Posted on 08/27/2019 8:53:07 AM PDT by Salvation
On the Feast of St. Monica, who prayed at length for her son, I’d like to say that my mother prayed for me too! I really needed (and still need) her prayers.
In this time of pain in the Church, when God’s people are rightly disturbed by the sins of the clergy, many of you have assured me and I’m sure other clergy of your prayers for us. St. Monica, especially in this difficult time, is an image of prayers not only for her son but also for priests; for clearly, her son went on to become a priest and bishop.
Satan hates priests and seeks above all to get to us. Jesus remarked laconically and pointedly, quoting from Zechariah (13:7), Strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. This is why Satan hates priests and seeks to topple them.
Like St. Augustine, I have always felt my mother’s prayers very powerfully. I pray that my mother, Nancy Geiman Pope, who died in 2005, is now at home with the Lord and has met St. Monica. She always told me that she was praying for me! I often attributed her prayers to her tendency to worry, but I have learned of the power of her prayers and of their necessity. My mother said the Lord had told her that Satan wanted me and all priests and that she had better pray for me. I never doubted that she did and I’m sure she still does.
I remember once, a week before my ordination in 1989, I was up on the roof of our family home cleaning out the gutters. My mother came out and told me to “Come down from the roof at once!” and that she would hire someone to clean them. She later explained that her concern was that I, so near to my ordination, was now a special target of the Evil One and that I might have fallen from that roof by his evil machinations.
I have come to see both her wisdom and my need for her prayers. I have also come to value the prayers of so many of my parishioners, who have told me that they pray for me. Yes, I need a mantle of protection—and so do all other priests. Pray for priests! Pray, pray, pray!
So today on this Feast of St. Monica, my thoughts stretch to my mother. Thanks, Mom, for your prayers and for your wisdom. One day you called me down from the “roof” of my pride and told me to keep my feet on solid ground. Yes, you knew, and you prayed. You warned me and then prayed some more. You knew that precious gifts, like the priesthood, also come with burdens and temptations that require sober and vigilant prayer.
Thank you, dear readers and beloved parishioners, for your prayers as well. They have sustained me. Better men than I are suffering and better men than I have fallen under the burden of office. It is only your prayers that have kept me. Yes, pray, pray, pray for priests! Join your prayers to those of St. Monica, my mother, Nancy Geiman Pope, others in the great beyond, and many others still here on this earth. Pray for priests! Pray, pray, pray!
The photo at the top? Yes, that’s yours truly in a needy moment; my mother is holding me up in prayer and care. She still does this from her current location—closer to the Lord, I pray. Her prayers still hold me, as mine hold her. Requiescat in Pace.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Beautiful
St Monica...
Pray for us and all priests!
7
And she inspires any family member praying for a seemingly hopeless loved one’s conversion. It took well over a decade for St. Augustine to concert but St. Monica remained faithful!!!
I’ve always thought Monica was the classic real life example of Christ’s parable of the persistent widow in the book of Luke.
Good reminder.
Actually the devil often uses priests, some of whom were guilty of the crucifixion of Christ, while using Catholic ones to lead souls to Hell, trusting that baptism by them even as an infant makes one a regenerate child of God, and that offering the Eucharist as a sacrifice expiates sin and provides spiritual life-giving food .
Besides teaching other distinctive Catholic teachings that are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (including how they understood the OT and gospels), which is Scripture, especially Acts thru Revelation.
"Priest" (as a etymological corruption) is supposed to refer to presbyters, from presbuteros (which refers to the same persons occupying the office of episkopos), but which in the NT were not a separate class of sacerdotal ministers , for which the Holy Spirit uses the distinctive word “hiereus” (and “archiereus," translated"high priest"), yet which Catholic Bible translations sometimes use for "priest."
However, in the the only wholly inspired-of-God and substantive record of what the New Testament church believed NT presbuteros never are shown having the unique sacerdotal function of offering the Lord's supper as a sacrifice doe sin, or dispensing it to the flock as spiritual food
Nor are they instructed to do so in Acts or the epistles, amid their other instructions. But what they are charged with doing is to teach and preach the word of God, and which (besides prayer) is the primary work of NT pastors. (Act 6:3,4; 2 Tim.4:2) By which they “feed the flock” (Acts 20:28; 1Pt. 5:2) and which the word is called spiritual "milk," (1Co. 3:22; 1Pt. 1:22) and "meat," (Heb. 5:12-14) what is said to "nourish" the souls of believers, and believing it is how the lost obtain life in themselves. (1 Timothy 4:6; ;Acts 15:7-9; cf. Psalms 19:7)
That is a sign that one such as you are consumed by this. No wonder the church created by Christ is constantly attacked as in your post. Christ prophesied that His Church, the Apostolic and Catholic church would be persecuted. Thank you for confirming the true ness of Christ in His church
Enough with the martyr complex, which no more validates Catholicism (whose member liberals can much count on) than it does that of Mormonism - your fellow elitists, uniquely one true church - whose members also take up the same martyr mantra.
Rather, it is your group who is to blame for such reproof, since they incessantly insist on advertising and promoting Catholicism on open forums, as if they were compelled to so, and were gluttons for correction, perhaps imagining they obtain an indulgence by so doing.
If you do not want to see such responses, it would help to stop the daily posting of articles promoting your elitists arrogant one true church, which is actually anti-American.
The Vatican, that hive of scum and villiany?
(And cocaine fueled homosexual orgies and child molestation)
Catholicism long ago gave up any right to call itself the body of Christ or claim to be a representative of Ch4rist on the earth. The behavior of it’s priests and hierarchy has been so ungodly for so long, it’s ludicrous for them to even make that claim.
Jesus would NEVER endorse sin.
Actually it isn’t, except in your and the other leftist imagination. Your condemnation just confirms Jesus who said that His church would be persecuted and yet prevail. His church has done so and spread like the mountain in Daniel’s vision. So thank you for confirming Jesus looking after His church for the past 2000 years
Nah, its following Jesus who spoke about your kind and the constant need to attack Jesus church. Its been happening for 2000 years and the attacks against Jesus church m the One Holy Apostolic and Catholic church hasn’t worked yet. So keep doing what your father has told you, but we’ll keep following Jesus in His Church.
Orthodox churches do not believe the Church on Earth is led by anyone in your hierarchy.
Think about that.
Then thanks for persecuting the non-Catholics, calling us *heretics* and all.
It just confirms that we’re the true church as Jesus said that we’d be persecuted for His sake, for righteousness sake.
Being called out on sin is NOT being persecuted for righteousness sake. Your attempt to make martyrs of yourselves falls flat in light of the gross, deviant, sexual sin that rife amongst Catholic leadership.
Oh, I don’t call Lutherans or Methodists or indeed many Baptists or Evangelicals by that name. As long as they recognize Jesus christ as Lord, God and Savior, true man and true God, the Ine God with the father and the holy spirit, I won’t call them names or club them with the Oneness Pentecostal or jehovah witnesses or mormons or adventists
The Orthodox along with the orientals and the assyrian churches are part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic church. We are not in rations of the past 150 years but are the church.
So the Pope leads them, like he does all true Catholics?
According to the bible, the inspired words of God, the holy scriptures, the church had no priests...No one called the clergy, Father...No one ever turned a piece of bread or a glass of wine into anything other that what it actually was...
There weren't any popes...John was the last apostle...None of the clergy adorned themselves with long, flowing, fancy robes so they could be recognized and admired in the crowd...People, even children had to believe in Jesus before they were allowed to be baptized...
None of the overseers were forbidden to take on a wife, in fact, it was required for the clergy to have a wife and family...And certainly no one was forbidden to eat any food they wanted whenever they wanted...
No one prayed to anyone except God...No one had to do penance or any kind of work to merit salvation...And no one ever spoke of a place called purgatory...
The leaders of the churches taught ALL of the bible so that everyone would be equipped to recognize the works of Satan and to fight him off...And no one ever bowed down to any of the church leaders or statues for the purpose of reverence, worship or anything resembling any thing like that...
So tell me, where is your Catholic, Apostolic Church referenced by God in his scriptures...What is the source of your claim to be the one, true Church??? Your Church doesn't look any thing at all like the ones in the scriptures??? In fact, your Church looks like the one that the Apostle Paul WARNED us about for 3 whole years...
Act 20:27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
Act 20:28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
Act 20:29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Act 20:30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
Act 20:31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
The Catholic Church never had that right...
What boggles my mind is that the pope(s) has the authority and power to wipe out every twisted, queer, pervert in the Vatican and across the world...But he/they don't...That is all I need to know the Catholic Church is of it's father, the Devil...
How any Catholic could be a Catholic while the Catholic magisterium rapes their little altar boys is a mystery to me...
Exactly.
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