Posted on 02/12/2010 2:03:10 PM PST by Graybeard58
VATICAN CITY -- Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book by the Polish prelate spearheading his sainthood case.
The book "Why He's a Saint" also includes previously unpublished speeches and documents written by John Paul, including one 1989 signed memo in which he said he would resign if he became incapacitated.
The book also reported for the first time that John Paul forgave his would-be assassin in the ambulance on the way to the hospital moments after he was shot on May 13, 1981, in St. Peter's Square. And it reported that he initially thought his attacker was a member of the Italian terrorist organization the Red Brigades.
The book was written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the postulator, or main promoter, for John Paul's canonization cause and was released Tuesday. It was based on the testimony of the 114 witnesses and boxes of documentation Oder gathered on John Paul's life to support the case.
At a news conference Tuesday, Oder defended John Paul's practice of self-mortification, which some faithful use to remind them of the suffering of Jesus on the cross.
"It's an instrument of Christian perfection," Oder said, responding to questions about how such a practice could be condoned considering Catholic teaching holds that the human body is a gift from God.
In the book, Oder wrote that John Paul frequently denied himself food -- especially during the holy season of Lent -- and "frequently spent the night on the bare floor," messing up his bed in the morning so he wouldn't draw attention to his act of penitence.
"But it wasn't limited to this. As some members of his close entourage
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
Well, if your organization could read and handle the Bible without warping its perspicuity, it too would have understood the uselessness of beating oneself with a belt. But, understanding has not been granted to Rome and apparently not to most of its constituents.
Well, what I posted was a quote from the Bible. You probably did not recognize it because your organization is so full of man-made tradition and superstition that it seemed unfamiliar. If you had a problem with it, who exactly is distorting Scripture?
Wake up Romans. Throw off those chains of the Vatican and come into the light of Christ, alone...if you can.
What they provided had no references to beating with a belt. But, the error of Rome is deep and wide. And the sheeple are ensnared in its web. We call on Rome to repent...if it can.
So you are claiming that athletic training pain is non-self-inflicted?
So you only object to flagellation if a belt is used? It’d be okay if it were a piece of rope?
Your method of interpreting Scripture is absurdly literal. You are so mired in your organizations prejudiced, man-made interpretations of Scripture that you have no ears to hear or eyes to see.
Wake up, come to Jesus before it’s too late. Leave your man-made intepretations behind.
Christ was beaten and flogged and hung on a cross for our sins.. when one beats themselves it is like telling Christ He did not do a good enough job..
1 Peter 2;4 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
LOL.. worked on me too...
Scripture please
I lived in Milwaukee at the time of Weakland. Throughout the Diocese there was a generally feeling of rot from within.
Vocations had all but stopped, those called took their vows elsewhere. Once great parishes were being closed and their treasures sold off.
For all this Weakland is now cast in bronze at the Cathedral of St John. The man who once wrote sarcastic replies to those who contacted him regarding the abuse of children is now permanently depicted as watching over children.
We are not talking about diets here or athletic exercises we are talking about beating your body to cause pain..THAT IS A MENTAL DISORDER ( not a God given gift) not a spiritual exercise
As for what the pagans did and the Jews did.... .that is of little interest to me because Jesus bore my sins and transgressions and took the pain and punishment we deserve and if we believe that, we would be saved and would be adopted children of God. Do you think the Pope believed that or was he paying for his own sin?
LOL
Do you REALLY believe that Paul is speaking of self flagellation here ? LOL..He is talking about being tortured and mocked and imprisoned and pursued by the enemies of the gospel. He is talking about martyrdom .
Luke 6:22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. -- Hebrews 12:7-11 M
Does He say SELF chastening???
He is speaking about our loving Father chastening us..not us choosing what chastening we deserve and doing it to our self.
We need to read the text correctly if we are going to quote it
This is a great admonition for those stuck in the sludge pot of Rome's cultish superstitions and self-made religion. Only those clinging to self-righteousness need to admire angry old men who inflict self-abuse to prove something to God. Just think for a moment at the idiotic mental image of a man whipping himself and thinking God is somehow impressed. It is apparent this lost soul has no clue, no clue whatsoever of the depth of his need for forgiveness or the extent of his sin nature. But, such has been the error of Rome. We call to Rome, repent...if you can.
Sorry, there is no logical difference between the pain caused by voluntary and reasonable fasting by a person of sound mind or voluntary and reasonable athletic training by a person of sound mind for the purpose of training one’s body and soul and the pain caused by voluntary and reasonable whipping by a person of sound mind for the purpose of training one’s body and soul.
Each of these can be done unreasonably or out of psychosis. We call he psychotic form of fasting anorexia. One can be psychotic about body building or extreme exercise. One can be psychotic about whipping (masochism).
If whipping in and of itself is wrong, then spanking is wrong. Some liberals think it is. You have adopted a Manichean formula: the pain inflicted by whipping can never be right but the pain inflicted by fasting or athletic training is right.
What rational criterion do you employ to label whipping as always wrong?
And don’t respond with “well, spanking a child is done by the parent for the child’s own good.”
Self-flagellation, if not done to excess, by an adult of sound mind is done for the person’s own good.
You will need to show that it cannot produce a good result for the adult of sound mind. You cannot simply declare whipping oneself to be wrong but whipping another (a child) right.
Spanking a child can, of course, be abused, as can self-flagellation. What are the keys to a right use of spanking children?
It must never be done out of anger. (Do you have evidence that JPII used a belt out of anger?)
The child must be able to make a connection between the wrongs he does and the punishment. If you could take time to study the lives of saints who employed this or any other discipline, you would discover that they did it accompanied by daily self-examination—they were well aware of their sins and failings and whatever penance they employed (fasting, the “discipline”—meaning flagellation etc.) was employed as they considered their sins and temptations to sin and resolved with God’s grace to fight against those sins in the future.
Those who have ears to hear, hear. If you could find it in yourself, by God’s grace, to step back and think about this, you will discover that “pain” (penance) is part of all our efforts to live disciplined, focused lives. Healthy people of sound mind know how to use pain, discipline, to grow in integration and fortitude. Unhealthy people of unsound mind abuse these things.
I have studied and taught the life of John Paul II for 15 years. I know of no other personage in history who surpassed him in psychological integration (well-adjustedness). Already as a child he was remarkably well-adjusted, integrated. He was highly gifted in sports, in academics, handsome—yet no one has ever been found who envied him or disliked him. For a child and an adolescent to be so gifted yet so well liked, to have nothing but friends among his school class is next to unheard of and points to a remarkably well-adjusted, integrated personage.
This pattern lasted throughout his life. Everyone who met him one-on-one remarked on how well he listened, how he made the interlocutor feel that he was the only thing that mattered at that moment to John Paul. This is evidence that he was the exact opposite of a narcissist-incredibly well adjusted, knew who he was, had no need for others to stroke his ego.
That evidence is overwhelming—he was seen by more people than anyone in known history. He had a constant stream of visitors and guests. Their accounts are unanimous.
If this man employed a belt to give himself focus in his struggle against sin and the Devil, in the very warfare that St. Paul (he of the thorn in the side fame—Paul praised God for giving him pain) describes so eloquently
then maybe you might just climb off your mountain of presuppositions and listen for once to John Paul II’s story. It just might have something to teach you.
It’s your choice. The ball is in your court.
“This is a great admonition for those stuck in the sludge pot of Rome’s cultish superstitions and self-made religion.”
You’d be a tad more persuasive if you did not use this sort of language. I believe your hero, St. Paul, spoke of speaking truth with charity.
I have no more say to you. I shake off the dust of my feet against you. You are an embarrassment to the Christian faith.
well writ Houghton!
"Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies." 2 Corinthians 4:10
And the secret to Karol Wojtyla’s well-adjustedness as a boy and adolescent, as well as an adult was very simple:
prayer.
He lived in constant prayer, already as a child. The evidence is overwhelming. Everyone who knew him as a child, as a young priest, professor
commented on how he spent hours in obvious prayer and that the rest of the time he seemed to have a kind of “practice of the presence of God” prayer relationship with God.
You would do well to learn his story before you pass judgment on him.
We come to the end of your crazed defense of the indefensible Roman sect. No longer will we have to endure rantings about how self-mutilation appeases the Vatican gods, nor must we bear the misinterpretations foisted on the poor unsuspecting adherants. We will see when this is all over who exactly is the "embarrassment". Watch for the Gospel of grace to flatten that goose-stepping country called Vatican City.
It’s certainly not the same thing. It’s purpose is the athletics, not infliction of pain for its own sake or for repentance. Same with walking in shoes that hurt, combing hair that is tangled, giving oneself insulin shots, doing anything unpleasant for that matter. I’m surprised I have to spell this out. Weren’t you the one who made the distinction, or do I have you mixed up with someone else?
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