Jezebel, Elijah, and the Lord Almighty

Elijah had engaged in a contest with the prophets of Baal, built an altar, made the offering and doused it thoroughly with water, called down fire from God.  The sacrifice, the altar, and the water were consumed.  Elijah slew 400 prophets of Baal.

Jezebel sent word to Elijah that she would do to him as he had done to the prophets.

He ran.

Skipping way ahead (catch up by reading I Kings 19), we hear the Lord telling Elijah, "Go stand on the mountain, for the Lord will pass by."

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. ¹³ When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

 Then the Lord gave Elijah instructions.

How often do we expect the Lord to respond to our prayers in a spectacular way, in a mighty wind, so to speak?  How often do we sit awaiting an earthquake to move us to action?  Neither was the directive of the Lord in the fire, but in a gentle whisper!

Are we attuned to the Lord such that we can hear his whisper?

Do we respond in obeisance and obedience?

Fishy? I Think Not #T

[Somewhat over a year ago, due to failure of proper functioning of String Too Short to Tie, I transported STSTT over to Bob Warr's blog for a few weeks.  Most of the faithful followers came along, so for them this is rehash.  But I thought there might be some who missed it then and would enjoy it now.]

I wish to express my appreciation to Bob Warr for allowing  me to  use his blog as a platform for my posts for an undetermined length of time.  Thanks, Bob.

Sincerely,

vanilla

STRING TOO SHORT TO TIE 

Disclaimer: This article is for entertainment purposes only. It is not a theological treatise, nor is its intent to make fun of anyone’s practice of faith.

Fish on Friday

We protestants who lived north of the Arkansas River chided (read: made fun of) our Catholic friends who would drive south of the river on Fridays to partake of their evening meal, for there they felt free of conscience to eat red meat. It was widely believed that Catholics were to abstain from meat on Fridays as an integral part of the practice of their faith. Failure to do so made the offender a sinner in the eyes of fellow Catholics and a hypocrite in the eyes of the protestants.

The trip across the river had its roots in some medieval history. Because of their service in the Crusades, Pope Urban II granted a dispensation to Spanish counts allowing them relief from the meatless Friday rule. In 1571, Pope Pius V extended the dispensation to all lands under Spanish rule. Hence, Spain’s colonies in the New World were excepted.¹ Even though Spain had long since lost her rule in the New World and even through domination by various peoples and right on into the twentieth century American world in which I lived, the observance continued in those geographical areas originally dominated by Spain. In the West, the northern boundary of Mexico was the Arkansas River, and hence the Catholics of Texas, New Mexico, and a portion of southern Colorado considered themselves under the dispensation of Pope Pius V.

In 1951, the faithful in the area were advised that indeed they should follow the practice of abstinence from meat on Fridays, along with the rest of the Catholic world. Much confusion exists to this day, and Catholics generally believe that to eat meat on Friday is not sinful, but that Friday should be a day of penance as clarified by the Holy See in 1966.²

¹Michael P. Foley, Fish on Friday: The One that Got Away, Musings of a Pertinacious Papist, December 30, 2010.

²ibid.