Posted on 01/11/2005 11:30:36 AM PST by missyme
Actor Mel Gibson held a secret meeting with one of the famous visionaries of Fatima, Sister Lucia of Portugal. Sister Lucia, now 98 years of age, is a cloistered nun who as a child saw and spoke with the Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal in 1917.
Her visions and those of her two childhood friends, both since passed away, were both prophetic and apocalyptic. The Catholic Church accepted the visions as authentic.
UNFAIR! Mel had inside information!
A Novena consists of Nine days of prayer, not nine Fridays of prayer. You are correct with 1 Our Father and 10 Hail Marys constitute a decade of the Rosary.
Holy water is a sacramental with great resistive power affecting Satan.
Those who are close to Jesus are the primary targets of the evil one. We Christians need all the help we can get in this culture of death.
That is the source of the place name in Portugal. It was Moslem before the Reconquista.
Wrong again. Jesus' contemporaries, Peter to name one healed people just by walking by them and having his shadow touch them.
Mary doesn't claim to have supernatural powers, she is the Mother of God. Chosen by God the Father to be the vessel, the new Ark of the Covenant to humanity. From the beginning of time, God had a special purpose for Mary. She is the greatest human ever created because she bore the creator in her own flesh. Where God dwells evil cannot also dwell, so Mary was protected from the stain of any sin from the time of her conception through her assumption. She is the Queen of Heaven. She loves you more than you love yourself. Jesus does too, and he loves His mother as much as he loves you too.
Forget your fundamentalist ways. Protestantism has only been with us since the 1500's, it wasn't dormant from the early fathers, it is alive in the Catholic church. Read the WHOLE bible (Catholic edition) which includes the books Luther tossed because they cast aspersions on his theories (Luther had a devotion to Mary HIS ENTIRE LIFE, BTW).
Peace -
Are you implying here that Mary never sinned?
how about the two who appeared with Jesus at the transfiguration....or even Lazarus
Because she didn't, nor did Christ for that matter, eliminate original sin and its affects. Jesus is the redeemer, but we have some responsibility don't we? Its not enough to simply accept Jesus as our personal savior, we muest repent, reform our lives and imitate the redeemer. We must be to others what He is to us. Not easy.
As far as being subject to death, you are correct. But now we have been redeemed by Christ. Heaven was opened at the resurrection. Jesus Himself went to hell to take the faithful there after His death on the cross, and before he returned to the apostles, Mary Magdelene and His Mother. If we follow Christ, in faith and action, we can have the same eternal life He has, purchased for us with His body and blood.
Peace -
Correct. Never.
Mel Gibson ping.
Wow. I guess she didn't need Christ's salvation then. Would you agree?
What is your source for the quote?
Besides Christ, Adam, and Eve, Mary was the only human (Christ being human and divine) to ever be held free from Original sin. She was created from the beginning of time for a singular purpose, to be the Ark of the Covenant for the Messiah. The salvation Christ provided would not have been possible without Mary, just as without Christmas there would be no Easter.
God cannot coexist with sin/evil, Mary had to be created this way for the redeemer to enter time in the manner which He did. Of course He could have come another way, but this was His choice.
To your question of whether Mary needed Christ's salvation, I would say that she did, just like we all do, the difference is that she didn't need his redemption because she was already pre-redeemed for that special purpose of carrying Him in her womb. Of her own volition Mary could not have opened Heaven. Jesus is responsible for our salvation and redemption. Everything Mary does directly points and directs us to Jesus. She intercedes to Jesus on our behalf always. We are her children because she is the mother of the savior.
I invite you to objectively study the Early Church Fathers and some of what has been written about Mary from a Catholic point of view before dismissing her and the church Jesus founded.
Peace -
Cited conveniently enough, besides the quote at post #216.
That is a false statement. What became known as the Old Testament was in existance LONG before the Catholic church. Jesus regularly quoted scripture. Amazing he was able to do that without Catholic input. The "Old Testament" in the current Catholic Bible is based on the Septaugint translation of Jewish Scriptures with a few additions and few deletions of some books (apparently Luther isn't alone in "tossing things out.").
What became known as the New Testament was in place long before the Council of Laodicea canonized it in 363. Certainly congretations in both the Eastern and Western churches were studying the Gospels and the Hebrew Scripture long before Loadicea. The word "Bible" is derived from the Greek word "Biblos" which simply means book. So your statement that there was no Bible for 350-400 years after the death of Christ is neither factually correct, or even very useful for anything other than trying to give false credit to a church that has otherwise provided some very real and very important contributions to the Christian faith.
Scriptural citation, please.
Using that logic, Pontious Pilate (or whoever would eventually sentence Jesus to death) must also be free from original sin because without him, Christ would not have been sacrificed on the cross. I believe everything is possible through Christ. He does not need human assistance to accomplish his plan. Not even Mary's.
Could you provide some support for your statement that God cannot coexist with sin/evil. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. I'm just wondering how you support that statement.
You say Mary doesn't need redemption, but she does need salvation. Salvation implies she is being saved. What is she being saved from?
Finally, you assume A LOT when you assume I haven't already studied Early Church Fathers and Mary from a Catholic point of view. I have done both very intensely. I am continuing to do so right now by asking you specific questions about your understanding of the role of Mary.
I just can't imagine people taking this Fatima or this nun seriously. In essence this poor woman is suggesting she spoke to a ghost, Fatima. The only One who can speak to us is either God or Satan and it isn't God speaking here.. In the Bible it is quite clear that dead people don't speak to us so that leaves us with Satan - trying to distract us and preying on the superstitious.
An Eyewitness Account by Dr. José Maria de Almeida Garrett, professor at the Faculty of Sciences of Coimbra, Portugal
"It must have been 1:30 pm when there arose, at the exact spot where the children were, a column of smoke, thin, fine and bluish, which extended up to perhaps two meters above their heads, and evaporated at that height. This phenomenon, perfectly visible to the naked eye, lasted for a few seconds. Not having noted how long it had lasted, I cannot say whether it was more or less than a minute. The smoke dissipated abruptly, and after some time, it came back to occur a second time, then a third time
"The sky, which had been overcast all day, suddenly cleared; the rain stopped and it looked as if the sun were about to fill with light the countryside that the wintery morning had made so gloomy. I was looking at the spot of the apparitions in a serene, if cold, expectation of something happening and with diminishing curiosity because a long time had passed without anything to excite my attention. The sun, a few moments before, had broken through the thick layer of clouds which hid it and now shone clearly and intensely.
"Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude spread out in that vast space at my feet...turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations had been focused, and look at the sun on the other side. I turned around, too, toward the point commanding their gaze and I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight. It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled nor dim. At Fatima, it kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky, with a sharp edge, like a large gaming table. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes or damaging the retina. [During this time], the sun's disc did not remain immobile, it had a giddy motion, [but] not like the twinking of a star in all its brilliance for it spun round upon itself in a mad whirl.
"During the solar phenomenon, which I have just described, there were also changes of color in the atmosphere. Looking at the sun, I noticed that everything was becoming darkened. I looked first at the nearest objects and then extended my glance further afield as far as the horizon. I saw everything had assumed an amethyst color. Objects around me, the sky and the atmosphere, were of the same color. Everything both near and far had changed, taking on the color of old yellow damask. People looked as if they were suffering from jaundice and I recall a sensation of amusement at seeing them look so ugly and unattractive. My own hand was the same color.
"Then, suddenly, one heard a clamor, a cry of anguish breaking from all the people. The sun, whirling wildly, seemed all at once to loosen itself from the firmament and, blood red, advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge and fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was truly terrible.
"All the phenomena which I have described were observed by me in a calm and serene state of mind without any emotional disturbance. It is for others to interpret and explain them. Finally, I must declare that never, before or after October 13 [1917], have I observed similar atmospheric or solar phenomena."
Professor Almeida Garrett's full account may be found in "Novos Documentos de Fatima" (Loyala editions, San Paulo, 1984)
"Catholics believe that Mary didn't die, but that at the end of her earthly life she was "assumed" into heaven, body and soul."
It's unwise to "ass u me" anything. It's NOT stated in the Bible. In fact very little is stated about Mary. Wasn't this "ass u med" idea of Mary ascending alive into heaven part of a knee jerk reaction to the Reformation?
Its not 3 different secrets but one secret with three parts.
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