Sharing some correspondence pertinent to considerations of what God wills and what man wants and has wrought over the centuries including currently.
Dear C,
It is ironic that you mention the woman who is a "canonical virgin" and her associations with the diocese, and that you and many others there are aware of her status in the church as a second-only "consecrated virgin." Here again we have a situation of something that Jesus would find hypocritical in the pride that goes with being known and noted for her choosing to live. life celibate and dedicated to God, as well as "approved by the 'Church'" in religious ceremony in the Mass.
For it is God who consecrates, not the church nor a bishop. Jesus never spoke of nor taught of having bishops nor of humans consecrating people. Furthermore, He treasured hiddenness and personal relationships with God, such as His example of going off alone to pray to the Father--and such as women and men who would give themselves over to God alone and offer their total lives including choosing to not marry and not have sexual relations, as a private matter between the person and God.
I have written in the past in my blog about Who it is Who consecrates, and the One is God alone. That is why the recent canon laws for hermits and virgins and widows are antithetical and disturbing. The advertising of persons' (known, not anonymous) decisions made with God to live their lives for Him in certain ways instead of remaining preciously private between God and the soul, has led to pride and self-promotion as well as tempts more to the temporal church than the holiness of His real Presence in humble, hidden service--depending upon the private decisions made--that since earliest times were between the person and God and lived without note.
There were widows and virgins in the early Church--but not consecrated by titled humans (of which often noblemen were given title of Bishop based on birthright nobility, wealth, or inherited. Nor were there ritualistic services or Masses, no canon law, no regulations nor stipulations to supposedly make valid what is up to God alone to determine and consecrate. Additionally, God is the One Who involves Himself and meets with the person in the quiet and privacy of their abiding, God in the mind, heart, and soul, and the celibate, widow/widower, or hermit abiding in His Real Presence-- then to live out his or her life accordingly, without fanfare and reporting to His Real Presence Who also is the person's teacher most often in the Third Person of the Trinity.
This is yet another example and reason why I have rejected the temporal Catholic Church's handling of such matters and those in the Body making up increasing amounts of regulations and detritus in details actually beyond any legalisms that Christ Himself railed against when the Man God on earth. The situation of persons giving over themselves in deep and meaningful ways to God and foremost accepting a direct call from Almighty God to such ways of living their lives ought never to be thus antithetical to Christ's teachings and His Church as Christ taught and initially instituted. (I had to learn this reality through my being misled by that woman (someone who initiated contact with me saying she could help when in fact the only help ended up being my seeing how off-kilter all that she purports, as prior I knew nothing of (nor did Fr. F.) of any canon laws and the ensuing pleonasms regarding living one's life for God focused within a God-designated life (widow, virgin, widower, hermit) simple and known as far back as those lived and described in the Old Testament.
Just recently we have read in 1 Samuel how people were not satisfied with God being their Leader, Teacher, Ruler--their ALL. They wanted to organize and create stipulations and rules and rituals that a king/ruler would bring with his position. Samuel tried to warn them what would happen, but the people would not believe Samuel. So God allowed them what became an extremely flawed human due to the temptations that befall humans who take on what is God's.
Many people in the early church that Christ instituted lost its way, as well. Dissatisfied they became, as time passed, with the Holy Trinity as Teacher and Comforter, with weakening faith that Christ (Second Person specifically) as Head and Shepherd of the Body, and God the Father as Creator to anoint and consecrate and Be over All. They were not content with the design of apostles, with one being the leader (Peter), and others participating and going out to the whole world spreading the Good News of Christ the Son of God and Savior of us all and sharing His Teachings.
So in little time having passed, they organized, regulated, made up law after law with specifications and rituals, created positions with titles--so many that few if any of us could list out who all they are in what they built and called The Vatican and in what they called dioceses and then also archdioceses, and parishes, including, in time, a bevy of such made up positions called "canon lawyers" with the also-made-up 1752 canon laws and more in the queue. This and so much more under the umbrella of the Catholic Church, and depth of God's Law of Love nor absorb and embrace Christ's teachings--including that we are in Him and He is in us. We didn't just "do this in remembrance of Me" [Christ], we built and gilded and made bigger and more costly the grandiose places to gather to worship with one portion being the sharing of His Real Presence in the breaking of the bread (His Body) and drinking of the wine (His Blood).
So much more could be expressed and described, examples given. Would today's temporal Catholic Church exceed the Temples of Our Lord's time on earth? Do the positions fill and exceed those of the Scribes (canon lawyers), Pharisees, Sadducees, High Priests? Would Jesus be pleased, or would He drive out the bingo nights in which it is not just fun for little old ladies winning a candy bar but big money involved and breeding grounds for gambling addictions? Would He find pleasing those spending their lives adjudicating made-up laws, or those creating more regulations and stipulations for the silent, simple, slow, hidden life of a solitary who's calling is prayer and praise with and of His Real Presence: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit?
I realize that the woman now working for the diocese as a canon lawyer who recently was "consecrated" in a highly publicized "worship service" by a bishop to be a "consecrated virgin" by virtue of a fairly recent canon law--and most Catholics--cannot grasp this mess. Nor do they want to live a simple Christian life according to following Jesus and His teachings, and know in faith that HIs real Presence abides in them and us in His real Presence. Nor do most of us recognize that Jesus abhorred all the rules and laws and rituals that the Israelites had developed over the years, including their wanting a King to govern them.
And still they could not spiritually progress--many or most of them. So Jesus came to earth to teach a new way, a better way, to get the people back on track with God over all, Christ as Head, and those who follow Christ as the Body with Him as Head. The only new ritual or commemoration Jesus enacted written in scripture is that of breaking bread and sharing the cup of wine "in remembrance of Me," said Jesus. He gave us the Holy Spirit to teach us and speak to us and be with us on earth, yet people are not content and want to make their own laws and rituals and parish councils and build immense and costly buildings or renovate and decorate at great expense the ones they have.
They twist Scriptures to create more rules and traditions and guidelines, and to impart the notion that a thing called a bishop is the only one who consecrates, and that private vocations are no longer that but must be approved by those things called bishops or even cardinals in some cases. And the lead apostle became very powerful, unlike Peter, and lives in a huge palace called The Vatican and is called a pope in a "state" with various legal rights and its own government and laws.
All of that made up by humans and blindly followed by humans. Very sad and shameful when we lay it out in raw truth A "Mass" for the virgin, to boot, a huge reception, in the newspapers and on television, video on Youtube, "approved of" and "consecrated" by a human--and what is the point then? How far from the widow Anna in the temple day and night praying quietly, no fanfare--only humility and holiness of GOD ALMIGHTY.
Is God saying, "Let them learn the hard way?" We have taken that route as did the people in Samuel's time, and from then on until Jesus came to try to straighten them out. For those who see, see, and those who can hear will hear. But woe to many who do neither see nor hear, not with outer senses, nor inner. Jesus lays out what the Father desires; Jesus came and lived and died for our sins and to gain our salvation. His Living Word is available to read and ponder, to learn and live. The Living Word is given us in truth and faith, to not deviate from nor twist nor to add. The Holy Spirit is with us; angels surround us. We are in His Real Presence--the Holy Trinity--and His Real Presence is in us.
I will say per the selection from Isaiah and in another part, I came upon it after my husband had left me and our three little children. I was so upset and stunned, in shock and in pain emotionally--and of course physically with my back injury freshly meted out upon me, I knew deep within that the Holy Spirit led me to that Scripture; and God was telling me HE is my Husband, and He is the Father of my children. I let the children know that God would always help them as He is their father and my Husband--our Maker. And for me, my Maker is my Spouse, the Lord Jesus Christ. It was real because it is real. I like the reading from Corinthians and think of the list of gifts, that of wisdom and of faith seem the most treasured of all to have. They seem the highest spiritually and temporally, and of course, love; but often people would choose, if it was up to them, the more showy gifts like healing or prophecy. WE people simply cannot get away from ourselves enough to love and trust and depend upon God Alone--the Holy Trinity in the Three Persons.
Truly, my Builder has already married me; the consummation is yet to be. I must wait and be strong while waiting, which I have not done such a good job of that. But I'm coming to a greater faith and the beginnings of wisdom in that faith, and eschew the temporal church in the aspects of which it ought be eschewed for it has stymied much and embraced the temporal and human-made everything. (I've many times over written of the costly and excessive "saint" canonization process with all its levels and employment and categories, all made up by humankind.)
What remains of and in His Church? God and Christ and the Spirit are portions of the Mass and what love, faith, and hope in God some hold along with striving to live God's Law of Love. The Head and the Body? What type and quality are we, those of us in His Body--or those in the temporal aspects of temporal church? Where are we going, those seeking the Head and a Body His and All His? All else of the Trinity and His Church one must seek and find on the climb up the Holy Mountain: the Stairway to Heaven, with striving and pondering in His Living Word and us in His Real Presence--with angels assisting in our arduous ascent and those who have arrived beckoning, welcoming, cheering us on.
God He Is Who approves and consecrates and none other. Who do we think we are? What have we become in what dares call itself His Church?
I suppose through the reading I've done of the various mystics in the Church's centuries, including those now, it is the mystics who understand the seriousness of all that has transpired. For this reason and myriad true-to-life examples shown me in various ways, as the Angel of God reminded me in a particularly difficult suffering, "You agreed to this." Yes, I had; I had heart-felt and full-intentioned offered myself as a holocaust of love in reparation for the temporal church's trajectory. I offered because the Lord had asked me in several ways over time. "Mortification," "be an immolation," and in intimate visions too much to relate.
I was birthed into the mystical Church by way of the temporal Church even though I, being temporal yet continuously desiring His Real presence and striving in spiritual life, am slip-sliding along, as the temporal song goes.... I am not alone in this progression, not for centuries. My purpose is to love--to love to learn to love! To live the Law of God, the Law of Love. How simply and beautifully challenging is that?
Love in His Love, and God Bless His Real Presence in us!
I continue on; God help me in my striving in His Real Presence, in His Love.
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