At the moment we all suffer unbearable hardships and I have looked to more consoling times when the Lord gave me many signal graces that sustained me in moments of pain and torment. The little flower had so much to suffer. I dare not even try to address and convey her hardships as I see them nor the cross that she had to carry for fear that I blaspheme her gentle but exhausting devotion to the most High God . May She with all the saints of heaven be praised for their great love of God. Thank you Padraig, Miker, Bernadette and little me for your encouragement in these days of pain and accusation. We all carry a cross. And I don’t know what your cross is. May God be with you always. And you don’t know what cross is mine. May the Lord preserve me in all my trials. Praise God that we are able to edify each other with what the Lord has given to each. May the Most Holy and Most Sacred heart of our Lord be comforted by your heart felt concern for others. Jesus Mercy, Mary Help.
Time, the eternal now...God all knowing from all eternity. Great topics but very open ended (need faith). All contemplated by saints with starting point that God is real. But the saint thing...that is interesting. I see some very Holy men and women serving Our Lord in Church everyday. (Ushers, readers, liturgical ministers, the flower brigade) One can argue some of those saints might have a equal or greater spots at Gods Banquet. We just don't know...will I be next to you Lord when i get to heaven. Jesus went through this with the apostles. Superstar saints are deemed saints by Our Holy Mother Church. All this means is that the Church believes those souls are in Heaven. But their are millions of other saints that have (under the veil of humility) entered heaven. Who is greater...Only God knows Brother al
I'll offer my my mass this evening Jospehite. I don't know what your cross is but it sounds to me like a very big one. If it is any comfort big crosses are a huge Sign of God's predeliction. I don't know if that's any comfort or not.
Hidden saints....one thing I often wonder when I regard people who are outwardly...well a little repulsive....they are quite nasty, or bad tempered or even say totally boring or whatever. It is quite possible that under surface appearance which drives people off there could be a saint hidden beneath like some great jewel. No one will ever know in this life but God grants then this grace to save them from pride.
My friend Padraig, You gave me the biggest shock when you shut it down. But it was a blessing. I think it was the right time for alot of us to refocus. Thank you. On another note, if we believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ and are allowed to enter heaven...then we are all saints. All of us on this board are saints or we wouldn't be here. But we are everyday saints. Your calling was to make this board...I'm sure you got heaven points. We are all called to be saints and have different journeys. It is good to try to emulate rockstar saints, but we are also saints. We might be the most important warrior saints in Gods spiritual battle for souls. Most of us have found God through everyday life. No grand mystical experiences. Even though i believe everything is a mystical experience but that is for another day. That makes us very special in Gods eyes. Blessed are those who have not seen but believed. God bless the everyday saint Brother al
Thank you Padraig. You are a good man My cross is so insignificant at the moment. But I have been made brutally aware of what’s in store for me and I don’t know if I want to carry it again. It was too painful the first time. So much pain and even though I see God in it all, the sight and deception of the evil one appals me and also confuses me and I can do nothing to stop this. I think I am a little Wesel. I realise that I sound like a runaway teenager or someone that is in an untenable situation but it is me, in my life, a simple life, a suburban life, but with many demons that surround me. That is all I should say about this. God Bless. And God always has the victory. St Joseph pray for us
Al, The older I get the more sure I am that the reception of the Eucharist is the greatest mystical experience a person could ever have; it is totally mind blowing. As the years roll onwards I am more and more blown away by it. So to some extent it is surprising to me that we Catholics who receive the Lord in this manner...(which even the greatest angels do not) should say they have never had a mystical experience. If by this they mean they have never had visions or heard voices I understand (very, very few have ). But the Eucharist is much, much , much more profound than this. I also find the Sacrament of Confession profoundly mystical. It is like a rebirth. Like floating on wings of grace. The joy the sense of being hugged. Does not everyone feel this? Is this not deeply mystical? Another doorway to the mystical is Devotion to the Blessed Virgin . As son as I approach her I feel her inimitable presence. She never fails to turn up right on the button. Again doesn't everyone feel this. ? Very gentle, very kind and sweet. So very much a Mother but with huge strength and Wisdom. If we don't feel God closely in these things well...I don't know.
Bernadette, I always tried to figure that out too. Was the fact that Our Blessed Mother always to be the Mother of our Saviour not saying that the fall always had to happen and God knew this. I think the fall came first. Finally after years I got an answer from my Guardian Angel and what he said was this. That no one understands and never will understand the mind of God. That the fall happened because God choose to reveal a tiny bit of his plans to Satan. If Satan had not rebelled, Gods plan for us to have Our Blessed Mother as the Mother of Our Savior would still have happened, but in a different way. Everything I read now I read through that - with God there are always two roads that could have been taken but with the same result that his Will would be done. I got the impression it all goes back to free will. It was never God's Will that the fall happen or that we have to fight now to save our souls. It was always his Will that Our Blessed Lady be our Mother and Our Lord's Mother and that would be even if we had not fallen, never mind the bad agnels. Jesus would be our Saviour even if we had never been marked with originial sin but he would have been our Saviour to bring us much closer to God instead of being our way into heaven. I am not eplaining this very well.
I love to realise , Malachi, that Our Lady is a human being like ourselves and likes nothing better than a good laugh. Sometimes when I look at the statues and paintings , the impression is that she is more than a little too precious. A bit too much, if you see what I mean.
I came across this article and it really got me wondering and thinking not just about AI, but technology in general. It can have the extreme potential for good and bad. Look at the internet - it can brings us together here on this site or used to steal money out of people's accounts or by terrorists to plan great damage. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...cial-intelligence-we-are-summoning-the-demon/
This is one of the reasons, Mike it will be difficult for us all to take the catacombs this time round. They know just too much about us.
I will probably not be back on the forum again. As I am very embarrassed by what I am about to reveal to you. Please Pray for me. Last night I got a big whack up the side of my head with a walking stick and this was from my husband. And that was because he realised I was checking in to the mother of God sight. We had just spent 3 and half hours together playing cards with 2 of our grown children and all seemed good. He said, as he did this, “It’s because I hadn’t spent any time with him that day”. Go figure! Yes he is my cross. And yes he is abusive. I’m a registered nurse and I work long and tiring hours to keep us in food and a house and to pay the bills, for over the past 24 years. That was when he was made redundant from the railway system here in Australia. With my husband I have to calculate when I can pray, because prayer irritates him so much. So it’s either in the morning when he is not around, as he drives a school bus for a living and I get 2 hours without him at home, or when he sleeps through the day for 2 to 3 hours. He has slept through the day, every day, for the last 24 years. Going to mass and confession gets me the horror of satan’s fury when I get home, I can’t explain the many torments that I receive at these times, he puts me down and he puts God down, he dismisses me, he ignores me, he laughs and belittles me and he does this all in front of our children and their friends, if they are at home. I detest hearing his hatred for God, and believe that I am making this worse by praying and going to Mass, therefore to lesson his outbursts of fury, I try so hard to be ever so sneaky with my prayers. You wouldn’t believe the systems I have put in place over the years, and no one would know that I am praying. Our most Blessed Mother has given me a beautiful system to pray the rosary every morning without alerting anyone, as I seem to be just working, but I am immersed in prayer and able to count the beads by using items of daily work. On Sundays when I can get to mass, I am berated by him for the rest of the day when I return, mainly berated for loving God when I should be loving him and loving God when God has did nothing for him but given him the worst life, and the worst wife, the worst family and the worst children etc. However when I can escape and have to go to work he relents and is happy to see me after work, it’s a real roller coaster emotionally and I don’t know if I’m Arthur or Martha. We’ve been married for 34 years. When I sneak to mass and confession on week days his ‘godradar’ hones in and somehow he knows that I’ve been to mass, but then again I’ve learnt to tell him the truth when he asks and he nearly always asks; he needs to know what I’ve been doing, who I spoke to and what I said. If the nursing hand over at work, takes an extra 5 minutes he berates me when I get home for being late, so now when the work has been so hard and the handover takes that extra 5 or 10 minutes I call him from work to alert him of my delay home. I have to be alert and vigilant in everything I do, to appease his anger. It’s an exhausting as well as a maddening enterprise. Each day I am faced with his lecherous advances on me, his distorted way of claiming he loves me, that is, he states day in and day out that he loves me and wants to be intimate with me but that I am not giving him enough in the wifely domain or not giving him the right things. He claims that he only wants what every husband wants and that I deny him. I am seen by him as the one that can fulfil all his desires, if only I would just be that bit more eager and I’m also seen as the only thing left in his life that he has, that is any good, so therefore it is my responsibility to make him happy and satisfied. I am repulsed by this rhetoric, which continues every day, however, in the last 2 years, I have asked the Lord to be with me and I do satisfy these demands at least 3 times a week. Which is still not enough, nor good enough. What can I say? In his defence; He suffers from pain. Pain in his knees, his back, and his right foot, down his right side and in the lower part of his right torso and his right lower rib, and no amount of doctors can work out what is causing this or why he has so much pain; he also suffers with depression, low self esteem and he’s virtually a cripple now, he has been unable to do anything in the house or yard for 10 years, probably more, he can’t walk without a walking stick and he is the same age as me, we are both 56. I excuse and forgive him for his anger with me, as I am, according to him, the only one that can make things better for him, yet I fail miserably. He has been both physically and emotionally abusive to me for years, but normally the daily abuse is just verbal, and if I am truthful it started way before he lost his Job on the railway 24 years ago. But, it was less in your face than. Back then I was busy having and raising our eight children and running our house and running our business but the business eventually failed. Yet God has been so kind to me! My beautiful children, what can I say, they are the light of my life. Please pray for them. I took them to mass every Sunday and Friday and to confession every Friday. We made novenas of masses during every lent of their childhood lives and attended vigils and retreats. We prayed the rosary every night and my husband even joined us on some occasions but eventually his hated for God and all that he believed God made us go through was verbalised to the children and when they left home for university they all turned from God to some degree. My eldest son is very intelligent and he is studying for his PHD in molecular biology and science looking for a way to cure Alzheimer’s, but he is an atheist. Yet as a child one priest commented that the way Adam prayed on his knees for hours during a retreat moved this priest to believe that Adam had a calling to the priesthood. Two of my other sons are RN’s and are very good at saving people’s lives in the emergency departments that they work in, in Sydney, but they do not attend Mass any more. As for my daughters and other son well some still believe in God at times, but mostly the world has got them. I stand in need of much prayer. My husband stands in need of great prayer. My children stand in need of prayer. There you have it. The Lord has been so kind to me. I have received many signal graces and also many mystical moments. The Lord has warned me of disasters and given me answers to questions that I didn’t even have! Saved me and my family on numerous occasions, when all help seemed hopeless. Yes I have seen visions and have been given many special privileges. But I would give all that up for the saving of my Husband and children’s souls. Please pray. God bless
Oh Josephite you are carrying a big cross- I believe a form of martyrdom. But you are a great example of trusting in Jesus throughout your struggles. Please know, my family will carry your intentions to Our Lady and Jesus in prayer. We will also ask Sister Mary of the Cross (Mary MacKillop) to intercede for you. Safe in the Two Hearts. Peace.
dear, dear Josephite. i am offering todays joys, irritations, frustrations, everything .. for you and your family. know also, you are now in my territory of souls to pray for, forever...
I am really touched and deeply moved by your post, Josephite . I think it takes huge courage to post something like this, more courage still to endure the terrible situation you are in. I admire so much the very Christian way you are bearing all this huge Cross, keeping your Faith in this Darkest of all Dark Nights Of course you have my prayers and of course have them everyday at mass from now on in. I know of at least one other lady on the forum who is in the same situation (though perhaps not quite so bad) and I have been praying for her for years now. As to practical advise. I am not married and have never been married, so anything I could say would probably just be so much hot air. There are however some very wise and experienced and holy people on the forum and I invite them to PM you when they read this so perhaps they could help out with counsel in this very difficult situation. I know of course there are some people too who have been laden with a similiar Cross and worked their way through it. But I would say this. The beginnings of the journey out of this is surely to talk with others about it. This is surely the first step on a very difficult journey. I hope wise sisters and brothers on the forum can help you with this but perhaps there is someone in your own Parish who can help you with this at the very least by at least listening to you. Perhaps a priest, a nun , perhaps someone from a Catholic organisation concerned with abusive relationships? Anyhow you have my heart and all my prayers. I am constantly saddened by the depth of suffering of my sisters and brothers. prayers, prayers, prayers ..at the Feet of Mary.
I am really touched and deeply moved by your post, Josephite . I think it takes huge courage to post something like this, more courage still to endure the terrible situation you are in. I admire so much the very Christian way you are bearing all this huge Cross, keeping your Faith in this Darkest of all Dark Nights Of course you have my prayers and of course have them everyday at mass from now on in. I know of at least one other lady on the forum who is in the same situation (though perhaps not quite so bad) and I have been praying for her for years now. As to practical advise. I am not married and have never been married, so anything I could say would probably just be so much hot air. There are however some very wise and experienced and holy people on the forum and I invite them to PM you when they read this so perhaps they could help out with counsel in this very difficult situation. I know of course there are some people too who have been laden with a similiar Cross and worked their way through it. But I would say this. The beginnings of the journey out of this is surely to talk with others about it. This is surely the first step on a very difficult journey. I hope wise sisters and brothers on the forum can help you with this but perhaps there is someone in your own Parish who can help you with this at the very least by at least listening to you. Perhaps a priest, a nun , perhaps someone from a Catholic organisation concerned with abusive relationships? Anyhow you have my heart and all my prayers. I am constantly saddened by the depth of suffering of my sisters and brothers. prayers, prayers, prayers ..at the Feet of Mary.
I am really touched and deeply moved by your post, Josephite . I think it takes huge courage to post something like this, more courage still to endure the terrible situation you are in. I admire so much the very Christian way you are bearing all this huge Cross, keeping your Faith in this Darkest of all Dark Nights Of course you have my prayers and of course have them everyday at mass from now on in. I know of at least one other lady on the forum who is in the same situation (though perhaps not quite so bad) and I have been praying for her for years now. As to practical advise. I am not married and have never been married, so anything I could say would probably just be so much hot air. There are however some very wise and experienced and holy people on the forum and I invite them to PM you when they read this so perhaps they could help out with counsel in this very difficult situation. I know of course there are some people too who have been laden with a similiar Cross and worked their way through it. But I would say this. The beginnings of the journey out of this is surely to talk with others about it. This is surely the first step on a very difficult journey. I hope wise sisters and brothers on the forum can help you with this but perhaps there is someone in your own Parish who can help you with this at the very least by at least listening to you. Perhaps a priest, a nun , perhaps someone from a Catholic organisation concerned with abusive relationships? Anyhow you have my heart and all my prayers. I am constantly saddened by the depth of suffering of my sisters and brothers. There are no words, really. prayers, prayers, prayers ..at the Feet of Mary.
