Monday 25 March 2013

“Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” – Philippians 2:5-8


The words above, found in last Sunday’s readings for Palm Sunday, St Cyril of Alexandria interpreted in a way that has always stuck with me. St Cyril says it was not despite the fact that the Son was God that He emptied Himself but because He was the Son: The outpouring of love from the Son to the Father is such that it is normal for the Son to give Himself totally in this way. God is, by His nature, a perfect relationship in which the persons are completely constituted by their relations.

It was the love of my wife that brought this teaching alive for me. It was the love of my wife that taught me that in giving myself I achieved happiness and if I could give myself totally, as God can because He is, I could gain total happiness. It was the love my wife that demonstrated to me what it is like to see, in human terms, what an outpouring of love and devotion looks like.

My wife is my teacher in the school of charity. I look at her with fascination, how she waits upon me, how she showers me with affection and a never ending kindness. She has abandoned everything for me and in doing so she has given me a living example of what the relations of God are like in their love and how a Christian should love.

God gives us the sacrament of matrimony so that through our love we can understand that He is love and he also uses marriage to explain His relationship to the Church. The letter to the Ephesians says ‘For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour… “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church’ (Ephesians 5:23 & 31-32).

When I see how my wife loves me with her total, innocent and absolute commitment I understand how I am supposed to love God. Her purity of heart, her truthfulness of feeling, the way she treats me is the way I am meant to approach God. Everything she does presents a beautiful lesson to me in Christian living which lets me see what I could be if my heart were open to Jesus in the right way. I am truly blessed to have been loved so much and I am grateful to God that He has given me a wife who can teach me so much about Himself and how He wants me to live as a Christian. 

1 comment:

  1. Catholicism is counterfeit Christianity and you are completely deceived, believing in "another jesus and another gospel" per 2 Cor 11:4, which will never save you. For example, Boniface VIII proclaimed (circa 1300) that it was, "altogether necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff".
    Face it: THAT IS A LIE. You can jump up and down, stand on your head in Macy's window and scream to the moon until you're blue in the face trying to convince us, but it will never be true. Salvation is believing in the merits of Christ alone, period, end of story.
    Indeed, Catholicism is a viperous theology that has bitten its members for far too long. Only the anti-venom of Scripture can cure her ills. But she refuses to take the antidote. We are flabbergasted that the laity refuse to wake up out of their spiritual coma and prefer to be lulled to sleep by all of the RCC's unbiblical doctrines! Let's take another example. The RCC has abrogated the original command to partake of BOTH bread and wine, and instead teach Jesus would be pleased we take either one!
    WHAT?! NO WAY.
    They even teach that the Savior never even OBLIGATED us to consume both elements. Listen to the madness of the Council of Trent: "This holy synod, taught by the Holy Spirit...declares that lay people...are not obliged by any divine command to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist under both kinds, and that it can in no way be doubted without injury to faith that Communion under either kind is sufficient to them for salvation. For although Christ the Lord at his last supper instituted this sacrament with the form of bread and wine...nevertheless that institution and tradition do not aim at this, that all believers in Christ are bound by the commandment of the Lord to receive both kinds. Neither is it rightly concluded [from the Last Supper or] from the discourse in John 6...that Communion under both kinds is commanded by the Lord” (“Concerning Communion Under Both Kinds”, ch 1).
    To be sure, these are not the words of those under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but rather of MAD SCIENTISTS on the verge of an explosion in the laboratory. They have completely reversed and thrown under the bus our marching orders to partake of BOTH bread and wine, so it is inconceivable they have been divinely commissioned by Jesus Christ to break his own commandments! The Lord said the Scriptures cannot be broken (John 10:35), but the Council of Trent has indeed done just that! No reasons whatsoever, no matter how pious they may sound, can justify mutilating the Lord’s Supper down to the choice of either bread OR wine. Jesus did not give us that option! Consequently, since the magisterium is obviously of the devil, the belief that the Messiah was speaking LITERALLY in John 6 and the Last Supper (as it regards eating his flesh) cannot possibly be true. Instead, all the biblical evidence proves he was speaking metaphorically in those places, and oh....should you deny it, I dare you to invite me to debate the issue.

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