HE IS GOD

HE IS GOD

God is God. He is the I am, and He alone is God. He created all that exist, visible and invisible, and through the mystery of the Holy Trinity or Blessed Trinity, He revealed Himself to mankind as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. He is God and not a god, our King and not our servant. He is love personified as love is His nature, and He love us so much that He gave us a little of Himself, our soul, and the reason we are not animals or plants, but kings of the earth. He is our Creator and our Father, and father is never a servant to his children, not even in our wicked world. But gradually, gradually, we have turned the table around, and the servants have become masters in the kingdom of the king. How? Because the king, out of love for His sick and dying servants, took on the image of a servant for the sake of the health and life of the servants. And for this, we have turned Him into a slave; we have forgotten who He is and what we are, we now ill treat Him and have become His commanders. We have reduced Him to an idol; a god, incarnate to do our will.

At creation, we have one human family on earth; the household of Adam and Eve. And at a point in time, the evil one, Lucifer instigated Adam to disobey God, and   in consequence of the sin of Adam, man became naked, and ran from God in shame. Discord was sown between man and God by Lucifer, and there came confusion, regret and strife in the home of Adam, and disorder on earth. Creation rebelled against Adam, and the household of Abel rebelled against the descendants of Cain; light against darkness. And when darkness almost succeeded in covering the whole earth because of the sin of man, God in His mightiness used one of the elements of nature, water, to destroy the inhabitants of the earth, leaving only Noah (of the house of Abel) and his household. After a period of time, mankind again fell into sin and sinfulness, but God in His merciful love decided not to destroy humanity again. Instead, He chose to become a citizen of planet earth so that He could teach us how-to live-in love on earth in order to attain heaven.

Thus, God took on the image of man in Jesus the Christ. And for thirty-three years, God was in exile on earth, living among miserable and wicked souls with the exception of a few. He took on our humanity and became man in everything but sin. And for three years, Jesus laboured day and night, teaching us the ways of God so that we might make paradise again. He walked the earth, teaching and doing good, and eventually, despite His goodness and mercy, we killed Him on a Cross on top of a hill for a crime He did not commit. We crucified Him on a mountain so that the whole of creation may see how wicked we are, and how good He is to have allowed us to do so. And like our fathers who connived to kill Jesus for His goodness and mercy, we have also chosen to continue to ridicule Him in His sacrament of love.

Before His death, Jesus gave us a Religion; that we love God above all things and our neighbour as He has loved us, and He told us that this is the only way to life eternal. He gave us the Sacraments to help us in our journey through life to eternity and He gave us a Family (The Church), as our salt and light, to sweeten the bitterness of life and to ward off the darkness of sin. He gave us Shepherds as His Continuators to guide our footsteps so that we may not go astray, the Cross as our weapon and defense and Prayer for our strength and solace. On the day before He was crucified, He gave us the Blessed Sacrament; Himself, under the appearance of bread and wine as food for our souls so that He may always be with us and we with Him till the end of time. This was His Testament for mankind.

Before we became civilized, we were generous enough to acknowledge Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament as God and in His Holy Presence in the Tabernacle on The Sanctuary of His House. We may lock the doors of the Church and forget to light a light to announce His presence, but at least He was there on His Throne in His House. But in our selfish wisdom and mundane human civilization, we woke up one day to realize that it is better for practical purposes and for our human convenience that the Church should remain under lock and key all day, except during the celebration of Mass. And furthermore, that shrines be created for the Blessed Sacrament, so that those who wish to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament could do so quietly and privately without making a nuisance of themselves to the inconvenience and annoyance of the Shepherd. 

And so, the Master and King was taken from the Throne of His Sanctuary to the Side of the Church Building; from the Holy of Holies to the Back of the Church, Besides the Generator House or Behind the Staircase. Is He still in the Sanctuary, I do not know because all the doors are locked, and it is only the Angels that can now adore their Lord in His Sanctuary if He is there at all. But if we accept that the Church Building is the house of God, and the Sanctuary the Throne of Grace, how come we now deny the people the sentiments and access to their King on His Throne in His House except at Mass. We started by moving the Tabernacle from the middle of the Sanctuary to the side of the Sanctuary, and eventually to a shrine behind or besides the church building, and to justify our wickedness, we say it is for security reasons. Imagine the effrontery.

We took the Lord and Master from His Throne in His Palace in His Kingdom to a side room, for our convenience, and we pretend that all is well with us. Even the Philistines had more respect for the Covenant Box. But is a King not meant to be on His Throne in his Palace to attend to his people, and the people, individually or collectively, welcomed to be in the presence of their King on his Throne in the Sanctuary of his House. Is Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament not our Lord, God and Kin? Is Jesus in the Tabernacle perhaps handicapped and different from Jesus in the Monstrance? I ask because I cannot fathom the reason for our effrontery and insensitivity to God made man in the Blessed Sacrament. Most worrisome is the fact that some of our Chapels are at best suitable as storage for buckets and brooms, for old bulletins and brochures, not even for the security guard. But the Lord is there, and with a heavy heart, I once again remember the reason for the Manger in Bethlehem. 

But suddenly, we have again woken up to realize that our ‘Adoration Ministries’ cannot conveniently take place in the small prisons of love, and so what do we do. On certain days and times, with special garments and a liturgy that smacks of idolatry, we pick the Lord from His shrine, back to the Altar in His Church or our Church Hall, and then attempt to conjure Him to do our will as if He is one of our many gods. Has He perhaps changed from the God of Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to become our puppet or an idol at our beck and call? Do we really believe that Jesus is really and wholly present in the Blessed Sacrament, and that the Blessed Sacrament is Jesus Himself? Do you remember Peter’s reaction when Jesus attempted to wash his feet on Holy Thursday, and the famous statement of the Centurion: Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.

How dare we continue to mock our Saviour and Redeemer, to treat Jesus with so much familiarity and disrespect because of His love for us? Have we forgotten that in the Eucharist, Calvary is being relived with all its horror, or can we perhaps separate the Eucharist from the Cross to justify our affront and insensibility? Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is God, and who, in His merciful love, in order to accommodate our human frailty, made Himself available to us in the simple elements of Bread and Wine, but He remain God. Is it that we doubt His Godliness in the Blessed Sacrament or that we are blinded by our zeal to convince others that He is God and so we throw caution to the winds? Jesus said He is the living bread which came down from heaven, and that if anyone eats of this bread, the person will live forever. This is promise of Jesus and not that He is our miracle making machine. 

Is the king’s messenger not supposed to deliver the message of the king and nothing else? How come we now treat Jesus with so much familiarity and disrespect in our Adorations that Lucifer and the whole of hell is appalled, but happy with our audacity and foolishness. Is it that we have forgotten that He is the one true God and not a god or that we do not care? Are we so blind and foolish that we are unable to realize that we are before the Almighty, a people before their God and sinners before their Saviour. Have we fallen so deep into the sleep of sin and sacrilege that we cannot even remember who He is and what we are before Him? That God does not exist for us but that we exist because He allows and as long as He allows. That He is not to do our will, but that we are to do His will, that He is not our messenger but our God and Master.

Jesus did not come to earth to do our will, but to teach us to do the will of God. And that is His assignment to His Continuators; to lead us on the earthly paths to paradise along the ways of the Cross, doing the will of God the father as taught by God the Son. He commanded that we love God above all things and our neighbour as He has loved us so that we may receive help and blessings from our father who is in heaven. Know therefore that it is our obedience and not our initiatives that initiate blessings and miracles from God, except we want to call Jesus a liar. To be true Apostles and Disciples of Christ, we must be true examples of the faithful and obedient servant and not of the disobedient. Can a servant be greater than his master in the business of the master? Jesus came to earth to prepare mankind for heaven, and this is the assignment of His Continuators, nothing else.

Jesus is the image of the unseen God, and in the Blessed Sacrament, He is truly God. He is and remains God no matter our disposition towards Him. But we can, at our peril push Him away or make Him withdraw from us when in our religion and worship, there is everything but God, and this is where we are. Jesus needs our love expressed in obedience to His commands, and not adorers who are rebels. He is the Doctor of Souls and not the people’s bank or embassy for all visas. He never promised material wealth to anybody, and He never presented Himself as a miracle worker but as Saviour. All His miracles are acts of mercy aimed at uplifting and saving faithful souls. Know that it is our disobedience that has locked up blessings and miracles from us and not the inadequacies of Jesus in His prison of love. He loves us so much and blesses us every day on His own account and out of love, but we cannot force or compel Him to do so. Why are we lying in His Holy Name, with His Holy Name and in His Holy Place?

Why are we misleading the poor people of God? They came seeking light and salvation, but we are giving them smoke and chimera, idolatrous practices that will be the envy of pagans and a joke before the court of Satan. Is it that we do not know what we are doing or we are in alliance with Lucifer? Jesus asked what it will profit us if we gain the whole world but lose our soul. Are we saving souls in these our ambitious enterprises? If adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the new ticket to paradise, then, let me adore Him in peace. But just as we have introduced horrible elements into the liturgy of the Mass, so we have turned Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament or the rite of Eucharistic Exposition and Adoration on its head. And painfully, we continue to deny the flock of Christ the promised Bread of Life, and of God, the love and affection of His people ransomed by the Precious Blood of the Lamb. Why? 

In our selfishness and pride, we have given Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament or Adoration/Benediction a new meaning. We have replaced the age long Apostolic gathering of the faithful before their God in peace and quiet with an orchestrated worship, devoid of all forms of holiness but to the envy of the pagan priests and the amusement of Lucifer. But are we doing same for money, for fame or just because others are doing it. The Master gave you one mission; to save souls, and so, I ask, is your Adoration jamboree saving the souls under your care. Do not deviate from your mission on account of your personal ambition, else you will be judged unfaithful. You have nothing to add to your dignity, but may diminish the light of Christ in you through cheap human popularity at the instigation of the evil one. You must not allow this, for a priest in darkness is ruin to souls, it is worse than an earthquake.

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