And by Dying...

... and by dying! 

By dying, or by 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 fulfilment 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 where as promised they see God in everything around them, not metaphorically but really 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-tonques" (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 informations 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 actually 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 terrestial 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, ie. (degree of holiness). After the apostles received the Holy Spirit, they all spoke-in-tonques, and henceforth while preaching were healing many sick individuals, and performing miracles. Like it has been given to the Saints such privilege of performing miracle once they have been really united with God. This is the ultimate criterion by which the 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 was 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!

.... yet either we we embrace dying, or refuse our dying!

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 the so-called human nature. So when we invoke the natural purpose of some natural acts to validate its being good, 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.

But are these humanly, sociologically, and materially formal demarcating and delineating of what might be a list of feasible do's 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 can not 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 fulfilment and happiness. Our living will just be a living stucked 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, heroisms 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. Unlike the divine reward of grace which is eternal.

It 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!" 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 headstart 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 Heavenlike 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. Almost impossible; (although 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!)

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, ie. 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 unsefish good. Saint Paul made reference 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 can not 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.

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 makes reference 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 cost. 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 empower 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 can not 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, eg. 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.

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: ie, 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 man made 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 notwitstnding the corrupted state of affairs in the universe, even the hardest of atheists among the astronauts and astronomists 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' immagination to define in time nor confine within space! Indeed what God had made was "good" like Genesis stated. Yet these same awesome celestial nature could appear and actually show itself monstrously dangerous and devastating. Its weather behaviour, 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 levellings 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 good 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 God-man 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 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 can not 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 particular 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. Eg. 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 can not walk. Juan and Antone 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 evenif 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 accomodate them air their physically impaired versions of musical sounds. 

As regards these physically challenged individuals their being less functional about many regular human abilities do 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 not mention 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 accessibilities to services of modern living. Easily imaginable are dramatizations of the effects of these disadvantages to these instances of social inequities. But despite the cliche life is not fair, to these demographic communities of people life moves on notwitstanding the hold-up or their getting pushed aside. How? It has to be by the grace of God! Its a miracle by grace how these people roll through their bumps! On the other hand, its 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 themselves 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 not 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 scenarious could travel either 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!