Thursday, November 15, 2012

God is Love

God’s Love and Ours

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:7-21 NIV)

Colours of Love
God's Word
Given Birth
      Hope
    
          Green of our Earth          
Purple Passion                
                        Royal Aura 
Emanation Force
     
 Warm Glow Warm
               Flush
                    Pink-blush
             L O V E
      Joy-Hot
Pure Spirit
      Palpating Wonder
           Glory-inspiring Grandeur
                        Emanating forth
              
 Purple Passion      Royal AuraGod's Word
Given Birth
Green          the Hope of the Earth.


(from The Beholden finalist manuscript in the Rielo World Poetry Prize 2001 by Mary Angela Nangini)



Monday, November 12, 2012

God is Truth



215   "The sum of your word is truth; and every one of your righteous ordinances endures forever." "And now, O LORD God, you are God, and your words are true"; this is why God's promises always come true. God is Truth itself, whose words cannot deceive. This is why one can abandon oneself in full trust to the truth and faithfulness of his word in all things. The beginning of sin and of man's fall was due to a lie of the tempter who induced doubt of God's word, kindness and faithfulness.
216     God's truth is his wisdom, which commands the whole created order and governs the world. God, who alone made heaven and earth, can alone impart true knowledge of every created thing in relation to himself.
217     God is also truthful when he reveals himself — the teaching that comes from God is "true instruction". When he sends his Son into the world it will be "to bear witness to the truth": "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true." (Catechism of the Catholic Church)


truth has no variables
but multipliers of itself

there is but One Truth
all else exemplifies this
or betrays itself

true revelation
does not contradict authors:
divine or human




Thursday, November 01, 2012

All Souls Day: Saints on the Way

The Monk who could see demons: (from website link below)
Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis says: "What causes spiritual despair? First, relentless attacks from the devil. The devil attacks the one struggling to grow in Christ. The devil doesn't bother with the casual Christian or the habitually immoral person -- they do not need the devil to attack and destroy them, they are self-destructive. The devil attacks the committed Christian.
A priest once shared this story with me:
It seems that a certain monk in a monastery had an ability to see demons attacking people. And so one day, the abbot of his monastery sent him to the nearby city to see how many demons were there. So, the monk ventured down the road from the monastery towards the city. It was a large city, filled with all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. And as he journeyed through the city, he looked and he looked and he saw no demons. He was very puzzled by this. All these people, and yet no demons attacking them. Finally, he saw one demon laying under the shade of a tree, and the demon was sleeping. The monk headed back towards the monastery. And as he approached the monastery, he saw legions and legions of demons, climbing up the monastery walls, tearing at the gates, sitting in the bell tower of the church, and going in and out of the windows of the cells where the monks lived. The monk reported to the Abbot, "I went to the city where there are many people and I saw only one demon and he was sleeping. Why at this monastery, where we are but a few monks, why are there so many demons all around us?" The Abbot answered, "My son, you see in the city, people are so busy, there lives are filled with things, they succumb to temptations constantly, they have squeezed God out of their lives, there is no work for the demons to do. So they leave the people alone. But here in the monastery, where we try to pray constantly, where we try to rejoice in the things of God constantly, this is where they are at work constantly!"
Found at: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles7/AkrotirianakisTeresa.php

Reflection poem:

Wiseacre

If only we knew
....what we know
........when we would

We wouldn't.

But....
......we don't

So we do.

Then ....
.......we know

And wish we didn't.