All young, living creatures need to learn about the world, its place in the world, and how to survive to old age while ensuring the species’ survival by reproduction.
Animals are born with a certain amount of instinct that varies from one species to another. One example of an animal being born with instinct is that spiders are born from their egg and can craft a web without being taught. Each spider will take the initiative to build a web with a more or less similar design to all other spider webs. Fish are natural swimmers.
St. Thomas Aquinas did not believe that human beings were born with any natural instincts or innate ideas with regard to their intellect. Indeed, essential bodily functions occur, but he thought that the intellect of the human being begins as a “blank slate.” It was his further belief that human beings learn through our sensory experience. The human sensory experience is information derived through the five senses of the human person: 1) seeing, 2) hearing, 3) smelling, 4) touch or feeling, and tasting. All five senses convey information about the physical world about us.
The other part of learning for a human being is their natural ability to reason or to think things out. Here, human beings define what they perceive and then categorize it. These two skills are the learning function in its most basic components.
Parents or other guardians are needed to teach and guide a newborn infant to learn essential matters, such as how a feeling of hunger can be assuaged by eating and how to develop greater concepts and coordination abilities, such as how to talk and walk. It is natural for a parent to delight in the progression of learning their child exhibits. There are natural concerns of a parent for the child who demonstrates learning challenges.
We live in a sensible world, meaning that we can sense our surroundings. We can figure out what is about us and what we may use to help us to survive and thrive.
May the peace of Christ in the womb of Mary be with you.
All that exists exists in one of three realms. What is a realm? A realm is a domain or jurisdiction, such as a kingdom or an area of operation. A realm can be physical, but it also can be spiritual or even figurative, as in a field of study.
All that exists exists in one of three realms: 1) the Supernatural Realm, 2) the Preternatural Realm, or 3) the Natural Realm.
We are most familiar with the Natural Realm because it is sensible, or rather that we perceive much of the Natural Realm through our five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, or tasting. The Natural Realm is first known to us through what is physically present. All present in the Natural Realm was created from nothing by God.
The Preternatural Realm is a spiritual realm that is not sensible through the human five senses. This realm includes both angels and demons. This realm was wholly created by God.
The Supernatural Realm is the simplest and most complex realm of the three. The Supernatural Realm consists of God and is uncreated as God is uncreated. The Supernatural Realm has always existed and is eternal. Without God’s indulgence, the Supernatural Realm is beyond the five senses of humans.
This is a brief description of the three realms. Much more will be shared about these realms, and your understanding of both the roles of the three realms and their significance will be revealed as we use them in further studies.
For now, reflect on the existence of the three realms. Consider our presence in the Natural.
May the peace of Christ in the womb of Mary be with you.
A womb is a sacred, protective place set aside for one’s perfection of aspects already present but in need of development, necessary for one’s survival and thriving in one’s next stage of existence. All are first conceived in the mind of God as an idea.[2] With the help of God[3], humans are naturally conceived within the womb of a woman. Each conception changes everything anew.
To be more precise, virtually all natural conceptions of humans occur in the Fallopian Tubes that connect the egg-laden ovaries with the uterus. From the first cell, the person is comprised of a body and a soul. The person’s single-cell body contains forty-six (46) chromosomes and is infused immediately with a soul given by God. The newly conceived, one-celled person then begins a journey to the uterus. It is because of the unity of these events combined that the ovaries, Fallopian Tubes, and the uterus commonly comprise the physical womb.
Francis shared the experience of the human womb with Jesus. St. Pope John Paul II gave added insight when he wrote, “The most radical and elevating affirmation of the value of every human being was made by the Son of God in his becoming man in the womb of a woman, as we continue to be reminded each Christmas.” Could such a sentiment be so far from St. Francis as he celebrated the first creche honoring the birth from a womb for Jesus? The womb is the natural pathway God intends for all human beings.
May the peace of Christ in the womb of Mary be with you.
[2] Jeremiah 1:3 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, . . . [3] See Genesis 4:1 The man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the LORD.”
Advent is a time of preparing for that which we already have. We await Christmas Day, the revelation of Jesus, who had been physically conceived nine months previous, the Feast of the Incarnation. God revealed himself in the flesh of Mary as a separate person who lay in the manger on the first Christmas Day. We seek to reveal Christ in our flesh this coming Christmas Day. Have we taken on the mind of Christ? Are we now prepared to say, “This is my body; I give it to you,” to Jesus within ourselves?
If not, why not?
If it is because of unrepentant sin that you carry, Advent is also a period of penance and reparation. This is a perfect time, an acceptable time to examine one’s own conscience and apologize with the hope of forgiveness through absolution for any present unrepentant sin. Upon completing one’s penance and reconciliation, one can begin the process of self-examination anew. Such a second examination of conscience that begins at the graced moment of completion of the reconciliation process, given sufficient time, can often lead to a follow-up, much deeper and profound reconciliation. Yes, this is a suggestion that you plan on seeking the Sacrament of Reconciliation on two occasions before Christmas. This is a short Advent so two occasions requires seeking the Sacrament this week and a second maybe two weeks hence.
It is up to each person to decide for oneself if this Advent will be a typical period of material preparation for Christmas or a truly new beginning for your relationship with Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and ultimately with the Father. Many churches enrich the Advent season with the offer of extra opportunities for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, often with added evening opportunities to seek reconciliation through the Sacrament.
Jesus Christ is waiting with graces for you to make this a Holy Season for yourself. Don’t let yourself miss this opportunity. For this Christmas, be at least as spiritually prepared for Jesus on Christmas Day as you are so often materially ready.
May the peace of Christ in the womb of Mary be with you.
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This is the beginning of a series of posts that will be provide a basic and complete understanding of the spirituality of a Bearer of the Preborn Christ. This will come in small pieces through the blog while it will develop with the accumulation of each piece to a whole of all pieces combined on a single webpage.
Part One
Introduction
“…it is in dying that we are born into eternal life.” Although this last line from the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis is not believed to have been written by St. Francis, it has been embraced as capturing his spirit.1 This line highlights his perspective on mortal life as a womb where we are perfected in charity for eternal life. As eternal life and happiness with God should be the goal of everyone, Francis devoted the last half of his life to his perfection in charity. He did this by seeking to imitate the earthly life of Jesus Christ as closely as he could. In his often-dramatic fashion, Francis acted in a manner that would impress upon himself a virtue or truth about Jesus by living it himself. In this manner, he grew and developed his faith in God, preparing himself for eternal life. That he viewed it as a womb gives us a glimpse into Francis’s mostly hidden spiritual life that this study may help illuminate for us to share.
Peace of Jesus in the womb of Mary be with you.
1 Bodo OFM, Murray, A Look at the Peace Prayer of St. Francis, Franciscan Media.org, Dec 30, 2020. https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/a-look-at-the-peace-prayer-of-st-francis
A Labor Day Statement from recently incarcerated William Goodman
I am blessed to have a narrow 2-inch-long window by which to see the blue sky. Deo gratias. It’s Labor Day weekend, and it seems I am right where God wants me to be, even if it’s not so much where I wanted to be.
In some ways a jail cell is like a womb in that it is a place of confinement, hope and waiting. You are in the dark regarding all that’s happening in the world. Far away from the action. But you are close to God despite the times of feeling alone. It can be a place of life and growth. It may sound strange, but in some ways I feel closer to my persecuted preborn sisters and brothers here than almost anywhere (save maybe for in a church during the Liturgy or inside a fully operational killing facility).
The jail retreat makes you feel invisible to the world. Helpless and absent. Separated. Muted. It makes me mourn the many tens of thousands of little ones who die alone. And helpless. And separated. Their tiny cries muted. Dying at abortion chambers where all humanity is utterly absent.
These heavy thoughts haunt me constantly here. I am heartbroken over how tragically alone God’s children are inside these killing facilities. 🙁 And yet, I am more convinced than ever for the need of rescue and this particular gift of self – which one offers to the perishing – as also a personal presence of peace and conscience to the parents at the last moment.
Rescue is a truthful witness of love, before love comes too late, with the hope that love will conquer selfishness and fear. It is also a witness of nonviolence in a place of awful violence. A witness to hope in the gallows of despair. Rescuers seek to join Christ the Divine Rescuer Who is the Light of Hope.
I suppose there’s a certain fittingness for rescuers to be incarcerated over Labor Day weekend. A witness of good against evil is our labor. And our small gift of loving reparation.
Will Goodman has been found guilt of conspiracy against rights and violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for blocking access to late-term abortionist Cesare Santangelo’s Washington Surgi-Clinic in downtown Washington, D.C. in October 2020.
Please “. . . forgive the jury, the judge, and all those who witnessed against us, and to pray that they would see how God loves the gift of every human life,”[1] is the request of the just convicted William Goodman facing a possible eleven years of federal imprisonment and a $300,000 for violating the FACE Act (Freedom of Clinic Access Act) intended to protect abortion from contentious objection.
The profilers sought to protect persons in the womb from abortionist Cesare Santangelo, who is filmed acknowledging the law that requires him to render medical care to a person who is born-alive from a failed abortion, but that he would not and instead let that person die from neglect. Abortionist Santangelo stated it plainly when he was recorded by LiveAction.org saying, “We would not help it.”[2]
The preborn person, existing first as an idea in the Creator’s mind, is brought to the Washington Surgi-Clinic abortion center to be surgically destroyed. The preborn person is a complete human being capable of feeling pain and with a heartbeat and brain waves.
Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. Proverbs 24:11 RSV
Some of those charged were sitting in the center’s waiting room while encouraging the abortion-bound mothers to save their children from abortion. The others were arrested while standing in the outside hallway. This action is known in prolife circles as a ‘rescue’ because it is an intended action that has proven to affect many mothers to change their minds and save their baby from abortion.
In common law, if one must violate a lesser law to achieve a higher good, the violation of the lesser law is excused for the higher good. If one, when entering a burning house to rescue a human being who otherwise would not get alive, trespasses to save the life, the courts excuse the trespass for the higher good of saving a human life. This concept is known as the ‘necessity defense’ and is a long and hallowed legal defense in civilized societies. The court has denied the pro-lifers from raising this ‘necessity defense’ or any other related defense of themselves from these criminal charges.
In total, ten were charged with having a role in a sit-in at the Washington Surgi-Center in DC on October 20, 2020. They were arrested and indicted on March 31, 2022. Five were tried over the past three weeks and were found guilty. These guilty verdicts were unsurprising as the judge denied the defendants the ‘necessity defense’ or anything related to it. Three others will be tried for the same charges beginning today. A final defendant faces trial beginning on October 23, 2023. A tenth defendant, inexperienced with acts of conscientious objection such as a rescue and offered the prospect of a maximum of ten months of incarceration, pled guilty earlier.
A quick breakdown of the charges that may lead to an unprecedented threat of eleven (11) years in federal prison with accompanying fines are:
Incarceration for up to one year in federal prison for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance Act (FACE) that prohibits threats of force, obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care service (a euphemism for abortion).
Incarceration for up to ten years in federal prison for “conspiracy to interfere with civil rights.” In the fifty years of active contentious objection since Roe V. Wade unleashed unrestricted abortion in our country, the prosecutors have never sought such draconian penalties.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” is from the Declaration of Independence’s preamble.
Life is a self-evident, inalienable right of all human beings created. Because abortion unjustly takes the life of the preborn person, it is neither a constitutional nor a civil right of anyone’s. Akin to the defense of slavery in our past, the preborn person is neither recognized as a person in our courts and, accordingly, nor is recognized as having the rights of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.
When the right to life is denied, it is not the denial of one right; rather, it is the denial of all rights. St. Pope John Paul II stated this principle when he wrote, “Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights, for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.”[3]
These contentious objectors, or Rescuers of the preborn, are prepared to accept the solidarity with the alienated preborn. As Joan Andrews Bell, one of the defendants, has been saying for decades, “You reject them, you reject me.”[4]
Aside from being a creative use of the law by Merrick Garland’s and Joseph Biden’s Department of Justice, these charges and penalties are cruelly punitive. They are meant to punish the contentious objector and send a message to us not to even consider following their attitude, much less their action.
Contraception/Abortion has become a structure of sin in our culture. It is tolerated, accommodated, and promoted as a good for all. The unrepentant sin of individuals has accumulated to a body reaching in and corrupting all aspects of our society, i.e., marriage, the family, courtship, medicine, law and justice, insurance, education, entertainment, and foreign aid, to name a few. Even the Church and its teachings are severely challenged by these unrepentant sins.
Just this past week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which had for decades offered qualified acceptance of abortion, just came out for unrestricted abortion.[5]
May we also take into prayer and fasting the systemic alienation from the preborn that society has promoted. Ask God what else he may be asking from you to transform our minds to God’s counsel and our love for these families threatened by abortion.
Jesus is known as the second person of God in the Most Blessed Holy Trinity. He is also mankind’s cause and medium through which we find salvation with God the Father and live eternity participating in the life of the Holy Trinity. It is Jesus, being of God’s substance and Divine nature, who assumed human nature in the complete sense of having the composite of human life of both a soul/spirit and body. He lived a perfect human life after emptying Himself of relying on the Divine nature for grace any more than is available as recourse to any other human through prayer and trust in the Father’s Divine Providence. He is God showing us the way through His example in life, through His passion, in death, in Resurrection, in His Resurrection, and through His eternal intercession on our behalf.
The name Christ is best understood as the Church being its body with Jesus as the head. [Col 1:18] It is through Baptism that all Christians become members of the Church and, in turn, members of the Body of Christ. As practicing members of the Church and Body of Christ, Christians surrender themselves to the reign of the head, Jesus. Jesus is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” [ John 14:6 ] All of creation was made subject to futility, but not without hope. Jesus, our head individually and of the Church, leads us to be free from sin as children of God. [ cf. Romans 8:20-21 ]
All things were created through Jesus, who existed before all things, and it is through Him all things hold together. [ Cf. Romans 8:16-17 ] It is also through him that all will be reconciled for Him. [ Romans 8:20 ]
The name Jesus, in Hebrew, means “God saves.” [ CCC 430 ] The name Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah meaning “anointed.” [ CCC 436 ] Jesus was anointed with the Spirit, who is the anointing. It is with this same Holy Spirit that each Christian is anointed at Baptism. The Holy Spirit prepares the Christian as a Temple to receive the conception of Jesus so that we may bear Jesus in both the word and sacrament. Through both, the Christian surrenders to the reign of Jesus as our head.
The question for the Christian to answer is, “Are you responding , in surrender to Jesus our head, His own words, ‘This is my body, I give it up for you.’”
Above photo: One of the buildings where The Pill was invented in Shrewsbury, MA prior to approval by the FDA on May 9, 1960.
May 9th is such an ordinary day. It is neither a national holiday nor a day of religious significance. It is just another spring day leading toward summer, with green returning to trees and bushes alike, flowers offer their first bloom, and Little League baseball returns to the local diamond. Highlights of the day may include graduation ceremonies at various schools, while ballrooms may include junior and senior proms.
May 9th is also the anniversary of the contraceptive Pill (The Pill), approved as birth control by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It was invented in Shrewsbury, MA, at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology.The Pill is possibly today’s most prescribed pharmaceutical, while the women prescribed The Pill are also likely the least informed in terms of the effects and dangers of this pharmaceutical. Considering that the Pill has been tried by as many as 94% of women for over sixty years, with them having little forehand knowledge, there has also been meager public discussion on its impact on the culture and its merits or failings.
To an unchallenged populace, The Pill represents control over reproduction with the promise of a better life. It’s timing of invention was some fifteen years after the technology of the atomic bomb was seen as having brought the end of hostilities by Japan without sacrificing many soldiers of the United States and its allies. Technology, it was argued, saves lives. The technological imperative was seen to serve the human imperative.
It seems that for many, only experience with artificial contraception affords the opening of the user’s mind to the disappointments entreated on the user. These disappointments manifest in the body, the emotions, and the spirit. Couples often say that pregnancy changes everything. Artificial contraception changes everything, too, but for the worse, with its distortions of truth.
The failings of artificial contraception are as varied as are the harmful consequences to the human person. These failings can even be deadly. To properly and fully document these failings to the individual by these contraceptives will require time and dedication on this website, going far beyond the scope of a single blog post. Look for follow-ups to come.
It is just as important to consider the resultant structures of sin that have changed a culture striving for a higher humanity where right makes might to the more animalistic might makes right. Can this be attributed to the adoption and acceptance of artificial contraception alone? It is more likely weak faith formation and the temptation “to be like Gods” that all new technologies manifest is a more likely explanation. [NAB Genesis 3:5]
Experience of sin, such as turning to artificial contraception, can enlighten one to the truth, but usually only after a period of sorting out the consequences of sin: 1) Confusion of the intellect; 2) Malice of will; 3) Disorder of emotions and passions; and 4) Weakness, sickness, and death of the spirit and body.
We, Bearers of the Preborn Christ, believe that full knowledge of artifiical contraception, properly presented, can spare many people from falling into this practice while others may overcome the resulting negative consequences from contraceptive practice with practicing the virtues of: 1) prudence; 2) justice; 3) temperance; and 4) fortitude.
Reliable knowledge of and the distortions of truth associated with artificial contraception to the individual and in culture will be a point of an ongoing study in this blog and website.and death of the spirit and body.
