2024/12/02

172. The Wind

In the last issue, we discussed the will of man based on Admonitions by St Francis. In the light of the Genesis account, God gave man a will to create him after his likeness. Man's will was to be formed by a combination of the "divine spontaneity" appropriate for man, which is the "breath of life" God had breathed into him, and the "knowledge of God" that God made grow as the "tree of life", and it was to become the free will of man, created after God's likeness. That is because the "divine spontaneity", the "breath of life", is the source of "freedom". However, man did not eat from the Tree of Life but ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, forbidden to eat, and thus he generated his will by combining the "divine spontaneity" with the "man's knowledge". The "man's knowledge" evolves through "human information", which can be good or evil depending on the recipient. For this reason, man's will is bound by the knowledge of good and evil and cannot exercise the freedom of "divine spontaneity". That is why the free will God wanted to manifest in man to create him after his likeness does not manifest itself in man. 

Jesus Christ is God becoming human with perfect free will manifesting itself in the unity of "divine spontaneity" and "divine knowledge". The coming of Jesus testified that people could manifest the free will God had wanted them to have to those who, under the old covenant, lived manifesting their will by combining the "knowledge of man" with the "divine spontaneity" appropriate for man. However, many people who manifest their will by connecting the "divine spontaneity", even though befitting to man, with "human knowledge", which is disproportionate to it, and people who, therefore, live with a contradiction that sometimes brings them face to face with death, resisted Jesus' advice and eventually hated and even tried to kill him. Jesus, fully divine and fully human, fulfilled God's plan in his constraints for his disciples and the Holy Spirit, who would later descend. 

Jesus, who said, "I know whom I have chosen" (John 13:18), prepared everything necessary for his disciples to work with the Holy Spirit after his descent. That is because it is only by collaborating with the Holy Spirit that one can obtain free will. Jesus first continued to insert the Word into the disciples' knowledge through their senses so that it would remain in their memory. The reason for this was so that they would remember it when contacted by the Holy Spirit. The sensation of being touched by the Holy Spirit is the sensation of contact with "divine informationlessness", i.e. the Eucharist minus the information of bread and wine. In communion, the believer experiences the feeling of being touched by "divine informationlessness". 

When the Holy Spirit, who has no physical body, collaborates with the person, the appropriate knowledge can be brought directly into his brain so that the freedom of God-given spontaneity can be exercised in his "will". Hence, Jesus said, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7). The Holy Spirit informs us of the contradictions in us, from deep within us, and becomes an advocate for our own judgement against ourselves, which we fall into. 

Jesus trained his chosen disciples to distinguish between divine revelation and "human information" until they came to accept the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. The Book of Revelation replicates that training for future Christians. The training of reading the Book of Revelation aloud and listening to its voice not only enables believers to sensibly grasp the distinction between the work of the Holy Spirit and "human information". Revelation, in which the contents of the revelation and prophecies conveyed by the New Testament are interwoven, enables believers to take in the worldview of Jesus Christ, who appeared in this world, as an unconscious, tacit knowledge. That is because the worldview of Jesus Christ, the Divine, cannot be contained within the human consciousness alone (see diagram below). Revelation prepares believers to optimise themselves into the "divine reality" in which the Holy Spirit works in every scene they encounter with Him. 

St Francis' writings show that he had perused the Book of Revelation. However, many people fail to realise that within his words and deeds are the truths of the Gospel of John and Revelation he received from San Damiano Crucifix. That is because Francis became a man carried by God's hands. "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). 

To be continued.

Maria K. M.