-       MYSYERY       -       TURNING FROM THE ROAD OF EVIL INTENT        - 

Every human being at his/her birth has everything to learn. His/Her mind is a kind of blank slate on which truths can be written. How much he/she will learn will depend upon: (1) how clean he/she keeps his/her slate. (2) the nobility and wisdom of his/her teachers. The cleanliness of the slate is dependent upon the way he/she lives. It is too often assumed that ignorance is due solely to a want of learning. Actually, an evil life prevents the accumulation of wisdom. No bank robber wants to have a searchlight turned upon him as he rifles a safe. In a equal way, no one who is leading an immoral life wants to have the light of moral truth shining upon his foulness. That is why Our Blessed Lord said of many: "You will not come to Me because your lives are evil."

The second condition of learning depends upon the nobility and wisdom of the teachers. These teachers exist on three levels: man/woman may learn from nature alone which makes him/her a scientist; or from men, women, which makes him/her a humanist; or he/she may learn from God, Who alone can give him/her wisdom.

Almost all are willing to learn, either from the book of nature or from the lips of men/women, but many are unwilling to accept the revelation of God. This is because what God reveals very often transcends both the power of nature and the learning of men/women. For that reason, it is called a "mystery". A mystery does not mean an idea which is opposed to reason, but one which transcends reason. Mystery is like a telescope to the eye: the instrument does not destroy vision, but rather opens it to new worlds hitherto unrevealed. A proud man/woman might ask why should he/she believe that there is anything else in the world to see or know, except that which he/she touches or sees. Such an egotistic view precludes the knowledge of other worlds.

G. K. Chesterton once said that God has put a tremendous mystery in nature itself and that is the sun. In the light of that one thing which we cannot see because of its brightness, everything else is made clear. Likewise, though we cannot comprehend the nature of God completely in this life, nevertheless, in the light of the truths which He reveals, everything else is made clear, such as the mystery of pain, suffering, death, life and birth. But we can see the moon and we can see things under the moon, from which Chesterton wisely deduces: "But the moon is the mother of lunatics."

There are two kinds of wisdom: the wisdom of the flesh and the wisdom of which God gives. One is very often opposed to the other. The first would say: "This is the only life there is; therefore, we should get all we can out of it." The other sees that this life is a kind of scaffolding up through which we climb to eternal happiness. But the Divine Wisdom comes only to those who have qualifications for receiving it, and as was pointed out above, one of the first conditions is good behaviour. As Our Blessed Lord said: "If any man/woman will do My Will, he/she will know My doctrine."

Vices produce a hardened spiritual feeling which hinders understanding. Men/Women do not understand what they do not like or what would demand a change in their lives. All the training of the university will not make  certain persons mathematicians. If a man/woman does not love truth and honesty, he/she cannot be made truthful and honesty, he/she cannot be made truthful and honest by expounding the definitions of these virtues. One must begin by creating within being him/her conduct along the lines of these virtues. Then he/she can be taught the meaning of truth and honesty. One can cure a bad passion only by producing a good one; one can expel an evil affection only by the Spirit of God. Here is the answer to the question of why some people who are otherwise learned do not attain to the wisdom which is revealed by God.

Pontius Pilate was a philosopher and belonged to the school of the pragmatists. He talked with Our Lord Jesus about His Kingdom and about truth, but Pilate's corrupt selfishness and his political interests permitted him to sentence Innocence to the Cross. There was a moral blindness in close conjunction with philosophical intelligence. This higher wisdom is faith, and faith is not a blind willingness to believe that something will happen. Faith is the acceptance of a truth on the authority of God revealing it, and this is the wisdom which sometimes children possess and learned men/women lack. That is why Divine Wisdom said that only as we became like little children, could we enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Forgiveness meets us more than halfway. The kiss of welcome is extended before one word of penitence or request had been spoken. - Why Am I Tempted?  - The question is not why do we sin, because there is a distinction between temptation and sin. Temptation is merely a solicitation, an invitation, a suggestion to do wrong/evil. Sin is the voluntary doing of that wrong/evil thing. Sacred Scripture says - "Blessed is the man/woman who suffers temptation." In this context, temptation, means trial. The sixth petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not unto temptation" is a petition to escape trials which we cannot master.

When Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible states that God tempted Abraham, it merely means God tried Abraham's faith as a goldsmith tries gold in the fire; there is a world of difference between God trying His people and inciting their corruption.

Coming more precisely to the subject of temptation, here are a few basic principles: 

1. - Temptation comes from the duality or complexity of our nature. We are not simple creatures like crystals, but rather a compound of body and soul, matter and spirit. The human personality is like a driver in a headstrong steeds: one is the animal urge with us, and the other the spirit. The charioteer, or the driver, has great difficulty to get both steeds headed in the same direction.

Though modern psychology has done much to develop the nature of this tension, it must not be thought that the tension inside man/woman was not known in the past. The greatest of Greek dramatists, Sophocles, wrote of the great primeval disharmony that it was "grave with age and infected all men". Ovid, the Latin poet, wrote: "I see and approve the better things of life, but the worse things in life I follow."

Every human being in the world can bear witness to the civil war which goes on inside his being. Good people sometimes act like bad people; very bad people, in certain circumstances, will act like good people. Goethe regretted that God had made him only one man. There was enough material in him for both a saint and a villain.

2. - It must not be thought that the origin of temptation is solely to be sought in the individual human personality. If the origin were wholly within the person, it is conceivable that some would be without temptation; but there is no one in the world who is not tempted - absolutely no one. The nature of the temptation may vary with age. Confucius divided temptations into three different stages of human life: in youth man/woman is tempted to lust, in middle age to pride and power, and in old age to avarice or greed. No one tells the full story of temptation by seeking its origin in a grandfather or a grandmother, or too much love for a father or too little love for a mother, crowded tenements, low calorie diet or insufficient education.

3. - The true origin of the conflict is not to be found in the individual exclusively but in human nature. This assumes there is a difference between "nature" and "person". Nature answers to the question, "What is it?" A person answers to the question, "Who is it?" A pencil is not a person. An atom is not a person. John Jones is a person. Something has happened to disturb the original human nature so that it is now neither an angel nor a devil. Human nature is not intrinsically corrupt (as some theologians claimed 400 years ago); nor is it intrinsically divine (as philosophers began saying fifty years ago). Rather, human nature has aspirations for good which it sometimes finds impossible to realize completely by itself; at the same time, human nature has inclinations to evil which solicit it away from these ideas.

It is like a man/woman who is down a well of his/her own stupidity. He/She knows that he/she ought not to be there, but he/she is like a clock whose mainspring is broken. He needs to be fixed on the inside, but repairs must be supplied from without. He/She is a creature who can run well again, but only if Someone outside has the kindness to repair him/her. This Someone is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God and the Redeemer of human nature. He came to heal the breach caused by false freedom.

BY  VENERABLE  FULTON  J.  SHEEN    

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

Just as God originally inspired the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, He has used this means to preserve His Word for future generations. But behind the writing lay periods of time when these messages were circulated in spoken form. [Oral Tradition] The stories of the patriarchs were passed from generation to generation by word of mouth before they were written. [Written Tradition] The messages of the prophets were delivered orally before they were fixed in writing. Narratives of the life and ministry of Christ Jesus were repeated orally for two or three decades before they were given written form.

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 -