Just like Saint Peter in the garden when they came to arrest Jesus, whose ear are you planning to cut off. We need to keep watch and pray, so we are not put to the test. How are you going to live with yourself if you find out later you have betrayed Jesus when all you wanted to do was defend Him. Padraig think about Saint Peter, I can see you are making the same mistake, and I know you love Jesus with all your heart.
I re-echo Padraig's statement that it is the Shepherds that are not doing their job. Simply THEY are not feeding the flocks. It is very rare to hear any homily about sin, repentance, confession, of the horror of sacrilegious Communions. I had a dream shortly after my re-conversion of people going to Mass on Sunday who looked like living corpses with their emaciated bodies. I tried to carry one lady into the church but she fought me (whatever that means I don't know). God Bless
This is more the way I can handle the problems we face in our day. But what is the solution. Would our fellow Catholics want us to do the talking and remind them of the importance of keeping the 10 Commandments. Is it our place to tell the Priest to make better sermons. Would the few who still go to Mass walk away if they are challenged about their lack of enthusiasm and need to get back to a more strict practice of the Holy Faith. I printed and shared 50 or 60 testimonies from a Bishop in Nigeria whom Jesus appeared to and made him aware that the Rosary is the answer to the terrorists. If we pray the Rosary, Jesus will bring an end to terrorism. I have not seen a single person turn up to share the Rosary after Mass other than the couple who already join in saying the Rosary. And that after sharing a first hand testimony from a Bishop. So it fell on deaf ears. I think only God can break through the wall of indifference that has grown in the Church. Twice in the last couple of months, Priests have said to me in confession that I am part of a remnant of true believers. Is that strange or what. What are they hearing in the confessional from the few that bother to go these days. Or what are they seeing and hearing that I don't see or hear around me to make them say such a thing in confession. It scares me. Are the Priests afraid to say from the pulpit there are only a remnant of true believers. To be fair, I have heard a couple of Priests draw attention to the confessional; maybe there is a light at the end of this dark tunnel we are in. I am beginning to wonder if the Church will be greatly helped if people who have testimonies are allowed to share them from the pulpit on a Sunday in stead of the sermons that do nothing to capture the imagination of those who sit through them week in week out. This after all was common in the early Church, and I hear Pope Benedict did say the Church would shrink back to a remnant, and pretty much have to start again.
Brian, Two related sections from 2 Corinthians come to mind with this amazing truth of the Indwelling Blessed Trinity. First, 4: 6 For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. And second, 3: 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. The work of God in each of our hearts is a true marvel, the experience of God granted in small dosages for humility's sake. For a number of years I was involved in the Charismatic Renewal and witnessed literal miracles. However, there was a wound in my heart that was negatively affecting my precious wife, Geralyn, and my two oldest children who were quite young at the time. Geralyn and I had prayed that God intervene, yet our prayers seemed ineffective.The First Friday in December of 1987 immediately preceded our pilgrimage to Medjugorje. The first reading at Holy Mass was a passage from Ephesians 1: 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms... The highlighted portion is what the celebrant, Fr. Crist, preached on that night. I believe through the intercession of Our Lady, the Lord decided to extend to me a singular gift of faith. I thought to myself, if the resurrection power of God is available, then I must believe that my wound will be healed... and so it was. As I said, it was a singular grace, but in that moment I was given the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ and my heart was changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. The Beatific Vision is not for our earthly life, so it is important that we recall those times that the Father has taken us by the hand to guide us one step forward. To Him be the praise and honor! For all of us, in the moments God led us forward, Jesus was there. Safe in the Father's Arms!
