The late Fr Gabriel Harty OP taught and prayed ‘The Healing Light of the Rosary’ in association with the late Carrie Carney in many prayer groups after 1970. Gabriel used inspirations for the decades – Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious – which he had obtained from Carrie, who had received the message of the Divine Humanity from Our Lord. The core of this message is that if we share our wounds, especially those of sin with the wounds of Christ and repent, we are healed, and also help to heal others.
Jesus had said to Carrie: “I am the Divine Humanity.” When I first knew Gabriel and Carrie I was greatly intrigued by this name, as I had never previously heard of it. As a Catholic we were taught a little about the Mystical Body of Christ, but never gave it much attention.
The core of Carrie’s message is that all humanity exists in the Humanity of Christ, but is still in the process of being redeemed.
This was confirmed by Our Lady’s Message to Fr Gobbi (The Marian Movement of Priests) in 1983 when she told the priests to “Climb the Holy Mountain of His Divine Humanity so that you may be able to become a reflection of the perennial immolation of Jesus for you: His eyes in your eyes; His hands in your hands; His heart in your hearts; His sufferings in your sufferings; His wounds in your wounds; His cross in your cross.”
Since the year 2000 I have also found that several scholars in the Eastern Orthodox Church, eg Fr S Bulgakov, who died in 1944, had published books on the theology of the Divine Humanity. These books are now available in English and they amply confirm that this name for Jesus and its theological implications now seem to be very necessary for the present age when Christianity is greatly attacked.
The weakness in the present teaching by the Churches is that if creation and humanity have only a finite beginning, then a finite life, why then believe in eternal life after death? The first chapters in Genesis are then regarded merely as a fable.
For many years now I cannot accept that Original Sin was committed by one man and one woman, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden on Earth as an historical event. Instead, since I believe in this sin and baptism as a sacrament, I now think that Original Sin occurred in a transcendental state of being of creation, and as a result it is actualised in the fallen finite state of space-time. Our initial unity as one great idea, generated and contained by the Alpha Christ, the idea of the Word becoming Incarnate, became a fallen sinful multiplicity. The presence of natural evil, especially death, is now accepted by scientists as a feature of the universe billions of years before homo sapiens emerged, so there was “damned darnel among the wheat” right back to the beginning.
This problem of the source of natural evil, eg the Coronavirus, cannot now be ignored in theology as Prof John Lennox did in his recent ‘Faith Matters’ articles in The Irish News. We cannot attribute natural evil to God, so humanity tempted by Satan (Eden) to bring knowledge of evil into knowledge which was entirely good in a transcendental origin is the answer. The mission of Christ is to restore and fulfil the unity of creation in Himself as the Divine Humanity.
PROF JOHN ROONEY
Belfast BT9
Social distancing not a new practice for north’s schools
Pre-pandemic we were told that our NHS was ‘sick’ and unlikely to survive. Now we hear that post-pandemic the service will be unrecognisable because of the changes that have been made to protect and save lives. Our political leaders stress that there was no alternative to this drastic action if we were to have a fit-for-purpose system, equipped to meet the needs of all.
In the midst of the united effort galvanised to tackle the health crisis, another ailing service requires urgent attention.
All sections of the education sector have been confronted with significant challenges. Second and third-level institutions have responded by cooperating with each other and the examination bodies re the use of predicted grades to help them and their students make important decisions about future pathways.
Unfortunately at primary level, the education minister is of the opinion that there is no alternative to the flawed transfer test with its predicted grade of ‘failure’ for the majority, as the basis for parental choice about the next step of schooling for vulnerable 11-year olds.
Social distancing is not a new practice for schools. It is well established and reinforced by a discredited selection system.
If it is possible to break the chain of the deadly coronavirus, surely
with a combined effort the cycle of educational inequality can be halted and the life chances of our young people protected.
Minister Weir, there is an alternative.
M HAGAN
Ballymena, Co Antrim
Malachi can have my white privilege
Malachi O’Doherty recently said on The Nolan Show (June 3) – “Irish people should accept they have white privilege.”
We Irish were subjugated for 800 years by English/British rule; never attacked another nation; never invaded and was never a colonial power.
Also the Irish were themselves part of the Transatlantic slave trade sold into hard labour in places such as the Caribbean – (To Hell and Barbados – The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland/ Sean O’Callaghan)
Of course there is also the genocide of the Irish Famine.
If Malachi would like my white privilege, then he is welcome to have it.
We as Irish people should not be ashamed, nor made to feel guilty for living in what is today a comfortable society.
We earned it.
M CAIRNS
Belfast BT15
Wiping Mitchel from history would achieve nothing
I see some calls on social media for the statue of John Mitchel in Newry to suffer a similar fate to that of the slave owner’s statue in Bristol. Would it not be better to erect a plate at the statue telling people of Mitchel’s racist views and behaviour? Wiping him from history would achieve nothing. Letting people know that icons from our past do not necessarily deserve our honour would be more useful. How about changing the street name, where his statue stands, from John Mitchel Place to George Floyd Place? Wouldn’t he turn in his grave to think his statue was in a street dedicated to a black victim of white racist violence?
PAT McMAHON
Newry, Co Down
