APRIL MAY 2019 TRIP TO SOUTHERN ITALY,
TO HUNT THE BONES OF ST.ANDREW IN MATERA, AMAFI, ROME, ITALY FINDING OUT WHAT I COULD ABOUT WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THEM THE LAST 2000 YEARS.
1)REVISTED THE VATICAN MUSUEM AND SISTINE CHAPEL, CLIMBED UP THE STAIRS TO THE TOP OF THE DOME OF ST. PETER’S
2) WALKED, RAN A FEW LAPS AT THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS THINKING ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE IN PORTRAYAL OF JEWS AND THEIR RELATION TO CHRIST IN THE TWO CHRISTIAN JEWISH MOVEIS BEN HUR AND THE PASSION OF CHRIST AND HOW BOTH MOVIES FULFILL PARABLE OF TWO RUNNERS WRITTEN ON THIS BLOG 1983
3) COUNTING THE OMER FROM PASSOVER TO MAY 6,2019:
WHILE
4) PRAYING THE ROSARY WHICH CHRONICLES THE LIFE OF JESUS BIBLE VERSES FOR MEDITATION ACCORDING THE TECHNIQUES OF PRAYER OF JOHN PAUL II AND MOTHER TERESA AT THE SAME DAYS AND TIMES.
Figure 1Looking out into the coastal waters of the Adriatic from the covo dei Saraceni hotel in Poligiano a Mare
5) WENT WITH VANDERBILT U ALUMNI ASSOCIATION TO FIVE CITIES IN UNDISCOVERED ITALY TRIP, VISITED THE ONLY ACTIVE SYNAGOGUE IN LECHE, TRIED TO PRONOUNCE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN HEBREW ON THE WALL OF THE TOURIST VISITING ROOM THERE TO EVERYBODY.
6)MY FATHER GORDON HARRELL SPEAKS TO ME IN A DREAM IN POLIGIANO SUR MARI, AFTER I VISITED THE BONES OF THE MONKS OF ST.ANDREW IN A HOUSE CAVE IN MATERA, WHERE THE PASSION OF CHRIST WAS FILMED
7) VISITED THE ANCIENT RUINS AT POMPEI, RETURNED TO ROME AT THE HOTEL RAFAELLO TO TALK MORE WITH MY FRIENDS THERE AND TO BUY AN ICE CONE AT
8) PRESIDENT TRUMP THANKS US FOR THE KIND WORDS AND PRAYER THOUGHTS WE SENT ON THE NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER. UNITY SCHOOL OF CHRISTIANITY APOLOGIZES FOR NOT THANKING ME FOR THE FRUIT BASKET SENT IN JANUARY
GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME, BUT HE IS ESPECIALLY GOOD WHEN OUR LONG TIME PRAYER FRIENDS ACKNOWLEDGE OUR PRAYERS
Praying the Rosary with St. Mary, Jesus Christ, St. John Paul II, St. Teresa d’Avila, St. Teresa of Calcutta, Andrew William Harrell, James Dillet Freeman, Rabbi David Cooper.
Before we begin the practice of the rosary and its
silence mental and verbal prayers we affirm the sanctity of God’s Name YHWH, as Jesus Christ has directed us to do in the Lord’s prayer, envisioning it centered as a set of
four letters at the top, the crown of your head.
Some Kabbalists, like David Coorper including Jesus and St. Andrew, do this
by slowly chanting and breathing into the chant two Hebrew vowel letters into permutations around the
Hebrew consonant base letters. For example, OYO, OYAH, OYAE, OYE, OYU … AHYO, AHYAH,
AHYAE,AHYE, AHYU…..AEYO, AEYAH, AEYAE, AEYE, AEYU…. EYO, EYAH, EYAE, EYE, EYU…..UYO, UYAH,
UYAE, UYE,UYU… It takes about six months of practice to learn how to do this. Rabbi David Cooper has made
a tape on it you can buy from Sounds True called “Ecstatic Kabbalah”. I would only add to his
instructions that when you do this practice you do not start off ecstatically, but breathing very slowly
and carefully. It is only a first step in knowing God and, it is only after you reach the end of the whole
sequence of meditations, the total intellectual realization of how God wants to
commune with you and
what He wants to tell you that you should allow yourself to become ecstatic. In fact, you should
probably confess your sins as in the Lord’s prayer before you reach this point. Otherwise, because the
Voice of God that you want to listen to can be very small and expressed in very subtle ways internally and you will miss Him. if we don’t take sufficient time to slow our human minds down, centered and starting our thoughts about God with the sanctity and importance of His Name centered in our hearts and minds as the beginning point of knowledge about Him which is going to descend downward from the top chakra and through our hearts, below that where His will is centered manifesting himself in us and down into the tips of our toes where the final confirmation of the 3 part syllogistic logical Truth of His divine Spirit.
The Joyful Rosary Mysteries are prayed contemplatively according to the method of St. John Paul II and St. Teresa de Avila, St. Teresa of Calcutta on Mondays and Saturdays, the Luminous Mysteries on Thursdays, the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, the Glorious Mysteries on Sundays and Wednesdays.
It seems a little strange to me to pray the Sorrowful mysteries on Fridays and not Thursdays. For we know that Jesus was crucified on a Thursday, rose from the dead three days later on Sunday, whether you count the days as Christian Jews do starting in the morning or Jewish Christians in evenings.
So, the day after Thursday, being Good Friday, a day of new beginnings we might not want to be thought of to be sorrowful.
Perhaps, doing it this way, it is meant to represent a second coming of Christ, and not a remembrance of the first coming?
We do know that, as Jesus said during the luminous mysteries, to be said on Thursdays, talking about the last supper as being a Passover meal, and eating it on Wednesday, two days before its regularly scheduled time on Friday, that the beginning of the resurrection which, actually didn’t happen until Friday, after He was being born again, that “ I shall not eat it [again] [the meal representing the Jewish Messianic Passover with you] until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.
What is it we are being told to do in remembrance of Him, the Passover meal, being led by St. Moses, representing our attaining freedom by coming out of Egypt as Jews, or His death and resurrection on the Cross, representing our Past in Christ as Jews, or being set free as Christians and Jews from Eternal bondage to our own morality and death, rising up to where we started out with Him and Our Creator God, His Father, in Heaven, above and beyond being held in bondage to this, in bondage to our own human sins?
I argue for the reasonableness, concerning what has already been said about it in the Bible, and what we have learned about it by studying what happened with God’s help, that I do claim the truth of and believe faithfully in the truth of that it is both!
As Christian Jews and Jewish Christians when we bless people through the Holy Spirit indwelling us into them, first we affirm every morning as part of the prayer liturgy the Shema, “Hear O’Israel, YHWH Eloheynu, YHWH Ehad, Baruch Shem Gabor l’Olam Valed.
Then at other times in the yearly liturgy, specifically the monthly priestly blessings we utter and affirm the 3-fold Priestly Blessing Moses and Aaron.
May YHWH Bless you and keep you,
May He lift up His countenance upon you and be graceful unto you.
May He support and bless truthfully His Name and Countenance inside of His Holy Spirit Indwelling you and place Peace in High places in Hi Soul and Spirit indwelling you thusly.
If we have been Bar-Mitzvahed as Jew we can put on a Jewish prayer shawl and use Tefillem, as Jesus Christ, St Andrew, and others of the disciples did during their first coming,death on the cross, resurrection in heaven, descent as a Holy Spirit into us in Israel and Jerusalem, and even today all over the Whole World with people praying the rosary with them.,
THE UNDISCOVERED ITALY TRIP
Saturday April 20,2019
Seven Thoughts About Loving Kindness
(Chesed)**
1stday of the Omer Count
Saturday April 21, 2019
For those interested in learning more of the Jewish Hebrew language and Prayerbook Hebrew, which is key to understanding the Old Testament and being able to become a Christian Jew, I recommend the book “Prayerbook Hebrew, The Easy Way” by Anderson, Motzkin, Rubenstein, Wiseman, which is sold on our yhwhschofchrist.org internet shop site and also at Amazon.
Chesed of Chesed
Loving Kindness is Compassionate, it does not keep a record of wrongs.
3rd
day
of the Omer Count Tuesday April 23,2019
Tiferet of
Chesed
Loving kindness seeks more to give
than receive. (It is beautiful)
Additional Prayers associated with Counting the Omer
( starting with the second day of Pesach and continuing 49 days until
Shavuot). This prayer which is said along with the Omer count after Pesach
(and on other Holy days) is sometimes called the 42-letter name of God by
Orthodox Jews. It is hidden inside of thousand of pages of prayers in
several dozen of volumes. However, since we believe that you cannot
copyright the name of God , it is included here translated:
“We beg you? With the strength of your right hand’s greatness, untie the
bundled sins. Accept the joyful prayers of your people, purify us with your
awesomeness oneness. Please strong One, guard those who encourage your
uniqueness. Bless them, purify them, show them pity, may your righteousness
always recompense them. Powerful Holy One, with your plentiful goodness
guide us. One and only Exalted One, depend on your nation, which speaks
about Your holiness. Accept our prayers, knower of mysteries. Blessed is the
Name of His glorious Kingdom forever.”
And, just for good measure and the benefit of all of us …here is an
additional , even more ancient transliterated prayer, associated with what
is called the 11-letter (11 Hebrew letters that is) name of God, that
according to the Torah, the prophet Moses said to ask God for his sister
Miriam’s healing. ” Ayl Na Raphaa… Na Lah.” It can be translated
as, “Please Lord…please heal her.” Please heal the spirit of our lady (the
Shekinah, whose body is the Church of all believers) our divine companion
whose spirit is surrounded by the souls of four archangels. It comes from
some of the first Torah portions in the book of Numbers. Traditionally it is
read and prayed as a community in the congregations the 1st Sabbath after
Shavuous.
Sometime later after Moses healed Miriam with this prayer, God’s Spirit in
Moses descended on the prophet Elijah, a Man of God, (the word of the LORD
came unto him) and he obeyed it in order to heal a widow who feed him and
with whom he sojourned. Then, with God’s help, he blessed…resurrected,
revived and brought back the soul and spirit and body of her Son to
her. “By this she knew that he was a Man of God and that the word of the
LORD in his mouth was truth.”
1 Kings 17:8-16(17-24).
Monday April 22, One day after Easter, Passover was on Saturday and Sunday. This year Good Friday and Easter on Friday and Sunday right after each other. Flew Delta from Jackson MS airport to Atlanta, then took Air France/Delta Airbus in a straight non-stop flight to Rome, Italy. No problems at Rome airport, took a taxi to my hotel, the Rafaello on Via Urbana about six blocks above the Roman Forum area.
After checking in walked to the Coliseum, Forum, Circus Maximus area in the ancient center of Rome. Came back to hotel,, then walked up to the Train station to practice taking the subway to the Vatican where I have booked an early bird morning tour of the Vatican Musuem and Sistine Chapel tomorrow
4thday of the Omer Count
Netzach of Chesed
Loving Kindness is patient
(while having integrity and supporting the rights of others)
Tuesday morning April 23
Figure 2 One of the most beautiful displays of historical maps I have ever seen, taken along the Vatican Musuem hallway going toward the Sistine Chape
Got up, took the subway to the Vatican Musuem where I met up with tour guide Raf. And about 20 other members of the tour group. She is a nice women in her early 40s who really knows her stuff. We started off walking through the hall of wondelful marble statues, then the hall of maps, then reached the Sistine Chapel before the large crowds, then back down the hall to the Gold statue of David again, back across the hall of sculpturs, maps, then turned into the Sistine Chapel, Borgia Apartments which are full of beautiful paintings by MichaelAngelo ,Raphael and others.
.
Figure 2 Christ the judge with St. Andrew’s back turned to us: Michaelangelo’s main centerpiece of the Last Judgement fresco in the Sistine. See two years ago posting and discussion of this painting which I photographed in the 911 Twin Towers, New York City, NY( question, who is the woman standing next to St. Andrew in the Last Judgement? The guide did not know.)
Tuesday afternoon
Had lunch in the small cafeteria situated below the Sistine chapel, then out the door toward the Basilica of St. Peter. Had to wait an hour by the steps of the gift shop for the elevators and access to the Stairs up to the top of the Dome of St. Peters reopened from lunch at 1:30 pm. There are about 333 stairs up to the top and it is a good climb, even if you take the elevator up to the first roof position where there is a nice cafeteria where many of the guides eat lunch.
Tuesday evening
Walked down the Via Urbana from the hotel Rafeallo and stopped at the Local Kitchen restaurant to have a Taramesu and apple juice sitting in their sidewalk café area.
Stopped into a local chocolate shop walking back where I had a nice talk and prayer discussion with the young owner and a women sitting in a wheel chair with head injury. Prayed with the women and promised to return after the Vanderbilt Alumni portion of my trip for another visit.
Had a discussion with the hotel clerk at the hotel Rafeallo about Plato and Aristotle and the “key teaching” on Passover about the four different ways of knowing.
He said his name was Francesco, the same as the Pope’s. And, we started talking about what the Kingdom of Heaven is.
Figure 4 Some guys and girls on the wrong side of the last judgement: Michelangelo’s vision of it.
I gave him my card and say that I am an amateur theologian, who is a “mathematical theologian.”
He asked, do you have the keys to the Vatican. I said my “keys” to knowing about God and the wisdom of the Vatican and the Kingdom of Heaven are “knowing about knowing”, and “I know that I don’t know, therefore I know Him.” This is a slight extension on the famous teaching of Socrates and Plato about this. They were talking about knowing in general, not necessarily knowing about Our One God, but the saying can apply to knowing about Him also.
We discussed the famous painting standing behind him at the hotel desk. It is the painting by Raphael of the “School of Athens” with Plato and Aristotle standing in the forefront one of them with a finger pointing upward, not the original, but a copy of which also stands in the Borgia apartments in the Vatican. The guide has told us during the tour that there is a small difference between the original and the copy in that Michelangelo has put a small portrait of himself in the group standing there in the copy. He already knows this.
I asked him do you know how Plato defined the number One compared to how Aristotle defined the number One ? Or, more precisely, do you know how they understood it in two different ways?
He does not. How is this connected to the picture? Well perhaps Plato or Aristotle are talking about the number One and the way we understand Him when they are pointing there finger upward?
To the right of him at the desk, there is a picture of another mathematical object than the number one, a Mobius strip. I ask him, do you know what a Mobius strip (a one-sided plane object) is?
We represent “infinity” by the circles on the boundary of the Mobius strip surface. They are an “end” in a “beginning” and a “beginning” in an end.
If you are an Yogi you meditate on your Divine Human self, your “Atman” as a spiritual eternal body with seven “chakras”. Each “chakra” is represented by a point within a circle. But, what if you expand the circles surrounding each Chakra into a Mobius strip with two circles on the boundary of its one side? Instead of a four dimensional spiritual body in space and time, with a four dimensional name of God YHWH, we are now in an eternal five dimensional realm containing both Him and us and the world around us which He is creating , which is very hard to imagine.
How is it connected to the way we define the integers? How is it connected to the way God made the integers ?
Figure 5.Figure 5 Some of the Saints and angels, assumed into heaven along with St. Mary by our Co-creator’s Jesus Christ and His Father in Heaven,
The answer requires a very deep understanding of the problem of how to define functions, using mathematical symbolic logic and computer mathematics. I will not attempt to try and explain it here. But, it is related to the facts, that “When God is One, His Truth is one, YHWH Christ”, “When God is Two, His Truth is Two, YHWH Christ”, “When God is Three, His Truth is You, YHWH Christ”, “When God is Four, His Truth is More, YHWH Christ.”
5th
day
of the Omer Count
Hod of Chesed
Loving kindness is obedient and submissive
to God’s
will (it therefore shares in his glory)
Wednesday April 24
Got up and went for an early walk down to the Roman forum area to take some pictures and jog along the Circus Maximus track. On, the way back from walking around the forum ran into some nice Jehovah’s Sitness people standing on the sidewalk away from the crowds giving out, like I do, Evanelical Theological pamplets, and ready to discuss and argue about them. I took the pamphlet, gave them my card and said I also believe similar theology and would study their pamplets. My history studying about them goes back to Vicksburg, MS in the 1950s when they used to come by and talk to my grandmother in our house at 3036 Drummond St. After I got my doctorate in mathematics and moved to 555 Monet Dr., Rockville, MD some missionaries who knew some of the head people in Brooklyn came by several times and we prayed and talked some more. Then, when I retired from work in Washington and moved back to Vicksburg to work in the Geotechnical Laboratory at the former Waterways Experiment Station here, now know as the US Army Corps of Engineer Research and Development Center Headquarters a wondelful black man James Davis continued cutting the grass at my home at 3000 Drummond St. as he had been for my mother there before she died. And, we talked a lot, when I went to Tanzania to visit the Masai Warrior people there I brought him back a Masai Warrior tribal bow.
Figure 6 Photo of what remains of the Circus Maximus charior racing track below Nero’s Palace in the Ancient Rome Forum area of Downtown Rome
Thinking about the experiences I have had over the years praying with this group I think they would come out very good with respect to be compared to other groups by studying one of the parables I wrote when I started ourprayergroup amateur mathematical theology in the early 1980s:
What would Jesus say if you asked Him “Who is responsible for healing us of our sins?” He would say, He is saying now, “God, and you and I.”
Here is a story, to think about your whole life long, that explains what this fundamental teaching means:
Figure 7 St. Mary, assumed by Jesus into Heaven and crowned in glory above Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting of the Eternal altar of Christ
On Tuesday morning I walked down from the hotel Rafaello to jog a few laps in the morning here. Thought about the recent remake of the Movie Ben Hur, 2016 which was based on one of the best selling books of the 19thcentury by author Lew Wallace. Book was 100 percent fiction but enough truth in it in the way it portrayed the life of its Jewish hero, Judah Ben-Hur as a contemporary and an allegory of Jesus Christ to make its story time-less . Thought about how the story relates to my own parable I wrote to start this website back in the mid-1980s and also about how this movie portrays Jesus’ Jewish contemporary Prince’s of Israel not so much as jealous political power seeking priest’s who crucified him in the movie the Passion of Christ, but as competing brother’s in Christ, trying to be successful in God’s eyes.
Parable of the Two Runners
Once there were two neighbors who were both amateur runners. Each day of their life, for as long as they could remember they met out on the local track and ran laps. One day one of the two men decided he wanted to improve himself so he hired a professional coach without telling the other. And, he practiced extra hours by himself. Then, each day, he would run more laps than the other. And, so each time they raced in public he would win. And, because he had practiced longer he felt he deserved this. He wondered why his neighbor didn’t care that he got the best of him each day. Then, the two men died and they each went to heaven. And, it turned out there was a prize in heaven that went to whoever had been the best runner on earth. These two men were the only two contestants left, because all of the professional runners had not lived as long as they. Nor, had the professionals run as long as these two amateurs. And, the neighbor who always won the races on earth was certain that he would get the prize… a crown of glory. But, the angels deliberated a while and they gave the prize to the other neighbor who always lost. And, the neighbor who won the most on earth asked the heavenly judges why they gave the crown for being the best runner to his neighbor. “Each day I ran more laps than him”, he said, “and each time we raced in public I won.” And the angels said, “You are right you ran the most laps. But, that is not how we count the score. We count the total number of days each runner showed up to run along side with the other. And, there was one day your neighbor came by and asked you to run with him, but you let him go by himself, without help. You reasoned that he needed the extra practice so he could run as fast as you. But, that is the day that he outscored you.” So, all the angels bowed down and gave the crown of eternal glory to the one man [or woman] who was always there to run along side with his [or her] brother. [for, in heaven, it is as Jesus Christ has said in John 18:33-37]And, the most glorious part of this prize that they gave was that his [or her] soul went on running inside of others throughout all of time– the past, the present, and the future. So, may things always be for us.
Jehovah Witnesses as does the YHWH School of Christianity teaches that the purpose of life is to know God, whose name is YHWH better, and to help him bring his Kingdom of Heaven here on earth in many different places, like their “Kingdom Halls”. YHWH School of Christianity(Jehovah without the vowels) is also made of Christian Jews, more than Jewish Christians. But, we emphasize bringing God’s Kingdom of Heaven here on earth more “one person at a time” through individual helping people that we meet and talk to like Jesus did during his ministry, and not so much in Churches or Synogogues.
Jehovah Witnesses sometimes emphasize the human nature of His Son Jesus Christ more than the Divine in their teachings. This is not so much as important to me and God as they do believe in Him and His Son as One Person, even Three, sometimes.
How is YHWH School of Christianity’s mathematical theology different than that of the Jehovah witnesses? This is a very deep question, but after thinking about it for 40 years I would say studying the Name of God YHWH as a creator God involves more individual Yogic contemplation through meditation on his metaphysical nature than Bible study devotion to him in Churches. But, knowing that He is Love and knowing He has to love us first, before we can know how to love him is also the prime beginning of knowing how to love Him through prayer, and knowing His nature as just through studying what we learn in the Bible about him and His Son is of main importance in both approaches.
5thday of the Omer Count, Thursday, April 25,2019
Yesod of
Chesed
Loving kindness rejoices not in wrong
intentions, but in the truth (2 Corinthians)
Figure 7 St. Mary, assumed by Jesus into Heaven and crowned in glory above Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting of the Eternal altar of Christ
Thursday April 25
Got up early, had breakfast and took a taxi to the Rome airport.
We flew to Bari, Italy, then met up with the rest of the Vanderbilt alumni in the tour group and we transferred to the city of
Polignana a Mari at Hotel Covo dei Saraceni
1stLuminous Mystery The Baptism of the Lord (YHWH)
Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River
Fruit of the mystery, openness to the Holy Spirit
Bible verses for meditation:
Matthew 3:1-2,11-17
“In those days, came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 1] I baptize you with water for repentance 2], but He who is coming after Me, is mightier than I, whose sandals I AM not worthy to carry; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 3]
1] Sometimes, it is strange, and hard to understand that in order to have the Christ mind guide us into the future, the mind of YHWH, the mind of God, we must first slow down our human minds, by confessing our mistakes and failures, which we often don’t acknowledge as being such in order to understanding humanly and spiritually the logical and truthful basis of what God wants us to head toward.
2] our human and divine intensional understanding of what water is, dwelling in the 2ndchakra of God’s Holy Spirit indwelling us, comes 2ndafter our intentsional human divine under standing of what earth is, the #1 primal elemental part of how divine truth indwelling our human understanding of the logic of meaning. But, it comes before the resurrection of that 1stpart earthly meaning that has already happened to us in our experiences of God’s Divine prophetic truth, indwelling our rational , spiritually truthful minds.
3} fire comes 3rd, and locates itself in our 3rdspiritual chakra, counting upward from the #1 root chakra at the bottom and end of spiritual truth counting downward, and the beginning of it resurrecting itself back upward from heaven to earth.
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who was baptized by John. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, star of the new Evangelization, that we may be radically faithful to the new Evangelization.
2ndLuminous Mystery, The Wedding Feast at Cana
Christ changes water into wine at Mary’s request
Fruit of the Mystery, meeting Jesus through Mary
Bible verses for meditation
John 2:1-11
“On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;Jesus was also invited to the wedding with His disciples. When the wine ran out, failed, Jesus’ Mother said to Him, “They have no wine” And, Jesus said to her, “O, Woman, what have you to do with me, my time has not come yet.” “His mother said to the servants”, “Do whatever He tells you” Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. “Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water” And, they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the steward of the feast” So, they took it, “ When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from, (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom and he said, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, he pours the old wine, but you have kept the good wine until the now”. This the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed Him.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who revealed His glory at your request. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, star of the new Evangelization, be our advocate, bring us to Christ..
3rdLuminous Mystery The Proclamation of the Kingdom
Christ Proclaims the Kingdom of God and calls all to conversion
Fruit of the mystery: repentance
Bible verses for meditation Matthew 4:-17, 23-25
“From that time Jesus began to preach saying, “Repent, the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And, He went about all Galilee, teaching in our Jewish synagogues and preaching our Gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infimity among the people. So, His fame spread all throughout Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those affected with serious diseases and pains, demoniacs , epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And, great crowds followed Him from Galilee, and the Decapolis and Jerusalem, and Judea, and beyond the Jordan.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who preached the Kingdom and forgiveness of sins. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, star of the new Evangelization, that we may truly repent and avoid sin and its near occasion.
4thLuminous Mystery, The Transfiguration
Jesus is Transfigured on Mount Tabor and becomes radiant
Fruit of the Mystery, Desire for Holiness
Bible verses for meditation, Matthew 17:1-9
“And after six days Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John His brother, and led them up a high mountain apart. And He was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the Son, and His garments became white as light. And, behold, there appeared to Him Moses and Elijah, talking with Him. And, Peter said to Jesus, “Lord (YHWH), it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, One for You, One for Moses, One for Elijah.” He was still speaking when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I AM well pleased; listen to Him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, and were filled with awe. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise and have no fear.” And,when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no One, but Jesus only.”
And, as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, tell no One the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who was transfigured on Mount Tabor. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, star of the new Evangelization, that desire for Holiness set our hearts ablaze.
5thLuminous Mystery, the Institution of the Eucharist
At the Last Supper Christ changes bread and wine into His Body and Blood
Fruit of the Mystery, Eucharistic Adoration
Bible verses for meditation
Luke 22:15-20
“And, He said to them, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you, before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.” And, He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He said,”Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on, I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the Kingdom of God comes.” And, He took bread and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them., “Saying, this is My Body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of Me. And, likewise, the cup after supper, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My Blood.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, star of the new Evangelization, help us to receive Christ as you did, with reverence and love.
In the evening we gathered at the hotel to visit with our fellow travellers and then have a group dinner.
Capocollo ham from Martinafranca and fresh Burrata Eggplant Parmigian
With thin slices of veal and suate vegetables and baked potatoes.
Lydia Cook of Baton Rouge, LA
Elizabeth and James Crew Jr. of Jasper, GA
Mr. Beverly Fuqua of Naples, FL
A retired chemical engineer
Kathy Geisel of Frisco, TX
Andrew Harrell of Vicksburg, MS
Melissa and Christie Hauck of Nashville, TN
A Vanderbilt football at the same time I went there, 1966-1970
And his wife Melissa, a nurse. He lived in Hattisburg, MS for a while, now sells ice-cream
Randi and Tom Land of Nashville, TN
Debra McAdoo of Memphis, TN
Marsha and Tom McCoy, a business man, of Saint George, UT
And his wife
Susanne McFall of Savannah, GA
A retired high school home economics teacher
Linda and Ken Moore of Franklin, TN
A orthopedic surgeon, works on hands
Gloria Nickol of York, PA
Has a master’s degree from U. of Maryland, teaches high school
Nancy Roser of Savannah, GA
Carolyn and Greer Simonton of Memphis,TN
Jane Vandeventer and Charles Trabue of Nashville, TN
Carolyn and Claude Simonton of Memphis TN
Beverly Withers of Atlanta, GA
Robert Yeiser and Valerie Wilkerson for Arlington, TN
Robert went through US Army Combat Engineer training in the 1970s like
I did, now run a logistics consulting business in Arlington
Charles Travue, II and Jane Vandeventer
Charles also played football at Vandy, was a sports lawyer in
Nashville for a while and is now retired.
Lee Yeiser of Savannah, GA
works for Fedex
AHI Guides Cristina Albergo, Victor Damato, and Pietro Semararo
Faculty Lecturer, Tracy Barret of Nashville,TN
7th
day
of the Omer Count
Malkuth of Chesed
Loving kindness fears God and does
not consider what will happen to
itself.
(This is its royalty)
**note: For those who believe we are at many moments of our lives living
right now, in the fullness of time in God’s heavenly present moment we will
return to this topic considering passages from the Book of Romans, Chapter
12, during week seven of our Pentecost/Shavuos this year.
Friday April 26
Enrichment lecture on the history, agriculture and beauty of Apulia
Olive oil, what is so special about olive oil? It is considered a very valuable commody for cooking, cosmetics, perfume, medicine. It is a food a fruit, first you squeeze it, then the oil comes out. For quality, the extra virgin label counts, acid contents matter. It is used for personal adornment and as an important way of giving light before electricity was understood enough to be used in this way. The key to making good olive oil is getting it off of the tree within 24 hours after being picked. Its color is no indication of its quality. 1 cough when you eat it, 2 coughs, 3 coughs? Tells you its quality.
There are millions of olive trees in Puglia, Italy. What makes the trees live so long? It is the constant warm climate in Southern Italy that has a temperature just right and for just the right amount of time to grow the trees and their fruit.
Some parts of the limestone soil in the South are not usable for growing crops so il was dug up and used as stones to build the dome shaped houses that the farm workers lived in.
In the middle ages it was used to make people laugh. It has anti-inflammatory chemicals in it that affect the back of the throat. As early as 8000BC olive oil was farming in Galilee, about 2000 years ago the Turks and Greeks took up the practice and it was expanded to Crete in the Bronze age.
The people who grew olives in ancient Italy were descendants of an ancient system of slavery in Greece, what we called “share-cropping” in the US South in the early part of the last century.
It is considered the practice of the weathly because it takes a crop a few years to produce fruit, and the trees only bear every two years.
There are three problems that occur in the olive oil production:
- insects such as the cicada
- other bacteriums from the America can attack the trees
- pest called the olive fly
Beautiful Bari- The ancient seaport of Bari boasts narrow lanes and a pretty harbor
With colorful boats bobbing on their moors. You can wander the tight tangle of medieval streets in the cities old town, admire the carved apulian-Romanesque portal of the 11thcentury Basilica di San Nicola,, which houses the relices of Bari’s patron Saint, St. Nicholas. Pope Urban VI built the crypt in the Church as an important point for pilgrims to the Holy Land to stop at and pay indulgences to him.
Inside is a marble episcopal throne and striking mosaic floor.
For Russian Christianity, Bari is a Mecca and an important pilgrimage to visit the crypt of St. Nicholoas. But, He is an ecumenical Saint venerated by Venetians, Russians, and western Christians as “Santa Claus.”
There were three important miracles of St. Nicholas:
- three kids being rescued from “chopped up” for stealing bread
- three girls rescued for not having their promised dowery to get married. He anonymously gave them a box of golden coins. Which came down a chimney in secret (hence maybe our custom of Santa Claus coming down the chimney)
Dutch people spread the legend of Him, and it came to America. Protestants should explain the legends of St. Nicholas taught in the Catholic Church more so all of us can have a better understanding of who he really still is, and the way he helps us all at Christmas still performing miracles like he did in ancient times when our Church was more Eastern.
We traverse the seafront promenade where exhilarating views are revealed at each turn., then strolled the Murat quarter named for JOchim Nurt, Napoleon’s brother-in-law who designed the rectangular grid-plan on which the city is laid out.
In the afternoon we took a walking tour of polignano a Mare. It is a vibrant fishing village, which rises from limestone cliffs molded by the Adriatic, makes the ideal base for exploration of the region. Passed through the Porta VEcchia gate to stool the cobbbled streets of Old Town, fragrant with flowering plants and freshly baked goods.
Lunch in Polignana, salad and pizz margherita
Dinner at hotel Caprese salad, duram wheat cavatelli pasta with Shrimps, zuchhini
And tomatoes. Fried Squid and Shrimps with mustard-lime dressing. Dessert.
(Along with Gevurah…strength)
1st day of the weekly count, 8th day of the omer
count
Chesed of
Gevurah
“The quality of mercy(justice) is not strained.”
(its definition is not tightly controlled)
William Shakespeare
“Let justice roll like water and righteousness
Like a mighty stream.” Jewish Prayer Service
Saturday April 27
We visited the Martina Franco and Locorotondo Winery Martina Franca is the largest town in the Valle d’Iltria located in the heart of Apulia Martina Franca was once a fully walled city. Today many of the originl towers and gates still exist though many were removed or renovated for roads. In the Old Town, we walked under the Porto Santo Stfano—one o f the town’s remaining Renaissance and baroque gates –into the Piazza Roma. Visited the 17thcentury Palazzo Ducate and honey-colored Basilica di San Martino, which features sculptures by Stafan da Putignano and Giuseppe Sammartino. Contine through the Valle d’Itria to the municipality of Locorotondo to visit I Pastinis. This family-owned vineyard grows white grape varietals such as Verdeca, Bianco d’ alessano and Fiano Minutalo. Then we continued to Alberobello.
Saturday afternoon
I had a discussion with Danielli, one of the other AHI guides who was working with Christina about the history of Jews in South Italy while walking through the UNESCO tulli site and back on the bus there. For some information on the history of Jews in North Italy during World War II, what the Nazi’s and Mussoline did to them, killing at least 40,000 and the remainer hiding in the hills from Florence, see the travel blog on our trip to Florence, Italy posted on this site a few years ago.
Most Jews in South Italy between the Inquisition and World War II arrived from Spain and hence were Shepardic. There were not as many Jews living in the South as in the North when Musollini took over. Some of the ones there were put in detention camps. surrounding Alberobello, called “red camps”. They were descendants of the merchants and bankers from the Spain.
The poor Italian people living
At Alberobello are the fascinating dome-shaped buildings which dot the Aulian countryside. Found nowhere else in thew world, these whitewashed limestone structures are pieced together without mortar, their cobblestone, streets are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The origins of these “trulli” remain a mystery, but legends abound linking them to ancient Greece.
In the evening we had an enrichment lecture on the history and architecture of Lecce and Ostini.
The churches in Bari and Naples are a good example of the Norman, Romanesqe style.
Saint Andrew’s cathedral in Amalfi, to be discussed later, is a combination of this style with the North African Moroccan style.
The Baroque style in some of the other cities was from the 12thto 18thcentury. The word means “overdone”. It began in Italy during the Counter Reformation. After Martin Luther had successfully criticized the existing system in the Holy Roman Empire, something had to be done in order to help the rich classes in the cities attract people from the country side into churches in the towns. There are many examples of this style of Church in Italy, The Vatican, St. Peter’s in Rome, is of course the main one.
Dinner was
seafood salad with vegetables, capunti fresh pasta with tuna, stracciatella chees and pistachio crumbles.
Seven Thoughts About Goodness and Justice
2nd day of the weekly count, 9th day of the omer
count
Gevurah of
Gevurah
“Justice is freedom combined with equality.”
Mortimer Adler, Six Great Ideas *
Sunday April 28
First Glorious Mystery, The Resurrection
Three days after His death, Jesus rises, glorious, immortal
Fruit of the Mystery: Faith
Bible verses for meditation and contemplation
Matthew 28:1-10
“Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher. And, behold there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord (YHWH) came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightening, and his raiment white as snow. And, for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But, the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here;for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay. Then, go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and behold He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him. Lo, I have told you.” So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples. And, behold Jesus met them and, “Hail” And, they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped Him. Then, Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, whom is risen from the dead. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that faith in the risen Christ shall permeate our lives.
2ndGlorious Mystery, the Ascension
Jesus ascends into heaven 40 days after His resurrection
Fruit of the Mystery: Hope
Scripture for Meditation: Acts: 1:6-11
“So, when they had come together, they asked Him, “Lord (YHWH) will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, “It is not unto you to know the times or seasons, which the Father (YHWH) has fixed by His own authority. But, you shall receive Power when the Holy Spirit of YHWH and myself has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the end of the earth.” And, when He had said this, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. And, while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go up into heaven.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who ascended into heaven. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that we may cling to and live in the hope of God’s faithfulness.
3rdGlorious Mystery, The Descent of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit descends upon Mary and the disciples
Fruit of the Mystery: Wisdom
Scripture for Meditation: Acts: 2:1-4
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all in one place. And, suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues, as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, pouring forth His Holy Spirit. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that the Holy Spirit will fill us with wisdom and power to do His will.
4th Glorious Mystery, The Assumption of Mary
At the End of her life Mary is taken body and soul into Heaven and is united with her Divine Son.
Fruit of the Mystery: Devotion to Mary
Bible verses for meditation
Revelations 12:1-6
“And a great potent appeared in heaven, a women clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head, a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And, another protent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars in heaven, and cast them to the earth. And, the dragon stood before the women who was about to bear a child. That he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to His throne, and the women fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who assumed you into heaven. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that we may contemplate Christ with you and in you.
GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT*
(Comes Top Down from an open mind in the Sahasraha Chakra)
1)Wisdom —Strength—Understanding
(mindful energy in the present moment)
2)Right Judgement —Knowledge of God
(Listening to God and Others, Denying the illusion of bad in the present moment
and affirming our belief in the Good)
3) Love (receptivity and letting go) —Patience
(Loving God with whole heart and others as ourselves)
Fifth Glorious Mystery: The Coronation descent of happiness from the soul of St. Mary living in Heaven on earth with us,
Mary is gloriously crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth
Biblical verses for meditation: Psalm 45: 6-11
“Your Divine throne endures for ever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows; your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces, stringed instruments make you glad; daughters of kinds are among your ladies of honour; your right hand stands the Queen in gold of Ophur.
Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; forget your people and your father’s hous; and the king will desire your beauty, since He is your Lord (YHWH) bow to Him.
FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT**
(Comes from the Heart Chakra connected down to the Manipura***)
4) Humility –(Piety)—– Righteousness
(Knowledge of Divine Beauty dwelling in one’s self)
5) Kindness –(Goodness) —- Generousity
(Divine flow of joy)
6) Hope (Peace in Heaven on/in Earth, of God, with God, for God)—Faithfulness
7) After the Divine Seed falls into the root, the ground of us, its Tree of Life
then grows back up, as promised in the Book of Revelations, the back of our Spine into the Top Chakra, again, of God’s Holy Spirit of us.
*Isaiah 11:1-3
** II Peter 1:5
*** If you cannot find God in the human heart, then you cannot find Him anywhere. But, if you can find Him there, you can find Him anywhere.
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who crowned you, Queen of Heaven. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, lead us to The Beautific Vision.
5thGlorious Mystery
The Coronation of Mary
Mary is Gloriously crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth.
Scripture for Meditation: Psalm 45 6-11
“You Divine Throne endures forever and ever. You royal scepter is a scepter of equity; you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows, your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces, stringed instruments make you glad, daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor;at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him.”
HAIL MARY, full of grace, the Lord iw with thee, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy wound, Jesus, who crowned you Queen of Heaven and Earth. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,be now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us Mary, gate of heaven, Lead us to the Beautic Vision.
FROM THE UNITY SCHOOL OF CHRISTIANITY BOOKLET: SILENCE YOUR KEY TO THE SACRED PLACE,
A DRILL IN THE SILENCE
BY JAMES D. FREEMAN
There is a place to which you can turn for rest and release from fear and care.
It is a holy place. Stillness fills it. The peace of God is in it. There your mind becomes like a little child’s,
lovely and true and pure. There your thought is stayed on the things that are good and just and merciful.
When you enter, the world outside and all your troubles drop away and you rise at last, body stilled,
mind stilled, refreshed, and restored .[1]
This place is neither far away nor difficult to enter. It is right where you are now. It is right where you are
whenever you shut the doors of the senses[2] , still the importuning of little thoughts, and go along with
God. It is the place of the silence.
It is not hard to enter the place of the silence. If it seems hard to you, perhaps you have been making it
hard. You cannot fight your way through to God. Weeping and pleading are futile. You must let go and
let God.
Some people link the silence with occultism and look for fantastic psychic experiences from it. The
purpose of the silence, however, is not to have visions or see colored lights. Such fantasia serves only
to distract the individual from the true purpose of the silence, which is communion with God.[3]
[1]If you do this practice right it should take some time, sanctifying the Name of God, 5 minutes,
mindful breathing 5 minutes, relaxation 5 minutes at least, meditations and affirmations to know God 15
minutes, after you learn how to do it you may want to do it for at least an hour a day, early in the
morning is the best time, but you will probably want to do it at many different times all though the day.
[2] But, not the doors of your heart, for God has placed an open door there, that can not be shut. Cf.
Book of Revelations. And, if you cannot find God there, you cannot find him at all. But, if you can find
there you can find him anywhere.
[3] This is a good time to practice mindful awareness of breathing for about 5 minutes.
Breathing in I know I am breathing in, breathing out I know I am breathing out, breathing in I am calm,
breathing out I am at ease, present moment wondelful as the Rev. Thay has taught.
On the other hand, the silence is not a state of daydreaming or sleep. If you feel sleepy do not try to
pray unless you first waken yourself by saying “Awake thou that sleepest”. The silence demands such
wakefulness as is required at no other time. It is your appointment with God .
In practicing the silence you should always try to be relaxed in body and receptive in mind.
“Underneath are the everlasting arms of god” (Deut. 33:27) . Say this quietly. Feel the presence of God
freeing you from every thought of tension. Let your whole body, every nerve, every muscle, every cell,
relax and let go. Whenever you feel any tension, relax and let go. If you feel tense across your forehead
say “Relax and let go”. If your eyes feel strained, say : “Relax and let go”. If you are tense in any part of
your body, say : “Relax and let go”, until from the top of your head to the soles of your feet you are
perfectly relaxed. This concludes the first step in the drill [4]
Be still and know that I AM God, Say this silently. Repeat it over and over until the words take on new
meaning, a living meaning, and you feel the still-ness deep down inside , with your whole mind, your
whole being. This is the second step in the practice of the silence, and it is perhaps the most important
of all. In the stillness you unify yourself with God, when the thoughts and feelings are quieted and the
doors of the senses are shut. Not through our human powers and understandings, do we attain our
good, but by letting go of doubts, limiting personal claims and turning to God.
[5] This is the point in your practice that you should affirm,, “When God is One, His Truth is One.”
YHWH CHRIST
Turn your attention now to the top of your head and say, silently or aloud. “I am the light of the world.”
By the practice of the silence you will find it wise to use afirmations, for they will help you direct and
control your thoughts. But there is a surer speech than that of syllables, a higher communion than that
of words. God hear your inmost thoughts. You faith and love speak to you. Your faith and love unity you
with God. Make your mind God’s mind, your body God’s body, your spirit God’s spirit, you life God’s life,
your will God’s will.
You do not have to cajole or coerce God; divine love has already encomposed the fulfillment of your
needs. Your prayers have only to change you.
Step 12 Finally centering your thoughts in the feet and legs affirm, “I walk
in the paths of righteousness and peace.”
3rd day of the weekly count, 10th day of the omer
count
Tiferet of
Gevurah
Justice is everyone and everything
participating in its virtue (its
good
according to its kind or its concept) Plato, The Republic
Monday April 29
Visited the ancient city of Matera, Italy where Mel Gibson filmed the “Passion of Christ” because this ancient stoned walled hill city and the rolling hills of its surrounding countryside look so much like Jerusalem, Israel and Calvery where Christ was crucified.
We visited the Sassi districts of Matera, a 2019 European Capital of Culture and UNESCO world heritage site. The city was initially gouged out by troglodyltic nomads, into rock-hewn cave dwellings carved into the limestone tuga. Some showcase intricate, ornate facades. Honey-comed through Matera are more than 100 rock churchs decorated with delicate frescoes carved by 8th-13thcentury monks seeking refuge from the Byzantine Empire.
Some of these monks were of the society of St. Andrew and we visited a cave dwelling they lived in in the side of the walled city and where they bones, defintelty the “bones of St. Andrew” are still housed. This cave house was used for filming some of the scenes of Mary and Jesus in Mel Giblson’s wondelful film the “Passion of Christ” recreating in local rural scenic beauty and awful. Painful, bloody detail the fulfillment of the mindless hateful prosecutions by those who didn’t understand him and frightening, foreboding of grim prophecies of what Our Lord and Savior, teacher, redeemer, justified of our faith in God, Blessed now and forever, Jesus had to fulfill in order to save all our souls and be resurrected Himself unto His current form of Eternal glory indwelling us all living in our world today (being hidden deep inside the souls of some of us, extending outwardly from others of us along with His and certainly eternally shining brightly, Amen).
Figure 8 Bones from the monks in Matera of the society of St. Andrew who came from the Eastern Orthodox areas of Christianity bringing St. Andrew’s bones first to the southeast of Italy, then to the Divine Amalfi coast.
If this wasn’t interestingly enough, it also turns out that filmmakers are currently filming the new James Bond 24 movie here to be released in November 2019.
They have been scouting filming locations here last month.
First joyful mystery: The Annunciation
The Angel Gabriel announces the Incarnation to Mary
Fruit of the mystery: Humility
Bible verse Scriptures for meditation Luke 1:26-38
“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the Virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with you!”
But, she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And, the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David and He will reignover the house of Jacob forever; and of his reign there shall be no end.’
And Mary said, ‘How can this be, since I have no husband!’ And, the angel said unto her, ‘ The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And, behold your kinswomen Elizabeth in her old age, has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be called impossible.’
And, Mary said, ‘Behold I AM the handmaid of the Lord (YHWH); let it be unto me according to your word.’ And, the angel departed her.”
Then the person praying as the archangel Gabriel says:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who was conceived in you, by the Holy Spirit, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that we may follow God’s will in perfect humility
Second Joyful Mystery, The Visitation
Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth
Fruit of the mystery:Love of neighbor
Bible verses for meditation: Luke 1:39-50
“In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And, why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord (YHWH) should come to me! For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And, blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord (YHWH) .” And, Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord (YHWH), and my Spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden. For behold, henceforth, all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His Name. And, His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, whom you carried to Elizabeth. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that we love our neighbors and bring Christ into their hearts.
Third Joyful Mystery, the Nativity
Jesus is born in Bethelem
Fruit of the Mystery, Poverty of Spirit
Bible verses from Scripture, Luke 4:2-7
“And, Joseph went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And, while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And, she gave birth to her first born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
And, in the region there were shepherds, out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, “Be not afraid, for behold I bring you good news of a great joy that will come to all of the people; for to you, this day, is born in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (YHWH). And, this will be a sign unto you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger.” And, suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among men with whom He is pleased!”
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing which has happened, which the Lord (YHWH) has made known unto us.” And, they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe laying in a manger. And, when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told concerning this Child.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, whom was born unto you in Behlehem. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that out of love for Christ we may detach our hearts from material things and the esteem of the world.
The fourth joyful mystery, the Presentation
Jesus is Presented in the Temple
Fruit of the Mystery:Obedience
Bible verses for Meditation: Luke 2:22-35
“And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses (and YHWH), they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (YHWH), as it is written in the Law of the Lord (YHWH), “Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord (YHWH)) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord (YHWH), “ a pair of turtledoves or young pigeons”. Now there was a man in Jerusalem, Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And, it had been revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord’s (YHWH’s) Christ. And, inspired by the Spirit he came unto the temple; and when the parents brought the child Jesus, to do unto Him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “ Lord (YHWH) now lettest thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for the glory of thy people Israel.”
And, his father and his mother marveled at what was said about Him. and Simeon blessed them and said unto Mary, “Behold this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (a sign of contradiction)( and a sword will piece through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, whom you presented in the temple. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that out of love for Christ we may wholeheartedly obey Christ and His Church.
Fifth joyful mystery, the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple
After searching for Him for three days, Mary and Joseph find Jesus in the Temple
Fruit of the Mystery, Piety
Luke 2:41-52
“Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year for the feast of Passover.
And, when he was twelve years old they went up according to custom (and also YHWH’s instructions in the scriptures), and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing Him to be in the company, they went a days journey, and they sought Him among their kinfolk and acquaintances, and when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him. After three days, they found Him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. And, when they saw Him they were astonished and His Mother said unto Him, “Son, why have You treated us so? Behold, Your father and I have been looking anxiously.” And, He said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father (YHWH’s) house? And, they did not understand this saying He said to them. And, He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He was obedient to them. And, His mother kept all these things in her heart.
And, Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”
Then we say:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord (YHWH) is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, whom you found in the temple. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen
Then the people praying with them say the concluding prayer:
Pray for us Mary, cause of our joy, that we may will to seek, find and embrace and respect the body and blood of Jesus in the Mass available to us Eternally in the Mass and sacraments and in His indwelling Holy Spirit and Eternally and daily alive to us through discussions in Churchs and synagogues and Temples and with others through individual contemplative mental and vocal prayer when we are alone with God by ourselves.
4th day of the weekly count, 11th day of the omer
count
Netzach of Gevurah
No good fruit (end) can come from a bad tree
(bad means). No bad fruit (end) can come from a good
Tree(good means).” Jesus Christ according to the
Gospel of Matthew
Good defines evil, evil defines good, good comes
From good, evil from evil.”
Sefirah Yetzirah, Book V.
Tuesday April 30
Woke up early, last night in the hotel Covo de Saraceno, Had breakfast sitting by the big picture window looking out into the Adriatic Sea from the breakfast room on the bottom floor of the hotel. Looking out into the ocean from the Cliffside here its seems like you are looking out into eternity, into an eternal ocean of absolute consciousness and the 4’ to 5’ blue waves sashaying against the limestone rock, and the golden rising Sun shining a path from it on the natural horizon toward your viewing point, standing on the shore, or sitting in the hotel breakfast room. The waves sashaying into these naturally formed cliffs which the hotel was built into, the blue, gray and white horizontal clouds spread out, broken, layered, then the clear, blue, yonder above that.
My father Gordon Harrell appeared to me in a dream for the first time since he died December 28, 1991. My father appeared to me in a dream the night after visiting those bones of the monks of the order of St. Andrew, at the bottom of the stone cave house in Matera, where household scenes of the movie “The Passion of Christ was filmed.” My father who gave me the name “Andrew” so I would be aware of my wonderlful Scottish Heritage.
Where are the bones of St. Andrew? Well I would say the bones of these monks who brought his bones from the main bishopric seat in the Eastern Christian Church in Constantinople to Italy after the crusades are pretty close to being his.
In order to understand where the bones of St. Andrew are perhaps we should understand how Jesus Christ described the soul of St. Andrew as a “seed” that has fallen to the ground. What is the ground that it has fallen into? It is what Hindu’s call the Brahmin reality, the four-fold ground of Truth, represented by the four letter Name of God YHWH, dwelling in us all as four-fold absolute Eternal consciousness and Divine Truth.
We don’t have the “bones” of Jesus Christ for He has been resurrected to glory so His Holy Spirit, along with the absolute eternal consciousness of His Father, Our Creator, His Co-Creator in Heaven and Heaven on Earth can help us. In order to do this He had to leave them behind.
But, we have some of the bones of “A Man of God” Andrew.
That is who he was and is and will be, a “seed of himself, a Man of God, which his name means in Greek”, “a seed of a seed of Himself’. Or, perhaps like a seed of an oyster that grows inside of a sea shell collecting nourishment from the ocean of absolute consciousness as it irritates the shell it lives it, the shell and the sea that is the sea they both dwells. ..Perhaps, a seed, like a precious pearl at the bottom of the ocean of God’s Divine absolute consciousness dwelling as a Holy Spirit within our own human hearts. Within God’s Divinity hidden in own human hearts inside of all of us.
His bones are some of the most precious relics we have in the Christian Church. He is considered the founder of the bishopric of Constantinole in the Eastern Orthodox Church and his brother Peter is considered the founder of the Western Catholic Church in Rome.
As an ecumenical gesture of good will in 1966 Pope Paul VI had the parts of his bones in the front of his skuil removed from their place in his Cathedral in Amalfi and returned to Constantinople.
My father, reminds me of Saint Jacob, he was a bodyguard for a time to President Eisenhower in World II, who also reminds me of Saint Jacob, as does my blessed uncle William Franklin Calohan. He, My Father Gordon Harrell, was the Grandson of the World President of the Baptist Evangelical Society of London England and Boston, MA in the early 1900s.
Having lived in China in the 1930s and 1940s, he also knew George Bush senior, having helped him I believe when he was in China. It would have been interesting to talk to him, for my mother took me away from him in New York City when we moved to Vicksburg and she divorced him. After I finally tracked down some of his friends in Houston, TX after he died, they told me he told them very clearly that he was an agnostic.
I remember him appearing to me in a dream in December 1991. His friends told me that he had died there after a recurrence of skin cancer metastasized to the brain.
Dr. Wilson my friend in Vicksburg says skin cancer does not metastasize this way, but that’s what they told me MB Anderson had said to them.
“What are nine words in your heart in order to die smart and have birth and rebirth?…He said.”
“Be good.”
“Be true.”
“Be new”
“Be you.”
“Be.”
5th day of the weekly count, 12th day of the omer
count
Hod of
Gevurah
Good – What is desirable for its own sake
6th day of the weekly count, 13th day of the omer
count
Yesod of
Gevurah
divine order—a rightful (according to a sound
everlasting principle)** procession of truth
from
Beginning as good faith to its
correspondence
And completion as a realization in one of us or
All of us or the World around us.
During today our group travelled to explore the historic seaport of Trani, know for its Moscato di Trani wine and savory figs, this historic town is home to a 13th-century fort and a cathedral nestled in the harbor of the Adriatic. This village’s white limestone cathedral was dedicated to Saint Nicolas the Pligrm. Take note of the distinguishing Norman houses a typically English Romaesque style of architecture. Medieval Trani also had one of the largest Jewish populations in southern Italy and was a Knight’s Templar site. ( paragraph taken from AHI iternary notes)
In the afternoon we visited one of the only remaining active Jewish synagogues in Southern Italy. It is the Synagogue Scolanova which occupies a small room as an annex to the Church of Sante Maria. As the young Catholic girl who was our guide was standing in front of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew I asked her if she could read the Hebrew words. She could not, so I started reading them, I only got as far as the first five before Tracy interrupted me and said, “We don’t have time for this.” It was very painful to me, not to be able to share this priceless understanding I have of how Christian and Jewish Biblical translations of these key passages in the Old Testament differ. So, I am including the translations here, along with some augmented commentaries posted in an early ourprayergroup.blogspot.com commentary of them:
Figure 9 The Stone Tables from the Synagogue Socolanova in seacost town of Trani in Southern Italy, containing the commands, for all time as Hebrew words, God gave the prophet and man of God, Moses, a few years and tears ago. Photo by Christie Hauck
The Ten Commandments
1st and 6th
“I am the Lord thy God who brought you out of the land of Egypt” “You shall not murder”
“A..nokay Adonai Elohehyach hotzaytayach mayehrehtz maytz’ryeem” “Lo teer’tzach”
These two commandments are interconnected on the heavenly level. That is, not to acknowledge that “I am who I am”, (that is, that God is who he is…God is that which is God and yes he is himself or herself) is to kill God metaphysically inside of all of us. This is the fundamental cause of the destruction of our shared divinity with him or her inside of us. On the earthly human level, after it occurs collectively in the heavenly realm, it then translates into the individual and more easily perceivable human level of killing each other.
2nd and 7th “You shall have no other gods in my presence” “You shall not commit adultery”
“Lo yeeh’yeh lach elohaym a’chayrm al phanay” “Lo teen’ach”
A similar order of ethical destruction occurs here when these commandments are not followed. For, when our faith wanders so can the good from us…that God has prepared and planned for us.
Some beliefs which both Christians and Jews can share
We believe in a God who exists everywhere through his own nature and being.
We believe in God our Father more than we believe in any arrangement of his or her
archangels and angels…we believe in God the Holy Spirit more than we believe in any arrangement of Spirit and Truth ( of any arrangement of Boddhisattvas… that is, human knowers of human knowing or knowledge) inside of us.
We believe in him more than any belief in the inerrancy of scriptures that might be written by us to help us understand him or her or the infallibility of any leader anointed by us to represent him or her. (But, we do give honor to and respect the individual dignity of all these representatives of God in us and all these scriptures which are inspired with the Spirit of his and her Truth.)
We believe in a God whose Son is rational and who is in his or her Son and whose Son is in him or her.
We believe in a Holy Spirit in whom there is the Father and the Son… and a Father and the Son in whom there is the Holy Spirit.
We believe in a God who believes in us and the sanctity of our souls and spirits (our names) in him as much as we believe in him and the sanctity of his or her name in us.
3rd and 8th “You shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in a vain oath.” “You shall not steal (kidnap)”
“Lo teesha et shaym Adonai Elohehyach lashv’” “Lo teeg’nov”
All things come to those who keep faith with God’s divine plan and order and trust, honor, praise and remain in him. But, those that grasp after their good and try to lay hold of it illegally before its ready to be given to us will never find it. Note: the literal translation of the Hebrew word teeg’nov is kidnap
And, here also:
4th and 9th “Remember the Sabbath day in order to sanctify it.” “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
“Zachor et yom hashavat l’kad’shu shaysheht” “Lo ta’nehh bh’rayach ayd shakehr”
To rest in the Lord is to learn how to remember how what he has already given us in the past must always be the foundation of the best of what the future (in the present moment then) can hold for us. Note: the Torah does not say here remember the Sabbath day because God has sanctified it…but “remember it in order that we may sanctify it (inside and outside of us). Considering how much good God has already given to us, why then do we need to try and takes someone else’s away from them.
5th and 10th “Honor your father and your mother.” “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, his wife, his servants, his ox, his ass, nor anything that belongs to him”
“ Ckaybayr et abayrach v’et eemehach.” “L’o tayh’mad bhayt rayehach l’o tayh’mad asheht rayehach v’aymatu v’shoru v’chmru v’chol ‘shehr l’rayehach.”
For men and women of God to honor their father and our mother is to honor God in them (us), for without our fathers and mothers we would not have been created with God’s help on this earth. Even the angels sometime envy those souls who are living today in human bodies. But, for them to do this does not honor their spiritual God who created them. A wife (or a husband) along with children and the blessings they bring are certainly some of the most precious things we can have…But, so too, even more so, is our relationship with God and the limitlessness of our faith in the timeliness and sufficiency of his providence for us.
Other arrangements for Meditation of the Ten Commandments
Catholic/ Lutheran
1st “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods”
2nd “You shall not make for yourself an idol.”
3rd “You shall no take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
4th “Remember the Sabbath day.”
5th “Honour your father and your mother.”
6th “You shalt not murder”
7th “You shalt not commit adultery”
8th “You shalt not steal”
9th “You shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
10th “You shalt not covet your neighbor’s wife”
Protestant
1st “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods, You shall not make for yourself an idol.”****
[Isaiah 42:8;48:11]
2nd “You shall no take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
3rd “Remember the Sabbath day.”
4th “Honour your father and your mother.”
5th “You shalt not murder”
6th “You shalt not commit adultery”
[Proverbs 6:25,26;Matthew 5:28;Romans 1:24; Ephesians 5:3]
7th “You shalt not steal”
[Proverbs 11:1;16:8;21:6;22:16;Jer. 17:11;Mal. 3:8]
8th “You shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
[Exodus 23:1;Prov. 19:9;24:28]
9th and 10th “You shalt not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not covet your neighbor’s hourse.”
[Luke 13:15;Dol. 3:5]
)
****This commandment is sometimes stated as “You shall have no other God beside me”. Also, some Jews have said that because of this commandment it is impossible for Jews to practice or believe in Christianity. I do not agree with this. God is One. This is certainly true. But, when we say this if we mean to say that God being One himself, he is not also One with his Only Son Jesus…then God, the moment we say this, becomes no longer just One himself…but much more (another, also, two in fact). Jesus Christ has said that the time will come when we, his students, will worship God together with him in Spirit and in Truth. To worship God as One is to worship him in Spirit. To worship God as Truth is to worship him as a correspondence between what is and what is. When many more Jews and Christians come to realize this then the abode of God will be with men here on earth [Rev. 21:3-4, Ezekiel 37:27, Isa. 25:8;35:10] and he will live among them as truth to and from truth and they shall be his people dwelling in his Holy Spirit receiving from and giving to each other as to and from his love.
Wednesday May 1
Final day in Poignano a Mare
Signed up for a wondelful cooking class at a rural country villa
The Il Melogrno. The three cooking class Italian dishes were
Apulian Style Tiella
Barise Style Focaccia
300 gr of “carnoli” rice
1.2 kg of potatoes, 700 gr of auberfine
400 gr of tomatoes
150 gr of onions
1.4 gr of mussels
salt, pepper, basil to taste
600 gr of fish stock.
Place in overn at 140 centigrade for 45 minutes
The focaccia is baked to make a pizza with tomatoes stewed first then laid with
Smooth side on top of the bread
Bread is made out of 250 gr of 00 Flour
300 miler of water
5 ml of extra virgin olive oil
7 gr salt
12 gr of yeatst
cherry tomatoes, baked at 180 degrees for 20’ after which
freshly cuty squeezed red tomato parts are put in its center which have been prepared and cooked five minutes in a sauce pan part of a soup.
Homemade Orecchiette Pasta
Made out of 200 gr of milled duram wheat and water
It is rolled into long “snakes”, then cut in pieces with a knife.
You use the knife horizontally to do this, then catch hold of the pressed small square and
Press the flat part of the knife down on it as you move the square and round it into a circle,
Then fold the circle with a finger of one hand on the thumb of the other.
Takes a lot of practice.
North of Naples
7th day of the weekly count, 14th day of the omer
count
Malkuth of
Gevurah
‘You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”
Joseph to his brother, story in the Torah
*An idea is a representation in our minds of a thought. A concept can be
distinguished from a perception in that it has a likeness class (that is
likeness or non-visual intellectual thought as opposed to an image or
perception). Concepts themselves have likeness classes. Therefore a great
idea is a synonym for a likeness class of a concept.
** Being divine, this correspondence can only take place inside of a field
of being which has its existence as a part of God’s name. Furthermore, in
order for God to have a name he must be a unique individual, that is, a one.
Thursday May2
Left by taxi to Bari to catch the bus to Naples,
Checked in at the Hotel St. Pietro in Naples near the
Main train station at Gallipoi Square
Very nice rooftop restaurant overlooking that part of Naples and
Next to the Basillica dome next door.
Friday May 3,2019
Seven Thoughts About Beauty
(Tiferet)
1st day of the weekly count,15th day of the omer
count
Chesed of
Tiferet
“Beauty is controlled grace.”
Leonardo da Vince
Renaissance Christian Definition
2nd day of the weekly count, 16th day of the omer
count
Gevurah of
Tiferet
“Awareness is a mirror reflecting the four
elements. Beauty is a heart that generates
Love and a mind that is open.”
Thich Nhat Hanh,- Buddhist Gatha ***
3rd day of the weekly count, 17th day of the omer
count
Tiferet of
Tiferet
“Beauty is understanding that which is
desirable for its own sake. Love is aspiring
Upward toward eternal beauty.”
Saint Augustine, Confessions.
4th day of the weekly count, 18th day of the omer
count
Netzach of
Tiferet
“And, why do you worry about clothes? See
how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor
Or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in
All his splendor was dressed like one of these.
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field,
Which is here today and gone tomorrow and is
Thrown into the fire, will he not much more
Clothe you. O you of little faith?”—Jesus Christ
Gospel of Matthew
5th day of the weekly count, 19th day of the omer
count
“
Hod of Tiferet
“As long as we have bodies, we must inhabit the dwellings prepared for us by
our good sister the Soul in her vast powers of labourless creation.”
Plotinus, Second Ennead, Chapter 9, verse 18. The Great Books, Edited by
Mortimer Adler, U. of Chicago Press.
The beautiful is that which pleases us on being seen.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas
“The beautiful is that which pleases us upon being contemplated.”
Immanuel Kant
6th day of the weekly count, 20th day of the omer
count
Yesod of
Tiferet
“Truth is beauty and beauty truth, that
is all you know and all you need to know.”
Keats—viewpoint of a poet
“Your love, O YHWH, reaches to the heavens
Your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness
Is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the
Great deep…For with you is the fountain of life,
In your light we see light.” View of King David
About why God is beautiful
Friday May 10,2019
7th day of the weekly count, 21 day of the omer
count
Malkuth of
Tiferet
“We must always remember that beauty is a partial thing,
that cannot be identified with what pervades the whole;
nor can several objects be stated as everything.”
Plotinus ibid, verse 17.
“Pretty is as pretty does.” Protestant
Christian saying passed down in the Calohan
Family (from Alma May Calohan) to her
Daughter Virginia Calohan Harrell
*** Quoted from “Present Moment, Wondelful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for
Daily Living.”( 1990) by Thich Nhat Hanh with permission of Parallax Press,
Berkeley California.
Saturday, May 4
Took a tour bus from the hotel San Pietro to Pompei, walked in the rain through the ruins. Returned to Naples had a nice meal on the rooftop restaurant in the hotel
Sunday, May 5
Took the train back to Rome and the hotel Rafaello, via Urbana. Had a wondelful meal at the local restaurant on Via Urbana, plus return visit to the chocolate shop on the left of the street walking back to the hotel.
Monday, May 6
Flew back to Atlanta, then Jackson, MS, then by taxi to Vicksburg, MS
Thursday May 9
A long awaited prayer letter from my dear friends in Missouri apologizing for not thanking me for the love gift of a fruit basket I sent in January is written.
Dr. Andrew W. Harrell
3000 Drummond St.
Vicksburg, MS 39180
Dear Andrew,
Divine Love is so important in your world, for it ensures your health, happiness, and well-being.
We are one with you in an awareness of divine love today and every day.
Isn’t it wonderful to know that wherever you go, the love of God goes with you! God’s love abides within you and around you, helping you live a richer, more fulfilling life.
Again, we apologize. Silent Unity received the basket of fruit pears and sparkling pear juice in early February, and it was much enjoyed by the staff. A request that a thank-you note be sent was unfortunately overlooked. Please know your gifts are always deeply appreciated and we will strive to do better at ensuring each one is appropriately acknowledge.
As you think about divine love and the power it has to bless you, know that we, too are one with you in prayer. We envision the love of God providing for your every need and bringing you much joy and happiness.
In God’s love,
Silent Unity
Remainder of our 2019 Omer Count Prayers for the rest of May and beginning of June 2019
Seven Thoughts About Patience and Integrity
(Netzach)
1st day of the weekly count,22th day of the omer
count
Chesed of Netzach
“Let not mercy and kindness forsake
you.”
Sanctify the name of God
with our love
“Withold not good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of
your hand to do it.”[Romans 13:7; Gal. 6:10]*
2nd day of the weekly count, 23 day of the omer
count
Gevurah of
Netzach
Exalt and lift up the name of God*
“Keep sound and godly wisdom and discretion.”
“Be not afraid of sudden terror and panic.”
“For the Lord shall be your confidence, firm and strong, and shall keep your
foot from being caught.”
3rd day of the weekly count, 24th day of the omer
count
Tiferet of
Netzach
Bless the name of God
bring it into our consciousness
“Be not wise in your own eyes; reverently fear and worship the Lord.”*
4th day of the weekly count,25th day of the omer
count
Netzach of Netzach
“Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all you heart and mind
and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.”
*
Rest in the name of God
(with patience)
5th day of the weekly count, 26th day of the omer
count
Hod of
Netzach
Give glory to the name of God
“Happy is the man who finds skillful and godly Wisdom, and the man who gets
understanding. For the gaining of it is better than the gaining of silver,
and the profit of it better than fine gold…more precious than rubies; and
nothing you can wish for is to be compared to her. [Job 28:12 -18] Length of
days are in her right hand, and in her left hand are riches and honor. Her
ways are highways of pleasantness, and all her paths are of peace “* #
6th day of the weekly count,27th day of the omer
count
Yesod of
Netzach
Praise the name of God
(in eternal life)
“Do not despise or shrink from the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary
or impatient about or loathe or abhor his reproof. For whom the Lord loves,
he corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.” *
Figure 10 Lotus pond in the Islamic style garden next tot he main Cathedral
7th day of the weekly count, 28th day of the omer
count
Malkuth of
Netzach
Honor the name of God
“Honor the Lord with your capital and sufficiency [from righteous labours]
and with the firstfruits of all your income; so shall your storage places be
filled with plenty.” *
Figure 11 Islamic style garden next to the Cathedral
* Most of these thoughts are contained in the 3rd chapter of the Book of the
Proverbs of King Solomon
# For those who gain wisdom, will eventually learn to have peace of mind,
and, as my Buddhist prayer partners teach, peace of mind is, dear friends,
our most precious attainment and highest happiness. For if we have this, God
can supply us with the rest of the riches of the glories in Christ he has
prepared for us through the divine order of his providence and the hidden
protections that the small, but important, parts of each of us play in his
great plans for all of us (the contributions of each of us being tied
together in a huge and complex network of salvation, the stronger for the
fact that the temporary loss or transformation of any part of it can be made
up by the reserve forces contained in the rest).
Article #780
Subject: President Trump’s prayer requests at National Prayer Breakfast
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 2/11/2019 10:09:55 AMPresident Trump, St. Andrew and Jesus Christ are praying with you for the future of our country the US of
A. We are praying with you for the courage to pursue justice and the wisdom to forge peace. praying for
those who chose faith based adoption and a future where every child has a warm, safe and loving home.
for the strength of our families, for the safety of our citizens, for the fulfillment of our deepest hopes and
our highest potential. And let us always give thanks for the miracle of life, the majesty of creation and the
grace of Almighty God. Thank you for praying with us. It is an honor to pray with you. God bless you, and
God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Add/Reply to this prayer posting
Responses:
Article #806
Subject: President and Ms’s Trump thank you note
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 5/18/2019 03:39:58 PMAndrew Harrell
3000 Drummond St.
Vicksburg, MS 39180
The White House
Washington DC 20500
Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful gift. Melania and I deeply appreciate your support. We are
honored to serve a country that we love and to work every day to improve the lives of the American
people.
Your encouragement, and that of millions of Americans, sustains us each step of the way. By working
together, we will deliver on the promise of America for all of our people. We will strengthen our national
spirit and ensure that America continues to shine as a beacon of freedom for all of the world to see.
We are grateful for your generous gift and support. God Bless America.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Trump
Friday May 17, 2019
Seven Thoughts About Obedience and Glory
(Hod)
Some twofold thoughts from the Birkat H’shir, Blessing of Song
Which is part of the 15 expressions of praise of God in the Yishtabach
prayer
1st day of the weekly count, 29th day of the omer
count
Chesed of
Hod
b’arachot v’hodaot
blessings and thanks
2nd day of the weekly count, 30th day of the omer
count
Gevurah of
Hod
k’dehshah v’malchot
holiness and dominion
3rd day of the weekly count, 31st day of the omer
count
Tiferet of
Hod
t’ehllah v’tiferet
psalm singing and beauty
4th day of the weekly count, 32nd day of the omer
count
Netzach of
Hod
Rest,eternally, in the name of God
(with patience)
5th day of the weekly count, 33rd day of the omer
count
Hod of Hod
az
v’mem’shalah
strong help and power
May 22,2019
The White House
Washington , DC 20502
Andrew Harrell
Thank you for your thoughtful gift. The President and I are heartened by the outpouring
of support that we have receive from all across our blessed Nation.
As First Lady, it is an honor to serve this great country and the American people who I hold so close to
my heart. Our family is grateful for your support and encouragement.
Again, thank you for your kind gesture.
Sincerely,
Melania Trump
6th day of the weekly count, 34th day of the omer
count
Yesod of
Hod
hallayl v’zim’rah
(praise or veneration and melodies)
7th day of the weekly count, 35th day of the omer
count
Malkuth of Hod
song and praise
Seven Thoughts About The Foundation of Our Righteousness
(Yesod)
Friday May 24,2019
35th day of the Omer count
(Chol Hamoad)
Malkuth of Hod (Kingship of obedience)
Song and praise
Bible verses corresponding to the Holy Spirit’s 13 corrections to the 13
attributes of the long face of the name of God (the Father) Micah 7:18-20 and
Exodus 34:6-7
Note: these corrections (tikkuns) have to do with our human faith and hope in
God (as exemplified in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the Messiah Ben
Joseph) as opposed to our human love of God as exemplified in King David and
his Son the Messiah Ben David the short face of the name of God (Zeir Anpin)
The layout and format of the way these verses are translated is taken from the wonderful little booklet “Tashlich and the Thirteen Attributes” in the Mesorah Arts Artscroll series of Orthodox Jewish Prayer books.
Corrective verse || original verse || Hebrew
1) “Who, is a God(El) who is like unto You ?|| “YHWH, YHWH, El”||
YHWH,YHWH,El
2)”Who pardons iniquity” || “Merciful” || Rachom
3)”and overlooks transgressions”|| “and Compassionate”|| v’chanon
4)”for the remnant of his heritage?” ||“slow” || erech
5)”who has not retained his wrath eternally”|| “to anger” || apaym
6)”for He desires kindness*!”|| “and abundant in kindness” ||v’ rav chesed
7)”He will again be merciful** to us;”|| “and Truth” ||v’emet
8)”He will suppress our iniquities***”|| “preserve of kindness”|| notzer
chesed
9)”and cast into the depths of the sea all their sins****.”|| “for thousands
ofgenerations”|| l’elpaym
10)”Grant Truth to Jacob”|| “forgiver of iniquity”|| naso aon
11)”kindness to Abraham*****”|| “transgression” || v’pasha
12)”As you swore to our father******” ||“and sin” ||v’chatah
13)”from ancient times*******”|| “but not all”|| v’naqah
(erasing them with oneness)
*and delights in mercy
**compassionate, for he is like the apple tree among the trees of the wood R.
Shimon Zohar
***cancel the judgements of fate,karma,bad luck against us. R.
Elazer Zohar
****where only the sea turtle (turtledove) and the trident of Neptune can
retrieve them R. Aba Zohar
***** and to all those who love the Messiah and fear the Lord God there is no
love longer than its neighbor R. Jehuda Zohar
****** for we all live in the same world and share the same air and have
equal right and ability to breath it R. Shimon Zohar
******* “Be ye perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect” Jesus
Christ
What does it mean to be a “real Jew”? According to many Jews it means to
have a Jewish mother and to meditate on the Hebrew Letters in the Torah,
by use of whichGod created the Universe.
According to Saint Paul, Romans 2:28-29 “For the real Jew is not
the person who is one outwardly, nor is circumision that
which outwardly evident in the flesh. But, the real Jew is one who is
so in secret,and real circumcision is one which is of the heart, wrougth
by the Spirit, and not the letter, and the communications
such a person receives comes not from human beings, but from God.”
Thus, in this famous passage St. Paul has redefined what it means to
meditate on God inwardly (ie, one doesn’t receive the revelation from
the Torah by mediating on the Hebrew letters of the Kabbalah, but from
meditating on love and truth within the human heart.
I believe God allows St. Paul’s definition of what a Jew is to be truthfu.
But I also believe that there is not just definition of what a Jew is (just
like there
is not just one definition of what a Chrsitian is. Therefore, I do not
consider
the Jewish Sabbath to be “outdated” as most Christians do. But, I have
received
much benefit from practicing the Jewish Law as a Christian and I think many
other Christians can also receive these benefits.
So, below the Biblical teachings refer to the original Hebrew letters,assuming
this will provide us with wisdom, undrstanding,blessing just as the later
Christian/Greek translation can.
Bible verses corresponding to the Holy Spirit’s 9 corrections to the 9
attributes of the short face of the name of God (the Father) Psalms 118:5-9
and Numbers 14:18
Note: these corrections (tikkuns) have to do with our human faith and hope in
God (as exemplified in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the Messiah Ben
Joseph) as opposed to our human love of God as exemplified in King David and
his Son the Messiah Ben David the short face of the name of God (Zeir Anpin)
Corrective verse ||original verse || Hebrew
1) “In distress, I called upon YAH?”|| YHWH,slow || YHWH Erech
2)”With abounding relief YAH answered me”|| “to anger” || Apaym
3)”YHWH is with me” || “abundant in kindness” || v’rav chesed
4)”I do not fear.” || “bearer of iniquity” || notzer avn
5)”What can man do to me” || “and transgression” || v’pasha
6)”YHWH is for me through my helpers” || “he erases” || v’ nkach
7)”So I shall see the downfall of my enemies.” ||“and he does not erase” ||lo
ynkach
8)”It is better to take refuge in YHWH” || “he accounts the iniquity of the
fathers” || poker aonabot al’bnaym
Than to rely on man
9”It is better to take refuge in YHWH.”|| “to the third generation and fourth
generations” || al shaloshaym than to rely on
nobles
|| v’al rbaym
According to the Kabbalah (Zohar) taking both of these blessings/corrections
together we have the mysterious 22 letter form of the name of God.
The order of the meditations and comtemplations contained in this name comes
from the Aaronic Priestly benediction given in the book of numbers as
explained (only partially) in the Zohar passage corresponding to the Torah
reading of Naso. It is a threefold-contemplation of the passage of God’s
grace three times from the heavens downward to earth. Each passage
corresponding to one of the three sections in the blessing as the name of God
YHWH is written and directed through 22 letters (the mystery is what are
these 22 letters?) that are referred to in the Torah passage. The
word “letters” when it is mentioned in Jewish writings usually refers to the
22 consonants, not the vowels, in the Hebrew language. So, I assume what we
are to think about as placed inside our fingers are 22 consonants that are
contained in this passage. There are twelve consonants corresponding to the 3
times the name of God YHWH occurs in the passage so that , just as we have
ten fingers on our two hands, the passage means that we being men of God are
to look for ten other consonants that these twelve consonants which refer to
God, refer to in the passage. We see that the occurances of the consonants
aleph, vav and yod (which are important in Old Testament Kabbalistic
interpretation… the aleph being important as representing a beginning in an
end…a letter which contains the vav and yod inside of inside and generates
recursively a tree of meaning. yod being important as representing the ten-
fold subjective heavenly form of biblical realization of truth or reality in
the objective world we live in, and the vav being important as representing
the six-fold throne or Son of God inside of the lower earthly realms and also
being capable of recursively and mathematically generating itself fruitfully
as a metaphysical comptemplation of itself*) count up to ten (three in the
first verse, four in the second, and three in the third verse). So, for
myself this is how I interpret these teachings.
Another possible approach to understanding what the mysterious 22-letter name
of God inside of the priestly blessing means which also follow the above
interpretation about the point of the 12 consonants of YHWH is to take these
twelve consonants in the three verses as the root letters of the blessing and
then pair them up which each of the remaining consonants of the Hebrew
alphabet as they occur multiplying in the three verses. For example, we see
that the letter Beth, which is a mental House of God Consciousness, is
blessed one time in the first verse…1 (“May YHWH bless you”). We see that
the letter aleph, which represents …as mentioned above, an end in a beginning
and a beginning in an end, is blessed by YHWH twice in the second verse (“May
YHWH illuminate His countenance toward you” and “May YHWH endow you with
grace”) and and twice in the third verse 1+4 (“May YHWH lift His countenance
to you and establish Peace for you.”). We see that the letter Koh, which
represents God grace reaching out through us through His hand inside of us
being blessed by YHWH one time in the first verse (“May YHWH bless you.”)
1+4+1 . We see that the letter nun, which represents faith, is blessed by
YHWH twice in the second verse (“May YHWH illuminate His countenance upon you
and endow you with grace.”). 1+4+1+2..We see that the letter Peh, which
represents the breath of God blessing us as we speak His words that He wants
us to speak to others through our mouths being blessed by YHWH one time in
the second verse (“May YHWH illuminate His countenance upon you”) and one
time in the third verse (“May YHWH lift His countenance to you”).
1+1+4+2+2=10 And, we see that one can contemplate the consonant Shin as being
blessed metaphysically and in multiple dimensions by the consonants YHWH.
This happens one time in the first verse (“May He guard you”) and also three
times in the third (May He support His Truth in you and place…put…His peace
inside of you”) 4. We see that the letter Resh, which represents in both
Sanskrit and Hebrew eternal completion of Truth is blessed by YHWH twice in
the first verse (“May YHWH bless you and keep you’) , and once in the second
verse (“May YHWH illuminate His countenance toward you and endow you with
grace”) 4+3 We see the letter watery consonant Mem representing Moses
himself (remember to think about it as a mathematical recursive function)
is blessed by YHWH once in the first verse (“May YHWH guard you.”), twice in
the third verse (“May YHWH establish Peace inside of you”) 4+3+3 And,
finally, we see the letter lamech which represents the tantric fullness of
God’s world of creation placed inside of His heavenly earth dwelling at the
root of His spiritual body in us occurs three times in the last verse (“May
YHWH lift His countenance to you and establish Peace inside of you”
4+3+3+3=13 the number of attributes of God,meditated in the Biblical prayer
verses given above, which we can know.
And, finally we have the initial consonant letter hyat which occurs once in
the second verse (“May YHWH illumnate His countenance to you and endow you
with grace”) and the final consonant letter Khaf=500 which is the completion
and contains within itself divine life Heh=5, divine faith nun=50
500+50+5=555 and represents the mystical formation of the priests two hands
held upperward and directing divine light as a sword of Truth spiritually in
us and God’s world’s of creation occurring in the present moment around us
both inwardly and outwardly as the total process of mental contemplation,
breathing, movement of the body carefully and mindfully places the blessing
inside of us eternally and temporally. Each hand of the priest is composed of
five fingers which help separate mentally the five metaphysical realms of
tantric creation. The letter Khaf occurs, significantly six times… twice in
the first verse (“May YHWH bless you and guard you”), twice in the second
verse (“May YHWH illuminate His countenance to you and endow you with
grace”), and twice in the third verse (“May YHWH lift His countenance to you
and establish Peace inside of you” 1+2+2+2=7
So, considering the 12 consonant letters of YHWH occurring in this blessing
and the 30 consonant letters which YHWH blesses we have a total of 42
blessing letters in the 42 letter blessing of the name of God in the Bible
verses above. Thus, combining these thoughts with those from the ana b’korach
prayer in this Shavuous omer count, this meditation is a new unification of
the 22 letter name of God with the 42 letter name of God. May it help both
Christians to understand Messianic Judaism and Messianic Jews to understand
Christianity.
In the Naso chapter of the Zohar which explains how the three-fold in three-
fold Aaronic priestly benediction is to be meditated on using YHWH the four-
letter name of God there is also the explanation of how the name of God YHWH
with the vowels of a..o…ai (Adonai which is written as Yod Yod…reality
inside of reality in the Amidah prayerbooks is to be contemplated:
One considers the four-letter name of God YHWH with the vowels and consonants
Yud-Vav-Dalet, Hei-Yud, Vav-Aleph-Vav,Hei-Yud while saying and contemplating
the first verse (May YHWH bless you and keep you). The thought process here
is held in the spiritual body of the priest in the right shoulder region
(compassionate side of the mercy of God) aligned to the right of the third
Yogic throat chakra center. Then, contemplating the second verse (May YHWH
illuminate his countenance toward you and endow you with grace) one
contemplates the name of God YHWH as being Eheyeh, Eheyeh, Eheyeh (I AM who I
AM, I will be who I AM, I AM that I AM)…this the redemptive part of the
righteousness of God expressing itself as its Holy Spirit of Truth manifests
inside and around the spiritual body of the believer passing before us all as
a second redemptive time around the throne of God (the second coming of
Christ), Then, contemplating the third verse one gazes downward toward the
4th Yogic heart chakra (collective realm of God’s Truth inside the priest’s
spiritual body) and mentally pronounces and meditates on the name of God YHWH
with the vowels and consonants Yud-Vav-Dalet,Hei-Aleph,Vav-Aleph-Vav,Hei-
Aleph. The uniting of the name of God expressed in the first and third verse
(May YHWH lift His countenance to you and establish Peace inside of you)
through it being expressed inside of real person in the second verse is the
how the name of God Adonai participates in the blessing of Aaronic priestly
benediction.
In orthodox Judaism, these blessings also are given by the Aaronic priest
during the Tashlich service which occurs before Rosh Hashanah every year. At
this time of the year, as we stand near a body of water to say them, the
emphasis is more on correction through the casting away of our sins instead
of the creation occurring during the festival of the “end of the world”
(tantric olam) and the laying out of the boundaries of the new one. This
festival of “first fruits”of new creation in Christ is mentioned both in the
Old and New Testaments as an important one.
For all those Christians and Jews who have understood the highest and best
teachings referred to above about the Aaronic blessing
Be still and know that: “I AM He who is living, but was dead” Book of
Revelations
welcome to our world of a new creation which is:
the concept of a concept:
An end (or purpose) inside of a beginning,
A beginning (or meaing of a purpose) inside of an end (or purpose).
“An end of the eternity (of the necessity of our future hope),
Which occurs in us at the end of our own faithful thoughts from a world of
desire in our past.”
I AM He who is living, but was dead
* see elsewhere in the ourpraygroup.blogspot.com (now at yhwhschofchrist.org/yhwhschofchrist) blog for a discussion about
some interpretations and thought relative to considering the forms of the
Hebrew consonants as ‘autiots” when they occur in the first chapter of
Genesis.
1st day of the weekly count, 36th day of the omer
count
Chesed of
Yesod
Watchfulness
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for
They are the children of God.”
2nd day of the weekly count, 37th day of the omer
count
Gevurah of
Yesod
Zeal
“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst
For righteousness, for they shall find it.”
3rd day of the weekly count, 38th day of the omer
count
Tiferet of
Yesod
Cleanliness
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall find
mercy.”
4th day of the weekly count, 39th day of the omer
count
Netzach of
Yesod
Separation from the World-
“Blessed are you who are persecuted
for my sake, for great is your reward
In heaven.”
5th day of the weekly count, 40th day of the omer
count
Hod of
Yesod
Purity–
“Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.”
6th day of the weekly count, 41st day of the omer
count
Yesod of
Yesod
Saintliness–
“Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted.”
US Memorial Day
For those interested in A Military Explorer, Engineer History of the Settlement of Our Southern United States 1680-18004 I have one coming out on Amazon Paperback and Amazon Kindle in a few days. Check on their site after the first week of June 2019. It is entitled A History of Explorations and Settlements in the Southern United States 1680-1804 and is more comprehensive in terms of covering all the European as well as British and American explorers than other books on the subject I am aware of. And, it has a lot of hard learned details over 35 years of studying the subject, and being a military engineer officer explorer myself, during this period , developing new research and development tools for the US army and joint forces, to be able to plan and defend ourselves better, during this period. It details the chronology of the explorations, gives several historical summary overviews about the military political, religious, and scientific environment during those centuries of European exploration in the United States and explains some of the methods the different countries used to survey, draw maps, build forts, etc.
7th day of the weekly count, 42th day of the omer
count
Figure 12 Rear skull of St. Andrew
Malkuth of Yesod
Fear of God–
“Blessed are the meek and poor in Spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
St. Paul’s beautiful words, which teach us how to pray
for what God wants for all of us to have happen:
“For in this hope we were saved.
But hope [the object of] which is seen is not hope.
For how can one hope for what he already sees?
But, if we hope for what is still unseen by us,
we wait for it with patience and compromise.
So, too the Holy Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up
in our weakness;
for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it
up worthily as we ought,
but the Spirit himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads
in our behalf with unspeakable yearning and groaning too deep
for utterances.
And, He Who searches the hearts of men knows what is in the mind
of the [Holy]Spirit [what his intent is],
because the Spirit intercedes and pleads [before God] in behalf
of the saints according to and in harmony with God’s will [Ps. 139:1,2]
Romans 8:24-26
“Moreover,[let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our
troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction
and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. And, endurance
(fortitude) develops character [ approved faith and tried integrity]. And,
character produces [the habit of] joyful and confident hope [of eternal
salvation]. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s
love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been
given to us.”
Romans 5:3-5
Friday May 31,2019
Seven Ways We Serve Others
(Malkuth)
1st day of the weekly count, 43rd day of the omer
count
Chesed of
Malkuth
By generosity:
“Give till it hurts”. Saint Teresa of Calcutta
“Never lag in zeal and in earnest endeavor;
be aglow and burning with the Spirit, serving the Lord.”
Romans 12:11
2nd day of the weekly count, 44th day of the omer
count
Gevurah of
Malkuth
By Friendliness:
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
“Contribute to the needs of God’s people[sharing
in the necessities of the saints]; pursue the practice
of hospitality.”
Romans 12:13
3rd day of the weekly count, 45th day of the omer
count
Tiferet of
Malkuth
By seeing good in others:
with God’s help,We see the Christ in you.
“[Let your] love be sincere (a real thing).”
Romans 12:9
4th day of the weekly count, 46th day of the omer
count
Netzach of
Malkuth
By standing by our friends:
We will walk with you till the Son of God always shines.
“hate what is evil [ loathe all ungodliness, turn in horror
from wickedness], but hold fast to that which is good.”
Romans 12:9
“Rejoice with those who rejoice [sharing other’s joy]
, and weep with those who weep [sharing other’s grief].”
Romans 12:15
5th day of the weekly count, 47th day of the omer
count
Hod of
Malkuth
By loving our enemies:
we are the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World.
“Bless those who persecute you [who are cruel in their attitude
toward you]; bless and do not curse them.”
Romans 12:14
“Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is honest
and proper and noble [aiming to be above reproach] in the sight of
everyone.”
Romans 12:17, Proverbs 20:22, II Samuel 16:12
“Love one another with brotherly affection [as members of one family]
giving precedence and showing honor to one another.”
Romans 12:10
6th day of the weekly count, 48th day of the omer
count
Yesod of
Malkuth
By setting a good example:
we are the holiness of what is holy
Inside of those who are holy.
“Rejoice and exult in hope; be steadfast and patient
in suffering and tribulation; be constant in prayer.”
Romans 12: 12
7th day of the weekly count, 49th day of the omer
count
Malkuth of
Malkuth
By taking responsibility
“We are servants of the servants of the Lord.”
Friday, May 3
Took a tour bus from the hotel San Pietro in Naples down to Amalfi, visiting the Cathedral of Saint Andrew there, had a very nice lunch and boat ride in the cave hidden in a cove under the restaurant. Returned to Naples and then to Rome and Vicksburg, MS
Had a good discussion with a Dutch, formerly deaf man in the lobby of the hotel Rafaello in Rome, who reminded me of Swami VishnuDevananda’s guru Swami Sivananda, perhaps the primary Hindu, Yogic, Vedantic, Saint there in India in during the last century
. He said he was raised in the Catholic Church in Holland and while deaf there taught himself to speak languages, English, Italian, by readying lips and signing. Now, he runs a meat packing business in downtown London and is also into hotel management.
Pope John Paul II had also prayed with him, I think, because he popped onto the World scene in the US in the late 1980s, when Martha Smock, my Mother Virginia Harrell, Vernon Padgett*, James Dillet Freeman, some of the Fillmore’s and I were all praying together with Swami Vishnu and him, John Paul II.
*5/16/2019 Just had a long phone conversation with Vernon’s wife Anita, whom I had sent a 2019 prayer calendar to two months ago. Vernon and her were married and conceived a child Christopher while Vernon was staying in my home 555 Monet Dr. Rockville, MD part time in the 1980-81-82 time period.
It seems Vernon got Colon cancer and died last year, after spending a few weeks in a hospice in Bethesda, MD. Anita, said his last wishes were to “go home”, kind of unclear whether he meant heaven, heaven on earth, Rockville or Bethesda, MD or the cities he grew up in as a child or lived in while playing at Duke U. with an All-American football scholarship, before he and Anita met while they were both working at the Federal Trade Commission in downtown Washington, DC. He got pushed out of his job there in the 1970s and lived on the Streets, in his car, and in my house, for four or five years before they got married and moved into her Mother’s house, now hers, in Bethesda,MD. Vernon got a job as an Army enlisted man working in the medical dispensary at West Point, after I moved him out from my house, then they married, After, that, he still had long term problems with bi-polar depression and de-focusing his whole life before the cancer happened. Anita fondly remembers there happy years of marriage together in Bethesda, MD.
She agrees with me that he looks a lot like Jesus Christ. She says she told him that a lot. I remarked that I had alos told him he looked like Jesus Christ, and Abraham Lincoln, Saint Francis
They are both, and still are, contemplative prayer psychics, like I am He used to take her to lunch every day at different restaurants in Bethesda, getting her the best table and recommending food, they both like to cook. I have sent her certified mail a blank 50-year prayer book, with Vernon’s ( a picture he sent me when they drove up the Natchez Trace in the mid-1990s, visited Vicksburg, and sent me a photo taken at the public library, mine. It also contains prayer images of some of our other ourprayergroup travel blog and long term prayer partner members, My mother, My Father, my great grandfather, Pope John Paul II., Saint Teresa of Calcutta
Figure 13 Statue of John Paul II that has popped up in front of the Rome Main Train Station where I was getting a train to go to Venice, after staying at the Leonardo Da Vinci hotel near the Vatican, or a five-day Eurorial 5-star hotel train pass for $555. It standing in Rome outside the walls of Vatican City is now in competition for admiration, love and devotion by the people with those other ancient statues of important historical people in this Eternal city, Julious Caseser, Augustus, Caseser, Roman and Greek gods and goddesses.. I was attending St. Raphael’s Church in Rockville, MD at the time stome of my prayer letters and a Daily Word prayer magazine I sent to him. I also visited some of the areas of the Vatican Museum then, but the Sistine chapel was not open and being repaired. I believe Pope Benedict and Cardinal Giovanni Re was involved in the Vatican Secretariat of State then, and I was also praying with him It was 1983 or so. I got into a fairly heated discussion with the taxi driver who was going to charge me about 22,000 Lira for the trip, which seemed to high to me, until I realized the exchange rate, dollar to Lira was several thousand to one.
Statue of St. Andrew in the main square of Amalfi, Italy. He holds the record for staying on the cross for the longest of the Apostle’s, I believe…Two days, upside down, before he bleed out completely and died. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus only had to endure one day, Maundy Thursday, but probably was more painful to Him during that time. See the movie “The Passsion of Christ” by Mel Gibson, for more awful, beautiful, glorious details on this. Jesus of Nazareth’s death was more fixed in place, vertically and horizontally, while the wondelful Man of God I AM named for turned the wheel of Divine Truth in Christ more downward in us, as the Name of God fixed in the Holy Spirit of the Trinity saving and glorifying them both Jesus and His disciple Andrew, the first one He called to help him perhaps took on part of the burden of us being able to know it, Their two-fold realization of Our Father God, YHWH, YHWH YHWH growing downward in our ways of knowing that we don’t know, and hence God knows for us, that I AM and WE ARE. AMEN
Back to the deaf man in the lobby of the Hotel Rafaello, who reminded me of Swami Sivananda. Swami Sivananda’s ashram in the Himalayas India is one of the main teaching facilities to learn Yoga and Contemplative prayer in the World. They publish a large number of books on the subject and how it relates to Hatha Yoga, Indian Philosophy. I would recommend them if you are interested in studying all the different aspects of yoga as it relates to all the main World’s religions. This little known occupation of a life devoted to Yogic contemplation of God’s Holy Spirit in us is much needed nowadays for the development of our future religious prayer Saints of the next millennium.
He, the Dutch man, told me his favorite philosopher is Marcus Aurelius, the former Roman Emperor and Greek Stoic philosopher. This philosophy and its metaphysics and epistemology is very similar to the Hindu Vedantic, “Sat, Chid, Ananda”…””Existence, Consciousness, Bliss” philosophy which emphasizes a lot of contemplative thinking and renunciation of desires about things happening the way you want in the world through calm, peaceful, present moment meditations.
Our Christian, Jewish, Jewish, Christian metaphysics, theory of Biblical Old and New Testament prophecy and philosophy, believes in trying, with primarily asking for God’s help first, and trying to keep on improving and changing the world for the better, until we can bring heaven down to earth a lot more ,
I would argue that after 2000 years of comparing and thinking about these two philosophies of religion, that our Christian Jewish way of Biblical thinking is more dominant at the present throughout the world. But, that’s just my opinion.
Marcus Aurelius approach to religion in which he believe in many different God’s, not necessarily anyone in particular and does not claim his soul has eternal life.
Has, nevertheless lasted, along with his soul, for two-thousand years and is definitely worth studying in order to understand its difference from ours and how knowing both approaches can help us understand God and ourselves and our eternal souls better.
Here is a YHWH NAME OF GOD DISSOLUTION AND RECREATION OF THE WORLD MANTRA WHICH YOU CAN USE ALONG WITH THE PRIMARY CREATION OF THE WORLD BIBLICAL NAME OF GOD ELOHM., IF YOU WANT TO PRACTICE “LAYA” of DISSOLUTION AND RECREATION OF THE WORLD THROUGH CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER. SEE MORE OF OUR RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHIC TRAVEL BLOGS FROM LAST YEAR FOR MORE ON THIS.
YHWH YHWH HARI RAM OM
OM SAHA NAA VAVATU. SAHA NAU BHUMAKTU.
(MAY GOD PROTECT BOTH THE TEACHER AND THER STUDENT
LEARNING THESE SONGS. MAY GOD NOURISH BOTH OF US.
SAHA VIIRYAM KARAVAAVAHAI. TEJASVINAAVADHITAM ASTU
MAY WE WORK TOGETHER WITH STRENGTH
MAY WHAT IS LEARNT BY US BE LUMINOUS.
MAY THERE BE NOT DISLIKE BETWEEN US.
MAA VIDVISAAVAHAI. OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI
(MANTRA FOR PROTECTION AND PEACE FROM
CHAPTERS IN TAITTIRIIYA UPANISHAD
MAY PEACE BE WITH US IN OUR INSIDE AND OUTSIDE
AND BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE
TEKIAH SHEVARIM-TERUAH TEKIAH
TEKIAH SHEVARIM TEKIAH
TEKIAH TERUAH TEKIAH
UNTRANSLATABLE HEBREW
WORDS
OM YA RA LA VUM OM
OM KSHRAUM OM
OM SAT CHID ANANDA OM
TAT SAT YHWH YHWH
YHWH YHWH HARI RAM ELOHIM OM
YHWH HARI RAM OM NAMAH JESUS CHRIST
YHWH HARI RAM OM NAMAH ST MARY
YHWH HARI RAM OM NAME OF ANDREW
WILLIAM HARRELL
YHWH HARI RAM, RAMAH HARI
OM BHADRAM KARNIBHI SHRINUYAMA DEVA
(AUM May our ears hear what is good & Divine
MANTRA FROM MANDUKTYA UPANISHAD WHICH EXPLAINS THE WORD OM FOLLOWS
Shema Israel Adonai Eloheynu)
Adonai Ehad)
BHADRAM PASHYAMA ABHIRYATRA
(May our eyes see what is good and Divine)
STHIRAINGGAISTUSHTUVAM SASTAN UBHIRVYASHEMA DEVAHITUM YADAYUH
May we sing God’s praises as we live a long span of life in perfect health and strength
Shanti…Shanti… Shanti
May Divine Peace be inside of us and outside of us
and both inside and outside of us
Svasti na Indra Vriddhi Sranvah
May Saint Mary the Queen of our Heavenly minds, guide our thought waves quietly downward toward a Holy Spirit Indwelling us realization of Heavenly riches in Christ.
Svasti na Pusha Visva Veda.
Our mental Holy Spirit, helped by YHWH God Praises and cultivates the warm sustaining Divine Sun-like energy indwelling us and those we pray with with warm sustaining energy in all of the four worlds of creation we live in Eternally.
ASAT MA SAT GAMAYA (LEAD US FROM UNREALITY TO REALITY)
TAMASA MA JYOTIR GAMAYA (FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT)
ASATYAM MA SATYAM GAMAYA (FROM UNTRUTH TO TRUTH)
PURNAM ADAH, PURNAM IDAM (THAT IS FULLNESS, THIS IS FULLNESS)
PURNAM ADAH, PURNAM IDAM
PURNAT PURNAM UDACHYATE (THAT FULLNESS
ARISES OUT OF THIS FULLNESS),
PURNAM ADAYA (WHEN THAT FULLNESS IS TAKEN AWAY)
PURNAM EVA VASHISYATE (THIS FULLNESS REMAINS)
OM TRIAMBAKAM, YAJAMAHE, SUGANDHIM
YHWH HARI OM MAY OUR FATHER YWHH IN HEAVEN LIKE THE HINDU GOD BRIHASPATI GIVING ALL OF US THE CREATIVE BREATH OF GOD SEND OUT HIS BREATH SO THAT DIVINE PEACE MAY DWELL INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF US
(MAY THE THREE-EYED ONE SHIVA, AS RUDRA
A FRAGRANT, VIRTUOUS, ABSOLUTE CONSCIOUSNESS,
WHO BESTOWS WEALTH, PERFECTION, AND HEALTH
INCREASE AND GROW IN OUR HUMAN HEART
IN ORDER TO RELEASE US FROM BONDAGE
AND HELP US GAIN IMMORTALITY FOR OUR SOULS)
PUSHTI, VARDHANAM, UVARUKAMIVA
BANDHANAN MRTYOR MUKSHIYA MAMRITAT
TAT SAVITUR VARNGNAM (THAT EXCELLENT LIGHT)
BHARGO DEVASYA DHIMAHE (ON THAT SHINING SUNLIKE DIVINITY WE MEDITATE)
DHIYO YO NAH PRACHODAYAT OM (ON THAT WHICH WE MEDITATE, MAY IT AND THE BREATHING NAME OF GOD, PRANAVA (OM) LEAD US, NOT INTO TEMPTATION BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL ( LAST 10 words are from the Lord’s prayer, added here for protection of our spirits and souls while chanting this)
YHWH HARI OM, OM NAMAH SHIVAYA
OM EKADANTAYA VIDMAHE VAKRATUNDAYA DHEEMAHI,
TANNO DANTI PRACHODAYAT OM HARI OM (GANESHA GAYATRA FOR STRENGTH OF PURPOSE)
OM NARAYANAYA VIDMAHE VASUDEVAYA DHEEEMAHI,
TANNO VISHNU PRACHODAYAT OM HARI OM (VISHNU GAYATRA FOR CLEANSING)
OM TATPURSHAYA VIDMAHE SAHASRAKSHAY MAHADEVAYA DHEEMAHI,
TANNO RUDRAH PRACHODAYAT (SHIVA GAYATRA FOR ABSOLUTE CONSCIOUSNESS)
OM DASARTHAYE VIDMAHE SITAVALLABHAYA DHEEMAHI,TANNO RAMAH PRACHODAYAT (RAMA GAYATRA FOR GOODNES OF PURPOSE)
OM DEVAKINANDANAYA VIDMAHE VASUDEVAYA DHEEMAHI, TANNO KRISHNA PRACHODAYAT (KRISHNA GAYATRA FOR HEALING)
OM KATYAYANYAI VIDMAHE KANYAKUMARYAI DHEEMAHI, TANNO DURGA PRACHODAYAT (DURGA GAYATRA FOR PROTECTION)
OM MAHADEVYAI CHA VIDMAHE VISHNUPATNYAI CHA DHEEMAHI< TANNO LAKSHMIH PRACHODAYAT ( LAKSMI GAYATRA FOR ABUNDANCE, DIVINE SUBSTANCE AND FAITH)
OM VAGDEVAYI CHA VIDMAHI KAMARAJAYA DHEEMAHI, TANNO DVI PRACHODAYAT (SARASWATI GAYTRA FOR THE WISDOM OF THE WORD)
OM SARVASAMMOHINYAI VIDMAHI, VISVAJANANYAI DHEEMAHI, TANNOH SHAKTI PRACHODAYAT ( DIVINE SHAKTI SHEKINAH CHANT FOR COSMIC POWER)
OM GURUDEVAYA VIDMAHE PARABRAHMANE DHEEMAHI, TANNO ,GURU PRACHODAYAT (CHANT FOR LEADERSHIP FROM THE GURU, A TEACHER OF LIGHT)
OM SHASKARAYA VIDMAHE MAHADYUTIKARAYA DHEEMAHI, TANNO ADITYAH PRACHODAYAT (CHANT FOR BLESSING FROM OUR YOGI HEAVENLY SON, WHICH SHINES ON BOTH THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH)>
OM TAT, SAT OM
TRANSLATIONS OF A FEW OF THE SANSKRIT WORDS:
EKADANTAYA ONE-TOOTHED
VIDMAHI MAY WE SEE
DHEEMAHI WE MEDITATE
PRACHODAYAT MAY WE BE LEAD BY THIS
TAT PURSHAYAYA THAT SOUL
SAHASRAKSHAYA THE THOUSAND LOTUS PROTECTIVE CHAKRA AT THE TOP OF OUR INDWELLING SPIRIT OF GOD
DASARATHAYA SERVANT OF PURPOSE
SITAVALLABHAYA BELOVED OF SITA
KAMARAJAYA QUEEN OF DESIRE
SARVASAMMOHINYAI ALL TOGETHER WONDER
VISVAJANANYAI WORD CREATOR
ADITYAH NUMBER ONE
FINISH WITH PEACE CHANT
OM SHANTI (MAY PREACE PREVAIL INSIDE OF US)
OM SHANTI (MAY PEACE PREVAIL OUTSIDE OF US)
OM SHANTI(MAY PEACE PREVAIL BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF US)