I think one of the reasons why the Good Lord permitted mystics like St Padre Pio , the Cure of Ars , St Leopold Mandic and others have great mystical gifts in such abundance and why indeed Our Lady is appearing so frequently is to remind people that God really does exist. It is also very noticeable that when such phenomena occur the greatest opposition occurs nowadays not from outside the Church (who often could not care less one way or the other) but from within the Church itself. To such an extent indeed the Fr Renee Laurentin the worlds foremost Mariologist recently commented that if Lourdes was to occur today it would have no chance of being accepted by the Church. Why is this? Well primarily because Satan has gained such an ascendancy both within and without the Church. The form it takes within the Church is that people , the clergy in particular reject the idea of a God who impacts on the world. Who can pull back the curtain, if you like. A God who is Deus ex machina. A God who does not intervene in the here and now , a God who does not pull back any curtains. So the idea of miracles and miraculous and supernatural intervention is pure poison. But God , as He continues to show can do pretty well whatever He likes. Whether our Higher clergy like it or not and there is little sign of Him going back into the box they wish very much to place Him in. 'This Nation, Italy, well become a sea of fire and blood'. St Leopold Mandic
I think one of the times we can experience the curtain being drawn back is when someone we love dies. I remember the morning after my brother Colm died at 26 years old I was walking around a local Park, the Waterworks. Colm had been a complete atheist, he laughed at the very idea of there being a God. I was walking about concerned for his soul when suddenly he was right there beside me. He said , smiling 'You were right and I was wrong' (He was talking about the times we used to argue about the existence of God and a life after death. ) Then he laughed, 'But I know far more about these things than you do , now'. Then he faded away. I was silly enough to tell members of my family what had just occurred and they seemed to regard me as a nut and with some hostility. So I headed of by bus to the country to talk about it with my Spiritual Director Fr Bernard. But Fr Bernard told me , that in fact, people having sightings of recently deceased relatives was quite a common thing. I also remember after my mother died one Christmas standing doing the ironing and singing away to myself looking up and suddenly seeing my mother standing there smiling at me. She said, 'Well at least your're happy' and..smiling left. I wondered what she meant until moths later one of my brothers told me he had felt very depressed over Christmas and had considered suicide.
Great video padraig and thank you for posting it, I am constantly amazed and inspired by the saints and the lives that they led and the people they touched during their time here and even now after their death to the world. Our Lord does very well impact our lives and has rescued me from my sin more times than I can count. He is truly merciful when one seeks him with an open heart of repentance.
Padraig, I was going to start a new thread and having read what you and Don_D have posted, would like to share very good holy news right here. With regard to the business of Our Heavenly Father, I have so many amazing things going on at the moment, that I can not try to post them. Suffice it to say, I am in the process of arranging a statue of Our Lady of Fatima to visit as many locations as possible in my town between May and October this year, and with the help of God further afield in my area if possible. I can only take the space to tell you all who read this, God may be permitting hairy legs to put me through a grinder and test my durability recently and for the foreseeable future. But don't even try to think God is standing back while the Church Hierarchy go off on a path of their own. Oh no my friends, you would be burying your head in the sand if you allow hairy legs to let you think Our Glorious Mighty Powerful God is going to allow that to happen. For starters, I found out today that the Arch Bishop of England has asked everyone to make a Novena to the Holy Spirit for an extra outpouring of the Holy Spirit this year on His Feast. The Parish Priest at the Church I attend on a Sunday had asked us to do this starting Sunday just gone, which means for two weeks until the 4th June which is the Feast of Pentecost. The Priest has offered a copy of the prayer to every parishioner asking them to be sure and say it every day from Friday 26th May for the nine days; but he is starting to read it after every Mass from 21st May anyway. Because I have agreed to bring the Fatima statue to his Church 13th June, I was astonished thinking on Sunday the Blessed Mother has been working in the back ground all along bringing this amazing idea to fruit just before her Fatima statue arrives. Now I hear the Priest is responding to what Arch Bishop Nicholls has requested. Now Padraig it does not get any more Hierarchical than that in this land, does it. I have had a gut feeling for some time the Pope knows something he is not telling us. And I know lots of faithful Catholics have been frustrated with the way Holy Father has tried to reach out. It has seemed to me sometimes that the Church of nice is gone to the dogs. But I can't get into the debates; because I have felt my duty is to "Keep Watch and Pray." Trust in Jesus to sort everything out. I feel the Holy Spirit is about to burst forth, and on Saturday 13th May at my normal Parish Church, when the Priest prayed over people with Fatima statue present, there were people dropping like flies under the power of his prayers for healing. It was awesome. Now that was not the Feast of Holy Spirit, but Our Lady is His Spouse and her presence was there in the image of Our Lady of Fatima, complete with Crown. A few holy coincidences gave me the courage to ask the second Priest yesterday if he would like the Fatima statue present for the Feast of Holy Spirit in addition to receiving the Fatima Statue on 13th June. He said yes. Now I can't tell you what God has in store for 4th June; but I am certainly making the Novena as requested, and what God wills is all that matters in the final analysis. I can type the Prayer of St. Bonaventure to the Holy Spirit if anyone would like to join in and petition Holy Spirit for a great anointing on His Feast. Just let me know. You may already have it yourselves. Please God this bit of news from a servant of Heavenly Mother will give you all a boost, and keep your spirits up. I can tell you I have never been so happy in spite of all hell breaking loose around me. Praise God.
Thanks for that Padraig. It reminded me that Pope Francis has some good qualities. Dropping by to pray before the relics of St. Pio comes across as far more genuine than the photo op in the Rome parish. There's hope for us yet.
I am so glad to here this, Julia, because it means I am not the only one to be receiving Graces. About a month ago I was camping and prayed to St Philomena for a grace which I got and have been praying all my adult life for. This has blown me away. I am totally delighted. I am inclined to think too much as an individual and not as a member of the Communion of Saints and never thought such graces might be being out on the Church as a whole at this time. How wonderful if it were. I wake up most nights now and pray the Passion. A few weeks back I found myself in Jerusalem just after the Death of Christ, the time before the Ressurrection. It was as though the city was in black and white, in a kind of gloom. The city streets were totally empty. But for me it was not depressing, in fact these was a sense of expectation. This was the time when , 'The dead arose and appeared to many' 'The Temple Veil was torn asunder'. A great Quake shook the whole Earth and the Apostles and Disciples hid. It was the time for the, 'Harrowing of Hell, when Jesus went to hell and Paradise and Freed the Prophets, Patriarches and Righteous and led them to Heaven. In other words there was a huge amount not to feel gloomy about. 'In Christian theology, the Harrowing of Hell (Latin: Descensus Christi ad Inferos, "the descent of Christ into hell") is the triumphant descent of Christ into Hell (or Hades) between the time of his Crucifixion and his Resurrection when he brought salvation to all of the righteous who had died since the beginning of ...' http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07143d.htm In many ways the Harrowing of Hell reminds me of what is going on in the Church at the moment. On the surface a lot of doom and gloom, but underneath many wonderful things happening
I saw another really wonderful thing concerning the Passion I had never really thought of before but which gave me a lot of comfort about two nights ago. It was after Jesus had been taken down from the Cross and they placed His body in the Tomb and were fixing the Body for burial. Did you ever consider the state of Christ's Body when they took Him down from the Cross and what a job they had to get it set for burial? They had not much time as according to Jewish custom they had to get it all done before nightfall. It just occurred to me were did they get the water from (no water taps) and so to clean all the blood and sweat and dirt and dust was quite a big job. But as I looked at the Body it was totally white , like alabaster , because it had been drained of all its blood. These wonderful people , like I suppose St Mary Magdalene had done the most wonderful job with it for it was beautiful. They had annointed it with ointment, all the many, many wounds and it was all set for the Ressurrection. I just loved to see it. Really beautiful. John 19:38-42 The Burial of Jesus 38 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.a]">[a] 40 Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
I was more than a little jealous of Pope Francis and the others in this. That they should have had a chance ot be there. I agree it is a good sign of Pope Francis that he did this.
