The Kid Sister of Blessed Imelda

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The children and I attended the 7 pm Mass for Ash Wednesday as I was scheduled to serve as Eucharistic Minister.  (Husband stayed home as he isn't well.) After I received my ashes I returned to my seat in time to see my youngest, Sunshine (dd 8 yrs) turn and apply ashes to her sister Cricket (dd 9 yrs). As I meditated on the Lenten journey we are beginning, the knowledge suddenly broke over me that the journey ended with Easter and the penitential mood of my heart exploded suddenly into a sunny joy. 

I can just hear you now... duh?!?!?! (of course Lent ends in Easter)

So why did this knowledge break with a special joy over and beyond the usual appreciation of Easter?  This Easter I will be spending far from home as my best friend and I go to see a mutual dear friend and her family received into the Church.  The thought of these precious ones and others who will also be reconciling to the Church this Easter brings such a deep joy... It is the nature of this Treasure that one doesn't feel the urge to hoard.  There is enough for all to feast at the Table for the rest of our lives and never see the grain of the wood.  The nature of this Treasure is quite the different sort to the greedy, selfish competitive pushing and shoving inspired by any earthly wealth. The nature of this Treasure rejoices in sharing, rejoices in the discovery by another of the same Pearl of Great Price. 

So as I enter the desert of Lent, striving to imitate my Lord... It is with a new understanding of how He must have entered the desert as well... for as surely as I look forward to the joy of the Easter Resurrection and new unity with Him, so must He have done...  What a thought!  What a LOVE! What a JOY! It is this that we are invited to join and in this is embedded the understanding that suffering is JOY because of what it brings!  When suffering is become joy, it has no more sting, it has no more power... because it is suffused and consumed with something greater... and we are set free by joining Him there.

Went to confession on Saturday... the weather was still pretty bad and I have a feeling I'm the only one he saw.  I've enjoyed reading the perspective of Father Longenecker on the 'priestly' side of confession and find that a source of joy and comfort. However, after I spent some time in prayer and was leaving the sanctuary I caught a glimpse of Father through the open door to the confessional.  He was sitting in his chair but leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.  Certainly, it appeared a prayerful pose but also a bit of a melancholy one and I couldn't help but wonder if my confession (fairly run of the mill and certainly nothing very exciting... I am just a homeschooling housewife after all... and nothing like the silly women on that Desperate Housewives show I see advertised) had somehow been burdensome to him. Not JUST mine of course, I began to wonder about confessions in general.  Father Longenecker's posts have gone a long way to put such a notion to rest and still I wonder. Perhaps after many years of hearing confessions, do our confessions burden our confessor? 

Yet again from Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master by Lawrence S. Cunningham 

The basic sin, for Christianity, is rejecting others in order to choose oneself, deciding against others and deciding for oneself.  Why is this sin so basic? Because the idea that you can choose yourself, approve yourself, and then offer yourself (fully "chosen" and "approved") to God, applies the assertion of yourself over against God.  From this root of error comes all the sour leafage and fruitage of a life of self-examination, interminable problems and unending decisions, always making right choices, walking on the razor edge of an impossibly subtle ethic (with an equally subtle psychology to take care of the unconscious). All this implies the frenzied conviction that one can be his own light and his own justification, and that God is there for a purpose: to issue the stamp of confirmation upon my own rightness. In such a religion the Cross becomes meaningless except as the (blasphemous) certification that because you suffer, because you are misunderstood, you are justified twice over - you are a martyr. Martyr means witness. You are then a witness? To what? To your own infallible light and your own justice, which you have chosen.

This is the exact opposite of everything Jesus ever did or taught.

Lo, there do I see my father...

Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sister, and my brothers...

Lo, there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning...

Lo, they do call to me...

They bid me take my place among them in the halls of heaven...

With all the martyrs, the angels, and the saints, they live forever in the Presence of God.

~ Adapted from The 13th Warrior

Again quoting from Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master by Lawrence S. Cunningham... 

Saints of the fifteenth century. In the collapse of medieval society, amid the corruption of the clergy and the decadence of conventual life, there arose men and women of the laity who were perfectly obedient to God. Nicholas of Flue, for instance, and Joan of Arc. They were simple and straight forward signs of contradiction in the middle of worldliness, prejudice, cruelty, despair, and greed. They were not rebels at all. They were meek and submissive instruments of God who, while being completely opposed to the corrupt norms around them, gave every man and every authority his due.  They show clearly and convincingly what it is to be not a rebel, but obedient to God as a sign to men - a sign of mercy, a revelation of truth and power. We are spontaneously drawn to these signs of God with all the love of our hearts.  We naturally trust them, believe in their intercession, knowing that they live on in the glory of God and that God would not give us such love for them if they were not still "sacraments" of His mercy to us.

Saints and our relationship with them has been a great treasure to me as a new Catholic.  How often I  have looked at the current 'heroes' and role models of our culture and thought that for the most part they are absolutely NOT what I want for my children to emulate... but where WERE all the good ones?  Where were all the REAL heroes? The men and women who did truly great things with more lasting effect than the 'Hail Mary' touchdown.  They were missing in action... or so I thought.

The truth is that they've always been there... silent witnesses who still inspired and reached millions of people.  I just didn't have access to them, didn't know about them... because I was raised protestant.  The communion of saints, despite being in the Creeds to which most Christians at least nod if not actually adhere, was yet another Truth, another blessing, another grace which protestantism had stripped away from the fullness of the Faith. 

These saints live still... they are the Church Triumphant, the Church who has been perfected and dwell with the Lord having completed their race... and they are our cloud of witnesses who cheer us, the Church Militant, on in ours, interceding for us to the Father of us all.  We do not idolize them anymore than we idolize our brothers and sisters in Christ here on earth. We do not worship them any more than we worship a beloved sister or brother here on earth.  Rather, together as the complete Body of Christ we worship God together, and intercede for one another.

Ps. 103:20–22 Bless the LORD, all you angels, mighty in strength and attentive, obedient to every command. Bless the LORD, all you hosts, ministers who do God's will. Bless the LORD, all creatures, everywhere in God's domain. Bless the LORD, my soul!

Psalms 148: 1-2 Hallelujah! Praise the LORD from the heavens; give praise in the heights. Praise him, all you angels; give praise, all you hosts.

Just as surely as they worship God with us, do they also intercede for us. We do ask them to intercede for us... just as we ask brothers and sisters in Christ here on earth... Do not the prayers of the righteous avail much? (Jas. 5:16) Scripture itself speaks to the intercession of men and angels in heaven...

 Rev 5:8 When he took it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones.

This shows that the saints and angels are aware of our prayers to God, else they would not be offering them to Him... They are aware of our prayers and intercede for us, presenting our needs to God as this scripture testifies.

Rev. 8:3–4 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne. The smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel.

Indeed we are cautioned as to the strength of their intercession...

Matt. 18:10 "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.

The testimony of the Early Church Fathers agrees with sacred scripture and we see it lived out in their example to us. 

Hermas

"[The Shepherd said:] ‘But those who are weak and slothful in prayer, hesitate to ask anything from the Lord; but the Lord is full of compassion, and gives without fail to all who ask him. But you, [Hermas,] having been strengthened by the holy angel [you saw], and having obtained from him such intercession, and not being slothful, why do not you ask of the Lord understanding, and receive it from him?’" (The Shepherd 3:5:4 [A.D. 80]). 

Clement of Alexandria

"In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer]" (Miscellanies 7:12 [A.D. 208]). 

Origen

"But not the high priest [Christ] alone prays for those who pray sincerely, but also the angels . . . as also the souls of the saints who have already fallen asleep" (Prayer 11 [A.D. 233]). 

Cyprian of Carthage

"Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides [of death] always pray for one another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father’s mercy" (Letters 56[60]:5 [A.D. 253]). 

  "Atticus, sleep in peace, secure in your safety, and pray anxiously for our sins" (funerary inscription near St. Sabina’s in Rome [A.D. 300]).

"Pray for your parents, Matronata Matrona. She lived one year, fifty-two days" (ibid.). 

Methodius

"Hail to you for ever, Virgin Mother of God, our unceasing joy, for to you do I turn again. You are the beginning of our feast; you are its middle and end; the pearl of great price that belongs to the kingdom; the fat of every victim, the living altar of the Bread of Life [Jesus]. Hail, you treasure of the love of God. Hail, you fount of the Son’s love for man. . . . You gleamed, sweet gift-bestowing Mother, with the light of the sun; you gleamed with the insupportable fires of a most fervent charity, bringing forth in the end that which was conceived of you . . . making manifest the mystery hidden and unspeakable, the invisible Son of the Father—the Prince of Peace, who in a marvelous manner showed himself as less than all littleness" (Oration on Simeon and Anna 14 [A.D. 305]).

"Therefore, we pray [ask] you, the most excellent among women, who glories in the confidence of your maternal honors, that you would unceasingly keep us in remembrance. O holy Mother of God, remember us, I say, who make our boast in you, and who in august hymns celebrate the memory, which will ever live, and never fade away" (ibid.).

"And you also, O honored and venerable Simeon, you earliest host of our holy religion, and teacher of the resurrection of the faithful, do be our patron and advocate with that Savior God, whom you were deemed worthy to receive into your arms. We, together with you, sing our praises to Christ, who has the power of life and death, saying, ‘You are the true Light, proceeding from the true Light; the true God, begotten of the true God’" (ibid.).

 

Cyril of Jerusalem

"Then [during the Eucharistic prayer] we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition . . . " (Catechetical Lectures 23:9 [A.D. 350]).

 

Hilary of Poitiers

"To those who wish to stand [in God’s grace], neither the guardianship of saints nor the defenses of angels are wanting" (Commentary on the Psalms 124:5:6 [A.D. 365]).

 

Ephraim the Syrian

"You victorious martyrs who endured torments gladly for the sake of the God and Savior, you who have boldness of speech toward the Lord himself, you saints, intercede for us who are timid and sinful men, full of sloth, that the grace of Christ may come upon us, and enlighten the hearts of all of us so that we may love him" (Commentary on Mark [A.D. 370]).

"Remember me, you heirs of God, you brethren of Christ; supplicate the Savior earnestly for me, that I may be freed through Christ from him that fights against me day by day" (The Fear at the End of Life [A.D. 370]).

 

The Liturgy of St. Basil

"By the command of your only-begotten Son we communicate with the memory of your saints . . . by whose prayers and supplications have mercy upon us all, and deliver us for the sake of your holy name" (Liturgy of St. Basil [A.D. 373]).

 

Pectorius

"Aschandius, my father, dearly beloved of my heart, with my sweet mother and my brethren, remember your Pectorius in the peace of the Fish [Christ]" (Epitaph of Pectorius [A.D. 375]).

 

Gregory of Nazianz

"May you [Cyprian] look down from above propitiously upon us, and guide our word and life; and shepherd this sacred flock . . . gladden the Holy Trinity, before which you stand" (Orations 17[24] [A.D. 380]).

"Yes, I am well assured that [my father’s] intercession is of more avail now than was his instruction in former days, since he is closer to God, now that he has shaken off his bodily fetters, and freed his mind from the clay that obscured it, and holds conversation naked with the nakedness of the prime and purest mind . . . " (ibid., 18:4).

 

Gregory of Nyssa

"[Ephraim], you who are standing at the divine altar [in heaven] . . . bear us all in remembrance, petitioning for us the remission of sins, and the fruition of an everlasting kingdom" (Sermon on Ephraim the Syrian [A.D. 380]).

 

John Chrysostom

"He that wears the purple [i.e., a royal man] . . . stands begging of the saints to be his patrons with God, and he that wears a diadem begs the tentmaker [Paul] and the fisherman [Peter] as patrons, even though they be dead" (Homilies on Second Corinthians 26 [A.D. 392]).

"When you perceive that God is chastening you, fly not to his enemies . . . but to his friends, the martyrs, the saints, and those who were pleasing to him, and who have great power [in God]" (Orations 8:6 [A.D. 396]).

 

Ambrose of Milan

"May Peter, who wept so efficaciously for himself, weep for us and turn towards us Christ’s benign countenance" (The Six Days Work 5:25:90 [A.D. 393]).

 

Jerome

"You say in your book that while we live we are able to pray for each other, but afterwards when we have died, the prayer of no person for another can be heard. . . . But if the apostles and martyrs while still in the body can pray for others, at a time when they ought still be solicitous about themselves, how much more will they do so after their crowns, victories, and triumphs?" (Against Vigilantius 6 [A.D. 406]).

 

Augustine

"A Christian people celebrates together in religious solemnity the memorials of the martyrs, both to encourage their being imitated and so that it can share in their merits and be aided by their prayers" (Against Faustus the Manichean [A.D. 400]).

"There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in that place at the altar of God, where prayer is not offered for them. Prayer, however, is offered for the dead who are remembered. For it is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended" (Sermons 159:1 [A.D. 411]).

"At the Lord’s table we do not commemorate martyrs in the same way that we do others who rest in peace so as to pray for them, but rather that they may pray for us that we may follow in their footsteps" (Homilies on John 84 [A.D. 416]).

"Neither are the souls of the pious dead separated from the Church which even now is the kingdom of Christ. Otherwise there would be no remembrance of them at the altar of God in the communication of the Body of Christ" (The City of God 20:9:2 [A.D. 419]).

Indeed, Jesus is the only mediator between God and man...

1 Tim. 2:5 For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human,

However, this does not mean that we can't or shouldn't ask others to pray for us as we see in the verses immediately preceeding that...

1 Tim. 2:1–4 First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.

Just as our brethren who pray for us here on earth, the saints and angels do not bypass Christ, but rather intercede with and for us TO God THROUGH Christ... saying as He taught us 'Our Father...' among the many other forms of prayer which we offer to God.

Before the fall, in the Garden of Eden when all was as He created it to be ... what did Adam do? God gave him work right? A way to join God in what He was doing... After the fall, where we are now... does God allow us to join Him in His work? Sure... even those of us who are not 'officially' in ministry are not only allowed to join Him, it is expected of us, is it not? Then why do we think it will be any different when we are once again perfectly joined with Him and reside with Him again side by side?

Matt. 17:1-3  After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.

Why do we assume that He will not give us 'work' then as well in assisting Him in caring for others, even when He has SHOWN us He does exactly that in sacred scripture!

God continually renews my mind, teaching me things of Himself and His ways that have been neglected in my spiritual education.  They are not always pleasant, these lessons... rarely in my 'comfort zone'... but so richly blessed am I that I rejoice in His instruction and turning my face to Him, beg Him to continue for the sheer joy of learning at His feet despite the pain and suffering it may bring.  Truly, this is the Christ life...

Audite et intelligite traditiones quas Deus dedi vobis.

"Hear and understand the traditions which I, God, have given you."

I'm currently reading Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master by Lawrence S. Cunningham and it is from this that I am quoting...

There are traditions which God has given us. They are so to speak a memory we are born with and into which we are born: a store of meanings, of symbols, of signs. What is born in us is the connatural ability to understand these great buried signs as soon as they are manifested to us.  What is given us in society is a more or less authentic manifestation of the signs. If society loses its "memory," if it forgets its language of traditional symbol, then the individuals who make it up become neurotic, because their own memories are corrupted by uninterpreted, unused meanings. Then traditions themselves become mere dead conventions - worse than that, obsessions - collective neuroses.  To replace one set of conventions with another, however new, does nothing to revive a truly living sense of meaning and of life. This is our present condition.

This resonates strongly within me.  In my own experience, growing up as a Baptist (Southern of some flavor), I often felt drawn to certain things... liturgical tradition drew me, though I knew not what to call it. The austere nature of our faith and its tradition (or rather traditional lack of the same) left me feeling as though something were missing.  As a young child, striving to fill that unspoken void, I would contrive my own 'traditions' or forms of reverence. Having a lace trimmed hanky to lay my Bible is one good example, and yet this felt contrived even to my infant sensibilities and I soon gave it up in shame for having taken up such 'pretensions'. 

Later, when I saw my first crucifix, I remember being struck by it - feeling a hushed awe and reverence within that was inexplicable... Later still in a similar setting, kneelers were intuitive in response as I felt immediately the desire to drop to my knees and pray. I worked hard (funny that since we were repeatedly taught that works were of little import) to be a workman approved before the Lord and stifled those childhood fancies, all the while feeling as though something important were missing... that such a holy God, such a magnificent Lord and Master deserved more than what was given... and that burning desire to give such to the Lord whom I loved was banked.

Even when I began to attend Church with my Catholic husband, the fear and misunderstanding taught me in my youth kept me from really seeing that what I witnessed there was the very fulfillment of what my young soul had yearned for.  When I finally was reconciled to the Church by God's mercy and command, the protective walls bricked up over time to protect myself from that which I was forbidden to give as a protestant began to come down.  As I have lived a full year now as a Catholic with the blessings of the Sacraments, the joys of Eucharistic Adoration, the Liturgy and the Liturgical Calendar with all it entails, I have found at last that which my soul within naturally knew and longed to give as right to the Lord.  Truly, God has written His law upon our hearts... we ignore and deny this innate understanding to our peril.

We as a protestant society have lost our memory.  Our forefathers denied it; their descendents fought it, suppressing it more and more until it is so very lost that we of the common era in this protestant culture no longer recognize it within ourselves and rail against it embraced by others with vile blasphemies. We have reduced those beloved traditions given us by God to dead conventions so long that they have become  collective neuroses.  We have replaced God's traditions, God's ways with our own. New conventions, new traditions that reject all but that which seems comfortable, godly, and right in our own eyes.  In the process not only do we deify ourselves, but we forfeit life and all its meaning. We no longer show respect to any, much less the equal respect to all that we claim. We proclaim proudly that we bow our knee to NO man, and in the process, refuse to bow our knee to God. We have lost all sense of honor, of respect, and have no true understanding or experience of humility.  What else is dying to self but considering others better than we do ourselves?

Esteeming others, being willing to be humbled, being willing to abase ourselves, to be SERVANT to ALL men... this is the calling of the followers of Christ. If we are so unaware of the traditions of God that we no longer recognize true Worship, then we call things worship in error in order to have it at all. Such ignorance leads to not only great pride, but great sin. Let us not be so ignorant due to hard hearts and pride that we call speech, lectures, song-a-longs, and any humbling position of body worship. Let us not be so prideful in our ignorance that we can no longer bend our knee in respect to another lest it be construed as worship where none exists.  Let us again learn what we once knew and rejoiced to do, obey the traditions of our God and walk humbly before Him always.

Audite et intelligite traditiones quas Deus dedi vobis.

"Hear and understand the traditions which I, God, have given you."

Let us hear, understand, and obey the traditions which He, our God, has given to us.  Blessed be God forever!

Had a little chat with the Pastoral Associate in our parish today.  We ended up talking about recent events on the homeschool forums I frequent, specifically the anti-Roman Catholic vitriol and blasphemy that included calling Mary, the Mother of our Lord, a demon goddess and all Catholics (with specific attention to the Irish Catholic populace) as idolatrous.  (Blasphemy not for what they said about Mary, but because they called evil that which the Holy Spirit (through Elizabeth) testified to.)  

I mentioned to her that I was stunned to find (after two years of repeated and intense discussions and debates with protestants of all flavors) that the one thing that unifies ALL protestants (and atheists etc et al) is a hatred of the Roman Catholic Church.  She said something then that struck me and I've been thinking on it all day... while speaking about how the Catholic Church sees protestants as our separated brothers and sisters in Christ, and yet they do not view us similarly, she brought up baptism. The Catholic Church recognizes the baptisms of most protestant churches... given than they are done in the triune formula and with water as sacred scripture specifies.  They believe and LIVE ONE baptism so truly that even letters from witnesses will be taken as evidence if the church itself did not keep records. 

Yet, I remember that my father, godly man though he is, did not acknowledge my husband's baptism and considered him an unbeliever despite evidence in his life to the contrary until he was 'rebaptized' in a Baptist Church. Not believing in infant baptism at the time, I am guilty of trying to persuade my husband to do this, God forgive me, and just as guilty of persuading him as if my words had done so.  As I have been exposed to more protestants and the wide variety of belief that entails, it has been proven true over and over again.  Despite claiming to affirm ONE baptism, they do not. They require  things that God did not and do not recognize baptisms done according to scripture if they are not done in the way that particular protestant organization prescribes.

I love the church of my youth. I love the people who helped teach me to love the Lord... and yet as God continues to renew my mind and teach me, bringing me more in line with the fullness of Truth... I become more and more aware just how flawed the doctrines, teachings, etc are that I've been called out of.  The more I become aware of this, unpleasant though it is, the more I am shown just how dangerous these faith traditions are when carried to their logical conclusion. It is truly a frightening and humbling experience because there but for the grace of God... I would still be.  I did not become Catholic because it made sense to me, or because it was logical (though it does and is now).  I became Catholic because God made me. Oh sure, I had a choice... follow Him into the Catholic Church or turn my back on Him.  What kind of a choice is that....  but I am forever grateful that He loved me enough to chastise me...

ETA: Evidently, null and void baptisms are part of a long tradition of setting aside that which God has done.

An excerpt from Irish Penal Law...

19 Geo II c.13 (1745):
An Act for annulling all Marriages to be celebrated by any Popish Priest between Protestant and Protestant, or between Protestant and Papist, ...

Sec. 1. Every marriage celebrated after the 1st day of May, 1746, between a papist and any person who has been a protestant within twelve months before such celebration of marriage, or between two protestants if celebrated by a popish priest, shall be absolutely null and void.

Reading an article by Steve Ray on his blog  about Catholics participating in 'non-denominational' Bible Studies I came across the following... 

Also, the Catholic Church is not a "denomination" (which means "to take a new name"); She is the Church.  Those who are in schism, who break away or subsist apart from Her are denominations or sects. She, the Church, is not. She is the Church.

I have come to agree with this as God has continued this process of reconciling my wayward self to His Church.  It was with a sick feeling I realized that I, despite my love for the Lord and great desire to serve Him, had been outside His Church all that time. There have been discussions on this in homeschooling circles and many consider the Catholic Church just another denomination at best! But I digress...

His definition here of denomination stirred my interest, but didn't seem quite correct to me as the prefix de- didn't seem to fit the definition well.  However, I didn't think him in error, just that this was a new definition to me. Having been burned by the differing secular vs religious definitions of words in the past, I went to check various sources to see if I could find his definition in use elsewhere.  Having checked several sources and not coming up with this particular definition but knowing he could defend it quite nicely even if I could not, I went instead to check the meaning of that prefix that had been niggling at me so. 

Have I mentioned recently that God likes questions? Yeah. Well. He does.

The definition of the prefix:

de-

pref.

1. Do or make the opposite of; reverse: decriminalize.
2. Remove or remove from: delouse; deoxygenate.
3. Out of: deplane; defenestration.
4. Reduce; degrade: declass.
5. Derived from: deverbative.

Nom is French and means name.

That hit rather hard. That word 'denomination' actually means then, in its most pure form,  one or all of the following:

•  'to do or make the opposite of the name'
•  'to remove (or remove from) the name'
•  'to take out of the name'
•  'to reduce the name'
•  and 'derived from the name'-

Lest anyone feel comforted by the last, derive means 'to obtain or receive from a source'.

This is a very strong word, and INCREDIBLY accurate in describing what happens when one breaks away from the Church. When the men broke away from the Church and made their own denominations (and still do today), they were engaging in the above list. Well then, if it hasn't hit you yet... What IS the name here? Or to put a more precise and fine point on it, Who is the Name? Who is the Source?

Denominations... I won't ever think of them the same way again.