And all his pomps....(and the New Year)

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The early Christians lived in a world…a culture where all sorts of evil things were going on…the gladiator games and other “spectacles” as they called them which would be quite sinful…idolatry etc. So in the baptismal rite there is the rejection of the the Devil and his “pompa”…his “pomps” …which include all these things…so the Christians would not go to these sorts of entertainments…such is still part of our life too in essence …

Now this does not mean one can not engage in any modern entertainments…but I think it does mean there are entertainments and other things that are sinful…etc which others go in for but we as Christians do not…even in the New Testament it says they are surprised that we do not go in for the things we used to…or that they do…

(yes I know there are some mixed things…things that include things that do not lead me to sin…but which if we made them we would not have them there…etc I am not saying one can never engage in any such entertainments…(one would have to judge each accordingly) (nor would I want any to “scruple”) but I think it is important to see our moral life in terms of our baptism and our baptismal promises…and in the light of the early Christian rejection of the “pompa”…and some things must be rejected per se …etc)

I think too that if one thinks about it …there are other things too…which simply are not fitting for Christians…

The early Christians still had to live in their society…but there is here I think a great way for us…who live more and more in a society that in some ways resembles theirs…

Here read this slowly to the end: vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20060108_battesimo_en.html

But I think this is a very wonderful way to look at things!

Also I suggest as a way to keep this in mind and heart…every day renewing your baptismal promises…even in a very simple way such as “Lord Jesus Christ I renew my Baptismal promises and will follow you as your disciple” (which would include of course the rejection of the Devil, and his pomps, and sin…)

With this new year…it is good time to return to our most radical “resolutions!” …and not just for a few weeks of course…like so many diets…
 
“n the ancient Church these “noes” were summed up in a phrase that was easy to understand for the people of that time: they renounced, they said, the “pompa diabuli”, that is, the promise of life in abundance, of that apparent life that seemed to come from the pagan world, from its permissiveness, from its way of living as one pleased.”
 
"It was therefore “no” to a culture of what seemed to be an abundance of life, to what in fact was an “anticulture” of death. It was “no” to those spectacles in which death, cruelty and violence had become an entertainment.

Let us remember what was organized at the Colosseum or here, in Nero’s gardens, where people were set on fire like living torches. Cruelty and violence had become a form of amusement, a true perversion of joy, of the true meaning of life.

This “pompa diabuli”, this “anticulture” of death was a corruption of joy, it was love of deceit and fraud and the abuse of the body as a commodity and a trade.

And if we think about it now, we can say that also in our time we need to say “no” to the widely prevalent culture of death.

It is an “anticulture” manifested, for example, in drugs, in the flight from reality to what is illusory, to a false happiness expressed in deceit, fraud, injustice and contempt for others, for solidarity, and for responsibility for the poor and the suffering; it is expressed in a sexuality that becomes sheer irresponsible enjoyment, that makes the human person into a “thing”, so to speak, no longer considered a person who deserves personal love which requires fidelity, but who becomes a commodity, a mere object.

Let us say “no” to this promise of apparent happiness, to this “pompa” of what may seem to be life but is in fact merely an instrument of death, and to this “anticulture”, in order to cultivate instead the culture of life. For this reason, the Christian “yes”, from ancient times to our day, is a great “yes” to life. It is our “yes” to Christ, our “yes” to the Conqueror of death and the “yes” to life in time and in eternity. "

(from Pope Benedict XVI Link above)
 
Let us say “no” to this promise of apparent happiness, to this “pompa” of what may seem to be life but is in fact merely an instrument of death, and to this “anticulture”, in order to cultivate instead the culture of life. For this reason, the Christian “yes”, from ancient times to our day, is a great “yes” to life. It is our “yes” to Christ, our “yes” to the Conqueror of death and the “yes” to life in time and in eternity.

Just as in this baptismal dialogue the “no” is expressed in three renunciations, so too the “yes” is expressed in three expressions of loyalty: “yes” to the living God, that is, a God Creator and a creating reason who gives meaning to the cosmos and to our lives; “yes” to Christ, that is, to a God who did not stay hidden but has a name, words, a body and blood; to a concrete God who gives us life and shows us the path of life; “yes” to the communion of the Church, in which Christ is the living God who enters our time, enters our profession, enters daily life.

–Pope Benedict XVI (link in first post)
 
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