Captain’s log: Day 4—Christ the Redeemer

I think all of our hearts and souls might need some uplifting on this fourth day of
what has become known as hunkering down.

I wanted to share this Youtube with you if you haven’t yet seen it.
Brazil’s statue of Christ the Redeemer is lit up with lights—
a showing of solidarity and unity during this global crisis…

When storms rage all around us we must remember one thing…
if we are Christ’s and He is ours…nothing on this earth can or will
prevail against us.
(turn on your volume, the music is soothing)

Jesus vs Mohammad and Marx

And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them;
but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them,
“Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them;
for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter it at all.”
Mark 10:13-16

(the Mayor busy on Easter afternoon gathering eggs / Julie Cook / 2019)

Almost a week ago on Easter Sunday, my small family had gathered together in order to
celebrate the Ressurection of Jesus Christ.

We basked in the warmth of an April afternoon while hunting plastic eggs with
the smallest member of our clan.

We gathered around a table and enjoyed the bounty of the season.

We feasted and fellowshiped, celebrating our faith within the presumed safety of
our democratic afforded freedoms.

Yet around the world that “afforded freedom” is not exactly afforded to others
and if it is, it is often viewed with disdain.

While I’m on babysitting duty, I thought I’d take this busy time to share a
very important post from our across the pond friend and former Anglican Bishop,
Gavin Ashenden.

It is a heart wrenching yet very honest and truthful post…
…And tragically, it is a very sobering post.

When I read his introduction, which was actually taken from a letter penned by one of
the bombed Sri Lankan church’s Sunday School teachers,
I felt the hot tears of sorrow trickle down my face.

This is what the children of these bombed churches were doing on Easter Sunday morning.

“One of the Sunday school teachers in the Church in Sri Lanka has written about what
they were doing on Easter day.

“Today at Zion Church we asked the children,
‘how many of you would be willing to die for Christ?’
Everyone raised their hands.
Minutes later we took them into the main service.
The blast happened. Half of them died on the spot.”

In one of the two other Catholic Churches that were blown up,
the bomber waited until the children had come back into the main liturgy before he detonated.
Killing the children appeared to have been a priority to him.

The good Bishop reminds all of us, that as Christians, we are told that we are to love our
enemies, we are to offer compassion to all we meet…
with the teachings of Jesus being a far cry from that of Mohammed or Karl Marx…

And yet the world continues to defend and embrace the teachings of both violence and hate
while condemning the followers of the one resurrected Redeemer.

Please read the post here:

Islam, the media & the conspiracy of silence.

patience under humiliation

“Act as if everything depended on you;
trust as if everything depended on God.”
St. Ignatius of Loyola

(Christ the Redeemer, Michealangelo / Santa Maria sopra Minerva / Julie Cook / 2018)

“Our Blessed Lord, bound like a thief,
is conducted through the public streets of Jerusalem accompanied by a large body of soldiers
who indulge their rage and hatred by ill-treating Him in every possible way,
and surrounded by a multitude of people who overwhelm Him with insults and maledictions,
and rejoice over His misfortunes. Jesus advances,
His feet bare, and His strength utterly exhausted by all His mental and bodily sufferings,
offering up the ignominy and tortures He is now enduring, to His Eternal Father, for the salvation of my soul.
The soldiers render His position still more painful,
by inviting people to approach and see their renowned prisoner,
while Jesus proceeds on His way in the midst of them, with a humble demeanor and with downcast eyes,
to teach us what value we should set on the esteem and honor of the world, and the applause of men.
But a few days previously Jesus had passed through these same streets,
applauded and honored by the crowd as the Messiah, and now, abandoned even by His disciples,
He is followed only by perfidious enemies who seek His death,
and unite in deriding and insulting Him as a malefactor, and the last of men.
Such is the duration of the honors and praises of the world!
Learn hence to seek the good pleasure of God alone, to labor for the acquisition of a right
to the immortal honors of Paradise, and to practice patience under humiliation,
from the example of Jesus.”
Fr. Ignatius of the Side of Jesus, p. 79-80
An Excerpt From
The School of Christ Crucified

plenteous redemption

‘Copiosa apud Eum Redemptio’
With Him is plenteous redemption

(emerging peaches / Julie Cook / 2017)

Holiness is the source.
In Christ the absolute holiness of God is united hypostatically with the holiness of man.
God’s holiness (as the love of good and the hatred of evil), but first and foremost
as the love of good in everything, even the one who is evil (per accidens [contingently]).
All good (the entire sum of values) outside God has its prototype in God Himself.
God loves one in another – in this consists His Holiness.
This holiness is the basis for redemption –
also understood as the ‘re-evalutation’ of everything:
God restores the value of everything in man,
who is personally united with Him.
He is Christ – Redemptor [Redeemer]: the holiness of man consists
in receiving this good, which God loves –
in this manner Christ becomes the model of holiness.
In Him that holiness is in a way identical to redemption ( Redemptio).
In us it has to depend on, first, conversion to God, and second,
re-evaluation of everything in accordance with the value that everything has in God,
and which Christ the Lord has shown to us.
Novermber 2, 1962
excerpt from the private diaries of Bishop Karol Wojtyla
In God’s Hands / Pope John Paul II

And so it is, in Christ the Redeemer, that man has found his redemption.

Redemption so poignantly expressed each Spring as seen in the blooms, blossoms and
growth of the newness of life….

Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
Psalm 130:7-8