The Autobiography of God 

A Contemplation before Eucharistic Adoration        

Have you read the autobiography of the Son of God? If you haven't, you should. God poured more and better theology into his autobiography than into the heads of every apologist, theologian, Doctor of the Church, apostle, monk, abbot, mystic, priest, monsignor, bishop, Cardinal, Pope, hermit and saint who has ever lived or will ever live. Therefore, listen first to what the Son of God said about himself before you listen to what others have said about him. Get the truth straight from the horse's mouth. 

 Many false, inaccurate and conflicting representations of God circulate through the minds of the children of Adam and Eve. The multiplicity of representations creates confusion.  “This is God” some say as they point to their favorite representation of God.  Others point to a different representation and say, “No, this is God.” The controversy goes on ad infinitum. Because of the confusion, the most Holy Trinity desired to set the record straight once and forever. They decided to clear the air. Thus, they sent the Son of God from heaven to publish on earth the autobiography of God.  In the autobiography of God, we are given a fair and accurate representation of God - an authentic, first-class, high fidelity representation of God. Its fidelity to God is unmatched by the low fidelity representations made by human hands. In fact, God banned us from making representations of him (Exodus 20:4-6) due to their lack of fidelity. Better no representation than an inaccurate representation.  All lesser representations of God, therefore, must yield to the representation God gave us in his autobiography. 

He did not write his autobiography in fickle words susceptible to manipulation, misinterpretation and misunderstanding. He did his autobiography in unambiguous deeds.

His autobiography consists of three chapters:

1. The Crucifixion,
2. The Resurrection, and
3. the thread that weaves its way through his bloody wounds to tie the Crucifixion and the Resurrection together. The thread is the relationship of test and result.

In the autobiography, the true identity of Jesus was revealed.

When we look at the Crucifixion on the near side of the Cross, we see his ignominious defeat. What fools we are! Into a wicked baptism we immersed him! What vile hospitality did we show our God! We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. After we tortured him, we stuffed him into the black hole of death. Nobody and nothing escape from the black hole of death. What worse evil could we have done to the Son of God than torture and kill him while he was human, alive, tender, vulnerable and our guest upon the earth? Unlike the mighty God of the Old Testament who freed his people from the Egyptians, this puny God of the New Testament failed to free his people from the Romans. The Romans defeated him by impaling him on a cross like a worm on a hook. His bloody wounds are the badges of his failure - memorials to his defeat. In short, the story was over. Jesus failed.

 Or did he?

The most Holy Trinity did not intend that we only look at his bloody wounds and behold the Son of God's failure. The most Holy Trinity also want us to look through them. When we opened bloody wounds in the body of Christ, we built a telescope that pierces the veil between heaven and earth. When we look through the telescope of his bloody wounds, we catch a glimpse of heaven from here on earth. Only when we look through his bloody wounds to the Resurrection on their far side, do we see his glorious victory. His bloody wounds are the rainbow of the new covenant - memorials to his victory.

The God who fashioned us out of the mud with his hands did not put himself into the hands of the mud to free us from either the Egyptians or the Romans. He had a bigger fish to fry. He came to free us from a tyrant far worse than the Egyptians or the Romans. We are born in the image and likeness of God. The tyrant from whom Jesus came to free us has the power to destroy any resemblance that we bear to God. He can transmogrify us into the most hideous and miserable of loveless beasts. The valley of tears is hostile territory. As we pass through it, monsters of suffering attack us. They try to crush us under their oppressive weight. When this happens, the tyrant who lives within us instructs us to release our grip on love - to let love slip through our fingers. This is bad advice. The tyrant's instruction is contrary to our self-interest. It hurts rather than helps us. Jesus wants us to deny ourselves. He wants us to say 'No' to the tyrant within us.

As we pass through the valley of tears, our sighs, mourning and weeping  left our lips, reached God's ear and broke God's heart (Salve Regina). The most Holy Trinity dispatched the Son of God to us on a two-fold mission:

1. to transport from heaven to earth a solution that mitigates our suffering and
2. to demonstrate that the solution works by using it himself.

The most Holy Trinity hoped that a successful demonstration by the Son of God himself would inspire us to follow him, adopt the solution and use it ourselves as we pass through the valley of tears. The solution teaches us to apply love to suffering. Love is the grease that lubricates the wheels of our passage through the valley of tears. Without love, our crosses bog us down impeding our progress to paradise. Love transforms us into superman with the ability to pick up and carry our crosses so we can continue our journey back home to paradise. He hung from his Cross to teach us how to hang from ours. He clung to his love for us, held tight and refused to let go. He clung to the life preserver of love with the iron grip of a drowning man tossed overboard into a stormy sea after his ship is sunk. He did not surrender to suffering. He resisted it. He resisted suffering by clinging to love.  By hanging from the Cross, Jesus is not inviting us to unite our suffering with his suffering. Jesus is not a sadist. He does not want us to suffer. He is not diabolical like the serpent. The diabolical serpent wants us to suffer - not Jesus. Jesus is a philanthropist. Jesus is inviting us to unite our love with his love. Therefore, cling as Jesus clung. Fight the tyrant within us who is trying to empty our hearts of love. Love kicks sufferings ass.

When we look through the telescope of his bloody wounds, we see the Resurrection on their far side. We see that he emerged from the dead still alive and still in love with us. He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. Both he and his love for us survived the evil we did to him. That he did not stay dead is the proof that Jesus is omnipotent. Nobody emerges alive from the dead. He did. That he did not stop loving us, however, is the proof that our conception of divinity as omnipotence is incomplete. Divinity is more than omnipotence. Divinity is also love.

In fact, Divinity is head over heels in love with us.

We get a sense of the magnitude of his love for us by the cost he paid out of his own pocket to produce the Crucifixion. He paid the cost not from his unlimited 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!

We get a sense of the duration of his love for us from its indestructibility. His love for us ought to have faded as we tortured him and ought to have died when we killed him. But it did not. It survived. Its survival is the proof that the duration of his love for us is forever.

The evil we did to him did not budge the dial that controls his love for us. It is in his hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and is locked in place. Given that the evil we did to him did not budge the dial by even the slightest degree, it is safe to say that there is nothing we can do to turn it. His love for us is intransigent. It is a stubborn, mule-headed, crazy love.

In summary:

At Bethlehem, our God who fashioned us out of the mud with his hands delivered a love note to us by putting himself into the hands of the mud. (What type of literature is the word of God? The word of God is a love note). At Calvary, the love note was tested to determine whether it was genuine or counterfeit.  In the Resurrection, the results of the test were published for us. The results of the test are the good news of great joy. Given the difficulty of the test, the results are very good news for us, indeed. In the Resurrection, we learn that the love note is genuine. 

Infinite and perfect power and infinite and perfect love for us knitted together is our God. His power built paradise. His love for us makes paradise sweet. Rational people seek the sweetness of paradise (and flee the sourness of godlessness). It is contrary to their self-interest to do otherwise. Our rationality, when fueled by the truth, steers us in the right direction. The truth sets us free. 

The love note is the rock upon which we build our faith. It is time to rediscover the rock and build our faith upon it. 

The love note is the foundation of Christianity.

The passage of the love note through the valley of tears from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection is the crux of Christianity. Everything else is obiter dictum.

Our God is the God with the bloody wounds. Without them, the guy is an impostor. The bloody wounds tells us that our God is the union of omnipotence and love for us. When love for us and omnipotence are knitted together into our God, do we have any reason to worry? It is much better to have the God with the bloody wounds as our God than a rich uncle, right? "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." (Julian of Norwich)

Do you want to know God? Read his autobiography. You cannot say that you know God until you read and understand his autobiography. 

The Autobiography of God

          Or was he? 

          When we look through his bloody wounds to their far side, we see the Resurrection. His bloody wounds are not just the badges of the evil that we did to him. When we opened bloody wounds in the body of Christ with lash, thorns, nails and spear, we built a telescope that pierces the veil between earth and heaven. When we look through the telescope to the far side of his bloody wounds, we catch a glimpse of paradise from here on earth. We see that He emerged from the dead still alive and still in love with us after we tortured and killed him. Ordinarily, nobody and nothing escape from the black hole of death. But he did. That he emerged from the dead still alive was unprecedented. It is the indisputable proof of the omnipotence of Jesus. Yet, his victory over death is nothing when compared to the fact that he emerged from the dead still in love with us. After we tortured and killed him, who would have predicted that he would emerge from the dead still in love with us? The evil we did to him ought to have transmogrified the Son of God from our friend into our enemy - into the God who hates us - into the most hideous and miserable of loveless beasts. But it did not. It failed to do so. Surprisingly, He clung to his love for us, held tight and refused to let go. Wow! Buckets of blood spilled through his bloody wounds. His very life itself was carried out of his body through the bloody wounds on a cataract of blood. But not a drop - not a drop - of his love for us spilled. His most sacred heart stayed filled to the brim with love for us. That he emerged from the black hole of death still in love with us suggests that our conception of divinity as omnipotence is incomplete. Jesus is more than just omnipotence. Jesus is love. We get a sense of the magnitude of his love for us from the magnitude of the evil that we did to him. Jesus paid the cost of the revelation of his love for us not from his unlimited divine resources but 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. We get a sense of the duration of his love for us from its indestructibility. Love survived the evil we did to him. That our evil did not extinguish his love for us or reduce it by even the slightest degree tells us without any ambiguity that nothing can. The dial that controls his love for us is in his hands not ours. Moreover, the dial is set to the highest degree and is locked in place.

          When we look at the Crucifixion, we see his ignominious defeat. Unlike the mighty God of the Old Testament who freed his people from the Egyptians, this puny God of the New Testament failed to free his people from the Romans. The Romans defeated him by impaling him on a cross like a worm on a hook. Jesus failed. Or did he? His success can only be seen when we get our tyrants straight. Jesus did not pay us a visit to free us from either the Egyptians or the Romans. Jesus had a bigger fish to fry. Only when we turn our attention from the Egyptians and the Romans to this far worse tyrant do we see his success. We are born in the image and likeness of God. The tyrant from whom Jesus came to free us has the power to destroy any resemblance that we bear to God. He can transmogrify us into the most hideous and miserable of loveless beasts. The tyrant lives within us. He is a natural human tendency. As we pass through the valley of tears, crosses try to crush us under their oppressive weight. When this happens, the tyrant within us instructs us to release our grip on love - to let love slip through our fingers. This is the wrong advice. The tyrant's instructions hurt rather than help us. They are contrary to our self-interest. They steer us in the wrong direction. Our passage through the valley of tears is difficult. However, without love, our passage through the valley of tears becomes intolerable. The friction of passing through the valley of tears without love is far worse than the ill effects of the crosses of suffering that attack us.  Love is the grease that lubricates the wheels of our passage through the valley of tears. Without love, our crosses bog us down in the valley of tears impeding our progress to paradise. Love transforms us into superman with the ability to pick up and carry our crosses so we can continue our journey back home to paradise. Therefore, we must fight the tyrant within us who tries to empty our hearts of love. By clinging to love, holding tight and refusing to let go, we benefit ourselves. We are the primary beneficiaries of love. For our own sake, we must resist. We must deny this natural, human tendency. We must cling to love, hold tight and refuse to let go.  Only love makes our crosses bearable. Only love makes our suffering redemptive. 

          From his autobiography, we learn the identity of God. The identity of God was revealed to us in his autobiography. His autobiography is the revelation of his love for us, the revelation of the power of love, the revelation that paradise is love and the revelation that Jesus is love. Why did the Son of God feel the need to pay us a visit himself to give us a lesson in love? He could have delegated the job to his minions. He could have dispatched his flunkies. But he did the job himself. Why? What was so important? Why did the teacher of love himself come to give us a lesson in love? As we pass through the valley of tears, our sighs, mourning and weeping left our lips, reached God's ears and broke God's heart. Out of compassion for our suffering, the Son of God paid us a visit not to teach us how to avoid the crosses of suffering that try to crush us under their weight but to teach us how best to cope with them as we pass through the valley of tears. He did not come to extricate us from the valley of tears. He came to show us how best to pass through the valley of tears. Thus, the brevity of life proves the mercy of God. He hung from his Cross to teach us how to hang from ours. He coped with his Cross to teach us how to cope with ours. The teacher of love transported from heaven to earth a practical solution to the real problem of suffering. Moreover, he demonstrated himself that the practical solution works by letting us torture and kill him. A demonstration by the Son of God himself is much more persuasive than a demonstration by a minion or a flunky. Like foolish children, Adam and Eve ran away from their home with God in paradise and took us with them into the valley of tears. They ran after the wrong aspect of divinity. They ran after the promise of omnipotence - the serpent's promise of deification in godlessness - the promise of unbridled power. In running after the promise of omnipotence, they left behind the better aspect of divinity. They left behind love. The teacher of love paid us a visit to shift the focus of the children of Adam and Eve from omnipotence to love

          The Cross is not an invitation from God to us to suffer. Thinking it so is a perverse misunderstanding of the Cross. Such perverse thinking is part of the gospel of irrationality. It is a lie. Run from anyone who preaches the gospel of irrationality. Run fast and far. Distrust anyone who is peddling a sadomasochistic model of God. They do not know what they are talking about. They haven't a clue. God is not a sadist. God is a philanthropist. Never doubt it. Never confuse the two. The Cross is indeed an invitation. However, it is an invitation from God to us to love not to suffer. In the school of suffering, love is the teacher. God does not want us to participate in his suffering. God want us to participate in his loving.  He wants us to love our way through suffering. He hung from his Cross to teach us how to hang from ours. He coped with his cross to teach us how to cope with ours. From the cross, he showed us the secret of how best to pass through the valley of tears - how to pick up and carry the crosses that try to crush us under their weight. Our suffering, not our sins, inspired Jesus to transport from heaven to earth the technology of applying love to suffering and to demonstrate that the technology works. The Crucifixion. the Resurrection and the connection between the two autobiographical events are the proof that the technology works. He tested the technology himself on the Cross. He clung to love held tight and refused to let go. 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. Love facilitated his passage through the valley of tears as he coped with his Cross. He tested the technology to show us it works in order to inspire confidence in us to give the technology a try. The technology works. Praise God. The technology works. Use it. A word to the wise is sufficient.

     Let me address those who come to the conclusion that God is a sadist not a philanthropist because crosses of evil attack us as we pass through the valley of tears. The serpent, not God, induced our parents, Adam and Eve, to run away from their home in paradise like foolish children and to take us with them into the valley of tears. Put the blame where it belongs. God did not stick us into the valley of tears. At most, our complaint against God is that he does not extricate us from the valley of tears as quickly as we desire. God makes us stay a lifetime in the valley of tears. A lifetime 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. God let's us stew in the valley of tears for multiple reasons. Letting us stew is harsh but effective medicine.  When the gift of paradise is delivered to us, we will not fumble the ball as Lucifer did, as the gaggle of angels who follow Lucifer did, as Eve did and as Adam did. The prodigal son is never going back to the pig sty and neither are we. Our experience in the valley of tears makes us know better. Letting us stew in the valley of tears inoculates us against "original sin" - letting the gift of paradise slip through our fingers. It increases the likelihood that we will keep the gift of paradise, when the gift of paradise is delivered to us. Its effectiveness is why God prescribes the medicine of letting us stew in the valley of tears. God knows that we will complain against its harshness. God rather be vilified than us fumbling the gift of paradise. Because we stew briefly in the valley of tears, there is no need for God to turn paradise into a prison, God into a warden and us into prisoners. Our rationality keeps in paradise. A cage is a cage no matter how gilded. Letting us stew in the valley of tears is evidence of the great respect God has for the freedom of our wills. Furthermore, letting us stew in the sourness of godlessness also proves that the serpent was a liar. It destroys his credibility. There is no deification in godlessness. Moreover, in the school of suffering, the teacher is love. Hopefully, a good many of us will learn to love in order to battle the crosses of suffering that attack us as we pass through the valley of tears. When we love, we discover paradise here on earth. 
 
          The God who fashioned out of the mud with his hands put a love note into the hands of the mud. It was a love note from God to us. The love note was the Son of God himself. God hand delivered it to us at Bethlehem in the form of a helpless baby wrapped in swaddling clothes born in poverty. The baby is the icon of love. What type of literature is the word of God? The word of God is a love note. The genuineness of the love note was tested and proven for us during the two events in the life of Christ that constitute his autobiography: the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. We ripped the love note up. We tore it to shreds. If his love for us were counterfeit, it would have faded as we tortured him and died when we killed him. However, it did not. His love for us survived the evil that we did to him. Its survival is the proof that God is head over heals in love with us. His love for us, therefore, is real.   Wow! What a blessed reality! Wow! What a God is our God! God is greater than we give him credit. God is our father who is omnipotent and who is head over heals in love with us. Given this reality, do we have any reason whatsoever to worry?
 
          Our God is not a one dimensional, inscrutable cardboard cut-out. The representation that God gave us of himself in his autobiography has depth. All other lesser representations made by human hands must yield to the representation found in his autobiography. In cases of conflict, the lesser representations must yield to the autobiography. To understand the fullness of his autobiographical message, all three chapters of his autobiography must be contemplated. Contemplate fewer than three chapters and the message of his autobiography gets distorted.

          The autobiography of God teaches us the two details of divinity: 1) omnipotence and 2) love. Seek love first. Do not leave love behind as our parents, Adam and Eve, did in their foolish quest for deification in godlessness. Cling to love, hold tight and refuse to let go. Cling as Jesus clung. Love is paradise. God is love.

God is Not Dead

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. As a result, the escape of the new exodus led by the new Moses, the Church, through the valley of tears from godlessness to paradise is sputtering and stalling. Fewer and fewer are going to Mass. None are going to Confession. Marriages are falling apart. Mothers are murdering their babies. The priesthood is going extinct (Pope Francis 1/28/2107 at the Congregation for the Institute for the Consecrated Life) (Summary of Bulletin). The trend is downward and accelerating. The only sacrament holding its own is the sacrament of extreme unction and this is so only because the dead have no choice. The thermometer that gauges the temperature of the body of Christ is the practice of Christianity. By this measure, the patient is dying. 

Viewing Reality through the Interface of Suffering instead of the Interface of Sin

The space between us and reality is occupied by interfaces through which we view, interpret and organize it. Think of an interface as a cloud of ideas through which we look to catch a glimpse of the sky. An interface is a tool with which we try to make sense of reality. Reality is unique. Interfaces, however, are not. There are many, many interfaces. For example, mathematicians view reality through the interface of mathematics. Physicists view reality through the interface of physics. Philosophers view it through the interface of philosophy. Religious people, through the interface of religion. Often an interface is confused with reality itself.  An interface is not reality. An interface is a tool by which we view, interpret and organize reality.

Good news of great joy was deposited with the Church for it to freely distribute to the children of Adam and Eve. Some of the good news is for sinners. Some is for sufferers. The good news for sinners, however, is different than the good news for sufferers. The problem of sin is not the same as the problem of suffering so the solutions are different. Two different solutions are required for two different problems. The solution for the problem of sin is not applicable to the problem of suffering and vice versa. A nail is not a screw so the toolbox holds both a hammer and a screwdriver. The good news of great joy for sinners is repentance and a warm welcome back to the new exodus that is making its escape through the valley of tears from godlessness to paradise. The good news of great joy for sufferers is the technology of applying love to suffering to lubricate the wheels of our passage through the valley of tears. The Church is doing a great job of distributing the good news of great joy to sinners. However, the Church is doing a below average job of delivering the good news of great joy to sufferers. The Church is great at teaching sinners about sin. The Church stinks at teaching sufferers how to suffer. Churchmen are more comfortable with sin than suffering. In fact, their understanding of reality is derived almost exclusively from looking at it through the interface of sin. Their affinity for sin, however, makes them hostile to alternative views of reality. Viewing reality through the interface of suffering falls within the bailiwick of the Church. Yet, because suffering is not sin, the Church is hostile even to it. Churchmen devote the bulk of the Church's resources to sin. They are so thoroughly engrossed with sin that they have worked out the linkage between the good news of great joy and sin to the tenth decimal point. Due to their preoccupation with sin, however, Churchmen have failed to develop the linkage between the good news of great joy and suffering. Its development lags far behind. The mission of the Church to sufferers is the neglected step-child of the Church. The Church does not fully understand the good news of great joy with respect to sufferers and, hence, has a hard time distributing it to them. You cannot distribute well what you do not fully understand.

What do we tell them? What is the good news of great joy for sufferers? 

Here, in this website, we will develop the interface of suffering. We will develop the linkage between the good news of great joy and suffering. We will populate it with the ideas needed to view, interpret and organize reality from the perspective of sufferers. Here, we will view reality not through the interface of sin but through the interface of suffering.

Incubators of Love

When God built the world, he included within his creation incubators of love. An incubator of love is an institution in which love has the potential to germinate, blossom and flourish. Any relationship that fosters love is an incubator of love. The relationship between a mother and her baby is an example of an incubator of love. So is marriage. So is family. So is friendship. So is Church. So is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,  caring for the sick and other blessed acts of charity. The enemies of humanity want to destroy the incubators of love. Abortion is evil because it nips in the bud the love between a mother and her baby. Divorce is evil because it nips in the bud the love between a husband and a wife. Turning the beggars at your door away empty-handed is evil because it nips in the bud the love between a donor and a beneficiary. The friends of humanity desire to promote, to protect and to propagate love. They put themselves between incubators of love and our enemies who want to destroy them. You can tell the difference between a friend of humanity and an enemy by their attitude toward and their treatment of the incubators of love.

The Crucifixion raised an Existential Question that the Son of God Himself Answered in the Resurrection

The Crucifixion raised an existential question for humanity, "Would the evil that we did to him extinguish the love that burns like a bonfire for us in his most sacred heart or reduce it by any degree?".  The expectation was that his love for us would fade as we tortured him and would die when we killed him. But, our God defies expectation. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. His ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). In the Resurrection, the Son of God himself answered the existential question raised by the Crucifixion. The answer comes to us straight from the horse's mouth. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, he emerged from the dead still alive and still in love with us. He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. His love for us survived the evil we did to him. In the Resurrection we learn that 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. We cannot budge it - not even by doing evil to him. Wow! Our God is the God with the bloody wounds. Contemplate what his blood wounds mean for us. His bloody wounds are the narrow gate (Matthew 7:13-14) through which we must squeeze our contemplation. His bloody wounds are a telescope through which we can catch a glimpse of heaven from here on earth. When we look through his bloody wounds, we see that his heart is still filled to the brim with love for us.

Did the Son of God Come Empty-handed?

Did the Son of God come empty-handed? Did he bring nothing with him for us to mitigate the harshness of our passage through the valley of tears? Did not our sighs, mourning and weeping leave our lips, reach his ear and break his heart? Did he ignore our dire predicament in the valley of tears? Our God with the bloody wounds is not a tight-fisted, parsimonious, empty-handed God. When he paid us a visit, he transported from heaven to earth technology that mitigates the harshness of our passage through the valley of tears. The technology teaches us to apply love to suffering. He  demonstrated that the technology works by using it himself. It is field-tested technology.  We can trust in the technology because the Son of God himself demonstrated to us that it works. His successful demonstration of the technology ought to inspire confidence in it. His successful demonstration of the technology is the reason for us to adopt the technology ourselves and use it to grease the wheels of our passage through the valley of tears.

Lest We Forget the Meaning of the Bloody Wounds

Does the Son of God want us to remember anything in particular about him (Luke 22:14-20)? By transforming bread into his body and wine into his blood at the Last Supper, the Son of God pointed us in a particular direction. He showed us the narrow gate (Matthew 7:13-14) through which we must squeeze our contemplation. His pick of body and blood was not random or accidental.  What connects his blood with his body? Obviously, the connection is his wounds. The Son of God wants us to contemplate the meaning of his bloody wounds. Our God is the God with the bloody wounds - unique among gods - a vulnerable God. What does this characteristic tell us about God? What do his bloody wounds mean ( 1 Corinthians 1:17 ) ?

Furthermore, by making his body and his blood the equivalent of food and drink, the Son of God elevated such contemplation to the biological necessity of eating and drinking. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).  Not only is food and drink necessary to sustain life but so is contemplation of the meaning of his bloody wounds. Such contemplation is as vital to our existence as food and drink (John 6:56).

By eating his flesh and drinking his blood, we are declaring that we understand the meaning of his bloody wounds. Do we? If you do not understand the meaning of his bloody wounds, you are receiving the most Holy Eucharist unworthily (1 Corinthians 11:27-29). Your declaration of understanding is a lie. Let us, therefore, discern the meaning of his bloody wounds before we lie again.

The bloody wounds are the mouth of God.

They speak to us.

The vocabulary uttered through the mouth of God consists of just two words:

1. that which passed through them and
2. that which did not.

Thus, the language spoken through the mouth of God is very easy to understand. 

With a vocabulary of only two words, the mouth of God revealed his true identity to us.  

Buckets of blood poured through the bloody wounds we opened in his body. On this cataract of blood, his very life itself was carried from his body. Yet, not a drop - not a drop - of his love for us followed the buckets of blood through the wounds. His most sacred heart stayed filled to the brim with love for us. He clung to his love for us, held tight and refused to let go. He clung to the life preserver of love with the iron grip of the drowning man tossed overboard into the stormy sea after his ship is sunk. 

Our Dire Predicament

 Like foolish children, Adam and Eve ran away from their home with God in paradise and took us with them into the valley of tears (Salve Regina). The valley of tears is not a nice place. In plain English, it sucks. Our predicament in the valley of tears is dire. Without God, the valley of tears is hostile territory.  Monsters inhabit the valley of tears whose sole purpose is to make our lives miserable or worse. Many are the monsters. Monsters of illness, monsters of poverty, monsters of death, monsters of injustice, monsters of loneliness, etc. The list of monsters that inhabit the valley of tears goes on and on.

Godlessness is a sinking ship. Abandon Ship!" "Abandon Ship!" is the cry of the Church. "To the lifeboats!" "To the lifeboats!" the Church proclaims.

Do you feel the exigency of our dire predicament?

Do you feel the ship of godlessness sinking under your feet?

Our Conception of Rescue

We want God to extricate us from the valley of tears as quickly as possible. Alternatively, we want God to make the valley of tears into a better, more hospitable place for godless people to live. 

God's Conception of Rescue

God could have abandoned us to the monsters that prowl for us in the valley of tears. He could have let us eat the fruit of our folly. He could have said, "goodbye and good riddance." But he did not. God devised a plan to rescue us from our dire predicament in the valley of tears. His conception of rescue, however, is different than ours  (Isaiah 55:8-9).  Indeed, godlessness is a sinking ship. God, however, does not want to save the ship. God wants to save the passengers. Therefore, God has no interest in turning the valley of tears into a better, more hospitable place for godlessness people to live. Nor does God plan our immediate extrication from the valley of tears. God thinks it important that we complete our passage through the valley of tears.  He wants us to run the course and finish the race (2 Timothy 4:7).  He wants the grist to go through the mill.  So God lets us stew in the sourness of godlessness. 

The Delay

God plans to deliver the gift of paradise to us just as he delivered the gift of paradise to Adam and Eve. God will not be less generous with us than he 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. God delivered the gift of life and the gift of paradise to Adam and Eve simultaneously. Yet, they fumbled the ball. They let the gift of paradise slip through their fingers. God does not want the children of Adam and Eve to repeat the original sin of their parents. When God delivers to us the gift of paradise, God wants us to keep it.  He wants us to keep it without his having to turn paradise into a prison, himself into our warden and us into his prisoners. A cage is a cage no matter how gilded. He wants us to keep the gift of paradise of our own free will. To this end, God tweaked the timetable for the delivery of his gifts. God inserted a delay between the delivery of the gift of life and the gift of paradise. During the delay, we get to experience the sourness of godlessness for ourselves. Hot diggity dog!

Harsh but Effective Medicine

Why is God's rescue plan so harsh? 

Letting us stew in the sourness of godlessness is harsh but effective medicine. In the eyes of God, the effectiveness of the medicine justifies its harshness so, therefore, God prescribes it.

Letting us stew in the sourness of godlessness achieves multiple purposes.

1)     The serpent promised us deification in godlessness (Genesis 3:5). Our bitter experience in godlessness destroys the power of this lie to deceive us. Godlessness sucks. Life without God is a disaster. There is no stronger method of persuasion than personal experience with the truth. When we experience the truth for ourselves, we hold onto it with the highest degree of certainty. The serpent was a liar (Genesis 3:5) and that God was telling us the truth (Genesis 3:3). Our personal experience with the truth makes us sure of this. Like the prodigal son, we know from bitter experience about life in the pig sty.

2)     The sourness of godlessness serves as one of the two engines that generates the current of salvation. It pushes us to the exit of godlessness. Rational people flee the sourness of godlessness. It is contrary to our self interest to do otherwise.

3)      When the gift of paradise is given to us, we will keep it. We will not fumble the ball as Eve did, as Adam did, as Lucifer did, and as the gaggle of angels who follow Lucifer did. The prodigal son is never going back to the pig sty and neither are we. Our experience in godlessness makes us know better than to return. We will keep the gift of paradise of our own free will without the need to turn paradise into a prison, God into our warden and us into prisoners. A cage is a cage no matter how gilded. 

4)     The economy of paradise is based on the currency of love.  With ordinary currency, the more we spend, the poorer we grow. It is a paradox, but, we grow rich by spending the currency of love. The more we spend, the richer we get. Furthermore, love is twice blest (William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 4 Scene 1). "It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." Both the recipient and the donor enjoy the blessings of love. The valley of tears is the laboratory in which we experiment with the technology of applying love to suffering. Jesus transported the technology from heaven to earth, delivered it to us at Bethlehem and demonstrated that it works by using it himself at Calvary.  The technology came to us in the form of a love note. The love note was tested to determine whether it was genuine or counterfeit at Calvary. The results of the test were published in the Resurrection. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, he emerged from the dead still alive and still in love with us. He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. The love note proved genuine. He clung to his love for us, held tight and refused to let go. He clung with the iron grip with which a drowning man clings to a life preserver who is tossed overboard in a stormy sea after his ship has sunk. He hung from his Cross to teach us how to hang from ours. Therefore, cling as Jesus clung. Love greases the wheels of our passage through the valley of tears. Suffering has the power to transmogrify us into the most hideous and miserable of loveless beasts.  When suffering attacks us, it is a natural human tendency to fumble our grip on love - to let go of it. Jesus instructs us to deny ourselves (Matthew 16:24). He wants us to resist this natural human tendency. We resist by loving our way through suffering. Love enables us to pick up and carry the crosses that try to crush us under their weight (Matthew 16:24). Our suffering is magnified when we try to pick up and carry our crosses without love.  Love is our dearest companion in times of suffering. When love is our companion as we pass through suffering, we endure. When we try to pass through suffering without love, we perish.  In short, love kicks suffering's ass. In the valley of tears, we get opportunity after opportunity to put the technology  of applying love to suffering into practice.  Practice makes us perfect. If we put into practice the technology of applying love to suffering, we introduce ourselves to the economy of paradise.   With love, we maintain the resemblance we bear to God (Genesis 1:27). 

Our Complaints about God's Rescue Plan

Letting us stew in the sourness of godlessness generates all of the complaints about God's rescue plan (General Audience Pope Francis 28 Dec 2016). The harshness of godlessness keeps the complaint department of paradise busy. More than a few have cursed their bitter experience in godlessness and waived their fists against God. Put the blame for our dire predicament, however, on the proper culprit. God did not put us in the valley of tears. The serpent did. God started humanity in paradise. At the most, God can be blamed for not extricating us from the valley of tears as quickly as we would like. God's rescue of us is too slow. 'What took you so long?' is our only legitimate complaint.

Mitigating the Sourness of Godlessness

Our sighs, mourning and weeping (Salve Regina) left our lips, reached God's ear and broke God's heart so God took steps to mitigate the suffering we experience as we pass through the valley of tears.

Mitigation: God limits Our Passage through the Valley of Tears to Just a Lifetime

God limits our passage through the valley of tears to just a lifetime.  A lifetime 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. If God were a sadist or harbored a desire to punish us, he would let us stew in the sourness of godlessness for more than a lifetime.

Mitigation: The Gift of the Technology of Applying Love to Suffering

The most Holy Trinity dispatched the Son of God on a two-part mission. Here are the mission's instructions:

1. Transport from heaven to earth the technology of applying love to suffering and
2. Demonstrate that the technology works by using it yourself as you hang from a Cross.

          Why? Because love kicks sufferings ass. Love is suffering's invincible foe. As we pass through the valley of tears, the struggle that matters is the struggle between love and suffering. Suffering is persistently trying to empty our hearts of love. When we resist - when we cling to love, hold tight and refuse to let go, we are victorious. Only when we let suffering empty our hearts of love are we defeated. Clinging to love, holding tight and refusing to let go mitigates the friction we experience during our passage through the valley of tears. Love greases the wheels. With love, we can pick up our crosses and carry them.  Without love, our crosses crush us under their weight. With love, we maintain the resemblance we bear to God  (Genesis 1:27). Without love, suffering transmogrifies us into the most hideous and miserable of loveless beasts. We resist suffering by loving our way through it. Jesus refused to let suffering extinguish the bonfire of love that burns for us in his most sacred heart or reduce it by even the slightest degree. 

          The hope of the most Holy Trinity was that a successful demonstration of the technology by none other than the Son of God himself would inspire us to use the technology ourselves as we pass through the valley of tears.  He hung from his Cross to teach us how to hang from ours.  For your own sake, follow him.  Resist suffering with love. The only way to unite your suffering with the suffering of Jesus is to resist suffering with love.

Mitigation: God Provided a Fleet of Lifeboats to Evacuate us from the Valley of Tears

 Godlessness is a sinking ship. Our salvation requires that we abandon ship and get into the life boats. God provided a fleet of life boats to evacuate us from godlessness, ferry us through the valley of tears, and return us to our home with God and his holy family in paradise. God occupies the life boats. The life boats are the holy places that define the escape route from godlessness to paradise.  In the life boats, close encounters with the living God take place. There we include God in our lives and God includes us in his. In the life boats, we are introduced to the economy of paradise. The economy of paradise is based on the currency of love. With ordinary currency, the more we spend, the poorer we get. It is a paradox, but, by spending the currency of love, we grow rich. The more we spend, the richer we get. In the life boats, we grow rich by spending the currency of love.

The Sweetness of Paradise

The sourness of godlessness is sufficient of itself to induce us to keep the gift of paradise when the gift of paradise is delivered to us. God, however, wanted to do more for us. So much time had passed since Adam and Eve had lived with God in paradise that its memory had faded from our minds. So the most Holy Trinity decided it was time to remind us of the sweetness of paradise. Therefore, the most Holy Trinity sent us a love note. What type of literature is the word of God? The word of God is a love note.

Original Sin

           God plans to deliver the gift of paradise to us just as he delivered the gift of paradise to Adam and Eve. God will not be less generous with us than he 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.

          The story of Adam and Eve is not about getting the gift of paradise. God gave Adam and Eve the gift of life and the gift of paradise simultaneously - no questions asked. Adam and Eve did not have to satisfy any conditions in order to get the gift of life or the gift of paradise. The gifts were gratis - free of charge - a quid without a quo. The story of Adam and Eve is about the keeping of paradise or, more precisely, the failure to keep the gift of paradise.

          The evidence is irrefutable that getting the gift of paradise does not mean that we will keep it. Eve fumbled the ball. So did Adam. So did Lucifer and the gaggle of angels who follow Lucifer. God does not want the children of Adam and Eve to repeat the mistake of their parents. When God gives us the gift of paradise (and the giving of the gift of paradise is ineluctable), God wants us to keep it without having to turn paradise into a prison, God into our warden and us into prisoners. God wants us to keep paradise of our own free wills.

          So God tweaked the timetable according to which he delivers his gifts to us. For the children of Adam and Eve, God inserted a delay. He inserted a delay between the delivery of the gift of life and the gift of paradise.

          During the delay, he exposes our rationality to the truth (Isaiah 5:20). Exposure to the truth inoculates us against the lie. When we have a first-hand experience with the truth, lies no longer have any power over us. The power of a lie to deceive is destroyed. Personal experience with the truth defangs the lie. During the delay, we see for ourselves that paradise is sweet and godlessness is sour. When fueled by the truth, our rationality steers our free wills in the right direction.  Our rationality tells our free wills to seek the sweetness of paradise and flee the sourness of godlessness. It is contrary to our self-interest to do otherwise.  We keep the gift of paradise, when our free wills are exposed to the truth.

          Until the power of the lie to deceive is destroyed, we are susceptible to fumbling the ball. After the power of the lie to deceive is destroyed, it becomes impossible for us to fumble the ball. The delay is all about destroying the power of the lie to deceive us. Our purpose in the valley of tears is to discover the truth. The truth sets us free.

The Three Stages of Conversion

          The most Holy Trinity sent the Holy Spirit to tug at our souls. The curious are following the tug back to its source. Along the way, the curious are exploring the mystery, majesty and magnificence of God. They are participating in the quest to discover God. Yet, how few are the curious! How many are the strangers to the quest!  Of those participating, how many are lukewarm, insincere or perfunctory! Life approaches perfection only when we are diligently engaged in the quest to discover God.  Therefore, is it possible to stimulate interest in the quest? 

          Yes. There is a way. But, the approach cannot be scattershot. Throwing everything that's Catholic at them at the same time willy nilly in the hope that some of it sticks does not work. Settlers do not ripen into pilgrims simultaneously. Each passes through the stages of conversion according to his own, unique, idiosyncratic timetable. Therefore, the tools of conversion must be tailored to the stage. The tool that is appropriate for one stage is inappropriate for the next. For conversion to take place, the stage must first be ascertained and the tool appropriate for the stage applied. There are three tools of conversion: 1) the sledgehammer of truth, 2) the map of the escape route, and 3) the key of morality. Each tool is appropriate to a particular stage.

          The goal of conversion is to transform settlers into pilgrims. Like trees, settlers have put down roots deep into the valley of tears. They are content to stand still even though the valley of tears is hostile territory. In hostile territory, movement is necessary for survival.  Settlers standing still in the valley of tears must become pilgrims passing through it. Run, settlers, run. Do not stand still. Run from holy place to holy place. [If the exigency is not felt, the Church is not doing its job (Matthew 3:7).] 

          In the first stage of conversion, the illusions are shattered that hide from us the sweetness of paradise and the sourness of godlessness. The sledgehammer of truth shatters the illusions as the blow of a hammer shatters glass. The sledgehammer of truth is the tool appropriate to the first stage of conversion.  Is all truth brought to bear on the illusions? No. Just the subset of truth that pertains to them. The illusions distort the landscape of reality  (Isaiah 5:20).. Under the illusions, the world is topsy-turvey. The illusions deceive us into thinking that godlessness is sweet and paradise is sour. When the illusions are shattered, the truth becomes visible to us. The serpent's promise of deification in godlessness is exposed as a lie (Genesis 3:5). We see with our own eyes that paradise is sweet and that godlessness is sour. Rational creatures seek the sweetness of paradise and flee the sourness of godlessness. It is contrary to our self-interest to do otherwise. The truth motivates us. The truth sets us free.  Settlers pick up the roots they have planted in the valley of tears and become pilgrims passing through it. Without pausing to pack our bags, we join the quest to discover God. The current of salvation sweeps us up off of our feet as it flows inexorably from the sourness of godlessness to the sweetness of paradise and carries us back to our home with God and his holy family in paradise (except the contrary who perversely swim against it).  

          Before the second stage of conversion can begin, however, the Church must wait for the signal. The Church must be patient and wait for the signal that heralds the second stage. After the illusions are shattered by the sledgehammer of truth, the curious start clamoring for directions: "How do we get there from here - from godlessness to paradise?".  The plea for directions is the signal that the time is ripe for the Church to declare, "we have the map and know the way". [Sharing the map of the escape route with settlers still deceived by illusions who are not asking for directions bears no fruit (Matthew 7:6)] The map of the escape route is the tool appropriate to the second stage of conversion. God built an escape route through the valley of tears from godlessness to paradise (Isaiah 35:8), defined it with holy places, made a map of them, established a Church, entrusted the map to the Church and gave the Church the mission of serving the new exodus as the new Moses. The new exodus is making its escape on the escape route through the valley of tears from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh to freedom with God and his holy family in the promised land (Exodus 3:8). The movement of the new exodus on the escape route forms the needle of the compass that always points to God. Only by moving from holy place to holy place can we be certain that we are heading in the right direction. The holy places that define the escape route are the jewels of a beautiful necklace that God established in, set against and in contrast to the hostile desert of godlessness. The beautiful necklace is a gift from the God who loves us - a token of his love.

          In the second stage of conversion, the Church puts down the sledgehammer of truth, picks up the map of the escape route and becomes the tour guide who takes the curious to the holy places.  At the holy places, the curious explore the mystery, majesty and magnificence of God. At a holy place, we include God in our lives and God includes us in theirs. Close encounters with the living God take place at the holy places. During a close encounter, a connection is made between earth and heaven. Through the connection, the light of paradise illuminates the darkness of godlessness. What does the light show the darkness? The light shows the darkness that the economy of paradise is based on the currency of love. With ordinary currency, the more we spend, the poorer we get. It is a paradox, but, we grow rich by spending the currency of love. The more we spend the richer we get (Matthew 13:12) Therefore, let us meet at a holy place where we can grow rich by spending the currency of love.  No one walks away from a close encounter with the living God unchanged. No one walks away empty handed.  A close encounter with the living God transforms us. At a holy place we keep one eye open to catch a glimpse of God in the moment. Examples of the holy places upon the earth at which close encounters with the living God take place are the Mass, Confession, the other sacraments, works of charity, acts of kindness, prayer especially the rosary, Eucharistic adoration, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, fasting, the gathering of two or more together in God's name, bible study, suffering (if we apply love to it), the hour of death, etc. The holy places are the life boats that God has provided to ferry us out of godlessness, through the valley of tears, to paradise. God occupies the life boats.

           In the second stage of conversion, the Church is the usher who shows us to our seats so that God can put on the show. God, not the Church, is the star of the show.  The Church is the servant of the escape not its master.  God is the master of the escape. It is God's escape route that takes us from godlessness to paradise - not the Church's. The Church is the trustee of the escape route who owes a fiduciary duty to the pilgrims engaged in the escape and to the settlers not yet interested in the escape. The fiduciary duty of the Church is to help the children of Adam and Eve to discover God - all of the children of Adam and Eve, not just some - both saints and sinners, especially sinners (Matthew 9:11-13). Discovery takes place at the holy places.

          God 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. We desire to please him. We trip all over ourselves in our eagerness to please him. The Church is wise to do likewise. The job of the Church is not to rule us. The Son of God did not pay us a visit to establish another government here on earth (John 18:36).  The job of the Church is unique. The job of the Church is to facilitate our escape - not to frustrate it, not to filter it and not to foul it up. The escape from godlessness to paradise is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect. Like UPS, the US Postal Service or Federal Express, the Church is all about logistics - getting us from here to there - from godlessness to paradise. "Abandon ship! Abandon ship!" is the cry of the Church. "Into the lifeboats! Into the lifeboats" the Church exclaims. Godlessness is a sinking ship (Mark 4:35-39). We are its passengers. The Church is its crew.  God gave the Church a rescue mission. However, the rescue mission that God gave the Church is not to save the ship. The rescue mission that God gave the Church is to save the passengers. God is not interested in making godlessness into a better, more hospitable place for godless people to live. God wants us to exhume the corpse of godlessness that is poisoning us as it rots in our hearts. God wants the Church to get us out of the valley of tears, into the lifeboats and on our way to paradise. 

          The first two stages are the foundation of the process of building a Christian. They are the root from which a Christian sprouts. Everything else is built upon the foundation. Get the foundation right and everything else falls into place. Get the foundation wrong and everything else falls apart. 

          In the third stage, the roof of morality is installed upon the foundation of conversion. Like the second stage, a signal heralds the start of the third stage. Morality is the key that unlocks the cages of sin in which we imprison ourselves. When we bang on the bars of our cages and beg for the key and demand our freedom, the signal that the third stage has begun is sounded. Trying to install the roof of morality on a settler without a foundation, however, is akin to giving what is holy to dogs or throwing your pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). Settlers view morality as the cage that imprisons them and not as the key that sets them free. Pilgrims, on the other hand, have an open mind about what is the cage and what is the key. Pilgrims are more willing than settlers to take the bit of morality into their mouths, the bridle of morality onto their heads and the reins of morality into their hands. Morality is the jeweled crown that pilgrims wear on their heads as we pass through the valley of tears.

          The Church, however, has a surplus of roofers and a shortage of foundation workers. Everybody is a roofer with an opinion about how we ought to behave.  Nobody is working on the foundation.  As a result, the escape is sputtering and stalling. Fewer and fewer are going to Mass. None are going to Confession. Marriages are falling apart. Mothers are murdering their babies. The priesthood is going extinct (Pope Francis 1/28/2107 at the Congregation for the Institute for the Consecrated Life) (Summary of Bulletin). The trend is downward and accelerating. The only sacrament holding its own is the sacrament of extreme unction and this is so only because the dead have no choice. The thermometer that gauges the temperature of the body of Christ is the practice of Christianity. By this measure, the patient is dying. 

          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. God is the colossus who bestrides the universe. The Church trivializes him by excluding him from the conversation. By excluding God from the conversation, the Church has turned God into an inscrutable, aloof caricature of himself. The Church assumes we have an understanding of God.  The assumption, however, is incorrect. God is a stranger to us and nobody follows a stranger (John 10:5). 

          It is time to stop squandering the conversation. It is time to change the ratio of the content of the conversation to more foundation and less roof.  More pizzazz; less nitty-gritty.  More Mary; less Martha. More revelation; less regulation. More God; less Church. No change in doctrine; just a change in emphasis - a tweak, nothing more. 

The Big Picture of Christianity

The Problem and solution

God is a philanthropist (Not a Sadist) (Click Here)

Fumbling the Ball (Click Here)

The Illusion Conjured Up by the Serpent

The Illusion (Click Here)

Godlessness (Click Here)

Shatter the Illusion with the Sledgehammer of Truth

The Sledgehammer of Truth (Click Here)

The Sourness of Godlessness

Harsh but effective Medicine (Click Here)

Why does evil exist in the valley of tears? (Click Here)

Speaking to us in Our Native Tongue (Click Here)

Fill the Earth With the Knowledge of God

The Son of God paid us a Visit

The Purpose of the Visit (Click Here)

The Yeast of Divinity (Click Here)

The Bloody Wounds We Opened in the Body of Christ ARE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CRUCIFIXION AND THE RESURRECTION

More and Better Theology (Click Here)

Ending the Confusion (Click Here)

Nothing Escapes from the Dead. Nothing. With Jesus, two Details of Divinity did (Click Here)

The Telescope (Click Here)

Different Stories Unfolded on the Different Layers of Reality (Click Here)

The Mouth of the Word of God is His Bloody Wounds (Click Here)

Why did God give us two hands? (Click Here)

A One Gallon Tank Cannot Handle Two Gallons of Information (Click Here)

Why Body and Blood? Why not Neck and Nose? (Click Here)

The Mighty God who Defeated the Egyptians versus the "Puny" God whom the Romans Defeated (Click Here)

Articulating a High Fidelity Message (Click Here)

Our Failure to Piss Him Off (Click Here)

The Lesson of the Crucifixion (Click Here)

The Mission The Father Gave the Son was to Transport Technology from Heaven to Earth and to Demonstrate that the Technology Works by Using It

The Technology Jesus Transported and Demonstrated (Click Here)

The Sailor and the Storm (Click Here)

The Sweetness of Paradise

He kept not a penny for Himself (Click Here)

Amplification (Click Here)

What did Jesus Prove? (Click Here)

God Thought it so Important to Persuade us that God Loves us that God made a Great Investment in the Proof (Click Here)

The Dial that Controls his Love for us (Click Here)

Indestructibility (Click Here)

The Treasure of Christianity in Twenty-Three (23) Words (Click Here)

The Freight Train (Click Here)

God's Declaration of Independence (Click Here)

What type of literature is the word of God? (Click Here)

The Autobiography of God (Click Here) [Revised 11/26/2016]

• The Crucifixion was the difficult test. In the Resurrection are the results of the test.

The Piñata (Click Here)

Disconnecting the Results from the Test (Click Here)

The Escape from Godlessness to Paradise

The Escape Route (Click Here)

Safari (Click Here)

The Appeal is to our Rationality (Click Here)

The Three Stages of the Escape (Click Here)

The Holy Places that Define the Escape Route

Prayer

• Climb to heaven on the ladder of prayer one rung at a time.

The Mass

Confession

Eucharistic Adoration

Baptism

Confirmation

The Other Sacraments

The Role of the Church in the Escape

The Tour Guide (Click Here)

Safari (Click Here)

With What do you Bait the Hook to Fish for the Children of Adam and Eve (Click here)

The Ban on Women in the Workplace (Click Here)

Instant Coffee (Click Here)

The Two Tables (Click Here)

Bugs Frozen in Amber (Click Here)

Sin

Insensitivity to Sin (Click Here)

Shifting the Paradigm from Ptolemy to Copernicus (Click Here)

Suffering

The New Evangelization

The Formula for Converting Sinners into Saints is Missing and the New Evangelization cannot start without it (Click Here)