In the epistle reading today, the Holy Apostle Paul tells us that we boast of our afflictions, because of the much greater hope that the sacrifice of Christ gives to us. Christ reconciled us to the Father through His Blood while we were yet the enemies of God. Thus, God proved His love for us. Since this reconciliation with God has now become the central fact of our lives, our love for God and our hope in Him overflows and increases more and more, as we come to know Him more and more.
Paul makes this same point in very many other places, where, for example, he asks the rhetorical question: "If God is for us, who can be against us?" In other words, if we believe that Christ has risen from the dead and that His Resurrection is for us as well, then we have nothing to fear from the various forces and fortunes of this world. Even though it may seem mighty and threatening from time to time, the truth is that this world is passing away. This world's ruler has already been judged and sentenced. All that remains is for that sentence to be executed. This fact is reflected in the fervent prayer recorded in the oldest Christian document outside the New Testament, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, known by its Greek title, The Didache. That prayer reads: "Let grace come and let this world vanish. Come, Lord Jesus."
The wickedness of the world seems to be advancing triumphantly all around us. The traditions and mores of our ancestors are being annihilated and the nuclear family is being destroyed. Faith seems to be waning, as the continued pretensions of the scientific worldview claim to have access to every aspect of reality and to replace God. Nothing could be more congruent with the prophecy of Isaiah regarding Lucifer: "For thou has said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven...I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High."
Yet, at the same time, there are abundant signs that Heaven is not inactive and silent. Heaven is inviting us to turn sincerely to God. Turn away from fear and turn to God. What God Incarnate told us is indeed true. Perfect love of God will cast out fear.
The world seems to be undergoing a kind of chastisement, as every nation on earth, beginning from Communist China, has been afflicted with the coronavirus pandemic and the enormous losses associated with it. Then, on the first day of the National People's Congress, the entire city of Beijing was enveloped in a deep darkness at a quarter to four in the afternoon. The commentary in one British newspaper regarding the darkness shows how foreign the viewpoints of faith have become. The author wrote: "The footage was taken on the same day as two annual political plenary sessions of the communist regime, leading some conspiracy theorists to bizarrely claim the footage was a sign from the heavens," as if the idea that God would judge the world and portend that judgment with a sign was completely beyond belief. Yet, we know from examples throughout human history that this is precisely the way that God seeks to warn humanity, inducing us to turn to Him in repentance. Perhaps most recently, the Most Holy Mother of God told the seers at Fatima in Portugal: "When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church...." The Mother of God's prophecy is said to have been fulfilled on 25 January 1938, when the Aurora Borealis was more visible than at any time in recorded human history, being seen in places as far south as Algiers. In our own day, since the eerie darkness in Beijing, seventy percent of China has been crippled by devastating floods, even as a second wave of coronavirus descends on their capital. Finally, all across China, people have been gripped with foreboding as they observe the strange behavior of large numbers of animals, which they fear could be a portent of some further catastrophe.
The Scriptures tell us in no less than three places that the sufferings of such chastisements will be so great that most people will flee into caves and pits of the earth, calling out for the mountains to fall on them and the hills to cover them. Nevertheless, we have to remember in all of this that we are not meant to be that way. We have not been given a spirit of fear. The intention of God, in visiting the judgments upon us as He does, is to bring us to turn to Him in repentance. Remember what Paul said in the epistle. Afflictions are things that we can boast about, because of the great love that God has shown us. The Scriptures also tell us that "love covers a multitude of sins." So, we need to love. We need to decide now to love God with all our heart and mind and soul.
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