Advent/Hannukah 2012 and Day of the Holy Name of Jesus 2013
Some Peaceful thoughts for the Christian Jewish new year, this year:
The Bible tells us what words the angel Gabriel answered to the Hebrew priest Zechariah [Zechariah’s name means in Hebrew ‘God has remembered us’], as he prayed to God in the Temple in those days at that time, when he asked him, “Who are you”?
“I AM the angel Gabriel and I stand firm inside you and all of us [blessing God’s consciousness as it rises upward inside us and upholding it years afterward…even centuries…even millenia] near [next to as the Christ is being enthroned in us all] God. Do not name the child after yourself, but tell Elizabeth to call him John [which means in Hebrew God has favored us]. And, tell Mary to call her Son Jesus [which means ‘God has saved us’… the angel Gabriel being in charge of salvation inside of God’s name up to that point…the angel Raphael of healing and redemption…the angel Michael of justification and sanctification].”
Gospel of Luke
“What is Truth but force?” said a jesting Pilate. “The meek shall inherit the earth”. Truth is you and Truth is me, said and says a serious Jesus Christ.
Gospel of John
We thank God for a good prayer year that we have experienced in Christ. And, we pray that the day may soon come that we all may be One in God’s name, we pray that the Christmas Christ Jesus of this year will find a permanent home during the whole year in all our hearts. Partners in God, partners in Christ, we are one family. John 17:21 click on pictures to enlarge them in your browser
The three other climbers who summitted Mt. President 8/25/95
Paul from Maine, a friend, and his wife.
Blessings of this Holiday season:
Jewish and Christian Blessing
“May the eternal light and good energy in the Lord Bless you, protect you, and keep you,
May he lift up his face upon you while being gracious unto you,
May he uphold you and that which you value, and give you peace. ”
May the Light of God surround you.
May the Love of God enfold you.
May the knowledge of God grow inside of you this holiday season.
May the realization that God dwells in us help,strengthen and support you
May the Power of God protect you.
May the Presence of God overwatch you
1st day of Hannukah, think about Being Kind
2nd day Giving Joy
3rd day about Being good
4th day Giving Love
5th day about Living long
6th day about Loving Life
7th day about Being True
8th day about Prospering
Another wondelful meditation is to pray each day until a realization comes about how practicing one of Jesus’ beatitudes can bring you happiness in some part of your life.
For those interested in praying with us for Middle East Peace we have taken notes of the various prayer service’s during Pope’s last two visits there. I have saved them at our Prayer subdirectories at http://www.yhwhschofchrist.org/prayers under the the Difficult Problems for God to Help us with. Also, at the http://www.yhwhschofchrist.org/discussionboard under the Middle East Peace Forum there are some rough notes I took from a week long set of talks at the UC Berkeley International House given by some Israeli and Palestinian diplomats and UC Berkeley and other Bay Area Political Science professors. We need your help to register and contribute your own ideas at these places.
A short review of last years thoughts and introduction to some new ides on the fundamentals of Mystic Christianity:
What is the best way to be saved, redeemed, justified, sanctified?
What is the best way to have God’s Presence dwell in us?
This last summer in this blog there are some thoughts about some of the teachings of the 17th century French rational and also mystic theologian/mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal’s
s overal philosophical motto, I think, was “We must give definition to the defined.”There are different theological viewpoints on how we can try to understand what hope is. It seems to me the conservative Calvinist Protestants tend to look at hope as something “unexpected”. But, I believe, Pascal and other liberal Protestant have taken a more scientific and rational approach of trying to explain hope mathematical. See the that blog for more thoughts on this.
The name of God as YHWH, Jesus Christ, is both a power and a presence. As a presence He is defined, through our faith in Him, as a substance (like a set is) by a logical predicate. But as the Bible tells us, our faith is more than just a substance hoped for. It is also the sum total of our unseen (non-empirical) evidence we have of Him or Her. As a principle and an active power (the Logos), personally , He or She defines Themselves through their Oneness with Our Father in Heaven and also as parts of Our World and Our Humanity (eg as Jesus defined Himself so, logically. in the Gospel of John). We cannot prove that God exists, we have to take it on faith. However, as Saint Thomas Aquinas and others have tried to explain, it is possible with God’s help to argue rationally for this divine existence and individual person that we seek. It is possible, with His or Her help, to argue that there is a way to save us, redeem us, justify us, and sanctify our souls. If there isn’t why has religion played so important a part in everybodies lives for so long already. What some of us believe that we cannot know by ourselves, we can know with God’s help. The question is How does this process occur. Is it through the Bible, through a series of wisdom teachings and everyday practical observations, through line or succession of priests, or perhaps what is the most elusive claim that Jesus Himself claimed through His own words. Last year saw a new book which explains some of the unpublished arguments of Dr. Mortmer Adler’s lifelong study of this problem [“How to Prove There is a God” edited by Ken Dzugan].
In order to create the World from nothing Our Father in Heaven first had to create Time. And, in order to create Time He had to first create or define the continuum of “Real Numbers”. It wasn’t until the 19th Century that us humans understand two different ways to define what a real number is using either the approach of Cantor or that of Dedekind Now, a hundred years later we have finally understood other ways, the hyperreals (what Leibnitz’s approach to calculus was based on logically), the Surreals.(see the MAA book “Which Numbers are Real). The question is “which one of these ways did God use to define Time”. Also, in the last century, in order to understand how to build digital computers using symbolic logic we discovered some different approachs to set theory and how to count by building integers out of the empty set. So, in order to figure out the answer to the question about Time and the real contiuum we will have to figure out which way of defining the integers God used. Did He use, that of Frege or that of Von Neuman [or maybe even another way]?
In order to define the integers we have to have a set of symbols, postulates, axioms, rules of logical thought about them. We have to start with a “first number”, a number One, and also have a way of going from a given number to a “succesor number”. This all is related to whether Saint Thomas 1st approach to proving[arguing rationally] that a necessary being (God) has to exist. I have given a couple of talks, called “How Do We Define the Number One,” which someone might want to study in order to better understand this line of thought. Maybe they can be used to redeem St. Thomas Aquinas’ 1st argument (on the basis of the necessity of a first cause of motion) and 5th argument (on the basis of the necessity of a beginning of time) which Dr. Adler claims to have discredited. Those interested in logic and philosophy might want, also, to further study, this coming year, these things.
As for God’s Presence:
In one sense it is better to be saved than to save, better to be redeemed, justified, sanctify than to redeem, justify, sanctify. This is the sense in which God’s Son Jesus Christ went to the Cross in order to do this for us.
Hopefully this does not have to happen and happen again to us. Once is enough.
The Bible teaches this. But, also in another sense it does happen again. Today, Christ is born in us as an angel from Heaven to Earth. Tomorrow He will come again… as a human angel on Earth. But, not without human beings continuing to do their part.
4 views in 4 directions from the top of Mt. President
clockwise from the upper left:
1) East
2) North showing the mountain Diny was so inclined on that day to name as Gordon
3) West
4) South
“May he or she who places Peace in high places in us,
place Peace in you.” Jewish Prayer/Blessing
“Under certain circumstances, truth can be considered as invariance under change of notation.” teaching in philosophy and mathematical logic
A further thought on God’s Power:
Is it better to love than to be loved. This we know from St. Francis’ wonderful prayer.
But, as for faith and hope: it is better to first have and hold hope and faith in ourselves if we are to share it and give it to others. To be faith and hope you have to be able to give faith and hope. But, first to be it you must have it already. The Good News is that we all have faith and hope already inside of us. For, God has put it there through His own life that He lived already here on earth for us.
Again, we thank God for a good prayer year that we have
experienced in Christ.
And, we pray that the day may soon come
that we all may be One in God’s name. We pray that
this year the Christ Jesus we experience during
the Christmas season will find a permanent home
in all our hearts during the whole year ahead.
Partners in God, partners in Christ, we are one family.
John 17:21
Vista up the river valley from top of canyon rim overlooking Mt. Zion National Park, Western US
Yearly Prayer Calendar:
View from above of part of the Angel’s Landing rock formation from lunch stop at the top of the eastern canyon rim. Christmas vacation hiking trip to Zion National Park 2005
Water Flowing down the rocks into Petroglyph Canyon Mt. Zion National Park, US
Holy Days 5773-5774/2013 Confession of St. Peter (Jan 18 Psalm 23), Conversion day of St. Paul (Jan. 25 Psalm 67), ,Tu B’Shvat (Festival of the Trees January 26), International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27) ,Purim (February 24), , Saint Benedict’s day (March 2), Ash Wednesday (February 13), Saint Gregory’s day (March 12), Saint Patrick’s day (March 17), Saint George’s day(March 23), Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 8) Passover (March 26), Easter (March 31),St. Mark (April 25 Psalm 2), Shavuot (May 15), Pentecost (May 20), St. Peter and St. Paul’s day (June 29 Psalms 66, 87,97,138), Independence Day U.S.A.,St. Mary Magalene (July 21 Psalms 30,42,116,149), St. James day (July 25, Psalms 7, 33,34), St. Ignatius Loyola’Saint Bernard’s day (August 20), Saint Barthomew’s (Nathaniel’s ) day (August 24 Psalms 15,67,86, 91), World Peace Day (September 21), Rosh Hashanah (September 5), Yom Kippur (Sept. 14),Sukkos (Sept. 19), Shemini Atzeret (Sept. 26), Gabriel, Michael, Ariel, Raphael and All Angels day (Sept. 29),Saint James of Jerusalem day (Oct 23 Psalm 1), ), Saint Francis of Assisi’s day Oct. 4 , St. Luke (Oct 18 Psalm 103), All Souls/All Saints Day (Psalms 111,112,148,149,150), Veteran’s Day(Nov. 11) St. Martin’s day, Saint Margaret’s day (Nov. 16), Thanksgiving day November 24, Saint Andrew’s day (Psalms 19,24,96,100), Channukah (November 25), St. Thomas’s day (Dec. 21 Psalms 23,27,121,126), Christmas,St. John’s day (Dec. 27 Psalm 92,97,98,145), Holy Innocent’s day (Dec. 28, Psalms 2,26,19,126), Day of the Holy Name of Jesus (Dec. 31, Psalm 8). 
[For Bible readings and Psalms that go with these Holy Days see the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (both the two year daily office and the two year lectionary readings) or the three year revised common lectionary at http:\divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary . The revised common lectionary was created for the occasions of common prayer and worship services among Protestants, Catholics and Jews. It has more readings from the Old Testament than the ordinary episcopal or catholic lectionary. Using these two or three year daily offices is an excellent way to keep track of an intention for reading most of the Bible in two years. The best translation of the Bible I have found is “The Amplified Bible” published by Zondervan. It has cross-references in the text to related passages and prophecies which make this translation even more of a “Tree of Life” than others.]
New Moons of Shevet (January 12), Adar (February 11) , Nissan (March 12), Iyar (April 11) Sivan (May 10) , Tammuz (June 9), Av (July 8), Elul (August 7), Tishrei / Rosh Hashanah (September 5),Yom Kippur (September 14), Succot (Sept. 19), Hoshana Rabba (Sept. 25),. Shimini Atzeres (Sept. 26), Simchas Torah (Sept. 27),Chesvan (October 5), Kislev (November 4),Tevet (December 4) (months of correct eating, laughter, speaking, thought, movement, seeing, hearing, action, feeling, smell, relaxation, judgement) tribes of Asher (Psalm 100 ), Naphtali (Psalm 98) Judah (Psalm 92),Issachar (Psalm 95), Zebulun (Psalm 96), Reuben (Psalm 90), Simeon, Gad (Psalm 94), Ephraim (Psalm 97), Menashah (Psalm 97) , Benjamin (Psalm 93), Dan (Psalm 99)) 
Vista overlook, Zion Canyon Christmas vacation 2005 [According to Jewish tradition, Moses gave the eleven psalms 90-100 to eleven of the tribes of Israel., the tribe of Simeon was excluded because of the events in Numbers 25-1:15. Psalm 91 was given to the tribe of Levi. Psalms 95 to 99 have been called the “Coronation Psalms” and are used in the Jewish Saturday Morning Kabbala Shabbat service. For some Baptist Christian Hymns related to the Messianic age see “The Coronation Hymnal”, by A.J. Gordon and A.T. Pierson, Revell and Co., N.Y., Boston, Chicago.( which is now out of print, but copies are available in several University libraries) 
Jewish and Christian Blessing “May the eternal light and good energy in the Lord Bless you, protect you, and keep you, May he lift up his face upon you while being gracious unto you, May he uphold you and that which you value, and give you peace. ” 
Area north of the Angel’s Landing rock formation.
Please pray with us assisted and helped by the prayers at http://www.yhwhschofchrist.org/prayers (you may register there and post your own prayers if this is helpful to you) Irish Prayer and Blessing “May the road rise up to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the Sun(Son) shine warm on your face, And the rain fall soft upon your fields. And May God hold you in palm of his hands.” (Until we talk and pray together again and he blesses you again through us