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Monthly Archives: September 2018

Love Glorifies Suffering

07 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by Word Ignite in Bible Commentary, Blogging, Catholic, Charity, Christian, Church, Contemplation, Culture, Discernment, Ecumenism, Faith, History, Holy Spirit, Humility, Judiasm, Latin Church, Lent, Literature, Love, Meditation, News, Parables, Philosophy, Psychology, Reading, Religion, Sociology, Spirituality, Teaching, Theology, Uncategorized, Wisdom, Writing

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Accepting various realities of life is possible with the right disposition towards those realities. Whether it is done so as a community of people or as oneself, with or without the comfort or security of the obvious things of earthly living, relationships, familiar environments, etc. There is one of many, peculiar reality of life, which not only is life altering but something that makes life defining, at the very core of it. That is the reality of suffering.

Some overcome suffering by either denying its importance (Stoicism) or its very existential reality (Spinoza), or further more by consciously seeking the self or that someone’s passing away from this world. No matter what the human mind prompts as a resolve towards one’s suffering, this intrinsically personal aspect of human life cannot be ignored or evaded each time it knocks the gates of our mortality. The world as we know, has since its inception, been the stage for human suffering in gastronomical measures. Some so intrinsically evil that recounting those ghastly episodes evoke a great measure of psychological, emotional and spiritual trauma. Mass murders, the holocaust, genocides, rape, continual spree of abortions (in some places by very crude practices), forced starvation, forced economic deprivation by lords of war and corruption, and the list keeps getting bloodier.

Ap-Photo-Dmitry-Lovetsky

Ap Photo Dmitry Lovetsky

Many philosophical and religious schools of thought have proposed soul traversing ideologies and paradigms about this in-expendable reality called suffering. A mammoth figure of Christian light to all generations, St. Augustine believed and taught the classic philosophical view of evil which states that since everything created was created by God and He called it all ‘good’ (Genesis 1:31), evil is not self existent, but rather is the absence of good. This essentially being a neoplatonic doctrine has a historic presence in Jewish philosophy as well.

antonio_rodriguez_saint_augustine_google_art_project-cropped

Antonio Rodríguez, “Saint Augustine”

So, if we look at suffering through the lens of St. Augustine, then we should believe that where there is no good, which in other words, through authentic Catholic verbatim, would mean an absence of authentic beatitudes, the suffering becomes real and many a times overwhelming too. Therefore, this Augustinian principle should naturally evoke in us the quintessential necessity of good in everyday life, in every culture, upon every soil. This ‘good’, however, is in fact, the fruit of the cause of creation in its known and unknown entirety. That cause is agape. Love, which is ‘the Creator’ Himself, God. Which is from the Creator, for the created, leading towards the certainty of eternity. 

The love of God is the stimulus for real balance in the world. It is the source of knowing God as He is (1 John 4:7). It is not only the perfect and only rightful abode of the human soul, it is also on the other hand that which transforms the soul into the most desired sanctuary of God for His eternal dwelling. “If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4: 12). Now that we know that it is love which cements the human soul in concreteness with God, it is the luminous light which should and can perpetually exterminate the darkness of evil, which is the good as God conceived it in His immaculate and holy mind.

The economy of this God-epitomised love does not create perfection of balance in world existence, it beautifully creates a rather a peculiar imbalance that progresses the soul’s upward pilgrimage to heaven in a way which is forever alien to the mind enslaved to the world. This love reaches its pinnacle in the ‘theo-phenomena’ of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is Truth and Love glorified. The Incarnation is Truth and Love personified. It is the perfection of good. It is a person. The person is Jesus Christ, the only begotten fruit of God the Father. It is this God-Man, Son of the living God, the eternal Good of His Father, who glorified immeasurable suffering by making it the only source of man’s salvation. The cup of suffering has been made into the chalice of His holy blood, poured out for the redemption of you and me, and as a ransom for eternal life in true freedom. 

church-of-the-nativity

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

Christ our beloved Lord, the second person in the Holy Trinity, personalises suffering as a virtuous means of attaining God Himself. What the world uses (suffering) as an instrument to inflict pain, sorrow, hopelessness, fear, anxiety, isolation, animosity and even death – even ignominious in kind, the source of all good – God the Son, actually embraces this bottomless pit of darkness (suffering) as an innocent child might merely imagine to embrace a whole garden of exquisite flowers. When Satan, the one who was first to rebuke Perfect Love, and was cast out of the Beatific Presence of the Almighty Creator, looks at suffering as an opportunity to drag the human soul into his eternal abyss of self-hate, the God-Head Jesus, commanded suffering into a spring of His Holy Blood, which Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI so eloquently phrased it as – ‘transubstantiating the world’.

Suffering not only triumphs over evil, it inspires life itself. Suffering not only elevates the soul into the spiritual realm, but also brings hope into the material world. Suffering not only makes shame immaterial, it makes persecution glorious. But all this can be rightly attested to suffering, only when it is embodied in love. Love suffers for goodness sake. Goodness aspires to godliness. Godliness transforms suffering in the world into holiness.

~ J R A

Wounded Christ Wounded Church

01 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by Word Ignite in Bible Commentary, Blogging, Catholic, Charity, Christian, Church, Contemplation, Culture, Faith, History, Holy Spirit, Humility, Latin Church, Literature, Love, News, Philosophy, Psychology, Reading, Religion, Spirituality, Teaching, Theology, Uncategorized, Wisdom, Writing

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The human family comes together in times of celebration as well in times of crisis. I am sure you have witnessed this people characteristic when given the opportunity. Celebration and crisis provoke a flood of emotions and ideas within minds and are detrimental to how we conduct ourselves in those circumstances. 

As Christians, we know that we are truly more than just a human family, we are members of the body of Christ. The Church (Catholic) which is the beacon of the Truth on earth, the moral and spiritual compass of souls, is not only the ‘Corpus Christi’, but is also a powerful institution, an organisation which lubricates the levitation of human souls from their earthly realm to the heavenly kingdom. The organisation has been robust with pragmatic leaders and history makers (for many a good reason as well as not so good ones). 

suffering christ

The mystical body of Christ – the Church has scars of suffering and persecution, it also has the stench of abuse and scandal. The human body of Christ bore the most heaviest of burdens (sin) upon it’s immaculate self. It witnessed the trauma of public ridicule, threats to life, mockery, and unimaginable beating before it could face the ignominious pain of death on a cross. The human heart and mind of our Lord Jesus has experienced great joy and great sorrow, unmatched wisdom and knowledge. By the ‘descend of the Holy Spirit’, Christ has bestowed upon the grace and power to withstand sorrow and be deserving of much joy. 

Today, as the Church is witnessing a very testing time, I cant but stop myself from asking a question which directly also questions my conscience. Child molestation by the clergy and the cover-up of this ghastly crime and abomination by high ranking clergymen like Bishops and Cardinals, has left a pain in my very gut. Without getting into the details of how this evil, this shameful attribution of our holy Mother Church, has been perpetrated, repeated and immorally covered-up, I would swiftly bring to attention the necessity of a robust life of personal holiness. A promise of unfailing commitment to sacramental life. To undeterred hope in the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit and to humble and prayerful faithfulness to the Vicar of Christ (Pope) on earth. 

pope francis

I am Catholic, because my Lord and Saviour Jesus chose me to be one. I am Catholic because He has poured His abundance of love and mercy in my life through His wounded yet holy Church. I am Catholic because I confirmed my faithfulness to her with God as my witness and vowed to be faithful to her in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, till death do me part. 

It is time for me and you my beloved Christian, to be Jesus on earth. It is time to put that lamp of faith upon high ground that all may see and follow. It is time to mingle the salt of righteousness in the soil of folly so that the seekers of truth may find Christ even if the passing fog of scam and evil veils the eyes of our hearts and minds. 

~ J R A

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