Sedevacante & The One True Catholic Church (contued) Part IX

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Sedevacante & The One True Catholic Church (contued) Part IX

1Joansknight
feb 4, 2020, 4:13 pm

Pope Pius IX, Vatican I, 1870: “… no one can ‘assent to the preaching of the Gospel,’ as he must to attain salvation, without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all a sweetness in consenting to and believing the truth.” (Denz. 1791

2Joansknight
feb 4, 2020, 4:13 pm

Pope Pius IX, Vatican I, 1870: “… no one can ‘assent to the preaching of the Gospel,’ as he must to attain salvation, without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all a sweetness in consenting to and believing the truth.” (Denz. 1791

3John5918
feb 5, 2020, 8:01 am

I love that linking of "sweetness" with the Holy Spirit and truth. Sweet, indeed.

4Joansknight
feb 13, 2020, 10:33 am

Pope Leo XIII (1885): “…Catholic faith cannot be reconciled with opinions verging on naturalism or rationalism, the essence of which is utterly to do away with Christian institutions and to install in society the supremacy of man to the exclusion of God.” (Immortale Dei #47)

5John5918
feb 14, 2020, 12:33 am

>4 Joansknight:

The good pope is, I think, reinforcing the mystic tradition that God cannot be known by rational means alone. Knowing God is deeper than intellectual and rational assertions. Indeed we experience a relationship with God rather than "believe" in an intellectual concept called "God".

6Joansknight
feb 14, 2020, 12:11 pm

>5 John5918: My relationship with God has changed since the passing of my wife....

7Joansknight
feb 14, 2020, 12:12 pm

Pope Julius III, Council of Trent (1551): “If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist there are truly, really, and substantially contained the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the whole Christ, but shall say that He is in it as by a sign or figure, let him be anathema.” (Can. 1 on the Eucharist)

8John5918
feb 14, 2020, 12:32 pm

>6 Joansknight:

Indeed. I'm sorry once again for your loss, and I can well believe that your relationship with God has evolved. My thoughts and prayers remain with you.

9Joansknight
feb 14, 2020, 12:43 pm

>8 John5918: Thank you very much....I am closer to our Lord now....I truly believe Kathy is with Christ and is no longer suffering....I miss her deeply....tomorrow will be nine weeks she has been living in the joy of our Lord!

10Joansknight
feb 15, 2020, 11:23 am

Pope Julius III, Council of Trent (1551): “If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist there are truly, really, and substantially contained the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the whole Christ, but shall say that He is in it as by a sign or figure, let him be anathema.” (Can. 1 on the Eucharist)

11Joansknight
feb 16, 2020, 12:22 pm

The crosses with which our path through life is strewn associate us with Jesus in the mystery of His crucifixion.

- St. John Eudes (1601-1680)

12Joansknight
feb 17, 2020, 10:10 am

Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema.

- Vatican Council

132wonderY
feb 18, 2020, 4:10 pm

>9 Joansknight: My adult faith, and relationship with God, was, I believe, nudged by my late husband. He appeared in a couple of dreams that had very clear messages. And that love between us tugged the barriers between this world and infinity slightly out of the way, placing me more squarely in the way of the light of God.

It's not scripture, but uses scriptural language:

"I will make my face to shine upon you."

14Joansknight
feb 20, 2020, 1:04 pm

>13 2wonderY: I have yet to dream of my wife....

15Joansknight
feb 21, 2020, 8:39 am

Pope Pius XI (1937): “Since Christ… finished the task of Redemption, and by breaking up the reign of sin merited for us the grace of being the children of God, since that day no other name under heaven has been given to men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12).” (Mit brennender sorge #17)

16Joansknight
feb 21, 2020, 8:40 am

Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema.

- Vatican Council

17John5918
Redigerat: feb 22, 2020, 12:21 am

A nice quote from Fr Richard Rohr today (link). In some ways it summarises a tradition long held in the Church that everything has to be understood, interpreted and mediated through the lens of charity/love. Or as St Paul says, "these remain: faith, hope and love... and the greatest of them is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).

The first principle of great spiritual teachers is rather constant: only Love can be entrusted with Wisdom or Big Truth. All other attitudes will murder, mangle, and manipulate truth for their own ego purposes. Humans must first find the unified field of love and then start their thinking and perceiving from that point. This is the challenging insight of mature religion.

All prayer disciplines are somehow trying to get mind, heart, and body to work as one, which entirely changes one’s consciousness. “The concentration of attention in the heart—this is the starting point of all true prayer,” wrote St. Theophan the Recluse (1815–1894), a Russian monk, bishop, and mystic. {1} Apart from Love, any other “handler” of your experience, including the rational mind or merely intellectual theology, eventually distorts and destroys the beauty and healing power of Wisdom.

The second principle is that truth is on some level always beautiful—and healing—to those who honestly want it. Big Truth cannot be angry, antagonistic, or forced on anyone, or it will inherently distort the message (as the common belief in a punitive God has done for centuries). The good, the true, and the beautiful are their own best argument for themselves, by themselves, and in themselves. Such deep inner knowing evokes the soul and pulls the soul into All Oneness. Incarnation is beauty, and beauty needs to be incarnate—that is specific, concrete, particular. We need to experience very particular, soul-evoking goodness in order to be shaken into what many call “realization.” It is often a momentary shock where we know we have been moved to a different plane of awareness.

This is precisely how transformation differs from simply acquiring facts and information. Whereas information will often inflate the ego, transformation utterly humbles us. In that moment, we know how much we have not known up to now, and still surely do not know! Such humility is a good and probably necessary starting place and, I would say, the very seat of Wisdom.

Love is luring us forward, because love is what we already are at our core, and we are naturally drawn to the fullness of our own being. Like knows like; to paraphrase Meister Eckhart, “God’s own whole being is poured out into identity. It is God’s pleasure and rapture to place God’s whole nature in this true place—because it is God’s own identity too.” {2} Like an electromagnetic force, Infinite Love is drawing the world into the one fullness of love. When we are comfortable in our true identity, we will finally be unable to resist such overwhelming love. (Some saints said even the devil would be unable to resist it in the end.) So don’t fight it, resist it, or deny it now. Love will always win.


1. Theophan the Recluse, as quoted in The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo, ed. Timothy Ware (Faber and Faber: 1997, ©1966), 183.

2. Meister Eckhart, Qui Audit Me, Non Confundetur, Sermon on Sirach 24:30. See Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation, Raymond Bernard Blakney (Harper and Row: 1941), 205. Note: The verse number here is from the Latin Vulgate Bible known to Eckhart; the source text is Sirach 24:22 in later translations.

18Joansknight
feb 22, 2020, 10:21 am

What is tolerance? Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil, and a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. But what is more important than the difinition is the field of its application. The important point here is this: Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons. Tolerance applies to the erring; intolerance to the error.

- Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

19Joansknight
feb 23, 2020, 11:42 am

St. Robert Bellarmine: “… our adversaries… are destitute of arguments, and rich in calumnies…”

20Joansknight
feb 23, 2020, 11:43 am

St. Ambrose (390): “True repentance is to cease to sin.”

21Joansknight
feb 23, 2020, 11:46 am

The present time (has) a strong tendency towards the overthrow of the Church.

- Saint Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379), to the priests of Tarsus (in 372)

Too late....happened long ago by Vatican II Apostasy!

22John5918
feb 23, 2020, 2:20 pm

>21 Joansknight:

Well, to be fair, Vatican II was about 1,600 years after Saint Basil made his pronouncement to the priests of Tarsus.

23Joansknight
feb 26, 2020, 9:12 am

>22 John5918: It is meant as an analogy....

24Joansknight
feb 26, 2020, 9:34 am

>22 John5918: To be fair....history most definitely repeats itself! The devil never ceases turning man's heart to him....there is much evil in the world....if you do not see it I feel sorry for you! You and I both may believe we are such good followers of Christ....but are we truly!?!? As for me....with the passing of my wife....I have grown to be a better Christian....you notice I do NOT say Catholic! I guess I sound confused....but now I put Christ above all....so above all I am a Christian....a Christian who holds firmly to Catholic Dogma! If that makes me a hypocrite....so be it!

"Our LORD first served" ~St. Jeanne d'Arc

25John5918
feb 26, 2020, 9:42 am

>24 Joansknight: above all I am a Christian....a Christian who holds firmly to Catholic Dogma

Excellent. I too would consider myself a Christian who holds firmly to Catholic Dogma.

26Joansknight
feb 26, 2020, 9:45 am

>25 John5918: then you understood all that?

28Joansknight
feb 27, 2020, 10:10 am



Hence arose the monstrous errors of "Modernism," which Our Predecessor Pope St. Pius X rightly declared to be "the synthesis of all heresies," and solemnly condemned. We hereby renew that condemnation in all its fullness, Venerable Brethren, and as the plague is not yet entirely stamped out, but lurks here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully on their guard against any contagion of the evil, to which we may apply the words Job used in other circumstances: "It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring" (Job 31:12). Nor do We merely desire that Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savors of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should still be held sacred: "Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed down." In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered to as the law; it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: "Old things, but in a new way."

- Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922), Encyclical Letter "Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum," November 1, 1914
© 2

29John5918
Redigerat: feb 27, 2020, 10:34 am

>28 Joansknight:

Thanks for this. I think the worthy Pope Benedict XV sums it up in that last sentence, really: it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: "Old things, but in a new way." That's certainly how we do it in the Catholic Church - the old things do not go away, and the fundamentals do not change, but things might be perceived and implemented in a new way.

30Joansknight
feb 27, 2020, 11:36 am

>29 John5918: Only to conform with society and the Doctrine of Man....you will never get it will you!?!? Do you think of yourself and man to be that much more superior then our Lord Jesus Christ....do you value your human existence that much....you have no clue why you were even put here in the first place....I feel very sorry for you and will pray for your soul!

31John5918
Redigerat: feb 27, 2020, 11:57 am

>30 Joansknight:

No, that's not what I said, nor what the good Pope Benedict XV said.

32Joansknight
feb 27, 2020, 1:22 pm

>31 John5918: I was in NO way referring to Benedict!

33Joansknight
feb 27, 2020, 1:24 pm

>31 John5918: It amazes me how full of yourself you are....

34Joansknight
feb 27, 2020, 1:29 pm

>31 John5918: I doubt you even know....the body your soul dwells in is NOTHING but a shell....but yet....you will have people mourn over it....WHY? It is NOT you!

35John5918
feb 27, 2020, 2:53 pm

>34 Joansknight:

Not sure what that's all about.

36Joansknight
Redigerat: feb 29, 2020, 11:22 am

Revelation 3:20- “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

Psalm 139:4- “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it completely.”

>35 John5918: You place so much on your human existence and the importance of man....NOT your salvation or Christ! This world....this life is NOTHING....all your worldly goods are NOTHING compared to what Christ has in store for us! That is where this is coming from! We are ONLY here for one reason and one reason ONLY....Adam & Eve sinned! God had to come here as man to save us and die doing so....in a way....my wife died to save me! You are too blind to see this....she has been living in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ for eleven weeks now! She is with me....now and always! My faith in Christ has been made stronger but my sorrow is still great! I do not expect you or anyone else to understand....and you never will....because your own life is too important to you to think of anyone else's pain and suffering!

37John5918
feb 29, 2020, 11:56 am

>36 Joansknight:

My friend, I think if you sit back and reflect rationally, spiritually and charitably you'll realise that since you don't know me at all, you have no grounds whatsoever for the judgement, "You place so much on your human existence and the importance of man....NOT your salvation or Christ!" Why do you feel you have to judge and criticise your fellow Catholics, and indeed your fellow human beings, all the time?

But your last sentences show how much you are still in pain and grieving, so I'm trying to respond charitably. My prayers and my sympathy are with you. You're right that I do not understand the sorrow of losing a wife, as thank God my wife is still with me. But it's particularly ironic that you tell me, "your own life is too important to you to think of anyone else's pain and suffering!" considering I have spent virtually my entire adult life living and working with the poorest of the poor in the midst of poverty, famine, war and oppression. Let me assure you that I think of other people's pain and suffering much of the time, and I play my own little part in trying to alleviate it.

38Joansknight
feb 29, 2020, 12:17 pm

>37 John5918: Humble thy self before the Lord....

39John5918
feb 29, 2020, 12:27 pm

>38 Joansknight:

Yes, well said. That's how I try to live my life.

40Joansknight
feb 29, 2020, 12:31 pm

>39 John5918: Yet you brag of your works....

41John5918
Redigerat: feb 29, 2020, 12:42 pm

>40 Joansknight:

Who's bragging? You're the one who said, "your own life is too important to you to think of anyone else's pain and suffering!" I'm merely explaining to you part of the reality of my life, just as you have explained part of the reality of your recent life.

42Joansknight
feb 29, 2020, 1:10 pm

>41 John5918: I do not like to tell people about my wife dying....trust me!

43John5918
feb 29, 2020, 1:19 pm

>42 Joansknight:

And I don't like talking about my life and work in this sort of forum, but I was merely correcting the unsubstantiated misperception which you seem to have got that I don't think of anyone else's pain and suffering. We'd really have better conversations if you could stop throwing around these sort of accusations.

44Joansknight
mar 1, 2020, 9:09 am

>43 John5918: I apologize....

45John5918
mar 1, 2020, 9:11 am

>44 Joansknight:

Accepted, and likewise, I apologise if I have spoken out of turn at any point.

46Joansknight
mar 1, 2020, 9:28 am

>45 John5918: No need to apologize....at all!

47John5918
Redigerat: mar 6, 2020, 11:09 pm

We've talked from time to time in these threads of some of the English martyrs, saints whom I grew up hearing about (and as I've said before, I went to a Jesuit school named after one of them, with the houses and classes also named after others), but we also grew up with some of the older British saints as household names. St Cuthbert, St Hild of Whitby, St Aelred of Rievaulx and the Venerable Bede come to mind immediately, as they are all connected with the north east of England where I went to university, but there were many others. This article recalls another, less well known, saint. It also reminds us of the leading role played by religious women in the Church in those days, as do Hild of Whitby and the later Julian of Norwich.

Bones found in Kent church likely to be of 7th-century saint (Guardian)

Bones discovered more than a century ago in a Kent church are almost certainly the remains of an early English saint who was the granddaughter of Ethelbert, the first English king to convert to Christianity, experts have concluded.

Saint Eanswythe, the patron saint of the coastal town of Folkestone, is thought to have founded one of the first monastic communities in England, probably around AD660. She died a few years later, while still in her teens or early 20s...

48Joansknight
mar 8, 2020, 11:26 am

>47 John5918: That is very cool....thank you! I will see if he is in my dictionary of saints!

49Joansknight
mar 10, 2020, 11:08 am

St. Robert Bellarmine, 1616: “The Christian faith proposes many things to be believed, which are so beyond all understanding that it is most difficult to give our consent to them; and yet we are commanded to believe them so firmly that we should be prepared (if necessary) to die a thousand deaths rather than deny one article of faith.” (De Aeterna felicitate sanctorum)

502wonderY
mar 10, 2020, 11:50 am

>49 Joansknight: That point was driven home for me in a classroom discussion of the roots of the trinity doctrine and the true presence in Eucharist. What were those disciples thinking?!

51Joansknight
mar 11, 2020, 11:26 am

>50 2wonderY: They were being human!

52Joansknight
mar 12, 2020, 10:44 am

St. Jerome (390): “God made us with free-will, neither are we drawn by necessity to virtue or vice; else where there is necessity and not free-will, there is neither damnation nor reward.”

53John5918
mar 22, 2020, 3:07 am

A nice little reflection on suffering from Richard Rohr (link), topical in this time of suffering due to the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the liturgical season as we approach the remembrance of Jesus' suffering and death.

I am not alone in my tiredness or sickness or fears, but at one with millions of others from many centuries, and it is all part of life. —Etty Hillesum (1)

The “cross,” rightly understood, always reveals various kinds of resurrection. It’s as if God were holding up the crucifixion as a cosmic object lesson, saying: “I know this is what you’re experiencing. Don’t run from it. Learn from it, as I did. Hang there for a while, as I did. It will be your teacher. Rather than losing life, you will be gaining a larger life. It is the way through.” As impossible as that might feel right now, I absolutely believe that it’s true.

When we carry our own suffering in solidarity with humanity’s one universal longing for deep union, it helps keep us from self-pity or self-preoccupation. We know that we are all in this together. It is just as hard for everybody else, and our healing is bound up in each other’s. Almost all people are carrying a great and secret hurt, even when they don’t know it. This realization softens the space around our overly-defended hearts. It makes it hard to be cruel to anyone. It somehow makes us one—in a way that easy comfort and entertainment never can.

I believe—if I am to believe Jesus—that God is suffering love. If we are created in God’s image, and if there is so much suffering in the world, then God must also be suffering. How else can we understand the revelation of the cross? Why else would the central Christian logo be a naked, bleeding, suffering divine-human being? The image of Jesus on the cross somehow communicates God’s solidarity with the willing soul. A Crucified God is the dramatic symbol of the one suffering that God fully enters into with us—much more than just for us, as many Christians were trained to think.

If suffering, even unjust suffering (and all suffering is unjust on some level), is part of one Great Mystery, then I am willing to carry my little portion. Etty Hillesum (1914–1943), a young, Dutch, Jewish woman who died in Auschwitz, truly believed her suffering was also the suffering of God. She even expressed a deep desire to help God carry some of it. How many people do you know who feel sorry for God and want to “help” God within us? She has a stronger sense of the Divine Indwelling within her than most Christians I have ever met:

And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last. (2)

Such freedom and generosity of spirit are almost unimaginable to me. What creates such altruistic and loving people? Perhaps this season of disruption will offer us some clues. I certainly hope so.


1. Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork (Henry Holt and Company: 1996), 157.

2. Ibid., 178.

54Joansknight
mar 22, 2020, 12:32 pm

>53 John5918: Thank you!

St. Alphonsus (c. 1755): “Humility is truth, as St. Teresa has well said, and therefore the Lord greatly loves the humble, because they love the truth.”

55Joansknight
mar 22, 2020, 12:33 pm

Pope Pius IX, First Vatican Council, Sess. 3, Chap. 2 on Revelation, 1870: “Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be a recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding.”

56Joansknight
mar 22, 2020, 12:34 pm

Pope Pius IX, First Vatican Council, Sess. 3, Chap. 2 on Revelation, 1870: “Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be a recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding.”

57John5918
mar 23, 2020, 9:41 am

The divine is purifying contemplation, and the human is the soul. The divine lays siege upon the soul in order to make her new and to make her divine, stripping her of habitual affections and attachments to the old self to which she had been reconciled. The Divine disentangles and dissolves her spiritual substance, absorbing it in deep darkness. In the face of her own misery, the soul feels herself coming undone and melting away in a cruel, spiritual death.

Man says, the soul feels as if she herself were coming to an end. David calls out to God: ‘Save me, Lord, for the waters have come in even unto my soul. I am trapped in the mire of the deep. I have nowhere to stand. I have come unto the depth of the sea, and the tempest has overwhelmed me. I have labored in my cry. My throat has become raw, and my eyes have failed while I hope in my God.’ (Psalm 69:2–4) . . .


St John of the Cross, (1542–1591), Dark Night of the Soul, trans. Mirabai Starr (Riverhead Books: 2002), 103, 105–106.

582wonderY
mar 23, 2020, 7:30 pm

>53 John5918:. Yes, thanks for the reminder.

59John5918
apr 2, 2020, 3:55 am

“If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, you will be for {Jesus} a pleasant place of shelter.”

Thérèse of Lisieux, Christmas letter to Sister Geneviève (December 24, 1896). See Collected Letters of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, trans. F. J. Sheed (Sheed and Ward: 1949), 265.

60John5918
apr 3, 2020, 4:28 am

"Jesus did not once tell us to worship him; he only told us to follow him..."

Fr Richard Rohr, link

61Joansknight
apr 27, 2020, 1:10 pm

Pope Leo XIII: “The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavor than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own.” (Satis Cognitum # 9, June 29, 1896)

62Joansknight
maj 3, 2020, 10:35 am

Jeremias 17:5: Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.

63Joansknight
maj 10, 2020, 12:04 pm

Pope Benedict XIV, Quod Provinciale, Aug. 1, 1754: “The Provincial Council of your province of Albania… decreed most solemnly in its third canon, among other matters, as you know, that Turkish or Mohammedan names should not be given either to children or adults in baptism… This should not be hard for any one of you, venerable brothers, for none of the schismatics and heretics has been rash enough to take a Mohammedan name, and unless your justice abounds more than theirs, you shall not enter the kingdom of God.” (Quod Provinciale #1, Aug. 1, 1754)

64Joansknight
sep 1, 2020, 1:36 pm

Saint Bede: “The door of the heavenly kingdom is open to all; but the quality of men’s merits will admit one man and reject another. How wretched must it be for a man to be shut from the glory of the saints and to be consigned with the devil to eternal flames!”

65Joansknight
sep 1, 2020, 1:42 pm

Pope Eugene IV: “It is also necessary for salvation to believe faithfully the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The right faith, therefore, is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, is God and man… At His coming all shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give an account of their own deeds. Those who have done good shall go into eternal life, but those who have done evil shall go into eternal fire.” (Council of Florence, Athanasian Creed)

66Joansknight
sep 1, 2020, 1:57 pm

>60 John5918: You truly blessed my day....thank you!

67Joansknight
sep 1, 2020, 1:58 pm

>50 2wonderY: I like you better as a firefighter!

682wonderY
sep 1, 2020, 2:00 pm

>67 Joansknight: I know you meant to address that to John. Yes, I agree with you.

Good to hear from you again!

69John5918
sep 1, 2020, 2:41 pm

Thanks. Stay safe and God bless both of you.

70Joansknight
sep 2, 2020, 12:08 pm

>68 2wonderY: I think and pray for you also!

71Joansknight
sep 2, 2020, 12:09 pm

>69 John5918: I hope you both know that you made me cry!

72Joansknight
sep 2, 2020, 1:12 pm

Organized religion is overrated....Christ is underrated!

73Joansknight
okt 10, 2020, 8:50 pm

St. Alphonsus: “David calls the happiness of this present life a dream of one awakening: ‘As the dream of them that awake’ (Ps. 72:20)… The goods of this world appear great, but in fact are nothing; like sleep, they last but a little while, and then all vanishes.”

74Joansknight
okt 20, 2020, 3:26 pm

“One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (Eph. 4:5)

75Joansknight
okt 20, 2020, 3:31 pm

St. Basil, Letter 277, 4th Century: “Human affairs are fainter than a shadow; more deceitful than a dream. Youth fades more quickly than the flowers of spring; our beauty wastes with age or sickness. Riches are uncertain; glory is fickle. The pursuit of arts and sciences is bounded by the present life; the charm of eloquence, which all covet, reaches but the ear: whereas the practice of virtue is a precious possession for its owner…”

76Joansknight
okt 28, 2020, 12:28 am

Philip II, King of Spain, being near his end, sent for his son; and throwing away the royal robe, showed to him his chest gnawed by worms, and then said to him: ‘Prince, behold how we die, and how all the grandeurs of this world end!’” (St. Alphonsus, Preparation for Death, p. 11)

77Joansknight
okt 28, 2020, 12:31 am

St. Fulgence, The Rule of Faith, (526): “Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least that not only all the pagans but also all the Jews and all the heretics and schismatics who end this present life outside the Catholic Church are about to go into the eternal fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Sometimes we must post that which we have no desire to....

78John5918
Redigerat: okt 28, 2020, 3:03 am

The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all {people}...


Nostra aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions) (#2), Second Vatican Council, 1965.

792wonderY
okt 28, 2020, 7:53 am

Hi Joansknight. Good to hear from you again.

80John5918
Redigerat: dec 21, 2020, 11:02 pm

Pope Francis: Sorting the church into ‘right vs. left, progressive vs. traditionalist’ betrays its true nature (America Magazine)

Blaming one another for the fragility of the Catholic Church and the errors of its members increases conflict, which diminishes the church's ability to share the Gospel and increases opportunities for the devil to work, Pope Francis told members of the Roman Curia. Crises are a normal part of life, including the life of faith, and must be accepted as challenges to discern and to change, leaving behind what is not essential, Pope Francis said... "people should not judge the church "hastily on the basis of the crises caused by scandals past and present"...

Putting the church and its members into categories of conflict -- "right versus left, progressive versus traditionalist" -- makes it "fragmented and polarized, distorting and betraying its true nature." The church is "a body in continual crisis, precisely because she is alive"...


I post this here as it seems relevant to the sort of different interpretations of the faith which often surface in this thread. It's hearfelt plea from the Holy Father (to which I would add my own plea) for us to remain united in the global Catholic and catholic (small "c" = universal) faith despite our differences, recognising that crises are a part of our growth as Catholics.

And may I add my wishes for us all to have a happy and holy Christmas and a peaceful, blessed and safe new year.

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