Mt 28:16-20 Ascending by Descending

The Ascension of the Lord
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The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.  When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.  Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me..."

What a show.  Today is a special day.  It is the day our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ ascended into heaven.  It is not the day He abandoned us.  On the contrary, it is the day He sent us...on our way to do exactly what He did his entire life:  love those enslaved by sin.

It must have been breathtaking to watch our Lord ascend into heaven.  There is something about us that inspires us to lift things up.  Why?  Only God knows why, but we sure as heck enjoy doing it. 

It's in our nature to lift things up. 

And similar to how a father lifts his child in the air, so too our Heavenly Father lifted up His Son in the air. 

This is deep, and we know it, for every time we lift a child up in the air we are telling them that they are special and more important than we are; that they matter more than we could ever matter and that they are above us.   

So Jesus ascended into heaven.  What a show!  Very visual.  That's a good thing, for we need visuals in our lives.  But we mustn't get caught up in just the visuals.  We need to grasp the hidden meaning contained in these spectacular events. 

So what exactly is the Lord teaching us by means of His ascension into Heaven?  I think it may very well be all the how to's to get to heaven. 

First you must descend before you can "ascend."  If you want to go up to heaven, then you must come down to earth.  In other words, if you want to make it up to heaven, then you better start getting your hands dirty here on earth. 

WE MUST SERVE. 

This is an essential ingredient to rise up to heaven.  There is no way around it.  The only way we will ever make it to heaven is by accepting Jesus as our Lord; that is, by accepting what the Lord did and doing it ourselves.  This means serving our brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, enemies and detractors.  We must love others like the Lord loves us. 

Jesus came down from heaven to earth and got to work.  He mixed his hands and feet in the filth and grime of a perverted world.  He spoke with sinners.  He healed lepers.  He forgave his enemies.  He got down to work and saved souls.

If we want to get to heaven, then we need to get to work. 

Keep your heart and mind off the ground.  We need to be extremely careful not to get our hearts and minds all messed up.  BE CAREFUL.  As we get our hands filthy with our work, we need to keep our hearts and minds away from the filth.

This world can easily entrap the human heart and mind and fill it with despair, anger, resentment, bitterness and hatred.  Do not let this happen to you.  It is really the worst thing that could ever happen to you!  Imagine: Instead of rising up to heaven, you are pulled down into the filth and scum of the earth. 

The remedy is simple:  keep your head and heart above the filth.  How?  Through prayer and by faith, hope and love.

The Lord always climbed up mountains.  Why?  To be closer to His Father?  To be closer to Heaven?  No.  Heaven is not a place.  It is a person - Jesus Christ.  He is larger than death, larger than earth, larger than human life! 

Christ's ascension into heaven reminds us that there is Life after  death, life after earth, and life after time.

The reason why Christ continually climbed up mountains is so that he could keep His heart and mind above the cheering crowds, the gossiping Apostles and the intrigues of the Pharisees. 

Think about it:  The Lord ran up a mountain every single time the crowd wanted to make Him their king.  He did this to keep himself above the "moment;" above worldly ambitions; above worldly desires.  Christ did not want to fall victim to gossip or intrigue or calculation.  He simply wanted to do His Father's Will.   

SO REMEMBER:  AS YOU PLACE YOUR HANDS AND FEET IN THE MIX OF THINGS, YOU MUST REMEMBER TO KEEP YOUR HEART AND MIND ABOVE ALL THINGS.

This is another essential ingredient to rise up to Heaven. 

At the start of every Mass we are met with a crucifix held high above our heads.  It is an eloquent reminder that the Lord, while with us, remains above us; and that while He serves us and heals us, He will not fall succumb to us and to our problems.  

The Ascension of our Lord is a visible reminder given to us of what it takes to get into heaven.   

Lk 1:39-56 The Broken Beautiful

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked upon his lowly servant...

Let's be honest.  Let's face it.  We all like to give not just a nice "first impression," but a nice "first impression" all the time, especially when we have a particular person or target or goal in mind. 

We love to dress up and look our very best in front of important company, while enjoying the comfort of looking grubby when left alone or in the presence of insignificant others.  Hair stylists and fashion gurus are a must when parties and celebrations are on the books.  But if we are sitting alone or in the midst of strangers, then baseball caps will do just fine and are exactly what the doctor ordered.  If you don't believe me, then check out "People" Magazine.
We enjoy giving ourselves a pat on the back, even if it means slapping others across the face.  And thinking highly of oneself is not too difficult of a thing to do.  It's as easy as crushing those around us when their backs are towards us.

What do you do when you make a visitation? What is your take on it? 

Visitation.  A visitation is more than just a simple get together or chat with your neighbor.  It is a moment full of meaning, and at the heart of it is service. 

Visitations serve a purpose. 

In the visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, the purpose of her visit is to share the Good News.  And what exactly is the Good News?  Our life, in general.  Our life in Christ, to be a little bit more specific.   

The incarnation of the Son of God.  Life was never meant to be locked up, hidden and taken from us.  It was meant to be given, shared and received.   The Blessed Virgin Mary set off to visit her cousin Elizabeth to give and share her story and her Son with others.  This is the Good News.  Give it!  Share it!  Receive it!

What is your story?  What is your story in Christ?  I wonder which is more beautiful and heartwarming?

Our Life.  Believe it or not, on the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Lord is inviting us to "show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred" (Chapter 24, Scarlett Letter).

Mary does just that.  And just in time, too.  "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord..."

Wow!  Talk about giving all the credit to God.  Talk about not pumping oneself up.  How strange of anyone to do such a thing.

I have learned that there are two ways to look good:  crush those around you or elevate those around you.  Mary chose the later.  Mary always seems to choose the "better part."
 Think about it.  She could have easily been swept off her feet at the prospect of fame and fortune.  She could have easily taken center stage and become the object of worship, adoration, and, of course, idolatry.  After all, she had all the right stuff!  Young.  Beautiful.  Immaculate.  And all people around her would have gladly placed her upon their shoulders...and then sold their story for millions to Hollywood. 

Mary chose Christ.  She chose God's Will rather than her own.  "Let it be done to me according to your word." 

When examining Elizabeth's reaction to Mary's visit, I find it somewhat similar to that of millions of teenagers in the presence of an "American Idol."  Apparently, Elizabeth was on a roll and was already falling head-over-heals in the sight of the new "Israeli Idol." 
"Blessed are you among women...And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
 It wasn't Mary's fault.  She wasn't visiting her cousin to create a sensation.  It's just the way we are.  We take people and elevate them all the time. 

Yep!  If people do not worship God, then they'll end up worshiping something or someone else, period!  We are always worshiping something or someone else. 

Mary put an end to it almost immediately: "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked upon his lowly servant."     

Mary's visitation to her cousin Elizabeth is an important day because it marks the first time the Good News was shared with others by others. 

Share your story with others.  Share your life in Christ with others.

Here's a great song to go with this meditation.

Lk 1:39-56 Mother Mary Comes to Me

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

 

The Annunciation is the first joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary. It was also the first Holy Communion. It was the first time Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity entered into another human body.  And just as He is in the Eucharist, He was hidden when he entered into Mary’s body. But by faith she knew that He was there, and His presence moved her. Literally. His presence in her body caused her to move with haste and joy.

 

The Visitation is the second joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary. Here we see that Mary’s humble “fiat” - her simple but resounding “yes” to the Lord - became The Magnificat. By the grace of God, this poor girl from Galilee was destined to become the Queen of Heaven and Earth, and like the Child in her womb, Mary chose to serve rather than to be served. Mary’s decision to go help Elizabeth is an immediate reaction to the great Divine Love that was poured into her soul when Christ came into her body. How do we react when Christ comes into our bodies after receiving Him in Holy Communion? Are we any different? Are we more charitable? More loving? More patient? More compassionate?  More forgiving? We should be. If not it’s to reevaluate some things.

 

In her book, The Habit of Being, Flannery O'Connor writes, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” I could not agree more. This is exactly what happens to so many of us after we receive communion. We resist the grace infused in our souls because we do not want to change our habits, behaviors, or attitudes. We’re not willing to trade our vices for virtues so we ignore His grace and hold on to our pride. Yet The Eucharist demands that we change. The physical presence of Jesus within our bodies grants us the graces we need to live and love like saints – to rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, and persevere in prayer (cf. Rom 12:12) – if we so chose. But even if our human nature is resisting the path to sainthood, the more we frequent the sacraments, especially Reconciliation and Holy Communion, the more unavoidable this path will become, for His grace is sufficient for us and His power is made perfect in our weaknesses (cf. 2 Cor 12:9). And where sin increases, grace abounds all the more (cf. Romans 5:20).

"Listen: there are two things the devil is deadly afraid of: fervent Communions and frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament." - St. John Bosco

The New Evangelization In Fr. Robert Barron’s series on The New Evangelization he reports that it takes one generation of inadequate adult catechesis to go from weekly church attendance to non-church attendance and then it only takes one more generation to go from non-church attendance to non-belief. This is the frightening possibility to think about, especially when you also consider the fact that of the one million teens confirmed each year in the U.S., approximately 85% will stop practicing their faith within seven years. However, in spite of all that, the Church still retains almost 70% of its members from adolescence to adulthood - this is the highest retention rate of all Christian denominations. 

Being a former fallen away Catholic myself, I believe our high retention rate is because we love Christ crucified and Christ in the Eucharist. Therefore we understand why bad things happen to good people and why sacrificial love is the only true love. We do not promote the “Prosperity Gospel” that some Christian denominations preach, but instead encourage each other to live the beatitudes with joy, charity, and laughter. We are the Church of the saints and the sinners, but the saints know how to suffer well. Through praying the Rosary, Stations of the Cross, and Divine Mercy Chaplet, we meditate on the passion of Jesus and come to beauty in such a terrible sacrifice. This appreciation and the consolation of Mother Mary in times of trouble sustain our faith. The “Prosperity Gospel” gives no value or meaning to suffering, and thus causes non-Catholic Christians to lose their faith when faced with the sorrowful mysteries.

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Love in action is harsh, but it is pure joy – it is the work of the Holy Spirit. Love goes out from itself and gives itself totally to another. Love is meant to grow and to be shared - that is why we evangelize. But truth be told, the New Evangelization is hard work. It forces us to reach out as far as we can to seek out all the lost and the lonely, the sick and the suffering, the cold hearted and the brokenhearted, the persecutors and the persecuted, and all the prodigal sons and daughters.  

Sub Tumm Praesidium is one of the oldest earliest Marian prayers in Church history; it dates back to at least the third century. In English it translates to:

“We fly to your patronage, O Holy Mother of God: despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.”

Unlike the Hail Mary, the words to this prayer are not found directly in The Bible yet it has been passed down from generation to generation for the past seventeen hundred years. Why? Because the early Church Fathers and the great saints throughout Church history have all had a strong devotion to our Blessed Mother. They all looked up to her as a model of unwavering faith, constant hope, and authentic love. They also saw her as a refuge for sinners and sought her intercession in times of temptation. We too should seek to imitate her virtues and take refugee under her protection.

My devotion to her increased greatly while after I read the book “33 Days to Morning Glory” in preparation for my Marian consecration a couple of months ago. Three of the four saints that the book uses to explain Marian consecration were priests: St. Louis De Montfort, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. John Paul II. All of these holy priests had an extremely strong Marian devotion that helped them love and serve Jesus to the best of their abilities. Mother Mary walked with each of them throughout their lives as she walked with St. John the Apostle all the way up to the foot of the Cross. She is the mother of all Christians, but especially of priests.

So let us pray for the four men that are being ordained today in the Diocese of Dallas, that they may always seek Our Blessed Mother’s intercession in their ministries and always turn to her in times of distress. “For  you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

 

This mediation was written by Stephanie Juarez. She is a confirmation teacher and a member of the youth ministry core team at St. Monica Catholic Church in Dallas, TX. For more of her writings please visit her blog Lover of the Light.  

 

 

Jn 16:20-23 Some Thoughts

Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
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Jesus said to his disciples:  "Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy...I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you."

Weep and mourn.  First thought.  This is transitory.  Weeping and mourning are a part of life, just like clouds and raindrops are a part of the week (or month, if you live in Texas).  But as awful as they make the day, they are essential for sunny days.  We need to weep and mourn, otherwise we would take everything and everyone for granted.  It's awful, but it's true.  It's awful to see someone suffer, but it is good to see those who suffer.  I, for one, have learned so much from those who have suffered.  I have also learned a lot from those who have avoided any type of suffering.  It is scary what happens to them.

Second thought.  Is Christ inviting His disciples to weep and mourn?  I believe He is.  But why?  Does the Lord want us to feel bad about His impending doom?  I don't think so.  Does He want us to be sympathetic to His pain?  I doubt it.  Then why is He inviting His men to cry? 

Weeping and mourning are an essential part of reconciliation.  Christ invites His followers - all of us - to acknowledge the truth tragedy reveals about the human condition:  we are imperfect and limited beings, and if we try to deny this fact or hide it from others, we ruin ourselves. 

Prior to His arrest, the Apostles wept.  After His arrest, they ran and hid, just like our ancestors of long ago: after their fall, after their first sin.  But once the Apostles had a chance to reflect on their loss and their sins, then their mourning turned into a prelude to bold action and remarkable evangelization.

The rest of their story is God's amazing grace:  "I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you."

Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.  Final thought.   Be careful in what you ask for.  Otherwise, you may find yourself at odds with God's plans. 

"I do not want to suffer like the Saints."  Then be prepared to suffer and not be a saint! 

Do not ask the Lord to take away your sorrow.  Rather, ask for the grace to grow from it.  Do not ask for the Lord to remove all obstacles from your life.  Instead, ask Him for the courage of patience and guidance. 

Do not ask the Lord to take the life of your enemy.  Come now!  Rather, ask for their conversion.  Finally, do not ask the Lord to take away your life.  Instead, ask for the grace to be a lighthouse for others. 

Only once did the Lord ask His Heavenly Father to remove the cup that was placed in front of Him, and immediately He repented, saying "Yet not my will, but yours be done" (cf. Lk 22:42). 

Weeping and mourning are nothing but tell-tale signs of maturity and growth.  Do not run away from them, but embrace them and get to work.
     

Jn 16:12-15 The Joy That Comes After Grief

Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter

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By Benedict Augustine

“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”

For much of his career, Oscar Wilde stood proudly among writers, creating literary masterpieces that flaunted his prodigious confidence and insight—key qualities for a satirist and critic. A brilliant man of letters, he could clearly express a big idea in a few words while most writers would wrestle with that same idea for so many pages unsuccessfully; moreover, he could bring a smile to reader as he wrote about these things. Few English writers of any age could ever muster the wit and grace that Wilde produced consistently, and few people knew this so well as Wilde himself. Eventually, his overconfidence and vanity precipitated in one of the most embarrassing scandals in literature, tragically reducing this genius to a caricature—a caricature most people still have of him. Few people defended him at his trial, and few people would defend him now; more than a few people rejoiced while he wept in shame.

During the period of his imprisonment, Wilde produced two works revealing the humbling yet enlightening experience he had in prison: De Profundis, an epistle to the man who accused him, and “Ballad of Reading Gaol,” a poem capturing the abject degradation of prison life. In both works, Wilde’s wit continues to flicker, but his aims delve much deeper. From the clever moral allegory of Dorian Gray, a novel in which a man keeps his physical beauty by relegating his sins to a painting containing his soul, Wilde plunges into the meaning of suffering, a condition he truly experiences for the first time. In De Profundis and “Reading Gaol” Wilde finds the real Christ, and realizes the beauty of His life, a beauty that made his essays on art seem frivolous and superficial. Finally recognizing the heavy reality of sin, his works reveal a man ready to repent. After a lengthy and doleful lament and that spans many pages, Wilde finds a way to rejoice in the final section of his ballad:

“Ah! happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?”

Wilde declares beautifully, and with surprisingly humility, that sadness and suffering must have a place in the heart of a Christian.

Anticipating his future departure from this earth, Jesus prepares His disciples to mourn for him because they will soon experience the pain of His absence. The reason for this upcoming period of sadness remains unclear until he utters his concluding statement, “you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.” The disciples must remember why they are mourning: true grief will lead to true joy, as Jesus’s death will lead to His resurrection.

Christ does not go through His passion for the sake of a dramatic effect that dazzles us with its contrasts; He does so to atone for our sins and to open up the meaning of our suffering and grief. If Jesus merely ascended after putting in a few years as a minister, His gospel would ring hollow and superficial like a story with no conflict or internal character development. Rather, Jesus takes on the gruesome reality of His passion to demonstrate just how sinful the world is and much we need to change so that we rise above it like He did. We need to experience the reality of grief to experience the reality of joy. The suffering that accompanied Jesus’ absence brought clarity, depth, and strength to the disciples, and continues to so for us. When we accept the pain of his absence, we can then receive his ultimate Presence when He returns: “How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?”

After “a little while,” Christ returns to the disciples, first in His resurrected form, and then through the Holy Spirit. After experiencing a life without Christ, disciples, like Paul and Timothy knew of the difference that Christ makes in a person’s life. The scoffers in the synagogues, who rejected the gospel, elicited Paul’s pity and frustration; they preferred to wallow in the darkness and live out empty lives, sacrificing an eternal joy for a worldly joy that lasts only “a little while.” We should not make the same mistake as they did. At times, especially during times of persecution, this will prove difficult, since it separates us from the majority who live in the moment; however, enduring this difficulty will eventually enable us to unite with blessed who live in eternity.

 

Acts 17:15, 22-18:1 Paul and the Athenians

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

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“Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:
“You Athenians, I see that in every respect
you are very religious.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines,
I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’
What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.”

The monotheism of Judaism and Christianity finally encounters the enlightened paganism of Greece as Paul confronts the people of Athens. Many great men, rulers like Pericles and Themistocles, mathematicians like Pythagoras and Euclid, scientists like Democritus and Anaxagoras, writers like Homer and Sophocles, philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, all hailed from this very place. Even the proud Romans, though the conquerors of the Mediterranean, submitted to Greece's superior culture, adopting their religion, housing their texts, imitating their models for every academic discipline, and even learning and using their language. In a setting of such sophistication, of so many virtues, of so many world-famous men, Paul, a former tent-maker untrained in rhetoric, hopes to challenge their way of life in the Areopagus, the Athenian equivalent for the courtroom.

Without the grace of knowing Christ and believing in Him, one might wonder what this strange man from Israel could possibly suggest to these people who had invented nearly every known academic discipline in the civilized world. However, Paul immediately identifies their key weakness along with the one thing he could offer them: true religion. In their successes as a civilization, and in this one key failure, the Greeks demonstrate the fate of a culture that does not receive true revelation, a personal knowledge of God. Paul does not merely flatter the Athenians when he tells them, “You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.” He knows that most members of his gentile audience likely ascribe to mystery cults, belong to Hellenistic philosophy schools, or have followed the superstitious traditions associated with the extensive panoply of Greek gods. Contrary to the atheistic notion that sensible people would forsake religion once they reached a certain degree of worldly enlightenment, the Greeks seemed to adopt a multitude of religions—one could say they were poly-religious as well as polytheistic. Furthermore, their variety of religions curiously did not lead them to adopt relativism, which rendered all faiths equally subjective and irrelevant by the sheer fact of their multiplicity, but made them ever more hungry for the true religion, one which came from God Himself.

Paul sees this hunger right away when he notices an altar erected for “an Unknown God.” Apparently, the Greeks liked to keep their spiritual options open so they keep an altar free in case Hesiod, a poet who tediously charted the confusing family trees of the whole Greek pantheon, might have missed a deity or two. Even more than understanding what they had in knowledge, the Greeks understood painfully what they lacked in wisdom. A deep admirer of Greek philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas over a millennium later defined the two differing sources of thought present in Paul and his Greek audience: a knowledge that could come from reason, which he termed philosophy, and a knowledge that came from revelation, which he termed theology. Philosophy applied to a knowledge of the world, including the fact that God existed; theology applied to knowledge of God, what God has said and what God has done. The Greeks, especially Socrates who famously died because of this very issue, came to believe in the existence of a supreme yet hidden God, and Paul provided the missing component of God's Word, Jesus Christ.

Paul himself came to know God through a vision of Jesus, asking him why he continued to persecute His Church. Afterward, Paul converted to Christianity and continued learned about Jesus through the other Christian disciples, who revealed the Truth, the Way, and the Life spoken of since the beginning of world. As he learned, the “Spirit of truth,” took of hold of him, sent from Christ Himself. This Holy Spirit drove Paul to share the gospel with great zeal, and It spread among his listeners, like a flame spreading through parched vegetation. Paul knows firsthand of the God of Whom he spoke, and, far from being unknown and unknowable, this God had a name which in itself constituted all existence, I AM WHO AM, and His Son Who revealed Him to His people, and His Holy Spirit Who guided His people back to Him.

This inspiration of the Holy Spirit separates Paul from other religious leaders who wanted to grow their cults. This spirit inspires him and, in Pope Emeritus Benedict's XVI's words, “abides in him,”  transforming him completely. Paul does not resemble the possessed priestesses of Delphi, nor does he resemble the scholars of the academies, nor does he resemble traditional officials trying to return to the old Roman or Greek ideals. He himself possesses a faith much deeper than Bacchic frenzy; he knows a truth much more vital than the subtle logic of Zeno; and he has more virtue and fortitude than the great legions of Rome or phalanxes of Athens. In addition to all of these qualities, Paul shows his humility in giving no credit to himself but to Jesus Christ Who had mercy on Him and sent His Holy Spirit to empower him on his mission. Along with the unknown god, Paul stands before the Athenians as the unknown disciple who communicates to their hitherto unknown hearts. 

At times, people today, both Christians and non-Christians, act much like the Athenians did towards Paul. They make themselves restless following the many religions—though they may prefer a different label than “religion”—that abound in the absence of true religion. As modern people put their faith in materialism, hedonism, or statism, they forget the God Who continue to calls to him, and continues to send His disciples to remind them of the god they marginalized into obscurity, the unknown god. Some people will scoff, and likely do so with great violence, but others will want to hear more; for just as the Holy Spirit works through the those speakers, so too will It work through the listeners, and thus bring about Christ's salvation of humanity.

 

This meditation was written by Benedict Augustine, an English teacher who works in the DFW area. He has taken on the pseudonym, Benedict Augustine, to honor his two favorite Catholic thinkers: St. Augustine and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

John 16:5-11 Taking Sides

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
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Jesus said to his disciples:  "...If I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.  But if I go, I will send him to you.  And when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation..."

In her book, "Something Other Than God", Jennifer Fulwiler, a convert from atheism, recounts an interesting story from her childhood. 

Her dad, an avid atheist, would often come into her room at night and read to her a story.  One night he told her a story about Christopher Columbus, and how "the natives [in Jamaica], had grown tired of the Europeans' constant demands for supplies and had stopped sharing their resources. Columbus saw in an almanac that a lunar eclipse was coming up, and dramatically announced to the natives that his God was so enraged with them that he'd cover the moon with blood and snatch it from the sky.  A few nights later, at the exact moment Columbus had predicted, the moon turned red; unbeknownst to the natives, the earth had moved in front of the sun and its atmosphere tinted its rays.  Then the earth moved into position to block out the sun's light altogether, and the moon disappeared.  Pandemonium ensued, and the panic-stricken natives offered Columbus whatever he wanted if he would please ask his God to forgive them and give the moon back."

Jennifer's dad ended his story by telling her that "What happened with Columbus is a nutshell of the whole history of religion.  People realized early on that if you fill in the gaps of other people's ignorance by saying it's the work of some god, and then claim that you're in tight with that particular god, you have almost unlimited power as long as people believe it."

I beg to disagree. 

What happened with Columbus is a nutshell of the whole history of science, not religion, and how scientists throughout the centuries have used their knowledge to manipulate an entire people, race and nation.  Let's not forget: Columbus was more of a scientist, than a religious man, and if this story is true, then what he lacked was not knowledge, but a conscience that went along with his science. 

Unfortunately, what Columbus did was not an isolated incident.  It continues even to this day, especially among military scientists, doomsday climate control environmentalists and over-population control fanatics.

The Spirit of Truth.  The Spirit of Truth is what it claims to be:  the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. 

God is True.  He is also the Way, the Truth and the Life.  We know who is the Holy Spirit because we know who is Jesus:  God. 

This Spirit "thinks" and "speaks" and "acts" just like the Father and the Son because it proceeds from the Father and the Son. 

The Spirit of God liberates those enslaved by sin just like it liberated Jesus from the tomb and Paul from prison (cf. Acts 16:22-34).  It frees man from the corruption of sin and restores him to the image and likeness of his creator. 

The Spirit of Truth is not a manipulator of Truth.  On the contrary, it reveals sin, restores righteousness and condemns evil.

The Holy Spirit did not come into the world to manipulate it but to save it.

Now whose side are you on?