Charlie Johnston.

"Nothing about you matters less to posterity than whether you gained social acceptance in your lifetime." Robert Brault

This is one great quipper - if you need a one liner lift see Robert Brault
http://rbrault.blogspot.ie/

 

Thanks for the correction and further insight Charlie.
Garabandal seems to have made the same point above.


I hadn't actually noticed your line "There are those who impose mystical significance on everything, constantly gilding the lily of God’s work. They mean well, but they have gilded so much that outsiders see all gilding and no lily – and reasonably conclude this is of man’s making, not God’s. Too much mystical overlays have obscured the lily for those who do not already believe. Trust me, God is not pleased about this."

This is pretty much the point I was trying to make but you've put it far more eloquently than myself.

And of course the BOTH AND type "miracles" ("wonders" is prob a technically more accurate word) are just as much miracles to believers.
Everyday is full of them for those who have the eyes for it.

And those "eyes" don't have to be "religious" eyes - it seems to me that one simply has to have a heart open to Life being much bigger than our small understanding of it.
Call it serendipity, synchronicity or whatever - its experienced by the secular and "religious" alike.
We Christian's call it Providence, our daily bread, and are privileged (we believe) to know the true meaning and Source of these things.

 

At conception... every moment of our existence can be mystical. If it is all guided by Holy Spirit.

Quoting a previous post even the Mundane can be a mystical experience if you live it in faith.

It just depends on your starting point. You starting point is nature itself, my starting point is in The faith that Our Lord Jesus Christ is Our Lord and Savior. The whole world changes once you believe.

May Gods Will be Done

 

I saw a cornflower growing in my brother's field today.
I've never in my life seen one in his fields.
I think it was a miracle - just for me - don't care how anyone explains it

 

Oh, I wasn't contradicting you Charlie, I simply was telling you what I tell my kids. I agree with you. Its a very prideful thing to think that everyone has to be exactly like us. Today I actually was thinking about the lovely black woman on the movie "The Stand" by Stephen King. I do not usually read or watch his stuff, but years ago my sister said I HAD to read the book, and it truly is one of my favorites! The battle between good and evil. The old black woman in book is sitting on a porch in Iowa, or Missouri in an old farm house. Sitting and praying for people to come to her.

It is an interesting scenario that all the characters from all over the U.S. start hearing her voice or seeing her in their dreams and as they meet each other they start telling others about her and it becomes 'their quest' to go to her because she is such a prayer warrior and evil can't seem to touch her. It made me want to be like her. Tough as nails, peaceful and sure as the day is long that Christ will intervene and take care of business and she knew her mission...pray and intercede and wait until she was told what to do next....

 

LOL Donna, I know exactly what you mean!

 

Charlie, that is too funny!

 

Gotcha. Funny, Stephen King is one of my favorite authors. He is one that I consider, unconsciously, prophetic. Many of his books enter into the fundamental disorders of our times in deep metaphorical ways. The Stand is one of my favorites, as well. His lifelong struggles with religion - and particularly Catholicism - make for incredible reading. His characters are often dismissive or even contemptuous of Catholicism...but you can feel it looming like a stubborn monolith in front of him - and often when things get really dicey in his stories, it is ultimately a priest or Catholic that makes a huge sacrifice to save others or, save the day. If you read a lot of literature from the last century, you will find an astonishing amount of unconsciously Christian allegory - often by lamentable reprobates. Of course, C.S. Lewis Narnia Series and J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series were conscious Christian allegory. But if you look at recent popular series, much of King's work incorporates it; the Star Wars series (the original three - not the later more politicized add-ons) had heavy doses of it...and perhaps most surprising of all, the Harry Potter series became in incredible epic tale of good vs. evil - and in the last book, J.R. Rowling, the author, made the Christian imagery completely overt. I thought it was a clever scheme - get the regular world so absorbed in the whole thing that they dare not protest when the last book was overt Christian allegory. But I find no evidence of a deep faith in reading about Rowling, so I conditionally put her in the unconscious category. But it has been fascinating to see such diverse characters all veering towards a decisive battle between good and evil in art at this time.

 

I am going to change the subject abruptly Charlie because I just remembered a question I was going to ask you earlier today!
When our lady in her apparitions talks about the 'Remnant', we must not assume it is us, like bragging like we are some elitist group; although we are the ones listening right now, and we are the ones consecrating ourselves and that entails a close mother/child relationship; there are so many that are journeying into the 'fold' and at any moment, we could fall out of the 'fold'.

You have touched on the not judging and the wide array of souls being called. Can you give any more insight into this. Has your angel shown you the roles of those who have been called 'first', or does it matter? When I say first, I mean those who literally for years have been preparing and praying and knowing what is coming compared to those who will be called at the last minute. Does that make sense? Are we the teachers? (we know time is short). Will souls be infused with knowledge and preternatural gifts? You know your mission/role.

Also, have you been able to see dimensionally? Malachi Martin spoke of many dimensions. I know someone who sees eight dimensions and regularly speaks to a priest who is a mystic about the things they see. Many beings, good and bad, ready for battle. What beings besides guardian angels have you seen?

 

I'm so glad you wrote this MS7. When I read messages addressed to the "remnant", I always think to myself..."I hope that I am one of them". Someone once told me that thinking this way is showing lack of faith because anyone drawn to read the messages and who follows Our Lady is obviously part of the remnant. So I don't know, am I showing a lack of faith? I guess I think more along the lines of "I hope that I'm worthy to be counted among the remnant in the long run" because, although I do most of what Our Lady asks, I am also aware that I could be doing much more. I read in a message somewhere, I forget from whom, Jesus said "those of you who consider yourselves my remnant..." and I wondered then if he could be talking to me.

 

I pray the rosary daily with my family. I have worn the Miraculous medal and the Brown Scapular of our Lady of Mt. Carmel for decades. I have made various consecrations to our Lady. I now have a deep devotion to the Flame of Love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is just a few outward/inward signs of my devotion to Mary. If I am not a remnant of our Lady then I am cluelsess as to what it takes. If being a disciple of the Lord means to follow his will, then I assume being a remnant means doing the will of God through Mary.

 

One of our priests at daily Mass always calls us the remnant so I will take it A lot of responsibility comes with the title- it is kind of like John and James' mom asking if they can sit at the right hand of Jesus in His Kingdom. Do we really know what we are asking?

 

As we can do nothing good on our own, you (fatima) are simply complying with the graces Our Lady is giving you (in union with her spouse, the Holy Spirit). Be confident that if you do these things out of love and devotion - you are in her hands. Be confident! Do not doubt!

 

Elizabeth Scalia, a wise woman and great Catholic writer wrote this:

A smaller, more fervent church is where we are headed. I have no doubt that there will be a “schism” within the next few decades that will find a “Catholic Church of America” (or, perhaps, “AmeriCatholic”) formed which will look quite a lot like the Church of England or the Anglican church – rites, rituals, “sacraments” etc, and it will even have the imprimatur of the government insofar as it may – and it will be a church that the majority flock to; it will be seen by many the “victory” over that stuffy old, stubborn Church of Rome – people will go on Oprah and talk about “I always loved God but I never felt accepted, but this enlightened American Catholic Church tells me what I need to hear, that God loves me and that divorce, abortion and all that stuff doesn’t matter as long as I am a good person, and I AM a good person, I AM, and now I am accepted, Oprah, and (weep weep) I feel like God finally makes sense in the world!”
“That’s right,” Oprah will declare, “there is no sin, except the sinfulness of not loving the self! God doesn’t make junk!”

Applause, applause. The only ideal that matters is the one that makes you happy and doesn’t challenge the status quo.

Quite different from what Archbishop Romero says above.

And the Church of Rome will probably be sued into seeming non-existance, too, for one political point after another. The church will be declared in extremis. And that is when the remnant will kick in.

There will always be a remnant.

The Remnant is much deeper than any movement, and it will surface on its own – full of surprising and surprised people – in due time, when it must, and that may be soon, but neither you nor I know the day or hour. The thing about remnants is that they identify themselves after a carpet has been laid or a robe has been cut, not before.

Remnants do not stop a construct from happening…they survive it.

There will always be a remnant..."

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/03/11/the-coming-catholic-church-of-america/

 

Now here is wisdom, Mama S (hope you don't mind if I call you that here). We like to assume we are the "Elect," but we can no more know that with certainty than we can whether we are in a state of grace. The Sanhedrin, Pharisees and Saducees were equally certain that they were the "Elect" when Jesus came. It enraged them that this brilliant, but untutored itinerant carpenter did not congratulate them on their piety and knowledge, but largely presumed to correct their many errors. Even worse, He had the smell of disrepute about Him - both a drunkard and a glutton in their eyes. And he trolled the ancient equivalents of skid row, biker bars and red light districts to fill the ranks of His followers.

Many of us will be teachers; all of us will be taught. I have been shown that there are many surprises in store - modern Pauls who had been profound enemies of the faith who become great champions of it. On the darker side, there will be some we put our confidence in who will faint - or go apostate - at the first real whiff of gunpowder (both spiritually and literally). The Storm will not so much change hearts as reveal them.

I don't like to go into detail about the things I am shown for it is so indescribable, though I slogged through it once as best I could in a letter at the behest of one of my priests. The thing is, it is like trying to describe the color, yellow, to a man who is congenitally blind. You can describe lemons, sunlight, dandelions and maybe help him get a little of the sense of it - but he can never really grasp it because he has no experience of color at all.

I have thought a lot that heaven is so much more real, thicker, more substantial than here that this world is almost as fragile as if it were made of cunningly constructed ashes. I think sometimes that is why God is sparing in sending us direct heavenly visitors - even under the best of cases, we are too fragile to bear it long. I know after a visit of more than a few minutes, I am exhausted - no matter how pleasant and uplifting the visit is. Sometimes I have to stay quiet for days.

My most frequent visitors are Gabriel, Our Lady and Our Lord. There are others, but I have been instructed to be restrained about that. One thing that might interest you is that I love the Shroud of Turin because that is the face Jesus shows me. But I rarely look at it, because it also pains me a lot, for it is His dead face. Imagine that face suffused with life and energy, most often lit with the sly good humor of a father gently teasing his child and you would get a good idea of how Jesus looks when He appears to me.

 

MS7, would you mind sorta explaining the gift of "seeing dimensionally"? Does it pertain to the present but viewing dimensionally or, seeing as well into the future? I know of a (well known) near death experiencer? who was shown other creations in the universe far above our type of intelligence and then being able to view into the future era of peace....having believed that some kind of unique "technology" would enable things but saw that there was nothing of the sort but that everything was sort of a division of labor according to talents given but completely within a natural sort of order. Hard to explain in words since it was hard for him to express himself after even experiencing it in vision. I would assume it would take a special "type" of priest who could even understand such experiences much less give direction/discernment of such to such an individual.

 

Hi Charlie- a few years back my wife and I attended a Divine Mercy conference run by the Marian of the Immaculate Conception in Stockbridge. They had a talk and then what I can only say was just a breathtaking multimedia presentation showing the Shroud and the Image of Divine Mercy given to St Faustina. I've linked a youtube of it, but it dies not give it justice compared to sitting in a candlelit Church and seeing this- very moving.




For more, see here:

http://thedivinemercy.org/momm/programs/divinecoincidence.php

 

I like this Fatima! I feel wanting in your heart to be a remnant and following the path that one thinks to become a remnant is the first and probably the most important step to be one. Now this does not necessarily mean one becomes one but where your heart lies is where the real treasure and reward comes. I often ask myself though do I want to be a remnant or rather am I strong enough in my own trust and faith to be one? A remnant means you made it through the storm and quite frankly to make it through the storm will mean you have endured quite a bit of heart ache and attacks from the evil one. Would it just be easier to be taken home and out of the picture? These are constant heavy thoughts on my mind. If I am to be a remnant for example, then what has happened to my family? Where are they? What has happened to my children? Did they make it through the storm too? How much fear have the experienced to make it through? If they are not to make it through then how hard would that be on me to experience their death? I have already held my lifeless child in my arms, seen her in the casket and put in the tomb. Do I have the strength to do it again or will God give me that strength? Tough thoughts and tough questions but I leave it all to God's will and not my own. If he wills me to be a remnant than so be it and I will be it in any way he wishes for me to get there.

 

Andy, I love this. You think seriously and soberly about it, without any glib platitudes. I particularly like your use of the quote, "where your heart lies is where the real treasure and reward comes." That, my brother, truly is the heart of the matter. If your heart lies with the Lord, you may be certain He will not deny you your reward.

 

I see the formal schism to take place in the next few months (not decades). The apostasy is already well imbedded with in the Church, it is just a mater of something being pronounced that will bring fourth the current de-facto schism into clear light.