What, says the Lord thy God, shall I, that bring children to the birth, want power to bring them forth? - Isaiah 66:9 -
Every mother who begets a child, every hen that hatches its young, every mind that conceives a new idea, every bishop who ordains a priest, every priest who fosters a vocation, all reflect that eternal act of generation in which the Father says to his Son: 'Thou art My son; I have gotten Thee this day.' - Ps. 2:7 -
The understanding of the eternal generation of the Second Person of the Trinity provided by such carnal generation is, however, very remote and obscure. Somewhat more precise - though still, of course, analogical - is the operation of the human intellect when it "conceives" ideas. Where do we get the idea of "fortitude", "relationship" or "spirituality"? We have never seen these concepts in the pedestrian world of oranges, sidewalks and coins. From where did these concepts come? The mind generated them; once begotten, they remain distinct from the mind, but not separate from it. The fruits of thinking, namely, ideas, do not drop from the mind like apples from the tree or the newborn from parents. They exist in the mind and yet with characters of their own.
In like manner, God as the Eternal Thinker has a Thought, a Word. Because this Wisdom was "generated" we call God-Who-Thinks the Father, and the Word or Idea Who is "generated" the Son. The Father was not first and then the Son. An unbelieving father said to his son, who asserted that the Father and Son were equal, "I existed before you did, and therefore the Father existed before the Son." The boy answered, "Oh, no! You did not begin to be a father until I began to be a son."
Was not the Blessed Mother herself generated in the Mind of God? Before she was immaculately conceived in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne, she was "immaculately conceived" in the mind of God. That is why the words of Proverbs are applied to her. - Pro. 8:22-30 -
Just as God the Father has a Divine Son and countless millions of adopted sons by grace, so Mary had not only Jesus as her Son, but all those other children who were, in the person of John, commended to her on Calvary.
Fecundity, generation and fruitfulness mark the teachings of the faith, beginning with the commands to "increase and multiply" - Gen. 1:22 - So it is to the end, for the final book of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible declares that the Tree of Life itself is fecund, "the tree that gives life, bearing its fruit twelve-fold." - Rev. 22:2 - In the same vein, the Apostle Paul describes his converts as the fruits of his generation: "It was I that begot you in Jesus Christ, when I preached the gospel to you." - 1Cor. 4:15 - Apostle Timothy, he addressed as "my own son in the faith" and again as "his well beloved son." - 1Tim. 1:2 -
So too does apostle James assure us that God has begotten us in Truth. 'It was His will to give us birth, through His true word, meaning us to be the first-fruits, as it were, of all His creation.' - James 1:18 -
And apostle John stresses the theme of our Redemption by reminding us that carnal generation is as nothing compared to the spiritual generation by grace. 'Their birth came, not from human stock, not from nature's will or man's, but from God.' - John 1:13 -
God hates sterility. He punishes disobedience with barrenness. When He promises His people a blessing, it is expressed in terms of fecundity. 'There shall be no unfaithfulness in thy land.' - Exodus 23:26 -
But the one who has no spiritual children is under a curse. Only those who walk with the Lord and yield to the Spirit are gifted with fruitfulness. 'Thou shalt be blessed as no other people is blessed; man and woman, sire and dam shall breed.' - Deut. 7:14 -
The priest is pledged to celibacy not because human generation is wrong, but because it must yield so that he can devote himself wholly to a higher form of generation: the begetting of children in Christ by bringing to Him those who never knew Him, by restoring to Him those lost in sin and by arousing in those who already love Christ the inspiration to serve Him more fully as religious or priests. The energy that otherwise would be used for the service of the flesh is not buried in a napkin. It is transformed so that it serves chaste generation in the Spirit.
Too often the vow of chastity is presented negatively as the avoiding of carnal and sinful pleasures. But is pure water only the absence of dirt, a white diamond merely the negation of carbon? Chastity is sometimes mistakenly called cold, but not by Francis Thompson, who proclaims it a "passionless passion, a wild tranquility." Chastity is fire. No life is produced without fire. Even the virginal conception of Our Lord had its fire - not human indeed, but the fire of the Holy Spirit. At that moment, Mary undoubtedly had an ecstasy of soul surpassing the flesh ecstasy of all humans combined. Such is the joy of begetting through the pure love of the Spirit.
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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