Yesterday, I met a man whose first name was Gwilym. His family was from Wales, on the Western edge of England. His grandfather was a tinsmith. The historical connections are staggering!
The Bronze Age began over five thousand years ago. An early inventor added 3-20% of tin to copper. That let factories owned by the Sumerian Kings produce the best swords and armor on earth. Those with bronze swords and armor quickly overpowered those without that metallurgical advantage. Large deposits of tin were on the Western side of England, where the rarely surfacing “tin belt”, beginning in Southeast Asia, ends.
Joseph of Arimathea was a rich and important tin merchant in the wealthy city of Jerusalem. He was in the powerful Court of the Sanhedrin and a secret follower of Jesus. He was so wealthy that he could afford to have his large tomb hand-chipped out of solid rock! God moved him to get the Body of Jesus from Pontius Pilate and put it in his tomb on Good Friday. He rolled a large rock in front of the tomb to keep it from being stolen. The rest of the Sanhedrin, who had requested Roman guards to keep the first Catholics from stealing The Body of Christ, were happy to see that!
All whose livelihoods were threatened by Jesus were glad to see that one of them was helping to bury The Divinity of He Who Fulfilled over 300 Prophecies and Who Spoke One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church into being with His Church-Creating Word to The First Catholic Pope: “And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.”
Joseph of Arimathea’s contribution is so important that he is mentioned in all four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Other ancient writers tell us Joseph of Arimathea was a “tin merchant” who took Jesus, whose early life is unrecorded, on a trip to his mining interests in England!
Meeting Gwilym was another illumination! “Gwylim” is the Welsh, and therefore Celtic, version of the ancient German name of “Willahelm”. (By the time of Jesus, the Celts and Germans may have included those forced to emigrate for a thousand years from the continually over-crowded farms and communities Moses and Joshua gave them, filling Europe as quickly as they did North America, 3,000 years later, with those blessed to have “Abraham’s Updated DNA”.) That name combines “will” with “helmet” and is usually shortened to “William”. The name is a 5,000-year-old Catholic reminder that we must let God’s “will” be our protective “helmet” in our life and that the most modern version of “bronze” offers more protection than older helmets of “copper”.
Being Catholic blesses us to see our names, ourselves, and our neighbors so clearly that we obey The Great Command! “Love God and your neighbor as yourself.”
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Today’s Simple Rhyme: “Catholics know! Every ‘generation’ we see / is God’s ‘ration of genes’ to me!”
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