FRIDAY POTPOURRI: NUMBER ONE AMONG NUMBER ONES

Among super important things, there are some things that are super-duper important.

 

There are four painting hanging in the rectory.  They are not great paintings.  They are probably mass produced by the square inch type paintings.  They are also not in tip top shape.  In fact, they were slated to be burned.  As parishes were closed in the diocese these paintings ended up in a warehouse and they were deemed so damaged as to be worthless.  Ever the good Slovenian I said, “I’ll take them and hang them in my dining room where it is so dark nobody will notice they are not in great shape.”

Score!  And so there they hang; one painting each of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are in the dining room and John, after whom I was named, hangs in my office across the hall.  The synoptic are hanging out together eating and John is doing his own thing in exile.  Seems fitting somehow. 

 

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the Vatican II documents want to hold up the inspiration and importance of all the Scriptures, Old as well as New.  (Kind of ironic to call something 2000 years old new isn’t it?)  But as important as all of Scripture is, the four Gospels have place of pride, are the crowning jewel, are the heart of it all, for in them those who lived with Christ, who were charged by him to preach, did then, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, write those things down.  (Jesus did not hand the disciples a book before His ascension into heaven.)  By this they are our primary source of knowledge of the life and teaching of our Savior.