Posted on 09/02/2013 1:39:02 PM PDT by NYer
Ping!
“Fascism” is just a word representing the amount of false pride
a) to which a person chains his or her self;
b) to which people chain themselves.
Ego, it is, that misleads you into thinking, that you are not simply a butterfly.
Yet you are, simply a butterfly, mostly aware of what you must do in the form of never-ending chores, while you are most-of-the-time un-aware of how you are held aloft.
The Big Egos / The Big Fascists tell you that *it’s all you* / *it’s all them* ... but they offer you only hot air that appears to keep you aloft for a while as it indelicately works against your structural security.
On the other Hand, is Jesus telling us that He holds us aloft; and when you consider how small are your chores in relation to how great are the forces that truly keep you aloft, that may cause a body to consider Him and thank Him.
Seems to me.
Your choices are
- to amount, you are assured by Big
- to be held, we are assured by Him
To Big, you are a useful ... amount.
To Him, you are a butterfly relative to the immensity. He watches you struggle with your ever-present, un-relenting chores, but He is aware of so much more that holds you aloft.
You have two choices
- the center of your universe
- a part of He who is.
Before you start pontificating on how improbable our existence is, you may want to learn what probability is. Just because there is some 1 in 10^2747277318234 chance that carbon atoms aimlessly drifting through the universe would randomly assemble into the Earth and you on it, doesn’t mean that’s how that happened. The processes of nature do not happen “randomly” in the sense that every outcome is equally likely. Nature’s processes play with loaded dice, where the desired outcome is far more likely than the others, and, like a casino owner faced with players using loaded dice and marked cards, you would be wise to take such things into account in your calculations. So go ahead and find out how many other stars have Jupiters (lots) before saying how special Sol is that it has one. Or how many other planets have circular orbits, or how many stars burn steadily without incinerating everything around them. You just might find out that the Earth is not so special after all.
Not to mention certain aspects of multiverse theory where it is suspected that there are an infinite number of universes and that each of us have repeated this life an infinite number of times.
That might be someone's idea of hell, but fortunately if its true you have no memory of it.
I find it funny that we get lectured about pride from someone who has claimed to have had a one-on-one conversation with the divine.
I'm pretty sure the odds of me existing were 1:1. In fact I'd bet on it if I were the gambling type.
Or would that be 1:0? Not really my area of expertise.
The greatest misery does not stop Me from uniting Myself to a soul, but where there is pride, I am not there.
Our Lord's message to St. Faustina - Diary (1563)
Humility is the only thing that no devil can imitate.
St John Climacus
Virtues are formed by prayer. Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy. Prayer draws into the soul the Holy Spirit, and raises man to Heaven.
Saint Ephraem of Syria
Envy, my children, follows pride; whoever is envious is proud. See, envy comes to us from Hell; the devils having sinned through pride, sinned also through envy, envying our glory, our happiness. Why do we envy the happiness and the goods of others? Because we are proud; we should like to be the sole possessors of talents, riches, of the esteem and love of all the world! We hate our equals, because they are our equals; our inferiors, from the fear that they may equal us; our superiors, because they are above us.
Saint John Vianney
"God is stern in dealing with the arrogant, but to the humble He shows kindness." - Proverbs 3:34
I've heard of several things that are the "only" things the devil supposedly can't do or imitate.
She wasn’t prideful at all, but very humble. Otherwise this would not have happened.
I am not Catholic so I don't automatically take such church-approved private revelation claims at face value.
In my own personal opinion which you can disagree with, most of the people claiming to have these types of supernatural encounters are attention-seeking imposters which is a form of pride.
Where to draw the line? I've heard of enough Virgin Mary in the grilled cheese nonsense over the years that I mostly just dismiss all of it now.
How Many Miracles are Required to Canonize a Saint?
Saints [Catholic, Orthodox, Open]
SAINTHOOD 101: Rules for Becoming a Saint [Catholic Caucus]
The Process of Becoming a Saint (Canonization) [Catholic Caucus]
Pope Lists Criteria for Causes of Canonization
Isn't deceptive appearances one of the favorite tactics of the devil?
Not saying it is so in this case, but why use an image (especially a painting which is an artists rendition anyway) as your justification?
Regardless of what you think she is a doctor of the Catholic Church.....that means a great teacher.
St Catherine did not write the article
it was written by Msgr. Charles Pope
How much of this Catholic stuff is actual from the Bible?
To the best of my knowledge, the Church has neither approved or disapproved these private revelations ... in any event, no Catholic is obligated to believe them.
St. Catherine is generally considered to be a mystic. I suppose their are some who say that there is no such thing as a mystic, that it is impossible.
It’s fair to say that believing that would be contrary to the Gospel.
“From the beginning of From the beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. On February 26 she lost the use of her legs.[21] St Catherine died in Rome, on 29 April 1380, at the age of thirty-three, having suffered a stroke eight days earlier”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.