First: How HAPPINESS/PARADISE came to be lost:
Each one of us have as our life goal to attain true HAPPINESS. Our lives are one long search for happiness. The main reason we all search for happiness is that our very being was created for happiness. Adam and Eve were created for happiness. They did not have to look for it; they had it as a gift as soon as they were created. They were created sinless and happy. Before Eve was created, Adam was happy in the garden; but still felt a great need for a mate. He found no suitable partner in the animal world. God said: "It is not good for a man to be alone; I will make him a help-mate." Notice God did not say: "I will make him a sex mate" although that is included in the word "mate". No, God sent Adam a "help" and a "mate." She was to complete his already great happiness in the Garden. Adam was happy because he had life, all the beauty of the garden, the animals...but most of all, Adam had God to talk to face to face and walk with Him at the evening time when the gentle "breeze" was blowing. That in Genesis was an image of the Holy Spirit who is Present when we walk and talk to God. Adam had it all..and now God was giving him the desires of his heart - a beautiful woman who would become the "mother of all the living." Adam and Eve's bodies were so perfect that they lived to be over 900 years. They were actually designed to live forever. Death was NEVER in God's plan for us. So, here we have two people in perfect happiness. What happened? The same that happened to the fallen angels who had it all, too. They were perfectly happy. But being thinkers, these angels thought "what would it be like to be without God...to be independent of God...to not have to be grateful to God...therefore, to be God for themselves: to be "like God, knowing good and evil." Funny, but that temptation they tempted themselves with was the very same they tempted Eve with: "God knows well that you will not die but be like Him knowing good and evil." This temptation meant for Eve to decide for herself what is good and bad. The devil actually tempted her to be "pro-choice" - to see "evil" and call it "good." That is what the devil does today to all humankind: "You do not have to do what God says in the 10 Commandments; just do what you feel comes naturally and easily." Therefore, today you have "pro-choice" where women [new Eves] can choose what is good or evil for themselves independent of God's will or law...especially the 5th and 6th Commandments. These two Commandments are changed to: "Thou shalt kill whomever you wish as long as that person is in the womb." And the second is like unto the first: "Thou shalt sleep with whomever you wish be they married to someone else or single as long as it is as consenting adults."
Well, Adam and Eve found themselves outside of the Garden of Happiness and scheduled to die after committing the Original Sin. God did NOT punish them with death. God hates death. Why would He give it to anyone - especially to His children who are created in His own image and likeness? He is eternal; so He wanted us to never die.
Death came naturally after the sin of Adam and Eve because their sin freely chosen in disobedience to God caused their souls to die from Grace - the LIFE of God in them. They let their souls die from the LIFE God had put there. That death was their own choice; they became "pro-choice" and had chosen "death" not life just as women who abort today. They choose death for their babies by abortion. Was it God's will that these babies die - absolutely not. He gave a 5th Commandment so they would not die.
But Adam and Even began to die immediately after they sinned because their souls they caused to die are so closely united to their bodies that to kill the soul is to kill the body. And finally because of Adam and Eve's Sin, their bodies 900 years later died when their souls separated from their bodies. Their souls had to leave because souls - the principle of life - cannot abide in a dead body. An immortal soul cannot live in a corpse.
The souls eases out of that body because it cannot stand to be in a corrupting body. A living soul and a dead body are so opposite that it is impossible for a soul to live thus in a dead body. We see so often stories of zombies or vampires: these are imaginations of souls living in dead bodies. This can't happen because Jesus said: "God is a God of the living, not of the dead."
Well, then, did Adam and Eve's hope for true happiness die right there when they said yes to the devil? Actually, they only said "yes" because they were lied to...told that they could even be more happy apart from God. That lie was the sam lie that Lucifer told himself. And he believed himself...but he was DEAD wrong. If Satan was correct in his assesment when he told Eve: "God surely knows you will not die..", then if he were telling the truth [which is impossible for him to do since he is the "father of lies"], then that would make God out to be a liar. Why? Because God had said to eat of the tree of good and evil would cause death: "you will surely die", God had said to them. You cannot have it both ways. Either Satan was telling the truth or God was telling the truth. Whom would you believe?..a snake or God? Well, today millions are believing the snake. That is why 60,000,000 babies have been killed in the womb since 1973 and why 1 out every 2 marriages ends in divorce. God is Love: Wherever their is Love and Unity, there is God." Lucifer now Satan, is by his own irrevocable choice separated from God. "Satan is the god of separation; and wherever there is division and disunity, there is Satan." Therefore, all denominationalism is from Satan. Satan knows there is one true Church of Jesus Christ: the Holy Catholic Church which Jesus founded on the rock of Peter. But Satan floods the world with many churches so that people cannot recognize the "ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC CHURCH of Jesus Christ. Also, these churches do not claim to be the one true church of Jesus; but the Mormon church claims to be. They claim to have restored the priesthood of Jesus Christ which was never actually lost since the laying of hands upon the apostles. The Mormons also have a new New Testament: the Book of Mormon so that it will water down the two books written by the Holy Spirit: the Old and the New Testaments. But if Satan can introduce a third Testament, then he has won a significant advantage because the Book of Mormon is not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Also, the Koran is claimed by Muslims to be the Word of God but it says that Jesus did not die on the cross but only had a substitute die in His place. Therefore there is no need for the Resurrection of Jesus nor to believe in the cross as part of out redemption. Please let me state: the Mormon and Muslims are holy people who love God/Allah; but their scriptures are not inspired by the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit cannot inspire something diametrically opposed to what He inspired in His Old and New Testaments. The Holy Spirit cannot inspire opposite doctrines. Also, after St. John wrote God's Book of Revelation, there were no more scriptual revelation of God. There would be prophetic words through the saints over the next 2000 years but there would never be another Holy Scriptural work aftr St. John's Book of Revelation. How we as Christians can bring UNITY to the world is first of all love our Mormon and Muslims brothers and sisters...our Prostestant brothers and sisters and withness to them in love the truth but showing them how we are truly recognized: "See how they love one another."
Adam and Eve when expelled from the Garden of Happiness and Grace, they were given HOPE in that they were promised that a Messiah would come, atone for their sins and bring them back to Paradise - complete HAPPINESS.
Well, not we have seen how Paradise was lost. All of the above is a summary of UNHAPPINESS got here to this earth. So, now with darkened wills and misdirection as how to find happiness, here below are the four levels of happines that we mortals seek and a few examples of each:
Level One Happiness: Living for Physical Pleasure:
This envolves excessive compulsions without regard to any morality. In the Old Testament, King David had 1000 wives and 300 concubines. Was he happy or satisfied? He was not because he wanted Bathsheba, another man's wife. 1300 women were not enough for him because the nature of level one happiness is that it is never satisfied and only wants more and more. In this sense, Hugh Hefner will never be truly happy. Actually, sex with 1300 women will not satisfiy because the soul has a transcental nature to it. It wants more and more because all the women in the world will not satisfy what the transcendental soul really wants: The Beatific Vision of God. The more and more of physical pleasure is examplified by the PlayBoy Mansion that had to bring in animals for sexual pleasure because human copulation became boring. All physical pleasure, once it is over, cannot be remembered. Thoughts about it are vague and not real like the experience. That is why there are nymphomaniacs. They want to live in a constant state of orgasmic experience. They cannot get enought and will not ever be able to because it is their soul that is seeking for happiness not their body. The movie Alfie has a son: "What's all about Alfie"? Good question! Level One happiness is centered on "me being happy" - self centered not at all other centered. Leve One hapines is a total "ego trip"!
Level Two Happiness: Finding Satisfaction in Success:
This happiness envolves feeling good about having achieved something great. But it has a lot of delusions to it. How many business men who have climbed the corporate ladder and worked themselves to the bone for 40 years for a Company that just forgest about them when they retire. What was it all for? So many men have lost their marriages, children for spending too much time for the Corporate Ladder while their own home ladde crumbles into ruin. Raymond Burr who was a good man told in an interview that his divorce came from spending too much time on the set instead of in the arms of his wife. He bitterly regretted it. Yet, Gary Grant - after his daughter was born in his later years - stayed home completely. He gave up his career in films totally to be home with his little girl. He stayed close to her daily until he died when she was at the age of 19. He got it together: gave up making 40 more films to stay and be the Best Dad ever. He was as charming off screen as on screen. He did not make the mistake of putting career happiness before family happiness. Who else lived a completely Level Two existence? Most notable were these two: Napoleon and Htiler. They thought they had to be better than anyone ever was. Their happiness was in dominating others and controlling the lives of others...even by taking the lives of others. This is a corporate ladder called "emperorism". Did both of them become happy? Neither did. Both ended up in the prison they fashioned for themselves. In doing their thing to find happiness, millions died. People on Level Two identify themselves with their work title: Emperor" When that title is taken away, they consider themselves a nobody. There were really somebody before they became emperor. They were children of God - made in His image and likeness. Becoming emperor is like making tattoos all over your body. The body does not need anything to make it beutiful. It is beautiful. So, too, men do not have to become emperors or CEO's to be somebody. They were somebody the moment they were conceived. So, Level Two happiness is like Level One: totally self centered to make oneself feel good: a total "ego trip" - just a little more sophistocated. That will not satitisfy the human heart to find happiness in God and in loving others for God.
But some success is God-given not man-given: The life of Thomas More, chancellor of England. He even said as to his office: "Better me than Cromwell". So Sir Thomas More wanted to be Chancellor to bring good to that office instead of letting Cromwell corrupt it. But notice, St. Thomas More did not seek that office. The King appointed him to it. But St. Thomas More gave it up in a New England moment when that office came between him and God.
Level Three Happiness: Living the Eight Beatitudes:
Jesus said "Happy are those who..." - the word "Beatitude" comes from the Latin word: "Beatus" - "Happy". Mother Teresa lived the Eight Beatitudes perfectly. Was she happy? If you look at the US stamp that bears her image, you will see a woman completely happy. But actually, she was completely happy because of Level Four. But understand that Level Three is completely other centered. Still, it alone will not make us completely happy because even doing charity to others is limited. It cannot fill the soul completely; but it comes very close. Our souls need something completely transcendent to be completely happy.
Level Four Happiness: Living a Total Surrender to God Unconditional Love. This life is totally transcendent and based on Trusting in God's Unconditional Providential Love for us and for others we love. Who comes to mind here is St. Francis of Assisi. He has inspired millions that came after him to trust in God completely. Yes, he did find joy and happiness in living the Eight Beatitudes given to us by Jesus, Himself. Francis' love for the poor has caused Franciscan Orders to care for the poor much like Mother Teresa has done. But St. Francis and Blessed Mother Teresa went so much father then the Beatitudes. They let themselves go by totally surrendering themselves go into the Arms of God. They were mystics: had extraodinary intimacy with God in this world. Mystical Prayer is the Unitive Way, the Seventh Mansion of St. Teresa of Avila. Here we have the mystical reflections of the souls union with God as prefigured in the Song of Songs: the mystical union of the soul and God in a spiritual marriage. God always used the marriage covenant to show His intimate love for Israel. He does that with us as well. St. John of the Cross also taught us that the Song of Songs was a model of God's love for us. Isaiah said of God's love for us: "I will espouse you to me..forever...As a young man marries a virgin, so your Maker will marry you. And as a young man delights in his bride, so shall the Lord delight in you."
Marriage, therefore, is the very model and sign of how God loves us. Also, in all literature: pagan and Christian, we see a pursuite of happiness in a true in-love-relationship that leads to "they lived happily ever after". Notice the elements of this human dream: "living happily" and for "ever after". These two elements are what all marriages hope for. Even if the formula says: "for better or worse until death do we part", there is a hope in the human soul that wants this relationship to continue even into heaven. Not that it will be sexual but that it will be soulfully close forever. Indeed this is possible. It is said by theologians that "Cana is forever." This can be very true in the sense that spouses are close in heaven and see one another in love who got each other to heaven. Gratitude and love will be forever in their case. But marriages that are selfish or adulterous cannot hope to have such a relationship in heaven - unless of course there is complete repentance and forgiveness so that the couple is restored to its original luster and even possibly deeper. I know a woman who not only forgave her adulterous husband but converted him to Christ. He died a saint. You can be sure this couple will be close in heaven.
So, is a happy marriage of a true love the answer to our quest for happiness. Romance novels say so. But in everything on earth even a good and holy marriage, there will be the cross. Even St. Joseph and Mary had their cross to carry: Mary being pregnant just before they got married; the flight into Egypt to avoid Herod; losing Jesus for 3 days; Joseph dying before Jesus starts His public life; Mary under the cross. Yes, even when Adam and Eve sinned, God did not take away the gift of holy marriage from them. That He would not do. As to all of us, Jesus says,"Set out into the deep!" - in our marriages and in our spiritual jouney to Him and His Father in the Holy Spirit.
There are four kinds of marriage:
1) Nuptual human love between one man and one woman called the sacrament of Matrimony. This is the vocation from God for most the people on the earth. But even in the perfect marriage, there will be a cross. Also, the spouse cannot fill completely the needs of the other spouse because when God made us, lest a special place in our heart that ony He can fill. No person can fill that space in our heart. But marriage can bring the most loving caresses and love we will ever receive from anyone human person on this earth in our short lives. The love given and received in marriage is really a manisfestation of the Divine love for us.
2) Virginal love of nuns to Jesus; this is a spiritual spousal love here which Jesus says are the five wise virgins who will go into the Marriage Feast of the Lamb with Jesus on the Last day. Nuns get married to Jesus to find happiness and to give Jesus happiness.
3) Priests are married to Jesus and His Church. They are bonded to Jesus in their priesthood and love for His Bride: the Church.
4) Every soul who is married to Jesus as His Bride the Church - laymen/women/religious - because all who are in Christ are His Bride the Church. On earth, this marriage can attain the intimacy of infused contemplation and even ecstasy. St. Teresa of Avila attained this union with Jesus, this intimacy that words cannot express.
IN all these Holy Marriages in the Spirit, our last total end is to be with Jesus and the Father in the Holy Spirit is the very reason we were created: Only in God is our perfect happiness. Therefore, this Level Four Happiness is True Happiness we all seek. We were made for this happiness. In heaven, we will have the Beatific [Happy] Vision of God, face to face. Let us begin to have it here and now..but total surrender of our lives to God. Amen.
Father "with You we shall always be!" In Your arms we shall always be." Help us to trust You now to help us to arrive safely in Your arms to live happily ever after. In Your arms is what You have destined us for.
Help us to be happy here by doing all for You, in You and with You. Keep us from pursuing any false happpiness that endangers our souls. Give us true happiness here and in heaven with You. In Jesus Name we pray through the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Love, Pio
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