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Old Timer wrote:
We ended by talking about the symbolism of a funeral celebration of someone’s life and death – how we all gather as family and friends to honor that person and, when s/he was a good person, vowing to be like him or her. I said how much I love the symbol of the funeral altar where the body and blood of the deceased rests symbolically – and reiterated how much I respect the Catholic view that we have made completely symbolic.
That’s a good point.
Symbolism can be used in many ways.
Wine symbolizes the blood of Christ.
Switch to water.
Water symbolizes the purity through the blood of Christ.
Either/both work, as one example of multiple ways to view things.
I like the point to be respectful to Catholic symbols, and avoid the bashing or perhaps subtle messages of our symbolism is better or the right way to do it. It is all symbols. The key is the message behind the symbols.
My husband taught this lesson and he mainly focused on the two sacrament prayers and analyzed them like puzzles with the class. They went into the differences between the two prayers (for example: how the wine prayer mainly focuses on doing things and the bread prayer mainly focuses on us being willing to do things). It was fun stuff to think about while he was giving me his practice lesson the night before. He also went into what taking Christ’s name upon ourselves could mean. He went into other ideas rather than the typical ones. He looked up the original meaning of Christ’s name and it meant something along the lines of salvation, a saving grace, my help etc. So he was brainstorming that maybe it meant something like when we take Christ’s name upon ourselves, we can become a saving grace for other people or ourselves. Whenever we pray we say ‘in the name of Jesus Christ’. So his thought was maybe that’s a way for us to be other’s saving graces, or even our own if we pray for help for ourselves, through his name. We can only help others and ourselves to a certain extent so maybe by taking upon ourselves Christ’s name, we can help others and ourselves, through him. Hopefully that made sense. He explained it much better than I am. But yeah, it was interesting to hear his ideas. Always Thinking wrote:He looked up the original meaning of Christ’s name and it meant something along the lines of salvation, a saving grace, my help etc. So he was brainstorming that maybe it meant something like when we take Christ’s name upon ourselves, we can become a saving grace for other people or ourselves.
I like exploring thoughts about what it means to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ; not just Jesus or Christ but Jesus Christ.
Jesus: a common name at the time, he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. Christ: anointed one, a king chosen by god, a deliverer, a savior. There’s symbolism in the name itself. Taken together: common man anointed by god.
When we take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ it is a reflection of how god can take the common person and anoint them to be a deliverer, a savior, a king or queen. Being born again spiritually makes us half divine, having earthly parents and heavenly parents just like Jesus.
Sometimes I like to entertain thoughts that the true gift that Christ gave us was the ability to see what we already possess. Neither shall we say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of god is within us.
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