No, but I do recall Squantos, the FReeper legion who (apparently) guarded the Puritan's cornfield.
Posted on 11/26/2013 9:29:51 AM PST by dangus
Do you remember Squanto, the Native American who assisted the Puritan Pilgrims at the “first Thanksgiving”?
His true name was Tisquantum, yet he is affectionately known to us as “Squanto.”
In 1614, Squanto was captured by a lieutenant of John Smith (remember? from Pocahontas). This shameful lieutenant attempted to sell Squanto and other Native Americans into slavery via Spain. However, some Franciscan friars discovered the plot and acquired the captured Native Americans, Squanto included. During this time, Squanto received instruction in the Catholic Faith and received holy baptism.
As a freeman, Squanto traveled to London where became a laborer in the shipyards. Here he became fluent in English. Eventually, Squanto was able to return to his Native Land, New England, in 1619 – five years after he had been kidnapped. He returned only to discover that his people were being decimated by the recently imported European diseases.
Since he was fluent in English, Squanto became well-known and valuable to the new English Pilgrims settled at Plymouth. As an English speaker, Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to fertilize the ground, grow corn, and the best places to catch fish. Squanto eventually contracted one of the European diseases.
Governor William Bradford described Squanto’s death like this:
Squanto fell ill of Indian fever, bleeding much at the nose, which the Indians take as a symptom of death, and within a few days he died. He begged the Governor to pray for him, that he might go to the Englishman’s God in heaven, and bequeathed several of his things to his English friends, as remembrances. His death was a great loss. So remember Squanto today and perhaps share this bit of history during your Thanksgiving feast. Let us pray for Squanto, and may he pray for us.
http://taylormarshall.com/2012/11/squanto-catholic-hero-of-thanksgiving.html
Was it Squanto who introduced smoking tobacco to the English settlers?
I hope the author will forgive me in that I buried the lede, where he did not.
No, but I do recall Squantos, the FReeper legion who (apparently) guarded the Puritan's cornfield.
When Disney made a movie about Squanto, they needed a song for the movie. They engaged a MiQ’Maw Songwriter from my tribe to write the song. He did write, but only after he received inspiration. It was a carefully crafted song about the angry bear inside of us all(symbolic of an uncontrolled temper and pride) and I guess it was a wee bit too “spiritual” to become a Disney Classic.
You can hear a remnant of the song in the Disney Movie “Squanto, A Warrior’s Tale” in the scene where he is forced to wrestle a bear for the entertainment of some English onlookers.
The movie is fairly accurate, and shows him living with the monks, but it does not go into detail about his Christian Faith or baptism, as far as I can recall.
It has been a long time since I have seen the movie.
If Squanto was a Christian, and has been taken into heaven, he has not further need of our prayers. I am not inclined to offer prayers for the dead, and thereby to give evidence that I do not believe the salvation earned by Jesus, the Christ, was sufficient to its redemptive purpose.
Let’s hear it for Squanto!
Exactly,
we remember Squanto, but do not pray for the dead (that would be futile).
Yep !
Happy Thanksgiving to all good freepers !
Stay Safe y’all !
Ping
Your choice of the word futile was apt in aiding me to call to mind a contrary viewpoint. There are a whole pile of Christians (the Orthodox and the Catholics together dwarf the Protestants), as well as some Jews, that would argue precisely the opposite: praying for the dead is a sign of belief in the Resurrection. These folks (Jews excepted) do believe in Christ’s merits—they understand them to be applied in a different way than you do.
II Maccabees 12:44-45 (A Jewish work written about 100 years before Christ):
44 For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. 45 But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin.
Christians are not to pray for the dead; but they pray for the survivors. Some, however, are so uninformed that they get the two mixed up.
I missed that verse.
Jesus made and gives and sustains the redemption, I can do nothing. That is orthodox (not the Church necessarily), but orthodox Christian hope and faith (belief).
-JS
Praying for the dead does nothing because they’re already dead.
If you can do nothing, why pray for the living? If you can do something, how do you know that someone being dead makes it so that you can do nothing for them?
Orthodox hope actually presupposes that God provides us with the means of salvation with which we can cooperate. Orthodox faith believes whatever God has revealed: where has God revealed that we can do nothing? I thought that I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
The statement “Praying for the dead does nothing because they’re already dead” proves nothing, unless what you want them to be is dead or to not die. I could equally state “Praying for the Chinese does nothing because they’re already in China.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 My friend (among other verse)
’ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.’
Hebrews 9:27
‘
And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment,’
Matthew 11:28
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
I’ll an easy faith is reliant upon God, rather than works based salvation which doesn’t work.
I’m neither a Pelagian or a semi-Pelagian—all that is good comes from “Christ who works in me”(Colossians 1:29).
And how do you know what comes after the judgment? What verse indicates that after the particular judgment everyone immediately enters into heaven or hell?
And, if my memory serves me correctly, Matthew continues on to speak of “my yoke is easy and my burden light”—not that there is nothing to do.
I don’t care about being a Pelagian or not (really I don’t know what that is).
However I do know that Jesus saves apart from our works.
I never said as much that we weren’t tasked to allow God to use those who are saved for His good works, just that as it pertains to salvation works doesn’t enter into the picture (and cannot).
Prayer for the dead as I stated is futile. They are either with The Lord, or sadly in judgment (death)...
Pelagius was a monk of the early fifth century who had some original, and flawed, ideas about grace. Sts. Augustine and Jerome largely demolished his position,. A Pelagian is one who believes that we can do good works apart from grace—all that we need is knowledge. A more nuanced position, called semi-Pelagianism, holds that we need grace to get us started, but once we are started we can go at it on our own. St. Augustine also took on this position, but there was some debate about it for about 100 years, until Pope Boniface II ratified the teaching of the Synod of Orange on the issue in 531. Grace, and our continual cooperation with it, is the foundation and cause of any good works in which we participate.
Leaving the word works out of the equation, I resort to the formulation of St. Augustine
“God who created you without your cooperation, will not save you without your cooperation.” (Sermon 169)
I repeat my question regarding the dead: How do you know that those who die with a sin that is truly a sin but not a sin unto death (I John 5:17) are not cleaned up after death? Or is St. John lying?
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