TIME, SPACE, ENTROPY AND OUR SALVATION

During the Fall of Man, space and time seized becoming a unity , hence ‘time waits for no man’ and ‘time is not our friend’, but this ‘time, also heals all hurts’.  With time, Time gets tired of its speed and acceleration’, for those who know how to wait. Suurulere.

The model of this waiting is Mary. Hence, when time got tired and became spent, ‘at the fullness of time’, God was born of a woman. This is the genesis of authentic serendipity which happens to the meek and humble. 

How can we sinners, who leave amidst the conflict of time and space presume to do without Mary? Time, as we know it today, has become a big illusion in Mary, by her faith. ‘Be still and know that I am God’. It all happens with the faith and surrender of a woman. 

In our age, the strategic disposition of the Church is to station Mary as the Mother of God within the genesis of time illusion, (January the 1st) and ultimately defeat this entropy that exist in the mind of man as a result of faithlessness. ‘He who does not gather with me scatters’ so says the Lord. 

A popular Scientist, in describing the hopelessness of correcting entropy said the issue is like a scrambled omelette which can never become a hatched egg 🍳 🥚 . That ‘impossibility’ is precisely what Christ has come to correct through the faithfulness and humility of Mary.

TEACHING: A SUPERIOR ACT OF CHARITY

The manner this has been deeply impressed on me now makes the difference . There is a saying: ‘It is not so much giving men fish but teaching them how to fish that counts’. When we give men fish (which we should rightly do) we have only practised a non sustaining, ephemeral, and risky action ( love is a risk anyway) , which would probably come back to haunt in this plane of existence. Christ’s efforts at miracles often hardened their hearts, because man is corrupted.  The better strategy is to teach and perform the principal task of a teacher: letting go, even to the point of death. 

The moment Mary introduced Jesus into open miracle was the commencement of His passion. He had always constantly performed miracles beforehand but was so disinterested that no one knew the source of goodness in there lives. Only deepest faith like Mary can perceive that miracles happen continuously , but His self manifestation at Canaan only pointed to Calvary. Mary, for the love of humanity, you showed your Son the pathway to Calvary. Oore ni’won. But, God does not know how to measure gifts, it is in His nature to give over abundantly. Ko dun, ko po, ko pe, Oluwa lo n fun ni I se.

Back to our point. Teaching is very far superior to material giving. That is why Christ is the ultimate Teacher who sets Himself towards teaching others. Material miracles often comes only after He has set himself to teach them. 

The loftiest vocation is that of a teacher. This purpose informed why the Apostles devoted themselves to teaching and left the lower tasks to Deacons. But 99.99% of us are more interested in the latter because of its immediate gratification. 

The burden of application of what has been taught, weighs upon the learner. If we can apply successfully, it yields what Economists call ‘compound interest ’, that is life . Christ said: not everyone who call me Lord Lord will be with Me, but those who do the will of My Father 

The application of Christ teaching often involves letting go, skinning ourselves (detachment) to arrive at the point of ‘compound interest ’. The reason why Christ admonished us not to call any man a teacher is the fact that others can only point the way. When we trust Him, He not only points the way , but follow through the way with us because He is the Way. This is what grace does. This is why He only is ‘O-ran-mo-nise-faya-ti’.

As in heaven, so on earth. The bulk of problems most Students face is not in the area of knowledge or critical analysis, but in the area of Application. That is why the Application aspect of study is left until the final year when the student has been sufficiently taught and supposedly mature. Few people can apply in the face of worldly catastrophes. That is why many graduates 🎓 go seeking the safe harbour of employment which is a partial risk of application. Entrepreneurship,  a tasking and risky endeavour is what really pushes knowledge to the utmost test, it really opens us up to the path of application and unlearning the learnt. Aye le, eniyan soro...

The bulk of this ‘do what I tell you’ winner that Christ hints is why Application is the key and why without His grace, Application is useless, and why without faith and trust in Him it is impossible to receive this grace. Faith comes first. The bulk of our Spiritual works should be geared towards this work and manner of seeing. Without Him we can do nothing.

The basis is not to stop giving, it is to understand that the superior work lies in teaching, especially in a teaching that involves letting go, in being detached, because every teacher is also a learner, and the bulk of this learning consists in detachment. A teacher should not force, he must respect the learner’s free will. Forcing plays according to rules and laws, and there is a karma with a teaching that uses force. You might have a sufficient broadened heart to cope with its boomerang, just as Christ did after He drove out His point by driving the traders from the temple, but we cannot arrive at the point of abundance without ‘poverty’. Steve Jobs counseled His Students to be foolish, to be hungry.. ‘Eni ti o se bi alaaru l’Oyingbo, ko le se bi Adegboro l’Oja Oba’ . But this detachment should not be forced (only on ourselves) ,  the learner should be allowed to arrive at experience in freedom.

Giving has to lead to teaching, teaching is useless without acquiring knowledge, knowledge is useless without application of what is learnt, Application is useless without cultivating a detached spirit , detachment is useless without grace, grace is impossible without faith in Christ the only authentic Teacher! And this faith will be unnecessary without a burning fire 🔥 of ❤️ love!

THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS : INTRODUCTION

Assume briefly, that you have heard nothing -or very little- about the Christian message and have entered a Church. What do you see?  

All that  imposes on you will be visible signs of sufferings and death. For instance, right ahead inside the Church you see the sculpture of a dead man on a cross. On her walls are lined portraits and paintings of vivid suffering, and in some you have actual graves of men literally buried. Without looking hard and far, the Church is simply a personification of sorrow and death.

Look hard and far enough, and by grace you can discover at the other end of the Church, across to the periphery, something upon which the Church, the world and the entire Civilisation is sustained: It is a Living Bread! This Bread is not made cheap, it comes from the Mass, which itself is an experiential death. It takes the death of God to be sustained in the Tabernacle.

True life can be discovered through the mystery of death, as personified by the Church. The story of suffering and death lining the Church’s interiors is an unwritten message about the mystery of love and life, and the paradox of death and life, where death is a transition to the eternal life of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the true life of the Church! That is why it is described as the source and summit of the Christian life by the Church (CCC 1324).

To reverse the Fall at Eden, we need to eat of the fruit of the tree of life, which is the Eucharist. But effort is required if we are to pass through the gate of Eden where this fruit is grown, because fiery angels with blazing swords have been stationed (Gen 3:24).  Without faith in Jesus the Christ, one can be consumed by the death personified within the Church, a necessary path to the tree of life. This path is the Way of the Cross!

The one lesson to be learnt about life is that without the cross, there can be no crown. One cannot separate love from suffering, freedom from toil, life from death. This is the great life’s Paradox.

How then can a modern person, filled with doubt, pleasure and sloth, come to term with this difficult rationale of the cross? This shall be my task during this Lenten Season: to journey in writing through the 14 Stations of the Passion of Our Lord from a modern-man perspective, and (hopefully) show the fact that, even in our modern age, the greatest means to freedom is the loving acceptance of Our Lord’s cross.

He invites us not to shoulder any cross but His’ (Mt 11:28-30), because His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. He will help us, He is Love and when we love, there is no suffering because, pain disappears.

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.