A Marvelous Thing

First a little family history...

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers... and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

Matthew (RSV) 1:1-2,16

For the sake of brevity and readability, the middle section of this list of generations was omitted. Turn one's focus to the last line and zero in on Joseph the husband of Mary. At first glance it appears very ordinary and matter of fact. All know that Joseph was indeed the husband of Mary. Today, if one were to get introduced as the husband of one's spouse, it would hardly register as anything but normal.

Yet in St. Matthew's day, and for the audience whom he wrote for, the Hebrews, it would have been out of the ordinary to introduce a man as the husband of a woman. In fact a read of the entire genealogy from Matthew's gospel doesn't mention any of the wives. Mary is singled out, and for good reason.

To understand this a little better, it's necessary to examine the Latin translation of Matthew 1:16 with an emphasis on the words in bold below:

Iacob autem genuit Ioseph virum Mariae, de qua natus est Iesus, qui vocatur Christus.

(Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.)

Beginning the with the word genuit which is actually a verb meaning to beget or to bring forth. In the modern English translation this verb gets changed into the noun, father, though the Douay-Rheims holds true to the verb and uses the word begot here. It's important because each in this line of succession did something active to create the next person in line until that line gets to Joseph. Suddenly there is a shift here for Joseph did not beget Christ yet his importance in the matter is not lost.

Virum is a Latin word for husband; however, it is also the word for hero, person of courage, honor and nobility. Joseph is the hero of Mary. Were he "just a husband," the Latin word used here might have been conjugis or conubium, which simply translate to spouse or partner. Yet throughout scripture, when the husband is spoken of, it is a title of honor. The virum has duties, responsibilities, and a distinct role in the family and society.

This notion may prove a bit difficult for modern western culture where men have been largely emasculated under the guise of equality for women. In point of fact, a study published by the University of Sheffield in England revealed that women on birth control pills are more attracted to effeminate men. They in essence begin to want a male version of themselves. A cursory look at the pop stars of today reveals a decidedly androgynous bent in preference by the younger set, most of whom are on the pill. Bogart, Brando, and Gable wouldn't get very far with today's "modern" woman.

Yet the Hebrews of St. Matthew's day would have understood perfectly what it meant that Joseph was the virum of Mary. He was her protector; her champion; the leader of the family. That he had this position for the mother of Christ placed him in a status of high esteem and importance. He was much more than just a stepfather or ancillary character of the nativity story.

Finally there is this interesting word, natus. This word literally means to be produced spontaneously; to come into existence; to spring forth, grow and live. Mary, full of grace, was the chosen one to be the conduit for God incarnate, the Christ, to come into human history. How logical and appropriate that hers is the last human being's name mentioned in this line of succession detailed in Matthew's gospel. The last is first, indeed.

And do not consider this genealogy a small thing to hear: for truly it is a marvelous thing that God should descend to be born of a woman, and to have as His ancestors David and Abraham.

St. John Chrysostom

Three Questions

Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.

St. Thomas Aquinas

What does one believe?

In AD 321, St. Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, convoked the first ecumenical council of the Catholic Church to formulate a response to the heresy of Arius, who was attracting a significant following by stating that while Jesus was a nice guy, he was not equal to the God the Father, and thus not worthy of equal respect. In Arian view, Christ was created out of nothing to serve a specific purpose at a specific time. For the man in the street, that proved a far more understandable explanation of the mystery of Christ than the less comprehensible notion of a triune god.

The Nicene Creed was the document that came out of this council at it stands today as the creed professed by Catholic rites and a good many Protestant ecclesial communities. Christ is consubstantial with God and the Holy Spirit, that is to say, He is of one essence with them, or as the modern translation states, Christ is "one in being with the Father."

Take the time to reflect on each the of proclamations of the creed and honestly assess one's own belief. Try not to confuse belief with understanding for many things require looking through the eyes of faith. The creed stands as a pillar of what one ought to believe.

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What does one desire?

This is where the rubber meets the road. For while one may believe wholeheartedly in everything in the creed, one may still desire sin. St. Augustine once described the gates of hell as always being open. Souls in hell are free to leave. The true horror is that they never exercise that option. They prefer their misery.

That concept may seem hard to comprehend. How could anyone prefer such a total absence of God? Yet how often does one cling to a small set of particular sins. It's often the smaller venial sins that impede one's spiritual growth. One might not be addicted to pornography, but an occasional peek at impurity seems reasonable and forgivable. Does a little petty larceny make one a thief? And if one skips going to Sunday mass a few times a year, what's the harm?

All of these and a countless host of others indicate that one's desire is pointed at something other than God. Each of these desires serves as a brick in a wall between one and God. And this is not to pass judgment, but rather to point out the unfathomable need for the Savior.

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God for those who trust in riches! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God."

Mark 10:23-27

Take some time to honestly assess one's true desires. Where are they focused? Do they point to the here or the hereafter?

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What should one do?

With a belief in God and a desire for His salvation, what does one do about that? This is perhaps the juncture where Catholics and Protestants part ways. While Catholics and Protestants agree that one is saved by grace. It is the means of how that grace gets communicated that keeps apart the universal church that Christ so desired to be one.

The Catholic reads in scripture that faith and works are required by Christ. This so terribly often get misinterpreted to mean that Catholics believe they have to do good works to earn God's favor and thus earn their salvation. Not so. Man merits zilch on his own.

Works are viewed more accurately as obedience to Christ and His Gospel. Works are how we follow the example and the command given by Christ. Reflect upon this beautiful passage:

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 5:7-10

What a tragic disservice Martin Luther committed when he added the words "alone" and "only" as he addressed the issue of faith in his German translation of St. Paul's letters. There really is no other way to present it. Luther added text to change the meaning of sacred scripture. He had to in order make his theology work along with eliminating books from the bible that potentially contradicted his teachings.

As scripture states, Christ is the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Obedience is not a passive thing. It requires work, submission, repentance, and often a genuine dying to self. That far transcends a simple profession of faith, thus the reason Catholics do not a agree with the Protestant assertion that man is saved by faith alone.

What is one's faith?
What is one's will?
What is one's course of action based on questions one and two?

Three simple questions to continuously ponder in one's journey to God.

Major Renovation

The central idea is that of the renovation of man, now under the power of Satan and Death, which are undone in Christ, the risen Savior, who is "our true Life," and endows us with immortality. This is by virtue of His Divinity in union with His perfect Manhood. He is the only utterance of God the "unlying mouth by which the Father spake."

St. Athanasius
Doctor of the Church

Athanaisus, widely held as the father of orthodoxy, wrote the above in his discussion on the Council of Nicea and the common beliefs of the Apostolic church fathers. In three sentences he captures the answer to a most basic question that plagues the human heart on many occassion as one looks at the travails of one's life:

What's going on?

This early father of the Church, who lived in the mid 300s, basically describes the epic battle that ranges on Earth and has raged since the fall of man. For any battle to happen there has to be at least two opposing forces. It may seem obvious that the battle waged resides in the struggle between God and Satan, good versus evil, right? In point of fact, the real fray is between man and Satan.

The Devil could never defeat God. Satan and God are not of equal strength. God simply has infinitely more power than this fallen angel. And while the evil one may have created his own diametrically opposed position to his creator, the matter of ultimate good was never up for debate for The Almighty.

Man on the other hand is a different matter. The devil does have the power to tempt, lure, and suggest to man to use the gift of free will for an infinite number of permutations on what is "good" that pervert the true good of God's creation. He can't make one turn from God against one's own will, but he can propose a path, or perhaps better stated a wide avenue, that leads away from God.

Here's a little exercise to demonstrate the power of temptation. Don't click here unless you want to see an image of hell. Do click here if you want to see an image of good. By now you're at least a little bit curious as to what image of hell might be only a mouse click away. Why do you want to see hell? With that one has entered into the Devil's playground.

Satan's aim is not to win one's heart but rather to encourage one to lose one's way. He has no practical use for souls. Most likely his perverted joy is in the hunt versus the capture. No self-promotion gets used. Satan prefers that one not even believe he exists. In that respect, he has been very successful. For most, he is a mythological creation or simply a convenient literary device used in scripture. The idea that a being exists who simply wants one's destruction proves too improbable a concept for modern man's temporal reason.

Given that, it should come as no surprise the arrogance imbued in a report released by the London School of Economics (LSE) which boldly proclaims that contraception proves way cheaper than conventional green technologies in combating global warming. Were satirist Jonathan Swift alive, today, one might conclude that he had written a sequel to his famous A Modest Proposal where he suggested the Irish eat their babies to combat famine. The LSE proposes that the way to reduce carbon footprint is to, well, reduce the number of footprints that are allowed to exist, especially in that pesky third world where all those burdensome poor people live.

Stop creating souls.
Stop creating souls.
Stop creating souls.

The devil gently whispers that message continously into the psyche of the culture. Contraception, abortion, and even gay marriage to a large degree are centered around an anti-procreation mentality. Because this line of thought is so contrary to God's natural law, one has to seriously consider the diabolic origen of such thinking.

Praise be to God that He loves His children so much that He sent Christ to undo the damage and perform a rennovation of the soul of mankind. One simply has to open one's heart to the grace available from Jesus.

Consider that Satan rules the temporal world. All of this is his until the last day. His powers are limited. He cannot create, only distort that which God has already created. After one finishes this life, any distortion is gone and the fullness of truth is revealed. Yet one does not have to die to embrace that truth which one will enjoy for eternity. Christ came to show mankind that even in this mucked up world truth can overcome the evil one's deceptive ways. Christ is the light in the darkness.

The devil is a deconstructionist. Christ is the carpenter's son. He is the master renovator. Whose suggestions and propositions should one follow?

The Long Penance

All I know about tomorrow is that God's providence will rise before the sun.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen

On March 16, 1968, a second lieutenant, nicknamed Rusty because of his red hair, led his platoon into a remote Vietnamese village. At five feet, four inches in height, Rusty didn't have a towering presence over his troops. Many didn't like him. The young man was far from home, and his life had undergone dramatic change over the last few years. He was a high school dropout. Before he found himself in the jungles of Southeast Asia, he had worked a variety of odd jobs. Eventually Selective Service caught up with him and he was drafted as young men were during that era. Despite his poor academic record he managed to get into Officers Candidacy School and had been commissioned only one year earlier.

His Captain had ordered Rusty into the village code named "Pinkville" that was suspected to harbor Viet Cong terrorists. What happened next depends upon who one believes, but what is certain is that at the end of the day approximately 500 Vietnamese civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly, had been murdered by American soldiers. Many of the victims had been sexually abused and mutilated.

This infamous sad chapter in American history is known as the My Lai Massacre (pronounced "me-lie"), and Rusty is Second Lieutenant William Calley, the only person ever convicted of murder in the incident. It's likely that Calley is telling the truth when he states that he just followed the orders of his commanding officer. The Army did as best it could to cover up the incident. Twenty-six soldiers were eventually charged. All were acquitted except for Calley. He was the sacrificial lamb.

Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor, but President Nixon commuted the sentence to house arrest. The public, weary from a seemingly never ending war, viewed Calley more as victim of the system than a war criminal, and Nixon needed a win with the American public. After three years, Calley won a writ of habeous corpus and was soon after released. He never spoke to the press about the incident. Never granted an interview.

Forty years later at the urging of a good friend who had spoken for months with him about the events at My Lai, William Calley made his public confession for the first time at Kiwanis Club meeting in Columbus Georgia.

There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry....If you are asking why I did not stand up to them when I was given the orders, I will have to say that I was a 2nd Lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them—foolishly, I guess.

Some will say that William Calley got off easy. True, he did not pay much for his crime from a juridical point of view. Three and a half years of house arrest for killing 500 innocent lives hardly brings justice for the victims. Yet one has to wonder what it's like to live a life with the knowledge of having committed so great an evil. Does he still see the faces of his victims? Can he hear the cry of innocent blood as it calls out to God from the ground where it was spilled?

Christ in his mercy, forgives. Christ in his love, forgets. No transgression is too big for redemption. But God does not change reality. The lasting consequences of sin endure. Remorse becomes the sackcloth and ash that adorns the soul. Without the grace of Christ, its weight can be overwhelming.

Thankfully, not everyone has the burden of William Calley to carry throughout their lives. Yet everyone can point to an event or maybe a series of events in their lives where they injured another. This author certainly knows that he has hurt at one time or another the very people who love him the most. And while like Christ they can forgive...those injured do not forget. The pain, disappointment, and other consequences of so many foolish, selfish, and prideful choices endures, and with that the knowledge of being the cause of such feelings ever haunts the soul hopefully to serve as a reminder of that which should never be repeated and an inspiration to repair what can be fixed.

It's interesting how many of the saints as they move closer to Christ gain such clarity of truth that their joy is mixed with lamentations over the time when they weren't so close. St. Augustine perhaps expressed it best in this beautiful prayer:

Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

For Augustine, knowing he had offended Christ during his sinful life filled him with the deepest remorse and appreciation for the gift of grace. It is the knowledge one has of having wronged a loved one that creates a life of long penance. It's not that one lives in constant sorrow or dismisses the joy of life. The outward wearing of sackcloth and ash is a thing of the distant past. Rather, it is the simple realization that no matter how good and holy one becomes, the reality of the injury one was responsible for never truly departs one's conscience. Remorse is a terminal condition.

For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Genesis 3:5

The Devil lied to Adam and Eve for God did not know evil in the classical Hebrew sense in which this scripture was written. But Satan did tell the truth when he let them know that they would know evil. They experienced it first hand. All do. The penance of remorse for having offended Love should be embraced for it serves as proof positive that one remains closer to the Almighty and more distant to the evil one. Praise be to God that He loves his children and continuously calls to them so that they can know, really know that which is good.

The Would Be King

"It's good to be the King."

Mel Brooks, playing King Louis XVI, delivered that line in the 1981 comedy film History of the World Part I . Kingship as displayed in the film was one of a court full of beautiful, buxom women, gluttonous amounts of food, tons of money, sex, and supreme power over everyone. It was a life of leisure and only the cares in one's mind mattered.

The lure of power, a kingship over people or even just an individual, has always been a powerful temptation for man. It may even be his greatest tempter. Satan snagged Adam and Eve with the promise that they would be like God. Given where they were and the state of communion these first parents shared with God, the devil had no choice but to go for the jugular if we wanted to tempt them. They were in want of nothing material. They had it all, already. Yet Lucifer was able to convince them without trying all that hard that their situation could be better still.

Satan played this card again with Christ when he tempted Him in the desert. He offered Our Lord a kingship over all the world. That the offer was made indicates the depths to which the devil had fallen. Such pure arrogance to have shamelessly tempted one's own creator in this way. One wonders if it was the last instance of hope the evil one ever experienced? For failing here all he could do was attempt to destroy the physical incarnation of The Christ. The Lord's will and spirit were now proven impenetrable.

Christ is the incarnation of God, and along with that He brings the most supreme evidence of the humility of this Loving Father. That God willed to walk with humanity should be enough. Why is one not completely blown away and thunder struck with awe by the historical fact that Jesus, son of God, dwelt among mankind? That alone should be enough for one to ponder what Our Father is all about. If Christ had not said anything; if he had not told the parables; if he had not performed the miracles; if he had not healed the sick or raised the dead; if had just simply appeared and man was somehow able to experience the grace of faith that Jesus of Nazareth was the incarnate God, would not humanity still be asking the question, "What does it mean?"

Yet just as it proved insufficient for Adam and Eve, so it goes for their ancestors. But unlike the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Christ can back up His words when He proposes that it can be better still. The devil offers sovereignty over all temporal things in exchange for subjecting oneself to the many pleasures of the world. Christ offers communion, true oneness with God, and He offers this not as an exchange of goods but as a covenant of love. The pleasures then become a blessing of the covenant, in many ways ancillary in nature, versus a means to an end.

One gets offered diabolic kingship every day. The Seven Deadly Sins (pride, envy, gluttony, lust anger, greed, and sloth) are a good starting point to see when one has been invited to such a coronation. Some days, most days perhaps, one will say yes to the offer to be king even if it's in a little way. Often times one is king for a day or even a moment. Is one lustful or prideful or envious all of the time? Likely not.

The things that we love tell us what we are

St. Thomas Aquinas

What does one love? The answer to that question probably indicates what kind of king or servant one has become. The more one loves those things that are of God, the less of a king one soon realizes one has become.

The devil is, if nothing else, persistent. He continuously offers the blessings of God as the ultimate destination. It remains a subtle disordination of the gifts God bestows to humanity, and when one is tempted to be a would be king of this sort, Our Savior gives the best response.

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

John 6:15

They mystery of why God allows temptation to exist may very well be that it provides one the opportunity to move closer to Him. For temptation is simply a choice offered, and if one chooses The Almighty more often than not, then one quickly sees the folly of Mel Brooks' character. It's not good to be the king, rather as St. Paul might have said,

"It's good to be the slave!"

A Walk in Integrity

As these United States celebrate being two hundred and thirty three years young, today, Psalm 26 seems most appropriate to reflect upon.

Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. For thy steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to thee. I do not sit with false men, nor do I consort with dissemblers; I hate the company of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence, and go about thy altar, O LORD, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all thy wondrous deeds. O LORD, I love the habitation of thy house, and the place where thy glory dwells. Sweep me not away with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men, men in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the LORD.

Imagine a painting of Uncle Sam kneeling before a cross and praying the above prayer. Set aside for a moment that politically correct police who would castigate anyone who would dare link America with God, and imagine in principle, a nation committed to the entreaties of the psalmist. It would be a nation that recognized that indeed it is one nation under God. It would be a nation whose leaders recognized their culpability not to just the electorate; not just to the Constitution; but most of all to the Almighty, and they would govern accordingly.

A theocracy is not what is being desired here. They rarely work as man's propensity for a lust for power tends to pervert the original design on which a theocratic government might be established. Just take a look at Afghanistan before the Taliban were thrown out of power. Instead, what if the government was conceived on a foundation of justice, true justice as in the cardinal virtue, for all? Oh, that's right, it was.

Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity...

Indeed, integrity seems like such a rare commodity in American politics and leadership these days. The firm adherence to any position, especially a moral code, proves difficult when constituents demand governance by popularity versus prudence. And having demoted God to the realm of possibility versus absolute truth, the politician soon finds no integral ground in which to plant his flag. The shifting sands of relativism form an ever shifting, tenuous base.

How interesting that while America celebrates her Independence from England on July 4th, that word, independence, finds no home in sacred scripture. Not once in the Old or New Testament does the word appear. Yet integrity is found over twenty times.

A cursory reading of the Declaration of Independence reveals a document so full of integral proclamations that it very easily could have been called the Declaration of Integrity. It speaks of self evident truths and unalienable rights. God, the One God, figures prominently as the one who bestowed these gifts. In point of fact, He is mentioned in the first two sentences, and there is zero mention of a separation of Church and state.

Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity...

Today, a kind of thinking espoused by Oprah Winfrey has gained some popularity. It's called by many names, but basically it is a perverted form of Sufism, the Islamic mystical practice of drawing close to the Divine in order to purify oneself. Oprah and her cadre of New Age gurus she promotes takes it a step further and dismisses God as a being. Instead all are God and the struggle to discover one's self is far more important than the worship of a single entity.

Under Oprah, when one is with a Muslim, one becomes a Muslim. When one is with a Buddhist, one becomes a Buddhist. When one is with a Hindu, one becomes a Hindu. And when one is with a Christian, well, out of charity for the poor soul stuck in naivete, one becomes an evangelist for enlightened self-interest.

This is germane to this look at integrity as it highlights the challenge the country faces. Bereft of a core set of values given by a just God, on what ground does this nation stand? Without God as the light, the walk in the clearly defined path of integrity turns into a wandering in the wilderness.

God bless America. Please, God, bless America.

The Envy of the Devil

God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living. For he fashioned all things that they might have being; and the creatures of the world are wholesome, and there is not a destructive drug among them nor any domain of the netherworld on earth, for justice is undying. For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him. But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who belong to his company experience it.

Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24

This week the world said goodbye to three icons from the Baby Boomer generation, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. How each is remembered hinges very much on one's age.

The younger set sees McMahon as Mr. Publisher's Clearing House, while those who grew up with the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson fondly recall McMahon as the consummate sidekick announcer. He was the best friend to Carson. A test pilot during WWII, McMahon graduated from Catholic University and remained a strong supporter of the institution for the rest of his life. While he had his weaknesses with regard to women, he lived a life as a generous spirit. Most remember him as everyone's friend.

Fawcett was the Marylin Monroe of the Boomer generation. Every red-blooded, American teenage male either had one of her famous pin-up posters in his bedroom or wished he had. She defined sex appeal for many; yet that objective image she created was also redeemed in her dying days. For the image that this author will remember of Ms. Fawcett in years to come will not be of her provocative poses in the 70s and 80s, but rather of her praying the rosary in her hospital bed. She was a woman of faith. She received the healing sacraments of reconciliation, anointing, and Eucharist the day before she passed, and one can presume she left this life in a state of grace.

Michael Jackson was a troubled soul. At the height of his career, no one had ever mastered the genre of song and dance he performed. It was beautiful. The very fame he earned in the end scourged him the latter half of his career. It may very well be the case that Christ is the only one who truly knew him; for the rest of the world only knew the child star; the king of pop; and in the end, the freakish sideshow tabloid fodder. Somewhere behind all of that there was a soul created by a loving God in desperate need of simple dignity.

The death of these three American icons, and now the news of the death of Billy Mays, that ubiquitous pitchman who shouted to the heavens like a carny, has many once again recognizing the fragility of life and that one's temporal existence is indeed bound by time and circumstance. Yet scripture gives us hope that while Satan introduced death to the world through his envy, Our Heavenly Father still has the last word.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

1Corinthians 15:22-26

All are born into a beautiful world created by a loving God; however, it is a world at war; a place where good and evil are continuously in a pitched battle; a place where angels often intervene, and where demons do prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Christ offers a safe haven yet here exists the paradox that troubles one's intellect. For the closer one gets to Christ, the more apparent the evil of this world becomes. A view of humanity through the eyes of Christ reveals the magnitude of His ultimate sacrifice. One soon wants this world less and Heaven more.

A hundred years from now it's doubtful Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, or Michael Jackson will be remembered much. This is not to disparage their character, it's simply the reality of entertainment history. It's very short lived. Yet the reality of Christ will endure. If one is seeking to understand the meaning of the death of a celebrity, then one should turn one's focus away from the temporal lives of Hollywood and zero in on the eternal life Christ has to offer from the cross. His passion, death, and resurrection have withstood the test of time, indeed, it has transcended history itself.

No wonder the devil is so envious.