The Sacraments, Christian Division, and the Gospel's Miraculous Feedings

[spauline]

The Divine Will, in any creation that was material, would always create the world with the purpose of catechism and sacraments.

that is, regardless of the infinite possibilities of worlds than can be conceived in the Divine Will, from all eternity, certain of the aspects of the Creation that actually exists would always be, because God does not create arbitrarily, but rather with purpose. And what is the Divine Purpose? To teach spiritual realities through the very nature of physical things, so that their physical nature points to a greater reality, the spiritual counterpart. And also that, many times, the very physical things in the creation become a vehicle through grace, that is, that God shall ordain from all eternity that certain core creational essences shall later be given by God, through the mediated fathers he gives to humanity, the power to confer grace. And these are what the Sacraments are.

Example: God would ALWAYS create the creature to be redeemed so that it requires physical sustenance (food and drink) in order to maintain life physically, so as to communicate the far greater reality, that unless a creature is fed spiritually (and this, in two forms, corresponding to the two faculties of the soul, intellect and will), so also shall it die spiritually. In other words, unless the intellect of the soul is fed with Divine Truth and unless the will of the soul is strengthened and enlivened by actual and sanctfying grace, so also shall the soul die spiritually. Hence, the starving children in Africa are a sign of a tragedy of immeasurably greater proportions: those who refuse to allow God to feed them spiriutally shall in the end starve eternally in hell.

Example: God would ALWAYS create the creature to be redeemed to be sexual in nature, so as to communicate the greatest mystery of all existence, the Trinity. Which is to say, just as the Son proceeds from the Father of equal Divinity, and just as the love between the Father and Son is Infinite and Reckless and Totally Abandoning, and just as even also it becomes a Third Person from all Eternity, the Holy Spirit, who is also of equal Divinity with the Father and Son, so then this central mystery upon which all depends should be expressed physically in the very nature of the creature, so that from Adam proceeds Eve, of equal dignity and priceless worth, and the totally self-giving and receiving and recklessly abandoning love between man and woman should cause that a veritable third person should proceed from this love, a child, itself also of immeasurable dignity and priceless worth.

But returning to the Sacraments, because God Himself is Father, and the Christ is God the Son incarnate, precisely because wishes to convey signs of Sacred mysteries in the Creation, so then the Sacraments are predetermined by God in such a way that they would require, in general, the reception of them from the very hands of men who are called by God to be mediating fathers and christs, that is, that because God would become a man, a male, so God would ALWAYS predestine in any creation that the Sacraments ideally are to be received from men who are to image the Fatherhood of God, and the sacrifice of Christ. These men, of course, are in reality in this Creation known as bishops, who in turn have lesser servants, priests.

Hence, from all eternity, there would always be mediated fatherhood in the New Covenant.

But further, because the Father and Son are one, and that Christ wishes to establish a Church that is also one, a sign of the unity of God, and of the Will of the Father with the Will of the Son, and the whole of the Father’s Children, it is also predetermined by God that in any Creation, amongst the mediated fathers, there should be a singular father who stands out, for the purpose of being given a special grace, the grace to hold the unity of all the fathers together, to be, as a single creature, even a visible sign of the unity, the singularity of Christ’s true Church, united in belief and practice, even as the Son prays that they should be “one”, as the Father and the Son are one. This singular person is then the office of Peter, the supreme earthly shepherd, the Father of Fathers, the servant of servants, he that is the ultimate sign on earth of the oneness of the Father and the Son, and of their kingdom.

Also from all eternity, the Scriptures are predestined, the Writings that, while usually not being systematic, but more poetical, should beautifully and eloquently reveal the inner mysteries of God, in poetic form, in urgency of call, to give an inspired voice to the raw dogmatic realities that are preserved by the Fathers. But so that the full implications of the meaning of the Sacred Written Words, should nevertheless be preserved amongst the fathers alone, and in supreme form, Peter, for a family has only one father, whose mission is to teach and discipline, so then the voice of the Church is one, under Peter, the singular Fatherly voice that guides the Ultimate, Divine Father’s children on earth.

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[spauline]

From these three great sources of truth, the Scriptures, the general mediated Fathers, and the supreme Earthly Father, they intrinsically predetermine three primary forms of disciples of the Messiah, each having their proper relationship to these very three sources.

In the first place, there are the utterly faithful, who accept all three sources, that is, Catholics, the ones who belong fully the one true Church of Christ.

Next, there is the class that accepts the general mediated fatherhood and the Scriptures, but not the supreme Father, and these are called schismatics.

And finally, the third class is they who accept only the minimum source, the Scriptures. And these are called heretics.

But so then, seeing as there is no division in the first class, which is always the unity willed by Christ, so then there will always be, in any creation, two and only two primary forms of rift, or division, in the Body of Christ, namely, schism and heresy.

Moreover, because the majority of the Sacramental life is intrinsically bound to the brotherhood of the mediated fathers, so these two forms of division necessarily lead to intrinsic consequences for the Sacramental life of the separating communities. In particular, the first form of division, that is, schism, being itself the minor of the two, retains the Sacramental life, because the fatherhood is still shared, whereas the second form of rift, heresy, being far more serious, necessarily does injury to the Sacramental life, seeing as the fatherhood is lost, leaving only the Writings. And for this reason, all sacraments that absolutely require the mediated fatherhood must necessarily be lost.

And to be sure, seeing as the heretics precisely attack the claims of the fathers, must they not also intrinsically, out of necessity, attack the notion of Sacramentality?

To be brief, I would like to discuss why the heretics retain only Baptism and Marriage? That is, that they lose five sacraments always, and retain only these two.

In short, I see the minimal remnant of grace they retain as by no means arbitrary, but ordered by the Will of the Lamb, and strategic, namely, that what heretics retain is the minimal grace and signs to heal what i consider to be the two supreme lies of the dragon that undergird all other iniquity, that is, that even the seven cardinal sins of Catholic moral theology are not sufficiently general to summarize all basis of iniquity. And these two lies I precisely link to the be very antithesis of the minimal signs of grace that are retained by heretics, namely, what can be called “anti-Baptism” and “anti-Marriage”.

In short, the first lie of the dragon (“You will surely not die”) is the total antithesis of Baptism. And what do we mean? We mean that, the dragon implies by his lie that “God is lying”. Which is another way of saying, that God is neither the Truth, nor does He determine truth, but that man does. That we ourselves, as independent gods, determine what is true. And that we need not seek out to obey the commands of God and His truth, but only do our will, whatever it should be. And these primary lies are the total antithesis of the minimal condition of salvation, namely Baptism, which is received not except that, opposite the dragon, the catechumen says, “I DO believe in what God has revealed [that is, I have FAITH in all Divine Revelation], and I seek to obey Him and avoid wickedness. [Repentance]”. And all these expression of a clean heart are simply the general sign of the person’s acceptance of the Fatherhood of God, implying that he himself is a child of God, utterly dependent on a Loving Divine Father to impart to him the truth, that the Father truly cares for him, and that he should therefore seek to do His Father’s Will for his own benefit and happiness, and that the actualization of such love can only come from the Father Himself, that is, Divine Assitance to live the truth taught the child, truth he could have never known unless the Father would have told him, just as there are things a little child would never know unless his earthly father told him. For, except that a person have these minimal implicit dispositions toward the Divine, so then Baptism is not possible for the person, even implicit desire for it. So then, to summarize, the first primary lie of the dragon is anti-Baptism, the lie that says, “Have no concern for Divine truth, nor to seek and obey the Divine Will. Believe as you wish, and live as you wish, determine your truth utterly yourself.” And in fact, this then establishes the child of the devil, in total antithesis to the child of God, just as Baptism makes us children of God.

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[spauline]

…

The second lie, then brings to fruition the first lie: for once man is no longer a child of God in any sense, he then must necessarily have a goal for which to live. But since this goal is not the possession of God in the end, it necessarily means the child of the devil lives only for the material world. And hence, in this context, seeing as the child of the devil utterly rejects all Divine Truth, and since God’s Revelation and purpose in creation is to offer it unto man as a glorious gift of love, filled with spiritual meaning and as mediation for grace, which leads one to seek not one’s own good but the good of the other, that is, self-sacrificing love and gift of self, and the reception of love from others, so then, when the child of the devil utterly divorces himself from God and the self-donating love called for, the material creation replaces God and love, and is brutally ripped from the Divine arms of love, and therefore utterly stripped of its spiritual mystery as catechesis and sacrament, hence, being taken only for its superfiicial and selfish ends. IOW, the second lie is MATERIALISM, the fullest assault on the mystery and sacramentality of Creation, the Creation replacing God, and becoming the supreme end, the brute, superificial end of man, a means only towards selfish gratification, pride, egostical and arrogant accomplishment, and the attainment of material things for their own sake. And seeing as the Church, per JPII, understands the supreme sacramental sign in creation to be none other than marriage, which we have seen mirrors the central mystery of all existence, the Infinite Family of Love in the Trinity, so then Materialism, the second of the greatest lies of the dragon, that summarize all iniquity, in its proper sense, can be likened to anti-Marriage, which is appropriately imaged in the Whore of the Apocalypse, where this supreme sign of God’s Love within Himself is utterly mocked and debased, the human body, taken as end in and of itself, and exchanged as a mere good, as in contract, utterly independent of self-giving and receiving love, becoming abuse, and selfish taking, grasping in arrogance and lust, as opposed to covenant, which is an eternal exchange, in love, of whole persons.

Anyway, the point is that, the minimal sacraments that heretics retain, being two, are in no wise arbitrary, but in fact are predetermined by Christ, in that the Lamb, wishes to leave his separated children with the minimal signs of healing necessary to combat the same two lies that summarize all opposition to God, the same two primary lies that the dragon implied in the beginning, in the garden, when he exercised his first great deception upon humanity, a deception that remains essentially the same in form in all the ages of sin.

But anyway, considering that there are two primary forms of division in the body of Christ, that we have seen are intrinsically necessary in any Divine Plan that includes the New Covenant, is it merely a coincidence that of the four Gospels, there are two, and only two, primary stories in them in which Christ miraculously feeds a multitude of persons, from a handful nourishment objects, the one being found in two Gospels, and the other in all four? And were it not enough, to also considert that the explicit numerification of such objects is seven in both cases (i.e., the number of Sacraments), and that in this first story, the number of loaves is seven (in so far as schismatic retain all seven sacraments), and that in the second story, the numerical partition is five and two, which correlates that in the case of the other form of separation, that is, heresy, in fact five sacraments are lost, and only two are retained?

And to consider also that in the case of the seven and five, they are loaves, which require the earth, and that the two are fish, and that the Scriptures use earth and sea as metahpors? And how? That Peter is the rock, the solid foundation of truth (Matt. 16:18), that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15), and that the sea is rather where there is chaos, and lack of foundation (the beasts arise from the sea, heretics are tossed to and fro by every wave of doctrine), so that the meaning of the loaves is their requirement of the earth, or foundation of truth, alone which can be had except that the Fathers are accepted, for the Fathers alone preserve the traditions that explain the true meaning of Scripture, so that they be not tossed to and fro, as are heretics, who only accept the Writings, and not the traditions of the Fathers?

IOW, that heretics have no loaves whatsoever, for they without the foundation of any earth, and hence, they have only two fish, which Christ graciously leaves them, and that schismatics, still do a little fishing (for they have a few fish besides their seven loaves), in that, whereas they have general Tradition, and therefore earth, they nevertheless have not the Rock, which is Peter, so that they shall be a little confused, fish a little bit?

BTW, any coincidence that, in the apocalypse, the Lamb has seven horns (Seven Sacraments, the power of his redemption), and that the false prophet has two horns, like a Lamb, but speaks as a dragon, in so far as the theological essence of the false logos, the total antithesis to God’s truth and goodness, has been veritably summarized, as we have seen, as the total attack and mockery, or plaigarization (Tertullian taught the dragon plagiarizes the Sacraments), of the two very sacraments left to heretics, which would appropriately make these lies the supreme “heresy”?

 

[spauline]

for the purposes of summary:

ok, the short, short version (Do you? Do you? Good! You’re married! Kiss her!):

In any Plan of God, God would choose to create the world in a manner in which many of the physical things “teach” or “signify” spiritual realities, and that, eventually, several of the created things would become vehicles for grace, that is, the form of Sacraments.

And God would always make it that the majority of such Sacraments would be mediated to His children by men, called mediated fathers, or bishops.

Of the general collection of bishops, God would predestine and ordain a special bishop who preserves the unity of all the fathers, and so of the Church.

From this, there would be two, and only two forms of division in the Body of Christ, first schism, where the supreme father is rejected, but the general sense of the fathers is retained, and then heresy, in which the fathers are rejected as a whole.

There are two primary feedings of the multitudes stories in the Gospels, one that occurs in two Gospels, that relates Christ feeding 4,000 persons with seven loaves and a few fish, and another story in all four Gospels in which Christ feeds 5,000 persons with five loaves and two fish.

Schismatics have all seven sacraments, and do only a little fishing, because they have not Peter. Heretics have only two sacraments, Baptism and Marriage, and they do nothing but fish, for they have no foundation, and are only tossed to and fro by every wave of doctrine, seeing as they have not the ground of the fathers (see 1 Tim 3:15).

The ultimate lies of the dragon that summarize all inqiuty are the total antithesis of the two sacraments heretics retain, so that these become symbolized in the false prophet’s two horns.

 

[spauline]

addenduum:

the mystery of the intrinsically necessary loss of five sacraments and the retention of merely two, and only two, for heretics, seems then, to prefigure from all eternity the symbolism of seven sacraments, and heretical paritioning into five and two. Further, we have seen that false prophet of Revelation seems to convey this meaning in the two horns that are a mockery of the seven of the Lamb.

As a further suggestion, and as I have elaborated on the trumpets in other threads, we have seen that the image of the Seal and the Mark most clearly convey spiritual realities, so that the Trumpets are not to be taken literalistically, as though they speak of literal physical calamities, but rather of spiritual woes. Further, we have seen in that analysis that the final three trumpets become severe woes, that follows the sequence of heresy, infidelity, and finally total apostasy.

Of interest to our discourse is that, as the final woe seems to suggest the numerical symbolism of two as heresy (the false prophet’s mockery of the two sacraments left to heretics, making it is the ultimate heresy), so the related numbers of five and two are manifest in the other two woes, respectively, namely, that the stage of heresy speaks of a torture for “five months”, and that the number of troops that carry out the “killing” of the third of mankind are number as two myriads of myriads, or that is, two ten thousands of ten thousands.

In that vein, as we have seen that heretics intrinsically lose five sacraments, so then the immediate conclusion is that the five months of spiritual torture in the fifth trumpet, speak of the spiritual torture that comes from the loss of five great sources of supernatural life, the five sacraments that require the mediated fathers, which the heretics necessarily lose precisely on account of their rebellion against those ordained fathers. So also, there is meaning, if they were tortured for seven months, we can surmise they would die spiritually on two counts, the one being, seven is the number of completion, and the other on account that with the loss of all sacraments, no supernatural life is possible. hence, they are tortured five months, which brings them to the brink of supernatural life, but not quite, seeing as they retain just barely enough supernatural life to remain alive in Christ, but they wish they didn’t have to remain. Also, the torture of solascriptura, that one can never be sure they know for certain what to do to avoid hell, is also indeed a spiritual torture.

as far as the next great woe, the killing of mankind in the sixth trumpet would then be actual supernatural death, which is precisely what occured in the infidelity of the Enlightenment, where humanity no longer accepted their need for redemption from God, neither the light of Revelation, nor the assistance of the Divine. So, veritably, a great portion of humanity died a supernatural death.

Also, when we recall that it is already established in theology that ten can be a symbol of the world, the meaning of the number two myriads of myriads acquires interesting meaning, when, again, we take two as a symbol of heresy:

20,000 x 10,000 =

2 x 10 x 1,000 x 10 x 1,000

the 2 represents heresy, the ten, of the world (natural religion that denies supernatural intervention and revelation becomes, as it were, Worldly [10] Heresy [2]), which is then pluralified, symbolized in the 1000, which is confirmed by history, in that, just as the Protestant heretics confounded the hell out of Christian doctrine, so the deists and rationalists and confounded the notion of natural religion into myriads of opinions.

the next number is simply PURE worldliness pluralified [10 x 1000], which indeed was the next phase of enlightenment, colonialism, the worldliness and neo-pagan nationalism that evolves in the latter half of the 1800’s as well as the blatantly neo-pagan and worldly nationalism of the world wars of the first half of 20th century.

anyway, just some interesting observations from the numerology.