In 1997, a film, "Woman on a Bicycle," based on her resistance work was released as part of the three-part drama,

http://http://movies.tvguide.com/rescuers-stories-courage-women/review/133329

In 1997, a film, "Woman on a Bicycle," based on her resistance work was released as part of the three-part drama.

Here is also the letter from Archbishop Saliege of Toulouse:

PASTORAL LETTER FROM HIS EXCELLENCY MONSIGNOR SALIEGE, ARCHBISHOP OF
TOULOUSE
On "human dignity", read out from the pulpit on August 23, 1942
without comment.
My very dear Brothers,
There is a Christian morality, a
human morality, which lays down duties and recognizes rights. These rights and
duties stem from the nature of man; they come from God. One can violate them...
[but] no mortal has the power to do away with them.
Children, women, men,
fathers and mothers being treated like a lowly herd; members of a single family
being separated from each other and carted away to an unknown destination - it
is our age which was destined to see this dreadful sight.
Why is there no
longer any right of asylum in our churches?
Why are we the defeated?
Lord, have pity on us.
Our Lady, pray for France.
In our diocese,
moving scenes have occurred in the camps of Noe and Recebedou. The Jews are men;
the Jewesses are women. The foreigners are men and women. One may not do
anything one wishes to these men, to these women, to these fathers and mothers.
They are part of the human race; they are our brothers, like so many others. A
Christian cannot forget this.
France, beloved Fatherland; France, which
bears in the consciences of all your children the tradition of respect for human
dignity; chivalrous and generous France - I have no doubt that you are not
responsible for these errors.
Yours devotedly, dear Brothers,
(Signed)
Jules Gerard SALIEGE Archbishop of Toulouse
Source: AIU, CC-26, CDJC,
CCXVIII-72
Source: Yad
Vashem

Catholic priests and Nuns who were heroes of the holocaust

http://http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/catholic_stories/cs0058.html

The archbishop of Toulouse was one of the first to oppose the actions of Vichy France in deporting the Jews to their deaths and wrote a letter on their behalf which I quote below:

The letter he wrote was a supremely courageous one and was duplicated in tone and spirit by many other bishops in France at that time and was read over Vatican radio as well.

Marie Geneste joined the underground in 1942.Her house became a center for refugees and the underground and she was involved in the forging of identity cards. She lived in Mantauban and saw children torn from their parents, but was unaware of the holocaust until after the war. Her picture is given in this post. She is one of the heroes of our time recognized by Yad Vashem.

Yad Vashem, which in 1969 declared Saliège as Righteous Among the Nations,
notes, "Overnight, the document became a manifesto; hundreds
of thousands of copies were made and were circulated by members of the
Resistance throughout France." The letter was received by all
priests in all the churches of Saliège's diocese and, consequently, read from
some 400 pulpits at Sunday mass on August 23,
1942. The written protest was "vastly
influential in the abrupt turnabout in French public opinion at the time, in
which support for the Vichy regime plummeted," Yad Vashem cites
historians as noting. Saliège, then 72 years old, was ordered and
threatened to retract his remarks. When he refused, feeling "It is my duty
to teach morals to the members of the diocese and when it is necessary to teach
them also to government officials," he was persecuted and underwent trying jabs
to his character and reputation.
Archbishop Saliège's letter had wide
implications. It was read for four days on Vatican Radio, and the BBC
covered news of Saliège's protests. Following the example of Saliège,
Monsignor Pierre Marie Théas, Bishop of Montauban, France, wrote a letter for
the priests in his diocese to read to their parishioners during mass on the
following Sunday, August 30. Théas' message mirrored that of Saliège's:
"In Paris, tens of thousands of Jews have been treated with the utmost wild
barbarism. Even in our own regions, one witnesses a disturbing spectacle:
families are uprooted; men and women are treated as wild animals and sent to
unknown destinations, with the expectation of the greatest dangers. I hereby
give voice to the outraged protest of Christian conscience, and I proclaim that
all men, Aryans or non-Aryans, are brothers, because created by the same God. [I
further assert] that all men whatever their race or religion, have the right to
be respected by individuals and by states. Hence, the recent antisemitic
measures are an affront to human dignity and a violation of the most sacred
rights of the individual and the family."

Kimel acknowledges the Archbishop of Toulouse, France, Jules Gerard Saliège,
as being the "first to raise his voice in the defense of the Jews," particularly
through his use of written documents as a form of persuasion. The
Archbishop wrote directly to the Vichy authorities, protesting their
ill-treatment of the Jews. He was particularly influential and afterward
especially remembered for his pastoral letter which read, in part, "There is a Christian morality...that confers rights and imposes
duties. These duties and these rights come from God. One can violate
them. But no mortal has the power to suppress them. Alas, it has
been our destiny to witness the dreadful spectacle of women and children,
fathers and mothers treated like cattle, members of a family separated from one
another and dispatched to an unknown destination –it has been reserved for our
own time to see such a sad spectacle. Why does the right of sanctuary no longer
exist in our churches? Why are we defeated? ... The Jews are real men and women.
Foreigners are real men and women. They cannot be abused without limit. ... They
are part of the human species. They are our brothers, like so many others.
No Christian dares forget that!"

Jules Gerard Saliege was the Archbishop of Toulouse, France during World
War II and gave his full support to the rescue of Jewish people.
The
Holocaust is a story of indescribable tragedy and horror. No nation ever
attempted the systematic mass murder of people as did Germany in World War II.
It is estimated that 11 million people were victims of Nazi genocide, 6 million
were Jewish, the others were Gypsies, people with disabilities, Germans who
resisted, and thousands of others.
In those times of chaos, it was extremely
dangerous and difficult to organize rescue activities. The Nazi Gestapo and
secret police were vigilant and quick to punish anyone who tried to save Jewish
people. Aware of the terror and cruelty of the Nazi regime, the Catholic priests
and nuns who engaged in rescue activities did so at the risk of their own lives.
Rescue activities took many forms and included hiding people, helping them
escape, and providing false identities, food and shelter. These activities had
to be carried out in secret, there was always the risk of being discovered. The
rescues that took place are a tribute to the power of goodness over evil.
Rescuers who were caught were arrested and sent to concentration camps and
prisons and many were killed. The stories of the heroic priests and nuns who
risked their lives to rescue Jewish people have been documented, they have been
honored by the Catholic church and the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Documentation
Center in Israel, but they are not as well known as they deserve to be. They
must never be forgotten. This article is based on documented accounts and
briefly summarizes the rescue activities of courageous priests and
nuns.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Discipleship

This book The Cost of Discipleship is an exposition of Mt 5-7 the sermon on the mount and the cost of following Christ. The monastic movement later prevalent in the Catholic church became emblemized as status quo the very antithesis of costly discipleship. The narrow following of Jesus the Christ was never really understood as to cost and this book makes clearer the cost of this calling yet the yoke is easy and the burden light.

There are several excellent sound mp3 downloads I have heard on his life and thought as well as his execution at Flossenburg.

The video portions are on my other site at www.myspace.com/edwardsgallery

One of the most important parts of the book deals with the distinction
which Bonhoeffer makes between "cheap" and "costly" grace. But what is "cheap"
grace? In Bonhoeffer's words: "cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance, baptism without church
discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is
grace without discipleship,
grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ." Or, to put it even more
clearly, it is to hear the gospel preached as follows: "Of course you have
sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the
consolations of forgiveness." The main defect of such a proclamation is that it
contains no demand for discipleship.
In contrast to this is costly grace:
"costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a
word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly
because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is
grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." "

After his return from America, Bonhoeffer would play a large role in the
Confessing Church. Although Bonhoeffer was originally a Lutheran, he
became frustrated with its "liberal theology" after discussions with Karl
Barth, an eminent theologian. Barth believed that "liberal theology"
(understood as emphasizing personal experience and societal development)
minimized Scripture, reducing it to a mere textbook of metaphysics while
sanctioning the deification of human culture. Barth and Bonhoeffer often debated
rationalist and Hegelian-derived theology
against Reformation doctrine, and Barth won over Bonhoeffer. Although Bonhoeffer
would never totally abandon liberal theology, he did feel it was too
constraining and responsible for the lack of relevance in the church. Bonhoeffer
and Barth became main figures of the "neo-orthodox" movement
mid-20th century in German- and English-speaking Protestantism.Bonhoeffer
lectured on theology in Berlin and wrote several books. Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, Karl
Barth and others established the Confessing Church. In
August 1933, he co-authored the Bethel Confession
with Hermann Sasse and others.
Between 1933 and 1935, he served as pastor of two German-speaking Protestant
churches in London: St. Paul's and Sydenham.
He traveled to India to study non-violent resistance with Gandhi, and returned
to Germany to head a seminary for Confessing Church
pastors, first in Finkenwalde and then at
the von Blumenthal estate of Gross
Schlönwitz, which was closed at the outbreak of World War II.
The Gestapo first
banned him from preaching, then teaching, and finally any kind of public
speaking. During this time, Bonhoeffer worked closely with numerous opponents of
Adolf Hitler

The Stair Landing: Favorite Poem

The Stair Landing: Favorite Poem

Poetic truth and Isabel Allende

http://http://www.isabelallende.com/curious_speeches_frame.htm

The great truths are always totally fresh and perennially reborn although there is nothing new under the sun. All life events can be transformed with the use of the poetic imagination which is necessarily poetic. The tired soul can be reinvigorated. It is truly as stated below beyond the appearance of things. Isabel was truly a prolific writer employing magical realism, truth beyond the literal events themselves.To experience the mystical or the desire for mystical experience is really an obsession of a tired soul not for the novel, but for the perennial beneath the facade of the spurious and the shallow to capture the fleeting essence of the sublime. We have to be wedged out the comfort zone of our drab "existence" with the stimulus of suffering and shattering events such as war, revolution, holocausts. That may be their value ,their wedging effect. To feel a constant presence, as Allende alludes to she would have to be nurtured to that point of sensitivity.

Isn't this the playful substance of literature?... An event transformed by
poetic truth. Writers are like those good thieves, they take something that is
real, like the letters, and by a trick of magic they transform it into something
totally fresh. That is the best part of writing: finding the hidden treasures,
giving sparkle to worn out events, invigorating the tired soul with imagination,
creating some kind of truth with many lies

Good fiction is not only the thrill of a plot, at its best it is an invitation to explore beyond the appearance of things, it challenges the reader's safety, it questions reality. Yes, it can be disturbing. But there may be a reward at the end. With some luck, the author and the reader, hand in hand, may stumble upon some particles of truth. Usually, however, that is not the intention of the author in the first place. The writer merely suffers from an uncontrollable need to tell the story. There is nothing more to it, believe me.

The home of my grand-parents, where I spent my childhood, was inhabited by wild pets, strange humans and benevolent ghosts.
My grandmother was a charming lady who had little interest in the material world. She spent most of her time experimenting with telepathy and talking to the souls of the dead during her séances. This clairvoyant lady who could move objects without touching them, served as model for Clara del Valle in my first novel, THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS. She died long ago, at a young age, but like my daughter Paula, she is a constant presence in my life. My grand-father was a solid Basque, stubborn and strong as a mule, who gave me the gift of discipline. He could remember hundreds of folk tales and long epic poems; he spoke in proverbs. He lived to be a century old and during the last part of his life he read many times the Bible from cover to cover and the Encyclopedia Britannic from A to Z. He gave me the love of language and stories.

Mit Brennender Sorge 5

This is the clearest expression of the anathema accorded the creation or power of the state over the church and the creation of national churches which inevitably must crumble and the world church must prevail in glory. These words were written in the teeth of a vicious and growing totalitarianism, to counter the new paganism.

21. In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus
urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one
whose official position is intended to create the impression that this
infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of
loyalty to the modern State. Secret and open measures of intimidation, the
threat of economic and civic disabilities, bear on the loyalty of certain
classes of Catholic functionaries, a pressure which violates every human right
and dignity. Our wholehearted paternal sympathy goes out to those who must pay
so dearly for their loyalty to Christ and the Church; but directly the highest
interests are at stake, with the alternative of spiritual loss, there is but one
alternative left, that of heroism. If the oppressor offers one the Judas bargain
of apostasy he can only, at the cost of every worldly sacrifice, answer with Our
Lord: "Begone, Satan! For it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and
Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. iv. 10). And turning to the Church, he shall
say: "Thou, my mother since my infancy, the solace of my life and advocate at my
death, may my tongue cleave to my palate if, yielding to worldly promises or
threats, I betray the vows of my baptism." As to those who imagine that they can
reconcile exterior infidelity to one and the same Church, let them hear Our
Lord's warning: -- "He that shall deny me before men shall be denied before the
angels of God" (Luke xii. 9).
22. Faith in the Church cannot stand pure and
true without the support of faith in the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. The same
moment when Peter, in the presence of all the Apostles and disciples, confesses
his faith in Christ, Son of the Living God, the answer he received in reward for
his faith and his confession was the word that built the Church, the only Church
of Christ, on the rock of Peter (Matt. xvi. 18). Thus was sealed the connection
between the faith in Christ, the Church and the Primacy. True and lawful
authority is invariably a bond of unity, a source of strength, a guarantee
against division and ruin, a pledge for the future: and this is verified in the
deepest and sublimest sense, when that authority, as in the case of the Church,
and the Church alone, is sealed by the promise and the guidance of the Holy
Ghost and His irresistible support. Should men, who are not even united by faith
in Christ, come and offer you the seduction of a national German Church, be
convinced that it is nothing but a denial of the one Church of Christ and the
evident betrayal of that universal evangelical mission, for which a world Church
alone is qualified and competent. The live history of other national churches
with their paralysis, their domestication and subjection to worldly powers, is
sufficient evidence of the sterility to which is condemned every branch that is
severed from the trunk of the living Church. Whoever counters these erroneous
developments with an uncompromising No from the very outset, not only serves the
purity of his faith in Christ, but also the welfare and the vitality of his own
people.

Brihaspati now Jesus

http://http://www.mythfolklore.net/india/encyclopedia/brihaspati.htm

BRIHASPATI. [Source: Dowson's
Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology] In the Rigveda the names Brihaspati
and Brahmanaspati alternate, and are equivalent to each other. They are names
"of a deity in whom the action of the worshipper upon the gods is personified.
He is the suppliant, the sacrificer, the priest, who intercedes with gods on
behalf of men and protects mankind against the wicked. Hence he appears as the
prototype of the priests and priestly order; and is also designated as the
Purohita (family priest) of the divine community. He is called in one place `the
father of the gods,' and a widely extended creative power is ascribed to him. He
is also designated as `the shining' and `the gold-coloured,' and as `having the
thunder for his voice

An ancient code of law bears the name of Brihaspati, and he is also represented as being the Vyasa of the "fourth, Dwapara age." There was a Rishi of the name in the second Manwantara, and one who was founder of an heretical sect. Other epithets of Brihaspati are Jiva, `the living,' Didivis, `the bright,' Dhishana, `the intelligent,' and, for his eloquence, Gishpati, `lord of speech,'.

Annie Besant common men and women now masters

Leadbeater , Man How Whence and Whither

http://http://www.anandgholap.net/Man_Whence_How_And_Whither-CWL.htm

http://http://leadbeater.info/

The 27 chapters of this book cover Atlantis, Peru, Chaldea,early Aryan, the Arabian, and the Iranian and will be covered later

The men and women in the table in Leadbeater's book are now masters,examples of which I have given in my former post .They have unfolded the God force within themselves .Their road was not only of toil but denied the flesh and mortified it. Peter once wrote if we do not suffer with the Christ, we will not be glorified with him (Him). These masters have toiled and are the superhuman. They have fulfilled what we are to be ,true, following the universal pattern of the zenith of our evolving into the highest spiritual perfection. They show what perfection is and their stories are accessible as a guide in our undertakings. The research was done and recorded.

I will check other allusions also listed below:

I will also consult the reference on Brihaspati.

'The Theosophist, under the general title “Rents in the Veil of Time”--
rents through which glimpses of the past of individuals may be seen. A volume of
these, named Lives of Alcyone,

Mrs. Van Hook and Don Fabrizio Ruspoli, were good enough to write down all
we said, exactly as we said it;

The names of those who constantly appear in this story as ordinary men and
women, but who are now Masters, may make those great Beings more real to some;
They have climbed to where They stand on the same ladder of life up which we are
climbing now; They have known the common household life, the joys and sorrows,
the successes and the failures, which make up human experiences. They are not
Gods perfect from unending ages, but men and women who have unfolded the God
within themselves and have, along a toilsome road, reached the superhuman. They
are the fulfilled promise of what we shall be, the glorious flowers on the plant
on which we are the buds.

BRIHASPATI ...
Now the Master Jesus.
VENUS ...
Now the Master Ragozci (or Rakovzky), the `Hungarian Adept,' the Comte de S. Germain of the eighteenth century

http://www.anandgholap.net/Man_Whence_How_And_Whither-CWL.htm

Clairvoyance is indeed latent and capable of being developed prematurely of its generally evolutionary appearance and development if the price is paid for this premature development.

Other names have given rise to its manifesting,namely the marking of this phenomenon on different levels, such as dreams, prophecy,etc.

Clairvoyance is a tool to be used as research into the past. We hear of different forms of this in the Cayce readings of the Akashic records as well. Amid constant interruption of an encroaching world, this research is impossible and the idea of the retreat is in order, and necessary for this and any associated sorting out of "mystical experience."

They know that it is a power latent in all men, and that it can be developed by any one who is able and willing to pay the price demanded for its forcing, ahead of the general evolution.

The notion of occult hierarchy was postulated at the research at Adyar since the 1910 inception date: Note the quote below:

The broad Theosophical outline of evolution has been followed, and it is
given among the “preliminaries” in Chapter I. This governs the whole, and is
the
ground-plan of the book. The fact of an Occult Hierarchy, which guides
and
shapes evolution, is throughout taken for granted, and some of its
members
inevitably appear in the course of the story. In order to throw
ourselves back
into the earliest stages, we sought for our own
consciousnesses, present there,
and easier to start from than anything else,
since no others were recognisable.
They gave us, as it were, a footing in
the first and second Chains. From the
latter part of the third Chain and
onwards, we traced humanity' s story by
following a group of individuals,
except where this group was otherwise occupied
during any important stage of
evolution-- as in the beginnings of the third and
fourth sub-races of the
fifth Root-Race; when that was the case we left it, and
followed the main
stream of progress. In this record comparatively few details
as to persons
can be given, the sweep of the story being so large. Many detailed
lives,
however, have been published in 'The Theosophist, under the general title
“Rents in the Veil of Time”-- rents through which glimpses of the past of
individuals may be seen. A volume of these, named Lives of Alcyone, will, we
hope, one day be published, and to that will be appended full genealogical
tables, showing the relationships in each life of all the characters so far
identified. Work of this kind might be done ad libitum, if there were people
to
do it

Individuals retain their individuality but reappear under different disguises and names through out succeeding ages . This recurrence is postulated under the teachings of reincarnation and in Judaism is frequently experienced with writing afterward of it in the writings of Isaac Luria (the Ari) through his scribe/transcriber and called "soul attachment" and is the way for a soul to grow over an expanse of the aeons in the search for an evolving to perfection.

The link provides a table of the names of the masters and their appearances in their manifestations. They have grown to be the Masters as they now stand. Isaac Luria though not named was one such.

SURYA ...
The Lord Maitreya, the present Bodhisattva, the Supreme Teacher of
the world

MAHAGURU ...
The Bodhisattva of the time, appearing as Vyasa, Thoth
(Hermes), Zarathushtra, Orpheus, finally as Gautama; who became the Lord Buddha

BRIHASPATI ...
Now the Master Jesus.

VENUS ...
Now the Master Ragozci (or Rakovzky), the `Hungarian Adept,' the Comte de S. Germain of the eighteenth century

We read on the plane of history of Jesus (possibly in India at one time?)
and of St Germain. More of that later.

Faith without works is dead -imputed versus completed righteousness

http://http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/booklets/Sola%20Fide%20-%20Salvation%20by%20Faith%20Alone.txt

This is notes to an mp3 download I heard on this subject that faith is necessarily completed by works, without which to talk of faith is not possible and works are the sina qua non factor and that significant portions of James 2 are conveniently omitted by Luther.

These notes above linked are very definitive on the question of faith versus works.

Tradition etc

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_founders_of_religious_traditions

The founders are at the focal point of revelation which is later amplified or revised on a basis that tradition serves to evolve progressively and enhances the growth of the traditional set of members as they are mature enough to handle a certain level of revelatory truth. Many founders lack the desired historical grounding we would require for a "a factual consensus", not historical as we know history to be. Perhaps meta historical?

Orthodoxy v the non canonical biblical books http://http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_ntb1.htm

Name
Religious tradition founded
Date
En-hedu-ana
priestess of Inanna, earliest
author of religious scripture known by name.
23rd century BCE
Akhenaten
Atenism
14th
century BCE
Zoroaster
Zoroastrianism
Early Iron Age
Solomon
Israelite king who
built the first Temple in Jerusalem
and codified Judaism.
10th
century BCE (Solomon's historicity is uncertain, see also Tel Dan
Stele)
Numa Pompilius
Roman
king who codified and organized the Roman
religion
717 BCE - 673 BCE
Mahavira
The final Tirthankara in Jainism
599 –
527 BCE
Laozi
Taoism
600s BCE
Siddhārtha
Gautama
Buddhism
563 BCE - 483
BCE
Confucius
Confucianism
551 BCE -
479 BCE
Pythagoras
Pythagoreanism
520
BCE
Mozi
Mohism
470 BCE -
390 BCE
Leucippus
Atomism
440 BCE
Plato
Platonic realism
427
BCE - 347 BCE
Epicurus
Epicureanism
307
BCE
Zeno of Citium
Stoicism
333
BCE - 264 BCE
Patanjali
Raja
Yoga
2nd century BCE
Jesus of Nazareth
Early
Christianity
6 BCE - 27 CE (the historicity of
Jesus is disputed by some authors)
Paul
of Tarsus and Simon Peter
Apostles of
Jesus, Paul codified Jesus' teachings to shape Pauline
Christianity while Peter and his successors used their
influence to shape the Christian Church according to a Pauline
interpretation of the gospel
1st century

Once a part and parcel of religion, the origin of the tradition is, often with a touch of miracle and marvel, attributed to a popular religious celebrity. It is here that all practices concerning various phases of life, from birth through initiation into the society, marriage, parentage, and death, take a religious form. Even eating, clothing, waking, walking, working, washing, running, resting, sleeping, and socializing have their religious ways of performing them. Tradition, religious or not, is present in every movement one makes, private, personal or otherwise. It becomes the *prescription* for life. The terms religion and tradition are, as earlier stated, used not only as cognates but also as synonyms. A tradition must develop to further enhance revelation as it unfolds to the understanding of successive ages. Thus a tradition is inseparable from and a necessary adjunct of initial revelation. (MY COMMENTS)

Tradition Religious and otherwise?

Religious Traditions-They each have the common familiar thread expressed in the first quotation: they hold G-d and man in one thought, a religious man suffers harm done to the community vicariously,his strength is love and compassion, and such a man or woman defies despair.

" A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at
one time, at all times, who suffers
harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest
strength is love and defiance of despair. "
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
One day Ananda, who had been thinking deeply about things for a while,
turned to the Buddha and exclaimed:"Lord, I've been thinking- spiritual
friendship is at least half of the spiritual life!"The Buddha replied: "Say not
so, Ananda, say not so. Spiritual friendship is the whole of the spiritual
life!"
Samyutta Nikaya, Verse 2
In what is seen, there should be just the
seen;In what is heard, there should be just the heard;In what is sensed, there
should be just the sensed;In what is thought, there should be just the
thought.
He should not kill a living being, nor cause it to be killed, nor
should he incite another to kill.Do not injure any being, either strong or weak
in the world.
Sutta Nipata II,14
The greatest achievement is
selflessness.The greatest worth is self-mastery.The greatest quality is seeking
to serve others.The greatest precept is continual awareness.The greatest
medicine is the emptiness of everything.The greatest action is not conforming
with the worlds ways.The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.The greatest
generosity is non-attachment.The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.The
greatest patience is humility.The greatest effort is not concerned with
results.The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.The greatest wisdom is
seeing through appearances.
Atisha
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like
unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. "
- Matthew 22:35
Where I wander
- You!Where I ponder - You!Only You everywhere, You, always, You.You, You,
You.When I am gladdened - You!And when I am saddened - You!Only You, everywhere
You!You, You, You.Sky is You!Earth is You!You above! You below!In every trend,
at every end,Only You, everywhere You!

Levi Yitzchak of
BerditchovTranslated by: Harry Rabinowicz
http://http://www.poetseers.org/spiritual_and_devotional_poets/india

"Death's
grip can break our bodies, not our souls; If death take him, I too know how to
die. Let Fate do with me what she will or can; I am stronger than death and
greater than my fate; My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me
Helpless against my immortality."
- From SavitriBook VI: The Book of
Fate Canto I Sri Aurobindo

Krishna

At last I find a meaning of soul's
birth Into this universe terrible
and sweet,I who have felt the hungry heart of
earth Aspiring beyond heaven to
Krishna's feet.I have seen the beauty of immortal
eyes, And heard the passion of
the Lover's flute,And known a deathless ecstasy's
surprise And sorrow in my heart
for ever mute.Nearer and nearer now the music
draws, Life shudders with a
strange felicity;All Nature is a wide enamoured
pause Hoping her lord to touch,
to clasp, to be. For this one moment lived the ages past;The world now throbs
fulfilled in me at last. SRI AUROBINDO


Evening Prayer for the Sabbath

In this moment of silent
communion with Thee,
O Lord, a still small silent voice speaks in the depth of
my spirit.
It speaks to me of the things I must do to attain holy kinship with
Thee and to grow in the likeness of Thee.
I must do my allotted task with
unflagging faithfulness even though the eye of no taskmaster is on me.
I must
be gentle in the face of ingratitude or when slander distorts my noblest
motives.
I must come to the end of each day with a feeling that I have used
its gifts gratefully and faced its trials bravely.
O Lord, help me to be ever
more like Thee,holy for Thou art holy,
Loving for Thou art love.
Speak to
me, then, Lord, as I seek Thee again and again in the stillness of meditation,
until Thy bidding shall at last become for me a hallowed discipline,a familiar
way of life.

- Jewish Prayer
Jewish
Mystic Poets

authorblog: F Is For Fremantle

authorblog: F Is For Fremantle

Divine order entails growth or evolving, not evolution

The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life. H. P. Blavatsky

http://http//www.blavatsky.net/darwin/

Mankind has been bestowed with freedom to think and act, but not the freedom to
override or thwart the Great Will which moves to the good. Both mythology and
history tell us that evil has never ultimately triumphed, and therefore,
mankind's aberrations at any point of time, like those we observe in the world
today, are only like flitting clouds in a vast sky; even like whirlpools, froth
and foam on the surface of a large river which continues to flow on inexorably
towards its destination - to be one with the great ocean of bliss, from which it
had risen originally as vaporous clouds

This onward march of individual growth with noted exceptions as "aberrations " moves mankind forward to the goal,elusive as it seems , to spiritual and moral perfection. The aberrations seem as a necessity to spur further growth not possible in the absence of these. The flow is inexorable and unstoppable and the ocean is bliss. Archaic truths and immutable laws testify to our spiritual growth notwithstanding the aberrations which do serve their purpose in a very obvious way.

The sciences never approach the occult or hidden explanations already manifest to the circumspect among us and her "Secret Doctrines' details" these insights.

The failure of Darwinism in explaining true evolution is contained in "knowledge", the knowledge of the sages as explained below:

What the sages know
Source of knowledge
Objectives of
The Secret Doctrine
Cosmic ultimate
Intelligence
in nature
Hierarchies
of Intelligence
Imperfections
in Design
Design in astral
Triple
evolution
No
worship

Diane Sawyer and children in Applachia and poverty

From My google bookmarks

This is quoted from her article bookmarked in my Google. The frightening aspect of this poverty is it's close to home and silently around us. This is quoted twice but I do not want to expunge one part lest I over expunge.

I think that urban poverty, while often crushing and inestimable, doesn't
have the isolation," she said.Friday's special shows how a lack of
transportation deepens the effects of deprivation: one of the women in the
piece, Angel, trudges eight miles down the mountain every day to reach her GED
class.Sawyer's producing team worked on the project for two years, traveling
more than 14,000 miles in the process. The anchor herself made one "very
intense" trip to the region. She interviewed children like 11-year-old Erica,
who desperately wants her mother to kick her drug habit. When Sawyer asks her
why she believes her mother keeps using, the young girl replies world-wearily:
"Pain. Misery." Equally compelling are the stories of Shawn Grim, an 18-year-old
football phenom who lives in his truck to escape the dysfunction at home, and
Courtney, 12, whose family often runs out of food.I think that urban poverty,
while often crushing and inestimable, doesn't have the isolation," she
said.Friday's special shows how a lack of transportation deepens the effects of
deprivation: one of the women in the piece, Angel, trudges eight miles down the
mountain every day to reach her GED class.Sawyer's producing team worked on the
project for two years, traveling more than 14,000 miles in the process. The
anchor herself made one "very intense" trip to the region. She interviewed
children like 11-year-old Erica, who desperately wants her mother to kick her
drug habit. When Sawyer asks her why she believes her mother keeps using, the
young girl replies world-wearily: "Pain. Misery." Equally compelling are the
stories of Shawn Grim, an 18-year-old football phenom who lives in his truck to
escape the dysfunction at home, and Courtney, 12, whose family often runs out of
food.

Hannah Arendt

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

Her quote below attests to her preoccupation with politics and the nature of totalitarianism. Man's knowledge and expanded consciousness: therein lies his freedom,inner freedom embedded in that consciousness. Her book on Eichmann brings out Eichmann's use of stock phrases and his inability to think beyond those. She characterizes evil as being banal or indifferent to its own acts.Man's freedom is enlargement of consciousness and thinking beyond the box. Other books written: Rahel Varnhagen: the life of a Jewess.

The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age, edited with an introduction by Ron H. Feldman (1978) Life of the Mind Ed. Mary McCarthy, 2 vols. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978). Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954: Formation, Exile, and Totalitarianism, Ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1994), Paperback ed. (New York: Schocken, 2005). Love and Saint Augustine Edited with an Interpretive Essay by Joanna Vecchiarelli Scott and Judith Chelius Scott (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996/1998).

Arendt's work
deals with the nature of power, and the
subjects of politics, authority, and totalitarianism. Much of
her work focuses on affirming a conception of freedom which is synonymous with
collective political action among equals.
Arendt theorizes freedom as public and associative,
drawing on examples from the Greek "polis", American townships, the Paris
Commune, and the civil rights
movements of the 1960s (among others) to illustrate this conception of
freedom.
Another key concept in her work is "natality", the capacity to bring something new into
the world, such as the founding of a government that endures.
Her first
major book was The Origins
of Totalitarianism (1951), which traced the roots of Stalinist Communism and Nazism in both anti-Semitism and imperialism. The book was
controversial because it suggested an essential identity between the two
phenomena, which can be considered as completely separated in both origins and
nature.

Another key concept in her work is "natality", the capacity to bring something new into the world, such as the founding of a government that endures

Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because
his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate
himself from necessity.

Hannah Arendt from my google bookmarks. Necessity is not necessarily incompatible with free choice but freedom must be extricated with great labor from necessity lest we float in a dreamstate of delusion thinking we are free when we are sleepwalking. I will research this thought of Hannah's and provide contextual photos and some possible photos and look for videos.

http://http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/arendthtml/arendthome.html

The Children in Romania

The children of Romania. Many children retreat and live in the sewers where it is warm. Street teams search for and find these orphans and house and feed them with warm clothes and an education, and search for foster homes for them, good homes. There is an outreach program on the streets,also. Note the many services below the project offers:

Children of the street need all of their hungers fed and that is realized. NGO's can play a pivotal role in this regard as this is an international problem prevalent to day and after WWII in the wake of child refugees. That early, Pope PIUS XII in his encyclical Quemamodo(?) states that not attending to this problem is a heinous sin . I could not agree with him more.

Go to this link for resources and get started . I am to start locally on this problem next week in the realm of literacy. Note my posts on the homeless problem as mutli faceted under Soho.

http://http://www.relieffundforromania.co.uk/street_children.html

A back-to-school programme via special literacy classes (where needs be) An
annual summer camp in the country or by the sea
Weekly arts and music
therapy
Specialist drama and conflict resolution therapy sessions by a
resident psychologist and visiting specialists
Sports activities via a local
high school sports initiative
Long-term follow-up where children have been
reunited with their families
Drop-in support care to adolescents who have
left our safe house and become independent
An excellent record in campaigning
with the state and other NGO’s for good services and reintegration into school
and the community for former street children

Mit Brennender Sorge continued p4 Sin and Sanctification

Mit Brennender Sorge continued p3 The plenitude of Revelation and The Old Testament Being a Living Member
http://http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11BRENN.HTM

We are considering section 19 of this encyclical to day subjects eternally timeless. Sin and sanctification, subjects we are quiet about and should not be and then cry to the winds, "ah me" at the sickness of a cancered world. Anyone overlooking the discrepancies between the act that ought to be and the nauseating reality of its neglect causing the word ever deeper mire which we so lament with out justification is deplorably blind, a blindness really chosen . Merciless purification, the mortification of the fallen flesh takes many forms and is or should be a daily routine. The salt of the earth will never entirely rot and be decayed. The living members seem hidden and inconspicuous but eventually surface. Imagine these themes recited in the ears of its Nazi audience. What amazing courage to do the recital. I am not even a Catholic but the remarks are universal and were live through at the time of this writing by many of the priestly order in this church.

The Church, whose work lies among men and operates through men, may see her
divine mission obscured by human, too human, combination, persistently growing
and developing like the cockle among the wheat of the Kingdom of God. Those who
know the Savior's words on scandal and the giver of scandals, know, too, the
judgment which the Church and all her sons must pronounce on what was and what
is sin. But if, besides these reprehensible discrepancies be between faith and
life, acts and words, exterior conduct and interior feelings, however numerous
they be, anyone overlooks the overwhelming sum of authentic virtues, of spirit
of sacrifice, fraternal love, heroic efforts of sanctity, he gives evidence of
deplorable blindness and injustice. If later he forgets to apply the standard of
severity, by which he measures the Church he hates, to other organizations in
which he happens to be interested, then his appeal to an offended sense of
purity identifies him with those who, for seeing the mote in their brother's
eye, according to the Savior's incisive words, cannot see the beam in their own.
But however suspicious the intention of those who make it their task, nay their
vile profession, to scrutinize what is human in the Church, and although the
priestly powers conferred by God are independent of the priest's human value, it
yet remains true that at no moment of history, no individual, in no organization
can dispense himself from the duty of loyally examining his conscience, of
mercilessly purifying himself, and energetically renewing himself in spirit and
in action. In Our Encyclical on the priesthood We have urged attention to the
sacred duty of all those who belong to the Church, chiefly the members of the
priestly and religious profession and of the lay apostolate, to square their
faith and their conduct with the claims of the law of God and of the Church. And
today we again repeat with all the insistency We can command: it is not enough
to be a member of the Church of Christ, one needs to be a living member, in
spirit and in truth, i.e., living in the state of grace and in the presence of
God, either in innocence or in sincere repentance. If the Apostle of the
nations, the vase of election, chastised his body and brought it into
subjection: lest perhaps, when he had preached to others, he himself should
become a castaway (1 Cor. ix. 27), could anybody responsible for the extension
of the Kingdom of God claim any other method but personal sanctification? Only
thus can we show to the present generation, and to the critics of the Church
that "the salt of the earth," the leaven of Christianity has not decayed, but is
ready to give the men of today -- prisoners of doubt and error, victims of
indifference, tired of their Faith and straying from God -- the spiritual
renewal they so much need. A Christianity which keeps a grip on itself, refuses
every compromise with the world, takes the commands of God and the Church
seriously, preserves its love of God and of men in all its freshness, such a
Christianity can be, and will be, a model and a guide to a world which is sick
to death and clamors for directions, unless it be condemned to a catastrophe
that would baffle the imagination.

synch-ro-ni-zing: 1996 Oscar: one scene in The English Patient

synch-ro-ni-zing: 1996 Oscar: one scene in The English Patient

Mit Brennender Sorge continued p3 The plenitude of Revelation and The Old Testament

http://http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html

Inclusion and banishment of texts is a form of blasphemy . I have never heard blasphemy put into this specific frame of reference. I would not say the testaments are exclusively the word of God,though, but the word of God they are. Note the process of the description of the slow process of revelation and the term :subdued light which accords with the realization by God that revelation must be slow due to humanity's slow grasp of the ineffable at the right time and season . This is why revelation evolves in the context of linear time. Revelation must be subdued lest man be overtaken . The still small voice of God is a necessity and a kindness vouchsafed to man. Hence the age of miracles in the mighty sense are past and we have the phrase in Judaism, "G-d turned his face away from us".

In Jesus Christ, Son of God made Man, there shone the plentitude of divine
revelation. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times
past
to the fathers by the prophets last of all, in these days hath spoken
to us by
His Son" (Heb. i. 1). The sacred books of the Old Testament are
exclusively the
word of God, and constitute a substantial part of his
revelation; they are
penetrated by a subdued light,
harmonizing with the slow development of
revelation, the dawn of the bright
day of the redemption. As should be expected
in
historical and didactic books, they reflect in many particulars the
imperfection, the weakness and sinfulness of man. But
side by side with
innumerable touches of greatness and nobleness, they also
record the story of
the chosen people, bearers of the Revelation and
the Promise, repeatedly
straying from God and turning to the world. Eyes not blinded by prejudice or
passion will see in this
prevarication, as reported by the Biblical history, the
luminous splendor of
the divine light revealing the saving plan which finally
triumphs over every
fault and sin. It is precisely in the twilight of this
background
that one perceives the striking perspective of the divine tutorship
of
salvation, as it warms, admonishes, strikes, raises and beautifies its elect.
Nothing but ignorance and pride could blind one to the treasures hoarded in
the
Old Testament.
16. Whoever wishes to see banished from church and
school the
Biblical history and the wise doctrines of the Old Testament,
blasphemes the
name of God, blasphemes the Almighty's plan of salvation, and
makes limited and
narrow human thought the judge of God's designs over the
history of the world:
he denies his faith in the true Christ, such as He
appeared in the flesh, the
Christ who took His human nature from a people
that was to crucify Him; and he
understands nothing of that universal
tragedy of the Son of God who to His
torturer's sacrilege opposed the divine and priestly
sacrifice of His redeeming
death, and made the new alliance the goal of the
old alliance, its realization
and its crown.

Mit Brennender Sorge continued

http://http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html

Note the under referenced lines which speak volumes. The dark destiny alluded to as pre Christian is contrasted to the light of the wisdom of God quoted in an apocryphal work accepted by the Catholic church as canonical text. We can "divinize" any man made creed to an idolatrous level and make it an idol thereby. He defines here the nature and attributes of God in contradistinction to an erroneous depiction of God in the pagan context. It's so much about purposefully erroneous ideology. There shall be no rival Gods beside me. Do nations stumble into concepts of a national God or are they purposefully created? These errors of an aggressive paganism are deemed pernicious and not accidental ,they are never such and are equivalent or tantamount to blasphemy. This papal bull is worded in the strongest language possible and is the most excoriating attack on Nazism ever produced to that time, and the author is Pius XII(then Cardinal Pacelli) commissioned by and in the name of Pius XI.

Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of
substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby
the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and
ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.
8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of
State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human
community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things
- whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to
an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and
created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of
life which that faith upholds.

Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of
the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any
creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on
the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the
Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity
of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all
existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who
will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side.

None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xI, 15).
12. The Bishops of the Church of Christ, "ordained in the things that appertain to God (Heb. v, 1) must watch that pernicious errors of this sort, and consequent practices more pernicious still, shall not gain a footing among their flock. It is part of their sacred obligations to do whatever is in their power to enforce respect for, and obedience to, the commandments of God, as these are the necessary foundation of all private life and public morality; to see that the rights of His Divine Majesty, His name and His word be not profaned; to put a stop to the blasphemies, which, in words and pictures, are multiplying like the sands of the desert; to encounter the obstinacy and provocations of those who deny, despise and hate God, by the never-failing reparatory prayers of the Faithful, hourly rising like incense to the All-Highest and staying His vengeance.

No faith in God can for long survive pure and unalloyed without the support of faith in Christ. "No one knoweth who the Son is, but the Father: and who the Father is, but the Son and to whom the Son will reveal Him" (Luke x. 22). "Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent" (John xvii. 3). Nobody, therefore, can say: "I believe in God, and that is enough religion for me," for the Savior's words brook no evasion: "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. He that confesseth the Son hath the Father also" (1 John ii. 23).

Mit Brennender Sorge

Amazing is the way certain documents and writings innocuously penetrate our history in ways we cannot fathom .Little do we realize their momentous impact at the tim e of their appearance, not until generations later. Such is the papal encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge where Pius XI denounces the Nazi state and also anti semitism with the phrase "Spiritual Semites" as a term of honor, I should say.

Note this quote and elsewhere Pius XI condemns anti semitism. This profoundly affected the stance of Pius XII and his entrance and exit on the stage of world history was decisive . His beloved mentor Pius XI set the tone . He took his name and that sent a message to the world that Pius XII was to carry on in his mentor's footsteps:

^ Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through the Ages (2005), pp. 327–33, quote: "Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites."

Mit brennender Sorge (German for "With burning concern") is a Roman Catholic Church encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on March 10, 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, March 14). The encyclical criticized Nazism, listed breaches of an agreement signed with the Church and condemned antisemitism. Drafted by the future Pope Pius XII, who was in Munich at the time of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch[1], it warned Catholics that the growing Nazi ideology, which exalted one race over all others, was incompatible with Christianity. Pius XI himself had elsewhere condemned anti-semitism in more explicit terms.[2]

It was the only encyclical in German and had to be kept secret as the following quote makes explicit:

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_brennender_Sorge#cite_note-Vidmar327-1

The encyclical was written in German and not the usual Latin of official Roman Catholic Church documents. It was addressed to German bishops and was read in all parish churches of Germany. Pope Pius XI credited its creation and writing to the Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII. There was no pre-announcement of the encyclical, and its distribution was kept secret in an attempt to ensure the unhindered public reading of its

contents in all the Catholic Churches of Germany.

The next paragraphs condemn event the notion of national gods as idolatrous and out of sync with divine order.:

8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds...10. This God, this Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God's sun shines on every human face so His law knows neither privilege nor exception. Rulers and subjects, crowned and uncrowned, rich and poor are equally subject to His word. From the fullness of the Creators' right there naturally arises the fullness of His right to be obeyed by individuals and communities, whoever they are. This obedience permeates all branches of activity in which moral values claim harmony with the law of God, and pervades all integration of the ever-changing laws of man into the immutable laws of God.11. None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xl, 15).

Note the Nazi reaction and reprisal due to the reading of this document:

^ Chadwick, A History of Christianity (1995), pp. 254–5

After Mit Brennender Sorge was disseminated throughout German Catholic parishes, Nazi persecution of the Church in Germany began by "outright repression" and "staged prosecutions" of monks for homosexuality, with the maximum of publicity. In Poland, the Nazis murdered over 2500 monks and priests while scores more were sent to concentration camps.

http://http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html

Note this text from Mit Brennender Sorge and the clear implication of unmistakable references to the juggernaut of ongoing Nazi tyranny.

If, then, the tree of peace, which we planted on German soil with the purest intention, has not brought forth the fruit, which in the interest of your people, We had fondly hoped, no one in the world who has eyes to see and ears to hear will be able to lay the blame on the Church and on her Head. The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men - the "enemy" of Holy Scripture - oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies.