Creating “the form” and filling “the void.”

Genesis 1:1-2 makes a peculiar statement.  It says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep;”.  Have you ever considered how God created the "form” and filled the "void?”

Let’s look at each of these words, 'form" and "void."

Taking a close look at the first chapter of Genesis we can see that the Holy Spirit provides an ingenious literary structure.  The six days of creation are divided into two sets of three days.

1. In the first three days, God created forms;
2. In the second three days God filled the forms.

There also must be noted a deliberate correspondence between days one and four; two and five; three and six.  Now, let's look at all of this more carefully.

Creating the Form
In the first three days God created “form.” What is "form"?

• Time:  On the first day, God separated light from darkness, creating day and night, and thus time.
• Space:  On the second day, God created sea and sky, thus He was marking divisions of space.
• Life:  On the third day, God created the dry land and filled it with all vegetation, which was the beginning of biological life.

Filling the Void
In the second three days God “filled” the void in the following way:

• “Rulers” of time:  “Time” is given Order.  There is a rule and cycle to time.  On the fourth day, God created the stars, the sun, and the moon to “rule” or give order and method to the day and night and to mark the seasons and days and years.  This “filled” time in this way to help us know that “time” has purpose and meaning.
• “Rulers” of space:  On the first day, God created sea creatures and birds to fill the sea and sky.  Life occupies space.
• “Rulers” of life:  On the sixth day, God created the animals and humans to fill the dry land.

In the six days God laid a sure and lasting foundation.  He established in this His Natural Law which remains firm and absolute to this very day.  This is God's "Divine Design" that is the fabric of His unshakeable faithfulness to His covenantal promises to us and all creation.

As believers we stand upon this sure and lasting foundation.  We build our life and help build society upon God’s sure and lasting foundation.  This is the very DNA of creation.

God rested on the Seventh Day, and made this Day holy.  The Seventh Day, or Sabbath, becomes the doorway to the Eighth Day.  With the Eighth Day a New Day has dawned, which is the Day of Christ's Resurrection.

The seventh day completes the first creation. The eighth day begins the new creation.  God amazing work of creation and all of its mystery, including all that we yet to know about reaches culmination in the greater work of Christ’s Redemption. The first creation finds its meaning and its summit in the new creation in Christ.  Redemption even surpasses the beauty of the first creation!

Does the Bible Need to be Interpreted?

A reason we must approach the interpretation of the Bible with great care and respect is because the interpreter is seeking to realize the meaning(s) intended by God, who is the chief author of the Holy Bible.  The sacred texts were written centuries ago and in languages that are often difficult to understand.  The ideas in the Bible are frequently challenging.  For example, consider what St. Peter said about the writing of St. Paul:

"And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.  Just as our most dear brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given him, has written to you, as indeed he did in all his Epistles, speaking in them of these things.  In these Epistles there are certain things difficult to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable distort, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures also, to their own distruction.  You therefore, brethern, since you know this before hand, be on your guard lest, carried away from your own steadfastness.  But grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.  To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.  Amen."  2 Pet 3:15-18.

This is one example of how Scripture itself admitts that there are "certain things difficult to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable distort, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures also, to their own distruction."  2 Pet 3:16

Therefore, the Bible is a gift of Revelation given to us by God Himself.  We should always treat the Bible with great reverence.  The Bible was given to the Church to be guarded and explained.  The Bible must be interpreted by the Church from the "heart of the Church."

Here I go again, but I thought you would like to know.

The so called "health care legislation" passed in 2010 has directed the Obama administration to create a list of preventive services for women that all new health care plans must cover without deductibles or co-payments. You guessed it. If this goes through health insurance plans could soon be required to offer female patients free coverage for prescription birth control along with a “the full range” of federally approved contraceptives, devices, and sterilization procedures. All free for the asking.

Why is this bad? Well for one thing this legislation makes pregnancy and children (and family life) a disease and a woman's fertility is a pathological condition to be suppressed by any means technically possible. Second, it shows no respect for human life and human dignity. Life is not sacred. Third, the use of contraceptives and any such devices is immoral. By contraception I mean the intentional use of a drug, chemical, device or procedure that will prevent pregnancy by acting directly and deliberately against the fertility cycle. Contraception denies God's gift of life and the goodness of fertility and family life. It's a deep lie against personal dignity and marriage. It turns the body into a "temple of a lie" and denies that God wants our body to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit. Contraception violates our human nature in the deepest way possible. Contracepting is like enjoying a delicious meal and then vomiting it up so that you don't gain weight, and yet you can fully satisfy the appetite and cravings (binge-purge gluttony). Contraception is sexual gluttony.

Fouth, this legislation will encourage contraception which will encourage the sinful behavior of cohabitation, the sins of adultery, fornication, pronographical behavior, and more. This legislation encourages profound sins and creates the illusion of absolving people of the need to behave in a moral and Godly way. It takes away "the chance of embarrassing consequences."

I know that what I have said here will "cut across the grain" for some folks. But any Christian who knows his or her faith and knows Christian history should never be offended.

The present day dismantling of marriage and family life is clearly the outgrowth of a culture increasingly defined by serial monogamy, cohabitation, children born and raised out of wedlock, divorce-ready prenuptial agreements, pornography, abortion and contraception. A truthful analysis always shows that the root of the problem, more than anything else, is contraception. A contraceptive culture is a divorce culture, a cohabitation culture, an adulterous culture, a pornography culture, a same-sex “marriage” culture, a narcissistic and pleasure-seeking culture, because all these "cultures" or "life-styles" refute and deny a coherent biblical and historic understanding of marriage, family life, children, human dignity, or even what sex is, or who God is.

It may suprise some to learn that up to 1930 both Protestants and Catholics alike clearly taught that contraception, abortion and all forms of sexual promiscuity were morally evil. Since apostolic times the Church has articulated the moral evil of all of this, as did Judaism. Are we any better off now that people's minds have changed? Study after study provides a clear demonstrable link between the contraceptive mentality promoted since the 1930’s and the abortion and death industry mentality of the present day.

But simply denying God and acting as one wishes is never a solution. In fact it's a very dangerous place to be in. This position brings death to our soul. Let us pray for our legislators that they will not permit this horrendous provision into the health care of this country. It will never be caring for people's health... in fact it will never be caring at all.

The Word of God in Written Form: the Bible.

Just reading the Bible in its original form is not very easy. First you have language and many “language idiosyncrasies” to overcome. Then you have the writing style. The Bible was written originally in “uncial” style. This type of writing consists of writing in all capital letters with no connection between letters, no spaces between words and sentences, no periods or comas and not chapters or verses or chapter headings, etc. It would look like this:

INTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDANDTHEWORDWASWITHGODANDTHEWORDWASGODHEWASINTHEBEGINNINGWITHGODALLTHINGSWEREMADETHROUGHHIMANDWITHOUTHIMWASNOTANYTHINGMADETHATWASMADEINHIMWASLIFEANDTHELIFEWASTHELIGHTOFMENTHELIGHTSHINESINTHEDARKNESSANDTHEDARKNESSHASNOTOVERCOMEITTHEREWASAMANSENTFROMGODWHOSENAMEWASJOHNHECAMEASAWITNESSTOBEARWITNESSABOUTTHELIGHTTHATALLMIGHTBELIEVETHROUGHHIMHEWASNOTTHELIGHTBUTCAMETOBEARWITNESSABOUTTHELIGHTTHETRUELIGHTWHICHENLIGHTENSEVERYONEWASCOMINGINTOTHEWORLD

In our modern translations we have no problem reading John 1:1-9. All aspects of grammar need to be applied in addition to figuring out what the word means and how it is being used. But this style of “uncial” writing was popular until around 800 AD.

From this simple example we can well understand why Bishops carefully oversaw the translation of the Bible. Bibles for the most part were handwritten by monks from roughly 405 to 1452 or until the invention of printing in 1450.

I just thought you’d like to know.
Fr. Klein

St. Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us!

ONE THOUSAND FIFTEEN HUNDRERD AND SIXTY SEVEN years ago St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 - 444) died. He was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He came to the Episcopate when Alexandria was at its height of influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a leading supporter in orthodox Christology of the later 4th and 5th centuries. He was a central figure in the First Council of Ephesus in 431, which led to the deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople. He is a Doctor of the Church.

In his work titled “On Union with the Holy Trinity” he writes: “Our communion in the divinity of Christ means our union with the Trinity, which in its turn allows the divine nature to pervade and permeate us, just as fire heats a piece of iron and makes it glow. All we have to do after believing in Christ and discovering our communion with him is to give the divine, ineffable beauty of the nature of the Trinity the chance to dawn within us, to glow and to shine.
Ascetical struggle is nothing but an attempt to be in conformity with the Holy Spirit, which is actually within us, and to be in harmony with the thought of Christ, which actually fills us. The Holy Spirit, which God gives us as soon as he dwells in us, qualifies us for acquiring the likeness of Christ, and consequently, we become a real image of the Father. When we acquire the likeness of Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, we become “sons of partnership,” and when we partake of the divine nature as sons with Christ we become in union with God through the Holy Spirit."

St. Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us!