What is the Type Scene? Type Scene is a kind of literary technique that many ancient authors used in their literature. They used in works where the particular scene has the same feature or pattern all over his works. For example, the films of James Cameroon have some garden-type scenes. There was a recent study on type seen and they discovered in the bible there are a number of type-scenes present; betrothal-type scenes, dream type-scenes, banquet type-scenes and et cetera. Annunciation is one of the type scene event. 

If the authors wanted to narrate the story of a legend, they speak about the nation which was under slavery and people were suffering, God choose a poor family and there is a barren lady in that family.  The angel of God was sent to her and announces god's message about the birth of a legend, initially, she does not receive the message then she receives and the birth takes place. This is called the annunciation type seen in the bible. 

There are three annunciation-type scenes: The birth of Samson, the birth of John the Baptist and the birth of Jesus. There are many similarities between these three, but Mary's YES was unique and different compared to other scenes. Manoah's wife (mother of Samson) had also pronounced yes but a different kind that of criticizing and demanding YES. He was dependent to Manoah, her husband. Zachariah did not tell yes directly but with the heart of a high priest. But Mary had the heart of the humble immaculate lady.  innocent question. God wants us to express our honesty. God with hold the heart of a priest of a Leader Be simple and fight your ego every day.

Bring a sacrifice to the Lord

"…when a man among you brings a sacrifice to the Lord…"—Leviticus 1:2

We are beginning the book of Leviticus this week. The word Leviticus means “of the Levites.” The name makes sense considering that the book is primarily focused on the service in the Temple or the Biblical laws of purity and impurity.

Today though, the Levites are for the most part unemployed!

The Second Temple was destroyed in the year 70 CE and hence the end of the sacrificial system which was a central feature of the Temple.

Jews today pray three times a day paralleling the morning offering, the afternoon offering and the burning of the remains of the offering in the evening.

Substituting prayer for sacrifice is explicitly written in the book of Hosea where it says “…we will render for bulls the offering of our lips” (Hosea 14:3)

The English word sacrifice means that you are giving up something that has some level of value to you often in exchange for something else or for a higher value. For example, you may sacrifice your time for a friend or you may sacrifice your money for a good cause.

When we think of sacrifice in the context of the Temple, we think of the offering of an animal or in some cases vegetarian offerings.

In order to understand what the sacrifices in the Temple meant, we need to look at the Hebrew word used. The Hebrew word commonly translated as a sacrifice is “korban.”

The root of the word korban means “to come close.” It does not mean to sacrifice. When a person would bring any kind of offering in the Temple, and there were many, the goal was always the same—to get closer to God.

Whether it was a voluntary offering, holiday offering, peace offering, Nazirite offering, sin offering—what they all had in common was that it was a means to help us get closer to God.

The bringing of the offering was not an end in and of itself. This is a common misunderstanding of what a korban is. It is not a magic trick that somehow offering an animal in the Temple will affect an outcome automatically. The korban was the culmination of all the inner work that a person would do and it was a reflection of that.

Think of it this way. A person invests time and energy into a project and then makes a party to celebrate the completion of the project. The korban is the completion of the project–of all the inner, spiritual work that is invested to get closer to God. The korban is the celebration of the end of the process.

Thanks: Rabbi Moshe, weekly devotional

LIFE OF JOSEPH FORESHADOWING LIFE OF JESUS

God loves the man and he offers his beloved son for us every day in the Eucharist. The sacrifice at the Cross was a visible sign of invisible mercy we experience every day.

In the first reading, we see how Israel loved his last son, he was the son he had in advanced age. He knew that he would not generate again and this last child was like a closing life legacy to the world. This son was his last love in the life. Many times we were told that Joseph is a figure of Jesus, sold and abandoned. Every detail of the story of Joseph matches the life of Jesus. Even his being cast in a well, is very similar to the place where Jesus was held during the night before coming in front of Pilatus. Jesus is also God’s only begotten, the last son of the alliance. God sent many prophets to the people of Israel to call His people back from sin, but their ears were always deaf, or their hearts were attached to wealth and sin. Jesus narrates about the vineyard slaves who kill the legal son thinking how to solve the problem of the vineyard and keep it. Jesus hits the nerve of the Pharisees and priests because that is their thought precisely. How can they keep their positions and wealth, love of the people and well-being? The exact thought also of Joseph’s brothers. 

Do we sell our brothers and sisters to be well-off ourselves? Are we ready to throw them away because of our ideas and positions? Do we sometimes look at a person with disgust and rejection because it is more loved in our eyes by God or by other people? One can kill not only with weapons but more often by envy, hatred, prejudice and haughtiness. 

This Lenten time is a good moment to look for our Josephs in the wells where we threw them and give a hand of reconciliation. Though God can save his son from any evil and let come good out of evil, we should never find ourselves dirty with the blood and tears of our brothers and sisters. God will know what is hidden and as in the story of Joseph, God will bless his sufferings but with what face and courage can we appear in front of God and face his wrath if we abandoned our youngest and smallest brothers in Christ?

Let us use this Lenten time for reconciliation and love....

Thanks: Zeljka