Monday, June 5, 2017

Pentecost Sunday, 2017

The Second Reading at Mass on Pentecost Sunday, June 4, 2017, is quoted in part below:

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit
is given for some benefit. [1]

These words, especially the last sentence, can be made perfect, as they should be, in world that is at peace in which the manifestation by the Holy Spirit within each individual is a gift that is used to benefit others without self interest. However, reality reveals what should be is not what is, that self-serving interests come first even as others and the natural environment are being exploited.  In the process, the different workings that the Lord intends to be complimentary have been made incompatible by man, allowing conflicts to cement, leading to threats and counter-threats, to violence and cruelty and man away from God and toward the Devil.

The Devil rules the world and has its riches to give to those who will prostrate before it [2] but it is not without the One Who "will crush [the Serpent's] head." [3]  Fr. Babolin, "[t]he Italian exorcist said that 'as proof of this hatred' of the devil toward the Mother of God, 'while I was insistently invoking the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the devil answered me: "I can't stand That One (Mary) any more and neither can I stand you any more."'" [4]

If all the women in the world would behave like the Blessed Virgin Mary in raising their children like the Blessed Mother had raised Her Son, the Devil would have a lot less influence upon the world, but many women in the world are not following the footsteps of the Blessed Mother but are instead choosing to be like Eve, the proud woman who wanted equality who in doing so, revealed her to be a weak woman who failed to resist the Devil's temptation and rejected what God had created her to be, Adam's forever-young companion in the Garden of Eden.  That did not last, and both were kicked out of Heaven's garden and grew to become old and decrepit until their fated deaths.

Their deaths and the deaths of their descendants were eternal until the Son of God suffered and died Himself for the reparation of Original Sin, allowing souls the chance to experience eternal life which was intended for Adam and Eve in the first place.  This revised eternity unifies the different parts that make every individual unique under "one Spirit" [5] to once again become whole.  It is this wholeness that everyone ought to seek in eternity, that the Devil is working to prevent by sending many souls to Hell even as the Blessed Mother is praying fervently for the conversion of sinners.

The Devil probably has had many successes in collecting souls to populate Hell and is continuing to be successful.  The question is whether these souls that have chosen to reject God will cause gaps in the "whole" that Heaven is expecting to close by man's own collective conscience and will.  The likelihood is that man is weak like Eve, his proud first mother, and is unable to close those gaps by rejecting the Devil's temptations and unify under the one Holy Spirit.  This does not mean than Heaven will tolerate imperfection and exist with holes caused by man's sins when it is perfection in the "whole" and in wholesomeness that Heaven seeks: Heaven will not and is not about to compromise.  Replacements would be made, in much the same way as Christ was made to replace Adam, and the humble Virgin Mary was made to replace the proud Eve and the proud Lucifer, the fallen angel.

Accordingly, those who think by reading 1 Corinthians 12 that they are part of that "One Body" that Heaven is waiting for and are therefore indispensable and can do whatever that pleases them but not God ought to think again and know that they can and will be replaced.  This lesson of humility came too late for Lucifer, Eve and Adam but it is still early enough for those now gravitating toward Hell to learn from it and change direction.


[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/1corinthians/12:3, at 4-7.
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/4 at 8-9.
[3] http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/why-the-devil-hates-mary-especially-during-exorcisms-93682/
[4] Ibid.
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/1corinthians/12:3 at 13.

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