Thorn and Thistle
“This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.” (Jn. 12:30 Revised Standard Version) “…Now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (Jn. 12:31–32 Revised Standard Version)
Had the Son of Man come in power, we would not have lashed His body. If the exposition of His Divine state was revealed before His vulnerability, we could not know charity. How could our nature reclaim and know love, if not by the disfiguring of the body of Christ, if at first we forfeited true love in misaligned preference towards the created good? Just as the same way malice entered into the nature through the body, it would have to exit in the same way.
Fr. Boniface Hicks says that vulnerability exposes interiority. We see this in the dealings of kingdoms to their peoples, their peoples to each other, and subsequently those people to those outside of their contextual bounds. When we become vulnerable, our natural disposition, in proportion to the force, is to lash out in equivocal or disproportion force. And to the polity of any earthly kingdom, this is just. Justice is to render to one what is due. But does the natural disposition of the carnal man determine the due or is the due presupposed by the sacred disposition of the soul towards its end?
To the former, the natural disposition of the carnal man is to seek the lesser good both of the body and for the polity of that body, so because the belonging is somewhat communal, it is a common good. But the common good is in fact anti-good, as every carnal body has its own disposition and many allegiances of polity, so the due can never be agreed upon. In fact, the action permitting the due is bounded temporally, as perceived strictly by the body and its polity, so if the just due cannot be paid within temporal bounds, then where is justice? So if the due is not paid, this is then an unjust situation, which the body cannot reconcile within itself, neither can the kingdom it belongs to if it is also bounded temporally.
What of the pressuposition of the sacred disposition of the soul towards its end? Are not all hearts restless until they find their rest in God? All eyes desire to gaze at the beatific vision of Christ. If they have denied Him, they would not see the splendor of the rays of light. Yet, they would still desire Him. It is either that the eyes would seek to imitate Christ or seek what imitates Christ. If this desire for beauty and to be made beautiful, to be made resplendent as Christ, the Logos, is the natural disposition of the soul, then perhaps the soul directed towards God is best to determine what is just, what is due. Not because the soul itself will determine it on its own accord, but because its end points to its progenitor.
What is Justice to God? It is the virtue of religion; and to persons, it is the moral virtue between persons. They are summed up in these:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mk. 12:30–31 Revised Standard Version)
I speak on this because of the grief of my own soul towards the visceral powerlessness I feel when I see my siblings in creation deal with each other, as if the Sacred Heart of Christ had not gone through the agony for them. If we only knew how precious we are to this most Sacred Heart. Do we not know that the Logos has brought forth all life from His being and would recommit to the breaking of His body even if it were for just one soul? The land that God has given us, He has given out of a prodigy of goodness for His common good, which is for us to be with Him and to be like Him. Is this not the same God who destroyed the temple and rebuilt it? Was He not cast down, so that we all could be raised with Him? Was this temple of the mystical body of Christ not corporate, for our good, and the good of all His Church?
No, the temple of God is not with Israel alone! This is not supercessionist, but the crux of the salvific work of the second person of the Trinity. If the temple of God, where He dwells, were only with one temporal people, in one space, how then would God make Himself known to all? But it is in fact, in the breaking of the body, in the breaking of the temple, where a tree of desolation stands, that new friut and life is brought forth. The strange fruit in the Garden and the lust of desire toward that created good, brought about enmity between God and man. But the Son of Man, brought low to be raised high, in the disfirguration of His body, with all destruction to the flesh for all sins to the flesh, and the crown of the thron and thistle on the horn of the Man, in suppression of His power, was not shame. The crown of thorns on the head of the Man meant that He had power; Israel, I ask you, was this not what was alluded to by your predecessor Abraham with the ram stuck in the thicket?
6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. 7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place The Lord will provide; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” (Gn. 22:6–14 Revised Standard Version)
Why was Isaac, this man of well strength bounded, if not a willing sacrifice? And why did God provide a ram and not the lamb necessary for the completion of the sacrifice? Is it not because that which was the initiating of the family bond was God starting the work through a people who then by which He would bring about the establishment of this True, Divine kingdom, for all peoples? The lamb was not provided here but did God not provide His son, the sacrificial, willingly bounded, unblemished lamb, who would carry the wood that would raise Him up for the sacrifice? Is Christ not the typological lamb who, as the ram stuck in the thicket, wore the crown of thorns and thistles, suppressing His power, casting on His head the original curse that was put on the Earth in Genesis? This is our God! This is the Messiah who from all things flow forth! This is our Just King! The lamb who takes away the sins of the world! Have mercy on us, O Lord!
The Son of Man draws all things to Himself. There in is the logical conclusion of the soul, of justice, of dues. Let Israel and Palestine find its synthesis; there is no moral inconsistency to propose this; except for the carnal man. Any man who hates his brother, too hates God. We love God as much as we love the other to which enmity between us in the greatest. Any man who doesn’t show mercy, cannot receive mercy. Any man who seeks domination through the sword, has chosen his kingdom. The City of God cannot be entered as if waking into any earthly kingdom. It is through the waters; through the consecrating waters of baptism, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or the baptism by blood. And to that end, are we not all consecrated in hope? No longer grieve the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Love your neighbor. Consider your neighbor better than yourself, and be drawn up to His body.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, break your bodies with Christ and unify yourself to Him with your sufferings, prayers, and supplications for the souls and broken bodies of our global siblings in ail. Do not believe for a moment that your sacrifice will not mix with His for restitution.
To the people of Palestine, I love you, peace be with you, I will break my body for you in my fasting, suffering, and supplications.
To the people of Israel, I love you, peace be with you, I will break my body for you in my fasting, suffering, and supplications.
To the people of Ethiopia, especially the women and children, I love you, peace be with you, I will break my body for you in my fasting, suffering, and supplications.
To the people of Sudan, especially the women and children, I love you, peace be with you, I will break my body for you in my fasting, suffering, and supplications.
