Catholic Halos

A Reflection on this Pilgrims’ Journey

(John 16:3-28 and Catena Aurea on the same)

Predestination is the reality that God, being Love and omniscient and omnipotent, knows who will choose to love His Son as Lord and Savior, Jesus our Christ and thus gives them the gifts to do so amidst the fallen world.

The worldly hear this and, being yet without eyes of innocence, cry injustice despite it being the very definition of justice. God gives His grace to those who will use them, however falteringly or poorly for being spiritual toddlers. God can do that. Free will remains, for each is free to choose God, but God, beyond time and space, infinite, needn't wait for them to choose Him to bestow His gifts upon them. In a solely linear time-and-space-limited existence, this would wreck free will, and, for us, herein lies the mystery because, for now, we are time-and-space-constrained, though, through Christ, we won't always be.

Thus we may be assured that those of us who obey Christ's commandments love Christ and, if by God's grace, they persist in faith the whole of the race, they are assured salvation: eternal life in Paradise with God our Father through Jesus our Christ and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Two Gifts Given Every Human at Conception

God gives all of humanity, from the moment of each person's conception, as part of their conception, two gifts: a unique breath of God and free will.

These two gifts define our humanity, elevating us above the other creatures in the world. The unique breath of God breathed into each of us is ours alone, thus only we, should we exercise our free will and choose humble obedience to Jesus our Christ, can share that breath with the world. It is the source of the dignity inherent to every human being. If we, instead, reject God with our free will, choosing to be our own god, that breath of God is not shared with the world. And what an amazing loss!

Each of us is thus called to bold, humble obedience to God by being who he created us to be, expressing His unique breath into the world. Gender is a fundamental example of equal distinction. God made us, male and female. God does not make mistakes. Our choice is to be humbly obedient to our gender (along with all other aspects of His unique breath in us), or reject our gender, and, in modern parlance, view our gender as our choice, inherently rejecting God.

Free will: that we may choose to humbly join our will with God out of love of God who first loved us, or wield our will as our own, rejecting God and becoming our own, albeit powerless, god, ruling over whatever we create eternally for eternity, which is to say nothing but separation from God. Those are our two options, our only two options. Why?

Salvation History

Why did God create us so we can reject him and be doomed to eternal separation, tormented by our breath of God within us that yearns for God? The answer is God's love.

God so desires deep, abiding, eternal relationship with us that He gave us these options. If we make room, as did Holy Mary, in our clay and soul for Jesus our Christ, God makes a place for us, of our clay and soul, in Paradise.

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be” (John: 14:2-3).

Into the Wilderness

Wilderness is a place of clay and soul we willfully enter to clear away the clamorous noise of the fallen world that we may become more attune to hearing God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and unite our will with His and by so doing, reenter the fallen world more fully as Christ's light, bearing light into darkness. Questions of the wilderness include: What is my breath of God? How am I called to breathe God's breath into the world? How do I, wittingly and unwittingly, usurp God's will and thus how can I more clearly see how I do the opposite and unite my will, my choices, my every action with God's will? In short, the wilderness is a macro praying of the Trinity Sword Prayer.

Many times we see Jesus in the Gospels giving us example of entering the wilderness, not only deigning to give us example that we may follow by grace what he does and is by nature, but also because He deigned to take on human flesh and experience the clamorous noise and temptation of the fallen world, that He might assure His unity with the Father. How much more then must I! Whereas Jesus assured His unity with the Father by entering the wilderness, I must cast off Satan's yoke, heavy and burdensome, and strive to take up Christ yoke, easy and light, by cultivating eyes of innocence that I may more fully see and know God's will and unite mine with His, for Jesus is like me in all ways but sin and I am like Jesus in all ways but sin, and what a vast chasm of insurmountable, of my own capacity, is the gulf of sin! Into the wilderness I go!

Gift of Halo

Saints travel in halos. The mutual support, aid, and admonishment for failings of a group of disciples intentionally sharing the journey of running toward Jesus our Christ greatly increases our capacity to discover how we unknowingly bear Satan's yoke, so heavy and burdensome, and instead take up Christ's yoke. Saints travel in halos. Are you part of an intentional halo? What does your halo look like?