Shepherds of Christ Daily Writing

May 2, 2014

                May 2, 2014

                R. Dear Jesus,

                    I know how it is if we are divided
                with anyone we once loved. It is so
                much harder to be divided with those
                who are part of our family. So people
                who try to help others to have good
                relationships look at the past relationships
                in their lives and see where they have
                been hurt in love and relationships,
                have not been healed and finished, in
                a healthy way, to leave the person with
                unfinished, hurtful wounds that still
                hurt them.

                    If a person has a cut or an open
                wound it needs to be healed.
                We see Christ was whipped all over
                with lashings because He suffered
                for our sins.

                    We have been called by God in
                the greatest commandment to love
                God first and love our neighbor
                as ourselves.

                Christ at the pillar was whipped
                for our sins.

                    We need healing of past relationships
                in our lives. They can be great
                stumbling blocks for stopping -
                us from loving God as He intends
                us to be.

                    We cannot bury our heads in the
                sand, when we are carrying a big
                wound in our side or our leg –
                or on our body. We need it to be healed.
                We see God allowed some saints to have
                the stigmata to have an open wound
                like Padre Pio.

                    Fr. Carter talks about the Nature
                of Sin - in Response in Christ.

^SIX    The Christian and Sin (excerpt)

We should not have a sin-centered mentality. Christ wants us to focus our attention on the positive aspects of the Christian existence. Still, we should not minimize the existence of sin and the part each of us has contributed to the sinfulness of the world. Anyone who tends to doubt the enormous dimension of sin throughout man's history has only to read scripture to be reminded of the truth. Every age has been hauntered by sin's presence, our own being no exception. Some say that the modern world is not conscious of sin, but this observation does not seem to be entirely true. Modern man has articulated his consciousness of sin very noticeably through contemporary literature, philosophy and theology.

To be realistic, then, each of us must be properly conscious of sin, of our own sinfulness, of the fact that sin constitutes one of the major obstacles to the proper growth of the Christian life. 

1. The Nature of Sin

What is the nature of sin? Contemporary theology emphasizes that sin is not primarily a violation of a law, but a disruption of personal relationships. Sin is a refusal to love. Serious sin is a radical refusal to love. Venial sin is a partial refusal to love. 

                end of excerpt

                R. As we approach Mother's Day, I see
                that Mary was conceived without sin –
                Mary is pure gift the Father says –
                Mary is our model.

                    We see that God the Father put Mary's
                image on the Clearwater building –
                God calls us to be holy, to be pure,
                to be loving, to be in the image and
                likeness of God, more and more.

                    Jesus came, the Son of God, to teach
                us about Himself. Jesus is our Savior.
                Jesus, truly, suffered for our sins.

                    God calls us to love Him and
                to trust Him. God calls us to respond
                to God's love given to us, to grow in
                this response to God's love by loving
                God and loving others like ourselves.
                God wants intimate friendship with
                Him.

                    Man can seek independence of
                God, wanting to run his own life
                and opposing the Heavenly Father's
                will for us to respond in love,
                loving God first, with our whole
                heart, our whole soul and our whole
                being and loving our neighbor as
                ourselves.

                    Sin is in the heart, where man
                can decide, like Eve in the Garden,
                to want to be equal to God. We can
                rebel against the Law God
                has given us, the Law to love
                God first, love others and love ourselves.
                Eve wanted to be independent of God.

                    We can close in on ourselves
                in sin and know the misery
                of sin – "self-enclosedness".
                We see the souls of hell – who
                are completely closed in upon
                themselves, completely deprived
                of God and other personal
                relationships. An unrepented serious
                sinner refuses to love and places
                himself above God, closing in,
                hurting others and sinning mortally
                without repentance. Hard, Hard
                in heart. Selfishness, Self-enclosure
                and independence of God's law of love!
 

                    Fr. Carter says in Response in Christ, pp. 124-127

Sin is primarily a refusal to love God, a refusal to be loved by Him, to be guided by Him. In sinning, man seeks for a false fulfillment, and therefore actually becomes impoverished. The great St. Augustine puts it this way: "For when the soul loves its own power, it slips from the common whole to its own particular part. Had it followed God as its ruler in the universal creature, it could have been most excellently governed by His laws. But in that apostatizing pride, which is called 'the beginning of sin', it sought for something more that the whole; and while it struggled to govern by its own laws, it was thrust into caring for a part, since there is nothing more than the whole; and so by desiring something more, it becomes less. . .”² 

Yes, sin is an act disruptive of one's relationship with God. But sin has other dimensions also. It is a refusal to love other men as we should. For the Christian, sin is an offense against the covenant life of the People of God. In some way the sinfulness of the individual Christian makes itself felt in the corporate body which is the Church. The Christian, in sinning, is failing to love the corporate good of the People of God. He is failing to contribute his share to the progressive maturation in Christ of the total Christian community. The Christian in his sin becomes a burden to the People of God.  

Sin also is an obvious refusal to love others in those instances when one directly harms others through his transgression. So many sins come under this category: theft, all forms of uncharity, social injustice, scandal, detraction. Furthermore, not only does one man often sin against another, but he frequently leads another into sin. In God's plan man is supposed to help his neighbor achieve his temporal and eternal happiness, but how often, even among Christians, the opposite is true. Not to make a positive contribution to the true growth of others is failure enough, but to be a positive hindrance is a far greater evil. 

There is still another way in which the sinner refuses love to his fellowmen; when man sins he makes his contribution to the "sin of the world.”³ He thus adds to that huge, negative weight, nourished by the sins of the centuries, a weight which is always trying to draw man away from his God-given destiny. This mass of sinful ugliness, this "sin of the world," always has its considerable influence, but at times its hideousness makes itself especially manifest. The great race riots which have tragically risen up recently in various parts of the United States are examples of these special manifestations of the "sin of the world." Such events are not isolated instances of sins connected with race. In back of such tragedies there is a long history of grave social and racial sins, of seething hatred of white for black, and black for white. Such accumulated sinfulness in regard to race is part of the "sin of the world." 

There are many other examples of these special manifestations of the "sin of the world." There are the world wars and the lesser wars, with their share of unbelievable accounts of the hatred which man can impose upon his fellowman. There are the histories of the various crime syndicates throughout the world with all their blatant categories of human degradation – narcotics, prostitution, terrorization and the rest. There are the sins of colonialism and the sins of communism. 

The "sin of the world" with its stark and bold manifestations is a sickening reality. But a reality it is. And each man's sinfulness adds a little to this universal world sin. Each man's sinfulness contributes to sin's divisiveness. Man is intended to help Christ progressively unify all creation more and more into Himself. When man sins, he contributes to the disruptive and disunifying force of the "sin of the world." 

Sin, then, because it is a failure to love God, man and the world, is selfishness. Sin seems to offer some sort of happiness, or advantage, or fulfillment. But this is a delusion. Sin can accomplish none of these things, because man's only real happiness and fulfillment comes from his authentic relationship in love with God, his fellowman and the rest of creation. Sin works against all these relationships. 

Sin is so hard to understand because it is an absurdity. But if we are to grow properly in the Christian life, we must have some basic realization of what sin is, and of God's attitude towards sin and the sinner. Our best source for such a mature realization is given to us in the crucified Christ. In this figure we can know all the Father wants us to comprehend concerning sin. First of all, Christ crucified tells us very starkly of the overwhelming heinousness of sin. We know that sin is overwhelmingly evil because it alone could nail Incarnate Goodness to the cross. Secondly, Christ crucified speaks to us concerning the justice of God. God's justice does ask satisfaction for sin – yes, even that satisfaction which is the death of His Son. Thirdly, and very importantly for us poor sinners, the crucified Christ speaks to us unmistakably and overwhelmingly of the Father's great love and mercy towards us. Because of this love and mercy we can be so positive about human existence, for great as is the power of sin, the love and mercy of the Father, incarnated in His Son, is infinitely greater. This is our peace and consolation. 

God's love and mercy moves the sinner toward repentance, and when the sinner repents, God's love changes him. In Isaiah the prophet we read: " 'Come now, let us talk this over, says Yahweh. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.' " (Is 1:18). 

                end of excerpt

                R. Healing of woundedness in relationships.
                God gave us mothers and fathers to teach
                us about love. When there are wounds
                we do not face and seek healing, we can refuse
                to love God and others as we should.

                    The devil wants us to ignore our
                wounds and past relationships and
                to close in.

                    I see the big picture. Wounds need
                healing. A child - now an adult
                needs to work through very important
                wounds with parents → moving
                in the direction of love and forgiveness
                and healing.

                    The Blue Books teach us about
                the Father's love for us. How He wants us
                to be more and more in the image and
                likeness of Jesus.

                We learn about the Pascal Mystery
                of death/resurrection – dying to
                those ways that are not like Jesus
                to grow in the ways to be more and
                more like Jesus.

                    Relationship. We are to want
                the relationship with God for all
                eternity – wrapped in the arms
                of the Trinity in the beatific
                vision –

                    Our hearts were made for love –
                for love of God, for love of others
                like ourselves –

                    We are here to learn to love.
   

1 Corinthians 9: 24-27

    Do you not realise that, though all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, only one of them gets the prize? Run like that — to win. Every athlete concentrates completely on training, and this is to win a wreath that will wither, whereas ours will never wither. So that is how I run, not without a clear goal; and how I box, not wasting blows on air. I punish my body and bring it under control, to avoid any risk that, having acted as herald for others, I myself may be disqualified.

Matthew 16: 24-25

Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.

 

                R. We see that some men would chose to
                go to their death-bed rather than
                ever admit they were wrong.

                Jesus: Their pride becomes their god.
                They hold onto a wreath that is
                one that will fall apart. For to be
                puffed up with such a thought
                as never being wrong is itself
                like sand in a fist – it soon
                slips through and nothing is
                left at all.

                    Let your lives be lived in
                relationships according to the Father's
                will. Let the commission you were
                given in baptism to be your
                life's work. You were commissioned
                in baptism to go out and spread the
                Good News. A man closed in on himself
                is looking for his utopia here below
                in selfishness and self-enclosure.

                    My rule is the rule of love –
                Of reaching others in witnessing
                in your lives.

                    You see the vastness of the
                ocean, the beauty of the sea,
                the flowers and how beautiful
                the trees grow in the warm
                climate,
                    but you don't see your own
                lives.

                    How your hearts were made
                for love. How you were to live
                as the child of your Heavenly
                Father – loving God and receiving
                His love for you, forgiving and
                receiving forgiveness, being
                as you are wounded and dying
                to your selfishness and praying
                for your healing in relationships
                so you can raise to greater life
                in Me.

                    Only the fool lives his life trying
                to prove he has arrived. Where
                have you arrived when your
                true home is in heaven.

                    So are the days of your lives
                to be lived to bear fruit for
                the Kingdom of God. Foolish men
                to listen to satan to tell you
                to be selfish and not to love –
                to tell you his arguments with
                his faulty reasoning of putting
                yourself first on your throne
                and closing down your wounded
                hearts like a trophy you enclose
                in a glass case.

                    Your life is to be a life of
                giving love to God and to others –
                I call you to live the Blue Books
                and to give them to all. I have
                given My Heart in a way of
                love, I never gave before –
                Our Lady of Clearwater, My Mother,
                was given by God the Father to deliver
                this message of love to this
                world.

                    Mary is the New Eve –

                    She delivers the message of
                the Heavenly Mother –

                    Go out to the world and spread
                the Good News – that men will
                be converted and
                will live a newness of
                life in Me, your Redeemer.
                I give My letters of love so you
                will respond in love to Me
                and love God most intimately –

                Rosaries from the Hearts of Jesus and Mary
                    are such a gift –
                    Rosaries from Our Hearts to
                    you, the pure and perfect
                    Hearts of love.
 

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