The Practical Side of Life With God
Why We Must Persevere In Being Filled with the Spirit of God
In the article, The Simple Math of One God in 3 Distinct Divine Persons, followed by, The Source of One Faith in God, the objective I wished to bring to understanding is that God is more than a singular spirit in the heavens 'looking down' upon His creation. No, God does not 'look down' on humanity. God wants us ONE with Him, our Creator. To be 'wholly' aligned to His ways, His truth, His life. Christian theology does not believe in a 'wrathful' God 'way up there' and we 'down here on earth.' Christian belief understands God as being a loving and merciful God, enabling us to move, breathe, and have 'being.' God is love, period. A common knowledge known to all Christians. No debate and no arguments — God is LOVE!
Love, described as the person of the Holy Spirit, is what makes up a person's soul and grows us in Spirit to a living relationship with the second person of our one God, our redeemer, Jesus. By Mary's faith in God, because of the unmerited grace she received from God, Jesus, Son of God, was born to Mary.
Mary's YES-SSS, explained in a previous article, Four Words Every Catholic Should Remember, began God's plan of reconciliation of humanity back to Himself! A full unity of One Spirit of One God in One Holy 'Mystical body' of God! A human and divine family relationship! On earth, as it is in heaven 'up there.' Ahhhh, how great is the Holy 'One-der' (wonder) of ONENESS of body and soul.
So . . . what happened? Life should be perfect!
What happened is, not everyone is yet all in 'one place.' Baptism is the start of Godly unity, but we must persevere in being filled with the Spirit of God's only Divine Son to be set free of fleshly attachments. There still remains the very natural S-elf I-ndulgent N-ature of our human nature, known in word as concupiscence. God, who purified Mary, will also purify us if we adhere to and cooperate with God's sanctifying process of His sacramental presence. Jesus taught us what we had to do. We need to act in Faith of His words: 'Be Baptized,' 'Take and Eat, this bread is my body,' believing His word of it being His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, with the faith which has its source in Mary. Mary, who said YES-SSS to being sanctified with His real presence, served God wholly, and sacrificed her will to His will, to receive God the Son's life to her soul. Each time we 'take and eat' with Faith in God, we are filling ourselves with the real presence of God's Only Divine Son, who is ever so slowly 'raising us up' to the eternal kingdom of God, even as we experience a small taste of it 'here and now' in the peaceful relationships with family and neighbor. As God came to us in the flesh, we will rise in His Spirit and soul and be the embodiment of God's One Son in the eternally perfect kingdom. (Still retaining our individual personhood.)
Salvation is a 'process' of acting in faith. As Mary advised at the wedding of Cana, 'do what He says to do.' To the degree of our Faith in God's power, our fleshly lives will be transformed into the wholeness of a Holy Communion of love with God, which we will see in all reality 'up there' in His perfect eternal kingdom. A Holy Communion of human persons, with God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. While on earth, we walk by faith and not 'pure sight.'
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About the Author
Born and baptized in infancy into the Catholic Church, I have always been a practicing Catholic, living the gift of faith in God, with wisdom now understanding such living does take ‘lots of practice.’ For me, over 45 years worth of practice -- and that is as much as I will say about my chronological age. Please note by this introduction that I do enjoy lighthearted humor, which led to my 'call' to pursue the vocation of cartoon illustration. Such vocation is a very competitive field yet I do feel God directed my steps to both earning my daily bread and honing the illustration ability via the field of pre-press print production in such areas as community newspapers, retail advertising print production, and small print shop laying out text and image to be visually appealing.
From the repetitively doing of the graphic artwork of pre-press production, I came to realize that I can not only write with a picture (cartoon) but I can draw with words. What also came to be through the daily, dutiful, and disciplined service work for a living was the ever growing knowledge of my Catholic faith, as I persevered in 'offering up,' best I understood that, at each stage and age of my life, as I attended Catholic Mass weekly, and later in life daily Mass. Indeed the work-a-day world takes a lot of endurance and I found that attending daily Mass before going to the daily job in a print shop gave me an amazing 'strength' and 'endurance.'
I hope the articles I write for Catholic365.com are down-to-earth and fun, and that I have helped others to understand how special the Catholic faith practice is, and the grace that comes through the Catholic Church.
