I asked one of the monks about contemplative prayer and what it meant. He told me, “if you have to ask for a definition, you need to do more contemplation.” Although I am still not sure what he meant, I do know that my human side wants to know more, while my spiritual side just wants to be in the presence of Christ and wait. I am the sum of those two approaches (of course, much more than that). Prayer is the mind wants to know more because the more you know, the more you can understand the how, why, when, where, and so what it means to praise and glorify God. The heart wants to do all that the mind does but has the added dimension of feeling where the mind is content with just knowing. The prayer of the heart has no agenda, nor does it seek to boss around God so that God must fit my image and likeness. The prayer of the heart merely seeks to love, much like human love is just willing to be in the presence of the one you love and enjoy whatever takes place together.

I know (the mind) that Jesus is my Christ Principle and seek to discover whatever I can about who that is. I feel The Christ Principle and seek to sit next to that Jesus on the park bench in the cold of winter and share together WHATEVER GOD WANTS ME TO KNOW, LOVE, AND SERVE about myself and others around me.

I want to share with you what I did due to these thoughts. In this case, I went to some core resources, The Catholic Catechism, as part of my Lectio Divina (knowledge) to re-read what contemplation means. “Knowledge,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “precedes love.” I learned that to know what it means, I have to do it over and over until I don’t realize I am praying in the silence of my heart.

Contemplation, for me, is resting on a park bench in the middle of winter and waiting for Christ to show up. When my knowledge of whatever is cluttering my mind slowly dissipates, what becomes more apparent is that Christ has always sat next to me. Still, I have not had the abandonment of the world to listen with the “ear of the heart,” as St. Benedict counsels.

Below is a section from The Catholic Catechism on contemplation. Read it slowly and prayerfully. Make a conscious effort to move it from thinking about it to doing it. Meditation is about thinking about Jesus. Contemplation is about being present to Jesus and loving it.

III. Contemplative Prayer

2709 What is contemplative prayer? St. Teresa answers: “Contemplative prayer [oracion mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.”⁶
Contemplative prayer seeks him “whom my soul loves.”⁷ It is Jesus, and in him, the Father. We seek him, because to desire him is always the beginning of love, and we seek him in that pure faith which causes us to be born of him and to live in him. In this inner prayer we can still meditate, but our attention is fixed on the Lord himself.

2710 The choice of the time and duration of the prayer arises from a determined will, revealing the secrets of the heart. One does not undertake contemplative prayer only when one has the time: one makes time for the Lord, with the firm determination not to give up, no matter what trials and dryness one may encounter. One cannot always meditate, but one can always enter into inner prayer, independently of the conditions of health, work, or emotional state. the heart is the place of this quest and encounter, in poverty ant in faith.

2711 Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we “gather up:” the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us. We let our masks fall and turn our hearts back to the Lord who loves us, so as to hand ourselves over to him as an offering to be purified and transformed.

2712 Contemplative prayer is the prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more.⁸ But he knows that the love he is returning is poured out by the Spirit in his heart, for everything is grace from God. Contemplative prayer is the poor and humble surrender to the loving will of the Father in ever deeper union with his beloved Son.

2713 Contemplative prayer is the simplest expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gift, a grace; it can be accepted only in humility and poverty. Contemplative prayer is a covenant relationship established by God within our hearts.⁹ Contemplative prayer is a communion in which the Holy Trinity conforms man, the image of God, “to his likeness.”

2714 Contemplative prayer is also the pre-eminently intense time of prayer. In it the Father strengthens our inner being with power through his Spirit “that Christ may dwell in (our) hearts through faith” and we may be “grounded in love.”¹⁰

2715 Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus. “I look at him and he looks at me”: this is what a certain peasant of Ars used to say to his holy cure about his prayer before the tabernacle. This focus on Jesus is a renunciation of self. His gaze purifies our heart; the light of the countenance of Jesus illumines the eyes of our heart and teaches us to see everything in the light of his truth and his compassion for all men. Contemplation also turns its gaze on the mysteries of the life of Christ. Thus it learns the “interior knowledge of our Lord,” the more to love him and follow him.¹¹

2716 Contemplative prayer is hearing the Word of God. Far from being passive, such attentiveness is the obedience of faith, the unconditional acceptance of a servant, and the loving commitment of a child. It participates in the “Yes” of the Son become servant and the Fiat of God’s lowly handmaid.

2717 Contemplative prayer is silence, the “symbol of the world to come”¹² or “silent love.”¹³ Words in this kind of prayer are not speeches; they are like kindling that feeds the fire of love. In this silence, unbearable to the “outer” man, the Father speaks to us his incarnate Word, who suffered, died, and rose; in this silence the Spirit of adoption enables us to share in the prayer of Jesus.

2718 Contemplative prayer is a union with the prayer of Christ insofar as it makes us participate in his mystery. the mystery of Christ is celebrated by the Church in the Eucharist, and the Holy Spirit makes it come alive in contemplative prayer so that our charity will manifest it in our acts.

2719 Contemplative prayer is a communion of love bearing Life for the multitude, to the extent that it consents to abide in the night of faith. the Paschal night of the Resurrection passes through the night of the agony and the tomb – the three intense moments of the Hour of Jesus which his Spirit (and not “the flesh [which] is weak”) brings to life in prayer. We must be willing to “keep watch with (him) one hour.”¹⁴

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P9M.HTM

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There is one shortcoming, I stop short of calling it a failure, of the Church Universal in teaching the Faith to those who are growing in their faith (youngsters or the newly professed Catholics): sustainability. RCIA is an excellent greenhouse in which those who discern what it means to be Catholic Universal (all rites) can thrive. The local parish provides such instruction in the form of sessions that allow individuals to address the elements of the Creed and see if this path is for them.

If they are deemed suitable and they judge that they want to profess their faith in The Catholic Way, they are Baptized and Confirmed at the Easter Vigil.

I think the Church could improve by extending the period of simulation of the Faith beyond Baptism in a systematic and formal way. The local Church becomes the context for newly professed or confirmed young believers to grow. The seminarium (greenhouse) takes them to the next level of their journey to love others as Christ loved us. We should not think that, just because a person is baptized, they have received infused knowledge and don’t need to do anything but attend Mass on Sundays.

Hopefully, the seeds of Faith planted at the Easter Vigil and confirmed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit will find rich soil to thrive. The local Church must have, as it continued assistance to parents, those who are the primary caretakers of young spiritual shoots, an awareness that there is no growth without cultivation and keeping out the weeds of life.

Here is what I consider to be the intelligent progression of any Catholic, and by application, what we should be teaching our young with skill sets to combat the seeming boredom of being human. Like Erich Fromm, an existentialist psychologist whose book, The Art of Loving, contain his thoughts that love is an acquired skill and not one we have innately, what follows are learned behaviors from the first teachers of each of us, our parents.

HOW TO GROW DEEPER IN THEIR FAITH THROUGH CONTEMPLATION— How can you share with your children that there is a place inside them where they must learn to go daily where they meet Jesus in the silence and solitude of their hearts. Contemplation is a way to communicate with God through the Holy Spirit by listening and waiting. It is a skill that needs to be mastered and not automatically given to you when you are Baptized.

THE COST OF BEING CATHOLIC AND THE REWARDS — How do you explain to your children that to follow Christ, they must die to their false self, and what that means, plus tolerance for the struggle that we all face when the world challenges us?

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CROSS ON YOUR FOREHEAD— How do you demonstrate the link between the cross of your Baptism and how it is the basis for prayer and behaviors that lead to loving others as Christ loved us?

YOU ARE AN ADOPTED SON OR DAUGHTER OF THE FATHER. YOU INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. The value of being an adopted son or daughter of the Father is core to what it means to be a citizen of heaven because of your Baptism. What does God expect of his followers

THE STRUGGLE OF TWO CITIZENSHIPS. ONE GETS YOU TO HEAVEN. How do you show your children that there are two citizenships they hold, one earthy and one being adopted sons and daughters of the Father?

As strange as it may seem, we can learn from the polar bear how to transfer behaviors that make each of us uniquely human. Polar bear moms teach by doing with their cubs. If you don’t believe in Jesus, way down deep, your children pick up on what you hold as your center.

• Parents need to talk to their children about WHY they love Jesus and not be ashamed to confess Christ before others.
• Parents need to be unified in their beliefs by discussing how they want their children to have their heritage.
• Parents who are split believers and nonbelievers need to be upfront with their children about what that means.
• Parents need to show that they believe in the Trinity and how attending Eucharist is an act where we bring Jesus into our hearts and minds with all our strength. It is food to make us solid and resistant to the lures of the Devil.
• Parents need to show their children how the Ten Commandments help us to keep centered on having Christ as our center.
• Parents need to show their children that no one is perfect but that they need to seek forgiveness by using the Sacrament of Reconciliation as part of a way of life.
• MUST DO BEHAVIORS AND PRAYERS
• How the Rosary makes Christ real in your heart.
• Read Chapter 4 of St. Benedict’s Rule daily and make it real.
• A love for the Eucharist and the Real Presence.
• How to pray Lectio Divina.
• How to have a routine of spirituality.
• How the Devil can sneak up on you if you are not aware.
• Parents must show their children what it means to have Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
• Parents must give their children the skills to be what they read when they use the Scriptures.
• Parents must impart to their children how to address The Divine Equation in their lives:

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

Who teaches parents how to be the best of teachers in the Faith? The answers have always been there, but we are unaware of what is in front of us. Do you know the most frequent words to St. Peter are for people knocking at the pearly gates? “Nobody ever told me that before?” If you are one of those who would say that to St. Peter, you need conversio morae (daily conversion of life).

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My Catholic Faith is not a philosophy where I have a set of goals I meet or not. It is not a way of life that is easy. Taking up the cross daily means being more human than I ever thought possible. I keep asking myself why things are so difficult? Part of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) concerns this line of inquiry. I offer you some random thoughts so that you can decide what they mean (it is like interpreting dreams).

My Catholic Faith is neither easy to sustain nor performed without a daily commitment to seek God as I find God and as I am. I am not the person I was forty years ago, physically, mentally, or spiritually. Because I exist within the context of intelligent design (God’s DNA), I am inexorably pulled forward without my consent. I cannot stop time. I can choose what I think is best for me and hope I am correct. My past gives me the perspective to know when I have made an existential mistake or taken the wrong path, leading me to diminish my humanity. Most of the time, I don’t know what I don’t know. My ego corners me into one dimension of my personality so that I get angry when someone says to me, you are off-center.

CHANGING POLES

In my reflection on spirituality as a Lay Cistercian, I obsess over two passions in my old age (81.10).

THE CAPACITAS DEI OF MY CRIB HAS CONTINUED TO GROW IN AWARENESS OF ALL REALITY (Physical, Mental, and Spiritual). “Capacitas Dei,” or growing every deeper with Christ as my center (Philippians 2:5). I use the analogy of a crib when I think about growing in awareness. As an infant, my parents used a crib to keep me confined. Since God accepted me as an adopted son (daughter) on September 29, 1940, I have been in a physical crib, a mental one, and a spiritual one. Each of these three universes may grow at a different rate, depending on how I interact with the world over the years and assimilate what it means to be human into my unique time on earth.

Your time and development are not mine, so my view of reality is not yours because of our choices and, most notably, the consequences of those choices as they shape who we are. It depends on what we place as our center that provides the key to telling us what is valuable and why. Animals don’t worry about their centers. Humans do, and there is something unique about centers that each person has. They revolve each hour, each day, constantly being challenged by what is called original sin (the corruption of the time, the corruption of matter, the corruption of human nature that exists within time, the corruption of you as you try to make sense out of the life you lead. The crib is limiting, so your reason says, “Is that all there is?” and the answer you get is you can move outside of your crib, now into the room. This is now your new world, but you keep all those experiences of the crib at your core, even if they are subconscious. This process repeats itself. You become bored with just being confined to a room, and you look out of the windows to see that there is something more than crawling around the room. You begin to stand up and wobble around the room, exploring everything about it: the smells, the touch, the distances, furniture on which you learn to sit. But, consistent with your humanity, your mind tells you that this is not enough, and you want more. Words become essential to you as ways to get what you want (you do not have the intellectual capacity nor the anatomical ability to activate what you need), but you seek more. Something within, something autonomous that compels you to move towards your intellectual progression. The process repeats itself through growing from a room into the whole interior of your house, then your yard, your neighborhood, your school in grade school, and high school, to face what it is you want as an occupation in your life. You discover your animal instincts of anger, power, sexual feelings, and the opposite sex and must learn how to control them. Some learn this. Others don’t.

You place one of these needs as your center and strive to keep it from disappearing in favor of another need. Humans tend to put those pleasurable and exciting needs of their physical and mental self up front. The problem with our spiritual self (universe) is that with The Christ Principle, reality had a polar reversal. North became South for reality, and a new way of approaching one reality happened without notice (although I think that was the event in the Scriptures when Christ died and the veil in the temple was torn in two). There is a new reality now: not two universes (physical and mental) but three (physical, mental and spiritual) universes. New wine must be put into new wineskins and not the old. The new configuration is the physical universe is, as it always is, our base for all things physical. The mental universe is as it always was (remember, there is no Science as we know it today), and it moves forward at the pace of enlightenment of humanity. But, there is not a new player that fulfills the Divine Equation that is the key to the purpose of all that is. This new universe is the opposite of the physical and mental universes called The World by St. Paul. (Galatians 5).

This new universe fulfills the physical and mental universes because it is the destiny of those two of three parts of reality. This third universe comes from outside human nature and beyond our capacity to comprehend it. Jesus came to tell us and show us that the sign of contradiction is actually the key against which all reality must be measured. And what is that measurement? (Philippians 2:5-12) It is a person, both divine and human nature, who abandoned divinity to take on the nature of a slave. This is the pattern of contradiction we must follow as we exercise our reason and free will. That free will must be given away to become energized. That free will must die to the physical and mental universes to be fruitful and process the energy that comes from the Holy Spirit. Because we live in the context of recidivism and fall back to our default as humans, we must work daily to retain the energy to keep ourselves centered on The Christ Principle. Christ knows that and says, “I know you are poor, have mental and social problems, and some of you have cancer and other diseases, such as war, beyond your control. I won’t take away your condition but assure you that my grace is sufficient until you are with me and all tears will be wiped away.” The Church Universal is the guarantor of this pledge. There is each age, as each of us is born and moves from the cradle to the grave. We have direction, a purpose, and the energy (from the Holy Spirit) to keep ourselves centered daily. It is work (what is a cross if it is made out of balsa wood?

I like the image of rowing against the current in life because that is how I feel as a human being resisting those who want me to turn around and go with the flow. I make a choice daily, as a Lay Cistercian, to seek God wherever I am aware of God.

Just because your spiritual road is rocky doesn’t mean you are on the wrong road. If being a Catholic is just fulfilling the law of Sunday observance (and that is not to be discounted), you are a baby Catholic, perhaps to live in your crib forever. I had to ask myself, and hopefully, you will consider, “Am I still back in the crib of my spiritual universe? Where am I?”

You may have felt that this is not enough or that the Church does not offer enough to keep you motivated. You may not know what you do not even know. The Christ Principle has no depth, height, or width. What if you die and stand before the Throne of the Lamb to give an accounting and say, “No one told me what to do. The Church is at fault because I had no idea you could grow deeper and growing deeper means inconvenient, abandonment, sacrificing time to be in the presence of pure energy. Change your way of life (conversio morae) and reconnect with what your humanity should be as intended.” uiodg

Contemplation is a process of what happened before. In the case of just one word, if that word is the Word that is made flesh and dwells among us in the Eucharist, these words are not just human in origin but contain the energy of God, as much as we are able to receive it.

I use these special words in my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) sometimes and just wait (mentally and spiritually) for something to happen.

I have adapted my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) over the years. Now, one of the most frequent approaches is to tap into the powerful words of Scripture, those that are gifts from God to help me receive the energy I need each time I touch them to sustain me against the onslaughts of the corruption of society. It is a battle indeed. Two recent YouTube videos gave me shivers when I saw society as a whole crumble in their faith, which means they deteriorate in their values, with the result of the extinction of elements of society. I think of the ten lost tribes of Israel, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Religion Wars that rage on even now, Ukraine, Moral anarchy, political establishment as a god, Israel wandering in the desert for forty years, the Catholic Church tearing itself apart over various teachings, and general disrespect for what it means to be human.

ATHEISM ON THE RISE — Look at the cultural shifts away from God, for whatever belief system. This is indicative of mega trends in the past where humans have lost sight of their purpose. A catastrophe usually happens to bring about the humility needed to get back on track. The San Andreas Fault is not the only geological anomaly that is overdue for a shock. The Adam and Eve Fault which humanity does not seem to remember is a shock in whatever way nature springs back to its intended resonance. I am not an alarmist but I am alarmed that we lack the collective choices to do what is right rather than what is easy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k_VubROphY

THE YOUNG ARE LESS RELIGIOUS — https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/young-adults-around-the-world-are-less-religious-by-several-measures/ I can see it in my own family that Faith, with a few exceptions, seems to stop with my generation (the broken-down, old temples of the Holy Spirit).

All of this points to the trends between God and humans. God wants humans to be what their nature intended, but Original Sin keeps us confused and more animal in our choices than spiritual. In the past, God reminded humans who God is. I think it is about time for a wake-up call from nature.

I have control only over my choices, and even then, Satan has a way of making God seem so superfluous and outdated. It is not without cause that Jesus told us we must take up our crosses daily and follow Him.

In the midst of chaos, there is always redemption. Christ will not leave us orphans, although I think only a remnant of faithful will remain. There are certain words that carry the power of the Holy Spirit. In my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5), all I need to do is be in the presence of Christ through Cistercian practices and charisms and WAIT. That’s it. Just wait!

Because these words have been embedded with The Word, they carry the energy of the one who uttered them. My evolution in spirituality is that, where I thought the only place I could be present to God was when I was at the eucharist, eucharistic adoration, Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina, and reading Sacred Scripture, now I eagerly await whatever comes my way in any order. I am present to God, not limited by time, but by my own laziness to have The Christ Principle as my center.

ELECTRICAL WORDS THAT CARRY THE POWER OF FOREVER

When I touch these words, power flows from God to me, if I am humble and obedient to what God wants me to know. These words are the motivation of The Saints to love others as Christ loved us. These words have power from God for us to assimilate into our hearts and transform us from our false self to our true self.

ABANDONMENT — Abandonment to the will of the Father has always been there in my consciousness (somewhere). Like most things in my early spiritual journey, I knew of them slightly but had no idea of how they fit into reality nor into how I seek God every day purposefully and intentionally. Abandonment is leaving behind everyTHING you have and relying only upon God. This means several things, one of which is a mere human interpretation of the concept of abandonment (leaving something behind that may or may not mean anything). https://www.charlesdefoucauld.org/en/biographie.php

ASSIMILATION– I like being in the presence of Christ sitting before the Blessed Sacrament and just waiting. Waiting is part of my prayer. Assimilation means “Be it done unto me according to your World.” How that will be is by reducing all the clutter of the world and just waiting. Assimilation is also “capacitas dei” or growing in Christ Jesus.

WAITING — All of these words seem interdependent upon one another. I find that astonishing. Waiting for the Lord is the story of my life. God has been waiting for me since before the beginning of physical time. Each day, I place myself in the presence of God as I am and say, “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will.”

CAPACITAS DEI — I seek for Christ to increase and me to decrease each day. I wait in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament for energy to flow from God to me. I don’t feel the flow. Each day I must begin my search for God anew, but with an exception. I am more than I was a day ago. My growth is due to Christ and not anything I do. I don’t have the power to do anything other than offer up my freedom to choose and say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

DYING TO SELF — This process (conversion morae) of putting to death those things that cause my humanity to become more animal than spiritual is not one many who call themselves Christians know about much less do. Dying to self is alien to a world that touts the cult of the individual as being the way, the truth, and the life. The cross on your forehead means to have pledged to die to yourself. Do you? More importantly, do I?

We are made in the image and likeness of God. For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with what that phrase could mean. Somehow, I think it is at the very core of what it means for me to be human, but how any of this has a bearing on my spirituality is still murky. I did have a glimmer this morning during my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) that bubbled to the surface of my consciousness. I share it with you, and you make you draw your own conclusions.

Where does that originate if I am defined by my ability to reason and my free will to choose what I think is good for me? If my choices define who I am, not my abilities, then can the same be said of God? God makes choices, and if the parallel holds, these choices define who God is and have consequences. My most recent addition is to seek to plumb the depths (heights) of any Lectio Divina.

Intelligent progression means that I get my ability to reason and freely choose my destiny because I am made in the image and likeness of God. If so, what are God’s choices? Scripture tells us, “Who can know the mind of God or who has been His Counselor?” Scriptures provide clues to at least approach the concept of God and free choice. Here are some random thoughts about God and choice and how their implications impact me as I struggle with reason and free will.

THE PRIMACY OF GOD’S CHOICES

As I look out at my life of over eighty-one years, I have made many choices, some good and some poor, but all of them are a result of my trying to love God with ALL my heart, ALL my mind, and ALL my strength. (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:38)

• God’s choice is me (Genesis 2-3).
• God’s choice is to allow me to be free from coercion to choose Him.
• God’s choice is to provide me with the tools and the techniques to make it through the minefield of human nature.
• God won’t make the journey for me because it is the journey that adds value to what it means to be fully human.
• God’s choice is to sit on a park bench in the middle of winter and wait for me to be in God’s presence so that energy can transform me to become what my nature intended, an adopted son (daughter) of the Father and heir to the kingdom.
• God’s choice is to put a fingerprint (DNA) on each atom and molecule to move it forward toward the fulfillment nature intended.
• God’s choice is to give us Himself, with reason (in the case of God, pure knowledge of The Word) and freedom to make choices without blocking from God. There are consequences of God’s choice; for us, it is the final judgment that we must account for what we do.
• God loves me so much that the choice God makes is to allow me to choose what is bad for me.

It might seem strange for me to ask a question about wasting my time on putting together a view of reality where God might not exist. Actually, if I don’t ask the opposite of what I hold so tenaciously, then my belief is blind faith rather than faith informed by reason.

Here is my question: I wonder if God does not exist and all the arguments that believers tout as being true are stawed men and without substance. Does that mean my life has been a waste? If I followed Marcus Aurelius, I would have a life worthy of purpose. Following Christ allows me to be fully human as much as I can be while alive.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Marcus Aurelius has ideas that seem far ahead of his time. Read what he has to say about believing something. I am amazed at how much Marcus Aurelius sounds like Christ’s admonitions on how we should live as adopted sons and daughters of the Father.

“Remember that there is a God who desires neither praise nor glory from men created in his image, but rather that they, guided by the understanding given them, should in their actions become like unto him.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe. .. We should not say ‘I am an Athenian’ or ‘I am a Roman’ but ‘I am a citizen of the Universe.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“What we do now echoes in eternity.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“Live each day as if it be your last.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“God sees the inner spirit stripped of flesh, skin, and all debris. For his own mind only touches the spirit that he has allowed to flow from himself into our bodies. And if you can act the same way, you will rid yourself of all suffering. For surely if you are not preoccupied with the body that encloses you, you will not trouble yourself about clothes, houses, fame, and other showy trappings.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“He who eats my bread, does my will.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“Do not be ashamed of help.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

This is my answer to living a Lay Cistercian life of solitude, silence, work, prayer, and community.

“Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly. But to go away from among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of Providence? But Gods there are, undoubtedly, and they regard human affairs; and have put it wholly in our power, that we should not fall into what is truly evil.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

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I have found a speaker that is compelling, not because of their rhetoric but because of how they view reality with statistics and trends in demography and geography. The speaker is Peter Zeihan and I recommend you consider watching his YouTube. I watch everything I can from what he has produced, which is considerable.

I must make a disclaimer for this blog. Usually, my interactions with the Holy Spirit have some connection with a life experience or something I read somewhere and maybe forgot. These ideas are entirely outside what I can remember from how long I have been conscious. They are not new ideas but are new to me.

My late sleep patterns are similar to what I might term “Whale” breathing, taking a gulp of air, and then going down into an adverse environment to live your life. Every two hours in this seemingly chaotic sleep, I come up for air and change locations (bed or my favorite chair) or use the bathroom. This has developed into a pattern of how I sleep for the past eight or nine years. Physiologically, some of this might be due to my diagnosis of severe sleep apnea. I awoke during one of these “gulps of air” and had this one word fixated into my consciousness, “awareness.” I tried wearing a mask on two occasions but do not tolerate it. All of this, I realize, is in my head, but it is the world in which I must exist. This is a pattern that I have developed for Lectio Divina of late. This Lectio Divina encounter with the Holy Spirit was different. I not only received the word “awareness” for my Lectio Divina meditation(Philippians 2:5) but also a new technique to try to delve deeper into the Mysteries of Faith (what it means to be fully human as intended by our nature). My most recent Lectio Divina was the word “awareness” and the technique. I will share with you what I have received.

THE MUSTARD SEED LECTIO DIVINA — I don’t know what to call it, but the results are from one tiny word comes a multitude of related ideas in random order.

My Lectio Divina meditations (sometimes up to fifteen a day of these short gulps of air) last anywhere from one to fifteen minutes (no set time).

I always begin my Lectio Divina sessions by repeating over and over Philippians 2:5, “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” I wait for what comes as I recite it in silence and solitude.

I consciously go to the upper room (Matthew 6:5), my private room, then lock the door and wait. That’s right, just wait.

In my heart, I ask the Holy Spirit to fill my heart with Divine Love (Prayer of the Holy Spirit) and visualize myself sitting on a bench in the middle of winter, peering down the road waiting for Christ to sit down with me. I am amazed that I can do Lectio Divina in silence and solitude while waiting for a Cholecystectomy at the physician’s office. Silence and solitude have developed into something profoundly internal with the mind and in the heart. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cholecystectomy/about/pac-20384818

I will use steps to describe this technique, but, like the steps in Lectio Divina (lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio, actio), I do them habitually without thinking, like driving a car.

STEP ONE: The Holy Spirit shares a word with me. (John 1:1) This time the word, which keeps persistently reoccurring in my mind, is “Awareness.” That is all I have to go on. That is the mustard seed I plant in the ground of my being, the Holy Spirit.

STEP TWO: (LECTIO) I repeat it repeatedly without any agenda or thoughts about what it might mean. I link this word to my center (Philippians 2:5) and wait. How long? As long as it takes. I resist the temptation to fill the holes of my unknowing with those thoughts that come from my mind and struggle to be open to the totality of all that is, the One who is.

I refer to this conscious struggle as a CONFRONTATIO (the martyrdom of the ordinary), the effects of original sin, which describes humans as having to work for their food (Genesis 2-3). To struggle while you pray is itself part of its value to God. Make no mistake; it is work, but it becomes a conscious habit with time.

STEP THREE: (MEDITATIO) In the silence and solitude of my heart, I listen with the ear of my heart as the Holy Spirit gives me one or two-word thoughts about “Awareness” as it pertains to “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) Each of these ideas must be linked to my Lectio word and flows from it in any way. To show you what I mean, in the next segment, I will actually use these steps from my actual Lectio Divina on “Awareness.” I like to do “short bursts” of ideas that stem from the keyword, in this case, “Awareness.” I use these meditatio mosaics to build a picture for my contemplatio.

STEP FOUR: (ORATIO) My prayers in Lectio are almost always just a brief nod to the Holy Spirit to offer thanks for being counted worthy to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.

STEP FIVE: (CONTEMPLATIO) As of late, this stage of Lectio Divina has me ending up with no particular thoughts about “Awareness” and more just being aware that God is divine and I am an adopted son (daughter) sitting at the foot of Christ being content just to be in His presence. Waiting is a vital part of my contemplation, but one that I have sanctified by my linking all things to The Christ Principle.

STEP SIX: (ACTIO) An exciting observation as I do ACTIO after my Lectio Divine (usually by trying to write down what I can remember in my blog) is that my days of going out to the prisons and sharing my ideas with prisoners, or feeding the homeless at the local shelter, or even just having a strict routine of Liturgy of the Hours, has been significantly impacted by my aging in place. My monastic cell is my home. More and more, My monastery is the world of my creation. My Church Universal is my acceptance as God the Father’s adopted son (daughter). My ACTIO is becoming more and more the joy that results from being with the One you love and want to be with Forever, realized now, not later on in Heaven. I am finding that the difference between meditatio and contemplatio is that with mediatio, I consciously think of lists of items that come from my word or phrase. In contemplatio, I consciously don’t think of anything to say but instead wait for ideas to come into my mind. I must admit, this is a fine line, but one I am beginning to master. As you might have guessed from my choice of Lectio words, “Awareness” is integrally involved.

AWARENESS: The largess of Step Three

A product of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) is an awareness I did not have before.

Knowledge precedes Love, says St. Thomas Aquinas. If that is so, I not more intelligent as a result of placing myself in the presence of the Holy Spirit, but I am more aware.

Awareness is the wisdom of linking the OT with the fulfillment of the NT. Matthew 22:38.

Aware comes from the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit as I sit on the park bench in the dead of winter.

Awareness is my beginning to link all things new with each other.

Awareness is my reading of the Holy Scriptures (John 20:30-31) not to prove anything but to see how all things fit together.

Awareness is the appreciation that I need to fear the Lord (St. Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 7) and not forget that I am not God or manipulate God to my purpose.

Awareness is the gift that allows me to tell when the Devil is behind some temptations but not others.

Awareness is realizing that I am but a broken-down, old Lay Cistercian temple of the Holy Spirit.

Awareness is just waiting for God to arrive on a park bench in the middle of winter, only to realize that God is waiting for me to die so that I can show up correctly.

This is the trailer for the movie and not the movie itself. It is for your information.

Humans, progressing from animality, contain all those traits, but something more is at work here. Animals don’t have a choice to progress or regress. Nature dictates the laws by which they must abide. We can go against nature and do what we want but are bound by those same instincts and feelings from our animal heritage. Humans know that they know. Why that it so I term intelligent progression because nature hand us off as a species from animality to rationality.

Like everything else in the corruption of matter and mind, we begin at zero, individually; but collectively, we retain those trials and errors that move forward with the river of time. I wake up on this earth but know little about my environment or how I should act, except for what my mom and dad show me is safe. Humans do not have infused knowledge (the process Elton Musk is playing around with to plug us into the totality of all knowledge all at once). In his book, The Art of Loving, we have to learn how to love, says Erich Fromm. We must learn the hard way. The variable in all of this learning is that not all of us have the capacity or capability to learn. Each person who lives within their intelligent progression shell is different. Some people want to learn. Others do not. Freedom to choose sets the universe of the mind apart from everything that went before. Humans must have the environment to survive (we need oxygen, protection from radiation from space, and the earth that nourishes us, to name a few).

THE VARIOUS LEVELS OF HUMAN PROGRESSION

I asked this question during one of my Lectio Divina meditations while sitting in the bathtub on a chair this morning (remember, I am 81.9). Wonder if there are different maturity levels of attainment for each human, depending on their choices and what they have absorbed into their lifespan? What does it mean to be fully human? Is there such a thing? How would that look? How would a human go about using free choice to move up the scale of humanity? What would you use as a milestone? Who would give you the milestones?

What follows below is a template about the intelligent progression that happens within human nature from its inception to its extinction. Intelligent progression happens in the physical universe, the mental universe, but also the spiritual universe. Our race is caught up in the Great Attractor, not the cosmological one, but the one that Teilhard de Chardin sets forth as Point Omega, that towards which all reality progresses intelligently.

Not to be outdone in terms of purpose, there are two dimensions to this intelligent progression.

THE COSMIC PROGRESSION — All reality is caught up in the stream of matter, mind, and spirit, as it flows towards its destiny. All reality has a beginning and an end.

MY INTELLIGENT PROGRESSION — In all that is or was, there is only one me. I exist for seventy or eighty years if I am lucky (I guess I am lucky for I am at 81.9). I realize that I am part of a species that shares an animal background in common, even sharing a big chunk of DNA with my ancestors, but that I have reason and freedom to choose what I think is good for me even if it is not. How I deal with my dominant sexual urges, there to procreate the species, but also there to make me happy, is something that I have to learn and does not come without trial and error to see what is authentic love or unauthentic. Love does not come naturally but our species must learn it, individual by individual. We don’t seem to learn from our past mistakes so God had to tell us not to step into the do-do, even though our world says it is okay. We had to have someone to show us what it means to be fully what our nature intended.

The intelligent progression of our humanity does not depend upon my intrusion into its flow, but the accumulation of individuals can cause alterations to our environment. In the way I reflect on reality, the end of intelligent progression is a movement from dissonance to resonance of what humans should have become before Adam and Eve committed the archetypal sin. This spiritual universe is unlike the other two (physical and mental) because the assumptions have changed about what it means to be fully human. Adam and Eve are caretakers of the Garden in Genesis 2-3. I must also be a caretaker of everything below my nature. I can only do that from a power greater than what I possess in my human nature. This is pure energy in the form of pure knowledge, pure love, and pure service (taking care of the garden of my life, getting rid of the weed, adding the correct fertilizer for food, and producing good fruit from the trees of the knowledge of good or evil.

Within this intelligent progression of my life, I must discover the correct answers to six questions to become fully human, and thus fully an adopted son (daughter) of the Father, Point Omega of Teilhard de Chardin.

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is the purpose of my life within that purpose I discovered?
• 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?

Individually, I can be a President Putin and conquer everything people will allow me to grasp, in the name of nationalism, but if I can’t answer these six questions correctly, so what?

I can be the richest professional football player who thinks that he is worth millions and millions of dollars for his skill, but if I cannot answer these six questions correctly, how much am I actually worth?

If I am a dedicated cardiologist at the peak of his skills, saving thousands of lives with the technology that has been developed over the years but can’t answer these six questions, what has my time and talent been worth?

It is only when I am fully human, which means I can answer these six most crucial questions about who I am and my purpose during my lifetime, that is meaningful, in the end. I am destined to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father, heir to the spiritual universe, but I have to be in training in my lifetime to practice for the next life. Like anything else in life as a citizen of the world, it takes work and awareness of what is going on, to make it to the next level of humanity, the spiritual self. You enter this stage with Baptism and continue to maintain it with the help of the power of the Holy Spirit. You become dual citizens: that of the world until your body does, and that of an adopted son, from your Baptism to forever.

I need to claim my inheritance, and I can only do that with help from being in the presence of Christ. Being a Lay Cistercian is how I chose to practice loving others as Christ loved us. I do that by participating in those activities where Christ is present, such as Lectio Divina, and trying to contemplate or rest next to the heart of Christ only seeking whatever it is that the Holy Spirit wishes to impart.

MY INTELLIGENT PROGRESSION

LEARNING POINTS

• All of these categories comprise what it means to be human. There are levels of intelligent progression to being human depending on the choice each of us makes and how we deal with its implications.
• In terms of geographic time, humans transitioned from full animality to preliminary humanity very recently.
• Intelligent progression means my race is evolving in its collective maturity.
• Within that river of progress, I have a unique chance to discover what it means to be fully human as intended by my species.
• My reason and freedom to choose are key to my discovering what is good for me or bad for me. I learn from my mistakes.
• By using The Christ Principle as a key to unlock the Divine Equation, I can approach what it means to be fully human before I die.

In this blog, just watch theseYoutube videos with no comment from me. It doesn’t need commenting, sadly.

All of this started with my asking, “What is time?” I am having difficulty with this idea because, just when I think I have the answer, a new door opens with more challenging questions. I have been in the business of opening doors for some forty-one years. It doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon.

Perhaps a photo might illustrate my confusion. Look at the photo below and think or write down exactly what you see, nothing more. Take five minutes.

This is my first time seeing this picture, but these are my random thoughts.

I don’t recognize even one person in this photo.

They look like they are alive.

This is a snapshot in time, one moment captured forever.

Each person is an individual who lives seventy or eighty years, then is gone.

I don’t know the backstory of any of these people, yet the sum of choices makes them who they are as I see them in this picture.

Each person is unique, and no two lifetimes are the same, yet, they have lived it out one moment at a time, one NOW at a time.

The past is a record of the choices we have made. The future awaits our choices, and we have only the past to learn what is good for us or bad for us.

Everyone in the group can influence the individual’s choice but cannot make that choice for them.

The NOW is what is real. It is where I find a purpose for my time on earth. It is how I assimilate what my purpose in life is. The future does not exist yet, but because of time, I have no choice but to use the time to make choices that make me more and more human.

In each photo of a person above, they are the sum of their choices, good ones to become more human and bad ones, which lead to dissonance about purpose.

Jesus is the truth because only one truth allows me to go in the correct direction. Jesus, in this context, is the way to show me the direction my future should take consistent with my nature. Jesus is the life because, having tried to sanctify the NOWs of my life with knowledge, love, and service, my life will end my temporal time but begin my spiritual time where there is only a NOW.

This NOW is where I investigate the backstories of everyone in the photo above to see how did measure up against the meaning of life, where they went off track, and how they succeeded.

In time, it would take a lifetime to meet with everyone who ever lived and probe how they did. In spiritual time, I have all the time to become one with all who exist.

The God of second chances allows me to rummage through the backstory of my life right now and pick out those times when I did not act my nature (Galatians 5) and ask forgiveness, even if I have confessed those sins before. My quest is to be perfect as God is perfect.

If heaven is a place of perfection, why is everyone there (except Jesus and Mary) a sinner?

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I never know what will present for my examination and reflection during my Lectio Divina. (Philippians 2:5). Today, I am sitting in the bathtub (that is how people who are 81.7 can take a bath), and the thought of how ridiculous it is to try to prove the existence of God popped into my mind. God doesn’t need proof. God is. I don’t need to justify God to anyone but myself. In fact, for me to argue the existence of God (talking at my opponent and not listening to what they say) is impossible. St. Thomas Aquinas seems to agree with me. I have neither the capability (the tools to measure pure energy) nor the capacity to understand it if I indeed would ever be in a position to know what I am observing.

What I can and do do (I know, I like the sound of it) is to try with all the tools I have and discover what it means to be fully human and what the end product of my intelligent progression is. In short, I just concentrate on myself and how I can decipher The Divine Equation with the life choices I have made. The Divine Equation, for those who don’t follow my adventurous thinking, is my attempt at discovering who I am meant to be as a human, using all of my capability and capacity. I call it Divine because I conjecture that the questions and the answers come from a source outside ourselves. I liken my quest for The Divine Equation to that of a theoretical mathematician or physicist. Six progressive postulates need to be solved to complete the equation. Here are my six postulates that must be solved with the correct answer to achieve resonance and move to the next one.

• 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 do I love fiercely?
• You know you are going to die; now what?

I received these six postulates in various Lectio Divina sessions during the past eight years. I wrote several books about these postulates and what I have discovered on Amazon.com. Again, I don’t need to prove these postulates to anyone, but I do share them with the understanding that you draw your own conclusions (which you would do anyway).

I wrote a book entitled, The Divine Equation, as I mentioned. I have not solved The Divine Equation, as much as I think I have answered them correctly, giving my life experiences and knowledge. The search for a more profound truth is always ongoing, which is one of the reasons I applied to join the Lay Cistercians of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Trappist) and follow Trappist practices and charisms, I am not a monk, but I follow the Rule of St. Benedict as interpreted by Cistercian (Trappist) covenants and constitutions. http://www.trappist.net

Humans have reason and the ability to choose what they think is good for them. These two characteristics of humans over animals are one reason I see humanity evolving from its collective DNA of animality to something much grander. It is why some humans of the species are despicable, and some are saints inspiring in us the noblest sentiments of what humanity could be.

My thoughts have led me to look for a range of humanity from being more like animals to more like what are species was intended to be. Here are some ideas about those three levels of being human.

LEARNING POINTS

• All of these categories comprise what it means to be human. There are levels of intelligent progression to being human depending on the choice each of us makes and how we deal with its implications.
• In terms of geographic time, humans transitioned from full animality to preliminary humanity very recently.
• Intelligent progression means my race is evolving in its collective maturity.
• Within that river of progress, I have a unique chance to discover what it means to be fully human as intended by my species.
• My reason and freedom to choose are key to my discovering what is good for me or bad for me. I learn from my mistakes.
• By using The Christ Principle as a key to unlock the Divine Equation, I can approach what it means to be fully human before I die.

Two years ago, this coming month, I made the mistake of sitting down on a park bench in the dead of winter, seeking to be near the heart of Christ and receive energy from the Holy Spirit. All I did was say to the Holy Spirit, “Be it done unto me according to your will.” I received a virtual key that the Holy Spirit told me would unlock the depths of The Christ Principle and open me up to the totality of all that is. My only problem was that I could only process all this with the lifetime of what I learned about the purpose of life contained in the Divine Equation. Each day, I am seated on that park bench in the dead of winter, asking the same question “Open to me the depths of my adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father and allow me to plunge once again into the life-giving Baptismal waters of the way, leading to the truth, so that I might lead a life that is contrary to what the World says is its purpose.” This is the pause that refreshes.

Within this context, I uncovered a more profound (higher) meaning to how The Christ Principle is the key to explaining how all reality fits together as one, even though there are three separate universes (physical, mental, and spiritual). I begin each Lectio Divina session, wherever I am, by reciting over and over my center, “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus,” then waiting for the Holy Spirit to overshadow my heart. With God’s energy, I dare to move forward with “fear of the Lord” (humility). Waiting patiently in silence and solitude is a key for me to receive The Christ Principle, the only key to unlocking the mysteries of Faith beyond my capacity or capability.

The title of using the Hegelian dialectic to get a way to approach The Christ Principle is itself a mystery. I don’t know much about this synthesis and antithesis or even how it applies, but I share my thoughts, and you make any conclusions that come to your mind. I will share with you what I received.

USING THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC AS AN INSIGHT INTO THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE

What is the dialectic approach of Hegel and how might this tool bring insight into the Divine Equation, the six questions about being fully human? Listen to this Youtube on The Hegelian Dialectic and ask yourself how this might apply to looking at the way you view reality.

With the disclaimer that I am no philosopher nor a theologian, just a broken-down, old Lay Cistercian temple of the Holy Spirit, I make some observations.

Humans differ from animals in that they can reason and make choices without interference.

The choices are outside of us and may be good or bad for us.

God tells us what is good for us as an option for our free choice.

Each individual lives in a bubble of time (seventy or eighty years, if we are strong, according to Psalms), then we die.

Within that time, we use those trials and errors in our lifetime to determine the purpose of life, our purpose within that purpose, what reality looks like, how it all fits together, how to love fiercely, and we know we are going to die, so, now what?

These questions are The Divine Equation. It does not solve who God is but rather who I am as a fulfilled human being.

When I begin to discover what it means to be human, and my destiny, I can do so only with power outside myself and beyond myself. This is the paradigm of God, the spiritual universe is the opposite of what I do as I live in the real world (physical and mental universes).

Baptism is when God accepts me as an adopted son. I must respond by saying “Be it done to me, according to your word.”

I can go on and on with these ideas, but I wanted to share with you the depths into which I plunge each time I do Lectio Divina. This is due to my free will each day that says, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I abandon my will based on my capacity to do so (capacitas dei). Here is what I want you to do. Go back to the top of this list and reread them, asking yourself how each of these ideas is part of a greater whole. If all of these ideas are one statement, use this one idea as the antithesis statement.

I. BEWARE OF THINKING YOU ARE SOMEHOW BETTER AS A LAY CISTERCIAN THAN OTHER LAY OBLATES OF OTHER TYPES OF APPROACHES TO CONTEMPLATION (Dominican, Franciscan, Benedictine, Basilian, or Jesuit approaches to spirituality for the Laity). This trap is one that the Devil can use to deceive the faithful and those, especially with blind faith. The euphoria over being accepted by the Abbot as a Lay Cistercian novice, junior or professed can unleash a flood of adrenalin to justify that you are better than others (My God can beat Your God).

II. BEWARE OF BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN WITHOUT TAKING UP YOUR CROSS EACH DAY AND SEEKING GOD. In this approach to spiritual reality, your cross is made of balsam wood, and your belief is in eating cotton candy instead of the cross. It tastes fabulous but has no nutrition.

III. BEWARE OF THINKING THAT BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN MEANS PRAYING LECTIO DIVINA SEVERAL TIMES A DAY. LITURGY OF THE HOURS, ATTENDING EUCHARIST EACH DAY, AND READING SACRED SCRIPTURES. This temptation can cause us to think that being what God wants of us is multiplying prayers. The more you pray, the more you are an excellent Lay Cistercian. Being a Lay Cistercian or a Cistercian monk or nun means daily abandoning self and moving from that false self to fill your heart with the grace of the Holy Spirit. The key here is a balance between where you are as a citizen of the World and an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.

IV. BEWARE OF SINGLE-ISSUE SPIRITUALITY. Balance is essential to keep from going off the deep end into single-source spirituality or social issues. An example is someone who is fixated just on abortion issues without placing it in the context of silence, solitude, work, prayer, and community. Being in a Lay Cistercian community allows us to keep our perspective on the prize, “Having in each of us the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5).

V. BEWARE OF THINKING THAT BEING BORN AGAIN IS A ONE-TIME EXPERIENCE, AND YOU GET A FREE PASS TO HEAVEN. Baptism not only means that original sin is taken away and that you begin fresh again, but it also means God grants you adoption as son or daughter. That carries with it the daily struggle of keeping Christ as your center. Each day, we are born again to strive to move from our false self of sin and imperfection to that of placing ourselves in the presence of Christ and just waiting.

Listening is praying.

May the music speak to your heart as you sit in silence and solitude contemplating how grateful you are that the Father calls you son or daughter.

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This title does not refer to how many words you can read in sixty seconds, but how many ideas I can put together, linking one to another in rapid branching. No commentary. No opinions on my part. I seem to remember that I used this fifty years ago, called data dumping. Try it yourself. Just pick a topic, write down a short phrase or sentence that comes to your mind, then repeat this technique for sixty minutes. The object is not to see how many ideas you can generate but to get those neurons synapsing with whatever comes out, even if it is nothing.

I always use this technique at 2:30 a.m. Lectio Divina breaks daily (my bathroom break) (Philippians 2:5). I have never failed to fall asleep quickly when I use this technique.

Here are some of the topics I have thought about for this Sixty Second Catholic technique, based on Philippians 2:5.

• How crazy is my sign of the cross on my forehead?
• Why would God love me, a sinner, so much?
• How Eucharist is the nuclear fission of the spiritual universe.
• Awareness
• Faith is not belief
• The purpose of life is not marriage, but the purpose of marriage is life.
• If heaven is so perfect, why is it so full of sinners?
• As big as the universe is, my eighty-one years in it is the center of all reality.
• Heaven
• Hell begins with birth; heaven begins with Baptism.
• I am a penitential person.
• Who is more powerful than God?
• I try to prove the existence of God in my life; atheists try to prove its non-existence.
• Energy in three universes
• Is sex bad? If so, why it is our more compulsive emotion?
• The Church is not against pleasure but only putting it as your center rather than The Christ Principle.
• The Great Attractor is not just a cosmological phenomenon but also a name for The Great Accuser, Satan, who prowls about seeking whom he may devour.
• The resurrection: fiction of deluded disciples or non-fiction?
• The five types of the literary genres of God in Scripture. https://vhlblog.vistahigherlearning.com/the-five-main-genres-of-literature.html
• Power in three universes
• The Rule of Threes
• For behold, I make all things new.

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If you want to explore being a Lay Cistercian, I recommend you read the commentaries of those who existed after Christ and before there was an officially sanctioned list (canon) of books. I use the following resources.

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20180716100726/http://www.churchfathers.org/
2. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/

If you try reading these resources out of their context, it just becomes a frustrating exercise without purpose. Here is what I do and you can judge if it is of use in your spiritual encampment.

1. Pick a theme, e.g., Eucharist.
2. Access either of these resources and search for writers about the Eucharist.
3. Read one short chapter and determine if it resonates with you.
4. If you belong to a Scripture Study, ask each member to read the same passage.
5. Come up with three ideas from a Church Father and how it relates to Scripture.

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Here are some excuses that people might use when they stand face to face before Jesus in their particular judgment when they die. How do I know what people might say? I don’t. What I do know is what excuses I might make when my time comes.

The Devil Made Me Do it. Read Genesis 3 and its brilliant depiction of temptation and responsibility. This is as true today as it was back in the day.

12The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.”

13The LORD God then asked the woman: What is this you have done? The woman answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate it.”^e

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/3

It’s your fault God, you never told me about what I needed to do.

The Catholic Church didn’t tell me how important loving others was, so it is their fault.

I did not see that one coming.

All the pedophile priests disgusted me so much that I gave up religion altogether.

How can the Catholic Church be holy when all I see are its members so imperfect and full of sin?

The Catholic Church is so corrupt and full of falsehood, I can’t stand to be in the same room with any of those people.

I didn’t think that anything that ridiculous could be true.

Where did all this knowledge about how to get to heaven? I never heard any of it.

If heaven is perfect, why is it full of sinners?

This rather long and windy title is quite sophisticated as I begin to unwind the various depths contained within the words. First, behind the quote sits the center of the Old Testament, the Shema Yisrael (Deuteronomy 6:5). Not only that, it is the center of the New Testament (Matthew 22:36).

Next, this quote answers the first question posed by The Divine Equation, “What is the purpose of life?” You must answer this first question to proceed to the next one, “What is the purpose of your life within that purpose?” and the next one, “What does reality look like?”, then “How does it all fit together?” and “How to love fiercely?” and finally “You know you are going to die. Now What?”

Every person Baptized into the death of Christ must follow those footsteps and also die to self to open up a vision of the New Jerusalem, the kingdom of heaven, and to begin to prepare to live as an adopted son or daughter of the Father now, and after death, claim your inheritance created just for you from the before there was time itself.

As a Lay Cistercian, I have promised to seek God daily through Cistercian practices and charisms. Each day, I begin my quest to die to self anew, but with a big difference. I am now more (capacitas dei) than I was the day before because I have preferred nothing to the love of Christ (Chapter 4, Rule of St. Benedict).

I noticed that my attempts to love God with my whole heart, mind, and strength are influenced by the effects of Original Sin. At best, I can only struggle with that sticky word, “whole.” On a good day, I wobble down my seventy or eighty years at 90% towards reaching my goal, but something is just not there. I can’t get past that 10% to be “whole.” After trying as a Lay Cistercian with all the obstructions in my way, I still seek the truth but live a life that I fear will never reach 100%. My lessons learned from this ongoing process of conversio morae (moving from the false self to my true self in Christ Jesus) are that:

• I will continue to struggle in this world (citizen of the world because I was born human) with my new life in the kingdom of heaven (citizen of heaven because of Baptism).
• I am used to winning the races I create for myself (no surprise there).
• I can’t win the race of being fully human without help, help from outside of my nature.
• When I was marked with the sign of the cross at Baptism, no one told me that this sign traced on my forehead by the priest was actually to foretell that I had to take up my real cross daily, as did Christ.
• There is a cost for redemption paid by Christ in his passion, death, and resurrection.
• There is a cost for me believing that the cross traced on my forehead in an indelible mark is my destiny in this life until I reach the next life with Christ.
• This cost is enduring the martyrdom of the ordinary as I must constantly choose Christ and keep my center in equilibrium from the forces of corruption and false choices each day.
• Seeking God each day in whatever comes my way, sanctifying the moment, and moving on, is my lot in life. It is not a bad lot because I keep reminding myself that I must die to myself each day where I am and as I am in order to keep resonance between the World and the Spirit at my core center.

WHAT DOES ABANDONMENT MEAN?

Within the parameters of The Christ Principle, there are many examples Christ teaches his followers about the need to abandon themselves to find themselves. Here are a few that came to me in my Lectio Divina meditations.

The example of kenosis (emptying). These examples are to help his disciples (Apostles down to you, the individual) begin to feel what abandonment is and why what makes no sense at all to the World is actually the true way to the life He wants us to lead. Philippians 2:5-12 sets forth the whole dynamic of God-loving humans (each one of us) so much that he would leave the security of the Godhead to take on the nature of a slave. Not just a servant, but one under sentence of death through the archetypal choice of Adam and Eve. Reflecting intensely on this kenosis or abandonment of being God in favor of being a slave is all the more important as I apply this concept to my own life. Going deep into contemplative depths of the heart with the Holy Spirit, I try to feel what that is like to leave all for an imperfect, prone to betrayal, capable of heroic nobility, and sinful human like myself. I don’t get it, but that is why I believe in God. I want to have that kind of abandonment in me, not just one time, but as a habit to keep me balanced and focused on The Christ Principle.

The dynamic in our martyrdom of ordinary living is that we like quick fixes and instant results. With all due respect to B.F. Skinner, human nature has never adjusted to the switch from animality (rules of nature are the norm) to rationality (there are no norms except what you choose). That is why good people do bad things. I have that itch within me right now. It is how I choose to master it that makes The Christ Principle so important to reaching the fulfillment of my nature. The Christ Principle not only shows me the way to make sense out of all the chaos of false choices but gives me the energy to move to the next level of evolution, acceptance of our adoption as sons and daughters of the Father. It is not as though we had no precedence over what is good or evil. The whole of the history of Israel is a testament to going it alone without God and paying huge costs (loss of the ten tribes of Israel). The Church from the time of Christ to the present is the New Israel in that we make the same mistakes through twenty centuries of trying and ruining how we govern. Nothing has changed. The Mosaic Law and the Gospel Law of loving others as Christ loved us is holy, but every human (except Jesus and his Mother) who practices it is sinful and in constant need of conversion of the false self to new life. The confusion is over what the truth is. We get the truth from our parents primarily, then from society, our particular conscience, from the influence of Churches, and from our unique emotional make-up. Our Father in heaven also wants us to have a pathway to fulfilling our human destiny. The problem is that the spiritual universe demands that one dies to oneself to become a member. Christ abandoned himself to the will of his Father to show us how to do that in our own life. Abandonment of false self is needed to open up the heart to receive the energy from God (love).

SAINT CHARLES DE FOUCAULD

Here is an article I offer in its entirety from Joseph House.

https://www.charlesdefoucauld.org/en/priere.php

uiodg

There is no free will or the ability to choose anything if there is only one choice. Animal Nature has only one choice, that of being what Nature intended as a part of their natural progression. With the transition from animality to rationality, there is a paradigm shift. The new variables are human reasoning and the ability to choose between two possibilities. I can choose my will or God’s will. To do that, I must die to self, something entirely foreign to human reasoning and needs.

One of the constant struggles of my Lay Cistercian experience has been dying to self or conversio morae. This dying is not the end of physical life but rather the beginning of new life because I got rid of something toxic that prevented me from loving others as Christ loved us. In one of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) meditations on dying to self, these thoughts came to mind about what that “false self” actually is. Why must I die to myself each day and take up my cross? Why can’t I just do it one time and then have done with it? The corruption of my Nature (matter and mind) will not allow me to do that.

• Each day, I must seek God.
• Each day, I must die to the self that says, “You don’t need to do Lectio Divina, Liturgy of the Hours, Eucharist, and seek the presence of Christ through silence and solitude of my heart.”
• Each day is a new beginning, a new lifetime, a new chance to be present to the totality of all that matters in matter.
• Each day I realize that I am not the person I was yesterday, although I must still punch through the sameness of the martyrdom of ordinary living.
• Each day, I choose God’s will be done instead of my own inclinations, the greatest gift I can give the Father, my free will, mingled with the body and blood of The Son, in fulfillment of all Old Testament and New Testament covenant relationships.
• Each day, I am the only one who ever lived who can give thanks and praise by doing those Lay Cistercian practices that I can, as only I can.
• Each day, I realize that God is to be feared as I sit on the backbench at Church (or in my upper room with doors locked), eyes lowered, and reflect in the silence and solitude of my heart on how much the invisible God loved just me by becoming visible, and not only that but to die for the ransom of many. (Philippians 2:5)
• Each day, I get older as this citizen of the World completes his preordained path of corruption (everything has a beginning and an ending, plus all matter deteriorates) while preparing to continue the citizenship as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father and so fulfill my intelligent progression as intended from all eternity.
• Each day, I join with two or more people as a community (through Eucharist, Liturgy of the Hours, online contact via Email, by linking my prayers to the intentions of others.)
• Each day, I must seek power from a source outside of myself to combat the inexorable encroachment of original sin on my center, The Christ Center. If I do nothing, I may lose my balance and my center. Such is the daily battle of this Lay Cistercian and maybe yours.
• Each day, I seek the simplicity of simply sitting on a park bench in the dead of winter and waiting for Christ to sit next to me (in fact, I am waiting for me to wake up to the reality that Christ has been sitting there waiting for me to show up all this time). No words are necessary. No thoughts are necessary. I am present to the pure energy of the Holy Spirit and open to the warm blanket of Love that covers me from the cold of this World until I read home.

THOSE HABITS, TEMPTATIONS, IMPERFECTIONS, AND SINS THAT KEEP ME FROM CAPACITAS DEI

THE HERESY OF THE INDIVIDUAL— I have often wondered about the statement, “The wages of sin is death.” I invite you to take your time and read this passage on the seemingly invisible effects of sin and the equally invisible but powerful results of righteousness. I offer the entire passage rather than a sentence so that you might read and reread these words and see how they fit into the way you love others as Christ loved us. All Scriptures are for us to assimilate how to follow the way, what is true, that leads to a life beyond this world but one in which we must live until we claim our inheritance as adopted sons (and daughters) of the Father.

Freedom from Sin; Life in God.

1^* What then shall we say? Shall we persist in sin that grace may abound? Of course not!^a

2How can we who died to sin yet live in it?^b

3Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?^c

4We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.^d

5For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.^e

6We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.^f

7For a dead person has been absolved from sin.

8If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.^g

9We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.^h

10As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.ⁱ

11Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as [being] dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.^j

12^* Therefore, sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires.^k

13And do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons for wickedness, but present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness.^l

14For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.^m

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not!ⁿ

16Do you not know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves,^o you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?^p

17But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted.^*

18Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

19I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature. For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

20^q For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.^*

21But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.^r

22But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification,^* and its end is eternal life.^s

23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.^t

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/romans/6

As a human being, I only live a short time, maybe seventy or eighty years, if I am lucky. During that time, I must make choices that define who I am. I am the Lord of my life, and no one can tell me what to do, but I often like to tell others what to do. This enigma is a characteristic of original sin. I have reason and freedom to choose what I consider to be meaningful to me during my existence. I am indeed the Lord of my life. But existence is not so simple. I live in the World, one that is the base to sustain me. We share the matter with all others composed of matter, those inanimate, those with animal natures, and other humans who possess human Nature. There are only two choices that I can make, one is that I use my power, kingdom, and the glory that I have as an individual or, and this choice defies logic, I give away my power, my kingdom, and give glory to God, someone beyond my Nature.

My Nature keeps wanting me to choose what is good for my body, what is good for my mind, and what makes me happy. Nothing wrong with that. After all, I am Lord of my Kingdom, ruler of the time I have on earth. This seduction is the heresy of the individual.

When I become the center of my own universe, and that is how Nature intended it to be, religion makes no sense, especially one that says, “To live, you must die to self.” One of the awarenesses I have gained from my being in the presence of Christ consistently and constantly is that the kingdom of my experiences is the price I must pray to God for being counted worthy to be called adopted son (daughter) of the Father and heir to the kingdom, not of my eighty years of experiences, but the kingdom of heaven.

This is why St. Paul admonishes us in Romans to die to sin (our false self) and live for God in Christ Jesus. 10As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. ^I 11Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as [being] dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.^j The question for you and me is, “Do I do this?”

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• Only when I give away my individual freedom to choose a power greater than myself that I am set free.
• I have the power to say NO to God with no repercussions from God.
• The heresy of the individual means I have the authority to say NO to the Church and the teachings of the Holy Father. Who am I to say NO to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit chose Pope Francis to guide the Church, not me.
• The Great Accuser uses our power to choose to select those things that will give us pleasure but may not allow us to reach the next level of our intelligent design.

THE HABIT OF PREFERRING SELF TO GOD

A habit is a pattern of behavior that I choose, something I do without even thinking. I can have good habits and bad habits. I might even think my habits are good when they are not. The Church Universal, in its quest to be a bank for the truth of Christ, sets forth the parameters of what it means to be a believer. This truth is forged in the blood of early martyrs and continued with our own martyrdom of the ordinary each day. G. K. Chesterton says, “I know what is bad that I do is bad. What I need is a church to tell me is what I think is good, is bad.” One of the bad habits I can acquire is thinking that what is pleasurable about life is what drives my center. If I experience the individual’s heresy (above), I choose what makes me happy, what gives me pleasure, and what I think fulfills me as a human being.

It would be a mistake to think that God is against us having feelings, emotions, and pleasure when it plays such an essential part in our choices. Sexual pleasure and its satisfaction remain the most dominant and overpowering feeling we have. In a recent conversation about sexual morals, I was shamed by some pro-lifers who said both the Catholic Church and I are archaic and out of touch with what it means to be human by denying pleasure and sexual fulfillment. Granted that the Church always moves as the turtle in a race where all the hares are bolting ahead of it. By the time the turtle catches up to these profligate hares, they have already moved on to the next fad, one that only ends with death.

I don’t think the Church or me, for that matter, is against pleasure and embracing guilt by doing “bad things.” I think pleasure, a good emotion for humans, is not the core center of making choices that lead us to be fully human. My false self wants to keep pleasure as the center of all meaning and purpose. My choice is, “Do I prefer my own pleasures of this world as my purpose, or do I choose the hard way, one that places The Christ Principle at my center and pushes away my false self?”

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• These are dark times, and we are called to choose between what is right and what is easy. (Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
• My power of Love comes from me putting myself in the presence of Christ (the awareness that God is God and not me) each day.
• Simplicity is the fruit of silence and solitude.
• Place your trust in God and not in princes or politicians.

THE HABIT OF THE HALF-EMPTY HEART —

If you want Love in your heart, you must put it there yourself. Being in the presence of Christ is where we fill up our empty tanks. We must do it each day. The half-empty heart is one where Catholics settle on doing the minimum of what they consider a Catholic to be. Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:38 tells us to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves.

A half-empty heart yearns to be made whole and is restless. It is not complete, or is it what was intended to be by its Creator. Only two persons had full hearts, Jesus and His mother, Mary. The rest of us are sinners and seek to fill our hearts drop by drop as long as we live.

Love is defined by the one who loves us. In the case of Christ, there is a love that we citizens of the World can never fathom much less make our own. I have selected as my center, Philippians 2:5, “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” It is when you love others that you are most loved. This transferral of Love from God to humans happens because, like Christ, we empty ourselves of what human Love is (whatever the World says it is) and replace it with the energy of the Holy Spirit.

The bad habit of Love without the cross, Love without the sacrifice of self to grow in Christ Jesus, and Love of others without the Holy Spirit leads to human Love but nothing more. Human love, good as it appears, only fills half our hearts. This is the yearning that all hearts have to be restless until they rest in God. (St. Augustine).

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• If I want Love in my heart, I have to put it there. There is Love that comes from the World, and I put it in my heart to fill it up with what I think is my need. This Love doesn’t have any energy in itself. Only the Love comes from loving others as Christ loved us that has the energy to lift us up and sustain us as adopted sons and daughters of the Father.
• “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” –St. Augustine
• This bad habit means I don’t do anything to convert myself from what I know to be my false self to my true self because it takes work and resolving to stay the course.
• As one who follows The Lay Cistercian Way, as much as I know of it, I use the habit of seeking God every day to refill the bad habit of the half-empty heart.

THE HABIT OF DENYING THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN-–

A bad habit I try to eliminate is thinking that I can do whatever I want because I am baptized and thus saved from the fires of hell. No matter my sins, I can do them without any consequences because I have accepted Christ as my Savior. I can “sin bravely” knowing that I get a free pass into the pearly gates with no questions. I only wish it were true.

What is confusing about the statement above is that some of it are true while other parts assume something with which I can’t place my trust. You make your own conclusions. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Baptism takes away the original sin that we inherited from Adam and Eve. One thing it does not do is remove the effects of that first sin of disobedience from us. We still must die. We have to feel pain, suffering, and health-related problems plaguing humans. We must fight against the temptations of the flesh and the mind that lead us astray. Galatians 5.

Christ left us the Sacrament of Reconciliation to remove those sins that we make after Baptism and renew our hearts with grace. If there are no sins after Baptism, or if I can sin boldly as much as I want, there is no need to pick up my cross each day to follow Christ. There is no need to struggle to have in me the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5) each day. There are no consequences to my sin, none. I am a rotten nature with no free will that is not responsible and accountable for my actions. It is true that no matter my pattern of sinfulness or individual sins, they are forgiven. There is still the punishment due for sins that are not confessed. The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick (to include viaticum at the time of death) is a gift from Christ to wipe away all those sins before we die. That is why the priest anoints those gravely or terminally ill in preparation for death. Matthew 25 gives us a view of the particular accountability we face after we die and the universal judgment at the end of time.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

There are two possible approaches to life:

1. One is that of the World, which says that you, the individual are the center of the physical and mental universes, which means no one can tell you what to do; plus, you have the supremacy of free choice to choose what you think is good for you with no consequences, and additionally, your are your own principal for morals and values.

2. The second way is the opposite of that, which is at odds with Human Nature. You take his most precious defining characteristics of human Nature, free choice, and give it away purposefully to a greater power. This is the abandonment St. Charles de Foucauld speaks of when he prays:

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures –
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the Love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

Saint Charles de Foucauld, Former Trappist of N.D. de Neiges, Killed December 1, 1916, Canonized May 15, 2022

The unintended consequences of the Reformers, noble though their interventions are, were that they gutted long-standing assumptions held by the Church, and inserted the individual alone as the Church and the pope, that you are infallible in faith and morals;, that the Body of Christ in the Eucharist is no longer needed to communicate with the Father and you can do it alone. No one can tell you what to believe. If you don’t like your religion, you use the Principle of Individuality to start something that makes you happy. Your whole reason for religion is more to justify that what you chose is correct rather than using the Scriptures as a way to find the truth and live the life Christ intended for you, in your heart.

THE HABIT OF NO ONE IS GOING TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO —

This is a habit that is at the heart of human Nature, and one that I must struggle mightily to overcome. It is tied to all these other habits and they all act together to pull down any good intentions I might try to introduce. If you look at Genesis 2-3, that archetypal story of what it means to be human, next time notice that Adam and Eve are saying to God that they have that feeling in the pit of their stomach, much like the formative teenage years, that rebels against anyone telling them what to do.

The depiction of Satan in the garden is exactly someone who is angry at God and wants others to be angry, too. I can even feel the anger, the hatred, and even the rage to choose just the opposite of what God wants, just because you don’t want to be told what to do. Where does that part of our human Nature come from? In my view, the reality is the result of the choices we make or didn’t make to bring us into resonance with what our Nature intended. This is why the World can never be a choice that fulfills us as humans. We are created to know, Love, and serve God in this World and be happy with God in the next. –Baltimore Catechism Question Number 6. If you remember I suggested earlier that there are two choices we can make, one where we are the center of all reality, and the second one where we freely give our will to someone outside of ourselves. One of those choices fulfills us as human beings, while one does not. In choosing The Christ Principle as my center, contradictory though it might seem to the World, in order to fulfill my humanity, I must give away my will and choose the will of a being I have never seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. This is the emptying (kenosis) that Christ underwent when he assumed human Nature in addition to divine Nature, mingling them forever into the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant, and opening the gates of heaven for all humans. Some will see this, while others will not have a clue. I must die to my false self each day in order to become more of what human and divine Nature intended me to be.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• I am fortunate that God accepted me as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father at Baptism, giving me all the help I need when I call upon the name of the Lord.
• Baptism is just the beginning of my journey into a new world, a New Jerusalem that makes me a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. The problem is, I still have citizenship on the earth, much like dual citizenship in two separate companies. I live in the World but am not destined to exist past my death in the World.
• As a citizen of heaven, my preparation to enter that realm begins with my Baptism, with my practice to love others as Christ loved us, with being a part of a School of Love (the Church Universal, my Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, my parish of Good Shepard in Tallahassee, and with being a professed Lay Cistercian of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit {Trappist} in Conyers. Georgia.) All of these help me discern what to take with me to heaven.
• I must be aware of my dual, competing citizenships and actively choose The Christ Principle over The World, put another way, moving from my false self to my true self as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.
• What I choose each day is so critical for my sustained citizenship in heaven on earth. The Lord of the Earth (Satan) goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
• Like a watchman in the night, I must be vigilant against the forces of Evil and the seduction of the World that I follow what is easy rather than choosing what is right. The Lay Cistercians are one way that I have to give me structure and discipline through Cistercian practices and charisms.
• I don’t like people telling me what to do. The danger I fall into is that I become what I don’t like and begin judging other people’s motivation and acting like a god.

THE HABIT OF NOT ACTING MY NATURE—

My first recollections about God come from my study of the Cathechism and learning what God is like. I learned that God has a divine nature, that I have a human nature, that animals have a nature and the rest of reality is composed of matter, gases, time, energy, and how they react together using the forces of Nature. I was content with that description, and still am. The difference is that I know much more about what I know and also what I don’t know.

I try not to be sin-centered in my approach to morality. Rather, my center is “To have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) Not everything is a sin and not everything that the World does is bad. The World (what I call just living in the physical and mental universes) doesn’t produce the energy that leads us to fulfill our destiny and thus our terminal purpose of the species. I will offer chunks and pieces of my latest Lectio Divina on “Acting My Nature.” You be the judge of whether any of this makes sense.

In the compendium of my view of what is real and what is fiction, the notion of Nature is very crucial. I hold there are four areas of Nature. Remember, all of these concepts come from a human mind informed by Faith. Who God is and God’s attributes are only intelligible to us with human concepts and imperfect images. St. Paul likens it to looking through a foggy glass. This photo is one that depicts me (the cup) looking at heaven (through the window).

1. NATURE OF MATTER– This is the Nature of everything that is, including humans. The laws don’t depend upon humans for their existence but come from Nature itself. They are God’s DNA contained within each atom, each molecule, all gases, and all energy.
2. NATURE OF LIFE– Animal Nature. Withing the Nature of Matter, life exists, from one-cell creatures to humans. The laws are those of Nature, not humans, although humans use this Nature as a base.
3. NATURE OF THE MIND– Human Nature. Only humans live with this Nature. Nature are those attributes that make humans human. Although we progressed from what went before us, what we are as humans is a new paradigm from everything not human. The laws we use come from human reasoning and the freedom to choose what we think is good for us. Humans organize ways of behaving that are good for society and require those who follow morals to regulate acts. There is a constant battle for supremacy of thought and the suppression of freedom of the individual.
4. NATURE OF THE DIVINE– Divine Nature. Divine law is pure knowledge, pure Love, and pure energy (service). It is who God is by Nature, one Nature and three persons (by revelation). Energy at this level is Love.

The importance of NOT acting my Nature means I don’t have the energy (power) to lift myself up to the next level of my evolution. I can only push this up, higher to God. I can only push so high by myself. God’s Nature (Christ is both divine and human Nature) can lift both ways, pushing up, but more importantly, reaching down from the fullness of that Nature to life up a lessor nature to a higher level. Looking at the history of our relationship with God, there are several points of nexus where we evolved to the maximum by our own human Nature and needed help.

1. GOD REACHING DOWN TO LIFT US UP FROM ANIMALITY TO RATIONALITY. This reaching down from divine Nature to help humanity comes at a point where we received reason and free will. Genesis 2-3 is an archetypal story of how we are still learning how to control the effects of human Nature. We not only needed help getting from animality to rationality but with how to use the freedom to choose evil and its consequences and what is good.
2. REACHING DOWN FROM THE DIVINE NATURE TO REDEEM HUMAN NATURE FROM ITS SELF-DESTRUCTION. God sent Jesus (Philippians 2:5-12) to use to show us how to act and why it is important. This is the second intervention where humans needed help. God, though, with, and in Jesus.
3. REACHING DOWN FROM THE DIVINE NATURE TO SHOW US THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. Baptism is the fulfillment of the Resurrection Event. All of reality, all that Jesus came to tell us to save us from being an unfulfilled humans, is created just for me (and any others who wake up and find themselves on this rocky ball of gases and life). God reaches down to me to cloth me with the white garment of energy which allows me to believe that I am an adopted son of the Father and my kingdom is not of this world, after I die.

There is a temptation, because I can’t or don’t know who God is or if it is the Holy Spirit speaking to me our my own ego, to dismiss the whole troublesome idea of God as irrelevant. It makes my way tortuous and a struggle each day, it renders truth foggy and subject to the whim of each individual human, it is a life that asks its adopted sons and daughters to die to themselves each day and become more like Christ. (capacitas dei)

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• These are bad habits that I am constantly trying to replace with the energy of God.
• I battle my Nature each day because I have two citizenship in two universes; I am from and of the World with all that it implies.
• My God is a God of Second Chances. Throughout my life, I have the Sacrament of Reconciliation to help me start out again, to make all things new. Even after I die, Purgatory is the safety net. God wants me to survive the gauntlet of being human so much that there is a place of Second Chances where I can go and try it again.

THE HABIT OF CHOOSING SEVEN DEADLY SINS RATHER THAN GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT—  

I learned about the Seven Deadly Sins from my catechism lessons in Grade School. (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth). I never actually paid any attention to these deadly sins, relating them to a notch under thinking about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. About eight years ago, when I took on the mantel of righteousness to move from the banket of deadly habits to those of my true self. The difference was that now I consciously wanted to get rid of these seven deadly sins by replacing them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. I try to replace in me a habit of penance and repentance for my sins by seeking these gifts from the Holy Spirit to crowd out my bad habits. I am a work in progress, each day.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• Human Nature is good. Choices are either good for us or bad for us.
• Our Father (we are adopted sons and daughters of the Father) will let us make mistakes because to be truly free, each of us must not be coerced into doing either good or evil. In Philippians 2:5, the text reads:

1If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in Love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy,

2complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same Love, united in heart, thinking one thing.^a

3Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves,^b

4each looking out not for his own interests, but [also] everyone for those of others.^c

5Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,^*

6Who,^* though he was in the form of God,^d

did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped.^*

7Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;^*

and found human in appearance,^e

8he humbled himself,^f

becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.^*

9Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name^*

that is above every name,^g

10that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,^*

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,^h

11and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,^*

to the glory of God the Father.ⁱ

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/philippians/2

If I attempted to epitomize the one passage in Sacred Scripture that captures my life, center, and fulfillment as a human being, it would be this quote in Philippians by St. Paul. When struggling to keep the one command Christ taught us, “Love others as I have loved you,” this is The Christ Principle for me. It details what I must do if I am to accept the sign of the way, the truth, and lead the life of an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. I must not be coerced into believing but instead choose it out of fierce Love and belief.

Free choice is such an integral part of the mission of Christ that he had to put on hold that he was God while he was human, lest that divinity overwhelms his humanity, thus rendering his free choice invalid. I am not suggesting Jesus was not fully God as much as inadequate human language and concepts can describe such a phenomenon.

Moving from my false self (seven deadly sins) to my life in Christ (gifts of the Holy Spirit) is a daily effort. If I get into a pattern of bad acting, I fall victim to the wages of sin–death. They don’t call them deadly sins without reason. This is so insidious that you won’t even realize that you have been seduced by The Great Accuser until you notice that your actions are not consistent with those who “…have in them the mind of Christ Jesus.“

THE HABIT OF THINKING THAT EVIL IS GOOD — A consequence of the original sin of Adam and Eve is that humans, in particular each individual, determines what is good and what is evil. This is made more complicated because each individual can reason and have the freedom to choose either what is right or wrong for them. This habit is so insidious that individuals assume that they can choose and that what they choose is right automatically. There are only two sources of what is good for us. Both of these principles come from the heart. The first is that what is good comes from each individual’s heart. The second say is that what is good comes from The Christ Principle, the source of what it means to be human. These two sources are the origin of what is good. What we choose is good if it comes from The Christ Principle. If we choose what we think is good, but The Christ Principle says it is bad for us (will not lead us to grow from our false self to our true self), then this is evil. Evil and good are not equal partners of the truth. The Church is the living depository of what is good or bad, so we can measure our actions against Christ’s. G. K. Chesterton, the late and might I add great (both girth and human intellect) apologist for what is true, said, “I know when I do something bad is bad. What I want the Church to tell me is when I do something I think is good is bad.”

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• I must convert my heart from thinking that I am the center of the universe. This is made more confusing because I actually am the center of the universe, but I get to place at my center something that is outside of me which is more significant than me. This choice is one that I make by Faith alone. It is a choice that says to God, “Your will done. Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”

THE HABIT OF LIVING IN JUST TWO UNIVERSES-– If you only live in two universes (physical and mental) instead of three (physical, mental, and spiritual), you won’t be able to look in the one place where the answers to the Divine Equation are answered.

Living in two universes is the awareness that you know that you know. It is the awareness that what you are looking at in the physical universe does not know that it does not know.

This is the habit of most people who have no idea what it means to be the Father’s adopted son or daughter.

To enter the third universe, to see a reality beyond human reasoning or outside of the mere human will, adherents must die to their false self, both in Baptism and then for each day for the remainder of their lives.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• Living in a two universe approach to reality seems so normal that you would not even notice anything is wrong if you did not know what to look for,
• The Divine Equation is how you solve the mystery of being human. Both your questions and answers come from outside of those two universes. It is called The Divine Equation, not because it solves who God is, but because both the questions to ask and their correct answers come from outside the two universes.

THE HABIT OF HATRED IN THE HEART–

If hatred becomes a habit, am I a hoarder of hatred? Cleaning out that room in my heart where I go to pray and lock the door (Matthew 6:5), is there hatred? If you agree, as I do, that the wages of any sin are the death of the spirit in you, then you might need to take a fire hose to clean out your Augean Stable of hatred and other seven deadly sins before you ask Christ to sit in a chair and have a conversation.

The habit here is not cleaning your upper room or, like your own home, failing to cut the grass or make repairs regularly. You can ask God for many favors, but don’t ask Him to cut your grass.

When you replace hatred in your heart, be sure to add the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and not your own requests for power, special treatment, money, or adulation that is our filling.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• Hatred, like Love, is not the freedom to choose but a free choice to put something in your heart that is not there already.
• Hatred is not the default of the human heart but an emotion that you must place in your heart.
• Each day, our lives begin at zero, except that we contain the sum of all that went before us as learned experience. In this sense, we live each moment slightly ahead of ourselves because of our momentum toward The Christ Principle.
• The habit of penance combats the habit of hatred. Each day, these two poles battle each other for a spot at our center. I must actively and purposefully pray and do penance to keep hatred at bay.

THE HABIT OF REVERTING TO ANIMALITY–

Although the differences are dramatic, there is but a thin line separating humans from animals. In terms of the intelligent progression of our Nature, humans were somehow raised up to a level of Nature not possessed by animals. This is why we can revert to our animal behavioral tendencies while animals can’t assume any characteristics of human Nature. Seen in the context of three separate universes (The Rule of Threes), in the physical universe, animals and humans share procreation, sexual emotions, and pleasures; in the mental universe, only humans exist, so humans, while sharing emotions with animals in the physical universe, have reason and free will to choose what animals cannot. An unintended consequence of humans is that they can revert to their animality in emotions surrounding sexuality and procreation. The sexual urge is, rightly so, our strongest inclination. Animals do not have the power to control it. Humans have reason and free will to help manage these strong urges, but even humans do not themselves have the power to act as intended by their Nature. Humans were not getting it, so God had to send His Only Begotten Son to tell us and show us how to use our minds and hearts to love others as Christ loved us.

What makes this usually good habit inappropriate is choosing purposefully to live in the animal part of our nature rather than the gift of adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• God has no part in this way of thinking.
• The center of your life must be based on what the World says is an appropriate center. It might be power, sexuality, money, fame, adulation, or nothing.
• This habit is deadly because I am tempted to replace my center with one of the seven deadly sins. I call this daily struggle a battle. Christ has won the war.

I just dusted off an excerpt from some of the writings I made about my last retreat at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Trappist) sometime last February. I added some fresh ideas, much like putting new wine in old skins, so I don’t know if it is spoiled or not. You can judge.

When I think about it, while dwelling on Philippians 2:5, one of the few things Christ told us to do was the admonition to love one another as He has loved us. How simple! How utterly profound. If I want to love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and neighbor as myself, I should know and love as Christ has loved us. Here comes my problem. How does Jesus love us? After all these years, will I be the victim of my Ego and make Christ in my image and likeness, or is there a deeper meaning to what Christ says? I like to think there is a deeper meaning. There is. In silence and solitude, I seek (not that I have arrived) but still seek to be transformed by the love of Christ by sitting on a park bench in the dead of winter and waiting for Christ. Waiting is love.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR CHRIST TO LOVE US

I had some thoughts during my Lectio Divina on what it means for Christ to love us.

EMPTYING SELF: The simpler the prayer, the more authentic it is. The most profound act of love is found in Philippians 2:5. It is the voluntarily emptying of self for the other. God emptied himself for all of us, me as an individual, and all of us, believers or not, that we all have a chance to love to the fullness of our nature. As a Lay Cistercian, these eight words in Philippians are my purpose in life, my center. Christ emptied himself first and then bade his followers follow his example. I must deny myself and take up my cross daily to follow Christ in whatever challenges the day brings for me. Emptying means turning your glass over so that every last drop of what is inside is poured out. Jesus emptied himself of his last drop of blood on the cross, the highest form of love so that we humans might have a way to claim our adoption as sons and daughters of the Father. Each of the martyrs, those we know about and those known only to Christ, emptied the last drop of their blood because of love.

I WANT TO BE WITH YOU: Philippians 2:5 again. Jesus wanted to be with us, even though Christ would not know each of us by name, God does, and Christ is God. God just gave us a chance to love others as Christ loved us. Jesus loving us means we should do no less than to love everyone. For me, that takes on wanting everyone to go to Heaven. Not everyone may make it there, but that is your decision. Opening up my heart to the heart of Christ means I long to be with Christ, just as He longs to be with me.

I look forward to my Lectio Divina and Eucharist because it is there that I can communicate with Christ and He with me.

I WANT TO SHARE WHO I AM WITH YOU: In marriage, the covenant of relationship between man and woman means I share who I am with you, physically, mentally, and, most of all, spiritually. Spiritual sharing is the most difficult but depends on how well you do with physical and mental sharing. Part of the genius of Jesus is that he left us a way to share Himself with us, despite the passing of each age. The simplicity of the message of love is like the body, and how we adapt to each age is like clothes we put on. Each age has different customs, but there is always just a straightforward message, love one another. The Eucharist is an example of Christ wanting to share the love with us. Christ gave us and continues to give us his actual physical body in each age until the end of time itself. We called the Real Presence a sign of contradiction to those without faith, but no answer is possible or required to those with faith. What is even more of a sign of contradiction is that the man who knew no sin entrusted his precious body and blood to sinful humans in each age. Remember Peter? Sinners, all of us, but Christ loved us so much as to give humans the power to make him Real in each age, despite all the foibles and follies of popes, bishops, and deacons throughout the ages, and add to that our own individual peccadilloes. Each time you receive the Eucharist, think about your sinful self containing the Real Body and Blood of Christ. Of course, not one of us is even remotely worthy of being called Christophers (Christ-bearers). It is only because Christ loved us so much that we know what love is, even if we sin repeatedly and grievously.

I don’t know if I will ever completely know who Jesus is, just as it is impossible to love with all my heart. Still, I can try to begin each day to love others and see the world as Christ would see it, giving glory to the Father in the Eucharist, asking for mercy and forgiveness in Reconciliation, and seeking to make all things new over and over in the context of a living Body of Christ, the Church.

I WANT TO SHARE THE DARK SIDE OF LOVE AS WELL AS THE LIGHT SIDE: Christ bids you to love those who love you back (light side of love) and love those who persecute you even if they kill you (dark love). Love can also be the extent to which you endure misfortune and suffering or even pain so that the one you love may thrive. Here are some thoughts from a recent blog I wrote on the dark side of love.

This topic can be misleading if not put into context. In my Lectio Divina a few weeks ago, Phil 2:5, I came across several thoughts that made me sit up straight and pay attention. If love is the purpose of life, Deuteronomy 6 and Matthew 22:37, is love always easy and happy, full of peace, with no anxiety or stress? Is love without pain or sacrifice of self? Right away, I thought of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemani. Matthew 26:38-40  This is genuine love but demands choice, an uncomfortable choice, the dark side of love. This dark side of one is not evil or wrong or less love than the bright side. The dark side of love is not the same as dark love, but the reality is that sometimes love demands great courage and sacrifice to remain steadfast. You have heard of the phrase TOUGH LOVE.

• Dark love is like the marriage vow that says, I will love you in good times and in bad, sickness and health, no matter how rich or poor you may become.
• Dark love is the person who must give up everything to be with their partner or child, such as someone who has leukemia.
• Dark love is the mom and dad who sell all they have to keep their children healthy and off drugs.
• Dark love is what Christ had for us when he knew he would have to suffer and die for our redemption. He became sin for us, even though he was without sin.
• Dark love is the son who gives up his job to be able to feed and care for his mother with Alzheimer’s disease.
• Dark love is someone who puts up with verbal abuse and terrible personal discounts with someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder or Anger Mood disorder.
• Dark love is putting up with the hatred of children who accuse you of being in la-la land when you try to move from self to God.
• Dark love is Phil 2:5.
• With dark love, love does not count the cost or the suffering you must endure to be with someone who needs you.
• With dark love comes living out the sign of contradiction, taking up your cross daily, loving those who hate you, not returning evil for evil talk, and loving those who do harm to you. Read Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict.

As one who aspires to be a Lay Cistercian, I view dark love as the price I must pay for the pearl of great price, the treasure I would sell all to possess, even though those closest to me don’t have a clue what that means for me.

FORGIVE OTHERS AS YOU WANT THE FATHER TO FORGIVE YOU. Don’t condemn others but rather have mercy on them as you want the Father to have mercy on you. Here is the part that many people conveniently leave out, that you should go and sin no more. Your behavior is not to be condemned if you see that you require change and redemption. The tricky part is committing not to do that behavior again, which most people either don’t or won’t do. Another way to say this is, don’t condemn the sinner but condemn the sin. We sinners must recognize that what we do is not consistent with Jesus loving us and therefore change our behavior. The dark side of love is accepting Christ’s love and acting upon it. Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we hold that adultery is okay and that love means you can have indiscriminate sex with your mother, your sister, your friends, your enemies, anyone, then you really don’t believe in what God is telling us love means. The love of Jesus is a stumbling block for those who consider themselves god.

PRAYER IS LOVE: The purpose for why Jesus, Son of God, came to earth was to save us from being locked out of Heaven…Forever. His mission in life was to give the Father glory, as only God can do, yet represent all of us, as only Christ could do. Read John 17, the priestly prayer of Christ. “…eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ you have sent.” Reflect on this beautiful passage in John in your Spiritual Reading. I suggest you read it several times in silence and solitude, the silence that comes from being open to God’s silent wisdom and the solitude that comes from loving others as Christ, as only you can. Prayer is lifting up the heart and mind to God. Knowing, loving, and serving others because of the love that fills our whole being when we realize in Philippians 2:5-12 the depth, the height, and width of Christ’s love for us. We can do no more, nor can we do any less.

GIVE YOUR LIFE FOR ANOTHER: If we want to love others as Christ loved us, we must be willing to give our life for another. To make sense of this statement, I do not think about a soldier laying down his life for another, although that is undoubtedly heroic and the ultimate sign of love. In the secular world, The love of which I speak is not dying for another person but living your life for others as Christ emptied himself and glorified His Father in the sacrifice of his death and resurrection for the sins of all humanity. Lest you go off the charts in being confused, think about this. We do not celebrate or honor a dead God like the secularists serve, but Jesus, who lives today. Christ gives his life to the Father every time we come together to proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again in glory (Eucharist) and the prayer of the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours, or in the silence and solitude of our heart in Lectio Divina. We make Christ present when we love others as He has loved us.

LOVE: WHAT THE FLOWER CAN TEACH US  If you want to find out what love is looking for in nature. Think of yourself as a beautiful flower whose whole purpose is to be a flower. Things come; naturally, you do not have even to worry. You bloom, take in nutrients, have bees come around to pollinate your species, smell delicious to bees and insects, then die. This is the natural order.

Humans also have a natural order. Our nature is to be human, like our prototypes, Adam and Eve. We find ourselves in a world where we cannot live forever, where there are pain, suffering, and misfortune based many times on our choices. However, happiness, love, peace, joy, goodness, and thoughtfulness are also there. We are the conduits of good and evil for the world around us. The world is good, we are good, but we have suffered the effect of the relational sin of Adam and Eve and must pay the price until we die. For me, the Genesis principle is a very challenging tale of where humans find themselves and where we are headed.

MAKING ROOM FOR THE ONE YOU LOVE  If you love someone, you want to live with them forever. People get married because they want to be with each other as much as possible. If God wrote you love letters, would you not want to read them repeatedly? Would you not want to keep them in a particular place and honor them because they remind you of the one you love? Even though the one who sent you the love letters is not present, reading them somehow makes them present to you. That is Scriptures, love letters from God to humanity. These love letters make room in our hearts for the one who sent them (capacitas dei) and help us individually and collectively to love others as Christ has loved us, our only command from the Master.

WANTING TO BE WITH THE ONE YOU LOVE…FOREVER  If you love someone, you want to be with them every minute of the day, every day of the year, all the years of your life, even to the end of time and the beginning of Heaven. This love is not exclusive to marriage. You love your parents and want to be with them and your family in Heaven. Heaven, remember, is permanent. Your head tells you that it is good to be with the ones you love, your Church members, those you have prayed to in your lifetime, and those who need our prayers for purification. We want to be with all because all are One, and we will be able to love Forever without the effects of Original Sin and the temptations from the Evil One. Your heart allows you to feel that love and the desire to be with loved ones Forever. This feeling of the heart is prayer, loving Christ so much that Heaven becomes a destination that is anticipated because it is the fulfillment of your humanity, the purpose for which you were created, the relationship of someone that wants to be with you, Jesus.

DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY The Church uses the natural order as the basis for morality and values. It also takes into account the effects of Original Sin. We are born of two parents, grow up with nutrients of knowledge and values, and reproduce, but we are different from the animals. We can know that we know to find meaning for a reason, to be able to expand our senses and minds to include love from God that sustains us for the trip to Forever. Humans are not destined for the earth. Earth is the incubator for growing and learning how to love, for it is love that is the language of God and the nectar of Heaven. The Church, the living  Body of Christ, is to feed us, clothe us, shelter us from that which does not lead to love, and allow us to love others as Christ has loved us. We do not automatically go to Heaven as if we had no free will, but we have the words of Christ in Matthew 11: 28-30, Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Jesus is our mediator with the Father, but he is also our Brother and has given us the gift of adoption to be sons and daughters of the Father. This he has not done for flowerS, even as beautiful and fragrant as they are. Why is that?

WHAT IT MEANS TO KNOW WHAT LOVE IS BECAUSE CHRIST LOVED US

You have just read some ideas about what it means for God to love us. If sexual instincts which we share with animals in the physical universe are the most dominant of impulses we have to satisfy, then love, being from the mental universe, is one of the mysteries of what it means to be human that we have to master. Together, both physical and mental universes, the sexual appetites and how to use them authentically or, because of sin, unauthentically as a human,  I learned human perspective as the  World sees it from Eric Fromm, the author of the book, The Art of Loving, and an unlikely person to help me begin to understand what it means to know what love is, mainly because he is an atheist. These insights are astounding and astonishing, at least to a young spiritual novice in 1964. Some of my reflections as a Lay Cistercians on what it means for me to love others, using the love of Christ as my template.

Here is a quote from the art of which he speaks, The Art of Loving.

What are the necessary steps in learning any art? “The first step to take is to become aware that love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love, we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music, painting, carpentry, or the art of medicine or engineering. Learning art can be divided conveniently into two parts: one, the mastery of the theory; the other, the mastery of the practice. If I want to learn the art of medicine, I must first know the facts about the human body and various diseases. When I have all this theoretical knowledge, I am by no means competent in the art of medicine. I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice until, eventually the results of my theoretical knowledge and the results of my practice are blended into one — my intuition, the essence of the mastery of any art. But, aside from learning the theory and practice, there is a third factor necessary to becoming a master in any art — the mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern; there must be nothing else in the world more important than the art. This holds true for music, medicine, for carpentry — and for love. And, maybe, here lies the answer to the question of why people in our culture try so rarely to learn this art, in spite of their obvious failures: in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power — almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving.”

Love is not only knowing, which it most definitely is, but also doing. Fromm states that: “Love isn’t something natural. Rather, it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and overcoming narcissism. It isn’t a feeling. It is a practice.” In my short lifetime of trying, yet consistently failing, to love with all my mind and heart, I find this statement inspiring. He also gives the requirements for authentic love. “The mature response to the problem of existence is love.” “Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Love is not a spontaneous feeling, a thing that you fall into, but is something that requires thought, knowledge, care, giving, and respect (my emphasis). And it is rare and difficult to find in capitalism, which commodifies human activity. ”

In this question about fierce love, we need to include love at all to go to the heart of what it means to be human rather than an Anteater.

LOVE IS LIKE A VALENTINE CARD

Love has two dimensions: the mind (knowledge and logic) and the heart (emotion and feeling). Remember when you were in Third Grade, and everyone exchanged Valentine’s Day cards? What did you do when you went home that day? Did you put them in a particular spot in your drawer where you could pull them out and look at them frequently? Did you think of the person who gave you the card with affection? Did you feel a sense of warmth and pleasure?

Love is one of the ways humans are different from other living things. It is a form of communication between two persons, heart to heart, thinking of others, and wanting to help others. It can be with two humans or groups of humans. It can be between single persons, homosexuals, heterosexuals, groups of people, with families and relatives. Love is a human phenomenon. Love does not exist between animals or between animals and humans, although we can love our pets. Animals can’t love back. So, what is this love? It is one of the thresholds through which all of us must pass.

Mature love is so much more than a Valentine’s Day card. Here are Eric Fromm’s five criteria for authentic loving with some thoughts about both dimensions of the head and the heart.

THOUGHT

Love is thinking of the one you love all the time.

Love is having their picture on your desk and in your heart.

KNOWLEDGE—

Love is wanting to know as much as you can about your love.

Love is wanting the one you love to know as much about you as possible.

CARE

Love is patient with the one you love as they explore life.

Love forgiving others, realizing that you are not perfect.

GIVING

Love knows that your loved one likes A-1 sauce on their steak, and you make sure you buy it at the store.

Love is learning the art of receiving from your loved ones, allowing them to love you in return.

RESPECT

Respect is wanting your love to succeed and do what it takes to ensure they meet their goals in life.

Love is taking the time to tame your others, waiting for them to grow and mature.

YOUR REFLECTIONS

Write your thoughts on each of Eric Fromm’s five characteristics of authentic love.

LAY CISTERCIAN MEANING AND LEARNING POINTS ON LOVE

As one who only aspires to be a Lay Cistercian, I try to have Christ Jesus’s mind in me. I say try because I struggle to fight the influences of the secular world to make me into God, to say that, after all, everyone has an opinion as to what is right and who God is, and you should not force others to believe what you do. There are elements of truth in that statement, but a fundamental flaw. Do you know what it is?

• What I have learned is to keep your prayer simple.
• Venture inside yourself to find meaning and purpose, but only if you can get the answers from God and not your Ego.
• God is love. Heaven is a place where there is only love that exists between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• We have our whole life to discover what love is, the sustaining type of love that “moth does not consume, or rust destroys.”
• Humans by themselves could not reason to the purpose of what God has in store for us using mere human knowledge and logic. Science does not tell us what is meaningful but what is. Science is not bad, just not appropriate to take the next step with what love is.
• God told Moses and Isreal how to live in a way that would get them to Heaven, but the people continued to rebel.
• God had to show Israel through Christ what love meant, by giving glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, the God who is, who was, and who is to come at the end of the ages,
• Jesus gave us the command to love one another as He has loved us so that we could continue his purpose on earth and bring others to a knowledge of how to get to Heaven so that they could experience love.
• Obstacles to loving God with all our hearts abound. The biggest obstacle I have is me. That is why I must take up my cross daily and be aware of my purpose in life (Phil 2:5) and do Cistercian practices and charisms (humility and obedience to God’s will). Chapter 4 of St. Benedict’s Rule is my daily companion and reminds me of my humanity and how far I have to go each day to have in me the mind of Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5)
• Each day, I begin with Lectio Divina for at least thirty minutes. It is always the exact eight words, “have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” but never the same results. Each day is a new attempt to love with my whole heart. At Night Prayer, my last Lay Cistercian attempt to love with all my mind and heart, I conclude not only the day but await the new day in the hope of making all things new once more in, with, and through Christ Jesus. If all this is, is a slogan, it will not endure. It does not last. What sounds like folly to the foolish is the simplicity and wisdom of God. The purpose of life is not to attain perfection but to realize that my imperfection is part of my quest to be One with The One.
• What are the requirements to be a Lay Cistercian or a follower of the Master so that you can learn how to love as Christ loved us? As our late Monastic Advisor, Father Anthony Deliese, OCSO, told one of our members, “You must be a sinner.”” And I would add, “and want to grow from self to God, seeking God in all we think and do That in all things, may God be glorified. –St. Benedict

I have chosen to use silence, solitude, work, prayer, and community to help me conclude my journey to find out how to love as Jesus loved us.

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

YOUR REFLECTIONS

How is the heart important in converting you from self to God when you think of prayer? Do you struggle daily to keep your focus on the prize? What is the prize?

Now you have done it, you must be thinking. Here is a topic no one wants to talk about but actually dictates how we behave within ourselves and outside with others. In one of my Lectio Divina sessions (Phil 2:5), while reflecting on Christ emptying himself out for us, I thought about how he was like us in all things but sin. What sins? As we learned in Grade School, Sins, a kitchen or laundry list of actions we do that are mortal or venial? Who is to say what is a sin and what is not? It is quite a complex topic and adds to the mix of Satan and temptation. You get a seemingly Medieval approach to spirituality that is caught up in not doing certain human behaviors on a list made up by dodgy old men in the past. That is certainly one way to look at a sun-centered approach to life, preoccupied with not stepping on the mine of life in fear of being blown up. If you have this approach to spirituality and step on a mine, and nothing happens, then after a while, you begin to lose respect for sin and may fall away from the true meaning of having in you the mind of Christ Jesus.

Before I give you my list of top ten favorites, let’s go over some assumptions I have about sin and other related issues. Since this is my blog, I have the luxury of giving you my opinion on the subject. You have the luxury of attaching value to my thoughts or not. Choose wisely! Remember, this is all part of my Lectio Divina meditation.

ASSUMPTION ONE:   THE GENESIS EFFECT. I can’t think about sin or its consequences without going back to that marvelous, archetypal story of being human. If you remember Genesis Chapters 2 and 3, it is the story of creation, giving parameters by God and Adam and Eve, and their betrayal by wanting to be God. The Devil is also in the mix to muddy up Adam and Eve’s thinking. If you can pick it apart, Genesis is an excellent commentary on human foibles and failings. Here are some things that I thought about sin and grace.

God had a garden (I guess that was Heaven). In it were all the delights a person could ask for. It is the place God made for all creation. God’s garden was good. But God had a problem. Who could he get to manage his garden and take care of all his animals and plants? Being God, that was no problem. He just made someone, even taking him from the soil (Adama), and then he stood back and said to himself that something was missing, so He took a rib from Adam’s side and made a helper for him to tend the garden, someone so that Adam would not be lonely, someone to make little Adams and Eves. It takes two to tango, not one. Adam was good, not evil, because God cannot create Evil. St. Paul in Romans Chapter 5 speaks of sin coming into the world through one man and through sin death.

Can’t you just imagine a Bedouin-like tent with a fireplace and little children sitting around it with their grandpa, listening to him tell a story of why Grandma had to die and why they had to suffer cold, hunger, and even death themselves? This is an oral tradition handed down through the centuries. St. Paul uses it to contrast Adam and Eve with Christ and the place of sin.

ASSUMPTION TWO: Sin means I completely missed the point. Thinking that sin is just like a laundry list of things you do or don’t do is one of the big wins Satan has over humans. Sin is not a list of offenses, like speeding tickets or hitting another car in the parking lot. Sin is about relationships. The Ten Commandments are principles of right relationships. It is about your personal integrity. If you don’t do them, you not only break the relationship, but you begin to think that what you do is okay. You become God. Sin is missing the mark. Missing the mark is all about putting up the correct target. Putting up the correct target is all about knowing what is right and wrong. Knowing right from wrong is the sin of Adam and Eve. Shooting the bow to hit the target is moot if it is the wrong target. That is sin.

ASSUMPTION THREE: Every sin has consequences. You have to pay something to someone if you sin, in this case, God. We call that debt reparation or making up in us with a grace that we abandoned in sin. Sin is not just a one-time activity, although it can be that. Jesus does not condemn us for our sin, as in Matthew 11, but he adds, “…sin no more.” Do you see the implications of this statement? God knows humans don’t always do what they say. God knows us so well that he gave us a way to make all things new. Forgiveness of sins is another way of saying I want to start again. Like a diet, once you break it, you have no alternative but to start over again (or abandon it entirely).

Here are my top ten sins, along with where they are found in Scripture. I base them on their gravity and the toxicity they bring to the human heart. No one can serve two Masters. St, Benedict writes in Chapter 4 of His Rule,

“(41) To put one’s trust in God.
(42) To refer what good one sees in himself, not to self, but to God.
(43) But as to any evil in himself, let him be convinced that it is his own and charge it to himself.
(44) To fear the Day of judgment.
(45) To be in dread of Hell.
(46) To desire eternal life with all spiritual longing.
(47) To keep death before one’s eyes daily.
(48) To keep a constant watch over the actions of our life.
(49) To hold as sure that God sees us everywhere.
(50) To dash at once against Christ the evil thoughts which rise in one’s heart.” (emphases mine)

In my struggle to move from self to God, Chapter 4 provides me with a daily examination of conscience, against which I can measure myself to see if I have in me the mind of Christ Jesus. The difference between what I hope to be and where I am in my struggle to seek God where I am and as I am. Conversio mores (conversion of life) is my constant objective, Day and night.

ASSUMPTION FOUR: Since it comes from the archetypal choice of Adam and Eve, every sin has these components.

1. It must be a sin, or to put it in our vernacular, what you do if you are an archer must automatically cause you to miss the mark.
2. God chooses what is good or bad. In Genesis, God is the grand gardener and hired Adam and Eve to be his caretakers. He told them that they were good and all creation was good.
3. You must know it is wrong. God warned them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good or evil. If you do this, you will surely die, says the narrative.
4. Knowing this is against God’s laws, you must freely choose against God and in favor of yourself.
5. Since you break God’s laws, all sin is social; it has consequences that affect others, even if you disagree with that. The two types of sins in the early Church were those that cut people off from the social covenant you have with the community of the faithful and those which just damage your Spirit and cause you to fail in your efforts to have in you the mind of Christ Jesus. Forgiveness of sins is also social, in that the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a public prayer and not an individual devotion, even if you are in private with a priest. Chapter 4 of St. Benedict’s Rule lists these activities that, if we do them, Christ will increase, and we will decrease.

Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, not only as inspirational reading on the nature of what it means to be human redeemed in the blood of the Lamb but also what our heritage, the heritage you must protect, is.

TOP TEN SINS HUMANS MAKE

What follows are ten of the sins I hold to be those holding me back from having in me the mind of Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5) and against which I am tempted the most. You may have a different set or even more of them.

SIN NUMBER ONE: Idolatry. “I want to be god.”It is no accident that worshipping idols is the number one sin. It is an archetypal sin of Adam and Eve, the one activity is forbidden to them because they could not achieve it, yet they chose themselves as God over their Creator. It sounds like they were out of their mind when you think of it. That is what sin is, not thinking clearly, not putting God as their center. False gods are the number one sin in the Genesis story and all succeeding behaviors. The Israelites worshipped the Golden Calf, even as Moses came down from Sinai to bring them God’s own commands. The whole of the Scriptures is to tell us what happens when we choose ourselves as God, such as living in the world rather than in the Spirit. The Israelites, time and time again, turned from God and worshipped false gods, like Baal and others. Even Christ was affected by sin but did not commit sin because there is no sin in God. He was tempted in the desert three times (all of these to tempt God, not man) and once in the Garden of Gethsemane (this temptation, “Do I really have to do this, Father?,” was to tempt his human self, something we know all too well). God tells us what is sinful or where not to step to avoid the minefields. Either God is God, or we are God. No one can serve two masters.

SIN NUMBER TWO: Idolatry. “I am the center of the universe.” Thinking that you are the moral compass for the world. Genesis is all about God as the moral compass for the world. Thinking that everyone has the right to choose is vastly different than believing that what you choose is right. What makes right and wrong? In the Garden of Eden, what was the one thing forbidden to Adam and Eve? Eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil, or being the one who determines good and evil. God gave us the commandments of maintaining a relationship with God (the first three commands) and keeping the tribes from killing each other with pride and jealousy, who is boss, and who is God. Jesus fulfilled these relationship commands by giving us only one command: love one another as I have loved you. In the O.T., you keep the covenant if you keep these commands. In the N.T., you fulfill the Law and the Prophets if you love one another. How do we know what love is? (Philippians 2:5-12) It is that Christ loved us first.

SIN NUMBER THREE: Idolatry. “Beware of false teachers who use familiar words and activities.” Do you notice a pattern here? Remember when St. Paul was trying to write to the Church who were having problems with the Christ preached by various persons? The Church sinned by missing the whole point of conversion to Christ in their lives. This was the idolatry of pride, just as clearly as Adam and Eve. The authority is not Paul, Cephas (Peter), or Apollos, but Christ alone. I would like you to reflect on the whole page from I Corinthians to get the context. The Church is never without internal conflict (heresy) or individuals who think they are Paul, Cephas, or Apollos, even in our own Day. Beware of Churches that bear the name of their founder. There is only one Church that legitimately bears the name of the one who founded it.

LEARNING POINTS

Sex comes from God and, like all creation, is not evil.

Humans view sex from many different perspectives. (See Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, which gives perspective on Love and Sex.) Some of them are authentic, and some are not.

All sin is idolatry at its root. All grace is love at its root. Christ says I am the way, the truth, and the life. How you make that part of how you approach the Father through Christ makes you accept your adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father.

Resist basing your life around not committing sin. Instead, “have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.”

Grow deeper in Christ by shedding your false self as these sins indicate.

It is amazing what happens when you change your perspective.

Homily by Fr. Tom Dillon on the scandals in the Church and our challenge to deal with imperfection and sin.

President-Rector addresses Church crisis in the opening talk

Friday, August 31, 2018

Note: Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology began the fall semester this week with the Intensive Spiritual Formation Week. President-Rector Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB, gave the following opening talk to seminarians.

Opening Talk for Spirituality Week

Anyone can tell you that the major job of any pastor is to help establish the values and the principles by which a community lives. It is an important question for us as well: What are our values? What do we stand for, in both a general way and in a particular way? Of course, we know that in general we stand for the values of the Gospel. We stand for Jesus Christ. But what about the particular way? What about the ways of this community?

Every community is different and while, in a seminary, there are many similar, perhaps for our old hands here even familiar, if at times neglected goals, there are also varied ways of achieving those goals.

What are the values of this seminary? What do we hope to achieve in our time here? Today this question may be more important to ask than ever. There is no one in this room who is unaware of the current climate of crisis facing the Church in the United States. The double blow of the charges laid at the feet of Cardinal McCarrick and the appearance at long last of the Pennsylvania report have brought our Church, in many ways, to its knees, or at least I hope so.

My experience in reading the Pennsylvania report (every last word of it) was one of profound nausea. The report is almost nine hundred pages long. Can you fathom that, nine hundred pages of reporting on the sins of priests and the absolute corruption of a system that sought to cover up their criminal action? It is hard to believe, but it is also important for us to face, and to realize that the Pennsylvania report could probably be duplicated in many regions of the United States. There is, undoubtedly, more to come. That is hard to hear. That is bad news. But you must be asking if there is any possible good news. I know I am.

What does the Church today need? The Church needs what we all need: Conversion. But we might begin that conversation by asking another question: What does the Church have? Overall, I would say the Church has good and faithful priests, we have hard working priests, and we have men who are willing to get dirty and to take chances not for personal glorification, but that the Word of the Lord might be proclaimed in season and out of season. Some of us might say that we are currently out of season. That may be true, but even out of season the Church today needs men who are willing to be authentic shepherds in a time when the occupation of shepherd is, shall we say, underrated, even castigated. The Church needs heroic priests. Will you be those heroic priests?

I would like to think that this is just the sort of men that Saint Meinrad is preparing for service in the Lord’s vineyard. But let’s be honest, even in normal times (if there is such a thing as normality), there are other kinds of priests as well. They are, I believe, a minority, but as we know it takes only one bad apple to threaten the whole barrel. It takes only one encounter with rotten fruit to put us off forever.

Who are these priests? Not only are there those who grossly abuse others, there are also those who look to their own needs and their own values before they look to the needs and values of their flocks. We have some priests who are more like preening peacocks than servants. We have priests who laugh about intellectual pursuits and prayer. We have priests who regularly abuse their bishops’ good names. We have priests who want to be media stars. We have priests who absolutely must have their voices heard. We have priests who look for power and prestige before they look for opportunities for service.

We know those priests exist; they are part of a statistic. They are the men who either end up in the newspapers or in a filing cabinet in the Congregation for Clergy. They are among those who try to ease out of promises and vows made; they are the failures. Fortunately, very few of them are alumni of Saint Meinrad. How do we get to this impasse? How do we engage a formation program, if we engage a formation program, that ultimately produces nothing because it does not offer the Church a priest in the Order of Melchizedek, a man willing to sacrifice everything, especially his ego, for the sake of proclaiming the Glory of God in the Church and do that for the rest of his life?

Here is what we want, here is what I want, not only as a rector but as a faithful Catholic whose Church is hemorrhaging because of the rottenness of a few. I want men who are ready to be crucified with Christ for the sake of the Gospel. I want men who are willing to look for meaning outside their particular tastes in serving the people, a people often, perhaps very often, ungrateful. I want men who are perfectly satisfied with pouring out their lives in anonymity. I want men, we want men, whose hearts are broken not only for their own sins, but for the sins of the world and the sins of the Church. We want men who are willing to shut up and listen every once in a while. We want men who need to know and learn and not think they know everything already. We want men of talent, willing to turn every ounce of that talent for use in God’s Kingdom, proclaiming His reign, His justice, His world. That is what we want. Will we get it with you?

In my remarks today, I would like to focus on two images from the New Testament, touching upon our themes for this spirituality week: The first is from the Book of Hebrews.

Here is the text:

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

What is the Scripture asking here?

That seems obvious. Our task as Christian men and women is to do good and to share with others. It is also understood in the Word of God that this is a sacrifice, one that is pleasing to the Lord. Sacrifice is not a pleasant word for us to hear at times. That is something that touches the very heart of what we try to do here at Saint Meinrad. It means that true sacrifice, lives poured out, is not behavioral, although it certainly has that quality. True sacrifice is internal; it is about the person within, the person that is not seen at first glance.

One of the things I try to reiterate each year is the need for deep and extended vision. I rehearse this with faculty and staff and I try to convince each of you. Please do not be quick to judge your fellow seminarians. Do not be quick to judge the faculty and staff. There is a great deal happening here that we cannot always see, much less understand. Sometimes that is happening in others, sometimes in ourselves. That means that we have to begin all of our relationships with an act of faith, faith that something is going to unfold, something is going to be seen that is not there at first sight.

I do believe that priests should be good judges of character, but I also believe that arriving at that judgment may take some time and effort. We are going to give you time and we are going to make the effort, but you must do that as well. It also means that the sacrifice of good character also builds toward being an authentic person. When we look back at the problems the Church has faced, and is facing, it is built around men whose characters were essentially flawed and who were not willing or able to seek the help they needed into making themselves complete and whole men.

I will now move on to the Gospel of Luke:

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

We cannot serve two masters. There is a truth there that only comes with maturity. One of the most formidable tasks you face here is learning to live in this truth. You must learn that many of the things you value, many of the things you love, must now be set aside. You are conflicted, having built your life upon certain realities, you are now asked to forsake them, at least some of them. Brothers, I understand that nature within you. I also understand that it is incongruent with the pursuit of a vocation to the priesthood. Formation for the priesthood demands a singlemindedness that is unparalleled in the world we inhabit today.

A true sense of vocation means pursuing an end relentlessly and with such focus of heart, soul and mind that it cannot be set aside, even for a moment. The death of the vocation is doubt. The death of the vocation is duplicitousness. You cannot serve both God and mammon. You cannot serve two masters. The Gospel life calls us to a simplicity, not only acknowledged in simplicity of life, but acknowledged foremost in an unwavering pursuit of the ends of God, the telos of God, which have become our ends, our telos.

What does the Gospel tell us: Do not be anxious. God provides. A test for us today is to ask ourselves how deeply, how thoroughly, we believe that: God provides. The providence of God is a major theme of formation. To a great extent, your success here is dependent upon your willingness to cast all of yourself onto the providence of God. Give everything to God. Give him your hopes and dreams. Give him your cares and concerns. Give him your sin. Give him your virtue. Give him your sexuality. Give him your celibacy. Give him your intellect. Give him your stupidity. Give him your sense of wonder. Give him your depression. Give him your seeking.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be given to you. Do not be anxious about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Care about yourself today and foster one thing during these coming days: a deeper, more personal, intimate relationship with the Master in prayer. If we have that, we have everything. If we have that, we can overcome anything, including the nastiness of the scandals that are surrounding the Church today. If we do not have that, then we have nothing, no matter how well-stocked our liquor cabinets are.

Brothers, many blessings as we begin this spirituality week. I pray that you take it seriously and that you gain immense benefits from it. Use this time to deepen your resolve and your faith. Use this time to become more fully the man you are called to be. Use this time to love more deeply. Use this time to mend fences both here and at home. Use this time of prayer and reflection on God’s providence to extend that providence to all you know and all you meet. Entertain the unseen God as readily as you entertain one another. Learn from God as easily as you learn from your professors. This week will yield a harvest of as much as you are willing to sow. God has promised and he will do it.

UIODG

I was fumbling around trying to wrap my mind around the “Nature of God” concept when I decided to look it up. Where would a broken-down, old Lay Cistercian temple of the Holy Spirit look to find out about what our heritage is? The answer surprised even me. It was the Catholic Catechism. https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church

The astounding thing I realized as I perused it is that it is an excellent spiritual reading book. It is readable, unlike the more scholarly Catholic Encyclopedia contained in https://www.newadvent.org/

https://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html

Recommendations

• If you want to know about Christ and our heritage as Catholics, go to these sources, not some other attempts to say what it means to be Catholic.
• The primary function of the Church is to be a repository of authentic teachings from Christ to our day. Christ gave authority to the Apostles to interpret what is authentic and what is heresy. Where would you find such documents?
• It takes work to discover the way, what the truth is, and live the life based on that way and truth. Lay Cistercian practices and charisms, based on Cistercian interpretations of the Rule of St. Benedict as promulgated by policies and practices, provide me with the spiritual ground floor to seek Christ daily.

Read Psalm 34 and reflect on its wisdom.

1Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech,^* who drove him out and he went away.

I

2I will bless the LORD at all times;

his praise shall be always in my mouth.^a

3My soul will glory in the LORD;

let the poor hear and be glad.

4Magnify the LORD with me;

and let us exalt his name together.

II

5I sought the LORD, and he answered me,

delivered me from all my fears.

6Look to him and be radiant,

and your faces may not blush for shame.

7This poor one cried out and the LORD heard,

and from all his distress he saved him.

8The angel of the LORD encamps

around those who fear him, and he saves them.^b

9Taste and see that the LORD is good;

blessed is the stalwart one who takes refuge in him.^c

10Fear the LORD, you his holy ones;

nothing is lacking to those who fear him.^d

11The rich grow poor and go hungry,

but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

III

12Come, children,^* listen to me;^e

I will teach you fear of the LORD.

13Who is the man who delights in life,^f

who loves to see the good days?

14Keep your tongue from evil,

your lips from speaking lies.

15Turn from evil and do good;^g

seek peace and pursue it.

16The eyes of the LORD are directed toward the righteous

and his ears toward their cry.

17The LORD’s face is against evildoers

to wipe out their memory from the earth.

18The righteous cry out, the LORD hears

and he rescues them from all their afflictions.

19The LORD is close to the brokenhearted,

saves those whose spirit is crushed.

20Many are the troubles of the righteous,

but the LORD delivers him from them all.

21He watches over all his bones;

not one of them shall be broken.ⁱ

22Evil will slay the wicked;

those who hate the righteous are condemned.

23The LORD is the redeemer of the souls of his servants;

and none are condemned who take refuge in him.

A GATHERING DAY

Yesterday (Sunday), the Lay Cistercians of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Trappist) gathered together to meet with the Holy Spirit and share some ideas about our journey in life and how we each have realized that Christ is walking with us each day. Although we realize that each of our paths is different in how we approach reality because of the heritage and life experiences we have had that are unique to each of us, what we do share is our seeking God together based on the Rule of St. Benedict as interpreted by Trappists monks and nuns. https://www.trappists.org/history-of-the-trappists/

In writing this blog, I am actually doing my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) on the computer and trying to write down what comes to my mind. You might notice that these ideas may be disjointed. All I do is take dictation. This is similar to what the Old and New Testament writers did when reflecting on Christ’s teachings. Are there errors? Possibly. These are the thoughts of a broken-down, old Lay Cistercian and do not reflect any official statements or pronouncements of either the Cistercian Orders or Lay Cistercians.

Let’s go back to the Gathering Day. We were all online, all fifty of us (+ -).

SEEKING GOD WHERE YOU ARE, AS YOU ARE

I will share an exercise I used with the Wakulla Correctional Institution (Florida), Main, and Annex inmates. My purpose was to share my own ways of looking at a deeper view of reality than the World sees. This exercise came from one of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5)

FIRST: I ask you to look at the photo of a cup and tell me what you see. Look at this for ten minutes and write down everything that you see. Limit your responses to what is actually there. This is the universe of what it is. This is the physical universe in which we humans find ourselves alive. We share this universe with other living things, matter, energy, time, and space. Why is that?

SECONDLY: Once more, look at the photo of the cup and tell me what you see. This time, realize that you can look at it and ask more questions other than WHAT. This is the mental universe, and only humans live in it. No animals, no plants, no fish, no fowl are here. Just us. This is the universe where we look back at the physical universe and ask WHY, WHO, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, AND SO WHAT. These interrogatories distinguish us from all other living species. Why is that? This is where we humans use our reasoning and our ability to choose to help us find meaning and how all of this fits together. Science helps us peer deeper into the truth by using different languages (Mathematics, Logic, Chemistry, etc…) to quantify what is. But this is a different level of reality than just existing. We are given reason for a reason and the ability to freely choose what we discover as the truth and what life is all about. What we choose either limits us or lifts us up to the next level of evolution, to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father.

THIRD TIME: Once again, what do you see? This time think of the cup as the sum of what you have learned from The Christ Principle and what you will present to God as a gift? This is the spiritual universe, one that we inherit but one that takes a dying self to be able to see the contradictions with the World. In baptism, Christ chose you. In Confirmation, you chose the cross as your way to the truth so you could have eternal life.

I apologize for brushing off the dust of my old Latin texts of the Scriptures. This means “the kingdom of heaven is like…” Matthew 13. The Old Testament was all about the forecast of the one to come, the Messiah. The New Testament is all about the fulfillment of the plan of salvation that shows us what to do once God made known to use our adoption as one to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:36)

Did you know God has a problem (in human terms only), and that is, “How do I tell humans how much I love them to make them my adopted children and how can they claim that inheritance with us in Heaven, which is impossible for the human nature to know, love or serve without blowing out their circuits?”

The Holy Spirit was commissioned to solve the problem, and did He ever. God allowed the energy of the divine nature to permeate and enter humans without destroying their human nature. The tongues of fire came upon the Apostles to give them God’s knowledge, love, and service to share with others that come after them. The Apostles not only received the gift of the Spirit but were given the task to share this energy with others, even though humans were subject to the effects of Original Sin and were prone to commit departures from God’s will. As the Universal collective of those gathered together in Heaven, on earth, and awaiting purification in Purgatory, the Church is the living Body of Christ, which individual members must link into this grace through the Church as linked from Apostles to each other person. This is the continuity of the Spirit, unbroken from Christ and present to us in the Holy Spirit present each time we gather to celebrate the death of the Lord until he comes again in glory.

The Scriptures are the core document, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to show us how to love others as Christ loved us. In a very real sense, God literally reached from divine nature to enter our human nature to give us what we could never have reasoned or attained by ourselves, how to recalibrate our thinking from that of the world to the Kingdom of Heaven, into which we are reborn by Baptism and the Spirit. But what is this Kingdom of Heaven, and what does it look like? Jesus tells us in the Scriptures that no one has seen the Father but only the Son or anyone to whom the Son revealed Him. Jesus is the buffer between what we can never attain, complete knowledge of who God is (Adam tried but fell short). We can only see the Father when we see Christ, and to add to that, we only see Christ when we are present to the Holy Spirit in each of us, those good and those not so good. No one can say Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives us a clue of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like when he gives stories and parables.

WHAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE

Matthew 13 gives us a picture of how Jesus, as the Master, uses parables to tell us about the kingdom of Heaven. He does not use examples we could not possibly understand but looks around at everyday events and says the kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. Read one such example of a parable to see how the kingdom of Heaven might just be closer than you think. I have added the footnotes at the end of this Chapter so that you might have some context. May I suggest that you read the following Chapter through very slowly? Let the words and images have a chance to impress your mind. Next, read it for meaning. Again very slowly, identify the types of parables contained. Do they refer to the abstract next life, or are they meant to describe and not make a definitive statement about what is happening now? Third, read it through again to realize that you are reading a description of what your Heaven will be like later on. Remember that the kingdom of Heaven begins for you personally, with your baptism, as you are on earth to learn about what Heaven will be like after you die. You take with you that which you have sewn with the golden thread of Christ.

THE PROFOUND LESSON OF ORDINARY LIVING

Jesus presents the kingdom of Heaven through everyday events, probably those that He had witnessed as he was growing up and learning how to be the Messiah. As God, Jesus possessed absolute pure knowledge of the past, the present, and the future. As humans, Jesus was like us in all things, except sin. If so, he had to learn as we learn, through his senses, with the experimentation of what works and what doesn’t. If Jesus did not experience humanity fully (he emptied himself of his divinity), there could be no appropriate gift of reconciliation with the Father due to the fall of Adam and Eve. Like Mary is the Mother of God and not just the Mother of Jesus, God suffered as we suffer, got cold as we get cold, experienced grief and sorrow as with the death of Lazarus, and underwent the temptation in the Garden of Gethsemani. He was like us in all things but sin. Philippians 2:5-12 describes it this way:

5. Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,^*6 Who,^*. However, he was in the form of God and did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped.^*7 Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness;^* and found human in appearance,^e8 he humbled himself,^f becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.^*9 Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name^*that is above every name,^g10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,^*of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,^h11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,^*to the glory of God the Father.^i.“

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU

Jesus uses parables to describe and not define the Kingdom of Heaven because it is beyond the mind’s human experience and capacity to grasp it as God truly is. Christ became one of us to tell us about it in ways that we could understand. If the kingdom of Heaven begins for each individual with baptism and belief in Jesus as Lord, then my Heaven is what I make it now, within each day, within each minute. What follows are some ideas I had when I looked around my life during the past ten days and looked for the kingdom of Heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like… an orange tree in my front yard which was planted from another tree given to us by our friend. This tree produces abundant fruit that is nourishing. We share this fruit with our neighbors and friends so that they may share our plenty. Sharing makes us happy.

The Kingdom of Heaven is my wife’s painting of a rose with watercolors. It gives warmth and beauty to all who see it. They marvel at her creativity and skill at painting.

The Kingdom of Heaven begins now, but so does your Hell, if you so choose it.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58032/58032-h/58032-h.htm

Without comment, here is the prayer of abandonment recited by Saint Charles de Foucauld. He and ten others were raised to Sainthood to be venerated by the Church Universal as worthy of our imitation.

My latest Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) is a continuation of one that I wrote down nearly six months ago. The general theme of my thinking is The Christ Principle, and stains emanating from that one idea included Genesis 2-3 and its treatment of “What it means to be a human being.” The basic premise of Genesis is that humans are flawed but not immoral by nature (God can’t create evil).

Many scholars think four biblical sources wrote Genesis ( the J, the P, the Elohist, and the Yahwist). The writers of the two genesis accounts have two different creation accounts that give two archetypal accounts about humanity. (Yes, I know I used “accounts” several times.) If you are interested in reading more about this most fascinating of topics, look up the following site.

Click to access TX001002_1-content-The_JEPD_Theory.pdf

All of this speculating about Genesis brings up a problem with which I have had more than a casual interest. It is a problem “Where does evil come from?” Here are some quick thoughts in no particular order of importance.

• This must have been a preoccupation by those descendants of Abraham because they saw actions that were quite noble and yet from the same person acts that were despicable to the human conscience. It persists with humans as part of their nature. But, how can good nature be capable of such heinous acts as the Holocaust and even justify it in the name of anything?
• Evil must not be confused with our ability to choose freely what we want. It is invisible with no mass, no matter, and no properties of matter. Yet, when this is selected, it causes chaos, not resonance with our human nature.
• Evil has no home except the human heart. We have a reason for a reason, to be able to choose. It is what we choose that can be good or bad. Again reverting to the archetypal story of what it means to be human, good or bad, is tied to what will allow us to be what nature intends or wrong for us.
• Scriptures tell us that the wages of sin are death. What kind of death? Good dies when evil prevails. Evil prevails only when we choose it. This is why the individual person who lives their seventy or eighty years on earth is essential. I can choose what is good or bad for me based on my reasoning. I am the only one who can choose this or that activity as being good or bad. That comes from getting burned many times by those harmful consequences of sin.
• I am just beginning to appreciate the condition of original sin. If humans knew in advance of the consequences of their choices, no one would ever choose evil. We have needs and emotions inherited from our ancestors that are defaults for how we behave. The default is not evil but the allure that we choose what gives us pleasure. Make no mistake that this choice is not about denying human inclinations and needs, such as our sexual needs. It does mean that the Great Accuser, Lord of the kingdom of Original Sin, continuously beacons each individual to choose his Way, his Truth, and his Life. If we choose it, which is characterized by St. Paul as “The World,” we choose a false god.
• Sin causes a disruption in the resonance of my human nature. Sin causes spiritual depression because the mind and heart go against it, a natural consequence. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee,” says St.Augustine. Hatred and Love are oil and water. Hatred kills the human spirit by the toxicity of the soul; Love is the purpose of the human consciousness and that for which we strive to attain.
• If your heart is a room (Matthew 6:5), then you can’t have both evil and good in the same room. The problem is that evil and the temptation to worship self and false gods roll over us each day, so we must start our struggle anew each day. Yesterday’s wins over Satan count nothing for today’s challenges to make The Christ Principle our center.
• It is essential to realize that the condition or environment of human nature’s existence is
• As a loving Father, God offers the extraordinary gift of adoption to those who die to themselves and have in them the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). This overshadowing of the Holy Spirit does not give us a free Monoply pass to heaven just because we are adopted, sons or daughters. That would be prideful and presumptuous on God’s mercy. We must work each day to take up our cross. When we drop our resolve and make bad choices, God has graciously given us the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a way to restore equilibrium and make all things new, with one exception. Like Christ’s admonition to the woman caught in adultery, Christ does not condemn us for being sinful but adds. “Go, and sin no more.”
• I have chosen the Lay Cistercian Way to refine my spiritual abilities to call Jesus “Rabonni” a teacher. It is the daily WAY I choose to have in me the mind of Christ Jesus as a Lay Cistercian. (Philippians 2:5); it is the daily TRUTH that I seek by realizing the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom (St. Benedict, Rule, Chapter 7, Step 1); it is the LIFE of the cross tempered by growing more and more in Christ each day while becoming less and less my false self (Dom Andre Louf, O.C.S.O., The Cistercian Way).
• The struggle is who determines what is good or bad? There are only two basic types of choices: I choose what is good or bad and give my important choice of good or bad to God as a gift. The most crucial prayer Christ taught us is the Lord’s Prayer. It says,” Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
• It might sound like all is lost for my growth in Christ and decreasing in my false self. It would be except that I have the opportunity to sit in the presence of Christ, both in from the Eucharist in Adoration and in the room in my heart (Matthew 2:5) and gain divine energy (as much as I can absorb, which is called capacitas dei). All it takes is for me to recognize that to gain the purpose of life and answer the six questions we need to become fully human is to die to my false self and rise with Christ to inherit the kingdom prepared for me before the beginning of whatever began.
• If I want love in my heart, I must put it there. If I want Christ in my heart, I must ask to be present through Lay Cistercian practices and charisms. If I choose what is evil, I can also put that in my heart.
• My choices are always the result of my DNA, the links in my past to human emotions, the selection of needs (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is an example), and my choice of what I make my center.

So, where does your evil come from, and can you win the cosmic struggle between corruptibility and incorruptibility to maintain your rightful inheritance as one who is fully human?

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There is no doubt about it. When I first began my training as a novice Lay Cistercian, I took baby steps to implement a Lay Cistercian Way that would fit my particular situation in life (a retired, broken-down, old temple of the Holy Spirit). Eight years later, I find myself still broken down and still taking baby steps in my Cistercian practices and charisms. Now, I am more aware of my surroundings.

Here is an early blog on my applications of New Cistercian practices to my life. This applies only to me. You must discover your own application.

LAY CISTERCIAN PRACTICES AND CHARISMS

I met a man, quite similar in appearance and temperament to me, who keeps trying to pray as much as possible in the hopes of becoming more like Christ and less like himself. The more he prays, he thought, the holier he would become and thus the closer he would become to his center (Philippians 2:5). In trying to use the World as a measuring stick for holiness (quantity equals quality), he overlooked the dimension of the heart. The mind is good at measuring quantity, while the heart looks for quality. It is not how much you pray but how much your heart can make room (capacitas dei) for Christ. He was seduced into thinking that prayer was all verbal and must be done in Church, while actually that is an important part of the contemplative life for a Lay Cistercian but there is always more. Formal prayers are not the end in themselves but only ways to be present to Christ, only the beginning of the process. This happens from the beginning of each day, which is why the Morning Offering prayer is so important. Prayer is not what you do as much as lifting the heart and mind to God wherever and however you seek God daily.

One of the ways to approach the Sacred is to follow a daily routine. Some people call it a habit. Do this every day for 30 days. If you are unable to do so, you might want to consider if your spirituality needs to go to the gym.  What follows is my exercise to move from self to God.

DAILY PRACTICES

Place this aide on your mirror. When you wake up in the morning, offer everything you do today as glory to the Father and for the grace to do God’s will, through Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Monday: In reparation for my sins and those of the Church, those on my prayer list

Tuesday: For all family, friends, teachers, classmates from St. Meinrad Seminary, those on my prayer list

Wednesday: In honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Heart of Mary, and St. Joseph, those on my prayer list

Thursday: For all Lay Cistercians, Monks of Holy Spirit Monastery, Monks of St.Meinrad Archabbey, priests and religious of Diocese of Evansville, Monks of Norcia, Italy and  those on my prayer list

Friday: For an increase in grace to love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and my neighbor as myself.

Saturday: For all deceased, an increase in my faith through the Holy Spirit and for those on my prayer list.

Sunday: To give praise, honor, and glory to the Father through the Son by means of the Holy Spirit, the God who is, was, and is to come at the end of the ages

FIDELITY TO THE LIFE OF ONE WHO IS SIGNED WITH THE SIGN OF FAITH

In my life, it is important that I have a schedule to follow. I refuse to be used by a schedule (feeling that I have sinned if I don’t adhere to it perfectly) but would rather use it to help me seek God where I am and as I am, each day. I share with you my daily practices. I must emphasize the word “daily”. It is such a simple word but has crushed me more times than I would like to admit. These habits are what I do daily and I do not wish to impose them on you. You may wish to try some of them or none of them. If you do try them, do them daily and feel the struggle that it takes to be worthy of being an adopted son or daughter of the Father.

 EACH DAY, READ CHAPTER 4 OF THE RULE OF ST. BENEDICT. NO EXCEPTIONS! — the Rule contains practices offered to his monks by St. Benedict (c. 540 AD). Most of the chapters contain practical guides on how to organize the daily lives of monks of his time.  If you go to this site, you will find a wealth of information about St. Benedict and also a tutorial from the Abbott on the meaning of each chapter of the Holy Rule. The key here is asking God to become what you are reading. https://christdesert.org/prayer/rule-of-st-benedict Here are some of the Chapters of the Holy Rule that I use to take up my cross daily and follow Christ.

• Prologue
• Chapter 4 Tools for Good Works
• Chapter 5 Obedience
• Chapter 7 Obedience
• Chapter 19 The Discipline of Psalmody
• Chapter 20 Reverence in Prayer

I read and try to practice these Chapters as one who is a professed Lay Cistercian of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist) in Georgia, always mindful of the lifetime promises I made to Christ through the Abbott, Dom Augustine, O.C.S.O. I am not a monk living in a monastery. My monastery is the limits of the World in which I seek to find meaning. I am challenged to adapt the Rule to help me seek God daily where I am and as I am. Some days are better than others. I have discovered that it is the time I take trying to calm myself down so as to present myself to God properly, that is also a prayer.

EACH DAY, RECITE THE OFFICE OF READINGS, THE MORNING PRAYER, AND THE EVENING PRAYER. These prayers are prayers of the Church Universal. Somewhere in the world, the faithful are reciting these prayers in praise of the Father through the Son in union with the Holy Spirit. They are public prayers of reparation for the sins and shortcomings of the Church and all members. It is praise and thanksgiving to the Father for considering us as adopted sons and daughters. Since before c 540 (St. Benedict), holy men and women have been praying these prayers seven times a day, 365 days a year, continuous prayer for all of us to the Father that He grant us mercy, sinners all. These Hours are not limited to “just Catholics”.  There is no such thing as Catholic prayers. Our Catholic heritage contains prayers that have been part of our tradition for twenty centuries. Anyone can pray these prayers because we don’t pray to the Catholic Church or any Church. Prayer is our communication with Christ, mind to mind, heart to heart, and also to love others as Christ loves us. No one can say that Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit. Ecumenical groups also pray the Liturgy of the Hours together and are linked together by the Universal Prayer of the Church.

Watch the example of one of the Hours from Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Trappist), in Georgia.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbE92dFGG50  What did you notice about this prayer? I was struck by how slow the monks sang hymns and prayed the Psalms. It was like walking in honey. 

EACH DAY, READ OR LISTEN TO SACRED SCRIPTURE — Some people read the Scripture to prove they are better than anyone else. How far away are they from the Kingdom of Heaven. St. John writes about why we have the Scriptures in John 20:30-31 when he says: “Conclusion.^*30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book.^s31But 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.”^t

The biblical quotation is from a website you should bookmark under CATHOLIC UNIVERSAL. It is the website of the Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/20. 

EACH DAY, IN FACT, SEVERAL TIMES A DAY, DO LECTIO DIVINA.– When I first began doing Lectio Divina on June of 1963, I was very scrupulous to follow Guigo II’s Ladder of Contemplation. As I approach the end of my life on earth, I am much more forgiving of following the steps of Guigo II.  I pray Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) without realizing that there are steps.  Even seven years ago, when I first became interested in applying to be a Lay Cistercian, I have found myself having one, long session of Lectio. Now, my Lectio sessions total one, sometimes two hours per day, but I spread that out over three or four shorter sessions. My daily schedule is flexible, yet strict enough, that I pray at least once a day at 2:30 a.m. (twenty minutes), then do my Lectio Divina at my computer at 6:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., after Compline.   

If you are looking for a challenging read, open this URL. http://www.umilta.net/ladder.html

The Steps for Lectio Divina: Spiritual Reading (source unknown)

Step 1. Lectio (lex-ee-oh), “Reading”
Read the Scripture passage. Try reading it out loud. Try reading it several times. Let the words sink in deeply. Open your mind and heart to the meaning of the words.

Step 2. Meditatio (med-it-tots-ee-oh), “Meditation”
Reflect on the Scripture passage. Think deep thoughts. Ask yourself questions such as the following:
 What does this passage say to me?
 Who am I in this passage?
 What do I see? What do I hear?
 What do I think?
 Which character do I most relate to?
 What do I most need to learn from this?
Try taking notes on your answers to the questions. Try journaling about the insights gained with meditation.

Step 3. Oratio (or-o-t-see-ah), “Prayer”
Move into the heart of the matter. Feel deep feelings. Consider the following questions as you respond to God:
 What do I want to communicate to God?
 What am I longing for in my relationship with God?
What do I desire in my prayer life?
 What secrets of my heart are ready to be expressed? Is there joy? grief? fear? gratitude?
Express your intimate self to God in your own personal way.

Step 4. Contemplatio (con-tem-plot-see-oh), “Contemplation”
Simply rest in the presence of God. Be passive and just enjoy God. Settle into the tenderness of God’s love.

(Variation) Step 4/ Additional Step 5. Actio (ax-ee-oh); “Action”
Ask yourself the following questions in utter honesty:
 How is God challenging me?
 Is there a good thing God is calling me to do?
 Is there a harmful thing God wants me to stop doing?
 What is the next step I need to take?
Decide on a course of action

This latest Lectio Divina experience (Philippians 2:5) was about how humans know God through their human experiences. The problem is that it tells us a lot about ourselves but very little about God. One such example is seeing Christ as the Good Shepherd, the vine and branches, or living water. My thoughts in this Lectio took me to relate to God as a teacher, the Magister Noster (Our Lord, Our Master, or Our Teacher). Here are some of my thoughts on this subject.

GOD AS MAGISTER NOSTER

The best way to know the invisible God is to know as much as possible about what it means to be fully human. This is ironic at best but can lead to much confusion at worst. The best way to discover what it means to be fully human is to uncover the six questions in The Divine Equation that teach us how to reach the intended purpose of our species.

The best way to learn how to find the correct and authentic answers to life’s most fundamental challenges is to join the School of Love with Christ as headmaster.

The best way to join the School of Love is to die to your human self and accept adoption as sons and daughters of the Father, the creator of the School of Love. Everyone is eligible to join this school. You must want to attend and follow the instructions of the Headmaster.

There is only one rule in this School of Love: to love others as Christ loved us. It takes a lifetime of struggle to overcome and keep at bay the false teachings of The Great Accuser.

The Father is on the board of directors or school board.

The Son is the headmaster and our only instructor.

Alumni and alumnae are all those in the Church Universal, those in heaven, those marked with the sign of the cross on their foreheads while on earth, and those given a second chance to proclaim Jesus is Lord, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is our guidance counselor and gives us the energy to be able to relate to a God that is real but unseen.

The Scripture is our textbook where we get the answers to The Divine Equation.

Our curriculum is to answer six questions that answer the questions “What does it mean to be fully human? What is our destiny, the end result of our intelligent progression (evolution)? Each answer depends on getting the previous one correct because it is part of one reality all linked together.

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

Our final examination is when we die and get to provide answers to what we have learned about what Christ taught us about loving others as He loved us.

Next Blog:

CHRIST AS MAGISTER NOSTER

This title seems like it is innocuous, don’t you think? A couple of days ago, in my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5), I thought of Christ as my yardstick to measure my behavior, approach to the Sacred, and obligations as a Lay Cistercian (www.trappist.net). I realize that I can never measure up to what Christ is, even though we have the admonition to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Wonder if your measuring stick is unable to be measured? “For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.^c“ Matthew 7:2 What are the implications of having a measuring stick that is The Christ Principle?

MY BEHAVIOR AS ONE WHO BELIEVES IN JESUS AS LORD

Jesus alone is the one against whom I must measure my behaviors to prioritize what I consider reality (physical universe, mental universe, and spiritual universe). Humans receive three gifts from God to discover their purpose and how they fit into that purpose. Not everyone will recognize these gifts as coming from God. Not everyone will discover three universes (the World exists in only two universes, physical and mental) comprising what is real. Not everyone will recognize how all of this fits together. Not everyone will grasp the meaning of fierce love (pure love of God’s nature). Not everyone will be able to move past just dying to the next phase of reality, the Kingdom of Heaven. And especially how the cross, far from being a symbol of derision and hopelessness, becomes our way, a way to be what is accurate, and a way to be what is the truth so that our life is our intelligent design (evolution) intended. What does not make sense to human experience using only reasoning and free will, makes perfect sense when I die to myself and my reliance on human energy to rise to what my human nature intended all along but was thwarted by the choice of Adam and Eve, our ancestors.

The only way to measure reality is by the cross, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly for the Gentiles.

Using the right measuring stick is vital that you will miss the spiritual universe altogether if you use the wrong one. To be aware of these three gifts, you must use God’s rules, not your own. To enter the Kingdom of Heaven is a gift of Faith that does not originate with you. Scripture tells us that Christ has chosen us and not the other way around. Why is that?

THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE

Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, is not only the center of my life, personally but the center of all reality. That includes the physical universe of what is seen and unseen, the mental universe of what is visible and invisible, and the spiritual universe. Christ is a measuring stick in the physical and mental universes as both human and divine nature, one God, and the key that opened the spiritual universe to humans once again. At the same time, we live but are also incorruptible.

I happen to stumble into this ongoing saga of life for eighty years. Did all this happen by accident? Am I a product of my nature, a noble but flawed experiment? Or, am I what it intended from before there was a before? This is intelligent progress, intelligent design from a higher power, so beyond human conception that our collective hearts fumbled trying to satisfy the collective longing in our DNA to somehow relate to an unseen force within us. St. Augustine captured this existential longing to move from dissonance to resonance when he said: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Genesis is an early attempt to address our faulted human nature, at once noble yet so prone to do what is not suitable for us, in terms of our terminal intention to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father forever. Reason and free choice are so ingrained in human experience that it comes from the very DNA from which all reality evolves, a force beyond our comprehension that, with a Word (John 1:1) and a thought, began an improbable love study, one that embodies the emotions of Romeo and Juliet from Shakespear, the classic heroic myths of Ulysses and Beowulf, the triumphs of Saints who died to self as examples for us so that we might have the courage to do the same. It is the martyrdom of the ordinary life, not one of blood, although we might be called to such a sacrifice of love.

There are four treatments or applications that help me use The Christ Principle in my living out each moment of my existence in the framework of corruption of matter and mind using the incorruptible design of my ultimate purpose (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:38).

USE THE ENERGY THAT COMES FROM OUTSIDE OF MYSELF TO SUSTAIN ME –– To use this energy, you must know about it, you must be willing to learn how to use it, and then use it to move from your false self tied only to this moral universe of matter and mind to your true inheritance as the adopted son of the Father, paid for by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to reunite us with God again, to be a ransom for the many and The Christ Principle for all reality. Christ told us to follow his way, seek the truth that comes from his words and deeds, and share this life of God in us with those around us.

FOLLOW THE FOLLOWERS OF THOSE WHO WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST — All those who follow the way are sinners (except Jesus and his mother, and only Mary because the Holy Spirit overshadowed her with grace). To move from the corruption of the effects of original sin to incorruptibility is not a one-time act of belief, and then you are done. Human nature does not work like that. Divine nature does. Because of the effects of original sin, at each moment, we are in a battle between good and evil, the very same one Adam and Eve experienced, the archetype of what it means to be human. Each morning, the struggle begins. I can’t change my human nature from being so prone to evil (or noble and heroic). Our nature is not evil because God does create evil. The purpose of Genesis is to elaborate on why individuals are prone to doing bad things and yet are capable of so much good. In the Old Testament Scriptures, we can measure ourselves by what the tribes do or don’t do to keep the covenant with God. You can measure how well you do if you keep the Law. If you don’t, God is displeased, and bad things happen, such as losing the ten tribes of Israel. But keeping the Law itself does not move Israel forward.

Someone had to come to tell them and show them how to move to the next step without destroying anything essential to the covenant from the past. Some get this, while others do not. The New Testament Scriptures are a record of how Jesus is the Messiah and what to do to claim inheritance as adopted sons and daughters of the Father. John 20:30-31. This record is one of how to love and receive instruction from The Christ Principle. The Old Testament gives us a record of WHY and WHAT for the Messiah. The New Testament gives us another record of fulfillment by moving to the next step of spiritual progression, returning to Resonance, opening up to Incorruptibility, and finally claiming the inheritance intended from the beginning. All of this activity is just for me (and all the other me’s that are born and die within the parameters of our human nature).

I MEASURE THE ENERGY OF GOD NOT BY MY STANDARDS BUT BY MOVING FROM MY FALSE SELF TO MY TRUE SELF, THUS GROWING IN THE CAPACITY FOR GOD WITHIN ME. I get to choose God by a YES or NO. Within the crucible of my inner self, I mix humanity (humanity) and my new life in Christ Jesus in Baptism (adoption). Jesus gave me a way to keep the flames of faith from flickering out. It is not easy and demands work (original sin) to maintain my center and energy to keep the world and its false promises from overtaking the sign of contradiction (the cross). My human nature does not produce this kind of energy. I can only get it from one source, The Christ Principle. The profound reason I joined Lay Cistercians and practice Cistercian practices and charisms in my life is that it is a way I discovered that allows me to die to self so that Christ might grow and I might decrease. It is a daily battle, and I have on my body the many times I have failed to love others as Christ loved me. I carry that burden as part of who I am.

THE YARDSTICK IS NOT OF THIS WORLD. The yardstick to measure scientific problems is the tools of mathematics, chemistry, physics, and medicine, to name just a few languages that uncover the truth. The yardstick of the spiritual universe is The Christ Principle and the languages of faith, hope, and love. The Divine Equation is provided to humans by God becoming human and giving us the way to solve it, the truth to know what it is, and the remainder of our lives to practice being adopted sons and daughters of the Father. We know we got it right because our yardstick is not of this world. What we measure is not matter, time, the energy of physics, or distance, but how much we loved others as Christ loved us?

THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE IS ABOUT DOING; DOING IS ABOUT KNOWING; KNOWING IS ABOUT LOVING; LOVING IS ALL ABOUT DOING. This is the doing that is incorruptible and lasts forever.

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Human reasoning is a beautiful attribute that animals don’t share and, as far as we can tell, no one has but our species. I find t interesting that, using what I know of what the purpose of life is, the same reasoning that compels me to have a fierce love of Christ Jesus, also propels me to even raise the possibility that God does not exist, and that all of this religion stuff is the “opium of the people.” In my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5), I entertained such thoughts and would like to share them with you.

IF GOD DOES NOT EXIST, AS ATHEISTS CLAIM AND AGNOSTICS SUPPOSE…

THEN, atheists do not exist, for how can you have someone for something that is not anything.

THEN, there is no heaven after we die, which means the only meaning we find is what we discover about life, which is not flawed but limited to whatever time we breathe.

THEN, there is no resurrection from the dead and no immortality as adopted sons and daughters of the Father because there is no Father, the source of pure energy, knowledge, love, and service.

THEN, there can be no Church, the living body of Christ on earth, in heaven, and in purgatory, a place of second chances.

THEN, The Ten Commandments do not exist, nor does God speak through Israel and the Prophets about the Messiah.

THEN, I am the center of the universe for whatever time I have on earth, which also happens to be true if I hold that God exists.

THEN, what is true is what I choose to make it, but I am limited by whatever societies or groups of people who have dominant ideas have (mental predators), and I am made to conform or suffer consequences.

THEN, there are only two universes, not three. I am god because no one can tell me differently.

THEN, no one can tell me what is good for my body, what I should believe, who should be my friends, why I am, and the meaning of love.

THEN, I revert to my animal instincts because I want to get as much money, power, authority, and pleasure for pleasure and territory as I can while I live.

THEN, Democrat or Republican platforms become my morality or other anomalies to intelligent human design.

THEN, suicide and euthanasia, abortion of any life, murder, and stealing become amoral. I do what I want when I want.

THEN, there is no sacrifice with love, no loving others as you want to be loved, and no helping others in need.

If there is no god, then by using all those ideas and practices that Jesus left us 2000 years ago, I can have a fulfilled life because The Divine Equation helps me become the human I was destined to be at the end of evolution.

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This morning at 2:30 a.m., I make my pilgrimage to the bathroom. Usually, when I come back to bed, I do a mini-Lectio Divina with my patron Saint, Michael, and ask him to join me as we approach Jesus to give glory and honor to the Father with the Holy Spirit. I use the Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) to place myself in the presence of Christ and then just wait. This morning, true to form, I thought about waking up just fifteen minutes before and finding myself on the very edge of the bed, almost ready to fall off. When I came back from my break, I thought of being on the edge of the bed during my mini-Lectio. I am sure all of this happens in just a moment, but I thought of how the balance was important in my life as a Professed Lay Cistercian in that memory. What does balance mean in my approach to reality using the rule of St. Benedict as interpreted by Trappist spirituality? Maybe balance in my spiritual life means I sleep in the middle of the bed and not one inch from the edge. Maybe balance means I take a step back and see if I am a perpetual dweller on the fringes of my spirituality. Using the bed analogy, what are the two fringes? Typical political commentators sometimes speak of a “right-wing” instead of the “left-wing.” I don’t like that description of the two opposing sides. Instead, If Christ is your bed, you can fall off one side or the other. Depending on what?

TOO MUCH CHRIST VERSES TOO LITTLE — Can there be such a thing as “too much Christ”? Yes and No. Yes, in that, when we use Lectio Divina as a platform to push our personal agenda about how others seek God, we think everyone must agree on my way or the highway. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Not just by reading and praying about it, but when all of that comes into our hearts, we proclaim that Jesus is Lord. We can’t do that without the Holy Spirit. No, in that Christ is in all and the fulfillment of our human nature, our destiny to re-enter the Garden of Eden, the reason why we have human reasoning and the ability to choose what is true. In the photo above, you see a cup that we receive at Baptism from the Father as a sign of our adoption as sons and daughters of the Father. We fill this cup with God’s own life (grace), the energy of the relationship of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ came to give us life and teach us how to love others as He loves us. John 10:10 puts it this way: “7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.“

Christ would not leave each generation as orphans. The expressed reason for entrusting his mission, to give all honor and glory to the Father, to human and sinful people, is to ensure that we have the grace to call the Father “Abba.” Our heritage shows us how the Sacraments are all instituted by Christ to give us the grace to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father. Humans don’t produce grace. That comes from God alone. We can share it through our good works (Chapter 4 of St. Benedict’s rule). Good works, in this sense, is the grace we receive from God for doing what He showed us, not that we have earned by saying lots of prayers. Faith informs our good works. We need balance.

When we pass over to new life in Christ, Christ will ask us to show us the results of our stewardship. All we have is our cup of salvation by which we have called the Lord to be saved and forgiven our sins. This brings up another issue, What happens to people who are saved but have not repented of their sins? Sin has consequences.

PURIFICATION IN FIRE VERSES HEALING NEXT TO HEART OF CHRIST — Purgatory has always been somewhat of an appendix to the Body of Christ for me. My faith, informed by reason, suggests that it is another way for God to show us his mercy. How so? I am not sure what it does, but it is all the same.

In the extreme sense of punishment for sins that are repented but not atoned for, Purgatory is one side of the bed. The other side is that we automatically get a “Pass Go” on Heaven and are automatically ushered before the Throne of God to enjoy the beatific vision forever. I would like to believe that, but I have some difficulties with the approach. First of all, it is too much like predetermination. You can “sin bravely,” as Luther suggests, because the blood of Christ has covered your rottenness much like the Sherman-Williams paint log has the world being doused in paint. I would love to believe this because I would be able to do anything that the World suggests is pleasure without consequences. Remember, I said all choices have consequences. This concept of the nature of man has no responsibility for sin, so there is no atonement needed. It is not consistent with human nature and what happened in Genesis 2-3. The consequences of sin are death, pain, suffering, murder (Cain and Abel), and living in a condition of imperfection. I have another view that I think is more consistent with human nature and reality.

Let’s say, for example, that someone steals $1,599 from your cookie jar at home. Five days later, they catch the thief, a friend of yours who knew how to break into your back door and where you kept the cookie jar. You confront him, and he tells you he is sorry that he just went crazy and will never do it again. You tell him that you forgive him, and the police take him away for trial. Until the money is returned, the forgiveness is hollow, it is genuine, but you must have restitution to resonate with this choice he made to rob you and break into your home. What is missing in this scenario? You still don’t have your money.

Here is another example for those who think that all it takes is to ask forgiveness, and you can get on the conveyor belt to heaven without restitution for your sin. All sin has consequences. You might be thinking that Christ never mentioned this in the Scriptures. You would be wrong. The most obvious example of restitution is Christ himself. In the Genesis story, Adam and Eve sin against God. This has consequences. Did you notice that the snake, Adam, or Eve did not say to God that they were sorry? What did they say? The snake made me do it, says Eve; Adam blamed his wife and did not take responsibility for the hurt they caused God. They are cast out of the Garden of Eden and suffer the effects of that sin. The Genesis story is a brilliant statement of where we find ourselves about God. It would not be until God Himself, in the form of Jesus, became human would save ourselves from being barred from a relationship with God again. Christ is the one who paid the ransom for Adam and Eve’s lack of awareness of what they had done to God. In restitution theory, Adam and Eve offended God. The offense is measured by the one offended, in this case, God. The unintended consequences of this disobedience were that Adam or Eve, representing humanity, could not say, “I am sorry, please forgive me, God, for having placed myself as God.” In His infinite mercy and love, God sent his only Son to reestablish the link. The Son’s mission was to show us how to live with love in our minds and hearts.

BALANCE AS A LAY CISTERCIAN

Here are some actual situations where I use balance to keep my proper perspective as a Lay Cistercian.

I do not wish to use the schedule used by contemplative monks and nuns in a monastery. This is a different context of contemplative practice from living in the world. Not better, just different. Balance for a contemplative might be different because the environments are different, but so is each individual Lay Cistercian or Trappist monk.

We pray with our being without even knowing we do so. If I am aware that I must seek God each day in whatever comes my way, I sanctify the moment, not a time or place. Being free from worrying about praying this or that or doing enough as a Lay Cistercian to pray as much as possible during the day is not what I call balanced.

I am not in a mental place where I can name all the people for whom I pray by name. Balance here means I gather all my intentions into one act of praise to the Father through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Balance means my prayers are short and straightforward. I tend to be short with my verbal prayer and long with my contemplative prayers in the silence of my heart. I do not judge others going on to pray out loud for ten minutes.

You might have some different ideas about this. Five of my thoughts that I still romance after all these years follow. I guess I never will ultimately reach the depth of their significance in my seeking God in my daily living. “That in all things, God be glorified.” –St. Benedict

1. EVERYTHING HAS A BEGINNING AND AN END: Everything in the physical universe (including you, me, all living things, matter, energy, and time) has a beginning and an end. We have a beginning and an end in the mental universe (only humans live here) (70 or 80 years, if we are strong). In the spiritual universe, we enter Baptism, where Christ chooses us to be adopted sons or daughters; we have a beginning (Baptism) and an end (Heaven). Look at the URL of Ozymandius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4vk0TLrpcY.
2. WE CANNOT KNOW GOD OR STAND IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD WITHOUT FRYING OUR NEURONS: Human nature and divine nature are two completely separate beings. That is why Philippians 2:5-12 is so essential in my spiritual thinking. When I first realized that I could not contain, much less understand the mysteries of Faith as God understands them (Baptism of Adoption, Eucharist, and why trust sinful sons and daughters of Adam and Eve with the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to name a few), I just slightly began to comprehend the statement of St. Thomas Aquinas that everything he wrote about God to this point was so much straw, compared to who God really is. We don’t access God by knowledge alone but by Faith, and even that comes to us through the Holy Spirit. It is true, we can somewhat know God as looking through a frosty glass but never face to face. Christ alone is our mediator with the Father, who intercedes on our behalf to ask for mercy, the one who shares His very self (human and divine nature) with sinful people like ourselves.
3. I WORRY ONLY ABOUT TRYING EACH DAY TO SEEK GOD AS I AM AND WHERE I AM: Do you remember the passage in the Scriptures where Jesus is trying to focus our thoughts on how to love others as He loves us? I love to look for patterns in reality, such as how all things fit together in the Old and New Testaments. One such pattern resulting from my attempting Lectio Divina each day is that of worry. I worry less about things I consider non-essential to my purpose (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:36). Because I try to seek God every day as I am and where I am, I don’t worry about the external situations I find myself in, such as COVID 19. At 79.10 years old, I just age in place and take each day as a lifetime. Read the verses below about worry.

4. EUCHARIST IS CHRIST’S OWN BODY AND BLOOD GIVEN FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF OUR SINS. Perhaps the most conflicting and misunderstood of Christ’s commands is to believe that He exists under the appearance of bread and wine. It doesn’t fit today’s self-righteous relativism that glories in the worst part of our human nature, sin. If you really believe that Christ is present, body and blood, soul and divinity, why would you not want to spend your time in this precious gift of self, given just for you? I have dual citizenship that struggles to compete for my free will. The choice is the only aspect of each individual human that God does not have. The Blessed Mother was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, which is why she could give her YES. Faith is that gift from God that enables each of us who are Baptized to become adopted sons and daughters of the Father. The problem is that there is a hidden but natural pull between belief and unbelief in my mind and heart. St. Thomas Aquinas says: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” I have accepted that my struggle is part of the love which I must endure to say Jesus is Lord. I do not have the power by myself to overcome the seductions that the Lord of Darkness beckons me to embrace. My struggle is a prayer to Christ to help me move from my false self to my true self. Each day, I must begin the struggle again, hoping that I will win the battle that day.

Last year, I just realized what the saying “The Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic” means. 5, THE CHURCH IS HOLY, BUT THE TEMPORAL LIVING OUT OF THAT HOLINESS IS MADE BY SINFUL PERSONS WHO CAN MAKE POOR CHOICES, AND THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES TO THOSE CHOICES. This occurred to me in a Lectio Divina when I looked at the contradiction between good and evil in Genesis 2-3. First, what God made is good. The butterflies, the fish in the seas, the clouds in the sky, and the animals, including humans. All have a good nature. Humans have something no other species has, the ability to reason and know and the freedom to choose. The problem comes not from the ability to choose but from what we choose and its intended and unintended consequences. Christ assumed our human nature to teach us how to love, which is the ultimate purpose of being human. Although St. Paul cleverly writes that “He who knew no sin became sin for us, Christ did not sin.”

The Ministry of Reconciliation.

11^* Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we are clearly apparent to God, and I hope we are also apparent to your consciousness.^g

12We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you an opportunity to boast of us, so that you may have something to say to those who boast of external appearance rather than of the heart.^h

13For if we are out of our minds,^* it is for God; if we are rational, it is for you.

14^* For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died.ⁱ

15He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.^j

16Consequently,^* from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.

17^k So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.

18^* And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation,

19namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.^l

20So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.^m

21^* For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,ⁿ so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2corinthians/5

Each individual who ever lived (except Christ and his mother, Mary) was born into sin. This is another way of saying that we have problems choosing what is good or bad. The Church is holy, but those in the Church Militant (left on earth to live out our lives until we die) must struggle against Satan to win the battle of what is good or evil. These days, relativism and erroneous doctrines compete for our belief. Each day, each person signed with the cross on their forehead at Baptism must choose. Sometimes we get it wrong, but Christ gives us a way to make all things new, over and over.

The struggle is important, not the potholes we step in so frequently.

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Those still making our trek to the heavens are fond of saying that those around us who have died are in a better place or are reaping the rewards of a life well-lived. Is this a pious saying, or do we actually believe it? A test might be: do you pray for your loved ones that they are loosed from their sins, and if they are in Purgatory (a place of second chances if you missed the first one while alive on earth)? All prayers go straight to God, but asking your loved ones to join in your prayer is intercessory prayer.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is my go-to site for all things Catholic. http://www.usccb.org

Look up prayers for the dead and dying: https://www.usccb.org/prayers/prayers-death-and-dying

The Vatican News site is an excellent source of the latest from Rome. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope.html

I was involved this last week in a bit of controversy over a statement in the press about how the Church does not have to convert Jews. As with all the reports that try to cast doubt on Christ and the Church, this one is subtle and seems to state that the Church teaches conflicting ideas (a favorite pastime of nonbelievers who don’t have enough to do with their time).

Peeling back the onion layers, I looked to actual documents and some articles I trust over the secular press. The issue dates from 2015-to 2016, so it is not relevant to today’s issues, yet, the fact that it surfaced and caused a ripple in the minds of some people, is to be taken seriously. This is my take (who else would it be?)

The article I received that started all this commotion is from National Public Radio. I will add a commentary on it from another article, followed by what I consider a balanced approach to how other beliefs and faiths need to be seen in the light of The Christ Principle. You be the judge.

THE HEADLINE:

Catholics Should Not Try To Convert Jews, Vatican Commission Says

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December 10, 20151:26 PM ET

BILL CHAPPELLTwitter

Pope Francis, seen here listening to music in St. Peter’s Square Wednesday, has said “a rich complementarity” exists between Jews and Catholics.

Gregorio Borgia/AP

Furthering a thaw in relations that began 50 years ago, the Vatican has released a new document about Catholics’ historic ties with Jews, whom Pope Benedict once called the church’s “fathers in faith.” Among the panel’s conclusions: Jews don’t need to be converted to find salvation.

“While affirming salvation through an explicit or even implicit faith in Christ,” the Vatican document reads, “the Church does not question the continued love of God for the chosen people of Israel.”

Titled “The Gifts and Calling of God are irrevocable,” the 10,000-word document calls for Jews and Christians to work together to make the world a better place by combating poverty and human suffering.

NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports:

“The new document states that owing to the Jewish roots of Christianity, Catholic dialogue with Judaism cannot in any way be compared with dialogue with other world religions. It says Jesus can only be understood in the Jewish context of his time.

“The document was drafted by the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations With Jews; the commission was created following the release half a century ago of the groundbreaking document called Nostra Aetate — ‘In Our Times.’

“That document repudiated the idea of collective Jewish guilt for Jesus’ death.

“The new document says that from a detached coexistence, Catholics and Jews have arrived at a deep friendship. And it says Catholics must refrain from active attempts to convert Jews.”

The Vatican commission includes the work of Cardinal Kurt Koch and the Rev. Norbert Hofmann. They presented the results of their work Thursday alongside Edward Kessler, founder of the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, U.K., and Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee’s International Director of Interreligious Affairs.

While it seeks to deal with hundreds of years of history, the Vatican document also quotes the current pope:

“Pope Francis states that ‘while it is true that certain Christian beliefs are unacceptable to Judaism, and that the Church cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah, there exists as well a rich complementarity which allows us to read the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures together and to help one another to mine the riches of God’s word. We can also share many ethical convictions and a common concern for justice and the development of peoples’ (‘Evangelii gaudium,’ 249).”

Discussing the document today, Rosen said, “the very fact that we can talk about complementarity is itself a powerful demonstration of how far we have come along this remarkable journey of transformation and reconciliation between Catholics and Jews over the last half century.”

The commission’s document also cites Francis’ immediate predecessors:

“Judaism is not to be considered simply as another religion; the Jews are instead our ‘elder brothers’ (Saint Pope John Paul II), our ‘fathers in faith’ (Benedict XVI). Jesus was a Jew, was at home in the Jewish tradition of his time, and was decisively shaped by this religious milieu (cf. ‘Ecclesia in Medio Oriente,’ 20). His first disciples gathered around him had the same heritage and were defined by the same Jewish tradition in their everyday life.”

Having had some red flags go up on this topic, I decided to look for an article that comments on the above article. Here it is. Note that both of these articles are from 2015 and 2016, respectively.

“Conversion” of Jews: What Does the New Vatican Statement Say?

Pope Francis’ visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome. Pope Francis’ speech to the Jewish Community of Rome.

An American Catholic offers a reflection on the recent statement on Catholic-Jewish relations from the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.

Initial news headlines on the recent document issued by the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews were somewhat misleading (such as: “New Vatican document: Catholics should not seek to convert Jews”). The term “convert” in this context is usually used to describe the acceptance of Jesus Christ by Jews, a process that the headline seems to dismiss. But in fact, the document insists that Christians are still to bear witness to the fulfillment of Judaism in Christ.

A somewhat more accurate but far less interesting, the headline might have read something like this: “New Vatican document: Catholics must honor Jewish faith in Old Covenant but a witness to Christ as its fulfillment.” Nonetheless, I’ve used the term “conversion” in my title because it draws attention to the difference between what the document says and what many might guess that it says.

The document in question is The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable (Rom 11:29). Perhaps the first thing that wary readers need to know is that this was not intended to be an exercise of the Magisterium. To quote its own Preface: “The text is not a magisterial document or doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church, but is a reflection prepared by the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews on current theological questions that have developed since the Second Vatican Council. It is intended to be a starting point for further theological thought with a view to enriching and intensifying the theological dimension of Jewish-Catholic dialogue.”

The Problem

The problem with the relationship between Christians and Jews is that it is a deep mystery. In the first couple of centuries, many Christians would have had a natural instinct to exclaim: “Come on, old friends. You are so close! All of God’s promises to you are true, so true that they have now been fulfilled in Christ!”

As the centuries passed, however, the Jewish roots of Christianity tended to be undervalued in an overwhelmingly Gentile Church, and Christians too often viewed Jews as a stiff-necked people who had been rejected by God.

It took the post-Christian, semi-pagan horrors of the Holocaust in the 20th century to bring Catholics to the defense of Jews and to fuel a rethinking of the Christian-Jewish relationship. This rethinking went back to Scripture, particularly the Revelation we have received in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans — most notably in chapters 9-11.

The recovery of a deep respect for the mystery of the Old Covenant was moved to the forefront of Jewish-Christian relations by the Second Vatican Council’s “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions” (Nostra Aetate). Again, it is the purpose of this new text from the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews to reflect on the relevant theological questions as they have emerged and clarified themselves since the Council.

It was, after all, St. Paul who said of the Jewish people that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rm 11:29).

Key Points

This new document tells the history of Catholic dialogue with Jews since the Council, underscoring that it has a “special theological status”:

In spite of the historical breach and the painful conflicts arising from it, the Church remains conscious of its enduring continuity with Israel. Judaism is not to be considered simply another religion; the Jews are instead our “elder brothers” (Saint Pope John Paul II), our “fathers in faith” (Benedict XVI). Jesus was a Jew, was at home in the Jewish tradition of his time, and was decisively shaped by this religious milieu. [14]

This has important implications:

Fully and completely human, a Jew of his time, descendant of Abraham, son of David, shaped by the whole tradition of Israel, heir of the prophets, Jesus stands in continuity with his people and its history. On the other hand he is, in the light of the Christian faith, himself God—the Son—and he transcends time, history, and every earthly reality. The community of those who believe in him confesses his divinity (cf. Phil 2:6-11). In this sense he is perceived to be in discontinuity with the history that prepared his coming. From the perspective of the Christian faith, he fulfills the mission and expectations of Israel in a perfect way. [14]

For these reasons, dialogue between Jews and Christians cannot proceed as if these are two fundamentally diverse religions that developed independently or without mutual influence.

Moreover, while it is certainly true that the Church is the new people of God, “the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures” (23, quoted from Nostra Aetate, 4). Ultimately, God does not lie and He is always faithful. The covenant that God offered Israel is irrevocable and God’s elective fidelity is never repudiated.

In this light, any Christian effort to separate the two covenants, rejecting the Old Testament while retaining only the New, is a grave error. This is why Marcion was excommunicated in AD 144. Again, there is a deep mystery in the relationship between the covenants, in the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and in the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. As St. Paul wrote, “Just as you [Gentile Christians] were once disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may receive mercy” (Rm 11:30-31).

Pope Francis’ visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome

Avoiding Errors

But the text also cautions against two key errors. First, there are not two different but parallel ways of salvation for Christians and Jews: “The Church and Judaism cannot be represented as ‘two parallel ways to salvation,’ but…the Church must ‘witness to Christ as the Redeemer for all.’ The Christian faith confesses that God wants to lead all people to salvation, that Jesus Christ is the universal mediator of salvation, and that there is no ‘other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved’ (Acts 4:12).”(35)

Second, Jews are in fact called to membership in the Church: “The people of God attains a new dimension through Jesus, who calls his Church from both Jews and Gentiles (cf. Eph 2:11-22) on the basis of faith in Christ and by means of baptism, through which there is incorporation into his Body which is the Church” (41). And, “It is and remains a qualitative definition of the Church of the New Covenant that it consists of Jews and Gentiles, even if the quantitative proportions of Jewish and Gentile Christians may initially give a different impression” (42).

So where does this leave us? The Church must view evangelization of the Jews “in a different manner from… people of other religions and world views” (40). The text notes that the Church “neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews” — and, in fact, it is instructive to reflect that the Church has never, over 2,000 years of history, done this. This is highly suggestive that such a stance is part of her DNA.

But the call to evangelization must not be denied: “While there is a principled rejection of an institutional Jewish mission, Christians are nonetheless called to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews” (40) and “Christian mission means that all Christians, in community with the Church, confess and proclaim the historical realization of God’s universal will for salvation in Christ Jesus” (42).

The upshot is that the Church uses a more nuanced language in speaking of her relationship with the Jews. It is not a question of “conversion” away from the Old Covenant, the law and the promises. Still less is it a question of hostility and rejection. It is rather a question of fulfillment in Christ. The Church does not see Judaism as a foreign and false religion, but as the root of her own development — a root which, for a mysterious reason, has not yet realized its fulfillment in Christ.

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org, where this article originally appeared.

“The Logic of Peace”

“The violence of man toward man is in contradiction with every religion worthy of this name, and in particular with the great monotheistic religions,” Pope Francis said in his talk at Rome’s Great Synagogue during a January 17 visit. “Life is sacred, a gift from God,” he said. “The Fifth Commandment of the Decalogue says, ‘Do not kill.’ God is the God of life and always seeks to promote and defend it; and we, created in his image and likeness, are required to do the same.” “Every human being, as a creature of God, is our brother, independent of his origin or religious practice,” he said, recalling that God “extends his merciful hand to all, independent of their faith and their origin,” and “cares for those who need him the most: the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the defenseless.” “We must pray to him insistently so that he helps us to practice in Europe, in the Holy Land, in the Middle East, in Africa, and in every other part of the world, the logic of peace, reconciliation, forgiveness and life.”—CNA

MY PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

What the word “convert” means depends upon how you use it. The beauty of the Church is that we have twenty centuries of trying to get it right, and even now, some have a problem.

Evangelization is letting the light of Christ shine in your heart so that others might see it and glorify God; proselytizing means you got to believe what I believe as I believe it, or you are not saved.

We evangelize all humans, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and others, because we want to share the “Good News,” but we don’t force it, and we don’t deny it. Christ told us in John 17 words that should comfort us. Read this Chapter prayerfully and as though Christ is speaking straight to you. He is.

The Prayer of Jesus.^*

1When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven^* and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,^a

2^* just as you gave him authority over all people,^b so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him.

3^* Now this is eternal life,^c that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

4I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.

5Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.^d

6“I revealed your name^* to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

7Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,

8because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

9I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours,^e

10and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.^f

11And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.

12When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.^g

13But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.^h

14I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.ⁱ

15^* I do not ask that you take them out of the world^j but that you keep them from the evil one.

16They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.

17Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.^k

18As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.^l

19And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.

20“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,

21so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.^m

22And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,

23I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.

24Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am^* they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.ⁿ

25Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me.^o

26I made known to them your name and I will make it known,^* that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”

Read the encyclical Nostra Aetate. It gives a balanced approach to believing and not becoming God in how we treat others.  https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life says Christ. There is only one path to salvation, through, with, and in Christ. Scripture tells us, “Don’t you judge anyone in the Church, and let God judge anyone outside the Church.” 

Balance and trust that the heritage of the Church (guided by the Holy Spirit) won’t let us down, even when our clergy and laity sometimes do, is comforting.

LESSONS

All words have weight behind them. I use the saying: Whatever is received is received according to the disposition of the one who receives it. In the age where misinformation becomes an infallible truth (after all, the secular press would not knowingly deceive us with their own agenda), there is a need for critical examination measured against The Christ Principle.

Wait! Can you answer these six questions before you die? How do you know these are THE six questions you must answer before you die? How do you know they are not? This is my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) for today.

In any event, I have the answers to these six questions. Who told you they were correct? The Holy Spirit told me where to look. How do you know the Holy Spirit told you where to look? How do you know these answers are correct ones? How do you know they were not?

The secret to answering these six questions comes with some strange requirements that I had to discover for myself.

1) The answers are available to any human who has reason and free will. They are not hidden, but you must know where to look.

2) Someone told me where to look and how to look, and this person never wrote anything down in a book.

3) The answers are without cost but will cost you everyTHING you possess.

4) What do you gain, or what is your reward? Nothing in this life, but everything in the next.

5)Wonder if I disagree with both your questions and your answers? It is your choice, but there are consequences with each choice we make.

6)In all that exists, you are self-aware if you are vital for seventy or eighty years. Why is that? In all that exists, you can reason and choose a YES or a NO. Only one behavior is core in that seventy or eighty years, and the rest are supportive (while some are destructive).

7)If we get the answers correct, we discover what it means to be fully human and the fulfillment of intelligent progression (evolution). Both the questions and the answers do not come from human nature but from divine nature. This divine nature wanted us to be fully human as intended and to be able to walk through the minefields of life without getting blown up by the Evil One.

8) God gave Himself to become human in all things but sin in the person of Jesus. (Philippians 2:5) This person died, giving us the key to unlocking these six questions with the correct answers. To ensure that this universal secret comes down to each successive human person, Jesus, Son of God, Savior, gave of Himself in the Real Presence of the Eucharist to sinful and wayward followers who struggle each day with the world’s cares. If you eat this bread, you will live forever. As the answers to these questions, this bread is available right now at no cost, and all it takes is a YES.

8)To get the correct questions and answers, you must die to yourself and be reborn as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father in Baptism. There are five gifts that God gave me to help me discover both the questions and answers.

• A Book of Life in which everything you think and do is good and evil written in your heart with your mind.
• A Golden String with which you are tread everything and everyone you want to join you in Heaven (sunsets, that good meal at Shula’s, the treasures of children and grandchildren, every prayer you ever said, all those who have died in the hope of the resurrection {even agnostics and atheists}). You can thread all your pets (I draw the line on mosquitoes) and take them to heave with you. How do you know all this is true? How do you know it is not?
• A Compass to point me in the direction of the true way, the true truth, and the true-life in this world and the next.
• A blackboard eraser with which I can use to cross out those failings and sins and rewrite the name of Jesus in its place.
• A secret sign is known only to those who have received adopted by God (the sign of the cross made on your forehead when you were Baptized, once a year with ashes on Ash Wednesday, and when you are anointed with holy oil in Viaticum before you die and stand before God with the six questions with their six correct answers and receive judgment for taking care of God’s garden.

CAN YOU ANSWER THESE SIX QUESTIONS THAT SHOW THAT YOU HAVE IDENTIFIED WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FULLY HUMAN?

To make things easier for you, I will give you the six questions that I received from the Holy Spirit. You may choose to use them or not. The answers come from The Divine Equation which identifies what it means to be fully human.

The answers must be done in succession, i.e., you must correctly answer the first question because you use that result to ask the next question on the list. It may take you a lifetime to answer these questions. Take your time, you have all the time there is.

A warning! Beware of getting stuck in front of the Mirror of Erisad. This is when you become more fixated on proving that there are different questions than the six and keep staring at the alternatives but NEVER answer the real questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3GOhCA1HgA

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

If you won’t or can’t answer these questions, I urge you not to sit in front of the Mirror of Erisad.

Part II of this blog will give you more information about my journey to answer these six questions.

If you choose to access this blog from various Trappist websites, hopefully, you will be as inspired as I was.

Remember the actor Flip Wilson and his characters.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kaiLcwHXB4 This is one of my favorite comedic routines, “The Devil Made Me Do It.” Geraldine blams the Devil on her buying a new dress. Sounds a lot like Genesis 1-2, where Eve blamed the Serpent for eating the fruit. We know the consequences, right?

The older I get, the more wisdom I hope to inform all the knowledge and experiences I have gleaned over the ages. I used to be satisfied with just knowing something. The World values memory, knowledge (along with the assumptions that accompany it), and the thinking that each person has the right to choose whatever value system they want, and not only that but what they choose is right. This thinking is seductive because it reinforces human choice, which seems to be at the core of being human. Let’s look deeper into the whole paradigm of evil and how it relates to our salvation by Christ.

If you ask what differentiates all life from the human species (Homo Sapiens), I come up with two attributes: we have reason for a reason, and we have the ability to choose for a reason. Using human reasoning, we can identify what is good for us and bad for us. Genesis 1-2 is the classic, archetypal story of how humans (Adam and Eve) chose poorly, and God gave them the path to be fully human again. The Original Sin is couched deep in the psyche of the human experience. God gave humans reason to be able to know what is good and what is evil. God gave humans the ability to choose because, to activate it, one must actually do something to make it happen. Adam and Eve missed what God had intended for them, even though he gave them reason. Clearly, reason is not enough when facing the choice of what is good for me or what is bad for me. This is why I hold that there has been a titanic battle going on since the fall of Lucifer and his choice to be God. This is why some people hold that they are gods and can determine what is good and evil. This is why some people hold that only God can give us the way, the truth, and the life. It is not the fact that we have choices that define us but what we choose as a result of choosing what is good or evil. The effects of Original Sin mean that, even with the forgiving power of God for the sin of Adam and Eve, we continue to struggle with temptation from the evil one.

THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL

We pray it every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, “and lead us not into temptation.” A better way to look at it is “Lord, do not abandon me when I am tempted.”

The big question for those who have been baptized in the blood of the Lamb is, “Is evil real?” and “Is there a Devil?” If you look at some movies and television shows, e.g., Lucifer, or Constantine, the answer might be “yes.” If you analyze evil from the viewpoint of science or psychology, the answer might be “no,” depending on who you read. What is real? That is the question, isn’t it?

Woven deep within the fabric of our Christian Faith is the notion of evil as personified by a fallen angel, Lucifer. It is part of the story of what it means to be human, as recounted in Genesis 1-2. This archetypal story of good and evil portrays God the Grand Gardner as making everything and then finding out He needs someone to tend his garden. What God makes is good, including Adam and Eve. It is only with Adam and Eve, different because God gifted them with reason and free choice, that this story continues. Choice means that someone must choose something for it to be activated. So, Adam and Eve are given a directive by God, “Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. In the case o Adam and Eve, Genesis has a cunning serpent to represent Satan. Satan first tempts Eve with the sin of vanity and power, then Eve tempts Adam, and the consequences of that choice are Original Sin, a condition of corruption that all of us are born into. So, is this real? Depends?

THE PLACE NO ONE WANTS TO LOOK

My answer is contained in the book I wrote about the Foundations of Contemplative Spirituality, THE PLACE WHERE NO ONE WANTS TO LOOK. Here are six questions that all humans must ask and answer before they die. They are foundational questions that go to the heart of what it means to be human. Not everyone will agree with this, nor will they understand the significance of these archetypal questions. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Dr.+Michael+F.+Conrad&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

I used to worry if someone would disagree with my hypotheses. Now, I am too old to care about comments. I think of myself as a dictation writer, writing whatever the Holy Spirit puts in my mind. Some of it will be folly for the Gentiles, and some will be a stumbling block to the Jews. It is a way to make sense out of the sign of contradiction, which everyone signed with the mark of salvation at Baptism has tattooed on their soul, the cross.

I am at the fourth question of those six questions, the others being:

1. What is the purpose of life?

2. What is your purpose within that purpose?

3. What does reality look like?

4. How does it all fit together?

5. How to love fiercely?

6. You know you are going to die. Now what?

At this late stage in my life, I am fixated on how all things are one in Christ.

John 12:32 32 And if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself.

Reality contains three universes, each separate, each with its purpose and their own measurements.

EVIL IN THREE UNIVERSES

Let’s use the word “EVIL” from the perspective of three universes.

• Physical universe: This is the foundation for finding ourselves in space and time. We play out an existence subject to the laws of nature. In this universe, Genesis says that God made everything that is and that it is good. Your pet dog or cat is not intrinsically evil but good. We follow the natural law,
• Mental universe: This is the level where humans alone exist, although we also live with all others on the physical level at the same time. We are separated from all living things by two characteristics: we have the ability to reason, and we have the freedom to choose either what is good or what is evil. Genesis 1-2. We learn what it means to be human, to have a purpose, and what is good or bad for us. These two universes (physical and mental) are what St. Paul calls the World. We can say words such as love, peace, murder, and live life our way, have the truth that agrees with me alone and lives our life according to what pleases us. These words only contain what we have learned from humans or from nature. People in this universe are their own gods. The early church warned its members not to burn incense to Caesar. In this universe, no one can tell you what is good or bad for you except you. Genesis states that Adam and Eve were tempted by a snake (Satan) to choose what was good for them after God told them that they would die if they were at the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
• Spiritual universe: This universe contains only those who have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb and signed with the mark of salvation, the cross. That takes an act of humility and obedience, the opposite of what Adam and Eve did in the garden. That same ole snake in the grass is there to whisper to our activities that will not allow us to go to Heaven. Here are two sources. I hope you read the one and look at the other. They explain why Christ had to become human nature to save us (from ourselves).

• Romans 5 NRSVCE – ¹⁸ Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. ¹⁹ For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. ²⁰ But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ²¹ so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification^[f] leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXonK8EBqmk

Evil lives in the realm of darkness, not light. It is invisible. The problem with invisibility is that you can’t see it. The darkness is not physical darkness but the spiritual darkness that comes as the wages of sin. Christ is the light that comes into the spiritual universe to enlighten the mind, enable the heart, and produce good works, that, when you let your light shine before others, they will see it and glorify your Father, the source of all light.

Hell on earth means the darkness of not knowing the way, the truth, and the life. Hell after death means you are in the darkness but now know what you should have chosen but did not.

The Resurrection Event lifts all humans up to have a chance to become adopted sons and daughters of the Father. Those who die without the benefit of The Christ Principle are judged accordingly.

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Humans have human nature. That sounds like a Yogi Berra truism, but there is a wisdom that belies this simple turn of phrase. The Book of Genesis, the archetypal story of our nature, points out that we humans are not God. Yet, as a result of the Original Sin, the principal sin we commit has to do with why we are so persistently opposed to God’s will for us and stubbornly obstinant at doing what is bad for us. All sin is rooted in the sin of Adam, that Archetypal sin of wanting to be God. Ever ask yourself why the Devil tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Satan is a fallen Archangel and made wanted to be like God and was banished from the presence of God as a consequence of his choice. Ever since then, Satan has tried to seduce humans to choose his thinking rather than God’s to get revenge on God. Original sin is the condition into which all humans are born, the condition St. Paul refers to as the World. Baptism takes away the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, but its effect still remains with me. Our nature does not change. What does change is that Christ is our Savior, the one who tells us, “follow me and I will help you through the minefields of life so that you can join me in Heaven, forever.” Christ shows us how to repel the temptations of the Devil. Satan is not God’s son, as the popular television show, Lucifer, suggests, but rather someone who is consumed by hatred, jealousy, and envy and wants other humans to hate God as much as he does. Some believe that some do not. You are free to believe whatever you want. I must keep myself vigilant in being a Lay Cistercian because Satan most definitely uses our weaknesses and wounded nature to think that we don’t need God, only ourselves.

This idea was part of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) when I meditated on the real meaning of sin. What follows are at least three temptations that Satan and his demons use to seduce my hope in the Resurrection and my Lay Cistercian practices. In a way, these three temptations are like the three temptations that Christ experienced in the desert. All of us have at least three of them. What are the three temptations that the Devil uses to seduce you as you practice taking up your cross daily to follow Christ?

My three temptations are about the three most important principles in my life, all part of my center. The Devil tries by any means available to make a crack in the foundation of this temple of the Holy Spirit. I confess to having some minor cracks, but I patched them up with Christ in the Sacrament of Forgiveness. I will experience the struggle of doing God’s will versus my own will for as long as I live.

LOVING GOD WITH ALL MY HEART, WITH ALL MY MIND AND WITH ALL MY STRENGTH AND MY NEIGHBOR AS MYSELF (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:36). That doesn’t sound like a temptation, does it? In the Garden of Eden, in the second story of creation, two trees are mentioned, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God says to Adam and Eve that he wants them to be his gardeners of the garden of Eden but warns them not to eat of this second tree. This is like mom and dad telling us not to do something with the result that we often do just that very thing.

Genesis 2 NRSVCE – ¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

The temptation comes when I try to love God using my energy. It always falls short of loving with ALL my heart, so I just give us as being impossible. Actually, it is in the act of consistently trying repeatedly that makes the human love that I have transformed by the addition of the power of the Holy Spirit. With Christ, I can do all things.

WHEN CONFESSING MY SINS TO A PRIEST, ALL I NEED TO DO IS TELL HIM WHAT I WANT HIM TO HEAR, THEN GOD WILL AUTOMATICALLY FORGIVE ME. Not so fast! Confessing my sins is all about admitting to another person (who is given the power of Christ to forgive) my need to make all things new in my life, again, then having a firm purpose of amendment not to sin again. Who are you trying to fool? You can’t just say you are sorry for your sins and then go out and do them again. There is a big difference between knowing you can go out and sin as much as you want because you have a free pass to heaven with Baptism and sincerely knowing that what you do is bad and trying not to do it again. One is a perversion, and the other is conversion. You simply can’t fool God.

LIFE IS ALL ABOUT STORING UP RICHES IN THE MATERIAL WORLD. We can even be seduced by thinking that the word “riches” means possessions. We have to store up our treasures in this life to take to the next life in heaven. Only the rich get to heaven, but it is not your riches you must pack in your suitcase, but what God considers riches. And what are they? Read what a Catholic website has to say about these treasures. https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/scripture-and-tradition/catholic-basics/catholic-beliefs-and-practices/gifts-of-the-holy-spirit/

“In the Book of Isaiah 11:2-3, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are described. In the passage, the gifts are considered ones that the Messiah would have possessed. Through Jesus, we also receive the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation.

Wisdom helps us recognize the importance of others and the importance of keeping God central in our lives.

Understanding is the ability to comprehend the meaning of God’s message.

Knowledge is the ability to think about and explore God’s revelation and recognize there are mysteries of faith beyond us.

Counsel is the ability to see the best way to follow God’s plan when we have choices related to him.

Fortitude is the courage to do what one knows is right.

Piety helps us pray to God in true devotion.

Fear of the Lord is the feeling of amazement before God, who is all-present, and whose friendship we do not want to lose.

Those are some of the riches you can take with you to Heaven.

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ASSUMPTIONS UNDERPINNING THE DIVINE EQUATION

For some reason, always unknown to me, the notion of The Divine Equation popped up in my Lectio Divina this morning. I have been writing down what I have received from the Holy Spirit without totally knowing what I am writing but hoping to put the pieces together gradually. I realized that I am unique in all the World with my view of what reality looks like but that I must exercise my reason to being into the Equation not only my Faith but the Faith of the Church, the Church Universal as it has been since the time of Christ. The Church is like a bank, housing the wisdom of those who have not only written the Gospel and Epistles in the New Testament but also preserving how those in each age use their assumptions to live out what it means to die to self to rise with Christ to new life, again and again, until death. The Divine Equation might mean something different to you and to me. What the words mean depends on how I interpret them according to the total accumulation of my knowledge, what I learned about the purpose of life, and what my purpose in life is. The differences are assumptions I make about what the words mean. Assumptions are those hidden ideas in my head that prompt me to say something in a particular way. You may not know what those hidden ideas are unless you ask. Guessing about assumptions in what another person says is called assumicide.

Back to the Divine Equation. “Divine” in the Divine Equation does not mean it is an equation that proves who God is or defines once and for all God’s nature, which is impossible with mere human languages. I assume that “Divine” means that the six questions and their authentic answers come from a power higher than ourselves and outside our human nature. The Divine Equation gives humans what it means to be fully human nature and the result of human evolution.

The tool I use to look at reality is The Rule of Three. I have not always used it but only recently discovered it in one of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) sessions.

Using The Rule of Three, the first universe is one in which all reality exists, the base of our existence. It exists quite independently of whether humans know about it or not. Humans have evolved with special tools or capabilities to look at this physical universe and ask why and how questions in the next universe, the mental one. Only humans live in the mental universe. The questions I had were: Why are we the only ones that know that we know? Know what? Is there a purpose to all reality and an endpoint to which all matter and energy aspire? This leads me to posit that there must be a roadblock in our human evolution over which human progression has no control. Humanity exists in a condition of corruption (everything has a beginning and an end, there is pain, there is a choice of evil, people die). Humanity needed help to jump to the next level of its evolution to fulfill its destiny. I hold that the spiritual universe is the universe that allows humanity to move forward toward what is intended in nature. The problem comes when this spiritual universe is one where each person must enter on their own using the experiences of a lifetime. This problem is that humans by themselves (the World) don’t possess the energy needed to raise their seventy or eighty years to the next level of evolution. This level is one of incorruptibility and is the opposite of what The World says is needed to be fully human.

The Christ Principle offers humanity the capability to reach the destiny intended for the human race. Humans that so choose are given a special sign at their Baptism. They can lead a double life (they live in the corruptibility of matter and the mind but are accepted by pure energy as being adopted sons and daughters of the Father.) This is dual citizenship where we struggle with the effects of corruption (pain, temptations to be evil in our hearts, and death, to name a few) and yet are a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is incorruptible. This is the price we pay for the price Christ paid for our incorruptibility.

MY ASSUMPTIONS AS A LAY CISTERCIAN AS I COMMENT ABOUT SPIRITUAL REALITY

Assumptions are like icebergs; what you see, hear, taste, touch, and feel and thus know about the reality around you at any moment always has something deeper involved; in this case, my assumptions that you cannot see unless I share them.

Assumptions are like icebergs.

All assumptions are important because how I look at reality (and how you view the same situation) is different. Each of us looks at who God is by using our assumptions about who I am. God may be one, but each human has the potential to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father with Baptism or with God’s mercy in the case of those who do not know The Christ Principle. Assumptions are the frame of reference that shape how I think about anything. Assumptions can change by adding or detracting from what we believe or act. Assumptions might be good or destructive to how you view what is morally correct. If you assume that stealing is acceptable as long as you don’t get caught, your behavior follows. Ex fructibus cognocsetis. Watch how a person acts, and it will tell you what is in their heart.

False Prophets.^*

15“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.^k

16^l By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

17Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.

18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.

19Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

20So by their fruits, you will know them.^m

The True Disciple.

21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven,^* but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven. ⁿ

22Many will say to me on that day,^o ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’^p

23Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you.^* Depart from me, you evildoers.’^q

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/7

Use this full text to ponder in your heart about what assumptions you hold about being next to the heart of Christ in contemplation. Take some time with this practice.

REFLECTIONS

What follows are some cryptic statements that I hold due to having made The Christ Principle one of my assumptions. My belief is not your belief because my assumptions are not your assumptions.

“I am not you; you are not me; God is not me; and I am certainly not God.”

I have chosen that God is the center of my life and not my false self.

Each day, I begin from scratch in seeking God. But each day, I have also changed in my capacity to seek God.

My prayer life is my life of prayer for the whole day, not just during Lectio Divina, Eucharist, Reading Scripture, Rosary, and Praying the Penitential Psalms.

Each day, I make the sign of the cross on my forehead to remind me that I am but a sinful person whom God has graced with discovering The Divine Equation using the energy of the Holy Spirit.

All I seek is to wait in the presence of God before the Blessed Sacrament and be near the heart of Christ.

Profound waiting in the stillness of my heart as I assimilate the love of Christ as He loved me, using the power of the Holy Spirit.

I use the Rule of Threes with nearly every word I utter. The Rule of Threes states that there is one reality with three distinct and separate universes corresponding to the nature of God, the nature of animality to rationality, and the nature of rationality to spirituality.

I assume that when I am accepted as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father, I inherit the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and become a caretaker (like Adam and Eve) of the World that I experience.

I assume that I do not speak for anyone else but only relate what I receive from the Holy Spirit. That depends on my assumptions as one who receives from the Spirit. What that means depends on the assumptions that you make with your life about The Divine Equation. In the Divine Equation, God’s questions and answers are the ones that are authentic and make us fully human as intended by our evolution.

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

I have been accepted as a Lay Cistercian by the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, to follow the Rule of St. Benedict, as interpreted by Cistercian practices and charisms and confirmed through its principles and policies.

My center is: “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)

Each day, because of the corruption of human nature due to Adam and Eve (Genesis 2-3), I must keep vigil against the World’s temptations to substitute the words I use to become more like Christ with what the World says is meaningful. They are the exact words, such as “peace,” “love,” “What it means to be human?” and “How does all this fit together?”

I have pledged my life to the conversion of my morals to become more like Christ and less like me, a paradox that the World will never understand or accept.

I live in a world until I die where I have dual citizenship, that of being in the physical and mental World. Still, I have been accepted by God as a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, which leads to my continuing after I die in Heaven.

The one rule I follow is to love others as Christ loved me.

The New Commandment.

31^* When he had left, Jesus said,^* “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

32[If God is glorified in him,] God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once.^r

33My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go, you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.^s

34I give you a new commandment:^* love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.^t

35This is how all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.”

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/13

Scripture is there for me to clarify humans’ assumptions about how to love each other as Christ loved us. (John 20:30-31)

In my attempt to sanctify each moment, I realize that I must become what I pray for and that the moment has depths I have yet to discover. You can always pray deeper.

When I use the term “The Rule of Threes,” I assume that there are three phases of evolution:

The Physical Universe is the universe of all matter, including all living species, including humans. It is the world into which we are born for our 70 to 80-year sprint to find purpose and solve The Divine Equation. This universe is the object of scientific inquiry and the foundation of all living things. One of the purposes of this universe is to sustain the mental universe while it searches for meaning and fulfillment as a human. It is the visible universe.

The Mental Universe – only humans live in this universe, but we need the physical universe to sustain us. St. Paul terms these two universes as living in the World. It is the universe where we look for meaning by looking at the physical universe and asking questions. This universe combines visibility and invisibility so we can discover reality in these two elements.

The Spiritual Universe—Here is where it gets tricky. The spiritual universe is only in the invisible realm, while we humans also live in the physical and mental universes as our base. In this universe, we seek to discover the purpose of the other two universes (physical and mental) by using invisible reality. In addition, each person must choose to enter this universe voluntarily. By accepting the invitation of God to become adopted sons and daughters of the Father (the prototype is the Blessed Mother who first accepted God’s invitation), each human receives dual citizenship. When we die, life is changed, not ended, and we move on to fulfilling what it means to be human in Heaven. There is only one reality, just as there is only one God.

When I use the word “string,” I am inspired by the science of Quantum mechanics and string theory. My notion of string theory is that unseen forces exist that link the physical, mental, and spiritual universes (viewed simultaneously). These forces do not contain matter or energy as we know it from Quantum Mechanics or Relativity but are threads that bind the purposes of each universe together as one.

The purpose of three distinct and separate universes is:

The physical universe is the base for matter, energy, time, and life as we know it. It is the visible universe against which all life, including humans, fulfills its purpose.

The mental universe is an aberration of sorts. Humans are the only ones that know that we know and can choose something outside of the natural fabric of their nature. Humans have more than one choice. Humans evolved from animality for a reason. The mental universe allows humans to ask interrogatory questions and discover meaning by looking at the physical universe. Why do humans have the ability to reason and to choose? Choose what? This universe allows us to look at what is visible around us and probe what is invisible. The mental universe is a bridge or an interim capability to move to something. What is that unresolved something that we can’t see?

The third universe, existing simultaneously with the other two, is the answer to the first two trends. Humans could never have reasoned or discovered the spiritual universe with logic, science, or any human language. God had to take on human nature to tell us and show us how to use the spiritual universe to fulfill our destiny. The reason is that the next phase in human evolution is voluntary, not tied to matter or physical energy. Not only is it voluntary, but each individual must choose to enter it. That takes knowledge, love, and service on the part of each human to say YES to creation, YES to accept the invitation to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father, and being able to “see” reality invisible because of human reasoning. We have a cosmic evolution all pointing to me as I live my seventy or eighty years (or whatever) to give me the chance to say YES to the fulfillment of my species, incorruptibility. (Philippians 2:5) God’s DNA or fingerprints are on each atom, each galaxy or Sun, each cell, the hairs of our head are numbered, and we are shown how to love others as Christ loved us. With all due respect to B.F. Skinner, this spiritual universe is dying to the human self so that we can rise to incorruptibility. It is not without struggle nor danger (The Devil wants us to fail).

The “Don’t tell me” generation goes back a long way. In fact, it is recorded in the Book of Genesis, Chapters 2-3. The classic archetype of humans is one with fundamental flaws yet whose nature is good. Individually, not so much so. We have reason and free choices, but the choices are sometimes destructive to our purpose. Such is the conflict in the human mind that, when someone tells us to do something we don’t want, we either avoid them completely or just ignore them.

There is a dynamic at work in how the individual human chooses anything. Rights are confused with the choices that are right for me or destructive. Freedom to choose what is good has morphed into anything I choose for me is good, and no one can tell me differently.

There are essentially two approaches to making choices in this flotsam jetsom of competing values we inherit.

The first choice is that all morals and values come from within me. Actually, that is essentially correct. When we are born, we are born of the human species with the capability to reason and make choices. What we choose depends on our capacity to search around us and see what is good or bad for us. No one can tell me what to do if I don’t want to hear it. I may have no choice in the matter, such as getting a job or paying taxes, but all things equal, I can say NO to anything. Of course, all choices come with the consequences resulting from that choice. If I choose to rob a bank, then get caught, I must pay the price that society imposes on this action, which we call a crime. If I choose to attend Florida State University, granted that I am accepted, I must follow their rules, which I agree to do. If I do so and make the grade, I am graduated with some kind of degree (consequences).

The second choice is that, although all morals and values come from within me, I freely accept that what I choose comes from a power outside of myself. Knowing that I am the center of all reality (for my seventy or eighty years, if I am lucky), I realize that what is good for me, in terms of my purpose, can only be fulfilled by going outside of myself with a power that is beyond my capability.

Put another way, I recognize that I must live in three universes (physical, mental, and spiritual) to reach the fulfillment of my species as a human, rather than relying on what the world has to offer me (the physical and mental universes alone). The problem comes when I realize that all spiritual approaches to life won’t lead me to fulfill my purpose in life and my individual purpose within that set of assumptions. I am trying to say that it is only when we give away our precious gift of choice to make God’s choices based on how I view the reality that we actually fulfill what it means to be human.

When I say to God, “For Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory….forever,” I pledge my obedience to a way of life that contradicts what the world says is its purpose (power, money, fame, fortune, sex without love, control). That doesn’t make sense to the world, hence the dissonance I feel. The dissonance this causes to my human penchant for control is strong, yet, it is denying that self in favor of gaining something transcendent that I become more human.

In Baptism, I receive citizenship as the Father’s adopted son (daughter). That means I pledge to obey God’s word in my heart and serve others with love as Christ did for us. Because of the dissonance of Original Sin, my life is a battle between the citizenship of the world (until I die) on top of my dual citizenship as a member of the Body of Christ, which restores me to resonance with all that is, as it should be.

The tension that I feel when I try to do Lectio Divina go to Eucharist, pray the Divine Office, and Read Holy Scriptures, is between my false self trying to reassert power over my movement to my true self. The tension itself is a prayer and makes my conquering or dying to self all the more a gift from me to God in thanksgiving for the energy of the Holy Spirit to lift me up to a new level of humanity, one loved by Love itself.

Rather than denying my resistance to moving from my false self to my true self, paradoxically, it is when I accept that the gift I offer to the Father through Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit is the one that he doesn’t already possess. Obedience is conversio morae every day. Just as the weeds in your front yard will grow, and you can’t stop that natural process, your belief also needs nourishment and re-centering each day to keep from spiritual atrophy. As a Lay Cistercian, I have promised to use the Rule of St. Benedict as interpreted by the statues and policies of the Cistercians (Trappists in particular). I must constantly pray that I do not enter into temptation. Some days are better than others.

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.”

What thoughts should you have about obedience and the freedom to choose?

LOVE IS LIKE A VALENTINE CARD

Love has two dimensions: the mind (knowledge and logic) and the heart (emotion and feeling). Remember when you were in Third Grade, and everyone exchanged Valentine’s Day cards? What did you do when you went home that day? Did you put them in a special spot in your drawer where you could pull them out and look at them frequently? Did you think of the person who gave you the card with affection? Did you feel a sense of warmth and pleasure? Love is one of the ways humans are different from other living things. It is a form of communication between two persons, heart, heart, thinking of others, wanting to help others. It can be with two humans or groups of humans. It can be between single persons, homosexuals, heterosexuals, groups of people, with families and relatives. Love is a human phenomenon. Love does not exist between animals or between animals and humans, although we can love our pets. Animals can’t love back, but they do have affection. So, what is this love? It is one of the thresholds through which all of us must pass.

Mature love is so much more than a Valentine’s Day card. Here are Eric Fromm’s five criteria for authentic loving with some thoughts about both dimensions of the head and the heart.

Fromm says, “immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.'”
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/erich_fromm_100716

MY THOUGHTS

• Love is thinking of the one you love all the time.
• Love is anticipating the one you love and seeking to help them in whatever way that can make them better.
• Love is having their picture on your desk and in your heart

KNOWLEDGE—

• Love is wanting to know as much as you can about your love.
• Love is wanting the one you love to know as much about you as possible.

CARE

• Love is patient with the one you love as they explore life.
• Love is forgiving others and realizing that you are not perfect.

GIVING

• Love knows that your loved one likes A-1 sauce on their steak, and you make sure you buy it at the store.
• Love is learning the art of receiving from your loved ones, allowing them to love you in return.

RESPECT

• Respect is wanting your love to succeed and do what it takes to ensure they meet their goals in life.
• Love is taking the time to tame your other, waiting for them to grow and mature.

It is the realization that in God speaking to you, you delude yourself into thinking you speak for God. If you say you love someone but don’t do anything to show it, there may not be love there but just your representation of what it means in your own mind. Similarly, if you receive Faith from God but hide it under a bushel basket and don’t do anything with it, there may not be Faith there but just your representation that you have made yourself into God.

A LAY CISTERCIAN AND LOVE: There are no answers needed

• My wife asks me repeatedly, why would you go to Conyers, Georgia, to the Monastery to pray on Gathering Day every month when you can pray in Tallahassee? I can’t answer that in a two-universe reality (physical and mental). There is no answer other than love. When I say “love” here, it is not the “love” that the world knows. The ” love ” says, “We only know love because Christ has loved us first.”
• Love in two universes is good, but it may or may not get you to Heaven. Love in two universes (physical and mental) is helping others and finding meaning for all the reasons listed above. Love in three universes (physical, mental and spiritual) is all the reasons listed by Eric Fromm, but we are conscious that we must always love others as Christ loved us. Christ is the multiplier effect, why we have reason, why love is the purpose of all life.
• When some look at monks and nuns who leave the World to embrace love in a lifetime of contemplation in silence and solitude, they think of a waste of humanity. It makes perfect sense for those who center themselves in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5).
• When married couples grow together physically, mentally, and spiritually, love means more than just the union of two spirits. It is the fulfillment of human nature in each person.
• Marriage helps me grow in Christ.
• Marriage is not the purpose of life; the purpose of marriage is life.
• Jesus tells us that there is no marriage or giving in marriage in heaven, but there is Love. In fact, Love is all there is.
• Love is a mystery to me that unfolds as I grow in the capacity to become more like Christ, who told us to love others as He loved us. I don’t know what love is in this sense, but I have a good idea of what it is not.

There is nothing more challenging in life than moving or growing in awareness of your environment. The most basic and fundamental unit is the human person, who comes into being with two other persons’ consent and lives for seventy or eighty years, if lucky.

I would like you to accompany me on a Lectio Divina I took a few months ago when I was thinking about trying to save the world because of the Ukraine invasion by Russia. The term “World” can mean many things depending on your assumptions about what it means to be in the world (small caps). This

1. I am born into the world that is my mother’s womb, dark, nourishing, safe, and protected from the corruption of what is outside. I am born into corruptibility, having a beginning to my life and deteriorating (some call it physical maturity) until I reach an end in the future. I am fragile and depend upon my mom and dad for my existence. I am dependent on others. Someone must feed me, clean me, help me sleep, and take me to the doctor when sick.
2. As I deteriorate (grow), I do so in my crib, my world. My senses become attuned to picking up sounds and language so I can begin to interact with my surroundings and be in charge of my space.
3. My world is now one of discovery, and I use my crib not to cage myself but as a place to sleep at night while my world becomes my house. I learn to speak in languages where I can tell people what I want. I try to control my space and let people know if I don’t like something. I learn what works to help me get what I want and what does not, depending on those around me less and less for food and play.
4. My world is ever-expanding now, and I realize there is life outside of my house. I go to church. I go to school. I keep maturing in taking control of my environment. My choices are limited to what my parents want and say is good for me. I comply or not, depending on my emotional stability and personality type. As I learn what is good and bad for me, I assimilate choices into how I now try to control others. I get my way sometimes, but other times, I don’t.
5. My world is now high school and then college, a conveyor belt I am on but don’t quite know where it takes me. People I love die, get sick, have cancer, or have an addiction to drugs or alcohol, and I see the consequences of their lives on me and those around me. I still like to control my destiny, but there are some hard lessons I must learn.
6. My world is now beyond my city and state. I push the boundaries of my world by traveling and sipping the pleasures of human sexuality. My choices are based on how I see the purpose of my life.
7. My world takes an abrupt pause. I now wonder what the purpose of all these experiences is. What is authentic love? What does it mean to be fully human? Is death the end of life?
8. I bump into a Lay Cistercian friend who challenges me to look deeper into myself and wait. Where can I get answers? The “world” that I know does not know the questions to ask, much less the answers. This is a world that I had avoided because I did not know how to use it properly.
9. I learned to wait for the questions and then for the authentic answers. It is the world of contemplation, the realm of the heart that is invisible to the eye yet key to my reaching fulfillment as a human.
10. My world expanded into one with two citizenships, one living out my destiny on earth. Another one simultaneously seeks to be an adopted son of the kingdom of heaven and loves others as Christ loved us. This world allows my seventy or eighty years to have a purpose and meaning and fulfills me as a human being. I am loved.

Here are some sayings I discovered on one of my favorite websites.

What follows is a blog from last year on the liturgical celebration of what Christ did for us in the passion, death and resurrection.

The recent fiasco over two actors, one of whom struck the other because of an insult, indicates just how much we revere actors in general as the paragons of what it means to be human. This fixation on a celebrity or who’s who in the zoo can border on the ridiculous was it not so tragic. We have our heroes in the World, such as the hall of fame for all sports. We raise these people, men, and women, to a higher level of respect due to their skills in what they do. A Hall of Famer is just a significant cut above ordinary football players, which is the significant gap over fans of the sport.

The problem with actors, professional sports players, role models such as politicians (tongue in cheek), or any other class or people who do a job that we find inspirational is twofold: they may be role models to some of us because they excel or are the best at what they do, but often this does not help us to become better humans because of their contributions. Actors, for goodness sake, make their living pretending to be someone else. Some of them do it well, and television and YouTube have glorified their achievements, but do they teach us about the purpose of life and how to solve The Divine Equation by what their lives proclaim? There is a saying, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

An actor has special talents that we do not possess, so they are special. The problem becomes they are the perceived best at acting, so they automatically because the seat of wisdom in anything they say, and are they someone that will help us identify what it means to be human? Their notion of morality must be correct, and what they say about God must be the truth. We relegate to them what we would never do other “mere moral: creatures. They become the norms of what is good or evil. What they spout may be absolute nonsense, but we let them get away with it without informed challenge. This is the celebrity that the world touts as our role models of moral and spiritual righteousness.

Contrast that with the lives of any of the Saints. I limit my remarks to those made Saints by the Catholic Church for what they did in having Christ Jesus’s mind (Philippians 2:5). Heroic? Some shed their blood for what they believed, and what they believed was to love one another as Christ loved you. Some lived their life in such a way that those who followed after them were more fulfilled as a human (belief in three universes of physical, mental, and spiritual, rather than only two, the physical and mental).

Every Saint has in common with us is that we are all sinners (except Jesus and his mother, Mary). We live in the corruptibility of matter and mind but have put on the armor of incorruptibility to die to self so that we could rise with Christ each day. Who are the role models to show us how to love others as Christ loved us? Actor and sports figures? What questions should you be asking?

SEVEN CISTERCIAN MARTYRS OF ATLAS

This topic is near and dear to me because it is me and my attempts to die to self to move from false self to God.

This is the Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) I had this morning at 7:15 EDT at Cardiology Associates on the third floor in Tallahassee, Florida. I drove to an early check-in for a Nuclear Stress Test for my heart. I am having Gall Bladder surgery this month, and I needed clearance from my Cardiologists (my regular Cardiologist and by ElectroCardiologist). To the point, I am sitting in the waiting room, and with me are six people, all elderly, one lady, and five gentlemen. All of them were using their cell phones to pass the time, filling them with music or whatever. I noticed this because I focused on Lectio Divina instead (I do not own a cell phone, probably because it is too complex for my mental processes). I only offer these thoughts because there are what happened to me over the past several months.

WHAT IS A LAY CISTERCIAN?

You can tell a Lay Cistercian because they are the ones with a smile on their face, focusing on Lectio Divina (Phillipians 2:5), eyes lowered to the ground, sitting straight in the chair, for thirty or more minutes without moving. Everyone else may or may not have a smile on their face but is looking at their cell phone to pass the time.

Father Anthony Delisi, O.C.S.O., God rest his soul, told a group of us that the first requirement you need to be a Lay Cistercian is recognizing you are a sinner and want to become better.

A Lay Cistercian, like those in the AA program, knows that it is in the context of community that silence, solitude, work, and prayer.

Monks, nuns, and Lay Cistercians seek to retire to that place where no human wants to look, the room described in Matthew 6:6, where the doors are locked from the inside, and we have two chairs, one for Christ and one for us. Ironically, we join others in their individual rooms and practice Cistercian practices and charisms to help us move from our false self to our true self in Christ Jesus. Community keeps us balanced and from falling off the deep end into radicalism.

A Lay Cistercian knows that prayer is a process of conversion and that they must begin each day as though it was the only day for the rest of their life.

A Lay Cistercian seeks God each day as it comes.

A Lay Cistercian cherishes reading from the Benedictine and Cistercian men and women who share their struggles and successes with us.

A Lay Cistercian keep their eyes lowered (custos oculi) when praying and doing Lectio Meditation.

A Lay Cistercian practices simplicity in prayer by praying The Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharist together with the community as they can.

A Lay Cistercian can sit facing someone who yells at you that you are worthless, God doesn’t love you, being a Lay Cistercian is a waste of your time, that you like in la-la land and not in reality, that you must not meet with your Lay Cistercian group because all you want is attention from the widows and because you write a blog, that no one reads your ideas because you are no good, but they won’t tell you so. On that day, Lay Cistercian, rejoice, and keep repeating in your heart, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they say.” Peace conquers hatred, but you must put love where there is no love to love others as Christ loved us.”

A Lay Cistercian fills any lack of time (waiting in line at the doctor’s office, waiting to get help from local government for a tax problem, or the time before the Blessed Sacrament) by just waiting for the Holy Spirit to visit that inner room and overshadow you with the warm embrace of the way, what is true, and the life or energy of Christ.

A Lay Cistercian, after a period of years practicing how to love Christ, can just sit there and focus the mind on pure energy, letting it “be done to you, according to His Word.”

What questions should you be asking yourself?

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In one of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) meditations, I experienced a rapid succession of ideas all unrelated. I call them firecracker thoughts because they are explosive bursts of energy from the Holy Spirit.

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.” ~ Joseph Campbell

“There are something like 18 billion cells in the brain alone. There are no two brains alike; there are no two hands alike; there are no two human beings alike. You can take your instructions and your guidance from others, but you must find your own path.” ~ Joseph Campbell

“Take care of your body as if you were going to live forever, and take care of your soul as if you were going to die tomorrow.” ~ Saint Augustine

“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.” ~ Saint Augustine

“Because God has made us for Himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.” ~ Saint Augustine

“You don’t climb a mountain in leaps and bounds, but by taking it slowly.” ~ Pope Gregory I

“The Holy Bible is like a mirror before our mind’s eye. In it, we see our inner face. From the Scriptures, we can learn about our spiritual deformities and beauties. And there too we discover the progress we are making and how far we are from perfection.” ~ Pope Gregory I

“If the intention is unclean, the deed that follows from it will also be evil, even if it seems good.” ~ Pope Gregory I

“The Light of Christ illumines all.” ~ Gregory Palamas

“Given that we desire long life, should we not take eternal life into account? If we long for a kingdom which, however enduring, has an end, and glory and joy which, great as they are, will fade, and wealth that will perish with this present life, and we labour for the sake of such things; ought we not to seek the kingdom, glory, joy and riches which, as well as being all-surpassing, are unfading and endless, and ought we not to endure a little constraint in order to inherit it?” ~ Gregory Palamas

“Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved.” ~ Anselm of Canterbury

“I believe in order that I may understand.” ~ Anselm of Canterbury

“A single Mass offered for oneself during life may be worth more than a thousand celebrated for the same intention after death.” ~ Anselm of Canterbury

“God was conceived of a most pure Virgin … it was fitting that the virgin should be radiant with a purity so great that a greater purity cannot be conceived.” ~ Anselm of Canterbury

“The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner. A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue.” ~ Bonaventure

“Any old woman can love God better than a doctor of theology can.” ~ Bonaventure

“It maketh God man, and man God; things temporal, eternal; mortal, immortal; it maketh an enemy a friend, a servant a son, vile things glorious, cold hearts fiery, and hard thing liquid.” ~ Bonaventure

“To know much and taste nothing-of what use is that?” ~ Bonaventure

“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become.” ~ Clare of Assisi

“Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world, which passes like a shadow. Do not let false delights of a deceptive world deceive you.” ~ Clare of Assisi

“Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation.” ~ Clare of Assisi

“I come, O Lord, unto Thy sanctuary to see the life and food of my soul. As I hope in Thee, O Lord, inspire me with that confidence which brings me to Thy holy mountain. Permit me, Divine Jesus, to come closer to Thee, that my whole soul may do homage to the greatness of Thy majesty; that my heart, with its tenderest affections, may acknowledge Thine infinite love; that my memory may dwell on the admirable mysteries here renewed every day, and that the sacrifice of my whole being may accompany Thine.” ~ Clare of Assisi

“It is by the path of love, which is charity, that God draws near to man, and man to God. But where charity is not found, God cannot dwell. If, then, we possess charity, we possess God, for “God is Charity” (1John 4:8)” ~ Albertus Magnus

“In this way, if you continue all the time in the way we have described from the beginning, it will become as easy and clear for you to remain in contemplation in your inward and recollected state, as to live in the natural state.” ~ Albertus Magnus

“Nothing can be believed unless it is first understood; and that for anyone to preach to others that which either he has not understood nor they have understood is absurd.” ~ Peter Abelard

“Our redemption through the suffering of Christ is that deeper love within us which not only frees us from slavery to sin, but also secures for us the true liberty of the children of God, in order that we might do all things out of love rather than out of fear – love for him that has shown us such grace that no greater can be found.” ~ Peter Abelard

“What we love we shall grow to resemble.” ~ Bernard of Clairvaux

“The three most important virtues are humility, humility, and humility.” ~ Bernard of Clairvaux

“Ingratitude is the soul’s enemy… Ingratitude is a burning wind that dries up the source of love, the dew of mercy, the streams of grace.” ~ Bernard of Clairvaux

“Ingratitude is the soul’s enemy… Ingratitude is a burning wind that dries up the source of love, the dew of mercy, the streams of grace.” ~ Bernard of Clairvaux

“To love anyone is to hope in him for always. From the moment at which we begin to judge anyone, to limit our confidence in him, from the moment at which we identify him with what we know of him and so reduce him to that, we cease to love him and he ceases to be able to be better.” ~ Charles de Foucauld

“See the Face of God in everyone.” ~ Catherine Laboure

“We know certainly that our God calls us to a holy life. We know that he gives us every grace, every abundant grace; and though we are so weak of ourselves, this grace is able to carry us through every obstacle and difficulty.” ~ Elizabeth Ann Seton

“We are born to love, we live to love, and we will die to love still more.” ~ Saint Joseph

The fourth type of cross-cutting strings or patterns that span all reality is that of a YES or a NO. This is how I dissect all reality into its manageable components, the physical universe of matter and energy. This mental universe is aware that there is a YES or NO, then the spiritual universe seeks to fulfill the other two. I will be looking at this phenomenon using my Rule of Threes.

Bear with me as I review the previous three strings that stretch from what is in the beginning to what is at the end.

1. Corruption and Incorruption: In the physical universe, one in which we live as our base of human existence, we shall matter, energy, time, properties of matter, using the law of nature to allow us to be. In t e mental universe, we have evolved our collective mental consciousness to develop languages to communicate with each other, delving into the interrogatories (Why, What, How, When, Where, and So What) to find answers that begin to answer the wonder that we have about what is around us (visible) and within us invisible). Our hearts are restless until they rest in the human truth. The final universe is that of the spiritual one, the most misunderstood or misused because people have the wrong assumptions about it. This is why Christ became human and suffered, died on the cross, that we could be heirs of the incorruptibility of this third universe and adopted heirs of the kingdom of heaven. There is a problem. As a human being, I am subject to the laws of the physical and mental universes. I have a beginning. I will l have an end. I suffer pain, and I experience love with others. I have to work each day to keep myself centered on Christ, the energy source of energy outside of myself. There is the duality of moving between hatred and love. I must always s struggle to be good to keep evil from encroaching into my incorruption. I am corrupt but also incorruptible because of Baptism. Christ gives me the energy to be faithful to my call of adoption.
2. Resonance and Dissonance: Simultaneous with the previous pattern is one where I find my reality has resonance but also dissonance. This is the string in tune with how reality is (resonance) or not (dissonance). Sin is an aberration of what is the intended way of being. All reality seeks resonance with its nature. This is the reality behind the saying of St. Augustine, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” We look at resonance and dissonance in previous blogs using The Rule of Threes.
3. Light and Darkness: This string, like the two that have gone before, plays its own notes, yet there is just one lyre. Humans have their five senses to interact with their environment as they live out their lives. Our choices are the strings we pluck in our lyre based on God’s song. We use The Rule of Threes as it applies to the themes of light and darkness to point out aberrations in all reality.

This brings us to the current blog exploring the topic of YES and NO as it applies to The Divine Equation and how my own choices can influence how I can fulfill my destiny as a human being.

THE FOURTH STRING: YES AND NO

Characteristics of both YES and NO

When I think of YES or NO in the context of the three universes having one reality, I try to describe them as such:

THE POWER OF YES

• Anytime there is a YES, it means that someone uttered it.
• YES presupposes intelligence, even a cosmic YES.
• YES is a word that means, “Let it be so,” or “Move forward.”
• YES means “Let it be done to me according to your WORD.”
• YES is positive energy that means fulfilling our intended purpose in life.
• YES happens at many different levels, especially at the beginning and end of anything incorruptible.
• YES means that all reality is in resonance with everything else.
• YES and NO can exist together in a corrupt universe of matter and mind, but not in a universe that is incorruptible.
• YES is one of the choices to discover what is authentic and purposeful about the World in which they live.
• YES is the result of a choice that gives life.
• YES is something that always requires an answer or affirmation.
• YES is present in all three universes (Physical, Mental, and Spiritual) and the basis for the corruptibility of matter and mind, plus the incorruptibility of the spiritual dimension to humans.
• YES is the most crucial Word that each human can utter.
• As a human being, only I can utter a YES within the context of my short existence of seventy or eighty years.
• YES is the mind’s consent to the YES of another person or persons.

THE POWER OF NO

• Along with YES, NO is also powerful. Here are some characteristics.
• NO means “S op,” “Don’t proceed.”
• NO is a blocking word, one that is negative.
• NO stops, love.
• NO, as a choice, might be anything terrible for human evolution or fulfillment.
• NO is not the absence of GOOD, but rather the presence of the possibility of choosing a value that will cause the death of YES.
• Each individual has the power to choose YES or NO regarding their invitation to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father.
• Some consequences happen due to choosing either a YES or a NO.
• Each individual says choose NO to the invitation of God to be an adopted son or daughter without recrimination.

Using these characteristics, let me walk you through my reflections on three distinct universes composing one reality.

THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE

• This is the universe composed of matter, energy, time, space, including all life forms on earth, including humans. It forms the base where everything living has just the correct amount of gases, light, water, and temperature to move from simplicity to complexity.
• The physical universe is corrupt because everything in it has a beginning and an ending. It deteriorates and breaks down over time. The physical universe is not corrupt in the moral sense.
• The physical universe began with a YES from a power that is pure energy, incorruptible, outside of the physical universe.
• There is nothing outside of the physical universe, as the late Steven Hawking once remarked. I think that is true, with this caveat. This nothingness is pure energy with intelligence, to say an infinite YES. St. John’s Gospel begins with the statement, “In the beginning was the Word.” St. John was not an astrophysicist with the knowledge we have today. He was a poet looking at the deeper meaning of reality to reveal that what made everything around him, corrupt though it might seem, is love.
• What has the “Word” that existed before there was matter? It was YES. YES, created all that is physical reality. Isn’t there more to it? YES.

THE MENTAL UNIVERSE

Although humans populate the physical universe because they are composed of matter and exist in time, something is different about humans than other life forms.

Humans inhabit their own universe that exists simultaneously with their physical base.

Only humans exist in the universe where we are the only living things that know that we know. We can look at the physical universe and ask WHY, WHAT, HOW, WHEN, and SO WHAT? Humans can say YES or NO to the choices that they present to their reason.

There are three segments in the book of Genesis: Before the Fall, The Fall, and The Consequences of Poor Choice. (Genesis 2-3) In this story, humans were created before the Fall. Their nature was good because what God creates is after God’s image and likeness. In this tremendous archetypal story, Adam and Eve were given a choice of good or evil and chose poorly because of Satan’s suggestions (temptations). The consequences of the story are immediate.
“Who told you that you were naked?” asked God. Adam and Eve, representing all of humanity, have corrupted the mores or moral choices of those to come. The four traditions of Genesis (J, P, Yahwist, and Elohist) reflect what was gnawing at the consciences of those early Israelites. Why do good people do bad things, and why do I do the things I don’t want to do and not do the things I want to do (St. Paul). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFcuFF4DBEc

Several thoughts became clear in trying to make sense of all these ideas. Adam and Eve was a NO to the offer of God to be Gardeners.

The nature of humanity is good. Individual humans are wounded by Original Sin and suffer the corruptive effects of this archetypal event by Adam and Eve. They must die.

God is not the cause of evil but is the source of good.

Human choice is either from within oneself as the source of good or evil or chooses what God says is true.

There is always a struggle between what is good and what is evil. The consequences or wages of sin, the wrong choice is death. The consequence of voluntarily placing oneself in the presence of God in the act of obedience is life.

From the time of Adam and Eve until Christ, humans, particularly the Israelites, waited on someone to redeem them from the consequences of Original Sin. The Messiah would be someone who would be able to say YES to take away the sin of Adam and Eve for the ransom of many.

Scriptures in the Old Testament are a history of Israel making a YES choice or a NO choice and its consequences.

THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE

This universe began with a YES, but it was not from whom you would expect. The YES of Jesus was to redeem humanity by suffering voluntarily and giving up his life to the Father in reparation for the single sin of Adam and Eve. Before he was born, this universe began with a YES from Mary, Jesus’ mother. (Luke 1-2)

Humanity’s Sin through Adam.

12^* Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world,^h and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned^*—

13for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law.ⁱ

14But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come.^j

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/romans/5

We venerate and honor (not adore) Mary because a human uttered a YES so that Jesus could take on our nature and utter the YES that allowed us to become adopted sons and daughters of the Father. (Philippians 2:5-12)

With the redemption of Christ, we have an Advocate before the Father (whom we cannot approach) to help us while on earth to overcome the minefields of the World and to keep ourselves centered on the cross by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We have the power, through the incorruptibility of Christ, to turn our NOs into YESes through Eucharist and Forgiveness of Sins.

THE SINGULARITY OF A SOLIDARY YES OR NO

All of these YESes or NOs in reality (physical, mental, or spiritual) exist so that I can have the freedom to say YES or NO to the invitation of Jesus to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.

I don’t depend upon your YES or NO for my salvation or adoption. I can say NO to God alone, or I can say YES. St. Thomas Aquinas is quoted as saying, “Knowledge comes before love.” Sin means my center of The Christ Principle wavers and careens down the road of life, sometimes going off the road. As Lay Cistercian with the habit of humility, I try not to let myself go too long before I measure myself against the heart of Christ and ask for mercy and forgiveness. I must do this daily. It is called conversion morae or constant measuring of your life against the love Christ showed for us.

I am so important in God’s plan that all creation was there just for me (or just for you). All of this goes back to that first YES of the nothingness of God and is confirmed by my YES each time I take time to sit down next to the heart of Christ and wait in peace.

What questions should you be asking about your YES or NO?

Mr. Putin:

Listen to this YouTube. You would have been a truly generational leader, had you chosen what this Youtube embodies.

In keeping with my slightly off-center personality, I pose to you some photos/YouTubes/articles and ask you to think about what questions these images raise in your mind. Remember, I am not you; you are not me; God is not you; and you, most certainly, are not God. St. Thomas Aquinas says that knowledge precedes love. What are the questions that lead to an increase in your Faith?

ST. JUSTIN MARTYR AND THE ORDER OF EUCHARIST

RESOURCES THAT HAVE HELPED ME ON MY LAY CISTERCIAN JOURNEY (SO FAR) Here are some wonderful, contemplative websites that may help you find some rest for your soul. I admit my bias.  http://www.trappist.net

http://www.newadvent.com https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org http://www.cistercianfamily.org/

https://siena.org/

http://www.carlmccolman.net

http://scotthahn.com http://www.cistercianpublications.org http://dynamiccatholic.com http://www.centeringprayer.com/cntrgpryr.htm http://www.monk.org https://cistercianpublications.org/Category/CPCT/CistercianTradition

http://www.saintmeinrad.edu http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html http://ccc.usccb.org/flipbooks/catechism/files/assets/basichtml/page-I.html#

http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ https://stpaulcenter.com/support-the-center https://www.osv.com/Home.aspx

http://www.osb.org/cist/

http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-weteach/catechesis/catechetical-sunday/word-ofgod/upload/lectio-divina.pdf http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/bernard2.htm https://www.ecatholic2000.com/index2.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_shhU_H5Z0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sfMYn3YcT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYE7CC1m_II http://www.ncregister.com/ https://cistercianfamily.org/lay-groups/

https://cuf.org/support-our-work/cuf-chapters/ https://catholicexchange.com/seven-capital-sins http://www.catholicapologetics.org/aff/courses.html  http://divineoffice.org https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/ http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/

https://zenit.org/

https://lifeteen.com/blog/

http://catholicmom.com/

https://cruxnow.com/

https://www.wordonfire.org/ https://onepeterfive.com/

YOUTUBE

G.K. Chesterton 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0b4zteOoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anBuPC6DpvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0b4zteOoI

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHaizmIj3ck https://youtube.com/watch?v=K8qqZup3Bg4www.youtube. com/watch?v=NnXlQWmubYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGGSxxuBtMk

Scott Hahn and Catholic Apologetics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67WmIGLPvEM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67WmIGLPvEM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67WmIGLPvEM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uL_IAJWvX0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn1tWuIoZsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIB-sOBDKk  

Bishop Robert Barron

https://www.youtube.com/user/wordonfirevideo/videos

FIVE CONTEMPLATIVE WEBSITES When I look up something that puzzles me almost 100% of the time, I use these five sites when I think of contemplative spirituality. I offer these sites as an aspiring Lay Cistercian in search of wisdom and humility. I thought you might like to see what they are and bookmark them.

NUMBER FIVE:  CISTERCIAN WEBSITES OF NOTE http://www.osb.org/cist/ You will find many hours of enjoyment clicking on and reading the various sites that pertain to Cistercians. Of particular interest to me were the sites about Lay Cistercians and those highlighting the movement’s early history. There are two branches of the Cistercian observance, Regular Observance ( O. Cist.) and Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.).

 NUMBER FOUR: LAY CISTERCIAN WEBSITES OF NOTE TO MOVE FROM SELF TO GOD

http://www.citeaux.net/wri-av/laics_cisterciens-eng.htm http://www.trappist.net/about/lay-cistercians http://www.carlmccolman.net/category/laycistercians/  Read this website. Carl is a Lay Cistercian of Holy Spirit Monastery, Conyers, Georgia, also where I aspire to be a Lay Cistercian. It is my favorite website of an individual practitioner of Cistercian piety.

NUMBER THREE: RESEARCH SITES TO GROW DEEPER INTO CHRIST JESUS http://newadvent.org   If there is one source I use more than others, it is New Advent.  It contains the Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica, Bible, Early primary sources or Fathers of the Church, plus other excellent links.  Don’t miss this one.

NUMBER TWO: TEACHINGS OF THE MAGISTERIUM (Vatican) http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html  This site I have spent many happy hours looking up the actual texts about what the Church teaches, as opposed to what people say we teach but don’t. NUMBER

NUMBER ONE: MY WEBSITE

https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org

This is my own website.  I put it as number one because I use it the most, not because I think it is the best. It is the result of my daily Lectio Divina and a poor attempt to share some practical ways to practice contemplative spirituality, emphasizing the Cistercian heritage.  I have tried to give you a variety of websites that I use to grow from self to God.  They have all helped me look at who I am in my relationship with God (He must increase, I must decrease).

That in all things, may God be glorified. –St. Benedict

THE CHRIST IMPERATIVES Here are some of the commands that Jesus gave to us to help us to convert our lives from the World to the Spirit.

• Seeking perfection? Listen to me, for I am meek and humble of heart. Matthew 11:28-30

• Thirsty? Drink of the living waters! John 7:37.

• Hungry? Eat the food that gives eternal life! John 6:33-38. 

• Bewildered? Believe in the Master! John 3:11-21.

• Without hope? Be not afraid! John 13:33-35.