Athirst for the Spirit - Dr. Nina Heereman at Franciscan University of Steubenville

[Applause] thank you and that is probably the most embarrassing introduction I've ever had but also the most charitable one um I stand by everything I said and you're also right that luckily I San Francisco was my first impression because had I come to this part of the country first I might have been under impressed but I've just come from Milwaukee where I gave a reflection for Ash Wednesday and was blown away by the amount of seminarians they have the quality of their men they have currently 73 men in formation and now I'm seeing stumble and I see this 24 7 adoration and I can see myself telling this in Germany and nobody will believe that I am speaking the truth but I am uh maybe just an extra anecdote from Germany you recently had Bishop Stefan Oster at Stoneville at the ratzinger conference and he came back so he came back home and he told us what happened he said he attended one of the masses in Christ King um chapter and the church was packed and so as a bishop he thought that all the people were there because he was a bishop celebrating that and so he asked afterwards were they all here for me and the answer was no we always have the chapel packed and by the way there's five masses a day and there's always parked and that really impressed him uh and now he's um telling the Germans in Stormville they have thousands of students even though they preached the truth and you know that's our big problem in Germany lastly it's a great honor for me to be here I am totally convinced that one day they're gonna write the history of the American Church in the 20th and 21st century and a big chapter of that will be dedicated to Stormville because while the church is falling apart all over the Western world it is so strong in the United States and I can no longer count the number of strong Catholics amazing priests and lay people whom I've met in the time of my own life now in the church who've all graduated from Steubenville and it's just incredible what has come out of this place and for that reason I consider it an enormous honor to be here tonight we already said a beautiful prayer so I will trust in the presence of the holy spirit to guide us through this lecture even though I want to start again in the name of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen Lord Jesus you are the new Moses who guides us through the desert of this world and so I ask you once again now Lord to help us feel your presence and open our minds and refresh our tired bodies so that your word can speak straight to our hearts and that everyone receive that word of God which he needs for his personal journey through the desert into which you guide him or her just as you yourself were guided into the spirit yet even drove an interest driven into the desert by the power of the Holy Spirit in order to be tested because we need to be tested in order to be changed from slaves to Pharaoh into Sons and Daughters of God Mary we ask for your intercession this entire evening and for all those concerns that might be in our hearts and distracting us Amen in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen so I've titled this chapter or talk 12 rules for life in the desert the desert as a school of love and Trust in Divine Providence I chose this talk because obviously we're one week into lent and following the example of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we go into 40 days of fasting and praying in the desert and thus it is no coincidence that the pentateuch the Constitutional book of the people of God dedicates almost two entire books out of five to the description of the life and fate of the people of Israel in the desert life in the desert is the default situation of the people of God that is it is the primary symbol for the lifetime of a child of God because between his initial Redemption from the slavery to Satan sin and death and his reaching of the promised land which we know as Christians is the reaching of our Heavenly Homeland with our heavenly father and for this reason the church has us meditate on Exodus and numbers as a revelation of our own situation our own Journey towards the land of our Heavenly rest and particularly so during Lent if you're reading the reading of offices it's Exodus and numbers through most of Lent Exodus and numbers describe not only this constitution of Israel as a royal priesthood with a well-ordered liturgical system of worship and moral laws they primarily prefigure the church's Constitution as such as a holy and royal priesthood under the leadership of a divinely instituted priesthood our own sacrificial system and moral codes most importantly however they prefigure they typologically prefigure the situation of the church in the desert of this world our Temptations and how God cares for us so even before the church fathers deployed this typology its principle was firmly established by the New Testament while it is the underlying principle of almost every book in the New Testament its clearest expression is found in the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians where he writes I do not want you to be unaware Brethren that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and The Rock was Christ nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness now these things Saint Paul writes take place as an example for us that we might not desire evil as they did do not be idolatrous as some of them were as it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and Rose up to play now you need to know that to play as a euphemism for licentious adulterous sexual intercourse we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23 000 of them fell in a single day we must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents nor grumblers some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer now these things happened to them as an example and the Greek here says typicos but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages have come first Corinthians chapter 10 verses 1 to 11. according to Saint Paul the entire history of Israel happened typicals that is in English by way of example for us who were living in the end times ever since the day of Pentecost this is where we get the word typological from it describes the manner in which the events that befell the Israelites prefigure the life of the church and of every baptized Soul it is here in First Corinthians that this principle is first established that the crossing of the Red Sea prefigures our baptism and that the traversing of the desert prefigures our own journey in faith through the desert of this world and just like the Israelites we are being nurtured by a rock that accompanies us which is the heart of Christ from which the water of the Holy Spirit flows continuously and sustains the supernatural life within us however just like the Israelites we too are faced with the temptation of disbelief doubt idolatry murmuring and rebellion and ultimately the risk of not reaching the promised land but perishing in the desert and for that reason the holy spirit says in Hebrews chapter 3 verses 7 to 4 2 today if you hear his voice do not Harden your hearts as in the Rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years therefore I was provoked with that generation and said they always go astray in their heart they have not known my ways as I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest the letter continues who were those hard who were those who heard and yet rebelled was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses and with whom was he provoked for 40 years was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest but to those who were disobedient so we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief therefore while the promise of entering his rest still stands let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it for good news came to us just as to them the eoingellion the gospel came to us just as to them but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not United by faith with those who listened end of quote Hebrews chapter 4 verse 2. you see just as Saint Paul said these things happen to the Israelites typicals that is as an example but Paul continues they were written down for our instruction we have the same journey to travel as Israel but we must not make the same mistakes and the only way not to repeat the same mistakes is to know the scriptures well and to meditate on Israel's time in the desert so that we may not Harden our hearts and fall into the same pits and remain behind in the desert thus while it is true that we live presently in a particularly desolate time it is also true that since the foundation of the church discipleship has always taken place in the desert Those whom he loves the Lord leads into the desert to purify and prepare them for entry into the Promised Land we may say with all confidence the desert is the condition without which no one can enter the promised land and live it is in the desert that the Holy Spirit transforms us from slaves to Sons and takes us through a school of love and Trust in Divine Providence the spiritual life of every disciple is thus made up of stages that are typologically laid out in the Journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land and if we know these stages well we will be prepared to journey through the desert of Our Lives the Bible divides this journey from eged in into two periods the first spans from the moment of The Exodus from Egypt until they reach Mount Sinai where Israel then enters into a covenant relationship with God and receives its Constitution and cult which make them a holy nation and a royal priesthood in a Way Mount Sinai is the high point of The Exodus as Israel is now in possession of the most important Covenant gift that is with the construction and the dedication of the Tabernacle 10 in Exodus 40 the presence of God comes to dwell in their midst all that is left to do seemingly is to cross the desert Allowing God to take the lead and gift Israel with the Promised Land significantly though the second period of Israel's desert Journey which is recorded in the Book of Numbers is marked by almost the exact same challenges as the first part from Egypt to Mount Sinai even though they now are God's covenant people and God himself is present in their midst riding along On The Ark of the Covenant the children of Israel fail a second time to resist the same Temptations as before there is a mysterious mirror effect between the book of Exodus and the Book of Numbers the first and the second part of the journey paraphrasing Saint Paul's quotation which I already quoted one gets the impression that the second generation of Israelites had failed to learn from the example of their fathers within the pentaduke the book of Exodus thus has a very programmatic character and for this reason and in The Limited space of this lecture I will focus only on the basic stages of discipleship that are so paradigmatically laid out for us in the book of Exodus hoping that this will equip you each and every one of you to let the holy spirit guide you in your own meditation on the second part of the journey in the Book of Numbers during the coming weeks of Lent so with a nod to Jordan Peterson I discern 12 rules for life in the desert the first step is the most obvious the first rule you have to leave Egypt the most obvious condition for becoming a disciple and eventually reaching the promised land is that we must leave our personal Egypt there is no way one can live in Egypt and worship its gods and serve the Lord at the same time or in the words of Our Lord himself no servant can serve two masters for either he will hate one and love the other or he will devote it be devoted to one and despise the other you cannot serve God and Mammon we cannot possibly inherit the promised land unless we decide to leave our Egypt and resolutely separate ourselves from all the Egyptian idols or in the words of Saint John the Apostle do not love the world and the things of this world if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world the desires of the Flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the father but from the world and the world is passing away along with its desires but whoever does the will of God abides forever first John chapter 2 verse 15 to 17. for that very same reason the very first words that our Lord speaks to the world are repent for the kingdom of God is at hand and so a Resolute decision for conversion and the reduction of the world as prefigured by pharaoh and the Splendor of Egypt is the absolute condition without which no one will see God and live however as we know from our own lives the desire for freedom and the grace of a thorough conversion do not necessarily coincide often a veritable spiritual battle between the Lord's calling and Satan's grip on our lives takes place while we set out to leave our personal Egypt but while we might have the impression that we are the ones doing the battling it is really the Lord who is confronting Satan and wrenching us from his Dominion the beauty about lent is that the Lord through his church assures us that this is a time during which all The Graces necessary for a thorough conversion are available to us so we're only in the first week of Lent but you might already be noticing that the idols you have been hoping to believe to leave behind are coming after you pulling you back into their slavery in any case I would invite you tonight to ask the Holy Spirit to show you which of the Egyptian Idols you might have brought with you into the desert of Lent and where you might still be under the Dominion of fake pharaoh and in need of Liberation and beg the Lord for the grace of Deliverance and a true conversion in this land make a resolution to live it as if it was the last lent of your life second be prepared for a detour in Exodus 13 just after leaving Egypt we read when Pharaoh let the people go God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines although that was near for God said lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt but God led the people around by the way of the Wilderness towards the Red Sea and the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle end quote God LED Israel in a roundabout way to spare them a war with the Philistines often when we look back on the path that God has led us it might seem that we've been Meandering we do not seem to be going the straight way naturally that makes us nervous and anxious and we forget that God has a plan for of love and mercy for our lives why is it that God does not take us out of Egypt and lead us straight into the Promised Land instead we seem to be taken one detour after the other almost systematically choosing the slowest possible option to reach our destination well the Bible reassures us that God measures the way according to our personal strength which God obviously knows better than us God did not lead the people of Israel on the fastest route as the Bible says for fear that the people would change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt Exodus 13 17. God knows exactly how much adversity we can face and measures it according to our capacity in the words of Saint Paul God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability but with the Temptation which according to the desert fathers is as necessary for the soul as food for the body with the Temptation he will also provide the way of Escape that you may be able to endure it first Corinthians 10 13. with this rule I would like to invite you to examine your life and reconcile yourself with the stages in your life that seem like a complete waste of time or unnecessary detour realize that no one but God has guided your path and that had you taken another route you might have had to face a battle that would have been too hard for you and led you back into Egypt for mere fear of the enemy instead God has led you on a different route which might have been difficult as well but you were able to master it and thus you're here tonight third rule knowing faith that the Lord is with you and the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light that they might travel by day and By Night the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of Fire by night did not depart from the people the desert is a scary place but we are not alone alone it is God who leads us out of Egypt and on the way to Paradise we have to neither guide ourselves nor find the PATH nor protect ourselves against the scorching Sun by day nor light the pitch dark knight the Lord himself will do all that even though we might not be aware of it behold I Am With You Always to the end of the ages says the Lord before his Ascension into heaven in Matthews 28 20. as he promised he has come back in the Holy Spirit symbolized by The Cloud of God's presence and the tongues of fire with which he descended on the hosts of Israel on the day of Pentecost to remain with his church until the end of the world it is the Holy Spirit who guides the church on her journey through the desert of this world he speaks to her through the law and the prophets he enlightens the night and warms our hearts in the coldness of this world it is thus of eminent importance that we learn to live in the consciousness of the Risen Lord's Presence at our side at every moment of Our Lives I remember a moment when this became particularly clear to me towards the end of my time in Jerusalem I was invited to come to Paris and replace a professor there while I was waiting for my thesis director to correct my chapters and while I was looking forward to this experience in Paris I was also anguished because I hardly knew anybody there had never taught in my prior life let alone in French which is no way as good as my English and so one night strangely enough in Istanbul where I was in transit I woke up in the middle of this Muslim country and experienced the Lord impressing the following truth on me I am with you I did not hear a voice or see anything but the truth of the Lord being with me as he was with Israel in the desert was so overwhelmingly evident and so clear that I almost felt ashamed for not having been aware of it to be with us is who God is fourth be sober minded and watchful be sober minded and watchful your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to live our first Peter 5 8. we must not think that having left Egypt behind we are secure from Pharaoh's persecution particularly in the initial stages of a Resolute Faith the persecution by the devil can be intense he comes after us and mobilizes all his armies to bring us back into his Dominion you might have seen this with friends who had a powerful conversion and you think wow they're so on fire and then mysteriously they go back and it's even worse than before what's more mysterious even more is that God is not only the one who allows this but God even causes this persecution he says I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them and I will get Glory over pharaoh and all his hosts and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord Exodus 14 4. the Bible is very clear and underlining that Satan can do nothing without God's permission it makes no room for any dualistic worldview in which co-equal powers of Good and Evil are thought to be fighting each other rather according to the Bible God is clearly the one and supreme power without whose permission no one not even Satan has the power to make the slightest move if God In His Infinite Wisdom allows Satan to test and persecute us it is as we learn from this passage to reveal God's glory and make him known to the world how does this revelation of God's glory come about by persecuting God's children Pharaoh precipitates his own Rune while the people of God find Salvation through the same Waters that kill pharaoh and his armies note that it is only through the persecution of God's children that pharaoh and his armies are destroyed while by the very same act salvation comes to Israel this is an enormous prefiguration of the mystery of the Cross by which Satan seeks to defeat the righteous Christ but instead brings about his own Perdition while the death of Christ on the cross becomes the source of salvation for the whole world and this is why in hindsight Saint Paul comes to recognize the profound typological correspondence between the crossing of the Red Sea and the Cross of Christ and the sacrament of baptism when he writes do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death we were buried therefore with him in baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father we too might walk in newness of Life Romans 6 3-4 the Israelites chased by Pharaoh into the Waters of the Red Sea die a symbolic death by traversing the waters that stand to the left and the right letting them pass on dry ground through the sea there is no other way into the promised land than by traversing death no man can see God and live by the death of Christ this Earthly death of ours has become for us a pathway into eternal life which can no longer cause us any harm whoever believes in me though he die yet he shall live John 11 25. for our enemies however Satan and his armies that same death of Christ has become the cause of Eternal Perdition just as the saving Waters of the Red Sea once drowned pharaoh and his chariots as I stated before particularly in the initial stages of conversion Satan seeks to scare the life out of us insinuating just like he did to our first parents in the garden that God does not wish us well that we are better off serving him in Egypt than dying in the desert where God will lead us with evil intent in the face of such satanic persecution we must be aware of the temptation of the Israelites who lifted up their eyes not to the mountain from whence comes our help but to behold the Egyptians marching after them and they feared greatly we must never lift our eyes and behold the enemy like the Medusa's head the enemy's sight will petrify us with fear and fear is Our Own Worst Enemy it makes us lose our faith and childlike trust in God who alone desires that we live fear instead causes us to twist God's promises and give voice to Satan's Whispering as we cry is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness what have you done to bring us out of Egypt is this not what we said to you in Egypt leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness end code who said that we were going to die in the wilderness who said that life with God would be lonely and boring is it even fat the number for anyone in his right mind to presume such nonsense that the god of life would want to make us perish and yet that is exactly the doubt which is so ineradicably rooted in our hearts the poison of original sin has made it almost impossible for a man to trust that God means well and wishes for us to have a future full of light and joy instead of staring at the enemy it is key that we listen to the voice of Moses through whom God commands us fear not stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord which he will work for you today for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again the Lord will fight for you and you have only to be silent Exodus 14 13 14. I know this is difficult but particularly in this current time in which Satan seems to have gained so much power over humanity and apparently even within the church we're easily tempted to think that God has abandoned his church and so now more than ever it is of utmost importance to heed God's command fear not stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord in faith we must know that Satan has already been overcome that even though we still see the Egyptians today and even though you might still be haunted by the same old Temptations the time will come when God's Victory will be complete and we shall never ever see them again the Lord will fight for us and we have only to be silent and believe what follows then is the description of God's victory over Pharaoh which is at once a prefiguration of Christ's victory over Satan on the cross and our Liberation from the clutches of Satan in the waters of baptism rule number five never cease praising the Lord we read in Exodus 15 then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord saying I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously the horses and his rider he is thrown into the sea the Lord is my strength and my salvation this is my God I will praise him my father is God and I will exalt him and then Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a tambourine in her hand and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing and Miriam sang to them sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously the horse and his rider he is thrown into the sea only a free people can praise the Lord slaves neither dance nor sing thus it is typical that the first experience of Salvation is followed by an outburst of joy and an overwhelming desire to praise the Lord and make music to his name any convert can attest to this necessity to sing to the Lord a new song this is in fact a foretaste of heaven where all the redeemed will Forever sing the song of Moses and the song of the lamb saying great and amazing are your Deeds O Lord God Almighty trust and true are your ways O King of the Nations who will not fear oh Lord and glorify your name for you alone Are Holy All Nations will come and worship you for your righteousness righteous acts have been revealed revelation 15. indeed great and amazing are God's Deeds Whoever has the experience deliverance from sin and Satan knows the overwhelming Clarity one has upon first encountering The God Who sets us free suddenly it seems the most evident thing in the world that God's ways are just and true and that the entire world must glorify him before we reach heaven forever it is unfortunately a well-attested fact that only a very small minority of converts remain in a constant state of praise and worship the great majority will soon forget the enormous Liberation experience and succumb to the temptation of grumbling as they embark on their Journey Through the spiritual desert you might recognize this pattern in your own life I certainly do in the beginning stages of my conversion and vocation everything about this new life seemed nothing but delightful and even the even the hardships seemed delightful But as time proceeded I got more and more used to the privilege of serving the lord in his church the awareness of my newfound freedom waned and I started grumbling against its leadership instead we must constantly hark the words of Saint Paul to the Colossians in 3 16 17 admonish one another in all wisdom singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God and whatever you do in word or deed do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through him five embrace your prepare yourself to embrace the cross the first lesson the newly baptized must learn is that only by the Cross of Christ is life in the desert possible at all we read in Exodus then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea and they went into the Wilderness of shore they went three days in the wilderness and found no water when they came to Mara they could not drink the water of Mara because it was bitter therefore it was named Marva which is bitter in Hebrew and the people grumbled against Moses saying what shall we drink and he cried out to the Lord and the Lord showed him a log and he threw it into the water and the water became sweet water stands for the most basic element of life without water there simply is no life The Bitter Water of Mara symbolizes the water of this life which will not be able to provide us with Supernatural life only the cross which according to the church fathers is signified by the law which Moses threw into the water can change the bitter experience of this life into life-giving borders in fact no one can Traverse the desert of this life unless he Embraces the Cross of Christ through which even the most bitter experiences of this life become sweet and even life-giving next choose obedience it is only after freeing the people from Egypt that God gives them statutes to observe now that they are free as Adam and Eve before the fall God gives them ordinances and rules and a rule as Exodus says in order to test them God is not interested in being served by slaves he has made Man In His Image and likeness and this likeness is supremely expressed in man's capacity to freely choose what is good and live according to God's law and so God tells them if you will diligently listen to the word of the Lord your God and do that which is right in his eyes and give ear to his Commandments and keep all his statutes I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians for I am the Lord your healer Exodus 15 26. the entire the entire journey through the desert will be a single long test training to embrace this freedom for unless we Embrace God's law in this world we will never endure life in his kingdom this too is well exemplified by the people of Israel who fail to learn obedience in the desert with the result of losing the promised land only 450 years after having conquered it if we do not Embrace God's statutes with all our heart we will turn every Paradise into hell and thereby eternally lose it it is thus key for our survival in the desert to choose obedience to God's laws as soon as we are free lest we return to Egypt first eternally internally and eventually externally as well seven remember God's consolations then they came to elim where there were 12 Springs of water and seven palm trees and they encamped there by the water God and His Loving Care in Providence knows that we can neither endure 40 years in the desert without a break nor are we able to persevere unless we frequently get four tastes of the Promised Land thus both on our Earthly and our spiritual journey the Lord provides us with four tastes of our Heavenly Homeland the Oasis of elim is such a foretaste of paradise the 12 Springs of water in the heart of the desert and the 70 palm trees stand for the recuperation of Eden which expects us at the end of our Earthly life and we of which we get a foretaste in the sacramental life of the church at the very beginning of their 40-year long journey through the desert Israel thus gets a foretaste of the promised land to fortify them for the arduous pilgrimage that lies ahead of them and this is exactly the spiritual experience of many people after the battle of conversion is one and the first challenges in faith are overcome God grants arrests a time of rest and restoration near The Quiet Waters of the Holy Spirit a veritable foretaste of paradise this foretaste can be so powerful that many beginners in the faith who experience it think that they've already reached the seventh dwelling of the Interior Castle so great is their Bliss that nothing seems to be wanting in their spiritual life and they think themselves perfect we must not however confuse the consolations that God grants us with the Perfection of our souls God typically gives great consolation to those who are beginners in the spiritual life but only to strengthen us for the road that still lies ahead these constellations are a fortifying Pledge of the reward that awaits at the end and for this reason it is super important to remember them well God gives these consolations in order to sustain you during the days of deprivation of such Heavenly consolations but it is then when we're in Desolation and back in the desert that our spiritual growth will be most powerful and our love of God will become pure chaste and selfless rule number eight be ready to enter deeply into the desert an oasis is only a place of refreshment a sneak preview of the end but not the promised land itself and thus it is inevitable that we Traverse the desert in order to preach the promised land but why the desert in the first place couldn't we have just gone straight from Egypt into the Promised Land to in Deuteronomy the Lord gives us the answer he says and you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 days in the wilderness that he might humble you testing you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his Commandments or not and he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with Mana which you did not know nor did your fathers know so that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone but man lives by every word that comes from the mouths of the Lord your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell for these 40 years know that in your heart that as a man disciplines his son the Lord your God disciplines you end quote it is one thing to be externally liberated from Egypt and quite another thing to be liberated from our Eternal slaveries and Idols we may be free from the external slave master but internally just as addicted to sin and idol worship as we were in Egypt as the famous saying goes it's easier to get Israel out of Egypt than Egypt out of Israel the many temptations that Israel Falls prey to in the desert prove just that we need to be transformed from being slaves to pharaoh to becoming free children of God truly I say to you unless you turn and become like children you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven Matthew 18 3. what then is the difference between a slave and a child since both are as Saint Paul teaches us under a custodian a major difference is that the slave serves and obeys his master under force and fear while the child trusts blindly in the goodness of its father knowing that the father will provide for his every need where is the child that worries about what to eat or what to drink as Jesus says such worries belong to the heathens who serve their Idols in fear and trembling what do you do with children who behave like slaves you test them with their very idols thus while we pray in the Our father and do not lead us into temptation we must also be aware that we need a certain amount of testing to grow in our childlike trusting God so therefore rule number nine decide daily to trust in God your father God now leads them deeper and deeper into the desert and exposes them to hunger Israel's reaction is the same as in the face of fear they grumble what that we had died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full for you have brought us out into the Wilderness to kill this whole assembly with Hunger they suspect Exodus 16. is that the trust of a child presuming that the father would lead him into the desert to kill him by hunger obviously not learning to trust in the father's Providence for his children is so fundamental for the life of a disciple that Jesus dedicates a whole chunk of The Sermon on the Mount to just this topic I tell you do not be anxious about your life what you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body what you will put on is not life more than food and the body more than clothing look at the birds of the air they neither sow nor reap nor Gather in Barnes and yet your heavenly father feeds them are you not more valuable than they and which of you being anxious can add a single hour to a span of life and why are you anxious about your clothing consider the lilies of the field how they grow they neither toil nor spin yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not aried like one of them but if God so closes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven will he not much more clothe you oh you of little faith therefore do not be anxious saying what shall we eat what shall we drink or what shall we wear for the Gentile Sikh after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them all but seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be added onto you your heavenly father knows that you need them all this is exactly why God is about to reveal what God is about to reveal to Israel and he does so by purposefully bringing them to a place where food and drink are the most unlikely to pop out of nowhere while the people would rather go back to Egypt to worship their bellies as Saint Paul says it in the letter to the Philippians God teaches Israel that he can make bread Reign from Heaven enough for each day and two portions for the Sabbath but even after witnessing this miracle on a daily basis some of the people still do not trust instead they give in to their greed going out on the seventh day against the Lord's command but finding nothing and the Lord said to Moses how long will you refuse to keep my Commandments and my laws see the Lord has given you the Sabbath therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days remain each of you in this place let no one go out of his place on the seventh day do you recognize yourself in these people I certainly do original sin has so alienated us from our heavenly father that it takes a lifetime to learn childlike trust in God's Providence I cannot count the number of times in my life when God has shown me his incredible paternal care and yet the next time I needed something badly I again lacked the trust that he will provide and find and found myself worrying about how I could provide for myself I'll just stare share one story with you after my conversion the lord gave me the grace of living on Divine Providence for many many years I just depended entirely on God sending me people who provided for me and I'd already lived this way for a good number of years and experienced uncountable small and greater Miracles when I moved from Frankfurt to Rome where I literally knew nobody however a friend had shared the address of a very dear friend of his and I knew that I could contact her for getting directions about how to move about in this foreign city during my very first week in Rome as a student my computer crashed irreversibly broken I did not know what to do I did not have a penny to buy a new one but of course being a student I was helpless without a computer so I decided to contact my friend's friend and ask her if she knew a place where I could bring the computer for repair and while going to our office I said to the Lord in my heart I know that you have proven that you take care of me and have been providing for me all these years but are you really even able to provide me with a computer in a foreign city where I know nobody I have to confess I doubt it sure enough I walked into my friend's friend's office and asked her if she could tell me where I can find a repair shop she answered in the negative and instead opened her drawer pulled out a brand new Macbook Pro and said look I bought this a while ago but I do not actually need it you can have it God bless her she's in heaven now I could tell many more such Stories the point is your heavenly father knows what you need seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be added on to you rule number 10 first for the Holy Spirit having this set fed them God tests them through thirst according to the Commandment of the Lord they camped at rafidim but there was no water for the people to drink therefore the people queried with Moses and said give us water to drink and Moses said to them why do you quarrel with me why do you test the Lord but the people thirsted therefore water and the people grumbled against Moses and said why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with this thirst can you imagine this is the third time the people give in to this very same Temptation and suspect God's messenger of intending to kill them although they've now multiple times experienced God's saving hand in Providence in the middle of the desert this time the text says explicitly that they tested Lord the Lord by saying is the Lord among us or not Exodus 17 7. this in fact is the core temptation of the Christian Jesus has promised us behold I'm with you until the end of the age and yet in so many situations be it with regard to the situation of the church or our personal lives we doubt the presence of God in our midst in response God splits The Rock in the wilderness and gave them to drink abundantly as from Deep according to the Jewish tradition which is reflected in First Corinthians this rock eventually accompanied the Israelites three entire desert thereby prefiguring Christ who is the rock that constantly nourishes us with the Holy Spirit who flows unceasingly from Christ's open side on the cross in the desert of this world God will always quench our thirst through the gift of the Holy Spirit as Christ says in John chapter 7 verses 37 to 39 if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink whoever believes in me the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water now this he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive with that rule number 11 pray without ceasing as long as we journey through the desert we are faced with an enemy who has no other interest than preventing the children of God from reaching the Heavenly Homeland and this enemy is powerfully prefigured in the book of Exodus still by amalek who comes to fight Israel it's the famous story of Joshua fighting in the valley while Moses Aaron and are up on the mountain to pray whenever Moses held up his hand Israel purveyed and whenever he lowered his hand amalek prevailed but Moses hands grew weary and so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it while Aaron and held up his hands one on one side and the one on the other side until they're going down of the Sun and Joshua overwhelmed amalek and his people with the sword as this story powerfully shows God has given us no other means to overcome the enemy than by prayer and I should add fasting surely some have to be down in the battlefield and fight for us but their battle would be absolutely ineffective were it not for the prayer warriors on the mountain therefore Saint Paul commissions us to pray without seizing finally rule number 12 trust always in God's mercy the most important lesson comes in the heart of the desert at Mount Horeb God's holy mountain it is here that God reveals himself to Israel enters into a marriage covenant with his people and gives them his laws and his statutes when offered the Covenant relationship on the condition of obeying God's laws all the people answered with one voice and said all the words of the Lord all the words that the Lord has spoken we will do then Moses sealed the Covenant in the blood of the sacrificial animals and once again the people said all that the Lord has spoken we will do and we will be obedient of course who would not want to belong to this wonderful God who has just liberated them from 430 Years of Slavery slaughtered the enemies enemies in their side and has fed them in the desert anyone would want to belong to such a wonderful God however despite all the tests they have already undergone the people of Israel still know neither themselves nor God they know God only as a savior from external enemies and still think themselves capable of observing his laws it's God who has to teach them better it was enough to make Moses disappear from their side for a mere 40 days to make them fall into the most abominable sin of apostasy when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him up make us Gods who shall go before us as for this Moses the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has become of him and so Aaron the high priest made a golden calf and they said these are your Gods o Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt a worse sin than the golden calf is not imaginable the people denied the very Lord who had brought them out of Egypt at a high price provided them in the wilderness promised them a land flowing with milk and honey and just a few days ago days ago had appeared to them in a mighty theophany revealing himself and entering into a marriage covenant with them that would have ensured their protection against any possible enemy along with the sure gift of the land and Israel now exchanged this Lord for the image of an animal that represented the very gods of their former task Masters as I said a more serious sin of a possible of apostasy is not fathomable and what is God's reaction to the rejection of his bride instead of abandoning this thick stiff-necked and ungrateful people he reveals himself in an even deeper way at the burning bush the revelation of his name had remained somehow mysterious I am who I am he had said I or in another possible translation I will be who I will be both are possible in other words it is impossible for you to grasp the essence of who I am but if you are willing to enter into a relationship with me you will come to know me as you walk as we God I God and you walk together and as our common history unfolds you will come to know me I will be who I will be the deeper meaning of this mysterious name however is revealed now after the sin of the golden calf and only now will Israel be able to understand in the face of the people's rejection of their savior God reveals himself as he truly is the Fountain of love and mercy the Lord he says in this second name Revelation the Lord a god merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping his dead Father's Love for thousands for the Jewish people this formula is the heart of God's self-revelation and the most important one just like the people of Israel most of us need unfortunately a similar experience to truly come to know God and to be turned from pelagians into Christians from slaves to Sons as I said it's easy to believe in a God who is a liberator from an external uh oppression it is easy to believe in a God who forgives all the sins I committed before I knew him however it takes almost a lifetime to accept a God who not only liberates us from external enemies but from the worst enemy of all which is the sin abiding within us and against which we are so absolutely helpless when left our own strengths it modifies our pride to admit our helplessness even to be faithful to God's covenant but unless we embrace our fallen Human Condition and our Viking need for God's mercy we will never Traverse the desert and enter the land of his rest which is a gift to those who have humbled themselves to become like little children trusting in nothing but God's mercy and praying every step of the way Jesus I trust in you and with that I've finished giving glory to the father and to the son and to the Holy Spirit amen [Applause]

Channel: St. Paul Center

Views: 5,803

Keywords:

Id: e3jUpevep-E

Length: 60min 15sec (3615 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2023