Sunday, August 10, 2008

The Scapegoat

Filed under: Red Pilgrim — Linda @ 2:35 pm
The Scapegoat
By: The Red Pilgrim
Vatican II… why do the nations rage? I have often stated that it is not miraculous revelation that is the sole authority over mankind, nor the Church, nor the bible. There is a triumvirate over the man which glorifies the very God of the Universe, the Holy Trinity. This triumvirate is God, Church and Bible. Each part is authoritative over the man and each one has equal power but are not separate… ever. Because of this V2 is just as authoritative as the bible. Let me point out though, while infallibility is embodied by the work, in it is not found impeccability. The Church is in constant need of reform.I have relentlessly heard the statement,” V2 screwed everything up.” or “Everything went haywire after V2.” The later statement is somewhat true while the former is a blatant lie. I never hear this from people who are what some may term as “left of center” nor do I ever hear it from “progressives.” It is alway found proceeding from the mouths of those who are orthodox, those who freely and with greatest integrity and voracity apply themselves to the edicts and dictates of the Church. Those who I believe to be the most Catholic, those who have my heart. Ironic that they should be so vociferous in their obvious rebellion to the will of Holy Mother Church. No wonder that it should bother me so much.Let me tell you briefly a story Jesus once told. Once there was a man who had two sons and with them he held a great estate. One day the younger son came to the father and demanded that he be given his inheritance and with many empty words he acquired his sum of the fortune and went into a far country. While there he squandered the fruit of his fathers labor on whores and gambling and riotous living. Then a great famine overtook the land he was in and he began to hunger, for he had lost every denarii of his fortune. He found hire serving swine and would have filled his belly with the garbage which he fed the pig had he not feared dismissal. Emaciated, he thought to himself,” I am a skeleton and my life is about to be utterly spent and I shall die in the midst of pig dung. Perhaps, if I went home I my father would let me be a servant. His servants have bread and to spare! That is what I shall do!” So, by a miracle he made it back to his fathers house and his father saw him from a distance. His father ran out of the house and down the road a great distance and threw himself on his filthy son’s neck and wept for joy. And the son fell to his knees and said,” Father I have sinned against you and heaven and am not worthy to be called your son. I ask only that you let me be a servant in your house.” The father beckoned the servants saying,” Bring out my finest robe and put it on him and place a gold ring on his finger. For here is my son! He was dead and is now alive again! He was lost and now is found! Quickly bring in all the servants and women and slay the fatted calf. Tonight we celebrate!” The servants went and brought in the whole estate but when they brought news to the other brother he was angry and refused to go in and remained in the field for scorn of his brother and bitterness toward his father. Upon hearing this the father’s heart was cut and his joy diminished. He went out to him and said,” Son please come in! Your brother was dead and is now alive!” And with great bellicosity he began,” Lo, these many years I have served you flawlessly never speaking back and you never gave me so much as a kid that I may make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of your’s, who squandered your possessions on prostitutes and gambling, returns you give him even more and slay the fatted calf! I will not come in!” And the father said,” It was right and good that we should celebrate your brother’s return.”The younger son was audacious enough to be discontent while yet being the very son of the estate owner. So self-absorbed and racked with wonder lust was he that he actually asked his father for the inheritance which was due him only upon death of the father. The young man was propelled by wanderlust, and love of money and adventure. He was propelled by possibility… dreams of,” What if.” Of course he was put to shame by his own excesses and lack of virtue. But I believe that the more interesting of characters is the older brother. For he offers in objection to the celebration,” Lo, these many years I have served you flawlessly never speaking back and you never gave me so much as a kid that I may make merry with my friends.” He admits almost freely that in his own heart he is guilty of the same sins which his brother has actually committed. He dreamed of leaving the estate and getting rich. Being his own man. Perhaps his own reforms of the estate which he would enact. Women, money, parties. And even more cutting than this it is quite clear that he is indignant due to the fact that his brother is enjoying what he thinks he deserves. It becomes quite clear to the father that the older son merely obeyed so that he might get those things and not firstly out of a love for the father. For the father says trying to recapture his son’s heart,” Son, you are always with me and all I have is your’s.” He speaks from what is most important to him first and that is the love and closeness between father and son, and then submitting to the regrettable reality placates his son telling him that all he has is his. The sons each get an equal portion, but in the end the older son gets it all.

The older brother is of course those who are more orthodox and object to V2 and the younger brother is of course the progressives. The father is God, and the Church. One must understand that V2 is divinely inspired of God. And one must also understand that V2 was plead for, for a really long time, hundreds of years. V2 has not defiled anything, nor has it decatholized anything. It has brought home those who were straying. It has finally given what was missing for so long. It reestablished and revitalized the priesthood. The priesthood is for the Church not the Church for the priesthood, a fact many conservative Catholics frequently seem to forget.

The “problem” which has occurred after V2 is not V2 at all. The problem is people. The problem is the same problem there has always been. If anything V2 is a blessing. In the past when everything was in Latin and there was limited involvement people were operating on blind faith, which is admirable, but not what God has called us to. God has called us to piety through prayer and study that we may be knowledgeable and show ourselves approved. Pre-V2 Catholicism was very effective it seems to us now looking back, but that is only because laity was greatly excluded from the church and there was a very large gap between the priesthood and the laity. The priests were busied in a church culture which promoted the use of the priest for virtually everything, not to mention that transportation and information moved far slower. Confession, baptisms, mass, visiting the sick, going to the Diocese, blessing houses, going to the prisons, being on call all the time… etc… etc… etc… these duties made a full time job and left very little time for properly catechizing the Church. In place of a proper and functioning theology the priesthood had created a deficit and the practices of the church became almost like “magic” to the common mind. Because of this they were followed flawlessly and ritualistically.

What V2 did was involve the laity in a way that they had not been involved since the first century. This exposed the great, great deficiency of the Church. Catholics were Catholics in deed, but many didn’t know why. Participation of the laity, just like a spot light, showed how remiss the Church had been. If you had asked a Catholic in Italy in 1922 to read a bible most of them would have been horrified and grabbed you by the ear and taken you to a priest so that you could be told that only a priest could read the bible. The reason for that is people just didn’t understand, people were handicapped by their reliance on the priesthood. The sole function of the priesthood is the equipping of the saints. They aren’t to hunt for us, they are to teach us to hunt. It is written in Ephesians,” God gave gifts as men; some as teachers, some as preachers, some as prophets, some as apostles, some as evangelists.” It is known as the five fold ministry. These men are gifts to the people of God so that they can go and conquer darkness, not so that they can live good and die in God’s grace. V2 has exposed the greatest of wounds, the Church’s failure to properly catechize her children. This wound continues even now. And just as any uncovered wound dirt will get in. Many negative ideas and practices have crept in which challenge what we call traditional Catholicism by way of the liberation of V2. But it is due to the neglect of the Church.

If anything it is a lack of adherence to V2 that has caused such changes. It will be at least 50 years before everything is working o.k. again. I could write for days on all the reasons why the Church is the way it is right now, but it all comes back to V2. I shall leave it at this… the gold does not cry out when it is being tried in the fire, and neither should the Church.

Friday, July 4, 2008

THE YEAR OF ST. PAUL 2008-2009

Filed under: Red Pilgrim — Linda @ 12:14 pm

I was very excited to see the Pope and the Patriarch together in Rome venerating St. Paul and in union commencing his veneration together. In our own times we have seen the East and the West come together in so many places, what a miracle it would be if we could once again be literally called one house, one Ekklesia! To think such a thing could happen in our own day. Pray brother’s and sister’s it would be so.

Both Churches raised out of the Gentiles by a Jew named Paul. This man before the very world was poured out as an offering, his life consumed for the sake of the Gospel. Think of this man, Saul, what a murderer he was! What a hypocrite! This man who tortured Christians in order to compel them to blaspheme was converted to compelling men to the truth that they might live free. To expose our sins and excellence alike he brought us true light. Christ said,” I have come to set a fire in the earth and how I wish it were already burning!” Behold this great fire, this inferno! The fire that tries mens souls and purifies them. For God’s desire was to purify the Sons of Abraham all those who live by faith, to make a man valuable, more valuable than the golden wedge of Ophir. See here our forbearer Paul, the torch bearer who set fire to every city. The Apostle who set tongues of flame from Arabia to Spain. Behold a man beaten four times with 39 strips, shipwrecked, beaten with fists and clubs, stoned to death, nearly torn apart, a man who suffered numbing cold and sweltering heat. Remember what Paul did to bring you Christ! What starvations, what burns, sicknesses, what sleeplessness, imprisonments for years on end, becoming hated by his own country having to flee his own home, living as a pauper in rags, remember the bloody raw wrists and ankles rubbed by iron fetters! Remember, Christian, how it was he who in Rome with St. Peter strengthened and established our Church and accosted, even while only powerless slaves mocked and abused, the Roman Empire from the hands of the Emperor and Heathens for the glory and obedience of Christ! Remember, how St. Paul’s head was severed on the bank of mighty Tiber, how his saintly blood went down and mingled with Roman earth and water and consecrated it to God as it cried out from the ground for the souls of the lost.

This thread is dedicated to St. Paul and his work and all things based on his work, and his year of jubilee.

Red Pilgrim

Thursday, June 26, 2008

PRIDE

Filed under: Red Pilgrim — Linda @ 10:30 am
06/20/08 7:02PM
PRIDE
You vicious cataract! You damner souls! You ancient gates of the City of Woe, how wide is your construction, how heavy are you doors! No man can budge you, how then shall we close you, O womb of destruction? The first of all sins, Father of death. As spectacular as any eclipse is the eclipse of pride over the soul.
O Pride! How you corrupted the mind of Lucifer and his angels. How want of you slew the woman and the man.
It is a strange thing how quietly this one creeps in. Satan, where did you find time to be idle? When did you have occasion to conceive pride?
Satan was created to glorify God as were all creatures, and somehow did create in his heart that pride which led to rebellion, which led to lies, which lead to hatred, which led to violent wrath, which led to expulsion, which led to every evil.It was for pride that the woman ate of the fruit wishing for great things, even to be as God. She wanted to have reason for pride, she wanted power. Do you think that the woman had lack of anything in the garden? I tell you no, for before the woman and the man was the whole world. But together she and the man reasoned that it would be good to have such as that which makes one as God so that they may have reason to boast. They did not want it for the sake of that which it gave, the knowledge of good and evil, for they did not have reason in their heads to know even the nature of that solicitation. What reason does it make for me to say to you,” If you do this you will have an Archaeopteryx even as God has one. ” You would not reason in your head on the word, you would simply regard that by this “Archaeopteryx” you will become an equal with God and that it would be good, because then you will be great too. Therefore, it was for want of pride that the woman and the man fell.It was for pride that Cain despised his brother’s offering. Able was slain for mere obedience of God by Cain, Cain’s pride having been banished by becoming the lesser of the two through his own depravity of which God warned him,” Sin crouches at your door… its desire is toward you.”

Every generation has raised up men pridefully, teaching them to be intolerant of offenses, making the words honor and pride ambiguous. For a righteous man honor and integrity are ambiguous. This has escaped the mind of mankind.

Christ was a man with no pride in Him. Yet no man ever existed who had more honor, neither integrity. For even being God he did not look down his nose at the Pharisee. Rather He called evil evil and good good. A man not afraid of stereotypes, condemning all the Pharisees and only accepting those wishing to be accepted. He esteemed no man and neither did he esteem Himself, for it is written,” He did not esteem equality with God something to be grasped…” even though He Himself was God.

In these days there is a great mockery in the earth. The sons of men have become so corrupt that they mock and can not conceive that a person could love them and not the things they do. That men can see men apart from behavior. That we can “love the sinner and not the sin.” Where will they get pride if the earth embraces this teaching? Where shall men get pride if they become truly equal? Therefore, Christian, the earth hates you and all who would love unconditionally. The concept undermines everything they do. For they have traded the use of all they are from something by which men are accepted of God, to a thing by which they are accepted of men. They do not know how to be excepted without merit, nor do they know it is possible and so they do scorn the very possibility that God and more accurately Christians, other human beings, will accept Them unconditionally.

Humility, how the Lord has loved you. Moses, the greatest prophet the world has ever seen was chosen by God for the very reason that he was the most humble of men. Humility is such a hard quality to create in men that even God himself has resorted in the past to instead of looking for humble men in high places, going to the humble places where humility naturally exists. Such was the case of David the shepherd by, and Gideon who was the least in Israel, and Samuel who was born from the humility of a barren womb. Humility, is a more elusive trait than what we may call Character. Many have thrown their hands in the air over humility and character, finding no way to instill it in themselves nor their students. This is because integrity, character, humility, fortitude, temperance are the products of excellent living. When men live in self mortification and moderation and unceasing prayer they arrive at these virtues not by teaching or perception; these are not received.

How can knowledge and virtue pass between men and between God and men if there is excess of pride? The truth of God is like light, the love of God is like light. If our pride in anyway persists, it is in the direct path of the light which we desire. Some have very little blocking that light and others endure a perpetual eclipse. But until a man removes the pride we will never see the fullness of God. Therefore, it is written,” No man hath seen God at anytime.” We know this to be untrue, for Jacob wrestled with the Lord, and Moses did see the back side of God, and men beheld Christ. This rather means that no man has ever seen God as He TRULY is and therefore has not seen God. This is because of our pride and our various depravities. The key to all virtue is humility as the pagan Miltiades said,” Teach thy tongue to say,’I do not know,’ and you will progress.” The Lord exalts the humble.

Pride must be surrendered, God will not take it away. It is an act of the will to be prideful and God will not arrest a man’s will. Rather pray daily that you would be taught how to lay down your pride. Do not pass up the occasion to suffer wrong and cultivate not only humility, but patience and unconditional love. Actively esteem yourselves the least of men. Do this and all things will come to you. You do not cultivate humility by humbling yourself before your superior, for this is merely good order, therefore humble yourself to the poor and the sick and those in prison, those who are in sin. You will not want for anything, for by this you will please God. Christ says,” When you are called to a banquet do not sit in a high seat lest one greater than you should enter and the Master of the feast say unto you,’ Give place to this man.’ and you begin with shame to take a seat of lower degree. Rather, when you are called to banquet, take the lowest seat and when the Master of the feast sees you he will call out to you,’ Friend go higher!’ and you will proceed with honor amongst the guests.”

Lay aside your pride and all your devices which you think will gain you many things and be always returning to the Lord. Those who have recourse unto the Lord will never be put to shame. Do not think you will be cheated or deceived. God will honor you and so will men it you live out a true humility.
 
Posted Date: 06/26/08 10:27AM

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

ON POVERTY

Filed under: Red Pilgrim — Linda @ 3:19 am
06/13/08 11:01PM
On Poverty
Behold the rich Christian and see how poor he is! In his latter day his health fails him and he grasps at his ministry or neglects it all together. See how he has been given his recompense. For I tell you the truth, this man having heard and accepted the words of the Lord has found a way to remain rich! What a wonder this is! Were we not told to sell all of our possessions and give alms? Were we not called to be the least of men in heart and stature? All the works which a rich man does are maligned by his wealth, for if he having been poor had done the same works would have built a great construction to the Lord! However, discern, brothers and sisters, how out of his abundance he has given of himself. See how, with great pain, he must struggle to match the simple kindness of the pauper. How hardly shall a rich man be great in the Kingdom of Heaven!
Weep for the one who says in their anxiety,” Poverty has befallen me! I am ruined! God where did I transgress thee that such a blow should fall upon me!?” Saddest of saints, you have reviled the crown of poverty which came from God. Is it a wonder in these times that men recoil when the Church asks for money? Do not lie and hide behind what has occurred in the media by the orchestration of the Satan, saying,” These Churches want my money to spend it on themselves! Living richly and buying many things. We have seen all we need to see, they shall get nothing from me!” You despise all authority for those children of extortion? Oh, fool! Does God not see the corruption of your heart? For the Master said it clearly,”… where a mans treasure is, there too will his heart be…” You have displayed for the Church to see, and it has not escaped the eye of God either, that your treasure is not in heaven but in earth. How you have loved to rub your necks raw and bloody by twisting rebelliously under a driftwood yoke, the lightest of burdens! For you have no knowledge of the words of God, nor his heart, but surely, when a servant of God, supposing you faithful asks for your great help you wither him with suspicion and detest him. For shame! You who would see a marvel come and see! Watch as the dullard becomes a scholar when asked to furnish a tithe! How great does his biblical knowledge become, reasoning intricacies of doctrine so fine he himself is lost,” We are not of the Old Covenant but the New. Christ abolished the Law. Why should I give to a church when there are many dying? The tithe is dead. It is up to my conscience what to give and there is no greater than that! See how Peter did not implore Ananias and his wife who sold a field and did die? They erred only when lying to the holy Spirit. I am honest in my giving. And in the past I have given a tithe of net and not that of gross, because the government had taken from me, so really net is where I should give from.” And many other vain, puffed up things they say. You tithe do you? What reward will be given to you? For you have given and kept a record only to receive back from the government. What did you think you would get back when giving only expecting to receive a recompense? You fool, you shall get nothing from God, but at the end of the year your own government shall give you what is right.
Why! Christian is it so hard for you to have faith in God?! You children, where do you stand if not directly under heaven? Does your Father’s gaze not behold you as it even pierces all things, shadow, flesh, bone, earth, and mind, seeing even unto the division of soul and spirit? To this day God has sustained the existence of all races which walk, creep, crawl, roam on the earth and fly in the air and swim in the sea. Why do you tremble as a fool? You are to have one joy and that is the joy of the Son, not of money.
Which of you is foolish? Which one of you has been so spoiled, being recompensed in the present time with great wealth, that upon seeing your fellow Christian in poverty have despised him. Which of you have rashly an ignorantly supposed,” Look at the poverty of their life. They have fallen away from God!” When has wealth ever been the hallmark of a saint? And when were you deemed to judge him by such a standard? It tell you the truth, when you and the pauper enter into the kingdom he shall rule you forever! There is no class which is closer to God than the poor, for he knows them better than the rich who has done for himself. No, God knows the poor better, for He tended them under bridges and touched the hearts of many to give to him at the crossroads and He heard every prayer as he cried out from his condition. God pined at the sight of the one who’s sustenance withered before his own eyes and yet blessed God trusting in Him no less. How sad that you rich will never know a test of faith like the poor. How hardly a rich man enters into the Kingdom of Heaven!
Do not misunderstand me, grave would be the out come of that misunderstanding. Money is not evil, nor is the possession of it. But as it is written,” The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.” How many exhortations have fallen on the deaf ears of the rich? How many have perished at the expense of their luxury? How ignorant has the person been who defends them,” It is their money!” What belongs to a slave that does not belong to its master?! All that a Christian has is to be disposed of in the Harvest. Who can out give the Giver? Which of you can tell it? Have faith in God!
For a saint, relative poverty is superior to riches for he will be rich in God who abandons such pleasures. Even if God were to bless you with fortune, who of a pure heart would not think of all those perishing and the Church first before he gluttons his own passions and fickle desires?
Let me tell you a story, Christian, for I do not drive you out but seek to touch your heart. There was a man who went into Africa and had been working in the Lord’s Harvest for a short time and the time came again when he should leave. As a faithful and zealous worker he went to pray at a hospital before he was to leave that country and upon entering he saw a sprawled out sweating half-dead corpse laying on a stretcher and then another and another; all of them children. He asked the doctor what was wrong with them and why no one tended them and he said,” These are dying and their families have brought them here to die. They have malaria.”
Shocked he said,” Why don’t you give them medicine?! This child is seven years old!” The doctor coldly,” No one has bought them the medicine needed.” Without hesitation the man said,” How much is the medicine I will pay!” assuming that it was some great sum and as an American would cover this bill.”$2.00 American currency.” said the African doctor.
Two dollars. A child perishes for the price of half a gallon of gas. Two dollars. How many perished so you could have your appointed leather seats? How many perished so you could have your salt water pool? How many perished so you could globe trot? How many perished so you could have a faster computer or a liquid screen T.V.? How many perished because you say it is your money? How many perish because you reason,” You could say the same for any expense! Don’t judge me!” How many perish because you have forgotten? This is the only poverty a rich man possesses, that he would forget the fatherless, the widow, the orphan, the sick and in prison, those dying and those in poverty. Mortify yourselves and repent! Deny in this time the luxuries which in ignorance and rebellion you did relish in before.
Christian, I thought to write to you the great joy of poverty, but my hands are not skilled to write it. It sounds like foolishness what I write. This is joy greater than that which any amount can give! I tell you the truth even through swelling tears, this is joy: To wake and remember God first, praising him for whatever is in your mind. That your mouth should open with praise before your eyelids crack. To become sick and cry out to God in thanksgiving that justice is in the earth and brother flesh has found his just chastisment. To strive long eating the cheapest of foods which are eggs and lentils and rice and potatoes. To walk bare footed. To listen before speaking. To be the last to talk in conversation as the least of men. To risk being thrown out on the street to house the homeless. To bring a murderer under your roof. To secure children for dying and be the poorest and richest. To lose everything. To be mocked for moral courage. To be mocked for poverty because of Christ. To be disrespected by the stranger for kindness. To have a person mistake your respect and love for them as your weakness and suffer abuse from them and bear it with all humility and chastity.
Do these and let these be done to you and you will be richer than Solomon himself. In the Kingdom of Heaven he will come to you for council.

Red Pilgrim

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

WHY CIRCUMCISION?

Filed under: Red Pilgrim — Linda @ 4:12 am

Sunday, June 08, 2008

 

Why Circumcision?
Current mood: breezy
Category: Religion and Philosophy

This practice has always been strange to us, even those who bear the covenant of the circumcision. It seemingly is the last thing a man should want to do, yet interestingly it is a symbol of the very thing He wants to do.
Abram was a man called out of his fathers house from the city of Ur of the Chaldeans and led into the land which the Lord had prepared for all his descendants. Abram was accompanied by his relatives and their slaves and their children, free and slave and all who had joined themselves to Abram.
Insomuch as we may derive from this knowledge that they had a common understanding having been from one nation and even further one city. And is the nature of God we must presume that the covenant which He would construct with Abram was one that would have symbolic meaning and peculiar depth. So, lets look at how the Chaldean would perhaps perceive the practice of circumcision.
The head of the penis, which is commonly accepted, is a mystical symbol of the head itself. However, just as today one might presume, so too then was the head synonymous with the heart. So, circumcision is the removal of the crown which crowns the head. This would lead us to assume it is symbolic of recognition of a superior crown or even a foreshadowing of that saying that we will cast our crowns before the Lord, even as Zipporah cast the foreskin of Gershom at the feet of Moses her husband who was confronted by the Lord; therefore casting that fleshy crown before the Lord as an appeasement.
Then, as well, we must assume that it could be percieved simultaneously as a hood or a sack which had shrouded the head and heart of the man. That same shroud of sin a separation which man did don originally in the garden. God was calling them, perhaps, to display the removal of depravity and ignorance. Circumcision was almost certainly a symbol of enlightenment, seeing that the head was no longer covered and could now see the truth.
There is, now, another reason for circumcision which is perhaps just as blessed as the others. The semitic people known as the Habiru (Hebrew), which is an semitic term that embodies simultaneously vagabond, nomad, gypsy, stranger; the Habiru were suddenly very great. Anyone who was a run away, a freed slave, a manslayer, a merchant, any refugees could join themselves to the Habiru. They were in fact a frightening force, looked at as locusts in the countries in which they did dwell. However, the kings of varying cities sought to make good of them by making them an ally militarily which is demonstrated in the Book of Genesis.
However, to create a uniformity in the society and to preserve culture, circumcision would have been an effective deterrent against all those who were not worthy of character to dwell with the Habiru; having not the courage to under go the surgery. It was a means of preservation, I think as well that God wisely instated. Further, it is evident that circumcision is the healthier of choices in that it prevents the spreading of disease and men who are circumcised are 30% less likely to cause cervical cancer in their partners. It was a symbol that these people were conceived in truth and understanding, where as the rest of the world was conceived in darkness and ignorance. We see the males only receiving the circumcision as well, when female circumcision did exist, but not among the Habiru. This is most probably because, well firstly because God stated the males, but secondly and less importantly, certain societies believed that the man made people and planted them in the woman. However, I can not speak certainly concerning the Habiru on this particular view, but it does to appear to have been the common consensus. This would reinforce the idea that the offspring would be conceived in knowledge of God.
Something to think about…

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May the Hearts of Jesus and Mary Bless You.

Linda Mary Liotino