Christianity and the Art of Mountain Climbing

The Charisms: Some tips and notes

2011-12-17T01:00:00.000+04:00

Some tips:

Discovering our spiritual gifts helps us to be used by God to the full potential that we were created for, resulting in great contentment and confidence in the Lord.

Knowledge of spiritual gifts helps in a division of labor and, consequently, in increased growth in the body of Christ. Not knowing our gifts will result in loss of time and energy.

Knowledge of the gifts we possess helps us to know where we fit in the body of Christ.

We should study the different gifts and have an eager desire to receive them, but should be willing to accept God’s timing in giving them.

We should experiment with different ministries in order to check if we have the gifts related for the same.

We can seek the prayerful opinion of a close friend, a spiritual director or a marriage partner to help us evaluate what gifts we have.

Sometimes a word of prophecy can help us in knowing our gifts.

We can also discover our gifts by checking our persistent desires and abilities.

Some facts:

The gifts of the Spirit were manifested even before Pentecost, but before then they were given to a few people for a specific purpose. Here are some people in the New Testament who were filled with the Holy Spirit: John the Baptist (cf. Luke 1:15), Mary (Luke 1:35), Elizabeth (Luke 1:41) and the apostles (Matthew 10:1-8).

Every gift comes from the Holy Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 12:4) and God operates every gift (1 Corinthians 12:6).

Every believer can have a gift (1 Corinthians 12:11) and one person can have all gifts (John 3:34, Romans 15:29).

Gifts should be used where needed (1 Corinthians 12:12-31, 1 Corinthians 14:1-40).

Gifts can be received by faith and prayer (1 Corinthians 14:1, Mt 7:7-11) and we can choose which gifts we need (1 Corinthians 12:31, I Corinthians 14:1 & 12).

We know when we have received them, when the Spirit manifests them through us to accomplish the intended purpose (1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 28-31).

Gifts are to continue throughout this age (Matthew 28:20).

Gifts are permanent (Romans 11:29) and can be exercised at will (1 Corinthians 14:26-32).

Gifts can be misused (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) and also can be exercised in a backslidden state (Ecclesiastes 2:9-11).

Gifts can be neglected (1 Timothy 4:14) and must be used when needed (1 Corinthians 12:7, 1 Corinthians 14:17, 26).

Finally, the Catechism teaches: "It is in this sense that discernment of charisms is always necessary. No charism is exempt from being referred and submitted to the Church’s shepherds. "Their office [is] not indeed to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to what is good," so that all the diverse and complementary charisms work together "for the common good" (CCC 801).

The Charisms: 9 - The Interpretation of Tongues

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This is a gift that complements the gift of tongues. The Holy Spirit enables the person with this gift to interpret tongues into a language known to the congregation and it is an important gift because, as Paul says, that there is no edification if people cannot understand what is spoken. "If in a tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is being said? For you will be speaking into the air" (1 Corinthians 14:9).

He advises people to remain silent if there is no interpreter. "If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn; and let one interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let them be silent in church and speak to themselves and to God" (1 Corinthians 14:27-28).

Like prophecy, a tongue that is interpreted builds up the church (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:5). We need, therefore, to pray for the gift of interpretation so as not to still the gift of tongues. "Therefore," Paul urges, "one who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret" (1 Corinthians 14:13).

The Charisms: 8 - The Gift of Tongues

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Shortly before Jesus ascended into heaven He commanded his disciples to go and proclaim the good news to all creation. He told them that one of the signs that would accompany them would be "new tongues" (Mark 16:17), or "new languages" that they had not learned. We see them doing this to amazing effect on the day of Pentecost when God poured out His Spirit upon them.

There are two types of this gift, which is unintelligible to the user, unless he has the accompanying gift of interpretation (see The Gift of Interpretation of Tongues): one is the ability to pray in tongues; the other the ability to speak in tongues.

Every believer can receive the gift of praying in tongues, which is a lovely way of communicating with God. "For," as Paul writes, "those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 14:12).

When a person prays in tongues he does not use his human intellect, "for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8:26-27). Through tongues, we utter mysteries in the Spirit, build ourselves up, praise the Lord, thank Him, and give signs to unbelievers (1 Corinthians 14:2,4,16,22).

Speaking in tongues is a rare gift, whereby people hear the speaker speaking in their own language. We see this demonstrated in Acts 2, when the apostles "were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability" (Acts 2:4).

The Charisms: 7 - The Gift of Discernment

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It would be easy to recognize Satan if he appeared like his hackneyed stereotype: with horns, tail and pitchfork. On the contrary, he "disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14), sometimes masquerading as God’s own chosen ones. Jesus warned of this. "False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect," he said (Mark 13:22). To ensure that we are not led astray, we need the gift of discernment, which is the ability that God gives us to distinguish whether a certain behavior, teaching, prophecy, ailment or action is from God, an evil spirit, or our own human spirit.

We see an interesting episode in Mark 8:31-33, when Jesus told his apostles that he "must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again". Peter took Jesus aside and began to scold him, telling him that such should not be. But Jesus, in turn, rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." Jesus discerned the spirit behind the words of Peter as not being from God.

Paul was blessed with the gift of discernment. On his second missionary journey, he travelled to Macedonia, along with Silas. While there, Paul came across a servant girl who kept following them, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God; they will make known to you a way of salvation." Paul discerned that the spirit was an evil spirit and commanded it to come out of her (Acts 16:16-18). It did, much to the chagrin of the girl’s employers, who used to use her "gift" to make money.

The gift of discernment does not help us to expel demons, as Paul did, but it is useful in the ministry of deliverance, where we need to discern whether a person is possessed or simply ill. It is also needed in instances where witchcraft, Satanism and occultism may be involved, in identifying demonic influence, if any, behind lying, infirmity, and unclean behavior.

The gift of discernment, in its more powerful forms, can reveal the name of a demon troubling somebody, the number of demons infesting a person, as well as which one of them is the strongest and has the greatest authority. We see Jesus demonstrating this when he delivers the possessed man in the country of the Gerasenes (see Mark 5:1-20).

The Charisms: 6 - The Gift of Prophecy

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The prophet Amos declared: "Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). Moses expressed the desire: "Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!" (Numbers 11:29). Paul encouraged the Corinthian Christians to seek spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. "Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy" (1 Corinthians 14:1).

Our God is a God of revelation. Regular people do not get access to God’s secrets but his secrets are revealed to his servants, the prophets. A prophet utters words inspired by God, a message to a person or the Christian Community. He speaks on God’s behalf, communicating the mind of God and what God thinks of a current situation or His intention for the future.

The purpose of prophecy is to encourage and build up the church. This is done when words of comfort are spoken from the mouth of God. "On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their building up and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church" (1 Corinthians 14:3-4). In the book of Ezekiel, we see the prophet prophesying and when he does so, it brings life to the dead bones. In a similar fashion when a prophet speaks words of God he gives life to the spiritually dead.

Here are some of the facets of the gift of prophecy:

It requires no interpretation.

It must be used in proportion to ones faith (cf. Romans 12:6).

The person operating the gift is responsible to maintain both order and submission to the Church’s shepherds (CCC801). "And the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Corinthians 14:32).

Prophets can make mistakes so each prophecy must be weighed carefully (1 Corinthians 14:29).

Prophecy convinces the unbeliever of the presence of God (1 Corinthians 14:24-25).

Prophecy should be comforting and not distressing or uncertain to the one who is receiving it.

If the prophecy has to do with the future, it must come to pass, if it doesn’t come to pass it means the prophet is a false prophet.

The Charisms: 5 - The Gift of Miracles

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The Christian faith is based on the miracles of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. The gift of working of miracles reinforces the authenticity of this gospel truth. Jesus life was filled with signs and wonders from heaven above. He walked on water (Matthew 14:25), multiplied bread and fed thousands (Matthew 15:32-38), calmed the storm (Mark 4:39), disappeared (Luke 24:31), passed through walls (John 20:19), caught 153 fish at one time (John 21:11), and raised the dead (John 11:44, Luke 7:11-15, Matthew 9:23-25) in addition to several other miracles. In each of these miracles we see that God changed the course of nature and thus proved to be God of all gods.

Many Christians have this gift but it is largely ignored due to humanistic thinking. We tend to come up with practical ways of solving problems. We must expect God to work miracles in our lives and in the lives of others through us. Here are some examples of what men did through the power of God:

While the Apostles prayed that God stretch out His hand "to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus ... the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness" (cf Acts 4:30-33).

While Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, "there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened" (cf Acts 16:25-26).

Peter brought Tabitha (Dorcas) back to life after she had died (cf Acts 9:36-41).

Paul brought Eutychus back to life after he went to sleep while Paul was preaching, fell out of the window and died (cf Acts 20:9-12).

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them (Acts 19-11).

The Charisms: 4 - The Gift of Healing

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Jesus ministry involved preaching, teaching and healing. Jesus healed the sick, cured lepers and gave sight to the blind. He passed on this same authority to his disciples. "Cure the sick," he told them. "Raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment" (Matthew 10:8).

The purpose of this gift is manifold. It shows God’s mercy and compassion on the sick and the suffering (Acts 10:38, Luke 13:16), demonstrates that Christ is the Son of God (John 10:36-38), confirms the Word (Mark 16:15-18, Acts 4:29-30), helps attract people to the Gospel (Luke 4:40-43), and brings glory to God (Mark 2:12, Luke 13:13, Luke 18:42-43, John 9:2-3).

The gift of healing is a special gift granted to someone whereby when they pray over someone, the process of healing takes place quickly, sometimes instantly. This gift operates on three levels: mental, physical and spiritual. Catholics accept this gift in the lives of the saints, but find it difficult to accept in the lives of ordinary Christians, especially themselves.

The person with the gift, however, cannot heal everybody. Who is healed and who isn’t is, of course, decided by God, who sometimes decide to withhold healing. As the Catechism states: "The Holy Spirit gives to some a special charism of healing so as to make manifest the power of the grace of the risen Lord. But even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses. Thus St. Paul must learn from the Lord that "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness," and that the sufferings to be endured can mean that "in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church" (CCC 1508).

Here are some examples of Christians healing the sick.

Peter healed Aneneas, who had been bedridden for eight years with paralysis (cf. Acts 9:33-34).

Peter heals a crippled beggar by the gates of the temple (cf. Acts 3:1-8).

Peter’s shadow was sufficient to heal many. "Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by. A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured" (Acts 5:14-16)

Paul healed a crippled man in Lystra who was lame from birth (cf. Acts 14:8-10).

The Charisms: 3 - The Gift of Faith

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This gift inspires a person to pray with God given confidence, knowing that what is asked for will be granted. In the beginning of Acts 3, we find Peter and John going up to the temple to pray and finding a man sitting by the gates. He had been crippled from birth. When he saw Peter and John, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, "Look at us." And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk." And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

What Peter had was faith, and with this faith, the crippled man was dramatically healed. Faith is a powerful gift. Jesus said, "For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). On another occasion, he said, "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father" (John 14:12).

The gift of faith is a supernatural gift given to a person whom the Lord wants to use to make the impossible possible. As we just saw, Peter and John went against natural laws to heal the crippled man in the name of Jesus. We must not confuse this gift of faith with the virtue of faith that every Christian is called to have. Regular faith, as the Catechism puts it, "is man’s response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life" (CCC 26).

If we lack faith, we can ask the Lord to help us, as the apostles once did. They came to Jesus one day and said to Him: "Increase our faith" (Luke 17:5). Other spiritual gifts depend on faith. For instance, Paul tells us that prophecy should be used only in proportion to our faith (cf Romans 12:6). At various times through His ministry Jesus spoke about how people are healed in proportion to their faith. "Go; let it be done for you according to your faith," he told the Centurion, who asked Jesus to heal his servant in complete faith. The servant was instantly healed (cf. Matthew 8:5-13). On another occasion he touched the eyes of two blind men who sought healing, saying, "According to your faith let it be done to you." They, too, were instantly healed (cf. Matthew 9:27-30).

Here are a few examples of what humans can do through God when faith is strong.

Elijah declared to King Ahab that there would be no rain until he said the word. His gift of faith, along with prayer, produced the desired effect (see 1 Kings 17; James 5:17-18).

Joshua used the gift of faith to command the sun to stand still and the moon to stop for about a whole day until they won the war against the Amorites (see Joshua 10:1-13).

Paul saw through the deceit of Elymas and struck him blind (see Acts 13:8-11).

Peter rebuked Ananias and Sapphira and proclaimed God’s judgment on them (see Acts 5:1-10).

The Charisms: 2 - The Gift of Knowledge

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The gift of knowledge (different from the Isaiah gift of knowledge), is a gift by which the Spirit gives a person a deeper understanding of a mystery of faith, or specific knowledge about a person or situation that could not be known, unless God revealed it.

We see Jesus using this gift often. On one occasion, Jesus stopped by in Samaria for a drink of water and engaged in a conversation with a woman who had come to draw water from the well. He knew that she had five husbands (cf. John 4:18-19) without her having spoken of it. One another occasion, Jesus told a man named Nathaniel that He had seen him sitting under the fig tree a little while earlier, even though Jesus had not even been near the area at the time (cf. John 1:47-48).

The gift of knowledge operates by faith and is received in one’s spirit, not intellect or emotions. It may be shared with the person to whom it is related and is an invaluable asset in the ministry of counseling. The gift can be used for a variety of other purposes too. It helps to reveal sin as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira (cf. Acts 5:1-10), and in the case of King David (cf. 2 Samuel 12:1-10). The gift can be used to encourage as it encouraged Elijah when he heard God’s voice in the mountain (1 King 19:9-18). It can be used to impart knowledge of future events, as Agabus came to know about a great famine that would sweet over the entire world (Acts 11:28). It can also be used to reveal hidden things—or hidden people—as Samuel located Saul who had tried to conceal himself among baggage! (cf. 1 Samuel 10:22).

This gift very often operates hand in hand with the gift of wisdom. Here are a few other examples of the gift of knowledge in operation, and how the gift of wisdom comes into simultaneous play:

Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream concerning the coming years of plenty and drought and then, with the gift of wisdom, advised Pharaoh of the steps that needed to be taken (cf. Genesis 41:1-36).

Elijah knew that Gehazi had run after Naaman claiming a reward for healing the army general. He then pronounced the judgment of God upon Gehazi through the gift of Wisdom (cf. 2 Kings 5:20-27).

Daniel discovered Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, which the king had refused to reveal, and then interpreted it using the gift of Wisdom (cf Daniel 2:1-47).

God told Ananias of Paul’s conversion through the gift of Knowledge and, using the gift of wisdom, the steps he needed to take (cf. Acts 9:10-16).

The Charisms: 1 - The Gift of Wisdom

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The Pharisees were out to get Jesus and constantly laid plans to trap him in his words. "Teacher," they said to him one day, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar’s," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s" (Matthew 22:15-21).

This was an example of the gift of wisdom in action. The gift of wisdom—or word of wisdom—is a divine revelation of the mind, will, purpose, plan, or counsel of God that directs a person to make the right response, decision or judgment in a particular situation. This revelation could be related to things of the past, present, or future. It is a fragment of the Isaiah gift of wisdom, imparted by the Holy Spirit, at a particular time, for a specific need or situation.

The gift of wisdom is the application of the gift of knowledge which we will look at next, knowing what to say or how to act with the natural or supernatural knowledge that God gives the person. It cannot be attained academically, nor can it be gained by experience. It stands first in the list in terms of its importance, because it enables us to speak and act with divine wisdom. This gift ensures the correct use and application of other gifts. When wisdom is absent, the other gifts can be used wrongly.

The gift of wisdom can come through various forms, like an inner impression or an image. When we see these impressions or images, we need to ask God for its meaning, otherwise the image serves no purpose. The prophet Jeremiah saw a series of visions including the branch of an almond tree and a boiling pot that was tilted that God had to interpret to him (Jeremiah 1:11-14).

The gift of wisdom can come in the form of a revelation of Scripture like that which came to the mind of Peter when he went about preaching his first sermon (cf. Acts 2:14-21), or a dream like Joseph saw when God wanted him to flee to Egypt (cf. Matthew 2:13). Sometimes, God reveals things in the form of a vision, as Peter experienced when he saw a sheet of clean and unclean animals being let down to earth by its four corners (cf. Acts 10: 11-16). Sometimes, He reveals things through an angelic visitation, as Joshua experienced when he met an angel who told him how to conquer Jericho (cf. Joshua 5:13-15). Sometimes, God speaks through an audible voice, like He did during Jesus’s baptism in the river Jordan (cf. Matthew 3:16-17).

The gifts of prophecy or tongues are modes of revealing the gift of wisdom.

Here are some more examples of the gift of wisdom in operation:

Moses received a word of wisdom on how to sweeten the bitter water in Marah and make it drinkable during the Israelite exodus (cf. Exodus 15:23-25).

Moses received a revelation of how to share the load of judging people by appointing seventy elders (cf. Numbers 11:16-17).

Moses received a revelation of how to save the people from poisonous snakebites by raising a bronze serpent (cf. Numbers 21:6-9).

The prophet Amos saw the judgment of God revealed through images of locusts, fire and a plumb line (cf. Amos 7:1-9), and later, a basket of summer fruit (cf. Amos 8:1-3).

God warned the wise men not to return to Herod (cf, Matthew 2:12).

Paul received instruction not to go into Asia and Bithynia (cf. Acts 16:6,7), and later, to go into Macedonia (cf. Acts 16:9-10).

James received wisdom when confronted with the serious issue of circumcision at the first church council (cf. Acts 15:1-29).

Paul received instruction on how to survive the storm he encountered at sea (cf. Acts 27).

The Charisms: Intro

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Spiritual gifts (or charismata) are gifts that are bestowed on Christians, each having his or her own proper gift (or gifts) to strengthen the church. They are described in the New Testament, primarily in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses" (1 Corinthians 12:4-11).

These gifts are granted to every Christian to perform his/her task in the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains: "Whether extraordinary or simple and humble, charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world. Charisms are to be accepted with gratitude by the person who receives them and by all members of the Church as well. They are a wonderfully rich grace for the apostolic vitality and for the holiness of the entire Body of Christ, provided they really are genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit and are used in full conformity with authentic prompting of this same Spirit, that is, in keeping with charity, the true measure of all charisms" (CCC 799-800).

There are nine gifts in all that can be grouped in three categories:

1. Gifts of Discernment (or mind gifts), which comprise Knowledge, Wisdom, and Discernment of Spirits;

2. Gifts of Power (or action gifts), which comprise Faith, Miracles, and Healing; and

3. Gifts of Proclamation (or gifts of the tongue), which comprise Prophecy, Tongues, and the Interpretation of Tongues.

We will look at the gifts in the order they are mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

Tomorrow: The Gift of Wisdom

The Power of the Blood of Christ

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There is immense power in the blood of Christ, but many among us don't have a complete understanding of the significance of this power and its application in our lives. To be able to gain this understanding, however, we first need to understand the two ways in which Scripture speaks of blood. There is blood that has been shed and blood that has been sprinkled.

Christians participating in the Holy Eucharist will be familiar with the former. When the priest raises the chalice, he speaks for Jesus as he quotes him in Luke 22:20, saying, "Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you ...." But many are unfamiliar with the latter. We need to go into the Old Testament to discover the power of blood being sprinkled.

Protection (see Exodus 12)
The first reference we come across about sprinking of blood can be found in Exodus 11. God has struck Egypt with 9 plagues, one after another, but a hard hearted Pharoah refuses to give the Israelites their freedom. God is about to unleash the 10th and final plague, this one striking down the first born of all in Egypt, both men and animals. He would, however, spare the Israelites provided they did what he told them to do, which was to take the blood of a lamb and sprinkle it on the doorposts of their houses. That night the angel of death moved through Egypt. Every firstborn child of the Egyptians died, but the Israelite children were spared because the blood of the lamb had been sprinkled on their doorframes.

Covenant (see Exodus 24)
After redeeming Israel with the blood of the Passover Lamb, God initiates a covenant with the newborn nation through Moses, saying, "If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, I will be your God and you will be my people" (cf. Exodus 19:4; see also Jeremiah 7:23; 11:4). Moses takes a bowl containing the blood of a bull and sprinkles half of it on an altar he has built at the foot of the mountain. He then takes the other half to the people. He reads the laws of the covenant to the people and asks them what they have to say about it. In unison, they respond, "We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey." Moses then took the blood, and sealed the covenant by sprinkling on the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you."

Communion (see Exodus 24)
Immediately after this, "Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, along with seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God the Israel". In Exodus 3, we see Moses going up the mountain but turning his face away from God because he was afraid of looking upon the face of God, because it meant death (cf. Exodus 33:20), "but God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank". Moses and 73 others not only looked upon the face of God, but they ate and drank with him, because they had been sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificial offering and made clean.

Forgiveness (see Leviticus 16)
And finally we come to sprinking of blood that had the most significance. The Day of Atonement was the greatest day of the year for Israel. On this day, the people confessed their sins as a nation, and the high priest went into the Most Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies, to make atonement for their sins. He would take with him a censer full of burning coals, two handfuls of incence, and a basin containing the blood of a bull. Within the Holy of Holies was a piece of furniture comprising two parts: the Ark of the Convenant and the atonement cover which rested on top of it. The atonement cover, or the mercy seat, was God's dwelling place in the tabernacle. (cf. Exodus 25.22). The high prest would put the incense on the burning coals and as the smoke ascended upwards, he would dip his finger into the basin of blood and with his finger, sprinkle it on the mercy seat seven times. When he came out, the people would rejoice because they all believed, without a shadow of doubt, that their sins had been forgiven.

Jesus, the Lamb of God
2,000 years ago, a new sacrifice was offered: God's own son, Jesus. His blood was shed for us on the cross of Calvary. Let these words from Hebrews 9:11-15 sum up all the conclusions I wish to make:

When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle ... He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

Let us sprinkle the blood of Christ upon ourselves every day, and be secure and confident in the knowledge that we are forgiven (cf. Ephesians 1:7; 1 John 1:7), we are protected (cf. Revelation 12:11), we are under a new and everlasting covenant of love that nothing can separate us from (cf. Romans 8:35-39), and that we can dare approach the great throne room and not only stand face to face with God, but also dare to call him Father (cf. Ephesians 2:13-14, 1 John 3:1, Hebrews 10:19).

The Luck of Roaring Camp

2010-12-07T17:46:00.000+04:00

I was looking for illustrations for a Christmas sermon and I came across a lot of little jewels. This is one of the best of them.

Did you ever read Bret Harte's story The Luck of Roaring Camp? Roaring Camp was supposed to be, according to the story, the meanest, toughest mining town in all of the West. More murders, more thefts--it was a terrible place inhabited entirely by men, and one woman who tried to serve them all. Her name was Cherokee Sal. She died while giving birth to a baby.

Well, the men took the baby, and they put her in a box with some old rags under her. When they looked at her, they decided that didn't look right, so they sent one of the men eighty miles to buy a rosewood cradle. He brought it back, and they put the rags and the baby in the rosewood cradle. And the rags didn't look right there. So they sent another of their number to Sacramento, and he came back with some beautiful silk and lace blankets. And they put the baby, wrapped around with those blankets, in the rosewood cradle.

It looked fine until someone happened to notice that the floor was so filthy. So these hardened, tough men got down on their hands and knees, and with their hardened and horny hands they scrubbed that floor until it was very clean. Of course, what that did was to make the walls and the ceiling and the dirty windows without curtains look absolutely terrible. So they washed down the walls and the ceiling, and they put curtains at the windows. And now things were beginning to look as they thought they should look. But of course, they had to give up a lot of their fighting, because the baby slept a lot, and babies can't sleep during a brawl.

So the whole temperature of Roaring Camp seemed to go down. They used to take her out and set her by the entrance to the mine in her rosewood cradle so they could see her when they came up. Then somebody noticed what a dirty place that was, so they planted flowers, and they made a very nice garden there. It looked quite beautiful. And they would bring her, oh, shiny little stones and things that they would find in the mine. But when they would put their hands down next to hers, their hands looked so dirty. Pretty soon the general store was all sold out of soap and shaving gear and perfume and those kinds ...

... the baby changed everything.

With Eyes Fixed on God: 2. Facing Huge Difficulties

2010-09-27T14:14:00.004+04:00

Jehoshaphat was one of the kings who ruled Judah, and from all accounts (see 2 Chronicles 17-21), he was one of the better rulers the country had. There came a time during his reign that his nation faced a disaster. Three huge armies set out to make war on him. Not surprisingly, Jehoshapat was alarmed, but in a notable departure from the regular, he sought the counsel of God in the matter. His prayer ended with these words: "For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you" (2 Chronicles 20:12).

God told him not to worry: "Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s" (2 Chr 20:15). Jehoshaphat took the advice to heart, as well as other advice that he received to do nothing but praise God. So while the invading armies prepared to annihilate Jehoshaphat, the king sent his own army with instructions to "sing to the Lord and to praise him ... as they went out at the head or the army, saying: "Give thanks to the Lord for his love endures forever.""

A sure recipe for disaster you might think, but think again. As they began to sing and praise, the Lord sowed confusion and discord among the invading armies who, instead of attacking and destroying Judah, attacked and destroyed each other leaving the battlefield empty. The battle was, indeed, the Lord's.

We, too, in our lives, are sometimes faced with mighty adversities that seem overwhelming. And overwhelm us, they will, unless we turn to God in faith and prayer like this king did. It might seem silly what this king did, but the victory he achieved is an indication of how powerful prayer and faith in tandem can be.

A lady came to me a me a week ago telling me she was half a million dirhams in debt. That's about US$ 136,000. That was a staggering debt to pay off for any salaried person. She told me that she was praying, but God was not doing anything to clear her debt. I had to explain that God wasn't going to send somebody with a check for half a million — we have to suffer the consequences of our folly — but what God would do was to help her repay the debt IF she focussed on him. If she kept her eyes on him. Otherwise, she would drive her car into a brick wall, like she told me she wanted to.

I have had people facing similar situations in the past testifying as to how God took them through when they relied on him. He did this in far less time and with much greater ease than they had ever imagined. So I know that this is not just a story in the Bible to give people hope; it works! And it's not only with looming financial catastophes that God helps us, but he's there to assist us in every difficult situation we face in our lives. It takes humility, however, and a certain amount of courage to be able to go to God and say to him, just as Jehoshaphat did: "Lord, I have no power to combat the obstacles in my life. I don't know what to do. But I got my eyes upon you!"

Get your eyes fixed on him for the victory that you seek, the deliverance that you need, the freedom that you desire. It's all it really takes.

Next: With Eyes Fixed on God: 3. In the Middle of a Storm

With Eyes Fixed on God: 1. Snakes in the Desert

2010-09-24T19:51:00.002+04:00

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

I've always loved the movies and among the many movies I have watched, I have really enjoyed the Indiana Jones series. I guess it appeals to the child in me. There is one scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark that was memorable. Indy falls into a dark pit and it seems to him that the ground under his feet is moving. He strikes a match and to his horror he finds the floor crawling with hundreds of snakes. "I hate snakes," he says, his fear of them very evident in his eyes.

I suspect that most of us hate them as well, and it isn't very surprising when we think of the painful death they can cause when they bite us. This is what the Israelites suffered during their travels through the desert. Scripture says that "the Lord sent venomous snakes among them" but as we are learning, we can't take everything in the Bible literally. What the writers probably meant is that the Lord withdrew his hand of protection over the Israelites and let the snakes bite them. But why would he do this? To teach them a lesson perhaps. Let's see what happened just prior to this.

One, the Israelites grew impatient along the way. We may be inclined to feel a little sympathetic towards them considering that they were on the road for a long time until we understand that it is this impatience that kept them on the road for so long. The journey from Egypt to the Promised Land was barely a few weeks, but it took them forty years to make it!!!

God puts us through situations in our lives to teach us patience, to teach us to wait upon him, and the quicker we learn these lessons, the quicker we get out of the situations. Unfortunately, like the Israelites we too get impatient, and then we too wander around, sometimes for years, until we get to where we want to be.

Two, they spoke against God and against Moses, which is never a good idea, because when you speak against someone you are, in effect, rebelling against them. What do you want God to make of rebellion?

I know of people who are constantly speaking against God, sometimes even cursing him because they aren't happy with the way he is working in their lives. I'm no Moses, but they speak against me too, sometimes for the strangest possible reasons.

Three, they whined and moaned, asking God why he brought them up out of Egypt? Obviously, they had forgotten that they had begged and pleaded with him to get them out, fed up with the years of suffering they had underwent at the hands of the Egyptians.

We, too, make prayers of God, sometimes perhaps not realizing that God does answer prayers, but in his own fashion. Unable to deal with this, we question God in a similar manner, presuming we know better than he does.

Four, they exhibited a tragic lack of faith when they spoke of dying in the desert, indicating that they had also forgotten everything that God had done to ensure they were safe. He got them out of Egypt without so much as a scar, gave them safe passage through the Red Sea when a blood thirsty army chased after them, kept their clothes, foot wear and health intact over the years, and they implied, by this question, that he was now incapable of keeping them alive.

I am sure that this, too, is familiar to us. We receive blessing after blessing — and we only have to take a cursory glance at our lives to see how true this is — but the moment we face something that is a little difficult, we believe God has abandoned us and we're headed for defeat and destruction.

Five, they complained that there was no bread or water, and in a shocking display of ingratitude, whinged about how they detested the manna God was giving them — given at no cost, without toil or labor!

Again, they didn't do anything we don't do.

I figure God must have decided if they really wanted to complain, he'd give them reason to, and when they came across a patch of desert sand infested with snakes, he withdrew his hand of protection, leaving them to ponder the consequence of a life without him to help them.

They began to get bitten and die painfully and not knowing what to do they turned to the same person they spoke against — Moses — to ask for help from the same God they spoke against — the mighty I AM. Fortunately for them, Moses was not one to hold grudges and he interceded with God, who also didn't hold grudges. He told Moses to "make a snake and put it up on a pole and get the people who were bitten to look at it for healing."

It seems here that God is breaking one of his own commandments about not fashioning any graven images (Exodus 20:4-5, 32:31), something that he appears to do again when he gives instructions on building the ark of the convenant (1 Chronicles 28:18-19), orders the carving of statues of angels (Exodus 25:18-20), and commanding that Aaron's priestly robes have pomegranates on them! (Exodus 28:31-34), but obviously there are circumstances in which God is okay with such things. (We are not going to talk about idol worship here; to understand more about this may I refer you to an article by Patrick Madrid).

So why is God doing this? To point people the way to salvation by making them aware of their sins and its consequences! What would the people who were bitten by the snake see when they saw an image of it nailed to the cross? They would see how their sins were causing them a painful death and repent of whatever they had done. This repentance would bring healing.

Do you recollect another instance when something was nailed to a cross? Of course you do. Many years later Jesus would say, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:14).

The serpent is not a representation of Jesus, but of the sin that Jesus took upon himself when he was crucified on the cross. If we want to stop sinning all we really need to do is to look at Jesus on the cross, understanding how much he suffered because of the things that we did. Most of us have looked at the cross and found forgiveness of our sins, but we tend to treat this as an event that took place two thousand years ago in another time and place, not realizing that it is a lifetime process of looking, and repenting.

I have reproduced a still from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ here. It is a particularly bloody picture of Jesus on the cross. Take a good look at it. Everytime we give into temptation, giving into thoughts that are sinful, it is as though we are piercing a new thorn into Christ's head. Everytime we give into temptation, doing things that are wrong, it is as though we are piercing a nail anew into his hands and feet. I don't know about you, but it makes me never wanna sin again.

What else do we find when we look at Jesus on the cross? Freedom! Romans 6:1-14 says this. It is a little long, but worth reading carefully.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

With eyes fixed on God, we get victory over sin and temptation, but that's not the only thing looking at God does to us. It gives us victory over overwhelming odds! Coming up next.

Interpreting Scripture - 2: Moses and the Burning Bush

2010-09-15T08:21:00.006+04:00

As we saw in my introductory article on the subject of interpreting Scripture, there are four senses of Scripture that we can use to get a better understanding of what God is trying to say to us: the literal sense, the allegorical sense, the moral sense and the anagogical sense. To see how these senses are used, let us look at the story of Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3).

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” (Exodus 3:1-14)

The best way to begin trying to understand what is happening in this passage is by asking a series of questions: Where? Who? Why? What? When?

Where is this passage from? The Book of Exodus. It's the second book of the Bible following Genesis. The two books, together with Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, form the Pentateuch (Torah to the Jews).

Who wrote it? A great deal of it has been written by Moses, but it cannot have been written entirely by him, as often suggested, because many portions tell the story of his life in the third person. It also describes his death. The literary form also varies considerably through the text.

Why was it written? To record the events of Israel's deliverance from Egypt and development as a nation.

What was the setting? Egypt. God's people who were once favored in the land were now slaves. God is about to set them free.

When was it written? Modern biblical scholarship places its final textual form in the mid 5th century. When did the events that are described in it happen? From about 1700 BC to 1280 BC.

Once these questions are answered, we need to see how the passage fits into the overall story. The book of Genesis ends with the death of Joseph. The book of Exodus begins about four hundred years later. Things have dramatically changed. The Israelites no longer enjoy the favor that Joseph enjoyed with the Egyptians. On the contrary, they have been made slaves for fear that their rapidly increasing numbers might make them a threat to the Egyptians. Seeing that this scheme of keeping their numbers down didn't work, Pharoah decrees that the midwives kill every baby boy at birth, but when his doesn't work either, he orders that "every boy that is born must be thrown into the Nile" (Exodus 1:22).

One mother decides to save her son but putting him in a basket and floating it on the Nile. When Pharoah's daughter went to bathe she discovered the baby and decided to adopt him for her own. The boy, named Moses, thus grew up as prince of Egypt. As he grew up, however, he began to identify with the Israelites, getting angry at the way they were treated.

One day, when he was about forty years old, he witnessed an Egyptian striking an Israelite. He lost his temper and struck down the Egyptian, killing him. (Here's a question to ask yourself: How do we know Moses was forty years old when this happened? There is no reference to this in the book of Exodus. Or in the Pentateuch. Or in the entire Old Testament for that matter! Answer: Stephen mentions his age in his speech to the Sanhedrin where he was on trial for his life - see Acts 7:23. But how did Stephen know this if it wasn't mentioned anywhere else in Scripture? That's a question for you to chew on. I'll provide the answer another time, but here is a clue to get you going. Is Sola Scriptura truly legit?)

After slaying the Egyptian, Moses now "thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not" (Acts 7:25). They had different ideas. "Who made you ruler and judge over us?" they asked (Ex 2:14). (What do you learn from this? Moses was trying to exercise authority that hadn't been given to him).

Rejected by the Israelites and on the run from the Egyptians — Pharoah discovered his crime — Moses fled to Midian. There he meets Zipporah to whom he gets married. He soon becomes a daddy (good thing that; if he stayed on to rule in Egypt he would have become a mummy). He also becomes a shepherd, tending flocks for his father-in-law Jethro. And he continues doing this for forty years, until one day he sees a bush burning .... which brings us to our story here.

The Allegorical Sense

We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ. In this passage, the God of the Burning Bush is generally considered to be a preconfiguration of Jesus, who would, himself, use the words I AM to describe himself many times, especially in the Gospel of John. Consider these statements:

"I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35)

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)

"I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture." (John 10:9)

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (John 10:11)

"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies." (John 11:25)

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener." (John 15:1)

But perhaps most telling was his remark to the Pharisees who sneered at him when he told them that Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing him.

“You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:57-58)

The Moral Sense

The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".

Here we see God commissioning Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. God gives us a similar commission. In Matthew 28:18-20 we see him saying:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

(Notice what Jesus says at the end. Just as God said to Moses, "I will be with you," Jesus says the same.) Like Moses, we make excuses, but we need to fulfill this commission to make disciples of all nations. We can't do that, however, unless we become disciples ourselves. And that takes some doing!

The Anagogical Sense

We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland, which is heaven.

From this passage (and subsequent chapters in Exodus) we see how important obedience is to fulfill God's plan in our lives. We often don't realize how important this obedience is when it comes to our eternal salvation. Jesus was particularly stern when he told the people:

"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’"

All the "Hallelujas" we say, and all the mighty deeds we do for God, are no substitute for obedience. which is a prime requisite for entry into heaven. Faith in Christ Jesus gets the gates open, but we still need to walk through them.

Next: Interpreting Scripture - 3: Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac

Interpreting Scripture

2010-09-01T19:40:00.013+04:00

Soon after my conversion, I started reading the Bible with fresh earnestness, eager to find out more about the Lord whom I had given my life to. I remember going through the gospel of Matthew, utterly fascinated by what I was reading, but coming to a shocked stop when I reached the end of Chapter 12 where it spoke about Jesus's mother and brothers.

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” (Matthew 12:46-47)

Brothers? Even though I had been an atheist for most of my life, I had been born a Catholic and the influence of my early years remained with me as did the memories of some of the things I had learned back then, including the virgin birth and Mary's perpetual virginity. What was this, then, about Jesus having brothers?

My confusion increased as I found more refences to the "brothers" of Jesus is the gospels of Mark and John (Mark 6:3, John 7:5) and also in the Book of Acts (Acts 1:14), and my first reaction was that the Church had fed everybody with a lot of fiction about Mary.

But then I thought a little more about it and I wondered how the Church could have possibly fooled millions of people for 2,000 years. Surely there would have been at least a few intelligent men through the years who would have questioned this. The Church must have its reasons to claim what they did.

I figured it might be wise to find out what theose reasons were and what I discovered quite astonished me. In the original text of the Gospel, we find the Greek word adelphos, meaning "brother," used. However, adelphos does not just mean blood brothers born of the same parents, but used to describe a variety of relationships including half-brothers, step-brothers, cousins and even uncles!

While this did not prove that Jesus didn't have brothers, it certainly threw the door wide open for more questions. Like: Why wasn't there any reference to Jesus's brothers in Luke 2:41-42 when Jesus was lost at the temple? Surely, if there was any place where they would have been mentioned it was here. But this was still not very conclusive. I dug deeper and discovered a lot of other things indicating that Jesus may not have brothers, but what sealed it for me was John's narrative of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:25-27)

If Jesus had brothers, he would have left his mother with them, not with John, regardless of how favored a disciple he was. Besides, if they existed, they would have been there while Jesus was being crucified, wouldn't they?

Now that I realized the Church was not as manipulative as I had briefly imagined, I began to look to it for answers to the more difficult questions that I had, not surprised any more than not only did they have them, but in almost every single instance they were very rational, very logical, and very Scriptural!

Take this for an example. After reading the New Testament, I began reading the Old Testament and I had a lot of questions crop up in my mind as I read the book of Genesis. One of them was this: Adam and Eve had a number of children including Cain, Abel and Seth (cf. Genesis 4:1-2; 5:3-4). For these children to have reproduced, they would have had to marry each other. Is this what happened? Might there be another explanation? I thought I got the answer one evening when a preacher I was listening to suggested that after God created Adam and Eve, he may have created other people around the world. It seemed a reasonable explanation that would also account for the different races we find on the earth. There was also nothing in Genesis to contradict this viewpoint, but I decided to check what the Church taught on the subject. A little digging uncovered this from Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis:

... the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own (HG37).

And what did Scripture (the "sources of revealed truth" mentioned above) have to say? I took encouragement from Luke's words in Acts 17:11 where he said that "the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" to verify what the Holy Father said. Here is what is in the Bible:

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. (Acts 17:26)

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— (Romans 5:12)

Wow! Theories may be interesting, but they need not necessarily be the truth!

The Church also had guidelines to interpreting Scripture that I found remarkably useful and this article hopes to pass on some of what I learnt. Although it cannot possibly be as comprehensive as I might like it to be, I hope the few pointers I share will help you in your own study of Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) offers some sterling advice in paragraphs 112-114..

The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.

1. Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture". Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God's plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover (cf. Luke 24:25-27, 44-46).

2. Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church". According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church's heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God's Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church").

3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith. By "analogy of faith" we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation (cf. Romans 12:6).

The Senses of Scripture

The CCC also suggests we take into account the two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual. The spiritual sense is further divided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. Don't let the words throw you; it's all simpler than you may think and a few examples will make it all clear. But let me first quote the definitions from the CCC itself.

The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal." (Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text).

The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

- The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.

- The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".

- The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

As I said before, this may sound intimidating, but it isn't really. A couple of illustrations will help us to understand how to interpret Scripture using these four senses.

Next: Interpreting "The Sacrifice of Isaac" and "The Burning Bush"

The Truth Teller

2010-06-04T18:19:00.006+04:00

I have a weighing scale in my bathroom that I’ve been deliberately avoiding for the past couple of months because I was sure I wouldn’t like what I saw if I stood on it. On the first of June, I finally did, and although I wasn’t really surprised by what I saw, it still shocked me. The display read 89 kilos, the most I have ever weighed, putting me at least 15 kilos over what my weight should be. It triggered all kinds of bells in my head.

The reason I got on that scale, however, was because of a little note I received from a young girl the previous evening. A Filipino, she is part of one of our communities. Her note said: "Brother Aneel, you need to watch what you eat and look after your health because we need you around for a lot longer." What I read between the lines was this: You’re getting fat! Watch your weight!

I think of this young girl as a Truth Teller.

We all need Truth Tellers to point out things that might be going wrong in our lives, or make us aware of blind spots in them that we can’t see unless they are told to us, or neglecting things that we should be paying more attention to. The Bible has many stories of Truth Tellers, one of the most famous being Nathan who spoke the truth to King David (see 2 Samuel 11-12). Here is the story in brief.

King David was the second king of Israel. He followed Saul to the throne and was a much admired, much respected ruler. He, however, had one weakness: women. Despite the number of wives and concubines he had, his lust was insatiable, and one day, when he spied a woman bathing from his terrace, his desire was stirred again.

He sent a servant to find out about the woman. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” (2 Sam 11:3). Rarely in Scripture, is the geneology of a woman mentioned, and it is highly relevant that in this case, not only is mention made of her father, but also of her husband. The servant, a Truth Teller if anything, was gently pointing out to the king: this girl is somebody’s daughter and somebody’s husband. Think about what you are doing.

Lust is blinding and the king ignored the warning. He sent for Bathsheba and consummated his desire for her. Satisfied, temporarily anyway, he sent her away, believing it to be the end of yet another little adventure, but this was to turn into a misadventure, because the woman became pregnant with his child.

Worried about the reaction of her husband, Uriah, a popular soldier in David’s army, the king immediately became to think of ways to cover up the discovery. Finally, he sent for Uriah, who was currently fighting a war, ostensibly on the excuse of finding out what was happening on the battlefield, and once the conversation was over, he sent the husband home, thinking he would sleep with his wife and believe the baby born was his.

Uriah, however, did not think it was right to go home to his wife when his fellow soldiers were out fighting a war so he went and spent the night in the barracks.

Alarmed, but undaunted that his first Cover Up Plan didn’t work, David sets Plan #2 in motion. He sends for the soldier again, this time plying him with alcohol, believing that drunk, Uriah would go home to his wife. Yet again, however, Uriah showed that he had more morals than this now dissolute king and spent the night in the barracks.

Unnerved, but determined that Uriah should never discover the truth, the king thinks up Plan #3, and what a plan it is. He sends for Uriah once more and this time gives him a letter to take to his army commander Joab. In the letter is written this: “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” (2 Sam 11:15)

Uriah died in battle.

David waited for what he thought was a decent time, then made Bathsheba his wife and now, with everything satisfactorily resolved, undoubtedly believed that life would continue as usual. Fortunately, for him, it didn’t.

I want us to pause here for a moment and look at the state of David’s soul at this moment in time. Anybody who has experienced the passions of lust, knows how self destructive it is. And how consuming it is. I had told a story in an article I had written about lust some time ago of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The account is grisly, but it offers an insight into the all consuming, self-destructive nature of lust. "First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.

Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night.

So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more—until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!"

Though the Bible doesn’t say so, I’m pretty sure that David had become like this wolf who had tasted frozen blood, with murder, after the initial guilt pangs, only whetting his appetite. He was heading for certain destruction until God decides to send a prophet called Nathan to tell the king some hard truths.

It isn’t an easy job. The king has already murdered once. What was there to stop him murdering again? Nathan decides not to confront the king directly. He tells him a story of two men, one a rich man with a large number of sheet and cattle; the other a poor man with nothing by a small little ewe lamb that he loved like a child. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. One day a traveler came to the rich man. Rather than take an animal from his huge flock to prepare a meal for the traveler, the rich man took the poor man’s ewe and slaughtered it.

David burned with anger and said to Nathan, "The man who did this deserves to die."

Nathan says to David, "You are the man.”

This scene would be a movie director’s delight, I imagine. Two men, frozen, eyes fixed on each other. Both trembling. One out of rage. The other out of fear.

I can almost hear the thoughts running through both men’s minds. David thinking, “How dare you come before your king with a story like that?” Nathan thinking, “Please Lord, let this not end with my death.”

The king’s hand drops to his sword. He thinks, “Okay. So I gotta kill this guy too. Big deal.” And Nathan, “Oh dear, here it comes.”

But then a long pause as memories fill David’s head. Of a shepherd boy being plucked out of obscurity to be anointed as king of Israel. Of slaying a mighty giant with one smooth stone and instantly ending a war. Of dancing in joy before the Ark of the Covenant as he brings it back to Israel. Of the wonderful relationship that he used to have with God.

David's hand drops. Tears roll down his cheeks. He repents. (And Nathan, I imagine, starts breathing again.)

What if God hadn’t sent Nathan to David? I believe this story would have had a totally different ending. David needed a truth teller to understand the evil of what he had done (and was possibly still doing). All of us need a Truth Teller in our lives. Find one in your life today.

And then act upon the truth that you are told.

Ever since I realized that I needed to lose weight, I have started going out for walks again. It was a little problem finding the time for it because I wake up at 5.30 and sleep at 12.30, and other than a short nap in the afternoon, all the time is spent in work, study or prayer. (I could have skipped the nap, but with temperatures reaching 45 degrees at this time of the year, I wouldn’t be able to do much without getting a serious case of sunstroke.) I discovered, however, that if I skipped breakfast and reading the newspaper, with a few other adjustments, I could free up an entire hour in the morning. I use it to walk. And if I persist, I am sure the end of the month would see me leaner and fitter. And my dear Truth Teller can see me around for a few more years :)

Next: Other Truth Tellers in the Bible

The Restoration of Peter

2010-05-04T11:48:00.008+04:00

Some time after Jesus rose from the dead, his apostles went fishing again. This wasn't for men, as Jesus had told them to do (Luke 5:10), but for fish. Scripture isn't clear about the reasons Peter and a few of the others did this — whether they wanted to return to their old way of life or were just providing for themselves — but they went fishing and didn't catch a thing!

When morning came, Jesus was by the shore. They didn't recognize him, which might have been understandable the first time he appeared to them, but not so easy to understand now. But never mind. Jesus asked them if they had caught anything. It's not a question fishermen like to hear when their nets are empty and I'm guessing their answer was a brusque, "No".

Jesus told them to cast their nets to the right side and this time they caught a net load. Deja vu. This has happened before (Luke 5:6) and John, comprehending, said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" Peter immediately plunged into the water (after putting his clothes on, thankfully) and waded towards Jesus, who already had a fire burning with a few fish roasting on the coals. "Breakfast," he said. (Have you ever eaten fried fish for breakfast?)

After they were done eating, he turned to Peter, and in front of everybody else had a decidedly strange conversation, that impacted Peter thoroughly.

“Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep." (John 21:15-17)

The three-fold repetition was a direct reference to Peter's three-fold denial of Jesus, and it is important that we look at some of the events that went down at the time because they are very relevant to these remarks made by Jesus and the transformational impact they had on Peter.

Soon after the Last Supper (Luke 22:7-30), Jesus singled Peter out and said to him, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus knows that Peter is going to betray him, but rather than pray that the apostle remain firm and courageous in the midst of strife, he prays instead that "his faith may not fail". Faith in what? And then Jesus goes on to tell Peter that after he has turned back, to strengthen his brothers.

Peter is either being dense, or not paying attention, because he says: “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” (Luke 22:33-34).

That's exactly what happens. Jesus is arrested and beaten and seeing what is happening to his master throws Peter into a funk. He tries to hide in the crowd, but is recognized. He is challenged three times and all three times he denies knowing Jesus. Scripture describes what happens next, "The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter" (Luke 22:61)

I shudder to think of what went through Peter's mind when he looked into Jesus's eyes. Jesus's words to him must have flashed before his mind. His own brash reply. His betrayal. Utterly broken, he went out and wept bitterly. But through his tears of frustration, guilt, shame, agony and the million other feelings that went through his mind, feelings that must have made him want to die just like Judas had, one thought kept recurring to him: that Jesus still loved him.

This was the faith that Jesus prayed for Peter and it was a prayer that was answered. And now, with Jesus resurrected, it was time to help him understand what he needed to do with that faith: share the love that Jesus had for his brothers and sisters and strengthen them in turn.

We all fail. Repeatedly. Guilt often tortures us. Frustration makes many of us quit. But we need to remember what Peter remembered. That Jesus still loves us and is waiting to restore us. The only thing required is to go to him and confess our love for him.

It might help us to remember that not once did Jesus ask Peter if he was sorry. He didn't ask for any explanations. He didn't make him promise that he wouldn't do it again. He merely asked Peter if he loved him. That was all Jesus really wanted from Peter.

It is all he really wants from us.

But merely admitting that we love him isn't the end of the story. We need to serve him. And the best way is to tend the sheep that Jesus has left behind in the world. To care about them. To care for them. To love them.

A few additional notes before I conclude. It may help us to make note of some of the mistakes that Peter made that may have led to his betrayal of his Lord, so that we, in turn, can prevent making them ourselves.

One, he was overconfident. Overconfidence is always a result of pride. He might have very well intended to follow Jesus to jail and to death, but he didn't take into account his weakness.

Two, he wasn't in prayer. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked him to pray but sleep took precedence over prayer. Without the support of God through prayer we operate in our own strength.

Three, he didn't have Paul around to tell him that his struggle was not against flesh and blood but against forces in the heavenly realms (cf. Ephesias 6:12). A big mistake.

Four, he wasn't close to Jesus. In Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ we see Peter following Jesus from afar, almost as an observer. We need to be in Jesus and have him in us.

Five, when trying to hide, he chose the wrong company to hide with. If he had been with his fellow apostles, even though they too ran for their lives in the face of danger, he might have had a little support.

Jacob I Loved, But Esau I Hated

2010-04-29T10:21:00.002+04:00

"Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals." (Malachi 1:2-3)

One of the most puzzling statements in the Bible is this one where God said that he loved Jacob, but hated his brother Esau. Would God really do such a thing—love one man and hate another? My attempts to understand this very disconcerting comment threw up answers to not one, but several questions I had often asked myself. As they pertain to issues that are vital to our understanding of God and other subjects like predestination, justice, mercy and fairness, I thought it a good idea to address some of them here, beginning with the question of why God chooses to bless some people while damning others, as he seemed to do with Jacob and Esau.

Jacob and Esau (as you undoubtedly know) were Isaac's sons, grandchildren of the great patriarch Abraham. Despite being twins, they were totally unlike each other, both in appearance and in temperament. Esau, the older of the two, loved the outdoors and became a skilled hunter, endearing himself to his father who liked the wild game the boy brought home to cook. Introverted Jacob preferred to stay indoors and help his mother Rebekah in the house, making himself beloved of her. If opposites attract, it didn't hold good in this instance as there was hardly any love lost between the twins. The enmity apparently began in the womb: Rebekah complained that they constantly kicked and fought inside her!

Esau cut a pretty sorry figure as a little story about him showed. He went out hunting on one occasion. He must have been gone for a few days and not had much luck in snaring anything, because when he returned he was empty handed and starving. As chance would have it, Jacob had just cooked a pot of stew. Eagerly Esau asked for a serving, but Jacob, a schemer if there ever was one, told him that he could have it only in exchange for his birthright. In a remarkable act of idiocy, Esau agreed to the trade, instantly damning himself in the eyes of God.

To understand why this act provoked God's intense displeasure, you have to understand how important the birthright was. The birthright—the inheritance of the firstborn—consisted of leadership in the family, a double portion of inheritance, and the title to the covenant blessing promised to Abraham. It was given by God himself. By "despising his birthright" as the Book of Genesis states he did, Esau effectively thumbed his nose at God. (Many Christians today are guilty of the same thing, selling their birthright thoughtlessly by trading eternal blessings for momentary pleasures.)

But if Esau was a miserable specimen of the human race, Jacob was not far better. If anything, all stories of him indicate he was a worse character than Esau. What sort of a person, after all, would make a trade of this sort with his own brother? His actions in later life were not very redeeming either. When his father was dying, he conspired with Rebekah to steal the blessings that were reserved for Esau. After he married Rachel, he engineered the payment of outstanding wages by her father Laban in an extraordinarily deceitful way. And then, coming across Esau when journeying back to his homeland and scared that his brother would kill him, he sent his wife ahead to negotiate a peace rather than go himself. Ever the wheeler-dealer, on one occasion he even negotiated with God!

Why then, would God love this man? The only answer is the correct one: God's sovereign grace. For reasons of His own, that had nothing to do with anything Jacob was or did or would do, God chose Jacob as an object of His love and simply showered him with an abundance of it. From the time he left his father's house, desperate to escape the wrath of an enraged brother cheated of an inheritance, up until the time he died, soon after conferring blessings upon Pharoah himself, God's mighty hand rested upon Jacob in love and protection.

Why didn't God favor Esau with his love too, then? Surely God could have overlooked Esau's little foolishness, like he seemed to overlook so many of Jacob's failings. Why, instead, did God hate him so? (In Semitic usage "hate" means to "love less" but regardless of whether you accept this translation, or take "hate" to mean what we usually take "hate" to mean, it is obvious God did not care much for Esau. He did permit Esau to become the father of Edom, but there is no trace of the house of Esau or of Esau himself in history.) God gave Moses the answer to that question a long time ago:

"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." (Exodus 33:19)

Many would say this smacks of injustice. If God was just, he would grant Esau the same clemency that he did Jacob, the same grace, the same love. Anything else would be unjust, surely. But would it? To answer this question we need to understand what justice is and what mercy is and I would like to take a brief diversion into my own life to illustrate both.

For twenty five years I wandered about in the atheistic wilderness, living a hedonistic, amoral existence [see The Return of the Prodigal]. In July 2002, God drew me to conversion, and I was saved. Did I deserve to be saved? No! I deserved to die, because sin is punishable by death! That I didn't was the mercy of God in action, exercised totally because he deigned to.

Let us go back again to July 2002, and consider briefly what might have happened if God had chosen not to draw me to conversion. I would have simply died out there in the desert, and spent the rest of eternity grinding and gnashing my teeth until they wore down to the roots. Could I have blamed God for this? Of course not, because this would have been justice! But God chose, instead, to have mercy on me. Is mercy justice? Not quite. But then it is not injustice either; it is simply nonjustice.

It is important that we understand this. It is also important that we understand that God's mercy is entirely at his own discretion. Most of us take it for granted, believing that His mercy is automatically forthcoming. When it isn't, we cry, "Foul!" We would do well to remember that God is never obligated to be merciful. It is the same with grace. God never owes grace. Both grace and mercy are gifts and we shouldn't expect either. The only thing we should expect is justice. For all of us who persist in sin, that translates as death.

Taming the Tongue: Slander

2010-04-13T23:10:00.006+04:00

We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. (James 3:2-6)

Ever seen a forest fire? Every year, right across the globe, fires rage across forests, burning everything for miles and miles as they last for days, sometimes weeks. By the time they are spent whole acres are land are nothing by cinders. In many instances, these huge fires are caused by a smouldering matchstick or a cigarette butt that's been carelessly tossed away.

The tongue is like that match stick or cigarette butt. Tossed carelessly, it causes havoc that is often as bad as what we see after a forest fire, leaving reputations, honor and, very often, lives in ruins. Unfortunately, many of us don't realize that even as it destroys others, loose talk endangers our very salvation, as Jesus Himself warns. One day, speaking to the Pharisees (whose hypocrisy constantly kept his blood on the boil), he rasped:

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matthew 12:34-37)

The advice to them holds good to us: We will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word we have spoken. For by our words we will be aquitted, and by our words we will be condemned.

Think about the last conversation you had with someone. What did you say? Did you, either out of anger and malice, or for sheer entertainment, slander somebody? Did you, for a moment, think about the consequences your words might have on that person? Did you think about the consequences they might have on yourself? Chances are you didn't, otherwise you probably would have been very judicious about the things you said. And because you didn't think about any of this, it might be good to do so now and ponder about the ramifications of your words. They could be deadly. Does this sound a little over dramatic? Let me tell you a little story. It's a true story that took place recently.

Caroline D'Souza is a member of the HSI Community in Borivili. She went for a seminar by Catholic apologist Steve Ray when he was in Bombay last month. While there she met a young man who, in conversation, asked her if she belonged to any prayer group. She said that she didn't belong to any prayer group as such, but was part of Holy Spirit Interactive. "Aneel Aranha's ministry?" he asked. She nodded, pleased that he seemed to know me, but in a few moments her pleasure turned to shock as he told her that I was a rebel preacher who worked in total disobedience to the Church, and other assorted nonsense. Caroline is an intelligent girl but such is the power of slander, especially persuasive slander, that it can really rattle people.

Fortunately, she shared this with me, asking if there was any substance to these allegations. Bemused, I asked her where the HSI meetings were held. She said they were held in a Church. I asked her if she thought it was possible for me to have my meetings in a Church without the permission of a parish priest and she agreed that it wasn't. I then asked her if it was possible for the parish priest to invite me to start a full fledged community in his parish without the blessings of the Bishop and, again, she agreed that it wasn't. I didn't need to say anymore. As I said earlier, Caroline is an intelligent girl.

Frankly, I don't care what this bloke, who doesn't know me from Adam, says about me. I never cared what people said about me when I was a bad guy; I care even less now that I'm a good guy. But I shudder when I think of the damage these people—mostly Christians—are doing to the Church that we are trying to grow. I could get to Caroline and explain things to her, but what about the thousands of people I will never have a chance to meet and explain. They will simply believe the lies being fed to them and feed them to others in turn, not even attempting to find out if this is the truth! Think of the destruction caused by the slander!

There was once a man who hated a rival so much, he decided to destroy him, and slander was the easiest, most effective way. He accused his nemesis of loose sexual morals, and as the slanderer doesn't have to prove anything—the burden of proof falls on the accused—he succeeded in destroying the poor fellow's reputation, along with his marriage and much else, completely.

Some time later this man was overcome by remorse (I figure he must have really discovered Christ) and made his way to the confessional. There he poured out his sins, promising that he would never repeat his mistake. The priest listened to him patiently, absolved him, but then instead of giving him a few Our Father's or Hail Mary's to say as his penance, told the penitent to go to the market and get him a chicken. "On the way back, I want you to pluck the chicken," the priest told the man as he left the confessional.

Notwithstanding this rather strange penance, the man went to the market as instructed where be picked up the plumpest bird he could lay his hands on. As he returned to the church, he plucked the features off the bird and tossed them away one by one. By the time he got to the priest, the chicken was plucked clean. "Here's your chicken," he told the man of the cloth.

"I want you to go back to the market," the priest told him, "and stick the features back on the bird."

"But that is impossible," the man cried. "They would all be swept away by the wind!"

"Yes," the priest said. "Just like your words. Nothing you do will ever bring them back."

This is a story we would all do well not to forget, understanding that once we have spoken ill about somebody there is nothing we can do to get our words back. I'm not going to beat you on the head with more about this, though I would like to leave you with something that Paul warned the Corinthians about:

... nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:10)

And as a final note, do read the previous post on the Triple Filter Test. It offers some invaluable advice on how to deal with slanderers—and how to make sure that we don't become slanderers ourselves.

The Triple Filter Test

2010-04-09T08:35:00.003+04:00

In my talk on "Taming the Tongue" I narrated an anecdote about Socrates that you may find interesting—and useful, especially when it comes to dealing with gossipmongers.

Socrates, as you probably well know, was a Greek from yonks ago who was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed.

Still Standing in Chile

2010-03-02T17:28:00.000+04:00

Image credit AP/Gulf News

The End of the World - Part 2

2010-02-25T21:11:00.010+04:00

For those who missed the last post here's the parable of the Ten Virgins retold. It's got a lot to do with the end of the world so you may wanna read it closely.

Ten women go with lamps to await the arrival of the bridegroom. Five of them are prepared with extra oil. Five of them however make no extra preparation. It is what makes them "foolish" for reasons we will soon discover. The bridegroom is delayed in his coming and, tiring of waiting for him, the women fall off to sleep. Suddenly at midnight the bridegroom’s arrival is announced. The women wake up and check their lamps, the ones without surplus oil realizing that their lamps are running dry. They plead with the other women to share their oil, but the women refuse, saying there is not enough to go around. As the women without oil go out to try to find some, the bridegroom comes and takes those who are prepared with him to the wedding banquet. When the foolish women arrive much later, they are not allowed in. "I do not know you," the bridegroom says.

We're the women in the story - Christians carrying the lamps of salvation. The oil is, of course, generally considered a symbol of the Holy Spirit (cf. Exodus 29.7, 27:20, Psalm 133:2, Mark 6:13, James 5:14, Leviticus 8), and some of us are filled with him! As a result, love overflows from our hearts. And joy. And peace. And patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (cf Galatians 5:22-23). That's what happens when your lamp is full. Others among us have just about enough to get us by.

Jesus is the bridegroom and he is a little late in coming (folks have been expecting him for nearly 2000 years!), and we get complacent. Then suddenly - you gotta picture this - you hear the rumble of excited noise and, then, a moment later somebody yells out that Jesus is around the corner and he is headed your way. You do a lamp check and discover that you're short of oil. Very little love. Hardly any peace. You're low on everything. Worse, you got unconfessed sin your life. You have unforgiveness in your heart. There are areas in your life that are unsurrendered. You go out looking to right whatever's wrong and while you are gone, Jesus comes in and takes whoever is ready.

Finally, you get everything sorted and you make your way to the wedding banquet, which is heaven in case you haven't figured it out already. The gates are closed and as you approach it you see a man knocking on it. Jesus comes out and the man says to him, "Jesus, let me in. I'm a believer. I went for mass every Sunday and went for prayer meetings every Friday." But Jesus says to him, "Sorry, buddy, but that won't do. Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (cf. Matthew 7:21).

As you watch, open mouthed, another man knocks on the gates and says to Jesus. "Lord, let me in. I drove out demons and healed the sick and did other assorted miracles, all in your name." But Jesus says to him, "But you didn't have any love in your heart. Sorry, but I don't know you. Away from me, you evildoer!' (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Matthew 7:22-23).

You stand there frozen as yet another man approaches and asks Jesus to let him in. "I'm sorry, but I can't," Jesus replies. "I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' And the man answered, "Lord, when did I see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' And Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me" (see Matthew 25:31-46).

What do you think is going to happen to you? Are you going to be allowed in?

These things that I have spoken about are things that Jesus has said. He may have been speaking to the Jews, but His words are equally relevant to us. He constantly cautions us to be careful about how we lead our lives. Faith in Christ Jesus is the only thing we need to be saved, but once we are saved we can't continue to live like pagans. Paul and the other apostles also warn us repeatedly to be careful about this. See Paul's warning to the Galatians:

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

Paul was speaking to baptized Christians! As a Christian preacher I am duty bound to warn you too, despite the fact that it is an unpopular (and very scary!) message. A lot of people would have you believe that you have nothing to worry about and lulled into a false sense of complacency, you'd probably find yourself sleeping well at night. I would rather keep you awake a few nights here on earth, than have you spending an eternity of sleepless nights. I want to see you there at the wedding feast.

Which brings me to the important question? When is the feast gonna begin? Or, if you want to ask the question in a different way, when is the world going to end? I don't know. It could be five years from now; it could be fifty; it could be five hundred. But what I do know is that for YOU the world ends the day you die. And that could happen at any moment as the people in Indonesia discovered when the Tsunami came and swept them away. Or, more recently, as the people of Haiti found out when the ground swallowed them up; nearly 300,000 of them died in one single blow.

Are you ready?

The End of the World

2010-02-12T21:34:00.006+04:00

In the third week of December 2007, while I was in prayer I had a strong sense of God speaking to me, telling me that I needed to speed up on things a little because time was running out on humankind. "I'm going to pour out my grace in great abundance for the next five years," he said. "So make the most of it."

"And after that, what, Lord?" I asked. "You're gonna pull the plug?"

There was no reply, except for a repetition of the same message again, that for the next five years he was going to pour his grace out like never before, but about what was going to happen after that nary a word. God can be pretty annoying with the way he communicates sometimes.

I shared this with a few people who were close to me, and after a lot of subsequent thought and prayer came to the conclusion that — assuming the message was legitimate — God was going to do his best to draw as many people as he could for the next five years after which he would, quite possibly, take a step back and let the pieces just fall where they would.

Fast forward to January last year. I got into a conversation with a neighbor who asked me if I had heard anything about the world coming to an end in December 2012. My first thought was that somebody had told him of the "message" I had received and was getting set to rag me about it, but then decided that he couldn't possibly have heard about it. None of my confidants had big mouths. I asked him what made him think the world was coming to an end. He grinned cryptically and asked me to Google it.

I went home and did as he suggested, my mouth dropping open at the number of links about December 2012 that popped up. It seemed that everybody from the Mayans and the Chinese to the New Agers and certain astronomers believed the world was going to end in that month! A few months later Roland Emmerich got into the act, releasing his extremely popular disaster film 2012 based on these beliefs, leading a lot of people who had seen the movie, especially youngsters, to ask me if the world was ending in two years. For some reason people think preachers have the answers to all questions. Some folks asked Jesus the same question too, but, unlike me, he does have the answers to all questions, so it's best we see what he says.

Jesus had been sitting on the Mount of Olives when his disciples approached him. "“Tell us,” they said, “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).

After a long sermon on the signs they could expect to see, Jesus said he couldn't tell them when he would return. "No one knows about that day or hour," he said, cautioning them to be alert, therefore, because when the day did come, he would come like a thief in the night (cf. Matthew 24:36, 42-44). He then went on to tell them three stories: one about a bunch of women who were invited to a wedding; another about a man who went on a journey leaving varying amounts of money with his servants; and the third about the sorting out of the righteous from the unrighteous after the return of a king. We'll look at all the stories, the first in some detail.

The Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13)
“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ “ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. “Later the others also came. ‘Sir! Sir!’ they said. ‘Open the door for us!’ “But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’ “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

As with all the parables that Jesus told, this image is borrowed from the practices and customs of Jesus's times. Let's take a brief look at an Israelite wedding. In an Israelite wedding, the focus was not on the bride, as it is in our weddings. The focus was on the bridegroom.

When the time came for him to be married, he would leave his house, or his parents house, and make his way across town to the house in which all prospective brides waited. He would pick them all up and then make his way back to his house where the wedding celebrations would be held.

It could be pretty late when this happened, and night time in a first century Israelite village could get very dark. If you wanted to negotiate the darkness you needed a lamp, and you had to make sure that it stayed lit.

This is the setup for the story. And this is the story retold:

Ten women go with lamps to await the arrival of the bridegroom. Five of them are prepared with extra oil. Five of them however make no extra preparation. It is what makes them "foolish" for reasons we will soon discover. The bridegroom is delayed in his coming and, tiring of waiting for him, the women fall off to sleep. Suddenly at midnight the bridegroom’s arrival is announced. The women wake up and hastily trim their lamps. The ones without surplus oil realize that their lamps are running dry. They plead with the other women to share their oil, but the women refuse, saying there is not enough to go around. As the women without oil go out to try to find some, the bridegroom comes and takes those who are prepared with him to the wedding banquet. When the foolish women arrive much later, they are not allowed in. "I do not know you," the bridegroom says.

Next: So what does it all mean?

The Frogs

2010-02-10T17:00:00.005+04:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything lately, but I've been busy talking to catechists, confirmation kids and assorted others over the past few days, I didn't have any time to write anything. But here is something I felt you may enjoy. It was sent to me by a friend this morning (thanks Julie!) and I found it charming.

A farmer came into town and asked the owner of a restaurant if he could use a million frog legs. The restaurant owner asked the man where he could possibly get so many legs.

The farmer replied, 'There is a pond near my house that is full of frogs - millions of them. They croak all night long and drive me crazy!'

So the restaurant owner and the farmer made a deal that the farmer would deliver frogs to the restaurant, five hundred at a time for the next several weeks.

The farmer returned to the restaurant a week later looking rather sheepish. He had with him with two scrawny little frogs. The restaurant owner asked him: 'Well? Where are all the frogs you promised me?'

The farmer replied, 'I was mistaken. There were only these two frogs in the pond. But they sure made a lot of noise!'

Lesson: Next time you hear someone criticizing or making fun of you, remember, it's probably just a couple of noisy frogs with big mouths.

Also remember that problems always seem bigger in the dark. Have you ever laid in your bed at night worrying about things which seem almost overwhelming ... kinda like a million frogs croaking? Chances are pretty good that when the morning comes and you take a closer look, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

Methods of Contemplative Prayer

2010-01-26T16:51:00.003+04:00

Mother Nadine, founder of Bellwether, more famously known as the Intercessors of the Lamb (http://www.bellwetheromaha.org/), is a friend I made during a visit to Omaha a couple of years ago. She is a contemplative whose writings on the subject you may want to read. One of the methods she suggests is taking "an elevator ride from the mind down to the heart". I found this a useful technique that I adapted to suit my own needs, and I share it with you here.

Find a quiet place — a must for any contemplative prayer — and after a time of worship, imagine getting into an elevator that's stopped on the floor of your mind. You press the button to the heart, and very slowly the elevator begins to descend. It gets slower as it goes down, and quieter as well, until it finally stops at the heart. There you open the door and you find Jesus (or the Father/Holy Spirit) waiting for you. He takes your hand as you step out and leads you to a secluded spot where you begin to engage in contemplative dialog with him. Ask him a question. Wait for an answer. That may lead you to another question. Ask. Listen. But let these questions and answers be heart to heart, rather than mind to mind. When you are done, review the conversation in your mind and extract insights or lessons that you have obtained.

Another good method is Ignatian contemplation, which makes use of active imagination within a selected gospel text. It is a method I followed for years before I discovered that St Ignatius had already put his mark on it, though my method was more meditative than contemplative. Difference below.

Read a passage from the Bible and ponder over it for a few seconds, running the entire scene in your mind's eye. Read it once again to take in any details that you may have overlooked. Read it a third time if you feel the need to do so, then close the book—and your eyes—and put yourself in the scene. Identify with a person or situation in the narrative and re-live what the Bible describes happened. It can prove to be a fascinating exercise.

We followed a similar method a few days ago as we meditated on Jesus's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (see link) but meditation involves more of the mind, whereas contemplation involves more of the heart. Therefore, when contemplating the Agony, there is more passivity when you re-live the scene, with others controlling the events of the scene and you just going along, making no judgements or comparisons, or trying to arrive at intellectual conclusions.

After you are done contemplating, you go through what actually took place during the time you spent in contemplation, writing down what you felt, thought, etc.

It's a lot of fun, really, and if you do try it, let me know how it went for you. God bless.

The Pillars of Contemplation

2010-01-25T11:47:00.003+04:00

Jesus prayed a lot. He understood that prayer was not merely about petitioning God for favors, it was also about seeking his will, and Jesus did so before every major undertaking in his life (and presumably every minor undertaking too). Look at this narrative from Luke as an example:

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6:12-16)

We can learn a lot about contemplation from this little passage.

Pillar 1: Solitude
One, we see he went to a mountainside. He often went to the mountainside to pray. Why? Mountains are places of solitude. When in solitude, we set ourselves apart from all human beings, so that we can spend time exclusively with God. This is what Jesus advises us to do when he says, "When you pray, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen" (Matthew 6:6:). Not only does this build our relationship with God, time thus spent has remarkable purgative benefits, because it is in times like these that we are often, tried, tested and found to be true. Immediately after his baptism in the River Jordan, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. When he came out, it was in power, ready to begin his mission.

Pillar 2: Silence
Mountains are also very quiet places. I am sitting in my study as I write this. It is a relatively quiet place, with just the occasional aircraft flying overhead and the main door opening and closing to disturb the peace. Yet, I am aware that there is a lot of noise that I cannot really hear because I have become so accustomed to it. I discovered this a month ago when we suddenly had a power cut and all the appliances in the house shut down. Only then did I realize how much noise these devices made. But that is not the only noise there is. There is a perpetual noise in our heads too, with thoughts chasing each other like a million bees. It is so hard to think, much less listen, with all this noise going on, and if we really want to hear the voice of God, we need to have silence all around us.

Pillar 3: Prayer
What was Jesus doing on the mountain? He was praying. Read that as communicating. He was talking to the Father, telling him about the disciples who were following him, and asking which of them he needed to select as his apostles. I imagine Jesus speaking first, telling the Father about each man in turn, and then keeping quiet and listening as the Father started speaking, showing him the men he was to choose, and telling him why he needed to choose them. I imagine the anguish Jesus felt as Judas was named as one of the twelve, knowing the nature of the man and what he was going to do. But, still in prayer, he is comforted and strengthened as his Father explains. This is the real fruit of contemplation: obtaining understanding along with comfort and strength.

Pillar 4: Penance
It was morning before Jesus left the mountain side, having spent the whole night there. I don't think he took a tent and sleeping bag with him, which meant he was probably awake the whole time. Choosing God and his will over everything else will always cause discomfort—and even pain—but with it comes immense blessings as we cooperate with God in fulfilling his plans for us in our lives. Jesus didn't begin carrying his cross the day he walked toward Calvary; it began the moment he began his mission, and it is the same for us. Jesus said, "Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27). We often believe that carrying a cross means carrying the burdens of life, but in Jesus's time carrying a cross meant only one thing: it meant death. We need to die, too, not so much to our body as to ourselves, and contemplative penance is a way of preparing ourselves.

Next: Pathways to Contemplation

Christian Unity: Do We Really Want It?

2010-01-24T09:52:00.000+04:00

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began in 1908 as the Octave of Christian Unity, and focused on prayer for church unity. The dates of the week were proposed by Father Paul Wattson, cofounder of the Graymoor Franciscan Friars. He conceived of the week beginning on the Feast of the Confession of Peter, the Protestant variant of the ancient Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, on 18 January, and concluding with the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul on 25 January. That's tomorrow.

Our parish has been making a prayer for Christian unity in all its masses and the entire congregation drops to its knees as one. Yet, as we pray, I can't help wondering if we really want it in our hearts, given the prejudices we harbor against our Christian brethren. I reproduce an article that I wrote a few years ago here and invite your comments.

Ending the Catholic Protestant Divide

King Solomon was the third King of Israel. He was famed for his wisdom, and many people came to him for justice from far and wide.

One day, two prostitutes came before King Solomon, each claiming that the child they brought before him was hers. They had both recently given birth to a child but during the night one of the prostitutes rolled over her child and killed it. She exchanged her dead baby with the live baby of the other prostitute while she slept. When the other prostitute awoke, she found her baby dead but realized, upon close examination, that the dead baby was not hers.

So who did the baby belong to?

King Solomon ordered that a sword be brought and the baby be sliced in two, with each woman given one half. One of the prostitutes nodded her assent, saying she believed that justice was being done. The second woman, however, screamed a protest saying that the other woman could have the baby, but not to kill it. Solomon promptly had the baby given to her.

I heard this story as a child and I don't remember being particularly impressed by it. What person, no matter how miserable he or she was, would have it in their heart to have a little baby cut into half, I wondered. But after I returned to the faith, I realized that not only did a lot of people have it in their heart to do so, they went about it with great enthusiasm. I refer, of course, to us Christians from all sides of the divide who use the sword, which is the Word of God, to cut the baby, which is the body of Christ, into little, little pieces!

It is not hard to see why. There is tremendous pleasure — and power — you get from wielding this particular sword, and the temptation to do so is often overpowering, even when you don't quite know how to use it. Or, perhaps, especially when you don't know how to use it. I must confess to being tempted to do so myself on several occasions. When I first started reading the Bible, for instance, I remember coming across several references to Jesus's brothers, which disturbed me greatly, because I knew that Catholic dogma stated that Jesus had none and here it seemed "obvious" that he did. I promptly went to Jesus and asked him outright, "Jesus, did you have brothers?"

"How does it matter?" he asked quietly. "Would you love me less if I did?"

The questions threw me entirely off balance. "No, I wouldn't," I answered finally. "I just wanted to know the truth."

Jesus merely smiled.

That smile shamed me. He knew it wasn't the truth I wanted. What I was really looking for was a sharpened blade to cut down my opponents. Which is what a lot of us Christians use the Word of God for. We ignore the prime commandments to love God and love our fellowmen and focus on things that will lead us to widen the rift between us and hate each other more. And we do it in the name of truth!

This isn't to say that truth is not important. It is. There are truths that I hold dear to me. And I will die for some of them because I believe that there are truths worth dying for. But I do not believe that there is any truth worth killing for. God's Word does not tell me otherwise. There is nothing in the Bible that says I should take you out into a dark alley and pound the truth — or what I believe the truth to be — into you so that you may be saved. Or that I should savage you in an argument, leaving you wondering if salvation requires erudition or faith in Jesus.

I rarely get argumentative on issues of theology; it tends to be unproductive. If asked what I believe to be true, I state my beliefs. If asked why I believe what I believe to be true, I explain the reasons for my beliefs. But only if the questions are asked with a desire for understanding, not confrontation. If the latter, I simply mumble something about how Matthew 7:6 makes for a good answer and walk away. I have enough forums to state my views if I am inclined to do so and it is then entirely up to the people who choose to read what I write, or listen to what I say, to accept what I say or reject it. I am happy if they do the former, and though I might be a trifle disappointed if they do the latter, I don't let myself get unduly upset; I see no reason why I don't have to get along with somebody because he happens to disagree with me.

Holy Spirit Interactive is one of the forums that I use to state my views and thus far has been a superb forum. It is Catholic and unashamedly so. So am I and so are most of the writers who write for it. We all write about issues related to our faith. But the reason we write is not to cut down our Protestant brothers (for whom we have the deepest affection), but merely to teach Catholics about their faith. Blind faith is not something God asks us to have and it is important to know why we do what we do and why we believe what we believe. This often has to be taught. If there is something that others can learn about our faith, they are welcome to find out about it here. It might give them more understanding of the immense body of knowledge and wisdom the Church has gathered over 2000 years, and also let them know that much of the prejudice that they have inherited is unwarranted and needless.

There is no shame in learning from us, just as there is no shame in us learning from them. I have learned a lot from my Protestant friends over the past several months and so, I am sure, has the Catholic Church over the years. We can learn a lot from one another if we can only stop the ungodly hatred that flows through our hearts and come together in love. We do not have to resolve all our differences to do this; we share enough in common for the differences not to matter. All we need to remember is that we are all one family, parts of this huge wonderful body of Christ, and there will be so much of healing that we can bring to the world if we can come together in love. It is simply doing what Jesus asked us to do, after all. Love one another, he said. And if we do, then the song we sing about them knowing we are Christians by our love will be more than a series of words strung together by a pretty tune. It will become a truth. A truth worth dying for.

Contemplation: Heart to Heart Communication

2010-01-23T13:49:00.002+04:00

Jesus said: "When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matthew 6:6).

If we need to develop intimacy with somebody, anybody, we need to spend time alone with them. We might meet someone we like at a party, but there is only so much we will get to know about that person in the midst of so many others. To further the relationship, a certain degree of privacy is required. It is the same with God. If we want to get to know him better, we need to get to some place quiet. Some place where we will be alone with him. Some place where nobody can see us or bother us.

And once there, what? Jesus has the answer to that too. "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Matthew 6:7,8). Simply put, once there, shut up and listen.

Many of us are used to communication that involves using a lot of words, usually ours, and that is carried foward to our communication with God as well. There are times when it is okay, even necessary, to say things to God; but, if we are to develop a deeper relationship with God, we need to let him do the talking with us doing the listening. And it's best when this listening is done from the heart. That is contemplation.

Through it, we get to know the heart of the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The more we get to know them, the more we begin to love them, and the more we love them, the more we are prepared to do for them, which helps us immensely on our journey up the mountain. Contemplation also helps us to yield to the Spirit (see Surrender Your Life to God), achieving the purification that we all (hopefully) seek. And, thirdly, contemplation helps us discern his will and his plans for us. We often blunder through life without the faintest clue of what God wants us to do, and this applies even to "spiritual" people. Listening to God's voice in contemplative prayer helps to bring meaning and focus to our lives.

Next: The Pillars of Contemplative Prayer

In the Garden of Gethsemane: Discovering Meditation

2010-01-22T09:01:00.020+04:00

The very first psalm in the Book of Psalms begins with these lovely words of encouragement:

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.

Christian meditation is often associated with prayer or scripture study, and comprises largely of continual, focussed thought on God and his word. It is not as difficult to meditate as people imagine. In fact, most of us are experts in meditation. Do you worry about anything? That's meditation! Continued, intent, focussed thought on something. (Do you have a credit card? That's cause enough for a little meditation. Do you have two? Double cause. Six or seven cards? I can practically guarantee that you are a serious meditator.) Such meditation does nothing for us besides giving us ulcers and shooting up our blood pressure. Meditating on God's word, however, has some benefits. "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful" (Joshua 1:8).

Paul, advises us to think about "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things" (Philippians 4:8). These things that we need to ponder about are all found in God's word, and meditating upon them will help us to follow another sage bit of advice from the apostle: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:2).

Many Catholics are fond of saying the Rosary. The Rosary is a meditative prayer, where we focus on the life of Jesus. Most people just rattle it as though the mere saying of them will grant all our petitions like some magic mantra, but if we pray it as we should, it can bring about a lot of insight and understanding. Let us look at one of the sorrowful mysteries, the Agony of the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:39-44)

Let us get into the garden with Jesus and do some meditating there. Jesus is in agony. Why is he in agony? Because he has an idea of what is going to follow—the pain and the tortuous death. Cause enough for mental anguish, but is that it? Surely he knew that is what he came for. Could it be something else? Perhaps. Why does he have to go through the pain? Why does he have to die? Because a sacrifice was needed, one that was permanent; one that would reconcile us to God for all time. How was he going to be that sacrifice? By taking on our sins upon himself. What would that have made Jesus in the eyes of his father? The most loathesome creature on this earth. Jesus had never been separated from the Father for all eternity; to be separated from him now and that too in a manner like this; how would that make Jesus feel? And then comes the insight, the understanding, of what caused Jesus's tremendous agony and the realization that the sacrifice that he made was even greater than we had previously ever imagined .....

There is a lot that I wish to share in this series, but as I will be putting my thoughts down in no particular order this series may appear a little disconnected. I will rectify this at a later date when I have some more time on my hands. In the meantime, I hope that you will find something useful in these little notes.

Still Standing in California

2010-01-20T11:27:00.002+04:00

After posting my picture of the cross standing in Haiti, another friend, this time Shellan from Sri Lanka, sent me this set of pictures. Once again, I don't know who took them.

Look at the lower right

The Day After

Step 4: Be Filled with the Holy Spirit

2010-01-20T09:28:00.005+04:00

One of the most sensational narratives in the Bible can be found in Acts 2. Peter preaches his first sermon and by the time he is done talking, 3,000 people had accepted Christ as their savior. Just a few minutes earlier Peter had been cowering along with the other apostles in his house, afraid for his life. We had seen, earlier (see Step One), how he had betrayed Jesus despite his best intentions to stay by Christ's side. What happened to this man, never known for his great courage? What made him go out among the people, some of them responsible for the death of Jesus, and proclaim the good news to them without fear?

The power of the Holy Spirit.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:1-4)

We see this power manifest time and time again. In Acts 4, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, defends himself before the Sanhedrin, uttering words of immense wisdom. Jesus had promised this. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Matthew 10:19-20)

In Acts 4:31, we find the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit speaking the word of God boldly. In Acts 6, we find Stephen, full of God's grace and power, doing great wonders and miraculous signs. In Acts 13 we find Saul, filled with the Holy Spirit, exposing the evil in people around him. Every single miracle in the New Testament performed by the apostles was through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Even the Old Testament recounts what happens when people are filled with the Spirit of God. In Judges 6:34, Scripture says the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon and we see him and his small army of 300 men securing a magnificent victory over a huge force gathered against him. In Judges 14:6, we find a similar account of Samson: The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. Scripture speaks about how the Holy Spirit moved in the lives of Moses, Joseph, David, Saul and several others in the Old Testament.

There is one notable difference, however, in how people received the Spirit in the Old Testament from how they did in the New. In the Old Testament, the Spirit was given to a few select people for a specific purpose, given by God solely according to his discretion. In the New Testament it is given to every single person who accepts Jesus as his savior. Which means that if you are a Christian who is reading this, you have the Holy Spirit within you. But if you aren't feeling his power manifest in your life, as in the lives of those we have briefly looked at, it is not because he is weak within you, but because you are not yielded to him. If you want to experience his power, simply turn yourself and all you have to Jesus. This is why the third step (see Step 3) is so important. We need to surrender everything we have into his hands. We need to surrender ourselves.

May the Spirit be with you.

Step 3: Surrender Your Life To God

2010-01-19T16:43:00.001+04:00

The third step to moving from a life that is with Christ to a life that is in Christ is to surrender it into his hands. It is not something that many of us find easy to do given the connotations of the word (to yield, give up, submit, abandon, relinquish, cede, waive), or the negative associations it brings to mind (defeat, arrest, capitulation). With Christ, however, it doesn't bring about a loss of freedom (or a loss of face), but strangely enough, an increase of it.

Consider a problem that you currently face—and don't tell me you don't have any problems because I won't believe you! It could be a relationship that isn't working satisfactorily, a financial difficulty, an addiction that you are struggling with, a health issue pertaining to you or somebody in your family, a persistant sin, a slandered reputation, or one of a million other possible things. You worry about it/them constantly, getting more and more frustrated at your inability to resolve the problem. You are burdened with it. You are chained to it. You are a prisoner to it. Where is the freedom?

Now, when we surrender everything into God's hands we relinquish all that we are holding on to, including our problems, and when he takes them over, we are free! (Picture carrying a sack of bricks on your back that you just swing over to Jesus for the right imagery!) We can't surrender, however, without the acknowledgement that God is in control over everything, including the circumstances of our lives. How do we get that understanding? Consider what Jesus once asked a crowd of anxious listeners.

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?" (Luke 12:25-26)

Surely we will all acknowledge that none of us can add a single minute to our lives, much less a single hour. We cannot because God is in control of our life. And if God is in control of the most important thing in our lives, which is our life itself, doesn't it stand to reason that he is control over everything about our lives—our families, our health, our finances, everything. Then, why try to believe that we are in control and thus imprison ourselves?

"I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! (Luke 12:22-24)

So give it all to him, not just your problems and your troubles, but everything—heart, mind, soul, body—and let him take full control. And just see what happens next.

Still Standing in Haiti

2010-01-18T16:41:00.001+04:00

I don't know who took this picture, which was sent to me by a Lebanese friend Joseph Khadige, but it states a truth in a far more effective way than a thousand words. Let us pray that all the surviving in Haiti who lived away from the light turn from their wicked ways and back towards God.

Step 2: Give the Truth of Your Heart to God

2010-01-12T01:33:00.042+04:00

One Christmas season, Johnny and his sister Sally visited their grandparents on their farm. Discovering a slingshot, Johnny happily tried to shoot down a few mangoes. His aim was terrible, however, and after spending an hour hitting everything on the tree but mangoes, he decided to head back to the house. On the way he spied his grandmother's pet duck and impulsively let loose with the slingshot, believing he would miss it as he had missed everything that morning. To his astonishment, he hit the duck right on its head. To his horror, the duck dropped dead.

When he recovered from his shock, he decided the best thing to do was to cover up the evidence of the crime and pretend nothing had happened. Quickly, he dug a shallow grave and after giving the ill fated duck a hasty burial he returned to the house believing it to be the end of this sad story. If he had read King David's story in 2 Samuel 11-12, he may have learned that cover ups don't end any stories; they just result in horrible repurcussions!

After dinner, Johnny's grandmother turned to his sister and told her to help out with the dishes. But his sister said, ""Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen." As the boy opened his mouth to protest, Sally turned to him and said in a savage whisper, "I know about the duck!" She didn't have to say more. Johnny did the dishes.

That began the most horrible time Johnny had in his entire life. He ended up milking the cows, taking out the trash, sweeping the cobwebs out of the attic, washing the windows and doing other assorted chores, while his sister frolicked her way through the holidays. Finally Johnny could stand it no longer, and he decided to end his agony by confessing his deed to his grandmother.

He was in for another shock. When he went to apologize to his grandmother, she told him that she knew what had happened. "I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing. But because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you."

I don't know who the author of this story is, but he has been brilliant in illustrating an important scriptural truth—although it is probable this may not have been his intention. The truth is this: God knows everything we do, and when we lie to him about the sinful things we do, we only end up letting Satan manipulate us and make slaves of us.

Many of us get trapped like this. We begin by lying to others, trying to conceal our weaknesses and failings from them so that they will not think less of us. We then become so adept at lying to others, we begin to fool ourselves in thinking all is right when it isn't. We eventually end up lying to God, justifying our sinful thoughts and actions. The devil has a field day!

When, however, we take the truth about our feelings to God, we take away the power the devil has over us and open ourselves to the grace of God that allows us to overcome our weaknesses and failings. Try it and see if this doesn't work. The next time somebody makes you mad, don't put on your best face and act like nothing has happened. Tell God how miserable you are and see how quickly he makes you feel better. The next time you are attracted to somebody, don't try to pretend you aren't because you are afraid it might hurt God. Confess your feelings to him and notice how his grace sweeps over you blowing the temptation away.

Take the truth of your heart to God. That's step 2 to being in Christ.

Step 1: Come As You Are; I Love You

2010-01-05T05:36:00.014+04:00

Luke 22:31-62 relates one of the most touching stories about the nature of Jesus that can be found in the entire Bible. Shortly after the last supper that Jesus had with his disciples, where he spoke about his impending death, Jesus says something very strange to Peter.

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)

Jesus knows that Peter is going to deny him—his comment about Peter turning back suggests that—yet he tells Peter that he is not praying that he stays firm, or remains courageous, but that his faith may not fail. Faith in what? We will discover that before we come to the end of this story.

Peter, never really quick on the uptake, doesn't understand what Jesus is telling him, and doesn't ask him to explain either. He grandly tells Jesus that he is ready to die with him.

“Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” (Luke 22:33-34).

As we know, that is exactly what happened. Soon after Jesus was arrested and taken into the house of the high priest, Peter tried to hide himself among the crowd, but he was recognized by a servant girl. “This man was with him.” she said. But he denied it. “Woman, I don’t know him.” A little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” “Man, I am not!” Peter replied. About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.” And Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. (cf. Luke 22:56-60)

Scripture then says, "The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter" (Luke 22:61)

The Lord Turned and Looked Upon Peter

Photograph by George P Landow courtesy The Victorian Web

I believe that this was a moment of tremendous significance for Peter—and consequently for the Church—because it was in that moment that Peter's life changed completely. He remembered what Jesus had said about his betraying him and stricken with remorse and guilt he went out and wept bitterly. And, although Scripture doesn't say what happened here, I think that the image that kept flashing before Peter's tear filled eyes as he wept—grieving over his betrayal, grieving over his cowardice, grieving over his failure—was the look in Jesus's eyes. It was not one of condemnation, or of anger, or of disappointment. It was simply one of love.

Peter believed in that love and turned back. The prayer that Jesus had made was answered. The faith that Jesus wanted Peter to have was faith in his love, his forgiving love.

In stark contrast to Peter was another apostle, Judas, who also messed up, but he thought his sin was beyond redemption. He didn't believe that God's love was so great, it would forgive him his betrayal and he went and hanged himself.

Many of us, unfortunately, are more like Judas than Peter, believing God to be an angry, vengeful God, quick to punish us for our wrongdoings. We can't be further from the truth. God is our father, who wants nothing more than for us to come back home to him, and when we do, punishment is the last thing on his mind because he is simply too happy to be angry. The Parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates this remarkable truth, and it can be seen exemplified in the life of every single sinner who has returned home to the father, including this author (see Return of the Prodigal).

He also does not ask us to change before we go to Him. Many of us believe we need to be perfect before we approach Him, but as we can never be that, we never end up going to Him at all. But as the Parable of the Prodigal Son also teaches, we need to go Him as we are. The son in this story was starving and filthy, clothed in rags, stinking to high heaven, but his father nonetheless gathered him in his arms and embraced him as he was. We don't need to change first either. We can go to him as we are, and then he will change us with his love.

"Come as you are," the Father says. "I love you." Let us believe that and go just as we are.

Four Steps to Being In Christ: Introduction

2010-01-04T13:47:00.008+04:00

Lalith Pereira, an international preacher from Sri Lanka was in Dubai a couple of weeks before Christmas to conduct his flagship 4-Step Retreat in one of the city parishes. I had heard an abbreviated version of the program on CD and, quite taken in with it, I looked forward to listening to the full version with much anticipation. I was not disappointed.

Lalith Pereira preaching in Dubai

Lalith, whom I met during my first visit to Sri Lanka a few years ago—he had invited me to speak to his group—is a warm, wise, simple and funny man, and they are traits that he carries forth to the podium, making for some very enjoyable and edifying preaching.

Much of his content is mirrored in the steps I suggest in my own Discipleship Program, but his approach is so vastly different, I felt I should share it with my readers as another way up the mountain of the Lord. There is more than one route up and preachers should realize that, rather than believe their way is the only way and insist everybody follow it (and get mad if they don't!). Lalith's is a particularly good route, and involves moving from being with Christ to being in him.

Reading the New Testament we discover that these are the two ways to experience Jesus: to be with Him, and to be in Him. The apostles were with Christ for about three years, and though they lived with Him and learned from Him and loved Him, they were pretty much the same people at the end of the three years as they were at the start of it. A little wiser, perhaps, but fundamentally unchanged.

We see this very evident in their desertion of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. After promising Jesus that they would never leave His side, no matter what, they all ran away the moment danger threatened. (One of them was in such a hurry he left his clothes behind (cf. Mark 14:51), perhaps starting the trend currently known as streaking!) They had wanted to be with their Lord, but when push came to shove, they simply didn't have what it took to stay firm.

Yet, just a few weeks later, all of them were preaching boldly, not fearing prison, persecution, or death! How did this change take place? Because they had gone from being with Christ to being in Christ. And how did this happen?

We will discover this in the next four days, and it is important that we do, because many Christians are with Christ, not in Him. Consequently, like the apostles we make grand promises to Christ—like the resolutions we made at the start of this year—fully meaning to keep them, but unable to do so, because merely being with Him doesn't do the trick. We need to be in Him as well. Stay tuned.

Daily Examen

2010-01-03T02:43:00.090+04:00

Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, was an expert in the art of spiritual direction. One of the exercises he suggested was the Daily Examen, a technique of prayerful reflection on the events that take place during the day as a method of remaining in God's presence and discerning his will. It is a simple enough technique that Ignatius suggests we do twice daily - at noon, and at the end of the day.

These are the steps:

1. Become aware of God’s presence.
Look on the events of the day, seeking God's presence in them all, even those moments when everything seems confusing and meaningless, and God appears missing from it all. He is there and we will realize it when we look for him with Spirit filled eyes.

2. Review the day with gratitude.
Every single thing that happens in our lives is a blessing and we need to look at these things, simple though they might be, with gratitude. The water we drink, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the car we drive, the health we enjoy: they are all blessings. Gratitude is a sign that we don't take any of it for granted.

3. Pay attention to your emotions.
We can learn a lot from reflecting on our emotions. Did we get angry or impatient about something? What brought it on? With the help of the Holy Spirit, not only can we become aware of our shortcomings so that we may seek his help to overcome them, but we may also obtain insights into God's plans for us. For instance, if something we planned is not working out in the manner we expected causing extreme annoyance, maybe it is not something that God wants us to do. What is it that he does want?

4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
Ask the Holy Spirit to direct you to something that God thinks is particularly important. It may be a chance encounter that you had with somebody that left you in turmoil. Or it may be something that happened that got you excited. Or it may be something that seems totally without significance, yet your attention is led to it. Pray about it, allowing the prayer to arise spontaneously from your heart—be it intercession, praise, repentance, or gratitude.

5. Look toward tomorrow.
Ask God to help you to face up to the challenges of the next day, paying attention to the feelings that surface as you ponder about what lies in store. What do you feel? Anxious? Excited? Afraid? We can turn these feelings into prayer, seeking God's guidance and understanding about how to prepare for the day ahead and how best to live it.

We can end the Daily Examen, as Ignatius recommeds, with a conversation with Jesus, asking for forgiveness for our sins, seeking his wisdom in dealing with the problems that we face, looking for protection from temptation and adversity, and anything else we are moved to communicate with him about, all in a spirit of gratitude.

Cooperating with Jesus

2010-01-02T09:41:00.001+04:00

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Sin is a heavy burden that rests upon our shoulders, more weighty than anything else we may carry. When we persist in sinning, despite all our efforts to the contrary, we become weary. Jesus speaks to those among us struggling with sin, telling us to go to him for the rest that we seek, rather than distance ourselves like many of us do.

He then suggests something rather strange. He asks us to take on a new burden - his yoke! However, even though this may seem as adding to the burdens on our backs, as any look at two cows yoked together might suggest, it actually succeeds in unburdening us! When we are enjoined to Jesus three things result. One, he takes on our loads, sin in this case, which he forgives, instantly lifting off guilt and shame and other assorted baggage. Two, we take on his burdens, but these are light because they are powered by the Holy Spirit. We will speak about this another time. And three, and most importantly, when we are yoked to him, we cannot move away from him, thus remaining secure, protected, guided, and blessed.

The trick is not to shed off the yoke. How do we do this? By consciously making him part of our lives from the moment we wake up to the time we go to bed. Wish him when you arise in the morning. Say a little prayer thanking him for a good nights rest and asking him for his guidance and blessings. Thank him for letting you see the light of a new day, and then continue to thank him for all the blessings he bestows upon you during the entire day, beginning with your morning ablutions (even the water you use to wash your face is a blessing often taken for granted) to the last meal you have in the night. Consciously think about him at regular intervals during the day. It may be a good idea to set an alarm to ring on the hour to remind you to do this until it becomes a habit. Play spiritual music, watch spiritual movies, read spiritual books. Call out his name from time to time. Find your own ways of staying connected with him so that you can pray unceasingly, as Paul advised (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

St. Ignatius of Loyola developed a five step technique of prayerful examination that can also be a useful aid in ensuring we are permanently yoked to Jesus. We will look at this techique, called the Daily Examen, tomorrow.

Keeping New Year Resolutions

2010-01-01T16:07:00.000+04:00

During the 25 years I spent in the atheistic wilderness, I recall making resolutions every single year. They were resolutions common to many of us - more exercise, less drinking, no gambling, etc. They never lasted beyond the first week of the year, and other than establish that there were things in my life that needed fixing, the resolutions served no purpose whatsoever.

This experience is probably shared by many of you and the main reason it is so is because keeping our resolutions depends on our will power, which is very often weak. For the Christian, however, resolutions can be made and kept, because we don't depend on our strength, but on the strength of God. As Paul said, in a statement of seeming contradiction: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:19).

How so? Because as Christ told the apostle: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9). When we go to God, admitting to our inability to effect major changes in our lives and asking for his strength to do so, his power begins to move in us, making what seemed impossible possible. On another occasion, Jesus had said to his twelve apostles: "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God" (cf. Mark 10:27).

The context in this case was slightly different (he was speaking of salvation), but the lesson is the same. What was the context here? A young man once approached Jesus asking him what he needed to do to attain eternal life. Jesus told him he needed to keep the commandments. The young man told Jesus, with more than a hint of self righteousness, that he did this. "Well," Jesus said, "If you want to be perfect, sell everything you have and give it to the poor." The young man went away rather sad because he had enormous wealth that he couldn't bear to be parted from.

There are things that we can't bear to be parted from either, very often sinful things, and it requires tremendous grace from above to be able to do so. But before the grace can operate, there needs to be the desire to be parted from them. God can't/won't do anything until he sees the genuine desire in our hearts. But if we let him know the desire, take a step forward in faith by surrendering our weaknesses into his hands, we will see miraculous things happening. All those things that I tried to fix for twenty five years - the smoking, the drinking, the gambling - they all disappeared overnight. All we need to do is cooperate with him. We'll see how to do this tomorrow.

For those of you who may be curious what my own resolutions are for the year (and wanna see if the stuff I just spoke about grace and the power of God is on the level) here are a few of them: to return to a vegetarian diet (as Daniel of the Den of Lions fame knew, and Francis of Assisi as an example of somebody more modern, this is a great way of keeping both body and soul fit; explanation another time), committed prayer, regular Bible reading/meditation, disciplined spiritual reading and religious study, and frequent exercise.

I also intend updating this blog at frequent intervals (there are so many things I learn each day, but without a record of them, they slip into oblivion, lost forever), and writing a few more books . And, yeah, I plan on staying far away from sweets and chocolates. :)

I promise an honest report a month from now on how I fared, and answers to a few questions that may come up. A lot of folks say, "But it isn't a sin to eat meat; why do you want to give it up?" Or more commonly: "Jesus loved fish. If you wanna be like him you gotta eat fish!" If anybody is interested, I'll provide the reasons why I made this and the other resolutions.

Wish you all a blessed and Spirit filled 2010!

The Isaiah Gifts: Fear of the Lord

2009-12-09T12:46:00.000+04:00

God loves us. And He wants us to love Him. I said that yesterday and I'm repeating it today, because I am about to write about the seventh gift of the Holy Spirit, and it is one that gets a lot of preachers flak, especially when they don't sugar coat it to suit the palates of easy going Christians. The gift is Fear of the Lord. And it is a gift we really need in our lives because without it, we can end up losing the treasure that we've been looking at over the past week.

I recently watched a wonderful program on the cosmos (see introductory clip below; locate the others on http://www.youtube.com/) and couldn’t help but be awed at the realization that if the universe was so great, how much greater our God. And, despite our own insignificance—if we look at ourselves in relation to the canvas of the universe, we’re just a minute speck—we seem to think ourselves as masters of this universe. We’re not. God is. And it helps to have a healthy fear of Him, because as Scripture says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalms 111:10).

There are many Christian leaders these days who tell us that we don’t have to be afraid of God because His love is great, and so is His mercy. This is true, but it isn’t the complete truth. Yes, God's love is great. It is immense. So is God's mercy. It is vast. It is ongoing. It is limitless. Yet, it isn’t “infinite” as we commonly understand the word to be. God’s mercy, when not applied for reasons of sovereign grace, is dependent on the nature and sincerity of our repentance. True repentance involves turning our backs totally and completely on sin, giving up every thing that keeps us away from possessing the treasure that is the kingdom of heaven. And helping us ensure that we do not return to our old ways, like "a dog returning to its vomit" or a "pig returning to wallow in the mud" is the gift we are looking at today; a fear of what might happen if we do.

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:26-31)

There is going to be a day of judgment and not everybody is going to heaven. There is a place called hell, too, and no matter how vociferously we may protest the reality of hell, if we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then we have to believe it its existence because the person who speaks about hell most of the time in the New Testament is the Word—Jesus—Himself! He is quite descriptive about it too, but we don't need to get into that here. It is enough if we understand what hell really is.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that “hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs” (CCC 1035). Without God we lose out on life and happiness. Without God, we lose out on the treasure we have found, because He is the treasure in the field. We lose Him when we reject God for the things of the world, not realizing that to be without Him for all eternity is something to be really afraid about! I mean, just think about it: we can't stand being depressed for one day, imagine not having any happiness, joy, peace, love, or hope for all eternity! That's what happens when we are separated from God. Fear of the Lord—perhaps more easily understood as Fear of Losing the Lord—is, therefore, a wise thing indeed.

I had begun this study with a few questions. I don't want to leave them unanswered, even though you have probably figured them out for yourself by now. The kingdom of heaven is God, Himself. Jesus. And although some of us, like the farmer in the field, find the kingdom by "accident", the knowledge of the kingdom is given only to the others who seek it. And we'd be well advised to do so.

May the Spirit be with you.

The Isaiah Gifts: Piety

2009-12-08T12:03:00.003+04:00

When I first read the parable of the Hidden Treasure (Matthew 13:44; also see previous posts), I let my mind wander through the possibilities of what the farmer might have done after he sold everything he had bought the field which contained the treasure? Did he dig up the treasure and take it to his new home? For sure! But after that, what? I figured he'd enjoy it for a while, then be consumed with the desire to share his treasure with his friends. Then, while they admired it, he would return to his field to see what else he could dig up.

Parable of the Hidden Treasure by Rembrandt (Eszterházy collection, 1871)

I discovered Jesus six years ago (or is it seven?) and I remember being so happy at having found him I was on a cloud for days. I spent nearly all my time with him, talking to him, listening to him, learning from him, being loved by him, but within a few days I felt myself consumed with the desire to share him with others—and I did. I'd talk to everybody I met about Jesus, and while they were undoubtedly kicked at first to see this man who had denied God's existence for twenty five years now proclaiming him, I am sure I wore their patience thin after a while.

But that didn't stop me. I wanted to talk about him to more people and I went to my spiritual director asking him for permission to preach. "What will you preach about?" he asked amused. "Even the apostles were with Jesus for three years before they went out. You have not even spent a year with him."

"I'll preach the little I know," I said.

"And what is the little you know?" he asked.

"That God loves me," I answered. He studied me for a long moment, then told me I could go ahead.

I have not stopped preaching since then. I cannot. Because I have discovered the truth about the treasure—the kingdom of heaven—and I cannot keep it to myself.

The truth is that God loves me. He loves me tremendously. He loves me without condition. He doesn't care whether I am fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or handsome, smart or stupid, he loves me. I could be brown, black, white, even purple, he loves me. I could hurt him but that still doesn't change anything for him, he loves me.

When you encounter love like that, what do you do? Unless you have a heart of stone, you can only love him back. And when he asks you to love others like he loves you, what do you do? You can only love them the same way he does you. Unconditionally.

This understanding led me to an understanding of the gift of piety and how it works in making us holy. In one of his teachings on the gifts of the Holy Spirit during the Regina Coeli in May 1989, Pope John Paul II gave one of the best explanations of piety that I’ve ever come across and as I simply cannot say it any better, here are his words. “With the gift of piety,” the Holy Father wrote, “the Spirit heals our hearts of every form of hardness, and opens them to tenderness towards God and our brothers and sisters.

“Tenderness, as a truly filial attitude towards God, is expressed in prayer. The experience of one’s own existential poverty, of the void which earthly things leave in the soul, gives rise to the need to have recourse to God in order to obtain grace, help and pardon. The gift of piety directs and nourishes such need, enriching it with sentiments of profound confidence in God; trusted as a good and generous Father.

“Tenderness, an authentically fraternal openness towards one’s neighbor, is manifested in meekness. With the gift of piety the Spirit infuses into the believer a new capacity for love of the brethren, making his heart participate in some manner in the very meekness of the Heart of Christ. The “pious” Christian always sees others as children of the same Father, called to be part of the family of God which is the Church. He feels urged to treat them with the kindness and friendliness which are proper to a frank and fraternal relationship.

“The gift of piety further extinguishes in the heart those fires of tension and division which are bitterness, anger and impatience, and nourishes feelings of understanding, tolerance, and pardon. Such a gift is, therefore, at the root of that new human community which is based on the civilization of love.”

Amen.

The Isaiah Gifts: Fortitude

2009-12-07T15:19:00.000+04:00

Solomon was one of the wisest men in the world—some say the wisest—yet for all his wisdom he did some pretty foolish things. Like, for instance, marrying 700 women! Leave aside the practical difficulties inherent in this situation, what he did was in direct violation of the commands of God.

They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. (1 Kings 11:1-3).

What's the lesson here? That while wisdom will let us know the right thing to do, it will not ensure that we do the right thing. That requires a special gift: a gift of fortitude, or courage.

The farmer in the field (see previous entries), knew what he had to do—he had to sell all he had to possess the treasure and everything else around it. But how easy was it for him to do that—to get rid of everything he had? He wouldn't have had much of value. Perhaps a photo album with a thousand memories; a treasured keepsake from his deceased mother; an old couch that he spent hours in before the fireplace; a stamp album passed down through the generations .... It may not seem like much, but I am sure that he found it difficult. Just as we find it difficult to get rid of things we are attached to. It takes courage, tremendous courage, to do so and that's a gift we need in our lives.

A few days ago I spoke about the struggle I had in recommitting myself to God (see Hineni, Abba). What was the struggle about, really? I spend a lot of time in prayer. I spend a lot of my time in ministering to his people. I am extremely close to God and try to ensure that I live in His will. So why did I find it difficult to recommit? Because I knew that he was going to ask me to give up things again the moment I said "yes." And I didn't want to! Let me explain.

During the first few years after I had first committed myself to God, all I thought about was Him. I had lost all interest in the secular world and all it contained. I wouldn't watch movies, or read books, or do anything that was unspiritual, not because they were bad, but because they were a distraction from the mission I believe I had been called to.

Over the past few months, however, I discovered I was slowly slipping back into old habits, and they were starting to feel comfortable. Kinda like a warm, old blanket that you hadn't used for a while. Not a bad thing, really, except you eventually begin to like it, and there is the very real danger that you might like so much, you wanna stay snuggled under it. And that doesn't make God too happy. Not when there is work to be done. And he asks you to say, "Hineni" again. And you find it hard. Because it is painful to come out from under, to cut off the things you are attached to—be they people or possessions. And it takes a lot of courage to do so.

But then it's a gift that God will give us if we ask. And we need to ask. Because we are all called to give up everything for the kingdom of heaven. And we can't do it without the gift of fortitude.

The Isaiah Gifts: Counsel

2009-12-05T14:57:00.000+04:00

The gift of counsel is not one that we use to counsel others; rather it is counsel that we ourselves receive from God—if we go to Him seeking it, that is.

We all face situations in life where difficult decisions need to be made, and we need help, especially help from on high. The farmer in the field (see previous blog entries) had a difficult decision to make after he discovered the treasure in the field. I can picture the man squatting there in the field, the open chest at his feet revealing the treasure within, considering his options. He wants to take it home and hide it, but something nags him about that decision, some sense that tells him that there is something very different about this treasure: it can't be tucked out of sight. And although Scripture doesn't say it, I imagine he seeks the help of God who replies, "Go, sell everything you have. You have to do that to possess this particular treasure and all that comes with it."

That is the cost of the treasure that is the kingdom of heaven. Everything we have.

A young man once approached Jesus asking what needed to be done to gain eternal life. Jesus said, "If you want to enter life, obey the commandments. 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself’”

“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:17-22).

The young man couldn't pay the price. Many of us can't either. It is too much for us to pay, attached as we are to the things of the world. So we hang on to these worldly pleasures, impermanent though they are, sacrificing the life that is eternal.

Some of us don't believe that there is a price to pay. After all salvation is free. Nothing else needs to be done. Perhaps Jesus's words will convince them: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26-27,33).

As we gain a deeper understanding of the parable of the treasure hidden in the field, we also begin to get a greater understanding of what is required of us. But how do we do what is required? By seeking the counsel of God who will give us advice about what needs to be done—and the grace to do it.

The Isaiah Gifts: Wisdom

2009-12-04T01:37:00.000+04:00

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5-6)

God once told Solomon to ask for whatever he wanted and in response the king asked for wisdom. “Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong,” he said. It so pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked for this, and not wealth, that He gave him not only “a wise and discerning heart,” but also riches and honor (cf. 1 Kings 3:4-15). There was no king as wise as Solomon in all of Israel’s history (although that didn't stop him from doing some rather foolish things).

Let's return to the parable of the Hidden Treasure (see previous posts). The farmer digs out the chest and finds treasure in it that is valuable beyond belief. He is, undoubtedly, overjoyed. But he does something strange. He doesn't take it away, but puts it back into the ground! Why? It was his for the taking. In the days before Jesus, invasions by marauding armies were frequent and they would often loot and pillage entire towns and villages. So what the occupants of these towns and villages would do was bury their valuables under the ground. Unfortunately, what often happened was that the owners of the treasure would die, without letting anybody know where it had been buried. The land would pass on to somebody else, and nobody would know there was treasure hidden in it, until somebody stumbled across it. Now because the treasure did not actually belong to the owners, the law stated that it would become the property of whoever found it. Therefore, this farmer could just have easily taken the treasure home and not feel guilty about it, but he wants to make sure that he owns the treasure legitimately. Besides, he wants to do something else. He wants the entire field that contains the treasure because he suspects there is a lot more of it lying around. He realizes, even as he shovels the earth back over the chest that this is going to come at a price. The price is everything he owns. But he is a wise man who decides it is worth it.

I think all of you who have been traveling with me on this little journey are beginning to realize where we are headed with all this. The treasure which the man found is representational of the kingdom of heaven, which is Jesus himself. What do we do when we discover this kingdom? Say, "That's great news!" (or good news, if you prefer), and then get on with our lives? Or do we understand the value of what we have found and, therefore, get rid of all the excess baggage we have been carrying (which is everything we have, really), so that we can possess the kingdom in its entirety?

The conversion of St. Paul by Carvaggio

Paul discovered this treasure on the way to Damascus and he did what the farmer in the field did, which is sell everything he had. As he would say later in his letter to the Philippians, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." (Philippians 3:8)

Have you discovered the treasure that is Christ? And having discovered it, have you realized its value? And having realized that, have you gotten rid of everything else you have as rubbish?

If yes, you've got the gift of wisdom.

The Isaiah Gifts: Understanding

2009-12-02T22:33:00.000+04:00

There are a lot of rather interesting coversations that take place between Jesus and his apostles, but perhaps the strangest is the one we find narrated in Matthew 16:5-12.

When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.” Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Jesus makes a rather ambiguous remark about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees, which the apostles, not surprisingly, don't understand. They think he is speaking about bread. Jesus scolds them for not understanding, then makes a series of references to the miracles he had just performed, before asking them: How is it that you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? I have read all that Jesus said here about a hundred times and still can't understand how anybody is supposed to arrive at the conclusion he wants them to arrive at. But, bewilderingly, it now all makes perfect sense to the apostles!

This is the gift of understanding Isaiah speaks about; when you understand what God is saying even if it seems totally baffling. Like the parable we have been looking at. Let's look at it again:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

What do you understand from it? If this is the first or second time you are reading it, probably little. How do we begin to understand these parables? The best way is to put ourself in the picture, so let us—in our mind's eye—travel to that field. It is an ordinary field. There is nothing to distinguish it from thousands of other fields around the world. In the middle of the field walks a man. He is an ordinary man. There is nothing to distinguish him from thousands of other men in the world. He is plowing the field. It is a hot afternoon, and the sun blazes overhead. He sweats, waiting for the day to get over, so that he can go home and have a refreshing shower followed by a hot meal with his family.

As he is plowing, his plow suddenly hits something hard in the ground making him stop. He curses, thinking he has hit another rock. He gets down to his knees and begins digging the earth with his bare hands. To his surprise, he doesn't find a rock, but a chest that looks like it might contain treasure. His heart beating fast, he pulls it up out of the ground, wondering if he has found something valuable.

He opens it, and there before his eyes lies treasure more valuable that he could ever have dreamed of in his wildest imagination. Even if he had worked for a thousand years, he could not have earned the wealth that lay before him now. He was rich! So what does he do? Take it home and show it to his wife and celebrate his new fortune? No! He puts it back into the ground, covers it with earth again, goes home, takes an inventory of everything he owns, sells it all, comes back and buys that field so that he could own that treasure and everything else the field contains!

The kingdom of heaven is like that treasure. Is understanding coming?

The Isaiah Gifts: Knowledge

2009-12-01T14:32:00.000+04:00

Today's first reading at Mass was from Isaiah 11, where we find the prophet speaking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD—
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. (Isaiah 11:2-3)

These are the gifts of sanctification, also referred to as the Isaiah gifts. (Note that while the Hebrew text of Isaiah lists only six gifts, with fear of the Lord mentioned twice, the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations list seven, with “piety” replacing the repeated occurrence of “fear of the Lord.”). The purpose of these gifts—wisdom, understanding, counsel, might (or fortitude), knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord—are to make us more like Jesus.

A teaching on these gifts comprises one of the lessons in the HSI School of Discipleship, and I was invited to speak about them at one of our communities a couple of months ago. Wanting to make it a little easier for the members to understand, I spent some time that morning asking God for help and found myself being led to think a bit deeper about a short little parable that Jesus taught in Matthew 13:44.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

By the time I got up from my knees I had my teaching ready. I share it with you here, a gift a day (or two). But let me first reorder these gifts for the purpose of this lesson:

Knowledge
Understanding
Wisdom
Counsel
Might/Fortitude
Piety
Fear of the Lord

In Matthew 13, we see Jesus begin to speak in parables, referring in all of them to the "kingdom of heaven". The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. (Matthew 13:10-11).

What is this knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven? Who is it given to? Why isn't it given to everybody? The parables help to explain that, including this little one that we are using to illustrate the gifts of the spirit: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field .....

We will discover what this knowledge is by the time we come to the end of this study. Stay with me on this one; you won't regret it, I promise :)

Ascend / Lenny LeBlanc

2009-11-30T17:14:00.000+04:00

Ascend. Any Christian mountain climber will love this song by Lenny LeBlanc, and the album itself (All for Love) has enough gems to justify purchasing it.

Who will ascend to the mountain of the Lord?
Who will ascend to the mountain of the Lord?
We will ascend to the mountain of the Lord,
Generation, pure and holy.

I will not bow down to the idols of this world,
My heart belongs to only you,
My voice will cry out, forever give you praise,
My King of Glory, My King of Glory.

Only your blood can wash these stains from my hands,
You are the God of my salvation,
No one but you could ever purify my heart,
I need your mercy, I need your mercy.

When God says Hineni

2009-11-30T11:23:00.000+04:00

Yesterday, I spoke about how we need to say Hineni (Here I am!) to God and how difficult that can be, given all the statement implies. We can take encouragement from the knowledge that God, too, says Hineni to us. In Isaiah 58:9, he says:

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

God promises that when we call him, he too will stand still and listen to whatever we ask him to do. It is a tremendous promise that even surpasses the one he makes in John 15:7, where Jesus says, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you."

But the promise is not without reservation. The verses that Isaiah writes preceding this read:

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the house of Jacob their sins.

For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

Hineni, Abba

2009-11-28T21:05:00.000+04:00

Every once in a while an event takes place in a persons life that results in a change that can only be described as dramatic. There have been several such instances in my life, especially over the last few years, but the most recent one took place just a few days ago. A bunch of musicians and worship leaders from the HSI ministry had accompanied me to a worship conference conducted by Paul Wilbur. While much of the workshop was targeted at the musicians, just before the session concluded Wilbur came and gave a short talk on worship that had me spinning for the next 48 hours. What got me going was what he said about hineni, which in Hebrew means, "Here I am".

This was Abraham's response to God when God called out to him. “Here I am,” he replied (Genesis 22:1). But Abraham was doing more than state his location. He was saying: "Here I am, standing before you with deep humility. You have my full attention. All that I have is at your disposal. I am ready, willing and able to do whatever it is you ask me to. Here I am, Lord."

And in reply God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering.

Abraham didn't wilt. The very next morning he saddled his donkeys and along with Isaac and two servants he set out for the place God had told him about, ready to sacrifice his son who was born after years of waiting. And he would have done it too, had not the hand of the Lord stopped him.

"Here I am," he had said. "Hineni." And had meant it.

I had said "Hineni" to God soon after my conversion seven years ago and the result of that is the man you see today. But I knew he wanted me to say it again now, with the deeper understanding I had just been given of what the statement truly implied, and I shocked myself by finding myself unable to. I didn't want to say it because I was afraid of what I knew would follow.

I lay in bed last night, my body wracked in pain as muscles that hadn't been used in ages protested the vigorous exercise they had been given when I had gone swimming earlier in the day. Unable to sleep, I tossed and turned, struggling as much with the mental anguish of what God was asking me to do as the physical pain, until finally, I dropped to my knees by the side of my bed and said, "Hineni, Abba". A while later when I crawled back into bed, I wasn't too surprised that my pain had completely disappeared, and the sleep that followed was peaceful and restful. I believe Abraham slept easily that night God spoke to him too.

Hineni, Abba.

History Rising

2009-11-25T11:35:00.000+04:00

Voices were raised in unison this evening in shouts of praise as Christians from all sides of the divide got together in the Dubai Tennis Stadium for an evening of soul stirring worship led by messianic singer Paul Wilbur. This was history in the making, as he became the first singer to ever perform in a public arena in the Middle East. HSI didn't organize the event (although I very much wish we had), but we did our best to help those who did — a group named Voice — make it a success, understanding that in events like these lie opportunities to end the divide that separates Christians from each other.

We, unfortunately, couldn't help much. We got the approval of Church elders, as regulations required, to involve ourselves in this project. Bishop Paul Hinder, who is a wise man and understands all too well the need for ecumenical endeavours, said he had no problem with this event, or of our own involvement with it. Fr. Tomasito Venaracion, parish priest of St. Mary's Church, is a wise man too. Although he knew that there could be repurcussions working with us (it is public knowledge that certain people in positions of power are allergic to us), he gave us the go ahead as well, showing himself to be a courageous man too. But that is as far as it went.

The details of what happened can be found, for whenever history finds the need for it, in the records of my correspondence with the Bishop, but for now there is no need to go public with the rather disgusting sequence of events that took place. What is important for the public record is the concert itself that took place tonight (November 24). It was an event that will live on in the memories of all those who attended as evidence of what God does when his children come together as one family. Something in the very atmosphere of the city changed, and by the end of it, when Paul Wilbur declared that Dubai had become a city of praise, everybody said, Amen.