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One Love
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| Posted 7/1/2011 4:24 PM (GMT -6) |   |
| Posted By : One Love - 1/24/2010 8:31 PM |
More "Across the Spectrum"...page 194-195
Evangelicals, along with most Christians, agree on several aspects of the new covenant community of Jesus Christ. Second, it is to be celebrated in some sort of regular fashion. Finally, whatever else it means, it allows the Christian church to remember and testify to Jesus' atoning death. As Paul writes, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26)
The disagreement begins when one presses the question of the meaning and significance of communion. In particular, people hold differing perspectives on what Jesus meant when he said, "This is my body...This is my blood." In other words, is Christ actually "present" in the Lord's Supper, and if so, how? This debate is connected to a wider debate on the nature of Christian religious rituals in general. Are practices such as baptism and the Lord's Supper sacramental in nature, or are they more accurately understood as ordinances? The difference is important. According to the sacramental view, these practices are gifts of God to is church by which he bestows grace and blessing. Those who understand these events as ordinances view them as practices that were obtained by Christ, by which the church demonstrates its loving obedience to God.
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After breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church, Martin Luther developed his own interpretation of the Lord's Supper known as consubstantiation. According to this view, there is no need for a priest to bless the elements in order for a transformation to take place. Rather because he believed that Jesus is present everywhere, Luther claimed that Christ's body is literally "in, with, and under" the bread and wine. The bread and wine, however, are not themselves transformed into the body and blood of Christ.
In the evangelical world today, there are primarily two perspectives on the nature of the Lord's Supper. Those who hold to a spiritual presence view remain close to Luther's conviction. They believe that in a unique way Christ is spiritually present in the Lord's Supper. There is therefore a sacramental aspect to communion in that the believer is sealed in Jesus Christ as a confirmation of God's saving promises. Those who hold to a memorial view claim that Christ is not literally present in the Lord's Supper. They affirm that a distinct spiritual blessing is involved in taking communion, for believers are remembering what Jesus did for them. But this blessing is due to their obedient response to Christ's instruction, not because Christ is uniquely present in the Lord's Supper itself.
Tom, from Greg's perspective, you are NOT a true memorialist. Not from what you've been saying lately. It really seems that he'd easily put you in the "spiritual presence" camp. Ask him. |
| Posted By : One Love - 1/24/2010 9:07 PM |
Greg:
The disagreement begins when one presses the question of the meaning and significance of communion. In particular, people hold differing perspectives on what Jesus meant when he said, "This is my body...This is my blood." In other words, is Christ actually "present" in the Lord's Supper, and if so, how? This debate is connected to a wider debate on the nature of Christian religious rituals in general. Are practices such as baptism and the Lord's Supper sacramental in nature, or are they more accurately understood as ordinances? The difference is important. According to the sacramental view, these practices are gifts of God to is church by which he bestows grace and blessing. Those who understand these events as ordinances view them as practices that were obtained by Christ, by which the church demonstrates its loving obedience to God.
You (Tom) and I are on the "sacrament" side, right? Just making sure we're STILL on the same page. 
Greg's glossary terms in Across the Spectrum:
Sacrament: Traditionally understood as a means of grace. Something is sacramental when it is said to "bear the divine." Some evangelicals see the Lord's Supper and baptism as sacraments in that God uses them as a means of dispensing grace to those who participate in them.
Ordinance: A command. Some see the Lord's Supper and baptism as ordinances, as opposed to sacraments, believing that their meaning lies in the simple fact that the people who engage in them are obeying God.
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Baptism and Communion – Baptism and communion are two ordinances the Lord has given the Church. The only form of baptism we practice is believer’s baptism by immersion. (Baptism: Acts 2:38-41; Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 8:26-40; 10:47; 18:8; Romans 6:3-4. Communion: Acts 2:42-46; 1 Corinthians 11:23-29) |
| Posted By : Tom - 1/25/2010 2:46 AM |
Greg: This (Lord's Supper) debate is connected to a wider debate on the nature of Christian religious rituals in general. Are practices such as baptism and the Lord's Supper sacramental in nature, or are they more accurately understood as ordinances? The difference is important. According to the sacramental view, these practices are gifts of God to is church by which he bestows grace and blessing. Those who understand these events as ordinances view them as practices that were obtained by Christ, by which the church demonstrates its loving obedience to God.
Tom: The 'ordinance' view is so existentially vacuous, pointless. Gotta go sacramental here. OF COURSE Baptism and Communion are means of grace. Even if we say they're fundamentally "practices that demonstrate our loving obedience to God," isn't there grace in that? Isn't OBEDIENCE the sacrament of life by which further grace empowers and transforms us?
Just going on what he said here about "ordinance," my response is, "Yuck." It's theologically yucky.
T |
| Posted By : Tom - 1/25/2010 3:23 AM |
It's just REEEEALLY important to define the precise objection to sacramentalism. When memorialists object to the sacramental believe that grace is mediated materially IN THE ELEMENTS, I agree with them. But I disagree with them if they're also claiming that NO grace is mediated IN THE EVENT of celebrating the Table (or baptism). So I'm caught in between. I agree with each side in what they criticize about the other but disagree with each in what they affirm about themselves! Ha!
I'm screwed.
T |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/1/2011 4:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Seems like you forgot there, buddy. 
Memorialism is the ORDINANCE view.
I believe you are solidly in the sacramental camp, Tom.
Right, my fellow theurgical bro? 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/1/2011 4:30:26 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/1/2011 4:37 PM (GMT -6) | | | Growing up Baptist, then experiencing Pentecostal/Charismatic churches, then working at Woodland (BGC)...I've never had a sacremental view of the "Lord's Supper" before. All I'd known is memorialism really. It was only after leaving Woodland and doing more reading for myself that I came to this in late 2009. (Per Greg, Woodland's still memorialist.)
And now, I can't see it any other way but sacramentally.
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One Love
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| Posted 7/1/2011 4:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Think about what homie talked about...
"My fellow Baptists would say later that I had merely done what our Lord had asked—namely, I had just remembered Him—and He had blessed me for my obedience with the warmth of His presence. Yet, I longed for that closeness again; I was convinced that something happened through the bread and wine, that God had used those physical elements to change me."
Greg would have been one of those (Ana)Baptists!
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Tom
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| Posted 7/2/2011 7:09 AM (GMT -6) | | | The sacrament of memory. That's my view. The EVENT (as opposed to the ELEMENTS) mediates grace, yes. But what memorialist needs to deny this? I don't get it. WHO thinks obedience doesn't mediate grace?
Once you see that the cosmos is an altar and that grace infuses all things, that grace can become ours through contemplating the logoi of things and rightly relating to those things. Is the mode of memory (bread and wine) given to the church (as is often thought of the 'ordinance' view only)? Yes. Are we obeying the words of Christ when we so celebrate and meet his presence? Yep. But does the fact that grace is mediated in this event make the mode of celebrating the event sacramental? Why yes, of course. Everything REAL is a sacrament, because everything real has the very presence of Christ in it and if contemplated truthfully, the contemplation of everything real can be a means of grace.
So, I'm a sacramental memorialist. Christ is present. Grace is mediated in the event. The bread and wine remain what they are.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTA Post Edited (Tom) : 7/2/2011 7:24:18 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/2/2011 11:27 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Once you see that the cosmos is an altar and that grace infuses all things, that grace can become ours through contemplating the logoi of things and rightly relating to those things. Is the mode of memory (bread and wine) given to the church (as is often thought of the 'ordinance' view only)? Yes. Are we obeying the words of Christ when we so celebrate and meet his presence? Yep. But does the fact that grace is mediated in this event make the mode of celebrating the event sacramental? Why yes, of course. Everything REAL is a sacrament, because everything real has the very presence of Christ in it and if contemplated truthfully, the contemplation of everything real can be a means of grace.
So, I'm a sacramental memorialist. Christ is present. Grace is mediated in the event. The bread and wine remain what they are.
1) The bread and wine, as matter, are "condescensations" of God's uncreated energy (per Alexei Nesteruk) In being that, it is formally no different than flesh and blood. Merely different configurations. Contemplating the logoi in light of the One Logos by the Spirit shows that clearly. As you said, everything real is a sacrament. So, even though we use bread and wine as linking us to Christ's historical "Last Supper", the bread and wine is NOT NECESSARY to suffuse our bodies with Christ's Real Presence, when we truly understand what matter ACTUALLY IS and how it's related to who Christ is.
2) All time is brought together in the Eucharistic event. As we remember the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus...past, present, and future converge in Christ's Presence. I guess that's the eschatological time spoken of a lot.
3) You and I agree, Tom, that some form of theurgical process occurs in the Eucharist. True memorialists would DENY this. I think you get stuck in equating "remembering Jesus" with "memorialist". Of course, sacramental believers "memorialize" Jesus in the Eucharst. But a true memorialist is NOT sacramental, let alone theurgical, in their approach to the Lord's Supper.
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One Love
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| Posted 7/2/2011 12:29 PM (GMT -6) | | | Basically, matter/energy and space/time are continually-given "gifts" DIRECTLY from God Himself lovingly working on Creation's (our) behalf. Without this "gift" of our existence continually given by God out of his love, there would be "no-thing" of Creation left. Although Creation is essentially "no-thing", we participate immediately and directly with God Himself in God's being the immanent ground of Creation hypostatically.
To "spiritualize" Creation is, in part, to REALIZE this fact about existence...and live (and appreciate) accordingly.
Christ, in the Incarnation, Transfiguration, and Ascension, has REVEALED the sacramental nature of Creator/Creation relationship to us. Nesteruk said that the hypostatic union of Uncreated Presence and created human particularity in Christ can be used analogically for the Uncreated's hypostatic (non-natural) relationship to the created as a whole. Kierkegaard figured this out too. If Christ is what Chalecedon SAYS he is...then, by implication, humans have largely been ontologically mistaken on Creation's relationship to God, hence all the various forms of despair where Eternity and Existence are mutually-distorting rather than mutually-affirming. God is NOT far away somewhere...and God is NOT to high and mighty to indwell matter. Why? Because matter/energy and space/time are absolutely and perpetually contingent upon God, as their ground in every sense.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/2/2011 12:55:15 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/2/2011 3:50 PM (GMT -6) | | |
The Spirit so radically expands the horizons of awareness, of space and time, of life and death (as noted by Calvin and others in the Reformed tradition such as Torrance and Barth), that such reductionistic notions become almost trivial. Thus is should be stressed that the main thrust of 1 Cor. 2 is not negative but overwhelmingly affirmative. It is not to denegrate nous or mind but to proclaim what is in the nous Christou (OL's Note: the mind of Christ). It is here that one sees and participates in "what eye has not seen and ear has not heard." What has not entered into the human mind, God has prepared for those who love him. This is open to those whose spirits, in agreement with the Holy Spirit, search out the deep things of creation and of God, and whose relationship to God preserves the vital relationality that marks them as bearers of the image of God. To be endowed by the Holy Spirit with the nous Christou is not other-worldly, but it is instead to perceive and to behold this world as if for the first time because it is knowing the world through the Logos, the One through whom all things have been made. The natural order then becomes, remarkably, the creation of God in which every moment is sustained by God's grace alone.
James Loder
The Knight's Move
Page 49
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One Love
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| Posted 7/2/2011 11:11 PM (GMT -6) | | This is a good description. And it's exactly what Meister Eckhart was trying to say...
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Wahdat al-Wajud (Arabic: وحدة الوجود persian: وحدت وجود) the "Unity of Being" is a Sufi philosophy emphasizing that 'there is no true existence except the Ultimate Truth (God)'. Or in other phrasing that the only truth within the universe is God, and that all things exist within God only. All of his creations emerge from `adam (عدم non-existence) to wujood (existence) out of his thought only. (OL's Note: God's relationship to Creation is HYPOSTATIC, not NATURAL like in pantheism!) Hence the existence of God is the only truth (Haqq), and the concept of a separate created universe is falsehood.
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In his (Iban Arabi's) view, wujūd is the unknowable and inaccessible ground of everything that exists. God alone is true wujūd, while all things dwell in nonexistence, so also wujūd alone is nondelimited (mutlaq), while everything else is constrained, confined, and constricted. Wujūd is the absolute, infinite, nondelimited reality of God, while all others remain relative, finite, and delimited.
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Only He who possesses Being in Himself (wujûd dhâtî) and whose Being is His very essence (wujûduhu 'ayn dhâtihi), merits the name of Being. Only God can be like that.
On the highest level, wujūd is the absolute and nondelimited reality of God, the "Necessary Being" (wājib al-wujūd) that cannot not exist. In this sense, wujūd designates the Essence of God or of the Real (dhāt al-haqq), the only reality that is real in every respect. On lower levels, wujūd is the underlying substance of "everything other than God" (mā siwā Allāh)—which is how Ibn Arabi and others define the "cosmos" or "universe" (al-'ālam). Hence, in a secondary meaning, the term wujūd is used as shorthand to refer to the whole cosmos, to everything that exists. It can also be employed to refer to the existence of each and every thing that is found in the universe.
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For the creatures, Being is not part of their essence. So a creature does not own its being, that it can never be independent in itself . In this sense, the created does not deserve the attribution of Being. Only God is Being, and all the rest is in reality a possibility (imkân), a relative, possible non-existence
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/2/2011 11:14:45 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/3/2011 8:34 AM (GMT -6) | | Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
What if, as Christians, we could say that about the whole universe?
Wouldn't the whole WORLD be a better place if just CHRISTIANS really lived this way???
I think so. 
"At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It its so to speak his name written on us, as our poverty, as our indigence, and our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond , blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions or points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely…The gate of heaven is everywhere."
Thomas Merton
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/3/2011 8:40:53 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/3/2011 9:04 AM (GMT -6) | | Beyond vision, in the fourth and final phase of the journey of intensification, is the numinous, imageless passage into the absolute unity of all things. Here no-thingness (cf. Eckhart's Ohne bild) is experienced as more real that than the reality of the ordinary state, even after self-consciousness returns to phase 1. Although imageless, its impact most often leaves the after-image of radiant white light, so vivid it cannot be described except perhaps by a kind of via negativa. For this phase there is no language, only silence--favete linguis (hold your tongue), says Kierkegaard. For this phase there is still differentiated self-consciousness, but beyond that only a reaction of awe as before the Holy who both fascinates and overpowers at the same time. This corresponds to the vision of God in Augustine, Hildegaard, Teresa (of Avila), Eckhart, and several others.
The neurological foundation of this experience is the profoundly significant capacity of the brain to present to consciousness not only an ordered content but the very way in which that content is itself presented: i.e., the order itself. In this case, it is the whole or totality in itself that is communicated. Clearly this is not a reductive account, but only a claim that the human organism is made so as to support and entertain an encounter with an imageless sense of the Absolute Unity of Being. The numinous impact of this is, of course, like that of the encounter with the Holy in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. If mythic vision and cosmic consciousness were the consequences of the third phase, then here the consequence is that one may now see the cosmos from a standpoint beyond it, while still within it. (OL's Note: Being IN the world but not OF the world!)
The benevolent detachment from the world which is the consequence of this experience has the effect of making the world becomes a matter of choice rather than one of defensive survival. All that is needed for ultimate survival has been given and far more, so engagement with the world are a matter of decision in what can only be called a state of blessedness.
James Loder
The Knight's Move
Page 273
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Basically this is the part of "intensification" when someone actually "sees" the All-ness of God and the no-thingness of Creation. This is what stillness and contemplation of the logoi in the Logos is supposed to do. Loder is saying that human beings are HIGH-WIRED to have this experience and choose to identify with the uncreated substratum of Creation rather than the diverse forms of "no-thingness" which the Uncreated supports. This is seeing the Absolute Unity of Being: the Spirit coninuously "gracing" Creation with existence. After experiencing, this humans become free of the fear of death and the sickness-unto-death...such that we actually CHOOSE for our lives--even obeying God unto death--rather that being constantly DRIVEN by unrecognized thinking patterns based upon the pleasure principle, self-gratification, and self-preservation.
I think you and I, Tom, would say this high-wiring of the human brain to interact with the Absolute Unity of Being is BECAUSE OF God's previous will to INCARNATE into created form as the "gift" of a new mode of divine self-experience ("I Am Immanuel") And all other humans are in the image of this Incarnated Image.
Yes?
What gets me is that this experience of the All-ness of the Divine and the no-thingness of the Created is PAN-RELIGIOUS.
Judaism's (Kabbalah) mystics experience this. Islam's (Sufism) mystics experience this. Buddhism's mystics experience this. Hinduism's mystics experiences this. And, of course, Christianity's mystics experiences this.
Example from Kabbalah...
Bitul is the spiritual state associated with the inner experience of chochmah, whereby one's consciousness opens up to a continuous flow of Divine wisdom and new insight through one's nullifying his sense of autonomous and self-sustained being. Bitul is the experience of ayin, of being nothing within the omnipresent radiance of God's infinite light. In general, there are two identified levels of bitul:
Bitul b'metziut ("existential nullification") constitutes the absolute form of bitul whereby one loses all sense of independent existence. This is the state of bitul in the world of Atzilut, whose consciousness, permeated by the supernal level of chochmah (Abba mekanen b'Atzilut), is solely that of God's omnipresence.
Bitul hayesh ("nullification of [one's] somethingness") constitutes a lower form of bitul whereby one is consciously involved in the process of nullifying the outer layer of self (ego). This is accomplished by the concentrated effort to experience the continual recreation of all reality, including oneself, as "something from nothing." [OL's Note: Creatio Ex-Nihilo, Creatio Continua] This impresses upon one's consciousness that there is no independent reality attached to one's sense of "somethingness."
If this doesn't get us to see that "seeing God" is meant as a HUMAN (not specifically RELIGIOUS) potential and characteristic...I don't know what can. 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/3/2011 9:26:06 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 7/5/2011 9:53 PM (GMT -6) | | The page that I was trying to link to a few days ago was: Typology and the Real Presence of Jesus in Holy Communion. In there Rev Neal says:
"I want to propose another approach. I believe that we may reasonably understand Jesus’ words typologically: the body and blood of Jesus, as he was crucified on the cross, casts a shadow backward to the Last Supper and forward to our Communion Tables. When we come to the Altar and eat and drink with faith, we are blessed to encounter, through the Types of bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus. As is true with all typologies, the shadow is less substantial than that which casts it; hence, the bread’s nature as bread is less important than Jesus’ affirmation of it as his body, and likewise the wine. By receiving the elements with our faith focused upon Christ, we make contact, through the shadow of the type, with that which cast the shadow: the Real Presence of Jesus."
Brandon
Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine
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One Love
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| Posted 7/6/2011 8:19 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Real Presence, Methodist Variation.
Say. Isn't that dude's picture on Wikipedia?
The followers of John Wesley, the clergymen, have typically affirmed that the sacrament of Holy Communion is an instrumental Means of Grace through which the real presence of Christ is communicated to the believer, but have otherwise allowed the details to remain a mystery. In particular, Methodists reject the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation (see "Article XVIII" of the Articles of Religion, Means of Grace). In 2004, the United Methodist Church affirmed its view of the sacrament and its belief in the Real Presence in an official document entitled This Holy Mystery. Of particular note here is the church's unequivocal recognition of the anamnesis as more than just a memorial but, rather, a re-presentation of Christ Jesus: Christ is also spiritually at Holy Communion for other churches it may vary.
Holy Communion is remembrance, commemoration, and memorial, but this remembrance is much more than simply intellectual recalling. "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24–25) is anamnesis (the biblical Greek word). This dynamic action becomes re-presentation of past gracious acts of God in the present, so powerfully as to make them truly present now. Christ is risen and is alive here and now, not just remembered for what was done in the past.
A United Methodist minister consecrates the elementsThis affirmation of Real Presence can be seen clearly illustrated in the language of the United Methodist Eucharistic Liturgy (for example: Word and Table 1) where, in the epiclesis of the Great Thanksgiving, the celebrating minister prays over the elements:
Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/6/2011 8:27:34 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 7/14/2011 1:15 PM (GMT -6) | | 2 Kings 13:20-21
20 Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. 21 Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.
Brandon
Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 7/15/2011 9:33 PM (GMT -6) | | | OK...here is the reason why I put that text up. From Fredirica Mathewes-Green:
Someone asked me today why Orthodox honor relics of the saints. Here's what I wrote:
Funny that you would ask today! It is the Feast of the Prophet Elisha. See 2 Kings 13:21. I was reading the daily lives of the saints this morning, and it pointed to this event as the reason we venerate relics of the saints.
The other reason is common-sensical, from a Jewish/Eastern Christian worldview. There isn't the separation of body and spirit that arose in the West, following Augustine's neo-platonism. Instead an understanding that God permeates all of the material reality he has created, as well as exceeding it far beyond our capacity to comprehend. Miracles can heal the body or multiply food or otherwise affect matter, because God is present there in his power. When body and soul are separated at death it is a temporary separation until the Last Day. Those who have struggled against their selfishness and sin and emptied selves to be filled with the Holy Spirit, experience God's presence in their bodies as well as minds and spirits. The bodies they leave behind can retain this transformation. Bodies should be treated reverently, honored, of course, but sometimes people find in the handling and preserving of bodies that miracles are beginning to happen, as with Elisha in this story. So the point is to treat the relics of holy people with all the respect they deserve (a particularly characteristic element of early Christianity, when gathering the bones of the martyrs and burying them was itself grounds for arrest and execution). In the new documentary "Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer" (you can watch it on iTunes), the filmmakers visit monasteries where bones of saints are exuding fragrant oil with miraculous effects.
We see in the book of Acts that it does not need to be the body of the saints that confers healing, but that aprons and handkerchiefs Paul had touched were brought to the sick for their healing, and others were laid in the streets so that Peter's shadow could fall on them, healing them.
Brandon
Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine
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One Love
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| Posted 7/16/2011 3:59 PM (GMT -6) | | Brandon's quote:
Instead an understanding that God permeates all of the material reality he has created, as well as exceeding it far beyond our capacity to comprehend.
More. An understanding that God permeates all of the material reality he is continually creating via direct, unmediated hypostatic activity, as well as exceeding it far beyond our capacity to comprehend.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/16/2011 4:03:00 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/16/2011 4:05 PM (GMT -6) | | It's like this:
Matter/Energy IS God Himself working on our behalf.
Time and Space are "Grace".
As I'm understanding the mystical vision, that's a lot of what it is. Seeing just how much God REALLY DOES DO for us all the time. It really puts our UTTER DEPENDENCE and drives for GRATITUDE and TRUST into perspective. Who would really say: "Well, what has God done for any of us lately?" Not anyone that really understood the implications. It is to see that God is the ultimate free SERVANT of those he loves...personally and unconditionally communicating existence too his beloved creatures, friends or enemies.
(And we are to be merciful and compassionate as God is.)
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/16/2011 4:16:05 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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