Tags
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
Thus wrote Eliot in his Journey of the Magi. The opening phrases come from a sermon by Lancelot Andrewes, who reminded us that it is the setting out on the journey which is easiest; but it takes stamina and courage, and sometimes sheer doggedness not to be discouraged. Unlike us, the Magi did not know what they were going to find, but being learned, they knew from their astrological calculations that the star portended the birth of a King. Like us, they were Gentiles – a sign that the new King, though of the line of David, would rule over all of God’s people, not just those under the Law of Moses. Like us, they had to have faith that He would be there when they got to the place above which the star stopped. They had left their comfortable lives and their palaces behind and endured many months of hard travelling.
Andrewes saw, in the star, a reference to that ‘day star’ which St Peter said rises in our hearts – and that is faith. It was faith which brought them on that long journey, just as it does us. And how shall we receive Him, save in the bread and wine which become for the faithful His Body and Blood?
The last lines of the poem speak of the changes which the journey wrought in the Magi:
I should be glad of another death.
The ‘old Adam’ dies in us, and we become a new birth in Him. We, like the Magi, are changed by the journey of faith, by the journey we make in faith. It is, in the end, the journey itself which makes us His. It is the journey in His Grace which transforms us. Not, as we might wish, in a once-for all magic-like change, but rather in the slow, subtle ways a journey does. We learn from everything we experience on that journey, and if we take it in Him, then it will help us conform more closely to Him. It is in our nature to want haste, and to want to be there now – but that would defeat His purposes, and how should we be transformed from what we are to what we need to be without the journey?
We might well, being what we are, resent the journey, and its hardships, but if we accept them as we should, then they, too, add to what we gain in Him. As we approach the feast of the Nativity, let us perhaps reflect on where we are in our journey, and pledge to help each other as we continue.
All Along the Watchtower 
“The ‘old Adam’ dies in us, and we become a new birth in Him. We, like the Magi, are changed by the journey of faith, by the journey we make in faith.”
Ah, so original sin evaporates at this point. But the preachers scream at us that we remain sinners, even those who try so earnestly to lead Godly lives. Probably none in the first place with that apple/snake nonsense except to note we cannot achieve salvation except through Christ.
LikeLiked by 1 person
An interesting comment Carl which probably deserves an entire post to lay out the lesson of the allegorical lessons taught in Genesis and the Fall of Man.
I do expect that you do believe in 2 separate judgments to come: one personal and the other as a indictment upon mankind itself in which we all, by birth, inherit the sin of our connection to Adam and Eve; the mother and father of our nature in the temporal realm. As mankind we are flawed for we share the fall of our original father and mother, Adam and Eve, through our genetic and biological makeup. By rebirth in water and spirit we are given the grace to become children of God rather than children of Adam through the reception of a new spirit. Our tendencies toward sin (concupiscence) continues unabated, however. And therefore by this new gift of rebirth in the Spirit we are capable of rejecting these fallen impulses that our natural birth has imprinted upon us. Thus the reason to oppose these impulses at every turn and our quest to grow in holiness; i.e. Faith, Hope and Charity.
I don’t quite get the meaning you meant to convey in your last sentence save for the appropriate truth that we cannot achieve salvation except through Christ.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We are, as Bosco would put it, saved by the Blood of the Lamb. If that is so, then we are being changed into a better likeness of God by Him. We have done naught to deserve this – but we can have this if we turn to Him in repentance. This is the Good News – the best there could ever be!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, it always amazes me that trying to ‘work out our salvation with fear and trembling’ is dismissed as a sidebar that is of no importance. Our salvation is always in jeopardy until we have run the race and the Judge of judges gives us what we deserve or exercises His infinite mercy on our behalf. I cannot presume which way my case will go. As written, for those who receive more, more is expected and I must give praise to Christ that He has given me more than I ever deserved and the pressure of living up to the Grace received seems far beyond my ability. I will beg for His mercy rather than try to mount a good defense for my transgressions – thus the fear and trembling.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“rather than try to mount a good defense for my transgressions ”
I have read Egyptian Book of the Dead and it is most interesting that this is exactly what the traveler did as he moved from station to station of gods and spirits in the underworld to argue his worthiness before Creator. The effort so difficult that few made it to the final door . They did believe there would be judgment which was a dynamic to their moral code.
Beyond probably learning the language, I have often wondered if the first 12 years of Jesus’s life in Egypt influenced his thinking even slightly but naturally he would be of the Hebrew tradition. It would make a great study but I think an effort to draw parallels would be riddled with too much speculation to be credible except for the congruency of final judgment.
LikeLike
A slight correction Carl. Christ only spent a short time in Egypt – until Joseph found it safe for the family to return to Nazareth – maybe 1 or 2 years at most. So He was raised in Nazareth and walked to Bethlehem for the census. When He was 12, we get the account of His arguing with the Rabbi’s in the Temple at Jerusalem which happened on the return from the census.
LikeLike
Sorry correction on my part; the census took them to Bethlehem and it was a Jewish Festival that took them to Jerusalem – but the Egypt played only a short passing role in the upbringing of Christ unless that is where He went from age 12 to 30 when we see Him again.
LikeLike
Interestingly, we don’t get as clear a chronology of this as we tend to think. Luke mentions no flight into Egypt. Matthew says it lasted until Herod died, which could have been four or five years, depending on what date one takes for Herod’s demise.
LikeLike
Indeed. Luke even says that they went straight back to Nazareth – nothing in Mark or John.
Apparently the writers, the Apostles who recounted these stories, including the Mother of Jesus, did not seem to think this was all that important – same as the life of Christ from age 12 until his public life.
My only thought is that Christ would have been too young and too much a Jew to have been influenced by Egyptian culture.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Indeed, and we should note that there was a large Jewish population in eastern Egypt and Alexandria, so they would most probably lived in a Jewish community.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think that is very likely.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I cannot presume which way my case will go.
I thought all cathols go to heaven.
That’s sad, because the saved are sure of their salvation..
LikeLike
Such presumption is assurance enough that you have no idea about your salvation but you do presume that which is only known to God alone.
LikeLiked by 1 person
jUST SO HAPPENS I KNOW GOD PERSONALLY
LikeLike
So did the apostles, Bosco and they worked our their salvation with fear and trembling anyway.
LikeLiked by 1 person
On this one, Bosco is always vague. St Paul, who also knew God personally, said we were to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. If the spirit Bosco met is saying otherwise, I wonder, not for the first time, where this spirit came from? There are many in this world, and not all are from God, though all claim it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, there seems a certain gnostic spirit that tempts their pride. Only they know they are saved and those who are not or when the end is coming, the meaning of scripture etc.
It is as old as the serpent in the garden, isn’t it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is, indeed. It is usually to be recognised by the over-emphasis (present in Bosco in spades) on the Spirit and the denial of the flesh.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Indeed, along with a healthy dose of “I have become like God, knowing good and evil.” So what these types are really saying is that they have no use of God since their ‘new spirit’ makes them gods. I think he would have been better off with his old spirit – as he the new one is broken and feeds upon lie after lie.
LikeLiked by 1 person
He worries me. I sense in him a desire for God, and I hope the Spirit in him is of God, but there is zero sign of that, alas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do hope the same, C. The problem is that he does not feel that he has need of learning anything as the spirit in him has taught him all truth and all knowledge that he needs. So right from the start there is a wall that we run into before we can begin to have a dialogue of sorts. Only Christ can modify this mindset I’m afraid – so our prayers should be for such an intervention by Our Lord for poor brother Bosco.
LikeLike
Mine are there, as I am sure your own are. Nowhere in Scripture does Jesus say He will send a Spirit and you will be saved at once. As so often, Bosco reads what he thinks is there. Personal infallibility is a terrible thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amen. I pray that we are not judged by what we deserve but by how much Christ loved us. That is the hope of Christianity in my mind but without being God, I do not know how this will play out for me or anyone else.
LikeLike
We can know only one thing, I think, which is that He loved us enough to pay the price we should otherwise have had to pay; how and why He did this for such as we are is the miracle; we can but bow our heads and kneel to receive Him, in our hearts, by faith, with thanksgiving.
LikeLike
Amen, my friend and I look forward to doing that on Christmas morning once again.
LikeLike
Indeed, my friend, and we now approach the last steps of this Advent, and await, in awe and wonder, the miracle.
LikeLike
May God bless you and yours this Christmas C and all the rest of the good people that crawl through these pages of posts and comments.
Do give Jess a special message of love from me this Christmas. We do miss her and yet we rejoice with her in her new vocation.
LikeLike
And you, too my friend. I shall pass on your message of love – and wish you and your family all the best for Christmas.
LikeLike
Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
hE GAVE ME A NEW SPIRIT THAT KMOWS HIM.
LikeLike
I do not doubt there is a spirit in you, Bosco. What worries me is its addiction to falsehoods.
LikeLike
As usual when it comes to the Church founded by Christ, you are wrong. No Pope has ever said all Catholics go to heaven. As usual, I challenge you to find a declaration to the opposite.
LikeLike
What I meant there is characters and stories of A & E in OT et al are allegorical and metaphor. I think ancient Hebrews saw them that way to as opposed to modern literalist interpretations. A & E are the embodiments of all as it is humankind who kicked God out of the Garden not vice versa. We need Christ to restore the Garden’s harmony. Just don;t like term Original Sin. Perhaps universal human condition better than term Original Sin. Suppose it really does not matter what term or mythological story used as long as we get the point.
I am responsible for my own salvation (but should give testimony) . Besides I was not in the Garden eating apples. I have witnesses that I was eating hot dogs instead at Yankee Stadium in New York watching the baseball game.
LikeLike
A strange way to think of the story of the Garden of Eden, Carl . . . nobody can kick God out. But He certainly can send us out to live a life in the world where, though we still must rely on His Divine power for our existence, we now must work by the sweat of our brow, suffer pain and loss as well as death. That is the human condition since Adam. Prior to our fall precipitated by our pride, God provided for every need without our need for participation. Now we are sentenced to a participation – which one another but mostly in union with the Grace with which God won for us by His death on the Cross.
LikeLike
Solid thinking. Thanks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad it was an acceptable reply, my friend.
LikeLiked by 1 person
good brother Carl goes by saved by the blood. Cathols go by, heck I don’t know what they go by. Membeship in the CC maybe?pat each other on the back. catholics consider prots as cannon fodder.
LikeLike
If one doesn’t know they are saved, guess what.
the holy spirit isn’t the author of confusion. Paul says work out your salvation. One must be saved in order to work on it. That means to lend ones self more to Christ than to the old man. Its hard though. Try to turn the other cheek. Nowhere in the NT does it infer to work on being saved. The unsaved have all kinds of weird ideas of what it means to be saved. Then, if someone says they are saved, the unsaved pounce on them with both feet. After they finish rending the saved, they go kiss the mans ring with the pine cone staff and lick the foot of Jupiter then defend the ravenous wolves that inhabit the Vatican. Even the Holy Father is sick of the clergy. What does that tell you?
LikeLike
What do you think it means to ‘work out your salvation in fear and trembling’? It means what you say here it does not, which it to ‘work on being saved’. This seems a real problem for you Bosco. You believe something, the Bible does not agree with you, so you tell us the Bible means something no one in two thousand years has said it means.
As usual, you exaggerate. The Pope was telling the Curia off – oddly, this is not the whole of the clergy.
Can you see why we wonder about your Spirit?
LikeLike
Good brother Paul would say that. fear and trembling. he was lucky to get saved. he knew what he was. A murderer of Christians. I don’t have fear and trembling. My Lord is my shepherd, I fear no evil. He restoreth my soul.
LikeLike
I do fear him that can destroy my body and soul in hell. That’s why I don’t follow costumes or bow befor graven images.
LikeLike
And yet you are not a member of the one Church we know Jesus founded.
LikeLike
Paul said all who follow Christ should work out their salvation in fear and trembling; were I you, I’d think on that one a bit more.
LikeLike
VATICAN CITY (AP) — To the Catholic Church’s “seven deadly sins,” Pope Francis has added the “15 ailments of the Curia.”
Francis issued a blistering indictment of the Vatican bureaucracy Monday, accusing the cardinals, bishops and priests who serve him of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth, of living “hypocritical” double lives and forgetting that they’re supposed to be joyful men of God.
LikeLike
That’s because they are not men of god.
LikeLike
That is because they are sinners – you know, those people Jesus died to save?
LikeLike
They aren’t sinners….theyare a little Christs. the catholic priest stands in for Christ. he acts in Christs place.
LikeLike
Which is why they should stand in great fear; to those to whom much was given, much will be demanded.
LikeLike
Are they sinner? What is a sinner doing in a costume that infers the wearer is a holyman? Why do these sinners walk in parades with their hands folded in prayer? If they all are sinners, why do you belive the claims these sinners made about their religion? These sinners told you to do this and that to be saved. But they are sinners, and not to be believed.Why would anyone eat a cracker out of the hand of a sinner?
LikeLike
Do re-read the first letter of John. Anyone who says he is not a sinner does not have the truth in him. We are all sinners, Bosco. The reason we believe is that this was the church founded by Jesus – the only one he did.
If you are not a sinner, then according to the Bible, you are telling lies.
LikeLike
I need to stop pointing at others shortcomings, because mine are usually greater.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Have a merry Christmas everyone.
LikeLike
You, too, Bosco.
LikeLike
Joy to you and good brother Servus. I think of you two often. May your solstice be a joyous one. I was always deep into christams. But it is a pagan solstice holiday. But I don’t care, because it brings Christ into rememberance
LikeLike
Even though xmas is a pagan holiday , I have pics of my house celebrating Nimrods holy day. They will be on my bozoboy87 site. Im sad that we celebrate satan. But what can I do about it?
LikeLike
We don’t Bosco – we celebrate the coming into this world of sin of Christ Our Saviour, and His Church sanctified what was once pagan – as it does with each one of us unworthy sinners.
Happy Christmas to you and yours Bosco.
LikeLike
Yes, the Church, as so often, took over what was pagan and sanctified it through Christ Our Lord; is that not what the Church is for, Bosco?
May the joy of the Christ child fill your heart this day, and every day.
LikeLike