It struck me too yesterday as I was reading it. Interestingly, when I first looked at it in my Magnificat book that last paragraph was in bold print. I thought thats interesting. Thats what I should meditate on today. ("...without anger and contention..." Later i looked back at it and it was not in bold type. Hmmm. Things like this have been happening to me a lot lately. Scratching my head.
At this point, PNF, I will include the Poor Souls when I pray the Fatima Prayer. Hopefully, expanding my mind may help to expand my heart!
It seems to me, too many of us live by "Paralysis of Analysis". We reject a person or an apparition/revelation on a 'sore point', some 'error' someone has found. We refuse to agree because of some 'flaw'. We forget that errors are introduced through (1) the bias of the reporter (2) mistranslation and (3) preconceived views of the recipient. We're Human! For those of us who have practiced 'Debating", we are given a topic and have to support it. Any written article, even if attempting not to 'take sides', has a bias. History is a prime example. The context / intended audience of anything we read/listen to must be considered. St Leonard of Port Maurice, in his famous sermon on the few who are saved, was literally trying to 'scare the hell' out of his listeners. I remember reading that before that sermon he told those in a state of grace to leave. The Church NEEDS those Redemptorist sermons! Those as old as I [the grey-haired 'Faithful Remnant'] remember Parish Missions in which Redemptorists spent a week 'scaring the hell out of us.' Not so now in the times of 'Feel-Good' sermons that could be equally delivered anywhere. St Leonard of Port Prince scared me to death! "We're all damned, except for the 1% of holy people". It would almost make you give up. The converse is true today - we all go to heaven so why even try. Of course, Jesus came through Sr Fausina to show us God is MERCY. Yet He must necessarily also be JUST! [Or 'Free Will' is irellevant!] 'Fear of God' is just that, not a mentallity of 'we're all damned' but we will be judged on our choices through life! In the conext of our 'Western Society' most choose SELF not GOD. The many, many creditable apparitions/locutions throughout the world today exhort us to 'pray from the heart', Confess regularly, pray the Rosary, receive the Blessed Sacrament as often as possible................ The devil doesn't do that! But he DOES like to insert an error, a doubt, even in the 'soundest' of revelations. Each revelation is intended for (1) that individual and (2) that country. OL of Guadalupe and OL of Kibeo are prime examples. It seems fashionable to malign the Pope. I believe he is trying hard, in each context, to win believers. I agree, some things make me scream in horror, butthey are reported by BIASSED individuals. Mass media looks for 'errors'. The 'name of the game' in this Era, is personality assassination. For so many of us, if Donald Trump said something 'outrageous', we'd dismiss it and accept that he's just a bit mad. If the Pope says something unusual, he's 'in league with the antichrist'. Taylor Marshall and Michael Matt seem,to me, to be driving the 'Faithful Remnant' to rebellion, disobedience and what can only be decribed as Protest-anism. Bishop Barron inspires many. Medjugorje inspires many. Even CONDEMNED revelations can inspire many to a deeper Faith/ prayer life. Let's take what is good, [in line with the "True Magesterium" - let's face it, deep down you know what it is!] and stop criticising the "splinter" in the eye of our brorthers in Christ. and get on with saving souls through prayer, study and action.
Very thoughtful and hopeful post. It's difficult to endure the ceaseless trail of bad news. You make a fair point about the bias of the media and the flaws common to even the best of people. However, when one hears reports of sacrilege, blasphemy and, at best, material heresy from multiple sources of high moral integrity, it is not so easy to dismiss them as media bias or hostility. To protest against what one genuinely and sincerely perceives as wrong, with tradition and scripture to support one, is not objectionable-the problem of Protestantism was not that they protested, but that they did so against many things that they oughtn't have and principally that they abandoned the Church in doing so. Otherwise, St Paul was the first Protestant and saints like St Athanasius and St Catherine of Sienna would be in the same category. Is it the outrage of the Faithful that represents rebellion or the idolisation of Pachamama by many high-ranking prelates, to take one of the most obvious example? Is it those who loudly and strenuously object to the nearly direct contradiction of the words of Our Saviour Himself in the document Amoris laetitia who are in rebellion? I can't help debating!
I became Catholic to follow Jesus. To the extent that he does not knowingly and willingly contradict the teachings of Jesus and 2000 years of Catholicism I will obey him. I don’t think drawing attention to him doing the opposite is rebellion. There have been instances in Church history where an antipope has been accepted peacefully and universally. One person who drew attention to it is not considered a troublemaker or a rebel but a saint. He could have very well told himself to shut up and pray until everything clears up by itself over time. But he didn’t. I do think people like Michael Matt and Taylor Marshall don’t speak the whole truth. They seem to call him 100% legitimate without a doubt but then contradict that position by showing how he is destroying the Church or preaching another gospel. People who convert to Catholicism just wonder what is the point of a true pope doing these things? What is the point of a legitimate pope if he can do these things? If they went ahead and said that “Okay, we don’t know for certain if he is 100% without a doubt the pope…” But they don’t leave it there, but insist he is without any reasonable doubt the pope. And that to question this is sedevacantism. This is more dangerous than sticking your head in the sand and gaslighting others who see these things by calling them delusional or conspiracy theorists for noticing the unspeakable. This questions the point of the papacy itself.
Padraig just posted a good short video about what Cardinal Muller believes and the current efforts to address heresy. It answers many questions. I pray the efforts succeed .
HH, it seems like you are really uncomfortable with any dissent of what Pope Francis says or does. Sometimes people like to vent because they don't have people to talk to in their daily life that they can bounce ideas off of. That doesn't mean that people who question Pope Francis are bad, they are just questioning his actions, motives, etc. It's nice to read people's thoughts without being censored. Maybe I wouldn't be writing this if I hadn't recently rewatched 1984 or Animal Farm, but I think you are judging people who disagree with Pope Francis. I'm leaving for work and will not be able to reply. Please respect other people's posts and different views. Doesn't mean anyone is going to Hell, just trying to either vent or read another perspective.
I think the bishop, like many modern Christians, struggles to believe the that much of the bible talks about things that really happened or will happen, like the great flood. So he might suppose that Jesus wasn't factually talking about the few who are saved, but is talking in figurative terms about how many (even one is too many) will be lost. I disagree because I don't believe people are basically good and invincibly ignorant. I think most people do not care about what is true and try to convince themselves that their sins aren't sins.
Yes, and it is infallible Catholic Church teaching that people ARE NOT "basically good." Instead, we are all deeply wounded by Original Sin and can only recover partially through the Sacrament of Baptism and make it to the end of the earthly pilgrimage spiritually intact with the assistance provided by the other Sacraments of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Perhaps it is not entirely his fault. He probably got some terrible teaching at Seminary and later, reading bad books. I think the great solution to going off the rails is the Rosary and Devotion to Our Lady. If we give ourselves to times of prayer we will always keep safe. I think you know as we enter into the Fullness of the Tribulation and the consequent challenges it will truly force people to ask deeper questions. I think at root of a lot of these problems is that they think we are all perfect people living in a perfect world that keeps getting better and better. That there is no such thing as evil or sin, just good people making bad choices. There is a kind of naive innocence about all this. Events to come will prove this oh so wrong, that we truly are, 'Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears'. I think a lot of people are about to get red pilled.
Division comes from Satan. What he wants is to divide the Church. Let’s focus on criticizing the actions of what’s going on with the Church, or lack of. But let’s leave the Papacy alone. Pope Francis is the legitimate Pope. Otherwise Benedict is guilty too for not speaking up. We may have a bad Pope, but he’s our Pope. And for whatever reason, God wants him there. We have no choice but to respect the Papacy. Prayers for the Pope, and prayers for the Church. But censoring a member who needs consolation is just not right. We all need a tender heart to deal with all the madness.
But Byron, not all "division" comes from Satan. As Christians we must separate ourselves from "the world." There is already a division between the City of God and the City of Man (in St. Augustine's words). One the side of the Holy Trinity is Charity in Truth. On the side of Satan is Diabolical disorientation and confusion. This "division" is a holy division. Truth can never be united with Error. The bad "division" that exist right now is within the mystical body of Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. This "division" is currently caused by confusion of the members of the Church over the correct teaching and the authoritative Teacher (the Vicar of Christ). We must discern very carefully who our true "shepherd" on this earth is by listening to his voice and make sure we are not following "the hireling" who will feed us to the wolves. The voice of Truth in continuity with all of the previous shepherds of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is the voice of the true Vicar of Christ. Any voice that contradicts the perennial teaching of all the previous shepherds is by definition the voice of "the hireling." It is one of the most important questions of all for Catholics.
Whoever changes the words of consecration is the false prophet. It is impossible for a true pope to be the false prophet, because a heretic, even after baptism, would not be in the body of the Church, and hence cannot be the pope. So let us wait and see. Many prophets have told us that the false prophet will deceive many by acting as a lamb. Until now nobody has touched the words of consecration. Whoever touches those has no authority to.
I think salvation may be simplified, somehow, in the game of "who has the hat?" in this game, the first person who talks has the hat(but only the person who begins the game knows this mechanism,everyone else is unaware and must figure out how the game works). So, the caholic who asks "who is saved?" must concern himself\herself with his own salvation,and avoid speculating avoid the salvation status of the rest of the people around him. (if this reasoning is wrong,I will accept any correction. I just associate the issue with this fun game i learned)
There are some great thinkers and debaters on the forum and this thread. I seem to be on the fence as I find myself liking posts on both sides of the argument. Your post xsantiagox reminds me of working out our salvation in fear and trembling and of the Christian and existential philosopher, Kierkegaard. I am aware that St. Paul specifically renounced the sophisticated arguments of philosophy. St. Paul said he preached nothing but Christ, and Him crucified. I do wonder if the protestant thinker Kierkegaard has anything to say to us Catholics, or would it be injurious to our Faith to read him? I was going to put this question on garabandal's very good thread that he started - the one about good books to bring to the Desert Island. Specifically, I was thinking of buying Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and his A Sickness Unto Death. But perhaps there is enough disorientation about without introducing any more into the mix. I wonder if anyone else has grappled with the thoughts of Kierkegaard? Perhaps he is just another thinker who exemplifies the errors and dangers of Protestantism.
