On June 4, 2016, an entry entitled A Marian Apparition In Argentina was posted on this blog. Below are the first two paragraphs that will also serve as the introduction to this entry:
In San Nicolás de los Arroyos, Argentina (approximately 238.3 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires per Google), the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus appeared to a housewife named Gladys Herminia Quiroga de Motta ["Gladys"] from October 13, 1983, to February 11, 1990. [1]
The apparitions were declared official by Bishop Hector Cardelli on May 22, 2016. [2]
About a week ago, a book that was ordered online entitled An Appeal From Mary In Argentina by Fr. René Laurentin [3] arrived in the mail. Having just read Chapter 10, this blogger is eager to quote from it. The words in italics below are words of Jesus that Gladys received. Altogether she received "68 messages from Jesus, 1983 through 1989." [4] Not all 68 messages are in the book, and not all of those are quoted here, and those quoted below [5] are quoted without references to date and message number. The selected quotes are the ones that this blogger finds especially astounding for one reason or another (within brackets are his thoughts when there are any).
Readers who wish to read all the messages Gladys received from the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus can go here: http://www.oocities.org/ritapaz/firstmessages.html (Perhaps future posts will quote from this source but that would have to wait since it will take time to read all the messages carefully and understand them.) There are more than 1,800 messages in total. This entry has only some.
He who listens to my words will find salvation. He who puts them into practice will live forever. Those who hope in God do not hope in vain.
[Perhaps the difference between the first sentence and the second is that those who come within the first will find salvation through Purgatory (an interruption to life forever--this blogger doubts one would find one's time in Purgatory to be "a life" since not a moment spent there would be pleasant) and those who come within the second will skip Purgatory and continue with life without interruption. Here, this blogger believes that whatever man hopes for in God are the same hopes that God has for man.]
Never deny God. Draw nearer and listen to His call. You will not regret it.
I speak to the poor, to the sick. God does not forget anyone.
My heart is big. It can receive every lamentation, every suffering. I am not deaf. I am not cold. My love goes as far as those who love me.
God alone knows the way, and He will show the sure path.
God stops before each child according to his needs, and according to the love each feels for Him.
[Love is a two-way street.]
I know the actions of all men. I see their constancy and I verify their weaknesses. My answer depends on their actions.
If a people prays and respects my word, this people will live in peace. I will protect them.
My heart is beating. I am here like a child who is ready to be born while waiting for his delivery, in order to be able to expand in each human being.
[Wow!]
If this generation does not listen to my mother, it will perish. I ask everyone to listen to her. Man's conversion is necessary. It is better to look up and to know what He Who is there says, rather than to move adrift. Think about it.
Under the species of the Holy Eucharist, my Heart is introduced into all open hearts. It nourishes them; it satisfies them.
My Heart takes all souls into consideration. My Heart wishes the salvation of all souls and loves them, even those who are in sin.
People always suffer from the same illness: pride. It is evil in the eyes of God and I want to correct your brothers. That spreads to the whole world. If souls lack love and faith, it is in vain that I try to reach them. Holy souls need permanent assistance from God. I will grant to holy souls consolation and mercy.
[This blogger cannot imagine what kind of help unholy souls such as his would need if "[h]oly souls need permanent assistance from God."]
I place the love of my mother with all people so that they may have recourse to her. She is the help that will make Christians come out of darkness, in order to introduce them into the light. Invoke her name with an intense love.
[Here is the answer to the comment above.]
Today I warn the world, for the world is not aware: souls are in danger. Many are lost. Few will find salvation unless they accept me as their Savior. My mother must be accepted. My mother must be heard in the totality of her messages. The world must discover the richness which she brings to Christians. The children of sin will grow up in sin if their unbelief increases. I want a renewal of the spirit, a detachment from death, and an attachment to life. I have chosen the heart of my mother, so that what I ask will be achieved. Souls will come to me through the means of her Immaculate Heart.
Souls are in confusion, for evil wants to invade the earth, and darkness wants to destroy everything. I will shed blessings on all those who direct their steps toward me. May those who have founded their hope on the love of God and His justice be in joy.
What would I not do for humanity if humanity would consecrate itself to God and to prayer.
There is no room for me in all hearts. Since this is so, I am going to expand the time. Everything has not withered. There are green stalks whence new shoots will grow.
[Questions: does this mean that Jesus will wait until enough hearts belong to Him before the world ends? Does this also mean that when the world ends, no new shoots will grow? If that is true, does it mean that there is a finite number of hearts that Jesus is waiting for and beyond that number, Heaven will have no vacancy? If there is a limit to the number of souls that can be in Heaven, is the limitation designed to avoid over-crowding? On the other hand, is Jesus looking for a minimum number of hearts that would allow him to enter before He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and there is not a maximum number of souls that Heaven could accommodate?]
A cry comes from My Heart and is directed to mankind: do not be alone. Look for God. My hand is always extended.
He who loves the food which I give him must know that he is well nourished. I am the food and drink of the soul, which thirsts for God. In me, the soul will be satisfied, for I am the hope which becomes life.
My heart and my glance are turned toward the earth, and I say to you: you will need me. I will save you. I have had mercy on those who love me.
[No blanket divine mercy for all.]
My creatures should come to me, because it is only near me that they will live forever. My mother will not permit them to go adrift. She will conduct them directly to me.
So many souls do not know me. I try to find again, so many souls. If my voice meets with indifference, it is because of hardened hearts. It is time to bury unbelief. I am waiting for souls. Let them not stop.
[Gladys did not ask: "How many more souls are you waiting for my Lord?"]
I feed my flock because it disturbs me very much. My Heart is burning with love, but there are hearts which are completely extinguished. They do not receive the love which I give to all souls. My light wants to illuminate all nations, for it is the true light. All those who receive it will be called true children of God.
May your eyes and your heart refer to your God. I want it. Woe to the man who disobeys Me. It is not worth anything to him. And he will not find anything that will replace Me. I call you my children, and I want you to be my children.
I do not remain at a distance from him who needs me. I remain by his side. Pray for yourselves and pray for your brothers.
I will reproach the attitude of him who invokes God, then separates himself from Him. But I will have mercy on him who invokes me in all truth.
[No mercy for hypocrites?]
My heart is deep and all those who give themselves to me with trust will be able to enter it.
I, the heir of love of My Father, pour out this love in the world so that it may return to its point of departure: to my most Holy Father.
[What a beautiful image -- made with words without having to name those two in the Garden of Eden!]
[If there are mistakes typing out the Jesus' messages received by Gladys above, please pardon.]
[1] http://www.ncregister.com/blog/joseph-pronechen/its-official-major-apparitions-of-mary-are-approved
[2] http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/a-marian-apparition-has-been-approved-in-argentina---and-its-a-big-deal-31979/
[3] Laurentin, Father René. An Appeal From Mary In Argentina. Translated by Juan Gonzalez Jr., Ph.D. Milford, Ohio: Faith Publishing Company, 1990.
[4] Laurentin, Father René. An Appeal From Mary In Argentina. Translated by Juan Gonzalez Jr., Ph.D. (Milford, Ohio: Faith Publishing Company, 1990), 42.
[5] Ibid., 42-48.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Friday, August 25, 2017
Secular Ambition, Success & The Meaning Of Life
The business school from which this blogger received his undergraduate degree sends him a magazine every so often that has interesting articles in which he finds a passing interest, but the interest passes so fast that as soon as he goes from one article to the next he has forgotten the last with hardly an exception. The part of the magazine that interests him most is the back section that has the alumni notes. Even though he does not know any of them, for many years have passed since his graduation, his heart is warmed by learning of their successes.
However, there are true saints whose souls do not hunger or fear for they have found peace within that rests upon faith and love for God from which complete fulfillment and an ineffable joy spring forth. This blog is not a place where meaning can be found and the soul's hunger can be satisfied.
God created each person as a unique individual, and each person is given a unique way to peace and fulfillment, which is not the absence of conflicts and the presence of all things luxurious but is an inexplicable joy that emanates from within an interior peace that is constant despite being immersed in stressful situations and lacking the means to live a pampered life.
No therapist is able to illuminate the way. Even if one has chosen to be a religious serving God, sometimes that path can be shrouded in darkness. Light that leads to a life with meaning and inner peace can only come from God, through the Son of God and His Mother. It is a path that is paved with mercy provided that one works to the best of one's ability to deserve such mercy just as success in this world cannot be attained by secular ambition alone without personal diligence. For those who have achieved successes and those who have not, they would be blessed if at some point every person's ambition (or lack thereof) that has led to such successes (or lack thereof) would to some degree match God's hope in each person which consist of these simple things: faith in God, humility and love for God and neighbor.
Then the thought turns to the individuals behind the successes which this blogger wishes that they would continue. What he does not know is whether the secular ambition that each person nurtures with gifts from God and personal diligence is blind to God, and if the fruits of such successes fill those who benefit from them with contentment and inner peace at some point in time.
A question a business school usually do not raise is the cost, if any, to one's soul when one has a certain, or an unlimited, amount of ambition. Another question that is also avoided is whether at or near the end of a graduate's life the ambition that has led to the successes contributed to the meaning of his or her life. Perhaps these questions are meaningless since any answer that could be given does not give rise to a recognizable profit on the income statement.
One may object to the fact that it is not possible to monetize something so abstract and subjective as a cost to the soul or of the meaning of life, but then in many courts of law, a monetary amount is sometimes awarded for pain and suffering (aside from medical bills and lost wages), as well as loss of consortium, which are just as abstract and subjective as unfulfillment and the lack of interior peace where one's soul is concerned.
On the flip side, the same two questions could be asked of one who has no ambition, who wastes God's gifts, what the cost is of emptiness and meaninglessness that the soul has to suffer.
The lack of popularity of subjects such as ambition that is blind to God and meaning of life in daily conversation does not mean that there are no words in any language that man can use to verbalize them. The reason that these may seem like taboo subjects because this world is already secularized and even though the meaning of life is not a religious topic, people are afraid to broach it for what if the answer is: there is no meaning? If there is no meaning, then how would one answer the next logical question: why bother living?
If the answer is that there is still so much to do, a family to raise, much to see and experience, then life's meaning has as much depth as a set menu at a restaurant, dictating what one is to have and in what order over the course of a hour or so, or in some other settings, over many boring hours, waiting while hungry. At the end of a cycle, another one arises, and one needs to be fed again, even as what one takes in as a whole could change as one matures and advances in age. Yet an unspecified and unspoken hunger remains, no matter how much food and drink one consumes.
No amount of consumption, whether it be food or entertainment or anything else worldly, will satisfy a hungry soul that lives without meaning. That hunger becomes more pronounced as one's time on earth nears the end, when such hunger begins to fade away gradually, only to be overtaken by a growing fear that supplants any feeling or recollection of hunger.
No amount of consumption, whether it be food or entertainment or anything else worldly, will satisfy a hungry soul that lives without meaning. That hunger becomes more pronounced as one's time on earth nears the end, when such hunger begins to fade away gradually, only to be overtaken by a growing fear that supplants any feeling or recollection of hunger.
However, there are true saints whose souls do not hunger or fear for they have found peace within that rests upon faith and love for God from which complete fulfillment and an ineffable joy spring forth. This blog is not a place where meaning can be found and the soul's hunger can be satisfied.
God created each person as a unique individual, and each person is given a unique way to peace and fulfillment, which is not the absence of conflicts and the presence of all things luxurious but is an inexplicable joy that emanates from within an interior peace that is constant despite being immersed in stressful situations and lacking the means to live a pampered life.
No therapist is able to illuminate the way. Even if one has chosen to be a religious serving God, sometimes that path can be shrouded in darkness. Light that leads to a life with meaning and inner peace can only come from God, through the Son of God and His Mother. It is a path that is paved with mercy provided that one works to the best of one's ability to deserve such mercy just as success in this world cannot be attained by secular ambition alone without personal diligence. For those who have achieved successes and those who have not, they would be blessed if at some point every person's ambition (or lack thereof) that has led to such successes (or lack thereof) would to some degree match God's hope in each person which consist of these simple things: faith in God, humility and love for God and neighbor.
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Gospel Reading - August 20, 2017
It is not easy for this blogger to be a good Catholic, mainly because he expects so much from those who are supposed to bring him close to God, so that he could experience holiness and peace, especially at Mass, by means of a well thought-out homily.
Today's homily was delivered by someone who told the congregation that he had been doing this for 60 years, whatever "this" meant. Even as he was walking up the center aisle toward the altar, before he said a word, this blogger felt a degree of disappointment since he was not the priest who gives thoughtful homilies. The disappointment grew when he did speak, and it continued as time went on, and his homily did not cancel out the disappointment.
It was fragmented, and he talked about things that had nothing to do with the day's Gospel reading which was about an encounter between Jesus and a Canaanite woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon. [1], [2] With poor memory, this blogger recalls that he first talked about himself, where he was born, a train he used to take, then he switched to recent events in the news, then about building bridges and walls, about relationships within the family, and most strangely, about waking up in the morning, looking into the mirror with messy hair and seeing one's reflection, asking if one sees God in oneself. How he then went from all that to the other things that this blogger had ignored and forgotten to the parable of the prodigal son was mystifying. He then ended his homily without any reference to the Canaanite woman's faith that this blogger could recall. Perhaps his wisdom of 60 years in being a religious is too great and too deep for this simpleton's mind to grasp.
So instead of paying attention to him, this simpleton took out the pew missal and read and re-read the gospel passage several times, trying to understand it himself. The parable had in it quite a bit of movement, so he captured a still image in his mind in order to study carefully who were there. First, it was Jesus, then the Canaanite woman, then Jesus' disciples. Since no actual children and dogs were present, therefore he thought that they represented figuratively the disciples and the woman and her kind respectively.
The question that came up was what role would this blogger have if he were part of the scene at the time. He was not a disciple or a Canaanite woman. Was he just an observer then? There is only one observer here, actually Three in One, and that is God, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So he concluded that he must be the woman! The thought did not sit well with him so he changed it quickly and became one of the dogs.
Being a dog turned out to be a more comfortable role for him than being the Canaanite woman with a demon-possessed daughter to deal with, then having to experience silence after asking Jesus for help and simultaneous rejection by the annoyed disciples. This blogger would be very hurt if he were the Canaanite woman, and would probably walk away quietly with tears welling up in his eyes, but in this mental re-enactment, he stayed around because he had the Canaanite woman representing him as his lawyer in an imaginary court with Jesus sitting as the Judge who said to her, "'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'" [3]
So instead of answering the woman, Jesus side-stepped her request by giving her His job description, saying in effect that He was there only to spend time with His disciples who would otherwise be lost without Him, but not to spend time with her.
The woman, being a feisty lawyer in this blogger's imagination, surprisingly turned humble and paid "homage" to Jesus, with "homage" being defined by Google as "special honor or respect shown publicly." [4] She then insisted again that Jesus help her, thinking that the homage paid would be sufficient to change Jesus' mind.
As it turned out, it did not suffice. Jesus, being human, was perhaps a bit impatient and upset with this stubborn woman who refused to give up when He said,"'It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs,'" quoted with asterisk omitted [5]. (While sitting in the pew, this blogger thought that the children were the disciples and the dogs were the non-Jewish people. He just read the notes under the Gospel cited and realized that he was wrong, that the children were all the Israelites not just the disciples. [6], [7])
This Canaanite woman turned out to be thick-skinned and the insult did not seem to bother her one bit; instead she came back with a retort, using the same analogy that Jesus used but turning it around 180 degrees to her advantage, saying, again with humility and with her continued faith that Jesus would perform a miracle, "'Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.'" [8]
This time, Jesus relented and completed a circle, meeting the half of one drawn by the Canaanite woman in the above paragraph, by Himself turning 180 degrees away from His self job description that "[He] was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" and healed the Canaanite woman's daughter.
Everyone should be like this woman, not a pest that whines and whines, but to plead with humility again and again for help, and to show that one has unwavering faith in God, so that in time, whenever that time may be, God will hear one's prayers and answer, even though the answer may not be the one desired at first, but at least God has acknowledged and answered -- that is a good thing, but being ignored forever is not since one would already be in Hell, then it would too late to be asking God for anything.
Perhaps this parable is not only for those who are non-Jewish, telling them, including this blogger, to have faith in the Son of God so that they, too, can be healed, but also for those who are Jewish, letting them know that the Son of God is God, as evidenced by His ability to heal from a distance away, and that He, God and the Holy Spirit form the Holy Trinity and was sent to save "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" and sheep that are scattered everywhere else.
[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/082017.cfm
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/15:21 at 21-28.
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/15:21 at 24.
[4] https://www.google.com/search?q=homage&oq=homage&gs_l=psy-ab.3...2526965.2527944.0.2528252.6.6.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..6.0.0.wN3mYqAUxfY
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/15:21 at 26.
[6] "[15:26] The children: the people of Israel. Dogs: see note on Mt 7:6": "Dogs and swine were Jewish terms of contempt for Gentiles." [Emphasis orignal]
Today's homily was delivered by someone who told the congregation that he had been doing this for 60 years, whatever "this" meant. Even as he was walking up the center aisle toward the altar, before he said a word, this blogger felt a degree of disappointment since he was not the priest who gives thoughtful homilies. The disappointment grew when he did speak, and it continued as time went on, and his homily did not cancel out the disappointment.
It was fragmented, and he talked about things that had nothing to do with the day's Gospel reading which was about an encounter between Jesus and a Canaanite woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon. [1], [2] With poor memory, this blogger recalls that he first talked about himself, where he was born, a train he used to take, then he switched to recent events in the news, then about building bridges and walls, about relationships within the family, and most strangely, about waking up in the morning, looking into the mirror with messy hair and seeing one's reflection, asking if one sees God in oneself. How he then went from all that to the other things that this blogger had ignored and forgotten to the parable of the prodigal son was mystifying. He then ended his homily without any reference to the Canaanite woman's faith that this blogger could recall. Perhaps his wisdom of 60 years in being a religious is too great and too deep for this simpleton's mind to grasp.
So instead of paying attention to him, this simpleton took out the pew missal and read and re-read the gospel passage several times, trying to understand it himself. The parable had in it quite a bit of movement, so he captured a still image in his mind in order to study carefully who were there. First, it was Jesus, then the Canaanite woman, then Jesus' disciples. Since no actual children and dogs were present, therefore he thought that they represented figuratively the disciples and the woman and her kind respectively.
The question that came up was what role would this blogger have if he were part of the scene at the time. He was not a disciple or a Canaanite woman. Was he just an observer then? There is only one observer here, actually Three in One, and that is God, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So he concluded that he must be the woman! The thought did not sit well with him so he changed it quickly and became one of the dogs.
Being a dog turned out to be a more comfortable role for him than being the Canaanite woman with a demon-possessed daughter to deal with, then having to experience silence after asking Jesus for help and simultaneous rejection by the annoyed disciples. This blogger would be very hurt if he were the Canaanite woman, and would probably walk away quietly with tears welling up in his eyes, but in this mental re-enactment, he stayed around because he had the Canaanite woman representing him as his lawyer in an imaginary court with Jesus sitting as the Judge who said to her, "'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'" [3]
So instead of answering the woman, Jesus side-stepped her request by giving her His job description, saying in effect that He was there only to spend time with His disciples who would otherwise be lost without Him, but not to spend time with her.
The woman, being a feisty lawyer in this blogger's imagination, surprisingly turned humble and paid "homage" to Jesus, with "homage" being defined by Google as "special honor or respect shown publicly." [4] She then insisted again that Jesus help her, thinking that the homage paid would be sufficient to change Jesus' mind.
As it turned out, it did not suffice. Jesus, being human, was perhaps a bit impatient and upset with this stubborn woman who refused to give up when He said,"'It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs,'" quoted with asterisk omitted [5]. (While sitting in the pew, this blogger thought that the children were the disciples and the dogs were the non-Jewish people. He just read the notes under the Gospel cited and realized that he was wrong, that the children were all the Israelites not just the disciples. [6], [7])
This Canaanite woman turned out to be thick-skinned and the insult did not seem to bother her one bit; instead she came back with a retort, using the same analogy that Jesus used but turning it around 180 degrees to her advantage, saying, again with humility and with her continued faith that Jesus would perform a miracle, "'Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.'" [8]
This time, Jesus relented and completed a circle, meeting the half of one drawn by the Canaanite woman in the above paragraph, by Himself turning 180 degrees away from His self job description that "[He] was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" and healed the Canaanite woman's daughter.
Everyone should be like this woman, not a pest that whines and whines, but to plead with humility again and again for help, and to show that one has unwavering faith in God, so that in time, whenever that time may be, God will hear one's prayers and answer, even though the answer may not be the one desired at first, but at least God has acknowledged and answered -- that is a good thing, but being ignored forever is not since one would already be in Hell, then it would too late to be asking God for anything.
Perhaps this parable is not only for those who are non-Jewish, telling them, including this blogger, to have faith in the Son of God so that they, too, can be healed, but also for those who are Jewish, letting them know that the Son of God is God, as evidenced by His ability to heal from a distance away, and that He, God and the Holy Spirit form the Holy Trinity and was sent to save "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" and sheep that are scattered everywhere else.
[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/082017.cfm
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/15:21 at 21-28.
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/15:21 at 24.
[4] https://www.google.com/search?q=homage&oq=homage&gs_l=psy-ab.3...2526965.2527944.0.2528252.6.6.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..6.0.0.wN3mYqAUxfY
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/15:21 at 26.
[6] "[15:26] The children: the people of Israel. Dogs: see note on Mt 7:6": "Dogs and swine were Jewish terms of contempt for Gentiles." [Emphasis orignal]
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Catholic Wealth And Philanthropy
On August 19, 2017, The Economist published an article entitled The Catholic church becomes an impact investor, the first five paragraphs of which is quoted below [1]:
Quoting Impactαlpha, without hyperlink from an article entitled More Catholic capital flows toward impact investing dated March 27, 2017, "Pope Francis may be only the world’s third-greatest leader (behind Theo Epstein and Jack Ma, according to Fortune), but his 2014 endorsement of impact investing was still a big deal." [2] The article continued to report as follows, quoted in part without hyperlink [3]:
This blogger could not agree more; yet, he remains conflicted because while it is good to provide affordable medications to those with low income, as in the East African pharmacy chain in the example above, endeavors employing strategies such as multi-million or multi-billion dollar impact investment ought to be within the purview of charitable organizations, whether or not Catholic, whether or not religious, but not of the Catholic Church. The sole purpose of the Catholic Church is, in this blogger's mind, for the salvation of souls, the invisible but eternal part of existence. When the Blessed Virgin Mary prays for sinners, this blogger doubts that She cares about impact investment strategies.
Notwithstanding the possible lack of attention paid by the Blessed Virgin Mary to impact investing, there seems to be a good likelihood that the strategy would be successful, at least in the short-run.
Success in one area of investing can sometimes lead to success in others, and as more and greater subsequent successes follow, wealth increases along with the risk of corruption, leading nearly invariably to decadent lifestyles, ostensibly and secretly. One does not have to look far for real-life examples than to the Vatican in these respects.
Thus, even while those whose lives are improved by such successes, they will not help those who are lacking spiritually, regardless of which side they are on, the side benefiting from such investments (legitimately and illegitimately) or the side profiting from them (legitimately and illegitimately).
As the amount of impact investment increases from one billion dollars (perhaps no other publication besides The Economist, maybe a few others too, would have the boldness to include the word "only" in this sentence: "For now, the Catholic capital dedicated to impact investments totals around only $1bn" [emphasis added] [4] without seemingly any reservation), so will the Catholic Church and its related institutions likely continue acquire wealth, and give it away simultaneously, but it would not be a zero-sum "financing model [that impact investing has transformed] from a [previously] 'sequential' one, where the church first acquires wealth and then gives it away; to a 'parallel' one," [4] but rather it would be a "sanitized profit-accumulation" model for the Church, which when crassly put is the equivalent of a "laundered money-making" model--narrowly defined here as secular profit "laundered" or "sanitized" by an attached charitable religious purpose. These invented terms seem harsh, but how harsh can they be when they are being used to describe a money-making philanthropic tactic employed by a group of multi-billion dollar tax-exempt religious organizations?
One could suppose that wealth and profitable philanthropy would ensure that the Catholic Church would be an on-going religious entity even as it loses its way toward Christ. The Church that Christ had in mind was never about money, whether it was a coin belonging to Caesar or billions and trillions of them in various forms that are under the combined control of the world's central banks as a whole.
The Economist began the article cited quoting the Bible that man cannot serve both God and money, but it is money that has no real value that people around the world have put their collective faith in rather than in God Who has all different kinds of riches in dimensions that are beyond the confines of human imagination and experience.
If anyone is keeping score, Satan has gathered more people with faith in the currencies of the world than Christ has people with faith in God and in the Church He has established. Based on this assertion, the Vatican has failed and does not deserve to operate under the guise of Christ's original Church built on Christ's teachings, sufferings, crucifixion and resurrection. It should therefore reorganize and incorporate itself on the one hand as a for-profit entity (to be run by a chief executive officer rather than by a pope) that also serves its philanthropic ambitions amounting to a tiny fraction of its total "catholic" (with a small "c") wealth and on the other, reestablish a Catholic Church that is poor without any accumulation of wealth, without a pope and without hypocrisy, that is under the custody of true disciples of Christ who by their purity, their faith in and love for God are able to transubstantiate bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ and share with those who believe.
With a popeless Catholic Church, Satan will in time lose, and many who have been under its temptations of earthly riches and lost in them will be inspired by the zeal of a growing international contingent of Christ's new disciples and realize that absolute void underlies wealth but that true richness is hidden in the lack if it, and that by learning the ways taught and practiced by Christ's modern-day fishers of man who are on the path to Heaven can one be always fulfilled.
The sooner this happens, the sooner the power of Satan will diminish and the sooner this world will heal.
(This is only a dream.)
[1] https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21726719-some-worry-it-might-sully-its-charitable-aims-catholic-church-becomes-impact
[2] http://impactalpha.com/more-catholic-capital-flows-toward-impact-investing/
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
“YOU cannot serve both God and money,” admonishes the Bible. But the church has always tried. In the Middle Ages monasteries were what would now be termed social enterprises. They would produce bread, books or other goods. A Franciscan monk is credited with codifying double-entry book-keeping.
These days the Catholic church and related institutions control many billions of dollars. Some is invested to earn income; some is given away for good works. The two activities have been seen as separate. But, in the pontificate of Pope Francis, that divide is blurring. “Impact” investing—intended to make money and do good at the same time—is growing in importance. It is also creating some controversy.
In 2014 the pope, speaking to a conference in the Vatican on impact investing, called on Christians to rediscover “this precious and primordial unity between profit and solidarity”. His church has responded. Some Catholic institutions with assets to invest—including the Jesuits, the Franciscan Sisters of Mary and Ascension Investment Management—have earmarked a part of their investments for impact funds.
Meanwhile, new Catholic impact funds have been formed, such as ones under the Oblate International Pastoral Investment Trust, which is entrusted with the financial resources of more than 200 Catholic organisations from over 50 countries. Others have joined co-operative efforts to align their investment strategies. The Catholic Impact Investing Collaborative, for example, groups 30 American Catholic institutions, with $50bn in assets under management (of which a small fraction is devoted to impact investing). To encourage public involvement, new “retail” impact funds have been set up, allowing donors to buy a share for a small outlay—say $30.
For now, the Catholic capital dedicated to impact investments totals around only $1bn. Yet such are the church’s assets that it has the potential to transform the size of the impact-investment market. It might also, however, transform the church’s financing model: from a “sequential” one, where the church first acquires wealth and then gives it away; to a “parallel” one.
Quoting Impactαlpha, without hyperlink from an article entitled More Catholic capital flows toward impact investing dated March 27, 2017, "Pope Francis may be only the world’s third-greatest leader (behind Theo Epstein and Jack Ma, according to Fortune), but his 2014 endorsement of impact investing was still a big deal." [2] The article continued to report as follows, quoted in part without hyperlink [3]:
Last year, the Vatican doubled down at a second conference to explore how the church and faith-based institutions can “harness the power of impact capital to attain and sustain their social mission.
Ascension Investment Management, which manages $29 billion on behalf of Ascension Health and other Catholic institutions, is beginning to heed the call. The investment manager is managing a multi-million dollar impact investment strategy, following an earlier $50 million mandate. One investment: an East African pharmacy chain to provide affordable, non-counterfeit drugs to low-income customers.
“Helping the poor is in the DNA of these institutions, so why not do it through investments?” David Erickson, CIO of Ascension told ImpactAlpha.
This blogger could not agree more; yet, he remains conflicted because while it is good to provide affordable medications to those with low income, as in the East African pharmacy chain in the example above, endeavors employing strategies such as multi-million or multi-billion dollar impact investment ought to be within the purview of charitable organizations, whether or not Catholic, whether or not religious, but not of the Catholic Church. The sole purpose of the Catholic Church is, in this blogger's mind, for the salvation of souls, the invisible but eternal part of existence. When the Blessed Virgin Mary prays for sinners, this blogger doubts that She cares about impact investment strategies.
Notwithstanding the possible lack of attention paid by the Blessed Virgin Mary to impact investing, there seems to be a good likelihood that the strategy would be successful, at least in the short-run.
Success in one area of investing can sometimes lead to success in others, and as more and greater subsequent successes follow, wealth increases along with the risk of corruption, leading nearly invariably to decadent lifestyles, ostensibly and secretly. One does not have to look far for real-life examples than to the Vatican in these respects.
Thus, even while those whose lives are improved by such successes, they will not help those who are lacking spiritually, regardless of which side they are on, the side benefiting from such investments (legitimately and illegitimately) or the side profiting from them (legitimately and illegitimately).
As the amount of impact investment increases from one billion dollars (perhaps no other publication besides The Economist, maybe a few others too, would have the boldness to include the word "only" in this sentence: "For now, the Catholic capital dedicated to impact investments totals around only $1bn" [emphasis added] [4] without seemingly any reservation), so will the Catholic Church and its related institutions likely continue acquire wealth, and give it away simultaneously, but it would not be a zero-sum "financing model [that impact investing has transformed] from a [previously] 'sequential' one, where the church first acquires wealth and then gives it away; to a 'parallel' one," [4] but rather it would be a "sanitized profit-accumulation" model for the Church, which when crassly put is the equivalent of a "laundered money-making" model--narrowly defined here as secular profit "laundered" or "sanitized" by an attached charitable religious purpose. These invented terms seem harsh, but how harsh can they be when they are being used to describe a money-making philanthropic tactic employed by a group of multi-billion dollar tax-exempt religious organizations?
One could suppose that wealth and profitable philanthropy would ensure that the Catholic Church would be an on-going religious entity even as it loses its way toward Christ. The Church that Christ had in mind was never about money, whether it was a coin belonging to Caesar or billions and trillions of them in various forms that are under the combined control of the world's central banks as a whole.
The Economist began the article cited quoting the Bible that man cannot serve both God and money, but it is money that has no real value that people around the world have put their collective faith in rather than in God Who has all different kinds of riches in dimensions that are beyond the confines of human imagination and experience.
If anyone is keeping score, Satan has gathered more people with faith in the currencies of the world than Christ has people with faith in God and in the Church He has established. Based on this assertion, the Vatican has failed and does not deserve to operate under the guise of Christ's original Church built on Christ's teachings, sufferings, crucifixion and resurrection. It should therefore reorganize and incorporate itself on the one hand as a for-profit entity (to be run by a chief executive officer rather than by a pope) that also serves its philanthropic ambitions amounting to a tiny fraction of its total "catholic" (with a small "c") wealth and on the other, reestablish a Catholic Church that is poor without any accumulation of wealth, without a pope and without hypocrisy, that is under the custody of true disciples of Christ who by their purity, their faith in and love for God are able to transubstantiate bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ and share with those who believe.
With a popeless Catholic Church, Satan will in time lose, and many who have been under its temptations of earthly riches and lost in them will be inspired by the zeal of a growing international contingent of Christ's new disciples and realize that absolute void underlies wealth but that true richness is hidden in the lack if it, and that by learning the ways taught and practiced by Christ's modern-day fishers of man who are on the path to Heaven can one be always fulfilled.
The sooner this happens, the sooner the power of Satan will diminish and the sooner this world will heal.
(This is only a dream.)
[1] https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21726719-some-worry-it-might-sully-its-charitable-aims-catholic-church-becomes-impact
[2] http://impactalpha.com/more-catholic-capital-flows-toward-impact-investing/
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
The Holy Communion Response At Mass
"On the First Sunday of Advent 2011, Catholics in the United States who attend the Ordinary Form of Mass (commonly called the Novus Ordo, or sometimes the Mass of Paul VI) experienced the first major new translation of the Mass since the Novus Ordo was introduced on the First Sunday of Advent in 1969. ... Compared with the previous translation used in the United States, the new translation is a much more faithful rendering in English of the third edition of the Missale Romanum (the definitive Latin text of the Mass and its associated prayers), promulgated by Pope Saint John Paul II in 2001." [1] This entry is therefore about six years late.
Before receiving Holy Communion, the response used to be "Lord, I am not worthy to receive [Y]ou, but only say the word and I shall be healed." [2] Now, it is "Lord, I am not worthy that [Y]ou should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." [3]
What is wrong with using "I"? In this blogger's opinion, "I" encompasses more intuitively one's body and soul than just "soul" even though according to Fr. Ray Ryland that "[i]n this life, soul and body are joined in intimate union [and] whatever affects the soul affects the body, and vice versa," that because of "the close union between body and soul, the actions of the body necessarily affect the condition and the fate of the soul," and that "conscious bodily actions have eternal consequences." [4]
For the Catholic Church to then add these words "enter under my roof" confuses this blogger even more since they remind him of the parable The Healing of a Centurion’s Servant in which the centurion said, "'Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.'" [5] Does anyone think that the centurion was asking Christ to heal the soul of his servant as he remained paralyzed and could not do any work? Did Christ think that the centurion wanted his servant's soul healed but not his paralysis?
To underscore the point, the centurion's words in the parable cited above were: "only say the word and my servant will be healed" not "only say the word and my servant's soul will be healed." Thus, it can be concluded that the centurion was not looking to have his servant's soul healed but his paralysis cured. In the centurion's mind, and Christ read it correctly, what was important was the healing of the servant's body, something that is practical, not so much the soul, something that is philosophical and theological.
How far would Christianity have gone, based on this parable alone, had Jesus claimed that He had healed the centurion's servant's soul while the servant's body remained paralyzed? That, of course, did not happen, and Christianity did spread, but times have changed and the Catholic Church has turned away from Christ and probably has already regressed. It is therefore likely that Catholicism would not go too much farther from the present (dating back decades), even though the Catholic Church, the one that lives in the hearts and minds of those who have faith, will continue.
The only reason that this blogger can think of (notwithstanding that fact that he could be very wrong) in having this change back to the "Ordinary of the Mass of the 1962 Roman Missal" [6], [7] was that the Catholic Church did not and does not truly believe in its heart and soul that Christ could heal physical pains and illnesses because that would be "visible," whereas healing the soul would be "invisible" and by hiding behind "invisibility" nobody can assert with proof that these words: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed" are ineffective since relatively few people had reported to have become healed physically in comparison to the many who had gone to Mass and had said those words before taking Holy Communion.
Based on the parable, and many other miracles Jesus had performed, there is not a doubt that Christ heals but only if He is so inclined to "say the word" and that He did not and does not say the word often. This does not mean, however, that when He does say "the word" a healing will not take place. It does in fact take place, provided that one has faith. How much faith? "'Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.'" [8]
In Jesus' absence, His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, has come to the world in the form of apparitions. For example, in Mexico, San Juan Diego's uncle was healed miraculously [9]; in France, She had provided the world, through Sainte Bernadette Soubirous, with water of Lourdes that had led to and continues to bring miraculous healings, though not all of them became famous and recognized officially [10], [11].
It is this blogger's firm belief that if one has true humility, absolute faith in and unwavering love for the Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary, a visible healing of the body (perhaps also an invisible healing of the soul) will occur, not when man asks, but when God says "the word." For atheists, doubters, wishful thinkers and religious hypocrites, it may be hard to believe that "the word" is being said more often than not.
[1] https://www.thoughtco.com/new-translation-of-the-catholic-mass-542947
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] https://www.osv.com/Article/TabId/493/ArtMID/13569/ArticleID/16961/What-Is-the-Soul.aspx
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/8 at 5-13.
[6] http://www.extraordinaryform.org/handmissals.html
[7] http://www.extraordinaryform.org/ExtraordinaryFormTextLandscape.pdf, at approximately three-quarters of the way down from the top of the page.
[8] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/8 at 10.
[9] https://stpeterslist.com/the-5-parts-of-the-story-of-juan-diego-the-man-who-saw-our-lady-of-guadalupe
[10] http://www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/lourdes/downloads/lourdes_cures.pdf
[11] http://www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/lourdes/miracles1.html
Before receiving Holy Communion, the response used to be "Lord, I am not worthy to receive [Y]ou, but only say the word and I shall be healed." [2] Now, it is "Lord, I am not worthy that [Y]ou should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." [3]
What is wrong with using "I"? In this blogger's opinion, "I" encompasses more intuitively one's body and soul than just "soul" even though according to Fr. Ray Ryland that "[i]n this life, soul and body are joined in intimate union [and] whatever affects the soul affects the body, and vice versa," that because of "the close union between body and soul, the actions of the body necessarily affect the condition and the fate of the soul," and that "conscious bodily actions have eternal consequences." [4]
For the Catholic Church to then add these words "enter under my roof" confuses this blogger even more since they remind him of the parable The Healing of a Centurion’s Servant in which the centurion said, "'Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.'" [5] Does anyone think that the centurion was asking Christ to heal the soul of his servant as he remained paralyzed and could not do any work? Did Christ think that the centurion wanted his servant's soul healed but not his paralysis?
To underscore the point, the centurion's words in the parable cited above were: "only say the word and my servant will be healed" not "only say the word and my servant's soul will be healed." Thus, it can be concluded that the centurion was not looking to have his servant's soul healed but his paralysis cured. In the centurion's mind, and Christ read it correctly, what was important was the healing of the servant's body, something that is practical, not so much the soul, something that is philosophical and theological.
How far would Christianity have gone, based on this parable alone, had Jesus claimed that He had healed the centurion's servant's soul while the servant's body remained paralyzed? That, of course, did not happen, and Christianity did spread, but times have changed and the Catholic Church has turned away from Christ and probably has already regressed. It is therefore likely that Catholicism would not go too much farther from the present (dating back decades), even though the Catholic Church, the one that lives in the hearts and minds of those who have faith, will continue.
The only reason that this blogger can think of (notwithstanding that fact that he could be very wrong) in having this change back to the "Ordinary of the Mass of the 1962 Roman Missal" [6], [7] was that the Catholic Church did not and does not truly believe in its heart and soul that Christ could heal physical pains and illnesses because that would be "visible," whereas healing the soul would be "invisible" and by hiding behind "invisibility" nobody can assert with proof that these words: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed" are ineffective since relatively few people had reported to have become healed physically in comparison to the many who had gone to Mass and had said those words before taking Holy Communion.
Based on the parable, and many other miracles Jesus had performed, there is not a doubt that Christ heals but only if He is so inclined to "say the word" and that He did not and does not say the word often. This does not mean, however, that when He does say "the word" a healing will not take place. It does in fact take place, provided that one has faith. How much faith? "'Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.'" [8]
In Jesus' absence, His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, has come to the world in the form of apparitions. For example, in Mexico, San Juan Diego's uncle was healed miraculously [9]; in France, She had provided the world, through Sainte Bernadette Soubirous, with water of Lourdes that had led to and continues to bring miraculous healings, though not all of them became famous and recognized officially [10], [11].
It is this blogger's firm belief that if one has true humility, absolute faith in and unwavering love for the Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary, a visible healing of the body (perhaps also an invisible healing of the soul) will occur, not when man asks, but when God says "the word." For atheists, doubters, wishful thinkers and religious hypocrites, it may be hard to believe that "the word" is being said more often than not.
[1] https://www.thoughtco.com/new-translation-of-the-catholic-mass-542947
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] https://www.osv.com/Article/TabId/493/ArtMID/13569/ArticleID/16961/What-Is-the-Soul.aspx
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/8 at 5-13.
[6] http://www.extraordinaryform.org/handmissals.html
[7] http://www.extraordinaryform.org/ExtraordinaryFormTextLandscape.pdf, at approximately three-quarters of the way down from the top of the page.
[8] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/8 at 10.
[9] https://stpeterslist.com/the-5-parts-of-the-story-of-juan-diego-the-man-who-saw-our-lady-of-guadalupe
[10] http://www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/lourdes/downloads/lourdes_cures.pdf
[11] http://www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/lourdes/miracles1.html
Monday, August 14, 2017
The Vatican Looks To Young People For Guidance Using A Survey
A CNS news article dated August 14, 2017, entitled Vatican releases online questionnaire for youth is quoted below in its entirety [1]:
Is the Vatican going about this the wrong way? Instead of taking a leadership role, it is asking for input from young people, regardless of religion, from 16 to 29 years of age to help guide the Catholic Church to "most effectively evangelize" them. How does someone less than 29 years old know what is good for them? Even Jesus waited until "[H]e was about thirty years of age" before He began His ministry [2] and He is the Son of God Who knows God. How would an ordinary young person who does not know God as Jesus knows God know what is important, whether it is "promoting peace" or "the environment" or "defending truth" when nations of the world continue their military build-up, when the environment is suffering at the expense of greed and profit and when nobody knows the truth?
Perhaps the Vatican has lost its direction, a direct and simple path that leads to Christ, and that is why it needs input from young people, who are less and less interested in religion, including Catholicism, which is largely under the influence of Satan, producing hypocrite leaders who are in charge. Even those who are disinterested in God who may not always know what is good for them because of their youth are not stupid. When they see hypocrisy, most would not care to follow it, and many of the men, with few exceptions, who run the Catholic Church are some of the worst hypocrites, in so many ways and on so many levels, deserving no respect at all.
The leaders of the Catholic Church ought to be like Peter, the Apostle, who would rather be crucified than yield to those with different ideas and beliefs and those who were secularists, but they are not; they are a group of weaklings and cowards that is leading the Catholic Church away from Christ by failing consistently to follow two basic tenets which are to love God and neighbor [3]. Instead, they embrace power and wealth, but both are dwindling and their words have become meaningless as a result, in addition to being trite. In order to cling on to whatever that is left, Catholic leaders are prepared to do just about anything, including going the way of Judas, betraying Christ, leading Him to a second crucifixion by following the momentum generated by the masses that often lacks order, morals and legitimacy, forming a vortex that spins toward Hell as opposed to leading with Christ at the helm, empowering followers to repel the gravity of darkness and rise through Purgatory toward Heaven.
[1] http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2017/vatican-releases-online-questionnaire-for-youth.cfm
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/3 at 23.
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22 at 36-40.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- To involve young people in preparations for the Synod of Bishops on youth in 2018, the Vatican has released an online questionnaire to better understand the lives, attitudes and concerns of 16- to 29-year-olds around the world.
The questionnaire -- available in English, Spanish, French and Italian -- can be found on the synod's official site: youth.synod2018.va/content/synod2018/it.html and is open to any young person, regardless of faith or religious belief.
The general secretariat of the synod launched the website June 14 to share information about the October 2018 synod on "Young people, faith and vocational discernment" and to link to an online, anonymous survey asking young people about their lives and expectations.
The answers to the questionnaire, along with contributions from bishops, bishops' conferences and other church bodies, "will provide the basis for the drafting of the 'instrumentum laboris,'" or working document for the assembly, synod officials said in January.
Young people from all backgrounds are encouraged to take part in the questionnaire because every young person has "the right to be accompanied without exclusion," synod officials had said.
The list of 53 mostly multiple-choice questions is divided into seven sections: general personal information; attitudes and opinions about oneself and the world; influences and relationships; life choices; religion, faith and the church; internet use; and two final, open-ended questions. The write-in questions are an invitation to describe a positive example of how the Catholic Church can "accompany young people in their choices, which give value and fulfillment in life" and to say something about oneself that hasn't been asked in the questionnaire.
Other questions ask about living arrangements; self-image; best age to leave home and have a family; opinions about education and work; measures of success; sources of positive influence; level of confidence in public and private institutions; and political or social activism.
The section on faith looks at the importance of religion in one's life and asks, "Who Jesus is for you?" That question provides 16 choices to choose from, including "the savior," "an adversary to be fought," "an invention" and "someone who loves me." It also asks which topics -- promoting peace, defending human life, evangelization, defending truth, the environment -- are the most urgent for the church to address.
The Vatican's preparation for a synod generally includes developing a questionnaire and soliciting input from bishops' conferences, dioceses and religious orders. This is the first time the Vatican's synod organizing body put a questionnaire online and sought direct input from the public.
A synod's preparatory phase seeks to consult of "the entire people of God" to better understand young people's different situations as synod officials draft the working document. The synod on youth will be looking for ways the church can best and most effectively evangelize young people and help them make life choices corresponding to God's plan and the good of the person.
Is the Vatican going about this the wrong way? Instead of taking a leadership role, it is asking for input from young people, regardless of religion, from 16 to 29 years of age to help guide the Catholic Church to "most effectively evangelize" them. How does someone less than 29 years old know what is good for them? Even Jesus waited until "[H]e was about thirty years of age" before He began His ministry [2] and He is the Son of God Who knows God. How would an ordinary young person who does not know God as Jesus knows God know what is important, whether it is "promoting peace" or "the environment" or "defending truth" when nations of the world continue their military build-up, when the environment is suffering at the expense of greed and profit and when nobody knows the truth?
Perhaps the Vatican has lost its direction, a direct and simple path that leads to Christ, and that is why it needs input from young people, who are less and less interested in religion, including Catholicism, which is largely under the influence of Satan, producing hypocrite leaders who are in charge. Even those who are disinterested in God who may not always know what is good for them because of their youth are not stupid. When they see hypocrisy, most would not care to follow it, and many of the men, with few exceptions, who run the Catholic Church are some of the worst hypocrites, in so many ways and on so many levels, deserving no respect at all.
The leaders of the Catholic Church ought to be like Peter, the Apostle, who would rather be crucified than yield to those with different ideas and beliefs and those who were secularists, but they are not; they are a group of weaklings and cowards that is leading the Catholic Church away from Christ by failing consistently to follow two basic tenets which are to love God and neighbor [3]. Instead, they embrace power and wealth, but both are dwindling and their words have become meaningless as a result, in addition to being trite. In order to cling on to whatever that is left, Catholic leaders are prepared to do just about anything, including going the way of Judas, betraying Christ, leading Him to a second crucifixion by following the momentum generated by the masses that often lacks order, morals and legitimacy, forming a vortex that spins toward Hell as opposed to leading with Christ at the helm, empowering followers to repel the gravity of darkness and rise through Purgatory toward Heaven.
[1] http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2017/vatican-releases-online-questionnaire-for-youth.cfm
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/3 at 23.
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22 at 36-40.
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Random Thoughts - Mary's Rosary
Not every statue or image of the Blessed Virgin Mary shows Her with a rosary. Below is the image that appeared miraculously on Juan Diego's tilma on "Dec. 9, 1531" [1]. This image does not show the Blessed Mother to have a rosary.
 |
| Google Images Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City, Mexico Apparitions occurred in 1531 |
Below are three statues that show the Blessed Mother with a rosary:
 |
| Google Images Our Lady of Kibeho, Kibeho, Rwanda, Africa Apparitions occurred from 1981 - 1989 |
 |
| Google Images Our Lady of Fátima, Fátima, Portugal Apparitions occurred in 1917 |
 |
| Google Images Our Lady of Lourdes, Lourdes, France Apparitions occurred in 1858 |
Everyone who is Catholic should know how to pray the rosary [2]. As to when the rosary came into existence, Fr. William Saunders had this to say, quoted in part [3]:
Thus, when the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego in 1531, the rosary was already in existence. Why the Blessed Virgin Mary did not have it in Her hands is a question man cannot answer, but in each of the next three statues above, the Blessed Virgin Mary is shown to have a rosary, but whether She was heard saying prayers of the rosary during the apparitions that each statue represents this blogger does not know, except in the case of Sainte Bernadette Soubirous, whose answers to some of the questions posed to her by "Père Dominique Mariote, a forty-three-year-old Oratorian priest" on August 12, 1859, and some time in early 1860 by Abbé Junqua, "an educated priest," allow the world to experience the Blessed Virgin Mary with Her rosary through the observations made by Bernadette Soubirous, namely, that "[the Blessed Virgin Mary] wore a white dress, with a rosary on [H]er arm, a blue sash, and two yellow roses, one on each foot"; that "She had it on [H]er arm; and then sometimes [S]he slipped the beads through [H]er fingers, like us, or faster"; that the rosary was big, "[b]igger than ours", "bigger than a full rosary"; that "sometimes [S]he prayed and sometimes [S]he spoke to me"; that "She prayed the rosary"; and that "She went from one bead to the next without ever moving [H]er lips" in silence [4].
Since the Blessed Virgin Mary was silent when "She went from one bead to the next without ever moving [H]er lips," as demonstrated by Bernadette Soubirous who "got up, standing with her hands folded, her fingers intertwined, one thumb over the other[, and] acted out praying the rosary, going from one bead to the next with the thumb and index finger of her right hand, while her lips were silent like the vision's," [5] therefore no one can ever be certain if She says the "Ave Maria" prayer on Her rosary. If She does, then the question is why it would be necessary for Her to pray to Herself.
Not being able to figure it out, this blogger asked for assistance while laying in bed one evening with rosary in hand and the medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary pressed firmly between his thumb and his index finger, knowing that there must be an answer that would satisfy his curiosity. For a while, his mind remained blank until a fuzzy image of Jesus praying to God at Gethsemane came into his consciousness which lasted for a moment with nothing further when the mind returned to blank. It is not certain if his mind had generated the thought, but if he had gotten some some help, it was not all that satisfactory since not everything had become clear so that he no longer needed to think but only has to recall. While struggling to make the connection, it dawned on him that a parallel could be drawn between Christ praying at Gethsemane and the Blessed Virgin Mary saying the rosary. How it could be drawn was unclear and would be left up to him. He fell asleep shortly afterward, planning to think about it more another day.
Many days passed but the thought of the Blessed Virgin Mary praying the rosary had not and thoughts that had been given to it were sketchy without cohesion. Not being able to think of a word that describes the Blessed Virgin Mary's dual roles as Mother of God and Mother of all (given to all and shared with all by Her Son in His last act of love for man before dying on the Cross [6]) did not make the self-imposed assignment to compose this entry easy.
There is, however, this word "Trinity" on which "[t]he faith of all Christians rests" [7], but neither "Holy Trinity" nor "Trinitarian God" applies to the Blessed Virgin Mary Who was fully human throughout Her life on earth albeit without Original Sin. If "[t]he Christian doctrine of the Trinity (Latin: Trinitas, lit. 'triad', from trinus, "threefold") holds that God is three consubstantial persons or hypostases—the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit—as 'one God in three Divine Persons'" [8], then what is the adjective or "doctrine" that describes the Blessed Virgin Mary's "other-worldly" duality, aside from two of Her worldly roles as spouse of Joseph and daughter of Anne and Joachim [9]?
Perhaps no "short-cut" is possible in describing the roles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for not only does Her duality exists in Her motherly life on earth as Mother of Jesus and of the disciple whom Jesus loved, another duality is also apparent with Her having responsibilities in Her "other-worldly" life (as spirit) in Heaven (being Mother of all) and in Her "worldly" apparitions (as human) on earth. This is confusing and is where this blogger's mind sees its limits beyond which he cannot go. (Several times over several days, he wanted to come up with a word that encapsulates the Blessed Virgin Mary's dualities but every time he had attempted to do so an inner voice said "no" and the mind went blank, so it is not going to happen.)
Ironically, it is in this penumbral state of confusion in which there is no daylight, nor is there complete darkness, that possibly a bit of understanding can be glimpsed as to the purpose of the Blessed Virgin Mary carrying Her rosary even when it does not make logical sense for Her to say the second part of the "Ave Maria"prayer: (in English) "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death," [10] since She is the Immaculate Conception and has never been a sinner, thus She has no need to pray for and to Herself. She is "Maria" after all, and in the first part of the "Ave Maria" prayer, these words confirm that the Lord is with Her and that She is uniquely blessed: (in Latin) "AVE MARIA, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus." [11] Moreover, being blessed without Original Sin, the Blessed Virign Mary also has no need to pray the Salve, Regina prayer since She was never a banished child of Eve and never in exile, and being the Mother of the Son of God, it would not be necessary for Her to show Herself Jesus, "the blessed fruit" [12] of Her womb.
Since faith has time and again defied science, reason and logic; therefore, it is necessary to believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary is both human and spirit every time She appears and speaks to the few among the living in their respective language, and that She identifies Herself fully with sinners to the extent that She is able to feel the burden of man's sins Herself, which in a way transforms Her into an indivisible part of the "us" so that when She prays the rosary, and when the part of the "Ave Maria" prayer that says "pray for us sinners" comes up, She can pray in Her dual role as Mother of all, while being in unison with sinners, meaning that Her sins correspond to all the sins of all Her children, to Her Mother in Heaven, Who is also Her, asking Herself (as Mother of God) to pray in the present time and at the time of death for Herself (humbly, as Mother of sinners) and for all Her children. Feeling the full burden of all sinners, the Blessed Virgin Mary also joins all in the Salve, Regina prayer in "mourning and weeping in this valley of tears" (as Mother of sinners) and sending up "sighs" to Herself (as Mother of God) so that as God's Mother, She is able to show all, including Herself as Mother of sinners, the blessed fruit of Her womb, Jesus, after the exile.
One might object to the implication that the Blessed Virgin Mary can feel the burden of man's sins by Her carrying them which is not possible since She is not God and only God can take on all of man's sins from the time of Adam and Eve and not be crushed under its weight. This objection is valid on its face, except that the Blessed Virgin Mary is not actually carrying the weight of man's sins but is instead feeling the burden of Her children's sins as a Mother, just as any caring mother can in her heart feel the burdens her children are suffering under, weighing it down heavily without actually laboring under their burdens herself. Since the Blessed Virgin Mary is a mother, She had felt and still feels the burdens that Her Son, Jesus, carried throughout His Passion that ended in His crucifixion and still carries (which is equivalent to the weight of all the sins of man throughout time) without actually shouldering them Herself.
Accordingly, as the Mother of sinners and of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary can feel the burden of man's sins in Her Immaculate Heart both ways, directly from sinners and indirectly through Her Son, compelling Her to pray the rosary for each of Her children's salvation (in Her earthly role), and as the Mother of God, She can receive the prayers of the rosary (in Her Heavenly role) that She says for and with sinners. One may still wonder how this duality can be possible.
In doing so, one does not need to look further than to Jesus, Who is as much a part of God as God is a part of the Holy Trinity, praying to God in the Garden of Gethsemane. At the time, He was both man and God, praying as man and, in a way, to Himself as God, being part of the Holy Trinity. Of course, the similarity ends here, for the Mother of God is not God; nonetheless, She is close enough to God to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and becoming the Mother of God's Son, so that She, too, can take on dual roles as Mother of God and Mother of (and Intercessor for) all sinners, just as Her Son has the dual role of man and God, serving as the bridge between man and God and in addition, being a part of the Holy Spirit (filling those whose hearts are generous enough to accommodate all Three), forming the Triune God.
From these random thoughts, this blogger concludes that the rosary carried by the Blessed Virgin Mary in a number of Her apparitions as Mother of God and of man is not for show but for Her to pray incessantly for and with sinners in Her dual roles.
The origins of the rosary are "sketchy" at best. The use of "prayer beads" and the repeated recitation of prayers to aid in meditation stem from the earliest days of the Church and has roots in pre-Christian times. Evidence exists from the Middle Ages that strings of beads were used to count Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Actually, these strings of beads became known as "Paternosters," the Latin for "Our Father."
...
Tradition does hold that St. Dominic (d. 1221) devised the rosary as we know it. Moved by a vision of our Blessed Mother, he preached the use of the rosary in his missionary work among the Albigensians, who had denied the mystery of Christ. Some scholars take exception to St. Dominic's role in forming the rosary. The earliest accounts of his life do not mention it, the Dominican constitutions do not link him with it and contemporaneous portraits do not include it as a symbol to identify the saint.
Thus, when the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego in 1531, the rosary was already in existence. Why the Blessed Virgin Mary did not have it in Her hands is a question man cannot answer, but in each of the next three statues above, the Blessed Virgin Mary is shown to have a rosary, but whether She was heard saying prayers of the rosary during the apparitions that each statue represents this blogger does not know, except in the case of Sainte Bernadette Soubirous, whose answers to some of the questions posed to her by "Père Dominique Mariote, a forty-three-year-old Oratorian priest" on August 12, 1859, and some time in early 1860 by Abbé Junqua, "an educated priest," allow the world to experience the Blessed Virgin Mary with Her rosary through the observations made by Bernadette Soubirous, namely, that "[the Blessed Virgin Mary] wore a white dress, with a rosary on [H]er arm, a blue sash, and two yellow roses, one on each foot"; that "She had it on [H]er arm; and then sometimes [S]he slipped the beads through [H]er fingers, like us, or faster"; that the rosary was big, "[b]igger than ours", "bigger than a full rosary"; that "sometimes [S]he prayed and sometimes [S]he spoke to me"; that "She prayed the rosary"; and that "She went from one bead to the next without ever moving [H]er lips" in silence [4].
Since the Blessed Virgin Mary was silent when "She went from one bead to the next without ever moving [H]er lips," as demonstrated by Bernadette Soubirous who "got up, standing with her hands folded, her fingers intertwined, one thumb over the other[, and] acted out praying the rosary, going from one bead to the next with the thumb and index finger of her right hand, while her lips were silent like the vision's," [5] therefore no one can ever be certain if She says the "Ave Maria" prayer on Her rosary. If She does, then the question is why it would be necessary for Her to pray to Herself.
Not being able to figure it out, this blogger asked for assistance while laying in bed one evening with rosary in hand and the medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary pressed firmly between his thumb and his index finger, knowing that there must be an answer that would satisfy his curiosity. For a while, his mind remained blank until a fuzzy image of Jesus praying to God at Gethsemane came into his consciousness which lasted for a moment with nothing further when the mind returned to blank. It is not certain if his mind had generated the thought, but if he had gotten some some help, it was not all that satisfactory since not everything had become clear so that he no longer needed to think but only has to recall. While struggling to make the connection, it dawned on him that a parallel could be drawn between Christ praying at Gethsemane and the Blessed Virgin Mary saying the rosary. How it could be drawn was unclear and would be left up to him. He fell asleep shortly afterward, planning to think about it more another day.
Many days passed but the thought of the Blessed Virgin Mary praying the rosary had not and thoughts that had been given to it were sketchy without cohesion. Not being able to think of a word that describes the Blessed Virgin Mary's dual roles as Mother of God and Mother of all (given to all and shared with all by Her Son in His last act of love for man before dying on the Cross [6]) did not make the self-imposed assignment to compose this entry easy.
There is, however, this word "Trinity" on which "[t]he faith of all Christians rests" [7], but neither "Holy Trinity" nor "Trinitarian God" applies to the Blessed Virgin Mary Who was fully human throughout Her life on earth albeit without Original Sin. If "[t]he Christian doctrine of the Trinity (Latin: Trinitas, lit. 'triad', from trinus, "threefold") holds that God is three consubstantial persons or hypostases—the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit—as 'one God in three Divine Persons'" [8], then what is the adjective or "doctrine" that describes the Blessed Virgin Mary's "other-worldly" duality, aside from two of Her worldly roles as spouse of Joseph and daughter of Anne and Joachim [9]?
Perhaps no "short-cut" is possible in describing the roles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for not only does Her duality exists in Her motherly life on earth as Mother of Jesus and of the disciple whom Jesus loved, another duality is also apparent with Her having responsibilities in Her "other-worldly" life (as spirit) in Heaven (being Mother of all) and in Her "worldly" apparitions (as human) on earth. This is confusing and is where this blogger's mind sees its limits beyond which he cannot go. (Several times over several days, he wanted to come up with a word that encapsulates the Blessed Virgin Mary's dualities but every time he had attempted to do so an inner voice said "no" and the mind went blank, so it is not going to happen.)
Ironically, it is in this penumbral state of confusion in which there is no daylight, nor is there complete darkness, that possibly a bit of understanding can be glimpsed as to the purpose of the Blessed Virgin Mary carrying Her rosary even when it does not make logical sense for Her to say the second part of the "Ave Maria"prayer: (in English) "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death," [10] since She is the Immaculate Conception and has never been a sinner, thus She has no need to pray for and to Herself. She is "Maria" after all, and in the first part of the "Ave Maria" prayer, these words confirm that the Lord is with Her and that She is uniquely blessed: (in Latin) "AVE MARIA, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus." [11] Moreover, being blessed without Original Sin, the Blessed Virign Mary also has no need to pray the Salve, Regina prayer since She was never a banished child of Eve and never in exile, and being the Mother of the Son of God, it would not be necessary for Her to show Herself Jesus, "the blessed fruit" [12] of Her womb.
Since faith has time and again defied science, reason and logic; therefore, it is necessary to believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary is both human and spirit every time She appears and speaks to the few among the living in their respective language, and that She identifies Herself fully with sinners to the extent that She is able to feel the burden of man's sins Herself, which in a way transforms Her into an indivisible part of the "us" so that when She prays the rosary, and when the part of the "Ave Maria" prayer that says "pray for us sinners" comes up, She can pray in Her dual role as Mother of all, while being in unison with sinners, meaning that Her sins correspond to all the sins of all Her children, to Her Mother in Heaven, Who is also Her, asking Herself (as Mother of God) to pray in the present time and at the time of death for Herself (humbly, as Mother of sinners) and for all Her children. Feeling the full burden of all sinners, the Blessed Virgin Mary also joins all in the Salve, Regina prayer in "mourning and weeping in this valley of tears" (as Mother of sinners) and sending up "sighs" to Herself (as Mother of God) so that as God's Mother, She is able to show all, including Herself as Mother of sinners, the blessed fruit of Her womb, Jesus, after the exile.
One might object to the implication that the Blessed Virgin Mary can feel the burden of man's sins by Her carrying them which is not possible since She is not God and only God can take on all of man's sins from the time of Adam and Eve and not be crushed under its weight. This objection is valid on its face, except that the Blessed Virgin Mary is not actually carrying the weight of man's sins but is instead feeling the burden of Her children's sins as a Mother, just as any caring mother can in her heart feel the burdens her children are suffering under, weighing it down heavily without actually laboring under their burdens herself. Since the Blessed Virgin Mary is a mother, She had felt and still feels the burdens that Her Son, Jesus, carried throughout His Passion that ended in His crucifixion and still carries (which is equivalent to the weight of all the sins of man throughout time) without actually shouldering them Herself.
Accordingly, as the Mother of sinners and of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary can feel the burden of man's sins in Her Immaculate Heart both ways, directly from sinners and indirectly through Her Son, compelling Her to pray the rosary for each of Her children's salvation (in Her earthly role), and as the Mother of God, She can receive the prayers of the rosary (in Her Heavenly role) that She says for and with sinners. One may still wonder how this duality can be possible.
In doing so, one does not need to look further than to Jesus, Who is as much a part of God as God is a part of the Holy Trinity, praying to God in the Garden of Gethsemane. At the time, He was both man and God, praying as man and, in a way, to Himself as God, being part of the Holy Trinity. Of course, the similarity ends here, for the Mother of God is not God; nonetheless, She is close enough to God to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and becoming the Mother of God's Son, so that She, too, can take on dual roles as Mother of God and Mother of (and Intercessor for) all sinners, just as Her Son has the dual role of man and God, serving as the bridge between man and God and in addition, being a part of the Holy Spirit (filling those whose hearts are generous enough to accommodate all Three), forming the Triune God.
From these random thoughts, this blogger concludes that the rosary carried by the Blessed Virgin Mary in a number of Her apparitions as Mother of God and of man is not for show but for Her to pray incessantly for and with sinners in Her dual roles.
[2] http://www.rosary-center.org/howto.htm#loaded
[3] https://www.ewtn.com/library/answers/rosaryhs.htm
[4] Laurentin, René. A Life of Saint Bernadette Soubirous in Her Own Words. Translated by John W. Lynch, SM and Ronald DesRosiers, SM. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2000, pp. 148-50 and pp. 160-1.
[5] Ibid., 161.
[6] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/19 at 25-30.
[7] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm at 232.
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity, quoted in part without emphasis in bold, hyperlinks and footnotes.
[9] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Anne
[10] https://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/mary3.htm
[11] https://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/maryd5a.htm
[12] Ibid.
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Random Thoughts - Life's Paradox
One's carnal and spiritual desires are often incongruous and when they are, life becomes a paradox with decadence and holiness merging without intersecting while conflicting to the maximum.
If the part that is spiritual and holy can be represented by undyed clothing made from nature's fibers (see photograph below of cotton in its natural stage) then the part that is carnal and decadent (including everything less than pure that is attainable and can be possessed as well as those unattainable and can only be desired) can be represented by stains on it which can supposedly be laundered clean with each confession, but in reality stains can be stubborn in the sense that they tend to stay or reappear for the same reasons that they were there in the first place. Who has ever emerged from a confessional a saint in the purest sense and for the rest of life has become incorruptible, just as the Blessed Virgin Mary was incorruptible?
As one continues to struggle with the choices one faces and makes throughout life, the need to pray for spiritual strength because of the lack of will to realize the potential God has given one to do good always ought to be on par with the critical need to seek emergent care should the need arises, at the risk of weighing down one's own soul at death so as not to be sufficiently airy to ascend to Purgatory but can only sink down to that dreaded eternity called Hell, since one is incapable of judging objectively how heavy one's sins are at any one moment, but not too many people have sin and the fear of Hell on their minds in today's world of extremism, secularism and relativism, especially with a pope that advertises falsely that God's mercy is in so much abundance that he seemed to have turned Hell into a concept.
In Bergoglio's Apostolic Letter Misericordia et miserae, he stated that "[e]verything is revealed in mercy; everything is resolved in the merciful love of the Father." [1] [Emphasis added.] Further into the Apostolic Letter, he retracted from his earlier remark and stated that "[t]he culture of mercy is shaped in assiduous prayer, in docility to the working of the Holy Spirit ..." [2] This sounds right but this is the same pope who launched the "‘One Minute for Peace’ [prayer] initiative." [3] Praying for something as important as peace for a minute is not quite the same as "assiduous prayer."
Hell is not a concept; it is a place. Atheists who do not believe in a Heaven and a Hell should take a careful look at the world and their own lives. Unless they see perfection, which can exist only in one's imagination, they ought to conclude that the world and their lives are a lot more like a "Hell" than a "Heaven," and it is they, and a growing chorus of secularists and religious hypocrites, joined by the pope, who could possibly be tomorrow's faces of the underworld. This is where "assiduous prayer" in life could possibly help open the flood gates to God's reservoir upon death from which an overabundance of mercy and love will flow to wash away once and for all of eternity the stains of sin.
It was out of God's unconditional love that Christ was born to suffer and die in order to pave the way for Adam and Eve's descendants to go back to God, but more often than not, God's unconditional love has been mistaken as the equivalent of blind love. God's unconditional love is not totally blind; it means that God is prepared to "be blind to" man's sins and forgive them, provided that man follow the two "greatest" Commandments which according to the Son of God, is first to "love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" and then to "love your neighbor as yourself." [4] If God's unconditional love were totally blind, then there would be no need for Christ to suffer and die in the first place and then to return to judge the living and the dead. [5] And if the path to Heaven were paved with unlimited mercy with "everything [being] resolved in the merciful love of the Father" [6], then Christ's entire existence and the Gospels would have been unnecessary and the Catholic Church a useless entity.
Stated differently, God's unconditional love for man requires man to love God and neighbor in return. It would be a mistake to think that mans' love for God can be a passive love, as the pope's version of "mercy" seemed to suggest at first, which is for man to sit there and sin and mercy will resolve everything that he has done wrong, even though he later admitted that man had to pray "assiduously" for mercy but when the pope is often seen and heard politicking in the news and not truly praying assiduously, he disappoints those expecting him to be true to his own words even knowing that he cannot be like Christ yet he remains popular among those who support his "worldly" or perhaps even "a near-secular" approach to Catholicism.
However, it matters not what one thinks of this or any other pope since everyone sins and nobody is incorruptible, no matter how often one confesses, there will be stains of sin that will always remain, no matter how dark or colorful is one's clothing, or the exclusivity of one's addresses and vacations spots or lack thereof, but all of them can be removed with the blood of Christ that flows from God's mercy (obtainable by faithful and sincere prayer) and ultimately from God's unconditional love (obtainable by adherence to the greatest two commandments), despite one lacking the will power to walk away permanently from sin yet oddly having the determination to dive repeatedly into every facet of decadence that happens to pique one's interest or curiosity while trying incongruously to be holy spiritually however conflicting it may be and however fruitless the outcome.
[1] https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco-lettera-ap_20161120_misericordia-et-misera.html
[2] Ibid,
[3] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/06/07/pope_francis_appeals_for_%E2%80%98one_minute_for_peace%E2%80%99_initiative/1317386
[4] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22, at 36-40.
[5] https://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/creed2.htm - The Apostle's Creed
[6] https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco-lettera-ap_20161120_misericordia-et-misera.html
If the part that is spiritual and holy can be represented by undyed clothing made from nature's fibers (see photograph below of cotton in its natural stage) then the part that is carnal and decadent (including everything less than pure that is attainable and can be possessed as well as those unattainable and can only be desired) can be represented by stains on it which can supposedly be laundered clean with each confession, but in reality stains can be stubborn in the sense that they tend to stay or reappear for the same reasons that they were there in the first place. Who has ever emerged from a confessional a saint in the purest sense and for the rest of life has become incorruptible, just as the Blessed Virgin Mary was incorruptible?
 |
| From Google Images |
As one continues to struggle with the choices one faces and makes throughout life, the need to pray for spiritual strength because of the lack of will to realize the potential God has given one to do good always ought to be on par with the critical need to seek emergent care should the need arises, at the risk of weighing down one's own soul at death so as not to be sufficiently airy to ascend to Purgatory but can only sink down to that dreaded eternity called Hell, since one is incapable of judging objectively how heavy one's sins are at any one moment, but not too many people have sin and the fear of Hell on their minds in today's world of extremism, secularism and relativism, especially with a pope that advertises falsely that God's mercy is in so much abundance that he seemed to have turned Hell into a concept.
In Bergoglio's Apostolic Letter Misericordia et miserae, he stated that "[e]verything is revealed in mercy; everything is resolved in the merciful love of the Father." [1] [Emphasis added.] Further into the Apostolic Letter, he retracted from his earlier remark and stated that "[t]he culture of mercy is shaped in assiduous prayer, in docility to the working of the Holy Spirit ..." [2] This sounds right but this is the same pope who launched the "‘One Minute for Peace’ [prayer] initiative." [3] Praying for something as important as peace for a minute is not quite the same as "assiduous prayer."
Hell is not a concept; it is a place. Atheists who do not believe in a Heaven and a Hell should take a careful look at the world and their own lives. Unless they see perfection, which can exist only in one's imagination, they ought to conclude that the world and their lives are a lot more like a "Hell" than a "Heaven," and it is they, and a growing chorus of secularists and religious hypocrites, joined by the pope, who could possibly be tomorrow's faces of the underworld. This is where "assiduous prayer" in life could possibly help open the flood gates to God's reservoir upon death from which an overabundance of mercy and love will flow to wash away once and for all of eternity the stains of sin.
It was out of God's unconditional love that Christ was born to suffer and die in order to pave the way for Adam and Eve's descendants to go back to God, but more often than not, God's unconditional love has been mistaken as the equivalent of blind love. God's unconditional love is not totally blind; it means that God is prepared to "be blind to" man's sins and forgive them, provided that man follow the two "greatest" Commandments which according to the Son of God, is first to "love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" and then to "love your neighbor as yourself." [4] If God's unconditional love were totally blind, then there would be no need for Christ to suffer and die in the first place and then to return to judge the living and the dead. [5] And if the path to Heaven were paved with unlimited mercy with "everything [being] resolved in the merciful love of the Father" [6], then Christ's entire existence and the Gospels would have been unnecessary and the Catholic Church a useless entity.
Stated differently, God's unconditional love for man requires man to love God and neighbor in return. It would be a mistake to think that mans' love for God can be a passive love, as the pope's version of "mercy" seemed to suggest at first, which is for man to sit there and sin and mercy will resolve everything that he has done wrong, even though he later admitted that man had to pray "assiduously" for mercy but when the pope is often seen and heard politicking in the news and not truly praying assiduously, he disappoints those expecting him to be true to his own words even knowing that he cannot be like Christ yet he remains popular among those who support his "worldly" or perhaps even "a near-secular" approach to Catholicism.
However, it matters not what one thinks of this or any other pope since everyone sins and nobody is incorruptible, no matter how often one confesses, there will be stains of sin that will always remain, no matter how dark or colorful is one's clothing, or the exclusivity of one's addresses and vacations spots or lack thereof, but all of them can be removed with the blood of Christ that flows from God's mercy (obtainable by faithful and sincere prayer) and ultimately from God's unconditional love (obtainable by adherence to the greatest two commandments), despite one lacking the will power to walk away permanently from sin yet oddly having the determination to dive repeatedly into every facet of decadence that happens to pique one's interest or curiosity while trying incongruously to be holy spiritually however conflicting it may be and however fruitless the outcome.
[1] https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco-lettera-ap_20161120_misericordia-et-misera.html
[2] Ibid,
[3] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/06/07/pope_francis_appeals_for_%E2%80%98one_minute_for_peace%E2%80%99_initiative/1317386
[4] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22, at 36-40.
[5] https://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/creed2.htm - The Apostle's Creed
[6] https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco-lettera-ap_20161120_misericordia-et-misera.html
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