Perhaps the reason why there is so much interest in Private Revelations recently is that we see them coming to pass right before our very eyes. Amazing.
I agree Dolours. In a way it recalls Jesus's words about running to the desert because "Christ is here". He warned them and us not to believe it.
I LOVE that quote from Shakespeare! Spot on! Sort of like the knowledge that although God has given mankind the Sacraments, He is not limited by them.
There was an interesting quote from Medugorje. Apparently one of the visionaries asked Our Lady, 'Is their life on other Planets?' TO which the Mother of God responded, 'That is none of your concern'. That had me thinking, well if there was no life on other Planets it would have been the easiest simple thing in the world for Our Lady to say, 'No there is not'. That would have been the whole discussion dead in the water. Over period. But on the other hand if Mary had said, 'Why yes , good question indeed there is!' There would have been a storm of distracting speculation until the end of time when folks needed to concentrate on their own conversion. I have always thought how wasteful and sad if the whole Universe was a life desert and this little peck of Earth was the single ant heap of life in the cosmos. But then I am a great Star Trek fan. Who knows? But for me it is a nice thought. St John, at the End of his Gospel states that if all Jess said were written down then all the libraries in the World would not contain them. I am sure Jesus had lots to say about many things.
Padraig, I too am a big Star Trek fan. You are correct, I think if we spent too much time thinking about life on other planets, we would forget about our own salvation on this one!
But one day, I would like the dogs for a walk on the Ice Mountains of the Planet New Ireland (which I will myself have discovered) in the Green Galaxy of Hibernia Having a good mind is a great gift. Having a good heart is much, much more important. I believe I learnt more theology from my devout Grandmother , trudging through the snow with her rosary beads glued to her frozen old hand like and extra finger and with a blanket over head as a shawl than I did from a hundred learned theologians. I learnt this simply from regarding her praying, better than a thousand books.
Padraig, lol! I would like to see that new planet as well in Ireland! Thanks for the video, we really are living in a lot of isms! Can you imagine seeing angles all the time? Such a blessing! Please God, let me not be stiff necked about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in regard to your supernatural realities!
Faith is like a little baby than throws itself into the void, trusting that its Mother may catch it in her ever loving arms. This is Knowledge of the Heart that cases the little child to do this. Not knowledge of the mind.
I’d translate it as, “I have this, so remove even speculation about it from your thoughts since things like this do not apply to your salvation. Accept this as a non-issue for you. PS-I love you!” As a side note, I do not believe in extraterrestrial life, but...I’ve been to a few Star Trek Conventions in the past, lol! (I still have a Bajoran earring I used to wear. That was some time ago. It was fun. If I went back to the various series and episodes to watch them at this point in my faith/life journey, I’d spend most of the time pointing out all the political indoctrination I missed back when I didn’t know any better!
Padraig, Yes so true! I pray I will always remain a baby with my faith, with trust in awe of God’s great goodness and mercy! And may Our Beautiful Mother always catch me if I should fall, in her most holy arms!!!
Someone I know to be not at all suspicious told me that she heard the banshee the night before a death in the family. I said it must have been cats but she was adamant that it wasn't. I think that she would know the sound of cats but that doesn't mean it wasn't some other animal unfamiliar to her. I dunno, Padraig, maybe stuff like banshees and the three knocks on the door are somehow connected to generational spirits but I find it hard to believe. I have trouble enough believing that generational spirits are a thing. I do believe that people can have premonitions, and sometimes dreams, of impending death or disaster but that's different than old superstitions probably carried over from pagan times. Do you not find it strange that the banshees and other mysterious harbingers of doom didn't continue their wailing and knocking in foreign countries where Irish emigrants settled? Maybe they were afraid of water. I think one of the bad legacies of the Church leadership not being above board with their handling of the Fatima messages is the popular trend of "visionaries" claiming to have secrets. The devotees all seem to believe that their pet apparition is a continuation of Fatima. And if they can find a way to make their visionary into another Padre Pio suffering from a harsh, self important hierarchy, that's icing on the cake for them. The devotees spend years waiting in hope for this or that secret to be revealed. The truth is more likely to be that someone, aware that the Church rarely if ever issues a determination until all apparitions/locutions have ceased, decided to cash in on the very lucrative prophecy market. Self proclaimed visionaries/seers/locutionists seem to be ten a penny nowadays, to the extent that we see pious, faithful Catholics at loggerheads over which unapproved "messengers" are the real deal. I'm grateful that the Church has declared that public revelation finished with the death of the last Apostle and that we are not bound to believe in any private revelation - not even Fatima. I say that as a staunch believer in the Fatima apparitions.
True, particularly in view that the Amazonian goddess, Pashamama is being worshiped in the Vatican, which is covered in the 10 commandments.
I think really Irish Catholic Spirituality is quite a bit different from say, Italian or Spanish Catholic Sprituallity and when we come in contact with them in say an International Pilgrimage place this becomes very obvious. We are part of the Irish Catholic family so to speak. It would be a pity if we were all the same, I think. One of the sad things about Modernism is the Church is that it wants to kind of print us out pretty much the same. I notice in Tradtional Cahtolicsm how very, very oepn they are to Private Revelation, it is pretty well everywhere. I really, really love this. I was always from childhood fascinated with the supernatural and miraculous so it is all grist to the mill for me. Like a pair of old slippers. I understnad when Pope Benedict said a mass for Traditionalists the first thing he said when he returned to the Sacristy was, 'I had forgotten how God centered the Old Rite was' The Novus Ordo 1960's mass was a real killer for the supernatural I think and without the supernatural the Liturgy becomes kind of like Irish Stew without the salt. Bland, tastless, dead. There was a great two part series in the , 'Catholic Stand' on the role of Private Revelation on the history of the Church you might care to read if I can find it...now let me see... https://catholicstand.com/private-revelations-believe/ https://catholicherald.co.uk/fp-blog-the-power-of-private-revelations/
I heard a lady Professor an expert on Aztec History on during the week. She went on and on about the superb Aztec cuture for ages and I just thought to myself, well...when are we going to hear about the mass human sacrifice bit..the mass human sacrifices that got really . really worse just before the Spanish took over. Not a word. It is the same with the Amzonian thing. A kind of unrealistic romantic idealism.
The Catholic Stand article is a good one but it doesn't really say anything that hasn't already been said many times on the forum. "Take what is good" can be twisted to mean that if there's anything good in a claimed private revelation it all must be good. A seer only has to urge people to fast and pray (especially the Rosary) to convince people searching for the next Fatima that they have hit pay dirt. Throw in some dire warnings about the world going to hell in a handbasket and the seer has people hooked no matter how many red flags appear either through unfulfilled prophecies, doctrinally questionable statements, behaviour unbecoming a person getting messages from Heaven, the seer making money either directly from the messages or via some support group handling what is effectively a business, or plain old disobedience to lawful authority by the seer and/or his or her followers. I reckon that disobedience (often stemming from pride) is likely to be one of the least confessed sins. We're all sinners but I think that most of us do a much better job at spotting the sins of others than we do at taking ownership of our own sins. It seems to me that spiritual pride manifesting itself in disobedience could be a lethal banana skin for people preoccupied with the latest self-proclaimed "seer". They will readily confess the more obvious sins. How often would they confess having taken upon themselves the authority to declare an unapproved private revelation to be worthy of belief even after the real authority has urged caution or flat out warned people against it? Not very often would be my guess. In all honesty, Padraig, I have enough problems sorting out my own spiritual condition without attempting to analyse cultural influence on the spirituality of entire nations. I suppose that the early evangelists took what was good from the pagan cultures and the worst elements faded away as Christianity grew. In most cases it's unlikely that those pagan practices disappeared overnight. I think it possible if not very likely that a kind of reversion to the old pagan beliefs and practices will fill the vacuum left by the loss of the Christian faith. Aren't we already seeing a hint of that in Ireland where people are putting almost as much effort and money into decorating their homes for Halloween as they do for Christmas? I don't agree that the modernists are trying to make us all the same. On the contrary, I think that they would just as soon promote false beliefs within the big tent Church, splintering us into ethnic and cultural camps and destroying the one-ness of the Church. They want the Church to be a loose association of national churches with each Bishop a Pope supported by a magisterium comprising a mix of laity and clergy. The Amazonian shenanigans are an example of that. They stopped short of saying that baptism is offensive to shamans so we'll ordain them instead but they put a lot of effort into laying the groundwork for it. And they didn't seem too bothered about whether the shamans would be men or women. After all, why wouldn't pachamama/mother earth want priestesses? It seems to me that support your local deity is the current strategy because no matter what it's called, it symbolise the great architect in the sky. Maybe some well-intentioned clerics think that they can avoid syncretism but I doubt that all involved are of that mindset. By the way, the priest doing the Bible Study on Grace Lily Productions had the best explanation of the Nephilim I have heard.
It's the same thing the Nazis did to the pagan Germans and vikings. They propagated Wagner and beautiful paintings of Freya etc. but in reality their ancestors were lopping off limbs and nailing them to Thor's sacred tree before St. Boniface showed up.
I read an account one time about a day in the life of Ancient Rome (Before Christianity). It said when you woke up in the morning the first thing you would have heard when you went to the door would be the sound of abandoned babies crying under the bushes. This stopped with the First Christians who took the babies in. Times change but times remain the same , we murder our babies in clinics now. We are going back to paganism.
Well if you find it unhelpful , Dolours , I am sure it is fine to leave it. I must admit I enjoy it. It helps me make sense of things. I especially like the regular messages from Our Lady at Medugorje, which I devour.
I don't know quite why , but at the moment I am very,very homesick for heaven. It is not that I hate the World. Life is a very,very great gift. Lately I find myself crying out, even out loud, 'My God I love thee!' This comes I think from a heart , that, like a little homing pigeon wants to fly home to the beloved. I have not felt these inner urgings for so many years. Perhaps it is the State of the Church and the World? Who knows. But my heart wants to fly home I think. Our hearts have their own agenda's and speak as they will.
