"You Shall Not Kill."

Christ said, "You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.'" [1]  This was what God said to the ancestors Christ was referring to above: "You shall not kill." [2]  These words of God are directed to anyone (after the Ten Commandment were given) who has ever thought of having someone killed.  Christ, Judge of the living and the dead, added the second part: "'whoever kills will be liable to judgment.'" [3]  It is interesting to note that neither God nor the Son of God was explicit as to the consequences of killing, with Cain being the exception. [4]

The question to ask is why would God and the Son of God admonish man not to kill but not give him any reason? Without giving man a reason not to have someone killed, man must think that he has a blanket license to kill, and he has kept killing and killing and is killing still, delivering death indiscriminately to others with more and more technically sophisticated weapons, and he will continue to kill and kill, as if killing is necessary, as if vengeance would put an end to all future killings, but then ending wars has never seemed to have been man's ultimate goal, when supporting a war economy seems to be the driving force.

Surely, God could have given man reasons compelling enough to stop him from killing, from using every excuse to support a war economy, but what if God could not give them because the "judgment" that Christ had referred to can vary infinitely in both punishment and redemption, and God could not possibly itemize every permutation so that man could comprehend in a meaningful way?  And if God did introduce into man's brain all the unique factors that result in a final judgment for an individual soul, man's head would figuratively explode.

Conversely, what if God thinks that it is easy enough for man to figure out the reasons not to kill for himself.  After all, he had eaten the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.  For God and the Son of God to elaborate further would therefore be redundant.

If that were the case, what could God have in mind that man ought to know but seemingly does not know or deliberately does not care to know?  Here is where this blogger's imagination once again lets loose.

In the whole of man's life, there could come a time, at any time, that man could come to the realization that he has sinned, and that he has come to regret all his sins, to recognize God, the Forgiver of Sin and all manifestations of Sin, and to ask God to forgive him, through Christ, the Son. The Son, Who was human, together with His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, understand all the frailties and pains of humanity, because They both had suffered, though in different ways.  In different ways, both Mother and Son are most compassionate.  The Blessed Virgin Mary prays that every man would surrender himself to Christ, in the way the penitent thief on the cross had.  Her Son, always loving, is prepared to forsake judgment and grant mercy to those who turn to Him with faith, humility and love.

If man's life is cut short because he was killed, then he would not have had the opportunity to live out his life to arrive at the moment when he is mature and wise enough to recognize his sins and ask for forgiveness which could be his final moments before his natural death.  Whether that moment will come depends on one's Free Will in accepting Christ, but if one's life is cut short by another, that moment will never arrive during life.

To eliminate one's chance to repent is to do something not even God would do.  For one to kill another is to take away one's ability to will freely to return to God.  This is a heavy burden to carry beyond one's life, one that could be so heavy that one's soul might not be sufficiently light to ascend through Purgatory that rids whatever remnants of sins that weigh down the soul in order that the soul can be perfectly light in radiance and perfectly light in sinlessness so that it will naturally float toward Heaven.

If what has been imagined has a scintilla of plausibility, then perhaps one ought to think before one kills, before one orders others to kill, before one thinks about killing, before one concurs with killing and applauds it (in political, academic, religious, non-religious and social circles).

Here, the focus pivots somewhat from the killers and killers' fans and supporters to those killed.  Whether the ones killed would have chosen God before death, and where their souls could go would require a further stretch of the imagination.

Since it is the self-righteous ones that kill (cast stones [5]), that advise, advocate and support the killing of others, it may be to their disappointment to know that perhaps by killing those they believed deserve to die would by their shortened lives reap the benefit that their sins, however egregious, would be forgiven at their premature deaths, and would eventually make their way to Heaven, unless, of course, they reject Christ to the every end, like the other thief who was crucified along with Christ who did not believe in the Son of God to be the Savior of man, the One Who is able to destroy man's death and grant man eternal life.

It may be even more of a disappointment for the self-righteous ones who kill, who advise, advocate and support the killing of others to know at the end of their lives that by not living by the words of God and the Son of God that the judgment that they would be liable for might not be to their liking, especially if that judgment is final, in other words, irreversible and eternal, and look up and see at the start of eternity those they so eagerly wanted to see die during their lives and had brought death to them praying in Heaven for their souls so that they might endure their eternal suffering with less pain knowing in death that they had been forgiven by the very people they so hated in life and killed by their sanctimonious yet murderous thoughts, words and actions.

If the future is viewed through an apocalyptic lens, the beginning of an end could be on its way.  If Satan continues to infiltrate and clutches the hearts of those in power, have risen to power or will rise to power on both sides of the "blood red" or "Hell-fire red" line, then many people in the world would suffer, and suffer greatly.  Since Satan's power cannot be overcome by man alone, prayer is an absolute necessity.  During those times when one is so troubled that no words come to mind, saying the rosary will help.  The Blessed Virgin Mary had consistently asked Her children to pray the rosary in Her many apparitions.  By doing as instructed, perhaps a next world war could be averted.

This blogger believes that man, through his heart (and by his prayers), can avoid wars, yet he has difficulty understanding how anyone can have a heart so callous as to ignore God's commandment not to kill that was reiterated and confirmed by the God's Son in the flesh, unless it has already been Satanized.

[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5 at 21, quoted without references or footnotes.

[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/exodus/20 at 13, quoted without references or footnotes.
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5 at 21, quoted without references or footnotes.
[4] http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4, 1-16, quoted without references or footnotes.
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/8, 1-11, quoted without references or footnotes.

The Knight Of Malta: Fra’ Matthew Festing 2.0

The Washington Post  published an article by the Associated Press  dated April 26, 2017, entitled Ousted Maltese knight returns in defiance of pope’s wishes  is not  quoted below [1] because it is copyrighted, as indicated at the bottom of the article.

Does one ever wonder what the purpose of writing is if it not intended for public consumption other than a personal diary?  And if it is intended for public consumption which the article above apparently is, then why limit its circulation, and if the circulation is to be limited, then why permit the various news outlets to republish it?  Furthermore, is the matter in the article a secret so that it can be deemed proprietary?

God gave this blogger a voice.  It is one he neither owns nor is one that is authorized by God to monetize when it is being used on matters intrinsic to God.  In this blogger's opinion, all news, materials and other matters (factual or imaginary) that originate from God or the seat of Peter, the Vatican, ought not to be subjected to copyright restrictions.  To copyright matters that originate from God or the seat of Peter is to take from God and call what have been taken one's own.  Whether that is considered stealing is not for man to judge, but for Christ to decide.

There is, however, another article, this one by Philip Pullella, edited by Tom Heneghan and published by Reuters.com  on April 26, 2017, entitled Ex Knights of Malta head defies pope order, plans Rome return  that does not have a copyright restriction and it is quoted below [2] in its entirety:

The ousted Grand Master of the Knights of Malta Catholic charity will attend a meeting that could elect his successor, the group said on Wednesday, in a direct defiance of Pope Francis' order for him to stay away.

A spokesperson for the Knights said Matthew Festing, who resigned on Jan. 24, had informed the group that he would come to the meeting this Saturday at its headquarters in Rome.

It was not clear if he would stand for re-election, as some of his supporters have urged him to.

On April 15, Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the Vatican's deputy secretary of state, who the pope named "special delegate" to the ancient chivalric group, ordered Festing not to travel to Rome for the election.

"Your presence would re-open wounds, only recently healed, and would prevent the event taking place in an atmosphere of peace and regained harmony," Becciu said in a letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters from a Vatican source.

Becciu said in the letter the pope "shared" his decision and asked Festing to stay away as "an act of obedience".

Festing tendered his resignation to the pope after a month-long, highly public spat with the Vatican over the group's sovereignty.

The turmoil began in December when Festing, a Briton, fired Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, the German-born Grand Chancellor of the aristocratic order.

Festing and conservative U.S. Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, the group's chaplain and a frequent critic of the pope, had accused Boeselager of violating Church rules by turning a blind eye to the use of condoms in aid projects in the developing world when he was in a previous post.

Festing, who defiantly ordered members not to cooperate with a papal investigation of events surrounding Boeselager's dismissal, lost his battle with the Vatican and became the first Grand Master in centuries to resign instead of ruling for life.

The Vatican concluded the condom issue was just an excuse by Festing and Burke to wield more power in the 970-year-old organization and Boselager was reinstated.

The Knights of Malta counts some 13,000 members, 80,000 volunteers and about 25,000 paid employees, mostly medical staff who run charities and development projects around the world.

The all-male top leaders are not clerics but take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the pope.

The Vatican wants this weekend's vote to elect an interim leader to run the group for a year while its constitution is changed. But the group could also decide to elect a new Grand Master.

It will be interesting to see if an "atmosphere of peace and regained harmony" in the words of Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the Vatican's deputy secretary of state, above will prevail or the oft-used word of Bergolio, his boss, "mercy," will, when "[e]lectors representing members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta...meet as the Council Complete of State beginning April 29[, 2017, Saturday,] in Rome." [3]


[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/ousted-maltese-knight-returns-in-defiance-of-popes-wishes/2017/04/26/c5e2e66c-2a91-11e7-9081-f5405f56d3e4_story.html?utm_term=.e3468f1dd2a4
[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-knights-idUSKBN17S24N
[3] http://catholicphilly.com/2017/04/news/world-news/knights-of-malta-asked-to-elect-temporary-leader/

Christ's Message Misinterpreted

Christ went to His death so that the fallen man may live and not die an eternal death, but in the minds of provocateurs, everyone they perceive to threaten them or their beliefs must die so that they may live, albeit a not-so-eternal life.

Upcoming TV Series On "Vatileaks": Fact Or Fiction?

An article dated April 24, 2017,  entitled Sex and intrigue of Vatican court drama gets TV treatment  published by AFP Relaxnews  is quoted below [1]:

Italy's Leone Film Group, the company originally founded by spaghetti western master Sergio Leone, is to make an English-language TV series on the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal.

The group has bought the rights to a series of books by Italian investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi on the case, which rocked the Roman Catholic Church with their leaked accounts of mismanagement, corruption and waste.

“They have asked me to consult on the screenplay,” author Nuzzi told AFP on Friday.

The books include “His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI”, based on documents leaked by Pope Benedict’s butler, and “Merchants in the Temple”, which describes internal resistance thwarting Pope Francis’s efforts to clean up the church.

“From the moment I began writing these books in 2008 I entered an intriguing world of stakeouts, meetings in dark places, retrieval of papal documents, discoveries of secrets and scandals,” Nuzzi said in a statement.

“It’s a game of shadows made of weaknesses, sex, business and money. I want the world at large to know about the definitive battle between good and evil taking place in St. Peter’s Square,” he said.

The first Vatileaks scandal saw Benedict’s butler stand trial for leaking damaging information about Vatican in-fighting which plunged the Holy See into crisis and, it was widely suggested, contributed to the pontiff’s decision to retire.

Nuzzi and a fellow investigative reporter were tried by the Vatican in the highly publicised “Vatileaks 2” case, but were acquitted.

Among the most striking revelations in the books was that less than 20 percent of donations made by believers around the world under the Peter’s Pence scheme ended up being spent on good works.

["Peter’s Pence is the name given to the financial support offered by the faithful to the Holy Father as a sign of their sharing in the concern of the Successor of Peter for the many different needs of the Universal Church and for the relief of those most in need." [2]]

The rest was swallowed up by the Vatican bureaucracy, reportedly partly helping to subsidise the luxurious lifestyles of certain cardinals.

“Vatileaks 2” also ballooned into steamier fare, with allegations of sexual affairs, glitzy parties and secret plots in the corridors of power.

“I’m glad it is being done in English,” Nuzzi told AFP.

“It’s an international story that involves not just the Vatican but a world spread across many countries”.

It will up to the viewers to decide what is fact or fiction.


[1] http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2017/04/24/sex-and-intrigue-of-vatican-court-drama-gets-tv-treatment/
[2] http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/obolo_spietro/documents/index_en.htm

Suffering On Earth And Suffering In Purgatory

Quite some time ago, this blogger had read somewhere online that the Blessed Virgin Mary had during one of Her apparitions said something to the effect that it is better to drag the body through much suffering in life than to endure suffering in Purgatory.  He is now unable to find support for it.  Perhaps this was another one of his vivid imaginations having no basis in reality.  Regardless, he will assume that he did read what he thought he had read.  As crazy as his imaginations can be at times (at all times), there are some connections his imagination cannot make, and this is one of them, between suffering on earth and suffering in Purgatory.

First of all, Purgatory is something this blogger knows little about, and his imagination does not go there, as if that could be believed, except to the extent that he had often referred to it as a place for the cleansing of sins before entering Heaven.  Purgatory is a place he had read about in Dante Alighieri's poem, The Divine Comedy, and had heard Mother Angelica talk about on television, but this entry has nothing to do with Dante's journey through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, and nothing to with what this blogger remembers Mother Angelica to have said about Purgatory which was a little fire, but then he could be wrong here as well, for his memory is not very good.

In this entry, his imagination will enter Purgatory, and he will try to give credence to what he remembers to have read.  If indeed, that it is better to suffer in this life than in Purgatory, the question to ask is why?  Is not a person's flesh more prone to pain than a person's spirit?  This blogger has no clue but he can speculate that suffering in one's flesh, even though painful, is far less so than suffering in one's spirit.

In the flesh, especially in the present age with all kinds of medication and medical care, one can be taken care of well by healthcare workers in a healthcare facility.  Under their care, patients' discomforts are being alleviated as much as possible.  At home, one can lie down in bed when not feeling well, which is relatively more comfortable than standing while feeling light-headed, and having to walk around and do chores while one is sick and weak, and in pain.  In Purgatory, this blogger doubts that there are beds available on which spirits can rest.  They are there, in full consciousness, suffering without pain medication, unable to rest or sleep. That is like Hell except that Purgatory is not an eternity, and the spirits there know that at the end of their journey, they would enter Heaven.

It is speculative that sufferings on earth mitigates sufferings in Purgatory, in duration and intensity.  On the other hand, it is also speculative that those who do not have much to suffer in life may actually be blessed, and could equally be blessed in Purgatory during which their suffering could be short and minimal.

As to who goes to Purgatory, how much and how long a spirit has to suffer there is not for this blogger to speculate on but for God to know.

Catholicism And Buddhism

Quoted below in its entirety is an article entitled  Vatican's message to Buddhists on Vesakh  published on April 22, 2017 by Vatican Radio  [1]:

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on Saturday, issued a message on the occasion of the Buddhist feast of Vesakh on the theme ‘Christians and Buddhists: Walking Together on the Path of Nonviolence’.

The Message signed by Council President, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Council Secretary, Fr Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, MCCJ emphasizes the urgent need to promote a culture of peace and nonviolence as both these values were promoted by Jesus Christ and the Buddha.

The text reiterates how Jesus walked the path of nonviolence to the very end, to the cross and calls his followers  today to embrace his teaching about nonviolence.  Buddha also heralded the same message and encouraged all to overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth.

Therefore the message calls for a  common enterprise, to study the causes of violence, combat violence  and to pray for world peace while walking together on the path of nonviolence.

The full text of the message is here below:

                                                             MESSAGE FOR THE FEAST OF VESAKH                                                                                                 2017

Dear Buddhist Friends,

1.       In the name of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, we extend our warmest greetings and prayerful good wishes on the occasion of Vesakh. May this feast bring joy and peace to all of you, to your families, communities and nations.

2.       We wish to reflect this year on the urgent need to promote a culture of peace and nonviolence. Religion is increasingly at the fore in our world today, though at times in opposing ways. While many religious believers are committed to promoting peace, there are those who exploit religion to justify their acts of violence and hatred. We see healing and reconciliation offered to victims of violence, but also attempts to erase every trace and memory of the “other”; there is the emergence of global religious cooperation, but also politicization of religion; and, there is an awareness of endemic poverty and world hunger, yet the deplorable arms race continues. This situation requires a call to nonviolence, a rejection of violence in all its forms.

3.       Jesus Christ and the Buddha were promotors of nonviolence as well as peacemakers. As Pope Francis writes, “Jesus himself lived in violent times. Yet, he taught that the true battlefield, where violence and peace meet, is the human heart: for ‘it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come’ (Mk 7:21)” (2017 Message for the World Day of Peace, Non-Violence: A Style of Politics for Peace, no. 3). He further emphasises that “Jesus marked out the path of nonviolence. He walked that path to the very end, to the cross, whereby he became our peace and put an end to hostility (cf. Eph 2:14-16)” (ibid.). Accordingly, “to be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing his teaching about nonviolence” (ibid.).

4.       Dear friends, your founder, the Buddha also heralded a message of nonviolence and peace. He encouraged all to “Overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth.” (Dhammapada, no. XVII, 3). He taught further that “Victory begets enmity; the defeated dwell in pain. Happily the peaceful live, discarding both victory and defeat.” (ibid. XV, 5). Therefore, he noted that the self-conquest is greater than the conquest of others: “Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, yet he indeed is the noblest victor who conquers himself” (ibid, VIII, 4).

5.       In spite of these noble teachings, many of our societies grapple with the impact of past and present wounds caused by violence and conflicts. This phenomenon includes domestic violence, as well as  economic, social, cultural and psychological violence, and violence against the environment, our common home. Sadly, violence begets other social evils, and so “the choice of nonviolence as a style of life is increasingly demanded in the exercise of responsibility at every level […] ” (Address of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Occasion of the Presentation of the Letters of Credence, 15 December 2016).

6.      Though we recognize the uniqueness of our two religions, to which we remain committed, we agree that violence comes forth from the human heart, and that personal evils lead to structural evils. We are therefore called to a common enterprise:  to study the causes of violence: to teach our respective followers to combat evil within their hearts;  to liberate both victims and perpetrators of violence from evil; to bring evil to light and challenge those who foment violence;  to form the hearts and minds of all, especially of children, to love and live in peace with everyone and with the environment; to teach that there is no peace without justice, and no true justice without forgiveness; to invite all to work together in  preventing  conflicts and rebuilding broken societies;  to urge the media to avoid and counter hate speech, and biased and provocative reporting; to encourage educational reforms to prevent the distortion and misinterpretation of history and of scriptural texts;  and to pray for world peace while walking together on the path of nonviolence.

7.       Dear friends, may we actively dedicate ourselves to promoting within our families, and social, political, civil and religious institutions a new style of living where violence is rejected and the human person is respected. It is in this spirit that we wish you once again a peaceful and joyful feast of Vesakh!  [Emphasis original.]

Vatican City
Cardinal Jean-Louis Taura
        President
  Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, MCCJ
                      Secretary  

As a Catholic (the not-so-devout kind), this blogger is touched by the Vatican's message above to the Buddhists because he grew up with his grandmother on his father's side who was a devout Buddhist who loved him very much, who looked after him, even though he has parents who also cared, and still cares, for his well-being.

He recalls participating in the many different kinds of Buddhist festivals his grandmother had put together at home throughout the year because they were so different from his routine life which was secular and because it was fun for him.  He never quite understood why she on certain occasions had so many dishes cooked and placed on the dinner table with tiny cups of wine so that either the spirit of the ancestors or Buddha would come to visit, to drink and eat.  They never did drink the wine or eat the food, as it turned out, but the family did eat the food, some cold, some re-heated, but the wine would be poured back into the bottle to be used the next time.  As a boy, he would check out what was put out on the table.  More than once over the years, he had thought of sitting in the empty chairs around it but on second thought, he was afraid that he would sit on a spirit, so he would just walk around behind them as he run his hand over back of the chairs, looking at everything.

Of the many festivals, the one he was most fascinated by but never participated in, mainly because nobody else did except for grandmother, was this one day when a certain god was being remembered.  It was probably the fire god and the rule was not to eat anything that was cooked by fire, or had been refrigerated.  While the rest of the family ate regular food that had come out of the refrigerator and cooked, grandmother would eat only fruit that was purchased fresh at the market.  The other reason the future blogger did not join his grandmother was because he would be too hungry and was not disciplined enough to fast from hot meals and eat only farm-fresh fruits for the day.

The blogger's grandmother had taught him many things but nothing that he could recall today with particularity except one thing that she had said to him one time.  Maybe this blogger told her, maybe she just knew that this blogger was gravitated toward God, even though he was not baptized until after high school and did not attend Mass growing up.

On this difference in beliefs, she said that God and Buddha were different, that his beliefs were not the same as her beliefs.  How she knew this continues to mystify this blogger. She certainly had not learned it from books because she did not read or had she likely heard it from others because she was a homebody.

To this day, this blogger wonders where kind, loving and devout Buddhists go when their lives end, where his Buddhist grandmother is, even though he had previously seen her in his mind's eye looking down at him from Heaven, happy and smiling, many years after her passing.  Could there still be a chance for souls in the realm of spirits to say yes to God, and be permitted to enter Purgatory for a cleansing of sins, a process every sinner would have to go through, and enter Heaven?  Or is there a separate Heaven for those who during their earthly lives did not have faith in the one true God and the Son of God but instead believed in gods of goodness from another religion and lived their lives practicing goodness?

Was grandmother right when she said God and Buddha are different?  On this point, she had to be correct.  This blogger remembers feeling sad when he heard that, for he wondered in his heart if they would ever meet after their lives had ended.

To this day, this blogger does not know.  He only knows that God loves him, and he thinks that God also loves those whom he loves and prays for, and he prays for many, some of whom he had never met but had crossed his path or he had crossed theirs.  He also thinks that God's love is a broad and magnanimous love, un-confining and non-calculating, otherwise he would not be called to know God with parents who are non-overtly religious and a grandmother who was Buddhist.  And if he can be called to know God, anyone can be called, even spirits who had left their flesh, for all have been created by God.  A call from God is only an invitation; whether to accept the invitation with love is an individual's choice, not God's.  If grandmother in her spirit had heard God's call, she would have instinctively accepted God's invitation with love.  In addition, this blogger also thinks that those living can by their prayers aid those in spirit to hear God's call, to give them a chance to say yes to God.


[1] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/04/22/vaticans_message_to_buddhists_on_vesakh/1307347

Mercy And The Lord's Prayer

God's Mercy is not a currency.  Even if it were, it is not for anyone to spend, even though many give it away as if they owned it.  Other than God, only the Son of God can grant Mercy.  He earned the power from God by obeying God, by taking on man's sins, by suffering under man's extreme cruelties and by laying down his life for the love of sinners. Those who have not gone through Christ's Passion are under the delusion of grandeur when they think they can speak on God's Mercy on Christ's behalf.

According to John M. Grohol, Psy.D. (quoted in part without hyperlink):

A delusion of grandeur is the fixed, false belief that one possesses superior qualities such as genius, fame, omnipotence, or wealth. It is most often a symptom of schizophrenia, but can also be a symptom found in psychotic or bipolar disorders, as well as dementia (such as Alzheimer’s).

People with a delusion of grandeur often have the conviction of having some great but unrecognized talent or insight. They may also believe they have made some important discovery that others don’t understand or appreciate.

... 

Grandiose delusions may have religious content, such as the person believes he or she has received a special message from God or another deity. [Emphasis original.]

Given Dr. Grohol's definition, this blogger can certainly be classified as a person suffering under such a delusion since he blogs about God, the Son of God, the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary, on not just the subject of God's Mercy but on every topic that enters his delusional mind as well.  In so doing, he gives Them Their voices (as imagined) in the present era, in which many also speak on Their behalf, which allows this blogger to conclude that their minds are probably no less delusional than his.

Perhaps it is necessary for those who are equally deluded to offer divergent views in order that a scintilla of God's Truth would emerge at some point during their clashes.

Having established the blogger's unhealthy mental state, he nonetheless continues to write whatever that comes to his mind with a certain compulsion, despite the challenges he faces as a lousy writer, requiring edit upon edit, before and  after posting, with still much room for improvement in the finished product.  Given this fact, he is humbly grateful for the readers who are kind enough to give him chance after chance, perhaps with the expectation that he might do better the next time, and return once in a while to check out the condition of his mental state.

In this entry, the Lord's prayer [2] is being re-written below (the part that is in italics), substituting the word "mercy" for the word "trespass":

Our Father, Who are in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name;
Thy Kingdom come; Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and give us Your Mercy, as we give others ours.
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

While no man has the authority to dispense God's Mercy, he can have mercy on another whom he perceives had wronged him, whether or not his perception is accurate.  This mercy allows both sides to heal, and allows broken marriages and families to become whole, provided that the one who is merciful shifts the focus away from the self to the ones who need to be loved.

Sometimes, love can indeed be painful, and the most painful can arise out of relationships that are the closest and the dearest.

Imagine how close the relationship God is to man, so much so that God had sent His only Son to suffer under man in order that man is able to grasp in some small way the immense magnitude of God's love for him; yet, God's endless living love continues to escape the consciousness of many most of the time, for the focus is on them and on the mercy that is their right to have, even as some may pray the Lord's prayer (here, the imagined version) while oblivious to the fact that they are asking God to give them Mercy "as" (i.e., "in the same way as") they give (or not give) others theirs.

It ought to be apparent that the Lord's prayer (the original one as well) never implied that God's Mercy is something one is entitled to, or is something that a religious can promise to sinners.  It is certainly not something a blogger can believe that he can expound on accurately, no matter how deluded is his mind.

However, even a deluded mind can have a moment of clarity, long enough to know that neither God nor Christ had ever promised that life for the fallen man will be painless.  In the midst of life's pains, Christ had shown man how to overcome their many facets, by His obedience to God, by His pure and humble love, by laying down His life for His friends, or those whom one loves [3] and that means everyone in the family and everyone else outside of it.  Christ had said, quoted in part (without references): "'This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.'" [4], [5]



[1] https://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/delusion-of-grandeur/
[2] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p4s2.htm
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/15 at footnote marked by *15:13 (hyperlink omitted).
[4] Ibid. at 12-13.
[5] This blogger had seen these words of Christ being used for a fallen soldier who by his valor chose to die by enemy fire to save others in his unit.  While these words can be emotionally evocative at a military funeral, one ought to ask if Christ had ever intended His words be taken advantage of by men engaged in the killing of one another.  If Christ had been taken advantage of, it would not have been His first time.  Yet, He still loves.  From this perspective, one ought to be able to grasp to a degree the pain of Christ's love for man, and ought to be willing to do endure at least that much pain for someone who is near and dear when giving mercy.

Reminiscing

The music playing in the background is the Adagio movement in E-flat [1] of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Serenade in B-flat major, KV 361/370a, the "Gran Partita " conducted by Sir Neville Marriner. [2]  It seems to compliment the mood of this entry.

The setting is a place some distance away from the noises of daily life where one can be in solitude for some time to allow the mind to imagine oneself living in the time of Christ, not so much as a witness to Christ's ministry but more as an observer of a man Whom one had had a chance to know and love.

On a rock, on a slope, one sits gazing into the distance with a blank mind in the stillness of silence and emptiness of heart and wonders what will come next, with Christ gone in the seemingly endless hours after He took His last breath on the Cross.  Sadness fills the entire being, not knowing what to do or where to turn.  The heart aches terribly, and from time to time the eyes well-up with tears as one's thoughts travel back to the times when Christ showed His kindness to those who simply lived, without regard to their handicaps, faults or social status, His compassion to the many who came to see and hear Him, who walked on the grounds He walked on, His (unrecorded) happiness to those closest to Him by His infectious laughter.

Christ was a man Who lived only to love, and Who loved without judgment or hesitation, Who hurt deeply when people did not like Him and did not believe in Him and who wanted Him dead.  In spite of all the rejection and the torture, He had no interest in vengeance; He accepted the ways that He was being mistreated, humbly and silently.  At the mercy of man, in the face of pain, He stood, resolute and without accusation, as He bled from His Sacred Heart the blood that gives eternal life to anyone willing to accept Him, the lowly lamb of God.

In describing the Adagio movement in E-flat [1] of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Serenade in B-flat major, KV 361/370a, Antonio Salieri said (in the movie Amadeus), "'On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse. Bassoons and basset horns, like a rusty squeezebox. And then suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there, unwavering. Until a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.'" [3]

So was Christ the voice of God and He continues to fill those who love Him with (in the words of Salieri in the movie Amadeus) "such longing, such unfulfillable longing," for Christ is like the "single note, hanging there, unwavering," until love from the whole of humanity rushes to join Him, "and sweeten it into [an eternity] of [ineffable] delight."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenade_No._10_Mozart
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BWn1KuXGVM
[3] Comment written by Tr0n3000 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q2-VHiUDZs quoting Antonio Salieri from the movie Amadeus. Watch it on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvrxPs47yMc

Correction Of The Previous Post: The Un-named Forty Days

How can something that is imagined go wrong?  Is imagination not always what one wants it to be and is therefore always error-free?  Imagination is not perfect (at least not this blogger's), so things can go wrong, and they did, in the last post.  Before it was composed, what entered the imaginary mind in the beginning was not what flowed into the analytical mind.  Below is the paragraph with the error, as posted:

This change of form [at the Transfiguration] was from human flesh to a heavenly matter, a spirit-based flesh (a term just invented here) that was able to shine as bright as, perhaps even brighter than the sun.  Fast forward from Jesus' Transfiguration to the end of Jesus' ministry, to the third day after His crucifixion, when Jesus again transformed, this time in reverse, from (lifeless) human flesh to (living) spirit-based flesh.

Everything was fine until the end, when the transformation at Christ's Resurrection was described to be "from (lifeless) human flesh to (living) spirit-based flesh."  That is wrong. Conceptually, it should have been from (lifeless) human flesh to living spirit-based flesh to living human flesh.  In order to show a parallel between the Transfiguration (from human flesh to spirit-based flesh) and the Resurrection, and to highlight the many transformations between Christ's spirit-based flesh and living human flesh, a reference to the one-time transformation from lifeless human flesh to spirit-based flesh is omitted in the corrected paragraph (below).

The initial error was compounded by resorting to intellectual rationalization in the paragraph that followed, focusing on what the disciples thought they were seeing, a "ghost," rather than on what Christ had said and  demonstrated [1]:

“Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?

Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”

And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?”

They gave him a piece of baked fish;

he took it and ate it in front of them.

The misplacement of the focus on the disciples and not on Christ caused the analysis to take a wrong turn, even though it seemed to work at the time it was being composed.  For any confusion caused, this blogger apologizes.  (This is a good lesson for this blogger: get distracted and there could be consequences (in this case, a mind haunted by the mistake); therefore, it is necessary for him not to lose his focus on Christ and things should be fine, even then, "to err is human" (quoting Alexander Pope, the English poet. [2]))

Below (the part underlined and italicized) is the correction:

This change of form was from human flesh to a heavenly matter, a spirit-based flesh (a term just invented here) that was able to shine as bright as, perhaps even brighter than the sun.  Fast forward from Jesus' Transfiguration to the end of Jesus' ministry, to the third day after His crucifixion, when Jesus again transformed, this time in the  reverse direction, from spirit-based flesh to human flesh.

(The change cannot be from (lifeless) human flesh to (living) spirit-based flesh because spirit-based flesh does not want to be touched, only human flesh can be, and needed to be touched in the case of Christ to prove that He was alive.  In order to arrive at what was first imagined, this analysis is being relied upon: the Body of Christ entered the tomb humanly dead but came out of it divinely alive.  In the tomb, He went from human flesh to spirit-based flesh since lifeless human flesh cannot self-resurrect.  While He was in that state, He did not want to be touched.  He even told Mary who was at the tomb, "'Stop holding on to me,* for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" [3]  It was only after Christ went to God that He was able to come back to earth with flesh and bones that make up a human body, and to feel hungry and eat. This detour to Heaven seems to be supported by the explanation next to the asterisk ("*") above, see [4] below).

(In the blogger's mind, these are the imagined steps:

Step one: Jesus died and was buried in the state of human flesh.
Step two: In the tomb, Jesus' human flesh was transformed into spirit-based flesh.
Step three: Jesus self-resurrected.
Step four: Mary at the tomb saw Jesus in spirit-based flesh.
Step five: Jesus' ascension took place immediately after He spoke with Mary. See [4] below.
Step six: Jesus came back to earth after returning from a trip to see His Father.
Step seven: Upon His return, Jesus was able to appear fully in human flesh.
Step eight: Jesus, after His first ascension (see [4] below), was able to transform at will between His spirit-based flesh and his fully human form.)

In addition, these two sentences are deleted:

This spirit-based flesh was not readily recognized by the disciples, which could explain why they thought that Jesus was a "ghost" when He appeared to them in Jerusalem.  What happened there is quoted below without paragraph numbers and references to footnotes [2]:

The following is their replacement:

Even though the disciples thought that they were seeing a "ghost" in Lk 24:36-43 they were not.  They thought they were because they never expected a man who had been dead but missing to suddenly appear in a room in which they were gathered, probably without knocking and going through a door, and stand "in their midst." [5]  At the time Christ was standing physically in the room, He was in the flesh, human flesh, not spirit-based flesh.

It seems that Christ was able to go easily from human flesh to spirit-based flesh, as He had during His Transfiguration, and while He was in the tomb in order to self-resurrect. However, for Him to go the other way, from spirit-based flesh to human flesh, He seems to need God's blessing to do so.  At the Transfiguration, He was able to appear as bright as or brighter than the sun, after which, with God's blessing (Christ's entire human existence had been blessed by God), He returned to His disciples as man.  Immediately after His resurrection, Christ did not want to be touched because He had not yet ascended to His Father.  It was only after Christ had made the trip back to Heaven to see His Father before He was able to have human flesh and be touched.

How many times Christ had gone back and forth between His state in human flesh and His state in spirit-based flesh and how quickly He was able to switch between the two states during His 40 days on earth before His return to Heaven is up to one's imagination.  To be able to appear in a room without entering through a door, Christ had to be in spirit-based flesh, but He had to have human flesh to eat [6] and to show Thomas that He was alive and for Thomas to touch His wounds [7].  (Again, the different states of Christ body are imagined, and since this blogger is human, his imagination will be prone to error, even if the focus is directly on Christ.)



[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/24 at 38-43.
[2] http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/to-err-is-human.htm
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/20 at 17.
[4] Quoted from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/20 without hyperlinks:
* [20:17] Stop holding on to me: see Mt 28:9, where the women take hold of his feet. I have not yet ascended: for John and many of the New Testament writers, the ascension in the theological sense of going to the Father to be glorified took place with the resurrection as one action. This scene in John dramatizes such an understanding, for by Easter night Jesus is glorified and can give the Spirit. Therefore his ascension takes place immediately after he has talked to Mary. In such a view, the ascension after forty days described in Acts 1:1–11 would be simply a termination of earthly appearances or, perhaps better, an introduction to the conferral of the Spirit upon the early church, modeled on Elisha’s being able to have a (double) share in the spirit of Elijah if he saw him being taken up (same verb as ascending) into heaven (2 Kgs 2:9–12). To my Father and your Father, to my God and your God: this echoes Ru 1:16: “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” The Father of Jesus will now become the Father of the disciples because, once ascended, Jesus can give them the Spirit that comes from the Father and they can be reborn as God’s children (Jn 3:5). That is why he calls them my brothers. [Emphasis original.]
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/24 at 36.
[6] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/24 at 41-43.
[7] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/20 at 24-29.

The Un-named Forty Days

It is Easter Sunday, 2017!

The resurrection of Christ marked an end to a week of heightened emotions for everyone, including Jesus; at the same time, it was an unceremonious beginning of an un-named 40-day period during which Christ came back to the world in a changed-state of being, similar to His changed state at His Transfiguration. (Again, thoughts in this entry, like others, are from this blogger's imagination.)

On Christ's Transfiguration, Don Stewart posted the following paragraph [1]:

The Transfiguration was the glorification of the human body of Jesus. On this occasion His body underwent a change in form, a metamorphosis, so that it shone as brightly as the sun. At the time of the Transfiguration, Jesus' earthly ministry was coming to a close. He had acknowledged that He was the Messiah and predicted His death and resurrection. Now He was to reveal, to a select few, His divine glory.

This change of form was from human flesh to a heavenly matter, a spirit-based flesh (a term just invented here) that was able to shine as bright as, perhaps even brighter than the sun.  Fast forward from Jesus' Transfiguration to the end of Jesus' ministry, to the third day after His crucifixion, when Jesus again transformed, this time in reverse direction, from (lifeless) human flesh to (living) spirit-based flesh.  (See ** below.)

This spirit-based flesh was not readily recognized by the disciples, which could explain why they thought that Jesus was a "ghost" when He appeared to them in Jerusalem.  What happened there is quoted below without paragraph numbers and references to footnotes [2]:

[The disciples] were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?

Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”

And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?”

They gave him a piece of baked fish;

he took it and ate it in front of them.

In this transformed state, Christ stayed for forty days [3] before He ascended into Heaven [4] probably because He wanted to underscore His divinity and to reassure His disciples that He is close to them always and loves them. They, too, must have missed Jesus terribly, and felt that they had lost Him, and did not at first quite know what to do with their lives in His absence.

These forty days between Christ's Resurrection and Christ's Ascension ought not to be overlooked.  This blogger believes that the Spirit of Christ is still very much present on earth with a particular closeness and intensity during this 40-day anniversary period [5], and believes that it is possible for anyone to experience this close intensity, provided that the person has absolute faith in Christ and has a yearning for and a reliance upon Christ that are about equal in magnitude to the love Christ has for the person.


** This part is incorrect and the correction is made in the next post.
[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_786.cfm
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/24 at 37-43
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts/1 at 3.
[4] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/24 at 50-53.
[5] There is a reason this blogger has this belief, but he not prepared to share it because it is rather personal but more so because hardly anyone would believe him.

The Forgiver And The Forgiven

Even though "this [quoted] portion of Lk 23:34 [below] does not occur in the oldest papyrus manuscript of Luke and in other early Greek manuscripts and ancient versions of wide geographical distribution," this entry assumes that the words were spoken by Jesus on the Cross:

[Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”] [Brackets original.] [1]

Here, the Forgiver is God, and the forgiven are those who "know not what they do," whatever that means. [2]  When God forgives, this will probably happen to the forgiven:

He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. [3]

If God does not forgive, one needs to think of the worst that can happen, intensify it an infinite fold and extend it to eternity.  This is not a good end to a short life.

What will actually happen after life is between God and the individual. [4]

During life, forgiving and being forgiven take place between man and his fellow man.  Man is capable of assuming either the role of the forgiver or the forgiven, both of which require humility.  Sometimes, it is more difficult to forgive than to ask for forgiveness. Therefore, an abundance of humility is required of the forgiver; not only that, an abundance of compassion is needed as well.   Many who hold the power to forgive the trespasses of others often do not have sufficient humility and compassion to do so.  While humility is the key to forgiving, compassion unlocks the door and acts on it.

Humility rests in the interior of the person who is the forgiver and it is found in whole of the mind, the heart and the spirit; compassion looks to the exterior and it is found in the circumstances (past, present and future) of the person to be forgiven.  There can be countless situations in the past and present for the forgiver to consider when deciding to forgive another person's trespasses but there is only one place in the future that the forgiver needs to look at and that is the same place as the one nobody wants to go for an eternity.

It is here that one's imagination needs to be exercised.  What if the person needing forgiveness from the forgiver and does not receive it, and as a result the trespasser goes to Hell for an eternity?  Indeed that is a lot of power that has been placed in the hands of the forgiver in this imagined situation, but what if in some way, for even a short time (not quite an eternity), the person seeking forgiveness but who has not been forgiven would receive his punishment in Hell, and what if the punishment happens to feel like an eternity with no expectation that it would ever end or knowledge of when it would end, would anyone still want to withhold forgiveness and put in real Hell the person with whom one has shared time, air and space together on this earth, even though the relationship had for some time been good but then turned sour, or it was contentious from the beginning?

If Abel had a chance to forgive Cain before being killed [5], would he have forgiven Cain, if knowing that by not forgiving, which he had a right to do, he would send his brother to Hell for an eternity of suffering while realizing that he was favored by God over his brother Cain and realizing that he had to earn God's love in order to spend his eternity in Heaven with God Whom he loved dearly?  This blogger is certain that Abel would forgive his brother, and why not when he knew that God loved him immensely?  With God always by his side, loving him, what would Abel lose by forgiving his brother, and what would he gain by holding onto a grudge (perhaps even seeking vengeance had he not died)?  If Abel could forgive his brother [6], so could everyone forgive everyone else since everyone is related to each other under the human race.

For those who believe in God, in God's goodness, and are not looking to go to Hell, why not forgive, and forgive repeatedly, knowing that at the end of one's short life, even if it were a thousand or a hundred thousand years long (short relative to forever), one could spend an eternity with God, with God's love overflowing in abundance in Heaven?

What if the forgiver does not forgive his fellow man so that starting from the moment of his own death he sees continuously during his eternity (without reference to time, past, present and future) his trespasser suffering without end in Hell, and is continuously conscious of the fact that the trespasses upon him in life were truly insignificant and disproportionate to an eternity of punishment in Hell that his trespasser is suffering, would he then regret not forgiving, when he only had to have a moment of humility and compassion to do so?  Is not an eternity of regret also a form of punishment for those in Hell as well?  Does Heaven have room for a heart so uncharitable and uncompassionate when everyone expects Heaven to be a place where forgiveness waits blamelessly and tirelessly and from which endless mercy springs forth?

Even though it is God, and only God, Who determines a soul's ultimate destination, man who has the chance to forgive in life may not want to lose that chance at the risk of having to regret consciously and continuously for an eternity in death because that, too, is Hell.


[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/lk/23:34#50023034 at 34.
[2] There is a comment at footnote [8] in the post The Seven Last Words Of Christ  dated April 6, 2017, in this blog.
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/lk/23:34#50023034 at 43.
[4] Some preach that God's mercy has no bounds, that everyone, no matter who, receives God's mercy but this blogger thinks that God's mercy necessarily yields to Free Will, and therefore it does not extend to one who willingly and pridefully reject God.  Because God is all-powerful, God can override Free Will that has been gifted to man and impose upon man the mercy he needs forcibly, but if God's infinite mercy interferes at any time with man's infinite Free Will, then Free Will will cease to exist and man will no longer be man but a machine instead.
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4
[6] Cain is deemed conventionally to be Abel's brother. However, he could be considered, controversially to an extreme, as Abel's half-brother based on this blogger's past speculation that Cain might not have come from the seed of Adam but had been born from the seed of the Serpent, in that the "speaking" Serpent had not only deceived Eve and Adam, but in changed form also had lustful and sexual relations with both in the Garden of Eden in order that its deceit could be consummated in the heat of passion.  Of course, as soon as they bit into the forbidden fruit, the Serpent dumped them without so much as saying good-bye, let alone giving each a parting kiss on the cheek, since the Serpent had no interest in them whatsoever, except to ruin them, and whatever that was required to get it done, the Serpent did.

Good Friday Thoughts: Christ's Sufferings

It was a lot of pain to bear, beginning with the betrayal, followed by the scourging at the pillar, the crowning of thorns, the hunger [1], carrying of the heavy wooden cross, the thirst [2], culminating in sweat, fatigue and exhaustion leading to the three falls, and ending with nails being pounded into His hands and feet and a sword going into His side before Christ took his last breath and died on the cross. Christ knew what was coming [3], but God would not take away it away from Him.  Why?

God did not say.  Therefore, one can only guess.

Based on a literal reading, one can say that the excruciating pain that Christ had to suffer had nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins since forgiveness comes from "[Jesus'] blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." [4]  Nor was the extent of Christ's pain necessary to triumph over death brought upon man by Eve and Adam's Original Sin since it was the resurrection of Christ that death was overcome: "just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." [5]

Although it could be assumed (based on what had happened) that the resurrection of Christ and the bringing of eternal life to man would not have been possible without the pain before and during Christ's crucifixion, but would it be correct to make that assumption?  Christ could have died a natural death and still resurrected, although this would not have been as dramatic and effective as rising from a crucified death that everybody knew about and coming out of a tomb (that was sealed and guarded) on the third day as foretold by Christ Himself. [6], [7]

It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the sufferings of Christ are unrelated to "[t]he Paschal mystery [which] has two aspects: by [H]is death, Christ liberates us from sin; by [H]is Resurrection, [H]e opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God's grace, 'so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.' Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace. It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ's brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples after his Resurrection: 'Go and tell my brethren.' We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection." [8]

The conclusion above eliminating the nexus between Christ's painful sufferings and the flow of holy blood that cleanses sins for the preparation of eternal life by way of Christ's Resurrection may appear to be correct but it is not.  It is the shedding of Christ's holy blood that cleanses man's wicked sins.  This would only have been possible with the scourging, the crucifixion and the sword into the side of Christ.  These events were needed to draw enough of Christ's holy blood to have an effective and lasting cleansing of sins that are continuously being committed, and Holy Week is an annual reminder that the cleansing of man's sins by the blood of Christ is on-going and is far from being finished.

Holy blood is required to wipe out Original Sin because what Eve and Adam had done in the Garden of Eden had hurt God tremendously.  Only a Heart that is born from the seed of purity and holiness of the Spirit of God can heal God's pain, and the only One with this Sacred Heart is the Son of God.  It is from the Sacred Heart of the Son that blood needed to flow out through the painful wounds of the Son's sinless flesh to restore the heart of God that Eve and Adam had pierced with their disobedience, in order that God can be whole when standing at the door to Heaven welcoming the repentant children of the first parents home.

[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke22:16

[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/19:28
[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+22%3A42

[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26%3A26-28%2CMark+14%3A12-25%2CLuke+22%3A7-20&version=NIV, footnote reference omitted.

[5] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+5:12-21

[6] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2027:62-28:15

[7] https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%2016%3A21

[8] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a5p2.htm, section 654, references omitted.

Can Love Resolve Conflicts?

Most of the posts in this blog are built on the two most important commandments which is to love God and neighbor. [1]

The question that comes to mind is whether love can resolve conflicts.  The answer has to be in the affirmative.  An atheist would probably disagree and point to the fact that Jesus Who was perfect and in love and in humility never resolved His conflicts with those who wanted Him crucified, and He went to His death with all His conflicts unresolved, and such conflicts continue to this day, within the Catholic church, between Christianity and other religions and in the rest of the secular world.

The atheist's point, if ever made, is valid on its face, except that the point assumes that a conflict arises mysteriously from nowhere and has to be dealt with, not with humility and love (forgiveness) which can resolve it but with retaliations which escalates, complicates, multiplies and spreads it.

In truth, a conflict does not arise out of thin air, but within one's prideful and merciless self, on both sides.  Humans do make mistakes, and it is also human to be able to understand that mistakes can be made, and to overlook them, forget about them and move on; yet, at the same time, it is also human to develop an inner obsession to get even at a minimum, and to vanquish the opponent at the extreme.

The bad news is that the opponent can never be destroyed because the force behind all conflicts comes from Satan. Man can never defeat Satan.  When one conflict seems to be overcome, another inevitably arises.  For example, a warrior may enter into a conflict with another and defeat him but he may have another one or two at home, with his wife and his paramours, because he has in his heart lust, which also comes from Satan.

All the forces of Satan are strong and are difficult for man to resist, but not for Christ.  Since Jesus had no pride in Himself and carried with Him at all times His mercy, conflict could not have arisen within Him.  Thus, there was never any conflict between Him and what others perceive to be His enemies because He did not become man for Himself; He became man for man and that includes all His enemies.  It is man who when under the influence of Satan does he see conflicts between himself and the Son of God, for after all, it is Satan's goal to create disagreements between man and God and to sever the ties that bind them.

While Satan is working tirelessly to create conflicts for man, Christ has, ironically, chosen man to undo them.  Even though the forces of Satan are strong and difficult to resist, they can be resisted.  Christ had already shown man how it is done by His life and His Passion, and He had already reserved for man his place in Heaven by these words: "'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.'" [2]  All children are called to come home, and home for the children of God is Heaven.

And who are the peacemakers who would be called home to Heaven as God's children?  They are every person in this world, regardless of age and religion, since everyone has the capacity to make peace, through humility, and through love.

Love indeed can resolve conflicts.


[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22 at 36-40.
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5 at 9.

Taxation, Religion And Terrorism

This entry draws a line connecting the dots of taxation, religion and terrorism.  The line is being drawn backward beginning first with terrorism.  There are two articles, one by TIME entitled Deadly Explosions at Two Egyptian Churches on Palm Sunday Kill At Least 43 [1], and another by the Associated Press dated April 9, 2017, entitled Church bombing north of Egypt's capital kills 26, detailing the gruesome event. [2]  Quoted in part below (without hyperlink) is from the TIME  article:

Bombs exploded at two Coptic churches in different cities in northern Egypt as worshippers were celebrating Palm Sunday, killing at least 43 people and wounding about 100 in an assault claimed by the Islamic State group.

The blasts came at the start of Holy Week leading up to Easter, and just weeks before Pope Francis is due to visit the Arab world's most populous country, which has been beset by extremist violence against its minority Christians.

In the first attack, a bomb went off inside St. George's Church in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, killing at least 27 people and wounding 78, officials said.

A few hours later, a suicide bomber rushed toward St. Mark's Cathedral in the coastal city of Alexandria, the historic seat of Christendom in Egypt, killing at least 16 people and wounding 41, the Interior Ministry said.

The question is: why?

One part of the answer came in the last two paragraphs of the Associated Press  article, quoted below [3]:

Egypt's Copts are one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East, accounting for around 10 percent of Egypt's 92 million people and have long complained of discrimination.

The Copts were largely supportive of the military overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, a senior Brotherhood figure, and incurred the wrath of many Islamists, who attacked churches and other Christian institutions after his ouster.  [The point made here will be revisited below.]

A second part of the answer requires a look back at the Obama administration in 2011 when President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt stepped down after "after nearly 30 years in power and 18 days of relentless pressure from street demonstrations demanding an end to his rule." [4]  A president of the United States has a lot of power over other countries economically and militarily, and if the person who was in charge of the world in 2011 wanted to, he could have intervened, quashed the uprising movement in Egypt and ensured that Mubarak's government stayed in power, but had not, and possibly could have introduced "Arab Spring" to the region, leading to the ouster of Mubarak.  Perhaps this was done because he wanted to out-do his predecessor from a different political party who invaded a sovereign (Iraq) without provocation and wanted history to remember him as the person most influential in re-shaping the Mideast into a (peaceful) democracy.  Not wanting to be a copycat using a very visible United States military, he might have employed an "invisible" group of well-paid local community organizers that was backed by an elite and blameless media siding with the uprisers to create havoc in Egypt (and later in Syria).  To top it all off, he also bombed Libya and had probably paid handsomely for a discreet execution service that ended Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's life. [5]  As it turned out, what took place under his watch, and under his predecessor's watch, have not been good for the world based on this blogger's opinion, an opinion he is not qualified to form because of his ignorance of world affairs and politics, but he formed it nonetheless because he believes that to be God's Truth, in a delusional way.

Looking at what had taken place is almost like watching a science fiction movie in which mythological Greek titans and gods that hate each other battle for dominance using defenseless pawns (weak unsuspecting sovereigns) like disposable chess pieces to do their dirty work, and watching real people suffer and die from a distance seemingly without any remorse, as if there is no blood on their hands, until of course, they awaken to the sad but inevitable realization that they are not titans or gods after all, and that they will die like all humans do.  The scene then changes, and the movie cameras turn to a set that represents Hell, where these supposedly gods and titans will see the blood from all the people that had been killed as a result of their decisions flow suffocatingly from their every orifice and feel all the pains their actions had caused extend to every space that constitute their respective forms.  It would be an amazing movie to watch if it were made and if Franco Zeffirelli were to direct it, for in this blogger's opinion, he is the filmmaker equivalent of the painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, but then science-fiction is not his forte.

Back to (almost) reality, the combined actions taken by these powerful (almost mythical) earthly creatures, assisted by Satan, have to this day been causing those who are caught in the middle much suffering; the sufferers are not only Christians, but also Muslims.

If Christians and Muslims were true to their respective faiths, there would be no animosity between them.  In its place will be mutual respect at least, that could develop into a certain love as their co-existence approaches the ideal.  Reading the last two paragraphs of the Associated Press  article quoted above identified by footnote [3], one ought to be able to conclude that both Christians and Muslims disliked each other because of politics, mixed in with religion.  In addition to religious wrath and political wrath, pride, unforgiveness and vengeance on all sides form the third part that completes the answer to the question "why" asked above.

From a religious perspective, if Christians were humble like the Holy Family Who might have lived a life that had been subjected to discrimination (possibly because Joseph took Mary Who was with Child while betrothed but before the consummation of marriage) and like Christ Who was subjected to hate (because of His teachings), Who washed the feet of Judas whom He knew would betray Him the evening of the Last Supper rather than castigating him in front of the other eleven disciples, then perhaps the Christians (who may still be discriminated against in some ways within a country having a Muslim majority (which has to do with human nature and nothing to do with religion)) would probably not be terrorized, especially if they had not supported the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi. This is not to say that the extremists who carried out terrorist acts against two Christians Coptic churches on Sunday, April 9, 2017 (see [1] above), had every right to do so because they had somehow been offended.  Those acts were Satanic; not Islamic.  Therefore, the killers have to account for their barbaric acts before their Allah, as opposed to Mohammad who was "[Allah's] prophet and messenger." [6]

This blogger believes that the good in religions come from God for God is the author of good.  If both Christians and Muslims, Jews and Buddhists, and followers of other non-Satanic religions adhere to their respective faiths, and keep their fingers out of politics, the world could be a lot more peaceful than it is now.  Of course, the world cannot be peaceful because many in power who practice their respective religions are hypocrites.  Some even go as far as claiming that they have a religion but who are actually non-religious (even atheists)--they only use religion as a mask to deceive others into believing that their actions come from good and are good when in fact they are Satan's minions, but then even nearly all of Satan's earthly minions have to pay their share of taxes.

This blogger has no idea what the other religions' positions are on the payment of tax to one's government, but he knows the Christian's position [7], [8], for Christ had said, "'[G]ive back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.'" [9]  When Christ said this, was He referring only to Caesar's coin with Caesar's image and inscription on it? Could He be also referring to Caesar's taxing authority and beyond that, Caesar's political powers over the living whose most dreaded fears are punishment and death and over all the resources the land and the sea provided?  Since Christ feared neither punishment nor death, Pontius Pilate had no power over Him, [10] and because He took no interest in "the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence," [11] Satan had no power over Him.

The fact that Satan was able to offer Christ "the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence" means that Satan has dominion over this world even though it has no dominion over the will of man.  Therefore those who ascend to the heights of power because they desire to have power over the world are necessarily submitting themselves freely to the will of Satan and as such, they seek to destroy on Satan's behalf, and the more powerful the position assumed, the bigger the potential power of destruction.  Destruction is not only limited to bomb-dropping on the military side but also includes different kinds of exploitation that occur on the civilian side.

The Son of God did not become man to show man how to destroy himself but how to save himself.  Thus, when Christ said to "'repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,'" [12] He is saying to all not to play politics and covet the riches of and power over the world (at any level, of any kind, in any amount) but to repay God for the gift of life by devoting the entirety of one's energy in loving God and serving one's neighbor humbly.


[1] http://time.com/4732233/cairo-egypt-palm-sunday-bo
[2] http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2017-04-09-ML-Egypt/id-86a48ea81adf42cd9f0cdd0a8c565170
mbing/
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12324664
[5] "'We needed to move on, and Gaddafi, by dying, made that easier,'" said "Jalal el-Gallal, the wartime spokesman for the rebels’ National Transitional Council." See http://world.time.com/2012/10/18/how-did-gaddafi-die-a-year-later-unanswered-questions-and-bad-blood/  There is no evidence that Obama personally knew Jalal el-Gallal, but if Jalal el-Gallal were a loyal protégé of Gaddafi, does anyone think that he would have lived to make that statement?
[6] http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/religion-miscellaneous/islam-religion-miscellaneous/difference-between-muhammad-and-allah/
[7] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22 at 15-22.
[8] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22:15-22
[9] Ibid.
[10] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/19 at 10-11.
[11] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/4 at 8.
[12] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22 at 21.

The New (Catholic) Church Looks To Man -- Not God

The assertion that the Catholic Church (the one under new management) is a new church that puts man ahead of God and the Son of God came out of an imaginary trip this blogger took by putting himself in the shoes of those on the receiving end of the new church's messages.  This entry is based on subjective opinions and thus it is pure speculation, as are the rest of the posts in the blog.

As a refugee and migrant:  "The defense of the life, dignity and human rights of migrants and refugees must come before any other question when enacting migration policies." [1]  Upon hearing this, one would conclude that no refugee or migrant need be humble like Mary and Joseph who were in search of a place to stay when the Blessed Mother was ready to give birth to the Son of God since there is now an expectation created by the new church that there would be an absolute right for a refugee or migrant to demand to have dignity, even though no dignity was given to the Holy Family by those with the means to do so.  Instead of insisting on having their basic human rights, the Holy Family accepted what God had provided (or not provided, depending on one's perspective) and put their future entirely in God's hands. While on the move, like the Holy Family, no refugee and no migrant will be without divine assistance if there is faith in God.  However, today's new church does not really have unwavering faith in God, and most certainly does not put trust in miracles, but thinks that all sufferings of man can be solved with the enactment of social legislation.  In other words, this new church wants the refugee and migrant to focus on his or her rights, on his or her life, not the lives of Mary, Joseph and Jesus, and certainly not anyone else's life. What the new church wants each refugee and migrant to assert is clear: "I am here.  Look at me.  I deserve, and you have a lawful duty to give me all that I deserve."  Humility and love for God are not part of this hypothetical and subjectively worded message, even though the keys to both the heart and Heaven are humility and love of God and neighbor.  It is a secular and political message, appropriate for this new secular and politically-charged institution.

As a LGBT activist:  "A top Vatican cardinal and several other high-ranking prelates have praised a new book on what the Catholic Church's relationship with the 'LGBT community' should be, written by progressive Jesuit Father James Martin." [2]  "Cardinal Kevin Farrell, appointed by Pope Francis to head the Vatican's life and family dicastery, called Martin's book 'a welcome and much-needed book that will help bishops, priests, pastoral associates, and all church leaders more compassionately minister to the LGBT community." [3] "'It will also help LGBT Catholics feel more at home in what is, after all, their church,' said Farrell, the former bishop of Dallas." [4]  After a literal reading of the words of Cardinal Farrell, one could reasonably conclude that the new church belongs to the LGBT community, that it is not truly universal, and that "bishops, priests, pastoral associates, and all church leaders" would no longer see people as individuals, each of whom is a child of God, but as a group identified by their sexual inclinations, in the case of the LGBT group (as contrasted with, say, a group of migrants being identified by their unspecified sexual preferences speaking the same language culturally and phonetically), and further identified by their subcultures, some of which can be quite insular, and subtly exclusionary, but not discriminatory, on various bases. When had Christ grouped people together by their differences, such as by what they do (fisherman versus tax collector), or segregated them by their labels (Samaritan versus Jew), and treated them differently because they can be categorized?  He had not; every person is loved uniquely even though every person sins.  When one stands before God, one stands alone, each with his or her own set of burdens and sins.  Therefore, a group with a political or social agenda is irrelevant before God, whether it is LGBT or IBSA ("International Blind Sports Association") or any other group. However, this assertion does not apply to the new church since it is not the Church that Christ had established for the individual who loves God; rather, it is more akin to a secular institution that is controlled by a group of seasoned, radical and racially uniform male politicians and administrators at the top echelons that focuses on the individual--in this case, on individuals that willfully and demonstrably associate themselves with a group--not on God or the individual's love for God.  In other words, this is what the new church could be saying to the LGBT group, and to all sinners in general, subjectively imagined: "It is all about you. You are a part of our institution.  We do not care what you do sexually or otherwise, how you exclude and scorn others who are unlike you, or how unforgiving you can be (by taking others to court even though you may be right) when others do not share your thinking (even when it impinges on another person's religious freedom to not promote gay marriages [5]).  We also do not care whether or not you hate your God-given body and whether or not you mutilate your sexual organs, or if you even truly love God and are humble before God and neighbor.  So long as you are happy with this new church and donating to it, you can be a hypocrite, and you are welcomed here."

As someone within the Catholic hierarchy who disagrees with the pope:  Here the pope had no words and had let his actions speak.  When the silence is translated, the new church could be saying this, subjectively imagined: "You are invisible.  We do not like you and your philosophy.  It does not matter that you are Catholic, that you are a priest, a bishop, an archbishop, a cardinal or some other leader of a Catholic organization (seminary is included) that is under the purview of the Holy See (especially when the Holy See owns the land and the buildings you construct and use and you do not wish to give them up regardless of principle because you are hypocrites just like we are, basking in power and comfort).  You can go on performing your duties so long as you do not infringe on the new church's power; if and when you do, you will be demoted and sent to the Vatican's equivalent of Siberia.  It is all about you and your non-conformist attitude and nothing about how holy you are or how much you love God."

There are many more roles to assume, but the conclusions are generally the same as the above; therefore, this entry ends here.


[1] http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2017/saving-lives-must-be-first-concern-of-immigration-policy-pope-says.cfm
[2] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/francis-appointed-cardinals-back-jesuits-pro-lgbt-book
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/07/colorado-baker-takes-gay-wedding-cake-case-u-s-supreme-court/

Thoughts Interrupted: Chemical Weapons Attack and US Bombing In Syria

Background information on the chemical attack in Syria and the United States bombing that took place "near Homs at 3:45 a.m local time" [1] on April 7, 2017, is available online.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was blamed for the chemical attack that took place on or about April 4, 2017. [2] Without an investigation as to who might have been actually behind the attack, the president of the United States reacted, in this blogger's opinion, rather prematurely if, indeed, the action taken was to supposedly teach President al-Assad a lesson, and not for political gain.

In this conflict involving many different players with different and conflicting interests, there is not one side that is on God's side.  Has the Son of God ever resolved a conflict with the killing of an enemy despite having many?

The seemingly never-ending conflicts in the Mideast are too complex for this blogger to analyze in detail.  What is interesting was the attack in a St. Petersburg, Russia, subway station on or about April 3, 2017, for which nobody officially claimed responsibility, even though it was "Isis supporters [that cheered] the attack in St Petersburg that killed at least 10 people." [3]  If Russia's continual bombings in Syria have been unsuccessful in containing ISIL, then why would ISIL supporters terrorize Russian citizens in St. Petersburg "while the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was in St Petersburg – his home town"? [4]

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that ISIL does not like Russia's involvement in Syria, nor, on the contrary, does its neighbors want the conflict in Syria to ever end, so that ISIL would spend all of its resources there and not expand its presence to other countries in the area.  Hypothetically speaking, if President Trump were to carry out his original intent to join forces with Russia to eliminate ISIL in Syria, ISIL would drop Syria and leave fairly quickly.  Does anyone think ISIL would prevail when the world's two most powerful military forces join together in a mission to destroy it?

This blogger thinks that President Bashar al-Assad wants Syria back for Syrians, including Syrian Catholics who lived relatively freely and peacefully before an invasion took place under the Obama administration for reasons that are not entirely clear to those that are ignorant and powerless (this blogger included), mystifying them, especially when the then Commander-in Chief was a Chicago Law School professor with a Harvard law degree [5], who was supposedly an individual with deep understanding and compassion, an advocate of diversity and tolerance and a champion for peace.  History has proven otherwise, and in comparison to Bashar al-Assad, it is not definitive that he is so much better a statesman and an individual than al-Assad. By no means is this blogger implying that Bashar al-Assad is a saint; he most surely is not, nor is anyone who is in power; nonetheless, this blogger thinks that Bashar al-Assad has been made a scapegoat in the use of chemical weapons [6], and Syria has been turned into a theater in which ISIL battles the rest of the world.

It is sad to see people suffer, and die without having an opportunity to live, regardless of which side of a conflict they are on and what religious beliefs they may have, especially when such sufferings can stop if only man wills it to stop, unlike sufferings brought upon unexpectedly by illnesses and by Mother Nature.  This blogger has never really understood the need for war, when anyone, anywhere in the world, can be a friend, for friendship is based on common interests and loyalty, on mutual respect, on fairness and compassion and on a smile, and every human understands all that innately, which means that all people come from God, a God Who is all good.



[1] http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/04/07/syria-airstrikes-international-community-reacts-to-us-bombing-airfield.html
[2] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/chemical-attack-syria-170404195457304.html
[3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/st-petersburg-attacks-isis-russia-bombings-celebrate-islamic-state-response-a7664656.html
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/03/st-petersburg-metro-rocked-by-explosion-sennaya-ploshchad-station
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
[6] Bashar al-Assad is not losing and it is not critical that chemical weapons be used to prevail in the current conflict by killing 72 people and injuring more than 550 [see [2] above], considering that he could anticipate the next day's news headlines and could probably take more lives by dropping a number of conventional bombs in which case the world could not say anything since bombing people to death seems to be an acceptable and a humanitarian way to invade a sovereign country and cause collateral injuries these days.