John 2:1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
Where exactly did this wedding occur? In Cana of course. But where was that? They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but maybe the words of a saint are worthy too.
“Cana, in the neighborhood of the tribe of Archer, near Great Sidon. This was the place where Jesus Christ our God transformed water into wine.”
Saint Eusebius of Caesaria, the first historian of the Church (264-349 A.D.)
Where is the real Cana?
Apostle carving, Lebanon
Apostle carving, Lebanon
Cave for Disciples, Southern Lebanon
Grotto Mantara statue
Grotto of the Place of Waiting (Al Mantara), Magdouche, where Mary waited for her son to return from Sidon.
Basilica at The Waiting, Sidon.
John 2:11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which He revealed His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.
Antique icon, Cana Wedding
The winter now is past, the rains have gone away. Arise my love, my bride from Lebanon and come. How you are beautiful my love, how you are fair. Among all women as a lily in the thorns.
Come, bride of Christ, receive the crown which the Lord has prepared for you for all eternity; for whose love you have shed your blood. And you will enter into the Paradise among the angels. Come, O you my chosen one, and I will set my throne within you: so shall the King have pleasure in your beauty.
Twice in the Gospel of John, Jesus addresses His own mother as “woman.”
John 2: 4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
John 19:26 “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,””
This is the same term of expression He uses for the Samaritan woman who had had five husbands (John 4:21) and the adulteress about to be stoned (John 8:10).
Why the apparent dishonoring of His mother? Particularly in the setting of the culture of the time in the middle east, still present to this day, of honoring motherhood. Jesus is reminding us of the role of His mother as the new Eve, who will produce the fruit of redemption from the new tree of the cross, to counter the disobedience of the first woman who offered the forbidden fruit.
But there is more.
Jesus is also reminding us that the notion of the Creator, God (Himself) would need a mother to do anything is ridiculous if she was not meant to be for us. Our mother. If she was not meant to be the mother of humanity. He submitted Himself to her for us.
Hail then to our Mother, whom the early Fathers called the glory of the new Israel.
Psalm 131:
1 Yahweh, my heart is not haughty, I do not set my sights too high. I have taken no part in great affairs, in wonders beyond my scope.
2 No, I hold myself in quiet and silence, like a little child in its mother’s arms, like a little child, so I keep myself.
3 Let Israel hope in Yahweh henceforth and for ever.
“Through Mary, the miserable obtain mercy, the graceless find grace, the sinners receive pardon. The weak gain strength, earthlings acquire heavenly things, mortals win life, and pilgrims find their country!”
This post can be an extension of the a prior, Taxes and the Incarnation of God, where the idea that a tax exemption for a religion as a corrupting element is introduced. Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, paid the tax of His time then to serve as an example for us in our time. However the true story that follows can also be taken at face value about the history of early Christianity and provide insight into the propagation of heresy, and how seeds were sown for times that followed, including our own. The history of the time is well-documented in many references but the particular details come from the reference, The Place of the Patriarchs of Antioch in Church History, by Exarch Elias B. Skaff, 1993, Sophia Press.
With the Edict of Milan in 313, Emperor Constantine ended the official persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In fact the Edict gave freedom to all religions while it ended all ordinances hostile to the Christian religion. Constantine also gave the Church a tax-exemption status.
Meanwhile a disseminating heresy, formalized by Bishop Arius, resisted the idea that Jesus Christ is God as God the Father. This heresy was addressed at the Council of Nicea in 325, where the defense of the co-substantial nature of Jesus with God the father (Greek term: homo-ousios) was championed primarily by Saint Athanasios, a deacon from Alexandria, and Saint Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch. The Arian heresy was important to counter, because anything less than the co-equal Divine Nature of Jesus Christ with God (the Father and Holy Spirit) meant a return to the monotheism of Judaism or monotheistic variants where Jesus was less than God. Jesus is the eternally-begotten Divine Son of God the Divine Father. Eternally begotten also means that there never was a single point in time when He was begotten, before which the Father was alone without Him. He was, is, and by the definition of the word eternal, will always be begotten [1][2].
The condemned Arius was present at the Council of Nicea and his followers were influenced to sign the Nicean Creed at the urging of the sister of Constantine, Constancia. Within a few years, Constancia’s influence on the Emperor resulted in the re-admitting of Arius into the Church. Bishops leading the Arian heresy regained imperial favor which resulted in the replacement of Saint Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, with an Arian. A persecution of Athanasios began. A slow and labored fracturing at the Church of Antioch was started, whose first Bishop was the Apostle Peter. Antioch is also known as the seat of the famous Bishop and martyr St. Ignatius in the 2nd Century. At one point, the majority of bishops in both eastern and western churches followed the Arian heresy. Even after Arianism waned, divisions among the orthodox prevailed at Antioch and despite the works of Saints Basil and Chrysostom, the center of eastern orthodoxy shifted to Constantinople. Antioch continued in orthodoxy, with the Melkites dividing off to formally recognize the primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the 18th Century.
The sequels of the Arian heresy may not be obvious to the casual observer of history and for our time. Consider however the following quote from the monotheistic religion of Islam:
“He, God, is one! God, the Eternal One! He will not generate, nor was he generated, and none is equal to him!” (Koran, 112, 2,4).
And for the Christian in the current age, are there heresies or unorthodox teachings, such as those for contraception that are related? Consider again the following quote by Saint Athanasios about an Arian Bishop of Antioch, Leontius, who sterilized himself to live with a woman:
“How can sterile and ignorant persons understand the eternal birth of God?”
Note carefully. Baptism imparts the pro-creative Nature of the Trinity on us. Even without us physically procreating. In fact much more so than procreating. Meet the only religion of God, the ONLY religion compatible with our physiology.
Can then the dilution and weakening of Christian teachings then be related to the influence of government or empire? Is one mechanism of influence of empire over the Church that of tax-exemption? Do Christians have to oscillate from persecution and physical martyrdom to heresy of teachings during “official” offers of freedom of religion but with outside influence? Can the worship of “officialdom” in our time explain the lukewarmness and even doublespeak of bishops and shepherds? Note that it only took a a generation for the persecutions of Christians to resume under Constantine’s nephew, Julian the Apostate.
Pantocrator Icon
[1] With the Incarnation of God in the flesh, His eternal begotten nature becomes manifest in the flesh through the Virgin Mother. The Eternal has now entered the physical realm. That is why she is ever-virgin, and mother of the new eternal race.
[2] This understanding of the eternally begotten nature of Christ (past, present, and future) has the potential to solve the Filioque controversy, since the Holy Spirit, with the same eternal nature has to exist (in mystery and outside the constraint of time) in the “was”, “is”, and “will always be” begotten nature of the Son. Only in the “will be begotten” understanding of the Son, can we see how the Holy Spirit can proceed from the Father alone.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines fulcrum as follows:
1. The support about which a lever turns
2. One that supplies capability for action
This post expands on a prior, The Evangelization of Celibacy, to expound on what has developed into dogma in the apostolic churches. On celibacy, chastity, and marriage. Even contraception. The word dogma has acquired bad connotations in our current age, causing some people, even clergy, to question dogma and think that it somehow needs to evolve, and keep up with the times. They think that dogma is somehow arbitrary and without any objective truth at its roots. But dogma is developed for our protections and for actualizing the work of God, as a manual or handbook is written for the operation of a tool or device. Some people can expand on their knowledge on how something is designed to work and develop a working knowledge of how to use a tool or device without the use of a manual. But this is generally not a good practice.
Jesus says in John 10: 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works…
More about works in Hebrews 4: 3…And yet His works have been finished since the creation of the world.
These passages remind that God’s purpose will be done. He simply asks for humans to witness to them. The emphasis is for humans, flesh and soul. The exquisite model of this is how God used the Virgin to transfer the throne of David:
Luke 1: 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of his father David, 33 and He will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; His kingdom will never end.
God then is the force behind the works. The Virgin, flesh and soul, is the fulcrum, or vehicle “about which a lever turns” and the “one that supplies capability for action”.
There are of course other works of the flesh that constitute the fulcrum for God’s eternal Kingdom. The central acts of the Kingdom are the crucifixion and resurrection, but here we discuss our role as sexual beings, men and women with procreative potential.
God’s use of a Virgin as the fulcrum of the Kingdom is an act that captures runaway sexuality. God uses His original design to implement His Kingdom. There is no redesign. The sexual physiology of our bodies is for procreation, a scientific fact. The baptized then are changed to recognize their bodies as manifestations of the Kingdom through a number of ways that include chastity of the single, fidelity of the married, and celibacy for the religious. The chastity and celibacy for a couple using natural family planning combines all of these. Avoiding the morbidity of drugs. Sexual expression has been recaptured by our will, the means to beautify the soul. Our bodies become the fulcrum for the Kingdom.
God is not outdone in generosity. The religious that sacrifices their sexual propensity to procreate, are rewarded with the procreation of members for the Kingdom, becoming the vehicle “about which a lever turns” and the “one that supplies capability for action”. This is the explanation of the urgency in the Apostle Paul’s writing about not recommending marriage over celibacy. He was not a homosexual and did not hate women. Now we can see that Paul’s writings are a sample of how God taught the early Church to bestow the title of Father on a priest.
See also another example of how the Kingdom passes on through the celibate (eunuch): Acts 8:26-40.
So we humans become the fulcrum of the Kingdom if we accept the force at work. Hence we have a working definition of the True Faith. If we do not accept the Faith, God will simply find others about whom the lever may turn and who can supply the capability of action.
“It is for God to grant His grace, your task is to accept that grace and guard it.”
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem.
Our Lady of Dier Al-Mukhalis, Pray for Us
“Whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity. Whoever praises it makes virginity more admirable and resplendent. What appears good only in comparison with evil would not be truly good. The most excellent good is something even better that what is admitted to be good.”
Jesus Christ is God and and Man, the staple teaching about God in His Church. This has been true since the birth of Christ, actually since the Annunciation, when Christ was conceived by God the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. Perfectly God. Perfectly Man. Two natures. One Person. This dual nature (hypostasis) has been expressed in the Oral Apostolic tradition and in iconography, long before the printing press and the more widespread literacy that occurred in the second millennium. In ancient iconography, this is written in the extension of the second and third digit of the right hand of Christ as in the ancient icon of Christ Pantocrator from Mount Sinai monastery:
The Trinity and Dual Nature
(The opposing two remaining fingers with the thumb represent the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one Divine Person, but that is not the subject of this essay.)
The dual nature is also written in the asymmetry of the eyes and facial expression. The asymmetric eyes indicate Christ’s (God’s) new (since the Incarnation) will to see with both Heavenly and human eyes.
The Dual Nature of Christ in the Eyes
A Heavenly and earthly perspective. This is for us, as He intercedes for us humans before God the Father. It is also representative of His life when He walked on earth, Perfectly God, and perfectly human. Two planes of existence. (Here are two examples of Christ being perfectly human in humility while being God: John 11:33-35, Matthew 24:35-37.)
Now what this means to us in the Vine of Christ is exactly the same. It is our life on two planes of existence, the human plane and Divine plane, where the Divine is through the Sacraments, the perspective of the eastern churches. How we live in the Divine plane is by living our ordinary human lives while partaking in the Sacraments. (Willful rejection of the Divine plane of existence is remedied through the Sacrament of Confession). We cannot fathom the full significance of our Divine plane of existence at this time (we can barely appreciate the significance of our human existence) but one way we can remind ourselves of this mystery is to think of ourselves as a chamber or temple where God and His angels, patriarchs, faithful, saints and the Queen of saints meet, confer, inspire, and act exactly in our moment in history, without us necessarily knowing of any plan or action, nor necessarily while receiving any inspiration, although He may let us, His vessels, know some things according to His Holy will or even give us a supernatural power to execute His will. Sometimes this occurs in the humiliations and sufferings of our human lives and these states may be when His power is most manifest (2 Corinthians 12:9). Here in the human plane, we work out God’s justice in penance. The Sacraments are the exquisite methods used by God whereby He imparts His Nature to us in doses while implementing His will on earth, even before we are fully converted. Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.
“For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the the hope of the resurrection to eternity.”
Saint Irenaios of Lyon, Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 18, 2nd Century
How encouraging it should be to seek the Sacraments in this, God’s plan of salvation. How encouraging it should be to know that Christ’s dual nature becomes manifest in us this way. But how ineffable is our understanding a mystery so great. So let’s look at another icon for inspiration. This time of the Mother of God and from a different era and civilization, also without widespread literacy.
The Dual Nature of Christ in the Eyes of the Virgin
This link exposes the two sides of the Virgin’s face. We can extend this further, noting that the “brighter” or blissful side of the face is on the heavenly side, represented by the mantle of stars and the “sad”, or we can say more human/suffering side, with the tear drop in the eye, is on the side of the earth colored tapestry. The pattern on the earthly tapestry is a direct reminder of the Mayan calendar for the peoples of that culture and represents our human existence at any moment in history. This is the sojourning (or revealing/manifesting?) side with the knee bent forward. (Click on image for detail.)
Our Lady of Guadalupe
The Virgin’s forearm lifts the heavenly garment out of the way to expose the earthly tapestry for us on that side of her face. The winged creature reinforces this point by having one hand on the heavenly and the other on the earthly vestment, bringing each forward to parallel the facial expressions. And if you look closely at his face, you can wonder of another creature with human and heavenly perspective.
The two vestments and natures at the feet
How ineffable is our understanding a mystery so great, but how full of grace is the Theotokos, assumed into heaven body and soul, to give us insight into the mystery in such a beautiful way.
Holy Virgin in my heart
every day before I start.
And when the daily heartbeats stop,
catch me Virgin when I drop.
The crises of our time compel us to look at the history and in the current ecclesial crisis we can look at Christ’s foundational and therefore eternal work for perspective. The Melkite Eparchy of Newton has an excellent document, The Melkite Church at the Council, in support of the argument to be presented here, particularly Chapters 5-7. This much shorter discussion will touch on the history of the College of Cardinals after primarily presenting the case for election of the Bishop of Rome by all apostolic churches.
That all the apostolic churches, including the Orthodox churches recognize the Primacy of the See of Peter is assumed here. This is generally case with the definition of primacy more the subject of controversy than its existence.
“He showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God… The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:10,14).
John’s reference is for the Church defined by Christ in the 12 Apostles. Most would agree that the number 12 represents the entire Church he founded. His foundation is an ecclesial mystery not founded by of the apostles, including the apostle Peter, rather by the mystery that is His presence after the resurrection. This Presence is Sacramental and in the case of the present day apostles, it is the Sacrament of Holy Orders that creates the new generation of apostles. The work and collegiality of the 12 apostles including the addition of more, not the least of whom is Paul, is well documented in the Acts of the Apostles. These works are both autonomous while in recognition of the Primacy of Peter, even with disagreements that are at worst temporary in the mystery of Christ’s Presence.
From Chapter 6 of the above reference:
“Holy Scripture affirms a power of primacy, on the part of Peter, over the rest of the Apostles and over the whole Church. But Scripture does not affirm in any way that no bishop can be constituted in the Church except through the intervention, “direct or indirect,” of Peter and his successors, the bishops of Rome. We even explicitly see the other Apostles constituting bishops without referring in any way to Peter. The same is true of their disciples, such as Titus or Timothy. If it is necessary to understand the text as applying to bishops in the strict sense, doesn’t the Scripture say that it is the Holy Spirit who instituted the bishops to rule the Church (cf. Acts 20:28)? It is difficult, without doing violence to the text, to find in the Scripture a basis which permits affirming that no bishop obtains jurisdiction over his Church except through the “direct or indirect” intervention of the Bishop of Rome, successor of Peter.”
Just as the validity of the Sacraments of Eucharist and Penance are direct works of God the Holy Spirit and are operational, i.e. valid, in all the apostolic churches and as affirmed by the Latin Church, so must the priesthood and episcopal ascendancy to Patriarchs of the eastern churches be valid. If the concern by the Latin Church under the See of Peter is that allowing full communion of the Eastern apostolic Churches with the Latin Church would compromise the Church instituted by Christ, then that same concern should be for any Sacramental event. A glaring witness of our time is the both doctrinal and personal perversion of priests and bishops, yet this does not compromise the efficacy of the Sacrament offered to the recipient. Christ guarantees His work and Presence in the Sacrament while waiting for the personal conversion of the administrator if necessary. He will confront the Bishop as he does with the seven Bishops in Asia Minor in the Book of Revelation, interpreted symbolically or literally. Therefore the ascendancy of the Bishop of Rome could involve the Patriarchy of the Eastern Churches to complete the role of the Bishop of Rome as representative of the 12 apostles. This completeness may have been wanting for over 1000 years.
This theory suggests certain degradation in those churches excluded from their “birth right” as part of the “12”. This can be the loss of the reach commanded by Christ to Peter to “feed my sheep”. Similarly, degradation to autocracy of the role of the See of Peter becomes a risk in any exclusion of the “12”.
“There is, in fact, among the bishops only one Church, only one soul, only one heart… There is, through the institution of Christ, one and only one Church, spread out over the whole world, one and only one episcopacy represented by a multiplicity of bishops united among themselves… The Church forms a single whole, whose bond is the union of bishops” (St. Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 66, 8,3).
As a final note, we touch on the body used to elect the Bishop of Rome in our current time and for the last 1000 years, namely the College of Cardinals. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits that this was initially a closed group of individuals that included non-clergy and grew at the expense of the successors of the Apostles. Compare this to the notion of the “12” in full effect at the time of the Acts of the Apostles and for the first millennium.
There is a peculiar nest for religion in the west that will hopefully not develop with the emergence of the east. This is the concept that religion must be somehow financially sequestered from the people in order to function, a protected shelter by government mandate. In the United States, despite having no mention in it’s founding documents, this takes the form of tax shelter, where the religious institution is exempt from taxes, and the people pay less taxes when they donate to their institution.
There are a number of ways one can make the counter-argument to such a scheme. There is the alarming variety of tax shelters, ranging from those that redefine science and nature, those that use the status to accumulate wealth in stealth, the endless fantasy religions, the corruption of the apostolic churches even to the point of the endorsement of breaking laws, the politicization of doctrine, and many others. How else can the apostolic churches become havens for homosexuals who rarely work and get retirements benefits. Welcome to the land of government-protected cults.
The politicization of doctrine may be the most important feature of the current western frameworks. There are many examples of faithful religious who have resisted the temptation, but how can a tax shelter scheme like this not be viewed as a perpetual bribe by government or others to contain the evangelization initiated by Christ? Does the Holy Spirit really need this kind of help? The spoilers of the gospel most certainly do. Is this not a masonic financial system? A sandbox for contradicting beliefs, without any way out. No need to join a masonic lodge. Religions are all equal, forged in time and history endlessly. God’s Mercy becomes irrelevant. Political correctness rules indefinitely. The only winners, are those with the most power and money. A philosophy or teaching, a guilt or historical division, become convenient means to an end, pulled out like a book from the large library of history.
Would a religion with accumulated wealth in such a legal scheme have the courage to speak up against a bad law or bad policy? The Church is effectively excluded from contributing to discussions on taxes and even reforms of current financial orders using Christ’s teachings so greatly needed. Our taxes pay interest on restructured loans. How can the Church be bothered with such a state of affairs while sequestered in their exempt haven?
Emperor Constantine the Great granted freedom of worship to the Roman Empire to end the Christian persecutions. He also gave the Church tax exemption. Without this, would the Arian heresy that followed have become so dominant, protected by financial governmental sequestration?
Would someone or some institution still give money to the Church Jesus Christ founded for political gain or worse if there was no tax deduction? Would you want an OUTSIDER TO SUPPORT YOUR SPOUSE, THE BRIDE OF CHRIST ?
Creating a tax shelter to combat such a system is obviously not going to work. If this scheme to make religion operate in a tax shelter is fundamentally flawed as proposed, one would think that our Lord has something to say about it. Might He propose a remedy or at least a protection from such an adverse constitution?
He does. He pays it.
Matthew 17, 21 And when they abode together in Galilee, Jesus said to them: The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: 22 And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise again. And they were troubled exceedingly. 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, go to the sea, and cast in a hook: and that fish which shall first come up, take: and when thou hast opened its mouth, thou shalt find a stater: take that, and give it to them for me and thee.
Comment: Notice that this discourse by Matthew (the tax collector) occurs immediately after The Son of Man announces that He will subject Himself to death. While He admits that the case could be made that God’s people should be exempt from the tax, the Head of the Church, the Alpha and Omega of history, King of kings and Conqueror of all evil, nonetheless subjects Himself to it. How else could He take on what we live through?
Matthew 22, 16 And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not regard the person of men. 17 Tell us therefore what dost thou think, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 18 But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? 19 Shew me the coin of the tribute. And they offered him a penny. 20 And Jesus saith to them: Whose image and inscription is this? 21 They say to him: Caesar’s. Then he saith to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s.
A true leader leads by humility, carrying the same cross as those led. Death and taxes is the contemporary expression of the fate of western man. God Incarnate, the Son of Man, subjected Himself to all things, except sin. Including death. And taxes. But in the west, not so for the Body of Christ in the apostles. Only death here.
The easiest way for the west to allow the apostolic Church to be subjected to the same tax as the citizens may be to institute a universal consumption tax, while eliminating the income tax. The most brilliant theologians of our times can present their counter-argument. But let them exhibit the day in the last 100 years when the apostolic Church shone most brilliantly, and they will still be showing a day when the taxpayer could say “But you are still not one of us.”
He takes on our nature IN ALL THINGS BUT SIN
“Prince, be advised that we shall obey you in worldly matters and we shall pay taxes to you, but in religious affairs we shall only listen to our pastors.”
Saint John of Damascus, advising the Moslem Caliph.
God is triune, three Persons in One, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A glimpse of this mystery can be facilitated by looking at who any one of us are. God made man in His image. So there must be a clue in us about God.
Any one of us must be a son or daughter of someone. We can espouse and become a spouse. We can procreate or adopt and become father or mother. So each one of us can mirror the three persons in one, although we are each only one person. Even those that do not marry or do not have children, still have that three-in-one reminder of God in their very being. We exist for the glory of God. The triune character of man or woman, has an inherent potential to be faithful, like a spouse, or care for another, like a mother or father would. The Holy Virgin has a triune character: Crowned Daughter, faithful Spouse, and Virgin Mother. Meet the new Eve, the Realm of God’s Love. Her triune character is all for the glory of God.
In the capacity or actuality of the three-in-one character in us, there is then the mark or reminder of the Divine. Note that this state is not contingent on having sexual relations; rather it is a primordial and eternal state of the soul. A characteristic of the Divine substance. The teaching and notion of the Holy Virgin embodies this truth. This leaves the sexual act in its proper place: the creation of new life. And this teaches male-female relationships without sexuality.
In creating man, God meant that no gift be not subject to the will. Contraception. like an illicit drug, effectively makes a decision for you and in direct opposition to the triune character. It is replacing your will, a component of the soul, so the will weakens. In the case of the contraceptive drug, the effect can also weaken the male’s will, who has to interact with the female in everyday life. Contraception produces a subtle distortion in the soul made for the glory of the Triune God, leading to the soul’s dysfunction. Male and female. Meet the curse of the modern age.
Now man in the image of God is created body and soul. Intimately intertwined. The body then manifests the soul, along the principle that form follows function. The bodily change that results from contraception contradicts the function. With this understanding, such an alteration of the body might be expected to result in ill-effects on the physical health of the person. And it does. These effects of contraception have been documented in the medical literature but have been effectively swept under the rug by the main-stream culture:
Blood clots in the extremities and pulmonary emboli. In recent decades, there was the not infrequent puzzle of explaining chest pain in young women with normal chest x-rays. With the current use (and abuse) of CT scans, small pulmonary emboli are now known to be the cause. Small and insignificant, is the the current cultural rationalization to carry on.
The cyclical nature of contraceptive drugs is designed to trick the body into recognizing a pregnancy that is not there. The ovulation is thwarted. The uterus also looses the natural cycle, now capable of denying the implantation of breakthrough fertilization. If these organs are to be so fooled on a monthly basis for most of the adult life of a person, then how can we not expect the rest of our organs and tissues to be not fooled? Month after month. What about the cumulative effects? This background is the scientific explanation of the statistically proven dysplasia in breast tissue from contraceptives that increases the risk of cancer. It is called biological plausibility, the long lost spouse of biostatistics. A doctor should be able to explain things to patients in terms they understand.
Not to be left undone, the male has his equivalent. There is the emerging realization of the link between vasectomies and aggressive prostate cancer.
And what about other tissues? The brain for example. If it is well known that pregnancy causes psychological effects, then why not monthly phony pregnancies?
The analogy of mind-altering drug use is appropriate: Illicit drugs block the intellect, will, and memory, components of the soul, and produce adverse health-effects on the body.
But can we stop with contraception? If the person develops habits that deny the triune nature of the soul then might we not develop yet unstudied effects on the body from other inventions like barrier methods to avoid pregnancy, or even masturbation or pornography? What is the effect of the soul, our will and intellect, by these habits? Our productivity? Our peace of mind? Do we become like deer during rut season, except all year round and for all our lives?
Dysfunctional souls are easy prey for predators. Without even mentioning the devil and his goals, the dysfunctional soul becomes fodder for the proponents of population control that deny the freedom, will, and the means available to humans. They believe in animal husbandry. You are a cow in a herd. You have no control over your facilities. They propose contraception while encouraging seduction, the continual hum of the culture. Just like the medical industry creates pathology for treatment and the war industry, conflict for hardware.
James 4: 1, From whence are wars and contentions among you? Are they not hence, from your concupiscences, which war in your members?
“Whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity. Whoever praises it makes virginity more admirable and resplendent. What appears good only in comparison with evil would not be truly good. The most excellent good is something even better that what is admitted to be good.”
The lack of teaching the truth of the Faith is coming to fruition and taking leadership positions. Ordaining a female priest is as impossible as a male delivering a baby. Know what you are getting into. When you enter the Faith, you consume the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ, God Incarnate in a male. XY. This is not a symbol or the imagination. So having a female say the words of consecration “This is my Body” is to tell a lie in public. God cannot change the sex of a human once conceived. That is the realm of a myriad of religions and philosophies available to hide your conscience, that believe in reincarnation. Because we are conceived male OR female in love; and God cannot undo His work of Love. We can only reject His work. The Divine Liturgy is a Divine Opera that enacts God’s redemptive work and presents His Incarnate Divine Son in the flesh for consumption. XY. And not only XY, but the exact chromosome set of God Incarnate. So a male only can act as Priest, just as a woman only can carry and delivery a baby. Any other other way will not produce consumable mysteries. Consider this a nutrition label.
The last two posts (1,2) on Divine Mercy have as a central theme the Institution of Mercy. Mercy sanctifies the soul and protects from hell but this is a physical and institutional Mercy, not just a private confession of sins like what the Bible-only proponents preach. It is both. A Church that includes the gamut of relationships we can have with God, secret, private, communal, AND public, cannot be beyond the reach of an Omnipotent God. The sins are forgiven privately in the Sacrament of course but with more protection than just a private plea for mercy. To omit the institutional component of Holy Repentance leaves us more susceptible to worldly institutions, since the mercy granted had now become an objective truth. When Jesus forgave the paralytic, the world attacked Him for saying he was forgiven. So Jesus gave them a physical sign. He healed the paralytic which silenced His critics.
A personal plea to God for forgiveness can be believed, whether or not God granted it, but a sacramental act of forgiveness is real, whether or not the sinner believes it. It has become an objective truth. Part of a timeless deposit of mercy. A part of God’s historical ledger.
In case you have not noticed, the powers of this world live off the attacks and defamation of character of people. Take a politician running for office as an example. A political career can be completely destroyed by media defamation. Never mind that the attacks are always selective and for political purposes. No one of us is innocent. A Sacramental confession affords us additional public protection while protecting our privacy. Jesus offered His physical Nature for this: Body and Blood. If a Sacramental confessional will not save a political career it will at least manifest in some other physical way. As a witness to God’s Glory. Thy Kingdom Come. And phony institutions slowly go away.
Paralleling the private and Institutional component of Divine Mercy is the Church’s endorsement of private and Institutional prayers for Mercy. We privately pray to God in His Mercy. We also have prayers offered to us by the Church, said with the communion of faithful (physically present or not) to give our conversion a public dimension. An example is the Chaplet of Divine Mercy from the Roman rite and the Trisagion Prayers from the Orthodox tradition. Both have the following words in common, a witness to the work of the Holy Spirit:
Holy God! Holy Mighty One! Holy Immortal One! Have Mercy on us (and on the whole world). (said three times).
