tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44449495524454826292024-02-19T15:36:44.169-08:00Bread of LifeJesus said to them, <i>I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood; you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.</i> (John 6: 53-54) Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.comBlogger443125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-48906099083126625162017-08-29T15:19:00.002-07:002017-08-29T15:19:55.944-07:00DEALING WITH GUILT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvwxZXVP-3FFsgPKRX50phqIe7Id480NfY6Ehtt3Y0_mwBjvx1dlR3ZAIUoSQNBGIwKB9il55y5KNXr8kOBaAudmo5mRLbJBwH7gBMl9EEdQEPinMmCyc4nQRtV8aeBEBb5dQBQmZ74Dh/s1600/a2277144039_10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1181" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvwxZXVP-3FFsgPKRX50phqIe7Id480NfY6Ehtt3Y0_mwBjvx1dlR3ZAIUoSQNBGIwKB9il55y5KNXr8kOBaAudmo5mRLbJBwH7gBMl9EEdQEPinMmCyc4nQRtV8aeBEBb5dQBQmZ74Dh/s200/a2277144039_10.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>
<p>
<a href=' http://www.greatbiblestudy.com/dealing_with_guilt.php'>Perhaps one of the biggest reasons </a> so many of God's children are living defeated lives, is because of guilt. Guilt is one of Satan's biggest weapons against us. It tears us down, it makes us feel dirty, unworthy, robs of us of our faith and confidence in Christ Jesus.
<p>
Jesus not only came to cleanse us from our sins, but also set us free from the guilt of our sins. If you want to live a life of spiritual victory, you need to have a conscience freed from the guilt of your past. 1 Timothy 3:9, "Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience."
<p>
<b>Two kinds of guilt</b>
<p>
There's two kinds of guilt in the Bible. There's Godly sorrow that leads a person to repentance (2 Cor 7:10), which is know as conviction and it comes from the Holy Spirit (John 16:8, "when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin..." - NASB). Once a person repents, the guilt lifts and they feel relieved and joyful that their sin(s) have been forgiven.
<p>
Then there's another kind of guilt, and that's condemnation or accusations from the devil. Satan loves to torment God's people by reminding them of their pasts, and continually holding their sins before them even after their sins have been forgiven.
<p>
This is condemnation and there is no good that comes out of it whatsoever. It tears us down, makes us feel dirty, unworthy and robs of us of our faith and confidence in Christ Jesus. It's a lie from the father of lies, and it needs to be ignored.
<p>
The difference between condemnation and conviction is explained in much more detail in the teaching Condemnation verses Conviction.
<p>
In this teaching, we will be dealing solely with the negative kind of guilt called condemnation.
<p>
<b>Guilt is a door to the enemy</b>
<p>
I have seen how guilt can be an open door to be tormented by evil spirits. False guilt is actually a symptom of unforgiveness in your heart that is directed at yourself. In Matthew 18:23-35, Jesus tells us how important it is to forgive those who have wronged us, and how we can be turned over to the tormenters (evil spirits) if we are unforgiving.
<p>
Colossians 3:13 tells us to be, "...forgiving one another..." The phrase 'one another' in NT Greek translates to the word Heautou, which includes THEMSELF! Bitterness, regardless who or what it's about, defiles a man (Hebrews 12:15).
<p>
Spiritual defilement is what makes a person open to unclean spirits. It is very possible for a person to be harassed by evil spirits or come under their power, just because a person has refused to forgive them self.
<p>
<b>How guilt is cultivated and nurtured</b>
<p>
Guilt is cultivated when you continually allow yourself to dwell and think about how badly you've messed up, your pasts, the sins you've committed, etc. The enemy loves to remind us of our past failures, so he can keep us thinking about them. The problem is, if we allow ourselves to fall for this trap, it allows the enemy to build what they call a stronghold in our minds.
<p>
<b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Your best bet is to learn what is going on, and stop Satan dead in his tracks. Learn the difference between condemnation and conviction, and stop listening to condemnation. Condemnation comes from the devil, and it's meant to build strongholds in your mind and weaken you spiritually</span></b>.
<p>
<b>The stronghold of guilt</b>
<p>
When a person who has repented of their sin(s) but continually feels guilty day after day, even after being told that their past has been washed away and their sins have been forgiven, is facing what they call a stronghold. A stronghold is a lie that is believed, which results in an incorrect thinking pattern.
<p>
The stronghold of guilt is often not alone, it is usually accompanied with an incorrect perception of themselves or an incorrect perception of God (which are both strongholds in themselves).
<p>
People who have a stronghold of guilt rarely see God for who He really is (including His awesome forgiving nature) or they don't see themselves correctly. They are new creations in Christ who's past has been washed away (2 Corinthians 5:17), but they simply don't believe it because they have a stronghold in their mind that needs to be torn down.
<p>
If this describes you, then I highly recommend reading the teaching on <a href="http://www.greatbiblestudy.com/strongholds.php">Strongholds.</a>
<p>
<b>How to deal with guilt</b>
<p>
Step 1: Understand the nature of God's forgiveness towards you. The teaching on <a href="http://www.greatbiblestudy.com/forgiveness_of_sins.php">The Forgiveness of Sins</a> is a great teaching to help you there.
<p>
Step 2: Repent of your sin(s) if you haven't already done so. They big key to being forgiven is repentance.
<p>
Step 3: Know that your past sins have been forgiven, and that you are now clean in Christ Jesus. Stop thinking about your past sins and start thinking about the new person you are in Christ. We are NEVER told to mull around our past sins, but rather to forget the things which are behind and press forward. (Phil 3:13, "...this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.")
<p>
Step 4: Forgive yourself! Jesus made it clear that we are to be forgiving, and that includes forgiving yourself. You need to release yourself from the bondage of unforgiveness. If God chose to forgive you, who are you to hang onto something that God chose to let go of? This is a major source of bondage, and I can't stress how vital it is for you to release yourself from your past.
<p>
Colossians 3:13 tells us to be, "...forgiving one another..." If you look up the phrase 'one another' in that verse in the NT Greek, it translates to the word Heautou which includes THEMSELF! It is vital to be forgiving towards yourself!! Bitterness (the fruit of unforgiveness), regardless who or what it's about, defiles a man (Hebrews 12:15).
<p>
If a stronghold of guilt exists, then the feelings of guilt may not disappear overnight, because strongholds need to be torn down by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2). A great place to start is learning how to recognize condemnation from the devil, and stop paying attention to it. One teaching that will show you how to recognize condemnation is Condemnation verses Conviction.
<p>
Once you know the difference between condemnation and conviction and can recognize condemnation when it's thrown at you, you need to guard your thoughts, and when you see condemnation coming your way, pay no attention to it. Treat it for what it really is... a lie from the devil. You can learn more about how to take control of your thought life in the teaching The Power of Your Thoughts.
<p>
If nothing seems to work, you may need to have a spirit of guilt or condemnation cast out. There are particular evil spirits that go around and hang around people like a thick black cloud, constantly making them feel dirty, unworthy and guilty.
<p>
They usually thrive on strongholds of guilt though, so usually your first step to getting rid of this spirit is by tearing down the stronghold by which it's holding on. If you tear down the stronghold, and still feel like a black cloud is following you around, I would read the article on Seeking a Deliverance and pursue having it cast out.
<p>
There's a teaching that specifically addresses Strongholds that I recommend reading if you suspect you have one or more strongholds to be torn down.
<p>
<b>The Blood of Jesus takes sin away</b>
<p>
Hebrews 10:1-22, "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.
<p>
But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
<p>
Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
<p>
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
<p>
Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
<p>
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having a high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."
<p>
In the Old Testament, they used to offer sacrifices each year to cover the people's sins. The blood of Jesus does far more then cover sins, it takes them away. It removes them from your identity... it removes them from you as far as the east to the west! Psalms 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us."
<p>
Revelations 1:5, "And from Jesus Christ, who... washed us from our sins in his own blood."
<p>
Psalms 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us."
<p>
Matthew 26:28, "For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Do you know what the NT Greek has to say about the word 'remission' here? "Forgiveness or pardon, of sins (letting them go as if they had never been committed), remission of the penalty."
<p>
<b>Christ died so your conscience could be cleansed</b>
<p>
2 Cor 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
<p>
Why do you think God wanted us to be new creations when we enter His royal family? Because He doesn't want your past to be a part of you anymore! He wants you to be washed clean from all your sins and wiped clean from your past!
<p>
Isaiah 43:25, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."
<p>
God knew that if He didn't forget our sins, they would forever be before Him, and it would hinder the closeness that He desires to have with us. Therefore, God Himself said that for His own sake, He chose to not only forgive your sins, but also forget them and cast them into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).
<p>
Hebrews 9:14, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
<p>
Not only did God chose to forget your sins, but He also wants you to forget them as well. God's Word tells us to, "...draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." (Hebrews 10:22)
<p>
Worship is one of the most intimate ways in which we commune with God. Jesus tells us that, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24) The truth is, if we have repented of our sins, and believe upon the blood of Jesus to wash us clean, then we are clean from those sins, and if we approach God in worship with a dirty conscience, we won't be approaching Him in truth.
<p>
Hebrews 10:2 tells us how worshipers should have a conscience clean from sin, "...the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins." God doesn't want us hanging onto our pasts when we come to worship Him! He wants us to approach Him through worship from a conscience washed in the blood of the lamb!
<p>
In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus tells us, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
<p>
If you look up the word 'labor' in the NT Greek, it basically means to toil under a burden. What kind of people are heavy laden and labor in their souls? People who are laboring under the burden of guilt. Jesus wants you to come to Him, and shed your old heavy burden of guilt. He died so you could be released from it... won't you make the choice to let go of it today?
<p>
<b>Recommended reading</b>
<p>
Learn of the awesome and beautiful forgiving nature of God in the teaching The Forgiveness of Sins.
<p>
Learn how to discern what is conviction and what is condemnation in the teaching Condemnation verses Conviction.
<p>
Learn how to take control of your thought life to guard against strongholds and send the devil's accusations to flight in the teaching The Power of Your Thoughts.
<p>
Learn what a stronghold is, and how to tear them down in the teaching Strongholds.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-47634735388468221852017-08-19T18:10:00.001-07:002017-08-19T18:10:18.014-07:00 HUMANKIND CANNOT BEAR VERY MUCH REALITY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVyY2VrQzMI-t3xkVn1YBGq1RRxTrXOlWJE_wbXdqVRL1pEAZ5stt4cSxPOmxfjaBdYcXXmW58SjtDxJadWEGYsJSZ-oTV_HGyPUfydsYuPPpZr1SfhG4xpdON6jSUhtuiYhTEjDBTh62G/s1600/the_return_filmsandpies_004-copy_thumbnail-300x200.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="300" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVyY2VrQzMI-t3xkVn1YBGq1RRxTrXOlWJE_wbXdqVRL1pEAZ5stt4cSxPOmxfjaBdYcXXmW58SjtDxJadWEGYsJSZ-oTV_HGyPUfydsYuPPpZr1SfhG4xpdON6jSUhtuiYhTEjDBTh62G/s200/the_return_filmsandpies_004-copy_thumbnail-300x200.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
by <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://mereorthodoxy.com/humankind-cannot-bear-very-much-reality/">Matthew Lee Anderson</a></span>
<p>
That from T.S. Eliot’s <i>The Four Quartets</i>, his “answer” to the problems he raised in <i>The Wasteland</i>. Or at least I think it is.
<p>
I didn’t understand <i>The Wasteland </i>the first time I read it, and my comprehension hasn’t improved much since.
<p>
Few lines capture the central neurosis of our age better. Our relationship to reality is not an un-compromised one. It is tarnished, marked by sin, and the refusal to bear responsibility for our actions in it.
<p>
At the end of C.S. Lewis’s <i>The Great Divorce</i>, Lewis wakes in a fit of horror because he has seen a glimpse of the reality beneath the shadows, the fixed eternal that is the accumulation of a million choices distended through time, and he cannot bear the sight.
<p>
God, we hear in those pages, is the Fact to whom the universe answers, and the Fact on which all other facts depend. It is a point worth contemplating.
<p>
My own generation, the “millenials,” love to talk about being “authentic.” And well we should, for whatever else happens, we cannot fail in honesty or veracity to that which we are—in Christ.
<p>
But as Eliot reminds us, authenticity isn’t easy. Rather, it is the most difficult thing of all. Acknowledging the reality of who we are is the sort of enterprise that will inevitably fail unless aided by grace.
<blockquote><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">The moment we claim to “know ourselves” is precisely the moment when we are most prone to self-deception, especially if that knowledge is not mediated to us by the Word of God.</span></b></blockquote>
Our age is one of deep confusion about the nature and authority of reality, and one of endless amusements to help us avoid it.
<p>
We are, to return to Eliot, “distracted from distraction by distraction,” working tirelessly to avoid God, our neighbors, and ourselves.
<p>
No generation has been able to bear reality - ours is simply the first that has been able to construct a virtual alternative that is more to our liking.
<p>
But avoiding the truth is a fool’s game, for the Fact that we avoid is one named Love.
<p>
Truth and grace have met in the person of Jesus Christ, the Beloved Disciple tells us, and inasmuch as we are in Him we will see them both in equal measure.
<p>
In Him we can bear all the reality he gives to us, for He gives it to us according to our measure.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-88710587503008648892017-08-07T18:27:00.001-07:002017-08-07T18:39:32.767-07:00 SELFIES AND DIVORCE IN THE DIGITAL AGEBy <a href="http://www.returntoorder.org/2017/07/selfies-divorce-digital-age/"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Bentley Hatchett II</span></a>
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmKC6Uwl-UjlT29lMOInD711WQDq_xSKzVTcRQwcGmB_Xvgwichc3fjgi0-Cf9g8pKExWaNo-DrY84K6GKxiW3899T34UhWoTrEXoczS9Y1erptxr2lFW0MRXUO-rXZCU1gd-zMkvWmkhh/s1600/selfie-1187926_960_720-e1499539506534-300x220.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmKC6Uwl-UjlT29lMOInD711WQDq_xSKzVTcRQwcGmB_Xvgwichc3fjgi0-Cf9g8pKExWaNo-DrY84K6GKxiW3899T34UhWoTrEXoczS9Y1erptxr2lFW0MRXUO-rXZCU1gd-zMkvWmkhh/s200/selfie-1187926_960_720-e1499539506534-300x220.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">“It may not be happy newlyweds, but a “happily divorced” couple that shouts out their divorce with a picture of themselves”
</span></div>
<p>
Divorce is one of the ugliest words in the English language. Its specter haunts countless marriages. For the divorced couple, it is often a constant source of stress and financial strain. It marks affected children the rest of their lives.
<p>
Divorce was not frequent in times past. In fact, the stigma of divorcing saved many a marriage that later worked out well.
<p>
<b>The Evolving Face of Divorce</b>
<p>
In 1917, the American divorce rate was about 1 in 1,000. Because it was a cause of great social scandal, this rate was maintained well into the twentieth century among the general population. This changed, however, with the introduction of no-fault divorce.
<p>
No-fault divorce (divorce without grounds) was first introduced into the modern world in 1917. Until that time, marriage was largely seen as an indissoluble union throughout the West. The practice really gained momentum with the outbreak of the Sexual Revolution of the sixties.
<p>
Many states—starting with California—adopted no-fault divorce at that time. Within two years of its introduction, divorce rates increased nearly six times over. Much of the stigma surrounding divorce was lessened by no-fault divorce.
<p>
At its zenith, half of all marriages ended in divorce. For some, divorce and remarriage became like trading in a car. It became an unfortunate fact of life.
<p>
This could especially be seen in members of Generation X (those born from 1961-1981). Many of these children of the baby boomers decided to opt out of the institution entirely or co-habitate. Although among those who did stably marry, they recorded the lowest rate of divorce in almost forty years.
<p>
This may be changing with the millennials.
<p>
<b>“Shout Your Divorce”</b>
<p>
Millennials comes from the age of the internet, smart gadgets, and social media. Many have found a tragic expression of the breakdown of marriage in a new trend called the divorce selfie. It is exactly what it sounds like.
<b>
</b><br />
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">When surfing the web, a person might come across a picture of a smiling couple with thick-rimmed glasses in front of a courthouse. It may not be happy newlyweds, but a “happily divorced” couple that shouts out their divorce with a picture of themselves on Facebook.</span></b></blockquote>
In an article on ATTN, Marie Frenette, a millennial divorcee notes, “We saw an article on BuzzFeed [a popular web site for millennials] about the divorce selfie and thought, ‘wow, what a positive and empowering way to deal with it. Not hiding, not feeling shame.’”
<p>
<b>Potential Threat</b>
<p>
The article reports on over 500 Instagram posts in which couples posted their photos under the hashtag “#DivorceSelfie.” The American Psychological Association has even encourages the “divorce selfie” as a benefit to involved children since it appears to reduce the friction between the divorcees.
<p>
Far from being a harmless fad, this trend banalizes divorce and further erodes the institution of the family. Divorce becomes something to celebrate as the two former spouses “continue separately on their life’s journey.”
<p>
Such developments are hardly surprising since it follows in the line of so many other marriage-destroying practices like contraception, abortion and similar aberrations. At the root of it all is a desire to destroy all restraint.
<p>
<b>Resisting the Urge to Retreat</b>
<p>
That is why it is all the more important to resist such trends and avoid the temptation to retreat in face of the latest phases of the <a href="http://www.tfp.org/sexual-revolutions-unhappy-result-self-marriage/"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">sexual revolution</span></a>. All society is engaged in a culture war and like it or not, everyone has a role to play.
<p>
Perhaps a counter-trend of posting anniversary pictures with positive commentaries on marriage would be in order. As the old saying goes, one should “fight fire with fire.”<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-42655382076880563832017-07-30T21:07:00.004-07:002017-07-30T21:07:59.818-07:00WHO GOES TO HEAVEN AND WHO GOES TO HELL? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx03-743N4WC_6ZsD_V-Q05Ty9VIKwpUTZscXno_cjY3RnjCSX6Hmks3UZAIpiEp0PMYg2UONAB4dQV_XuKWPdrFns2_SQUn3Q9jzSQlyaDStyxXrEtRtf9ddHWgBH-8qkY53IcWZMlD8I/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx03-743N4WC_6ZsD_V-Q05Ty9VIKwpUTZscXno_cjY3RnjCSX6Hmks3UZAIpiEp0PMYg2UONAB4dQV_XuKWPdrFns2_SQUn3Q9jzSQlyaDStyxXrEtRtf9ddHWgBH-8qkY53IcWZMlD8I/s200/hqdefault.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>How to get to Heaven:</b></span></div>
<p>
1. Avoid evil.
<p>
2. If you have done evil, then repent.
<p>
3. Do good.
<p>
If you have knowingly chosen to commit an act that is gravely immoral, you must repent and be forgiven by God before you die. If you have never done anything truly substantially selflessly good in your life, you have committed a serious sin of omission.
<p>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Details:</span></b></div>
<p>
1. <b> Avoiding Evil.</b>
<p>
Some types of acts are always wrong, no matter what the intention, no matter what the circumstances. Other acts may or may not be wrong, depending on the intention and circumstances, especially the consequences.
<p>
Among those acts that are wrong, some acts are seriously wrong; such acts are called mortal sins. Other acts may be wrong, but not seriously wrong; such acts are called venial sins.
<p>
Only a mortal sin, chosen with full freedom of will and full knowledge of the grave immorality of the act, can condemn a person to Hell; this type of sin is called an actual mortal sin.
<p>
If you commit one or more actual mortal sins, and you never repent through the last moment of your life, then you will certainly go to Hell forever.
<p>
No matter how much good you have done in your life, if you have deliberately and knowingly done anything that is seriously wrong, without repenting before you die, you will certainly go to Hell.
<p>
2. <b>Repentance</b>
<p>
Do not commit any serious sins. But if you have sinned seriously, repent sincerely. True and full repentance happens not merely out of fear of Hell, but also out of love of God and neighbor. Accept true love for God and neighbor, otherwise, you will not be able to fully and sincerely repent.
<p>
Catholics (and the Orthodox) ordinarily obtain forgiveness from God in the Confessional. Other persons can obtain forgiveness by a full repentance based on the love of God and neighbor; this is called perfect contrition because it is based on the most perfect reason for repenting, true selfless spiritual love.
<p>
Why should you be allowed to enter Heaven, if you have not repented from the evil that you did on earth?
<p>
3. <b>Good Deeds</b>
<p>
If you have done anything that is seriously wrong, even very many things, but if you also repent fully before you die, then you will go to Heaven, but only if you have also done at least some truly good and <p>
For an actual mortal sin of omission can be committed by refusing to choose selfless acts of goodness for other persons. If you have never loved your neighbor with a true selfless spiritual love, then you will certainly go to Hell.
<p>
Truly good deeds include sincere prayer for others, genuine worship of God, selflessly helping other human <p>
Make certain that you have done at least some acts in your life that are substantially selflessly good. Otherwise, when you are judged by God, who is the source of all that is good, you will have no defense.
<p>
If your life has been a waste, your soul will burn in Hell forever, unless you repent and do good before you die.
<br />
<b></b><br />
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">You must do at least some things that are truly good and genuinely selfless in your life. This good must be substantial, not trivial, and it must not be selfish. To be more certain that you have done good, choose to do many good things. That way, if one attempt to do good fails, you will have other good deeds to show for your life.</span></b></blockquote>
Why should you be allowed into Heaven, if you have never done anything truly good on earth?
<p>
<b>Atheists</b>
<p>
People who do not believe in God may still go to Heaven, if they are sincere in their lack of belief. An atheist may commit an objectively grave sin by refusing to believe in God. But perhaps this sin is not committed with full knowledge of its grave immorality, and so the culpability is thereby reduced to a venial sin.
<p>
Such a person may enter Heaven if he has repented from any actual mortal sins in life, and if he has loved his neighbor selflessly.
<p>
But for some persons, their rejection of God or of religion is a serious sin. They know that they should believe in God or that they should practice a religion, but they refuse to do so, out of selfish or sinful reasons.
<p>
Or perhaps they do not know that they should believe in God, because they have deliberately chosen to reject even the consideration that God may exist and that religion may offer truth.
<p>
They know that if they consider, they might accept. And they know that if they accept, they must give up their sins. So they refuse to even consider God and religion. They are guilty in their deliberately chosen ignorance.
<p>
<b>Other Religions</b>
<p>
People who practice a religion, but who make mistakes in what they believe or do, may still go to Heaven, if they are sincere in their misunderstanding of what to believe and what to do.
<p>
But for some persons, their refusal to accept certain truths about religion is a serious sin. They know what they should believe or do, but they refuse to do so, out of selfish or sinful reasons.
<p>
<b>Special Cases</b>
<p>
Babies who die in the womb, or at a very young age, certainly go to Heaven, because they have done nothing evil, and because they have suffered death innocently, just as Christ suffered death innocently.
<p>
Innocent young children, who die at such a young age, go to Heaven because God loves all the little children in their innocence. The great suffering of death at a young age makes that person like Christ who suffered and died in his innocence. So those who die in the innocence of youth will certainly go to Heaven.
<p>
Severely handicapped persons, who grow up beyond childhood, are still expected to avoid evil and to do some good in their lives, according to their ability. Of those to whom less is given, less will be expected.
<p>
Since severely handicapped persons suffer a great deal, it is easier for them to get into Heaven, and harder for them to end up in Hell. Anyone who suffers a great deal in their life, and who accepts that suffering innocently, becomes like Christ, who suffered and died on the Cross for us all.
<p>
<b>Summary</b>
<p>
If you want to go to Heaven, where you will be very happy forever and ever, then avoid evil, repent from your sins, do good in your life on earth, and be sincere in your search for religious and moral truth. Otherwise, you will abide forever in the eternal death of Hell.
<p>
<i>by <a href="http://www.catholicplanet.com/RCC/who-goes-to-heaven.htm"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Ronald L. Conte Jr.</span></a>
26 August 2006; revised on 1 March 2011</i><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-60581420722670664972017-07-23T17:50:00.003-07:002017-07-23T17:53:40.557-07:00THE IDEOLOGY OF JESUS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiGTQ0Obg5-B_1mF3fL_Ctd5Bo3xFApW_JUgVVZRO-TDCXdjjbp7WE-edbXu51ItRgBBsVFwSAsTa0qwSsmdDjBb6p2XsFLUpO-ZxZKnxPA2AIl2uFWcPKVdAc1op44T5O27erY4REa0h0/s1600/2c3263e5d8eefb2fa9fa0b9d00d75515--catholic-beliefs-catholic-prayers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="736" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiGTQ0Obg5-B_1mF3fL_Ctd5Bo3xFApW_JUgVVZRO-TDCXdjjbp7WE-edbXu51ItRgBBsVFwSAsTa0qwSsmdDjBb6p2XsFLUpO-ZxZKnxPA2AIl2uFWcPKVdAc1op44T5O27erY4REa0h0/s200/2c3263e5d8eefb2fa9fa0b9d00d75515--catholic-beliefs-catholic-prayers.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
by <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2017/07/the-ideology-of-jesus/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&utm_content=57"> <span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Rich A. Rosendahl.</span></a>
<p>
We all submit to social norms — some are helpful, some are unhelpful and even hateful.
<p>
Often, the social norms we adhere to are rooted in ideologies that have developed over time and are connected to an affinity group that we may be part of.
<p>
In other words, we are following them because people like us follow them.
<p>
For example, I am a white guy who grew up in a small town in the Midwest with a culturally Christian and conservative background.
<p>
These are just a couple of examples of potential attributes from my formative years that could affect the affinity group and subsequent social norms that I adhere to for the balance of my life.
<p>
Jesus, on the other hand, seemed to have zero concern for social norms or ideologies of those who he was supposed to be like — his affinity group. When he went against these norms he was often challenged or ridiculed and eventually even killed for his approach and ideology.
<p>
But none of that stopped him from having what sometimes seemed like a big F*** You attitude when people tried to pressure him to conform to their social norms.
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">So what was this ideology of his? It was the ideology of Love.</span></b></blockquote>
To this day, we fight the concept of Loving others, often to the death. Our affinity groups lead toward division, mistrust, and misunderstanding. While we are busy trying to conform to the social norms that make us part of our group, even if unintentionally, others are doing the same.
<p>
This creates gaps between us and others that sometimes seem insurmountable, because Loving others feels like a rejection of our own affinity group.
<p>
But the ideology of Love — the ideology of Jesus — rejects and resists the pressure to conform to social norms and affinity groups altogether by revealing the humanity that we share, the friendships that are accessible, and the remarkable things we can achieve together.
<p>
The ideology of Jesus makes room for us to be unique, including the helpful social norms we adhere to, even as it removes the need to feel threatened or fearful of the those who are uniquely different than us.
<p>
Right now, there seems to be a hell-of-a-lot of influential religious and political leaders jockeying for us to follow their ideologies — often trying to leverage what should be our affinity group to pressure us into the social norms that fit their agenda.
<p>
In the midst of all of this, I am reminded that there was a leader that came before all of them who rejected these concepts altogether, showing us how to do the same and revealing the ideology of Love.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-14606895802351841012017-07-13T16:40:00.001-07:002017-07-13T16:45:27.102-07:00SADNESS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDNbPZ2pmBuBoETiaF6cx-hFuW0ZLG40o2M1UOX8rrxHBN-lSWPwnKzpfWu_SMNfloT06xaq-vGckCHf5ORHeuFpktV9w8bfjQN3E-l_SdBQDDpCeSuGXt19FmY0IFGA1WZJtAH8wyjcOJ/s1600/tears_of_sadness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="819" data-original-width="1024" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDNbPZ2pmBuBoETiaF6cx-hFuW0ZLG40o2M1UOX8rrxHBN-lSWPwnKzpfWu_SMNfloT06xaq-vGckCHf5ORHeuFpktV9w8bfjQN3E-l_SdBQDDpCeSuGXt19FmY0IFGA1WZJtAH8wyjcOJ/s200/tears_of_sadness.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Of <a href="http://www.catholictreasury.info/books/devout_life/dev97.php">Sadness</a> and Sorrow.</span> </b>
<p>
S. Paul says that "godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death." (1) So we see that sorrow may be good or bad according to the several results it produces in us.
<p>
And indeed there are more bad than good results arising from it, for the only good ones are mercy and repentance; whereas there are six evil results, namely, anguish, sloth, indignation, jealousy, envy and impatience.
<p>
The Wise Man says that "sorrow hath killed many, and there is no profit therein," (2) and that because for the two good streams which flow from the spring of sadness, there are these six which are downright evil.
<b></b>
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">The Enemy makes use of sadness to try good men with his temptations:--just as he tries to make bad men merry in their sin, so he seeks to make the good sorrowful amid their works of piety; and while making sin attractive so as to draw men to it, he strives to turn them from holiness by making it disagreeable. The Evil One delights in sadness and melancholy, because they are his own characteristics. He will be in sadness and sorrow through all Eternity, and he would fain have all others the same.</span></b></blockquote>
<b>
</b>
The "sorrow of the world" disturbs the heart, plunges it into anxiety, stirs up unreasonable fears, disgusts it with prayer, overwhelms and stupefies the brain, deprives the soul of wisdom, judgment, resolution and courage, weakening all its powers; in a word, it is like a hard winter, blasting all the earth's beauty, and numbing all animal life; for it deprives the soul of sweetness and power in every faculty.
<p>
Should you, my daughter, ever be attacked by this evil spirit of sadness, make use of the following remedies. "Is any among you afflicted?" says S. James, "let him pray." (3) Prayer is a sovereign remedy, it lifts the mind to God, Who is our only Joy and Consolation.
<p>
But when you pray let your words and affections, whether interior or exterior, all tend to love and trust in God. "O God of Mercy, most Loving Lord, Sweet Savior, Lord of my heart, my Joy, my Hope, my Beloved, my Bridegroom."
<p>
Vigorously resist all tendencies to melancholy, and although all you do may seem to be done coldly, wearily and indifferently, do not give in. The Enemy strives to make us languid in doing good by depression, but when he sees that we do not cease our efforts to work, and that those efforts become all the more earnest by reason of their being made in resistance to him, he leaves off troubling us.
<p>
Make use of hymns and spiritual songs; they have often frustrated the Evil One in his operations, as was the case when the evil spirit which possessed Saul was driven forth by music and psalmody.
<p>
It is well also to occupy yourself in external works, and that with as much variety as may lead us to divert the mind from the subject which oppresses it, and to cheer and kindle it, for depression generally makes us dry and cold.
<p>
Use external acts of fervor, even though they are tasteless at the time; embrace your crucifix, clasp it to your breast, kiss the Feet and Hands of your Dear Lord, raise hands and eyes to Heaven, and cry out to God in loving, trustful ejaculations: "My Beloved is mine, and I am His. (4)
<p>
A bundle of myrrh is my Well-beloved, He shall lie within my breast. Mine eyes long sore for Thy Word, O when wilt Thou comfort me! (5) O Jesus, be Thou my Savior, and my soul shall live. Who shall separate me from the Love of Christ?" (6) etc.
<p>
Moderate bodily discipline is useful in resisting depression, because it rouses the mind from dwelling on itself; and frequent Communion is specially valuable; the Bread of Life strengthens the heart and gladdens the spirits.
<p>
Lay bare all the feelings, thoughts and longings which are the result of your depression to your confessor or director, in all humility and faithfulness; seek the society of spiritually-minded people, and frequent such as far as possible while you are suffering.
<p>
And, finally, resign yourself into God's Hands, endeavoring to bear this harassing depression patiently, as a just punishment for past idle mirth. Above all, never doubt but that, after He has tried you sufficiently, God will deliver you from the trial.
<p>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<p>
<i>1. 2 Cor. vii. 10.
<p>
2. "Multos enim occidit tristitia, et non est utilitas in illa." Ecclus. xxx. 25.
<p>
3. S. James v. 13.
<p>
4. Cant. ii. 16.
<p>
5. Ps. cxix. 82.
<p>
6. Rom. viii 35.
</i><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-45469652527195609482017-07-05T06:11:00.001-07:002017-07-05T07:32:33.196-07:00THE AMAZING POWER OF GRATITUDE IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifZOYPaSzMarvCdmjTYHQ5jllufoufD0_inmoVRFjaCIrFPZxQGTlouIpBFaBgspUyi3V_KGfs2qpI0IVXwN4lg0AO-95kVXLufapGFWNJXu4Af4fuHqjAMuQBI6qlZCFqjaNWdA_fjPHO/s1600/e06dcf890c006d1907c3053a3911d00d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="736" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifZOYPaSzMarvCdmjTYHQ5jllufoufD0_inmoVRFjaCIrFPZxQGTlouIpBFaBgspUyi3V_KGfs2qpI0IVXwN4lg0AO-95kVXLufapGFWNJXu4Af4fuHqjAMuQBI6qlZCFqjaNWdA_fjPHO/s200/e06dcf890c006d1907c3053a3911d00d.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">
<i>“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thes. 5:18</i></span></b>
<p>
Saint Ignatius of Loyola makes the following powerful and evocative statements about the harm lack of gratitude causes in the spiritual life. He says:
<p>
<i>“It seems to me, in light of the divine Goodness, …that ingratitude is one of the things most worthy of detestation before our Creator and Lord, and before all creatures capable of divine and everlasting glory, out of all the evil and sins which can be imagined. </i>
<p>
For it is the failure to recognize the good things, the graces, and the gifts received. As such, it is the <i>cause, beginning, and origin of all evil and sins”</i> (cited and referenced in Consoling the Heart of Jesus, page 421).
<p>
Another Saint and Doctor of the Church, Therese of Lisieux, has this to say about gratitude:
<blockquote><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"> <b>“What most attracts God’s grace is gratitude, because if we thank him for a gift, he is touched and hastens to give us ten more, and if we thank him again with the same enthusiasm, what an incalculable multiplication of graces! I have experienced this; try it yourself and you will see! My gratitude for everything he gives me is limitless, and I prove it to him in a thousand ways” </b>(The Way of Trust And Love, p.111)</span></blockquote>
As Father Timothy Gallagher explains, Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s basic attitude toward God was one of deep gratitude. “For Ignatius then, the consciously chosen remembrance of God’s gifts is not just a moment in a spiritual day or simply a devout practice…. It is the heart itself of the way he understands God and relates to God.
<p>
The only God he ever knew from the first moment of his conversion was the God who constantly bestows gifts of grace upon us, revealing through these gifts the infinite love with which we are loved” (The Examen Prayer, p.58).
<p>
Here is a beautiful quote from one of Saint Ignatius’ early disciples (Father Diego Lainez, S.J.) which touches upon Saint Ignatius’ profound gratitude for God and His creation:
<p>
<i>“At night Ignatius would go up on the roof of the house, with the sky there up above him. He would sit quietly, absolutely quietly. He would take his hat off and look up for a long time at the sky.
<p>
Then he would fall to his knees, bowing profoundly to God….And the tears would begin to flow down his cheeks like a stream….” </i>(The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, page 17).
<p>
Saint Ignatius (pictured below), truly one of the great masters of the spiritual life, recommends that we end each day with a prayer of thanksgiving to God in gratitude for the gifts and graces we have received from God throughout the day. This can be done in a very simple, two-step process (perhaps as you are lying in bed to go to sleep):
<p>
<b><i>1. Close your eyes and become aware of the love with which God is looking upon you. Do this for a minute or two to place yourself in the presence of God (Gallagher, p.25).</i></b>
<p>
<b><i>2. In your mind review your day and note the gifts and graces God has given you, and give profound thanks to God for them (Gallagher, p. 25).</i></b>
<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIRovH4UGF87GxYeYVO49MSbBy2QHO6HB0qytfTf2WCMNMS0_eTHIsrL-KeMpgv7Sa9v41BOFHzKDRTdWmQmncveLxEq_k6aR5AVRwK30_kMU-sNzLmcBPLAc-NdPpxxpMC_58Bt5Gptq5/s1600/st_ignatius_of_loyola_1491-1556_founder_of_the_jesuits.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIRovH4UGF87GxYeYVO49MSbBy2QHO6HB0qytfTf2WCMNMS0_eTHIsrL-KeMpgv7Sa9v41BOFHzKDRTdWmQmncveLxEq_k6aR5AVRwK30_kMU-sNzLmcBPLAc-NdPpxxpMC_58Bt5Gptq5/s200/st_ignatius_of_loyola_1491-1556_founder_of_the_jesuits.jpg" width="123" height="200" data-original-width="984" data-original-height="1600" /></a></div>
<p>
Here then, with this “Examen” prayer, you are ending your day on a very profound note of gratitude to God. Father Jacques Philippe says this about gratitude: “Here we touch on… one of the secrets of the spiritual life that also is one of the laws of happiness.
<p>
The more we cultivate gratitude and thanksgiving, the more open our hearts are to God’s action, so that we can receive life from God and be transformed and enlarged. By contrast, if we bury ourselves in discontent, permanent dissatisfaction, then our hearts close themselves insidiously against life, against <p>
<a href="https://catholicstrength.com/2016/04/10/the-amazing-power-of-gratitude-in-the-spiritual-life/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Tom Mulcahy, M.A.</span> </a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-35011438070334236672017-06-26T12:34:00.002-07:002017-06-26T17:08:08.081-07:00WHY DO PROTESTANTS ATTACK JESUS CHRIST<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<p>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Why do Non-Non-Catholic Christians Attack Jesus?</b></span>
<p>
And Jesus said, <i>"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."</i>
Luke 23:34
<p>
<i>What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. </i>Ecclesiastes 1:9
<p>
In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said, <i>"And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."</i>
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Now Jesus did say Church and not churches didn't He? So He founded a single Church and none other, right? And what about the gates of hell not prevailing against it? That means His Church will last to the end of the world, doesn't it? </span></b></blockquote>
Matthew 28:19-20, <i>"Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.</i>"
<p>
Hmmm, this is a second time that Jesus said His Church would last forever and He would be with it every day in every century until the end of time. He said that around 2000 years ago so it is obvious that His ONE and ONLY Church is still with us today. Remember, that was His promise.
<p>
Many Protestants have told me that the Catholic Church fell into apostasy at some unknown time after the last Apostle died and of course they can never tell me when, or provide me with a genuine historical document of proof. So what they really said to me is that Jesus was a liar for His promises of His perpetual Church.
<p>
1John 5:10, <i>"He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne to his Son."</i>
<p>
Jesus would never lie to us, He couldn't. Remember, He IS God and God cannot lie. However protestants can. Just start counting their lies in this page.
<p>
Please note that when I use the word 'protestant' from this point on, I refer to all who call themselves 'Christian' but are not in the one Church that Jesus Christ founded in about 29-30 A.D..
<p>
Hebrews 6:18, <i>"That by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have the strongest comfort, we who have fled for refuge to hold fast the hope set before us." This is more biblical proof that Jesus Christ could not lie.</i>
<p>
Acts 5:38-39,<i> "And now, therefore, I say to you: Refrain from these men and let them alone. FOR IF THIS COUNCIL OR THIS WORK BE OF MEN, IT WILL COME TO NAUGHT: BUT IF IT BE OF GOD, YOU CANNOT OVERTHROW IT, LEST PERHAPS YOU BE FOUND EVEN TO FIGHT AGAINST GOD. And they consented to him."</i>
<p>
WOW! Those two verses fit protestantism to a 'T'. They have been trying to overthrow the Catholic Church for almost 500 years, from 1520 when Martin Luther broke from the Catholic Church and formed the first protestant denomination, and right to this day.
<p>
Oh and by the way read all you can about Luther and you will find in 1520 and many years before and after that time, the Catholic Church was mentioned by name many times. So it was still here in Luthers time almost 1500 years after it was founded by Jesus Christ.
<p>
<b>The Body of Christ:</b>
<p>
Gee whiz look at these verses:
<p>
Ephesians 1:22-23 <i>"and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, WHICH IS HIS BODY, the fullness of him who fills all in all."</i>
<p>
So the Church that Jesus Christ founded that will last forever is really and truly His Body. Do Protestants believe those verses? Apparently not since they are always attacking His body, His one and only Catholic Church.
<p>
Did you ever think of how many people who attack the Body of Christ will be taken to Heaven? Read on for much more that proves that it is the Catholic Church that is the Body of Christ and NONE OTHER.
<p>
<b>Judaism:</b>
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John 4:7-9, <i>"There came a woman of Samar'ia to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."
For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samar'ia? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."</i>
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Jesus was a Jew, right?
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Judaism had only one temple for all and it was located in Jerusalem, so many Jews had to travel long distances to worship there.
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Long distances in those days could be 70 miles or more, a hardship for the Jews but they did it. Things changed drastically for that situation since Jesus established a world wide 'universal' Church.
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<b>The Universal Church:</b>
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Acts 1:7-8, <i>He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem (Local) and in all Judea and Sama'ria (Expanding out) and to the end of the earth (World Wide, 'Universal')."</i>
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There you have it. His Church is not confined to one city where the people had to go long distances to worship. Instead He is bringing His Church to the people all over the whole world in time, making it 'Universal'.
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Acts 9:31, <i>"So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Sama'ria had peace and was built up; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit it was multiplied."</i>
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So His Church, now being built up as it is spreading out, had a second person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit comforting it. Did you notice in the first three words of that verse it says 'So THE church', singular?
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Take a look at Revelation chapters 2 and 3. All of those churches listed are examples of the expansion made by the Apostles and their followers of the one Church that Jesus Christ founded. They had gone long distances establishing more Churches farther away towards becoming 'Universal'.
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THOSE CHURCHES ARE NOT PROTESTANT CHURCHES AS PROTESTANTS WOULD LIKE US TO BELIEVE. The word protest-ant did not even come into being until 1529, about 1500 years after the Catholic Church was founded.
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<a href="http://www.thecatholictreasurechest.com/attack.htm"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">More > ></span></a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-38059670319312757602017-06-13T07:43:00.001-07:002017-06-13T18:23:22.728-07:00THE GOOD LIFE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5CvzGQuFeYxEbZ3zKOksp2bJi09uymSkHgUUr7hc1dd0-CjM37qTeHnQ4JaApiltN2ijbzOV3TflONzctxWxodkFfFiipEqrilmNlx_JJ1ytU9rYMqsCoMZ-MamnvkBctuQhSdPpH1jfw/s1600/JKP567.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1372" data-original-width="1600" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5CvzGQuFeYxEbZ3zKOksp2bJi09uymSkHgUUr7hc1dd0-CjM37qTeHnQ4JaApiltN2ijbzOV3TflONzctxWxodkFfFiipEqrilmNlx_JJ1ytU9rYMqsCoMZ-MamnvkBctuQhSdPpH1jfw/s200/JKP567.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
<i>by Monsignor <a href="http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/global-issues/the-good-life-from-a-catholic-perspective-challenge-of-consumption.cfm"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"> Charles Murphy</span></a></i><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">
</span>
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The question of defining more accurately what the good life is has become especially acute. In her helpful book,<i> The Overworked American</i>:<i> The Unexpected Decline in Leisure</i>, Juliet Schor documents how American households find themselves locked into an insidious cycle of work and spend.
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Households go into debt to buy products they do not need and then work longer than they want in order to keep up with the payments. She makes the telling observation that "shopping is the chief cultural activity in the United States."
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In 2005 the University of California, Los Angeles, published the results of a four-year study on how the modern American family lives. It disclosed four disturbing trends: loss of frequent, significant contact among family members, less and less unstructured time, mounting clutter in the home and constant flux in daily activity.
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Regarding the ever-increasing amounts of clutter, the study observed that the typical American family owns more than most Egyptian pharaohs in their heyday. The world has never seen consumption like this on such a scale.
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The good life should allow people to work at things that are personally satisfying and expressive of themselves. In his encyclical on the subject, Laborum Exercens, Pope John Paul calls this the "subjective" value of work. The good life should include also a certain leisure for, as Josef Pieper wrote, leisure is the basis of human culture.
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There should be opportunities to contribute to the common good as well as to pursue personal happiness. There should be time for family and friends, for worship and prayer. There also should be a certain asceticism to include a rediscovery of the benefits of fasting.
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Fasting is part of the Gospel. It helps us to focus on the nourishment that can only come from God. It encourages good health and enhances our enjoyment of the good things of life, freeing us from a certain deadness in spirit.
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A re-emphasis on fasting may not only put us in touch again with a gospel ideal but also increase our ecological awareness as we sparingly use scarce earthly resources. Fasting in the modern world can have a strong social justice meaning.
<blockquote><b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">It is becoming increasingly clear that our obsession with the automobile and our over-dependence upon limited world oil resources is fostering great political and economic instabilities throughout the globe. Increased energy efficiency and less energy gluttony must become part of our public policy for global survival.</span></b></blockquote>
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Thomas Merton in his <i>Thoughts in Solitude</i> raises the specter of the desertification of life on this planet. The desert, he writes, once was a privileged place for the encounter with God because there humanity could find nothing to exploit.
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"Yet look at deserts today. What are they?" He says they have become testing grounds for bombs as well as the locations for glittering towns "through whose veins money runs like artificial blood." "The desert moves everywhere. Everywhere is desert," Merton concludes.
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Pope Benedict XVI in the homily given at his Mass on inauguration as pope also raised the spectre of the deserts that are growing on the planet, deserts that are both spiritual and material.
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The pope said that is cannot be a matter of unconcern that so many of our contemporaries are living in the desert. "There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment...
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These external deserts are growing", he asserted, "because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth's treasures no longer serve to build God's garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction".
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<b>Monsignor Charles Murphy P.A.</b>, S.T.D., serves as director of the permanent diaconate in the Diocese of Portland, Maine, Former rector of the North American College, Vatican City. He is the author of several books including At Home on Earth: Foundations for a Catholic Ethic of the Environment (New York: Crossroad, 1989).<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-54702649521923515912017-06-05T19:48:00.001-07:002017-06-05T19:59:31.956-07:00CONFIRMATION<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Confirmation means a transformation of the spirit</b>
</span>
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by <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/authors/thomas-gumbleton"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Thomas Gumbleton </span></a>
</div>
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I'm sure sometimes people wonder, why do I do that? Because, after all, they have prepared over a period of time and they're dressed up in their confirmation robes and everybody's here to celebrate with them, and so why would I ask the question, "Do you want to be confirmed?" Well, the reason I do -- and this is important for the candidates especially, but for all of us because we can remember our own confirmation and what it means.
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When you say, "Yes, I want to be confirmed," think about it: What are you saying yes to? You might think, Well, it's a ceremony, and we'll go through a ritual -- the ceremony -- and it'll be all over in 45 minutes or so. Then we leave and that's it. But that's not it, is it?
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When you say, "I want to be confirmed," you're really saying yes, not to a ceremony, but to Jesus. You're saying, "I want to follow Jesus Christ. I want to be his disciple just like those first disciples who dropped everything and followed Jesus."
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That's what you're saying, "I want to follow Jesus." That means you have to live in a certain way because Jesus taught us values that were very special to him -- very important in making us the best people we can be. When you say, "I want to follow Jesus," you mean, "I want to follow his teachings, I want to live according to his way, his values." That means something very important for all of us.
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It means we have to be very serious about trying to listen to God's word -- when Jesus speaks to us -- watch how we act so we follow his example.
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That's what it means to follow Jesus, to begin to accept the values and to live according to his way. Now if we listen to the Scriptures today, but not just today, I think it's important during the Easter season to remember the last couple of Sundays: Easter Sunday and last Sunday.
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When we listen to Scriptures, I think we find what it means to follow Jesus. In today's Gospel -- we'll start there -- I think probably the most important words were right near the beginning.
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You have to get the context -- two disciples had been walking away from Jerusalem toward a town called Emmaus. They were very discouraged. You may remember this story because it's quite well-known. As they were walking along, somebody comes and walks with them.
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They begin talking about what had happened in Jerusalem two days or three days before. This person doesn't seem to know anything about it and they say, "Don't you know about Jesus?"
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Then this person begins to instruct them in the Scriptures. They're about to end their walk and as they come to the end, Jesus (this person) looks like he's going to go away. They say, "Join us for supper," and so he does.
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Now, in today's Gospel, they come back to Jerusalem, where the rest of the disciples are still afraid, they're hiding; this is Easter Sunday night. They say, "Look what happened! We were walking along the way, and Jesus joined us, and we knew it!" In the breaking of the bread -- that's how they knew it was Jesus -- the breaking of the bread.
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They're talking about the Eucharist. Most of the time, we talk about the Eucharist as Jesus being in the bread, Jesus being in the wine, but they said the breaking of the bread.
<b></b>
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">That's how the early Christians talked about the Eucharist, what we celebrate as Mass -- the breaking of the bread -- because that, for them, was the real message of the Eucharist, that Jesus, as he said at the Last Supper, taking the bread, "This is my body, given for you, broken for you." Jesus was ready to give himself totally for all of us. His body is broken in the suffering, the crucifixion. It's his gift of love for all of us. That's how they recognized him -- in the breaking of the bread. That tells us about what has to happen in our lives.</span></b></blockquote>
We have to be like Jesus, willing to give of ourselves. St. Paul wrote about Jesus when writing to the church at Philippi. He said, "Jesus, though he was God, did not think his divinity something to be clung to, but emptied himself -- emptied himself -- became human, even to the point of becoming a slave for all of us." He gave himself over to death even, the ignominious death of the cross.
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That's what Jesus did for us. He gives himself, so this breaking of the bread is a sign of how we have to begin to live our lives.
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Then we're ready to let go of some of our bad habits and our tendency to get angry, or maybe our tendency to be selfish, or maybe our tendency to gossip about other people, or whatever. We have to begin to change, to be broken, if you will, to be like Jesus who totally gave himself for us. There are a couple of things from the last two weeks. We're just beginning today the third week of Easter.
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The last two weeks in the Scriptures -- if you go to John's Gospel that we heard last Sunday, the second Sunday -- the Gospel tells about how the disciples in that upper room are afraid. Just like in today's Gospel, Jesus suddenly is in their midst. The first thing he says to them is, "Peace be with you." He's giving peace to them.
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Then John tells us, "He breathed on them," breathed on them. The word that he used in the Gospel is the same word. The only other place it's used in Scripture is in the book of Genesis, where in the story of creation, God is described as forming a human creature out of the dust of the earth, and then God breathed on that creature and it becomes alive.
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The spirit of God begins to live in this human form, and that's creation. Now what is happening on Easter Sunday night, Jesus is saying, "This is a new creation."
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You have to change yourself totally -- be transformed -- become a new creation, be different from what you were before. When you receive the Holy Spirit, if you're really open, God will change you dramatically so that you become more like Jesus.
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What's the next thing he says to his disciples that night after he says, "Peace be with you," and he breathes on them? He talks about forgiveness: "Whose sins you forgive, they'll be forgiven; the evil you restrain, it will be restrained." He wants us to be reconciling people like he was, ready to forgive as he forgives all of us all the time. We have to begin to forgive one another.
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That's not always easy is it? To forgive and to be the first to reach out if there's been some kind of a breakdown in our relationship, be the one to go back and say, "I'm sorry. Let's reconcile. Let's come together again." It can happen in our families, it can happen in our neighborhood, whatever or wherever, but we have to be that kind of people.
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This is what it means to begin to follow Jesus. I'll just give you one more thing. This was last Sunday, in the first lesson. St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles describes how that first community of disciples of Jesus understood the transformation that they had to make, and they began to do it. You may not remember this, but it's an extraordinary thing.
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Luke says about the community at Jerusalem that no one was in need among them. No one was in need. There were poor people, but no one was in need, and why? Because they shared with one another. They shared what they had so that no one was in need. Behind that is a very profound understanding of the goods of the earth and the goods that we have, whatever material things we've accumulated.
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They don't really belong to us. This is the truth that Luke is getting across and the disciples understood. God made the world for all, not for a few. All of the goods of the earth are so that everyone can have a full human life and not a few of us accumulating a lot for ourselves. We have to share because they don't belong to us.
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God gave the world for all, not for a few. That's a very deep truth and it underlines the values of Jesus who was ready to give himself totally for others. We have to begin to have that spirit. Now that isn't very easy in the culture in which we live.
We live in a culture that talks about "my right to private wealth -- it's mine; nobody can take it from me." If you follow Jesus, you understand it's not really yours, it's God's. What is God's belongs to all.
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We have to begin to be people like those. Imagine what it would be like if every community of Christians, disciples of Jesus like this community, if we really looked around and said, "How can we share what we have so that nobody among us is in need?" That would be a miracle, really, but that's what God calls us to begin, to make such a miracle happen.
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The first Christian community did it. They didn't do it perfectly and it didn't last on into the indefinite future. They had their shortcomings, too, but at least that was their spirit: Share whatever you have so that no one is in need. How quickly our world could be changed starting in our own local communities, then the larger community, and the whole world community, if we really caught the message of Jesus.
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So today, we're celebrating the sacrament of confirmation. The Holy Spirit is going to come upon this church in a very powerful way if we open ourselves, especially on these young people being confirmed, but on the rest of us, too, because the spirit of God is being poured forth all the time if we open ourselves.
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As we go on with the sacrament of confirmation, I hope that every one of us, these young candidates especially, but all of us, will pray that our hearts will be opened so that we will be deeply touched by the spirit of Jesus, and so that as we leave the church today, we'll be transformed, at least a little bit further in our transformation, to become a real disciple of Jesus, who follows his way.
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We'll go back out into our world. We'll be ready to be witnesses to the love and goodness of Jesus. This message of Jesus now will begin to spread even more because all of us open ourselves to the spirit of Jesus, and we leave this church to be witnesses to Jesus for the rest of our lives.
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<i>
<a href=' http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042212.cfm'>Full text of the readings</a></i>
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<i>[Homily given at a Mass where confirmation took place at St. Donald Parish, Roseville, Mich. The transcripts of Bishop Gumbleton's homilies are posted weekly to NCRonline.org. <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://www.ncronline.org/email?_ga=2.248124615.1539930617.1496712992-832266925.1496625206">Sign up here</a> </span>to receive an email alert when the latest homily is posted.]</i><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-22341414122793132672017-06-01T18:15:00.002-07:002017-06-01T18:15:24.691-07:00THE DEAD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVxqze38nVAZnw0bLJpr16zUPzVA1xYvUW_NqI5-xPJgYZXQIzAKyN4DubhEBSF0gVXFvGnjA1IBZCCN-ex3fnk2hC5QyU9PSdM3-6Pz5-jeMSK9Kaz1GpLRrUStLYTy4qASm9_UtnSCZB/s1600/1b8a0a26a873a207c6e75b6d98212344.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVxqze38nVAZnw0bLJpr16zUPzVA1xYvUW_NqI5-xPJgYZXQIzAKyN4DubhEBSF0gVXFvGnjA1IBZCCN-ex3fnk2hC5QyU9PSdM3-6Pz5-jeMSK9Kaz1GpLRrUStLYTy4qASm9_UtnSCZB/s320/1b8a0a26a873a207c6e75b6d98212344.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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There are many Protestants who believe that it is forbidden to pray to the Saints in heaven. They confuse our Catholic prayers to them, asking for their intercession, as being divination of the saints, which is strictly forbidden by the Bible. So what does the Bible really say about the "dead"?
<p>
Is being dead in the body = to being dead in the spirit? Is it forbidden to talk to the dead? If Jesus talked to the dead while He was alive on earth, did He violate his own command to not divine them up?
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The answers are below, and categorized for you. The dead in Christ are much more alive than they ever were here on earth, because they are not constrained by their bodies, they are one with Christ, and they share in his glory. And by asking for the prayers of the saints, they do not somehow stand "between" us and Jesus, but rather, alongside of us in our prayers.
<p>
James 5:16 says that the prayers of a holy person are very powerful, and who is more holy than someone who is already in heaven sharing in Christ's glory? Paul says that intercessory prayer is a good thing, in 1 Timothy 2:1. And since saints in heaven never sleep, they can pray for us around the clock, even while we are asleep, at work, or at play.
<p>
And what about the poor souls in purgatory? We can pray, fast, and suffer for them too. If purgatory wasn't real, then the verses below that talk about praying, fasting, and suffering for the dead would be meaningless.
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<b>The “Dead” in Christ are Not Dead, but ALIVE!</b>
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Matthew 22: 31-32: And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, `I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not God of the dead, but of the living."
Hebrews 12:1:Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us</span></b></blockquote>
<p>
(**NOTE - Witnesses have to be alive in order to witness for us, to our Judge, Jesus Christ)
<p>
<b>The State of Those Who Die in Christ</b>
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Luke 20:35-36:but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
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<b>Death is Not a Barrier that Separates us From Our Loved Ones in Christ</b>
<p>
Romans 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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<b>The “Dead” in Christ Share in Christ’s Divinity and Glory </b>
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1 Corinthians 6:17: But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
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1 Peter 5:1: So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed.
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2 Peter 1:4: by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.
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<b>Divination of the Dead (forbidden by Deuteronomy 18:10) </b>
<p>
1 Samuel 28: 8-16: So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments, and went, he and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, "Divine for me by a spirit, and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you." The woman said to him, "Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the wizards from the land. Why then are you laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?"
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But Saul swore to her by the LORD, "As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing." Then the woman said, "Whom shall I bring up for you?" He said, "Bring up Samuel for me." When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice; and the woman said to Saul, "Why have you deceived me? You are Saul."
<p>
The king said to her, "Have no fear; what do you see?" And the woman said to Saul, "I see a god coming up out of the earth."
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He said to her, "What is his appearance?" And she said, "An old man is coming up; and he is wrapped in a robe." And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance. Then Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?"
<p>
Saul answered, "I am in great distress; for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams; therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do." And Samuel said, "Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has turned from you and become your enemy?
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<b>The People Who Die in the State of Grace Appear Alive on Earth </b>
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Matthew 27: 50-53: And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
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Matthew 17 1-3: And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.
<p>
<a href=' http://www.catholicbible101.com/thedead.htm'>More >></a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-52368894029463477082017-05-24T01:01:00.002-07:002017-05-24T01:04:00.476-07:00THE POPE MEETS TRUMP<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUVtICj-PxjJOFZXrNHUh5D0VjMPK00FovkwQrqyFlEBXE3eSnFSqR6G6JmRlgxKlXkd8kJQvL26zwAh9P2evcCOEufI8DBUcJ_UC99-CWyeBlv0CWNVG9JsmJrUmtBbQM5v4pW-HfrkrK/s1600/rt-gty-trump-pope-er-170523_16x9_992.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="992" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUVtICj-PxjJOFZXrNHUh5D0VjMPK00FovkwQrqyFlEBXE3eSnFSqR6G6JmRlgxKlXkd8kJQvL26zwAh9P2evcCOEufI8DBUcJ_UC99-CWyeBlv0CWNVG9JsmJrUmtBbQM5v4pW-HfrkrK/s200/rt-gty-trump-pope-er-170523_16x9_992.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Three Crucial Issues at the Pope-Trump Meeting </span></b>
<p>
By <a href="http://www.returntoorder.org/2017/05/the-three-crucial-issues-at-the-pope-trump-meeting/">John Horvat II</a>
<p>
The upcoming meeting in Rome between Pope Francis and President Trump is fast approaching. It is an opportune occasion to share some thoughts and concerns about the future.
<p>
The two figures could not be more different. The Pope is the head of the greatest spiritual power on Earth. The President is the elected leader of the world’s only superpower.
<p>
They will speak about a world in turmoil. From a purely human perspective, the situation looks dire. Thus, there is so much that could be discussed at this meeting since they both have vast resources at their disposal.
<p>
The Church has Her moral teachings, and wisdom garnered over the ages that is essential to any debate about the future. Completely different in nature, America has vast material resources that have often been channeled to help humanity.
<p>
<b>Conflict or Cooperation?</b>
<p>
Progressives are rooting that this meeting turns into a conflict. Liberal media will do everything possible to accentuate the differences between the Pope and the President.
<p>
They will try to fit their meeting into a false and exaggerated narrative that would have one defending the poor and the other representing those who supposedly oppress them through their wealth and lifestyles.
<p>
There is no doubt that Pope Francis and President Trump are indeed different and disagree on many things. However, inside the realm of Catholic social doctrine, there is much about which they might and should agree.
<b></b></div>
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Both the Pope and the President are known for their outspokenness. Thus, they need to speak out and denounce the world’s true evils. Both have broken conventions. They must now break the typical agendas put before them. In light of the centennial year of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, they urgently need to address the core problems that have caused men to go awry.</span></b></blockquote>
For this reason, it would be helpful if Pope and President were to talk about three things upon which they might agree and which few can deny.
<p>
<b>Addressing the Causes, Not the Effects</b>
<p>
We pray that, with God’s help, they would focus on the causes of the present crisis. It is easy to see that they might disagree on the means to deal with the dangerous effects of the world crisis. Let them at least agree on its causes.
<p>
Without addressing causes, it is impossible to solve problems. No amount of money can fill the void when problems perpetuate themselves and grow ever larger due to causes that are allowed to fester. Yet this outlook is typically absent from today’s postmodern world that prefers to deal with the sensational and immediate symptoms.
<p>
Thus, when discussing the problem of countless refugees that seek asylum in the West, for example, the two should explore and denounce the causes that induce the refugees to flee.
<p>
It should be easy to agree that immigrants will cease to migrate if they no longer want to leave their home country.
<p>
The goal should not be to settle people in foreign lands but to give priority to restoring conditions for them to live in their native lands, whether this be Syria, Venezuela, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Libya or Cuba, which these immigrants love and where they desire to live in peace.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-41022850671096221272017-05-12T18:43:00.002-07:002017-05-12T18:43:25.193-07:00DEFENDING DIGNITY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbumJxTutwJnpgjfP5mf97crLvq1tae7j2CUhA7NojaVj5i_tbdOJI0FiVZGgfHnh74N8tFiQLWU_ai4-GVTJDwQ_nxlbTBta9DEwhTbiqAl_xY0kupBts8jiHSB4UB-qqyHtWHSXRu6fT/s1600/porn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbumJxTutwJnpgjfP5mf97crLvq1tae7j2CUhA7NojaVj5i_tbdOJI0FiVZGgfHnh74N8tFiQLWU_ai4-GVTJDwQ_nxlbTBta9DEwhTbiqAl_xY0kupBts8jiHSB4UB-qqyHtWHSXRu6fT/s200/porn.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Josh McDowell on Strengthening the Church Against Pornography</span></b></div>
<p>
“You have to start preparing you children for being exposed to <a href="http://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/josh-mcdowell-strengthening-the-church-against-pornography/"><span style="color: #674ea7;"> pornography</span></a> at age five,” said Josh McDowell at an event at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation for DC-area faith leaders.
<p>
The event was focused on equipping leaders of local churches, and other religiously affiliated organizations, with the tools to address the harms of pornography.
<p>
The presentation drew nearly fifty area leaders.
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">McDowell spoke about the neurological harms of pornography, giving an analogy that the chemicals reacting in the brain when someone watches pornography are akin to tattooing the images on your brain.</span></b></blockquote>
Attendees included Rep. Linda Smith from Shared Hope International and Donna Hughes from Enough is Enough.
He told a heart-wrenching story of an eight-year-old boy who was accidently exposed to pornography at a neighbor’s house.
<p>
His mother found him several days later crying in his room. When she asked him what was wrong, the boy replied that he couldn’t get the pornographic images out of his head.
<p>
McDowell emphasized the need for parents to begin<i> preparing </i>their children at early ages because it is impossible for any parent to adequately<i> protect</i> their child from being exposed to the explicit content.
<p>
According to <a href="http://www.barna.com/porn-press-conference/#.VrS9OrSJndl"><span style="color: #134f5c;">research </span></a>conducted by Barna Group, and commissioned by Josh McDowell Ministry, roughly half of teenagers, and nearly three-quarters of young adults see pornography on at least a monthly basis.
<p>
How should churches respond?
<p>
In an interview with <a href="http://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/mcdowell-church-porn/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> NCOSE’s “Sexploitation?” podcast</span></a>, McDowell stated that “Every church should have a recovery group…” His advice to pastors, and individuals, regarding pornography, is “don’t go it alone.”
<p>
McDowell referenced the positive efforts put forth by the Catholic church, the LDS church, and other religious communities as well.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-70596750406728751082017-04-26T07:40:00.001-07:002017-04-26T07:40:55.764-07:00SALVATION<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTI4t1M503TE5ZK7JL2tDpJzYkwltvzyaFeziIUAa7xwIN3GMK9n3FPEYTv-ca1XwxqUytpGNu7YMyQp21C0P0YR4vmsrMgPDhNeEKYzgfd7dBAJVgc-yEcijMA12t8-hWGFfPLlkdrX9E/s1600/salvation_issue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTI4t1M503TE5ZK7JL2tDpJzYkwltvzyaFeziIUAa7xwIN3GMK9n3FPEYTv-ca1XwxqUytpGNu7YMyQp21C0P0YR4vmsrMgPDhNeEKYzgfd7dBAJVgc-yEcijMA12t8-hWGFfPLlkdrX9E/s200/salvation_issue.jpg" width="194" /></a></div>
<p>
<b>VI.<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><a href="http://scripturecatholic.com/salvation.html#salvation-VI"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> I Have Been Saved</span> </a> (past event)</b>
<p>
Rom. 8:24 - for in this hope we were saved (but, again, why "hope" if salvation is a certainty?)
<p>
Eph. 2:5,8 - for by grace you have been saved through faith.
<p>
2 Tim. 1:9 - He saved us and called us through grace and not by virtue of our own works outside of His grace.
<p>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Titus 3:5 - He saved us in virtue of His own mercy, and not by our deeds.</span></b></i><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">
<p>
</span><b>VII. I Am Being Saved (present event)</b>
<p>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">1 Cor. 1:18 - for the word of the cross is folly to those perishing, but for to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Salvation is not a one-time event. It is a process of perseverance through faith, hope and love.</span></b>
<p>
2 Cor. 2:15 - for we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved. Salvation is a continual process.
<p>
Phil. 2:12 - we are working out our salvation through fear and trembling. Salvation is an ongoing process.
<p>
1 Peter 1:9 - you obtain the salvation of your souls as the outcome of your faith. Working out our salvation in fear and trembling is a lifelong process.
<p>
<b>VIII. I Will Be Saved (future event)</b>
<p>
Matt. 10:22, 24:13; Mark 13:13 - again, Jesus taught that we must endure to the very end to be saved. Salvation is a past, present and future event (not a one-time event at an altar call).
<p>
Mark 16:16 – Jesus says whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.
<p>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Acts 15:11 - we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus.</span></b>
<p>
Rom. 5:9-10 - since we are justified by His blood, we shall be saved.
<p>
Rom. 13:11 - salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. How can we be only nearer to something we already have?
<p>
1 Cor. 3:15 - he will be saved, but only as through fire.
<p>
1 Cor. 5:5 - Paul commands the Church to deliver a man to satan, that he will be saved in the day of the Lord.
<p>
2 Tim. 2:11-12 - if we endure, we shall also reign with Him. This requires endurance until the end of our lives.
<p>
Heb. 9:28 - Jesus will appear a second time to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.
<p>
James 5:15 - the sacrament of the sick will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up.
<p>
<b>IX. I Save (by participating in Christ's salvific work)</b>
<p>
Rom. 11:13-14 - I magnify my ministry to make the Jews jealous and thus save some of them. Paul says that he is the one doing the saving, but he really means that he participates in Christ's work of salvation.
<p>
1 Cor. 7:16 - Paul indicates that a wife can save her husband and vice versa. We are lesser mediators in Christ's salvific work.
<p>
1 Cor. 9:22 - Paul says he has become all things to men that he might save some. Only God saves, but His children participate in their salvation.
<p>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">1 Tim. 4:16 - you will save both yourself and your hearers. Christ is the only Savior, but He wants us to participate, for we are members of His body.</span></b>
<p>
James 5:20 - whoever brings back a sinner will save his soul from death. We are saviors in the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
<p>
Jude 22-23 - we are instructed to save some people, by snatching them out of the fire. We participate in our salvation and in the salvation of others.
<p>
Prov. 16:6 - by love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for. We can participate in Christ's atonement through our love and faith.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-11214908214334634922017-04-17T01:18:00.000-07:002017-04-17T01:18:07.296-07:00WHERE TO FIND RESURRECTION<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHZj9zn7FBhmwgxi78DiSChfG0yHbJhE63EjTdVKoNfHfuTaeSO7uFry-pW2cJ2-aRhYPYv0OdI0gNTk_tHrpBat6CkTeT1sWtlwSw4cb8ee0EBpl_0-s4uoMCbnFXztxYyEFLo2Bsmzaj/s1600/Jesus-Resurrection-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHZj9zn7FBhmwgxi78DiSChfG0yHbJhE63EjTdVKoNfHfuTaeSO7uFry-pW2cJ2-aRhYPYv0OdI0gNTk_tHrpBat6CkTeT1sWtlwSw4cb8ee0EBpl_0-s4uoMCbnFXztxYyEFLo2Bsmzaj/s200/Jesus-Resurrection-01.jpg" width="200" height="200" /></a></div>
<p>
Something there is that needs a crucifixion. Everything that’s good eventually gets scapegoated and crucified. How? By that curious, perverse dictate somehow innate within human life that assures that there’s always someone or something that cannot leave well enough alone, but, for reasons of its own, must hunt down and lash out at what’s good.
<p>
What’s good, what’s of God, will always at some point be misunderstood, envied, hated, pursued, falsely accused, and eventually nailed to some cross. Every body of Christ inevitably suffers the same fate as Jesus: death through misunderstanding, ignorance, and jealousy.
<p>
But there’s a flipside as well: Resurrection always eventually trumps crucifixion. What’s good eventually triumphs. Thus, while nothing that’s of God will avoid crucifixion, no body of Christ stays in the tomb for long.
<p>
God always rolls back the stone and, soon enough, new life bursts forth and we see why that original life had to be crucified. (“Wasn’t it necessary that the Christ should so have to suffer and die?”) Resurrection invariably follows crucifixion. Every crucified body will rise again. Our hope takes its root in that.
<p>
But how does this happen? Where do we see the resurrection? How do we experience resurrection after a crucifixion?
Scripture is subtle, though clear, on this. Where can we expect to experience resurrection? The gospel tell us that, on the morning of the resurrection, the women-followers of Jesus set out for the tomb of Jesus, carrying spices, expecting to anoint and embalm a dead body.
<p>
Well-intentioned but misguided, what they find is not a dead body, but an empty tomb and an angel challenging them with these words: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Go instead into Galilee and you will find him there!”
<p>
Go instead into Galilee. Why Galilee? What’s Galilee? And how do we get there?
<p>
In the gospels, Galilee is not simply a geographical location, a place on a map. It is first of all a place in the heart. As well, Galilee refers to the dream and to the road of discipleship that the disciples once walked with Jesus and to that place and time when their hearts most burned with hope and enthusiasm.
<p>
And now, after the crucifixion, just when they feel that the dream is dead, that their faith is only fantasy, they are told to go back to the place where it all began: “Go back to Galilee. He will meet you there!”
<p>
And they do go back to Galilee, both to the geographical location and to that special place in their hearts where once burned the dream of discipleship. And just as promised, Jesus appears to them. He doesn’t appear exactly as he was before, or as frequently as they would like him to, but he does appear as more than a ghost and a memory.
<p>
The Christ that appears to them after the resurrection is in a different modality, but he’s physical enough to eat fish in their presence, real enough to be touched as a human being, and powerful enough to change their lives forever.
<p>
<i><b>Ultimately that’s what the resurrection asks us to do: To go back to Galilee, to return to the dream, hope, and discipleship that had once inflamed us but has now been lost through disillusionment.</b></i>
<p>
This parallels what happens on the road to Emmaus in Luke’s gospel, where we are told that on the day of the resurrection, two disciples were walking away from Jerusalem towards Emmaus, with their faces downcast.
<p>
An entire spirituality could be unpackaged from that simple line: For Luke, Jerusalem means the dream, the hope, and the religious centre from which all is to begin and where ultimately, all is to culminate. And the disciples are “walking away” from this place, away from their d
<p>
Since their dream has been crucified, the disciples are understandably discouraged and are walking away from it, towards some human solace, despairing in their hope: “But we had hoped!”
<p>
They never get to Emmaus. Jesus appears to them on the road, reshapes their hope in the light of their disillusionment, and turns them back towards Jerusalem.
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">That is one of the essential messages of Easter: Whenever we are discouraged in our faith, whenever our hopes seem to be crucified, we need to go back to Galilee and Jerusalem, that is, back to the dream and the road of discipleship that we had embarked upon before things went wrong. The temptation of course, whenever the kingdom doesn’t seem to work, is to abandon discipleship for human consolation, to head off instead for Emmaus, for the consolation of Las Vegas or Monte Carlo.
</span></b></blockquote>
But, as we know, we never quite get to Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. In one guise or another, Christ always meets us on the road to those places, burns holes in our hearts, explains our latest crucifixion to us, and sends us back – and to our abandoned discipleship. Once there, it all makes sense again.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-54028765529083417902017-04-06T07:42:00.001-07:002017-04-06T07:43:19.421-07:00THE POISON OF CYNICISM<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitw5imPsKU3BbK_v2Jk5881_pENo860mKhpdgf-RumO30h5w_oeua-mhjFoPRkSP4ELv1S8eUgIIvcbj7i7EZmQ69kqxAuNXYDGa62eQj2u2h-Or7NIIXQDaLMSW_PITa2OVhUdZ_xTRv9/s1600/indifference.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitw5imPsKU3BbK_v2Jk5881_pENo860mKhpdgf-RumO30h5w_oeua-mhjFoPRkSP4ELv1S8eUgIIvcbj7i7EZmQ69kqxAuNXYDGa62eQj2u2h-Or7NIIXQDaLMSW_PITa2OVhUdZ_xTRv9/s200/indifference.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
By <a href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column/the-poison-of-cynicism-3005/"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Alice von Hildebrand </span></a>
<p>
It is hardly conceivable that one, having lived in this imperfect world of ours, could say of his death bed: “In my whole life, I have never heard a remark that was either unkind or offensive.”
<p>
Alas, most of us will acknowledge that they have often been wounded by nasty and unkind words, thrown at their face, at times, for no reason at all.
<p>
It would be sheer naiveté ever to forget that we are living in a world of sinners (with the one exception of the Holy Virgin), and that inevitably people having an “unbaptized” tongue will say things that afflict others.
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">St. James has warned us: “If anyone thinks that he is religious and does not bridle his tongue…this man’s religion is vain.” (James 1:26)</span></b></blockquote>
How is one to respond to these aggravations, sometimes viciously aiming at wounding us?
<p>
Let me briefly mention the classical response given by saints – not forgetting that holiness does not make one “insensitive,” but does shield these beloved children of God from giving the “wrong” response which most of us are tempted to give: such as “tooth for tooth” which often degenerates to “teeth for tooth.” How tempting is the sweet taste of revenge!
<p>
Many are those who claim that to love the offender is not only against “nature,” but also against the elementary laws of justice. Was it not Confucius who said: “If you love your enemies, what is left for your friends?”
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">The saint will not only forgive the person who shot these poisonous “arrows” at him, but will “love his enemy, and pray for those who persecute him.” He will also look for excuses to decrease the culpability of the offender. One thing is certain: a saint will neither nurse a grudge nor “bite back”; moreover he will not, with God’s grace, feel “dispensed” from loving his neighbor.</span></b></blockquote>
Not only is it not easy to become a saint. It is plainly impossible without divine help. “Without me, you can do nothing” is something that those striving for holiness should daily meditate on.
<p>
Let us now briefly mention the responses that the “average” man (that is most of us) is likely to give. How tempting to label as “wicked” or “evil” those who wound up and declare the offender to be unworthy of either forgiveness, let alone love.
<p>
Someone betrayed by a “friend” will probably cynically redefine friendship as a bond “valid” as long as the so-called friend may use you as a tool for his personal advantage.
<p>
But once he no longer “needs” you, having squeezed the lemon, he will discard the rind. Moreover, how many people wish to be burdened with friend who is bankrupt and desperately in need of financial help?
<p>
It is tragically true that the “defeated” person is “usually” abandoned by all. This was tragically formulated by Horace. “Donec eris felix…multos numerabis amicos….Tempora si fuerunt nubile, solus eris” – Whereas a successful man has innumerable friends, most of them being sycophants, a man in distress is, alas, often a lonesome man.
<p>
A disappointed man might tell you that true friendship might be found in some pieces of literature, but never in real life. On the other hand, those of us blessed with true friends – for they do exist – ought to wake up in the morning and go to bed at night with the word “thank you” on their lips.
<p>
But those who have been disappointed or wounded are likely to fall into the temptation of assuming: “No one is worthy of love, not a single one; only simpletons can fall into the trap of trusting others. They are either near sighted or plainly stupid.” A cynic is liberated once and for all from the “burden” of admiring anyone, or looking up to anyone as a model!
<p>
Nevertheless among these “defeatists”, there is a gamut of possibilities. Some of them, acknowledging defeat, will withdraw from a world of illusion, lies and betrayals and will escape into the “desert”. This was the choice made by Moliere’s hero: Alceste in the Misanthrope.
<p>
The girl he loved having refused to join him in this seclusion, gives the final blow to his already wounded soul.
<p>
Others choose to remain in this evil world, convinced that they have the mission to open people’s eyes to its viciousness. Their favored tool is the wounding knife of cynicism. “Oh! Sweet revenge.”
<p>
What is striking about their attitude is that they definitely seem to enjoy their role as “seers,” that is, superior people blessed with a sharp eye sight, people who can smell evil from far away. In other words, they are the clever ones; they pride themselves of their talents as “detectives of evil,” and enjoy their superior intellectual vision.
<p>
They will, on principle, reject any argument or even proof that their “wisdom” is flawed and poisoned by an unhealthy self-assurance. “I am always right; I see what I see.”
<p>
Literature generously gives us priceless information on this topic. Not surprisingly, the richest field for cynical remarks are women, love, marriage, faithfulness, religion. Let us not forget, however that bad marriages often make the headlines; very happy ones “treasure” their happiness in the secrecy of their home.
<p>
Marriage is an ideal field because many enter into it assuming that, like all fairy tales, it will end with the words: “they were happy forever after.” Let us not forget, however, that some of the greatest poets (Dante comes to mind) have found admirable words to sing the praise of their “dame.” Petrarch dedicated a sublime canto to the encomium of Laura who – alone in his eyes – deserved to be called a Woman: “che sola a me par donna.”
<p>
That is, incarnating as she does, the plenitude of all female virtues, she alone is worthy to be called “lady.” But many are the writers who – disappointed in marriage – revel in opening our eyes to its false promises and its dangerous appeal. There is such a thing as “literary revenge.”
<p>
French writers are particularly talented at making cynical remarks: the sharp Latin mind is quick at detecting flaws in others.
<p>
A couple of examples will illustrate this. According to Alexis Piron marriage has only two good days: the entrance and the exit (this is not a quote – p. 172. Most of the cynical remarks that I use are taken from French Quotations by Norbert Guterman, Double Day – sometimes using my own translation).
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The following one is just as cynical. A husband visits the tomb of his deceased wife, and meditates on the fact that “there she lies” reveling in her peace and in mine. (Jacques de Lorens, p. 68)
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Vauvenargues’ words are loaded with cynicism. He writes: “We feel nothing more sharply than the loss of the woman we love, nor for a shorter time.” (N.G.) He is trying to convince us that “faithfulness” is nothing but an appearance soon denied by facts. How refreshing by comparison to recall the words of Kierkegaard that the test of true faithfulness is our relation to the dead.
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In this light of these remarks, we can measure the harm that can be done by cynical literature; and how a young person feeding on it can enter life already “blasé” and disappointed. Yet one great true love should suffice to re-open for us the gates of hope.
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Is this “light of hope” often offered in contemporary education and contemporary literature? Are we not living in a decadent society where many of us have lost what Dante beautifully calls: “la speranza dell’altezza.”
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How many of our contemporaries having given up the bright light of faith, live like moles in a dark den, convinced that this earth is to be “enjoyed” in any way one pleases, and then when the game is over, gratefully greet assisted suicide.
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Montaigne clearly deserves a special place in our list of famous cynics. Speaking about marriage, he compares it to an aviary: the birds inside the cage desperately wishing to get out; those outside, desperately wishing to get in. (p 50) In other words, once you have “tasted” how bitter-sweet the marriage bond is, understandably your one great wish is to regain your freedom.
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As these cynical arrows being mostly shot by men, it is inevitable that they aim at flagellating the female sex. It is always tempting – starting from Genesis – to put the fault on the “other”, be it a serpent or Eve.
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But if all the cynical remarks uttered by women’s tongues had been recorded, I am far from certain that they would not deserve the first prize of eloquence.
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Understandably, the male sex, being physically the stronger one, is easily tempted to equate superiority with strength. This is wittily expressed by Alexander Dumas (fils) who tells us that, according to the Bible, the woman was created last. It must have been on Saturday night.
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There are clear signs of fatigue. (326) But a witty tongue could remind him that “last” often means better: the final copy comes after the rough draft!
The same author is also makes the venomous remark that “the chains of wedlock are so heavy to carry that one needs to be two…and often three.” (ibid)
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Every gift of God – and the creation of Eve was one for Adam who gave expression to his joy upon perceiving her – if not “baptized” turns to a terrible caricature. This found its expression in the following words of Paul Valery: “God created man and finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a female companion to make him feel doubly lonesomeness.” (382)
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Alas, this is acknowledged to be a real possibility by the very talented French philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, (see his play: Le Coeur des Autres), it can and does happen that two people linked by the bonds of matrimony, have nothing to say to one another. This sheds light on many cases of matrimonial infidelity.
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How tempting it is for a cynical tongue to lash at “virtues.”
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“Few virtuous women do not weary of being so.” (N.G.) Once again, we owe this nasty remark to La Rochefoucault. My translation “Few are the virtuous women who do not get tired of their ‘trade.’” (p. 92) The message is clear: some women who have little appeal for the other sex, take refuge in “virtue,” but as soon as there is a flicker of hope the pride of being “virtuous” loses its appeal and collapse.
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Once virtue is “vilified”, virginity is bound to follow suit. Not surprisingly we are “indebted” to Voltaire for this gem: “One of the superstitions of the human mind is to suppose that virginity could be a virtue.” (N.G. p. 187)
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Should one be surprised that someone who dared write the blasphemous words: “ecrasez l’infame” which have been interpreted by some as being directed to Christ, should shed subtle ridicule one of the most sublime flowers of Christian love?
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Various interpretations could be given to these diabolical words; but being given the fact that he was a radical atheist and viewed religion as an evil, it seems legitimate gives credence to this negative interpretation.
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It is not difficult to detect the venom hidden in these “witty” words. Similarly it is well known that those afflicted by sexual impotency are likely to denigrate this sphere as dragging man down on a purely animal level. I heard one afflicted by this grave flaw, saying: “this is a domain where animals are man’s role model.”
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It is clearly redolent of the witty fable of La Fontaine; a fox unable to reach juicy grapes, proclaimed them to be “unripe.” These words are a cover-up for poorly disguised bitterness and resentment.
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Inevitably, God and religion are preferred butts of atheists. Once again Voltaire deserves a “special” place whose poisonous pen in 18th century France has done much harm not only to the Church but also to French society.
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In such cases, the word “enlightenment” actually mean that having rejected the blinding light of faith, and like moles chosen to enter into a dark den, proudly lighten the candle of rationalism. The following remark looks “innocent” but is, in fact, loaded with venom. He writes; “If God did not exist, he should be invented.” (p. 180) Clearly man thrives on illusions and should not be deprived of this pleasure!
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Baudelaire, however, manages to trump this nasty remark when he writes: “God is the only being who, in order to reign need not even exist.” (N.G. p. 313) Comments are unnecessary.
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How very many of us forget that whatever gift God has given us – and being a talented writer is one – should be put at His service. Clearly the Evil one aims at having these gifts put at his service through by pride, ambition, and hunger for fast fame.
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How often do educators tell children that whatever gift they have should be put at God’s service? This should give them food for thought.
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<i style="background-color: #cccccc;">Alice von Hildebrand is a lecturer and an author, whose works include: The Privilege of Being a Woman (2002) and The Soul of a Lion: The Life of Dietrich von Hildebrand (2000), a biography of her late husband. She was made a Dame Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of St. Gregory by Pope Francis in 2013.</i> <div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-87981665498033736812017-03-27T17:03:00.001-07:002017-03-27T17:07:00.781-07:00SPIRITUAL GROWTH<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>If we want to grow in our <a href="https://www.osv.com/Article/TabId/493/ArtMID/13569/ArticleID/4408/What-every-Catholic-needs-to-know-about--spiritual-growth.aspx"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"> spiritual lives </span></a>we must do the following: </b>
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<b>Truly participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:</b> </span>
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Many people attend Mass in a distracted frame of mind. Yet in the Mass we encounter Christ in a unique and unsurpassable way. We must be fully present and prepared. We should not rush into Church thinking of a thousand things.
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We must enter Church filled with joy and gratitude, knowing that we go to meet our great love. Our time at Mass should be suffused with prayer.
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It should also be filled with anticipation, for during Communion Christ comes to us and lives with us and offers us infinite love. After Mass we should linger before the tabernacle filled with thanksgiving for what we have so graciously been given.
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<b>Take advantage of confession:
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</b>Sinfulness is part of the human condition — one that separates us from Christ. Christ offers us a way to put our sins behind us and to experience once again his loving embrace through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
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<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">What possible reason can there be for ignoring this? If we stay in our sins we push Christ away from us and we have no hope of growing in the spiritual life. Our sins should weigh heavily on us; we should yearn for confession, which offers us Christ again. </span></b></blockquote>
<b>Learn to love our Blessed Mother:</b>
<p>
Through Mary we meet Christ; through Mary’s prayers we are brought closer to Christ. The Blessed Mother is our mother. She should be our constant companion in the spiritual life.
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<b>Develop a life of prayer: </b>
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Every moment is an opportunity for prayer. How often do we take advantage of these opportunities? Read Father Groeschel’s book <span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Praying-Constantly-Bringing-Your-Faith/dp/1592767907/ref=sr_1_2/176-3464581-8950217?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283347897&sr=8-2-catcorr">Praying Constantly: Bringing Your Faith to Life.</a> </span>
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Here Father Groeschel shows that prayer can pervade our lives, that it can come in many different and unexpected forms, that we never have to be far from a moment of prayer. Each time we pray we draw closer to God. Every moment of prayer, whether it involves the Rosary or the Liturgy of the Hours or simply a few spontaneous words of our own is a conversation with Christ.
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<b>Encounter Christ in the Scriptures:</b>
<p>
Reading the Scriptures meditatively can be of enormous help in coming to know Christ. Here we find his earthly words, his actions. Here we see again and again his enormous love for us, his great sacrifice for us. Through the Scriptures we come to know Our Lord in a deeper and deeper way and thus our relationship with him grows.
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<b>Learn from those who came before us: </b>
<p>
The Church has canonized innumerable saints. These are our examples. They have walked the road of holiness, and their lives show us the many ways that closeness with Christ can be achieved. We must learn about the saints; we must study their lives, read their writings and pray for their intercession.
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<b>Improve our relationship with others:</b>
<p>
Spiritual growth transforms the outer life. There are some people who pray regularly, who go to Mass nearly every day, who are punctilious about every religious rule and regulation. At the same time they are indifferent to the needs of others. At times they may even be cruel. This is a tragic failure. Their relationship with Christ is damaged.
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<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Perhaps they only believe it exists. When we are in real relationship with Christ, we come to see that each human being is created in the divine image and is of infinite value. To grow in the spiritual life is to grow in the love of others — to find Christ in them and to serve Christ in them. </span></b></blockquote>
These are only a few of the most obvious ways for a Catholic to deepen his spiritual life, yet many of them are not thought to be very important today. For the Catholic they are essential. Your spiritual life is not truly Catholic if such things do not play a large part in it.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-64674334781725466612017-03-11T07:22:00.002-08:002017-03-11T07:22:18.390-08:00UNDERSTANDING CHRIST'S TEMPTATION<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "source sans pro"; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;">
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<span style="color: #333333;">After </span><a href="http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/2015/09/rummelsburg-understanding-christs-temptation/"><span style="color: #674ea7;"> John the Baptist</span></a><span style="color: #333333;"> baptized Jesus, the Christ was called into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit where He humbled Himself so profoundly that in the company of wild beasts and beleaguered by ravenous hunger after a forty day fast, </span></div>
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He suffered the devil’s temptations. Jesus’ reasons for doing this on our behalf are many concerning the economy of Salvation, but let us recognize at the least that this unmerited act of mercy is vital component of the Gospel message. Fr. Gerald Vann instructs us, “in its symbolism we can see represented the whole life and ministry of Jesus.” </div>
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Indeed, Christ’s temptation in the wilderness is worthy of arduous study and has been a prominent subject of Biblical exegesis from the early Church until the present.</div>
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Many important questions surround Christ’s temptation, like why was Jesus thrust into the wilderness for forty days immediately after His baptism? Were there really wild beasts around Him? Was he really tempted? What were His temptations like? </div>
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Were they internal and mental or external and physical? What are we supposed to learn from Christ’s temptation? Did Satan know that Jesus was the Christ? Or did he think he was an ordinary man? </div>
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After reading about Christ’s temptation in all three synoptic Gospels, these questions and many more rise for consideration. However, modern Biblical exegesis has brought a new question into the arena of Scripture study that must be answered before we can consider any other questions: “Did the temptation of Christ actually happen?” </div>
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In concrete historical terms, did Jesus Christ confront temptation in the wilderness at the bidding of Satan himself? If we answer this in the negative, there is really nothing more to discuss.</div>
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Did the Temptation of Christ Really Happen?</span></h3>
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Modern Biblical exegesis has been evolving for centuries. The twentieth century saw the solidification of many new methods of Biblical exegesis coalesce under the umbrella term “Critical methods for studying the Gospels” illustrated by such fields as historical criticism, textual criticism, form criticism, source criticism, literary criticism, redaction criticism, and many other types of criticism besides. </div>
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The one thing they all have in common is that they are reductive and oriented to inductive reasoning. To describe only one example, form criticism is an exegetical method that takes pieces of scripture broken down into units and categorizes them according to literary pattern and then tries to trace each unit to its time of oral transmission.</div>
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These modern methods of Biblical criticism have swept across the world and are perhaps most popularly typified by Albert Schweitzer’s quest for the historical Jesus. Their questions and conclusions hinge on the historical record accompanied by textual analysis. </div>
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New times ushered in this new thinking as historical, form, text and redaction criticism gained ever more purchase on the imaginations of academic theologians. One of the most prominent new exegetes of the twentieth century was Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976). </div>
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Bultmann was a German Evangelical Protestant minister. In 1921, he published the book <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The History of the Synoptic Tradition</em>. He was one of four German protestant Biblical scholars to introduce form-criticism of the New Testament.</div>
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Bultmann ended up calling for the demythologizing of the New Testament. He almost completely eliminated the historicity of most of the events conveyed by Mathew, Mark, and Luke. </div>
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As the protestant Biblical scholar Craig Blomberg writes in<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Jesus and the Gospels,</em> “many proponents of the “historical critical method” have defined it to included three quite skeptical principles of the nineteenth century philosopher Ernst Troeltsch: (1) methodical doubt,: where by one is suspicious of any historical narrative unless strong corroborations evidence is found to support its claims,” (2) the use of analogy, and (3) the principle of correlation.</div>
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Bultmann ended his historical Jesus quest concluding that we can know little more about Jesus other than that he did exist, that he may have been crucified and that a few of the sayings he uttered are in fact attributable to him. Bultmann along with G. Bornkamm, W. Grundmann and most academic historical critical exegetes deny the historicity of the Temptation.</div>
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It is important to remember that empirical methods can never yield certainty, despite the exaggerated importance attributed to the material sciences in this age. Coming to the truths about the Faith are not well approached by modern methods grounded in the anti-faith principle of skepticism. </div>
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These new exegetes contradict nearly two thousand years of Church tradition and teaching with very little substantive content. Perhaps, however, it is important to answer the questions of whether or the temptation actually took place in history. If sacred scripture is the word of God, and it is written that it happened, then either it happened or the Bible is false. We cannot have it both ways.</div>
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The Church Answers</span></h3>
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There is no doubt in the mind of Holy Mother Church that in fact Christ was tempted, in real temporal terms and as a historical fact. There is hardly a great Church father from Irenaeus, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, Justin, Jerome, Gregory the Great, and too many more to name who do not discuss the events of the temptation as greatly significant and obviously real. </div>
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First as the redemption and fulfillment of the first Adam who fell when faced with his temptation and then as a foreshadowing of Christ’s passion and finally as a guide for us from the perfect teacher on the temptations the faithful will have to face as we observe that the fullness of time unfolds the events of Salvation History. </div>
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<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Not one of these faithful and monumental saints have ever uttered a word against the historicity of Christ’s temptations, or any other divinely inspired Gospel accounting. In all cases, their treatments of the topic assume its veracity and importance so emphatically as to render the question moot, not to mention an offense against the authority and integrity of The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.</span></b></blockquote>
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The Universal Church Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas treats of the temptation in his masterpiece the Summa Theologica in part III, question 41 <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">On Christ’s Temptation</em>. It is worth noting that the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas comments on Christ’s temptations signals his assent to their veracity. </div>
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He first answers the question about whether or not it “was becoming that Christ should be Tempted?” He goes on to consider the role of the desert in Christ’s temptation. After that he considers the time of the temptation and finally he considers the mode and order of the temptation. </div>
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<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">The nature and seriousness of St. Thomas’ work ought to signal clearly that the first assumption upon which this consideration is grounded is that it in fact a historical reality that our Christ was tempted in the wilderness.</span></b></blockquote>
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St. Thomas Aquinas would hardly have considered the temptation a topic worth memorializing or contemplating had it never happened. If we conclude with the modern exegete that the temptation did not happen, then we must also necessarily say that St. Thomas Aquinas’ work on this matter was done in vain. </div>
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A cursory glance at their respective conclusions at the end of their lives speaks volumes- Bultmann ended in denying everything mystical about Christ and St. Thomas Aquinas, having been gifted the Beatific Vision, could no longer suffer the mundane, even his own inspired writing projects.</div>
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Choose Holy Mother Church</span></h3>
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There is a modern divide in this age between academia and faithful theologians. The proper use of the will and intellect as they correspond to faith and reason are intended to be, as Pope St. John Paul II said at the outset in his vital encyclical <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fides et Ratio</em> “like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” </div>
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Pope St. John Paul II squarely identifies our greatest difficulty today, we no longer know the truth about ourselves, and this has dramatically affected our teaching class.</div>
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Over the centuries, since the advent of nominalism, we have gradually cut ourselves off from the transcendent aspects of our existence. We are left in this age with a misunderstanding of the Christian anthropology. </div>
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The manifestation of the modern moral and intellectual errors in the Ivory Tower is that intellect and will have been excised from academic considerations. Inductive reasoning has replaced the first principles of deductive reasoning and speculative philosophy. </div>
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Scientific reductionism has reduced previously intellectual considerations like theology, philosophy and the humanities to reductive social sciences that embody the Enlightenment trope that “man is the measure of all things.”</div>
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Ironically, it requires a much bigger act of faith to believe Christ didn’t actually face temptation as it is written because the only source is a single miniscule mind who asserts skepticism as a thing that is true. </div>
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In this Dark Age we ought to reject the primacy of the historical critical method and suggest that the faithful subordinate these methods to the lowest level of exegetical importance where they belong. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "source sans pro"; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Let us reject the conclusions which are not in accord with the Tradition and Teaching of Holy Mother Church. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who died on the Cross for us, did in fact face the temptations in the desert from Satan, and He did so for us!</span></b></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Source Sans Pro"; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;">
It has been the position of the Church from the beginning that historically, Christ was in fact tempted, in real terms and as an artifact of His earthly mission. To side against Holy Mother Church, the Church Fathers, Doctors and Saints is a bold arrogation to be in possession of knowledge that is impossible to acquire. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Source Sans Pro"; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;">
If we side with Scripture as the inerrant word of God as expounded by the Magisterium that Christ was in fact tempted by Satan in the wilderness, then we can move on with confidence to examine other interesting questions concerning the nature of temptation and our duties in the spiritual combat. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Source Sans Pro"; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;">
Let us ignore the cant coming from the world and embrace the marvels of revelation conveyed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit to all souls of good will.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-85865188433929100322017-03-01T05:58:00.001-08:002017-03-01T05:59:55.121-08:00EMOTIONAL WOUNDS?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<p>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Bring them to the Eucharist to be healed</b>
<p>
</span><i><span style="font-size: large;">Complete healing comes from touching and being touched by the sacred</span></i>
<p>
by <span style="color: #0b5394;"> <a href="http://aleteia.org/2017/02/27/emotional-wounds-bring-them-to-the-eucharist-to-be-healed/">Roberto Mena</a>
</span>
<p>
Recently, a man came to me asking for help. He was carrying deep wounds in his soul — emotional ones, not physical. What surprised me at first was that, even though he was deeply wounded, he had not been traumatized in his infancy or his adult life.
<p>
Apparently, he’d had to bear the typical blows and bruises that many of us deal with: disrespect, bullying, never being the favorite, dissatisfaction with his own body, disenchantment with his family and siblings, difficulties in his studies, disappointment in his workplace, the sensation of being ignored all the time, having the impression of not being appreciated, and the self-pity and lack of confidence that result from all of the above.
<p>
But he was a sensitive man, and the combination of all these seemingly small things had left him, now a late middle aged man, incapable of being the good - natured and happy adult that he wanted to be.
<p>
Instead, he admitted that he was habitually trapped in a certain self-absorption; more specifically, a self-centered anxiety that filled him with the sensation that life hadn’t been fair to him.
<p>
Consequently, he was always fixated in a certain way on protecting himself, and was resentful of those who could progress confidently in self-confidence and love.
<p>
“It bothers me,” he said, “to see people like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II talk with such self-confidence about the largeness of their hearts. I always get filled with resentment and think, ‘Lucky you! You haven’t had to bear everything that I’ve had to suffer in life!’”
<p>
This man had already received some professional therapy that had brought him to a deeper level of self understanding, but it still left him paralyzed as far as being able to overcome his wounds.
<p>
“What can I do with these wounds?” he asked. My answer to him, and to all of us who are wounded, is, “Bring them to the Eucharist.”
<p>
Every time that you go to a Eucharistic celebration, you are near an altar, and you receive Communion, bring your defenselessness and your emotional paralysis to God. Ask him to touch your body, your heart, your memory, your bitterness, your lack of self-confidence, your self absorption, your weaknesses, your helplessness.
<p>
Bring your sore body and heart to God. Express your defenselessness in simple and humble words:
<blockquote>
<i><b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Touch me. Take my wounds. Take my paranoia. Heal me. Forgive me. Warm my heart. Give me the strength that I cannot give myself.</span></b></i></blockquote>
Pray this prayer, not only when you are receiving Communion and you are being physically touched by the Body of Christ, but especially during the Eucharistic prayer, because that is when not only are we being touched and healed by a person, Jesus, but we are also being touched and healed by a sacred event.
<p>
This is the part of the Eucharist that we generally don’t understand, but it’s also the part of the Mass that celebrates the transformation and healing of wounds and sin.
<p>
During the Eucharistic prayer, we commemorate the “sacrifice” of Jesus; that is to say, the event when, as Christian tradition tells us so enigmatically, Jesus became sin for our sake. There is a lot packed into that cryptic phrase.
<p>
In essence: in his suffering and death, Jesus carried our wounds, our weaknesses, our infidelities and our sins; he died in them, and then healed them through love and hope.
<p>
Every time we go to the Eucharist, we allow that trans - formative event to touch us, to touch our wounds, our weaknesses, our infidelities, our sin and our emotional paralysis, and it transforms them into healing, energy, joy and love.
<p>
The Eucharist is the source of healing where divine mercy becomes manifest. I believe that there is great merit in different kinds of physical and emotional therapy, just as there is immeasurable merit in 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and in sharing our wounds simply and honestly with people whom we trust.
<p>
There is also, I believe, merit in a certain strong-willed effort, in the challenge contained in Jesus’ command to the paralyzed man: take up your stretcher and walk. We must not allow ourselves to be afflicted by paralysis due to hypersensitivity or self-pity. God has given us skin to cover our most sensitive nerves.
<p>
But, even granting that, we still can’t cure ourselves.
<blockquote>
<i><b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Therapy, self-knowledge, close friends, and disciplined effort can only take us so far, not all the way to complete healing. Complete healing comes from touching and being touched by the sacred.</span></b></i></blockquote>
More specifically, as Christians, we believe that this touch involves a touch of the sacred in that place where God “became sin for our sake.” That place is the death and resurrection of Jesus.
<p>
That event becomes available to us, to touch it and enter it, during the Eucharistic Prayer, and when we receive the body of Christ in Communion.
<p>
We need to bring our wounds to the Eucharist, because that is where the sacred love and energy that underlie everything that lives and breathes can cauterize and cure everything in us that is unhealthy.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-22331311011440978182017-02-23T06:12:00.001-08:002017-02-23T06:12:20.564-08:00THE 2017 DIRTY DOZEN LIST<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv50x6L83XpTmAfxo4sOuXGYvNb5ACBKQgmqcL_FECY6xiS14y9_laSdzDcUiwZF-40BtHVs-suvU9frQth3gPhrh3I-RuusSm5ZBgyv4Outi-ezm9Q5ii9mn5aNU9E528nCwCZvjvotKZ/s1600/DD2017_Campaign_1500x400-Banner_With-Logo-Center.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="83" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv50x6L83XpTmAfxo4sOuXGYvNb5ACBKQgmqcL_FECY6xiS14y9_laSdzDcUiwZF-40BtHVs-suvU9frQth3gPhrh3I-RuusSm5ZBgyv4Outi-ezm9Q5ii9mn5aNU9E528nCwCZvjvotKZ/s200/DD2017_Campaign_1500x400-Banner_With-Logo-Center.png" width="250" /></a></div>
<p>
<a href="http://endsexualexploitation.org/dirtydozen-2017/"><b><span style="color: #351c75; font-size: large;">WHY?</span></b></a>
<p>
No corporation should profit from or facilitate sexual exploitation.
<p>
Unfortunately, many well-established brands, companies, and organizations in America do just that. Since 2013, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation has published an annual Dirty Dozen List to name and shame the bad corporate actors in America that perpetuate sexual exploitation—whether that be through pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking.
<p>
<center><iframe width="460" height="215" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/07DMjOorfJc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center>
<p>
The Dirty Dozen List is an activism tool that has instigated tremendous changes, leading to policy improvements at Google, Hilton Worldwide, Verizon, Walmart, and the Department of Defense (see more below!)
<p>
NCOSE will announce the 2017 Dirty Dozen List on February 22 at 1:00 PM ET in a live online press conference streamed right here.
<p>
<b>MORE BACKGROUND</b>
<p>
At the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, we work for a world where the pornified vision of reality—with its raw, brutal, debasing, hate-filled themes—becomes intolerable to all those who have concern for the well-being of humanity, respect for human dignity, and affirm human rights.
<blockquote><b><b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">We work for a world where human beings are not bought and sold for sex, whether on seedy street corners or via the modern convenience of the Internet. We work for a world free from sexual exploitation in all its forms.</span></b></b></blockquote>
One way we do this is through the annual “Dirty Dozen List,” which names and shames a range of actors who contribute significantly to the normalization of pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking, and other forms of sexual exploitation.
<p>
The groups, agencies, and businesses named to this list are among the nation’s worst for masquerading as mainstream entities with respectable reputations, while facilitating access to, or pandering and profiting directly from pornography and or prostitution.
<p>
Others push policy agendas that normalize egregious forms of sexual exploitation. This list ensures that their participation and collusion with the various aspects of the sex trade becomes public knowledge, and equips concerned citizens with information and tools to hold them accountable.
<p>
We will continue naming and shaming until these mainstream contributors to the normalization of sexual exploitation no longer stand in allegiance with pornographers, sex traffickers, and sex buyers, and join us in fighting for the right of everyone to live sexexploitation free lives.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-75104962940612560612017-02-13T23:24:00.000-08:002017-02-13T23:26:34.423-08:00STOP TRIPPING OVER YOURSELF<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIWV3GJ5GTzT8L4UB1TtXHMVzbVvFxHOk6eZyvy3CjTrB3-1oksF1_cYMdJrmFzB_w_qZrxf0kWXRxjFCtHM_jP6qqiL_u4W7O6q7_x7bqcETJNlKKE2S9MbQkbRxBmm4V2S3qeHSSrB1Q/s1600/jpii.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIWV3GJ5GTzT8L4UB1TtXHMVzbVvFxHOk6eZyvy3CjTrB3-1oksF1_cYMdJrmFzB_w_qZrxf0kWXRxjFCtHM_jP6qqiL_u4W7O6q7_x7bqcETJNlKKE2S9MbQkbRxBmm4V2S3qeHSSrB1Q/s200/jpii.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>
<b><a href="https://thesteppingstones.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/stop-tripping-over-yourself/">It is very easy to write and speak of God</a>, of Jesus, of Catholicism when your inside seems all aglow. </b>
<p>
But, all too often, that glow seems to quickly fade. And, replacing the glow seems to be a dark feeling of loneliness, sadness and an unwillingness to review our own life.
<p>
This feeling, however, is not an indication that something is wrong with us. It is just an obstacle that we must deal with, climb over and move on. The problem is, however, that the hollowness inside us seems to militate against any positive movement.
<p>
<i><b>We seem destined to wallow in our own self-pity. The more empty we feel, the less inclined we are to want to strive vigorously forward. Sadly, it is just easier to feel sorry for ourselves.</b></i>
<p>
The expectations we have for ourselves actually get in the way of any forward movement in our lives. We become disheartened. We are ashamed. We feel hopeless and alone. The more we allow these negative feelings to bubble up inside us, the less likely we are to realize that the answer is there waiting to be discovered by us.
<p>
Think of EVERY possible reason for you to feel down. Maybe you are worried about health issues, or even concerns about death. Maybe you are worrying about loved ones, or problems that you cannot seem to resolve or conquer. These are all major issues.
<p>
I don’t think there are any worse kinds of concerns. And yet, what is the sadness that they bring about in you? Why the hollow pit in your stomach? What can worries do to correct any of these issues? Nothing.
We are imperfect human beings. We are hampered by poor judgments.
<p>
We feel a hollowness inside that we try to alleviate with possessions, or wealth, or addictions, or anything else that we think will satisfy us. “If only this or that would happen, all will be better”, we reassure ourselves. But even if this-or-that were to happen, we would only find something else to bring us down. You know that this is true!
<blockquote><b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">We are placing our trust in…. ourselves. We think WE can correct these negative feelings. We are sure that WE can set the matter straight. STOP trusting in yourself. It is that simple. </span></b></blockquote>
We don’t have the answers. We don’t have the capability to correct problems that we have no domain over. When are we going to believe that? When are we going to realize that we are creatures and not Creator? God, and only God, can write straight with the crooked lines that we scribble.
<p>
If we believe, truly believe, that God loves us, if we believe, truly believe, that God wants only the best for us, if we believe, truly believe, that God came to this earth to show us how to live, then we can stop the useless trust of ourselves and trust, truly trust, this God who loves us.
<p>
His love for you and me has no limits. He patiently waits for us to wake up, and to realize that He is eminently trustworthy. Why should we put our trust in weak earthen vessels, when our God is waiting with arms outstretched to embrace us?
<blockquote><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #990000;">I think all of us are really afraid of God. We are afraid that what He wants, what He will allow, is not what we want. And so, we worry about the outcomes of events, and try to manipulate them in some way.</span> </span></b></blockquote>
If we can trust a doctor, or a pharmacist, or anyone else who has been trained to know, recognize and diagnose our ailments, why can we not trust our God?<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-23808276372059975212017-02-02T05:01:00.000-08:002017-02-02T05:01:04.182-08:00IMMIGRATION<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCHf_ONFpmT1StdY5i9Dznv-AGGaK0HAJJWvjxbklT3pWwULaJpsPJ1rG_qSL_gZ3rYkNv7BJBGg66R_BUD4yTcV5UWQefuu69gdIuN3o-MYd_JJm_mucv0i22UBl0Yn_Ni_I7qpUv7iRr/s1600/st+thomas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCHf_ONFpmT1StdY5i9Dznv-AGGaK0HAJJWvjxbklT3pWwULaJpsPJ1rG_qSL_gZ3rYkNv7BJBGg66R_BUD4yTcV5UWQefuu69gdIuN3o-MYd_JJm_mucv0i22UBl0Yn_Ni_I7qpUv7iRr/s1600/st+thomas.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>What Does Saint Thomas Say About Immigration?</b>
<p>
</span>By <a href="http://www.returntoorder.org/2014/07/saint-thomas-say-immigration-2/"><span style="color: #351c75;">John Horvat</span> II</a>
<p>
What Does Saint Thomas Say About Immigration?In looking at the debate over immigration, it is almost automatically assumed that the Church’s position is one of unconditional charity toward those who enter the nation, legally or illegally.
<p>
However, is this the case? What does the Bible say about immigration? What do Church doctors and theologians say? Above all, what does the greatest of doctors, Saint Thomas Aquinas, say about immigration? Does his opinion offer some insights to the burning issues now shaking the nation and blurring the national borders?
<p>
Immigration is a modern problem and so some might think that the medieval Saint Thomas would have no opinion about the problem. And yet, he does. One has only to look in his masterpiece, the <i>Summa Theologica</i>, in the first part of the second part, question 105, article 3 (I-II, Q. 105, Art. 3). There one finds his analysis based on biblical insights that can add to the national debate. They are entirely applicable to the present.
<p>
<b>Saint Thomas:</b>
<p>
“Man’s relations with foreigners are twofold: peaceful, and hostile: and in directing both kinds of relation the Law contained suitable precepts.”
<p>
<b>Commentary:</b>
<p>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">In making this affirmation, Saint Thomas affirms that not all immigrants are equal. Every nation has the right to decide which immigrants are beneficial, that is, “peaceful,” to the common good. As a matter of self-defense, the State can reject those criminal elements, traitors, enemies and others who it deems harmful or “hostile” to its citizens.</span></b>
<p>
The second thing he affirms is that the manner of dealing with immigration is determined by law in the cases of both beneficial and “hostile” immigration. The State has the right and duty to apply its law.
<p>
<b>Saint Thomas:</b>
<p>
“For the Jews were offered three opportunities of peaceful relations with foreigners. First, when foreigners passed through their land as travelers. Secondly, when they came to dwell in their land as newcomers.
<p>
And in both these respects the Law made kind provision in its precepts: for it is written (Exodus 22:21): ’Thou shalt not molest a stranger [advenam]’; and again (Exodus 22:9): ’Thou shalt not molest a stranger [peregrino].’”
<p>
<b>Commentary:</b>
<p>
Here Saint Thomas acknowledges the fact that others will want to come to visit or even stay in the land for some time. Such foreigners deserved to be treated with charity, respect and courtesy, which is due to any human of good will. In these cases, the law can and should protect foreigners from being badly treated or molested.
<p>
<b>Saint Thomas:</b>
<p>
“Thirdly, when any foreigners wished to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship. With regard to these a certain order was observed. For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations, as the Philosopher says (Polit. iii, 1).”
<p>
<b>Commentary:</b>
<p>
Saint Thomas recognizes that there will be those who will want to stay and become citizens of the lands they visit. However, he sets as the first condition for acceptance a desire to integrate fully into what would today be considered the culture and life of the nation.
<p>
A second condition is that the granting of citizenship would not be immediate. The integration process takes time. People need to adapt themselves to the nation.
<p>
He quotes the philosopher Aristotle as saying this process was once deemed to take two or three generations.
<p>
Saint Thomas himself does not give a time frame for this integration, but he does admit that it can take a long time.
<p>
<b>Saint Thomas:</b>
<p>
“The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.”
<p>
<b>Commentary:</b>
<p>
The common sense of Saint Thomas is certainly not politically correct but it is logical. The theologian notes that living in a nation is a complex thing. It takes time to know the issues affecting the nation.
<p>
Those familiar with the long history of their nation are in the best position to make the long-term decisions about its future.
<p>
It is harmful and unjust to put the future of a place in the hands of those recently arrived, who, although through no fault of their own, have little idea of what is happening or has happened in the nation. Such a policy could lead to the destruction of the nation.
<p>
As an illustration of this point, Saint Thomas later notes that the Jewish people did not treat all nations equally since those nations closer to them were more quickly integrated into the population than those who were not as close.
<p>
Some hostile peoples were not to be admitted at all into full fellowship due to their enmity toward the Jewish people.
<p>
<b>Saint Thomas:</b>
<p>
“Nevertheless it was possible by dispensation for a man to be admitted to citizenship on account of some act of virtue: thus it is related (Judith 14:6) that Achior, the captain of the children of Ammon, ‘was joined to the people of Israel, with all the succession of his kindred.’”
<p>
<b>Commentary:</b>
<p>
That is to say, the rules were not rigid. There were exceptions that were granted based on the circumstances. However, such exceptions were not arbitrary but always had in mind the common good.
<p>
The example of Achior describes the citizenship bestowed upon the captain and his children for the good services rendered to the nation.
<p>
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * *
<p>
These are some of the thoughts of Saint Thomas Aquinas on the matter of immigration based on biblical principles. It is clear that immigration must have two things in mind: the first is the nation’s unity; and the second is the common good.
<p>
Immigration should have as its goal integration, not disintegration or segregation. The immigrant should not only desire to assume the benefits but the responsibilities of joining into the full fellowship of the nation.
<p>
By becoming a citizen, a person becomes part of a broad family over the long term and not a shareholder in a joint stock company seeking only short-term self-interest.
Secondly, Saint Thomas teaches that immigration must have in mind the common good; it cannot destroy or overwhelm a nation.
<p>
This explains why so many Americans experience uneasiness caused by massive and disproportional immigration. Such policy artificially introduces a situation that destroys common points of unity and overwhelms the ability of a society to absorb new elements organically into a unified culture. The common good is no longer considered.
<p>
A proportional immigration has always been a healthy development in a society since it injects new life and qualities into a social body. But when it loses that proportion and undermines the purpose of the State, it threatens the well-being of the nation.
<p>
When this happens, the nation would do well to follow the advice of Saint Thomas Aquinas and biblical principles. The nation must practice justice and charity towards all, including foreigners, but it must above all safeguard the common good and its unity, without which no country can long endure.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-35479800050341503852017-01-22T16:45:00.001-08:002017-01-22T16:53:31.387-08:00 CONSCIENCE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Conscience, hope and the double bind</span></b>
<p>
Michael Whelan SM
<p>
One of the most wonderful gifts one human being can give another is the sense of realistic possibility. The presence of faith, hope and love tends to do this for us – especially when we are young and vulnerable.
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When others – typically parents – communicate faith in us, hope for us and love no matter what, it can awaken a realistic sense of our own dignity and worth and allow us to engage the world with some confidence and honesty.
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It tends to engender in us a life-giving sense of possibility, preparing us for adulthood ...
<p>
where we are confidently responsible and accountable for what we do and say.
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One of the most destructive things we can do to another person is to rob them of a sense of realistic possibility.
<p>
When faith, hope and love are more or less inadequate to the child’s real needs or are replaced by over-control, cynicism, lack of care or even violence, it is highly likely that the child will grow up with a more or less poor sense of self and what is truly possible for them.
<p>
In this way, a person’s ability to be open to the future with a good measure of joy and grace, freedom and hope, will also be more or less diminished.
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William Lynch SJ reminds us of the critical connection between a sense of the possible and hope – and by implication, the connection between a sense of the impossible and despair:
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<span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;"><b>“... hope is, in its most general terms, a sense of the possible, that what we really need is possible, though difficult, while hopelessness means to be ruled by a sense of the impossible. Hope therefore involves three basic ideas that could not be simpler: what I hope for I do not yet have or see; it may be difficult; but I<u> <i>can</i></u> have it – it is possible. Without this way of feeling about ourselves and things, we do nothing. We do not act or function. There is no energy.” (William Lynch, <i>Images of Hope</i>, University of Notre Dame Press, 1974, 32.)</b></span>
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Lynch goes on:
<p>
“One of the best safeguards of our hopes ... is to be able to mark off the areas of hopelessness and to acknowledge them, to face them directly, not with despair but with the creative intent of keeping them from polluting all the areas of possibility. There are thousands of things that we cannot do, thousands of things that some can do and others cannot.
<p>
To keep the two, the possible and the impossible, in place is to stay free of intolerable burdens. Thus with hope and hopelessness. We must have both. We all have areas of hopelessness, areas where we know that we are helpless or incompetent. We all know that there are situations we cannot handle, things we cannot do, tasks which for us would be hopeless.
<p>
But it contributes enormously to our well-being to keep all of these areas and problems sorted out from the things we can do, or can at least do with help. Thus, I repeat, the hopelessness does not get into the hope, nor do the areas of adequacy get into the areas of inadequacy. I know what I can do.
<p>
It is good to come to rest in the possible, letting the other people be, leaving them to the secret of their own possibilities. I stay within the human and leave the rest to fools and angels.” (Lynch, op cit, 62)
<p>
A particular obstacle to a healthy sense of the possible – and therefore hope – can come through the <i>double bind</i>. (See Gregory Bateson, <i>Steps to an Ecology of Mind</i> (Ballantine Books, 1972/1985)). In a double bind a person is faced with:
<p>
<a href="http://www.aquinas-academy.com/news/679-conscience-hope-and-the-double-bind"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>More > > ></b></span></a>
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</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-16670316974483337272017-01-09T18:46:00.001-08:002017-01-09T19:13:16.503-08:00THE STEPPING STONES<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo – (A prophet of our time)</span></b>
<p>
<a href="https://thesteppingstones.wordpress.com/category/lifes-actions/"><span style="color: #351c75;"> Life's Actions</span></a>, <a href="https://thesteppingstones.wordpress.com/category/living-our-faith/"><span style="color: #351c75;"> Living our Faith</span></a>
<p>
On November 19, 1970, Fr. Ruotolo died at the age of 88. Padre Pio said of him, that the “whole of paradise is in your soul”. His life, his words all reflected very high devotion to God and serving Him to the nth degree of his ability.
<p>
In his profound humility, he was able to hear the words of God. One of the treasures that He learned from the words that Jesus spoke to him was this teaching about total abandonment to God.
Each day of this novena, we hear of what surrender to God’s will requires. In this novena (nine days), Jesus is talking to Fr. Dolindo and also to you and me.
<p>
The nine days of the novena will be presented over the next three days on TheSteppingStones. Start the novena, and each day, of the nine days, reflect on that particular day’s words. Think and meditate on what that day’s reflection means to you.
<p>
Pray the conclusion prayer throughout that day. Realize and understand what the words of the conclusion prayer signify for your life.
<p>
<b>Day 1:</b>
<p>
Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying? Leave the care of your affairs to me and everything will be peaceful. I say to you in truth that every act of true, blind complete surrender to me produces the effect that you desire and resolves all difficult situations.
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<span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;"><b>Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)</b>
</span>
<p>
<b style="color: #990000;">***************************</b><br />
<b>Day 2:</b>
<p>
Surrender to me does not mean to fret, to be upset, or to lose hope, nor does it mean offering to me a worried prayer asking me to follow you and change your worry into prayer. It is against this surrender, deeply against it, to worry, to be nervous and to desire to think about the consequences of anything.
<p>
It is like the confusion that children feel when they ask their mother to see to their needs, and then try to take care of those needs for themselves so that their childlike efforts get in their mother’s way.
<p>
Surrender means to placidly close the eyes of your soul, to turn away from thoughts of tribulation and to put yourself in my care, so that only I act. Saying “You take care of it.”
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<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)</span></b>
<p>
<span style="color: #990000;"><b>***************************
</b></span>
<p>
<b>Day 3:</b>
<p>
How many things I do when the soul, in so much spiritual and material need turns to me, looks at me and says to me; “You take care of it,” then close its eyes and rests. In pain you pray for me to act, but that I act in the way you want. You do not turn to me, instead, you want me to adapt to your ideas.
<p>
You are not sick people who ask the doctor to cure you, but rather sick people who tell the doctor how to. So do not act this way, but pray as I taught you in the Our Father: “Hallowed be thy Name”, that is, be glorified in my need. “Thy kingdom come”, that is, let all that is in us and in the world be in accord with your kingdom.
<p>
“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”, that is, in our need, decide as you see fit for our temporal and eternal life. If you say to me truly: “Thy will be done”. Which is the same as saying: “You take care of it”. I will intervene with all my omnipotence, and I will resolve the most difficult situations.
<p>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)</span></b>
<p>
<span style="color: #990000;"><b>***************************
</b></span>
<p>
<b><i><a href="https://thesteppingstones.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/fr-dolindo-ruotolo-novena-days-4-5-6/"><span style="color: #351c75; font-size: large;">Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo – Novena days 4, 5, 6</span></a></i></b>
<p>
<b><i><a href="https://thesteppingstones.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/fr-dolindo-ruotolo-novena-days-7-8-9/"><span style="color: #351c75; font-size: large;">Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo – Novena days 7, 8, 9</span></a></i></b>
<p>
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<b><a href="https://thesteppingstones.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/stop-tripping-over-yourself/"><span style="color: #351c75;">Stop Tripping Over Yourself</span></a></b><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4444949552445482629.post-56296881534544238542016-12-31T05:30:00.000-08:002016-12-31T05:30:06.908-08:00IN GOD'S OWN TIME<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="http://catholicvu.com/newpage367htm.htm">Kathy Bernard - Publisher</a></span>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Isaiah 40:31, "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they
shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary;
and they shall walk, and not faint."</i></div>
<p>
We live in a world where the word "wait" generates great exasperation, annoyance and frustration. With the fast paced world of skills, knowledge, scientific breakthroughs, as well as the abundance of 'things' we enjoy today, we expect that whatever it is that we need, we must have and should have it right now.
<p>
But if we really think about it, life is a life of waiting; waiting in line at the market, at the airport, in the doctor's office, waiting for the mail to be delivered, waiting for someone to love, for a check to come, or waiting for a job....a thousand different ways of waiting. Like impatient children, we expect the wait period should be minimal. And so, when we pray, we fervently hope that our answers will come quickly and without delay.
<p>
Webster's Dictionary defines waiting as "staying or remaining in a state of repose until something expected happens, or to be in readiness." The bible is full of passages telling us we must wait on the Lord. So when we pray, we are in a state of expectation. But some of us place a time limit for the answers to our prayers when we face a problem that we cannot solve ourselves.
<p>
And when our answers don't come swiftly, we sometimes become discouraged and even rethink our faith. Our mind tells us, "If I believe in Him and trust, shouldn't I depend on Him to carry me through my sadness, my pain, my needs, or whatever it is I am facing?" Thrown into the mix of our needs is our adversity, Satan, who stealthily whispers to us that we wait in vain. How do we silence these uncertainties?
<p>
The first thing to keep foremost in our minds is that our human timing is not in sync with God's divine timing. This does not mean God is not listening or that He does not care. He has a plan and an answer for each person and He will fulfill it according to His own timetable, if it is His will and is best for us. We cannot know what plans He has for us. We do not have His wisdom.
<p>
<i>2 Corinthians 4:16-18</i> tells us, "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
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Vasily Drosdov Philaret (1780 - 1867) a Russian prelate, author, and preacher, has this to say on this subject, " I do not know what to ask You. You alone know my real needs, and You love me more than I even know how to love. Enable me to discern my true needs which are hidden from me. I ask for neither cross nor consolation; I wait in patience for You. My heart is open to You.
<p>
For Your great mercy's sake, come to me and help me. Put your mark on me and heal me, cast me down and raise me up. Silently I adore Your holy will and Your inscrutable ways. I offer myself in sacrifice to You and put all my trust in You. I desire only to do Your will.
<p>
Teach me how to pray and pray in me, Yourself." (Vasily Drosdov Philaret became archbishop of Tver and a member of the holy synod in 1819 and metropolitan of Moscow in 1826. He long urged the abolition of serfdom and is generally considered the author of the Edict of Emancipation promulgated by Alexander 11 in 1861. Philaret also wrote a standard catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church.)
<blockquote>
<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Waiting means patience and a recognition of God's power and with this comes confidence and hope. We anticipate God's answer to us, even though we do not know how or what that good will be. We think something positive is about to happen. Like a child waiting for a parent to unwrap a gift for them, we wait earnestly for the Lord to come through with an answer for our concerns. But, sometimes He says "No" to us, and we think He has not heard our plea for help. Later down the road we see and thank God for saying "No" for it is then we understand with clarity that the thing we begged for was wrong and even detrimental to us. </span></b></blockquote>
Paul J. Bucknell in his article<i> <b>"Waiting on God Not Man"</b></i>, has this to say about being patient and letting God handle our trials: "Waiting for the Lord is not easy. Our heart is often crying out in agony. We feel oppressed and constrained. We yearn for freedom and provision. Waiting upon the Lord for needed supplies is one common area in which He trains us.
<p>
We have to be needy so that we are forced to look to the Lord for help. Our other resources are stripped away. Someone yesterday said to me, 'But I don't like what the Lord is bringing me through.' How true this is. We squirm, squiggle and squeak."
<p>
Continuing further, he tells, .... "We need to wait on God for a spouse, for a job, for healing, for wisdom, for ministry, etc. We might say that it is Satan tempting us, and in some cases he is, but at the same time it is God who is testing (proving) us. He is bringing us a step closer to Himself."
<p>
Here is a story that illustrates this point: "The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He began to pray loudly for rescue. Day after day, he searched for food under the boiling sun. He kept crying out "I am waiting patiently, Lord, for an answer from You. I am faithful and I know You love me. It has been a long, long time. How long must I wait?"
<p>
Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. But he kept praying. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. All day and before going to sleep in his little hut, he murmured feverishly for God to rescue him, but it seemed God was not going to help.
<p>
"I guess I am on my own", he thought. His hope began to fade with each passing day. His faith grew weak and he felt the One he counted on had let him down. Then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky.
<p>
The worst had happened; everything was lost. He was stunned with grief and anger. "God, how could you do this to me! Why?" he cried, falling to the ground in intense grief, the few things he had gathered for a sparse meal scattering away from him. He fell onto the rocky ground and fell asleep with tears rolling down his tattered shirt.
<p>
Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island. At first he thought he was surely dreaming. "This can't be true", he told himself as his heart gave a great leap of hope. But this was real, someone was coming! Someone was coming to rescue him at last! "Over here", he shouted, waving his hands in happiness. "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.
<p>
Waiting takes discipline. Waiting means hope, a period of anticipation that God in His divine mercy will come through for us in ways we cannot see, so remain fast and keep praying for His mercy and guidance. Don't let your faith weaken as time goes by.
<p>
Be patient and keep your courage as there may be no swift answers. This is what God requires of us. As earthly beings, we don't have all the answers and God does not promise this life will be perfect. There will be snags that come which will try to destroy the soul, problems that make us stagger in indecision.
<p>
Christians who are weak in faith may lose hope as we see our lack of money to pay our bills, perhaps our children are in trouble, family members in ill health, and all the uncertainties that life throws our way. What we know is that our Lord asks us to wait on Him in trust, and if it is right for us, He will fulfill our needs. Rely on Him to give you courage, strength, and fortitude to overcome whatever it is that troubles your soul.
<p>
C.S.Lewis wrote, “To trust Him means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way.”
<p>
Does this mean we pray God will fulfill our needs while we sit on our hands in despair? Absolutely not. We ask the Lord for His wisdom, we ask God to make known, through the Holy Spirit, the paths we must take to overturn our pitfalls. Psalms 25:5 says, "Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day."
<p>
With His guidance and enlightenment we must keep moving forward for "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him." - Lamentations 3:25. During this time we learn to be strong, letting God come through with a lesson that will strengthen us.
<p>
Praying to God about our burdens does not guarantee we will see the outcome we asked for, but our waiting will pull us closer to Him. Whatever He does bless us with will be greater than we asked for.
<p>
If God says no, we must defer to His infinite judgment, realizing that He knows what is best for us. He asks that we trust in His mercy and His love through our needs and our fears, being confident that He will make a way for us through His immeasurable wisdom in His own time.
<p>
<i>Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous.
Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. - Psalms 27:14</i><div class="blogger-post-footer">Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6: 54)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940745178193985942noreply@blogger.com0