Chapter 10:  Dispensed by the Holy Spirit, the Total All-Encompassing Working of Grace upon Christian Living ("GRACE, WHERE IS IT FOUND? HOW IS IT FOUND?  AND WHERE IT IS NOT?")

Foreword

Meaningless Perceptions of Grace among Supposed Believers

One practice among Christians is worth noting. We do see some of these Christians, whether among Catholics, or among Denominational, Non-denominational Evangelicals, in between personal witnessing or evangelizing so methodically or perhaps passionately, uttering .. But by the grace of God. And indeed, everything, in life, and in the world transpires to a proper culmination by the power of the grace of God. But shouldn't there be a lot more to be desired in these Christians' manner of proclaiming of the power of Christ's grace? You would indeed hear often enough of these repeated spontaneous utterances by these Christians... but by the grace of God. Yet the way you would hear it from some of them generally stops there their referencing to the working of grace. (To repeat, this is an observation ONLY ON SOME of these evangelicals or Christian ' fundamentalists', whether from among the Catholics or the Denominational/Non-denominational Christians.) For you hear quite practically no more beyond their act of referring to grace. Thus, there are many occasions where from one moment you hear their referring to grace, yet in another moment you plainly notice recognition of simple personal credit for this or that activity or action. You hear their talking about it like it is as it were just some experiences or feat he/she happened to have accomplished. E.g., someone being an accomplished tenor in his own right, someone. being a self-made man in his/her business, another owning an un-equaled IQ about his mastery of his subject or field, or someone claiming to him belongs the right to his/her million dollars, etc.. Unreserved claiming of honor and distinction while wanting to forget attributing of glory to God. It’s like, Thanks be to God during prayer and fellowships; and Great is me outside of prayer and fellowships. This is not a generalization among these evangelicals or fundamentalists. After all, if it only meant the reference to grace as a general statement of gratitude; at least, gratitude by all Christians is already a language of faith. But our point here is this almost misnomer-like or vacuous referencing to grace by some as though it is not supposed to be concretized or identified at all. Hence, too often problems or challenges, whether personal or business, are addressed and tackled only as psychological or strategic matters rather than like providential puzzles and blessings. Then concrete stipulation of the working of grace is catapulted only to the very spectacular miraculous happenings. The impression non-Christians specifically might gather from this is that God's favor of grace belongs to a few privileged few, and not to each believing and obeying Christian. And such impression is far from the truth of the universality of the efficacy of grace upon each truly born again Christian. Grace, like we state in other sections of this site makes of men and women new men and women. Thus, each man and woman of true faith is a regular miracle work of God. And each daily moment and event lived by the grace of God is a repeat of the same miracle worked by the Spirit on the Christian man or woman.

Furthermore, we could also rather question the authenticity of some so-called Christians or Catholics, who just home from service or mass, are already engaged in gossip about the next-door neighbor, or an old office mate. And a more poignant and disturbing phenomenon here among some supposedly devout Christians and Catholics is the indifferent attitude about, among other moral issues, dealing with abortion particularly in the pro-abortion political language. Notwithstanding their Christian moral orientation, it seemed it did not matter to them that abortions continue to be legally tolerated, and that politicians ignore continuing abortion of unborn children. This dichotomy between their faith worship and moral issue indifference belies the purposes and power of grace. With this lack of deeper respecting of life from among supposed Catholics or Christians it gives the message to non-believers, and believers as well like grace is something too mystical or even quasi mythical and is not a down-to-earth gift of Christ's Incarnation and Salvation, such that it has no bearing to real down to earth as well as moral situations. As it were, it is out there; but forget where or when it works; or how it helps here or there; or forget even if someone's behaving and acting or lifestyle need to be consistent with it or be disposed to receiving it. It’s like saying, Thanks be to God for the power of grace; but right now, I've got to take care of business This, thus, is liable to generate people's impressions and understanding of and about grace which are farfetched from the reality of grace. These misconceptions can even prevent supposed believers from the gift and opportunities of real living by race!  Hence, how do we get to understand what grace is, and how does grace work within us? It is probably a good method to start with one concrete example of the receiving, possessing, and application of grace in someone who could best illustrate for us this unique and no natural power which accounts for marvelous human actions and happenings that cannot be simply explained as results of individual and/or collective natural psychological, biological, or mental human abilities. To our mind one of the best examples would be Paul: one known unshakeable unbeliever turned believer in Christ. As an unbeliever, to him, thus, faith was meaningless; yet in the following Scriptural account about him and his new found faith we could but surmise it was by grace why and how he underwent a radical and total turn-around of both his life and personality.

PRELUDE ONE 

 (On Living the Life of Grace), "The Human Reluctance by Nature to Shy Away from the Inconspicuous Life of Grace"

Currently where the lifestyle of civilized living is so graphically visualized, dramatized, and propagandized in terms of which has the widest of media exposure and consensus in conventionalities the reality of living the life in grace can likely be beclouded if not overshadowed a great deal! Those who are sincere about witnessing to living the life of grace find it ever more a challenge how to genuinely live their faith while trying not to become obsolete or out of touch with the going trends and fashions of modern technological and globalizing civilization. Lest man misses on culturally and institutionally intertwined practices and dealings in business, politics, and even in education the present-day man is forced to put up and live with many intellectually and morally obtrusive materialistic and secularist dressing up of day-to-day life events.

Even right in the exclusive field of faith teaching or religious forums this intrusive invasion by the media culture is pervasive. One example where we seem to over stress the importance of style or "form" is the apparent inclination even for preachers or evangelizers to be more concerned at entertaining listeners, e.g., maximizing the cracking of jokes than preaching or catechizing with diligence the faithful Gospel message to be delivered.

Also, when dealing with the so-called 'gray' areas of morality, quite a few resorts to the invoking that in certain situations that whatever is natural is probably not so bad? Or given a problematic behavioral situation, if the act in itself is realizing its natural order of things the act is, okay? For example, research in itself promotes knowledge, discoveries, and inventions. Therefore, it is okay to do practical research on cloning human cells. Winning is a challenge to excellence. Therefore, merciless beating up on a boxing opponent is worthy of fans approval?

It is a dangerous path to overly play up the philosophical argument and emphasis on the "intrinsic being" or essence of things when dealing with "natures" of things or matters. The so-called "per-se" approach or substantial treating of subject matter cannot be saturated at all cost. Because in ultimate analysis, God alone is "THE ESSENCE PER SE", the only being which explains the being of HIMSELF.

The truth is because of the fall of the first human beings of Adam and Eve; and because of the reality of "original sin" all supposed natures of beings have become "flawed", including the so-called human nature. So, when we invoke the natural purpose of some natural acts to validate its being well, we are being blind to the corrupted functioning of certain natural acts. For example, some supposedly tolerate and even kind of sensationalize, as in media shows and programs, innocent lips-to-lips kisses between engaged couples as not illicit pre- marital sexual acts on account of the supposition that the couple do not have the intent of conjugal lovemaking?

As matter of theological fact because of "THE FALL”, and therefore of the "FLAWED" human nature and human existence, man had become in need of a "repaired" or renovated human self/human life. And so by God's eternal providential act of love Jesus transformed anew our humanity brought forth by His redeeming act. It is only through this renovated humanity that man could trust his supposed "human nature" as far as making sense out of our total behaving or our very living.

From the point of view of human and social world activism, we would encounter so-called human agenda and accomplishments. From the same perspective man likes to dwell on legitimate human and social fun and pleasures. Apparently if man does not cross beyond the borders of sins, social well-being; and for as long as man does not do anything intrinsically dishonoring and displeasing to God such horizontal concerns or objectives are supposedly not bad?

But are these humanly, sociologically, and materially formal demarcating and delineating of what might be a list of feasible dos within God's commandments a realistic and wise approach to living a truly abundant human living?

Relate this disposition to the "fundamental option" of living the "new life"! Will the above approach lead and work out for us an assured path towards living of the new life?

Let us be advised here of the Lord's warning, "Unless you are born again of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter Heaven!" In other words, let us not forget that unless our old human life is changed into the new humanity of Jesus, our human living will not mean much, and will not attain for us our true human fulfillment and happiness. Our living will just be a living stuck to their mundane characteristics, and without any chance of permanence and authenticity, which the Lord has promised to those who convert their natural life to the life of Divine grace. For without the gift of grace all the supposed deeds of honesty, honorableness, and heroism carry nothing more than very ephemeral values. Once the physical body dies, such men's deeds of honesty, honor, and heroism are only as good as the people's memories of one or a few generations, which is unlike the divine reward of grace that is eternal.

Notwithstanding, granting the sincerity and efforts of those what we might call "self- liberators" of the world, who attempt to work things out in the world for the common good, in so far as men are working with flawed faculties, disoriented hearts, perplexed minds, and carnal sensory faculties, true and absolute commonality in interest, fervor, and energy are bound to be shaped and colored by parochial biases and loyalties. Rather, only liberated men by the grace of Jesus Christ are enabled to pursue and effect change and good will under the power of Christian love, and within the un-conditionality of divine love.

Ultimately, let us be reminded of our statement from the above Part One of Our Mission Chapter on Living the Life of Grace about the invariable negative characteristic of true living of a mandated following of Jesus Christ, which we have already explained in that chapter. The idea being that we shall have attained the unity with God only in so far as we are united with Christ by way of our carrying of our individual cross or by way of our total self-denial, and total surrender to God's occupying of, or filling up of our heart with His Divine life. I.e., our choosing over living our 'fallen human nature' in favor of letting God fill our heart with His Divine life of grace.

In the process, it will afford us to hear the Spirit's blessing our measuring up to the Lord's Beatitude. "Blessed are you who are poor", the Lord would say, "... in your heart you already possess the Kingdom of God!" This paraphrasing of the first Beatitude, and, as matter of fact, of all the eight beatitudes. In other words, those whose degree of faith and discipleship for God has reached the level of the Beatitudes and who have more than a head start in the road to sacrificial purification and sanctification are well along the way of perfection this side of Heaven. They are most likely already experiencing many moments of Heaven-like bliss of peace and unity with the Divine. In contrast, those who are way so attached to their riches have their wealth blocking any speedy growing and developing in the Divine life of grace, which is the earthly prelude to Heaven. It was no wonder the Lord described the entering to Heaven by the rich so constricted as to be equivalent to a camel's predicament of passing through the needle's eye. This impossible; but by the power of God, if the heart has decided to turn to God in total honesty, nothing is impossible to God, even for the rich!)

PRELUDE TWO: (On Living the Life of Grace), "The Necessity in Always Seeking and Remaining in the State of Grace and Under the Power of Grace!"

Under Part Two of this chapter, living the Life of Grace, we implied the human reluctance to live the life of grace, and the human inclination to stick to the supposedly comfortable living according to the human or intrinsically natural acts of behaving. Negatively speaking, man, we said, shies away from the supposed painful and inevitable dying experiences. This is the basic premise of those who advocate for assisted suicide for sick people who are in pain. This is also the rallying point of the consumerist and materialistic culture of human civilization. Man, or the modern man seeks to do away with all that is inconvenient to modern living and seeks for all opportunities that create and provide material satisfaction to man. So that even in the realm of social behaviorism whatever will be expedient to individual freedom or social agenda is supposedly good and beneficial. In concrete, individuals and communities are stirred by the incentive that individual and social good are predominantly behavior or acts which generate individual or social reward. They must be acts which are paraded, and which receive public acclaim. They have that pharisaical character of being outstanding because of the public recognition. For acts like these Jesus said they already received their reward. For example, regarding the act of giving Jesus has the following words: "When you do good deeds, don't try to show off. If you do you won't get a reward from my Father in heaven. When you give to the poor, don't blow a loud horn. That's what showoffs do in the meeting places and on the street corners because they are always looking for praise. I promise you that they already have their reward. When you give to the poor don't let anyone know about it. Then your gift will be given in secret. Your Father knows what is done in secret, and he will reward you." Matthew 6:1-4 What Jesus is teaching is in contrast with the world's teaching of pragmatism or practical benefits. The standard stick of the social norm for good is any form of external benefit to the individual or society whether it is material compensation and gains or intellectual/cultural recognition and approval. The bottom line referred to here is the "horizontal supposed intrinsic" good. Oftentimes, this is what is usually identified as "worldly success".

However, we say in Part one of the chapters living the Life of Grace that the life of grace consists in dying to our self, to our natural self, and the living in a new life, the new Christian life, i.e., the life of "being born again"!

And in the chapter about the Life of Holiness, we stipulated that the life of grace is the life that bears fruits, specifically spiritual fruits. Also, under the chapter the Reign of the Spirit, we referred to the living of the life of grace as the life that is spiritual or a life that is not 'carnal'.

The high point of such life of grace is what we called 'metanoia': change of mind/heart, where we can say we truly love God because He alone is what we love. I.e., our heart is devoid of attachments to creations, and is only desirous of our Creator, God. (We discussed this elaborately under the chapter the Life of Holiness with reference to the ninth and tenth commandments.)

Now on this Part 3 of the chapter, living the Life of Grace, we are to unmistakably characterize what exact sort of acts or behaving, or spiritual lifestyle mark the living of the life of grace.

Whenever we act not primarily for and according to just our human nature; or whenever we act primarily in a manner that is more than just according to the natural, i.e., when we act according to what is virtuous or what is clearly according to the will of God, then our acts or behaving are a living by grace. Ultimately, our guide to understanding what is living by grace is based on the following reality: By nature because of original sin or flawed humanity man has lost the capacity to pursue and realize on his own the pure good, the unselfish good. Saint Paul referred to the scriptures' statement that"... no man is found just..." We paraphrase the above by saying that man can do nothing that is of any good except by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing!" But He also adds that "For those who believe nothing is impossible!" Saint Paul also said it is precisely when we are weak that we are strong in Jesus Christ. He said Christ's grace is sufficient for us to overcome our weakness. Thus, when we are faced with challenges where we find our actions or attempts to achieve the good thing seemingly blocked or impossible that is when we shall find the magic of Christ's grace to break us through our divinely blessed goals or objectives. It is only being truthful to accept the fact that all human actions by anybody and from anybody are bound to be shaped and colored by selfish human motivations. It would be hypocrisy and sheer sanctimoniousness to claim otherwise. Man, just cannot truly do any good. For this reason, all attempts of absolute individual conquest or social/world liberation in so far as the application of the solution is nothing more than human solutions have no guaranty of success. No man but Jesus alone is good. No man but only Jesus is capable of setting things right in the world and in all of creations. That is why we say faith alone and not works can save us. It is only through our faith in Christ that we can do anything of good. Our mere human works are nothing. But our pursuing and doing the good in the name of and by the name of Jesus can achieve the good. This is the reality of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

We have described the achieved degree of holiness by the Saints through reference to their manifesting very special privileged fruits of faith and compliance with the will of God. We made mention of extraordinary physical happening attributed to them like levitation in prayers, locution of past and future events, and bi-location power of being seen in two or more places at around the same time reference. And we stated that their life of grace is confirmed precisely by the Church's designating them "Saints" of God, and by ascribing to them occurrence of miracles that only God could have made them perform.

For ordinary believers and followers, or for ordinary true Christians, however, the above barometers or indicators of blessedness do not have to be necessary accompaniments of their Christian lifestyle to ascertain they are in accord with the will of God, or to assuredly indicate they are in the state of and under the power of grace. The Lord Jesus refers to plain manifestations of fruits of holiness, which verify that we are obeying God or not. "By their fruits you shall know them, (them who are His followers/disciples)." And what are these fruits? Essentially it is the expression of love, specifically love for others. "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you love one another?" In concrete terms, we express this lifestyle of love if we do not sin against our neighbor, if we do not use the opposite sex or sex merely for pleasure, if we do not get envious about our neighbors' properties, if we do not hurt our neighbor, whether physically or by gossip, if we do not kill each other. The ability not to behave in the above fashions in relation to our neighbors necessarily means we are behaving by the power of grace. Saint John says, "If we claim to be in the light and hate someone, we are still in the dark. But if we love others we are in the light, and we don't cause problems for them." 1John 2:9-10 Saint John also says, "If we say that we share in life with God and keep on living in the dark we are lying and are not living by the truth." 1John 1:6 Evidently we are not living the life of grace if we persist in our sinfulness whether they be personal sins or sins involving our neighbors, if we continue to commit sins licentiously or without the fear of the Lord, or if we stay so lax about exposing ourselves to occasions of sins. On the other hand, Saint John says if we are honest and determined about our confession of our faith in Christ, we will be resolved against committing sins at all costs. It is when we express a real deep commitment to be faithful to our faith when grace is at work. Saint Peter tells us that, "We have everything we need to live a life that pleases God. It was all given to us by God's own power when we learned that he had invited us to share in his wonderful goodness. God made great and marvelous promises so that his nature would become part of us. Then we could escape our evil desires and the corrupt influences of this world." 2Peter 1:3-4 Very much like the statement from Saint Paul, Saint Peter's words here are assurances that God has provided the means to choose and persevere to refuse sins, and to embrace holiness. Saint Peter speaks of our privilege to share in part of the divine nature which empowers us to live in God's holy wonderfulness. This holy divine wonderfulness is ours indeed, each time we practice such virtues of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness; each time we practice the virtue of obedience to authorities; each time we practice the virtue of helping the needy at all cost; each time we practice the virtue of literally living our life for others, like what is done by those properly motivated patriotic soldiers, firemen, policemen, doctors and nurses, school teachers and mentors, and honest-to-goodness leaders and politicians of our country, as well as like our many truly sacrificing fathers and mothers. The fact is we could include here everyone we exemplified in the chapter on God's Blessings to Mankind, namely each person that honestly performs service or assistance to his neighbor. But we emphasize the truth that we are able to perform the duties and tasks only because of the gift of grace. Another way to put this is that since we have the avail of the power of grace there is no reason why we cannot persevere in fidelity to the life of holiness with God. We may not succeed all the time at exercising such examples of virtues but any time we seek the power of grace in the pursuit of virtues we can rest assured God will avail us of that grace we need and ask for by which to accomplish the will of God in our day-to-day situation of living. It is in this sense that we profess our Christian living or the living of grace: that we are gifted with the ability to attest to the world it is possible to do good precisely because we turn to God for help, namely to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ dispensed to us by the Holy Spirit. (And as we explained under the chapter the Reign of the Spirit, the recourse to the Holy Spirit is accessed mainly through Church channels specifically the sacraments, and prayerfulness, and the tuning to the word of God, e.g., scriptures and spiritual book reading and learning, as well as by every spiritual act of mercy or charity to our neighbor.) And this is only the real order of the new living in so far as we have become the adopted children of God.

The Lord Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well to drink of the water that He gives, and she shall never thirst. The woman positively responded asking the Lord to give her this water. That invitation of the Lord to the Samaritan woman applies to each one of us. Jesus offers us that living water which satisfies the soul better than anything of creation. That living water He offers us is the life of grace that has vivified and invigorated the many saints of the Church, both the big letter "SAINTS", as well as the small letter "saints". And it is with this Christian patrimony Jesus has left us through His work of salvation that the Church continues to vivify and invigorate new believers and followers of Christ. It is utter foolhardiness and unfathomable wasted opportunity when a portion of mankind refused to accept this divine Incarnation gift to mankind. Not only are they missing on a key to their eternal salvation; they even are missing on the greatest secret "potion" to living.   Only through this condition of "metanoia", the total surrender of the heart, mind, and body to Christ, is the path of the life of grace, which is the only way to attain that deeply sought after permanent reprieve from the never dissipating heavy heart and fatigued body. Forget the pills, and the drugs; forget those expensive and time-consuming diversions that only burn us out; forget psychosis and yoga. All we need is grace for the elusive peace, and even a degree of comfort even as we continue to bear with all of life's tasks, toils, conflicts, burdens, and disappointments. Let us recall here our site's permanent verses of comfort assurance from our Lord, "Come to me all of you who labor and are burdened! My yoke is easy and my burden light!" Matthew 11:28-30 True Christians will attest to us that the more successful we avoid sinning, or the more successful we stay faithful to the faith the higher degree of living by grace we grow, and the more lasting our experience of the peace of the Spirit. So let the Church avail us to the utmost of this greatest opportunity in living!

But the moment we betray God's adoption of us as His children that is the moment we shall cease to be availed of His protection and the moment we shall cease to enjoy the power of grace He has gifted us. What a pity and abomination when this happens! Because Saint Peter says that in that tragic eventuality such individuals, turncoat-believers, will be "... caught up and controlled again by ... filthy things, and ... they are in worse shape than they were at first." He ascribed to them the misfortune of being like a dog that comes back to lick up its own vomit, a pig that has been washed but rolls in the mud. Paraphrased words from 2Peter 2:20-22.

 PRELUDE THREE: (On Living the Life of Grace), "The Intangible Phenomenon of Grace-Living in contrast to Living without Grace!"

Under Chapter 7 on Suffering, we have expounded on the diverse sorts of misfortunes, miseries, and heartaches & pains. And we said for one part it behooves some people their kind of suffering according as they live the lifestyles of sin for we are reminded how the wages of sin is death; and for the other part that it ultimately is emulating when some people embraced their fate destined suffering as they by faith have become lambs of God sacrifices in unity with Christ. In Chapter 8 On God's Blessings to mankind we have exhausted the explosions of divine providence to each man and to the totality of humanity encompassing both the easily appreciated visible goods and the vastly under-appreciated or unappreciated intangible benefits to the Almighty's special human creatures. The ultimate by-line here is that whereas God has foreseen every earthly and material abundance He had in store for all men but, more significantly, He has seen to it that His very own Son deliver to, and secure for men, who are of good will, their greatest fulfillment in being united with Him. Under our new website page, HONEST LIVES FEATURES we encourage understanding and documentation of the homogeneous but un-artificial, varied attempts by concrete human beings at traversing each of their peculiar, storied life journeys this part of the universe. Different biographical portrayals are by no means prescriptions to the best way to apply use and stewardship over God's gifts of life on earth conducive towards His eternal plans for every man and woman. They are, by the name of the Section Webpage, mere recording of honest lives that we have known as a looking back to our distinct past, and as a push forward to our own toiling & self-humoring through the nitty gritty task of living our own lives.

Paradoxical and incomprehensible human lives as they are our compelling question are: how do these three perspectives on living translate grace to each one of us? Where and when in whatever situation we are according to the three perspectives do we call, and consider whether an action, an event, or an untoward action or unpleasant event, or a bounty or pain a gift of grace from the Divine? We had asked this question during our deliberating on human blessings. We now ask this question again in relation to the concrete day-to-day happenings in life! For a bit of simplification, we might view ourselves at least romantically into either of the characters: "the good", or "the bad", or "the ugly", according to the context of Clint Eastwood's movies' defining of people characters as they suit the distinct stories of our lives. Through cinematographic portraying, Clint Eastwood's western movies typically categorized three sorts of individuals or characters. Anyone of us might probably fit either "the good":, namely a typical innocent boy or girl or the children, or "the bad": the next boy or girl who has obnoxious characteristics or who does obnoxious or unsavory ways of protecting the good, or "the ugly": another next boy or girl who by fate of circumstances and by the unlucky predicament is always in the wrong place or at the wrong time but who forces his/her way out many times over 'dead bodies'. (Of course, we do not by any means universalize nor subscribe to this narrow circumscribing of people.) For as many people that lived are there as many unique individuals that have populated this world of humans, and as many different stories of people as recorded in the history of mankind. And no matter how evil a life any man has seemed to live, or how glorified, admired, and emulated any man's legendary living has seemed to be no one but God really knows which man escapes judgment or faces condemnation! Nobody has a "crystal ball" of everyone’s life. God alone sees and knows who consistently and ultimately opts for or shuns the good! In other words, through man's thousand intervening moments of his life how seriously did every individual persevere nodding for the good, or turning away from the bad? Or how irresponsibly did he/she persist in refusing the good, and embracing the bad? Where and when has he/she been opting to act in grace? And where and when hasn't he/she been?

In whatsoever shape grace visits us, whether we're branded the unfortunate of this world or the moneyed, the nobility or the well-positioned personages in the society; or whether we're the leveraged influencers/leaders of peoples' causes, or the paralyzed well- meaning pro-activists in the world, is immaterial to God or to our individual human fulfillment as born-again human beings. To put this way, whether we succeed or fail in an Endeavour, again, does not truly matter. Ultimately, as God alone is the judge of all human acts, human actions whether edifying and touching to people or even scandalously unnerving and hurting to others could bear some metaphysical and moral good in them for as long as the doers had not the intent of sin and might have had in earnest only the purest of intention to do good. 

The defining characteristic of what is or what is not an act of grace by individuals is that constant act of conforming to the will of God; either by constant refusing to or giving in to evil. Its every single act of yes when our conscience urges us to say "Yes"; and every single act of no when our conscience is healthily bothering us to keep saying "No". No matter if it makes us happy or unhappy, no matter if it puts us in command of or under service to someone. It is typically exhilarating to recite and emote lavished praises and thanks to God when receiving mind-boggling material abundance. And people typically sulk, blame, and get embittered with God when ravished by torrential rainfall of bad luck and calamities. We easily find our loved ones honorable during their moments of public adulation; and easily experience feeling so cold to them during their testing & trying times in life. It’s a pleasure to work when things around us are pleasant. It’s an ordeal to keep a job when each of our moves seems to be watched.

On the other hand, as in Genesis, it pleases God when ordinary things fall into their natural places. As when we were supposedly made when we were made i.e., animals were made as animals, plants were made as plants, lands and hills were made according to their type of terrain, springs, rivers, and oceans were made as bodies or pools of H2O, and the sky was made as with its clouds and sun/stars; and so as well was manmade as a man. The only being, this side of creation, made like the image of God and His spirits: free thinking and wanting being. And so particularly during the old order of creation before the fall, it pleases God when we His creatures finish or perform doing each of their regular ends. And notwithstanding the corrupted situation in the universe, even the hardest of atheists among the astronauts and astronomers should be in awe at the myriad complexities of the design of the universe. About the manifold constellations so huge, and apparently so vast their totality and unity truly beyond these scientists' imagination to neither define in time nor confine within space! Indeed, what God had made was "good" like Genesis stated. Yet this same awesome celestial nature could appear and show it monstrously dangerous and devastating. Its weather behavior, if explained at the very least level, unleashes power and magnitude way above humans even just to react to. Are its ocean tides and land erosions and leveling propelled from the very core of the earth? Exactly what cause tornadoes and earthquakes? And how about those "meteorites" that are hurled intra-space crashing upon other bodies and planets of the sky, like the earth? These surely manifest to us as the incomprehensible hand dealt us by the Almighty. Yet analytically incomprehensible as they are along with all other aspects of the universe, they just follow their course according as their author has designed them in the beginning. But with the fall of mankind the order of things changed; (rather, a disorder in the universe took place!) The world of the beasts put aside, at least with respect to the human species its main human faculty of heart and mind had become tainted and had been flawed! Man's normal orientation of the mind and the will has been disoriented or at least weakened as far as wanting to do well is concerned. And so from then on human beings have become displeasing to God; or their individual behaving had always run afoul with His commandments. Christ was sent by the Heavenly Father; and he became the Godman who worked the re-converting of "the sinned heart" back to a "divinely reconciled heart". This is where came in the new reality of grace: that special heavenly or Spiritual commodity delivered by Christ to each and every welcoming human heart effecting the above referred- to phenomenon of deep spiritual change inside man. It is this grace by which a converted man, or woman, (a true believer), can act and live as a true human being pleasing to the Creator. When positive or negative happenings take place, they come about according as they collaborate with the working of grace upon natural events, both internally and externally. But we cannot wear "rose-colored glasses" and call ugly beautiful; much less call the bad good! But we can rely upon the magic and power of grace to let it transform our human acts or even life happenings that ultimately are glorifying to God and spiritually beneficial to us! Hence, the submitting of our acts not to our mere human good sense but to the grace of God! Not on account of themselves per se are individual lives to be seen and examined as regards their meaningfulness or real value! Anything comes to be good in the eyes of God or comes to be an occurrence of grace if it is an affirmation of what God had deigned in His wisdom and eternity to any person at any circumstance of his/her life no matter how lowly in stature before the eyes of people. We are to posit here all kinds of human realities without excluding those which do not manifest apparent, albeit hide very covertly genuine human meaningfulness and value. E.g., Charlie and Sammy are giant species of teenagers, both very pleasant and hardworking except don't expect from them entertaining conversation. They happen to be mute. Jessie and Paul is a pair of youths who do not tire at playing with and telling each other jokes. But don't expect them to be telling you joke as you jog around the field. Jessie and Paul cannot walk. Juan and Antoine will beat you to the line; they are always on time. And they will not pass up opportunities for action. They are never without energy and enthusiasm for their kind of athleticism even if they are forced to do it on wheelchairs. Mark and Janie love to sing; they are prepared to pander to any volunteering audience with the endurance of their vocal chords with their own rendition of songs after songs. Just accommodate them air their physically impaired versions of musical sounds. 

As regards these physically challenged individuals their being less functional about many regular human abilities does not make their interpersonal relating with others any less human. And they are not as well any less pleasing to the One Maker of man. Actions, thoughts, and feelings identify them being no different. And when you come down to their sincerity to just live their lives or be let be makes them a little above their normal peers. In fact, ironically and wondrously this is how their striving for normal life is every bit an act of grace. In a very similar setting, other individuals not necessarily handicapped of abilities found themselves ever chasing their nick of the woods, or their dreamed rainbow. These are the majority of people who neither had full control of their circumstances, which very much like the handicapped persons, have been either held up or pushed aside because of geographical, race, cultural, or socio-economic situations. Examples of these are they that did not finish school, those that are confined by geography of water or distant villages, those who get discriminated for color or race, those whose families are broken up because of divorces, family separation, disabilities, or deaths in the families, those whose lives have been disrupted by calamities, accidents, or family setbacks, those unsettled by underemployment or unemployment, or the majority of dwellers whose social environment and real estate residential classification happen to be below the affluently advantaged residential communities who are easy beneficiaries of much more advantaged accessibility to services of modern living. Easily imaginable are dramatizations of the effects of these disadvantages to these instances of social inequities. But despite the cliché life is not fair, to these demographic communities of people life moves on notwithstanding the hold-up or their getting pushed aside. How? It has to be by the grace of God! It’s a miracle by grace how these people roll through their bumps! On the other hand, it’s a disgrace and apathetic when portions of these communities only seem to slide further down to the destruction of their lives: the fate of a lifestyle of drugs, the predicaments of entanglements into violence even suicide and homicide, or unfortunate convictions and incarceration. And for some of these individuals despite their "very good fortune" of wealth or position in society! Couldn't it be anything less than abandonment of grace? Yet still it is through grace that they could salvage any residue of dignified living and not lose the bottom-line life of peace inside.

In the final analysis, it matters not if at such defining moments of life, we find our living an emotional experience or not! The rich and the beautiful could be found to be facetiously content because of the momentary ease of their lives. The people of leadership and influence could demonstrate the emotions of the security of the present but wonder about the future. Those in maze of entangled lives and situations experience being perplexed about how to disentangle them from the complex web they have trapped themselves into. In the end, whether exhilarated by temporary wealth and honors of this world or despondent over onerous burdens of tragedy and disgrace their situational life stage is neither the climax nor the end of things. Amazing grace is not bound except in death. For as long as both the heart and mind hang on to the true inner prompting of the Spirit these human scenarios could travel opposite way. The so-called blessed could drown into excessive fun and leisure they could not find a space inside them for the Giver of blessings. Whereas the so-called unfortunates of this world could for the last time turn to the right judge and advocate of their desperate conditions and be graced with the stipulated inner peace of the Spirit. In effect both positives and negatives in human lives can equally be positive. In contrast, what is seemingly most positive can be a very, very negative. But only by the grace of God!

THE NEW LIFE vs THE OLD LIFE,i.e., Living the Life of Grace: "The Sacramental Life in the Spirit VS The Natural Life of the Flesh"

 Listen to a story in the Bible, where it is revealed our human need for "grace". In the story, Jesus was pointing us to a new human life or existence radically different from the one that has befallen mankind after falling out of grace with God by the sin of men's first parents, Adam, and Eve. This new life announced by the Lord makes it possible, for a start, to meaningfully talk about life and living.

The fact is after their fall; Adam and Eve have lost the real value of human existence. Evidently this meant every man and woman born of Adam and Eve, as history and pervasive sinfulness of every man and woman attest, have not really been essentially alive. Mired in human sinfulness, which is de facto, human state of separation from God, mankind has been living condemned lives, or as it were dead lives. Men are physically alive but spiritually dead. In practical terms, the life men live do not express and manifest even the least purposefulness, challenge, fulfillment, or sanity and truthfulness. Whereas before the fall of Adam and Eve they were living a life as God has perfectly ordained for them, i.e., they were most beautifully glorifying to God, and most satisfying to themselves. After the fall Adam and Eve, and all their descendant human beings forfeited that perfect life God had given to man, including the peace with God, and the peace within and between human beings. After all, the bottom-line value of all sense of purposefulness, being challenged, being fulfilled, having sensible lives, and prevalent accord or agreement or mutual truthfulness is the state of peace, inside and outside man, and in relation to man's ultimate Governing Force, God. Anyway, any man's honest evaluation of the lives lived by mankind through generations does regard human existence as drudgery, albeit a pretense upmanship game between so-called stronger ones over the evidently weaker ones. Hence, what ensued was the fate of survival only by the fittest, and the recourse to “dog-eat-dog battle” to come up top. So-called human victories and successes have been eked out over enumerable "dead bodies", i.e., people victimized by mutual deceit and manipulation, and backstabbing. Some popular examples of such tragic flawed human dealings were Julius Caesar, Socrates, The Russian Czar, etc. Supposedly in the name of common good, these individuals were victims of mob conspiracies. In ordinary human events, we know or have been witnesses to similar victimization of many someone because of human jealousy and intrigue. A much more common human experience of this dysfunctional human interrelating is the inevitable experience of betrayal between or among family members, business partners, club, or clique groups, and even between friends or buddies. (Examples of these are divorces & spouses' separations, children eloping, or plain breach of closeness or even contact between family members, etc..), This phenomenon of brokenness in human relationships is just one aspect of the total unreliability and ineptness, as well as the inadequacy of man to make true of his avowed commitments, much less of the good intentions. This is just one characterization of man prone to human foibles and with the tendency to be flawed in character. Man is not capable of love. Man has no notion of true love. We have already identified and discussed this reality of human nature when we discussed human sinfulness, and when we described the conditions that envelope and mark what we might call the "Kingdom of this World". We are not repeating the topical discussion on the world and treatment of this human predicament in this section of Our Mission essays. We have stated this precisely as the "REASON" our world was in need of salvation. The whole first chapter of this series of OUR MISSION pages was the unraveling of this negative fact of human existence: man's state of hopelessness and extreme need for some kind of order in living. And we have declared that this fact of human inadequacy and despondency was, in all eternity seen, and understood by God, and moved Him to affect His providential and loving divine plan and scheme of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Triune God. "God so loved the world that He sent His Son to the world so that everyone who has faith in Him will have eternal life and never die", i.e., so man can have and permanently possess a new kind of life that is different from "the old life". God became Man, died for mankind, and became the salvation of the fallen and sinful mankind. To this loveless world, God sent the paragon and essence par excellence of love. This God-made man sacrificed His very human life so the people of God can have "the new life", man's salvation from their state of temporary earthly condemnation. And so what does our story say? John 3:1-8 "There was a man named Nicodemus who was a Pharisee and a Jewish leader. One night he went to Jesus and said, 'Sir, we know that God has sent you to teach us. You could not work these miracles unless God were with you.' Jesus replied, 'I tell you for certain that you must be born from above before you can see God's Kingdom!' Nicodemus asked, 'How can a grown man ever be born a second time?' Jesus answered: 'I tell you for certain that before you can get into God's Kingdom you must be born not only by water but by the Spirit. Humans give life to their children. Yet only God's Spirit can change you into a child of God. Don't be surprised when I say that you must be born from above. Only God's Spirit gives new life. The Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to. You can hear the wind, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going.'

This story discloses to us Jesus' confirmation of the abjectness of human life. He expresses this by pointing us to how alone man can again see God, and His Kingdom. The inference here is that human living is blind and without purpose and direction because man has been shut out from God and His Kingdom. And the second inference that if man wants liberation from this condition of being shackled him must be born again both in water and in the Spirit. But because Jesus said man cannot know from where and when the Spirit comes, which carries out this new birth so man can not realize this new birth without the help of the Holy Spirit. Jesus further stresses this transcendent nature of His divine character, and therefore of His Spirit by saying: "God's Son comes from heaven and is above all others. Everyone who comes from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all others... The Son was sent to speak God's message, and He has been given the full power of God's Spirit...” John 3:31-34 A paraphrases here are that whereas human capacity will remain humanly earthly, i.e., imperfect, or inadequate. Jesus and His Spirit are heavenly, i.e., 'above all others' and with 'the full power of God's Spirit'. To be born again, or to be delivered from the human syndrome and fate, thus, man needs a gift of human transformation to something supra terrestrial, to something heavenly or Divine, namely Jesus and His Spirit. Hence, to be born again means to be born in baptism into the Father's Divine life through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That is why the life of grace is the life of "renewed" participation in the divine life of God. Because of our first parents' sin man lost the divine life. But because Jesus came down from heaven and went through the process of redeeming man, mankind, or those that believe, is restored back to the divine life with God. With this restoration of the divine life through man's participation with this divine life of God through grace, i.e., the gifting of man with "grace" man, any man who believes is born again.

Now exactly what constitutes living the life of grace, or being born again? In terms of practical living in the world, who are truly born again into the life of grace? I'd like to repeat my previous referencing of this life of grace. From the chapter The City of the World, we previously said the following:

“These Citizens of the Kingdom of the World in so far as precisely they are worldly live the old life of the flesh unless they are born again in water and in the Spirit. They do not live the New Life, are without the life of grace, and are not empowered by the power of grace from the Risen Christ. Without the life of grace, therefore, they are foreign to the Kingdom of God. Also, because they do not have the life of grace in them consequently all their natural gifts from creation, their human faculties, their human strength, resource, and wealth are per se inadequate to satisfy their genuine human want and needs. Any flaunting of or elevating, thus, of these natural powers and potentials with airs of self-sufficiency, human glory, and social complacency are bound to be exercises in vanity and self-deception. The bottom-line mark of the Kingdom of the World or the City of the World is the state of separation from God. In other words, it is the persisting state of sinfulness. And wherever God is nowhere to be found but sin it is a world of meaninglessness, a world that has no life, no directions, and no peace and fulfillment. Its people live in chaos and disorder inside and out; and it doesn’t matter how they may look busy, active, and determined."

From the Chapter on The Call to Holiness, the following is a summation of the life of grace. "... All the above stating about grace or the life of grace connote the contrasting between the human living in the flesh versus the new human living in the Spirit clearly elaborated in detail by Saint Paul in many of his letters. In essence, the condition by which man shall arrive at his conversion of the new birth is if man is baptized in both water and the Spirit. The role of the miraculous working by the Holy Spirit is necessary......... But equally important is the part to be played by each man being born again, namely the consenting free will of man as symbolized by the reference to the baptism in water. Water denotes natural cleansing quality. The natural participation involved here is man's free choice to accept, by the grace of God, to discipline him/her continually declining evil and embracing good. Altogether, this baptism in water and the Spirit is a positive thing: the choosing of the good God over the human and worldly evil. Yet this baptism into the new life is intrinsically for every man a negative act and process all the way. Jesus has said ‘...if you want to follow me deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me....’ And to follow Him most importantly consists in sacrificially dying for others like He did. That Jesus Christ not only became a humble man but died on the Cross for the redemption of mankind and atonement of their sins to the Father was really the supreme act to follow by each and every believing human being. Unless a man dies to his selfishness, carnality, and stubbornness he is not really born again. But to realize this dying and resurrecting with Christ into a new life many times man has to literally physically and mentally surrender his earthly life. The reason is because to be born anew in water and Spirit man must have a total conversion into God alongside totally uniting in participation of the divine life of God. Man cannot persist in something merely earthly or natural. Man cannot escape the decisive abdication and detaching from anything of this world in lieu of the heavenly and divine realities. Jesus implied this manner of disposition in His answer to a rich young man asking Him exactly how he was to seek God and His will. Jesus told him on top of the commandments, he must sell all wealth, give them to the poor, and then to follow Him only after he would have done so. The story told us how the rich young man turned away sad and sorry as he apparently did not want to abdicate his riches.”

Whether the rich young man did or did not abdicate his riches as the final act of total surrender to the will of God, we do not know. Yet we all in many circumstances of our lives encounter repeatedly the similar demand and challenge of the Lord that we totally surrender our will to His will. Many times, we have found and continue to find instances where or when what we want did not or do not materialize notwithstanding the fact that we did or are doing our best, and no matter our best of intentions for the realization of our wishes. It just broke our heart when our efforts and determination did not achieve our desired objectives. It hurt even more when we knew it did not materialize because we were somehow a victim of raw deal if not an outright unfair deal. We realize how true it is life's not being fair. Yet it remains a poignant pain to come face to face at an imminent loss which is beyond our control and beyond our understanding. This recalls other people's much more tragic fate which just does not make sense. Imagine yourself one of those in the hijacked airlines of "nine-eleven" confronting suicidal hijackers, who therefore did not care if they lived or died but who had no qualm about robbing you of your life in the name of their political cause! Imagine yourself even more in one of the World Trade Center twin towers that were bombed by these same ruthless hijackers faced with the ineradicable thought that in a few minutes you were surely to die and die in the most horrific agony and pain! And as you imagine this worse of the worst kind of fate, add your awareness from the media outside the tower (e.g. via radio or cell phones) of the incredible nonsense that was bringing it to reality (the news about the people doing it to you which has absolutely no bearing to you)! We do not have to imagine such apocalyptic images of pain and suffering.

From our series chapter on Suffering we say, "Our issue is that suffering comes to any walk of life. The variety of suffering differs in different people or individuals. Another example of a painful suffering is the loss of your loved ones at their prime age. The loss of loved, cherished one at any age at any time is always painful. Especially if you have depended upon him/her emotionally or spiritually; not to include financially as this aspect of suffering has been alluded to already above. Then there is the suffering of and by the very sick people, especially by those without any means to pay for medical services they need, or to even just buy medicines to stop the pain. Then the terminally diagnosed sick patients: how could they accept the sure imminent end of their lives? Not to mention, how to cope with the usually accompanying great physical pain of their sickness?"

To repeat our topical statement above, it is the inescapable measure of our call as followers of Jesus Christ that we share and unite with Him in the life mission of suffering and dying in atonement to the Father for the sins of all men. Our calling to suffering is not a one continuum of torment and torture. It comes according to God's life script of cleansing and purification and atonement calendar for us. And when it transpires, we can rest assure His grace will be abundant to get us through the ordeal no matter how incredibly evil. But as Christian believers we should not lose heart and faith and hope, and especially love because the heavier our cross the greater our opportunity to express our love for God and our neighbor; and the greater the reward awaiting us, thereby, when we receive our united glory with God. But we must watch and pray that were ready, that we are ready to accept His will when it is hardest to do it. For Jesus said on another occasion, "... wherever your treasure is, there your heart is also." A true baptismal birth has to realize man's total turning to God and His Kingdom, man's only real treasure. But I repeat, this act translates into accepting many times the negative. Realize that the world and the flawed human mind are wont, rather, to accept such teachings like PMA (positive mental attitude), unordered human prowess and pride, limitless human daring and adventures, the 'be-all' human entrepreneurship, and the 'deified' human honor and 'integrity'. Included with these that the human society boldly declares secularly 'sacred' are the so called 'prochoice ' and 'political correctness '. On the contrary, converts to the call of being born again are easily tagged as 'irritant members of society' or as being counter-culture citizens of the world. It is therefore a big stake and a total challenge to accept being born again. That is why Jesus Christ has warned us, believers, "... you are not of this world." On the contrary He promised "new mansions in heaven" for all who believe. But indeed, before receiving the fulfillment happiness and reward into those "... new mansions in heaven" man must experience and steadfastly go through a period of total self-denial or opting for the negatives. When we do; we manifest the life of grace; but when we don’t, we most likely are not acting by the power of grace but by some mere human and carnal inclinations. Lives that are solely lived according to the philosophy of enjoying nature or prosperity are dangerously outside the realm or Spirit of grace. Unless the focus is on, or for pure artistic, intellectual, or athletic niche, discovery, or excellence the acts are probably nothing more than an exercise in base sensory indulgences. And whether they be publicly acclaimed or individually revered human paradigms for so long as the orientation is no more than sensual or caprice delectation people who adulate in such fantastic entertainments are no different from "the rich young man"; and who, like him, when all the fanfare is gone would only end up in their sad and sorry attachment to the vanities of their hearts, i.e. hearts empty of true passion & affection, dedication and character.

I am not saying everyone has to act and live like cloistered monks and nuns, or hermits. All of creations after all are for human use and subjugation. God has created us to live as man. We are to live according to the natural functions of our nature as a human being with the fullest use of all our physical senses and faculties, except we are not to negate our other human nature part, which is spiritual living and behaving. Body and soul man was created, body and soul we are to be integrally as a human being. We stated from chapter 10, of these Mission Series about God's providential blessings the following: "Evident Divine Gifts to the World Indeed, the world, which God has given us where God has placed man stewardship over, has abounding fruits of man’s labor. We invariably lavished ourselves with the ethereal experience of humanly created but divinely crafted works of music. We enjoy being reinvigorated by Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, uplifted by the Catholic Gregorian Plain Chants, made jolly by Souza’s band marches, reminiscent by the Beatles pop ballads, drawn melancholic by Chopin’s No Other Love, or giggled over by the fetish simple innocent voices of little kids singing nursery songs. We are awed by the magnificent architectural and engineering wonders of our metropolitan city buildings, bridges, and road complexes. We are comforted to witness many medical reliefs to the sick and ill inmates of our hospitals. We are flabbergasted by our access to supplies of unimaginable consumer products that cater to the modern man’s variety of contemporary needs and conveniences. And despite the inescapable images of impoverishment in the developed countries city landscapes, or in the remote rural villages of undeveloped countries, we are amazed by the tons of food stuff that fill up, for example, world’s metro cities’ shopping malls and grocery stores. And whether recognized in certain hall of fame or not, surely many a man and a woman have carved a niche of accomplishment in their lifetimes through history."

From the same mission series, we stipulated that God respects and demands human participation in the dispensing of His blessings, specifically where it affects the social and public good, e.g., the appropriateness, respectability, and praiseworthiness of pursuing and engaging in professional public service. Throughout this Eleventh Chapter we have referred repeatedly to the varied and multitudinous ways and instances where the human good is often related to the social common good without unjustified denial of the legitimately individual good.

We had lined up the prohibitions and barriers to the bounties and providence of God, and we established the conditions and borders by which alone we may call the enjoyment of the blessings both humanly legitimate and spiritually re-enforcing. If there is no outright sinfulness, no abuse, and no deviation from the intrinsic purpose for which God has created the natural goods then our appropriation, application, and use of any God-given goods are only satisfying and proper. By way of example, human sexuality is satisfying and proper if confined between Gods ordained lovers. Indiscriminate sexual behavior between a male and a female is only for animals. Thus, outside of the limited confines of a legitimate marriage, all other sexual activities are bound to be mere animalistic if not actually bestial human depravities. There could be exceptions to these. Some "liberties" are tolerable to doctors or true artistic painters with respect to unusual exposure to human nudity because of situational necessity. As far as the honest reckoning of endowed beautiful women or men, such an acknowledging of their gifts, of their imaging the beauty of God must remain exclusively in the highest level of human cognition. For unmarried or non-married individuals, appreciation of them beautiful people must be a perception that is very akin to a dominantly intellectual level. In philosophical terms, it should be just a perception of the philosophical "form" of beauty. In practical level they should be just the immediate sensory cognition of beauty. And it should never go down to the hormonal level. When confronted by unwanted and intruding display of immodesty our verbal defense mechanism must be to echo little Natalie Wood's statement of propriety that she uttered in that movie featuring the Macy store, "I'm not an animal!" Of course, the context of her statement was about something else. But it is good to imitate her 'proud' declaring of her awareness of her loftier character as a human being. Another example where many individuals are misleadingly misappropriating and erroneously seeking satisfaction is the blind peacock priming up and even vociferous self-stroking stage 'recital ' of personal praise on supposed encore or highlight performance like by sports stars on certain plays of the day. And we have similar prompt utterance of phrases like "I don't find it too bad myself!", "I can't believe I did it!” (Re: some supposedly spectacular feat about which he/she is gloating that he/she did the 'feat'.) Such that it is so transparent their being obnoxious at showing unabashed absolute claiming of credit for the act. These individuals easily forget the surrounding help and support from certain people from their present and past environment, as well as from the opportunities and the system, which all contributed to their "moment-in-time" glowing performing act. Realistic humility does not prevent legitimate acts of joy and fulfillment over a "spectacular or record act or performance". But pompous self-adulating for the momentary act is simply vanity. It is not authentically reflecting his human condition as an imperfect being. And for this matter such an act or attitude is only robbing our ultimate lender or loaner of human virtues and traits, namely the Creator of all that is good. We are all guilty of the same vein behaving all the time we allow selfishness to motivate all our actions and activities. We are making references here to all acts of in-coordinateness and intemperance in human behaving by man in whatever situation he/she is in whether at work, on recreations or sports, at home, or even in Church, which type of behaving is therefore opposite to behaving by grace. In concrete, perchance we tend to gear our interrelating with neighbors making it our natural and usual preference to mix, associate, and to deal only with the wealthy, the fair and attractive genders, the big & tall kinds of men or women, the intellectual or educated groups, the fashion-trendy dressers, the high- positioned or affluent members of the society, i.e. seeking to cohort only with all the pleasant-looking types of people? And maybe we customarily shy away from or dread even just the presence of people we find unpleasant for opposite reasons connoted to above? Could it be we loathe touching or reaching out to the sick? Do we often also actually despise the poor or individuals with messy appearances? Is it the case that many times our 'notion of love of neighbor' is shaped more by how much an act shall bring honor to us more than how much our help and assistance is needed? Does having a nice day mean having things going our way; and little irritation making us profoundly uncomfortable? Do we always insist that people and stuff around us, and all day, be pleasurable and customized to our ways and habits? All the above probable people behaving are precariously indicative that such individuals are lacking in real acts of love. Most likely they are devoid of the Christian orientation of the Cross, and of sacrificial suffering and dying which, we say is inseparable to living in grace, or holiness. As Christians or as Christian/Catholic Church goers, we should notice that inside the Church the first and most prominent icon that we usually see is the crucifix, i.e., the image of Jesus crucified. The Church is thus assuredly reminding us of the message we are stating here: namely, the suffering and dying on behalf of our faith or in the name of Christian love is inevitably a sure thing to tread through in our walk of faith.

The most wonderful miracle of grace we mentioned above which essentially works out the new birth and which manifests the new life or new creation in man was Jesus' giving of Himself through the institution of the Holy Eucharist to everyone who believes as man's bread of life. The fullness of the Holy Spirit's indwelling in us, which was initiated in baptism, and the other sacraments, is essentially realized by uniting with the Lord through the reception of the Eucharist, through our spiritual nourishing with His body and blood. Regarding this, people of the time of Jesus themselves, asked Him, "What miracle will you work so that we can have faith in you? What will you do? For example, when our ancestors were in the desert, they were given manna to eat. It happened just as the Scriptures say, 'God gave them bread from heaven to eat.' " John 6:30-31 Jesus' reply was: "I tell you for certain that Moses was not the one who gave you bread from heaven. My Father is the one who gives you the true bread from heaven. And the bread that God gives is the one who came down from heaven to give life to the world." Then Jesus pointed to Himself as "the bread that gives life". He said that "...no one who comes to Him will ever be hungry"; and "... No one who has faith...” in Him "...will ever be thirsty". John 6:35 in John 6:52-58 "... They started arguing with each other and asked, 'How can he give us his flesh to eat?' Jesus in answer to them, then, emphatically repeated the statement by saying:” ... I tell you for certain that you won't live unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man. But if you do eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will have eternal life, and I will raise you to life on the last day. My flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink. If you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you are one with me, and I am one with you. The living Father sent me, and I have life because of him. Now everyone who eats my flesh will live because of me. The bread that comes down from heaven is not like what your ancestors ate. They died, but whoever eats this bread will live forever ...” (We have discussed this more elaborately already under the OUR MISSION Chapter on ... Life of Holiness.) The plain logic here is this: Jesus was The Eternal Life come down from Heaven. To have this Life of the Heaven, we must have Jesus. And we could have Jesus by receiving Him Eucharistic ally, i.e., by eating His flesh and blood under the appearances of bread and wine in the Eucharist, or "...in the Breaking of the Bread...”.

Man as miraculously empowered therefore in actual uniting with Christ through receiving of Him, (as well as through what we previously referred to as illuminative further uniting with Him via understanding, accepting, and embracing of His Divine words or direct teachings) is enabled by faith and free will to live the God-scripted individual negative human predicaments we have discussed above, which Christian believers are admonished and challenged to embrace in order to become true followers of God. As believers, thus, they are to live through this mandated dosage of suffering or acts of self-denials; and rise above them with a very loving attitude, deportment, and pro-active use of their lives. This way, they loudly proclaim the Kingdom of God during the world. Such is the heaven beyond that already can't wait. It is the heaven on earth that has begun. And in such heavenly ambiances during the world, BY GRACE the believers show their making a difference. Setback or no setback; or success or no success, does not matter. Whereas they are yet citizens of the earth they nevertheless have come to live the pre- celestial life in grace. Their lifestyle is characterized not by reactive responses to the predictable cruel world. Rather their identifying language is that of love in all its forms of expressions. And thus, we can testify to John's recording of Jesus' command and admonition: "Thus shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another!" And so as far as marking the positive element behind the paradox of sacrificial suffering and dying, this atonement action by the sufferer is really the positive element of the paradox. When suffering under this context of sacrificial atonement we're not really losing something or just breaking our heart. In so far as the act is for God it is a positive thing. In the words of John, the Baptist as "... we decrease" God is "... increasing...” in us. And nothing whatsoever in life could 'out best' this manner of gain. Besides, those, in whom God has increased so much, eventually testify the successful self-denial or emptying of themselves; and are finally rewarded with the most genuine human fulfillment of blissful unity with God. As Saint Augustine disclosed, our hearts have "remained restless... until they rest in Thee (in God)!" This stage of practical living in grace is the high point of the fullness of grace. This is that level so beautifully summarized in the Lord's Beatitudes. This is that level when individuals have achieved the virtue of purity whereas promised they see God in everything around them, not metaphorically but kingdom-wise. This is that level when individuals who have become truly meek shall have very clear visions of how so much of the new earth, they shall be given bounty of. This is that level when individuals who have really been through incessant tearful life misfortunes shall be overwhelmed by nothing else but overpowering spiritual consolations. (If there were indeed such things as becoming "high" on drugs,) ... this is as it were the real "high" experiencing of God. This is that level when individuals who have perseveringly sought for knowledge, understanding, and wisdom shall experience mystic visions of God's justice and goodness. When those that have lived martyrdom of life's oppressions and persecutions shall forget all their life's tortures and torments as they assuredly contemplate how far more elevating and secure an equivalent "face-to-face" contemplation of God and God's Kingdom it will be even right here on earth. These are scenarios of pious individuals finally rewarded for their believing and following of God as pilgrims on earth. They are scenarios where they have been allowed by God heavenly privileges of great spiritual heights. The Church teaches of instances and occasions of inexplicable marvels gifted to many "Saints" of God. More specific examples of these are: "talking-in-tongues" (hearing them sound out foreign languages as they preach), "slaying-by-the-Spirit" (physical collapsing over a complete taking over by the Spirit, good Spirit, along with consequent disappearance of some ailments), "bi-location" (pious individuals being seen in two or more places at almost the same time), "locution" (speaking past or future events or information related to the Saint), "apparitions" (like the countless appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary all over the world throughout these last centuries), and actual physical levitation in space while in deep prayer. (Father Pio was seen rising to elevation while in prayers a few times.) Saint Stephen saw ".... heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right side of God" during his ecstatic dying and uniting with the Saints of Heaven. The Blessed Mother is assumed to the Heaven, body and soul. Jesus Himself demonstrated some terrestrial but supernatural human feats like "walking in water", "penetrating through closed doors", "multiplying loaves of bread and fishes", and healing of many sick even dead people. He even promised the ability to move mountains if our faith bears such degree of approval by God, i.e. (degree of holiness). After the apostles received the Holy Spirit, they all spoke-in-tongues, and henceforth while preaching was healing many sick individuals, and performing miracles. Like it has been given to the Saints such privilege of performing miracle because by their holiness they have become really united with the holy God. This is the ultimate criterion by which the Church officially confers the title of a "Saint of God" upon a pious believer and follower of Christ: proof positive that the saint performed a miraculous healing of someone very ill. On top of all these, the most glorious human experience on earth of the splendor of the Divine were the three Apostles' witnessing of the "transfigured Jesus", along with Moses, and Elias appearing in a state of glory". They saw the three men in the most unimaginable state of heavenly blessedness. But all of these not as visualizations by the human eyes or senses, or mental faculties but as human participating with the divine life of God via the abundant living in the grace of God!

Genuine example of Grace, the Example of St. Paul

If we look here at St Paul's defense of the faith, we could recall details of his personal witnessing for the faith. To fully illustrate Paul's testimony of his trusting only in God, and in God's unfailing or abounding protection and provisions for him including the Divine response to his faith and trust, we are quoting here the complete Scriptural excerpts from 2Cor. Chapters 11 & 12. Thus, St Paul writes the following personal account about himself: "I don't want any of you to think that I am a fool. But if you do, then let me be a fool and brag a little. When I do all this bragging, I do it as a fool and not for the Lord.

Yet if others want to brag about what they have done, so will me. And since you are so smart you will gladly put up with a fool. In fact, you let people make slaves of you and cheat you and steal from you. Why, you even let them strut around and slap you in the face. I am ashamed to say that we are too weak to behave in such a way..."   St. Paul was accentuating here how Christians need not cower, in the name of meekness and humility, to the taunting of the world.

Without yielding to worldly vanities, and only with intent of talking to the world according to the worldly style of talking, St Paul wanted to impress upon Christians precisely it is already a grace blessing their showing forth to the world honor and confidence for being Christians. He continues, thus; "If they can brag, so can I but it is a foolish thing to do. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a fool to talk this way, but I serve him better than they do. I have worked harder and have been put in jail more times. I have been beaten with whips more and have been in danger of death more often.

Five times the Jews gave me thirty-nine lashes with a whip. Three times the Romans beat me with a big stick, and once my enemies stoned me. I have been shipwrecked three times, and I even had to spend a night and a day in the sea. During my many travels, I have been in danger from rivers, robbers, Jews, and foreigners. My life has been in danger in cities, in deserts, at sea, and with people who only pretended to be the Lord's followers. I have worked and struggled and spent many sleepless nights. I have gone hungry and thirsty and

often had nothing to eat. I have been cold from not having enough clothes to keep me warm. Besides everything else, each day I am burdened down, worrying about all the churches. When others are weak, I am weak too. When others are tricked into sin, I get angry. If I must brag, I will brag about how weak I am. God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, knows I am not lying. And God is to be praised forever " In the following paragraph he would relate of some personal events which disclosed some direct divine intervention as he goes on to discount of personal credit. He, thus, further writes, “The governor of Damascus at the time of King Aretas had the city gates guarded so that he could capture me. BUT

I ESCAPED BEING LET DOWN IN A BASKET THROUGH A WINDOW IN THE CITY WALL.......... I must brag. There is nothing to be gained by it; but I must brag about the VISIONS AND OTHER THINGS THAT THE LORD HAS SHOWN ME. I know about one of Christ's followers who were taken up into the third heaven fourteen years ago. I don't know if the man was still in his body when it happened, but God surely knows.... But he was taken up into paradise, where he heard things that were too wonderful to tell. I will brag about that man, but not about myself, except to say how weak I am. YET EVEN IF I DID BRAG, I WOULD NOT BE FOOLISH. I WOULD SIMPLY BE SPEAKING THE TRUTH. But I will try not to say too much. That way, none of you will think more highly of me than you should because of what you have seen me do and speak. Of course, I am now referring TO THE WONDERFUL

THINGS I SAW. One of Satan's angels was sent to make me suffer terribly so that I would not feel too proud. Three times I begged the Lord to make this suffering go away. But he replied, 'MY KINDNESS IS ALL YOU NEED. MY POWER IS STRONGEST WHEN YOU ARE WEAK.' So, if Christ keeps giving me this power, I will gladly brag about how weak I am. Yes, I am glad to be weak insulted or mistreated or to have troubles and sufferings if it is for Christ. BECAUSE WHEN I AM WEAK, I AM STRONG...." 2 Cor. 11:1-30 to 12:1-10 Paraphrasing this long account testimony of faith of St. Paul, he was saying, thus, how God has showered natural gifts to himself, and to all believing people of the world. In gratitude to the Lord for all his kinds of gifts, both by grace and by nature, St Paul was exemplifying to us simple recognition of such elemental gifts. He was relegating it to actual stupidity to gloat over gifts dangerously naturally. But he was granting it to as mere aping of the braggarts' bragging act, if only to humor them and if only -- at times-- to set the record straight, that all his enumerated facts of tremendous suffering for Christ, along with the similarly tremendous facts of Jesus' special favor of His apparition to him, are indeed all favors from God or Jesus. Thus, very specially, he would like us to be aware that Jesus' unique meeting with him, like the many other favors he said God has given him, was a most special privilege that God has given him, including his above referred to escape from a prison, and including his being afforded heavenly visions of someone related above. Through them all, he would not accept credit or glory.  Thus, neither should any man claim ultimate credit for whatever human accomplishment for everything any man has ultimately comes from God. In the end, any man's doings cannot amount to anything except their being limited. But he emphasized that it is precisely in so far as man is weak and admits himself to depend upon God where lays the only good in the act of bragging. This was why he wanted to tell all that it was all by forces above his human powers that, for example, he escaped from the prison of that Governor of Damascus, and by the same that he was he able to survive his numerous ordeals and accomplished his great feats of evangelizing. It was God’s graciousness that he received the vision of the man, who witnessed of the supreme wonders of heaven. And most of all he ever remembered the privileged manner how Jesus revealed himself to him, including how he was made privileged to have witnessed the man’s visions of the highest heavens.  And so indeed, it was for such special Divine privileges given him, which made him so very proud of a God that favored him so much; notwithstanding his worst reputation of personally having, according to Jesus himself, persecuted the Lord in the persons of his believers/followers. This, therefore, is the type of bragging he was to brag, namely the bragging not on account of himself but on account of his faith in a God who does not let man down when he is most weak and most in need of God. He can only brag for a God, who could transform a man, like himself, from being utterly despicable and worthless into a most privileged creature of God. Thus, to understand the mystery behind the seemingly unnatural and illogical working of grace it is important to assimilate St Paul's paradoxical words, "because when I am weak, I am strong".

Obviously, the statement looks contradictory if that is what is meant by St Paul. And evidently, St Paul is not one who will utter a supposedly nonsensical statement. More importantly, the words were God’s paradoxical words to Paul, i.e., God is most effective in us when we fully realize and admit of our total dependence upon him. We will find from the epistles of St Paul how he extended this clause, and how he articulated what he meant. For his other similar statements clarify for us his meaning. With the first part of the statement, he was boldly testifying to his admission of his humbled stature as a human being, namely he was simply too aware how limited he is as a man if he were honestly to arrogate unto himself powers or even faculties falsely belonging to a man. In fact, by way of example, he revealed of his inability to fight on his own God-permitted temptation from the Devil, which he admitted himself unable to neither ward off, nor flatly say no to because of his weak natural flesh. And so, as regards our point about the grace work of regenerating specific details of a new life within a man of faith, St Paul provided us a level of trials and suffering, to which he put up with on account of his faith in Christ, as well as the level of fruitfulness of the Spirit upon him because he truly believed. The details recounted for us by St Paul spoke volumes in terms of his precisely surviving them and persevering in the faith. By human nature when beset with ordeals, pains, and struggles man is wont to give up or shamefully recant of his beliefs, or flatly refuse the suffering. We can all confirm this human tendency to recoil from severe suffering, and to abdicate commitments, no matter with what type of excuse on each occasion we would use for an escape.

Only the virtue and power of grace or spirit from above can enable a man to embrace heroism or martyrdom. It was only by grace that St Paul has modeled himself for us a renewed man of spirit; or in his words, as a man, who no longer lives as himself, but as someone in whom Christ ... Lives.... This is the stage in his life, where, thus, is fulfilled in himself the words of St. Augustine: "My soul is restless until it rests in Thee"   Paul, since being an oppressor, even murderer of the followers of Christ, finally has finally been changed, or converted into Christ's total and ultimate follower and lover. 

   Then as regards the fruitfulness of the Spirit in Paul, we need only flip through the pages of the Bible to evidence the volume of pages the Spirit has inspired him to add to the books of the Scriptures. Recall the many churches as well he was responsible at founding and nurturing during the early years of Christianity.

We are using St Paul as an example here as a witness to the working of grace simply because St Paul demonstrated and proved to us that God's message of salvation is not an invitation to an out of this world reality. On the contrary salvation precisely aims at attacking this very world head-on, and to work out conversion or people's personal change; and to take this world back to God away from its state of condemnation and bondage to the Devil and its entire stranglehold. Salvation, as Christ has intended, is the restoring back to its previous order the laws of nature and the state of the world, specifically of mankind. Whereas before the fall man knew no evil, but after the fall lost this innocence and became slave to sin. But after Christ's mission of salvation, to man is restored the power to know and choose well. Since then, Christ has freed and enabled people to live their lives reformed and sanctified exactly where they are in the world. This is his proof of the gospel's dominating power to make us inherently steady and impregnable amidst all forces of corruption and fleetingness. Also, whereas the work of salvation was meant by the Lord to continue till the end of time; so is grace to work like a leaven within the world to work non-stop as its agent and catalyst of change for the good within the world, and against the world. St Paul personified every honest citizen of the world wanting only the good of and for the world. Thus, it has been through grace that St Paul lived a holy life, or sanctified himself as he preached and ministered around all kinds of people he found himself. St Paul and the ministers he worked with did not institute a lifestyle that was detached and insulated against the rest of the people. He preached for the victory of faith, the race to be unwavering, and to have integrity in believing in the Lord as we live in the world, notwithstanding the antagonistic - even persecuting - world around which we live. And I repeat, lo and behold, he was his own example.

Although, he did exhort believers to shy away from situational company of individuals with overt sinful lifestyle, lest it convey scandal about what they supposedly stood if they did not withstand publicly against manifest sinful activities. Whereas we started quoting the verse, the truth shall make you free; it is the power of salvation to make men live free in spirit and mind and body even amid the contrary worldly lifestyle.   The grace preserves them from the corruption and deceptions in and of and by the world. This is the very definition of holiness, i.e. the state of not getting corrupted or deceived in the midst of corruption and deceptions in so far as within such holy men and women there is the integrity and wholeness of character, heart, and soul as empowered by the in-dwelling of the Spirit. For after all this is why their bodies, and all human bodies, are called the Temples of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit loves guesting over such holy souls: i.e., souls put-aside or made consecrate, as it were made "w-hole", holy.   And vice-versa the same Spirit protects and safeguards them in grace.

The prime relevance of the example of St Paul is, thus, so meaningful. He was very much a man of the world yet also a man so very holy. He was a man that fully lived the life of grace that was manifested in the many instances of his converted life. He was a figure very much easily associated with his personality for his personality by the secular people of both his time and our time in terms of his down-to-earth tackling of real-life issues. Yet he was someone most faithful and defiant, a champion of the faith, and bearer of grace. St Paul would identify with legitimate rebels and protagonists against status quo. For the sake of the right, he did not cow tow to the apostolic rank and influence of Peter Vis a Vis

spearheading within the Church a non-parochial and universal faith, i.e., his contending not to subject non-Jewish believers to strictly Jewish traditions of the early believers. St Paul would identify with individuals who are prosecuted and tried for being politically misunderstood. Like the Lord he was accused for instigation of unrest against the governing rule, whereas like Jesus, he was just preaching justice and salvation. The following, especially, could identify.

with St Paul: toiling wage workers respecting hard-earned money to make a living, homeless people without adequate warm clothes sleeping in the cold corners of streets, hungry individuals often passing up mealtimes with nothing on their stomachs, and distressed travelers who are away from the comfort of their homes, etc...

Recapitulating on St Paul, he was telling us with absoluteness he was assured of how God empowers him about his weakness and at the very moment of his weakness. And St Paul truly professes total humility about his ineptitude as a man; then always immediately defers to the absolute cover by God, precisely specifically by Christ's grace, which more than offset his human weakness or limitation. We find Paul's plentiful mention of his ' rights' to brag concerning instances of natural and personal deeds and honors. Yet equally quickly did he dismissed them as human vanities for the simple reason that he was very aware of the much more powerful graces of Jesus, which accounted for those personal deeds and honors. Both his experience of Jesus and his unwavering faith in Christ's salvific triumph over men's sins and imperfections on account of sins enabled Paul to completely discount all mere human capabilities and boasting. He implied the utility and versatility of grace in terms of its being un-circumscribed in sources and application to living. For rightly so did it come from his lips the words that a genuine evangelizer of Christianity must be all things to all people. 1 Cor. 9:22 this means, by divine providence, grace equips ministers and missionaries all manners of reaching out to people. Of course, here is meant all that is proper to the faith and without exclusion as regards the type of individuals the faith must be addressed to according as the Spirit may dispense of the grace.

For further Scriptural understanding about the working of grace, we are always to remember the following verse: "... the truth shall make you free” Jn 8:32 Saint Paul always refers to the man living in grace as the new man. And again, many passages in Scriptures especially in the Letter of St Paul to the Romans are described what has become of individuals who have come to live the life of grace, namely individuals precisely redeemed by Christ's ransoming mankind from sinfulness or mere life of the flesh who now live not by the flesh but by grace. Now they have become spiritual and have ceased being merely carnal about their manner of being and living or acting. Saint Paul even considered himself among the first born in the life of grace as he asserted saying how he now lives, "... not I, but Christ lives in me" In short, he attained the very perfection of the life of grace by having attained the transforming of is living into Christ's all-around manners of living human. Whereas before Paul was a single-tracked

zealot who pursued Christians, which he viewed irrational fanatics; after conversion by the Holy Spirit, he instead had become the Church's most steadfast and able defender of the meaningfulness of the faith, and of the Christians. His naturalistic narrow-minded rationalism has become transformed into a mystically penetrating perception of the magnificence of living above flesh, nature, and

law, and of living wonderfully the full humanness through grace. He has become able now to see the perfections of human freedom in the varied ways the free man could be above law but not against the law and could lord it over the human flesh and all its flawed inclinations from concupiscence.

Early on, obviously by way of the many epistles productively authored in Spirit by Saint Paul, he was the very first Church teacher who most identified and elaborated on the Church's doctrine of the life of grace via Christ's Incarnation and Resurrection, and therefore Redemption of human beings. The Apostles, particularly Saint Peter, Saint John, and Saint Matthew along with the disciples Saint Mark, and Saint Luke, as writers of the NEW TESTAMENT, i.e., New Covenant in Christ, all made references to this grace merited by Christ that brings about human salvation because of their personal immediate or proximity to the Deliverer of Grace, the Master Jesus. But Saint Paul, being a trained and learned scholarly student of the Jewish religion, and who had been a cosmopolitan exposed Roman citizen, who was no underling on the ways of the world, was, on par with the immediate Apostles of the Lord, particularly chosen by God as a par excellence teacher, apologist, and preacher of the Teachings of the Lord Jesus. Moreover, like a true copy of his Master the Lord, he also addressed, or made company of, and chased after all sort of people of the world, from persons of royalty to philosophers and pagan worshipers of deities, to -- by social standards-- low-class individuals as thieves and robbers. And to all of them he evangelized. Of course, his personal encounter of the Lord Jesus revealed to him not just the Person of Jesus but the reality of graces, which characterizes the personality of Jesus. Direct from Jesus did Saint Paul receive the faith and the powerful working of faith by grace in the Spirit. Thus, Saint Paul is the model par excellence of a regular holy man, i.e., a man that lived by grace, yet a man very much rooted in and within the world. He dealt in politics, in demonstrative oratories; he made a living, and was harsh against those that did not want anything to do with responsibilities of making a living; was realistic about the actual hold sexuality, and how it could by all means manacle the human psyche and physicality; was an indefatigable worker while surely a man of prayer; and knew the philosophical and life ridiculing taunts thrown upon Christians about the alleged passivity, defeatism, and miserableness that allegedly mark Christian living. But both by enumerable wonderful philosophical and eloquent defense of the faith, and by unquestionable martyr-like bearing of trials and tests, St Paul has answered head-on the strongest of challenge to the faith, which he all attributed to the working of Christ's grace in his life.

Other Examples of Men of True Faith.

I would like to cite the following characters from The Old Testament. Who are great examples of believing individuals?  We shall explain later how on account of their total fidelity and obedience to Yahweh they, thereby already can be said to profess the belief in the Messiah as has been fulfilled in Christ. We shall explain precisely how Old Testament believers in the promised Messiah are believers already of Christ; hence, of Christianity.)

Abraham.

He believes in God. And when God asked him to "sacrifice" his only son, Isaac, to Him, Abraham was resolved to comply with his God’s command, which was just a test-command. For his faith he was rewarded with being called the father of all generations.

Noah.

He believes in God’s words, that a great flood will drown all living creatures.  As commanded, he built and set up a boat God told him to build for Noah and his family and their choice animals; even as people ridiculed his complying so amidst some seemingly very fair climate and weather of the time, and despite the commands’ outright unpopular Endeavour. For his faith he was rewarded with proving the people wrong to their own destruction.

Other Examples of Old Testament Figures All Filled with Grace:

Joseph.

He believes in being forgiving and righteous despite his very own

brothers' attempt to kill him, and their hideous act of selling him away to outcast status, and despite the forcible seduction by a royal wife. For his faith he was made a Prince in a foreign land, and a powerful prince who ultimately spelled out the survival fate of his brothers and their families.

Moses.

He believes in a God who is far better than the Egyptian gods and goddesses to the point of forfeiting the very comfortable lifestyle he had in the Egyptian’s Monarchic status quo, and in a God who stands for liberation of slaves, his enslaved brothers & sisters Israelites. For his faith he was rewarded with the delivering of his own people out of the slavery of the Egyptians, and of being handed the very 10 Commandments of God.

Daniel.

He believes in "his" God whom he trusted will protect him from being devoured and eaten by the Babylonian King’s lions. He believes in the God who will stand by him in his every challenge to the Babylonians belief in their gods: i.e. his God proving true to him better than the Babylonian god ever proving to the Babylonian King and people. For his faith, God intervened and proved to the Babylonians His coming through on Daniel’s bet against his enemies and to

the reproofs of the unbelievers to Daniel’s God, the one and only Almighty God.

Elisha.

Very much like Daniel, he believes in really betting his God versus the god of the non-Israelite "believers"; e.g., he dared them to call upon their god to kindle fire on the non-Israelite firewood, which did not take place; then dared them to douse and wet his firewood as he invoked God to set it into fire, which materialized or was acted upon by God. For his faith he received, like Daniel, actual real life personal intervention by God on his public profession of faith in God.

Thus, talking of and about grace, while prayerfully being plugged to the Spirit of the Lord, we are to most humbly and obediently manifest precisely by grace our witnessing to the reality of God’s presence, non-stop intervention for, and deliverance of each of us, individual men, or women, who fully trust in God.

Part 1: Necessary Presence of Grace in Holy or Essentially Pious Individuals Living In the Real World

Fr. Dubay, a theologian who regularly appears on EWTN, said the knowledge & understanding of the revealed truth of God is given, possessed, and expressed by each soul who has the infused holiness of the Holy Spirit. In plain terms, any soul who is with God or is united with God in the fullness of grace necessarily has within himself/herself the presence of God. And because he/she have God within him/she, he or she can think, feel, say, and do things that explain of and about God. The saints are spoke-persons of God. Don’t ask them to explain the world. Don’t ask them to deliver philosophical analysis about reality. Just ask them how they go through their daily living. Ask them how in the midst of their day-to-day or moment-to-moment struggles they are able to survive and live their day or moment into the next notwithstanding their poverty, their setbacks, and even despite their seeming failures and defeats.

And these believers will attest to their surviving and actually living their lives because of God's personal intervention in their lives by way of their gift of many Divine graces, i.e. via the very life of God they profess God must have shared with them through which alone they could make sense of their supernatural surviving and living through their hard lives. That is why is written in 1John 3:24, "... Those who keep his commandments REMAIN IN HIM and HE IN THEM". Thus, Scripture verses according to John state "... We know that no one begotten of God commits sin; rather, God protects the one begotten by him." 1John 5:18 In other words, the believers' trusting in the God who provides, protects, and sanctifies them account both for their day-to-day nitty-gritty getting through life as well as their being enabled to be preserved from grievously sinning against the God, they believe in.

For the mark of the Divine life God has shared these believers manifest their pious or saintly living per their authentic testifying of hurdling through life obstacles, and life struggles by the strength and provisions God has given them with which to withstand both life hardships and the evils of the world.  Each time a saintly individual exercises that confidence God will always be there to back him/her up in what he/she does; he/she trusts that whatever develops and unfolds is what God makes happen and is what is good to him/her then and in the long run, whether they be material or spiritual needs. This manner of acting or behaving how a believing individual testifies with his/her act or doing in life is a product of both his/her will and the intervening grace of God. How, indeed, grace meant to Paul, likewise, thus, in this manner consists of grace working for each man of every age. Namely, it consists in God’s incomprehensible divine facilitating or ‘processing’ of the human act & circumstance by which is accomplished the deigned will of God for the individual in each circumstance or time & space. It is God’s pro-active intervention whereby the individual act or non-action is turned around by God for realizing the opportune will of God according to the good of the believing individual and the pleasure of God. The bottom-line pleasure of God signifies the utmost complying of the individual’s act and will with the will of God, whether God’s laws or the love of God. For to become holy is to become, by grace, like God, to live as an image of God. And the exemplar, model, and actual source of holiness are God himself. Truly, the Lord Jesus has said, “Be ye holy as the Father (God the Father) is holy". In other words, he tells us, thus, to become holy, or to receive the holiness or spiritual perfection of and from the Father. We have come to believe that this human re-transformation in the believers has been on account of Christ’s work of salvation of man. And so, from the outset, after Jesus’ followers/disciples have professed to believe in him, he warned them of what will come to be or exactly what will befall them for believing and following him. He warned them of the world’s rejecting of them like they rejected him, the Lord Jesus Christ. But their overcoming inescapable Christian rejections from the unbelieving world will mark the believing Christians' real and genuine life transformation or conversion. But in so far as the Father, or the God the Father and Creator is essentially different from his creatures, or from us in our natural stature; so, receiving God’s real image, and becoming God’s real likeness makes us radically different from others after we have become unto God’s image and likeness. (This is realized for us and within us through grace after we profess our faith and fidelity to Christ. Our faith and fidelity as Christians convert us from being of the world into becoming of the Lord, of God.) It makes us unlike other creatures in the world. And it makes us anti-world, or unworldly, or actually “enemies" to the world. This is the supernatural reality re-creating men and women anew as men and women of grace. And this is the reality that now supersedes the mere natural humanity or human nature against which every man and woman must constantly watch and battle every so often when any moral situation arises. Like it had always become, after the fall of Adam & Eve, after the fall of man, existence had become a battling between the good and the bad.

Part 2: The Pervasive Battling of the Good by Evil, while remaining un-swayed from Goodness or Holiness with God

It is repeatedly written in Scriptures how in life and in the world there is the war between the Good and the Bad, between God’s forces and the forces of evil. In effect, we are to expect this stark situation within the world: they the bearers of grace for working for God alongside them, who are no-bearers of grace working either professedly or inadvertently against God.  It had been the situation of the BAD ever pestering and aiming to harm the GOOD inside and outside man; or in the larger scale, the case of the world continually tending not to accept God or the good. Outside of this God's new gift of grace to all believing men and women, paradoxically, with the simultaneous reason and effect of the Fall, which was the falling away from God by man per the original sin of Adam and Eve, each human being had lost the light of reason, and had been cast into the same darkness Adam & Eve had fallen into, i.e. all their heirs, or all of mankind. Because of and consequentially with the resulting loss of ‘enlightened mind & heart’ the fallen man lost sight of God. Man, in the persistent ‘state of original sin’ passed on by the fallen Adam and Eve, has stopped seeing God, and thus, God’s Spirit. For it is written in John 15:17 with respect to "... the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept," this world "... neither sees him nor recognizes him; but you can recognize him because he remains with you and will be within you". The reason and the predicament why and how between the men and women who have come to believe or who have not come to believe exist the contradiction and opposition. Mainly, however, what exists is the contradicting or opposing by the unbelievers of the believers. Or the distinct blind worldliness attached lifestyle living by the flesh by the people of the world against the inscrutable and mystifying spirit empowered living by grace of the believers.

Unfortunately, (about which they are not to worry though), for the believers this is, and will be their realistic situation in the world. Namely: the world versus the Lord, or those of the world against you and me of the Lord, of God. This is a strange state of affairs: those creatures in the world proclaim and do battle against the Lord of Creation, (or against the faithful of God). For isn’t the Creator above his creatures? Doesn’t loyalty to God deserve God's loyalists the better option of peace and non-perturbance from the non-compliant and disobedient subjects of God? Yet the old reality is that 'authorities' of the world will always try to harm, destroy, or deprive God's believing people both their 'worldly/earthly ‘rights and grace privileges for belonging to the Lord!

True Faith Preserves the Faithful against Evil

Nonetheless, like it is repeatedly proclaimed throughout these Mission Series, Christ has overcome the world for all who believe. And so, whether the above be proper or not, nevertheless, as much as we are called to witness to our faith to be the salt of the earth and light of the world, we have become empowered to do so not upon the strength of our flesh but by the grace of God which we receive from Christ on dispensation by the Holy Spirit. For, paradoxically, thus, we are able to demonstrate the faith not by the brawny strength of our body, not by the mental prowess of our mind, nor by the seductive charms of our personality. Although, the God in us does not make its presence like as it were, as stated by prophet Isaiah, by mighty thunders & brilliant lightning’s but by a little whimper sound of the wind. It will not be anything like the worldly gamesmanship displays when we are announcing the action and intervention of God in the world. It will always be with complete humility and meekness but total trusting in the Lord that we engage in and finish our evangelizing business towards men. This, in order that, according to St. Paul, we do not get to brag on our strength but on the strength and power of God, which he bestows only to the humble of heart. For, indeed, not by our human works but by the grace of God is Christ’s work of salvation carried about. Man cannot save man; only Christ saves man. But Christ shares this mission and power to each human being that believes and follows him. It matters not much for now if by mere human standards we seem to lose the battles; it matters more that souls are converted to Christ, and God’s truth prevails. As a recap, the bottom line is that it is grace that works and shows itself to be behind all the good human works. By the way, the supreme example of evangelizing or proclaiming of God to the world is the way of Mary. She proclaims the greatness of God as a most humble maiden. She was ever zealous for the glory of God, never her own, (it is no wonder that we have very scant mention of her throughout the four Gospel writings and in other places in the New Testament, which most possibly accounted for her wanting the absolute focus of the work of salvation legitimately not be detracted away from her Son). With her exemplar humility, she was rewarded with the greatest human glory of becoming a creature deigned as the Mother of God. Indeed, being the mother of Jesus, Mary is the greatest bearer of grace.  It is repeatedly written in Scriptures how in life and in the world, there is the war between the Good and the Bad, between God’s forces and the forces of evil.

In effect, we are to expect this stark situation within the world: the bearers of grace for working for God alongside the no-bearers of grace for working either professedly or inadvertently against God.

Essence of Love as Manifesting the Working of Grace

Ultimately through the message and power of love started by and sustained in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, the people of God per Christ’s Church are on lease since Jesus’ time up to the End-Times to carry through this one universal and permanent mission of the Church of Christ: to get the people of God to express love, love for God & love for each other. This is the new meaning of the new human life in Christ. And, theologically, thus, this is the meaning par excellence by which each man and woman can and shall find both fulfillment and truth in each individual destiny of life on earth to attain the rewarding union with God in the New Heaven & the New Earth during the culmination of time.

Part 3: Love, the Way to Triumph over Evil: The Best Manifestation of Grace

To repeat, this has become so because of the radical polarization between God and his fallen creatures, and between God’s true faithful and the world’s creation-enslaved creatures. In plainer terms, the people " of" the world opt to remain to be pleased & satisfied with & by mere created goods, or power in the world; whereas the faithful of God, via the empowerment of Christ's grace, get to choose to profess allegiance & loyalty to the Creator of the world, and hence to the renovated/renewed Covenant or obedience to him in the way and manner of his Son, of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. And this re-transformed/renewed humanity realized by Christ is best depicted and expressed in man’s new life spent in love: love for God and love for neighbors. Specifically, and as a principal teaching of Jesus and of the Church, regarding this command of love, Jesus stated: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Then he summarily forewarned us how we shall fail our eligibility of entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, his Kingdom if we, acting and behaving like the world does, fail to love him by failing to love ‘the least" of his brothers, the needy of/in the world. How scary and pathetic to be among them he shall have to condemn into everlasting fire along with the Devil and his angels, because, as he says, “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was away from home, and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing. I was ill and in prison and you did not come to comfort me". When asked when they had seen him hungry, or thirsty, or away from home, or naked, or ill, or in prison and had not attended to him in his needs; he answered them with the following truly unexpected accusation. “I assure you as often as you neglected to do it to one of these least ones, you neglected to do it to me". Conversely shall the Lord speak to them that accomplished his command of love of neighbor and of himself: Christ the Lord? Jesus foretells of the following happy scenario and verbal intercourse between himself and his faithful ones.  “When the Son of Man – (Jesus) – comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels of heaven, he will sit upon his royal throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. Then he will separate them into two groups, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The sheep he will place on his right, the goats on his left. The King – (the Lord Jesus) – will say to those on his right: ‘Come, you have my Father’s blessing Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me. I was ill and you comforted me, in prison and you came to visit me." When also asked by the just when they had seen him hungry, or thirsty, or away from home, or naked, or ill, or in prison and had attended to him in his needs; he in the same manner answered them with the unexpected confirmation, " I assure you as often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me". Thus, his final words of judgment: those condemned ‘... will go off to eternal punishment, and the just to eternal life." Matthew 26: 31-46 As categorical and definitive the opposite fates of the people will be, who either heeded or heeded not God’s command to belong to him or obey his teachings; so radical and marked in the same manner early on and onwards the distinction or polarity between those who in the present moment either follow God or reject God. Or again, between those who are happily in the state of grace for following God, and those who tragically and sadly are, thus and precisely outside or without the state of grace for rejecting God or the ways of God.

Part 4: Cultural Mind-sets Preventing the Receiving of Grace

Thus, Christians are repeatedly forewarned of all these oppositions and rejections from the enemies when they evangelize or even just as they profess live according to their Christian faith. But moreover, like we have referred to in our discussion of the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, Christians are forewarned of the three major dangers believers are to be wary about against fidelity to the faith; namely, they are to be aware of their seeds or faith falling along the road and being eaten by birds, falling on thin, rocky ground and being scorched and dried up under the sun because they did not have enough roots, and falling where thorn bushes grew up that would choke out the plants. Hence, Christians are to not to be surprised if, like under the first category of danger, each step of the way in Christian witnessing they are made to face many situations and scenarios that are stumbling blocks to Christian believing or even to the Church. We could mention poverty, deprivation, insufficiency, and insignificance, including structural evangelizing weakness per systemic doctrinal ignorance and Church’s catechetical instructional inefficiencies. In the work of evangelization and Christian witnessing, one way or another, Christians will encounter direct attacks from the enemies. An example is the exaggerating of the reporting or public exposing of some “scandals" of the Church, e.g., clergy sexual abuse. In this situation the faith or the Church is being cast as without credibility to preach of the truth of the faith supposedly because of the errant testimony to the Gospel within the Church with the exaggerated reported scandals of and by the clergy. In other circumstances, the sort of tactics the enemy employs against the Christians or the Church consists of flat out banning out the Church or the Christian faith, an example of which is the state ban of religion and the faith like the situation in China or any other country which discriminates against the free exercise of religion including the Christian faith. Through this flat out discriminating against the faith the people of God is simply deprived access to evangelization. Then there is also the blacking out of the presence of the Church from the public view. A fresh example of this was a black-out of great segments of the news coverage, or of selected pastoral messages, of the Pope during his very recent visit to America. With the blacking out on the newscast of the Pope’s visit, by technically negating the venue of broadcast or public evangelizing, the chief evangelizer in the person of the Pontiff missed a grand opportunity of addressing the scandals in the Church, and was also prevented from imparting his fundamental messages on the faith, as well as messages of Christian hope, and Church’s relevance in current world conditions and events, about which he spoke. In the individual level but at a not necessarily less grand scale, destructive works against Christian witnessing is the media’s pornographic industry which saturates the internet and pollutes both the young and the adult users of the media. Add to this the syndicated collusion of forces, which the secular culture orchestrates, via creating conditions or/and arrangements within the educational/school and the media & entertainment establishments that would prevent free evangelizing by the Church or by any proselytizing individual Christian believers. Some pervasive ways the bird could steal the seed of our faith, and preempt the working of grace.

"The Outright Living without Grace, and the Danger in the Belief in Living via Natural Self Sufficient Human Power & Righteousness, and Wayward Individualistic Lifestyle"

But it is perilous and unfortunate when not only are individuals left alone to their weak and sinful ways; but who are even thrown and led into outright lifestyle of vices and errors, including solitary & lonesome early dealing with the world. Nonetheless, whether in this time of the New Testament or in the time of the Old Testament, individuals, or people without Christ or without the salvation of Christ remain as vulnerable and weak as everyone to go the wayward way. But especially if individuals or people choose to precisely to live their lives apart from the preached Christian way or religious ways of God.  Hence, we come to the predicament of individuals and people who by orientation and maybe training are accustomed to the ways of the secular world, or the world avowed to be non-cognizant of the Divine Being. These people are individuals and people who have come to rely only upon their human mind and personal freedom. The more ascetic among them tend to acquire and develop natural and human virtue of discipline and intellectual/moral balance. Special examples were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And so somehow, individuals like these famous ancient philosophers got to learn and got to govern their lives with some degree of temperance, which is characteristic of good character. Yet the great many who are without their level of personal asceticism and who merely follow the dictates of their mind, however noble, are liable to go the wanton ways or the ways devoid of discipline. Without minimal discipline the human mind can and will think every which way; thinking every philosophy is as good as its opposite philosophy. Ultimately, their philosophy or orientation in life is such where everything is relative, subjective; where everything goes in the name of "freedom"; and where, morally speaking, nothing is good or bad. Hence, nothing is morally true; every philosophy is a system and gets its validity according to its system interpretation. And when secular thinkers like the above are in the prime years of their life, that is preeminently the time they are most susceptible to hang on to their favored school of thinking vis a vis, or in denial of the Supreme Being.

Part 5: Believing is more the Belief in the Unseen, A Characteristic Element of Faith, of Grace

It is for this reason that we are to heed the Lord’s warning and command to do believe more than to quest and delight in greater acquisitions of human wisdom and understanding. Jesus said, "More blessed are those who have not seen; but have believed". To insist on our seeing, i.e. wanting all kinds of miracles and spectacles, and to refuse to believe in God’s absolute care & providence for and over us endanger us to making God ‘mad’, ultimately bringing about what Isaiah said, "The Lord has blinded the eyes of the people, and he has made the people stubborn. He did this so that they could not see or understand, and so that they would not turn to the Lord and be healed." John 12:40 When this takes place in a certain generation, we get to witness the appearances and the free-reined crowd of self-professed atheists and God curser. And sadly, in such generation thrives the ‘God is dead’ philosophy, an abominable human thought.

Caution about Casual Referencing to Grace,

Grace is Free but Is Not Cheap!

One caveat here to neophytes about the Christian faith: we are not dispensing here ideas and information regarding grace and the faith like it were some medicines of nature or nuggets of philosophy or tradition. And we are not treating this matter like Christian’s access grace and its effectiveness only because they want it and seek it. Grace is a matter of faith, and a matter of the supernatural, a matter or an act from the Divine. And altogether, the encounter and the benefiting by grace is an encounter in and by faith and faithfulness. From the human standpoint we, as Christians, are to attest to the experience of the fear of God, i.e., it is because God sees our need for and dependence on him that he recognizes and satisfies our sincerest and deepest longings. Thus, it remains the reality that Christians like any human being realizes human and earthly circumscriptions, encumbrances, and inadequacies; and therefore, do not expect to pick pieces of silver and gold to their grabbing by some sort of magical Christian formulas. But it is their profoundest cry of help to the Father, and their trust in the intercession of the Lord Jesus that they believe no one else but the Divine could give them their needed relief. Christians can see through the unreliability of people, and unpredictability of nature: like when you just get sick suddenly. But Christians see a God in their midst who cannot but come to their succor upon their cry for help. And in so far as their life here on earth is yet a pilgrimage awaiting the final glorious reward of heaven, Christians knows and embraces the fact of the mystery of the cross. They are made aware of the paradox of Christian life, i.e. as they confidently turn to God for cover on each of their problems and needs they are urgently aware of the equal need to persevere in the embrace of tests and struggles of faith. Accessing, thus, of necessary graces for day-to-day and moment-to-moment human living, whether involving material or spiritual needs, is a sacred and delicate transaction between God and man it is bound to be completely personally preoccupying but divinely satisfying. Piety and fear of the Lord accompany our faith assurances of relief, help, and fulfillment. St Paul reminds us of pursuing the life of holiness, and therefore of grace, in fear and trembling. For man is not trustworthy, but God is. This is to characterize the Christians' reckoning with grace through faith. Notwithstanding their best efforts and best intentions, when facing up to the reality of our natural and human limitations, and when pressed to perform or produce, or just put up a good face during the encountering of a wall block between them and their objective need, Christians must immediately ask the Divine to take over the situation with total confidence and peace. Instantaneously they are to believe God provides. And that in God's time they will attest to God's breaking through for them.

Part 6: Definitive Warning re: Easy/tempting Claiming for Self Sufficiency

To repeat, seeming successful exploiting through or worldly explaining of "giving" meaning to the complexities and confusions of life realities and sure realities often lead us only to arrogance by ourselves and pretense in human sufficiency, whether when throwing words of knowledge and wisdom, or when performing any similar feat of well applauded human accomplishing. It remains a forever quest of man, again whether doing last word philosophizing, or accomplishing record braggadocios performances, to chase after human self-glorification or self-aggrandizing. But theologically, the human mind after the fall of Adam and Eve had become flawed. It had become too dependent upon our sensual faculties, which human faculties are the least trustworthy. Man is inescapably confronted & baffled by, and in-denial of, the fact and reality of his imperfect capacities or nature. Notwithstanding human victories now and then, it is still his permanent nemesis to always find himself wanting and short in all his enterprising and endeavor. How invariably and universally applicable to all human conditions and situations, the verse, "They weigh you, and found you wanting..." The truth of the matter is that to God alone belongs perfection. And only in God rests truthfulness and worthiness in deeds and words. This is revealed to us precisely only by God. His and He alone is the truth. He alone can be and is on top of things. But God alone can make any single thing ultimately meaningful, sensible, and realizable for any human condition, situation.

Re, Letting Science and Progress dictate on Nature.

As regards arguments pertaining to science and scientific achievements & progress, or even of arts, we are already granted its implied validity when we refer to empirical and analytic/mathematical statements or descriptions. And science has come of age in its stride and accomplishments, particularly in the field of technology. And for as long as their contributions are relegated and appreciated within the confines of their limited sphere, they only manifest the great wonders attributable to the One Maker of the human minds/souls. Science is a great tool of man but is only a tool; only a means not the end as the old platitude states. But once science dictates its use as the reason/purpose for its application; then it is being falsely used beyond its utility nature. E.g., clone people because people could be cloned, medically abort babies because it’s the simpler option than to let live a syndrome child, or even prevent conceptions with contraceptives in so far as it makes it, for example, career convenient for the young woman, etc... But the more precarious regard issue about this use of human reason is in the overextended philosophical interpretation of value signification that are not warranted to be realistically descriptive of issues pertaining to the totality of human existence and human living, like the issues that we have touched upon on this discussion, including the matter of the Supreme Being. Descartes’ "I think, therefore I am", has given rise to philosophical interpretations very far-fetched from the probable Rene Descartes’ mere epistemological value signification. By and large, Descartes was just describing the so-called "phenomenological" datum of mental awareness: the over-all encompassing of what it seems, what appears to man's cognition. Like I am aware I perceive a ‘table’, a ‘tiger’, or of all possible ‘ens rationis’/being of reason, e.g., like the product ‘xyz’, and every which concoction of both the mind and the imagination cannot be trusted as reliable tools of truth, nor of knowledge due to their transitory and variable characteristics. And so the overreaching application of philosophical implication as to connote the independence of man from God in so far as man only ‘thinks’ himself, not God, is one unwarranted inference from Descartes’ alleged premise of "I think, therefore, only I am". And from this would follow, hence, supposed atheistic inferences of different sorts.  Then, as regards the factor of individual poll result: In the individual level, thus, current poll, for example, says worship & Mass attendance gets down, even if the same poll affirms the steadfast clinging to the faith, for instance, by Catholics. But specifically in Europe, it is a sad situation that the secular agents in that region of the world are again more particularly quite influential in weakening both Church attendances at worship and at stopping laws promoting state tolerated pornography and state encouraged euthanasia (mercy-killing) of the sick aged. These are telling demonstrations of these people’s possible drought in graces. Amidst these people let them be forewarned of the words in Isaiah to be wary to harden not their hearts lest forever they see not God. In other parts of the world, nevertheless, not excluding America, these dual ultra-liberal practices of modern civilization remain a scandalous thing to legalize; and this mainly on account of the established opposition by the Church elements in the society. This is one vestige of the surviving faith of the people of America, and thus of their continually being aided by the bountiful grace protection from heaven. Happily, for America, thus, whereas the social emphasis against curtailing of the freedom of worship originates from the supposedly un-proselytized citizenry, the evident influence of the faith and the Church over its parishioner’s citizenry is still responsible precisely for the respect of the Church and the individual practice of the faith by the individual people. Although, it is a walk on a tight rope as secularist forces are still having their way with the wanton practice of abortion of innocent babies. But the truth is: fundamentally, and universally, like St. Paul writes, nothing of this world can stop man from the faith and love of God. The Lord Jesus has assured us believers, “Take courage I have overcome the world." In other words, because of Christ, God’s graces abound in the redeemed world or within the saved men and women of different epochs and times until the End-times.  And so be as it may that like Jesus said the world, whether through state tyranny or through individual selfishness, will continually hate Christian believers in so far as it has hated him; nevertheless, the believers are not to be disheartened nor even wish to be extracted out of the world, i.e. from its subjecting them to un-stopped hatred and rejections.

Part 7: Necessary Genuine Condition To Benefit of Grace as Christians

That is why we declare categorically Christianity is no fans club. An invitation to become a Christian is not merely an invitation to an organization or some status quo memberships, be it the Knights of Columbus, the Holy Name Society, or some parish council, nor to the name Catholic; hence not to some popularity "Christian" membership. No; to reduce Christianity to the above is making it all so superficial an act. Rather the invitation to becoming a Christian is an invitation to a total change of life, to a conversion, or to living the meaning of being a Christian. To become a Christian is to engage in real life initiation; you have to stay on it and stay on it to death as you profess truly being a Christian. But this does not signify the form of initiation, like the "hazing type" of initiation, being hazed for the sake of being hazed, i.e., just going through it because you are supposed to go through it. Christian Initiation consists in professing you will stand for Christ no matter what in so far as you believe Christ is most important to you.

Why is Christ, or Christ’s GRACE important, as a matter of fact, necessary to mankind? 

It is because he is the new man, and a unique man; he is God made man. He is the goodness of God in flesh. Whereas man is a sin-infected human being; Christ is the sinless human being. God made it possible that true virtue and pure integrity characterize and define this new man, Jesus Christ. As a man, Jesus was made bound to time and space limitations, as well as by the earth’s men and women’s sinful ways and imperfections. The bottom-line, as Jesus initiated and implemented the new humanity he brought with him from the heavens to earth, he was prepared for man’s ways of personal blindness, personal biases, personal allegiances, and personal cultures and traditions. Jesus came down into a people of selfish passions, violent tendencies, and materialistic & ethnic/political orientations. Christ is God. But the people he has opted to live with and live for are God-less people. Christ, God, destined himself to deal and work with men and women as a man in their midst. And so aside from fundamentally coming as their Savior from heaven, he was in the same token in human form God’s messenger, God’s prophet, God’s mediator, and God’s shepherd for the people of God. To the sinful people, and therefore to the people in darkness i.e. people blinded in darkness by sins Jesus became the Light in the world. Hence, Isaiah’s prediction, "’the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwell in the land of gloom a light has shown." Is. 9:1 To the people that needed a total change of heart, Jesus preached repentance & baptism in the Spirit, and showed & acted out how to be broken up & shed blood to death as an expression of that total change to the core or the human metanoia by death to oneself. And to the people bigoted by self-interest, Jesus preached and lived the life of service for one another even and especially by becoming the least & the smallest in the name of absolute reaching out to everyone that is in need. All the above missions translate into one fundamental mission Jesus established for himself and his disciples: the mission of implementing the heavenly Father’s message & precept of love. "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another?"

Part 8: Early Tuning of the Spirit to the Holy Spirit Disposing Us to the Receiving of Christ's Grace

The learning and utmost understanding of this new human living in Christ only comes from Jesus Christ and is given to man by only Jesus Christ. This is the reality of faith and grace. Man must believe in Jesus Christ, and he/she must live Christ or the Christian lifestyle. This heavenly and divine message per the power of Jesus’ Incarnation, becoming a man, is within the possibility of man to receive as a man. Man’s intellect and will shall be made in aptitude and be disposed by grace through the Holy Spirit to appreciate and embrace the Christ-like understanding and virtues. However, man must grow, get trained, and sustained by God’s sacramental means. Baptismal personal change of mind and heart, and of the body needs getting nourished by the word of God, i.e. by the knowing of God's words as taught by the catechism of the faith. Then eventual human spirit formation and virtues acquisition & development needs the sustenance from the other sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist, i.e. constant turning back to God from sins and re-committed sins, and constant uniting with the very life of Christ per reception of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Like our Lord Jesus, who began early on as a child of 12 going and frequenting the Temple of God, and thus being about the business of God the Father, so also beginning when we are children, we are supposed to right on be attuned to the divine ways, e.g. prayerfulness and regular Church worship activities. This is the way to begin re-twisting back to form our un-straightened body, mind and soul. Then from the moments or years of reason, we are supposedly ever watchful at going straight, and never to stray away from the ways of being attuned to God and his teachings. Whether during the time before Christ’s coming, and after his coming, individuals that were early on and straight forward leaning to the ways of God have learned to live lives of good behavior and protected from worldly influence. Before the time of Christ’s coming and, thus, before the propagation of his more developed teachings of faith righteousness, many Israelites had made it possible for them to live the referred to above lives of good behavior and some fidelity to the commands of God. We are going to exemplify the best of them later down below; yet aside from them many Jews had pleased Yahweh for their simple fidelity to his laws as promulgated, explained, and implemented to them by Moses and his successors, particularly Joshua. Without literally subscribing to this number, it is said 144,000 Jews are predicted of their salvation, i.e. salvation by the promised Messiah, salvation by Christ. But it is praiseworthy to mention Old Testament examples of fathers & sons: Noah & his children, Abraham & Isaac, Isaac & Jacob, Jacob or Israel & the 12 children, Samuel & Nathan, David & Solomon, etc... As well as New Testament figures like Zechariah & John, brothers Simon & Andrew, brothers James & John, etc. but most especially the family Joachim & Anne with Mary. Why? Because they demonstrated how when people together practiced divine ways of living, united people or individuals together learned the right way of living. It is essential and practicable that in life people gets to be protected, guided, and shepherded towards the ways of God.

Part 9: Fundamental Option vs. Living the New Life

Relate this disposition to the "fundamental option" of living the "new life"! Will the above approach lead and work out for us an assured path towards living a new life? Let us be advised here of the Lord's warning, "Unless you are born again of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter Heaven!" I.e., unless we are changed for God and unto God, we are without the ticket to God’s heaven. For we are not to forget that unless our old human life is changed into the new humanity of Jesus, our human living will not mean much, and will not attain for us our true human fulfillment and happiness. Sadly, thus, our living will just be a type of living that is stuck to their mere mundane characteristics, and without any chance of permanence and authenticity, which the Lord has promised to those who convert their natural life to the life of Divine grace. For without the gift of grace all the supposed deeds of honesty, honorableness, and heroism carry nothing more than very ephemeral values. Once the physical body dies, such men's deeds of honesty, honor, and heroism are only as good as the people's memories of one or a few generations, which is unlike the divine reward of grace that is eternal.

It affords us to hear the Spirit's blessing our measuring up to the Lord's Beatitude. "Blessed are you who are poor", the Lord would say, "... in your heart you already possess the Kingdom of God!" This is a paraphrasing of the first Beatitude, and, as matter of fact, of all the eight beatitudes. In other words, those whose degree of faith and discipleship for God has reached the level of the Beatitudes and who have more than a head-start in the road to sacrificial purification and sanctification are well along the way of perfection this side of Heaven. They are most likely already experiencing many moments of Heaven-like bliss of peace and unity with the Divine. In contrast, those who are way so attached to their riches have their wealth blocking any speedy growing and developing in the Divine life of grace, which is the earthly prelude to Heaven. It was no wonder the Lord described the entering to Heaven by the rich so constricted as to be equivalent to a camel's predicament of passing through the needle's eye. It is impossible; but, by the power of God, if the heart has decided to turn to God in all honesty nothing is impossible to God, even for the rich!

Now on living the Life of Grace, we are to unmistakably characterize what exact sort of acts or behaving, or spiritual lifestyle mark the living of the life of grace.

Whenever we act not primarily for and according to just our human nature but act primarily in a manner that is more than just according to the natural, i.e., when we act according to what is virtuous or what is clearly according to the will of God, then our acts or behaving are a living by grace. Ultimately, our guide to understanding what is living by grace is based on the following reality: By nature because of original sin or flawed humanity man has lost the capacity to pursue and realize on his own the pure good, the unselfish good. Saint Paul referred to the scriptures' statement that"... no man is found just..." We paraphrase the above by saying that man can do nothing that is of any good except by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing!" But He also adds that "For those who believe nothing is impossible!" Saint Paul also said it is precisely when we are weak that we are strong in Jesus Christ. He said Christ's grace is sufficient for us to overcome our weakness. Thus, when we are faced with challenges where we find our actions or attempts to achieve the good thing seemingly blocked or impossible that is when we shall find the magic of Christ's grace to break us through our divinely blessed goals or objectives. It is only truthful to accept the fact that all human actions by anybody and from anybody are bound to be shaped and colored by selfish human motivations. It would be hypocrisy and sheer sanctimoniousness to claim otherwise. Man, just cannot truly do any good. For this reason, all attempts of absolute individual conquest or social/world liberation in so far as the application of the solution is nothing more than human solutions have no guaranty of success. No man but Jesus alone is good. No man but only Jesus is capable of setting things right in the world and in all of creations. That is why we say faith alone and no work can save us. It is only through our faith in Christ that we can do anything of good. Our mere human works are nothing. But our pursuing and doing the good in the name of and by the name of Jesus can achieve the good. This is the reality of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Part 10: The Paradoxes of Life, and the Dilemma in Life's Choices as Offset Only by Christ's Grace

But life is a mystery. Plenty of mysteries will encompass or penetrate our ordinary lives. This is especially true for those of us that have lived through the longevity of our lives and have not actually been tested enough of our faith in God. And so events will take place that are tantamount to life’s surprises. Suddenly, free thinkers are confronted by their deteriorating human inadequacies and life mortality. People age and find their previous and regular productivity cut down to the level short of none. People get weak, and get sick and sickly, including seemingly people around the family. Life would appear like truly toil and a drag. The old bragging spirit and natural enthusiasm get overtaken by more and more depressive moods and cynical attitudes. Thus, then more and more they get even more vulnerable to a million questions of the Divine: why this, and why that. We would think we did not trigger the misfortune or that inwardly while not necessarily publicly boasting we have been on the level with God such that our lifestyle is indeed in optimal obedience to the laws of God; yet sadly misfortunes come our way. Remember the "Job Experience". Job was the epitome of the man found pleasing by God who supposedly was rewarded for good behavior. And so, while he gets the respect and recognition from and by folks around him, near and far, both for personal integrity and professed allegiance to his bountiful God, he, on top of these, received all the good stuff of life: plenty of beautiful children, a satisfying loving wife, and lots and lots of wealth. The famous prosperity gospel Then suddenly thing got not only bad, but very bad. Progressively, not only did he lose successively his children, but also these and those properties, and consequently his wealth renown & well-being. But, worse, he was given a sickness of the body that not only weakened him day by day but pestered him day and night, namely an incurable skin disease all over his body. And all these taking place when he had continually worshiped and honored his God. When this happened to Job, (and to probably most human beings, at one time or another), we would ask: "Why?" We do not really know. However, as I stated particularly in Chapters 5 (On the HS) and here, Chapter 108 (On Grace) of these Mission Series, we could gather the Lord answering us that they are during negative circumstances of our living that, on the contrary, we can ascertain we professedly choose him, or renounce him. He said the way to become his follower is to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and to do follow him. At Mass, which is the same Calvary Sacrifice of Jesus, which is the essential Cross, he has asked us to take up, carry, and embrace; the Lord ever reminds us with the words: Do this in commemoration of me do what? Do exactly what he did as formulated in the Consecration Words: to say with Christ with reference to our own body and blood, ‘This is my body which I am prepared like Christ to get broken up for my neighbor; and this is my blood, which I am prepared like Christ to shed also for my neighbor in the name of love.’ "

Jesus Says He is the Ultimate Relief to Human Labor & Toil.

By His Grace Jesus stated his most positive words which are ever true for all that believe his words: "Come to me all you who labor and are burdened. And I shall give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden light." This is the Christian Gospel: Christ is the answer, the antidote to human problem and misery. But we must take him on, hands down; we must lay our problem and misery to him absolutely. And we must trust and believe he will help us and relieve us the best way they can ever be fixed. When we do, and the saints have done so, (have surrendered their lives to Christ in full freedom), like the saints’ experiences and testimonies ours' shall begin to be a life of profound peace and security, even while still living this earthly life amidst exactly our problems and helplessness. In the face of imminent danger and failure it is surely not easy to think of a ‘salvation’ experience. All that engulf us, then, are great fear, sadness, or anger, and despair. Remember the legend of the single footsteps? The person complained the Lord has deserted him through the loneliest & scariest path of his life meandering. But the person pulls through this ordeal and gets confirmed by the Lord there were precisely only single footsteps that went by that path because those only footsteps were His as He carried him/her through those moments of ultimate exhaustion & inability. For this is literally but the scenario absolutely taking place when every soul/person reaches out in total trust in God during his/her most desperate moments of living. When we finally have surrendered ourselves & realized we on our own are untrustworthy; yet with God are most reliable in anything. The true sense of being born again believes that with God nothing is impossible.  His graces are there simply for the taking, and for the taking abundantly.  We just must take Him on. But if these were your last straw, what is there yet for you to lose, if not to gain the Lord’s graces of ultimate and ever watchful ‘salvation’ event for you.

Part 11: God's Respect for Human Freedom, another Characteristic Element of Faith Grace

The ultimate human means God has let Adam and Eve to keep and to use by sheer nature is the faculty of human freedom. And so for all of us Adam and Eve’s children, it is through our human act of will that we can and have to exercise for the sake of our dear survival and living. When at the end of our rope, let us waken up to using this ultimate faculty to will to turn to God for help. In the process that we are face to face with the ultimate question especially during imminent death, our will be aided by Christ’s grace to want to turn to God. Simultaneously, however, we must cooperate in exercising our will to be ‘saved’/helped out by God. Despite the presence of Christ’s grace if we choose not to will a final assistance of God; then woe to us, it shall spell our damnation, whether while here yet in this world, and in the hereafter.

The Grace of Plentiful Assurances from Faith

For it was Jesus’ promise and assurance that because he has revealed God the Father to the believers, they have come to know the Father, and as the believers persevere in faith, he has committed himself to further reveal the Father and himself to them or to all of us, believers, and followers of Jesus. This continuous revelation of himself to faithful believers consists in the Father and Son’s actually indwelling within the believers. John 17:26, & 1John 2:5 “But whoever keeps his word, truly has the love of God been made perfect in him." Even more specifically, this indwelling of and by God within the faithful believer is confirmed to us by the Lord, as written in 1John 4:16, if we abide in love: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and GOD IN HIM". As we shall uncover later via the lives of the Saints, both the great ones and the little ones, which God willing we shall present individual treatment of in the future, in each one simple believer or follower of Christ, just like in the lives of Mother Mary and St Paul - whom we have so far given treatment on this site -, the access and abundance of graces is unlimited and inexplicable. After all Christ says, he came that we may have life, (the life of grace), and have it abundantly. John 10:10 When we do examine the lives of the great Saints, we shall point out how they were all filled with grace. There is a long list of Saints whose lives or biographies will edify and enlighten us on the living of the life of grace. God willing, we shall also in the future more relevantly examine ordinary lives of the living saints, i.e., the present believers/followers of Christ living in the world, and unfold the many, many graces they are given and being given day-in and day-out, notwithstanding and on account of human weaknesses /limitations.

Part 12: Illustrating the Manifestations of Grace in Simple People: Grace, the Secret behind the Happy Simple Life

But grace is not confined to spectacular and high-profile accomplishments in and by the Church. By virtue of Christ's redemption of the world, i.e., the people of God, the new people of God have received newness in life. We have introduced this theme when we exemplify the newness of the person of Paul after converting his old self to the new self. To recount the idea, we state that this newness, called grace, has made men and women children of God; and they have, thus, become conferred with a certain ' divinity' of God. For as long as these new individuals live up to the virtue and title, they have been newly endowed with in baptism and the sacraments they are made capable of marvelous things and deeds, not just spiritual but even material or worldly things and deeds. Again, the Saints are witnesses to this fact. And we are talking here of Saints as they struggled but persevered to live saint-lily and produced heavenly-like wonders on earth prior to their confirmation as holy individuals after death. We need just listen to pious and humble profession of many an individual devotees in the faith give testimony of the thousand events in life which turn out for some good, including material good, that could only make sense by way of the grace effected working of circumstances, and or conditions in their particular eventful affairs of life: e.g. certain kids sans economic means finishing college, certain house saved from a sure disastrous fire, car accidents that could have turned fatal, basic subsistence that they received from nowhere, a cure that medicine has given up..... We do not generalize on the attribution of credit for the mentioned examples of working of grace. But personal knowledge of concrete experiences borne witness to by our professed Christians would invariably imbue upon the objective listener/interviewer the similar degree of assured and confident witnessing by Christians about the grace marvels they have experienced. We would find the commonality of their pinpointing the very element of grace out of their experience. It consists in their being enabled to benefit of the God-sent blessings via circumstances made to take place or fit or incite without normal human interventions or contraventions depending on whether the blessing was something they had prayed to happen or not to happen. And we are talking here of difficult life situations where the normal attitude is either despair or improbability. In other words, the context of the occurrence of the blessing or blessings is that what took place was evidently inconvenient, untimely, out of place, or simply not probable to happen by rational expectations or non-expectations, yet it took place. But again, we are not talking about unnatural events; we are talking about natural and ordinary events that take place sort of perfectly naturally or perfectly in an ordinary fashion. But perfectly only in the providential sense as semantically speaking we cannot applicably describe any natural and human actions perfectly, no matter the satisfaction they provide us. The reality of nature is that it is imperfect. And, we do not have to line up every moving case of grace and sensationalize each exemplifying of the working of grace. Because grace truly works amid our daily needs where we encounter the alluded to fact of human inadequacy and scarcity. After all, that is exactly what the Lord wants of us: to depend on him for our every need. Jesus tells us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread... We say that prayer as we sincerely acknowledge our imperfections and limitations; and as we faithfully entrust to God our getting by our most urgent needs. We do so while we try the whole time looking at the maximum ways God is already allowing our human nature and efforts provide the leads to our problems. Then when all doors seem blocked, like Julie Andrews says in her famous movie Sound of Music, we look at any window that may be open. And with non-stop praying we can be sure something will break through for us. In other words, we're dealing here with all kinds of materialized favors seemingly un-realizable but unexpectedly being delivered us only by the providence of God, only because of the miraculous working of grace. This is not to reduce God to a machine, like they say inducing God to work 'Deus ex machina'. This means rather faithfully trusting and praying to God non-stop while, sparing no human effort, ever on the look-out where God will come through for us. We do not by any means refer to antinatural or contra natural happenings. We just do not put any limit to God's utilizing of nature and people, including his angels, at working wondrously for his glory and our satisfaction. God may not grant all we ask and want; but God will provide all we need that we ask him. For purposes of example saturation, we need not ask around of such miraculous circumstantial/seemingly unnatural happenings. God providing, enough information about these types of miracles could get into our knowledge not by some scientific survey polls. Rather, we seek out the truly faithful believers of our Christian faith; and we ask them testimony about how they get by through their most difficult moments of living. And from their spontaneous responses we shall uncover lots and lots of moving disclosures of no-ordinary favors and blessings that were/are being poured upon them in so far as they were/are aware that was/is what the Father God does to his adopted children, the people of faith.

After all, Jesus did say not to worry about our needs if we first seek his Kingdom. Lk. 12:31 Besides, when and if we do personally feel like where in bad need of something, Jesus also said: Just ask, or, knock on my door Lk. 11:9 and if we do so in his name, it shall be given us like he assured us. This is not to give the impression that Christian believers are a bunch of unstable, naive, and impressionable individuals. People of the world, who see everything all in secular dimensions, will consider the Christians' experiential faith accounts only co-incidental and purely circumstantial occurrences. But to the believing Christians who can see certain things in the light of faith their experiential accounts of providential blessings or protection are really nothing short of divine miracles within their lived faith.

Part 13: Special Example of Mary

By the way, the supreme example of evangelizing or proclaiming of God to the world is the way of Mary. She proclaims the greatness of God as a most humble maiden. She was ever zealous for the glory of God, never her own, (it is no wonder that we have very scant mention of her throughout the four Gospel writings and in other places in the New Testament, which most possibly accounted for her wanting the absolute focus of the work of salvation legitimately not be detracted away from her Son). With her exemplar humility, she was rewarded with the greatest human glory of becoming a creature deigned as the mother of God. Indeed, being the mother of Jesus, Mary is the greatest bearer of grace.

Part 14: Weakness from Within the Church: An Element Aiding Evil's Battling Against the Good

Furthermore, still in the individual level, particularly within the Catholic Church, its internal problem of growing non-attendance at Masses and Church worships, as reported in the news polls, contributes greatly to a weakened evangelizing to its Church folks. Furthermore, again as an internal weakness within the Church, conflicted understanding, or erroneously perceived thinking about certain issues of the faith by Christians affect their authentic witnessing for the faith in Christ. This would illustrate or concretize the danger category of falling on thin, rocky ground and being scorched and dried up under the sun because they did not have enough roots. For instance, thus, there are nominal Catholics or nominal Christians who try very hard to sound like real Christian crusaders carrying with them their sincerest of intention, effort, and resources; and then come out looking dejected or defeated Christians. Why? Because they insist on propagating a pseudo-Christianity that is only Christian by name, i.e., a so-called Christian belief/ideology which is nothing more than just ideology. Albeit theirs is an optimistic and valiant portraying of human ideology. They project Christianity either as some type of romanticism, classical rationalism, or modern progressivism. All but one form or another of human belief systems. In short, they purvey maybe some type of religion but without faith. Chances are these human zealots often have set aside the core of Christianity namely the revealed words of God, or the revealed Divine Word Himself: Jesus, the God-made-man, and the God-come-down. Somehow influenced by the secularly oriented philosophy or lifestyle of pragmatism, e.g., communicability, or pertinence like being politically correct, some pseudo-Christian evangelizers tend to look first and heavily at the so-called human or anthropological points of departure but barely touch on the Gospel message itself. In their zeal and fear lest they immediately alienate their audience or listeners and followers they always start and dwell on for initial focus, (and many times for sole focus), the religious human, anthropological, or horizontal dimensions and emphases. It is their attempt to interpret and project a Christianity that makes relevance of their starting rationales and themes structurization. In effect they come out with a message of Christianity so obscure it covers all sorts of worldly causes; consequently, the faith and salvific cause is often submerged. Ultimately, what justification could some purportedly Christian religion have if it pro-offers salvation concepts and human change notions, which are nothing more than a dressed up human psychologizing or human glorification. How could such give human life any kind of real hope considering human nature per se is bankrupt of true goodness? Then, there are those extreme proponents, who are possessed with the cynical and negative twist to religion. In their zealous obsession lest they lose or compromise earthly resources or human goods or values Glory or perfection is simply found at the Cliff of life. Human life is all garbage, if not totally abject and pitiful. Living is all a form of mysticism; and all promises of happiness could only begin in the afterlife. Thus, they implicitly teach a complete shunning away of the world, and a clear-cut isolating of themselves from the world. Blessedness and salvation for them consists in radically cutting themselves off from day-to-day situation, and world events. They have given up on the world; and they could only seclude themselves as they only wait for the hereafter. By sheer weirdness, there are even a few from among these types of believers some cult religious movement with their ministers literally and perilously, & blindly leading their followers to the pit of death, as a manner of ritual deliverance, through senseless deaths or suicides, like the cases of Guyana, the Manson, and the Mako tragedies. The above type of evangelism plays up to the extreme and literal, albeit narrowly humanistic characterizing of liberating man. Hence such types of religion inevitably produce self-appointed, self-righteous, ' messianic' or ' charismatic' individuals, who placed themselves atop their organization or movement with the goal of either ' saving this world’ or escaping from this world. These are self-declared or individually proclaimed leaders with demonstrably no-ordinary talents, strength, and even nobility, who are offshoots from different locales or generations. And they are capable of mass followings particularly in countries ripe for social and economic changes, whether in terms of material and cultural prosperity or wide-ranging poverty and insecurity. Thus, again where the countries' socio-economic trends are either good or bad, the movement's leadership plays up to whichever secular atmosphere of either opulence or poverty just so to rid the people of their religious temperament. As they can do so powerfully through the press, or the media the countries' pervading lifestyle generates scenarios of present-day Sodom and Gomorrah. The people get attuned and preoccupied mostly with material or status quo benefits, while the people's spiritual and invisible wants and needs are clouded up. Again, these are manifestations where the working of grace is put aside.

On the contrary, it is a dangerous path when we overly play up the philosophical argument and emphasis on the "intrinsic being" or essence of things when dealing with "natures" of things or matters. The so-called "per-se" approach or substantial treating of subject matter cannot be saturated at all costs. Because in ultimate analysis, God alone is "THE ESSENCE PER SE", the only being which explains His own being in HIM. God alone is the answer to everything; God alone makes things happen for each one of us, even in our day to day living.

The truth is because of the fall of the first human beings of Adam and Eve; and because of the reality of "original sin" all supposed natures of beings have become "flawed", including the so-called human nature. So, when we invoke the natural purpose of some natural acts to validate its being well, we are being blind to the corrupted functioning of certain natural acts.

As matter of theological fact because of "THE FALL”, and therefore of the "FLAWED" human nature and human existence, man had become in need of a "repaired" or renovated human self/human life. And so, by God's eternal providential act of love Jesus transformed anew our humanity brought forth by His redeeming act. It is only through this renovated humanity that man could trust his supposed "human nature" as far as making sense out of our total behaving or our very living.

From the point of view of human and social world activism, every success oriented human Endeavour, by way of example, aims at material prospering or at achieving social distinction; and these are what we would categorize to be the so-called human agenda and accomplishments galore. In concrete, from the same perspective, man likes to dwell, for example, on legitimate human and social fun and pleasures. And apparently if man does not cross beyond the borders of sins, social well-being, (and for as long as man does not do anything intrinsically dishonoring and displeasing to God), such horizontal concerns or objectives are supposedly not bad?

But are these humanly, sociologically, and materially formal demarcating and delineating of what might be a list of feasible dos within God's commandments the realistic and wise approach to living a truly abundant human living?

Part 15: The Creator God ultimately working His Wisdom and Providence before and after the Fall of Man 

On the other hand, as in Genesis, it pleases God when ordinary things fall into their natural places. It was pleasing to God when beings were supposedly made: i.e., that animals were made as animals, plants were made as plants, lands and hills were made according to their type of terrain, springs, rivers, and oceans were made as bodies or pools of H2O, and the sky was made as with its clouds and sun/stars; and pleasing to Him as well when man was made as a man, namely, the only being this side of creation, that was made like the image of God , and of His spirits as a free thinking and wanting being like God and His Angels, indeed. And so particularly during the old order of creation before the fall, it pleases God when we His creatures finish or perform doing each of their regular ends. And notwithstanding the corrupted situation in the universe, even the hardest of atheists among the astronauts and astronomers should be in awe at the myriad complexities of the design of the universe and the manifold constellations so huge, and apparently so vast their totality and unity truly beyond these scientists' imagination to define in time nor confine within space! Indeed, what God had made was "good" like Genesis stated. Yet this same awesome celestial nature could appear and show it monstrously dangerous and devastating. Its weather behavior, if explained at the very least level, unleashes power and magnitude way above humans even just to react to. Are its ocean tides and land erosions and leveling propelled from the very core of the earth? Exactly what causes tornadoes and earthquakes? And how about those "meteorites" that are hurled intra-space crashing upon other bodies and planets of the sky, like the earth? These surely manifest to us as the incomprehensible hand dealt us by the Almighty. Yet analytically incomprehensible as they are along with all other aspects of the universe, they just follow their course according to what their author designed them in the beginning. But with the fall of mankind the order of things changed; (rather, a disorder in the universe took place!) To reiterate this negative phenomenon of nature, inside and outside, man, putting aside the world of the beasts, at least with respect to the human species its main faculty of heart and mind had become tainted and had been flawed! Man's normal orientation of the mind and the will had been disoriented or at least weakened as far as wanting to do well is concerned. And so, from then on human beings had become displeasing to God; or their individual behaving had always run afoul with His commandments. Christ was sent by the Heavenly Father; and he became the Godman who worked the re-converting of "the sinned heart" back to a "divinely reconciled heart". This is where came in the new reality of grace: that special heavenly or Spiritual commodity delivered by Christ to every welcoming human heart effecting the above referred- to phenomenon of deep spiritual change inside man. It is grace by which a converted man, or woman, (a true believer), can act and live as a true human being pleasing to the Creator. Positive or negative happenings take place in accord with the collaboration & working of grace upon natural events, whether internal or external to man. But we cannot wear "rose-colored glasses" and call ugly beautiful; much less call the bad good! Yet we can rely upon the magic and power of grace to let it transform our human acts or life happenings into events ultimately glorifying to God and spiritually beneficial to us! Hence, the submitting of our acts not to our mere human good sense but to the grace of God! Not on account of themselves per se are individual lives to be seen and examined as regards their meaningfulness or real value! 

Anything comes to be good in the eyes of God or comes to be an occurrence of grace if it is an affirmation of what God has deigned in His wisdom and eternity to any person at any circumstance of his/her life no matter how lowly in stature or elevated in standing before the eyes of people. We are to post here all kinds of human realities without excluding those which do not manifest apparent, albeit hide very covertly genuine human meaningfulness and value. E.g., Charlie and Sammy are giant species of teenagers, both very pleasant and hardworking except don't expect from them entertaining conversation. They happen to be mute. Jessie and Paul are a pair of youths who do not tire at playing with and telling each other jokes. But don't expect them to be telling you jokes as you jog around the field. Jessie and Paul cannot walk. Juan and Antoine will beat you to the line; they are always on time. And they will not pass up opportunities for action. They are never without energy and enthusiasm for their kind of athleticism even if they are forced to do it in wheelchairs. Mark and Janie love to sing; they are prepared to pander to any volunteering audience with the endurance of their vocal cords with their own rendition of songs after songs. Just accommodate them air their physically impaired versions of musical sounds.

As regards these physically challenged individuals, their being less functional about many regular human abilities does not make their interpersonal relating with others any less human. And they are not as well any less pleasing to the One Maker of man. Actions, thoughts, and feelings identify them being no different. And when you come down to their sincerity to just live their lives or be let be makes them a little above their normal peers. In fact, ironically and wondrously this is how their striving for normal life is every bit an act of grace. (But God forbid that the so-called 'normal people' of the mainstream world get to corrupt these very vulnerable individuals with these people's worldly ways!)

In a very similar setting, other individuals not necessarily handicapped of abilities found themselves ever chasing their nick of the woods not to mention their dreamed rainbow. These are most people who neither had full control of their circumstances, which very much like the handicapped persons, have been either held up or pushed aside because of geographical, race, cultural, or socio-economic situations. Examples of these are they that did not finish school, those that are confined by geography of water or distant villages, those who get discriminated for color or race, those whose families are broken up because of divorces, family separation, disabilities, or deaths in the families, those whose lives have been disrupted by calamities, accidents, or family setbacks, those unsettled by underemployment or unemployment, or the majority of dwellers whose social environment and real estate residential classification happen to be below the affluently advantaged residential communities who are easy beneficiaries of much more advantaged accessibility to services of modern living. Easily imaginable are dramatizations of the effects of these disadvantages to these instances of social inequities. But despite the cliché life is not fair, to these demographic communities of people life moves on notwithstanding the hold-up or their getting pushed aside. How? It must be by the grace of God! It’s a miracle by grace how these people roll through their bumps! On the other hand, it’s a disgrace and apathetic when portions of these communities only seem to slide further down to the destruction of their lives: the fate of a lifestyle of drugs, the predicaments of entanglements into violence even suicide and homicide, or unfortunate convictions and incarceration. And for some of these individuals despite their "very good fortune" of wealth or position in society! Couldn't it be anything less than abandonment of grace? Yet still it is through grace that they could salvage any residue of dignified living and not lose the bottom-line life of peace inside.

In the final analysis, it matters not if at such defining moments of life, we find our living a success or a failure! The rich and the beautiful could be found to be facetiously content because of the momentary ease of their lives. The people of leadership and influence could demonstrate the emotions of the security of the present but wonder about the future. Those in maze of entangled lives and situations experience being perplexed about how to disentangle them from the complex web they have trapped themselves into. In the end, whether exhilarated by temporary wealth and honors of this world, or despondent over onerous burdens of tragedy and disgrace of their situational life stage is neither the climax nor the end of things. Amazing grace is not bound except in death. For as long as both the heart and mind hang on to the true inner prompting of the Spirit these human scenarios could travel opposite way. The so-called blessed could drown in excessive fun and leisure they could not find a space inside them for the Giver of blessings. Whereas the so-called unfortunates of this world could for the last time turn to the right judge and advocate of their desperate conditions and be graced with the stipulated inner peace of the Spirit. In effect both positives and negatives in human lives can equally be positive. In contrast, what is seemingly most positive can be a very negative. But only by the grace of God!

Part 16: Very Noteworthy Examples of the Working of Grace

A few other examples of these supposedly no-ordinary results of the grace of God: Peter walking on water even just for a little bit... while he was only with little faith. Peter healing the lame. Acts 3:1-10 Steven seeing events of heaven. Acts 7:35-60 John Bosco being saved from thugs by angels appearing like dogs. Francis being listened to by animals. (And if we may use actual present-day events, the EWTN global TV network started on $200. by a simple nun. And along with western politicians, our John Paul II, as one of these influential agents in international events that led to the defeat of the Soviet Communist Bloc.), the already mentioned more than 50% political influence in the recent American political election of the Christian believing voters within the Christian movement.  In coordination with the former, there are, furthermore, these dynamic TV ministries over the airwaves almost by demand of Christian evangelists. To continue the examples of the working of grace, a prime proof is the surviving institution of the Catholic Church, nourishing and ministering to the believers and non-believers alike as regards both their spiritual and material care and provisions. And there are many more we could cite to amplify how dynamic and alive the grace of God is among his faithful believers short of complete manifest glorification of God.

Further Manifestation of the Working of Grace

All the above are transpiring and materializing because of the grace of Christ in the Spirit. Even if they manifest the power of grace successfully working amid the world and worldliness in a manner incognito, hidden, quite invisible, or unseen. This is so to manifest in them the very working of faith through the Spirit and through Christ. Thus, we repeat, Christians have the mind-set that tasks and even plain need will many times be beyond them but never beyond God's providence. That is why for Christians Jesus offered himself as the 'yoke-full panacea' and more for everything. To recap St Paul's words one more time, when we're truly weak we are always made strong in Jesus Christ through the Spirit. So did/do testify the Saints. We should and could always begin to state with total conviction and excitement that since the Coming of the Savior Jesus Christ and because of his coming there have been un-encompassing and incomprehensible explosions of his graces by the Spirit. The scope of these marvels from the standpoint of Christ will only be fully made known during his Second Coming at the Day of Judgment. But the manifestations and perceptions of the present glorious working of grace could already confound us through bits and pieces, as well as through great outpouring on occasions while grace works the lives of the saints on earth of the past and of the present. Even now we could focus on how manifold graces have been fulfilling and revitalizing saintly members currently populating and living the Church on earth on their day-to-day holy living.

Part 17: Baptism, the Requisite to the Receiving of Grace: Man's Head-Start in the Life of Grace, (Specifically the Fundamental Necessity of Baptism in the Spirit)

Relate the disposition to the "fundamental option" of living the "new life"! Will the above approach lead and work out for us an assured path towards living of the new life? Let us be advised here of the Lord's warning, "Unless you are born again of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter Heaven!" I.e., unless we are changed for God and unto God, we are without the ticket to God’s heaven. For we are not to forget that unless our old human life is changed into the new humanity of Jesus, our human living will not mean much, and will not attain for us our true human fulfillment and happiness. Sadly, thus, our living will just be a type of living that is stuck to their mere mundane characteristics, and without any chance of permanence and authenticity, which the Lord has promised to those who convert their natural life to the life of Divine grace. For without the gift of grace all the supposed deeds of honesty, honorableness, and heroism carry nothing more than very ephemeral values. Once the physical body dies, such men's deeds of honesty, honor, and heroism are only as good as the people's memories of one or a few generations, which is unlike the divine reward of grace that is eternal.

It affords us to hear the Spirit's blessing our measuring up to the Lord's Beatitude. "Blessed are you who are poor", the Lord would say, "... in your heart you already possess the Kingdom of God!" This is a paraphrasing of the first Beatitude, and, as matter of fact, of all the eight beatitudes. In other words, those whose degree of faith and discipleship for God has reached the level of the Beatitudes and who have more than a head-start in the road to sacrificial purification and sanctification are well along the way of perfection this side of Heaven. They are most likely already experiencing many moments of Heaven-like bliss of peace and unity with the Divine. In contrast, those who are way so attached to their riches have their wealth blocking any speedy growing and developing in the Divine life of grace, which is the earthly prelude to Heaven. It was no wonder the Lord described the entering to Heaven by the rich so constricted as to be equivalent to a camel's predicament of passing through the needle's eye. It is impossible; but, by the power of God, if the heart has decided to turn to God in all honesty nothing is impossible to God, even for the rich!

Now on this Chapter re: living the Life of Grace, we are to unmistakably characterize what exact sort of acts or behaving, or spiritual lifestyle mark the living of the life of grace.

Whenever we act not primarily for and according to just our human nature but act primarily in a manner that is more than just according to the natural, i.e. when we act according to what is virtuous or what is clearly according to the will of God, then our acts or behaving are a living by grace. Ultimately, our guide to understanding what is living by grace is based on the following reality: By nature because of original sin or flawed humanity man has lost the capacity to pursue and realize on his own the pure good, the unselfish good. Saint Paul referred to the scriptures' statement that"... no man is found just..." We paraphrase the above by saying that man can do nothing that is of any good except by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing!" But He also adds that "For those who believe nothing is impossible!" Saint Paul also said it is precisely when we are weak that we are strong in Jesus Christ. He said Christ's grace is sufficient for us to overcome our weakness. Thus, when we are faced with challenges where we find our actions or attempts to achieve the good thing seemingly blocked or impossible that is when we shall find the magic of Christ's grace to break us through our divinely blessed goals or objectives. It is only truthful to accept the fact that all human actions by anybody and from anybody are bound to be shaped and colored by selfish human motivations. It would be hypocrisy and sheer sanctimoniousness to claim otherwise. Man, just cannot truly do any good. For this reason, all attempts of absolute individual conquest or social/world liberation in so far as the application of the solution is nothing more than human solutions have no guaranty of success. No man but Jesus alone is good. No man but only Jesus is capable of setting things right in the world and in all of creations. That is why we say faith alone and no works can save us. It is only through our faith in Christ that we can do anything of good. Our mere human works are nothing. But our pursuing and doing the good in the name of and by the name of Jesus can achieve the good. This is the reality of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

And so, we are back to Christ’s paschal mystery of himself and for us, which he pronounced in defining what it takes to be baptized in faith, namely: unless we are born again in water and in the Spirit, we cannot have life, i.e. the life of grace. We must remember his many analogies pertaining to this reality of baptism, as when he said, unless the seed is buried it will not bring forth life; or if the seed does not die it will not multiply its fruits. To reiterate what we state above, this is that universal moment of individual human despair and helplessness. Why someone’s young spouse died, particularly if the only provider of the family? Why does a most promising student, especially who is entrusted to rescue the family from their long-suffered generations of poverty, also pass away so prematurely? We could cite those numerous accounts of problems of human living, or human suffering discussed in Chapter 11. Add to these the more tragic and reprehensible acts of violence and injustice to helpless children or victims, like those lately current news events: children thrown mercilessly or casually over the bridge or on the freeway. Then let us face up to the very common incidents of our day: the daily victims of rampant terrorism in many corners of the world. At the very least, the Spirit prompts us with inspirational thoughts by which to relate to the events by which somehow to make some sense out of some tragedies and calamities. Essentially, however, this is a big part of the nature of our life in this world. On the one hand, we are to wise up to the tentativeness of life circumstances, including the pains and anguish they consequently engender, and to the finality of human frailty & imperfections. In theological terms, the receiving of this kind of wisdom about or into life is per the conversion of our fleshly/materialistic/physical/earthly perceptions and understanding into ones controlled and governed by the spirit. In other words, the type of knowing and understanding that can only is given to us by Christ through faith in him. In other words, this consists in the use of reason as enlightened by faith. Persistence, thus, in the mere application of reason is bound to be both a futilely unending quest and erroneous intellectual pursuit.

Baptism's Fundamental Necessity to the Initiation in the Life of Grace

And so, we reiterate the following supplementary requirement of believing as a member of the Church. For our last consideration in this discussion, there is a sine-qua non condition to the enjoyment of these graces. We must be practical believers/followers of Christ. Whereas I have stated all of mankind is beneficiary of the blessings of God; not all are recipients of the life of grace. Yet all can be endowed with actual blessings or 'actual grace'. What this means is like the Scriptures say, rain or shine, heavenly blessings pour upon all earth, upon all men. However, those that received of the heavenly blessings and are living in the spirit of God besides being blessed materially or outwardly are much more importantly internally recipients of the same blessings. Hence, ' actual graces' are not the same as 'sanctifying grace' or the life of grace. Unlike the former, the latter type of grace precisely provides that supernatural life which God shares with people who have become adopted children of God through salvation in Christ. These are the believers/followers of Christ who have become beneficiaries of the secret gift of the new life? And they have begun becoming beneficiaries because first they have been baptized believers in Christ. Hence, there is the condition that people must first profess: receiving baptism in faith and allegiance to Christ. for grace is initiated in baptism; then further is channeled through fuller sacramental or mystical-physical union with Christ in Spirit through the Church sacraments, sacramental’s, and spirited acts of charity or works of mercy. When it is so very hard to see the effects of grace upon certain individual lives; chances are they have not initially or completely professed allegiance to Christ within his Church. It is written; by their fruits you shall know them. Matthew 7:16, 7:20. That is why we say before that no free-lancer individual, no matter how earnest he/she might be could by himself/herself avail himself/herself of salvation, or of the graces we have been referring to. He is required to enter into salvation through the Church's administering upon him baptism in Christ.

What in essence does baptism do?

In baptism is enacted the ritual acknowledging embrace of Christ, and his teachings; and the consequent renunciation of everything opposed to Christ and his teachings, namely sins, worldliness, and the devil. Also during baptism, the person getting baptized is changed by the Spirit through the instrumentality of the Priest into a new human person. He, then, becomes cleansed of sins, both personal sins and the original sin. Then after the process he/she receives an indelible mark of baptism, which is characteristically a supernatural quality of the new soul's life. And consequently, the individual receives a divine life, which grants him/her the status of becoming a child of God. All the above constitute the new Christian’s life, namely the life of grace. Its other name, which we have already referred to above, is sanctifying grace. Moreover, when John the Baptist performed baptism, in whose name the word baptism was associated with, he required of his listeners REPENTANCE of their sins before they could welcome the coming Savior. Thus, likewise all true new believers/followers of Christ are REQUIRED the REPENTANCE of sins before being enabled via baptism to profess their faith in God. Once baptized, and fully initiated into the Church, which includes the mindset and the constant will towards acts of charity, a born-again-Christian is wont to live the authentic Christian lifestyle. Such transformed lifestyle is marked and characterized necessarily by becoming loving persons to all people uniquely given them to live with and to minister to. In the process these new believers/followers gain access to the treasures of grace within the Church. But to claim for the marvels of grace and yet profess all liberties and license towards the allurements and privileges of the world is both sacrilegious and a spiritually jeopardy. Their regressive behaving thus, such men and women make a lie of Christ's death and resurrection. Besides, people under the state of grave sinfulness are sacra mentally blocked the efficacy of grace. They, who wittingly live the life of sinfulness, cannot have Godly righteousness within them; and without righteousness they cannot have the indwelling of the Spirit. Without the Spirit, they are without grace that can only come from the Spirit. But with the fullness of grace within their lives, within them dwell not only the Spirit but the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For filled with grace, they have the perfection of righteousness, which is love; and the Scriptures say when love dwells in us, God dwells in us: Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Consequently, under such perfected circumstances we believe to witness overflowing graces in their lives.

Part 18: A Recapitulation on the Working of Grace within the Church

And so, let us go back to the real complete positive and authentic picture of the reality of grace in the life of the Church as a whole, and in the light of the story of salvation by Christ. Christ has given us the Kingdom of God. With his Incarnation and work of Redemption, truly it has come to being what he said that the Kingdom of God is at hand, is here. And by the agency of the Holy Spirit, it has begun, and has flourished, and is continually flourishing since Christ sent down the Holy Spirit after his return to heaven. And so, we have the alive, vibrant, and dynamic unity of the Saints in heaven, saint-lies in Purgatory, and the faithful on earth ever gloriously fulfilling, though invisibly, the will of God on earth as it is being fulfilled in the heavens. The Spirit, per the instrumentality of the Pope -- the Vicar of Christ, the clergy, and all faith practicing baptized inhabitants of the earth, moves the Church forward unto the final time of Church ultimate fruition upon Christ's return. Upon that time the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit shall finally gather all the elects from the earth, from Purgatory, and from the already blessed in heaven into God's one family, and Kingdom of happy faithful ones of God. That will be the promised time to permanently see and enjoy face-to-face the vision and presence of God in real absolute heavenly joy and glory. By that time all Church works and activities of teaching, service, and sacrificing will have been accomplished. All that will matter, then, will be God's final epiphany of his total wonder and glory featuring all the faithful inhabitants of the heaven in perpetual jubilation and celebration. This will be what shall be after the final working of grace has saved all who have been called, and who have been faithful to the Father's call for holiness. And so, whereas the Kingdom is here, and whereas the power of grace upon believers has no bounds, the God-timed fullest edification and fulfillment of the Body of Christ, the Church united saints and angels communing with God as set up through lived grace in time and places, must wait for that eternal crowning glory of absolute embrace by God. That is why until then mankind cannot be rid of poverty, sickness, deaths, hatred & enmities, lies & frauds, and murders and killings. Until judgment time, mankind continues to put up and bear with life crosses. Until judgment time sadness and hurting continue to encumber upon each man. The glory via the Cross of suffering remains inescapably that narrow road but ephemeral and shortly end bound journey path truly lies ahead.  But with Christ's promise of His easy yoke and lightened burden upon each cross-bearing follower within Christ's victorious redemption mission, mankind does not have to deal with all these life's vicissitudes, misfortunes, ordeals, and even tragedies on its own anymore. For it is here precisely by grace that individuals could victoriously soften up, off-set, and turn around human situations against sin and evil. Again, thus, while awaiting with 'great expectations' for that awaited time of unveiled glory, man's here and now can be capitalized to become yet God's moments of the Holy Spirit, showering and flooding all the earth and all generations with Christ's merited graces of salvation.

And so as was predicted, even as Christ's TRUTH that His light as ultimately embraced by the people of God shall overcome darkness, yet the people will listen to lies and deceptions; and will continue to allow pleasure, convenience, and power to envelope them under the darkness of sinfulness, and in utter blindness to the Light of Christ. Meanwhile, the Church will continue Christ's mission and work of salvation through the Holy Spirit. It will continue to spread the baptismal commission to ever reach the corners of the earth to make Disciples of Christ by the teaching of his truth, his way, and his life in baptism into Christ.

As was predicted, even as Christ's life of grace and of loving service of neighbors shall be made manifest through the Church, people long accustomed to power, and the attraction of violence will hang on lording it over the helpless and defenseless; and continue to scoff at Christ's message of love and service as Christian idiocy. Nonetheless there will ever be the sacramental charismatic and unctuous blossoming of Christ's in-numerable followers-branches, offshoots from himself: the vine, nourishing and serving all the members of Christ. In other words, there will ever be the manifold calling for, and answering by multitudes of laborers of Christ's vineyard leading the way of the Church in the work of serving its people, especially the poor and the weak.

As was predicted, even as Christ's WAY about total self-denying sacrificing by believers even to the point of a martyrdom surrendering of their lives to the predators enemies of the faith, but which lost but offered up lives on St. Peter's door shall to be the sweetest aroma smelling sacrifices to the highest heavens; yet numerous, supposedly smart people of the world, will denounce what they consider the Christian plague of voluntary embrace of weakness; and will trumpet and parody to the world their seeming strengths and opulence even as they cover up individual sicknesses and character flaws. But there will continue the blossoming of Eucharistic sacrificial embracing of life's suffering by more and more of the Church followers of Christ on behalf of the weak and needy souls, and as a manifestation of the infinite overflowing of Christ's ocean of mercy which wills to include all sorts of prisoners in the world that want to be saved. These precisely as marks of their glorious unity with the crucified but risen Christ, and as marks of Christ's powerful victory over sins and the demonic agents of evil and of the world. Specifically, this is a testimony that grace empowers true Christian believers, grace makes them unperturbed and in peace when speaking and standing up for honesty, facts, and Godly principles even if they find themselves alone or unpopular. Grace makes them, although un-welcomed, rendering service especially during moments of the neighbors' great need. Grace makes them unafraid regular people in the face of oppositions, persecutions, and outright literal hurting or dying when inopportunely and tragically made sacrificial victims by misled and violent elements, both by men and by nature. Prior to the final fulfillment in the End-time, the Kingdom of God on earth already bears witness to the glory of God, and the glory of Christ's salvation of mankind. And we could name quite a few later to illustrate this point. We have tried to illustrate above our understanding of grace in the light of the person and life of St Paul.

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