top of page
Search
Writer's pictureVarious
Jul 3035 min read

Thy Kingdom Come - August 2024 - Volume 7

 All to Jesus — All through Mary

All to Imitate Thee Oh Patriarch St. Joseph



Image Taken From: File: Virgin Mary of Akita Japan.jpg - Wikimedia Commons



Contents

  


Mary’s Message

Message Received September 21, 1993

My children, I love you. It is a joy you give me by your response to the request I make of you. Dear children, again, I call you to prayer, to sacrifice, and to abandonment. I ask for your consecration to my Immaculate Heart. I call you to live your consecration with love. My dear children, you are children of God. Be holy children. Be children of faith, of love, and of mercy.


Beloved children, Satan places many snares before you, tempts you with many things. All are a diabolic deception whose purpose is to bring you to reject the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Jesus. Do not be deceived. Decide for God. God alone is the Way and the Truth and the Life. Be at peace, my children. Abide always in the Love of God. With the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I bless you and this work of mine.


News and Upcoming Events

  • Website – We are aiming to complete the section on the Eucharist and Eucharistic Miracles sometime over the next month. Please keep this effort in prayer.  

  • 3 Days of Darkness – We are currently working on comprising information on the 3 Days of Darkness and the Great Illumination.  Please keep this effort in prayer.


  • September 4th – We will begin the St. Louis de Montfort consecration to Jesus through Mary in anticipation of October 7th, Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary  


  • October 7th – We will be having a public rosary on the lot in Lockport, LA where the Cross of Light is located.  October 7th is not only the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, but the date celebrated as the beginning of the Miracle of the Rosary Mission.


Spotlight

Saint John Vianney, August 4th

By Fr. Dean Danos


Patrion: Parish Priests

Liturgical Color: White


St. John Vianney was born near Lyons, France in 1786.  He struggled with his studies, especially Latin, but he persisted because he longed to be a priest. Ordained in 1815, St. John Mary Vianney was assigned to assist the parish priest who had encouraged him while he struggled through seminary schooling.  Three years later, St. Vianney became the pastor of a very small parish in Ars, near Lyons.  He cared deeply for the spiritual needs of his parishioners.  Soon, word spread about this holy man, and people traveled to hear him preach. They came to receive the sacrament of reconciliation and to seek his spiritual advice. Even priests and religious sought advice from this priest who had struggled in school.  During the last ten years of his life, Fr. Vianney spent most of his waking hours hearing confessions.  Sometimes 12 to 169 hours a day!  He died on August 4th 1859.  We celebrate all parish priests who help us grow closer to God. Let us pray to St. John Mary Vianney for an increase in vocations to the holy priesthood.


Prayer:

'I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life. I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You, than live without loving You. I love You, Lord and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally... . My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath.' – St. John Vianney, https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/devotions/st-john-vianneys-prayer-to-love-god-379



In the Footsteps of Jesus

The Transfiguration, August 6th 

By Fr. Dean Danos


Liturgical Color: White


The Feast of the Transfiguration celebrates the event where Jesus revealed to Peter, James, and John that he was indeed the Son of God.  For that very reason, he took the three of them up the mountain where his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.  And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.  Then, a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Beloved Son, Listen to Him.”  Suddenly, when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.  So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.” (Mark 9:3-4, 7-10)


Imagine their mix of emotions – amazement, confusion, perhaps even fear. But it is through this experience recorded in Scripture that we, too, can believe in the divinity of Christ. On the feast of the Transfiguration, we marvel at the mysteries of God, and we pray for steadfast faith and trust.

 

 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15th

By Fr. Dean Danos


Solemnity

Liturgical Color: White


On the feast of Mary’s Assumption, we celebrate her passing from earthly life to her heavenly one – when she was taken up body and soul into heaven. 

The difference between Jesus’ Ascension and Mary’s Assumption is that Jesus ascended into heaven by his own power.  Mary was taken into heaven by God’s power.  Her assumption reminds us that we, too, will be raised body and soul into heaven if we believe in Christ and follow in his footsteps.

 





Monthly Moments

Monthly Prayer Intentions



  • Hurricane Prayer: Our Father in Heaven, through the powerful intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, spare us from all harm during this hurricane season.  Protect us and protect our homes and property from all disasters of nature.  Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us!  We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son and our brother; living and reigning with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen!


  • Priests and Religious

  • Conversion of Sinners

  • Politicians and Lawmakers

  • Those Who Serve Their Country

  • Those Who Care for the Suffering and Dying

 

Saint of the Month

Saint Monica, August 27th 

By Fr. Dean Danos


Patroness: Wives and Mothers

Liturgical Color: White


St. Monica was born in 322 to a Christian family in North Africa. As was common practice at the time, her parents chose the man she would marry, a much older man named Patricius.  Though he was generous, Patricius was also ill tempered, and he did not believe in God.  Neither did his mother, who lived with the newly married couple.  Over the years, St. Monica and her husband had three children.  While the two younger ones entered the religious life, St. Augustine, the oldest, wanted nothing to do with his mother’s faith.  For years, St. Monica prayed that her son and husband would come to have faith.  Eventually, her husband and his mother converted, though St. Augustine still refused.  However, St. Monica never gave up on him. She cried and pleaded with priests and bishops to pray for her son’s conversion.  One priest told her to be patient for “God’s time will come”.  Still St. Monica persisted.  The priest replied, “…it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.”


Finally, after seventeen years of a mother’s tearful prayer, St. Augustine was baptized at the age of 32, during Easter of 387.  Later that year, after knowing that her prayers had been answered, St. Monica died a peaceful death.


As we celebrate St. Monica’s persistence in prayer, we, too, are to examine our own persistence in prayer.

 

Dear Saint Monica, you were once the mournful mother of a prodigal son. Your faithfulness to prayer brought you and your son so close to God that you are now with him in eternity. By your intercession and God’s grace, your son St. Augustine became a great and venerable Saint of the Church. Please take my request to God with the same fervor and persistence with which you prayed for your own son.


(Mention your intentions here)


With your needs, worries and anxieties, you threw yourself on the mercy and providence of God. Through sorrow and pain, you constantly devoted yourself to God. Pray for me that I might join you in such a deep faith in God’s goodness and mercy.


Above all, dear Saint Monica, pray for me that I may, like your son, turn from my sin and become a great saint for the glory of God.


Our Father…

Hail Mary…

Glory be…

 

Saint Augustine, August 28th 

By Fr. Dean Danos


Liturgical Color: White


St. Augustine was born in the 4th century in Thagaste, North Africa to St. Monica, a devout Christian, and Patricius, who remained a pagan until a year before his death.  Though St. Augustine and his siblings were raised Christian, St. Augustine strayed from his faith during his teens.  He did whatever he wanted to do.  He challenged the learned. He questioned philosophies and truths of the time.  As a young, well-educated adult, he moved from city to city, teaching and learning as he traveled.  During all of this time, St. Monica, his mother, prayed that he would return to the faith.  But it wasn’t until he was in his early thirties that his faith was finally awakened.  After listening to St. Ambrose preach in norther Italy, he began his journey back to the faith.  Soon, words from scripture ignited his faith.  According to his Confessions, the book in which he recorded his spiritual journey, St. Augustine heard a child-like voice telling him, “Take up and Read, Take up and Read.”  He recognized God calling him to a life of faith, and he was baptized during the Easter vigil of 387 by St. Ambrose.  Later, he was ordained Bishop of Hippo, a city in North Africa, where he spent the rest of his life praying, studying, preaching, and writing the truth as revealed in scripture. 


As we celebrate his feast day, we examine our efforts to seek the truth and become further dedicated to God.

 


O God, Framer of the universe, grant me first rightly to invoke Thee; then to show myself worthy to be heard by Thee; lastly, deign to set me free. God, through whom all things which of themselves were not, tend to be. God, who out of nothing hast created this world, which the eyes of all perceive to be most beautiful. God, the Father of truth, the Father of wisdom, the Father of the true and crowning life, the Father of blessedness, the Father of that which is good and fair, the Father of intelligible light, the Father of our awakening and illumination, the Father of the pledge by which we are admonished to return to Thee.


God, from whom to be turned away, is to fall: to whom to be turned back, is to rise again: in whom to abide, is to stand firm. God, from whom to go forth, is to die: to whom to return, is to revive: in whom to have our dwelling, is to live. God, whom no one loses, unless deceived: whom no one seeks, unless stirred up: whom no one finds, unless made pure. God, by whom we distinguish good from ill. God, by whom we flee evil, and follow good. God, who leads us to the door of life. God, who causes it to be opened to them that knock. God, who gives us the bread of life. God, who cleans us, and prepares us for Divine rewards, come graciously to me.


Thou the only God, come unto my help. God, whom all things serve, that serve, to whom is compliant every virtuous soul. By whose laws the poles revolve, the stars fulfill their courses, the sun enlivens the day, the moon tempers the night: and all the framework of things, day after day by turns of light and gloom, month after month by waxings and wanings of the moon, year after year by unceasing order of spring and summer and fall and winter, and through the mighty orbs of time, folding and refolding upon themselves, as the stars still recur to their first conjunctions, maintains, so far as mere visible matter allows, the mighty constancy of things.


God, by whose laws the choice of the soul is free, and to the good rewards and to the evil pains are distributed by necessities settled throughout all natures. Who hast made man after Thine image and likeness, as he who has come to know himself discovers. Hear me, hear me, graciously hear me, my God, my Lord, my King, my Father, my Cause, my Hope, my Wealth, my Honor, my House, my Country, my Health, my Light, my Life. Hear, hear, hear me graciously, in that way, all Thine own, which though known to few is to those few known so well.


Henceforth Thee alone do I love, Thee alone I follow, Thee alone I seek, Thee alone am I prepared to serve, for Thou alone art rightly Lord, and of Thy lordship I desire to be. Direct, I pray, and command whatever Thou wilt, but heal and open my ears, that I may hear Thine utterances. Heal and open my eyes, that I may behold the signs of thy command. Drive delusion from me, that I may recognize Thee.


O Lord, most merciful Father receive, I pray, Thy fugitive; enough already, surely, have I been punished, long enough have I served Thine enemies, whom Thou hast under Thy feet, long enough has error had its way with me. To Thee I feel I must return: I knock; may Thy door be opened to me; teach me the way to Thee.

 

Celebration of the Month

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples – August 9th 

 

Book of the Month

“Confessions” by St. Augustine


 

Apparition of the Month

Our Lady of Akita


The following is taken from EWTN:


The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Akita, Japan,to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa

The extraordinary events began on June 12, 1973, when Sr. Agnes saw brilliant mysterious rays emanate suddenly from the tabernacle. The same thing happened on each of the two days that followed.


On June 28, 1973, a cross-shaped wound appeared on the inside left hand of Sr. Agnes. It bled profusely and caused her much pain. On July 6, Sr. Agnes heard a voice coming from the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel where she was praying. The statue was carved from a single block of wood from a Katsura tree and is three feet tall. On the same day, a few of the sisters noticed drops of blood flowing from the statue's right hand. On four occasions, this act of blood flow repeated itself. The wound in the statue's hand remained until September 29, when it disappeared.


On September 29, the day the wound on the statue disappeared, the sisters noticed the statue had now begun to "sweat", especially on the forehead and neck. On August 3, Sr. Agnes received a second message. On October 13, she received a final third message.


Two years later on January 4, 1975, the statue of the Blessed Virgin began to weep. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions.

The Messages to Sr. Agnes


July 6, 1973

"My daughter, my novice, you have obeyed me well in abandoning all to follow me. Is the infirmity of your ears painful? Your deafness will be healed, be sure. Does the wound of your hand cause you to suffer? Pray in reparation for the sins of men. Each person in this community is my irreplaceable daughter. Do you say well the prayer of the Handmaids of the Eucharist? Then, let us pray it together."


"Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, truly present in Holy Eucharist, I consecrate my body and soul to be entirely one with Your Heart, being sacrificed at every instant on all the altars of the world and giving praise to the Father pleading for the coming of His Kingdom."


"Please receive this humble offering of myself. Use me as You will for the glory of the Father and the salvation of souls."


"Most holy Mother of God, never let me be separated from Your Divine Son. Please defend and protect me as Your Special Child. Amen."


When the prayer was finished, the Heavenly Voice said: "Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests. Since your Baptism you have always prayed faithfully for them. Continue to pray very much...very much. Tell your superior all that passed today and obey him in everything that he will tell you. He has asked that you pray with fervor."


August 3, 1973

"My daughter, my novice, do you love the Lord? If you love the Lord, listen to what I have to say to you."


"It is very important...You will convey it to your superior."

"Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and ingrates."


"In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father. I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father's anger. I desire this also from your community...that it love poverty, that it sanctify itself and pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men.


Recite the prayer of the Handmaids of the Eucharist with awareness of its meaning; put it into practice; offer in reparation (whatever God may send) for sins. Let each one endeavor, according to capacity and position, to offer herself entirely to the Lord."


"Even in a secular institute prayer is necessary. Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together. Without attaching to much attention to the form, be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master."


After a silence:

"Is what you think in your heart true? Are you truly decided to become the rejected stone? My novice, you who wish to belong without reserve to the Lord, to become the spouse worthy of the Spouse, make your vows knowing that you must be fastened to the Cross with three nails. These three nails are poverty, chastity, and obedience. Of the three, obedience is the foundation. In total abandon, let yourself be led by your superior. He will know how to understand you and to direct you."


October 13, 1973

"My dear daughter, listen well to what I have to say to you. You will inform your superior."

After a short silence:


"As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests."


"The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres...churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.


"The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them"


"With courage, speak to your superior. He will know how to encourage each one of you to pray and to accomplish works of reparation."


"It is Bishop Ito, who directs your community."


And She smiled and then said:

"You have still something to ask? Today is the last time that I will speak to you in living voice. From now on you will obey the one sent to you and your superior."

"Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved."

 

 

Virtue-Habit of the Month

Holy Obedience:


Often in our world, the term obedience is seen in a negative light, in the light of force, oppression, slavery, etc. However, as a virtue, holy obedience is a virtue obtained by submitting ourselves, our will, our pride to the Divine Will of God. This can be in the form of spiritual inspirations, or in obeying and respecting those considered to be our superiors and caretakers, such as our parents, parish priests, bishops, spiritual directors, supervisors at work, etc. As with all things holy, holy obedience only applies in the cases where we are not asked to commit a sin. In such cases, it is a better path to holy obedience to avoid the sin and submit oneself wholly to God.


Recommended Reading:

  • The Dialogue of St. Catherine Of Siena: A Conversation with God on Living Your Spiritual Life to the Fullest by St. Catherine of Siena: https://a.co/d/dK5e1ei


  • Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence: The Secret of Peace and Happiness by Father Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure (Author), Blessed Claude de la Colombière (Author), Paul Garvin (Prof.) (Translator) https://a.co/d/09iJYshA


 

 

Doctrine and Dogma

On the Meaning of Human Suffering: Part 2 of 4

February 11, 1984 by St. John Paul II

Online Link: Click Here

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and dear brothers and sisters in Christ,


III. THE QUEST FOR AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF THE MEANING OF SUFFERING

9. Within each form of suffering endured by man, and at the same time at the basis of the whole world of suffering, there inevitably arises the question: why? It is a question about the cause, the reason, and equally, about the purpose of suffering, and, in brief, a question about its meaning. Not only does it accompany human suffering, but it seems even to determine its human content, what makes suffering precisely human suffering.


It is obvious that pain, especially physical pain, is widespread in the animal world. But only the suffering human being knows that he is suffering and wonders why; and he suffers in a humanly speaking still deeper way if he does not find a satisfactory answer. This is a difficult question, just as is a question closely akin to it, the question of evil. Why does evil exist? Why is there evil in the world? When we put the question in this way, we are always, at least to a certain extent, asking a question about suffering too.


Both questions are difficult, when an individual puts them to another individual, when people put them to other people, as also when man puts them to God. For man does not put this question to the world, even though it is from the world that suffering often comes to him, but he puts it to God as the Creator and Lord of the world. And it is well known that concerning this question there not only arise many frustrations and conflicts in the relations of man with God, but it also happens that people reach the point of actually denying God. For, whereas the existence of the world opens as it were the eyes of the human soul to the existence of God, to his wisdom, power and greatness, evil and suffering seem to obscure this image, sometimes in a radical way, especially in the daily drama of so many cases of undeserved suffering and of so many faults without proper punishment. So this circumstance shows—perhaps more than any other—the importance of the question of the meaning of suffering; it also shows how much care must be taken both in dealing with the question itself and with all possible answers to it.


10. Man can put this question to God with all the emotion of his heart and with his mind full of dismay and anxiety; and God expects the question and listens to it, as we see in the Revelation of the Old Testament. In the Book of Job the question has found its most vivid expression.

The story of this just man, who without any fault of his own is tried by innumerable sufferings, is well known. He loses his possessions, his sons and daughters, and finally he himself is afflicted by a grave sickness. In this horrible situation three old acquaintances come to his house, and each one in his own way tries to convince him that since he has been struck down by such varied and terrible sufferings, he must have done something seriously wrong. For suffering—they say—always strikes a man as punishment for a crime; it is sent by the absolutely just God and finds its reason in the order of justice. It can be said that Job's old friends wish not only to convince him of the moral justice of the evil, but in a certain sense they attempt to justify to themselves the moral meaning of suffering. In their eyes suffering can have a meaning only as a punishment for sin, therefore only on the level of God's justice, who repays good with good and evil with evil.


The point of reference in this case is the doctrine expressed in other Old Testament writings which show us suffering as punishment inflicted by God for human sins. The God of Revelation is the Lawgiver and Judge to a degree that no temporal authority can see. For the God of Revelation is first of all the Creator, from whom comes, together with existence, the essential good of creation. Therefore, the conscious and free violation of this good by man is not only a transgression of the law but at the same time an offence against the Creator, who is the first Lawgiver. Such a transgression has the character of sin, according to the exact meaning of this word, namely the biblical and theological one. Corresponding to the moral evil of sin is punishment, which guarantees the moral order in the same transcendent sense in which this order is laid down by the will of the Creator and Supreme Lawgiver. From this there also derives one of the fundamental truths of religious faith, equally based upon Revelation, namely that God is a just judge, who rewards good and punishes evil: "For thou art just in all that thou hast done to us, and all thy works are true and thy ways right, and all thy judgments are truth. Thou hast executed true judgments in all that thou hast brought upon us... for in truth and justice thou hast brought all this upon us because of our sins"(23).


The opinion expressed by Job's friends manifests a conviction also found in the moral conscience of humanity: the objective moral order demands punishment for transgression, sin and crime. From this point of view, suffering appears as a "justified evil". The conviction of those who explain suffering as a punishment for sin finds support in the order of justice, and this corresponds to the conviction expressed by one of Job's friends: "As I have seen, those who plough iniquity and sow trouble reap the same"(24).


11. Job however challenges the truth of the principle that identifies suffering with punishment for sin. And he does this on the basis of his own opinion. For he is aware that he has not deserved such punishment, and in fact he speaks of the good that he has done during his life. In the end, God himself reproves Job's friends for their accusations and recognizes that Job is not guilty. His suffering is the suffering of someone who is innocent and it must be accepted as a mystery, which the individual is unable to penetrate completely by his own intelligence.

The Book of Job does not violate the foundations of the transcendent moral order, based upon justice, as they are set forth by the whole of Revelation, in both the Old and the New Covenants.


At the same time, however, this Book shows with all firmness that the principles of this order cannot be applied in an exclusive and superficial way. While it is true that suffering has a meaning as punishment, when it is connected with a fault, it is not true that all suffering is a consequence of a fault and has the nature of a punishment. The figure of the just man Job is a special proof of this in the Old Testament. Revelation, which is the word of God himself, with complete frankness presents the problem of the suffering of an innocent man: suffering without guilt. Job has not been punished, there was no reason for inflicting a punishment on him, even if he has been subjected to a grievous trial. From the introduction of the Book it is apparent that God permitted this testing as a result of Satan's provocation. For Satan had challenged before the Lord the righteousness of Job: "Does Job fear God for nought? ... Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse thee to thy face"(25). And if the Lord consents to test Job with suffering, he does it to demonstrate the latter's righteousness. The suffering has the nature of a test.


The Book of Job is not the last word on this subject in Revelation. In a certain way it is a foretelling of the Passion of Christ. But already in itself it is sufficient argument why the answer to the question about the meaning of suffering is not to be unreservedly linked to the moral order, based on justice alone. While such an answer has a fundamental and transcendent reason and validity, at the same time it is seen to be not only unsatisfactory in cases similar to the suffering of the just man Job, but it even seems to trivialize and impoverish the concept of justice which we encounter in Revelation.


12. The Book of Job poses in an extremely acute way the question of the "why" of suffering; it also shows that suffering strikes the innocent, but it does not yet give the solution to the problem.


Already in the Old Testament we note an orientation that begins to go beyond the concept according to which suffering has a meaning only as a punishment for sin, insofar as it emphasizes at the same time the educational value of suffering as a punishment. Thus in the sufferings inflicted by God upon the Chosen People there is included an invitation of his mercy, which corrects in order to lead to conversion: "... these punishments were designed not to destroy but to discipline our people"(26).


Thus the personal dimension of punishment is affirmed. According to this dimension, punishment has a meaning not only because it serves to repay the objective evil of the transgression with another evil, but first and foremost because it creates the possibility of rebuilding goodness in the subject who suffers.


This is an extremely important aspect of suffering. It is profoundly rooted in the entire Revelation of the Old and above all the New Covenant. Suffering must serve for conversion, that is, for the rebuilding of goodness in the subject, who can recognize the divine mercy in this call to repentance. The purpose of penance is to overcome evil, which under different forms lies dormant in man. Its purpose is also to strengthen goodness both in man himself and in his relationships with others and especially with God.


13. But in order to perceive the true answer to the "why" af suffering, we must look to the revelation of divine love, the ultimate source of the meaning of everything that exists. Love is also the richest source of the meaning of suffering, which always remains a mystery: we are conscious of the insufficiency and inadequacy of our explanations. Christ causes us to enter into the mystery and to discover the "why" of suffering, as far as we are capable of grasping the sublimity of divine love.


In order to discover the profound meaning of suffering, following the revealed word of God, we must open ourselves wide to the human subject in his manifold potentiality. We must above all accept the light of Revelation not only insofar as it expresses the transcendent order of justice but also insofar as it illuminates this order with Love, as the definitive source of everything that exists. Love is: also the fullest source of the answer to the question of the meaning of suffering. This answer has been given by God to man in the Cross of Jesus Christ.


IV. JESUS CHRIST SUFFERING CONQUERED BY LOVE

14. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life"(27). These words, spoken by Christ in his conversation with Nicodemus, introduce us into the very heart of God's salvific work. They also express the very essence of Christian soteriology, that is, of the theology of salvation. Salvation means liberation from evil, and for this reason it is closely bound up with the problem of suffering. According to the words spoken to Nicodemus, God gives his Son to "the world" to free man from evil, which bears within itself the definitive and absolute perspective on suffering. At the same time, the very word "gives" ("gave") indicates that this liberation must be achieved by the only-begotten Son through his own suffering. And in this, love is manifested, the infinite love both of that only-begotten Son and of the Father who for this reason "gives" his Son. This is love for man, love for the "world": it is salvific love.


We here find ourselves—and we must clearly realize this in our shared reflection on this problem—faced with a completely new dimension of our theme. It is a different dimension from the one which was determined and, in a certain sense, concluded the search for the meaning of suffering within the limit of justice. This is the dimension of Redemption, to which in the Old Testament, at least in the Vulgate text, the words of the just man Job already seem to refer: "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last... I shall see God..."(28). Whereas our consideration has so far concentrated primarily and in a certain sense exclusively on suffering in its multiple temporal dimension (as also the sufferings of the just man Job), the words quoted above from Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus refer to suffering in its fundamental and definitive meaning. God gives his only-begotten Son so that man "should not perish" and the meaning of these words " should not perish" is precisely specified by the words that follow: "but have eternal life".


Man " perishes" when he loses "eternal life". The opposite of salvation is not, therefore, only temporal suffering, any kind of suffering, but the definitive suffering: the loss of eternal life, being rejected by God, damnation. The only-begotten Son was given to humanity primarily to protect man against this definitive evil and against definitive suffering. In his salvific mission, the Son must therefore strike evil right at its transcendental roots from which it develops in human history. These transcendental roots of evil are grounded in sin and death: for they are at the basis of the loss of eternal life. The mission of the only-begotten Son consists in conquering sin and death. He conquers sin by his obedience unto death, and he overcomes death by his Resurrection.


15. When one says that Christ by his mission strikes at evil at its very roots, we have in mind not only evil and definitive, eschatological suffering (so that man "should not perish, but have eternal life"), but also—at least indirectly toil and suffering in their temporal and historical dimension. For evil remains bound to sin and death. And even if we must use great caution in judging man's suffering as a consequence of concrete sins (this is shown precisely by the example of the just man Job), nevertheless suffering cannot be divorced from the sin of the beginnings, from what Saint John calls "the sin of the world"(29), from the sinful background of the personal actions and social processes in human history. Though it is not licit to apply here the narrow criterion of direct dependance (as Job's three friends did), it is equally true that one cannot reject the criterion that, at the basis of human suffering, there is a complex involvement with sin.


It is the same when we deal with death. It is often awaited even as a liberation from the suffering of this life. At the same time, it is not possible to ignore the fact that it constitutes as it were a definitive summing-up of the destructive work both in the bodily organism and in the psyche. But death primarily involves the dissolution of the entire psychophysical personality of man. The soul survives and subsists separated from the body, while the body is subjected to gradual decomposition according to the words of the Lord God, pronounced after the sin committed by man at the beginning of his earthly history: "You are dust and to dust you shall return"(30).


Therefore, even if death is not a form of suffering in the temporal sense of the word, even if in a certain way it is beyond all forms of suffering, at the same time the evil which the human being experiences in death has a definitive and total character. By his salvific work, the only-begotten Son liberates man from sin and death. First of all he blots out from human history the dominion of sin, which took root under the influence of the evil Spirit, beginning with Original Sin, and then he gives man the possibility of living in Sanctifying Grace. In the wake of his victory over sin, he also takes away the dominion of death, by his Resurrection beginning the process of the future resurrection of the body. Both are essential conditions of "eternal life", that is of man's definitive happiness in union with God; this means, for the saved, that in the eschatological perspective suffering is totally blotted out.


As a result of Christ's salvific work, man exists on earth with the hope of eternal life and holiness. And even though the victory over sin and death achieved by Christ in his Cross and Resurrection does not abolish temporal suffering from human life, nor free from suffering the whole historical dimension of human existence, it nevertheless throws a new light upon this dimension and upon every suffering: the light of salvation. This is the light of the Gospel, that is, of the Good News. At the heart of this light is the truth expounded in the conversation with Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son"(31).


This truth radically changes the picture of man's history and his earthly situation: in spite of the sin that took root in this history both as an original inheritance and as the "sin of the world" and as the sum of personal sins, God the Father has loved the only-begotten Son, that is, he loves him in a lasting way; and then in time, precisely through this all-surpassing love, he "gives" this Son, that he may strike at the very roots of human evil and thus draw close in a salvific way to the whole world of suffering in which man shares.


16. In his messianic activity in the midst of Israel, Christ drew increasingly closer to the world of human suffering. "He went about doing good"(32), and his actions concerned primarily those who were suffering and seeking help. He healed the sick, consoled the afflicted, fed the hungry, freed people from deafness, from blindness, from leprosy, from the devil and from various physical disabilities, three times he restored the dead to life. He was sensitive to every human suffering, whether of the body or of the soul. And at the same time he taught, and at the heart of his teaching there are the eight beatitudes, which are addressed to people tried by various sufferings in their temporal life. These are "the poor in spirit" and "the afflicted" and "those who hunger and thirst for justice" and those who are "persecuted for justice sake", when they insult them, persecute them and speak falsely every kind of evil against them for the sake of Christ...(33). Thus according to Matthew; Luke mentions explicitly those "who hunger now"(34).


At any rate, Christ drew close above all to the world of human suffering through the fact of having taken this suffering upon his very self. During his public activity, he experienced not only fatigue, homelessness, misunderstanding even on the part of those closest to him, but, more than anything, he became progressively more and more isolated and encircled by hostility and the preparations for putting him to death. Christ is aware of this, and often speaks to his disciples of the sufferings and death that await him: "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise"(35).


Christ goes towards his Passion and death with full awareness of the mission that he has to fulfil precisely in this way. Precisely by means of this suffering he must bring it about "that man should not perish, but have eternal life". Precisely by means of his Cross he must strike at the roots of evil, planted in the history of man and in human souls. Precisely by means of his Cross he must accomplish the work of salvation. This work, in the plan of eternal Love, has a redemptive character.


And therefore Christ severely reproves Peter when the latter wants to make him abandon the thoughts of suffering and of death on the Cross(36). And when, during his arrest in Gethsemane, the same Peter tries to defend him with the sword, Christ says, " Put your sword back into its place... But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?(37)". And he also says, "Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?"(38).


This response, like others that reappear in different points of the Gospel, shows how profoundly Christ was imbued by the thought that he had already expressed in the conversation with Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life"(39). Christ goes toward his own suffering, aware of its saving power; he goes forward in obedience to the Father, but primarily he is united to the Father in this love with which he has loved the world and man in the world. And for this reason Saint Paul will write of Christ: "He loved me and gave himself for me"(40).


17. The Scriptures had to be fulfilled. There were many messianic texts in the Old Testament which foreshadowed the sufferings of the future Anointed One of God. Among all these, particularly touching is the one which is commonly called the Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant, in the Book of Isaiah. The Prophet, who has rightly been called "the Fifth Evangelist", presents in this Song an image of the sufferings of the Servant with a realism as acute as if he were seeing them with his own eyes: the eyes of the body and of the spirit. In the light of the verses of Isaiah, the Passion of Christ becomes almost more expressive and touching than in the descriptions of the Evangelists themselves. Behold, the true Man of Sorrows presents himself before us:


"He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all"(41).


The Song of the Suffering Servant contains a description in which it is possible, in a certain sense, to identify the stages of Christ's Passion in their various details: the arrest, the humiliation, the blows, the spitting, the contempt for the prisoner, the unjust sentence, and then the scourging, the crowning with thorns and the mocking, the carrying of the Cross, the crucifixion and the agony.


Even more than this description of the Passion, what strikes us in the words of the Prophet is the depth of Christ's sacrifice. Behold, He, though innocent, takes upon himself the sufferings of all people, because he takes upon himself the sins of all. "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all": all human sin in its breadth and depth becomes the true cause of the Redeemer's suffering. If the suffering "is measured" by the evil suffered, then the words of the Prophet enable us to understand the extent of this evil and suffering with which Christ burdened himself. It can be said that this is "substitutive" suffering; but above all it is "redemptive". The Man of Sorrows of that prophecy is truly that "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world"(42). In his suffering, sins are cancelled out precisely because he alone as the only-begotten Son could take them upon himself, accept them with that love for the Father which overcomes the evil of every sin; in a certain sense he annihilates this evil in the spiritual space of the relationship between God and humanity, and fills this space with good.


Here we touch upon the duality of nature of a single personal subject of redemptive suffering.

He who by his Passion and death on the Cross brings about the Redemption is the only-begotten Son whom God "gave". And at the same time this Son who is consubstantial with the Father suffers as a man. His suffering has human dimensions; it also has unique in the history of humanity—a depth and intensity which, while being human, can also be an incomparable depth and intensity of suffering, insofar as the man who suffers is in person the only-begotten Son himself: " God from God". Therefore, only he—the only-begotten Son—is capable of embracing the measure of evil contained in the sin of man: in every sin and in "total" sin, according to the dimensions of the historical existence of humanity on earth.


18. It can be said that the above considerations now brings us directly to Gethsemane and Golgotha, where the Song of the Suffering Servant, contained in the Book of Isaiah, was fulfilled. But before going there, let us read the next verses of the Song, which give a prophetic anticipation of the Passion at Gethsemane and Golgotha. The Suffering Servant—and this in its turn is essential for an analysis of Christ's Passion—takes on himself those sufferings which were spoken of, in a totally voluntary way:


"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth"(43).


Christ suffers voluntarily and suffers innocently. With his suffering he accepts that question which—posed by people many times—has been expressed, in a certain sense, in a radical way by the Book of Job. Christ, however, not only carries with himself the same question (and this in an even more radical way, for he is not only a man like Job but the only-begotten Son of God), but he also carries the greatest possible answer to this question. One can say that this answer emerges from the very master of which the question is made up. Christ gives the answer to the question about suffering and the meaning of suffering not only by his teaching, that is by the Good News, but most of all by his own suffering, which is integrated with this teaching of the Good News in an organic and indissoluble way. And this is the final, definitive word of this teaching: "the word of the Cross", as Saint Paul one day will say(44).


This "word of the Cross" completes with a definitive reality the image of the ancient prophecy. Many episodes, many discourses during Christ's public teaching bear witness to the way in which from the beginning he accepts this suffering which is the will of the Father for the salvation of the world. However, the prayer in Gethsemane becomes a definitive point here. The words: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt"(45), and later: "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done"(46), have a manifold eloquence.


They prove the truth of that love which the only-begotten Son gives to the Father in his obedience. At the same time, they attest to the truth of his suffering. The words of that prayer of Christ in Gethsemane prove the truth of love through the truth of suffering. Christ's words confirm with all simplicity this human truth of suffering, to its very depths: suffering is the undergoing of evil before which man shudders. He says: let it pass from me", just as Christ says in Gethsemane.


His words also attest to this unique and incomparable depth and intensity of suffering which only the man who is the only-begotten Son could experience; they attest to that depth and intensity which the prophetic words quoted above in their own way help us to understand. Not of course completely (for this we would have to penetrate the divine-human mystery of the subject), but at least they help us to understand that difference (and at the same time the similarity) which exists between every possible form of human suffering and the suffering of the God-man. Gethsemane is the place where precisely this suffering, in all the truth expressed by the Prophet concerning the evil experienced in it, is revealed as it were definitively before the eyes of Christ's soul.


After the words in Gethsemane come the words uttered on Golgotha, words which bear witness to this depth—unique in the history of the world—of the evil of the suffering experienced. When Christ says: "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?", his words are not only an expression of that abandonment which many times found expression in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and in particular in that Psalm 22 [21] from which come the words quoted(47). One can say that these words on abandonment are born at the level of that inseparable union of the Son with the Father, and are born because the Father "laid on him the iniquity of us all"(48). They also foreshadow the words of Saint Paul: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin"(49). Together with this horrible weight, encompassing the "entire" evil of the turning away from God which is contained in sin, Christ, through the divine depth of his filial union with the Father, perceives in a humanly inexpressible way this suffering which is the separation, the rejection by the Father, the estrangement from God. But precisely through this suffering he accomplishes the Redemption, and can say as he breathes his last: "It is finished"(50).


One can also say that the Scripture has been fulfilled, that these words of the Song of the Suffering Servant have been definitively accomplished: "it was the will of the Lord to bruise him"(51). Human suffering has reached its culmination in the Passion of Christ. And at the same time it has entered into a completely new dimension and a new order: it has been linked to love, to that love of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus, to that love which creates good, drawing it out by means of suffering, just as the supreme good of the Redemption of the world was drawn from the Cross of Christ, and from that Cross constantly takes its beginning. The Cross of Christ has become a source from which flow rivers of living water(52). In it we must also pose anew the question about the meaning of suffering, and read in it, to its very depths, the answer to this question.

 

Flashback

This section brings back articles from the original Thy Kingdom Come issues.

Heresies & Heroes

DECEMBER 1995

BY BOB AND PENNY LORD

The Church in the First Century – Part 2 of 4



EBIONITES

Ebionites were originally Jews. They converted to Christianity but held onto their earlier teachings. The Ebionites denied the Divinity of Christ. They rejected all the New Testament except St. Matthew's Gospel but created their own distorted version of his Gospel in an attempt to affirm their false teachings, only to have them disputed by the truths of the Gospel. Again, with the Ebionites, Lucifer used man to promote fear and helplessness, and God in His Word revealed the truth which is the saving Grace needed to live in this bruised world.


They claimed that part of mankind was created by good Angels and the rest of mankind by bad angels. They believed in and engaged in free love. They called St. Paul a heretic. Good work, Satan! You never stop calling the holy by your own names. You even tried with God, telling Eve that He was a liar. But, as with most heretics, Ebionites (as such) are unknown today, but St. Paul continues to influence the Church and all Christians.


The Church fights back!

As to the Divinity of Jesus Christ, St. Justin one of our earliest Fathers of the Church, and defender of the Divinity of Jesus, warned that there were some Ebionites who, although they profess Jesus is the Christ, insist and influence others into believing, He was a man born of a man, not of God; He was not the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.


St. Irenaeus tells us that the heretics, in trying to adjust the Gospels to bring about their own dogmas, only succeeded in confirming the Sacred Word of our Lord.


What modern day heretics create their own distorted version of scripture, rather than fashioning their lifestyle after the message of the Bible?  Some strong examples of this would be Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. But these are cults, not splinters of the Church.


It is believed that Tertullian, came against those who spoke of their own authority, not that of Holy Scripture. We’re told he later referred to the Ebionites, when he disputed the teaching “that Christ was mere man, but that he had an angel in Him.”6


  • 1 Ebionite-comes from the Hebrew word for "poor."(Catholic Encyclopedia-Broderick)

  • 2 Catholic Encyclopedia-Broderick

  • 3 Acts of the Apostles 15:5

  • 4 From the chapter: St. Paul in "Saints and other Powerful Men in the Church."

  • 5 From the chapter: St. Paul in "Saints and other Powerful Men in the Church.


Heresies and Heroes is a serialized column excerpted from the book, Scandal of the Cross and its Triumph: Copyright 1992, by Robert & Penny Lord. All rights reserved.

Reprinted with permission.


The book Scandal of the Cross and its Tri-umph, may be ordered from:


Journeys of Faith

PO Box 429

Slidell Louisiana 70459-0429

In La. (504) 863-2546

In U.S. (800) 633-2484


Contact Us

There are many ways you can reach out to us:

 

65 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments

bottom of page