Dear Readers,
My name is Fr. Franz Devantier of Saint Titus, Independent Old Catholic Church (IOCC) of Africa, operating in South Africa, and also creator of this blog. My background was that of a liberal Catholic Priest, and a Traditional Catholic Priest in South Africa, and then an independent Priest in the Catholic tradition. I was incardinated into the IOCC by Archbishop-Primate Emeritus Maurice McCormick founder of the IOCC of America.
Primate Archbishop George Le Mesurier, IOCC of America
Primate Emeritus Archbishop Maurice McCormick, IOCC of America
+++
Bishop George Otieno Odhiambo, IOCC of Africa
Primate Emeritus Archbishop Maurice McCormick, IOCC of America
+++
Bishop George Otieno Odhiambo, IOCC of Africa
+++
Father. Franz Devantier, IOCC South Africa
In
nomine Patris, et Filii, + et Spiritus
Sancti. Amen (In the name of the father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. )
Pentecost
– 19th May 2013 (Colour of Celebration – Red)
Catholics:
Liberal
Catholics: (WhitSunday)
Universal: (World Invocation
Day)
Friday May 24th 2013, is really the day when the
whole world celebrates in their own way the return of the Christ.
This is a day for Universal Prayer, Invocation and
Meditation. This day has been observed every
year by the few since 1952, but it is time for the masses to start observing it
as well. The Great Invocation is used to
invoke spiritual energies of Light, Love and Purpose, and so speed the return
of the Christ.
You are encouraged to use the Great Invocation on World
Invocation Day, and every day after that as well.
THE GREAT
INVOCATION
From the point of Light
within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth
into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love
within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth
into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.
From the centre where
the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide
the little wills of men –
The purpose which
the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which
we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love
and Light work out
And may it seal the door
where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power
restore the Plan on Earth.
Commemoration
of the Saints, for the coming week
May 19th, St Peter Celestine, (Pope, Confessor)
May 20th, St Bernadine of Siena, (Confessor)
May 25th, St Gregory VII, (Pope, Confessor)
Announcements:
We need Priests to serve in the community that is run by
Saint Titus. If you are interested in becoming
a Priest in the Catholic Tradition under Saint Titus, then please contact Fr.
Franz devantierf@gmail.com for more details.
We will be providing training, as well as the possibility of incardinating
into the church, if you are already a Priest, or a Bishop or in Orders.
News:
We are all looking forward to World Invocation day on
Friday the 24th of May.
This day although relatively unknown, is probably one of
the most important days in the year, where the imminent return of the Christ is
celebrated.
Sacred References:
Acts, chapter two onwards.
John, chapter fourteen, verse sixteen onwards.
Homily:
This Sunday is all about the
Pentecost, or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 10:44, “While Peter yet
spoke these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the Word”. The Holy Spirit is considered to be the third
aspect of the Godhead. God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
The third aspect of God is the comforting aspect of God, the female if
you like, aspect of God. The creative
aspect of God. You remember in Genesis
how the Spirit of God covered the waters.
The Holy Spirit was busy with the creative work. Remember that the Holy Spirit is part of the
very powerful Godhead that forms God. So
when you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit is poured out on
you, as in the day of Pentecost; you are indeed baptized with fire. Having approached God to this degree, where
God pours himself down on you, is the baptism with fire. It is only because we are reasonably advanced
as thinking spiritual beings that we are able to survive such a close encounter
with God. It is only because in terms of
the family of god, Father, Son, and Mother, that the Holy Spirit is also a loving
Mother. If we are children of God the
Father, and will one day rise to the full stature of brothers and Sisters of
Jesus the Christ, then surely the Holy Spirit is likewise our Mother.
So we are baptized with the
Spirit of the Loving Mother, with Fire, with understanding, some would call it
enlightenment. We can never be the same
again after this has happened. For some
of us it may be too much, if we are not ready, and we could potentially become
a bit mentally affected. However for all
of us here reading this Homily or sermon, we are ready, because otherwise you
would not have read so far.
On that day of Pentecost, all who were present were
observed as though they had fire coming out of the top of their heads. This was symbolic of the baptism with
fire. Perhaps not such a bad idea to wear
your hair relatively flat on top, don’t use hairspray, because that is flammable;
if you are attending a really hot spiritual meeting, you never know. That was a joke, do you get it?
Anyway on that day of Pentecost, those present were
observed to be speaking what did not seem to make sense. Sounded like a babble to start with, but if
you listened carefully to a specific person, something amazing became
apparent. They were all speaking
fluently languages from all around the known world. Those who were visiting, heard the Gospel of
Jesus in their own language, even although the person telling them, could not
speak a word of that language. You see
when you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, it is not uncommon to speak the
languages of men and of Angels. Imagine speaking
the spiritual languages of Angels, quite something don't you think? Anyway many of the people observing were
converted to Christianity that day, despite that Christianity was an unknown
and unaccepted marginal religion at the time, and despite the fact that they
knew very little about it.
One of the other things that becomes apparent after having
been baptized with the Holy Spirit, is that one is blessed with the gifts of
the Spirit. Think of the gifts as being
like the fruits that a good tree would bear.
There are many gifts, such as Love that can be bestowed upon you, in a
loving and understanding way from the Holy Spirit. Maybe one gift, maybe one or two, maybe all
of them, you never know. God does know
your heart though. Certainly Mother God, the Holy Spirit would understand.
The people that were present that day were never the same
again. You see they had been touched by
God. Once you have been touched by God,
you can never be the same again. In the
same way that a mind broadened by knowledge will never be the same again. Those present had gained something so special
that they would carry it in their hearts for the rest of their lives. Many were inspired to great missionary works,
following the day of Pentecost.
Sometimes the protestants describe this outpouring of the
Holy Spirit as the point that marks, when you are Born Again. Being born again is really about
baptism. The priests/Pastors symbolically
immerses you in water, and the old you symbolically dies, and then you are born
again, a new creature in Christ. Baptism
with the Holy spirit is also a Baptism.
So many think that once you have been baptised with water, and baptized
with fire or with the holy Spirit, that you are born again. There is nothing wrong with this way of
thinking, it does reveal some really special truths to us.
Years ago I was enjoying Prasad with a group of Hari Kristna
monks, who were my friends. Prasad is
the beautiful vegetarian food that they make.
Eating Prasad is an absolute treat.
A group of Pentecostal church goers came into the temple and sat down,
and started talking about Jesus Christ.
The monks listened carefully to what they were saying. The leader of the group said in a challenging
way, “We are a group of Born Again Christians”.
Then things went silent, because it seemed that this Pentecostal leader, had
become so emotional, that he had forgotten what he was going to say. The main Hari Kristna monk turned to him with
love and said, “You know we have all been Born Again.”, gesturing to the monks
around him. There was an atmosphere of
stunned silence, the Pentecostal Christians stared at the Hari Kristna monks in
disbelief. The Hari Kristna monks all
turned and looked at their leader with a look of puzzlement, as if to say, first
I hear of this.
The moment of silence seemed to go on, and on for an
eternity. I hardly dared to breath, in
case I would disturb the atmosphere. I
became aware of the fragrance from the burning incense, which was forming a
lazy pattern of smoke in the completely still atmosphere now. I imagined that I could hear the candles
burning. We were all frozen in time, not
daring to move a finger or even an eyeball.
And then the main Hari Kristna monk smiled and said, “and again, and again,
and again”. What an ice breaker, they
all stayed for Prasad.
You see when various spiritual texts were translated way back, they
referred back to the Greek language for clarity. There was one word in Greek that was common
in a few religions, and that word was “Christos”. So for the Christian bible “Christos” was
translated as “Christ”, for the Vedic scriptures and especially the Gita, “Christos”
was translated as Kristna. Kristna was
an incarnation 5000 years ago, and Christ was an incarnation 2000 years
ago. Some say that Kristna was an
earlier incarnation of the Christ. What
do you think, who was really Christos?
This outpouring of the Holy Spirit on us is also very
symbolic of our own spiritual development.
The religious organizations that we have been supporting, the church for
example. Was supposed to have trained
and prepared us for spiritual advancement.
We were supposed to have aligned our physical bodies with our heart and
with our mind, and all in line with our higher self, our soul, and ultimately
with our Spirit. That is for the purpose of bringing our Spirit
down to earth, so that we can walk on earth as people, but understand the life
lessons in Spirit. The outpouring of the
Holy Spirit fast tracks this whole process, so it is really about a path to
spiritual advancement. This is also another
way of describing the Kingdom of God on Earth, which is symbolic of human
beings walking around in physical reality, but having brought the spirit down
to the physical level, so that the spirit can walk with them. Much of what is written in the Revelations of
John, alludes to this. So in order to
speed the return of Christ to Earth, we need to bring down the Spirit to our
physical bodies, we need to connect to our higher selves, which is just another
way of saying the same thing. This is
what the day of Pentecost is all about, it has been there all this time, and
yet few truly get it. But you get it,
don’t you?
Just before we get into the article on Church History, here
is one of the interesting things that was decided early on in the History of
Christianity. There was a group of
scholars who argued that to allow the scriptures that said that when we die,
our soul would rise up from our physical bodies, should be eliminated. The reason for this was that if this was
true, then it would be hard to refute the claims of re-incarnation, which even
2000 years ago was a popular idea.
Another group of scholars argued that if you took this out, then you
took away a fundamental aspect of the Christian faith, which could not be
done. That is to say, you were taking
away the promise of life after death. If
you took life after death away, then there was not much point left to
Christianity.
So here is the compromise, which was very clever at the time:
When you die, your physical body will be disposed of and
decay or burn or whatever. However on
the last day, the so called “Day of Judgement”, God will reconstitute your body
as a spiritual body, and only then will you be raised up, to go to Heaven, Purgatory
or Hell. You see this still allows the person
to rise after death, but it eliminates to a large extent the possibility of
re-incarnation. Also the Soul seems to
have disappeared, from the illustration.
Probably one of the reasons why most Christians use Soul and Spirit interchangeably,
while they are in fact very separate concepts.
It will seem that when you die your soul rises, because being dead, you
will not be aware of the passage of time.
So they promised the Christian the allusion of the Soul leaving the body
when you die, but insisted that you would be raised up by God at a certain
specified once off time, in the distant future. It seems we all went along with the idea. Just say the words "Judgement day", and everybody knows what you are talking about.
What are your thoughts on this?
Church History – Article 3:
The Initial surge:
The
Early history of the Christian Faith laid the foundation for all the later
expressions of Christianity. All the
later developments were based on the life and growth of the first Christian
community. The teaching of the Apostle’s,
became the standard for all later teaching and practice. Later on Churches would be judged by how they
measured up to the teaching of the Apostles.
The
Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox communions had a means of testing for
genuine Christianity. This was the
Apostolic church, especially the standards of the Catholic church.
In
different ways, all Christians look back to the first century for their basis:
The
Protestants tested for genuine Christianity with these types of questions:
->
Was it Apostolic Christianity, as revealed in the bible? Unfortunately most protestant communities
have lost the Apostolic succession.
->
What does the Bible teach about the way of salvation?
->
What does the Bible teach about the way of the true church?
->
What does the Bible teach about access to and communion with God?
->
What does the Bible teach about the source and nature of Authority?
The
Catholics and the Orthodox Christians had been arguing for genuine Christianity
for many more years, than the fairly recent Protestants, and they were asking
these sorts of questions:
->
What are the ingredients of a true Priesthood?
->
What and where is the Church?
->
How does the Universal Church convey salvation to mankind? (Catholic means
amongst other things “Universal”).
->
What is the source and the nature of the authority, of the true Holy Catholic
Church?
The
early Christians claimed that they had discovered a different way of life, that
was superior to the non-Christian world.
They believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah or Christ, and that he
had freed them from their sins, and had transformed their lives through the
power of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle
Paul explains this way of thinking very eloquently; “New creations in Christ”.
The
early Christians believed that their way of life was better than the way of
life of any of the other religions that were popular at the time, most of these
other religions are now classified by Christian scholars as Pagan religions. They believed theirs was better, because it
offered the believer, forgiveness of sins, Peace with God, hope for the future,
a higher ethical code, and most importantly they thought; Life after Death.
The
Christian believers first loyalty was to Jesus Christ. As a result they even loved their enemies, as
instructed by Christ to do. Many of the
early converts to Christianity were attracted by the love that they saw amongst
the believers.
As
a result Christians were automatically excluded from the mainstream of
so-called Pagan society. Because
Christians had a problem with taking part in war, and state programs in which a
Deity was given homage etc; so they were considered to be anti-social and
dangerous fanatics. Obviously the Romans
had not seen the suicide bomb fanatics that we get these days. The Christians were considered to be outside
of the Jewish religion, and outside of the mainstream state religions or as we
have classified them, Pagan religions.
So from the Roman perspective, the early Christians did not fit into any
established religious system, but were outside of established norms. To compound the situation, many early Christians
considered earthly citizenship of minor importance, because they were “Citizens
of Heaven”. Other early Christians went
around ignoring political boundaries, because they claimed that God did not
recognize these political boundaries.
In
contrast to this we find that there was an important group of early Christians
who from the beginning gave the proper respect to duly constituted
governments. The Apostle Paul was an
example of an early Christian who gave proper respect to the political
structures in place.
An Anglican Catechism
– Article 3:
The Old Covenant.
->
What is meant by a covenant with God?
A
Covenant is a relationship initiated by God, to which a body of people responds
in faith.
->
What is the Old Covenant?
The
Old Covenant is the one given by God to the Hebrew people.
->
What did God promise them?
God
promised that they would be his people to bring all the nations of the world to
him.
->
What response did God require from the chosen people?
God
required the chosen people to be faithful; to do justice, to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with their God.
->
Where is the Old Covenant to be found?
The
covenant with the Hebrew people is to be found in the books which we call the
Old testament.
->
Where in the old testament is God’s will for us shown most clearly?
God’s
will for us is shown most clearly in the Ten Commandments.
Prayer:
Our
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name: Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread. And forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil.
[Protestants
can optionally add: For Thine is the
kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.]
Amen.
Benediction:
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep
your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his Son, Christ
our Lord; and the Blessing of God almighty, the Father, + the Son and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you
always. Amen.
Love,
Rev. Fr. Franz Devantier of Saint Titus, IOCC, South Africa,
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