What’s the “weekly mettle maker?”
Training ideas and info supporting Heritage Arts’ programs — Heritage Self-Defense, Wildwood outdoor skills, Heritage Fitness, and Heritage Spirit.
Mettle Maker #330
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What’s your ruler? Do you keep a training journal? Do you keep track of your performance numbers? Set goals and develop plans to hit them? Do you have a training program, regimen, process, or system? Or do you just amble along, doing whatever you feel like doing on a given training day? You should consider that, without a training program and a tracking method, you have no ruler.
If you don’t “rule” yourself — if you don’t have a “ruler” — your only ruler is chaos itself.
Take control. This applies no matter what you’re looking to achieve.
Fitness and Self-Defense: Fifth Annual Mettlecraft Month (go here for details) is two-thirds of the way through. But there’s still time to get in there and take your own measure. You don’t have to try and set the fastest time ever — just doing half of it is a step in the right direction. Maybe, like Arman, you smash it your first try. Or maybe it takes you three months. Or maybe you never get there. Ya gotta start somewhere! The challenge is to complete Constitutional #86 with perfect form in under 20 minutes: 25 Wrestler’s Bridges, 100 yards of Bear Walks, 25 Bodybuilders, 25 Shots, 25 Clocks, 25 Get-ups and 25 Drop Duck-unders.
Interested in a free martial arts or fitness distance learning program? Check out our free programs here.
Wildwood — The above info applies to you too. Make a list of the skills you think you need or want to have under your belt, and start trying to get there. How will you acquire them? What will your text books be? Do you keep a training log? A wild plant book? Want to learn more about nature appreciation and survival? Sign up for one of our free distance learning programs.
SPEAKING OF RULERS….
Today is the Solemnity of Christ the King — the day we acknowledge Jesus Christ as the King of the Universe. For more information, watch Holy Communion for today or read the homily.
Holy Communion is now LIVE on YouTube every Sunday at 9AM. Due to YouTube LIVE processing times, the weekly Holy Communion video is often partial until late afternoon or evening. If you attempt to view the video, and running time is less than 40 to 45 minutes, please check back later.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW AND PRINT THE HOLY COMMUNION PROGRAM
Homily the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Nov. 20th, 2022 – Archdeacon Mitch
Readings: 2 Sm 5:1-3, Ps 122:1-2, 3-4, 4-5, Col 1:12-20, Lk 23:35-43
Luke 23:35-43 World English Bible Catholic Edition
The people stood watching. The rulers with them also scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one!”
36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar, 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
38 An inscription was also written over him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
39 One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!”
40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Don’t you even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 He said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
43 Jesus said to him, “Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
The first criminal says, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!” This man, a true materialist, was speaking only of bodies on crosses at that time and in that place. Today as then, there are billions of materialists like this. The equivalent person in the modern world is the atheist who says something like, “Jesus never saved anyone. If he wanted to save people, he would’ve come to Earth with antibiotics, electricity, and modern plumbing.”
The materialist Jews of Christ’s day wanted a warrior king to come and bring peace to Israel by liberating them from the oppression of Rome. The materialist of today wants peace through technology and government authority. As ever, the materialist is blind to the universal, metaphysical, healing power of Peace.
St. Paul said that Christ is, “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:12-20) and “all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.” (Col 1:19-20).
What is this Peace that comes through acknowledging Christ as King? This is the Peace of acceptance that comes from faith and saves us from fear, anxiety, worry, and suffering. This is the Peace which is the absence of vengeful thoughts and actions that comes from understanding that judgement is in God’s hands. This is the Peace that comes when we understand that God loves us so much that he came to earth and entered into our state of suffering right beside us. His is the Peace that is the harmony existing between and among all those who understand that, as children of God, we are all brothers and sisters by blood – the blood of the cross.
The poor materialist on the cross who asked Christ to save his physical body from the immediate suffering of crucifixion could not see the potential in Christ’s sacrifice, just as the modern-day materialist is blind to the billions of lives saved by the Peace of Christ – saved from war, saved from privation, starvation, and hardship by Christian charity, saved from self-harm and suicide, and indeed, saved from the death that lasts forever.
Christ is King, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).Let us praise Him and rejoice in his saving Peace.