the reversal
Happy New Year!
With this fresh start comes opportunities for new beginnings. As many may know, I’ve gone back to grad school to earn my Masters in Theology. Much to my delight, instead of being greeted with what I thought would be akin to the “bricks and mortar” of the Church-- all that I have read and studied (even the thickest of doctrines) have seemed more like gilded angel wings, taking me closer to the gates of heaven and deeper into the heart of God. With my mind and soul flooded with such beautiful teaching came the inspiration for a series I am calling, “What Every Christian Should Know”.
I hope you will follow along and be inspired, as I have been, by the breath of God, continuing to breath life into human souls--His Holy Church.
the reversal:
The Antitype has arrived. The world is unwinding, in full-swing reverse. Ground zero is the birth of Christ. With this we roll back to the very beginning. Goodness has now overpowered evil. Light has been born and no amount of darkness can extinguish its brightness. The wrong that Adam and Eve set into motion One Man has made right. And not just restored to its original “Garden of Eden” pristine order, but astonishingly, made even better, better than if sin had never entered into our world. With Jesus' radical rectification of sin comes the super-charged, dynamite gift of the Holy Spirit and with Him... the power to overcome sin in our own lives.
We see in the life of Jesus goodness at an eradicative level. Such profuse goodness pours forth from Him. What once caused uncleanliness by the mere touch is made clean, whole, and restored by His touch: the leper is made clean, the issue of blood evaporates, the dead are made alive, even the wind and the waves retreat at the sound of His voice.
No amount of evil can contaminate His goodness: The Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:1-20).
No amount of hatred can tarnish His love: Forgiveness spoken from the cross (Luke 23:34).
No amount of shame can cause Him to blush or turn away: The woman caught in the very act of adultery (John 8:1-11).
Each and every time we receive the Eucharist* and unite ourselves with Him we are receiving this Goodness into our very being in order for us to be able to encounter and combat the same sin, shame and sickness in this world and restore and heal it with His All-Powerful Love.
St. Augustine states: “In the Eucharist Christ makes us Christ.”
Got sin? Boldly take it and nail it to the cross. Your worst cannot outdo His Goodness.
Need Power? Strength? Love? Go to Mass and receive what He came to give.
“You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4
Dear Lord,
Come! Help me to be an overcomer. Please unite my heart, soul, mind and will to Yours so that I may too be a powerful source of Goodness in this fallen world.
I ask this in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
*Want to read more about what happens to us in the Mass? Click here.
Want to read even more great stuff? Click here.
