smith_c@ncsatl.uucp (Spawn of a Jewish Carpenter) (10/30/89)
As a sidenote to the Lincoln debate, I'd like to tell you a brief story my
priest told me upon reading the biography of Abraham Lincoln. I may not have
the story or the numbers exactly right, but I'm sure you'll get the gist of my
meaning.
When Abraham Lincoln was President, he regularly received reports of the
numbers of American dead. At first, he was given separate lists of Union and
Confederate dead, but he rejected these and demanded that all such future lists
be given in the format of American dead; he wasn't interested in which side the
American died on.
Upon learning about the Battle of Antietam and that over 80,000 (?) Americans
had died in *one* day, he went to a corner and wept. That's more Americans
than died in the entire Viet Nam War. In *one* day.
He later wrote to a friend (and this is paraphrased): "When I couldn't cry any
more I went to a corner and I got down on my knees and prayed: because when
there's nothing left to say, and there's nothing you can do, and you can't
scream, and you've got no tears left....I can find solace nowhere else in the
world than when I'm down on my knees in prayer."
The paraphrase is the best my memory can muster but I think I got the sense of
what Lincoln was saying. Can you imagine Christ in the Garden of Gethsemene
weeping for Himself and all Mankind? He must've had days like this in His Mind
as He wept. There must be a purpose to suffering and death. I remember a New
Testament passage (was Christ speaking?) in which he refers to suffering in
this life being akin to the birthpangs of a woman in labor. In the Old
Testament, Sorrow endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. I may
have said this before, but when my Grandma taught me to pray Our Lady's Rosary,
she once told me, "The deeper you steep yourself in the Passion of Christ, the
sweeter the First Glorious Mystery tastes." I don't know if she was quoting
anyone when she told me this.
What about the people who died passionately fighting Christians in the
Crusades, for example? Are they going to hell or does God forgive them for
fighting on the wrong side? Or were we in the wrong? The spread of
Christianity should not depend on force. I think God deliberately kept the
Temple of God out of Christian hands to force us to think of Christ as the
Temple of God and Our Lady as the Ark of the Covenant. "For every thing, there
is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven."
As the world gets smaller (and the universe gets smaller) we are forced, I
think, to examine the issue of Salvation more closely. Why do we believe? In
the Screwtape Letters, Lewis put it marvelously in the mouth of Screwtape the
Demon: "....never mind that it's true. Don't let your man think about that."
I think you have to want God before you can become truly fearful of separation
from God. In PERELANDRA, Lewis gave the most meaningful description of Hell
I've ever had the privelege to read: Satan or one of his minions absorbs your
mind so that only bits and pieces of your soul (and all your memories) live
forever inside the mind of one of God's worst enemies (and our worst enemies),
i.e., the mind of some demon. Pretty scary thought, eh?
--
Standard Disclaimer: These are my soul opinions, heartfelt and
passionately expressed. They do not reflect the opinions of
National Computer Systems, whatever *they* might be....
|
In Christ, * * * | "Mankind has no
* * IDIC IN|RI need for gods
SPAWN OF A * ***___*_____ ------------- anymore. We find
JEWISH * *** * / Two symbols of | the One quite
CARPENTER * ***\ * / universal | sufficient."
* \* / brotherhood |
* * * \ / | -- Captain Kirk
gatech!ncsatl!smith_c \/ | WHO MOURNS FOR ADONIS?