From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The food that makes us live forever   
      
   When we receive from the Lord's table we unite ourselves to Jesus   
   Christ, who makes us sharers in his body and blood and partakers of   
   his divine life. Ignatius of Antioch (35-107 A.D.), an early church   
   father and martyr, calls it the "one bread that provides the medicine   
   of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us   
   live for ever in Jesus Christ" (Ad Eph. 20,2). This supernatural food   
   is healing for both body and soul and strength for our journey   
   heavenward.   
      
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   24 April - St. Mary "of Cleophas"   
   Also known as Mary of Clopas   
      
   Memorials   
   24 April   
   9 April (Armenian calendar; Catholic prior to 2001)   
   23 May (Orthodox calendar)   
   3 August (Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod calendar)   
      
   "And there were standing by the cross of Jesus His mother and His   
   mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen." How should we   
   understand "His mother's sister," literally, as in having the same   
   parents, or in the same sense that Jesus' "brothers" are to be   
   understood as close relatives?   
      
   The short answer is that Mary of Cleophas is probably the Blessed   
   Virgin's sister-in-law. Mary of Cleophas may have had a previous   
   husband named Alpheus, or this Alpheus may have been Cleophas. The   
   Blessed Virgin Mary, of course, only had one husband (Joseph) and   
   remained a virgin. The long answer follows.   
      
   Jesus' relatives   
      
   Reading the Bible, we find that Jesus had brethren named James,   
   Joseph, Simon (Simeon) and Jude (Mt 13:55). We also know that His   
   mother Mary had a "sister" called Mary. This other Mary in turn had a   
   husband named Cleophas (Jn 19:25). I hope here to summarize and   
   untangle this maze of relatives.   
      
   First, let us see what the Gospels tell us. At the death of Jesus, we   
   are told that Mary, wife of Cleophas/Clopas (Jn 19:25) was present. She   
   was described as the mother of James and Joseph (Mt 27:56) in one   
   account, and mother of James the Less and Joses in another (Mk 15:40).   
   On the other hand, James is described as the son of Alphaeus in the   
   synoptic Gospels' listing of the Apostles (Mt 10:3, Mk 3:18, Lk 6:15).   
   We can infer that Mary wife of Cleophas is unlikely to be a true   
   sister of the Virgin Mary, since they bear the same name. However,   
   they are related in some way. This parallels the semitic use of   
   "brother" in relating James to Jesus.   
      
   An ancient historian named Hegesippus can shed further light. A native   
   of Palestine, Hegesippus finished his Memoirs in the reign of Pope   
   Eleutherius (AD 175-189) when he was an old man. He draws his   
   information from personal sources, as he was able to question some   
   surviving members of Jesus' family. Hegesippus can tell us that:   
      
   "After the martyrdom of James, it was unanimously decided that Simeon,   
   son of Clopas, was worthy to occupy the see of Jerusalem. He was, it   
   is said, a cousin of the Saviour;" Hegesippus recounts in fact that   
   Clopas was a brother of Joseph (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III, 11).   
      
   St. Epiphanius (Haer., LXXVII, 7) says the same and adds (ibid., 14)   
   "that this Simeon, the son of Clopas, was a cousin of James the Just,"   
   as Hegesippus says in another passage. (Prat, Jesus Christ, p. 505).   
      
   Cleophas is the brother of Joseph (Jesus' adopted father). It follows   
   that Cleophas' wife Mary is the Virgin Mary's sister in law, which   
   explains why they can have the same name and are called sisters. It   
   also follows that James is Jesus' cousin. Ferdinand Prat reasons:   
      
   "We know, then that the mother of two of the brothers of the Lord was   
   Mary of Cleophas, the sister of the Blessed Virgin. We also know that   
   Cleophas, St Joseph's brother, was the father of a third, called Simon   
   or Simeon. Since the remaining one, Jude, is always connected with   
   Simon and is, like him, part of the family of David, it is natural to   
   suppose that he was also a son of Cleophas.   
      
   All the points that remain obscure would be cleared up, in our   
   opinion, if two hypotheses are risked. Mary, the sister of the Blessed   
   Virgin, having two sons, James and Joseph, by a first marriage, was   
   married a second time to Cleophas, brother of St. Joseph, who also had   
   two sons, Simon and Jude, by a former marriage. In light of the   
   customs of the country and the age, there was nothing extraordinary in   
   the marriage of a widow and a widower, each with children. The second   
   hypothesis is that the sister of the Blessed Virgin had as her first   
   husband a man of the tribe of Levi, called Alpheus.   
      
   In this fashion nine or ten problems would be solved. Thus one could   
   explain why James, Joseph, Simon and Jude are always named in that   
   order, as brethren of the Lord; why James and Joseph are a pair   
   distinct from Simon and Jude; why Mary, sister of the Blessed Virgin,   
   is called the mother of James and Joseph and not the mother of Simon   
   and Jude; why, according to Hegesippus, Simon and not James is the son   
   of Cleophas; why, again according to Hegesippus, Simon and Jude are of   
   the family of David; why, according to tradition, James was of   
   sacerdotal ancestry; why the common opinion of Catholics identifies   
   James, son of Mary, sister of the Blessed Virgin, with James the   
   Apostle, the son of Alpheus; why Mary of Cleophas is called in the   
   Gospel sister of the Blessed Virgin, when she was really her   
   sister-in-law, being the wife of St. Joseph's brother; finally, why,   
   after the deaths of Joseph and Cleophas, the two sisters brought their   
   families together, so that thereafter the two families seemed to be   
   but one." (Prat, Jesus Christ, p. 136-137).   
      
   We do not hear of Cleophas or Joseph (Jesus' adopted father) in the   
   Gospels during Jesus' adult life. We can imagine that after their   
   deaths, the two families--deprived of their protectors and heads--came   
   together under one roof. This would further strengthen their ties: the   
   two Marys as "sisters" and Jesus and His cousins as "brothers". Gospel   
   and tradition kept these names without denying Mary's perpetual   
   virginity.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   One must pass through the desert and spend some time there in order to   
   receive the grace of God; it is there that one empties oneself, that   
   one drives away from oneself everything which is not God and that one   
   empties completely the house of one's soul in order to leave all of it   
   to God alone.   
   --Blessed Charles de Foucald   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    And he said to his disciples: It is impossible that scandals should   
   not come. But woe to him through whom they come! It were better for   
   him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the   
   sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones.  [Luk   
   17:1-2] DRB   
      
      
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)