Since the Enlightenment, there has been a tendency in the West to view the world through materialist spectacles. The rarity of (recorded) miracles preserves the concept: if they were everyday occurrences, they would not be miraculous. It was not always so. The Eden story in Genesis 1 to 3 presents humans living on the “cosmic mountain”, mingling with supernatural beings. Eve’s conversation with the Serpent is presented as a normal event because the cosmic mountain is the seat of God’s Council on earth: the conversations John the Revelator has with the angels in God’s heavenly throne-room are analogous.
The Fall leads to exile of humans from the cosmic mountain. Instead of extended sacred space to cover the whole earth, divine space must be carefully protected by ritual purity laws at a site of God’s choosing. Jerusalem eventually becomes the new cosmic mountain and the decoration of the Temple, especially in Ezekiel’s vision, evokes the Garden. The appearance of divine beings is now much rarer: humans do not freely mingle with them.
The coming of Jesus changes this state of affairs. As God incarnate, His body is a Temple, and He moves freely among the people. Rather than being separated from Him by priests and ritual purity laws, they can touch Him. Instead of destroying the sacred space, as would happen with defilement of the Jerusalem Temple, His holiness makes them clean. This is God doing a new thing. The coming of Jesus represents a beginning to the restoration of Eden. Upon His resurrection, He gives His Spirit to His followers, and they become individually and corporately a temple of God: moveable Edens with a mission to extend Jesus’ ministry to the world till it returns to Jerusalem and Israel when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
This restoration is accompanied by an increase in supernatural events, as explained by the Apostle Peter in his commentary on the prophet Joel in Acts 2. God is showing signs and wonders on the earth as a witness to the truth of Jesus’ claims and as an expression of what His Kingdom is like. In a world run by God, rather than Satan or sinful man, there is life and health and happiness.
But the enemy also can perform signs and wonders. He is no match for God, but his trickery can affect the unwary, especially those not loyal to YHWH. The spread of false religions and cults since the coming of Christ is testimony to the rebellion of both spirits and men. The Apostle Paul tells us that these false signs will intensify close to the return of Christ, when they accompany the revelation of the Man of Sin, who will sit in the Temple of God and usurp God’s place.
It is only after the return of Christ and the destruction of evil that we see the two worlds fully recombined in a new Eden that covers the earth. The wicked are confined to the lake of everlasting fire, and the righteous live in glorious resurrection bodies, living with YHWH, unhurt by elements of the supernatural and natural order.
All Along the Watchtower 
In the Catholic view of the subject at hand; God ‘taberbacled’ or ‘tented’ with with the Jews from the time of the ouster of Adam and Eve from Eden but not in a material way; revealing more and more about Himself through His appointed representatives. We see developed the overwhelming Holiness of God, the mere sight of Him which could take the life of sinful man. The Ark of the Covenant became a dwelling place for God amongst the Jews; replete with the Mercy seat and eventually carrying within it the ‘manna’ (the what is it?} from Heaven, the Laws given by God to Moses, and the Staff of Moses ~ the Bread from Heaven, the Word of God, and the Staff of the Ruler (shepherd) that is appointed as the Man of God to lead the people.
This Ark was placed in the Temple once it was built and was seen as the dwelling place of God and only those who were chosen could enter in. Before it was a table with the Bread of Presence (continually replenished) and the Menorah or Light of the Spirit of God that was always kept burning. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit were thus symbolized even before they were recognized by the people. Christ brought the Revelation to a close by His Incarnation.
In Christ’s time we had both the Temple (for the Sacrifice) and the development of the synagogue where the Word or God was read, the people prayed and they studied and learned the Torah and the Traditions taught by the earlier Rabinic scholars. After Christ, the fulfillment of the Worship that God desired was established within the corporate Church that He seeded with His Apostles to carry and continue the Revelation that Christ Himself revealed to them and carry it to the entire world.
And this is why, I am others like me bang on about abuses in our Catholic liturgy that now seem to want to disguise or eliminate that which shows clearly this entire development and final Revelation by Christ: our Sanctuary (idea of a Holy space not to be profaned), our combining of the Word of God liturgy (the synagogue) and the Temple (the place of sacrifice ~ once bloody but now unbloody). The liturgy combines the history of Revelation with its now revealed meaning made known by Christ Incarnate. And the Catholic thinks, as far as miracles are concerned, we need not look any further than the Catholic Mass where, after praising and singing and studying as in the synagogue, the High Priest (Christ Himself) is Present (being represented by the priest) and intercedes for us and for our sins, then re-presents the Sacrifice in an unbloody manner and calls on His Spirit to make the Glorified Christ present in the Bread of the Presence at the Mass and in the Wine of His Blood so that the people may once again have Christ so close to them that He becomes part of them in the eating and drinking of His Body and Blood.
I see in Revelation much liturgical language being used. It seems like you hint at it but never state it.
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My thinking is still developing on some things. I use a philosophical mode of thinking when it gets to the point of relating what I know in the abstract to what I should do or what I need in the here and now, and that is what I am working through at the moment.
To put things in more specific language: yes, I agree with you that Revelation uses liturgical language that draws on OT cultic practice but travels through the intertestamental thinking to make NT statements. Therefore, unlike many Protestants, I am completely fine with the Catholic Mass, because I believe it is in its seed what the Early Church did. What the Early Church did was inject the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth into the kind of thinking found, for example, among the group at Qumran.
However, the issue for me is how that translates into where the Church is today. The fact that the Early Church did something does not necessarily indicate that we have to do things that way, and I am not sure that the kind of things we find in specific communities were universal – in fact we know there were disputes about a lot things, such as the date of Easter. When it comes to Church stuff, my thinking is influenced in part by “So you don’t want to go to church anymore?” and another book I gave away some time ago on the use of the gifts in church.
That being said, my focus in this post is on the supernatural because I think we are moving into a phase now where we will see increased activity. The political stuff we discuss regularly here and at NEO, including the re-election of Erdogan in Turkey, is telling me greater things are going to take place.
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Absolutely, and I am not refuting that at all. In fact it is all part of the same thing; the politicalization of the Church and the despiritualization of the Church is a pronounced theme in this world no matter what denomination Christian you are. I only think that the Catholic Church is the most direct and obvious example of it because of its worldwide membership and influence. People look to the Catholic Church as a moral frame of reference and use it to their political advantage quite often if we let it. And recently we have not been letting them use it we are joining forces with them (the UN and others) to give them spiritual credibility. So as the liturgy goes, so goes the spirituality . . . and our liturgy is getting more political (thus more profane) since Vatican II and now it is so with unprecedented speed under Bergoglio.
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Definitely, whatever disagreements I have with the Magisterium over certain matters, the profanation of your liturgy is a sign to me of the building apostasy. Whether you will eventually have to go underground with a true Pope in hiding is anyone’s guess. Not that I wish BXVI to go, but what happens when he does will be critical and instructive.
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It sure will. As we also need to keep our eyes open if Bergoglio resigns before the passing BXVI. Then we have the spectacle of 3 living Popes??? I don’t know how God will sort it out though He sorted our other weird happenings in the past; like when we had 3 claimants for Peter’s Chair. They eventually declared all three anti-popes and elected a new one. But the times they are a changin’. 🙂
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Perilous times indeed.
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Amen to that. Here is an example. A friend sent this to me. He was sent this letter from AirBnb. The liberals are really pushing the limits.
“The US Supreme Court decided to uphold the travel ban. We are profoundly disappointed by the Court’s decision. The travel ban is a policy that goes against our mission and values — to restrict travel based on a person’s nationality or religion is wrong.
And while this news is a setback, we will continue the fight with organizations that are helping those impacted. Airbnb will be matching donations to the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) up to a total of $150,000 through September 30, 2018 to support their work advocating for systemic change and legal pathways for those affected by the travel ban. If you’d like to join us, you can donate here.
We believe that travel is a transformative and powerful experience and that building bridges between cultures and communities creates a more innovative, collaborative and inspired world. At Airbnb, we are so grateful to our community who will continue to open doors around the world so that together, we can travel forward.
Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk
Sent with ♥ from
Airbnb, Inc.
888 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103”
So what are they going to do? Are they going up against the highest court of the land and are they going to try to break the law willfully or create havoc on the streets or even violence? I’m not sure what they are going to use the donations for but it is very troubling.
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Yes, disturbing. I am so sick. It’s like the Serpent is coiled over everything, trying to constrict us, trying to strangle us. It’s suffocating. I feel like I can’t trust anyone anymore.
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Indeed, satan has been loosed it seems.
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