"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ...The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." (1 Cor. 12:12, 21-26)
Indeed, this verse comes so often to my mind when I meditate on the Incarnation: the conception, birth, life, passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! For on Earth, taken from His side, we are His Bride, flesh of His Flesh, the very Body of the Lord, His Church.
But this is not a discourse on the Incarnation, so much as a quick anecdote to tell you about something which occurred while I meditated on the Incarnate Word of God, and the mysteries of His divine and human natures, as I was working out at the gym. (They don't call it "CROSS-training" for nothing, mind you!)
These verses from 1 Corinthians 12 kept coming into my mind, so I prayed to the Lord, saying to Him, "But Lord, does the body really need everything? What about when a certain organ is removed, like the appendix. Surely we can survive without the appendix!"
To this, the Lord replied, "While the body can adapt to live without such parts, it is not my design to have it so. Remember, every hair on your head is numbered. While even when an important organ like the stomach is gone, the small intestine can adapt to digest foods, the body nevertheless does not function perfectly, nor as how I designed it. Every part of the body has a function. And as you can surmise, how would the body survive without the heart?"
To this, I replied, "Father, the heart and the brain are vital to survival!!! But surely, what about toenails? Or fingernails? Do we really, REALLY 'need' toenails or fingernails?!?"
The Lord is also the master of wit, who likes to put my audacity in its place (for I only inquire such things of my Father in Heaven so that I may grow wiser and stronger in Him), replied in a way I never could have expected: "You say that the toenails and fingernails are not necessary? But I created them? What about the makers of nail-clippers or manicurists and pedicurists! In having given man nails, have I not provided for the livelyhood of those people?"
In other words, dear sisters and brothers, the Lord works in MYSTERIOUS WAYS!!! For what does not SEEM important to us, is in fact, could very well be an intricate, VITAL part of God's greater plan.
For who could have imagined that the Lord Jesus Christ, who "had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2) would be our Savior and our King, our life and our Redemption, our Light, our Rock, our Advocate, our Pascal Lamb and Almighty God?
Look at those around you, both believers and non-believers, with the eyes of God, the eyes of He who so loved the world, that though Eternal, He took flesh from the Virgin Mary, and dwelt among us.
The Holy Spirit will bring discernment. "'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?'[Isaiah 40:13] But we have the mind of Christ." - 1 Cor. 2:16.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, AMEN!!!!
Grace and Peace be with you all!
In Christ,
TIM
*********************************************************************************
I thought for a long time about how each of us in the Body of Christ are united. Many Christians claim you do not need the Church, you only need faith and that is sufficient in and of itself. At the base, this is a truthful statement, but the reasoning is flawed. Surely I can "survive" without good nutrition, but should I not nourish my body with healthy food? At the Heavenly altar, the Lamb feeds spiritual, hidden manna (Rev. 2:17) to the Church to sustain her, we here on Earth are blessed to have the "manna from Heaven" which is the flesh and blood, soul and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in the Eucharist.
"Taste and see that the Lord is good" - Psalm 34:8
St. Athanasius, "On the Incarnation" :
"The Word, then, visited that earth in which He was yet always present ; and saw all these evils. He takes a body of our Nature, and that of a spotless Virgin, in whose womb He makes it His own, wherein to reveal Himself, conquer death, and restore life.
"For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial
Word of God comes to our realm, howbeit he was not far from us s before. For no past of Creation is left void of Him: He has filled all things everywhere, remaining present with His own Father. But He comes in condescension to shew loving-kindness upon us, and to visit us. And seeing the race of rational creatures in the way to perish, and death reigning over them by corruption; seeing, too, that the threat against transgression gave a firm hold to the corruption which was upon us, and that it was monstrous that before the law was fulfilled it should fall through: seeing, once more, the unseemliness of what was come to pass: that the things whereof He Himself was Artificer were passing away: seeing, further, the exceeding wickedness of men, and how
by little and little they had increased it to an intolerable pitch against
themselves: and seeing, lastly, how all men were under penalty of death: He took pity on our race, and had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption, and, unable to bear that death should have the mastery--lest the creature should perish, and His Father's handiwork in men be spent for nought--He takes unto Himself a body, and that of no different sort from ours. For He did not simply will to become embodied, or will merely to appear. For if He willed merely to appear, He was able to effect His divine appearance by some other and higher means as well. But He takes a body of our kind, and not merely so, but from a spotless and stainless virgin, knowing not a man, a body clean and in very truth pure from intercourse of men. For being Himself mighty, and Artificer of everything, He prepares the body in the Virgin as a temple unto Himself, and makes it His very own as an instrument, in it manifested, and in it dwelling. And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death He gave 'it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father--doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord's body, and had no longer holding-ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, He might turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from floe fire.
"The Word, since death alone could stay the plague, took a mortal body which, united with Him, should avail for all, and by partaking of this immortality stay the corruption of the Race. By being above all, He made His Flesh an offering for our souls; by being one with us all, He clothed us with immortality. "
ALLELUIA!!!!!!!!!!!!
Indeed, this verse comes so often to my mind when I meditate on the Incarnation: the conception, birth, life, passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! For on Earth, taken from His side, we are His Bride, flesh of His Flesh, the very Body of the Lord, His Church.
But this is not a discourse on the Incarnation, so much as a quick anecdote to tell you about something which occurred while I meditated on the Incarnate Word of God, and the mysteries of His divine and human natures, as I was working out at the gym. (They don't call it "CROSS-training" for nothing, mind you!)
These verses from 1 Corinthians 12 kept coming into my mind, so I prayed to the Lord, saying to Him, "But Lord, does the body really need everything? What about when a certain organ is removed, like the appendix. Surely we can survive without the appendix!"
To this, the Lord replied, "While the body can adapt to live without such parts, it is not my design to have it so. Remember, every hair on your head is numbered. While even when an important organ like the stomach is gone, the small intestine can adapt to digest foods, the body nevertheless does not function perfectly, nor as how I designed it. Every part of the body has a function. And as you can surmise, how would the body survive without the heart?"
To this, I replied, "Father, the heart and the brain are vital to survival!!! But surely, what about toenails? Or fingernails? Do we really, REALLY 'need' toenails or fingernails?!?"
The Lord is also the master of wit, who likes to put my audacity in its place (for I only inquire such things of my Father in Heaven so that I may grow wiser and stronger in Him), replied in a way I never could have expected: "You say that the toenails and fingernails are not necessary? But I created them? What about the makers of nail-clippers or manicurists and pedicurists! In having given man nails, have I not provided for the livelyhood of those people?"
In other words, dear sisters and brothers, the Lord works in MYSTERIOUS WAYS!!! For what does not SEEM important to us, is in fact, could very well be an intricate, VITAL part of God's greater plan.
For who could have imagined that the Lord Jesus Christ, who "had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2) would be our Savior and our King, our life and our Redemption, our Light, our Rock, our Advocate, our Pascal Lamb and Almighty God?
Look at those around you, both believers and non-believers, with the eyes of God, the eyes of He who so loved the world, that though Eternal, He took flesh from the Virgin Mary, and dwelt among us.
The Holy Spirit will bring discernment. "'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?'[Isaiah 40:13] But we have the mind of Christ." - 1 Cor. 2:16.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, AMEN!!!!
Grace and Peace be with you all!
In Christ,
TIM
*********************************************************************************
I thought for a long time about how each of us in the Body of Christ are united. Many Christians claim you do not need the Church, you only need faith and that is sufficient in and of itself. At the base, this is a truthful statement, but the reasoning is flawed. Surely I can "survive" without good nutrition, but should I not nourish my body with healthy food? At the Heavenly altar, the Lamb feeds spiritual, hidden manna (Rev. 2:17) to the Church to sustain her, we here on Earth are blessed to have the "manna from Heaven" which is the flesh and blood, soul and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in the Eucharist.
"Taste and see that the Lord is good" - Psalm 34:8
St. Athanasius, "On the Incarnation" :
"The Word, then, visited that earth in which He was yet always present ; and saw all these evils. He takes a body of our Nature, and that of a spotless Virgin, in whose womb He makes it His own, wherein to reveal Himself, conquer death, and restore life.
"For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial
Word of God comes to our realm, howbeit he was not far from us s before. For no past of Creation is left void of Him: He has filled all things everywhere, remaining present with His own Father. But He comes in condescension to shew loving-kindness upon us, and to visit us. And seeing the race of rational creatures in the way to perish, and death reigning over them by corruption; seeing, too, that the threat against transgression gave a firm hold to the corruption which was upon us, and that it was monstrous that before the law was fulfilled it should fall through: seeing, once more, the unseemliness of what was come to pass: that the things whereof He Himself was Artificer were passing away: seeing, further, the exceeding wickedness of men, and how
by little and little they had increased it to an intolerable pitch against
themselves: and seeing, lastly, how all men were under penalty of death: He took pity on our race, and had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption, and, unable to bear that death should have the mastery--lest the creature should perish, and His Father's handiwork in men be spent for nought--He takes unto Himself a body, and that of no different sort from ours. For He did not simply will to become embodied, or will merely to appear. For if He willed merely to appear, He was able to effect His divine appearance by some other and higher means as well. But He takes a body of our kind, and not merely so, but from a spotless and stainless virgin, knowing not a man, a body clean and in very truth pure from intercourse of men. For being Himself mighty, and Artificer of everything, He prepares the body in the Virgin as a temple unto Himself, and makes it His very own as an instrument, in it manifested, and in it dwelling. And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death He gave 'it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father--doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord's body, and had no longer holding-ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, He might turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from floe fire.
"The Word, since death alone could stay the plague, took a mortal body which, united with Him, should avail for all, and by partaking of this immortality stay the corruption of the Race. By being above all, He made His Flesh an offering for our souls; by being one with us all, He clothed us with immortality. "
ALLELUIA!!!!!!!!!!!!
