reflection from March 23rd, 2023
March 23rd, 2023:
i wrote this directly to myself but im minded to share it. please forgive me, a sinner, and please, please pray for me if the Lord reminds you. thank you for your time.
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it doesnt matter so much what you feel, what you want. it matters more what Christ wants. stop focusing so much on your desires, and focus instead on how Christ desires for you to be made Like Him.
what is He Like? He is selfless, and He is Love. what are His desires? He desires that all should be Saved and come to the knowledge of Him.
He desires that all sinful flesh should repent; or, to put it in more appropriate terms, that all who are sick should be healed.
the Physician looks with great pity to those sick with sin; it is evident in His Incarnation,¹ His whole earthly life,² in His perplexing Victory at the Cross, in His Glorious Triumph over death by His Resurrection,³ and in His Divine Ascent to the Heavens.⁴
what else could be said about His yearning for us, which is not already made apparent within you by the memory of these Holy things?
remember how He grieved over His beloved children as He approached them from afar, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"
this alone may show us how we ought to be towards our enemies, and much more loving than this to those we call our brethren and our sisters. Christ the Lord went to Jerusalem to die for us, into the hands of traitors and liars who were certainly His enemies, and does He selfishly complain? God forbid!
He \[grieves\] as a man, and as God, seeing the tragedy of the state His people are in, wanting nothing but for them to let Him help them. but we are not willing to receive this Gift of mercy, because we find other things more important.⁵
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May 18th, 2026:
in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Glory to You, o God, Glory to You!
these are comments on the reflection which i wrote in March of 2023 written now, in May of 2026:
¹: having Incarnated as a human being through the will of the Everlasting Father, the Overshadowing of the All-Holy Spirit upon the Virgin as she answered,"behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. be it to me according to thy word," the Son and Immortal Word of God, Jesus Christ, took flesh and became like us so that we may become like Him. this is so that He could unite in Himself us who have been scattered abroad, to Save us who have been lost.
as it is Written,"let Us make man in Our Image and after Our Likeness," showing that we are made to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and become,"partakers of the Divine Nature."
not that we should become what God is by Essence, but rather by being made members of His own Body, made possible by and through His Incarnation, through Baptism being Crucified and Risen in Christ as a new creation; we are granted to commune in His Energies.
like the rays of the Sun give life and warmth to the earth from afar, but if we approach it closely we are undone; in a similar but more mysterious and beautiful way we are granted to come near to the Most Holy Trinity, Who, as the potter with the clay, refines and molds it into a vessel for Himself.
slowly, slowly, gently, gently, by grace and through faith, hope and love, the Lord gradually helps us to see our sicknesses and wounds and heals us as we turn to Him.
the one who does not go to the doctor can remain sick, and the one who does not go to the Hospital of God- the Church, the Body of Christ, Who is the Great Physician: will not find the remedy, Who He Is.
the sun does not stop shining when we hide from it. neither does the Lord in Trinity, Who is Divine Light, stop shining compassion on the one who runs from Him.
in His Incarnation, the Phsyician of our souls becomes the remedy for our self-will and waywardness, becoming the Way, the Truth, and the Life to all. He already was this, but in becoming man He unites all to His Love, whether willing or not.
to the unwilling and disobedient, we go away to what we prefer over Him and are tormented by our own desires. to the willing and obedient, He gives the good of the land, and all good things come down from the Father of Lights, in Whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.
in Incarnating, mankind is found in God, as He has brought all of humanity into the Life of the Holy Trinity. in humility and living out His prayer,"not my will, but Thy will be done," we are active, loving, willing participants in His Life, in His Crucifiction as members of His Body, in His Resurrection, and in His Ascension to Heaven.
²: the Lord Jesus Christ in His earthly life was always condescending to human beings of low estate in a compassionate way, making Himself available and drawing near to the broken hearted and contrite in spirit.
let us remember Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well, to whom was revealed the great Truth of the Lord Jesus being Christ, or Messiah; the Saviour of the world. and this is only one of many examples of similar compassionate movements from our most Excellent and Loving Lord, Who Is Himself Love.
in a Parable He tells us of the Good Samaritan, Whom He Is, that finds a person broken and beaten by the side of the road, having been stolen from and left for dead by the sinful passions and the demons.
He sees someone hurting and alone and does not hesitate to put that person, that being all of humanity personified allegorically; on His own beast of burden and carry them to the inn, or, the Church. He tells the innkeepers; that is, the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, and all the Faithful: to take care of that person and to lay to His own charge whatsoever they spend in caring for them, promising to repay them more than what they spend.
let us see the great generosity of the Lord in this, and let us rejoice to Him for His great loving kindness!
³: as we know, the Lord goes to the Cross for us. He endures not this only, being beyond time and not seperated from the things Above while yet being on the earth, as He is Omniscient. He endured in His Body on the earth and does yet endure all that we do to damage ourselves and others.
in His Body, we find healing and Life, but seperating ourselves in following our own will and not His, we find all misery and decay. this He comes to co-suffer with us for, and deliver us through His own grace and compassion.
He also endures visibly in the Gospels all the murmoring and backbiting, all the seditions and vainglory, all the greed and bloodlust, so that He may show His own patient and loving endurance in the face of our foolishness.
He does not immediately demand retribution from all, but from those He entrusts to guide the people by His Spirit He visibly demands a change of heart and actions.
the Pharisees became deluded by their own misunderstandings of the Divine Scriptures, and in so doing they became haters of God. standing before them visibly, they could not recognize Him.
but Simeon in the Temple, receiving Him as an Infant, said with great joy and peace in the Spirit,"Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation. a Light to enlighten the gentiles, and the Glory of Thy people Israel."
having arranged with the traitor to take our Lord into custody for questioning, they found Him guilty of blasphemy in their own reasonings, and were not attentive to the Holy Spirit's guidance either through His worda or in their seared consciences. they condemned Him to death in their hearts, but resigned to bring Him before the Roman officials for a more,"proper," sentence.
we know of His suffering that day for our sakes, and we know that He destroyed the dominion of death for all humanity on the Third Day in Resurrecting from the dead.
He has power to lay down His life, and power to take it up again; and so, when He descended to the place of the dead, there He made a captive and a prisoner of death itself, whom held the souls of men prisoner and captive until His arrival.
death eagerly opened wide it's jaws to receive a man, and behold, it came face-to-Face with the God-man Jesus Christ.
He led the souls of the righteous out along with Dismas, the Good Thief who asked Him,"remember me, o Lord, when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom."
Arising from death, clothed in the Glory which He had before the world was, He went and spoke with the Apostles. there it was in the upper room where our friend Thomas, who reasonably asked for proof, put his hand into the side of our Most Precious Christ, and his fingers into the print of the nails, saying,"my Lord, and My God."
He also redeemed the despairing soul of our friend Peter, by asking him thrice,"Peter? lovest thou Me? feed My sheep."
having tarried there with the Apostles for some days and weeks, He then Ascended into Heaven, Blessing the whole world, and said,"Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world."
Amen.
⁴: having Ascended into Heaven to sit at the Right hand of the Father, we see a great and terrific sight. human flesh sitting in Heaven in the very Throne of God, in the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
it is this very Body wherein members of Christ are seated in Heavenly places with Him, and it is the heritage of all Christians who are in His Body to become His family.
yes, those who do His will are His family. those who turn to Him are His family, as that it what it means to repent: to turn to Him in our hearts. as it is Written,"draw nigh to Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed. this poor one cried and the Lord heard him, and delivered him from all his tribulation."
He wills for all to live and come to the experiential, communal knowledge of Him, partaking of His Life and becoming like Him by grace and through faith.
to know Him, the only wise God: that is Salvation as He said in the upper room, after having revealed the Great Mystery of Holy Communion. that is the Saving of us who are lost, the Life to those who are dead in sins, the Light Who enlightens the whole world. to be found in the House of the Father as a prodigal child returned Home, that is Salvation.
⁵: this was meant to be the most poignant prick in my own heart when writing all of this to myself. see the lamentation of Christ and how well it may align for yourself.
it is true, He is more willing to be compassionate and reason together with us, that our sins which are scarlet may be white as wool; but i turn ever away to do my own will.
it is i who i condemn and no one else, and when i see another fallen down, it is my heart, by grace, to have a compassionate eye rather than a condemning one.
when we remember our own sins, beloved, when we are cleaning and tending our own soul's garden, then we are too focused on the thorns of ourselves, the stony places, and the infestations of pests to be judgmental of another's.
when we see the same problems in others, it directs our eyes Upward to the Lord Who Himself bears our weaknesses and infirmities. in our weakness, His power is most effective; and in our humility, He is most generous.
to Him be all Glory, honour and worship, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, Trinity One in Essence and undivided, both now and forever and to the endless ages of eternity, Amen.