Deal!

Deal with lustful looks to prevent Pornography.
Deal with Pornography to prevent fornication.
Deal with fornication to prevent adultery.
Deal with adultery to prevent divorce.
Deal with divorce to save your children.
Deal with your children to prevent cyclic poverty.
Deal with poverty to prevent war and unrest.
Deal with war and unrest to prevent death!
Deal with death to know the truth.
Know the truth to be liberated.
Be liberated to live.
Live to make others live!

Join me in a Cause:

That the Memorials of the Immaculate heart of Mary and of Our Lady of Sorrows, be upgraded - if not to Solemnities - at least, to Feasts in the Holy Church.

In this age of uncommon political and spiritual disruptions, we need, more than ever, the intercession of the Sorrowful and the Immaculate heart of Mary.

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows is the actual feast of Mary's motherhood on humanity.

The Immaculate heart of Mary is the actual route to the Sacred heart of Jesus, the humanity of Christ by which we approach God.

We are living in an age of Mary and this will become more evident the more the chaos around the world deepens.

We may have neither the voice or the connection to get to the Pope, but we can do our bit by reposting and sharing this Cause.

Sorrowful and Immaculate heart of Mary.

Pray for us.

The Mystery of ‘Eti’, ‘Abameta’ and ‘Aiku’.

Introduction

A bit of experience, knowledge, insight, logic and imagination, which has to countered, objected and tested for it to be verified. No one can lay claim to truth.

Eti

Let’s start with Eti since it’s Friday.

When Yoruba calls something ‘Eti’ (‘O ti so o di Eti mo o l’owo’), that presupposes that the issue has become stagnant. A last-stop so to say.

The entire natural working of creation meets a dead point in Eti. The works of creation was completed in 6 days, it ended on Eti (Friday). Christ also finished His works of recreation on Eti, as he cried ‘It is finished’.

There are universal natural working order of creation happening irrespective of culture, where the Yoruba cosmological ingenuity has recognized the mystery of Eti, even before the advent of Christianity.

A descriptive example of Eti happens, for instance, when I watch a match on internet, and before there is a visual goal on the gadget, a notification is already gotten on my iPhone about a goal. Now, no matter how much I imagine or pray away the goal, it would still happen. When something is entwined in Eti, every effort becomes a perambulation in futility.

This is what happens as far as the visible world is concerned, where those who are adept at matching the cosmos, without an intervention of the Divine, are next to accurate in discovering the circumstances of future events.

The ‘Eti’ condemnation is what Christ has come to break. But without authentic faith, without real awareness, without a depth of life lived in spirit and truth, every effort of man becomes a perambulation in futility. ‘Without me you can do nothing ‘. That is why Good Friday is the fulcrum of the entire history of man. Ojo Eti Rere!

Chief Yemi Elebuibon once lamented the prevalent national social retrogression, which he claimed was as a result of people performing certain actions on certain days that are not meant for such days. It is true that anyone who does certain things on Eti and without this acknowledgment of grace from Christ who enables one to act under grace through faith, and not under law, Eti may catch up on such person.

‘O blood and water which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus as a fountain of mercy for us, I trust in You’.

That is the origin of breakthrough from the curse of Eti.

Abameta

Aba-meta: The 7th day in which God rested after creation. If God rests, what else can happen? Nothing.

 ‘Aba’, simplistically means suggestion. Suggestions arises out of thoughts and imagination. Thoughts and imaginations are an exercise of reason. Logos.

Why ‘Meta’?... Could this be a far capture of the Trinity?

The chasm of Abameta is a mystery beyond man, it is a realm for the God(s) and divinities. Man’s activities, from Yoruba cultural perspective ends with Eti. This possibly explains why Jews were so stringent with Sabbath. If God rests, creation stops, nothing exists.

But from a Christian perspective, ‘Nothing’ has been personified. It is Mary. A reasonable explanation why the Church dedicates Saturday to the Blessed Virgin.

Ojo Abameta, the day of the Trinity (Meta) where man can only suggest (Aba) but cannot fathom. Nothing exists here, and that Nothing is Mary. She is the bridge linking the meaninglessness of ‘Eti’ with the meaningfulness of ’Aiku’. One can only imagine, but cannot capture, the unfathomable depth of Theological virtue exercised by Mary in order to bridge this gap.

Through Mary’s co-redemptrix action, the Sabbath’s rest lies no more outside the scope of man’s understanding. The reasonability of man within the realms of gods at Abameta, has been captured and actualized within the realm of man through the resurrection of Christ at Aiku, which we shall soon discuss.

If Saturday is your Sabbath, do not stay put, keep searching. If Sunday, welcome to the perpetual reasonable deathlessness of ‘Aiku’.

Aiku

Has anyone wondered why Yoruba calls the first day ‘Aiku’, even before the advent of the Christian experience? The name of this day so perfectly matches the event of Resurrection. ‘Ojo Aiku’. The day when we do not die.

The book of Genesis describes that on the first day light was created. ‘Let there be light’. Jesus described Himself as ‘the light of the world’. Every astronomical evidence has always been calculated as a reference with light.

My explanatory inkling is that Yoruba wisdom must have realized from afar, something about the ‘deathlessness’ of light and thus, refer the first day ‘Aiku’. This is not impossible because, before Christianity, many cultures, Hindus, Aztecs, Egyptians, have, albeit afar, come about the idea of living forever. The problem was how to arrive at its reality. The Egyptians, for instance pushed into this realm of the dead so much that they used to mummify their dead and bury them with earthly utensils.

Christ’s resurrection was a great paradigm because, for once, all the efforts of these cultures was realized in a single event. One man was dead, was buried and on the 3rd day, was resurrected, to die no more. He was seen, felt, touched, spoken with and dined with. The whole longings of the whole Yoruba race in naming the first day ‘Ojo Aiku’ was realized perfectly in Christ. ‘Aiku’ transcended from just being an ‘Aba’ (idea) of the ancient cultures (remember Abameta), unto becoming the reality of the Christian experience.

‘You are a new creation, old things have passed, behold all things have become new!’. Christians are children of ‘Aiku’; ever creating and recreating, ever renewing, ever resurrecting, no dull moment.  ‘Aiku’, being the dawn and first day of creation, a day of newness and fresh vigour, does not require the rest of ‘Abameta’. God is not tired. ‘Let there be light’.

 The cursed work of man in Eden has been reversed by the new work of Resurrection. A Christian does not loathe work, because God is Love and Love is a verb, an action word. ‘Behold I go on working...’ says Christ. This in no way negate the rest of Sabbath. While work is a blessing not a curse, but ‘The greatest among you must be the slave and servant of all’.  Our rest on Sunday allows God – the greatest in our lives- to serve us by renewing the entire week for us.

Conclusion

Time, as we know it now, is a mystery and an illusion, but more a mystery than an illusion. The qualitative nature of our days within events and experience are of more value than its quantitative nature, which happens through the ticking of the clock. The real key is orientation, the perspective and outlook at which we approach life, which is called faith.

The entire life orientation of individuals, people, groups, or nations, can be dictated and overwhelmed by one day, over others, while, every day, hour, minute, or second- can encompass these 7 days as an experience.

To a greater or lesser degree, we would all have to undergo the 7 days of creation in our lives if we are to be perfected. The only means of transcending life’s ‘Eti’ unto the reasonableness of ‘Abameta’, into the newness of ‘Aiku’, is through a new orientation, called faith. Faith in a person, who has only broken the yoke of Eti: Christ Jesus, Our Lord.

Mary (5) Just how much of Mary do we (have we) know(n)?

This chapter, an important milestone to the ongoing discussions on the primordial, anthropological and Judeo-Christian significance of Mary, is aimed at further clarifying her relevance within salient aspects of our secularistic culture, this time, more from a Christian perspective.

Sceptics have often disputed as bogus; the revelations of Marian relevance as occurs in the light of the New Testament from the Old Testament. How much of Mary, from Genesis is being fulfilled and corrected in Revelations? How can we discover within authentic Christian experience, a credible juxtaposition of her relevance as the new Eve, and as the Ark of the Covenant?

How much has further doctrinal claims about her Perpetual Virginity, her Immaculate Conception, Assumption, or as the Mother of God, by the Catholic Church, complicated Her contemporaneousness in our day? Are these claims just frivolous assertions, or are there indeed further mysteries yet to be discovered about this woman?

Credible evidences suggest that our civilisation is moving from the age of John, an age set by rules and prowess; unto an age of Mary, an occasion for ‘disarming beauty’, as Julian Carron puts it, where many who understand how to let go and let God, are champions.

What is the mystery, we may ask, behind and between John the Baptist and Mary? What prompted John to choose a lifelong vocation of baptism? What did John experience of Jesus in the water of Mary’s womb and what transpired between them during Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth. There are far greater depths to what we casually read in the scripture (Lk 1: 39 - 56).

The testimony of a woman was disregarded in her time, how much then, of Mary’s mind was revealed by John in the knowledge of the God-Man, Jesus the Christ? Of any man born of a woman, there is none greater than John (Lk 7: 28), and of any woman born of a woman, there is none greater than Mary (Lk 1: 42).

John decreased for Christ to increase, and Mary too must decrease for Christ to increase (Jn 3:30). But Mary’s form of decrease, unlike John’s, is not unto death (Jn 11:4). Her decrease is of a greater depth of humility which is intrinsically tied to truth, which consists of her nothingness, lowliness and littleness.

1.       Her Nothingness, the deepest awareness of the truth of her being as an absolute dependent on God. The genius of Mary lies in her realisation that she exists only as a Reference, that she is, yet she is not. The greatest truth to be learnt in Mary is that matter is a lie, and becomes true, only, as a reference to the ‘I Am’. Recent scientific progress on the holographic nature of the cosmos is revealing this fact more and more. Nature may harbour a vacuum but God does not. The eternal nothingness of Mary is the nothingness leading to the Paradise of Christ.

2.       Her lowliness, her great aptitude at understanding that the way up, is down. Steve Job’s counsel about ‘Being foolish and being hungry’ finds an ideal representation in Mary. She knows how to rush, not to the highest, but to the very lowest places, and how to repeat with the greatest confidence the poor Tax Collector’s plea (Lk 18:10-14). She is an adept at stooping to conquer!  That is the secrete of her triumph over evil. She is the lowest of the lowest, she often passes unknown and unnoticed. She is, as gentle as silence, as a result, even angels often ask who she is (SoS: 6:10).

3.       Her littleness, her willingness and placidity at being carried through thick and thin, and at being directed absolutely by God. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38). These words through which God’s heart was won, sums up the alchemical sentence that remade Eve and which in an instant overturned an age long primordial curse on humanity. For, if:

Eve was Immaculately created (Gen 2: 23)

Mary was Immaculately conceived (Lk 1: 28)

Eve was the mother of the living now dead by sin (Gen 3: 20)

Mary is the Mother of the dead, now restored to life by grace (Lk 1:32)

Eve is the mother of all sold as slaves to sin

Mary is the Mother of all ransomed from sin to grace

Eve caused the loss of lives by pride (Gen 3: 5)

Mary causes the gain of lives by humility (Lk 1: 35)

Eve would like to be God (Gen 3: 5)

Mary would allow God to be man (Lk1:35)

Eve is the spouse of a man who would live by being God (Gen 3:5)

Mary is the Mother of the God who would die by being man (Jn 1:14)

Eve is a Cause of perpetual sinfulness (Gen 3: 9-16)

Mary is a Cause of perpetual sinlessness (Lk 1: 28)

Eve was accursed for her disobedience (Gen 3: 16)

Mary is Blessed for her obedience (Lk 1: 48)

Eve was at the beginning of time

Mary is till the end of time, and forever!

“I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers, it will bruise your head and you will strike ‘its heel’.” (Gen 3: 15)

“Then the dragon was enraged with the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, who obey God’s commandment and have in themselves the witness of Jesus” (Rev 12:17)

The disobedience of Adam through Eve, is a call to schism, it is a great revolt, a setting up of perpetual war, a rebellion, a break between the relationship of man with the Divine essence, unto perpetual fear, loneliness, agony and sadness of Satan.

To eat the fruit is to wage war against God. This is the result of the banishment. But Christ, made little less than a God (Ps 8:5) in Mary by the Holy Spirit, has come to restore this lost essence unto something far better than the Divine relationship. It is that of Divine unity. o happy fault!

In Mary, we see a fully trained disciple of the kingdom who brings out of her storeroom, treasures both old and new (Mt 13:52), we discover a transcription and interplay of the paradox of life, the Ancient and the Modern, The Old and the New Testament, Genesis and Revelation.

Just how much of Mary do we know and have we known? Under the present circumstance, how much of Eve’s error do we see corrected by Mary, in Christ? The study is an eternal one, and the more we see, the more we are awed at the length God goes to glorify crude humans, and the more we are comforted and assured of our own end.

Mary (4) Does Karma Exist? Between Father Abraham and Mother Mary.

What is Karma?

Karma, a concept prevalent within Eastern religions, is the basis of the universal law which simplistically means, what you sow is what you reap. Karma says that the sum of a person's actions decides his fate, good or bad.

What is faith?

Faith is confidence or trust in God and in His revelation.

Abraham, often referred to as the Father of faith, discovered God as one, and it is upon his faith in the one true God that the 3 Abrahamic religions:  Moses’ Judaism, Muhammed’s Islam and Christ’s Christianity, found their root.

Abraham believed in God, and God credited this belief to him as righteousness (Gen 15: 6). Moses built Judaism on the basis of Abraham’s faith. Shahada, the uppermost pillar of Islam, has a claim rooted within the archetype of Abrahamic faith. Christianity insists that a person is justified by an expression of a faith in Christ that is rooted with Abraham.

The scandal within these 3 beliefs whose foundations are entrenched upon the faith of Abraham is that they are themselves involved in a seemingly unending tussle of faith within and between each other.

These historic crises of belief began with the Christianisation of Judah, followed by a long persecution of the Jews by Christians from the 4th century, culminating in the holocaust of the early 20th century.

The long Jihadist insurrection in the 7th century which Islamised the entire Middle East, Turkey, North Africa and parts of Europe, the Crusade years between the 11th and 13th century, the Ottoman Jihad of the 16th century, have also struck indelible roots of discord that are still just fresh today.

The 19th and 20th century rise of Zionism, and the recent rise in Islamic radicalism are the present situation which appear as the tipping palates marking the future trajectory of the world’s fate.

All these crises amongst and between Abraham’s descendants, may be traced to a strategic miscalculation, starting from a well-meaning suggestion from Sarah, the wife of Abraham in the book of Genesis.

Since they could not bear any child, Sarah’s suggestion was that, her husband should sleep with Hagar their Egyptian slave girl with a view towards having a so much needed offspring (Gen 16: 1-4). Hagar got pregnant and had a son and named him Ishmael, whom the Moslems claim to be descended from.

Sarah fell out with Hagar and would have her sent packing into the desert. Abraham was distressed about this, but God admonished him to acquiesce to Sarah’s request, promising also to make Ishmael into a great nation (Gen 21: 9-17).

While Abraham’s impatience may be looked at as a consolation towards confronting our own imperfections, this did not remove the ordeals already transfused from the consequences of an action that has resulted into deep schisms amongst the 3 Monotheist Faiths descended from him, up till this day.

Had Abraham and Sarah waited on the Lord a little bit more, perhaps the present crises would have been abated or lessened. The intricacies of destiny and free will- but, Que sera sera.

This singular mistake from Abraham has translated into varied schisms through generations, beginning from his two grandchildren: Esau and Jacob( Gen 25:19-34; 27: 1- 45), down to the wider schism from David’s house (1 Kg 12: 20), through the rupture between Judaism and Christianity in the 1st century, the separation of the Eastern and Western Church in the 11th century, the massive cracks within Catholicism during Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, the long standing disagreements between Sunnis and Shiites, and every form of rivalry as already enumerated amongst the descendants of Abraham.

Woe unto a culture that alienate women, for it would be a woman who, with faith, would begin to make right this Abrahamic error. A daughter of Abraham has become a Mother of faith. She is charged with the providence of undoing the knot behind Abraham’s decision with Hagar, bringing about a reconciliation that is poised towards turning every error around, down to its very roots.

Both were specially chosen and blessed by God, changing the course of history.
One, was a father of faith, ushering in the Old Testament, the other, a mother of faith, ushering in the New Testament.
One gave it all up for the benefit of a promised land and a multitude of descendants (Gen 12).
The other gave it all up for the pain of being mother of God and of all that live (Lk 1: 30-32, Rev 12).
For both, a child was promised, they both did not understand the possibility (Gen 15: 1 -8, Lk 1: 34)
Sons were born by both. One’s son is a creature; the other’s son is the Creator (Gen Lk 21:1-7).
His descendants are held bound by the law. Her descendants are free of the law (Rom 8: 1-3).
Each surrendered their sons, one’s son was spared, the other’s son was slaughtered (Gen 22: 1 -19; Jn 19.
One’s son was replaced by a ram; the other’s son was the Lamb of God who replaces the descendants of the first (Gen 22: 8, 12-14; Jn 1: 29, Rev 5:6; 21: 14).
One, the father of nations, the other, the mother of the Lord of nations (Gen 17: 4- 7; Tim 6:15, Rev 17:14, 19: 16).

Mary, is making right a karma beleaguering Father Abraham through her total abandonment to God. She is not only the mother of Christians, she is also the mother of all humanity.

Mary, Maryam the mother of Christ, was confirmed by Mohammad in Islam, as foremost of the women who have attained perfection, and she seem to have initiated the Marian civilisation as a means of Christian reconciliation with Islam, by choosing to appear at Fatima in 1917, a town named after Mohammad's daughter, a woman believed within Islam as second only to Mary in perfection.

Karma exists, but it is by Mary that a path is introduced in Christ the God man, where the consequences of causes and effects are positively warped, and every mistake, error, weakness, fault, sin and evil, shall be leveraged, mitigated, exorcised and changed into a happy fault.

The crises of faith between the children of Abraham would be resolved by the continual acknowledgement of this daughter of Abraham. The more that Marian consciousness grows, the more the synergy between the 3 Abrahamic faiths would be developed and streamlined. And why is this needed? It is for mercy’s sake.

The covenant of God with Abraham is that of mercy, which, starting from the forgiveness of sins (Ps 130: 3-4), leads to a multitude of blessings and abundance, in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, which are poured into our bosom, and where, starting from the faith of Abraham, the measure that we use, shall not be measured back unto us (Lk 6: 38)

Mary (3) Where Does Water Come From?

Where does water come from?

Science has little to tell regarding the origin of water, so, we return to the holy scripture for succour:

God created heaven and earth. And the earth was a formless void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters (Gen 1: 1-2).

This initial creative description appears to have the heaven, the earth, darkness, and water, as progenitors of the 7-day creation account that followed. Its visible Protagonist being the Spirit of God which hovered over the waters, because, from the onset, there seem to exist an intrinsic belovedness and unity between the Spirit and water.

Science has poked through the heavens and has provided certain explanations regarding the origin of the earth with the Big Bang theory. It has also offered propositions about the existence of darkness with the Black holes theorem; but, there is yet to be any credible conclusion about the origin of this colourless, odourless, tasteless, and shapeless element called water. Could water be a mystery that God intends to keep away from us?

Let us hypothetically discuss how the following 7-day creative act of God has developed from the base creations of heavens, earth, darkness and water already discussed.

On the first day, God spoke, He called out light from pre-existing darkness (2 Cor 4: 6; Gen 1: 3) and called it day, and the darkness he called night, thus setting history into motion. Evening came, morning came… (Gen 1: 4-5) first day.

The firmament was called forth from pre-existing waters, and, just as he separated light from darkness on the first day, with the aid of the firmaments, he divided the waters above from the waters below, (Gen 1: 6-8) …second day.

God teamed up all the waters below the firmament and land was born (Gen 1: 9). Water is the mother of land and subsequently everything that came out from the land: grass, herbs, trees (Gen 1: 11- 12) … third day.

God created other lights in the firmament of heaven (Gen 1: 14) to rule over days and nights, and to divide light from darkness. Light, the first creative master, rules the night and is divided from darkness (Gen 1: 15-18) ...fourth day.

Here we see why Science studies the cosmos as a reference to light (the speed of light). This is because God intends lights to rule and to be used for signs, for seasons, for days and for years (Gen 1:14).

The fourth day probably explains why man finds himself subordinated to the gods (lights) of the heavens. The ancients, and now the modern, through Science, worship the rulers above the firmament (the lights). You worship anything that you are totally subordinated and devoted to.

Science is entirely subordinated to the rules of the cosmos as dictated by the direction and speed of light, its Lord. But this is not enough, because a man has come as the Light of the world (Jn 8:12), and has named his followers also as such (Mt 5:14). He arrived and changed the dynamics of this subordination and devotion. We shall return to this subject later, but meanwhile, let us return to the creation account.

God was not yet finished with water, He commanded her to bring forth living creatures, fish and birds inclusive. Scripture at this point specifically uses the word ‘living’. Every living creature came out of water, and God blessed them with a mandate to replicate (Gen 1:20-23) which is characteristic of any living organism …fifth day

Land, which comes from water on the third day, produces cattle, creeping things, beasts … (Gen 1:24) and lastly man was also created out from the land in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-31) … sixth day.

Man, who comes out from the land that is born of water, has a double mandate of ruling over all that is beneath the firmaments, and of replicating its own kind. Man is therefore the Lord of everything that is born, either of water or of the land.

Vain subordination and devotion to the lights above the firmaments is rampant, but there is a son of man who has given men the audacity to pry boldly into the heavens, no more as worshippers, but as Lords, because it is through Him that humanity can transcend from being images of God unto being Gods.  

The lights are rulers of the heavens and the cosmos which have a finiteness (Lk 21:33) because they are ingrained within the dynamics of laws, but the son of man brings something far more. He is the Word which never passes away (Lk 21:33), He completes these laws (Mt 5:17) that we may transcend them by providing believers with the spring of water which wells up to eternity (Jn 4:14), thus creating a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21: 1).

The root of this transformation is found in the nothingness of Mary who is the predominant archetype and medium by which God is begotten through water, blood and Spirit, which are the 3 witnesses of grace of which she is graced with its plenitude (Lk 1: 28).

Stephen Hawking may not be far from the kingdom of God (Mk 12:34) by declaring in The Grand Design that the universe can generate itself out of nothing. He simply did not know that this nothing has been personified in Mary.

Christ is born of a woman (Gal 4:4) by water, blood and spirit: the 3 entities that bear witness both on earth and in heaven (1 Jn 5:6-8). The Spirit, the third person by whom He became incarnate in her, we know. Blood (and flesh), a constituent of the human souls, we can tell. But what about water, the third witness that is in her?

Every baby in the womb of a woman develops inside an amniotic sac of water. The breaking of this water is what precedes the delivery of a baby during labour. Water which happens as a form of birth, surrounds the entire mission of Christ, at His Incarnation inside the amniotic sack of Mary, at His baptism at River Jordan (Mt 3:13-17), from the gushing forth of water and blood from His side during His crucifixion (Jn 19:34) which is the bringing forth of His Church.

Christ’s legacy of Baptism, without which no man can enter His Kingdom (Jn 3: 3-7), also introduces this mystery of water. Being born again by the Spirit is understandable, but why would Christ insist that one must also be born of water to be saved?

Water happens as a paradox of life and death and leaves more questions asked than answered. How many cities and civilisations throughout history have sprung forth around, and because of water. Scientists keep scanning the entire cosmos for life using evidences of water as basis for signs of life. Water remains very indispensable for life, and as the Afrobeat legend puts it: ‘Water no get enemy, if you fight am, unless you wan die’.

This death by water talked about happens to the uninitiated (unbaptised). The event of crossing of the Red Sea shows this (Ex:14), the water which gushed forth from the Dragon to kill the woman in Revelations is another example (Rev: 12-16) and many people with near death experiences have equally recounted their experiences of water as agents of death.

It is only by the experience of Christ that we can experience water as a lasting and authentic source of life that transcends rules. The bridge between this old and new life, between death and life, is she who dwells in the secret shelter of the Most high (Ps 91:1). The recognition of Mary as an ancient and eternal transition forward from the old to the new is that which provides an opening unto the real Israel which is the reign of her Divine Son, Christ Jesus.

Copernicus and Galileo may after all be wrong in saying that the sun is the centre of the universe. It depends on the manner of seeing.  Faith often enables belief before sight. The sun which rules the heavens is not the centre of the universe. The earth, this little speck from the vast cosmos is that which the entire universe serves and which begets God.

Earth is where the replication of life governed by Eve, the mother of all that live subsists. Not the old Eve by which we see the sun’s supremacy, but the new Eve, Mary, by whom the true Sun of Justice, the son of man, is the true centre.

“Truly, unless a man is born of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven” (Jn 3:3). Christ’s mission, in His essence is to get man back to the roots of creation. We are the reason why He went through the agony of the Cross, to integrate us back into the pure mystery of this primordial creation.

This land, of which man receives his blessings, was created, born of water and the spirit (Jn 3:5), and it is from this land that Christ was born in its purest form. The land is Mary. “Woman, behold thy son” (Jn19:26). That is love to its highest limits. “Woman behold the son”.

Remember the 3^rd day. Land was created out of water on the 3^rd day, Christ rose on the 3^rd day. Being born of water and the Holy Spirit is just a call on man to retrace his roots into his peaceful essence through the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection, which He underwent solely for us, but which He acquired in Mary for Himself, that which He also wishes to share. “Woman behold the son”.

So, where does water come from? 

The new primordial water which saves is embedded within the new archetypal creation which is Mary, she is the new creature through which new creations are begotten.  It is from her amniotic sac of water that the new citizens of the new creation, the sons of God are begotten.

The origin of water is from the humble bosom of Mary.

MARY (1) Is Earth a Woman?

We begin from the murkiest and most controversial: The objection to Marian devotion as remnant of cultic practices accorded to Pagan deities. Let us here, then, explore the anthropological root of deities from the development of myths with cultural antecedents, and compare this with the relevance of Mary in our modern times.

Archaeological researches suggest that the earliest representation of Pagan deities started as that of females. This is easy to comprehend from a Christological perspective because, Eve fell before Adam and fallen humanity has its base rooted in womanhood (Gen: 3).

But as the necessity for freedom grows for humanity, struggle prevailed and prowess overshadowed nurture in the idea of survival between civilisations. The deity trajectory became bent towards the masculine framework as a result.

Ancestral rituals and the worship of female deities survived though, and the worship of goddesses like Brigid of the Celts, Kuan-Yin of Buddhists, Shakti of the Hindus, Freya of the Norse, Athena of the Greeks, Olokun of Yorubas and Edos, and Isis of Egypt, persisted even to our day.

As a node of deliberation on this subject, let us pick on Isis, the most popular Egyptian goddess of her time. First, because, upon reflection, we see that the Israelite and Christian antecedent has always borne a certain scar of Egypt. For instance, Israelites were brought out of Egypt by the powerful hand of God (Ex: 12). Christ Himself, through the hand of destiny, was brought up, raised and migrated to Israel from Egypt.  ‘From Egypt I call my Son’ (Mt 2: 15; Hos 11: 1).

Another reason is because, careful studies show evidences of similarities between the Isis/Osiris mythology and the Christian historical events relating to the Resurrection from the dead and rites of baptism, and how the age long attempts by Egyptian Civilisation at cracking the code of afterlife was indeed realised only through the resurrection of Christ.

Lastly, because, more than any pantheon and pagan deity, sceptics have largely accused Marian devotions as still retaining certain elements of practices from this Isis cult.

Regarding this last point, let us start by reflecting on the Christian encounter, which often happens amidst the daily struggles of cultural life. In fact, the entire Israelite and Christian (Christians being the new Israel) life is rooted in this daily struggle (Mt 10: 34).

A Christian’s struggle is not against flesh and blood (Eph 6: 12-13) and her encounter with non-permissive cultures is not a confrontational one, rather, she lives through this culture and changes it while striving at retaining her identity as reflected in the person of Christ.

An authentic Christian knows whom he serves, and while he is not rigid, becoming all things to all men (1 Cor 19:23), nevertheless he does not get tossed around by the wind of every ideology (Eph 4: 14). Living amidst these struggles with paganism, he learns to survive by being gentle as a dove and being wise like a serpent (Mt 10: 16).

We would like to think of the ancient past as being more demonic and chaotic because of her numerous deities. But we only must look around to witness the existence of extremely rebellious, diabolic and paganistic trends that proliferate our modern circumstance too. The demons are here, ancient gate will fight before it rises! These evils, thwarting the hearts and minds of men, are mostly lurked within the sex of media, the money of business and the power of politics (1 Jn 2: 16). Christians do not run away from such battles. They win by engaging with each determinants of cultural realities.

Mary, this foremost archetype of Christianity, did not run from the cultural scandal of her time, she stayed at the foot of the cross and conquered, rooted in faith and helped by grace. It is in Mary’s nature to conquer, not through morbid alienation, but by humble engagement. This is the manner in which she is terrible to demons as an army set in battle array (Sos 6: 10).

It is true that a presumptuous meddle with these ‘powers-that-be’ can be a perilous invitation to doom; but, when we alienate by fleeing, when we, in the guise of not causing offense, throw away the baby of truth with the water of Paganism, we run the danger of ultimately becoming that which we flee from, just like that servant who hid his talents and believed himself to be smart (Mt 25:14-30).

It was Man who was created from dust, but it was the woman who perpetuated this dust through childbirth, and because of her primordial alliance with the serpent, she won a greater control of this fall into dust as she became the origin of human deities (Gen 3: 16).

The genealogy of every human can be traced, not through a man’s Y chromosome, but only through the mitochondria produced by a woman. Every man and woman is born of a woman, and everyone, ever since the Fall, needs a woman as a gate leading, either to the arc of freedom or to the ring of perdition.

A woman appeared in the book of Revelation (Rev:12), clothed with the sun, the moon was under her feet and she was adorned with a crown of 12 stars. Sun, moon, stars: a depiction of the entire cosmos. But this leaves one wondering, where is the earth? That woman herself who is Mary, is the Earth, she is the creation which groans in labour of childbirth (Rev 12: 2; Rm 8: 22), she is the new Eve who governs the entire cosmos through a new way of seeing, a true reason for hoping and a divine manner of loving.

But this earth, a woman, is dust, she is ‘nothing’ (Gen 3:19), and her deep recognition of this fact also becomes her ultimate triumph over evil, paganism and every cultural ideology at odd with the freedom of man. You know you are dust o Mary, but dust of a refined mitochondria you are; and this pure humility of yours is the truth which liberates you, and us and every humanity who follows your awareness (Jn 8: 32).

The intense recognition of this fact is the dynamism of the eternal triumph of Mary, forcing a transition of the Egyptian Isis, which is an orientation carved from the archetype of the old Eve, and opening up, like the parted Red Sea (Ex 14: 21), unto the new Israel which is the reign of her Divine Son, Christ Jesus, a man, born of a woman that is dust and ash, who redeems every son of woman condemned to the bondage of this rebellion (Gal 4:4).

Mary is more relevant today, even as we strive by the Passion and Resurrection of Christ our Lord, within the Egyptian cultural paradox that dictates our age, towards the new Israel of God (Gal 6: 14-16).

Mary is the daughter of Abraham who has taken control of the gates of her enemies (Gen 22: 17; Lk 1: 55) and thus becomes the ancient gateway that willingly rises that Christ, the King of glory may enter therein for our peace and liberation (Ps 24:7).

MARY (INTRODUCTION)

The following weeks of Lent would be both exciting and challenging for me because I shall try, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to migrate piety within the root determinants of our daily existence, by delving through obscure frontages leading to the relevance of the Blessed Virgin within the intricacies of our modern life.

My conviction is that Mary is the Dawn of the next civilisation, a civilisation that has already budded. The coming weeks’ submissions would not, as such, be made from the frontage of piety, but as a development of realities of our current civilisation, from the synergy of factors that have structured our modern era, seen through the realms of its roots, especially in the fields of Anthropology, Philosophy, Science, Politics, Economics, Theology, Feminism and Sustainability.

While some would wonder about the correlation of Mary, an article stigmated to the realm of faith, with realities of our modern livelihood, I reply briefly defending her contemporaneousness with a statement of hers when she broke into our time and space in 1917 at Fatima and delved into the politics of the time as she said: '… Russia will be converted, and there will be peace…'. That doesn’t sound like a chiming bell from Sistine Chapel, that is the Madonna breaking into real world politics that has rocked the world up till now.

Our modern existence has been battered into accepting a flawed patrimony of a division of State and Faith, and the State triumphs at the expense of Faith because of the Mammon factor. This condition has its root in the French Revolution, and as such, many do not see the direct relevance, for instance, of Mass on Sunday, and Profession on Monday. Piety is now extraneous to work. A dichotomy from State is not what is needed, a dialogue with State is and the dawn of Marian Civilisation would show and resolve this.

We are already witnessing a global age of radicality and flexing of muscles, underlining these struggles are proposition of ideas that intend to shape the next age of existence. This may well turn into a global crisis but it is not yet the end of the world.

The world may not end too soon, Christ will not come until there appears on earth the age of Mary. The eschatological dimension would only be opened through the gate of Mary. The same path He thread at His first coming would be the same path He would thread at His second coming, even if the manner of approach is radically different.

It is already certain that the different power blocks are involved in ideological struggles that are posed towards championing the next age, and here I shall stand and propose to you a totally unknown path that would come out as champion of this struggle: The humility of Mary.

“In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph”
- Our Lady of Fatima (1917)