No, you are right, Daria. I asked the Lord about this and all He told me was to have empathy for her{and He did put empathy in my heart for her} and to pray for her. Not an answer but His plain and simple wish regarding her. I will continue to keep her in my prayers.
I wonder how Ananias ans Sapphira felt after this? St Peter, our first Pope seemed a little lacking in empathy, through the power of God in striking them both dead? ? As a matter of fact he seems to terrified the entire Church. Little wonder. Was St Peter wrong in this? Ananias and Sapphira must have felt terrible in being struck dead . It doesn't seem very kind. In fact it seems a bit grim. Acts 5:1-11 Ananias and Sapphira 5 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. 3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” 5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.” 9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” 10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
Of course poor Ananias and Sapphira were deluded in what they were doing but St Peter doesn't seemed to have given, 'Feelings' and neighbourliness much room in the equation when he them both struck dead? Maybe a little lacking in empathy? But: “If your right hand causes you to sin cut it off”! Mark 9:43 Linda's locutions are very,very public, she has set up her very own website to do this. They are false. Here are a few scriptural quotes on false prophets, God has promised in Scripture that they will get, 'Swift destruction'. This seems to me a little lacking in empathy and neighbourliness. 2 Peter 2:1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. Revelation 20:10 And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Again a little lacking in, 'empathy', perhaps? But let me ask this. If St Peter by not showing empathy and kindness to Sapphira and Annanias he may have saved their souls or the souls of others from hell rather than showing empathy and kindness which may have led the couple and others to destruction through their example, which would have been the better option? The very same God who created heaven also created hell. The very same Christ who died for us on the Cross will sit on the Judgement seat of Justice over us all.
This has always been a problem Ive had about fighting. I don't understand why God would say all killing is wrong and atthe same time say we have to fight sometimes. I read somewere that there will be a great battle and the great monarch leads us and after first leading his troops to Mass and confession he leads them to the battle and they win this. Thats the problem for me. If the soldiers go to Mass and Confession they are in the state of Grace hopefully but then in the battle they commit grevious mortal sin by killing. I never understand how God reconciles the two. Someone put up the Church's teaching on it that there is just war. I think I will stick with that. it's the only thing that makes sense to me. Sometimes you have to fight and God is with you.
The teaching of the Church is not that killing is always a mortal sin. That is Absolute Pacifism. This is a heresy. http://www.ewtn.com/library/SCRIPTUR/PACIF.txt The Church is not, nor ever has been Absolute Pacifist. “It is the thesis of these essays,that modern liberal perfectionism actually distills moral perversity out of moral absolutes. It is unable to make significant distinctions between tyranny and freedom because it can find no democracy pure enough to deserve its devotion; and in any case it can find none which is not involved in conflict, in its effort to defend itself against tyranny........It is unable to distinguish between the peace of capitulation to tyranny and the peace of the Kingdom of God.” Reinhold Niebuhr http://www.crisismagazine.com/1984/why-the-church-is-not-pacifist
This is the difficulty when people who are not well grounded in the faith claim to be receiving locutions. MDM was such a type as well. How are they to discern where these voices are coming from? Surely they are going to believe the voice they hear, rather than a distant God (distant through their own choice) who speaks to them from scripture or the catechism of the Church, which to them is not a familiar voice. And so they are wide open to deception. That is a very frightening place to be. How does one come back from there to find the true voice of God? With much difficulty, I would imagine.
Yes. People talk about ,'Getting sucked in'. Off they go down a long dark tunnel, faster and faster till they find themselves in hell. Bad enough but they suck a lot of other folks down the tube with them. This is why St Peter, the First Pope struck dead Annanias and Sapphira (not being very empathetic, kind, neighbourly, nice , pleasant or whatever in the process) not just to save their souls from a really terrible hell/damnation but to save other souls who would follow their example. To save them going down , being sucked into the long black tube too. Sometimes a line in the sand must be drawn to save souls. St Peter knew this because he had been taught this by Jesus. But then Jesus was often not very empathetic Himself. Who ever said Christianity is about being, 'Nice'? Jesus was never nice.
Padraig/Adoremus Thank you for the above three posts. I can't believe it I understand them. They make perfect sense. Thank you both. I could never be a pacifist. I just hope that if and when the time comes that I will fight for what is right. You said before Padraig that God would send grace at that time. Thats why those who fight with the great monarch will not be lost.
I think courage is never about not being afraid, but about doing what is what even though we are are afraid. I would never be concerned about those who wonder how they will act. The people I would be most concerned about are those who are too sure, in advance how they will act. We are all so deeply dependent on the grace of God.
Besides some of Linda's heretical messages (although most were very good), the other thing that raised a red flag for me was her complete satisfaction to being ignorant of the faith. For the children at Fatima or Garabandal to be ignorant of many teachings of the faith is understandable with lack of age and catechesis at that time. Linda had neither excuse. She made it very clear that she did not know the faith well and was content in her ignorance of it, because her 'god' messages were enough for her to follow. And really, who is her confessor? What were his qualifications to discern her messages? He surely is not ignorant of the faith, but had no problem with the messages that we first brought up and she shared with him. Linda's attempt to explain them again after consulting with her spiritual director was a miserable failure as well, as they did not make theological sense the second stab at it either. I prayed my rosary for her last night and I am planning on praying for her at Mass this morning. She seemed like a very pleasant person and Glenn attested to the when he met her. I truly hope she will seek out a holy faithful priest who can help her out. Thanks again padraig for doing the right thing.
On thinking back on my conversation with her, I was shocked to hear she didn't know who Padre Pio was ! Now that I look back ,what shocked me more is I wanted to educate her about Saint Pio and she refused ! I even tried to tell the famous story of how Pio is recorded having bi-located to our town of Massapequa, and curing a man with cancer, she still didn't want to know about him ! How could I have been so blind ?
What clinched it for me also was when she wasn't interested in reading the Old Testament. After my conversion/apparition, I hungered so much to get to know Jesus, to know His life, to know His religion, to know as much about Him as possible. I started at the beginning and hardly came up for air! Oh the beauty of understanding how God comunicated with and helped His creation get to know Him, His likes, His dislikes. The Old testament really helped me to understand the passover sacrafice, then the sacrafice of Jesus later, amongst other very important things. It brought me back to the Catholic church because the old testament fulfilled time until the Christ was born. Just the prophecies about Jesus were astounding in number! After I read it through almost 3 times from start to finish, which took me a year, I started to devour the Catachism. NO other entity or feeling on earth could give me the desire for that, only God. When I beg my worldy family to read it, they give the exact same answer Linda did...."too many begots and begets, too hard to understand". I think it should be the required reading of all Christians, period.
Well 24 hours is a long time on this board! Since my last post on this thread, I have watched with increasing concern GMFU's postings. I no longer believed she was a true visionary. I was busy, and dipped in and out of reading this thread over the last few days, noting Fatima's gently sceptical postings. Yesterday morning I actually began a pm to you Fatima, outlining my concerns, but it felt like 'talking behind Linda's back' and had my mind made up to put the concerns right here in the open on the forum when I had to be away from home last night. In the interim, I see you all have sussed she is false, God help her! Prayers for you Linda if you are reading this. One of the things I was writing to Fatima about was this: "Eight journals - the equivalent of approximately 1500 typed pages have been reviewed by Monsignor Patrick from Our Lady of Lourdes here in Massapequa and reviewed to a lesser extent (because they are not true theologians) by Fr. Frank - our Pastor at Maria Regina and Fr. Lawrence, of the same Parish. In addition, I have a very humble and spiritual priest in Mexico (Chihuahua) and another in Texas who read them daily, including the one message that has put everyone's back up." Quite apart from the irritated tone, which had me worried, I looked up the list of pastors at these parishes - there is no mention of a Monsignor Patrick at Our Lady of Lourdes: http://www.mychurchandtown.com/mct/parishes/index.asp?pid=RC077 nor a Fr Frank or Fr Lawrence at Maria Regina: http://www.mychurchandtown.com/mct/parishes/index.asp?pid=RC111 unless I'm missing something? Her style of language keeps chopping and changing too, among many other concerns. Prayers for you Linda. I wouldn't be half as quick to notice this stuff but for the horror of what's happening with MDM.
I did see Fr. Frank and Lawrence and the other church mentioned had a Mon James P. so maybe Patrick? Don't know for sure. http://www.mariaregina.com/index.php/about-us/pastoral-team
Just to clarify the 3 priests names . There is a " Monsignor Patrick " at Our Lady of Lourdes (this is my prior parish ). He is a visiting summer priest (from one of the African Nations) and this is his last week there ,then he is being reassigned somewhere. The church web site mentioned by Andy3 is the actual church web site :http://www.mariaregina.com/index.php/about-us/pastoral-team and seems to be updated in 2013 and shows both names. The other may be just an older posting from an unofficial informational site.
I happened to notice that nothing new has been posted since Friday which is rather uncharacteristic. I have continued to pray for Linda and will continue to pray for her.
