Peace as Prologue

Genesis 2 -

7 The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. 8 Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and he placed there the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

15 The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. 16 The LORD God gave man this order: "You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden 17 except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die."

18 The LORD God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him."19 So the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man. 21 So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, 23 the man said: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called 'woman,' for out of 'her man' this one has been taken." 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.

> Exile time is the continuous length of time that mankind have, shall and will endure the loss of Original Justice and encompasses the time from the first sin of our first parents up to Parousia or the Day of General Judgement at the Second Coming of Christ. Original Justice being the original state of man before the sin of our first parents.

Genesis 3 -

1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" 2 The woman answered the serpent: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman: "You certainly will not die! 5 No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad." 6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

8 When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 The LORD God then called to the man and asked him, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself." 11 Then he asked, "Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!" 12 The man replied, "The woman whom you put here with me--she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it." 13 The LORD God then asked the woman, "Why did you do such a thing?" The woman answered, "The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it."

14 Then the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel."

16 To the woman he said: "I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master."

17 To the man he said: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, "Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. 18 Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return."

20 The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living. 21 For the man and his wife the LORD God made leather garments, with which he clothed them. 22 Then the LORD God said: "See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever."

23 The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken. 24 When he expelled the man, he settled him east of the garden of Eden; and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

> By Original Sin, all of mankind has been wounded and the race of Adam fell from grace and were exiled from glorious Eden. We find ourselves with a strong inclination to evil that is magnitudes more powerful than our inclination to good. From that first sin is the beginnings of the evil that has turned our original heritage of life and grace, because of pride and willfull disobedience, into one of suffering and death.

> The tree of the knowledge of good or bad that is placed with the tree of life at the center of the Garden represents the lie of self-sufficiency which is the illusion that either man or angel can become independent from God and put himself in place of his Creator. By the choice that allowed them to know for themselves what is good or bad for them, our first parents, willed to believe in the judgments of their own self over God's own judgments that directed them only and exclusively to accomplishment of what is good for them. Therefore, the very root of our own inclinations to sin is an inodrinate desire to serve the self, to love the self in place of God. Simply put, every sin is a refusal to serve God and an infinite offense to the infinite dignity of our Lord God.

> This lie at the very heart of our faded Eden is the lie that is common at the heart of all sin, the lie that deceives us into accepting and worshipping strange gods in place of the one true God. For if we were truly and completely faithful to the first commandment of God in the Decalogue then there would have been no need for the rest of them.

> By chosing to do what was forbidden by God and thus, sinful, Original Freedom - the freedom of the sons and daugthers of God that Saint Paul spoke of in the Gospels - which was the complete subjection of the soul of man to the will of God, was lost because the soul of man was ensalved by the enemy of God, angels and men, being the ancient serpent of Eden, who is Satan, the deceiver, the accuser and the father of all lies.

Revelations 12 -

7 Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, 8 but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

9 The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.

> It was the sin of pride and rebellion that brought to existence the beast of war. The same instant that our first parents fell into sin was the same instant when the war in heaven was hurled down to the once unihabited lands of the earth, those dark, spiritless and unknown material realms, the lands outside of our native Eden.

> With the exception of our first parents, all of the generations of poor mankind was to be born in exile, upon an uncaring earth, far below these unconscious skies outside of our beloved Eden and away from the Original Peace we were once destined to enjoy with God, our own true self and each other.

> Without the grace and protection of God, mankind is never properly equipped to do battle either against the evils within himself or against the evils that overflow into the world of our present time as a consequence of the daily warfare that we wage within.

> Although we are all sinners and each of us is never without a fault, it is primarily because of Satan, the ancient serpent of our faded Eden, that the huge dragon, that the beast of war came into our existence. By first principles then, it is recognized by the Solidarity that we are, as one whole human race, victims to the one lie that from the forked tongue of the Devil have caused the evil of sin to come into being. It is this evil which is the cause of all human suffering. But Christ has turned human suffering from something meaningless into something salvific and of great, supernatural value because we as Christians can learn to unite our everyday suffering with God in Christ toward the sanctification of our own souls as well as the conversion of the souls of others. Furthermore, through the grace of God, suffering tempers virtue and restores justice in a world that needs both.

> The beast of war being the synergistic whole which is sin and all the agents and allurements that induce man to sin, the concupisence of the flesh, the evil fashions of the world, and the malice of the Devil and his fallen angels. This beast is constantly waging a relentless assault upon the mind and heart of humanity, the consequences of this violent battle within has soaked the soil of our earth to the very core with the blood of countless nameless innocents whose silent cries, just like the blood of Abel, echoes everywhere around us, a vertiable crescendo that pierces these unconscious skies above us. This is the chorus of the innocents and verily, these cries, we know, are most certainly heard by the One who knows all and sees all.

> Because there is sin in the world, there will always be division among men, even within the same race, tribe or family. Because there is sin in the world, unity and concord between men shall always be tenuous and fleeting without the grace and the Providence of God.

> Beloved of God, the beast of war is our ancient enemy. It is this beast that threaten not only our lives but also the destiny of our immortal souls. This same beast also threatens the peace and order that safguard the common good of every people of every nation of the one family of the nations of mankind gradually withdrawing from our one family of humanity, by each nation that falls, the advantages of the length of the days gained through the endeavor of each state which is peace that by degrees of its own truth is a direct measure of the unseen forbearance of the beneficent Providence of God.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid."

- John 14: 27

> This Peace (being the Peace of Jesus Christ or God's Peace) is both a promise as well as a distinct virtue that usher into being a prevailing climate of truth, internal as well as external, allows the grace of God to be diffused within our own hearts and cause God's charity to overflow, through the instrumentality of our lives, into the poor of our present time and temper as well as increase the virtues that build and fortify the public peace and order that safeguard the common good of the national and international communities of mankind - and stay the beast of war - giving length to our days.

> In the Solidarity, this Peace is our absolute allegiance. This Peace is a promise of things to come, a promise made to us by our Savior Himself. To embrace this Peace is to love it's Source Which is Love Itself.

> The longest night is the void at the threshold of the third Christian millennium where we are all, as one whole Christendom allied with all honorable religions most especially our Abrahamic brethren - the Jews and the Muslims, expected to fight - together and shoulder to shoulder - the seminal battles, within and without, that will shape the nature of the next 1000 years.

> My precious friend, we have seen it in the past, beginning with Abel it has been steadily but surely growing in strength, so much so that the beast of war has now given birth to genocide, our last century was a century of genocide, it is happening in our present and with the quickening pace of our world and the evils of our present time alive in our minds today, let us decide for each of ourselves as common creatures here and now before our one Creator Who is Almighty God Himself whether the beast of war, contempt of life and hatred to the God of life or God's Peace, respect of life and glory to the God of life shall prevail in our hearts and in our world, for all things that were written in Scripture shall come to pass but everything else must be decided here at the quickening of our present time.

> Beloved of God, how strong are we in our nobility as human beings created by our one common Creator and endowed with the dignity of an immortal soul to be able to reach out with genuine love and filial concern to the future of our one race and decide for those many generations today whether it will be for them a warm, caring and kind world full of different people to laugh and to cry with or a cold, cruel and hostile desolation empty of both our laughter and our tears?

> Certainly, the Solidarity must be equipped to be able to answer and to meet this challenge.

Next: Conduct of the Peace