Matthew, Chapter 2, Verse 21-22
21 He rose, took the child and his mother,
and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was
ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back
there. And because he had been warned in a dream, he departed for the region of
Galilee.
To Joseph the gift of
dreams and visions was given but to some is giving the gift of tongues. To
which many years ago (40 to be exact February 1975) at the birth of my first
born daughter I had gone to the Gunpowder Inn, in Bermuda, to
celebrate her birth, with a couple of Native American friends. At the time
I was in the Navy Seabees and we worked together.
When I had got there,
all of the sudden, I got an overwhelming feeling that I needed to speak in
tongues to P. Graves and I did. I felt stupid and fearful but I spoke to him in
languages I knew not and used sign, too. He told me I used 800 year old
languages that only a handful of people knew. The simple message from Christ
was that he (P. Graves) who was the last living war chief of the Blackfoot
tribe was not to assume his chieftainship and to let his son become chief or
otherwise there would be much blood.
I never heard from P.
Graves again after 1974 but as far as I know; no Blackfoot, has participated in
any Wounded Knee violence.
Wounded
Knee: Trouble continues at Pine Ridge
The troubles at Wounded Knee were not over after the
siege. A virtual civil war broke out between the opposing Indian factions on
the Pine Ridge reservation, and a series of beatings, shootings and murders
left more than 100 Indians dead. When two FBI agents were killed in a 1975 gunfight,
the agency raided the reservation and arrested AIM leader Leonard Peltier for
the crime. The FBI crackdown coupled with AIM’s own excesses ended its
influence at Pine Ridge. In 1977, Peltier was convicted of killing the two FBI
agents and sentenced to life in prison. To this day, Peltier’s supporters
continue to maintain his innocence and seek a presidential pardon for him.[1]
Time After Pentecost[2]
As both the Bible and
Church Fathers attest, there are several distinct periods of sacred history.
These periods arise, are given their own set of dispensations, and then
disappear. The age before the Law was replaced by the age under it, and that
age, in turn, was closed during the time that Jesus Christ walked the face of
the earth. Likewise, the age of divine revelation (which ended at the death of
the last Apostle) gave way to a different era, the era immediately preceding
the Second Coming. It is that era in which we now find ourselves. Despite the
expanse of two thousand years and the plethora of cultural and technological
changes that separate us from the Christians who outlived the Beloved Disciple,
we are still living in the same age as they,
the last age of mankind.
Whit Monday[3]
By what has God most
shown the greatness of His love?
By giving up His only-begotten Son to the
most painful and ignominious death, that we, the guilty, might be delivered from
eternal death, and have life everlasting.
If, then, so many
are lost, is it the fault of God?
No:
as the physician gives up only the incurable, so God condemns only those who believe
not in Christ as their Savior and God; who love darkness, that is, the principles
and works which correspond to their corrupt inclinations; who despise Jesus, the
light of the world, and His doctrines; who neglect the divine service, the
public instructions, and the reception of the holy sacraments; who take this licentious
life for wisdom and enlightenment; who refuse to be taught, and have pronounced
their own condemnation, even before the final judgment.
Why should we love
God? Because
He has loved us from eternity: He loved us when as yet we were not. If we love him
who does us some good, who helps us in need, or exposes himself to danger for our
sake, how much more should we love Him Who has given us all that we have: the
angels to be our guards, the sun, moon, and stars to be our light ; the earth to
be our dwelling-place ; the elements, plants, and animals to supply our necessary
wants, and to serve for our advantage and enjoyment ; Who continually pre serves
us and protects us from countless dangers ; Who has subjected Himself for our sake,
not merely to the danger of His life, but to the most painful and humiliating
death ; Who forgives all our sins, heals all our infirmities, redeems our life from
destruction, and crowns us with compassion and mercy.
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