http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05504c.htm
Some times the things in life happen like waves breaking, where they hit the shore and how hard varies with many factors but the wave does come. For me Epiphanies are "rouge waves" they hit when I am not expecting them too, when the shore of my life has been calm and free of debris for a while. These waves come and deposit things on the shore and change the landscape causing small eddies and tide pools. Not all of them are helpful or welcome at the time.
Crises of faith, marriage, and grasping to keep a sense of reality are common side effects when the Epiphany shows up. This can be the January 6th one that corresponds with the calender, or the several spiritual events that could be called epiphanies. The current one here on Lake Ang is about Salvation. I mean I have heard of salvation for many years, it is the goal of the sacraments, the belief in The Passion, so many religions points hinge on the need to seek this one thing. Some sects believe I must "be saved", others believe they have saved me with their words and ceremony. I have a problem with placing the hope of my entire next big thing on picking God's winning horse at the Belmont Religious Cup.
I believe that God placed in us the intellect the power to see or at least "feel" when we are close to him. That being saved from myself is really the biggest point of salvation. I have to want the goods you are selling or I just make it myself at home. So I like the flavor of the Roman Church, the guilt works, the art inspires, the sacraments transform, I get it and I dig. But there is this one little part of me that screams out how can all of this save me, it can't be A. That easy or B. That complex. All the trappings of the faith are valuable and irreplaceable to me, but can they truly save me?
And save me from what? Is God really so concerned of the affairs of one crazy woman that he will build a horrible place to house her and those like her when they die. I believe in hell, I know it can be wherever a person is, hell is a state of being, and heaven, it's joy and bliss are as real and as easily obtainable as hell and all that lies in between them are broken pieces of the joys and sorrows of both, I just do not think they were built special just for me. It is my job to obtain GNOSIS, to know better, and then to do better. To avoid sinning upon knowing it is sin, simply because it gets me nowhere as a person, not because an angel cries, this is my goal.
My Epiphany is this, to obtain salvation I must save myself from the world, fueled with the help of sacraments and tenants of faith to stay on a path far enough on shore to experience each wave, but not to close as to get washed away by it. To know that the refuse of a wave is only evidence of the wave was there, not some gift granting me a secret pass to the saints, nor is it punishment for being late for mass or not present at all. The only person my sin or chosen ignorance hurts is me and those I wrap up in it. Being "saved" is being self aware, and knowing there are consequences for each action that are bigger than the amount of Hail Mary's it will cost you after confessing. It is living in the hell those consequences create for those around us who are forced by innocent circumstance to witness our folly, and the seeing the heaven that knows love is bigger than we are capable of destroying. Saved by heresy? maybe.
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