understanding Jesus: numbers not important

I've been meaning to blog about this since Sunday when the scripture I will reference was discussed in Sunday school. Here are the scriptures describing the two separate occasions when Jesus fed thousands of people by miraculously multiplying a tiny amount of food.

Mark 6:39-44

And he ordered them to make all the people recline in groups on the green grass. And they reclined in groups of hundreds and of fifties. And he took the five loaves and the two fishes and, looking up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and the two fishes he divided among them all. And all ate and were satisfied; and they gathered up what was left over, twelve baskets full of fragments, besides what was left over of the fishes. Now those who had eaten were five thousand men.

Mark 8:1-9

In those days when again there was a great crowd, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples together and said to them, "I have compassion on the crowd, for behold, they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away to their homes fasting, they will faint on the way for some of them have come from a distance." And his disciples answered him, "How will anyone be able to satisfy these with bread, here in the desert? He asked them, "How many loaves have you?" And they said, "Seven."

And he bade the crowd recline on the ground. Then taking the seven loaves, he gave thanks, broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they set them before the crowd. And they had a few little fishes; and he blessed them, and ordered them to be distributed. And they ate and were satisfied; and they took up what was left of the fragments, seven baskets. Now those who had eaten were about four thousand. And he dismissed them.

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Alright, there are so many things that one should discuss and understand about these two miracles, but I have found that a very common error in approach to understanding these miracles derails most of the modern discussion of these events away from their core spiritual and literal meanings. Sure enough, right after reading one of these passages our Sunday school teacher (who I really like, so this is no criticism) almost immediately fell into the derailment by reading what all these highly educated commentators have said about these miracles: *I'm rolling my eyes* .... "the symbolism of the number of loaves and fishes".....*I'm rolling my eyes again, as I can't even repeat this without being frustrated, argh*

He then starts to repeat what "they" (the wonderful commentators) have "analyzed" about the "meaning" of how many loaves and fishes they were, and what holy numbers they symbolized, blah blah blah. I interrupted him right there and said something like, "I know all the commentators discuss it but they are wrong: there is absolutely no symbolism in either of these miracles by Jesus." I briefly stated why and here I will explain it to you.

First of all, let's discuss why people get so easily misled into missing the events and then worthy analysis of the miracles' greater meanings (not "symbolisms" as a greater meaning is different than "symbolism.") One cannot discuss a greater meaning of these events without first agreeing on the facts. So that is what Mark and the other gospel writers set forth when they wrote about Jesus: first the facts, then what Jesus actually did, and then any greater meaning (John's Gospel tends to include more of that kind of thought), including any explanation of how/why that Jesus provided. There are two reasons modern people are so easily mislead into discussing ridiculous things like the "meaning" and "symbolism" of "how many" loaves and fishes were used by Jesus. First of all, people today do not understand why such trivial data is supplied, unless it has a "deep" and "heavy" "symbolic" "meaning." That is because they no longer understand that detailing such small items (which happens throughout the Bible) is what people were taught to do, back when only oral history and verbal contracts existed, which is to "bear witness." I include the label here "witness" where I have previously explained this.

So what modern people think is either a trivial point (who cares if it was five loaves) or a big heavy "symbolism" (ooooh, it must have been "five" for "a reason," yeah, a "mystical reason..." followed by profound and eerie music and nods of agreement by the scholars who are paid and make names for being so smart) the reason it was recorded down to the number of loaves and fishes is that.... that is what actually happened, and the people of those times were all taught by their families and teachers to be scrupulously accurate in bearing witness to great events. It's part of the accuracy record, to them, and that is the automatic mindset.

One reason it is important to be accurate is so that readers (or those who hear the Gospel verbally) understand exactly how big or small an event just took place. Look at the two extremes in an analogy. If Jesus fed 5000 people with let's say 1000 loaves, that would not be such a huge miracle, would it? On the other hand, if Jesus fed people with no loaves, making the loaves out of thin air, it would be a huge miracle (but not more huge than what actually happened.) What, you say... why is that? Why would in theory no loaves be equally as miraculous as feeding from five loaves? Remember the Exodus, when Moses asked God to feed the people and manna fell from the skies. The Jewish people would all have been VERY mindful of that seminal miracle in their faith history, when God provided the bread of manna out of nothing, as it rained down from the sky. They thus would have viewed Jesus as having done the same thing, mediating between the hungry people and God, who provides for them out of nothing. So anyone alive during that time who carried witness either verbally or in writing would have routinely recorded how many loaves and fishes because it allowed the listener or the reader to put what happened in the proper context with the facts.

The second reason modern people, including supposedly smart scholars, fall into the trap of putting numinous and irrelevant meaning on the number of loaves and fishes is, well, there is no subtle way to put it, they are a bit weak in their faith. Either consciously but (to give them the benefit of the doubt) unconsciously, they tend to think that the number is important because it is contrived. I'm not saying they full out think this is a made up story, but there is always the temptation to disbelieve something so incredible, always nibbling and gnawing in the back of the mind. So these commentators figure, "Well, just in case this actually did not happen, we can still derive a 'greater spiritual lesson' by 'analyzing the meaning' of what the 'authors' (not God) did 'present.'" You see what I mean? When there is even a five percent of doubt of the literal accuracy of the Gospel in one's mind, no matter what a believer and a "scholar" you are, your understanding of the plain words will be mislead and warped. Previous generations could discuss "meaning" and "symbolism," sure, but they did so on the firm basis of 100 percent believing the facts of the miracles: that is the sad difference between then and these smarty pants modern times.

So how did I bring an abrupt halt to that line of thought? I will explain it to you now and offer it to you as a faith and reasoning case study. I said something like this. Well, if the numbers are so "symbolic" and "mean something else," does that mean that if only four loaves were there instead of five, Jesus would have hit his forehead and said, "Darn! Now I can't do the miracle! It's the wrong symbolic number of loaves!" Or if they had loaves but no fishes, would Jesus have said, "Wish I could help, but it's just not the right holy symbolic numbers of ingredients." Ha ha ha, yes, my readers, I did see a few fellow Sunday school members narrow their eyes at me ha ha when I said that ha. But they have to see in parody, sometimes, how silly they are being (or how easily misled). I mean, this is deadly serious: Jesus Christ, born of God by the Holy Spirit overshadowing the Blessed Virgin Mary, healed, performed miracles, and conquered death, resurrecting after being crucified and ascending into heaven. The facts are mighty just as they are, I mean, duh. The facts don't have to also be "symbolic" of like lucky numbers or something. The way to detox from such thinking (that there is some "formula" or "bigger meaning" to the small facts, the insignificant number of the loaves and fishes) is to test the theory that the number of each item is instrumental to the miracle taking place. That is what I did, by making the people answer, "Well, if those numbers are so symbolic, does that mean Jesus could or would do the miracle only if a certain number of the items were there?"

Would Jesus "not be able" to do the miraculous feeding if there wasn't the "holy symbolic" number of items? Of course not. Jesus could do it with zero loaves or 1000 loaves.

Would Jesus refuse to feed the hungry people because there isn't the "right number of 'holy symbolic' items there?" Imagine that, Jesus saying: "Oh oh, there is supposed to be five loaves because that's a really holy important number, and you have only four loaves, so sorry, I'm not going to do the miracles and you have to walk home hungry, hope you don't hit your head on a rock while you are faint with having followed me for days." Obviously not, and I included the passage where Jesus states his concern for the health of people who had been fasting for so long already (and that is the motivation for the miracle, not to demonstrate his power and authority).

You see, that is what people ought to be gleaning from their personal reading of the Bible, the facts, the context, Jesus' words and explanations, and the Gospel writers words and explanations. Young people who use computers, you know WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). The Bible must be read and understood that way, that what you see is what you get, and also "it is what it is." Jesus was followed by many people, on two different occasions, to remote areas for several days where there was no fresh food to gain after what people had brought with them had run out. Out of concern for them Jesus takes whatever is found and turns that through his miraculous God given ability into much food for the multitude. All that is documented so that the listeners and readers of these events comprehend how big and precise a miracle this was, so that they get it even though they were not there.

The key to the miracles is that Jesus demonstrated he can make do with what people provided. If it was no loaves or many loaves or, as in the reality, just a very few loaves, Jesus can and did work with whatever people had.

That, then, is the larger meanings of these miraculous events because yes, sure, there are the events and then there is the larger meaning to glean from it, but it's not "magic" or "holy" "numbers" kind of meanings. I can write more about them some other time as I really want to keep this confined to the case study of understanding how to avoid the pitfall of missing the really important facts and points of a Biblical event by derailing on something unimportant and thus not seeing the outline of what one should indeed contemplate. So here is in closing just a list of how to mindfully approach the "bigger and greater meaning" of the miraculous events.

1. Notice the circumstances and think about them. People obviously were so committed to hearing what Jesus said that thousands followed him into barren areas with no thought of their food or water.

2. Notice Jesus' motivation for the miracles, which is simple plain love and humanity for their plight, after showing such commitment and attention to him. This is far away from the nagging scribes and Pharisees, so Jesus is not performing these miracles in order to demonstrate his God given authority. It is plain and simple loving need.

3. Notice that Jesus uses whatever is available, for he has the might of God with him, and lots of bread and fishes or no bread and fishes, God can do anything.

4. Notice that Jesus gives thanks and don't slide over that thinking that is like saying grace before food, for it is not a pre-meal prayer of thanksgiving to God. Jesus is thanking God for the ability to perform what, only through God, he is about to do, which is feed the people. Jesus is thus both on his own thanking God for what is about to occur, but also giving the people a role modeling of how always to be so whenever one uses one's God given abilities, to be thankful first and foremost to God.

5. Notice that Jesus gives the food to the disciples to distribute. Of course some of that is logistics, as many hands can distribute the food faster. But the greater meaning is that Jesus is a) preparing the disciples and the people for the time when they can do some of this themselves, for remember all the Apostles and original disciples became able to perform miracles and b) that the word of God needs to be carried and spread by everyone, not just, as we would say today, the "guru." Jesus is always modest and that was a sincere modesty because he never for a second of his life forgot that everything he was able to do was directly from God the Father. Thus Jesus did not have to "showboat" and hand out the food himself so people would be grateful to him and impressed by him.... Jesus always demonstrated that a) all power and glory go to God alone and b) his disciples were extensions of him and Jesus did not always need to be "the one." Remember that Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples baptized their followers. Jesus was always showing how the faith community was to come together and function, as it would have to when he was no longer there.

6. Notice that they record what fragments remain. This is part of what I explained about the witnessing to the facts of what happened. It is also OK and valid to ponder the greater meaning that even after Jesus through God provides all that is needed, there is even more leftover. God's grace is always more than expectations and there is always more than the bare minimum of human needs.

I hope you have found this helpful! Do not be afraid to discover that even wise experts, in these modern times in particular, miss the forest through the trees. (That's an old saying, for those of you who are English second language or may not have heard it, meaning that some people are so obsessed with details that they notice one or two trees without ever realizing those one or two trees are accompanied by many trees in a forest all around them.) Glomming onto an imaginary importance of how many loaves is like missing the entire event because your mind is hijacked into thinking it's all about those loaves "conveying" a "numeric" "message" "from God," and thus you don't get points 1-6 at all as you look just at that diversion.

*Sigh* Like I said, much of this comes from lack of understanding the simpler times when people really did just write down the facts without an agenda.

Oh, that makes me realize something I can add quickly here, which is "spotting agenda." Here is a quick example that merits a huge amount of writing elsewhere.

OK, you've seen Jesus, and his Apostles, and all the events that took place. Maybe you are a distant relative of one of the disciples. The focus would be entirely on documenting exactly what happened. No one would have an agenda (except, as we saw, the Jews and Romans who put Jesus to death, for they covered up that he resurrected by bribing the guards and spreading the story that his body was removed and "hidden.") So the Gospels and the Epistles (the letters) of the New Testament are all agenda free because people in a really verbal and oral culture were attempting to get precisely in writing exactly what happened. What happened was so detailed and astonishing that for brevity much is left out that is repetitive. By that I mean that for example Jesus performed thousands of individual miracles, but the means to write down details of every one of them would have been impossible then. People memorized and shared the data of the essentials, writing down what people needed to know for the faith that had factually occurred.

But now let's imagine that some hundred years or more has gone by. Someone in your family may have been that relative of a disciple I mentioned (imagine if you belonged to Judas Iscariot's family descendants!) Now you have to watch for agenda. This is the problem with so called Books that people wave around once in a while and claim that they are "true" and "give the real story" of "what happened." These are well known, and a few years ago media manipulators tried to get everyone all excited about the Book of Judas with claims that he and Jesus had an agreement, blah blah blah. The same has popped up about Mary Magdalene and others. There is of course more pious versions such as the stories of the Blessed Virgin Mary and how Joseph selected her (or she him) with like a flowering wand or something like that. These are all written many years, often centuries, after Jesus, of course, was actually alive, by people who were not there.

How do I know they weren't there? Use logic my friends. If they were there it would have been in the Gospels, Acts and Epistles, duh. People were doing agenda-free documenting of all that needed to be known about Jesus (we don't know what side he slept on or what cereal he liked best) but we know absolutely everything about his ministry and the nature of the New Covenant with God. So anyone who actually had been on the scene and had a significant role would have been documented accordingly.

So through dating but also pure logic we know that all these extra books are ancient but not comtemporary with Jesus. Anything that pops up centuries later and claims to contain secret or "real" information is bogus because no one had any need to "hide" anything when Jesus was alive (except the Jewish religious authorities after he resurrected, ha). Jesus lived an entirely open life surrounded by hundreds of people constantly, and Jesus was doing a continual stream of teaching and role modeling, preaching and ministry at all time: there were no secret deals or any such imaginings. That would have lost the entire point anyway. Jesus did not have to arrange with Judas to be betrayed (it would be funny if it was not so faith warping) because, duh, the Gospels document how often Jesus had to flee or dodge people who wanted to kill him right then and there (even in his hometown).

So this is why you have to use a little common sense to discern agenda. The Gospels and rest of the New Testament had no agenda except to document and communicate the marvelous events that had happened, plus the teachings of Jesus. Anything from a later date that is not part of the Christian community communications via letter, sermons and so forth is going to be a combination of two very modern phenomena: 1) Spin doctoring by people who wanted to get their piece of celebrity action, so like I said, I bet Judas' descendant family members would have wanted to write a 'he didn't do it' saga and 2) Genuine remnants of memories of things like the life of the Virgin Mary, but now glossed with all sorts of sentimental fiction to romanticize her genuine purity and virtue (in other words, the "cute meet" story between her and Joseph that is supposedly preserved).

Thus remember, which is why I brought this up, the disciples had no agenda as they authored the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles, and Revelation, rather than to record precisely what had occurred as this was a nearly total verbal culture and society in the world. The model for such precision in writing was of course the Torah and all the books of the Old Testament. People used witnessing to get the facts in writing to reach those areas they could not achieve through travel, and also to preserve and hand down the information to the next generations of what had actually happened. Likewise God had no "agenda" other than send his Son, the Savior and Messiah, to do what he did. God did not have to plant "significant numbers" or "hidden meanings" or any such thing because that is self defeating and remember that God is all perfection. God is what he is. So don't get diverted thinking there is hidden or arcane meaning to be "gained" in the scripture, since, well, think about it, God seems to have to hit humans over the head again and again and again with the simple truth. Subtlety is lost on humans and God would have no reason not to make things very, very, VERY plain over and over and over. Points 1-6 rather than "oooooh, the number of loaves 'means something!'" Finally spot agenda before it spots you. Use common sense to discern the difference between people who were part of the fact checking witnessing of the group of disciples who were actually there versus writings by some sort of imaginary hanger oners years and centuries after the fact who have obvious "My grand pappy's neighbor's shepherd knew them too!" types of motivations (or like Judas Iscariot's poor family descendants, ugh, who would want to have been them?)

I hope this helps.

Understanding prayer to the saints/miracles

Here is a quick explanation of how to understand the reality of deceased Christian saints and their role in the occurrence of miracles in present times. Now, when I say saints, I do not mean the individuals who form the body of the faithful even though Christians have great comfort and assurance that those true to the faith are “all saints,” just as they belong to the commonality of priesthood. In this particular blog posting I am referring to those individuals who are declared saints because of their extraordinary sanctity (remember, this being living life in service to God and keeping one’s purpose holy as best as possible, whether of the laity or ministry) and who have demonstrated extraordinary gifts from God through grace, such as martyrdom or the performing of miracles when they were alive. For example one of the disciples of Jesus, Stephen, became the first martyr after Christ’s death and resurrection, as detailed in the Book of Acts, thus he is in the rolls, “canonized,” St. Stephen. In modern times, however, there has grown increased confusion among many (mostly due to poor faith formation and inter-denominational resentment and misunderstanding) about 1) why do “Catholics pray ‘to’ saints when one should only pray to God and 2) how can dead saints perform miracles. I will clear this up for you here.

First of all, all Christians who study the scripture recognize that only God performs miracles. God has freely, as is His right, chosen human instruments to perform miracles. It is the human hands and the human faith that put the miracle in motion, but God is the cause, the source and the fuel of the miracle. This was true when Moses performed miracles (and you can read in the scriptures how God gives Moses precise instructions what to do), when the prophets performed miracles and in its culmination, when the Son of God, Jesus Christ, performed miracles. By the way this is one of my reflective types of blogs where I’m not going to leaf through the Bible for references, since I know that you can find them yourself J

We know that Jesus Christ performed miracles at God’s behest because there is extensive dialogue where the preparation that Jesus made (such as praying and fasting) is documented in the Gospel and, further, how Jesus coaches the Apostles and the disciples when they are also called upon to perform miracles, such as the casting out of demons. So you can read those parts of the Gospel and recognize that Jesus was given fullness of miracle fulfillment by God, from God alone, so that Jesus’ authority was unquestionable. Jesus would, for example, move into a village or region and cure all of the sick who were brought to him. Yet you can read that there are times Jesus both cannot and will not perform miracles because there was so little faith by the people.

This does not mean that Jesus’ “magic” or “tricks” were not working, or that his ability to perform miracles was less than perfect. This means quite obviously that God would not reward those of no or little faith with the incredible gift of a miracle. Why in the world would God, through Jesus, perform miracles where people were openly of no or little faith. Ironically, as you recall from the scriptures, it was in Jesus’ own hometown where he could do the least in miracles because of their low faith and open disbelief. This is, by the way, as an aside, instructive for you to understand another example of how the Bible teaches what really happened even when it doesn’t detail specifics. What I mean is that by using faith and reasoning you can better understand the “mystery” of “how Jesus spent the first thirty years of his life.” Well, duh, obviously he was not performing miracles, or the belief of his hometown would be higher than elsewhere, rather than lower. So when the scriptures report that Jesus followed in his earthly father Joseph’s footsteps and was a carpenter, well that is what he was doing. The Bible does not need to say “Jesus was a carpenter and because it was not yet time for his public ministry he did not perform any miracles.” I mean, a little common sense, please!

Jesus started performing miracles during his public ministry because that is when God gave him the authority to speak and preach for Him and also to demonstrate as a gesture of faith that he is indeed who he claimed to be, and this was through miracles. Jesus explains that himself, praising those who believe after seeing a miracle, but praising even more those who believe without seeing a miracle.

Therefore Jesus accordingly was empowered by God to allow certain Apostles and disciples the ability to perform miracles. This was greatly increased after Jesus died and resurrected, just as he said would happen, because he sent from God the Holy Spirit to aid them at Pentecost. This is another way for you to see what the Bible does not have to explicitly detail for you that the ability to perform miracles comes from God through the Holy Spirit. Neither St. Peter nor St. Paul’s miracles were of their own doing, of course, but they “worked” because of their faith, their understanding of what to do as Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit have taught them, and also using the power of God through the Holy Spirit. Performing miracles is neither in the “DNA” nor is it “talent.” The reverential authors of each book or epistle in the Bible frequently acknowledge and glorify that what they do is through the Holy Spirit from God, not their own ability.

So you can read in both the Old Testament and the New Testament many examples of God giving the instructions and the authority and the grace to the prophets and the early Christians to perform miracles where it is necessary to be done in order to increase faith and win souls. God does not confer miracles as shortcuts through the difficult realities of life. How do we know that? We know that Jesus cured many who were crippled and lame. If God intended this to be a “shortcut” through a difficulty of life, God would simply have allowed Jesus to miraculously forbid all human bodies to ever have broken or twisted limbs again. If miracles were for anything other than increasing the people’s faith, when Jesus cured the woman of the hemorrhage he could have simply miraculously changed the chemistry and biology of how blood clots or does not for everyone all at once. It is abundantly clear throughout the Bible and most particularly through the many words and deeds, with explanations, of Jesus that the performing of miracles exists at all in order to periodically reinforce faith.

This is because human beings are such limited broken vessels that God, of course, knows that they need visible signs through the ages. Even the Apostles, who had every reason to have ironclad faith since they saw the progression of the thousands of miracles that Jesus performed, would be “wowed” by a particular one and have a further strengthening of faith. I am thinking of how awed they were when Jesus calmed the stormy seas, and walked on the water, even though they had already seen much of the power of God that he exhibited beforehand. No, God most certainly does not allow miracles just for some few, or the many, to have shortcuts through normal difficulties of life, such as illness. God uses miracles as the instrument of faith that he knows human beings always crave and always must have on a periodic basis in order to believe what they cannot see, which is God and His heavenly Kingdom at work.

Now that you understand more clearly how to interpret the very real miracles that are documented in the scriptures by Jesus, the prophets and the saints while they lived, now you can better understand how God allows participation by deceased saints in miracles to strengthen faith.

Again, one must use all: scripture, faith and reasoning in order to understand, as much as possible, God’s ways and his will in these matters. Examine the Book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse. God “delegates,” to use a modern term, roles to individual angels. Why is that? I mean, if God is all powerful, which does God have angels perform certain tasks for him? Why doesn’t God just chastise using his own hands the disbelievers on earth during the final days? No one can really say why God does what he does and that is not the point. One is supposed to, like good and observant children, observe what God does and says and learn more about him accordingly. We learn from the Book of Revelation that even in heaven God assigns tasks, for whatever reasons he has, to individual angels! All of the power and the determination of what is to be done is entirely God’s; the miracles and the chastisements are all God’s will, all God’s power, and all God’s implementation. For whatever reasons God has, however, even in heaven God uses individual angels to accomplish his will.

That is an important fact of knowledge one must glean from the scriptures. We can all understand why God sends angels in those extraordinary times that form the scriptures of our faith history to speak to humans directly, as when Gabriel came to speak to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why, though, would God in heaven delegate activity to angels in heaven? Because that is how it is in heaven. God’s will animates and keeps alive all the eternal spirits who live in heaven, both angels and humans who achieve salvation in paradise. We all know that God created humans in the first place to know him, to love him and to serve him. Does this service stop in heaven, when those blessed by being in heaven are closer to him than ever? Of course not, since that does not even make sense, to think that when alive humans know, love and serve God but when in heaven they know and love him but no longer serve him! Because it is not necessary for faith to know the details of how and why, God does not include the details in the scripture. But we do observe in the Book of Revelation that 1) angels perform tasks for God in heaven and 2) St. John is able to see some humans in heaven, specifically the elders before the throne who cast their crowns down in front of God and worship him.

Having a crown means a person is kingly and glorified. To take one’s crown off and cast it at the feet of another means that one is in total service to the other. That is the message of why St. John was permitted to see that activity in front of the throne, so that he can transmit through what he saw increased faith that 1) humans are indeed in heaven and 2) they continue to serve God.

So, no, it is “not in the scripture” that “dead saints can perform miracles.” But what is in the scripture is that 1) living saints performed miracles at God’s authority and instruction, 2) angels serve God in heaven in heavenly and earthly tasks and 3) blessed human elders in heaven are observed casting their crowns in service in front of the throne of God. There is far more reason to believe that God permits the participation of saints in heaven in God’s tasks, including when he determines a miracle is appropriate on earth, than there is evidence to the contrary.

This is why through the centuries the Church believes the testimony, after great discernment regarding its reliability, of those who have received a great blessing such as a miraculous cure after prayer directed to a saint. The saint is not being worshipped. Prayer is a petition to ask for favor and proper prayer to a saint, such as St. Peter or St. Paul, centers upon asking for their strength of example in earthly matters and their loving intercession with God in heaven. One does not worship St. Peter or St. Paul; one asks St. Peter to be a role model, for example, or for St. Paul to intercede on one’s behalf with God. So let me repeatedly clear up that misunderstanding that praying to a saint is worshipping them.

In fact, people “prayed” to each other all the time in old English. “Do, pray tell,” would be an expression one person would say to another when what that person was doing was earnestly requesting someone to disclose something. “Pray” would mean, “Pretty please, I really want you to” do something. Pray thus became a synonym for asking God for something, even if it is just his attention as one prays to him.

Why, then, have centuries of people reliably testified that prayers to, very frequently, St. Joseph, St. Mary (the Blessed Virgin Mary) and St. Jude, one of the Apostles, delivered often miraculous “results?” God is obviously in control and is the one who hears and answers the prayerful petition. Obviously that even if one prayed to St. Joseph, our Lord’s earthly father, for example, God is the one who hears and grants or does not grant the prayer. If it displeased God that the saints be approached for their intercession, then believe you me many of your ancestors would not be around! God has a way of letting people know through the generations what displeases him. Instead we have a solid, documented two thousand year history of average people praying to individual saints and some, at times even many, of them have had their prayers answered by God. Obviously it was the “wrong” thing to do, God would not grant their prayers. The angels repeatedly tell humans in the scriptures not to worship them when they appear, but to worship only God. People who pray to the saints and ask for their help are not worshipping them: they are asking for their intercession with God. Again, you can never go wrong by following the example shown in the scripture. Do not worship anyone but God, but you can and should petition anyone holy to intercede with God, especially if you know that person is in eternal service to God.

Does anyone here reading this blog think that St. Paul, for example, is not in heaven? OK, that’s good. Now, if you were traveling with St. Paul when he was alive, would you have a problem if he were the one to pray to God on behalf of all of the travelers? For example, can you imagine being with St. Paul as he preached to the Gentiles, risking his life and the lives of those (like you) who travel with him, and everyone feels really good that St. Paul is the one praying to God on behalf of everyone present? Is that not, in fact, what happens when a pastor leads a congregation in prayer? Do you jump up and say, “No, I’ve got to pray to God directly myself all the time; you cannot be my ‘go between?’” Of course you would not think like that. Likewise, I invite you to imagine being one of the many thousands of Christians who personally accompanied men and women who would become saints when they were alive. How many of you do not think that everyone with them felt really good when they were the prayer intercessor to God on behalf of the group? I mean, duh.

So now St. Paul is dead these past several thousand years and most certainly in heaven. If he would, and did, gladly pray intercession for those of the faithful who traveled with him on earth, why do you think that he would stop doing so in heaven? Would he mind? Would God mind? This is the beautiful and glorious intersection of faith and logical reasoning capabilities.

Two human expressions come to mind: “No one is ever insulted by a good tip” and “Put in a good word with the boss for me.” If a saintly and holy person while alive would lead a group in prayer, using their service and obedience to God as a way to “put in a good word with the boss” on behalf of all together, why in the world would anyone think that they would be even more stingy, rather than more generous, in that in heaven than on earth? Who when evangelizing or doing missionary work in dangerous areas would be insulting God or St. Paul if they prayed to St. Paul for strength, guidance and intercession with God, he, Paul, who had set the example to be followed in his tireless and painful evangelizing? To not pray to St. Paul for help seems to me like refusing to use the person who “wrote the book,” so to speak, on what you are trying to do! You are not worshipping St. Paul nor bypassing God when you pray for his intercession, any more than you would be worshipping St. Paul or bypassing God if when a living companion of Paul’s in their travels sat nearby as Paul prayed to God and interceded on everyone present’s behalf! How much more so is St. Paul’s ongoing service to God in the strengthening of faith when St. Paul is for all eternity in God’s presence, perhaps casting his crown at His feet!

This is why generations of Christians, and remember, Protestant or not, we were “all Christians together” for one thousand five hundred years, prayed to St. Joseph for intercession in fatherly matters, to St. Mary (the Blessed Virgin Mary) in motherly matters, to various saints for help in health, in matters of virtue, in time of war and grave peril, and to help them in their faith and their carrying the Gospel into dangerous lands and times. Many generations of Christians who could not read or write and who lived primitive lives had a better understanding that they were 1) not worshipping saints and 2) were tapping into the good will of the intercession of the sanctified with God and not bypassing God than modern people seem to be today. Rather in glorifying in the richness of the sanctified who care only about serving God and increasing the faith among those alive, too many have a distrust and a total misunderstanding of their own faith forefathers!

So, then, what can we logically reason, based on our faith, is the reason that God does answer prayers that have been directed to his saints who are in heaven with him? First of all, if you truly are as strong in your faith as you say that you are, you totally understand that God never does anything mean or evil; God is goodness and all goodness comes from God. What kind of God would not answer a request that he is inclined to grant just because it “arrived through a saint.” I mean, what? One must examine one’s own lack of faith in God’s goodness if you feel that a specific same request he would grant if the person prayed “to God alone,” but would “turn down” “because it came through a saint!” Christians need to do much better at witnessing to the all mercifulness and goodness of God. God is not churlish nor is he a jealous bureaucrat. Rather, as Jesus taught, God loves and considers family those who hear him and believe. God simply would never “resent” or rebuff a prayer that “comes to him” (which he of course knows about even before you realized you were going to make that prayer) through one of his beloved family of the faithful.

As an aside, speaking of delegation in heaven, did you notice in Luke 16 that the poor man Lazarus who died and went to heaven is being held in Abraham’s bosom? Why not God’s alone? God’s is big enough, hmm, as he is infinite and thus can hold and comfort all humans who arrive in heaven. Jesus himself states that this man Lazarus is being held in Abraham’s bosom. Abraham, we know, as the forefather of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, who served dinner to God, who argued with God on behalf of the sinners in Sodom and Gomorrah, is much loved by God. Anyone of any faith and Biblical knowledge has to concede that. How does God reward such a man when he arrives in heaven? One could say that just being with God for all eternity is enough reward, and it is. But no human can understand the infinity of God’s love and generosity. Jesus by telling this story not only makes the point about the punishment in hell of the rich man who neglected Lazarus, but Jesus is also implicitly telling all who hear him and understand that God’s work of love continues in heaven, and he shares that joy and that work with those who gain heaven. Abraham in heaven is able to personally comfort an unknown man who was alive centuries after him, treated like the dregs of the earth, suffering and starving to death, when that man reached heaven.

That is one reason that Jesus was cautioning when the mother of the Apostles James and John wanted to delegate in advance that they sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in the Kingdom. We focus on the main points of that particular scripture when we realize that Jesus is staying 1) if they follow me they will be martyrs and 2) only God dispenses who sits at the right and left hand of whom in heaven. But you cannot miss, especially when you combine this with another passage I will mention next, that Jesus is saying that much more goes on in heaven under God and God’s alone direction than humans realize. Remember the disciples asked Jesus the theoretical question about a woman who is widowed and remarried many times, which husband she is married to in heaven? Jesus responds that people are not given in marriage in heaven. Like the question about the right and left hand of Jesus in the Kingdom, Jesus is, without elaborating, letting people understand that God has purposes and plans in heaven too. So Abraham may, or may not be, at any given point in heaven, hanging around with Sarah, his wife. Abraham is also serving God by comforting in blissful heaven a poor peon of a man who had been abused and died nameless and in shameful neglect on earth.

And now I tie the loop together for your understanding the scripture even more. The man in hell asks Abraham if he will allow Lazarus to send to him a drop of water to ease his torment. Do you notice that the man in hell is not saying that God will be mad at him if he asks for intercession through Lazarus or Abraham? I am being a little droll here, but only a little. The Bible says and demonstrates what it says and demonstrates, and Jesus Christ says and demonstrates what he means, what is the truth of what actually happens and “how it works.” The man in hell is now humbled, in eternal torment, and he well understands that the man he neglected, who is now in heaven, is precisely the person to ask for intercession as, obviously, is Abraham. Jesus is sharing a snapshot of “how it looks” and how it “works,” both in heaven and in hell, in this crucial passage in the Gospel. Jesus is not only making the main point that even a presumably pious Jew who is a believer, but who neglected his neighbor, will end up in hell, but Jesus is also giving a snapshot that God shares the bliss in heaven and that the saints/prophets are still active in their service to God, in ways that humans can’t really understand. Abraham is not sitting around with a harp. The forefather of all the monotheistic faiths is comforting in person a man who was the lowest of the low in how he was treated on earth.

If one really reads the passages that I have alluded to above, I’m not sure how anyone can think that the saints, the holy servants of God, are not alive and in his active service in heaven for all eternity. If you would not hesitate to have one of them when they were alive pray to God in leadership and intercession for their companions, including you, if you had been there, why would you doubt the merit and reality of their petitions to God as they are beside him in heaven?

I hope that you have found this helpful.

(2) Understanding hell, demons, and sin

Part II
Do you want to spend the rest of eternity, after you die, in hell, where in addition to eternal unbearable torment the only substance of the surroundings is the blackened burning stain of each individual sin ever committed by all previous human beings? That is what hell is “like” and the traditional pious believers understood that very well. I cannot begin to tell you how many people, immense crowds, of the modern generations who have perished are shocked and horrified to find them selves in hell, and that it is as unbearably full of eternal torment, just as the “fire and brimstone” preachers had always said.

You might say, “Well, where in the Bible does it say that all of the sins of humans, those both forgiven and those who are not, are part of the torment of the furnishings of hell?” It’s funny that many who do not believe, or have only partial or cynical belief, are the first to ask for the “Bible quote,” even as they ignore most of the rest of the Bible’s fullness of teachings. Well, in the previous section of this series I cited scripture to indicate the immensely wide range of bad human behavior, including foolish thoughts, which are considered sins. I have also cited from scripture that not only individuals but entire nations who are unrepentant of sin go to hell. That is an enormous amount of people who “qualify” for hell. So even if you do not believe in the “physics” of what I described to you of the presence of all sins in hell (and I will present more information on that regard), understand what the ancients did and pious ancestors as recently as the past few generations ago, MANY people go to hell and they truck all of those stains of sin right along with them, obviously. So every despot, his or her middlemen and women, and even the underlings (such as prison camp guards) through all of human history are there in hell, bringing along their individual litany of sins. They are the furnishings of hell, and do you want to be there with them? As I pointed out there are many human behaviors, such as not helping a specific person in need (as opposed to selected “good causes”) that are considered “normal” today, that merit hell. It’s not just the baby molesters who go to hell. As I cited in my previous post about this subject those who have foolish thoughts, who defame faith in others, who are unjust in any way (and that includes mean gossip), who are unrighteous (thus behaving in ‘bad’ ways that are beyond breaking one of the Commandments) and those who are supposedly believers but who go about their lives with only partial belief are ALL accumulating huge tolls of daily sin.

There is a gigantic spectrum of sin that people engage in today that they either don’t realize is sin or they ignore that it is. They also don’t realize that each instance “counts,” rather than being a behavior trait. I mentioned before that posting something spiteful and mean on the Internet is a sin, not an “art form” or “acting out,” and that each and every instance “counts” as a separate sin. The “statistics” of routine sin accumulation in most people in modern society today is truly appalling and I expect that since so many are of partial genuine belief and thus do not repent, many will go to hell. People of recent times who have not studied and understood what I described about the certainty of hell and the broad spectrum of behaviors that are individual sins have kidded themselves into thinking that hell is only the place that “really bad people like mass murderers or child molesters go.” The unrepentant mean bitch in the office has a very good chance of ending up in hell right next to the torturer at Auschwitz. Jesus himself made that very clear.

Matthew 25:41-46
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.’ Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, ‘Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.’ And those shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Many think these words of Jesus are a warning that is “met” or “satisfied” if one engages in some sort of charity work. That is simply not true. Jesus is stating very clearly that you are to help the least of who are in need among you, that you personally encounter, not the abstract of selective social work and charity. The next citing is probably one of my top five in most frequency that I find I must cite to people through these teachings in order to make this abundantly clear. It is the story of the poor man Lazarus (not the one of the raising from the dead miracle) who is in heaven while a rich man is in hell because he ignored that one specific poor and suffering man, who died, right outside the city gate. You can reread my previous commentary on this scripture where I describe that the rich man in hell, by virtue of being in one of Jesus parables (though this is not a parable but an actual event, since Jesus uses a specific name, so this Lazarus, the rich man and his brothers indeed existed), would have been considered a “good man” (a Jewish believer who attends Temple and so forth) and thus is astonished to find himself in hell for neglecting one specific poor man.

Luke 16:19-25
There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at this gate full of sores. And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried:

And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried, and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame.’

But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted and thou art tormented.’

The rich man then asks that his five brothers who are still alive be warned (obviously it has dawned on the rich man that his entire family was living this way, thinking they are pious and generous but bound for hell due to their neglect of specific people who need them). Abraham explains that Moses and the prophets were the warning, and that no further warnings will be given, and that it is on their own heads that the scripture was not believed.

Jesus thus provides a specific description of hell, and also a very specific warning of how it is not general “good deeds” or “believing” that merits heaven, but that even the least person who needs YOU specifically should not be neglected.

As an aside, to make this even more relevant to contemporary dangerous error in understanding what Jesus has said, both “conservatives” and “liberals” totally misunderstand the previous two citations by Jesus. Liberals think they are “covered” by being big social or art program donors, who participate in “good deeds,” especially their favorite, which is to dole out food to the “locals” on Thanksgiving or other times in the soup kitchen. Celebrities visit sick children in hospitals (if they are ‘modest’ they don’t allow their photographs to be taken). Other liberals figure that if they fight for social justice or have a crusade regarding an area such as Darfur, that they are “covered” in having “found Jesus in the needy.” The story of Lazarus shows how totally bogus that notion is. And conservatives are cruel and just cannot be listened to when they self righteously repeat that charity is an “individual matter” and that the Bible “says so.” Again, that is just as outrageous as the liberal view, even though it is from the totally different slant. Remember, in “Biblical times” people did not earn “paychecks” or “capital gains,” have “tax deductions for charitable purposes,” and thus decide, based on “how well they are doing and how generous they can be” to “donate as an individual” to “worthy causes.” In Biblical times the religious authorities WERE the government regarding charitable giving. God mandates in the scripture, for example, that a certain portion of food fields be left unharvested so that the poor can eat. A farmer would leave his food for whoever needed it, not the “individual choice” that he “deemed” was “worthy” and “in his budget” “out of the kindness of his or her heart.” Jesus himself ate from those fields where the food was left for the poor to glean for themselves.

While people have always been wicked and prone to sin, prior to the industrial revolution, and I guess the so called intellectual “Enlightenment” before it is also to blame, people simply did not engage in the huge categories of sin widespread, routine, unthinking sin that they have since. These sins of individual, community and institutionalized neglect of the needy simply did not occur, to say nothing of being codified and rationalized away, on the grand scale as they occur today, among the Biblical people in Biblical times, that liberals and conservatives are so fond of quoting without understanding.

Matthew 16:18
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Jesus here designates Peter the leader of the church that will be built, which is the Catholic Church, by giving Peter the keys. Jesus also uses an interesting description of the powers of hell that many of commented on and even used in art, but I think many do not understand his use of the term “gates” of hell.

Hell has gates, and it also has a road, which Jesus references in a separate citation, where he warns that the road to hell is very wide and easy to travel. Gates are by definition a device to control traffic, both entering and exiting a place. We know that once someone is in hell, whether a human who is sent to hell or a fallen angel, they cannot leave hell (except for Satan, who roams at will for now). Therefore the gates of hell obviously cannot prevail against the church by sending the damned outward. So why would Jesus use an imagery that evokes hell’s gates somehow besieging the church? That is where my discussion of hell being the sin “repository” for all individual occurrences of sin helps in this theological understanding. While neither the damned nor their sins can “leave” hell, there is a miasma, the dark draw of previous sins and despair that seeps into the minds of those who are open to such influence. In other words, those who are sensitive or partial toward sin “feel” the tempting tug of the despair and evil nihilism of hell. When these people, to use a modern term, “open a channel” in their souls toward hell, they allow the seepage of the knowledge of hell, but without its cautionary power, into their hearts and minds. If enough of it collects there that is what is known as a devil or a demon.

So what Jesus means is that the Church itself, as a body, will never succumb to allowing the despair and nihilism of hell to seep into it. That does not mean that the Church never errs or sins, either through individuals or collectively. What it means is that Jesus has promised that the Church founded by Peter will never be demonized or otherwise tainted by the miasma, the seepage from hell. The Church may struggle, the Church may, and will, being of humans, err, individuals may commit great sin and go to hell, but the Church itself will never have its doctrine or its soul sullied by the temptations, despair and nihilism of hell. Jesus has not only promised that, but it is exactly the Gospel of Jesus that comprises the “earmuffs,” the “repellent” to any such seepage. The liturgy of the Church, its Creed and its sacraments are “temptation free.”

We all know people who are just incorruptible, not because they are of high nobility, but because they are “simple” people who do not crave the things at all by which others are tempted. My stepfather was an example of such a person and they used to be very common, but no longer. To use a saying, temptation to sin was like water flowing off of a duck; it just doesn’t adhere or stick, and that is what he is like. In fact, such people do not even “notice” temptation because it simply does not register with them. That is what Jesus is stating is the Church that he founded under Peter as a whole. The Church itself, the liturgy, the Creed, the Gospel that he has given it, and the sacraments are as a whole incorruptible as they are totally dead to the temptation of the gates of hell, to paraphrase what Paul said about individual Christians having to be “dead to sin.” Jesus has promised that the Church itself is dead to the gates of hell. There is no two way street of temptation or demonic influence between the Church and the gates of hell. The Church, even if everyone is killed, leaving just the Pope and a few priests and faithful, which pray God will never happen, in and of itself will never fall to the gates of hell since it simply is immune and dead to the temptation of despair that emanates to the vulnerable from hell. Humans have the power to kill members of the Church, to tempt individuals into sin and corruption, and to destroy or marginalize the Church’s presence. But HELL does not have that power over the Church. I am astonished that people do not understand that today. They used to.

Jesus has given no other institution or powers that promise or his specific protection against the power that emanates through the gates of hell. This is not to say that only the Church members “belong to the right Church” or “can be saved.” What I am explaining is that only the Church under the pontiff, the heirs of Peter, has the promise from Jesus that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Prevail means not only the sense of having a victory but of even a meaningful struggle. In other words, hell may “think” that it is throwing a great demonic attack against the Church, but its effect is not even noticed, as if a child is throwing water balloons against a brick wall. The Church in and of itself is like having Teflon, that stick free surface, whereby the temptations of despair and evil nihilism emitted through the gates of hell have absolutely no point on which to stick or to penetrate. Again, I am not speaking of individual humans and their temptation, or even organization mistakes by the hierarchy, but I am speaking of the heir of Peter, the liturgy, the Creed and the sacraments of the Church, which are and always will be untouched and impenetrable by that which is emitted by the gates of hell.

This leads us back to what Paul has said in Timothy, cited previously, that the Gospel of Jesus is protection against the worsening condition of mankind. It also helps to develop Paul’s analogy of the righteous Christian man furnishing with perfection his interior self according to God’s doctrine. The Church itself, faithful to the doctrine of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, cannot ever be ‘furnished’ or ‘occupied’ as a whole by anything that is from the gates of hell.

Matthew 5:29-30
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that they whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast if from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body be cast into hell.

When Jesus says “offend thee” he means that it is through use of that sensory organ or limb that one is tempted to sin. That is made clear in the previous line, Matthew 5:28, where Jesus uses the example of the sin of adultery that even wishing to be adulterous in one’s mind but not acting on it is the same as having committed the actual sin. So Jesus is saying that hell is so terrible that it is better (in theory, he’s not actually wanting people to self mutilate, but making a serious point) to pull out one’s own eye than use one’s vision to allow sinful thoughts as a result! Not even doing the sin, but having the thought of it! Does that sound like “hippie” Jesus who is peddled as being a soft touch by moderns who are totally ignorant? Jesus is the one who brought specific, clear and dire warning of the dreadful and real nature of hell and the vast numbers of people who are in peril of ending up there quite easily.

You must understand that the Gospels are just encapsulation of what Jesus would have spent hours and days preaching about, and in casual conversation with the disciples. If so many mentions of hell are preserved in the Gospels, do you not understand that the Apostles and disciples would have heard the same thing explained by Jesus many, many times? No fools they.

2 Peter 2:4-9
For if God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly;
And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds);
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.

That, my friends, is a “fire and brimstone” preaching by the first Pope, St. Peter. Yes, the same St. Peter who people like to describe as just a fisherman, who denied Christ three times, but there you have it… a lot happens after Jesus gives St. Peter the keys. This Second Epistle General of Peter was written around the year 66 AD, over thirty years after Jesus Christ had resurrected and ascended into heaven. And around thirty years after that Epistle, long after St. Peter and St. Paul were martyred, St. John, the last living Apostle, witnessed with his own eyes the Revelation of the Apocalypse, and thus is able to testify in the first hand about hell.

Revelation 1:18
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

That is Jesus who is speaking to John.

Revelation 14:10
The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lord.

This is what an angel is stating will happen to those who follow the beast. This is the origin of the phrase a “fire and brimstone” sermon. Notice that just as Jesus described that Abraham could see into hell and observe the rich man’s torments, those who are idolaters and the sinners who follow the beast will be observed in their torments in hell by the holy angels and the Lord himself. Blasphemers, for example, can look forward to not only an eternity of hell, but also having the angels and the object of their blasphemy, the Lord, looking down on them in wrath and scorn as the damned suffer forever in hell. There are “No private suites in hell.”

Revelation 20:14
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

This is what John observes. I mention this because it should clear up another modern misunderstanding. Some people think, despite Jesus speaking of the reality of hell, that hell doesn’t “really happen” until the final judgment at the end of times. However, if you read Revelation 20 with a well informed background in all the New Testament references to hell, you understand that hell itself, which always exists as a place of individual punishment, no longer has a ‘purpose’ once there is no human life left. So hell is cast into a second hell, the lake of fire, which is the post-apocalyptic repose of the damned. John is observing that at the final days the dead are raised and judged a second time, along with the living who are the remnants of human life on earth. So, for example, a blasphemer who died long ago and was cast into hell upon his or her death would be given their body back, judged a second time, and then cast back into hell, which once filled to completion of the final judgment, is itself cast into the final hell of the lake of fire. I encourage everyone to avoid meriting hell in the here and now, as there is no second chance out of hell, there is only the second hell that is the final repository after all human life has passed and there is no further need for adding additional damned souls after their judgment since human life no longer exists.


So John sees with his own eyes the reality of hell, and also what happens to hell after the Apocalypse.


Now that you have seen the progression of the Old Testament affirming that hell is very real and terrible, the teachings in the New Testament regarding the many types of sin and the ease with which people go to hell, plus affirmation that hell exists by Jesus, to the first hand witnessing of St. John, you can go back and read further mentions of hell by Jesus in the gospel and have a grip that this is not abstract concepts but real and dire risk that many face and indeed incur.

Mathew 3:12
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Matthew is recording what St John the Baptist prophesied that Christ will come and will have the power to gather the righteous and cast the unrepentant sinners (the “chaff”) into hell.

Matthew 10:15
Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Here Jesus is sending his apostles out to preach and do miracles. He gives them instruction and adds that they should not be discouraged by places that reject the Gospel, but to shake the dust of that place off of their feet and move on. He then alludes to hell, saying that those who hear but reject God’s will and doctrine will be treated in hell far worse than those who died bodily death when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in fire. Notice that as I cited King David in Psalms before that, yes, entire cities place themselves in peril of being cast into hell.


Matthew 13:41-43
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. ‘Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.’


Jesus is again explaining that many people will be cast into hell because they do things that offend, they do iniquity, and they are not like the righteous. I cannot overemphasize that hell is not “just” for the “really evil people” who “break a Commandment.” Hell needs to be understood as the place where the unjust and unrighteous go, who offend God, who neglect and harm others, and who live lives that are without faith, even if with their lips they proclaim a faith. That is a LOT of people and Jesus continually warned about this grim reality, and the Apostles and disciples carried on that warning, particularly after John witnessed it himself in Revelation.

You will notice, and this is why it is important to study the Bible and progression of its themes in bulk, as a whole, and not piecemeal, that sin and hell are consequences of human actions and free choices. Humans decide to succumb to temptation, sin, repeatedly sin, spread sin, tempt others to sin also, deny that it is sin, deny that there are consequences, and ignore many warnings by prophets and the safeguards of the Church, who then go to hell. There is very little evidence of the common misguided affectations that “the devil made me do it” or that “demons and evil spirits attach themselves to people and force them to sin.” That was perfectly understood in most of the previous generations for thousands of years of study and obeying God’s revelation. But somehow in recent times people have invented excuses of Satan or demons, evil spirits, “aliens” or whatever other garbage they make up, who are the “real reason” that things “happen” to people and why they “behave” that way. When one reads the entire Bible one sees that that fiction is yet another temptation to sin, which is to declare one’s self as knowing more or better than the prophets of God who have gone before and revelation is closed and completed, and make up fictional reasons to sin.

People who then want to make up excuses for their own lots in life and their own behavior that is sinful and against God, in both the large ways and the small ways, as have been described above of neglect of doing good, fish for a few lines of scripture that they then deface into “proof” that “evil spirits,” “demons,” “angels,” and “aliens” are “really” to blame. When one reads the Bible as a whole, one is restored into sanity, as one reads page after page of God making himself known, and people leading ordinary free will lives of free will choices, and inevitably reaping the rewards or consequences of a righteous or an unrighteous life. No aliens or demons are running around controlling people. Modern society has totally lost its grip on reality and seems unable to even read the very prosaic and even mundane human happenings of page after page of scripture and understand that that IS reality.

In the entire Bible there is something like ten mentions of demons. Several of those mentions are using that name to denigrate and defame the false gods of the heathens (in three places in the Old Testament). In fact, only one instance of a demon possessing anyone (King Saul) is mentioned during the entire thousands of years of the Old Testament (1 Samuel 16). Doesn’t that tell you something? In all that happens during the Biblical Times from Creation until several hundred years before Christ, there is only one mention of a demon being responsible for someone’s sin? I mean, duh. If demons and evil spirits were running around as an active force, would not the Old Testament be loaded with examples and cautions?

In fact the most mention of demons comes about as a result of six miraculous cures by casting out of demons from men and a woman by Jesus Christ. Again, think about it. Jesus Christ performed thousands of cures during his public ministry, which we know because the Gospels report that he kind of ‘set up shop’ in an area and would cure everyone in a village or region who came to him for help. The Gospel authors recorded those miracles that were 1) particularly outstanding, such as the raising of the dead and the casting out of demons and 2) were illustrative of Jesus’ God given authority and power. Thus those that Jesus raised from the dead and those that were cured of various ailments caused by demonic possession are selected for particular reporting in the Gospel. It is a fact that incredible miracles that people would fall over in a faint to witness today, such as curing the blind, restoring limbs and the ability to use them, restoring hearing, removing diseases such as leprosy, were so common when Jesus ministered that they are just mentioned as him being busy at work, so to speak. Imagine a time when curing the blind was just as easy and unsurprising as Jesus being at work. That is how it was.

As an aside, this is one of the things that most pains and puzzles me, why more people do not love Jesus today. Jesus was not only about going to the cross and bringing the New Covenant, even though that was his mission. His ministry was day after day to cure the suffering and the ailing with incredible miracles, one after the other, any one of which if witnessed today would be a sensation. What kind of man, this Son of God, would use his ability to perform miracles to focus on healing the sick, and even raising from the dead the only son of a poor widow? How in the world can modern people today mock or marginalize Jesus, and not be overwhelmed with love for him, just on the kindness of what he chose to do with his miraculous God given abilities alone? Remember that he was curing people who, no matter what their disease or injury were viewed as having “deserved” what they had gotten because surely they or their family must be tainted and have somehow sinned. Not only was Jesus kindness and mercy and healing of God personified in human form, but he corrected that despicable error of the times that blamed the disabled, the sick, the injured, the wounded, and even the dead for their own afflictions and demises. How in the world, if you believe nothing else but that, can you not love Jesus with your whole heart and give him that respect? I think I will never understand this about these modern times.

So the six miraculous casting out of demons by Jesus have to be understood as being mentioned because of their particular profundity (such as raising the dead) and not at all representative of the majority of the human condition at any time in its history. These are six casting out of demons out of thousands of other miraculous cures, mentioned because they legitimize that Jesus has power over Satan and his influences. In fact, the demons recognize who Jesus is and his authority before Jesus even spoke a word. This is why there is this frequency of mention, as none of the Gospel authors would miss the gravity of those types of cures and would certainly record them. The purpose of the Gospel is not to fill out Jesus’ work time hourly activity report or to inventory or prioritize through the written record. The Gospels were written when people who witnessed Jesus could not travel to all places and verbally attest as fast as interest and need for a record of what happened grew. Thus the Gospels are written to transmit in writing what the disciples witnessed in person and then in turn would speak of in person to others. Just as God gave Jesus his miraculous powers and authority in order to demonstrate his authenticity and to strengthen the faith of all who witnessed and then believed, so too the Gospel authors selected those best examples of the God-given authority of Jesus. The raising of the dead, the casting out of demons, and the confrontations with the hypocritical religious authorities of the time are the life examples that are most demonstrative of how Jesus had the legitimate authority of God and acted on God’s behalf at all times.

Luke 4:33-36
And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil; and he cried out with a loud voice, saying “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.”
And Jesus rebuked him, saying “Hold thy peace and come out of him.” And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.
And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, “What a word is this! For with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.”

When Jesus cured the blind man the religious authorities were not amazed at this miraculous cure, but annoyed. However, when Jesus not only cast out demons but the demons recognize him as being the Holy One of God, those in the synagogue who witnessed are flabbergasted and awed. This is what you must understand about Biblical times, which were a time of great faith in God. They could be amazed yet still take in stride (and the hypocrites worry about their power) when Jesus does something incredibly miraculous as restoring sight to the blind. But it is when the demons themselves not only must obey Jesus but attest to his authentic identity and authority that people are stunned and realize that the Messiah is among them.

That is how you must understand authentic and rare evil spirits and demonic possession, as being manifestations of that miasma of sin in hell that will rarely but sometimes do attach themselves into someone open to such influence. We are not speaking of mental disorders that ancient people did not understand as being an illness of the brain and instead thought that was possession by demons or evil spirits. We are speaking of the rare (count them, six times encountered by Jesus in all his many miracles of curing) times that the collective despair and evil nihilism of hell extends its reach to latch into a person’s mind and soul. The vast majority of events in the Bible has absolutely nothing to do with demons or evil spirits and is 99.9 percent about the potentially sinful actions of human beings in their ordinary lives.

So how does one “recognize” a genuine evil spirit or demon? If there is a genuine evil spirit or demon it acknowledges God and Jesus Christ. We see that often they recognize Jesus and God’s presence before the other surrounding humans do. A human behavior that denies God and Jesus Christ is NOT, I repeat, NOT authentically demonic. The authentic and rare demons are the swiftest and totally truthful witness to the reality, authority and power of God and of Jesus Christ. Everything else that people try to blame on so called “evil spirits” or demons are the results of mental illness, having a god complex, or sinfully trying to excuse human depravity and weakness of behavior, often to “cash in” on those who can be persuaded that evil spirits roam and can be “cured” via cold hard cash. Gosh, what a surprise.

I hope that you have found this helpful. Remember, hell is real and dreadful beyond all imagining, and it is surprisingly easy to find one’s self there when it is your time.

To be continued in a Part 3.

Understanding God: God is Active & Involved (2)

I just wanted to have some follow up detail and amplification of what I wrote yesterday, so here are some loosely connected thoughts on the same subject.

Let's start with one that pretty much stands alone, which is the question of miracles. People have become so mushy in their thoughts about miracles that it is a truly disturbing subject, rather than one that is joyful and affirming. It is a joyful and affirming subject because miracles are evidence that God will intervene in the natural order of things on occasion, so by knowing miracles can and do happen one has a comforting evidence of God's existence. The Bible documents in both the Old and the New Testament miracles performed by God either directly or through his Prophets or through Jesus Christ. There is something you must take care to notice. Collectively there are very few miracles documented in the Bible except for those performed by Jesus Christ. Thus I have to remind you of the obvious: genuine miracles are an exceedingly rare event. This is contrary to the popular babble that I see everyday that "miracles occur all the time" and "miracles are all around us." That is simply not true. The Bible demonstrates that genuine miracles may occur only once every several hundred years, if one studies their occurrence and their time tables.

Before these modern times when so much is blurred between reality and imagination (or wishful thinking), believers understood that miracles were very rare. They prayed to God for cures for their loved ones and so forth but they understood they were not praying for miracles. Believers pray to God for his mercy, his grace, and therefore "best outcomes" of ordinary situations. Believers before these modern times would never think to pray for a miracle per se because they understand that it is a rare event and granted by God according to his own initiative and for his own reasons. Now, I am not trying to be unkind or harsh, so I will explain that one reason that people confuse wonderful outcomes with miracles is that people have forgotten that life is punctuated by events that are what we would call "wondrous" or makes people "marvel." Someone who pulls back from the brink of death to a full recovery is an example of an event where people should marvel and have a feeling of wonderment, but not assume that it is a miracle. It might be an example of an excellent and unexpected outcome, one based either on a stirring combination of good things happening at once (great medical care, strong fortitude, and some extra grace) but not a miracle. So much of what people think are "miracles" are, instead, wondrous and marvelous outcomes to unlikely situations.

So what is a real miracle? A real miracle is one and only one thing, which is that God personally intervenes to overcome the natural order of things. Think of when God, as the Angel of the Lord, appeared with two other angels to Abraham and told him that he and Sarah would bear a son in their extreme old age. We know that is a miracle because God made it happen; it would not have happened otherwise. However, an elderly woman becoming pregnant in either ancient times or now in modern times cannot be called a "miracle" by any stretch of the imagination. It might be a medical wonder or a marvelous unexpected glorious event, but it is not a miracle. A miracle is not a fortunate escape from an accident, or a fantastic medical comeback from the brink of death, unless God is overcoming all natural law (biology and physics) and consequences (results of human actions) to make it so. That in all honesty very rarely happens, and that is obvious through study of scripture.

The one and only time where miracles became "common" was, of course, those by Jesus Christ. Again, remember that these are miracles performed by God through Jesus. We know this because Jesus explains that there are certain things he does to result in a successful miracle, such as prayer and fasting. By the way, it's not like Jesus fasted before performing a miracle. Jesus, as God's instrument, kept himself a pure vessel for the performing of miracles through his continual pattern of prayer life and fasting. Thus Jesus was always in the state of grace to perform a miracle without "preparation." This is why in one event the disciples could not perform a miraculous cure and Jesus told them that those types of miracles required prayer and fasting. Jesus did not mean that it's like a magic formula to do before the miracle, but rather that they were not the perfect vessels that he was (and, by prayer and fasting, maintained in perfect communion with God). So while the Gospels record only a few of Jesus' specific miracles, the Gospel authors indicate that Jesus performed many miracles that go unrecorded. For example, Jesus would cure all those who were ill or infirm in an entire village. Thus one can have confidence that Jesus, and Jesus alone, performed hundreds and over a thousand miracles.

It is obvious that Jesus was graced by God to perform these miracles in order to provide evidence of the mercy and power of God, and that God is present in the world. Thus Jesus performed miracles to authenticate his identity in the name of the Father, God. This is why the Apostles were able to perform some miracles, especially Peter, both during Jesus' life but most particularly after Jesus resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven. Paul, who encountered the resurrected and ascended Jesus, also gained from Jesus the ability to perform miracles. But the volume of miracles is far less by Peter, Paul and the other disciples because performing "lots" of miracles was no longer the point. The point was to spread the Good News, the Word, the New Covenant, not to continue to "prove" that God exists and that Jesus was his Son and messenger.

Look at St John the Apostle and Evangelist, the longest living of the Apostles, and the only one not to be martyred. One would think that he would leave a long list of miracles, if God had been "opening the floodgates" to make miracles common, but the treasure he left was not a lot of cured ill people but his Gospel, his Letters, and the Book of Revelation. So the entire point of the miracles performed by Jesus and gifted to others to perform in his name was not either to 1) make miracles more commonplace or 2) make miracles the preferred form of "proof" of God's power and mercy. Rather, the situation kind of can be described as going back to how it was during the time of the Israelites, where God will intervene for a miracle on rare occurrences for reasons only God understands. The one difference is that while the focus on how one always looks to God for the miracle remained true, the Israelites had prophets among them, or God would appear through his Angel, while in modern times the miracles would come through the name of Jesus Christ. God is still the one performing the miracle, but ordinary people who called upon God using the name of Jesus became saints who could perform miracles at God's behest. In the time of the Israelites God would suddenly call upon one of his priests or prophets, such as Eliseus, and send him on a miracle "mission," for example. After Jesus Christ all who believed were able to trust in God through Jesus to call upon him. In other words, all can ask, and have a path by which they can ask with confidence and faith, but that does not, of course, mean that a miracle will be granted or that miracles can be "produced" at one's own behest.

I am sure that one of the reasons people are confused by this in modern times is that they match what Jesus said about asking anything of God in his name and it will be granted with the automatic assumption that this is like a miracle formula process. That simply is not true. But rather than be disappointed, or think that Jesus was exaggerating, one should feel better and affirmed if one truly understands what Jesus was saying. What many people think today (including many preachers who ought to know better) is fraught with error. Again, I am not trying to be unkind but to get people on the right track again (as their forefathers and foremothers were, who well understood what Jesus meant).

First of all, remember that the Gospels are written records of what Jesus said to his followers. Jesus did not speak with "the pen in mind, where his words will be written down to apply to everyone." What I mean by this is that Jesus was not dictating a recipe book... he was speaking to specific people at a specific time. Thus when Jesus said "you" can ask God he meant the people he was speaking to, his followers, can ask. Yes, of course, Jesus means that what he says specifically to the disciples will also apply to all people in the future...up to a point. For example, when Jesus spoke to the disciples, or those in the synagogues when he preached, and those who gathered on the hills to hear him, he was speaking to believing Jews. In other words, his audience was Jewish people who lived lives of belief in God. Even the Pharisees who he quarreled with about doctrine were, of course, God fearing and believing Jews. Jesus accused them of being hypocrites, not unbelievers. So there is a baseline that you must understand. When Jesus says "you" can ask God for something, the "you" he meant was believers, since that is who he is addressing.

Now, this is not elitist or limiting, and here's how to use some logic to understand it. Suppose that you were there when Jesus said those words. You get on a fast horse and gallop out of town until you find the first village of non-Jews or unbelievers. You tell them "I have discovered a magic formula! If you ask anything of [whatever they call God if they believe at all] using this name 'Jesus Christ' you will get what you ask for!" Um, duh, how likely do you think that would be? Could then the first Roman pagan that you found ask for a bar of gold using the name of Jesus and it would fall out of the sky? (Unless God had a sense of humor that day and hit him in the head). Obviously not. Your Jewish, Christian and Muslim forefathers all understood perfectly well that Jesus was not giving out a "magic formula" to "get whatever you want."

So what was Jesus saying? Again, remember his audience, the Apostles and disciples. They were already his followers and believed, not only in God but they believed in Jesus, and thus were the first Christians. By their mindsets and their actions (giving up all they had and following him) they were already predisposed to asking of God only what is of the greatest good. If Peter or James, or Andrew, for example, said to Jesus, "OK, we are now going to try out what you just told us and ask of God something in your name," you know they would not ask for a bigger paycheck, or to have the most beautiful woman throw herself at them, or to have riches and fame. What they prayed for and asked for, and what was given to them by Jesus as he was among them and the Holy Spirit after Pentecost can be listed 1) greater faith 2) the ability to perform miracles to glorify God and strengthen belief and 3) the ability to turn the hearts of men and women through their words.

This is what is like "moving a mountain." Peter would not ask for bars of gold or a long life, but he would walk into Rome and pray to God in the name of Jesus "that he convert and save as many souls as possible..." and look what Peter did.

So how does one take the words that Jesus gave to his specific audience, the believers who were his disciples, and apply them today? By understanding that 1) you must ask of God only what is for the greatest good, and let God determine that and 2) obviously you must believe in God, and Jesus, as they really are with your full heart and soul. I do not know many people alive today who could meet those requirements, and this is why you do not see many examples of asking something of God in the name of Jesus Christ and having it answered. (Or at least, not as you expected it).

What did the Apostles and disciples worry about the most and want the most? The right words to convert hearts and minds and to save souls. And thus, what were they most granted? The right words to convert hearts and minds and to save souls.

This is why the saints have risen through the years since Jesus and the Apostles were alive on earth and have been able to perform, some of them, astonishing miracles. They asked to do so to glorify God, not themselves and not even to be "good deed doers." Miracles are not an alternative form of charity! Miracles happen in order to 1) glorify God, 2) strengthen belief and 3) fulfill God's mysterious will, and not as a human determined form of charity, "good deed" or "kindness." So called "spiritual healers" are often the furthest away from God, not the nearest, because they view what they strive to do as a "good deed" to "promote healing" and to "cure," but not as an adjunct to what should be their "main business," which is the glorification of God.

Does this help? I think it should. It has become a very confusing cloud of wishy washy thinking where people talk about miracles as if they have a meaning that is totally different than what is clearly enunciated in the Bible (and the Torah and the Qur'an). Miracles were never a new age "charity coin" or a "wow, did that turn out well" phenomenon. Miracles are the extremely rare genuine occurrences of God "reaching into" natural law and the consequences of "cause and effect" and changing the outcome. The miracles performed by Jesus make this abundantly clear, from the raising of the dead to the healing of broken bones in an instant, as if they had never been broken, or the restoration of eyesight, including to those who were born blind. God, who controls all, since he is the creator of all, overturns his own rules when a miracle-a genuine miracle-occurs.

This is why when one reads the lives of the saints you do not see a lot of examples of saints running around "miraculously" curing hundreds of people or providing through "miraculous" means social services or kindness of food or housing to the poor. Miracles are not charity. Instead one reads of yes, sometimes remarkable cures, but one or two instances in order to glorify God, not to make miracles as a social service. What is far more common are the miracles by which the saints proclaim the glory of God through their miracles, such as when St Anthony showed the mourning family the heart of their miser family head in his treasure chest of coins rather than in his body. It was far more important that St Anthony use one miracle to demonstrate that God will judge the greedy and unjust by the shocking transportation of the heart from the body to his treasure chest than if St Anthony became a "miracle heart specialist," "miraculously curing" a bunch of people of their heart murmurs and so forth. Great escapes from accidents, providential cures from dire medical circumstances, and lucky breaks are not miracles! When I say a providential cure I mean that God has constructed a world where it is his will that some people do have wondrous and marvelous remissions, cures, births and other natural phenomenon without it being "a miracle," where God has overturned, for the moment, the natural order of humanity and things.

So, the next logical question is, why does it sometimes "work" to pray to a saint for a miracle and it happens? First of all, this is why the Catholic Church has a rigorous process to determine if it really is a miracle or if it is just one of those providential goodnesses that occurs, so that one can determine if there is valid cause and effect between praying to a saint and, for example, a cure. Wondrous things can and do happen without God intervening. By the way, I know that some people in modern times have claimed false miracles and even think they have "fooled the Church" by providing bogus documentation and so forth. What is to be gained by that? Do you want miracles or not? Fooling the Church authorities does not mean that miracles are bogus in concept or that the Church does not know what it is talking about. God continues to grant miracles-legitimately-wherever and whenever he wills it, even if there are a sad and mean spirited group of people who for whatever reason falsify the information they give to Church authorities. This was a particular problem during the time of Pope John Paul II, and the sad and ultimately self defeating why's of that are a subject for another time. But pretending that your Aunt Millie had a miraculous cure by praying to Saint [fill in your local favorite] does not change one iota the validity of rare but genuine miracles and how God chooses to dispense them (though I'd not hold your breath if you someday need a miracle and you've spent a lot of time manipulating the faithful).

So, the Church has a process by which they determine, as best as they can in an increasingly false and agenda driven world, if praying to a saint or the intervention of a saint resulted in a bona fide miracle. When they determine this they recognize the miracle and also start the process of sainthood, which I won't get into here. My point is to explain, when a miracle "really" occurs, why does a saint have a role in it? If all miracles come from God, why does praying to a saint sometimes "work?"

All miracles come from God. God is all knowing and so, of course, if you pray to St. Mary, for example, God hears your prayer and he (and he alone) answers. So why pray to St. Mary and not directly to God? Because you are honoring and venerating the virtue of the saint who has proven through his or her life their glorification of God. When you ask God something through a saint you are being humble. It pleases God when someone, for example, approaches St. Joseph in prayer, or St. Mary, and asks them to intervene and intercede with God. It pleases him because you are honoring the virtue and devotion that those saints, who he dearly loves, glorifies him and are testimonies to faith and the truth.

The Bible and other literature shows how often someone who needs a favor from someone first contacts the most beloved child of that potentate, such as the first son, or the favorite daughter, and asks them to put in a good word. It softens the heart of the person from whom you seek favor when you recognize and respect how much that person loves the intercessor. This is why the name of Jesus is so powerful, and must not be cheapened by asking Jesus for a successful drug deal or some escape out of a jam that dishonesty got you into. Mercy, yes. God will flow mercy on those who approach him through Jesus, so great is his love for Jesus. But, obviously, you must show that you honor and recognize the love and devotion and the goodness of the intercessor's glorification of God.

So that is why God has often giving miracles, both requested and unsolicited, to those who approach God through veneration of the saints. That is what it meant when it is said that St. Mary, for example, will "intercede" for her children. It's not like Mary knocks on the door of God's office and says, "Please help this guy out" and God says either yes or no. In the process of praying to Mary for intercession God is, of course, able to discern the amount of honor that you are giving Mary, your motivations, and what is for the greater good. Mary, who lives, as all the saints do, within God, is in a constant state of wishing the best for all (which is why God has allowed her to come to earth in specific authentic apparitions, such as at Fatima). As the pure vessel that preserved from sin by God gave birth to Jesus Christ, Mary, by her very existence, is perpetual intervention to God... it is up to the person to demonstrate to God their respect for Mary's sanctity and intercessor power, not Mary. Mary does not have to "ask" God; it is one's demonstration that one wishes Mary to ask, for what and for why, that is necessary. This is why it is obviously not, as some Protestants charge, Mary "worship." Rather one is demonstrating to God that one honors the love and perfection of faith that Mary, and the other saints, have demonstrated for the glorification of God. That is why it is very difficult, so to speak, for God to turn away anyone who asks something appropriate and with the genuine foundation of love and faith in Mary's goodness.

This is why there have been genuine miracles by genuine saints in the centuries since Jesus Christ walked the earth. The miracles have been motivated, and thus granted, for the glory of God and the strengthening of faith, not using the methods humans chose but by God's methods. God, for example, will not "prove he exists" by "miraculously curing cancer" while people continue to smoke and pollute. I mean, how obvious is that? You can't pour sewage into a river and say to God "Prove to me you exist by letting me drink even this polluted water and be healthy and live to be over one hundred years old." Miracles strengthen faith by demonstrating that God can, and does, intervene when he wills it, but not as a constant button to be pressed whenever someone wants to know if God is still "on hold" on the phone line.

Many miracles by saints have nothing to do with cures or charitable kindness at all. For example, the sanctity of some bodies of saints is not a "cure for cancer," but something to marvel at how several dozen saints maintain pure bodies even centuries after their death. While they lived many saints demonstrated miracles by living only on sacred bread, in either its physical form or angelically delivered. So they did not miraculously stock a food pantry at the local community center (good deeds and alms by humans are expected to do that). They glorified God by turning their very bodily sustenance over to him. The same is true of the stigmata. The stigmata are not "signs of power" like some sort of tattoo. They are miracles that correspond to the saint's sanctity and spiritual vocation in God himself.

When you really read the lives of the saints and even jot down on a tablet what kinds of miracles they performed, you start to cleanse yourself of the modern confusion that miracles are like "super good deeds" or "happy endings in bad situations." That is why in old English people use words more like "wondrous" or "marvels" to describe super good deed or happy endings in bad situations, rather than "miracles." The only exception is on the battlefield, back in the times when combatants invoked God (and remember, President Lincoln commented how he knows that both the Union and the Confederacy with sincere hearts invoked God). So even then those who believed, such as Lincoln, were sound and good thinkers about the reality of providence and God's will, but also hesitant to prematurely ascribe miraculous intervention. This is why people used the softer and more accurate word, providence, which leaves open grace, goodness, and protection by God without specifically and inaccurately calling it a miracle.

Much of what is good in the world comes about through God's providence, not God's miracles. God is like the farmer who gives the crops everything they could want and need to grow. That is providence. A miracle would be to make, for example, manna fall from the sky to feed the Israelites during their Exodus. Providence gives a people water, rich soil, sunshine and shade, all in the proportions whereby the crop can grow in abundance. These are gifts from God that can almost be thought of as the pre-existing goodness of the situation. The Founding Fathers felt that very much as the United States of America came into being, and they mention providence by name. They would never have confused providence with a miracle, though, except, as I said, in the dire circumstances on battlefield where one is more easily discerned if it truly exists. God can and does turn the weather, but again, remember that is extraordinary and rare. The Founding Fathers, even with their diversity of faith, had keen hearts to understand that God was with them in terms of providence, and to be alert to the opportunities, on the battlefield, though often it was in hindsight, to miracles. I like this analogy because it demonstrates how an agrarian people, as were the Founding Fathers, have by virtue of that pulse of life understanding, a sensitivity to God's presence, just as the Israelites (at least when they were not being stiff necked numb skulls) had as agrarian and pastoral people. Modern industry and worse the electronic media has broken that sense of God's genuine presence and the ability to discern providence from miracles, or even to savor providence at all.

I can guarantee you that few of the American Presidents, regardless of the level of their faith, went very many days without having a thought or two about the feeling of providence. They more than anyone appreciate the especial protection and grace from God that America has benefited from. They too, in modern times, should be among the first to be alert to the squandering and abuse of providence, and the grave risk that this entails. People need to worry less about "miracles" and being "touched by an angel" and more about regaining the fullness of providence from God that has been to a large degree thrown away in the trash and abused as if it were a curse instead of a blessing.

I hope that you have found this helpful.