 |
| Marino Restrepo |
There is a man named Marino Restrepo who was born in 1950 in Columbia. His family owned a large coffee planation and were quite well off. Although he was brought up Catholic, he stopped practicing at the age of fourteen. During his teens in the 60s he met up with two different American girls from California, who introduced him to the idea of ‘free love’, helping him to be sexually ‘liberated’ and to drugs. He eventually married the second girl when she became pregnant. They moved to Germany and later to the US. He became a successful producer, actor and song-writer in Hollywood. Gradually he got into every kind of New Age and pagan practice and an increasingly hedonistic lifestyle; a life of pleasure and drugs. Being promiscuous was just part of his life-style and he said that this was the world of Hollywood.
In December 1997, at the age of 47, he visited home for Christmas. After partying with his family, he left to visit one of his uncles. When he got to his house he found the gates locked, which was unusual. Just then he was surrounded by armed, masked men. He was kidnapped and after a couple of days found himself deep in one of the jungles not far from where he grew up. He had been kidnapped by FARC rebels, who were hoping to get ransom money from his family.
He spent the following six months bound, with a cover over his face, lying in a cave. He almost died from malnutrition and the psychological torture that he was put through. They were not able to get the money they had hoped for from his family and he was sure they were going to kill him.
One night during this ordeal, he had a spiritual experience which lasted about eight hours. He was given an illumination of conscience, where God showed him his whole life up to that point and how far he had separated himself from God. God allowed him to see the state of his soul before God. He was able to see the exact moment when he rejected God during his teens and began to live a sinful life. In the world’s eyes he was becoming liberated and very successful in his career, even though he was living a more and more sinful life. God showed him that if he had died at that time, he would have gone to hell, because of his total rejection of God by the way he was living. He had been living in mortal sin for thirty-three years.
As you can imagine this experience brought about his conversion. After six months he was unexpectedly released and after a time of readjustment from being so traumatized, he went to confession and poured his heart out. Since then he gave up his career in Hollywood and has spent the last 27 years of his life travelling around the world giving his testimony.
During his illumination of conscience God also revealed to him in great depth, the nature and seriousness of sin, which he wrote about in a book called From Darkness into the Light. One thing that God showed him was especially how damaging sexual sin is. The ‘free-love’ movement of the sixties, which seemed to be progress and liberation in the eyes of our world, was in fact demonic, as it began to lead more and more people into serious sin and farther from God. What was once considered sinful, sleeping with someone outside of marriage—fornication—gradually came to be seen as normal. Sin was normalized. But God showed him that sexual intimacy is only meant for marriage, something that would almost be considered naïve today.
God made marriage a sacred bond between a man and a woman, which is meant to support them both and give them the security for new life in the right environment. When a child is conceived outside of marriage, it is usually seen as a problem. When a child is conceived within marriage it is usually seen as a gift. Marriage provides the right loving environment into which children can enter the world. Marriage also has God’s blessing and grace to help the couple. I know it does not always work out this way, but this is God’s plan for us.
Artificial contraception also encouraged fornication, which in turn lead to more and more abortion. I have no doubt that abortion is probably one of, if not the greatest sin against God, because it is the destruction of life which comes from God, at its very beginning. If sexual relations were kept within marriage, abortion would drop drastically, as would sexually transmitted diseases. God in his wisdom knows what works and keeps showing us what works, but we must listen.
The first step to ending abortion is to help our young people to understand that it is not ok to sleep around before they are married; that in fact this is serious sin in God’s eyes and every time it happens we separate ourselves more and more from God.
Why is sexual sin more serious than other sin? God made us in his image and God’s Spirit dwells within us from baptism, which means our body is a sacred thing. When a child is conceived God also creates a soul for that new life, which is immortal. The love between a man and a woman has the potential to become another life, which is imitating God. The love between the Father and the Son, is another life, the Spirit. Human sexuality mirrors God, which is why it is so sacred. That is also why Satan attacks it so much. Satan does everything to try and lead us away from God, simply because he hates God and hates God’s creation.
The Lord also showed this to the Apostles, which is why they wrote about it. The second reading today is addressing exactly this:
“Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body. But the immoral person sins against his own body.” (1 Cor 6:18)
“Do you not know that neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who practice homosexual acts… will inherit the kingdom of heaven.”
(1 Cor 6:9)
The Apostles didn’t just decide this. The Lord showed them this, just as He showed Marino Restrepo the exact same thing in his experience. It is easy to get the impression that these teachings just applied to cultures centuries ago and that they are no longer relevant, but that’s why the Lord continues to give people different experiences, like Marino Restrepo and many others, so that we will realize it is just the same today. What was sinful remains sinful. What used to separate us from God will still separate us from God and it is only in God we will find our happiness, which means that anything sinful we need to take seriously.
Marino Restrepo was not a bad person, but the life he was living was extremely sinful before God and would have cost him losing heaven forever if he had died then. The Lord does not want that for any of us, but we must listen.
One of the lines in Scripture which I believe we need to hear often, is this:
[Jesus said] “It is not those who say, “Lord, Lord…” who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
Everything that God shows us is to help us. God’s design works, which is why He gave us the Scriptures, to show us in black and white what to do and what to avoid.
“For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”
No comments:
Post a Comment