Posted on 02/11/2008 1:56:37 PM PST by NYer
self ping for later reading
For non-Catholics, the Divine Mercy is a portrait of Jesus commissioned by a sainted Polish nun.
It portrays Jesus robed in white standing with his right hand in a gesture of blessing and his left hand upon his heart, from which is issuing a reddish ray symbolizing the blood and a bluish ray symbolizing the water that gushed from his side when it was pierced by the centurion.
Bump to read tonight.
And I see that NYer has included a picture.
Beautiful stories. Believers know that they need not fear death, as it is only the beginning.
That picture kept me out of a lot of trouble during my youth. Felt like he was staring into my soul.
I have many stories that have been told to me but I have two that happened in the last 3 weeks.I have to run but if I have the time I will post them tonight.
If I remember, Saul’s experience when struck by lightning resembles a near death experience, too.
My friend’s old boss had a near death experience. He said he was given a choice to go on or go back, but these were the trials he would face (they came true). He chose to go back. He said he lives a much better life now than he did before that.
My friend also read a book about 1500 near death experiences. ALL of them were the same with seeing the light. Sometimes it grows and the whole place is filled with love and peace, but for others it shuts off, and the people say they feel sick, alone, and like their body is on fire before they are called back.
My friend’s old boss had a near death experience. He said he was given a choice to go on or go back, but these were the trials he would face (they came true). He chose to go back. He said he lives a much better life now than he did before that.
My friend also read a book about 1500 near death experiences. ALL of them were the same with seeing the light. Sometimes it grows and the whole place is filled with love and peace, but for others it shuts off, and the people say they feel sick, alone, and like their body is on fire before they are called back.
We are non-Catholic as well, but have a hand-painted portrait of Jesus that I picked up at a flea market years ago and His eyes seem to follow you as you walk across the room. It creeps my grandkids out.
The divine isn't real, so there must be some other, natural explanation?
Oh, and since only natural observable phenomena are allowed, then of course, that proves that only natural phenomena {in this case, lightning] occur! Is that what you are trying to say or mean?
Nowhere in Paul's own, personally written account, did he equate it with what we know today as "lightning".
Please!!! We want to hear them!
“... alone,...”
That is hell in a word.
Heaven is with God. Hell is apart from God.
Just like sin. There is faith. And there is everything else. Everything else is sin.
Do not go toward the light. It’s a trap!
That is probably the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There are many versions of it and this is as close as I could come. The more common image does not show His arms.
Here is the history of that image.
It was to Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), a humble Visitandine of the monastery at Paray-le Monial, that Christ chose to reveal the desires of His Heart and to confide the task of imparting new life to the devotion. There is nothing to indicated that this pious religious had known the devotion prior to the revelations, or at least that she had paid any attention to it. These revelations were numerous, and the following apparitions are especially remarkable: that which occurred on the feast of St. John, when Jesus permitted Margaret Mary, as He had formerly allowed St. Gertrude, to rest her head upon His Heart, and then disclosed to her the wonders of His love, telling her that He desired to make them known to all mankind and to diffuse the treasures of His goodness, and that He had chosen her for this work (27 Dec., probably 1673); that, probably distinct from the preceding, in which He requested to be honoured under the figure of His Heart of flesh; that, when He appeared radiant with love and asked for a devotion of expiatory love -- frequent Communion, Communion on the First Friday of the month, and the observance of the Holy Hour (probably June or July, 1674); that known as the "great apparition" which took place during the octave of Corpus Christi, 1675, probably on 16 June, when He said, "Behold the Heart that has so loved men . . . instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part (of mankind) only ingratitude . . .", and asked her for a feast of reparation of the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, bidding her consult Father de la Colombière, then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray; and finally, those in which solemn homage was asked on the part of the king, and the mission of propagating the new devotion was especially confided to the religious of the Visitation and the priests of the Society of Jesus.
Notice the strong resemblance to the Divine Mercy image! When our Lord appeared to Sr. Faustina, he asked that His image be painted with the words: "Jesus I Trust in You" below it. The Polish nun could not paint and someone was commissioned to paint it according to her description.
It's a remarkable story and one worth reading. Jesus asked Sr. Faustina to be His Secretary of Divine Mercy and to keep a diary.
"Your task is to write down everything that I make known to you about My mercy, for the benefit of those who by reading these things will be comforted in their souls and will have the courage to approach Me."
The following site has posted extracts from it.
Thanks for the description. I was wondering about that. Divine Mercy is a perfect name for it. :-)
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