Untitled

Know the Story

The Rescue Project

Story Guide

Revised Edition

Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the

ESV® Catholic Edition (ESV-CE). The ESV® Catholic Edition was

published in the United States in 2019 by the Augustine Institute.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmied in any form by any means—electronic,

mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without prior

permission in writing from the publisher.

Layout by Jacqueline L. Challiss Hill ~ JDetailsLLC.com

Cover Image: ACTS XXIX

Image Credits: 4PM Media

hps://rescueproject.us

Synopsis: The Story Guide is a companion resource for The

Rescue Project that equips participants to engage in small group

discussion over the eight week sessions.

ISBN: 978-1-7364920-6-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022908620

Printed in The United States of America

Published by ACTS XXIX Press

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Livonia, MI 48152

actsxxix.org | pr[email protected]g

Table of Contents

Chapter One (Week 1): The Importance of Stories ........................... 1

Created

Chapter Two (Week 2): Why Is There Something Rather than

Nothing? ......................................................................................................... 9

Captured

Chapter Three (Week 3): The Enemy Is the Enemy ........................21

Chapter Four (Week 4): It Gets Worse ..............................................31

Rescued

Chapter Five (Week 5): Why Did Jesus Come? ...............................41

Chapter Six (Week 6): What Dierence Does It Make? ...............67

Response: Retreat

Chapter Seven (Week 7): Words Are Not Enough ..........................79

Chapter Eight (Week 7): What Does He Want from Me? ............. 85

Response: Mobilize

Chapter Nine (Week 8): Geing Clari on the Mission ................97

Bibliography .......................................................................................114-115

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Chapter One

The Importance of Stories

“This is how stories work. They invite listeners into a new

world and encourage them to make it their own, to see

their ordinary world from now on through this lens, within

this grid.”

1

- N.T. Wright,

Jesus and the Victory of God

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For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power

of God for salvation…

Romans 1:16

THEMES

The Four Big Questions

• Why is there something, rather than nothing?

• Why is everything so messed up?

• What, if anything, has God done about it?

• And if he’s done anything, how should I respond?

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• What is the story that gives me meaning, purpose,

and guides my life?

• What is my image of God?

• Where did that image of God come from?

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SUGGESTED READING

Sophia Consulting. Christian Cosmic Narrative: The

Deep History of the World, 2021.

Riccardo, Fr. John. Rescued: The Unexpected and Ex-

traordinary News of the Gospel, 2020.

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1. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 176.

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Created | Captured | Rescued | Response

Chapter Two

Why Is There Something

Rather than Nothing?

“Either all individual things are the product of evolution,

including man, or else they are not… Of course, the ques-

tion remains open whether being … has a meaning and it

cannot be decided within the theory of evolution itself; for

that theory this is a methodologically foreign question, al-

though of course for a live human being it is the fundamen-

tal question on which the whole thing depends.”

2

- Joseph Ratzinger,

Credo for Today: What Christians Believe

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THE GRACE: Wonder and Awe

And God made the two great lights, the greater light

to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night; he

made the stars also.

3

Genesis 1:16

THEMES

The Biblical Story

• There is one God.

• He is good.

• He creates out of love (and not need).

• He creates eortlessly.

• The human person is the highlight of everything

that he creates.

• We are made in his image and likeness.

• We are made for friendship, love, and communion

with God and with each other.

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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• How does pondering the grandeur of creation instill

a sense of wonder and awe in my life?

How or why?

• Is my image of God changing? Yes or No? Explain.

• What’s causing me anxie right now? How does the

God of the biblical story impact that?

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RESOURCES

Catechism of the Catholic Church 295-301:

“The Mystery of Creation”

295 We believe that God created the world according

to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessi

whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that

it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his

creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness:

“For you created all things, and by your will they existed

and were created.” Therefore, the Psalmist exclaims:

“O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you

have made them all”; and “The LORD is good to all, and

his compassion is over all that he has made.”

God creates “out of nothing”

296 We believe that God needs no pre-existent thing or

any help in order to create, nor is creation any sort of

necessary emanation from the divine substance. God

creates freely “out of nothing”:

If God had drawn the world from pre-existent maer,

what would be so extraordinary in that?

A human artisan makes from a given material whatever

he wants, while God shows his power by starting from

nothing to make all he wants.

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297 Scripture bears witness to faith in creation “out of

nothing” as a truth full of promise and hope. Thus, the

mother of seven sons encourages them for marrdom:

I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It

was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in

order the elements within each of you. Therefore, the

Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man

and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give

life and breath back to you again, since you now forget

yourselves for the sake of his laws… Look at the heaven

and the earth and see everything that is in them, and

recognize that God did not make them out of things that

existed. Thus, also mankind comes into being.

298 Since God could create everything out of nothing,

he can also, through the Holy Spirit, give spiritual life to

sinners by creating a pure heart in them, and bodily life

to the dead through the Resurrection. God “gives life

to the dead and calls into existence the things that do

not exist” and since God was able to make light shine in

darkness by his Word, he can also give the light of faith

to those who do not yet know him.

God creates an ordered and good world

299 Because God creates through wisdom, his creation

is ordered: “You have arranged all things by measure

and number and weight.” The universe, created in and

by the eternal Word, the “image of the invisible God,” is

destined for and addressed to man, himself created in

the “image of God” and called to a personal relationship

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with God. Our human understanding, which shares in

the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God

tells us by means of his creation, though not without

great eort and only in a spirit of humili and respect

before the Creator and his work. Because creation

comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares in that

goodness– “and God saw that it was good… very good”–

for God willed creation as a gi addressed to man, an

inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many

occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness

of creation, including that of the physical world.

God transcends creation and is present to it

300 God is inﬁnitely greater than all his works: “You

have set your glory above the heavens.” Indeed, God’s

“greatness is unsearchable.” But because he is the free

and sovereign Creator, the ﬁrst cause of all that exists,

God is present to his creatures’ inmost being: “In him

we live and move and have our being.” In the words of

St. Augustine, God is “higher than my highest and more

inward than my innermost self.”

God upholds and sustains creation

301 With creation, God does not abandon his

creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being

and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds

and sustains them in being, enables them to act and

brings them to their ﬁnal end. Recognizing this uer

dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of

wisdom and freedom, of joy and conﬁdence:

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For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the

things that you have made; for you would not have made

anything if you had hated it. How would anything have

endured, if you had not willed it? Or how would anything

not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare

all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the

living.

4

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SUGGESTED READING

Johnston, George. “How to Read the First Chapters of

Genesis.” Lay Witness, 1998.

Kree, Peter. You Can Understand the Bible, 2005.

Documents of Vatican II. “Dogmatic Constitution on

Divine Revelation.” Dei Verbum, 1965.

Pope Benedict XVI. “In the Beginning…”: A Catholic

Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, 2013.

___________________________________________________________________

2. Ratzinger, Credo for Today: What Christians Believe, 37.

3. Gen. 1:16 RSV.

4. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 295-301: “The Mystery of Creation”.

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Chapter Three

The Enemy Is the Enemy

“The sight of these happy creatures ﬁlled the devil and his

fallen angels with anger and envy. They took thought as to

how they might mar the work of God and destroy the des-

tiny of this newly created race. They set about to enslave

those whom they had been meant to serve and to degrade

those who had been assigned such an exalted place into

the lowly slime beneath their feet.”

5

- Sophia Consulting,

The Christian Cosmic Narrative

Created | Captured | Rescued | Response

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THE GRACE: Light

But by the envy of the devil, Death entered the world,

and those who are in his possession experience it.

6

Wisdom 2:24

THEMES

The Enemy: Five Key Questions

• Who is he?

• Why did he rebel?

• What’s his lie?

• What are his tactics?

• What’s his goal for my life?

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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• Where is the enemy accusing me right now?

• What lie is crippling me right now?

• Where is the enemy causing division in my life right

now?

• Where is the enemy ﬂaering my ego right now?

• What temptation is strongest in my life right now?

• Where am I most discouraged right now?

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RESOURCES

Catechism of the Catholic Church 391-395:

“The Fall of the Angels”

391 Behind the disobedient choice of our ﬁrst parents

lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes

them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the

Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called

“Satan” or the “devil.” The Church teaches that Satan

was at ﬁrst a good angel, made by God: “The devil and

the other demons were indeed created naturally good

by God, but they became evil by their own doing.”

392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This “fall”

consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who

radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign.

We ﬁnd a reﬂection of that rebellion in the tempter’s

words to our ﬁrst parents: “You will be like God.” The

devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and

the father of lies.”

393 It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and

not a defect in the inﬁnite divine mercy, that makes the

angels’ sin unforgivable. “There is no repentance for

the angels aer their fall, just as there is no repentance

for men aer death.”

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394 Scripture witnesses to the disastrous inﬂuence of

the one Jesus calls “a murderer from the beginning,”

who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission

received from his Father. “The reason the Son of God

appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” In

its consequences the gravest of these works was the

mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.

395 The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not inﬁnite.

He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he

is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent

the building up of God’s reign. Although Satan may act

in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in

Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave

injuries–of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a

physical nature–to each man and to socie, the action

is permied by divine providence which with strength

and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a

great mystery that providence should permit diabolical

activi, but “we know that in everything God works for

good with those who love him.”

7

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SUGGESTED READING

Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Leers, 1942.

Spitzer, Fr. Robert. Christ and Satan in Our

Daily Lives, 2020.

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5. Sophia Consulting, The Christian Cosmic Narrative, 23.

6. Lectionary for Mass, 2002, Wisdom 2:24.

7. Catechism of the Catholic Church 391-395: “The Fall of the Angels.”

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Chapter Four

It Gets Worse

“The controlling metaphor of this section is slavery and

freedom. Paul paints a black-or-white picture of the hu-

man situation: either one lives in service to sin and re-

mains in spiritual bondage, or one lives in obedience to

God and enjoys liberation from sin’s captivi. It is a stark

either-or: no fence-siing, no third option.”

8

- Dr. Sco Hahn,

Commentary on Romans

Created | Captured | Rescued | Response

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THE GRACE: Despair

When a strongman, fully armed, guards his own palace,

his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he

aacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his

armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.

Luke 11:21-22

THEMES

The Strongman Parable

• The strongman – the enemy

• His palace – the world

• His goods – humankind

• The stronger one – Jesus

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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• What am I thinking and feeling right now?

• Did God reveal something new to me about how the

enemy works in my life?

• How does the Biblical Story’s vision that the enemy is

the enemy (and that he divides and accuses) change

the way I think about what is happening around me

right now?

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RESOURCES

Catechism of the Catholic Church 396-401:

“Original Sin”

Freedom put to the test

396 God created man in his image and established

him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live

this friendship only in free submission to God. The

prohibition against eating “of the tree of the knowledge

of good and evil” spells this out: “for in the day that you

eat of it, you shall die.” The “tree of the knowledge of

good and evil” symbolically evokes the insurmountable

limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize

and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his

Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the

moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

Man’s ﬁrst sin

397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator

die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed

God’s command. This is what man’s ﬁrst sin consisted

of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward

God and lack of trust in his goodness.

398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by

that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and

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against God, against the requirements of his creaturely

status and therefore against his own good. Created in a

state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized”

by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be

like God,” but “without God, before God, and not in

accordance with God.”

399 Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of

this ﬁrst disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose

the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of

the God of whom they have conceived a distorted im-

age–that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.

400 The harmony in which they had found themselves,

thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the

control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body

is shaered; the union of man and woman becomes

subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked

by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is

broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile

to man. Because of man, creation is now subject “to its

bondage to decay.” Finally, the consequence explicitly

foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will

“return to the ground,” for out of it he was taken.

Death makes its entrance into human history

401 Aer that ﬁrst sin, the world is virtually inundated

by sin. There is Cain’s murder of his brother Abel and

the universal corruption which follows in the wake

of sin. Likewise, sin frequently manifests itself in the

history of Israel, especially as inﬁdeli to the God of the

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Covenant and as transgression of the Law of Moses.

And even aer Christ’s atonement, sin raises its head

in countless ways among Christians. Scripture and the

Church’s Tradition continually recall the presence and

universali of sin in man’s history:

What Revelation makes known to us is conﬁrmed by our

own experience. For when man looks into his own heart

he ﬁnds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk

in many evils which cannot come from his good creator.

Oen refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man

has also upset the relationship which should link him to

his last end, and at the same time he has broken the

right order that should reign within himself as well as

between himself and other men and all creatures.

9

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SUGGESTED READING

Rutledge, Fleming. The Cruciﬁxion: Understanding the

Death of Jesus, 2015.

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8. Hahn, Commentary on Romans, 102.

9. Catechism of the Catholic Church 396-401: “Original Sin.”

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Chapter Five

Why Did Jesus Come?

“Lord God Almigh, who sent Your Only Begoen Son to

endow humankind, imprisoned in slavery to Sin, with the

freedom of Your sons and daughters, we pray most hum-

bly for these children, whom You know will experience the

allurements of this world, and will ﬁght against the snares

of the devil: by the power of the Passion and Resurrection

of Your Son deliver them now from the stain of Original

Sin, strengthen them with the grace of Christ, and guard

them always on their journey through life.”

10

- Baptismal Ritual of the Catholic Church

Created | Captured | Rescued | Response

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THE GRACE: Light

For thus says the Lord:

“Even the captives of the migh shall be taken, and

the prey of the rant be rescued, for I will contend

with those who contend with you, and I will save your

children. . . .Then all ﬂesh shall know that I am the Lord

your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Migh One of

Jacob.”

Isaiah 49:25-26

THEMES

What was Jesus doing on the cross?

1. Showing us the love of the Father.

2. Making atonement; becoming Sin.

3. Going to war to rescue us.

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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• What am I thinking and how am I feeling now?

• How does the story of Jesus as a warrior coming

to rescue me change how I see him?

• Does understanding that Jesus didn’t only do this for

me change how I see and treat others?

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RESOURCES

The Greatest Philosopher Who Ever Lived, Peter Kree.

“The ﬁrst question a child asks about a story is: What is

it about? Is it a love story, a war story, an adventure sto-

ry, a psychological drama, or what? The question pre-

supposes that there is an answer to it and that the au-

thor of the story knows the answer, that he is in charge,

that he knows what kind of story he is telling…

“In one sense, the story of human history is a love sto-

ry. But in a fallen world, a love story is always also a war

story. In fact, the single fundamental theme of every

story since the Fall has always been the war between

good and evil. That is the theme of the Bible, especially

in the last book, Revelation, which symbolically summa-

rizes and interprets all the lile stories in terms of the

big story…

“God Himself announces this theme, within the story it-

self. For this God, unlike the God of deism, reveals Him-

self to us. In fact, he makes himself a character in the

story as well as being the transcendent Author of it…

“Immediately aer the Fall, which is the beginning of hu-

man history, he announces the theme of his story, of

history. It is war: ‘I will put enmi [war] between you [Sa-

tan] and the Woman [Eve]…’

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“This is the ﬁrst Gospel, the ‘proto-evangelium.’

Strange as it sounds, the Gospel is a war story. No one

can read the four Gospels alertly and intelligently and

open-mindedly without seeing that. The ‘liberal’ point

that Jesus was simply to teach love is about as accu-

rate as the idea that the purpose of Adolf Hitler was to

create world peace. For in a fallen world, the only way

that there can be love is for there to be war. Love wars.

Love ﬁghts. Ask any mother, in any species of mammal,

especially homo sapiens.

“Christ versus Antichrist, the Ci of God versus the

Ci of This World, the Holy Spirit and His angels ver-

sus the Devil and his fallen angels, light versus darkness,

good versus evil - that is the plot…

“The warfare, of course, is spiritual in its root and in

its essence. ‘We are not contending against ﬂesh and

blood, but against the principalities, against the powers,

against the world rulers of this present darkness’ (Eph.

6:12).”

11

Selected Writings of the Early Church

Fathers on the Paschal Mystery

St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 50-110)

There was concealed from the ruler of this world the

virgini of Mary and the birth of our Lord, and the three

renowned mysteries which were done in the tranquili-

 of God from the star. And here, at the manifestation

of the Son, magic began to be destroyed, and all bonds

were loosed; and the ancient kingdom and the error

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of evil was destroyed. Henceforward all things were

moved together, and the destruction of death was de-

vised, and there was the commencement of that which

was perfected in God.

12

________

St. Justin Marr (c. 100-165)

Christ became man by the Virgin, in order that the

disobedience that proceeded from the serpent might

receive its destruction in the same manner in which it

derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and unde-

ﬁled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought

forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary re-

ceived faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced

the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would

come upon her, and the power of the Highest would

overshadow her: wherefore also the Holy Thing be-

goen of her is the Son of God; and she replied, “Be it

unto me according to Thy word” (Lk 1:38). And by her

has He been born, to Whom we have proved so many

Scriptures refer, and by Whom God destroys both the

serpent and those angels and men who are like him.

13

________

St. Melito of Sardis (c. 120-185)

Who is he who contends with Me? Let him stand in op-

position to Me. I set the condemned man free; I gave

the dead man life; I raised up the one who had been en-

tombed. Who is My opponent? I, He says, am the Christ.

I am the One who destroyed death, and triumphed over

the enemy, and trampled Hades under foot, and bound

the strong one, and carried o man to the heights of

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heaven. I, he says, am the Christ. This is the alpha and

the omega. This is the beginning and the end—an inde-

scribable beginning and an incomprehensible end. This

is the Christ. This is the King. This is Jesus. This is the

General. This is the Lord. This is the One who rose up

from the dead. This is the One who sits at the right hand

of the Father.

14

________

St. Irenaeus (c. 130-202)

Let us, then, put the question again: For what purpose

did Christ come down from heaven?

Answer: “That He might destroy sin, overcome death,

and give life to man.” By the side of this pregnant say-

ing we will set another, chosen from among many sim-

ilar passages, which develops the dramatic idea in full-

er detail: “Man had been created by God that he might

have life. If now, having lost life, and having been harmed

by the serpent, he were not to return to life, but were

to be wholly abandoned to death, then God would have

been defeated, and the malice of the serpent would

have overcome God’s will. But since God is both invin-

cible and magnanimous, he showed his magnanimi in

correcting man, and in proving all men, as we have said;

but through the Second Man he bound the strong one,

and spoiled his goods, and annihilated death, bringing

life to man who had become subject to death. For Adam

had become the devil’s possession, and the devil held

him under his power, by having wrongfully practiced de-

ceit upon him, and by the oer of immortali made him

subject to death. For by promising that they should be

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as gods, which did not lie in his power, he worked death

in them. Wherefore he who had taken man captive was

himself taken captive by God, and man who had been

taken captive was set free from the bondage of con-

demnation.”

“The Word of God,” he says, “was made ﬂesh in order

that He might destroy death and bring man to life; for

we were tied and bound in sin, we were born in sin and

live under the dominion of death.”

15

St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395)

He was about to engage him who had taken human na-

ture prisoner and was about to loosen death’s bonds;

by having destroyed the last enemy [cf. 1 Cor. 15:26], he

might restore mankind to freedom and peace.

In order to secure that the ransom in our behalf might

be easily accepted by him who required it, the Dei was

hidden under the veil of our nature, that so, as with rav-

enous ﬁsh, the hook of the Dei might be gulped down

along with the bait of ﬂesh, and thus, life being intro-

duced into the house of death, and light shining in dark-

ness, that which is diametrically opposed to light and life

might vanish; for it is not in the nature of darkness to

remain when light is present, or of death to exist when

life is active.

16

________

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St. Augustine (c.354-430)

The devil jumped for joy when Christ died; and by the

very death of Christ the devil was overcome: he took,

as it were, the bait in the mousetrap. He rejoiced at the

death, thinking himself death’s commander. But that

which caused his joy dangled the bait before him. The

Lord’s cross was the devil’s mousetrap: the bait which

caught him was the death of the Lord.

The next verse explains something of the reason why

so much honor should be paid to him, and why all nations

should serve him: He has delivered the needy from the

rant, that poor person who had no other champion.

This needy and poor person is the people that believes

in him, and within this people are kings who worship him.

They are not too proud to be needy and poor, which

means humbly acknowledging that they are sinners and

in need of the glory of God, so that the true King, the Son

of the King, may free them from the powerful foe. Pow-

erful indeed he is who has been called the accuser. Yet

it was not his own strength that brought men and wom-

en into subjection to this powerful rant, and kept them

there in captivi, but human sins. The powerful rant

is also called in scripture “the strong man,” but Christ,

who humiliated the accuser, also broke into the strong

man’s domain to bind him and seize his possessions.

Christ is the one who has delivered the needy from the

rant, that poor person who had no other champion,

for no one else had the strength to accomplish that–

no righteous person nor even any angel. There was no

champion at all, therefore; but Christ came and saved

them.

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Having despoiled the devil, Christ distributes his gis to

beauti the Church. The psalm proceeds: It is the Be-

loved’s part also to divide the spoils for the beau of the

house. The word Beloved is repeated for emphasis. But

in fact it is not all the codices that have this repetition,

and the more exact among them preﬁx a star to it. Such

signs are called asterisks, and they inform us that the

passages so marked are present in the Hebrew, but not

in the interpretation by the Septuagint. But whether we

think Beloved was repeated, or was wrien once only, I

think we must take the words that follow it, to divide the

spoils for the beau of the house, in the sense, it is the

Beloved’s part also to divide the spoils for the beau of

the house; that is, he was chosen also for the division

of the spoils. Undoubtedly the Church which Christ has

created is a beautiful house, and he has adorned it by

distributing his spoils to it, as a body is made beautiful by

the due distribution of its limbs. Now the word “spoils” is

used of goods seized from vanquished enemies, and the

gospel throws light on this passage by saying, No one

can get into a strong man’s house and carry o his im-

plements, unless he has tied up the strong man ﬁrst (Mt.

12:29). Christ tied up the devil with spiritual chains by

overcoming death and ascending from the underworld

to heaven; he bound the devil by the sacrament of his

incarnation, because although the devil found nothing in

Christ that deserved death, he was nonetheless allowed

to kill him. The consequence was that Christ tied up the

devil and took away his belongings as boo. These were

the unbelievers through whom the devil worked his will.

But the Lord cleansed these tools by forgiving their

sins; he le the enemy felled and chained, and sancti-

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ﬁed the spoils he had seized. He then assigned them to

their due places for the adornment of his own house,

appointing some to be apostles, some prophets, some

pastors and teachers for the work of ministry, for the

building up of the body of Christ.

We are thy servants, we are thy creatures: Thou hast

made us, thou hast redeemed us. Anyone can buy his

servant, create him he cannot; but the Lord hath both

created and redeemed his servants; created them, that

they might be; redeemed them, that they might not be

captives ever. For we fell into the hands of the prince

of this world, who seduced Adam, and made him his

servant, and began to possess us as his slaves. But the

Redeemer came, and the seducer was overcome. And

what did our Redeemer to him who held us captive? For

our ransom he held out his cross as a trap; he placed in

It as a bait his blood. He indeed had power to shed his

blood, he did not aain to drink it. And in that he shed

the blood of him who was no debtor, he was commanded

to render up the debtors; he shed the blood of the In-

nocent, he was commanded to withdraw from the guil.

He verily shed his blood to this end, that he might wipe

out our sins. That then whereby he held us fast was

eaced by the Redeemer’s blood. For he only held us

fast by the bonds of our own sins. They were the cap-

tive’s chains. He came, he bound the strong one with

the bonds of his passion; He entered into his house, into

the hearts, that is, of those where he did dwell, and took

away his vessels. We are his vessels. He had ﬁlled then

with his own bierness. This bierness too he pledged

to our Redeemer in the gall. He had ﬁlled us then as his

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vessels; but our Lord spoiling his vessels, and making

them his own, poured out the bierness, ﬁlled them with

sweetness.

17

________

St. Ephrem (c. 306-373)

Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn

treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submit-

ted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he

would be able to destroy death in spite of itself.

Death had its own way when our Lord went out from

Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry

from that cross he summoned the dead from the un-

derworld, death was powerless to prevent it.

Death slew him by means of the body which he had as-

sumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon

with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath

the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in

combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It

was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by

the life that is above the nature of man.

Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed

a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he

bore our ﬂesh; and so he came in search of a chariot

in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the

body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded

death’s fortress, broke open its strong-room and scat-

tered all its treasure.

18

________

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St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407)

Whosoever is pious and loves God, let him enjoy this

good and cheerful festival. Whosoever is a grateful ser-

vant, let him rejoice and enter into the joy of the Lord.

Whosoever is weary of fasting, let him now receive his

earnings. Whosoever has laboured from the ﬁrst hour,

let him today accept his just reward. Whosoever has

come aer the third hour, let him with thanksgiving take

part in the celebration. Whosoever has arrived aer

the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings, for he too shall

suer no loss. Whosoever has delayed until the ninth

hour, let him approach without hesitation. Whosoever

has arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not fear

the delay, for the Master is gracious: He receives the

last even as the ﬁrst; He gives rest to him that comes

at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that has laboured

from the ﬁrst; and to him that delayed he gives mercy,

and the ﬁrst he restores to health; to the one he gives,

to the other he bestows.

And he accepts the works, and embraces the contem-

plation; the deed he honours, and the intention he com-

mends.

Therefore let everyone enter into the joy of the Lord.

The ﬁrst and the last, receive your wages. Rich and

poor, dance with each other. The temperate and the

slothful, honour this day. Ye who have fasted and ye who

have not, rejoice this day. The table is fully laden; all of

you delight in it. The calf is plenteous, let no one depart

hungry. Let everyone enjoy this banquet of faith. Let ev-

eryone take pleasure in the wealth of goodness. Let no

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one lament his pover, for the universal kingdom has

appeared. Let no one bewail for his transgressions, for

forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear

death, for the Saviours death has set us free. He who

was held by death, eradicated death. He plundered Ha-

des when He descended into Hades. He embiered it,

when it tasted of his ﬂesh, and this being foretold by Isa-

iah when he cried: Hades said it was embiered, when

it encountered Thee below. Embiered, for it was abol-

ished. Embiered, for it was ridiculed. Embiered, for

it was put to death. Embiered, for it was dethroned.

Embiered, for it was made captive.

It received a body and by chance came face to face

with God. It received earth and encountered heaven. It

received that which it could see, and was overthrown

by him whom he could not see. Where, O death, is your

sting? Where, O Hades, is your victory? Christ is ris-

en, and thou art cast down. Christ is risen, and the de-

mons have fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.

Christ is risen, and life is liberated. Christ is risen, and

no one remains dead in a tomb. For Christ having risen

from the dead, has become the ﬁrst-fruits of those that

have fallen asleep. To him be glory and power, for ever

and ever.

Amen.

19

________

St. Leo the Great (c. 400-461)

When, therefore, the merciful and almigh Saviour so

arranged the commencement of His human course as

to hide the power of his Godhead which was insepara-

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ble from his manhood under the veil of our weakness,

the cra foe was taken o his guard and he thought

that the nativi of the child, who was born for the sal-

vation of mankind, was as much subject to himself as

all others are at their birth. For he saw him crying and

weeping, he saw him wrapped in swaddling clothes, sub-

jected to circumcision, oering the sacriﬁce which the

law required. And then he perceived in him the usual

growth of boyhood, and could have had no doubt of His

reaching man’s estate by natural steps.

Meanwhile, he inﬂicted insults, multiplied injuries, made

use of curses, aronts, blasphemies, abuse, in a word,

poured upon him all the force of his fury and exhaust-

ed all the varieties of trial: and knowing how he had poi-

soned man’s nature, had no conception that he had no

share in the ﬁrst transgression whose mortali he had

ascertained by so many proofs. The unscrupulous thief

and greedy robber persisted in assaulting Him Who

had nothing of his own, and in carrying out the general

sentence on original sin, went beyond the bond on which

he rested, and required the punishment of iniqui from

him in whom he found no fault. And thus the malevolent

terms of the deadly compact are annulled, and through

the injustice of an overcharge the whole debt is can-

celled. The strong one is bound by his own chains, and

every device of the evil one recoils on his own head.

When the prince of the world is bound, all that he held

in captivi is released. Our nature cleansed from its old

contagion regains its honourable estate, death is de-

stroyed by death, nativi is restored by nativi: since

at one and the same time redemption does away with

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slavery, regeneration changes our origin, and faith jus-

tiﬁes the sinner.

20

________

The Council of Chalcedon (451)

His birth in time in no way subtracts from or adds to that

divine and eternal birth of his: but its whole purpose is

to restore humani, who had been deceived, so that it

might defeat death and, by its power, destroy the devil

who held the power of death. Overcoming the originator

of sin and death would be beyond us, had not he whom

sin could not deﬁle, nor could death hold down, taken up

our nature and made it his own. He was conceived from

the Holy Spirit inside the womb of the virgin mother.

Her virgini was as untouched in giving him birth as it

was in conceiving him.

21

________

St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636)

The devil was deluded by the death of the Lord… for

through the visible mortali of his ﬂesh, Christ—whom

the devil was trying to kill—concealed his divini, like

a snare in which he might entangle him like an unwise

bird by a clever trick…The devil, although he aacked

the ﬂesh of the humani in Christ that was evident, was

captured as if by the ﬁshhook of his divini that was ly-

ing hidden. For there is in Christ the ﬁshhook of divini;

the food, however, is the ﬂesh; the ﬁshing line is the ge-

nealogy that is recited by the Gospel. Holding this ﬁsh-

ing line truly is God the Father.

22

________

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St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662)

His ﬂesh was set before that voracious, gaping dragon

as bait to provoke him: ﬂesh that would be deadly for

the dragon, for it would uerly destroy him by the pow-

er of the Godhead hidden within it. For human nature,

however, his ﬂesh was to be a remedy since the power

of the Godhead in it would restore human nature to its

original grace.

Just as the devil had poisoned the tree of knowledge

and spoiled our nature by its taste, so too, in presuming

to devour the Lord’s ﬂesh he himself is corrupted and

is completely destroyed by the power of the Godhead

hidden in it.

23

________

St. Bernard (c. 1090-1153)

He comes as an Infant, and without speech, for the voice

of the wailing infant arouses compassion, not terror. If

He is terrible to any, yet not to thee. He is become a

Lile One, his Virgin Mother swathes His tender limbs

with bands, and dost thou still tremble with fear? By this

weakness thou mayest know that He comes not to de-

stroy, but to save; not to bind, but to unbind. If He shall

take up the sword, it will be against thine enemies, and,

as the Power and the Wisdom of God, He will trample on

the necks of the proud and the migh. We have two en-

emies, sin and death—that is, the death of the soul and

the death of the body. Jesus comes to conquer both,

and to save us from both. Already he has vanquished sin

in his own person by assuming a human nature free from

the corruption of sin. For great violence was oered to

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sin, and it knew itself to be indeed subdued, when that

nature which it gloried to have wholly infected and pos-

sessed was found in Christ perfectly free from its do-

minion. Henceforth Christ will pursue our enemies, and

will seize them, and will not desist until they are over-

come in us. His whole mortal life was a war against sin.

He fought against it by word and example. But it was in

his passion that he came upon the strong man armed,

and bound him, and bore away his spoils.

Jesus Christ also conquers our second enemy, death.

He overcomes it ﬁrst in himself, when he rises from the

dead, the ﬁrst-fruits of them that sleep, and the ﬁrst-

born from the dead. Aerwards he will, in like man-

ner, vanquish death in all of us when He shall raise our

mortal bodies from the dust, and destroy this our last

enemy. Thus, when he rose from the dead, Jesus was

clothed in beau, not wrapped in swaddling-clothes as

at his birth. He that previously overﬂowed with mercy,

“judging no man,” girded himself in His resurrection with

the girdle of justice, and in so doing seemed in some de-

gree to restrain His superabundant mercy in order to

be thenceforth prepared for the judgment which is to

follow our future resurrection.

24

________

St. Bonaventure (c. 1221-1274)

Now that the combat of the passion was over, and the

bloody dragon and raging lion thought that he had se-

cured a victory by killing the Lamb, the power of the di-

vini began to shine forth in his soul as it descended

into hell. By this power our strong Lion of the tribe of

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Judah (Apoc. 5:5), rising against the strong man who

was fully armed (Luke 11:21), tore the prey away from

him, broke down the gates of hell and bound the ser-

pent. Disarming the Principalities and Powers, he led

them away boldly, displaying them openly in triumph in

himself (Col. 2:15). Then the Leviathan was led about

with a hook (Job 40:25), his jaw pierced by Christ so

that he who had no right over the Head which he had

aacked, also lost what he had seemed to have over

the body. Then the true Samson, as he died, laid pros-

trate an army of the enemy (cf. Judges 16:30). Then the

Lamb without stain by the blood of his Testament led

forth the prisoners from the pit in which there was no

water (Zach. 9:11).

Then the long-awaited brightness of a new light shone

upon those that dwelt in the region of the shadow of

death (Isa. 9:2).

25

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QUESTION:

Did the devil know who Jesus was?

This oen causes confusion, as it appears as though

he does. Comments in the Gospels like, “We know who

you are, the holy one of God,” or “If you are the Son of

God,” seem to indicate that the devil and or the demons

knew him. But this is not true. For one thing, love and hu-

mili are literally beyond hell’s way of thinking, and God

becoming ﬂesh in the person of Jesus is the utmost in

love and humili. Too, expressions like “holy one of God”

or “Son of God” were common ways among the Jewish

people of referring to the Messiah, who was not at all

expected to be a divine person but rather a man.

Frank Sheed, in his book To Know Christ Jesus, puts it

this way: “I think it was of the ﬁrst urgency to ﬁnd out

what ‘son of God’ meant. It had been used in the Old

Testament as a name for the Messiah (Ps. 2:7).

But did he know what it meant? ‘Son of God’ had been

variously used in the Old Testament–of the chosen peo-

ple, for instance (Ex 4:22), and, in the plural, of the Jew-

ish judges (Ps 81:6). Satan knew his Old Testament, but

the book of Job he must have scrutinized for special

closeness, for so much of it was about a certain Satan

and the high carnival he had at Job’s expense. In that

book (1:6, 2:1, 38:7) ‘sons of God’ meant the unfallen an-

gels. Satan may well have weighed the possibili that the

Messiah might be an angel, entering in some unforesee-

able way into humani for “the crushing of his head.”

26

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___________________________________________________________________

10. Baptismal Ritual of the Catholic Church, 158.

11. Kree, The Greatest Philosopher Who Ever Lived, 247-248.

12.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, “The Second Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians,” 102.

13. St. Justin Marr, “Dialogue with Trypho,” 100.

14. St. Melito of Sardis, “Sermon on The Passover.”

15. St. Irenaeus, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching.

16. St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, ch. XXIV.

17. St. Augustine, “Expositions of the Psalms 51-72,” 464-465.

18. St. Ephrem, “A Sermon on the Cross of Christ.”

19. St. John Chrysostom, “The Easter Sermon of John Chrysostom.”

20. St. Leo the Great, “Sermon 22.”

21. The Council of Chalcedon. “The Leer of Pope Leo to Flavian.”

22. Knoebel quoting Isidore of Seville, Sententiae, 61.

23. St. Maximus the Confessor, Mystery of the Divine Incarnation.

24. St. Bernard, “The Fountains of the Savior,” Sermons on Advent & Christmas,

103-104.

25. St. Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey to God, 159.

26. Sheed, To Know Christ Jesus, 118.

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Chapter Six

What Dierence

Does It Make?

“Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set

us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it. He destroyed

Hades when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar

even as it tasted of His ﬂesh. Isaiah foretold this when he

said, ‘You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering

Him below.’ Hell was in an uproar because it was done

away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was

in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is

annihilated. It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and

encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was over-

come by what it did not see. O death, where is thy sting? O

Hades, where is thy victory?”

27

- St. John Chrysostom

Created | Captured | Rescued | Response

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THE GRACE:

Unshakeable Conﬁdence in Jesus

For he rescued us from the domain of Darkness, and

transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in

whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

28

Colossians 1:13-14

THEMES

Jesus has…

• Humiliated the enemy.

• Transferred humani from one dominion to another.

• Rendered Sin impotent.

• Destroyed the power of Death.

• Canceled our debt.

• Recreated us.

• Given us access to the Father.

• Given us authori over the enemy.

• Sent us on mission to get his world back.

• Divinized us.

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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• What am I thinking and how am I feeling right now?

• Which result of the resurrection of Jesus

resonates most deeply with me and why?

• Calling to mind the importance of stories from

Chapter One, what impact is the biblical story having

on my life?

______________________________________

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______________________________________

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______________________________________

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RESOURCES

Catechism of the Catholic Church 651-655:

“The Meaning and Saving Signiﬁcance of the

Resurrection”

651 “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is

in vain and your faith is in vain.” The Resurrection above

all constitutes the conﬁrmation of all Christ’s works

and teachings. All truths, even those most inaccessible

to human reason, ﬁnd their justiﬁcation if Christ by his

Resurrection has given the deﬁnitive proof of his divine

authori, which he had promised.

652 Christ’s Resurrection is the fulﬁllment of the

promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself

during his earthly life. The phrase “in accordance with

the Scriptures” indicates that Christ’s Resurrection

fulﬁlled these predictions.

653 The truth of Jesus’ divini is conﬁrmed by his

Resurrection. He had said: “When you have lied up

the Son of man, then you will know that I am he.” The

Resurrection of the cruciﬁed one shows that he was

truly “I AM,” the Son of God and God himself.

So St. Paul could declare to the Jews: “What God

promised to the fathers, this he has fulﬁlled to us

their children by raising Jesus; as also it is wrien

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in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son, today I have

begoen you.’” Christ’s Resurrection is closely linked

to the Incarnation of God’s Son, and is its fulﬁllment in

accordance with God’s eternal plan.

654 The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his

death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection,

he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is

above all justiﬁcation that reinstates us in God’s

grace, “so that as Christ was raised from the dead by

the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness

of life.” Justiﬁcation consists in both victory over the

death caused by sin and a new participation in grace.

It brings about ﬁlial adoption so that men become

Christ’s brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples

aer his Resurrection: “Go and tell my brethren.” We

are brethren not by nature, but by the gi of grace,

because that adoptive ﬁliation gains us a real share in

the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his

Resurrection.

655 Finally, Christ’s Resurrection—and the risen Christ

himself—is the principle and source of our future

resurrection: “Christ has been raised from the dead,

the ﬁrst fruits of those who have fallen asleep. . . For as

in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

The risen Christ lives in the hearts of his faithful while

they await that fulﬁllment. In Christ, Christians “have

tasted. . . the powers of the age to come” and their lives

are swept up by Christ into the heart of divine life, so

that they may “live no longer for themselves but for him

who for their sake died and was raised.”

29

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Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the

Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, N.T.

Wright

“The Strange Story of Easter”

There are many smaller arguments which might be

brought in at this point, but which we can only summarize.

To begin with, the other proposals that are regularly

advanced as rival explanations to the early Christian

one:

1 Jesus didn’t really die; someone gave him a drug which

made him look like dead, and he revived in the tomb.

Answer: Roman soldiers knew how to kill people, and

no disciple would have been fooled by a half-drugged,

beat-up Jesus into thinking he’d defeated death and

inaugurated the kingdom.

2 When the women went to the tomb they met someone

else (perhaps James, Jesus’ brother, who looked like

him), and in the half-light they thought it was Jesus

himself.

Answer: they would have noticed soon enough.

3 Jesus only appeared to people who believed in him.

Answer: the accounts make it clear that Thomas and

Paul do not come into this category; and actually none

of Jesus’ followers believed, aer his death, that he

really was the Messiah, let alone that he was in any

sense divine.

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4 The accounts we have are biased. Answer: so is all

history, all journalism. Every photo is taken by somebody

from some angle.

5 They began by saying “he will be raised” as people had

done of the marrs, and this quickly passed into saying

“he has been raised” which was functionally equivalent.

Answer: no, it wasn’t.

6 Lots of people have visions of someone they love who

has just died; this was what happened to the disciples.

Answer: they knew perfectly well about things like that,

and they had language for it; they would say “it’s his

angel” or “it’s his spirit” or “his ghost.” They wouldn’t say

“he’s been raised from the dead.”

7 Perhaps the most popular: what actually happened was

that they had some kind of rich “spiritual” experience,

which they interpreted through Jewish categories.

Jesus aer all really was alive, spiritually, and they were

still in touch with him. Answer: that is simply a description

of a noble death followed by a Platonic immortali.

Resurrection was and is the defeat of death, not simply

a nicer description of it; and it’s something that happens

some while aer the moment of death, not immediately.

Equally, we may just notice three of the numerous small-

scale arguments which are oen, and quite rightly,

advanced to support the belief that Jesus did indeed

rise from the dead:

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1 Jewish tombs, especially those of marrs, were

venerated and oen became shrines. There is no sign

whatever of that having happened with Jesus’ grave.

2 The early church’s emphasis on the ﬁrst day of the

week as their special day is very hard to explain unless

something striking really did happen then. A gradual

or even sudden dawning of faith is hardly sucient to

explain it.

3 The disciples were hardly likely to go out and suer

and die for a belief that wasn’t ﬁrmly anchored in

fact. This is an important point, though subject to

the weakness that they might have been genuinely

mistaken: they believed the resurrection of Jesus to be

a fact, and acted on that belief, but we know (so it would

be said) that they were wrong. All this brings us face to

face with the ultimate question. The emp tomb and

the meetings with Jesus are as well established, by the

arguments I have advanced, as any historical data could

expect to be. They are, in combination, the only possible

explanation for the stories and beliefs that grew up so

quickly among Jesus’ followers.

How, in turn, do we explain them?

In any other historical enquiry, the answer would be so

obvious that it would hardly need saying. Here, of course,

this obvious answer (“well, it actually happened”) is so

shocking, so earth-shaering, that we rightly pause

before leaping into the unknown. And here, indeed, as

some skeptical friends have cheerfully pointed out

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to me, it is always possible for anyone to follow the

argument so far and to say, simply, “I don’t have a good

explanation for what happened to cause the emp tomb

and the appearances, but I choose to maintain my belief

that dead people don’t rise and therefore conclude

that something else must have happened, even though

we can’t tell what it was.” That is ﬁne; I respect that

position; but I simply note that it is indeed then a maer

of choice, not a maer of saying that something called

“scientiﬁc historiography” itself forces us to take that

route.

30

SUGGESTED READING

Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003.

___________________________________________________________________

27. St. John Chrysostom, “The Easter Sermon of John Chrysostom.”

28. Col. 1:13-14 NASB.

29. Catechism of the Catholic Church 651-655: “The Meaning and Saving

Signiﬁcance of the Resurrection”, 170-171.

30. Wright, N.T., Surprised by Hope, 72-73.

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Chapter Seven

Words Are Not Enough

“It is the Holy Spirit, therefore, who instills the sentiment

of divine sonship into the heart, who makes us feel (not just

know!) that we are children of God. The Spirit himself joins

with our spirit to bear witness that we are children of God

(Rom. 8:16). This fundamental work of the Holy Spirit some-

times takes places in a sudden and intense way in the life of a

person… On the occasion of a retreat … or on the occasion of

prayer for a new releasing of the Spirit the soul is ﬁlled with

a new light in which God reveals himself in a way as Father.

… A feeling of great trust and conﬁdence and a completely

new sense of the condescension of God are experienced. At

other times, instead, this revelation of the Father is accom-

panied by such a strong feeling of God’s majes and tran-

scendence that the soul is overwhelmed.”

31

- Raniero Cantalamessa,

Life in the Lordship of Christ

Created | Captured | Rescued | Response

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THE GRACE: To Be Overwhelmed

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another

helper [Paraclete], to be with you forever, even the

Spirit of truth . . .you know him, for he dwells with you,

and will be in you.

32

John 14:16-17

THEMES

The Holy Spirit…

• Convinces me that Jesus came to rescue me.

• Moves me to surrender.

• Gives me a heart to go rescue others.

___________________________________________________________________

31. Cantalamessa, Life in the Lordship of Christ, 167-168.

32. Jn. 14:16-17 RSV.

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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

Reﬂection on the Spirit

• Holy Spirit, help me to know these are not just

words.

• Holy Spirit, take me to Calvary.

• Holy Spirit, convince me that Jesus is on the cross

for me.

• Holy Spirit, convince me that God is my Father.

• Holy Spirit, convince me that I am his beloved son/

daughter.

• Holy Spirit, overwhelm me now.

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Chapter Eight

What Does

He Want from Me?

“…when the Son of Man comes, will he ﬁnd faith on earth?”

Luke 18:8

Created | Captured | Rescued | Response

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THE GRACE: To Be Overwhelmed

…God is love.

1 John 4:8

THEMES

What Is Faith?

Faith is not:

• A feeling

• Blind

• Intellectual assent

Faith is:

• God’s work in me to which I respond

• A way of knowing

• Surrender

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How Do I Surrender?

• The easier part: Clinging to the Lord who rescued you

• The harder, more challenging part: Detaching from

your idols

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• What are the idols in my life?

• What would detaching from the idols in my life look

like practically?

______________________________________

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Prayer of Surrender

Father,

I believe that out of your inﬁnite love you created me. I

come before you, just as I am, with all my brokenness,

wounds, and hurts. I am sorry for all the times I have

believed the enemy’s lies thaou are not a good Father

and don’t love me. I repent and ask you to forgive me for

all of my sins.

Jesus,

Thank you for coming to rescue me from Sin, Death,

Hell, and Satan. I surrender to you right now and invite

you to be Lord over every area of my entire life.

Come, Holy Spirit,

Flood my soul with the love of the Father and convince

me that I maer, I’m worth the trouble, and that in God’s

eyes I’m worth dying for.

Come, Holy Spirit…

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I thirst for you

It is true.

I stand at the door of your heart, day and night. Even

when you are not listening, even when you doubt it could

be me, I am there: waiting for even the smallest signal

of your response, even the smallest suggestion of an

invitation that will permit me to enter.

And I want you to know that each time you invite me, I

do come always, without fail. Silent and invisible I come,

yet with a power and a love most inﬁnite, bringing the

many gis of my Spirit. I come with my mercy, with my

desire to forgive and heal you, with a love for you that

goes beyond your comprehension—a love every bit

as great as the love I have received from the Father. I

come, longing to console you and give you strength, to

li you up and bind all your wounds. I bring you my light,

to dispel your darkness and all your doubts. I come with

my power, that I might carry you and all your burdens;

with my grace, to touch your heart and transform your

life; and my peace, to still your soul.

I know you like the palm of my hand. I know everything

about you. Even the hairs of your head I have counted.

Nothing in your life is unimportant to me. I have followed

you through the years and I have always loved you

even when you have strayed. I know every one of your

problems. I know your needs and your worries and yes,

I know all your sins.

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But I tell you again that I love you, not for what you have

or ceased to do, I love you for you, for the beau and

the digni my Father gave you by creating you in his own

image. It is a digni you have oen forgoen, a beau

you have tarnished by sin. But I love you as you are, and

I have shed my blood to rescue you. If you only ask me

with faith. My grace will touch all that needs changing

in your life: I will give you the strength to free yourself

from sin and from all its destructive power.

I know what is in your heart; I know your loneliness

and all your wounds; the rejections, the judgments, the

humiliations. I carried it all before you. And I carried it all

for you, so you could share my strength and my victory.

I know especially your need for love—how much you

are thirsting to be loved and cherished. But how oen

you have thirsted in vain, by seeking that love selﬁshly,

striving to ﬁll the emptiness inside you with passing

pleasures–with even the greater emptiness of sin. Do

you thirst for love? “Come to me all who thirst…” (John

7:37). I will satis you and ﬁll you. Do you thirst to be

loved?

I love you more than you can imagine–to the point of

dying on a cross for you.

I thirst for you. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to

describe my love for you.

I thirst for you. That is the only way to even begin to

describe my love for you. I thirst for you. I thirst to

love you and to be loved by you; that is how precious

you are to me. I thirst for you. Come to me, and I will ﬁll

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your heart and heal your wounds. I will make you a new

creation and give you peace even in your trials. I thirst

for you.

You must never doubt my mercy, my acceptance of you,

my desire to forgive, my longing to bless you and live my

life in you. I thirst for you. If you feel unimportant in the

eyes of the world, that maers not at all. For me, there

is no one more important in the world than you. I thirst

for you. Open to me, come to me, thirst for me, give me

your life, and I will prove to you how important you are

for my heart.

Don’t you realize that my Father already has a perfect

plan to transform your life, beginning from this moment?

Trust in me. Ask me every day to enter and take charge

of your life, and I will. I promise you before my Father in

Heaven that I will work miracles in your life.

Why would I do this? Because I thirst for you. All I ask of

you is that you entrust yourself completely to me. I will

do all the rest.

Even now, I behold the place my Father has prepared

for you in my kingdom. Remember that you are a pilgrim

in this life, on a journey home. Sin can never satis you,

or bring the peace you seek. All that you have sought

outside of me has only le you more emp, so do not

cling to the things of this life. Above all, do not run from

me when you fall. Come to me without delay. When you

give me your sins, you give me the joy of being your

Savior. There is nothing I cannot forgive and heal; so

come now, and unburden your soul.

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No maer how far you may wander, no maer how oen

you forget me, no maer how many crosses you bear in

this life; there is one thing I want you to always remember,

one thing that will never change: I thirst for you–just as

you are. You don’t need to change to believe in my love,

for it will be your belief in my love that will change you.

You forget me, and yet I am seeking you every moment

of the day–standing before the doors of your heart and

knocking. Do you ﬁnd this hard to believe?

Then look again at the cross, look at my heart that was

pierced for you. Have you not understood my cross?

Then listen again to the words I spoke there, for they

tell you clearly why I endured all this for you: “I thirst…”

(John 19: 28). Yes, I thirst for you. I have never stopped

seeking to love you and be loved by you. You have tried

many other things in your search for happiness; why not

try opening up your heart to me, right now, more than

you ever have before? And when you ﬁnally open the

door of your heart, whenever you come close enough,

you will then hear me say to you again and again, not

in mere human words but in spirit: No maer what you

have done, I love you for your own sake. So come to me

with your misery and your sins, with your troubles and

needs, and with all your longing to be loved–because I

stand at the door of your heart and knock.

Open up to me, for I thirst for you.

33

- St. Mother Teresa of Calcua

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SUGGESTED READING

Driscoll, Fr. Jeremy. Awesome Glory: Resurrection in

Scripture, Liturgy, and Theology, 2019.

Driscoll, Fr. Jeremy. What Happens at Mass, 2005.

Hahn, Dr. Sco. The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven

on Earth, 1999.

__________________________________________________________________

33. St. Mother Teresa, “I Thirst for You.”

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Chapter Nine

Geing Clari on the Mission

“In the high-stakes drama all around us, we have each been

given a part to play, one that bears our name and no one

else’s. We each have the mercy of God to receive, a self to

put to death, a Kingdom to gain, a bale to ﬁght and spiri-

tual enemies to slay, comrades to aid, rebels to win over. …

The ancient bale rages all around us, and the adventure

we were born for beckons.”

34

- Sophia Consulting,

The Christian Cosmic Narrative

Created | Captured | Rescued | Response

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THE GRACE: Magnanimi

You are the light of the world … people [do not] light a

lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it

gives light to all in the house.

Mahew 5:14-15

THEMES

The Mission

1. Sabotage and Resistance

______________________________________

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2. Reconciliation

______________________________________

3. Re-creation

______________________________________

4. Healing

______________________________________

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______________________________________

5. Restoration

______________________________________

6. Ambassadorship

______________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

34. Sophia Consulting, The Christian Cosmic Narrative, 156.

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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• Please read the reﬂection “Two other essential

missions: Prayer and Suering” below. What resonates

with me and why?

• Has my understanding of the mission of the disciple

changed? How and why?

• Which mission(s) speaks the most to me?

Why?

As we conclude this chapter,

prayerfully discern how God may be inviting you

now to write the next chapter of His-story.

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Two other essential missions:

Prayer and Suering

Any aempt to give an exhaustive description of the

mission that Jesus sends us in order to accomplish will

certainly fall short. In this talk, we have called aention

to six missions, if you will, that the Lord calls us to carry

out: resistance, reconciliation, re-creation, healing,

transformation, and ambassadors.

There are, however, two additional missions that must

be mentioned as we close: prayer and suering.

First, prayer. It is crucial to remember that baptism re-

ally does something in a person. For example, It really

washes away sin; transfers us from the dominion and

reign of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved

Son; makes us new creatures; causes us to become

temples of the Holy Spirit; incorporates us into the

Body of Christ; makes us adopted sons and daughters

of God and more besides (cf. Acts 2:38; 22:16; Col. 1:13-

14; Rom. 8:14-17;12:4-5; 1 Cor. 6:19; 12:12-14; 2 Cor. 5:17;

The Catechism of the Catholic Church nos. 1262-1274).

Baptism, though, also makes a person a priest, or,

more precisely, to share in Jesus’ own priesthood.

This is commonly referred to as “the priesthood of all

believers,” as distinct from the ministerial priesthood.

Saint Peter reminds the early Christian communi

that they are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood” (1

Peter 2:5). Peter is talking to all of the people, men and

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women, who have been reborn in baptism. The seer in

Revelation writes, “To him who loves us and has freed

us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom,

priests to his God and Father” (Rev 1:5-6). Likewise, the

seer is referring to everyone born anew of water and

the Holy Spirit.

What do priests do? Abbo Jeremy Driscoll says, “It

is the priest’s work to bring another before God in

prayer.” We can do this because we have access to

God. This is amazing! If you tried to walk into the White

House to meet the President you would certainly be

turned away, and perhaps arrested! If you tried to walk

into your doctor’s oce without an appointment, more

than likely you would be told that you have to call and

schedule a visit. If you walked in and tried to see the

CEO of virtually any organization, you would probably

be told it’s simply not possible.

But we can talk to God…anytime!

And this is an essential part of our mission as disciples

of Jesus. We are all called to stand, sit, kneel, or lie

prostrate in agonizing prayer for the world, our spouse,

our children, co workers, friends, leaders–everyone

and anyone. We are called to li them up to the One

who is Love and desires all men and women to be saved

(cf. 1 Tim. 2:4). We are allowed, invited even, to pound on

the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the One who has rescued

us from Sin, Death, Satan, and Hell.

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Priests, however, also oer sacriﬁces, and this is a

second mission we are all sent by Jesus in order to

accomplish.

Saint Paul, in his Leer to the Romans, exhorts

Christians this way: “Present your bodies as a living

sacriﬁce, holy and acceptable to God, which is your

spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:2).

The imagery Paul is drawing on here is rather humorous,

even if painful. Sacriﬁces in his day were usually animals

placed by a priest atop an altar to be slain and burned up

as an oering to the Roman gods and goddesses. This

was done in an aempt to either win the favor of the

gods or to appease their wrath. Paul is telling us that

we are called to place ourselves on the altar, not to win

God’s favor or appease him, but out of gratitude for all

He has already done for us and so that we can become

holy (the literal meaning of sacriﬁce). A key dierence,

however, is that we are living sacriﬁces, which means

the body keeps crawling o the altar! Each day we have

to choose to crawl back on, in gratitude and trusting in

our Father’s great love made manifest in Jesus.

But is there more to this call to oer ourselves as a

sacriﬁce than meets the eye at ﬁrst glance?

One of the more challenging verses in all of the Bible

is Colossians 1:24. Saint Paul says, “I ﬁll up in my ﬂesh

what is lacking in the suerings of Christ for the sake

of his body, which is the Church.” What in the world is

“lacking” in the suerings of Christ? Does Paul mean to

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convey that what Jesus did in going to war to rescue us

was close but not quite enough to accomplish all that He

came to do? Hardly. The only thing “lacking” in Jesus’

suering is our participation in it.

Now, it must be stated right away, there are two distinct

kinds of suering. On the one hand, there are suerings

we might take on voluntarily, like fasting or some other

act of penance; and, on the other hand, there are

involuntary suerings that come to us, like chronic pain

or cancer.

As disciples of Jesus we are sent in order to unite

our suering to the cross of Jesus for the sake of the

world. This is immensely important since, with regards

to involuntary suering, it’s not a question of if it’s going

to come to us in this life, only how and when.

The narrative of the culture at large sees suering as

a waste, of no value whatsoever. Men and women in

nursing homes and hospitals, or conﬁned to their own

homes, or wherever pain may ﬁnd them, can be strongly

tempted to think that what they are going through has

no point, is of no value, and is in vain.

The disciple of Jesus knows a dierent story. If we had

been there on that day we now call “Good Friday,” and

seen Jesus on the cross between the two thieves, we

would certainly have thought to ourselves, “What an

uer waste.” We would have thought that nothing good

would come from that.

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And we would have been wrong.

Disciples of Jesus understand that he rescued us

precisely by his suering on the cross, wherein he

revealed to us the Father’s love, made atonement for

our sins, and went to war to defeat the powers of Sin,

Death, and Satan.

Disciples of Jesus likewise understand that Jesus didn’t

promise us that if we believed in him he would protect us

from any and all suering. Instead, the New Testament

is ﬁlled with passages on how we will suer with and for

Jesus before we enter fully into his kingdom (cf. among

so many verses Mark 8:34; Rom. 8:17; Phil. 1:29; 1 Pet.

4:12-16).

However, as it was with Jesus on the cross, so it is with

us when we suer.

It is not a waste, or in vain, or at least it need not be.

When we suer we can use it. And God can do great

things through it.

It was once common to hear someone encourage

another who was suering to “oer it up.” That can

strike us, perhaps, as being a bit passive. Some have

found it more helpful, remembering Paul’s words

in Col. 1:24, to actively unite what they’re going

through–chemotherapy, a migraine, chronic back pain,

depression, or any other way that suering comes to

us–to the cross of Jesus, trusting that one day they will

understand how God used this. The important thing is

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to understand that nothing we are enduring right now,

no maer how painful it may be, need be in vain!

An example of prayer and suering:

Let me end by oering one ﬁnal example, one of both

prayer and suering. I mentioned in the video how

Jesus used my father as an instrument of healing in my

mother’s life, so much so that she said to him as he lay in

his casket, “Honey, because of you I know who God is.”

Jesus likewise used my mother as an example of prayer

and suering.

My mom spent most of the last years of her life in

intense, chronic pain. Pain is usually measured on a

scale of 1-10. Many days her pain was something like

a 15. My mother, however, when she was younger, had

experienced a miraculous healing, something right out

of the pages of the Gospels or The Acts of the Apostles.

The point in mentioning that is to say she knew ﬁrsthand

God’s power and that miracles were not conﬁned to the

past. She came to understand over time, however, that

the same Lord who had once healed her was now inviting

her to do the very thing Paul did in his life so many years

before: to ﬁll up in her own ﬂesh what was lacking in the

suerings of Christ for the sake of others.

And, so, my mom, without in any way ever romanticizing

pain, learned to pray in a new way, learned to crawl

atop the altar out of love for the sake of others. When

I asked her about this once, she told me that she

said to the Lord, “Jesus, you know that I do not want

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this pain and that I so want you to release me from it.

But I trust that this is not in vain, is not useless, is not

meaningless–anymore than your cross was. And, so,

I unite this to your cross for…” and then she got the

idea to start writing down names of people who were

in need. At ﬁrst it was just a few–my dad, her children,

her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Over time,

however, the lists grew. She started to keep a ledger of

prayer intentions on legal pads beside the hospital bed

where she lay most of the day, or on the kitchen counter

around which she would walk to ease the pain. It might

be a couple she heard was having marital diculties. A

young man who was suicidal and baling depression.

A girl who was pregnant and considering an abortion.

Leaders of nations. People discerning huge decisions.

It was overwhelming to see how many names–and how

many legal pads!–there were. Gradually, people began

to hear about this. They would ask me, or my siblings, to

please ask my mom to write their name, or the name of

a loved one, in her legal pads.

When my mom ﬁnally died and her pain was over, I had

an image of Jesus walking with her, taking her on a sort

of tour.

As they walked, He started to show her various homes

and they were able to look inside the homes and see the

people inside. That couple who had been struggling in

their marriage and had managed to stay the course. The

young man who had persevered through the depression.

The young girl and the child she had chosen to keep.

On and on they walked together, and aer each house,

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Jesus simply smiled at my mother and said to her, “It

was by my grace that they were able to do those things.

But it was your participation in my cross that made it

possible. Well done, good and faithful servant!”

To all of you, then, in pain right now, suering in mind,

body, or spirit, please know how valuable, how immensely

valuable, you are! You are the spiritual backbone of

those who are out there serving as agents of resistance,

reconciliation, re-creation, healing, transformation,

and ambassadors. Stay strong! Keep the faith! We

desperately need you!

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“I “I am not afraid. God is with me.

I was born for this.”

- St. Joan of Arc

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Know The Story

________________

Rescued People

Rescue People

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“The Mystery of Creation”; “The Fall of the Angels”; “Original Sin”;

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