Pensieves
Episcopal News Service. May 13, 1982 [82124]
The Ven. Erwin M. Soukup, Editor of Advance, Diocese of Chicago
Nowhere in the Four Gospels will you find the words, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." We have St. Paul's testimony for it, but even he could have heard the words only from someone who had accompanied the Lord. Our impulse would be to turn to the Sermon on the Mount to find the phrase, but it's not recorded there. Incidentally, the Sermon on the Mount is never identified as such in Holy Scripture. That's a name we have given it. Just to keep the record straight.
The prophet Ezekiel began his account with reports of a fantastic vision involving four-faced creatures, wheels in the middle of wheels and a multi-media display. Some guesses about what the prophet saw have included UFO sightings, ordinary hallucinations or perhaps extra-sensory perception. This writer has always assumed it was a metaphorical treatment of how religious organizations function.
It's out now. Robert Jones, III, president of Bob Jones University, recently called upon God to condemn Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr., beseeching God to "Smite him, hip and thigh, bone and marrow, heart and lungs, and all there is to him, that he shall destroy him quickly and utterly." Doesn't matter how you feel about Secretary Haig as long as you keep in mind that Tertullian said in the second century A.D.: "See how these Christians love one another"!
Spiderman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Peanuts move over. Pope John Paul II will be the subject of a newsprint booklet, similar to a comic book which depicts the life of the Polish-born pontiff. The Pope himself authorized the project, saying to his biographer, "I like comics. It is a good medium for teaching kids." The 64-page comic book will sell for $1.50 and will be available late in the Spring. Will the Archbishop of Canterbury be far behind? Or, with English reserve, will he consider it "not quite the thing to do"?
The thing that keeps this department relatively sane is to remember what C. S. Lewis said about laughing at one's self: It is functionally the closest thing to true repentance.