The Church's Martha / Mary Problem

“Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

— Luke 10:38-42

The Church has a Martha / Mary problem. The nitty-gritty of Christianity has usurped the pizzazz. The foreground and background of the picture are reversed. The Church has taken over the foreground and has elbowed God into the background. An eclipse has taken place. The official rules, regulations, red tape and rigmarole of the Church have eclipsed God.The Church has put God in the back seat. He has become secondary. Luke 10:38-42 Intrusion.

The Refusal

God said no.

He clung to his love for us, held tight and refused to let go as we baptized him in the boiling cauldron of pain and suffering. He clung with the iron grip of the drowning man who clings to a life preserver in the stormy sea after his ship has sunk.

The refusal of God to relinquish his love for us is the victory we see when we look through the bloody wounds we opened in his body while he was human, alive, tender, vulnerable and our guest here upon the earth. 

The Three Stages of the Escape

The escape from godlessness to paradise takes place in three stages.

The First Stage of the Escape

Transforming Settlers into Pilgrims by Shattering the Illusions

God is the gift giver - a philanthropist. He gave Adam and Eve the gift of his love, the gift of life, the gift of a home with Him in paradise in which to live it and the gift of a spouse with whom to share and enjoy it. They received a cornucopia of gifts from God.

Love has a face by which we can identify it. The face of love is generosity. No generosity; no love Luke 6:43-45.

This was the point and place of beginning.

Enter the serpent The Catastrophe.

The serpent threw a monkey wrench into the affairs of humanity.

God had made a mistake. What a boner! So the serpent thought. We were unworthy. We did not deserve the cornucopia of gifts that God gave us. Our unworthiness made us ineligible to receive them. Only the worthy, superior beings like the serpent, are eligible for gifts from God. [Note: many in the aristocracy of the Church share the serpent's opinion. Like the serpent, they think that our sins disqualify us from the generosity of God.] Surely, the serpent reasoned, when God is made aware of his mistake, he will rectify it. He will stop loving wretches like Adam and Eve. Therefore, the serpent plotted to make God aware of his mistake. The means the serpent uses is to highlight our unworthiness.

At Eden, the serpent highlighted our ingratitude. Surely, the serpent reasoned, when God takes notice of our ingratitude, the love that burns for us like a bonfire in God's most sacred heart will be extinguished. To show God his mistake, the serpent would induce us to opt out of paradise for godlessness The Catastrophe. To do so, the serpent would lie to us. The end justifies the means so the serpent thought. The serpent would conjure up two illusions to induce us to abdicate paradise for godlessness: 1) the illusion that sugarcoats the sourness of godlessness and 2) the illusion that camouflages the sweetness of paradise. The illusions are the enemies of our rationality. They induce us to sink roots deep into the hostile desert of godlessness - to become settlers there.

Therefore, in the first stage of the escape, the illusions need to be shattered. No progress to paradise from godlessness can be made until the illusions are shattered. We need to pick up the sledgehammer of truth and wield it against the illusions to shatter them as the blow of a hammer shatters glass. When the illusions are shattered, the natural inclination of reality becomes visible to us. We see the sweetness of paradise and the sourness of godlessness. The truth sets us free. Rational people seek the sweetness of paradise and flee the sourness of godlessness. It is against our self-interest to do otherwise.

Never assume that the illusions are shattered. Shattering them requires persistence. We are always in the first stage of the escape.

Furthermore, much is true. Much that is true, however, is irrelevant. The truth that matters is the subset of truth that shatters the illusions.

What truth shatters the illusion that sugarcoats the sourness of godlessness?

For the children of Adam and Eve, God inserted a delay between the delivery of the gift of life and the delivery of the gift of paradise. God does not rescue us right away. He could snap his fingers to rescue us immediately by dint of omnipotence. But he does not. During the delay, God lets us stew in the sourness of godlessness. We experience the sourness of godlessness for ourselves.

Stewing in godlessness is the aspect of God's rescue plan that generates all of the complaints about it. Its harshness keeps the complaint department busy. More than a few have cursed the sourness of godlessness and waived their fists against God The Problem of Evil.

The effectiveness of the medicine, however, justifies its harshness in God's eyes. Stewing in the sourness of godlessness proves in the most persuasive way possible that the serpent is our enemy and a liar. Godlessness is not as nice as the serpent said it would be Godlessness. Moreover, stewing in godlessness has the additional benefit of stopping us from opting out of paradise after the gift of paradise is delivered to us. When God delivers to us the gift of paradise, we will not opt out of it as Adam did, as Eve did, as Lucifer did and as a gaggle of angels that followed Lucifer did. Instead, we will keep the gift of paradise. The experience of the sourness of godlessness makes us know better. The prodigal son is never going back to the pig sty and neither will we.

Furthermore, to mitigate the sourness of godlessness, God made life brief. Life is an infinitesimally thin slice of time when we compare it to the thickness of eternity. The brevity of life proves the mercy of God.

What truth shatters the illusion that camouflages the sweetness of paradise?

We are strangers to paradise. The memory of a life in Eden has faded. For us to know the sweetness of paradise, knowledge of it must be revealed to us. Therefore, God the father sent his Son to pay us a brief visit for approximately thirty-three years at and about the city of Jerusalem in a region of our planet known as the Middle East more than two thousand years ago. The purpose of the visit was to reveal the sweetness of paradise.

What is the sweetness of paradise?

The Son of God clung to his love for us, held tight and refused to let go as he passed through the boiling cauldron of pain and suffering in which we baptized him. On many occassions, we did evil to God. Yet, God has continued to love us nonetheless. God loves us even though we are unworthy of his love. The serpent and others who think like him do not understand that God gives his love to the unworthy.

The Second Stage of the Escape

Showing Pilgrims the Way by Sharing the Map

After the illusions are shattered, we become disoriented. We wonder about how to get there from here - to paradise from godlessness.

The Church knows the way.

God built an escape route from godlessness to paradise, defined it with holy places, made a map of them, established a Church, entrusted the map to the Church and gave the hierarchy of the Church a mission. The mission that God gave the hierarchy of the Church was to facilitate the escape - not to frustrate it, not to filter it and not to foul it up. The aristocracy of the Church are responsible for the logistics of the escape Comparison. Noblesse oblige.

The escape from godlessness to paradise is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect. Only by making our escape from holy place to holy place that define the escape route from godlessness to paradise can we be sure that we are heading in the right direction. The movement of the escape forms the needle of the compass that always points to God.

A new exodus is making its escape through the hostile desert of godlessness on the escape route from slavery under the yoke of pharaoh to freedom with God and his holy family in the promised land.

The Church has the map. It knows the way.

The sourness of godlessness and the sweetness of paradise are the two engines that drive us on the escape route from godlessness to paradise. The sourness of godlessness pushes us to its exit. The sweetness of paradise pulls us to its entrance. The potential difference between the sweetness of paradise and the sourness of godlessness powers the current of salvation. The current of salvation carries us from godlessness to paradise. All that was needed to get the current of salvation to flow was a conductor between godlessness and paradise. Jesus became the conductor. He is the way, etc. He is the bridge between the world of godlessness and the world of paradise. Through his bloody wounds, the current of salvation flows.

The second stage of the escape is the Big Picture of Christianity. The second stage is about the escape. In the second stage of the escape, the map of the escape route is shared with the pilgrims. At this stage the children of Adam and Eve have been transformed into pilgrims from settlers. They hunger and thirst to know the way from godlessness to paradise. If they do not yet hunger and thirst, the first stage of the escape has not yet been accomplished.

The Third Stage of the Escape

Giving Pilgrims the Key that Sets Them Free - the Bit, Bridle and Reins of Morality

The third stage of the escape deals with morality. Morality is about self-government. It is about us taking the bit into our mouths, the bridle onto our heads and the reins of morality into our hands ourselves. Morality is self-inflicted, voluntary self-regulation. Morality imposed upon us is not morality but external government. For morality to work it must be self-imposed. Settlers and pilgrims view morality differently. Settlers view morality as a prison that enslaves them. Pilgrims view morality as the key that sets them free. What an antipodal view of the same thing! Morality, therefore, is reserved for pilgrims Matthew 7:6 who are making their escape from godlessness to paradise. Furthermore, only a teacher who genuinely loves the student can successfully teach morality. Love opens the ear of the student to the instruction of the teacher. Without love, the ear of the student is closed. Most teachers of morality are loveless. The highest form of morality focuses on ameliorating the sourness of godlessness to our neighbors. It is consequential not intrinsic. Behavior that ameliorates the sourness of godlessness for our neighbors is the proper subject of morality. If it is not about ameliorating the sourness of godlessness to our neighbors, it is shenannigans pretending to be morality. Morality teaches us how to fit in to the culture of paradise. Sin is a tool of morality. Sin is a conclusion that the Church affixes to behavior that the Church thinks is incompatible with the culture of paradise. Sin's niche is in this stage of the escape. When sin escapes this stage it does more harm than good. The Church is the escape. Unfortunately, the hierarchy of the Church has earned it the reputation of being nothing more than the Church of a million sins. It is a bad reputation. Deserved but bad. Many in the Church do not know how to function without the crutch of sin. They have become dependent on the crutch of sin. They rely on it. But our Chruch is more than sin. If you cannot talk about Christianity without recourse to sin, you do not understand it.

The Sequence of the Escape

In talking Christianity, it is helpful to be aware of the stage of the escape about which you are talking. The three stages of the escape are the framework for clarity of thinking about Christianity. Respect the sequence of the escape.

Rationality

The appeal is to our faculty of rationality not to our faculty of obedience. If Adam and Eve taught us any lesson, the lesson they taught us is that our faculty of obedience is broken The Catastrophe. God is not stupid. He did not base his rescue plan on our broken faculty of obedience. Give God some credit for wisdom. God bypassed our broken faculty of obedience. Instead, God is appealing to our faculty of rationality. He is exposing us to the truth. The truth shatters the illusions conjured up by the serpent. Our rationality does the rest. When exposed to the truth, rational people seek the sweetness of paradise and flee the sourness of godlessness. It is against ourself-interest to do anything else The Catastrophe.

Rescue!

God plans to deliver the gift of paradise to us just as God delivered the gift of paradise to Adam and Eve. God will not be less generous with us than God was with them. Adam and Eve were the first beneficiaries of God’s love for us. They were not the last. God’s philanthropy did not end with Adam and Eve; God’s philanthropy began with them. This is good news of great joy - very good news for us indeed. 

Intrusion of the Background into the Foreground

It is not about the Church. It is about God.

The aristocrats of the Church needs to learn a lesson from our amusement parks. The nitty gritty of their operation takes place in the background away from the eyes of their customers. When the nitty gritty breaks into the foreground, the experience is ruined.

The Church is functioning well when God is in the foreground and the Church is in the background.

When the Church, however, jumps into the foreground and elbows God into the background, all hell breaks loose.

The Church's Martha / Mary Problem

Washing of the Feet

“If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”

— John 13:14-17

What humility! Wow! What a God is our God! Where do I sign up? How do I enlist? How do I join the kingdom of the transcendent God who is willing to wash my feet? 

The King

Jesus is the king. His palace is the Mass. His throne is the most Holy Eucharist. He is not the typical king and his kingdom is not the typical kingdom. He broke the mold for kingship. He is not the king who rules us. He is the king who loves us. In place of rules, regulations, red tape and rigmarole, the means by which he governs us is love. In the kingdom of the king who loves us, the citizens govern themselves (Third Stage of the Escape). We desire to please him. We trip all over ourselves in our eagerness to please him.

Love has a face by which we can identify it. The face of love is generosity. No generosity; no love. Look into the face of God and give thanks.

P.S. God can afford to be generous with us. He is omnipotent.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11:9

THE COMPARISON OF THE CHURCH TO A TYPE OF GOVERNMENT

The Church is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship. A comparison of the Church to a type of government only reveals a gross misunderstanding of the Church.

What is the Church?  The best way to view the Church is as an escape. It is the new exodus making its escape through the hostile desert of godlessness on the escape route from slavery under the yoke of pharaoh to freedom with God and his holy family in the promised land. The hierarchy of the Church are responsible for the logistics of the escape. The mission God gave the hierarchy of the Church is to facilitate the escape - not to frustrate it, not to filter it and not to foul it up. Their job is to be grease for the wheels of the escape not an obstacle in its way. The escape from godlessness to paradise is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect. Only by making our escape from holy place to holy place that define the escape route from godlessness to paradise can we be sure that we are heading in the right direction. The movement of the escape forms the needle of the compass that always points to God.

“The Holy Spirit is tugging at our souls. The curious are following the tug back to its source.”

What items are found in the Treasure Chest of Christianity?

God is not dead. Indeed, God is very much alive. However, the conversation about God is dead. Killing the conversation about God is tantamount to killing God. The enemies of the Church know this. The Church does not.

By failing to include God in the conversation, God has become a stranger to us. We do not know him. And nobody follows a stranger. Fewer and fewer are going to Church. Nobody is going to confession. Churches are withering and dying. 

To reverse the trend, the Church needs to open the treasure chest of Christianity, take out the treasure and share it with the children of Adam and Eve.

In the treasure chest is knowledge of God.

What particular items are found in the treasure chest of Christianity?

Jesus is the extraordinary fruit Matthew 12:33-35 of a process through which the children of Adam and Eve also pass during their lives in godlessness Matthew 16:24. The process is baptism in the boiling cauldron of pain and suffering. All of humanity to a greater or a lesser degree experiences this baptism. There is no escape. It cannot be bypassed Matthew 19:16-26. When a person is run through the process, the process ordinarily grinds him up and obliterates him. The process is the source of all of the complaints about God's plan to rescue us from godlessness and return us to paradise. Passage through the process is meant to shatter the illusion conjured up by the serpent that sugarcoats the sourness of godlessnes. Passage through the process is meant to inspire an antipathy for godlessness in the children of Adam and Eve. This antipathy will cause them to keep the gift of paradise when it is delivered to them. They will not abdicate the gift of paradise for godlessness as Adam did, as Eve did, as Lucifer did and as the gaggle of angels who follow Lucifer did. They will know bettter. Like the prodigal son, they will not return to the pig sty The Problem of Evil!. With the Son of God, however, passage through the process is meant to generate a different effect. His passage through the process is meant to reveal the nature of God to us Matthew 12:33-35. His passage through the process is meant to shatter the illusion conjured up by the serpent that camouflages the sweetness of paradise from us. We tortured and killed Jesus. He suffered and died. Death ought to have marked the end of the story. He was finished. Done. It was over. Ordinarily, nothing emerges from the black hole of death. Never. This time, however, something did. He emerged from the black hole of death alive and with his most sacred heart still filled to the brim with love for us. Wow! He died but he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. The evil we did to him ought to have, at the very least, pissed him off. It ought to have provoked his natural instinct for justice. It ought to have triggered his reflex for revenge, retailiation and retribution. It ought to have transformed him into a misanthropic monster - into the God who hates us. When the fuse is lit, the bomb ordinarily explodes. But, remarkably, it did not. The fuse worked but the bomb was a dud Isaiah 55:8-9. The evil we did to him did not extinguish his love for us or reduce it by even the slightest degree Isaiah 55:8-9. God let us get away with murder - with deicide Isaiah 55:8-9. Jesus is the most extraordinary fruit Matthew 12:33-35 of the evil process through which we put him. He is a result of the process that is so rare that it is quite possibly unique. Like a unicorn, the result is not ordinarily found in nature. Jesus is one of a kind - sui generis. He is mercy not justice. He is forgiveness not revenge, retaliation or retribution. Our God still loves us even though we tortured and killed him. Wow! What a wonderful God is our God! What a delight!

The God who fashioned us out of the mud with his hands put himself into the hands of the mud to hand deliver two items to the mud: 1) a love note at Bethlehem and 2) a guarantee of its genuineness at Calvary.

The word of God was a love note - a love note from God to us. Furthermore, the Son of God wrote his message of love in the ink of suffering. The ink of suffering put into our hands a guarantee that the love note was genuine. If the love note were counterfeit, his love for us would have faded as we tortured him and died when we killed him. But it did not. It survived. Its survival is the guarantee that the love note is genuine.

Like foolish children, Adam and Eve ran away from their home with God in paradise and took us with them into godlessness. Godlessness sucks. We were in trouble. We needed help. So the Son of God dove into godlessness after us to rescue us. He did not delegate the job to his subordinates. He did not send his flunkies. The Son of God did the job himself. Thanks be to God. None shall perish because our rescuer is the God who loves us. God does not fail. God does not come up short. God does not miss the mark. The only people not rescued are the fools who refuse to be rescued - those who tell God to bugger off.

Nobody signs up to dive headfirst or, for that matter, even dip his toe into the boiling cauldron of suffering unless they are insane or something important outweighs the exorbitant cost of suffering. All creatures who suffer understand this. Suffering is our native tongue. We understand that suffering is an exorbitant cost we only willingly pay for something that is extremely dear to us. Jesus paid the exorbitant cost because we are extremely dear to Him.

God had something to say to us. God had something important to tell us. The message God desired to transmit to us is that God loves us dearly. The message was so important that God involved himself in 1) the message, 2) its delivery and 3) in its guarantee.

The very purpose of the exercise was to reveal the nature of God to us.

The revelation consists of three parts. The first part is the prefix. The second part is the suffix. The third part is the connection between the prefix and the suffix. Each of the three parts conveys meaning. The prefix is 'We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died." The prefix is the boiling cauldron of suffering into which we baptized him. The prefix of the revelation gives us a measure of the magnitude of the suffix. The prefix magnifies the suffix. It amplifies it. It makes the suffix extraordinary. Without the prefix, the suffix is ho hum. With the prefix, the suffix is sublime. Therefore, when you articulate the revelation make sure you articulate each of its three parts. "We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us." This is the revelation squeezed into the smallest space - just twenty-two (22) words. Wow!

On the canvas of Calvary in the pigment of suffering, the Son of God painted a self-portrait of the nature of God. The self-portrait is a high fidelity representation of God. No representation made by human hands equals its fidelity.

At Bethlehen, the Son of God himself personally hand delivered to us a love note. Imagine. A love note from God to us. It was the most unusual of love notes. It was not just cold ink written on dead paper. It was the word of God written on life itself. It lived and breath. The love note took the form of a baby born in the most humble of circumstances.

The God who fashioned us out of the mud with his hands put himself into the hands of the mud to deliver the message to the mud that Jesus is the God who loves them dearly

The yeast of divinity came to leaven the mud of humanity with the knowledge of God.

God descended from the penthouse of heaven to the basement of earth to pay us a visit. He paid us a visit not on a level above us as befits a god but on the same level as us - an equal to us in our humanity - a partner with us in our suffering. He wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding of his message. So he did not communicate with us in the language of the angels. He spoke to us in the language of suffering. Creatures who suffer understand the language of suffering. It is our native tongue.

The Crucifixion was a collision between good and evil. It was bigger than the Big Bang. It was larger than the Large Hadron Collider. The byproducts of the collision revealed the nature of God. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. The first byproduct was that He did not stay dead. The second byproduct was that He did not stop loving us. That he did not stay dead revealed that Jesus is God. That he did not stop loving us revealed that divinity is love. No collision; no revelation.

We launched a freight train of evil toward him. He saw it coming. Remarkably, He stood in its path. He did not flinch. He did not cower. He did not jump out of the way. Good and evil collided. He took evil on the chin. He stood firm and, by standing firm, stopped evil's progress dead in its tracks. The serpent's plan failed. Evil hit a wall. The wall that evil hit was Jesus. The bloody wounds mark the line that the Son of God drew in the sand. At his bloody wounds, evil was stopped short of its objective. Its objective was to extinguish God's love for us. It was not allowed to reach its destination. Jesus allowed it to progress so far and no farther. Jesus did not allow evil to reach his most sacred heart. He did not let evil empty his most sacred heart of his love for us or let evil drain it of a single drop.

We hung him from a tree like a piñata. We beat him to a bloody pulp with sticks. We exposed his sacred heart for the world to see. Behold it stayed filled to the brim with love for us. Not a drop was spilled. Buckets of blood spilled through the wounds we opened in his body. But not a drop of his love for us spilled.

We impaled him on the sharp hook of salvation while He was human, alive, tender, vulnerable and our guest here upon the earth. We impaled him with the same insouciance as the fisherman who impales a worm on the hook. He suffered and died. Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. Wow!

The dial that controls his love for us is in his hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and is locked in place.

Between the evil we do to him and his love for us is a firewall. The firewall disconnects the evil we do to him from his love for us. it makes them independent of each other. The firewall is the will of God. He refuses to let the evil we do to him to extinguish the bonfire of love for us that burns in his most sacred heart or reduce it by even the slightest degree.

We lit the fuse of the bomb. We pressed down on the plunger of the detonator. We tortured and killed him. The boiling cauldron of suffering into which we baptized him (Matthew 3:13-17) ought to, at the very least, have pissed him off. It ought to have triggered his reflex for revenge, retaliation and retribution. The normal pattern of cause and effect ought to have held true. Our wickedness toward him ought to have produced a God who hates us. The bomb ought to have exploded. However, it did not. The bomb was a dud. Thanks be to God (Isaiah 55:8-9). We killed him but He did not stay dead. We tortured him but He did not stop loving us. In addition, He did not revoke the invitation to follow him back to our home in paradise. Furthermore, He did not confiscate the knowledge of God that he had distributed to us during his life. He let us keep it.

What ingredient makes paradise sweet? The omnipotence of God or God's love for us? Think about the possibilities. He could be omnipotent and hate us. At Calvary, we tortured and killed him - more than sufficient reason for God to hate us. Or, He could be omnipotent and love us. At, Calvary, we tortured and killed him yet he refused to let our evil extinguish the bonfire of love that burns for us in his most sacred heart. Wow! Therefore, it is not omnipotence that makes paradise sweet. God's love for us makes paradise sweet. Omnipotence gives love the ability to be radically generous to the children of Adam and Eve. Arising from God's love for us is his radical generosity to us. His generosity is radical because he loves us dearly and he can afford it.

The revelation that the Son of God made to us during his visit consists of two components: 1) the message and 2) the guarantee of the genuineness of the message. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. This is the guaranteee of the message. That which survived the evil baptism in which we immersed him is the message. He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. That Jesus did not stay dead is the proof that he is God. That Jesus did not stop loving us is the proof that divinity is love.

“The Son of God let us impale him on the sharp hook of salvation while he was human, alive, tender, vulnerable and our guest upon the earth so the Church could cast him into the cesspools of sin to fish for the children of Adam and Eve.”

The Heresy of Disengagement

Disengaging the Engine from the Caboose muddles our understanding of Christianity.

The Son of God paid us a brief visit for approximately thirty-three years at and about the city of Jerusalem in a region of our planet called the Middle East more than two thousand years ago. He came not to just tell us he loves us. He came to tell us how much he loves us. 

'How do we tell them how much we love them?' the most Holy Trinity asked themselves. 'We pay them a visit. We let them torture and kill us. We rise from the dead. And we continue to love them nonetheless. If this does not tell them how much we love them, nothing can or will."

At Bethlehem, God personally hand delivered to us a love note. Imagine. A love note from God to us. It was the most unusual of love notes. It was not just cold ink written on dead paper. It was the word of God written on life itself. It lived and breath. The love note took the form of a baby born in the most humble of circumstances.

The delivery of the love note was so important an event in the history of humanity that God also delivered to us a guarantee of its genuineness.

At Calvary, God let us put the love note to the test. If the love note were counterfeit, his love for us would fade as we tortured him and would die when we killed him. However, it neither faded or died. It survived the test. We killed him but he did not stay dead. Moreover, when he emerged from the black hole of death, his most sacred heart was still filled to the brim with love for us.  He passed the test. The love note was genuine.

We baptized him in the boiling cauldron of pain and suffering. We impaled him on the Cross with the same insouciance with which a fisherman impales a live worm on a sharp hook.  We hung the pinata to the tree and beat it to a bloody pulp with sticks.  However expressed , the bloody baptism into which we immersed him is meaningless if we disengage it from the facts that emerged from the bloody baptism. He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us.

The bloody baptism is the means God gave us to measure the magnitude of his love for us (John 15:13).  The bloody baptism is the answer to the question, "How much does God love us?".  God let us get away with murder - with deicide. We killed our God while he was human, alive, tender, vulnerable and our guest. What worse could the children of Adam and Eve do to their God? Our baptism of him in a boiling cauldron of pain and suffering ought to have, at the very least, pissed him off. It ought to have triggered his reflex for revenge, retaliation and retribution. It ought to have transformed him into the God who hates us. When the fuse is lit, the bomb ordinarily explodes. But, remarkably, it did not. The fuse worked but the bomb was a dud. The God who fashioned us out of the mud with his hands continued to love the mud even though the mud tortured and killed him. Wow! 

The price he paid to rescue us from godlessness came not from His limitless divine resources. He paid the price from His limited human resources. He paid them all for us. He kept not a penny for Himself. He has never paid more for anything else. The exorbitant price he paid for us is the best evidence of his exorbitant love for us and our exorbitant value to him (John 15:13).

If you disengage the evil baptism into which we immersed him from his love for us, there is no way to measure the magnitude of his love for us. Therefore, never disengage.

To say. 'God loves us' is true but incomplete. We have the proof of how much God loves us. The proof makes a difference.

We tortured and killed the God who fashioned us out of the mud with his hands, yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. We buried him into the black hole of death, yet he emerged alive and with his most sacred heart still filled to the brim with love for us.

Articulating a High Fidelity Message

Like foolish children, Adam and Eve ran away from their home with God in paradise and took us with them into godlessness (Learn More). Godlessness sucks. We were in trouble. We needed help. So the Son of God dove into godlessness after us to rescue us. He did not delegate the job to his subordinates. He did not send his flunkies. Rescuing us was so important to God that the Son of God did the job himself. None shall perish because our rescuer is the God who loves us. God does not fail. God does not come up short. God does not miss the mark. The only people not rescued are the fools who refuse to be rescued - those who tell God to bugger off.

The purpose of the visit he paid us for approximately thirty-three years at and about the city of Jerusalem in a region of our planet called the Middle East more than two thousand years ago was apocalypse - revelation. He wanted to enlighten us about himself. He wanted to give us insight into the nature of God. He paid us a visit to reveal to us the nature of God. The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom and the Son of God stepped out from behind the veil to show us the nature of God (Matthew 27:51). On the canvas of Calvary and in the pigment of suffering, the Son of God painted a self-portrait of the nature of God. The fidelity of the self-portrait exceeds the fidelity of all other representations of the nature of God made by human hands. Compared to the high fidelity representation of the nature of God that the Son of God himself painted for us at Calvary, all other representations are children's scribbling. Furthermore, the revelation is not carried by the words that Jesus said. The revelation is carried on the shoulders of a sequence of historical facts that happened to him. It was a wordless revelation (more or less).

What did the Son of God reveal in the revelation?

He revealed the sweetness of paradise. The revelation made by the Son of God during his visit shattered the illusion conjured up by the serpent that camouflaged the sweetness of paradise from us.

Why did the Son of God reveal the sweetness of paradise?

Rational people seek the sweetness of paradise (and flee the sourness of godlessness). It would be crazy to do otherwise. The sweetness of paradise is the engine that produces the force that pulls the children of Adam and Eve to the gates of paradise. It is the honey that draws the bees back home to the hive. (Note: the sourness of godlessness is the force that pushes the children of Adam and Eve to the exits of godlessness).

What is the ingredient that makes paradise sweet?

The indestructible and monumental love of God for us is the ingredient that makes paradise sweet.

The revelation consists of three parts. The content of each of the three parts can be given a name:

1. the prefix
2. the suffix and
3. the connection between the prefix and suffix.

Each of the three parts carries meaning. The prefix carries meaning. The suffix carries meaning. The connection between the prefix and the suffix carries meaning.

If you omit any of the three parts, you distort the revelation. Accuracy, therefore, requires that we articulate all three parts of the revelation. 

Everyone is aware of the prefix of the revelation. The prefix of the revelation is the boiling cauldron of pain and suffering into which we baptized him.  It is the sharp hook of salvation onto which we impaled him with the same insouciance with which the fisherman impales a live worm on a sharp hook. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. 

His death ought to have been the end. It ought to have been all she wrote - the final chapter - the end of the road. It was over. Finished. Done. Quite remarkably, however, death was not the end. There was more to the story. The story did not stop at death. Something emerged from the boiling cauldron of pain and suffering into which we baptized him.

He died, yet, he did not stay dead.  He emerged.  He emerged alive from the boiling cauldron of pain and suffering.

But that is not all that emerged. 

The evil baptism into which we immersed him  (Matthew 3:13-17) ought to have, at the very least, pissed him off. It ought to have triggered his reflex for revenge, retaliation and retribution. It ought to have transformed him into the God who hates us. But it did not. He emerged with his heart still filled to the brim with love for us. Not a drop of his love for us had spilled. 

The normal pattern of cause and effect ought to have held true. Our wickedness toward him ought to have produced a God who hates us. We lit the fuse of the bomb. The bomb ought to have exploded. However, it did not. The bomb was a dud. God refused to explode. Thanks be to God (Isaiah 55:8-9).

The emergence of Jesus alive and still in love with us is the suffix of the message. He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. 

This is a most unusual byproduct. Ordinarily, the prefix and suffix do not exist together. The combination is so rare that it is quite possibly unique. Like a unicorn, the combination is not found in nature.  It is a supernatural combination - alien to humanity - foreign to us. It is akin to finding, in the same compound, fire and water, matter and anti-matter, hot and cold, fat and skinny, left and right, inside and outside, or up and down.  It is extraordinary because, in nature, the first component extinguishes the second component - annihilates it completely - obliterates it - wipes it out. That the prefix and the suffix existed together in Jesus makes Jesus unique.

Between the evil we did to him and his love for us is a firewall. The firewall is God's refusal to let our evil control the dial that regulates his love for us. The dial is set to the highest degree and is locked in place. We do not have any power over it. It is beyond our reach.

By making the connection between the evil baptism into which we immersed him and his love for us, God showed us the magnitude and indestructibility of his love for us. He paid the cost of our salvation not from His limitless divine resources. He paid the cost from His limited human resources. He paid them all for us. He kept not a penny for Himself. He has never paid more for anything else. The exorbitant price he paid for our salvation is the best evidence of our exorbitant value to him (John 15:13). Moreover, if torturing and killing him did not extinguish his love for us or reduce it by even the slightest degree, nothing we do to him can or will. His love for us is humongous and indestructible.

Therefore, never just say God loves us. It is a true statement but it is also incomplete. Its incompleteness makes the statement an inaccurate representation of the revelation. The statement, 'God loves us' is the revelation without the prefix and without the connection. 

Here is the compete revelation:

We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us.

Behold how easy it is to squeeze the complete revelation into a small space! Twenty-two (22) words hold the crux of Christianity.  Contemplate the twenty-two (22) words - the prefix, the suffix and the connection - to gain insight into the nature of God.

At Bethlehem, God hand delivered to us a love note. Imagine. A love note from God to us. "I love you," God said to you and me. It was a most unusual love note. It was not dried ink written on dead paper. It was the word of God written on life itself. It lived and breath. He himself was the love note. The love note took the form of a baby born in the most humble of circumstances. The love note was a precious gift from God to us. It was so precious that it came with a guarantee. Imagine, a love note with a ironclad guarantee attached! At Calvary, God hand delivered to us a guaranty that the love note was genuine. God let us put the love note to the test. If the love note were counterfeit, God's love for us would have faded as we tortured him and died when we killed him. But it did not. It survived the test. We killed him but he did not stay dead. We tortured him but he did not stop loving us.

Godlessness

During the creation of the world, God erected a door between paradise and godlessness, locked it with his prohibition against using it, and gave Adam and Eve the key of disobedience.

God established Adam and Eve on the paradise side of the door. The world on the other side of the door was a mystery to them. Adam and Eve had no experience with it. They were strangers to godlessness. 

The source of their knowledge about the mystery on the other side of the door was hearsay. Furthermore, there was a conflict in the testimony. God testified that death awaited Adam and Eve in godlessness (Genesis 2:17) (Genesis 3:3). The serpent testified to the contrary (Genesis 3:4).  In fact, the serpent promised Adam and Eve deification in godlessness (Genesis 3:4-5). 

The non-hearsay evidence corroborated the testimony of the serpent (Genesis 3:6). 

Which testimony was the truth? Which testimony was the lie? Adam and Eve asked themselves. How does newly minted humanity resolve the conflict in the testimony? How do they break the tie? 

Obedience does not break the tie - it does not resolve the conflict in the testimony. Obedience sidesteps the question. It does not answer it.

Furthermore, the stakes were high. Adam and Eve faced the threat of death and the promise of deification. Resolving the conflict in the testimony was not a child's game without consequences. Both the risk and the reward were high.

The status quo was the safe bet. Yet, the status quo does not unmask the liar. It does not reveal who possessed the truth and who possessed the lie. The status quo revealed nothing about God and nothing about the serpent. There was only one way to learn - to get an education. There was only one definitive way to resolve the conflict in the testimony. There was only one way to break the tie. Only a taste of godlessness would resolve the conflict in the testimony. It would, as the serpent testified (Genesis 3:5), open our eyes and show us who is good and who is evil (Genesis 3:5). 

Eve decided to discover the truth for herself (Genesis 3:6). Adam concurred with Eve's decision (Genesis 3:6).  They decided to gather the evidence themselves that would resolve the conflict in the testimony. They would find out the truth for themselves. They would take a look at the evidence with their own eyes. They and their children would know the difference between God and the serpent even if the price they would pay for their education would be death. 

They put the key in the lock, opened the door, and passed through it. 

Why did God let the catastrophe happen?  This was the first time that Adam and Eve found themselves in a situation where their choice was either to ignore the conflict in testimony or to resolve it. They decided to resolve it. The knowledge gained from resolving the conflict in the testimony was worth the potential high price of their education. Furthermore, newly minted humanity had never encountered a predator. The serpent was their first.  They had not yet developed a defense mechanism against one.  They were defenseless. The good shepherd whose job was to defend the sheep from the wolves was AWOL. Newly minted humanity versus a fallen angel - no contest.  Why did God not post armed guards at the door? Why was the good shepherd AWOL during the crisis?  Why erect a door from paradise to godlessness in the first place? Why such a flimsy lock? Why did God give them the key? All of the evidence points to the fact that Adam and Eve were doomed to fail - that God wanted Adam and Eve to discover the truth about godlessness for themselves.

And they did.

They found out that godlessness sucks, that the serpent was a liar and that the promise of deification in godlessness was a lie. Adam and Eve discovered that death was the king of godlessness and that they now lived in his kingdom. God was the truth teller.

Rescue us, Oh! God!

By investigating godlessness for themselves, Adam and Eve discovered the truth about godlessness. Godlessness is autodidactic. The taste of godlessness taught them that God is our benefactor and that the serpent is a misanthrope. It taught them and us that God had credibility and the serpent had none.

To what shall I compare you, godlessness? God himself gave us the comparison. Godlessness is the hostile desert through which the Jews made their escape from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh to freedom with God and his holy family in the promised land. The exodus of the Jews is the allegory God gave us to explain our predicament in life. 

To rescue the children of Adam and Eve from godlessness, God built an escape route from godlessness to paradise, defined it with holy places, made a map of them, established a Church, entrusted the map to the Church and burdened the Church with the mission of facilitating the escape - not frustrating it, not filtering it and not fouling it up. God did not give the Church the mission of judging the escapees. The only mission God gave the Church is to get the escapees from here to there - from godlessness to paradise. Any judgment of the escapees, God reserved to himself. The Church is the new Moses. The Church is the servant / leader of the escape. The Church is the escape. The escape from godlessness to paradise is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect.

In the hostile desert of godlessness, the children of Adam and Eve play the role of either pilgrim or settler. Settlers have put down roots deep into the hostile desert of godlessness. They are stationary. They neither flee the sourness of godlessness nor seek the sweetness of paradise. They do not see themselves in need of rescue from godlessness. When God comes to rescue them, they tell God to bugger off. Pilgrims, however, are not stationary. They have pulled up the roots from the hostile desert of godlessness. They seek the sweetness of paradise and flee the sourness of godlessness. They are making their escape. They pray that God will rescue them from the hostile desert of godlessness. They wait for their savior. Their hope is the Lord. 

The job of the Church is to transform settlers into pilgrims?

How?

Shatter the illusion conjured up by the serpent that sugarcoats the sourness of godlessness. Shatter the illusion with the sledgehammer of truth as the blow of a hammer shatters glass. What truth? Much is true but much truth is irrelevant. The truth that matters is the truth that shatters the illusion. 

Godlessness is autodidactic. The sourness of godlessness shatters the illusion that sugarcoats it. Death, illness, oppression, inequity, etc. are the sledgehammer of truth.

Fill the earth with the knowledge of God. Paradise is different than godlessness. We are strangers to paradise. Paradise is foreign to us. The memory of Eden has faded. To fill the earth with the knowledge of God, revelation was needed. The revelation was made when the Son of God paid us a visit.

Rescue

Like foolish children, Adam and Eve ran away from their home with God in paradise and took us with them into godlessness. They abdicated paradise for godlessness. They opted out as Lucifer and the gaggle of angels that follow him opted out. When God gave them the gift of paradise, God wanted them to keep it. However, they fumbled the ball - they muffed it. 

Godlessness sucks. In godlessness, we are fish out of water. We were in trouble. We needed help.

So the Son of God dove into godlessness after us to rescue us.

He did not say "goodbye and good riddance" as the door between paradise and godlessness slammed shut behind us. 

He did not delegate the job of rescue to his subordinates. He did not send his flunkies. The Son of God did the job himself. Our welfare is so important to God that he came to rescue us himself. (Thanks be to God.)

None shall perish because our rescuer is the God who loves us. God does not fail. God does not come up short. God does not miss the mark. The only people not rescued are the fools who refuse to be rescued - those who tell God to bugger off.

God designed his rescue plan to reduce the likelihood of post delivery paradise opt out to near zero.

Our lifeguard stays on the dock and watches as we are drowning in the stormy sea of godlessness but only for a moment. The delay gives us a taste of the sourness of godlessness. He gives us the experience that Adam and Eve so desired. By letting us drown for a little bit in godlessness we learn for ourselves that godlessness sucks. The illusion conjured up by the serpent that sugarcoats the sourness of godlessness is shattered. 

The delay between the delivery of the gift of life and the delivery of the gift of paradise is the source of all the complaints about God's rescue plan. It is the cause of harsh criticism. Indeed, the delay is harsh medicine. However, the effectiveness of the medicine justifies its harshness in the eyes of God. When God gives us with the gift of paradise as he gave it to our parents, Adam and Eve, we, unlike them, shall not opt out. Oh! no. We shall keep it. The prodigal son is never going back to the pig sty and neither are we. By experiencing the pig sty for ourselves, we know better than to opt out.

Godlessness is autodidactic.  It itself is the sledgehammer of truth that shatters the illusion as the blow of a hammer shatters glass. When the illusion is shattered, rational people flee the sourness of godlessness. It is contrary to their self-interest to do otherwise. 

When the sourness of godlessness becomes unbearable, he rescues us. He pulls us out of this world and puts us into his world. As Our Lady said at Quito, we make that great leap from time to eternity.

Therefore, let us stop referring to our rescue from this world as death. Instead, say God rescued him or her from this world and, when the time is ripe, we, too , shall be rescued. In the interim, hope in our Savior and cling to the life preserver that he tossed to us - cling to love of him and our neighbor. Cling as Jesus clung while we wait for rescue.

Unlike Coffee, There is no such thing as an Instant Catholic

Unlike coffee, there is no such thing as an instant Catholic. It takes time to make a Catholic.  We do not become Catholic overnight. A human being develops from a baby in the womb through other stages of life including infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. A similar framework of development takes place in the thinking of Catholics. A Catholic whose thinking is not quite up to speed with the thinking of the self-styled orthodox Catholics is still a Catholic for the same reason that a baby in the womb is still a human being.

The mind's direction is more important than its progress." Joseph Joubert

The test of a Catholic is movement not belief. A Catholic moves from the sourness of godlessness to the sweetness of paradise on the Catholic escape route. We are Catholic first with our feet and then with our heads. God built an escape route from godlessness to paradise, defined the escape route with holy places, made a map of them, established a Church, entrusted the map to the Church, and gave the Church the job of facilitating our escape - not the job of frustrating it, filtering it or fouling it up. The escape from godlessness to paradise is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect.

A Leader of the Church did not Include God in the Conversation

Here is my comment to an article by David Mills entitled "The Catholic Church's Painful, Joyful Hope dated 12/31/2015 in Aleteia (Link)

This article epitomizes all that is wrong with the leaders of Christianity. It is all about the Church. It says nothing about God. Is it possible to devote a modicum of the conversation to God? Say 25%.  

God is not dead. Indeed, God is very much alive. However, the conversation about God is dead. Killing the conversation about God is tantamount to killing God. The enemies of the Church know this. The leaders of the Church do not. Because the leaders of the Church exclude God from the conversation, God has become a stranger to us. Nobody follows a stranger. Because God is a stranger to us, fewer and fewer go to Mass to worship him. Nobody goes to Confession. Churches are withering and dying. 

To reverse the trend, the leaders of the Church must sing a new song. They must sing a song about God. They must put away the songs they sing about the lesser aspects of Christianity. They must put away the songs they sing about the Church.

The vision of the Church is out of focus. It is blurry. Now is the time to refocus it. More God. Less everything else.

We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. That he did not stay dead is the proof that Jesus is God. That he did not stop loving us is the proof of so much more. It is the proof that Divinity is love. 

How do we let them know that we love them? We let them torture and kill us. We suffer and die. We then rise from the dead and continue to love them nonetheless. If this does not convince them that we love them dearly, nothing can or will. 

There is so much to say about God even in small spaces. Let's get cracking.

Below is a further reply that I made to a comment that said "This is a false dichotomy. God is inseparable from the Church."

Indeed.  The Church is the escape. It is the new exodus making its escape through the hostile desert of godlessness from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh to freedom with God and his holy family in the promised land. The Church is the servant / leader of the escape. God built the escape route, defined the escape route with holy places, made a map of them, established a Church and entrusted the map to the Church. The job of the Church is to facilitate the escape - not to frustrate it, not to filter it and not to foul it up. The job of the Church is to be grease for the wheels of the escape not an obstacle in its way. Rational people seek the sweetness of paradise and flee the sourness of godlessness. To do otherwise is crazy. Jesus is the sweetness of paradise. Indeed, the Church and God are inseparable. However, they are not the same thing. To understand the difference between God and the Church, you must dive deeper into its role in the Big Picture of Christianity.  The Church is not doing its job when it is not wielding the sledgehammer of truth against the illusions conjured up by the serpent that camouflage the sweetness of paradise and sugarcoat the sourness of godlessness.  It has been said that the truth sets us free. Much is true. However, much truth is irrelevant. The truth that sets us free is the truth that shatters the two illusions. When the Church does not include God in the conversation, it does nothing to shatter the illusion that camouflages the sweetness of paradise. It does not do its job.  Do you not agree with me that a more than two thousand year old Church knows a song or two about God? Therefore, lets hear it sung! Let's hear the Church sing the songs about God.

Here is a similar comment that I made to an article in Crux (Link)

This article epitomizes all that is wrong with the leaders of Christianity. Nothing is said about God. Is it possible to devote a modicum of the conversation to God? Say 25%.

Isn't God news anymore? When did the bloody wounds we opened in the body of Christ stop being news? A.D. 100? A.D. 1492? A.D. 2014?

We lit the fuse of the bomb. We tortured and killed him. This ought to have, at the very least, pissed him off. This ought to have triggered his reflex for revenge, retaliation and retribution. The normal pattern of cause and effect ought to have held true. The bomb ought to have exploded. However, it did not. The bomb did not explode. Our God was a dud. Thanks be to God (Isaiah 55:8-9).

When we look through the bloody wounds we opened in the body of Christ as we would look through a telescope, we catch a glimpse of heaven from right here on earth. The bloody wounds pierce the veil to reveal the nature of God. The very purpose of the exercise was to reveal to us the nature of God.

What do you see?

We killed him (Proof that Jesus is human) but He did not stay dead (Proof that Jesus is God) But more importantly, we tortured and killed him but he did not stop loving us (Proof that Divinity is love).

Wow!

God is not dead. Indeed, God is very much alive. However, the conversation about God is dead. Killing the conversation about God is tantamount to killing God. The enemies of the Church know this. The leaders of the Church do not. Because the leaders of the Church exclude God from the conversation, God has become a stranger to us. Nobody follows a stranger. Because God is a stranger to us, fewer and fewer go to Mass to worship him. Nobody goes to Confession. Churches are withering and dying.

To reverse the trend, the leaders of the Church must sing a new song. They must sing a song about God. They must put away the songs they sing about the lesser aspects of Christianity. They must put away the songs they sing about the Church. Surely a more than two thousand year old Church knows a song or two about God?

Indeed.  The Church is the escape. It is the new exodus making its escape through the hostile desert of godlessness from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh to freedom with God and his holy family in the promised land. The Church is the servant / leader of the escape. God built the escape route, defined the escape route with holy places, made a map of them, established a Church and entrusted the map to the Church. The job of the Church is to facilitate the escape - not to frustrate it, not to filter it and not to foul it up. The job of the Church is to be grease for the wheels of the escape not an obstacle in its way. Rational people seek the sweetness of paradise and flee the sourness of godlessness. To do otherwise is crazy. Jesus is the sweetness of paradise. Indeed, the Church and God are inseparable. However, they are not the same thing. To understand the difference between God and the Church, you must dive deeper into its role in the Big Picture of Christianity.  The Church is not doing its job when it is not wielding the sledgehammer of truth against the illusions conjured up by the serpent that camouflage the sweetness of paradise and sugarcoat the sourness of godlessness.  It has been said that the truth sets us free. Much is true. However, much truth is irrelevant. The truth that sets us free is the truth that shatters the two illusions. When the Church does not include God in the conversation, it does nothing to shatter the illusion that camouflages the sweetness of paradise. It does not do its job.  Do you not agree with me that a more than two thousand year old Church knows a song or two about God? Therefore, lets hear it sung! Let's hear the Church sing the songs about God.

Jesus was a dud. Alleluia!

We lit the fuse but the bomb did not go off.

To understand Jesus, do not ask yourself, "What happened?". That is the wrong question. Ask yourself, "What didn't happen?".

We lit the fuse of the bomb. We tortured and killed him. This ought to have pissed him off. This ought to have triggered his reflex for revenge, retaliation and retribution. The normal pattern of cause and effect ought to have held true. The bomb ought to have exploded. However, it did not. The bomb did not explode. Our God was a dud. Thanks be to God (Isaiah 55:8-9).

We killed him but He did not stay dead.

We tortured him but He did not stop loving us.

In addition,

He did not revoke the invitation to follow him back to our home in paradise. He kept the invitation open.

He did not confiscate the knowledge of God that he had distributed to us during his life. He let us keep it.

We lit the fuse. The bomb didn't explode.

The veil fell. Jesus revealed himself. What do you see? What do the facts tell you about the nature of God? What do the facts say? The facts speak to you. Listen to their message. Hear what they say. The very purpose of the exercise was to reveal to us the nature of God. 

What emerged from the evil baptism into which we immersed him? That the bomb did not explode tells us much about the nature of God.

That he did not stay dead is the proof that Jesus is God. However, that he did not stop loving us tells us so much more about God. That he did not stop loving us tells us that divinity is love. 

What more can we ask for? Ours is an omnipotent God who loves us dearly and who possesses a radical patience for the misdeeds of the children of Adam and Eve (Psalm 103:8). 

How do we persuade them that we love them dearly? We let them torture and kill us. We rise from the dead. And we continue to love them nonetheless. If this does not persuade them, nothing can or will.

The mighty God who defeated the Egyptians versus the puny God whom the Romans defeated

The Romans tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. How puny was the God of the Christians! How unlike the God of the Jews. The God of the Jews was a mighty God who defeated the Egyptians and liberated the Jews from bondage! The God of the Christians failed to liberate them from the Romans. In fact, the Romans sacked their capital, Jerusalem, in 70 A.D.

The God of the Jews is the same God as the God of the Christians. There is only one true, God.

What gives?

In his encounter with the Egyptians, God proved his omnipotence. 

In his encounter with the Romans, God proved much more - much, much more. God proved something better than omnipotence. God proved the genuineness of his love for us. 

At Bethlehem, the most Holy Trinity hand delivered to us a love note. Imagine. A love note from God to us. It was a most unusual love note. It was not cold ink written on dead paper. It was the word of God written on life itself. It lived and breathed. It was alive. Jesus, the Son of God, was the love note. 

At Calvary, God gave us a guarantee of the genuineness of the love note. If the love note were counterfeit, his love for us would have faded as we tortured him and died when we killed him. But it did not. It survived. That his love for us survived the boiling cauldron of suffering into which we baptized him guaranteed the genuineness of the love note.

God used the Egyptians to prove his omnipotence.

God used the Romans to guarantee his love for us.

We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. His love for us is the ingredient that makes paradise sweet. Rational people seek the sweetness of paradise (and flee the sourness of godlessness). It would be crazy to do otherwise.

The Virginity of Mary

God impregnated Mary with the treasure chest that carried the knowledge of God from heaven to earth. She was the treasure chest of the treasure chest. The value of the treasure required the purity of virginity to carry it. Nothing less would do. She lost her virginity to the one true God. With respect to other gods, she was a virgin.  

85% Catholic?

What percentage Catholic are you? I am approximately 85% Catholic. Pretty good, no? The Church has done a spectacularly successful job with me in converting me from a pagan into a Catholic. But is 85% good enough?  What percentage entitles me to claim the dubious distinction of a Catholic identity? Is it all or nothing? Purity without blemish? Is purity without blemish even possible?  What is the minimum percentage that qualifies a person to use the Catholic escape route to make his or her way from godlessness to paradise? 50% Catholic? 70% Catholic? 90% Catholic? Is this even a worthwhile discussion?  Run from the self-anointed saints who claim that they are 100% Catholic. They are either liars or idiots.  Perfection is never achieved. Everybody can be a better "Catholic".  I am not yet a saint. Are you?

P.S. Sanctimonious Catholics hurl the epithet, "Cafeteria Catholic", at those who fail to swallow the "Catholic Identity" thing hook, line and sinker. They besmirch "Cafeteria Catholics" as being guilty of the sin of "picking and choosing". They claim it is all or nothing. But is it? It is impossible for anyone including sanctimonious Catholics to enter a restaurant and eat everything that is on the menu. Like Julia Child, I cannot stomach the herb, cilantro. Whenever a dish on the menu contains cilantro, I reject it. What is your cilantro?

Freight Train

We launched a freight train of evil toward him. He saw it coming. Remarkably, He stood in its path. He did not flinch. He did not cower. He did not jump out of the way. Good and evil collided. He took evil on the chin.  He stood firm and, by standing firm, stopped evil's progress dead in its tracks. The serpent's plan failed. Evil hit a wall. The wall that evil hit was Jesus. The bloody wounds mark the line that the Son of God drew in the sand. At his bloody wounds, evil was stopped short of its objective. Its objective was to extinguish God's love for us. It was not allowed to reach its destination. Jesus allowed it to progress so far and no farther. Jesus did not allow evil to reach his most sacred heart. He did not let evil empty his most sacred heart of his love for us or let evil drain it of a single drop.

THE GREATEST DAMAGE IS DONE TO CHRISTIANITY BY ONE-DIMENSIONAL THINKERS WHO LIFT HIGH THE CROSS TO DEFEND IT

A one gallon tank cannot handle two gallons of information.

We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. This is the first gallon. Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. This is the second gallon.

Let me make a statement that all one-dimensional thinkers without exception will call a vile calumny: The Cross is not well understood in Christianity. Only one side of the Cross is well understood.  The Cross, however, has two sides. Its other side is overlooked and the connection between the two sides of the Cross is not well understood at all.

How many sides of the Cross do you see?

There are two sides to the Cross not one:  1) the near side and 2) the far side. The bloody wounds we opened in the body of our savior, the Son of God, while He was human, alive, tender, vulnerable and our guest are a telescope through which we can catch a glimpse of heaven from here on earth. The bloody wounds pierce the veil and allow us to see from the near side of the Cross to the far side of the Cross.

Reality does not exist on a single layer.

Reality does not exist on a single layer. Reality has depth. Its depth comes from the existence of multiple layers of reality. Furthermore, different stories are unfolding on different layers of reality. Sometimes multiple layers of reality are connected; sometimes they are not. The ability to see the connection between layers of reality is a valuable gift. 

One-dimensional thinkers only see the story that is unfolding about the Cross on the skin of reality.  They have no depth to their vision. The story that is unfolding about the Cross on the subcutaneous layer of reality is hidden from them. The Cross represents a two-dimensional reality. One-dimensional thinkers simply lack the capacity to understand its two dimensions. A one gallon tank cannot handle two gallons of information.

The Story that unfolded on the near side of the Cross.

On the near side of the Cross, one story is unfolding. It is the story of utter failure - of ignominious defeat - of terrible suffering - of the apparent victory of evil over good. Unlike the mighty God who defeated the Egyptians and saved his people, we see, when we look at the near side of the Cross, a puny God who failed to save his people from the Romans. The Romans tortured and killed Jesus. He suffered and died. In round one against the Egyptians, God won. In round two against the Romans, God lost. Between the time of the Egyptians and the time of the Romans, a mighty God had become a puny God. What happened?

The Story that unfolded on the far side of the Cross.

However, on the far side of the Cross, a different story is unfolding. It is the story of triumphant success - of glorious victory.  It is a survival story.  It is the story of the victory of good over evil. On the skin of reality, we immersed the Son of God into an evil baptism (Matthew 3:13-17) - we dipped him into the boiling cauldron of suffering - we ran him through the gauntlet of torture - we launched the locomotive of evil against him. What emerged? What story unfolded on the successive layer of reality? What was the result of the test? When we look through the bloody wounds we opened in the body of the Son of God, instead of just at them, we see to the far side of the Cross. There we behold two glorious facts: 1) He did not stay dead and 2) He did not stop loving us. There we behold indestructibility. Suffering has the power to destroy anything that passes through it. Whatever survives the passage through suffering is extraordinary and attracts our attention. That He survived the passage through suffering - that he did not stay dead - revealed to us that Jesus is God. That his love for his survived the passage through suffering - that he did not stop loving us - revealed to us that divinity is love.

The Son of God did not pay us a visit to do battle with the Romans as he did with the Egyptians. Been there; done that. Our God's encounter with the Egyptians happened to reveal to us his omnipotence. Our God's encounter with the Romans happened to reveal something more extraordinary than omnipotence. It happened to reveal that divinity is love itself. He paid us a visit to do battle with the devil himself. Since the dawn of humanity, the serpent, jealous of God's love for us, has plotted to extinguish it. At Eden, the serpent reasoned, if he could induce Adam and Eve to abdicate the gift of paradise for godlessness, surely their ingratitude would extinguish God's love for humanity. The serpent's plot failed. God continued to love us nonetheless. At Calvary, the serpent reasoned, if he could induce the children of Adam and Eve to torture and kill the Son of God, surely this grievous insult to the person of the Son of God would extinguish God's love for humanity. Again, the serpent's plot failed. God continued to love us nonetheless.

We launched a freight train of evil toward him. He saw it coming. Remarkably, He stood in its path. He did not flinch. He did not cower. He did not jump out of the way. He took it on the chin. He stood firm and, by standing firm, stopped evil's progress dead in its tracks. The serpent's plan failed. Evil hit a wall. The wall that evil hit was Jesus. The bloody wounds mark the line that the Son of God drew in the sand. At his bloody wounds, evil was stopped short of its objective. Its objective was to extinguish God's love for us. It was not allowed to reach its destination. Jesus allowed it to progress so far and no farther. Jesus did not allow evil to reach his most sacred heart. He did not let evil empty his most sacred heart of his love for us or let evil drain it of a single drop.

It is the connection between the two sides of the Cross that is important

To understand the Cross, we must consider both sides of the Cross in conjunction with each other. Our failure to consider both sides of the Cross produces a defective understanding of it.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)

To the one-dimensional thinker, the Cross is nothing more than suffering. We tortured and killed the Son of God while He was human, alive, tender, vulnerable and our guest. He suffered and died. This is the only story that the one-dimensional thinker sees when he looks at the Cross. This is the story that unfolded on the near side of the Cross. This is the story that unfolded on the skin of reality - on the suffering side of the Cross. The suffering side of the Cross is, however, only one side of the two sides of the Cross.

The Cross is a two-dimensional reality. It has a near side and a far side. The layer of reality on the near side is the skin of reality. The layer of reality on the far side is a subcutaneous layer of reality. A one-dimensional thinker cannot fathom the two layers of reality.

The incapacity of one dimensional thinkers to understand both dimensions of the Cross has gravely damaged the proper Christian understanding of suffering. Furthermore, their defective understanding has deleterious consequences.  Moved by their desire to imitate their Lord and Master, one-dimensional thinkers rashly conclude that they must imitate his suffering. In their minds, suffering becomes the end in and of itself. Suffer and offer it up to God, they say. How fortunate are we to suffer as our Lord and Master suffered, is their perverse mantra.  Oh happy suffering, they exclaim.

Beware the logic of idiots.

God poured more and better theology into the Cross than into the heads of every apologist, theologian, Doctor of the Church, monk, abbot, mystic, priest, monsignor, bishop, Cardinal, Pope, hermit and saint who has ever lived or will ever live.

By looking only at the suffering side of the Cross, one-dimensional thinkers paint a picture of God as a diabolical sadist who delighted in the torture and death of his son. Our diabolical God allowed his son to take the bullet meant for us is the theory of the one-dimensional thinkers. They paint the picture of God the Father as a monster. 

The picture they paint, however, is a grossly inaccurate representation of the nature of God. God is not a diabolical sadist. God is a philanthropist. God is pro-human not anti-human. God is a friend not an enemy. Only an enemy of the children of Adam and Eve would wish suffering upon us. God does not want us to suffer. Suffering is not God's intention for us. Never was, is or will be. God does not intend us to be toast here on earth, hereafter in the temporary toaster we call purgatory or in the perpetual toaster we call hell. The concept of God as the toast master (e.g. St. Lawrence) is a human notion not a divine notion. Humans build toasters; God does not. The representation of God as toast master is irreconcilable with the self-portrait of their nature that God themselves delivered to us at Calvary, and, hence, must be rejected as a counterfeit representation.

The advice of the Cross is to love not to suffer - to love despite the cost. One-dimensional thinkers think that God's advice is to suffer. Two-dimensional thinkers know better. Two-dimensional thinkers look through the bloody wounds we opened in the body of Christ. They do not stop at the bloody wounds as one-dimensional thinkers do. Two-dimensional thinkers appreciate both dimensions of reality that the Cross represents.  Moved by their desire to imitate their Lord and Master, two-dimensional thinkers rightly conclude that they must imitate the love of God. In their minds, love despite the cost becomes the end in and of itself. We must love through the baptism of suffering. Love carries us through the gauntlet of suffering. How fortunate are we to love as our Lord and Master loved. Oh happy love!

When someone recommends to you to pick up your Cross, challenge his depth of understanding of the Cross. Are you being told to suffer or are you being told to love? 

We cannot sanctify our suffering by presenting it on an imaginary silver platter to God as the head of the Baptist was presented to Herod Antipas. God is not Herod Antipas. Do not let one-dimensional thinkers who do not understanding the Cross persuade you of this. Remember, God is not a sadist but a philanthropist.

But if you are told to cling to your love of God and neighbor as you pass through your baptism of suffering, listen to the advice. This is what Jesus did on the Cross. Cling as Jesus clung. It is the sanctuary in the storm of suffering. This is the life preserver that will save you as you are drowning in the storm of suffering. This is the secret of the Cross. Shssssssh. It is a secret hanging in plain sight.

How do we convince them that we love them? We send the Son of God to pay them a visit, let them torture and kill him. He rises from the dead and we continue to love them nonetheless. If this does not convince them, nothing will.

The revelation of the Son of God consists of two components: 1) the message and 2) the guarantee. The message is that God loves us dearly. The message was delivered at Bethlem. The Word of God delivered a love note to us and 2) the guarantee is that the love note passed through the boiling cauldron of torture and death yet survived. It emerged from the evil baptism into which we immersed him intact and undiminished. The guarantee was delivered at Calvary.