Salutation #202

(Blessed are the Peacemakers)

Peacemaker,

Consider how
War in Heaven abideth not. 

Consider the choice
with which the Holy Angels chose
to freely honor the one LORD.

Consider how
Michael and his angels
fought against the Dragon and his angels;
how the Holy Angels turned away
form the lies of the Devil
and thus,
attained Peace
with the Eternal God.

Consider the Peace
that the Holy Angels attained
through the LORD, our one God,
and the everlasting Unity through which
the Devil and his corrupted angels
lost their place in Heaven
forever. 

All children of the light
in Heaven and upon the Earth
are known as thus, peacemakers!

Therefore,
let us live not to contend against War
but to become united in the Truth.

Consider how
the Holy Angels
in knowing not the truth
in humility were vindicated
in the Truth.

As thus
did the Sky of Day
come restored
in Peace over War.

For not as judges
against each other in Heaven
did Michael and his Angels obtain
an everlasting Victory
over the Dragon and his corrupted angels
but through humility before the LORD.

Let us be builders 
of human communities
and defenders of the peace!

Let us build 

(especially as nations)

and let us do this together 

that through human community
we may know what we may defend
in the peace we shall through God obtain
in behalf of each other's human good - forever!

Let us be united
(especially as nations)

in peace upon the earth
with good will in our hearts

before the LORD, our one God,
until War in all Creation
is no more.
---<--@

The war in heaven is in our hearts. 

Heaven is not upon a distant sky or shore but in the soul, an intimate and limitless treasure.

It is not above, not below, not beyond our reality but very much closer by, within ourselves. 
---<--@

Let Peace be -

The Despoliation of the Sword

Fallen humanity
in following the Devil,
upon the bones of their fellow human beings,
shall worship their swords saying,
"O look how mighty we are,
how glorious is our arm
upon the earth!"

Repentant humanity
in obeying the LORD,
upon the Remembrance of His Nations,
shall cry out to the heavens and pray,
"O look how weak we are, O God,
that we need weapons
to live."
---<--@




Broken is thy Earth, in Sin overrun. 

The Sin of thy original wounding,
bearing the spiritual weakness of thy temporal undoing,
a mortal fear of the God of thy Holy sustaining;
a rupture in the human soul that bleeds with thy blood
unto death, and upon evils manifold and diverse,
upon sins many as the seeds sown for thy dispersing,
thy human lineages exiled from Life
for their own life's preserving.

Broken is thy Sky, in War overcome. 

The Beast of thy ancient pursuing,
seeking the devouring of thy every living soul of National doing,
that the living of each Man may sink ever near the sword of War's despoiling,
and undo in Darkness, the Light of thy common human obtaining  -
a rupture in the human spirit that caused the Sky above our world
to shatter into an endless Night without Twilight;
the long march of the Nations fallen in time begun
with each Country's spiritual Ascent
unto the Summit of a new Morning Bright.

Therefore, let Peace be - upon the three great lineages
of the faith and fatherhood of our Father Abraham -
unto the children of Ishmael - let Peace be,
unto the children of Isaac - let Peace be,
unto the children of all our kindred Nations
who bear in their hearts, in Spirit and in Truth, common witness
to the Incarnate Word of God in Jesus Christ, Who is Emmanuel,
the one Redeemer of all Mankind - let Peace be,
and unto all children of good will who among us persevere
in friendship and in their faith, one with the other - let Peace be.

Let Peace be - and divide it not! 

This one Peace.
---<--@

Together this time...

What will happen when the wood is dry?

Our world is as dry
as a tinderbox, Starshine -

For
- everywhere -
there is a thirst for water,
water this world can not provide.

And
everywhere
- across our earth -
our Nations are drying up
turning to ashes from the inside out.

Starshine,
can you now see - that -

peace anywhere
is peace everywhere?

In our hearts first, Beloved -
...and then, in our Nations,
...and then, in our needful world.

Truly, truly,
it shall only take a spark,
but one spark to set things afire!

But what kind of spark,
our precious Starshine,
what kind of fire?

God's grace alone 
is sufficient, alleluia!
---<--@

The Bright Morning Star

There are in the soul of Man
Periods of Nights without a Twilight

When in our sorrows as human beings
Cast adrift into the darkness of exile
Which is a darkness of death
Death which at every moment appear
To our poor hearts as uncertainty
Descending as a veil of shadow and tears
Discomforting as well as confusing us all
We awaken to a thirst for the Morning
By a call that comes from beyond
The prison of the self

There appears before us
A bright morning Star

Lucifer was an angel of light
When darkness yet retained its innocence

He was the first of the Stars of the Morning 

Tasked by God to make every Twilight possible 

And to make peace with the Night
The night which was the first Night
Which was a darkness of rest
Rest which was
The life of our learning

We all know what he did

Lucifer in beholding Beauty
Sought to make his light his own

In so doing he scattered
A third of the Stars of the Firmament
And the Skies of the First Sufficiency
Were shattered

He fell into a Twilight
That is the beginning of his undoing
The peace between first Day and first Night
vanished from Heaven

There was a council of the First
Wherein Salvation was conceived
In the form of Man

Neither Lucifer nor his angels
Bowed to serve this creature before God.
The sin of the Devil's pride was conceived
And the realm of Angelic wonder and glory
became a sweeping Desolation

There was a War in Heaven
It rages on in our human hearts

Another Bright Morning Star
Now appears before us

The former
In the midst of the pain of our exile
Desire our complete and utter destruction before God
Calling us to enter into a form of darkness
Apart from our exile darkness
The darkness of sin
That leads the soul to wander
Thirsting restlessly about
Across endless nights
Without a twilight
Into the depths of a darkness
Which is madness
Unto a death which is certain
Everlasting

We are the wounded travelers
As in the Parable of the Good Samaritan
That Satan uses
By using our pain
And our fear
To turn us against each other
And multiply his dominion
Over our souls
Over the life of our communities
And over our own native
Human realm

For he knows
He had lost his realm
And his own place in Heaven

Now Satan seeks the same
For Man
And for all that belong to Man
Along with all the life of the Earth

The universe is almost barren
Because of him

He first brought ruin
To our First Parents
Then he placed enmity
Between Man and Woman
Then brought brother against brother

Now he seeks the undoing
Of the Nations the LORD hath sent
To make His Peace known
Between us and among us
And gather up through His Goodwill
All the Children of Mankind

Yes, we all know what Satan did

Another Bright Morning Star
Now appears before us

We all know what He did
Yes, we all know what He did

For this one is Christ the Lord
Not the equal of Satan
But his God
his God and ours
He Who Is - the LORD
Come to Man as Emmanuel

Jesus Christ our Savior
He Who Is the Son
And our Salvation
Long before
Any of us needed saving

And He desires for each of us
What we have long desired
For ourselves
But could not purchase
And could never purchase
Either by our own human limits
Or by our own weaknesses
And in spite of our sinfulness
The mighty power
And the efficacious grace
To set us all free
From the thrall of Satan
And his evil dominion
Over our one
Human habitation

That we might be forever
At home with ourselves
And also
Have a home
Forever for ourselves

A home that is free and at peace
With the many realms
Of the Father's glorious Creation
For many rooms
has the LORD's House
Our God

There is no other

Christ leads into Morning
Glimpses of an endless wonder
Endless joy
And endless Days and Nights
Of contemplating
The infinite face of Beauty

He seeks the weak
And the sick
And the imperfect
Because that is what
We all are
Poor

In Christ
In the midst of all this darkness
We are saved
By a Savior mighty to save
Not Satan's equal but his God
his God and our God
One with the Father and the Spirit
The LORD
Through Whom
We are made rich indeed
Wealthy beyond our imagination

There is no other

Happy the Man
Who knows the difference
Who seeks and is found
---<--@

Salutation #188

Crafting a new order in the Middle East
requires the Nations of the Children of Mankind
to return to their deepest spiritual roots -
to the fundamental Human, Angelic,
as well as Divine purposes
for each of our Emergence in Time -
as a Family of Nations upon this world:
Peace, Good Will and the Building up 
of the Inhabited Earth.


Pursue peace and pursue it absolutely.

In commemoration of the outpouring of humanitarian aid and assistance to my Nation by the many Nations in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) - "Salamat po at mabuhay po tayong lahat nang mga Bansa ng mga Anak ng Sangkatauhan!" 

(Greater Israel)

Thou art a people, Israel -
before all things, before thou wert,
thou wert a Nation raised by the LORD!

At the Gates of Eden, thou wert!
Before the long march of exiled humanity,
thou wert a Nation among Nations, chosen.

In thy spirit, thou art a lineage -
born of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob -
a people united by the faithfulness of the LORD.

O beloved Israel, thou wert -
the first of the Nations of the Children

delivered from weakness unto strength in God.

Remember, thou wert - O Israel -

the first to know of the Truth of the LORD -

that God delivers, God provides, and God saves -

that all Nations may come to a knowledge of Peace.

---<--@

Personal Reflection:

All Nations are a people first. 

I too believe in a dream of a Greater Israel - Eretz Israel.

But the dream that I believe in - can not be begun -
if it is a dream bound by the limits of the Land of Israel.

For the Greater Israel I believe in resides
in the spirit that lives within the one heart of the Jewish nation -
Greater Israel as an Nation absolutely dedicated to Peace -
the Peace of God which is the common salutation
of the children of our Father Abraham
to all human Nations.

In this spirit is rebirth - for we can not return in time -
along the way that time itself has left us - in our common reality -
like it is to return to the womb - we can not experience physical time twice.

But we can experience
in our own memories - a rebirth of timeless Remembrance -
and obtain in our understanding, a spirit that leads the way to a newness of time
upon our hearts, upon our lives, upon our families, upon our national communities,
and upon our world - an age where we all can hope and work together - to become
the greater Nations in ourselves - one to prevail in Maturity over our lesser selves -
and rejoice in the shedding away of former things by our turning away from them
that we may indeed become the light unto each other that God hath intended
all human Nations to be - kindred in His Peace over War - forever. 

Memorial of the Guardian Angels

Remember LORD, 
the unfailing faithfulness of thy Guardian Angels,
Who deigned through their vigilant and loving stewardship
to vouchsafe in the life of our souls,
the unfailing truth of Thy paternal love and solicitude
over our Everlasting safety.

We ask Thee Eternal Father
Thou bless us with a Remembrance of them -

Who stand invisibly to watch over our thoughts
and guard our memories against the spirit of evil;
who against the Devil and the desolation of the War
keep safe for us - the enabling reality of thy own Truth:

Our Angel Guardians, who keep for us a way of safe return
away from the Night - and the sin which hides in the darkness
unto Christ, our Light, and unto Thee, dear Father of our hearts,
unto Thy Sacraments, unto Penance, and the fruits of Repentance -
which is the fullness of each these Friendships - Thou hath ordained.

Which is Truth everlasting in the knowledge of the Father and the Son
on this day of their Eternal Memorial, O LORD, united in Thy Holy Spirit -
alleluia, alleluia, glory to one Most High God forever, alleluia - forever.

AMEN.
---<--@

Loyalty that Preserves

I spoke to a mother whose son recently passed basic training, there was a sense of a mother's pride in her voice but also, a hesitation, a need...

I congratulated her and blessed her for raising up before God, a solider in the service of others... but I also felt her need and her hesitation.

Because when you bless, you only invite life. And when you congratulate, you only invoke happiness in life... So I said a quiet prayer for her, her son, and for our world... so much in need of peace.



The truth is
the more soldiers we have, in principle,
in a world awoken from the last great age of war,
the more peace we should enjoy.

- selah -

There are established limits in the defense -
the minimum is safeguarded by the virtue of arms
and the maximum is guaranteed by the peace of the nations
so that in our nation's conduct of the common defense,
to fall short (of the minimum limit) is to find defeat
and to exceed it (i.e. the maximum limit) is to become
the enemy (of our peace) that we claim to fight.

Therefore,
what is required to maintain the balance of peace
in our family of nations is not more and more arms
but less and less - a balance of peace -
until the Last Day, when the purpose of arms
will have utterly and completely extinguished itself.

And so
if today we remember -
what was before those times,
spirit and energy wasted in the quest
to annihilate the life and promise of our nations
- in the name of "peace" -
shall then be brought to genuinely serve it
to prosper our needful world
and bless all our nations as one family
to the hundreth generation.

- selah -

Why is it - during these evil days -
that the more soldiers we have,
the more war we suffer?
---<--@


War is the monster! Do not look into it's eyes - or thy spirit will be lost. 
Rather, understand peace - that you may also understand why we fight.


The Fate of Arms

Human Nations

To be human or not be human? That is the question for the nations of this age.



Into this age, we shall not fight over distinctions in ideologies or religions or ideals or culture or race... No, the times will require us to produce the common fruits of all of these...

For we shall be tested by the challenges of this age by our ability to remain human beings to each other, not only as individuals but as individual nations - able to persevere in the strength of the human spirit and prosper in the one peace of our sacred remembrances.

We shall be tempered and refined by the obvious practicalities of these unfolding times through evils that only we, together as the one Family of the Nations (of the Children of Mankind), can hope to surpass.

The Advent of War

The first time Man saw in himself the image of the adversary of All Nations was when Cain killed his brother, Abel. It was not coincidental that the killing of the first innocent human life upon our world also inaugurated the Advent of War upon the earth.

Now is the time to see through the illusion of the Adversary to find in the reflections of the Evil in all evil things, a way to make peace with ourselves in our world - for this is our world (redeemed by Christ and preserved by our Nations) - and in finding our peace with each other, an understanding of the truth worth defending together - in each other with each other...

...the truth of our common humanity.

Freedom's Common Pursuit

Democracy is like a tree, and so like all things that grow and live and breath, must begin from the roots. It is a natural system of living life born of the seeds of remembrances that must grow where it is sown.

No one tree is the same in the Garden of our world... each of our nations grow at different paces, is found at different ages, yet all are born for purposes that are both fully human and fully divine.

We bear different fruits - each edible and good for the sustenance of All - and all worthy and lasting in the eyes of our LORD, everlasting fruits born from timeless works that glorify with seeds that share - knitting together with the fabric of visible creation, the truth that will prevail at the consummation of time.

We learn from each other not by making each other the same but by seeing in each other what is familiar in All - trusting in our differences, and sharing in our strengths - so that, in choosing to believe in our diversity, together find, in the familiarity of our unity, the peace which is shelter to all mankind; the one Peace of the one LORD.

If thy Peace is God's then know ye it belongs to All Mankind.
---<--@

Salutation #178

Of the third of the Stars
seduced by the Pride of Lucifer
who as Satan rebelled against the LORD,
all of the First who fell with the Dragon of War
hid themselves from the LORD Who is their Light
to become for All that Darkness which is apart from God;
a Darkness which is utterly hostile to all things in the LORD,
a Darkness which at the fall of the Dragon overtook the Night
and at the Division of the Firmament became a restless Desolation -
the Void of the Desolation of the Angels, that Night without a Twilight.

(The Void of the Desolation of the Angels)

All that became - the Darkness -
that became for All Creation - that Darkness -
which is of that spirit that is apart from the LORD,
being of Satan and all his fallen and reprobate angels
who at the hour of their final defeat at the Mount of Zion
at the hand of Holy Michael and the loyal Hosts of the LORD,

through the unyielding Light and infinite Power of the one Almighty,

became struck down by the power and weight of each their own sin
were all who hid in sheer terror of God, to fall forever away from Truth -
the Cherubs from their shining Wisdom, the Thrones from their golden Justice,
the Dominions from their limitless Nobility, the Virtues from each their Celestial Arcs,
the Powers from each the Fire of their Zeal, the Archangels from each their Spirit Mastery,
the Principalities from each their Great and Powerful Motions, and the Angels from each Other -
to become something else: Theirs was this Darkness, swift and terrible, corrupted, and infinitely less
than the Glory of who they were and the Greatness of what they were in the LORD and for Our God.

For the Sin of the Satan who was once Lucifer,
the first and the brightest of all the Stars of the Morning,
and the Scandal of the Dragon who - as it fell from the Light,
stole from the LORD, our God, a third of the First of His Sons
struck down from the Glory of Firmament, the Original Unity
of the Everlasting Waters, dividing forever Night and Day!

And theirs is the Night that was from Heaven expelled forever by the prevailing of the Day,
theirs the War that ruptured the Heavens, Divided the Firmament, and sundered our native Skies!
Theirs is this Night and the terrors that lay within the Darkness that stand against our Morning,
theirs is the cold of this Winter and the long nights that must come to pass before the newness of Spring,
theirs is the Void of the Desolation of the Angels and the Oblivion at the vanishing of all that never was
for theirs, at the sinking of every moment, is the dust of every sin and the ashes of every transgression
theirs, the hell fire and the worm, the prison and pit, the despair and Darkness - deaths without a Death,
theirs, the unknowing of all that is, the recall of all human and angelic memory, and the absence of God,
for all Evil is theirs, Satan's who was once Lucifer and his rebellious angelic host fallen from Heaven.
Yea, all of this is theirs, who by the guilt of their own allegiance and the testimony of their own faith
freely undertook to forever belong - neither to the LORD - nor to each other in God -
being in Eternity found to be neither in Service to the Truth that God is - that the LORD is! -
either during the Blessed Hours of the Day or the Holy Watches of the Night, one God forever!

Theirs is that Darkness 
which is not of the Darkness (of Creation)
that at the Council of the First imparted upon the Holy Angels,
a persevering grace of God and an overcoming love of All His Truth
and upon the evil and fallen angels, a blindness that confounded their pride...

And theirs is that Night 
which was not of the Night (of the Day)
that at the Council of the First hid from the penetrating wisdom of Lucifer,
even before the pride of Satan had spread to stain the realms of heaven and earth,
the Plan of the Father with the Son and the Mission of the Incarnation of the Savior of All...

For the Night that hid the babe Jesus Christ from the evil and tyranny of mortal Kings,
gave His Protector and Human Father, Joseph, the dream that took them to the safety of Egypt
embraced Him throughout all His blessed years on earth, shielded Him from the plans of evil men,
gave Him necessary aid and comfort in Gethsemane, and on the Cross so zealously waited on Him
is the very same Night that even before those times, now enshrined in the Memory of the Faithful,
gave to Him, that Hour of Our Final Victory; the Darkness that these days in behalf of the living earth
conceals for our safety, behind mere accidents of bread and wine, the Real Presence of Our Emmanuel
Who is our Light, our Life, and our Salvation - the Glory of All Creation - Who Being of the Truth, One -
is God - in Love of the Truth in Love with the Truth - the Son, and Splendor of the Father Forever!

And indeed, unto this Night forever belong this Darkness
that hid for every present time the Decree of the LORD from Eternity
that sealed for Satan through the Darkness of their own making, their Final Defeat,
and throughout God's purposes in time, hid from the Sin of the angels and the sins of Man,

through the quiet of its Solitude in God and with God, at the calm of those memorable Twilight walks -
the Peace of the LORD both in the Redemption of Man and in the Remembrance of the Nations
(of the children of Mankind) and preserved for All in all - the hope in the good will of All for all.

---<--@