Friday was the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady when , Catholic tradition has it Our Lady at three years old was presented by her parents in the Temple in Jerusalem. Of course this is not mentioned in scripture, nor have we any historical evidence for it so Catholics are free to believe in this event just as they are free to not believe in ,say the Apparition of the Sacred Heart or Our Lady of Lourdes. However what might make most Catholics a little slow to kick this event into touch is that the Church itself celebrates this feast and the fact that it has traditionally been believed in by generations of Catholics, including great saints. Tradition for the Catholic is very,very important, for from tradition we inherit rich graces from our fore parents in the Faith. Logically, too, if we cannot prove this event happened, neither can we disprove it. In either case I am fond of this Feast myself and love the story told about it in the Book 'Mystical City of God', by the Venerable Mary of Agreda and which you can read here: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/7194/ ...and from this wonderful book you can read and account of Mary's Presentation here: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/ ... ok2c1.html In either case I was more than a little startled in Church when the priest at the start of the sermon dismissed the Presentation story as a 'nonsense' and did so in a very curt way. This was troubling to me for a number of reasons. Firstly if the Church herself appointed it as a Feast..and quite an important one I think it wrong simply to dump it. Also if we cannot prove it happened from scripture or history we cannot equally dismiss it and say it didn't happen. Also many generations of pious Catholics and saints have had a devotion to this event and have derived much spiritual benefit from it. But what troubled me most was the curtness of his dismissal, implying that Catholics, like myself who did believe were ..well maybe a bit slow or stupid. This was more troubling still in that by inference Holy Mother Church herself was somewhat slow and stupid for holding this Feast in the first place. It wasn't just this ,though that made me sit up and take notice, I had two other reasons. Firstly I have heard this very same priest before run down the possibility of Christ performing miracles...hence did not really walk on water, Christ did not really multiply the loaves and fishes, all with very wonderful and complex reasons to explain naturally why supernatural causes were not involved. However I have another rather weird reason for not trusting this priest which you may think is my imagination but I'll mention this, for what it is worth. I do not know this priest, we have never met, I do not even know his name. However I get the most uncomfortable feeling in looking at him, he makes me edgy and distrustful. More than that a few times he has suddenly looked at me and kind of well started when he looked at me, rather like a little rabbit caught in a cars headlights and he didn't much like what he saw, in fact...I think he looked a little scared. I think many things that are secret will be made know and that we all, when we pray we open ourselves to see things not as they appear to be but as they actually are. With things such as Gay 'Rights' or pro abortionists you know where you stand. but Satan's war against Holy Mother Church is fought in hiddeness and secrecy..at least for the time being. Many Catholics have been honest enough to leave the Church. Many many more have been dishonest and stayed and attack the Church from within. They are very subtle about this and persuasive. One of the may signs that they have turned against the faith , though is lack of Devotion to Our Blessed Lady. But I think, now and again you can see signs..which I can only describe as praeternatural that all is not right. It is as if you can see something peeking out from behind their eyes that should not be there; in fact the presence of evil. This is not the first time I have seen this, nor will it be the last. Oil and water do not mix, nor do the Children of Mary, the lottle ones satand easily with Smoke of Satan that has entered the Church. More than that I think they themselves are often somehow informed when a Child of Mary is near..... But the time is coming when what is done in secret shall be brought to the surface and the enemies of Christs Church within the Church will step into full light... John 10:1 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. 4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. 5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. 6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them."
Padraig, I attended a Theology course last year at our local Catholic Teacher Training College. The head of the theology course gave us lectures on how the Gospels were the work of the early church written about 60 years after his death with a view to making him fir the picture of the Messiah. His miracles were all questionable as the writers were tying everything back to revelations in the old testament. In fact he never went to Egept. This was cobbled up beacause the 1st Joseph had gone to Egept therefore the foster father of Jesus the 2nd Joseph had to be seen to have gone there also. This lecturer was a priest and a Doctor of Divinity. I had arguments every class and he told me in the end it was an age thing. I was stuck in the past. There are many enemies within and they are working away in secret. I went to a Diocesan meeting last week and my parish Priest whispered to me could I ask if a prayer to Our Lady could be said at the start of such meetings but under no circumstance was I to say he asked me to say it as it would be completely disregarde. I did at the end of the meeting and got a big round of applause so many people feel this way. There is a shortage of priests yet in my dioceses I know of at least 4 priests who have been sidelined and do not have any parish duties. Mary
Mary, My spiritual Director and another priest told me of a seminary in Dublin for training students for the American Bishops abroad. It had not HAD A SINGLE STUDENT ORDAINED in many , many years. they said the young men they sent were all fine young Catholics with sincere vocations but as soon as their 'teachers' got their hands of them they left and many of them had lost the faith..a faith that had at the start been strong enough to give them a vocation to the priesthood. I think the way the Devil works is very different to the way Mary works. Mary works from the bottom up, with the little ones. Satan , who is full of pride works the other way round, from the top down. So he attacks the Bishops and priests and Cardinals..also the 'intellectuals. Anyone who he can infect with pride. I honestly think that many of the priests that fall for this don't really know where they are...its kind of like a dark fog covers their hearts. Its like they have picked a thread out of the Robe of Christ and pulled and pulled at it until the robe unravels; then they are left with nothing, nothing at all in their hands, just emptiness. This fog that is in their minds and hearts is the smoke of Satan. But, on the other hand when you meet a priest like your friend Father Michael, there is a clarity a directness , it is like coming out of a misty Irish mountain and suddenly you are standing on a mountain top on a summers day and can see for miles and miles.. At the end of the day it isn't complicated, its just what Mary has asked repeatedly..we must pray, pray the rosary, return to the Sacraments...but when talking to those in the fog everything becomes complicated, that talk of social issues, culture, psychology, politics, moving with the times anything and everything but getting down on our knees and praying. If you talk about the rosary it is as though you were a nut. However when the Illumination of conscience comes one great effect will be to dispel the clouds on mens hearts. However..it may be too late for very many, for once you have been in the 'fog' too long it is , I believe inclined to rot the Spiritual Heart t out of people. All it leaves is a vacuum and in talking to such people you feel this lostness, even , for all their intellectual pride when you confront them with simple truths they just get a lost glazed look. A fog, rather than intellectual substance. One of the ways I notice this fog is in the way they are choosing candidates for the priesthood, they are using psychologists and analysts. But as scripture tells us: 1 Corinthians 6:3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? If we are to judge angels how can it be our Bishops and the religious Superiors cannot judge the young men and women that come forward woth vocations for the priesthood and the religious life? How is it they need Doctors to do so? More than this how is it they are so lacking in discernment they cannot even judge evil people who are so disposed that they would attack and injure children? ha! Ive just got on my hobby horse and am ranting and raving away. But still I would expect, as a natural consequence of having a good prayer life that any person, not just a priest or Bishop would have clear discernment..about individuals and events..that they would be able to read the Signs of the Times and to have a deep Spirit driven insight into the hearts of Men. To me its just a natural outgrowth of the Workings of the Holy Spirit in the person of prayer. But if, on the other hand, the soul is so taken up with being busy, busy at anything but prayer, well no wonder if they are a as spiritually blind as bats. A natural outgrowth of this blindness is they they become edgy and begrudging of any apparitions of Our Lady anywhere, any time. Any supernatural or mystical component of the faith is poison to them. Forgetting as they do, having wondered in the fog so far from the faith of their parents that without the Mystical our faith is dead, it may wriggle a little but, still its dead. they rip the living heart out of our Faith then wonder why our Churches are empty!! Oh well I had a nice rant, but still its true.... :roll: I won't go into a bad mood about it, but it is little wonder Our Mother cries, if the Shepherds desert the sheepfold, what hope for the sheep?.
Padraig, Your image of fog that produces a complicated minset reminds me of C.S. Lewis and his Narnia Chronicles. Only the simple-hearted children are able to perceive and remain in the presence of Aslan. In The Last Battle, the rebellious dwarfs are blinded to the reality around them. They fail to realize they are no longer in a darkened stable. You might say they are oblivious to the spiritual realities that surround them. Their dwarfish pride put them in a fog that persisted to the end. Your example enfleshes the sadness I feel over that aspect of Lewis' story. Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Terry, CS Lewsis also compares the soul which is far from God as being like an empty bottle that is full of blue bottles (big fly's} that buzz about making a loud, meaningless buzzing sound. The soul does not survive in a vacuum, it either moves along the pilgrim path of prayer to God or it moves towards evil. As the Catholic Cathechism tells us, quoting Saint Alphonsus Ligouri, 'Those who pray are most certainly saved; those who do not pray are most certainly damned'. The Cathechism goes on to talk of the Spiritual Battle we are all engaged in: 2725 Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. We pray as we live, because we live as we pray. If we do not want to act habitually according to the Spirit of Christ, neither can we pray habitually in his name. The "spiritual battle" of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer. As the Cathechism says this battle is 'inseparable' from our life of prayer. But for those lost in the fog, buzzing like a bottle full of flies the battle is somewhat different, it is a culture battle, a political battle, a social battle it is about anything but prayer. However the Catholic Church can only be full of hope for MAry calls her Children to their kness to prayer, to the reality of the SPirtual. ..and how will we recognise the Children of Mary?? They have a great simplicity and clarity. They are like a glass of mountain spring water , you can see right through them because of their clarity, purity and simplicity. They are the littlest of children. They are like great bells, who once tolled ring with the Power of the Holy Spirit. They are on their knees, at prayer with the rosary ever to hand. They are obedient and loyal to Holy Mother Church. They are full of the waters of Peace. They are gentle and non argumentative, avoiding contentiousness as vain. They are deeply humble seeking not the glory of this world but the Triumph of heaven. They are marked in these terrible latter times with the seal of martyrdom. Thye are full of joy and hope. knowing the Triumph of Mary is at hand. They stand at the feet of Mary continually praying and imploring her aid. Mary holds them by the hand, they shall not falter, they shall never fail. For who is she who comes, fair as the Moon , bright as the sun, terrible as an army in battle array/
This reminds me of Garabandal 'Many Cardinals, Bishops and Priests are on the road to perdition taking many souls with them'. This message was incomprehensable 47 years ago but its quite clear now. Its a difficult time to be a priest so they really need our prayers. Mary
I remember when I was young reading about Garabandal when I was young , Mary...I have no difficulty believing it, especially as we see these things happening before our eyes. Its as if two doors were yawning right in front of our eyes, one that takes us to God and the ways of God and the other that takes us straight to hell. More and more our choices are restricted, there is less and little room for a middle path..a way of following the world and God at the same time...if indeed there ever was. However we are moving straight into the eye of the storm . I think the fog that afflicts many of the Faithful afflicts the rest of the world even worse, the total loss of the sense of sin....of a corrosive secularism that puts God in a dark cupboard and walks away and forgets about Him to get on with the activities of the 'real' world doing 'real' things. I believe these other kinds of fog will lead to people becoming, for example extremely and irrationally violent and of behaving in more and more irrational ways..conceiving the deepest hatred for the Church and all that is holy....also in the deepening fog hating the faithful and being praternaturally aware of those who are Faithful to Cross and rising against them. It reminds me a little of Saint Margaret Mary...you might recall how Satan rose her fellow sisters against her to attack her. The same thing but on a Global scale. But on the other hand , even though we move into bitter deep winter I see many, many signs already of the wonderful Spring to come ,the buds are on the trees and God is raising up a new heaven and a new Earth, a very Holy Catholic Church greater and better than any we have seen before, greater even than at the time of the First Apostles. But before what is new is truly born what is evil and decaying must die. However I believe we must walk a long, long path into true winter before the true Spring time of the faith is born. However I am ever hopeful, I believe there are graces available to the Faithful at the minute that have not been available since the time of Pentecost, great great saints are being raised up before our eyes. However more and more I feel, as time goes on God calling His Faithful to come apart, Mary gathering her armies. Grave but wonderful times. I admit I have been sickened by the way the world has been going and the evil accelerating all the time. But the boil. before it bursts had to come to a head. Strange, wonderful times...may Mary lead us through them to the New Springtime of our Faith to come.
Padraig, It is right to rejoice in the new buds found on the trees, and to speak of the mercy and love of Christ to those He places on our daily paths. This past Sunday's first reading from Ez 34 exalts God's mercy and yet reminds us that the sleek and the strong persist to the end: Thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.
I was thinking about Terry's quotation from Ezeckiel about the sleek , fat sheep and about how apt it is for people , in the West. On the surface, up until recently we never had it so good, even the Roman Emperors never had what we had. The finest medical health care, very long lives, always well fed with food from all over the world, magnificent entertainment in a hundred different ways, a superb education even for the least well read, central heating, holidays pretty well were and when we wanted, an excellent transport system, protection from a peaceful democratic society, immense freedoms.....a breathtaking range of clothes and footwear, plenty of money...great housing...like little Royalty...fat sleek sheep indeed!! But when you lifted back the cover, endemic drink and drug abuse {God substitutes}, incredible divorce rates, insane abortions, pornography and sexual amorality everywhere, abandonment of faith in a mass exodus, entrenched materialism and consumerism, a spiralling suicide rates, violence, depression a lost of sense of self and purpose everywhere. Sleek and fat, certainly but not happy, never. Now we are going to go hungry, be not so fat or so sleek. It might just be my imagination but in Clonard Monastery at mass in the mornings the last couple of months...the Church seems fuller... hungry sheep stay closer to the Good Shepherd. I am lookin forward to the days when the Churches are so full I cannot get a seat. It was like that when I was young it will be like that again...
