What Did Jesus Look Like?

In 1963, I was a monk in a Trappist Monastery and one day while reading the psalms I turned to a page where a prayer card fell out. As I picked it up and looked at the picture on it, I was very confused. It looked like the death mask of some ancient man. I turned the card over and read a description of what the picture showed. It was believed to be an actual photograph of Jesus. It was called the Holy Shroud of Turin. Thinking it to be a painting by some medieval artist, I later went to the Scriptorium and consulted the Catholic Encyclopedia. This began a lifelong pursuit of mine to try to understand how this "photo" came into existence.

Later, in my teaching years at a Catholic high school I bought a film strip produced by the Order of Salesians of Don Bosco which was entitled "The Holy Shroud of Turin". I previewed it and was shocked to find that I believed it to be authentic. I showed the film strip to my students and they were as amazed as I, and without any pressure by me, professed that they also believed the image was the true face of Jesus.   

Rather than tell you the history of the investigation concerning this relic, I simply refer you to the following link. I hope that it is possible for you to see this presentation and come to your own conclusions. I know mine. thank you,     Charlie Mc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJPJ4JwHeE

What Did Jesus Say / Mean?

The thoughts,words, and deeds of Jesus were predominantly in Aramaic. 

 Thirty five years after Jesus' earthly life ended, printed copies of the "good news" began to be written in Greek, thus already a translation. 

In the following centuries, the good news was again translated into Latin. The very best of Catholic biblical scholarship today believes that when these last translations were made, there were some serious mistranslations. 

Two quite serious errors may have occurred in the translation of the earliest Gospel accounts of Jesus' first recorded words as found in the earliest written of the four Gospels, Mark. The first of these is the Greek word "Μετανοιετε"[Metanoiete] which was translated into the Latin as "poenimine" which means literally "Repent!". A study of Treadwell Walden entitled "The Great Meaning of Metanoia" (1896!) indicates that the first and most likely translation of that word should have been "Change the way you think". From the meaning of Metanoiete as "Repent", evolved centuries of debate as to why those who first encountered Jesus had to repent. From this debate, the early great Councils arrived at the doctrine of original sin. It seems a little strange that Jesus would call his 'good news' "good" when it proclaimed that all are sinners from the "get go"

The second possible mistranslation is in translating the Greek
"ηγγικεν" [heggiken] with the word "appropinquavit" [draws near]. I.e., "Repent, and believe for the Kingdom 'draws near'".

A better translation,according to the best Catholic biblical scholarship is that the word "ηγγικεν" has a first translation not unlike what a waiting commuter means when he says "the train is here" i.e., coming into the station or simultaneously coming and already here. Thus the more accurate translation of the verse in Mark should be " The present moment is the right time. Change the way you think for the Kingdom of God is WITHIN you. Believe this 'good news'[Mk1:14-16].

In other words, God, Whom mankind has sought outside himself, is in reality closer to him than the man is to himself. Thus to pray, Jesus advises us to "enter into our inner room and pray to our Father who is within"(Mt.6:6). Now that IS really good news!

So it is not heretical to strive to understand what Jesus meant, rather than putting so much emphasis on what the interpreter may have thought.
                                                                 Charlie Mc

Thomas Merton Prayer

When Pope Francis addressed the United States Congress in 2015,  he focused upon four Americans including Thomas Merton. Over the past forty years as a teacher in Catholic schools I had the practice of saying a prayer before each class.  Of all these prayers, Thomas Merton's prayer from his book Thoughts in Solitude meant the most to more of my former students than any other. It seems that we all find ourselves in need of such a prayer throughout our lives. I hope this is meaningful for you as well:

 "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

2016 Random Thoughts

                                         2016 Random Thoughts

The earliest of the four written gospels, the one attributed to Mark, does not begin with the stories about Jesus’ birth and infancy, but rather begins with Jesus as being about 28 years old and coming down from his home town of Nazareth (1300 feet above sea level) down to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the lowest freshwater lake on earth (700 feet below sea level).

//www.google.com/maps/place/Sea+of+Galilee/@32.69447,35.2476817,10.25z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x151c15e695299b6f:0xf7840d9de500fe1dhttp:

In Mark’s narrative, Jesus comes to those who will be his disciples and says to them, “The present moment is the right time. Change the way you think because the Kingdom of God is within you. Believe this ‘good news’ [Mk.1:15]. Although I love to read all of the gospels, I am particularly struck by this passage because I believe it is the central message of Jesus.

When I was a child, I used to pray for things I wanted to get or have happen. These were not all self-centered requests but my prayer was usually directed to a very far away God who sometimes didn’t seem to be paying attention. There was no question whether or not I believed in God for my mother and father were believers and so I readily became one, but rather the problem seemed to be where was this God to whom I  prayed .

As a child I learned to believe He was in the tabernacle of my parish church so I would always look towards the sanctuary, or stare at the Eucharistic host, which after all I was taught to believe was the Real Presence, the consecrated body and blood of Jesus. Because of this, I was led to believe that our prayer could be focused upon a reality in space and time.

As I grew up, I began to focus upon a life which believed that all reality was spatial and temporal. My scientific pursuits taught me that whatever could not be sensed as having mass and occupying space simply could not be proven to exist and therefore I became a total materialist. I strove to understand the theological arguments of Saint Thomas Aquinas which were presented as proofs for the existence of God. These proofs, however, left me high and dry in my wish to “experience” God.

It was only my friendship with a man who has remained my spiritual guide for the past fifty years that led me to a much deeper experience with a prayer called contemplative or centering prayer. His name is Thomas Keating, OCSO, a retired abbot living at Saint Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass Colorado. He has written many great books on the subject, culminating with his recent Reflections on the Unknowable. His teaching, combined with the quote above from the Gospel of Mark, indicate to me that I have finally discovered where God dwells.  God, or whatever name you choose to call God, Yahweh, El, or whatever, all of these are words stemming from ideas we have of the Transcendent Being. And all of these ideas are inadequate, for God cannot be understood by humans.

This Being we term “god” in the Christian tradition, is to be found within us. Thus the many words we use in prayer may or may not be helpful, but words ultimately fail. To pray to god, we should perhaps do as Jesus taught when he is recorded as saying, “But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen/ And your Father , who sees what you do in private, will reward you,”[Mt.6:6], and in Mark we see Jesus pray by example: “Very early next morning, long before daylight, Jesus got up and left the house. He went of town to a lonely place, where he prayed.”[Mk.1:35]

In centering prayer, we are taught to focus in the present moment, breathe and gently “flush” out the mental pictures that invade us and simply BE in the presence of God within us as Jesus taught. Try to do this for a half an hour or longer if possible, wherever and whenever  you are.

Today, astrophysicists teach us that the entire cosmos sprang from a “point of no dimensions” 13.7 billion years ago.  It is that point to which we face in contemplative prayer. Try it.

Do not worry about knowing God, or understanding God, rather simply ask for belief. This is what Jesus asked us:

                                  "Believe this good news" 

                                                                                               Charlie Mc