Salvador del mundo,
que por tu cruz y
preciosa sangre nos has redimido,
sálvanos y ayúdanos,
humildemente te suplicamos, o Señor.
"We have no right to ask God why he allows suffering in this world - not if we're allowing it, too."
"This is for all those idealistic people who love the idea of world peace, getting along with everyone and who pretty much want to make the world a better place, but frequently get the urge to bitch-slap the moron who cuts them off in traffic, open up a can of whoop-ass on the littering birthday picnic-ers at the park or take down the rude neighbor in the apartment next door with the really loud television, dog, children, and/or sexual behaviors. Ever-optimistic, yet ever-annoyed individuals because of the stupidity and carelessness of our society. Somebody will make the world a better place -- but it probably won't be us."
O my people, what have I done to you?
How have I hurt you? Answer me.
. . .V.
O my people, what have I done to you?
How have I hurt you? Answer me.
. . .
I led you out of Egypt,R.
From slavery I set you free.
I brought you into a land of promise:
You have prepared a cross for me.
I led you as a shepherd,
I brought you dryshod through the sea;
I fed you manna in the desert
You have prepared a cross for me.
I fought for you in battles,
I won you strength and victory;
Gave you a royal crown and sceptre:
You have prepared a cross for me.
I planted you, my vineyard,
And cared for you most tenderly;
Looked for abundant fruit and found none:
Only the cross you made for me.
Then listen to my pleading
And do not turn away from me.
You are my people: will you reject me?
For you I suffer bitterly.
. . .
Satan's too busy blowing people up and yelling "God is Most Great!"
Rock and the Internet are out; it's all pimply faced loners. He's not interested in rap either; masculine panic and obsessions with wealth and weaponry by the poor and powerless.
Satan is having way too much fun in the religion business these days; power, ambition, fanaticism, theft, rape, destruction, and mass murder all in God's name.
He's almost succeeded in his project to wed religion with capitalism. There are lots of Americans who think that "God helps those who help themselves" is in the Bible. The Great Commandment is replaced with "Nothing $uceeds like $uccess!"
"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere committing evil deeds, an it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" --Alexander Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago)
Christ was considered a sinner. He was put to death as a blasphemer, as one who at least implicitly denied God, as one who revolted against the holiness of God. Indeed, the great question in the trial and condemnation of Christ was precisely the denial of God and the denial of His holiness. So God Himself was put to death on the cross because He did not measure up to man’s conception of His holiness…he was not holy enough. He was not holy in the right way, He was not holy in the way they had been led to expect….In dying on the Cross, Christ manifested the holiness of God in apparent contradiction with itself. But in reality this manifestation was the complete denial and rejection of all human ideas of holiness and perfection. If, then, we want to seek some way of being holy…we must live by the strength of an apparent emptiness that is always truly empty and yet never fails to support us at every moment.
"We will see [...] the terrible and mighty second person of the Holy Trinity wrapping himself in flesh, pulling the pain and suffering of humanity about his shoulders. And, though it scratches and burns something awful, that divine being, desperately desiring the reconciliation of a creation that has become estranged, wraps that flesh around him until he begins bleeding in his palms and in his feet.
Because humanity knows the pain of flesh wrapped around you."
