Transcription
I always enjoy listening to Father Ianuzi whenever he talks about Adam and Eve and just shares stuff from the book of Genesis. So with that in mind, that's exactly what I want to start this video with on the test of the angels as well as Adam and Eve. Listen to this.
>> This was the first disruption of God's plan for which all creation was made. After the rebellion, God wanted to now complete his plan of becoming man in order to raise the human nature to the divine nature above the angels. So Christ incarnated himself in fallen man. Imagine that. Satan thought that by entering into the Garden of Eden and spoiling God's plan of becoming man through innocent Adam and Eve that God could no longer go forth with the plan of raising mankind above the angels. So after Adam and Eve were made, God allows them to undergo a test just like he allowed the angels to undergo a test. Why? No creature is given heaven unless they pass a test. They don't obtain this by merit unless they prove that they are loyal to God. So what is the test of the angels? Loyalty to God's plan. What is the test of Adam and Eve? Loyalty to God's word. Not to partake of the forbidden fruit. But guess what? God avails himself of to put Adam and Eve to the test. Nothing other than a vile serpent, Lucifer himself. This is why Lucifer enters paradise just for a little while to test Adam. Had Adam and Eve said no to Lucifer, Lucifer would have been banished forever from Eden. And Adam and Eve would have been happy for all eternity in the parad paradisical state and would have made little Adams and Eves and we would have been conceived and born without original sin in Eden. And then Christ would have eventually come down to earth in Eden to still become human being. You see, this is part of God's plan A to become human. Not plan B. God did not become human because of original sin. No, God was still going to become human even if Adam and Eve had not sinned. So if Adam and Eve had not sinned and passed their test of loyalty, in that moment when they told the serpent to leave, they would have been confirmed in grace and then would have been given the gift of impeccability. Much like now the angels in heaven are given. Once they passed the test, they could no longer sin. Before they passed the test, they could sin. But since Adam and Eve did not pass the test, they were banished from Eden and they bore us their progeny in this fallen world in a wounded state where when we are conceived, although in God's image and likeness, our intellects, memories, and wills are impaired, whereby we do not see all the ends of our actions which Adam and Eve and the angels before sin were able to do. And this is why they were only given one test. Once sin ensued, once it entered into the spiritual DNA of mankind, we became ignorant as St. Augustine puts it, ignorancia, he writes, Latin word for ignorance, [gasps] which we became subject to in concupisencia, concupiscence, which is the body warring against the soul. So not only is the soul impaired in its faculties of the intellect, memory and will whereby it no longer sees all the ends of its actions, but the body now is subject to death, decay, illness, sickness, um miscommunication, inability to love as it desires, do as it desires, and it wars against the soul in its desires. Even in that poor plight that we were reduced to because of our original our parents' original sin, God nonetheless comes down to earth, fulfills his plan in a wounded human generation. 2,000 years ago, he assumes a human nature just like ours, but without any impairment to the intellect, memory, or will just like Mary. Only Jesus and Mary were preserved from the effects of original sin. Now Mary was conceived without original sin and Jesus who is God was conceived in Mary's womb as God who knows no sin.
>> And the next clip of him that I want to share with you for our lesson together this time will be on the two types of Jesus's reaction. This will also be a very good reflection for us. Listen to this.
>> Now Jesus when he was addressed by two types of people, he employed two different types of reactions in the scriptures. He was approached by the Pharisees and he reacted very strongly. He exercised tough love to them. Why? Because they were critical. They didn't want to accept his new gospel. And then there were others that were in sin, but that he was very tender to like the adulteress. Now, why these two different attitudes of our Lord toward two different people? Tough love toward the Pharisees and scribes. Tender love toward the prostitute, the tax collectors, and the sinners. This is the answer. The scribes and the Pharisees were filled with their own ego. They had no humility. They didn't want anyone to change their comfortable lifestyle. So Christ seeing that they were hard of heart gave them tough love to shake them out of their indifference. They had to be spiritually shaken. So spiritual shaking is legitimate and it is sound Catholic moral theology. There's nothing wrong with using tough love. The problem with today's woke culture is you can't use the rod and spoil the child. You have to let the child be spoiled without the rod. And that's wrong. That's anti-biblical. Now the rod is not physical beating. No, it's spiritual shaking. The rod is a symbolic meaning in that part of the scripture. And that's what Christ did with the Pharisees and scribes. The tender love he exercised was toward those who were in sin, yes, but were humble. You say, "Well, how can you be in sin and humble?" They were victims and also in need of liberation from their own addictions, from their condition in life, but they were open to change, to welcome something that would help them out of their poor plight. The Pharisees and scribes were not open to this help. They were, even though they were sinners. See, there's a difference between a sinner and a slave of sin. Christ makes this distinction in scripture. A sinner is someone who sins and acknowledges that they sin, so they confess when they can. A slave of sin is someone who doesn't care to confess and sins all the time. And that's why Jesus said, "Woe to those who are slaves of sin." He never said, "Woe to sinners." Never said, "Woe to sinners." And St. John says, "He who says, 'I am not a sinner is a liar.'" Okay?
And the following clip, it's also another very important reminder for us. And although Palm Sunday is still a few months away from now, it's still a very good reflection for us all. Where two million Jews were crying out to him as the Messiah, laying down palm branches before him as he rode on a colt upon which no human had ever ridden, a virgin colt. And the Pharisees and scribes were challenging the Lord's authority and looking for occasion to kill him. [clears throat and snorts] One occasion we find in the gospel is where they demand a sign from the Lord and he says, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will rebuild it." So our blessed Lord, when asked by what authority he was acting, said, "Destroy this holy of holies, this tabernacle." And on Good Friday, I will rebuild it on Sunday. That will be your sign. And our Lord left the temple because the people had become irreverent. The church had become irreverent. And in religion, it is possible for irreverence to grow. There can be a want of the sense of holy and holy means to be set apart. For example, Sunday is holy. It is a day set apart from all the other days of the week. A church is holy. It is separate and distinct from all other buildings. And therefore it is fitting that a conduct for the presence of God which was lost in the days of Christ and which we are losing in our days be set apart from all other conduct. So in church we do not gossip. In church we do not talk about the weather and things unrelated to God and the worship to him. Certainly charity is present in church and if someone needs to know something we assist them and let us be patient as well because as we get older we lose our hearing. So it is not uncommon that we have sometimes people speaking out loud that are of you know senior citizens status. But it is another thing to deliberately turn our gaze off God and focus it on fleeting things. It is easy to blame these few who trafficked in the temple that is the five sons of Annas when the Lord was approaching his passion. But what of the many of us who have given up our faith, our Lent and journey with the Lord to love our neighbor, to forgive as God has forgiven us, not to judge as God is our judge. Such actions of those of the Pharisees and scribes and sometimes of of us condemn our Lord. When they drove out the Lord, we with our misbehavior drive him out also of our temple, our body. So the Lord when he comes to the church, the synagogue after Palm Sunday goes back into the city and he comes into the temple of Jerusalem. And the temple was an enormous structure at the time of Christ that was begun about 20 BC by Herod the Great. There were various courts in this temple surrounding the inner sanctum. There was the court of the Gentiles, the court of the woman, the court of the people. And in the court of the Gentiles, animals were kept, not by law, but by practice that had creeped up among the synagogue members, the five sons of Annas in particular, who were the who was the high priest of Jerusalem.
>> Let's get back to the angels for a moment, just a little bit on the beatific vision. Listen to this. Up until Lucifer rebelled, the angels did not perpetually enjoy the beatific vision. It was on loan. They would be given it as a reward and confirmation for having passed the test of loyalty to obedience to the will of God, which was what? According to St. Irenaeus, an early church father, Lucifer was given a vision that the angels would serve humans. And Lucifer said, "I will not serve this plan." and rebelled against God. Well, two-thirds of the angels decided to side with God in his plan. Although not completely understanding perhaps where all this was going to go in the end, how angels would serve men. Perhaps not knowing in detail that God would become man and not angel to raise the human nature above that of the angelical nature. Who knows? But what matters is that Lucifer chose not to go along with God's plan. He did not want to take a leap of faith in God but trust upon his own human knowledge and resources and failed. Whereas two-thirds were confirmed in grace and in so doing were confirmed in the beatific vision for all eternity.
>> And for the last clip in this compilation, I want to share one with you on justice and mercy. And I hope all of you have learned a lot from this one.
>> With respect to justice and mercy, we live in an unjust world. And we know that because Jesus told us in advance that they will persecute you. If you serve the cause of Christ, you will be persecuted. No servant is greater than this master. If they did this to me, they will do this to you. And there is no way to heaven except through the cross. But we also know that even though we're aware of these teachings, we're never fully prepared for unexpected setbacks. Much like the blessed mother when her son was being led across the dirty streets of Jerusalem to the crucifixion, even though she knew this, Simeon prophesied it to her. It's a whole different thing to experience it, right? And it depends I suppose on the person, you know, their age, the situ the event that they're experiencing and our relation to them in order to counsel them, it has to be taken in the proper context. But in general, I could say this, that we only see things from below and don't always comprehend the events in our lives and why God permits them to happen, especially when they are unjust. The example that Pio gave to a person who was experiencing the death of a loved one was this. When your grandmother or your mother is working with a needle and thread and you're sitting at her feet and you look up at her and all you see are the strings hanging from below the canvas she's working on. And you say to her, "You've [clears throat] been working on that for days, and all I see is a bunch of yarn and strings hanging." And then after she finishes it, she turns it around. And then you realize the masterpiece because she sees from above what you see from below. And that's why Christ tells us that blessed are those who have seen with who believe without seeing. This he said to Thomas. Thomas wanted to know the answers all now. And we can't, I think we are too harsh on Thomas. You know, we call him the doubting Thomas. But he had reason to doubt, you. I don't think any one of us wants to have a spiritual relationship without knowing our spouse. Thomas wanted to meet his bridegroom. Christ said with respect to the apostles when he was criticized by the Pharisees for not fasting, as long as the bridegroom is with them, they cannot fast. So when all the apostles saw Christ except Thomas, he wanted to see his spouse in the spiritual sense of the word and therefore when we are experiencing these setbacks, we want to know the reason, we want to understand, and there's nothing wrong with that. Our Lady wanted that at the Annunciation when she was told to be the mother of God. She said, "How, how is it possible?" She wanted to know too, and there's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes we don't always have the full answer. We have part of the answer, which I just started with. You know, there we have to live by faith. There will be crosses to get to heaven. But to deal with that is a different thing. The best thing to do for that person is to be there for them. Not so much talk to them. Just be there for them. Sometimes your presence is more than a com a conversation than a lesson. As humans, sometimes we go into teaching mode all the time and sometimes it gives you spiritual indigestion. You just want to say, "Can you just be quiet and stop teaching me and just listen?" Sometimes these people that are hurting need to talk. They need to express, and you need to be there just to listen and not give them any advice, not counsel them, just listen. Sometimes that's more important, more consoling than even though you have all the best effort to help them speaking and teaching.
Well, I think that is all for the video this time. So again, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us and hopefully all of you have learned a lot from this video and until the next one, thanks again for watching and may God bless you.