Pope Benedict to deliver 'intense' message during Fatima visit

"Fatima is a particularly significant place for this Pope," said Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi on Tuesday, noting that it was also a destination for two former Popes. The Holy Father has a thorough knowledge of the history of the Marian sanctuary, he added.

Fr. Lombardi held a press conference at the Vatican to prepare the media for the Pope's next trip out of the Vatican. He will be visiting Portugal from May 11-14.

The spokesman referred to the Pope's stop in Fatima on May 13 as the highlight and "heart" of the upcoming four-day trip to Portugal, according to Vatican Radio. But, he pointed out, Benedict XVI will not be the first Pope to visit the Marian shrine.

Two other Pontiffs have been to Fatima. In 1967, the sanctuary hosted Paul VI, and John Paul II visited in 1982, 1991 and 2000, at which time the visionaries Jacinta and Francesco were beatified.

The Portuguese shrine is not unfamiliar to Pope Benedict, since as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger extensively studied the message of Fatima. Fr. Lombardi said on Tuesday that the Pope has been involved with history of the Marian sanctuary in a "very deep, personal way."

It was him, for example, who was called upon to give a theological perspective when the third secret of Fatima was made public in 2000.

The Vatican spokesman said that the Holy Father will also deliver an intense message during his Fatima visit. Upon his arrival at the sanctuary on May 12, he will remember John Paul II and the 29th anniversary of the assassination attempt that nearly took his life on May 13, 1981.

This visit marks the Holy Father's 15th Apostolic Journey abroad in his five years and is his first to Portugal as Pope.

During today's general audience, the Holy Father greeted the people of Portugal in their language, telling them that he will be there this coming weekend at the invitation of the president of the nation and the episcopal conference.

He said he was "happy to be able to visit the 'land of Holy Mary'" on the 10th anniversary of the beatification of the shepherd children.

According to Portuguese press reports, local police are planning for a cumulative total of 450,000 people at the celebrations in Lisbon, Fatima and Portugal during the four-day visit.

it’s all chaff.

some of it is noisey chaff.

Chaff is inconsequential.

There will be folks doing all manner of lewd things on the sidwalk on the way to wherever one is traveling in the not too distant future.

I’m NOT suggesting we need to become immune to being grieved over sin.

I am suggesting that we aren’t close to the level of shock and awe that’s coming from hell.

NAMBLA is HYPER-HIDEOUS.

I don’t see much fruitfulness in going very far with a Rel Forum discussion about that. Any serious authentic Christian rejects such stuff from before the beginning about it.

I suppose an argument could be made about some name only RC politicos protecting such orgs and individuals—likely true in Mass or some such.

However, I don’t see even that argument fruitfully going very far.

Sure, the hierarchy is hypocritical for not expunging such politicos from the ranks vs meeting publically with them and giving them official funerals etc.

Yes, I am quite happy to allow death bed confessions etc. I’d think that a public confession should be made at the beginning of a funeral in such cases. The priest or family members ought to be able to honestly and accurately assert that the person repented convincingly re XYZ summarized specifics and sought forgiveness of God and man prior to their death.

Anyway—I’d think it would be a short thread not worth a lot of heat and probably not yielding tons of light.

I think with a LOT of stuff . . . the self-righteous & prissy will always tend to be prissy and all fussed up about making majors out of minors and minors out of majors.

Thoughtful folks will, with some wisdom and discernment spit out the bones and learn what may be learnable and worth learning and walk on by.

. . . virtually . . . regardless . . . of a LOT of other factors and variables.

When things get hurtful, it may not make sense to us here in this mortal life, but it all works together for the good for those of us who love God and are called according to His purpose.... After all, the valley is just the shadow of death.

On my reading, the "valley of the shadow of death" refers to mortal existence in this world.

The great Calvinist theologian Francis Schaeffer was convinced "that we are living in an abnormal world. The natural evil and moral evil that threaten us daily are alien entities, contrary to God's original design and ongoing desire." [Burson & Walls, C.S. Lewis & Francis Schaeffer: Lessons for a New Century from the Most Influential Apologists of Our Time , 1998; p. 207]. Adam's Fall deranged God's original Creation. Humans — being creatures of God made in His image — may come to feel that they are like strangers, living in a strange land, that "this" is not the world we were made for.

He begins to leave who begins to love.
Many the leaving who know it not,
for the feet of those leaving are affections of the heart:
and yet, they are leaving Babylon. — Saint Augustine, Ennarrationes in Psalmos 64.2

And it may well be so; that we were made, not for this world, but for the world to come.

Anyhoot, this wonderful book closely analyzes the theological thought of Francis Schaeffer and C.S. Lewis, a convert to Anglicanism — two truly great Christian evangelists of modern times. Though there are tensions and differences in their thought, both men were absolutely united in the belief that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ.

Getting back to the valley of the shadow, there is the problem of evil and suffering in this world. I gather atheists take the position that the evident existence of evil and suffering logically means that God is either totally inept or a moral monster — for allowing such evils to exist. [From thence they "logically conclude" that God does not exist.]

But that's a problem for another time. I want to draw attention to what Schaeffer and Lewis had to say about such matters:

Schaeffer insisted that God hates our sorrows more than we do and that our pain, anguish, and suffering are largely the result of our living in a fallen world. God can work good out of evil, but that is different from attributing specific bouts of anguish to his direct will. Moreover, we can learn from our present sufferings, but they have no correlation to our ultimate salvation. The imputed righteousness of Christ is our guarantee of eternal life.
Lewis, on the other hand, thought the post-Fall world has become an arena of soul-making. Our self-will is now the chief enemy, and it must be subdued at all costs if we are to be transformed into heavenly beings. This process often requires the raw materials of pain, suffering and sorrow. Though pain is contrary to God's original blueprint and ultimate plan, he is now willing to send direct instances of suffering, if necessary, to achieve the great good of Christlike character formation in a person's life. [p. 213]

Speaking of self-will as the enemy:

What matters most to a God who is truly just and perfectly good is not the outward formulation of faith but the inward intent to cooperate with the grace that has been given. The Bible assures us that if we will honestly desire and seek the truth, we will find it. Ultimately all light and truth lead back to their one and only source, The Divine Logos, Jesus Christ. [p. 213]

Schaeffer and Lewis definitely agreed on that. And so do I FWIW.

Dearest sister in Christ, you wrote: "...it all works together for the good for those of us who love God and are called according to His purpose."

Indeed, it seems everything works to His purpose. This conviction, and the conviction that there is no salvation outside of Christ, eventually led to Lewis' conversion to Christ.

...one of the factors that contributed to his childhood apostasy was his inability to reconcile the truth of Christianity with the falsehood of every other religion and philosophy. With the help of colleagues J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson a few nights prior to his conversion, Lewis came to see the overarching hand of God in not only the history of Christianity but other belief systems as well. The myth of the dying and rising corn gods in pagan religions did not nullify the claim that Jesus Christ died and rose again. On the contrary, these pagan myths unwittingly worked to reinforce the truth of the Christian account. According to Tolkien and Dyson, a loving God has been working diligently to prepare each and every culture for the gospel of his son. In so doing, mythical stories have been given to anticipate or preconfigure a factual, historical outworking. Christianity is not only the fulfillment of Judaism, it is also the fufillment of all other religious and philosophical systems. [p. 30; emphasis added]

Likewise, with Justin Martyr, I think classical philosophy, and the person of Socrates, in many ways are other examples of imperfect prefigurations that found fulfillment in Christian theology.

JMHO FWIW — just some issues for further reflection....

Thank you so very much, dearest sister in Christ, for your most gracious testimony!

[ And it may well be so; that we were made, not for this world, but for the world to come. ]

Amen to that; could be that this life is a qualifier of the one to come, and a dis-qualifier.. Our spirits in human bodies could a be a qualifier of a hundred things more than a sensitivity to this or that.. How we deal with money, gender, sex, grooming, family, tasks(work), pain(ours/theirs), hunger, thirst, heat, cold, property, innocence, guilt, theft, and a hundred other things maybe a thousand..

Tested over and over again many times on certain issues.. Tested just one more time, with variations of the test, who knows maybe we will pass the test this time.. in an important nuance of "a test".. What may seem humdrum banal living could be a test.. or flashy ideological questions on some issue and how we handle it/them.. Yes, tested for some future task(s) we cannot even comprehend now..

Could preparation for an eternity future(this life).. If so, God would be a genius.. What appears to be random preference could have eternal attributes to it/them.. a qualifier or a dis-qualifier for some bodacious future adventure.. task.. or deed(s)..

What were we made for.. who will we become.. could be far more important than, who we think, we are NOW... Did we pick up that penny we saw on the ground, or will we only stoup for quarters, or not at all?.. How did we treat that last person we dealt with?.. How did we vote?.. Did we vote?.. What do we sacrifice for?.. What do we hate to sacrifice for?.. All tests maybe..

Booupy I could set at your feet for hours, you always make me think..

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