March 26, 2007

• I’m Back!

  I’m back at the novitiate! This means I can continue posting my Long Retreat Journal (you’ll have to go back a couple of entries to find where we all left off). So, here is the next part! (And remember these are merely my thoughts and responses to my experience; I am not a theologian!)

   

  Christ, being fully man, consecrates our bodies, teaching us how to maintain them as fitting and holy dwellings for God to live in.

  With that gift, another is possible. Before Christ died, He gave us the Eucharist. God GAVE US His own body and blood as a taste of the resurrection to come, to feed our souls so that they can continue to resist sin. With the Eucharist, with God physically dwelling within us, everything comes full-circle in a very close way as it was in the beginning: we are God’s, and God is ours. After Christ’s resurrection, we are doubly blessed with the Holy Spirit, the SPIRIT of GOD. God’s spirit now dwells within us, now that our bodies can be holy places appropriate for Him to dwell in, and now that His very flesh, His body and blood, is here for His spirit to occupy. In the Eucharist, God in His complete fullness and existence exists within us!!!!

  How humble and poor is our God, in the most touching way, that He literally has given us EVERYTHING because He loves us so much! He gave us all of creation, and then He gave us everything else: Himself! His true wealth is LOVE, from which His power, greatness, mercy, and all else is derived, and He is just DROWNING us in it!

   

  If death is of sin and Christ was free from slavery to sin, how could He die? He was fully human, and humans die, but why did He have to die? In order to fulfill God’s promise of reopening Paradise to us, of forgiving sins, and all the many promises found throughout the Old Testament, in order for God’s Will to be fulfilled, Christ HAD to die. In order to serve God, Jesus had to choose death. If Jesus chose to avoid death or to lessen the experience even in the slightest way, He would have sinned. Jesus wasn’t so much killed as He was perfectly obedient to God.

   

  Sin is when we go against our purpose of praising, reverencing and serving God. Every sin increases the distance between what we were (created perfect) and what we are (imperfect) until the distance is so great that we cease to be human and are recognizable only as a shadow of our origin, and only by becoming what we were meant to be will we be recognized at the gates of Eden.

  Our spirit is the only part of us that can be restored to its Eden-state; our flesh has to be left behind, as it is the property of Sin now. The challenge of life is to resist selling your soul to sin, to avoid sin owning you 100%. If that happens and you die in that state, freedom just isn’t and option.

   

  “God, you gave me all of Your creation, and I screwed up. Later You gave me Your Son, Your whole Self to me, and I STILL screw up. Why would a God of Infinite everything give me all this when I’ve maybe given You five good years out of the twenty-three that I have?”

  After a while, the answer hit- because He loves me. That is why I am worth it all. God gives us all that is His- His creation and His very existence, hoping that we will give Him the one thing that isn’t automatically His- OUR love. He wants it so much because He loves us so much, and He has everything else anyways!

  Another thought- the Eucharist is such a beautiful thing. We offer simple bread and wine as ourselves in Christ’s body and blood, our shared humanity. God accepts our offering and gives in exchange HIS body and blood, divine body and blood so that as He shared in our humanity, WE can share in His divinity.

  There was a Christmas episode of “The Simpsons” in which Marge and Homer are about to exchange gifts and Homer realizes he hasn’t gotten one yet. So he runs off to try and find her something on Christmas Eve, and all the shops close just as he arrives. He returns home sad and tells Marge that he forgot to get her a gift. She forgives him and hands him her gift. He looks at the tag and it says, “To Marge, from Homer.” He’s confused and she says, “I knew that you would forget, so I got you the gift that you would want the most: something to give to me.” Homer gets it and hands her the gift and though she already knows what it is, she absolutely adores it.

  In the same way, God gave us the Eucharist as the perfect gift to Him, even though we are just giving Him back everything He gave to us, and every time we do this He smiles and says, “Awww…… you shouldn’t have!” and lovingly cherishes our gift forever.

   

  In a way, we are wealthier than God. We have everything, and He has everything but ONE thing: OUR love.

  My love, Your greatest desire God, seems so small compared to what you give for it- all creation, Your Son, Yourself, eternal life. But then, those things must seem so small to You compared to my love that You desire above all else.

   

  • 11:53 am
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