Posted on 05/10/2017 9:03:36 AM PDT by Salvation
Continuing with the theme of urgency from yesterdays post, we do well to consider Marys fervent requests at Fatima for prayer, conversion, and consecration. This Saturday will mark the 100th anniversary of Marys first appearance at Fatima.
It was a critical time in human history. The First World War had claimed more than 17 million lives. Mary urged prayer to end this catastrophe:
Thanks be to God, through the childrens prayers and surely those of others, the war did soon end. In October, Our Lady said,
War is a terrible result of human sinfulness as well as a punishment for it. Sin is its own punishment; when we sow the wind, we reap the whirlwind. Part of the horror of the First World War was the use of chemical weapons. So appalling was the suffering and so great was the loss of life that in 1925 most nations willingly signed the Geneva Protocol, which prohibited their use in international armed conflicts.
But Mother Mary urgently warned that if the people of this world did not repent, pray, and cease offending God, a war far worse would come:
Sadly, as we know, the Second World War formally ensued in 1939. Months earlier, in 1938, a remarkable display of the Aurora Borealis further south than ever observed made international headlines. It was a final warning. More than 60 million people died in World War II. Atrocities were multiplied, and the most fearsome weapon ever contrivedthe atom bombwould haunt the world long after the war. Russia, too, spread Marxist and atheist errors.
See what happens when we do heed the urgent request to pray? Wars can be ended, souls can be saved, and peace can be brought.
But also note the terrible consequences of failing to pray and be converted! Jesus once said to paralyzed man he had healed, See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you (John 5:14). So, too, for the people of that time who, though having received Gods mercies in the end of World War I, fell back into sin. The decadence, financial excess, and foolishness of the roaring 1920s, both in Europe and America, brought a harvest of corruption, both morally and politically. It ushered in both the Great Depression and then a war far worse than ever imagined.
Yes, prayer and conversion are both urgent and essential. This is true not only in terms of this world, but also of the world to come. This worlds travails are indeed awful, but they are temporary. Mother Mary sets far greater stakes before us: Heaven or Hell.
Where will you spend eternity? What about your children, siblings, and friends? Have you thought about this at all? Do you understand the urgency? Consider well some of what our Lady of Fatima said by way of an eternal warning:
Here is a mother urgently warning her children of the fires of hell, of the consequences of sin and the final refusal to repent. Here is a mother urgently calling for prayer, reparation, sacrifices, and conversion.
She is urgent; are we? To be urgent does not mean to be in a panic; it means to be sober and alert, to be persistent and consistent in attending to our final end and to that of others to the degree that we are able.
Caritas Christi urget nos: The Love of Christ urges us on! …. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:14, 20).
I've not FORGOTTEN that you Catholics are Christians.
I've also not forgotten what your chosen religion states about US!
"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."
--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
Of course; this was over 900 years ago; so perhaps Rome has changed it's mind.
Do you have an update for us PROTs that indicates Rome has now changed it's collective mind about this?
That we Non-Catholic believers in Christ just might have a tiny grasp on salvation after all??
Therefore (remember your Logic 101 class?)...
The disunity and fractures among those who profess CATHOLICISM, and believe what it teaches, is testimony that the One True Church seems to not be as monolithic as certain FR posters would like the unknowing to believe.
5. Mary is the supreme masterpiece of Almighty God and he has reserved the knowledge and possession of her for himself. She is the glorious Mother of God the Son who chose to humble and conceal her during her lifetime in order to foster her humility. He called her "Woman" as if she were a stranger, although in his heart he esteemed and loved her above all men and angels. Mary is the sealed fountain and the faithful spouse of the Holy Spirit where only he may enter. She is the sanctuary and resting-place of the Blessed Trinity where God dwells in greater and more divine splendour than anywhere else in the universe, not excluding his dwelling above the cherubim and seraphim. No creature, however pure, may enter there without being specially privileged.
Boo hoo
Stand your ground!
You know; that FAITH once given to the saints?
Don't whine: prove your point!
I've a long memory.
I can remember when Anti-PROT bigotry by loving Catholics was in POWER here on FR!
HMMMmmm...
Matthew 1:23
In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:
Wow! Some flowery stuff being written.
Too bad that NONE of it is Scriptural!
That's because Demontfort also says:
3. In answer to her prayers to remain hidden, poor and lowly, God was pleased to conceal her from nearly every other human creature in her conception, her birth, her life, her mysteries, her resurrection and assumption. Her own parents did not really know her; and the angels would often ask one another, "Who can she possibly be?", for God had hidden her from them, or if he did reveal anything to them, it was nothing compared with what he withheld.
4. God the Father willed that she should perform no miracle during her life, at least no public one, although he had given her the power to do so. God the Son willed that she should speak very little although he had imparted his wisdom to her.
Even though Mary was his faithful spouse, God the Holy Spirit willed that his apostles and evangelists should say very little about her and then only as much as was necessary to make Jesus known.
Grasping at straws. Not surprised.
You mean like Kennedy, Kerry, Gillibrand, Pelosi, Biden, Chavez,....
Your current POPE?
So a Mafia hit man, being Catholic, is a *Christian*?
You mean *Christian* like that?
Or real Christian, like Peter, Paul, Timothy, Titus, Stephen, etc? People who live and act like JESUS.
Tradition and claims of being the OTC aren't either.
If Scripture isn't sufficient, why should we think that the Catholic church can do any better with tradition? If they didn't get it right the first time around, then give us one good reason that we should believe that they can get it right the second, third, fourth, or however many councils there have been in the Catholic church since NT times.
After all, we're talking here about the Catholic church that has elected FRANCIS as it's current pope.
Seems to me that many of y'all FRoman Catholics can't stand him. And you still trust their judgment?
I can't see any good reason to with men like that in charge.
Fortunately I don’t rely on wikipedia for church history or my faith.
Matt 6:14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matt 7:21Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
1 Corinthians 9:27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror;
James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
James 2:18 But someone will say, You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believeand shudder. 20 Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. 23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.
James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
*** If that were true there would be unity among all Christians on earth as there is in heaven. The disunity and fractures among those who profess to read the Bible, and believe what is written in it, is testimony against reading the Bible being sufficient.***
Your OTC claims aren’t sufficient either to produce or provide unity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_rites_and_churches
(Alexandrian:
Coptic Rite
Ethiopic Rite
Antiochian:
Maronite Rite
(West) Syrian Rite
Malankara Rite
Armenian Rite:
Armenian Rite
Chaldean or East Syrian:
Chaldean Rite
Syro-Malabar Rite
Byzantine Rite (Constantinopolitan):
Byzantine
Latin (Western) liturgical rites:
Roman Rite
Pre-Tridentine Mass (the various pre-1570 forms)
Tridentine Mass
Mass of Paul VI (
Anglican Use
Ambrosian Rite
Rite of Braga
Mozarabic Rite
Catholic Order Rites (generally defunct):
Benedictine Rite
Carmelite Rite
Carthusian Rite
Cistercian Rite
Dominican Rite
Franciscan Rite
Friars Minor Capuchin Rite
Premonstratensian Rite
Servite Rite
Catholic autonomous particular Churches:
Latin Church with Latin liturgical traditions
Eastern Catholic Churches
Alexandrian liturgical tradition:
Coptic Catholic Church
Ethiopian Catholic Church
Eritrean Catholic Church
Antiochian liturgical tradition:
Maronite Church
Syrian Catholic Church
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church
Armenian liturgical tradition:
Armenian Catholic Church
Chaldean or East Syrian liturgical tradition:
Chaldean Catholic Church
Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
Byzantine liturgical tradition:
Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church
Belarusian Greek Catholic Church
Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church
Byzantine Church of Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro
Greek Byzantine Catholic Church
Hungarian Greek Catholic Church
Italo-Albanian Catholic Church
Macedonian Greek Catholic Church
Melkite Greek Catholic Church
Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic
Russian Greek Catholic Church
Ruthenian Catholic Church
Slovak Greek Catholic Church
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church)
And you don’t mind that Hanukkah is first presented in Maccabees?
There is nothing “demonic” in the Fatima apparitions.
By your reasoning, then, the Roman Catholic church is not sufficient either because there are these differences with the EO.
There are differences between the EO and Roman Catholicism. These differences are so important that there has been no reconciliation in nearly a thousand years after the split. The Eastern Orthodox differ with Roman Catholicism on these issues:
The Holy Spirit (the filioque)
In EO - The third person of the Trinity, proceeding from the Father alone as in the original Nicene Creed. The Father sends the Spirit at the intercession of the Son. The Son is therefore an agent only in the procession of the Spirit.
In RC - 'When the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, He is not separated from the Father, He is not separated from the Son'.
Mary - Assumption and Immaculate conception of
EO - The Assumption is accepted and it is agreed that Mary experienced physical death, but the Immaculate conception is rejected. Orthodox belief is that the guilt of original sin is not transmitted from one generation to the next, thus obviating the need for Mary to be sinless.
RC - Both are dogmas of the church. The church has not as yet decided whether Mary actually experienced Physical death. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception states that Mary, was at conception 'preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin' and should not be confused with the virgin birth.
Pope - Authority of
EO - As the Bishop of Rome, he has a primacy of honour when Orthodox, not of jurisdiction. At present, his primacy is not effective as the papacy needs to be reformed in accordance with Orthodoxy. His authority is thus no greater or lesser than any of his fellow Bishops in the church.
RC - The Pope is the 'Vicar of Christ' i.e. the visible head of the church on earth and spiritual successor of St. Peter. He has supreme authority (including that over church councils) within Christendom (The Power of the keys).
Pope - Infallibility of
EO - Papal Infallibility is rejected. The Holy Spirit acts to guide the church into truth through (for example) ecumenical councils. This Orthodoxy recognises the first seven ecumenical councils (325-787) as being infallible.
RC - The Pope is infallible when, through the Holy Spirit, he defines a doctrine on faith and morals that is to be held by the whole church. This is a dogma and is therefore a required belief within Catholicism.
Purgatory
EO - An intermediate state between earth and heaven is recognised, but cleansing and purification occur in this life, not the next.
RC - A place of cleansing and preparation for heaven. Also a place where the punishment due to unremitted venial sins may be expiated.
I'd say these were the "biggies", but other differences also exist. These are explained here.
6. I declare with the saints: Mary is the earthly paradise of Jesus Christ the new Adam, where he became man by the power of the Holy Spirit, in order to accomplish in her wonders beyond our understanding. She is the vast and divine world of God where unutterable marvels and beauties are to be found. She is the magnificence of the Almighty where he hid his only Son, as in his own bosom, and with him everything that is most excellent and precious. What great and hidden things the all-powerful God has done for this wonderful creature, as she herself had to confess in spite of her great humility, "The Almighty has done great things for me." The world does not know these things because it is incapable and unworthy of knowing them.
Then what the heck was she doing marrying Joseph?
She is the sanctuary and resting-place of the Blessed Trinity where God dwells in greater and more divine splendour than anywhere else in the universe, not excluding his dwelling above the cherubim and seraphim. No creature, however pure, may enter there without being specially privileged.
Gee, isn't Mary SPECIAL?
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