The Fall

Here on earth, it's the "Fall" season, and last night we were reminded of that fact with the now-annual modern rite of the "Fall Back" act of turning clocks back one hour in a return to standard time from daylight savings time.

But those are not what we're going to talk about here in reference to the Fall. We're going to take a look back at mankind's fall from grace, and even further back, to the fall from heaven which led to that one in Eden.

Most people are aware of the name "Lucifer", and in Christian tradition the name has been assigned to the principal angel with glory as bright as the morning star who led a revolt in heaven against God.

The term Lucifer should not, however, be understood to be a proper name of "the Devil" or "Satan", merely a reference to that state from which he has fallen, that place in the glory of heaven itself.

The devil is but one of what were originally angelic creatures created by God as spiritual beings in a state of innocence. They ultimately became evil as a result of their own willful act, and when this act saw them cast out in the first 'Fall from Heaven', they turned their gaze towards God's human creation, leading us to sin and to our own separation, or the 'Fall of Man' from paradise.

That first fall of the angels came when, as Isaiah told in reference to the King of Babylon in his own day, and as is applied originally to Lucifer "Thou said in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north, I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High."

The angel known as Lucifer led a rebellion of angels in heaven, seeking a place above God. The result was a war like none ever seen here on earth. As described in "Revelation" or the "Apocalypse": "there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon (Lucifer), and the dragon fought and his angels, and they prevailed not..."

The result of this rebellion, and the victory by Michael and the angels of heaven, was the 'Fall from Heaven' referred to earlier: "..neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him."

Lucifer/Satan had ultimately committed the first sin of "pride", or the excessive love of one's own excellence. Through the love of his own worth, he attempted to withdraw himself from subjection to Almighty God. He was able to get the angels opposed to the Divine Incarnation to follow him.

These angels were jealous at the very thought of a lesser being, a human, being raised above them. That is how they saw Jesus, a man who would be raised above them.

Two Things About Bad Things

There are two things that we can absolutely say with certainty about bad things: they will happen to good people, and good people will do them.

The questions that all who want to believe in a loving, benevolent, saving God ask at some point in their lives often revolve around these two ideas. Those questions, of course, are:

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why do good people do bad things?

In looking at the first question, we need to examine what it is that we are actually asking - what is the allegedly "bad" thing that is happening to the allegedly "good" person. Let's assume the second part of the equation here, that you or whomever you are asking about is indeed a "good" person.

So what is the "bad" thing that has happened? Has someone been injured in an accident? Is someone suffering from a debilitating illness? Has someone become the victim of a crime? Is there some major misfortune being dealt with, such as a house fire, a natural disaster, an inter-personal relationship gone bad? Has someone died?

If any of those things are the supposed "bad" thing then the answer is fairly simple: welcome to the real world.

Forgive Yourself

Apparently there are many Christians out there who, even after participating in the Catholic sacramental process of confession and reconciliation, find that they continue to worry about past sins for years after they have confessed them. The fact for many people is that the Lord forgives more easily than we can forgive ourselves.

In the New Testament, John 3:17 says it most completely: "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him."

Let's start by dealing with the forgiveness of sins as the Church deals with it. God gave us two ways to be forgiven of our sin. First is the sacrament of Baptism, which I spoke more fully about last weekend at this blog. Baptism was given by God to take away the 'Original Sin' committed by Adam in the Garden of Eden, as well as to cleanse our souls of any sins committed by us prior to our baptism.

At Pentecost, Peter, who Christ had left as the first steward of his Church, said: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins..."

Of course, man is an imperfect creature, and he will sin even after being cleansed and forgiven at baptism. To help man with sins committed after baptism, another process was needed. That is a process which has been called by the names confession, penance, and reconciliation after the three main parts of this process.

Baptism 9-1-1

It's Sunday once again, so time for the weekly spirituality/religious topic. I hope that you got yourself to Church today. If not, if it's not too late, turn off your computer and get there. But that was last week's topic, let's move on to the new one.

Not the usual subject of conversations, I have amazingly found myself for two straight days now among two different groups of people involved in conversations regarding 'emergency baptism', and these conversations have caused me to look into the facts behind my beliefs.

I suppose those conversations were not too amazing, considering that my eldest daughter is about to give birth to my 2nd grandchild, and that one of my nieces gave birth last year and is about to have her child baptized.

My first grandchild, my granddaughter Elysia, was not formally baptized in Church, despite my wife and I trying to encourage my daughter to do so. She simply feels that it is something that my granddaughter should seek for herself when she gets older, not something that should be 'forced on her' or 'decided for her'.

We love our daughter, and have no choice but to simply agree to disagree. Well, that's really not the only choice. I had heard of 'emergency baptism', the idea that any Christian could baptize someone simply by blessing them with water and saying a prayer over them, as long as the person doing the baptizing was sincere in the danger to the soul of the baptized.

That was how I felt on the day that I was alone with my granddaughter and simply took some tap water, made the sign of the cross on her head and said "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", held my hand on her head and said a prayer for her. But in the end, is she really now officially baptized?