We sometimes forget that the Angel Gabriel had two visits; one to Mary and one to Joseph (in a dream), because without the latter's co-operation the plan could not work. There was every reason in the world for Joseph to walk away discouraged "yeah, right, you never slept with anyone else." But he decided instead to believe and trust Mary, his fiance, and stand by her-even when it looked pretty bad.
The potential Mary carried was only made possible through Joseph's trust. When the Angel announced the conception it was at that moment a potential that required cooperation to manifest- cooperation of two people. It was an astounding trust- it required he believe something he never saw before or knew happened ever before-it was entirely new. What? The Holy Spirit himself made you pregnant? It's a miracle he didn't send her to Saint E's or banish her to the leper colony or put her out for being just plain dellusional. But he believed something totally new- a form of manifestation of holy goodness that didn't look like anything before it- God coming in a new way. It required an amazing amount of faith to believe that God would come this way-a way he never saw before.
The emotional and material support he provided cannot be over-estimated. She was not alone during her pregnancy- she had a loving spouse who tended to her needs, emotional and physical.
Had Joseph put Mary out and ended their engagement, Mary might have lost faith in herself and in the promise of the Angel- she would have been angry at the Angel because the message caused her to lose her love Joseph and that would have been devastating. She came from a priestly family and she served the priesthood-she sewed garments for priests- the stigma of being an unwed pregnant girl whose fiance just dumped her might have been totally unbearable. She might have thrown herself off a cliff, or tried to self abort or done something disasterous to herself or the child. Joseph's faith and trust in her, and constant love in spite of how the circumstances looked, made it all possible. His trust was to her the confirmation of all the Angel said. God would come this way.
That is why the Blessed Mother needs another title. She is the Blessed Wife. She is the Wife of Joseph. Someone should build a shrine somewhere to the Blessed Wife. She might not have ever been the Blessed Mother without first being the Blessed Wife.
I think it is extremely important that men understand better how much they are needed. Moreover, it is extremely important that men understand better how much their faith and trust is needed. When God does something amazing, he can approach it differently, he doesn't always come the same way. He came as a voice in a burning bush, in a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night leading Moses through the desert, as a still small voice, as a voice on a mountaintop to Moses, as an infant to a woman who never slept with a man, as new manna eucharistic bread as blood that looks like wine. God is eternal and unlimited in how he can come to you. How open are you to something totally new- will you walk away like the people who scratched their heads in disbelief when Jesus explained that he would come as something to eat?
Joseph as Mary's husband during her pregnancy did what all good husbands do for nine months of a pregnancy. He carried her and put her on a donkey for the trek to Bethlehem so they could obey the law and register for the census and he tried to find them the best accommodations. Even when they would be unwelcome inside the Inn he made it as comfortable as possible in the barn out back for his wife who was then after a long journey on a donkey, ready to deliver a baby. It was Joseph who delivered the baby into the world. It was Joseph who was the steady calm presence next to a woman in screaming sweating labor. It was Joseph who first saw Jesus emerge into the earth.
We are in a society now where 51% of all women are living alone or with people to whom they are not married; they have no cover or protection of a married male spousal figure. Children are living in fatherless environments like at no other time in history and the socioeconomic fall out is widely studied -the repercussions are serious.
Our church history has elevated the Madonna figure in paintings, sculpture, Ikons and stained glass and almost footnoted Joseph into obscurity- but there is no Nativity without him. He is the model quintessential father.
We need to recapture the real meaning of the Angel's mission: there were two equally needed
pieces to this drama. The potential is only possible with and by Joseph. There is no Nativity without him.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Pouring New Wine into New Wine Skins
Are You Confusing The Traditions of Men with the Will of God
Jesus berated the Pharisees for confusing the traditions of men with the Will of God. We can make up a bunch of man made rules that are over the top and that bind us, and take us totally out of the will of God. The Pharisees for example used to try to catch Jesus in Sabbath- breaking (on the 7th day you shall rest) when he was healing people on the sabbath- You would pull a donkey or a mule out of the well on the Sabbath if he fell in, how much more shouldn't I heal a sick person pulling them out of their metaphoric well-he retorted. Healing doesn't break the Sabbath- it's the man made perversion of a sound teaching that does that. Jesus wasn't selling carpentry goods or carving wood on the Sabbath- he was healing people.
The Pharisees confused the man made institutional constructs that bound them with the will of God all the time to inflate their importance which took them completely outside the will of God. This really angered the Lord. This is largely why Jesus came exactly when he did. The fact that the Levite and the Priest walked on the other side of the street (in the parable Jesus himself told) when they saw a man lying robbed, beaten, lying in the ditch wasn't just because they were afraid he was dangerous, it was because if he was dead it was ritually unclean to touch him. Everyone hearing that would have understood that the priest and levite who ignored him did so to remain ritually pure. So it took the Samaritan half breed to go over, lift him half unconscious onto his donkey and take him to shelter. That Samaritan was a metaphor for Jesus himself who came to show the hypocricy of the man made rules that directed people away from the will of God and in fact caused them to not serve God with their whole heart, mind, soul and strength. Jesus is trying to tell the priests and levites something here- don't elevate your man made laws about touching the dead to a point where you don't help someone because you are afraid to find out if you touched a dead person-thus leaving him for dead. That misunderstands what true purity is about.
Similarly, while it is good to ritually cleanse your hands for washing-something ceremonially done and still done at the Sabbath, Jesus taught that it is not what goes into a mouth that makes one unclean, it is what comes out of the mouth- out of the mouth comes what originated in the heart. What you put in your mouth just goes into you and out. What issues from a man's mouth comes from his heart- it is that which makes him clean or unclean. So people should be more concerned with slander,malicious speech, cursing people, hatred and hardness of heart than handwashing. Life and death comes from the Word.
You can't pour new wine into old wine skins. They will break. The old wine skins held the old wine and by the time new wine is poured into them they are rotten and unsuitable for them. Jesus is the living water. He brings daily his new blood shed for your sins. You can't pour it into old wine skins- it will break. The Pope is talking a lot about "The New Humanity." You can't create the New Humanity if you are bound by the old institutional thinking and man made shackles binding you that have nothing to do with the will of God. You are then just pouring new wine all over the floor. This might be a bit of a metaphor for the prohibition on spilling seed onto the floor for he who has ears to hear it.
When a sound teaching is added to, even by an Iota, and surpassed, over the top it becomes not only out of balance, but flatly perverted. It is cautioned severely not to add even an Iota to scripture. It is like a soufle immediately flattened because someone opened the oven door prematurely, or like a cake burned because someone turned the heat to 500 rather than 375. It destroys what was it was intended to be.
Mandatory priestly celibacy is just such an example. It is based on a sound teaching that if you leave your father, mother, wife, brother, etc. to follow Jesus your reward will be great, but that does not impose a mandatory leaving of the father, mother, brother or wife who is also following Jesus-that is oxymoronic. That teaching presupposes that the people one left were not following Jesus so it was impossible to follow him and hang with the old crowd-even when they are your relatives (it has nothing to do with all the family who are in the same boat with Jesus at the helm and there are multiple instances of brothers together following the Lord, --James, the brother of John, etc.-it would be absurd to suggest James had to leave John when John also was following the Lord).
It is sound teaching that some will make themselves eunichs for the Kingdom, but it does not impose a mandatory castration on the entire Priesthood- that is oxymoronic (this is also flatly contradictory to the rules in scripture regarding marriage concerning the priesthood and the New Testament mandate that all Bishops and Deacons be the husband of one-not many, not none, but one, wife.).
It is sound teaching that Saint Paul urged that it was better that some be single as he was, but that does not mean that all Saints are called to be as Paul wished he was- that is oxymoronic. Peter in fact was not called to be as Saint Paul was. Paul himself takes pains to state that this is not the Lord talking but him stating a personal preference.
It creates more than an imbalance, it creates a boldly unholy perversion. It is just scripturally unsupportable and deviates from God's intent. It creates something other than what it was made to be. It's burned cake. And this makes God angry. This is in fact exactly how to turn living stones, the church of the body of Christ into white washed tombs full of old men's bones.
Scripture is like the owner's manual to your car. If you read it wrong and replace orange juice for unleaded, your engine will crash and burn. It is a recipe book for maximum wholeness, health and joy; if you always replace baking soda for baking powder instead of getting a cake you get flattened pancake, and you never realize what a full real cake is supposed to look like. It is clear that God wants us to follow his recipe and not wing it making substitute ingredients just to get something that fits in what we already built or serve something we think we want to see-or because we refuse to clean out the refrigerator to make more shelf space for real cake. There is real full cake in the world. And it is good. When you say, lets leave the One Wife thing out of the priesthood recipe for everyone, it's like a pound cake made without eggs. It's not a cake. It's a puddle of flour. We can get used to it- and think that is all there is-but there is supposed to be more than latkes and gnishes in the priesthood. The Priesthood is supposed to have latkes, gnishes, croissants, brioche, strawberry pound cake, two tiered German chocolate cake and huge full joyous wedding cake. Priests living as hermits, priests living in monestaries and Priests living in a diocese parish residence should have different charisms and do have different requirements to fully fulfill their vocations.
That isn't to say that some cakes aren't ever supposed to be made without eggs- at times of the season only unleavened bread is suitable and you can't make Matzo with yeast. But that is Matzo not cake. John the Baptist could not have been married and do what he was called to do, neither could Elijiah. Paul could not have been married and be the witness he was and do what he had to do traveling, being shipwrecked, flogged to near death multiple times, thrown in jail, teaming up with tentmakers and living in exile without subjecting his wife to abject hell and so his choice was compassionate. That was Paul. Great missionaries like Francis Xavier could not perhaps feel like they could pick up and leave everything, traveling to an unknown land like India, or Japan if they felt they had to support a wife and family -unless she was a missionary wife-so the choice there looks practical. And now there are wives who would not need supporting but would add financially to the mix.
This has to be a freely chosen choice not a mandate package of bundled vows. God is calling many more men (and women) who want to be Priests and religious than are called to vow to celibacy. There are many more people gifted to be priests than are gifted with celibacy- these are two separate distinct gifts of the Spirit, and it misunderstands the gifting of the Spirit to conflate them all together or assume that because someone is gifted with one that God wants all of them for them or has given the gifts of all of them to the same people all the time. It's a biblically absurd statement. When all of them are forced on them, it is eventually uncomfortable and it shows. The church is not obeying Christ when it turns these people away or snuffs their light out. The body of Christ needs them for how they are gifted- and God is calling them. The church would be far richer for them. Scripture says, some are gifted with teaching, some prophesy, some talking in other tongues, etc. It does not assume if someone can speak prophetic utterance that they can teach, or that someone who can talk in other tongues can preach or that someone who can preach is a gifted celibate for all seasons. It is a misreading of scripture and the Spirit to conflate all the gifts for all the priesthood and over-assume this and adds more than an Iota to what is written. As a "discipline" celibacy (non-marriage) has to be a choice that should not be packaged as a mandatory discipline to express all the other gifts of the Spirit. That quenches the Spirit- because some people know that they are called to marriage and procreation.
The church should never force the Sophie's choice between preaching for the Lord and administering his holy sacraments and taking a forced vow killing off one's humanity as a precondition to its unscriptural definition of holiness because Jesus never did. That is not how Jesus defined holiness for everyone. He died so you would live. It is clear scriptural error, and the church should correct itself.
Note that the vow of "poverty" is easily suspended for "secular" priests (as opposed to those who live in orders like Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, etc.) so the triumvirate vow package of "poverty, chastity/celibacy and obedience" is modified already to suit personal needs. And yet the church has elevated the vow of non-marriage into immutable sacrosanct precondition to priesthood- an elevation in importance that should be examined as approaching an unholy idolotry.
A Marriage option would obviously lead to far greater holiness of the Priesthood than what is collectively experienced now. It is not holy to do as some priests honestly do and take lovers on the secret side, bed them (of either gender)or each other in secret ways without commitment or community support, favoring people who are willing to engage in such illicit seruptitious activity of this kind over more integrous honorable people in a misguided search for wholeness (looking for love in all the wrong places as it were). It's not good for the priests and not good for the church and it is not good for the world. It undermines trust in the priesthood and thus the church.
One only has to look at the statistics of the people who have left the Priesthood in America to marry (over 20,000 in the last twenty-five years), the numbers of paid off sex claims, and the financial health of the church in America to see that the old wine skins are rotting and the stench is foul.
A sweet young woman wants to be a New Nun. One of the traditions of men is that God can't use you if you still have debt. That isn't going to stop a friend of mine from hearing God's call and will for her life. A society formed to help people who have debt get rid of it so that they can enter religious life. Her name is Krystyn Schmerbeck and she is being assisted by the Laboure Society (after one of my favorite Saints Katherine Laboure)- see "current aspirants" listed at http://www.labouresociety.org/.
Her name is listed on the site- so you can help her follow God's call. Please contribute to assist her vocation.
Thank God for all such organizations that weave the fabric of new wine skins toward the
New Humanity to change the face of the earth. God knows it needs it.
Jesus berated the Pharisees for confusing the traditions of men with the Will of God. We can make up a bunch of man made rules that are over the top and that bind us, and take us totally out of the will of God. The Pharisees for example used to try to catch Jesus in Sabbath- breaking (on the 7th day you shall rest) when he was healing people on the sabbath- You would pull a donkey or a mule out of the well on the Sabbath if he fell in, how much more shouldn't I heal a sick person pulling them out of their metaphoric well-he retorted. Healing doesn't break the Sabbath- it's the man made perversion of a sound teaching that does that. Jesus wasn't selling carpentry goods or carving wood on the Sabbath- he was healing people.
The Pharisees confused the man made institutional constructs that bound them with the will of God all the time to inflate their importance which took them completely outside the will of God. This really angered the Lord. This is largely why Jesus came exactly when he did. The fact that the Levite and the Priest walked on the other side of the street (in the parable Jesus himself told) when they saw a man lying robbed, beaten, lying in the ditch wasn't just because they were afraid he was dangerous, it was because if he was dead it was ritually unclean to touch him. Everyone hearing that would have understood that the priest and levite who ignored him did so to remain ritually pure. So it took the Samaritan half breed to go over, lift him half unconscious onto his donkey and take him to shelter. That Samaritan was a metaphor for Jesus himself who came to show the hypocricy of the man made rules that directed people away from the will of God and in fact caused them to not serve God with their whole heart, mind, soul and strength. Jesus is trying to tell the priests and levites something here- don't elevate your man made laws about touching the dead to a point where you don't help someone because you are afraid to find out if you touched a dead person-thus leaving him for dead. That misunderstands what true purity is about.
Similarly, while it is good to ritually cleanse your hands for washing-something ceremonially done and still done at the Sabbath, Jesus taught that it is not what goes into a mouth that makes one unclean, it is what comes out of the mouth- out of the mouth comes what originated in the heart. What you put in your mouth just goes into you and out. What issues from a man's mouth comes from his heart- it is that which makes him clean or unclean. So people should be more concerned with slander,malicious speech, cursing people, hatred and hardness of heart than handwashing. Life and death comes from the Word.
You can't pour new wine into old wine skins. They will break. The old wine skins held the old wine and by the time new wine is poured into them they are rotten and unsuitable for them. Jesus is the living water. He brings daily his new blood shed for your sins. You can't pour it into old wine skins- it will break. The Pope is talking a lot about "The New Humanity." You can't create the New Humanity if you are bound by the old institutional thinking and man made shackles binding you that have nothing to do with the will of God. You are then just pouring new wine all over the floor. This might be a bit of a metaphor for the prohibition on spilling seed onto the floor for he who has ears to hear it.
When a sound teaching is added to, even by an Iota, and surpassed, over the top it becomes not only out of balance, but flatly perverted. It is cautioned severely not to add even an Iota to scripture. It is like a soufle immediately flattened because someone opened the oven door prematurely, or like a cake burned because someone turned the heat to 500 rather than 375. It destroys what was it was intended to be.
Mandatory priestly celibacy is just such an example. It is based on a sound teaching that if you leave your father, mother, wife, brother, etc. to follow Jesus your reward will be great, but that does not impose a mandatory leaving of the father, mother, brother or wife who is also following Jesus-that is oxymoronic. That teaching presupposes that the people one left were not following Jesus so it was impossible to follow him and hang with the old crowd-even when they are your relatives (it has nothing to do with all the family who are in the same boat with Jesus at the helm and there are multiple instances of brothers together following the Lord, --James, the brother of John, etc.-it would be absurd to suggest James had to leave John when John also was following the Lord).
It is sound teaching that some will make themselves eunichs for the Kingdom, but it does not impose a mandatory castration on the entire Priesthood- that is oxymoronic (this is also flatly contradictory to the rules in scripture regarding marriage concerning the priesthood and the New Testament mandate that all Bishops and Deacons be the husband of one-not many, not none, but one, wife.).
It is sound teaching that Saint Paul urged that it was better that some be single as he was, but that does not mean that all Saints are called to be as Paul wished he was- that is oxymoronic. Peter in fact was not called to be as Saint Paul was. Paul himself takes pains to state that this is not the Lord talking but him stating a personal preference.
It creates more than an imbalance, it creates a boldly unholy perversion. It is just scripturally unsupportable and deviates from God's intent. It creates something other than what it was made to be. It's burned cake. And this makes God angry. This is in fact exactly how to turn living stones, the church of the body of Christ into white washed tombs full of old men's bones.
Scripture is like the owner's manual to your car. If you read it wrong and replace orange juice for unleaded, your engine will crash and burn. It is a recipe book for maximum wholeness, health and joy; if you always replace baking soda for baking powder instead of getting a cake you get flattened pancake, and you never realize what a full real cake is supposed to look like. It is clear that God wants us to follow his recipe and not wing it making substitute ingredients just to get something that fits in what we already built or serve something we think we want to see-or because we refuse to clean out the refrigerator to make more shelf space for real cake. There is real full cake in the world. And it is good. When you say, lets leave the One Wife thing out of the priesthood recipe for everyone, it's like a pound cake made without eggs. It's not a cake. It's a puddle of flour. We can get used to it- and think that is all there is-but there is supposed to be more than latkes and gnishes in the priesthood. The Priesthood is supposed to have latkes, gnishes, croissants, brioche, strawberry pound cake, two tiered German chocolate cake and huge full joyous wedding cake. Priests living as hermits, priests living in monestaries and Priests living in a diocese parish residence should have different charisms and do have different requirements to fully fulfill their vocations.
That isn't to say that some cakes aren't ever supposed to be made without eggs- at times of the season only unleavened bread is suitable and you can't make Matzo with yeast. But that is Matzo not cake. John the Baptist could not have been married and do what he was called to do, neither could Elijiah. Paul could not have been married and be the witness he was and do what he had to do traveling, being shipwrecked, flogged to near death multiple times, thrown in jail, teaming up with tentmakers and living in exile without subjecting his wife to abject hell and so his choice was compassionate. That was Paul. Great missionaries like Francis Xavier could not perhaps feel like they could pick up and leave everything, traveling to an unknown land like India, or Japan if they felt they had to support a wife and family -unless she was a missionary wife-so the choice there looks practical. And now there are wives who would not need supporting but would add financially to the mix.
This has to be a freely chosen choice not a mandate package of bundled vows. God is calling many more men (and women) who want to be Priests and religious than are called to vow to celibacy. There are many more people gifted to be priests than are gifted with celibacy- these are two separate distinct gifts of the Spirit, and it misunderstands the gifting of the Spirit to conflate them all together or assume that because someone is gifted with one that God wants all of them for them or has given the gifts of all of them to the same people all the time. It's a biblically absurd statement. When all of them are forced on them, it is eventually uncomfortable and it shows. The church is not obeying Christ when it turns these people away or snuffs their light out. The body of Christ needs them for how they are gifted- and God is calling them. The church would be far richer for them. Scripture says, some are gifted with teaching, some prophesy, some talking in other tongues, etc. It does not assume if someone can speak prophetic utterance that they can teach, or that someone who can talk in other tongues can preach or that someone who can preach is a gifted celibate for all seasons. It is a misreading of scripture and the Spirit to conflate all the gifts for all the priesthood and over-assume this and adds more than an Iota to what is written. As a "discipline" celibacy (non-marriage) has to be a choice that should not be packaged as a mandatory discipline to express all the other gifts of the Spirit. That quenches the Spirit- because some people know that they are called to marriage and procreation.
The church should never force the Sophie's choice between preaching for the Lord and administering his holy sacraments and taking a forced vow killing off one's humanity as a precondition to its unscriptural definition of holiness because Jesus never did. That is not how Jesus defined holiness for everyone. He died so you would live. It is clear scriptural error, and the church should correct itself.
Note that the vow of "poverty" is easily suspended for "secular" priests (as opposed to those who live in orders like Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, etc.) so the triumvirate vow package of "poverty, chastity/celibacy and obedience" is modified already to suit personal needs. And yet the church has elevated the vow of non-marriage into immutable sacrosanct precondition to priesthood- an elevation in importance that should be examined as approaching an unholy idolotry.
A Marriage option would obviously lead to far greater holiness of the Priesthood than what is collectively experienced now. It is not holy to do as some priests honestly do and take lovers on the secret side, bed them (of either gender)or each other in secret ways without commitment or community support, favoring people who are willing to engage in such illicit seruptitious activity of this kind over more integrous honorable people in a misguided search for wholeness (looking for love in all the wrong places as it were). It's not good for the priests and not good for the church and it is not good for the world. It undermines trust in the priesthood and thus the church.
One only has to look at the statistics of the people who have left the Priesthood in America to marry (over 20,000 in the last twenty-five years), the numbers of paid off sex claims, and the financial health of the church in America to see that the old wine skins are rotting and the stench is foul.
A sweet young woman wants to be a New Nun. One of the traditions of men is that God can't use you if you still have debt. That isn't going to stop a friend of mine from hearing God's call and will for her life. A society formed to help people who have debt get rid of it so that they can enter religious life. Her name is Krystyn Schmerbeck and she is being assisted by the Laboure Society (after one of my favorite Saints Katherine Laboure)- see "current aspirants" listed at http://www.labouresociety.org/.
Her name is listed on the site- so you can help her follow God's call. Please contribute to assist her vocation.
Thank God for all such organizations that weave the fabric of new wine skins toward the
New Humanity to change the face of the earth. God knows it needs it.
Monday, June 25, 2007
In the Fullness of Time
And Abraham Took Sarai
When God called Abraham to leave his father's house he took with him a few beloved things- Lot, his nephew, all his belongings so there was no turning back, provisions for the road, and of course, most importantly his wife, Sarai. {Some things you can't do and others you ought not try alone at home boys and girls}
Her name wasn't changed until after he took her and moved -to "Sarah". She became for him a testament of God's immovable secure love even in the flux of life and dislocation of everything around him. Life got dicey on the road at times. One time Abraham actually passed her off as his sister and pimped her to Pharoah because he feared him. They both lost faith for a moment in God's promise of progeny and she let Abraham sleep with the maid essentially so he could try to have a son- she knew it was one of the deepest desires of his heart. All this time Sarah stood by her man- baked cookies like Tammy Wynette, washed his socks, cooked his dinner and made his bed in the morning. A lifetime almost passed before they saw God's promise in Isaac. Sarah laughed at the Angel when he told her she could conceive-- it sounded too ludicrous at her age.
Aren't you glad Angels always get the last laugh.
Ephesians 3: 14-19
Hujus rei gratia flecto genua ad Patrem Domini nostri Iesu Christi,
Ex quo omnis cognatio in coelis et super terram nominatur,
Ut det vobis secundum divitias gloriae suae, potentia roborari per Spiritum suum in hominem interiorem,
Ut inhabitet Christus per fidem in cordibus vestris, ut sitis in charitate radicati atque fundati,
Quo valeatis comprehendere cum omnibus sanctis, quae sit latitudo, et longitudo, et profunditas, et altitudo;
Cognoscere, inquam, dilectionem Christi, quae cognitionem exsuperat, ut completi sitis in omnem plenitudinem Dei.
When God called Abraham to leave his father's house he took with him a few beloved things- Lot, his nephew, all his belongings so there was no turning back, provisions for the road, and of course, most importantly his wife, Sarai. {Some things you can't do and others you ought not try alone at home boys and girls}
Her name wasn't changed until after he took her and moved -to "Sarah". She became for him a testament of God's immovable secure love even in the flux of life and dislocation of everything around him. Life got dicey on the road at times. One time Abraham actually passed her off as his sister and pimped her to Pharoah because he feared him. They both lost faith for a moment in God's promise of progeny and she let Abraham sleep with the maid essentially so he could try to have a son- she knew it was one of the deepest desires of his heart. All this time Sarah stood by her man- baked cookies like Tammy Wynette, washed his socks, cooked his dinner and made his bed in the morning. A lifetime almost passed before they saw God's promise in Isaac. Sarah laughed at the Angel when he told her she could conceive-- it sounded too ludicrous at her age.
Aren't you glad Angels always get the last laugh.
Ephesians 3: 14-19
Hujus rei gratia flecto genua ad Patrem Domini nostri Iesu Christi,
Ex quo omnis cognatio in coelis et super terram nominatur,
Ut det vobis secundum divitias gloriae suae, potentia roborari per Spiritum suum in hominem interiorem,
Ut inhabitet Christus per fidem in cordibus vestris, ut sitis in charitate radicati atque fundati,
Quo valeatis comprehendere cum omnibus sanctis, quae sit latitudo, et longitudo, et profunditas, et altitudo;
Cognoscere, inquam, dilectionem Christi, quae cognitionem exsuperat, ut completi sitis in omnem plenitudinem Dei.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
The Lord Of The Dance
God is a long slow dance,
holding hands and staring you in the eyes
telling you everything will be all right
Not a hurky jerky turkey bad disco poke you in the side
rock your roll travolta -in- drag shivering electric slide
God is a long slow dance
to flute or Ode to Joy
a graceful waltz careening magic
like gliding on water to singing ecstatic
God is a long slow dance
who holds you close
so you can't fall
or want to
Not a wanton fast trip tripping you
on awkward beats, pulls with wierd facial features
He won't make you look like you are having a seizure
God is a long slow dance,
he comes steady and sure
and the more you fall
the harder he pulls you back secure
God is a long slow dance,
holding hands and staring you in the eyes
His faithfulness endures forever
his love for you is ever better
He holds you tight so you can't fall
right through the last curtain call.
holding hands and staring you in the eyes
telling you everything will be all right
Not a hurky jerky turkey bad disco poke you in the side
rock your roll travolta -in- drag shivering electric slide
God is a long slow dance
to flute or Ode to Joy
a graceful waltz careening magic
like gliding on water to singing ecstatic
God is a long slow dance
who holds you close
so you can't fall
or want to
Not a wanton fast trip tripping you
on awkward beats, pulls with wierd facial features
He won't make you look like you are having a seizure
God is a long slow dance,
he comes steady and sure
and the more you fall
the harder he pulls you back secure
God is a long slow dance,
holding hands and staring you in the eyes
His faithfulness endures forever
his love for you is ever better
He holds you tight so you can't fall
right through the last curtain call.
Friday, June 22, 2007
JOHN
THE BAPTIZER
Saturday is a day of recognition of John The Baptist. What do you really know about him? Do you know that the religions of Christianity, Islam, Mandaeanism, and the Bahá'í Faith all consider him a "prophet." Did you know that he was the one that Baptized Jesus in the Jordan at Jesus' request? Did you know he was the cousin of Jesus, who even in the womb recognized the presence of Jesus and jumped for joy leaping for joy in his mother Elizabeth's womb? There is pre-natal cognition and even pre-natal joy.
John the Baptist had his own following- it's intriguing- he was the one crying in the wilderness to make straight the paths of the Lord when everyone thought he was a screaming lunatic, until the Lord came and he passed the mantle.
He lived aesthetically- on wild locusts and honey. You can live on wild locusts and honey. Try it.
He died because his sexual integrity was despised. His witness to the truth was something the powerful couldn't handle.
King Herod was an evil man- way worse than Saddam. You probably remember that Herod killed all the first born and children under the age of 2 in Israel out of a jealous rage in attempt to kill the rumors of the Messiah Jesus which prompted the Holy Family to move for a time to Egypt when Jesus was a baby (Jesus was a displaced child refugee for a time). You probably recall the terrors that he inflicted while he was the head of the provinces of Israel for the Roman Empire. By all accounts he was simply a power hungry pig.
He had no sexual morality, integrity, restraint or continence (this not infrequently comes with unaccountable power). He just took what he wanted. He lusted after and took his own brother's wife to be his lover.
Herodias must have been hot. He didn't care apparently that it was his brother's wife- he wanted her. Herodias had a daughter - apparently equally hot- and she could dance. She could dance better than Nicole around a pole. Herod was in perpetual heat and wanted to see Herodias' dance. Apparently it was not enough he lusted after his brother's wife, he lusted also after her daughter-Salame. So he promised her anything and everything she wanted to see her dance. Anything. Herodias told her to get the head of John the Baptist. Why? Because he threatened her- he disapproved. Clearly, this is an evil to take your brother's wife-- even if she whimpered, sighed, begged, moaned and threw herself at him. Even if she watered all the flowers in the palace gardens and acted like the place was her palace.
Herodias is the Anti-Mary. She looks like she has power, but obtained it illegitimately-she classically slept her way to the top. It wasn't good enough apparently to be the Brother of the King's wife, she wanted the power that the King's wife had- she wanted to be Queen. She is the model-the Patron Anti-Saint- of someone who uses cunning coy sexuality to entice, weaken and ensnare. She is the adulteress who destroyed her husband's trust and broke his heart for the lust of power-and stopped at nothing even pimping her daughter's seductions to achieve it. And she stopped at nothing to hang on to it- she stooped even so low as to demand that the King get rid of that which threatened her position -by killing him.
The holy righteous herald of the Lord was sacrificed for the lust of a horny prelate who wanted to get off on a belly dancing juvenile-as encouraged by her equally depraved Mother of all Hag-Sluts.
And so it was- the horny Herod got his dance, and John the Baptist met his fate on a platter.
And what do you kill- what righteous life giving message of Jesus' love do you pre-emptively kill off before you even hear it, what potential for salvation and life do you extinguish in your lust? What do you take illicitly without authority, whose affections do you appropriate and alienate? Who is the hag-slut demanding more and more attention and devotion in your life to a point where you are blinded to any sense of morality, crowding out love for illicit desire?
John the Baptist, the dearly dearly beloved cousin of Jesus, died for the lust of a prelate pig and the bitter jealousy of an old hag-slut.
He dies all over again every time you take what is not yours, and don't take care of what is.
John the Baptist Baptized people- ritually cleansed them in water, in the Jordan river.
Go and dunk yourself in holy water on his feast day and pray that you don't behead him ever again.
Saturday is a day of recognition of John The Baptist. What do you really know about him? Do you know that the religions of Christianity, Islam, Mandaeanism, and the Bahá'í Faith all consider him a "prophet." Did you know that he was the one that Baptized Jesus in the Jordan at Jesus' request? Did you know he was the cousin of Jesus, who even in the womb recognized the presence of Jesus and jumped for joy leaping for joy in his mother Elizabeth's womb? There is pre-natal cognition and even pre-natal joy.
John the Baptist had his own following- it's intriguing- he was the one crying in the wilderness to make straight the paths of the Lord when everyone thought he was a screaming lunatic, until the Lord came and he passed the mantle.
He lived aesthetically- on wild locusts and honey. You can live on wild locusts and honey. Try it.
He died because his sexual integrity was despised. His witness to the truth was something the powerful couldn't handle.
King Herod was an evil man- way worse than Saddam. You probably remember that Herod killed all the first born and children under the age of 2 in Israel out of a jealous rage in attempt to kill the rumors of the Messiah Jesus which prompted the Holy Family to move for a time to Egypt when Jesus was a baby (Jesus was a displaced child refugee for a time). You probably recall the terrors that he inflicted while he was the head of the provinces of Israel for the Roman Empire. By all accounts he was simply a power hungry pig.
He had no sexual morality, integrity, restraint or continence (this not infrequently comes with unaccountable power). He just took what he wanted. He lusted after and took his own brother's wife to be his lover.
Herodias must have been hot. He didn't care apparently that it was his brother's wife- he wanted her. Herodias had a daughter - apparently equally hot- and she could dance. She could dance better than Nicole around a pole. Herod was in perpetual heat and wanted to see Herodias' dance. Apparently it was not enough he lusted after his brother's wife, he lusted also after her daughter-Salame. So he promised her anything and everything she wanted to see her dance. Anything. Herodias told her to get the head of John the Baptist. Why? Because he threatened her- he disapproved. Clearly, this is an evil to take your brother's wife-- even if she whimpered, sighed, begged, moaned and threw herself at him. Even if she watered all the flowers in the palace gardens and acted like the place was her palace.
Herodias is the Anti-Mary. She looks like she has power, but obtained it illegitimately-she classically slept her way to the top. It wasn't good enough apparently to be the Brother of the King's wife, she wanted the power that the King's wife had- she wanted to be Queen. She is the model-the Patron Anti-Saint- of someone who uses cunning coy sexuality to entice, weaken and ensnare. She is the adulteress who destroyed her husband's trust and broke his heart for the lust of power-and stopped at nothing even pimping her daughter's seductions to achieve it. And she stopped at nothing to hang on to it- she stooped even so low as to demand that the King get rid of that which threatened her position -by killing him.
The holy righteous herald of the Lord was sacrificed for the lust of a horny prelate who wanted to get off on a belly dancing juvenile-as encouraged by her equally depraved Mother of all Hag-Sluts.
And so it was- the horny Herod got his dance, and John the Baptist met his fate on a platter.
And what do you kill- what righteous life giving message of Jesus' love do you pre-emptively kill off before you even hear it, what potential for salvation and life do you extinguish in your lust? What do you take illicitly without authority, whose affections do you appropriate and alienate? Who is the hag-slut demanding more and more attention and devotion in your life to a point where you are blinded to any sense of morality, crowding out love for illicit desire?
John the Baptist, the dearly dearly beloved cousin of Jesus, died for the lust of a prelate pig and the bitter jealousy of an old hag-slut.
He dies all over again every time you take what is not yours, and don't take care of what is.
John the Baptist Baptized people- ritually cleansed them in water, in the Jordan river.
Go and dunk yourself in holy water on his feast day and pray that you don't behead him ever again.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Blessed is the Fruit
Of the Womb.
The abortion statistics in this country are truly staggering: roughly 45,000,000 (forty-five million) abortions have occured since Roe, roughly 3-4 million every year. Every two years a population the size of Philadelphia is aborted, every three years a population the size of Los Angeles. Every two years we abort the number of people killed in the Hollocaust over four years.
You know someone who knows someone who had an abortion. You may have had one or encouraged one. You know someone who knows someone who knows the darkest despair that led to self-mutilating surgical strike destruction and shedding of blood. You know someone who knows someone who didn't jump with elation when they found out they were pregnant, they drank a bottle of something until they passed out. You know someone who knows someone whose man walked out on them, maybe not after slapping them around but maybe after slutifying their dignity-insulting them, calling them something nasty, insisting they "get rid of it". You know someone who knows someone who told them that they were stupid to get pregnant in the first place and should have a better job first or should be paying off their car loan before they were so stupid as to be pregnant. You know someone who knows someone who decided that they needed a mortgage on a house before they wanted a kid so they "got rid of" their first one before they saw the light of day. You know someone who knows someone who thought their parents would not pay for college if they got pregnant, or who thought that they could not have a kid and be in school at the same time so they chose school. Maybe someone even bribed them- stay in school and "get rid of" the problem and we will pay you, and buy you a car!
Because they value cars, houses, neighborhoods, status, jobs, education and money more than babies-human life. And they were not a little afraid.
This is not the only reason of course why people would have abortions, they may have them because they fear that the child is so horribly deformed that it would be an act of mercy to kill it off, but that is the rare exception. Usually when people kill their pregnancies they don't bury their dead. Some abortions are done to protect the life of the mother in very dire situations where there is cancer or severest stroke threatening gestational hypertension situations, but that is also extremely rare. By far the majority of abortions that are done are purely "elective" surgical strikes.
Mother Teresa said that the greatest terror was done in the womb (I'm paraphrasing.)
Most of it is honestly done with the same callous indifference to life as the suicide nut-jobs who strap explosives to their waists. Only it is done by an army of millions of unconscious women at the bidding of their unconscious partners who -forgive them Lord- don't know what the hell they are doing. Literally.
A national platform that insists on women's right to be unconscious is doomed to fail.
That is why it is singularly insane for the Democratic party to year after year after year insist that campaigns should revolve around standing on the right to be unconscious and demeaned. There is no constitutional right to choose abuse and abortion abuses both mother and child. There is no constitutional right to self-mutilation-even when you want to do it "in private."
I am a lawyer- I looked.
There was a time in "civilization" in Latin America where on the mounds of Peruvian and Guatemalan tiered temples prior to the age of the conquistadores where people religiously practiced human sacrifice- where all the people gathered to watch the priest carve out with a machete the hearts of virgins and throw them bleeding off the edge of the temple. This was considered appropriate and necessary sacrifice to the Gods. It was culturally embedded in the consciousness of everyone in the culture and to think it was not appropriate would have been unthinkable. Of course they were not sacrificing to the One true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but a demonic idol that they worshipped.
Currently we consider it appropriate and necessary sacrifice to the idols to rip beating hearts out of our bodies and throwing them over the edge. There is no difference. God is the creator of all life. There is no life that he creates that is a mistake. We are sacrificing to demon idols.
Our Lady of Guadeloupe appeared to a converted native Juan Diego in what is now Mexico.
She is for that reason the Patron Saint, Blessed Mother of all the Americas.
I call her the Blessed Mother of Consciousness.
She's not trying to win any elections. She's trying to get you up out of bed in the morning. Today is a new morning.
The abortion statistics in this country are truly staggering: roughly 45,000,000 (forty-five million) abortions have occured since Roe, roughly 3-4 million every year. Every two years a population the size of Philadelphia is aborted, every three years a population the size of Los Angeles. Every two years we abort the number of people killed in the Hollocaust over four years.
You know someone who knows someone who had an abortion. You may have had one or encouraged one. You know someone who knows someone who knows the darkest despair that led to self-mutilating surgical strike destruction and shedding of blood. You know someone who knows someone who didn't jump with elation when they found out they were pregnant, they drank a bottle of something until they passed out. You know someone who knows someone whose man walked out on them, maybe not after slapping them around but maybe after slutifying their dignity-insulting them, calling them something nasty, insisting they "get rid of it". You know someone who knows someone who told them that they were stupid to get pregnant in the first place and should have a better job first or should be paying off their car loan before they were so stupid as to be pregnant. You know someone who knows someone who decided that they needed a mortgage on a house before they wanted a kid so they "got rid of" their first one before they saw the light of day. You know someone who knows someone who thought their parents would not pay for college if they got pregnant, or who thought that they could not have a kid and be in school at the same time so they chose school. Maybe someone even bribed them- stay in school and "get rid of" the problem and we will pay you, and buy you a car!
Because they value cars, houses, neighborhoods, status, jobs, education and money more than babies-human life. And they were not a little afraid.
This is not the only reason of course why people would have abortions, they may have them because they fear that the child is so horribly deformed that it would be an act of mercy to kill it off, but that is the rare exception. Usually when people kill their pregnancies they don't bury their dead. Some abortions are done to protect the life of the mother in very dire situations where there is cancer or severest stroke threatening gestational hypertension situations, but that is also extremely rare. By far the majority of abortions that are done are purely "elective" surgical strikes.
Mother Teresa said that the greatest terror was done in the womb (I'm paraphrasing.)
Most of it is honestly done with the same callous indifference to life as the suicide nut-jobs who strap explosives to their waists. Only it is done by an army of millions of unconscious women at the bidding of their unconscious partners who -forgive them Lord- don't know what the hell they are doing. Literally.
A national platform that insists on women's right to be unconscious is doomed to fail.
That is why it is singularly insane for the Democratic party to year after year after year insist that campaigns should revolve around standing on the right to be unconscious and demeaned. There is no constitutional right to choose abuse and abortion abuses both mother and child. There is no constitutional right to self-mutilation-even when you want to do it "in private."
I am a lawyer- I looked.
There was a time in "civilization" in Latin America where on the mounds of Peruvian and Guatemalan tiered temples prior to the age of the conquistadores where people religiously practiced human sacrifice- where all the people gathered to watch the priest carve out with a machete the hearts of virgins and throw them bleeding off the edge of the temple. This was considered appropriate and necessary sacrifice to the Gods. It was culturally embedded in the consciousness of everyone in the culture and to think it was not appropriate would have been unthinkable. Of course they were not sacrificing to the One true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but a demonic idol that they worshipped.
Currently we consider it appropriate and necessary sacrifice to the idols to rip beating hearts out of our bodies and throwing them over the edge. There is no difference. God is the creator of all life. There is no life that he creates that is a mistake. We are sacrificing to demon idols.
Our Lady of Guadeloupe appeared to a converted native Juan Diego in what is now Mexico.
She is for that reason the Patron Saint, Blessed Mother of all the Americas.
I call her the Blessed Mother of Consciousness.
She's not trying to win any elections. She's trying to get you up out of bed in the morning. Today is a new morning.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
OPEN LETTER TO THE POPE
Houston We Have A Problem.
Jesus of Nazareth is your Lord and my Lord and I call no other my Lord as instructed directly by scripture. When your doctrine deviates from Jesus, I am sure you will agree it is flatly error-even if Cannon law Dominicans at Catholic University have been teaching it for 200 years.
When your scriptural interpretation is cover to bind people in death, forced deceit, destruction and abuse, it is not of God and you know better. When you or your surrogates give legitimacy and cover to evil it is error. When people use your mantle to intimidate others into silence, it is error. The stones themselves will cry out "Hosannah in the Highest." The Holy Spirit will not tolerate it.
To Whom do you go for Confession? The same Dominican Canon law scholars who bind people in death, deceit and destruction? To Whom do you go when you permit your Priests to threaten, intimidate or insult people from the pulpit because they stand for truth and integrity and really know what is going on. Your doctrine places unbearable weight and burden on people that they cannot carry. The Holy Spirit will not tolerate it.
To Whom do you beg forgiveness for demanding blind obedience to error?
I call no man "Father" but he who is in Heaven, just as it is written.
You can take all your titles and robes of men who hide behind accolates, honors and titles and put them in the highest places of honor with all the litany of Pharisees who parade as pious while they defile the altar.
Houston -it's Spring Cleaning time. If you have not noticed, the church is in deep deep Crisis.
You may stone me like Jeremiah and I will not be silent.
The last Junior High Youth Seminary in Chicago just shut down. Several of your Archdioceses in America have declared bankruptcy reorganization. While little old ladies chanting the Rosary throw a dollar in the basket you have billions of dollars being paid in settlements on sex scandals. Billions. Count them. People are way mightily mad at you.
Priests steal affection and call it holy. They are bound in unhealthy vows of chastity married to an institution and lie prostrate spread eagle making love to the floor tiles in your service while God's women stare barren at them and others secretly throw themselves at them- this is not God. This is perversion. And you wonder why the Protestant evangelical church is gaining ground in Latin America?
You need to convene a Vatican III immediately. You need to let the laity address the matters that concern them openly or you are going to have an implosion the likes of which will make Martin Luther look like a church picnic in the church basement and the Jesuits look like the only people who read scripture.
And Fatima's Third Secret will unveil itself and fall on your head like an Alpine earthquake.
The Earth is the Lord's and Everything In It. Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord.
Jesus of Nazareth is your Lord and my Lord and I call no other my Lord as instructed directly by scripture. When your doctrine deviates from Jesus, I am sure you will agree it is flatly error-even if Cannon law Dominicans at Catholic University have been teaching it for 200 years.
When your scriptural interpretation is cover to bind people in death, forced deceit, destruction and abuse, it is not of God and you know better. When you or your surrogates give legitimacy and cover to evil it is error. When people use your mantle to intimidate others into silence, it is error. The stones themselves will cry out "Hosannah in the Highest." The Holy Spirit will not tolerate it.
To Whom do you go for Confession? The same Dominican Canon law scholars who bind people in death, deceit and destruction? To Whom do you go when you permit your Priests to threaten, intimidate or insult people from the pulpit because they stand for truth and integrity and really know what is going on. Your doctrine places unbearable weight and burden on people that they cannot carry. The Holy Spirit will not tolerate it.
To Whom do you beg forgiveness for demanding blind obedience to error?
I call no man "Father" but he who is in Heaven, just as it is written.
You can take all your titles and robes of men who hide behind accolates, honors and titles and put them in the highest places of honor with all the litany of Pharisees who parade as pious while they defile the altar.
Houston -it's Spring Cleaning time. If you have not noticed, the church is in deep deep Crisis.
You may stone me like Jeremiah and I will not be silent.
The last Junior High Youth Seminary in Chicago just shut down. Several of your Archdioceses in America have declared bankruptcy reorganization. While little old ladies chanting the Rosary throw a dollar in the basket you have billions of dollars being paid in settlements on sex scandals. Billions. Count them. People are way mightily mad at you.
Priests steal affection and call it holy. They are bound in unhealthy vows of chastity married to an institution and lie prostrate spread eagle making love to the floor tiles in your service while God's women stare barren at them and others secretly throw themselves at them- this is not God. This is perversion. And you wonder why the Protestant evangelical church is gaining ground in Latin America?
You need to convene a Vatican III immediately. You need to let the laity address the matters that concern them openly or you are going to have an implosion the likes of which will make Martin Luther look like a church picnic in the church basement and the Jesuits look like the only people who read scripture.
And Fatima's Third Secret will unveil itself and fall on your head like an Alpine earthquake.
The Earth is the Lord's and Everything In It. Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Integrity Meltdown
Say What You Mean
"Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say, and Don't Say it Mean." If you didn't learn it in Kindergarden you learned it from your Mom. If you didn't learn it from your Mom, you heard it from your uncle Joe who learned it at an AA meeting. If you didn't learn it at all, go to an AA meeting.
What WMDs? Who me? Fire Prosecutors? What emails? Tell what Press? Meet the Who? Abu where? We don't torture, really, we don't. Trust Me. Habeus Who?
Deployment toward Iran? What's on the table, off the table, under the table?
Aren't you just sick of it. Don't you just want a straight-shooter. Why do we feel like the people "governing" us are rather well dressed snail oil peddlers. Don't you just want someone to level with you on whatever level that ends up landing without hitting you first for contribution solicitations?
Integrity. Look it up. Standing on your principles and promises- and not talking yourself out of them when something else looks needy and enticing- even if they beg, whimper and sigh for the attention. Integrity-without it-commitment remains as elusive as peace in Gaza.
Lawyers get concerned with "appearances of impropriety" almost as much as the actual malfeasance. The Say One Thing-do and believe exactly the opposite-is enough to make one's head spin. Sneaky, smarmy, and smacking of "I need a shower" foreign policy because of the filthy double dealing.
Yeah- I'm tawkin to you.
"Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say, and Don't Say it Mean." If you didn't learn it in Kindergarden you learned it from your Mom. If you didn't learn it from your Mom, you heard it from your uncle Joe who learned it at an AA meeting. If you didn't learn it at all, go to an AA meeting.
What WMDs? Who me? Fire Prosecutors? What emails? Tell what Press? Meet the Who? Abu where? We don't torture, really, we don't. Trust Me. Habeus Who?
Deployment toward Iran? What's on the table, off the table, under the table?
Aren't you just sick of it. Don't you just want a straight-shooter. Why do we feel like the people "governing" us are rather well dressed snail oil peddlers. Don't you just want someone to level with you on whatever level that ends up landing without hitting you first for contribution solicitations?
Integrity. Look it up. Standing on your principles and promises- and not talking yourself out of them when something else looks needy and enticing- even if they beg, whimper and sigh for the attention. Integrity-without it-commitment remains as elusive as peace in Gaza.
Lawyers get concerned with "appearances of impropriety" almost as much as the actual malfeasance. The Say One Thing-do and believe exactly the opposite-is enough to make one's head spin. Sneaky, smarmy, and smacking of "I need a shower" foreign policy because of the filthy double dealing.
Yeah- I'm tawkin to you.
Friday, June 15, 2007
A Moment of Silence Please
For Ruth GRAHAM
And here is what a living Saint is Doing:
----------------------
Sr. Rose Marie is a photographer and friend of mine. She has till the end of this month to raise funds for an orphanage in Tanzania (long story as to why that is so). She has already raised the funds for a school and women's center (both are built -- praise God). If you could put this on your blog or pass the word..that would be great. She has these awesome, inspirational, and high quality coffee table books to sell by the end of the month. They make fabulous gifts. A bit pricey but the quality and cause are worth it.
Her website is www.inthebetween.com
Take a gander. This is a very worthy cause. Every penny goes to Africa. A benefactor printed the books for her.
Thanks every so much in advance for whatever you can do.
In Christ
Therese
And here is what a living Saint is Doing:
----------------------
Sr. Rose Marie is a photographer and friend of mine. She has till the end of this month to raise funds for an orphanage in Tanzania (long story as to why that is so). She has already raised the funds for a school and women's center (both are built -- praise God). If you could put this on your blog or pass the word..that would be great. She has these awesome, inspirational, and high quality coffee table books to sell by the end of the month. They make fabulous gifts. A bit pricey but the quality and cause are worth it.
Her website is www.inthebetween.com
Take a gander. This is a very worthy cause. Every penny goes to Africa. A benefactor printed the books for her.
Thanks every so much in advance for whatever you can do.
In Christ
Therese
Saturday, June 09, 2007
HOLY JOY
Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty Heaven and Earth are Full of Your Glory
There is a lot of Catholic misconception concerning the nature of "Holiness" that leads to
Joylessness. Holiness and Righteousness are not the antithesis of intimate conjugal love. To the contrary, we all know marriage is one of the major sacraments- just one in which the holiest of us-our priests-never get to partake from the other side of the altar.
The holiness of conjugal love ranks with the holiness of complete priestly celibacy. They are equally self sacrificial. Holiness is not a robbing oneself of all natural passion or impulse. It is not a denial of all that is human. Were that the goal, why would Christ incarnate himself? He could have yelled at us from a burning bush. Holiness is not a foresaking of all that is pleasing, lovely, and beautiful. For some that is a path chosen. But for no one should it be a path imposed. Jesus came that you might have life and have it abundantly-fully human, fully alive. New Testament scripture expressly states that a bishop or deacon should be "the husband of one wife". That is the biblical statement on church office. Jesus never said and never meant for his apostles or disciples to require throwing away their bodies or their wives. He healed Peter's mother in law and didn't tell him to dump his wife in the river. He doesn't demand or need a cast of castratti to transform himself for our consumption under the appearance of bread and wine.
Scripture all teaches that this should be a choice, and some will choose it for the kingdom- and we all should respect when some do. But many are called to be priests, and only some are called to isolate themselves from all intimacy with women for all time. The view that Prieshood must by mandate be celibate- a creation of church doctrine of the 12th Century and not anything taught by Jesus-EVER-- has within it a certain unholy fear, loathing and disgust of women. This view hurts women. It hurts women precisely because there are some women whose hearts were created to bond with men called to be holy priests and they were created from the beginning of time to be married to men who are priests. Their lives are simply discounted-given no value under this order and rule whatever. They are not asked, they are not considered, they are not valued. They are valued less than the building called the church and they are part of Christ's body, the heavenly Church. There is an understanding of the Blessed Virginal Mary and everything else womanly which is intrinsically unclean to this understanding of mandated celibacy.
Jesus taught just the opposite.
He elevated the dignity of women. He taught that the woman getting stoned was not someone to scorn, he taught that the woman at the well who had five or seven (whose counting) husbands could be spoken to and could serve him-she became the first Evangelist who ran to tell the town all about him; He taught that the woman who wasted all her money on perfume or oil to annoint his feet could use her own hair as a towel and caress his feet with her hair. The first person he spoke to when he rose from the dead was a woman (and he couldn't wait to get up to see her again.)
God himself in the Holy Spirit had conjugal love-cosmic sex-with a woman (you thought long distance relationships were hard, God reached through time/space galactic dimensions to get to his love). He knows every temptation known to man and is sinless. We are made in his image. Thus this kind of powerful life giving love of a woman is sinless. He chose one woman-and he impregnated her. Sinlessly. Love seeks -compels-union by its nature and he loved her so much he brought forth human flesh from her.
An entire theology built around a notion of holiness that mandates celibacy is frought with internal contradictions and forced deceptions, denials and delusions. God made man in his image. God impregnated a woman. God has a Holy Family. God came as a baby. All these things stare a Priest in his face every time he says Mass. And yet, somehow the church has pursuaded holy men for centuries that they cannot be both Priests and carnally intimate with a wife. They cannot even touch them. -Especially now with the litigation exposure threats.
And so many of them cheat against their own souls. They dally with temptation and face stern retribution while they torture their consciences. They are threatened with persecutions, derision and trapped then in unholy Fear accused absurdly of loving Jesus less because they love a woman also. Those are the ones who don't simply leave active service of the church making the Church the loser. And to this unholy tortured doctrinal imposition is added more than a touch of hypocracy when we note that Episcopal Priests may bring wives with them to the Catholic priesthood as can the entire Eastern Rite --
But the Roman Catholic church's Princes-after the order of Melchizadek -a married Jewish King and Priest of Salem (Jerusalem) may never know the caring tender gentle caress of a woman in love.
And at this- Jesus wept.
Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi-the Body of Christ where upon the pre-eminence of the Eucharist in the Mass is expounded. You may hear a Priest say something like "there is no greater intimacy with God" than partaking of this. Yes of course, but we do not serve a God in a Box like a Jack in the Box. God is bigger than a bread box. We serve and adore a God much bigger than that. We serve the Source that created all life. God, it was once said was not in the thunder, he was not in the wind, he was in the still small voice. The still small voice might say something like "I love you, you are mine." It may say something like "follow me." God does come transubstantiated for us as the new Manna from heaven for our spiritual and bodily nourishment in his actual presence. God also comes through the hearts of purest love which can be found in a wife. God does not limit himself to his box. My mother used to say to our dog when it wouldn't mind (behave) "Get back in your box" and it would sit in its cage. God cannot be commanded to just remain only in the Eucharist at the command of the church. God is Love. There is not anything that was created which was not created through Jesus. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. God is in the still voice. God is in the human heart. God is Love. God is Love. God is Love.
There is a lot of Catholic misconception concerning the nature of "Holiness" that leads to
Joylessness. Holiness and Righteousness are not the antithesis of intimate conjugal love. To the contrary, we all know marriage is one of the major sacraments- just one in which the holiest of us-our priests-never get to partake from the other side of the altar.
The holiness of conjugal love ranks with the holiness of complete priestly celibacy. They are equally self sacrificial. Holiness is not a robbing oneself of all natural passion or impulse. It is not a denial of all that is human. Were that the goal, why would Christ incarnate himself? He could have yelled at us from a burning bush. Holiness is not a foresaking of all that is pleasing, lovely, and beautiful. For some that is a path chosen. But for no one should it be a path imposed. Jesus came that you might have life and have it abundantly-fully human, fully alive. New Testament scripture expressly states that a bishop or deacon should be "the husband of one wife". That is the biblical statement on church office. Jesus never said and never meant for his apostles or disciples to require throwing away their bodies or their wives. He healed Peter's mother in law and didn't tell him to dump his wife in the river. He doesn't demand or need a cast of castratti to transform himself for our consumption under the appearance of bread and wine.
Scripture all teaches that this should be a choice, and some will choose it for the kingdom- and we all should respect when some do. But many are called to be priests, and only some are called to isolate themselves from all intimacy with women for all time. The view that Prieshood must by mandate be celibate- a creation of church doctrine of the 12th Century and not anything taught by Jesus-EVER-- has within it a certain unholy fear, loathing and disgust of women. This view hurts women. It hurts women precisely because there are some women whose hearts were created to bond with men called to be holy priests and they were created from the beginning of time to be married to men who are priests. Their lives are simply discounted-given no value under this order and rule whatever. They are not asked, they are not considered, they are not valued. They are valued less than the building called the church and they are part of Christ's body, the heavenly Church. There is an understanding of the Blessed Virginal Mary and everything else womanly which is intrinsically unclean to this understanding of mandated celibacy.
Jesus taught just the opposite.
He elevated the dignity of women. He taught that the woman getting stoned was not someone to scorn, he taught that the woman at the well who had five or seven (whose counting) husbands could be spoken to and could serve him-she became the first Evangelist who ran to tell the town all about him; He taught that the woman who wasted all her money on perfume or oil to annoint his feet could use her own hair as a towel and caress his feet with her hair. The first person he spoke to when he rose from the dead was a woman (and he couldn't wait to get up to see her again.)
God himself in the Holy Spirit had conjugal love-cosmic sex-with a woman (you thought long distance relationships were hard, God reached through time/space galactic dimensions to get to his love). He knows every temptation known to man and is sinless. We are made in his image. Thus this kind of powerful life giving love of a woman is sinless. He chose one woman-and he impregnated her. Sinlessly. Love seeks -compels-union by its nature and he loved her so much he brought forth human flesh from her.
An entire theology built around a notion of holiness that mandates celibacy is frought with internal contradictions and forced deceptions, denials and delusions. God made man in his image. God impregnated a woman. God has a Holy Family. God came as a baby. All these things stare a Priest in his face every time he says Mass. And yet, somehow the church has pursuaded holy men for centuries that they cannot be both Priests and carnally intimate with a wife. They cannot even touch them. -Especially now with the litigation exposure threats.
And so many of them cheat against their own souls. They dally with temptation and face stern retribution while they torture their consciences. They are threatened with persecutions, derision and trapped then in unholy Fear accused absurdly of loving Jesus less because they love a woman also. Those are the ones who don't simply leave active service of the church making the Church the loser. And to this unholy tortured doctrinal imposition is added more than a touch of hypocracy when we note that Episcopal Priests may bring wives with them to the Catholic priesthood as can the entire Eastern Rite --
But the Roman Catholic church's Princes-after the order of Melchizadek -a married Jewish King and Priest of Salem (Jerusalem) may never know the caring tender gentle caress of a woman in love.
And at this- Jesus wept.
Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi-the Body of Christ where upon the pre-eminence of the Eucharist in the Mass is expounded. You may hear a Priest say something like "there is no greater intimacy with God" than partaking of this. Yes of course, but we do not serve a God in a Box like a Jack in the Box. God is bigger than a bread box. We serve and adore a God much bigger than that. We serve the Source that created all life. God, it was once said was not in the thunder, he was not in the wind, he was in the still small voice. The still small voice might say something like "I love you, you are mine." It may say something like "follow me." God does come transubstantiated for us as the new Manna from heaven for our spiritual and bodily nourishment in his actual presence. God also comes through the hearts of purest love which can be found in a wife. God does not limit himself to his box. My mother used to say to our dog when it wouldn't mind (behave) "Get back in your box" and it would sit in its cage. God cannot be commanded to just remain only in the Eucharist at the command of the church. God is Love. There is not anything that was created which was not created through Jesus. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. God is in the still voice. God is in the human heart. God is Love. God is Love. God is Love.
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