DID GOD MANIFEST IN FLESH?
Exposure to Eucharist
FIVE
The Father is well represented in the Son, as Jesus is the image of the invisible God and in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Many times Jesus explains things in figures of speech. Likewise he desires to say in the time determined by him that he will tell us clearly of the Father.
Thus, the hour is come that Jesus has to tell of his Father not in figures of speech but in clear terms, with the blessing of the Father as he asks of it from him. As the Father himself loves us, he speaks in the churches through messages coming from the Holy Spirit because the Father himself loves us.
Jesus said, “I came from the Father and have come into the world, now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father (John 16:28). This he proclaimed for the Apostles then believed that he came from God. He said that the Father is in him, and he was in the Father. We may picture out in this statement that Jesus was not only conceived with the spirit of the Father dwelling in him, but he was the image that is enthroned in God since the beginning.
From this pattern of him being the figure, it did become possible for the Father to create Adam, even pattern seraphs and cherubim in the image of Jesus. Jesus is the Alpha, he is the source of all even life. He was in the Father since the beginning being the form from which angels and Adam was formed after. Thus the Father also dwelt in him in his humanity as the Spirit for the Father is in him.
God is without form being a pure act and a pure Spirit, but with Jesus, as the outline of the things to come, even things unseen gave birth to a form, from which out of it Adam was patterned and with God’s own breath, Adam gain life. It is also the same breath of the Father that is taken from us when we expire.
We did not exist in this world if not for the breath of God, which he gave Adam. As it is passed from generation to generation, it is the same breath of the Father that we carry in us as we are gifted with life. The air coming from the mouth of God and our life received is one and the same. It did become possible for God to have a mouth because Jesus was with God (John 1:1) Furthermore; the dwelling of the Holy Spirit only sharpens existence of this life with God.
The speaking in tongues on the other hand is a gift, and one among those gifts if we are to obtain virtue by the Spirit of God. Likewise, we need to be born again of the Spirit and not just of water (John 3:5) with these as prerequisites to salvation. With the acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Savior believing that he will save us, surrendering our sins to him through confession, we are marked with the blood of the Lamb being Gentiles that are once denied of salvation but are now inheritors to the Kingdom in heaven.
Many years did passed that although just in rare occurrences, I still attend mass; I did not have confession or communion. I don’t want to pass my pain to others even to the priests. In those times, I even have a hard time making the sign of the cross. As I remember from my Rector in Franciscan Conventual, making the sign of the cross is well appreciated if it comes from the heart.
So he taught me the proper way of making the sign of the cross and the genuflecting doing it several times along with me until I almost perfected it. In genuflecting, right knee touches the left feet holding with a single or both hands the left knee.
Very much later with inspiration from a priest in Antique, I associate the sign of the cross with these words: “In clearness of mind with the wisdom that God bore in my heart, having the burden for souls which I carry in my shoulders. Amen.” As a result, I was able to make the sign of the cross without thinking that in the cross, Jesus is condemned.
With the cross, death of Christ becomes fresh every time bearing in mind that with my sins and that of others, Jesus was nailed to the cross. Several times in my manifestations, I did want to avenge my Master’s death, but as I am healed, I think of the empty tomb and a word in my heart did I sense that with the resurrection of Jesus, I too arose new and purified with me receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
But it is not easy forgetting things with the pain I bear in my heart that I grieve sobbing loudly after a slain upon the exposure to the Blessed Sacrament as the host is raised as in my grief, I in similar instances, had cried unmindful of the people around. So I confide my sins to the Bishop and he was kind enough to give me an absolution for the sins I’ve committed. After further confessions to many other priests, my feet became resolute that I no longer fall to the floor.
-Jyotisman Nearu Upendra
