The BVM Hers was the first face He saw...a contemplation on Mary

Hers was the first face He saw in His new Person, 100 percent God and 100 percent Man, two Natures in One Person, Immanuel, God-with-us; Her face God Almighty first saw with His human eyes. 

Ever think of that?

The first eyes He looked into were Her eyes, the first voice His Divinely perfect ears heard was Her voice. The touching, caressing, all the intimate reality of being a human mother caring for her child, He, Our Most Blessed Lord, could PERFECTLY see, taste, smell, hear, in short, realize in all its intimacy – through Her. AND do so in the womb, as well. Think of that. God Almighty spent nine month's in a Jewish teenagers womb, because he wanted to bring Salvation to us, Jesus, Joshua: Yehoshu'a, which means "YAHWEH is salvation", (from the roots יְהוֹ (yeho) referring to the Hebrew God and יָשַׁע (yasha') meaning "to save").

And let's not forget, God chose HER, and she responded with Her freely given fiat. (Talk about Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac! She knew getting pregnant outside of marriage in her culture meant death by stoning, yet she said, "Yes.")

We cannot even begin to appreciate the power of Their intimacy with One Another. Words fail, it is so glorious. We'll spend Eternity contemplating it.

Rejecting the Mother is most definitely a rejection of the Son, certainly in His Incarnation, and Christianity is all about the Incarnation, a word we don't hear or read much today. 

Thank you, oh Lord God, for what you did and are doing for us through your Incarnation, and thank you, oh Blessed Virgin Mary, for all you've done, and are doing. You are, through our participation in the Seventh Covenant, the Most Holy Eucharist, our Mother, too. We have Our Lord in us, and thus we have you.

An Préachan

Christmas and Incarnation: What Does It Mean? Christmas readings and thoughts

Christmas is about the Incarnation, the central mystery and most profound revelation of Christianity. God becomes a human person, Jesus / Joshua: Yeshu'a (Yehoshu'a: "Yahweh is salvation").

Stunning. We who grew up with it are too used to it, perhaps, and "pop" religion brings Jesus down to a magical free-escape ticket from Hell, an nonjudgmental hippie or guru figure offering the certainty of "rapture" or even a Pentecostal nirvana-state in which to lose one's self in here and now. But Christianity is not a "get out of jail card" for a Narcissistic self, and the Incarnation is the most stunning revelation – in any religion anywhere. If you don't "get" the Incarnation, you won't truly grasp the significance of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, both of which are dependent on the Incarnation.

The Incarnation is the most radical idea revealed to the world since Moses asked God His Name. The Incarnation is a teaching that stood Judaism on its head and split it in pieces from the moment Jewish leaders understood what Jesus of Nazareth was claiming, while Islam has ceaselessly – ceaselessly – fought against it with fire and sword and slavery and slaughter.

Christianity is unique to the three Monotheistic religions because it insists on the Incarnation, on God becoming Man. Judaism rejects this teaching with horror, as does Islam, to such an extent that Islam can be said to exist in order to deny the Incarnation. Islam exists on many levels, of course: politically as a Herrenvolk religion, designed to enable a few to rule masses of subjected peoples; it is an economy, too – and originally a slave economy: it emptied cites through slavery and closed trade in the Mediterranean except for slavery, in the process destroying the Late Ancient/Early Medieval European world, funding the Viking Age and reducing the Cradle of Civilization to a vast dustbowl; and finally Islam exists as a political and juridical system. But as a religion per se, from its oldest existent writings on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem down to its latest murder, Islam's main point is to deny the Incarnation.

Historical Christianity, traditional Catholicism and the Orthodoxies, teach that the Incarnation was necessary to transform our human nature by the Infusion of Grace the Incarnation made possible, for in taking on human Nature, God elevated it. God changed our natures. Transformed us – "pro multis", those of us participating in this Salvation through Baptism and the other Sacraments. In the process, the world itself and all that's in it is also transformed. The Lord God, through His Incarnation, is still creating, He is Re-creating. As St. Anselm (see further below) put it, Creation's "lost beauty [is] endowed with inexpressible new grace." Christians are re-created. This is Salvation. Faith isn't a "leap in the dark" of fevered belief, especially not belief against evidence, but one's conscious intellectual acceptance of the truths that the Universal Church, East and West, has taught from the beginning.

Christmas should not therefore be merely the celebration of "God's birthday", the birth of Yeshu'a in Bethlehem. It's nothing less than the source-point of Yahweh Is Salvation, the Re-Creation of Creation. As the 1962 Missal translates part of the Offertory from the Latin: "O God, who in creating human nature, didst wonderfully dignify it, and hast still more wonderfully restored it, grant that, by the mystery of this water and wine, we may become partakers of His divine nature, who deigned to become partaker of our human nature."

And the Incarnation must necessarily be about Mary, too, whose fiat made the Incarnation possible. Mother and Child are inseparable. Then, and now, at Christmas. And the Cross.

The God Whom earth, and sea, and sky
Adore, and laud, and magnify,
Whose might they own, whose praise they tell,
In Mary’s body deigned to dwell.

O Mother blest! The chosen shrine
Wherein the Architect divine,
Whose hand contains the earth and sky,
Vouchsafed in hidden guise to lie.

Blest in the message Gabriel brought;
Blest in the work the Spirit wrought;
Most blest, to bring to human birth

The long desired of all the earth.

O Lord, the Virgin-born, to Thee
Eternal praise and glory be,
Whom with the Father we adore

And Holy Ghost for ever more.

Text: Venantius Fortunatus 530-609 (As found in my Little Office of the Blessing Virgin Mary; see also: https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/god_whom_earth_and_sea_and_s.htm for sheet music, etc.)

A few of the Incarnation's meanings as found in the New Testament: The Elevation of the human race, Theosis as the Greeks call it, is what Saint Paul calls being made a new creation in Christ. More than a metaphor, it is absolutely necessary and central to salvation.
•    God’s Incarnation didn’t lower God but rather elevates human nature, enabling…
•    "Theosis" (Divinization) which by grace – not by nature – is our incorporation into Christ, raising us up to participate in His Divinity (as St. Peter teaches in 2 Peter 1.4). Usually described in the Western Church as an Infusion of Grace, our natures are changed, whereas Protestantism teaches Imputation of Grace: i.e., God assigns or imputes grace to us but doesn’t actually divinize or change our nature. (Luther explained the Protestant teaching via his famous "manure pile covered in snow" metaphor. C.S. Lewis carefully disagrees with this central Protestant idea in the 10th of his Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer.)

This Theosis teaching is stated in many ways throughout the New Testament. Examples:

•    John 1:12 “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Obviously, a new creation)
•    2 Cor 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (Again, a new creation) 2 Peter 1:4 might well put it best; see also Romans, 6:4, 7:6, 12:2; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:8-12.

•    St. John refers to it explicitly. Gospel of John 3:3-8, the famous "born again" passages, read from the Historical Church's understanding instead of the Protestant one. One is born anew in Baptism, via the water and the Spirit, a new creation, born of the Spirit.

•    Two Old Testament examples: Isaiah 65:17; Ezekiel 36:25-26

•    Much is asked of this New Man, this New Creation. In general, note how Our Lord seems to demand the impossible of “ordinary” humans. In Matthew 5, during the Sermon on the Mount, Our Lord gives the Beatitudes, then says we are “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”, discusses how He has come not to do away with the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. Christ discusses elevated behavior regarding anger, adultery, divorce, making oaths and not retaliating (“turn the other cheek”) and love our enemies. He ends with "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." (5:48) That is something manifestly impossible for “normal” human beings to do.

•   We are not "normal"; as St Paul puts it "And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor 6:11; note the order: baptism first, then the work of sanctification/moral living, then justification.)

The New Testament shows what the first generation of Believers preached of this New Creation, while the Medievals repeatedly give a strong sense of the stunning quality of the Incarnation.

•    St. Athanasius: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." (De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B) and [CCC 460]

•    St. Thomas Aquinas: "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." (Opusc. 57, 1-4) [CCC 460]

From a sermon by Saint Anselm, bishop (1033/4–1109)

Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth an rivers, day and night – everything that is subject to the power or use of man—rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace. All creatures were dead, as it were, useless for human beings or for the praise of God, who made them. The world, contrary to its true destiny, was corrupted and tainted by the acts of human beings who served idols. Now all creation has been restored to life and rejoices that it is controlled and given splendor by those who believe in God.

The universe rejoices with new and indefinable loveliness. Not only does it feel the unseen presence of God Himself, its Creator, it sees him openly working and making it holy. These great blessings spring from the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb.

Through the fullness of the grace that was given you, dead things rejoice in their freedom and those in heaven are glad to be made new. Through the Son who was the glorious fruit of your virgin womb, just souls who died before his life-giving death rejoice as they are freed from captivity, and the angels are glad at the restoration of their shattered domain.

Lady, full and overflowing with grace, all creation received new life from your abundance. Virgin, blessed above all creatures, through your blessing all creation is blessed, not only creation from its Creator, but the Creator Himself has been blessed by creation.

To Mary God gave his only-begotten Son, whom he loved as himself. Through Mary God made himself a Son, not different but the same, by nature Son of God and Son of Mary. The whole universe was created by God, and God was born of Mary. God created all things and Mary gave birth to God. The God who made all things gave himself form through Mary, and thus he made his own creation. He who could create all things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation without Mary.

God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life. For God begot the Son, through whom all things were made, and Mary gave birth to him as the Savior of the world. Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s son, nothing could be redeemed.

Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to himself.

And from Saint Lawrence Justinian, bishop (Lorenzo Giustiniani, 1 July 1381 – 8 January 1456)

While Mary contemplated all she had come to know through reading, listening and observing, she grew faith, increased in merits, and was more illuminated by wisdom and more consumed by the fire of charity. The heavenly mysteries were opened to her, and she was filled with joy; she became fruitful by the Spirit, was being directed toward God, and watched over protectively while on earth.

So remarkable are the divine graces that they elevate one from the lowest depths to the highest summit, and transform on to a great holiness. How entirely blessed was the mind of the Virgin which, through the indwelling and guidance of the Spirit, was always and in every way open to the power of the Word of God. She was not led by her own senses, nor by her own will; thus she accomplished outwardly through her body what wisdom from within gave to her faith.

It was fitting for divine Wisdom, which created itself a home in the Church, to use the intervention of the most blessed Mary in guarding the law, purifying the mind, giving an example of humility and providing a spiritual sacrifice.

Imitate her, O faithful soul. Enter into the deep recesses of your heart so that you may be purified spiritually and cleansed from your sins. God places more value on good will in all we do than on the works themselves.

Therefore, whether we give ourselves to God in the work of contemplation or whether we serve the needs of our neighbor by good works, we accomplish these things because the love of Christ urges us on. The acceptable offering of the spiritual purification is accomplished not in a man-made temple but in the recesses of the heart where the Lord Jesus freely enters.

"Imitate her, O faithful soul." Indeed.

Christmas. As with so much else that is from God, it is a bit more than perhaps we bargained for. Merry Christmas to all.

An Préachán

Response to Rocks for Brains who posted a Comment August 21 and today is August 24

Thanks for writing R4B. You’ve raised some important points and I’ve been wanting to answer them in some depth, so I’m posting this as an essay in its own right. 

Rocks for Brains wrote on August 21, 2017 at 8:30 AM
What a bunch of useless handwringing!
When Christ said he had come not to abolish the Old Covenant but rather to Fulfill it, it wasn't as complicated a statement as we make it today.
If, by some act, I suddenly pay off my mortgage, have I abolished it? No. Can the bank come after me for money now that I no longer make monthly payments? No, it has been fulfilled.

Why do we allow ourselves to be dragged into questions about the Khazars on the one hand and arguments about matrilineal bloodlines on the other? Remember Our Lord's remarks to those who asserted privilege because they were Sperma (seed of) Abraham? I can make followers out of the Rocks!
Regardless of the ethnic background, once the waters of baptism are poured over your head, you are no longer a Jew. Since the Gospel of John and especially the destruction of the Temple, a jew is a religious construct; a denier of Christ. In temples around the world, you can believe in anything so long as you reject HE who stands neck deep in burning excrement.

The straight line in history is: Abraham-Moses-Jesus-The Church. Today's Jews are a detour. They didn't continue believing as they always had.. ignoring the Christ. They responded and became the first Protestants.

An Préachán:
My response: You mention "hand-wringing". Hand-wringing? As in “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you…”? (Matt 27:37) Or St Paul’s “For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh,” (Romans 9:3)

Now, that’s what I'd call hand-wringing!

If Our Lord was upset over the Jews, and Saul of Tarsus as well, we're allowed to be, too.

As for the mortgage bit you discuss, salvation as paying off a mortgage, that sounds quite Protestant: "Jesus paid for our sins so we have a free ticket to ride to Heaven and don’t have to do anything but accept it. Everything has been done and paid off for us." Historical Christianity teaches that the Gospel is about Transformation in Christ, Theosis, the divinization of the human race, for all those willing to “take on Christ”. 2 Peter 1:4 “By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.”

Consider also:

• St. Athanasius: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." (De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B) and [CCC 460]
• St. Thomas Aquinas: "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." (Opusc. 57, 1-4) [CCC 460]
• Also: This teaching is stated in many ways throughout the New Testament. Examples:
• John 1:12 “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Obviously, a new creation) 
• 2 Cor 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (Again, a new creation)
• 2 Peter 1:4 might well puts it best – but Protestants essentially only read St. Paul: So, see Romans, 6:4, 7:6, 12:2; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:8-12.
• Two Old Testament examples: Isaiah 65:17; Ezekiel 36:25-26
• Note: In general, Jesus seems to demand the impossible of “ordinary” humans. In Matthew 5, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives the Beatitudes, then says we are “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”, discusses how He has come not to do away with the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. He discusses elevated behavior regarding anger, adultery, divorce, making oaths and not retaliating (“turn the other cheek”) and love our enemies. He ends with "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." (5:48) That is something manifestly impossible for “normal” human beings to do.

Theosis

Theosis, however, makes it possible. And something all true Catholics and Orthodox have to emphasize is that the Eucharist is the means by which we are saved, otherwise we will “have no life within us.” (St John’s famous chapter 6.)

As for allowing ourselves into be dragged into “arguments about matrilineal bloodlines on the other (hand)”, both St Matthew and St Luke let themselves get drawn into lines of family descent. Both the Jew St. Matthew (who may have composed his Gospel in either Hebrew or Aramaic) and St Luke, the “Greek physician” (Syrian Greek, that is, and quite possibly a physician), open their Gospels with genealogy.

Yes, it isn't matrilineal, but some scholars suggest Luke's version is just that. But whatever.

I mention the matrilineal bloodlines because most non-Jews don’t know about that, how important that is to who is considered a Jew, and why, and thus why the Blessed Virgin Mary is both a typos of Eve AND a typos of Sarah – who also had only one child, and whose child would carry the wood for his sacrifice to the top of the mount Jesus would later carry His Cross to. And also this is hugely important for understanding the Blessed Virgin Mary’s place as our Mother.

• (The Fathers at Vatican II — I should say the more orthodox ones — fully intended to issue a major proclamation on her as a formal Council constitution, but the Progressives derailed that. Something to remember in this 100th year of Fatima.)

That passage you mention about God being able to raise up the very rocks to be children of Abraham is a great one. It is St John the Baptist in St Matthew 3:9. St John is addressing the Pharisees and Sadducees, and saying In verse 7: “And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them: Ye brood of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come?” But notice what he then says in verse 8: “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance.” (Luke 3:8 mirrors this exactly, except he plurals "fruit", i.e., "fruits". Though disputed, this passage suggests he does not reject them completely, but tries to “cut them down to size” and tells them true repentance involves real spiritual work, not just acting the part. That's the point of verse 9: just being descendants of Abraham (and Sarah) does do it; they need to bring spiritual fruit (good works) worthy of penance (although as I say, scholars argue exactly how this is meant).

However, and this is important, God does indeed “raise up stones to be sons of Abraham” for God converts the Gentiles, people with stony hearts and who actually worship stone idols. Our ancestors, in fact. It’s an echo of Ezekiel 37 and the valley of dry bones. Or in Ezekiel 36:25ff: "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances...”.

The Christian reads this as referring not just to fallen-away Jews of Ezekiel’s day, but of us Christians, as well. And it fits wonderfully.

You write, “Regardless of the ethnic background, once the waters of baptism are poured over your head, you are no longer a Jew.” I would say you then become a true Jew, Jews as God planned them to be, and heirs of the Covenants, especially of course the New Covenant, which fulfills the all old Covenants.

• Or why does St. Paul write: “And whosoever shall follow this rule, peace on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.” That’s a pretty famous passage, “the Israel of God”. (It’s Galatians 6:16.) 
• And in Romans 9:6: “It is not as though God's word has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” That whole chapter of Romans 9 is an extended essay on our very topic. It builds from St. Paul’s “hand-wringing” at Romans 9:3 and is a profound meditation. But rather than get involved in all that, I’ll just give two further quotes from Galatians:
• (Galatians 3:7): “Understand, then, that those who have faith are the sons of Abraham.” 
• And (Galatians 3:29): “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.” 

As for the other issue you raise, how Jews can believe anything, i.e., have ended up believing a wide variety of things no first century Pharisee would countenance, so long as they reject Christ, sure. Some of them believe in reincarnation, some that the Messiah has come in the person of the New York Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who died in 1994. (He himself objected to that sort of allegation, and since he died, the movement that claims him as Messiah has declined). You can certainly say today’s Jews have not continued unbroken the belief systems of the Pharisees, that’s true. The religion is sort of like a capital “T”: it went straight and strong till Christ, then one group of Jews went one way, into Christianity, and the other group went in the opposite direction.

But so what? Christianity is not a radical break with its Jewish past, but its fulfillment. Judaism Fulfilled. Judaism Resplendent, as it was meant to be. Pius XI (or was it the XII?) said we are all spiritual Semites. So we are. Why deny it?

And most importantly, if we are to be the helpers and servants of God, agents of the Holy Spirit, it is necessary to understand all this because God wants the Jews converted. As St Paul says in Romans 12, “Now if the offence of them be the riches of the world, and the diminution of them, the riches of the Gentiles; how much more the fullness of them?” Perhaps a bit more clearly stated in the NIV’s: “But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!” In fact, the whole of Romans 12 is a long reflection on this aspect of what we’re discussing. (So we're talking about things St. Paul himself was intensely concerned with.)

We’re to work toward that. The conversion of Jews.

And finally, as for Jews being the first Protestants, sure, one can make that case. Though I’ve always thought these guys were: (Luke 9:49-50 / also Mark 9:38) “And John, answering, said: Master, we saw a certain man casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said to him: Forbid him not; for he that is not against you, is for you.”

But God wants all these people converted, and we won’t get that done by being short with them, dismissing they "out of hand" and so on. We should, like the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, take St Francis de Sales' advice:

• "Cook the truth in charity until it tastes sweet"—this famous quotation of St. Francis de Sales is the principle of our apostolic work. Fruitless discussions or, worse, uncharitable polemics never help to attract souls to the Lord. Again, St. Francis de Sales said, "One drop of honey attracts more bees than a barrel of vinegar." The revealed truth of our Holy Catholic Faith is in itself attractive because of its depth, brilliance, and logic. Wherever it appears clothed in the beautiful garments of charity, it becomes ever more acceptable to those who might otherwise fear its inevitable consequences for our lives and the sharpness with which it cuts through our weaknesses and our excuses.

That's taken from the Institute's website at: http://www.institute-christ-king.org/institute/who-we-are/
 (It's under the Spirit section.)

Thanks again for writing!

An Préachán

The Seven Covenants, a Review

Recently, I had occasion to address the subject of the Seven Covenants God made in a blog posting at OnePeterFive, and I place it here for anyone interesting in the basic engine of salvation, how "salvation works" as understood in the Historical (East and West, pre-Protestant) Church.

The original comment was to the effect that the "Old Covenant" was cancelled with Christ's Death and the "New Covenant" was established. That "set me off". (The following is a bit fuller and slightly altered from the original.)

The essay:

Dear ______, the "Old Covenant" is actually FIVE Covenants God made in Salvation History. (Well, a perfect Seven altogether, including the first, the Covenant with Creation and the last, the New Covenant He made with Himself.) The Church has historically taught that the Fourth of these, the Covenant with Moses, was cancelled or superseded. Well, none of them can be cancelled but each one is "superseded" in the sense of not being removed, but rather transformed and fulfilled as the foundation of the Covenant built on top of it. Please let me explain.

Of all the traditional Church teachings I've ever studied, this is the one that is "misguided" slightly, or that needs clarified a bit. ALL the Seven Covenants are of a piece, from the very first one, the one God made when He created the world and "rested" or made holy on the Seventh Day, the Covenant with Creation, to the final Covenant, the one He made with Himself in the New Covenant (the Eucharist IS that Covenant, the means by which we are transformed in our nature (something Protestantism has always denied: i.e., Luther's "Simul Justus et Peccator.")1 wherein we "take on Christ" and "become new men in Christ", they all fit together in one structure, the tower of salvation, each one fulfilled and transformed by the one above it.

The other Covenants post-Creation could NOT be "cancelled" any more than the original Creation one (or the created world would cease): we are STILL working out the Covenant made with Adam and Eve, (though Our Lord fulfilled it in the sense that He did, indeed, crush the serpent's head, and the serpent bit His heel, i.e., crucified Him) and no one expects the world to perish in a flood (the Covenant with Noah) and of course Abraham must always be "our father in faith" because we need to be Jews, i.e., inheritors by blood of the promises made to Abraham that all the world would be blessed through his descendants, descendants who would come via Sarah, his true wife. This is why St. Paul writes throughout his copious volumes about "taking on Christ" and "becoming new men" and being grafted onto the true vine, and so on, and why he calls the Church the new Israel or synagogue of God: because through the Most Holy Eucharist, we receive not only Our Lord Christ's divine nature, beginning what the Orthodox call Theosis, the Divinization of us, our "transformation in Christ" ("We have received the spirit of Sonship to cry 'Abba', Father!" in Romans 8), but also Jesus' human blood too (because the Dual Nature of Christ cannot be separated; the Blessed Mother is not the mother of a nature, but of a Person) which He inherited through His Mother (who, thus, through the Most Holy Eucharist, becomes OUR Mother too, quite literally). 2

We ARE Jews, spiritual Jews, but also by blood via the Holy Eucharist, grafted on to the vine. THAT'S the New Covenant, the fulfillment of ALL the "Old" Covenants (even the First, because via Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, we begin to restore nature as God made it in the beginning). As noted, each Covenant is like a layer of bricks, fulfilled and expanded by the new Covenant brick layer built on top. For example, the Fifth (post-Creation) Covenant was the one God made with David, that the kingship of Israel would never pass from David's descendants. Jesus Christ IS that Descendant and He is King Forever. No Churchman in 2000 years would dream of saying THAT Covenant was cancelled. But cancel the Fourth Mosaic Covenant and the Fifth has to fall, just as a tower would if you would took out one layer of bricks. (Which of course couldn't be done anyway, not without knocking the whole to thing to pieces).




So, Covenants are never cancelled or even "superseded" but transformed, elevated, and given their true natures, just as our human nature is, through Christ, transformed, elevated, and give our eternal and true natures.

An Préachán

PS: It is my understanding the JPII knew this very well and wrote about it but I've not the references at hand. The Modernist Church has well and truly buried him, but at least it waited till he died; it has buried Josef Ratzinger alive.

1. C.S. Lewis, somewhere in his Letter to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer, says of this basic Protestant idea: that we are not "transformed" in our nature but are like manure piles covered with the pure snow of God's saving grace (Luther's image), that it would be like coming in from the fields, or from the garage, all dirty, sweaty, soil or grease covered, etc., and finding a big party was going on in the house. And the people there immediately tried to put a rich, glorious, sumptuous, robe on you — before you had a chance to clean up. Wouldn't it be quite natural, "Jack" wrote, to want to say, "Here, wait a minute, let me wash up! Get the dirt off! Put on some clean undergarments!" Of course it would. Everyone has experienced being very sweaty in one's undergarments and definitely NOT wanting to put on clean outer garments. Why would you? It would feel awful, and MOST uncomfortable, sticky, and miserable. How in creation could you possibly enjoy the party?

2. With this idea, the foundational idea of Historical Christianity, one can see the essence of the fight between Christians and Jews. Jews quite naturally claim to be the "True" Jews, inheriting the status by blood via their mothers because all Jews are Jews from their mothers, as it was from Sarah that Isaac is bestowed with the Abrahamic Covenant (Abraham was also the father of Ishmael, of course, who didn't inherit that Covenant, a teaching Islam exists, in part, to forcefully deny); with of course exceptions for conversions in general and those whose fathers were Jews and whose mothers were not). But in any event, it is quite insulting for Jews to have someone not remotely related to them physically or interested in any way in following the kosher laws, etc., to come up and say, "I'm just as Jewish as you are, because I actually have the blood of Abraham in my veins through the Holy Eucharist!". Now, clearly, sacramental Christians cannot give up their basic teaching, and clearly, Jews cannot (readily) accept it (w/o converting themselves, something quite contentious and a cause to start fighting). So, charity and circumspection are required when Christians discuss the Sacramental Faith with our "Elder Brothers".

There's no easy way around it though. And prayer is definitely required.