TIME and the I AM

How many people reflect on the fact that we calculate

TIME; the clock; the calendar, out from the moment

that Jesus Christ was born ?

We say we are in year 2023, counted and calculated

from the TIME God manifested His Presence by

being born in humble and obscure circumstances.

Apart from the 3 years He spent in Ministry, He

spent his young life in the same hidden and

unspectacular way, and His Death on the Cross was

the way of a criminal.

When we meditate on "Glory be to the Father, The

Son and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the Beginning,

is Now and Ever shall be, world without end", we

exit the concept of TIME.

"I AM the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord

God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come,

the Almighty".

Revelation 1:8

But what is TIME?

We consult watches, clocks, to see what time it is,

the pendulum of a clock, with it's regular motion

back and forth, due to it's sideways positioning and

the power of gravity, is the basic instrument for

the measure of timekeeping.

We can say that TIME is movement; earlier I did

this and that, and now I do something else.

In contrast; God is immobile, He is Still.

He is the same today as yesterday, and as He will

be tomorrow.

He can not change, that is His most obvious

characteristic.

"He says, “Be still, and know that I AM God; I will

be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in

the earth.”

Psalm 46:10

"Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites

and say to them,

‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and

they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I

tell them?”

God said to Moses,

“I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the

Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Exodus 3: 13-14

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before

Abraham was born, I AM!” At this, they picked

up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself,

slipping away from the temple grounds."

John 8: 58-59

"There are many more things that Jesus did. If all

of them were written down, I suppose that not even

the world itself would have space for the books

that would be written".

John 21:25

TIME is a concept, an idea, a constructed narrative.

I am not judging it as neither good nor bad, it is not

a criticism. We all have the experience sometimes

that TIME flies, TIME stood still, TIME was very

long, etc.

Outside TIME there is the TIMELESS;

THE ETERNAL,

THE I AM.

Selectivity

Everybody seems to have an opinion on Israel/Palestine, and many are ferocious

and aggressive in their standpoints. People living far away from the Middle East

are fighting and arguing, people are out on the streets demonstrating.

Who has the right to be there, and who has not.

What about the Mass immigration of most Western countries which is taking place

today; people from often different cultures and very importantly; different religions,

who are replanting the indigenous populations, and are getting preferential treatment

to them?

Is that not also a question of rights?

What is happening on the West Bank is unimaginable, the amount of people being

killed, innocent people. And what happened on the 7.October is unimaginable.

The situation would have been resolved if there was a true

political will to do so, but there isn't.

But everybody has an opinion on it, or they take sides.

For me, when there are atrocities of this scale, I find it hard to take in.

For this reason, I am more touched by the disappearance of the little 2 year old

Émile, who vanished almost 4 months ago from the little French village Haut-Vernet in the French Alpes, I think and pray for him and his parents, especially his mother, it breaks my heart.

When the European white man came to America, he simply just took the land from

the Native Indians, whose land it was, he killed them and bundled them into reserves,

took everything from them, their whole way of life.

He did the same in Australia to the Native Aborigines, who had always lived there,

and whose land it was.

The English did it to the Irish, they took their land and made the Irish poor tenants on their own land, where they grew mainly potatoes for survival. When the potato crop failed due to blight, the English protestant landlords let the people starve to death.

The discrimination against Catholics continued, it was the protestants who were privileged, and this was the cause of 30 years of war in the North of Ireland that they called "The troubles" which only ended 25 years ago.

Indeed in the independent Republic of Ireland too there was discrimination. Catholics were forbidden from studying in Trinity College in Dublin for example, a ban that was only lifted in 1970.

Every war that has ever been, took place because man seems incapable of not making

war; the 1.st World War emptied out every French village of young men, the suffering

was unimaginable, it continued in the 2.nd World War when the atrocities carried out

by the Nazis revealed the bottomless pit of evil depravity that the human being is

capable of. They would go in to houses and take small babies and carve them up in

front of their parents, they burned entire villages with all it's inhabitants;

Oradour- Sur- Glane for example.

And this is fairly recent history.

The capacity for evil seems to have no boundaries, and when it comes to bombing

innocents civilians there is only one word for it and the word is evil.

But isn't it strange how there are wars, conflicts and persecutions that get no or very

little media coverage, and others that get non stop attention.

I have, unlike most people that I know with opinions on Israel, lived there for

several months as I worked in a kibbutz in my younger days, I got to know both Jews

and Palestinians. But while many in the West are inflamed about this situation, they

are completely unmoved and untouched about the terrible and brutal killing of the

most vulnerable of all; unborn babies, which takes place on a daily basis, in very

high numbers, and this has been the case for many decades.

This is also genocide, and these unborn babies suffer the pain inflicted on them.

What is the most off-putting aspect in a person?

Arrogance triggers people a lot.

What does arrogance say?

It says: "I am better than you, I know best, you can not teach me anything

because I already know everything there is to know, I do not need you,

I am totally self sufficient, I am up on a horse's back looking down at you".

Arrogance is the twin-sister of Pride.

What does Pride say?

It says: "I am blown up with my own importance and/or achievements.

I am always right, and I need people around me to validate me, and if they

do not, I become insulted and judge them. I need to maintain and reinforce

the ideas that I have about myself, through activities that strengthens my ego.

I do not admit when I'm wrong, and I can neither apologise nor forgive."

Many people think this is only a healthy confidence in one self, but it is not

the same as self-confidence and it is not good for the soul, because it block's

out the presence of God, which can only emerge in a humble person.

And the truly humble person does not look for

recognition or applause ( worldly glory), which creates a barrier in the

internal space of our soul, where God dwells, so the divine qualities that

are inherent, dormant, in all of us, can not develop and flourish.

It is not for nothing that Pride is regarded as the worst of all the deadly sins.

They are called deadly, because they kill the soul's capacities for the divine.

God is objective truth, and we should always live in His frame of reference.

If we do something really well, we are happy, especially if we have put

a lot of work and effort into it, and we want to let others know about it, we

like to boast a little. This is natural, but the Catholic Faith is supernatural, so

we should not do it. We should always remember that it was God that gave

us our qualities and talents in the first place, so the glory goes to Him.

The Magnificat:

"And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,  
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One
has done great things for me—holy is his name.  
His mercy extends to those who fear him, 
from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with 
his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the 
humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich 
away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 
to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.”

Jesus's forerunner John the Baptist, who paved the way for Him,

says in John 1:27:

"He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not

worthy to untie"

and in

John 3:30: "He must increase; I must decrease".

Being "small" is at the core of the spiritual teaching of Saint Thérèse

of Lisieux, she says that in order to grow spiritually, (in holiness),

we need to shrink in the eyes of the world.

This is in direct contradiction to the ways of the world, and it presents a

great challenge for most people for this very reason.

Jesus Himself told us that in order to enter the kingdom of God we have

to become like little children:

"and said, “Verily I say unto you, unless ye be converted and become as

little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

Matthew 18:3

Where does the evil come from?

Father and Martyr Maximilian Kolbe

I can understand the argument of non-believers

saying that if God existed He would not

allow so much evil and suffering in the world.

The fact that it is like that, is to their mind, evidence

that there is no God.

Because a God all powerful and all loving,

would have the capacity to put a stop to it all,

and since He doesn't, well, He must not exist, and

it is just a story that naive people cling to.

Their idea of God is maybe the old bearded man in the

sky, or a power totally separated from us, something that

we believe only starts after death, like is the case with

Islam.

But in Christianity it starts here and now, it has to start

now, here, in time, in this low dimension of earth.

The evil, madness and corruption we see today, has

been present in the world since the fall of Man from

grace.

Evil is everywhere, it is around us, and it is inside

us.

We have a name for it; it is called sin. Out of our

sinful nature comes sinful and evil acts, it is us, we

humans, who create every evil in this world, it comes

from inside us and manifests outwards, in the world.

But fortunately God is also everywhere, and also

within us, so the battlefield is first and foremost

an internal one, that is where we have to start in

order to master ourselves, and stop being our own

victims.

God did not create the human species full of faults

and weaknesses, He created us perfect; in His own

image and resemblance, and Man lived connected

to, and according to, His Creator.

In all the different cultures of the world, there are

proof that this golden age existed, in Christianity

we refer to it as the Garden of Eden.

But Man broke away from the original state of grace

that he was born with, and sin and evil infected his

nature with all it's terrible consequences.

He lost consciousness, he fell spiritually asleep, he

found himself cut off from the Source of Life, from

Divine Light.

But God did not give up on us, He sent His Only Son

Jesus Christ, so that we could be reconciled again, and

Jesus taught us and showed us how, what we have to do.

Number one: we have to Believe, we have to have Faith.

But it is not enough to believe, because we are not

protestants, we have to work, we have to do.

We have to love others, help others, even to go as far as

being willing to give up our lives for others, and we have

to examine our conscience every day, see ourselves as

we really are, without illusions, and we have to confess

what we find inside ourselves that we know is bad, to a

priest, in Confession.

It is uncomfortable, but real progress is

based on hard work, there are no easy ways.

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and

broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter

through it."

Matthew 7:13

Then Jesus told us, and showed us, that we have to pick up

our cross and carry it, if we want to follow Him.

Accepting whatever hardship that comes our way, not

revolting against it, not resisting it, not running away

from it. Be fully present with it.

It is a lot harder than it might sound like, but this is what

is asked of us.

Our human nature will always be looking for a quick fix

or instant rewards for any sacrifice, but the reward here

is of a supernatural nature; divine life.

Jesus Christ was fully GOD and fully HUMAN.

God became Man so that Man could become

(more like) God; Holy.

Because the spark of the divine is in each one of us.

But those who deny this, those who believe that this

earthly life is all there is, who mocks and hates Jesus,

who deny the existence of God, are still killing Him,

today, as they did 2023 years ago.

"I and the Father are one.”

Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone

him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many

good works from the Father. For which of these do you

stone me?”

“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they

replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man,

claim to be God.”

John 10:30-33

"Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had

known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now

on you do know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to

Him,“Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for

us.”

Jesus replied, “Philip, I have been with you all this time,

and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me

has seen the Father.

How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe

that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words

I say to you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the

Father dwelling in Me, performing His works. Believe Me

that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me—or at least

believe on account of the works themselves."

John 14: 6-14

Before Our Lord ascended into Heaven, He promised his

apostles that He would send them The Holy Spirit which

would give them power, we celebrate that at Whitsun. A

baptized person who receives the Sacrament of

Confirmation, receives the Holy Spirit.

Our God is Three Persons of the One and same Substance,

all three The One and same God, equal in power;

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit;

The Blessed Trinity.

"Is there any likeness to the Blessed Trinity in your soul?

"There is this likeness to Blessed Trinity in my soul: that

as in One God there are 3 Persons, so in my one soul there

are 3 powers."

Article 29, the Penny Catechism

"Which are the 3 powers of your soul?

The 3 powers of my soul are my memory, my understanding

and my will."

Article 30, the Penny Catechism.

Us Catholics have the complete family unit, corresponding to

the earthly model.

We have God the Father; the Ultimate Power and Authority,

We have a Mother of our souls; The Virgin Mary, being the

Mother of Jesus, is The Mother of God, she is called

"the new Eve".

Eve made humanity fall, Mary helps to lift us up, by

going through her, she intercedes and pleads on our behalf.

We have Jesus, our Brother.

Jesus is called "the new Adam", He has the power to restore

us to full Life, if we believe and trust in Him.

The Catholic Church has produced at least 10.000 Saints and

well over 14 000 martyrs that we know of; men, women and

children too, who preferred to be killed, in the most horrendous

ways, rather than to renounce Christ.

Margaret Clitherow, for example, born Margaret Middleton in

1556, in York, England, was a convert to the Roman Catholic

Faith.

From a respected family, she married a wealthy man.

Completely without fear, she helped to hide Catholic priests

during the period when Catholicism was illegal, and she was

put to death while pregnant with her 4th child, by being

crushed to death.

They attached a sharp stone on her back, they laid her on

the ground, they put the door of her own house on top of her,

they loaded it with heavy rocks, thus pressing and crushing

her body into the sharp stone under her back.

There is Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish priest who was sent

to Auschwitz in 1941 for having published anti nazi material.

When a prisoner escaped from the camp, in order to deter

other escape attempts, the Chief in command decided to pick

out 10 prisoners and put them in an underground bunker

to be starved to death.

When one of the men who was picked, cried out: "my wife,

my children!!" Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward and

volunteered to take his place.

After 2 weeks without food and water, 6 of them were dead,

but Kolbe and the three others were still alive, they were then

given lethal injections, because the guards wanted the bunker

emptied.

So what IS that, which gives a human being such strength?

Culture

We have this notion that a culture is always something good and

justifies everything, it is morally accepted.

We travel to other countries, experience other cultures,

different to ours, and we are predisposed to accept it, whatever it

is, because it is their culture, and if we say anything negative about

it, we are deemed judgemental and narrow minded.

But what if it is unhealthy and damaging, and in opposition

to the Catholic Faith?

In France, food; meals; eating; is a cultural central part of great

importance to the people.

As we know, eating is a necessary....., but in France,

it is on another level.

One come together, one socialize, one have meetings, almost

always, around food.

It seems to me that nothing can take place unless there is food

on the table.

Even in the family, dinners are more than just satisfying hunger,

and nourish the body, they are elevated to mini parties; events.

The preparation of meals are often laborious, and the food

produce must be of high quality, and taste good.

This focus often leads to gluttony; a deadly sin for a catholic.

Then in Ireland, the culture of drink; "having a pint" is totally

socially accepted as the norm. Although "having a pint" must

not be taken in the literal sense as it normally means having

more than one. Business meetings and important decisions are

taken as alcohol is being consumed, and professional people

returns to work after an alcohol consuming lunch.

We hear of people visiting pagan tribes, where killing and all

sorts of barbarism is the norm; their culture.

Maybe we need to look a bit closer at the word culture, as

it obviously does not necessarily imply being cultured.

In former Catholic strong-hold countries like France; the oldest

daughter of the Church, the general culture demands, even in the

Catholic Church; (Novus Ordo parishes),

tolerance of foreign cultures and religions within their own country.

But it is often a twisted and simplistic understanding of tolerance,

one that is self-destructive. Because tolerating means putting up

with, accepting the differences, showing civil respect.

It does not mean, as some seems to think, that in order to be tolerant

we have to be like them.

Look at the "work" of ecumenism; the work of unifying with the

other Christian churches, which has at this stage extended to other

religions as well.

What has happened to those that has invested themselves in this

work, is a loss of the true doctrine of the Catholic Church,

all in order "to approach the other and to be nice".

The Catholic doctrine has almost been totally erased in many

Novus Ordo parishes, what remains is vague, loose, imprecise,

and there are even Catholic religious Sisters who attend protestant

worship gatherings regularly....

The very concept of ecumenism is illogical, because the Catholic

Church is not a political organization, or a worldly association.

The only way there can be unity is when those that protested and

left, who broke away from the tree, comes back and reunites, and

this actually happens a lot on individual basis.

But now it has gone as far as they are trying to lead Catholics to

believe that muslims have the same God as us, that we should

worship with them.

But, with the unlimited influx of immigrants from muslim countries,

that we must accept in the name of tolerance,

the French culture itself will unfortunately disappear.

Is that not intolerant towards all the French who would like to

conserve their culture?

There is also a cultural (mis)understanding of clericalism; when people

say that someone is anti-clerical it means to them anti catholic church,

anti catholic faith, but in reality being clerical is not a good thing,

because it implies a faith in the person of the cleric, rather that in the

Person of Jesus; true God and true Man, who,

unlike the other person, is without fault, and can be trusted.

Apart from when he is carrying out the Sacraments, during which

he has the full authority from God, and acts in the role of Jesus,

His Only Son, the task of the priest is to transmit the truth about

God and man, while he himself remains a sinner, a mere human.

When the scandals committed by clergy was revealed, it also revealed

the huge numbers of Catholics who believed in the clergy rather than

in Christ, and so they left the Church.

They threw the baby out with the bath water.

This lack of distinction and differentiation is also the case in the

culture of confusing sin with the sinner.

Those who think that Christians are judgemental people, are mixing

up the two.

We have to call out a sin, but we never judge,

as in condemn, the person who commits the sin.

How can we?

When we know full well our own weaknesses and sins?

It would be impossible.

"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto

them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

John 8:7

There is a culture and history of heresies within the Church too, it has,

contrary to popular belief, always existed in more or less degree.

These false beliefs serve as occasions for the Church Magisterium

to clarify, define, precisely what the correct teaching is,

and to distinguish nuances.

All Catholics are called to evangelize.

Definition of a Catholic :

1. A person that has been baptized in the Church

2. A person that has the Faith in what the Church teaches

3. A person that recognizes the authority of the Church to

teach the Faith.

In evangelizing we simply pass on the information, we do not try to

convince (we are not car sales men).

With our own free (God-given) will, we are free to do what we will,

free to receive or to reject.

This free will will not be taken away, not for as long as we live in

this dimension.

The Mind

If we are not awake and aware of our thoughts, we will neither be aware

of our words and actions.

The mind is the sum of information, education and belief.

If we have, for example, the recurrent thought:

"it is not possible, it cannot be done" or

"I do not believe that an all powerful God exist, and even if he does he can

not help me", we are already deciding the outcome.

Then there is the superiority complex, otherwise known

as pride, which is an elevation of ourselves. This is often

ingrained into us, we are trained to be proud, since early childhood, but

pride must not to be confused with self confidence, it is not the same.

This arrogance; looking down on others, knowing better than others, is

almost always wrapped in a packaging of correct polite niceness, or even

"kindness".

There are also those that go to great lengths to appear humble, or to imitate a

behaviour that they believe to be humility.....(most people see through that)

The Catholic Church, the only Church that holds the entire truth about God,

says that pride is the worst sin, she emphasizes the virtue of humility,

of which The Virgin Mary; The Mother of God, is the perfect model.

However the Church is full of proud people, who do not know, or want to admit,

that they are committing this sin.

However humble Catholics exists, only they are not too noticeable, for the very

reason that they are humble and do not seek to be seen.

As God's graces comes from God, we cannot take any personal pride from them.

They are freely given, without merit.

However; if someone goes around proclaiming and announcing to

everyone that they have received graces, they have, if they received them in

the first place, already lost them, by making them their own.

They are usually the same people who, because of this, feels so

confident that they do not hesitate to tell priests that they are wrong, and might

even tell them what to do.

I am not exaggerating, these people exist in the Church,

they might appear at first sight normal and reasonable, but they are not, they

are psychological imbalanced and sometimes mentally ill.

What others say, will be internally understood and interpreted by them from

the height of their looking down on them.

The study of theology and philosophy is helpful to laypeople, but as it is the

academic background from which the priests come, the priest being a good

pedagogue is more important for transmitting the correct understanding and

interpretations to the rest of us.

What can sometimes be problematic is that some study groups, for example

the Thomas Aquinas groups, although open to everyone, are often in reality,

groups of the elite, snobs, people from privileged backgrounds.

Developing the intellect is great, noble and necessary, but if the same problem

of pride remains, did all that learning achieve anything at all, other than to

reinforce the pride of the ego?

The Faith is personal in the sense that it is to be applied in our personal life,

not only in external acts, but in the depth of our heart, there where God lives,

we must be united to Him.

Everything we hear and see is understood through our subjective mind, which

is made up of our individual education, formation, belief, emotional history,

and the infestation of sin.

The density of all this is comparable to concrete, difficult to break through.

It can be done though, but it is hard work, it takes a lot of dedication,

perseverance and determination.

We interpret; judge everything from this place, we determine that "you are so

and so", because that is how I see you. Most often it is a projection of ourselves,

and it is casting judgement on others, which Catholics are not supposed to do,

because the truth must always stand on it's own, the truth is objective, it is the

bare facts.

When this happens, it is best to remove ourselves from the person/situation.

Believing that : "I got a good catholic education, so I am ok "does not suffice,

that is even a protestant attitude, protestants who believe that Faith alone suffices,

but Catholics knows that it also takes work, yes, work of charity and helping

others, but principally it is personal internal work, in order to progress in holiness.

To be asked "where is that in "Summa Theologica" is equivalent to "where is

that in the Bible" as the protestants are so fond of asking us (they who have a

reduced Bible...)

To be humble at heart, which we must be, we have to uproot pride from our hearts,

pride of all sorts, we need to be constantly on guard, because this evil spirit comes

from the devil. The devil is outside us, in the world, but more importantly he is

inside each and every one of us.

But so is God, so the battle between good and evil, between God and the devil, is

first and foremost an internal battle and a daily struggle.

It is difficult, but there is no other way.

"You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell

is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way."

Matthew 7:13

The humble at heart, with finely tuned capacity to capture the sublime and subtle,

and with elevated minds, that which is imperceptible to the coarse minds

and souls of the many who are either caught up in material things or trapped inside

prisons of sin.

The humble does not make any presumptions, not about people, nor about God.

Anger is another fundamental sin, a sin that recurs frequently with many people,

it often functions like a frame of reference, when fear to the ego is experienced or

perceived. Fear and anger are closely associated.

Both of which are barriers to living life in God.

"How then can man be in the right before God?

How can he who is born of woman be pure?

Behold, even the moon is not bright,

and the stars are not pure in his eyes;how mu

ch less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!”

Job 25: 4-6

But also about Man:

"O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who

hast set thy glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength

because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the

avenger.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the

stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou

visitest him?

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned

him with glory and honour.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast

put all things under his feet:

All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through

the paths of the seas."

O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!"

Psalm 8: 1-9

The Magnificat

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Natural and supernatural

I do not know why so many non-believers have the idea that Christian

believers who believe in the existence of the supernatural, think that we

somehow deny for this reason the existence of natural law and sciences,

as if we think that the two are incompatible......., this is absurde and untrue.

The word supernatural, from the Latin supernaturalis:

super = over, above, beyond

naturalis = natural, nature

is not a contradiction or opposition to nature, it is an addition, it goes further.

It breaks through natural limitations, it goes beyond the physical realm, into

the realm from where God operates.

Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, who meant for

us to live in this realm in intimate relationship with Him.

Once we wake up to the horrors of the reality of how we disregard and sin

against this infinite creative power that we call God, we do all we can to make

amends, while we can, because time is short, and nobody knows the day nor

the hour.

Pray, confess, repent, receive Holy Communion. Surrender completely.

Do we know ourselves?

How many people are conscious that gluttony is a MORTAL SIN?

That when we eat more than we need, or eat food because it

tastes good and not for the reason of keeping the body healthy,

we follow our own will and not the will of God?

It is a revolt against God, a sin that needs to be confessed before

one can receive Holy Communion.

How many people are aware that laziness is a MORTAL SIN?

It removes us from the presence of God, because again we follow

our own will; our own inclinations, rather than the will of God.

How many know that if we have lashed out at someone in anger

we should not present ourselves for Communion until we have

confessed this MORTAL SIN to a priest, because by this lack of

self control we have removed ourselves from the presence of God.

How many people confess the poisonous and MORTAL SIN of

jealousy in their heart to a priest? The existence of jealousy, which

most humans experience at some stage of their lives, creates a

barrier between God and us, it is most definitely poisonous and

deadly to the soul.

How many people are aware that we offend God every time we

boast about our own achievements or those of our family, when

we take pride in anything at all and claim it for ourselves?

Pride is a MORTAL SIN, the only antidote is to practice humility.

Each one of us belong to God and thus whatever capacities we have

belongs to God too. Being blown up with self importance is

obviously an obstacle to the presence of God, which is soft

and gentle. Think of The Virgin Mary; the Mother of God; humble,

quiet, soft, gentle, at all times faithful.

Lust, or concupiscence, like gluttony, has it's root in the physical,

biological body, and both hunger for food and sexual desire

needs to be controlled by our own will power, which is within

human capacities. To fail to do so is a MORTAL SIN.

Greed is like gluttony in that it is an abandoning of moderation.

Wanting more than we need, the mindset of accumulating things

or money, is an ego trip, an inflation of the self.

It removes us from the presence of God, therefore it is a

MORTAL SIN.

When we only think about ourselves, when we refuse to forgive

others, when we are afraid of the future, when we do not trust in

God, when we are impatient, we step away from Him.

It is a move that WE make, not God.

Anyone who calls themselves Catholic and thinks of themselves

as virtuous and not in need of contrition, repentance, confession

and doing penance, is deluded. We are ALL sinners.

We are the contents

The content is contained in the container;

The small is contained in the larger:

In the same way as a microscopic cell which is contained in our

bodies, has the entire material and code for the making of a human

being,

in the same way as an unborn baby is contained in the body of it's

mother,

in the same way as a child is kept in a unit of adults who are

responsible for them,

in the same way as we live in societies with rules and laws

to which we are submitted, etc etc,

everybody and everything is contained in something bigger.

It is God who contains us, we are His contents.

We are at all times and at every single moment, kept alive by Him.

We can not do anything without the force that He is, not even take a

single breath. We simply could not exist without Him.

God is Perfect and Infinite in Power, we are imperfect, faulty and finite.

However, He made us in His image and likeness.

A human has such a capacity to delude itself, to believe it's own lies, and

to justify it's actions because" everybody else is doing it", but the moment

of Truth comes to everyone, even if it is just a few moments before death.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation; the Sacrament of Confession, removes;

takes off, the deadly amount of place; energy; space, that sins leaves in our

bodies and minds.

Considering that these things hinders God's presence, which He Himself

placed in us in the beginning, from developing and growing, it is of utmost

importance to be concerned about it.

Envisage the strong energy of anger and fear for example, it is not difficult

to understand how left unattended, they actually can destroy the mental and

emotional health of a person. If it has been there since childhood,

it will almost necessarily have "gone underground", become so suppressed,

that it can be very difficult to find them, because the symptoms that arises

manifests as an effort to hide them.But they have never gone away, they have

instead become stronger.

Bitterness is unforgiveness, it creates a wall between us and God, (although

it does not mean that we are ok with sins committed against us), because

everything that separates us from God are called sins.

A psychotherapist or a counselor has not the tools or skills to heal this, you

can talk and talk about it, even for decades, but substantially there is nothing

they can do, the problem might decrease for a while, but it will come back in

some form or other.

It is because humans are limited creatures, there is little we can do.

God however; there is no limit to what He can do.

And when we confess the truth of our sins to a priest, the real and

unvarnished truth about how we think, speak and act, which hurts

Him, others and ourselves, it is not the priest, who is himself a sinner,

but God who forgives.

Because we have fallen so low and so far from grace, we continue to

commit sins, often the same ones, but the good news is that in proportion

to our desire to be healed, we do improve.

The more we rid ourselves of sin, the more we resemble God, who, I repeat,

created us in His image.

We are products of our background, upbringing, culture, education etc

conditioning

we are conformed to the world in which we live.

But to be christian we can not live according to the standards of the world.

^"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of

your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,

will of God."

Romans 12:2

We ought to put all our trust in Him who created us and who sustains us in

every moment of day and night.

We ought to have a healthy skeptical attitude to all humans, INCLUDING

ourselves;

because we so often delude ourselves and unconsciously or consciously do

anything in order to avoid the truth.

People very often just repeat what they have heard, and what they believe

themselves.

We live in a world that says that whatever painful or inconvenient

event and situation we find ourselves in, we must get rid of it ASAP.

If we have a pain, we have to take a tablet straight away to get rid of it.

But what if that pain is a signal, what if it signifies something underlying?

Thus by always taking a pill, the calming medicine, we anesthetize ourselves,

and we put a stop to finding out more, this is especially the case when it

comes to emotional and psychological conditions, like acute panic not

provoked by real danger, for example.

Everything in life is based on faith; faith in our parents, faith in our friends

and spouses, faith in the usefulness and value of our work.

This faith can easily be broken, but the pain that it provokes can lead you to

realize that we can always have faith in God.

The Church will continue, with us; her militant soldiers

It is easy to be influenced and carried away into depression by

concentrating on what is wrong in today's Church.

To say; but things have never been as bad before, surely this is

unprecedented?

What with the Synod and their plan to ordinate women priests,

married men, promotion of abortion and homosexuality, being

"inclusive" instead of instructive, etc etc.

The "good" news, (because it gives a bit of perspective) is that in

almost every century of the history of the Church, there has been

heretical teachings coming from priests and bishops; and to here

to mention but a few:

Jansenius; Bishop of Ypres, France, took it upon himself to redefine

the doctrine of grace (17th century)

Nestorius; Bishop of Constantinople, was responsible for nestorianism;

a heresy regarding the person of Christ (5th century)

Arius; a priest from Constantinople, responsible for the theological

heretical doctrine of arianism which denied Christ's divine nature (4th century)

and of course

Gnosticism; whether it originated outside or inside

Christianity, infiltrated itself in the Church. They believed that matter;

Creation, was evil and they denied the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1st - 2nd Centuries)

In the infancy of the Church there was also for a while the false belief that

men had to be circumcised in order to be saved, which stemmed from the

Jewish faith.

We can even go back to the Passion, when Our Lord was arrested, Peter,

the Rock upon which the Church is built, denied 3 times that he even

knew Jesus.

Today the Church suffers much from the confusion from infiltration of

concepts stemming from

Protestantism

and

Relavitism

But you and me, we know the Faith, we love the Church, because she holds

the Truth. The Truth can not die.

The best way to participate in the spiritual battle, as good foot soldiers in the

great battle between good and evil, is to sanctify ourselves.

It is the goal of the Catholic Church to save souls, she calls us to holiness,

just like God is Holy.

The fastest way in this process is to frequently go to Confession.

Our sins are forgiven, it strengthens us individually, it strengthens the Church,

it strengthens the priests.

Mystery of God, mystery of man

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