The Vertex of Love

When Mary was predestined in one and the same decree with Jesus Christ by the design of God—before the creation of angels or the universe, and before the existence of sin or evil—she was predestined to be the Spouse of the Holy Spirit … to hold within herself all the love of creation. 

Love’s Mechanics

In the return of all created things to God the Father (cf. Jn 1, 1; 16, 28), “the equal and contrary reaction,” says St. Maximilian Kolbe, “proceeds inversely from that of creation.”  In creation, the saint goes on to say, the action of God “proceeds from the Father through the Son and the Spirit, while in the return, by means of the Spirit, the Son becomes incarnate in (the Virgin Mary’s) womb and through Him, love returns to the Father.” ¹ The Saint of Auschwitz goes on:

In the union of the Holy Spirit with her, not only does love bind these two beings, but the first of them (the Holy Spirit) is all the love of the Most Holy Trinity, while the second (the Blessed Virgin Mary) is all the love of creation, and thus in that union heaven is joined to earth, the whole heaven with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created love: this is the vertex of love. ²

Love’s Equilibrium
The form of the diagram shown in Figure 1 is not found in the work of St. Maximilian.  However, it accurately represents the state of equal and opposite action and reaction, that occurs when two bodies make contact.  In this case, the “bodies” represent heaven and earth:  the uncreated and created orders, God and his creation.  The first point I would like to make is that the state of equal and opposite contact forces in Newtonian mechanics requires “force equilibrium.”  It may then seem very wrong to use an image like this one, because how can the state shown between God and his creation be in equilibrium?  Isn’t God’s act of love so much greater than the return of his creation that no “equilibrium” would be possible?  This would certainly be the case if it were not for Emmanuel, that is, God with us.  Jesus, who is truly man, and truly God, belongs to both the created and uncreated orders simultaneously.  In his person, Jesus is both the son of Mary, fully human and like us in all ways except sin, and the Eternal Son of God the Father, infinite and equal in all ways to the Triune God.
 

      

 Figure 1:  The return of all created things to God the Father.

Thus, the love of Jesus, the Word Made Flesh who is God, is by itself enough to “balance” the love of God.  However, there is even more in the equation of love’s equilibrium than the love of the Son, infinite and sufficient in itself, though it is.  According to St. Maximilian, the perfect love of the Trinity meets an adequate response in the perfect love of the Immaculate, which is the name St. Maximilian gives to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  How is it possible that Divine Love can find an adequate response in the love of a creature?  It is possible precisely because of the name that the Virgin Mary can claim for herself.  In 1854, the Blessed Virgin Mary proclaimed to St. Bernadette Soubirous: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”  In the words of St. Maximilian, the Blessed Virgin is the created Immaculate Conception, as in the words of St. Bonaventure, the Holy Spirit is the uncreated Immaculate Conception. ³  The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the Son ,as the perfect and infinite love between the Father and the Son in the eternal interior life of the Blessed Trinity.  Thus, the Holy Spirit is truly all the love of the Most Holy Trinity.  The Holy Spirit is also called the “Complement” of the Blessed Trinity, because he is the completion of the Trinity, not in “number” (quantitatively), but in essence (qualitatively).

When Mary was predestined in one and the same decree with Jesus Christ, ⁴ by the design of God—before the creation of angels or the universe, and before the existence of sin or evil—she was predestined to be the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. So she was predestined to hold within herself all the love of creation.  Thus, St. Maximilian says that the Blessed Virgin Mary “inserted into the love of the Most Holy Trinity becomes, from the very first moment of her existence, always, forever, the Complement of the Most Holy Trinity.”  We may paraphrase the thoughts of St. Maximilian Kolbe on the spousal relationship between the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the words of Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner:

In virtue of this spousal union formally denoted by the title, Complement, Mary is able to enter, as no other, into the order of the hypostatic union, her soul being wholly divinized, because by the grace of the Immaculate Conception, it has been ‘transubstantiated’ into the Holy Spirit. ⁵

It is for this reason that Mary—though she is a creature in both her person and her nature—is herself the created Immaculate Conception, and, therefore, all the love of creation. She can actually provide an adequate response to the love of the Holy Spirit, who is the uncreated Immaculate Conception, and, therefore, all the Love of God.  Thus, the equation of love’s equilibrium is balanced again.

Now that we have balanced the equation of love’s equilibrium twice over, we could certainly stop.  However, there is reason to continue.  St. Maximilian does not expressly mention St. Joseph in the context of these reflections.  However, the diagram in Figure 1, based entirely on the saint’s own reflections, certainly suggests the presence of St. Joseph in the order of the response of creation to God the Father.  The order of Father, Son, and, Holy Spirit, shown in the diagram, reflects the order of God’s loving act of creation. This was initiated by the zeal of the Father, designed by the wisdom of the Son, and effected by the action of the Holy Spirit.  This is the order referred to by St. Maximilian when he says that: “the equal and contrary reaction (i.e., the return of all creation to God) proceeds inversely from that of creation.”  We see this reflection in the diagram, where the reaction “force” of love is inverted, and the order of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as the “action force,” is reversed to give the order of Holy Spirit, Son, and Father.

Notice, however, that in the return to God, it is creation that is reacting.  Thus, the individuals reacting—while reflecting the Holy Spirit, Son, and Father to greater or lesser degrees—are all creatures.  We have Mary, who is the perfect similitude (St. Bonaventure), transparent icon (St. Maximilian), or even quasi-incarnation (St. Maximilian) of the Holy Spirit, but who is still a created person, with a created human nature.  We have Jesus, who is the Word Incarnate, the same Person as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, but who is still in possession of a created human nature.  St. Maximilian stops here, but must we stop here?  I would dare to say that the analogy we have carried out so far on the inspiration of St. Maximilian suggests an obvious completion.  We have St. Joseph, who has been called the “perfect icon of God the Father” by more than one saint. ⁶  In the words of Fr. Joachin Ferrer Arellano:

In the light of the Scotistic thesis on the Primacy of Christ, to take one example, one discovers (…) how the virginal marriage of Mary and Joseph was predestined “ante mundi constitutionem” (before the constitution of the world), as an essential part of the one decree of the Incarnation of the Word in the womb of the Immaculate “ante praevisa merita” (before any consideration of antecedent merit).  Such is the saving plan, “the mystery hidden before the ages in God,” (cf. Eph 3:9) to be accomplished at the high point in the history of salvation.  That high point is the fullness of time (cf. Gal 4:4) when God sent his Son into the most pure bosom of Holy Mary Ever Virgin, espoused to a man of the house of David (cf. Lk 1:26) in fulfillment of the prophecy of Nathan.  God acted thus, that through the obedience of the Spouses of Nazareth the Son might be freely welcomed into history on behalf of all mankind in order to save it.  This welcome took place in the virginal womb of Mary, the Daughter of Zion, and in the house of Joseph, in the family home established by the marriage of the two Spouses (Mary and Joseph), “sanctuary of love and cradle of life.”  This is the theological foundation of the holy Patriarch’s greatness as virginal, messianic father of the Only-begotten of the Father: shadow and transparent icon of Him who wished to make Joseph unique partaker of his fatherhood in order to prepare the human nature of Christ for the holocaust of Calvary.  In this way, He made Joseph Father and Lord of the Church gushing forth from Christ’s opened side and born of the sword of sorrow of the Woman. ⁷

In addition to being the transparent icon of God the Father, St. Joseph was the true, virginal husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. ⁸  In fact, it can even be said that St. Joseph is the virginal father of Jesus Christ.  For, again in the words of Fr. Joachin Ferrer Arellano:

Although singular, unique, and not univocal with fatherhood as this is ordinarily understood and commonly found among men, the position more common and traditional among theologians upholds the truly real fatherhood of Joseph in relation to Jesus, based 1) on his marriage to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and 2) on the right of the husband over his wife.  He, therefore, who is born virginally of Mary, by reason of his birth, intimately pertains in some manner to Joseph as father. … In view of the dignity of Joseph as husband of Mary, to whom belongs the fruit of his wife’s womb, one is not permitted to overlook … how the indivisible virginity of both spouses—not simply that of Mary, but also that of her husband, the son of David—is ordered to the virginal fatherhood of Joseph according to the Spirit, in virtue of the obedience of faith to the saving plan of God.  This plan includes the messianic fatherhood of Joseph as son of David in relation to his virginal Son, constituted Son of David, the messianic King, because He was Son of Joseph. ⁹

In the return of all created things to God the Father, it is under the leadership, and in imitation of, St. Joseph, our patriarch, that the individual members of the Church must, by the merits gained for us through the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, be transubstantiated into Mary, who is the Virgo Ecclesia Facta (Virgin-Made-Church). ¹⁰ It is only by being transubstantiated into Mary, the created Immaculate Conception, that we can be united to God as she is uniquely united to God, being transubstantiated with her into the uncreated Immaculate Conception, who is the Holy Spirit.  In virtue of this transubstantiation, we are possessed by the Immaculate, and we are thereby formed into a single community, or Church, sharing her personality.  To St. Maximilian, this is the only way that we can be members of Christ’s Church, and thereby united to God.  In the words of Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner:

To this dynamic union of love in which not only the being of the Holy Spirit and that of Mary are united, but the entire love of heaven and that of earth touch, merge and become one so as to culminate in the Incarnation, in the birth of the Son of God, the Man-God, and then in the incorporation of the members of the Church into that Body conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Saint of Niepokalanow and Auschwitz (St. Maximilian Kolbe) ascribes the fecundity of the Holy Spirit, precisely because Complement of Father and Son. … Whence the importance of Mary’s possession of those who wish to be incorporated into Christ, conformed to him in life and in death: except through her it cannot be achieved (emphasis added).  This mysterious mutual possession, then, is the basis of all other cooperation in the work of salvation, the reason for rejecting the Protestant solus, and “passive” ecclesio-typology, and affirming the universal Marian mediation of grace or active ecclesio-typology. ¹¹

Thus, in accordance with St. Maximilian’s principle of action and reaction, what was first reversed in the order of God’s creative act, in the fullness of time, in the objective order of salvation, is reversed again in the subjective order of salvation. What was first reversed in the objective order of salvation means that, through the action of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ was incarnate of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and became man, and through him, love returned to the Father.  What was reversed again in the subjective order of salvation means that, in imitation of our patriarch and leader, St. Joseph, through the merits gained for us by the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, we can be transubstantiated into the Immaculate, and thereby form one Church, sharing her personality. Consequently, we share in her unique union with God in eternity, which is the Beatific Vision.  This can be illustrated in the diagram shown in Figure 1, if one imagines traveling from the top of the diagram to the bottom, and then returning from the bottom of the diagram to the top again.

Love’s VertexOur final meditation on the diagram shown in Figure 1 is the point of contact between heaven and earth, the vertex of love, where all the love of God, and all the love of creation, meet and are joined: “in that union heaven is joined to earth, the whole heaven with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created love.” ¹²  This point of contact, between the whole heaven and the whole earth, is, according to St. Maximilian, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Why is this?  Why is the vertex of love not the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is love?  Indeed, the Saint of Auschwitz has been sharply criticized, and even ridiculed by some theologians, for what they have called “a heresy” along the lines of that of Joachim of Fiore. ¹³  It is claimed that, by making the vertex of love the Immaculate Conception, the centrality of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is denied.  However, precisely the opposite is true.  For, in the words of Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner:

Today, this joachimite tendency generally reveals itself in constant anxiety about Catholic proneness to “exaggerate” Mary, and a downplaying (emphasis added) of the active role of Mary in the work of salvation as Mother of God, and co-redemptress so as to exalt the “mediation” of the Holy Spirit as principal “co-redemptor” (and for some “mother”) of whom Mary is but the instrument (as are we), or so as to speak of the suffering of the Father. … But such historical trends have always been the prelude of Unitarianism: not an affirmation of the Trinity, but its denial, a denial which must ultimately lead to some form of pantheism. … The significance of St. Maximilian’s reflections on the Holy Spirit, and Mary, and of his preferred terminology cannot be underestimated. ¹⁴

It is the relationship of Mary to her Divine Son, which is the relationship of Mother of God, or Theotokos, which is the source of all her dignity, unparalleled among creatures.   This dignity so far transcends the dignity of every other created being as to make her a “quasi-part” of the Blessed Trinity.  It is in this very dignity, however, that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is central, which is why St. Maximilian Kolbe’s reflections on the Blessed Virgin Mary are directly opposed to the joachimite heresy.  Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner paraphrases St. Maximilian Kolbe on this subject as follows:

Thus, Mary’s self-definition is: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”  Only Mary can say this, because only of Mary Immaculate, jointly predestined with Christ for an absolute primacy in creation, can it be said that the whole world and each of us was made “for her”. ¹⁵ Therefore, of no other just person can it be said as it was said to Mary “The Lord is with thee.” ¹⁶  For no other than the Immaculate can be Mother of God (emphasis added).  Indeed, she remains only a creature; nonetheless in virtue of the Immaculate Conception she far transcends the supernatural perfection of even the greatest saints and of all the saints together, for as “quasi-part” of the Trinity, she not only participates in the divine perfections, she is “inserted into the very bosom of the Trinity and into the order of the Incarnation.” ¹⁷ … ¹⁸  To be part of the Trinity, then, in so singular a way revolves about the divine Maternity, and by extension the spiritual maternity as well.  For in loving the Immaculate the divine Persons love us. ¹⁹

In the famous Roman conference of 1937, St. Maximilian defined sanctity with an equation: “S: v = V”.  The letter “S” stands for sanctity, the lowercase letter “v” stands for the will of a creature, and the uppercase letter “V” stands for the will of God.  It is Mary Immaculate who is the perfect image, or icon, of sanctity, because it is only she who satisfies Kolbe’s equation.  “We may add with the Saint: perfect sanctity is perfect charity or Immaculate Conception.” ²⁰  This is the meaning of the vertex of love, and why that vertex is the Immaculate Conception, rather than the Incarnation.  Mary is a created person, and yet her will is perfectly united to the will of God: “v = V.”  In the words of St. Maximilian:

The Immaculate, the full of grace, was always united to the will of God.  From all eternity, she was in the thought of God who had willed her so holy and perfect, to correspond with his will in a manner so complete.  Hence, we can say that to do the will of God, means to do the will of the Immaculate, and to do the will of the Immaculate means to do the will of God, because she is always united to God: the Lord is with thee; because she is always docile to the call of God: be it done to me; because she is always solicitous for the glory of God, always adoring, praising and thanking: my soul magnifies the Lord. ²¹

We know well from St. Thomas Aquinas that love is in the will. ²²  Thus, in the equation, “v = V,” we see that all the love of creation (in the will of the Immaculate Virgin Mary) is united to all the love of the Most Holy Trinity (in the will of the Holy Spirit), and, in the words of St. Maximilian, “in that union heaven is joined to earth, the whole heaven with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created love: this is the vertex of love.” ²³

Oh sweet heart of Mary, be our salvation.
Ave Maria!

1. SK 1318.  All citations from the writings of St. Maximilian Kolbe in this paper, with the exception of the Roman Conferences, are abbreviated SK and taken from Scritti di Massimiliano Kolbe (Roma 1997). ↩
2. Ibid. ↩
3. Regarding the Mysteries of the interior life of the Blessed Trinity, St. Bonaventure said that the Son can be properly said to be “a conceived”, but only the Holy Spirit can be properly said to be “conception” (in I Sent.).  St. Maximilian added the word “Immaculate” (perfect, holy) to the name given the Holy Spirit by St. Bonaventure, an addition St. Bonaventure would surely have approved. ↩
4. The following is an excerpt taken from the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX Ineffabilis Deus, issued on December 8, 1854, in which the Holy Father solemnly declared the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception:  “From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world.  Above all creatures did God so love her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight.  Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully. …  And hence the very words with which the Sacred Scriptures speak of Uncreated Wisdom and set forth his eternal origin, the Church, both in its ecclesiastical offices and in its liturgy, has been wont to apply likewise to the origin of the Blessed Virgin, inasmuch as God, by one and the same decree, had established the origin of Mary and the Incarnation of Divine Wisdom.”  Here Blessed Pope Pius IX makes use both of the Scotistic thesis on the Absolute Joint Primacy of Jesus and Mary, both of whose existence were ordained before God’s act of creation and before any consideration of original sin (cf. R. Rosini, O.F.M., Mariology of Blessed John Duns Scotus, translated by P. Fehlner, F.I., New Bedford 2008), and the formulation of St. Anselm, who said that Mary “shines with a purity greater than which none can be imagined” (De Conceptione Virginis). ↩
5. P. Fehlner, F.I., St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity – Pneumatologist (New Bedford, 2004). ↩
6. St. Theresa of Avila and St. Bernadette Soubirous are among these (cf. A. Dozè, “Le mystère de Saint Joseph révéle a deux femmes: Therèse (d’Avila) et Bernadette”, in Actas simposio de Kevelaer 2005), as well as St. Peter Julian Eymard (Month of St. Joseph). ↩
7. J. Ferrer Arellano, “The Virginal Marriage of Mary and Joseph according to Bl. John Duns Scotus”, in Bl. John Duns Scotus and His Mariology, Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Death, Acts of the Symposium on Scotus’ Mariology, Grey College, Durham – England (New Bedford, 2009). ↩
8. Blessed John Duns Scotus and St. Maximilian Kolbe are both clear on this point, as are many other saints, including Blessed Pope John Paul II (cf. Redemptoris Custos).  The fact that Mary is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, and the fact that their perfect spousal love results in Mary’s transubstantiation into the Holy Spirit, does not imply that the Holy Spirit is the “husband” of Mary, or that the Holy Spirit is the “father” of Jesus.  To approach an understanding of the perfect spousal union of love between the Holy Spirit and Mary, it must be understood that highest experience of spousal love, which is between husband and wife within the holy sacrament of marriage, is but an imperfect reflection of the source of spousal love, which is the Love between the Father and the Son in the Blessed Trinity, both of Whom in the inner life of the Trinity are, of course, without “gender” in the human sense of the term.  This Perfect Spousal Love is the Holy Spirit, and it is as a fruit of this Spousal Love that the Blessed Virgin Mary is one with the Holy Spirit; transubstantiated into the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit quasi-incarnate.  (P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity…) ↩
9. J. Ferrer Arellano, “The Virginal Marriage of Mary and Joseph…” ↩
10. The title “Virgo Ecclesia Facta,” or Virgin-Made-Church” is applied to the Blessed Virgin by St. Francis of Assisi in his Antiphon for the Office of the Passion (cf. J. Schneider, O.F.M., Virgo Ecclesia Facta: The Presence of Mary in the Crucifix of San Damiano and in the Office of the Passion of St. Francis of Assisi, New Bedford 2004).  The phrase “transubstantiation into the Immaculate,” though surprising, is used twice by St. Maximilian Kolbe to describe the total consecration to the Immaculate he demanded of his priests (cf. A. Geiger, F.I., “Marian Mediation as Presence and Transubstantiation into the Immaculate”, in Mary at the Foot of the Cross – III:  Mater Unitatis, Acts of the Third International Symposium on Marian Coredemption, New Bedford 2003). ↩
11. P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity… ↩
12. SK 1318 ↩
13. Joachim of Fiore was a theologian (c. 1135 – 1202) who de-emphasized the central role of the Incarnation in the Salvific Order.  His theories were declared heretical at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and at the Synod of Arles (1263). ↩
14. P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity… ↩
15. SK 1305. ↩
16. SK 1295 ↩
17. SK 1320; 1305; 1295; 1288. ↩
18.  Father Fehlner continues:  “While this personal communion or inexistence of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate is absolutely unique in its perfection (a hierarchy or sacred order of its own kind), it is nonetheless the ontological basis making possible the sanctification of the Church as Bride of Christ, as sharing in the redemptive sacramentality of the Incarnation.  This mediation of Mary qua created Immaculate Conception is the source of that mystical personality of the Church qua Bride, a personality of virgin and mother underlying and permeating every other dimension of the Church, including the petrine, hierarchical, sacramental-liturgical.”  (P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity…)  See also J. Ferrer Arellano, “The Triple and Inseparable Mediation of the Immaculate, the Eucharist and the Petrine Ministry in the Building Up of the Church Until the Parousia (The Three Whites)”, in Mary at the Foot of the Cross VI: Marian Coredemption in the Eucharistic Mystery, Acts of the Sixth International Symposium on Marian Coredemption (New Bedford, 2007). ↩
19. P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity… ↩
20. Ibid. ↩
21. St. Maximilian Kolbe, in Roman Conferences of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, translated with introduction and notes byFr. Peter Damian Ma. Fehlner, F.I. (New Bedford, 2004).↩
22. Despite the objections of Dietrich von Hildebrand (cf. Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Nature of Love). ↩
23. SK 1318. ↩

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Taken from: http://www.hprweb.com/2012/10/the-vertex-of-love/

Genetic 'Adam and Eve’ Study Links All Men to Man Who Lived 135,000 Years Ago

5 August, 2013 - 12:54 april Holloway

A new  study published in the journal Science has revealed that almost every man alive today can trace his origins to one man who lived approximately 135,000 years ago, and that this ancient man was alive at the same time as the woman who his known as the ‘mother of all women’, providing evidence for an ancient ‘Adam and Eve’.

The research team obtained their results by undertaking the most comprehensive study to date on the male sex chromosome. The Y chromosome is passed down identically from father to son, so mutations in the chromosome can be used to trace back the male line to the father of all humans.  The study involved sequencing the entire genome of the Y chromosome for 69 men from seven global populations.  By assuming a mutation rate linked to archaeological events (such as the migration of people), the team concluded that all males in their global sample shared a single male ancestor in Africa roughly 125,000 to 156,000 years ago. This challenges previous research which suggested that men’s most recent common ancestor lived just 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

But before jumping to any conclusions, it must be pointed out that a separate study in the same issue of the journal Science found that men shared a common ancestor between 180,000 to 200,000 years ago, and yet another study back in March in the American Journal of Human Genetics, showed that several men in Africa have unique, divergent Y chromosomes that trace back to an even more ancient man who lived between 237,000 and 581,000 years ago. The variations in results are due to the fact that gene studies always rely on a sample of DNA, which can never provide a complete picture of human history. Different DNA samples lead to different estimates of how old our common ancestors really are and only further analyses will help to pinpoint a more precise date range.

A similar analysis has also been conducted to trace back a common ancestor of all women, known as ‘mitochondrial Eve’.  The DNA from mitochondria, the energy centre of a cell, is carried inside a female’s egg, so only women pass it on to their children. The DNA held inside mitochondria can therefore reveal the maternal lineage to ancient Eve, who is believed to have lived in Africa between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago – almost the same time period during which the Y chromosome ‘Adam’ lived.

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- See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/genetic-adam-eve-study-links-all-men-man-who-lived-135000-years-ago#sthash.ub2Epvtr.dpuf

Openness to beauty leads soul to God, says Catholic thinker

By Matt Hadro

Philadelphia, Pa., Jul 22, 2014 / 04:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The senses are the “road to God”, who speaks to us through beauty, said Bill Donaghy, who holds a master's in systematic theology, at the recent Theology of the Body Congress held in Philadelphia.

God “is trying to break into our minds and hearts through beauty,” said Donaghy who, using the image of a leaf open to sunlight, said, “we need to be as receptive to God’s
beauty as this leaf.”

Donaghy was addressing an audience on the role of beauty in the new evangelization at a conference about the more than 100 catecheses delivered by St. John Paul II on “Theology of the Body” early in his pontificate.

Part of John Paul II's thought is his sacramental vision of creation, through which we can see God, Donaghy explained.
The senses “are a road to God,” he said, imploring the audience, “don’t shrink from the gift of the senses.”

Quoting Fr. Robert Barron, Donaghy called beauty the “arrowhead of the new evangelization” because, although it is not an end in itself, it catches the heart and points it towards the true and the good, adding that it is “the point with which the evangelist pierces the minds and hearts of those he evangelizes.”

When asked what Catholics should do to bring beauty into everyday life, Donaghy called for “'lectio divina' in the visual realm.”

“It means that you get good books. That your coffee table books are rich sacred art. That you give yourself opportunities to wander in the woods, that you read the book of creation more deliberately and you spend time before the 2,000 years of history of sacred art.”

“I think that our homes, our schools, our offices, should be places of beauty, too. There should be beautiful things all around us.”

All good works of art can lead us to God, Donaghy explained. “Create a treasure chest of sacred art, of photographs, of poems, of movie clips and songs,” he told the audience. “God is speaking to us through all of it.”

However, he warned that beauty can be abused. We must “reverence” it and not try to grasp it and bottle it for our own selfish desires.

“Don’t try to bottle beauty. Don’t try to capture it. If you do, it stagnates,” he warned. He contrasted Mary and Eve, noting how Mary was open and receptive to
God’s grace, but Eve tried to grasp God’s nature for her own selfish desires.

As Mary was, so must we be, he urged.

“Beauty can be a terrible thing. God and the devil are fighting, and the battlefield is the human heart,” he admitted.

But if we are open and receptive to God, we can see beauty as we were meant to see it, he added.

“We listen, we’re attuned to the transcendent, to God, and beauty leads us to God. Keep your head and your heart open to God, and beauty will lead you to God.”

 

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Taken from: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/openness-to-beauty-leads-soul-to-god-says-catholic-thinker-15472/

Doomsday pope warns man’s greed will destroy world

Pope Francis says man’s greed will destroy world, urges world leaders to help the hungry

Posted Fri at 8:05amFri 21 Nov 2014, 8:05am

Pope Francis has warned that planet Earth will not forgive the abuse of its resources for profit, urging the world’s leaders to rein in their greed and help the hungry.

He said if action was not taken the world risked a doomsday scenario in which nature would exact revenge.

“God always forgives, but the earth does not,” the Argentine Pope told representatives from 190 countries gathered for the Second International Conference on Nutrition in Rome.

“Take care of the earth so it does not respond with destruction.”

Photo: Pope Francis has warned world leaders to rein in their greed. (Reuters: Jack Guez)

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Map: Italy

Pope Francis has warned that planet Earth will not forgive the abuse of its resources for profit, urging the world’s leaders to rein in their greed and help the hungry.

He said if action was not taken the world risked a doomsday scenario in which nature would exact revenge.

“God always forgives, but the earth does not,” the Argentine Pope told representatives from 190 countries gathered for the Second International Conference on Nutrition in Rome.

“Take care of the earth so it does not respond with destruction.”

Pope Francis, a staunch defender of the poor, said the world “paid too little heed to those who are hungry”.

While the number of undernourished people dropped by over half in the past 20 years, some 805 million people were still affected in 2014.

“It is also painful to see the struggle against hunger and malnutrition hindered by market priorities, the primacy of profit, which reduce foodstuffs to a commodity like any other, subject to speculation and financial speculation in particular,” Pope Francis said.

“The hungry remain at the street corner… and ask for a healthy diet.

“We ask for dignity, not for charity.”

The Pope has in the past launched several scathing attacks on those who get rich through market speculation, particularly the practice of betting on the price of food commodities which can inflate prices and see poor families go hungry.

He urged the world’s population to have “mutual respect, instead of fighting between themselves, damaging and impoverishing the planet”.

Pope Francis praised the work of the UN food agency and the World Health Organisation for getting delegates at the conference to adopt a “Rome Declaration on Nutrition” and “Framework for Action”.

But he called on those drawing up “rules and technical measures” not to lose sight of the hungry man “fighting for survival”.

“Feed the hungry, save life on the planet,” Pope Francis said at the end of his speech which was met with a standing ovation.

The declaration focused on improving access to healthy food but also the growing problem of inactive over-eaters.

Two billion people suffer from deficiencies in nutrients such as vitamin A, iron and zinc – a condition known as “hidden hunger” by experts – while 42 million children and 500 million adults are overweight or obese.

AFP

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Taken from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-21/doomsday-pope-warns-greed-will-destroy-world/5908034

“Family an anthropological fact”. Pope Francis.

 

Pope Francis declares union between man and woman 'at root of marriage' in blow to gay rights

 

Adam Withnall

 

Tuesday 18 November 2014

 

Pope Francis has apparently spoken out in defence of marriage as an institution between a man and a woman, hurting the hopes of those who see him as a liberal driving force in the Catholic Church.

Last month the Pope warned Catholics not to fear change following an angry synod backlash against a softening of the Church’s stance towards homosexuality.
But in his address at the opening of a three-day conference on traditional marriage hosted at the Vatican yesterday, Francis called family “an anthropological fact… that cannot be qualified based on ideological notions or concepts important only at one time in history”.
The Humanum conference invites people of different religions to come together and celebrate “complementarity between man and woman in marriage” – the idea that men and women have different but complementary roles that they say are essential to building a strong family.
And though he did not refer to gay unions directly, the Pope said: “It is fitting that you have gathered here to explore the complementarity of man and woman. This complementarity is at the root of marriage and family.”

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In just a year, Pope Francis has managed to change the public perception of the Catholic Church, and the stance it takes on civil issues, like gay rights. Despite originally protesting the legalisation of gay marriage in his native Argentina some years ago, he told reporters this year: “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?”

Francis said: “Children have the right to grow up in a family with a father and mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child's development and emotional maturity.
“Today marriage and the family are in crisis,” he continued. “We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment.
“The revolution in mores and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings, especially the poorest and most vulnerable.”
Pope Francis's comments were interpreted by those in the audience as a declaration in support of traditional marriage. Russell Moore of the US's Southern Baptist Convention said: “Pope Francis made clear that male/female complementarity is essential to marriage and cannot be revised by contemporary ideologies.”

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Read more: Pope Francis' top 10 tips for happiness
Pope says he 'believes in guardian angels'
Francis makes exorcisms official Catholic practice
One in 50 Anglican priests 'doesn't believe in God'

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Taken from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-union-between-man-and-woman-at-root-of-marriage-in-blow-to-gay-rights-9867561.html

Pope denounces euthanasia as ‘sin against God and creation’

November 16, 2014

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has denounced the right to die movement, saying it’s a “false sense of compassion” to consider euthanasia as an act of dignity when it’s a sin against God and creation.

 

Pope Francis made the comments to the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors on Saturday.

 

 

Earlier this month, the Vatican’s top bioethics official condemned as “reprehensible” the assisted suicide of an American woman, Brittany Maynard, who was suffering terminal brain cancer and said she wanted to die with dignity.

 

Pope Francis didn’t refer to the Maynard case specifically.

 

While denouncing euthanasia in general, he also condemned abortion, in vitro fertilisation (or “the scientific production of a child”) and embryonic stem cell research (or “using human beings as laboratory experiments to presumably save others.”)

 

“This is playing with life,” he said.

 

“Beware, because this is a sin against the creator, against God the creator.”

 

While shying away from hot-button, culture war issues such as abortion, Pope Francis has spoken out frequently about euthanasia.

 

He considers the assisted suicide movement as a symptom of today’s “throw-away culture” that views the sick and elderly as useless drains on society.

 

Pope Francis urged doctors to take “courageous and against-the-grain” decisions to uphold church teaching on the dignity of life, even if it requires resorting to conscientious objection.

 

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Taken from: http://www.theage.com.au/world/pope-denounces-euthanasia-as-sin-against-god-and-creation-20141115-11nkn4.html

Opinion: Pope Francis’s ‘holy war’ on capitalism and toxic inequality

                         

 By Paul B. Farrell

Columnist

                                                   

Published: Nov 14, 2014 10:48 a.m. ET

Big first-year anniversary for anticapitalist, anticonservative, socialist Pope Francis. Fortune magazine ranks him first among the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.” Tenure unlimited. Now he’s in an ideological war with U.S. Senate Majority boss Mitch McConnell’s Big Oil backed GOP as well as conservative ideologues. At war in America’s unstable, endlessly fickle, myopic, rigged political arena.

At least till 2016. Then another twist. Warren Buffett predicts Hillary Clinton is next, probably till 2024. In a long war.

Big picture: Economics trumps the political soap opera. Lurking in the shadows, a new crash. Inevitable. And like 2000, nobody will hear it coming ... hidden under irrational exuberance, dot-com mania, millennium celebrations ... followed by a 30-month bear recession ... later the 2008 crash ... Alan Greenspan, Henry Paulson clueless ... two crashes already this century ... $10 trillion losses each ... next one coming in 2016 election cycle, with echoes of the McCain/Palin loss ... yes, a bigger badder bear than 2000 and 2008 ... because once again bulls and optimists, traders and leaders fall into denialism ... blinded by a new wave of irrational exuberance.

What about the promise of big political changes? House Speaker John Boehner and McConnell talk a good game, but their anxious, conservative GOP base is sitting on the shifting tar sands of Big Oil cash threatened by higher costs, long-term risks. Yes, talk is cheap, but once partisan conflicts blow up, climate disasters will bury the GOP’s aggressive energy agenda, support will fade.

Yes, Pope Francis is celebrating his one-year anniversary since laying down his anticapitalism manifesto for his army of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. He’s also been removing conservative cardinals and bishops from leadership roles. He’s hell-bent on changing the world fast. And his mandate is unwavering and unequivocal. He’s drawing clear moral and political battle lines against repressive capitalism, excessive consumerism, rigid conservatism. Listen:

“Inequality is the root of social ills ... as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.” Yes, it sure sounds like a declaration of war: The anticapitalist Pope Francis versus America’s self-destructive amoral capitalism. Bet on Mitch?

New ‘Holy War:’ Pope’s anticapitalism values beating capitalist atheism

Pope Francis’s target is clear: economic inequality is the world’s No. 1 problem. Capitalism is at the center of all problems of inequality. And he speaks with a powerful moral authority — something totally missing from American political leaders who are ideologically guided by atheist Ayn Rand, patron saint of the GOP’s capitalism agenda in this moral war. Without moral grounding, the GOP is no match for Francis’ vision, his principled mandate, his long-game strategy to raise the world’s billions out of poverty, to eliminate inequality, to attack the myopic capitalism driving today’s economy, markets and political system.

Moreover, the pope has the resources: As commander-in-chief of the world’s largest army: 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide who are now motivated to defeat capitalism’s grip on inequality. His army includes 78 million Americans in 17,645 parishes, plus a huge officer corps of 213 cardinals, over 5,000 bishops, 450,000 priests and deacons worldwide, all sworn to carry out his vision. He needs no legislative approvals; popes have authority to act unilaterally, with speed, a dictator whose word is law, commanding allegiance, obedience and action.

Pope’s 10 commandments in war against Inequality and capitalism

So welcome to his first-anniversary celebration: Yes, it was just one year ago Pope Francis laid down his anticapitalism agenda as a battle plan for Catholics. One short year. Mitch McConnell probably hasn’t even read it yet. Every American should. So here’s an edited version of Francis’s 10 economic commandments. They define the specific strategies guiding his economic war against inequality and capitalism.

Here are Pope Francis’s 10 strategies, in his own words directly from his “Apostolic Exhortation,” a 67-page manifesto published by the Vatican before Thanksgiving last year. Listen to how driven Pope Francis is to changing the world. He really is a radical anticapitalist, socialist, revolutionary leader that American conservatives and capitalists worldwide, especially GOP leaders, will face for years, long after McConnell’s tenure. Listen:

1. Solve economic inequality fast ... or capitalism dooms whole world

Pope: “Inequality is the root of social ills ... as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.”

2. Never trust the greedy Invisible Hand of free-market capitalists

Pope: “We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the ‘invisible hand’ of the market. Growth in justice requires more than economic growth ... a better distribution of income ... The economy can no longer turn to remedies ... such as attempting to increase profits by reducing the work force and thereby adding to the ranks of the excluded.”

3. Trickle-down economic ideology of the Super Rich is massive hoax

Pope: Some “continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. ... a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power ... the culture of prosperity deadens us.”

4. New tyranny of capitalism gets rich stealing from the public

Pope: “While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation, and reject the right of states charged with vigilance for the common good. ... A new tyranny ... unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.”

5. The new Golden Calf Idolatry is capitalism’s worship of money

Pope: “Money must serve, not rule ... The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! ... The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money ... lacking a truly human purpose.”

6. Capitalism fuels excessive consumerism, undermining social morals

Pope: “Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. ... Inequality eventually engenders a violence ... new and more serious conflicts. Some ... blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles ... more exasperating ... widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries ... businesses ... institutions.”

7. Obsessive competition to amass personal wealth destroys democracy

Pope: “Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless ... masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. ... Such an economy kills ... it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

8. Capitalists treats humans as leftovers in their throwaway world

Pope: “Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a ‘throw away’ culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. ... those excluded are no longer society’s underside ... no longer even a part of it. ... but the outcast, the ‘leftovers’.”

9. Extreme conservative individualism is killing democracy worldwide

Pope: “In a culture where each person wants to be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions. ... freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth.”

10. Capitalism rejects God, morality, ethics ... loves total anarchy of money

Pope: “Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. ... condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. ... ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace. ... makes it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order.”

Yes, it’s the pope’s first anniversary: You can’t afford to stand by passively. Join the dialogue, tell your friends about Pope Francis’s radical plan to save the world from itself. Inequality impacts everyone. You, your kids, grandkids, everyone. Nobody’s on the sidelines in this new “Holy War.”’ Pass this on. Post the 10 new economic commandments on social media, tweet, retweet, let others know where you stand. The pope’s 10 economic commandments can save the world, save capitalists, save conservatives, save democracy ... yes, hope does spring eternal.


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Taken from: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-ways-pope-franciss-anticapitalism-will-save-the-world-2014-11-13?page=2