Posted on 04/11/2010 6:09:57 PM PDT by stfassisi
The first “Hail Mary” was brought from Heaven by Gabriel the Archangel, the messenger of Holy Trinity
The following text of Father Gabriel Amorth, chief exorcist of the Vatican, is taken from the March-April, 2003 issue of “Echo of Mary, Queen of Peace”:
The recent Apostolic Letter of John Paul II, "Rosarium Virginis Mariae" (released last October 16) encourages all Christians to turn back to the prayer strongly recommended both by the latest Pontiffs and recent Marian apparitions. Paul VI called the Rosary a compendium of the Gospel. To make it more complete, John Paul II added the 'mysteries of light' to cover Jesus' public life. Padre Pio called the Rosary beads a weapon of extraordinary power against Satan.
One day a colleague of mine heard the devil say during an exorcism: "Every Hail Mary is like a blow on my head. If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary was, it would be my end." The secret that makes this prayer so effective is that the Rosary is both prayer and meditation. It is addressed to the Father, to the Blessed Virgin, and to the Holy Trinity, and is a meditation centred on Christ.
Today more than ever, the world is in need of prayer and meditation. It is in need of prayer because people have forgotten God, and without God the world has put itself on the edge of a precipice. This is why in Her messages, Our Lady insists so much on prayer. Without God's help, Satan wins. The world is also in need of meditation because if the great Christian truths are forgotten, souls become void. This void is grabbed up by the enemy, and he fills it with his lies. And today we see the results with widespread belief in superstition and occultism.
The most obvious danger for our society today is the downfall of the family. The rhythm of today's world has broken the family unity. Little time is spent together, and even when the family is together, its members don't speak because the television speaks. Where are the families which recite the Rosary together in the evenings? Pope Pius XII insisted in his own time: “If you pray the Rosary together, you will experience peace in your families; you will get on together.” “The family that prays together, stays together,” would say Father Peyton, the untiring apostle of the family Rosary. “Satan wants war,” Mary said one day in Medjugorje. Well, the Rosary is the weapon which is able to guarantee peace for the world, because it is a prayer and a form of meditation able to transform hearts and defeat the enemy.
Protected by the Rosary
The following inspiring episode from World War II, written by Sr. Mary Sheila O'Neil and reported in the October-December, 1979 issue of Garabandal Magazine (P.O. Box 606 Lindenhurst, New York 11757 USA) also illustrates the power of the Rosary:
It was a busy day in March. As a teacher-principal in the 1950's, I had to make sure that each day provided the time for the two separate roles. On that March fourth, an incident between a teacher and a parent had kept me out of my class for almost an hour that morning, so for the rest of the day, I was desperately trying to make up class time. Hence, the knock on my door at 2:00 p.m. was not welcome.
With relief, I found it was only a salesman who needed my signature and even produced his pen. As he did so, his Rosary had caught onto the pen's clip and came out as well. I signed as I said indifferently, "So, you are a Catholic." "Oh no," he said, "but a lot of us owe our lives to Our Lady, and I promised Her I would always keep my Rosary with me and say it every day."
Twenty minutes later, I was still at the door listening, fascinated, to the account of one of the wonderful experiences a group of airmen had had with Our Lady. My visitor hesitated to start, for he had noticed my "non welcome" opening of the door. But eager now to hear his story, I assured him that the class was doing an exercise, and I begged him to proceed. He continued:
It was May, 1940, and we had joined the Air Force in late September. At Halifax, we were given an intensive training course, because they needed us overseas, and to us young lads, the whole program was exciting.
We were grouped into squadrons, each of which consisted of six to ten planes, and each was trained to maneuver as a unit. Therefore about thirty to fifty men made up a squadron, along with the squadron leader who gave all the orders and kept the group functioning in unity.
In May, our squadron was told we were going overseas and would be in action at once. We would work on nightly missions over enemy territory until the war was over. We were waiting for our new squadron leader, due to arrive in two days on a 9:00 p.m. air-force flight. Being an officer, he would, we thought, go at once to the officers' quarters.
We watched the plane, glimpsed him from the distance, and resigned ourselves to waiting until the next day to "size him up." A couple of hours later, this squadron leader, Stan Fulton, in full uniform, entered our bunk house.
“Well men, we're going to spend some dangerous hours together, but let's hope we all meet back here when it's over. Ah, there's a free bunk and I am tired! I'll meet each of you tomorrow.”
With that, he threw his bag on an upper bunk. Our squadron leader, an officer, sleeping here with us! We liked him at once and our liking and our admiration grew each day.
That first night he knelt on the floor and prayed his Rosary in silence. Astounded, we were struck dumb. When he finished, he looked at us with his friendly smile and said, “I hope you guys don't mind a fellow saying some prayers because where we're going, we're going to need them.”
The next day our maneuver practice, under his command, assured us that Fulton was not just our military leader, but our friend. He was one of us; he never tried to intimidate us with his rank.
That night, he repeated his prayer session. Although our group had trained together for six months at least, I had never seen anyone kneel in prayer, and had no idea that any of our group was Catholic; but the third night three of our companions joined Fulton in saying the Rosary. The rest of us did not understand but we kept a respectful silence.
A few nights later — we were quick learners — we all answered the Hail Marys and Our Fathers. Fulton looked pleased, and thus we ended each day in prayer.
On June 1, 1940, we were to leave Halifax to begin a series of night raids from England over Germany. The evening before, Fulton gave each of us a Rosary.
“We shall be in some tight situations, but then, if you agree, we'll say the Rosary. If you will promise to keep the Rosary with you always throughout your life and to say it, I can promise you that Our Lady will bring you all back safe to Canada.”
We answered, “Sure thing.” Little did we dream we would be in action for four years, many times in dreadful danger with fire all around us. At such times, Fulton's voice would ring through each plane, “Hail Mary...” How reverently and sincerely did we respond! How many hundreds of Rosaries we must have said.
After two years, it was noted that ours was the only squadron that had not lost a plane nor a single life. We said nothing, but we knew.
Finally, the terrible war was over. During those years, we lost all sense of excitement and adventure. All that concerned us was survival! We did survive, too. All returned to Canada in 1945, fully convinced that Our Lady had taken care of us.
So I never forget to keep my Rosary with me and say it every day although I am not a Catholic. When I change my trousers, the first thing I transfer, even before my wallet, is my rosary.
Read your Bible, Dr. E.
Try Job. Heh. You may learn something about how God answers those who compare themselves to Him.
I’m telling you right now: I know no presbyterian who “has the mind of Christ.” No, not one.
Mary was preserved by God Almighty to be sinless, although human. Did some other deity save the presbyterians?
“He who has seen me has seen the Father,” Christ said, declaring that He is God. He preserved His mother before her birth. “Before Abraham was, I am,” said Christ. He died and rose again to save all presbyterians from their sins, but as you pointed out, we can’t, as humans, know that they aren’t all going to hell. But He preserved Mary from any stain, because she is the Ark of the New Covenant, the Queen Mother of the King of Kings.
3:16. All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice:
All scripture...Every part of divine scripture is certainly profitable for all these ends. But, if we would have the whole rule of Christian faith and practice, we must not be content with those Scriptures, which Timothy knew from his infancy, that is, with the Old Testament alone: nor yet with the New Testament, without taking along with it the traditions of the apostles, and the interpretation of the church, to which the apostles delivered both the book, and the true meaning of it.
“communicating with the dead is strictly forbidden (Deuteronomy 18:10)”
18:10. Neither let there be found among you any one that shall expiate his son or daughter, making them to pass through the fire: or that consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams and omens, neither let there be any wizard,
18:11. Nor charmer, nor any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers, or that seeketh the truth from the dead.
Note: “any one that…seeketh the truth from the dead.” It is clear that this refers to attempts to obtain information from the spirits of the dead through their own power, and certainly does not refer to asking other members of the Body of Christ to pray for us. I don’t know why this is so hard for protestants.
“Specifically any example of praying to worm food (It is very offensive to refer to other members of the body of Christ as worm food. Are you really a Christian?) or them praying for us.”
Corinthians
12:11. But all these things, one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he will.
12:12. For as the body is one and hath many members; and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body: So also is Christ.
12:13. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free: and in one Spirit we have all been made to drink.
12:14. For the body also is not one member, but many.
12:15. If the foot should say: Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body: Is it therefore not of the Body?
12:16. And if the ear should say: Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body: Is it therefore not of the body?
12:17. If the whole body were the eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?
12:18. But now God hath set the members, every one of them, in the body as it hath pleased him.
12:19. And if they all were one member, where would be the body?
12:20. But now there are many members indeed, yet one body.
12:21. And the eye cannot say to the hand: I need not thy help. Nor again the head to the feet: I have no need of you.
12:22. Yea, much, more those that seem to be the more feeble members of the body are more necessary.
12:23. And such as we think to be the less houourable members of the body, about these we put more abundant honour: and those that are our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
12:24. But our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, giving to that which wanted the more abundant honour.
12:25. That there might be no schism in the body: but the members might be mutually careful one for another.
12:26. And if one member suffer any thing, all the members suffer with it: or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it.
12:27. Now you are the body of Christ and members of member.
Now, you show me the scripture where it says that members of the body of Christ are severed from that body at their carnal death.
“If I am wrong please straighten me out because I want to get it right, I only ask that you do so using Gods Word and not mans.”
Sola scriptura is not scriptural.
“1) Someone praying for us is not mediating, it is entreating. These are 2 separate things that need to stay very separate. It would seem to me that Catholics want other mediators.”
You seem to be trying to read all kinds of things into the word “mediate.” If we ask another member of the body of Christ to pray for us, it is “entreating” if he is still in his body, but “mediating” if he has returned his soul to God. Sorry, but I can’t detect the slightest scintilla of logic or reason in that.
“2) Saints who have passed on and are no longer with us but are in Christ’s presence are off limits to us according to God’s Word.”
As I showed above, this is not the case. The Bible just doesn’t say that.
I wonder how you get around Matthew Chapter 17.
17:1. And after six days Jesus taketh unto him Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart:
17:2. And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow.
17:3. And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him.
17:4. And Peter answering, said to Jesus: Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
17:5. And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And lo a voice out of the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him.
Deuteronomy 18 doesn’t say “For the Lord abhorreth all these things, and for these abominations he will destroy them at thy coming” **unless** it is Jesus who is speaking with members of the body of Christ who have shuffled off this mortal coil.
If it is speaking with saints that God abhors, then Jesus is doing something that God abhors. Is that possible?
Of course not. Ergo, the passage doesn’t refer to legitimate communication with saints in Heaven, such as asking them to pray for us; it refers rather to séances and ungodly things like that in which people attempt to use their own abilities to get information from the spirits of the dead without God’s sanction. Quod erat demonstrandum.
“The RCC infantisizes Jesus Christ in order to elevate His mother to an unseemly, idolatrous position above even God, as if Mary rules the world.”
For your own sake, please, please stop telling these lies. Think about what can result from such malicious false witness, repeated so many times.
The Word of God must be read and understood in its entirety. Far too many attempt to "prove" positions and theories by citing a quip, phrase, or verse out of the context of the entire Scripture. I have seen papers published by the German (Nazi) Protestant Church in which much of Mein Kampf was supported by single out of context verses.
It is disengenuous at best to throw around words without defining them. Necromancy is the practice of calling upon the spirits of the dead to gain special knowledge. The Catholic Church specifically prohibits it.
The Church teaches that those who believe in Christ do not die, but gain eternal life. Prayers of intercession to saints are therefore not necromancy.
And not even a Christian, just some new age cultist with a burning hatred of all things Catholic. Why else would a non-Catholic spend thousands of hours lurking and searching FR for any thread remotely associated with a Catholic topic and then dredge up the same venomous and thoroughly refuted falsehoods over and over and over again?
The communion of saints is the Church. The term "communion of saints" therefore has two closely linked meanings: communion in holy things (sancta)" and "among holy persons (sancti)."
Sancta sancti's! ("God's holy gifts for God's holy people") is proclaimed by the celebrant in most Eastern liturgies during the elevation of the holy Gifts before the distribution of communion. The faithful (sancti) are fed by Christ's holy body and blood (sancta) to grow in the communion of the Holy Spirit (koinonia) and to communicate it to the world.
Since Abraham, intercession - asking on behalf of another has been characteristic of a heart attuned to God's mercy. In the age of the Church, Christian intercession participates in Christ's, as an expression of the communion of saints. In intercession, he who prays looks "not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others," even to the point of praying for those who do him harm. Phil 2:4; cf. Acts 7:60; Lk 23:28, 34.
By this I assume you mean the Two Greatest Commandments and the Eight Beatitudes, right?
An accusation of "revisionism" is pretty funny coming from a Protestant, since Protestantism is all about revisionism.
Everybody’s wrong except Rome.
The book wasn't published by "Rome". It sounds like you are into conspiracy theories.
Well to begin with you don't have a complete bible. But more importantly it is what you are lacking that leads to your misunderstanding. You have no knowledge of what Catholicism actually teaches. You will go out of your way to surf the internet to find oblique references to Catholicism and will cite the most reprehensible source, but you have never cited anything directly from the Vatican website. Perhaps you believe that a cookie on your computer from the Vatican will condemn you to hell or will have the same scalding effect as Holy Water.
Are you denying that Mary was blessed or are you implying that everyone is blessed?
>>My mother wouldn’t be too happy if I called her “woman.” <<
My mother was perfectly happy to be called Baba. Every Polish mother is.
Understanding that Jesus was not an English speaker and your mother is, may be why you don’t get the concept.
>>The infant Jesus did not save us by His merciful sacrifice on the cross. The man, Jesus Christ, the only “shepherd and bishop of our souls,” gave up His life for His sheep.<<
By that reasoning, the infant Jesus is a separate person from the one on the cross.
That’s odd.
>>Someone who had never borne a child might be ignorant.<<
I think that might be it.
As I tell my daughters, “You will be my babies, even when you have babies of your own.”
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And it is lazy to throw around accusations without reading the entire thread. I did define it here
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
Exodus 20:2-5 no graven image. Does not mean we should not have them. If so- then God would contradict Himself, and we know God does not do that in the Bible and His teachings. He is not strict and absolute in the context of this teaching. Just 5 chapters later- God gives Moses explicit instructions on how to construct the “Ark of the Covenant” Exodus 25:17-19 Which is sculpted statues of angels on the Ark. This was to contain the presence of God and was to be venerated{honored} as the holiest place in all of Israel.
There is a difference between posting a correct and incorrect or indirect definition. You have attempted to tie meanings in a completely irrelevant and deceitful manner. Defined in the religious context of this discussion your extrapolation of necromancy is just wrong. Do you actually believe that all solemn appeals are sinful, or just those by Catholics?
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