- Luke 8:18 and James 1:22-25 -
"Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be
given
more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from
him."
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what
it
says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like
a man
who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away
and
immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently
into the
perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting
what he
has heard, but doing itÑhe will be blessed in what he does.
__________________________________________________________________________
Applying God's Word helps us grow. This is a principle of growth in
phyisical,
mental and spiritual life. For example, a muscle, when exercised, will
grow
stronger, but an unused muscle will grow weak and flabby. If you are not
growing
stronger, you are growing weaker; it is impossible for you to stand still.
How
are you using what God has taught you?
<<>><<>><<>>
January 16th - St. James of Tarentaise
St. James, a noble knight of Syria, served the King of Persia in the 5th
century.
One day, present at the martyrdom of some Catholics, he converted. He went
to
the West, entered the priesthood and was consecrated Bishop. He was sent
to the
region of the Alps where the inhabitants were descendants of rough
barbarian
bands of Gaul who had fought against the Romans. Although the village of
Tarentaise had been Christianized through the neighboring cities Arns and
Lyons,
it had happened there, as in so many other regions of Gaul, that the first
preaching had been drowned by the flood of barbarians who continued to
cross the
Alps.
Even though they were pagan, the people of Tarentaise received the new
Bishop
with fervor. After his first sermon, the peasants knelt at his feet and
asked
for Baptism. St. James, pleased to have found a faithful people, commenced
the
construction of a church. For that purpose, he sent men to cut wood in the
great
forests. These large trunks were dragged to the building site by oxen.
One tale recounts that on a certain day a large bear came out of the
woods,
attacked and killed one of the oxen, and began to devour it. The fearful
workers
ran to the Saint to tell him what had happened.
St. James approached the beast and said:
"I, James, servant of Christ, order you, o repulsive and untamed beast, to
bow
down your savage head in the name of the Lord. I order you to continue the
work
you have just interrupted and to take the place of the ox you have
killed." As
soon as he stopped speaking, the bear bowed his head to receive the yoke
of the
ox. St. James himself harnessed him to the cart. The people watched this
spectacle in astonishment. When the moment came to release the bear, some
of the
young men were fearful and wanted to kill it. But the Saint prevented
this.
Again he approached the bear and ordered the beast to return to the forest
and
never again to repeat such an act in the village of Tarentaise.
After that Saint James finished the building of the church, which he
dedicated
to St. Stephen, the first martyr.
Comments of the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: (died 1995)
One can see the ways of Providence that demonstrates itself in various
ways in
this story. The miracle recounted here is so simple and folksy in
character that
if it were not a work of God, one would be inclined to smile, for it has
the
same candor and simplicity of the peasants for which it was made.
So, to move those peasants of Switzerland, God used a simple way to show
Himself. You can imagine that those good and semi-barbarian Alpine
peasants of
that time were deeply impressed by such a simple and attention-getting
incident
which did not demand any complex twists and turns of mind to reach the
conclusion. The episode, like the people, went straight to the point. This
is
what one can see here.
Providence deals with each people according to its psychology. The
parables
related in the Gospel were also adapted to the simplicity of that people -
even
though the simplicity of the Jewish people was not the same as that of the
Swiss
people of the 5th century. The result is that the parables of the Gospel
are
much richer in meaning. One needs to consider that while the Gospel
parables
were immediately directed to the Jewish people, they were also remotely
directed
to all peoples of all times, all the sons of God. Because of that, they
can be
understood on many levels. But this last characteristic does not impede
them
from being firstly parables for the people.
Here, the miracle that is related seems to be an authentic historic fact
and
also has the significance of a parable. The miracle described is easy to
understand. It is related to the building of a church, a public work made
in
common. Instead of collecting taxes from the people, the authorities of
that
time used to ask them to help to build public works. So it was the custom
for
persons to come together for a work like this.
You can imagine the Swiss people of that time working together to build a
church
and using oxen to trans****t materials from the forest to the clearing. The
oxen
would drag heavy logs of huge pine trees from the virgin forests to the
site
where the church was being erected. Those forests were also teeming with
wild,
ferocious animals. Among them, bears.
It is not difficult to imagine the beautiful scene at the foot of a
mountain
full of pine trees with snow still clinging to their branches. Some of the
pine
trees had already been cut down, and were being readied to take to the
site
where the church was already beginning to rise. Peasants were driving oxen
bearing tree trunks up the mountain to that site. The Saint was directing
the
work, which was conducted in an ambience of recollection and piety, with
the
purity and uprightness of the Swiss nature. Breaking the silence was the
voice
of the Saint giving directives, the grunting of the oxen, and muffled
words of
the peasants in their rough hide coverings talking here and there.
From this calm, the mood suddenly changed to terror. A huge bear emerged
from
the forest, like a devil. It threw itself on an ox. You can see that the
peasants did not put up any resistance. The text does not speak of any
reaction.
They were paralyzed. That is, the entrance of the bear and the killing of
the ox
caused a terrible fear. Most probably the peasants who were there gave
thanks to
God that the bear had only attacked an ox, and not a man. Probably they
were
ready to flee, but instead they turned to the Saint, through whom the
voice of
Providence spoke for this people, with the thought that he could remedy
the
situation.
At this point in the narrative, one might expect the story to come to the
classic ending. The Saint would give a blessing to the bear, and the bear
would
return meekly to the forest. The Saint would put his hand over the ox, and
the
ox would be revived and return to work. This would be the classic style,
but
this was not what happened.
We are in the early Middle Ages, a time that Our Lady adorned with the
charisma
of the fight. The problem is not resolved by a blessing, but by an
imperious
order:
"You, o bear, agent of the devil, adverse factor of a nature that became
hostile
to man after original sin, by an order of God and of this servant of God,
you
must serve. Come here."
And the bear docilely obeyed. He approached, and bent his head to receive
the
yoke of the ox on his neck.
"And now, you will be harnessed, and you will work."
You can well imagine the astonishment of those peasants when they saw the
bear
obeying these orders docilely. Certainly those peasants at times had felt
interior revolts against the directives of the Saint. So, when they saw
the
docility of the bear, they could have imagined that the Saint might know
of
those revolts and send the bear against them. They probably took some care
to
keep their distance and not work too close to it. Thus, while they
accepted the
bear's collaboration in the work, they still had not dropped their strong
suspicions against it.
When the work was finished, would the bear return to its normal ferocity?
Some
of the men had their fears that it might, and thought that it would be
better to
kill it. Perhaps one was seeking his own benefit and wanted to sell the
skin,
another wanted the meat, even though it would probably be tough. They
wanted to
kill the bear.
The Saint displayed an extraordinary delicacy. Even if the bear was an
animal
without rights, it had collaborated in the building of the church. For
this
reason, it became an object of the goodness of the Saint. The Saint, then,
protected the bear and sent it back alive to the forest.
The church was finished and dedicated to the great St. Stephen, the first
martyr, a perfect ending to the story.
This episode serves to trans****t us to those innocent beginnings of the
Middle
Ages when such a special presence of the supernatural existed among the
simple
people.
Saint Quote:
Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a
medicine for
salvation, not a punishment for damnation.
--Saint Augustine
Bible Quote:
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to
reserve the
unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. (2 Peter 2:9)
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