Friday, December 6, 2019

On This Feast Of St Nicolas, This Must Be Repeated

Sadly, some are calling this day "punch a heretic" day.  I don't have time just now to explain all the ways this is wrong.  Suffice it to say that this flippancy is a slap in the face to the memory of St Nicolas.
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8 comments:

  1. Dennis FerraraDecember 7, 2019 at 4:32 AM

    You are way off. First of all, there is no reliable evidence that Ncholas was even at the Council of Nicea. According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, "Nicholas is linked to the Council by much later hagiographical works written over half a millennium after Nicholas died." Second, the accounts of the alleged incident do not say that he punched Arius, but that he slapped him. Third, your certitude that he 'repented' seems to be of your own invention. The life of Nicholas by one Damascenos the Monk presents the following account, which mentions those who asked for forgiveness:

    Having unstated and imprisoned him, that night Christ and the Holy Mother Theotokos appeared in prison and said: “Nicholas, why are you imprisoned?” And the saint replied: “For loving You”. Christ then said to him: “Take this,” and gave him the holy gospel; the Holy Mother Theotokos gave him the archpriestly mophorion (scapular). The next day some acquaintances of his brought him bread and they saw that he was freed of his fetters and on his shoulder he was wearing the omophorion, while reading the holy gospel he was holding in his hands. Having asked him where he found them, he told them the whole truth. Having learnt of this, the king took him out of the prison and asked for forgiveness, as did all the others. After the dissolution of the council, all the archpriests returned home, as did saint Nicholas, to his province.

    Even if he did slap Arius, your imputation to him of the sin of violemce is moralizing pushed to the extreme. Sometimes a good slap in the face is just what is needed.

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    1. Restore-DC-CatholicismDecember 7, 2019 at 7:09 AM

      That last sentence of yours.. At times I have witnessed a misbehaving child carry on in a store and I surmise that he needs a good slap. If I were to administer that slap I would be leaving the store in the back of a police cruiser, and rightly so. What I read indicates that he had remorse for stepping out of line. Had he not done so, perhaps he wouldn't have been restored. At any rate, what concerns me is the outright chortling done by otherwise good Catholics about this. I suspect that many are projecting their own frustrations onto Nicolas, actually relishing violence. There are reasons why Paul exhorted Christians to "be angry but sin not",

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    2. Restore-DC-CatholicismDecember 7, 2019 at 10:46 AM

      Dennis, your first suggestion that Nicolas wasn't there is quite plausible. That would mean that no violence occurred and more importantly that Our Lady never condoned any violence.
      As heretical as he was, Arius was still ordained. It is a sacrilege to strike an ordained person. If that doesn't apply when the aggressor is himself ordained, I would welcome feedback.

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    3. Dennis FerraraDecember 7, 2019 at 11:21 AM

      Our absurd society, which punishes parents for spanking a child while lauding monstrous evil, is not the 4th century. Things were a lot saner and more natural then. I still think you're making a mountain out of mole hill. A slap is not VIOLENCE. As for Arius, I'd have slapped him good.

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    4. Restore-DC-CatholicismDecember 7, 2019 at 11:25 AM

      The parents have the proper authority to do so. If you would have slapped Arius, you would have been guilty of sacrilege. But the larger question is, why would you have slapped him, and why are so many otherwise sensible Catholics gloating over this alleged action of Nicolas?

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  2. Dennis FerraraDecember 7, 2019 at 11:37 AM

    He needed it. We are not going to agree over this.

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    1. Restore-DC-CatholicismDecember 7, 2019 at 6:10 PM

      I don't think so. No one needs to have son committed against them.

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  3. Dennis FerraraDecember 7, 2019 at 12:19 PM

    Also, I don't think the relevant canon was in effect in the 4th century, so sacrilege is not in play. Some historical perspective is needed. Remember, men were hung for stealing horses in the Old West. Saying this doesn't lessen Bergoglio's arrogance and heresy about the death penalty, of course.

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