"You are gods" (Jn. 10:34)

 Jesus says, “You are gods.” (Jn. 10:34) How is this possible?

At baptism, we become “partakers of the divine nature,” (CCC 1265 or 2Pt.1:4) or as St. Athanasius states that we are, “becoming by grace what God is by nature.” The Catechism quotes St. Athanasius to explain this teaching, “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God,” (460) and furthermore it explains, “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that He, made man, might make men gods.” (CCC 460)

For most of us, the concept that “You are gods.” (Jn. 10:34) or that we are being “divinized” is difficult to grasp so let us first look at Jesus’ baptism when the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus and the Heavenly Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:17) Likewise, the Holy Spirit also descends into our souls at baptism, and we, too, become His sons and daughters as the Psalmist states, “You are ‘gods’; you are all sons of The Most High.” (82:6)  The Heavenly Father’s words also apply to us as when St. Faustina hears Him say, “You are My delightful dwelling place; My Spirit rests in you.”  (Diary 346)

Our Lady of the Divine Indwelling

St. Paul reminds us that we are temples of God, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” (1Cor.6:19) and “For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.” (CCC 1988) Divinization also means that the Holy Spirit makes us, “a new creature.” (CCC 1265) However, it is not just the Holy Spirit that dwells in our souls, but it is also the Holy Trinity.   The Catechism explains that baptism is the “entry into the life of the Most Holy Trinity,” (1239) and we become “the indwelling of His Presence in us” (2781).  

Trinity

St. John Paul II enlightens us that “‘Divinization’…occurs through the admission into the intimacy of the Trinitarian life”, (Novo Millennio Ineunte no. 23) as when the Holy Trinity speaks in the soul of St. Faustina, “‘You are Our dwelling place.’ At that moment, I felt in my soul the presence of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I felt that I was the temple of God. I felt I was a child of the Father,” she said. (Diary 451)

St. Faustina says, “Divinize me so that my deeds may have supernatural value,” (1242) but she remains a meek and humble student of the indwelling Presence. She accepts to be molded regardless of her sins and frailties.  Jesus explains to St. Faustina what He can do despite our faults and failings, “Your heart is My constant dwelling place, despite the misery that you are.  I united Myself with you, to take away your misery and give you My mercy.” (Diary 723)  She learns to worship the Holy Trinity within her soul so well that the Blessed Virgin Mary appears to her explaining the divinization going on in her soul, “You are a dwelling place pleasing to the living God; in you, He dwells continuously with love and delight. And the living presence of God, which you experience in a more vivid and distinct way, will confirm you, my daughter, in the things I have told you.” (Diary 785)

 Divine Mercy and St Faustina

St. Faustina continues to plead with God, “Divinize me that my deeds may be pleasing to You,” (Diary 1289) so the Blessed Virgin Mary gives her instruction on how to live continually with the indwelling Presence, “My daughter, strive after silence and humility, so that Jesus, who dwells in your heart continuously, may be able to rest. Adore Him in your heart; do not go out from your inmost being. My daughter, I shall obtain for you the grace of an interior life which will be such that, without ever leaving that interior life, you will be able to carry out all your external duties with even greater care. Dwell with Him continuously in your heart. He will be your strength. Communicate with creatures only in so far as is necessary and is required by your duties.” (Diary 785)

Divinization is difficult to understand due to the way we view ourselves, “we hold this treasure in earthen vessels,” (2Cor.4:7) but Instrumentum Laboris instructs us that the “Eucharist is the summit of the Church’s life, since communion with the Lord leads to the sanctification and “divinization” of the person.”  Similarly, to help St. Faustina comprehend, Jesus tells her that as she sees Him outside so He is within, “I am dwelling in your heart as you see Me in this chalice.” (1820)  But, why is all this relevant or important to us now?  Because “The hour is coming when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.” (John 4:23)

“Yes, the hour is coming very soon when there will be no physical Church to worship in” (Pope Benedict XVI - Light of the World pgs. 16-17):

“This passage in chapter 4 of John’s Gospel is the prophecy of a worship in which there will no longer be any temple, but in which the faithful will pray without an external temple in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the Gospel, in communion with Christ; where what is needed is no longer a visible temple but rather the new fellowship with the risen Lord.  That always remains important, because it signifies a major turning point in the history of religion as well.”

Inner Light – Source Unknown

Finally, believe and understand that He wants to divinize us not by the “counterfeit divinization of eros,” (Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est no. 4) as when the serpent says, “you will be like gods,” (Gen.3:5) but by being humble, intimate, and living temples of God as when Jesus states, “We will come into him, and make Our dwelling in him.” (Jn. 14:23) Therefore, in these turbulent times trust and have confidence that His loving indwelling Presence is always with us day and night to divinize us as Jesus tells St. Faustina, “You are my dwelling place and my constant repose.  For your sake I bless the earth.” (Diary 431)

ST FAUSTINA PRAY FOR US.

 

Source of the article above - unknown

L. Bauer

Adam before the Fall

 

 ADAM BEFORE THE FALL

Book of Heaven, April 24, 1915:  “How can those words spoken by Me in creating man, ‘Let Us make man in Our Image and Likeness’, be explained? How could the creature, so incapable, ever resemble Me and be my image? Only in my Will could he arrive at this, because by making It his own, he comes to operate in a divine manner; and through the repetition of these divine acts, he comes to resemble Me - to become my perfect image.”

Book of Heaven, Jan. 3, 1922:   “…in creating man, We infused Our image and likeness in him so as to overwhelm him with Our happiness and be reflected and delighted in him.”

 “…the Divine Will and the human will, which the creature shattered even from the terrestrial Eden. And the soul who knows no other life but the Life of my Will, rebuilds It, binds It again, returning to It all the relations which the creature had broken - relations of creation, of origin of existence. These were bonds of union between Creator and creature - relations of likeness, sanctity, science, power. Everything I contain I placed in relationship with man - relations in the order of all created things, and to him I gave primacy over everything.” 

Book of Heaven, Sept. 10, 1928: “Now, you must know that, indeed, Adam possesses a glory in Heaven which is given to no one else, as holy as he may be, except for my Celestial Mama, because no one else possesses even one act in the unity of my Divine Will. It was just and decorous for Our Divine Majesty that the first creature that came out of Our creative hands possess more glory than all the others; more so, since the first period of his life was carried out as We wanted. One can say that it was Our life, Our Will and Our works that flew within him. How could We destroy this first period of the life of Adam, since it was more Ours than his? It is useless even to think about it; whatever is done in Our Divine Will remains untouchable – no one can touch it, because these acts enter the divine and infinite order. And even though Adam slipped and fell, his acts done up to that moment remained intact and beautiful, just as he did them. He was the one who remained wounded, ill, Our image disfigured in him, because Our Divine Will, which had taken on the commitment to keep him beautiful, fresh, strong, holy, completely in order with Us, just as We created him, was no longer in him, because Adam himself had rejected It. But his works done up to the moment in which he had the misfortune to fall, and which possessed the unity of Our Fiat, suffered no change, because We too were jealous of these acts which had glorified Us so much. They had put Us in feast, as We saw that man, Our son, elevated himself up to Us in order to absorb within him Our divine manners, Our likeness, and to bring Us joys, happiness’, the return and the smile of all created things in the unity of Our Will. We were enraptured in seeing Our dear son, the work of Our hands, live in Our Will as in Our home; taking from Our own, he was able to bring Us new happiness’ and joys without end.

So, by virtue of the first period of his life, innocent and carried out all in the unity of Our Fiat, Adam possesses such glory and beauty that no one can equal him. At the mere sight of him, all of the Blessed recognize how beautiful and majestic the creation of the first man was, enriched with so much grace. In looking at him, they can see, in him, the incalculable good of the Divine Will in the creature, and the joy and happiness that the creature can possess. In him alone, as though within a mirror, the Blessed can see how man was created, the exuberant love that We had for him, the abundance with which We enriched him. We gave him everything, as much as a creature could contain, to the point of overflowing outside and being able to flood the whole earth. If it were not so – if the whole magnificence of Our creative hands could not be seen in Adam – then the great things We did in the Creation, and that which the creature does and can do in Our Divine Will would not be known even in Heaven. It is Our love that demands this, and also Our justice that wants to keep, in Heaven, the reality of that image, as man was created – and not another man, but the very one who came out of Our creative hands, so that, if the earth does not know him, Heaven may know him. They look at their origin in Adam, and, grateful, they thank Me and pray that my Fiat may come to reign upon earth, and form more images, more beautiful than Adam, because he was not a complete work in my Divine Will, but a period of life. Only the Sovereign Queen possesses complete life and works in my Fiat, therefore there is no one who can equal Her. My Will wants to make more complete lives in It, so as to repeat what It did in the Creation, to make known to the earth the way and the order in which the creature was created, and the great, beautiful, holy things that my Divine Will can do in her.

Moreover, you must know that, up to now, I have not manifested to anyone either the great qualities of Adam, or his sublimity, greatness and sanctity as he lived his first period of life in the unity of my Will; and by virtue of his acts done in It, the great glory that he enjoys in Heaven. Many, on the contrary, believed that since he slipped into sin, he could at most have a glory common to all the other Blessed, or perhaps even less than the others. But wanting to restore again the Kingdom of my Divine Will, I feel within Me a necessity of love to manifest the first epoch of Creation, and the first period of the life of Adam - all of Divine Will - as well as the glory which he enjoys in Heaven by virtue of It, so that, as the other creatures come to know a good so great, they may dispose themselves and long for the Divine Fiat on earth as It is in Heaven.”