- Three incredible days passed in Jerusalem. On Friday
night, burial processions carried out the shroud of the Lord from the small
ancient church of St James into the parvis of the Holy Sepulchre. Yesterday,
tens of thousands of native Christians and pilgrims flocked into the great
edifice of the Holy Sepulchre to celegrate the annual but always new and
surprising miracle of Holy Fire coming of the Tomb of Christ. It is a beautiful
and colourful feast, when processions of various denominations march in
and out, while young Syrian and Armenian boys throw wild and inspiring
dances full of manly power. After hours of chants and prayers, Holy Fire
burst out of the empty Tomb to encourage us at this most frightening Saturday
of the year, the Saturday when the Lord was dead. During this godless Saturday
Christ fought the gates of Hell, and its outcome was far from obvious.
The Holy Fire was a sign of life from the Tomb. And with sunrise on Easter
Sunday came a beautiful day, a day of new hope and new promise.
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- This year, the Old City of Jerusalem was full of CDs
and videos of the great modern Passion Play by Mel Gibson. It was also
screened in semi-privacy of hotels and clubs, for no cinema in Jewish-controlled
Palestine wished to show it. There was no clear reason as reason goes.
The Passion of Gibson is quite similar to his Braveheart; both films contain
long and heart-tearing scenes of torture, flogging and agony. But no Englishman
objected to the Braveheart being screened claiming it will inspire anti-English
sentiment. The Passion reminds in a way even The First Blood, but no policeman
tried to block Rambo saying it inflames hatred to cops. If the Jews were
an ethnic group, they would be able to watch the Passion as easily as the
English watch the Braveheart. Indeed, our friend Gilad Atzmon was right:
Jews are not killers of Christ, but those who identify with killers of
Christ.
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- For Palestinians, this story of a kind Palestinian man
tortured and killed by the brutal lookalikes of Israel's Border Police
at the shouts of 'Yiztalev', 'Crucify Him', is a story of their daily life
brought to the level of Faith. And they can find respite and hope in its
message of Resurrection. For the immigrant 'Jewish' population of Palestine,
there is a plain message: identify with Christ, not with his killers.
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- If you have time, I advise you to read The Everlasting
Man by Chesterton (see below), for this book (called 'the best book of
20th century' by Graham Green) will help you to understand today's main
problem: massive rise of the 'Judeo-Christian' heresy in the US, probably
the biggest challenge to the Spirit since the Albigensians and Calvinists.
And, when you understand the problem, you can find the way to treat it.
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- G.K. Chesterton wrote:
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- There are people who say they wish Christianity to remain
as a spirit. They mean, very literally, that they wish it to remain as
a ghost. But it is not going to remain as a ghost. What follows this process
of apparent death is not the lingering of the shade; it is the resurrection
of the body. These people are quite prepared to shed pious and reverential
tears over the Sepulchre of the Son of Man; what they are not prepared
for is the Son of God walking once more upon the hills of morning.
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- These people, and indeed most people, were indeed by
this time quite accustomed to the idea that the old Christian candle-light
would fade into the light of common day. To many of them it did quite honestly
appear like that pale yellow flame of a candle when it is left burning
in daylight. It was all the more unexpected, and therefore all the more
unmistakable, that the sevenbranched candle-stick suddenly towered to heaven
like a miraculous tree and flamed until the sun turned pale.
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- But other ages have seen the day conquer the candle-light
and then the candle-light conquer the day. Again and again, before our
time, men have grown content with a diluted doctrine. And again and again
there has followed on that dilution, coming as out of the darkness in a
crimson cataract, the strength of the red original wine.
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- And we only say once more today as has been said many
times by our fathers: `Long years and centuries ago our fathers or the
founders of our people drank, as they dreamed, of the blood of God. Long
years and centuries have passed since the strength of that giant vintage
has been anything but a legend of the age of giants.
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- Centuries ago already is the dark time of the second
fermentation, when the wine of Catholicism turned into the vinegar of Calvinism.
Long since that bitter drink has been itself diluted; rinsed out and washed
away by the waters of oblivion and the wave of the world. Never did we
think to taste again even that bitter tang of sincerity and the spirit,
still less the richer and the sweeter strength of the purple vineyards
in our dreams of the age of gold.
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- Day by day and year by year we have lowered our hopes
and lessened our convictions; we have grown more and more used to seeing
those vats and vineyards overwhelmed in the water-floods and the last savour
and suggestion of that special element fading like a stain of purple upon
a sea of grey. We have grown used to dilution, to dissolution, to a watering
down and went on forever. But Thou hast kept the good wine until now.'
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- Read on http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part2c6.htm
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- and the whole book on http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/content.htm
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- Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen! Ha-Mashiah qom!
Be-emet qom! Al Massiah qam! Haqqan qam! Meshiha qam! Bashrira qam! Christos
Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese! Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!
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- Israel Adam Shamir
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