Posted on 07/26/2013 7:56:13 PM PDT by marshmallow
Fatima, Harissa, Damascus, Samalut, Assiut, Zeitun and many other places where the Virgin appeared are the destination of incessant pilgrimages from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iran. Pilgrims in search of physical but also spiritual healing; spontaneous and mystical prayer and not the schematic and formal verses of official Islam. The iconoclast Salafists destroy places of pilgrimage every year. But the devotion to Mary is growing, also fueled by the stories of the Koran. The spiritual dialogue between Christians and Muslims is much more promising than cultural, theological or political dialogue.
Beirut (AsiaNews) - Each year millions of Muslims come on pilgrimage to the Catholic Marian shrines. Not only to the major shrines such as Fatima in Portugal or Harissa in Lebanon, but also to Egypt, Syria, Iran. Muslims - especially Muslim women - go to give thanks to the Madonna or great Christian saints, like St. Charbel or St. George.
In the eyes of many Westerners these gestures seem ridiculous or false: they speak of apparitions, of prayers, but then there are massacres, killings, violence in the name of religion!
Like it or not, the religious phenomenon is alive in Latin America, in Africa, in Asia. When you see millions of Hindus go to bathe in the dirty water of the sacred river it may seem like a ridiculous thing. Yet for those who do it is an act of purification, of prayer. The West is tolerant and benevolent towards other religions, but its attitude towards Christians is increasingly hypercritical. The West is not post-Hindu, post-Islam. It is only post-Christian!
The point is that in the West, the supernatural is considered outdated, it is branded as mythology, illusion, instead the West is forever denouncing the difficulties that neither miracles nor pilgrimages can erase.
But in the rest of the world the spiritual.....
(Excerpt) Read more at asianews.it ...
2 Timothy 3:5 "Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid."Such folks are a penny a dozen these days, only one tenth the price of any sort of lazy pastor or priest you might want.
Could you provide a link that would verify this. I looked at the Wikipedia page and several others and could not find it mentioned. Thank you.
I pictured you with more hair.
HA! Yes, this isn't the first time, either. I notice that the catholics are among the most hostile devotees, kinda like the Muslims are--very hostile, condescending and "self-righteous" to those who question their belief systems.
I also notice how when they're irked by criticism, they ping their Rome-buddy lists to bring in "reinforcements" to mass-attack the one who dares to simply say, "The Lord tells us differently than what your extra-biblical literature says, and I choose to believe the Lord over any man."
As you get older it all migrates to your ears and you have to keep them neatly trimmed.
I guess you could make pigtails out of the hair and hang shiny stuff on the little pigtails so they look like ear rings but I don't know anyone who has tried that approach.
1. It must be a serious/ grave matter. I cannot agree that it must be a serious/grave matter, because that phrase is so subjective. Telling a 'white lie' to some is not grave, yet to others, ANY lie is a lie (This is my camp.) In Matthew, Jesus described how anger IS murder and lust IS adultery, because sin is a mind thing before it is an action. One of the few things that Jimmuh Carter got correct, was that he admitted to sinning by 'lusting in his heart' about women. Does this mean that spending hours fantasizing is a sin? Of course it is but, if a temptation such as, "I wonder what it would be like to have Jill or Tammy or Sue as my wife?" comes into one's mind and you recognize it but do nothing to capture that thought and get rid of it, you have sinned, period! Instead of a female, it could be a car that is better than your neighbour's or it could be anything. In this world, such thoughts are not considered a serious matter, but they are, so I would suggest that 100% of all men have sinned lustfully.
I do not agree that a child has to reach the age of reason to have sinned but I do agree that they are spared the eternal consequences of their sin until they reach such an age. Have you never witnessed a couple of four year olds fighting over a toy or a child lying about who broke a window with their baseball? Kids lie and know the difference between right and wrong, so they do sin.
Ya’ll look really silly whining about an equal and opposite reaction to your garbage.
It amazes me, the number of ‘churches’ in Calgary that offer yoga classes! Mostly ‘mainline’ Protestant, especially the United Church of Canada. So few Christians realize that yoga is a spiritual exercise and that by partaking of it, they are unknowlingly inviting evil spirits into their lives.
The core of FR is a worn out rag of fools that bow to America's FF's as if thy were guided by the Holy Sprint in everything they did and think the statue of liberty given by freemason demons is approved by Christ.
While I wouldn’t claim they were perfect, I have a soft spot in my heart for the “FF” myself if by that you mean the Founding Fathers.
In Narses' view "about" pages must pass the modesty test now? Would it help if I revealed I NEVER dressed immodestly on our travels? Would it settle class-envy complaints if I revealed our boat was our home and we were/are FAR from wealthy? No, probably not. That's how Fascism works. Funny how the subject of a thread can be sidetracked by envious psuedo-conservatives.
One arm get paralyzed some days and I didn’t proof read but I was sure the Christian Charity that accompanies Christian liberty could figure it out and I see you did.
I’ll stick to how Almighty God defines sin, thankyouverymuch.
I don’t have a soft spot for much of FF’s of the USA and their anti Catholic freemasonry agenda
From Pope Leo
http://www.michaeljournal.org/humanumgenus.htm
Wickedly, also, but at the same time quite consistently, do those act who do away with the expectation of the joys of heaven, and bring down all happiness to the level of mortality, and, as it were, sink it in the earth. Of what We have said the following fact, astonishing not so much in itself as in its open expression, may serve as a confirmation. For, since generally no one is accustomed to obey crafty and clever men so submissively as those whose soul is weakened and broken down by the domination of the passions, there have been in the sect of the Freemasons some who have plainly determined and proposed that, artfully and of set purpose, the multitude should be satiated with a boundless license of vice, as, when this had been done, it would easily come under their power and authority for any acts of daring.
But in the rest of the world the spiritual dimension is alive and well. In the East, the religious sentiment is very much alive among Muslims, Christians and other religions. But in most of the West - especially on the part of intellectuals - the religious sentiment is seen as a thing of the past, irrational, naive. We must state this clearly: this interpretation is wrong.
Two observations: Western intellectuals who scoff at simple religious people of European descent, but who often loudly celebrate the mystical wisdom--if not supernatural powers--of non-Western shamans can only be one of three things: hypocritical, illogical, or cruel.
Second observation: I see no difference in the attitude being skewered here and the Catholic attitude towards the Hebrew Bible. Physician, heal thyself (I believe that's in the chrstian holy book).
Don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m here to tell you I definitely agree with our Founding Fathers on what they did and what the set up here. Anyone who wants to follow a different path is certainly welcome to do so—elsewhere. FR defends the Declaration and the Constitution to the hilt!! God, family, country!!
Thank you very much, Boatbums, and I wouldn’t worry too much about anyone ragging on you about our FF. They’re way out of line here.
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