THE UNIMAGINABLE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION

This Easter Sunday, some will hunt Easter eggs, some will eat a wonderful Easter meal with their families, and some will disavow Easter altogether as a conspiracy of Jesus’ followers to justify his death by making up a fantasy story about rising from the dead because no one can rise from the dead. Then, there are those who defy reason and logic to reach a level of awareness about a power so awesome in its existence that humans are unable to even fantasize about its properties. Human reasoning has not, nor could it, step out into this energy for a second and survive. Like Stephenson 2-18, the greatest star discovered (so far), human flesh would disintegrate into nothing if it was, in its presence. But there is a greater power than a neutron star or a kilonova, which only exist in the physical and mental universes. https://pweb.cfa.harvard.edu/news/kilonova-discovery-challenges-our-understanding-gamma-ray-bursts

THREE UNIVERSES OF POWER

My hypothesis (reflection) is that there are three types of power corresponding to the three types of universes which make up what I call reality.

1. The Physical Universe — Power in this universe obeys the properties of its nature. This is the universe of matter, and everything follows the rules that exist independent of human intervention. Power is. We can observe it, even try to harness it to some degree in the mental universe using technology and scientific inquiry, and make theories as to why it is, but we are observers looking at this power with human languages and making observations as to its composition. Humans, because we are composed of these elements, belong to this physical universe and must obey its laws. This power is what it is because of the unique combinations of gases, gravity, chemical, and atoms, and they all operate as they are meant to do. They act their nature. There is a limitation to this power, however. It does not know that it has power, it only is. Not a problem, it is acting as intended through intelligent progression. Everything in this universe has a beginning and end. Power in this universe is the dominance of matter and energy, energy requires matter and the accumulation of gases, gravity, dust, and chemical, and it happens naturally. All of this power is supreme and dominates everything in its domain.
2. The Mental Universe– Power in this universe is enlightenment. Knowledge is the ability to reason and to make choices that ultimately say YES or NO to what we reason. Humans are the only ones in this universe because of these abilities. Power in this universe is knowledge and what to do with it. Each individual human exists for not more than one hundred years (most of them much less) and is subject to the requirements of the physical universe (we need oxygen and an atmosphere for us to exist at all). What gives humans power is twofold: we know that we know, and we can use that to look around our particular environment and ask interrogatory questions. We learn from those that went before and move forward collectively in how to be human, how to love authentically, and the discovery of the template against which all human truth is measured. Humans have a beginning and an ending, both individually and collectively. Within those two poles, we search for meaning and what it means to be fully human. That each person can say YES or NO to any way of thinking is intrinsic to being human. But, there is a problem with what is truth, what is real, how I look at reality to discover the purpose of my life, how it all fits together, how love fits into this whole experience of mine, and now what? These are fundamental and, dare I say, cosmic questions each human must face. We do so with what we have learned and experienced, both personally and from the knowledge of others, such as scientific advancements in the languages that help us probe deeper and ever deeper into reality. But there is another, often overlooked problem humans have. Where they get their information can be solely from what they see and reason to, or, probing deeper into human nature, slowly uncover another universe lurking beneath the physical and mental ones, one that actually is beyond humanity yet perfects it and allows humanity to reach its intended evolution or progressive intelligence as nature intended.
3. The Spiritual Universe — Power in this universe is the energy from divine nature. Because humans can say YES or NO to anything, especially when it does not make sense to their nature, taking that step into the unknown is fearful. We like to dig our big toe into the water to test the temperature. To reach this next level of maturation, humans must die to all that they know, step out onto the unknown with only the promise of one who has been there and done that, that the water is fine and what awaits you is beyond imagination. That person who took the plunge before us is Jesus, who is both human and of divine nature. We can only enter this universe by saying YES (belief) to the beginning of knowing, loving, and serving others in this life to be happy in the next. It makes no sense to those who only live in the physical and mental universes (good as that can be). Power in this universe is the pure energy of the nature of the divine, or, in my own words, pure knowledge, pure love, and pure service being 100% of its nature. Since this is divine nature, without physical or mental universe constraints of matter, time, living so long, getting sick, having dementia or some other ailment, humans can only reason to it with the limitations of reason (In my case, a lifetime of asking questions about how I can become more and more human when I know I am flawed and corrupt. Power in this universe surrounds the physical and mental universes, overshadowing it with pure energy, awaiting cosmic moments where the need for a surge of this power is needed to fulfill the intelligent progression and keep it on its path of completion to Omega.

It is this pure intelligence (John 1:1 calls it The Word) that was powerful enough to begin all that we know. I have discerned (hypothesized) that the Resurrection Event with Christ is a place in time and space where this pure intelligence met human intelligence and changed reality. Each time this power is needed and used, there seems to be a price to pay for using it. I am still working out the implications of what I observe in my mind and heart.

If you thought this was a one-time deal, I have teased out five other such Resurrection Events corresponding to Six surges in the divine power that was there to lend a hand to nature, humanity, spirituality, and me, personally. I take my inspiration from the work of Jesuit scientist Henri Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his book The Phenomenon of Man. https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/pierre-teilhard-de-chardi-quotes; https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-voices/20th-century-ignatian-voices/pierre-teilhard-de-chardin-sj/

I would like to share my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) thoughts about the power of the Resurrection based on a map of Teilhard’s progression, which I like to call intelligent progression using his map to indicate a “spine of reality” from creation (the beginning) to Omega (the ending).

Before you read further, I need to clarify (more for myself than anyone else) some of the assumptions around which I make these reflections.

• The power of the resurrection exists in the spiritual universe. It makes all things new over and over. The energy of knowledge, love, and service careens down the spine of reality, ever becoming what it is intended to be by its creator, leaving DNA or fingerprints on each atom and time itself.
• Life comes from life. There were six times that this progression needed a helping hand to reach down from a superior nature to raise it up, not to be God, but to be fully what nature intended before the Fall, adopted sons and daughters of the Father.
• The Blessed Mother is one human whom God reached down to allow her to become the absolute fulness of humanity (full of grace). Mary is the Arc of the Covenant that carried Jesus, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit with his power of the Resurrection so He could become a ransom for many and allow us to become what our nature intended.
• Because of the love Christ had for humans, he is the power, the kingdom, and the glory, the gift humanity gives to the Father for being adopted sons and daughters of the Father.
• God lifts up. Humans can only push up their nature to try to become fully human. Human reasoning alone does not have the capacity or the capability to rise to what our nature intended.
• The power of the Resurrection is a constant flow of energy, not a one-time deal. It permeates everything from creation to Omega, as you can see by Teilhard’s map of progression.
• I conclude that there are several such Resurrection Moments, each corresponding to a need in the progress of intelligence to keep it from stalling. The steps to Omega are ever-higher movements in our existence toward the top. Each step is too high to reach by human energy alone. Only the one who made the steps for reality to reach its destiny, including humans, lifts us up to the next level of our destiny, one inexorably moving from simplicity to complexity. Such moments occur at critical points where physical and mental energy is insufficient to lift up its intended progression. An intervention is needed, one that is “out of this world.” Divine energy and human destiny kiss to give humanity and reality the boost to take the next step in the progression from creation to fulfillment as adopted sons and daughters in Omega.
• Here are a few such moments based on the complexity of the divine intelligence that helps human evolution. (See the Teilhard map of these steps below.) The moment of contact between the Word and Matter; the moment of contact between Matter and Life; the moment of contact between Life and Humanity; the moment of Humanity between the Kingdom of the World to the Kingdom of Heaven (spirituality); the moment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth to the Kingdom of Heaven in Heaven; the moment in my life where I must plunge into the unknown, seeming to give up reason, free will, to possess what some call fairy tales and gibberish, only to come up for air in a new Kingdom, one whose only rule is to love others as Christ loved us. Finally, as I live out my life in two universes (the world and the kingdom of heaven, I have the power of the Holy Spirit to help sustain me and endure the corrosion of matter and the corruption of time. These are all Resurrection events, like that of The Christ Principle. In this case, the power did not reach down to lift us up, it lifted us up. (Philippians 2:5-12). It happened because a human, a type of what it means to be redeemed to what humanity can become, (Our Blessed Mother) said YES to the NO of Adam and Eve. The Blessed Virgin Mary’s YES was possible because of the Power of the Resurrection, the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. A human cup was filled to the brim with so much energy from God that it could not sustain a drop more without running over, to use a somewhat imperfect simili. We simply say it so casually as “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” What a great description of Unconditional Love, one to which Lay Cistercians and others can only aspire but never master in their lifetimes.
• The energy source from the physical and mental universes alone is insufficient to raise nature to a different level of competency. Animals can’t make me more human. My human nature, good as it is, cannot push me upward. The higher nature reaches down to grasp me and pull me up.

THE GENESIS PRINCIPLE:(THE LIFE) — Looking at the Teildard map, find “creation” at the bottom of the chart. Before there was something, there was nothing. But this nothing is nothing as humans understand it. Pure energy creates or replicates itself in another form, that of physical reality. Moving to the next level in evolution needs a boost to reach down and lift up to get things moving. John’s Gospel gives us a hint about the origins of matter in the progression of movement from simplicity to complexity when he says that “In the beginning, there was the Word.” (John 1:1) This energy does not come from the physical universe for there was no physical universe, yet the energy to produce something where there was nothing had to come from outside of itself. I suggest it is a nature, a divine nature, who, with one thought, created the beginning of what we know. The creator always creates from the totality of who they are. In the case of God, and I am hypothesizing here, this pure energy was three persons with one nature, divine nature, for lack of a better word. This intelligence left its fingerprints on all matter that is or would evolve, a DNA if you will. All matter, all time, all that is from the beginning to its ending is imprinted with the image and likeness of its creator. As mythologized in the Book of Genesis, this creation is good because its source is good.

The power that created the physical universe and moved it from the complexity of no energy to the energy of natural existence is the same power that raised up the nothingness of the physical universe to set in motion the “spine of reality” towards a point in the future, Omega. It is the energy of The Resurrection of Life. Only a power beyond what we know in the physical or the mental universes can reach down to lift up all physical reality with a thought.

The Psalmist gives us a major hint as to the effects of this power on all that is, in Psalm Read it from the viewpoint of all creation moving to fulfill its destiny as part of the great intelligent progression, as the great cosmologic conglomeration moves to be what nature intended. Here is the Hymn of Daniel on how all creation blesses the Lord. Each blesses the Lord by being what their creator intended them to be. http://www.divineoffice.org

“Ant. 2 Our Redeemer has risen from the tomb; let us sing a hymn of praise to the Lord our God, alleluia.

Canticle – Daniel 3:57-88, 56
Let all creatures praise the Lord
All you servants of the Lord, sing praise to him (Revelation 19:5).

Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord.
You heavens, bless the Lord.
All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord.
All you hosts of the Lord, bless the Lord.
Sun and moon, bless the Lord.
Stars of heaven, bless the Lord.

Ant. Our Redeemer has risen from the tomb; let us sing a hymn of praise to the Lord our God, alleluia.

Every shower and dew, bless the Lord.
All you winds, bless the Lord.
Fire and heat, bless the Lord.
Cold and chill, bless the Lord.
Dew and rain, bless the Lord.
Frost and chill, bless the Lord.
Ice and snow, bless the Lord.
Nights and days, bless the Lord.
Light and darkness, bless the Lord.
Lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord.

Ant. Our Redeemer has risen from the tomb; let us sing a hymn of praise to the Lord our God, alleluia.

Let the earth bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Mountains and hills, bless the Lord.
Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord.
You springs, bless the Lord.
Seas and rivers, bless the Lord.
You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord.
All you birds of the air, bless the Lord.
All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord.
You sons of men, bless the Lord.

Ant. Our Redeemer has risen from the tomb; let us sing a hymn of praise to the Lord our God, alleluia.

O Israel, bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Priests of the Lord, bless the Lord.
Servants of the Lord, bless the Lord.
Spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord.
Holy men of humble hearts, bless the Lord.
Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.

Ant. Our Redeemer has risen from the tomb; let us sing a hymn of praise to the Lord our God, alleluia.

Let us bless the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Let us praise and exalt Him above all forever.
Blessed are you, Lord, in the firmament of heaven.
Praiseworthy and glorious and exalted above all forever.

Ant. Our Redeemer has risen from the tomb; let us sing a hymn of praise to the Lord our God, alleluia.”

https://divineoffice.org/easter-w01-sun-mp/?date=20230409

This Resurrection power creates all that is not affected by the movement of matter in its intelligent progression toward what nature intended. It is beyond time, beyond movement, outside the beginning and the ending, yet permeates everything as it moves forward. The Genesis Principle is the feeble attempt of human intelligence to reflect on all of this in terms that make sense to our minds. This is the power to lift up the poor from slavery, of matter from corruption to incorruption, of the mind and heart from the sting of death to fulfill the destiny of the human species, to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father.

THE GENESIS PRINCIPLE: From matter, and energy to life. This next plateau or step is too great for matter and energy to attain by its own energy. That seems improbable because the energy of a hypernova or neutron star can fizzle human flesh in a nanosecond. Yet, this intelligent progression means that there is something more than sheer power, although we need it to survive.

Life happens. My contention is that the power that is the Resurrection and the Life (God), reached down to give life a hand, one it is incapable of reaching with its own power. This is the power that is life itself, life without movement, a life that is alive (a human term for lack of a better one). Life begets life; in this case, its DNA is imprinted into the genetic makeup of all matter as it moves from simplicity to complexity. How did it take place? We have the languages of each age to address that question. Science, philosophy, theology, existentialism, and even false thinking, such as rationalism and secular popular explanations of life, all vie in saying, “I am the Way.” As an individual, you have reason to choose one that makes sense to you, realizing that only one can be correct.

Life began with one, one cell, one cell that was a new paradigm, one infused with God’s DNA. It followed nature’s dictates and grew. Of course, the condition for sustaining life had to be here also. Did all of this happen by chance? I don’t know. Maybe there was a new paradigm on purpose, as part of some greater direction. What we know as living or bios, happened according to plan. All life, all simple life continued to move towards its destiny, on an earth that had several extinctions along the way. Life finds a way to wiggle through to the next generation. It was not easy but eventually, one species appears to have just enough hutzpah to huff and puff itself up its evolutional path to the next step. Unable to have the energy to lift itself up, life needed help to go from animality to rationality, a totally new paradigm and one that raises the intelligent progression to its next predestined level of being, the human species that has what no other animal has, the power of reasoning and the freedom to choose good or bad outside the dimensions of its nature.

THE GENESIS PRINCIPLE: What does it mean to be human? Humanity did not have a book of instructions on how to be human. Intelligent progression means those first ancestors were not very conscious nor very complex in their humanity. The struggle was to survive as both individuals and as a tribe. Trial and error was the tool of choice to see what worked and what didn’t. Teilhard calls this new paradigm by the name of homogenesis or the birth of humanity. In this crucible of intelligent progression, all it takes is time to gain complexity and consciousness. Time is the great ingredient that makes all things new.

Since humans were made in the image and likeness of divine intelligence, our race took on the look of its source and the characteristics that made God, God, that is, intelligence, love, and service. These three are one reality and coat every THING in its pathway, ” the spine of reality,” with these properties. Just as your life moves forward and you can’t stop it, the inexorable pull to some point out there means you are doing what your nature intended and thus humans are resonant with their nature. But, something began to happen to humans that did not befall other species. Humans had reason, although primitive, and free choice. Their choices were made based on what made them feel good, as we talked about earlier with the theories of B.F. Skinner and operant conditioning. Humans had choices now between choosing what makes them feel good (no pain) and what is right for their nature. No one was there to say, “This is the way, this is truth, this is the life that leads to being fully human as nature intended, one that leads to being resonant instead of dissonant.” This would be a good time to reread the Canticle – Daniel 3:57-88, 56 above.

Try as they might, humans were unable to lift themselves up to a level above their human, once preordained by the source, one that continued to march on inexorably to an invisible conclusion. Put aside any conceptions or misconceptions you have about God and read the Book of Genesis from the viewpoint of a commentary of many authors over a period of time that tries to explain what happened to humanity that they became so seduced by their emotions, and feelings of superiority, sexuality, and power that there was no absolute truth against which all would have equal responsibility. Humans don’t like to be told what to do or how to act. Pride was the downfall of Satan and the failed angels and would taint any humans who would be born into a condition where people died, suffered pain, killed each other, loved each other, and they had to work for what they received as food or modernization of their status. This Book of Genesis gives a way to view why humans seem to act the way they do. What is unique is the introduction of a human-like God that is the absolute genitor of truth and the way. The authors told a story about how humans had it all and lost it because they did not act their nature, and there were consequences to their actions of disobedience. Pride goes before the fall. It would not be until later on in the time that humility would conquer and subdue pride (as an archetype of humanity’s penchant to resist anyone telling them what is right or wrong).

Why did homo sapiens run the gauntlet of intelligent progression successfully while other animals did not or count not? It is my contention that animality needed a lift up from divine intelligence to keep the movement of progression on track as intended from before there was a was. Animality did not possess the power to raise up its evolutionary product to the next step without help. This help is the power of the Resurrection, to lift up all things to what they are intended to be. To use an imperfect analogy but one that humans can sympathize with, God reached down and lifted up Homo Sapiens to put it in a place where the next part of human evolution could thrive and not be stuck against a step too high to reach. This analogy is much like a ship having to go through a series of locks to move from the Atlantic to the Pacific. God is the locks and the water upon which humanity sails along its “spine of reality” towards its destiny.

Genesis is an astounding mythical account of why and how humanity had to learn what it means to be human after rejecting help from God in the Garden of Eden. Choices have consequences and still do to this day. The wages of sin are death to human progress bringing growth to a halt. The world, or our natural environment in which each individual lives out whatever time they have, is corrupt (physically in that we have a beginning and an ending, and morally because our choices might in fact limit our potential). Humans began to make choices of what is good for them and what is bad for them. Unfortunately, many of these choices were so far off the mark and based on their animal instincts inherited from our DNA and need for power, fame, orgiastic sex, alcohol, and drugs (Erich Fromm’s notion of unauthentic love), that the power of the resurrection was needed to show humanity how to act and not just tell us (The Old Testament).

Beginning with the Abrahamic covenant and continuing through to John the Baptist, one person (twelve tribes) was selected as a pilot for the rest of humanity to see if they could get it right. They got much of it correct but were convinced that they alone were to be the chosen race, exclusive of other human progressions. When it was clear that intelligent progression was not going to be a light in the darkness of humanity’s search for the truth, God once more intervened in space and time (The Christ Principle) to SHOW people how to continue their cosmic journey without stalling out.

THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE: From rationality to spirituality. As Abraham was selected from his people to begin his journey as a wandering Armenian, so it continued through Moses, through a period of judges, kings, and prophets, ending with Judas Maccabeeas and John the Baptist. The Messiah would come to free his people from their sins and shepherd them toward their destiny. This would not be a Messiah just for the Jews but for all humanity, the Jews meant to be knights in shining armor to lead the way for the rest of us. When this was not going to happen, God send his only Son to become human too, once again, lifting up humanity from stalling before this next paradigm. (Read Philippians 2:5-12) Humans or the Jewish people did not possess the power enough to step up to the next level of our evolution. Teilhard’s chart shows this as Christogenesis or God reaching down to a humble maid (Mary) to overshadow her with this Resurrection power to continue our rational evolution to its next intended phase, The Christ Principle. God bends down from divinity to pick up humanity to set it on the next level. This is a new paradigm and, as happens with all moving forward, we start all over from the beginning. It is like being a Senior in High School and high on the totem pole and then going to college (or the Military Academy as a pleb) and starting from scratch. We carry with us, collectively and individually, what went before us, but have new opportunities to see how all of this fits together according to the template of Truth, the Holy Spirit.

The Resurrection Moment comprises:

• the Incarnation Moment where the power of the Resurrection in the Word becomes flesh;
• through the Baptismal Moment of Christ where the Father says he is pleased with him,
• through the wedding feast of Cana Moment where Mary tells us “Do what he tells you,”
• through the Transfiguration, where The Father shows Christ is God
• through Passion, the Death moment
• through to the Resurrection of Christ from the dead
• through to the Ascension.

The veil in the Temple was torn in two when Jesus died, symbolizing one view but two parts of the Resurrection, that which was before (Old Testament promises) and now all things once again in intelligent progression as nature intended (New Testament fulfillment). This is a completely new paradigm. With the Resurrection, something different, something remarkable happened to our “spine of reality.” Now, God no longer needs to reach down to lift humanity up to the next step. With The Christ Principle being both God and Human, humanity, through, with, and in Christ, lifts us up to that next plateau. Christ is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. God is with us, not just as a transactional analysis type of parent or child, but as a brother. We are, by choice alone, adopted sons and daughters of the Father and heirs to the kingdom of heaven. At Baptism, we are adopted by the Father; at Confirmation, we are overshadowed by the Holy Spirit for our whole lives; at Eucharist, Christ once again lifts up humanity to the Father and we tag along as grateful disciples and eat the very body and blood of Christ that rose from the dead (the priest lifts up the host at consecration is Christ lifting ALL HUMANITY to the Father, not just Catholics, although we are an integral part of it). We make all things new once more through the Sacrament of Penance and start over once more with Christ as our center. We serve others through Marriage and Holy Orders to sustain us as we move from the lifespan of one individual through generations. We reach the end of our lives with Viaticum and healing from the power of the Resurrection to prepare us to await our judgment in humility and contriteness of heart for all of our transgressions.

THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE: The Sustaining power of the Resurrection. This new paradigm of the Christosphere of movement down the march of time has changed time itself. Before, time was a succession of moments in which individual humans make choices that affect their humanity. Now, individuals have the opportunity to choose to give up the assumptions of the world and plunge into dual citizenship — living in the world in two universes (physical and mental) but having the choice of fulfilling our humanity by adding a dimension called the spiritual universe.

The spiritual universe is only for those who wish it and is the result of choice (belief) in what Christ has revealed as needed to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father. There are indeed other religions in the world, but Faith means you choose this Way, this Truth, leading to a Life centered on Jesus Christ and his role in the “spine of reality.”

Because of original sin, human nature is prone to choose itself, its likes, its false assumptions, and its reliance on the individual as the center of all morality. This is a way of saying that to sustain my intention of having in me the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5-12), I must convert my humanity daily to that of a power that is unrecognizable to reason alone, and a stumbling block to those who have not taken the plunge of Faith and come up on the other side with all that they had before but now as adopted sons and daughters and friends of Christ.

Being a Lay Cistercian is one way that I can do that. http://www.trappist.net This CISTERCIAN WAY takes the WAY of Christ and gives it structure and discipline for me. This new paradigm of The Christ Principle is the pneumatophore, if you look at the Teihard map. Again, it is now the Holy Spirit who has taken the baton from Christ to finish the race with both the Church Universal and allow individual persons to say YES to the power of the Resurrection in their lives as they walk the rocky road of humanity. But, there is a difference now. The Spirit of TRUTH is the template that fits our struggle to discover The Divine Equation and identify the six questions needed to formulate TRUTH and to receive the answers from outside of our corruption of matter and mind. The Divine Equation has nothing to do with discovering who God is. Rather paradoxically, it uses the questions and answers from God to help each one to discover what it means to be fully human. This can only happen when the Holy Spirit overshadows us with the pure energy of the divine nature. We receive it as we care capable and open to the totality of all that is. listening to what that is “with the ear of the heart,” as St. Benedict states in the Prolog to the Rule.

Faith comes from God alone and belief comes from me alone. When we meet in prayer divinity kisses humanity and fulfills it. The lesser nature (human) always rises to become more like the more powerful nature, in this case, divine nature. All of my prayers of Lectio, Liturgy of the Hours, Rosary, Eucharist, Eucharistic Adoration, Reading Scriptures, and the Benedictine and Cistercian authors, happen because I choose to place myself in the presence of the one I love and wish to sit on a bench in the dead of winter and wait for me to show up next to Christ, listen to His heartbeat, if I can, and sync my heart with His. As a citizen of this world, until my body dies, I struggle each day to start over, trying to stay ahead of the feeling of discouragement and overcoming the martyrdom of ordinary living. The Catholic Church is not the center of my life; Jesus Christ is. The center of the Catholic Church is not me but Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

FRAGMENTS OF REFLECTING ON THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION

There is one reality having three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is revealed by God and not revealed by logic.

There are three universes, the physical or depository of matter, time, and energy; the mental or repository of mental learning about the meaning of the physical universe; the spiritual universe, the conclusion to this Divine Equation about the meaning of what it means to be human, what it means to love authentically, and the template of Absolute Truth against which humans measure their individual and collective answers.

Teilhard de Chardin’s “Spine of Reality” is an attempt to begin to describe the process of humanity moving from simplicity to complexity of intelligent progression (evolution) through various stages. It is the equivalent of theoretical physics looking out at reality and positing “what ifs” about the movement of matter and their equations or theories. It is “existing a step in front of logic and reason,” allowing the mind to look at reality with not only scientific inquiry but also factoring in cognitive trends and theories of “reality” that are not solved by science alone. Is it true? What is true is that the human mind flexes itself to not only include reality it can see but also what is invisible to the eye.

God is the generating plant using the energy of the interaction of pure knowledge (The Father), pure love (The Son), and pure service (The Holy Spirit). There is but one God. God is one, there is no two. The transmission line is the Church; the sole purpose of the Church is to keep the energy flowing (service to others and love of others as Christ loved us) in each age. Each house is wired by the Power Company (the Vatican and each bishop) to bring Christ to each house. In the house, energy can be used by turning on appliances (good works) so that energy is transformed into light, heat, and the reason why our utilities work. Each owner of the house must turn on this power through a fuse box. Failure to turn on the electricity means you have access to it but refuse to use it, thus resulting in darkness and no utilities. There are light switches all over the house, but once more, they must be switched on. How does this story have anything to do with the power of the Resurrection?

The spiritual universe is only entered by an act of free will. This act means the person must do what is seemingly a fairy tale and does not make sense if you use just two universes (the physical and mental). When Jesus went to a town to cure inhabitants, some he could not cure, not because he did not have the power of the Resurrection but because THEY did not have this power. They never thought that is could be possible for such a thing to happen, so they were limited in their Faith (no Faith) as to the possibility of the manifest ability to encounter phenomena outside of their daily routines. Like many of those who hold Science alone can describe true reality, they lacked Faith because they did not think to look there. If you have to prove it, it is not Faith. It is significant in this passage that Jesus did heal those on whom he laid hands. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/13 You have this same power of the Resurrection within you because of the Holy Spirit. Are you using it as Jesus intended?