Reason for Writing
I have heard sermons, read books and engaged in discussions about what a Christian is, but what always comes across to me from these sources is a large fragmented set of confusing details. It is difficult to draw all these details together into an overall picture.
A second difficulty is that many writers and teachers of Christianity tend to use excessively literary, poetic and prosaic language. This too can make comprehension difficult.
They also tend to add a third difficulty by using a long-winded, rambling style of presentation which never seems to logically and finally get to the point.
This document is an attempt to crystallise, in plain language, what the answer is to the question "What is a Christian?" and tries to avoid these three difficulties.
The document is, primarily, a systematic look at the "ideas and beliefs" of the Catholic Church. It is hoped that it will bring those who read it closer to a good understanding of what Christianity says about God and about the relationship which exists between God and Us and that it will help them to articulate and explain that understanding.
It will help the reader to understand what the answer is if you note that to all Christians the "question" is larger than just "What is a Christian?" To a Christian, a more fundamental question is - "What does God want Us to know about Himself and about His relationship with Us in this temporary transitional life, in this Universe?" This is because it is one of our central Beliefs that we cannot know the answer unless He tells Us. Therefore, what we really want to know is what God’s answer to the question is.
Style of Presentation
This document uses a style of presentation which is cold, logical and systematic rather than the literary styles commonly used to present what Christians say about God and Us. This style is used because it is the only way to convey a clear account of anything. The prosaic style may have its place; it can add a worthwhile extra dimension to our relationship with God. But it is only a second place, after we have a clear understanding of what our relationship with God is. The prosaic and other literary styles are not useful means to convey what Christians have to say about God and about His relationship with all human beings. This document is not intended to be "spiritual" or "devotional", but is, instead, directed at people's understanding.
Choosing! The Modern Mind!
"Choosing freely" is at the centre of Christians' view of our relationship with God. We "choose" to accept or reject the relationship which He is offering to Us. (I will explain what Christians say we are choosing in its due place in this document). The modern mind is very different to that of our ancestors. A high level of education, both formal and informal, has given rise to the thinking average person who is capable of both reasonable and systematic thinking. This is not just good, it is excellent! It is the best possible foundation for making a truly "free choice" about anything.
Choosing! Not Control!
We live in an age which seems to thrive on discarding the values of previous ages. Perhaps this is because we see those values as instruments of control over Us, because they were often used, wrongly, as just that. But, because of the high proportion of educated, thinking persons, we are living in an age which is ideally suited to understanding the Christian message about God and about His relationship with Us if we would only explain it clearly. Control should have had no place and has no rightful place in this relationship. The only acceptable arrangement is presentation of what we have to say, followed by acceptance or rejection.
At the present time, there seems to be a general decline in religious observance throughout the world. This is a temporary phenomenon. Be encouraged by the likelihood that it is now part of God’s strategy to allow this to happen so that only His True Plan for "Us and Him" will prevail. He is a very patient God.
Three Preliminary Points about God's Plan
There are three important points about God's Plan which are appropriate to this Introduction rather than solely to the main document. They are -
I will explain these three points briefly here -
God's Plan or Pattern or System
Our relationship with God exists in the context of a single well-defined and structured Plan or Pattern devised by Him. This document is in essence an attempt to say what that Pattern is.
There is a Plan or Pattern or System to our relationship with God. God wants Us to relate to Him in accordance with His System or Plan - He wants Us to relate to Him in the one and only way that He wants to relate to Us. Each one of Us is being asked by God to relate to Him, during this temporary transitional life, in the exact same way - His Way. Our objective must be to find out "what He has said" about Himself and about how He relates to Us and about how He wants Us to relate to Him. We cannot tailor or adapt or modify His Plan.
Supernatural History
God's Plan is not a static thing which existed or came into existence in its entirety from some point in time. It came into existence in parts or events over a very long period of time. Actions and events had to happen in a particular order to assemble and "activate" all of the components of the Plan. Examples are (a) the Creation of the Universe and (b) the taking on by God of Human Nature. All of these actions and events are "once-only" occurrences. God undertook most of these actions and events but some were undertaken by certain other persons. Some actions and events in Supernatural History have yet to happen.
Unproveability of God - Therefore, Revelation
I use the expression "what He has said" quite deliberately because nothing in the Universe gives Us information about God and nothing "proves" to Us that God exists. Things that we observe might seem to "suggest" the existence of a God, or Gods, but never "prove" it. They may, however, re-inforce the beliefs of a believer. Even if something did provide proof, there is nothing that would tell Us anything specific about God and how He relates to Us, if at all. For Us to know specific things about God and about how He relates to Us, He would have to tell Us. This He did through a very small number of people of the Jewish religion. Christians use the expression "Divine Revelation" to refer to what God has told Us. But why the secrecy? I will explain later why God has a need for secrecy about Himself for the Plan to work.
Three Preliminary Points about Us
There are also three important points about Us which it is appropriate to mention in this Introduction, namely –
I leave these three statements to your own judgment as to whether or not they are true. It is in YOUR Human Nature to "know" that these three points are true. God is infinitely good and fair and He wants Us to be unceasingly good and fair. He is the Supreme and Perfect Reasonable Thinker and He wants Us to be reasonable thinkers also and at all times. It is in our nature to be reasonable, rational and fair. We are psychologically comfortable with these but not so with their opposites.
To conclude this Introduction, this document is an attempt to draw together all of the important details that God has revealed or told to Us into a clear and coherent statement or picture. It is written, in the first instance, for Catholics and other Christians, because many of them are confused about their own beliefs. For them, it is hoped that this document will provide a sharper focus on their knowledge of God and His relationship with Us and add to that knowledge where it might be deficient. But it is also hoped that it will give others a clear idea of what Christians believe to be the Truth about God and about how He wants to relate to all human beings.
CHALLENGES TO THE READER
The Total Plan
The reader is asked to believe that everything in this document is true and not to be selective in what they believe from it.
Avoid Useless Discussion
It is hoped that all readers of this document will gain something personally from reading it, and will not merely use its contents as material for useless discussion and consideration.
Belief in God must be built on some Knowledge of God
The reader is also asked to believe that it is not valid to claim to be a member of any specific religion unless one has a reasonable amount of knowledge of what that religion says about God or Gods and about His, Her or Their relationship with Us (if any).
OBJECTIVES OF THIS DOCUMENT
It is hoped that this document will make four things apparent to the reader -
(i) what God wants Us to know about Himself,
(ii) the reason for and purpose of this temporary transitional life,
(iii) how God relates to Us, and
(iv) how He wants Us to relate to Him.
THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT TRUTH
WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN?
THE SUPERNATURAL HISTORY OF GOD AND US
SYNOPSIS OF CATHOLIC BELIEFS
In this Document we are going to deal with -
- The Fact of God
- That God is as Christians say He is
- That God wants to relate to Us Humans
- How God wants to relate to Us - His Way
- What God had to do to facilitate that relationship
- What we must do to avail of it
1. Only One God exists. God alone was not "created". God created everything else.
2. God is the Creator of everything that exists, except Himself. In particular, God is the Creator of All Intelligent Life. He has created only two types of intelligent beings capable of knowing Him for what He is - namely, that He is God, the Supreme Being and Creator of Everything. His sole objective in creating everything was to bring these two types of beings into existence and every created thing that exists has some purpose in relation to them.
In a first Creation He created intelligent spirit beings, to whom we give the name Angels, in a created place which we call Heaven. In a second Creation He created us Human Beings in this created material Universe. Everything else created by God has a reason for existence which is directly and solely related to the existence of Angels and Humans.
3. The creation of Heaven and the Universe were among the earliest events in Supernatural History. The creation of all Angels and of the first Humans were also very early events in Supernatural History.
4. Both Angels and Humans had to go through a temporary period of free choice immediately after their creation during which they had to choose freely, individually and personally, to relate or not to relate to God as He has enabled them to. God has provided them with no capability whatever for creating their own plans or ways of relating to Him. Any other way is false and ineffectual.
For Angels, their period of free choice was fully completed before God created any of Us Humans. Those who chose God remained in Heaven with Him; those who rejected the relationship which He asked of them were removed to another place to which we give the name Hell.
We Humans are in our temporary period of choosing while we are alive in this Universe. This fact is central to everything that Christians believe. After this life, we will ultimately go to either Heaven or Hell, depending on the Choice we make. Life for Us in this Universe is a temporary transitional life.
The sole reason for the creation of the Universe is to be a place for each one of Us Humans to come into existence and to live our temporary transitional life of free choice.
5. In this One God, Three Persons exist. But how can this be so?
The main statement that can be made about our one and only God is that He is a Good and Loving God. He is a Nice God. Even the statement that He is Infinitely Powerful is as if nothing compared to it.
God's Infinitely Loving Nature causes Him to be disaggregated into more than one Person so that there is within Himself both Lover and Loved. There are Two Persons who are to each other both Lover and Loved. Specific events which have occurred in the last four thousand years have caused us to identify these as Father and Son (explained later). All characteristics and powers which these two would have had in common have been divested from them to a Third Person. We identify this Third Person by the name ‘The Holy Spirit’ - a name which greatly understates the most powerful Person in existence. We shall refer to these Three Persons in God as The Divine Trinity.
6. The reason for our existence is because God wanted to create beings exactly like Himself - even Divine like Himself - and we are those beings. But we are not to be separate Divinities from Himself. Instead, He would give each of Us a Personal Share in His Own Divinity. As I will also explain later, our Personal Share is a Share in the Divinity of the Second Person in God - referred to as God the Son.
A Personal Share in the Divinity of the Second Person in God exists for every Human Being whether they have accepted or chosen It or not, and It has always existed. This latter fact, that It has always existed, is very important. It is not a created thing.
7. The Holy Spirit, the Third Person in God (in Whom all Divine Power exists), will give each of Us our Personal Share in the Divinity of the Second Person in God if we Freely Choose It.
God asks Us to relate to Him by living these four choices. Unless we try, as best we can, to do these four things while we are here in this Universe living our temporary transitional life, then we would be an unacceptable and inharmonious instability in God's Divinity when we are in our final life after death and we would be incapable of joining Him in Heaven as He would like.
8. Most of Us Sharers in the Divinity of the Second Person in God will not be acceptable at the time we die. It is virtually impossible. We would have to achieve absolute and infinite perfection to be able to exist in Heaven. To cater for those of Us who have made a good effort there is a second temporary transitional life in a place we have named Purgatory. We do not know how this second temporary transitional life works to complete our perfection. As I will explain in the next paragraph, its purpose is to allow Us to complete the perfection of ourselves. It is probably a good idea not to leave ourselves too much to do in Purgatory. This Universe is an easier and quicker place. But there are no "Choices" to be made in Purgatory. However, Time exists in Purgatory and we will be very conscious of it. Our experience in Purgatory will be very boring and will not be pleasant. This experience is commonly referred to as Temporal Punishment. Punishment is an appropriate word because it is our faults, failures and misdeeds which will cause the "need for" Us to go there.
For most of Us, when we leave this temporary transitional life we will have deficiencies in how we lived up to what is expected by God of a Sharer in the Divinity of the Second Person in God. These deficiencies will be in the areas of the four "free choices" and include the areas of personal virtues. Remedying these deficiencies in Purgatory will not be a pleasant experience. Do as much as you can while living this first temporary transitional life. Do what you can to avoid the "need for" Temporal Punishment and do what you can to get it over with here in this easier temporary transitional life.
From the beginning of this Document to this point we have been dealing with the broad general picture of the relationship between God and Us. We will now move on to the detailed specifics or particulars of how God wants that relationship to work.
9. A Christian is a person who has a Share in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. Jesus IS the Second Person in God. Let me explain. As I have already said, God has within Him three distinct Persons called Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I refer to them as the Divine Trinity. The Person of the Son became Incarnated, was Conceived, as a Human Being (i.e. with a physical, mortal body like ours) in this Universe about two thousand years ago, and He was given the name Jesus. He was born of a human mother named Mary; the Person of the Father in God was His Father; the Conception and Incarnation of the Person of the Son as Jesus was, like everything that God does, achieved through the power of the Holy Spirit. (God only ever acts in this Universe through the Person of the Holy Spirit to Whom all creative power has been divested).
The Incarnate Son, now Jesus, combines within Him both Divine and Human Nature in such a complete and inseparable way that a totally new nature exists for which we have no separate word. I will call this new nature God/Human because I cannot think of a suitable word for it. Every Christian also has the nature of God/Human. A Christian is a person who shares in the new nature of God/Human after "freely choosing", and after being given by God, a Share in the Divinity of the Incarnate Divine Son, Jesus, in an event called the Sacrament of Baptism. The Conception, or Incarnation, of Jesus is the most important event in the Supernatural History of God and Us. This is the central or pivotal paragraph in this document.
The amalgamation by the Holy Spirit of Divine Nature and Human Nature in the Incarnated Second Person in God, Jesus, is possibly the greatest creative act of the Holy Spirit ever possible.
Sharing in the Divinity of God, Jesus, is God's Objective for every Person and not just some. He is not just the God of Christians, He is the God of all Humanity, and He is the God of Angels.
(Three minor diversions) I am diverting here to draw attention to the fact that -
(i) It is from these events that we conclude that the two Persons in God who are Lover and Loved to each other are Father and Son. Jesus was a man and His other parent, Mary, was a woman.
(ii) Jesus is usually known as Jesus Christ. Hence the origin of the word "Christian". The word Christ is derived from the Greek word for "blessed" or "anointed".
(iii) The source of our knowledge about the life of Jesus is five books which form just part of a larger set of books which Christians refer to as The Bible. The five books are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and a book referred to as The Acts of the Apostles.
10. Because it is the same Jesus from Whom all Christians have their Personal Share of Divine Nature, then there is a real concrete unity between them all in the Person of Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God. They are said to be, with Jesus, the Mystical Body of Christ. This includes all Baptised Christians, alive and dead and all people who will become Christians in the future, including persons not yet even conceived.
This unity between Us in the Mystical Body parallels the fact that Humans are social beings whose wellbeing depends on being an active member of Society.
11. When a person receives their Share in the Divinity of Jesus by being Baptised, they become integrated into the Divine Trinity, but not fully. Two out of three things happen - we enter into personal relationships with Jesus, as His brother or sister, and with the Father, as His son or daughter. This is referred to as our Supernatural Adoption. But we do not enter into a fully activated relationship with the Holy Spirit. This occurs in a further event called the Sacrament of Confirmation. The Sacrament of Confirmation is a "follow-up" to the Sacrament of Baptism. It could be said to "complete" Baptism.
Through the Sacrament of Confirmation the relationship with the Holy Spirit of a Sharer in the Divinity of Jesus is "awakened" or "activated". Confirmation attaches to the Confirmed Person access to the powers of the Holy Spirit and the privileges and the benefits which will help them to undertake the two practical responsibilities which are parts of the Central rôle of each adult Christian - namely, to be an Agent of Jesus' Goodness and Benevolence and to be His Messenger. This is because God's Will and Love and Power and all other attributes which are common to both the Father and Jesus exist in, are divested to, the Holy Spirit. In particular, it is from when a Christian is Confirmed that they have access to, if they choose as they should to avail of it, all that God wants each to have to enable them to be His Messenger to all other people.
12. Every living thing in our Universe has both a material aspect of its being, such as our bodies, and a spiritual aspect, referred to as "Soul". The soul is created by God at the moment that God recognises the living thing for what it is. This He does for each one of Us Humans at the instant of our Conception and, thus, before implantation in our mother’s womb.
It is not NATURAL for any living thing in the Universe to have an immortal Soul, and this includes Us. Body and Soul are two aspects of a single, indivisible entity. When the body of a living thing dies, so does its Soul.
However, the souls of all Humans are, in fact, immortal. The survival of our Souls after Death, the keeping open of our Accounts, is a Gratuitous SUPERNATURAL Gift from God. They will never die because we are the subjects of God's Plan to create beings like Himself, and He is immortal. Each human person's body will die as does every living thing in this Universe, but will be raised from the dead or, more precisely, our immortal Souls will be re-embodied by God at a time of His choosing, and then we will live, Body and Soul, for an infinitely long life from that point onwards. For better or for worse, God will never cease His recognition of any one of Us.
13. Jesus, also known respectfully as Jesus the Christ or simply Jesus Christ, ended life by being murdered after being very badly beaten and tortured and after being publicly humiliated and degraded. His death by Crucifixion at the hands of the Roman rulers of Palestine was carried out under pressure from the political and religious leaders of Palestine and, to a lesser extent, pressure from some of the people who were influenced by those leaders. It was claimed to be an execution, but it has been recorded that all charges against Him were both publicly and privately acknowledged by the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, to have had no substance.
This was at least the third attempt by Satan to prompt evil people to kill Jesus.
The Suffering and Death of Jesus were also major events in Supernatural History existing without the constraints of Space and Time.
Forty days later, He returned to Heaven, with His fully restored nature of God/Human. This we refer to as The Ascension of Jesus to Heaven. We can safely assume that, at this point, He would have received much congratulation on a job well done.
Like His Suffering and Death, His coming back from the dead and His return to Heaven with the new nature of God/Human are also pivotal once-only events in Supernatural History. Like all actions and events in Supernatural History, they do not exist in Time and Space but, rather, they exist to all time and space past, present and future for Us all to partake of.
Every Human Being who has died will be resurrected, or re-embodied, in the future at a time of God’s choosing. Christians who live lives which are true to their Share in the Divinity of Jesus, by behaving towards God and towards all other persons as Jesus Himself would, will follow Jesus to Heaven and live there forever with God in an extremely happy state. Our resurrection will happen in this time-bound Universe because Jesus’ Resurrection did. It will be His Resurrection (an event in Supernatural History) that you will be sharing in. Without Jesus' Resurrection there would be no Resurrection for Us Humans.
15. Jesus, the Son and Second Person in God, is Infinitely Benevolent towards every person - living, dead and yet to come. He asks Christians in particular to wish for and to bring Peace and Mercy and Justice and Goodwill to everyone personally as if we are Jesus ourselves because we are in fact actually Jesus by virtue of our Share in His Divinity. We Baptised Christians must allow Him to operate through Us. We must not make any exceptions because He does not see exceptions. If we behave in any other way towards others or make exceptions, then the life of Jesus in Us may die, we may kill It or damage It, and we may as a result give up our right to eventually follow Him to Heaven.
There is never any incompatibility between our responsibility to love and be nice to God and our responsibility to love and be nice to other people. They are the same thing - there is no separation. A Share in Jesus’ Divinity exists for every Human Being. Jesus said that we should love God and love all other people. It could be put this way - "Choose to integrate yourself into the Divine Trinity through choosing your Share in the Divinity of Jesus through Baptism and then choose to allow Jesus to operate through you and to love all others through you". Allowing Jesus to operate through you in this way is the primary point of this temporary transitional life and attending to your own concerns is secondary. Acknowledging this is the Humility that God asks of Us all.
16. This paragraph explains why we NEED to pray to God. The reader will recall that we are in fact actually Jesus in this Universe by virtue of our Share in His Divinity. It is a central part of this relationship between God and Us that, in all matters relating to Us here in this temporary transitional life, God has delegated His Will to Us, absolutely and infinitely. The day-to-day operation of and the effectiveness of God’s Will depends on Us also willing what God wants. But He has not delegated any of His Power to Us. Nevertheless, by delegating His Will to Us, He has disempowered Himself in relation to Us. But we can re-empower Him. Doing so is the simplest thing you will ever be asked by God to do. Just say and mean the general Prayer given to Us by Jesus, the Second Person in God, when He was here in this Universe - "Our Father, let your Will be done on Earth as It is in Heaven".
In addition, we can and do ask God to do specific things that we would like to see happen. However, the "totally general" prayer of "Let your Will be done on Earth as It is in Heaven" is THE best way to re-empower God because He knows what is best in all situations whereas we tend to be incapable of knowing what is best. When we do ask or pray for something specific, we should add something like - "...however, not my will, but Your Will be done!" - and mean it. Because of our general inadequacy in knowing what is best, He has to be selective. However, benevolent and reasonable thinking (Wisdom) enables Us to have better insight into what God wants to happen. Asking (praying) for Wisdom for ourselves and for others is a most worthwhile prayer. It should be our primary "petition-type" prayer.
But always remember that the more general "power enabling type" of prayer is what God "needs" to hear.
The most rejectable prayer or request is one which needs "publicly obvious" miraculous intervention. This would be prejudicial to the Secrecy which is a pivotal component of God's Plan for Us in this temporary transitional life. If God ever does grant you a miracle, there is an onus on you to keep quiet about it.
By delegating to Us the operation of and the effectiveness of His Will in matters relating to Us here in this Universe, God has caused Us to have substantive participation in His Work and Efforts for Us. It is NOT merely nominal participation. We, Jesus, pray to God the Father – because Jesus does.
17. Christianity might, wrongly, be thought of as a religion founded by Jesus Christ when He lived in this World about two thousand years ago. But to a Christian it is not correct to view things in this limited timeframe. The religion of Jesus Christ was founded before the Creation by God of our material Universe. More correctly, Christianity has always existed. It is the One and Only Plan for the Sharing of Jesus' Divinity with Us. It has always been God's Plan for Us Human Beings. When Jesus was here, He was not "founding a religion". He was here to put in place the "mechanics" or "workings" of The Plan. He was here "doing things which needed to be done for Us" to cause the Plan to work. The Incarnation, Life, Death, Resurrection from the Dead and Ascension back to Heaven of the Second Person in God, Jesus, were a climax in the activating by God of His Plan for Us. These actions or events were "activating" or putting in place the most important components of the One and Only Ever-existing Plan.
An important sub-title of this Document is - The Supernatural History of God and Us. This is not some casual additional title. It is a pivotal concept. The individual beliefs of Christianity cannot be viewed in isolation from each other. Every detail is linked to every other detail. But it is more than just that, more than just some static interlinkage. Every detail came into existence, or was activated, in a dynamic step-by-step chronological process or history. Hence what I refer to as - The Supernatural History of God and Us. Any consideration of individual beliefs or concepts outside of or apart from this dynamic historical context can lead only to error and misunderstanding, or at best confusion and indecision.
For the scientifically minded, there is a Science to what God has done. His Plan for Us was merely abstract until He "engineered" it into existence through the events of Supernatural History. There are Systems, Mechanisms and Processes in God’s Plan for the Angels and Us.
18. The Creation of the Universe (an early event in Supernatural History) was the beginning of the carrying out of the part of His Plan which has Us as its sole object (His Second Creation). The sole purpose of this Universe, including our little planet Earth, is to be a place where we Human Beings live out a temporary transitional life of "free choice" before, eventually, another permanent, eternal life after death - the nature of which depends on the choices we make.
The reason for this first temporary transitional life is for Us to have the time and a place to choose to accept or reject God and what He is offering Us (a real and living Share in the Divinity of Jesus), freely and without the prejudice of actually knowing Him DIRECTLY. If we knew him directly, we would not be able to reject Him. We would then lack that Infinite Freedom which God Himself has and so could never be true Sharers in the Divinity of the Second Person of God - God is Infinitely Free and He freely chooses to be Who and how He is e.g. a Benevolent and Good God.
Therefore, an essential part of His Plan is that God is secretive about Himself to Us during our temporary transitional life in this Universe. Without secrecy, He would be making a nonsense of the very reason why He created the Universe for Us in the first place. The Creation of the Universe, the long Evolution of the Earth and of Life, culminating in Humankind, are parts of God's very patient Plan to allow Us to exist for a short time in a true state of not knowing Him directly and so we are able to choose infinitely freely whether to accept or reject Him. We make the Choice solely on the basis of information He gave to some of Us and which has been passed on to the rest of Us.
Because of the long periods of time involved in Evolution, we have irretrievably lost sight of His Creation of the Universe and of Life. Because of the process which we call Death, we have no sight of our next life. God has thus devised an effective Plan for bringing Us into existence in this temporary transitional life while at the same time concealing Himself from Us.
19. We have said earlier that there are four things that we must do to "choose" God. The converse of this is that there are four ways to "reject" God. The most fundamental way is to reject our Personal Share in Jesus' Divinity which God offers to each one of Us. Another is to accept it but then fail to be true to that Divinity by failing to be, as Jesus would be, benevolent both to God and to His People - to ALL other people, living, dead and yet to come. By failing to be Jesus in this Universe. We can also reject God if we fail to believe all He has told Us about Himself or fail to pass this information, this News on to others.
After accepting our own Personal Share in the Divinity of Jesus, we then have to go on to prove that we are prepared to live our lives to achieve God's objectives rather than our own selfish ones. We demonstrate this to God in the four ways already discussed. We must be real and active agents of Jesus in the world by doing those four things; we must allow Him to live again through Us through our Share in His Divinity. Then our Share will be a Living Share and God will see It as such and will not allow Himself to reject Us.
20. God's First Creation, the Angels, have a major rôle in relation to Us and in relation to our day-to-day living of God’s Plan.
They too had a time of "Choosing". We do not have a lot of information about the nature of their relationship with God, but a possibility is that they were offered or were given a Share in the Divinity of the Third Person in God, the Holy Spirit who is similar in nature to Them. Many Angels, the most senior of whom was an Angel of the highest rank next to God named Satan, freely chose, individually and collectively, to reject or abuse whatever relationship God wanted them to have with Himself. The nature of this rejection would most likely have been equivalent in some way to the most common defect to be found in our own relationship with God - namely, failure to acknowledge that, while here in this temporary transitional life, we should choose to totally subordinate our concerns and objectives to His; all else should be secondary. This failure led them to the notion that they were not only not subordinate to God (mainly the Father and the Son, who had divested their Infinite Power to the Holy Spirit) but were at least equals of God. (Satan is recorded in the Gospels as asking Jesus to bow down and adore him). They are believed to have gone even further and, under the leadership of Satan, attempted to take over God's position as the Supreme Being (but not as Creator). Support for God was led by a low-ranking Angel named Michael. Satan, and all the other Angels who sided with him in rejecting and challenging God, were removed from Heaven and put in another place, called Hell.
God does not personally exist in and chooses to have no influence or control in Hell. When creating Hell, God also anticipated Us Human Beings and made it suitable to receive those of Us who would reject the relationship which He would be offering to Us. Hell is an unpleasant place. Try not to be your own Supreme Being.
21. Satan is very, very powerful - he is almost as powerful as God is in relation to Us because God allows him to be such, for the moment. His "will", what he wishs to happen in any matter whatsoever, is always opposed to God's Will. God allows Satan and his Angels access to Us equal to what He allows Himself and His Angels, but only while we are living our temporary transitional life in this Universe. This is for a very good and productive reason. Because of this, when we choose to reject God, it is not merely an abstract rejection of God. The Rejection is actual and concrete because we identify with God's Living Opposite - a Real Personal Evil Being, Satan. Without Satan, choosing God would be empty because no real alternative would exist. Without Satan, God's Plan would be second-rate and the Plan might not even exist at all.
22. The Holy Spirit is, on the other hand, the Real Personal Love of God actually personified. This is because all of the characteristics which God the Father and God the Son have in common are devolved to the Holy Spirit to an infinite degree. The Holy Spirit and those Angels who sided with God are, therefore, the Infinite Opposites and Adversaries of Satan and his Angels in the matter of God's dealings with Us in this temporary transitional life - and vice versa. The Holy Spirit is, therefore, our Advocate before God and Satan is our Adversary.
23. Neither the Holy Spirit nor Satan can "control" Us directly to make Us do things which we would not want to do. But both can influence or prompt Us in two ways. The first is by subconscious prompting. Both of them can use our present knowledge and desires and inclinations to set up situations in which we have a choice to do good, when the Holy Spirit is involved, or evil, when Satan is involved. The second way is a more powerful and effective one and it is the more usual way. It is the use of other people to do the prompting; more especially, the use of "you" to prompt others. When Jesus is judging how you "chose" during your time in this temporary transitional life, He will be looking very especially at, among other things, the extent to which you made yourself to be an Agent of the Holy Spirit or an Agent of Satan in the matter of these promptings while here.
Both the Holy Spirit and Satan can co-ordinate strategies of enormous complexity, but the two of them require our co-operation and intervention to carry them out. A specific strategy by Satan to hurt you, or to prompt you to do Evil, or to prompt you to reject your relationship with God, or cause you not to find out about that relationship or details of It, could have started 20,000 years ago, 10,000 miles away and have involved millions of people. But if you put yourself at the disposal of and under the protection of the Holy Spirit, then you need not fear such things. At best, Satan will have some attack made on you, maybe physical, maybe mental or emotional. Be ready for these, for they will happen. They can be a useful indicator that all is well between you and God. Relax and trust God.
In Hell, we will be aware of the existence of God and that He is Good, but we will not experience Him and we will not be the objects of His Infinite Benevolence. Instead, we will be the objects of Satan's Infinite Malevolence, forever. Hopefully, most Christians will "get by" with the benefit of God's Infinite Mercy and after a time in Purgatory if we make some sort of positive effort. But it will be a pity to have to have relied on such a third-rate and unproductive route to our permanent life. This first temporary transitional life is a short and easy test for most of Us. Purgatory is not.
The more we develop a positive relationship with the Divine Trinity during this first temporary transitional life, the less we will have to make up for in Purgatory.
25. Jesus not only earned for Us the right to have a Share in His Divinity, He also earned for Himself the sole right to restore life to our Share and to forgive all our offences against God if we freely ask for that forgiveness.
It is probably rare for any of Us to totally kill off our Share in the Divinity of Jesus, but the restoration of life and/or wellbeing to our Share in Jesus' Divinity is a major personal, supernatural occurrence equal to what happens to Us at Baptism and Confirmation. It occurs during an event - called the Sacrament of Reconciliation - ministered to you by an ordained priest. This Sacrament can be partaken of even when it is not needed for the extreme purpose of actually restoring life to our Share in Jesus’ Divinity. It is also the Means given to Us by God to absolve, write off or reduce any Temporal Punishment which our faults and failures have "earned" for Us to date. It is also a spiritual exercise which can greatly strengthen the Life of our Share in the Divinity of Jesus; improve Its Wellbeing. It can strengthen our ability to be Jesus in this Universe by purging the damage we have done to that ability through our faults and failings.
Like the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, and like the Eucharist and the Mass, a "once-only" event "activated" the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This was when Jesus, the Second Person in God, asked the Father to forgive those who were involved in His beating, torture, degradation and Death. Those people were our representatives. All of our transgressions and failures were joined by God to theirs through our Shares in Jesus’ Divinity as part of His Plan. During the Sacrament of Reconciliation we share with them (if we chose to) in that moment of God's Forgiveness. That moment too is an event in Supernatural History which continues to exist.
Any Divine Gift made available to any of Us is necessarily "made available" to All of Us. But it is "accessible" only to Baptised Christians because we are The Mystical Indivisible Body of Jesus Christ by virtue of our Shares in His Divinity. But note the use here of the expression "made available" – we still have to consciously "choose" to be forgiven.
26. But things go much further than just God forgiving Us in some abstract or nominal way. It is an infinitely substantive action. This paragraph is another pivotal part of this Document. By virtue of our Personal Shares in the Divinity of Jesus (whether we have chosen them or not), the unity which exists between God and each one of Us is total whether we are aware of it or not. We are One with Jesus, God. All of Jesus' Goodness and Evil come to Us and all of our Goodness and Evil go to Him. Since there is no Evil in God, it is solely His Goodness which comes to Us. We, on the other hand, have a measure of both. Just as We are Jesus by having a Share in His Divinity, He is Us. We make Jesus murderer, thief, liar, slanderer, vandal, nuisance. Again, not in some nominal way. By giving Us Shares in His Divinity, He has willingly taken to Himself all of the Guilt and the Disgrace and the Odium, in reality. This is an inescapable result of His giving Us Shares in His Divinity. Jesus, the Second Person in God, through His Incarnation as a Human Being, drew down on His Own Head the full Wrath of God for every evil that would be done by every Human Being.
And He went further. He inflated all of His Suffering while one of Us here in this Universe to Infinite and Divine Proportions and then "Chose" to offer them as Infinite Punishment for All Wrongdoing. Again this was not in some nominal way. Jesus drew all of this on Himself in two events. The first event is referred to by Christians as The Transfiguration of Jesus. In the company of a very small number of witnesses, He drew to Himself the full force of His Divinity. The witnesses saw Him physically transformed while this happened. From that point on (it was not long before His Death) everything that He did had Infinite Proportions and Effect. The second of the two events is referred to by Christians as The Agony in the Garden. This was at a place called Gethsemane. Alone and neglected by even His closest followers, and with the full force and capability of His Divinity now in play, Jesus contemplated each individual act of wrongdoing for which He was now, by Choice, actually Guilty and deserving of Infinite Punishment.
His Suffering at Gethsemane was greater than at any other time during His temporary transitional life in this Universe. It pushed Him to the Infinite limits of His Divine capability. He would have experienced every unpleasantness to an Infinite Degree - pain, nausea, rejection, disappointment, bitterness and much more. He was so distressed that He even asked God the Father, the First Person in God, if there was some other way to achieve Their Objectives. And thus, Jesus' Suffering at Gethsemane together with the beating, torture, degradation and His Death actually took on the character of Infinite Punishment for the Actually Guilty Jesus. He thus deflected all Punishment and all of God's Wrath away from Us and towards Himself when He uttered the words - "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do". We can, if we so choose, partake of this Deflection, of this Forgiveness, if we sincerely seek it through the Sacrament of Reconciliation ministered by a duly appointed Priest.
We refer to Jesus as Our Saviour because of these things that He has done for Us.
27. It is a most serious offence before God for a Priest to make a Person who wishs to partake of the Sacrament of Reconciliation feel uneasy about it. He should be comforting and welcoming. To be otherwise is to be as destructive of God's Plan as heresy. Heresy draws people away. A Priest with a bad attitude pushs them away.
And every one of Us must also constantly be of this comforting and welcoming frame of mind towards every person. It is the central practical way of allowing Jesus to live on through Us. This, among our other acts of Goodness and Benevolence, helps to give, maintain and heal the Life of the Mystical Body of Jesus. We must all be part of a wider Sacrament of Reconciliation Process.
Just as Jesus became the Actually Guilty Jesus by obtaining for Us Shares in His Divinity through His Incarnation, He also shares with Us His rôle as Saviour of All Humans, just as He is. We should live up to this rôle, just as He does.
28. How do we find out about God? Creating this temporary transitional life is God’s solution to the need not to prejudice Us in making our Choices. However, the need for secrecy presented Him with a problem. In this Universe, isolated from God as we are intended to be, we could not have detailed knowledge about God and about His relationship with Us unless He were to tell Us. God has, therefore, directly communicated all of the information we need, but only to a very small number of people – all of whom were Jews. These, without exception, were already firm believers in God in the general sense before He gave them any information, so they were not prejudiced in any fundamental way by His contact with them. Indeed, they were people who had already developed an idea of God as a Loving Father, which came close to the Truth.
For the rest of Us, our knowledge of God comes solely from "the word of others". We must rely on the word of others for knowledge of God. It is given to Us both verbally and through writings. This "word of others" technique is a key part of God's Plan for relating to Us. It is the third means, after Evolution and Death, by which He avoids prejudicing Us, but yet it is sufficient to allow Us to know all that He wants Us to know about Himself and about His relationship with Us in this first temporary transitional life.
We use the word "Revelation" for the information which God has given (or revealed) to Us through that small number of Jews.
29. Most of God's Revelations to Us about Himself and about how He wants Us to relate to Him were made by Jesus, the Incarnated Second Person in God, while He was alive here on Earth. He too was a Jew. He didn't leave Us with any writings of His own. However, some of the original witnesses and early recipients of what Jesus had to say made an attempt to write down as much as they could about Jesus and what they recollected of what He said and did. Most of these actually knew him personally and/or would have had the benefit of the in-depth knowledge and understanding of Jesus' Mother, Mary. There are five documents which recount some information about Jesus' Life - the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and The Acts of the Apostles. The latter is thought to be a continuation of the Gospel of Luke – it continues from where Luke’s Gospel ends. It also includes some additional information; it recounts some of the activities of Jesus' direct followers in the immediate period after His returning to Heaven. This additional information shows that they organised themselves, planned activities, allocated functions and responsibilities, and considered and made decisions on matters relating to their beliefs even at that early stage.
Unfortunately for Us today, most of what Jesus told to His followers was told by them, in turn, only verbally. This gave rise to some confusion by the time it got passed around a bit. Largely to resolve such confusion, some of Jesus’ early followers and their closest colleagues sent "letters of clarification" to various local groups who were confused about, or were debating, any specific issue. These are referred to as "The Epistles" (The Letters). The Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and one other book – The Book of Revelation – are usually referred to collectively as "The New Testament". But they are not a complete picture.
Again unfortunately for Us, the confusion and debate continued after Jesus’ close friends and followers were dead and gone. This problem was compounded by (a) the rapid geographic spread of Christianity and (b) poor communications. Prominent figures began to emerge and debates became "politicised". To resolve these debates, the Church adopted the practice, started by Peter and the Apostles in Jerusalem, of assembling in (what we now refer to as) a Council and deciding definitively on a resolution of the matter under debate. Usually, a binding Dogmatic Definition on the topic was issued. Almost all Dogmatic Definitions made so far have been made in order to settle debates and disputes.
30. The Revelations made by Jesus when He was here in this Universe are final and complete.
31. The pivotal events of Supernatural History of The Incarnation and Life of the Second Person in God, now called Jesus Christ, achieved two broad objectives. Firstly, the most important achievement was that they brought into existence the new nature of God/Human which He intends for Us plus they put in place everything that is needed for Us to be able to relate to God as He wishes Us to - namely, as active Sharers in the Living Divinity of Jesus.
But secondly, when Jesus was here, it provided God with the best opportunity to convey the knowledge that He wants Us to have about God and about His relationship with Us. This Jesus did to a full and sufficient extent; sufficient such that God has no further need to directly convey any further knowledge to Us.
32. To re-iterate, Jesus gave this information to His followers and friends and relatives when He was alive on this Earth both in words and deeds. A lot of it was actually written down by some of his original and early followers. We not only have the five key documents - the Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles - but we also have the Formal Letters written by some of those original and early followers. Some information was passed on by word of mouth and written down later.
Some of it was not recorded and survived for a long time as oral knowledge or knowledge reflected in traditional beliefs and practices. As with the study of any historical subject, all available sources can validly be looked at both to establish what God has told Us and to enable Us to figure out the full meaning and implications of that information. I emphasise the expression "figure out" and I will return to this later.
Some of the formal writings of the original and early followers were put together at some early stage into a single work which we refer to as The New Testament. But this collection of writings does not provide all of the information we need. Its significance is that, insofar as we may make reference to such early writings, these are the only writings which the early Church believed to have any validity as a written source.
33. Christians are the successors of the Jews as God's Chosen People. We have already seen that we Humans could not know anything about God and His relationship with Us unless He came and told Us. This He did to a very small number of members of the Jewish religion, a religion which He adopted as His Own, before He created the Universe, because of the similarity which He knew would exist between their beliefs and the Real Truth about Himself. He communicated with those few persons over a period of about two thousand years ending about two thousand years ago with the Incarnation of the Second Person in God, Jesus, and the final Revelations by Jesus of what we need to know. Only a small number of Jews accepted that God had come among them in Jesus. These few became the first of what we would now describe as Christians (a term they, perhaps, may not have used themselves).
34. Christians are, or more precisely, must be, among other things, God's Messengers in this Universe. We have already seen that to maintain the necessary secrecy about Himself (required to avoid undue prejudice) God communicated the Message about Himself, and about His relationship with Us in this temporary transitional life, to a very small number of people, and then put the onus directly on them to pass the Message on to others "secondhand". This secondhandedness is not just some unfortunate aspect of God's relationship with Us. It is an indispensable and essential part of that relationship because it protects the secrecy about Himself.
A central part of the Message is that every person who accepts their Share in the Divinity of Jesus has had that onus put on them also and must accept an obligation to pass on to other people all that God has told Us about Himself and about how He relates to Us in this temporary transitional life because this is what Jesus would do and we are Jesus.
35. God does not "give" Us Belief in Himself (often referred to as Faith) at some specific point in time. This Faith is part of our nature. We have been designed by God to find the idea of God acceptable. But Faith needs to be "awakened". It is other Humans and not God who "awaken" it in Us. Each Christian has been "commissioned" by God, through Jesus, to awaken it in others. But it is not only Christians who are capable of awakening Faith. All Human Beings can.
After it is awakened, we need to develop a clear understanding of the mechanisms (and they ARE "mechanisms") of how God relates to Us - of the mechanics of how He (a) transfers and (b) sustains His Divine Life in Us (our Shares in the Divinity of Jesus). The purpose of this Document is to try to provide information about these mechanisms.
36. Christians - Sharers in the Divinity of Jesus Christ - are now His representatives in all things in this Universe (or, more precisely, they are Him in this Universe) and are asked to accept all the burdens and responsibilities of that rôle, of that fact.
37. At this point, I need to say a bit more about Supernatural History. The Conception (or Incarnation) of the Person of the Son in God as Jesus, His Life in this Universe, His Baptism, His Suffering and Death, His Resurrection from the Dead, His Ascension into Heaven with His new Nature of God/Human and the Coming of the Holy Spirit to Us in this Universe are not merely ordinary events which have occurred and are now over and done. Instead, they were, along with certain other events, major essential events in the implementation of God's one and only Plan for Us which didn't just "occur" but are events or, more correctly, "phenomena which exist" outside of Time and Space in a Supernatural History of God and Us. This Supernatural History was and is the carrying out by God of certain actions, designed by Him, which brought into effect or, more correctly, activated or awakened the component parts (the mechanisms) of His Plan for Us which are necessary for Us to be able to relate to Him the Way He wants Us to.
It is because each timeless event in Supernatural History, as affects Us Humans, has a corresponding event in our time-bound history that we can easily misunderstand them by thinking that they have happened and are over. Because they are not bound by either Time or Space, all events in Supernatural History are present, not only to the time and place where we can identify them as having happened, but also to all Time before and after and to every place where God chooses them to be present, which includes all of Our Universe.
38. There is only one Truth about God and about His relationship with Us - God's One and Only Plan. There is no scope for deciding for yourself some other way to relate to God.
There is only One Way to relate to God - His Way. God has gone to a lot of trouble to put His Way into place.
39. The largest Christian group, or Church, is commonly referred to as the Catholic Church. About 50% of Christians belong to the Catholic Church. It says, among other things –
(a) that Jesus, the Incarnated Second Person in God, intended that there should be a main leader of Christianity in this temporary transitional life,
(b) that their own leader, the Pope who is headquartered in Rome, is the true main leader of Christianity because he is the rightful successor to Peter, the person recorded in the Gospels as being appointed leader by Jesus, and
(c) that there is an unbroken line of leadership succession from Peter to the present Pope.
Jesus was not "setting up a religion" while He was here. He was putting Mechanisms in place. But He did set up an organisation. That organisation is the Catholic Church - which is itself one of the Mechanisms He put in place. The way Jesus did things when He was here was to have Himself as Head/Leader/Teacher of His Apostles and other followers. After Jesus' Death and His Ascension back to Heaven, Peter was accepted by the Apostles and followers as leader.
Jesus "set up or put in place" what we now refer to as the Catholic Church with the Pope as its leader as successor to Peter. Jesus ruled out the possibility of other ways of relating to God and He formally declared the setting up of a Church (an organisation) when He said to His main follower, Simon (who He renamed Peter - the Rock), "You are Peter and on this Rock I will build My Church".
This basic organisational structure has persisted to today. It is the structure of The Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. The main rôles of this structure are to be Jesus' formal agent or authority in ministering, teaching, guiding and helping all of the Members of The Mystical Body. The formal structure, initiated by Jesus, is an inseparable feature of the Mystical Body. Without the formal structure, most of the mechanisms of God's One and Only Plan would not work.
40. The Catholic Church is organised into "geographic administrative areas" each of which is referred to as a Diocese. Within each Diocese there are smaller "geographic areas" each of which is referred to as a Parish. A Parish is the people and families within its "geographic" area and not the geographic area itself. Note the description "geographic". The Catholic Church tends to discourage "diffused" groupings which are not organised on a Diocesan or Parish basis. It sees these as a threat to people’s understanding of the uniformity of its beliefs and as having potential for dispute and disaggregation.
41. The Catholic Church might appear to have a two-tier status for its beliefs. In relation to some of its beliefs, it has formally declared them to be Infallibly True but, in relation to some others, it has not done so. While it expects that its members will claim to be members only if they substantially accept all of its Teachings, internal informed constructive debate is accepted on all matters except the Beliefs which it has declared to be Dogmas (Infallibly True). This state of affairs reflects the fact that the Catholic Church has not yet made dogmatic pronouncements about all of its beliefs.
There are two methods by which it can declare a belief to be an Infallible Dogma. This can be done by a Council of all of the Bishops of the Catholic Church (Church Infallibility) or by it leader, the Pope, but only after consultation with the Bishops (Papal Infallibility). The Holy Spirit, the Third Person in God, guides and will not allow the Church to make an error when it uses these procedures. Papal Infallibility, one of these two procedures, has been invoked only twice. In 1854, the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (Jesus' Mother), and in 1950, the Dogma of the Assumption of Mary to Heaven.
42. Some Dogmas have been declared for the purpose of resolving potentially divisive debate. The Catholic Church believes that the full meaning and implications of the Revelations of Jesus, the Second Person in God, had and have to be "figured out" and that there may still be aspects which are not yet fully understood. This makes the Church very reluctant to rush in to declaring Dogmas. One omission at the time of writing is that the rôle of Mary as Co-Mediator of all Graces and Benefits from God is not yet a Dogma.
43. Let us now return to the Means given to Us by God to enable Us to maintain Our Share in the Divinity of Jesus as a Living Share. These means are referred to as The Mass and The Seven Sacraments (I will refer to them collectively as the Divine Gifts). Jesus initiated and gave Supernatural effect to certain specific physical actions which now cause similar supernatural actions between God and Us when they are appropriately ministered and carried out.
This may sound a bit complicated. But it is easier to understand when you understand the individual explanations of the Sacraments and of The Mass.
The Primary Rôle of the Catholic Church is to minister or make available to its members The Mass and The Seven Sacraments – to make these available to those of Us who have accepted our Share in the Divinity of Jesus, the Second Person in God - and who accept the Church's Beliefs and who also adhere to how it says we should live our lives on Jesus' behalf during this temporary transitional life.
44. We have dealt with the three pivotal Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Reconciliation. There is a fourth pivotal and fundamental Sacrament to consider - the Sacrament of Holy Communion - physically consuming what is referred to as The Eucharist.
A validly appointed, or ordained, priest of Christianity can change bread and wine, without changing their appearance to Us, into the Actual Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus (that is, Jesus' total Nature of God/Human becomes "really present" in the Bread and Wine). The bread and wine so changed is referred to as The Eucharist.
As a spiritual exercise and as a source of supernatural graces and benefits from God, Jesus said that we should physically eat and drink the Bread and Wine so transformed. This eating and drinking is an external parallel to or expression of an equivalent supernatural action which happens at the same time. We feed and strengthen and enliven our Share in the Divinity of Jesus by consuming this changed Bread and Wine - The Eucharist. Consuming The Eucharist is referred to as the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
The consuming of bread and wine which has been changed into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus, the Second Person in God, is the only one of the Seven Sacrament which Jesus is recorded in the Gospels as having explicitly instituted or activated. This He did on the evening before He was murdered. He was dining with his main followers at the time. He left no room for doubt about what he was doing. He said of the Bread and Wine, at the meal, – "This is My Body; This is My Blood". This too is an event in Supernatural History which exists for and to all Time, everywhere in the Universe. And He explicitly delegated to those main followers, at that meal, the capability to do what He had just done. He went on to say - "Unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood you shall not have Life in you".
45. In this Document the main emphasis is on the ordinary living of our lives as Sharers in the Divinity of Jesus. Because of this, there is special emphasis on the Five Main Means given to Us by God to facilitate the living of this ordinary life, namely -
the two which set up our relationship with God -
and the three which maintain that relationship -
We will deal later, but only briefly at that, with the other three Sacraments - the Sacraments of Holy Orders, Matrimony and the Sacrament of the Sick. We will now, therefore, move on to deal with Attendance at The Mass.
46. The Mass is the making present to Us here in this Universe of God and of all events in the Supernatural History of God and Us. The Mass is the pre-eminent Human activity while here in this Universe. It is All of Supernatural History. When any Christian is present at a Mass celebrated by an ordained priest of the Catholic Church or of certain Orthodox Churches, they are actually present to all events in Supernatural History, especially to those specifically related to Jesus' Life in this Universe, and most especially and primarily to His Incarnation and Birth, and to His Death (and the beating and torture and degradation which preceded It), His Resurrection, His Ascension back to Heaven (with His Nature changed from God only to God/Human), His sending of the Holy Spirit into this Universe and His eventual (yet to occur) Return to this Universe. These are the events which consummate God's Plan.
47. Because they are the same "once only" events in Supernatural History which are present at every Mass without the constraints of Time and Space, then every Mass is The Same Mass as all others, not just in appearance, but in fact. Every Mass is actually the complete one and only Supernatural History, with Time and Space brushed aside, and is not a re-enactment of that History. It is not accurate to speak of "masses"; there is just Mass or The Mass.
48. We don't "go to Mass", we "attend (The) Mass" – we make ourselves present at and participate in the one and only Mass. When you attend Mass there is something which you should be doing and be conscious that you are doing it. You should participate by bringing with you in your Heart and in your Being the galaxy of your entire life to allow it to be drawn into the galaxy of the Life of Jesus. Through doing this and through your attendance at The Mass, Jesus is best empowered to live again in the Universe through You. It is also the best mark of respect and acknowledgement of His Status that we can possibly show to God.
49. The focal point of The Mass is when the ordained priest changes bread and wine into the Person of the Son in God, Jesus, thus causing Him to be really present to those in attendance. Our presence to the galaxy of events or phenomena in Supernatural History is at that point infinitely and perfectly complete because of the "bringing forth of" the actual Real Presence of God the Son, Jesus, in the Eucharist. Because a Christian has a Share in the Divinity of Jesus (is a Member of Jesus’ Mystical Body), he or she is also present in the Eucharist. You should present the galaxy of your entire life to God through yourself actually present in The Eucharist.
50. The Mass is not a static event, it is a dynamic process. There are two principal and equal practical aspects to this process -
Your total Life as a Christian is The Mass with these two aspects, or should be. Non-attendance at the periodic formal Mass seriously diminishes being a Sharer in the Divinity of Jesus. It is the only event or mechanism provided by God at which you can blend the galaxy of your life into that of Jesus and His into yours.
You cannot have one without the other. The Catholic Church, partly to emphasise this infinitely important connection, prescribes that its members must attend the formal, social presenting of The Mass at least once a week on its "day of rest", Sunday. But it is for more than mere emphasis. Such attendance is the most complete and proper social living of the Life of Jesus' Mystical Body (we Christians), as such.
51. The formal structure which has been given to The Mass has been given the name "The Liturgy of the Mass". "Liturgy" is a word which is not in common use today. One definition describes it as ‘a set of formularies for public worship’. The Liturgy of The Mass could be seen as an agenda or "a list of things to be done during a formal, structured presenting of The Mass". This Liturgy or "list of things to be done" is an invented but appropriate setting for our periodic attendance at The Mass.
The formal structure or Liturgy of The Mass has a rational construction or running order like a work of music or a play has. The "list of things to do" includes –
52. There is nothing which a Christian in this Universe can do for God which surpasses being present to the events in Supernatural History at the formal presenting of The Mass and being in the physical presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. If we understand what is going on, it can be the single greatest active declaration that we can make to God that we are committed to allowing Jesus to be alive and to operate in this world through Us. It can also be the optimum place to seek His help in fulfilling this rôle. We can then live more perfectly our rôle as Jesus in the World, that of making Him present to both ourselves and to all others we meet.
Attendance at the periodic formal liturgical Mass is the best way to formally give Glory and Honour to God.
53. The reason why it is primarily the Death etc., Resurrection, Ascension and Return of Jesus to which we are present at Mass is because they are the main group of events in Supernatural History about which Jesus personally, as one of Us, had to make His Free Choices. Jesus always made His decisions for our benefit and against our Adversary, Satan. Jesus always made His decisions such as to ensure that the components of God's Plan for Us would be "activated" and would be totally effective. This is an extremely important point.
54. This is an appropriate point to "push" God’s perspective on The Mass. It ‘pleases’ Him when we are present at Mass. He has an infinite emotional, psychological and intellectual reaction to our attending The Mass - attending the full Supernatural History of God and Us. (An appropriate prayer at Mass would be to pray for help in making Him happy).
We have been looking at things in this Document in terms which emphasise what We are getting from God. There is a danger in this of encouraging the reader to have an egocentric or selfish view of Our relationship with God. We should not only allow Jesus, the Second Person in God, to operate through Us, we should do everything primarily for God, the Divine Trinity of Persons. Don't just accept His Friendship. Give Him yours. Make it a two-way friendship. He likes you. He enjoys your visits and your company. God can give Himself anything, but He cannot give Himself our Love.
55. Let us return now to the Sacraments. It is during an event which we refer to as the Sacrament of Baptism that each of Us receives our Share in the Divinity of the Person of the Son in God, Jesus. More precisely, our human nature ceases to exist and we become God/Human when Baptised. Jesus' Baptism by His cousin John initiated or activated this pivotal or key part of the Plan, this most essential mechanism. But there is only one Baptism, that of Jesus. We partake of His Baptism during our Personal Baptism; Time and Space are brushed aside.
In the Sacrament of Baptism there is an external physical washing with plain water to represent and parallel a real spiritual washing of ourselves. But it is more than just that. Jesus was Baptised by his cousin, John. When we are baptised, it is not a new separate Baptism. Jesus' Baptism was a major "once only" event in Supernatural History, and It exists for all Time, both before and after. It is as significant for Us as His Incarnation. It complements and completes His Incarnation. Without His Baptism, His coming into this World would have been a waste of effort. When one of Us is baptised, Time and Space are set aside and we share in the actual Baptism of Jesus made present to Us. Our person becomes as His Person is now, God/Human. That is the purpose and effect of Baptism.
When Jesus was Baptised, He heard the voice of the Father from Heaven saying - "This is my Beloved Son, in Him I am well pleased". These words apply equally to Us at the moment of our Baptism. It is the moment when we accept our personal Share in the Divinity of Jesus, the Second Person in God. It is then up to each one of Us to sustain the Divine Life of Jesus in Us from that moment on through the Means which He has given to Us.
To briefly add to what we have said about Baptism, this "foundation" Sacrament should be seen as a "Contract" between God and each person who is accepting their Share in the Divinity of Jesus at Baptism. In return for what God is giving to Us we undertake to love God and all other people, we undertake to do Good and not to do Evil, and we undertake to avail of the Means He has given to Us to keep our Share alive and well while here in this temporary transitional life here in this Universe – mainly by attending The Mass frequently and the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion. We commit ourselves to letting Jesus live on through Us and to be His Messenger.
56. In previous paragraphs we have dealt with what we referred to as the "Means given to Us by Jesus to enable Us to maintain our Share in the Divinity of Jesus as a Living Share". We have dealt mainly with three formal Means - the Sacrament of Reconciliation, The Eucharist and The Mass. We have also mentioned the less formal, but very personal, practice of just being in the presence of Jesus in The Eucharist. We will now deal with two other informal practices.
The first of these two we have, in fact, also mentioned before. It is one of the central aspects of being a Christian - namely, being Good and Benevolent to all other people in thought, word and deed on Jesus' behalf; letting Him operate in this Universe through Us. Being 'nice' to every person.
The second can appear more problematic. Just as we can integrate our Goodness and Benevolence into that of Jesus, we can also integrate any suffering which comes our way into the Suffering He experienced while He was here in this Universe. Not only His Goodness and Benevolence but also His Suffering are phenomena in the Supernatural History of God and Us which exist outside of Time and Space and each, including His Suffering, is available for Us to participate in if we choose to do so.
Suffering is almost like an Eighth Sacrament because, if freely accepted and consciously joined to Jesus’ Eternally Existing Suffering, it too, like all of the actual Seven Sacraments, is joined to something which was commenced or activated in this Universe by Jesus and which continues to exist eternally outside of Space and Time to every Human person ever – including those of Us who have died, those who are here now and those who have yet to come in the future.
God does not "cause" any Suffering. Nor does He "allow" it. It is in the nature of this temporary transitional life that He has had to disempower Himself from doing anything about it as part of His absolute guarantee of our ability to choose freely whether to accept or reject our Shares in Jesus' Divinity. But this temporary transitional life is a short and simple test. Choosing to endure unavoidable Suffering for and as Jesus makes you part of the actual Salvation Process as opposed to just availing of the "fruits" of that Process. It is the ONLY means by which you can so participate. Since it relieves Jesus of some of His Suffering, it is the most "rewarded" Human act. But God does not "want" us to suffer; because of this, your suffering helps Jesus only if you cannot avoid it.
Afinal point about Suffering. You have some control over how the benefit of your Suffering is used by God. You can choose to have the benefit applied to those who are in Purgatory.
57. The Holy Spirit, the Third Person in God, arrived in this Universe shortly after Jesus returned to Heaven with His Nature of God/Human. This event in Supernatural History is told in the Acts of the Apostles. Symbolic but visible flames were seen to come down over the heads of a group of Jesus’ main followers - Christians refer to this event as The Descent of the Holy Spirit.
Strange and unusual things were done by these followers for a short time after the event in question. They were given great confidence to do what needed to be done to spread Jesus’ teachings and to invite other people to accept their Shares in His Divinity. Some worked miracles. When they spoke in public, some of their listeners say that they could hear them speaking in their own language. These effects lasted only for a short period; just long enough for them to confidently realise that the Holy Spirit had indeed been sent to Us by Jesus as He had promised He would.
The coming of the Holy Spirit to this small number of people was an eternal event in Supernatural History in which all Baptised Christians can also participate. The specific Means by which we do is the Sacrament of Confirmation. After our Confirmation we are totally integrated into the Divine Trinity in the same manner as Jesus is.
The Holy Spirit is our All-Powerful Protector, our Advocate (here with Us) before God, our Chief Adversary of Satan, the Empowerer of the rôle we are asked to assume as Agent and Messenger of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is the Co-ordinator of God's strategies. He exists primarily in Christians because of their Share in Jesus' Divinity. But His Power in a Christian is dormant until it is awakened by the Sacrament of Confirmation. This Sacrament alters a Christian's relationship with God irreversibly, and it helps Christians to fulfil their rôle and carry out their tasks as Sharers in the Divinity of Jesus.
58. It was while He was physically here in this Universe that Jesus "set up" or "established" Our relationship with Himself and with the First Person in God, the Father, when He instructed His Cousin, John to Baptise Him. But He did not, while here in this Universe, "set up" Our relationship with the Third Person in God, the Holy Spirit. Everything else had to be done first, up to and including His return bodily to Heaven. Jesus' final task for our benefit at that time was to send the Third Person from Heaven and into this Universe to be with Us until He returns. The Acts of the Apostles records events which occurred at the moment of the Holy Spirit's arrival - a great wind was heard and tongues of fire appeared over the heads of Jesus' main followers. This moment of the Descent of the Holy Spirit exists continually outside of Time and Space. We commence participation in it during the Sacrament of Confirmation. From the moment of our Confirmation we are in the fullest relationship with the Divine Trinity.
59. We have referred previously to certain Free Choices which Jesus had to make for our benefit. He would have had to make other decisions affecting God's Plan. Satan would have had many opportunities to try to corrupt Jesus during His Temporary Transitional Life in this Universe, in the exact same way that he has with Us. He even appeared to Jesus at least once and directly tried to influence Him. But he failed. Satan then co-ordinated, through co-operating people, the murder of Jesus whom he knew to be God the Son. This was Satan's greatest ever attack on God, and on all of Us Humans too because we are meant by God to be Sharers in Jesus' Divinity. The Resurrection of Jesus thus became in turn Satan's greatest ever defeat by God, and he would never again be given an opportunity to strike at Him directly. But he can still strike at God indirectly by influencing Us, who are meant to be Sharers in Jesus' Divinity. He can influence Us to Choose to reject God and Goodness and Benevolence or to reject or ignore what He tells Us about Himself and how He wants to relate to Us or to fail to be His Agent and Messenger during our temporary transitional life. But it is We who Choose.
60. The Sacraments and the Mass, and being benevolent, and enduring suffering, will not be efficacious for Us unless we know what they are about - what is involved – and unless we are fully co-operating and participating in them and identifying them with our relationship with God.
For example, we obtain our Personal Share in the Divinity of Jesus in an event referred to as the Sacrament of Baptism. This Sacrament will succeed only if we genuinely and freely want to absorb our Share in the Divinity of Jesus into our person, and so become God/Human, and only if we are committed while being Baptised to demonstrating in our lives until our death that we will do our best to be channels of Jesus' Infinite Benevolence, on His behalf and on our own, towards God and towards all other people, and that we will be His Agent and Messenger.
61. A final perspective on the Mass and the Sacraments together. It is not very meaningful, nor indeed intelligible, to comprehend any one of the Sacraments in isolation from the others. Nor the Mass in isolation from the Seven Sacraments. Nor the Mass and the Seven Sacraments in isolation from all of Supernatural History. Nor Supernatural History in isolation from Us living our Shares in the Divinity of Jesus. They are a single indivisible system.
62. We have not dealt with three of the Seven Sacraments - Holy Orders, Marriage and the Sacrament of the Sick - because they are not part of the ordinary living of our lives as Sharers in the Divinity of Jesus, the Second Person in God. Holy Orders is the appointment or ordination of a Sharer in Jesus' Divinity to be a Priest to minister the Divine Gifts to all Sharers in His Divinity. It is a further development of a relationship with God, but it does not add anything extra to a Person's integration into the Divine Trinity. Marriage is a bonding of the Souls of a Man and a Woman within the Mystical Body of Jesus. God has raised the union of a Man and a Woman who are both Sharers in His Divinity into Supernatural History as a relationship within Jesus' Mystical Body. It will not persist for all Time; it ends with the death of either person. The Sacrament of the Sick is primarily intended as a final Divine Gift to any Sharer in Jesus' Divinity whose temporary transitional life is thought to be about to come to an end.
63. We will now move on to discuss in more detail the rôle of Jesus' Mother, Mary, in God's One and Only Plan. Mary is central with Jesus to God’s Plan and very much so.
64. Because the nature of Jesus is one which is inseparably both Divine and Human (God/Human), then Mary, His Mother, is Mother of God and not merely mother of the human aspect of Jesus. However, to say that Mary is Mother of God is primarily a statement about Jesus and how we view His Nature, that He is Indivisibly God/Human, rather than a statement about her. But it is, nevertheless, an important fact for all of Us who are meant by God to be Sharers in that very Divinity of which she is Mother. When We choose to accept our Share in Jesus' Divinity by being Baptised, then we cannot escape having her as the Mother of that Share. We should emphatically acknowledge her as such. She is the Mother of Us all, both Christians and Non-Christians, because a personal Share in Jesus' Divinity exists and has always existed in the Second Person in God, Jesus, for each person whether they have actually chosen it or not (by becoming a Baptised Christian).
65. Mary, the Mother of the Second Person in God (Jesus), is the only Perfect Christian - the only one of Us whose living of this temporary transitional life caused her to be perfectly worthy to be given a Share in the Divinity of Jesus. She is the only one of Us who is "entitled" to a Share; the only one of Us who has earned the right. It is both (a) the goodness of how she lived this temporary transitional life and (b) her freely accepted direct involvement in essential key events of Supernatural History (especially the Incarnation of God) that makes her worthy. All of the rest of Us are not fully worthy. There are a number of important consequences of this for her and for Us in the matter of our relationship with God and especially with Jesus.
66. A consequence for Mary was that she was conceived with her Share in the Divinity of God the Son and was fully integrated into her relationship with the Divine Trinity, including the Holy Spirit, even though her Son Jesus Himself had not yet even been conceived as a human being. (Hence what is referred to as the Immaculate Conception of Mary). Because God foresaw her as the Only Perfect Christian, and because God knew that she would freely agree to His request for her to be Mother of the Divine Son, He anticipated the Incarnation of Jesus and all Supernatural History (a) by giving to her her own Share in the Divinity of Jesus and (b) by allowing her into the full relationship which God intends for Us with each Person of the Divine Trinity from the moment of her own conception.
Her Immaculate Conception was thus the Precursor or Promise or Guarantee of Us being given our Personal Shares in the Divinity of Jesus. It set the seal irrevocably on God’s Plan for Us.
67. Mary is God's Pre-eminent Human Co-operator. She made a free choice to allow the Incarnation of the Second Person in God through her. She could have refused. We would not have had a second chance. With only one exception, she alone among Us had observable, substantive and direct participation in events and phenomena of Supernatural History. (The one exception is John the Baptiser, Jesus' Cousin, who had substantive and direct participation in one event - the activating of the Sacrament of Baptism.) The fulfilment of God's Plan to allow Us to be Sharers in His Divinity is, by God's Design or Choice, a Joint Effort between God and Mary, and it will continue to be so for ever. Our obtaining a Share in the Divinity of Jesus was caused by God to be totally dependent on Mary's agreement to be His Mother.
68. The most important consequence for Us is that Mary is the Co-Mediator with Jesus of All Graces and Benefits that come from God to Us, but not in the same way that Jesus is the Mediator of all Graces. Jesus is the Giver and Mary is the Sole Recipient and Sole Dispenser. These Graces include especially our Shares in the Divinity of Jesus. Mary is the only Perfect Christian, the only perfect one of Us ordinary humans. Because of this, God gives all Graces and Benefits to her alone, even those that are intended for the rest of Us. She then dispenses these Graces and Benefits to Us.
It is solely by her choosing, by her Will, which is perfectly attuned to the Will of God, by the Will by which she agreed to be the Mother of God for Us, that All Graces and Benefits (including our personal Shares in the Divinity of Jesus) are "made available" to Us. The expression "made available" is more correct than "given" because the Graces and Benefits never leave her. If they did, they would not come to Us because we are not sufficiently worthy to receive them. Everything which comes to Us from God comes to Us from The Second Person in God, Jesus, and is received for Us by Mary, His Mother. It is in that sense that we can describe Mary as the Co-Mediator of All Graces. Her rôle is quite different to that of Jesus. Nevertheless, her rôle is such that, if Jesus can be referred to, as we do, by the reverential name of Our Lord, then she can reasonably be referred to as Our Lady because all things that were done for Us by God depended on her free co-operation and continue to depend on it.
69. There is important interlinkage between the following -
A major event in Supernatural History exists which interlinks these - the Nine Months from the Conception to the Birth of the Second Person in God, Jesus Christ. The most intimate relationship that can exist between two Human Beings is that between a mother and her unborn child. The child is inside her body for nine months. The child grows and survives from nutrition which has been part of her body. The creation of the new nature of God/Human was a Joint Effort between God and Mary in every sense imaginable. This Nine Months is the most multi-purpose event in Supernatural History - it caused or gave substance to each of the things listed above. Divine Nature entered this Universe through that event - through The Woman.
70. Another consequence is that Mary is our Co-Advocate with the Holy Spirit before God and Co-Adversary of Satan for the same reason and in a similar way that she is Co-Mediator with Jesus of All Graces. In a sense it could be said that she is our Advocate before God because she is in Heaven and that the Holy Spirit is the Co-Advocate because He is here in this Universe with Us.
71. Another consequence for her and for Us is that Mary has already been raised from the dead and brought to Heaven. Hence what is commonly referred to as the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. Resurrection would be a more appropriate word to use. Since she is the only Perfect Christian, and because she is delegated by God to be Co-Mediator and Co-Advocate, she was raised from the dead and brought to Heaven very soon after her death to enable her to fulfil those rôles. Without Mary's Assumption to Heaven God's Plan would not work.
Unlike Mary, the rest of Us have to wait until a time of God's choosing when He will end this temporary transitional life and end the process of creating more of Us by ending Time itself for Us. This will be a major event in Supernatural History (the only one we know about which has not already occurred) at which all Humans ever conceived will be raised from the dead and placed in their chosen permanent life, to live there forever.
In Mary's case, God was again not bound by the constraints of Time and so He was able to anticipate this future event in Supernatural History (the raising of all Humans from the Dead) and cause it to happen to her. The raising of Mary from the dead and her Assumption or Resurrection to Heaven are, for all Christians, a prophetic statement and proof that these anticipated future events are actually going to happen. These things which have happened to her makes her the Living Precursor and Guarantee or Assurance of these future events for Us. The seal is set on God's Plan to do these things for Us.
72. Mary's rôle as Precursor is much more extensive than that. Mary was and is the Living Precursor of All Supernatural History and of All Natural History. If God did not foresee her free acceptance of the full rôle which He would ask her to play in His Plan for Us, He would not have bothered to create the Universe - nothing would ever have happened about Us, we would never have come into existence; it would all have been pointless. By her own Immaculate Conception she was the Precursor of the Incarnation of God in the Person of Jesus, and of our being offered Shares in the Divinity of Jesus and of the Sacrament of Baptism. By her being raised from the dead and being brought to Heaven she is the Precursor of all that will happen to and for Us at the end of Time.
73. John, the Cousin of Jesus, is the Co-Precursor, with Mary, of our being offered Shares in the Divinity of Jesus. This is an extraordinary privilege for him. Because of the rôle which he was to have in the Eternal Baptism of Jesus, he was given his own personal Share in the Divinity of Jesus (in anticipation) while he was still in his mother Elizabeth's womb when she was visited by Mary, her own cousin, while Mary was expecting Jesus.
John, because of the importance and nature of the rôle which he had in giving effect to God's Plan for Us (the activating of the Sacrament of Baptism) was, like Jesus, a prime subject for Satan's attention. He, like Jesus, was tortured and murdered.
74. And finally, what of those who are not Baptised. Each of these too has a Personal Share in the Divinity of Jesus, but it is not part of their person until they choose to accept it with the commitments which that entails. It remains solely with Mary, the Co-Mediator of All Graces. That Share, like those which have been accepted, also lives or dies in accordance with the way each Unbaptised Person lives their temporary transitional life. When an adult is Baptised, their Share comes to them with a history based on their past life and may even be in need of Reconciliation with God. For such a person, Baptism itself produces that Reconciliation. For Unbaptised Persons who genuinely do not become aware during their lifetime of the Message about God and how He wants to relate to them, and who live their lives in a way which is acceptable to God, they will not be sent to Hell. But it is not certain how God will deal with them.
A Baptised Person (a Christian) must acknowledge and respect the Share in Jesus' Divinity of an Unbaptised Person because it really exists and has always existed, just as their own has.
The title of this document is - "The Single Most Important Truth". The single most important truth for Us Humans is that this life of ours, in this Universe, is a temporary transitional life during which we choose to accept or reject a relationship with the Divine Trinity as a living and active Sharer in the Divinity of Jesus and that this temporary transitional life has no other purpose.