I have actually found both a hardening of hearts by those who refuse to accept the Truth and also at the same time many people I know who showed little to no interest in God suddenly becoming interested and asking questions the past year or so. Maybe a separation of the wheat from the chaff or a last outpouring of grace?
Yes interesting isn't it? I have a hunch that a great harvest is coming. May God have Mercy on us all.
For me the hardening became apparent with the constant barrage of insults and bullying Pope Francis heaped upon traditional/orthodox catholics.
Oh Pic I really try hard to be charitable, but it is very difficult when we are called such names. Personally I think that hurling rude invectives is below the Vicar of Christ. And why are they hurled at faithful Catholics and almost no one else? In politics it would be called "Alienating your base." But what do I know? I am just a rigid, self-absorbed promethean neo-pelagian. Oh and I'm also a pervert because I don't subscribe to the left-wing view of climate change.
I don't buy into the climate change malarkey either. But am to old to qualify for perversion. We used to be told by the older and wiser generation many moons ago, that when man rebels against God, nature rebels against man. Behold the old proverb is unfolding all around us, even as we speak folks. So the climate will continue to rebel along with nature until man repents and turns back to God. It is God Who is the Master and Author of nature and the climate. Pray for the poor old Pope, it looks like he could get his block knocked off with his outspoken political remarks on his latest trip.
As to a hardening of heart, I can often spot demons at work manipulating people. They of course are totally unaware of this and celebrate themselves as free agents. But they are not, they are slaves. This of course has always been true. But is very,very much to the forefront now. When people become really frightened this will all call come wide out in the open.
I have not witnessed so much of hardening of the heart, but rather darkening of the mind. People are not so much as against God as they are for the world. The real hardness of the heart towards God will come after the Warning for those who love the world more than God.
I remember years ago in the monastery a deputation of young monk turned up in front of me as I was eating breakfast. I was surprised at this as a Cistercian Monastery is not a place for chit chat. For instance there is no official recreation period and talking is far from encouraged. At that time I was probably one of the least talkative in the monastery and kept myself to myself. I kept myself busy praying every moment in front of the Blessed Sacrament still very much on a kind of spiritual high some years after my conversion. The young monks had a long list of my faults; there semed to be very , very many of them and were there to set me straight about them As they began to rhyme them off I noticed one of them hovering about in the back ground smiling and realised at once that though others were speaking he himself was the source of all the fuss. One particular young man came forward and in a state of high indignation began to gave vent to his anger. He was a very,very good young person, just laid astray. Instead of answering his questions and accusations I began replying and talking to the silent young man who I knew was the source of it all standing behind them. They were confused by this and asked me why I was doing so. I told them that it was because although they were speaking, he was their voice. They turned round to stare at him and at once melted away. We were both left alone then he too smiled shrugged and walked away. All these years later I wonder if he too realised in his turn that he was being used by something else to do as he did that morning. A few days in work one of the supervisors became very angry and nasty towards me. I felt a little sorry for him and the more nasty he became the nicer I became towards me. Finally he burst out and said, 'Why are you so happy all the time?!!' I think he was exasperated that I was not dancing the dance with him. That I was not letting him pull my strings by responding to him in the manner he was acting to me. Because he was nasty it was expected I was nasty back. Like the young monk all those years ago I understood he was not acting and speaking for himself but for a much darker other who pulled his strings and wished, through him to pull mine. But Jesus teaches us to break those strings. I think often life is like that and if we listen we can hear the sound of music in the background causing people to dance as they will. Often times the music is very beautiful and people like Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters dance to it. Sometimes the music of loud and discordant and people like those who want abortion jump about to that. It is important to know who the music maker is before we get up to dance.
I like this padraig, thank you. It happens seldom for me but I would never have any tolerance and charity to face adversity with peace were it not for Grace that I have nothing to do with. I was reading an archived thread the other day from another site and it was supposedly a Rothschild family member several years back who had for some reason decided to start a thread and answer any question that one could muster for them. What struck me about the rather lengthy exchanges (this took place over a matter of a year) was the knowledge of the Bible as well as the cold and calculating way in which they used it and their knowledge of natural law to find ways to ridicule every single poster to the thread. It was done in a way in which was very very cold. In spite of the age of it and the rather dubious chance of it actually being real whoever was behind it was certainly cunning. Also, it brought to mind the "having a form of Godliness but denying it's power" . For some of the things which they spoke of were clearly spiritual principles which were true. May God have mercy on us all.
I notice one thing about people who Dance to the Music of this World (which is the music of the Lord of this World) that the one thing they all claim is that they are Free. That the music they Dance to is their own and their own choice. Yet if you observe their dancing you can quickly see that they all Dance to the same beat. They all support the murder of unborn babies. They support the break up of marriage in Divorce. They all support sexual immorality and perversion and so. ..they all have the same thoughts , coming from the same source. As with humans so too with demons. They all claim the Freedom of not serving God, yet they all end up as slaves to Lucifer, who is their Lord in Hell. Lucifer himself is least Free of all as he lies bound in chains in the Great Abyss.
Very insightful. And illuminating —the image of the Dance is a good one . I think when hostility comes at us from someone and we react as Jesustells us by returning kindness for Meanness it undoes the attacker and disarms the force behind the attack. More and more I see the wisdom of God in every word of scripture. These poor souls are captives in dark dungeons and they don’t know it. Again the great wisdom of Jesus: he who commits sin is a slave of sin. The battle cry of “I’m free. I can do what I want” is the saddest hollow echo in the universe. The only true freedom is “the glorious freedom of the sons of God.”
Yes may he have mercy on us. On my way in to work today, I felt like I am with Jesus suffering during the scourging, I asked "how long oh Lord".
It is interesting that suffering is anathema, yet it is through suffering that I was gathered up. These powers which serve to enslave us, the ones who use our own passions and desires that is, are the same. It seems that they however wish to use our suffering for their own ends. This is why I believe it is so important to offer up all these things each day to Our Lord as well as pray for mastery over our passions and desires for the things of this world. This world is not our home. It is a struggle to do our best to understand this and dedicate our efforts toward that which is pleasing to God. Even though we must live in this world but for a short time. I have been thinking a lot lately about the natural law. This law is that which rules over us physically while we are here and yet so many people have not even been taught about it. Simple things such as that we reap as we sow. Yet, God, so many times shows us that he can and will use that which does not afford the natural law. He will raise up the weak and throw down the strong.
There is a story I read of Padre Pio I read a few days ago. One time a very well dressed , well spoken, refined gentleman visited Padre Pio in his confessional. he began to confess the most horrendous sins imaginable. When the saint began to reproach this stranger for this the man began to put forward the most reasonable and intelligent arguments forward in a very calm articulate fashion about why these dreadful things were in fact perfectly reasonable and in fact not really sins at all. The more Padre Pio protested the more horrendous the sins the guy placed forward. So good were this amns arguments that Padre Pio began to feel as if he was beginning to loose his own moral footing in the face of them. However he fel an inner warning and asked the man to say , 'Praised be Jesus and Mary!' and at that the man vanished leaving a terrible odour behind. In a way the entire world is like this now. They have the most wonderful arguments for doing the most terrible things. So much so that we too loose our moral footing in the face of them. It is like an avalanche of debauchery. I was reading on an American friends facebook page comments about the forthcoming marriage of Prince Harry to the American divorcee Meghan Merckle. This lady on whose facebook page this is a very good devout Catholic. Yet both herself and her friends were commenting how wonderful if all was. I left a comment that they were both entering an adulterous relationship , that God could never bless such an abomination and the I gave the whole ugly buisness five years at the outside to last. Yet you know there was not a single comment from anyone , anyone at all to condemn this travesty. Not even , God help us from within the catholic Church in England. How far we have come. Yet the last time something like this happened with another American divorcee there was moral outroar everywhere and it brought the perpetrator to loose the Crown.
Padraig, this is how I felt when former POTUS Obama spoke of Abortion as a great benefit to women. His facile words made abortion into a good, and being against abortion, as an evil. I always crossed myself when I see his visiage anywhere. Well, recently the head of the Church of England, Webley (sp) was saying that Christians had to accept the new norms and definition of the modern family. I thought, does he mean giving up the Ten Commandments? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...hes-embrace-modern-familes.html#ixzz4zRi8WUgp
