THE POWER OF ONE WORD II: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, St. Michael

In this most recent Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5), my thoughts wandered to the power of a single word. Five such words came to mind amid the myriad of possibilities. I will offer you my reflections on this, and you draw your own conclusions.

THE WORD OF CREATION: YES!. — St. John’s Gospel begins with a single word responsible for all that is. This is no ordinary word, such as “Hello,” or “Goodbye.” This word is unimaginable purity, that which we humans can’t begin to comprehend with the tools and languages of human experiences, but which can not only create all that is but gives it direction and purpose. This purpose comes from the Word who uttered it. And what was this one word? The characteristics of this Word seem to be hidden, not just to the eyes, but to reason. However, peeling back the layers of meaning and beginning with only who humans are (the thought here being that the creator creates in his own image and likeness embuing all with the dine fingerprints or DNA), then I discover who I am as a human being. In some way, I am tied up with discovering the three great mysteries of being human, ones that Erich Fromm, in his book, The Art of Loving, points out that we do not inherit from our animal past. Because God’s energy has lifted humanity to the next level of complexity, although we still possess the DNA of those who sent before us, what we don’t possess is this addition that makes us uniquely human, an energy that did not come FROM our humanity but reaches down from an entirely separate and unknowable nature to give humanity a bump or a leg up on the movement towards our destiny. For lack of a better word, we call this the Word, emphasizing the characteristics of any word, knowing what is about us through reason and free will. In this first lesson that humans must confront, we receive both the questions and answers from God, mainly because human reasoning alone cannot explain it.

I. THE FIRST BIG QUESTION AND THE ANSWERS. Humans must learn what it means to be human in all stages of intelligent design. KNOWLEDGE is the second word. This knowing is not automatic to the human condition. There are levels of knowledge; knowing about my environment, knowing what is good from what is bad for me, knowing that I know anything and am more than a chair or credenza, knowing how to tame my dominant urge, to procreate and satisfy my sexual urges and appetites, knowing what it means giving up what makes me happy to gain a greater good, knowing how to choose what is right over what is easy from my many appetites and needs.

Remember, these are only observations of a broken-down, old temple of the Holy Spirit, I only offer them to you, not because I want you to agree with anything I say, but rather because at this awesome age of 83, I am compelled to write down what the Holy Spirit keeps pouring into my mind. I can’t keep up with all the insights of how, what I learned in my lifetime, good and bad for me, fits together with how my humanity evolved to its next stage of evolution, one which I must ask to join rather than it being an automatic ride with no struggle, like “getting on the train in Vincennes, Indiana, and getting off in St. Louis, MO.” I actually write all of this for two reasons: first, it is the heritage of my daughter and Lay Cistercians that I don’t have the luxury of expounding in person, mainly because I do better at writing than discussing; and second because I want to keep my neurons synapsing and have contact with the Holy Spirit as long as possible before I die.

I realize now that I am most at home synthesizing different trends rather than solving complex scientific problems, although they are important. I want to know how “Everything fits together,” like the notion of “The theory of everything,” which has become more popular as of late. My view of reality includes physical, mental, and spiritual reality rather than just physical and mental universes. When I ask the question, “What does it mean to be human?” for example, my answer would include the world experiences and languages that I have tried to grasp to explain the purpose of life. These include my intense peering into the darkness of my inner self to discover spiritual reality, concepts that my physical and mental languages do not address because they don’t deal with the reality of invisible existence. If you don’t admit to the presence of invisible reality, it is not that it is not present, you choose not to even look for it as part of what you perceive to be real.

My Lay Cistercian practices and charisms, coupled with what I understand so far of the Rule of St. Benedict (Chapters 4.5.7) have allowed me to sit in the presence of that which shall not be named (Harry Potter’s description of Lord Voldemort) and receive energy from a nature that is totally outside my wheelhouse, the divine nature. With Jesus as my Magister Noster on how to gently be present to that which is unknowable, I communicate with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, and I grow in awareness of how it all fits together. This touching that which is untouchable, the sign of contradiction, allows me to progress to the next level of my human evolution, that of sustaining my life experiences after death to mix them with the totality of all life experiences of all humans in Heaven. Sounds crazy! It is to those who only think myopically of humanity not evolving beyond where we are now.

I have chosen to use a map to help my human observations of the intelligent progression of matter from beginning to end. This map is The Divine Equation, the six issues humans must confront to find out what it means to be human. My blogs are bursting with examples of this concept. Briefly, they are:

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is the purpose of my life within that purpose of life?
• What does reality look like?
• How does it all fit together?
• How to love fiercely?
• You know you are going to die; now what?

https://thecenterforcontemlativepractice.org

To help me grow deeper, I have selected some of the writings and maps from Jesuit Paleontologists. Pierre, Teilhard de Chardin to provide a spine upon which I hang all my discoveries about The Divine Equation.

The Teilhard map helps me focus on the path of reality that is mine to follow. This is how I view reality (physical, mental, and spiritual universes). When I look at this map, this is what I see.

Creation is the Alpha of existence. It is the creation of a completely new reality involving physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions, that help humans comprehend the complexities of existence. It is the Genesis or first step of existence.

Life results from movement forward with complexity and consciousness of its destiny, Omega. It is the second step of learning what it means to be human. We have a purpose as humans. We are to fulfill our humanity into the next phase of our evolution,

Humans evolved from Biological Life with the addition of reason and the capability to choose what is good or bad for their human nature. God does not punish humans for their actions, but their actions may harm how they address the question of “What does it mean to be fully human and move to that next level of our intelligent progression?”

Christ is the third step of this map, one that shows us WHY, WHAT, and HOW to reach Omega. Divine nature did not only touch human nature; human nature and divine nature were one in the person of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

The fourth step is that only I can make my YES to the invitation of Christ to be an adopted son (daughter). It is the individual repository of all that came before, exists now at this moment, and will come to fulfillment in Omega. I can make all this happen with a simple YES or block it with a crushing NO. Spirituality means using humility to realize that God is God and I am me; I choose to be present to that God in my everyday awareness of what it means to be human and then to share that (service) energy of God with others around me, be they atheists, believers, or just bored humans seeking something in their lives that is not currently there. This is the realm of the Spirit, where we, as adopted sons and daughters, learn from our Magister Noster (Christ our Advocate, and the Holy Spirit our Second Advocate) how to prepare to live an existence without time, matter, space, or corruption of all of the above mentioned. As an individual, I am in training to be eternal, using the help of the Holy Spirit. While I live, being a citizen of the earth or world is my boot camp. I learned what it means to be fully human with the help of Christ and the energy of the Holy Spirit. It is not without effort, so Christ told me through the Scriptures to take up my cross daily and follow him.

The struggle to be a disciple has a cost. Namely, I must seek my destiny in the context of original sin, even though my nature is good. My life experiences, and the choices I have made, both authentic and unauthentic, shape who I am. In Genesis, a most underrated concept is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity is fickle and will provide what is good or evil according to what is easy. When I am adopted, God chooses me to be a reservoir of what it means to be good about life. The fact that I am constantly being a yo-yo about my intentions and Faith reinforces the words of St. Paul (the things I don’t want to do, I do; the things I want to do, I don’t). I actually eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but I use Christ as my mediator, translator, advocate, friend, and God (Second Person).

Eating of this tree is the Eucharist; pruning my dead branches as a result of doing my will instead of abandoning all to follow Christ is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus told us that he would not leave us orphans. At each age, each individual person must say the YES that Mary did in the Magnificat. Each day, I must be strong enough to plunge myself into the Christ Principle and just wait for directions. My Lay Cistercian Way helps me to confront the ever-changing yet constant search that my heart has to rest in Christ, as St. Augustine so eloquently states.

II. THE SECOND BIG QUESTION AND THE ANSWERS. Humans must learn what it means to love fiercely.

LOVE is the third word. Fierce love, as I use it, is not the love the world says it is. It is loving others, as Christ loves us. As in anything else dealing with spirituality, there are layers to be uncovered, depths to be explored, and heights to be grasped. Key to an awareness of this reality of the citizenship of the spirit is a realization that all humans live in the corruption of mind and matter. For every event, for every success, for every human endeavor, there is a beginning and an end. In the Teilhard map example, God’s Word, a YES, has a macro beginning (Creation) and an end (Omega). Along this line of existence, I pop in for my 83 years (so far) to learn what the purpose of life is, why my purpose of life is, what reality looks like, based on my life experiences (good and poor choices), how it all fits together the template of the Christ Principle, what it means to love fiercely so I can move from single citizenship (the physical and mental universes) to that of dual citizenship (the physical and mental universes PLUS the fulfillment of my evolution, existence and how to thrive in the spiritual universe).

Like Faith, Love begins to disintegrate in the corruption of matter and mind, as soon as it is experienced. Spirituality, in my understanding, is nothing other than my awareness of what is going on and my free choice to make all things new through Christ and the energy of the Holy Spirit. Faith, like Love, and Service all begin to melt as soon as you take them out of the freezer. Original Sin is the condition that causes me to weaken my resolve unless I take the time each day to place myself in the presence of Christ and keep my ice cube frozen. It takes work, it takes God’s grace as the freon to keep my Faith from melting. Doing good work is one way I can keep my ice frozen. St. Benedict has a list of tools for Good Works in Chapter 4 of his Rule.

To love fiercely means I take what is best about the human spirit and love and move it (lift it up with the power of the Holy Spirit) to the next level of our evolution, adoption. On this level, which God bestowed on me at Baptism, I continue to choose (believe) the autonomic mindset of “Having in me the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) It is only with humility that comes to realize that God is God and I am not God (RB 7:10) that I can, with consistency and constancy sit in the presence of Christ and, with eyes lowered and head bowed, seek to sync my heartbeat with that of Christ. I wait for the Lord more than

Fierce love is not the love that comes from my human roots, good as that is. Human love emits human energy, but it is not sufficient to lift it up to the next level of evolution. Only the power of the Holy Spirit, available through Faith and my Belief, is able to allow my adoption to reach its fulfillment. My Lay Cistercian practices and charisms allow me to be in the presence of Christ and invoke the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the result of my overcoming the martyrdom of ordinary living daily to seek a deeper relationship, one which, like authentic human love as defined by Erich Fromm, comes from the heart longing to fulfill itself with the other. I know how to love because Christ first loved all humans.

https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/erich-fromm-quotes

III. THE THIRD BIG QUESTION AND THE ANSWERS. Learn what God has provided through The Divine Equation to fulfill human evolution.

SERVICE is the fourth word. Nature first intended humans to serve each other. The Garden of Eden before the Fall is an idyllic place where Adam and Eve are supposed to be gardeners, taking care of all humanity, and being caretakers of existence. According to the Genesis story, that did not work out and sin entered the world, not through God or because of God but due to the disobedience of humans to what God said is true. That archetype of the human condition still plagues human fulfillment as it did in the early intelligent progression of humanity from animality through the beginnings of rationality. Rationality is a learned behavior due to trial and error, making good choices and bad choices. The problem for all humans has always been, who determines what is good or bad.

The transition from animality to rationality broke the paradigm in that now, each individual was responsible for KNOWING what was good or evil and, based on what that choice might be, LOVING authentically. I might give my assent to being in a group that holds a certain belief, either consciously or unconsciously, but it would take a sustained commitment to holding certain principles, especially ones that did not make me happy. This plays out today in the seemingly unexplainable phenomenon of children not following their parents’ faith choices. In an age of permissiveness and the inexorable siren of self-fulfillment, the center of existence becomes the individual, what they think will make them happy. Any notion of inconvenience or “dying to self to rise with Christ,” has no meaning for the individual who takes norms from the current fad theologies that seduce people with being easier than with being right. “The cross,” is a symbol of the martyrdom of ordinary living in an age of hedonism and self-indulgence. Each person has their own religion, their own pope, and their own authority for interpreting what the purpose of life might be. This mindset is classic Adam and Eve, where God tells them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God, as a loving Father tells each of us what will make us fully human and truly fulfill the destiny and intelligent progression of our human nature. We, being flawed creations of the Father, tell him to go to Hell, or, we must perform the most un-natural and un-human of actions, one that defies our nature. We are willing to give up our human preoccupations with power, glory, and being king (queen) of our inner selves to tell the Father, I accept you as the purpose of life (Deuteronomy 6:5) and (Matthew 22:36).

You ask, “Who is crazy enough to give up what makes humans to be creatures of reason and free will?” Jesus is. Jesus is the WAY. The Father is the LIFE, and the Holy Spirit is TRUTH. My dying to self means I accept that there is a level of my evolution, one where I must freely abandon all that is reasonable and within the wheelhouse of my free choice as an individual to say YES or NO. If I choose the sign of contradiction, the cross, I possess all that I had before but am now open to my inheritance as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. I begin to claim my inheritance while still on earth. I view reality as physical and mental, but now spiritual, and not just any spiritual, but one that exhibits the rule Christ left us. The one rule is, “Love others as I have loved you.” I do this by being a servant to others around me, stressing the intimacy of my relationship with Christ on that couch in the upper room. Waiting in humility for whatever it is that this day holds for me, confident that with, through, and in Christ, I am doing the will of the Father.

The days are upon us, indeed they were always there, where my individual self must choose between what God wants for me and my evolution as a human and what cotton candy I want for myself. Sustaining Christ as the King of the Mountain, my center, is an even more challenging behavior to my humanity. As soon as I choose Christ as my personal savior and Lord, he begins to slip off that mountaintop unless I struggle to keep him there. My Lay Citesician Way (www.trappist.net) has been an unforeseen blessing, giving me the tools for good works (RB:4), which is SERVICE to others.

YES is the fifth word.

You are undoubtedly wondering about that fifth word (probably not, but this is a reminder more for me)? Every word above is means just for me as an individual so that I can make the simple choice of YES or NO, just like Adam and Eve had like Mary had to be the mother of Emmanuel, a Christ had to do the Garden of Gethsemani when He asks the Father to loosen him from the cross, yet, and this is crucial, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” This is the price of our redemption, the redeemer, our kinsman, buys back that which Adam and Eve had thrown away, our inheritance, our adoption by the Father, our being able to move (or be lifted up) to the next level of our evolution.

The fifth word is either a YES or a NO to what God proposes by adoption as a son (daughter) of the Kingdom of Heaven and heir. I am free to choose either one, but there are consequences of my choice reverberate forever. Because life is a constant progression of intelligence, love, and service from Alpha to Omega, I have reason and the ability to say YES or NO at any moment to any ideology or theology, The fact that there are so many choices but only one that is true is a daunting challenge for one immersed in discovering the WAY, the TRUTH, and thus the LIFE.

All of this complexity is housed in the simplicity of my human nature, in the process of becoming more and more but balancing the effects of original sin (morality, pain, work, suffering, injustice, sin, wanting immediate gratification of feelings, the being seduced by the morality of the moment). St. Paul’s duality of flesh and spirit in an attempt to set forth the consequences of choices that are authentic or unauthentic. Set against the human condition which is the assimilation of what is good or evil into oneself and acting out the consequences, no two humans are alike, mainly due to the different choices each of us makes of what is good or evil. God enters the human condition to help us from reverting to our animal past with its reliance on instincts and self-preservation. Like a good father, God does not give us a stone when we need bread. The Ten Commandments were guidelines and ones that go to the heart of how humans can move forward in their intelligent progression rather than retreat into animality. A professor of Moral Theology at St. Meinrad School of Theology, Father Conrad, O.S.B., told our group, “You don’t break the commandments, they break you.” Think about that for a minute. These Ten Pillars of Behavior are not random but go to the very core of what humans must master to become fulfilled as nature intended. Immediately, people strayed from God’s commands and fashioned a Golden Calf to worship. They are not only conduits for each individual to keep the covenant with God, but also ensure the continued movement forward of Israel towards it destiny.

The individual must say YES or NO to what God tells them is truth rather than relying on the empty promises of other humans. This YES moves each of us forward, whereas a NO is a blocking word (except when NO means NO to sin). Humans don’t like to be told what to believe or what to do. Humans don’t take well to other humans telling them what to do without the option to try something else. Humans bring all the baggage from their animality with them. Some discard it in favor of being more like nature intended (living the Ten Commandments or Beatitudes) while others never evolve past their animal past. It is this hothouse of human evolution that Jesus came to save us, not just from evil (which he did) but to lift us up past that evolution that could not make the next step in our evolution by our own power, adoption as sons and daughters of the realm of heaven. Be careful what you place at the center of your life, it is who you are.

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS FOR ME

In what seems an incredible proposition to me, all of these single words of power are set in motion just so that I have the power (not of my own making) to make my nature what is intended by the Father. I can say YES or NO, the same YES or NO that Adam and Eve faced when given the opportunity to choose, the same YES or NO that Mary faced when she was given the opportunity to bear in her humanity which could not be contained in all of existence, the divinity of Christ. Mary is the true temple of the Holy Spirit and carried Jesus, the Arc of the Covenant inside her, the YES that changed the paradigm of humanity from one doomed to be just human to one that continued the intelligent progression intended by The Word (John 1:1) from before there was a before.

This is my heritage, my inheritance, which I now must appreciate and try to expand myself (capacitas dei) with God’s own energy and not mine. Christ came to make all things new, just for me, to give me the tools of good works (RB:4) so that I might build up in me that which was lost by my prototypes of Adam and Eve and then redeemed (bought back) by Jesus the Messiah.

Because I only lived 83 years or so (so far), the time spent after Baptism becomes one of learning from the Magister Noster (Christ) how to act in that next life, one which I have experienced as a citizen of heaven while on earth. Not everyone sees this or believes it. The process of conversion from self to that of an adopted son (daughter) of the Father is unrelenting and happens daily. My Lay Cistercian Way, which I have adapted to who I am with the choices I have made about The Divine Equation, depends upon the power of my daily YES to God’s will being done (obedience). This Lay Cistercian Way is a WAY of life that seeks the TRUTH so that I can LIVE in the presence of God now, through, with,, and In Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit enabling me. All it takes is a YES, but one that lasts from dawn to dusk.

All of this power leads me to the one aspect of St. Benedict’s Rule that has preoccupied me recently.

46 Yearn for everlasting life with holy desire.
47 Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.
48 Hour by hour keep careful watch over all you do,
49 aware that God’s gaze is upon you, wherever you may be.
50 As soon as wrongful thoughts come into your heart, dash them against Christ and disclose them to your spiritual father. 51Guard your lips from harmful or deceptive speech.
52 Prefer moderation in speech
53 and speak no foolish chatter, nothing just to provoke laughter;
54 do not love immoderate or boisterous laughter.

https://christdesert.org/rule-of-st-benedict/chapter-4-the-tools-for-good-works/

ACTIO

Over the years, wrongful thoughts keep popping into my head; some come from nowhere and others I seek and cultivate. St. Benedict says: “As soon as wrongful thoughts come into your heart, dash them against Christ and disclose them to your spiritual father.” This is what I have learned over the past years, since trying to read Chapter 4 daily and make those tools my own. If I but say one holy word, one word with the power of the Holy Spirit behind it, any sinful or wrongful thoughts that enter my mind vanish. God and evil cannot exist in the same room in the upper room of my heart (Matthew 6:5). But, I must banish those evil thoughts, even as they come over and over. This might be the thoughts of St. Paul’s notion of “a thorn of the flesh.” That these thoughts come at all is testimony that original sin exists and that the Lord of the Earth (Satan) seeks to keep me from my adoption as the son (daughter) of the Father.

The word I use is “Jesus,” over and over. Remarkably, it doesn’t take long for my thoughts to turn to righteousness and focus on Our Lord. One word created all that is. God not only knows the hairs of our heads but has God’s fingerprints on each atom and molecule of matter, all of which bless the Lord by being what their nature intended. It remains for humans to have to suffer and struggle while alive to “have in them the mind of Christ Jesus.” If there is a wrongful thought, I alone must banish it with an act of obedience that says, “Not my will, but yours be done.” This happens for me in silence, solitude, prayer, work, and in the context of community. As an adopted son, I have only been aware recently (twenty years ago or so) that, although Christ has the power of the “Word made flesh,” only I can say YES or NO to banishing wrongful thoughts. How many times do I need to do this? Seventy times seven, if needed.

All of the above just so that I have the power to say YES or NO to God. My greatest gifts, my only gift is to die to my humanity so that I might emerge from the waters a new creation, one who is a pilgrim in a foreign land until I reach the destiny my nature intended, to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father.

What can I say in return for these blessings? Just “Thanks, God.” Of course, these thanks must be linked through with and in Christ to the glory of the Father by the energy of the Holy Spirit. I just hold onto the hem of Christ’s garment and, with humility, say: Don’t let me sink in the waters, save me, Master.

ADDENDUM

As I matriculate through the Lectio Divina stages, the effects of original sin are constantly my companion. What I have noticed about my prayer life and its movement and complexity is that, like a San Francisco fog, my mind is seduced by those events in my life, which, though important, keep me from a profound focus on my theme.

I have been using this saying to bring me back to reality (or la-la land, depending on your view of contemplative practice). “Jesus, my Savior, have mercy on me; Mary, Mother of God, pray that I have humility; St. Joseph, wise protector of the Sacred, pray for me to have perseverance until my death; and St. Michael, guard me against the seduction of the Evil One.” Every time, I refocus my gaze on Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. I find this “one-word” utterance contains a power I never realized. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and St. Michael, just by uttering their names and waiting, are my mantra as many times as I can think of saying it. I offer this mantra for the souls in Purgatory and ask God not to look on the many times I just plain forgot about praising and glorifying the Trinity, seeking my own self-indulgence in my humanity rather than growing in Christ (capacitas dei).

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