Readings:
• 2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a
• Psa 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19
• Rom 6:3-4, 8-11
• Mt 10:37-42
A great paradox—perhaps the paradox—of Christian belief and spirituality is that true and everlasting life comes through death. Or, in the words of this Sunday’s Gospel: “… whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
First, of course, everlasting life comes through the death of Jesus Christ, who “by death has trampled death,” as the Byzantine liturgies proclaim during Easter. Secondly, it comes through our own death in this life, when the waters of baptism, through the power of the Holy Spirit, destroy the bonds of original sin and fill us with new, divine life, so we might have communion with the Father.
That, in a nutshell, is the core of the Gospel. It is also—again, paradoxically—a message that people today are both desperate to hear and eager to avoid. Such has always been the case, right from the start. Adam and Eve enjoyed perfect communion with God in the Garden, yet they ended up seeking life and love outside of that communion. They knew what they had, and yet they wanted something else, letting the gift of free will slide into the dark waters of pride and self-love. Their decision, I think, was not a matter of intellectual calculation, but of relational destruction based on a false notion of freedom and existence.
Personally, I’ve been fortunate to live a life free of physical hardships and tragedies. However, from an early age I have always struggled with pride and self-love, more often than not flowing from a false (and always self-serving!) perspective on freedom and the nature of my existence. I’ve not had any hugely dramatic “breakthroughs” in my life; rather, I can now see that my life has been a succession of nearly countless little “breakthrough,” most of them deeply interior and hidden from the outside world.
Growing up in a Fundamentalist Protestant home, I constantly heard Scripture quoted and Bible stories told, as well as exhortations to do good, avoid evil, love God, and believe in Jesus. One day, when I was five years old, I asked my mother if I was going to heaven. “No,” she said, “not unless you ask Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior.” After further conversation, she and I knelt at my bed and I asked Jesus to come into my heart. A couple of years later, I was baptized in a rather perfunctory manner, told that my entering into and coming up from the waters was a matter of giving “public testimony” to my faith in God.
This unsatisfactory juxtaposition would later be one of many issues I worked through on the way to eventually entering the Catholic Church. That said, I am thankful that my upbringing was filled with Scripture, which we read daily and often memorized. Two Psalms made a strong impression on me: Psalms 23 and 51, both by King David. I was moved by David’s honest vulnerability, especially as he confessed his sins to God:
O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. (Psa 51:15-17)
A broken spirit. A broken heart. Yes, God desires that we be broken, for the hardness of our hearts is what keeps us from allowing His mercy and grace to transform us. David, of course, lived long before the Davidic Messiah came into the world and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:50). But David, despite his grave sins and failings, was a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam 13:14) precisely because he worshipped the true God, he humbly acknowledged his sins, and he made no excuses for them: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned…” (Psa 51:4).
Jesus, the Incarnate Word, was sinless; he had no need to be broken and humbled. On the contrary, he deserves only praise and adoration. And yet he became man, dwelt among us, and “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). He entered into the dark waters; he purified and prepared them so that I, a son of Adam, might share in the life of the New Adam.
“Do you not know,” asks the Apostle Paul, in the Reading from his Epistle to the Romans, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
The breakthrough—or, better, the many breakthroughs—for me has been to see, to know, and to joyfully accept the call to offer myself as “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,” for that is my true and spiritual worship. Amen!
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I say this with tears in my eyes. Jesus Wills His Faithful Bride to follow Him through His death and Resurrection. St. Faustina personifies the Body of the Catholic Church. Jesus lays upon St. Faustina three hours of the pain He Himself suffered upon His Crucifixion. We are to respond to Jesus, “Not our will be done, but Yours Jesus.”
Apostles James and John ask Jesus, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to him, “We can.” Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.” (Mark 10:35)
The Catholic Church suffering and dying as they climb the mountain, in the Third Secret of Fatima, is the Baptism of the Church, equivalent to the Baptism of Christ’s Passion. Dear fellow Catholics, hold fast to Jesus’ Promise of His Kingdom Come on earth, as we remain Faithful to Jesus, in our suffering and martyrdoms, as we face the full force of Satan, as Jesus takes us into His Kingdom Come of Messianic Reign on free-willed earth.
Through apparitions and locutions from Jesus and the Blessed Mother over the past couple centuries, Jesus has asked, we, His Church, to marry Him on earth. There is a cost which Jesus Himself has placed upon those who stand with Him when He Comes in His Great Power and Glory.
Jesus is Getting Married!
http://apocalypseangel.com/married.html
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 966:
My daughter, it is time for you to take action; I am with you. Great persecutions and sufferings are in store for you, but be comforted by the thought that many souls will be saved and sanctified by this work.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1053
The Lord pressed me to His Heart and said, I shall give you a small portion of My Passion, but do not be afraid, be brave, do not seek relief, but accept everything with submission to My will…
…I have let you experience in three hours what I suffered during the whole night.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1487:
Know, too, that the darkness about which you complain I first endured in the Garden of Olives when My Soul was crushed in mortal anguish. I am giving you a share in those sufferings because of My special love for you and in view of the higher degree of holiness I am intending for you in heaven. A suffering soul is closest to my heart.
Mark 10:35
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” He replied, “What do you wish (me) to do for you?” They answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to him, “We can.” Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
A portion of the Third Secret of Fatima
having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html
Obadiah 1:17 Judah Shall Be Restored.
But on Mount Zion there shall be a portion saved; the mountain shall be holy, And the house of Jacob shall take possession of those that dispossessed them…
…And saviors shall ascend Mount Zion to rule the mount of Esau, and the kingship shall be the LORD’S.
The Revelation 10 ‘small scroll’ is a list of Catholic auto anathemas. Jesus is Not King and Ruler of the world until the Revelation 10 ‘small scroll’, which puts Christ’s Laws into enforcement on earth, is read. Catholic anathema is Jesus’ lips binding sinners to their sins. Once the ‘small scroll’ is read, Jesus is immediately crowned in heaven, as King and Ruler of the world on earth. Jesus will Rule on earth, with and through the Blessed Mother, who will Rule on earth, with and through our Catholic clergy on earth. Hallelujah! Let Jesus Rule on earth! Let us enter into Jesus’ Kingdom Come’ of Messianic Reign on free-willed earth! Jesus will wipe away our every tear!
Psalms 47:6
God mounts the throne amid shouts of joy; the LORD, amid trumpet blasts. Sing praise to God, sing praise; sing praise to our king, sing praise. God is king over all the earth; sing hymns of praise. God rules over the nations; God sits upon his holy throne. The princes of the peoples assemble with the people of the God of Abraham. For the rulers of the earth belong to God, who is enthroned on high.
The hard part, of course, is that Jesus Wills that every person on earth be presented with the opportunity to join us, by Catholics inviting all mankind to receive Jesus’ gifts of Divine Mercy, to save their lives and souls. Many Catholics will be martyred for this cause and many souls will be saved by this sanctifying work.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 429
I heard these words spoken distinctly and forcefully within my soul, You will prepare the world for My final coming.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 723
The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy. My mercy is confirmed in every work of My hands. He who trusts in My mercy will not perish, for all his affairs are Mine, and his enemies will be shattered at the base of My footstool.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1146
He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice…
Jerimiah 31:6 THE ROAD OF RETURN
Yes, a day will come when the watchmen call out on Mount Ephraim: ‘Come, let us go up to Zion, to the LORD, our God.’ For thus says the LORD: Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say: The LORD has saved his people, the remnant of Israel.
Revelation 21:1 New Heaven and the New Earth.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them [as their God]. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away.”