Medjugorje Forum

I joined the Medjugorje Forum to hear what some (not all) supporters of Medjugorje have to say - specifically if they had any evidence for Medjugorje - and below are screenshots I took. Screenshots are my evidence of being on the forum. I was directed to a website and sent an e-mail to the Info Center and a priest asking for documents on Medjugorje.

One note I'd like to make is that the forum moderators changed one of my posts. In the post wherein I quoted a portion of the Norms for the Discernment of Apparition, I had edited it to include a note about not accepting documents from the "Franciscans" of Medjugorje, along with links to the letters from the Holy See concerning the friars' dismissal and to the Congregation for the Religious' online profile. This is why, in the post wherein I clarified my position on what I was seeking ("Medjugorje has good fruits. These fruits include this, this, this, and this. Here is document X to prove it"), I said "Again I cannot accept any documents from the 'Franciscans' out of submission to the decree of the Holy See, yet I will accept any other documents on Medjugorje". So now anyone who reads that post on the forum will be wondering why I started the sentence with the word "again" when they don't see my position in any of my previous posts in the thread - but now you know the truth of the matter, as I just noted.

The Gift of the Virtue of Obedience

When man thinks of obedience, he usually thinks of mindless service, blind faith, toiling work, or loveless adherence. Yet such are the characteristics of evil, because evil demands ignorance, stupidity, disrespect, and sorrow. God is not evil but the Greatest Good - Love, Truth, Beauty, Joy, Peace, Mercy, Justice, Holiness, Wisdom - and Good can have nothing in it which isn't good. So obedience to God is not mindless, blind, toiling, or loveless but instead requires prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude - the cardinal virtues which characterize a faithful, hopeful, and charitable life - a moral life. Without the cardinal virtues, a moral life would either be extreme or tepid, and so, immoral, not in accordance to God's Will. For God wills nothing of us that is beyond our strength or harmful to our bodies or souls, nor would He demand anything of us that He Himself has not born. Yet some might complain that because of the radical nature of Christ's Life, it leaves ample room for every type of suffering and great abuse; but this thinking is begotten from pride and from fear, for pride dose not wish to suffer and fear dose not wish to put confidence in the Divine Providence. And neither pride or fear wish to acknowledge the gifts of the Church of Christ and of the virtue of obedience.

The Church, entrusted to us as our Mother and we to her as children, teaches us how to obey God. We can trust in her teachings because we know God makes her His Body, and so, He speaks to us in her His Body; as God spoke to man in Christ, so now He speaks to man in the Church. For Christ is One, and His Church is One, and Christ and the Church are One; therefore, whoever listens to the Church listens to Christ, and whoever ignores the Church ignores Christ, and whoever seeks Christ elsewhere will not find Him, because, just as Christ said "The Kingdom is in your midst" in speaking of Himself in whom the Kingdom is, so too, Christ is in our midst in the Church, for He is God in the flesh and where His Flesh is, so there He is, since His Humanity and Divinity cannot be divided or mixed up but eternally united in His Divine Person, and as the Church is His Flesh, His Body, there He is where the Church is. Now though the Church is the Body of Christ, we call her our Mother, because, though God is not a mother but our Father, we recognize the different dimensions of the Mystery of the Church, which isn't to say the Church cannot be comprehended as if it is a hidden secret or conspiracy or trick but that just as Mary is our Mother and Sister and Queen, so too is the Church, in light of the Mystery of Christ, many things at once, which do not break God's Commandments but fulfill His promises of old. As I was saying, the Church teaches us how to obey the Lord, she dose not let us wander off on the wrong path nor leave us in the dark about the path of Christ but, guiding us along, leads us to the Lord just as His Mother leads us to Him, for Mary is a figure of the Church as our heavenly Mother, whereby, far from disobeying the Church, she adheres to Jesus just as the Church dose to Him in keeping His Commandments, thus giving an example of obedience. So we can see the manner in which she teaches us obedience: By holy example. By her very life, she teaches us how to live, and we ourselves share in her life by following her example, and, because by Baptism we are members of the Church, we are by nature of being Christian living the life of the Church, whereby to cease living the Christian or Church life is to cease existing as a Christian altogether; it is equivalent to stop existing as a human being, for the human being has a human life. Now because of this, adherence to the Church is absolutely mandatory: Just as we listen to and obey our consciences as men, so too we must listen to and obey Christ in His Church as Christians. Indeed, each day we must attune our minds to the Mind of the Church which is the Mind of Christ. The leg cannot say to the mind, "I no longer need to obey you!" Nor can the Christian say to the Church, "I no longer need to obey you!" We are the members of the Body of Jesus Christ! Because the Church obeys Christ, because the Church imitates His example, because the Church follows Him from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to Heaven by her birth on Pentecost, by her daily celebration of and participation in His sacraments, by her persecution and martyrdom, and by her continuation of the redemptive mission or work of the Redeemer as the Sacrament of Salvation through her miracle-workers, preachers, teachers, parents, virgins, and other members, so the Christian must do the same each day, neither worrying about tomorrow nor fearing yesterday, because he has no time save the day he lives in and so ought to live his life not in agony of a long service nor in fear of his past mistakes but in confidence of God who is present with him today and who has enough mercy to lead him to Heaven and to forgive him for his sins.

The virtue of obedience is a virtue, that is, a good habit, a daily habit, a habit we exercise today. It is not a perfect act but leads us to perfection, builds us up to perfection, makes us perfect little by little, and our faults and failings do not stop this building up but contribute to it yet mustn't be committed for good. Every virtue is a gift from God, which must be used according to His Will, because He Himself uses His gifts according to His Will and what is of God cannot be against God. Obedience is the virtue which forms charity and charity is the virtue which is the form of obedience: That is, we know charity by living the Commandments of God and we know obedience by living in charity, because the Commandments of God summarize the moral life, as summarized in the two Great Commandments. The Commandments of God, moreover, by being a summary of a charitable life, summarize the divine life, the life of God, the life of Jesus Christ, and consequently the life of the Church and every Christian. God's divine life, which we share in by His sanctifying grace, is a holy life, which is why we need sanctifying grace to become God, and, far from being abstract or devoid of real fruit, the life of God is joy, glory, honor, and peace: Hence God is truly alive, a real being, and not simply alive in the sense that He lives morally. Indeed the moral life bears good fruit because it is not fake but real, not simply mythical but actual, not just a set of beliefs or practices but a participation in the very nature of the Lord. For God is Love Itself. His life is Love and His Nature is living: His Nature and His life are the same thing! Therefore God cannot be against God, and for this reason, we must imitate Him in Jesus Christ through the Church. This is the essence, the totality, and the end of obedience: Charity - Love - God! Hence, to obey is to be divine, perfect, Godly; to obey is to live by the Will of God. For this reason, obedience is sweet and easy, neither set down by a set of rules nor bound by human traditions: It is, simply, to love, to imitate God, to do His Will. Anything contrary to His Will is contrary to the Church, and, anything according to His Will is according to the Church - and the Church, wishing to show us how to obey, gives us her precepts, which, far from limiting the moral life, constitute the life of Christ, because, He Himself gives them to us and He tells us, "You must go to Mass each Sunday, yet you are free to go each day; you must fast on the days of fasting, yet you are fast each day; you must aid the Church in her needs, yet you are free to aid her in more ways; let these precepts guide you in using your talents and gifts for God, whether it's feeding the poor, writing icons, parenting children, or whatever I might call you to do in this life." Now He Himself fulfilled these precepts, so we cannot say these precepts restrict us in choosing how to be moral, because we must imitate Him, and, because, though we are free to do more good than what is necessary, we are not free to exit the bound of reason or break the law of God - whereby to claim we are free to not obey the Church is to go against the Will of the Lord, to cease imitating Him, to no longer live in Him, to perhaps even adore another god than Him. We can do more good than the bare minimum and be certain that God dose not disapprove of our work, because He Himself did more good than the bare minimum in His life, ministry, and work.

So we see that obedience dose not bind our hands but binds us to Christ, makes us like Him, which is the truth of not only this virtue but every virtue and every divine gift or grace of God. Obedience makes the Church like Christ, uniting the bride to the Bridegroom, and so it is for us; even our sufferings augment our union to Christ crucified, even our joys augment our union to Christ risen, even our deaths augment our union to Christ ascended: There is nothing that cannot augment our union to God in Jesus save for sin, which is an offense against God. Therefore let us obey and not sin. In this we will be doing God's Will, even if we wonder what God is calling us to in this life. Whatever the call, we will still be obedient, still become like God. Our vocations are attuned to God, not vica-versa. So if we sin we will not find our vocations nor fulfill them. So the virtue of obedience is nothing but imitation of Jesus or life in Jesus, and even Jesus Himself shows this by His obedience to His Father unto death - for just as He came to die for us and by His obedience He was killed, so too we exist to die for Him and by our obedience will be hated and killed by the world, yet not in salvation of God but in loving God until it hurts, even if we ourselves do not spill our blood for Christ, for God is as pleased with daily martyrdom as He is with the act of martyrdom, for He gives to each of us a share in the Holy Cross - and if Jesus obeyed God than so must we obey Him.

God has given us the virtue of obedience freely and despite our unworthiness of it solely for our greater good; hence, He gives it us from the bottom of His Heart, as an act of love and mercy, a testimony of His benevolence, and a sign of His Will which is not only a goodwill but a Holy Will. No one deserves to obey God, nor is anyone worthy of the gift of obedience, yet we are given the gift out of love and so, rather than rejecting it in acknowledgment of our sinfulness and our nothingness, ought to accept it in humility, gratitude, and praise, with total trust in the Lord. We are nothing, but God knows that and has chosen to create us, so, we cannot argue with Him but must trust in Him, saying humbly as a child to a father, "I do not understand why You give me this gift, but, I'll accept it, and I ask You to please help me, because I know not how to use it and I am too weak to use it properly." Yes God has permitted us to be weak so that He can give us Himself, not so that we can squirm and work fruitlessly to apply His gifts; no, He is not a cruel monster but a loving Father, and, because we exist for Him, so we need Him, and because we are bound for communion with Him in Heaven, so we are bound to unite ourselves to Him in this life, and so we can see the communion starts in this life and prepares us for the next life. Therefore let us not work alone or with trust in ourselves but with God and absolute trust in Him. He has Omnipotence, let us have absolute confidence in Him! As we would trust the perfect person to lead us without fault, so we must trust the Perfect Man and God, Jesus Christ, to lead us without fault. So let us gratefully and humbly use God's gift obedience, with awe at the fact that He has chosen to give such a priceless treasure to us and He has chosen us poor creatures to receive it.

One more thing: Since obedience is ultimately imitation of God, it must be said that obedience is not only given to us out of love but also out of justice, because, being made for God, we must justly serve Him. Yet this justice, far from diminishing the greatness of God's love, actually increases it, because, God chose to create us and so chose to give us the gift of becoming like Him: Therefore the justice is attune to God's Will and gives us a greater understanding and appreciation for obedience. This obedience is absolutely necessary, yet we cannot say that its necessity destroys God's freedom in giving it to us, because, as Love, He is not only compelled to create us but also not divided against Himself, whereby, He cannot act like a machine that dose things it must do but acts like a being, being a being, and so freely creates us and gives to us the gift of deification or glorification or spiritualization or becoming God, which is the beginning and end of obedience. He did not have to create us, yet chose to, and the same goes for every grace, i.e., He chose to give us every good thing: Justice, life, Heaven, sacrament, honor, joy, planets, light, breath, order, existence, unity, law, sex, compassion, Scripture, Tradition, souls, bodies, conscience, family, saints, beauty, art, truths, a space-time continuum, etc. For He chose to give us the Greatest Good: Himself!

Purification

When God forgives us, He washes us clean with His Water, so that we can than live on the river of life which is His Blood. But after forgiveness, the effects of sin still dirty our souls, and so, the Lord sends us His Holy Cross - suffering - as a remedy to purge us.

It is both an act of Mercy and an act of Justice on His part, for by suffering we come closer to Mercy and by bearing our crosses patiently we make payment to Justice - and for that second part, it could be called a double act of Mercy, since God could have chosen to not let us repay Him but be swallowed up by Hell yet in His Mercy wills us to repay Him, and, for that first part, it could also be called a double act of Justice, since God knows it is only just to chastise us and to bring us to Himself.

And it should be no surprise that God purges us with suffering, because we are betrothed to the Crucified, and if we are bathed in His Font of Mercy, which gushed forth from His Side after His Death, so too we must share in His suffering and Death on the Cross.

In addition to purging us, God wills us to imitate Him by making reparation for sin. For He made reparation for our sins, which He Himself bore as the Lamb, on the Cross, and so we must imitate Him. To make reparation is to make repair for sins, even if we ourselves did not commit the sin, just as Christ Himself did not commit our sins. Like Him we make repair, unlike Him we are not saviors; it is a fine line between reason and extremity, and one which the eyeglasses of prudence help charity to see and so not cross over from one to the other. For we can help a neighbor to repair his ruined home, yet we are not the offender's Savor; or we can return a good we stole or the money equal to it, yet we are not the store owner's Savior; or we can bear the punishment for others in spite of our innocence, yet we are not our own Savior; or we can help the world to catch a criminal after we commit a grave crime, yet we are not the world's Savior.

The Mystery of Iniquity

The mystery of iniquity - the mystery of evil - is, like the Mystery of Love, manifested in the Paschal Mysteries of our Lord Jesus Christ. For just as by His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension God has shown us Himself - He who is Love, Mercy, and Providence - so too He has shown us what evil - suffering, sin, and Satan - is, and, consequently, His Omnipotence and evil's nothingness, as well as our goal and our means to said goal which goes by the Royal Way of the Holy Cross. Thus, the mystery of evil is much less frightening and mysterious when one no longer asks where evil comes from but rather what God is going to do about it. Yet we know all evil comes from sin, and not from God, and God has conquered evil on the Cross and manifests His triumph in this time - and will ultimately manifest it on the Day of Judgment of the Wicked.

Jesus Christ, the Lamb who came to take away the sins of the world, that is, to redeem the world, has, by His Holy Sacrifice, overcome our sins, and since death is the sting of mortal sin, so He has also overcome death, both physical and spiritual, and since all evil comes from sin, so He has even overcome all evil - even binding the devils in chains, as He Himself had said in the parable of the strong man. So evil is defeated and Satan's kingdom is broken, and we can all rejoice with the angels in our salvation: Yet we see that evil still exists in the world, and wonder why.

If God did not permit evil to exist save to use it for our good, so too He dose not permit evil to still exist unless to use it for our good. In other words, just as He saw fit to give creatures free-will, so too He sees fit to sustain our free-will. Now this doesn't mean He created evil nor had evil in mind when He created us, but rather, the terribleness of evil stems from sin - as I said - and sin stems from the abuse of freedom - or free-will - and God foreknew all of this, yet permitted us to sin, for, He also foreknew we would do His Will, and so would use us to overcome evil, and even came up with a clever plan to crush evil, as is evidence from the Paschal Mysteries, and so, for the sake of those who love Him, He created the world and permits evil. In accordance to His clever plan, He calls everyone to love Him and He permits His beloved to suffer, to share in Jesus' redemptive mission, ultimately in the Holy Church, whereby He uses their sufferings - just as He used Jesus' - to save sinners, the dying, the souls being purged, and all of mankind. But perhaps this is a mystery we don't understand: Why would an Omnipotent God rely on men and use them like instruments to defeat evil?

One must think of it as a battle. Now a battle is usually fought by armies, militants, and the Church is the Church Militant on Earth. The Church battles evil in God just as God battles evil in the Church's members, for the Church, like Christ, is Divine and Human, being His Mystical Body, and so, if Christ has conquered evil and battles evil with His baptized soldiers, so all are called to join the Church. Indeed, even outside the Church men struggle with evil in one form or another, and if it is in the Church that God gives His abundant graces to help mankind triumph, than all souls - if only for the sake of easing their struggle, though love is the best motive - ought to join the Church and make their triumph that much quicker - for God desires our victory, not our defeat, and who would dare reject the general that not only works on the side of his men but also gives them the weapons necessary to win an easy battle?

The battle is easy with God's graces, but the struggle to fight is tough due to man's weakness and his natural hatred of suffering - even suffering on a cross. The soldier becomes weary in battle, finds it hard to get up, and others run from the fight altogether in fear of having to suffer for God. The mystery of iniquity is laid bare before our eyes and in our hearts. Yet, if Christ is God and God has triumphed over evil, than we no longer see evil as a living, moving wall coming our way but as an annoying little fly that buzzes around us. For with Jesus Christ, our eyes are purified: We no longer are tricked by the illusion of demonic power - the power that says life is pointless, the fight is useless, good will not succeed, we are nothing and can amount to nothing, no God exists - but see everything by the Light of God, which shows us that life is for God, the fight is already won, Good has triumphed, we are nothing yet can do everything through the Good Lord, who for love of us stays with us under appearance of bread in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. This Eucharist - this Presence under the appearance of bread - fully reveals God's Power and Humility: What men call weak, we call Omnipotence, and what men call foolish, we call Wisdom. His weakness and His foolishness are infinitely greater than man's own power and own wisdom, for God Himself is Infinite and man himself is finite. So the Holy Eucharist reveals to us our need for God and shows us how to do it: To become like bread in God's Hands through His Word in His Spirit whereby we sacrifice ourselves each day to save souls - most especially poor sinners. The world will tell us we are but bread, we can do nothing, yet we know we are powerful and strong in God!

Just as the Eucharist scandelizes man, so too becoming Eucharist scandelizes man. It is a paradox. It turns the world upside down, as it were. We say suffering is evil, and rightly so, but do not realize that evil isn't pointless but permitted by a Being who uses it for our good; it is like saying half of a sentence while forgetting the other half: "Suffering is evil..." "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." To speak half of a sentence is irrational and to not penetrate into the mystery of evil is illogical. Evil is evil, but ordered to good by God. Fasting shows this by giving us good health. Now if suffering is ordered to our greater good, than we mus not fear suffering but rejoice in it and ask for more: Not for more evil but for more humility, as the Cross humbles us to the ground. The humble, who know they deserve nothing, know that the sufferings they receive from their sins are shares in Jesus' Passion, for they suffer with Him, yet, while He suffered innocently and they justly, it is still suffering and He has assumed our inflictions for our sake: Therefore, with trust in Christ crucified, we ought to be made humble and welcome His Holy Cross, for by the Cross that overcomes the world so we are overcome and overcome the world.

Now, if all the above is true, than we see that our future persecution is not grim but bright. Persecution strengthens and renews our faith, joins us to Christ, purifies our evil hearts, and leads us unto Heaven: Therefore, when tribulations and trials come, we can sing to the Lord. Moreover we can pray for our persecutors and enemies, even those we loath and despise, for they are doing us a favor, even if we consider it evil, and so our joy in Christ ought to overcome our hatred of evil and anger at evildoers, though not our understanding and disgust of evil, for to reject evil is one thing but to accept evil is another. It is good to suffer, but evil to defend evil. Now if our persecution is good in that it brings us good, than why should the future be gloomy? If the world ended tomorrow, would we suffer in vain or in Christ? The latter. If our world ended tomorrow, would we die in vain or in Christ? The latter. So there is no gloom except in our own hearts, because we are blinded by the self-love that wishes to flee from the Holy Sacrifice: It says it will serve, but not unto pain - and that is not love but pride masking itself as love. Love gives unto pain, so let us give unto pain and reject our natural fear and repulsion of every evil. Even if we are inclined by nature to do evil, it dose not mean we can wallow in evil but need to be cured, just as a man diseased since birth has no right to spread his disease but must be cured - even refraining from activities that could endanger others' lives and health. The worldly say this is discrimination against man, but it is actually discrimination against evil for the sake of man.

The mystery of iniquity, when it manifests itself, manifests its weakness, whereby we also see manifested God's Omnipotence and Goodness. Therefore, by the attempt to destroy us, evil helps us flee to the Author of Life, and so we praise the Father in spite of evil's work. Evil will double its attack, but only doubles our glory, for God has thought of and used everything for us. Evil will only destroy itself, as death did when it accepted Christ, so we have nothing to fear or lose. So when the mystery of evil is made manifest before you - when the world is engulfed in wickedness and headed by the man of perdition, or when your city is glorifying in evil under an evil man, or when your friends turn from evil to God, or when you find yourself sinning against God - just remember that there is no gloom or doom but Mercy and Grace in this Age of Mercy and Grace, won for you by Christ Jesus, and so you can ask Him to save everyone - even you!

On the Last Day of Time which is the First Day of Eternity, on that Day of Judgment, evil and evildoers will be judged by God, and good and the righteous will rejoice in the Lord's judgment. We can save souls from this judgment by helping God save them, for, He wishes to judges none just as He wishes none evil but desires everyone to be saved just as He created everyone for happiness, which awaits us in Heaven. As God is Just, so He is Merciful. Therefore let us help Him save souls. But let's not think we can put off this work by saying He will do it for us: God dose make up for what's lacking in our work, but that requires work in the first place, and, just as God is Merciful, so He is Just. Those whom we do not try to save, we try to condemn; those we do not wish to help be saved, we wish to help be judged. The worldly say sinners deserve Hell, even as they profess disbelief in Hell, yet we who know man's dignity and goodness and his end and God's Mercy know better, whereby we both say sinners deserve punishment yet ask God to forgive them, for we desire their greater good and we know we ourselves are not good but evil, for none are good save God - so who are we to judge others when we ourselves deserve to be judged? But all that would be vain thinking if God were not Love nor had triumphed over evil.

Love ought to motive us to love others and help God save them. We know on Judgment Day the righteous will judge the wicked with Christ, and how terrible that will be! Husbands will judge wives, wives will judge husbands, friends will judge friends, victims will judge their offenders, etc. If you wish to "escape" such a fate, if you do not wish to judge your husband or your friend or your offender, than help God to save them - but that you will have to suffer greater for them if you do. The spouse readily accepts this, knowing sacrifice in light of marriage, yet not everyone is so aware of love. But no one is blind: Everyone has a Model, the Light of the World, to show them love, so let everyone imitate Him. If He is baptized, let everyone be baptized. If He prayed, let everyone pray. If He fasted, let everyone fast. If He forgave, let everyone forgive. If He preached, let everyone preach. If He worked miracles, let everyone work according to His Will. For not everyone is a miracle-worker, yet everyone can work the greatest miracle: conversion! And even if all the world was Catholic, we could still convert others and ourselves by turning - each day - from evil to God, for the Christian life and human life in general are not perfect lives but struggles against evil, especially for the perfect, who, being so perfect, must bear great suffering, even if not physical.

As humans, we usually think of mystery as single faced. But mysteries are mysteries. Just as the Gospel shows us, on one side, God's Mercy, and, on the other side, evil, so too dose the mystery of iniquity show us, one one side, terribleness, and, on the other side, God's Mercy. This mystery is not the Gospel, though, but just a part of the Gospel, just as the mystery of reconciliation is a part of the Gospel. So if evil shows us God, though unintentionally, and if the Gospel shows us Mercy, intentionally, and if we know evil in light of Christ, than we can see the "bright side" of the mystery of evil, that is, the Paschal Mysteries, which we even participate in as Christians. Now if we take part or share in the Paschal Mysteries, than we ought to do it fully: By looking at the world in light of the Paschal Mysteries. It is easy to not do this, though, because we cannot physically see or witness the Paschal Mysteries, yet, we have the Apostles as eyewitness, who left us their memoirs (the four gospels), and, by meditation God can gently make us see everything in light of Christ crucified, risen, and ascended.

I suppose this blog entry could be summed up thus: As suffering comes, so comes redemption.

Holy Mysteries

Perhaps one of the most profound mysteries of God is, first off, His eternity and, second off, His love. Man cannot comprehend either, though we revelations of both in God’s written Word and God’s incarnate Word.

His eternity is such a mystery to us because we cannot comprehend life without ceasing; to live forever we know only as an immortal life that was once began in the womb, but to live forever without ever being born is something we cannot comprehend. We must even use time – that which limits us – to understand God, and so our understanding is even less, for we ask, “How long ago was God?” and reply, “Trillions of years before the Big Bang,” and again ask, “But isn’t He the Ancient One?” and again reply, “I can’t count to infinity!” Yet such counting, so to speak, is necessary to understand God’s eternity – but as we can’t count there, neither can we fully comprehend God’s eternity. Another mystery directly related to God’s eternity is God’s will: When did God ever start to think of us? The philosopher cleverly replies, “Never!” – for there was never a “when” before time – and the common man asks, “So than God was always thinking of us?” and that is when the philosopher folds his cards, for he can neither give a Yes or No to man’s question. It is a mystery too great to know!

His love is such a mystery to us because we cannot comprehend true love. We say, “He made us so we might share in His life!” but do not realize those words’ meaning; we know them, but do not realize them. But God, again in His love, knew this, and sent His Son to teach us – among other things – about His love: By His Death He has shown us God, who is Love, for there is no greater love than that of the Lord. It’s truly wonderful, too: God loved us so much that He spared nothing to redeem us, and what have we done to show our gratitude? Nothing! It is this realization of our nothingness that makes us ponder God’s love. Why would He create us? Why dose He love us? Some even venture to ponder, Is God truly love? Dose God exist? The mystery is great – too great to comprehend, yet, here we exist, here we are pondering upon our Father. He has created us for Himself, He who is Joy beyond all joy, and so we are created for Joy: and since we desire happiness, so we are created for our own sake – and again we fly back to God, the Joy that alone can satisfy our hearts, and we marvel at His sheer Goodness in creating us! And once more we ponder upon His love! As often as we ponder, so as often do we swoon in love, yet will never fully comprehend His love: It is too great for anything to comprehend.

Even the devils know Christ is Lord

The devils, who once knew God as angels and who encountered God in Jesus Christ when He saved His children from their molestation, knew that Christ is Lord, the Holy One, the Redeemer of mankind. They are not saved because they know who Christ is, for they are damned for eternity, and Christ Himself has said that those who call Him Lord are not all saved because they do not all do the Will of His Father. So it is not faith alone that saves but faith and works that saves. For faith is not simply belief but adherence, and works are not simply man's work but God's working in his soul. This is evident by repentance: Repentance is nothing unless the repentant soul amends his life, for by this he gives evidence of his conversion: doing good work, praying, fasting - in a word, love. Not that God is ignorant of our hearts, and so needs to see proof of our hearts, but that He demands - for our own good - that the tree bear fruit, the vine bear grapes, the sinner change his way of life. If a man says, "I am no longer a thief!" yet steals, is he truly repentant? No! So you can see how exterior penance is united to interior penance, works of repentance united to repentance. And so it is with faith. He who lives in the truth lives in love, truth in love and love in truth, whereby God - through the soul - works to do good. Now you can understand something else of the exorcism Jesus performed in Mark and of His teaching on those who call Him 'Lord, Lord' and of the Apostle's teaching on the fact that even the demons know the Lord.

Mark 1:21-28

21 Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught.'

Capernaum means "consolation", indicating Jesus' day of ministry and healing. Sabbath is a day of rest, again indicating consolation, rest from suffering and from the burden of the traditions of men which prevented the Jews at that time from doing good on that day.

22 The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

Authority here has three meanings: first, Jesus makes an absolute claim, which the scribes did not do; second, Jesus speaks as the Truth. that is, God; and third, Jesus speaks as a leader, possibly even as a messiah. The people who hear Him are alarmed and shocked at not only His teaching but also His manner of speech.

23 In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;

The synagogue is the house of prayer, the Sabbath house, the assemblage of peace and consolation. An "unclean spirit" is a devil, which is here ironically, as the Pharisees accuse Jesus of having a devil yet it is the synagogue itself which has an unclean spirit within it. The demonic presence also means three other things: that Jesus is the Messiah, since the Messiah is prophecised to clean the Lord's house, and that Jesus will be betrayed by Judas and abandoned by His own People.

24 he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - the Holy One of God!"

Here we find another irony: the people don't know Jesus, yet an evil spirit dose. And the spirit indicates He is the Messiah ("of Nazareth" "have you come to destroy us?" "Holy One of God") and the Son of God ("Jesus" "have you come to destroy us?" "Holy One of God"). In referring to destruction, the spirit means two things: the Age of the Messiah and the Day of Judgment, the former being when Satan will be bound and the latter being when God will manifest His triumph over him: The Kingdom of God has come, and by its very coming, destroyed the kingdom of Satan over man, since it is the Kingdom of freedom from the dominion of Satan and from slavery of sin (being the Kingdom of Love and of Truth), and it will be fully manifested on the Day of Judgment; the Reign of God is greater than the reign of Satan, for the Reign of God is the Absolute Reign of the Absolute, while the reign of Satan is his dominion over man due to the fall of mankind.

25 Jesus rebuked him and said, "Quiet! Come out of him!"

Here Jesus shows His absolute power over devils, not needing to call on God to exorcise a man, which shocks the people because only God can do what Jesus did - obviously the people are now wondering who Jesus is, if He can teach with authority and act like God. Here also Jesus shows His humility and Providence, for as a humble servant He dose not seek the praise of man, i.e., He is content with the testimony of God and His Word, and as the wise Lord He knows best when to reveal the Mystery of Himself, i.e., only after the Resurrection will the full meaning of His holy life be finally realized by men.

26 The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.

The unclean spirit shook its victim and with a cry of defeat came out of him. This verifies the man is truly possessed and vindicates Jesus' exorcism, and it also shows He is the awaited Messiah, for He has conquered evil and rid the synagogue of uncleanliness, just as the Messiah is meant to do.

27 All were amazed and asked one another, "What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him."

Here the people wonder about Jesus. Some will think of Him as a prophet, others as John the Baptist, and still others as the new Moses, as indicated by Jesus asking His Apostles who others say He is. Here, too, we see witness: the people are eyewitnesses to His work, His works are not myth, yet because He chose the Apostles in His Wisdom to be the Bishops of His Church, it is the Twelve whom He considers as His eyewitnesses and must preach the Gospel, continuing the mission of the Messiah to the poor, the needy, and the lost; so Sacred Tradition is given a subtle reference in the Gospel of Mark, since the Scriptures were passed down in Tradition, and so came from Tradition, before being written down, as even the Jewish Scriptures and Tradition testify, the former coming from the latter even yet as ancient as the latter be.

28 His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

Word of Jesus' work spreads quickly by word of mouth. This is a subtle reference to His trial, when those who testify against Him will give contradicting accounts of His work.