Posted on 05/10/2017 9:03:36 AM PDT by Salvation
Continuing with the theme of urgency from yesterday’s post, we do well to consider Mary’s fervent requests at Fatima for prayer, conversion, and consecration. This Saturday will mark the 100th anniversary of Mary’s 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 children’s 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 contrived—the atom bomb—would 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 God’s 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 world’s 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).
18. God the Son came into her virginal womb as a new Adam into his earthly paradise, to take his delight there and produce hidden wonders of grace.
God-made-man found freedom in imprisoning himself in her womb. He displayed power in allowing himself to be borne by this young maiden. He found his glory and that of his Father in hiding his splendours from all creatures here below and revealing them only to Mary. He glorified his independence and his majesty in depending upon this lovable virgin in his conception, his birth, his presentation in the temple, and in the thirty years of his hidden life. Even at his death she had to be present so that he might be united with her in one sacrifice and be immolated with her consent to the eternal Father, just as formerly Isaac was offered in sacrifice by Abraham when he accepted the will of God. It was Mary who nursed him, fed him, cared for him, reared him, and sacrificed him for us.
The Holy Spirit could not leave such wonderful and inconceivable dependence of God unmentioned in the Gospel, though he concealed almost all the wonderful things that Wisdom Incarnate did during his hidden life in order to bring home to us its infinite value and glory. Jesus gave more glory to God his Father by submitting to his Mother for thirty years than he would have given him had he converted the whole world by working the greatest miracles. How highly then do we glorify God when to please him we submit ourselves to Mary, taking Jesus as our sole model.
That should end the discussion for that is the Gospel truth.
"Mene, mene, tekel . . ."
As a seminary graduate, I was curious as to what is taught at Catholic denomination seminaries - so I looked at three different RC seminaries.
What amazed me is the LACK of Scripture that is taught. It is negligible.
They are so busy teaching ritual and praxis that 15-20% of the curriculum is the actual SCRIPTURES.
There sure doesn’t seem to be an emphasis on the original languages.
In your arrogance you make snide remarks like a typical dead soul rejecting The Gospel of Grace; you fail. The Truth is not in you.
It takes a lot to make me speechless but the sheer blasphemy and heresy of your post has done it
There is so much just wrong in that post.....stunning misrepresentation of God and who he is.
Indeed.....how one can manufacture such can only be possible in the fantasy of ones own mind.....
How many baptisms are found in the OLD testament?
Except that one time when He was 12...
Uh, two?
What if Jesus DID NOT WANT to declare his divinity that early on? Indeed, the gospels provide many instances of Jesus’ telling people and demons to be silent about his identity.
All you have shown is that Scripture is important, which no Christian doubts.
Sola scriptura is something else entirely.
If sola scriptura were true, it would be taught explicitly in either the OT or the NT, or both. Since it is not, it is a self-contradictory, human-invented dogma.
You have been stuffed to the gills with anti-Catholic propaganda.
. . . and had been bar mitzvahed (declared a Son of the Covenant), counted as a man when making up a minyan, able to read Torah in the local synagogue, fully accountable for His own actions, able to stand out in quizzing and being quizzed by the doctors of the law, no longer a "Mama's boy."
The next recorded conversation with her started out this way:
Mary: "They are not having wine."
Jesus: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"
Doesn't sound to me that he had her up on a pedestal right then, eh?
If Scripture is so important, then why are you choosing to ignore the Word of God for the sake of ‘sacred tradition’ then?
I would think that the Word of God would be more important than the traditions of men.
Ah, Arthur! It was you after all! And what a nice thing you have to say about me! You can thank Jan Hus, and J. N. Darby, and Ian Paisley for that, Art! And John MacArthur, too . . . all Johns. Even wrote a little meself as well, so thanks for the encouragement!
I've so much to say to you, but it's just shy of 1 AM, and I'm tired. Perhaps I'll catch you a bit later, when my other work for the day is done. So, arrivederci, til tomorrow.
There is more about the Scripture being the true test of Truth than:
Mariology
infant baptism
Popehood or any man more holy than another
a successorship for the Apostles
required celibacy for priests
oh the list goes on and on if you demand explicitly . let the rule go BOTH ways.
I would dispute infant baptism on your list. From my study, there is sufficient logical and Scriptural support for that, at least.
But other than that, spot on.
And as long as you’re not trying to argue Anabaptism I don’t think it’s worth the argument at this time in this place.
Baptism as a rite of public display of “burying” the old self and starting a new life as a Christian should only be performed on someone old enough to understand the significance of such an act. If one wants to christen an infant or have a blessing . . okay but it is completely different when an infant is unaware and probably an unwilling participant. They are two different rituals.
Well, Art, you have been stuffed to the gills with Catholic propaganda. Of the two I choose the Bible (Gods Word) as Truth.
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