I appreciate the info. I am always so glad to find a true priest. It is a gift. Btw I prayed for you at Adoration Saturday and wanted to out your name in the prayer requests but is right out there for all eyes to see and I thought your "nom de plume" might look odd so I didn't! Later the Lord seemed to say to me "why didn't you just put S. I will know who you mean. (Humorous tone)" I felt pretty silly. I am back there again Monday morning and will set you right up. God bless.
Sigh. It's very sad. Beautiful Catholic Ireland over the centuries has given so much to the Faith and the Universal Church. I've never visited, so I can't say for sure. But the stats from one of the leading seminaries in Ireland makes for painful reading: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/soc...priests-at-maynooth-hits-record-low-1.3233625 "Just six men have begun training for the Catholic priesthood at St Patrick’s College Maynooth this autumn, believed to be the lowest number since its foundation in 1795. Twice as many students started training for ministry in the Church of Irelandthis month, with 12 admissions, including two women, to the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin. In total there are 34 students in training at the institute, 10 of them women. There are 41 men studying for priesthood in Maynooth. According to the 2016 census, 78 per cent of the Republic’s population, or 3.7 million people, declared themselves Roman Catholic. The census found the Republic’s Church of Ireland population was 126,4 00, or 3.4 per cent of the population. Pre-seminary year The six men admitted to Maynooth include two seminarians from Killaloediocese, and one each from Tuam, Cork & Ross, Elphin, and Kilmore." Much prayer is necessary. And evangelism efforts also. We cannot let baby-killing, sodomy-promoting secularism win. The Faith will prevail, the Saints have said. Let us consecrate Ireland to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, offer our lives and pray for God's blessings on the Emerald Isle to be renewed. St. Patrick the Apostle, pray for your and our beloved Ireland.
The only solution is a return to prayer - the Rosary. How often have you heard from the pulpit the call to prayer, fasting and reparation?
The sermon at the Mass I attended yesterday was relevant to the Gospel with respect to Our Lord's call to love our enemies, but the priest seemed very naive, talking about the 'hate crimes' beloved of the liberal left. He spoke of supposed hate against the Mohammedan immigrant community, although it's quite hard to think of very many specific examples, and also referred to the unquestionable increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes in Europe, but didn't seem to grasp the connection between the two. He spoke of all the persecutions of minorities that are occurring throughout the world, but one would never realise from what he said that most of these minorities are Christian. He's a good priest, but seems far too trusting of everything he hears in the mainstream media.
And she made very clear to Sister Lucy that God has endowed the Rosary with special power these days. I remember her quoting Our Lady to Fr Fuentes that there was no problem so hopeless that the Rosary couldn't solve it.
Oh dear. So naive. Shoe's on the other foot I fear. Antisemitism is violent in many places in Eutope perpetrated by anti Israel minorities.
For those who do not believe in what these symbols represent, it is hypocrisy to claim 'offense' at them. After all, if these symbols are meaningless, why be so het up about them? Yet, those for whom the symbols with 'no meaning' cause such apparent offense are to be taken into account, but the opinions of those for whom they have ultimate meaning and are a great source of hope and consolation are to count for nothing. Another example of where our progressive freedom-lovers are leading us is a headline today informing us that certain health 'experts' are advising the 'breathalysing' of pregnant women in case they might be smoking. Think about it: our masters will stick their noses into such private matters in virtue signalment of their concern for the baby's right to be healthy, but if the mother, rather than the alleged horror of smoking nicotine into the child's bloodstream, instead decides to murder it, they'll fall over one another to help her kill it.
Varadkar, who has more opinions on just about everything than even Pope Francis, has now rowed in. Again, the subtext is that the feelings of non-Catholics are the only things that matter-the opinions of Catholics do not matter a whit.
Pope Benedict said that one of the first order signs of saints in our times is that they should simply speak the truth. It doesn't sound much to ask but if a priest were to simply speak the truth in a homily in these present times he would risk being stoned to death by his own parishioners or launched into outer space on a moon mission by an angry Bishop. It reminds me of what happened to Jesus in His own Parish when he dared to speak the Truth. I have a certain sympathy with priests who tread a little carefully. But still the truth is the truth whatever. Preaching the truth to lies is part of the job description.
First officially recognised healing at Knock Shrine A woman who was instantaneously and cured completely of her paralysis and other debilitating side effects of multiple sclerosis has become the first officially recognised healing associated with Knock Shrine in Co Mayo. On Sunday, Bishop Francis Duffy of Ardagh & Clonmacnois announced the Church’s official recognition of Marion Carroll’s healing in September 1989 at the Marian shrine. “Without doubt there was a healing, a cure of the illness that beset Marion for several years,” Bishop Duffy told the congregation in Knock Basilica who were attending the annual Ardagh & Clonmacnois diocesan pilgrimage. It was on that very pilgrimage that Marion Carroll was stretchered into basilica thirty years previously in September 1989. The 68-year-old was in the congregation on Sunday along with her husband Jimmy, their two children and five grandchildren, to hear Bishop Duffy and Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam announce the Church’s decision. Addressing the congregation, Archbishop Michael Neary recalled how, “Thirty years ago on the occasion of this pilgrimage, Marion was healed here at Our Lady’s Shrine. Today the Church formally acknowledges that this healing does not admit of any medical explanation and joins in prayer, praise and thanksgiving to God.” First officially recognised healing at Knock Shrine
Given the stark silent warning that was the Apparition, the announcement in these times of the first official miracle might well be of very profound significance.
Brother Damian Brennan of Callan CBS has just died. May the Lord have mercy on him. He was only fifty-nine, and the last teaching Christian Brother in Ireland, I have heard. As a past pupil of the Brothers, this greatly saddens me. A most unjustly maligned body of men. I think God called him home early to take the order out of its misery and not to have him lingering on.
Answer to the title in the thread- "dying quickly" along with the soul of the country. In the area where I live there is a feeling of lifelessness, even though there are many people. It seems we have been destroyed spiritually and morally from both inside and outside. God help us all and please intervene, as these are definitely spiritually "brutal" times as Father Heileman of the spiritual warfare seminar recently said. We are being oppressed spiritually and in many other ways in our country, even the recent abortion figures speak for themselves and show that something is not right. It is definitely a very trying time for anyone who is a Catholic or a person of Faith here at the moment. Are other people on the forum in the country experiencing the same thing in terms of spiritual warfare? Would be interested to know.
It's fitting, albeit sadly that the Christian Brother movement comes to an end in Callan Co Kilkenny. For it was here in the 1800s that Edmund Rice, the founder of the movement was born in 1762. He became a very wealthy merchant by his mid 20s but sold all of his business assets and founded the Brothers in 1802 by opening a school for poor boys in Waterford City. The first Brothers were often called into action in what was called 'Hedge schools'. Back in the day Catholics were not allowed to be educated in schools which was but one of the conditions for being Catholic at a time when Ireland was indeed ruled with an iron, malevolent fist from the Protestant House of Lords in England. So, to get over this handicap, Irish children were often educated by Christian Brothers in dilapidated cattle sheds and fields, away from the prying eyes of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Protestant overlords. However, I believe the Christian Brother movement is still thriving in third world countries and in Asia thank GOD.
I am proud to have been educated by them. Even in my days, back in the '70's, they were thinning out and few were joining.
