He is my Sovereign,
He is the king of all kings,
He is my wings of protection,
He is my everything.
-
Cathryne
Allen
Wednesday, 15 July 2026
THE ONE
THE ROBE OF HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS
“It was the custom for one fleeing for
his life in the desert to seek protection in the tent of a great sheik, crying
out, “Ana dakhiluka”, meaning ‘I am thy suppliant’, whereupon the host would
place the hem of his robe over the guest's shoulder and declare him under his
protection.
“In one instance in the Book of Mormon, we see Nephi
fleeing from an evil enemy that is pursuing him. In great danger, he prays the
Lord to give him an open road in the low way, to block his pursuers, and to
make them stumble. He comes to the Lord as a suppliant: ‘O Lord wilt thou
encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness! O Lord, wilt thou make a
way for mine escape before mine enemies! (2 Nephi 4:33).
“In reply, according to the ancient custom, the Master
would place the hem of his robe protectively over the kneeling man’s shoulder
(kafata). This puts him under the Lord’s protection from all enemies. They
embrace in a close hug, as Arab chiefs still do: the Lord makes a place for him
(see Alma 5:24) and invites him to sit down beside him – they are at-one.
“This is the imagery of the Atonement – the embrace.
‘The Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am
encircled about eternally in the arms of His love! (2 Nephi 1:15).
-
Hugh Nibley, “The Atonement of Jesus
Christ, Part 1” Ensign July 1990
Your saving grace
Has lifted me to Your cross
Becoming my mortal weakness’ greatest foe.
I now walk with You
In paths I dare not walk alone;
In the valley of shadow of death,
I rejoice to be Your own.
-
Cathryne
Allen
Tuesday, 14 July 2026
HIS SHEEP
How
grateful to know Your voice
In
this world of utter despair
And
hear it echo
In
Your loving tender care.
How
fiercely You watch,
How
tenderly You care,
How
safe You make me feel
Knowing
You are ever there.
How
grateful I am to be in Your flock,
How
grateful to be in Your keep;
You
are my shepherd
And
I am Your sheep.
-
Cathryne Allen
THE GATHERING
God intends to consummate the great latter-day
work in five steps: 1. The literal gathering of Israel; 2. The restoration of
the Ten Lost Tribes; 3. The building of Zion (the New Jerusalem) upon the
American continent; 4. Christ’s personal reign upon the earth known as the
Millenium; and 5. The renewal of the earth in its paradisical glory. (see Hugh
Nibley, Approaching Zion, p 1-2)
We are currently engaged in the first step. The
gathering began in 1836 when Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel, appeared in
the Kirtland Temple to give Joseph Smith “the keys of the gathering of Israel
from the four parts of the earth” (D&C 110:11).
What exactly is ‘the gathering’. It is proclaiming
the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations of the earth for one reason: there is
none else beside Him through whom salvation can come. There is none else in heaven
above, or earth beneath or waters beneath the earth, nothing, nobody, nowhere,
beside Him there is no saviour, there is none other name given under heaven
save it be this Jesus Christ whereby man can be saved (Isaiah 43:10-11; 45,5,6,14,18,22;
46:9; Deut 4:35,39; 5:8; 1 kings 8:60, 2 Nephi 2:8; 25:20; 31:21; Moses 6:52; D&C
76:1)
To be gathered means to come into the fold of
Christ and be baptized in His name. It means that all who will receive their
salvation have to belong to the House of Israel, through Him who is the God of
Israel. The tribes of Israel are being gathered from every nation where the
Lord’s servants, under the direction of the Prophet of the Church, are able to
go. This gathering is happening in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy:
“Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the
Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the
children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, the Lord liveth, that brought
up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands
whither he had driven them….Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the
Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and
they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the
holes of the rocks….Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in
the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep
him, as a shepherd doth his flock.”
(Jeremiah 31:7,8,10-12)
As complete as was the scattering , so shall be
the gathering of ‘treacherous Judah’ and
‘backsliding Israel’ (Jeremiah 3:11):
“Though smitten of men, a large part of them gone from a knowledge of the
world, Israel are not lost unto their God. He knows whither they have been led
or driven; toward them His heart still yearns with paternal love…” (James
Talmage, Articles of Faith, p 328-9)
I know something of paternal love of Christ. After
I was baptized into the Church at the tender age of 18, I had a very
significant dream. In the dream, I was in a high rise building with my parents
who opposed my baptism. As we conversed, there arose some commotion on the
street below us. We hurried down to see the cause and as we reached our
destination a white matter akin to snow fell on top of us. We had to burrow our
way to the top. My parents never made it but I did. As I emerged I surveyed the
street and saw it covered everywhere with exquisite whiteness. When I turned to
my right I saw the Saviour coming towards me with His outstretched arms saying:
“Where are my children?” I knew from that moment that my baptism was my
re-birth and that through it, I belonged to Him.
When we are baptized we take upon ourselves the
name of Christ and become His spiritually begotten children (Mosiah 5:7-12). The
baptismal covenant instituted by Jesus himself during his ministry fulfilled
the law of Moses and opened the way of spiritual re-birth and salvation for all
by joining the House of Israel through baptism.
When the scattering of the Ten Tribes happened,
some members of these tribes were scattered throughout what we now know to be
Europe. My patriarchal blessing tells me I am a true Israelite by birth being
of ‘the seed of Abraham’. This is one of my most prized blessings of this life.
It makes me grateful for my Croatian roots because I am one of the sheep of the
House of Israel and I have come home to the Shepherd….
Monday, 13 July 2026
THE SCATTERING
“In the desert of Sinai, Moses gathered the
children of Israel at the foot of a mountain. There the Lord declared that he
wanted to turn this group of recently liberated slaves into a mighty people.
“Ye shall be unto me”, He said, “a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation”
(Exodus 19:6). He promised that they would flourish and prosper, even when
surrounded by larger, more powerful enemies.
“All this would happen not because the
Israelites were numerous or strong or skillful. It would happen, the Lord
explained, if they would “obey [His] voice indeed, and keep [His] covenant”
(Exodus 19:5). God’s power, not their own, would make them mighty.
“Yet the Israelites didn’t always obey God’s
voice, and over time they stopped keeping His covenant. Many worshipped other
gods and adopted the practices of the cultures around them. They rejected the
very thing that made them a distinct nation – their covenant relationship with
the Lord. Without God’s power protecting them, there was nothing to stop
their enemies (see 2 Kings 17:6-7; 2 Chronicles 36:12-20).” (Jesus Will Say
to All Israel, Come Home, Come Follow Me For Home and Church, LDS Gospel
Library, month of July)
Before Israelites entered the promised land Moses prophesied they shall turn away from the
worship of Jehovah and as a consequence be utterly destroyed and scattered among
all nations (Deuteronomy 4:25-31).
This prophecy was fulfilled with the first
dispersion of the Ten Tribes of the Southern Kingdom of Israel in 724 B.C. The
King of Assyria besieged Samaria and after 3 years of the siege he carried the
Ten Tribes into captivity. A repentant
portion of the Ten Tribes were led away by God into the north countries and
will return at an appointed time. They are called the Ten Lost Tribes and are
spoken of in the Apocrypha (2 Esdras 13:41-46; Jeremiah 3:18; 16:15; 31:8; 1
Nephi 22:4; 3 Nephi 17:4).
The Kingdom of Judah was led into Babylon by
King Nebuchadnezzar in three main waves of exile: 1. 605 B.C. – all skilled and
educated and less evil which included Daniel and his three friends; 2. 597 B.C.
– the second and largest wave included the royal court and thousands of skilled
craftsmen; 3. 586 B.C. – the third and most devastating wave, following the siege
and destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple.
The fourth and final wave was the most horrific
of all. In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus prophesied to his disciples of the
destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (see Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). This
prophecy was fulfilled in 70 A.D. when Roman Emperor Titus marched into
Jerusalem.
And this is the interesting part. I always
thought that the Romans were the aggressors and villains who destroyed
Jerusalem but it would seem that Titus didn’t have such a big job to do. When
he arrived, he discovered that different factions of the Jewish population were
at each other’s throats, destroying their food supplies and basically killing
each other.
Titus summed up the situation beautifully. A
trench was dug around Jerusalem to ensure isolation and make it difficult for
people to get out past the walls to search for food. Whoever escaped the city was
crucified. When the food supplies ran
out, a terrible famine struck the once opulent city and turned it into a scene
of carnage and plunder. Even Titus was sick at heart at the daily horrors he
witnessed or heard of. As the temple became a fort, Titus attacked it as such.
It wasn’t long before fire was set to it and not one stone upon another was
left, as Jesus foretold. Six thousand people perished in the flames of the
temple and more than a million and a half of Jews perished in this war. Many
were also sold into slavery and thus ‘scattered among all nations’ (see Smith
and Sjodahl, Commentary, pp 260-261)
The scattering of the 12 Tribes of Israel is
the greatest tragedy of this earth’s history. To be promised so much and to
reject it defies logic. The scattering is also the greatest witness, bar the
Atonement, of Jehovah’s mercy. He has promised He will never break His covenant
with Israel (Deut 4:31; Leviticus 26:44,46; Isaiah 49:15,16; 2 Kings 13:23).
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Sunday, 12 July 2026
THE BITTER CUP
As I prayed this morning I was reminded of all
the suffering in the world and I begged God to lift up all of His children who
are today in depths of despair. I know that place….a place devoid of hope and
even sometimes faith. This request was only possible because hope can exist
and it does so because of one man.
Songs have been written about Him, prayers
uttered in His name and books written about His greatest heroic achievement in
the history of mankind. My eyes have
been opened to a lot of things through my physical suffering these past two
years but perhaps the greatest was my recent minute insight into the suffering of Christ.
It was not an intellectual but an
emotional connection. What it did was bring me into touch with profound sorrow that
somehow broadened my already minute understanding of the Atonement…..it came
through my heart because it connected my suffering to His.
Many have concluded that Jesus didn’t really
know the pain He was going to go through. I on the other hand think He was
given the exact knowledge of it through His godly intellect. It has to do with
‘the bitter cup’. I think it was because of His understanding that He asked if
there was another way so He didn’t have to drink it (Matthew 26:39; D&C
19:18-19).
And this is where I stand amazed. Not even when
He was going through it, did He resort to push the button within His reach to end
the torture. The commitment had been made and the endurance to the end was all
that mattered. This became obvious when in His extremity he refused to drink
another bitter cup that would in actuality soften the blow.
Crucifixion was an excruciatingly painful
execution method. It was the custom of the compassionate local women or Jewish
sympathizers to offer an anesthetic potion being a mixture of cheap wine and an
aromatic tree resin called myrrh to those undergoing such an ordeal. Matthew and
Mark identified it as vinegar and gall suggesting bitterness (Matthew 27:34: Mark
15:23). Jesus was offered this drink right before the crucifixion. He tasted it
but ultimately refused to drink it. He was offered it again whilst on the cross
(Mark 15:36; John 19:28,29).
The willingness to endure the full weight of
human suffering and death with a fully conscious mind, rather than seeking to
dull the pain or avoid the ultimate sacrifice He had to make is where the
heroic component of His Atonement would have to be. It was the willingness to
endure that brought the end when He could say: “It is finished” (John 19:30)
We can read all that has been written about the
Atonement and Christ’s great suffering but nothing compares to the understanding
you receive through the channels of the spirit and heart. I don’t know how He
did it but I know that He did…..my heart tells me so.
I
couldn’t stop the tears when they came
To
show me what You knew of earthly pain.
My
soul split open and I could see
What
You suffered in Gethsemane.
My
tears spilled and climbed that Hill
Where
Your suffering increased yet still;
Oh
how You suffered on that cross
So
that none of us would be lost!
When
one day again we meet
I
will sorrow at Your feet,
My
hands raw from clutching still
That
gruesome cross of Calvary.
You
have my heart
You
have my soul
My
purchased self is Yours to own.
In
my memory Your blood runs still
On
that ruthless hill of Calvary.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Saturday, 11 July 2026
THE POWER OF SELF-FORGIVENESS
There
are two worthy examples of the principle of self-forgiveness in the scriptures
and the power that can come from it and they are Apostle Paul and Alma, the son
of Alma from The Book of Mormon.
Paul,
who considered himself ‘the least of the apostles’ and not worthy to be called
such because he persecuted the church of God (1 Corinthians 15:9) became the
greatest missionary in the meridian of time and one of the foremost leaders of
the Saviour’s Church. When I study his epistles I am amazed at the grand scale
of his growth, the depth of his understanding of the doctrine of Christ and his
repeated testimony of the only source of our salvation.
He
will forever be remembered as a spiritual giant among men and here is why. Even
though Paul testified about God’s grace vehemently and gave credit to it for
what he became (1 Corinthians 15:10), he would have had to at one stage
forgiven the man who misled him to offend God, and that man was himself. I
believe he arrived at that place of self-forgiveness when he could in clear
conscience say: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have
kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Paul, after years of unrelenting, selfless service
became a beacon of hope for all sinners.
Alma
became a living testament of the Saviour's power of deliverance. Not only
because Christ forgave him for his horrendous sins and saved him from
spiritual death but also because He freed him to become a great man.
After Alma came out of his three days of torment he immediately began to preach
of Christ's mercy and His power to save (Mosiah 27:32). Nowhere in the
scriptures does it say that he moped around and agonised over his past
sins and felt bad about himself.
Alma
became a great example of someone who had his guilt ‘taken away from his heart,
through the merits of God’s Son’ (Alma 24:10). Alma, who went about with the
intent to destroy the Church became Alma who led the Nephite armies in battle,
who sat naked with Amulek in dungeons, who was spat upon by the unrepentant,
who dumbfounded an anti-Christ, who baptised thousands of souls unto repentance
(Alma 4:4-5), who the Lord in the end took up unto himself (Alma
45:19).
I learnt
something about self-forgiveness recently. Sometimes we can give our
imperfections power over us as much as our sins and not realise they too are deserving
of self-forgiveness. I have led a pretty
good life, carefully avoiding serious sin but I have been very hard on myself
because I have not been ‘perfect’ in mortality. I consider all my
imperfections, weaknesses and my very
humanity as my ‘earthly indignities’.
As a result
of my unwillingness to forgive myself for the minutest things, I have carried
inside me a self-deprecating picture of myself, a belief that I am not ‘good
enough’, for much of my adult life. It is just now that I am beginning to
understand that it doesn’t matter so much what I used to be like, what matters
the most is what I have repented of and changed, and as a result continue to
become.
The Saviour
who forgives understands mortality. This was the whole point of His earthly
ministry. You might say He experienced mortal life at ‘ground zero’ because He ‘descended
below all things that he might comprehend all things’ (D&C 88:6). What
things? Our difficulties, our sorrows, our sins, our imperfections, our
sufferings, our inabilities, our mortal weakness…..the ultimate comprehension
coming through the Atonement where He came to understand what it is to be you
and me.
If you
are still 'harrowed' up by your past sins and the negative things you have
allowed to define you, you are missing the person that you could be. If
you believe you are no good, the Lord can make nothing of you. In this
state you are not good to anyone; not to yourself, not to God, not to your
fellowmen. If you consider yourself a bad person because of your past
and do not possess inner peace, you will eventually start seeking it
elsewhere. And some of the places you can end up in have the
potential to distance you from God forever.
When you look at Paul and Alma, do you see broken men with a past or do you see powerful servants of the Lord? If you have repented of your sins but can't let them go, you are giving them more power than you are giving God. The adversary wants nothing more than for your sins to continue to have power over you, even after you have forsaken them, because he hopes one day you will return to them. Your forgiveness is not complete until you allow the Saviour to take away your remorse. The power of the Atonement can complete this process. The Saviour can extend mercy, He can forgive, He can make of you a new person, He can wipe your slate clean. Believe it, trust it, ask for it. The Lord has work for you to do and He is waiting.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
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