It crossed my mind for the first time today to look up the origin of the word "Easter", especially whether it has any relation to "east"; I was right - and this supports my developing thesis that Christianity is ultimately meant to be an East-West synthesis of balance and harmony between the two opposite directions, which in fact represent two opposite philosophical worldviews and outlooks.
The term "Easter" derives from the same root in the proto-Indo-European (i.e. Caucasian) language family that gives us "ost" in modern German and its equivalent "east" in modern English - a term that means "to shine", as in the rising sun in the east; the Anglo-Saxon goddess "Eostre" is apparently most widely believed to be the direct etymology of "Easter" into present-day English, as first used by the famous monk St. Bede in the early 8th century whilst evangelizing the Germanic barbarian conquerors of the British Isles.
(One doesn't even have to do any particular research to draw the connection between a shining goddess of the East and the Resurrection: after all, Jesus arose from the dead just before daybreak and was first seen by two women, St. Mary Magdalene and one of the "other Marys" in the Gospels; indeed there are Church Fathers who believe that in fact it was Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who was actually first to meet her risen Son even though this is - apparently deliberately - omitted from the resurrection accounts.)
So why is the reference to "east" in the language of an explicitly White European culture so crucial in our understanding of the mainstream Christian faith, given that the very holiest day of the creed is so Eurocentric, yet literally points towards Asia? Think of it this way: Christianity is essentially a Western, even European religion, yet one that orients (pun intended) its entire focus eastward - towards Jerusalem, of course, but in a more general sense towards the ancient wisdom believed to be found in the East, not the West.
And therein lies the crux of the Divine revelation embedded within all Scripture as borne out by both Tradition and actual history of Holy Mother Church: the West represents the freedom of the unearned and unmerited Mercy and Grace of God in Jesus Christ, but this liberty's ultimate expression is in the willing offering of itself as a sacrifice to the Law and Truth of God the Father as represented by the rigid patriarchy and hierarchy of the East - all, of course, in the loving unity of the Holy Spirit.
So what is Easter, then - just what makes it the holiest of holy days? It is literally the once-for-all passage from Death to Life: the bright Sun of the Son of God rising anew from the East in such a way, having lifted the veil separating Law from Grace - that is, East from West - that humanity can at last serve God unshackled by the bondage of sin, liberated by said Sun of the Son to march all the way into the glorious Western dusk by returning an oblation of thanksgiving every moment of the way back to the Easter(n) dawn.
Sunday, April 1, 2018
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Stunning addendum to the "1990 prophecy" describes the post-truth era
[Note: I originally wrote this blog post a year ago, March 23, 2017 - but the intervening 12 months have confirmed to me in a deeper way its fundamental truth.]
There has just emerged, on the recently passed Feast of St. Joseph (March 19), a stunning addendum to the so-called "1990 prophecy", apparently given to the same anonymous mystic and locutionist who received that revelation of a generation ago:
Because man - even Christian man - no longer truly believes that his own sin is the cause of his unhappiness, but rather the sin of others, the world at large has become a free-for-all of exchanging every manner of insults, threats, and general irreverence towards one's fellow man.
Hence, we have the interesting paradoxical phenomenon of professed believers finding enemies of their faith in every nook and cranny of an admittedly hyper-secularized world out to destroy it, yet increasingly completely blind to the evil that resides much closer to home: indeed, within their very homes. The contemporary Christian has collectively fallen into a dangerous trap: focusing so much of his spiritual attention and strength in an existential battle against external foes, he not only loses sight of the commandment to love the enemy instead of hate him, but becomes woefully unprepared for the snares that the Devil lays for him in his own family, among his own loved ones.
There has just emerged, on the recently passed Feast of St. Joseph (March 19), a stunning addendum to the so-called "1990 prophecy", apparently given to the same anonymous mystic and locutionist who received that revelation of a generation ago:
"A new and great evil has now come and settled and will be there for the duration. It was a choice by man, including My people, who find deception in rancor and rancor where was ordained love. Not for years will an interior light return for those whose god is gold and whose love is cold. Not since times in history deep ago have My children so been skewed in what they perceive with eyes that distort and minds that form reality in a way that has no true destiny. Flee to Saint Joseph, and the Blessed Mother of the holm oak who tells us that brightness can be found only by those who practice the diligence of prayer amid consternation. Those who framed the future in accordance with their own time tables now find disbelief in prophecies though they unfold around you."
-From Anonymous, March 19, 2017The accompanying note on the Spirit Daily webpage concludes with an admonition that this has been disclosed strictly "for your personal discernment." So let me take a stab at it here on this blog (I would've shared this on Facebook but judged it was too sensitive and too long to do it there anyway.)
It was a choice by man, including My people, who find deception in rancor and rancor where was ordained love.The fundamental underlying aspect of our fake news-driven, post-truth era - the bedrock upon which the entire tangled web of confused bits of nonstop information and data is built - is a deeply corrupted interior condition of the human heart on a widespread societal level.
Because man - even Christian man - no longer truly believes that his own sin is the cause of his unhappiness, but rather the sin of others, the world at large has become a free-for-all of exchanging every manner of insults, threats, and general irreverence towards one's fellow man.
Hence, we have the interesting paradoxical phenomenon of professed believers finding enemies of their faith in every nook and cranny of an admittedly hyper-secularized world out to destroy it, yet increasingly completely blind to the evil that resides much closer to home: indeed, within their very homes. The contemporary Christian has collectively fallen into a dangerous trap: focusing so much of his spiritual attention and strength in an existential battle against external foes, he not only loses sight of the commandment to love the enemy instead of hate him, but becomes woefully unprepared for the snares that the Devil lays for him in his own family, among his own loved ones.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Statement of a Chinese-American Catholic on the Vatican's accord with China
My brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His universal Church,
I address you on a matter of great importance for our present time and potentially for all eternity - and also one that is near and dear to my mind and heart as a Catholic American of Chinese ancestry. This is the matter of the reported deal between the Vatican and the communist government of the People's Republic of China concerning the appointment of bishops on the mainland.
I understand why some of you are incensed that this apparent capitulation to the most central demands of the authoritarian atheist regime in Beijing is now close to fruition, with Pope Francis himself edging close to marking his papal seal of approval on it. I realize your concern for the long-suffering underground Catholic Church in China, which has endured with great courage and perseverance over nearly seven decades of unchallenged communist rule to pass on the torch of the faith to present and future generations of Chinese Catholics.
But my Chinese ancestry and heritage and my unique background and history as an immigrant to the United States, this great bastion of individual liberty and religious freedom, where in turn I was blessed to find what I believe to be the only ultimate authentic freedom - that of willful submission to Christ Jesus via His ordained Vicar on earth - compels me to admonish and exhort you to avoid jumping to such immediate and definitive conclusions, especially if it leads you to suspicion as to the personal spiritual and moral integrity of our Supreme Pontiff, Francis; or even if it undermines your trust in his judgment.
Remember first and foremost that you are Catholic - not merely Christian, but Catholic. Your loyalty and obedience to the Pope does not require that you agree with everything he says or does; it does not require that you have a high or even particularly positive opinion either of his moral character or of the soundness of his teaching; it certainly does not require that you keep your dissenting opinions to yourself, as if these aren't invaluable in contributing to a deeper and broader understanding of our common holy faith.
But that faith should ever challenge and remind us of the words of the Eternal Word Himself to Simon in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, by which the unshakable Petrine office was established: "Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church; and the gates of Hell will not overcome it."
These words have ever been the sanctuary of the countless holy men and women that have paved the way before our present time into the Kingdom of Light promised by Our Lord and actualized in the earthly pilgrimage by the Real Presence of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist through the most sublime intercession of Our Blessed Lady; they must likewise now be our own mighty and invincible fortress against all internal and internalized doubts we may find ourselves harboring - however uncomfortably or even unwillingly - against the hierarchy of the Vatican going up to the very Throne of Peter itself.
For Our Lord has always known that the mere specter of what the faithful themselves may perceive or fear to be self-betrayal - a self-denial of the Truth of His very Word - is a far graver menace to His flock and the untold masses of souls therein than can be all the violent powers of physical and material persecution that all the enemies of the Church over two millennia combined can ever muster. Were this not so, would He have gone to such lengths to state the superlative degree of trial by fire that His beloved Church would be expected to endure and finally prevail over - all while ever firmly planted on the Rock of Peter?
Our glorious Catholic and Apostolic Church has survived through internal schisms and heresies since its earliest days; it has prevailed over numerous and repeated instances of temporal authorities attempting to usurp its spiritual prerogatives, even if this was sometimes a long, hard attrition in which some battles appeared irretrievably lost at times; and perhaps most important of all, the Barque of Peter has even persisted and emerged stronger through the tempestuous adversity of very great - even overt - sinners occupying the helm's post and staffing its command crew.
Through none of this are we to succumb to the temptation of doubt as to where the final victory will be and to whom it will belong: it will not belong to those for whom the world seems more powerful than the Word, but to those to whom even a Church seemingly gone astray can only be cause for purer sacrifice of thanksgiving producing deeper joy; it will not be with those who curse our holy Church, but with those who bless it; it will not be borne and celebrated by those whose scandal at the denial of Jesus is so great that they resign it to being a mistake in the mysterious Providence of the Most Holy Trinity, but by those who with indomitable assurance can hope with certainty that the greater the betrayal, the greater will be the mercy of redemption that Peter himself experienced when he was finally able to accept the Lord's offer of complete forgiveness with the simple admission, "Lord, you know everything; you know I love you."
I address you on a matter of great importance for our present time and potentially for all eternity - and also one that is near and dear to my mind and heart as a Catholic American of Chinese ancestry. This is the matter of the reported deal between the Vatican and the communist government of the People's Republic of China concerning the appointment of bishops on the mainland.
I understand why some of you are incensed that this apparent capitulation to the most central demands of the authoritarian atheist regime in Beijing is now close to fruition, with Pope Francis himself edging close to marking his papal seal of approval on it. I realize your concern for the long-suffering underground Catholic Church in China, which has endured with great courage and perseverance over nearly seven decades of unchallenged communist rule to pass on the torch of the faith to present and future generations of Chinese Catholics.
But my Chinese ancestry and heritage and my unique background and history as an immigrant to the United States, this great bastion of individual liberty and religious freedom, where in turn I was blessed to find what I believe to be the only ultimate authentic freedom - that of willful submission to Christ Jesus via His ordained Vicar on earth - compels me to admonish and exhort you to avoid jumping to such immediate and definitive conclusions, especially if it leads you to suspicion as to the personal spiritual and moral integrity of our Supreme Pontiff, Francis; or even if it undermines your trust in his judgment.
Remember first and foremost that you are Catholic - not merely Christian, but Catholic. Your loyalty and obedience to the Pope does not require that you agree with everything he says or does; it does not require that you have a high or even particularly positive opinion either of his moral character or of the soundness of his teaching; it certainly does not require that you keep your dissenting opinions to yourself, as if these aren't invaluable in contributing to a deeper and broader understanding of our common holy faith.
But that faith should ever challenge and remind us of the words of the Eternal Word Himself to Simon in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, by which the unshakable Petrine office was established: "Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church; and the gates of Hell will not overcome it."
These words have ever been the sanctuary of the countless holy men and women that have paved the way before our present time into the Kingdom of Light promised by Our Lord and actualized in the earthly pilgrimage by the Real Presence of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist through the most sublime intercession of Our Blessed Lady; they must likewise now be our own mighty and invincible fortress against all internal and internalized doubts we may find ourselves harboring - however uncomfortably or even unwillingly - against the hierarchy of the Vatican going up to the very Throne of Peter itself.
For Our Lord has always known that the mere specter of what the faithful themselves may perceive or fear to be self-betrayal - a self-denial of the Truth of His very Word - is a far graver menace to His flock and the untold masses of souls therein than can be all the violent powers of physical and material persecution that all the enemies of the Church over two millennia combined can ever muster. Were this not so, would He have gone to such lengths to state the superlative degree of trial by fire that His beloved Church would be expected to endure and finally prevail over - all while ever firmly planted on the Rock of Peter?
Our glorious Catholic and Apostolic Church has survived through internal schisms and heresies since its earliest days; it has prevailed over numerous and repeated instances of temporal authorities attempting to usurp its spiritual prerogatives, even if this was sometimes a long, hard attrition in which some battles appeared irretrievably lost at times; and perhaps most important of all, the Barque of Peter has even persisted and emerged stronger through the tempestuous adversity of very great - even overt - sinners occupying the helm's post and staffing its command crew.
Through none of this are we to succumb to the temptation of doubt as to where the final victory will be and to whom it will belong: it will not belong to those for whom the world seems more powerful than the Word, but to those to whom even a Church seemingly gone astray can only be cause for purer sacrifice of thanksgiving producing deeper joy; it will not be with those who curse our holy Church, but with those who bless it; it will not be borne and celebrated by those whose scandal at the denial of Jesus is so great that they resign it to being a mistake in the mysterious Providence of the Most Holy Trinity, but by those who with indomitable assurance can hope with certainty that the greater the betrayal, the greater will be the mercy of redemption that Peter himself experienced when he was finally able to accept the Lord's offer of complete forgiveness with the simple admission, "Lord, you know everything; you know I love you."
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