THE FIRST LETTER  

OF SAINT PAUL 

TO  THE  THESSALONIANS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my comments for today is, “The First Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians.”

Instead of a homily for this Sunday’s readings for the Third Sunday of Advent [B], I just want to say about 10 things regarding today’s second reading - something about Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians - from which we get a section for our second reading: Chapter 5,  verses 16-24. 

NUMBER OF BOOKS IN THE BIBLE

The Old Testament  has 46 books - none of which is a letter. We only get letters in the New Testament.  However, there are mention of letters in the Old Testament and parts of letters.  Moreover there are in museums and libraries and archives around the world, lots of letters of all sorts from B.C. For example in Egypt there are thousands of Greek letters and parts of letters. Human beings send letters, e-mail, faxes, twitter, etc. etc. to communicate information to each other. [Cf. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 769 #4.] 

The New Testament consists of 27 books. Different from the Old Testament, it has 19 letters.  Paul has the most 13, but there are letters from John, Peter, James, Jude.

The Old Testament is in Hebrew. The New Testament is in Greek.

The Catholic Bible - has both the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, These are the so called, Old Testament and New Testament. The Catholic Old Testament has more books than the Protestant and the Jewish Bible's Old Testament.  46 Old Testament and 27 New Testament books was the standard number for the Bible till the Protestant Reformation.  Reason: Way back before Christ the Jews in Alexandria - which was Greek speaking for starters - chose more books to be in the Bible than the Hebrew Collection in Israel. Broadly speaking that Greek text from Alexandria was translated into Latin and it became the so called Vulgate. At the time of the Protestant Reformation the King James folks chose the Hebrew text to translate into English and the Roman Catholics chose the Greek and then the Latin Vulgate text.

COMING UP WITH THE BEST COMMON TEXT

A goal in the last 150 or so years among Christians was to come up with the best Greek text as opposed to force a text to say something that would support a theological position. Catholic and main stream Protestant communities have for the most part come up with an agreed upon Greek text.  Within this century some believe Jews, Catholics and Protestants will have come up with an agreed upon common Hebrew Text. 

In time - mistakes were made in copying the scriptures for the next generation - that is before the printing press. Scholars by studying all the texts that they could look at - as well as texts that quote the bible - can come up with an agreed upon common text.  Then we work together to come up with the best translations - into the various languages. Translations differ because of different styles and word selections.

As already mentioned the New Testament has 21 letters. The rest of the New Testament is the 4 gospels, Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Then there is the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation.

OLDEST NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENT

The oldest New Testament document is Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. That’s some 20 years earlier than Mark, the earliest of the Gospels.

LETTER AND EPISTLE

Scholars like to make a distinction between a letter and an epistle. I heard this after we finished our scripture studies. A letter is more like a personal letter we would write.  An epistle is more polished, more worked out, more like an essay or a magazine article than a letter.

I would put Hebrews in this category. It’s been called a letter - but if it’s a letter, it’s certainly a different kind of  letter than the other New Testament documents. I was taught it’s more a sermon - a long sermon.  Others say that James and a few others are more epistles than letters. [Cf. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 771, #16.]

FORMATS FOR LETTERS

Letters have formats. Then there are business letters, love letters, personal letters, etc. etc. etc.

We put an address or letter head on top of some letters. Then we put the date. Then we put Dear John or Mary or whoever.

Then we give the purpose of the letter or what have you.

My sister Mary recently handed me a plastic bag of all my letters home from the seminary.  I looked at them. They are all almost the same. “Dear Mom and Dad, How are you. I am fine. Hope you are fine as well. Weather is cold. We had 6 inches of snow. All is well. Your loving son, Andy.”

We were told we had to write home every week.  Recently a marine told me said that they were handed a post card every week and told to write home.

I don’t know if they offer guided tours of the U.S. Military Archives in Carlisle Pa, but that would be interesting.

Well, New Testament times letters had a different format.

NAME

TO WHOM

ADD CO-SENDERS AND WRITERS.

GREETINGS: GRACE AND PEACE....

A WISH

A THANKSGIVING

A COMPLAINT

AN URGING

A CONCLUSION AND FINAL BLESSING

SOMETIMES A PRAYER OR A HYMN IS PUT INTO THE LETTER.

OFTEN THERE WERE SOME EXHORTATIONS OR NAGGING.

Letters were self written, dictated, given to someone else to compose but with the content from the author, or have given to someone else to even come up with the content.  [Cf. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 771, #19.]

Letters were also cut and paste at times.

13 letters are attributed to Paul - but there are arguments about that - based on research. Computers catch plagiarism in term papers in college - so we know now, this section of an ancient letter could not have been written by the person who wrote another section of that same letter.

CHAPTER AND VERSE

The Old Testament has 929 chapters and the New Testament has 260 chapters. In other words the Bible is 2/3 Jewish Scriptures and 1/3 Christian Scriptures.

As you know chapter and verse were not put into the Bible till way after the Bible was together.

Chapters were put in by the Archbishop of Canterbury around 1227.

Verses for the Jewish OT were put in by Rabbi Nathan around 1448.

Verses for the New Testament were put in by Robert Estienne in 1555.

CHERRY PICK

Some people start reading the Bible from page 1, Genesis 1: 1 - which begins “In the beginning” - Hebrew for Genesis and go from there.

I suggest you do a book at a time - starting with the Letters - and I would always suggest the Letter of James.  If something in there, doesn’t grab you, forget it.

Or just play Bible Bingo, just turn to a page and read and ponder.

Or read the scripture readings in the Missalette for the Sunday. Today’s reading from 1^st Thessalonians might get you praying about prayer, joy, gratitude, don’t quench the Spirit, test everything, do good and avoid evil.

Pick - like at a smorgasbord. Pick and choose and pick and chew and then digest.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Many Bibles have color maps.

Check them out.

Study where places are and who’s from where, and all that.

For example, Thessalonica is a port city north of modern Greece. It was also on a main Roman Road across  the Balkans. It was founded in 315 BC by Cassander - one of Alexander the Great’s generals - who named the city after his wife, the half-sister of Alexander.  It had a synagogue, something Paul looked for while traveling, but the Christian community there were mostly Gentiles.

CONCLUSION

The catholic approach is that we don’t take the Bible literally. It’s a library with all kinds of different types of literature.

So we don’t take some of the types of literature in the Bible literally, just as we don’t take little kids books literally. Snakes and donkeys talk, but in real life they don’t, but the stories have great messages.  Be careful of snakes in the grass.

There’s a lot more  that all of the above - besides how to interpret the Bible. There are different translations, geography, customs,  but that’s enough for a start.

Do self-study. Take courses. Deacon Tony Norcio gave a short course here. So too Father Joe Krastel. There is a bible study group at St. John Neumann on Monday night and I think Monday morning. Check out google and go from there. 

December 17, 2017

SURPRISES

Do you really want a straight,

flat highway from here to there?

Do you want life to be that easy?

Think about the consequences.

No mountains. No valleys. No twists

and turns. No snow. No ice. No winter.

Okay, you’ll accept some surprises.

Okay, you’ll accept bumps and potholes.

But you won’t accept accidents or tie-ups. Sorry.

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

December 16, 2017

FEET

Feet - as necessary - as important as hands….

Feet - washed by Jesus, who had the same

experience of having his feet washed and

then dried by a woman’s hair.  "Oooh nice!"

Feet - taking us everywhere along the

roads of our Palestine and the streets of our

Jericho and Jerusalem - and sometimes

we wish we could walk on water….

Feet - sometimes we’re unaware of our feet.

We stub our toes. And sometimes we’re

unaware of those who do the footwork

in our life: mail carriers, nurses, police….

Feet - sometimes we feel nailed down - 
like Jesus on the cross. We're stuck, feeling
abandoned - and we can't walk away.
We can only say, "Father forgive them...."

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

December 15, 2017

FROZEN  TUNDRA  TURF 

Hard, cold, cemetery earth,

especially in winter wind,

makes the resurrection so

much easier to believe.

Who would want to spend

earth’s eternity underground

surrounded by cement, ashes,

decaying casket and bone?

Who wouldn’t want to grab

Christ’s hand and join heaven’s

dance, the Perichoresis, with

Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Amen.

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

Perichoreis - the ancient Greek

word - that pictures God as the

God of the Dance - harmony,

music and togetherness. 

^{THE DARK NIGHT} 

^{OF  THE  SOUL}

GOSPEL: A READING FROM THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 13: 21-30

After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”

Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”

Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” 

But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. 

Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. It was night.

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Dark Night of the Soul.”

Today is the feast of St. John of the Cross [1542-1591]

He is famous for that phrase: “The Dark Night of the Soul.” 

It's the title of his treatise  [c.1583] based on his poem: Songs of the Soul Which Rejoices at Having Reached Union with God by the road of Spiritual Negation [c. 1578]

Theologians, poets, psychologists, and spiritual writers often talk about “The Dark Night of the Soul."

Napoleon talked about, “Two o’clock in the morning courage: I mean unprepared courage.” This can be found in the Memories of Napoleon written down by Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonne from the island of Saint Helene - where Napoleon was held captive. [Cf. his journal writings from December 4, 5, 1815 - in Las Cases, Memorial de Ste-Helene 1843.

Henry David Thoreau wrote about, "The Three o'clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest." That's n Walden [1854] chapter 4, Sounds.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his book, The Crack Up, "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning." [1936]

SO

So in psychology - many times in talking about depression - people feel like they are in a dark night. They can’t sleep or they are sleeping too much.

So in prayer - many people in talking about praying and spirituality - they talk about feeling bored, empty, dry, feeling like they are in a desert or having been deserted by God.

John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila - who knew each other as Carmelites - and friends - often talked about the Dark Night.

A key word one reads is, “Nada!”

They are feeling nothing when they pray - and then bringing that into her spirituality - Teresa will say, “Nada” - let nothing disturb you.

When it comes to God, they feel nothing at times. Nada. They feel like they are in the dark.

GOSPEL

I picked the gospel text I read for today from the gospel of St. John.

I was going to pick just the last 3 words, “It was night” as the reading - but I thought that could be a distraction.

John the Poet - very different from Matthew, Mark and Luke - plays on the theme of sin as darkness.

Judas by his betrayal of Jesus entered into the night - into the dark night of sin - into the dark night of the soul.

When we sin - when we betray our spouse - when we cheat - it’s hard to look the other in the eye. “It is night!”  We have eaten, bit in into the sour bread of sin - and we can’t be in communion with each other.

Paul - especially in Romans - talks about sin as darkness.

Thieves wear masks.  People going into court hide behind a coat or newspaper.

CONCLUSION

We’re heading for Christmas - the great feast of Light - especially in the Northern Hemisphere - where Christmas comes in the Darkest time of the Year.

Yet isn’t it neat to see so many lights on trees and houses - and in windows - and light in people’s eyes - as they are shopping for gifts to express their love and appreciation for the people in their lives.

December 14, 2017

DARK  NIGHT

Dark night,

needing light,

as I maneuvered my way

to the bathroom at 2:30 in the morning.

Dark night,

avoiding the light,

as I danced my way,

away from You, O God, for a thousand nights.

Dark night,

returning to the light,

as I crawled my way,

bruised and broken, back to You,  Dark God.

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017
Painting on top: Philip Koch

.

FEAST OF SAINT LUCY -
DECEMBER 13 -  

PATRON SAINT 

OF THOSE WITH BLINDNESS 

OR EYE TROUBLES

PRAYER FOR OUR EYES

Lord,

thank you for my eyes.

Help me to see clearly - 
especially in seeing the good in others.

Give me healthy eyes

and when my eyes are going bad,

help me to find 

the best medical help possible.

Amen.