One of my favorite passages...

Love is wasteful. Our love for Christ can have no limits. Christ loves us without limits. We only need to listen, repent, love. John, who loved Christ, understood this action of the sinful woman.

John 12:1-11

Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany,
where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served,
while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him.
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil
made from genuine aromatic nard
and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair;
the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
Then Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples,
and the one who would betray him, said,
“Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages
and given to the poor?”
He said this not because he cared about the poor
but because he was a thief and held the money bag
and used to steal the contributions.
So Jesus said, “Leave her alone.
Let her keep this for the day of my burial.
You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

The large crowd of the Jews found out that he was there and came,
not only because of him, but also to see Lazarus,
whom he had raised from the dead.
And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too,
because many of the Jews were turning away
and believing in Jesus because of him.

Bad News

 Alliance Defending Freedom. 15100 N. 90th St. Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Pastors in 20-year-old case call for NYC Mayor to fulfill promise to change policy barring churches from public schools * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * For 20 years, Pastors Jack Roberts and Bob Hall of the Bronx Household of Faith have fought for the right to rent an empty space in their local New York City public school for their weekly worship services. It didn't seem like such an outrageous request, but the New York City Board of Education made it clear—people can rent the spaces during non-school hours for just about any community event–except worship services. Today, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in favor of the city will now go into effect. As a result, the fate of Bronx Household of Faith and other churches in New York City that meet in public school facilities rests in the hands of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. This is the same mayor who promised during his campaign to reverse the policy, but he has not yet done so. Unless swift action is taken to amend the current city policy to grant churches equal access to public school buildings, Bronx Household of Faith and others will soon find themselves homeless.

Interruption Again and News from Scotland

Within three weeks, I shall have an interruption in wifi service again. The friend who has allowed me to us her Internet will be moving away, changing her lifestyle, and I shall be walking back to the local hamburger place for use of the Net. Thankfully, the weather is changing for the better, but the fast-food place is not a nice area to go and sit with some serious "spiritual warfare" happening there. It is a creepy place, in other words.

The nice thing about going to the cafes for usage is that I am free to be off the Net and not distracted by "checking email" and so on during the day. I am fairly organized and usually leave my mornings and evenings for prayers, as well as the mid-day and three o'clock prayer times, but I do check things sometimes, not daily, late at night. Basically, I am online only in the afternoon and late night, if then.

My day is on American time, but my computer usage is on GMT.

This type of schedule will all end in three weeks. I would love to move to get to a place where I can get to daily Mass--has been hard being in the desert.

By the way, sad news from St. Andrew's and Edinburgh Diocese....

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/03/30/archbishop-urges-faithful-to-resist-pessimism-ahead-of-parish-closures/

Dark Night Again....

Matthew 27:46 Douay-Rheims 

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

One of the few "lights"of Holy Week for the person in the Dark Night. is that Christ joins us in His Own darkness. Christ allowed Himself to take our sins upon Himself and experience the type of suffering we suffer daily because of our sins and the sins of others.

Joining us in humanity, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became Incarnate specifically to free us from Original, mortal and venial sins.

Christ enters liturgically into His Dark Night of the Spirit, not because of His sin, as He is Perfect, Innocence, Good, but because of our sins. We join His sacrifice in the Masses we attend, but especially this week in the climax of Lent,  in this Passion Week and in the Triduum.

As I enter this week, I am grateful to God for His Sacrifice, when He chose suffering, both spiritual and bodily, so that I do not have to go to hell. Grace upon grace is given to us through His Passion and Death on the Cross, and through His Resurrection. Christ overcame death and sin, conquering Satan, undoing the damage done by our First Parents.

This is the week of Christ's joining with us as we see on Good Friday in the terrible words of pain and faith as noted above.

We neither despair, nor do we pretend to be something other than we are--sinners standing at the foot of the Cross. And, if we love Christ, we are on Calvary not merely for ourselves, but for Him. But, there is no consolation on this Place of the Skull, only the agony which brings victory over sin and death.

The Mass is the real, not symbolic, recreation of Calvary in an unbloody manner. Everytime we go to Mass, we are standing, again, at the foot of the Cross.

Let us all pause and thank God for His Goodness shown to us most clearly in Holy Week.

Tide of the Century..."old news", but spectacular view

http://www.france24.com/en/20150321-france-tide-century-mont-saint-michel-brittany/

What part of John 6

54 do non-Catholics, non-Christians not understand? And, why? Christ said this sentence and highlighted it with "Amen, amen", which means "pay attention, please". 

Life in this verse means sanctifying grace...no Eucharist, no grace, no salvation, no heaven.

Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.

I caused this...

Only a god could take on his shoulders the sins of the world. Only a god could die for all the people who ever existed in this world, and, bar one chosen woman, sinned. Mankind has seen myths of such a sacrifice in the many stories of the gods who do great feats for men, but the myths point to the reality of this liturgical week.

The consequences of sin, individual and corporate is that the God-Man, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity allowed Himself to suffer and die for each one of us, for all of us.

Rarely do priests speak of the consequences of sin. Rarely are the consequences of sins discussed among Catholics.

When I sin, even if the sin is "private", such as an unkind or critical thought, I harm not only the Church of God, but the entire world.

My lack of holiness spreads out into the corporate responsibility of all men and women of either choosing good or choosing evil.

I have shared on this blog before the encounter with God I had concerning one venial sin.

Consequences of venial sin and consequences of mortal sin affect each person we meet and even those we never meet.

My selfishness causes a child not to have supper. My omission of kindness causes a person to doubt Christianity. My inattention in prayer weakens the Church Militant. My passing up of joining in the suffering of Christ willingly by mortification undermines God's plan for a new creation on earth.

Our free will is totally sacred to God. He will not interfere with our will, but gives us grace to respond. We can say yes, or no.

The individualization of religion, the subjectivity of both secularism and Protestantism have infiltrated the minds of Catholics to the point where most Catholics cannot see how their lives affect the entire Church.

What I do matters. Everything we do has consequences for good or for evil--everything.

Mary could have said no in Nazareth. Christ could have said no in Gethsemane.

Eve said no to Adam's authority. Adam said no to God.

Sin has consequences....But, Christ took those consequences onto Himself.

Pray that God shows you both justice and mercy. Pray you see the consequences now, while you still have time to repent. When one comes to understand consequences as seen by the Eyes of God, one can say of the Passion and Death of Christ, "I caused this."

Knowledge of Divine Things 32 Caritas in Veritate 7

Perhaps the most important lines in this encyclical are found in this paragraph. What is missing among the vast majority of Catholics, including many priests, some bishops, and some cardinals, is the knowledge which is wisdom. Wisdom is not only a gift of the Holy Spirit, but development of the intellect and faith.

I am temporarily abandoning this walk through Benedict's important work simply because so few people are reading these posts. If readers want me to continue, I need feedback as now 7-28 readers per post is the norm--not enough for the work at hand, when I could be concentrating on other things.

I assume most readers are not making the connections with this series and the synod. Without the grounding of the knowledge of divine things, empty platitudes, such as stated recently by a foremost cleric in England, will control the media and thoughts of many people.

These words must not be merely applied to social conditions but to the conditions of society which foster the type of relativism seen in the comments of senior clergymen concerning adultery and remarriage.

Back to the text...

30. In this context, the theme of integral human development takes on an even broader range of meanings: the correlation between its multiple elements requires a commitment to foster the interaction of the different levels of human knowledge in order to promote the authentic development of peoples. Often it is thought that development, or the socio-economic measures that go with it, merely require to be implemented through joint action. This joint action, however, needs to be given direction, because “all social action involves a doctrine”[74]. In view of the complexity of the issues, it is obvious that the various disciplines have to work together through an orderly interdisciplinary exchange. Charity does not exclude knowledge, but rather requires, promotes, and animates it from within. Knowledge is never purely the work of the intellect. It can certainly be reduced to calculation and experiment, but if it aspires to be wisdom capable of directing man in the light of his first beginnings and his final ends, it must be “seasoned” with the “salt” of charity.

What seems to be forgotten is that this world and the happiness of this world are not the true goal or end of human being.

Deeds without knowledge are blind, and knowledge without love is sterile. Indeed, “the individual who is animated by true charity labours skilfully to discover the causes of misery, to find the means to combat it, to overcome it resolutely”[75]. Faced with the phenomena that lie before us, charity in truth requires first of all that we know and understand, acknowledging and respecting the specific competence of every level of knowledge. Charity is not an added extra, like an appendix to work already concluded in each of the various disciplines: it engages them in dialogue from the very beginning.

Those who settle for compromise miss the core truth that charity must always be accompanied by truth, which is found through wisdom, through knowledge.

The demands of love do not contradict those of reason. Human knowledge is insufficient and the conclusions of science cannot indicate by themselves the path towards integral human development. There is always a need to push further ahead: this is what is required by charity in truth[76]. Going beyond, however, never means prescinding from the conclusions of reason, nor contradicting its results. Intelligence and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in intelligence and intelligence is full of love.

Intelligence full of love? Where does one see that in the banal statements of too many clerics at the synod, who insist on seeing good in sin, or compromise over grace? What seems like love is really a snobbery of some priests who actually look down on the laity as incapable of holiness. 

The truth is that too many priests, bishops and even cardinals do not believe in holiness for themselves, only earthly comforts and happiness.

To undermine sanctity is to undermine the very reason the Church exists--- which is to help us all become saints. Such is the satanic influence we can plainly see even last week in comments from certain cardinals against those priests who uphold the constant teaching of the Church on marriage.

Will The Cross

Suffering forms the theme of many posts on this blog. Just follow the tags.

But, this week, the holiest week of the year, one follows Christ on His terrible journey to the Cross.

Years ago, when I read that the great saints encouraged meditating on the Crucifixion, I could not accept that looking at the Cross was a credible exercise. Thankfully, God has been patient with me, and now, I can say truly that meditating on the Passion brings one into the reality of self-knowledge and love of God.

When one gets to the point where one asks God the Father to join in the suffering of Christ, one has embraced the purgation of the soul and body.

This purgation, this accepting of the Cross in any way God presents it to one, marks the real beginning of purification.

One begins to want to suffer, for one's sins, for reparation, for intercession, for the glory of God.

The more humble one becomes, the easier the acceptance of suffering becomes.

Follow Christ this week, not only in the Scriptures, but in the heart, mind, imagination, will.

Will the Cross.

The Book of Esther-Black Liberation Theology and Anti-Semitism

Today, I was reading the book of Esther, and then I found this article on line.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/American-Israeli-Rabbi-compares-Obama-to-Haman-395457

We sin because we are selfish. Selfishness in little people, who are in lowly places, causes small ripples of consequences. But, selfishness in big people, who are in positions of power, causes tidal waves.

Haman hated the Jews with a racist fury. Of course, few people realize that in our country there has been a long hatred of those who follow black liberation theology for Jews.

POTUS sat for umpteen years in the front row of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's black liberation theology "church". Many of the articles which described this false ahistorical view, which holds that the Black People are the Chosen People of God and not the Jews, and that Christ is a political Messiah have been erased from the Net.

In 2007 to 2009 on my first blog, I explained black liberation theology in detail. I discovered by studying blt that it was rife with anti-semitism.

Supplanting the Jews as the real tribes set aside by God is a seminal idea therein.

I have read parts of blt books and can assure you these are bogus attempts to deny the history and revelation of the Old Testament.

Small wonder our leader hates Israel.

Read more here http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2008/04/02/marxist-roots-black-liberation-theology  with a snippet below.....and

April 2, 2008

by Anthony B. Bradley

What is Black Liberation Theology anyway? Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright catapulted black liberation theology onto a national stage, when America discovered Trinity United Church of Christ. Understanding the background of the movement might give better clarity into Wright's recent vitriolic preaching. A clear definition of black theology was first given formulation in 1969 by the National Committee of Black Church Men in the midst of the civil-rights movement:

Black theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in the light of God's revelation in Jesus Christ, so that the black community can see that the gospel is commensurate with the achievements of black humanity. Black theology is a theology of 'blackness.' It is the affirmation of black humanity that emancipates black people from White racism, thus providing authentic freedom for both white and black people. It affirms the humanity of white people in that it says 'No' to the encroachment of white oppression.

In the 1960s, black churches began to focus their attention beyond helping blacks cope with national racial discrimination particularly in urban areas.

The notion of "blackness" is not merely a reference to skin color, but rather is a symbol of oppression that can be applied to all persons of color who have a history of oppression (except whites, of course). So in this sense, as Wright notes, "Jesus was a poor black man" because he lived in oppression at the hands of "rich white people." The overall emphasis of Black Liberation Theology is the black struggle for liberation from various forms of "white racism" and oppression.

James Cone, the chief architect of Black Liberation Theology in his book A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), develops black theology as a system. In this new formulation, Christian theology is a theology of liberation -- "a rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ," writes Cone. Black consciousness and the black experience of oppression orient black liberation theology -- i.e., one of victimization from white oppression.

and more here with another snippet

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/06/obama_black_liberation_theolog_2.html

Until I started following the threads of Obama's Chicago history, his church, his other associations, especially the religious ones, I honestly didn't think anyone but the scantiest few fringe neo-Nazis or throngs of Middle-Eastern Muslims still harbored Jew hatred. 

I assumed Farrakhan got his antisemitism from the Koran.  The Koran, after all, is pretty explicit about Mohammed's hatred of the Jews, most likely because the Jews stubbornly clung to the wisdom of their own prophets and refused to convert.

But when I read the Black Liberation Theology books of James H. Cone, I saw a subtly disguised, resentful kind of antisemitism which I had never encountered before. 

The Gospel of Envy

Perhaps Winston Churchill was absolutely correct when he called socialism the "gospel of envy."  It has always struck me as odd when populist politicians, posing as Christians, perpetually tempt people to envy, driving home the notion that some are poor only because others are rich. 

It somehow never seems to dawn on either the politicians or those they are tempting that this flies directly in the face of the Tenth Commandment, "Thou shalt not covet..."  Nor do these so-called Christians seem to remember that Jesus condemned the tempting of others to sin as far worse than the sin itself.  "Woe be unto the tempters," Jesus admonished. 

Nevertheless, black power preachers who ascribe to Black Liberation Theology seem to be masters at provoking envy in the name of Christianity.

One of Cone's earliest books, Black Theology & Black Power, was first published in 1969, only 24 years after the end of WWII.  At the War's end, photographic and cinematic evidence of the Holocaust was spread worldwide and was met with horrific incredulity at what the Nazis had done to the Jews.  Yet, Cone embeds within his call to black liberation a diabolical resentment that Jews, not blacks, could lay claim to the Holocaust.  When I first read his words, they caught in my throat and I could barely believe they were on the page before me.

Cone is writing of "negro hatred of white people" not being in the least "pathological," but a "healthy human reaction to oppression, insult, and terror."  He remarks that white people seem surprised by this hatred, but that they shouldn't be, because it's just a natural response to the horrors black people face.

This audacious vindication of hatred within a theology which claims Christian roots is absurd. But then Cone actually seems to express an inverted diabolical envy of Jews, precisely because of the Holocaust: