FRAGMENTS OF LEFT-OVER LECTIO DIVINA MEDITATIONS: Spiritual anarchy

Today’s Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) was about the Devil (it seems the Holy Spirit is on a series of ideas about the Devil). Here are some fragments left over in baskets from my Lectio Divina on Satan.

• I thought about how the Devil thinks he is the Master of the World (Great Accuser), and we are his slaves (I use that word advisedly) to serve Him as god. Some of the thoughts I had were:
• The new religion of Hollywoodism touts hating all things Catholic and ridicules those who think God loves humans so much that he sends down His only Son to give us the way, the truth, and the life.
• I assume that Jesus is the Lord of Heaven and Satan, of his own admission, is Lord of the Earth (He isn’t, but thinks he is.).
• This is the battle we, as adopted sons and daughters of the Father, face. We live in two worlds simultaneously.
• If we are to solve the Divine Equation, The Christ Principle is the template of today, yesterday, and tomorrow.
• Satan does not have the energy to make us do anything (God has the energy but allows us to choose Him freely in keeping without being created in His image and likeness).
• This is a battle between Satan and us, not between God and Satan (that one was over when he was allowed to be what he wished).
• If we are not stronger than Satan, such as having no Baptism or confirmation in the Holy Spirit, we are at the mercy of the Lord of the Earth. With God’s protection, we still have the effects of Original Sin (we suffer cancer, etc.., must die, and work for our spirituality (practice good works as in Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict).
• Saved by Christ means He lifted us up from animality to rationality, then from rationality to adoption as heirs of the kingdom of Heaven. The problem is we still live in the Devil’s kingdom (his thinking) with Original Sin until our body transforms into our final fulfillment as human nature intended (the Garden of Eden before the Fall).

Anarchy, using the Rule of Threes, means:

Physical Universe — Humans, as descendants of animal nature, tend to have a default to control others, dominate others, go to war against each other, and be the top animal of all others.

Mental Universe — Anarchy here is all of the above, PLUS mental dominance of ideas, having no one tell you what to do, especially those with whom you disagree. This is the universe of the Earth alone. People live in this universe until they are Baptized and receive the Holy Spirit; then, they can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Anarchy is the political overthrow, mental overthrow, or forced consent to a way of life of the dominant human system in vogue at the time. It is going back to zero in morals and political domination at the expense of poor thinking and thus bad choices; the Devil thinks he is King of this Kingdom of Anarchy and seeks to seduce humans into thinking that this is all there is, that they are destined for nothing more than what they can fill in their bank accounts, or what power position they have acquired, in life. Not all humans follow anarchy. Some of them are not Adopted Sons an Daughters of the Father, and some have never heard of The Christ Principle. All have been redeemed as part of the ransom for the many.

The Anarchy of the Spiritual Universe –Satan wants us to bow down to acknowledge his Lordship of the Earth. Jesus wants us to give the gift of our free choice to fulfill the Father’s purpose in our destiny to the next level of our evolution, the Kingdom of Heaven.

Heaven and hell are here on Earth in a much muter form than after we die. As adopted sons and daughters of the Father, we have the tools to see what cannot be seen and hear what cannot be heard. We acknowledge this each Sunday at Eucharist Liturgy in reciting The Creed. St. Matthew shows us that we are in the Kingdom of Heaven right now, just as we are in the Kingdom of the Earth.

The Judgment of the Nations.^*

31^f “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne,

32^g and all the nations^* will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

33He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

35^h For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,

36naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’

37Then the righteous^* will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?

38When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?

39When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’

40ⁱ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

41^* j Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

42^k For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,

43a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’

44^* Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’

45He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’

46^l And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/25

Anarchy is the overthrow of the old without replacing it with what is new from the Christ Principle but rather from the World.

Anarchy is what happened to those angels who wanted their own kingdom and to be gods. You know what happened to that overthrow.

A LAY CISTERCIAN RESPONSE

One of the reasons I chose to be a Lay Cistercian is that I have a spiritual plan of action, although one strict, to hold my own in the battle over my freedom to choose God over Satan.

I must convert my life daily to be more like Christ and less like my false self.

I must die each day to those things of the kingdom of the earth that lead to the anarchy of the spiritual practice so necessary for me to be fully what my nature intended.

I want to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father but I must work for it and be on constant guard of “the lion who prowls the world, seeking whom He may devour.”

Praise be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and forever. The God who is, who was, and who is to come at the end of the ages. Amen. –Cistercian doxology