122823

 
So we finally joined Word on Fire and this is our bio as of today:

 

"I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, He can work through anyone."

I am here by the grace of God, and by His grace I shall stay and continue here to the utmost of my capacity, for His Honor and Praise and Glory, all in & through His Love.

The Almighty & Merciful God dragged me, a half-dead hedonistic heretic, from a profligate pagan life of addiction & abuse, to claim me as His Own despite all the scandalized screams to the contrary.
2023 was the first year in over two decades where I wasn't living under the devil's roof. Suddenly, I'm in the arms of The Father-- me, a ghastly child, harrowed & helpless, suddenly rescued from the backrooms and now capable of hope.

I know very little about the faith, and my heart is covered with scar tissue. I live alone, and my health is overall poor-- I am technically disabled, quite uneducated, & I suffer greatly from mental illness. Yet, I have an inexplicable burning love for God and the Catholic Faith despite my numbness and confusion, a zeal that I cannot turn off or deny, and which I credit entirely to the Holy Spirit working in me despite my absolute unworthiness and ineptitude.

That is why I am here.
I have a hunger for the Lord. I cannot explain it. More than anything, I want to know and love and serve Him, and to see Him known and loved by countless joyful servants throughout the world.
If I can play a part in this effort, however small, then I beg God to equip me for it and send me where He wishes.

Jesus Christ-- God become Man to save us from eternal death and sin-- is, truly, my everything.
I thank Bishop Robert Barron for offering this gracious means for me, and so many others, to live that proclamation by our lives within this culture, and to transform it into a "new creation" in His Image-- a restoration to its original and beautiful purpose, just as He did and continues to do with me, His unworthy yet infinitely grateful servant.

“Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom.”

 

The first comment we posted on WOF, was in response to a fellow member (apparently struggling too) asking a question that cut our heart to agonized pieces=
"What if one has NOT lived out their vocation and is sort of 'broken'. Would you say it is not possible for such a person to draw persons to Christ because they are not fully alive? ...who are still 'limping and groping in the dark? Without a vocation and who have missed all the opportunities for development because they had wasted their lives in conflict with God, can they too present an affirmative orthodoxy with their broken lives? ...I am reminded of recovering persons who had inclinations to addictions... apart from liberation from addiction, what next?"

Our response:
"Martine: I am one of those people. I lost ⅔ of my life to darkness and have only recently been freed by Christ... although I am permanently scarred, crippled by my sins, and very much without direction in the world. I have no idea what my "vocation" is because I haven't LIVED yet, despite being middle aged. So what is my "affirmative orthodoxy"? My very wreck of a life is proof that the "subjectively satisfying" things of the world are hollow, my survival is proof that God cares even about me, even after everything--
and that even someone like me can recognize the truth, beauty, and goodness that Jesus Christ offers in His Incarnation. I see how the Saints have lived, their conversion stories, and I read the many stories in Scripture of sinners redeemed and lifted from their shadows to play essential parts in God's Plans.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is= my liberation is testimony, true, but as to what's next? That is in God's hands. The beautiful thing, the truly good thing, is that I HAVE a "what's next" to live now, because God set me free, and God LOVES to set people free, and if He delivered me, He will not abandon me now.
I do not know my "specific vocation". But even just daily life now, continuing the grueling battle of sobriety and recovery, clinging to faith like a ballistic shield, feels like a vocation. Maybe this IS what God wants to me to do, to glorify Him, to proclaim Him, right now, as I continue to fight the darkness with His grace, and learn to let Him slowly heal my broken places. All I can do is trust Him, love Him, and walk in His Light as He reveals it to me at last. For now, until He shows me what is next, that is my vocation.
I hope this helps."



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THIS HOMILY
https://www.youtube.com/live/gAbvPTaiAL8?si=FzYEOcg0dJxVggVd

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https://youtube.com/shorts/UbJoL1xkP84?si=clfpMLmAjaeGVOx_
WE ABSOLUTELY CAN TESTIFY TO THE TRUTH OF THIS
But oh man we were SHOCKED & SCARED by the vital warning that whatever you feel WHILE you make art, you INFECT OTHERS WITH THROUGH THAT ART.
...
...maybe we should delete the archives.

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Universalis= 

"‘Christ is the reconciliation of our sins’ does not mean that Christ pays to a vengeful god the penalty for our sins, as it would do in pagan concepts of expiation, where evil done has to be cancelled out by evil undergone. In Hebrew thought it is always God who reconciles us, rather than we who reconcile God. In Romans 3.25 Paul uses sacrificial terminology to explain that ‘God put forward’ Jesus ‘as a reconciliation/expiation in his blood’. He explains this by saying that Jesus’ act of loving obedience to his Father annulled the disobedience of Adam. It was by the act of loving obedience that we were reconciled, rather than by the blood shed or the suffering undergone. So with the babies at Bethlehem: almost the only thing of which babies are capable is love. In considering these babies as martyrs, the Church is suggesting that in their love they offered their lives in place of the life of the baby Jesus."
1) I NEVER REALIZED THERE WAS A DISTINCTION.
...that literally redefines our entire System concept of "Retribution and Atonement." We NEVER KNEW THIS.
...
2)
3) the silent sacrificial love of the babies. That is so stunningly beautiful i could weep.
And yes, of course its sacrificial-- love always is.