Von Frater Benedictus Maria CFM.SCJ – Herz Jesu Franziskaner

In the Davidic Covenant, it was instructed that every 7 years the Israelites were to take a Sabbatical year, which was a year of no reaping and harvesting among other things, but the special point I would like to mention is they were instructed to read the first 5 books of the Old Testament, as in the story of Creation and the early history. In this time also debts were forgiven and in essence the people of God were called to start again. We can look at the cycle of a week, the 6 days of work and the 7th as a day of rest to get an understanding of the cyclic nature and rhythm God has created for us. One of the reasons why it was so important to ‚go back‘ and read the very beginning of history was that if a person had misused the last few years of their life; for example living sinful and riotous lives, then they basically needed to go back and ‚try again‘. When one undertakes a complex task, say a mathamatics problem, one gets to the end and the answer may be wrong or if they find their reasonableness is way out by calculations checks along the way…. then a person needs to go back to the beginning and try again! This is a very important process for all Catholics especially those in religious life to undertake to put us back on our course to heaven, when we deviate slightly from this direction. In essence we need to go back to the beginning and try again, in order to put our heart and mind in God’s law and love once more, and seek the way of perfection found in Jesus Christ. We should be doing this every day with an examination of conscious at the end of the day (the rest part) to determine what was done well and what was done badly. But more so we should make a habit of every 7th day and every 7th year to make a bigger effort in cleaning up and starting again.

So let us go back to the beginning for a short meditation upon the very foundations of the world, in order that we might understand this whole story of salvation history a little better as well as assist our sabbatical reflections and resolutions.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The Gensis account gives us an indication of the nature of God and what he did in the beginning. It should be noted that the original earth, before the flood, was perfect. God saw what He had made was very good: immaculate would have been a better word. The original earth had water above the firmament, above where the birds flew, and water below the earth. So in essence the earth was floating on water and above the sky there was a layer of water, which was probably crytalline or ice as scientist speculate today. We know this from the magnetic effect of ice from the earth’s magnetic field and through observation of floating ice during space launches. This water below the earth and above the earth created a super oxygen rich, high pressure greenhouse in which the whole earth was bountiful and plants and animals enjoyed great health and growth due to better living conditions living conditions than what we see today. Water has a very high heat capacity and consequently when there is water and moisture present (for example under the surface of the earth) we experience consistent temperatures; one only needs to think of the extremes of temperature in the desert to understand the opposite effect. These perfect living conditions is one of the reasons why Adam and Eve lived till over 900 years and consequently why our fathers lived for around 900 years until after the flood. The world has not continued the same since its beginning, as many evolutionists claim today. God created everything perfect in the beginning, but it was our sin that wrecked creation and brought the flood, and it can be clearly seen that it is our sin that continues to wreck the earth today.‎ We are living in a junk yard and the current state of the world is not how God intended it, nor how He intends the new heaven and the new earth. But God wants us to return to the splendour and perfection of the Garden of Eden. From the moment of the fall of Adam and Eve, God promised He would grant a way to return.

Our goal in life is what Adam and Eve prayed for every single day of their 900+ years on earth; to return to the Garden of Eden also known to be the new heaven and the new earth that Jesus promised on earth. The earth will be restored to its former glory and beauty. We need to return to the beginning and a true understanding of what God did and desires to do in order to see clearly our way to heaven and to more fully appreciate the nature of the God we worship. For St Peter predicted that scoffers would come after their own lusts, denying the creation, saying where is the promise of Christ for everything has continued the same since our fathers fell asleep. For this scripture is very important to understanding our greatest adversary’s new doctrine of ‚Evolution‘. The religion of evolution has not a single piece of proof for its existence, yet many Catholics have been fooled into following the devil’s new doctrine. Evolution is, as St Peter pointed out, not a matter of science, but one of lusts. For if one can reject God’s truth of creation, one can reject the Creator’s laws and that is exactly what we see today. So dear Brothers and Sisters, may your sabbatical reflections bring you back to peace and joy living in Christ, knowing His truth and following His example; that you may persevere until the end, amid the scoffers and liers, to inherit the Garden of Eden, beautiful and immaculate, on the last day.