Graces and Mercy

Today was the day of my Secular Franciscan meeting: my first since my initiation last month.



While I've learned enough about the faith to know that this is only a drop in the ocean (so far), after today I'm beginning to recall what Father Michael E. Gaitley said in his books 33 Days to Morning Glory and 33 Days to Merciful Love.  Specifically, he said that once you've made the consecrations (to Jesus through Mary, and to Divine Mercy Saint Therese style), you can expect great graces to be showered upon you, assuming you keep an open heart and do not willfully reject these consecrations.

I'm beginning to suspect that I am feeling such a thing now.  This isn't the first day that I've felt what I'm feeling now, but it is the first day that I've thought of it in these terms.



Aside from the many gifts that I received from the other members of the fraternity, as well as ideas and motivation for what I can do to become a better Catholic Christian (and Secular Franciscan) that I haven't been doing lately, I've come to many insights with regard to the Gospels.  This came as a direct result of reading a chapter with my friend Eric every day that we're on Skype: we go through it section by section, and then reflect on it.  I'm coming to recognize a lot of such inspirations that I had never even thought of before, and Eric suggested that I mention them.

I've mentioned one at the end of my previous blog entry, "Asperger's Syndrome": that of Adam and Eve (the first man and woman and the father and mother of us all) being the first workers who began work late (working for less than a full day before resting on the first Sabbath).



There's another one that I came to even earlier, and that Eric specifically suggested that I share: it has to do with the Temple veil being torn in two when Jesus died on the Cross on Good Friday.

First, some background: the veil covered the Holy of Holies, the most sacred room in the entire Temple.  In the days of the Temple of Solomon, it contained the Ark of the Covenant, a chest which itself contained the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, as well as the staff of Aaron and a jar of manna from heaven.  It was the physical Presence of God on earth in those days...until the Babylonian Exile, beginning around 586 BC.

The Holy of Holies was so sacred that only the high priest of Israel was ever allowed to go inside, or even to look inside--and then only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (last Wednesday, September 19, was Yom Kippur this year), so that he could make a sacrifice in atonement for his sins and for the sins of the whole nation of Israel.  Anyone else going inside, or even looking inside would die--as would the high priest on any day other than Yom Kippur.  Indeed, apparently they would tie a rope to the high priest's leg as insurance in case he died while inside the Holy of Holies, so that they could pull out the body without removing the curtain and thus risking death themselves!

The point is that, because of original sin and personal sin, we are not worthy--and because we are finite, we could not comprehend God in His entirety even if we were not fallen.  But especially because we are, we cannot come to Him, not by our own efforts.  Even the high priest being allowed to enter is an exception, not the rule, and that was only to sacrifice for his sins and the sins of all Israel.

This practice continued until about 586 BC, when the Babylonians conquered the Jews, destroyed the Temple, and exiled the Jewish people to Babylon.  Decades later, the Jews were liberated by the Persians, and allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.  However, although the Second Temple kept the tradition regarding the Holy of Holies, there was one thing missing: the Ark of the Covenant.  No one knows exactly where it is, although tradition holds that it is buried somewhere around Mount Nebo, along with the corpse of Moses.

The reason the Ark of the Covenant was never in the Second Temple is because that's the Temple that was around at the time of Jesus Christ.  The Ark of the New Covenant is His Mother Mary, and once she became the new vessel containing the physical Presence of God on earth, the Second Temple was on its way out.

And Jesus died on the Cross to take away the sins of the world: He is, in one Person, the High Priest offering the Sacrifice, the Sacrifice itself, and the God to whom the Sacrifice is made.  He is fully God and fully Man, and so alone is a pleasing Sacrifice in atonement for the people's sins.  And He died on Good Friday, two days before the first Easter Sunday--tradition holds that He died on the same day as His Incarnation in the womb of Mary, March 25 (nine months before Christmas Day).  The point is, that is nowhere near Yom Kippur--it is, in fact, at the opposite end of the calendar!

And once Jesus died on the Cross, at about 3 pm, the Temple veil tore in two and exposed the Holy of Holies for all to see!



So what is the significance?  This is where the Lord blessed me with an interpretation of it--more specifically, a simile that might help make it easier to understand.

The Holy of Holies being thus exposed, by God Himself, is the sign that He is pleased with Christ's Sacrifice (and not with the sacrifices of the wicked priests), and that His Sacrifice is sufficient to take away the sins of the world, and therefore to make Temple worship obsolete at last.  It is a sign that Jesus Christ's own Body is the Third Temple, and the last.  It is a sign that, as stated in the Christmas carol "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing", "God and sinners reconciled!"

In short, it is a sign that the gap between God and man is and need be no more: that we may now see the Face of God and live (that Face being the Holy Face of Jesus Christ).  The image that came to me (though not actually seen by the priests) was of God the Father opening His arms for a welcoming embrace of love--and given the hard hearts of the priests, an exhortation to come back into His embrace for their own sake.



But what did the priests think of it?  Especially given their continued hardness of heart afterward, and the fact that God therefore allowed the Romans to destroy the Temple in AD 70, I have a guess--and Father Michael E. Gaitley's books have pointed the way to this.

Remember, the original intent was to hide the Holy of Holies because anyone going inside, or even looking inside, would die (with the sole exception of the high priest at Yom Kippur, which was six months away).  And now, thanks to no one except God Himself, the Temple veil was torn and the Holy of Holies was exposed for everyone to see!

Being the sinners that they were, the priests probably feared that they would all be struck down!  More specifically, they probably thought that God was angry with them and showed this anger by tearing the veil and exposing the Holy of Holies so that they would all die.

To use the aforementioned image again (remember, there is no indication that the priests actually saw this image), they mistook God's loving, welcoming outstretched arms for a threatening gesture, for someone looking to strangle the lifeblood out of them all because He was so furious with them.



And even when this proved not to be true (Temple worship continued for another 37 years), presumably they managed to veil the Holy of Holies again--indicating that their hearts were still hardened.

Continuing the simile, they built a barrier between themselves and God's loving, welcoming embrace, rejecting it--because they feared that they needed the barrier to protect themselves from His wrath (as if such a thing were possible if He really were to try anyway!).

And because they did so, and did not themselves tear down the Temple in recognition that the Body of Jesus Christ (including His Mystical Body the Church) was the Third Temple, God would not accept the sacrifices made therein--including the sacrifices made for sin on Yom Kippur, since they had not properly repented of those sins.  And therefore, the only one who would accept those sacrifices was the Devil.  Therefore, because the Jewish priests wouldn't do it themselves, God mercifully allowed their conquerors the Romans to destroy it in AD 70, so that no more sacrifices could be made to Satan therein.



For the moment, this is the only insight I'll mention in this blog entry.  But glory be to God Most High!  Little by little I'm recognizing His blessings upon me, and I want to share them, to give back, not just to keep taking and taking.

Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.



P. S.  I'm editing to mention just one more insight.  Because we in the Church are the Mystical Body of Christ, it has finally occurred to me to recognize that the various saints can be compared to the various devotions to Jesus Christ (the Holy Face, the Holy Wounds, the Sacred Heart, the Precious Blood, etc.).

And many saints are specifically dedicated to such devotions.  For example, Saint Therese of Lisieux (whose feast day is next Monday, October 1), is devoted to the Holy Face of Jesus (whose Feast Day is Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday--the last day before Lent).

And Saint Francis of Assisi (whose feast day is next Thursday, October 4), is the first one to receive the stigmata (to mystically receive the Holy Wounds of Christ on his own body), although the vast majority of saints receiving the stigmata were women, not men.

(Indeed, I'm becoming interested in Saint Catherine of Siena in particular, a Third Order Dominican whose feast day is April 29, because of her mystical marriage to Christ.)