There are many reasons why the study of Biblical Greek is essential to a correct understanding of the Sacred Scriptures, even in relation to the true doctrine of creation. One of the truths that jumps off the page of the Greek New Testament but lies concealed in the English text of the Bible is the difference between the two kinds of "life" that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel--the natural "life" of man, or "psyche," and the supernatural "life," or "zoe"--which is the very thing that Jesus tells us He came to restore to mankind by His Passion, death and Resurrection.
When Our Lord tells us that "greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13), He is speaking of "psyche," the breath of life that is man's through his human nature. But when Our Lord says that He came that we might "have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10), He is speaking of "zoe," the life of God, "zoes aioniou," "eternal life." No English Bible clearly highlights this distinction, so it is easy for modern readers to conflate the natural life with the supernatural life and place them both on the same level. This might not seem to have much to do with the debate between special creation and theistic evolution, but it has everything to do with it.
When Our Lord tells us that "greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13), He is speaking of "psyche," the breath of life that is man's through his human nature. But when Our Lord says that He came that we might "have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10), He is speaking of "zoe," the life of God, "zoes aioniou," "eternal life." No English Bible clearly highlights this distinction, so it is easy for modern readers to conflate the natural life with the supernatural life and place them both on the same level. This might not seem to have much to do with the debate between special creation and theistic evolution, but it has everything to do with it.
We know from "the sacred history of Genesis" and from the Sacred Tradition of the Church that Man was supernaturally created, body and soul, in the state of grace, so that His original and normal condition was to share one life with God. This is why Evagrius of Pontus teaches that "the mind was created to pray." Indeed, it is abnormal for a man not to "pray without ceasing"! When we think of man as having "evolved" into a world that arrived at the state it had achieved before the appearance of Adam through natural processes of death and destruction, through the culling action of predation, deformity and disease, we tend to think of his natural goods of intellect and will as those that raised him above the lower animals.
While this is true as far as it goes, in an evolutionary context we easily lose sight of the fact that Adam was supernaturally created by God in the state of grace for God, and that everything else was supernaturally created to serve him, in view of the foreordained Incarnation and Immaculate Conception. If we forget this, we are easily led to feel that natural goods are the highest goods, and that obeying the natural law suffices to fulfill the purpose of our existence.
While this is true as far as it goes, in an evolutionary context we easily lose sight of the fact that Adam was supernaturally created by God in the state of grace for God, and that everything else was supernaturally created to serve him, in view of the foreordained Incarnation and Immaculate Conception. If we forget this, we are easily led to feel that natural goods are the highest goods, and that obeying the natural law suffices to fulfill the purpose of our existence.
But that is a deception.
If we do not constantly remember the original state of our first parents when God created them, we cannot understand the nature of "normal" human life--that is to say, "normal," divine-human life, the life that Our Lord and the Blessed Mother lived in every moment of their lives, a life lived in communion with God, that remained centered on God and His Kingdom at all times and in all places, in every thought, word and action. If we recall this continually, we will be less likely to fall into idolatry, making limited goods--like money, hobbies, sports, food, drink, entertainment, pets, and such things--gods that absorb precious time and energy that ought to be spent adoring God and extending His reign in the world.
Today, we commemorate the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three shepherd children at Fatima. On July 13, 1917, She showed them a vision of Hell and lamented that many souls go to Hell because there is no one to pray and sacrifice for them. Significantly, She did this after giving the children an experience of the indwelling grace of God, of the reality of their life in God and of God's living presence within them. This was significant because only those who are united to God by grace with living faith--like the three children of Fatima--can effectively pray and sacrifice for others, since it is only in them that the Holy Ghost Himself prays with divine efficacy.
Readers of this newsletter know that we teach that the principal "error" that took hold in Russia after the Miracle of the Sun was evolutionism. It was the "scientific fact" of molecules-to-man evolution that made confident naturalists of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Sanger, Kinsey, and the principal totalitarian leaders and godless social engineers of the twentieth century. It was the same "irrefutable fact" of evolution that gave a pseudo-scientific justification for the pantheism of Teilhard de Chardin and the New Age Movement.
Our Lady promised that when enough souls lead the same kind of consecrated life that She lived in every moment of her life on Earth, this will constitute "the Triumph" of her Immaculate Heart which will call down the grace for the Pope to consecrate Russia by name to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which will in turn ignite an explosion of grace in Russia, making her a "light to the nations" and ushering in a great restoration of the Faith, the overthrow of anti-Christian naturalism and pantheism, and an era of peace throughout the world.
Our Lady promised that when enough souls lead the same kind of consecrated life that She lived in every moment of her life on Earth, this will constitute "the Triumph" of her Immaculate Heart which will call down the grace for the Pope to consecrate Russia by name to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which will in turn ignite an explosion of grace in Russia, making her a "light to the nations" and ushering in a great restoration of the Faith, the overthrow of anti-Christian naturalism and pantheism, and an era of peace throughout the world.
In the book The Light Comes from the East most of which is available on line here, I have tried to explain why I agree with Bishop Athanasius Schneider and so many others that the Consecration of Russia has not been done and urgently needs to be done as Our Lady requested. The book also explains why it is urgent that each and every one of us consecrate ourselves anew, seeking to do the perfect acts of love that Our Lord has prepared for us to walk in at every moment (cf. Ephesians 2:10) offering every thought, word, and action with Him to the Father with His intentions--as it is only in this way that the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in us and the grace of the Consecration of Russia will be obtained.
So, on this Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, let us ask ourselves: "Do we live one life with God? Do we invite the Holy Ghost into all of our thoughts, words, and actions, doing each of them with Jesus and offering them to the Father with Him through the Immaculata?" If we do, we are hastening the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with each of our actions. If we do not, with each wasted moment we are throwing away a Heaven-sent opportunity to hasten the Triumph and to help souls escape from their slavery to sin and from eternal misery.
Yours in Christ through the Immaculata,
Hugh Owen
