THE TWELVE PORTALS OF MY NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE NEW JERUSALEM.

MY NEW JERUSALEM AND MY NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH.

I havecome to believe that Jesus is Lord, the Messiah, and that I must convert my inner self from false values to those which allow me to sustain myself as I continue to probe the depths of what it means to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father and heir to the kingdom of heaven. (John 20:30-31)

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book.

31 But these are written that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name. (www.usccb.org)

Each day that I proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again in glory is a lifetime unto itself, one that has a beginning and ending, one where I struggle each moment to be aware that I depend upon the energy of the Holy Spirit to keep me afloat in this sea of flotsam and jetsam called original sin. It is one where I am challenged to take up the cross of whatever comes my way each day to use the truth Christ gives me to lead a life that is continuously moving in complexity and consciousness at the deepest level of my humanity, that of adopted son or daughter of the Father.

To be adopted by the Father means I must walk the way of the Son of God, oblivious to what is in front of me, and aware that each person I meet, I must treat as if they are Christ. Practically speaking, it means my life must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic prayer without ceasing. I must make my own the Catholic Church, which overshadows me with what is authentic and real from Christ in an unbroken succession of ways to be uniquely catholic as I live out my life. That reality I create, and only I can create it, is the summation of who I strive to become, what is at my center, how I have accepted that God is the source of what is good or evil, and how I have lived out “the mind of Christ Jesus” in the tabernacle of that upper room of my inner self. Christ calls everyone in the Church to make all things new each day, as we can and where we can.

We only do this, not with any power that comes from human evolution, but from that which human evolution gives us  the tools for good works to be able in silence and solitude to listen to Christ with the “ear of the heart.” It is in this context that Christ gave to me in my lifetime the food for the journey to forever, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and not only that, but a way that he gave to Peter, the apostle with the primacy of authority, to start over after we miss the mark and think that we know what good or evil is and not God.

If I build my New Jerusalem each day, it is like creating new wineskins to hold the new wine that the Holy Spirit pours into them. I look at it like I am building on earth (packing my suitcases) with those treasures I have discovered on earth, so that I can take those with me to decorate that heavenly mansion God has prepared for me as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.

I build from what the Catholic Church has saved for me in construction materials, using my good works as the mortar to glue together those spiritual bricks that make up all those times I have been aware that what I do, I do in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Twelve pillars or portals to this New Jerusalem, My Catholic Church, the rest of the rock of the Catholic Universal Church, as instructed by the great builder, Christ, the cornerstone. My pillars will be different from those you choose to build your Catholic Church (your ministry to serving others as Christ served you) because I am not you; you are not me; God is not us; and we, most certainly, are not God. I share these pillars of my life with you as they are so far, not as they will be in the parousia.

THE TWELVE PILLARS OF MY CATHOLIC FAITH.

As I write this, at this point in my life experiences, there are twelve pillars of Faith that I look back on —unique to me, because it took me a lifetime of trials and errors to get to where I am now. And where I am is where I am right now, this day, taking each day as a lifetime of discovery, not knowing what comes next in this life or the next. Gone are the attempts I have had to prove anything scientifically. Gone is the game of trying to prove my God can beat your God, and my Church is not to force my notion of the one true Church on any other human. However, I believe it is the only system of delivery that Christ instituted to give us poor in spirit individuals access to His presence, through the centuries. In the quiet upper room of my inner self, where Christ and the Holy Spirit are always present and willing to share who they are with who I am, as I am capable of receiving it (capacitas dei).

These twelve foundational pillars are the ones I have actually used in my forty years of wandering in the desert of my own false self. Although my Catholic pillars are where I am at now, they are still unfulfilled until I die and take up residence in Heaven, if I am judged worthy by Christ.

My faith experiences, which form the context of my humanity, are not yours; your experiences, which form how you view life and live it based on those views, are not mine; God is not us; and we, most assuredly, are not God. You will have a different set of pillars, based on what you have learned about The Divine Equation and how you did what Mary told the wine stewards at the Wedding of Cana, “Do what he tells you.”

I. THE MYSTERY OF FAITH –

This somewhat murky definition is, for the most part, still beyond total clear focus in my still unfulfilled life. I can say that because my understanding of my Catholic Faith is a process of growth in consciousness and complexity, as set forth by Teilhard de Chardin in what I call the harmonics of all that is, all that we know, and all that is true.

I use the theory that what is true in one universe (physical or mental, or spiritual) must be true in all three, although they are completely separate yet one reality.

The mystery of my Catholic Faith lies in its unfathomable depths within the limits of my physical, mental, and spiritual universes’ paradigm of reality. I wrote previously about searching for spiritual gold. For many years, I limited this search to only the physical part of reality, not fully realizing that there are two other universes to discover, each with its own unique characteristics. To my amazement, what is true in one universe (e.g., the physical universe containing matter, time, and space) is also actual in the other two universes (the mental universe of human existence and the spiritual universe that is the end product or fulfillment of all that is).

Without help from the Mystery of Faith (the energy from God that I can absorb), I discovered that I can’t move from my human self to embrace the whole Mystery of My Humanness.

Just as I can’t exist as a member of the human race without moving in complexity and consciousness from my animality, and before that as part of that great river of matter and time from which I am indebted, I can even write this sentence at this time in my life. The Mystery of Faith unlocks the not-so-secret secrets of being human, allowing me to choose a higher level of existence —one that I must choose and is not subject to the laws of nature. It is my saying YES to the NO of Adam and Eve to move deeper into their humanity (existence in the Garden of Eden before the Fall).

The mystery of the Mystery of Faith is that in all three universes of reality of the Divine Equation, I discover what I find to be true in the physical universe because of the access I have to reasoning and free choice without penalty (but with consequences, intended or unintended).

Physical Universe – This mystery is a cross-cutting theme throughout reality, akin to digging for gold. In the physical universe, we use science and logic to prove something is true by applying accepted languages (mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine, for example) to pick apart what is. I use the insights and results of digging for the truth of what is in what I can see and posit a deduction for what I cannot see (a la Sherlock Holmes).

Mental Universe – This is the universe of human reason and the ability to choose what I want to discover, both what I can see that is real, and what is unseen and yet real. The digging in this universe is a mystery because all humanity is caught up in the flow of reality from Alpha to Omega, one in which all that I have learned from all sources points to a universe that includes not only the physical properties of nature but also the realm of the heart. But, there is more. If I only stop digging after discovering all the wonderful treasures of being human, is that all there is? If I keep digging into my humanity, is there another level of my existence that is accessible only to me, using only the tools of the mental universe (reason and free will)? Again, if I dig for physical gold and mental gold, should I stop digging, or is there more to life, or an even deeper dimension of my humanity, one which uses reason and free will but with the energy from an entire nature outside of humanity, to provide the energy for me to fulfill my humanity as indended and move to that last level of reality, my spiritual self?

Spiritual Universe – This universe begins with Baptism, continues within me while I am still living on this earth, then, after death, continues forever, to whatever awaits us. This universe is the dimension where I can place myself in the presence of God and receive energy from a power beyond my human nature to fulfill my humanity.

In referring to The Mystery of Faith, I don’t use the words “universe” or “evolution” very often because the total scope of my reality is more than simply the physical universe, discovered and analyzed by the mental universe, and measured by the spiritual universe for meaning beyond human capabilities.

 The Mystery of all three universes is the Mystery of Faith, Faith here being the unfathomable depth of discovery of my humanity. But, like everything else in our human experience, there is a price to pay. The physical and mental universes alone do not produce the type of energy to boost my humanity any higher than that of which it is capable.

The Mystery of Faith means I know how to put my humanity in a place where I can access the energy or power to help lift me to that next and third level of reality, one where I must give up (abandon) what seems like everything human, only to move deeper into my humanity than I ever could with mere human nature. This activity requires me to use my reason and free will to give them away to a power that created all life in the first place.

The Mystery of Faith, as I now understand it, means I must dig for this treasure of spiritual gold each day, and store up the riches I find so that I can take with me what I have become by using the Christ Principle (love others as I have loved you) to reach the final evolution of my species (Christos), life outside of the body as I know it and also of human time (chronos) What is clear to me is the unfolding of the movement of all three levels of reality (physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions or universes), a movement of continuous movement not so much forward as maturation of complexity and consciousness of all reality. The mortor and pessel within me requires me to constantly grind up my human experiences, limited to not only my time in this physical body, but also, because I have now used my spirituality to expose a level of depth unknown to my mere human experiences, one containing both what is known from my human experience about my surroundsing but now what is the knowledge beyond human invention that leads to love beyond all telling, which leads me to truth that is beyhond the bounderies of my human capability or capacity. How this fits together is the Mystery of Faith with the Christ Principle as the key, the Catholic Church as the storage shed for the tools Christ left me to fulfill my humanity, to love with all my heart, all my mind, and all my strength, and to love others as I do myself. All I have to do is use these tools from Christ to uncover the gold that I can bring with me to heaven, after this body turns to dust (Ash Wednesday Prayer).

The Mystery of Faith (Three Universes One Reality) is not just the culmination of a vertical process, from Alpha to Omega, but also a cross-cutting theme within each universe, only to the extent permitted by its nature. Later, I will give a detailed explanation of how these three constants move horizontally across the three universes of the physical, mental, and spiritual. I will list them here so you know what I consider the three most powerful engines that propel all reality toward its destiny. They are, in order of importance: energy, love, and truth (or what is absolutely, and yet they are all separate yet one. (Sound familiar?)

The energy and power from Stephenson 2-12 are so powerful that they would destroy us if any human got too close to them. Yet, powerful as this Sun is, it does not know that it knows. Yet it contains mysteries that human intelligence and the language of science can uncover, provided the correct theories and equipment are available. So the mental universe contains both life and human awareness, unique because this human nature knows that it knows, can learn, collectively and individually, and can make decisions about its surroundings. The roadblock lies in the third universe —the spiritual one. In the physical and mental worlds, all existence is physical, with the complexity of human consciousness as a defining paradigm shift from animality to rationality. Yet, these two universes, good as they are, are not the terminus of existence.

The Mystery of Faith is how God had to intervene in human conditions, first from Abraham through to the sending of Jesus to not only tell us how to move to that deeper part of our humanity, but also to show us the way by doing what he inspired to be written by his Church, to which he gave the power of the Holy Spirit to empower each one who makes it through that gauntlet of incredible challenged to go from mere humanity to that next level of evolution, one where I must choose to jump.

The Mystery of Faith means God chooses me to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father and heir to that next and highest level of my humanity. Lest I get too cocky about all of this, every human from Adam to me (and you) has that same invitation. All we have to do is dig to find the gold within that upper room of our inner selves. Uncovering that not-so-secret code from Christ are the six thresholds in my life span of control that I moved to grow more like Christ and less and less like my false self. It is false but not necessarily evil, because I uncover more and more enlightenment the more I place myself in the presence of Christ and wait.

The best way I have found to express where I am in my journey toward fulfilling my humanity is to use a cup in a window — incidentally, one that is foggy — and to show the images on the other side as somewhat outlined but not clear. This view of the Mystery of Faith has meaning only insofar as I fill this cup with what is authentic rather than iron pyrite. My cup is only filled up if I fill it, but what it contains must be God’s treasures, not mine own. I spend my life digging for the gold that I can take with me to heaven, my inheritance, so I can decorate the mansion the Father has waiting for me. Now THAT’S a mystery, as Crocodile Dundee would have said.

Reflecting on this journey, I realize that my search for meaning is ongoing, and each day brings new opportunities to deepen my understanding of the interconnectedness among my physical, mental, and spiritual realities. It is through perseverance and openness to grace that I gradually become more aware of the treasures hidden within my soul, often revealed through moments of silence, prayer, and genuine connection with others. This ongoing process invites me to embrace humility and gratitude as I move forward, knowing that my discoveries are as much gifts as they are the result of personal effort. To be a Catholic is to work at digging (taking up my cross each day to carry what each day brings) continuously by having in me the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5-12), my only center, and calling upon the Holy Spirit to give me the energy from on high to keep Jesus as my Lord and Savior. When you look at this photo, what do you see?

Humans don’t stop learning about what constitutes the depths of their humanity, just as matter, mind, and spirit keep moving from complexity and consciousness, not linearly, but rather towards an unseen point at which everything converges into One Faith, One Hope, and One Love.

The Mystery of Faith means that three universes are one, yet each is separate, with its own characteristics and levels of sophistication: Physical, Mental, and Spiritual.

Faith means the human mind, and I am speaking of my mind, seeks to solve that insatiably irritating part of the human puzzle of what it means to be human and who determines what is good or evil that I take into myself to build my unique Catholic house, which contains all those choices I make of what is good or evil for me, and their consequences.

The Mystery of Faith is that grand paradigm which is true for all of physical reality that leads to a contiguous and unbroken lineage from life to rationality for human, which contains the tools (reasoning and free choice) to discover the deepest part of our humanity, one not based on the movement of matter in complexity and counsciousness, but of my free choice to abandon what seems to be true to place myself in the presence of an energy that is capable of lifing me to a higher level of my humanity than I could do with only human energy.

The Mystery of Faith for me is necessary because, by physical and mental natures in me, I must be in resonance with all of reality as it is inexorably moving towards more complexity and consciousness. With Baptism, I gain another level of reality that explains the first two, not thoroughly, but enough to satisfy my hungry heart that I am on the correct way to reach the truth outside of myself, and so lead a life that my humanity has intended from the beginning.

There are three universes, but one reality. Each one is separate and distinct from the other. In the spiritual universe, the Trinity of Persons but One Reality is the template for the reality in which I live.

The Mystery of Faith explains the Mystery of My Humanity.

II. THE DIVINE HARMONY—In the first pillar, The Mystery of Faith, I gave you my thoughts about how each of the three universes of one reality (physical, mental, and spiritual) is synced together in ways that I am now only slowly unfolding, meaning the Mystery of Faith.  What is true in one universe is also true in the other universes because truth is one in the spiritual realm. Again, these are only my own conjectures based on all the knowledge, love, and search for what is true that my reason has allowed me to assimilate into what reality is for me. As wth the first of these pillars, they build consecutively on the one before it. It took me a lifetime to not only discover them, but to ask the Holy Spirit how all of this seeming contradiction to my reasoning fits together. Jesus tells us to ask, and we will receive; seek, and we shall find. This asking, as I have found, is when I sit on the coach in the upper room of my inner self next to Jesus, and wait until my heart receives an answer from the Holy Spirit. This waiting is my asking and hearing, not with human ears or tongue, but in silence and solitude —the language of God, then waiting for Christ to fill my heart with Divine energy as an answer.

Waiting denotes trying to consciously align myself with the universe that resonates with my humanity, which is in dissonance while still on earth. I can only communicate in my spiritual universe —the one that accepted me as an adopted son of the Father and heir to the kingdom. While my human self keeps moving through the intelligent progression befitting my nature as a human being, the next higher level of my evolution — the spiritual universe — is one where I can reach resonance with all reality that was, that is, and that is to come at the end of the ages. My powers are not capable of such knowledge, or love, or truth, but Christ’s energy through the Holy Spirit is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.

This grand alignment of the cosmos, the mental universe, and the spiritual universe is the deepest part of my humanity, and it is only possible by my choosing to hear what reality tells me, even if not completely understood. Choice is the key characteristic of any human, and I conform to the inclinations of both physical and mental universes when I abandon what I know to accept what all of this lifetime of reality means for me during my brief tenure as a human.

I am in harmony with my humanity, which became relevant to all that is through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to the Father in reparation for the sins of Adam and Eve, and for those of us remaining as ransom for many.

Baptism realigns me with the whole universe of all that should be according to its nature and function.

Confirmation allows me to access the power of God, but only through the mediation of Jesus Christ, both the Son of God and the Son of Mary. St. Augustine points out that “the heart is restless until it rests in Thee.”

Praying becomes an act of love to long to be in the presence of that convergence that brings all three dimensions of reality to fulfillment within me (or you), if we but choose.

A dead Jesus means He is only human. A resurrected Jesus means that his body and blood continue to live on, and the Catholic Church is the conduit through which I receive access to that living Christ.

III. THE DIVINE EQUATION – As I have written earlier in this piece, The Divine Equation is a name that I have given to the six processes of gateways of movement through which I have molted during my lifetime, at least those I can remember. I realized early on that I could not prove anything about God or the Mystery of Faith with the tools of science or logic, although they made perfect sense once I had evolved into the deepest part of my humanity. These six steps are my wandering in the desert for forty (or more) years, and how I came through this drought because of Christ. These six theorems don’t tell me anything about God, but they do help me recognize God in nature, in humanity, and in the highest level of evolution within my humanity.

They are:

What is the purpose of all life?

What is MY purpose of life within that purpose?

What does reality look like?

How does it all fit together?

How can I love fiercely?

I know I am going to die; now what?

These questions are at the core of the ground of my being, Jesus Christ. They permeate my prayers and conscious thoughts as I can remember them.

IV. THE UPPER ROOM OF MY INNER SELF. – My fourth pillar, learned from a lifetime of failures and realizations that the Jesus I had worshipped and believed in looked more like me and less like Christ, is about my lessons learned while sitting at the feet of the Master in silence and solitude and just waiting for what comes. If meditation is my initiative, using a Lectio from Philippians 2:5: “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus,” then contemplation is God’s answer in silence. The only way I have found to listen to what God says in the upper room of my inner self is to place myself in His presence and wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to me. The Blessed Mother said it best when she advised the wine stewards at the Wedding Feast of Cana to “Do what he tells you.”  My Catholic Faith means I must be that wine steward to make new wine sins to hold the new wine Jesus transformed. Only I (and you) can do that, and in the silence of our hearts. Matthew 6:5 speaks of praying to God in private, and this is what I think Jesus meant. The two dimensions of prayer are external prayer (Sacraments, devotions, and shared public prayers) and internal prayer, done in the silence of my human sanctuary of the mind (contemplation), listening with the “ear of my heart.”

At my advanced age, I find myself retreating more and more to that sacred place where Jesus and the Holy Spirit are in silence, just listening for “What he tells you.” This practice, gained from my association with Cistercian practices and charisms, changed me in ways I never could have predicted. I became one with the movement of all creation, in sync with the harmony of all that is as it is from all that it is. www.organism.earth.

A pillar such as this one sustains me while I am on earth so that I can collect treasures (consistent with who God is) to take with me to live in that eternal place of mansions in heaven. This event happens because I make new wine skins every day to hold the new wine that comes from my placing myself in humility and obedience in the presence of Christ and waiting.

V. “DO WHAT HE TELLS YOU.” – This fifth pillar is only a recent realization, although I have known it all along. The statement by the Blessed Mother to the wine stewards at the Wedding Feast of Cana has taken on new meaning since I have become more aware of my responsibility to make new wineskins every day to hold the new wine Christ gives me. (capacitas dei and conversio morae)

Consistent with what I think the Godhead contains (pure knowledge, pure love, and pure truth), all followers of Christ produce the product of human spiritual energy as part of their “having in them the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) The product of all prayer and sacraments is excess energy from God which Jesus bid us share with others in the form of the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy, and in abandoning false self to serve others as Christ served us. The Blessed Mother is the type for all humans of what this means in lived reality on earth, as a pilgrim in a foreign land, until we reach the finality of what our nature intended.

VI: CAPACITAS DEI and CONVERSIO MORAE – This sixth pillar of my new Catholic Church (Christ bid me to make all things new) is the conscious mindset to think of the two characteristics of contemplative spirituality from the Cistercian tradition (Trappist), as I understand it. Capacitas dei is a term I picked up from Cistercian spirituality and have translated into my lived reality as a way to purge my false self (thinking and acting as though I am the one who can choose what is good or evil). However, I still am hostage to this fundamental reality of my humanity.) It means, as quoted by St. John the Baptist, that I must decrease and he must decrease. I do that by both personal and public prayers in conjunction with Cistercian monks and nuns, and more particularly in union with all Lay Cistercians, worldwide. Conversio morae is my constant and consistent yearning to be in the presence of Jesus in silence, solitude, work, and prayer, in the context of community.

These two characteristics of my contemplative spirituality are much more than mere slogans that fade in the face of temptations to return to being a human without Christ. They are the foundations of My Lay Cistercian spirituality, just as Catholicism is in My New Catholic Church. I alone have the choice to dedicate each day to becoming more than a mere human whose purpose is to live, learn, and then die. I Hope in the resurrection of my life from the death of being a mere human whose evolution stops with death. I Hope that the words of Christ to me, through the Church, through others speaking to me as carriers of the Holy Spirit, to those times I consciously place myself in the presence of Christ and ask for mercy with humility and obedience to the will of the Father, as manifested to me through the Holy Spirit.

VII. THE INHERITANCE JESUS LEFT TO THOSE WHO LOVE HIM. – I hate to admit it, but I often harbor feelings that betray my adoption as a spiritual child of the Father. One such idea, probably the vestiges of original sin which I have failed to conquer, is the constant question of “What’s in it for me?” This typical response from the earthly side of my being is my selfish side struggling with my spiritual side, two citizenships colliding with each other in an embrace until I shed this mortal shell and hope in the resurrection for my next level of existence.

Jesus’ gift of adoption to me and all those who are baptized in water and the Spirit gives me a credit card during my life that I can save up those good works, prayers, experiences, good friends and family, all the times I prayed for God’s mercy for my abashedly missing the point of His talking with me, all the times that I sat down in the presence of Christ and just waited for the Holy Spirit to whisper to me knowledge, love, and service to others, so that I could do what the Father wills and not my own, all the sunsets where I marveled at the majesty of a God who, as far as anyone knows, created each day, each sunset, each sent of a rainy day, and the times when I alone chose what is appropriate for the evolution of my humanity.

VIII. THE GIFT OF THE GOLDEN THREAD. – Like the story of Ariadne’s thread in the labyrinth of the Minotaur, I believe that at Baptism, Christ gives me gifts that are what I need to run the gauntlet from being born again as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father, gifts that the world can never give me, although we use the same language. God knows what I need to sustain my faith, love, and what is the absolute truth in the midst of original sin (like the confusion of tongues with the Tower of Babel). I can choose what God tells me is necessary to fulfill my humanity and move to that next level of evolution, one only possible with God’s energy and my willingness to say YES, as did the Blessed Mother when offered to be the mother of Jesus and the second Eve, the mother of redeemed humanity, in the new wine skins I create each day. I can take those wineskins to that next place, my inheritance as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father, where I can decorate my mansion with what I have discovered, satisfying the yearnings of my humanity as it stretches out to find the ultimate resonance to the dissonance of original sin. In a very real way, my inheritance is not only a place before the Throne of the Lamb of God, but also those good works and prayers that Jesus told us would bring us eternal life in His presence. My heaven on earth begins with my Baptism and continues until I die, then, life changes, it does not end. I live out all those prayers and realize their effectiveness with others. All others join me in heaven after I die, hopefully all humans who ever lived, in proclaiming for all eternity the marvels of what is uncovered on that stand of good works for all to see in each precious life, so that we all together proclaim the greatness of God, as each of us can, and give glory to the Father through Christ with the energy of the Holy Spirit. Forever is not a term that our earthly consciousness can grasp in its entirety, but only through stories, fables, similes, and reading the Scriptures.

The question came up in one of my Lay Cistercian Zoom gatherings: Who goes to heaven? Only the Baptized as Scriptures seems to tell us over and over. If the Catholic Church is the one true expression of what Jesus wants to hand down through the centuries, and I believe that it is, then what about all those not of our faith, not of our religion, or just not interested in what God has to say about anything with the word “God” in it?

I am a Catholic because of “what’s in it for me,” not to covet the title of the sole judge of the living and the dead, despite what I read in Scriptures. Judging others is WAY above my pay grade. I want the same inheritance and seek the same forgiveness of my sins that would extend to all other humans. God is, if nothing else, merciful to those who love him. Only God can see the hungry heart, and he will weigh each heart on a scale, with one side our heart and the other side a single feature to balance it. This Egyptian notion of resurrection is one that I hope applies to me and all others as well (Yes, even to those like Hitler, Stalin, and other mass murderers).

The encyclical entitled the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) gives the most balanced and merciful explanation of this seeming conundrum.

Jesus told the Church, the extension of Himself on earth, in heaven, and in purgatory, how to choose to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father and to maintain continuity and consistency of that message as it pinballs down the centuries.

These gifts are why each Baptized person can avail themselves of God’s own energy (by absorbing it or being aware of Christ’s presence through the Holy Spirit). I do what I can where I am and as I am.

The Gift of Adoption—God chooses us, we don’t choose God, and the choice of each person comes from our placing ourselves in the presence of Christ and saying, “I believe, help my unbelief” (St. Thomas Aquinas).

The Gift of the Spirit of Truth—To sustain me and you throughout the perilous gauntlet of being human in the condition of ambiguity of what is good or evil, once again, God gives us a Second Advocate to help those who call upon the name of the Lord for energy and grace. The Holy Spirit, as with Christ, is present in that upper room of my inner self, and I approach this pure energy with “fear of the Lord,” as St. Benedict writes in the Rule, Chapter 7:10. I am not you; you are not me; God is not us, and we, most certainly, are not God.

This gift of truth saves each individual from being their own God or their own pope. Absolute truth comes from outside our nature, absolutely, and is above the vagaries of human uncertainty.

The Holy Spirit is the golden thread that Christ wove from the Apostles at Pentecost down through all the centuries until this broken-down, old Lay Cistercian was born into this world and received the Holy Spirit in Confirmation. The hard part was keeping that Holy Spirit real in my life from then until now, a feat I can only describe as spotty at best. Now, at least when I place myself in the presence of Christ and invoke the energy of the Holy Spirit for another day, I have a way of contacting the Sacred, not on my terms, but as Jesus and the Holy Spirit have authorized, through the Catholic Church Universal.

The Gift of Food for the Journey to Tomorrow.—God gives me the food to sustain my adoption as son (daughter) of the Father. As only God would have thought up, the food of life is a person, Jesus, the Savior, present in humility under the appearance of bread and wine. But to be much more than just thinking or remembering Jesus as present to me now, Jesus chose the Last Supper as the memorial he wanted his followers to observe. “ Read Jn 6:51-58 (www.usccb.org)

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;

whoever eats this bread will live forever;

and the bread that I will give

is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,

“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them,

“Amen, amen, I say to you,

unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,

you do not have life within you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

has eternal life,

and I will raise him on the last day.

For my flesh is true food,

and my blood is true drink.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

remains in me and I in him.

Just as the living Father sent me

and I have life because of the Father,

so also the one who feeds on me

will have life because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

Unlike your ancestors, who ate and still died,

whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

This great mystery of Faith, the Eucharist, is a way only God could have thought up to allow me and you to be present to that same Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee. Set in the context of the Last Supper, the Jewish Passover commemorates the Israelites’ freedom from slavery. This golden thread stretched from the Passover through Christ and from Him to the Apostles to hand down through each century until I make it real in the one life in the whole world that means anything, my life.

Being an authentic Catholic is not merely the juridical obligation to go to Church on Sunday, but a consistent act of Faith in Jesus that you long to live in the house of the Lord all the days of your life. It is an act of love that you take into yourself the real presence of Christ to house in the Holy of Holies in the upper room of your inner self, a place you keep reserved for being present to Jesus through the Holy Spirit. I realize that I am the Christ-bearer during my life, imperfect and prone to sin that I am, but that Jesus authorized the Church to make present the real body and blood of Christ for me to grow in complexity and consciousness, to a deeper appreciation of my humanity.

The Gift of Forgiveness – Christ gave his Church, the gathering of faithful down through the centuries, a way to not only receive the only food that is the energy from God, but also a way to rid ourselves of those debilitating behaviors and mental aberrations that lead to missing the whole point of life. The Church is nothing if not the visible presence of Christ in each age as it moves forward, capturing the knowledge of what Christ wanted us to have to sustain ourselves as adopted sons and daughters of the Father. This golden thread is one I received from my Baptism, and I can use it to trace back to the time of Christ and be sure that what He told us is true. The two dynamic gifts of food and forgiveness are proof that God knows what we all need to get to heaven rather than what we want to make ourselves happy for the moment. Forgiveness of sins takes place in many ways.

The Catholic Church publicly manifests the Faith of the Church when I am present at the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This gift means Christ grants me not only forgiveness of my human frailties, but also misses the point of what He taught, to make all things new in Him. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is what Jesus instituted to give us grace and to take away the sins and offenses we commit against God since our Baptism.

Whenever I make new wineskins to hold the daily new wine Christ offers to me, it is a conversion of my mind and heart (conversio morae) to thinking about the majesty of the one I love beyond even my poor attempts to ask for mercy for myself and all others. “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive others who trespass against us,” we say in the Lord’s Prayer.

When the Holy Spirit told me who I really am, it scared the Hell out of me, literally. I stumbled onto the devotion of Our Lady of Akita after that encounter. I dedicated whatever time I had left to asking for mercy and, in reparation for my sins, to pray for others in my life and in Purgatory, and to ask those in Heaven to join me in their prayers with my prayer to the Father to replace ignorance and pride with love and peace.

The golden thread is one I can sew through anything I want to take to heaven with me, where a mansion awaits me to continue my knowledge, love, and service to all those in heaven, but now, forever. The golden thread, about which I have written in my books somewhere, is my act of Faith that what I have experienced when I place myself before Christ and ask just to be able to sit in His presence with eyes lowered (custos oculi), love as I can and how I can. What great peace there is in the presence of Christ, one that the world cannot give. What great love there is in the presence of Christ through the energy of the Holy Spirit, overshadowing me just as surely as God did to the Blessed Mother, the highest and most perfect of our race. Mary attained, through the Holy Spirit, the highest level of evolution our species can expect. Mary is not God, and we don’t worship her at all, but we do acknowledge her intercessory power to put in a good word with her Son, Jesus.

In Heaven, after life is changed and not ended, our reward is to follow all the golden threads Jesus has given to all those who love him and who sit at the feet of the Lamb of God, saying, “Glory 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.” –Cistercian doxology.

I can thread this golden gift through sunsets that remind me of how great God is for allowing me to see this majesty manifested through nature.

I am blessed to be able to take the animals I love and want with me into that mansion in heaven.

I take with me all those who are still fighting the good fight on earth, those in purgatory who get a second chance, and those already in heaven, waiting for me to join this grand gathering of the Body of Christ.

The Gifts of Sustainability: Marriage and Holy Orders. Procreation in the physical universe of matter and mind has as its most intensive pleasure that which results in procreation. Animals must obey the laws of nature, like humans, because they have free will, have thrown off the shackles of animal nature, and have become the arbiters of what is good and what is evil for each individual. Each of us is Adam and Eve all over again, each time I choose good or evil. Jesus became human (Philippians 2:5-12) to tell us what our human nature alone could not. Not only that, we could not move to that deepest level of our humanity, being adopted sons and daughters of the Father, with the energy of the Holy Spirit. Holy Orders, the vocation of serving others through either secular or consecrated vows, is the Church allowing the Eucharist to pass down through the centuries until I am born and use it to make my way to heaven, using the Church as Mother, Mediator, and Mentor.

The Gift of Healing and Viaticum. – God knows what we need to get to a heaven where there is no sin and every tear will be wiped away. Healing is a sacrament of the Church whose purpose is to make both the body and spirit new again. Viaticum, also known as the Last Rites, prepares me to go to heaven and be judged by God, having received Holy Communion, Forgiveness of Sins, and Anointing of the Sick.

IX. FOOD FOR THE JOURNEY AND MAKING ALL THINGS NEW: I CAN’T BE A CATHOLIC WITHOUT THEM. – If I were Jesus, and I knew I was going to be a sacrifice for the ransom of many by giving up my life voluntarily to the Father in reparation for the sin of Adam and Eve, I would probably have written down instructions on how to act after I am gone, like a last will or testament.

Realizing that God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, gives me what I need to sustain me as an adopted son (daughter) while I am still in this mortal body, I am astounded by the choice that Jesus made to entrust His actual body and blood to be passed down through sinful and sometimes disobedient human nature. Human nature is created good by God, was wounded by the sin of Adam and Eve, but restored to fullness of life as it was before the Fall, except for still having to struggle with all those results of being human (dying, pain, confusion of what is good or evil, losing faith if I don’t tend to its movement in sync with the grow of all matter in consciousness and complexity.) Rather than a religion that guarantees an automatic heaven by just saying Jesus is Lord, Jesus told us we had to take up our cross daily and slog through the inconveniences of both physical nature plus those we inherited as humans from those who went before us. Far from Faith being like winning the Lottery, we had to do what Christ says, and take means, being Catholic, not as the world sees religion, but by placing myself, through abandonment, at the feet of the Master and asking what I should do.

Rather than leaving us orphans with no guidance, Christ gave authority to his bishops and priests to allow Jesus to be present under the appearance of bread and wine, so that I can take that same Jesus who died on the cross into the tabernacle of my inner self and be what I have placed at the center of my life.

It is impossible to be a Catholic without having the real presence of Christ inside me. The genius of this approach is that Christ is real through me, so I must be of service to others as I want Christ to be present to me each day. Prayer is just a love message to Jesus through the energy of the Holy Spirit, that I still need God as the ground of my being. Love by Christ is actually and existentially present to me (and to you) and wants to be with us. For my part, I want to pray without ceasing in the presence of the One who is Love incarnate, and just humbly sit in silence and solitude, enjoying my time with the Master.

Because all humans (except for Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Mary, Mother of God) live in the world and make choices not consistent with who God is or what God has instructed to be able to get to heaven, Jesus gave additional authority for Peter and the Apostles to continue the forgiveness of sins down through the ages. It is mind-blowing to me that the Jesus we read about in the Transfiguration, the God of power and majesty, would entrust the same power to lose in heaven what humans lose on earth that comes from the Godhead. None of this makes sense unless we have the Faith of a mustard seed and trust that the words given to Peter and the Apostles are valid now.

X. THE SIGN OF CONTRADICTION: IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO TAKE UP YOUR OWN CROSS, DON’T BE A CATHOLIC. – I have realized that, like St. Paul’s duality of flesh and the spirit in Galatians 5, my own spirituality makes much more sense if I use these two dimensions to explain what, on the surface seems like a sign of contradition. The “flesh,” as I understand it, is that dimension of human nature where I try as I can to become more human and learn the meaning of love each day. Good as this citizenship of the earth is, it is not the final purpose of my humanity. God created it as good, but humanity, in its quest to find who controls what is good or evil, was not able to accept God as supreme and pure energy. Just as the physical universe, that of matter and life other than humanity, is a prerequisite for human existence, so too human nature (in this dimension of just flesh) exists with reason and the ability of each individual to mirror that decision of Adam and Eve to choose who determines good or evil for me. Sin, or missing the mark of what humanity is all about, is always a free choice to seek evil. The problem with human existence is not just who can determine what is good or evil. Still, WHAT is good and what is evil for allowing my humanity to take that next step in its evolutionary process, one consistent with the movement of complexity and consciousness of matter, mind, and, to add, “spirit”?

It is what we all do with what we have discovered in life about the ultimate purpose of the universe that determines if we have made the correct choice of WHO determines good versus evil, and also WHAT is good or evil. There are two choices for WHO chooses to move to that next level of our humanity: a)God gives us the way, the truth, so that we can lead a life in that second citizenship (a duality of flesh and spirit), determines.

To choose God, I must say to myself that I don’t have the kingdom, the power, or the glory, or the energy to move up to that next threshold of evolution, one that fulfills my “flesh,” as did Adam and Eve. I can listen to the temptations of the “flesh: to be my own god and be the arbiter of what is good or evil. The problem with this approach is that each individual is a god, a pope, or the final arbiter of good and evil. As part of my heritage of original sin, I don’t like people telling me what to do or what to believe. Likewise, I resist giving up what I consider my two most precious human characteristics, human reasoning and my unique ability to say YES or NO to anything my reason presents to me for choice. The notion of abandonment of these two innate characteristics of what I think makes me unique, not only from all other life forms, but especially all other humans,

Catholicism is a way to move past those impediments to my taking the next step. It is a way which Christ told his followers to do by loving others as He loved us, but being of service to the person in front of us, respecting their humanity, even if their choice of good or evil is not what the Church has kept as a sacred trust down through all the centuries.

The Church is the conduit to provide each person, if they so desire, to become an adopted son or daughter of the Father and heir to the kingdom of the spirit. Like digging for spiritual gold on earth that we can take with us to decorate the heavenly mansion God has created just for me, being Catholic is the process of surviving the gauntlet of temptations and people who try to beat us. Hence, we trip up, stall, or fall, unable to rise again. Catholic spirituality is one in which we must all take up our unique crosses and follow Christ, noting that Christ ran the archetypal gauntlet (the way of the cross) and suffered many trials just for me (and you). He kept moving on to a death that is reparation for the sins of us all, as a ransom for many. The Church is the group of those faithful who, in each age, try to be faithful to the teachings of Christ by doing them and asking for mercy for all humans. “If you love me, keep my commandments.”

MY REASONS TO BELIEVE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, OR NOT.

What does your Church look like? It could be different for each one of us, depending on our reasons and free choices. The Catholic Church is, for me, the strictest and most challenging of all the faith platforms out there. I must take up my cross daily and follow Christ. Below are some ideas about what that means to me now, and where I am at present.

• That they ask you to die each day to self to rise to new life in Christ Jesus.
• That they ask you to love one another as Christ loved us.
• That they ask you to love God with your whole heart, whole mind, and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.
• That they ask you, when people calumniate and make false statements, do not return evil for evil, but return evil with good.
• You should be filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit and overflow so that people may see your good works and give glory to our heavenly Father.
• They ask you to grow in the capacity of God each day in silence and solitude.
• That they ask you to forgive those who persecute you and love those who hate you.
• That they ask you to believe that the words of Christ are as valid today as when he spoke them.
• They ask you to give glory to the Father, through, with, and in Christ, with the power of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharistic sacrifice.
• That they ask you to convert your sinful self each day through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• That they ask you to sit quietly on a park bench in the middle of winter with the heart of Christ next to yours and just be fully human as your nature intended.
• That you should do nothing more than to seek God each day in whatever comes your way or whoever comes your way, with no judgments.
• They ask you to have mercy on others as Christ has mercy on you.
• That you should pray in the silence of your room (Matthew 6.5) in secret (contemplative prayer) and make no demands on God.
• You should remember that the first step of humility is to fear the Lord.
• You should not worship false gods of the world, the first and foremost being yourself.
• That you should do penance for your sins and read the seven penitential psalms with genuine sorrow for offending God.
• That you should not prevaricate and speak falsely of others.
• That you should not let the sun go down on your anger.
• You should do unto others as you want them to do to you.
• That you should come to believe in the words of Christ as Messiah. (John 20:30–31)
• You should not worship false idols such as money, fame, fortune, adulation, false pride, or the belief that you and your thinking are better than others’.
• That they ask you to give up what seems righteous to the world, but which is the opposite for those in the kingdom of heaven.
• That they ask that in all things, you glorify God.
• That they ask you to watch out for the devil, who goes about seeking whom he may devour, especially me.
• They ask you not to place the world’s riches at the center, but instead to place God’s riches there. Only the rich get to heaven, but it is with God’s riches, not material things.
• They ask you to have Faith, Hope, and Love, and listen to the whispers of the Holy Spirit with the ear of your heart.
• They ask that you accept that those designated by Christ (Bishops and Priests) have the power and authority to bindand loose in heaven.
• They ask you to act as the Church is the living body of Christ now, in heaven, and in purgatory.
• That you forgive others their sins against you, as you want God to forgive you your sins.
• They ask you to take into that upper room of your inner self the Real Presence of Christ and believe that his body is real food and his blood is real drink.
• That, even if there is no god, no higher source, nobody from whom we have a DNA, doing these things would allow us to reach the highest potential of our humanity as intended by our nature.
• That, in the end, we have Faith so that we can have Hope in the resurrection, and so live now in the love of God (not the world), and serve others as Christ has served us.
• They ask that you pray for the souls in purgatory “that they may be loosed from their sins.”
• That you pray to Jesus and ask that Mary and the Saints (and all those in heaven) pray with you, first for mercy for your sins, transgressions, and lack of awareness, then for those in Purgatory, who depend upon us for our prayers.
• That only the rich get to heaven, but it must be God’s riches you store up on earth, and not anything you might want to bring to decorate your mansion.
• That you not judge the motivations or sincerity of anyone inside the Church and let God judge those outside of it.
• That you cultivate a mindset of daily prayer and penance in reparation for your sins and ask that God be merciful to all those you know, all clergy and religious, plus laity, those within the Catholic Universal Church (outside the Church there is no salvation—St. Cyprian), and for the whole world, that God not look upon the folly of our poor choices but be merciful to all humans.
  

XI: MY LAY CISTERCIAN WAY.—In my eternal (everyday) quest to “Have in me the mind of Christ Jesus,” I have opted for a deeper dimension to my Catholic Faith than I could achieve by my own resources. I refer to the recent Lay Cistercian movement that seeks to replicate both capacitas dei and conversio morae as a daily mindset, to the point where I move away from my selfish, false self and strive each day to grow into more of Christ. It seems that all of my conversion of life and my growth from my false self to my true self as adopted son (daughter) of the Father has been due to trying to follow these practices, constantly and consistently.

Some days are better than others, but this longing draws my heart for knowledge that will lead me to a way to become more human, a truth that leads to the most profound meaning of love that a human can experience (e.g. The Blessed Mother), and a life that seems to contradict what it means to be human, until I apply the Christ Principle and unlock the secrets of the universe, that say what is, is the gold in front of you and you must dig for it.

XII. “HAVE IN YOU THE MIND OF CHRIST JESUS.”— I have had this cryptic sentence from Scriptures (Philippians 2:5) as the very center of my physical, mental, and now spiritual life since 1963 (or was it 1964). Now, at the ripe old age of 85.3, I still have this one defining phrase as the core of my being. I began by asking myself, “If you could have just one center (Scriptural sentence or idea) upon which your whole spirituality depends, like the capstone of a building, and if someone removed it, all other mosaic pieces on which it depends would crumble, what would that be?

Because of the sovereignty of the individual in the stream of humanity that flows along the pathway intended, since there is a pathway, all of us must choose to put something at the center, without which all other ideas cease to exist.

What I place at the very ground of my being is who I am and what I expect to become, regardless of the challenges and failures, the sins and righteous choices I make, and my selections of good or evil. Please tell me what your center is, and I will tell you whether you make good or evil choices. What I place at my center is maybe not who I was, but it certainly is the North of my compass to guide me to what I want to become. My center does not need to be your center because I am not you, and you are not me. My choice is the ultimate sign that I know the difference between good and evil, and that I choose God’s knowledge, love, and truth as the measure of my effectiveness in moving to the next level of my evolution.

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