"Be of good comfort, my children and cry to the Lord: for you shall be remembered by him who led you away.

 

For, as it was your mind to go astray from God: so when you return again, you shall seek him ten times as much.

 

For he that hath brought evils upon you shall bring you everlasting joy again with your salvation. 

 

Be of good heart, O Jerusalem: for he exorteth thee that named thee.

 

The wicked that have afflicted thee shall perish: and they that have rejoiced at thy ruin shall be punished.

 

The cities which thy children have served shall be punished: and she that received thy sons.

 

For as she rejoiced at thy ruin and was glad of thy fall: so shall she be grieved for her own desolation.

 

And the joy of her multitude shall be cut off: and her gladness shall be turned to mourning.

 

For fire shall come upon her from the Eternal...and she shall be inhabited by devils for a great time.

 

Look about thee, O Jerusalem, towards the east, and behold the joy that cometh to thee from God".

 

In this passage, God makes good out of evil: the one who returns to him loves him ever more than before he left.  And those who try to destroy his beloved children only bring ruin upon themselves.  When we return to the Lord, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, God rejoices.  The ones who led us astray, the ones who were happy to see us down, we are avenged of.  The moral:  rejoice in your brothers and sisters good fortune, and do not make a spectacle of their misfortune, or it will bring fire down upon your head and possession by devils.

 

In my life situation, people are always telling me I have no friends, no man and no hope, and they seem to enjoy doing it.  To see my misfortune brings them joy.  But the Bible says that we should not act like that, or we will be ruined.  So when someone has misfortune, say something to help them, rather than drag them any further down.  Be the friend they need if that is what you think is lacking in their lives.  But don't plot and bring about anyone's destruction because you will be visited with fire and devils.  God wants us to build each other up rather than make each other miserable.

 

I have decided I want to remain an anchoress and spouse of Christ in the privacy of my own home.  But people intrude and try to force sex on me, because either they think sex is the only way to happiness or else because they want me to fail as a religious.  They say I would have more friends if I had a man.  Yet what kind of a friend is one who loves you conditionally?  Why rack up social points in the first place?  Is a great number of people going to make you any happier?  What do they mean by friends?  Gossips and meddlers?  Do I want to throw in my lot with them?  Or do I accept the people that God sends into my life who really love me and be with them?  What if they keep me at a distance and only clutter up the neighborhood with idle chatter?  Do I want that in my home?  I must ask all these questions and find answers I can live with.  Maybe I am satisfied with the way things are.  I shouldn't have to compare myself with anyone else; I am unique and made so by the Lord.  My role is solitude, not parties.  Am I not maintaining that very well?  Am I keeping my vows?  Does not my relationship with Christ come first?

From the Gospell of St. Matthew, Chapter 13:36-42

 

Expound to us the parable of the cockle of the field.  Who made answer and said to them: He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man.  And the field is the world.  And the good seed are the children of the Kingdom.  And the cockle are the children of the wicked one.  And the enemy that sowed them is the devil.  But the harvest is the end of the world.  And the reapers are the angels.  Even as cockle therefore is gathered up and burnt with fire: so shall it be at the end of the world.  The Son of Man shall send his angels; and they shall gather out of his kingdoms all scandals and them that work iniquity.  And shall cast them into the furnace of fire.  There, shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 

Yikes!  That is frightening!  Make sure you are not involved in scandals!  Keep the Ten Commandments and follow the catechism.  Study the Bible and be blameless in the sight of Jesus.  Do not lead others into sin.

 

Does this passage imply predestination?  In a way, it does.  Or is it possible to change from a stalk of wheat into a cockle, or the other way around?  That is not possible in Nature.  Maybe what Jesus is trying to say is that he knows all along who will be good and who will be bad.  He knows which ones will persevere from the beginning, no matter what they do in the actual process.  The end is what is important, perhaps; but this passage is a strong argument for predestination.

 

Does this passage justify the Burning Times?  It may have been a source for it.  Here, Jesus is seen as an all powerful Judge who will get revenge on all the cockle people in the world.  So, worry not, if you are being scandalized by your neighbor, there is plenty of hope!  You will be properly avenged!  Be good and you won't be burned.  Fear Hell, turn away from evil deeds - and most people know what that means.  Parables like this one get the goat of any sinner.  Just so long as it makes you want to be good, it is alright - and probably this passage scared many a person into following the right way.  Be afraid now and be happy in Heaven!

From the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 2:

 

For they have said, reasoning with themselves, but not right: The time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy, and no man hath been known to have returned from hell...the breath in our nostrils is smoke and speech a spark to move our heart.  Which being put out, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be poured abroad as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud and shall be dispersed as a mist which is driven away by the beams of the sun...and our name in time shall be forgotten...Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present...let no meadow escape our riot...Let us oppress the poor just man, and not spare the widow...He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God, and calleth himself the son of God.  He is become the censurer of our thoughts...and he abstaineth from our ways...But the souls of the just are in the hand of God; and the torment of death shall not touch them...In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure was taken for misery...

 

Book of Wisdom, Chapter 3

 

God hath tried them, and found them worthy of himself...as a victim of a holocaust he hath received them: and in time there shall be respect had to them.

 

I found these wonderful words quite by accident.  I wanted something from the Book of Wisdom, but I had also wanted Blblical prophecy about Christ, so I turned to a book on the subject.  But the book was Protestant, and did not even have the Book of Wisdom, since it is not in the Protestant canon.  I never knew that the Book of Wisdom was a book of prophecy about Christ; I thought it was largely known for its poetic qualities, as in the lovely imagery above about death.

 

Who is this "poor just man"?  It could mean Christ himself, who called himself a son of God.  What is this victimhood about, but perhaps what I was writing in my latest blog before this one.  God is known to chastise the just man, to test him and fire him like gold to improve his worth.  In Chapter 3, it says:

 

As gold in the furnace he hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust he hath received them...

 

And in summary and as a final note:

 

Book of Wisdom, Chapter 3

 

And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality.

 

This is meant for a prophecy of Christ, but also what all of us who try to be just and holy can expect - immortality.  And we can all call ourselves sons and daughters of God, made in his image and likeness; indeed, as Psalm 81 or 82, depending on the Bible, we can call ourselves gods and goddesses.  We are by no means equal to him.  There is a long way from God to god, an infinitely long way.  But even on our small level, we can do great things, and when we get our glorified bodies, we shall alwauys be doing miraculous things.

 

The censurer of our thoughts?  I have often wondered about this passage.  Christ was known to be able to read minds and know the hearts of men; he did it several times with the Pharisees and that was perhaps the reason why he kept being able to walk right through them without being caught.  Yes, Christ is the censurer of our thoughts, and some mortals have been gifted with a far lesser ability to do so, as was someone like Pade Pio, now a saint.  It is a special gift given to holy people and it is very rare.

 

Immortality!  That concept I have rarely seen in the Old Testament.  It is a given in the New Testament, indeed, it is part of the spiritual contract.  As the rock group REM said, "See you in Heaven if you make the list...yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!"

The word anchoress is derived from a word meaning to withdraw.  The anchoress withdraws from ordinary human society into a cell which is both a womb, or antechamber into Heaven, and a grave, where she will meet her end.  Why does she withdraw?  To fight off the devil, the flesh and the world, and to concentrate upon God in mystical contemplative prayer, lectio divina, work and meditation.  There, she lives a life of penance, fasting and subjecting herself to certain rigors.  I often turn off the heat in my apartment and endure the cold.  I only eat two meals a day, with maybe two small snacks.  To keep myself healthy, however, I keep liquids going.  I do certain penances including a series of mortifications which I try to keep hidden from the eye.  In the old days, anchoresses wore hairshirts, itchy and stinging inner garments, and afflicted themselves with scourges, or whips.  The latter two my spiritual director won't permit.  From time to time, I have slept on the floor in the summertime behind my couch, but my spiritual director put an end to that, also.  However, I can always give alms, and I try to give to those who need it most.

 

A spouse of Christ is in a mystical marriage with the Lord, not based on sexuality and physical fecundity, but based on a meeting of minds and souls.   The only union of the body occurs in ingesting the Eucharist, and that is done reverently and chastely.  In Heaven, all souls will be married to the Lord and live like angels, outside of ordinary marriage.  Spouses of Christ live out the Heavenly way on Earth.  It is just that sacramental marriage is usually one of the most intense of loves, and it is the intensity alone that is similar between espousal to the Lord and espousal to an ordinary man.

 

God comes to dwell within us in the Sacrament of the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and we are actually, like the Blessed Virgin Mary during her pregnancy, Arks of the Covenant.  We must be very holy to receive Christ, fresh out of confession, or at least in a state of passionate repentance.  We strike our breasts during the Confiteor to assess blame to ourselves and pray for mercy, and we receive it.

 

The spouse of Christ becomes a representative of Christ on Earth, and participates in an intimate way with his Passion and sufferings on Earth.  I have suffered a lot like Christ in my life and that has deepened our bond.  Priests and monks are also representatives of Christ on Earth, and thus wear certain clothes, as do nuns and anchoresses and hermits often, in order to make them into walking icons of the Church, and often, targets for comments and abuse.  That is part of the victimhood of the priest and religious, to be victims of His Divine Love.  This victimhood is very fruitful and saves many souls that otherwise be lost.  As Abraham tried to save Sodom and Gomorrha based on merely five good men living there, so do religious and priests hold back the wrath of God in their worlds.

 

And, so we see that certain supernatural realities affect the world - this mysterious victimhood, the enclosure of the anchoress, which is still there even if she is not in her anchorage, this concept of our being Arks of the Covenant.  In future writings, I will explore these idea further in the light of my own vocation.

Churches are places where believers come together to praise the Lord.  As long as it is not an obligation, it is a beautiful thing.  When it is not just to avoid mortal sin, it is the ultimate in prayerful thanksgiving for the things God has freely given us.  For some, church can be a release from the grind of daily living out the often tedious battle against the world, the flesh and the devil.  When church provides no relief, but is just a continuation of the struggle, no wonder people stampede to get out.

 

But if we make it a place of love and light, a place freely entered into, a place where we come together in the Lord, it is no longer tedious.  It is pure joy. 

 

So, go to church because you really long for it.  If people pressure you into it, it is just as tasteless as pablum.  But if you go because, like a deer yearning for running streams, you crave the Lord and the full communion with his people, then it is bliss on Earth.  Everything looks so beautiful inside, the people are no longer just in the way of what you might have done that day, but are indeed, brothers and sisters, closer than friends, and thus highly to be treasured.

 

Go to church because you want to, and it will be worth it.