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Text Box: THE AWESOME RESPONSIBILITY OF ANY AUTHORITY And Total Inability to Avoid Responsibility Imagine a home or work-place without Charity and Wisdom And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Mat 16:19.) This is an awesome and fear invoking responsibility which the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of Wisdom, lead Saint Peter to exercise only in consultation with the Elders of the Church, with the Apostles and early Disciples of Our Saviour. And thus was established the power of the Church to determine and thereafter proclaim dogma only in a true and full Ecumenical or Great Council of the Church. Each one of also us exercises authority every day, even if it extends only to ourselves. Even if we are imprisoned in jail or in a body which does not function, we exercise some form of authority over ourselves; and most of us exercise authority to some degree over others as well even though it be only by means of influence rather than the ability to demand others follow our orders and instructions. Our individual free will makes each of us unable to avoid responsibility for the authority we exercise, for we are responsible for proper exercise of our own free will. Though we may attempt to instill another with the right, power, and authority to exercise our free will for us, by Divine design we retain our own free will, the responsibility for proper exercise of our free will, and the authority over our own free will. Occasionally one may have the thought that it would be nice if God were to remove free will in-so-far as sinning is concerned, for then it would be easy to be good. But there is no reward which accompanies lack of free will, for we

Text Box: are rewarded in eternity in accordance with the application of the exercise of our free will. To remove free will would be to place us at the level of animals, and animals do what instinct dictates - no more, and no less. A thoughtful person will soon realize we need assistance in exercising authority whether it be over ourselves or over others. As in all matters, God has provided us with the ability to obtain assistance, and this assistance begins with Charity, with Divine Love, in conjunction with Wisdom. Charity and Wisdom flow from God like water from a spring which we can not deplete. It is a spring to which we can continually return to quench our spiritually life sustaining need for Charity and Wisdom. Not a need for spiritually sustaining Charity and Wisdom, but life sustaining need for Charity and Wisdom. It is only with Charity and Wisdom that we have even the remotest possibility of properly exercising authority. Without Charity and Wisdom, the leaders amongst us are no better than the alpha male or the matriarch of a herd or pack - whose main concern is to satisfy their natural drives and to protect and preserve their status and all that is associated with that status. Only as a by-product of this does any good result for the herd or pack. But Charity and Wisdom instill one with a concern for others, and with a more farsighted concern for one’s self. This concern is not the natural concern that an insect such as an ant or honey bee has for the hive, for that concern is part of the nature of those particular insects. The concern which Charity and Wisdom instill in us is voluntary - we can either accept it or reject it, act on it or ignore it, all because of free will which is so integral to authority and the proper or improper exercise of authority. Now, imagine a home, work place, government, school, Church, teacher, police officer, physician, clergyman, mother, or father, who has no or little Divine Love, no or little Wisdom. This

Text Box: is not difficult, for an uncountable multitude of people live in such unholy environments at least for a part of each day. A person or place that is without Charity and Wisdom is a person or place without goodness - it may not be overtly evil, but it is without goodness and thus is inclined to evil, nastiness, belittling, and using of people. God is the only provider of Charity and of Wisdom, and without these there can be no happiness. Remember that where God is not welcome, where God is not, there is no happiness. But where God is welcome, where God is, even though the physical situation may be unbearable, there is happiness. Ref: 1 Peter 1:1-7; Mat. 16:13-19 +

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