The cloak of St Martin, and the idea of a better way to live.
The cloak of St Martin, and the idea of a better way to live.
The Legend of St Martin of Tours is still basically well known in our time to most Catholics in the Western world. This is a good summary I pulled from the web page of an ex-army Chaplain, Mitchell Lewis:
"In the fourth century, a Roman soldier serving in northern Gaul met a scantily dressed beggar. The soldier’s name was Martin, and although he had been reared in a pagan Roman household, he had begun the process of inquiring into the nature of the Christian faith. Seeing the beggar, he impulsively cut his own military cloak in half and shared it with the poor man.
That night, he dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak he had given away. He heard Jesus say to the angels: “Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clad me.” The dream confirmed Martin’s faith and he was baptized.
Sometime later*, Martin left military service, became a monk, an evangelist and ultimately bishop of Tours." (* The classical account of Martin’s life says that he left military service about two years after his baptism. Following historian Jacques Fontaine, many (if not most) scholars now date his birth earlier and believe he served in the army for about twenty years after his baptism.)
The fourth century was a difficult time for people. Arius the Apostate and his teachings were favoured and patronized by the Emperor and his court, as well as nearly every bishop.
Christianity, then as now, offers a better way to live than anyone else ever knew, and people took what they learned from the Church and sought to put into practice what they had learned. And they came up with some amazing ways of putting Christian ideas into action and use.
Except for historians like Jacques Fontaine, and a few, rare clerics down the long count of centuries that stopped whatever it was they usually wanted to do long enough to observe the daily lives of ordinary people living their faith and practicing it, many valuable things have largely gone unnoticed, and relatively unrecorded.
Ordinary people do not usually leave detailed written accounts of themselves, nor bequeath to posterity great works of art, wealth or culture. So, except for records of what the learned, the wise, and the wealthy deemed of importance concerning the great 'everyone else', such as harvests, taxes, and tithes, the lives of ordinary people putting Christianity into actual practice in their daily work and home lives never quite makes it into the historical record.
The Catholic Church and the Western culture it created from out of Pagan Rome can certainly boast of many great things to both its credit and to the Greater Glory of God ... but inevitably, anyone who is trained to see, watch, listen and record will find something important is missing.
The record, both sacred and secular, are incomplete. They could then ask, as I did, what does it mean to an ordinary person to live a life of faith? What did people do to make that true?
How did ordinary people DO Christianity?
Well, let’s give a few examples.
The story of St Martin giving half his cloak to a beggar has been popular in Christendom for centuries. Somewhere, sometime a long way back it occurred to somebody that a cloak made so as to be divided on purpose could be useful.
The picture above is of just such a "St Martin" cloak that can be used as a tent.
But even more interesting, this cloak was made in communist era Poland for the army. It comprises two soldiers' hooded ponchos buttoned together to form a kind of teepee or palatka.
Far more functional than the A-frame tents used by the modern NATO Armies of France, Britain, Canada and the US, this cloak was in service in communist Poland for decades. A similar tent was used in Hungary and East Germany (the zeltbahn) and in the USSR.
The irony of their use by an officially atheist regime is quite funny, actually.
From the period of the fourth century on, the idea of a St Martin cloak spread out among the people. Some were designed as a lined cloak to be used as a sleeping robe. But often enough, they were made for travelers and pilgrims to wear by day, then make into a tent for rest at night out of the weather.
A cloak you could live in, day and night, when you leave behind home and hearth. Big enough to keep you and your gear dry, and still share with another in necessity or Charity.
It was good for travel by horse or on foot, easy to wash, easy to warm.
Since most people for centuries had only what they needed to live, as one teacher of mine phrased it, " by force or by choice", a cloak big enough to cover two was usually good enough, and for larger numbers, cloaks similar to the German and Hungarian style could make larger accommodations.
In the modern era, this idea wasn’t passed on from some committee meeting at Central Planning. People living in communist Poland didn't pass this idea on by giving them to famous authors, theologians or Party leaders.
They passed them on the same way I inherited my older brother’s sweater and my dad's coat. Our mum knitted the sweater and sewed dad's coat, and I got them both when I grew old enough, and I gave them away to someone else.
Once a good idea gets going, it doesn't go away, ever. Out of the story of Martin giving half of his cloak away, comes the rest of the story of Martin fulfilling his time in the Roman army, leaving it, then leaving behind the world to live a holy life.
Then comes the idea to wish you could do that too -- leave the world, the flesh and the devil behind yourself, as monks and nuns do, but you know you can't be a monk or a nun.
So then comes the idea of maybe taking a pilgrimage, a kind of temporary escape, a sort of holiday from life in the world of care and woe. You won't need to take much, as it's not far, but you might need a cloak.
And if you don't have much money, or you can't get a bed at the inn when you're out there, it should be a good cloak you can use to sleep outside.... maybe something that can cover you and your pack, and keep you out of the weather.
So, through trial and error, you do something about it, as best as you can. And somebody else makes a stylish one that looks good over armor or a uniform. Another makes one you can sling as a hammock below decks after a watch at sea. Somebody else wears one all the way from John O Groats to Walsingham and back, and dyed it green to hide better from robbers and Toll-men. A few centuries later, and the whole village wore them after the war forced them to flee over the fields to the coasts.
And generation after generation the idea had virtue, and kept getting passed along.
It's such a simple thing, really, to make a thing to alleviate discomfort and misery then put into use something that gives warmth and rest.
We make things to satisfy such demands every day, Christian or not, it’s true.
And yet … look closer at these things. Who else in world history came up with a simple cloak you could put together to make into a home, a hospital, a church, and a headquarters or Quartermaster's store as needed? Whose army? In what part of the non-Christian world?
Who would want to?
Ordinary people, doing the best they can with what they know, and using what they have could do it.
And in the history of the Christian West, they actually did.
Why? Because that's what you are supposed to do, when you know what's true and right from what is wrong and bad.
Since the beginning of the Christian era there has been a secret theology that constantly and perpetually escape the attentions of the wise, the mighty, and the wealthy.
It’s a secret in the Christian sense of the word, because nothing about it is actually hidden, and you don’t have to become a member of an inner circle of intiates to know all about it. Hidden knowledge, secret sects and years of study to achieve a title or a document of certification are unnecessary, and belong to Gnosticism, not Christianity
All it takes to begin is listening and thinking. Then you have to make make a decision: choose to believe what Christ and His Church teaches and accept it on faith as the truth, or don’t.
What is accepted as truth by faith is often something that the worldly wise don’t understand and see as foolishness, if they even notice it at all.
And why is that? Why are so many leaders, teachers, and the so-called elites in the world so detached from reality and stupid?
Let’s explore this problem next.
Part Two: The Rulership Of Thieves and Lawless Ones
"3 Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come the apostacy first, and the man of lawlessness be revealed, the son of destruction,
4 The one that opposeth, and exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God."
2 Thessalonians 2:2-3
How long does a policy have to exist before it is recognized as a law unto itself?
What is the difference between a policy and a law?
While a law is framed for bringing justice to the society, a policy is framed for achieving certain goals.
Laws are for the people, and policies are made in the name of the people.
Policies can be called a set of rules that guide any government or any organization.
Laws are created in the governing body (the Legislature or Parliament), and administered through the courts.
Policy occurs before the law.
Policy generates the process that will create law in modern states.
A policy can stand long after a law is made, and can continue as a policy long after that law is annulled, or has changed.
Policy is the replacement for those who don’t require law for themselves. That is to say, policy surrogates for those who hold themselves apart, or above, laws for the people. For those who rule as a law unto themselves.
The original English meaning of the term Lawless meant those to whom a law or set of laws does not apply. These people were lawless in the sense that by status, appointment or license, the law or set of laws was not applicable to them, and they could not be judged or brought to account for that law or laws by others of lower status to them.
The Pope, of course, cannot be judged by anyone living on earth, being above all earthly law, and all earthly judgement… but usually, Popes must obey God’s laws, and uphold the Church’s laws.
There are policies on the books in the Treasury and the Privy Council of Canada (where I live) which are in fact older than the country. One of them was formed in the Privy Council of Elizabeth I when Sir Walter Mildmay was Chancellor of the Exchequer – in 1588.
Prior to the reign of Henry VIII, the English Catholic Monarchy was a very different institution. Mary the Mother of God was the Perpetual Queen of England, and her shrine at Walsingham attracted millions of pilgrims from all over the known world.
Laws were understood, formed and enforced from a Catholic paradigm, where Jesus Christ reigned in society as King of Kings.
But Henry had made himself head of both the English Church and a new, modern, sovereign state, stolen right out from under his own people’s feet, and financed with the stolen cash of every ransacked church and cloister. What was left of the Church of England would remain as a separate, controlled servant of the new sovereign state and new Establishment, withered and emasculated.
The high kingship of Christ was abolished. Our Lady was deposed, her queenship overturned. Her shrine at Walsingham was destroyed by the new protestant oligarchy of lords.
After Henry’s death, his daughter Elizabeth I, a despot, became their new virgin queen. Lord Walsingham, spurning the traditional faith, honour, vows and stewardships of his forefathers, was now her chief secretary, advisor and spymaster.
But by the reign of Elizabeth I the Establishment had spent most of the money seized from the monasteries. After decades of misuse, waste, ruinous wars and an unprecedented military buildup, they were going broke.
When in 1588, the victorious English fleet returned after defeating the Spanish Armada, there wasn’t actually enough money in the coffers to pay them.
Few people these days know the true fate of the heroic English sailors and marines after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Their doomed homecoming heralded the appearance of a terrible new weapon, of which the balance scales of the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse was harbinger:
A Policy.
As the men languished sequestered on ships in quarantine, starving, sick and dying from ship fevers and plague, Lord High Admiral Howard went to Elizabeth I and the Privy Council, entreating them for money and supplies to save them.
But Sir Walter Mildmay and Lord Walsingham had convinced the queen and the Privy Council to adopt a policy: Dead heroes were cheaper than live ones.
Calvinist theology proposes that there are two groups of people: the Elect, and the Reprobate. Both are predestined for a certain definite end.
The Elect (or saints, if you prefer to use the term they use for themselves) are preserved for Heaven no matter what sins they do. The Reprobate are condemned no matter how much virtue they may have.
As stated in the later (1619 - 19) Canons of Dordrect, First Head (Chapter 1) Article 15:[1]
‘Moreover, Holy Scripture most especially highlights this eternal and undeserved grace of our election and brings it out more clearly for us, in that it further bears witness that not all people have been chosen but that some have not been chosen or have been passed by in God's eternal election-- those, that is, concerning whom God, on the basis of his entirely free, most just, irreproachable, and unchangeable good pleasure, made the following decision: to leave them in the common misery into which, by their own fault, they have plunged themselves; not to grant them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but finally to condemn and eternally punish them (having been left in their own ways and under his just judgment), not only for their unbelief but also for all their other sins, in order to display his justice. And this is the decision of reprobation, which does not at all make God the author of sin, but rather its fearful, irreproachable, just judge and avenger.’
The majority of the men were from the lower classes, and from the view of Elizabeth’s court - a Calvinist theological view - they were Reprobate, and therefore doomed anyway.
The sickness was surely proof of this, and God, having finished His use of them, was discarding them unto their predestined destruction.
Lord Howard went away with nothing. He spent what private funds he had to save as many as he could, even selling off land and estates to pay his debts. But fewer than 500 men (and some have stated it was less than 300) would live to return home and collect their pay when Mildmay finally allowed the men to leave the ships, and the Treasury to pay them… 2 years later.
Thus, we see the beginning of a policy, still standing today, that would “interpret” how all laws would be practiced afterward.
This policy and others would mark the beginning of what would grow from Calvinist theological heresy into Utilitarianism, and from thence to the modern era as what we now call Eugenics.
It spread far and wide, throughout the British Empire, and the Empire spread throughout the fallen world. Everywhere it went, and everyone it touched, it sewed death, misery and want.
The Establishment classes of any government in the world today see human beings less as human and more as a commodity. They see human populations in the same way they would regard inventory. Why would they be bothered by human death?
Corporations make decisions to write down cost due to falling value of inventory all the time. Misery, ill health, old age – that’s equivalent to spoilage and obsolescence. Death is shrinkage of inventory.
More than 430 years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the whole world is now governed by people who embrace Calvin’s theology of death, and use eugenics policies with Mildmay’s accounting book to write themselves large, and write us off in Malthusian indifference to the human cost.
It’s nothing personal.
It’s policy.
You will recall that I mentioned one of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse had a pair of accountant’s balance scales. To amass wealth in this new world order, you do it with Famine, not Charity. To amass power, you conquer and enslave, and you add to both wealth and power while keeping what you hold secure with never-ending war and death.
In other words, you do not practice real Christianity to get ahead in the world.
Those who mold themselves in this vein of lawlessness, and rule others through these means are not simply misguided sinners or mistaken ideologues. They are the morally depraved, spiritually dead bane of the human race foretold from ancient times; these lawless ones are the children of the Kingdom of Darkness in this world.
As Christians compose the Body of Christ, these others compose the body of the Opponent, the prince of this world, who currently (but not for much longer) also claims to possess the earth.
And one day, when lawlessness reaches it’s utter zenith, and everything of value is stolen or destroyed; when the Holy Spirit cannot find a place to rest in the soul of any ruler to restrain with justice, truth and good order, then He will withdraw, and the Opponent will be revealed for those who have eyes to see.
He will seek for the children of the Kingdom of God, as he has always done from the beginning and will try to destroy them from the face of the earth.
If you’re a practicing Christian, you may have heard something about this, no doubt.
Part Three
“The art of War is camouflage.”
Sun Tzu, the Art of War
In the first part of this article I introduced the idea of a secret theology of ordinary Catholics: how good ideas are put into use and practiced by people who live by doing, often with world changing effects.
I spoke at some length about ordinary people, and the rather unusual properties and strange origins of a multi-purpose cloak.
There are in fact many ordinary things found here and there in the world we live in which have similar unusual properties, that we fail to notice much.
Then we introduced the kinds of players from the opposing team, and some of the methods that they use. Those who rule over others utilizing the methods of the kingdom of darkness are thieves in the spiritual as well as the literal sense of the term, and write laws to exempt themselves from responsibilities and consequences while at the same time licensing themselves to go on stealing more.
In order to go forward, we must leave behind the fallen world full of noise and distraction, illusion and worry, and step into the real.
To do this, we must talk a little bit about tactics and war. It’s a very important subject, because we are all in fact at war.
It’s being fought in three different fields (or forms): the spiritual realm, the mental (theological) realm, and the physical realm.
Even in the physical realm, it’s not always easy to understand what is happening, and this is often called the fog of war. This makes it difficult to know how to fight and who is fighting, where we must stand and what for.
Because we are all human beings, all three fields of battle are important to talk about because we are part of all three at once.
The spiritual realm has the greatest importance because the strongest of our opponents are spirit beings, and while the circumstances under which they may become physical beings are very severely restricted, their influence and ability to dominate and control the physical realm is not to be overlooked without grave consequences.
What is true in the spiritual realm is also true in the realms of the mind and the physical. And what is not true in the spiritual is also false in the other two.
And the for the truth as well as lies, matter, form and intention are essential navigational tools to aid us in the fog of war.
Keep that in mind, as we go forward.
***
Let’s begin with two terms that are used often in war strategy: camouflage and concealment.
Camouflage: When you take something true, and disguise it without lying or compromising the truth.
Concealment: When you take something untrue, and use it in a way that lies or denies a truth, causing misdirection.
In warfare, if we wish to make an army camp, and do not wish to give its location, size and contents away to an enemy force, we use camouflage tactics and materials to blend in to the surroundings.
We have not altered one fact of that camp, or the truth of its location, but we make these preparations so that an enemy will have to work very hard to discover its truth.
Now, if we wish to direct an enemy away from that camp to a place of our choosing, where if combat is necessary it is a location more in our favour, we will employ tactics of misdirection and concealment.
We will often create a false camp in a different location, and fill it with noises, make it look like it’s occupied by a large force, etc. This is a lie, and we intentionally take every step we can think of to encourage the enemy to deceive themselves.
It is an axiomatic truth about the human condition in this world, that the average person who is not in the practice of thinking and acting like a faithful Christian can spend a great deal of time practicing deception, and especially self-deception.
Camouflage and concealment both work very well in war strategy because the average worldly man or woman is either working to deceive themselves or others a large part of the time.
Ironically, those who lie a lot usually consider themselves experts in spotting lies. In actual practice, however, veteran soldiers come to learn that such people are more easily deceived, because it is only a matter of fulfilling their expectations.
Most people see only what they expect to see.
Those who practice a truthful existence, and are regularly in pursuit of truth are far less likely to be deceived by preconceptions and subterfuge, it is true. But while they may not be easily deceived by concealment tactics, they can be deceived by camouflage tactics -- unless they are looking very carefully.
The most extraordinary people are Christians you never heard of living apparently ordinary lives, because faithfully practicing Christianity provides a kind of ‘built in’ camouflage all of it’s own.
They don’t go out of their way to give hints either. They are living citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, and although some say they’re few in number, no one really knows.
A casual observer from the kingdom of darkness would never distinguish them in a crowd, and a ruler from that kingdom might not even see them if they were standing in front of them.
To continue, let’s look into an often overlooked part of the Book of Isaiah, and it’s relevance for the spiritual, mental and physical realms of our combat.
The prophet’s words were intended to speak directly to the men of his day, and also to us in the latter days. In his day, his words were addressed to a smaller region, and to people who were fewer in number. But Isaiah knew that in his time, his nation of Israel was a kind of foreshadow of a greater Israel to come at the latter days.
Today, his words remain just as relevant, and their influence and meaning now reach a vast number of people across the whole earth.
How can this be true, you may ask, when the Kingdom of Israel vanished under the feet of conquerors so many centuries ago?
The answer is that Israel, far from being utterly destroyed, endures to this very day of course. You may in fact be part of it, and never realized it.
If you are a baptized Christian, then by water, by faith and the Holy Spirit you are adopted as a child of God, a member of the Holy Family, a brother or sister of Jesus Christ, who is the True King of Israel, the King of Kings.
Are you with me so far?
That makes every faithful Christian a citizen of Israel. And the Israel of today is now a mighty nation that spans the globe, comprising greater than one billion people.
In the prophet's day, Israel meant the descendants of those people who left Egypt in the Exodus and started it all, and today the True Kingdom of Israel still includes the descendants of the 12 tribes, but now also the 1.5 billion baptized people from every other tribe and nation in this world under the authority (whether they recognize it or not) of the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ.
And whether they know it or not, the reality of this is carried internally with them wherever they live, and wherever they go, as an actuality, or a potentiality.
Here for our consideration is revealed a truth, concealed by the common human habit of calling territories full of material goods and cultural artifacts a sovereign state.
That habit, a bad one (as we illustrated previously) is a heretical materialistic description of the product of a nation; but that is not what a nation IS.
And it is used by the opposition to claim the right to occupy territory and resources. The Kingdom of darkness in this world rules through their own invention, which are called sovereign states, and not nations.
People make a nation, not their material goods.
The idea behind the concept of the sovereign state is also very useful for the opposition to conceal the kingdom of darkness, and conceal the truth about the nations that comprise the Secret Commonwealth of Israel.
Yes, Israel. The real one.
It was there all along. It is still here, and very real.
Even now, there are still descendants of the line of King David, kindred by blood to St Mary, St Joseph and Jesus who walk alive upon the earth. Some are Christians, though many are not.
There are also living descendants of Aaron, the first High Priest. Some are Christians, many are not.
The clergy of the New Covenant populate this nation with many priestly royal princes. Some of them are Christians, many of them are not.
And the greater number comprise ordinary people of every kind and size, most of whom are Christians, though some of them are not.
Let’s return once more to the army camp example.
The army camp where we live is not where we want to entertain our enemies, so we disguise that camp and its contents by tactics of camouflage.
We make it as impossible as we can for the enemy to spy it out, and if we do it right, we can live in the camp in guarded safety.
As an extra measure, we sometimes lure the enemy away to a different location by creating a false camp as a further tactic of concealment.
We keep the things that matter to us in our real camp to safeguard, and the things we don’t need or want go to the other place – including, we hope, the enemy.
We guard our camp from enemies outside, and we guard ourselves against enemies from within our ranks.
Over time, another truth of human existence will emerge: that this camp, and the people living in it, cannot stay in one place forever. To live is to move, and keep moving. Eventually, for any number of good reasons, we will have to strike camp and move elsewhere.
As it is with army camps, so it is with all dwelling places made by people. We can build some great cities, and then stay in them many a long count of years.
But cities, which are just large camps made with more durable things, don’t stay static and don’t last forever.
Some city sites have seen occupation over many thousands of years, when people build new dwellings over layers of the older ones. Again, what is really going on is the same thing: people are moving on through time; building new dwellings when old ones wear out or are destroyed, living their lives, good or bad, long or short, then passing away.
Sooner or later, for one reason or other, people must leave them and move on. All the cities or camps made by the human race are temporary places, as people move over the earth, or move through time.
When we make a city, just like our human body it needs constant maintenance to be livable and safe. If we abandon a city or abandon ourselves, it decays and falls into ruin.
An army, like a nation, is made up of people, not its weapons, material goods or the territory it camps in. It exists therefore, outside of these things, just as people exist outside of the dwellings and things they make.
Of course the prophet Isaiah spoke his words to people, not their furniture. He addressed a nation of people in his time that lived in a territory of what they understood to be holy ground, surrounded by wilderness, desert, evil spirits and many enemies from territories that were not holy.
The best of them sought to be good, and holy. But they were sorely afflicted by many trials brought upon them by sin, and the tendencies of those in power over them to do evil things.
Isaiah knows exactly who is responsible, and to blame:
Isaiah Chapter 28
1Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower the glory of his joy, who were on the head of the fat valley, staggering with wine.
2Behold the Lord is mighty and strong, as a storm of hail: a destroying whirlwind, as the violence of many waters overflowing, and sent forth upon a spacious land.
3The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under foot.
4And the fading flower the glory of his joy, who is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as a hasty fruit before the ripeness of autumn: which when he that seeth it shall behold, as soon as he taketh it in his hand, he will eat it up.
5In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the residue of his people:
6And a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and strength to them that return out of the battle to the gate.
7But these also have been ignorant through wine, and through drunkenness have erred: the priest and the prophet have been ignorant through drunkenness, they are swallowed up with wine, they have gone astray in drunkenness, they have not known him that seeth, they have been ignorant of judgment.
8For all tables were full of vomit and filth, so that there was no more place.
9Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand the hearing? them that are weaned from the milk, that are drawn away from the breasts.
10For command, command again; command, command again; expect, expect again; expect, expect again: a little there, a little there.
11For with the speech of lips, and with another tongue he will speak to this people.
12To whom he said: This is my rest, refresh the weary, and this is my refreshing: and they would not hear.
13And the word of the Lord shall be to them: Command, command again; command, command again: expect, expect again; expect, expect again: a little there, a little there: that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
14Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, who rule over my people that is in Jerusalem.
15For you have said : We have entered into a covenant with death, and we have made a treaty with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come upon us: for we have placed our hope in lies, and by falsehood we are protected.
16Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation. He that believeth, let him not hasten.
17And I will set judgment in weight, and justice in measure: and hail shall overturn the hope of falsehood: and waters shall overflow its protection.
18And your covenant with death shall be abolished, and your treaty with Sheol shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass, you shall be trodden down by it.
19Whensoever it shall pass through, it shall take you away: because in the morning early it shall pass through, in the day and in the night, and vexation alone shall make you understand what you hear.
20For the bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and a short covering cannot cover both.
21For the Lord shall stand up as in the mountain of divisions: he shall be angry as in the valley which is in Gabaon: that he may do his work, his mysterious work: that he may perform his work, his work is a mystery to him.
22And now do not mock, lest your bonds be tied strait. For I have heard of the Lord the God of hosts a consumption and a cutting short upon all the earth.
23Give ear, and hear my voice, hearken, and hear my speech.
24Shall the ploughman plough all the day to sow, shall he open and harrow his ground?
25Will he not, when he hath made plain the surface thereof, sow gith, and scatter cummin, and put wheat in order, and barley, and millet, and vetches in their bounds?
26For he will instruct him in judgment : his God will teach him.
27For gith shall not be thrashed with saws, neither shall the cart wheel turn about upon cummin: but gith shall be beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a staff.
28But bread corn shall be broken small: but the thrasher shall not thrash it for ever, neither shall the cart wheel hurt it, nor break it with its teeth.
29This also is come forth from the Lord God of hosts, to make his counsel wonderful, and magnify justice.
Notice that the chapter begins by addressing the hierarchy – that is, those who are deemed high in status, mighty, and wise – but ends with an address to ordinary people?
Those who ruled the ordinary people of Israel were given a stark warning by Isaiah: The party is about to end, you filthy drunkards. You spent your time writing laws to please yourselves, not God; you gather power and wealth to yourselves like thieves, and you waste away the heritage of your people. God sees everything you have done, and will destroy you.
But the chapter then addresses other people, using terms and phrases ordinary people could see and grasp, and the rest of the message is clearly directed to them instead of their princes, prophets and priests.
And for the ordinary people then and now, the instruction is: Don’t be deceived like your rulers are. Don’t live in sin and practice deceit like your rulers do. Listen to what I tell you, and trust Me; look very carefully, and do what you know is right, the best that you can.
The Northern kingdom was the first to go down, and forty years after the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, what was left of Judea closed the first chapter.
“And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come? he answered them, and said: The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
[21] Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you.
[22] And he said to his disciples: The days will come, when you shall desire to see one day of the Son of man; and you shall not see it. [23] And they will say to you: See here, and see there. Go ye not after, nor follow them: [24] For as the lightning that lighteneth from under heaven, shineth unto the parts that are under heaven, so shall the Son of man be in his day. [25] But first he must suffer many things, and be rejected by this generation.” Luke 17:20
According to Catholic teaching and tradition, Jesus meant: The Kingdom is among you.
Normally, when an army conquers a nation they sweep through the countryside, going from family to family, town to town, delivering the ultimatum to surrender to the new king.
Jesus and the disciples were a spiritual army; going from town to town arrayed with the weapons of truth and clad with the armor of faith, preaching the Kingdom of God and seeking the allegiance of the people, who, if converted to this new Kingdom, then changed their allegiance from this world to Christ.
And yet – at least to the outward observer – remained as they were before.
This was difficult for the people to understand because they expected the Messiah to stand up and deliver them from the Roman yoke. The Pharisees (and others in power supported by the Roman authority) came to challenge him on this theme.
Jesus explains that as far as its future citizens were concerned the decisions had to be made now. To be part of the Kingdom of Heaven, you had to repent, seek forgiveness and gain the salvation that was to be based on the lesson and Way of the Cross.
From Isaiah’s time to the days when Jesus walked among Pharisees and false princes, through the days of 4th century Rome with the likes Arius and St Martin to our day, people have come and gone over the face of the earth seeking a better way to live.
It is a world filled with evil spirits and illusions that deceive the unguarded and the vulnerable. Because we are all sinners here, sooner or later we are all vulnerable.
Now in the Christian era, good people took the Way, the Truth and the Life of Christ this to heart, did what they were instructed, and waited for the day to arrive of His return.
Others of course, went right on choosing to do otherwise.
As we discussed earlier, the way of the world is not Faith, Hope and Charity, but Strength, Power and Wealth.
In the Old Testament time, as the camp of the Israelites made of tents and holy Tabernacle was replaced with cities, strongholds and fortresses, the leaders began to establish for themselves the same things they saw others doing, corrupted themselves and became like their enemies.
And they perished.
In the Christian era, the same thing began happening in the hierarchy. Good people then as now did what they could, unable to keep it from happening, and watched as a growing number of people among their nation became enemies.
Inevitably, the camps (or cities, if you prefer that word) were overtaken. After 2,000 years this has happened many times, of course. Things go okay for everybody for a while, until some witless twit like Arius, Calvin, John Dee or Malthus show up.
When enemies find a camp, they attack, of course. If they are in small numbers, they sneak attack, and when numbers are in their favour, they openly attack, steal and kill.
If you can’t stay, and you’re not dead, you must leave. If you stay, you die, that’s all there is to it.
Don’t procrastinate expecting -- or even demanding — that God will do for you the same favours as Lot from Sodom. Lot was the exception thanks to Abraham’s prayers that God made to prove a rule – if you don’t have the same good relationship with God as Abraham, then do not dare to test Him on this, or you are coffin-bait.
When the Romans came to destroy Judea and Jerusalem, the Christians took Jesus’s words of prophecy to heart, and walked away, just as he told them to – ‘leave your money, grab the kids, don’t go back for your cloak if you forgot it, just go.’
They did, and were spared from the slaughter by the Romans because they left with no weapons or anything of value the Romans wanted. They made their way to other communities of Christians, who received them in Charity and started over.
I don’t need money to live, and neither did they, or you. If I must I have the skills and experience to make all the necessities of life and more. But I am under no illusion that these things increase or prolong life. God alone does.
Even if I possessed the skills and knowledge to rebuild a metropolis from scratch, fully furnished, I can’t make it live. My wife and I can propagate children, but we don’t make them live, only God does.
He gives us life, then provides everything we need for each moment of our life here, material, mental and spiritual. Anything else you will encounter in your life that is from this world – material, mental or physical -- that you can’t walk away from in 5 minutes or less if you need to is a trap from the Enemy to enslave you.
It will own you, not the other way around.
The same rule goes for sanctified things, including even the material treasures of the Church.
Do you own a Holy Bible? Could you give it away in an instant if you were shown a person in need of it?
How about your dear old mum’s rosary?
The old parish church?
An icon that’s been in the family for generations?
One day, these things may have to be left behind too, or given away. Nobody takes even these sacred things with them when they die, for instance.
The practicing Christian’s answer cannot be no.
Throughout history, whenever people are wearied and worn out from caring for the dead, there’s no food and everything of value is gone, broken or destroyed, people head for a place to start somewhere else.
What about the mental and spiritual realms? Yes, it’s the same.
In heathen lands, people flee haunted houses and fear ghosts and evil spirits. Christians by contrast have a myriad of weapons and training at hand: the Holy Name of Jesus, prayers, Holy water, and exorcism to name a few.
An evil spirit bold enough to try to enter and occupy a practising Christian’s house in my old neighborhood would find a short, painful road to Perdition.
Ordinary people may not have much, but they know it’s theirs, they know God gave it, and they don’t time-share with Old Nick and his bunch.
The true treasure we have is God’s Sanctifying Grace, and with it comes His Holiness into our lives and our persons.
The kingdom of darkness uses sneaky head-games, temptations and psychological attacks first. If the initial infestation succeeds, they push more boldly. Ignorance, want, and disease are magnified in the minds of their victims under a miasma of gloom, fear and cynical resignation.
The longer evil spirits remain in a location, the stronger its aura of darkness gets. The goal of mental fogs, spiritual temptations and attacks is identical: steal and destroy.
Above all else they do everything they can to remove sanctification and holiness.
If people cannot repel the enemy, they must withdraw. If the hierarchy does not support the prevention of these attacks, or even supports them, it goes very hard on ordinary people the longer they remain.
When I study the writings of the Desert fathers or really good commentaries about them, it occurs to me that they and a myriad of saints after their time didn’t take any members of the Catholic hierarchy or temporal government with them.
They survived “out there” without statues, shrines and cathedrals, never saved a shekel for retirement, nor had the presence of mind to bring mum’s best china and the family silver.
Despite the best efforts of the opposition, they lived a holy life and died in a state of sanctifying grace.
It seems logical to suppose then, that holiness is not obtained from the human hierarchy or government, or even from material treasures sacred or profane.
Holiness of course, has only a single source in all the known universe: God Himself. He reigns in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is filled with His Holiness. All things in His kingdom are too, because they are with Him.
And while we live in this world we can earn many graces through our prayers and good works, the sole source of sanctifying grace is also from God alone.
Therefore, to become holy, a person must become a vessel capable of holding holiness. Jesus said quite plainly that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, so it then becomes necessary to turn what is only a potentiality into an actuality.
The soul can be magnified by God to accommodate this miracle, if it is suitable to the purpose. To use the analogy of a tent, a human soul, like the Tabernacle tent of the Israelites, is suitable when it is clean and empty of idols.
The Kingdom of Heaven must have room in the tent of your soul to actuate and will remain only a potential if you willingly make room in there for the enemy and his baggage.
Additionally, it will not fill the room inside the soul of your tent if you are in its Way, trying to fill up all the space with your self.
You clean it with the Sacrament of Baptism, you empty it by learning and obeying God’s laws and the Way of the Cross. The Sacraments of Confession and Extreme Unction keep it clean and free of enemy idols, and keep you small and humble. The Sacrament of Marriage shapes your tent so that it can be opened to be joined to another’s tent and become as one. The Sacraments of Holy Orders and of Confirmation do this too, and you join a community of tents together to make an even larger tent. The Sacrament of Holy Communion, the Eucharist, brings it all together in unity with the whole Kingdom of Heaven, and God Himself.
All of this happens under one tent, either made by many, or a few, or even just one.
What we can see from the holy Scriptures, the writings of the fathers, doctors and the saints is that God won’t live in a garbage dump or a cesspool, and you shouldn’t either, if you want to live and be holy in His Presence.
All of mankind have been given the means to do it, and the path was laid out. People were and are appointed to teach the Way, and lead people into the Kingdom.
People were told what they needed to be, and what they needed to do, and what they needed to bring. When the time was right, the King Himself would return to lead them.
No money was required. Great strength and power were unnecessary.
All are welcome, regardless of talent, training and experience.
"35 The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily.
2 It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise: the glory of Libanus is given to it: the beauty of Carmel, and Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God.
3 Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and confirm the weak knees.
4 Say to the fainthearted: Take courage, and fear not: behold your God will bring the revenge of recompense: God himself will come and will save you.
5 Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
6 Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free: for waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the wilderness.
7 And that which was dry land, shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the dens where dragons dwell before, shall rise up the verdure of the reed and the bulrush.
8 And a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way: the unclean shall not pass over it, and this shall be unto you a straight way, so that fools shall not err therein.
9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any mischievous beast go up by it, nor be found there: but they shall walk there that shall be delivered.
10 And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and shall come into Sion with praise, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
Isaiah 35