110123

 
Morning high Mass!
Neighbor lady said hi, so did a special needs dude that I think walked over too? Really sweet
Adoration buddy today!

CRAZY EVENING SCHEDULE
Church
House stop, car switch
CEMETERY CANDLES
Finally sitting down to dinner at 1945 DUDE!!

Anxiety has been OFF THE CHARTS all evening. It was do bad during Church we were actually shaking. Super dissociated & disoriented too; we were literally FORGETTING WHAT TO SING.

God will get us through tomorrow. We must trust in Him. He has never once let us down so far-- He's gotten us through FAR worse, and His Character doesn't change! So honestly man TAKE REFUGE IN THAT. Let your soul relax into His Arms. Remember that prayer you love. God cares for you, seriously.


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VOTD = Very striking insight on Proverbs 11:25 from Ruth Chou Simons (who deserves the credit!)=
"Scripture always refers to prosperity and abundance in eternally significant ways. God provides for our physical and our spiritual and our emotional needs. So when we give of our resources, time, and emotional energy, we aren't pulling from our own resources, but that of Christ... before you question your capacity to give of yourself, or to encourage another, go ahead and ask the Lord if He's leading you to bless them, and then ask Him to provide, knowing that it is out of HIS provision that you show generosity or encouragement to another. And when you do so, trust Him to do a work in your heart as well."
This COMPLETELY TRANSFORMS the process of generosity!
First: checkmate to the "prosperity gospel". God NEVER focuses on the material world for its own sake. Even in His promises to bless His people with earthly goods if they kept His Covenant were embedded IN "the Covenant way of life," in following God's Laws, thereby worshipping Him alone and treating one's fellow man with justice & compassion. The material prosperity was SECONDARY in benefit to the PRIMARY benefit of spiritual prosperity gained by living according to God's Commandments!
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Second: HUMANS HAVE REAL NEEDS ON MULTIPLE LEVELS AND THOSE NEEDS ARE ALL VALID TO GOD. Not only that, but GOD IS BOTH ABLE AND WILLING TO MEET ALL OF THOSE NEEDS. I am heavily emphasizing this because I still put on the steel boots of denial and stomp all over my needs whenever they dare to poke through the cement.
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Third: We have NO EXCUSE NOT TO GIVE because in ALL CASES we are ACTUALLY GIVING FROM GOD'S ABUNDANCE. We don't have an abundance of our own of ANYTHING!! Everything is GOD'S GIFT.
This is actually A HUGE RELIEF. It's LIBERATING. I no longer have to panic over my poverty, because God WILL meet my NEEDS, and therefore, WHEN HE CALLS ME TO, He will give me enough to GENEROUSLY GIVE TO OTHERS.
Fourth: that exact point. ASK JESUS IF HE'S THE ONE TELLING YOU TO GIVE. Because believe it or not, there IS a proper time & place! I often feel compelled to give blindly to every cause that asks, but that's actually being irresponsible?
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Fifth: trust God to provide for your own heart. That's still so difficult for me, thanks to twisted self-loathing, and that's offensive to our Good Lord.
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The reflection, in bits=
"Do you know someone who constantly pours themselves out?
They're generous with their words, unselfish with their time, and openhanded with their money. And yet, somehow, they always seem to have more to give."
...we USED to be someone who "poured themselves out" for others, before 2008 hit.
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Thanks to Ms. Simons, we finally understand HOW such people "always have more to give"-- they are GENEROUS BY GOD'S GENEROSITY.
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"[but] we also must apply God’s wisdom when it comes to setting boundaries and avoiding burnout."
THIS is why we imploded.
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We didn't realize there are several steps=
1) Recognize and acknowledge God AS the Source and Giver of ALL you have.
2) ASK Him to provide for your needs AND the needs of others THROUGH YOU, as HE sees fit.
3) TRUST that He WILL provide-- you cannot recieve without trust, because obtaining such divine Provision is entirely dependent on FAITH IN HIM?
4) GIVE CHEERFULLY, FREELY & LAVISHLY, WITHOUT GRUDGING OR HESITATING. If you don't, you "stop up the river" and nothing can flow through OR to you!!
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Lastly, the questions asked "how can you practice generosity today," but besides the obvious "time" and "resources," option three was "I can be generous with my encouragement."
Now I've noticed that Christians talk about "encouragement" a LOT... unless they're Catholic. I have NEVER heard that term or phrase used in my native faith community, and so I was shocked and confused and even annoyed to hear it endlessly repeated in Protestant circles. What did it even mean? Why did it matter?
...I realize now that I've been blinded by my own "stop complaining and suffer better" mindset. I see encouragement as silly, superficial, stupid even. Why?
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KVOTD = Jesus is "Alpha & Omega"-- Jesus "always has been and always will be." Specifically JESUS!! He doesn't stop being Jesus just because He's God!! He IS truly God, BUT ALSO He was truly human among men! God lived as a REAL HUMAN in Jesus Christ, and when Jesus died & resurrected HIS HUMANITY DID TOO. He didn't "stop being human" when He ascended into heaven!! He didn't "lose His humanity because He's becoming God again," because THAT'S ENTIRELY FALSE. He never stopped being God! Now He will never stop being human!!

This bit from the prayer struck me:
"God, Your plans for my life are perfect-- greater than I could ever guess! I can't wait to spend forever in Heaven with You! Until then, I trust that I can find everything I need in You."
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Back to Benson-- but first we stop by Bible Hermeneutics again, who are helping us understand this essential part of Jesus's Words SO MUCH MORE CLEARLY & DEEPLY=

"Let's not forget that one of the tasks of a thorough hermeneutic is to consider Jesus' original audience and how they would interpret the metaphor. His audience was not composed of plant biologists but mostly non-scientific-types who had actual experiences with growing wheat to make bread, the "staff of life" back then. Combine this piece of the hermeneutic puzzle with another piece regarding the most common method of burial back then (viz., burial in the ground), and your notion of metaphor--perhaps, more strictly, analogy--begins to make sense."
This takes SO MUCH PRESSURE off me to feel like I "cannot understand the Gospel unless I'm smart, educated & intelligent and know as much as I can about religion," hence all these obsessive & honestly exhausting studies & daily devotionals.
I'm tired. I want to handle my faith like a child again. I don't "need to" read a library, or earn a degree, or have a high IQ. I don't need to have flown to the Holy Land, or speak fluent Latin & Greek & Hebrew, or know all the liturgical terms. I don't have to be a scientific type. I don't even have to be a farmer. I am not excluded from God's Kingdom because I'm stupid and simple, uneducated & unintelligent, poor & coarse & average & helpless as a child. I'm tired of trying to be some special & suave "somebody". I'm nobody. I'm exhausted. Just give me Jesus. That's all I want.

"In other words, what Jesus was saying to His audience was this:
"As long as a grain of wheat keeps on being a kernel in the head of a stalk of wheat, it remains just that: a lone kernel of wheat among many such kernels. Only when it is detached from the head and buried into the ground by a farmer does it have a chance of producing more grain.""
THIS HELPS SO MUCH.
1) A kernel that stays "in the head" is defeating its created purpose. It is not meant to stay there. It is intended to either fall and grow... or to be eaten. Either way it dies "to itself," and so either way it feeds further life for another-- it is transformed. But if it stays untouched and undamaged in the head, living to itself alone, it will rot and die for real. All the life it contains within itself will be unspent, wasted, for it never had the courage to be broken open to release that life.
2) What is this initial head, since it is not yet Christ? I think it's the head of Adam. You're just one grain among countless others, all contained in that head, all somehow still described as "alone". And actually it is: its life is not serving anyone else's. Each grain, although in one head, is separate. (But mind you, if one grain lets itself selfishly rot, that taint of death will quickly spread to infect those closest to it nevertheless!)
3) THE DETACHMENT AND BURYING IS NEITHER ACCIDENTAL NOR AUTONOMOUS. No seed plants itself!! All grains that fall on their own and land on the ground either rot there, unplanted and so inert, or they are eaten by birds & animals. For a grain to be buried OR harvested for making bread, it must be first touched by the Farmer's hand. The first step is ALWAYS GRACE.
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4) There is "a CHANCE" of producing "much grain." Our being buried still does not guarantee a rich harvest?? It, too, is not automatic.
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"In like manner [--paraphrasing liberally the kenosis (the "self-emptying") passage in Philippians chapter 2, especially vv.6-11--] Jesus is saying, "If you want to be productive in My kingdom, you must die to yourself. Only when you do that will you have the opportunity to be fruitful in my kingdom. Moreover, you have Me as an example. I was equal to God, but I did not count my equality something to be grasped and held onto; rather, I emptied-- died to-- Myself BY taking the form of a bond-servant and being made in the likeness of men. In other words, I humbled Myself by becoming obedient to the Father, even though by doing so I was writing my own death sentence.""
1) It's CHRIST'S Kingdom, NOT OURS. So of course we must die to ourselves first, if we want to live to Him-- and yes, "to," for it is an active movement, a dedicated direction, a gift.
2) Again, there is NO AUTOMATION in freewill. Our self-death opens up to us the holy OPPORTUNITY TO be fruitful, that we must further choose to pursue?
3) Everything about Jesus here is phenomenal. He defines "dying to self" as EMPTYING oneself of privilege, status, power, reputation, even rights... it's seeking out and taking the lowest place. BUT TAKE NOTE. Jesus did not erase His Divinity. He STILL had absolute Authority over Creation. He still had due and infinite Honor and Glory and Power... but He set it all aside. Everything He had as God was still His, yes, but He willingly "laid it down" at His Father's Throne. Jesus became a man, so completely that He refused to exalt Himself above even the most rejected & pitiful of men. He chose to become poor and unimportant, powerless in the world and without any status. THAT'S HOW HE "DIED TO HIMSELF" TO "LIVE FOR US."
When He died for us, then He REGAINED that Divine glory from His Father-- even then He DID NOT CLAIM OR DEMAND IT for Himself! And even more spectacularly, He THEN SHARED HIS GLORY WITH US.
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4) Jesus's humility and obedience were effectively synonymous, and that is the key to HOW He "died to Himself," although He was God.
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"For Jesus, there was nothing pleasant about dying to Himself, and His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane tells us He would rather have had the bitter cup of Calvary taken from Him. Jesus, however, "for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and . . . [is now seated] at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2 NASV Updated). [In light of all this, therefore,] what Jesus was saying to His audience in John 12 was that only when you die to yourself, [thereby] refusing to live life autonomously but [rather] in service to [Christ] and others, will you be amply rewarded in eternity."
First: I tend to forget that Jesus didn't "want to be crucified" like a masochist. He didn't "disregard awareness of the pain" like a zen monk. He WAS AFRAID of the ordeal and He SUFFERED IT ALL CONSCIOUSLY AND INTENSELY.
But He still "died to Himself" first, and so willingly went to Calvary, because He loved His Father and He loved us. He died to Himself so He could live for others-- in truth, so He could BE Life for others.
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Now for Benson at verse 25.

"He that loveth his life more than the will of God shall lose it eternally... He that hateth his life in comparison of the will of God, and therefore exposes it to great dangers in the cause of the gospel; shall keep it unto life eternal, and secure a state of immortal glory and happiness... Jesus further told them, that as He, their Master, was to suffer before His exaltation, so were all they, His disciples; for which reason they were to expect persecution, firmly resolving to lose even life itself, after His example, when called to do it; and in that case He promised them a share in His crown and glory."
So the key point is our love of the Will of God.
1) If God's Will is not our highest priority and devotion, we CANNOT have eternal life, because that Life is IN CHRIST and Christ was ENTIRELY OBEDIENT TO HIS FATHER'S WILL. Furthermore, if heaven-- God's Kingdom-- is a state of loving unity with Him and perfect conformity to His Will, then how could you ever "get there" if you reject both those aspects of it now? Because for truth's sake, we ONLY get to heaven THROUGH CHRIST, and again, He IS the perfection of both Love and Obedience towards God the Father, because He WILLINGLY DIED as a result of both. But I'm rambling now. I'm overcomplicating it.
2) We are only allowed to "expose our life to danger" IF it is FOR the cause of the Gospel.
3) We WILL BE CALLED TO LOSE OUR LIFE FOR GOD, and such a holy call to death WILL BE AFTER CHRIST'S EXAMPLE. In any case WE DO NOT CHOOSE IT OURSELVES, neither the means nor the manner, because whatever the particular details they will be chosen by God to best bring our unique death into union with that of His Son. For some saints it was beheading. For some saints it was tuberculosis. For all saints it was God's decision and their love of His Will above all their own ideas & preferences & expectations, in humble submission to His Call.
4) If we wish to be "exalted" with Christ, we must suffer with Him. There is no alternative.
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""And what shall I say?" Not, 'What shall I choose?" for His Heart was fixed in choosing the will of His Father: but, 'What shall I say in prayer to My heavenly Father? What petition shall I offer to Him on this occasion?" ..."What shall I say? [shall I say, ] Father, save Me from this hour? But I came on purpose for this hour;" considering the words as containing two questions: the distress of Christ’s soul first suggesting a petition for deliverance, in which, however, He is instantly checked by the reflection on the end and design of His coming... "For this cause was I born into the world, and came even to this present hour, that I might bear the sufferings on which I am entering, and might redeem My people by them; and far be it from Me to draw back from such engagements and undertakings." By praying on this occasion, our Lord shows us what is the best method of obtaining support and comfort in deep distress. At the same time, as in His prayer He expressed an entire resignation to the will of his Father, He has taught us, that although the weakness of human nature may shrink at the first thoughts of suffering, His disciples ought not to yield, but to fortify themselves by just reflections on, and a firm faith in, the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, and the happy end He proposes to be answered by their afflictions."
Oh wow this is beautifully clarified.
1) THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN HIS CHOICE AND HIS PETITION. Christ never wavered in His absolute dedicated obedience. His Heart was "fixed" on obeying, no matter what. Nothing would or could budge Him, even for an instant. AND YET, He did not deny the fear and sorrow His Humanity felt concerning what He had already chosen to do. And THAT is what He brought to His Father IN PRAYER. This is SUCH an important example for us!
2) He actively checks Himself, again without denial or condemnation of His natural human distress. He admits it, to sincerely bring it before His Father, but in that very Light of Divinity the distress is defused, as its incompatibility with His Mission and therefore with His Love is clearly revealed-- again, without any harshness or judgment. The Truth is simply stated, and all in conflict with it is humbly subdued.
3) "I came ON PURPOSE for this hour." That declaration erases all questions as to Christ's knowledge, willingness, and preparedness for that very hour. He was BORN with His Death entirely in mind, as it were. He became man to die as a man. Now that the hour had arrived, had made its awful agonies imminent, His humanity understandably shook with dread, but His Divinity was steeled with age-old Purpose. This was the Plan of Salvation, and His Heart was fixed to fulfill it.
Honestly we must imitate that devotion to God's Purposes, by praying for thr grace of Christ's Spirit in such decisive moments. May He always remind us of the purpose for which we "came to this hour," to every hour of our own suffering, because they are all united to Christ's, and He chose to obey the Father's Will in every moment with self-denying love... the exact love that "fixed His Heart" to the Cross.
That it how we must fortify ourselves. Remember just what the Passion and Death of Our Lord were about: mercy, forgiveness, compassion, love. Yes He suffered terribly, but "by His stripes WE are healed," and Jesus KNEW THAT even as He endured them.
The Cross IS the Wisdom and Power and Goodness of God on full display, the unbreakable Promise of a "happy end" to all those who suffer in unity with Christ. To an unbelieving, selfish, cold & comfortable world, the Cross is insane, barbaric, foolish, unnecessary. Such faithless hearts are blind to the Truth, blinded by self-love and fear of death. But all it takes is one glimpse of grace-- one glance into our Savior's adoring Eyes-- to awaken a sleeping soul, and in that grace the Cross reveals its eternal Truth, its beautiful and terrible glory, to which it beckons us all. Pray for those moments. Pray that all hearts may have faith in the Purpose for which Christ came into our world, and refused to abandon.


"'Father, glorify Thy Name;' Whatever I suffer. For this may be considered as a further expression of His resignation, importing that He was willing to submit to whatever the Father should judge necessary for the manifestation of His perfections: as if Christ had said, "Dispose of Me and all My concerns in such a way as may most effectually promote Thy glory.""
I actually think about this a LOT. It's a frighteningly "dangerous prayer," because it mandates a self-death in the very saying-- but honestly, is there any better prayer? My soul WANTS to pray this, all the time. Yeah its scared, but it STILL WANTS THIS TO BE TRUE. So what do you do? It's all or nothing; you can't withhold any part of yourself from God if you love Him; the very idea is unthinkable.
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It takes immense courage, and that requires intense love. You must be genuinely willing to SUFFER if that will indeed glorify God the most effectively. Pain, sickness, loss, even death-- you MUST be FULLY AWARE of the "risks" and AGREE TO THEM on that sole basis of "glorify Thy Name." And really, with THAT basis, the risks are WORTH it. They become joys, even, when their true purpose is thereby revealed.
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"Dispose of my concerns for Your Glory" is always relevant to us. If there's one thing it's hard to hand over completely and absolutely to God it's anxiety. It's schedule. It's time constraints and unplanned variables and unexpected interruptions.
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"This voice came... for your sakes = Not to assure Me of the love of my Father, but to confirm you in the belief of My mission, that you may not be offended at the treatment I shall meet with, or quit your hope in Me on account of the sufferings which are coming upon Me."
First: Jesus needed no such reassurance because the TRUTH of His Father’s Love for Him was literally part of His very Being. It never left His Consciousness. All through His Passion and Death, Jesus was completely assured of the Love of His Father. If we were so assured, we too could shoulder our crosses without fear.
Second: this feels so relevant to current global events. People are offended at how Christ, in His Church, is being treated. People are losing hope in the Christian religion because of how much suffering is in not only the Church, but in the lives of those Christ identified with most-- the poor, the powerless, the meek, the humble.