#loveofgod — Public Fediverse posts

He Looked Like Glory

My professor walked through the door to teach his doctrines class just as my classmates and I were deciding whether to keep waiting for him to show up. He apologized for his tardiness and explained that he had been sitting in his office when he was hit with the love of God. I can still see the streaks of tears running down his cheeks.

He looked like glory.

Whatever we were actually supposed to learn that day was canceled. He couldn’t help but spend the next hour proclaiming the love of God. It was the single most powerful and memorable class I ever experienced in college.

I sat at the feet of Jesus that day—Jesus at work in him, reaching through his skin, out to me. What he had, I wanted. What he knew, I had to know. Whatever it was he was experiencing, it was everything.

It is this love that any doctrine worth studying revolves around. It is this love that the whole of Christianity is built to aim for. It is this love that all of existence is designed to operate in.

We settle for so many cheap imitations in search of this love. I pray we all, like Ken Brewer, find the real thing.

God is love, we live in Him. ❤️

#biblians #bibliansapp #verseoftheday #1john4 #loveofgod #abideinChrist #godislove #christianfaith #hopeinjesus

God is love, we live in Him. ❤️

#biblians #bibliansapp #verseoftheday #1john4 #loveofgod #abideinChrist #godislove #christianfaith #hopeinjesus

Main Reason Leaders Turn Others Away From God!

by Mike Edwards

One reason I had to quit calling myself a Christian was when it became associated with being anti-gay, etc. It is hard for many to hear anything positive about God when leaders imply that God and the Bible condemn gays. Leaders fail to admit their interpretation could be wrong, yet they destroy many individuals and families presuming they are right about God’s heart. Leaders must stop implying or presuming God condemns gays for being gay. It is clear leaders’ lack of support. You don’t have to say explicitly what one is implying with their words. Just ask where they stand with God and gays. I am convinced for many it would be a negative stance or “I love you but….”

Leaders should know better

It is seldom admitted literature requires interpretation or one’s interpretation could be wrong, thus one’s understanding of God could be wrong. Even if you believe your Holy Book is inspired by your God, our interpretations are not inspired. Besides, it is rarely admitted that it cannot be proved one’s sacred book is inspired by their God. We cannot prove God inspired every word in the Bible (God controlling what writers/editors thought and recorded). If we did not assume literature is inspired, but rather the writers wrote what they believed was true of their God, we could avoid extremism. If we didn’t assume biblical writers always understood God correctly, this leads to more open discussions what God is really like. See link: Shouldn’t we assume the Bible isn’t inspired by God – all rants against the Bible

God loves gays

Nothing may be more destructive to God’s reputation than when Christian leaders explicitly or implicitly condemn gays in God’s name. Gays no more choose who they are attracted to than straights can? Many gays will tell you they have always been attracted to the same sex. If you are a straight man, don’t you naturally have to fight not looking at naked women than men? Ask gays their battle! Who chooses to be gay when one has to hide their sexuality because of bigotry and hostility See: God Loves Gays

There is real debate if the Bible condemns  gay relationships

See here.

I love you but …..

 It is impossible to not feel personally attacked when one utters “I love you but I hate your sin.” Especially if being gay isn’t a sin. 

Many, because of their understanding of the Bible, will respond with some version of “I love you; I hate your sin.” This is not a phrase found in the Bible. One is hard pressed to find anywhere in the Bible where this is a recommended strategy in relationships whether the Bible clearly condemns a behavior or not. It is impossible to not feel personally attacked when one utters “I love you but I hate your sin.” What is heard is I or God don’t love you.

But some actions are really harmful

It can be argued that hating alcoholic behavior is loving because alcohol abuse is harmful. Hating homosexual sex is only loving if homosexual sex is sinful. But do we tell a drug abuser that we love them but hate their behaviors? You don’t tell anyone coming for help with their addiction that you love them but hate their behavior. You simply say I love you and let’s do this together. They probably already hate their own behaviors. When someone is overweight, which is a lot of us, should we say “I love you but I hate you are fat?”

Please don’t reject a gay child in God’s name!

Some parents condemn their child because the Bible supposedly does. Not all agree. See here.  When there are any doubts what the Bible might be advising, God-followers must take the most compassionate, less judgmental stance toward others. Many parents know in their hearts to not judge their child but they are torn when hearing others claim the Bible condemns homosexuality.

Please stop!

Even if you think God and the Bible condemns gays, please don’t imply or speak for Christians and claim God condemns gays. Leaders seldom state directly God condemns or gayness is a sin but it is implied. Come out and say you don’t know even if you believe being gay is a sin, unless afraid of losing your position or donations. Hopefully, you do that for women’s roles. Surely, you admit there is debate concerning if women can be priests or pastors. This is another topic that breaks my heart when leaders presume their interpretation is inspire to deter women from pursuing their gifts or subjecting a wife under a husband’s authority which often can lead to domestic violence.

Mike Edwards was added as a writer and has been a great addition to the Done with Religion site. Mike provides many interesting views and various ways of looking at things. He is not afraid to ask questions and he keeps an open mind as to teachings of the institutional church. Mike also has his own site where he writes at What God May Really Be Like

Rate this:

Main Reason Leaders Turn Others Away From God!

by Mike Edwards

One reason I had to quit calling myself a Christian was when it became associated with being anti-gay, etc. It is hard for many to hear anything positive about God when leaders imply that God and the Bible condemn gays. Leaders fail to admit their interpretation could be wrong, yet they destroy many individuals and families presuming they are right about God’s heart. Leaders must stop implying or presuming God condemns gays for being gay. It is clear leaders’ lack of support. You don’t have to say explicitly what one is implying with their words. Just ask where they stand with God and gays. I am convinced for many it would be a negative stance or “I love you but….”

Leaders should know better

It is seldom admitted literature requires interpretation or one’s interpretation could be wrong, thus one’s understanding of God could be wrong. Even if you believe your Holy Book is inspired by your God, our interpretations are not inspired. Besides, it is rarely admitted that it cannot be proved one’s sacred book is inspired by their God. We cannot prove God inspired every word in the Bible (God controlling what writers/editors thought and recorded). If we did not assume literature is inspired, but rather the writers wrote what they believed was true of their God, we could avoid extremism. If we didn’t assume biblical writers always understood God correctly, this leads to more open discussions what God is really like. See link: Shouldn’t we assume the Bible isn’t inspired by God – all rants against the Bible

God loves gays

Nothing may be more destructive to God’s reputation than when Christian leaders explicitly or implicitly condemn gays in God’s name. Gays no more choose who they are attracted to than straights can? Many gays will tell you they have always been attracted to the same sex. If you are a straight man, don’t you naturally have to fight not looking at naked women than men? Ask gays their battle! Who chooses to be gay when one has to hide their sexuality because of bigotry and hostility See: God Loves Gays

There is real debate if the Bible condemns  gay relationships

See here.

I love you but …..

 It is impossible to not feel personally attacked when one utters “I love you but I hate your sin.” Especially if being gay isn’t a sin. 

Many, because of their understanding of the Bible, will respond with some version of “I love you; I hate your sin.” This is not a phrase found in the Bible. One is hard pressed to find anywhere in the Bible where this is a recommended strategy in relationships whether the Bible clearly condemns a behavior or not. It is impossible to not feel personally attacked when one utters “I love you but I hate your sin.” What is heard is I or God don’t love you.

But some actions are really harmful

It can be argued that hating alcoholic behavior is loving because alcohol abuse is harmful. Hating homosexual sex is only loving if homosexual sex is sinful. But do we tell a drug abuser that we love them but hate their behaviors? You don’t tell anyone coming for help with their addiction that you love them but hate their behavior. You simply say I love you and let’s do this together. They probably already hate their own behaviors. When someone is overweight, which is a lot of us, should we say “I love you but I hate you are fat?”

Please don’t reject a gay child in God’s name!

Some parents condemn their child because the Bible supposedly does. Not all agree. See here.  When there are any doubts what the Bible might be advising, God-followers must take the most compassionate, less judgmental stance toward others. Many parents know in their hearts to not judge their child but they are torn when hearing others claim the Bible condemns homosexuality.

Please stop!

Even if you think God and the Bible condemns gays, please don’t imply or speak for Christians and claim God condemns gays. Leaders seldom state directly God condemns or gayness is a sin but it is implied. Come out and say you don’t know even if you believe being gay is a sin, unless afraid of losing your position or donations. Hopefully, you do that for women’s roles. Surely, you admit there is debate concerning if women can be priests or pastors. This is another topic that breaks my heart when leaders presume their interpretation is inspire to deter women from pursuing their gifts or subjecting a wife under a husband’s authority which often can lead to domestic violence.

Mike Edwards was added as a writer and has been a great addition to the Done with Religion site. Mike provides many interesting views and various ways of looking at things. He is not afraid to ask questions and he keeps an open mind as to teachings of the institutional church. Mike also has his own site where he writes at What God May Really Be Like

Rate this:

Main Reason Leaders Turn Others Away From God!

by Mike Edwards

One reason I had to quit calling myself a Christian was when it became associated with being anti-gay, etc. It is hard for many to hear anything positive about God when leaders imply that God and the Bible condemn gays. Leaders fail to admit their interpretation could be wrong, yet they destroy many individuals and families presuming they are right about God’s heart. Leaders must stop implying or presuming God condemns gays for being gay. It is clear leaders’ lack of support. You don’t have to say explicitly what one is implying with their words. Just ask where they stand with God and gays. I am convinced for many it would be a negative stance or “I love you but….”

Leaders should know better

It is seldom admitted literature requires interpretation or one’s interpretation could be wrong, thus one’s understanding of God could be wrong. Even if you believe your Holy Book is inspired by your God, our interpretations are not inspired. Besides, it is rarely admitted that it cannot be proved one’s sacred book is inspired by their God. We cannot prove God inspired every word in the Bible (God controlling what writers/editors thought and recorded). If we did not assume literature is inspired, but rather the writers wrote what they believed was true of their God, we could avoid extremism. If we didn’t assume biblical writers always understood God correctly, this leads to more open discussions what God is really like. See link: Shouldn’t we assume the Bible isn’t inspired by God – all rants against the Bible

God loves gays

Nothing may be more destructive to God’s reputation than when Christian leaders explicitly or implicitly condemn gays in God’s name. Gays no more choose who they are attracted to than straights can? Many gays will tell you they have always been attracted to the same sex. If you are a straight man, don’t you naturally have to fight not looking at naked women than men? Ask gays their battle! Who chooses to be gay when one has to hide their sexuality because of bigotry and hostility See: God Loves Gays

There is real debate if the Bible condemns  gay relationships

See here.

I love you but …..

 It is impossible to not feel personally attacked when one utters “I love you but I hate your sin.” Especially if being gay isn’t a sin. 

Many, because of their understanding of the Bible, will respond with some version of “I love you; I hate your sin.” This is not a phrase found in the Bible. One is hard pressed to find anywhere in the Bible where this is a recommended strategy in relationships whether the Bible clearly condemns a behavior or not. It is impossible to not feel personally attacked when one utters “I love you but I hate your sin.” What is heard is I or God don’t love you.

But some actions are really harmful

It can be argued that hating alcoholic behavior is loving because alcohol abuse is harmful. Hating homosexual sex is only loving if homosexual sex is sinful. But do we tell a drug abuser that we love them but hate their behaviors? You don’t tell anyone coming for help with their addiction that you love them but hate their behavior. You simply say I love you and let’s do this together. They probably already hate their own behaviors. When someone is overweight, which is a lot of us, should we say “I love you but I hate you are fat?”

Please don’t reject a gay child in God’s name!

Some parents condemn their child because the Bible supposedly does. Not all agree. See here.  When there are any doubts what the Bible might be advising, God-followers must take the most compassionate, less judgmental stance toward others. Many parents know in their hearts to not judge their child but they are torn when hearing others claim the Bible condemns homosexuality.

Please stop!

Even if you think God and the Bible condemns gays, please don’t imply or speak for Christians and claim God condemns gays. Leaders seldom state directly God condemns or gayness is a sin but it is implied. Come out and say you don’t know even if you believe being gay is a sin, unless afraid of losing your position or donations. Hopefully, you do that for women’s roles. Surely, you admit there is debate concerning if women can be priests or pastors. This is another topic that breaks my heart when leaders presume their interpretation is inspire to deter women from pursuing their gifts or subjecting a wife under a husband’s authority which often can lead to domestic violence.

Mike Edwards was added as a writer and has been a great addition to the Done with Religion site. Mike provides many interesting views and various ways of looking at things. He is not afraid to ask questions and he keeps an open mind as to teachings of the institutional church. Mike also has his own site where he writes at What God May Really Be Like

Rate this:

Main Reason Leaders Turn Others Away From God!

by Mike Edwards

One reason I had to quit calling myself a Christian was when it became associated with being anti-gay, etc. It is hard for many to hear anything positive about God when leaders imply that God and the Bible condemn gays. Leaders fail to admit their interpretation could be wrong, yet they destroy many individuals and families presuming they are right about God’s heart. Leaders must stop implying or presuming God condemns gays for being gay. It is clear leaders’ lack of support. You don’t have to say explicitly what one is implying with their words. Just ask where they stand with God and gays. I am convinced for many it would be a negative stance or “I love you but….”

Leaders should know better

It is seldom admitted literature requires interpretation or one’s interpretation could be wrong, thus one’s understanding of God could be wrong. Even if you believe your Holy Book is inspired by your God, our interpretations are not inspired. Besides, it is rarely admitted that it cannot be proved one’s sacred book is inspired by their God. We cannot prove God inspired every word in the Bible (God controlling what writers/editors thought and recorded). If we did not assume literature is inspired, but rather the writers wrote what they believed was true of their God, we could avoid extremism. If we didn’t assume biblical writers always understood God correctly, this leads to more open discussions what God is really like. See link: Shouldn’t we assume the Bible isn’t inspired by God – all rants against the Bible

God loves gays

Nothing may be more destructive to God’s reputation than when Christian leaders explicitly or implicitly condemn gays in God’s name. Gays no more choose who they are attracted to than straights can? Many gays will tell you they have always been attracted to the same sex. If you are a straight man, don’t you naturally have to fight not looking at naked women than men? Ask gays their battle! Who chooses to be gay when one has to hide their sexuality because of bigotry and hostility See: God Loves Gays

There is real debate if the Bible condemns  gay relationships

See here.

I love you but …..

 It is impossible to not feel personally attacked when one utters “I love you but I hate your sin.” Especially if being gay isn’t a sin. 

Many, because of their understanding of the Bible, will respond with some version of “I love you; I hate your sin.” This is not a phrase found in the Bible. One is hard pressed to find anywhere in the Bible where this is a recommended strategy in relationships whether the Bible clearly condemns a behavior or not. It is impossible to not feel personally attacked when one utters “I love you but I hate your sin.” What is heard is I or God don’t love you.

But some actions are really harmful

It can be argued that hating alcoholic behavior is loving because alcohol abuse is harmful. Hating homosexual sex is only loving if homosexual sex is sinful. But do we tell a drug abuser that we love them but hate their behaviors? You don’t tell anyone coming for help with their addiction that you love them but hate their behavior. You simply say I love you and let’s do this together. They probably already hate their own behaviors. When someone is overweight, which is a lot of us, should we say “I love you but I hate you are fat?”

Please don’t reject a gay child in God’s name!

Some parents condemn their child because the Bible supposedly does. Not all agree. See here.  When there are any doubts what the Bible might be advising, God-followers must take the most compassionate, less judgmental stance toward others. Many parents know in their hearts to not judge their child but they are torn when hearing others claim the Bible condemns homosexuality.

Please stop!

Even if you think God and the Bible condemns gays, please don’t imply or speak for Christians and claim God condemns gays. Leaders seldom state directly God condemns or gayness is a sin but it is implied. Come out and say you don’t know even if you believe being gay is a sin, unless afraid of losing your position or donations. Hopefully, you do that for women’s roles. Surely, you admit there is debate concerning if women can be priests or pastors. This is another topic that breaks my heart when leaders presume their interpretation is inspire to deter women from pursuing their gifts or subjecting a wife under a husband’s authority which often can lead to domestic violence.

Mike Edwards was added as a writer and has been a great addition to the Done with Religion site. Mike provides many interesting views and various ways of looking at things. He is not afraid to ask questions and he keeps an open mind as to teachings of the institutional church. Mike also has his own site where he writes at What God May Really Be Like

Rate this:

What Now?: Foreknown, Called, Justified, and Glorified

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

Last week, Paul moved his readers from the introspection of chapter 7 to the extrospection of chapter 8, Paul exhorted the Roman Christians to understand the symbiotic relationship redeemed humanity has with all of creation yearning for liberation, specifically the liberation that comes with the presence of the glory of God made known in the revelation of the adopted children of God—the ones who are saved by faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit apart from any deeds. Christians, according to Paul, are the ones who understand that they are not the creator; they are the creature and God is the creator. This humble posture of the believer in Christ affirms and confirms that God is trustworthy and truthful (what God says about humanity and God’s self is true!); this is how we are justified because in affirming and confirming God’s trustworthiness and truthfulness, God deems the believer truthful and trustworthy. This then becomes the one who is adopted by God by faith and made one of Christ’s siblings, chosen to represent Christ in the world through truthful and trustworthy words and corresponding deeds. Once again, we were reminded that our salvation isn’t solely from something or someone or someplace, but, more importantly for something and someone and someplace. For Paul and the thrust of Romans, we are saved from ourselves for the wellbeing of our neighbor and creation and to the glory of God.

The last third of chapter 8 reinforces what Paul has been saying. As if he knew we could take what has been said thus far and run with it, thinking it is now up to us to save the world and our neighbor, Paul anchors it all in a subterranean dependence on the divine Spirit of God. From beginning to end, from start to finish, from the highest of heavens to the deepest mantel of the earth, this is all God’s activity—even when we pray and especially when we pray unintelligibly. While this may ruffle our American sensibilities, and specifically Western American sensibilities at that, it is important that we see how much we need God and must throw ourselves on God, on Christ, and on the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. Because, as Paul says at the end of chapter 8, if this is all of God then it is secure…absolutely nothing can undo what God has done in Christ for believers. And while this may sound like a “get-off-the-hook-of-giving-a-heck-about-the-world-and-its-inhabitants” card, it’s not. In being yoked to the One who is on the move, drafted by faith into God’s mission, and called into God’s purpose means that in our liberation from ourselves we, as Christ’s representatives and powered by the Holy Spirit, are free (in very imperfect ways) to help liberate others, to bring love where there is indifference, and to make sure life continues victorious over death.

Romans 8:26-39

Paul begins this portion of his letter by intensifying the believer’s dependence on the Spirit. Paul writes,

Now, in like manner, the Spirit takes hold of our weakness/frailty; for what we must pray for we have not perceived, but this same Spirit intercedes with/in groanings too deep for words. But the one who searches the heart has perceived the prudence of the Spirit because [the Spirit] pleads for the sake of the holy ones according to God (vv26-27).

Not even in our prayers and petitions do we find ourselves operating by our own power. In the words that we utter intelligibly and uttered unintelligibly, the Spirit intercepts and intercedes for us. When we are certain that what we pray for is what we want and even if it feels aligned to God’s will, the Spirit works in our hearts to conform our prayers and our wills to align with God’s own prayers and will.[ii] We may enter the state of prayer one way but we leave another, and that’s because the Spirit is working in us as we pray through the Spirit in the name of Christ to God. In and through prayer, we are changed as the Spirit intercepts us and our words, softening our hearts, informing and forming our minds.[iii] Also, the Spirit intercedes for us to God[iv] when we can only groan in response to the tragedies and terrors of the kingdom of humanity hallmarking the world around us.[v] In times when we cannot pray, the Spirit does so for us, bringing our moans and groans, our gnashed teeth, our collapsed posture into the throne room and pleads for our sake, rendering our inoperable and unintelligible prayers into viable communion with God.[vi] According to Paul, we do not pray alone even when we feel as if we’re the only ones praying. This is why Paul can then say, Now we have perceived that all things work together toward the good for those who love God, the ones who are being called according to purpose (v28).

Paul then moves to speak of God’s foreknowledge about those who have been and are being called—further emphasizing the believer’s dependence on God. Paul writes,

Because God knew beforehand those [who are being called] also foreordained [them] to be conformed to the image of God’s son in order that [Christ] may be the firstborn among many siblings. And those [God] foreordained these ones [God] also called; and those [God] called, these ones [God] justified also; and those [God] justified, these ones [God] glorified also (vv29-30).

Rather than causing hackles to go up, Paul’s point here is to bring comfort to those who believe in Christ, those who have received the Holy Spirit, and those who are trying to do this thing called life while straddling the kingdom of humanity and the reign of God. What matters most here is not who is in and who is out of heaven. Rather, the point is those who are found in Christ by faith are sealed by God[vii]: foreknown, called, justified, and glorified. Believers may be able to boast about a lot of things in the world, but they are forbidden from boasting in their salvation as if it were their own; they didn’t earn it, they didn’t achieve it, they didn’t do it for themselves. Also eliminated is the aspect of chance; for Paul, believers are foreknown, called, justified and glorified intentionally.[viii] Paul here in Romans 8 anchors the very identity and ontology of the Christian in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in God. All of it, from beginning to end, is because of God’s grand and great love for the whole entire cosmos[ix] (ref. Jn 3:16). And in light of this, it makes sense to hold on to the spiritual fact that not only will all things work together toward the good for those who are being called (even when things look really bad[x]) (v28) but also that If God is for these ones, who is against these ones?? [xi] (v31).

Paul’s declaration and proclamation of the gospel rings through the halls of the church in Rome,

God who did not spare God’s only son, but handed him over in defense of all of us, how will God not give freely all things to us with [Christ]? Who will bring to account against the elect of God? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who will give judgment against [the elect of God]? Christ, the one who died, and so much more, the one who was raised, who also is at the right hand of God who also intercedes on behalf of us! (vv32-34).

As elsewhere in the Second Testament epistles by Paul, Paul works himself up in a ripe gospel moment resulting in fervent proclamation as he recalls for the Romans the good word of God in Christ! And he brings the conversation full circle, linking the work of the Spirit and Christ together through active intercession on behalf of the ones who pray intelligibly and unintelligibly. Humanity is fully represented in the throne room of God as our prayers mingled with divine intercession and intervention fill up bronze bowls pleading that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

And if that wasn’t enough, Paul weaves in the divine love of God for the cosmos, humanity, and the elect. This very God, who flung the stars and the great and lesser lights into the sky is for them. This God who did not spare God’s only Son is for them. [xii] This one who is the judge of judges, the king of kings, the priest of priests is for them.[xiii] Thus, these ones can cast their entire selves onto this God not in the sense of giving up but in the sense that behind them stands this one who cannot be defeated by anything and who will not forsake them. God’s love, according to Paul, binds and entwines, grafts and drafts, grows together with and through the beloved of God—those who are called, hear their name, and follow Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. That God loves humanity first is the catalyst for our love of God, the type of love that is born from within seeking the glory of the beloved. Nothing, says Paul in the remaining verses, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will ever be able to separate you from God and God’s love in Christ made known by the power of the Holy Spirit (vv35-39).

Conclusion

So, why proclaim such good news to us? What do we do with this very good news? What now? Well, we treasure it, let our weary and skeptical minds bath in it, our broken hearts heal in it, and our fatigued and exhausted bodies rest in it. We should let it wash over us, soak us down to the marrow, and let it begin to take root in our souls so that it can begin to form and inform, mold and sculpt our identity and action to conform to God’s reign, as those who are foreknown, called, justified, and glorified by God. We, through our hearing of the proclamation of Christ and our solicited believing in the Christ Jesus, this man who is God, we are created anew to become the representatives of God in a world that has either all too quickly forgotten this magnificent, unconditional, always and forever love of God or has given up hope that anything could ever be different, that there is only indifference, death, and captivity, that all is lost. As the adopted children of God, the “holy ones,” the saints, we are to bring the light of the word of truth to illuminate the darkness of falsehood and expose it, we are to use the keys of the reign of God to liberate anyone who is caught in captivity by the biased policing of the kingdom of humanity, and we are to use our voices and bodies against the authorities, and the principalities of darkness ruling this decrepit world to push back death in the name of life. We are called to live and spread grace, overhauling the power of sin and death one person at a time.[xiv] We are called to love because we were first loved.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] LW 25:365 “For unless the Spirit is helping, it would be impossible for us to bear this action of God by which He hears us and accomplishes what we pray for.”

[iii] LW 25:367 “…so God comes upon our feeling and thinking, seeing what it is praying for, what it is suitable for, and what it desires; then heeding the request He begins to mold the form which suits His art and His counsel. Then of necessity the form and model of our thinking is destroyed.”

[iv] Lancaster, Romans, 148. “Because the Spirit groans with us and intercedes for us, God knows our longing even when we are unable to articulate it.”

[v] Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Romans, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 148. “Living in and for a new reality and way of doing things puts us at odds with the way things are done now, so we do not rise in social standing or have the usual kinds of influence. Even in such weakness, we are empowered by the Spirit. To persevere in allegiance to God when something else constantly calls for our allegiance takes prayer. Because we stand between times, hoping for things not yet seen we do not see properly how to pray, so the Spirit works with us to assist us in prayer.”

[vi] Lancaster, Romans, 148. “So inevitably our prayers are expressed in words and concepts that fall short of divine understanding. But the Spirit sees beyond our articulation to the prayer that lies beneath our utterance, and it makes our thoughts and words into real communion with God.”

[vii] Lancaster, Romans, 150. “The emphasis on calling and predestination is a way of affirming God’s initiative in salvation. Those who are called, foreknown, and predestined will be conformed to the image of the Son, so the Son Jesus Christ will be the firstborn among a large family of adopted children (8:29). When God decides to save (predestines), Go calls. Those who are called are also justified and glorified (8:30). What God begins, God also completes. God initiates salvation as well as carries it out to its fulfillment.”

[viii] LW 25:371 “For if it were not the purpose of God, and if our salvation depended upon our will and works, it would depend upon chance…he is showing that the elect are not saved by chance but by necessity.”

[ix] Lancaster, Romans, 150. “The theologically important meaning of predestination in this letter is about God’s initiative in our salvation, about God’s faithfulness in fulfilling God’s purpose for us to be saved, and about how both these affirmations remove all grounds for human boasting in what we have done for ourselves.”

[x] Lancaster, Romans, 149. “For those who ‘love God,’ all things work together for good. Even though the subject of the sentence is ambiguous (is it God, the Spirit, or the things themselves that are bringing this about?), the affirmation is not in doubt. Because we know and love God, we may be confident that good will come even out of the suffering that is now endured.”

[xi] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “The only rightful judge on that day is God; so if God is for us, no one could oppose us.”

[xii] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “Jesus Christ himself, who took on weakness and died a shameful death to glorify weak people, who was raised and with whom we also will be raised, and who has a place of honor with God, now intercedes for us. How could anything possibly sperate us from such a love?”

[xiii] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “Neither sufferings in history nor cosmic powers nor anything else will succeed in separating us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

[xiv] Lancaster, Romans, 149. Those who love God are called according… “This description sets our love for God in the context of what God is doing, so love for God is neither merely emotional nor does it arise apart from God’s own work. Paul addressed the recipients of this letter in 1:7 as ‘God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.’ Recalling this opening address shows us that we love God because we are beloved, that is because God first loved us; and because we are loved, we are called to be saints, that is, called to be holy or set apart as God’s …Being set apart for God means living in the dominion of grace—loyal to God rather than to sin.”

What Now?: Foreknown, Called, Justified, and Glorified

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

Last week, Paul moved his readers from the introspection of chapter 7 to the extrospection of chapter 8, Paul exhorted the Roman Christians to understand the symbiotic relationship redeemed humanity has with all of creation yearning for liberation, specifically the liberation that comes with the presence of the glory of God made known in the revelation of the adopted children of God—the ones who are saved by faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit apart from any deeds. Christians, according to Paul, are the ones who understand that they are not the creator; they are the creature and God is the creator. This humble posture of the believer in Christ affirms and confirms that God is trustworthy and truthful (what God says about humanity and God’s self is true!); this is how we are justified because in affirming and confirming God’s trustworthiness and truthfulness, God deems the believer truthful and trustworthy. This then becomes the one who is adopted by God by faith and made one of Christ’s siblings, chosen to represent Christ in the world through truthful and trustworthy words and corresponding deeds. Once again, we were reminded that our salvation isn’t solely from something or someone or someplace, but, more importantly for something and someone and someplace. For Paul and the thrust of Romans, we are saved from ourselves for the wellbeing of our neighbor and creation and to the glory of God.

The last third of chapter 8 reinforces what Paul has been saying. As if he knew we could take what has been said thus far and run with it, thinking it is now up to us to save the world and our neighbor, Paul anchors it all in a subterranean dependence on the divine Spirit of God. From beginning to end, from start to finish, from the highest of heavens to the deepest mantel of the earth, this is all God’s activity—even when we pray and especially when we pray unintelligibly. While this may ruffle our American sensibilities, and specifically Western American sensibilities at that, it is important that we see how much we need God and must throw ourselves on God, on Christ, and on the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. Because, as Paul says at the end of chapter 8, if this is all of God then it is secure…absolutely nothing can undo what God has done in Christ for believers. And while this may sound like a “get-off-the-hook-of-giving-a-heck-about-the-world-and-its-inhabitants” card, it’s not. In being yoked to the One who is on the move, drafted by faith into God’s mission, and called into God’s purpose means that in our liberation from ourselves we, as Christ’s representatives and powered by the Holy Spirit, are free (in very imperfect ways) to help liberate others, to bring love where there is indifference, and to make sure life continues victorious over death.

Romans 8:26-39

Paul begins this portion of his letter by intensifying the believer’s dependence on the Spirit. Paul writes,

Now, in like manner, the Spirit takes hold of our weakness/frailty; for what we must pray for we have not perceived, but this same Spirit intercedes with/in groanings too deep for words. But the one who searches the heart has perceived the prudence of the Spirit because [the Spirit] pleads for the sake of the holy ones according to God (vv26-27).

Not even in our prayers and petitions do we find ourselves operating by our own power. In the words that we utter intelligibly and uttered unintelligibly, the Spirit intercepts and intercedes for us. When we are certain that what we pray for is what we want and even if it feels aligned to God’s will, the Spirit works in our hearts to conform our prayers and our wills to align with God’s own prayers and will.[ii] We may enter the state of prayer one way but we leave another, and that’s because the Spirit is working in us as we pray through the Spirit in the name of Christ to God. In and through prayer, we are changed as the Spirit intercepts us and our words, softening our hearts, informing and forming our minds.[iii] Also, the Spirit intercedes for us to God[iv] when we can only groan in response to the tragedies and terrors of the kingdom of humanity hallmarking the world around us.[v] In times when we cannot pray, the Spirit does so for us, bringing our moans and groans, our gnashed teeth, our collapsed posture into the throne room and pleads for our sake, rendering our inoperable and unintelligible prayers into viable communion with God.[vi] According to Paul, we do not pray alone even when we feel as if we’re the only ones praying. This is why Paul can then say, Now we have perceived that all things work together toward the good for those who love God, the ones who are being called according to purpose (v28).

Paul then moves to speak of God’s foreknowledge about those who have been and are being called—further emphasizing the believer’s dependence on God. Paul writes,

Because God knew beforehand those [who are being called] also foreordained [them] to be conformed to the image of God’s son in order that [Christ] may be the firstborn among many siblings. And those [God] foreordained these ones [God] also called; and those [God] called, these ones [God] justified also; and those [God] justified, these ones [God] glorified also (vv29-30).

Rather than causing hackles to go up, Paul’s point here is to bring comfort to those who believe in Christ, those who have received the Holy Spirit, and those who are trying to do this thing called life while straddling the kingdom of humanity and the reign of God. What matters most here is not who is in and who is out of heaven. Rather, the point is those who are found in Christ by faith are sealed by God[vii]: foreknown, called, justified, and glorified. Believers may be able to boast about a lot of things in the world, but they are forbidden from boasting in their salvation as if it were their own; they didn’t earn it, they didn’t achieve it, they didn’t do it for themselves. Also eliminated is the aspect of chance; for Paul, believers are foreknown, called, justified and glorified intentionally.[viii] Paul here in Romans 8 anchors the very identity and ontology of the Christian in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in God. All of it, from beginning to end, is because of God’s grand and great love for the whole entire cosmos[ix] (ref. Jn 3:16). And in light of this, it makes sense to hold on to the spiritual fact that not only will all things work together toward the good for those who are being called (even when things look really bad[x]) (v28) but also that If God is for these ones, who is against these ones?? [xi] (v31).

Paul’s declaration and proclamation of the gospel rings through the halls of the church in Rome,

God who did not spare God’s only son, but handed him over in defense of all of us, how will God not give freely all things to us with [Christ]? Who will bring to account against the elect of God? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who will give judgment against [the elect of God]? Christ, the one who died, and so much more, the one who was raised, who also is at the right hand of God who also intercedes on behalf of us! (vv32-34).

As elsewhere in the Second Testament epistles by Paul, Paul works himself up in a ripe gospel moment resulting in fervent proclamation as he recalls for the Romans the good word of God in Christ! And he brings the conversation full circle, linking the work of the Spirit and Christ together through active intercession on behalf of the ones who pray intelligibly and unintelligibly. Humanity is fully represented in the throne room of God as our prayers mingled with divine intercession and intervention fill up bronze bowls pleading that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

And if that wasn’t enough, Paul weaves in the divine love of God for the cosmos, humanity, and the elect. This very God, who flung the stars and the great and lesser lights into the sky is for them. This God who did not spare God’s only Son is for them. [xii] This one who is the judge of judges, the king of kings, the priest of priests is for them.[xiii] Thus, these ones can cast their entire selves onto this God not in the sense of giving up but in the sense that behind them stands this one who cannot be defeated by anything and who will not forsake them. God’s love, according to Paul, binds and entwines, grafts and drafts, grows together with and through the beloved of God—those who are called, hear their name, and follow Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. That God loves humanity first is the catalyst for our love of God, the type of love that is born from within seeking the glory of the beloved. Nothing, says Paul in the remaining verses, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will ever be able to separate you from God and God’s love in Christ made known by the power of the Holy Spirit (vv35-39).

Conclusion

So, why proclaim such good news to us? What do we do with this very good news? What now? Well, we treasure it, let our weary and skeptical minds bath in it, our broken hearts heal in it, and our fatigued and exhausted bodies rest in it. We should let it wash over us, soak us down to the marrow, and let it begin to take root in our souls so that it can begin to form and inform, mold and sculpt our identity and action to conform to God’s reign, as those who are foreknown, called, justified, and glorified by God. We, through our hearing of the proclamation of Christ and our solicited believing in the Christ Jesus, this man who is God, we are created anew to become the representatives of God in a world that has either all too quickly forgotten this magnificent, unconditional, always and forever love of God or has given up hope that anything could ever be different, that there is only indifference, death, and captivity, that all is lost. As the adopted children of God, the “holy ones,” the saints, we are to bring the light of the word of truth to illuminate the darkness of falsehood and expose it, we are to use the keys of the reign of God to liberate anyone who is caught in captivity by the biased policing of the kingdom of humanity, and we are to use our voices and bodies against the authorities, and the principalities of darkness ruling this decrepit world to push back death in the name of life. We are called to live and spread grace, overhauling the power of sin and death one person at a time.[xiv] We are called to love because we were first loved.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] LW 25:365 “For unless the Spirit is helping, it would be impossible for us to bear this action of God by which He hears us and accomplishes what we pray for.”

[iii] LW 25:367 “…so God comes upon our feeling and thinking, seeing what it is praying for, what it is suitable for, and what it desires; then heeding the request He begins to mold the form which suits His art and His counsel. Then of necessity the form and model of our thinking is destroyed.”

[iv] Lancaster, Romans, 148. “Because the Spirit groans with us and intercedes for us, God knows our longing even when we are unable to articulate it.”

[v] Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Romans, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 148. “Living in and for a new reality and way of doing things puts us at odds with the way things are done now, so we do not rise in social standing or have the usual kinds of influence. Even in such weakness, we are empowered by the Spirit. To persevere in allegiance to God when something else constantly calls for our allegiance takes prayer. Because we stand between times, hoping for things not yet seen we do not see properly how to pray, so the Spirit works with us to assist us in prayer.”

[vi] Lancaster, Romans, 148. “So inevitably our prayers are expressed in words and concepts that fall short of divine understanding. But the Spirit sees beyond our articulation to the prayer that lies beneath our utterance, and it makes our thoughts and words into real communion with God.”

[vii] Lancaster, Romans, 150. “The emphasis on calling and predestination is a way of affirming God’s initiative in salvation. Those who are called, foreknown, and predestined will be conformed to the image of the Son, so the Son Jesus Christ will be the firstborn among a large family of adopted children (8:29). When God decides to save (predestines), Go calls. Those who are called are also justified and glorified (8:30). What God begins, God also completes. God initiates salvation as well as carries it out to its fulfillment.”

[viii] LW 25:371 “For if it were not the purpose of God, and if our salvation depended upon our will and works, it would depend upon chance…he is showing that the elect are not saved by chance but by necessity.”

[ix] Lancaster, Romans, 150. “The theologically important meaning of predestination in this letter is about God’s initiative in our salvation, about God’s faithfulness in fulfilling God’s purpose for us to be saved, and about how both these affirmations remove all grounds for human boasting in what we have done for ourselves.”

[x] Lancaster, Romans, 149. “For those who ‘love God,’ all things work together for good. Even though the subject of the sentence is ambiguous (is it God, the Spirit, or the things themselves that are bringing this about?), the affirmation is not in doubt. Because we know and love God, we may be confident that good will come even out of the suffering that is now endured.”

[xi] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “The only rightful judge on that day is God; so if God is for us, no one could oppose us.”

[xii] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “Jesus Christ himself, who took on weakness and died a shameful death to glorify weak people, who was raised and with whom we also will be raised, and who has a place of honor with God, now intercedes for us. How could anything possibly sperate us from such a love?”

[xiii] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “Neither sufferings in history nor cosmic powers nor anything else will succeed in separating us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

[xiv] Lancaster, Romans, 149. Those who love God are called according… “This description sets our love for God in the context of what God is doing, so love for God is neither merely emotional nor does it arise apart from God’s own work. Paul addressed the recipients of this letter in 1:7 as ‘God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.’ Recalling this opening address shows us that we love God because we are beloved, that is because God first loved us; and because we are loved, we are called to be saints, that is, called to be holy or set apart as God’s …Being set apart for God means living in the dominion of grace—loyal to God rather than to sin.”

What Now?: Foreknown, Called, Justified, and Glorified

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

Last week, Paul moved his readers from the introspection of chapter 7 to the extrospection of chapter 8, Paul exhorted the Roman Christians to understand the symbiotic relationship redeemed humanity has with all of creation yearning for liberation, specifically the liberation that comes with the presence of the glory of God made known in the revelation of the adopted children of God—the ones who are saved by faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit apart from any deeds. Christians, according to Paul, are the ones who understand that they are not the creator; they are the creature and God is the creator. This humble posture of the believer in Christ affirms and confirms that God is trustworthy and truthful (what God says about humanity and God’s self is true!); this is how we are justified because in affirming and confirming God’s trustworthiness and truthfulness, God deems the believer truthful and trustworthy. This then becomes the one who is adopted by God by faith and made one of Christ’s siblings, chosen to represent Christ in the world through truthful and trustworthy words and corresponding deeds. Once again, we were reminded that our salvation isn’t solely from something or someone or someplace, but, more importantly for something and someone and someplace. For Paul and the thrust of Romans, we are saved from ourselves for the wellbeing of our neighbor and creation and to the glory of God.

The last third of chapter 8 reinforces what Paul has been saying. As if he knew we could take what has been said thus far and run with it, thinking it is now up to us to save the world and our neighbor, Paul anchors it all in a subterranean dependence on the divine Spirit of God. From beginning to end, from start to finish, from the highest of heavens to the deepest mantel of the earth, this is all God’s activity—even when we pray and especially when we pray unintelligibly. While this may ruffle our American sensibilities, and specifically Western American sensibilities at that, it is important that we see how much we need God and must throw ourselves on God, on Christ, and on the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. Because, as Paul says at the end of chapter 8, if this is all of God then it is secure…absolutely nothing can undo what God has done in Christ for believers. And while this may sound like a “get-off-the-hook-of-giving-a-heck-about-the-world-and-its-inhabitants” card, it’s not. In being yoked to the One who is on the move, drafted by faith into God’s mission, and called into God’s purpose means that in our liberation from ourselves we, as Christ’s representatives and powered by the Holy Spirit, are free (in very imperfect ways) to help liberate others, to bring love where there is indifference, and to make sure life continues victorious over death.

Romans 8:26-39

Paul begins this portion of his letter by intensifying the believer’s dependence on the Spirit. Paul writes,

Now, in like manner, the Spirit takes hold of our weakness/frailty; for what we must pray for we have not perceived, but this same Spirit intercedes with/in groanings too deep for words. But the one who searches the heart has perceived the prudence of the Spirit because [the Spirit] pleads for the sake of the holy ones according to God (vv26-27).

Not even in our prayers and petitions do we find ourselves operating by our own power. In the words that we utter intelligibly and uttered unintelligibly, the Spirit intercepts and intercedes for us. When we are certain that what we pray for is what we want and even if it feels aligned to God’s will, the Spirit works in our hearts to conform our prayers and our wills to align with God’s own prayers and will.[ii] We may enter the state of prayer one way but we leave another, and that’s because the Spirit is working in us as we pray through the Spirit in the name of Christ to God. In and through prayer, we are changed as the Spirit intercepts us and our words, softening our hearts, informing and forming our minds.[iii] Also, the Spirit intercedes for us to God[iv] when we can only groan in response to the tragedies and terrors of the kingdom of humanity hallmarking the world around us.[v] In times when we cannot pray, the Spirit does so for us, bringing our moans and groans, our gnashed teeth, our collapsed posture into the throne room and pleads for our sake, rendering our inoperable and unintelligible prayers into viable communion with God.[vi] According to Paul, we do not pray alone even when we feel as if we’re the only ones praying. This is why Paul can then say, Now we have perceived that all things work together toward the good for those who love God, the ones who are being called according to purpose (v28).

Paul then moves to speak of God’s foreknowledge about those who have been and are being called—further emphasizing the believer’s dependence on God. Paul writes,

Because God knew beforehand those [who are being called] also foreordained [them] to be conformed to the image of God’s son in order that [Christ] may be the firstborn among many siblings. And those [God] foreordained these ones [God] also called; and those [God] called, these ones [God] justified also; and those [God] justified, these ones [God] glorified also (vv29-30).

Rather than causing hackles to go up, Paul’s point here is to bring comfort to those who believe in Christ, those who have received the Holy Spirit, and those who are trying to do this thing called life while straddling the kingdom of humanity and the reign of God. What matters most here is not who is in and who is out of heaven. Rather, the point is those who are found in Christ by faith are sealed by God[vii]: foreknown, called, justified, and glorified. Believers may be able to boast about a lot of things in the world, but they are forbidden from boasting in their salvation as if it were their own; they didn’t earn it, they didn’t achieve it, they didn’t do it for themselves. Also eliminated is the aspect of chance; for Paul, believers are foreknown, called, justified and glorified intentionally.[viii] Paul here in Romans 8 anchors the very identity and ontology of the Christian in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in God. All of it, from beginning to end, is because of God’s grand and great love for the whole entire cosmos[ix] (ref. Jn 3:16). And in light of this, it makes sense to hold on to the spiritual fact that not only will all things work together toward the good for those who are being called (even when things look really bad[x]) (v28) but also that If God is for these ones, who is against these ones?? [xi] (v31).

Paul’s declaration and proclamation of the gospel rings through the halls of the church in Rome,

God who did not spare God’s only son, but handed him over in defense of all of us, how will God not give freely all things to us with [Christ]? Who will bring to account against the elect of God? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who will give judgment against [the elect of God]? Christ, the one who died, and so much more, the one who was raised, who also is at the right hand of God who also intercedes on behalf of us! (vv32-34).

As elsewhere in the Second Testament epistles by Paul, Paul works himself up in a ripe gospel moment resulting in fervent proclamation as he recalls for the Romans the good word of God in Christ! And he brings the conversation full circle, linking the work of the Spirit and Christ together through active intercession on behalf of the ones who pray intelligibly and unintelligibly. Humanity is fully represented in the throne room of God as our prayers mingled with divine intercession and intervention fill up bronze bowls pleading that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

And if that wasn’t enough, Paul weaves in the divine love of God for the cosmos, humanity, and the elect. This very God, who flung the stars and the great and lesser lights into the sky is for them. This God who did not spare God’s only Son is for them. [xii] This one who is the judge of judges, the king of kings, the priest of priests is for them.[xiii] Thus, these ones can cast their entire selves onto this God not in the sense of giving up but in the sense that behind them stands this one who cannot be defeated by anything and who will not forsake them. God’s love, according to Paul, binds and entwines, grafts and drafts, grows together with and through the beloved of God—those who are called, hear their name, and follow Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. That God loves humanity first is the catalyst for our love of God, the type of love that is born from within seeking the glory of the beloved. Nothing, says Paul in the remaining verses, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will ever be able to separate you from God and God’s love in Christ made known by the power of the Holy Spirit (vv35-39).

Conclusion

So, why proclaim such good news to us? What do we do with this very good news? What now? Well, we treasure it, let our weary and skeptical minds bath in it, our broken hearts heal in it, and our fatigued and exhausted bodies rest in it. We should let it wash over us, soak us down to the marrow, and let it begin to take root in our souls so that it can begin to form and inform, mold and sculpt our identity and action to conform to God’s reign, as those who are foreknown, called, justified, and glorified by God. We, through our hearing of the proclamation of Christ and our solicited believing in the Christ Jesus, this man who is God, we are created anew to become the representatives of God in a world that has either all too quickly forgotten this magnificent, unconditional, always and forever love of God or has given up hope that anything could ever be different, that there is only indifference, death, and captivity, that all is lost. As the adopted children of God, the “holy ones,” the saints, we are to bring the light of the word of truth to illuminate the darkness of falsehood and expose it, we are to use the keys of the reign of God to liberate anyone who is caught in captivity by the biased policing of the kingdom of humanity, and we are to use our voices and bodies against the authorities, and the principalities of darkness ruling this decrepit world to push back death in the name of life. We are called to live and spread grace, overhauling the power of sin and death one person at a time.[xiv] We are called to love because we were first loved.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] LW 25:365 “For unless the Spirit is helping, it would be impossible for us to bear this action of God by which He hears us and accomplishes what we pray for.”

[iii] LW 25:367 “…so God comes upon our feeling and thinking, seeing what it is praying for, what it is suitable for, and what it desires; then heeding the request He begins to mold the form which suits His art and His counsel. Then of necessity the form and model of our thinking is destroyed.”

[iv] Lancaster, Romans, 148. “Because the Spirit groans with us and intercedes for us, God knows our longing even when we are unable to articulate it.”

[v] Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Romans, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 148. “Living in and for a new reality and way of doing things puts us at odds with the way things are done now, so we do not rise in social standing or have the usual kinds of influence. Even in such weakness, we are empowered by the Spirit. To persevere in allegiance to God when something else constantly calls for our allegiance takes prayer. Because we stand between times, hoping for things not yet seen we do not see properly how to pray, so the Spirit works with us to assist us in prayer.”

[vi] Lancaster, Romans, 148. “So inevitably our prayers are expressed in words and concepts that fall short of divine understanding. But the Spirit sees beyond our articulation to the prayer that lies beneath our utterance, and it makes our thoughts and words into real communion with God.”

[vii] Lancaster, Romans, 150. “The emphasis on calling and predestination is a way of affirming God’s initiative in salvation. Those who are called, foreknown, and predestined will be conformed to the image of the Son, so the Son Jesus Christ will be the firstborn among a large family of adopted children (8:29). When God decides to save (predestines), Go calls. Those who are called are also justified and glorified (8:30). What God begins, God also completes. God initiates salvation as well as carries it out to its fulfillment.”

[viii] LW 25:371 “For if it were not the purpose of God, and if our salvation depended upon our will and works, it would depend upon chance…he is showing that the elect are not saved by chance but by necessity.”

[ix] Lancaster, Romans, 150. “The theologically important meaning of predestination in this letter is about God’s initiative in our salvation, about God’s faithfulness in fulfilling God’s purpose for us to be saved, and about how both these affirmations remove all grounds for human boasting in what we have done for ourselves.”

[x] Lancaster, Romans, 149. “For those who ‘love God,’ all things work together for good. Even though the subject of the sentence is ambiguous (is it God, the Spirit, or the things themselves that are bringing this about?), the affirmation is not in doubt. Because we know and love God, we may be confident that good will come even out of the suffering that is now endured.”

[xi] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “The only rightful judge on that day is God; so if God is for us, no one could oppose us.”

[xii] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “Jesus Christ himself, who took on weakness and died a shameful death to glorify weak people, who was raised and with whom we also will be raised, and who has a place of honor with God, now intercedes for us. How could anything possibly sperate us from such a love?”

[xiii] Lancaster, Romans, 153. “Neither sufferings in history nor cosmic powers nor anything else will succeed in separating us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

[xiv] Lancaster, Romans, 149. Those who love God are called according… “This description sets our love for God in the context of what God is doing, so love for God is neither merely emotional nor does it arise apart from God’s own work. Paul addressed the recipients of this letter in 1:7 as ‘God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.’ Recalling this opening address shows us that we love God because we are beloved, that is because God first loved us; and because we are loved, we are called to be saints, that is, called to be holy or set apart as God’s …Being set apart for God means living in the dominion of grace—loyal to God rather than to sin.”

You are loved and secure in Christ. 🔥

#biblians #bibliansapp #faith #christian #trustgod #peace #fearless #loveofgod

You are loved and secure in Christ. 🔥

#biblians #bibliansapp #faith #christian #trustgod #peace #fearless #loveofgod

Grace, love, and fellowship, be yours today. ✨

#biblians #bibliansapp #verseoftheday #2corinthians314 #graceofgod #loveofgod #holyspirit #christianfaith #blessings

Grace, love, and fellowship, be yours today. ✨

#biblians #bibliansapp #verseoftheday #2corinthians314 #graceofgod #loveofgod #holyspirit #christianfaith #blessings

Grace, love, and fellowship, be yours today. ✨

#biblians #bibliansapp #verseoftheday #2corinthians314 #graceofgod #loveofgod #holyspirit #christianfaith #blessings

29 May: Blessed Elia of St. Clement Fracasso

May 29
BLESSED ELIA OF SAINT CLEMENT FRACASSO
Virgin

Optional Memorial

Blessed Elia of St. Clement was born in Bari, 17th January 1901, to deeply Christian parents. At her baptism, she was given the name Theodora, gift of God. In the brief course of her life on earth, she lived up to her name. On 8th April 1920 (then Feast of St. Albert, author of the Carmelite Rule), she entered the Carmel of St. Joseph in Bari. She received the habit on 24th November of the same year, the feast of St John of the Cross. On 8th December 1924, she wrote in her own blood her act of total and definitive offering to the Lord with the vow to embrace the “most perfect”. She died on Christmas day 1927. On 19th December 2005, Pope Benedict XVI signed the Decree of Beatification. She was proclaimed Blessed in Bari Cathedral on 18th March 2006.

From the Common of Virgins

Office of Readings

Second Reading

From the Writings of Blessed Elia of Saint Clement
(Ed. O.C.D. 2001: pp. 282, 295, 322)

The desire to lose herself in God and her apostolic zeal

O sweet hiddenness, I love to pass my days in your shadow and to consume thus my existence, for love of my sweet Lord. At times, thinking of those eternal rewards, so great compared to the slight sacrifices of this life, my soul remains in wonder, and seized by an ardent longing, it throws itself on God, exclaiming: “Oh my good Jesus, I want to reach my goal, the gates of salvation, no matter what the cost. Do not deny me anything; give me suffering. May this be the most intimate martyrdom of my poor heart, hidden from every human glance: a rugged cross is what I ask of you. I want to pass my days here below hanging from this cross.”

When we suffer with Jesus, the suffering is delightful; I long to suffer with all my heart, beyond this I no longer want anything.

My Delight, who could ever separate me from You? Who could be capable of breaking these strong chains that keep my heart attached to yours? Perhaps the abandonment of creatures? It is precisely this that unites the soul to its Creator. Perhaps tribulations, suffering, crosses? It is in these thorns that the canticle of the soul that loves you is freest and lightest. Perhaps death? But this will be nothing other than the beginning of true happiness for the soul. Nothing, nothing can separate this soul from You, not even for a brief moment. It was created for You and is lost if it does not abandon itself to You.

My life is love: this sweet nectar surrounds me, this merciful love penetrates me, purifies me, renews me, and I feel it consuming me. The cry of my heart is: “Love of my God, my soul searches for You alone. My soul, suffer and be quiet; love and hope; offer yourself but hide your suffering behind a smile, and always move on. I want to spend my life in deep silence, in the depths of my heart, in order to listen to the gentle voice of my sweet Jesus.

“Souls, I will search for a way to cast you into the sea of Merciful Love: souls of sinners, but above all souls of priests and religious. To this end, my existence is slowly disappearing, consumed like the oil of a lamp that watches near the Tabernacle.”

I sense the vastness of my soul, its infinite greatness that the immensity of this world cannot contain: it was created to lose itself in You, my God, because you alone are great, infinite and thus You alone can make it completely happy.

RESPONSORY

R/. An unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord’s affairs. * Her aim is to be dedicated to him in body as in spirit (alleluia).
V/. God is the strength of her heart, he is hers forever: * Her aim is to be dedicated to him in body as in spirit (alleluia).

Morning Prayer

Canticle of Zechariah

Ant. O Lord, how gentle is your love! Lost in your embrace I shall be blessed forever (alleluia).

Prayer

O Lord,
who were pleased to accept the self-offering
of Blessed Elia of Saint Clement, virgin;
grant through her intercession,
that, sustained by the Eucharist
we may be able faithfully to do your will.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you,
and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Evening Prayer

Canticle of Mary

Ant. Your love, O Lord, is like a fire consuming me in the ardent furnace of your Heart (alleluia).

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

Gods love overpowers fear, your hope stands strong. 🙏

#biblians #bibliansapp #faith #hope #fearnot #loveofgod #trustgod

Jesus, the Spring of Living Water — Silvio José Báez, ocd

Dear brothers and sisters,

During the coming Sundays of Lent, we will hear three beautiful passages from the Gospel of John. Since ancient times, the Church has used these texts as a catechesis for those preparing to receive baptism at Easter—and as a help for all of us who are already baptized to renew our baptismal faith.

They are the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman, which reveals him as the source of living water; the healing of the man born blind, which shows him as the light that heals our blindness; and the raising of Lazarus, which presents him as the life that conquers death.

So the three great Paschal symbols that will accompany us in the liturgy beginning today are water, light, and life.

Today, we heard the story of Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman. Jesus arrives at a small village in Samaria. It’s midday. He’s tired from the journey and thirsty, so he sits down beside a well.

Just then, a Samaritan woman comes to draw water. She’s anonymous. Her life is fragile and complicated. She belongs to a people whose religious practices were far from the Lord and mixed with other beliefs.

This woman represents the people of Samaria—but also all humanity, each one of us. She’s like a bride who has gone after other loves, yet whom God now wants to win back and draw again with his love.

Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink” (Jn 4:7).

She’s surprised that a Jewish man would ask her for water, since Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with one another. But in those simple words—“Give me a drink”—something very profound is revealed. God is thirsty. Not thirsty for water, but thirsty to be welcomed and loved.

God thirsts for you and for me. He thirsts for humanity.

That’s why Jesus tells her: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (Jn 4:10).

Notice that Jesus doesn’t argue with the woman. He doesn’t scold her or accuse her. Instead, he speaks to her about a gift—the “gift of God.”

A gift is something freely given. It isn’t earned or deserved.

That woman knows only effort and fatigue. Every day she has to come to the well and draw water. But Jesus offers her a different kind of water—one that doesn’t depend on human effort or on our own merits and virtues.

Jesus explains: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (Jn 4:13–14).

The woman becomes excited and asks for that water. And who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t want a gift that could change life forever?

So many times we drink from different wells—success, possessions, pleasure, recognition—yet we remain thirsty. Jesus offers us something different: living water that springs up from within and fills our whole life.

In the Jewish tradition, the well symbolized the law of Moses with its commandments and norms. It was like water that nourished good works. In that sense, the well represented a religion centered on external observance of the law.

Jesus offers something deeper. He doesn’t speak about rituals or rules to fulfill. He speaks about an interior spring—a life within us that makes us free, joyful, and full.

The water Jesus offers is the love of God. It’s like a spring that flows endlessly within us, giving life, healing wounds, and helping life grow and mature. It’s a source that satisfies our deepest thirst for love and meaning. And it doesn’t stay closed within us—it overflows into the lives of others.

Even if our jar is cracked and our thirst isn’t completely satisfied yet, we can still become a source of living water for others—a fresh cup of water, or even just a drop of the life-giving love of God.

The living water of the Spirit also responds to the thirst of peoples for justice and peace. Oppressive regimes, unjust social systems, and corrupt forms of power can’t be overcome by human effort alone.

True social transformation begins with the transformation of the human heart. Without men and women who are free, converted, and purified from idols—people who are honest, capable of fraternity, and committed to justice—efforts to change society often end up repeating new forms of oppression.

It isn’t enough to change structures. God must renew our hearts.

The spring of living water is Jesus himself. He is God’s answer to our thirst. From the day of our baptism, his word and his Spirit have been alive within us, giving us a life that is strong, luminous, and free.

But over time, that spring can become buried. Sometimes it seems as if it has disappeared. The heavy stones of suffering, the fine sand of our fears, and the foul debris of our sins can slowly cover over the living water within us.

Lent is the time to clear away those obstacles—to free the heart so the water of Christ can flow again.

Recently, speaking to Spanish seminarians, Pope Leo used a striking image. He said:

“It is said that trees ‘die standing’: they remain upright, they retain their appearance, but inside they are already dry… Spiritual life does not bear fruit because of what is visible, but because of what is deeply rooted in God. When that root is neglected, everything ends up drying up inside, until, silently, it ends up ‘dying standing upright.’”

Something like that can happen to us, too. We can be very busy. We move from one activity to another. We carry out projects, we fulfill responsibilities—we even come to church.

But inside we may feel empty, restless, or sad—because we’ve lost living contact with the Lord.

When we neglect our interior life, when the living water of God’s love stops flowing within us, everything slowly dries up.

That’s why today’s Gospel invites us to return to the heart.

Let’s return to prayer.
Let’s listen again to the Word of God.
Let’s rediscover the grace of the sacraments.

Let’s return to the heart.

At one point, the Samaritan woman asks Jesus: “Where should we worship God? On this mountain, or in Jerusalem?”

Jesus’ answer is surprising. Worship is not limited to a place—not to a mountain or a temple. The true place of encounter with God is within.

You are the temple where God lives. In your heart, he has placed a spring of water that never stops flowing.

Let’s allow Jesus to quench our thirst with the living water of his love. Let’s not settle for “dying standing”—looking alive on the outside, but dry within.

Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.

Auxiliary Bishop of Managua
Homily for the Third Sunday in Lent, 8 March 2026

Translation from the Spanish text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Walk in His Love (Christian Music) = Share in this new celebration 🙌 of faith! - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #FaithJourney #WalkWithJesus #DivineGuidance #SpiritualGrowth #ChristianYouth #FaithfulWaves #LoveOfGod #DivineEmbrace #HeartOfWorship #ChristianUnity #SpiritualRenewal #HopeAndGrace #EternalLight #SoulfulReflections #PrayerfulLife #ChristianWitness #PeacefulDevotion #HeavenlyJourney - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Walk in His Love (Christian Music) = Share in this new celebration 🙌 of faith! - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #FaithJourney #WalkWithJesus #DivineGuidance #SpiritualGrowth #ChristianYouth #FaithfulWaves #LoveOfGod #DivineEmbrace #HeartOfWorship #ChristianUnity #SpiritualRenewal #HopeAndGrace #EternalLight #SoulfulReflections #PrayerfulLife #ChristianWitness #PeacefulDevotion #HeavenlyJourney - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Walk in His Love (Christian Music) = Share in this new celebration 🙌 of faith! - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #FaithJourney #WalkWithJesus #DivineGuidance #SpiritualGrowth #ChristianYouth #FaithfulWaves #LoveOfGod #DivineEmbrace #HeartOfWorship #ChristianUnity #SpiritualRenewal #HopeAndGrace #EternalLight #SoulfulReflections #PrayerfulLife #ChristianWitness #PeacefulDevotion #HeavenlyJourney - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Quote of the day, 13 November: St. Mary of Jesus Crucified

I was asking myself how to have perfect love of God. … How can I acquire, my God, your true love?

Then this Almighty God lowered himself to me, who am only a little bit of dust. Here’s how he made me understand: a soul that wants to have true love of God desires that the good God be loved by all.

She would want all the crosses, sufferings, and trials for herself; she accepts everything out of love for God. She rejoices in the happiness of others. She would want to be cut into pieces to make souls go to God; she rejoices in the good that souls receive; she rejoices that they love the good God more than she does, and that they’re loved by the good God more than she herself is.

Then, if they have something good in them, these souls would want to give everything to others, they forget themselves, and they don’t think about heaven or hell anymore, only that souls love God more than they do.

Then I heard a voice say to me: “When a soul has this attitude, God is obliged by his love and his mercy to save it and to forgive it all its crimes, even if they were bigger than the sea.”

Saint Mary of Jesus Crucified (Mariam Baouardy)

Letter 11 to Father Saint-Guily in Pau, about 1869 (excerpt)

Note: Mary of Jesus Crucified Baouardy was beatified by Saint John Paul II on 13 November 1983 in Saint Peter’s Basilica. This excerpt from Letter 11 is one of many quotes that will be featured in the 2025 Carmelite Online Advent Retreat. The retreat reflections are written by Father Didier Maury, OCD. Free registration is available now for “Mariam, or the Way of the Lord’s Poor”.

Baouardy, M 2011, Lettres de La Bienheureuse Marie de Jésus Crucifié, Editions du Carmel, Toulouse.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: This photo of Mariam was taken in August 1875 before her departure from France for the Holy Land. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

#loveForNeighbor #loveOfGod #mariamBaouardy #salvation #StMaryOfJesusCrucified

Quote of the day, 11 October: St. John Paul II

For the love of God and man, once again I raise an anguished cry: May such criminal deeds never be repeated against any ethnic group, against any race, in any corner of this world!

It is a cry to everyone: to all people of goodwill; to all who believe in the Just and Eternal God; to all who know they are joined to Christ, the Word of God made man. We must all stand together: human dignity is at stake. There is only one human family.

The new saint also insisted on this: “Our love of neighbour is the measure of our love of God. For Christians — and not only for them — no one is a ‘stranger’. The love of Christ knows no borders”.

Saint John Paul II

Homily for the Canonization of Edith Stein
11 October 1998

Note: St. John Paul II quotes from Edith Stein’s lecture, The Mystery of Christmas, given to Catholic Academics on 13 January 1931 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. In the section called “Union in God,” Professor Stein says: “For the Christian there is no stranger. Whoever is near us and needing us most is our ‘neighbour’; it does not matter whether he is related to us or not, whether we like him or not, whether he is morally worthy of our help or not. The love of Christ knows no limits. It never ends, it does not shrink from ugliness and filth. He came for sinners, not for the just. And if the love of Christ is in us, we shall do as He did and seek the lost sheep.”

Featured image: Repairs in anticipation of the Jubilee Year were underway at St. Peter’s Basilica on the day of St. Edith Stein’s canonization. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (By permission)

#humanDignity #Jewish #loveOfGod #StEdithStein #StJohnPaulII

Guide My Feet (Christian Music) = Just shared: A powerful Christian melody 🎶 - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #LoveOfGod #FaithJourney #Prayer #Hope #Guidance #ChristianYouth #SpiritualGrowth #SpiritualStrength #Community #DivineWisdom #WalkingWithJesus #TrustInGod #FaithfulLiving #SpiritualEncouragement #Worship #Devotion #GodsPath #BelieverLife #Praise #Reflection #DivineDirection - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWur21bXBA

Guide My Feet (Christian Music) = Just shared: A powerful Christian melody 🎶 - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #LoveOfGod #FaithJourney #Prayer #Hope #Guidance #ChristianYouth #SpiritualGrowth #SpiritualStrength #Community #DivineWisdom #WalkingWithJesus #TrustInGod #FaithfulLiving #SpiritualEncouragement #Worship #Devotion #GodsPath #BelieverLife #Praise #Reflection #DivineDirection - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWur21bXBA

Guide My Feet (Christian Music) = Just shared: A powerful Christian melody 🎶 - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #LoveOfGod #FaithJourney #Prayer #Hope #Guidance #ChristianYouth #SpiritualGrowth #SpiritualStrength #Community #DivineWisdom #WalkingWithJesus #TrustInGod #FaithfulLiving #SpiritualEncouragement #Worship #Devotion #GodsPath #BelieverLife #Praise #Reflection #DivineDirection - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWur21bXBA

Heartwide Open (Christian Music) = Excited to share this new worship song ✨ celebrating God's love! - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #FaithJourney #ChristianHeart #LoveOfGod #SpiritualAwakening #YoungBelievers #HolySpirit #PraiseAndWorship #DivineGuidance #GodsPromise #SalvationPath #InnerPeace #EternalHope #GracefulLiving #CommunityOfFaith #EverlastingLife #JesusChrist #TransformingGrace #HeavenlyWhispers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzsQ8B5rctU

Explore 1 John 4:19's powerful message: we give generously, reflecting God's initial love and sacrifice for us. Discover how divine love inspires our giving. #GodsLove #GivingBack #Faith #Inspiration #Christianity #BibleVerse #LoveOfGod #Sacrifice #John419 #Generosity

29 May: Blessed Elia of St. Clement Fracasso

May 29
BLESSED ELIA OF SAINT CLEMENT FRACASSO
Virgin

Optional Memorial

Blessed Elia of St. Clement was born in Bari, 17th January 1901, to deeply Christian parents. At her baptism, she was given the name Theodora, gift of God. In the brief course of her life on earth, she lived up to her name. On 8th April 1920 (then Feast of St. Albert, author of the Carmelite Rule), she entered the Carmel of St. Joseph in Bari. She received the habit on 24th November of the same year, the feast of St John of the Cross. On 8th December 1924, she wrote in her own blood her act of total and definitive offering to the Lord with the vow to embrace the “most perfect”. She died on Christmas day 1927. On 19th December 2005, Pope Benedict XVI signed the Decree of Beatification. She was proclaimed Blessed in Bari Cathedral on 18th March 2006.

From the Common of Virgins

Office of Readings

Second Reading

From the Writings of Blessed Elia of Saint Clement
(Ed. O.C.D. 2001: pp. 282, 295, 322)

The desire to lose herself in God and her apostolic zeal

O sweet hiddenness, I love to pass my days in your shadow and to consume thus my existence, for love of my sweet Lord. At times, thinking of those eternal rewards, so great compared to the slight sacrifices of this life, my soul remains in wonder, and seized by an ardent longing, it throws itself on God, exclaiming: “Oh my good Jesus, I want to reach my goal, the gates of salvation, no matter what the cost. Do not deny me anything; give me suffering. May this be the most intimate martyrdom of my poor heart, hidden from every human glance: a rugged cross is what I ask of you. I want to pass my days here below hanging from this cross.”

When we suffer with Jesus, the suffering is delightful; I long to suffer with all my heart, beyond this I no longer want anything.

My Delight, who could ever separate me from You? Who could be capable of breaking these strong chains that keep my heart attached to yours? Perhaps the abandonment of creatures? It is precisely this that unites the soul to its Creator. Perhaps tribulations, suffering, crosses? It is in these thorns that the canticle of the soul that loves you is freest and lightest. Perhaps death? But this will be nothing other than the beginning of true happiness for the soul. Nothing, nothing can separate this soul from You, not even for a brief moment. It was created for You and is lost if it does not abandon itself to You.

My life is love: this sweet nectar surrounds me, this merciful love penetrates me, purifies me, renews me, and I feel it consuming me. The cry of my heart is: “Love of my God, my soul searches for You alone. My soul, suffer and be quiet; love and hope; offer yourself but hide your suffering behind a smile, and always move on. I want to spend my life in deep silence, in the depths of my heart, in order to listen to the gentle voice of my sweet Jesus.

“Souls, I will search for a way to cast you into the sea of Merciful Love: souls of sinners, but above all souls of priests and religious. To this end, my existence is slowly disappearing, consumed like the oil of a lamp that watches near the Tabernacle.”

I sense the vastness of my soul, its infinite greatness that the immensity of this world cannot contain: it was created to lose itself in You, my God, because you alone are great, infinite and thus You alone can make it completely happy.

RESPONSORY

R/. An unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord’s affairs. * Her aim is to be dedicated to him in body as in spirit (alleluia).
V/. God is the strength of her heart, he is hers forever: * Her aim is to be dedicated to him in body as in spirit (alleluia).

Morning Prayer

Canticle of Zechariah

Ant. O Lord, how gentle is your love! Lost in your embrace I shall be blessed forever (alleluia).

Prayer

O Lord,
who were pleased to accept the self-offering
of Blessed Elia of Saint Clement, virgin;
grant through her intercession,
that, sustained by the Eucharist
we may be able faithfully to do your will.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you,
and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Evening Prayer

Canticle of Mary

Ant. Your love, O Lord, is like a fire consuming me in the ardent furnace of your Heart (alleluia).

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

#Bari #blessed #BlessedEliaOfStClement #GodAlone #infiniteBeing #Liturgy #LiturgyOfTheHours #love #loveAlone #loveForJesus #loveForTheLord #loveIsLoss #loveOfGod #loveWithoutLimits #martyrdom #mercifulLove #optionalMemorial #perfection #suffer #suffering #TeodoraFracasso #trueLove #virgin

Join us as we dive into the evidence of Jesus' existence beyond the Bible and discuss what He truly means to us. Discover how historical accounts even from skeptics confirm His significance and love. #JesusChrist #HistoricalEvidence #FaithJourney #LoveOfGod #Christianity #GospelReading #SpiritualReflection #BibleTruth #ExploreFaith #MeaningOfLife

Explore the profound significance of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem during Palm Sunday as we reflect on His blessings and love. Discover the divine presence represented by the cloud and its connection to God's past revelations. Join us in celebrating the start of Holy Week! #PalmSunday #HolyWeek #JesusJourney #DivinePresence #Blessings #LoveOfGod #FaithJourney #SpiritualReflections #ChristianLife #BiblicalStories

James Ramsay, Anglican priest, refutes every argument for slavery, including here with the excuse of taking captives in war. Do they start wars with Turkey, and condemn the prisoners taken to lifetime servitude? This they did to Africa.

Today is there a similar, circular argument, that of taking kids away from underclass families? (Cf: RFKJr.)

How can you keep sharp against circular arguments for oppression and neglect?

#christian #solas #godswill #LoveofGod #hungerfree

James Ramsay, Anglican priest, refutes every argument for slavery, including here with the excuse of taking captives in war. Do they start wars with Turkey, and condemn the prisoners taken to lifetime servitude? This they did to Africa.

Today is there a similar, circular argument, that of taking kids away from underclass families? (Cf: RFKJr.)

How can you keep sharp against circular arguments for oppression and neglect?

#christian #solas #godswill #LoveofGod #hungerfree

James Ramsay, Anglican priest, refutes every argument for slavery, including here with the excuse of taking captives in war. Do they start wars with Turkey, and condemn the prisoners taken to lifetime servitude? This they did to Africa.

Today is there a similar, circular argument, that of taking kids away from underclass families? (Cf: RFKJr.)

How can you keep sharp against circular arguments for oppression and neglect?

#christian #solas #godswill #LoveofGod #hungerfree

« The Love Of God » by Georgiana Houghton

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/772696571031764992/the-love-of-god-by-georgiana-houghton

#arts #artshare #paintings 🎨 #GeorgianaHoughton #LoveOfGod

« The Love Of God » by Georgiana Houghton

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/772696571031764992/the-love-of-god-by-georgiana-houghton

#arts #artshare #paintings 🎨 #GeorgianaHoughton #LoveOfGod

« The Love Of God » by Georgiana Houghton

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/772696571031764992/the-love-of-god-by-georgiana-houghton

#arts #artshare #paintings 🎨 #GeorgianaHoughton #LoveOfGod

« The Love Of God » by Georgiana Houghton

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/772696571031764992/the-love-of-god-by-georgiana-houghton

#arts #artshare #paintings 🎨 #GeorgianaHoughton #LoveOfGod

« Faith is not a mechanical insurance but a dynamic, personal act, flowing between the heart of man and the love of God. »

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/772696610135326720/faith-is-not-a-mechanical-insurance-but-a-dynamic

#quotes #AbrahamJoshuaHeschel #faith #heart #LoveOfGod

« Faith is not a mechanical insurance but a dynamic, personal act, flowing between the heart of man and the love of God. »

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/772696610135326720/faith-is-not-a-mechanical-insurance-but-a-dynamic

#quotes #AbrahamJoshuaHeschel #faith #heart #LoveOfGod

« Faith is not a mechanical insurance but a dynamic, personal act, flowing between the heart of man and the love of God. »

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/772696610135326720/faith-is-not-a-mechanical-insurance-but-a-dynamic

#quotes #AbrahamJoshuaHeschel #faith #heart #LoveOfGod

« Faith is not a mechanical insurance but a dynamic, personal act, flowing between the heart of man and the love of God. »

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/772696610135326720/faith-is-not-a-mechanical-insurance-but-a-dynamic

#quotes #AbrahamJoshuaHeschel #faith #heart #LoveOfGod

Dear brothers and sisters! Because she was Jewish, Edith Stein was taken with her sister Rosa and many other Catholic Jews from the Netherlands to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where she died with them in the gas chambers. Today we remember them all with deep respect. A few days before her deportation, the woman religious had dismissed the question about a possible rescue: “Do not do it! Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my Baptism? If I cannot share the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain sense, is destroyed”.

From now on, as we celebrate the memory of this new saint from year to year, we must also remember the Shoah, that cruel plan to exterminate a people — a plan to which millions of our Jewish brothers and sisters fell victim. May the Lord let his face shine upon them and grant them peace (cf. Nm 6:25f.).

For the love of God and man, once again I raise an anguished cry: May such criminal deeds never be repeated against any ethnic group, against any race, in any corner of this world! It is a cry to everyone: to all people of goodwill; to all who believe in the Just and Eternal God; to all who know they are joined to Christ, the Word of God made man. We must all stand together: human dignity is at stake. There is only one human family. The new saint also insisted on this: “Our love of neighbour is the measure of our love of God. For Christians — and not only for them — no one is a ‘stranger’. The love of Christ knows no borders”.

Saint John Paul II

Homily for the Canonization of Edith Stein
11 October 1998

Featured image: Repairs in anticipation of the Jubilee Year were underway at St. Peter’s Basilica on the day of St. Edith Stein’s canonization. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/10/10/jp2-11oct98hom/

#Auschwitz #equality #humanDignity #humanRights #humanity #inspiration #Jewish #loveOfGod #RosaStein #Shoah #StEdithStein #StJohnPaulII

Dear brothers and sisters! Because she was Jewish, Edith Stein was taken with her sister Rosa and many other Catholic Jews from the Netherlands to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where she died with them in the gas chambers. Today we remember them all with deep respect. A few days before her deportation, the woman religious had dismissed the question about a possible rescue: “Do not do it! Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my Baptism? If I cannot share the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain sense, is destroyed”.

From now on, as we celebrate the memory of this new saint from year to year, we must also remember the Shoah, that cruel plan to exterminate a people — a plan to which millions of our Jewish brothers and sisters fell victim. May the Lord let his face shine upon them and grant them peace (cf. Nm 6:25f.).

For the love of God and man, once again I raise an anguished cry: May such criminal deeds never be repeated against any ethnic group, against any race, in any corner of this world! It is a cry to everyone: to all people of goodwill; to all who believe in the Just and Eternal God; to all who know they are joined to Christ, the Word of God made man. We must all stand together: human dignity is at stake. There is only one human family. The new saint also insisted on this: “Our love of neighbour is the measure of our love of God. For Christians — and not only for them — no one is a ‘stranger’. The love of Christ knows no borders”.

Saint John Paul II

Homily for the Canonization of Edith Stein
11 October 1998

Note: St. John Paul II quotes from Edith Stein’s lecture, The Mystery of Christmas, given to Catholic Academics on 13 January 1931 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. In the section called “Union in God,” Stein says: “For the Christian there is no stranger. Whoever is near us and needing us most is our ‘neighbour’; it does not matter whether he is related to us or not, whether we like him or not, whether he is morally worthy of our help or not. The love of Christ knows no limits. It never ends, it does not shrink from ugliness and filth. He came for sinners, not for the just. And if the love of Christ is in us, we shall do as He did and seek the lost sheep.”

Featured image: Repairs in anticipation of the Jubilee Year were underway at St. Peter’s Basilica on the day of St. Edith Stein’s canonization. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/10/10/jp2-11oct98hom/

#Auschwitz #equality #humanDignity #humanRights #humanity #inspiration #Jewish #loveOfGod #RosaStein #Shoah #StEdithStein #StJohnPaulII

May 29
BLESSED ELIA OF SAINT CLEMENT FRACASSO
Virgin

Optional Memorial

Blessed Elia of St. Clement was born in Bari, 17th January 1901, to deeply Christian parents. At her baptism, she was given the name Theodora, gift of God. In the brief course of her life on earth, she lived up to her name. On 8th April 1920 (then Feast of St. Albert, author of the Carmelite Rule), she entered the Carmel of St. Joseph in Bari. She received the habit on 24th November of the same year, the feast of St John of the Cross. On 8th December 1924, she wrote in her own blood her act of total and definitive offering to the Lord with the vow to embrace the “most perfect”. She died on Christmas day 1927. On 19th December 2005, Pope Benedict XVI signed the Decree of Beatification. She was proclaimed Blessed in Bari Cathedral on 18th March 2006.

From the Common of Virgins

Office of Readings

Second Reading

From the Writings of Blessed Elia of Saint Clement
(Ed. O.C.D. 2001: pp. 282, 295, 322)

The desire to lose herself in God and her apostolic zeal

O sweet hiddenness, I love to pass my days in your shadow and to consume thus my existence, for love of my sweet Lord. At times, thinking of those eternal rewards, so great compared to the slight sacrifices of this life, my soul remains in wonder, and seized by an ardent longing, it throws itself on God, exclaiming: “Oh my good Jesus, I want to reach my goal, the gates of salvation, no matter what the cost. Do not deny me anything; give me suffering. May this be the most intimate martyrdom of my poor heart, hidden from every human glance: a rugged cross is what I ask of you. I want to pass my days here below hanging from this cross.”

When we suffer with Jesus, the suffering is delightful; I long to suffer with all my heart, beyond this I no longer want anything.

My Delight, who could ever separate me from You? Who could be capable of breaking these strong chains that keep my heart attached to yours? Perhaps the abandonment of creatures? It is precisely this that unites the soul to its Creator. Perhaps tribulations, suffering, crosses? It is in these thorns that the canticle of the soul that loves you is freest and lightest. Perhaps death? But this will be nothing other than the beginning of true happiness for the soul. Nothing, nothing can separate this soul from You, not even for a brief moment. It was created for You and is lost if it does not abandon itself to You.

My life is love: this sweet nectar surrounds me, this merciful love penetrates me, purifies me, renews me, and I feel it consuming me. The cry of my heart is: “Love of my God, my soul searches for You alone. My soul, suffer and be quiet; love and hope; offer yourself but hide your suffering behind a smile, and always move on. I want to spend my life in deep silence, in the depths of my heart, in order to listen to the gentle voice of my sweet Jesus.

“Souls, I will search for a way to cast you into the sea of Merciful Love: souls of sinners, but above all souls of priests and religious. To this end, my existence is slowly disappearing, consumed like the oil of a lamp that watches near the Tabernacle.”

I sense the vastness of my soul, its infinite greatness that the immensity of this world cannot contain: it was created to lose itself in You, my God, because you alone are great, infinite and thus You alone can make it completely happy.

RESPONSORY

R/. An unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord’s affairs. * Her aim is to be dedicated to him in body as in spirit (alleluia).
V/. God is the strength of her heart, he is hers forever: * Her aim is to be dedicated to him in body as in spirit (alleluia).

Morning Prayer

Canticle of Zechariah

Ant. O Lord, how gentle is your love! Lost in your embrace I shall be blessed forever (alleluia).

Prayer

O Lord,
who were pleased to accept the self-offering
of Blessed Elia of Saint Clement, virgin;
grant through her intercession,
that, sustained by the Eucharist
we may be able faithfully to do your will.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you,
and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Evening Prayer

Canticle of Mary

Ant. Your love, O Lord, is like a fire consuming me in the ardent furnace of your Heart (alleluia).

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/05/27/fracassolit24/

#Bari #blessed #BlessedEliaOfStClement #ff0000 #GodAlone #infiniteBeing #Liturgy #LiturgyOfTheHours #love #loveAlone #loveForJesus #loveForTheLord #loveIsLoss #loveOfGod #loveWithoutLimits #martyrdom #mercifulLove #optionalMemorial #perfection #suffer #suffering #TeodoraFracasso #trueLove #virgin

People should rejoice, then, not in whether they possess and exercise these graces, but in whether they derive the second benefit from them, the spiritual: Serving God through them with true charity, for in charity lies the fruit of eternal life.

Accordingly, our Savior reproved the disciples who were glorying in their success at casting out devils: Do not desire to rejoice that the devils are subject to you, but that your names are written in the book of life [Lk 10:20]. In sound theology this is like saying: Rejoice if your names are written in the book of life.

Hence it should be understood that people ought not rejoice except in walking along the path that leads to life and in doing works with charity. What profit is there in anything that is not the love of God, and what value has it in God’s sight?

Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book III, chap. 30, no. 5

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Detail from a painting of St. John of the Cross by Teresa Satola. Image credit: ©Teresa Satola 2002. Explore more Carmelite art by Teresa Satola

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#ascent #charity #CrossOfChrist #eternalLife #grace #loveOfGod #service #StJohnOfTheCross #theCross #walking

We can abide in [Christ’s] love because his love abides. The resurrection, the gaze of the risen Christ, God’s self-lavishing presence at the centre of the person, this ensures the possibility of contact, ensures that in ‘being with him’, something is taking place.

What John calls ‘contemplation’ is a special instance of this, a powerful impress of the resurrection on the world. It is special, not as esoteric, but as manifesting the reality of prayer with particular intensity.

When he spoke about the bewilderment that goes with night, he was thinking particularly of the loss of the familiar at the onset of contemplative prayer [cf. The Ascent II, 8; Dark Night I, 8]. But in itself, this night of prayer means positive growth. It is the gaze of Christ laying claim on the person at increasingly deep levels. It is a more total communication of God.

Father Iain Matthew, O.C.D.

Chapter 20, “Prayer, a ‘Being With’ ”

Note: In his address to the International Congress on Memory and Hope in St. John of the Cross on 9 May 2019, Father Iain said: “In this John of the Cross helps me to believe that God exists. He helps me to believe that death is not the end, that there is more to life than biology. He helps me to trust that God loves us and means to bring us to eternal life in heaven. In short, he helps me to believe that Christ is risen.”

Upon the death of her husband in 1901, the widow of United States President Benjamin Harrison commissioned Tiffany Studios to create a window in his memory. The design shows Michael, the Angel of the Resurrection, signaling the dead to rise at Christ’s second coming. In keeping with the romanticism of the time, Tiffany’s heroic angel is dressed in the chain mail suit of a crusading knight and seems like a figure from Sir Walter Scott’s novels. Image credit: Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields (Public domain)

Matthew, I 1995, The Impact of God: Soundings from St. John of the Cross, Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd, London.

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/05/08/iain-resurr/

#contemplation #death #eternalLife #eternity #faith #heaven #IainMatthew #loveOfGod #resurrection #risenChrist #StJohnOfTheCross

#TheMetalDogArticleList
#guitarworld
Steve Vai rocks up to Mexico gig to find street performer playing For the Love of God on two guitars
Rafael Flores spent three years working on his hypnotic arrangement, and finally had the chance to flex his two-hand tapping chops in front of Vai himself

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/steve-vai-street-performer-for-the-love-of-god

#SteveVai #LoveOfGod #Guitarworld #FingerstyleGuitar #Performing #StreetPerformers #CreativeFusion #GuitarPlayers

#TheMetalDogArticleList
#guitarworld
Steve Vai rocks up to Mexico gig to find street performer playing For the Love of God on two guitars
Rafael Flores spent three years working on his hypnotic arrangement, and finally had the chance to flex his two-hand tapping chops in front of Vai himself

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/steve-vai-street-performer-for-the-love-of-god

#SteveVai #LoveOfGod #Guitarworld #FingerstyleGuitar #Performing #StreetPerformers #CreativeFusion #GuitarPlayers

...the Holy Spirit breathes, in this day, unto the #hearts which are #moving, #beating, #pure and #attracted by the #loveofGod.

‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá Abbas, p. 710.
https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/TAB/tab-778.html
#bahai #quotes

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 9: Silent Love

Reading 

What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love.

Sayings of Light and Love, 132

Scripture

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
    my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
    as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
    beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
  my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
    I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
    and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed,
    and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
    and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
    your right hand upholds me.

Psalm 63:1-8

Meditation 

“Are you seeking to find God? Then listen to the silence; immerse yourself in silence.”

This simple, yet profound advice comes from Father Jacques de Jésus, O.C.D., the headmaster of the Discalced Carmelite boarding school in Avon, France who was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the harshest forced labor camps at Gusen and Mauthausen during World War II. Like St. Raphael Kalinowski in Poland, who we met on the third day of our novena, and whose experience in a forced labor camp in Siberia prepared him for life in Carmel, so for Père Jacques, life in Carmel prepared him for life as a political prisoner.

And as prisoners, both of them resembled St. John of the Cross: suffering, abandoned, physically tested, yet through it all they were seeking, reaching, listening, grasping for the presence of God. We can imagine them passing through vast interior deserts in silence, en route to their loving encounter with God.

On the eighth day of our novena, we shared an excerpt from John 17, which is often referred to as Jesus’ high priestly prayer. St. Edith Stein offers this brief comment concerning the prayer in her 1936 essay, The Prayer of the Church:

The Savior’s high priestly prayer unveils the mystery of the inner life: the circumincession of the Divine Persons and the indwelling of God in the soul. In these mysterious depths, the work of salvation was prepared and accomplished itself in concealment and silence. And so it will continue until the union of all is actually accomplished at the end of time. The decision for the Redemption was conceived in the eternal silence of the inner divine life.

Small wonder, then, that St. Thérèse understood that hiding in the Face of Christ meant that she would be able to tune out the trivial noise of the world, as we also discovered in the eighth novena meditation.

Father Jacques makes that abundantly clear: “God is eternal silence; God dwells in silence.” We’ll let him continue:

Christ is characteristically serene and silent. (…) That serene silence is the hallmark of Christ. (…)

God is eternal silence; God dwells in silence. He is eternal silence because he is the One who has totally realized his own being because he says all and possesses all. He is infinite happiness and infinite life. All God’s works are marked by this characteristic. Contemplate the Incarnation; it was accomplished in the silence of the Virgin Mary’s chamber at a time when she was in prolonged silence, her door closed. Our Lord’s birth came during the night, while all things were enveloped in silence. That is how the Word of God appeared on earth, and only Mary and Joseph were silently with him. They did not overwhelm him with their questions, for they were accustomed to guarding their innermost thoughts. (…)

Whoever embraces silence, welcomes God and whoever relishes silence, hears God speak. Silence is the echo of God’s eternity and the foundation of the rich teaching of Saint John of the Cross. That teaching in all its richness derives from his prison cell at Toledo. During the months of his solitary confinement there, he accepted his isolation and embraced silence. He became imbued with silence. In turn, that silence revealed to him the true value of suffering, which is at the heart of his teaching concerning the ascent to God. Without this treasured silence, John of the Cross would never have become the great mystical Doctor of the Church that he is. (…)

Silence should penetrate deep within us and occupy every area of our inner home. Thus is our soul transformed into a sanctuary of prayer and recollection. (…) Such silence allows us to listen to the secret voice of God, like the saints, especially St. John of the Cross. (Listen to the Silence, Conference 8)

Have you ever had the opportunity to make a silent retreat? Or to enjoy 30 minutes in a quiet home when the rest of the family is out of the house? Perhaps there is a favorite spot, a “happy place” or some other getaway location, real or imagined, where you virtually or literally can get away from the rush and the noise of your daily commitments. In that space, do you find yourself feeling calmer, more peaceful, better able to think, to relax, to focus, even to pray?

If God dwells in silence, it is in silence that we must seek him. And if God dwells in silence, he is no more attracted to the noise than we are in moments of silence. As we accustom ourselves to silence, we welcome and even crave silence.

It’s in the midst of our welcome, our craving the silence of God that we understand the silence that God desires of us:  “the language he best hears is silent love.”

As we have walked together through these novena days with Saint John of the Cross and the commentary offered by the saints of Carmel, we have gained many insights along the way. As we conclude, let’s read St. John’s own prologue to the Sayings of Light and Love; his proposals at the beginning of the collection of sayings form a wonderful summary of what we have learned as we come to the end. Thanks for joining us.

O my God and my delight, for your love I have also desired to give my soul to composing these sayings of light and love concerning you. Since, although I can express them in words, I do not have the works and virtues they imply (which is what pleases you, O my Lord, more than the words and wisdom they contain), may others, perhaps stirred by them, go forward in your service and love – in which I am wanting. I will thereby find consolation, that these sayings be an occasion for your finding in others the things that I lack.

Lord, you love discretion, you love light, you love love; these three you love above the other operations of the soul. Hence these will be sayings of discretion for the wayfarer, of light for the way, and of love in the wayfaring. May there be nothing of worldly rhetoric in them or the long-winded and dry eloquence of weak and artificial human wisdom, which never pleases you. Let us speak to the heart words bathed in sweetness and love that do indeed please you, removing obstacles and stumbling blocks from the paths of many souls who unknowingly trip and unconsciously walk in the path of error – poor souls who think they are right in what concerns the following of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in becoming like him, imitating his life, actions, and virtues, and the form of his nakedness and purity of spirit. Father of mercies, come to our aid, for without you, Lord, we can do nothing.

Prayer

O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.

O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of you.

Mention your request

Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.

Let’s continue in prayer

Day 1 — Self-trust
Day 2 — Self-giving
Day 3 — Cleansing
Day 4 — Walking in love
Day 5 — Trust
Day 6 — Prayer
Day 7 — Humility
Day 8 — Eternal Silence
Day 9 — Silent love

 The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Stein, E 2014, The Hidden Life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, Stein, W (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.

Let us unite in prayer

#circumincession #edithStein #icsPublications #jacquesOfJesus #johnOfTheCross #listenToTheSilence #love #loveOfGod #lucienBunel #novena #pereJacques #pereJacquesOfJesus #perichoresis #prayerOfTheChurch #sanJuanDeLaCruz #sayingsOfLightAndLove #silence #silentLove #stEdithStein #stJohnOfTheCross #theHiddenLife

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 8: Eternal Silence

Reading

The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son, and this Word he speaks always in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul. 

Sayings of Light and Love, 100

Scripture

I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

John 17:6-19

Meditation 

“What is truth?” (Jn 18:38)

Pontius Pilate’s rhetorical question echoes through the centuries.

St. Edith Stein reminds us that Pilate could have asked a more essential question: Who is truth?

In her meditation, The Hidden Life and Epiphany, Edith touches on this question as she makes use of the Epiphany manger scene to make an analogy for the Church and its development. 

The kings at the manger represent seekers from all lands and peoples. Grace led them before they ever belonged to the external church. There lived in them a pure longing for truth that did not stop at the boundaries of native doctrines and traditions. Because God is truth and because he wants to be found by those who seek him with their whole hearts, sooner or later that star had to appear to show these wise men the way to truth. And so they now stand before the Incarnate Truth, bow down and worship it, and place their crowns at its feet, because all the treasures of the world are but a little dust compared to it. 

“God is truth… he wants to be found… that star had to appear.” Edith, in her matter-of-fact, German way, minces no words. God isn’t hiding after all, he’s in our midst, standing before our eyes, just as Jesus stood before Pilate. Jesus, Incarnate Truth, was standing before the governor who asked him, “what is truth?”

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity seems to be speaking to us when she writes:

I understand that you need an ideal, something that will draw you out of yourself and raise you to greater heights. But, you see, there is only One; it is He, the Only Truth! Ah, if you only knew Him a little as your Sabeth does! He fascinates, He sweeps you away; under His gaze, the horizon becomes so beautiful, so vast, so luminous…. My dear one, do you want to turn with me toward this sublime Ideal? It is no fiction but a reality. (Letter 128)

Are you serious? Where is this horizon? Because in the darkness where we’re hiding, it’s difficult to see. And once again, it is St. John himself who responds:

Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me. What do you ask, then, and seek, my soul? Yours is all of this, and all is for you. Do not engage yourself in something less or pay heed to the crumbs that fall from your Father’s table. Go forth and exult in your Glory! Hide yourself in it and rejoice, and you will obtain the supplications of your heart. (Sayings 27)

Hiding in glory… there’s a concept that we don’t see or hear every day. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, it seems that God is the one who is doing all the hiding while we’re waiting around for him to show up. Is there anyone who understands what St. John of the Cross means?

St. Thérèse does! The language of “hiding” was one of her favorite concepts, especially in her poetry, and it’s a transferable concept, meaning that it’s not strictly applicable to the cloistered life. For example:

My Sweet Jesus, on your Mother’s breast
You appear to me, glowing with Love.
Love—this is the indescribable mystery
That exiled you from the Heavenly Abode…
Ah! Let me hide under the veil
That hides you from all mortal eyes
And close to you, O Morning Star!
I’ll find a foretaste of Heaven.
(Pn 1)

Here, Thérèse is talking about hiding under the Blessed Virgin’s veil, not necessarily hiding under the veil of a Carmelite nun. Hiding under the veil of the Virgin Mary is an image that is more approachable for us, perhaps. But the Infant is glowing on Mary’s breast, glowing with Love, and is there a hint of glory in that image, too?

Here’s another example from the poetry of St. Thérèse:

The unspeakable gaze of your Son—
Upon my poor soul he deigned to look down;
I looked for his adorable face
And in Him, I want to be hidden.
I’ll have to stay little forever
To deserve the glances from his eyes;
But by virtue of that, I will soon grow up
Under the heat of this heavenly star.
(Pn 11)

Now, we are getting more of a sense of how Thérèse has captured St. John’s profound concept of hiding in glory, yet she has expressed it in the language of littleness, that loving gaze of Jesus, and yet at the same time—while remaining hidden—there is light and heat generated by the Lord, having a direct effect on her spiritual life.

This is all very heady stuff. But it seems that for Thérèse, the key to hiding in glory is to be found in the face of Jesus. The Gospel of John and St. Paul testify to this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (…) And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:1-5,14)

All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18)

Well if that’s the case, gazing on the face of Christ and hiding in the face of Christ, must be a key to “growing up” as Thérèse said; growing in prayer, growing in faith, growing in hope, and our goal… growing in love. After all, that’s our aim.

We’ll let St. Thérèse have the last word, then, about hiding in the face of Jesus:

Ah! Let me, Lord, hide in your Face.
There I will no longer hear the trivial noise from the world.
Give me your love, preserve me in your grace
Just for today.
(Pn 5)

Ah…. silence.

Prayer 

O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.

O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of you.

Mention your request

Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.

Let’s continue in prayer

Day 1 — Self-trust
Day 2 — Self-giving
Day 3 — Cleansing
Day 4 — Walking in love
Day 5 — Trust
Day 6 — Prayer
Day 7 — Humility
Day 8 — Eternal Silence
Day 9 — Silent love

The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 2003, The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity volume 2: Letters from Carmel, Nash, A (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Stein, E 2014, The Hidden Life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, Stein, W (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

We always refer to the website of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux for the vast majority of our quotes concerning Saint Thérèse, Saint Zélie, and Saint Louis Martin. If you would like to purchase English translations for the collected works of St. Thérèse, please visit the website of our Discalced Carmelite friars at ICS Publications. 

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.

Let us unite in prayer

#archives #edithStein #elizabethCatez #glory #hiding #icsPublications #johnOfTheCross #letter #letters #love #loveOfGod #novena #poetry #sabeth #sanJuanDeLaCruz #sayingsOfLightAndLove #silence #stEdithStein #stElizabethOfTheTrinity #stJohnOfTheCross #stTeresaBenedictaOfTheCross #stTherese #stThereseOfLisieux #stThereseOfTheChildJesus #theHiddenLife #truth

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 7: Humility

Reading

To be taken with love for a soul, God does not look on its greatness, but on the greatness of its humility.

Sayings of Light and Love, 103

Scripture

Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
In your compassion blot out my offense.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.

My offenses truly I know them;
my sin is always before me
Against you, you alone, have I sinned;
what is evil in your sight I have done.

That you may be justified when you give sentence
and be without reproach when you judge,
O see, in guilt I was born,
a sinner was I conceived.

Indeed you love truth in the heart;
then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.
O purify me, then I shall be clean;
O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me hear rejoicing and gladness,
that the bones you have crushed may revive.
From my sins turn away your face
and blot out all my guilt.

A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.

Give me again the joy of your help;
with a spirit of fervor sustain me,
that I may teach transgressors your ways
and sinners may return to you.

O rescue me, God, my helper,
and my tongue shall ring out your goodness.
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise.

For in sacrifice you take no delight,
burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit,
a humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.

In your goodness, show favor to Zion:
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with lawful sacrifice,
holocausts offered on your altar.

Psalm 51

Meditation

“O sweetest love of God, so little known, whoever has found this rich mine is at rest!” (Sayings, 16) This is the song of St. John of the Cross, his canticle of love distilled down to its very essence. 

God truly loves us, St. John reminds us through his letters. He tells us that God cannot fit in hearts that are occupied with distractions, that are attached to people, places, or things that mean more to us than God himself. God only fits in hearts that have been emptied to make room for him.

It seems that nada—nothingness within us—isn’t so far-fetched after all. Cleansing our souls is like the necessary spiritual housekeeping that must be done prior to any Nativity moment in our spiritual lives; without that soul-cleansing, that housecleaning in our hearts, there will always be a NO VACANCY light shining outside the inn within. How can God find space to squeeze in here?

St. Edith Stein says that the moment we reach the realization that we need to clean house is the moment when we are on the threshold of making the greatest spiritual progress. Recalling the spiritual sense of dryness, darkness, and emptiness that we mentioned in the meditation for our sixth day of this novena, Edith offers this reflection on the state of the soul in her final masterpiece, The Science of the Cross (SC):

She [the soul] is put into total darkness and emptiness. Absolutely nothing that might give her a hold is left to her anymore except faith. Faith sets Christ before her eyes: the poor, humiliated, crucified one, who is abandoned on the cross even by his heavenly Father. In his poverty and abandonment, she rediscovers herself. Dryness, distaste, and affliction are the “purely spiritual cross” that is handed to her. If she accepts it she experiences that it is an easy yoke and a light burden. It becomes a staff for her that will quickly lead her up the mountain. (SC 10)

Accepting the dryness we experience in prayer, the distaste, the affliction, these are all signs that we actually are clearing out space for God within. 

When she realizes that Christ, in his extreme humiliation and annihilation on the cross, achieved the greatest result, the reconciliation and union of mankind with God, there awakens in her the understanding that for her, also, annihilation, the “living death by crucifixion of all that is sensory as well as spiritual” leads to union with God. (SC 10)

And by the way, there is a little voice in Dijon, France who takes up the refrain: it is St Elizabeth of the Trinity, singing so sweetly in the pages of her Last Retreat (LR):

If my interior city (cf. Rev. 21) is to have some similarity and likeness to that “of the King of eternal ages” (I Tim 1:17) and to receive this great illumination from God, I must extinguish every other light and, as in the holy city, the Lamb must be “its only light.”

Here faith, the beautiful light of faith appears. It alone should light my way as I go to meet the Bridegroom. The psalmist sings the He “hides Himself in darkness” (Ps 17:12), then in another place he seems to contradict himself by saying that “light surrounds Him like a cloak” (Ps 103:2). What stands out for me in this apparent contradiction is that I must immerse myself in “the sacred darkness” by putting all my powers in darkness and emptiness; then I will meet my Master, and “the light that surrounds Him like a cloak” will envelop me also, for He wants His bride to be luminous with His light, His light alone, “which is the glory of God.” (LR 4)

So there it is: the challenge, the call is to accept, welcome, embrace and—so to speak—hide in the dark and empty spaces within us, not running to another distraction, another attachment, another new idol in our lives to fill up that interior void. It is at the point when we feel (and know) the emptiness within, the void that we are creating and/or that God is helping us to create so that we can spend time and focus on him—whether that is accepting a loss of some sort of attachment, or purposefully choosing to give up a distracting activity in order to spend more time going to daily Mass, making time for daily Scripture reading, or praying the Liturgy of the Hours, or the rosary, or going to Eucharistic adoration, or practicing silent mental prayer instead of (name your distraction here).

At this point when we have a hunger and a thirst for God that is so strong and powerful that we are willing to sacrifice and say, “all for you and nothing for me” (Sayings 111), we also find ourselves crying out to God, “but I can’t do this alone, by myself!” When we are ready to give up and have reached the point of abandon, we’ve reached the most crucial moment of all because…

That is the truth.

“I never sought anything but the truth,” St. Thérèse said in the hours before her death (Yellow Notebook, 30 September).

St. Teresa set the benchmark in the Interior Castle: “To be humble is to walk in truth” (IC VI, 10:7)

And how will we know when we’re meeting the benchmark for St. John of the Cross?

The humble are those who hide in their own nothingness and know how to abandon themselves to God (Sayings 163).

Prayer

O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.

O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of you.

Mention your request

Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.

Let’s continue in prayer

Day 1 — Self-trust
Day 2 — Self-giving
Day 3 — Cleansing
Day 4 — Walking in love
Day 5 — Trust
Day 6 — Prayer
Day 7 — Humility
Day 8 — Eternal Silence
Day 9 — Silent love

 The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Teresa of Avila, St 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Stein, E 2002, The Science of the Cross, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Book 6, translated from the German by Koeppel, J, ICS Publications, Washington D.C.

Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 2014, I Have Found God, The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity Volume 1: Major spiritual writings, translated from the French by Kane, A, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.

Let us unite in prayer

#abandonment #darkness #drynessInPrayer #edithStein #elizabethCatez #godsLove #humble #humility #icsPublications #interiorCastle #johnOfTheCross #lastConversations #lastRetreat #letter #letters #love #loveOfGod #nada #nothingness #novena #sabeth #sanJuanDeLaCruz #santaTeresaDeJesus #sayingsOfLightAndLove #selfEmptying #stEdithStein #stElizabethOfTheTrinity #stJohnOfTheCross #stTeresa #stTeresaBenedictaOfTheCross #stTeresaOfAvila #stTeresaOfJesus #stTherese #stThereseOfLisieux #stThereseOfTheChildJesus #teresa #theScienceOfTheCross #truth

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 1: What profit

Scripture

Jesus asked her what she wanted, and she said, “When you come into your kingdom, please let one of my sons sit at your right side and the other at your left.”

Jesus answered, “Not one of you knows what you are asking. Are you able to drink from the cup that I must soon drink from?”

James and John said, “Yes, we are!”

Jesus replied, “You certainly will drink from my cup! But it isn’t for me to say who will sit at my right side and at my left. That is for my Father to say.”
(Matthew 20:21-23)

Reading

“[I]t should be understood that people ought not rejoice except in walking along the path that leads to life and in doing works with charity. What profit is there in anything that is not the love of God, and what value has it in God’s sight?”

Ascent of Mount Carmel III:30

Prayer

O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.

O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of thee.

Mention your request

Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.

Let’s continue in prayer…

• Day 1 — What profit is there?
• Day 2 — An open wound
• Day 3 — Your heart in peace
• Day 4 — An imitation of his life
• Day 5 — Supreme goodness
• Day 6 — Guided through the dark night
• Day 7 — Surrender
• Day 8 — Inspired with love
• Day 9 — All things are forgotten

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.

Let us unite in prayer

#ascent #ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #charity #crossOfChrist #discalcedCarmelite #loveOfGod #novena #secularCarmelites #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel #theCross #walking