We have a very accurate historical precedent for what happens when Catholicism and the State come into open conflict. The most devout area of France, the Vendee, faced up to the enforcers of the French Revolution and many accepted martyrdom, God bless them. As Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago says, the next Archbishop of Chicago will die in prison and that Archbishop's successor will be executed. (I'm old, but best of luck to the rest of you - I hope to be praying for you in purgatory).
I think for some special trials in our life the good Lord permits us to get a peek to get set for them. In the lives of the saints ,over and over again we see them being warned of tehir impending deaths. Martyrdom is a very,very special gift surrounded by extrasordinary graces. I would expect it to be very common for folks to get the Divine tap on the shoulder before hand. Maybe many , many years before. I read a nice thing , when the English were ebing martyed in England, when the Pope met the young seminarians and priests in Rome getting ready to go back home to certain death he used to kneel before them for thier blessings considering them to be already saints. How lovely. The Popes were right. What an easy way to become a saint. Become a martyr. 'Greater love hath no man than this...'
Padraig...I have found the thought "dying for Christ" (as in being killed for being a follower of Christ)... to be the easy part...its the "living for Christ" that is so very daunting. I think if we try to live a Catholic Christian life in todays world...we experience a type of daily martyrdom that in my own thinking...is just as sacrificial...if not even more so. We have Catholic Christian souls now a days that suffer a daily martyrdom (dying to oneself) and if someone wants to kill me for being a Catholic Christian...then bring on the guillotine ( I know I didn't spell that right...you know that head chopper offer thingy)
A great attitude and also if we live for Christ we will die for Him. If we haven't lived for Him we will never die for Him.
Hey Steve, I was watching some of Ann's stuff and she is quite brilliant but I was a bit bothered in how much she trashes the church post Vatican 2 and even the Pope. It made me really sad when I saw her talk about the new mass as barely being accurate. At least she still believes for now that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist for the current mass.
I have watched a few of her videos recently and I think she is great and does not mince her words. She says 15 decades of the Rosary daily so I think she is to be trusted.
I agree i agree, Andy. I shut it off when she started trashing the bishops. I don't think it is good to talk that way.
How quickly people dismiss the idea of obedience. It is truly hard to obey something that you may not like or disagree with but this is the point. It is not suppose to be easy. When has anything about leading a Holy Life been easy? I love how at Garabandal that even Mary obeyed the wishes of the local priest. This is the Mother of God coming down from heaven for us and yet she humbled herself to obey the local authority. We still have so much to learn and understand. God bless the many nuns who take their vows very seriously. Thankfully we have them as an example.
And know that you will have my prayers for you Steve if you happen to get there before me. Hopefully my prayers will release you so we won't have to meet there.
Andy, that is very good to know. I am at an age where many of my relatives, friends and neighbours have died and this fact slowly brought it home to me that I should try to help the poor Holy Souls much more than I had done. I beseech God on their behalf in all my prayers, Masses, Adoration and sacrifices (few though the latter are). I recall reading some saint saying that looking after the body of those in need is a great thing but that their suffering, no matter how great, is nothing compared to the Holy Souls! Thanks again, Andy. To all readers: Please add the names of 'your' Holy Souls to the list for which Masses are offered daily on the following site. Don't deprive them of this FREE and efficacious relief in their distress. http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/search/label/Purgatorial Society
Some things I suppose are like training for a big football match. The martyrs are a bit like that. God gets them set for many years before hand , working in their souls. Some years before St Thomas Moore died he wrote a little tract praising and rejoicing in the burning by fire of some poor Protestants in the Netherlands. (then in the hands of quite cruel Spaniards0) So St Thomas had a quite hard heart like many of his contemporaries. But when he was in prison his own heart was melted by his impending death and this carried him to great sanctity. This is our own hope that our own pain, our own cross will carry us through, Pressed in the wine press of God's love. The badness crushed out. View attachment 1710
Steve, I have great hope that you will be spared Purgatory and go straight to your reward. Have Faith!
I just watched/listened to two of Anne's videos. Wow, she pulls no punches! I feel like a wimp after listening to her. I hope she is looking out for herself as I can see how she could be a target of those opposed to her. She reminds me of one of the ancient prophets who preached and warned but most would not listen. I can't argue with much of what she talks about.
Heidi, in Michael Voris's latest Irish video, he speaks of Bishop Willie Walsh who was a bishop for 15 years and who retired a couple of years ago. Immediately after his retirement, he gave an interview to an Irish newspaper in which he said that he was 'not at all sure that there is an afterlife'. Bishop Walsh is just one of dozens of bishops that I could quote who don't believe what the Church teaches, thought he is an extreme example (one hopes). I, for one, don't think that Ann is overstating the problems with the episcopate. It's up to brave souls like her to tell the bishops, who need to be told, to 'get their acts together'. She is worth listening to.
With regard to the battles to come and the bishops, this is an extract from the Rorate Caeli blog regarding Prof. de Mattei who has been dismissed from Radio Maria following a broadcast he made regarding the state of the Church today and the fact that heresy and cowardice in the face of the world is rampant among its bishops. The views of the bishops from several west European countries has been submitted to the Synod on the Family and has been published. What the submission contains is more extreme than I or anyone here seemed to expect. Here is the link and an extract: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/02/dictatorship-of-tolerance-at-radio.html#more The encounter between Cardinal [-elect Gerhard] Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, coordinator of the counsellors for the reforms of Pope Francis, has brought the confusion to its head. The traditional doctrine, according to Maradiaga, is not sufficient to offer “replies for the world of today.” It will be maintained, but there are “pastoral challenges” adapted to certain times which one cannot respond to “by authoritarianism and moralism” because this “is not the new evangelization.” The declarations of Cardinal Maradiaga were followed by the results of the survey on the pastoral challenges of the family promoted by the Pope for the Synod of Bishops of October 9-15. SIR (Service of religious information [the news agency of the Italian Episcopal Conference]) has released a summary of the first replies which have arrived from Central Europe. For the Belgian, Swiss, Luxembourger and German bishops, the Catholic faith is too rigid and does not correspond to the needs of the faithful. The Church should accept pre-marital cohabitation, recognise homosexual marriage, accept birth control and contraception, bless the second marriages of divorcees and permit them to receive the sacraments. If this is the road which one wishes to take, it is the moment to say that we are speaking of a road that leads to schism and heresy, because it would deny the divine and natural faith, which in its commandments not only affirms the indissolubility of matrimony, but also prohibits sexual acts outside of it, and even more so if they are against nature. The Church welcomes all those who repent of their sins and who propose to break with the moral disorder in which they find themselves, but can in no way justify the status of the sinner. It would be useless to affirm that the change would regard only the pastoral praxis and not the doctrine. If correspondence is lacking between the doctrine and the praxis, this means to say that it is the praxis which makes the doctrine as has already been happening, unfortunately, since the II Vatican Council until now.
But surely, the path will be clear for the remnant? Jesus will not abandon His Church, nor allow the gates of hell to prevail. The opinions of the Bishops are nothing against the Chair of Peter. In other words, if we follow the Pope we are okay. Am I taking on overly simplistic view? Or does Jesus like to keep it simple? He has to be clear to the illiterate as well as the educated. (Intelligence, as we all know, has nothing to do with being literate and educated).
Indeed they can take tmeselves to hell, but I for one am not going there with them. They're on their own. A heretic automatically excommunicates themselves. These people are Protestant, although I would not like to insult Protestants by descibing them as such. They are the children of their Father the devil.
