In  Praise  of  God's  omniscience 

Yahweh, you examine me and know me, you know if I am standing or sitting, you read my thoughts from far away, whether I walk or lie down, you're watching, you know every detail of my conduct. The word is not even on my tongue, Yahweh, before you know all about it; close behind and close in front you fence me round, shielding me with your hand. Such knowledge is beyond my understanding, a height to which my mind cannot attain. Where could I go to escape your spirit? Where could I flee from your presence? If I climb the heavens, you are there, there too, if I lie in Sheol.

If I flew to the point of sunrise, or westward across the sea, your hand would still be guiding me, your right hand holding me. If I asked darkness to cover me, and light to become night around me, that darkness would not be dark to you, night would be as light as day. It was you who created my inmost self, and put me together in my mother's womb; for all these mysteries I thank you: for the wonder of myself, for the wonder of your works. You know me through and through, from having watched my bones take shape when I was being formed in secret, knitted together in the limbo of the womb.

You had scrutinised my every action, all were recorded in your book, my days listed and determined, even before the first of them occurred. God, how hard it is to grasp your thoughts! How impossible to count them! I could no more count them than I could the sand, and suppose I could, you would still be with me. God, if you would kill the wicked! Men of blood, away from me! They talk blasphemously about you, regard your thoughts as nothing. Yahweh, do I not hate those who hate you, and loathe those who defy you? I hate them with a total hatred, I regard them as my own enemies. God, examine me and know my heart, probe me and know my thoughts; make sure I do not follow pernicious ways, and guide me in the way that is everlasting. - The Psalms 139:1-24 - 

Death will thus manifest that uniqueness of each personality, which, as the Scholastics said, is incommunicable. Pascal wrote, "Nothing is so important to man/woman as his/her own state, nothing so formidable to him/her as eternity." Death confronts self with self in its great moment of mental awakening in the morning of the afterlife. In that tearing away of all illusionment, the soul will see itself as it really is. It still drags a train of experiences behind it; it has the memory, that storehouse of habits that is good and bad, of prayers said, of kindness to the poor, as well as the refusal of grace, the sins of avarice, of lust, and of pride.

Since we are faced with this inevitable event, how shall we meet it? The pagan and the Christian, moves progressively closer to death; the Christian, moves backward from it. The pagan tries to ignore death, but each tick of the clock brings him/her nearer to it through fear and anxiety. The Christian begins his/her life by contemplating his/her death; knowing that he/she will die, he/she plans his/her life accordingly, in order to enjoy eternal life. There are two stages in the pagan's experience; human life and human death, which is a gate to the third stage - Divine life. Christianity has always recommended the contemplation of death as an encouragement to lead a good life, and this is actually effective, for although we cannot go backward time, we can go forward in time. We can therefore say to ourselves, "What I am living for today is that which I shall die for tomorrow."

The Christian principal for conquering death is twofold: (1) Think about death. (2) Rehearse for it by mortification now. The purpose of contemplation is to conquer the dread and compulsion of death by voluntarily facing it. Through anticipating the final end, we may contemplate new beginnings. Our Blessed Lord Jesus lived from the end of life backward: "I came to give My life for the redemption of the world." The Lamb is pictured as "slain from the beginning of the world."

The perspective on death robs us of our shoddy views of living. If we think about death, we shake ourselves out of our fantasy that the universe is not a moral one. In treating schizophrenia, a violent electric shock is sometimes applied to the head of the patient; the schizophrenic is so alarmed, so threatened, that in order to escape what seems like dissolution the mind puts off its fantasy and the patient is thrust back into the real world. Meditation on death has something of that effect on the spiritual system. It breaks the spell that made us think that pleasure is everything, that we ought to go on making more money or building more buildings, that religion is for the feebleminded, and other such illusions.

When we contemplate the death of self, the citadel of self is bound to be attacked. We glimpse our own inner being and its poverty. Each of us comes into life with fists closed, set for aggressiveness and acquisition, but when we abandon life, our hands are open' there is nothing on earth that we need, nothing the soul can take with it that could not be taken away after any shipwreck - its own works. Opera enim illorum sequuntur illos. Because meditation on our final end takes the mind off the present self, it destroys excessive egocentricity and lessens our fears and anxieties. For fears diminish as we cease to think of ourselves in our immediate aspect and adjust our minds, instead, to the larger landscape of eternity.

Death can be robbed of its greatest fearfulness if we practice for it. Christianity recommends mortification, penance, and detachment as a rehearsal for the great event. For every death should be a great masterpiece, and, like all masterpieces, it cannot be completed in a day. A sculptor who wishes to carve a figure out of a block uses his chisel, first cutting away great chunks of marble, then smaller pieces, until he finally reaches a point where only a brush of hand is needed to reveal the figure. In the same way, the soul has to undergo tremendous mortifications at first, and then more refined detachments, until finally its Divine image is revealed. Because mortification is recognized as a practice of death, there is fittingly inscribed on the tomb of Don Scotus, Bis Mortuus; Semel Sephus (twice died, but buried only once). When we die to something, something comes alive within us. If we die to self, charity comes alive; if we die to pride, service comes alive; if we die to lust, reverence for personality comes alive; if we die to anger, love comes alive.

The basic spiritual principal is this: Death must be conquered in every thought and word and deed by an affirmation of the eternal. Spiritual writers advise us that everything should be done as if one were going to die in the next moment. If we treat the living as though they were dying, too, then the good in them will come to the surface. Treat the death as still alive, and our prayers will follow them; thus a belief in the state of purgation after death allows us to atone for our want of love while our friends were still on earth. The failure to help their bodies then can be balanced now by our spiritual assistance to their bodies then can be balanced now by our spiritual assistance to their souls through prayer.

Death is meant to be our true birth, our beginning. Christianity, in contrast to paganism, always blesses her children's spiritual birth into eternity. In the liturgy, the day on which a saint dies is called his natilitia, or birthday. The world celebrates a birthday on the day a person is born to physical life; the Church celebrates it when a person is born to eternal life. There are only three exceptions to this, and they were made for very good reasons: The only physical birthdays in the Blessed Mother (September 8) and of Saint John the Baptist (June 24). This is because each of these births marked a special infusion of Divine Life into the world: Our Lord Jesus is Eternal Life; the Blessed Mother, through Her Immaculate Conception, participated in that Eternal Life from the first moment of Her Conception; and Saint John the Baptist was sanctified in his mother's womb when he was visited by His Lord Jesus, still tabernacle within the Blessed Mother. These three exceptions rather prove than contradict the rule that life comes through death, spirituality through mortification, and the saving of the soul in eternity through the losing of it in time.

From when a soul has proved that it loved God above all things, and proved it be detachment from all that stood in the way of its fullhearted love, it is prepared to stand before Love; then it will, in the language of Saint John Henry Newman, feel the pain of never having loved enough.

By Venerable Fulton J. Sheen 

"Like all the others, I too am a mortal man/woman, descendant of the first being fashioned from the earth, I was modelled in flesh within my mother's womb, for nine to ten months taking shape in her blood by means of virile seed and pleasure, sleep's companion. I too, when I was born, drew in the common air, I fell on the same ground that bears us all, a wail my first sound, as for all the rest. I was nurtured in swaddling clothes, with every care. No king has known any other beginning of existence; for all there is one way only into life, as out of it." - Wisdom 7:1-6 -

"The spirit of the Lord, indeed, fills the whole world, and that which holds all things together knows every word that is said." - Wisdom 1:7 -

"The word of God is something alive and active: it cuts like any double-edged sword but more finely: it can slip through the place where the soul is divided from the spirit, or joints from the marrow; it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts. No created thing can hide from him; everything is uncovered and open to the eyes of the one to whom we must give account of ourselves." - Hebrews 4:12-13 - 

"How rich are the depths of God - how deep his wisdom and knowledge - and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods! Who could ever know the mind of the Lord? Who could ever be his counsellor? Who could ever give him anything or lend him anything? All that exists comes from him; all is by him and for him. To him be glory for ever! Amen." - Romans 11:33-36 -

To fall in love with God is the greatest of romance, to seek Him the greatest adventure, to find God the greatest achievement. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - 

-  WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY  - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

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/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -

Your generous contribution and support is profoundly cherish. I sincerely pray that: God blessing be upon you, always. Amen! Bank transfer: Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah - Public Bank Berhad account no. 4076577113 - Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.