The Saint John's Messenger:
2002
Fr Martin writes an article each week for the St John's Messenger
January 20, 2002
And God said, Let there be light:
and there was light. And God saw
the light, that it was good: and God
divided the light from the darkness.
Epiphanytide is all about the manifestation or shining forth of God's life as power and wisdom and love. In the life of Jesus Christ, the hidden attributes of God's life are made manifest to us in Emmanuel. Emmanuel is God with us and for us. What human beings could not see and know because of their fallen forgetfulness and ignorance is now revealed to faithful minds in the person of Jesus Christ. What was hidden and concealed is now present and revealed.
Faith which knows its own darkness and powerlessness opens up to the grace of God revealed in the life of the Saviour. "... the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory." God was made man and manifest to you and to me; because through the fall and original sin, the true light and life of the world had been hidden from man's eyes.
In Adam you and I chose to fall away from God, to prefer the darkness to the light and to see good as evil in this created world. Rather than see the world as good only, as in God and for God, all human beings chose to "have it our way"; to know it and use it apart from God's will and purposes. The fall of man is all about choosing and desiring to see the world without God. Life without God is sinful. Vitality unillumined by God's light and truth really breeds only ignorant darkness and meaningless death.
Long ago, St. Augustine of Hippo located the origins of evil and death in the first moments of God's creation of the world. In his Civitatis Dei (The City of God), Augustine sought to trace the origins of two cities back to the first days of all creation. What the sainted doctor wanted to show was that there are two cities which are at war with one another: there is the city of light and truth, and there is the city of darkness and falsehood. Each of these cities has its origin in a spiritual choice or desire.
The first and best city is the city of goodwill, faithfulness, and benevolence. The second city is one of ill will, lack of faith, and malevolence. The first city thrives everlastingly in joy and bliss because it derives its strength and energy from God's wise counsel and love. The second city endures eternally in misery and death because it has turned to its own selfishness and vanity.
Augustine locates the spiritual roots of each city in the difference between light and darkness. You will remember that on the first day of creation God created light, and that light was good. The light that God created is a reflection of His wisdom, power, and love. The light which was created is identified by Augustine as the angels. In the record of the creation in the Book of Genesis, there is no explicit reference to the creation of angels. But Augustine concludes that these intelligent spirits make up the first created light.
On the first day there is a created light, but there is no created darkness. What follows the good creation of light is a separation of it from darkness: " ... and God divided the light from the darkness." Augustine concludes that this separation is necessary because part of the light, created with free will, chose the opposite of God's way and so sealed its own fate. All that God creates must be essentially good. The origin of evil is found in a choice to will what God does not desire. Evil is possible only for creatures of free will.
The light reflects the truth and wisdom of the Creator. The good angels everlastingly adhere and cleave to the way and will of God. Lucifer and his band of bad angels reject the goodwill and truth of their Maker, and so choose the darkness and lies of life without God. Darkness is not created by a good God; rather it is the result of a choice to see the world without God's purposes and desires. Darkness or evil finds its roots in the choice of faithless wicked intelligent spirits who depart from the light of the Lord.
In this Epiphanytide, let us remember that God has created all things as good to persist in the light of divine benevolence. Evil moves the city of bad angels and of men, because having seen the light they chose darkness instead. Evil is therefore nothing substantial but is rather an absence or privation of the good. The City of God demands that angels and men depend entirely upon that Light and Life that alone gives meaning and purpose to creatures of free will and love.
The good angels live in that true light. That light is the Word of God; the "light of light." Christians are called to imitate the good angels in choosing the good and refusing to dwell in darkness and evil. †
January 27, 2002
You and I have been meditating upon the difference between good angels and bad angels. You will remember that the former spirits cleave to the everlasting light and illumination of God without ceasing, and thus enjoy the Beatific Vision of God's life. The latter spirits are creatures of malice and ill will, who have rejected the light, having exchanged it all in for a vision dependent upon themselves.
The good angels know that true life depends upon the wisdom and presence of God. The bad angels try to see without God, and so discover darkness and misery. Life unillumined by Divine radiance and luminosity is, after all, not good. For when rational creatures choose to see the world outside of God's light and wisdom, they introduce an element that competes with God's way.
This element is the opposite of God's benevolence and presence. It is the opposite of God's will-goodness, and so we call it ill will or evil. When our spiritual parents fell away from good, they fell away from seeing the world by the light of the good (i.e., in the light of God's will and purpose). They imitated those angels who thought that they could have vision without the Lord.
I am sure that the bad angels were of the mistaken opinion that true liberty or freedom is found in the absence of any inhibition or limitation on free choice. Perhaps the greatest fallacy that any rational creature can endorse, be he angel or man, is that true freedom is synonymous with independence. The thought is that the individual spirit can live without any reliance on any other source of life or truth.
Bad angels and bad men have deluded themselves into thinking that liberty is fully expressed in self-motivation and self- preservation. Yet creatures who think themselves to be free of any other power forget that spiritually and mystically, the preservation of the soul's animation depends wholly and completely upon God.
God is the creator of the universe. He is also the preserver and sustainer of life. Without remembering it, bad angels and bad men forget that they would have no freedom to forget God or ignore him if their souls were not continually enlivened and quickened by the Divine source of all life. Life is always and everywhere dependent upon a God who wills that angels and men live, so life is truly dependent and derivative. Life would not be life were not God to will that such be the case.
A truly honest appraisal of angelic and human vitality can lead to no other conclusion but that God Himself keeps the universe and all souls within it living. God is the source of all existence and being. Knowing this challenges crazed notions which link liberty to complete independence and autonomy.
If God is the source of life, then one might be led to think that He is also the source of good life. Good life is wellbeing. Wellbeing is the intention of the Divine Master for angels and for men. He eternally desires that his creatures should have life and that "they might have it more abundantly." Abundant life is the life of virtue and truth.
The Scriptures are packed full of images linking God's life to light and illumination. The Psalmist tells us that "the Lord is my light and my salvation," and that in His light "we see light." The Lord's life is that light that illumines, defines, and orders the cosmos. Without God's everlasting radiation the world becomes chaotic, senseless, and unknowable.
We can know the universe and ourselves within it only when we see all things in God's way and in the service of His truth. God's life is not sterile and unconnected with all other forms of life. His life lends meaning and significance to all that He has created. He persists in preserving creation because He desires to move all things toward their intended end -- that of intimacy with Himself, in knowledge and love. "While we have the light, let us believe in the light," and in believing in it let us be moved by the truth it carries to our souls.
Rather than taking up the temptation to false liberty and independence, let us find our freedom in dependence upon an all- loving and meaningful God. Let us know that true liberty is found in contemplation of God and His wondrous ways. Let us find our true satisfaction in seeing the good by His light, and in that light let us discover the good life that He always intends for us. †
February 3, 2002
The first book of Moses is called Genesis. Genesis is a Greek word meaning creation, generation, origin and source, and the book of Genesis is all about that source of creation. There has been much debate about the authorship of this book in the last
one hundred or so years.
Modern scholars maintain that Moses did not write the book, and that in any case he could not have been around at the Creation to know exactly what happened when all things came into being. But Modern scholars, interested as they are in historical authenticity and certainty, seem to ignore the role of revelation and divine illumination in the inspired formulation of what we know as the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.
Tradition has it that Moses' mind was inspired to contemplate the nature of God and the beginnings of all creation from unusual and supernatural experience of God which was unique to the ancient Jews. Why shouldn't the same Moses who received a vision of the great "I AM," then move on to explicate creation on the basis of what he had come to grasp intellectually and spiritually?
The God who Moses found was not discovered through science or experienced through his natural sense in nature. The ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians found the gods in nature; they did not separate divinity from what surrounded them in the natural order. A god was in the sea, a god was in the winds, and a thunderous god shook the cosmos.
The ancient Jews had a radically different experience: The God of the Jews was not seen in nature or heard in the winds. He brews, from experience of God's revelation and visitations to Moses and others came to understand that there was a real difference between the Creator and His creation, between the first Cause and all that He caused to come to be.
The ultimate explanation for the origins of the universe and life within it could not be found in the created world, by meditating upon nature and the physical universe. Rather, the explanation for all life could only be found beyond this world in the life of one God who "was always and only uniquely Himself."
Moses and the Hebrews looked beyond creation and found its source and origin in the life of the Creator. Inspired by faith's experience of Divine deliverance from slavery in Egypt and by the presence of a God who imparted His wisdom in the Ten Commandments, the ancient Jews came to know that God was not like the gods of other peoples.
They discovered that the Lord God was greater than and superior to any force or strength to be found in the created order. The God of the Jews inhabited a spiritual and mystical plane that was completely unlike the world of time and space, chance and fortune, change and decay. This God was the source and cause of all that is while always remaining above it and beyond it in His own nature.
If we remember that the ancient Jews received a unique revelation from God and that they discovered that other dimension of intellectual life -- the life of the spirit -- then we shall have fewer problems grasping the depiction of creation in the first book of Genesis.
Therein we find perhaps the most profound depiction of creation that has ever been written. To the mind of the ancient Jew, "In the beginning God created …." Before God created the universe, there was only God. Before all things that have a beginning existed, there was the great "I AM" alone. Before the creation of time and space and all that would come to be, God alone existed.
What was there other than God before the creation "in the beginning?" Nothing. God existed, and nothing else. God is the perfect source of His own everlasting being. Aside from Him nothing exists. "And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." The Lord creates the heaven and the earth and yet, in the beginning, they are void and empty of any meaning. They are without form or any reason. What is other than God comes from nothing and cannot have any intellectual purpose until God bestows meaning.
God is absolute, unopposed, and possesses the only wisdom and truth that can give rational coherence to anything that He makes. God is the cause of all that He makes, and He imparts the logic and order to all of His generated order. Before God makes anything, there is nothing. Even when God makes something, what He makes has no truth in itself. Truth and life depend wholly and completely upon God's life and wisdom.
The first few verses of the Book of Genesis provide us with food for thought in our spiritual pilgrimage. What we learn from the ancient Jewish account of creation is that God is the sole creator and sustainer of all that exists. Yet He is not only the creator of life and being; He is also the creator of meaning and purpose, law and order.
God is the cause of all life and all meaning. If we approach Him in the knowledge that He alone is pure existence and thought, we might learn to depend upon His life and wisdom with more seriousness. If we remember that He creates all things out of nothing -- indeed, that we were created out of nothing -- we might have reason to think about embracing humility as a habit of life.
Given the fact of our creation from nothing, the source of our vitality in body and soul is completely dependent upon the good grace and love of the Lord God. If we worship the creation or ourselves, we are bowing down to nothing. Let us rather bow down to the Lord God who alone has something to give for our spiritual transformation. †
February 17, 2002
A few weeks ago we spoke about the life of the good angels. We were considering the vitality and wisdom that quickened these celestial and spiritual creatures. What can be concluded from the first Book of Moses and other texts of the Holy Bible is that good angels are intelligences who humbly acknowledge their dependence upon the Good and gladly receive the illuminating light flowing from it.
Intelligent life, first created in the existence of angels, depends radically upon a self-conscious adhesion to that Perfect Mind that sustains prolonged thinking and meditation upon itself. Angels are rational and realize that rationality is a gift that can be maintained only by the constant power and wisdom of God.
As we have said, you and I are called to imitate the life of the angels. The prophet Isaiah reminds us that angels surround the throne of the Lord and sing everlasting praises to His glory and truth. Above the throne of the Lord, "stood the seraphim … and one cried to another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory."
According to church tradition, the seraphim are those angels especially known for their passionate fervor and amor. "Amor" is the Latin word for love, and this first order of angels is known for their burning love. St. Dionysus reminds us that sera-phim means "fire-makers," that is to say, "carriers of warmth." When an angelic rational creature knows God as the Source of all life and truth, rapturous joy and ecstasy ensue. The contemplation of God's Being yields fire and warmth, which this order of angels embrace and pass on in praise and song.
Complementing the passion and ardor of the seraphim is another order of angels, known as the cherubim. Cherubim means "fullness of knowledge" and "outpouring of wisdom." This hierarchy of angels is characterized by the possession of holy wisdom or what is known in Latin as "sapientia." There can be no real love or passion without knowledge of the beloved.
The cherubim's knowledge complements the seraphim's love. What the cherubim know is reflected in the love of the seraphim. The cherubim receive the wisdom and truth of the Almighty and the seraphim carry the warmth of this truth into expression of deepest love and passion. What is known is loved eternally. Knowledge and love combine in harmony.
You and I must think about the lives of the intelligent beings known as angels. We must see how the cherubim are given the power to see and know God, to embrace the donations of His light, and to impart this wisdom to other angels and indeed to us men. We must see also how the seraphim encircle the Divine Being, receive what the cherubim know, and overflow with the fiery heat of all movement and truth.
We must remember that God is the source of all truth and wisdom. The mind of the Maker generates all life and also sustains all thinking and wondering. God keeps us alive and ensures that our minds are forever working. For this we must praise the Lord. In addition, this knowledge begins to purify our minds and lift us out of our own fallen world.
When you and I realize that God is our Maker, and that we must depend upon Him entirely, we are making a conscious admission of our own weakness and powerlessness. A realistic assessment of our own limitations moves us to confess humbly that "there is no health in us." But isn't it interesting that even the unfallen angels, those who behold the face of our Lord forever and bask in His radiant love, make the same admission?
Their strength is found in their own confessed weakness. The highest orders of intelligent creatures find their strength in God. They know that they are weak; they know that He is strong. His wisdom and His love fill and move them. This Lent, let us begin to imitate these good angels. These angels have never sinned and yet admit their utter dependence upon the Lord. We have sinned and so have much more reason to approach His mercy seat in humility and cry out for His mercy and love. †
March 3, 2002
A few weeks ago, you and I were contemplating the creation of angels. We were meditating upon the generation of the first form of life at the Creation of the world. We learned that when God created the first Light, this constituted the realm of intelligent spirits who were made to reflect the truth and beauty of the Lord in their own adhesion to pure Love. So the Light that God created was good.
Yet we also learned about God's need to separate the Light from a newly emergent Darkness. That Darkness turned about to be a quality of life which certain of the angels chose as an opposition to the wisdom and charity of God. The Darkness was, in other words, a type of existence embraced by those angels who did not want to cleave to the truth and live in the brilliance of God's presence. Evil is not created. Evil or Darkness is a way of seeing, knowing and willing not within the Light, but outside of the Light and in opposition to it.
So God divides the Light from the darkness. "And God called the Light day and the darkness he called night." But remember, God has not yet created physical light or physical darkness. This day and this night must belong to a different type altogether. St. Augustine of Hippo teaches us that just as the first light and darkness relate to a quality of angelic life, so too the day and the night refer to a spiritual rather than a physical condition of life.
Remember that after God separates out the light from the darkness and then goes on to "call the light day and the darkness night," there is no subsequent approbation. When God created the Light, he said that "it was good." After dividing it from darkness, he said no such thing. So we are to conclude that though all angels were created good by nature, all of them did not remain good. Some chose to be evil, and it was their own fault. And God did not approve of their spiritual choice.
St. Augustine teaches us that the Light and the Darkness represent the two societies of angels, "the one enjoying God and the other swelling with pride." When God goes on to create the physical light and darkness (Genesis, verses 14-18), the sun and the moon, he concludes his creation by seeing that it was good. Whatever God creates is by nature good. This means that no created being, be it angel, plant, animal or man, is evil by nature.
Evil comes about on the spiritual plane. Only angels and men can become evil. And they do so by the use of free will or choice. Evil is the result of a misdirected love or desire. It comes about as the result of the choice not to know and use all things in the higher service of God's will. Rather evil is the end product of that habit which knows all things and uses them in the service of the self divorced from God.
This Lent, let us choose to live in and through the Light of the Lord. Let us dwell within that quality of life which knows and uses all creation in God's service. To do so, we must put the Lord's presence, his will, and his purposes first in our lives. We must desire to be moved and defined by the Lord's wisdom and love and power.
Let us walk away from the darkness of the soul's night, where we find ourselves spiritually blind and lost. Let us ascend into the presence of God and reflect the spiritual illumination of the soul's day. He made us to be good. Let us choose this condition of spiritual daytime, where only the light draws us, attracts us and moves us to be God's good people by choice. †
March 10, 2002
In the spiritual light of day, the holy angels are the emanations of God's perfect life -- His wisdom, His power, and His love. The life of the angels is derivative. This means that the life and intelligence of the angels come from God and is then returned to God in choruses of perpetual praise and thanksgiving.
The angels are the first beings created from God's loving craftsmanship. Through the light and brilliance that they embrace and mirror, all of the subsequent levels of creation can be understood. Without intelligence, you and I can understand nothing. Through this first-created sphere of angelic intelligence, we can begin to comprehend what follows.
In the light of intelligence, you and I can move through the various stages of creation. What is so profound about God's creation is that each form of life that is made yields to a higher form. The Artificer generates all that we come to perceive and know that is around us. He begins with simple things and then builds on them to create more complex things. Following the creation of spiritual light, God makes a physical space into which he can place his works of art.
On the Second Day of creation, God makes the material heaven or the skies. All that lives outside of the spiritual heavens live under a kind of dome. This dome is above all that follows. It is an ethereal or airy atmosphere. There is not much substance to it, and it is almost unperceivable. But it is that within which something greater and more profound, something more God-like can be made. The stage is set for the drama of creation to unfold.
On the Third Day, God makes the earth and the seas. Moving from the ethereal to the more concrete, God creates large and substantial bodies. The earth itself and water itself simply exist. Within the earth that he has created, God places forms of life which contain within themselves the source of their own reproduction.
The earth itself is inanimate and without any power to reproduce itself. Soil and rocks do not reproduce themselves. The plants and herbs, which God places next on the earth and in the seas, contain within the power to make or create others like themselves. They can duplicate their existence by dropping seeds and making new life. Notice that the plants and herbs are more like God than the rocks and soil. The plants and herbs can make or remake themselves. They can bring forth life.
Plants and herbs need further outside assistance to regenerate themselves, so on the Fourth Day, God creates the lights in the physical heavens. "The greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night." These lights will relate to the earth in varying forms and intensities. God makes seasons and times in which certain forms of vegetative life will grow or rest dormant. These forms of life, which can recreate themselves, rely upon external assistance to give birth to others like themselves. The plants and the herbs rely upon an order imposed upon them to reproduce themselves.
All life is dependent; new life -- the seeds of which are found within plants and herbs -- depends upon an order imprinted upon the earth and the skies. No form of vegetative life can live and reproduce without an order dominated by the sun and moon, seasons and times. God's reason and the principles of his order move and direct even that creation which has potential new life within itself.
On the Fifth Day, God makes a certain kind of animal life. He fashions the birds and the fish. This type of life is much different from what has preceded it in creation. Here we have the introduction of two sexes for each creation and so find the introduction of appetite, passion, desire, pain, and pleasure. The reproduction of these species depends upon the coming together of two.
Community is created -- though on a brutish level. Most of these animals lay eggs. Their reproduction is not unlike the dropping of seeds found in vegetative life. But the eggs are a result of passion and desire that precedes the beginnings of life in the conceived egg. Something more God-like has been introduced. We begin to have a distant relative of Divine Love and Friendship, found between the passionate bird and fish lovers!
Thus far our journey, which began in the intelligent light of angelic life, has enabled us to see the logic of God's creation unfolding before our eyes. When we see through that light, all life begins to make sense. More importantly, we begin to see that Genesis -- far from being a myth imagined by ignorant people -- is a story of creation profoundly intellectual and rationally coherent. Next week we shall examine the creation of Spot and his master. †
March 17, 2002
Last week we examined the forms of creation which succeeded the generation of angelic intelligences. We learned that God -- in the light of his truth which the angels always reflect and adore -- created a hierarchy of natures beginning with the simple and moving towards the more complex. Also we learned that as the six days of creation unfolded, each successive form of life that God made reflected God's life more fully.
So, for example, we saw that a plant is more like God than a rock, because the plant has within itself the power to reproduce its own nature. An herb or a plant can image itself or create itself, while a rock cannot. So the plant is more like God than what preceded it in creation since it possesses a power to create and bring forth life. Similarly, a fish is more God-like than a plant, given that a fish experiences passion and pleasure. There is a certain joy which accompanies a fish's reproductive activities. The sexual principle present in animals is more closely imitative of God than a plant's feelingless power to drop its seeds.
Another way to look at God's progressively divine creation is to remember that each form of life follows what precedes it and uses what was created before it for its own life. Thus the plant depends upon the earth or soil to grow and reproduce. It takes up what has come before it in the order of creation and uses it for its own life.
Likewise the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air depend upon vegetative life for their own creation and reproduction cycles. The fish and the fowl have a certain mastery over the plants and herbs: They can govern such things or use them in pursuit of their own needs in life. The soil and the sea are forms of life which are taken in and used by plants and herbs. Plants and herbs are kinds of existence proving useful to the more developed species of fish and fowl.
What we see from our observations of this hierarchy of being or life is that God's creation is moving somewhere. Each form of life has a use and purpose not only to itself but to what follows it in the created order. There is a Divine Reason which generates each kind of life and pushes it into the service of the next form of life.
As we move further and further into the creative process, each more complex form of life has all the power of what preceded it and more. God both creates all things and then draws all things back to himself. He is the beginning and the ending. Creation is not pointless or meaningless. All things move toward their respective ends, and those ends always serve higher purposes.
Each created nature reflects a level of God's truth in the world. A vegetable does not sense; it has no real self-consciousness. With the creation of animals, God generates a form of life that can see, taste, touch, hear, and smell. This form of life responds to its environment and so has a kind of appetitive relation to it. Such appetitive faculties indicate a kind of self-consciousness hitherto unknown in the creation. Animals are ordered to and by nature through their appetites and sensations. There exists a kind of determinism with animals. They do not possess free will but are moved by feeling, passion and appetite.
With the creation of man on the 6th day, God completes his hierarchy of new life with a form not wholly unlike that of the angels. God first created the angelic light through which all life can been seen and intellectually grasped. Now at the end of the process comes another rational and intellectual creature who can know what has been made. The angels look forward to what has been made and know and love it. Man now looks back at what has been made and can know it, love it, use and govern all of it as he serves the Lord. Next week we shall look more fully at the creation of man. †
April 21, 2002
When we last looked at the Book of Genesis as an account of the creation story we ended with the generation of animal life and every "creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." But we realized that we would never have been able to comprehend the unfolding logic and reason of creation in its many stages had we not started our journey with the creation of angelic life. For the life of the angels, as a beginning of all God's works, situated our minds within a framework through which to comprehend all else that would follow.
Everything that God does is first rationally coherent and knowable. God's creation is planned and purposive. The first sign that this is so is to be found in that creation which can know and love what he does out of his own understanding and will. God's creation begins with a reason and purpose and, as we shall see today, it ends with the same.
In the context of an unfolding plan, stirred on by that angel life which sees and grasps his logic, we moved through the various forms of life. What we discovered was that each level of creation was made to serve the next. But through it all we must remember that angelic knowledge permeates all of reality, reminding us that spiritual and intellectual significance moves and defines the creation.
Given this, we learned that the earth and seas serve the life that will grow within them. The plants and vegetative life in turn could be used and employed by the fishes and the animals. Every level of generated existence is blessed with the deeper meaning of having been made for the end of something else. Though a vegetable does not know that it is to be used as food by a giraffe, the spiritual truth which the angels know is that God intends this to be so. The angels know that all things work together for the good of something else. The angels know that intellectual reason moves and governs all things in the service of others.
Creation begins with those creatures who can reflect upon God's knowledge and love. Creation also ends with a creation that can do the same. For on the Sixth Day God made man. Man, like the angels, has been given the ability to know God and to see him as the perfect Spiritual Master behind all that has been made. The angels are spiritual beings who can look forward into what God has made and who can cling to those principles which define all things. Man is a spiritual and physical being who can look back at all that has been made and in and through it all know and see the presence of God. Man looking back can grasp the wisdom and power and love of God in creation.
But Man is quite unlike the angels. God created spiritual creatures without bodies and these we know as angels. God created physical natures without spiritual knowledge and these constitute those beings as different as the primordial elements are from the animals. In Man God created a being that is both spiritual and physical. Man is a composite of soul and body, and as such a creation unites both the spiritual and physical portions of God's handiwork. Man possesses a soul with which he can know and love his Maker and also a body in which is present all of the powers and potentialities of physical creation. In Man, in a strange and mysterious way, spiritual and physical reality is melded and blended.
We have said before that the angels can choose to enjoy the bliss of God's wisdom, power and lover forever. Man can do the same with this added benefit. Man can also use everything that has been created in the service of his soul/body existence. Everything that has been made by God can be enjoyed and even used in the pursuit of joy and happiness.
The rocks and wood of the earth can be used to shelter man and can be enjoyed in a beautiful way. The plants and herbs of the earth can be used to satisfy the stomach's urges and can be enjoyed if combined effectively into a culinary masterpiece. Some animals can be used in the same way and others can be enjoyed for their affection and companionship. All of creation can be used practically and enjoyed spiritually by Man who is both body and soul.
Of course we know that Man is "created in the image of God." Ultimately man's use and enjoyment of things must reflect a dependence upon God and his purposes. So man must use his mind and its knowledge to order all of creation in such a way so that is can be used and enjoyed to his soul's ultimate health. If the creation is used and enjoyed without keeping the highest goal of intimacy with God in mind then the creation can fast become a god in itself to be used and abused. Man, who is created in the image of God, is called upon to remember that God's purposes and reasons for all things are spiritual.
Man is created to govern the earth, use and enjoy it, in the service of God. Creation begins and ends with God. Man was originally meant to so master nature and all of its elements such that his body and soul would be firmly rooted and grounded in the knowledge and love of God. The problem arises when Man tries to see and know things for himself, apart from the service of God and his kingdom. Therein lies the root of the Fall. But the contemplation of that Fall from spiritual dependence and joy must wait until next week. †
April 28, 2002
We have been moving through the various levels of creation as recorded by the author of the Book of Genesis. And we have said that each successive form of life that is created is able to use what has preceded it for its own self- existence. The plants use the sun's rays, the heaven's rains, and the air to sustain and reproduce a level of being higher than heat and air and water. In turn, all of the animals can use the rooted plants to sustain their lives and produce others of their own species.
Unlike plants, animals can move and sense the world around them. They take up and use forms of life less developed than their own to live up to their created potential. Each level of created life makes use of what is less developed than itself and uses it to promote its own being.
Man, too, is dependent upon all inferior forms of life for his own perpetuation. The Lord creates man in his own image and commands him to "have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Man is called to be the governor over nature and over the creation that surrounds him. Man who is a unity of body and soul depends upon nature for the preservation of his created being. Man lives in nature and needs it for his own continued life.
Though Man lives in nature and relies upon it for his body's nutrition, Man is not really at home in nature. We might say that he is not "of nature." What we mean is that man does not fulfill the whole of his created potential in the material and physical universe. Fish do "fishy things" and dogs do "doggy things." Each created species acts according to its specific God-given nature.
Man also has a God-given nature. He can govern the universe that surrounds him and use it to his body's health and to his temporal enjoyment. He can domesticate an animal, cultivate a garden, build bridges and dam rivers. He can use his mind to channel the powers of nature into his service.
Man is a rational being. He can order himself, others, and all of creation according to rational laws and ideas. He is a self- conscious creature who knows that he possesses a soul or inner spirit that is unlike all others. He is not merely a creature of "praxis" or practical existence. Man is a creature endowed with the capacity to reason and to enter in the realm of "theoria." He can contemplate the universe around him. He can retain all that he has experienced in his memory.
In his soul or mind, he can have a relation to all things that he has encountered. He can ponder all things, relate them to each other, and order them. And above all of this, he can know things as they exist dependent upon the Mind that made and sustains them. Man can know things in God.
On the Seventh Day, God rested from all his labours. Man can contemplate all of creation in the rest and stillness of God's presence and wisdom. On the Sabbath Rest, Man sees the unchanging and perfect Wisdom of God as what orders, sustains, and moves all things. God alone is the Divine Source, Eternal Wisdom, and Perfect Power that creates all things, sustains them, and draws them back to himself. Man can see or know all of this reality. But the knowledge of it all ought to humble him. Without humble fear and awesome wonder, Man might fall. †
May 5, 2002
God creates the universe out of nothing. Before creation came to be, nothing existed save God the Lord. He alone can be called "I Am" because there "never was a time when He was not." God alone can be understood as pure existence, and as pure existence, He is only Goodness and Truth. When He creates, He makes all things "good." He "saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." Everything that God has made is good in its created nature. Each particular form of creation has meaning, purpose, and significance in the "Mind of the Maker."
Because all that God has produced by His mind and power is good, there is neither evil nor imperfection in the first moments of creation. However, we do remember that the malevolent angels separated themselves from God's truth and goodness in the early moments of their new life. This does not mean that they were created or born evil; it means rather that they became evil through the use of their reason and the will.
The bad angels, called "darkness," misused their rational liberty and so turned away from good. In doing this they abandoned their own created purpose, their own intended good. They rejected the goodness of God and His intention that they should be one with Him in spirit and in truth.
As creation progressed beyond angelic life, in a similar way, this world was created and seen by God as very good. There was no evil present in the Garden of Eden. Evil was not created or made by the Lord. From the standpoint of God, evil is nothing. It has no substantial meaning or reality. It has no future in the reality of God's knowledge and love.
In the first chapter of Genesis, God moves out of Himself and creates all things. First, He makes pure spirits or intelligences: the angels, who know and love what is to follow. Next, He creates space: the skies, the waters, the earth, the sun and the moon. Upon and within this created space, He places vegetative life: the plants and herbs, animal life: the fishes and birds, and finally, rational creatures with bodies: men.
At the end of the account, God returns to Himself. According to St. Augustine, the first chapter of Genesis is depicted from the side of God. We see creation, as it were, from the perspective of the Divine Mind.
The second chapter may have been written from the standpoint of Man. While the first book sees creation from God's side, the second seems to describe the same reality through a different set of eyes. For in the second book, we read another account of man's creation. Man in the first book is made out of nothing. In the second book, Man is made from the dust of the earth.
Yet the two need not contradict one another. Man is certainly made out of nothing. All things which have a beginning once upon a time did not exist. There was a time "when man was not." Man begins to be and passes away. Before his creation or birth, man is nothing. Also, man can be made out of the dust of the earth. Man is composed of all of the elements which God created in the beginning.
Man is fire and water, air and earth. Man is full of heat; man's body is full of water; air constantly travels through his physical system; man is matter or earth -- physical reality. So man can also to be "formed from the dust of the ground." Yet Man is also a living soul. Into the combined elements that make up Man, God breathes a soul or spiritual life. "And the Lord God formed Man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." †
May 12, 2002
Man is a rational animal. This means that he both reasons and senses. He is composed of a body that encounters the universe around him and is moved. Man sees, hears, feels, smells, and tastes. Like the animals, his relation to what surrounds him is sensitive or appetitive. By "sensitive," we do not mean emotionally insecure and easily hurt. Sensitivity here has to do with intersection of the physical universe and the human body.
Yet, the animal side of man is superior to that of the animals. Animals have varying degrees of intellect or reason associated with their sense appetites. An animal can feel the world around it and has a certain degree of memory associated with its experiences. Also, an animal can lead a relatively ordered life as it strives to acquire food and reproduce. In sum, animals move and experience and remember.
What animals lack is reason. There are two forms of reason available to man. The one is practical reason and the other is wisdom. Practical reason might be identified with what the Greeks called "techne." From this word we derive our own words "technology," "technocrat," and "technical."
Techne is the kind of knowledge that relates to the utilitarian world of needs and demands. Man develops various kinds of "technologies" to subdue the world around him. The Lord God has entrusted nature to man, and he has been given the charge to "have dominion" over it. Using his reason, Man can develop various arts or sciences through which to better meet his needs and secure his practical ends.
Think of all of the arts or sciences Man has invented to grow food or to move from place to place. We wonder at the multifarious arts that reduce the time commitment needed to wash, to eat, to drink, and to live!
Man has used his practical reason to order the external world and to harness its resources into the service of human life. One might say that the "soul" has meditated upon the external world in order to meet the demands of the body. Techne is used to meet utilitarian ends. Man's mind grasps the principles that are at work in nature and applies them to the cultivation and ordering of the universe.
As Man better grasps the principles at work in nature and becomes creative and artistic, he becomes less dependent upon the external world. A Man who can rely upon any number of crafts and sciences to make his life free of labour is a creature who can cultivate leisure. In his leisure time, Man can begin to think more deeply and move out of techne and into the realm of "sophia."
Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom. From it we derive our words "sophisticated" and "sophistry." This kind of knowledge is higher than techne because it is not related to meeting utilitarian needs. Sophia leads the human mind out of the external world and into the realm of what does not change and is forever stable.
Sophia is not used to secure the needs of nourishment, shelter, or clothing. Rather, it is that faculty that sees the spiritual and intellectual principles at work in the external world. Sophia discerns lasting ideas and laws or the rational causes of motion and life in the universe. Then it bears the mind towards the ultimate causes or Cause of all that is alive and can be known.
Sophia carries the mind out of the world of change and motion, instability and flux, into the still presence of the permanent things. It begins in nature and then moves through it to discover that "super-nature" underlies it, enlivens it, and defines it. It can be cultivated properly only when Man is free from an over- dependence upon meeting the needs of his body.
Sophia is possible in times of leisure. Perhaps we all might think of spending more time on the cultivation of this knowledge, rather than planting ourselves in front of the "boob tube" to witness how America has used its leisure to develop a techne that exalts the beast and abandons the gods. †
May 19, 2002
Holy Baptism: On this Sunday we pause from our reflections on the first chapters of Genesis in order to give brief consideration to the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.
This Sunday is Whitsunday or the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost comes to us from the Greek word pentecoste, meaning fiftieth day. On this day we remember the Descent of the Dove or Paraclete upon the Apostles, fifty days after Christ Jesus' resurrection from the dead. On that day, our Lord the Spirit or Paraclete -- derived from the Greek: paracletos, meaning "comforter, advocate, support" -- came upon the Apostles to confirm and sanction spiritually the Lord's Body, the Church, in its spiritual mission to save all men.
Christ, who is our Head, has ascended up on high and sits at the right hand of God the Father. His spiritual body on earth is the Church. And now that very mystical entity is filled with the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God.
Christ, who is our Head and Governor, fills His body, the Church, with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to infuse the Church with the wisdom and truth of the Father and the Son. The Church, following the guidance of Christ her Head and Master, must humbly and obediently live by the Spirit -- the animating and quickening power of God.
Holy Baptism is one of the two Dominical Sacraments. Anything said to be "Dominical" refers to something expressly sanctioned and commanded by our Lord. Dominicus is the Latin word for "Lord, Master or Ruler." We call Holy Baptism "Dominical" because Jesus said in the Gospel of St. John, "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God."
A "Sacrament" is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us." A "Sacrament" is a "badge or token of Christian men's profession." Sacraments signify what men profess in belief and knowledge. More importantly sacraments are proofs that God intends to bestow His strength and wisdom upon us.
Sacraments are the means by which the Lord's power and wisdom are conveyed and imparted to us. They are "efficacia signia gratiae" or effectual signs and witnesses of Divine mercy and grace. Through the Sacraments, God begins to generate new life and new knowledge in the souls and bodies of men. The Sacraments are outward and visible pledges of God's spiritual promises to Christian believers.
Holy Baptism is the means of union with the death of Christ. Through this union, the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, cleanses the Church and all believers. In Baptism, all die to sin. Every member of Christ's body, cleansed from the filth of sin, is regenerated, or born-again, into the newly resurrected life of Christ in God. Each newborn child is baptized with water and the Spirit in order to be engrafted into the life of the Church, the body of Christ in peregrinationem, on a pilgrimage to Heaven.
It may seem odd to some that babies are baptized. Yet Christian life, and all life for that matter, must always be self-consciously dependent. All the members of Christ's body depend upon the Lord for their regeneration and new life. Each member also depends upon every other member for support and strength throughout the pilgrimage into mystical life.
Babies and children depend upon natural parents for food and nourishment and could not survive naturally without them. Babies also depend upon spiritual parents and mentors to feed them spiritually and mystically as Grace and Mercy are applied to newborn spiritual lives. Though the baby cannot make a rational vow to follow Christ, this does not mean that others cannot vow to care for him in this regard and so ensure that his spiritual life in Grace begins.
Through the care and love of Godparents, an infant begins a new spiritual life in the body of Christ. Our Lord said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." Through Baptism, the little children are brought to Christ, incorporated into the spiritual body of the Church, and are welcomed on to pilgrimage towards the Heavenly City. Holy Baptism is, from God's side, an effectual sign of new birth in Christ, restoring innocence lost in the Fall, and ensuring that the members of Christ's family care for a newborn babe. The foundation is now laid for a deeper life that will follow. †
May 26, 2002
On Ascension Day, you and I closed our eyes to the external and visible presence of Christ and prayed that our Heavenly Father would help us to move inwardly and spiritually into the wisdom and love of God. We prayed that we might "in heart and mind" ascend with Christ and "with Him continually dwell."
Having known Jesus in the flesh, we prayed for the deeper knowledge of Him and friendship with Him in the Spirit. Having closed our physical eyes to His presence in the world, we began to open our spiritual eyes to His presence in the soul.
God's presence in the soul is always brought about as an act of Divine descent. God descends to men of low estate. The Word of God came down from heaven and humbled Himself to be born of a virgin. The Son of God came to the earth to minister to men of low estate. The Incarnate One stooped down to wash and cleanse, heal and convert those who knew themselves to be in the fallen condition.
Jesus emptied Himself of His high honour and dignity, His essential perfection and brilliance, and submitted to death on a cross. Following that, ever the true and lasting servant, Jesus emerged from the grave in order to promise God's attending presence and comfort. God is an ever-present help in time of need, a ministering Divinity who gives of His wisdom and strength always.
On Whitsunday Day or Pentecost, we prayed that God's descending and ministering Spirit might give us "a right judgment in all things" and a holy assurance or comfort in God's presence and truth. On Ascension Day, we had ascended with Christ to dwell with Him. But our ascent to Christ is still properly understood as His descent to our souls.
Thus we have Whitsunday. For though we may soar with Christ, He always remains above us. The truth and love that He receives from our Heavenly Father, He has perfectly possessed and embraced from eternity. "There never was a time when the Son of God was not."
The Son of God is above us, because He has always embraced gladly the essential truth of the Father in humble obedience and humility. The Son of God or the Word is above us because He has always and perfectly been moved and defined by what the Father bestows upon Him. Between the Father and the Son, there is perfect good will or benevolence -- a reciprocal exchange of wisdom and truth and an unbreakable bond of love and charity.
What is exchanged between the Father and the Son is the Holy Ghost, who "proceedeth from the Father and the Son." From the Father proceeds the Holy Ghost to the Son; from the Son the Holy Ghost is reciprocated in kind. That exchange of perfect good will is our assurance and comfort. For the Holy Ghost assures and convinces us of the truth that Jesus received from and revealed of the Father.
Jesus is the Son of God; Jesus came that we might become the Sons of God. Through Christ as our Head and Governor, we in the Church can receive the truth and love of our Father that He desires to impart to us. Through the presence of the Holy Spirit, by living through the same Spirit, you and I can dwell with Christ in the perfect reality of obedient and grateful love.
On this Trinity Sunday let us contemplate the Divine Spirit of good will and benevolence that binds Father and Son together. Let us desire that that same Spirit animate our lives and ground us in the reality of God's presence. In humility, let us receive the Father's authoritative truth from the grateful and obedient Son in the confidence and strength of our life in the Holy Spirit. †
June 9, 2002
A few weeks back we were studying the second chapter of Genesis and read these words: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." By the time we arrived at this verse of Scripture, we had concluded that God is the first and ultimate cause of all life and of all thinking about it. The Lord God Almighty is that perfect mind and pure spirit that brings all things into being out of nothing -- ex nihilo.
Before anything comes into existence, it is nothing and then generated out of nothing. Even when we read in chapter two that God formed man of the dust of the ground, we understand that God made the dust and formed that out of nothing. By deductive reasoning, we conclude that God made all things out of nothing.
God made a living soul out of the dust of the earth. In a sense, all created beings -- plants, animals, and birds -- are living souls. But man is a different kind of living soul. Plants have vegetative souls and reproduce asexually. Animals reproduce sexually and exhibit souls capable of a certain degree of feeling, passion, and tactile consciousness. They are ruled by appetites and physical sensations -- though certain species of animals possess a capacity of reason able to obey and to be ruled.
Man, of course, possesses all of the powers of an animal's sensitive or appetitive soul and more. For man is made in the image of God -- imago Dei -- endued with reason and free will. When we read that God created man as a living soul, we understand that Man is not merely a lump of flesh, not merely a being commencing his existence as fetal tissue to be embraced or discarded at will for convenience sake.
Man, according to the Divinely-inspired revelation, is a living soul infused with a spiritual dimension that has all the potential for reason and free will. Man is called upon to be the governor and steward of all of creation. He is bidden to rule the garden of the world, to order and arrange all things beautifully and usefully. He does this by employing his highest capacity -- his rational nature. When he chooses to utilize his highest capacity for thought and craftsmanship, he fulfills his spiritual nature.
Man -- homo sapiens or wise man -- was created to be a homo- spiritualis, a spiritually-minded man. At the moment of creation, and at the moment of every conception, man becomes a living soul. The invisible, spiritual soul animates and enlivens human life. Life begins with all of the potency for imitating God as a spiritual journey and begins invisibly and quietly in the human fetus. Christians believe that life begins at conception when God sets each unique human being off on a spiritual journey towards Heaven.
When Man becomes a living soul, his life begins. His end of life fulfills nature which is intended by God. Man becomes homo spiritualis or spiritual man, and homo caelestis or heavenly- minded man. This is made all the more difficult in our age by a society that is bent upon seeing human life as fleshly, earthly, and physical. Homo animalis or sensual man, and homo terrenus or earthly-minded man reign supreme in our Western world.
God is the cause of all life or being, and He is the source of good- living or well-being. This escapes those who have denied the soul's existence and purpose. When we forget that God made us out of nothing, or that we came from nothing in the metaphysical scheme of things, we lose all sense of what it means to be human.
Far from coming from nothing, we become nothing in a spiritual sense and choose to deny the highest part of our being. We deny that we were created in the image of God, are sustained by His spiritual presence in our souls, and can be moved by His wisdom and truth to a higher expression of life. We become nothing because we have forgotten that it is the Spirit that gives life. †
June 16, 2002
"There is joy in the presence of the angels
of God over one sinner that repenteth."
In Trinitytide, you and I are called to pray that our hearts and minds be lifted by God's strength into the presence of His wisdom and love. At this time of year, we remember that Christ is our Head, and we are His body. The spiritual blood that links body to Head is the presence of the Holy Ghost.
Christ, the Son of God, eternally receives the truth from our Heavenly Father. In the Incarnation, Christ perfectly embodied the Father's truth. When He ascended back to the Father, He intended that His body, the Church that He left behind, embody the same truth. He promised that He would not leave His body without the comforting presence of His Spirit. "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which shall proceed from the Father, he shall testify of me." (St. John xv. 26)
The Holy Ghost shall testify of Jesus, of the human reality that He took on, and of the Divine direction and truth infused into it. Our Lord the Spirit shall keep the permanent significance of Crucifixion and Resurrection alive as freely-willed effects of the submission of Christ's humanity to His Divinity. The truth for human existence -- which the spiritual body of Christ is encouraged to embrace -- is what the Saviour alone did once for all. In His death and resurrection of His body, members can die to sin and come alive to righteousness.
But God does not force Himself upon any one person or body. His offer of new spiritual life is conditional: Human beings within the Church must come to see the urgent need for God and then must choose to follow Him. "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter." (St. John xiv. 15)
To receive the comfort and Divine power of the Father through the presence of the Holy Ghost, Christ's body must keep the commandments of God and obey His Divine Word. The members of Christ's body, all men who comprise the Church of God, must freely choose to submit themselves to their Divine Head.
Choosing to embrace the Word of God made flesh is the challenge for all modern Christians. The human predicament urgently needs an honest and adult approach if the Church will once again humbly and obediently open up to the biddings of her Master.
In this Sunday's Gospel reading we find the parable of the Good Shepherd. Christ, the Good Shepherd, moves out of His Divine home to find His lost sheep. Mercifully, He comes down from heaven to find those who are lost, those who have erred and strayed from the right way and cannot get back on to the right road. "Then drew near unto him the publicans and sinners for to hear him."
Jesus came to bring sinners to repentance and to the truth of the Divine Life. He did not come to affirm the Pharisees or the religious establishment of any age. He came to save those who knew that they were lost and in the grips of sin and wickedness. He came to change and transform those in every age who are open to God.
If we do not need Christ as our Head, then we shall not have the eyes with which to see, to know and embrace the Spirit whom He promised to send. Instead, we shall continue to welcome in the spirits of the age which urge us to compromise with sin and death, and intend that we remain lost. Let us repent our sins and know that the Christ our Head searches us out in order to carry us home to the truth and wisdom of our Father, through the comforting presence of the Holy Ghost. †
June 23, 2002
"The Lord hath done great things for us already."
The Creed Continued.
Where is Jesus Christ? So many people claim they can find Him nowhere. Because they cannot see Him with earthly eyes or touch Him physically, they conclude either that He does not exist or if living, He does not care. Even those who claim to be believers complain that Christ is comfortably ensconced in a distant and unreachable heaven.
But we must remember, "that the Lord hath done great things for us already." We do not remember a reality confined to the dustbin of history. Instead, we recall a life that offers the promise of participation in a reality whose effects are present with us. With the Spirit's memory, we have followed the steps of His sacred humanity and have discovered the Spirit at work -- inspiring and defining His human mission.
We have found that the human nature of Jesus Christ freely and gladly submits to the unseen Father's will and purposes. What we could never hope to see with earthly eyes, we have uncovered by means of faith and confidence. Jesus' earthly pilgrimage revealed to us the source and cause of His inner mystical unity with the Father.
Following Jesus, meditating upon His humanity, we have passed through the earthly veil to see and know the Divinity at work within Him. The Divinity that was at work within the humanity of Christ, then, is the same Divinity that wishes to enliven and transform the humanity of His new body, the Church, now.
"He ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty."
In history, the Divine and human cooperation working within the person of Jesus yielded resurrection from the dead. To those with the hope for faith's birth, the Resurrected One appeared as body in spirit. But He was not resurrected from the dead in order to remain in the earthly sphere. He says to his followers and to us, "I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." (St. John xvi.7)
The human nature of Christ redeemed by the Divine essence and our unity with humanity in love and wisdom are not meant to find its final resting place and home on the earth. Christ's earthly visitation taught us the vitality that must move and define human life is found in the spiritual kingdom of God's love and wisdom by His power. For "it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." (St. John vi. 63)
The resurrected Christ promised to return human nature finally and eternally to its proper inspirational source. Jesus Christ had descended from the Father and now returns to Him. As Eliot had said, "What we call the beginning is often the end/ And to make an end is to make a beginning."("The Four Quartets: Little Gidding: v.)
The beginning of Christ's mission was to effect an end to sin and death, and His end introduced and redeemed humanity to its proper source and beginning. In the Ascension, Christ returns all things to the Father. Human beings once again have spiritual access to the Father's kingdom, if they will "seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." †
June 30, 2002
"From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead."
Having walked with Christ through His earthly human ministry and discovering His Divine nature, we are bidden to ascend with him to the right hand of God. In the inner-man, you and I are bidden to ascend to the high and perfect presence of God the Father with Jesus. With Jesus as our Head receiving all truth and wisdom from the Father, you and I are invited to partake of that truth which enables us to live in God and God in us.
Christ sits at the right hand of God. But his "sitting" or "resting" is not static and inert. His Ascension to "sit" at the right hand of God comes with the truth of being moved by the Father and the promise to move all others who would dwell in the everlasting Divine activity of love and wisdom and power.
Jesus' promise to be "with [us] even unto the end of the world" (St. Matthew xxviii. 20), reveals the Divine intention that men should desire a never-ending participation in the life of God which Christ receives and passes on to us. The inner life of God which is reciprocally willed in the Spirit between the Father and the Son can be ours if we ascend with Jesus to the Father and open our hearts and souls to the comfort of the Holy Ghost.
The living and the dead in all ages will come to be judged by the truth which the Father has given to the Son, which He has revealed to the world, and which he has returned to the Father. What the Son revealed to mankind in the Incarnation is eternal truth, which judges the hearts of all men in every age. The wisdom that the Son received from the Father is the Word of God, comes out from God, and judges or determines all things ultimately.
Jesus said, "And the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." (St. John 14.24) The Word of God is "eternally begotten of the Father," but in and through the person of Christ in whom the human will is perfectly obedient to the Divine will, the Word is enfleshed and communicated to the world.
Though the Word -- or claim to its presence in Christ is rejected and its human claimant exterminated -- faith believes that the Word resurrected Christ's humanity, transhumanized it, and returned it to its heavenly source.
Faith believes that the Word did not disappear. Christians are called to ascend in spirit and truth with Christ the Word to the Father in Heaven. With Him, we continually dwell. The Word of God -- coming out of Himself and returning to Himself in the mission and pilgrimage of Jesus Christ -- measures and defines us.
For the Christian -- though Christ the Word will come to judge the quick and the dead in the eschaton or at the last day -- the judgement begins here and now. For those who have ascended in heart and mind are judged and measured by what is eternally- begotten of God. The presupposition of our Ascent to God through our head, Jesus Christ, is we desire to receive what Christ has always embraced from the Father and to be determined and governed by it. In this context we might even ask ourselves if we are truly "quick or dead" now.
Hopefully we desire to die to the sinful gods of this world and to their fleeting, unreliable, and impermanent provision of spiritual satisfaction. In our meditation upon the life of Christ we humbly strive to be made dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. If we have sought those things in the here and now, we are quickened or made newly alive to the spiritual life of God in Christ.
July 7, 2002
"I believe in the Holy Ghost."
From His throne, Christ our Head calls us to ascend habitually to the superior realm of God's being. Christ alone is perfectly and eternally capable of cleaving to what He receives and of teaching us what He sees. We ascend with Christ who draws us up into the spiritual comfort of the Father's presence.
While He accomplished His unique earthly mission and received all things that had their effect on earth and had been returned to the Father, Christ's mission -- in another sense -- had only just begun. For Christ came to commence redemption in us who remain here on earth.
We are called "to daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of His most holy life." Indeed, all things are perfectly accomplished in the Ascended Christ. But they have not yet been perfectly actualized and finished in us. Because we are created and have a beginning so "there was a time when [we] were not" and because we are sinners, we must take the constant medication of Christ's healing mercy and love.
That eternal wisdom and strength -- which the Father desires us to have -- the Son receives and passes on to us as spiritual medicine by workings of the Holy Ghost. When we ascend in heart and mind to God and in "following the blessed steps of [Christ's] most holy life," we do so as He did while on earth. For as He was in His earthy visitation, so are we meant to be.
We ascend to God in the same spirit of humility and obedience which characterized the humanity of Christ's ascent to His Divinity. Like Christ -- and through Him -- we approach our Heavenly Father surrendering our humanity to the stirrings and biddings of the Divine Way. But since we are too weak and blind to approach the Father ourselves, we do so through the Son who is our head and guide.
His humility and obedience alone are sufficient to generate the proper spirit in which we approach our heavenly Father. In the Holy Ghost, Christ descends to us in spirit and truth. He descends to us, because we are lower than God, imperfect and sinful. Our Head, who is Christ, is equal to God in His divinity, but He is less than God in His humanity.
We are the humanity of Christ -- His body on earth -- and each particular Christian is a member of that same body. As members of His body, we humbly aspire to receive the descending mercy and truth as imparted to us from His Divine Spirit. The descending Holy Ghost is our Comforter and Counsellor. He teaches us the truth which the Father imparts to the Son and which the Son radiates in thanksgiving to the Father.
We are taught that the Holy Ghost shall give testimony of Jesus. Jesus tells the Apostles that the Holy Ghost "shall bring all things to [their] remembrance, whatsoever things" He has said unto them. The Holy Ghost is promised as the effectual power of God sent down to the body of Christ and through which the Father and the Son make Their abode with the Church. †