You have presented a diagnosis of our current situation with surgical precision. Most excellent post.
We should have a Catholic competition, world wide. I am sure more people would tune into it. It would probably get a lot more converts too.
I heard a story about a man who saw a ghost a few years ago, a ghost or a demon. He and his friends were science students and total atheists . They still are. They were put in a haunted room at Queens University at a place called Alan Brook Hall were I think a student killed himself or was murdered some time before. This student turned up as a ghost to the guy and nearly scared him to death, He said it was pure evil and wanted to kill him The next night there was the most terrific banging at his door but the second he answered it all went silent and no one was there. He told his atheism friend who admitted he gad seen his books floating in the air The thing is they were and remain total atheists. They saw the supernatural with their own eyes and ears, they even smelt if, felt it. Still they remain atheists Go figure
Hardened hearts seem to resist all efforts to give them truth. Our Lord put it this way to St Margaret Mary Alacoque: " pray for all faithless and hardened hearts who resist the impulse of My Grace."
It was exactly the same with Jesus He rose the dead to life before their very eyes. Still they would not believe.
Those words He spoke to the Pharisees in the parable of Lazarus and Dives: "even if a man came back from the dead they still would not believe." There was a famous atheist scientist who saw first hand a miraculous healing at Lourdes--and yet he still refused to accept it. I think Archbishop Sheen told of it.
Not only did they see the resurrection but they also saw all of His miracles while He was still alive. If I was a pharisee, and saw a man performing miracles who claims to be the Son of God, I would at the very least ask some questions. Especially considering that my people had been waiting for the coming of the Messiah. Instead they saw Him as a threat, so they plotted against him at every opportunity. So what was actually going on with them? Jesus tells us in the parable of the vineyard. They wanted to take control of the vineyard by killing Jesus. They knew he was the Son of God and killed Him for that reason. Why would they think they could take the vineyard from the Son of it's Creator? I believe Ezekiel 8 gives us a clue, it is my impression many pharisees worshiped God publicly but did evil privately. I think it is the same today.
How beautiful in its simplicity is a humble genuflection before the Lord of Lords present in the Blessed Sacrament. We just celebrated His Ascension into Glory, yet Jesus is the personification of humility, and we respond not with pride but grateful awe and the bending of our knees! Far more power in this lowly gesture than all the boasting of those at Eurovision. Who is like unto Thee O Lord? There is none. Philippians 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. At the Final Judgment, no matter one's ultimate destiny, every knee shall bend before the King of Kings.
Yes it was the French writer and atheist, 'Freethinker', Emily Zola. I suppose the closest we would get in them far off days to a, 'Woke Warrior' He travelled down on a train from Paris to Lourdes and on board was a humble house maid who had a terrible face cancer. She had just a big hole were here poor face should have been Zola's big plan was to ridicule Lourdes and , 'Prove', it to be a fraud. So anyway he latched on to this poor woman as a big example to show how poor people were taken in by false hopes As it turned out the poor girl went into the Lourdes bath with a hole were her face had been and came out with it good as knew. Maybe the biggest , certainly the most dramatic cure I ever heard of there Zola had to drop his plans to ridicule Lourdes. He saw the girls new face with his own two eyes and could closely examine it. Also he had ample chance to see the stomach ch6rning septic foul smelling crater that had been there before. Zola was challenged to explain the miracle but admitted he could not. Nevertheless he remained a total atheists till his death thevpoor man.
I think there was a recent reading at Mass from St John. He says basically that those who believe in Christ will be saved and those who do not believe will not. He was quite black and white about this. Modern progressive Catholics would fall in a faint about rhus and say it cannot be so but it is written in Scripture there in black and white. The Church confirmed this at the Council of Trent with its teaching that outside the Church there us no Salvation. John 14:6
I think God allows Chastisements not only as a just punishment but a means of Purification . I suspect the main reason Ireland fell was simply because she got rich and because she became rich she became proud and thought she no longer needed God . When the time comes and she becomes very poor again she will grow once again humble and know her need for Him again. But even so there are many, many good Catholic people here, I see it every day at Mass But I have to say they are very, very poorly served by their Bishops Very, very, very poorly served indeed
