The Ministry of Reconciliation in the Ancient Church
The Church’s Approach to Sacramental Repentance, Confession and Absolution
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not
all his benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your
diseases; Who redeems you life from destruction; who crowns you with
loving kindness and tender mercies; Who satisfies your mouth with good
things; so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The Lord executes
righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.” Psalm
103:2-6 (NKJV)
The Theology of
Repentance and the Authority of Binding and Loosing as an Apostolic Ministry
In
the Book of Mathew, the last work written in a developing school of thought
flowing from St. Paul, which effectively decoupled the Gentile Church from the
necessity of Old Testament Law and the governance of the Jewish Temple, we see
a new approach to Apostolic authority offered en lieu of Jerusalem, which is
only hinted at in the other Gospel Witnesses. Christ asks his disciples who
they think that He is, and after several weak answers based on “what others
say”, Peter makes his bold declaration of faith in Christ. In a play on words
Christ tells him that he is a “Little Pebble” but that upon “This Boulder” (the
declaration that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, which Peter had just
made) Christ will build His Church. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the
kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
(Matthew 16:19) The link between faith, the Church and binding and loosing
within the Church was therefore established, and regardless of what links St.
Cyprian or St. Leo the Great made with their own episcopal function, or the
continued presence of the “Pebble” in their episcopal seats, the message is
clear. Christ has placed the power to forgive sins within His Church, and that
Church is founded upon faith in Christ as Savior.
John
gives more perspective, pre-dating Matthew and probably the voice of the older
John Mark, the disciple of St. Paul (Dr. Paul Nadim Tarazi, “ Introduction
to the New Testament Volume 3: Johannine Writings”, 2004, St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, p. 15). As he put it, “Then said Jesus to them again,
Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me,
even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them,
and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whosoever sins you remit, they
are remitted unto them; and whosoever sins you
retain, they are retained.” (John 20:19-23) Therefore, the office of
“confessor” or “remitter” is here based upon the reception of the Holy Spirit.
Whether or not that is an episcopal office has been hotly debated, even in Roman
Catholic and Eastern Orthodox circles, especially in times of episcopal
corruption and turmoil – and at such times, we see the “Elder” appear as a
charismatic figure on the fringes of society, who, without ordination, and
sometimes without episcopal permission, heard the confessions of struggling
people, and offered simple, loving advice from a wealth of personal experience
and ascetic knowledge. (John H. Erickson, “The Challenges of Our Past”, 1991,
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, p. 24, and James Dallen, “The Reconciling
Community”, 1991, Pueblo, p. 111)
Public Penance in the Old
Testament –
Public
Liturgical repentance originates in the Old Testamental practice of the Jewish
Temple, in which it was customary to have fasts in sackcloth and ashes declared
by the kings in response to God’s judgment. Just as Cain was marked with the
sign of repentance, to show his separated and cursed existence, so the ancient
believers marked themselves with ash. Job also practiced a form of repentance
as he covered himself with ash, sat on a dunghill, and would not stand, but
kept himself prostrate before the Lord. Moses also called the disobedient
children of Israel to repentance through outward and liturgical forms of
fasting. Prophetic call to repentance, so clearly portrayed in the unwilling
voice of Jonah in the Rogation of the Ninevites, in which we see God spare an
iniquitous and evil city for their repenting in sack-cloth and ash, is typical
of the Old Testaments view of corporate and personal repentance as a public
event. This was the locus of the prophetic message, for prophets were called by
God specifically to preach a message of repentance. Just as there was an outer
form for the preaching, denouncing, and cursing of the Prophets upon sinful
people, so there was an outward, physical response to that message in the form
of public penance. Weeping, wailing, fasting, discomfort, lack of sleep,
refraining from washing or the anointing of the head with oil, all manifested
an attitude of continuously beseeching God for His forgiveness. These forms
were kept in the Early Church, especially for the catechumens, who underwent
forty days of repentance and fasting during Lent. (Fr. Alexander Schmemman,
“Great Lent: Journey to Pascha”, 1974, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, p.
135-137)
Private Confession as the
Practice of the New Testament Church
This
brings us to the core text of the practice of repentance and confession within
the New Testament Church. In Jerusalem, where James, the Brother of Lord, held
sway and created the first episcopal center for Christianity until 66AD, we see
that the practice was heavily sacramental, and focused on the place of
confession, prayer and anointing. "Is any sick among you? Let him call for
the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in
the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the
Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven
him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one
for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man avails much." (James 5:14-16)
St.
Paul, who founded a Church outside of the Jewish “Ecumene” and was rejected by
St. James as an episcopal authority, also recommended a similar practice, but
with a slightly less “presbytery-oriented” approach; he said "Brethren, if
a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in
the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."
(I Corinthians 3:1) As in the Gospel of John, here the qualification for
restoring fallen brothers was a life lived in the Grace of the Holy Spirit, not
an ecclesiastical position. Ideally, both the priestly Apostolic blessing of
"Loosing and Binding" and the spiritual gift of counsel and wisdom
would be united in the person of an experienced presbyter, whose own life has
confirmed to the Pauline requirements of ordination, given in I Timothy.
The Apostolic Practice of
Church Discipline and the Origin of Public Penance
In the Book of Acts the Holy Spirit’s judgment of
unconfessed sin and fraud within the Church was severe in the extreme, and was
reason for stern accountability amongst the Apostles. As Acts reminds us, “Peter
said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and
to keep back part of the price of the land? You hast not lied
unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up
the ghost …And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard
these things.” (Acts 5:1-11) Thus, to sin within the congregation of the
Holy People of God was not only unthinkable, but could also result in an
Apostolic Death-Penalty! We are later reminded throughout the text of the New
Testament of the seriousness of "Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit",
"Eating unworthily [of the Eucharist] many are sickly among you and many
sleep", and "sin unto death." Clearly, purity in the Church was
no laughing matter, and the Eucharist could not only be life-giving, but if one
lived in unrepentantly in unconfessed sin, it could also be
life-taking! Facilitating the process of discipline within the Church,
keeping order and guarding against immorality, avoiding offense and schism, dealing
with weakness in the Body was an apostolic prerogative. Once Christ's
admonition to restore errant brothers in secret was without effect
(Matthew 18:15-17), St. Paul gave admonition in I Corinthians as to the
ultimate weapon to be used against gross infractions. “In the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of
our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of
the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” (I
Corinthians 5:4-5) Those who were placed outside of the Community of Salvation,
the local body of believers, granted the life of the Holy Spirit by the laying
on of hands by the Apostles and kept by the power of repentance and Eucharist,
were cursed by being given back over to Satan. To reject the life of the Church
is to embrace the death of Devils!
This
fear of judgment, the Fear of the Lord, was the chief motivation for those who
were the New People of God, the New Israel, to keep short accounts and confess
and forsake sins while their was yet time. “For the time is come that
judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at
us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of
God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the
sinner appear? (I Peter 4:17-18, KJV) As God had dealt with his people in the
Old Testament, now Christ lovingly instructed and shepherded His own,
chastising those who were his! As St. Paul so eloquently stated in Hebrews
12:6-8, “For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He
receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what
son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening,
of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.”
Ultimately, "The goodness of God leads to repentance", for
"Christ does not will that any should parish, but that all should have
eternal life."
Evidence of Confession in the
Early Fathers
The greatest evidence for confession within the Ancient
Church comes from the "Didache", or the “Teaching of the Apostles”.
It says, “In church thou shalt confess thy transgressions, and shalt not betake
thyself to prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life.” (J.B.
Lightfoot, “The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Apostolic Fathers”, “Didache”
4:14) St. Ignatius of Antioch, the great bishop and martyr, reputed to be
the child that Christ had used in his admonition to the Apostles to “Let the
little children come unto me” said of confession, “…As many as shall confess and
enter into the unity of the Church, these also shall be of God, that they may
be living after Jesus Christ.” (J.B. Lightfoot, “The Ante-Nicene Fathers”,
Letter of Ignatius to the Philadelphians, Vol. 1, p. 80, 3:2) Confession and
reconciliation were seen as part and parcel to becoming one with Christ in His
Church.
Justin
Martyr insinuates the public confession of sins in his description of the
Lord’s Supper (First Apology, Ch. 65 and 67), and the earliest critic of
Christianity, Porphyry, also formed a highly cultured and literate attack upon
Christians for the humiliating practice of the public confession of sins. He
saw this as incompatible with Roman dignity and life, and argued that St.
Peter’s administration of the death penalty for lying in the Church was a great
evidence for unethical Christian practices and self contradiction - “Did not
Christ himself say to forgive one their sins up until four hundred and ninetieth
time?” (Translated by C.G.A. Harnack and compiled by David
Braunsberg, “Against the Christians”, "Macarius, Apocriticus” III:
21, 2004, p. 7)
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| The Return of the Prodigal Son |
The Early Church quickly developed a theory of
“Postbaptismal Sinlessness” based off of I John 3, where it says
- “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is
no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him
nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who
practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is
of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the
Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he
cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” (I John 3:5-9) Those who sinned
were obviously not living for and in Christ, and thus could not, in reality, be
of the Church – the Body of Christ.
The Early Church's strict moral censure was due to
its tight structure and marginalized and persecuted position within the wider
society. While infant baptism was known, it was only done out of necessity
during times of persecution, and thus the majority of Christians came into the
faith willingly, through much struggle, and saw baptism as a defining part of
their identities. Their rejection of the world and desire to be united with
Christ was not only publicly affirmed by their joining of a despised minority,
but by their confession of sins before God and man, by their exorcism, by their
pledge of life and limb to Christ, by their naked humility in baptism, and by
their willingness to take on a new name and live a new life as Christians.
These Early Christians effectively and decisively turned their backs on the
world, its pleasures, and lived a life of self-denial, martyrdom, and
expectation of the Return of Christ!
The Shepherd of Hermas deals exclusively with the early
Roman theory of repentance and penance in the Ancient Church, focusing on the
one chance that we all share to become “useful blocks in the hands of the
builders” in a “tower built upon the waters” of baptism (Hermas, Ch. 1). To members
of the Early Church, there was only one chance for post-baptismal repentance
and reconciliation into the Church. This was the substance of St. Hippolytus
(170–235AD) contention with St. Callixtus (D. 223AD), who seems to have
focused upon the penitential practice of the Church regarding the readmittance
of idolaters and adulterers, and the authority of the Church to reconcile with
all sinners, no matter what the sin. St. Hippolytus seems to have had grave
misgivings about this position and saw it as undermining the purity and
authority of the Church itself. At roughly the same time, Tertullian (160 –
225AD) struggled with the decadence and compromise of the Catholic Church of
his day, ended his time as a famous catechist and champion of the Church by his
turn to the conservative and charismatic Montanist sect, seeking to purify the
Church of its tendency to try to rehabilitate the fallen and reconcile them
into the Christian community. The Montanists had a “spiritual focus” in which
the “invisible church” was made of ascetic adepts (an idea that would be echoed
in Origen’s “Christian Gnostic” philosophy). Novatian (200–258AD) led a
schism for the same reasons, resisting sinful and unworthy clergy, holding that
their sacraments were invalid without rebaptism and re-ordination. Donatus
Magnus (D. 355AD), alike, was a leader of a sect that claimed authority
through conservative continuity and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit against
compromise towards sinful backsliders.
The above mentioned St. Hippolytus of Rome, a theological
conservative and the first antipope instructs his presbyters on the manner of
ordaining bishops with this in his “On the Apostolic Tradition”:
(Ch. 3) “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… Pour forth now that
power which comes from you, from your royal Spirit, which you gave to your
beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and which he bestowed upon his holy apostles… and
grant this your servant, whom you have chosen for the episcopate, [the power]
to feed your holy flock and to serve without blame as your high priest,
ministering night and day to propitiate unceasingly before your face and to
offer to you the gifts of your holy Church, and by the Spirit of the
high priesthood to have the authority to forgive sins, in accord with your
command." (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, “Ante-Nicene
Fathers”, Vol. 7, p. 483) Obviously, the episcopal ministry held the
Petrine authority of “binding and loosing sin” for the early Roman
Church!
The standoff between those who desired to limit
forgiveness and those who saw the Church's mission as therapeutic and
restorative was ultimately won by the more compassionate Fathers, but not
without difficulty and setbacks for the purity and zeal of the Church. It has
often been noted that, as Christian discipline declined in the midst of
State-sanctioned Christianity, monasticism grew and took up the old categories
of discipline and repentance, marginalization and poverty, that had previously
been the baptismal commitment of all adult Christians of the first three
centuries. Even as open repentance became more rare, fasting more ceremonial
and symbolic, and Eucharistic communion more occasional within the ranks of
"ordinary believers", baptized as infants and equating the Roman
State with Christendom, the movement towards monastic life and a continuation
of early Christianity's ascetic heart grew amongst the more committed
believers, leading to an increased activity towards organized, communal,
worship-oriented life.
The Development of
Sacramental Confession
Christ’s definition of sin was clearly revealed in
Matthew 5:27-30, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou
shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looks on a woman
to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if
thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out, and cast it from
thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and
not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy
right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for
it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy
whole body should be cast into hell.” Sin starts as a heart intention, and as
James 1:15 says, when lust is conceived, it manifests sin, and sin creates
death. Mere actions are inadequate when describing sin. It is intention where
the battle is ultimately won or lost.
Individual sin is also a transgression against the
sanctity of Christ’s Body, as I Corinthians 6:15 (NKJV) says, “Don’t you know
that your bodies are the members of Christ? Should I then take the members of
Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid!”
So, sin is both the intent of the heart and an action of the individual that
acts against the communion of the saints. A focus on one or the other leads to
imbalance – Christ forgives us when we sincerely repent, but we can only
receive forgiveness as part of the Body of Christ, which not only requires the
mediation of others, but their forgiveness as well, since we violate Christ,
ourselves, and the Church when we choose to sin. Thus, merely to confess to
God, without physically humbling ourselves and submitting to the direction and
accountability of the Church is useless. We are physical beings and repentance
cannot be reduced to a gnostic form without seriously undermining it
efficaciousness. With this in mind, we can understand why sin was not merely
understood as an intent in the Early Church context, was not just a thought,
but as the action like unto the Fall of Man in the Garden – “Lust conceived
brings forth sin”, a thought acted upon becomes a sin that brakes man’s
communion with God, and since life comes from God, it brakes man’s life as
well.
Therefore, to have an evil thought was never understood
as a sin, but to harbor it or to act upon it was. Sins were categorized by the
revealed categories of the Ten Commandments, which, while a clear basis upon
which to work, when the focus, ultimately losses some of the inner
accountability of Christ’s admonition that “He who looketh upon a women to lust
after her has committed adultery already in his heart.” And, “He that
breaks one point of the law has become a transgressor of the whole law” in
James 2:10. But as sin was primarily conceived in terms of action, so was repentance.
Penance was restricted in the Early Church to sins that effected the group, not
just the individual's thought. (James Dallen, “The Reconciling Community”,
1991, Pueblo, p. 41) Thus, a historical pendulum swing between two extremes was
set in motion within the liturgical expression of the Church. Penance,
dependent upon the Old Testament forms of corporate estrangement, mourning, and
turning to God in praise of mercy was variously known as the “Barakoth” or the
“Exomologis” in the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. It was a major social
undertaking, and therefore had to be reserved for “large breaches” that
threatened the community as a whole – such as apostasy, adultery, theft (The
“Unforgivable Triad” in Tertullian’s “De Paenitentia”), etc., requiring the
liturgical tools of social mourning in the Middle East, meant to reestablish a
broken bond with the community. For those sins that did not break the bond with
the community, or were not readily visible, a different kind of practice
developed, originally built upon the pastoral concern of St. John Chrysostom,
Origen, and St. Cyprian of Carthage, and eventually came to be defined by
concepts of Cenobitic monastic life in which spiritual guidance was given for
perfecting an ascetic spiritual walk. This was the practice of "Spiritual
Counsel", best realized by Celtic Christianity's "Anam Cara",
the "Soul Friend", who pointed the heroic individual along a path of
individual growth and purity, all based on the analysis of one's own thoughts
and inner intentions. Thus, the early form of psychoanalysis was born! (John H.
Erickson, “The Challenges of Our past”, 1991, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, p.
27, and James Dallen, “The Reconciling Community”, 1991, Pueblo, p. 77)
But, it also had its downside, for “Sin, in so far as it was subject to formal
ecclesiastical discipline, became an abstract reality determined by canonical
regulations rather than a concrete experience of failing one’s community.”
(James Dallen, “The Reconciling Community”, 1991, Pueblo, p. 57) The liturgical
life of the Church, in the area of greatest need, repentance and restoration,
banished the individual to his own devices.
The Connection of Penance
with Baptism
As John
the Baptist cried, so the Church still cries today - “Repent and be Baptized,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand!” (Matthew 3:2) Repentance is a
requirement for baptism, and since a verbal, witnessed repentance is the most
sincere and “real” form, it is easy to understand why repentance must be
witnessed by a representative of the Church, because it is faith, repentance
and baptism that makes us members of the Church through the power of the Holy
Spirit. It not only makes us one with Christ, but also makes us one with one
another! Repentance is a continual state for the baptized, the occupation of
the “Church Militant” and is the evidence and activity of baptism within the
life of the individual Christian. Repentance is the core of the Christian
life, our central value, and the primary operative around which the synergy of
our Theosis operates. Repentance is putting ourselves down, changing our mind,
and warring against our inner brokenness that was inherited from Adam that
always rears up within us as propensity toward pride. Only by prayer, fasting,
repentance, confession, and absolution, can we enter back in to the reality of
our “One Baptism” that has remitted our sins by the power of the Holy Spirit
and made us a part of the Church. A special place is given to the “baptism of
tears” in the Fathers, which only occurs when we have true heart recognition of
our need for God and the seriousness of our error, which leads us back to our
baptism and makes us ready to partake in again in Communion. St. Isaac the
Syrian, that beloved bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East, calls tears of
repentance “the second baptism” for good reason, seeing that it is within our
tears of regret and repentance that we are restored to Christ in a
post-baptismal state. (+Kallistos Ware, “The Orthodox Way”, p. 55)
The
Connection of Penance with
the Eucharist
There
has always been a penitential element present within preparations for the
Eucharist, as Christ himself commanded in the Sermon on the Mount - “Therefore
if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has
ought against you; Leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way;
first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
(Mathew 5:23-24) St. Paul makes the connection between worthiness, a state
of repentance and contrition, an explicit requirement for partaking in the
Communion of the Lord’s Table, promising dire consequence and dreadful moral
responsibility for the death of the Lord for those who are not prepared to
commune with a clean conscience. This comes on the tale end of a passage
rebuking the Corinthians for their lax practice and their bias against the
poorer members of the Christian community, excluding them from the better parts
of the meal, and full table fellowship, by the wealthy home-owners in whose
houses the Eucharist was held. “Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and
drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the
body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat
of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he
that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not
discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and
sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should
not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we
should not be condemned with the world.” (I Corinthians 11:27-32)
How does the Church Approach Sickness and Death?
Through confession of sins and the affirmation of God’s forgiveness and His
Sufficiency, Christ ministers through His Church the Sacrament of Repentance to
His Body. This is the direct counteraction of Sin, which is turning away from
God, and places our focus back on God and upon His Love for us. It is
within this love, this relationship, that we find light and life, and it is
within the constant state of turning back to God, changing our mind to
continuously come back from the distractions and delusions of our fallen world,
that we find Christ’s Life offered to us in the ultimate act of sharing - that
we become united to Him through partaking of His Flesh and His Blood, truly
being engrafted into the Vine! This is the baptismal reality of repentance, and
this is the fulfilling of the Eucharist!
When we are stricken with the fallenness of the world, which awaits Christ’s
return and consummation of all things, we are brought back to the center of
Christ’s life through anointing. Through the laying on of hands and the
anointing with oil, Christ restores the Christian to the right frame of mind,
back to the royal priesthood, back to the waters of baptism, which have already
made us a part of Christ, and thus, have released us from the fear and
consequences of death. Through the rite of anointing, the Church commemorates Christ’s
finished work, signifying our place within it, and by the Power of the Holy
Spirit, allows us to enter into it again, the redemptive and death-conquering
Life of Christ.
While the anointed one may not receive physical healing, the sickness changes
from a “sickness unto chastisement” or a “sickness unto [spiritual] death”,
into a “sickness unto the glory of God” (John 11:4 and I John 5:16), and is
thus given meaning, showing hope, and turning the sick individual into a martyr
- a witness - which makes the Christian’s work as a Christ-bearer, a prophetic
witness in the world to the creative Logos-Word of God, complete. This
transformation can only come through restoration, and restoration can only
occur through forgiveness. This is why the forgiveness of sins is so vitally
evident within the service of anointing, for it is only within this forgiveness
that man can function as a friend of God, and only as a friend can man enter
into the hope and power of the “Wedding Feast”. Thus, the sick person not only
fulfills his priesthood (Dueteronomy 18:14-22) in Christ, offering himself up
totally to the Will of God, but functions in his prophethood (Psalms 110:1-4), declaring Christ’s
coming and the power of the resurrection. With the anointing, as kings of old
were anointed, the sick enters the reality of Christ’s Return and the future
glory of His Kingdom, in which we will reign with Christ, an thus, also be as
kings (Psalms 2 and II Timothy 2:12).
In this completion, not only is the suffering given meaning through a clear
conscience, through the love of Christ expressed through the community, through
the obedience and worship expressed by the sick one, but the broken state of
the world, groaning in travail for the Return of Christ and the resurrection,
is revealed and the Glory of God is made manifest. Thus, if the body is
restored or the body is caused to die, alike reveals the ultimate triumph of
Christ, and in all we receive the affirmation of Job, “Blessed be the Name of
the Lord” - all is sealed with power of the Holy Spirit, and made purposeful as
the revelation of God’s Will. In the end, whether we live or perish, we
have lived our fullest, expressing the highest value of human existence – the
existence, love, and truth of God!
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