The Holy Spirit inspired our blog.
Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Extraordinary Time
Brothers and sisters,
I could not talk to you as spiritual people,
but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ.
I fed you milk, not solid food,
because you were unable to take it.
Indeed, you are still not able, even now,
for you are still of the flesh.
While there is jealousy and rivalry among you,
are you not of the flesh, and walking
according to the manner of man?
Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another,
“I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely men?
What is Apollos, after all, and what is Paul?
Ministers through whom you became believers,
just as the Lord assigned each one.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.
Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything,
but only God, who causes the growth.
He who plants and he who waters are one,
and each will receive wages in proportion to his labor.
For we are God’s co-workers;
you are God’s field, God’s building. Emphasis mine 1 COR 3:1-9
At times in my life, I credited others with my growth in God. This is wrong. As Paul states, our Blog may plant and water, but it’s God that causes Growth.
That is exactly how it should be because if I were to cause growth, I would be competing with God, and I would only lose.
Picking this quote has made me reconsider what the purpose of our blogs is and has been.
To sum up our thoughts quickly, we are trying to write a blog each week that gets you thinking about your relationship with God and how you can strengthen it.
Writing this Blog with the intention of encouraging you to grow in your relationship with God has been a Joy for me.
Like everything else I have experienced when I do the will of my Father. I believe I get more out of it than the people I am working with: you, the reader, the wonderful men in the Cumberland County Jail, the Veterans at the Veterans’ home, etc.
At times it doesn’t seem fair.
I’m trying to give of myself and get no reward, and bang, I come out filled with Joy, which, for me, is a much greater reward than one would expect.
When we write a blog on Monday, we spend the week thinking about what we have written and the changes that need to be made to strengthen it. This time is spent in quiet contemplation with the Holy Spirit as I walk or just sit in front of the computer and let the Holy Spirit talk to me.
Because I am open to quiet times—actually, I love quiet times—I think that this is when God causes growth within me.
The word growth is scary for me because it suggests competition against others, and that is definitely NOT true. Each of us is on a path to find and build a Loving Relationship with God. Each will take a different route. No one route is the only route. I believe almost all of our readers are trying to live in the “Spirit World,” which takes us out of the “world,” even if it’s only for a few minutes. All of us have to start somewhere.
Recognize that People you meet may be planters or waterers, but GOD CAUSES THE GROWTH.
Sidebar:
In a prior Blog, I believe in 2022, we quoted Julian of Norwich, a Mystic who, in 1373, wrote of the sixteen revelations she received and her reflections on Love.
Wow, talk about God working in this blog. For the past weeks, we have been discussing God’s Love and Purification.
Julian confesses
The truth is, I did not see any sin. I believe that sin has no substance, not a particle of being, and cannot be detected at all except by the pain it causes. It is only the pain that has substance for a while, and it serves to purify us and, make us know ourselves and ask for mercy. Emphasis mine
Mirabai Starr, a teacher for Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) 8/14/24 clarifies where Julian located the impact of sin:
Julian informs us that the suffering we cause ourselves through our acts of greed and unconsciousness is the only punishment we endure. God, who is All-Love, is “incapable of wrath.” And so it is a complete waste of time, Julian realized, to wallow in guilt. The truly humble thing to do when we have stumbled is to hoist ourselves to our feet as swiftly as we can and rush into the arms of God where we will remember who we really are.
I have read Julian’s book, The Showings of Julian of Norwich, by Mirabai Starr. I wish I could say I understood everything I read, but I can’t. Julian got me thinking, which is what we were talking about earlier in our blog.
Thinking, then, is spending quality time with God, and my thinking has revolved around the phrase I first heard from Monsignor Henchal: the Love of God is OUTRAGEOUS LOVE.
God, who is All-Love, is “incapable of wrath.”
We know many of you will say that the word wrath is used two hundred and six times in the Old Testament and thirty times in the New Testament, in the New American Bible Revised Edition 2016.
But
God, who is all Love, will allow wrath to occur when it is needed to get us back on track.
The Jewish people were slaughtered by the Babylonians because they refused to change and worship God instead of false gods. But when you read Ez 9: 1–7, 10, 18-22, Wednesday’s 8/14/24 first reading,
Then he called to the man dressed in linen
with the writer’s case at his waist, saying to him:
Pass through the city, through Jerusalem,
and mark a “Thau” on the foreheads of those who moan and groan
over all the abominations that are practiced within it.
To the others I heard the LORD say:
Pass through the city after him and strike!
Do not look on them with pity nor show any mercy!
Emphasis mine
According to Tim Gray 8/14/24, the “Thau,” (ת) the last letter of the Jewish Alphabet, is in the shape of a Cross.
Very much the same is said in the New Testament, but the wrath is ALLOWED to bring you back to Them.
Come on, Fred, you can’t prove this,
After being exiled for seventy years, God brought the Jewish people back to Jerusalem. This is the second exodus caused by the sin of worshiping foreign gods, the baals, and that worship of false gods stopped when the Jewish people returned to rebuild Jerusalem.
Jesus condemned the Scribes and Pharisees for practicing the letter of the law and forgetting Judgement, Mercy, and Fidelity. Remember, Jesus said,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. [But] these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Mt 23:23
Don’t for a minute believe that God is incapable of ALLOWING Wrath and that Wrath won’t occur. God did not cause Wrath; the cause is our sin!
The Jews were wiped out, EXCEPT those who who moan and groan
over all the abominations that are practiced within it.
Could God have stopped the Babylonian invasion?
Yes! Yes, He could! Read the book of Jonah.
A different example you may not have heard or read.
If the Jewish leaders and people had a complete change of Heart.
An example of this is in 2 Kings 7: 1-20.
Because the reading is long, we will summarize the chapter:
Jerusalem is under siege, and the people are starving. Canabolism is being practiced.
Elisha prophesizes that tomorrow, a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel (cheap).
Four Lepers said, So come, let us desert to the camp of the Arameans. If they let us live, we live; if they kill us, we die.
The Lord had caused the army of the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses, the sound of a large army,
Then in the twilight they had fled, abandoning their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, the whole camp just as it was, and fleeing for their lives.
The four Lepers found the camp empty and fully provisioned and went to tell the people in Jerusalem what they found. We pray you will read the entire chapter because now it becomes very interesting, but we have a question – how would you react to the news from the four lepers?
Remember:
Elisha prophesizes that tomorrow, a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel,
The Jewish people went out and plundered the Aramean camp.
And
Then a seah of fine flour sold for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.
The Jewish leaders and people, except for a remnant, refused to change, and God Allowed them to be massacred by the Babylonians.
Picture:
A picture is of a surfside swing in Isla Verde Beach in Puerto Rico. Looked very inviting for a meditation moment. Picture by Jerry Torres
Please keep Snapping!
If you want a copy of the prayers we discussed, email me.
fprince101@gmail.com
Remember, if you want to submit a picture, no people, please, because we have to get permission from that person to use their photograph.
