One can offer their soul to God as a victim soul....I believe... Be careful of what you ask for. Many souls are saved through a victims souls sufferings...and that is the whole point.
Yes I agree many souls are saved through a victim souls suffering. I am reading Luisa Piccarretta at the moment, and one can see clearly that God chose her from eternity as a victim soul. But as we know God has a plan for our life and I wonder is it His will that we offer our sufferings instead of praying in faith for healing. Do we do this because of a lack of trust that we are truly loved by God? Perhaps we don't feel holy enough or good enough for Him to heal us? Is it easier to offer our sufferings than to truly believe that we would do what he did and more? These are questions I ponder. According to John Gillespie we slap Jesus in the face everytime we refuse to believe his promises eg that he came so we would have life to the full. Just to give a little of his life, he had an unoperable hip condition where two bones were constantly rubbing off each other, he also worked on the building sites which wrecked his back, knees and other joints. He suffered this pain for 15 years because as he said himself he was praying wrong, he was saying devotional prayer, ie rosaries, novenas and offering it up etc instead of praying in faith and rebuking it in Jesus' name. And it was only when he started praying in faith that he was miraculously healed of all his pain and the Lord also blessed him with all of the gifts of the Spirit.
I don't mean any disrespect, but parts of what Gillespie describes sounds very protestant. The idea that Rosaries and Novenas are praying "wrong" is not a Catholic idea. It is true they are only one type of prayer, but they are not wrong. Also God does not always want us to have a "full life" in the physical sense but spiritually. Some of the greatest saints had numerous physical maladies. The Cure D'Ars for example had horrible arthritis, toothaches, among many other things. St. Francis was sickly often and went blind at the end. God sends us physical problems so that we may join with him in a life of joyous suffering. He sometimes will also heal people miraculously if it will be spiritually beneficial to them or those around them to see the power of God, but I think ideally He would want us to accept anything that came our way humbly and to offer it up.
I believe that we can in faith pray for healing....but in the end, we must submit ourselves to His holy will....and that maybe in and of itself a willingness to be a victim soul...that you open your will to His will, even if that results in suffering.
Perhaps Gillespie chose the wrong words but what I understood from him was that the novenas etc were wrong in the sense that he was not praying in faith and rebuking the sickness. And yes I agree that God would want us to accept anything that comes our way but also to seek healing, there is often a period between the asking and the receiving that we can offer it up. But I don't believe God will send sickness. At the moment I have 2 life threatening illnesses, I am praying in faith for them to be healed, and in the meantime I offer all the discomfort etc to him.
BC...Then you are submitting to His Divine Will...praying and accepting. Also, sorry for your illnesses...only those actually suffering themselves would understand how very hard living with it is...... You are walking the walk...a whole lot different than just talking the talk.
I am sorry to hear of your difficulties. I will pray for you. I think God allows all "bad" things for a reason. The more serious it is, the more the chance to grow close to God.
Thanks Beth B and Praetorian for your prayers. The Lord healed me of another serious illness some years ago that I had from childhood, one which I was told by people of prayer was my cross, and to offer it up, embrace it etc, and which I expected to have for life and which was progressively getting worse and would inevitably end in suicide. One day I was reading the bible and felt prompted to read Isaiah 53:5, the words literally jumped off the page and I was healed on the spot. This word was confirmed the same day by an unknown priest who quoted the same verse to me. I didn't even speak to him. Also that evening I was out driving and chap I knew overtook me on the road, of course I couldn't let him go so I overtook him, this little game went on a while until around a corner there was a police speed checkpoint, we were both pulled over and I got a fine while he got off because he knew the officer. I was more than a little annoyed at this, not having got the fine because I deserved it, but the fact that my friend had got off. A while later when I had calmed down I felt the Holy Spirit say to me that it was things like this that were my crosses in life, ie annoyances and forgiveness issues etc. But not the awful illness I had endured for approx. 25 years. We are meant to grow under our crosses, not be buried by them.
I agree BC....we anguish over our sufferings so much...for so long....and if we accept it and embrace it, we grow through it. It actually becomes a great grace that purifies us and draws us close to God. It is the side of suffering that is seldom appreciated or even recognized by the world, but is salvation to so many.
We have no choice really but to accept where we are at, only then can we move on and grow through it. If we don't accept, we become bitter and resentful. But in the case of sickness, I find out as much as possible about the causes of it, and how it would affect the organs, cells, bloodlines etc. Also I choose to forgive anyone associated with the sickness, perhaps in my family tree. I take authority over the sickness in Jesus name and rebuke it, and also rebuke the various ways evil can affect the organs etc. Then I pray God's healing power of renewal and restoration into all the various aspects of the sickness. I usually only ask the Lord once for healing, then I continually praise and thank Him that He will be glorified through it.. But I frequently do a prayer of rebuking as I feel led and pray healing into those areas. I pray in expectant faith, meaning if I don't receive it today I will expect it tomorrow and so on.. I have also found praying in tongues to be very beneficial as the Lord will sometimes show me some other thread I need to untangle. I firmly believe my prayer in faith is answered in heaven as soon as I ask, but it's all the rubbish accumulated from sin here below that needs to be sorted and brought to the foot of the cross that delays the healing process. And yes you are right, it does become a great grace of purification and closeness to God but only if we allow it. Everything is dependent on our free will. And in the time between asking and receiving I try to accept it and offer it through Our Lady to Jesus. She will see that nothing is wasted.
Beautiful BC...can you just imagine how beautiful your eternity will be when you give it all to Him,...as it seems you have. He will restore it all a hundred fold! When you get time, you might like to watch this video of Marino Restrepro on how things look from the other side...he actually saw it! It's so good! God bless,
As far as I am concerned, you should not comment (especially a negative one about Garabandal) unless you have read the books that have been written concerning Garabandal. I was very skeptical of Garabandal until I read several books. The Garabandal apparitions is one of the reasons that have made me come back from being a sleeping Catholic. By the way, Maria Saraco at here presentations, gives out free rosaries that have missals attached to them that have been kissed from the Virgin.
Hi Carmel - I too offer up my spinal pain - and some days feel less than cheerful - I'll keep you in my prayers too, gentle hug
Someone sent me a medal kissed by Our Lady with a certificate a couple of years back. I had it framed and hanging on my wall. A proud possession. I don't pay enoguh attention to it, I should be touching it and bessing myself with it every day. Someone also sent me some cotton lumps that had been pressed to a picture of Our Lady that wept oil. They wept oil for months and I used to belss myself every day with it. Then my dog ,quite wickedly jumpedup and ate them all. However I found some more I had left over hidden away in a drawer. I took them out put them in a glass bowl and stare at them from time to time , still no more oil. My fault, I guess for treating them with more respect. When I visted San Giovanni Rotundo some years ago I stayed with a wonderful Italian family who bith worked at Padre Pio's Monastery. The mothers brother was a Cardiac surgeon who gave me a five star tour of the hospital. When I was leaving they gave me actual pieces from the wax seal used on St Padre Pio's coffin. A most prized possession. True first class relics of the very finest , rarest sort. I lent them to a woman who had terminal cancer. She scoffed that they really were in Padre Pio's coffin and dumped them in a bin. Grrrrrrrrrrr . Black smoke still comes out my ears when I think of this. I still get miffed. I think my lesson is , when you get something good like this, treat it with respect. Use it right or loose it.
I am very, very uneasy about people charging money for these things. The people who take the money are, of course, the most guilty. But the people who give them money encourage them. Our Blessed Mother did not come down from Heaven to have objects she Blessed be charged for. 2121 Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things. To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter responded: "Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God's gift with money!" Peter thus held to the words of Jesus: "You received without pay, give without pay." It is impossible to appropriate to oneself spiritual goods and behave toward them as their owner or master, for they have their source in God. One can receive them only from him, without payment.
I am not happy with relics being advertised or sold on the Forum. Either publically or through PM's. Please desist at once. This makes me angry. Matthew 21:13 He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
$25 for a page of a Missal said to have been blessed by Our Lady. Now say there are 500 pages on this Missal. That's 500 times $25 = $12,500 per missal. A second hand Missal that may cost , what, $50 on the open market? It might be alright to do this if the only charge was for posting and packing and if the recipient was given the option of making a totally voluntary contribution to support of a charity or Catholic undertaking. Otherwise no. Money always ends up poisoning wells. I think the person doing this should be instinctively aware of this, their conscience should warn them.
