a mystery. We carry within us an age-old inheritance – all the good and precious experience of the prophets, the saints, the martyrs, the apostles and above all of our Lord Jesus Christ; but we also carry within us the inheritance of the evil that exists in the world from Adam
Birth, every human birth, is an occasion for local wonder. In Jesus’ birth the wonder is extrapolated across the screen of all creation and all history as a God-birth. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”—moved into the neighborhood, so to speak. And for thirty years or so, men and women saw God in speech and action in the entirely human person of Jesus as he was subject, along with them, to the common
The ancient philosophers loved to stress the central place of Man in the universe. They said that Man is the only animal which stands upright, and so symbolizes the dimensions of space, first the high, or heavenly, and the low, or earthly. Other animals walk on all fours or crawl. Their space is purely earthly; it is only by Man that they are connected to the heavens. True, trees and rocks stand upright, symbolizing the
Two Sexes but Only One Human Nature The author of the story of our creation teaches us that the Creator formed from the clay a man, formed from the man’s rib a woman and then, starting from the union of the two, filled the earth with their descendants. God did not create the woman from just any kind of material. He took from the man what he needed to create her. The reason? To prevent
Every human being, man or woman, according to his or her nature, is called to a degree of virility – remember the strong women of the Bible- and also, in relation to God, a degree of femininity. Progress in the spiritual life leads men as well as women to a quasi-feminine attitude in the presence of the mystery. That is why the incarnation was accomplished through a woman, who is now at the heart of
The ancient philosophers loved to stress the central place of Man in the universe. They said that Man is the only animal which stands upright, and so symbolizes the dimensions of space, first the high, or heavenly, and the low, or earthly. Other animals walk on all fours or crawl. Their space is purely earthly; it is only by Man that they are connected to the heavens. True, trees and rocks stand upright, symbolizing the
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