The first reading from Jeremiah 17:5-10 is one of those perfect readings that harmonizes so well with my theory. I will quote it here in full:
“Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a barren bush in the desert that enjoys no change of season, but stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit. More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it? I, the LORD, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds.”
The first line of this passage is exactly, according to my theory, what the man and the woman did in the garden. They trusted in themselves and the strength of their flesh as their heart turned away from God and trusted in the serpent. My theory, which I have mentioned multiple times on this site, is that God made man to be His spouse. He created the first man and woman and gave them a test of faith.
He told them to be fruitful and multiply and then told them to remain virgins, to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This doesn’t seem to make sense. God told them to forgo the highest of the natural goods to obtain the highest of the supernatural goods; He wanted them to give up (sexual) marriage to a human being to obtain marriage to Himself; He asked them to give up the good and holy image of union with God (marital intimacy) to obtain the very thing itself: complete union with God forever in heaven in never ending bliss. Desiring to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, they took matters into their own hands, trusted in themselves and their reproductive powers, distrusted God’s singular prohibition, and had marital relations.
They immediately realize they are naked and hide from God; their punishments revolve around bearing children and planting bad seed; the very first thing the man does after the punishments is re-name his wife. Now that she has conceived from the very first sin, she is no longer just woman, she is a mother. She has become a new reality, and so the man names her Eve, mother of all the living. The child she wanted and now conceived is Cain; when he is born, she names him “gotten,” i.e. Cain.
Back to Jeremiah, those who trust in man receive barrenness and death, and that is what the man and woman received: Cain the murderer. On the other hand, he who trusts and hopes in the Lord is fully alive. He is a tree planted next to the stream whose leaves stay alive in any condition and still bears fruit. It doesn’t matter how little rain falls, the tree is close to the stream, and so it receives all the water it needs. The tree flourishes and bears fruit because it trusts in God.
The tree of life is the heart that loves, trusts and obeys God. The heart that trusts God has its roots deeply inside God, the source of all life. The trusting, obedient heart is the conduit for receiving God’s life, for being in communion with Him; therefore, since it is the means by which we stay connected to God, the heart is the tree of life: a heart united to God is united to Life.
The passage continues: “More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?” The heart is the location of the battle which determines where we will spend eternity. When a heart doesn’t trust, nothing, other than a miracle of God’s grace, can help it trust. All our actions, all our deeds, flow from the abundance within our hearts. If our heart is full of disobedience and suspicion toward God, we will do all sorts of evil deeds; if our heart trusts Him and longs to please Him in all we do, then of course we will most always do what is good. The passage concludes: “I, the LORD, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds.” Our deeds matter and decide our eternity because they reveal what is in our heart. In the end, all that matters is that we love, trust and obey God—that we eat of the tree of life.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Cain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cain. Show all posts
2.20.2008
1.13.2008
Barrenness is Death
The first reading of the first weekday of Ordinary Time comes from the first verses of the first Book of Samuel. The book starts with the mother of the great priest and prophet, Samuel, in great distress. She is unable to have children, and there is precious little that matters to Hannah if she cannot give birth to a child. Hannah is one of two wives to her husband, and “Her rival, to upset her, turned it into a constant reproach to her that the LORD had left her barren. This went on year after year; each time they made their pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the LORD, Peninnah would approach her, and Hannah would weep and refuse to eat” (1 Samuel 1:6). The other wife, Peninnah, rubbed it in that Hannah could not have a baby.
One point here is that children are considered a blessing in the Bible. In today’s world and culture, which is a culture of death, children are often considered a curse. This is the exact opposite of the mindset of the Bible. Children are always a blessing and gift from God, even if the manner by which they came about was evil or the timing of their arrival does not fit into our schedule.
The other side of children being a blessing is that, in the Old Testament, being barren is considered a curse. Barrenness is tantamount to death. Not passing on life, not having children, is to die and leave none of your life (children) behind. It is death. Virginity was not esteemed, and the inability to have children was a curse and reproach. There was little worse for a woman than to not have children.
Why do I make this point? I think it ties in with my main theory. The first man and woman feared death, and that is why thy sinned. The death they feared was not so much their own physical death, but it was their fear of not having a child. Not trusting in God and seeking to gain their life, to get a child, they disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, they had relations and conceived Cain, meaning “gotten.” They got the life they were seeking, and he turned out to be death.
It is the fear of death which leads to a life of bondage; Jesus took on our human nature so “that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15). Life comes via the tree of life; the tree of life is our heart, and insofar as we trust, love and obey God, we have life. Barrenness is, in many respects, death, and God does want us to be fruitful and full of life. However, the point is that, ultimately, life comes as a gift from God, not from ourselves or our abilities. We have to love and trust Him for that life; the fear of death keeps us separated from Him. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
One point here is that children are considered a blessing in the Bible. In today’s world and culture, which is a culture of death, children are often considered a curse. This is the exact opposite of the mindset of the Bible. Children are always a blessing and gift from God, even if the manner by which they came about was evil or the timing of their arrival does not fit into our schedule.
The other side of children being a blessing is that, in the Old Testament, being barren is considered a curse. Barrenness is tantamount to death. Not passing on life, not having children, is to die and leave none of your life (children) behind. It is death. Virginity was not esteemed, and the inability to have children was a curse and reproach. There was little worse for a woman than to not have children.
Why do I make this point? I think it ties in with my main theory. The first man and woman feared death, and that is why thy sinned. The death they feared was not so much their own physical death, but it was their fear of not having a child. Not trusting in God and seeking to gain their life, to get a child, they disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, they had relations and conceived Cain, meaning “gotten.” They got the life they were seeking, and he turned out to be death.
It is the fear of death which leads to a life of bondage; Jesus took on our human nature so “that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15). Life comes via the tree of life; the tree of life is our heart, and insofar as we trust, love and obey God, we have life. Barrenness is, in many respects, death, and God does want us to be fruitful and full of life. However, the point is that, ultimately, life comes as a gift from God, not from ourselves or our abilities. We have to love and trust Him for that life; the fear of death keeps us separated from Him. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.28.2007
The Meaning of Life
I left off on Tuesday in my post on The Three Passovers introducing the idea of the importance of the first-born. The three Passovers, Isaac’s sacrifice, the Passover, and Jesus’ sacrifice, all deal with the first-born. Isaac is the first-born, and he offers himself up as a sacrifice; he was passed over with a ram taking his place. Israel is God’s first-born, and they were passed over by the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and by eating the lamb. Jesus is the Father’s only-begotten Son: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). Jesus, as pre-eminent first-born, sacrifices Himself in order for you and me to be passed over. We are united to Him in baptism and Holy Communion wherein we put His blood on our doorpost and eat the Lamb, respectively.
In the first two Passovers, the first-born was passed over; in the final one, the first-born is the sacrifice. Is there another first-born that was passed over in Jesus’ saving actions? -Perhaps it is you and me: “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:14-16). Paul speaks of the Church as the Israel of God; therefore, since Israel is God’s first-born, and we are now the New Israel, we and all members of the Church are God’s first-born. So we are first-born who are passed over by the angel of death, and our Passover Lamb is Jesus at the Last Supper and on the Cross.
The question that arises in my mind is why is the first-born so important, and why does it hold such a pivotal place in these highly important events in Salvation History? As usual, I think the answer lies in the events at the beginning. The course the man and the woman set the human race upon is the answer to much of human history and to the questions we have today. According to my theory, the direct result of the Fall was the conception of Cain. They wanted him and were trying to get him; hence, his name means gotten. He was the first-born of the human race. He was a murderer and a son of the evil one. The first-born son of man belonged, in a certain respect, to satan, and Cain gave himself over to his ways and so slaughtered his righteous brother.
Cain imitated his fathers in killing his brother: humanity is like a brother to the angels, and satan wants to destroy us and has destroyed many of us; Adam’s fall resulted in the spiritual death of the human race. Both satan and Adam murdered their brothers so to speak, and Cain only imitated what they did. In one sense it is amazing just how bad the very first person born of man was, yet in another sense, Cain was merely a chip off the old block. Either way you look at it, humanity’s fruitfulness started off with a horrible beginning. And his name was Cain for he was gotten. He was gotten.
So why did the first-born need to be sacrificed or passed over? A clue resides in the three main sacrifices of the Old Testament: bulls, sheep and goats. Bulls needed to be sacrificed because people were worshipping bulls and the bull-god, Apis. The Golden Calf was part of this worship where people were seeking fertility and prosperity and so the men and women would imitated what bulls would do to female cattle. Seeking life, they had an orgy. The result, they hoped, would be a conception: thus, the golden calf. Here, too, they were seeking a child, and they sought this child in a way contrary to their dignity, to God’s plan, and to trusting in God. After the golden calf, bulls needed to be sacrificed as a financial penance and so that the people would no longer worship them.
After the Golden Calf, the people went after another false god symbolized by goats. It was another fertility cult, and the people were again seeking life and a child in their own way and by their own terms. “So they shall no more slay their sacrifices for satyrs, after whom they play the harlot” (Leviticus 17:7). The satyrs are the goat gods who are obsessed with continually having sex, and those who worship these false gods would imitate them. Since the people were involved with this evil practice, God had them sacrifice goats. Again, it was a financial difficulty to sacrifice one’s livestock, and one’s gods did not look kindly on being killed. It was a God-given help to avoid this near occasion of sin.
Sacrificing bulls and goats was mandated because they were worshipped. Sheep were never worshipped, so why would God have us sacrifice them? A sheep is the sacrifice of the Passover, and Jesus is the Lamb of God. They are the most important animal sacrifice, but why does God mandate this sacrifice? Was their any sin associated with sheep or lambs? I think there was. Sheep symbolize humanity. We are like sheep; we are incredibly stupid. So sheep need to be sacrificed because they symbolize us; we worshipped ourselves. When did we do this? We do it every time we sin, but we do it especially when we seek humans over God.
The man and the woman sought a child over and against God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God wanted them to have a child, but He wanted to give it to them virginally as He did with Mary. They sought a child, and they got him, and they named him gotten (Cain). So here the theme of the first-born and sheep come together. The Passovers all have to do with sheep and with first-borns because our first parents worshiped, as it were, their first-born son and even disobeyed God to get him. Their souls were sold to satan in order to get Gotten; that is why he and all of the human family needs to be bought back or redeemed from the prince of this world.
We all deserve death and are in bondage to sin and satan, and we are like lambs, so the solution is for a lamb to take our place that we may be passed over and live. That is why sheep were sacrificed in the Old Testament, but those “sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper” (Hebrews 9:9). These Old Testament laws were good, but they were the symbol, not the reality. “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near” (Hebrews 10:1). Those sacrifices do not make perfect; however, Jesus’ sacrifice is capable of such a feat.
“For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book” (Hebrews 10:4-7). We are given a body in order to have something to sacrifice, and with our bodily sacrifices we are praying with the body. We are given a will in order that we can sacrifice that, too, and by saying “Thy will be done,” we are praying the most important prayer. Prayer and sacrifice, the prayer of the heart and of prayer of the body, when they are combined are the most powerful. When we completely trust God and seek to do whatever He asks of us, especially what He asks us to do with our bodies, then we are far along the path to unity with Him. It is in this full faithfulness that we have abundant life and belong to Him, and that is the meaning of life.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
In the first two Passovers, the first-born was passed over; in the final one, the first-born is the sacrifice. Is there another first-born that was passed over in Jesus’ saving actions? -Perhaps it is you and me: “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:14-16). Paul speaks of the Church as the Israel of God; therefore, since Israel is God’s first-born, and we are now the New Israel, we and all members of the Church are God’s first-born. So we are first-born who are passed over by the angel of death, and our Passover Lamb is Jesus at the Last Supper and on the Cross.
The question that arises in my mind is why is the first-born so important, and why does it hold such a pivotal place in these highly important events in Salvation History? As usual, I think the answer lies in the events at the beginning. The course the man and the woman set the human race upon is the answer to much of human history and to the questions we have today. According to my theory, the direct result of the Fall was the conception of Cain. They wanted him and were trying to get him; hence, his name means gotten. He was the first-born of the human race. He was a murderer and a son of the evil one. The first-born son of man belonged, in a certain respect, to satan, and Cain gave himself over to his ways and so slaughtered his righteous brother.
Cain imitated his fathers in killing his brother: humanity is like a brother to the angels, and satan wants to destroy us and has destroyed many of us; Adam’s fall resulted in the spiritual death of the human race. Both satan and Adam murdered their brothers so to speak, and Cain only imitated what they did. In one sense it is amazing just how bad the very first person born of man was, yet in another sense, Cain was merely a chip off the old block. Either way you look at it, humanity’s fruitfulness started off with a horrible beginning. And his name was Cain for he was gotten. He was gotten.
So why did the first-born need to be sacrificed or passed over? A clue resides in the three main sacrifices of the Old Testament: bulls, sheep and goats. Bulls needed to be sacrificed because people were worshipping bulls and the bull-god, Apis. The Golden Calf was part of this worship where people were seeking fertility and prosperity and so the men and women would imitated what bulls would do to female cattle. Seeking life, they had an orgy. The result, they hoped, would be a conception: thus, the golden calf. Here, too, they were seeking a child, and they sought this child in a way contrary to their dignity, to God’s plan, and to trusting in God. After the golden calf, bulls needed to be sacrificed as a financial penance and so that the people would no longer worship them.
After the Golden Calf, the people went after another false god symbolized by goats. It was another fertility cult, and the people were again seeking life and a child in their own way and by their own terms. “So they shall no more slay their sacrifices for satyrs, after whom they play the harlot” (Leviticus 17:7). The satyrs are the goat gods who are obsessed with continually having sex, and those who worship these false gods would imitate them. Since the people were involved with this evil practice, God had them sacrifice goats. Again, it was a financial difficulty to sacrifice one’s livestock, and one’s gods did not look kindly on being killed. It was a God-given help to avoid this near occasion of sin.
Sacrificing bulls and goats was mandated because they were worshipped. Sheep were never worshipped, so why would God have us sacrifice them? A sheep is the sacrifice of the Passover, and Jesus is the Lamb of God. They are the most important animal sacrifice, but why does God mandate this sacrifice? Was their any sin associated with sheep or lambs? I think there was. Sheep symbolize humanity. We are like sheep; we are incredibly stupid. So sheep need to be sacrificed because they symbolize us; we worshipped ourselves. When did we do this? We do it every time we sin, but we do it especially when we seek humans over God.
The man and the woman sought a child over and against God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God wanted them to have a child, but He wanted to give it to them virginally as He did with Mary. They sought a child, and they got him, and they named him gotten (Cain). So here the theme of the first-born and sheep come together. The Passovers all have to do with sheep and with first-borns because our first parents worshiped, as it were, their first-born son and even disobeyed God to get him. Their souls were sold to satan in order to get Gotten; that is why he and all of the human family needs to be bought back or redeemed from the prince of this world.
We all deserve death and are in bondage to sin and satan, and we are like lambs, so the solution is for a lamb to take our place that we may be passed over and live. That is why sheep were sacrificed in the Old Testament, but those “sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper” (Hebrews 9:9). These Old Testament laws were good, but they were the symbol, not the reality. “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near” (Hebrews 10:1). Those sacrifices do not make perfect; however, Jesus’ sacrifice is capable of such a feat.
“For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book” (Hebrews 10:4-7). We are given a body in order to have something to sacrifice, and with our bodily sacrifices we are praying with the body. We are given a will in order that we can sacrifice that, too, and by saying “Thy will be done,” we are praying the most important prayer. Prayer and sacrifice, the prayer of the heart and of prayer of the body, when they are combined are the most powerful. When we completely trust God and seek to do whatever He asks of us, especially what He asks us to do with our bodies, then we are far along the path to unity with Him. It is in this full faithfulness that we have abundant life and belong to Him, and that is the meaning of life.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.17.2007
Quest for a Baby Part Three
God promised Abraham a child when he was seventy-five but did not give him a son until he was 100. When Abraham was eighty-five he listened to the voice of his wife who encouraged him to have relations with her maid. Ishmael was the result. Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian maid, was the mother. Abraham does indeed have a son, but this is not the son that God had promised. This is the son that Abraham gets by his own efforts and contrary to the plan God had: to give him a baby through his wife.
This is a re-enactment of the original baby quest with Adam and Eve. They wanted a child and to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, but God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is not to have marital relations. Adam listened to the voice of his wife, and viola, Cain was conceived. They realize they were naked, and the woman’s pain in bearing children is increased. The man’s ability to plant good things in the ground is diminished for he just planted his seed (semen) into the ground (his wife), and it brought forth a thorn and thistle: Cain.
Ishmael was conceived when Abraham was eighty-five, and he was born when Abraham was eighty-six. Thirteen years later, God talks with Abraham and once again promises to make him and his wife the parents of child which will lead to a vast multitude of generations to follow. God makes a new covenant with him and requires for the first time that all the males be circumcised. All newborns will be circumcised at eight days old, and anyone who wants to be a part of the family of God will need to be circumcised before he is considered so.
Then, God again promises to give a baby to Abraham and his wife. “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in thy sight!’” (Genesis 17:17-18). Abraham still wants God to fulfill His promise of many descendants through Ishmael; in the end, Ishmael is not even considered Abraham’s son; Isaac is Abraham’s only son. Isaac means laughter, and that name was given to him because both his parents laughed when they heard that God was going to give them a baby.
God still blessed and multiplied Ishmael who is a major patriarch of the Islamic religion, for Middle-Eastern Muslims trace their genealogy back to him. Ishmael was circumcised when he was thirteen years old, which was the custom of the Egyptians as a right of passage into manhood. By circumcising him at thirteen, it signifies that he is an Egyptian, born of an Egyptian slave, and not a true member of the household of Abraham. “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise.” (Galatians 4:22-23).
Paul continues saying, “Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4:28-31). Gob blesses Ishmael, but he does not become a member of God’s people. He is a slave with a slave’s mentality, and even today the Islamic religion is one where they see themselves as slaves and God as supreme master. It is blasphemy for them to call God “Father.”
Because Abraham relied on the power of his flesh to conceive a son and not on the promise God had given him, God punishes him in the flesh and the exact part of the flesh. He relied on his sexual organ to give life, and so now that organ needs to be cut around as a penance and reminder that life comes from God. It would have been no easy thing to be circumcised at age ninety-nine, yet so Abraham was. Because Abraham did not trust in his heart that God would be faithful to accomplish what He promised, Abraham turned to Hagar. Because he did not eat of his tree of life, he turned instead to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
What is the significance of circumcision? It says in Deuteronomy 10:16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” There seems to be some connection between circumcision and the heart. At the end of Deuteronomy, there is a very interesting passage about circumcision of the heart:
“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…. And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD, and keep all his commandments which I command you this day. The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body…and in the fruit of your ground; for the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (30:6-10).
Circumcision of the heart is loving and turning to God with all one’s heart, and it is obeying all His commands. God delights (Eden) in us and prospers our work and the fruit of our bodies (children). Abraham failed his test when he did not wait upon the Lord just as Adam gave up waiting, too. They stopped waiting and trusting in God and so took matters into their own hands to gain life; they tried to save their life and so lost it.
Paul talks a good deal about circumcision in both his letter to Rome and Galatia. In Romans he says: “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (2:28-29). Real circumcision is an internal, spiritual matter of the heart. Circumcision is a sign of what needs to happen to our hearts.
Our tendency is to turn our trust from God and put it in our abilities, especially our ability to generate children; God gives circumcision to remind us that it is not by our strength and might that we have life; life is given to those who eat of the tree of life, to those who trust in God. Life does not come from the goods of the earth but from God and His commands to us, as Jesus said during His temptation: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
The tree of life is the heart because it is only by means of a trusting, loving and obedient heart that we have life: this is a circumcised heart. Our hearts need to be circumcised because at the Fall they turned from God and became dead and stony. We need new hearts of flesh, a circumcised heart. Jesus gives us his pierced heart which loves and obeys unto death when we receive the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
This is a re-enactment of the original baby quest with Adam and Eve. They wanted a child and to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, but God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is not to have marital relations. Adam listened to the voice of his wife, and viola, Cain was conceived. They realize they were naked, and the woman’s pain in bearing children is increased. The man’s ability to plant good things in the ground is diminished for he just planted his seed (semen) into the ground (his wife), and it brought forth a thorn and thistle: Cain.
Ishmael was conceived when Abraham was eighty-five, and he was born when Abraham was eighty-six. Thirteen years later, God talks with Abraham and once again promises to make him and his wife the parents of child which will lead to a vast multitude of generations to follow. God makes a new covenant with him and requires for the first time that all the males be circumcised. All newborns will be circumcised at eight days old, and anyone who wants to be a part of the family of God will need to be circumcised before he is considered so.
Then, God again promises to give a baby to Abraham and his wife. “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in thy sight!’” (Genesis 17:17-18). Abraham still wants God to fulfill His promise of many descendants through Ishmael; in the end, Ishmael is not even considered Abraham’s son; Isaac is Abraham’s only son. Isaac means laughter, and that name was given to him because both his parents laughed when they heard that God was going to give them a baby.
God still blessed and multiplied Ishmael who is a major patriarch of the Islamic religion, for Middle-Eastern Muslims trace their genealogy back to him. Ishmael was circumcised when he was thirteen years old, which was the custom of the Egyptians as a right of passage into manhood. By circumcising him at thirteen, it signifies that he is an Egyptian, born of an Egyptian slave, and not a true member of the household of Abraham. “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise.” (Galatians 4:22-23).
Paul continues saying, “Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4:28-31). Gob blesses Ishmael, but he does not become a member of God’s people. He is a slave with a slave’s mentality, and even today the Islamic religion is one where they see themselves as slaves and God as supreme master. It is blasphemy for them to call God “Father.”
Because Abraham relied on the power of his flesh to conceive a son and not on the promise God had given him, God punishes him in the flesh and the exact part of the flesh. He relied on his sexual organ to give life, and so now that organ needs to be cut around as a penance and reminder that life comes from God. It would have been no easy thing to be circumcised at age ninety-nine, yet so Abraham was. Because Abraham did not trust in his heart that God would be faithful to accomplish what He promised, Abraham turned to Hagar. Because he did not eat of his tree of life, he turned instead to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
What is the significance of circumcision? It says in Deuteronomy 10:16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” There seems to be some connection between circumcision and the heart. At the end of Deuteronomy, there is a very interesting passage about circumcision of the heart:
“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…. And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD, and keep all his commandments which I command you this day. The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body…and in the fruit of your ground; for the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (30:6-10).
Circumcision of the heart is loving and turning to God with all one’s heart, and it is obeying all His commands. God delights (Eden) in us and prospers our work and the fruit of our bodies (children). Abraham failed his test when he did not wait upon the Lord just as Adam gave up waiting, too. They stopped waiting and trusting in God and so took matters into their own hands to gain life; they tried to save their life and so lost it.
Paul talks a good deal about circumcision in both his letter to Rome and Galatia. In Romans he says: “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (2:28-29). Real circumcision is an internal, spiritual matter of the heart. Circumcision is a sign of what needs to happen to our hearts.
Our tendency is to turn our trust from God and put it in our abilities, especially our ability to generate children; God gives circumcision to remind us that it is not by our strength and might that we have life; life is given to those who eat of the tree of life, to those who trust in God. Life does not come from the goods of the earth but from God and His commands to us, as Jesus said during His temptation: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
The tree of life is the heart because it is only by means of a trusting, loving and obedient heart that we have life: this is a circumcised heart. Our hearts need to be circumcised because at the Fall they turned from God and became dead and stony. We need new hearts of flesh, a circumcised heart. Jesus gives us his pierced heart which loves and obeys unto death when we receive the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.10.2007
The Quest for the Son Begins Again
Last night we discussed how Abraham was called back to his ancestral home to reclaim the family’s rightful inheritance; once he established a peace from his enemies round about, the undisputed head of the family, Shem/Melchizedek, comes out to bless Abraham. Shem is also the King of Salem and priest of God Most High who celebrates using bread and wine. It is possible that Salem, which means peace, later becomes Jerusalem when the Hebrew word for “it will be provided” is added as a prefix. It was added later in Abraham’s story when he offers up his only son in chapter twenty-two and says that God Himself will provide the lamb.
Shem was one of a handful of righteous first-born sons, and he is the king of peace in (Jeru)salem who offers bread and wine. Later, in this same location, Abraham/Isaac offer up Isaac, and God provides the lamb. This provision is all fulfilled when the true King of Kings and King of Peace, the true King of Jerusalem comes offering bread and wine; Jesus is the Lamb that God provided on Calvary in the same general location as Mount Moriah where Isaac offered himself up. Isaac was passed over, becoming the reason God provides the Passover to the Israelites in Egypt, and Jesus fulfills all of these prefigurements when He remakes the Passover at the Last Supper which ends with His own self-offering as the Lamb of God upon the cross.
Abraham is blessed by Shem when Abraham retakes the Promised Land, which solidifies the constant quest for the Promised Land by his descendants. The other primary quest now comes to fruition: the quest for a son. The very first thing that is mentioned after the blessing sequence is completed, is that God speaks to Abraham who immediately asks for a son. Blessings/the inheritance are meant to be passed on to one’s son. This is no ordinary blessing but a powerful, life-changing reality, and it is meant for one’s son. Abraham was quite wealthy before, but now that Abraham has been endowed with such a blessing from the patriarch, Shem, he knows he needs a son and so asks for one the first chance he gets. Thus begins anew the quest for the son.
God does not take long to respond: “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6). God wants to give Abraham a son; that was His plan from the beginning and why He called Him to come to his homeland. Abraham trusts God and believes that God will provide him a son, even though he is at the age of 75 and his wife is 65 and has been barren her whole life.
Ten years later, Abraham and Sarah still have not been given a son. There are key parallels to this story and the Adam and Eve story. Here Abraham and Sarah, with the God-given promise of a son, have been given something like the command to be fruitful and multiply. They have not been given the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they are tempted to have a child outside of the ordinary way children come to couples. In both stories, the husband listens to the voice of his wife and sins. Both tried to fulfill God’s will by their own strength instead of allowing God to provide the son. Eve conceived Cain, and Hagar conceived Ishmael. Neither was the son God promised.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Shem was one of a handful of righteous first-born sons, and he is the king of peace in (Jeru)salem who offers bread and wine. Later, in this same location, Abraham/Isaac offer up Isaac, and God provides the lamb. This provision is all fulfilled when the true King of Kings and King of Peace, the true King of Jerusalem comes offering bread and wine; Jesus is the Lamb that God provided on Calvary in the same general location as Mount Moriah where Isaac offered himself up. Isaac was passed over, becoming the reason God provides the Passover to the Israelites in Egypt, and Jesus fulfills all of these prefigurements when He remakes the Passover at the Last Supper which ends with His own self-offering as the Lamb of God upon the cross.
Abraham is blessed by Shem when Abraham retakes the Promised Land, which solidifies the constant quest for the Promised Land by his descendants. The other primary quest now comes to fruition: the quest for a son. The very first thing that is mentioned after the blessing sequence is completed, is that God speaks to Abraham who immediately asks for a son. Blessings/the inheritance are meant to be passed on to one’s son. This is no ordinary blessing but a powerful, life-changing reality, and it is meant for one’s son. Abraham was quite wealthy before, but now that Abraham has been endowed with such a blessing from the patriarch, Shem, he knows he needs a son and so asks for one the first chance he gets. Thus begins anew the quest for the son.
God does not take long to respond: “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6). God wants to give Abraham a son; that was His plan from the beginning and why He called Him to come to his homeland. Abraham trusts God and believes that God will provide him a son, even though he is at the age of 75 and his wife is 65 and has been barren her whole life.
Ten years later, Abraham and Sarah still have not been given a son. There are key parallels to this story and the Adam and Eve story. Here Abraham and Sarah, with the God-given promise of a son, have been given something like the command to be fruitful and multiply. They have not been given the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they are tempted to have a child outside of the ordinary way children come to couples. In both stories, the husband listens to the voice of his wife and sins. Both tried to fulfill God’s will by their own strength instead of allowing God to provide the son. Eve conceived Cain, and Hagar conceived Ishmael. Neither was the son God promised.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.07.2007
The Two Quests
The story of Abraham revolves around two main themes: the quest for the Promised Land and the renewal of the quest for a son. These are two themes that are the main part of the Adam and Eve story as well. According to my understanding, the Fall consisted of the man and woman seeking a child and making a human as God had just made two humans. God had planned to give them a child, virginally, and so to test them he commanded them not to have sexual relations. They were asked to give up the greatest earthly good, human union and intimacy, to be given the ultimate good, divine union.
Adam and Eve couldn’t understand why a good God would ask them to forgo human intimacy and the children who would follow, so they trusted in the wisdom of the serpent, had sexual relations, and conceived Cain: “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD’.”
The garden is not so much a garden as it is the man and woman themselves, so when God banishes them from the garden of delight, it means that they are alien’s to themselves, so to speak. As I mentioned in my entry of the early morning of December 4th, the result of the Fall was that our minds are darkened, our wills weakened, and our passions disordered. This is called concupiscence, and it was the natural result of the man and woman trusting in the powers of their bodies to have life. If they had trusted in God, that is, if they had eaten of the tree of life, then they would have had life. Before the Fall, the man was master of his body, and God was master over him, but through his sin, he rejected God as his master resulting in his body rejecting him as its master. How relationships disintegrate: when the rightful authority of God is rejected, all hell breaks loose.
So the man and the woman, Adam and Eve, begin a journey seeking peace and re-unification, seeking harmony and order, seeking faith and life. Now they have to overcome the challenges of concupiscence in their journey back to themselves, in their journey back to trusting and loving God and eating of the tree of life, in their journey back to fruitfulness, meaning, and life. This is the journey we all undertake. This journey is symbolized in the quest for the Promised Land that is initiated at the beginning of the Abraham story.
Shortly into the Abraham story, he seeks a son. His story starts with the quest for the Promised Land, and it ends with the quest for a son. This is the mirror image of the story of Adam and Eve which starts with a quest for a son and ends with the quest for both their lost personal integrity and union with God, which is symbolized by the quest for the Promised Land.
There is a psychological term known as reenactment which is when a person relives a prior event; people tend to do it much of the time, and most of it is done unconsciously. It is especially common with traumatic and unresolved events and conflicts; part of the reason it is done is due to our desire to understand. When a traumatic event leaves one dumbfounded, our desire is to make sense of it; one way we try to make sense of it is to somehow recreate the scene and relive it. It is sort of like rewinding a movie and re-watching a confusing scene or a scene where you didn’t hear all the words. Some classic examples of reenactment are the girl with an alcoholic father seeking out and marrying an alcoholic or someone alcoholic-like, the abandoned child who seeks out and marries someone who will leave them, the rejected person who always ends up rejected by everyone he tries to get close to, the son of a workaholic who swears he won’t be like his dad who was never around but yet ends up just like his dad working all the time. For whatever reason, this seems to be the way things are, as far as I understand psychology.
I bring up reenactment because a similar type of thing seems to occur throughout the Bible. The same old things happen over and over again. Some of the scenery may change and the characters, but, at root, it is the exact same event some time later. The path to understanding the Bible and the Catholic Faith which it is an expression of, is by seeing and understanding the recurring patterns throughout its story. Once you have the pattern down and can recognize it in other situations, then it is found everywhere and the story and its message become very simple. I think I have stumbled across the ins and outs of understanding this pattern. And in many ways, it is very simple. One of the easiest places to see this pattern is in the life of Abraham, which is why I chose to discuss him next.
I never read or saw the Da Vinci Code, and I am glad of it, but I think there is something to it. I think there is a code or pattern which helps to make sense of the chaos. God is not a God of disorder, confusion, isolation and death but of order, understanding, union and life. Everything fits together and has a reason: “thou hast arranged all things by measure and number and weight” (Wisdom 11:20). The Bible and Catholic Faith are already well understood, in a way, yet there is certainly room for a better understanding, one which roots the understanding in the story of the Bible, a biblical theology.
A theologian’s work is to make sense of and give reasons for that which we already believe; his task is to find the patterns and see the connections and unity in the Bible and all doctrine to better make sense of it for everyone else; his mission is to find the key and unlock the treasure chest holding the mysteries of the kingdom and then use that treasure to feed the multitude. His goal is to lead others to Christ. “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ,” said Saint Jerome. A deep understanding of the Bible is part and parcel with knowing who Jesus is and what exactly He did to remedy our specific sickness. "Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree…” (Psalm 1:2-3): the tree of life. A theologian’s work is to enlighten people to the life God has given and called us to; he is to awaken and enliven the trust people have in God, that is, he is to help resuscitate each person’s tree of life.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Adam and Eve couldn’t understand why a good God would ask them to forgo human intimacy and the children who would follow, so they trusted in the wisdom of the serpent, had sexual relations, and conceived Cain: “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD’.”
The garden is not so much a garden as it is the man and woman themselves, so when God banishes them from the garden of delight, it means that they are alien’s to themselves, so to speak. As I mentioned in my entry of the early morning of December 4th, the result of the Fall was that our minds are darkened, our wills weakened, and our passions disordered. This is called concupiscence, and it was the natural result of the man and woman trusting in the powers of their bodies to have life. If they had trusted in God, that is, if they had eaten of the tree of life, then they would have had life. Before the Fall, the man was master of his body, and God was master over him, but through his sin, he rejected God as his master resulting in his body rejecting him as its master. How relationships disintegrate: when the rightful authority of God is rejected, all hell breaks loose.
So the man and the woman, Adam and Eve, begin a journey seeking peace and re-unification, seeking harmony and order, seeking faith and life. Now they have to overcome the challenges of concupiscence in their journey back to themselves, in their journey back to trusting and loving God and eating of the tree of life, in their journey back to fruitfulness, meaning, and life. This is the journey we all undertake. This journey is symbolized in the quest for the Promised Land that is initiated at the beginning of the Abraham story.
Shortly into the Abraham story, he seeks a son. His story starts with the quest for the Promised Land, and it ends with the quest for a son. This is the mirror image of the story of Adam and Eve which starts with a quest for a son and ends with the quest for both their lost personal integrity and union with God, which is symbolized by the quest for the Promised Land.
There is a psychological term known as reenactment which is when a person relives a prior event; people tend to do it much of the time, and most of it is done unconsciously. It is especially common with traumatic and unresolved events and conflicts; part of the reason it is done is due to our desire to understand. When a traumatic event leaves one dumbfounded, our desire is to make sense of it; one way we try to make sense of it is to somehow recreate the scene and relive it. It is sort of like rewinding a movie and re-watching a confusing scene or a scene where you didn’t hear all the words. Some classic examples of reenactment are the girl with an alcoholic father seeking out and marrying an alcoholic or someone alcoholic-like, the abandoned child who seeks out and marries someone who will leave them, the rejected person who always ends up rejected by everyone he tries to get close to, the son of a workaholic who swears he won’t be like his dad who was never around but yet ends up just like his dad working all the time. For whatever reason, this seems to be the way things are, as far as I understand psychology.
I bring up reenactment because a similar type of thing seems to occur throughout the Bible. The same old things happen over and over again. Some of the scenery may change and the characters, but, at root, it is the exact same event some time later. The path to understanding the Bible and the Catholic Faith which it is an expression of, is by seeing and understanding the recurring patterns throughout its story. Once you have the pattern down and can recognize it in other situations, then it is found everywhere and the story and its message become very simple. I think I have stumbled across the ins and outs of understanding this pattern. And in many ways, it is very simple. One of the easiest places to see this pattern is in the life of Abraham, which is why I chose to discuss him next.
I never read or saw the Da Vinci Code, and I am glad of it, but I think there is something to it. I think there is a code or pattern which helps to make sense of the chaos. God is not a God of disorder, confusion, isolation and death but of order, understanding, union and life. Everything fits together and has a reason: “thou hast arranged all things by measure and number and weight” (Wisdom 11:20). The Bible and Catholic Faith are already well understood, in a way, yet there is certainly room for a better understanding, one which roots the understanding in the story of the Bible, a biblical theology.
A theologian’s work is to make sense of and give reasons for that which we already believe; his task is to find the patterns and see the connections and unity in the Bible and all doctrine to better make sense of it for everyone else; his mission is to find the key and unlock the treasure chest holding the mysteries of the kingdom and then use that treasure to feed the multitude. His goal is to lead others to Christ. “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ,” said Saint Jerome. A deep understanding of the Bible is part and parcel with knowing who Jesus is and what exactly He did to remedy our specific sickness. "Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree…” (Psalm 1:2-3): the tree of life. A theologian’s work is to enlighten people to the life God has given and called us to; he is to awaken and enliven the trust people have in God, that is, he is to help resuscitate each person’s tree of life.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.01.2007
The New Heart: Jesus' Heart
The Eucharist is the source and summit of life; it is the antidote to sin and death; it unites us to God, the True Vine: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). What fruit does a vine produce? Grapes. What do grapes produce? Wine. What happens to the grapes to make wine? They have to be crushed. We produce good fruit, but even that, in a sense, needs to be crushed and offered back to God. But even more than our good fruit, we ourselves need to die: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). It is in our dying that we have life; in dying to self we live to God.
In each of the four gospels Jesus says: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:13). How did sin and death enter the world? “Through the devil’s envy death entered the world” (Wisdom 2:24). The devil deceived the woman, and according to my theory, encouraged her to get the child she wanted through relations with her husband. There was nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but God had asked them to not do so in order for Him to provide the child directly. Through her fear of not having children and passing on life, through her fear of death, sin entered the world. The letter to the Hebrews states: “that through death he [Jesus] might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15). It was the man and woman’s fear of not having children that led them to not trust God, put their trust in the serpent and the power of their own bodies, disobey God’s only command, and sin. They sought to gain their life, and so they lost it. They were trying to get a child, so they named him “gotten,” which is Cain. They forsook the tree of life, which is a trusting heart, and they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and bore a son of man, Cain, the murderer of his brother. They sought freedom from God’s law and found themselves in lifelong bondage to sin and the serpent.
In order for us to have life, we need to not fear death. In order for us to bear fruit, we must die like the grain of wheat. That is what Jesus did on the cross: “And he said to all, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’ ” (Luke 9:23). If we take up our cross and follow Jesus with His cross, where is He leading us? Where did He go when He took up His cross? He is leading us to Calvary to our very own crucifixion. How do we endure and have the heart to follow Him there? Through the Eucharist, for in it He gives us His heart, the very heart that led Him to lay down His life for us, the very heart that gave everything even to the point of death and being totally poured out in blood and water when it was pierced by a lance.
The man and the woman closed their heart to God and trusted in themselves and their powers of generation for life. And they brought death and sin and bondage to the world. Unlike the man and the woman, Mary and Joseph united their hearts entirely to God while they faced the death of childlessness square in the face as they embraced virginity for life; they gave up relations and children as its normal fruit, and as such their greatest earthly desires were crucified; they were rewarded with the very thing they sacrificed; they were rewarded beyond their wildest imagination with the Son of God. Unlike Adam, Jesus did not trust in the power of His physical body and His generative powers to give life; instead, He gave up His body completely on the cross, trusting that His Father would raise Him from the dead and give Him life. Because Jesus ate of the tree of life, because He had an obedient and trusting heart, He said to His Father: “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). His heart, His tree of life, led Him to forsake the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and to embrace the tree upon which He was hung.
The Eucharist is that Heart, the very Heart of Jesus, the Tree of Life which gives life and true freedom to the world. His Heart enables you and me to imitate Him, even unto our death for love of Him. Jesus dies not so that we don’t have to; He dies so that we may be empowered to also offer our entire selves even to death as He did. Most of us are not tested with the test of virginity (priests and religious are), but each of us is tested by God. Most tests are the simple tasks He entrusts to us each day. Most of our trials involve the people and places we encounter all the time. He gives us His own Eucharistic Heart to be faithful in all of them, big and small. In such faithfulness saints are made.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
In each of the four gospels Jesus says: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:13). How did sin and death enter the world? “Through the devil’s envy death entered the world” (Wisdom 2:24). The devil deceived the woman, and according to my theory, encouraged her to get the child she wanted through relations with her husband. There was nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but God had asked them to not do so in order for Him to provide the child directly. Through her fear of not having children and passing on life, through her fear of death, sin entered the world. The letter to the Hebrews states: “that through death he [Jesus] might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15). It was the man and woman’s fear of not having children that led them to not trust God, put their trust in the serpent and the power of their own bodies, disobey God’s only command, and sin. They sought to gain their life, and so they lost it. They were trying to get a child, so they named him “gotten,” which is Cain. They forsook the tree of life, which is a trusting heart, and they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and bore a son of man, Cain, the murderer of his brother. They sought freedom from God’s law and found themselves in lifelong bondage to sin and the serpent.
In order for us to have life, we need to not fear death. In order for us to bear fruit, we must die like the grain of wheat. That is what Jesus did on the cross: “And he said to all, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’ ” (Luke 9:23). If we take up our cross and follow Jesus with His cross, where is He leading us? Where did He go when He took up His cross? He is leading us to Calvary to our very own crucifixion. How do we endure and have the heart to follow Him there? Through the Eucharist, for in it He gives us His heart, the very heart that led Him to lay down His life for us, the very heart that gave everything even to the point of death and being totally poured out in blood and water when it was pierced by a lance.
The man and the woman closed their heart to God and trusted in themselves and their powers of generation for life. And they brought death and sin and bondage to the world. Unlike the man and the woman, Mary and Joseph united their hearts entirely to God while they faced the death of childlessness square in the face as they embraced virginity for life; they gave up relations and children as its normal fruit, and as such their greatest earthly desires were crucified; they were rewarded with the very thing they sacrificed; they were rewarded beyond their wildest imagination with the Son of God. Unlike Adam, Jesus did not trust in the power of His physical body and His generative powers to give life; instead, He gave up His body completely on the cross, trusting that His Father would raise Him from the dead and give Him life. Because Jesus ate of the tree of life, because He had an obedient and trusting heart, He said to His Father: “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). His heart, His tree of life, led Him to forsake the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and to embrace the tree upon which He was hung.
The Eucharist is that Heart, the very Heart of Jesus, the Tree of Life which gives life and true freedom to the world. His Heart enables you and me to imitate Him, even unto our death for love of Him. Jesus dies not so that we don’t have to; He dies so that we may be empowered to also offer our entire selves even to death as He did. Most of us are not tested with the test of virginity (priests and religious are), but each of us is tested by God. Most tests are the simple tasks He entrusts to us each day. Most of our trials involve the people and places we encounter all the time. He gives us His own Eucharistic Heart to be faithful in all of them, big and small. In such faithfulness saints are made.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
11.25.2007
Cain--Not a Good Start to the Human Race: Why We Need To Be Born Again
It is remarkable, in a negative sense, that the very first person born of a woman, born of human parents, turned out to be the murderer of his own brother. I never really thought about that until rather recently. That, Cain's evil action, is a horrible way to begin this new species which God created to be His temple and His very spouse. I don't think we usually give this fact much thought; but I find it shocking. I think there is much to understand and learn from the fact that he, the very first one down the shoot of this great, new model, turned out so badly.
As I mentioned in an earlier entry, Saint John refers to Cain as the son of the devil. I think he is speaking in more than a metaphorical sense. According to my understanding of the first chapters of Genesis, both the idea and the person of Cain was conceived based on what the serpent gave to the woman: both the information of how to have children together with his attitude of distrust in God. In a true, non-physical, way, the serpent is the father of Cain. All that the evil one seeks to do is destroy what God holds dear; he has nothing but disdain and total and complete hatred for all things human for we were made to be God's spouse. The serpent is the perfect archetypical murderer who Jesus called the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning. It is no wonder he assisted in the conception of a murderer.
Cain's physical father doesn't get off all that well either. Since, as the head of the family, he allowed it to follow a path God commanded them not to go down, since he allowed it to seek after life in distrust of God who made them, since he turned his back on his Creator and Lord and turned and trusted in the wisdom of the serpent, since he led his family to a deep spiritual adultery with his true spouse, God, the man, Adam, was a murderer for he spiritually and in many ways physically murdered himself and his family, the entire human race with his fall from grace. Both of Cain's fathers were murderers. I don't believe that that reality forced him to become a murderer; it simply makes it more understandable.
God did not give up on Cain either before he murdered his brother or after he did so. God reached out to him and tried to bring him back; Cain chose another way, his own way of self-glorification. He refused to be a temple of God and instead chose to build monuments to himself. He and his family sought to make a name for themselves; they sought to make their own truth; they sought to make their own life; they sought to make their own rules and their own morality; they sought to make their own fulfillment and heaven; they sought anything except God and put everything else in His place; they cut themselves off from the tree of life, from trusting in God the source of life, and so they built a culture of death...and died.
Saint John reduces the world down to a decision each of us makes between joining the children of God or the children of the devil: "Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous. He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil" 1 John 3:7-8.
The work of the devil was to steal the spouse of God; he did that and held humanity under his cruel bondage with seemingly no hope for survival. Children were supposed to come to us virginally having God as the father of the child (not in any sexual way, but as a gift from above). Because of the Fall, all children come from man and are not children of God. The way grace works is that it comes from God; by generation on our own, humans are incapable of handing on grace. What is called Original Sin is not some added on punishment God thought up but a natural consequence of how reality works: humans have no natural power to pass on grace, which is God's life. God has to pass on God's life; He does have us share in the passing on of grace to others, but grace comes from Him. The work of God, then, is to restore humanity back to grace and make us His children and spouse once more.
So the Fall created the condition we call Original Sin for due to the Fall, everyone is born a son of man. No one is born a son of God. Because of the Fall, all children come about through sexual relations and are children of men and in some sense children of the devil. This is why Jesus teaches that we need to be born from above, born again, born of God. Our first birth was a birth into the bondage of sin and satan, and our inheritance is only what our hating father, satan, wants to give us. God provides us a way to be born again so that we can actually become His children. That Way is His Son Jesus who allows us to die with Him in His crucifixion and so rise with Him in His resurrection to become a new creation.
Without God we are self-consumed seekers of our own life and glory, and the fruit of such soil and of such a tree is what we are in ourselves, lifeless dust and death. With God we are self-sacrificing lovers who seek to please our True Spouse, The Living God, and bear abundant and life-giving fruit for the healing of the nations. Without God we make ourselves a worthless object, and we make everyone else around us merely an object for our use and pleasure to be disposed of when we are through. With God we lose ourselves, become His spouse, re-personalize everyone around us and inspire them to live life abundantly as the companion of the Living God; we inspire them to realize the true dignity that he and every human person has as a precious vessel made to be the abode of God, the God who lays down His life for love of His beloved. God makes us imitators of Himself, a self-sacrificing lover who gives life to the world. How awesome is our calling.
Thanks for reading and for your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
As I mentioned in an earlier entry, Saint John refers to Cain as the son of the devil. I think he is speaking in more than a metaphorical sense. According to my understanding of the first chapters of Genesis, both the idea and the person of Cain was conceived based on what the serpent gave to the woman: both the information of how to have children together with his attitude of distrust in God. In a true, non-physical, way, the serpent is the father of Cain. All that the evil one seeks to do is destroy what God holds dear; he has nothing but disdain and total and complete hatred for all things human for we were made to be God's spouse. The serpent is the perfect archetypical murderer who Jesus called the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning. It is no wonder he assisted in the conception of a murderer.
Cain's physical father doesn't get off all that well either. Since, as the head of the family, he allowed it to follow a path God commanded them not to go down, since he allowed it to seek after life in distrust of God who made them, since he turned his back on his Creator and Lord and turned and trusted in the wisdom of the serpent, since he led his family to a deep spiritual adultery with his true spouse, God, the man, Adam, was a murderer for he spiritually and in many ways physically murdered himself and his family, the entire human race with his fall from grace. Both of Cain's fathers were murderers. I don't believe that that reality forced him to become a murderer; it simply makes it more understandable.
God did not give up on Cain either before he murdered his brother or after he did so. God reached out to him and tried to bring him back; Cain chose another way, his own way of self-glorification. He refused to be a temple of God and instead chose to build monuments to himself. He and his family sought to make a name for themselves; they sought to make their own truth; they sought to make their own life; they sought to make their own rules and their own morality; they sought to make their own fulfillment and heaven; they sought anything except God and put everything else in His place; they cut themselves off from the tree of life, from trusting in God the source of life, and so they built a culture of death...and died.
Saint John reduces the world down to a decision each of us makes between joining the children of God or the children of the devil: "Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous. He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil" 1 John 3:7-8.
The work of the devil was to steal the spouse of God; he did that and held humanity under his cruel bondage with seemingly no hope for survival. Children were supposed to come to us virginally having God as the father of the child (not in any sexual way, but as a gift from above). Because of the Fall, all children come from man and are not children of God. The way grace works is that it comes from God; by generation on our own, humans are incapable of handing on grace. What is called Original Sin is not some added on punishment God thought up but a natural consequence of how reality works: humans have no natural power to pass on grace, which is God's life. God has to pass on God's life; He does have us share in the passing on of grace to others, but grace comes from Him. The work of God, then, is to restore humanity back to grace and make us His children and spouse once more.
So the Fall created the condition we call Original Sin for due to the Fall, everyone is born a son of man. No one is born a son of God. Because of the Fall, all children come about through sexual relations and are children of men and in some sense children of the devil. This is why Jesus teaches that we need to be born from above, born again, born of God. Our first birth was a birth into the bondage of sin and satan, and our inheritance is only what our hating father, satan, wants to give us. God provides us a way to be born again so that we can actually become His children. That Way is His Son Jesus who allows us to die with Him in His crucifixion and so rise with Him in His resurrection to become a new creation.
Without God we are self-consumed seekers of our own life and glory, and the fruit of such soil and of such a tree is what we are in ourselves, lifeless dust and death. With God we are self-sacrificing lovers who seek to please our True Spouse, The Living God, and bear abundant and life-giving fruit for the healing of the nations. Without God we make ourselves a worthless object, and we make everyone else around us merely an object for our use and pleasure to be disposed of when we are through. With God we lose ourselves, become His spouse, re-personalize everyone around us and inspire them to live life abundantly as the companion of the Living God; we inspire them to realize the true dignity that he and every human person has as a precious vessel made to be the abode of God, the God who lays down His life for love of His beloved. God makes us imitators of Himself, a self-sacrificing lover who gives life to the world. How awesome is our calling.
Thanks for reading and for your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
11.23.2007
Now Her Name is Eve
After the Fall, the man realizes he is naked, hides, and is found by God; then God questions him and reveals to him the consequences of his disobedience; the very next thing the man does is rename his now pregant wife the mother of all the living! She sought after a baby, and now she has conceived. Since she is now a mother and the first mother of the human race, the man names her as mother of all. From now on she is Eve.
Yesterday I gave some possible re-translations of Genesis 3:22-24. I don't know enough to properly re-translate, but by looking at my Hebrew resources, I hope these are possible ways to re-configure the text. I have no desire to just make up what I want the Bible to say; on the contrary, I want God's Holy Word to be translated and understood as correctly as possible. Translators have to make countless choices when they translate, especially when the words used have a multitude of meanings. The context of words and phrases plays an enormous role in obscure and chameleon-like words. Depending how the translator understands the sentence's surrounding context will determine how difficult passages are translated. Since most translators have never given much if any credance to my theory (which of course I see as correct), they will not arrive at a correct translation.
It makes no sense to me that God would guard the way to the tree of life to keep man from eating it and living forever. God wants nothing more of us but to eat of the tree of life and to live forever (with Him in heaven). Understanding the tree of life as the heart, God obviously still wants Adam and Eve to trust, obey and love Him and to be with Him forever in Heaven. Nothing would make Him happier.
One of the main points of the rest of the Old Testament is that we have hard hearts. Over and over again it becomes painfully clear that we don't trust, love, and obey God and that the problem the Fall caused was that we need new hearts. Ezekiel prophesies in 36:26: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
One way to keep the Genesis text as it is is to see the expelling from the garden as a symbol which shows how Adam and Eve were cast out of themselves and no longer knew or were true to themselves. It indicates how they were cut off from the tree of life, and that would be so because with their sin caused by lack of trust in God, they have lost their true heart and only have a dead, stoney heart remaining. The primary reason Jesus came to this earth and suffered, died, and rose again is to provide you and me with a new heart, a heart that believes, loves and obeys God. At every Eucharist, we receive that heart anew.
A final thought tonight is that Eve names her firstborn, Cain. "Cain" means "gotten." Since the woman was striving to get a child and that was what the whole Fall was about, when that child is born it would be normal to call his name "gotten," for now she has "got" him. As Planned Parenthood says, "Every child a wanted child," this was the first wanted child. It did not take long for this first person ever to be born to end up on "America's Most Wanted." This beginning of the human race's effort to bear children turned out horribly, for he was a murderer. The very first person born was a murderer, and of his own brother at that! The proper attitude toward children is openness and is expressed as this: "Every child a welcomed child."
I don't know if I mentioned an extremely important point. It is not that God did not want Adam and Eve to be like Him and to have children. Nothing could make God happier than for them to be like God and to have a child. After all, that is the reason why He created us. The problem is that they did not trust God to provide the child, nor did they trust His prohibition not to have relations. At some point in the future I will talk about how Abraham has a very similar test which he temporarily fails when he has Ishmael with Hagar and finally passes when he offers up Isaac, the one through whom descendants as many as the stars of the sky were promised.
Tomorrow I want to talk about, among other things, the element of wife stealing present here in the Fall.
Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.
Yesterday I gave some possible re-translations of Genesis 3:22-24. I don't know enough to properly re-translate, but by looking at my Hebrew resources, I hope these are possible ways to re-configure the text. I have no desire to just make up what I want the Bible to say; on the contrary, I want God's Holy Word to be translated and understood as correctly as possible. Translators have to make countless choices when they translate, especially when the words used have a multitude of meanings. The context of words and phrases plays an enormous role in obscure and chameleon-like words. Depending how the translator understands the sentence's surrounding context will determine how difficult passages are translated. Since most translators have never given much if any credance to my theory (which of course I see as correct), they will not arrive at a correct translation.
It makes no sense to me that God would guard the way to the tree of life to keep man from eating it and living forever. God wants nothing more of us but to eat of the tree of life and to live forever (with Him in heaven). Understanding the tree of life as the heart, God obviously still wants Adam and Eve to trust, obey and love Him and to be with Him forever in Heaven. Nothing would make Him happier.
One of the main points of the rest of the Old Testament is that we have hard hearts. Over and over again it becomes painfully clear that we don't trust, love, and obey God and that the problem the Fall caused was that we need new hearts. Ezekiel prophesies in 36:26: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
One way to keep the Genesis text as it is is to see the expelling from the garden as a symbol which shows how Adam and Eve were cast out of themselves and no longer knew or were true to themselves. It indicates how they were cut off from the tree of life, and that would be so because with their sin caused by lack of trust in God, they have lost their true heart and only have a dead, stoney heart remaining. The primary reason Jesus came to this earth and suffered, died, and rose again is to provide you and me with a new heart, a heart that believes, loves and obeys God. At every Eucharist, we receive that heart anew.
A final thought tonight is that Eve names her firstborn, Cain. "Cain" means "gotten." Since the woman was striving to get a child and that was what the whole Fall was about, when that child is born it would be normal to call his name "gotten," for now she has "got" him. As Planned Parenthood says, "Every child a wanted child," this was the first wanted child. It did not take long for this first person ever to be born to end up on "America's Most Wanted." This beginning of the human race's effort to bear children turned out horribly, for he was a murderer. The very first person born was a murderer, and of his own brother at that! The proper attitude toward children is openness and is expressed as this: "Every child a welcomed child."
I don't know if I mentioned an extremely important point. It is not that God did not want Adam and Eve to be like Him and to have children. Nothing could make God happier than for them to be like God and to have a child. After all, that is the reason why He created us. The problem is that they did not trust God to provide the child, nor did they trust His prohibition not to have relations. At some point in the future I will talk about how Abraham has a very similar test which he temporarily fails when he has Ishmael with Hagar and finally passes when he offers up Isaac, the one through whom descendants as many as the stars of the sky were promised.
Tomorrow I want to talk about, among other things, the element of wife stealing present here in the Fall.
Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.
11.17.2007
Adam and Eve Trust in the Serpent
In the attempt to write at least a little each day, I will give you one thought tonight. Chapter three begins with the serpent trying to break the trust and faith the woman had in God. He really doesn't say much: "Did God say, "You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" After the woman responds, he says, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." That's it. He starts by overstating God's singular command to prohibit any tree, implying that God is overbearing and not really interested in what is good for the man and woman. He concludes by directly contradicting God's warning of death and says that they will increase in wisdom by eating of the tree.
After seeing the desireableness of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and forgetting about God's command not to eat because He is not all that trustworthy, the woman eats of the tree. It does not take much to get the woman to turn away from God. The primary reason that the serpent did not have to do all that much is that she was under an incredible test: she was told to be fruitful and multiply and yet remain a virgin. She wanted a child very badly; she wanted to make a man as God had made a man; she wanted to be like God.
God wanted her to eat of the tree of life so that she could pass this test; to pass this test she would have to believe that remaining a virgin was the best thing for her and the way to life. But virginity means no children, and no children means death. She looked death in the face, and through fear of death, she forsook the command of God and betrayed her husband all of which began with a kiss in the garden. (The new Adam, Jesus, is also betrayed in a garden with a kiss by one dear to Him.) She wanted to get a child, so when that child was born she named him "gotten;" we know him as Cain. In trying to save her life, in trying to fulfill the command of God to be fruitful and multiply on her own terms, she made a covenant with death.
Understanding all of this is an immense help to more clearly and perfectly understand all that Jesus did; ultimately, I want to understand better why Jesus died on the cross and gives us Himself in Holy Communion, etc., and that is what much of this blog will be about. Both Testaments are needed to understand the other, and if when we read the Old Testament our hearts are not burning within us, then we do not understand what it is saying. I hope to help set that blaze upon the earth.
Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.
After seeing the desireableness of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and forgetting about God's command not to eat because He is not all that trustworthy, the woman eats of the tree. It does not take much to get the woman to turn away from God. The primary reason that the serpent did not have to do all that much is that she was under an incredible test: she was told to be fruitful and multiply and yet remain a virgin. She wanted a child very badly; she wanted to make a man as God had made a man; she wanted to be like God.
God wanted her to eat of the tree of life so that she could pass this test; to pass this test she would have to believe that remaining a virgin was the best thing for her and the way to life. But virginity means no children, and no children means death. She looked death in the face, and through fear of death, she forsook the command of God and betrayed her husband all of which began with a kiss in the garden. (The new Adam, Jesus, is also betrayed in a garden with a kiss by one dear to Him.) She wanted to get a child, so when that child was born she named him "gotten;" we know him as Cain. In trying to save her life, in trying to fulfill the command of God to be fruitful and multiply on her own terms, she made a covenant with death.
Understanding all of this is an immense help to more clearly and perfectly understand all that Jesus did; ultimately, I want to understand better why Jesus died on the cross and gives us Himself in Holy Communion, etc., and that is what much of this blog will be about. Both Testaments are needed to understand the other, and if when we read the Old Testament our hearts are not burning within us, then we do not understand what it is saying. I hope to help set that blaze upon the earth.
Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.
11.16.2007
MY MAIN THEORY--THE HEART OF WHAT I AM SAYING
Immediately following the first mention of the tree of life in Genesis Two, God tells us about the four rivers. This is a symbolic geographical representation of our physical heart. After discussing the heart, the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is given for the first time. The very next thing God does is seek a suitable partner/helper; none of the beasts of the field or birds of the air would do. Then God takes one of the man's ribs, makes it into the woman, and presents her to the man as the sought-after helper for the man who responds "At last." The pattern I see here is: mention the tree of life followed by a presentation of the four rivers and worshipping and obeying; mention of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil followed by the presentation of the woman. There seems to be a connection between this second tree and the woman.
If man is God's Eden/delight, with a garden planted in the east/front of the man, the first tree in our fronts is the heart/tree of life. By worshipping, obeying, trusting, and loving God with our hearts, we bear good fruit in the good things we do. How else do humans bear fruit? What else could be a tree planted in our front in the middle that would be a source of production? What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Is it possible to know? If we don't know yet after thousands of years, why would we find out now?
I think it is possible to know; not with an absolute, certitude and with a perfect logical syllogism, but there are many clues that point to what it is, and many realities make sense and fit together once it is understood. It is as I think Cardinal Newman said something such as: it is so based on 10,000 convergences; nothing directly spells it out, but almost everything points to the reality being thus.
So what do I think the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is, and what does the woman have to do with it? I think it is an idiom referring to sexual knowledge, i.e. intercourse. Marital relations, it could be argued, is the greatest natural good of this world; it is so good and great that Paul says it is a great mystery referring to the relationship between Christ and His Church (Eph). The test God is giving the man and the woman is two seemingly contradictory commands: be fruitful and multiply and do not have marital relations. This does not seem to make sense: presto, we have our grand trial of faith and the bypassing of the intellect. All that is left is to see if they will eat of the tree of life and believe that what God has commanded them is good for them. Of course, they did not trust.
I will explain my thoughts on this much much more, but for now I want to draw your attention to Mary, the New Eve. I think she underwent the very same test. After explaining her test as I see it, I will call it a night and give you more to ponder soon.
Mary's Test
I'll try to make this brief. The first principle to understand is that when God makes us to be something, that is what we will be good at and that is what we will desire. Among other things, God made me to be a husband, a father and a teacher, and it is those things which I desire. God made her to be the mother of His Son and the mother of the Church; as such, she was created as the most exalted mother of all human history. Being created to be the most exalted mother means that she would have desired to be a mother more than any person who has ever or will ever exist.
The second principle of my understanding of Mary is that she consecrated herself as a perpetual virgin and arranged with Joseph that they would remain virgins perpetually in their marriage. The reason I think this together with the Chuch Fathers is that her response to the Angel Gabriel does not make sense unless this were the case. In the first chapter of Luke, Gabriel says to Mary that she will conceive and he uses five other future tenses when telling her what will happen in the future. He does not say or imply that this will happen right now.
Mary replies, "How shall this be, since I have no husband." She says this when she was already betrothed to Joseph; in many respects what they understood as betrothal, we would understand as marriage. In fact, if they wanted to end the betrothal, a certificate of divorce was required. It was perfectly normal to get pregnant during this time; that is why Mary does not get into any trouble being only betrothed and pregnant. The only significant difference between betrothal and marriage was that the bride had not permanently moved in with her husband yet. Even if she just had to wait until they were officially married, then she could conceive just fine and would expect to do so. It makes no sense for her to say she will not be able to conceive a son since she will not have a husband. She already has a husband! She has just made a life-long commitment never to have sexual relations.
This was the test then: she who longed to be a mother more than anyone ever to exist, knew that God was asking her to commit herself to Him as a perpetual virgin. In her heart she was told to be fruitful and multiply while at the same time not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the people of the Old Testament, not having children was tantamount to death. One was considered cursed if barren. There was little worse in this life than to not pass life on to ones offspring. In Mary's acceptance of virginity, she would have thought that she had given up her greatest desire (other than union with God):children. Her acceptance of virginity was her crucifixion.
The Annunciation is Mary's Reward, Not Her Test
As soon as Mary and Joseph agreed and permanently decided to never have relations, then the angel Gabriel payed his visit. In offering Mary to be the Mother of God, there was nothing more pleasing to her in all creation. Her hesitation was that she did not understand how it was going to happen because she knew God wanted her to remain a virgin. As soon as she knew that God would provide the Son, she said yes. Never in the history of man was there ever such a joyous and receptive yes as that amen at the Annunciation. Her greatest desire had just been granted.
Mary's test was sacrificing that which was most dear to her on this earth, and her reward was getting that very thing but multiplied infinitely. The first Eve tried to gain her life by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and received death and a son named Cain. The New Eve lost her life for love of God and gave up that which she held most dear and was given the very Son of God as a reward for passing the most difficult test in man's history.
Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.
If man is God's Eden/delight, with a garden planted in the east/front of the man, the first tree in our fronts is the heart/tree of life. By worshipping, obeying, trusting, and loving God with our hearts, we bear good fruit in the good things we do. How else do humans bear fruit? What else could be a tree planted in our front in the middle that would be a source of production? What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Is it possible to know? If we don't know yet after thousands of years, why would we find out now?
I think it is possible to know; not with an absolute, certitude and with a perfect logical syllogism, but there are many clues that point to what it is, and many realities make sense and fit together once it is understood. It is as I think Cardinal Newman said something such as: it is so based on 10,000 convergences; nothing directly spells it out, but almost everything points to the reality being thus.
So what do I think the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is, and what does the woman have to do with it? I think it is an idiom referring to sexual knowledge, i.e. intercourse. Marital relations, it could be argued, is the greatest natural good of this world; it is so good and great that Paul says it is a great mystery referring to the relationship between Christ and His Church (Eph). The test God is giving the man and the woman is two seemingly contradictory commands: be fruitful and multiply and do not have marital relations. This does not seem to make sense: presto, we have our grand trial of faith and the bypassing of the intellect. All that is left is to see if they will eat of the tree of life and believe that what God has commanded them is good for them. Of course, they did not trust.
I will explain my thoughts on this much much more, but for now I want to draw your attention to Mary, the New Eve. I think she underwent the very same test. After explaining her test as I see it, I will call it a night and give you more to ponder soon.
Mary's Test
I'll try to make this brief. The first principle to understand is that when God makes us to be something, that is what we will be good at and that is what we will desire. Among other things, God made me to be a husband, a father and a teacher, and it is those things which I desire. God made her to be the mother of His Son and the mother of the Church; as such, she was created as the most exalted mother of all human history. Being created to be the most exalted mother means that she would have desired to be a mother more than any person who has ever or will ever exist.
The second principle of my understanding of Mary is that she consecrated herself as a perpetual virgin and arranged with Joseph that they would remain virgins perpetually in their marriage. The reason I think this together with the Chuch Fathers is that her response to the Angel Gabriel does not make sense unless this were the case. In the first chapter of Luke, Gabriel says to Mary that she will conceive and he uses five other future tenses when telling her what will happen in the future. He does not say or imply that this will happen right now.
Mary replies, "How shall this be, since I have no husband." She says this when she was already betrothed to Joseph; in many respects what they understood as betrothal, we would understand as marriage. In fact, if they wanted to end the betrothal, a certificate of divorce was required. It was perfectly normal to get pregnant during this time; that is why Mary does not get into any trouble being only betrothed and pregnant. The only significant difference between betrothal and marriage was that the bride had not permanently moved in with her husband yet. Even if she just had to wait until they were officially married, then she could conceive just fine and would expect to do so. It makes no sense for her to say she will not be able to conceive a son since she will not have a husband. She already has a husband! She has just made a life-long commitment never to have sexual relations.
This was the test then: she who longed to be a mother more than anyone ever to exist, knew that God was asking her to commit herself to Him as a perpetual virgin. In her heart she was told to be fruitful and multiply while at the same time not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the people of the Old Testament, not having children was tantamount to death. One was considered cursed if barren. There was little worse in this life than to not pass life on to ones offspring. In Mary's acceptance of virginity, she would have thought that she had given up her greatest desire (other than union with God):children. Her acceptance of virginity was her crucifixion.
The Annunciation is Mary's Reward, Not Her Test
As soon as Mary and Joseph agreed and permanently decided to never have relations, then the angel Gabriel payed his visit. In offering Mary to be the Mother of God, there was nothing more pleasing to her in all creation. Her hesitation was that she did not understand how it was going to happen because she knew God wanted her to remain a virgin. As soon as she knew that God would provide the Son, she said yes. Never in the history of man was there ever such a joyous and receptive yes as that amen at the Annunciation. Her greatest desire had just been granted.
Mary's test was sacrificing that which was most dear to her on this earth, and her reward was getting that very thing but multiplied infinitely. The first Eve tried to gain her life by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and received death and a son named Cain. The New Eve lost her life for love of God and gave up that which she held most dear and was given the very Son of God as a reward for passing the most difficult test in man's history.
Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.
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