Posted on 06/06/2003 5:00:11 PM PDT by Salvation
They don't seem to encourage that much any more, probably so as not to raise false hopes in people who have already suffered considerably.
I read carefully about the Lourdes miracles; many are well documented, and I don't remember anyone other than French and English nationals, maybe a German or Swiss, being cured which I find a little odd. There was not one American in the lot, although a friend told me a strange story about their dipping an American's hearing aid in the water and hearing was restored through the use of the aid. Evidently American hearing aids can be cured :-).
I don't know what to make of it any more. There is no doubt that cures have taken place there, but they are very scanty in proportion to the enormous number of sick pilgrims who go there. There was an American couple (catholic) who borrowed on their life insurance to take their son (can't remember exactly what his problem was - cerebral palsy I think). He was not cured nor was there much, if any, improvement in his condition.
One wonders, in hindsight, if powerful psychological mechanisms kick in in some of these cases due to hopes and expectations. The more we know the less we seem to know and understand.
I prefer to read what the saints have said, or approved apparitions of Our Lady or Our Lord.
But I believe we are on the verge of some troubling/persecution times.
Gospel for the Procession of Palms
Mark 11:1-10
When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem,
to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives,
he sent two of his disciples and said to them,
"Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately on entering it,
you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone should say to you,
'Why are you doing this?' reply,
'The Master has need of it
and will send it back here at once.'"
So they went off
and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street,
and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders said to them,
"What are you doing, untying the colt?"
They answered them just as Jesus had told them to,
and they permitted them to do it.
So they brought the colt to Jesus
and put their cloaks over it.
And he sat on it.
Many people spread their cloaks on the road,
and others spread leafy branches
that they had cut from the fields.
Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:
"Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
Hosanna in the highest!"
or
Jn 12:12-16
When the great crowd that had come to the feast heard
that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,
they took palm branches and went out to meet him, and cried out:
"Hosanna!"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,
the king of Israel."
Jesus found an ass and sat upon it, as is written:
Fear no more, O daughter Zion;
see, your king comes, seated upon an ass's colt.
His disciples did not understand this at first,
but when Jesus had been glorified
they remembered that these things were written about him
and that they had done this for him.
6 [13] Palm branches: used to welcome great conquerors; cf 1 Macc 13:51; 2 Macc 10:7. They may be related to the lulab, the twig bundles used at the feast of Tabernacles. Hosanna: see Psalm 118:25-26. The Hebrew word means: "(O Lord), grant salvation." He who comes in the name of the Lord: referred in Psalm 118:26 to a pilgrim entering the temple gates, but here a title for Jesus (see the notes on Matthew 11:3 and John 6:14; 11:27). The king of Israel: perhaps from Zephaniah 3:14-15 in connection with the next quotation from Zechariah 9:9.
Go to the link above for the live links that are referenced in other books of the Bible.
Anything is possible. I'm having trouble figuring out why there would be blood on statues anyway. It doesn't make sense really. It isn't something I would seek out or want to happen.
Jl 3:1-5
Thus says the LORD:
I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.
Your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions;
even upon the servants and the handmaids,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
And I will work wonders in the heavens and on the earth,
blood, fire, and columns of smoke;
the sun will be turned to darkness,
and the moon to blood,
at the coming of the day of the LORD,
the great and terrible day.
Then everyone shall be rescued
who calls on the name of the LORD;
for on Mount Zion there shall be a remnant,
as the LORD has said,
and in Jerusalem survivors
whom the LORD shall call.
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