Αγνή Παρθένε - A Short Sunday Sermon

 

You do know, dear readers, that we're fighting this, literally, in the West, and that your tax dollars are paying the interest on the debt which fuels the war against everything we hold good, right, and true. Not unlike the way we pay for a school system which teaches our children to scorn the Faith we teach them at home.

Let's cut to the chase. We're funding Satan, see Trans Baphomet. Do you think God will rest content in being mocked, ad naus? Think again, there will be a great reckoning. Maybe, Christians, you might want to wake TF up. Till then, here's a song:

On topic, let's have the Bosphorus back. Ahem, LL, snap to. And word to the wise, those who go against the Holy Spirit will be relentlessly destroyed by that same Spirit. Maybe you think that last point is some kind of joke. Think again.

Your Pal,

LSP

Trinity - Augustine

 

Everyone knows Sunday's the Feast of the Trinity, that central doctrine of the Faith which describes the inner nature of God as He has revealed Himself. One nature, divine, three persons, distinct, and unless you believe this you're in big trouble, says the Athanasian Creed. This, NB Anglicans, has been shunted to the back of our latter day Prayer Books where presumably it'll cause less offense by virtue of being well hidden. Here's the intro:

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith. Which faith unless every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence.

So, there's most definitely a three line whip on orthodox Trinitarian doctrine. That said, can we make any sense of it? St. Augustine most certainly endeavored to do so in his magisterial De Trinitate, read it if you can and I found this short commentary helpful. An excerpt:

The Father, Son and Spirit are distinct, and yet they are a unity in the equality of the one substance. Any inferiority of the Son refers to his human nature or to the Trinitarian order whereby he has received his equal being from the Father. “The Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God…yet there are not three Gods – but one God – the Trinity Itself” . . . “so total is the equality of this triad that not only is the Father not greater than the Son as far as divinity is concerned, but also Father and Son together are not greater the Holy Spirit, nor any single person of the Three is less than the trinity Itself” (8.1).

Still, within this equality there are distinctions between the Persons. The Father is distinguished as Father because He begets the Son, and the Son is distinguished as Son because He is begotten. The Spirit, similarly, is distinguished from Father and Son inasmuch as He is ‘bestowed’ by them; He is their ‘common gift’, being a kind of communion of Father and Son.

The distinctions between the three persons are grounded in their mutual relations within the Godhead. Augustine resorts to the category of “distinctions based on relations” even though this may seem contrary to the doctrine that God as simple and as such cannot be differentiated from his attributes. The reason for this assertion is to escape a cunning dilemma posed by Arian critics. They argued that the distinctions within the Godhead, assuming they exist must be categorized as either substance or accidents. Everyone agrees that God has no accidents. On the other hand, to view the distinctions as substance would result in three independent substances in the Godhead.

Augustine rejects the dilemma. He suggests that the terms Father, Son and Holy Spirit denote not difference in substance between the Persons but eternal and unchangeable relations between them within the one substance. That is to say, what differentiates the Three Persons in the Trinity is the specific form of relations. The persons retain substantial equality.

The relationships do not simply distinguish the Persons from each other – they are the persons. In technical language, they are subsistent relationships. Accidents in ordinary things like qualities or quantities can change. For example, the quantity of stuff in a man can change without him ceasing to be a man. But in the case of the divine, relationships are actually substantive predications since they are identical with divine nature or substance. But a relationship requires real distinctions between two referents at the poles of the relationship. The Father is distinct from the Son. Neither is distinct from God; and they are each distinct from the Holy Spirit, not as Father and Son, but as ‘from whom he proceeds’.

Edmund Hill elaborates, “Therefore [the Father] is not only Father, he is the fatherhood (the relationship) by which he is Father. So too the Son is the sonship by which he is Son. And the Holy Spirit. . . the relationship of being Gift, the relationship of ‘givenness’ if you like.

 

Now, per the above, what do "subsistent relationships" in the life of the Trinity teach us? To put it another way, if distinct personhood, real personhood has been revealed to us as relationship, what does that mean for us who have been created in the image of God? Read Augustine's triads, obviously, but perhaps we get a glimpse of the truth when we reflect on how dismally we behave when self-obsessed, and how much better when the opposite applies. 

In other words, we become ourselves when we forget ourselves in relationship. The last shall be first, and all of that. 

Just look at Victoria Nuland and tell me I'm wrong. By the monkey, I dare you.

Guinea on,

LSP

Babel

 

Do you remember Nimrod's operation on the plains of Shinar (Iraq), where his people in their conceited pride disobeyed God and built a tower to heaven, exalting themselves as Gods? Well, if you don't, it's in Genesis 11: 1-9. Such impious pride and God didn't stand for it, he confounded their language and divided them. Operation Tower over, ENDEX.

And so to today. Babel, the apotheosis, self-divinization of persynkind continues apace, in fact it gathers steam. "Look at us," we announce to the Divine Power we don't believe in, "We are as gods, Masters of the Universe."

Yes indeed, why rely or obey some remote deity, a patriarchal oppressor to boot, when you can do it all DIY? Why believe in God, runs the logic when you can map the human genome and construct a dishwasher with built-in obsolesence?

Why not indeed, but with apologies to Leni Reisenthal, we find ourselves confounded at the very moment we should be celebrating the Triumph of Godless Human Will. Per Babel, our language is confounded and becomes unintelligible, dominant cultural orthodoxy speaks gibberish, the language of Hell.

"I am," says a 19 year old with unfortunately dyed hair, "They/Them." Leaving aside "I am Legion for we are many," this doesn't make any sense, not unlike "I've got my truth, you've got yours." Utter nonsense. On point, Raytheon's marketing department trumpeted its latest anti ship munition as "the greenest munition ever." Wow. And on, ad naus.

This is insane. It makes no sense. It's Babel, a babble of incoherent, competing, unintelligible voices vying for supremacy. A competing pantheon of Gods if you like, but a pantheon inhabited by satanic pygmies instead of the warring gods of Olympus. Heathendom, my friends, has devolved.

Against this arrives the Holy Spirit. The spirit of Truth, Love, and Freedom. The spirit of life Himself, of God. This Spirit cannot be defeated, it is reality itself, and woe betide those who stand against it not least while invoking it. 

They will be relentlessly destroyed. See Bud Lite.

Cheers,

LSP

A Short Sunday Reflection

 

“What then is this that is written," says Jesus in the Temple to his enemies, the High Priests and Scribes, "'The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on anyone it will crush him.”

At that moment the evil tenants of the vineyard decide to kill the heir, they reject the stone and are, as a matter of fact, crushed or pulverized some thirty years later by the Romans. And a new foundation is established, the vineyard of the Church is given to new tenants, Jews and Gentiles united to God as walls to a cornerstone in Christ. Our Lord's prophecy was fulfilled and it speaks with power today.

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on anyone it will crush him. 

Terrifying. You cannot go against God, the rock of reality itself, and escape destruction. Witness our present anti-culture which is hurtling fast into insanity, to say nothing of wicked tenants, those wolves in sheep's clothing, those false prophets, those apostate mutineers who deny the Faith once delivered. Who champion behavior explicitly condemned in the revealed Word of God and are silent or complicit in the face of godless secularism with all its increasing tyranny.

They will have their reward, they fell upon the rock and will be destroyed. The late Bishop Terwilliger put it well, "If you go against the Holy Spirit you will be relentlessly destroyed by that same Spirit." And so to us. 

Are we not placed by God as tenants of the vineyard of our souls, the Church writ most intimately, responsible for producing the good fruit of righteousness, of faith and love? We are, and yet we sin. "Oh wretched man that I am," says the Apostle and so do we in the face of our own imperfection reflected in the light of divine truth.

Knowing this, and know it we must, what choice do we have but to repent like the Prodigal and return to the Lord crying out for mercy. He, while we are still a long way out, there's comfort in that, runs to embrace us and, forgiving our sins, reclothes us in the garments of sanctity and raises us up to new life. Take heart.

And here endeth the lesson except to say several ranchers came up after the Mass and said, "You know, LSP, I learned something. I'd always thought 'fall upon the rock' meant tripping over it, like stubbing your toe. Never thought it meant 'fall upon' as in 'fall upon your enemy.' Thank you for that."

They're a kinetic bunch, I tell you.

Ride on,

LSP

Pentecost

It's the Feast of Pentecost, when we celebrate the descent of the dove upon the disciples. A descent filled with unstoppable power, as a mighty wind, and unquenchable fire. Here's Austin Farrer:

PENTECOST is not the feast of the Holy Ghost, it is the feast of his descent upon us.  The Son of God came down and was made man in the womb of Mary.  The Holy Ghost came down and was made human in the souls of Christians.  When Jesus was ripe for birth, he left Mary's womb, to grow up and be himself.  He outgrew first her womb and then her lap, first her protection, last her person and her mind.  But as the Holy Ghost grows in us, it is not he but we who grow.  He does not grow up and leave us behind, we grow up into him.  He becomes the spring and substance of our mind and heart.  He is the never failing fountain of which Jesus spoke to the Samaritaness.  We break up the stony rubbish of our life again and again, to find and release the well of living water.

 

 I can't add to that, you'll be glad to note. God bless you all,

LSP

Pentecost

It's the Feast of Pentecost, when our Holy Mother, the Church, celebrates the descent of the Spirit upon the disciples, resting on them likes tongues of fire. I like Basil the Great's exhortation:

The Spirit raises our hearts to heaven, guides the steps of the weak, and brings to perfection those who are making progress. He enlightens those who have been cleansed from every stain of sin and makes them spiritual by communion with himself... Through the Spirit we become citizens of heaven, we are admitted to the company of the angels, we enter into eternal happiness and abide in God. Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations - we become God. 

And note this, all you heretics out there who are busy reading this important mind blog: Basil's divinization, or theosis, in which the faithful participate in God's nature, shouldn't be confused with apotheosis, deification in God's essence. 

Some Crew, Goofing Off in Church

That's an error and a bad one. Like liturgical dance, which is also a bad mistake.

God bless,

LSP