In my life I do meet people who are divorced and in a second "marriage". They don't take any notice of the Church's teachings on the reception of Holy Communion, ie: that they shouldn't, either out of ignorance, maybe, but mainly it's a case of self justification. I thought the synod was meant to be about evangelization in regard to the family. What is needed is cathecesis on sacramental marriage, the Theology of the Body is the answer, it has to start from early childhood but is crucial for young people to understand before even starting to date. We need a sexual counter revolution, I believe it has already begun, I have hope because of people like Jason Everett and Johnette Benkovic etc. They're telling the truth in love. All the very obedient people I know have had a conversion through Medugorje directly or indirectly. ( I come from Ireland ).There's hope even though the situation is dire, worse than dire.
This is what the Synod should have been about. Excellent essay by Dr. Esolen: Who Will Rescue the Lost Sheep of the Lonely Revolution? Anthony Esolen Crisis Magazine November 6, 2104 Who Will Rescue the Lost Sheep of the Lonely Revolution? Forgive me, Lord, if I use your words for an admonitory parable. You said to the Pharisees, “What man among you, having a hundred sheep, and learning that one of them has wandered into the wilderness, will not leave the ninety nine and go after the lost sheep? And when he has found it, will he not call his friends and say, Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep that was lost?” That is why you came among us, to call sinners back to the fold. Not to pet and stroke them for being sinners, because that is what you mean by “lost,” and what you mean by “dead,” when you asked us to consider the young man who had wandered into the far country. The father in your parable wanted his son alive, not dead. The son said, “Father, I have sinned before heaven and you. Now I am not worthy to be called your son.” He spoke but the truth, and that truth set him free. So I am looking at a world in a shambles. We do not have Pharisees who preen themselves for having followed the letter of the law and missed its soul. We have Pharisees who preen themselves for disobeying the law, even the most serious admonitions of the law, even your own clear words on marriage and divorce, while presuming to have discovered a soul-of-the-law whose existence has eluded two thousand years of martyrs, saints, popes, bishops, and theologians. “I thank you, O God, that you have made me a sinner and a publican, and not like these others who set their aim so high.” In this world that I see, there is no sheepfold left. “What man among you, having a hundred sheep, and seeing the fold smashed and hirelings among the flocks, men who, while wolves are tearing the bellies of the sheep, are themselves roasting mutton on spits, will not leave the ninety nine and go into the wilderness to find one, and when he finds it dead already, will not hold his head high and say, Well, I did my best!” It will be said that the one—the unrepentant or semi-repentant sinner, the one who wants to have the faith on his own terms—is “marginalized,” a word I detest, but which may serve my purposes this once. If adults in immoral sexual relationships are “marginalized,” Lord, let me speak up now for people who do not even make it to the margins, for the poorest of the poor, for people who have no advocate at all. Let me speak for the children of divorce, who see their homes torn in two, because of a mother or a father who has shrugged away the vow of permanence. I see them straining to put a fine face on it, to protect the very parents who should have protected them, to squelch back their own tears so as not to hurt those who have hurt them. Who speaks for them, harried from pillar to post? Who pleads their case, whose parents conveniently assume that their children’s happiness must depend upon their own contentment, and not the other way around? Where is my Church’s apostolate for the children sawn in half, while the Solomons of our time looked the other way? Let me speak for the children thrust into confusion, to justify the confusion of their parents or of people in authority over them. Here is a boy whose father is absent or aloof. He needs to be affirmed in his boyhood, but he shies away from the other boys. Then sidles the teacher into the garden of his boyhood to suggest to him unrealities that he cannot understand. Who speaks for that boy, lonely and hesitant upon the shore, while his more confident fellows splash and swim? Who comes to his assistance to supply the want of fatherly care? Which of my Church’s bishops in all their years have ever turned a single glance his way? Saint John Bosco, where are you now? Let me speak for the children exposed to unutterable evils on all sides. Here is a girl at age twelve who has seen things on a screen that her grandmother could never have imagined. She is taking pictures of herself already, and making “friends” among the sons and daughters of Belial. This is happening under our very eyes. She goes to the drug store and must confront magazines for “women” blaring out their headlines about sex and what without any irony goes by the name of “beauty,” and nobody says, “Why should this be?” Who speaks up for her innocence? Where are the leaders of my Church, helping her to become a gracious and godly Christian woman, rather than a poor self-prostituted wreck, more cynical about the opposite sex at age twenty than the hardest thrice-divorced old woman would be? Who pleads for her protection? Who notices her? Let me speak up for the young people who see the beauty of the moral law and the teachings of the Church, and who are blessed with noble aspirations, but who are given no help, none, from their listless parents, their listless churches, their crude and cynical classmates, their corrupted schools. These youths and maidens in a healthier time would be youths and maidens indeed, and when they married they would become the heart of any parish. Do we expect heroic sanctity from them? Their very friendliness will work against them. They will fall. Do you care? Many of these will eventually “shack up,” and some will leave dead children in the wake of their friendliness. Where are you? You say that they should not kill the children they have begotten, and you are right about that. So why are you shrugging and turning aside from the very habits that bring children into the world outside of the haven of marriage? Let me speak up for the young people who do in fact follow the moral law and the teachings of the Church. Many of these are suffering intense loneliness. Have you bothered to notice? Have you considered all those young people who want to be married, who should be married, but who, because they will not play evil’s game, can find no one to marry? The girls who at age twenty-five and older have never even been asked on a date? The “men” languishing in a drawn-out adolescence? These people are among us; they are everywhere. Who gives them a passing thought? They are suffering for their faith, and no one cares. Do you care, leaders of my Church? Or do you not rather tacitly agree with their fellows who do the marital thing without being married? Do you not rather share that bemused contempt for the “old fashioned” purity they are trying to preserve? What help do you give them? Do you not rather at every step exacerbate their suffering, when by your silence and your telling deeds you confirm in them the terrible fear that they have been played for chumps, that their own leaders do not believe, that they would have been happier in this world had they gone along with the world, and that their leaders would have smiled upon them had they done so? You want more? More people who do not merit a footnote? What about the men and women abandoned by their spouses? Have you stood up for their rights? What about the innocent men who, after they have been abandoned, become in effect slaves to a corrupt and lawless regime? Have you stood up for them? Founded a society for mutual support? More? Go visit a prison. Do it, all you say your hearts beat warmly for the poor. Prisoners are poor to the point of invisibility. Go there and ask them about their sexual histories and those of their families. Go find out what the Lonely Revolution has done to them. Well may you plead for cleaner cells and better food for prisoners, and more merciful punishment. Why do you not plead for cleaner lives and better nourishment for their souls when they are young, before the doors of the prison shut upon them? Who speaks for them? Who speaks for the penitent, trying to place his confidence in a Church that cuts his heart right out, because she seems to take his sins less seriously than he does? Venturing forth into the margins, my leaders? You have not placed one toe outside of the plush rugs of your comfort. Do so, I beg you! Come and see all those whom the Lonely Revolution has hurt. Leave your parlors and come to the sheepfold!
For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark If you don't get into the ark you perish.
What if, either knowing or unknowing, the Holy Father was guided by the Holy Spirit, to have the synod to clearly seperate the sheep from the goats? This was surely one outcome of the synod. The Holy Father clearly stated where stands at the end of it all, admonishing both the extreme left and the extreme right, which set the tone for the unpoming synod in October of 2015. To shine the light on truth is surely a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Knowing that we are truely in the end of an age, it seems shedding light on the truth is prophetic and it will unmask those in apostasy and will bring about the formal schism within the Church, which has for decades been de facto taking place.
That is my sense of things too. I really love this pope and have never doubted the fact that he is the one chosen by the Holy Spirit. But I think that he and Pope Benedict really need our prayers to stay the course against so many forces against him and against the Church.
I concur. The sheep are being separated from the goats. I feel it's more important than ever to hold fast to Truth and hold fast and trust in the stewardship of our Holy Father.
1. All babies should be baptised. (Not a innocent souls fault for parents sins). 2. If you were divorced from civil marriage you can recieve sacraments. (In Gods eyes you were never married in church). 3. If married by church then you divorce, you need annulment by church. (Existing law). 4. The act of homosexuality is wrong, practacing homosexuals cannot be part of the sacramental catholic church. Brother al
Pray hard and give Jesus and Our Blessed Mother time to work. (our time - theirs is in eternity). All is in God's Will. Fiat!
I would not read to much into Cardinal Burke's fate. There will be many tested. Even those who are orthodox in their doctrines will be tested. Our job is to pray for all to perservere in the faith. Remember, Peter was tested too "do you wish to leave me too", to which Peter replied, "to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life". This is what we must say when tested as well......and we will be.
Mac, it is God who leads us and tests us through the challenges of life. People (even the Pope) are incidental. We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his kind purpose.
All saints are tested (humility, obedience). We might think we should go or be in one place. But God leads us to another. It happens to superstar saints all the time. Do we not believe in the power of the Holy Spirit or in Gods Will be Done. Cardinal Burk cannot have a demotion that is the secular media talking. He is a saint of God (with God), it is Gods will that he is put in new position. Nobody needs to know but the Maltas are some of the most influential people in the Catholic Church. Maybe God has other plans for Cardinal Burk. May Gods Will be Done
Video of hell (paintings spiritually inspired): http://www.divinerevelations.info/documents/pictures_from_the_pit/index.htm
His faithfullness is being tested, yes. I don't think Pope Francis is 'testing' him, but his fidelity is being tested. I think Pope Francis is being led by the Holy Spirit and because of this we will all be tested. I will go back to what I have said for the past two years on this forum, doctrine cannot change, but aside from that every other thing can and will be challenged as we progress through the greatest storm of purification of God's Church to have ever taken place.
I think we are all being "tested" to some extent. Perhaps Francis is challenging our long held perspectives. Perhaps Francis is requiring a moving toward changes within our hearts rather than the outward signs of our Catholicism? As Fatima said, he cannot change Dogma, but he can and maybe should change our focus. Maybe this is a "test" for all of us - to go where we don't want to. Maybe it's a test to not follow one cardinal or another - to join a camp so to speak. St. Paul warned us about this. Maybe it's a test to move away from the "false idols" we have created causing us (myself at top of the list) of labeling one a conservative, one a liberal, another a traditional Catholic? We are after all, one, holy and apostolic. I don't know the answers but I feel very compelled at this moment to focus on obedience and humility. I will try to not just look at the Divine Mercy picture and read Jesus, I Trust in You, but to actually live it.
