110623

[prismaticbleed]

 
SUPER BUSY MORNING.
Mass & adoration
Store stop to buy tissues
Graveyard visit
Jade pickup
Cooking, laundry, shower, prayer, etc.
EXHAUSTED.
BK at the ABSOLUTE LATEST, 237PM. x______x
But EVERYTHING IS DONE!

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VOTD = Colossians 4:6. Relevant, concerning our continuing struggle to speak well to others at ALL, which was awfully emphasized today with Jade visiting & mom calling multiple times-- whenever we speak, we speak badly. Our words are spoiled & rotten. So we NEED this lesson today.

Very good video reflection on the "Salt" metaphor concerning our speech as believers.
For our conversation to be "salted," it must PRESERVE the integrity of the Gospel as we honestly preach and humbly defend it, and it also must preserve social relationships by always speaking respectfully. Salt SEASONS too, but "how we season meat is not how we season potatoes!" Different situations call for "different amounts of salt"-- not too much or it overpowers, not too little or it is bland-- "to achieve a proper & balanced flavor". Likewise, "each individual we meet requires a distinctive approach in conversation in order to achieve a harmonious outcome." The main takeaway = "our approach is VITAL when winning people over to Christ. Our words can be "both potent and preserving, both soothing and savory, both pleasant and poignant." "May our conversation be GOD-FLAVORED and full of grace and humility, so that we may know how to respond to everyone."

The written reflection expands powerfully on this, bit by bit=

"Conversations are a part of life, and each interaction is as unique as the person we're talking to."
When and why did we become so frightened of conversation? Is it BECAUSE "each interaction is unique" and so demands constant mental & emotional gymnastics, identity shifts & alterations, and a running memory of who you spoke to when and about what? It's EXHAUSTING, as well as existentially disturbing, to feel so pulled in a hundred different directions, every time you walk out the front door.
...


The prayer =
"God, teach me to use my words to show grace, kindness, compassion, and mercy toward others.
Let my words bring life and draw people closer to You and Your love.
Use me to bring Your encouragement and hope to people who desperately need it."
1) "TEACH ME." What a huge burden that just lifted off our back. We keep worrying, "I'm too corrupt and foolish, I don't know HOW to speak like this, what do I do, how do I even start?" God knows you can't do it alone. Human nature is ALL like that from the fall. But IN & THROUGH CHRIST, GOD TEACHES US HIS WAY, and enables us TO obey it by the grace of Baptism & the Holy Spirit.
2) THIS SHOULD BE EFFORTLESS if its real. The Holy Spirit does His work IN you TO achieve these holy ends. It's NOT about human striving or effort or education. All you need to do is be humble, be still, be receptive, and be BELIEVING that He CAN AND WILL work in & through you, as you have been redeemed by Christ and ARE therefore "eligible"!
3)
...

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KVOTD = "Our testimony encourages & builds up faith in the people around us. There's nothing more amazing than hearing what God is doing in someone else's life."
"God has given us ALL a life-changing story that's worth sharing!"

ALSO! Testimony isn't just about "physical healing," which is what I feel it gets hyperfocused on... but testimony is ALWAYS ABOUT NEW LIFE. Testimony is personal attestation to the saving power of God at work in our life through Christ, and everything Christ does is for the sake of giving us eternal life. So let THAT be your message. Even if Jesus has not healed your body, He INEVITABLY HAS healed your heart and soul in some way, through the graces of the Sacraments you have received.
Has knowing Christ healed you of slavery to anxieties, even if you still have tough days-- because now you have access to His Peace despite them all? That's a testimony.
Has knowing Christ taught you how to be kind and forgiving? Are you able to freely let go of grudges now, as you remember His Mercy? That's a testimony.
...Testimony is, apparently, ALSO ALWAYS about our RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS.
...

THIS IS ALSO WHY WE MUST NEVER EVER DELETE THE ARCHIVES!!!!
THEY ARE OUR TESTIMONY!!!

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From the Pope's Angelus today=

""What you say, what you preach to others, be committed to living it first yourself"... in the chasm between words and external actions there is the “duplicity of heart that puts at risk the authenticity of our witness and our credibility as persons and as Christians... Do we try to practice what we preach, or do we live duplicitously? Are we concerned only about showing how impeccable we are on the outside, or do we also cultivate our interior life in sincerity of heart?"

I always, always feel convicted & chilled to the blood reading such warnings of "duplicity," not because we're multiple, but because our multiplicity has a dissociative aspect. "Social mode" and kakofoni in general are the nightmarish proof and exhibition of just how lethal such duplicity is.
But... WHY is it?? With so many truly benevolent, loving, recovery-oriented Nousfoni, WHY do we have duplicitous foni as well???
...

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From Catholic Answers =

"Knowledge in the Bible is not something theoretical. It is something practical, concrete, hands-on... So the tree “of knowledge” of good and evil means the practical, concrete experience of evil, not some mere theoretical awareness. God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of that tree—i.e., not to experience evil, not to sin. They chose to experience evil. They sinned. We don’t really know what that sin was. What the Bible is telling us is that, at the beginning of the human race, man was confronted with the choice of experiencing versus abstaining from evil. He chose the former. He sinned."
I BEG YOUR PARDON SIR???????
This makes PERFECT SENSE of what we suspected but couldn't articulate and it CHANGES EVERYTHING.
Like we KNEW "knowledge" in Scripture means a "firsthand exposure" but we NEVER REALIZED THAT SUCH A "KNOWLEDGE" OF EVIL NECESSITATED SIN. You literally CANNOT "know evil" WITHOUT sinning. Evil "doesn't exist in theory" because of Matthew 5:28. You CANNOT "know what evil is" without the capacity FOR evil. It's why (healthy & safe) children cannot imagine the cruel & depraved things adults do. Evil is a viral plague; exposure infects you permanently. But I'm rambling. The point is: To "know" evil IS to experience evil firsthand, and to do that IS, BY DEFINITION, TO SIN.
EVE DID NOT KNOW THIS. She didn't sin before sinning! She didn't have a malicious heart that wanted to sin before the serpent even spoke! BUT she apparently had a weakness of will, a desire to "know" for its own sake perhaps? Like a child, she didn't know what evil was, and she DIDN'T have concupiscence (yet)!! She was REALLY TEMPTED. Satan is absolutely blameworthy, like a  pedophile luring a child into sharing his sins by means of a drugged candy, the very one her Father told her not to eat. 
...

Oh hold up look at this next paragraph =
"To choose to “experience” evil is to choose to sin. But sin is not a legitimate choice because freedom does not exist to put us in some position of "neutrality" or "ambivalence" between good and evil. Just because we are free does not mean that evil is as "valid" a choice as good. Freedom does not constitute the good: good and evil exist independently of my free choice. Freedom exists not to "create" the good, but to make what is already good mine. Freedom exists to turn the good into my good. Freedom is, of course, also used to turn the evil into my evil. The problem with [choosing evil] is that such misuse of freedom is cannibalistic: it is destructive of freedom. Evil does not enhance my freedom; it enslaves me (John 8:34). The use of freedom to do evil shrinks everyone’s freedom: the "free choice" of theft makes the perpetrator a thief who always watches his back, while his victims cower behind locked doors or lock their toothpaste behind the counter."
1) The vast majority of our life is PROOF that sin cannibalizes and enslaves the sinner. It is addictive even as you know it's killing you. It screws you up so badly you cannot escape on your own. You really DO lose the capacity to make "free choices." Everything revolves around the sin, once it is chosen.
2) Free will DOESN'T DEFINE MORALITY. But what an egocentric alternative our culture is promoting!!
3) There IS NO NEUTRAL POSITION.
4) Our use of freedom affects EVERYONE in ALL CASES??? If this is true, whatever the mechanics, it explains the effects OF original sin!
...

"The experience of sin throws our moral vision off kilter. Before the Fall, there was no reason for this... Neither [human had] any reason to distrust the other. They “knew” they were naked but “were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). Their coming shamefully to “know” their nakedness (3:7) comes from a change in their moral vision of each other... In such a prelapsarian world, sin is not an “oops” we commit by mistake that suddenly assumes eschatological proportions. No, it is fair to say that the first humans, living in that world of primordial innocence, were even more acutely aware of rightness and wrongness. Innocence is not necessarily naïveté... Before the first sin, there is no “itch” of concupiscence bolstering the temptation. It’s fair to say the first sin was a calculated choice to do it (Gen 3:6) irrespective of every reason and experience that argued against it (Gen 3:3). But freedom is a choice— though, as noted, still blameworthy when selecting evil... Whatever that first sin was, it was a calculated decision TO disobey God and NOT trust each other, all reason to the contrary notwithstanding, in order to “choose” to “know” (i.e., experience) evil—“to be like gods” who discover the bitter taste of death and non-being, since, in the end, that is what the experience of evil is and the only place it can lead."
Oh dude this has TERRIFYING IMPLICATIONS as to what we free-willed creatures are capable of.
Eve had NO concupiscence. She CHOSE to sin SOLELY BECAUSE SHE CHOSE TO MISTRUST GOD?????
This is straight-up rewiring my brain. Man. Let me sit with it a bit, then break it down.
1) He's right; Eve HAD to st least have the CAPACITY to choose wrong and KNOW it was wrong, or she wouldn't have proper freedom of choice?? I mean, even the ANGELS had that sole instance of choosing offered to them, in which they KNEW what was good vs evil, WITHOUT SINNING IN THAT KNOWLEDGE, because it WASN'T EXPERIENCED??? It's so hard to phrase. Like, Lucifer knew that rejecting God's Sovereignty was the ultimate sin. Michael knew that too. They BOTH somehow knew the difference, but ONLY LUCIFER SINNED because he CHOSE TO EXPERIENCE THAT SIN??? Did Michael only "know" it was sinful upon seeing Lucifer CHOOSE to sin?? Geez I really don't know anything here. I'm just dangerously ranting. Forgive me. I need further catechesis before I can even think about this topic safely.
2) Let me focus on what I CAN hope to understand, which is that sin appears to necessarily be a breach of trust between God and man? If it "corrupts our moral vision" to the point where it makes us SEE SIN where there was none before-- like with how Adam & Eve being naked was warped from a childish purity into a threat of something unspeakable-- then it must mean we don't readily trust anyone else to do good, once we have known evil??? It's like, in choosing sin we put on dark glasses, but their very darkness is tar that drips into our eyes and forever alters our sight? We can't "take the shades off" even if we throw away the literal glasses. We're haunted. We're traumatized even, at least on a soul level.
...Oh wait, he actually says the answer to this. "Sin IS a calculated choice NOT to trust," as well as "TO disobey," which is a result OF distrust. But geez!! The implication that the FIRST SIN, the initial EXPERIENCE OF EVIL, was the calculated decision NOT to trust???? And THAT opened the floodgates of hell??? Just a seemingly simple decision, "I have decided to trust this serpent, and therefore, to implicitly distrust GOD Who told me differently", and all of humanity DIES??? And the worst part is, I BELIEVE IT. IT MAKES SENSE. It makes so much simple horrible total sense that it's terrifying.
3) SIN ISN'T CHOSEN "BY MISTAKE."
4) "INNOCENCE ISN'T NECESSARILY NAÏVETÉ"???
5) that LAST LINE, as to the subtle details of the original sin, which were FROM THE DEVIL. Don't forget He ADDED A FALSE PROMISE to his temptation and THAT is what lured Eve in??? Geez this is too complex to type about on a phone; there's no train-of-thought when typing on a screen. I need a keyboard. But that claim of the devil, that the very experiential knowledge of evil is WHAT would make Eve "like a god"-- what the heck was he smoking??? What the heck was the devil's definition of deity?? OH DUDE WAS IT HIMSELF????? WAS THAT A BOAST???? Was he actually arrogant and malevolent enough to not only tempt Eve into distrusting her God but to also USURP THAT POSITION IN HER LIFE???
...
...what scares me the most is how my own life proves the very nature of sin.
I... I don't trust God enough. I really don't. And EVERY SINGLE SIN I can think of is a DIRECT RESULT OF THAT DISTRUST.
And it's the easiest thing to doubt, that's the worst part. I'm always so afraid, so unsure, so completely distrusting of EVERYTHING, even of the nature of reality... living in a relativistic society, and having such a pagan past, makes that sort of "NOTHING is really real and you can't trust ANYTHING" mindset very hardwired.
I hate it. I hate it so much. What happened to my childhood credulity, my imagination, my faith? What happened to the faith of the SYSTEM, of the utter CONVICTION we had of the unseen, the eternal, the Good, the REAL, that no external cynics could shake?
...

But you know what? I think the doubt, the distrust, the fear that I keep falling under, is actually a crutch? It's a fatal excuse. It's the coward's way of saying "I am so afraid of sinning on purpose that if I just keep this agnostic mindset, I can't be accused of mortal sin!" IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY, BUDDY. Noncommitment will kill your soul just the same, because it only works by refusing TO know God, therefore perpetuating the ignorance that FUELS doubt and distrust and SIN.
The beautiful irony is that, if you just bravely cast aside all fears and LEARN WHO GOD REALLY IS, the knowledge of HIM is so beautiful that you will never be afraid again, and sin will be IMPOSSIBLE. There won't BE a risk of "accidentally committing a mortal sin BECAUSE I don't distrust God anymore", since TO trust Him is such pure joy and love that it effectively incinerates concupiscence.
Please. Don't be afraid of knowing God. There's another Tree to eat from, another Fruit that gives the only Knowledge worth having... and that most blessed Tree can only be found on Calvary Hill.

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I've just found Mark Mallett's blog and let me tell you, by his devout writings and prayers, God is very strongly and seriously unleashing grace into my awareness. It's fearful in its gravity, but it's paradoxically giving me this deep and unshakable hope, even joy? It's all from God. It's fear OF God. It's simultaneously wartime marching orders and the Father's warm embrace. It's proof of the Truth of our religion, a raw honesty about the state of cosmic affairs while still proclaiming the victory of Christ. There will be great darkness, and here is how God's children must prepare-- yet do not despair, but endure to the end with love. It's... it feels like my very existence has been validated, in this call to faithful action. Like THIS IS IT, THIS IS REAL, THIS IS WHAT MATTERS.
I know we're still studying John 12 but honestly, I need to read this too. I'll have to split morning & evening.

But as to what I read today that inspired such talk-- this is a prime example of the "fearful hope", that terrible glorious beauty of our faith and its reality RIGHT NOW=

"There is a cup of suffering that is to be drunk from twice in the fullness of time. It has already been emptied by Our Lord Jesus Himself who, in the Garden of Gethsemane, placed it to His lips in His holy prayer of abandonment:
"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet, not as I will, but as You will." (Matt 26:39)
The cup is to be filled again so that His Body [the Church], who, in following its Head, will enter into its own Passion in her participation in the redemption of souls:
"The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized…" (Mark 10:39)
All that is said of Christ must be said of the Church, for the Body, which is the Church, must follow the Head Who is Christ. What I am speaking of here is not only the personal trials and tribulations we must each endure in the course of our lifetime, as St. Paul says:
"It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God." (Acts 14:22)
Rather, I am speaking of the:
"…final Passover, when [the Church] will follow her Lord in His death and Resurrection." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 677)"

This is amazing. This is so amazing. Oh it's absolutely bone-shaking, no doubt-- Christ suffered His Agony for a reason and we WILL be brought to the same anguish even before we share in His excruciating Passion-- but what joy, despite everything, to SHARE IN Christ's Life so intimately!
I remember, ages ago, still a child, reading Mark 10:39 and feeling so strangely jealous of those Apostles. "I want to drink the Cup too," I would ache. I was never sure why. It had nothing to do with self-interest. I just felt this inexplicable yearning, this need to partake in whatever Christ was receiving? Even now I can't articulate it. But it's the same ineffable drive I experience to this day concerning the Precious Blood. I can't explain it. But this post just did.
I cannot be proud though. I can't even feel "lucky" or act like this is a gift, or a reward. No. This is pure grace. GOD called me to be part of the Body of Christ. I don't deserve this at ALL. Nevertheless, The Father chose me to be reconciled to Himself in The Son, and it is the Son-- Jesus-- Who unites me with Himself, Who makes me part of His Own Body and therefore a real sharer in His Sufferings, OF HIS OWN CHOICE. It is profoundly humbling. And yet, shaking in my boots, agonizing amongst he olives, it is still a joy. How could it not be? It's the Will of God!
...

I really want to sit and reflect on this for hours:
"All that is said of Christ must be said of the Church, for the Body, which is the Church, must follow the Head Who is Christ."
That is, effectively, the blueprint of my life. That is my daily schedule, my future plans, my point and purpose. That is my vision for each day and the road on which I must walk. EVERYTHING IS CHRIST.
Honestly this gives me a sense of meaning deeper than anything I've ever known. I exist to follow Christ. That's it. That's all. That's enough.
Don't try to sugarcoat anything though. Don't you dare try to round off the edges. Yes it's the deepest peace to follow Christ. And yet, in that very following, YOU MUST DRINK THE CUP. You MUST SUFFER AND DIE WITH HIM. You will bleed and weep, you will be rejected and betrayed and abandoned... You will be beaten and bruised, you will be mocked and stripped and pierced and buried. Do you truly grasp this reality? Or "do you not know what you are asking?" Be serious. Pray. Beg for the grace and mercy TO say with your whole heart, knowing exactly what is coming, "Thy Will Be Done."
No wonder God has us simultaneously studying John 12. Jesus's example in accepting this very Purpose is what we must follow, too. "Father, glorify Thy Name."

And NOT JUST YOU, MAN, THIS HAS GOTTA HAPPEN TO THE WHOLE ENTIRE CHURCH!!!
That includes all the old ladies at daily Mass, all the altar server kids, all the folks in the choir and Adult Religious Education group... it includes ALL Christians across the globe, whether free & thriving or persecuted and oppressed, from every tribe & tongue & people & nation.
You're ALL IN THIS PASSION TOGETHER because you're ALL UNITED IN CHRIST JESUS!!!
...


""Evil must exhaust itself." I have found, in fact, great consolation and peace in this word... Just as evil exhausted itself upon The Son, pouring wrath upon Him, it was soon vanquished by the power of the Resurrection. So it will be with the Church.”
Evil can be exhausted. That's the astounding part. Evil is FINITE.
And the CROSS is what PROVES this!! THAT'S the greatest consolation of all. Sin, death, pain, it all "exhausted itself" upon Jesus, and it was completely and utterly vanquished by the infinite Power of His Life, of His Mercy and Love all manifested in the Resurrection.
...and yet, evil MUST exhaust itself. It won't stop until it has emptied out every last torment onto our heads. Don't ever downplay the horror of that fact. You have SEEN what hell can do.
And yet, and yet... it will not triumph. It cannot win. It must be exhausted.