Posted on 05/10/2017 9:03:36 AM PDT by Salvation
Continuing with the theme of urgency from yesterday’s post, we do well to consider Mary’s fervent requests at Fatima for prayer, conversion, and consecration. This Saturday will mark the 100th anniversary of Mary’s first appearance at Fatima.
It was a critical time in human history. The First World War had claimed more than 17 million lives. Mary urged prayer to end this catastrophe:
Thanks be to God, through the children’s prayers and surely those of others, the war did soon end. In October, Our Lady said,
War is a terrible result of human sinfulness as well as a punishment for it. Sin is its own punishment; when we sow the wind, we reap the whirlwind. Part of the horror of the First World War was the use of chemical weapons. So appalling was the suffering and so great was the loss of life that in 1925 most nations willingly signed the Geneva Protocol, which prohibited their use in international armed conflicts.
But Mother Mary urgently warned that if the people of this world did not repent, pray, and cease offending God, a war far worse would come:
Sadly, as we know, the Second World War formally ensued in 1939. Months earlier, in 1938, a remarkable display of the Aurora Borealis further south than ever observed made international headlines. It was a final warning. More than 60 million people died in World War II. Atrocities were multiplied, and the most fearsome weapon ever contrived—the atom bomb—would haunt the world long after the war. Russia, too, spread Marxist and atheist errors.
See what happens when we do heed the urgent request to pray? Wars can be ended, souls can be saved, and peace can be brought.
But also note the terrible consequences of failing to pray and be converted! Jesus once said to paralyzed man he had healed, See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you (John 5:14). So, too, for the people of that time who, though having received God’s mercies in the end of World War I, fell back into sin. The decadence, financial excess, and foolishness of the “roaring” 1920s, both in Europe and America, brought a harvest of corruption, both morally and politically. It ushered in both the Great Depression and then a war far worse than ever imagined.
Yes, prayer and conversion are both urgent and essential. This is true not only in terms of this world, but also of the world to come. This world’s travails are indeed awful, but they are temporary. Mother Mary sets far greater stakes before us: Heaven or Hell.
Where will you spend eternity? What about your children, siblings, and friends? Have you thought about this at all? Do you understand the urgency? Consider well some of what our Lady of Fatima said by way of an eternal warning:
Here is a mother urgently warning her children of the fires of hell, of the consequences of sin and the final refusal to repent. Here is a mother urgently calling for prayer, reparation, sacrifices, and conversion.
She is urgent; are we? To be urgent does not mean to be in a panic; it means to be sober and alert, to be persistent and consistent in attending to our final end and to that of others to the degree that we are able.
Caritas Christi urget nos: The Love of Christ urges us on! …. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:14, 20).
I cornfused and amazed all of my teachers. I think they felt threatened/jealous by my genius state and gave me lower grades for spite. That’s the way I remember it anyways.
That's probably why He quoted the OT.
Did you miss the thousands of years of Scripture, the chosen people of Israel, Jewish tradition, all Jewish leaders, etc.?
Did you miss that it was Christ - Second Person of the Trinity?
“I cornfused and amazed all of my teachers. I think they felt threatened/jealous by my genius state and gave me lower grades for spite. That’s the way I remember it anyways.”
Ditto!
“I cornfused and amazed all of my teachers. I think they felt threatened/jealous by my genius state and gave me lower grades for spite. That’s the way I remember it anyways.”
***
Small world!
That’s the way I (choose to) remember it.
I self-identify as a supergenius. Where’s my grants and sitcom?
Of course Jesus quoted scripture. Why shouldn’t he?
And so what?
How does that support sola scriptura?
Arthur, it might be better for you to sleep well tonight and think about it a bit tomorrow and ask yourself that same question.
How does that support sola scriptura?
***
If we believe that the Lord has spoken, then we should believe what the Lord has said.
What’s so bad about wanting God’s own words to be the foundation of our faith?
Even the words of John 6?
Even the words that Christ spoke from the Cross giving his mother to John, the apostle, which means that he had no brothers or sisters, or else the custom would have been to give his mother to one of them????
I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re trying to get at.
Uh-huh.
Arrogance isn’t a virtue; you should know that.
Are you trying to argue for the perpetual virginity of Mary?
If so, I have no idea why you decided to bring it up. A non sequitor is not a good argument, and an ad hominem just makes you look petty and vindictive.
No
I don’t think you know the meaning of the phrase “sola scriptura.”
Thank you for admitting that you are unable to answer my question, and must resort to insults.
One would think that God’s Word would be the ultimate authority on those kind of things.
2 Timothy 3:14-17 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Luke 24:25-27 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Luke 24:32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Luke 24:44-49Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
Matthew 4:4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Mark 12:24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?
Matthew 22:29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.
John 10:35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—
John 17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
If coming from God's mouth isn't enough to make it authoritative, coming from a religious organization certainly won't.
Catholics objection to Scripture sounds a wee bit too much like Pilate's question of *What is truth?*
But then again, Satan was the first one who questioned the veracity of God's word with these infamous three words....."Did God REALLY say......?"
I doubt it. It's the word of God we're talking about, which many of us take far more seriously than Catholics do.
The apostles did not yet exist. The Church did not exist. Jesus’ public life had not yet happened. The New Testament did not exist.
Totally and completely irrelevant.
Scripture already existed and Jesus and the apostles used it many times to validate their claims about who Jesus was and He also appealed to it as a witness to who He was.
John 5:39-40 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
The authority and power of Scripture does not depend on any of the aforementioned factors.
They rest solely in their inherent nature as the God breathed, Holy Spirit inspired word of God.
They are authoritative on that basis alone.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Are you TRYING to make yourself preposterous?
I doubt that, too, as that position has already been taken. You seem more than willing to take up that mantle.
It simply wasn't written down yet as He was living it.
Like these ones......
John 6:37-39 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
And these ones which explain that His discourse that you claim supports transubstantiation is really figurative?
John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
Even the words that Christ spoke from the Cross giving his mother to John, the apostle, which means that he had no brothers or sisters, or else the custom would have been to give his mother to one of them????
Since when did Jesus ever care about *custom* or *tradition*?
Custom is not binding. He did as was His prerogative to do. He certainly didn't do it for YOUR approval.
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