Sunday, January 3, 2010

Epiphany at My Latin Mass

I forgot to write about my Latin mass! Today, we had the priest who speaks about love. He was talking about how we shouldn't abuse God's name, and that there's power in calling it. After all, when we hear somebody call our name, that gets our attention. And he said that Jesus is in heaven with a glorified body of flesh.

This sermon didn't speak to me a great deal. His emphasis on calling God's name somewhat reminded me of sacred name groups, which assert that God only responds when he's addressed by his name, "Yahweh." I also didn't know what his point was about the power of calling the name of the LORD and not abusing it. I've heard that the Jews eventually forbade the use of the name, "Yahweh," because they were afraid that people would try to control God with it. (I remember Jon Levenson saying, however, that they didn't want it to become cheapened.) But I doubt that the priest believes this way (namely, that God can be manipulated with a word)!

On Jesus' present body, I guess it's orthodox to believe that Jesus has a body of glorified flesh, even right now. I thought I read in my patristics readings, however, that some thought we'd rise with a flesh body and then receive a glorified spiritual body. I'm a little hazy on the details, though.

I got a little more out of the church bulletin, which said that today is Epiphany, which commemorates the coming of the Magi to see Jesus. That was when Jesus was first exposed to the world, which is why the day is called "Epiphany."

Happy Epiphany!