In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity, as reported in Jeremiah 31:31-34, every human being can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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ON PARENTING
Dear Parents, whenever you experience disagreement and conflict in your couple and in your family - at times you may even feel that your kids are out of control - you can take comfort from the thought that even God's original human children got into trouble. After creating heaven and earth God created the angels and, in time, He created Adam and Eve. As his friendship with the man and the woman developed; God called on them to always trust in Him and to bring Him any questions they may have as they cultivated the garden in which they lived. For a long time they did come to God with everything. God also warned them to trust in Him always and never to try to decide on their own what is good (God's will) versus what is evil (what is not in accord with God's will). Regarding the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" God warned them and said: "Don't touch it or you will die."
To put what happened next in a modern context of conflict between siblings or between spouses, here is what it might look like in our home life.
Knocking at the front door.... Eve answers the door: "Hello. Who are you and what do you want?" Stranger: "Hello. I'm a friend of God. He told me all about you; so, I thought I'd drop in for a visit." Eve: "I'm sorry, but my husband is out right now and I don't like talking to strangers." Stranger: "I understand perfectly, but like I said, I'm not a stranger; I'm a friend of God. May I please come in? I don't mind waiting for your husband to return." Eve: "I suppose it won't do any harm for you to wait. Please, come in."
Stranger: "So, Eve, I understand that you and Adam are one of God's new creations. How does it feel to be alive in the middle of this beautiful garden?" Eve: "How do you know our names? I didn't tell you our names?" Stranger: "Like I said, Eve, I'm a friend of God and He told me all about you and Adam. My name is Lucifer, the Light Bearer. God created me and my companions long before He created you and Adam. Isn't it wonderful to understand everything the way God does?" Eve: "Well, Adam and I don't understand everything yet. God is slowly teaching us about the many wonders of his creation."
Lucifer: "Oh, really? That's strange. You see, when God created me and my fellow angels, He gave us all knowledge all at once. I wonder why He didn't do the same with you." Eve: "God doesn't want to rush us and wants us to take our time." Lucifer: "That doesn't sound right to me; it's almost as if God doesn't trust you, but then that's not God's way. No, I think that God is waiting for you and Adam to take initiative and show Him that you are capable. I really think that God will be pleased if you and Adam go ahead and take initiative and go out and experience everything for yourselves. Then you will know all things just as God knows them and as He gave my friends and me full knowledge."
Eve: "I don't know. Do you really think so?" Lucifer: "Oh yes, I'm sure of it. After all, God did give you intelligence, didn't He? He wouldn't have given you intelligence unless He intended for you to use it, right?" Eve: "I suppose." Lucifer: "Tell me, Eve, what do you know about reproduction and the differences between you and Adam?" Eve: "God told us not to worry about that yet, because there's no rush and we have plenty of time. Also, God told Adam that we shouldn't experiment with those things or we might lose our perspective and then we would die."
Lucifer: "Really? I find that surprising, because, you see, it's all natural, and all the other creatures reproduce without any harm. There's no way, you see, that you and Adam might die. After all, you and Adam have everything you need already to reproduce; so, really, you're both good to go! Besides, joining together and reproducing is a very beautiful and pleasant thing, beautiful to see and feel and experience. If you are willing, I can show you, and then you can show Adam, and then the both of you will know all about this and the full meaning of life; just as God Himself knows all these things. In fact, once you both get fully involved in this life; you will become like God. So, I'm certain that God would be pleased to see you eager to become like God, capable and willing to take initiative."
Eve: "I must admit, as I listen to you, I am beginning to find all this very interesting and desirable. Lucifer: "All right then. Come, and let us lie together over here and I'll tell you all about it and then show you; so you can then tell Adam and show him, if he does not return before I have to leave." Eve: "All right, then. Tell me and show me." So Lucifer told her and showed her, giving her to experience things she had never known or experienced before... she experienced a bright illumination of understanding and intense, feverish arousal in her whole being.... In the very moment of intense thought, sensations, and feeling; suddenly Lucifer was no longer there... just as Adam returned. Eve couldn't contain all that had happened to her; so she told Adam all about it and offered to introduce him to all that Lucifer had given her to know and to experience....
As it is now; so it was then... Lucifer introduced Eve to many things about her human sexuality, but what she didn't realize was that this knowledge came to her outside of her loving relationship with Adam - wherein they were both as innocent as children and perfecly loving and caring as brother and sister - in complete innocence and perfectly loving and caring for one another, with no hint whatsoever of selfishness.
In accepting to be introduced to knowledge and experience of her feminine sexuality outside of her loving relationship with Adam, Eve allowed Lucifer to skew her experience of herself. Fascination with her sexuality eclipsed her innocent sense of identity as a daughter of God and friend of Adam. Then, after Lucifer left her and Adam returned; while still in the throes of excitement at new knowledge and of sexual arousal, she introduced Adam to this new vista of knowledge and experience. Her fault was that she allowed herself to be seduced by Lucifer's persuasive words and to begin to doubt God's goodness and to wander away from obeying his specific will as told to Adam, which Adam in turn had shared with her.
Adam's fault was that he let himself be swept along by Eve's excitement and arousal out of his desire to please her; he too put aside his trust and obedience to God his Creator and had no concern for displeasing Him who created both of them with such love. Adam abandoned his responsibility and commitment to stand by Eve and protect her from all harm. He had been away from Eve for too long, letting himself be distracted by things that concerned him alone; so he wasn't there to protect her from the stranger's advances. Then, as Eve related what had happened with Lucifer and what he had given her to experience for the first time; Adam didn't think to immediately call upon God to come to help them in this confusion. As Eve had done with Lucifer; so Adam did with Eve and allowed himself to be fascinated by this "new knowledge and experience" of all that concerned reproduction and which seemed to bring great pleasure and a whole new sense of understanding of the meaning of life.
Sadly, they were both deceived into allowing themselves to be seduced by a perversion of knowledge and to be thereby robbed of the innocence which they had always enjoyed. They lost their ability to love one another and to care for one another in a completely selfless way with no preoccupation whatsoever for themselves or their own pleasure or gain. It was as though they now suffered a powerful and devastating infection, plunging them into an intense fever of exaggerated and intensified desire. Tragically, it was not the holy desire to live and love which they had always enjoyed; no, it was a feverish desire to know, to feel, and to experience in themselves all manner of sensations which had little or nothing to do with loving, caring for, or pleasing the other. In addition, and this is the most tragic consequence of their "fall from grace", because they had allowed themselves to be seduced into doubting God; they had lost their trust in God and now, suddenly, they felt isolated, alone, lonely, afraid, and ashamed of their nakedness. This had never been a problem before, but now they were so disturbed as to no longer recognize themselves or each other.
So, then when the fever passed and left them; Adam and Eve slowly began to grow cold. They felt different, and the difference was very unpleasant. They had never been bothered by each other's presence or touch before, but now they were like strangers and could not even bear to look into one another's eyes. What was wrong, they both wondered silently within their own spirits, but they could not admit this disturbing thought to each other. Each of them then thought of God, their Creator, but they were afraid to call out for Him, because they both knew that they had disobeyed Him and his warnings.
When the time came for them to walk with God in the garden, because of the shame that each of them felt about their nakedness and what they had done, they hid. God called to them and, when they admitted they were hiding because of the shame they felt in their nakedness; God questioned them about what they had done. First he questioned Adam, but instead of admitting what he had done, Adam shifted his responsibility to Eve and blamed her. God then questioned Eve, but she also avoided taking responsibility and shifted blame to Lucifer. God then pronounced judgment on Lucifer, who would in time be subdued.
Sadly, since neither Adam nor Eve had come running to God at the first sign of doubt, confusion, or trouble, He had no choice but to reveal to them how they would now suffer in ways that God had never intended or desired that they would suffer. These would only be the consequences of the ways in which their minds, hearts, bodies, psyches, and souls had been clouded and twisted out of shape by the lies and deceptions of Lucifer and by their own failure to seek God's help and protection. We all suffer these consequences to our day; since this "original infection" of the mind, heart, body, psyche, and soul is passed on by parents to every child that they conceive and bring into this world.
Every single one of us now, in every generation, must do battle against the powers of darkness in order to resist evil and to live in accord with the will of God our Creator. We give thanks and praise to God that He has not left us orphans, but has adopted us through faith in Jesus Christ his Son, through Baptism and Confirmation / Chrismation in the Holy Spirit; thus enabling us to live a new life in the Most Holy Trinity, our origin and destiny.
You can read the original version of this history as recorded in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis in the Bible. It is related as grandparents might relate the history of our origins; as they try to teach their grandchildren the important lessons of life we all need.
We see reproduced in our lives in every generation the deceit experienced by Eve and Adam at the beginning of human history. God our Creator continues to be a loving, caring, respectful and discrete presence in Creation and in our lives. He leaves us entirely free to pay attention to Him or to ignore Him. Over the millennia He has worked in each and every generation to restore with human beings, one person at a time, the original friendship and innocence with which He had blessed Adam and Eve. In time, He sent his divine Son to become one of us in Jesus, Son of God and son of Mary, under the guardianship of Joseph, Mary' husband. In Jesus God our Father and Creator offers to adopt us as his very own children; so that, believing in Jesus, we might follow Him as He leads us back to fullness of life as originally intended by our Creator before we were so rudely interrupted and seduced by Lucifer, the "fallen angel" and original rebel from God's will and plan for his Creation.
This is an original text which is the fruit of much pondering over these things for decades - actually since my childhood in the 1950's - and put into words today, April 24th, 2021. Fr. Gilles A. Surprenant, priest of Montreal, Madonna House Associate, and Poustinik
Link to MORE INSPIRATIONAL TEXTS
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In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity, as reported in Jeremiah 31:31-34, every human being can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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© 2006-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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