5/18/2009

Tis for Joe NG

I aways wondered why you called yourself Naturgesetz, cuz the laws of nature are not always the way He meant it, although our Lord Jesus Christ(living upon and in us) makes us free. ...Back in the day, when His Holiness Benedikt XVI. came to Cologne to visit the World Youth Day, I had the time of my life. He came on the River Rhine by boat, and after deboarding the boat, went to the Cologne Cathedral. I was in a corner, praying for my family, when he entered the cathedral. I simply overheard the clearance call while praying. So I was illegally in the cathedral when he arrived. When I realised it, it was too late to escape. So I prayed quickly, that the police wouldn´t get me as an intruder. By then, His Holiness had approached the altar of St. Mary, so he could see me, just a chapel away.I felt struck, not able to let go my prayer holding. Then, by and by, I slowly raised, turned around, kneeling down before him to seek his sign to release me. Instead, he ended his prayer, turned towards me and gave me a crossing, as only the Pope can do. I was still in the cathedral, when he was asked by the achbishop of Cologne to save us attendants all together. So I got a second Urbi et Obrbi after easter. tbc

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!

Pilgrim said...

I didn´t know,you were catholic, but nice to know. :-)

naturgesetz said...

That is an awesome experience! I'm sure the memory will be with you all your life: one of those unplanned, unforeseeable graced events. To have the Pope look at you and give you his blessing! It was something that you could not have arranged for.

I'm looking forward to the continuation.

naturgesetz said...

You asked about my screen name, and in the question you put forward an idea that had not occurred to me.

I have always considered that the law of nature was part of God's creative activity — in creating the universe, he created the laws by which it operates, and in creating humanity, he created the laws of human nature by which we are called to live. And it was with that understanding, that I chose the name.

But now I realize that one can, with St. Paul, see nature itself as wounded by the Fall and groaning for its own redemption. In that light, perhaps one can speak of a law of fallen nature. But that is not the law I mean.

Perhaps there is also a bit of confusion in that often "Law of Nature" is understood as meaning only the laws which govern the physical universe, whereas I take it to include the God-given laws of human nature by which we are to govern our conduct. And that law, of which St. Paul writes in the early chapters of Romans, is the natural law which I am referring to in my name — not the law of the flesh which wars against the Spirit (to borrow Pauline terminology once more).

torchy! said...

Pilgrim, i am not a catholic, nor am i particularly religious, but i still hold the Pope in high esteem and i would have been moved beyond words if that had happened to me.

torchy!

MartininBroda said...

That’s indeed an awesome experience, although I am a Protestant, I have a lot of respect for this Pope.