10.11.2005

50._ Trauma

Peter and the other disciples of Jesus constituted a small group brutally traumatized by the crucifixion. Dispersed, hidden, shamed, demoralized. Destroyed were their dreams and their hopes. They now had to lower to the reality. To return with their families, to their occupations, to continue living. We imagine that many heard the reproach: "I told you that you did not go with that man". Their master had been a deluded, a visionary, a crazy person. Not even was he calm dead and with dignity like a Socrate, but of terrible and shamefaced way, like the worse one of the criminals.

And they that made accounts of their future benefits in the messianic Kingdom, which to the most important positions and the best sites already were distributed, which had trusted being generously compensated for to follow him... how stupid, how utopian, how irresponsible, how useless, had they been! Now they would be persecuted by the powerful authorities of Jerusalem, perhaps even in their same villages of Galilea; perhaps they would be catched by the frightful Roman soldiers and be submitted to torture and until death, also. And all those beautiful doctrines of peace, love, pardon, confidence, of what they served? There was among them no a leader, a successor who could animate them. Peter, the one that had been most decided, had turned out to be a cowardly one; with what face he would watch his companions?

51._ Faith

We think that that would be the mood among them.

Nevertheless, in a short term, that group would face and win to the world.

Who did not dare to confess his truth to a maid, he would proclaim it to shouts to all the crowd.
Who was shamed of being deluded, would invite to be it, and he would convince, to thousands of people.
Who feared the Romans and to the Jews of Jerusalem, by being only a galilean poor fisher man, would teach to the people of all the languages, of all the nations, and would conquer the Empire spiritually.
Who that expressed himself clumsily in aramaean, with the basic culture of a village worker, would inspire the highest and most famous literature of all the times.
Who did not have value to defend a friend, would risk and give his life in the martyrdom by him, without doubting it.
Who remained slept in the moments at which there was necessity to keep guard and to pray, he would be the comforter, the entertainer of the hearts of million and million men and women, the channel of their orations, their meditations, their mystical rapts, their poems, their art, their music...

How it is possible! What has occurred here!?
The answer is: "They believed in the resurrection of Jesus".

52._ Resurrection

They received this message, had that conviction. They told that they had had visions, each one separately and altogether. Hallucinations? Autosuggestion caused by the consolation necessity? Collective delirium?

Of course, they had to be extremely vivid hallucinations to create that recovery, that extraordinary confidence. If madness had been to follow that Master before, what would be now, in the presence of his corpse? And they were not comforted by some days, but by the rest of their lives, until giving them to the martyrdom by their faith. This immense conviction, not of a single man but of a whole group, could not be reached being based on doubtful own nor other people's visions. What happened then?

We believe in which they themselves affirmed: that their conviction was work of the spirit of God, operating in their minds, as before acted in the minds of the prophets of Israel. The creative capacity of the apostles, that would transform to the world, was not but the creative capacity of God, inspired of a direct and special way in them, to continue making the work of the Redemption.

And the message of the Spirit was this one: "Jesus, the one that was crucified, has been resurrected; he is truely the Messiah, the Christ; he precedes you in the universal resurrection of all the men to the eternal life with God; believe in Him, convert you to enter his Kingdom ".

53._ First Fruit

God, in His supreme level of cosmic emergence, continued His plan of salvation. He is not a God of deads, but of alive. He "is" the life. His power is unimaginable. He wanted, and could, to revive to His Anointed, to His unique and authentic representative, to his Son so loved in whom He is pleased; to the Word that left His mouth to incarnate Himself in human history, in the interior of the temporary process; to Himself.
God died in Him, to become like His creatures, least and ephemeral; now He will live in God, to make those creatures immense and eternal, like God.

Jesus of Nazareth, that Galilean of a time lost in human history, of a small place of Asia, in the small planet Earth, in the small Solar System, in a small galaxy lost in the Universe, is now the First Fruit of a New Creation, the angular stone of a New Construction, the Word that returns nonempty to God; the Son who, having fulfilled the will of the Father, having fulfilled his mission, brings his fruits, without having lost none. The one that will attract everything towards him; the one that will agglutinate a New Reality, a New Heaven and a New Earth; like the crystal which –-immersed in a solution-- causes the crystallization of all its surroundings.

That man, Jesus, has resurrected. In the threshold of the divine emergence. At the culminating moment of the cosmic evolution, which --speaking in the own time of the universe– is distant from us probably thousands of million years. But which also agrees with a past concrete little moment of our history, in a "temporary loop" caused by the redeeming action of the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, coming from the Father and the Son, whom His resurrection to the men announces.

The disciples were, then, "plenty of the Holy Spirit". From there came their conviction in the resurrection of Jesus; from there came their enormous creative capacity. They experimented in past what is future, they exchanged the uncertainty of the future by the certainty of the past; the event of the resurrection of Christ came to be a little moment of history, twenty centuries ago, which is anticipatory of a future event in the threshold of the last emergence, probably within thousands of million years. It is a real, nonsymbolic nor illusory anticipation. Christ resurrected/will resurrect to the time end; and we will resurrect with Him.

54._ Reimplantation

Our bodies will be destroyed by the death. But the information that defined our identity: the genetic program that determined the structure and functions of our organisms, the memory and the mind that allowed us to be conscious and persistent, all our "software", --our "soul"--, will be accessible to the knowledge of God.

There will not be souls that subsist like independent beings, incorporeal, like ghosts that "live" in an ultra-world waiting the end of the times. No; simply we will disappear after our death and we will return to appear in the threshold of the final emergence. For our personal conscience, between both moments will not have passed any term: the death and the resurrection coincide in the personal time, although in the own time of the universe they are separated of thousands of million years.

This will happen to all the people who exist, have existed and will exist until that final moment. God, from the heights, from the top of the process of cosmic evolution, will see, will know completely and exactly all the universal information of all the times, particularly all the information that determined to us, to each one, as individual. And He will want, and will be able, to revive to us; to reimplant our "software" in a new "hardware", our "souls" in new "bodies", but bodies different from the old ones for lives different from the old ones, spiritual bodies for eternal lives.

55._ Mystical Body

God will make this by means of resurrected Jesus Christ, the first one, the first fruit of those who resurrect. He will be the aglutinator, the dispenser, the irradiator center, the atractor, the impregnator, the source, the door, the way, the reason, the occasion, the head of a "Mystical Body" of which we are called to being members. "He is the grapevine, we the vine shoots".

The Holy Spirit will fill the Mystical Body, flowing towards his members like vivifying blood, alive water, purifying fire, illuminating light, edifying and santifying grace, from Jesus Christ; and thus the Mystical Body will live towards God, will be given to God, to be one with Him, so that "God is all in all".

The collection or recapitulation of all we, of all the existing people --of all the people, human or not, whose existence is possible-- in the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, is called "anakefaleosis". And the union of the Mystical Body with God, so that God is all in all, is called "apokatastasis". Beyond the threshold of final emergence, the apokatastasis will have taken place already: God will be all in all; there will be only God, trascendent, unique, eternal, perfect, immutable; all whatever has been in the universe --including we, naturally-- will be integrated in Him, in the only Being, the only Good, the only Truth, the only Beauty.

Between the moment of the resurrection and the apokatastasis there is the process of the anakefaleosis: the incorporation of everything in Jesus Christ, his Mystical Body. This time will extend until all the incorporable has been incorporated; then Jesus Christ "will put everything under God".

The anakefaleosis will last for always in terms of the personal, existential, human time. We will be for always finishing of incorporating us to the Mystical Body; God will be present always, but "farther"; He will be always the limit towards which we will come near. The time, inexhaustible, of the anakefaleosis, will be the beatitude, the most complete happiness, the fulfilled well-being.

At last we will be "we ourselves", united in the Spirit of Love, towards the Father, with the Son; "with Him, by Him, and in Him, by means of the Holy Spirit, glorifying to the Father by the centuries of the centuries".

56._ Judgment and conversion

We affirm, then, that a person, when she dies, disappears of this world; but from her internal point of view, in her personal time, she revives immediately, like a wake up of a very long surgical operation, but without to have felt nothing and without to have experienced the course of the time, thanks to the most effective of anesthesias: the death. Thousand of million years passed according to the own time of the universe, they are nothing in the personal time: the death and the resurrection are experienced like happened at the same moment.

And the person revives for the anakefaleosis: for the process of her incorporation to the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. But that incorporation implies a radical transformation; she must change, destroying her negative aspects, her "bad side", and developing her positive aspects, her "good side". A purification that never finishes, and that is only possible thanks to the Holy Spirit, to the divine grace that flows from Jesus Christ, but which needs the acceptance and the collaboration of the person: it requires her personal conversion, her repentance, her faith, her confidence, her opening. It is obtained by means of the aid of the grace of God, by means of His persuasion, His seduction, His dialogue "from you to you", His incessant call, His guide, His indulgence, His welcoming benevolence.

If there is acceptance on the part of the person, the incorporation is made smoothly, accelerately, and results in the greatest happiness hers, the complete happiness "that no eye ever saw and no ear ever heard", --unimaginable--, that "God has prepared for His chosen ones".

But if there is rejection, resistance, on the part of the person, then the incorporation cannot take place: it is the condemnation, the desolation; eternally --from the personal point of view-- God will follow insisting, calling her, convincing her, but while she stays in her rejection, she will remain condemned.

The collaboration of the person is demanded by God to respect her freedom, her will; for that reason there was Incarnation, for that reason suffered and died Jesus, to be able to convince us intimately, of equal to equal, respecting us. The revived person will see herself to a new light; she will be able to recognize her faults, her sins, her crimes, her deficiencies; she will feel pain for that reason, she will feel ashamed; but she will be able to surpass it if she trusts the power of the grace of God.

This one is the "personal judgment", beginning of the anacefaleosis for each person.

All we will revive together, in the threshold of the last emergency. To the expression of the will of God, to His voice, to "the sound of the trompet", all we will thus wake up of the death to be judged and to be transformed. All we will experience the "personal judgment" simultaneously.

The human world of the last centuries, which began in the planet Earth and it extended later by all the Universe, will have reached its completion, will have been surpassed. The whole universe will be completing; there will be already no galaxies; everything: matter, energy, space, time, will be "sinking", or "sublimating", in the emergence of God.

And we the resurrected people will feel, next to an indescriptible joy, the sadness of the repentance, the shame by our crimes, the wrath by our stupidity, our meanness, our badness, our injustice. This one will be the called "day of the tears and the wrath". The "day of the Universal Final Judgment".
But the repairing, consoling, indulging, kind, welcoming grace of God, will be calling to us to separate our side "lamb" of our side "kid"; in order to lead us to the reconciliation and the peace; in order to improve us and to take us to the eternal life, purified, converted, transformed, immaculate, saved, born again. To our true "home", to our true "mother country".
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Chapter 15 of the first epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians

I want to make quite clear to you, brothers, what the message of the gospel that I preached to you is;
you accepted it and took your stand on it,
and you are saved by it, if you keep to the message I preached to you;
otherwise your coming to believe was in vain.

The tradition I handed on to you in the first place,
a tradition which I had myself received,
was that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he was buried;
and that on the third day, he was raised to life, in accordance with the scriptures;
and that he appeared to Cephas; and later to the Twelve;
and next he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time,
most of whom are still with us, though some have fallen asleep;
then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles.

Last of all he appeared to me too,
as though I was a child born abnormally.
For I am the least of the apostles and am not really fit to be called an apostle,
because I had been persecuting the Church of God;
but what I am now, I am through the grace of God,
and the grace which was given to me has not been wasted.
Indeed, I have worked harder than all the others-not I, but the grace of God which is with me.
Anyway, whether it was they or I, this is what we preach and what you believed.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead,
how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead?
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ cannot have been raised either,
and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance, and so is your faith.
What is more, we have proved to be false witnesses to God,
for testifying against God that he raised Christ to life
when he did not raise him-if it is true that the dead are not raised.

For, if the dead are not raised, neither is Christ;
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is pointless
and you have not, after all, been released from your sins.
In addition, those who have fallen asleep in Christ are utterly lost.
If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are of all people the most pitiable.

In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead,
as the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep.
As it was by one man that death came,
so through one man has come the resurrection of the dead.
Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life;
but all of them in their proper order: Christ the first-fruits,
and next, at his coming, those who belong to him.

After that will come the end, when he will hand over the kingdom to God the Father,
having abolished every principality, every ruling force and power.
For he is to be king until he has made his enemies his footstool,
and the last of the enemies to be done away with is death,
for he has put all things under his feet.
But when it is said everything is subjected,
this obviously cannot include the One who subjected everything to him.
When everything has been subjected to him,
then the Son himself will be subjected to the One who has subjected everything to him,
so that God may be all in all.

Otherwise, what are people up to who have themselves baptised on behalf of the dead?
If the dead are not raised at all, what is the point of being baptised on their behalf?
And what about us? Why should we endanger ourselves every hour of our lives?
I swear by the pride that I take in you, in Christ Jesus our Lord, that I face death every day.
If I fought wild animals at Ephesus in a purely human perspective, what had I to gain by it?
If the dead are not going to be raised, then Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall be dead.
So do not let anyone lead you astray, 'Bad company corrupts good ways.'
Wake up from your stupor as you should and leave sin alone;
some of you have no understanding of God; I tell you this to instil some shame in you.

Someone may ask: How are dead people raised,
and what sort of body do they have when they come?
How foolish! What you sow must die before it is given new life;
and what you sow is not the body that is to be,
but only a bare grain, of wheat I dare say, or some other kind;
it is God who gives it the sort of body that he has chosen for it,
and for each kind of seed its own kind of body.

Not all flesh is the same flesh: there is human flesh;
animals have another kind of flesh, birds another and fish yet another.
Then there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies;
the heavenly have a splendour of their own, and the earthly a different splendour.
The sun has its own splendour, the moon another splendour,
and the stars yet another splendour; and the stars differ among themselves in splendour.
It is the same too with the resurrection of the dead:
what is sown is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable;
what is sown is contemptible but what is raised is glorious;
what is sown is weak, but what is raised is powerful;
what is sown is a natural body, and what is raised is a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is a spiritual body too.
So the first man, Adam, as scripture says, became a living soul;
and the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit.
But first came the natural body, not the spiritual one; that came only afterwards.
The first man, being made of earth, is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven.
The earthly man is the pattern for earthly people, the heavenly man for heavenly ones.
And as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so we shall bear the likeness of the heavenly one.

What I am saying, brothers, is that mere human nature cannot inherit the kingdom of God:
what is perishable cannot inherit what is imperishable.
Now I am going to tell you a mystery: we are not all going to fall asleep,
but we are all going to be changed, instantly, in the twinkling of an eye, when the last trumpet sounds.
The trumpet is going to sound, and then the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed,
because this perishable nature of ours must put on imperishability, this mortal nature must put on immortality.

And after this perishable nature has put on imperishability and this mortal nature has put on immortality,
then will the words of scripture come true: Death is swallowed up in victory.
Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin comes from the Law.
Thank God, then, for giving us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So, my dear brothers, keep firm and immovable, always abounding in energy for the Lord's work,
being sure that in the Lord none of your labours is wasted.

Of the epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians
He has let us know the mystery of his purpose,
according to his benevolence
which he determined beforehand in Christ,
for him to act upon when the times had run their course:
that he would bring everything together under Christ, as head,
everything in the heavens and everything on earth.
(Ef 1, 9-10)

Prophecies
For your Maker is your husband; Yahveh of Hosts is his name:
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; the God of the whole earth shall he be called.
For Yahweh has called you as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit,
even a wife of youth, when she is cast off, says your God.

For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you.
In overflowing wrath I hid my face from you for a moment;
but with everlasting lovingkindness will I have mercy on you, says Yahweh your Redeemer.

For this is as the waters of Noah to me;
for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth,
so have I sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor rebuke you.

For the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed;
but my lovingkindness shall not depart from you,
neither shall my covenant of peace be removed, says Yahweh who has mercy on you.
(Isaiah 54, 5-10)
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Again he said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and tell them, you dry bones, hear the word of Yahweh.
Thus says the Lord Yahveh to these bones:
Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.
I will lay sinews on you, and will bring up flesh on you,
and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live;
and you shall know that I am Yahveh.

Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel:
behold, they say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.
Therefore prophesy, and tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahveh:
Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people;
and I will bring you into the land of Israel.

You shall know that I am Yahveh, when I have opened your graves,
and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people.
I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land:
and you shall know that I, Yahveh, have spoken it and performed it, says Yahveh.
(Ezekiel 37, 4-6 y 11-14)
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For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all the countries,
and will bring you into your own land.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean:
from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you;
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes,
and you shall keep my ordinances, and do them.
You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers;
and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
(Ezekiel 36, 24-28)
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Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
the first heaven and the first earth had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea.
I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride dressed for her husband.

Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, 'Look, here God lives among human beings.
He will make his home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, God-with-them.
He will wipe away all tears from their eyes;
there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain.
The world of the past has gone.'

Then the One sitting on the throne spoke. 'Look, I am making the whole of creation new.
Write this, "What I am saying is trustworthy and will come true."
Then he said to me, 'It has already happened. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
I will give water from the well of life free to anybody who is thirsty;
anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his God and he will be my son.’
(Revelation 21, 1-7)
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Yahveh is my shepherd,
I lack nothing
In grassy meadows he lets me lie
By tranquil streams he leads me to restore my spirit.

He guides me in paths of saving justice
as befits his name.
Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death
I should fear no danger, for you are at my side
Your staff and your crook are there to soothe me.

You prepare a table for me
under the eyes of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup brims over.

Kindness and faithful love pursue me
every day of my life.
I make my home in the house of Yahveh
for all time to come.
(Psalm 23)
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