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Smoke Signals: Electing a New Pope

white smoke

Rite, Ritual, and Tradition – Knock Three Times

Secret ballots. Black and white smoke. Tapping the forehead of the dead pope with a hammer three times. There are many elaborate rites and traditions involved when electing a new pope, some dating from the Middle Ages, others as modern as sweeping the Vatican buildings for electronic listening devices.

Vote Or Starve

Back in the 13th century it took almost three years to install a new pope. After the death of Pope Clement IV, who died in 1268, church officials became involved in a bitter political struggle and many refused to vote. Finally, in effort to break the stalemate, the cardinals were fed only bread and water. The roof of the building they were staying in was removed. The desperate measures worked, because a new pope was soon elected.

 

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The Three Advents

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)In one of the chapters in Seasons of Celebration, Thomas Merton reflects upon “The Sacrament of Advent in the Spirituality of St. Bernard.”

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), from a noble family in the French province of Burgundy, became a monk at the monastery of Cîteaux, which had been established in 1098 with a mission to restore the Rule of St. Benedict. (He thus formed part of the original Cistercian order to which Merton belonged centuries later.) In a few years, Bernard moved to found a new house, Clairvaux Abbey, and his name has been associated with it ever since. Bernard was noted for his personal charisma, homilies, and literary gifts. His profound influence is seen in the fact that he personally saw to the establishment of sixty-five of the three hundred Cistercian monasteries founded during his thirty-eight years as abbot.

In his writings on Advent, Bernard emphasized that there are, in fact, three Advents to keep in mind.

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Tanakh

TanakhThe Jewish Bible, or Tanakh, has three sections: Torah, Prophets, and Writings.

Tanakh is the Jewish name for the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament. The word itself is an acronym standing for three words: Torah (the Pentateuch), Nevi’im (Prophets, pronounced n’-vee-eem), and Ketuvim (Writings, pronounced k’-tu-veem). The last two sections, Nevi’im and Ketuvim, can be called Nakh, but this term is primarily used in religious Jewish circles.

Although the contents of the Tanakh are identical to the contents of the Old Testament, the books are organized differently, following slightly different conceptual lines. The order of the books that is familiar to most Christian readers follows the Septuagint tradition and is divided as follows: Law (the five books of Moses); History (Joshua-Esther); Poetry and Wisdom (Job-Song of Solomon) and Prophets (Isaiah-Malachi, including Daniel and Lamentations).

The order of the biblical books in the Tanakh is broken down into three main categories:

TanakhTorah: The five books of Moses; this is identical to the “Old Testament” order, but the books are named after the opening word of each book, and so Genesis is Bereshit, pronounced b’-rey-sheet; Exodus is Shemot, pronounced shey-moht, taken from the second word of the text, names; Leviticus is Vayikra, pronounced, va-yik-rah; Numbers is Bamidbar, pronounced bah-mid-bar; and Deuteronomy is Debarim, pronounced d’-vah-reem, taken from the second word of the text, words. For more discussion of the term Torah, see #5.

Prophets: This section is divided into the “Former Prophets”—referring to Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings, based on the belief that these books were all written by prophets—and the “Latter Prophets”—referring to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea-Malachi, called “The Twelve.”

Writings: This includes all the remaining books, generally in the following order: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon (normally called “Song of Songs,” and based on the opening verse), Ecclesiastes (normally called Koheleth, meaning “the preacher” or “convener,” based on the opening verse), Lamentations (called Eichah, meaning “how, alas” which is the opening word of the book), Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and 1-2 Chronicles.

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