A Heart Without Love

Let us start with this question: Where does love reside?  The three most likely places are the heart, the brain and the soul.  The next question is: What matter is it composed of?  Nothing tangible and nothing visible.

What cannot be touched or seen cannot be copied, in 2-D or 3-D, but the heart and the brain can be seen, touched and soon enough, be replicated in 3-D, as if the feat has not already been accomplished in Russia [1] and partially in the United States. [2]  While 3-D replicas of live, implantable organs may still be science fiction, speculating on their possible effects here is not too soon.

Indeed, having a spare or two of one's vital organs, like the heart, is a pretty good way to postpone death temporarily, repeatedly or perhaps even permanently, but what is the meaning of life if it is incapable of receiving love from God and loving God in return, given that love is non-dimensional and cannot be printed, and that loves resides in the heart and a 3-D copy of a heart has no love?

What if love resides in the soul, and since the soul is eternal and is part of the body (in this case, a non-dying body of artificial parts), so would love be eternally attached to the non-dying body.  Let me propose a theory which asserts that the soul is inextricably tied to the intellect and the intellect resides in brain.  Like the soul, the intellect is also eternal which is why you would know  without a doubt whether you are in Hell or in Heaven.  In this hypothetical, even if one were to live on and on with successive replacement hearts pumping nonstop, the brain would deteriorate over time as cells usually do.  So when the time comes to replace the original brain with a 3-D replica, the intellect and the soul, both of which like are non-dimensional and cannot be printed, would not be part of the replicated brain.  A copy of one's brain could possibly have no intellect or a weak semblance of intellect but it would have no soul and no love, for the love that is attached to the soul which is attached to the original intellect that had been endowed by God with Free Will would have left the body the moment the natural brain is truly dead. [3]  In essence, what would be left would be a shell of what used to be human with all its components from a 3-D printer that looks [4] and behaves nothing like a human.  That I do not think is what God intended for us to become--uncategorized zombies in eternity, also to be known as Satan rejects. [5]


[1] http://marchmontnews.com/Technology-Innovation/Central-regions/19551-Moscow-scientists-make-accurate-heart-copy-3D-printer.html
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/3d-printed-organs_n_3983971.html
[3] A discussion of beings in a vegetative state is beyond the scope of this entry.
[4] Imagine how hideous this thing would look like if the skin on it has to be replaced by artificial skin stretched over a skull with artificial eyes, nose, ears and lips operated by artificial muscles underneath that never works quite right, that need a tune-up every few weeks.
[5] Uncategorized zombies are Satan rejects because Satan is a collector of souls.  Entities without souls do not interest Satan.  Hell does not have a place for them--they are not welcomed.

Hail Mary - Annotated

AVE Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. [1]

My annotations (what I think about when I pray the Ave Maria slowly and lovingly) [2]:

Ave Maria - Mother of Jesus Christ, Mother of God
gratia plena - The Blessed Virgin Mary is filled with God's grace because she was born without Original Sin.  She is the Immaculate Conception.
Dominus tecum - The Lord is with Her, from the very beginning, at present and will be forever.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus -  The Virgin Mary is truly the most blessed among all women, from the beginning of time to eternity.
Et benedictus fructus ventri tui, Iesus - The womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary is blessed with the living Christ, Jesus.
Sancta Maria - The Blessed Virgin Mary is indeed Holy:  Sanctissima, inviolata, intemerata, pulcherrima.  "The four adjectives mean "most holy, inviolate, undefiled, most beautiful. "  See comment by GreenWhiteBlue at http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=535471
Mater Dei - Mother of God, Mother of Jesus Who suffered and died for our salvation, the Mother Who suffered along with her Son, Jesus.
ora pro nobis - The image that I use varies but mostly from images of Her many apparitions around the world that I have seen depicted, praying to God for us.  My favorite one is of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes, France, where She appeared to Saint Bernadette Soubirous to whom She said that She was the Immaculate Conception (in French) when asked who She was.  See http://www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/approved/appariti/lourdes.html and http://www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/approved/words/wordlour.html The images of the most beautiful Blessed Virgin Mary praying to God for us, by Herself or surrounded by angels, are the most beautiful that can be imagined and felt during this prayer.
peccatoribus, nunc, - I think of me, sinner, at the moment I say this
et in hora mortis nostrae - I think of an endlessly large but amorphous group of individuals.



[1] http://www.thesacredheart.com/latpray.htm#b
[2] Confessedly, I usually say the prayer rather fast, lacking the kind of loving care it deserves.

Gilardi v. HHS

Getting into a legal fray is not the primary purpose of this blog since anything that necessitates a law passed by sinners to regulate the conduct of other sinners and to be judged by sinners is necessarily a law that is flawed and unsatisfactory in its application, enforcement and resolution.  No amount of discussion concerning any such law will remedy its defects.  The primary purpose of the blog is to discuss matters that I believe are universal, like Free Will and Divine Truth that hopefully would lead both blogger and reader closer to God, not laws that are country-specific conceived and passed by insignificant, small-minded hypocritical sinners under the powers of Satan.  This is an exception.

For a reader in Greenland, as if there is one, what follows will likely not hold any interest.  Be that as it may, Gilardi v. HHS [1] is a United States case that has highlighted a bigger issue than those addressed by the judges' opinions that I find disturbing, namely the inclusion of contraceptive coverage by the United States government in its insurance scheme.  Based on my understanding, the government of the United States now requires certain employers providing health insurance to their employees to include contraception as part of the coverage.

Here is my question: When has human sexual intercourse been considered a disease that has to be treated because it may lead to fertilization and child birth so that contraception would be necessary as part of a health insurance scheme mandated by the government to prevent such disastrous occurrences?

If human sexual intercourse is not a disease, then it should not be part of a health insurance program.  Even if it were a disease, is it not better to treat the disease by abstention which is not only free and safe but also one hundred percent effective?

If human sexual intercourse is a disease, possibly viewed by those advocating contraception as part of a health scheme, then these creatures -- obvious by-products of the disease or of failed attempts in preventing it through contraception resulting thereby in their births -- ought to be hospitalized and receive antemortem treatment.  Is any treatment going to be effective for these creatures who otherwise would possibly not have been born had their government-mandated contraception been in place before they became a zygote?  I wonder how remorseful these creatures must be to have been born and to have used their lives to pass a law to prevent pathetic lives such as theirs from having ever been created.




[1] http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/947B9C4D8A1E54E785257C16004E80C9/$file/13-5069-1464136.pdf

Serve With Love

"Serve with love" is only three words but explaining them has taken countless more over the millennia.  Let me join in, as if I have not already on this blog, and add to the hours that have already been wasted on the topic.

If words alone are not enough, I can think of two people who had demonstrated it by how they lived.  The first is the Blessed Virgin Mary Who served God with unreserved love by accepting the Holy Spirit and giving birth to the Son of God so that we can learn from Him.  The second is the Son of God Who served His Father with unconditional love by suffering the manifestations of Evil and giving up His life in order that ours can be saved.

Sadly, man has not learned from the combined lives of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.  If man cannot learn by example, then what good will more words do?  Perhaps that they could serve as a reminder of the ways the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus served with love.

A reminder, however feeble its effectiveness in changing a man's heart, is perhaps enough if it only acts to remind man just once to examine whether his actions arises purely out of love or the semblance of love for he would then have at least acted with a degree of compunction, even though the completed action was in part, the greater or the lesser, self-serving, and not served humbly with selfless love without guise.

After writing four paragraphs, I have yet to explain what "serve with love" means.  Which operative word should be used to explain "serve with love"?  I thought of using the word "motive" or "intent" in describing the impetus for one to serve another with love.  Then the word "energy" came to mind.  Immediately it felt right.

"Energy" is an internally driven force.  That force comes much closer in revealing the underlying truth that propels one to act.  I do not think that one's focus and energy can be deceived whereas both motive and intent can easily be intellectually manipulated to conceal the truth and are therefore concepts useful in the practice of law but not so in a discourse to reveal it.

Man can rationalize all he wants and conclude that he is serving with selfless love, but he cannot escape the fact that his energy or his drive is instead focused upon and directed at something else, something that results in, for example, an advantage, a potential gain, a certain recognition, an alleviation of guilt, an exercise of power or an elevation of status over others.  If indeed that is the case, then however seemingly humanitarian the act, he is serving himself with love rather than God with love.

Since we are sinners, having had the origin of our energy sourced in Purity and Goodness irrevocably contaminated by Satan in the Garden of Eden, we act often in our own selfish interests.  That may not be holy but that is the reality.  I believe that we have to acknowledge that we are sinners, and that our acts are usually not selfless.  That ought to be fine, as long as we do not delude ourselves into believing otherwise, and on the condition that we continually try to act truly selflessly from time to time in the service of God and others.  Although fulfilling this condition is not a recompense or a cure for our misguided steps, it nonetheless, I believe, dilutes ever so slightly our energy contaminated by Original Sin.  Perhaps such a dilution would be enough for a chance at salvation whereas no dilution would mean no chance at all.  An energy consumed by pure Evil without any sense of compunction forever repels Divine Energy that is Pure and all Good. [1]  Based on this hypothesis, we by our Free Will choose our ultimate destination by the source of our focus and the direction of our drive in our earthly lives. [2]

Our earthly lives are our realities which can consist of difficult people who are judgmental, vengeful, spiteful, envious or the like, who are often dissatisfied and critical.  That quite likely could be us, in addition to a parent or a close relative, a beloved friend or a spouse, a child or a senior, the sick or the handicapped, the mendicant or the drug addict.  Even though people so afflicted  may not possess the positive energy needed for entry into Heaven, holiness requires the forgiveness and the selfless serving of someone who expects a lot and complains often.  With repeated doses of positive energy delivered on a plate served with the kind of love the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus have for God and us, I believe everyone whose energy has been corrupted by Satan will eventually yield to the energy of Purity and Goodness.

When we serve others with pure love, [3] we would bring an energy of Purity and Goodness to those who have lost it and put back in front of them the path to Heaven; at the same time, we would benefit from the same positive energy that we have given to others.  If, at times, we ourselves need a dose of Purity and Goodness because our energy is so warped but no one is around to serve us selflessly with love, then we must turn to prayer.  When we supplicate, the impossible is possible.


[1] Unlike magnets, these polar opposites do not attract.
[2] In other words, the theory of energy is based on Free Will, a gift to us from God until the very end -- a gift of  freedom to choose Heaven or Hell by where and how we focus our energy in our earthly lives.
[3] Today is 11/11/13 and the following is added:
Today I caught the last part of Joel Osteen's sermon.  He talked about four types of people, ones who lifts you and makes you feel good about yourself, ones who thrusts you and inspires you to reach your goals and I might add, to realize your dreams, ones who weighs you down and with their problems, expecting you to fix them, holding you down with them and ones who drags you along with them with their negativity, draining your energy, using you as a trash can to dump all their problems.  The operative words, lift, thrust, weight and drag are terms Joel Osteen borrowed from his pilot friend who said in order to fly a plane, all of those factors have to be taken into account.  Joel Osteen said that the person who weighs you down or drags you along could be your spouse but you would have to let your spouse live the life in negativity if so desired but you ought not to feel responsible and be a co-dependent, that you must break free of the bondage that ties you down so that you could realize the potential God has given you.  However, he added that you must continue to respect that person whose negativity you feel responsible for and pray for that person, and that you could allow yourself to be part of the negative drama with that person, but only for a season, not a lifetime.
When I said we ought to serve others with pure love, it was not about living the life of a complainer afflicted with constant dissatisfaction or becoming a part of their lives, allowing yourself to absorb all of their negativity and shoulder all of their burdens.  What I meant by serving the negative folks with love is by approaching them with patience, understanding and compassion, detached from the emotional aspects that drain away the energy of Purity and Goodness.  This service is not just for a season but for a lifetime.  How can one serve with love a parent, a child or a loved one for one season and not the next?  As difficult as serving with love is, one must do it again and again, and do it for as long as it takes for Purity and Goodness to make an entry into the darkness of negativity that belongs to Satan so that the Light of God can pierce through and shine forth from within which is when healing starts to take place.  For the love of God, one cannot abandon the afflicted.  Patience is key.  If one is not living under the same roof with the afflicted, one must depart by leaving the afflicted with an assurance that love with return and love will be served again soon.  This assurance is a promise that cannot and must not be broken: the expectation created by this promise is equivalent to the expectation of salvation promised by Christ.
Those who are blessed by God have the responsibility to reveal the gift of blessedness to others so that they, too, can follow the path to God and receive their own blessedness and live in the humble  hope of salvation, of pure joy and eternal fulfillment.  Dissatisfaction would have faded away into nothingness and all the complaints would be a fully forgotten past.
Let us all take the first and the last step, and take as many as possible in between, with pure love propelled by the energy of Purity and Goodness.
To end, I thank Joel Osteen for lifting me up, inspiring me to write this footnote, and confirm that I agree totally with Joel Osteen that we must respect and pray for those afflicted with unshakable negative energy, that God would heal them.  A prayer that I would recommend we, and they, say is the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel, in Latin (see http://www.thesacredheart.com/latpray.htm#stmich):

Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio; contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium. Imperat illi Deus; supplices deprecamur: tuque, Princeps militiae c[a]elestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude. Amen

Canto VII - Paradiso - The Divine Comedy (Continued)

While other tercets in Dante's Paradiso's Canto VII are also powerful and edifying, I quote only the tercets in the Canto on Original Sin and redemption, as translated by John Ciardi [1], [2], [3], [4]:

Sin is the one power that can take away
    its freedom and its likeness to True Good,        80
    whereby it shines less brightly in Its ray.

Its innate worth, so lost, it can regain
    only by pouring back what guilt has spilled,
    repaying evil pleasure with just pain.

Your nature, when it took sin to its seed,               85
    sinned totally.  It lost this innate worth,
    and it lost Paradise by the same deed.

Nor could they be regained (if you heed my words
    with scrupulous attention) by any road
    that does not lead to one of these two fords:   90

either that God, by courtesy alone,
    forgive his sin; or that the man himself,
    by his own penitence and pain, atone.

Now fix your eye, unmoving, on the abyss
    of the Eternal Wisdom, and your mind               95
    on every word I say concerning this!

Limited man, by subsequent obedience,
    could never make amends; he could not go
    as low in his humility as once,

rebellious, he had sought to rise in pride.               100
    Thus was he shut from every means himself
    to meet God's claim that He be satisfied.

Thus it was up to God, to him alone
    in His own ways--by one or both, I say--
    to give man back his whole life and perfection.      105

But since a deed done is more prized the more
    it manifests within itself the mark
    of the loving heart and goodness of the doer,

the Everlasting Love, whose seal is plain
    on all the wax of the world was pleased to move    110
    in all His ways to raise you up again.

There was not, nor will be, from the first day
    to the last night, an act so glorious
    and so magnificent, on either way.

For God, in giving Himself that man might be         115
    able to raise himself, gave even more
    than if he had forgiven him in mercy.

All other means would have been short, I say,
    of perfect justice, but that God's own Son
    humbled Himself to take on mortal clay.             120

[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Paradiso. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003, p.651-2.
[2] The tercets quoted are indicated by lines 79-120. 
[3] The other tercets that are powerful and edifying in Paradiso's Canto VII, indicated by lines 25-51, have not been quoted except for the tercet indicated by lines 46-48 which was quoted in my last entry.  However, I will quote the notes written by John Ciardi for these lines:

THE CRUCIFIXION. Beatrice argues that the death of Christ was just because [H]e had taken upon Himself both the nature and guilt of mankind.  His expiation was just because the sin of His human nature was great.  But since He was also a God, the pain suffered upon His divinity was a sacrilege and demanded punishment.

See  Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Paradiso. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003, p.654.
[4] The notes written by John Ciardi  on line 81, lines 85-86, lines 97, lines 104-105 and line 114 follow:
Line 81:  "it shines less brightly in Its ray:  Since God's fire rays forth most brightly in that which is most like God, and since sin makes man less like God, sin makes man shine less brightly in God's ray."  Emphasis original
Lines 85-86:  "seed . . . totally:  The seed of Adam.  By his sin, all mankind fell from its first innate worth and lost Paradise."  Emphasis original.
Line 97:  "Limited man:  Man is limited by his mortal means.  Within them, no depth of humility to which he could descend could be proportionate to the height he had sought in his rebellious sin.  For man's sin was in seeking to become God, and there is no equivalent depth to which he could sink in recompense, for in sinning he had already damned himself to Hell." Emphasis original.
Lines 105-105:  "by one (way):  Mercy or both:  Mercy and Justice.  Since man could not save himself, God could have forgiven him outright as an act of mercy.  Or [H]e could have created a man so perfect that he was capable of just expiation (that would have been the way of Justice).  But in giving Himself through His own Son, He chose the double way that was both divine mercy and human justice."  Emphasis original.
Line 114:  "on either way:  On the way of mercy or the way of justice."  Emphasis original.
See Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Paradiso. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003, p.654-5.

Canto VII - Paradiso - The Divine Comedy

Line 47 (the middle line) in Canto VII of Paradiso is for me the most powerful stanza in Dante's Divine Comedy: [1]

In Italian by author Dante Alighieri:

Però d’un atto uscir cose diverse:
ch’a Dio e a’ Giudei piacque una morte;
per lei tremò la terra e ‘l ciel s’aperse.  [2]

 Translated by John Ciardi:

Thus, various sequels flow from one event:
    God and the Jews concurred in the same death;
    for it the earth shook and the heavens were rent.  [3]

Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

From one act therefore issued things diverse;
  To God and to the Jews one death was pleasing;
  Earth trembled at it and the Heaven was opened. [4]

Anyone interested in reading The Divine Comedy in its entirety, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, can go here:  http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/dante/dante-longfellow.pdf  [5]


[1] The tercet quoted (as originally written and two translations) is from Dante's Paradiso, Canto VII, lines 46-48.  Other stanzas in this Canto are also edifying and I plan to quote them too in a later entry.  I actually have not finished reading Dante's Paradiso, but I cannot imagine the author coming up with a line that more loaded than this line 47, by placing God (the "Chooser") on one side and the Jews (the "Chosen") on another that is diametrically opposed to God's, caused by a disagreement as to why Christ had to die, and simultaneously bringing them together in agreement by their sharing of a common solution, namely, the death of Christ, with just nine words.
[2] http://divinacommedia.weebly.com/paradiso-canto-vii.html
[3] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Paradiso. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003, p.650.
[4] http://www.thefinalclub.org/view-work.php?work_id=12&section_id=296
[5] I prefer John Ciardi's translation but I think it is at present available in print only.

Lectio Divina - Pronunciation

How is Lectio Divina pronounced?  Is it Lek-SEE-Oh or LECK-Tee-Oh Dih-VEE-Nah [1]?

I like LECK-Tee-Oh and found support for it at http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44071/13162179/Lectio_Divina_Questions?pg=2, #16, posted by Mostyn32 on November 4, 2007, 12:16 a.m.  Quoted:

Lectio is Latin for "I read", and I've never heard it pronounced any other way than LECK-TEE-OH, with the emphasis on the first syllable. If it was to be pronounced LEK-SEE-OH, it would be spelled LEXIO. (I learned Latin long before I began the daily practice of Lectio Divina).

[1] One, without any reference to knowledge or experience, said "Divina" is pronounced as Dah-veen-ah.  I suppose if it were pronounced that way, taking a cue from Mostyn32, it would be spelled DAVINA.  I also suppose this person would also pronounce "divine" (hear the proper pronunciation at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/divine?s=t) as DAH-VINE which to me is the opposite of heavenly.  Maybe Satan's serpent is called DaVine.