Passges 01 : Divinity of Jesus

'And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.' -- Yeshua/Jesus, Gospel of St. John (17:5)

Doubtlessly, one of the most exquisite passages in the New Testament. Here Yeshua is re-iterating and establishing His eternal relationship to the Father - He is confirming that He, Yeshua, is the I Am (God), for He has existed in eternity before all time. Critics often object that Yeshua/Jesus never claimed to be God. This is not true. The above verse is but one of many where Jesus clearly states that He is God - that He, and the Father, are One.  In John (8:48), Jesus once again affirms, 'Before Abraham was, I Am.' - testifying to the fact that He had always existed and that He, Jesus, is the same Person as YHWH (I Am), r simply, God.

The above passage from St. John (17:5) foreshadows the death of St. Steven, where, whilst being stoned to death, St. Steven has a vision of Jesus seated at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven.

Likewise, Jesus' words in John (17:4) are re-affirmed in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John (1: 14): The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.' And shortly thereafter in John (1: 17-18), St. John affirms: 'For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.'

And John (1: 29-30) in the words of John the Baptist: ''Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’;.'

Through these passages, John the Beloved, John the Baptist, and Jesus Himself affirm His existence prior to the formation of time -- That He, Yeshua, had always existed with, as One with, God the Father [YHWH].

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Newsboys - Jesus Paid It All (Lyrics)

Explaining the Trinity : A Philosopher's View

Last week was the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. With that in mind, I've been reflecting on a way to explain the Trinity in a manner that gets around the accusations of polytheism.This is how I explain the Trinity as a Roman Catholic Christian (from a logic of paradox). 

Let’s take a man named John. John is essentially one person. However, there are three aspects to John’s identity (to his ‘person): he is a father, a son, and a husband. These three aspects are like three different ‘persons’ or selves to the single man, John. These three aspects are both distinct and intimately related: as a father, John is compassionate, loving, and giving. As a son, he is caring and respectful. As a husband, he is a lover and sensual. With this analogy in mind, let us think about God as a Trinity. God is a Father, as He is revealed within Judaism and Islam: He is just, caring, and wise. But He has also incarnated Himself, as Yahweh or the ‘I Am’, into time and space in the event of the incarnation in order to save us from ourselves – this is God as a ‘Son’: compassionate, merciful, and loving. But why the word ‘Son’ to describe Jesus? If we take that word literally, it would seem like we are saying that Jesus is a distinct ‘God’ from Yahweh. The Catholic Church has many fantastic answers to this. But here is mine. Since God is everywhere all at once, but he also entered time and space through the Incarnation event, ‘Jesus’ is the Spirit of God which flowed ‘from eternity into time’, into our world – hence why Jesus is called the ‘begotten’ Son of God. Think of ‘’begotten Son’ as ‘the spirit of God which flows from God into time and space – One God who simultaneously occupied eternity and temporality (through the physical body of Jesus). This is not a biological sonship; but rather, ‘a flowing’ or ‘emerging’, where God, while still existing in eternity, also ‘flows’ into temporal time and space through the incarnation event. The moment that the Most Holy Virgin Mary said, ‘Yes’ to God, Yahweh, while remaining in eternity, also ‘flowed’ from eternity into Her womb – it is this ‘flowing’ of God into the world which we call the Divine Person of Jesus. Jesus is a ‘Son of God’ in the sense that Jesus is the Spirit of God that flows from Himself into time, while still existing in eternity – hence the paradox. God as ‘Son’ is therefore more a metaphor for how God flowed ‘from Himself’ into time and space while still remaining in eternity. What about the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the gaze of love that emerges between God as a Father and God as a Son – in other words, the Holy Spirit is the Love of God that emerges from His compassion, mercy, infinite love, and justice. Like John, God is one; but there are different ‘aspects’ to this Oneness of God – what we therefore call the Trinity. In the New Testament, Jesus affirms: “Before Abraham was, I Am”. This denotes that He (Jesus) is the same single Person as Yahweh in the Old Testament – they are not two distinct ‘gods’, but One, single God. ‘Jesus’ is that Part (Aspect) of God’s Personhood that Has come to save us, Who left eternity to enter temporal space, and to sacrifice Himself, His own beating Heart, for us all (while still existing in eternity at the same tine). In the crucifixion of Jesus, we see The I Am sacrificing Himself, His own beating Heart, for us on the cross – a bleeding, literal beating Heart that we receive each time during the Eucharist (Holy Communion) in the Catholic Faith. While I am not a theologian, and perhaps should stick to Philosophy, this is my simple understanding of God as a Trinity.

I hope this helps you,

What is the Eucharistic Lord? Pt.1

The following exert is copyright to Pope Benedict XVI.

A must-read for both Catholics and non-Catholics.

INTRODUCTION

"The sacrament of charity (1), the Holy Eucharist is the gift that Jesus Christ makes of himself, thus revealing to us God's infinite love for every man and woman. This wondrous sacrament makes manifest that "greater" love which led him to "lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13). Jesus did indeed love them "to the end" (Jn 13:1). In those words the Evangelist introduces Christ's act of immense humility: before dying for us on the Cross, he tied a towel around himself and washed the feet of his disciples. In the same way, Jesus continues, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, to love us "to the end," even to offering us his body and his blood. What amazement must the Apostles have felt in witnessing what the Lord did and said during that Supper! What wonder must the eucharistic mystery also awaken in our own hearts!

The food of truth

"2. In the sacrament of the altar, the Lord meets us, men and women created in God's image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:27), and becomes our companion along the way. In this sacrament, the Lord truly becomes food for us, to satisfy our hunger for truth and freedom. Since only the truth can make us free (cf. Jn 8:32), Christ becomes for us the food of truth. With deep human insight, Saint Augustine clearly showed how we are moved spontaneously, and not by constraint, whenever we encounter something attractive and desirable. Asking himself what it is that can move us most deeply, the saintly Bishop went on to say: "What does our soul desire more passionately than truth?" (2) Each of us has an innate and irrepressible desire for ultimate and definitive truth. The Lord Jesus, "the way, and the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6), speaks to our thirsting, pilgrim hearts, our hearts yearning for the source of life, our hearts longing for truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth in person, drawing the world to himself. "Jesus is the lodestar of human freedom: without him, freedom loses its focus, for without the knowledge of truth, freedom becomes debased, alienated and reduced to empty caprice. With him, freedom finds itself." (3) In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us in particular the truth about the love which is the very essence of God. It is this evangelical truth which challenges each of us and our whole being. For this reason, the Church, which finds in the Eucharist the very centre of her life, is constantly concerned to proclaim to all, opportune importune (cf. 2 Tim 4:2), that God is love.(4) Precisely because Christ has become for us the food of truth, the Church turns to every man and woman, inviting them freely to accept God's gift.

The development of the eucharistic rite

"3. If we consider the bimillenary history of God's Church, guided by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can gratefully admire the orderly development of the ritual forms in which we commemorate the event of our salvation. From the varied forms of the early centuries, still resplendent in the rites of the Ancient Churches of the East, up to the spread of the Roman rite; from the clear indications of the Council of Trent and the Missal of Saint Pius V to the liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council: in every age of the Church's history the eucharistic celebration, as the source and summit of her life and mission, shines forth in the liturgical rite in all its richness and variety. The Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, held from 2-23 October 2005 in the Vatican, gratefully acknowledged the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this rich history. In a particular way, the Synod Fathers acknowledged and reaffirmed the beneficial influence on the Church's life of the liturgical renewal which began with the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (5). The Synod of Bishops was able to evaluate the reception of the renewal in the years following the Council. There were many expressions of appreciation. The difficulties and even the occasional abuses which were noted, it was affirmed, cannot overshadow the benefits and the validity of the liturgical renewal, whose riches are yet to be fully explored. Concretely, the changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities.(6)

The Synod of Bishops and the Year of the Eucharist

"4. We should also emphasize the relationship between the recent Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist and the events which have taken place in the Church's life in recent years. First of all, we should recall the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, with which my beloved Predecessor, the Servant of God John Paul II, led the Church into the third Christian millennium. The Jubilee Year clearly had a significant eucharistic dimension. Nor can we forget that the Synod of Bishops was preceded, and in some sense prepared for, by the Year of the Eucharist which John Paul II had, with great foresight, wanted the whole Church to celebrate. That year, which began with the International Eucharistic Congress in Guadalajara in October 2004, ended on 23 October 2005, at the conclusion of the XI Synodal Assembly, with the canonization of five saints particularly distinguished for their eucharistic piety: Bishop Józef Bilczewski, Fathers Gaetano Catanoso, Zygmunt Gorazdowski and Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, and the Capuchin Fra Felice da Nicosia. Thanks to the teachings proposed by John Paul II in the Apostolic Letter Mane Nobiscum Domine (7) and to the helpful suggestions of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,(8) many initiatives were undertaken by Dioceses and various ecclesial groups in order to reawaken and increase eucharistic faith, to improve the quality of eucharistic celebration, to promote eucharistic adoration and to encourage a practical solidarity which, starting from the Eucharist, would reach out to those in need. Finally, mention should be made of the significance of my venerable Predecessor's last Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (9), in which he left us a sure magisterial statement of the Church's teaching on the Eucharist and a final testimony of the central place that this divine sacrament had in his own life.

The purpose of this Exhortation

"5. This Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation seeks to take up the richness and variety of the reflections and proposals which emerged from the recent Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops – from the Lineamenta to the Propositiones, along the way of the Instrumentum Laboris, the Relationes ante and post disceptationem, the interventions of the Synod Fathers, the auditores and the fraternal delegates – and to offer some basic directions aimed at a renewed commitment to eucharistic enthusiasm and fervour in the Church. Conscious of the immense patrimony of doctrine and discipline accumulated over the centuries with regard to this sacrament,(10) I wish here to endorse the wishes expressed by the Synod Fathers (11) by encouraging the Christian people to deepen their understanding of the relationship between the eucharistic mystery, the liturgical action, and the new spiritual worship which derives from the Eucharist as the sacrament of charity. Consequently, I wish to set the present Exhortation alongside my first Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est, in which I frequently mentioned the sacrament of the Eucharist and stressed its relationship to Christian love, both of God and of neighbour: "God incarnate draws us all to himself. We can thus understand how agape also became a term for the Eucharist: there God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us""

- End of Part I -

Link to article: http://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis.html#INTRODUCTION

FIRE AND THORNS: A MEDITATION ON THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

The best explanation of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus I have come across.When we realize that it is the literal Heart of God, flesh and blood divine, that we consume in the Eucharist, it illuminates why devotion to the Sacred heart is essential and imperative.

Reflections on the Sacred Heart : 01

What takes my breath away is how vulnerable God makes Himself: instead of sacrificing me at the altar, God sacrifices Himself at the altar for me, not only for the forgiveness of my sin, but above all, God sacrifices Himself in my place every day in order that He might become One with me and I with Him. God longs for oneness with us to the point that He sacrifices Himself anew each day at every Mass, offering anew His Body to me, knowing full well that I could reject Him or even worse - feel indifference towards His Gift of infinite Love. And yet, He sacrifices Himself nonetheless - God Himself makes Himself a vulnerable offering and Gift because He cannot bear to be separated from us. Religion and spirituality is man's search for God. But Catholicism, through the Mass, is God's search for oneness with man. That, I believe, is the essential difference between Catholicism and every other religion.

God entered time, and in so doing, gives us His physical, literal, beating Sacred Heart to consume in the Eucharist 9Holy Communion).What could be more profound than that?

Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (long version)

This is by far the most breathtaking video on Adoration of the Divine Heart of Yeshua I have come across - an exquisite, traditional procession.Worth watching and following along a few times a week. It makes the Heart of God the focus-point of worship - a Heat hidden, in the flesh, in the Eucharist.