by Fr. Johannes Jacobse –
Be courageous. Don’t fear. Stand on the Rock.
We may be in the stages of a final reveal. Corruption must be revealed to overcome the power of darkness. The darkness is sustained when fear overcomes the heart and mind of man. He loses hope and the necessary constituents that give his life meaning move beyond the horizon. He becomes blind.
Men embrace ideology because they refuse to face the corruption in their own hearts. The ideology confers a false righteousness that avoids the honest appraisal of one’s own heart that is necessary for freedom, and replaces it with a lie. This lie reiterates the lie first whispered in Eden: “You will become like God.” That is how a man becomes blind.
Ideology enslaves the soul and mind of man. If an awakening comes (and I believe it might), then those who labored under the lie in ignorance may experience a “coming to the senses” much like the prodigal son. A return home and the embrace of the Father completes the healing.
For those who embraced the ideology with a fervency of heart and believing mind, a condemnation awaits unless there is an authentic reorientation of the heart and mind — a μετάνοια (metanoia), repentance, a “change of mind” where “mind” is νοῦς (nous) in the biblical Greek, the faculty of seeing grounded in the heart that incorporates the rational mind. This is the only way a man returns to freedom.
“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil,” (John 3:19). The darkness itself is the imprisonment and thus the condemnation.
Be courageous. Don’t fear. Stand on the Rock.
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Posted on facebook on 11/20/2020
Dank u voor deze wijze woorden, Pater Hans; de laatste tijd richt ik me steeds meer op Mattheüs 24.
(Thank you for these wise words, Father Hans; Lately, I’ve been focusing more and more on Matthew 24.)
What a great word of encouragement. Thank you Fr Johannes!
Wise words for any generation, but especially our times.