Knowledge And Responsibility

Part of this entry is a continuation of the previous.  The other part is a subjective summary of selected points presented at a Lenten seminar on March 25, 2017.  On this day, the speaker was Fr. Gladstone Stevens, P.S.S., the President and Rector of Saint Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, California.  Tying together Fr. Stevens' points and this blogger's opinions runs the risk of presenting Fr. Stevens' points from a perspective that Fr. Steven had not intended and if that is the case, it would be this blogger's fault and he apologizes in advance.

A partial quote (without paragraph numbers) from Genesis 3 [1] below seems to be a good beginning:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

This blogger is of the opinion that it is better to remain ignorant and know only how to love God and all of God's creations than being educated, but Original Sin has made the thirst for knowledge unquenchable.  After disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit, Eve and Adam became aware of their nakedness, covered themselves and hid from God. When God asked Adam if he had eaten fruit from that one tree he was not supposed to eat from, he replied that "she" gave him some fruit from that tree and he ate it.  This is where Fr. Steven's insight enlightens.  Fr. Stevens said Adam refused to take responsibility for what he did and on its face blamed it on "the woman" God put there with him.  Fr. Stevens then read Adam's reply with emphasis on the words "the woman" and the words "you put here with me."  This verbal underscoring by Fr. Stevens made clear that Adam was actually blaming God for making the woman who caused him to eat the forbidden fruit.  When God asked Eve what she had done, she, too, refused to take responsibility and blamed it on the Serpent.  Although Fr. Stevens did not say this, this blogger thinks that Eve also blamed God in her mind for her mistake since it was God Who created the Serpent and allowed it to enter the Garden of Eden to deceive her.

The question is whether Adam and Eve knew how to make excuses for themselves before they had eaten the forbidden fruit.  The answer should be "no" because they were originally sinless and they had done nothing wrong previously for which they needed to cover up with excuses.  Therefore, it can be reasonably concluded that knowledge leads man to his errors for which he would refuse to be responsible for later, and would always look for someone or something to blame.

It was a long time ago when man's first parents were banished from the Garden of Eden.  Since then, man has gradually accumulated knowledge and in the process redefined what is good, not in accordance with God but in accordance with Satan, and has learned to create "like" God, except that the more man creates (other than fine art, prayers and music that glorify God), the faster his creations hurry him to his demise.  This is because what man chooses to create are hardly products of perfection but forgeries of perfection and as such they are inferior, just as the Serpent had promised man's first parents, that they (and their kind) would be "like God" but not God.  Even the most advanced applications today installed on hand-held devices that allow for quick mobile access to communication and resources are rudimentary, compared to what God is capable of, from omniscience to omnipresence within a realm that is timeless and infinite, which do not depend on charge-losing batteries to function, which are beyond human comprehension no matter how much more knowledge man continues to acquire, and this knowledge is not always necessarily good for man.

Even though what is good has been redefined time and again, man nonetheless still knows or ought to know instinctively the difference between good (despite having been made relative) and evil.  Accordingly, man knows or ought to know that his numerous repetitive and replacement creations would eventually lead to the destruction of his environment but does nothing to remedy it besides talking about it hypocritically while seeking near-term profits for the corporate-self without considering long-term consequences for the good of mankind; worse than that, he creates fixes (again for profit) that will likely damage his environment even more rapidly and probably irrevocably.  Man, of course, never sees himself as the destroyer but the savior, even though it is impossible for man to save himself because of Original Sin.

Original Sin was not inevitable; it was a choice.  In the Garden of Eden, Eve who was sinless took on Sin by choosing not to obey God.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, the second woman to come into being without Sin, chose differently.  On this point, Fr. Stevens explained that Mary was betrothed to Joseph, and that She probably planned to start a family with Joseph, but Her plan did not come to fruition, and She would give birth to the Son of God.  Fr. Stevens noted that Mary was not afraid when the angel appeared to Her [2], but that She was full of grace and full of love for God, and added that the opposite of love is not hate or indifference but fear.  In Her reply to the angel, "Mary said, 'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.'" [3]. At the end of his presentation, Fr. Stevens concluded that Mary had so much faith in and love for God that there was infinite space within Her to allow God to come into Her life, and asked all to have the same infiniteness as Mary when it comes to saying "yes" to God.

Based on Fr. Steven's insights, it would therefore be reasonable to conclude that in order to have infiniteness within oneself to say "yes" to God, one must empty out the fears within, and because knowledge often leads to fear, it must also be emptied out, leaving only love behind.  Hence, the words of San Francesco d'Assisi are true: "There are many who willingly climb to the heights of knowledge; that person be blessed who renounces it for the love of God." [4]



[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/1
[3] Ibid.
[4] Armstrong, Regis J. O.F.M. Cap. et.al, (2000).  Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume II, The Founder (p. 209). Hyde Park, NY:  New City Press.  See also https://books.google.com/books?id=dCbmHZ_G5DwC&pg=PA207&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false  (the last paragraph on page 209).

Francis Of Assisi On Acquiring Knowledge

The content that is being directed to by the link below is far beyond what this blogger can hope to match with his incomplete knowledge, faulty intellect and spiritual unawareness.  Therefore, it is on a separate page even though it could be part of the last post. [1]

In the book edited by Armstrong, Regis J. O.F.M. Cap. et.al, entitled Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume II, The Founder, there are three pages, from 207 to 209 beginning at [103] through [104], that can be found online at https://books.google.com/books?id=dCbmHZ_G5DwC&pg=PA207&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false. [2]  They along with the rest of the pages in the book are worth reading.  Of particular interest with respect to the title of this entry is the last paragraph on page 209 in which this blogger's favorite saint was able to say so much in so few words: "There are many who willingly climb to the heights of knowledge; that person be blessed who renounces it for the love of God." [3]




[1] The last post was inspired by a Lenten seminar the blogger attended on March 18, 2017, that was difficult to follow and that he almost fell asleep during it.
[2] Accessed on March 21, 2017, at approximately 21:00 hours.
[3] Armstrong, Regis J. O.F.M. Cap. et.al, (2000).  Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume II, The Founder (p. 209). Hyde Park, NY:  New City Press.

One Who Defies Explanation

God cannot be proved, described or explained but that does not stop people, including this blogger, from reducing God to words and concepts.  Many things God does and does not do are not within the confines of human knowledge and understanding and are not subject to human judgment.  Man who is made in God's image is not God and is incapable of acting the way God acts, although he is often under the delusion that he is infallible (due to pride) and is God's replacement on earth.

This blogger has neither set foot in a seminary nor has he taken a class in theology, but he supposes that what is being taught and learned necessarily relies on a contradiction: man's imperfect intellect and man's infallibility.  In academia, infallibility is a given since instructors are expected to teach what is right and students are expected to learn the same.  If man is humble enough to realize how limited his knowledge is, how faulty his reasoning can be at times, then there is no need for years of religious education and bible study.  Aside from knowing the words of God spoken by the Son of God, everything else that completes a theology curriculum ought to be considered as superfluous.

If the statement above is true, then what is the purpose of immersing oneself in theological studies year after year when God is simply love, when the first and most important commandment is to love God? [1], [2], [3].  Does acquiring knowledge through education help develop and perfect man's love for God?

Love is not something to be intellectualized by those who are educated or verbalized by those who are eloquent.  Love is to be felt and expressed; it is a feeling that emanates from the heart.  Unlike theoretical concepts that can be convoluted and words that can be deceptive and ideological, love that comes from the heart, love that is not being filtered through and perverted by self-serving thoughts, is pure, humble and instinctual and is from God, not something an educational institution can provide.

Similar to oxygen, an external element that connects living creatures to each other, love is an internal source that binds in one form or another all of creation to God. [4]  However, man does not use these built-in similarities to relate; rather, man uses his incomplete knowledge and faulty intellect to dominate, and in some instances to act as if he were God. Only megalomaniacs can be deluded into believing that they are acting on God's behalf, and only true unbelievers can imagine that they could be better than God.  Even the Serpent knows God and dared not lie to Eve and Adam that they would be greater than God, only that they would be "like God" if they would eat the forbidden fruit. [5]

Far from being like God and living his life in accordance with the words of Christ, man on the contrary has become like Satan in its malevolent and prideful ways.  Despite the breadth of education that many, including the religious, around the world have received, love that is pure, humble and direct from the heart has been elusive, and God's ways have remained inscrutable.


[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A34-38
[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+12:28-30
[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10:25-28
[4] As an example, flowering plants depend on the bees' love for nectar to be pollinated, and ocean life depends on humans' love for the natural environment to flourish in its natural pristine form.  It is important to note that man's love for his environment is rarely, if ever, pure; rather it is almost always tainted by self-interest, personal, political and/or economic.  Is there any environmentalist who does not rely on modern conveniences that put so much toxicity into the ground that would in time poison the water that all life on earth depends on for a healthful existence?  By the way, this blogger is not an environmentalist but if he claims to be one, then he is an environmentalist hypocrite.
[5] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3

Miracles Out Of Rwanda

Nathalie Mukamazimpaka, pictured below on the right, saw apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kibeho, Rwanda, from January 12, 1982, when she was approximately 18 years old, to December 3, 1983. [1]  Of the images that were seen by the visionaries in Kibeho on August 15, 1982, were "a river of blood, people who killed one another, cadavers abandoned without anyone to bury them, a tree all on fire, a wide open chasm, a monster, decapitated heads." [2]  Fast forward about eleven years, "Mireille Twayigira was barely three years old when her father was killed in the genocide that riddled Rwanda and brought the country down to its knees in 1994." [3]

From Google Images

Mireille Twayigira with her fellow graduates

Mireille Twayigira

Above are two photographs of Mireille Twayigira, one with her fellow graduates and one by herself with a stethoscope.

Quoted in part below is from an article published by the Catholic News Agency  on March 13, 2017, entitled My life isn't a tragedy – a Rwandan woman's incredible story of survival [4]:

In her testimony, Twayigira noted that when war broke out between Tutsis and members of the Hutu majority the government, leading to mass killings of the Tutsi tribe, she was just three years-old.

Although she doesn't remember much about the war itself when it started, she remembers the day she got the news that her father had been killed.

“I remember being told that my father had been killed, his body being brought home wrapped in this blue tent,” she said, noting that she was too young to fully understand what was happening on the day of his burial.

Before the war, “we were a big, happy family. Our house was next to our grandparent's house, so my sister and I used to spend our days with uncles and aunts...so it was a beautiful and happy childhood,” she said.

After her father's death, however, this changed dramatically.

“My family knew that it was no longer safe for us, so they had to pack and leave,” she said, explaining that at first, they fled to another district of Rwanda, thinking they would be safe.

However, after just a short time her younger sister, who was just one-year-old at the time, got sick and, because her family didn’t have access to medicine or proper nourishment due to the war, she passed away.

After her sister’s death – which marked the second time she had lost a sibling, since an older sister had died before Twayigira was born – the family fled through Burundi to a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“In the camp I was a very happy kid,” she said, “but this all ended when I encountered more loss.”

While in the camp, her mother fell ill and “one night she was gone.” However, Twayigira said that despite the tragic death of her mother, “life had to go move on,” so she and her grandparents continued to move forward.

But just two years later, in 1996, they had to leave because of war in the DRC, which is when “I began to experience a life that is unimaginable,” she said, recalling how she had her grandparents fled the camp with bullets flying over their heads, and took refuge in the forest.

“We only survived by begging for food,” she said. Her grandparents begged from locals in nearby villages, and at times were given moldy bread to eat. When begging wasn’t enough, “we even had to eat roots from the forest.”

“I remember sometimes we had to drink water from rivers with dead bodies floating in it,” she said, noting that their situation had become one of the “survival of the fittest.”

They had long distances to walk going from village to village and in search of another camp, many times walking on rough terrain. When the weather was too hot for their bare feet, they bunched up grass and tied it to their feet in order to be able to walk.

“We escaped death from so many things: from hunger, bullets, drowning, wild animals, you name it. No child should go through what I went through. In fact, nobody should go through what I went through,” she said.

Eventually the family made their way to another refugee camp, “but life would not be better there,” she said. While there were some soldiers protecting them, they would take young boys and train them to fight, and would take girls either as companions for the night or, at times, as wives.

Most of the boys leave refugee camps “with some sort of trauma,” she said, noting that when it came to the girls, some got pregnant, and others were made to be servants.

“The only reason I survived this is because I was very little,” Twayigira said. Due to the ongoing war, she and her grandparents traveled to nearby Angola before eventually ending up back in the DRC for a period of time.

However, with no improvement to the situation and no end to the war in sight, they again made their way to Angola for the second time. But when they arrived, “my grandma was very tired, and as for me, I was very malnourished.”

“You can imagine a big tummy and thin brown hair, and swollen cheeks and feet,” she said, describing herself as a young girl.

Twayigira recalled that her grandmother died shortly before they reached the refugee camp in Angola, and that had they not arrived when they did, “I was also almost gone.”

With just the two of them left, Twayigira explained that her grandfather eventually decided to travel to a different refugee camp in Zambia, because he heard they had a better school.

Despite such a long journey and so much loss, her grandfather moved again for no other reason “than to give his granddaughter a better education,” Twayigira said. She recalled that her grandfather “really believed in me so much. He never once said, 'she's just a girl, let me not waste my time on her.'”

After spending a few years in Zambia, the pair decided to make yet one more move, this time heading to a camp in Malawi that had better living conditions and even better schools. They arrived in September 2000.

Twayigira immediately enrolled in school once she arrived, making several new friends and, for the first time since they had left, was happy to have adequate food and shelter.

Being able to do well in her classes “would give me joy. Because at least I got to make some people proud, and I was very happy,” she said. Twayigira was eventually selected to join a Jesuit-run school, with all fees paid for by the Jesuit Refugee Service.

When she finished school in 2007, Twayigira's grandfather fell ill, passing away just a few days after.

“I cried uncontrollably, badly, but life had to go on, and although I was in so much pain with the loss of my loved ones, it did not stop me from working hard,” she said, “because I knew that my future, it was not certain, I did not know what my future had, but I knew that my hard work would pay off.”

In 2009 she studied for the national final exam in Malawi, and finished among the top 6 students in the country. At the awards ceremony, the Chinese embassy offered a number of full-ride scholarships to study in China for the top students.

Twayigira was one of the students selected and, despite being a refugee with no citizenship status or passport, was able to get her paperwork in order with the help of the Jesuits at her school, a Catholic radio station and even the Malawian parliament.

She then moved to China and studied the language for a year before officially beginning classes in Chinese.... ["In October [2016], she graduated as a medical doctor...after six years of studies." [5]]

...

As a doctor, Twayigira said she feels she can give even more. But in addition to her medical duties, she also looks for opportunities to speak in schools to try and “raise hope among the youth, especially refugee youth.”

She said that in the future, she hopes to work more directly with refugees, “because I believe I have a lot to share, having gone through what they’ve gone through.”

“Now this is my story...but unfortunately for many, theirs is just in the tragedy part,” she said, explaining that many refugee children don’t even have access to adequate housing let alone higher education.

Even those who do get a good education don’t necessarily have the same opportunities, Twayigira said, so “their hopes are just crushed.”

In order to change the situation, she said war itself has to end: “why not end all this violence, and I’m not talking about people from other countries coming in to invade our own countries, I mean why wait for an outsider to come to stop hurting, and killing?”

“Is the money or power at the expense of their blood really worth it? I don’t think so,” she said, adding that the only way to really resolve conflict is with “forgiveness, mercy and love.”

“Is there such humanity in us, or have we become robots?” she asked. “What is happening to innocent kids is completely unfair, and it needs to stop and I believe it starts from within us: from love, forgiveness and mercy.”

People in situations similar to hers need to know “that they are loved by God and people around them. They need to know that they matter, that there is hope for them, that they have a purpose in life,” she said...

Indeed, everyone needs to know they are loved by God.  Only by loving God fully will one know God's love.


[1] http://kibeho-sanctuary.com/index.php/en/apparitions/visionaries
[2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/christianity-and-genocide-in-rwanda/river-of-blood-rwandas-national-churches-and-the-1994-genocide/5F8EE2B02ECA133082B0687754F2638D
[2] http://www.nyasatimes.com/rwandese-refugee-malawi-now-medical-doctor-mireille-twayigira-defies-odds-two-wars-traumatic-past/
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/my-life-isnt-a-tragedy-a-rwandan-womans-incredible-story-of-survival-78017/
[5] http://www.nyasatimes.com/rwandese-refugee-malawi-now-medical-doctor-mireille-twayigira-defies-odds-two-wars-traumatic-past/

Pride And Power

Power is either pure or it is a derivative.  Pure power is creative; it simply exists.  It is neither craved nor derived.  All other powers are derived from pure power, and are subordinated to it except for the power to choose.  Other than the power to choose, all derived powers are born out of pride.  Man's power to choose, which is from God, was born out of God's humility, is also pride's nesting place.

This entry is inspired by a USA Today article [1] dated March 7, 2017, and speculates on various sources of power:

1.  God's power.

Whoever has the power of creation has pure and absolute power.  God is the Creator and therefore pure and absolute power rests in God.  This power exists simultaneously with and inseparably from God's existence.  Therefore it is an intrinsic power and not a power that is desired or derived.

2.  Satan's power.

Satan, known formerly as Lucifer, an angel of God, derived its power from God.  It was pride that caused Lucifer to fall. "Regarding pride, early Italian Catholic Priest Thomas Aquinas wrote that inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin. This was initially epitomized by Lucifer, and he [2] has employed it successfully on humanity for thousands of years, steering people away from the one true and holy God." [3]

Satan is powerful but its power is not infinite.  "He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence." [4]

3.  Secular power.

Anyone who desires to retain power or gain power is one who deep down seeks to serve one's selfish interests as opposed to God's interests, even if the desired power is seemingly being used for altruistic purposes.  Those who want society to provide assistance to the poor are not seeking to give them power; rather, they are wielding power so that they can rule proudly over those with nothing and as a reward, be given admiration by certain segments of society and praises by those benefited, based on what some do and say at high places or based on the emotional turmoil that some at low places experience from providing assistance.

One might ask, are God's interests being fully served by calling for assistance for the poor or by providing the poor with the assistance they need?  Based on a secularized reading of the Gospels, the answer is yes, but the Son of God had not become man to die and resurrect for those economically impoverished; He died and resurrected for the poor, the middle-class and the rich alike, who do not believe in God, who, like man's first parents Eve and Adam, want to be just like God and who are spiritually bankrupt, in order that their souls can have a chance to enter Heaven.

Are the poor and sick, the physically and mentally handicapped, and the lonely and aged who cannot afford health care therefore to be relegated to the fringes of society and left to suffer and die?  Of course not.  Ideally, care ought to come from families and extended families, not from a government or an organization, secular or religious, but the family unit has been broken down by diabolic forces, including secularism and relativism, irresponsible and overly permissive parenting, sexual promiscuity, perversion and mutilation, addictions to alcohol, drugs, entertainment and money, separations and divorces and so on.  As result, those who need help will always be around without family members to look after them.  Christ had already said, "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want.  But you will not always have me." [5]

Since Christ is around in spirit, it is better for those with influence to ask people to first seek Christ in their hearts and minds than to holler at everyone to help those who are indigent.  In theory, it is easy to solve the problem of economic poverty.  All that has to be done is to tell the world's central banks to create more debt and hand out newly printed bills to all those in need, so that they could pay for shelter, food, clothing, medication, entertainment and all the support they require, then economic poverty could be history.  Money, however, will not revive the spiritually dead who will continue to be without Christ not only in this world but also for eternity.  Christ's absence is not just the absence of Christ's love and Christ's peace; it is the continuous presence of alternating indifference and pure hatred and unrelenting torment of the mind and spirit.  That is Hell.

It was Hell that Christ was also referring to, in addition to His limited time on earth, when He said to his disciples that they would not always have Him.  Hell is the total absence of Christ.  Therefore, one's priority ought not to be spending one's time solely to help the poor in order that one can feel good about oneself and be proud of one's charitable works while making a living in being charitable in many cases, but rather to live a life with Christ first, so that with Christ at one's side, one could not only help lift the needy from the depths of poverty but also help oneself and others from falling into the black hole of torment from which no escape is possible.

4.  Creative geniuses' power.

Those who are artists, musicians, scientists, poets and the like are people with creative genius but theirs is not the power of creation but is rather a skill set given by God that allows them to use what already had been created by God and make things that are good and beautiful, or not.  Many things that appear to be good are actually bad and that look beautiful are actually sinister.  Together, they produce a world that "has a false sense of complete self-sufficiency, and therefore [it] will not seek God...believing erroneously there is no need for God." [6]

5.  Military power.

Heads of state have power over the lives and deaths of a large number of people.  Some in the recent past had acted as deciders, invaders and executioners with zeal but without knowledge, on their own without God, resulting in a world that is more dangerous and with more refugees than the decades before the turn of the century.  Even though military power comes with the office of a state, it is not a power that needs to be exercised: it is a diabolic power that continuously tempts the user.  Those who choose to exercise the power to kill chooses to do so because of pride without realizing that pride has many variations.

6.  Individual power.

Every person has power.  It varies in kinds and degrees.  The one power that ranks above all of man's powers is the power to choose.  It is from choice that pride was born.  Without being given the ability to choose, Eve and Adam could not have disobeyed God, and they would still be young and happy in the Garden of Eden, but they were given a choice, and they chose to give pride its life.  This undying pride came from the Serpent and it is the continuing source of death.

In general, people with pride crave power and that power is diabolic.  PRIDE is the express train to Hell, loaded up with one's sins.  It is best to find out now what could be waiting at one's last station in life so that there is still time to request a change in carrier with a stopover at the steps of Mercy where the Blessed Virgin Mary, the final Advocate for souls in the span of eternity, is ardently saying Her intercessory prayers while Her Son is deciding whether to grant mercy and invite the sin-ladened soul to leave the carrier and go up to Purgatory, and where the Blessed Virgin Mary finishes saying Her last prayer for a soul after God accepts with sadness the soul's last willful and irrevocable choices, which are to hold on to pride, reject God, stay on the carrier and be transported to Hell.  The Blessed Virgin Mary is always praying for the salvation of souls including those who refuse Her, who do not believe in Her, know or recognize Her, or care to acknowledge Her as the Mother of Christ.  The Blessed Mother prays continuously because She is the Mother of all and does not want souls to suffer for all eternity.  It is by accepting Her that one will receive Her graces and have the attention of Her Son.  Indeed, the easiest way for those diabolically empowered to reach Christ is through His Mother, and it is through the Son that one can be with God. God Who is all powerful is not proud and has given man his choice, just as man's first parents were given their choices in the Garden of Eden, a place where pride came to life and the desire for power was awakened.


[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/07/catholic-nun-blasts-male-power-blunt-talk-vatican/98867154/
[2] Satan is referred to by those who are erudite as "he".  This blogger likes to refer to Satan as "it" and in the past "It" because no diabolic creature ought to share the same pronoun with God's beloved creation, man, and the Son of God, Who became man to lead man who had been led astray by Satan back to God.
[3] http://www.sharefaith.com/guide/christian-principles/humility/sin-of-pride.html
[4] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm, paragraph 395.
[5] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2014:7, quoted without footnote.
[6] http://www.sharefaith.com/guide/christian-principles/humility/sin-of-pride.html

Faith

This entry is inspired by an article published by Catholic News Service  on March 2, 2017. [1]  This blogger is not in a position to expound on the mystery of faith in God by drawing from theoretical concepts; rather he can only describe it based on his own experiences and speculate on it based on them.

Faith, he is certain, is a gift from God because God was not part of his daily life as a boy.  He grew up with non-religious parents and a Buddhist grandmother, attended a school run by Protestants and enrolled in a compulsory class at 9 years old that used a book with many chapters on prophets in the Old Testament.  He remembers only the names Elijah and Elisha.  For some reason, Elijah was favored over Elisha.  He has since forgotten everything he had crammed into his boy brain.  Some day, maybe he will read up on them again. Perhaps it was this class that introduced him to God, or perhaps God had already been introduced to him in some mysterious way.  There were "other-worldly" events that had he had experienced during his pre-teen years.  Several were repetitive dreams.  One was a single event that was not a dream, and there was another single event that was a dream. However, none of these occurrences, real or imagined, and not one specific identifiable instance, marked the beginning of his faith in God.

While he is sure that faith is a gift, he, at the same time, cannot imagine that faith can be acquired from a course of study in a university or in a seminary, or from being a religious in any capacity, living in the Vatican, in a hermitage or by serving parishioners and those in impoverished neighborhoods around the world.  That is not to say that those who already have the gift of faith cannot perform good deeds for the needy and for the community (whether or not religiously ordained) and be holy priests, monks, sisters and brothers.

This blogger has no idea how many have been given the gift of faith, how many do not have it at all and how many that have it but continue to question it.  Perhaps it is time to put Free Will to the test since this blog is underscored by it.  The question is: can one will freely the gift of faith?  The answer has to be yes because it is Free Will that chooses to accept Christ or to accept Satan.  To accept Christ is the equivalent of having unyielding faith in God; to accept Satan is the equivalent of having no faith in God or having reservations about putting one's full faith in God.

It is partial faith in God that makes the conversation interesting.  Christ had already talked about it.  He said, "'Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.'" [2]  Christ used a small mustard seed, not an overgrown pumpkin, and compared it to faith.  In other words, faith is indivisible, consumable only as a whole, not required to be absorbed in bits and pieces and indeed, unable to be absorbed that way. One either takes all of it in or not at all, in much the way that one can swallow a mustard seed whole but not a giant pumpkin.  See photographs below:

1 to 2 mm Mustard Seed
From Google Images

Giant Pumpkin
From Google Images 

Can faith grow?  In this blogger's opinion, no, certainly not like the pumpkin above, for having faith is like having a fertilized ovum, one either has it inside or one does not.  If faith can grow, then when is it full grown?  And when faith is at its infancy, how would God respond, proportionate to the size of one's "growing" faith?  For example, if one has only partial faith and prays for a pregnancy or a healing, how does one expect God to answer the prayer?

Going back to the assertion that faith is a gift of God, how is that reconcilable with the assertion that faith can be freely willed?  Can a gift of God be willed?  Of course not.  Man cannot will God to give as man pleases.  Since that is true, why can man will the gift of faith?  Man can will to have the gift of faith because this will, to believe in God, to have unyielding faith in God, is identical to what God wants from man.  When God and man are in absolute synchrony, man's will and God's gift are one and the same.

Having so concluded, this blogger has never consciously willed the gift of faith, although he believes that to be possible.  Perhaps his gift of faith was gratuitous, or perhaps it was a result of a series of steps he unconsciously took. First, somehow he knew that there was a higher power.  Even though he understood that he came from his parents, he was certain that he was not made by them and as such, they were instruments of Creation.  He also believes that Creation has the power to lift a person born of flesh and change it to a person born of the Spirit, and with that change, subtle and undefinable attributes also change.  Second, because he knew of a higher power, he realized that he has no control, allowing this higher power that he has come to know as God to give him the necessary protection.  This protection can come when it is asked for, sometimes before.  Third, by surrendering control of his life, he has by default asked God to take over and as such, faith was not so much a gratuitous gift but an act of love given by a protective parent to a vulnerable child.

Everyone is a vulnerable child.  That is true regardless of age if one allows oneself to be once again innocent, trusting and dependent on the One loving Father.  Innocence, trust and dependency calls out for love.  God hears that call for love and answers.  With God's love, the child learns to love in return.  Faith then fades into the background for love is now front and center.  If faith in God measuring the size of a mustard seed can figuratively move mountains, then love of God and neighbor will literally open the gates of Heaven.



[1] http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2017/faith-cant-grow-without-temptation-pope-tells-rome-priests.cfm
[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+17%3A14-20&version=NIV