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My faithless ‘Christianity’ before I returned

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There’s so much untruth being told to us, by others and ourselves, about Christianity. I should know, because I turned away from Jesus for over two decades on account of such false and dangerous conceptions. The better to warn people of them, I hope.

I remember praying regularly at night well into my second year in high school. By then, though, my worldview must have already been tainted, wherein my prayers resembled a wishlist more than a dialogue with the Lord (I am still working on this). But what clinched it the following year, upon my confirmation as a Catholic, was exposure to New Age ideas, as found in books and magazines. Two big books to me were James Redfield’s ‘The Celestine prophecy’ and Shirley MacLaine’s ‘Going within.’ For some reason, our household had a subscription, possibly complimentary, of ‘Theosophical digest,’ and ideas that I had heard of before, took on a more convincing guise, in particular, reincarnation.

But not literally, stupid

This retouching of one of my notebook covers, circa 2002, is a prime example of my casual New Age-y blasphemy away from Christ. Also implied is my Nietzschean conviction that the ultimate meaning to existence is an aesthetic one.

A lot of what was discussed in New Age literature had to do with reorienting my understanding of religion, in the at-least intellectual acceptance of what I now see plainly as occultism or magic. The Bible? It’s good and all, but not perfect, certainly not understood by the Church hierarchy who either don’t know any better or have ulterior motives. And so I was to take much of the so-called Word of God as merely symbolic, and really not being against certain ways of the world, like contraception and euthanasia. The Bible couldn’t be against these, not in this day and age!

The scope of symbolism widened to not just cover Jesus’ parables, not just His presence in the Eucharist, but His very death and resurrection. I proudly stated that if I were to find out for certain that the Resurrection and other Biblical events never happened, it wouldn’t shatter my faith, for the truth of these was beyond their historic value. Back then I thought this meant I had greater faith than the typical Christian. Little did I see that doubting the plain truth of Jesus for the sake of some supposedly greater but unrevealed meaning, was no faith at all. This was apparent, if I had only looked, in my morals and attitudes to people at the time and many years after that.

It didn’t help that my favorite comic book, still probably my favorite, was Neil Gaiman’s ‘The sandman,’ which in my mind facilitated the relegation of the physical, historical truth of Christianity to mere myth.

Being better than all you idiots

Later on, Western philosophy added fodder to my dismissive attitude towards organized religion, Christianity specifically, with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche supplying my hatred against the herd. Kierkegaard would eventually play an important role in getting me back to Christ, but at this time it was his cynicism over institutions I latched on to. In gobbling up Nietzsche, I was distant enough from the reality of the spiritual to suppose that the satanic was merely another school of thought advocating for self-reliance, a quite benign portrayal in comparison to the terror of Hell that opens to us when we turn away from God.

So with a mix of New Age-Eastern lifestyle and a smattering of academically certified philosophy, I went about unhappily in my self-righteousness. I remember one incident of crying at mass upon seeing a little girl stumble, which I took to symbolize the destruction of innocence by these leaders of what I dubbed ‘Complacent Christianity,’ whose congregants display their indifference and boredom at church, and whose lives must have been so dull that they would fall for such primitive tall tales as Jesus watching who’s naughty and nice. Contrast this with the rich, ecstatic poetizing of Nietzsche’s ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra,’ and the joy I felt from Mozart and Beethoven, and it felt so easy to brush off Christians as ‘pharisitical’ (my ‘brilliant’ coinage), who merely mouthed out responses to the priest, and who couldn’t sit or stand up for themselves.

Looking back, I’d say the time of 2004-2007 was my most distant from Jesus. In 2005, I gave up going to mass, whose folk songs had been the only thing I could even appreciate at that point, and I hadn’t even been receiving the Host for several years by then. Meanwhile, my CD and DVD collection was growing unabated. No wonder that I was also at my most irreverent and most unhappy. If it had been His will for me to die then, I may very well have gone to Hell. But God’s will, spread as it is through history, isn’t so simplistic. Everything is so, so that each of us is given every opportunity to return, and more. That is His mercy.

Mystic materialist

God did preserve for me a kind of reverence for the mystical, with my having such an experience with Mozart’s ‘Prague’ symphony in 2002. So whenever I’d read of Christians, in particular, Saint Teresa of Avila, I knew there was something yet true of these experiences that science could not quite pin down. However, I didn’t distinguish much between the Christian mystical experience, and that of someone listening to Beethoven, or a Hindu in samadhi, or a Zen master attaining satori. Such diversity seemed to confirm to me a yet deeper truth that no scripture, no doctrine could reach. Of course, by conceiving truth as such, I was denying even the possibility of personal truth, thinking that whatever creative force there is in the world couldn’t concern itself with us, standing on a speck of dust orbiting one of billions of clusters of boiling gas. How could God possibly fit into all this vastness?

Notice how I was so caught up in my abstraction of reality, as to think reality’s foundation could ever be as limited as the mental structures in my head tell me. In our quest for ‘true’ science, we trap ourselves in it, as to exclude a Creator, much more one that loves us. Because that’s all animal biology anyway.

Such pride in my ‘deeper’ interpretation of ancient religious texts persisted even or especially when I used Jesus to illustrate some point, political or other, I was making.

We already know the truth

I’ll explain the process of my actual conversion eventually. In here, I mainly wanted to depict my previous states of mind, in particular my patronizing attitude towards Christianity, which I mainly wielded as a weapon to others of See? I know what Christ said. But I know more about it than youuu! Now that I’ve recovered my Catholicism and hold on to Jesus for dear life, such things that seemed to make life worth living are so barren. I find it harder to read fiction, including much of philosophy, or to watch shows, sports, and movies, or to listen to music, without thinking “This don’t mean a thing.” And none of them really do in the absence of God who revealed Himself in the Bible. For a long while there, I thought faith was believing something greater than I’ve been told (Kevin Moore’s words “Heaven must be more than this” resonated so much then), but it took a little more than 20 years to know that the simple truth I’d been taught as a child, about God, Jesus, the Church, and Heaven, was already all the truth I needed.

And I thought it was the counterpoint

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It’s been a little over a year since I took my first jerky step to believing Jesus is God. Amid a heap of misconceptions to be cleared up in the ensuing months (and in the coming years from now yet), it somehow occurred to me that the man spoken of in the Gospel really did rise from the dead.

It took another few months to even think of this realization as ‘grace,’ and only because the priest I was talking to said so, so matter-of-factly.

So I thought to look back on times in my pagan life when the Holy Spirit was present, though I didn’t know it at the time.

Angels of light

In 1999, I read Paramahansa Yogananada’s ‘Autobiography of a yogi,’ which I became curious about from the musician Jason Becker. This then led me to the Bhagavad-Gita, which would become my foremost scriptural companion for the next 17 years. But at the time, I was just struck at how little I knew about God and love, and my ignorance in pondering these big things was a moving experience. Little then did I know how Yogananda’s portrayal of the salvation of the cross as a transfer of karmic credit, rather than a perfect act of love by God as man, was a detour from the way, the truth, and the life. For all the yogi’s expressed sympathy for Christ’s mission, most of what he had to say about Jesus, e.g. that He was the reincarnation of Old Testament prophet Elisha*, served only to muddle up things.

* To the extent one takes the doctrine of reincarnation seriously, one turns away from love of neighbor, and is unable to grow from love of self.

Mozart

I’ve had incredible experiences with music that I could only describe as spiritual, but what came over me one afternoon in March 2002 has no equal. There I was at home listening to Mozart’s Symphony No. 38, ‘Prague,’ and sometime during the first and second movements, my surroundings changed, not in their visual appearance, but in the reality I ascribed to them. “It is so much so!” was how I put it to myself. I was struck at how limited my conception of me was, but had a conviction that whatever existence was all about, had to do with me on a personal level.

That was my most definite experience of the mystical, which unfortunately deteriorated into a point of pride. After all, if I could have such firsthand insight into the nature of things, I must be better than others, right? How many others were sensitive enough to the wonders of musical counterpoint, so as to glimpse the divine? Needless to say, any moral implications of the event were lost on me.

Bach

When in college, I heard the ‘Kyrie eleison’ from Bach’s Mass in B minor, I wasn’t particularly wowed by it. It would be over a decade later, and with the help of homages from the band Symphony X, that I began to really listen to what was going on. The slower tempos of Karajan’s and Klemperer’s versions also suited me better than renditions by Herreweghe and Gardiner, whom even now I consider a tad academic and lacking in solemnity.

I suppose it’s fitting that as walls of resistance to the God of Christianity collapsed one by one, I turned from the masonic Mozart to the devout Bach, in particular to his Catholic mass, even though I chalked up such elevated states to his brilliant counterpoint.

And now, I find even Bach’s achievements too aesthetic to commit myself to in a way that I have to the Gospel. It is just as well, and mirrors Kierkegaard’s stages on life’s way.

Julian Jaynes

In 2015, my whole life changed upon reading Julian Jaynes’ ‘The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.’ Just read my articles from around that time and a good three years after, to see his influence. But as big of a fanboy as I became, there is one thing I never did accept, and it was Jaynes’ defining of consciousness as a spatialization of time in which one’s “analog I” navigated. Such self-narratization could only be symptomatic of consciousness, and not definitive.

Looking back, I realize that the biggest insight I gleaned from Jaynes, that direct experience is beyond the reach of after-the-fact science, isn’t even found in Jaynes. He doomed himself to a search of the origin of consciousness under a scientific framework, not realizing the inherent conflict in trying to know one’s self through selfless, detached, ‘objective’ science. I now recognize the Holy Spirit’s hand in my escape from the materialism I was persistently clinging to.

Conclusion

This isn’t an extensive list. Suffice to say that His presence and constant care saved my life more than once.

It’s not in our perfection and sinlessness that God reaches us; otherwise there’d be nothing to save us from. I look back at the times when God was the furthest thing from my mind, in my reducing Him to a really expressive figure of speech, and am thankful that He never rescinds the invitations to His banquet. If you’re in a similar place of hardened, weary skepticism, you’re not alone and you don’t have to be.

School of materialism

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school of life twitter
Logo fairly used for purposes of critique

It’s videos like this,  ‘How science can be as comforting as religion,’ made by The School of Life, that help me realize I have far yet to go in getting along with people and loving the unlovable, including the arrogantly naïve, however calming their voices may be. Although being a newbie to Catholicism, I already see how a lack of faith renders one’s depiction of reality sterile.

As if comfort is the point

What comfort is it, as the video claims, that the universe is so much bigger than our individual organism? If the universe was the size of, say, a tiny apartment, are we entitled to start worrying? Will things only then be of consequence?

And why should feeling like we’re “nothing” be a consolation anyway? How troubling is it when science is considered comforting because of the alleged meaninglessness of it all? No wonder depression is such a pervasive issue nowadays, when being “something” is a perceived threat. I would reason out that we ought not to be anxious because of our significance to the Creator Himself who loves us.

The makers of the video take Ecclesiastes’ “All is vanity” — which is about the futility of a life aimed at satisfying strictly natural needs — out of context, so as to ‘improve’ it with, and this is lame… the second law of thermodynamics, or the tendency of all matter and energy to entropy. With the Bible verse interpreted so myopically, it’s no surprise that the physical parallel is, methodologically speaking, irrelevant to human action, which is about defying a state of rest.

Infidels

Contrary to what the video tells us, religion’s purpose is not to make life bearable. Only a nonbeliever, or rather, a believer in the necessarily detached, flat world that is science would characterize religion as such, explaining it away as an evolutionary mechanism no more real than a comforting lie. But religion, specifically Christianity, is about union with God and eternal salvation as accorded us spiritual beings through Jesus.

If science was everything, was all existence had to offer, there’d be no one to experience it. Now that’s one big nothing.* But this is not true; we’re here to confirm life, whatever finiteness we attribute to it in our lack of faith.

Fueled by randomness

Science is about the application of cause and effect to phenomena, where any randomness of events is assumed due to the natural limits of cognition, and not because randomness is proven. Faithless materialists, however, latch on to an assumption of randomness to reality, in order to elicit amazement that thinking creatures came to be at all, for which to be grateful. So much for being comforted by our ‘nothingness.’

All this talk about evolutionary development at a cosmic scale dupes even the video’s authors to thinking they’ve gotten farther than primitive, homogeneous religion at answering the why of those things we value, e.g. gratitude. On the surface, the answers of both materialism and religion are just as unsatisfying. Materialists speak in terms of species survival without pinning down the driving force behind this. And the religion-waving person could only really answer, “God made it so.”

However, it is only with the religious that the inquirer is invited to be with He who made all things as they are. The materialist isn’t even good at science when they invoke science.

Making clear what a mess they make of things

For example, the video’s authors have a baseless faith, i.e. superstition, that evolution will sort out all moral inadequacies of ‘personkind.’ We never really choose to do evil; it’s our impulses that just need adjustment. In this evolutionary Eden, we’ll all be satisfied mentally so as to not intrude on others.

So much for thermodynamic vanity, which we were told just a couple of minutes ago should relieve us of any future to deal with! It’s brilliant, really, how the authors couldn’t help contradict themselves in the very same video.

Evolved-impulses-will-vanquish-uncivilization is yet one more cry for a materialistic utopia, where good and evil (or good and bad since the evil one doesn’t really exist) depend on the economy, which is connected to our psychophysiological stability. The fact that so much evil continues today, when economic output has multiplied far greater than the population, doesn’t help sell this dream.

Parting words

I admit to having once agreed with a good deal of the ideas espoused in the video, particularly the buzzwording of ‘evolution’ as though it made sense of actual day-to-day experience and wasn’t just another cop-out for one’s ignorance such as dark matter.

What changed in me was, simply put, Jesus. Faith in God will always be a priority in your life, however advanced in thought you’d like to think you are.

* Science will never address the question of consciousness because by the very nature of science in its being a fictional view from the outside, consciousness from the inside is denied, or merely explained away by physiological or psychological symptoms.

Opinion

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By The Daily Fracas staff

We are alarmed at the sponsoring of Citizens Bill 2406, the latest anomalous proposal filed by Filipinos For Justice, mandating so-called ‘Kyrie Yoga’ in all classes until K12.

Look at the statistics, they say. Look how well-behaved the kids are, they argue. And who’s to deny health and happiness to our youth in this depressingly famished world?

Sto. CristoIf such a program is to continue, let’s not get it in our heads that such ‘discipline’ is what we need to attain true happiness, like it was some religion of its own. But that’s exactly what they’ve been claiming.

On the surface, the lower recidivism rate makes it look like compassion is at an all-time high, but this is a deceiving figure, much like incarceration of criminals goes down at a bombing site.

The enemy is playing the long game. But contrary to what it wants you to think, what’s most important is not to bring down numbers, but to change hearts.

The ultimate meaning to life is not going to be found in these spirits, whom our lowly enemy whispers in our ears to be facets of some godhead.

We are told that all we need in life is to be ‘good,’ leaving aside that all that is good comes from God, not these god wannabes. To deny a distinction between Creator and created is the beginning of enslavement to the worldly, and it becomes progressively easier to keep us complacent in our ‘enlightened’ ways. After all, knowing what we know, we will game the system, getting what we want, convinced this is the same as eternal happiness.

But when the dark comes around, as it inevitably does, Whom do we turn to, when all this time we’ve denied any need of Him?

There is no salvation outside of Him, dear readers. He’s not just one of many cultural ideals, categorizable and negligible in the abundance of alternative spiritualities. But we’re made to suppose that in the new age to come, there’s no room for faith, with the repayment of our karmic debt laid out in such neat, agreeable terms.

To those without faith, this all sounds unnecessarily, insanely rigid. ‘Dogmatic,’ I believe, is the criticism. But if you think us insane, just see how nuts we are and try this out:
Pray. One word. One name.

Jesus.

You may think you’ve said enough of the name for a lifetime. Or you may think you could never say it with any affection whatsoever. Or you may already welcome the challenge of saying it, convinced it is further proof of how contact with your ‘higher self’ in some random form or another, will suffice to attain truth, goodness, and eternal life in God. Regardless of what you assume, say His most holy name, again, and again. Furthermore, do what He tells you. And He will tell you. And at some point, you’ll maybe want to read more about what’s going on. When that happens, write us; we could give you some Bible verses and prayers to start with.

God bless you all.

-30-

Sin no more

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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
from a concerned citizen and brother in Christ
Aug. 12, 2024

I first noticed the shortage when I went to my neighborhood parish for confession, and finding none of the priests available. So I went to the next closest parish: nobody there too. And the next. And the next. That’s when I realized that the heinous acts I’d read in the news, were not the whole story, barely a fraction of it even. Someone was out for blood.

sin no moreIt will be yet some time before the dearth is eased, as a newer batch responds to the calling. It is my hope that eventually, the number of priests will suffice each barangay in a couple of years’ time. Cherishing the priesthood ever more, more young men, and perhaps a few widowers here and there, will see the beauty of possible martyrdom, in service of the Lord.

But for now, we’re down to 10, no, nine Catholic priests, for our intervillage community totaling over 250,000. I am assured that reinforcements are coming, but timeframes are still indefinite. It is also unfortunate that cyberconfessions have not been decided on yet by the Pope, even as we enter this fifth year of what was once dubbed ‘the new normal.’

It has never been more difficult, yet never has it been more necessary, to have priests to whom we could ask for penance. What a quandary the Lord places us in, as though He himself is denying us His salvation. Is this His punishment for our sins? Or have we heaped this upon ourselves, in the pursuit of pleasure contrary to His word and to distancing protocols? Is there any difference, knowing how God weaves His will through creation?

Interlude: The mind of a casual sinner
I’ve got this sin-forgiveness thing figured out, allowing for long periods of dabbling in sin as part of the management of my life, where I could strategically tell the Lord later on that I’m sorry and I want to follow Him after all. I accept the logic of avoiding corrupt sin, but the key is to do little enough to still be repentant about it. If I’m still repentant, then I can’t be that bad, right? Unless I get killed or debilitated prior to a last confession.
No wonder the clergy, these supposed paragons of virtue, could turn so rotten. That one could get so habituated to words of prayer and the lingo of the Gospel, that they no longer have to actually act morally, and no one will know the difference! Well, except God, but by then, He’s no longer an issue.

And so my plea to you my brothers and sisters, is to stop your sinful ways! You don’t know if you’ll make it to a priest on time, and you don’t want to die with a mortal sin unconfessed.

Well, what about the tinier sins, the little peeks? Knowing they’re merely venial, remedied through purgatory, shall we then be more inclined to do them? By no means! Think about it. That would make a mockery of the Sacrament. Systematizing your sinning so as to get the best chance for forgiveness prior to death, He knows what you’re up to! It won’t be long before your complacency will become a sin against the Holy Spirit, if it isn’t so already.

Sin no more. How trite this may have sounded once. The scary thing is, this is what the killer Nini Gurado himself attempted to realize: a repentant people, masses who are saved if only they are confident in God’s love and forgiveness. The greater the temptation to stray, the more violently we must yet fling ourselves at the Lord. You may feel that you’re going about your struggles all alone, without Christ to call, but know that this feeling of aloneness is precisely the temptation. He is there with you.

Yet Gurado himself wasn’t true to his vision. He committed his evil. He had hoped that by relocating next to a confessor right across the street from him, he’d be able to make a final reconciliation when the time came, no problem. How was he to know that Father Maximo, hard of sight and hearing, would never notice the speeding truck as he walked over to Gurado’s doorstep? And so our serial killer remains unabsolved.

Now that he’s been arrested, we are put in a dilemma. Should we give him what he seeks, this absolution from massacres? Should we yet let him get that last confession, prior to his execution? I think not. Not when a confessor’s scarce ears are better put to use elsewhere.

May God have mercy on us all.

END

The man above

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“So this is the rock.” It was the guide’s duty to say so, as if the tourists who had made their way from their respective corners of the world needed to be told.

today is today's newsIt came to this, thought Hyor, whose unusual height, among other things, made him stand out in the group, where he was second in line. His previous assignment before going undercover as an Earth-being was to simply observe this sentient species of a mediocre star cluster, to perhaps make sense of their linguistic traditions, which seemed to center on one very specific document, telling of one man in particular who had died some 2,000 Earth-years prior, with portents confirming the manner in which this event occurred. That would explain, to his superiors, why he was lurking by the scene of the murder.

The peculiar thing, he had noted during his orbiting days, was that these people had no technology to reconstruct the events of this ‘Bible,’ yet nonetheless strove to live by it. Not to say that many if not most of the inhabitants didn’t turn away from its message, having dismissed the tales as the superstition of ancestors, or perhaps only being vaguely aware of such traditions from an odd neighbor or the help.

Yet there remained the few faithful. And Hyor could not understand how they could be so certain they were right. It all happened as stated in the Book, though no sufficiently sense-reliant means of recording the celebrated life, death, and resurrection was available to these people. He saw the phenomena for himself, though could not just yet come to the conclusion that the man was God.

God. It’s not like his home planet didn’t have its share of crazies who made this claim. No, none of them could be God, except in some metaphorical sense where everyone was God, some concept of immense practicality that gave purpose to existence. Back when literal worship was a big thing, there was Glong, a being from 34,000 revolutions ago, venerated by the majority of his people, until it was determined by documentarians long before Hyor’s time that when this supposed messiah was pulverized, he remained powder.

Judging by the means of execution, this Jesus went through much greater suffering than an instantaneous laser zap would cause. And his death was supposedly for the salvation of all people. Not just his Jewish nation. All people on Earth.

And beyond?

“No, it couldn’t be,” was how Hyor had brushed off the thought as soon as it came. But it would come again, and again, and nothing he did in his lonely ship could suppress its persistence.

“Is this Jesus the God?” was how the question formed in his head, betraying his hesitation in acknowledging the divinity of this creature of dust, born of those who might be visually mistaken for other Earth creatures that lived in trees or cages.

Resurrection technology, still rather new, is the only explanation, the man above reasoned to himself. But who did the resurrecting? That would assume an as-yet undetected galactic race sprinkling magic dust across the heavens so as to leave his race stumped. But wasn’t that a matter of blind faith as well?

God Himself. It would be stupid to believe, he thought. Yet, who? Why?

And so 10 Earth-months passed in this questioning manner, daring him leap upon leap, until he found himself in front of where it all went down.

Was it too much to ask, he said to what he now referred to quite simply as God, for a sign upon touching this artifact on which Christ breathed his last? That is, last until he breathed again.

“Today maybe?” barked the Earth-man behind Hyor, smelling of intoxicants, more than most pilgrims did in this holiest of lands. Hyor wondered what the man would say if he revealed the true color of the whites of his eyes. That would shut the — what’s the word they have for it? — prick up, he thought.

But it was his turn. It was now or never. Or some future not guaranteed. He crouched down, crawling the remaining distance to the rock, and touched it.

Nothing, he thought. He felt nothing. He left the site wondering what it could mean, and settled for supposing that this was precisely the temptation to disbelieve, of not feeling the presence he so longed for. The sleep of Gethsemane, not a mile from where he was.

It’s a test, he told himself. And the minutes after crawling up from the hill turned into hours, and then days.

“I’ll never really know, will I?” Hyor asked, looking up one night. But as he asked it, he could have sworn he heard something at the most primitive, human frequencies.

“You will.”

Next:
Hyor returns home for a short visit, trying to convince his girlfriend Mient to take the pilgrimage soon, but she could only express shock at his confession of undying love for some earthly man. Will Hyor stay by Mient’s side, waiting for her to accept Christ as he eventually learned to do, or will he get with the next woman that comes along?

END

Mirror for sinful souls

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mirror for sinful soulsFather, I would like your advice on something. I’m not quite sure what my faith tells me to do.

What is it, my Son? Let us sit by the shade of the tree. I put that concrete bench there myself, two decades ago now. The railing support came after, when it was evident the grandmothers were making us the money. Ah there! Go on, Son.

You see, I’ve just recently converted to your religion. I mean, Catholic… the thing. Anyway, so I started praying while looking at my mirror… It seemed to talk to me.

What do you mean by talking to you?

Maybe not literally at first, but I seemed to get ideas all of a sudden, like my reflection was a light bulb on top of my head, and I’d continue praying in front.

Are you worried that the reflection might do something to you? It’s just light, and Jesus is light. John 1. But you said it actually spoke? Once? Twice?

Everyday for the past six months. At least once a day.

How… frequent.

Yeah, I’m pretty prone to food poisoning, especially Christmastime…

Okay, so where were we? The mirror. Yes. Well, you shouldn’t let it bother you really. You can just say a prayer, trust in Jesus to keep you safe. That, is that a medallion you have on?

Yeah at first I wore it to look cool, but…

Yeah, yeah, hold it as you pray in front of the mirror. Are you right-handed or left-handed?

Right-handed.

Use your left hand then, to hold the Mama Mary scapulace. It keeps you more focused not to use your habitual hand.

Didn’t know you were so neurologically minded, Father.

Well, more psychos around, you know. Except they’re not really psychos. They’re what happens when we don’t look out for one another.

Right, I agree totally. So I’m just going to go now, reach for the Blessed Mother I’m wearing… Sounds doable.

Put your mind to it. Read some scripture first.

Got it! Bye now!

And another thing… Oh zounds, he can’t hear me anymore.

LATER

Father, it’s me, Lambert.

Are you new here?

No it’s me, with the, the mirror problem?

… Yeah, yeah, I remember, the mirror, how is it, the talking reflection right?

Yeah, well he doesn’t really talk.

… Your reflection doesn’t pray when you pray?

He brings in two naked women into the bathroom and proceeds to screw them. I mean, fornicate? Never met them before. I don’t look, but peripherally…

Do you hold the blessed images as it happens?

Yes.

But what are you praying? You are praying, right?

I guess I was. I forget. The nudity’s distracting.

Well next time, have a prepared prayer. Read it if you have to, using your dominant hand to turn the pages. Or you might have one of those e-Bible devices…

My phone.

Good enough.

You don’t seem too perturbed. Is this usual fare for you, parishioners with visions?

Hallucinations. I don’t confuse the ever-present Spirit, and His communion of saints, with the demonic substitutes that science tries to sell us. You’re having hallucinations, too wrapped up in your Neil Degrasso or whatever faddy science guy…

So I should… what?

Pray more. Mean it. You’re a child of God, you could always talk to Him, if You really want. He has many servants, Saint Teresa, Saint Francis, they’re all listening…

Okay, I hope they show up, or something.

EVEN LATER

Well? The hallucinations gone yet?

Now it’s the saints who show up. But only in the mirror. I ask Saint Maximilian Kolbe to meet me somewhere else, a church even, a bathroom mirror of a church even, and he still won’t show up.

I may have made a mistake, treating myself like a therapist rather than a priest. I will go to your house.

BY THE BATHROOM MIRROR

Thank You, my Lord and my God, for being here with us as we witness what goes on in the mirror… Oh there.

So it’s not just me. Good to know.

They’re telling me I’ve been of little faith. Perhaps.

I could hear them perfectly too! That’s pretty flattering, Father, that I’m the more faithful one between us…

We all make mistakes. Don’t knock others about it.

Yeah, you’re of so little faith, putting them to the test like that just now.

So it is so. Thank you, my dear saints, for being here, you know how this is not my usual experience. I’ve had fortuitous encounters in the past thanks to the lot of you but this, in front of you, is a special treat. It is an honor, I’ve learned to love you all, as you know, and I’d just like to shake each one’s hand if I may?

I’m just going to grab a bite in the kitchen, you’ll be okay? Father?… Oh well, I guess he’ll manage…

… And that’s why I made that vow at 14, but time dulls even the most solemn vows, so seeing you all like this, I’m rejuvenated… Oh, I’ve been a faithless fool for too long…

END

NOTE:
I first did the ‘weird thing happening in a mirror’ plot in my story ‘Motivational mirror’ found in my 2016 collection ‘Be kind to puns.’ Back then, my main inspiration was Julian Jaynes’ theories of consciousness.
Poor Jaynes. In his trying to adhere to some scientific ideal, he never quite opened his heart to the living presence of Christ, reducing the Gospel to neurological phenomena. I was stuck in a similar framework not four years ago, and I could say it’s no way to live.

The loudest cry

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If God were to come to Earth, He’d want to make the loudest noise, so as to be heard by all people for all time. And no one has cried out as loud as Jesus. He knew that there would no better time to proclaim He was God, than when doing so was punishable by death. Nowadays we’d just lock someone up surrounded by padded walls, and never hear from them again.

2020-06-05 two popes
The two popes. Real friendship is in Christ.

And so till this day, and for the rest of time until the second coming, we know Jesus as discoverable in the four books of the Gospel and the other books of the Bible.

The Bible and prayer

But don’t take His word for it; He also invites you to a real relationship with Him in your daily life. Not only did Jesus endure long suffering and death without recanting the truth of His claim of divinity, but He backed this up by His later presence among the apostles, His appearance before John the writer of Revelation, and by sending the Holy Spirit Who is with us at this very moment.

For sure, being written about is no proof of His presence today, nor should we be misled into thinking that knowing God could be limited to the scientific method*. And that’s where faith comes in. Faith in prayer is what presents God to us, through Jesus. By praying, you get to connect the Bible to God’s presence in your life. That is how we know Him as Emmanuel, or God with us.

Peace on Earth

And people around you will know the difference that Christ has made in your life, as you treat your brothers and sons as you would Jesus, and your sisters and daughters as you would Mary.

The way

2020-06-05 jesus religionSo don’t be kept from Christ’s love, however much you want to be liberated from the anxiety of desire (Buddhism) or illusion (Hinduism). If you don’t accept Jesus Himself, then you will have only conquered the material, and not your spirit. In fact you’ll further be drawn into thinking spiritual fulfillment comes through your mastery over the material. The conceit and downfall of great geniuses, many of whom were raging alcoholics.

* Science is at best a skeleton of reality, and empirical data has no value of its own without the presumption of spirit in us, we who review the data.