THE WAR OF FIRST-BORNS AND THE LIMP OF JACOB

The war between first-born brothers is from the ages, beginning with Abel and Cain (Genesis 4). It is ongoing. A war was even apparent in the womb of Rebeka as Jacob grabs Esau’s heel (Genesis 25:26). The title and blessing of first born in this chapter was forfeited by shallowness first and then stolen through deception (Genesis 27). An often despised story, but nonetheless leading to Christ the Messiah.

Why did God keep silent? Or did He? Did He not confront the birthright thief as the Angel of God resulting in a handicap (Genesis 32) for him and a reminder for us of his deception? And until when?

Romans 3:25. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. 26 He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

1 Corinthians: 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that NO ONE may boast before Him.

If the Messiah came from Esau’s first-born birthright, one might be weakly able to say His descendants could boast. But descendants of Jacob’s deception could not. We are justified by Christ, not His lineage.

Hebrews 12:22-24. What you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival, with the whole Church in which everyone is a ‘first-born son’ and a citizen of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and been placed with spirits of the saints who have been made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator who brings a new covenant and a blood for purification which pleads more insistently than Abel’s.


Troparion of Saint James

O Holy James, as a disciple of the Lord, you received the Gospel. As a martyr, you displayed an unyielding will. As a brother of God, you have special power with Him. As a hierarch, you have the right of intercession. Intercede therefore with Christ God that He may save our souls.

Authority Before Mysticism

There is a tradition in Apostolic Christianity that interprets the abrupt change in order of the two apostles running to witness the empty tomb:

John 20

3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb…

Scripture breaths the life of revelation at many layers, some yet to be known, but the traditional interpretation of this change in sequence is that while the mystic, here represented by John, transcriber of the Book of Revelation, may see first, the event is not official until God’s authority takes witness, here represented by Peter, the Holder of the Keys.

So with the visions and revelations of conditional prophesies of mystics, their manifestations’ admission await the official.

Troparion of Saint John

Apostle beloved of Christ God, hasten to deliver a people that lacks any other defense; for He accepted that you lay your head on His breast. He will also accept your prayer. Therefore, intercede with Him, O Theologian, that He may disperse haughty nations, and beg that He may grant peace and abundant mercy.

Before the Crucifixion

On the night of Jesus’ betrayal, a small army of soldiers appeared in a disproportional display of force against the King of Kings, Himself unarmed and ready to offer the Eternal life-giving sacrifice for mankind.

John 3 : Judas therefore having received a band of soldiers and servants from the chief priests and the Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. [Douay-Rheims]

Why would Providence allow this disproportionate display of force right before His sacrifice for mankind? Could this be to articulate the only means to end the warring ways of nations, against the innocent and defenseless. Indeed His response to Peter’s not unreasonable reaction to the situation of attempting to defend Him speaks across time:

10 Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear.

 11 Jesus therefore said to Peter: Put up thy sword into the scabbard. The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?

Hereby Jesus tells the true and only way for wars to be avoided so that the innocent need not even take up their sword to defend themselves. Namely it is His offering from the cross, His flesh and blood from the cross in the Mass and Divine Liturgy, the Sacraments, that is the remedy for avoiding war.

This is why the Virgin Mother’s apparitions of Fatima occurred to remind the faithful of the means to avoid World War I and then World War II. This is why the principalities of the world had to attack the priesthood before forcing the Iraq war on nations. This why the orchestrated pandemic had to limit the offering of the Divine Sacrifice in preparation for the war looming on our doorstep in current times, even to the point of canceling the Easter celebrations all over the word in 2020.

The remedy is so simple.

And lest anyone think that Jesus’ declaration to Peter to put away his sword was in anyway a message to deny the right to self defense, as the cowardly media and propagators of wars would have you believe. Think again. Because that would mean that Jesus, God in the flesh, must have “forgotten” to tell Peter or anyone of His disciples to put away his open carry during the three years they might have carried it during His public ministry.

Judith 16

“Begin a song to my God with tambourines;
    sing to my Lord with cymbals.
Raise to him a new psalm;
    exalt him and call upon his name.
For the Lord is a God who crushes wars;
    he sets up his camp among his people;
    he delivered me from the hands of my pursuers.

11 Years ago, Fall 2011

Eleven years ago in this time of the year, 100’s of thousands of Russians, including Vladimir Putin, visited the Holy Relic Belt of the Theotokos on display in Russia, believed to be knitted by the Virgin Mary herself. The belt or cincture is normally stored on Mt. Athos, where the Beloved Disciple authored the Book of the Apocalypse.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111221084234/http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/10/20/59072684.html

On the Traditional Liturgies and the Fifth Ignatian Rule of Discernment

In bleak or desolate times, there is a good rule of thumb that has a formal teaching from the founder of the Jesuit order. It is the fifth rule of discernment on knowing what to do in difficult times.

“In time of desolation never to make a change; but to be firm and constant in the resolutions and determination in which one was the day preceding such desolation, or in the determination in which he was in the preceding consolation. Because, as in consolation it is rather the good spirit who guides and counsels us, so in desolation it is the bad, with whose counsels we cannot take a course to decide rightly.”

In other words, avoid making any major changes when you are compromised by a difficult situation. Rather hold fast to what you had before the bad times.

This is really enough said for those that want to limit the more traditional Liturgies for newer ones. And since those newer rites were developed in the “day preceding such desolation”, the availability of both can be seen as a preparation for such bad times.

The rule could also put a lid on those ideas in governments that depend on false flag operations. Causing a bad event to induce a change. An idea that has found historical use in Communism and other tyrannical ideologies. Rather a bad event should be an excuse to hold fast to traditions.

Creation in Suspense

Genesis 1: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

This is the beginning sentence of scripture, announcing the creation of the world, “formless and empty” with the Spirit of God hovering above it. The sentence portrays creation, including mankind, incomplete and in suspense anticipating the descent of the God to complete His work. The travails of the nation of God before this descent witness to an anticipation.

And when did He finally descend?

At Your baptism in the Jordan, O Lord, the worship of the Trinity was revealed. For the Father’s voice bore witness to You by calling You His Beloved Son; and the Spirit in the from of a dove confirmed the truth of these words. O Christ God who have appeared to us and enlightened the world. Glory to You! (Troparion of the Theophany)

And when did the nation of God receive formal completion? When would more nations of God be propagated to counter the divisions of Babel?

At Pentecost of course.

Pentacost Troparion
BLESSED ARE YOU, O Christ our God, who have filled the fishermen with wisdom by sending down the Holy Spirit upon them; and who through them have caught in Your net the whole world. O Lover of Mankind, glory to You!


Pentacost Kontakion
WHEN THE MOST HIGH came down and confused the tongues, He divided the nations, but when He distributed the tongues of fire, He called all men to unity. Wherefore, we glorify the Holy Spirit with one accord!

The Only Sign to be Given

What is the only sign that God gives to a corrupt generation? With warning after warning unheeded?

Isaiah 7

13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, that ye will weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

The Beast and The Bride of Christ

Whether or not one feels we are entering into the apocalypse before Christ’s final coming, we can see how the Church, the Bride of Christ, is lured into the beast of the end times. The beast is the system that can usher in the Anti-Christ. The method is exactly that, an incorporation. In this case a tax entity. God can do no wrong and no evil can overwhelm without disobeying God. So God must have the Word that protects against evil. Certainly the unfaithfulness of the shepherds on core issues of morality is at the core, but the lure of incorporation and consolidation of the Church into the beast may be related to disobeying another, if not command, then at least, a suggestion Christ directly made to the Apostles. Pay your taxes.

The Church teaches rightly that we should pay our taxes. But why don’t they pay their share? Only the defrauded can recognize the fraud. Tax structures have the potential to create an illusion of a moral code, a self-deluded perception that we are okay. In the code of governments, Al Capone was a tax-evader, not a murderer or illicit business operator. In the code of governments, natural immunity does not exist, only immunity from regular vaccinations

Look carefully at the words of our Lord in the following Matthew passage.

Matthew 17: 23 And when they were come to Capharnaum, they that received the didrachmas, came to Peter and said to him: Doth not your master pay the didrachmas? 24 He said: Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying: What is thy opinion, Simon? The kings of the earth, of whom do they receive tribute or custom? of their own children, or of strangers? 25 And he said: Of strangers. Jesus said to him: Then the children are free. 26 But that we may not scandalize them…thou shalt find a stater: take that, and give it to them for me and thee.

Jesus is stating the arbitrary nature of the tax and addressing His bride directly, He says pay it. He is saying that by not paying it, she (His Bride) becomes like the children of the kings of the earth, not of His Kingship.

Does the Church have to go underground for us to realize this? Christ is directly addressing the concept of a tax exemption here. It is time to grow up. If we want history to continue.

Christ the King Icon in Maaloula Syria
Christ the King Icon in Maaloula Syria

Kontakion of Saint Matthew

When you renounced the instruments of a tax-collector, to choose those of justice, you became an excellent merchant, rich in Divine Wisdom. You preached the Word of Truth, and you exhort us to be always ready by your vivid description of the last judgment.

About That Organized Religion

For decades now, discussions about religion have gone back and forth on whether an organized or institutionalized religion is needed if one believes in God. That what it is really about is conscience, and not what a priest, bishop, rabbi, or pastor says, but that what matters is a personal belief in God. On the other side of the coin were those that believe that what really matters is the official endorsement of a priest, bishop, or religious organization and that matters of conscience are irrelevant.

Today the day of reckoning has arrived. A window of escape from a poisonous vaccine and developed largely from aborted human tissue, is the religious exemption. The request is perfectly a matter of conscience and its backing is from solidified and institutionally documented teachings in the Catholic Church with perhaps some Orthodox, Jewish, and protestant churches qualifying. This while potentially a majority of priests, rabbis, pastors, and bishops increasingly cling to perverse teachings in their sanctioned government playground. True religion is defined. A God of all matters: secret, private, public, and institutional.

How helpful it would be for the faithful to receive backing from faithful pastors, priests or bishops in these times. But while a faithful priest or bishop is golden, rest assured that a faithful soul will have their cross decorated by the Virgin Mother herself.

Byzantine Cross Artwork
Byzantine Cross Artwork

What we know and more.