Faith and Knowledge

The unifying experience of God and man is a truly universal phenomenon, to which no religion may lay its own exclusive claim. Viewed through the cultural lens of Christianity, it is symbolized, exemplified, and personified in the figure of Jesus Christ, yet, it is present in its most pure expression, in all places and at all times, on the subtlest levels of consciousness; which all of us possess, but, to which not all of us are presently, frequently, nor equally sensitive. "Faith in Christ" is simply the Christian's way of articulating and processing the universal faith in this core reality -- the enlightenment experience of God-in-man-in-God. Faith does not bring us God, for we have Him already. Faith merely brings consciousness to the presence of God, which has been there all alone, and will always be.

Faith, as it manifests in the flowering of religious imagery, is the motive force behind the living dream; the dream that is lived. The dream, the vision, is not separate from our faith in it. Our faith is one with the dream. And faith is only faith when it must rise above something; it is the light which shines in darkness, when all other lights have gone out; it always comes into existence in the face of adversity, and in spite of all else. Faith therefore requires some effort, some assertion on the part of the soul, to rise above whatever threatens to dishearten the spirit. It does not matter, not even in the slightest, that our faith is weak. All that matters is that we strain and bear up in spite of this weakness. The greater the weakness, the more astounding shall be God's grace. "For His strength is made perfect in weakness."

Likewise, His wisdom is made perfect in our foolishness. While cynics may find in such a statement, a fitting occasion to mock, it is nevertheless a profound truth that the light of faith shines brightest in the darkness of ignorance. We are made wise to the degree that we acknowledge our ignorance, relying upon the wisdom of God, as if it were our own; for He has given Himself, and all that He possesses, into our care. How can we not be humbled by such a responsibility, and overwhelmed with gratitude for such a gift?

Faith, then, is two-fold. On the one hand, it corresponds to this basic, universal experience, to which people lend their various interpretations, while, on the other hand, it corresponds to the substance of whatever interpretation a particular individual or group has chosen; in my case, the Christian tradition. It is both of these, as essence and as substance; as spirituality and as religion.

I have come to see religion as a means and spirituality as an end, -- but the one does not lead to the other; rather, they work together, symbiotically and simultaneously, in my soul. Religion cannot adequately reflect the formless simplicity of God, nevertheless, it is still much less complicated, much less entrenched in form, than the world we see before us. Religious symbols and boundaries (which must be understood as guides and guidelines, tentative and permeable) function as middle points between our world and the experience of formlessness. Dogma, which by its rigidity chokes and suffocates the life of the soul, is not so much to be found in the Church, as it is to be found in the mote which clouds our vision of the Church. Those who stand outside its walls, whether laity or nonmembers, and those who stand within, as clerics who attempt to speak on its behalf, are equally prone to distort the divine vision and mission of the Church. In fact, it is only our inability to appreciate the tradition as it was understood and illuminated in the minds of the mystics, which is to blame. Dogma is nothing more than a false interpretation of doctrine which passes for doctrine. But the spiritual minded spiritualize all things.

Truly, it is glory to see an unambiguous manifestation of Christian love, and discover individuals who have lost and found themselves in Christ Consciousness. So many of us, it seems, have attained to and been impressed by higher spiritual realms, where our poor wings could not beat fast enough to preserve us, and we knew not how to rely on the assistance of angels. We touched the hem of His garment and we are forever changed. As Pascal writes: "You would not be seeking God if you had not already found Him." He is the center to which we approach, and He is mysteriously present within the approach.

I cannot judge who He is with, from moment to moment. Into what ear He is now whispering something wise and charged with graceful purpose. Or whom He will quicken when He will. Hawthorne says families are always rising and falling in America, but how much more true is this of souls within the spiritual realms of experience, exalted by humility one moment and abased by pride the next? Yes, falling is somehow a part of rising, for God does not grant us challenges equal to our strength, but mightily surpassing it, so that we may learn to rely more naturally upon a divine, transcendent grace; rooted not in perfect self-reliance, but in the humblest, most faithful submission to the will of God. We must be resigned even to become as dust, undistinguished by any outward sign, if that is His will for us in this life.

The Lord makes good use of us all, whether or not we are abandoned to His will, and He accords us positions of eminence or obscurity, according to His secret purposes. I do not know how often a saint has looked at me through the eyes of one who seemed only a sinner, and perhaps he knew not that he was blessed. Or when I have been impressed by what seemed like a person of noble purpose, whose actions, seeming good in themselves, appeared to be most nobly motivated, -- and who in fact was an agent of a very different character. And then, so often, the most sensitive of us seem most easily carried along by both angels and devils, without a power to distinguish the true sources of our inspiration, whether it is damnable or divine. Time instructs us. Failure, Disgrace, and Contrition are the names of our most taxing professors. Faith declares it to us, and will not allow any evil to be less than another byway unto good.

Praise to the Lord, who raises us even as He casts us down; who fortifies our souls even as He grinds our egos into the finest powder! May we turn forever to His judgement, welcoming our ignorance as a sign of our obedience to His unspoken word. For all our knowledge crumbles at the brink of the unknown. It is a bridge which leads into a fog, and we know not where it takes us, nor how it is upheld there, nor if it is upheld. Yet faith, made perfect in the darkness of unknowing, leads us childlike, extending a hand to the Father we cannot see, into deeper regions of simplicity, until God has become the answer to all questions, and not merely a distant realization towards which our answers vaguely, if eloquently, point.

The answer of our ignorance, and of His wisdom, must be sufficient; and to the extent to that this answer (which appears so insubstantial to the world) is enough for ourselves, so will it testify of our faith, and of the very highest gnosis to which the soul of man may attain.

On Choosing Our Teachers

We should be careful of succumbing to the charisma of false gurus, but equally careful not to dismiss potential teachers on account of their inability to measure up to what may ultimately be our narrow ideas of competence. I am a firm believer in "wounded healers" and mixed blessings.

Socrates himself was particularly fond of the god Silenus, described as portly, bald, and frequently intoxicated. The majority of people scorned and mocked him for these qualities, and could not see that, even in his drunkenness, or perhaps especially then, he uttered prophetic words. He was inspired with divine madness. Socrates says, "[The] greatest blessings come by way of madness... let us not be disturbed by an argument that seeks to scare us into preferring the friendship of the sane to that of the passionate... this sort of madness is a gift of the gods."

The most celebrated coach in sports, Vince Lombardi, was a passionate, volatile man. He frequently neglected his wife and family, and humiliated his players. But he also shaped the characters of dozens of young men, provoking them to call upon what was deepest and best in them, and to discover capacities in themselves which they had never suspected or had the drive to develop.

It seems there is no master so perfected as not to possess some point of weakness or depravity; some dark spot upon which we may peck and peck. It seems there is no healer who carries a panacea, or a tincture for every ill, but that we must accept from each person the medicine they bring us, and not seek in them what they lack, nor dismiss them for what they lack.

Inner work is of many types. While we labor in one area, we inevitably neglect another. Balance is not a static state we achieve, but a dynamic condition of constant, vigilant adaptation. True balance is rarely if ever achieved, though many people can provide convincing signs of spiritual power. One artist said, "To take on the world at all angles requires a strength I can't use." In all that is said, in even the most thorough of discourses, something always remains neglected and unsaid, else the universe would be redundant, and we would not be incarnated. In all the inner work that is done, something is always left undone, and remains to be recognized. Our place may be to suggest where wholeness may be sought, rather than to reject someone for being a work in progress.

We tend to speak of students and teachers as if they were separate and clearly defined entities, like black and white, but they are relative; all students have something to teach, all teachers have something to learn. My own investigations have suggested to me that inner work does not need to appear outwardly in order to be genuine. In fact, this outward appearance, and the validation it would appear to provide, may be withheld by Providence, for better reasons than we know. Perhaps we are learning to see beyond appearances, to understand that the work goes on, despite no outward sign.

Reason teaches that faith is not strengthened by graces, but is exercised most strenuously in periods of spiritual dryness. Humility, the finest of the virtues, may come only when we have been stripped of all other virtues, and confessed ourselves destitute before God. Truly, the ministrations of the Holy Spirit are hidden from our view, though, at times, they shine out unambiguously from an individual whom God has chosen to reflect the light. More often, he will seemingly squander the most incredible gifts on people entirely unworthy to receive them, or to bear them responsibly, simply in order to instruct these souls; that they might rise to the level of their gifts. We should receive those gifts, as having come to us from God, even when the person who wields them is less than worthy. "Be open to truth, whatever its source," as the Quakers teach.

Most frequently of all, I suspect, the Lord works entirely in secret, stripping souls of even the most common virtues, in order to develop in them virtues of the rarest and most ethereal sort. Often these souls do not even know they are called, and imagine themselves accursed, cast out from the presence of God. They do not see what mighty works are established in darkness. They do not feel the great love which shields their eyes in order to ignite an unquenchable faith in their hearts. They cannot guess that they are found exactly when they seem most lost. Though they stumble in every imaginable way, yet they discover something of God within them; something which will not rest, but must push forward, always, regardless of signs, or lack of signs, and capable of following the scent of a divine incense even in the midst of the cruelest storms of confusion, anxiety, desperation, and utter exhaustion. These people, with their wounds, are my teachers. I needn't blind myself to their faults, in order to appreciate their virtues. Even Saint Paul, who was carried up into the 7th heaven, was left with a "thorn in his heart", and perhaps this thorn was God's greatest gift to him, for it pricked at his pride, and forced his heart to bleed even for his enemies.

Some Some

Sooner or later, love itself will seduce you. And you will want to know, "Who have been the true lovers, among men?" You will look for the ones who loved. And when you find the philosophers, you won't stop, but mount up to the saints, and look for just one who might become, for you, an unwavering example of love's highest wisdom. And maybe you will find Jesus, a man of the highest creative genius, whose words outstrip Shakespeare, yet, who made his life a work of love and, dying, forever became a perfect symbol of sacrificial love. A man who contradicts himself only in doing more than he promises, for he says, "There is no greater love than this: that a man gives his life for his friends," but then he gives it even for his enemies. The spectacle of such a love seduces all hearts, carries all of us together with it to heaven.

Acceptance is not enabling. When we enable someone, we accept only the weakest part of them; we refuse the strongest.

It may be that the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians is the ultimate peak of Western Civilization, or all culture for that matter. Perhaps no greater words have ever been spoken, nor ever will be. And only actions follow.

Make a gift of your love to the world.

Of course, they don't understand me! If they understood me, I could stop writing.

Cynicism is blood from an open wound, weakness, sickness, and degeneracy of spirit.

God will not resent it, if you become like Him, or even become Him. On the contrary, He will have ordained it as His highest purpose for your life. The scriptures will be seen to speak of you. The prophets will call you by name. I tell you, they will call you out of the womb, and call up the Holy Spirit in your breast as you live. Listen! Even now, they summon you, and strive to evoke your destiny. In the form of holy writ, they send out their ghosts to persuade you.

If I ever stopped believing in life, it was to believe in something greater than life.

God is a big idea. The biggest. You can't expect to have it all at once.

Faith is the staff a man carves from his dream, to support him in a world that never sleeps.

Religion is important because dreams are important. Religion is the infusion of life with a tremendous dream. It is not madness to think that one may bend a secret ear to eavesdrop on the angels. Nor is there anything outlandish in naming burdens devils and obstacles demons, or in naming angels and archangels those noble sentiments and principles which shore up our convictions and carry us faithfully out of the most debilitating episodes of torpor or despondency. Indeed, even our most common language is woven, through and through, with figurative expressions against which no fair-minded person would balk. It is clear to everyone that these expressions merely add life and character to our communications, in order to better reflect our inner experiences, which are inaccessible and ineffable. Yet, figurative language and symbolism may also serve, in its turn, to enliven and empower the inner experience to which it corresponds.  Truly, all that you imagine or think upon, according to the duration and intensity of your concentration, must necessarily impress itself on your words and actions. Nothing is fantasy, if you live by it. Religion, despite its misuses and abhorrent failures, provides consistent evidence that many sensitive individuals have found (and continue to find) it efficacious to "people" their inner worlds with supernatural entities of one order or another. And we may argue that these entities are as real as any objects to which a subject's attention may become attached. Moreover, that the degree and kind of reality they possess -- at least, as far as the subject is concerned, -- may depend upon the quality and quantity of the attention they receive from the subject. Lastly, we may reason that these entities, or, at any rate, the laws and principles for which they stand, are uniquely eternal and indestructible verities; a claim which no student of the material sciences is very eager to make with respect to the objects of his own pursuit.

Some

We defend what we cannot do without. Christ defended nothing, since there was nothing he could not do without. Locks, like weapons, are not the contrivances of Christian minds. But locks and weapons go together. Knights armored themselves for battle to lock away their flesh. Life and body are mere possessions, but, of possessions, the most closely held; the most difficult to sacrifice.

The mind in you is the same enlightened mind in The Buddha, but it clings.

I explained myself to the skeptics and they called me a believer. I explained myself to the believers and they called me a skeptic. I don't know what I am.

What a man allies himself to by thought in this life, he allies himself to by birth in the next.

Mercury is man. Witness how, with winged-feet, the man with mind mounts up, and taking hold of the corner of the cloak of a god, translates all he sees in his wild flight; half-carried, half-dragged, half-mad across the sky.

There is nothing so low that it may not be tied, and thereby allied, to something higher. The plot of the mystics was never to kill, but merely to let sleep the senses for a time, in order to recover the better use of them. That heaven may be present on earth, and spirit manifested in matter, is witnessed by those who have accomplished this great work; anchoring, and ultimately uniting, what is coarse with what is fine. They have truly delighted themselves in the eternal wonders of the spirit, and transcended the petty vicissitudes of the flesh, who no longer distinguish between the spiritual and material, nor find any but eternal wonders in this world.


All things external are only the visible transmissions of their internal compliments. Even those things which are said not to exist, by this strange alchemy, are wedded to verities within. There is nothing a man may put his hand to, however lifeless and cold, which did not first arise, red-hot, from the furnace of his own beating heart.

Nothing will wake the people up. I have had to learn this. There are no large-scale victories. There are only skirmishes. Small advances and small retreats. History, like all big things, makes wide turns.

If something is intensely beautiful, it beautifies all that surrounds it. Nothing is so prosaic that it may not appear in a stranger, more poetical light, when placed beside an article of overwhelming sublimity. The insects are ennobled by the flowers. The rags which cover a beautiful peasant girl partake somehow of her charms, and we may even come to imagine that they suit her, in an odd way which no finery ever could. Might it not be that evil, too, somehow does justice to the benevolence of God? We may try to imagine Christ seated upon an immaculate throne, attended by the most gorgeous angels, yet, it seems that he is never so much "at home" as when he is on earth, condescending before some dangerous or leprous wretch. Good is the portrait, and evil what frames it. Not by coincidence do carpenters make both crosses and frames. 

Sin is the manifestation in reality of a perception rooted in unreality. It is life lived according to the hallucination.

The fiction of sin is passed through the blood. We take it in with mother's milk.

Civilization is not "the world". It is the kingdom of man, merely, and not of God. But when men began to think of THEIR world as THE world, they fell prey to the lie of sin; they replaced the world as God had made it with an idol of their own invention. Surely, man is free to invent his world, but he must never forget that it is a world of his own invention, merely. He must never come to live in this world as if it were made by God; then, the invention would become an idol, and man would become trapped within it, as within a great illusion. Civilization is not the world as God made it, and we are not the men He made, to the extent that we are civilized men. This is the world our forefathers made, and we are the unfortunates born into it; successively weakened and domesticated through numerous generations of dependency upon mortal inventions. God did not make us sinners. We bred ourselves for sin.

Our speech must be creative. Otherwise, we speak only of a created world, a world of effects. Unconsciously, we recreate that world.

Life (or Incarnation) is a doomed experiment, which God endures only for the sake of man's free will. However, the very failure of the experiment, on one level, must signify a paradoxical success on another, higher level. As the designs of men are brought to nothing, the masterworks of God are brought to light. Only the soul that wanders experiences return.

The last, most feeble efforts we make are worth more than all our previous efforts combined, as the few coins given to charity by the poor woman in the gospel were greater in the eyes of God than the more sizable (though not more generous) donations of the rich; however much they may part with, they retain more than what is reasonable for an individual to keep. It's not what we give, but what we hold back, that really counts.

God Is Good

If you believe in Love, you believe in God.

Asking God for mercy and forgiveness is like asking the sun for light and heat, since these belong to the incorruptible nature of divinity itself; they are self-evident attributes of it; they proclaim and describe it; they speak on it's behalf, and even prove it's existence by their own.

Religious feeling is only a higher octave of natural feeling. Collectively or singlehandedly, the mere ideas of goodness, kindness, mercy, charity, compassion, forgiveness, and love are enough to make a true believer out of one who is highly sensible of them, -- provided only that one has not been too heavily contaminated by malformed notions of God, which may either inhibit or prohibit the transmission of an original revelation; regardless of how pure and simple that revelation may be.

In the abstract, the virtues are full of potential, they are perfect. Yet, when considered under the mantle of a divine-human being who personifies (because he exemplifies) them, how much more likely are they to lift up mortal minds, which almost require some manner of form upon which to perch; like fledgling angels incapable of prolonged flight? It may be that, as we progress in spiritual understanding, the forms we attach our minds to will become, not only nobler, but finer in another sense; more delicately articulated; more richly detailed; and, yet, somehow more vague; nuanced, like a thousand whispered suggestions conveying one ineffable, thundering insight. We must regard those sublime forms which most compel us, in order that we might ultimately be compelled to regard the sublimity in all forms, and, finally, in formlessness.

If something is intensely beautiful, it beautifies all that surrounds it. Nothing is so prosaic that it may not appear in a stranger, more poetical light, when placed beside an article of overwhelming sublimity. The insects are ennobled by the flowers. The rags which cover a beautiful peasant girl partake somehow of her charms, and we may even come to imagine that they suit her, in an odd way which no finery ever could. Might it not be that evil, too, somehow does justice to the benevolence of God? We may try to imagine Christ seated upon an immaculate throne, attended by the most gorgeous angels, yet, it seems that he is never so much "at home" as when he is on earth, condescending before some dangerous or leprous wretch. Not by coincidence do carpenters make both crosses and frames. Good is the portrait, and evil what frames it.

In reality, God is always present, always condescending to appear beneath the peculiar-yet-fitting mantle of some new form. Mostly, we don't see Him. Our prayers float up, but the Lord has already come down, and granted us an intimate audience with Himself. Our part, then, is not to speak, but to place ourselves in this divine presence; at the foot of the beloved one. 

We must be humble and we must listen. (Now, these two really are one, for we must be humble enough to listen, and listening itself is what humbles us, so, the more humble we become, the more deeply we listen, and the more deeply we listen, the more humble we become.)

Lovers are silent in the presence of what they love.

What can we demand which our beloved has not already granted us; the very qualities she exudes, -- being herself no more nor less than the essence of their substance, -- which alone have endeared her to us? Though beggars in the eyes of the world, we should enjoy the most immeasurable riches before our beloved.

To pray is to count one's blessings, not to ask for them.

Such solicitude is mere ingratitude. Not love, but avarice. Tell me, what further blessing can we ask of God which God, in His foreknowing wisdom, has not already chosen, once and for all, to decree?

Grace is co-eternal with God, beyond compromise,
for grace is only from God, and God is always gracious.

How can you ask the Lord for ought?
It only proves you know Him not.

Merely receive Him, and you shall have it,
for no grace is greater than His presence,
and He would give you no less than Himself.

God has made blessedness an attribute of His nature, as light is of the sun.

Though clouds of ignorance may cast shadows of guilt over the souls of men,
the sun does not go black, nor does the Lord condemn.

God In Love

Love, once struck upon my thought,
has never wondered with the ape,
nor tended with the breaking smoke
to drift, as to escape.

More than a corpse, she may keep still,
more than a breath, she may make sound,
she may conceal or show her midst,
yet never lost was love I found.

And though I oft' embrace another,
loving daughters just as well as sons,
I keep them each this close beside me;
I hold a million hands at once.

Hence, think not lightly of my love,
nor of your throne upon my breast,
for here are castles, courts, and kingdoms,
worlds and galaxies, no less.

Whatsmore, my golden suckling,
we need not curse, nor cause a fuss,
when both our souls might thus be loved;
as bold, as broad, as blessed!

On The Passion of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ

Question:

"I realize I am betraying my ignorance by asking this question, but I should like to ask: in what way did our Lord bear our sicknesses and afflictions? I ask this, for I don't remember our Lord ever being sick in the Gospels. Certainly He bore the punishment for our sins in His Passion, is this what His Excellency is referring to? Please forgive my ignorance in this matter."

Answer:

I cannot speak for another, but can share my own interpretation. Christ referred to himself as a physician, and to sin as sickness: "I came not to bring the righteous but the sinners to repentance; for the well need not a physician, but them that are sick,". So, in bearing our sin, he has born our sickness; for sins are nothing if not ailments of the soul. However, in bearing our sickness, he did not himself become sinful, or sick in soul. Not everyone who inhales a germ is contaminated by it. For there are some possessed of constitutions sufficiently bold in resisting infection; who can laugh, as it were, in the face of disease, and, while preserving themselves in perfect health, may spend hours upon a sickbed, giving comfort to the afflicted. Such was our Lord's power, who remained unpolluted in his soul, while taking upon himself all manner of wickedness and misery.

Of course, it must be stressed that the above instruction is solely to be understood according to the spirit, and not the letter; that is, by analogy, and not by mere appearance. We are speaking strictly of the soul of Christ, which is immune to the vicissitudes of our phenomenal world, with all of its attendant corruptions. Yet, for our sakes, the pure and incorruptible soul of God's true Son did clothe itself in a body of tender flesh; and it was this flesh which bore the wounds and stripes of the willful crowd, unmindful and unanswerable to the Holy Spirit of the Father, who, from unimaginable compassion, permitted their free misdeeds. Yes, the body split, and bled, and festered, as any mortal body would. And Jesus, who dared not spare himself the gravest sufferings of humankind, writhed and wrung with agonizing purpose, even crying out as one whose faith is lost, who believes himself abandoned; for among his last words we hear, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me." Still, it was the body, not the soul, that cried out thus. For Christ, as spirit and Son of God, spoke always to the Lord as "Father". It is the special intimacy of this relation which distinguishes the Christian soul in relation to God the Father. Therefore, Christ could not address the Lord as spirit unless he spoke in the attitude of a Son to his Father. Only the briefest, reflexive spasm of the body could induce the breath to speak in unfamiliar terms of that One whom the soul has known -- and, having known, must always know -- so intimately, as Father. As if to leave no doubt concerning the orthodoxy of this interpretation, we hear Lord Jesus deliver his final words but a fraction of a moment later: "Father," he calls Him, effectively acknowledging that mysterious bond (which identifies and unites, far more than it distinguishes and divides), -- that bond which exists between the soul of Christ and the spirit of the Father Most High, "into Thy hands I commend my spirit." And, as if these words were not proof enough for even the most heedless listeners, he declared the last three words which, like a golden seal, would certify his victory over the world: "It is accomplished."

So, why did Christ incarnate; why was he born, to live and teach and die and resurrect before a dim and disbelieving crowd?

He came for us, because of our great need of his love and witness. He suffered for our sins just as we all suffer for the sins of others, because one cannot live in this world without suffering from the sins which fill the world. But, being entirely free from sin himself, his suffering was entirely voluntary, and he alone suffered the full price for sin; since his perfect goodness provoked so much friction between itself and the imperfect world. Had there been less sin in the world, he would have suffered less, but he suffered in direct proportion to the accumulated sins of the world; no more, no less. A dry cloth, if it is capable, absorbs the amount of liquid it is placed in; likewise, a virtuous man, who is capable (as only Jesus is), will draw upon himself the amount of sin that is present in the world. Merely by choosing to enter the world, he is choosing to gather up the sins of the world. Likewise, it is as if a great and powerful magnet were to be let down into a pit of nails. However many the nails may be, the magnet is able to collect them and carry them away. This is one way to understand the sacrifice of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now, it may be objected that, while Christ took upon himself the guilt and the debt for sin, he did not literally remove all sin from the world; for we have only to look around to see the world so full of sin. The answer is that Christ, who dwells in eternity beyond the world, has acted once and for all, erradicating sin at its source, but the world, which dwells in time, has yet to perceive the significance and finality of his intercession. Each individual soul, "in fear and trembling" must come to terms with the reality of Christ's life and death. It is our freewill which determines the time of our encounter with eternal grace. When a dam is erected at the spring of a river, high on the mountain's peak, the water naturally ceases to flow from that point. Nonetheless, there is a remnant emanation of water which has yet to wind its way downward to the sea, and, to those situated at vaious heights upon the mountainside, the river will appear unbroken; lest, with the eyes of faith, we behold the source, and not the appearance. Christ has shown the way to sanctity, once and for all time. His accomplishment cannot be repeated, only emulated. What is added to it, or what appears to be added to it, are only those saintly performances which his revelation has inspired, and will continue to ignite until the world is judged by love and full of light.