The world: The Great Yes and the Great No

It’s a cryptic but arresting phrase, isn’t it: The great yes and the great no?

I tripped on it while searching for something online a couple of weeks ago. After listening twice to a twelve-year-old homily of Bishop Barron’s called—you guessed it—The Great Yes and the Great No, POW! The ongoing battlefield between good and evil is reduced to these seven words: The Great Yes and the Great No.

Although the Bishop intended the homily for the Sunday readings of August 4th, 2013, his words pack a whallop today—every day.

It’s a message to every one of the over 8 billion souls on this planet. But one that’s anathema in our dangerously adolescent black and white culture.

Genesis:

I remember reading it when I first read the Bible following my decision to become a Catholic Christian. And how struck I was by the beauty of the words, more than prose, they’re lyrical, almost poetic.

Years later, I followed a friend’s suggestion that I read a novel called Havah .

And then I read Genesis again and again.

And realized I could read it a hundred times and still not plumb its depths.

Just so, Tosca Lee’s novel, Havah (the Hebrew name for Eve,) captures the extraordinary, supernatural lives of our first parents brilliantly. She doesn’t simply write an ordinary story. Instead, she immerses us into the psyche of the first woman called Eve and her flights on the wings of the wind with Him.

Here’s how the author begins:

A whisper in my ear: Wake!

Blue.

A sea awash with nothing but a drifting bit of down carried on an invisible current. I closed my eyes.

Light illuminated the thin tissues of my eyelids. A bird trilled. The percussive buzz of an insect sounded near my ear. Overhead, tree boughs rustled in the warming air…

I could feel the thrum of sap in the stem—the pulsing veins of the vine, the movement of the earth a thousand miles beneath, the beat of my heart in harmony with it all…

Then, like a gush of water from a rock, gladness thrilled my heart. But its source was not me. At last! It came, unspoken—a different source than that first waking whisper—and then the voice thrust aloud, jubilantly to the sky: “At last!”

He was up on legs like the trunks of sturdy saplings, beating the earth with his feet…Flesh of my flesh…

At last. I heard the timbre of his voice in my head. Marvel and wonder were on his lips as he kissed my closing eyes. I knew then he would do anything for me.

Havah

The echoes of Eden

is a phrase that appeared in my head when I stopped running away from God. Reading Genesis that first time as a believer felt as if I were reading the history of mankind…our genesis. When we risk opening ourselves up to the power of those words they can’t help but evoke wonder and awe.

And every now and then galvanize an echo of Eden.

Maybe with the love of a dog.

Or watching a sunrise.

Or merely remembering how to communicate with animals— when I/we knew more.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,
the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss,
while a mighty wind swept over the waters.

Then God said,
“Let there be light,” and there was light.
God saw how good the light was.
God then separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”
Thus evening came, and morning followed–the first day…..

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
the birds of the air, and the cattle,
and over all the wild animals
and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.”

God created man in his image;
in the divine image he created him;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them, saying:
“Be fertile and multiply;
fill the earth and subdue it.

We can get lost in the wonder of it,

those beginning chapters, the astounding beauty of creation and its creatures.

We’re not Puritans, Dualists or Gnostics, Barron sharply exhorts us in his twelve-year-old homily. We Catholics believe that the world and everything in it is GOOD! Just so, we know that our bodies and our sexuality are Good! This is the reason our Church is so very passionate about marriage. About chastity. And also priestly celibacy.

Chastity and celibacy.

In these twenty-first century days, chastity is a word that evokes the 18th century. We don’t hear about the excellence of virtues like chastity from priests, ministers, parents or one another. Instead, we hear “Prolife.” Sexual intercourse outside of marriage is a mortal sin requiring confession after each lapse, but do our young know they must do this?

Are they told?

“Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the Christian rule is, ‘Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.’ Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong … God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them. Before we can be cured we must want to be cured. Those who really wish for help will get it; but for many modern people even the wish is difficult … We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity—like perfect charity—will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.” —C. S. Lewis, p. 95 Mere Christianity

Eve knew her God had said “No!” but she did it anyway. Attracted by the beauty of the fruit and the specious wisdom of the serpent. And then, of course, she had to share it with her husband.

The serpent was “the most cunning of all the animals.”

The first time I read Genesis seriously—prayerfully, I stopped there, at the wily serpent: he knew to approach Eve.

And not Adam.

The awful heartbreak of it.

The LORD God called to Adam and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”

What might have happened, we must wonder, if fear and shame hadn’t prevented Adam from answering truthfully? Or if Eve had taken responsibility:

“It was I! I was the one who perverted your law and the Adam!”

But the power of that serpent is supernatural, his hatred for humanity a thing that even the most vicious of humans cannot conceive of. Tosca Lee writes in Havah:

….How deftly the human finger pointed at me was returned to its owner. But greater than that was the sorrow behind it—a sorrow made deeper by a history of love.

Did God weep?

Was the One capable of tears?

Dust you are . . . to dust you will return. The light faded like a back that turns to walk away.

Havah

St. Pope John Paul ll once referred to Genesis as holding the answer to every human question.

The Great Yes and the Great No.

To live in the only safe space that exists, we live between the two extremes: the dualistic, puritanical hatred of the world and the idolization of it.

For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.”
CS Lewis

Mere Christianity

Yom Kippur

To those believing confession to be a thing invented by the Catholic Church, I offer this past week’s Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur and sage remarks from the Jewish Voice. The Viduy list warrants our time, attention and prayer.

Confessing Our Sin

When we placed our faith in Yeshua (Jesus), the Messiah, He fully paid for our sin. However, the wrongs we do as Believers interfere with our relationship with the Lord.

Confession of sin is agreeing with the Lord about the wrongs we’ve done. It speaks the truth about our sin and brings us to a place of humility before the God who sent His Son to die for our sinful selves. Confession sets us on the path of choosing to join our wills with the Holy Spirit’s work of conforming us into the image of Yeshua.

You may have heard sayings like, “Confession is good for the soul,” or “We’re as sick as our secrets.” David, King of Israel, wrote in the Psalms that when he kept silent about his sin, it tormented him, but when he acknowledged it, he received relief and forgiveness (Psalm 32:3–5). …

The Viduy is a tool to help us see ourselves honestly. It includes 24 verbal confessions. We’ve provided a sampling below and encourage you to use it as you spend time listening to the Lord and humbly confessing to Him. Keep in mind that the Lord wants to heal you through confession. He wants you to live unhindered in your relationship with Him and set you free to be shaped into the image of Yeshua.

Ashamnu – We have sinned against God and man.

Bagadnu – We have betrayed and been disloyal and ungrateful.

Gazalnu – We have stolen or robbed.

Dibarnu Dofi – We have sinned with our speech.

V’hirshanu – We have caused others to sin.

Taflnu Sheker – We have associated ourselves with falsehood and wrongdoing.

Ya’atznu Ra – We have advised others wrongly to their harm.

Kizavnu – We have lied and failed to keep our word.

Latznu – We have taken serious matters lightly, scoffed, and ridiculed.

Maradnu – We have disbelieved and rebelled against God and His Word, preferring our own way.

Sararnu – We have turned our hearts away from serving God.

Avinu – We have knowingly and intentionally sinned.

Tzararnu – We have caused suffering.

Kishinu Oref – We have stubbornly refused to see God’s hand in suffering, choosing to blame Him rather than repent of our sin or learn from suffering.

Confessing Yeshua’s Gift of Atonement

Confessing our sin with such intense focus might leave us feeling discouraged. As Believers, we have the privilege of also seeing the picture Yom Kippur holds of what Jesus accomplished for us through His death and resurrection.

In Temple days, every Yom Kippur, the High Priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy of Holies. This blood covered the sins committed by the priest himself and all Israel over the past year.

However, when Yeshua died as the sacrifice for our sin, He also served as the perfect High Priest, taking His own blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies as a once-and-for-all atonement (covering) for our sin. He not only covered our sins, but He removed them forever from before the Father.

Yeshua’s atonement accomplished wonderful things for those who place their faith in Him. Confess these truths as well as you observe Yom Kippur.